Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[Jormungandr]

That's my point every ones talking about how scary Russian nukes are.

But America, the UK, and France all have nuclear weapons too, were pretty fucking scary as well.

Trident.

Honestly, I don't think it'll end with nuclear weapons being used -- Putin will have a bullet in the back of his head long before then, since the Russians aren't fucking suicidal.

Makes me wonder how many attempts to take him out there have already been that haven't been reported?

 

[Megadeath]

Russia has around 6,000 nuclear weapons (we are rounding up)

America alone has over 19,000 cities (rounding down)

This is a map showing europe everything in blue is in nato.

Both France and England have their own nuclear weapons, so now Russia has to further devide their nuclear stockpile among various targets.

But it gets worse because the united states has bases in Japan and South korea so you have to take them out too, after that you have to think about China, China has competing claims against Russia and in the event of a nuclear war would claim as many resources as they could from Siberia.

So now you have to nuke china as well.

That spreads the targets among 3 different contentents at least.

Then you get into the next issue, america has been working on anti missle defense system for about 40 years now, and anti missle systems have been placed in nato countries so you have every possibility of some of those nukes being intercepted.

but it gets worse, the collapse of the 1990s hit russia hard, maintaining nuclear weapons is expensive and we have seen that corruption has gutted a whole lot of russias capability its an open question how many of those nukes many of which are from the cold war still work.

In short, in a nuclear wear nato and allies most likely get mauled but survive and russia becomes the next carthrage.

Well, yeah? But I don't think the idea is that Russia will suddenly be launching an all out global nuclear war. More that they might use a handful of tactical nuclear artillery shells or something like that, to destroy a particular concentration of military forces, probably (Really this time!) trying to limit civilian casualties. Walk the line between deterring and demoralising Ukrainian forces whilst prompting the smallest possible international response.

Just need to make it clear that if Russia uses nukes, that there will be nukes used on them.

Do you mean, you're making it clear, or that the way to prevent it is for other world leaders to make it clear to him? I don't think I necessarily agree either way though.

It would be an even bigger escalation for US/UK/France to nuke Russia for nuking someone who's not technically an ally or anything. I think doing that runs significantly more risk of escalating things from a small battlefield exchange to a general strategic one than using conventional forces to attack russian forces in theatre.

As for the second interpretation, I don't know that Putin would believe any statement of intent or demonstration aimed at convincing him that he'd be nuked in return. Nor do I think that would necessarily deter him, if he was set on it.

 

[Jormungandr]

Well, yeah? But I don't think the idea is that Russia will suddenly be launching an all out global nuclear war. More that they might use a handful of tactical nuclear artillery shells or something like that, to destroy a particular concentration of military forces, probably (Really this time!) trying to limit civilian casualties. Walk the line between deterring and demoralising Ukrainian forces whilst prompting the smallest possible international response.


Do you mean, you're making it clear, or that the way to prevent it is for other world leaders to make it clear to him? I don't think I necessarily agree either way though.

It would be an even bigger escalation for US/UK/France to nuke Russia for nuking someone who's not technically an ally or anything. I think doing that runs significantly more risk of escalating things from a small battlefield exchange to a general strategic one than using conventional forces to attack russian forces in theatre.

As for the second interpretation, I don't know that Putin would believe any statement of intent or demonstration aimed at convincing him that he'd be nuked in return. Nor do I think that would necessarily deter him, if he was set on it.

IIRC, nuclear-related, biological, and chemical weaponry is one of the few zero tolerance policies NATO actually has?

Incidentally, Russia has a "nuke first" policy on any country it conclusively finds to have used biological weaponry on its soil -- that's why a lot of people were nervous about the WuFlu possibly being a biological weapon, or as good as one, in its early days. They were worried Russia would nuke China.

Anyway, I mean it's sadly different when such weapons are used in the bumfuck middle of nowhere (basically the chemical weapons used in Libya, the Middle-East, et cetera), but Ukraine is basically right next door to a ton of NATO nations.

If Russia is dumb enough, it's going to escalate fast.

 

[Marduk]

Yes, but this is already a task for professionals, the job of conscripts is to inform them of this very thing, while the conscripts themselves will serve as only delayers.

And they are dramatically short of those professionals. Well, they may think they aren't, but a guy who was a half decent professional 15 years of hard drinking ago probably no longer counts, even though in the documentation he still is one.

Otherwise, it is the professional ones that the Russians must lose in the fighting, when the ones who were supposed to die en masse were the conscripts.

That's what they fucked up. They sent what professionals they could scrounge up to Wagner and line units when they were taking heavy losses, since first few weeks. In a way they ate most of their seed corn.
Their other problem is organizationally relying too much on officers, a western army, after so much intense fighting, could get most of low level unit leadership needs fulfilled by promoting NCOs from the enlisted veterans, but Russians wouldn't trust those with anything important.

Some of the units, not all, were disbanded, then there was another counter-reform and they were again restored but less than disbanded. The problem is that almost all of them are now in Ukraine, something that should not happen during mobilization

Yeah, but not enough for the numbers involved, and now some of the ones they still had went to Ukraine already in other units. It's a total mess.

The problem is that this is what the Soviet-Russian doctrine is all about. Better troops are supplemented with worse ones as better equipment is lost too quickly to replenish them. But by virtue of the fact that we are the ones attacking, we lose a lot of equipment but so does the enemy. It's just that we can do it faster than the enemy because we just have the crappy equipment but we have it and the enemy doesn't necessarily have its super equipment in stock.

Yeah, that's how it's supposed to work in theory. But both the doctrine and the infrastructure to support it have aged badly. For example, Russian logistics consistently do not live up to the needs. They struggled with supporting their professional army alone, how the hell are they going to rapidly expand them to a level where they can support a mass of conscripts on top of that? Where will they get the trucks for that?
Guess a mass nationalization of civilian trucks, already started on small scale since few weeks after invasion, with followup avoidance measures, dissent, and civilian economy collapse (if you nationalize the trucks that bring goods to stores, in a couple weeks you get empty stores) may be incoming.

The problem is that you assume and approach it like a typical Westerner, that is, that the person is important. Unnecessary losses should be avoided even at the cost of not achieving operational goals, because the goal can always be achieved later but people cannot be recovered that way.
And wars should be fought quickly and finished as soon as possible.

Russia like the former Soviet Union does not consider your fulminations reasonable, the people killed can be replaced by someone else, as long as it is. But the achieved goal will give what it wants, because now Russia is playing for big stakes, what if they lose a few dozen thousand people, how the gained ground will allow you to recruit more in their place?

They are attuned to a long and grueling war in which losses mount and mount until one side can't replenish men and equipment at a sufficient pace.
And by virtue of the fact that it is Russia that is mentally and physically prepared for such a battle, it takes much greater losses than those of its opponents for its replenishment system to finally collapse.

What matters is whether you can hold out long enough to that point, and by virtue of the fact that the Russian pain threshold is much higher than such a Western one, it is fair to say that in the long run the West would lose such a war.

Therefore, it is the Russians who are favored by time, not Ukraine.

And the fact that Russian demographics are in a disaster? That's the reason why the Russians struck now, because later they won't be able to use this strategy again not without blowing themselves to pieces after a bloody victory or lack thereof.

Yeah, that's what they think. Their leadership is mentally stuck in middle Cold War. Where Soviet Union existed, with a massive industrial complex that could pump out cheap T-62's to flood battlefields with.
Now they no longer can, and if they could, the basic T-62's would get wiped by western ATGM supplies.
Yeah, technically they can replace the men, if they throw quality out of the window, equipment, not really, times have changed, it's not 1960 anymore, Russia didn't keep up with modern economy and the numbers show it, and it's not the Soviet Union, just a shadow of it, with half the population.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Mobilization Update!

Do we have our first Mobilized PoW already?



As reported earlier some of these Mobilized have been dismissed for various reasons. Othere though...



Fridge joke here...

 

[Zachowon]

No, the quality really, really, really does matter.

As Marduk said, it takes training and/or experience to call down an artillery strike accurately.

As Zachowon said, if you don't have the morale, you're not ready to fight.


On top of these things, there's the very basic matter of accuracy with a rifle.

If your basic rifleman can't hit the target in the first few shots, odds are that 'target' is going to start shooting back at him. If he can't hit in the next few shots, that 'target' is probably going to hit him first.

This is the most basic bread-and-butter of infantry warfare. Machine guns, artillery, tanks, Javelins, MANPADS, all of that builds on it and changes the game up, but the most basic element of modern warfare is 'Can your guy hit the other guy with a bullet first?'

Last month I shot ~60 rounds in the old gravel pit near where my parents live. Most of it was .22 LR for practice and fun, rounded out with 9 rounds of 30.06 in the rifle I'll actually be hunting deer with in November. My shoulder was sore for three days from the 30.06 rounds.

I've read more than one firsthand account from Russian volunteers months ago, back when their supplies were not as exhausted, and they were processing men through a few hundred/thousand at a time, where they'd get to go to a firing range once, and fire maybe three rounds.

That was it for practice firing.

At that point, you probably don't even know if your sights are zeroed in properly. You certainly don't know how to compensate for the arc of the bullet, recoil, wind, etc. You probably haven't even learned to overcome the instinctive flinch your body has when you realize how much recoil from big rounds hurts.

No training in fire and maneuver. No training in fire discipline. No training in combined arms operations. Certainly no training in how to call in an artillery strike properly.

With the number of incoming conscripts spiking from hundreds/thousands being processed at a time, to three hundred thousand, everything is just going to get worse.

This is how you waste lives. Not how you prepare your soldiers to win a war.

We shoot hundreds of rounds in basic training here in the US Alone and every year can spend up to 200 per soldier for them to requal, and that is for NON combat arms. Infantry shoot a lit more

Yes, the problem is that their doctrine in fundamentals and organization is still from the Soviet Union.

It's not only the numbers, but the speed of their replacement that you should be looking for, so what if you have super soldiers if in the time it takes you to organize and train them your enemy manages to throw you further away and inflict further losses.
And one more thing, the Ukrainians contradict your words, they have the mass and adequate saturation of the area with troops, not the Russians. That's why the Russians get a thrashing every time because their front line doesn't exist hence the Ukrainians are able to carry out lunges between the Russian positions, while the Russians have to hit the wall every time to break through.

Only where there are a lot of Russians, such as near Kherson are the Ukrainians banging their heads against the wall unable to break through.

Yes, but this is already a task for professionals, the job of conscripts is to inform them of this very thing, while the conscripts themselves will serve as only delayers.

Otherwise, it is the professional ones that the Russians must lose in the fighting, when the ones who were supposed to die en masse were the conscripts.

Some of the units, not all, were disbanded, then there was another counter-reform and they were again restored but less than disbanded. The problem is that almost all of them are now in Ukraine, something that should not happen during mobilization

The problem is that this is what the Soviet-Russian doctrine is all about. Better troops are supplemented with worse ones as better equipment is lost too quickly to replenish them. But by virtue of the fact that we are the ones attacking, we lose a lot of equipment but so does the enemy. It's just that we can do it faster than the enemy because we just have the crappy equipment but we have it and the enemy doesn't necessarily have its super equipment in stock.

The problem is that you assume and approach it like a typical Westerner, that is, that the person is important. Unnecessary losses should be avoided even at the cost of not achieving operational goals, because the goal can always be achieved later but people cannot be recovered that way.
And wars should be fought quickly and finished as soon as possible.

Russia like the former Soviet Union does not consider your fulminations reasonable, the people killed can be replaced by someone else, as long as it is. But the achieved goal will give what it wants, because now Russia is playing for big stakes, what if they lose a few dozen thousand people, how the gained ground will allow you to recruit more in their place?

They are attuned to a long and grueling war in which losses mount and mount until one side can't replenish men and equipment at a sufficient pace.
And by virtue of the fact that it is Russia that is mentally and physically prepared for such a battle, it takes much greater losses than those of its opponents for its replenishment system to finally collapse.

What matters is whether you can hold out long enough to that point, and by virtue of the fact that the Russian pain threshold is much higher than such a Western one, it is fair to say that in the long run the West would lose such a war.

Therefore, it is the Russians who are favored by time, not Ukraine.

And the fact that Russian demographics are in a disaster? That's the reason why the Russians struck now, because later they won't be able to use this strategy again not without blowing themselves to pieces after a bloody victory or lack thereof.

It is only relevant for an army that relies on maneuver and speed of strikes to knock down the enemy in quick succession.

In the case of an army aiming to bleed the opponent, quality becomes an obstacle, because your goal is to make the opponent run out of reserves by which his defense, due to lack of resources, must collapse.
And to achieve this, you have to replenish your losses faster than he does, and a lot faster, and creating good soldiers is not synonymous with fast replenishment unless you prepare a huge paramilitary program before the war that allows you to prepare some basics that later in real training you can skip because they are unnecessary

The Russian doctrine, which the Russians took selectively, does not seek a quick victory, but a total victory in which your opponent will lose almost all, if not all the reserves he has. This is a war of attrition.
Well, and most importantly, in Russian doctrine, thinking. It is not up to conscripts to execute targets, operationally, but to "elite" troops. It is the job of the conscripts to shield these elite troops with their destruction of by suffering losses for them.

What happens when this is not done? Well, it becomes Kiev, Sevrodonets, Mariupol and many other places. The Russians lose decent soldiers and have to replenish them with weaklings. And these are inferior in the task they were supposed to do, precisely the elite ones.
When it was the weaklings who were supposed to bleed so that the real army could do its job against a weakened opponent.

Since they have now begun to do as they should, that means one thing. Something happened in Russia that they decided to risk a politically long and grueling war because such a thing is now to be expected.

In the modern world, if your military is not able to fight competently you sre fucked.
Numbers will not survive when you can wipe out untrained soldiers using artillery. Using machine guns, vehicles, everything matters in these days.

Even prison time isn't enough of a threat because demoralized soldiers will give up. Will surrender because jt means they will be safer and probably treated well.

 

[Zachowon]

Really? I wouldn't think even that would get US boots on the ground. I'd anticipate more that US (Maybe NATO) would use air force and possibly naval elements to just wreck everything Russian in Ukraine in a shortest possible time frame way, then stand almost completely back down to current support.

More accurately, your shadow will be seeing the wall behind you after it's permanently left there from the flash of a Russian ICBM detonating.



I wonder what the following Brazilian and Australian Cold War will look like, after they are left to pick up the pieces?

Tactical nuclear weapons.
Not strategic ones.
Tactical level low yield nukes to wipe out enemy forces and to claim destruction of the enemy force.


And US troops would be sent, as would NATO.
Sending ICBMs at that would end the world.
Putin is stupid if he uses Tactical Nukes, he isn't stupid enough to sign his own death warrant

 

[Batrix2070]

In the modern world, if your military is not able to fight competently you sre fucked.
Numbers will not survive when you can wipe out untrained soldiers using artillery. Using machine guns, vehicles, everything matters in these days.

The problem is that the main tool they use is also artillery, it is directed not by poorly trained conscripts, but by normal ie according to the Russians Elite soldiers.
The conscripts themselves are, to put it callously, a flesh-and-blood insert who live to die in place of normal soldiers.
Their job is to distract, stretch the enemy or provide cover. Otherwise the Russians are forced to use just as @Marduk reminded me, paratroopers and so on.
What kind of morale they have is much less important, because anyway the main hard part of the army is not them, but the professionals who have certain methods to keep such in check.
Just for now, stop thinking that the American system is the one that is the only right one and look at how the Russians are doing it. For them, demoralized and incompetent soldiers were and are the standard for hundreds of years.
And yet they won, albeit at the cost of considerable losses according to our sense, but for Russia that was not as important as victory. If they won, then all in all nothing happened, and if they lost then how could you exterminate so many people in vain but even then it's not that much of a problem. Although it will hurt them more than usual today, it may even be their last war for a very long time.

Even prison time isn't enough of a threat because demoralized soldiers will give up. Will surrender because jt means they will be safer and probably treated well.

You do realize that Russians have always surrendered en masse in wars to their opponents?
The Polish-Bolshevik war was like that, as long as they were winning then no, but when they got a beating they fled like rats from a sinking ship or surrendered to the Poles.

I'm reminded of an old quote still from the 17th century, that "a Moskal will not keep a field with you for all their cavalry beat each other like a swaggering heap."

Which means that they are a band devoid of morals and discipline which any Polish blow will smash.

As a result, it was not uncommon or strange how a few hundred Polish infantry were able to repel and smash a few dozen thousand Moscow infantry.

Ordinary cavalrymen, not the famous Hussars were able to fight and win against much larger Moscow troops.

Heck, the November Uprising of 1830 was a perfect example of how the small and select forces of the Kingdom of Poland were able to repel entire divisions of the Russian army that did not show off in that war. They won only because, for one thing, Russia had more men than Poland, secondly, the Polish generals as well as elites were then too handicapped to know how to win.

 

[Marduk]

The problem is that the main tool they use is also artillery, it is directed not by poorly trained conscripts, but by normal ie according to the Russians Elite soldiers.
The conscripts themselves are, to put it callously, a flesh-and-blood insert who live to die in place of normal soldiers.
Their job is to distract, stretch the enemy or provide cover. Otherwise the Russians are forced to use just as @Marduk reminded me, paratroopers and so on.

The problem is that shitty infantry has logistical needs not much different from decent infantry. And even their decent infantry now has logistical problems.
That's the biggest problem of human wave tactics. It has a huge logistical footprint (nevermind the outright demographic scale long term costs) for relatively low value.

What kind of morale they have is much less important, because anyway the main hard part of the army is not them, but the professionals who have certain methods to keep such in check.
Just for now, stop thinking that the American system is the one that is the only right one and look at how the Russians are doing it. For them, demoralized and incompetent soldiers were and are the standard for hundreds of years.

Times change. In WW1 a dude in a trench with a bolt action rifle could get only so much better, no matter how much training he got. That was the golden age of mass mobilization warfare.
But on a more modern, technology filled battlefield, neither dude has much combat capability compared to a properly trained and equipped soldier who needs far more training.
Modern warfare is closer to the medieval paradigm, where a few thousands of professional, possibly lifelong soldiers on horses could rout armies of tens of thousands of peasant levies.

And yet they won, albeit at the cost of considerable losses according to our sense, but for Russia that was not as important as victory. If they won, then all in all nothing happened, and if they lost then how could you exterminate so many people in vain but even then it's not that much of a problem.

And they no longer have the manpower to soak such losses either, while modern weapons can inflict them faster than ever. Ukraine is not Georgia or even Finland, they can't overwhelm it with 10x or 20x numerical advantage. Even taking occupied territories out of the calculation, Russia has only a 4x population advantage, and Ukraine mobilized earlier, with a lot of the mobilized already being experienced in combat with territorial defense, or getting months of quality training in western countries.

 

[Batrix2070]

The problem is that shitty infantry has logistical needs not much different from decent infantry. And even their decent infantry now has logistical problems.
That's the biggest problem of human wave tactics. It has a huge logistical footprint for relatively low value.

Times change. In WW1 a dude in a trench with a bolt action rifle could get only so much better, no matter how much training he got. That was the golden age of mass mobilization warfare.
But on a more modern, technology filled battlefield, neither dude has much combat capability compared to a properly trained and equipped soldier who needs far more training.
Modern warfare is closer to the medieval paradigm, where a few thousands of professional, possibly lifelong soldiers on horses could rout armies of tens of thousands of peasant levies.

And they no longer have the manpower to soak such losses either, while modern weapons can inflict them faster than ever. Ukraine is not Georgia or even Finland, they can't overwhelm it with 10x or 20x numerical advantage. Even taking occupied territories out of the calculation, Russia has only a 4x population advantage, and Ukraine mobilized earlier, with a lot of the mobilized already being experienced in combat with territorial defense, or getting months of quality training in western countries.

Well great, now go and tell the Russians.
They will surely listen to you and follow your voice of reason and not wait.
It would break up their military system even more, and when there was one smart one they fired him and implemented counter-reforms.

I say how the Russians came up with it and will do it and what the results are is another matter. On the other hand, I know hocus pocus today is a different matter, different times one soldier well trained is worth as much as a knight used to be to the peasantry, and no wait.
Today there is artillery, and such a super soldier tears to shreds just as easily as the weak one, only that the money and time you need to train the former is much greater.

So rather less scale, knight vs. peasant rather knight vs. hussits. Where well led knights are able to smash the hussites but the well dug-in ones smash these super guys.
Whether some such solo trep with a gun can shoot great is a secondary thing to whether he is and whether he can do something more, for shooting you will find more people who are suited to it, for leading them less, and sometimes those who can do something more don't want to come so what does Russia do to have them?

It takes them by surprise and doesn't give a damn about his vision.


To put it simply, artillery as long as it exists is a mass army makes sense, because what good are all those super toys if they blow everything away from a distance and what's left can be beaten with cannon meat?

Anyway, this discussion is ridiculous in a situation where it is the defending side that has more soldiers than the attacking side, it is the defending side that uses dense conscripts while the attacking side is just riding on soldiers better trained knowing supposedly more.

Only now Russia is using conscripts, and Ukraine has had them for a long time, uses Territorial Defense Forces frequently to patch holes i.e. glorified militia.

It is literally Ukraine fighting like Russia should fight, and Russia trying to pretend to be the US.

 

[Marduk]

Well great, now go and tell the Russians.
They will surely listen to you and follow your voice of reason and not wait.
It would break up their military system even more, and when there was one smart one they fired him and implemented counter-reforms.

I say how the Russians came up with it and will do it and what the results are is another matter. On the other hand, I know hocus pocus today is a different matter, different times one soldier well trained is worth as much as a knight used to be to the peasantry, and no wait.
Today there is artillery, and such a super soldier tears to shreds just as easily as the weak one, only that the money and time you need to train the former is much greater.

Mass dumb artillery is so WW1.
Today PGMs are the flavor of the week. Artillery needs many thousands of tons of ammo to work. It's hard to store and move. One HIMARS, and poof, ammo dump with few thousands of tons of ammo is gone. A few of them can starve whole artillery divisions.

So rather less scale, knight vs. peasant rather knight vs. hussits. Where well led knights are able to smash the hussites but the well dug-in ones smash these super guys.
Whether some such solo trep with a gun can shoot great is a secondary thing to whether he is and whether he can do something more, for shooting you will find more people who are suited to it, for leading them less, and sometimes those who can do something more don't want to come so what does Russia do to have them?

It takes them by surprise and doesn't give a damn about his vision.


To put it simply, artillery as long as it exists is a mass army makes sense, because what good are all those super toys if they blow everything away from a distance and what's left can be beaten with cannon meat?

Artillery is not made equal. It's not new at all, as i said, WW1 says hi. It's not the height of military technology. Russia doesn't have such an artillery heavy army because they have objectively decided it's the most optimal way to run at army, they have one because they have the funding or personnel to build anything else.

Anyway, this discussion is ridiculous in a situation where it is the defending side that has more soldiers than the attacking side, it is the defending side that uses dense conscripts while the attacking side is just riding on soldiers better trained knowing supposedly more.

Only now Russia is using conscripts, and Ukraine has had them for a long time, uses Territorial Defense Forces frequently to patch holes i.e. glorified militia.

It is literally Ukraine fighting like Russia should fight, and Russia trying to pretend to be the US.

Well, USA is ironically the inspiration for the territorial defense, ours and Ukrainian - see: National Guard. They aren't a militia in the third world sense, war happened, so hand over rifles to random farmers and construction workers who want to fight.
They actually had regular training before the war even started.

Ukraine's 'territorial defense' trains civilians against possible hitches amid tensions

Reservist officers provide basic military, other training for volunteer civilians to counter possible military threats - Anadolu Ajansı

www.aa.com.tr

Rikun noted that the last training was held last spring, adding that for the past eight years since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2014, the training has been ongoing.

As such, even at the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian TDF was better trained than the Russian conscripts are now.

 

[Batrix2070]

Mass dumb artillery is so WW1.
Today PGMs are the flavor of the week. Artillery needs many thousands of tons of ammo to work. It's hard to store and move. One HIMARS, and poof, ammo dump with few thousands of tons of ammo is gone. A few of them can starve whole artillery divisions.

Well, and what do you want to prove to me in this connection?
The fact, known by me, that too much artillery is as harmful as the lack of it?
Or that consumption is huge in war? These HIMARS also cost a lot and wear out quickly.

Artillery is not made equal. It's not new at all, as i said, WW1 says hi. It's not the height of military technology. Russia doesn't have such an artillery heavy army because they have objectively decided it's the most optimal way to run at army, they have one because they have the funding or personnel to build anything else.

It's Russia, what do you want to say? That they focused on other things is a fact and now they will pay for it.
Nevertheless, only now will we see what Russia can really afford after almost a year of the fiction that it is not a war.
Another thing is that WWI proved that there is such a thing as too much firepower.

Well, USA is ironically the inspiration for the territorial defense, ours and Ukrainian - see: National Guard. They aren't a militia in the third world sense, war happened, so hand over rifles to random farmers and construction workers who want to fight.
They actually had regular training before the war even started.

Doesn't change the fact that it's actually a militia, a much better class than a fast-trained conscript, but it's still a militia only that it's a super-grazed version.

It's like comparing a medieval town militia with a peasant contingent. It's obvious that the city militia will massacre peasants because the city will be able to afford to equip and train them sufficiently to keep them in combat effectiveness.

But the point of the National Guard, or WOT, is to create a regional militia of trained volunteers who, in wartime, can serve as a tool for patching holes, taking the battering of conscripts thus relieving the burden on the professional ones, or, as a last resort, serve as a source of replenishment for the military.

 

[LordsFire]

Russia like the former Soviet Union does not consider your fulminations reasonable, the people killed can be replaced by someone else, as long as it is. But the achieved goal will give what it wants, because now Russia is playing for big stakes, what if they lose a few dozen thousand people, how the gained ground will allow you to recruit more in their place?

And shit like this is why Russia gets wrecked in every war it takes part in, even when it wins.

Do you know what the overall most salient property of the red army was during WWII?

It lost the most men.

Did you know that the they still were able to push back the Wehrmacht was because A) The Americans were shipping them huge amounts of military supplies, including boots, trucks, trains.... B) The Wehrmacht was forced to split their attention to the western front. C) Allied strategic bombing was wrecking German industry.

WWII is the only war the Russians have fought against an opponent even vaguely in their weight class and won in something like a hundred and fifty years. And they bled horrifically to do so, and would have lost without the rest of the allies anyways.

They are attuned to a long and grueling war in which losses mount and mount until one side can't replenish men and equipment at a sufficient pace.
And by virtue of the fact that it is Russia that is mentally and physically prepared for such a battle, it takes much greater losses than those of its opponents for its replenishment system to finally collapse.

The thing is, this time Russia very clearly is not mentally and physically prepared for such a battle. They don't have the equipment, they don't have the training, and they certainly do not have the determination or will to drown the enemy in a sea of blood in order to extract victory.

And part of the reason for that, is because of all the people they have lost in past wars due to their stupid and evil paradigm of war.

To give you some proportional comparison, the US spent twenty years in Afghanistan, and lost less than 2500 people. Note that this is while fighting with much less strict rules of engagment than the soviets had while they were there. The Soviets spent ten years in Afghanista, and lost just under 14,500 people. That's roughly taking 6x as many losses, over half the time, so something like 12x the death rate.

Now, these are relatively small losses on the whole, but the comparative rate when fighting the same enemies in the same place is what I wanted to make an example of here. Next we're going to compare WWII for something of more significant scale, though disparate circumstances:

These are military deaths, not civilians:
Soviet losses in WWII: 8.6-11.4 million, estimated.
German losses in WWII: 4.4-5.3 million, estimated.
Japanese losses in WWII: 2.1-2.3 million, estimated.
US military losses in WWII: 407,300
UK military losses in WWII: 387,300

Do you see that scale of comparison?

The Russians lost twice as many people as the Germans, while they were basically just fighting the Germans, and the Germans were fighting every single allied nation simultaneously.

They lost 4-5 times as many as the Japanese.

They lost more than ten times as many men as the Americans and British put together. Fifteen times on the high end of estimates.

And keep in mind, this in spite of the Americans fighting an entire second war in the Pacific theater, with the Brits and Aussies chipping in where they could on that side as well.

The Russians lost more men, more land, more military hardware, and more civilians on top of all of that, than any other nation on the war. If there losses are on the high end of the estimate, then the USSR lost more men than every other participant in the war combined.

Every time that Russia 'wins' a war, they make themselves drastically weaker for the next war. Their absolute contempt for human life, including their own soldiers, sabotages their effectiveness, their economy, their morale, everything.

Yeah, the Russians can disagree with America on the worth of a man and his utility in war, and that's why America won the Cold War and became the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, while Russia is getting its ass kicked by an ex-vassal state a fraction of their size.

 

[Batrix2070]

And shit like this is why Russia gets wrecked in every war it takes part in, even when it wins.

Do you know what the overall most salient property of the red army was during WWII?

It lost the most men.

Did you know that the they still were able to push back the Wehrmacht was because A) The Americans were shipping them huge amounts of military supplies, including boots, trucks, trains.... B) The Wehrmacht was forced to split their attention to the western front. C) Allied strategic bombing was wrecking German industry.

WWII is the only war the Russians have fought against an opponent even vaguely in their weight class and won in something like a hundred and fifty years. And they bled horrifically to do so, and would have lost without the rest of the allies anyways.



The thing is, this time Russia very clearly is not mentally and physically prepared for such a battle. They don't have the equipment, they don't have the training, and they certainly do not have the determination or will to drown the enemy in a sea of blood in order to extract victory.

And part of the reason for that, is because of all the people they have lost in past wars due to their stupid and evil paradigm of war.

To give you some proportional comparison, the US spent twenty years in Afghanistan, and lost less than 2500 people. Note that this is while fighting with much less strict rules of engagment than the soviets had while they were there. The Soviets spent ten years in Afghanista, and lost just under 14,500 people. That's roughly taking 6x as many losses, over half the time, so something like 12x the death rate.

Now, these are relatively small losses on the whole, but the comparative rate when fighting the same enemies in the same place is what I wanted to make an example of here. Next we're going to compare WWII for something of more significant scale, though disparate circumstances:

These are military deaths, not civilians:
Soviet losses in WWII: 8.6-11.4 million, estimated.
German losses in WWII: 4.4-5.3 million, estimated.
Japanese losses in WWII: 2.1-2.3 million, estimated.
US military losses in WWII: 407,300
UK military losses in WWII: 387,300

Do you see that scale of comparison?

The Russians lost twice as many people as the Germans, while they were basically just fighting the Germans, and the Germans were fighting every single allied nation simultaneously.

They lost 4-5 times as many as the Japanese.

They lost more than ten times as many men as the Americans and British put together. Fifteen times on the high end of estimates.

And keep in mind, this in spite of the Americans fighting an entire second war in the Pacific theater, with the Brits and Aussies chipping in where they could on that side as well.

The Russians lost more men, more land, more military hardware, and more civilians on top of all of that, than any other nation on the war. If there losses are on the high end of the estimate, then the USSR lost more men than every other participant in the war combined.

Every time that Russia 'wins' a war, they make themselves drastically weaker for the next war. Their absolute contempt for human life, including their own soldiers, sabotages their effectiveness, their economy, their morale, everything.

Yeah, the Russians can disagree with America on the worth of a man and his utility in war, and that's why America won the Cold War and became the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, while Russia is getting its ass kicked by an ex-vassal state a fraction of their size.

Okay, now let me ask you, what do you want to prove?

Nothing of what you wrote here was anything new to me.

Tell it to the Russians, not to me. I tell you that they don't give a shit, they don't give a shit about your words. They have had human life in their ass and contempt for hundreds of years!

And yet they were able to eventually survive the worst of times and bounce back from the bottom even when they suffered huge losses.

All the wars between the PLC and Moscow were wars of elite professional troops versus conscripts. In the long run it won, even though the losses it suffered were disproportionate to the successes but they don't give a damn!

That's why they don't give a damn what anyone thinks, no matter how much they lose for them it's the victory that counts. Any, even if it hurts them! Russia and its predecessor Moscow are literally a faction for whom human life does not matter. There is none, no justification from the West will change their fighting style, because it goes against Russian civilization itself.

And no, America only won with the Soviet Union and lost the Cold War to Communism. Now this we can see that the Cold War did not end with the fall of the USSR.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Ukrainian refugee arrested after 'trying to kick down ex-lover's door'

Sofiia Karkadym has been arrested after attempting to kick down her ex-lover's front door

www.examinerlive.co.uk

The honeymoon phase didn't last a year.

Tell it to the Russians, not to me. I tell you that they don't give a shit, they don't give a shit about your words. They have had human life in their ass and contempt for hundreds of years!

Looking at the attitude now that's what's going to happen.

 

[Batrix2070]

Looking at the attitude now that's what's going to happen.

Well, maybe now they'll finally catch on to why Polaki don't like mass butchery on the front lines.

Well, and they will understand why, despite repeated attempts in their history, they are unable to copy any Western formation and its effectiveness.
And if not, it's hard. We don't need Russia for happiness, even better if it comes to a long great smuta.

 

[Marduk]

Well, and what do you want to prove to me in this connection?
The fact, known by me, that too much artillery is as harmful as the lack of it?
Or that consumption is huge in war? These HIMARS also cost a lot and wear out quickly.

The fact that mass artillery is, in modern conditions, a huge strategic burden. It's hard to move, hard to supply, easy to spot, and the huge supply footprint is very vulnerable to disruption. In WW1 the same applies to enemy artillery and nothing else could reach it, but now there are different options too.

It's Russia, what do you want to say? That they focused on other things is a fact and now they will pay for it.
Nevertheless, only now will we see what Russia can really afford after almost a year of the fiction that it is not a war.
Another thing is that WWI proved that there is such a thing as too much firepower.

Doesn't change the fact that it's actually a militia, a much better class than a fast-trained conscript, but it's still a militia only that it's a super-grazed version.

It's like comparing a medieval town militia with a peasant contingent. It's obvious that the city militia will massacre peasants because the city will be able to afford to equip and train them sufficiently to keep them in combat effectiveness.

But the point of the National Guard, or WOT, is to create a regional militia of trained volunteers who, in wartime, can serve as a tool for patching holes, taking the battering of conscripts thus relieving the burden on the professional ones, or, as a last resort, serve as a source of replenishment for the military.

More than volunteers for patching holes in rosters of other units, they are fully functional second rate infantry units, and i mean second rate by western professional military standards - which makes them well trained regulars by the standards of shitholes.

It's going to be a cascading shitshow. Iran-Iraq war on crack, except one side has both western support, training and morale on their side.

 

[Batrix2070]

The fact that mass artillery is, in modern conditions, a huge strategic burden. It's hard to move, hard to supply, easy to spot. In WW1 the same applies to enemy artillery and nothing else could reach it, but now there are different options too.

Well, we both know very well how the Russians are great at electronics. On the other hand, it is possible to continue to have normal artillery, massive but not as large as the Russian, and achieve an effectiveness of 80% of that of precision artillery.
At a comparable cost of use to precision but much lower than total.

More than volunteers for patching holes in rosters of other units, they are fully functional second rate infantry units, and i mean second rate by western professional military standards - which makes them well trained regulars by the standards of shitholes.

This does not change the fact that for us it is a militia. The fact that for what sunken hole in Asia or Africa it is a real military is irrelevant. After all, it's not the militia that the First World sends there, it's the normal military, only later when it's no longer needed will the "Militia" be stationed there like the Americans in Afghanistan to keep order.

 

[LordsFire]

Okay, now let me ask you, what do you want to prove?

Nothing of what you wrote here was anything new to me.

I'm sorry, I'd had the general impression from the tenor of your posts that you thought their doctrine was effective in battle.

 

[Batrix2070]

I'm sorry, I'd had the general impression from the tenor of your posts that you thought their doctrine was effective in battle.

If we were talking in real life face to face it would be harder to see that I am in favor of a Russian-style conscription army in any way.
In fact, I see it as literally a manual on how not to create a conscription army.

A conscription army in the style of South Korea or, closer to me, a Polish conscription army in the style of the Second Polish Republic is what I consider the standard of a conscription army.

That is, often trained men, for a few years in the army. Constant re-training, building a sizable paramilitary network to create a base for higher ranks, as well as for non-commissioned officers or just better privates.
Compulsory officer's course for all after graduation as in the IIRP, all with it hammered into their heads that Poland cannot afford massive losses in combat.

That some of the generalship was abysmal because of the key of loyalty is another matter, but if this is about how a conscript army should be organized, this is a good example.

Despite the devastating defeat, Poland's number of dead ranges from 70 to 97 thousand soldiers. Looking at what happened and how uneven the campaing was*, one can conclude that the main goal of avoiding unnecessary losses despite having a conscript army was achieved.

*That is, even something like the Supreme Command did not exist for more than three days, and individual army or even division commanders were in the dark.
The fact that it didn't end in more butchery shows that it is possible to have a conscript army and not get slaughtered like children in darkness pursued by a crazed psychopath who loves to hunt everything that lives, even if the interaction of units was worse than the Russian army in Ukraine now.