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Most of these things fall within Russia's known doctrine. The daily advancement rate of the convoy is right at their by-the-book limit - it just takes time to a
by syntheweave 5y ago
Most of these things fall within Russia's known doctrine. The daily advancement rate of the convoy is right at their by-the-book limit - it just takes time to advance an operation on the ground, and this is why airfields were targeted early on in a bid to accelerate deployment; media reports of a "slow" advance are just unrealistic analysis.
This goes for other questions about the campaign. As a large conscript force still basically using the Soviet model, weak troops are often thrown into the fire early on to soften opposition. Likewise, reliance on artillery is a byproduct of the air force being stretched thin and not reinvesting in new equipment: air dominance and precision bombing missions are expensive, and Russia's military primarily focuses on maintaining its own sovereignty, thus most of the allocation is towards a defensive air war with support provided by ground-based rockets and shelling.
However, there are severe challenges still to be reckoned with, which support the idea of Russia remaining on the back foot. The reports of abandoned vehicles, disorganized troops and stretched supplies hold some credence; again, as a conscript army it's harder to pursue delegation of responsibility like a professional force. You are getting relatively less out of more troops simply due to lack of coordination. As well, Ukraine has a smaller force but has been spurred to rearm with the assistance of foreign aid and equipment since the 2014 invasion, getting access to some of the best technologies and training of NATO forces. So Ukraine has some significant battlefield advantages, and with the cutoffs to supply chains on Russia's end, from my viewpoint, while a Russian victory could still occur if they rout the forces in major cities, a slow, protracted conflict will definitely end in Russian defeat at significant cost to civilians. The next weeks will be critical.
- esperent 5y ago> Most of these things fall within Russia's known doctrine That is statement begging for a source. Do you have one? What is Russia's "known doctrine"?
- Khaine 5y agoI do. War on the Rocks had an article about Russian Logistics[1] which mentions that: "The Russian army does not have enough trucks to meet its logistic requirement more than 90 miles beyond supply dumps. To reach a 180-mile range, the Russian army would have to double truck allocation to 400 trucks for each of the material-technical support brigades." Task and Purpose has been doing some videos on the war in Ukraine, and they use that article to evaluate Russia's progress against those supply limitations[2], and basically it all lines up that Russian progress has been constrained by supply, and that the current pause is likely because of the next actions they will take[3]. [1] https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/ https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKFSK_9e-g4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKFSK_9e-g4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5BAZ2bBUzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5BAZ2bBUzM
- jollybean 5y agoIt's not. They tried to take Hostomel and airports SE and SW of Kyiva and failed. They were going for fast strikes. The failed to get the other airports (tried to land a cargo plane and it was destroyed) - thought they go to Hostomel it was only by landing literally 100 assault helicopters with 1000 soldiers. That is literally 1/2 of their entire rotary fleet for a single, risky operation. Since then, they've been mauled over and over around the airport and have actually made negative or neutral progress for 5 days. So it remains to be seen if the balance of force can move in one direction or the other, I really wish the West would do more to make it more decisive. In the meantime, the USA can pay $100-200K (i.e. per javelin/stinger/mlaw etc.) to have a large chunk of Russian Amour sent to the dustbin with not much risk, that's not such a bad deal at all.
- ncmncm 5y agoThat is a hell of a lot to pay to blow up just one obsolete tank.
- jollybean 5y agoIt's cheap. It's costs nearly a million dollars to train, prepare and support a lowly US soldier. Then multiply that by the fact every fighter has 5 admins somewhere in the chain backing him up i.e. commanders, support, communications, intelligence etc.. Especially given that it is basically 'riskless' i.e. no US soldiers will die. $4B to wipe out the Russian Army? Deal of the Century.
- ncmncm 5y agoThey can always make more.
- jollybean 5y agoThe Russians can't make more gear in a short period of time, and it comes at great cost. Remember one armoured unit has support, training, soldiers as well. In the 'long game' of attrition warfare, the West would actually win, that is actually the State Dept. Assessment - that Russia 'wins' in Ukraine but is ground down over 15-20 years and eventually loses. Meanwhile, the US and West have more advanced, much more wealthy economies, and can send relatively cheap weapons to help grind Russia down. Frankly, if we could have a 'super weapon' it would be something that allows something resembling 'real' information into Russia so at very least regular Russians can see a bit of reality.