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"make sense to use them in a conventional manner" When you run out of cruise missiles you might switch to ballistic missiles. I don't know about the state of R

"make sense to use them in a conventional manner" When you run out of cruise missiles you might switch to ballistic missiles. I don't know about the state of Russian missiles, but looking at storage sites Russia seems to run out of quite a lot of equipment [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/@CovertCabal/videos https://www.youtube.com/@CovertCabal/videos

paganel 2y ago
> run out of quite a lot of equipment [0]. Come on, we're all grown-ups here, let's stop the charade like we're back in March or April of 2022. I'm too lazy to even link to all the Western magazine covers telling us how Russia has run out of a lot of stuff during the last two and a half years.
- KingOfCoders 2y ago
  The facts speak for themselves.
  - paganel 2y ago
    You’re correct on that.
    - myrmidon 2y ago
      I believe you are mostly arguing against a strawman (or highly editorialized, i.e. misleading headlines). It would be beyond naive to assume that Russia would just announce "we're out of tanks, gonna call of the war now!". That is not how supply shortages affect a military. What you instead expect to see is that the use of scarce weapon platforms and ammunition types becomes rarer, and that militarily undesirable compromises and alternatives have to be made and found (which is more costly, less effective or both). Instead of taking massive ground in a tank offensive, the military might be forced into slowly advancing trenches and artillery; long-range guided shells might be reserved for high value targets only (instead of being blanket fired at every somewhat promising target in range). You would expect to see significantly older and less effective equipment, instead of more modern variants, more conservative use of bombardment, etc. These are all things that can actually be observed! But they don't mean that Russia is going to lose, obviously-- this is just going to make continuing the offense more and more difficult, expensive and less effective. You do not need to take my word for this, and you don't even need to keep up with lengthy OSINT reports and analysis to track this yourself, just consider the following: There has been significant use of Iranian drones and ammunition and lately even North Korean conscripts. I find it very hard to believe that Russian leadership pursued this as a desirable choice-- rather, it seems the exact kind of necessary alternative/compromise that you are forced into when you can not properly supply the war effort on your own (just like how the Ukraine was from day 1 forced into relying on western systems). This is especially glaring because Russia is a proud exporter of both weapons and mercenaries-- having to fall back on foreign stuff is just a bad look here.
      - paganel 2y ago
        > It would be beyond naive to assume that Russia would just announce "we're out of tanks, gonna call of the war now!". That is not how supply shortages affect a military. The West has been repeating the mantra of "the Russians are out of [insert Russian weapon here]" for two and a half years now, but objectively judging by what happens on the field (which is the main thing that counts during the phase of active war) that is demonstrably false. Unless you think the Russians are winning this war (which they are) with shovels. Other than that I'm sure that the Germans themselves must have thought that the Soviets didn't have enough tanks to pass the Vistula or the Oder back in the day, not after Kursk.
        aguaviva 2y ago
        And yet - we have the fact that (unlike that other war you are making a false analogy to) at their current rates of "winning" it will take them literally decades to reach Kyiv. Which is suggestive of some form of difficulties with supply and materiel.
        ossobuco 2y ago
        > at their current rates of "winning" it will take them literally decades to reach Kyiv. This is a war of attrition. The progress is not linear, and it's not about how much territory is held by each side. The defender holds the line until it collapses because they've exhausted manpower and weapons. We've seen the first signs in the past few months, and that's why Ukraine invaded Kursk. They knew very well that simply holding the line was a lost cause for them, due to attrition. The question was never "How long will it take for Russia to get to Kiev", but "How long can Ukraine hold the line before it's out of steam".
        aguaviva 2y ago
        The defender holds the line until it collapses because they've exhausted manpower and weapons. Or the aggressor gives up because the cost is simply too high, and the whole thing was completely optional for them to begin with, anyway. As all colonial powers do eventually.

paganel 2y ago

> run out of quite a lot of equipment [0]. Come on, we're all grown-ups here, let's stop the charade like we're back in March or April of 2022. I'm too lazy to even link to all the Western magazine covers telling us how Russia has run out of a lot of stuff during the last two and a half years.

KingOfCoders 2y ago
The facts speak for themselves.
- paganel 2y ago
  You’re correct on that.
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    I believe you are mostly arguing against a strawman (or highly editorialized, i.e. misleading headlines). It would be beyond naive to assume that Russia would just announce "we're out of tanks, gonna call of the war now!". That is not how supply shortages affect a military. What you instead expect to see is that the use of scarce weapon platforms and ammunition types becomes rarer, and that militarily undesirable compromises and alternatives have to be made and found (which is more costly, less effective or both). Instead of taking massive ground in a tank offensive, the military might be forced into slowly advancing trenches and artillery; long-range guided shells might be reserved for high value targets only (instead of being blanket fired at every somewhat promising target in range). You would expect to see significantly older and less effective equipment, instead of more modern variants, more conservative use of bombardment, etc. These are all things that can actually be observed! But they don't mean that Russia is going to lose, obviously-- this is just going to make continuing the offense more and more difficult, expensive and less effective. You do not need to take my word for this, and you don't even need to keep up with lengthy OSINT reports and analysis to track this yourself, just consider the following: There has been significant use of Iranian drones and ammunition and lately even North Korean conscripts. I find it very hard to believe that Russian leadership pursued this as a desirable choice-- rather, it seems the exact kind of necessary alternative/compromise that you are forced into when you can not properly supply the war effort on your own (just like how the Ukraine was from day 1 forced into relying on western systems). This is especially glaring because Russia is a proud exporter of both weapons and mercenaries-- having to fall back on foreign stuff is just a bad look here.
    - paganel 2y ago
      > It would be beyond naive to assume that Russia would just announce "we're out of tanks, gonna call of the war now!". That is not how supply shortages affect a military. The West has been repeating the mantra of "the Russians are out of [insert Russian weapon here]" for two and a half years now, but objectively judging by what happens on the field (which is the main thing that counts during the phase of active war) that is demonstrably false. Unless you think the Russians are winning this war (which they are) with shovels. Other than that I'm sure that the Germans themselves must have thought that the Soviets didn't have enough tanks to pass the Vistula or the Oder back in the day, not after Kursk.
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        And yet - we have the fact that (unlike that other war you are making a false analogy to) at their current rates of "winning" it will take them literally decades to reach Kyiv. Which is suggestive of some form of difficulties with supply and materiel.
        ossobuco 2y ago
        > at their current rates of "winning" it will take them literally decades to reach Kyiv. This is a war of attrition. The progress is not linear, and it's not about how much territory is held by each side. The defender holds the line until it collapses because they've exhausted manpower and weapons. We've seen the first signs in the past few months, and that's why Ukraine invaded Kursk. They knew very well that simply holding the line was a lost cause for them, due to attrition. The question was never "How long will it take for Russia to get to Kiev", but "How long can Ukraine hold the line before it's out of steam".
        aguaviva 2y ago
        The defender holds the line until it collapses because they've exhausted manpower and weapons. Or the aggressor gives up because the cost is simply too high, and the whole thing was completely optional for them to begin with, anyway. As all colonial powers do eventually.