sross112

The "collapse" has been talked about a lot in here for a long time. Many of you have way more insight into Russia than I do and there are a bunch of theories. Personally, I don't see Russia collapsing on the home front. I don't think any level of economic hardship or casualty counts will cause the people to rise against the government. I say this because of their social history with their government and the security apparatus of the government. The people know that if they step out of line they can and will face harsh and even fatal consequences to themselves, likely their friends and family too. This is not a western society where you can stand in front of the ruling palace and yell bad words all day long without retribution. That is pretty hard for most people in western nations to wrap their heads around and try to understand why the people don't just protest. If they do, they will lose, and they know it. Now I do believe that a collapse is possible and it is most likely probable, but it has to come from the military. If and when the military has had enough (1917ish) then the people will fall in behind them. Until the military or the mobilized decide enough is enough, the regime can continue forever, and will. There were several instances of rulers and governments given in the last couple pages that maintained power because of these same reasons. As long as the military is with the ruler, the ruler is safe. Or at least the government model even if the ruler is replaced. The UA has to inflict a lot of casualties for this to happen. It also needs to inflict severe defeats. It needs to take back ground. It needs to cauldron large amounts of RA troops and equipment. It has to be much more than just suffering casualties along a stagnate front. The RA has to feel like it is losing and there is no hope of winning. Once the rank and file are convinced then they can start looking at the rulers and the system that is sending them to their deaths. Until then I don't see a collapse happening.

I'd say the RA has two things going for it in the D1 area vs the D3 area. The first is they have concentrated a lot of troops and equipment in that area countering the UA gains so their force density is probably higher. The second, and in my opinion the most influential, is the terrain is the opposite of the flat open plains with little cover found in the D3 direction. This makes UA ISR more difficult and also allows the RA to jump off offensive operations much closer to contact. I think the D1 direction will be very difficult for either side to attack in because of these factors. The UA had good success in the northern areas because the terrain suited their fog eating snow tactics much better than the open south. I think that is why the success was faster than their Kherson operation. But terrain is one of those factors that cuts both ways a lot of the time. The RA managed to hammer down this area last year with significant forces and a ton of arty support, so it isn't impossible that they will be able to do it again. If they have increased their infantry substantially on the northern front with their trained up conscripts from Belarus they would possibly have a good chance. I would expect it to cost them heavily for any gains they do get and will be surprised if they are able to hold them long term if they do the same as before and shatter their forces while taking the ground and leaving nothing left to hold it.

I may be wrong, and those in the know feel free to correct me, but if you are being attacked and fighting a defensive war, well, at some point you have to stand and fight. So if you are smart, you pick the good defensive terrain and make the enemy attack you there. In this war we have seen that the urban areas seem to be favored by both sides as they allow for more protection and negate some of the opposing force's ISR. I haven't seen or don't recall the RA making a bunch of cauldron's but I do recall the UA fighting in areas right up to the last minute before pulling out. Severdonetsk was a good example of that. Irpin, south of Irpin, most of Luhansk in the first few days and Popasna are other examples that come to mind. The second thing that I'm sure plays a part in holding the line as far forward as possible for the Ukrainians is that they know every town and village that they give up to the Russians is another Bucha. It appears that Ukraine as a whole has decided that it is preferable to die on their feet than to live on their knees. Can they really be faulted for making the Russians pay for every square meter in blood? As for sacrificing units like in Mariupol, that is pretty much the only example I can think of where it happened at any scale. Whether that was a command decision or a local commander decision I don't know. I do know that it tied up a large logistics hub and more than one RA division for several weeks while virtually destroying multiple BTG's for minimal combat power loss to the UA forces of the Azov Bn and Ukr Marine units. It gave the UA time to establish a defensive line from south of Donetsk to the Dnepr and denied the logistic routes and combat power that could have made a push from the south possible if they hadn't held. So yep, sucks for those that stayed and fought, but their service and sacrifice was not in vain and in retrospect was probably a pretty big part in the stabilization of the southern front in those early days. Sometimes the big picture makes more sense than the singular event.

10 tanks, or whatever it was, is pretty pointless, and unlike with the Leo2, it's not like there are half a dozen countries that can also chip in a small number, making a battaltion's worth in total. I think it might actually be a good idea to get 10 modern western MBTs into the hands of the UA as soon as possible. I'm not saying that 10 are going to change the course of the war or these super weapons will take Moscow or anything like that. I do think it would be very useful for the UA logistics and planning to deal with a few. It has been mentioned that their size and weight might be problems. What better way to find out than to have to move 10 Challys from Lviv to the eastern front. Figure out the problems for 10 so that you are ready when 100 show up. It could be months before meaningful numbers of MBTs start arriving. In the meantime if the UA could take an experienced tank company and put those 10 Chally's into it, train them up for a few weeks and put them to use. Again, not saying miracles are going to occur and they will single handedly wipe the RA from the face of the earth. Saying it might be very useful for them to see what the enhanced FCS, thermals, armor and digital integration add to their capabilities in comparison to the T72 variants they have been running. It should also give them a very good idea of the maintenance and logistics requirements that they can then extrapolate to determine what they'll need when the larger batches arrive. The flip side is maybe they will all be mangled wrecks smoking on the battlefield within a week. In which case some of us will be happy that our theory of tanks not being worth it on the modern battlefield has been proven. Conversely, they might do an extraordinary job and some of us will be happy that our theory that tanks are alive and well is proven. Until they get them in range of the enemy I don't think that question will be answered. I for one am very curious as to what they will bring to the table and how they can be used. I've thought a bit about what @Splinty said in reference to the Bradleys. He thought they might show the most promise by using their vehicle thermals and FCS for better target identification and destruction. The big tanks might be best used that way as well and be more survivable at the same time. I don't think they are a silver bullet but I do think they have promise to give a substantial edge to the corrosive warfare already employed by the UA. Of course some of you will say that it can't be done. That a single short company can't be fielded because they have to have x,y and z to make it work. Well, the UA doesn't fight by western doctrine and we have repeatedly pointed out that they are pretty good at their hybrid systems and integrating new stuff into it. It could be a good opportunity for experimentation.

I don't know anything other than what you and others have posted on here about the internal politics of Germany, and thank you for taking the time to educate us. I'm a little slow, my favorite crayons are pink ones that taste like strawberries, and I'm looking for input and not trying to bash you, your country or your politicians. Just trying to understand some things. To me it looks like the German government is not working in favor of their nation politically or economically. I always understood Germany was considered a business minded country and one that was considered the leader of the EU. It doesn't look like she is looking at the big picture or looking ahead at all when it comes to her business interests or maintaining a leadership position. I understood this position a lot better in the beginning when Germany was tied to Russian gas and trying to protect itself and it's people's interests and business interests in what was thought would be a short war with a Russian victory. Now that almost a year has passed and almost every variable that could be recognized as a reason for her actions/in-actions has changed, why hasn't the position morphed? France is a good one in comparison. Started out pretty much the same and rapidly switched around as the conditions changed from attempted mediator to Ukraine supporter. I also understand that Germany has done a lot for Ukraine, I'm not saying that your country hasn't been a positive contributor. I'm more wondering why a business orientated country and culture wouldn't be positioning itself to be the main supplier of almost everything to the Ukrainian forces in the future? Ukraine is going to need a lot of new stuff and up until all this arms transfer mess Germany was assumed to be the one that would supply them (like they have many others in Europe) when their modern western military is built. Now, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if not only Ukraine, but the Baltics, Scandinavians, Turkey and some of the Balkans decided not to continue buying from Germany. In 10 years I won't be a bit surprised if the "standard" tank in Europe, the Leopard, has been replaced by something manufactured out of Poland or Scandinavia. This transfer mess could truly be a death warrant for a traditionally thriving sector of German heavy industry. I'm of the opinion that politics is generally fueled by money and power. Across the pond that has been my observations and I could be wrong, as well as I could be wrong in assuming that politics and politicians are similar on your continent. With that in mind I can't wrap my head around why Germany wouldn't position herself better for the peace. Once again, I appreciate your and other German member's insights into these things and thanks in advance for your time and mind numbing efforts to educate those like me who are trying to understand.

I was thinking about this as well and agree. My thoughts were that the no man's land will get wider, how much I guess depends on the enemies capabilities. If you are fighting the west you are going to need to have a very large space between you and them and you are going to need comparable systems in order to keep them at bay. Or you are going to have to fight like the VC and grab your opponent by the belt buckle so he can't drop a JDAM on you without killing his own people. So the size of the no man's land will be determined mostly by your ISR abilities and your indirect fire abilities. I honestly don't think that the RA has the ability to hit targets accurately at any decent range. Even if they did have good ISR right now I don't think it would be as advantageous as we have seen them struggle to hit islands and factory sized targets at long range. It is the combination that is deadly so it will be that combination that determines the stand off distance. If the UA was fully armed with western arty and rocket systems instead of just having a few penny packeted around a 1000km front I believe we would see this phenomenon in action. As for conducting operations in such an environment, I think the (I'll probably mess up the @The_Capt's terms) diffused mass that concentrates and dissipates as needed will be the way. Being able to keep things dispersed enough to limit losses but able to have the coordination, command and control to concentrate for action and then disperse again. Very fluid concepts and probably only works if you have abundant space to operate and sacrifice as needed. That will be a very limiting factor as well. Fighting on the continental US would be much more forgiving than fighting in Estonia for instance. So if you don't have the space needed for such an operational doctrine because of either political or physical reason's, how do you do it?

Always a possibility, but we are probably more likely to see a Post Traumatic Growth scenario than the focused on PTSD negative scenario. It is similarly done on the individual level and has been for 50 years. The better story is on the negatives, but the positive stories are way more prolific. My bet is that Ukraine has more of a USA 1950's scenario happen than going down into darkness of some sort. Though only time will tell. edit: I will be the optimist-on-duty for the day!

Out of all the possibilities I'm casting my vote for the UA being able to restore it's 2014 boundaries and then the never ending conflict along the border. The reason I vote this way is that the UA so far has shown that it can displace the RA and recover territory, so I expect it to keep doing that as I don't really see the RA being able to overcome their shortfalls and be able to stop it. Unknown timeline but I expect it to continue to go slow until at some point it goes quick. I don't expect Russia to ever "surrender" or even sue for peace. Politically, especially internally, they can't. At least the current regime can't. If the current regime is toppled then there would be a chance for peace but whether or not that can or will happen is up for debate. I also think it is a western pipe dream that war criminals will be handed over or any significant reparations will ever be made by any regime. Lip service maybe. Maybe. And that would just be to get normal trade going again. So in the end, unless the regime collapses or is replaced, I see a lower intensity conflict along the border for the foreseeable future. The nice thing about that is that as long as Russia keeps up the conflict they will be kept in the box they are in now. That keeps them from being a threat to anyone else except with the big red button. As long as they keep up the fight they really remove themselves as a player from the world stage which really does help the overall world security for the near future. The other reason I don't see Russia ever stopping the low intensity conflict after the borders are restored is because the second they do Ukraine can be part of NATO. If they just keep some metal flying west it keeps them from having NATO accept Ukraine. NATO/EU/US, none of them want a war with Russia because both Russia and them know that Russia will lose and lose quickly. That leads to the big red button. I really don't believe that Putin and friends want a nuclear war, but I believe they would choose that over losing. So the long term will be a Russia that slowly asphyxiates itself into a larger version of North Korea in order for the powers that be to keep the powers they have.

So from a force transition stand point. The 93rd Mech Brigade was just recently pulled from the line. This unit is known as one of the best veteran formations and has been in the thick of it from the beginning. Pretty much a fire brigade. So experienced leadership and competent veteran personnel. Just hypothetically, they get a little R&R, soak up replacements and get sent off to Poland and Germany to train with Bradleys and maybe other NATO kit (Leopard 2's?). How long until they are as efficient as they were before the transition? Does the 8 weeks with a veteran unit have them back in the ring with the same or better efficiency or do they need more time? I'm just a leg infantry guy so I don't know much about the fancy side of mechanized stuff. I'd think that they would be as good or better due to better, more lethal and more survivable kit. The talk in here says force generation takes a lot more time but I'd think force transition in equipment would be much faster with better results? Not getting into the maintenance side, just the pointy end stuff. Thanks.

And what @The_Capt and you point out also puts relevance as to why the majority of the conscription is from the lesser populated, poorer, rural areas and not Moscow and St. Petersburg. Not even a million people in Buryatia, so even if 3 out of 5 in each family were wounded and killed and the whole province rose up, Moscow doesn't care that much. 10,000 casualties out of one of the big cities would have a lot more effect on their power base than 100,000 spread out in the rural areas. With the talk of them changing the draft age from 18-27 to 21-30, if you look at the demographics of Russia there are about twice as many 30 year olds than 18 year olds. So the change allows them to grab out of a larger portion of the population. Kinda stupid though as the average 30 year old is going to possess a lot more skills and be more valuable to your society and economy than the average 18 year old. So that should further compound their internal problems. Plus it is taking husbands and fathers out so you open up resistance from not just mothers but wives and children as well. It seems that the only gun that Russia won't run out of ammo for is the one they are using to shoot themselves in the foot with.

Ok, time for me to be the bad guy. I don't care if "a little bit of pot" for "medicinal use" is normalized in your country. If it is illegal in the country you are visiting you are in the stupid category for possessing it. Especially if that country is one like Russia that will throw you into a hard labor camp for 15 years for your "medicine". You have the choice, you make the choice, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. There is a huge difference between being kidnapped and arrested. If you didn't break any laws then you were kidnapped. If you did, you were arrested. Saying that these people were kidnapped when they were actually arrested for violating the laws of their host country takes away from those that are actually kidnapped when visiting foreign countries. Words matter. Afterall, there are a whole bunch of foreign nationals held in western prisons for crimes they have committed and they do not fall under the "kidnapped" category. I'm all for the US Gov doing everything they can to free it's kidnapped citizens around the world including direct military intervention against terrorist groups that use it as a means to fund themselves. The humanist in me says they should do what they can within reason to secure the release of a pot smoker sentenced to 15 years of hard labor as the punishment doesn't fit the crime to my soft western mentality. More of a human rights or cruel and unusual punishment issue to me.

I'm totally with you and agree that this is a way out for Putin. However, it would also fit in with Russia and their constant say one thing and do another. They have gone on forever how the decadent westerners are weak and pathetic, a bunch of woke homosexuals, couldn't fight themselves out of a wet paper bag, etc and then use these same people as the big bad boogeymen that beat them. Yep, it would totally make sense in Russian from what I've seen the past few months.

With the tanks used for indirect fire; with the awesome stabilization ability for shooting on the move, could that be translated to shoot indirect fires accurately on the move? That would render the enemy's contemporary counter battery completely ineffective. Earlier in the thread a couple references were made to how naval forces had to totally rethink their operations due to the change in the nature of the battlespace on water with long range strike ability. Would there be any theories from our blue water friends that would translate over so there is limited re-inventing of the wheel?

I definitely see AirPower facing a similar situation where this war has some lessons learned that need to be paid some serious attention. It looks like the helicopter is in about the same position as the vehicle when it comes to survivability near the FEBA. The longer range more lethal manpads pretty much spell the end of the tree top level CAS. The conventional air war will have to move up to a minimum ceiling around 20,000+feet for the planes to mitigate risk. It seems to be a common thread across almost all platforms that the lethal ranges are dramatically increasing. The new SIG rifle with Vortex optics is supposed to allow the regular foot soldier to reliably engage targets at 800m. Javelin type ATGMs that fire and forget on targets out to 4km. Manpads with 20,000 ft ceilings. Indirect fires at 80+km. If both sides have these sorts of ranges with good ISR the FEBA is now 100+km wide? It is hard to wrap my mind around that big of a battlespace. I think that AirPower probably has an advantage when referring to packaging lethal energy, if you have an air force. The ground based systems have definitely acted like a poor man's air force and do have advantages. A country probably needs to make a choice between fielding a large and capable air force or don't bother and focus on air space denial and ground based long range PGM fires. If you go the air force route you need to solve for SEAD/DEAD, period. Russia has proved that without that effective capability you have simply wasted a lot of money on an ineffective tool. If you can solve for that and gain air superiority your air based platforms have the advantage of being based out of indirect fire range and can haul a lot of packaged lethal energy PGMs. Probably the most economical route for future is light and land based. How the problem is approached and solved will probably depend a lot on the budget the solvers have to work with.

The issue with ISR as that we really have only seen the tip of the iceberg. We are still using pretty large expensive platforms; however, as the internet of things and "everything is a sensor", along with battlefield ISR nets, swarms and whatever they come up - all plugged into ever-increasing processing power, and whatever AI turns into - the "eyes everywhere" battle is going to become just about unavoidable: the death of surprise. We will not be able to fully blind an opponent and as such our options are going to compress. As you note - going into a war with ISR parity is bad news and things are getting more symmetric as technology gets smarter, smaller and cheaper. I do not think heavy is dead at all. I do think it will 1) become re-purposed - e.g. tanks in the indirect fire role, matter of time until someone figures out a PGM indirect fire tank round, and/or 2) more specialized and saved for critical moments in operations - modern version of storm troops if you will. If anything is truly screwed I think it might be medium. As visible as heavy without the survivability. I think we are looking at a force rebalance, away from a heavy core with outer cordon of medium and a sprinkling of light. Heavy will be held back like the cave troll in LOTR, medium is likely going to hybridize towards light, and light will take on more prominence - IF the trends from this war remain consistent. There is a problem with anti-mass/corrosive warfare/denial warfare - it is slow. We are talking about fast precision attrition, but it is still slower than manoeuvre tempo-wise. It is very effective against dumb mass, we have seen this in this war several times now. But what happens when two dispersed forces meet each other - fog eating fog? We are likely going to see long drawn out affairs until one side gains enough advantage and then thing will go quick. Slow is not good and costs a lot, but in the emerging environment I am not sure what else will work. So long as we keep our heads up, eyes out and do not let the weight of military culture and pressure from industry drag us down there is opportunity to re-define modern warfare on our terms. I would much rather have the Chinese or whoever playing catchup to us than the other way around. Having the best picture of your opponents ISR will be the big question to answer going forward. As their capabilities will determine your options. I think that almost everyone will have the tactical level drones in varying numbers and capabilities moving forward but not that many will have the high altitude and space based eyes that can give real time reliable targeting info. Of course it is getting cheaper to get the space based recon with the private assets for rent nowadays so there may be more countries with it than we think. I like your vision for heavies. It was a few weeks ago that it was posted on here where a UA tank scored a tank kill using indirect fire. So if the infantry has the ability to kill any vehicle at ranges up to 4km then the heavies need to stay more than 4 km from the FEBA. Like you said, using PGMs and indirect fire to support the light forces and take out identified targets while staying on the move and alive. I wonder if it is smart to ever commit them. However a breach is made (fog eating snow attrition through a line maybe) is it a good idea to throw the heavies through in order to wreak havoc? I think there still has to be times for speed of action even though the vast majority of the time it will probably be slow attrition. Would the corrosive warfare always be slow though? Again, the UA is missing pieces and also does not have enough of the pieces they have. Up to maybe 24 HIMARs now? If you had several Bn's of tubes, rockets and then air power in the mix with the western numbers I'd think the speed would be faster than what we are seeing. Same pattern of slow then fast, just a more compressed timetable. Maybe air power will be even more key now as the ISR isn't as much of an issue for them.

This one right here is what I am not sure of. So let’s take this war and transplant it to a fictional country but the Opposition are backed and supported by China. Chinese ISR and smart weaponry, unmanned…the whole she bang. We play our A-game and do Gulf War part deux all heavy and electrified. So first things I like to think we would establish operational conditions but in a decade that is going to get harder and harder as counters to a lot of our systems continue to develop…because China. I'm with you, but I was talking about this conflict in particular. The UA without western ISR, support and smart weapons didn't stand a chance against a western invasion and probably still could have held the RA but I'm not so sure. The ISR to me is the number one thing that allowed the UA to keep the RA in check. If we move to the transplanted future war you reference: With you again. If you can't deny the enemy their big eye ISR your mass, maneuver and surprise are in trouble. Especially if yours is less capable than the enemy's. Like in the current war, pretty sure the RA ISR for the big picture is lacking in comparison to the west and it really shows in the deep strike abilities to find and hit important targets. In the future war you will have to mask somehow, disperse greatly or defeat theirs. In a proxy war it poses the same conundrum we have at present for Russia. They are being killed by the ISR but they can't take it out without going to war with a much more dangerous foe. So going forward to the next war the number one priority should be figuring out the solution to this. Dan's thermal defeating chameleon ponchos and vehicle skins would be great but not sure where those are in the timeline. Fighting in an environment with ISR parity to western abilities, especially in a proxy setting where taking out the other side's isn't possible, becomes a much more dangerous game. Your diffused mass theory is probably the only way to go to be able to keep losses down and yet be able to hit with the heavies when and where needed. Otherwise it is just a game of who kills the other side faster with long range stuff. Or the other option of going much, much lighter and dispersed. Relying on the fog eating snow or basically light mobile forces relying on heavy supporting fires from long range. Absolutely. We need to figure out how to gain the low altitude air supremacy and counter the swarms, etc. One of the big things coming out of this for the future wars and we need to be ready. No argument there. Yep. If they have the good ISR your heavies need to be moving or out of range. Even dispersed really isn't a defense, they just need to rotate the launcher a bit before firing the next missile. ISR kills. This means your no man's land just got a lot wider too. Javelins are hell on armor, but they also work really good on bunkers, buildings, even infantry in the open. Back to if you can see it (ISR), you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can kill it. In the future as these and similar systems become more ubiquitous even the dispersed light forces are going to have to figure out how to operate and survive against them. I'd say that Fallujah is a pretty good example of modern urban assault from western forces. Ugly and brutal for sure. The unmanned thrown into it would definitely make it even worse. Mostly from the low level ISR provided but also from HE or similar type stuff. Takes us back to needing to find the counter for drones as that will be added to the prerequisites of starting the assault without taking unacceptable losses. Agreed. The biggest place we need more is definitely infantry. All the way from the front line to the rear areas you are going to need lots of them for your fog in the front and the security of the rear. I still don't think we should throw away the heavy formations, I just think that they aren't going to be a spearhead in the future war you lay out. They will come into play after everything else is shaped for the determined assaults on hard points or countering enemy mass. Like you are saying though, a shift from contemporary thinking and application. I think I said way back in this thread that everyone needs to think twice, reassess, and then think again before they wage an offensive war against any substantial adversary from here on out. I also said that nations really need to look at what they need. If they will definitely only be fighting a defensive war then the Finnish model is probably the best example out there. If they feel they are going to need to occupy a neighbor or two they will definitely need to think about a different and much bigger force structure. I agree with the vast majority of what you have said, especially with the we need to be smart and research all the possibilities to death. Definitely think there needs to be expansion of light forces as well. However I don't think heavy forces are dead or that they should be dismissed. I think it all depends on the war you are fighting. I'd much rather try to stop the North Korean Army with a few heavy ABCTs than a Task Force Smith.

Great post as always, thanks. I'd say that we have some good lessons learned and takeaways from this war, but I don't think I agree that mass is dead or we need to totally change the western way of war based upon the last ten months. I think the best parallel here is the Russo-Finnish War in 39. The Germans should have looked at that war and came to the same conclusions, that mass and armor don't work and a new way of war should be devised. The same thing in both of these wars. It wasn't that the mass was wrong, the armor incapable or concept of combined arms was dead. It was crappy soldiers led by crappy officers executing a crappy plan against excellent soldiers led by excellent officers fighting for their very existence. We are wargamers, so let's wargame. Take a NATO coalition and drop it in this war from the beginning on either side in comparable numbers to what was there on day one. If in the place of the UA we'd all be talking about the dominance of our heavy brigades as they wiped the floor with the RA and ended the war in a week with massive losses to Russia. Just imagine the 1st Cav Div fighting north of Kyiv and the highways of death that would have ensued. If in the place of the RA the UA would have been wrecked before the heavies even engaged them, the military formations would have been defeated and the country taken in a couple weeks. The insurgency would be in full swing and NATO would have wished they had never invaded, but the straight up military conflict would have been very one sided. The other thing that we have pointed out a lot on this board is that the size of the forces did not match the size of the operational goals. The RA was spread way too thin along a very long front. If the RA was five times bigger (and had even semi competent leadership and soldiers) would this campaign play out differently? If your answer is yes, then mass still matters. Personally I think it would have. If each axis of attack had 250,000 RA I don't think the UA would have been able to withstand it. I'm sure the UA would have fought valiantly and inflicted considerable losses, but in the end they wouldn't have been able to hold. So from a western perspective, what have we learned or should we learn from this war? C4ISR is king. You have to have it and you have to counter your enemy's. This is the deadliest thing to your surprise, maneuver and mass. PGMs kill. Arty, MRLS and missiles that miss their targets are a waste of time, money and effort. A very large percentage of your ordinance needs to be one shot - one kill. The old tactic of saturation used by the RA is exponentially less effective and very wasteful. Range. Your ISR bubble has to extend beyond that of the enemy and you need to be able to kill them at a longer range than they can kill you. If you want to shut down their long range fires, logistics and command you need to be able to hit them accurately from a long way away. Air Superiority. If either side could gain and maintain air superiority this would be a different war. SEAD/DEAD is very important. Manpads are great but they don't help much against JDAMs from 30,000 feet. Drones. We need way more drones down to the squad level and we need to be able to counter drones effectively at all levels. This is truly a new dimension to the air superiority contest and needs to be addressed. Stockpiles. Ours are insufficient. This is a small war and munitions are being consumed at a rate that most western countries couldn't sustain. How would we expect to fight a big war with what we have? Size matters. Our militaries are too small. Sure, Chechnya doesn't stand a chance, but when we look at Ukraine and what it would take to seize and hold it even the US military is too small. Probably good enough for defense but how would we expect to fight and win against a large country? These would be my takeaways from this war. I think both sides are missing or don't have enough when it comes to different pieces of the combined arms spectrum and neither side has enough troops for the size of the battlefield yet; however I think the UA is on its way to getting there.

I used to say that meteorologist was the perfect job; it was the only place you could be consistently wrong and not get fired. Well, I guess I stand corrected and will add talk show military analyst to the list.....

This reminds me of a question I had thought of while driving the other day and forgot to post. Maybe @Haiduk or @Zeleban or others can give an educated response. It was always my understanding that the special forces were an integral part of the Russian army offensive plans. They were always more prodigious in the past and it was believed they would play a large role of infiltration and disruption to the rear areas of the west if the cold war went hot. Is this still part of the RA doctrine? If so, has there been any evidence of Spetsnaz raids or infiltration/disruption missions? I haven't seen anything on here other than it looking like they were being used as assault troops. Maybe it is another facet of the RA where the west thought they were more capable than they actually are?

Considering the conditions we see the RA living in I'm betting you'd get a lot more mileage out of the old standards of Cholera, Dysentery and Typhoid than Covid. We are more likely to see way more soldiers taken from the front by trenchfoot and frostbite than anything else. Covid to the 20 to 40 year olds will be just like influenza and other respiratory infections at the front; rampant, inconvenient and sucks but not killing them or taking them out of the fight in large numbers.

Well Dan, I'm an Old Testament guy, eye for an eye and all of that, so I'm with you. Not when it comes to the terroristic civilian attacks (and I don't think you are advocating for that either), but for the infrastructure targets I say fair is fair. Love to see Ukraine to be able to hit them tit for tat when they are targeting power plants and such. Might be just what the doctor ordered to make it stop.

We really don't have the hard data needed to make an assessment. Probably never will. It makes sense that the RA thought that they would have a quick victory and therefore didn't destroy a lot of infrastructure in the beginning. Then like you say we would think that they would have realized somewhere after April or so that the three day plan was out the window and they were looking at a longer war. We would think that this would change their targeting priorities and we would see transportation and communication infrastructure being targeted heavily. Why not? First, they still thought somehow they were going to pull off a quick win? They might not be the dumbest general staff on the face of the earth but they better hope that one doesn't die or they will be, but I really doubt a couple months into this debacle they still thought this war would be quick and easy. They were concerned for the welfare of the innocent Ukrainian public? Most evidence points to this not being on their decision board so not likely either. It wasn't possible with the weapons they have? The most probable reason. If we look at the evidence we do have their PGM's are pretty much not PGM's. GM's maybe, but probably fall into the category of M's for the most part. Examples: They shoot at a factory complex and hit a mall. They drop 4 bombs trying to hit an ISLAND and missed with 3. They have fired hundreds of missiles at Ukraine's 20 something power plants and they are still producing power. Sure, there has been damage, but the same number of western munitions and there wouldn't be a transformer left in a substation in any rural end of the line transmission grid in Ukraine. About the only thing we have seen them hit on the railroads is some of the stations when they were packed with civilians. Could they even hit a bridge if they tried? I don't know the formula but if their missiles have a CEP of a couple hundred meters how many would it take to hit a 7m wide rail bridge at a choke point? Do the Russians know that even though they have proclaimed the superiority of their weapons to the west that their weapons are not capable? Therefore they don't want to shoot dozens of their vaunted cruise missiles at a target that would a) show the west their true levels of accuracy and precision and b) show their own people their true levels of accuracy and precision? If they miss a power plant and hit an apartment building the nats and public shrug it off as whatever bull the government tells them. If they missed a bridge with a dozen missiles it would be hard to explain. I'm going to vote that they would love to but they know they can't pull it off with their air or missile forces and keep up the lie they have told themselves, their people and the world at large. Therefore they have to go after really big targets to have any chance of success.

Yup, Stalingrad also comes to mind. From Kremlin side perception and emotions may overrule military needs and frame set of victory conditions on its own. To put it in banal Dungeons and Dragons terms- remember Putin upbringing, he is Thief/Ilussionist, not Warrior or Paladin. So if he will be able to protract whole withdrawal for enough time and cause enough disconcern/boredoom/gloom on Western and Ukrainian side, he will feel as winner. Or at least not a looser. I hope Ukrianians will not fall for this and remain focused on cautious/minimalist gains. Militarly Russian "Galipolli" scenario is not desired by Ukraine, but on other foot may be preferable to other outcomes because of humanitarian and political reasons. Really devilish bargain. About the dam I mean Kakhovka. Of course potentially damaged by "Ukraonazi terrorist". There is also Nuclear Plant near by, hundreds of thousands of potential hostages, and so on. Putin has still plenty of cards in his sleeve, a piece of cake if somebody is not afraid to play them. Empathy is weakness in Tsar's world. I agree that they are probably thinking of a Stalingrad or Mariupol for a rallying cry for their military and civilians, but the big differing factor that they are again miscalculating is the micro-social aspect (see, weez lernd nu werds). The will of the people is not with them and personally I'd much rather be attacking a city where the people were on my side than trying to defend one where all the civilians would rather see you dead. This harkens back to the ISR supremacy and trying to fight when everyone in the city is telling the UA where you are, what you have and how many of you are there. I can't imagine that the UA would try to shock and awe Kherson or storm it with mounds of bodies like a Russian attack. If they do move on it, it will be fog eating snow urban style. The Russians on the other hand, I agree with Kraze here, will smash the city with everything they can throw at it no matter what. A better plan would be to clear everything else on that side of the river down to the bridge on the outskirts of Kherson before doing anything about the city. Good chance that whatever forces the RA tries to defend Kherson with will melt away or surrender once that last lifeline is gone. Letting them sweat and think about their situation as the rest of the bank is cleared gives them lots of opportunities to go elsewhere. This is where the micro-social of the military members comes in too. In addition, like others have said, it is doubtful that the RA will garrison Kherson with their best troops knowing they will be lost, my money is chmobiks. If they were defending Moscow they might fight for all they were worth to the end no matter what, but Kherson isn't Russian and they know it. If the RA leaves anything to defend Kherson, especially if they intend to pound it to dust like some of us believe, that actually plays well for the UA. If the UA clears all but Kherson on that side of the river, moves their long range guns up and pounds anything of value on the far side of the river (AA, arty and logistics attempts) that is way more costly for the RA than the chmobiks defending the city. It will be interesting to see how their withdrawal works out. The right way would be for their best units to cover with rear guard actions and try to get as much across as possible. Since they will probably try to save their best units, once they are across I expect to see the "withdrawal" speed up exponentially as the lower tier units start deciding to try to survive either in small groups or whole units.

I'm not thinking it'll be T90s and top of the line gear. They have been moving a lot of old gear so I'm thinking they can empty their storage for one big push. Yes, it will be ugly, but it is possible. When it comes to dumb mass the old stuff fills the billets just fine. Especially since, as has been noted here, not all the UA units and areas of the front are equipped with lots of high end gear. A cold war style attack by a cold war era equipped force against a non top tier unit would work. My bet is that they have enough "stuff" left from storage and repairs to do it once. After that, unless they get China or India to sell them a bunch of equipment they are done offensively at anything approaching large scale.

I agree. Russia's greatest hope of coming out of this with anything is for western support to fail. With that being said they have to stay in the fight until the support fails. There will be a combination of freezing the lines and continued attacks. They have to keep attacking for their internal consumption, even the small village here and there portrayed as a win for the public. That explains their continued assaults on basically useless objectives at great cost for little gain. The army has to show the politicians it is trying and the politicians have to show the public some sort of positive gain. There has been a lot of talk of how mass is dead, but I agree it has worked for the RA in this sense with arty. I think that dumb mass will still work on the battlefield but we really haven't seen it used at scale. Instead we have seen mass of fires without mass of forces to follow it up. The RA has tried to fight smart and technical but they lacked the force structure, technology, training, discipline and leadership to do so. Their system is broken for the smart type of cutting edge combined arms warfare we think they should be doing (like western armies). Their hybrid system of the old massed fires and new BTG is beyond their ability to use, control and fight like it should be able to on paper. It is just beyond their abilities, period. What isn't and what I think we will see in the winter is dumb mass. The RA could do dumb mass but they haven't had the mass that they need to succeed. We haven't seen it yet in this war where a thousand guns pound the front while 500 tanks smash the defenders and 10,000 infantry follow through the breach. That is the Russian way of war and it would still work. Casualties would be immense with today's firepower but it would still punch a hole. The RA didn't have the manpower to do this in the beginning because they spread themselves so thin and they still don't have enough, but with the chmobiks they just might. If Putin and the Kremlin are all in on the superiority of the Russian and look to their history as much as we think they do then them counting on the fresh Siberian divisions (chmobiks) breaking the fascists (UA) in a winter campaign is not unlikely. Expect this sort of attack from the south into the Donetsk region this winter. There are already reports of lots of troops staging in Mariupol with train loads of tanks and guns coming in. Will this be a stunning Russian victory and end the war? Nope. Even if it is halfway successful and requires the UA to pull back and give up something like Bahkmut (sp?) it will be a political win for the Kremlin, no matter the cost in men and material. Any kind of Russian success feeds the naysayers in the west and mangles up the support. They need a win to save face and start negotiations and the butcher's bill won't matter. I certainly could be wrong but personally I'll be very surprised if Russia doesn't try to do something like this during a winter campaign. It is about their only option that I can see for them.