Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Syt]

OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical)
NYT- "...estimates based on publicly available evidence now suggesting that well over 400 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded while trying to cross the Donets River"

[/quote]

Usually how river crossings go for me in John Tiller's Modern Campaign games when playing as the Warsaw Pact. Actually, their whole performance is pretty much on par with how those games go for me. So I guess I would not stand out as a Russian army commander.

[celedhring]

Usually how river crossings go for me in John Tiller's Modern Campaign games when playing as the Warsaw Pact. Actually, their whole performance is pretty much on par with how those games go for me. So I guess I would not stand out as a Russian army commander.

We have a sapper from a Spanish tank brigade posting on EUOT and he kinda says "yeah, that's what happens with opposed river crossings", so I guess the Russians are still fine with just throwing people at their problems.

[Legbiter]

We have a sapper from a Spanish tank brigade posting on EUOT and he kinda says "yeah, that's what happens with opposed river crossings", so I guess the Russians are still fine with just throwing people at their problems.

The UK MoD is saying the Russians have lost a third of their initial forces killed or wounded. So they keep amalgamating chewed up units into new formations, rinse and repeat. The Russian ground troops are starting to look like the ad hoc German kampfgruppe from '44-45.   

[Syt]

Usually how river crossings go for me in John Tiller's Modern Campaign games when playing as the Warsaw Pact. Actually, their whole performance is pretty much on par with how those games go for me. So I guess I would not stand out as a Russian army commander.

We have a sapper from a Spanish tank brigade posting on EUOT and he kinda says "yeah, that's what happens with opposed river crossings", so I guess the Russians are still fine with just throwing people at their problems.

Well, if you have deep pockets of resources, then maybe - I don't think they have that luxury at the moment. It also reminds me of a comment from the director of the German tank museum when discussing the Russian T-series tanks: 1 on 1 they would not stand up to an Abrams or a Leo-2. But the Soviet mindset was that the units need to achieve their goals, with their tanks and men being expendable inventory. If you send 200 T-72 (with proper support) against 10 Leo-2, your chances of simply overwhelming them with numbers go up a lot.

Which, I guess, is one of the reasons for the force disparity between NATO/WP, as seen in this 1984 analysis: https://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137795/0228_NATO_and_the_Warsaw_Pact_1984-Force_Comparisons_ENG.pdf

NATO focused much more on keeping each resource in combat (hence why e.g. the Leo-2's engine block can be switched out in minutes), while WP was ok with losing much higher amounts of equipment if it meant the mission goal would be achieved.

Looking at the Russian performance in Ukraine, though, I'm worrying about their next war, though. How much will they learn, will they take the necessary lessons on board, make changes, and be much more capable in the next round, wherever that may be? Clearly, the experiences against much different opponents (tiny Georgia, counter insurgency in Syria) weren't much help in a more traditional war between large nation states.

[DGuller]

I'm worried about the Russians learning as well, coupled with the West not learning quickly enough.  I'm a little alarmed by public conversations that go like "Come on, Germany, we need 1000 assault rifles!  Sorry, Volodymyr, we can't give away 20% of our equipment stockpile, we need it for our army."  I hope that by the time Russia learns how to not throw away its equipment, the West will learning to actually have some equipment on hand.

[Josquius]

Usually how river crossings go for me in John Tiller's Modern Campaign games when playing as the Warsaw Pact. Actually, their whole performance is pretty much on par with how those games go for me. So I guess I would not stand out as a Russian army commander.

We have a sapper from a Spanish tank brigade posting on EUOT and he kinda says "yeah, that's what happens with opposed river crossings", so I guess the Russians are still fine with just throwing people at their problems.

Well, if you have deep pockets of resources, then maybe - I don't think they have that luxury at the moment. It also reminds me of a comment from the director of the German tank museum when discussing the Russian T-series tanks: 1 on 1 they would not stand up to an Abrams or a Leo-2. But the Soviet mindset was that the units need to achieve their goals, with their tanks and men being expendable inventory. If you send 200 T-72 (with proper support) against 10 Leo-2, your chances of simply overwhelming them with numbers go up a lot.

Which, I guess, is one of the reasons for the force disparity between NATO/WP, as seen in this 1984 analysis: https://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137795/0228_NATO_and_the_Warsaw_Pact_1984-Force_Comparisons_ENG.pdf

NATO focused much more on keeping each resource in combat (hence why e.g. the Leo-2's engine block can be switched out in minutes), while WP was ok with losing much higher amounts of equipment if it meant the mission goal would be achieved.

Looking at the Russian performance in Ukraine, though, I'm worrying about their next war, though. How much will they learn, will they take the necessary lessons on board, make changes, and be much more capable in the next round, wherever that may be? Clearly, the experiences against much different opponents (tiny Georgia, counter insurgency in Syria) weren't much help in a more traditional war between large nation states.

Sure. But eg China learned that the idea of replacing quality with quantity didn't work through watching the Gulf War.
Iraq had iirc the 4th biggest army in the world, equipped with Russian gear, but NATO steamrolled it.
It had seemed Russia had learned this lesson too and transitioned onto a more modern army.... But Ukraine shows us... No.

[The Larch]

We have a sapper from a Spanish tank brigade posting on EUOT

Who? Somebody new or an old regular?

[Berkut]

The Spanish have tanks? And sappers? And a military formation the size of a brigade????

[celedhring]

We have a sapper from a Spanish tank brigade posting on EUOT

Who? Somebody new or an old regular?

Lord_Revan, he's a classic member.

[celedhring]

The Spanish have tanks? And sappers? And a military formation the size of a brigade????

We have more Leo 2's than Germany!

[grumbler]

We have more Leo 2's than Germany!

So you have what... three of them?

[Syt]

There's probably more operational Leo-2's in museums than the Bundeswehr could field.

[CountDeMoney]

Russian incompetency is not as surprising--after all, we saw what happened in the second half of Chechnya, and and they obviously didn't learn their lessons from Georgia, where their reliance on airborne and special forces overshadowed their subpar use of airpower and tactical failures against a force with even nominal NATO training--but the level of failure the last three months in what is really a modern, set-piece conventional conflict is staggering.

The NKVD never would've allowed this kind of performance, you know.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I'm worried about the Russians learning as well, coupled with the West not learning quickly enough.  I'm a little alarmed by public conversations that go like "Come on, Germany, we need 1000 assault rifles!  Sorry, Volodymyr, we can't give away 20% of our equipment stockpile, we need it for our army."  I hope that by the time Russia learns how to not throw away its equipment, the West will learning to actually have some equipment on hand.

To get there: wouldn't Russian society as a whole need to change? Become far less corrupt for one.

[DGuller]

I'm worried about the Russians learning as well, coupled with the West not learning quickly enough.  I'm a little alarmed by public conversations that go like "Come on, Germany, we need 1000 assault rifles!  Sorry, Volodymyr, we can't give away 20% of our equipment stockpile, we need it for our army."  I hope that by the time Russia learns how to not throw away its equipment, the West will learning to actually have some equipment on hand.

To get there: wouldn't Russian society as a whole need to change? Become far less corrupt for one.

Necessity is the mother of invention.  I'm sure the Russians were just as surprised as everyone else at the total ineptness of their army.  They didn't feel the pressure to make things better, now they definitely will. 

Can they ever get fully to the NATO level without reforming the entire society?  No, but they don't have to.  NATO looks really good right now, but to me it also looks very brittle.  It looks like a HOI player that got really good division templates, but can only produce enough of them to protect 1/3 of the front line.