Twisk

I think a decent question is what is Ukraine's manpower? Last I read they had more men ready to take a role than they had roles to give. If Ukraine has more slack in their system then this idea of expendable force for maybe one big attack seems not so bad. Send extra men to train on these tanks and they will fight one or two operation before losing their capabilities. But is use of Ukraine system that wouldn't be utilized otherwise. And so far it is clear that Russia is no longer capable of regaining territory lost to Ukraine. But at same time I think Capt. makes very good points about what if Ukraine lacks slack in the system? If these systems add more weight than Ukraine can sustain then it is a bad idea and is better give them something that does not break the back of their combat system. ------------------------ So far this winter I think the Ukraine strategy has become more clear though. Unless I have missed something Ukraine has made no large attack. So focus seems to be on exhausting Russian system through precision strike/raid/taking hits (Soledar is lost but Russian cost must be high). Then once system is fully exhausted make a strike that takes advantage of that exhaustion.

I think no one has posted this. Article about nuclear weapons from POV of not ensuring Ukraine wins. Russia is using nuclear threat as a shield to strike Ukraine with relative impunity and forcing the fight to only occur in the bounds of invaded territory. So victory of any sort will validate strategy of bully nation using nuclear not as deterrence from attack but as shield from intervention. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/russias-invasion-ukraine-war-nuclear-weapon-nato/672727/

I just disagree with this notion of political leadership. Every X number of years sets of politicians will be voted in on certain platforms and the people are entrusting them with the responsibilities of leadership. They shouldn't be beholden to whatever 50+1% of people want or even what 60% or 75% of people want at any instant. What they need to do though is prove, during the next election, that their decisions were correct. Simply put it might be that an unpopular position will turn out to be the correct only in retrospect so a politician must be a leader and not just a representative. Capable of making choices that are correct regardless of their popularity but then being able to prove that their decision was corrrect during the next election.

Re politics: Politicial leader need to pay attention to polls (in a Democracy) but they aren't beholden to them and can drag the population along in some situations. If I am recalling my history correct Roosevelt was ahead of the U.S. population about participation in WW2 which stood the United States in good stead once the war came to its shores. Politicians are elected to lead after all.

Is an untrained mobik worth less than a trained Ukrainian soldier or does it just mean that Ukraine has enough slack in the system to spend time training their troops? My understanding is that Russia has a demographic problem (old population, lack of young people, men in particular die younger) so the starting point is probably fewer fighting age men than you might expect for the population of its size. Then consider that the Kremlin officially acknowledged 700,000 men fleeing the country of course the article points out that men are now coming back into the country but lets say 1/3rd is permanently gone. So effectively the draft induced 200,000 "casualties" to the Russian manpower system. Mark Milley says Russia (as of Nov.) suffered greater than 100,000 combat casualties. Combine those and we have 300,000 Russian "casualties". I'm not sure where a reasonable breaking point is for the Russian system. Of course the Ukrainian system too must be considered but my gut feeling is that these mobiks aren't "free manpower". This may just be the Russian repeating the summer of profligate artillery usage only to find out that there was in fact a bottom to their bottomless well. Edit: given the corruption of the Russian State I wonder if there is not an insignificant number of men who are untouchables for whatever reason? They know someone or are inducted into a private military force. I have not followed but the Chechens had a force running around Ukraine making a lot of noise but doing little actual fighting. So while these men are nominally under arms they were in effect out of the fight. being reserved as the palace guard for top Chechen political actors. So Russian men removed from the combat induction system may be greater than suspected.

Re: Heavier equipement to Ukraine One of the obvious benefits of giving Ukraine W. IFVs or tanks (although I think lighter IFV is better). Is superiority of thermals. Sure Ukraine has many BMP-1,2 and many Soviet style tanks but if CM can teach only one lesson is that thermals are king and western thermals are the best. I think better argument is that Ukraine doesn't need heavier western equipment but does need western thermals. Replace guntruck in video with western MRAP with thermal CROW and that is big advantage. Re: Ukraine being static We saw maybe 9 month ago in this area (before Ukraine won Karhkov and Kherson) Ukraine suffer pushback in area of Donbass without reaction. We remember time when Russia "breakthrough" a TDF unit and gained few KM? Everyone was in big panic but reality was that it was not so critical. Again Russia can attack and gain few KM at Bahkmut and fighting is very bloody. But Ukraine is killing Russians in the open and able to husband resources for bigger moves later while Russia expends a lot of energy for little gain. Like contextually we are literally talking about great russian victories of capturing a salt mine? This is like Stalingrad where Germans have big victory of capturing grain elevator even though front runs for 3,000 kilometer.

RE: Airpower If I'm not mistaken both Ukraine and Russia operate under an air power assumption of denying airspace to the (peer) enemy. This is the opposite of the western concept of airpower where you don't have AAA and instead rule the air. The U.S. focuses a lot on wild weasel attacks on enemy AAA and itself has little AAA, for example. So neither force is suited to gaining air superiority because their priors assumed that they ought to be focused on denying it to the enemy. Looking into the war specifically Russia has the missiles but lacks the targeting data to hit AAA that would grant them superiority while Ukraine has the data but lacks the missiles. The result being that traditional airpower is sidelined and cheaper drones are being used.

I believe this counts U.S. civilian deaths from Japanese internment but yes. Ukraine's east is likely to be both financial and population denuded (refugees, people caught under Russian occupation, people killed by Russians, etc...). But if the war continues for another 3 months or another 12 that is going to remain true so those losses are built in. The war ending sooner will allow those areas currently in the conflict zone to begin their recovery but it seems that most of the wars "optional" casualties are being drawn from unoccupied Ukraine. Assuming Ukraine has lost U.S. WW2 equivalent KIA already of 130.000 over the last ~12 months they could sustain the same loss rate for nearly another 24 months before hitting the British WW2 equivalent KIA. I'm unfamiliar with British post-war culture but I suspect they are still far and away from the devastation that Italy, Germany, and the USSR experienced where 1% and greater losses were realized.

Talking of sacrifice I did a quick comparison of WW2 against Ukraine's current population deaths (hopefully my math is good). Country of comparison | equivalent Ukrainian losses to match - U.S. | 131.200 KIA - U.K. | 385.400 KIA All countries below this lost great than 1% - Italy| 4.551.00 KIA - Ger. | 3.378.400 KIA - USSR | 5.330.000 KIA ======== Then using the death reports from Wiki and taking the highest reported for civilian and military. Ukraine has lost 46.000 people. These numbers are likely inaccurate but if we increase it by 1/2 69.000. If this loss rate continues for the next year Ukraine will be at 140.000 which is equivalent to the U.S. losses during WW2 of .5%

Any sort of sanctions will have holes but I think its important to remember that having to find a loop hole is usually less efficient than if the items could be bought in the clear. It sort of strikes me as saying that the strategic bombing of Germany did nothing because German tank production increased year over year despite it. Yet ignoring that production would be even higher without the bombing. I'm sure Russia is able to get a good amount of supplies through loop holes but its almost certainly at a higher cost/lower rate than if they could just get them on the market free and clear.

I don't think that it cannot be talked about here. I actually think the discussion here is usually very valuable. But over the last fews days I've seen the discussion start to get needlessly personal and that doesn't benefit anyone.

True and I think some topic drift is fine but this isn't just topic drift. Its topic drift with a helping of petty sniping and people getting way too personal about this. There is an interesting discussion about Leopard tanks but this isn't just a discussion about tanks but also an undercurrent that people here are somehow personally responsible for the actions of nation-states. User's aren't waving the Budapest memorandum in the faces of national leaders and users here aren't personally stopping Ukraine from taking control of a vast fleet of modern armor.

I do want to remind everyone that opinions in this thread are not determining whether Ukraine gets more or less support. Unless half the forum members are actually prime ministers and presidents and have kept mum about that for all these years. The discussion about what countries are/are not doing should be a whole lot more detached for that reason. No one here is pulling any strings and regardless of what we say this forum isn't changing the facts on the ground. So maybe we should all step back from this sniping and recalibrate the discussion.

It seems to me that the best support for Ukraine is continued ISR support and precision weapons. Do you need a tank when you can drop a PGM on them? More and better drones and more and better PGM. Re: ATACMs I think there are significant portions of occupied Ukraine which cannot currently be hit. They would offer a chance for Ukraine to make the danger zone the entirety of occupied Ukraine. (I believe the M14 highway is out of range for example).

I think this forum has a good handle on technical, tactical, and strategical discussion of events in the battlespace. But these discussions of NATO, Article 5, no fly zones, world politics, nuclear weapons, and so are usually weak and come to people just making gut feelings or wishes of events. I think it would be good to step back from edge and think with a more sedate mindset about what might happen now. Or better to keep larger focus on this groups strengths

Men in their 50s would have had conscription service still in the Red Army. I do not know Ukrainian decision making but if mobilizing for war maybe older man who had served period of conscription is better than younger man who has not. (also) most video content is not from prime combat units.

Not to put a too fine a point on it but you are replying to MikeyD 30+ hours and 5 pages later to further derail the thread. If you care about derailment ignoring posts is better than replying. To put in perspective you went back 100 comments just so you could make this comment.

Interesting article over recovered Russian documents https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-russia-base/?utm_source=reddit.com

I guess that Russia has modern equipment sitting around. I get feeling that Russia is both fighting desperately in Ukraine using whatever scraps that can be found but also fighting with a hand tied behind their back. War of choice and they will retain some amount of key combat equipment in RUssia proper for "imperial guard" troops at least. I was surprised to see 3rd army (forget name exactly) be supplied with BMP-3 for this reason.

It is impressive size of Russian production. Also important that Russia has larger surplus than United States. Almost double surplus to trade. Gives good idea of shortfalls that can happen. If I am understanding nordstream 1 is destroyed so all or most natural gas flow to Europe from Russia is now ended? German consumption alone is nearly all U.S. surplus!

"hit opening"

Yes it looks that much of the frontline is sparsely populated. Much less combat density than in your average combat mission. I also don't see much evidence of Russian using their ATGM and i do not know if this is because of lack of supply or lack of video. But if enemy primary counter is artillery fire then even light armor will be good. Wouldn't U.S. industry need to produce enough for both internal consumption and external consumption becuase of the free market? U.S. field production for June (all types) is 533,000 (in thousands of barrels) but then exports 300,000. February U.S. exports 50,000 fewer barrels (all types). I think this show problem possible due to Russian violence in Ukraine as markets become unstable and must cope with high intensity war. Others have said but providing Ukraine with best means to end war seems like best way to return markets to stability. Issue will become worse over winter so it is important that Ukraine has battlefield success to show world.

Yesterday and the day before there has been a lot of talk about how far will Ukraine attack. I want to state out that I don't think that Ukraine will reach its 1991 borders militarily. However, I also think that its likely that Ukraine will enter the DPR/LPR. My core reasoning for this is that the DPR/LPR have "fuzzy borders" and represent a significant amount of frontage. So what do I mean by "fuzzy borders"? Unlike Crimea, LPR/DPR are areas with wide contiguous borders with Ukraine. So crossing them somewhere and grabbing a farm would be easy and hard for Russia to declare off limits. Would Russia go nuclear over the loss of Ivan's wheat farm? No. Well then what about going nuclear over a one horse town? likely not. And you can see how it becomes hard for Russia to red line these areas. But more importantly I think the reason is frontage. I did a quick mockup Assuming Russia loses everything west of the Dnipr and North of Luhansk you end up with the black lines representing static fronts if Ukraine doesn't enter LPR/DPR (and assuming they cannot bounce the Dnipr). By ruling out the "Republics" Ukraine is cutting Russian frontage from over 375 kilometers to less than half that, and essentially doing a huge favor for the Russian's given their increasingly limited military capability. I believe Ukraine has the military means to push through this shorter front, but why would you give your enemy a choke point of your own creation? Now obviously this doesn't necessarily mean that Ukraine pushes all the way through the LPR to the Russian border but I think it gives weight to the idea that the LPR/DPR territory isn't going to be avoided. By pushing into this terrain they more than double the amount of distance Russia needs to seriously consider defending. edit: I also have been meaning to mention Crimea's situation gives the opportunity for the Russian's to use a nuclear strike in a non-direct way. If Ukraine begins to push across Perekop and the Russian's airburst a tactical nuke over the Sea of Azov it would very likely stop the attack without Russia suffering much in the way of consequences.

There are risk escalation moments. - Retaking LPR/DPR - Retaking Crimea - post-war settling of populations - post-war rebuilding LPR and DPR are the least risky both because their forces are already engaged, Ukraine can boil the frog, and its unlikely that western electoral populations will become engaged. This means that LPR/DPR cannot make Ukraine's life significantly harder, they can "cross the red line" in a way that doesn't create a reaction (will Russia nuke Ukraine for capturing a pig farm in LPR? Will Western supporters say "No! Return that pig farm!"?), and Ukraine can exercise its preference without Western support being withdrawn or damaged. Retaking Crimea is far more risky. It is militarily more difficult. There is a clear red line (Perekop). Russia has a stronger claim to it. I suspect more Russians feel that it is "Mother Russia" than LPR/DPR so this means more special interests in Russia will want to work together to defend it. For example, LPR/DPR has hardcore nationalist and its own government. Crimea has hardcore nationalist, military, perhaps oligarchs who own land or have wealth tied up in the area, etc... This will bring in more Western opinion and pressure (both government and electoral) and the West can use rebuilding as a stick to halt Ukraine. To sum up Crimea: - Very clear red line - More parties in Russia lay claim to it - Militarily more expensive to retake (even Warlordism might find Crimea being a tough nut to crack) - Easier for West to also declare red line or see red line Post-war population measures seems low risk as long as Ukraine does not screw up too much. Even intentional resettlement of populations can probably be done with good documentaries on Russian crimes in Bucha and Izyum. West will shrug and it seems to me that LPR/DPR will be in state closer to Germany in 1945 with most iits men fought out and exhausted. Less likely to lead insurgency and more likely to be done with war and glad that there is no longer threat of bombings and death of loved ones. post-war rebuilding this seems like stick West can use to control Ukraine to some degree. Big risk here seems to be war lasting past 2024 and new U.S. government being less friendly to Ukraine or electoral unhappiness at large size of funding. Biggest seems to me is that Western voters bulk at the price. With how Russia has done so far I suspect that they don't have a good hold on what they can/cannot handle and are overshooting their mark. Maybe they were expecting a lot of loss through corruption/draft dodging? They also might be reading current Ukrainian offensives as largely exhausted and trying to backfill as mush as possible by the time of the winter freeze and renewed large attacks.

It does but 1. Neither party is making non-support a pillar of their platform. So voters aren't being brought into a decision point on it and don't seem to naturally care. 2. Because of the election cadence voters need to care around elections so the next 2 months or in 2 years. 3. The Democratic party is full on hawk mode and the balance of the Republican party is pro-support. Anti-Ukraine Republicans are rare and look to be doing iffy politically. Even if they do well wouldn't have enough clout to stop support through 2024 Essentially the Ukrainians are guaranteed support without electoral interference for at least 3 more fighting seasons (winter '22-'23, summer '23, winter '23-'24). So willpower for support is going to be centered in the halls of power rather than main street for some time. Western electoral support will likely follow government support until something drastic happens and not before. Essentially Ukraine would need to run into a Yalu River moment for the western electorate to bulk but at that point its already happened.