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Fundamentally this is a thread about the Russo-Ukraine war that is (unsurprisingly) pro-Ukrainian. So the U.S. political party that refused to bring aid to a vote is going to catch the most flak here. And like yea AOC might be destructive to some process but she isn't destructive to getting Ukraine the materials the country needs to fight the Russian invasion. The House vote tally was overwhelming for aid so why wasn't there a vote on the aid 6 months ago? Like I don't want to talk about gun rights, or schools, or abortion, or any number of other U.S. hot button topics. But I've been sitting here for ~6 months watching as one particular party refused to allow Ukraine what it needs. And frankly I'm not an unbiased observer about this and its one of the reasons I stepped away from the thread for a while. Its hard to come in here to hear and see bad news about the war and then be non-partisan about the partisan politics that are getting Ukrainians killed. Like if you trawl this thread you will see video evidence on nearly every page of real soldiers and civilians who died needlessly for some partisan BS.

Yea and I think that is the natural tension between Putin and Russia. For Putin this is an existential war but for Russia its not and there is tension in that. Its why Putin is able to burn strategic and long term assets but can't mobilize Russia into a total war footing. Putin is Russia and Russia is Putin in many ways but not all the ways. And we also have that tension in our own discussions here to an extent.

All hardware is made to be used but certain equipment is so costly that losing it will impact military power for years and years afterwards. I think it matters a lot if the war is existential or not and my impression is that this war isn't for Russia. Like its one thing for the U.S. to lose a third of its aircraft fighting the Soviet Union in a Cold War gone hot scenario but its an entirely different thing if the U.S. lost a third of its aircraft invading Grenada. A different way to think about it is the opportunity cost. What is Russia trading these aircraft for and are they going to lose the ability to interact with their near-abroad in ways that matters to them in the future because of it?

What I've picked up is that they can't admit that the Ukrainian "Untermenschen" have the capability to do this so the next best thing is to blame their own AD. I also sorta suspect its the nature of the authoritarian system. You can blame the AD network all day and no one is going to come out swinging about incompetency unless they want to see the inside of a prison and possibly find themselves on the next train to the western front. However, by crediting Ukraine you are creating a situation where people might start taking actions driven by fear.

Doing a quick search there appears to be a Russian air base about 20-30 miles (20-50km) away. I'm not that familiar with aircraft but the airfield does point towards Kanveskaya. Getting into Tom Clancy territory but the plane regularly makes an approach to land along the same route. A Ukrainian team places themselves along that route with some sort of AA system. https://www.google.com/maps/place/46°03'33.2"N+38°13'50.5"E/@46.0595425,38.2250318,2082m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d46.059209!4d38.230697?entry=ttu edit: there are a few other airbases that are farther away. But that could explain the low height. Aircraft preparing to land and routinely lands at the same airport and roughly the same time. If you know the specs of the plane along with this information you could identify points along the route where an ambush would be feasible. https://www.google.com/maps/place/44°57'42.1"N+37°59'50.6"E/@44.9704883,37.9776557,15043m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m7!1m2!2m1!1sairfield!3m3!8m2!3d44.961681!4d37.997397?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/44°57'42.1"N+37°59'50.6"E/@44.9704883,37.9776557,15043m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m7!1m2!2m1!1sairfield!3m3!8m2!3d44.961681!4d37.997397?entry=ttu

I'd argue that a lot of the "wunderwaffe" to some extent were had they been provided/training began Immediately and that has colored a lot of public opinion about them. The talk about X always has a lead time, and by the time it actually arrives the situation has changed. When western tanks were originally being talked about in public drone warfare more or less didn't exist outside a few clips of consumer drones dropping frag grenades. Essentially public expectation is set in October of 2022 but the actual on the ground impact isn't felt until June 2023. Well its been more than 6 months and its a whole new war.

I would expect to see more Russian crowing about a large success but I've not seen much. Overall taking Avdiivka has been oddly muted. This could be just the experience of riflemen on the front who will have had the worse experience even if the overall statistical experience hasn't been bad? @fireship4 thank you for the PDF. For some reason it did not give me the opportunity to download it

Edit: Holien is correct. I'll take this to PM

Comparing immediate loss rates seems to matter in the sense of force generation rather than national will. Ukrainian loss rates are favorable but that could be devastating if they aren't generating new combat power. And vice versa. High Russian loss rates are obviously sustainable from a "total population" metric. But might not be in a force generation sense. It might also have negative impacts on future operations as they continue to chew through "experienced" troops and especially leaders. Overall I feel like we've lost track of force generation rates. So its hard to determine just how bad losses are for either force. When it comes to long term national sustainment I've been using 1% pre-war population as the marker for when manpower exhausting might become a reality. Just doing a quick look at major wars through the 20th century 1% isn't unusual. Russia: 1,471,821 Total KIA estimates I can find are roughly 120 to 150k. Ukraine: 414,426 Total KIA estimates I can find are roughly 70k to 100k So roughly 2:1 KIA rates but again if 1% KIA is the "break point" for a major war both forces could sustain their current loss rates up into 2026 or possibly 2027. So I don't think the war is going to end because either force has been "killed out" in the sense that they've run out of manpower. I would also say it may be worthwhile to not circle round a single poster and beat them with opposing viewpoints. If 5 good posts aren't convincing 15 likely won't be either and it tends to clog up the discussion based on person's posts.

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/27/1226170192/russia-ukraine-war-nepal-soldiers-killed Pritam apparently worked for U.S. forces in Afghanistan before the pullout.

I do think this thread and tends to underestimate how important AFVs are and especially IFVs. Yes, they are more easily seen on the modern battlefield and a lot of systems can kill them. However, western IFVs have way better crew survival rates. Ukrainian soldiers have repeatedly made comments to that effect. They seem critical in keeping the friendly frontline supplied and manned. They also seem critical in making attacks and raids on the near enemy frontline. And when they do have the opportunity to fire on the enemy they can often be devastating. I guess I've seen this thread drift increasingly against IFVs because of their inability to be used operationally in an effective manner but it seems to me that the result is missing the day-to-day tactical benefits of having access to them. They are not going to drastically change the operational/strategic situation but my sense is that they matter quite a bit for the average Ukrainian squad. And for Ukraine preserving manpower seems absolutely critical so if ~200 BFVs get supplied and burnt up to save some lives ~ even if it doesn't move the operational needle. That is important. To reframe this a bit I think some of the discussion mixes up what would be useful in Ukraine's situation and spending priorities in western military industrial complexes. Operationally it looks like AFVs aren't making the big moves they used to, and that matters a lot if you are the U.S. military looking forward to the next 5-10 years. However, for Ukraine these vehicles exist today and provide a service even though they aren't the big movers they used to be. If I were to make a wishlist to Uncle Same for Ukraine it would be: 1. Long range PGMs (MLRS and so on) 2. short range PGMs (kamikaze drones and such) 3. Give everyone a Bradley 4. anything else edit: @TheCaptain i guess cause we've talked about this a few times. Double edit trying to clean this up because I feel like my post is sort of messily organized.

Having seen a number of ATV attacks it strikes me as a little interesting that there doesn't seem to be any attempt to field modify these to be safer. I guess the platform is small but I would think that you'd see some attempts at attaching metal scraps to block fragments. Not saying that it would be an effective counter but field modification to gain a perceived benefit seem like something soldiers would attempt to do.

This is always tricky to figure out. Germany was able to increase its AFV production year over year up until the Soviets were literally in Germany despite the largest strategic bombing campaign in human history. But in all likelihood Germany would have had even better production numbers if they were left to their own devices. Countries, when moving to a war footing, can often scrape out far more production than peacetime even if that production is hard. The question really isn't about production increasing but what cap has been placed by the sanctions. If Russia can make ~300 widgets per month now the removal of sanctions might mean that they could produce ~500 widgets per month. In either case its going to be an increase from the ~150 widgets being produced in 2020.

I'm not sure how the loudness and heat signature matter particularly. - Its loud So are tanks, artillery, aircraft, minefields, and infantry if they get into a fight - heat signature I highly doubt they are going to be A2A missiled and if you have IR setup you are going to pick up tanks, aircraft, and a fair amount of infantry already. Given the range of roughly 3 miles you'd be looking at something like this. Jump jets land in the purple area with traditional ground infantry following behind. So not grabbing a huge amount of terrain. There might be some areas of the front that are particularly denuded of infantry but it feels like investment in kamikaze drones to just kill everyone in the blue circle (and repeat) would be more effective.

As long as the war remains an expeditionary one by Russia we can continue falling back to killing more Russians. Reading anything by Ukrainian troops the big take away I get from Western armor/IFVs are critical because they edge the attrition rate in Ukraine's favor bit by bit. A BMP-1 gets hit and the entire crew is lossed while a Bradley being hit is often just the vehicle being damaged. But looking at Krynky we can see how Ukrainian superiority in drones can pay dividends and that might be the the most reasonable option for the west. Produce more and better kamikaze drones that allow Ukraine to increase the gray zone and make maintaining the frontline increasingly costly for the Russians. Combine this with Ukrainian bite and hold infantry tactics and supplies of PGMs and Ukraine could be in a situation to out attrition Russian troops. Especially at the far edges of occupied Ukraine. An article on sanctions that is interesting. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/russia-economic-sanctions-putin/676253/ For everyone's benefit here is the ignore page https://community.battlefront.com/ignore/

While this thread is generally off the rails recently your whole post is just absolutely weird. So you just clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks and adios

The Russian army is quite large so there might be some undue extrapolation from this video. if 95% of the Russian artillery arm is crap they could probably still scrap together a few good batteries and perhaps give them some sort of mandate to hunt high value targets. Like this clip tells us that Russia has one battery that is linked up to a drone and able to bring fast fires. But it doesn't tell us about the rest of the Russian Army.

My expectation isn't that a predictable trickle will break the deadlock but that a predictable trickle on top of these packets would give Ukraine a somewhat rational way of making decisions with their equipment that they lack right now. They received ~100 some BFVs in January of this year. If you extend that rate out they would have +55 BFVs today backfilling losses over 50% and guaranteeing that some of these units trained on the damned vehicles would be able to apply that training and experience on the same vehicles.

In a literal sense its not spring cleaning but the deliveries are coming in stops and starts and, as you said ad-hoc fashion. I generally don't buy that its political unfeasible. You don't need an "Arsenal of Democracy" for there to be benefits of regular deliveries. The U.S. has delivered 31 Abrams and I think 100 BFVs. Which is good but if the U.S. then said "you will receive ~3 Abrams and ~5 BFVs per month for two years" you create a guarantee for Ukrainian planning and consumption without breaking the bank or reserve. They have 100 BFVs and since July or whatever they would have received ~25 and that isn't huge numbers but its a known number.

Part of the problem with western equipment is that the supply has been in penny packets. I suspect Ukraine could do a lot if they were guaranteed a certain flow of equipment per month/per year. Tanks, IFVs, eventually F16s, artillery, drones, going all the way down to artillery shells. How does Ukraine plan for 2024 when they might have 0, 10, or 100 of something? How do they utilize what they have now and properly allocate it if they don't know when new will arrive? Ukraine is fighting an actual peer war and western aid is being treated like spring cleaning. "Oh we will deliver this to the donation center when we have time"

Mine rollers themselves can only take so many hits. A mine plow is what you would want to use and like Cap said you need a lot of power to drive those. But the obvious issue is that if you are trying to clear a lane and lose the easily killed vehicle you've now blocked your lane and need to extend it. Done often enough and any "cleared lanes" are actually just a series of wrecked vehicles blocking your way. Extending your thought though it may be useful to design autonomous or remote controlled mine plow vehicles that sit fairly low to the ground and are specifically designed to just clear mines. Removing the need for crew is safer for people obviously but you would also be able to reduce its size and optimize it for survivability in a way a tank can't be. Since a tank's design is inherently one of a combat vehicle. Edit: I think the discussion of water filled rums and other examples are being too imaginative.

I wouldn't expect them to dramatically change the outcome (in a direct way) but from what I've seen Western tanks and historically tank crews have lower loss rates than infantry. We've also only ever seen Ukraine make breach attempts under the duress of limited armor replacements. So I would be interested in seeing what they would decide to do if they had a guaranteed feed of replacement armor. Even if they only made it as far as they currently did but the losses were heavy lopsided in favor of tanks over infantry that would likely be a better deal for Ukraine. There might be benefit to Ukraine of having excess armor to throw around. Fighting for Robotyne, expanding the breach to the flanks, exploiting areas between breaches. That might lead to the breach formations having more infantry strength to then continue breaching operations and keep up pressure on the Russian line. I guess the question I have is how much is the Ukrainian reliance on small groups of infantry a result of armor not working as opposed to armor not working well enough given their severely limited replacement ability. We've not seen a Ukrainian force operate armor under an environment where they are sure they can get more tanks to replace what is lost.

I often wonder what Ukraine's summer offensive would have looked like had the U.S. had given them ~60 Abrams in time to be used along with a guarantee of another ~60 this winter. Essentially Ukraine found its armor pushes to be not worth the cost but part of that cost is that, I think, they are barely keeping their head above water when it comes to equipment. So they can't burn 100 tanks to gain some terrain. If they did that they'd very quickly outstrip their ability to get replacement vehicles. But a constant surefire stream of new equipment creates a situation where Ukraine can expend their equipment with the guarantee that they won't be left in the lurch. Whereas all of these donatives results in a starvation diet for Ukraine where they have 31 Abrams and if two get knocked out they now have 29 and will have 29 for the foreseeable future. Obviously from a procurement standpoint tanks need a rethink or a solution. Because relatively cheap kamikaze drones can knock them out. However, the wasted expense on the production level is different than their actual utility. Tanks are still something to be reckoned with and a lot of tanks add up. Ukraine having the capability of throwing two tank battalions towards Tokmak might result in two destroyed tank battalions but from a Ukrainian perspective thats okay as long as they damage Russian defenses and can be replaced.

Yes, I wasn't clear. The thread has been using old notions of frozen conflicts to define this new one. Given that the defense is arguably in power, Ukraine seems to see this as an extenstial threat, AND they can deep strike against Russian assets why wouldn't this new frozen conflict result in a "medium war"? A small number of infantry on a largely static frontline with precision strikes into the enemy depths.

When talking about a "frozen conflict" why does that also need to be a low violence conflict? WW1 and WW2 were "existential" and lasted for 4 and 6-4 years respectively with many millions dead. The conflict could freeze as is with a positional conflict across Eastern Ukraine. Just without the Ukrainian Army making major assaults. A Ukraine that did not engage in an offensive this summer could reasonable handle an avdiivka or Bahkmut. While still slamming Russian critical assets with long range precision fires and raids.