chrisl

The US has a /terrible/ track record with puppet regimes. It's one of the things they just cannot do. Maybe none of /this/ would have happened, but a whole different raft of bedlam would  have ensued.
Puppets, and cricket, are just a no as far as the US is concerned.

40K more and they'll have gotten their 300K mobilization.  
Just all pointed in the wrong direction.

Mobilization in RU Military-Industrial High-Tech enterprises
 

Well I know of at least one that does not.  You get it at first year of military college but it is retained for about 15 seconds by most cadets.
We went with a “STEM will save us” model in the west.  The obscenity of the term “political science” is one example.
They often ask me what questions to ask new hires and I always go with “what do you read?”  The answer I am looking for is fiction: we wrap our lies in “truth” and we hide our truths in our lies.

Good to see this messaging is ongoing (been repeated over several days) and at the highest levels of state.
 

Most of the flaws in the NATO response came about because too much, not all, but too much, of NATO believed the Russian assessment that Kyiv would fall in three days. They were afraid of getting a brigade or two caught in country that was falling apart around them, and that it would be infinitely worse than just staying out. Boris said bleep it and gambled on a max effort at ATGM shipments, the Russian assessment of the Ukrainian government and military integrity was epically wrong, and here we are. The Russians assessment of their own forces was out to lunch too, and since we stole that from them too....
 

Virtually everything but the Abrams is an eggshell armed with a hammer, at that point it is all about who has the fastest hammer. These might be a stealthy winner.

Yeah, I'm getting married tomorrow (it's 11 PM now in Poland, we are saying the vows at 2PM). Just as we speak the missus is getting annoyed that I nerd about the war on the internet  But it is 100% worth it!

"Logically", they'd be "Porcs", wouldn't they? Think the French would've had an easier time in '70 if that had truly been the case.
 

You say that like they ever had one. When we finally get some real stats, years from now, I will bet you a case of good beer the Russian medical performance is not much better than the Union army in the U.S. Civil War. It wouldn't shock me if it was worse. These god cursed mobiks are going to die from things that result in a weeks light duty in a NATO army. Never mind living through a real wound. I am expecting real disease outbreaks too. We need to double check if Ukraine needs any support with vaccines. 

Does Russia have the capacity to even remotely feed, clothe and train all of these conscripts? Especially since they're cannibalizing the very industries they'd need to support them. One gets the impression nobody's thought beyond 'conscripting'. They'll probably get dumped into the middle of a field somewhere and be exposed to the elements for days on end.

I have to say, it's really striking to me how frantic the Russian mobilization looks. They *don't* have the capacity to process these men. They lack the materiel to properly cloth, shoe and arm them for the kind of war and winter they are about to face. In the field, they are going to be an enormous logistical strain that will not appreciably do much more than hold a sector that isn't in the way of a direct Ukrainian offensive.
If they are trying to make a political statement of will to NATO, well NATO can see what I can see what I can see too. If they are making a domestic political statement, they aren't exactly shoring up public faith in the war. If they are merely trying to back fill units, why ignore actual training/abilities/requirements? I can only think, watching it that they are really, truly about to collapse on one or more fronts and must perforce just funnel in bodies and hope for the best. If anyone has a better answer, I'm curious.
 
 

Just get him to buy CMBS.  It's why we're all here.
After the first game I'm certain s/he'll make an account just to ask WTF My T90s Keep Dying!!!! Plz Halp. 
Guarantee it. 

He needs a gaming laptop with Black Sea installed. 

Mark Hertling has a thread, before commanding US Army, Europe, he was commander over all basic and advanced soldier training for the Army so I'm quite inclined to believe his words on Russian training. Thread shows that RU leadership and training is woeful even in normal circumstances.
 

Hokay. 
1. Syria is a civil war,  waged by its autocratic government against its own people. 
2. Ukraine is a war of survival, led by the democratic government against an invading fascist regime, and with the overwhelming support of its own people. 
3. The Kharkiv op is not an aberration, it is the harbinger of worse to come. Yup Kharkiv isn't war winning. But it sure as heck is an inflection point. The war is not going to stay the same -  Russia no longer has the momentum, men, political coherence or operational adaptability to determine the course of events. 
4. Ukraine already went through an interminable, never ending warfare since 2014 -  in fact this is still that war but its now in the decisive phase, and its very much the Ukrainians making the decisions that matter. 
5. Two "past their prime" superpowers? Ehhh... Wut. 
Ok, Russia is one. Check. 
Who's the other, exactly? The one with the amazing weapons and wherewithal to send them halfway across the world? The one with the insanely accurate and immediate  ISR capabilities?  The one actively engaged in a long term project to build a moon base?  
Or maybe the other one,  which however rancorous its decision process has managed to provide billions of dollars in direct aid to Ukraine,  absorbed 5,000,000 refugees in 3 months without raising a sweat,  has weathered all of Russia's  gas threats and is set to get through the winter regardless, has vastly greater military power than Russia and,  as part of an alliance with that other power,  admitted two new,  heavily armed and highly  strategically placed nations, and which the prospect of Ukraine joining it was what set off this whole awful mess in the first place? 
That author is a political hack,  not an original  thought in his head and, at bedrock level,  a twit. 

SIDE NOTE 
THE SAGA OF THE LAPTOP, vol. 45.
@Haiduks laptop is still in Poland with my mother-in-law,  who, get this, has the idea in her head that he's a potential Russian agent. 
I sh*t thee not. 
I've told her to drop the idea, her own son has told her and she's talked with Haiduk on the phone! I don't really think she's really serious (I think...). 
Plus she doesn't trust couriers or Polish mail. The idea was she'd get to Przemsyl with the stuff and hand off to a friend or family of Haiduk. 
However She had other ideas, strong and unusual ones, that I learned of from her son in a call at 11pm at night (hes not part of the madness, she just badgered him incessantly). 
She wanted to pass the package to a music band, just before they went to Kyiv for a concert. Now, it's Kozak System, who are known but...eh of all the people that Customs might take a long hard look at,  I'm pretty sure Musicians and their Entourage are near the top of the list. Plus she literally knew no one on the band, and they were leaving that evening. Somehow she got in contact with,  I think, a guitarist (?) and they agreed. Sure, ok, I guess? But not really. Fine, the guitarist (who's name I never learned)  but what if a hanger-on takes a shine to this expensive,  well wrapped packages? I'm sure the Musicians are decent people, but a concert tour is not the way to get a $1700 value package across the damn border! This was all extremely last minute, and untraceable. 
Yet she doesn't trust a signed courier service. 
I love her as family but, lol... Oh man. 
https://giphy.com/gifs/snl-l46CoyPN7mdW3C1Fe
Anyhow, I'm going to take this madness in hand and pay to get the package couriered to a family friend of Haiduk.
*siiiiigggghhhhhhhhh*

Yes, but also the way around this now is volume.  We have been saying for years to stop treating UAVs like an aircraft and a munition instead - dear gawd the UAS argument is so insane sometimes.
The obvious answer is to 1) harden against direct EW effects on the vehicle, and 2) make more autonomous.  Both which are very doable with todays technology let alone tomorrows. 

Jack Watling
Why didn’t Ukraine fall?
The lessons we can learn from Russia’s failed war
17 September 2022, 2:30am
Why didn’t Ukraine fall?
(Photo: Getty)
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Aweek before Russia invaded Ukraine, expectations varied considerably. The US government was certain the Russians would strike at Kyiv and seize the Ukrainian capital in 72 hours. The Russian presidential administration concurred. In Paris and Berlin, officials were briefing that Anglo-American hysteria was leading the world to another Iraq WMD moment and that the Russians were just posturing.
Views varied in Kyiv, but the government’s assessment was that a period of political destabilisation would be followed by a limited Russian offensive against the Donbas. I thought Russia would invade only to find itself in a gruelling unconventional battle in Ukraine’s cities; the roads west of Kyiv would be severed, cutting off the city from European allies; Ukrainian troops in the Donbas would withdraw owing to shortages of ammunition after about ten days of fighting. All of the above assessments as it turned out were – to varying degrees – wrong.
Ukraine now has a viable path towards bringing about the Russia’s defeat within the next year. It is important to reflect upon why pre-war assessments were incorrect and how these errors can be avoided in the future. I, along with my colleague Nick Reynolds, have worked in Ukraine both before and during the conflict, interviewing senior Ukrainian security and military officials, observing operations, and examining captured Russian equipment. More recently, I’ve been reviewing the operational data gathered by the Ukrainian military. For much of that period, it has not been appropriate to publish detailed information about Ukrainian operations. RUSI, the defence thinktank I work for, has therefore focussed on assessing the enemy’s most likely and most dangerous courses of action, and primary vulnerabilities. Now that the threat of further Russian offensives has abated, however, it is becoming possible to discuss some aspects of the Ukrainian side of the equation.
The data demonstrates that the realities of the war diverged considerably from the public narrative. To take an example, many have speculated that Russian electronic warfare systems – comprising interference with electronic systems – have been ineffective. Just look at the proliferation of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) throughout the conflict: surely Russian electronic warfare and air defences could have neutralised these technologies. Yet UAVs have proven their usefulness. The Ukrainian military would agree that the overview of the battlefield they offer is vital.
However, the operational data reveals that 90 per cent of Ukrainian UAVs flown before July were lost, mainly to electronic warfare. The average life expectancy of a quadcopter was three flights. The average life expectancy of a fixed wing UAV was six flights. Surviving a flight does not mean a successful mission; electronic warfare can disrupt command links, navigation and sensors, which can cause the UAV to fail to fix a target. Contrary to the narrative, Russian EW has been successful on the battlefield. Instead, what has proved decisive is the sheer number of drones that Ukraine has been able to deploy. The most useful UAVs, according to the data, are cheap fixed wing models. This is not because they are difficult to defeat but because they are inefficient to target, flying too high for short-range air defences while being too inexpensive to engage with medium or long-range systems.
This is a good example of where having both sides of the equation – Russian and Ukrainian – is critical to identifying the right lessons from Ukraine. Beyond confirming that Russian electronic warfare is effective – and that the lack of NATO investment in this area is a mistake – the loss rate also demands a re-evaluation of how NATO armies think about UAVs. At present, UAVs are treated like aircraft. They come under flight control and in the UK must be assured for flight by the Military Aviation Authority. This means that the force cannot generate large numbers of trained operators and limits how many UAVs can be deployed. UAVs are therefore designed to have higher payloads and longer flight times to compensate, driving up cost. Instead, UAVs need to be cheap, mass producible, and treated like munitions. The regulatory framework for their use should be changed.
The example of UAVs is specific, but it is precisely in these tactical details that the truth about the inaccuracy of pre-war assessments lies. To use my own assessment – that Ukrainian forces would hold their initial positions in the Donbas for a maximum of ten days – this was premised on a calculation of their available ammunition. The assumption was that much of their second line ammunition would be interdicted by Russian air and missile strikes.
The Ukrainian military began to disperse its ammunition from major stockpiles several days before the war as a precaution against widespread strikes. This was noted and tracked by Russian agents. Nevertheless, the Russian military appeared very reluctant to adjust the order of its priority strike list for attacking targets. Some of the targets towards the top of the Russian targeting list hadn’t been military sites for up to a decade.
Even though the Russians observed that the ammunition was being dispersed, they still prosecuted their initial strikes against the ammunition’s original location. Consequently, of the 20 major ammunition stockpiles used by the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russians destroyed significant stocks at only one. Russian strikes often lagged more than 48 hours behind their targets’ movements, not because the Russians lacked new information about the target’s location, but because they still struck its previous position first. Russian forces massively underperformed against their potential, largely for reasons of culture, process and weaknesses in planning.
We are still in the process of conducting our assessment of the operational data, but it is very clear that the gap between Russian success and failure was often narrow, and more often a product of culture, morale, and training than equipment or numbers of troops. It is also evident that the Ukrainians adapted faster in conditions of uncertainty and that it is the capacity of a force to recover from mistakes that often gives it the edge on the battlefield.
WRITTEN BYJack Watling
Dr Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute

It might be time to really utilize that interior lines advantage, and see if they can catch the Russians with their reserves stuck on rail sidings in Rostov on Don. If they have any reserves???

"They need a numerical superiority of at least 3 to 1."
 
Yes. Locally, you dumb arse. Even a certain corporal had better military sense then this uni(n)formed clown.
 
 

Only thing I would add beyond the solid replies so far is that Ukraine has a significant - some may say decisive - ISR advantage.  This means that RUAF aircraft are being spotted likely as they are rolling out the hanger doors, or in some cases as they are being prepped.  The multi-layer defence of the UA combined with better C4ISR means the UA can position point defence well ahead of RUAF sorties.
Clearly this is working as has been noted the RUAF is basically doing stand off attacks and almost zero CAS.  There were rumours that the RUAF had been effective in blunting UA offensives but no one ever had any proof of this, nor do the events of the last week and half support the idea. 
My guess is that we have a situation of air parity thru denial right now so both air forces have largely been held back or used in standoff attack roles. Kind of a "if it flies, it dies" parity.  The Western and UA answer is HIMARs and deep strike systems that are basically acting in the role of airpower at increasing ranges.  Russia does not have the same thing, its missiles are largely focused on terror attacks which are more often than not decoupled from operational or tactical objectives. 

There are multiple volumes to be written about how the Ukrainians have kept the Russian air force bottled up, and the info to write most of them is going to be classified until the war ends or well after. The thing I will state briefly is that the Russian air force is just not the the big growling bear we thought it it was. What on paper are pretty good airplanes, in fairly large numbers, have performed far below expectations due to some combination of technical problems, unskilled pilots, and a completely broken system for picking and prioritizing targets. One specific mistake was starting this war with perhaps a tenth, or even less, of the precision guided weapons needed. It is hard to overstate the size of this failure on the course of the war. Pretty clear someone, maybe everyone, stole a lot of money. they have lost this war because of it.

Maybe it's desperate attempt to get UKR to negotiating table to try to freeze the conflict.  I expect lots of staged 'attacks' on nuke plant.  What other cards to Putin have to play other than creating damage that he hopes will get URK to the table?  he can't win but he can lose big and soon.  

Seems pretty bad, the target is clearly the dam and strike could have taken it out. There are going to be successive strikes until Russians get the result they want.
The destruction seems limited so far so I am guessing this is maximum emergency release to empty the basin as fast as possible in somewhat controlled way, before more strikes that could cause a catastrophic near instant failure.