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Botched indeed, the visual losses for Russia alone are staggering. Give it another couple more weeks with losses like they have no now in their tank force alone

• sharken 5y ago
  Another point is that Ukraine might now have enough weapons to destroy all Russian tanks, planes and helicopters operating in Ukraine. But even though things look hopeful, there really is no countermove to Putin bombing every major Ukrainian city. So it looks like a stalemate unless Putin successfully conquers Donbas, at which point he might negotiate some kind of peace. But with heavy vehicles such as tanks starting to arrive for the Ukrainians, a quick resolution to the invasion seems a long way off.
  • _kbh_ 5y ago
    Theres anecdotal evidence that Russia is also running out of missiles, which would make it a lot harder to bomb the Ukrainian cities into rubble, not that they aren't doing that already anyway.
    • sharken 5y ago
      That would be very good news if true. It also looks like Russia will have to spend Dollars from sale of gas and oil on debt payments. If that happens it will be even harder to manufacture more missiles.
      • tim333 5y ago
        Amusingly it seems they can't make cruise missiles because the engines are made in Ukraine.
  • tim333 5y ago
    >there really is no countermove to Putin bombing every major Ukrainian city So far shooting down the planes works. (eg see https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/03/29/the-russian-air-force-is-losing-its-best-jets-over-ukraine/?sh=1cead0942d5f https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/03/29/the-russian... )
• ddaalluu2 5y ago
  You know that Russian tanks are throwaway tanks. Low quality, cheap and fast production, built to abandon.
  • _kbh_ 5y ago
    They are more like steel coffins than anything else in Ukraine. Due to storing ammo around the turret, a single direct hit and can make a Russian tank cook off all of its shells and both destroy the tank and kill everyone inside. And even if they are build to abandon, they only have so many of them, Russia has reportedly already burnt through ~33% of the tanks that they have committed to Ukraine.
  • nicbou 5y ago
    Are the tank crews lost with the vehicles? Those are not nearly as throwaway.
    • sliken 5y ago
      Generally pretty often, frequently the hit from a NLAW or Javelin from above triggers the ammo, which then blows the top off, and kills everyone inside. The ammo forms a ring around the turret, and once the ammo goes off it often flings the turret off the tank. The Russian tanks are smaller and use 3 people, and an autoloader. But the ammo is stored in the crew compartment. The American M1 abrams is larger, has a human as a loader, and has a separate compartment with blow out panels so the ammo can cook off and the crew could survive. I've no data on that survival rate, but presumably it's much higher than the Russian tanks.
      • nicbou 5y ago
        Semi-related but it's interesting to read about the Merkava and its design philosophy, because crew preservation is the number one priority.
  • mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Russia equipped real soldiers with throwaway tanks and not surprisingly made throwaway soldiers. This is having a profound emotional impact on villages already reeling before the war from the lack of young men to start families (due to rampant alcoholism and suicide). This conflict alone will result in 1 million fewer people in two generations as it stands, and this number will only grow as Putin tries to save face.
• maratc 5y ago
  In the Winter War, there were about 70,000 total casualties for Finland and about 350,000 casualties for the Soviets, or roughly 1:5. However, Finland lost 9% of its territory and had to relocate 12% of its population as a result of that war. Losses is not everything that counts.
  • _kbh_ 5y ago
    Russia is not the Soviet Union, and it's no longer the 1940's. If the Russians lose a significant amount of tanks and troops, the country will face serious issues in Ukraine. Not to mention they are incapable of currently replacing the tanks, and even if they could they only make about 100 hundred a year. Most of the tanks they have where built during the Soviet Union era and where just progressively upgraded. Finland ceded territory because they where losing the war, Ukraine does not at least yet seem to be losing the war.
    • maratc 5y ago
      You're assuming Russians will just keep on as they are as if nothing happens. But it's not guaranteed. What if they repurpose a plant or two to making the cheapest tanks possible, let's say T-34? What if they call a general draft?
      • _kbh_ 5y ago
        If I was asked to jump into a T-34 against modern ATGM's I would revolt more then the tankers already are. A T-34 would be next to unless in Ukraine, and would just be a death sentence, a T-34 probably isn't even worth fielding against the more modern armour and ATGM's that are in Ukraine. Not to mention that Russia likely doesn't have any tank groups trained on the T-34 so they would need to spend time doing that as well. If Russia calls a general draft they are beyond desperate, their actual contract army is already doing incredibly poorly in Ukraine, called up conscripts would do even worse. Its worth keeping in mind that Russia still needs to defend the rest of its territory whilst invading Ukraine, they are incredibly paranoid about NATO and if Finland/Sweden join NATO they will need to deploy more troops to that border to try look like a real super power again.
• ekianjo 5y ago
  > the visual losses for Russia alone are staggering You realize you are also being fed Propaganda?
  • _kbh_ 5y ago
    What is propaganda about literal images of each individual destroyed / captured Russian tank?. I would probably take 'official' numbers from a lot of sources with a large grain of salt, but these numbers easily serve as good effective lower bound on losses. You cant really get much more verified then an image of a Russian tank blown to bits on a road.
    • E4YomzYIN5YEBKe 5y ago
      Ukraine uses the same equipment. How can you know whether they were Russian or Ukranian tanks that were destroyed? You could also take pictures of the same destroyed tank from different angles and claim more tanks were destroyed.
      • _kbh_ 5y ago
        The people who do the visual analysis of the losses put a lot of effort into making sure they don’t count duplicates. The tanks despite being the same have some differences between them because they have been upgraded with differently. Russia also fields different variants then Ukraine. You can also generally tell from the markings on the side of the tank who it belongs to. A large number of the confirmed tank loses are likely from videos of the two forces attacking each other which makes identification quite easy.
    • Sammi 5y ago
      Confirmed visual sightings are bound to undershoot the real number by a lot.
• BaRRaKID 5y ago
  An interesting thing in those numbers is that Ukraine captured more Russian vehicles than the ones that they lost. So Russian is in a way making the Ukrainian army bigger.