He's prone to hyperbole, but the nuts and bolts will be true. The Iran Saudi stuff is already reported in the media, He's a military strategist, so he looks at that in the context of the bigger picture. I hope he is wildly wrong.
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
He's prone to hyperbole, but the nuts and bolts will be true. The Iran Saudi stuff is already reported in the media, He's a military strategist, so he looks at that in the context of the bigger picture. I hope he is wildly wrong.
Littlejimmy
Well-known member
Well what a lovely way to spend a Fridau night.
Sorry. I know.
I can tell it's the weekend. This is a less gloomy and less speculative update.
"Well... Ukraine and the US have formulated their answer to Russia.
It was almost as short.
Obviously nothing below is a secret, it is sort of out there.
I am just putting it together in a more succinct form.
Well, that would be Zelenskyy banging his head against the wall.
The reason is that he was told about the three intelligence scenarios that the US are operating from.
The first one is that Russia will pull out after being mangled. Then Russia will continue by sending missiles and drones into Ukraine.
If that happens Ukraine will be given the go ahead to invade Russia. Obviously most large wars like this ends with the capital of the attackers being occupied. Ukraine obviously right now do not have that capacity. If needed and all else fails this could be given to Ukraine.
So far Zelenskyy's head remained firmly off the wall. He is very well aware of the risk of a continuation war.
The next one is that Russia falls into internal struggle and start to fall apart while Dondon Kadyrov and the Wagner Group fight it out with the army and the security forces.
At that point there will be only one army large enough to quash it and secure the nuclear weapons from a bunch of splinter state as well as stop Dondon and Prigozhin from getting their hands on nukes.
At this point his head was firmly in his hands and loud groans was emanated.
The third one is the China option.
Being told that not going in to defend Russia against China is not an option was what set off the head banging.
He was told that if China happens, he will have to pay back all the help given by helping Russia whack Chinese.
The only thing stopping him from pure Sepuku was the promise that he would then ride in with a NATO army since Russia would obviously not use nukes against NATO at that point...
Kherson
It is now clear that Surovikin left 30 000 Mobiks in Kherson and withdrew his good troops, obviously with the exception of the self-styled King of Znihorivka.
The ones on the Northwestern side seems to fight.
The ones on the Southwestern side seems more ambivalent. They are defending their supply lifeline from the northern parts of Kherson city quite vigorously, but those who are inside the City seems to not want to do anything. I guess those 5000 are a version of the Campniks. But instead of camping in the woods, they are camping in abandoned apartments, basements and other available spaces.
Right now the Ukrainians are leaving them be, and mainly stay out of Kherson City with the exception of force recon units. If they are not attacked in a few days the Ukrainians will probably try to entice them to come out with promise of Shawarma and cigarretes, that seems to do wonder with making Russians come out of hiding holes.
A few days without food and cigarettes and I would probably go out and give up. Ukrainian shawarma is after all awesome, it is far better than any other I have had.
Bakhmut
Prigozhin and Dondon Ramzan got on a conference call with Surovikin who promised that he would arrange fire support from the regular army artillery units near Bakhmut.
A lot of Wagnerites and Khadyrovites met their makers after a series of unfortunate accidents in acquiring the specified targets.
The Ukrainians was amased at the sudden precission with which the Russians could miss their targets.
This turned Bakhmut into a threeway battle where one side is sitting down eating Borstj waiting to see who will emerge from the intra-russkie melée.
After all, never interfere when your enemy is doing something particularly stupid.
US
One line item in the new arms package caught my attention big time.
40 Armoured River Boats.
If I was Surovikin I would be very worried about that. There are so many interesting things that Ukraine can do with those that my head is spinning.
Invade the hapless Transnistrians and grab all of those artillery pieces. Not the likeliest of options, but deffo on the table. After all the bulk of all Russian shells are in a warehouse in Transnistria. How much? 20 million or so of 122 and 152mm grenades.
Go up the Dnipro River and cause havoc. Probably to risky until they control the Western side of the river.
Go down the Dnipro River. More likely, it would give Ukraine a lot of opportunities to do all sort of nasty surprise operations. All the way down to Nova Kakhovka, perhaps even follow the Canal down towards Crimea (risky).
My favourite is though to go to the root of the Kinburn Spit and Pokrov'ske during the night from Ukrainian held Ochakiv. It is about 5 nautical miles and could be done in under 10 minutes. If they use half of their new boats that would be 200 men every 30 minutes or so. Add a couple of barges chugging in with heavier equipment and you would have a force in place that can't be dislodged. It would just take a single night.
Or just raid the place hard, then pull back, well knowing that Surovikin would have to put at least 5000 men there to stop you from returning.
Somewhere in Ukraine
And somehow in the middle of the war Ukraine has built a factory to make 122mm and 152mm artillery grenades. At the moment they can only churn out a couple of hundred per day, but god only knows how they achieved this. Making artillery shells requires furnaces and smelting operations, plus heavy machining...
I suspect that they got another part of that tank factory in Kharkiv up and running.
Leave bunches of mightily ***ed Babushkas up to their own devices and they will produce a miracle.
I had an easier time with them building tanks, they have after all done that the entire time since the Soviet empire fell, but they have not made artillery shells since 1991, no one ever believed that the world would need more of those.
Ukraine had 10s of millions of them after the Soviet Union collapsed. Sadly one third was in Crimea and has by now been lobbed at them.
Still nothing less than the Russian army would have required even more of them.
Every little shell helps. It will be more than the Russians can produce themselves.
I guess they will next start to resleave the barrels...
This war is starting to be more ridiculous by the day for the Russians."
"Well... Ukraine and the US have formulated their answer to Russia.
It was almost as short.
Obviously nothing below is a secret, it is sort of out there.
I am just putting it together in a more succinct form.
- Russia must leave all territory pre the 2013 invasion of Crimea.
- Russia must pay war reparations.
- Russia must hand over all war criminals to an international tribunal.
Well, that would be Zelenskyy banging his head against the wall.
The reason is that he was told about the three intelligence scenarios that the US are operating from.
The first one is that Russia will pull out after being mangled. Then Russia will continue by sending missiles and drones into Ukraine.
If that happens Ukraine will be given the go ahead to invade Russia. Obviously most large wars like this ends with the capital of the attackers being occupied. Ukraine obviously right now do not have that capacity. If needed and all else fails this could be given to Ukraine.
So far Zelenskyy's head remained firmly off the wall. He is very well aware of the risk of a continuation war.
The next one is that Russia falls into internal struggle and start to fall apart while Dondon Kadyrov and the Wagner Group fight it out with the army and the security forces.
At that point there will be only one army large enough to quash it and secure the nuclear weapons from a bunch of splinter state as well as stop Dondon and Prigozhin from getting their hands on nukes.
At this point his head was firmly in his hands and loud groans was emanated.
The third one is the China option.
Being told that not going in to defend Russia against China is not an option was what set off the head banging.
He was told that if China happens, he will have to pay back all the help given by helping Russia whack Chinese.
The only thing stopping him from pure Sepuku was the promise that he would then ride in with a NATO army since Russia would obviously not use nukes against NATO at that point...
Kherson
It is now clear that Surovikin left 30 000 Mobiks in Kherson and withdrew his good troops, obviously with the exception of the self-styled King of Znihorivka.
The ones on the Northwestern side seems to fight.
The ones on the Southwestern side seems more ambivalent. They are defending their supply lifeline from the northern parts of Kherson city quite vigorously, but those who are inside the City seems to not want to do anything. I guess those 5000 are a version of the Campniks. But instead of camping in the woods, they are camping in abandoned apartments, basements and other available spaces.
Right now the Ukrainians are leaving them be, and mainly stay out of Kherson City with the exception of force recon units. If they are not attacked in a few days the Ukrainians will probably try to entice them to come out with promise of Shawarma and cigarretes, that seems to do wonder with making Russians come out of hiding holes.
A few days without food and cigarettes and I would probably go out and give up. Ukrainian shawarma is after all awesome, it is far better than any other I have had.
Bakhmut
Prigozhin and Dondon Ramzan got on a conference call with Surovikin who promised that he would arrange fire support from the regular army artillery units near Bakhmut.
A lot of Wagnerites and Khadyrovites met their makers after a series of unfortunate accidents in acquiring the specified targets.
The Ukrainians was amased at the sudden precission with which the Russians could miss their targets.
This turned Bakhmut into a threeway battle where one side is sitting down eating Borstj waiting to see who will emerge from the intra-russkie melée.
After all, never interfere when your enemy is doing something particularly stupid.
US
One line item in the new arms package caught my attention big time.
40 Armoured River Boats.
If I was Surovikin I would be very worried about that. There are so many interesting things that Ukraine can do with those that my head is spinning.
Invade the hapless Transnistrians and grab all of those artillery pieces. Not the likeliest of options, but deffo on the table. After all the bulk of all Russian shells are in a warehouse in Transnistria. How much? 20 million or so of 122 and 152mm grenades.
Go up the Dnipro River and cause havoc. Probably to risky until they control the Western side of the river.
Go down the Dnipro River. More likely, it would give Ukraine a lot of opportunities to do all sort of nasty surprise operations. All the way down to Nova Kakhovka, perhaps even follow the Canal down towards Crimea (risky).
My favourite is though to go to the root of the Kinburn Spit and Pokrov'ske during the night from Ukrainian held Ochakiv. It is about 5 nautical miles and could be done in under 10 minutes. If they use half of their new boats that would be 200 men every 30 minutes or so. Add a couple of barges chugging in with heavier equipment and you would have a force in place that can't be dislodged. It would just take a single night.
Or just raid the place hard, then pull back, well knowing that Surovikin would have to put at least 5000 men there to stop you from returning.
Somewhere in Ukraine
And somehow in the middle of the war Ukraine has built a factory to make 122mm and 152mm artillery grenades. At the moment they can only churn out a couple of hundred per day, but god only knows how they achieved this. Making artillery shells requires furnaces and smelting operations, plus heavy machining...
I suspect that they got another part of that tank factory in Kharkiv up and running.
Leave bunches of mightily ***ed Babushkas up to their own devices and they will produce a miracle.
I had an easier time with them building tanks, they have after all done that the entire time since the Soviet empire fell, but they have not made artillery shells since 1991, no one ever believed that the world would need more of those.
Ukraine had 10s of millions of them after the Soviet Union collapsed. Sadly one third was in Crimea and has by now been lobbed at them.
Still nothing less than the Russian army would have required even more of them.
Every little shell helps. It will be more than the Russians can produce themselves.
I guess they will next start to resleave the barrels...
This war is starting to be more ridiculous by the day for the Russians."
DearChicago
Well-known member
A lot of this could change significantly if the Republicans take both houses next week. The support / funding from the West could look very different.
"
So, what do you do if you are Russia, and you have discovered that throwing wave after wave of starved, semi-unarmed, untrained, Russians against well trained, motivated and well-armed Ukrainian, does not work as intended?
Well, anyone with a set of brains would meander back home and hope that the angry Ukrainians do not follow you home to beat you up and steal your laundry machine.
But Russian leadership brains are far and few between, and the one brain they have is not that great to begin with.
So... the answer is that you do more of the same on an even grander scale.
Belgorod/Kursk
Russia is forming an army of approximately 100 000 mobiks there. Initially we thought this was to act as cushion in case Ukraine went on an attack into Russia.
But, satelite data and telephone intercepts gives a different picture.
Russia is aiming for another go at taking Kharkiv. It will obviously fare even worse than the previous two Battles of Kharkiv.
Same reports of lack of food, tents, weapons, ammunition, infighting... It will be a massacre.
Belarus
Lukashenka is not dumb enough to join Russia in the war, that is why Russia has stolen most of the Belarusian equipment and sent it to Bakhmut and Soledar, not that it helped the Russians much there.
So, Russia has formed another army of 100 000 Mobiks in Belarus and satelite imagery and mobile phone intercepts point a picture that is saying that they are gonna try a new attack on Kyiv.
Our previous judgement was that it was done to train them a bit, and tie down Ukrainian resources.
This time the Russians are more clever when attacking Kyiv, this time the soldiers will not have any equipment that they can lose or have blown up by the Ukrainians. Russian genius at work... And, to make the Ukrainians confused this army will come walking on the same road as they used previously, obviously after a healthy treck through Chernobyl.
The only difference here is that the Russians here are fed by the Belarusians, so they are not starving.
The Russians there have dubbed it the Borstj front, quite akin to the Germans who was in Denmark that dubbed it the cream-front in the Second World War.
So, what will be the effect of this?
Well, first of all, it will probably be the last effort, because by then one would assume that Russia has finally discovered that rock throwing starved hordes are not cutting it.
It will also be a horrendous massacre of the hapless Mobiks.
But, nobody is counting out the Russians being stupid as per usual.
Loss rate
At the beginning of the war Russia lost around 600-800 soldiers per day, 200 dead and the rest wounded.
As the fighting moved to the Donetsk region and the Ukrainians started their counter-offensives this number increased to around 1500, with 400 dead on average per day.
Obviously western technology came into play here too.
As the Mobiks arrived this figure steadily started to climb, and now it is an astounding 3000 per day with between 800 and 1000 dead. This is insanity however you look at it.
Since they are untrained and badly armed they do not stand a chance.
And at the same time the Ukrainians are ever better equipped with weapons, mobile Shawarma King kitchens, mobile laundry trucks... the works.
So, what will happen when Russia sends those two armies south towards the Ukrainian border?
A massacre, expect the number to add a digit into 10 000 per day with around 3000 dead.
All of those dead and wounded, and all they can realistically hope for is to gain a few kilometres against the Ukrainian reserve units and guard units.
Russia can obviously from a numbers perspective keep this up for years. If so we are talking about millions of dead and wounded Russians in a single year."
There's more but it's extrapolation from these numbers.
So, what do you do if you are Russia, and you have discovered that throwing wave after wave of starved, semi-unarmed, untrained, Russians against well trained, motivated and well-armed Ukrainian, does not work as intended?
Well, anyone with a set of brains would meander back home and hope that the angry Ukrainians do not follow you home to beat you up and steal your laundry machine.
But Russian leadership brains are far and few between, and the one brain they have is not that great to begin with.
So... the answer is that you do more of the same on an even grander scale.
Belgorod/Kursk
Russia is forming an army of approximately 100 000 mobiks there. Initially we thought this was to act as cushion in case Ukraine went on an attack into Russia.
But, satelite data and telephone intercepts gives a different picture.
Russia is aiming for another go at taking Kharkiv. It will obviously fare even worse than the previous two Battles of Kharkiv.
Same reports of lack of food, tents, weapons, ammunition, infighting... It will be a massacre.
Belarus
Lukashenka is not dumb enough to join Russia in the war, that is why Russia has stolen most of the Belarusian equipment and sent it to Bakhmut and Soledar, not that it helped the Russians much there.
So, Russia has formed another army of 100 000 Mobiks in Belarus and satelite imagery and mobile phone intercepts point a picture that is saying that they are gonna try a new attack on Kyiv.
Our previous judgement was that it was done to train them a bit, and tie down Ukrainian resources.
This time the Russians are more clever when attacking Kyiv, this time the soldiers will not have any equipment that they can lose or have blown up by the Ukrainians. Russian genius at work... And, to make the Ukrainians confused this army will come walking on the same road as they used previously, obviously after a healthy treck through Chernobyl.
The only difference here is that the Russians here are fed by the Belarusians, so they are not starving.
The Russians there have dubbed it the Borstj front, quite akin to the Germans who was in Denmark that dubbed it the cream-front in the Second World War.
So, what will be the effect of this?
Well, first of all, it will probably be the last effort, because by then one would assume that Russia has finally discovered that rock throwing starved hordes are not cutting it.
It will also be a horrendous massacre of the hapless Mobiks.
But, nobody is counting out the Russians being stupid as per usual.
Loss rate
At the beginning of the war Russia lost around 600-800 soldiers per day, 200 dead and the rest wounded.
As the fighting moved to the Donetsk region and the Ukrainians started their counter-offensives this number increased to around 1500, with 400 dead on average per day.
Obviously western technology came into play here too.
As the Mobiks arrived this figure steadily started to climb, and now it is an astounding 3000 per day with between 800 and 1000 dead. This is insanity however you look at it.
Since they are untrained and badly armed they do not stand a chance.
And at the same time the Ukrainians are ever better equipped with weapons, mobile Shawarma King kitchens, mobile laundry trucks... the works.
So, what will happen when Russia sends those two armies south towards the Ukrainian border?
A massacre, expect the number to add a digit into 10 000 per day with around 3000 dead.
All of those dead and wounded, and all they can realistically hope for is to gain a few kilometres against the Ukrainian reserve units and guard units.
Russia can obviously from a numbers perspective keep this up for years. If so we are talking about millions of dead and wounded Russians in a single year."
There's more but it's extrapolation from these numbers.
Konstantin on China
johnsmithsno2
Well-known member
Encouragingly, he had been wildly speculative about a few things, such as Putin being dead and his doubles being paraded for the media. But keep it coming!
They now know that he wasn't dead but really is extremely sick and probably dying of poisoning by radiactive isotopes. Our daily newspapers have since run the story that there are 3 Putin doubles. Military intelligence know that there are at least two (identified via facial recognition AI), AFAIK.
Futher to the above numbers, it has now been confirmed that the Russian army lost 16,000 troops in Bakhmut alone. More than in the entire Afghan war.
Jonny_Rondos_Disco_pants
Well-known member
The media are reporting the Russia and the USA are in negotiations, possible peace deal being brokered.
You heard it here first.
I think there is a long way to go, but it's a start.
There is a long post in my inbox which is basically a military strategist's assessment of why Russia has failed so miserably over the entire war. It has input from an airforce general (so that the relevant bits are accurate).
I'll put it up if folk are interested. I may be able to edit it down a bit first. It's v long and makes comparisons with previous wars.
TeaCider
Well-known member
Not seeing that reported?
You got a link?
There are reports that they're trying to convince Ukraine to drop their public stance that they'll refuse to ever negotiate whilst Putin remains as president of Russia, but that's a different thing to the USA and Russia directly negotiating over Ukraine's head.
BoroMart
Well-known member
It'll be sad of the yanks don't allow Ukraine to regain their land, reparations and return to a pre 2014 state. Of course Biden will want to be seen to have successfully beaten Russia in a proxy war showing US strength, successfully brokered a peace deal to save lives and stabilise the world, and to reduce oil and gas price rises globally bringing economic stability. That would be more important to the US politicians than seeing Ukraine regain all its land sadly. Of course it would be near impossible for Ukraine to fight Russia without american military equipment packages. So it's really up to america when this ends.
I'm guessing the US can also veto that Ukraine cannot join NATO, which would be sold as a "win" for Putin. It wouldn't stop his war mongering though
As usual, to take or leave.
"While things are going well for Ukraine pretty much everywhere, and things are going spectacularly bad for the Russians, I would like to take a moment to ponder where in my opinion Russia failed the most, and in the most unexpected way.
But first, how bad are things going? Well, if you have fallen back in a dozen places in a single day, and gained nothing, then it is going pretty rough.
On top of that as the cherry on the cake, Russia lost an entire battalion of Mobiks in under an hour i Luhansk.
Out of 580 soldiers ten wounded was captured, the rest was killed in action.
The Mobiks had been on the front for one and a half hour, half of them had no rifles. They where sent to stop an advancing heavy mechanized brigade by their commanders.
Planes, Bombs & Air Dominance
In all of history of war, only two generals have scored a perfectly executed victory.
I have waxed about Zhukov at Khalkhin Gol, where he created a 2000 kilometer logistics train through roadless country, invented combined arms attack as an art form, and did the so far only executed full double encirclement, and crushed the Japanese army so hard that it sued for peace. Japan was an equal opponent in every way by the way.
The other contender for the throne of best general in history is Norman Schwarzkopf and Desert Storm.
Once more we see the insane attention to detail in logistics.
We again see new things in warfare, and we see such a shtumping victory that the enemy lost completely.
Iraq afterwards was not a fighting force, something that made it easy for lesser generals later on.
Norman had two ideas, one was very novel, and that was to lose as few soldiers as was possible. And, he achieved that in aces and spades.
What was new in warfare was though the concept of 'Shock & Awe'. It was the first new thing in warfare since Combined Arms at Khalkhin Gol. Completely new concepts are bloody far from each other in warfare, armies are fairly conservative.
Comparatively the Static Attack that the Ukrainians invented is relatively minor.
Back to Shock & Awe. Norman had a problem that he had pondered since the Vietnam War. How do you win a battle, or a war, without losing the lives of your soldiers?
He came up with two concepts.
The first one is probably the most important, limit the scope and duration of the attack/battle/war.
He got Bush senior to sign off on only liberating Quwait, belting the **** out of Iraq, and then pull out as fast as possible.
The second concept is very American, and it played to the strength of the weapons at hand.
Shock & Awe are actually two concepts in one.
First is win the air ware and establish Air Dominance as fast and brutal as possible.
If you do not remember, the first wave of planes was electronic warfare planes interfering with the radar and radio transmissions on a massive scale, this was kept up for the duration.
Next step that followed was a massive attack with attack planes launching HAARM missiles that knocked out the blinded radars.
Third wave was a massive strike with cruise missiles from air, ground and sea towards radars, air defence installations, airports & air bases.
Fourth wave was fighter jets chasing away any Iraqis stupid enough to be out flying, they chose to go to Iran...
At this point in a single night he had achieved total dominance in the air.
That opened up for the fifth wave, the most important one.
Bombing everything with impunity.
The Iconic F-117s flew in and started the 1300 bombing sorties that destroyed 1600 targets in mere days.
The bombs was dropped from high altitude, and was precision guided.
Later B-52s was deployed to carpet bomb, but that was not until everything that could hit one at high altitude was blown up, it was the F-117s that did the legwork on that.
The second part was to attack after air dominance was achieved and the bombing campaign was done, and with everything he had without holding back any reserves, the plan was to form reserves as and if needed on the go. The planned reserve units where designated prior to the engagement. The reserve forming part was never needed.
Russia fails
This was what I, and every other military planner on the face of the planet expected to see.
Most likely not on the same scale, nor with the same insane precission, but definitely along these lines.
Instead we got ridiculous.
As with everything else Russia decided to avoid every single hard learned lesson of warfare, including Shock & Awe.
In fact, they reversed it, and corrupted every single stage of it.
They started with the last part, they sent in everything without any reserves in a very clumsy combined arms attack that completely lacked all focus, they went for all at once.
But let us leave the tank-salamis be.
We are talking about the air war failure. Perhaps disaster is a better word.
In the first 3 days no electronic warfare was used.
During the entire war not a single sortie with an electronic warfare plane have been performed.
Strike one.
No ant-radiation strikes was done, leaving every single Ukrainian Air Defence radar operable with the exceptions of those that got blown up through lucky shots from artillery or tanks.
Strike two.
The Cruise missiles was launched at civilian targets instead of air defence, air bases, etcetera...
Strike three.
Russian Fighter Jets at this point was in trouble as they tried to chase down Ukrainian fighter jets. Instead they attacked civilian targets, and a lot of them was shot down since they flew low level sorties to try to avoid air defence that had not been destroyed.
Strike four.
Now we come to number five. This is the interesting part.
Note how I wrote High Altitude up above.
High enough and the enemy air defence can't hit you, or are at least severely limited and you have time to dodge most incoming stuff. High enough and your stealth works better.
We all expected high altitude bombardment, instead we got low altitude bombing missions and extreme loss rates for a modern air war.
Even with the failed first 4 parts Russia should have been able to do high altitude bombing, obviously with higher loss rate.
It would also have pulled the fighters up on high where more would have survived.
Instead we got low altitude bombing of civilian targets.
Strike five.
Now let us reverse order things.
To perform high altitude bombardment you either need to go US in Vietnam and drop bombs everywhere. This was an option for the Russians (we at least assumed it was). Or you use precission guided bombs. This was also an option (we assumed).
To the best of our knowledge we assumed Russia had thousands of precission guided bombs, perhaps a couple of tens of thousands.
Reality was that they had a few hundred, and had used most of those in Syria. The rest of them mysteriously had transformed into a couple of really nice super-yachts and hookers.
About 200 was dropped in Ukraine from low altidutde over hospitals. After that Russia ran dry.
Where the Russian dumb bombs for carpet bombing went is anyones guess. But, it is likely that those funded a couple of more super-yachts and a few hooker-fueled kickass parties Russian style.
The fighter jets was forced down in an attempt to avoid the air defence. Another factor for the abysmal performance was that only 1 plane out of 3 was airworthy... due to super-yachts. Also, for some reason Russians really hate childrens playgrounds and public toilets, so many was squandered on those all important targets as pretty bad attack aircraft instead of in dogfights.
The cruise missiles is a mystery. Yes they where not as good as the Russian PR blurbs stated, but they never even tried using them on high value air defence targets, or against the Ukrainian air force assets. This is probably the largest mystery, because Russia really had these, so much so that some even remain today.
Anti-radiation missiles, well there are a couple of super-yachts bobbing about for the money that was never spent on them...
The Soviet Union had during the seventies and eighties kick **** (for then) electronic warfare stuff, both planes, ships and land systems.
During the entire war we have only seen a few land systems being deployed. Still pretty kickarse for being seventies and eighties tech. Most of them got stuck in the tank-salamis and was mulched, never to be seen again.
Sea version? Someone forgot to send those from the other navies prior to the war broke out and the Turks closed the sealanes for Russian warships.
There are two electronic warfare ships bobbing about in the mediterranean now, but that is not helping Russia. Oops...
Now over to electronic warfare aircraft. Not a single sortie. Intense satelite image noodling later and it seems like none of them can fly. Probable cause is as per usual Hooker-driven super-yachts.
Political
There was probably a political part to this, the Russian war machine did not get time to do the job correctly.
I do think they would at least have tried to do something if they had been given time to do it, and perhaps most importantly, been allowed to do it.
But this does not explain the targeting of civilian stuff and the disregard of military targets from the missiles.
And it does not explain the lack of carpet bombing of military targets.
Conclusion
As with everything else in the war the air part follows the same pattern of theft, corruption, incompetence, bloodlust of civilian targets, disregard of military targets, lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of warfare, lack of logistics...
Even with what they had, and counting in all the thievery done of the weapons, the Russians should have been able to do far better.
Even fairly lacklustre generals from our history like Patton et Ilk would have been able to produce more result.
Instead we have a war, where every single decission in the first 240 days was a bad one.
During that period not a single sound decission was made, not a single decission that could have brought at least limited victory on the battlefield.
And trust me, I looked. I looked a lot for one, the reason is that I tried to see any set traps etcetera.
At every point the worst possible decission was made.
They did not even fail into making a good decission.
Even counting Russias all shortcomings, it was even at the lower numbers of equipment a true regional power, an ex-superpower with proven global strike capability.
Russia was at least two rungs above Ukraine when it attacked.
Even with a lacklustre plan and a lacklustre leader of the war it should not have ended like this, it really should not.
I do not think Russia would have won totally, not against the will of Ukraine and the willingness of the West to support the war. But everything east of Dnipro should have been Russian by now, and Ukraine should have been forced to give up into some sort of negotiated peace."
"While things are going well for Ukraine pretty much everywhere, and things are going spectacularly bad for the Russians, I would like to take a moment to ponder where in my opinion Russia failed the most, and in the most unexpected way.
But first, how bad are things going? Well, if you have fallen back in a dozen places in a single day, and gained nothing, then it is going pretty rough.
On top of that as the cherry on the cake, Russia lost an entire battalion of Mobiks in under an hour i Luhansk.
Out of 580 soldiers ten wounded was captured, the rest was killed in action.
The Mobiks had been on the front for one and a half hour, half of them had no rifles. They where sent to stop an advancing heavy mechanized brigade by their commanders.
Planes, Bombs & Air Dominance
In all of history of war, only two generals have scored a perfectly executed victory.
I have waxed about Zhukov at Khalkhin Gol, where he created a 2000 kilometer logistics train through roadless country, invented combined arms attack as an art form, and did the so far only executed full double encirclement, and crushed the Japanese army so hard that it sued for peace. Japan was an equal opponent in every way by the way.
The other contender for the throne of best general in history is Norman Schwarzkopf and Desert Storm.
Once more we see the insane attention to detail in logistics.
We again see new things in warfare, and we see such a shtumping victory that the enemy lost completely.
Iraq afterwards was not a fighting force, something that made it easy for lesser generals later on.
Norman had two ideas, one was very novel, and that was to lose as few soldiers as was possible. And, he achieved that in aces and spades.
What was new in warfare was though the concept of 'Shock & Awe'. It was the first new thing in warfare since Combined Arms at Khalkhin Gol. Completely new concepts are bloody far from each other in warfare, armies are fairly conservative.
Comparatively the Static Attack that the Ukrainians invented is relatively minor.
Back to Shock & Awe. Norman had a problem that he had pondered since the Vietnam War. How do you win a battle, or a war, without losing the lives of your soldiers?
He came up with two concepts.
The first one is probably the most important, limit the scope and duration of the attack/battle/war.
He got Bush senior to sign off on only liberating Quwait, belting the **** out of Iraq, and then pull out as fast as possible.
The second concept is very American, and it played to the strength of the weapons at hand.
Shock & Awe are actually two concepts in one.
First is win the air ware and establish Air Dominance as fast and brutal as possible.
If you do not remember, the first wave of planes was electronic warfare planes interfering with the radar and radio transmissions on a massive scale, this was kept up for the duration.
Next step that followed was a massive attack with attack planes launching HAARM missiles that knocked out the blinded radars.
Third wave was a massive strike with cruise missiles from air, ground and sea towards radars, air defence installations, airports & air bases.
Fourth wave was fighter jets chasing away any Iraqis stupid enough to be out flying, they chose to go to Iran...
At this point in a single night he had achieved total dominance in the air.
That opened up for the fifth wave, the most important one.
Bombing everything with impunity.
The Iconic F-117s flew in and started the 1300 bombing sorties that destroyed 1600 targets in mere days.
The bombs was dropped from high altitude, and was precision guided.
Later B-52s was deployed to carpet bomb, but that was not until everything that could hit one at high altitude was blown up, it was the F-117s that did the legwork on that.
The second part was to attack after air dominance was achieved and the bombing campaign was done, and with everything he had without holding back any reserves, the plan was to form reserves as and if needed on the go. The planned reserve units where designated prior to the engagement. The reserve forming part was never needed.
Russia fails
This was what I, and every other military planner on the face of the planet expected to see.
Most likely not on the same scale, nor with the same insane precission, but definitely along these lines.
Instead we got ridiculous.
As with everything else Russia decided to avoid every single hard learned lesson of warfare, including Shock & Awe.
In fact, they reversed it, and corrupted every single stage of it.
They started with the last part, they sent in everything without any reserves in a very clumsy combined arms attack that completely lacked all focus, they went for all at once.
But let us leave the tank-salamis be.
We are talking about the air war failure. Perhaps disaster is a better word.
In the first 3 days no electronic warfare was used.
During the entire war not a single sortie with an electronic warfare plane have been performed.
Strike one.
No ant-radiation strikes was done, leaving every single Ukrainian Air Defence radar operable with the exceptions of those that got blown up through lucky shots from artillery or tanks.
Strike two.
The Cruise missiles was launched at civilian targets instead of air defence, air bases, etcetera...
Strike three.
Russian Fighter Jets at this point was in trouble as they tried to chase down Ukrainian fighter jets. Instead they attacked civilian targets, and a lot of them was shot down since they flew low level sorties to try to avoid air defence that had not been destroyed.
Strike four.
Now we come to number five. This is the interesting part.
Note how I wrote High Altitude up above.
High enough and the enemy air defence can't hit you, or are at least severely limited and you have time to dodge most incoming stuff. High enough and your stealth works better.
We all expected high altitude bombardment, instead we got low altitude bombing missions and extreme loss rates for a modern air war.
Even with the failed first 4 parts Russia should have been able to do high altitude bombing, obviously with higher loss rate.
It would also have pulled the fighters up on high where more would have survived.
Instead we got low altitude bombing of civilian targets.
Strike five.
Now let us reverse order things.
To perform high altitude bombardment you either need to go US in Vietnam and drop bombs everywhere. This was an option for the Russians (we at least assumed it was). Or you use precission guided bombs. This was also an option (we assumed).
To the best of our knowledge we assumed Russia had thousands of precission guided bombs, perhaps a couple of tens of thousands.
Reality was that they had a few hundred, and had used most of those in Syria. The rest of them mysteriously had transformed into a couple of really nice super-yachts and hookers.
About 200 was dropped in Ukraine from low altidutde over hospitals. After that Russia ran dry.
Where the Russian dumb bombs for carpet bombing went is anyones guess. But, it is likely that those funded a couple of more super-yachts and a few hooker-fueled kickass parties Russian style.
The fighter jets was forced down in an attempt to avoid the air defence. Another factor for the abysmal performance was that only 1 plane out of 3 was airworthy... due to super-yachts. Also, for some reason Russians really hate childrens playgrounds and public toilets, so many was squandered on those all important targets as pretty bad attack aircraft instead of in dogfights.
The cruise missiles is a mystery. Yes they where not as good as the Russian PR blurbs stated, but they never even tried using them on high value air defence targets, or against the Ukrainian air force assets. This is probably the largest mystery, because Russia really had these, so much so that some even remain today.
Anti-radiation missiles, well there are a couple of super-yachts bobbing about for the money that was never spent on them...
The Soviet Union had during the seventies and eighties kick **** (for then) electronic warfare stuff, both planes, ships and land systems.
During the entire war we have only seen a few land systems being deployed. Still pretty kickarse for being seventies and eighties tech. Most of them got stuck in the tank-salamis and was mulched, never to be seen again.
Sea version? Someone forgot to send those from the other navies prior to the war broke out and the Turks closed the sealanes for Russian warships.
There are two electronic warfare ships bobbing about in the mediterranean now, but that is not helping Russia. Oops...
Now over to electronic warfare aircraft. Not a single sortie. Intense satelite image noodling later and it seems like none of them can fly. Probable cause is as per usual Hooker-driven super-yachts.
Political
There was probably a political part to this, the Russian war machine did not get time to do the job correctly.
I do think they would at least have tried to do something if they had been given time to do it, and perhaps most importantly, been allowed to do it.
But this does not explain the targeting of civilian stuff and the disregard of military targets from the missiles.
And it does not explain the lack of carpet bombing of military targets.
Conclusion
As with everything else in the war the air part follows the same pattern of theft, corruption, incompetence, bloodlust of civilian targets, disregard of military targets, lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of warfare, lack of logistics...
Even with what they had, and counting in all the thievery done of the weapons, the Russians should have been able to do far better.
Even fairly lacklustre generals from our history like Patton et Ilk would have been able to produce more result.
Instead we have a war, where every single decission in the first 240 days was a bad one.
During that period not a single sound decission was made, not a single decission that could have brought at least limited victory on the battlefield.
And trust me, I looked. I looked a lot for one, the reason is that I tried to see any set traps etcetera.
At every point the worst possible decission was made.
They did not even fail into making a good decission.
Even counting Russias all shortcomings, it was even at the lower numbers of equipment a true regional power, an ex-superpower with proven global strike capability.
Russia was at least two rungs above Ukraine when it attacked.
Even with a lacklustre plan and a lacklustre leader of the war it should not have ended like this, it really should not.
I do not think Russia would have won totally, not against the will of Ukraine and the willingness of the West to support the war. But everything east of Dnipro should have been Russian by now, and Ukraine should have been forced to give up into some sort of negotiated peace."
For those still following (a very good analysis ... and some clear hints at the end)
Last edited:
TeessideCleveland
Well-known member
The illegal bridge apparently won't be able to be fully repaired until well into next year - so plenty of time to bomb it down into the sea
It's happening on a broad scale as well. Horrific.
Anyhoo. The latest ramblings...
"
Let me start with the much talked about news that the US and Russia has been quietly negotiating.
It is obviously nothing that is new, or even ground breaking.
Mostly it has been low level talks about nukes, and to avoid misunderstandings between NATO and Russia.
It is here good to note that regardless of the rhetoric Russia has been keeping to every single nuclear agreement up to date.
Lately it has indeed gone up the food chain.
And, what might sometime in the future become peace negotiations has at least been seeded.
But it will not come just yet. Ukraine must still win a bit more before Russia is ready to go home.
Or China invades and it will go very fast.
Ukraine is not ready yet, nor is Russia.
Europe is still ready to stick it out, in fact the situation is improving in Europe on energy and food.
The US is quite happy seeing the Russian problem being solved once and for all. Well, at least for quite some time.
It leaves their back free as the west deals with China.
What will be the end when real negotiations start?
As I have said time and again, when the Russians run out of equipment, and that clock is steadily ticking down.
Missiles
It is telling that Russias constant attacking with missiles have almost stopped.
Yes, they are still lobbing a few each day as a reminder that they exist, but it is nothing like before.
And most of them are fired against lesser towns and villages that are not yet covered by Air Defence Systems.
The good Russian stuff (well, sort of good) is almost totally depleted, and around 800 missiles remain in the Russian stockpile.
It is still possible that there will be a couple of more rounds of missiles and drones on a larger scale, but it is becoming less likely by the day, and less effectual by the day.
At the same time top of the line western Air Defence Systems continues to galumph into Ukraine.
This means that fewer and fewer missiles and drones get to their targets.
The best systems have 100 percent success rate (Iris-T). And the worst ones (older) have a success rate of over 80 percent, the average is above 90 percent and climbing.
At the same time it seems like the Iranian deliveries of drones have dried up, and no Iranian missiles seem to have arrived (yet at least) to Russia. It is starting to look like they will not get more gear from Iran.
If Russia continues at the current pace of 3-4 missiles per day they can continue firing for another 200 days, perhaps 250 days if we count newly produced missiles arrive at pre-war rate of production. The latter is unlikely, perhaps they can coble together one per week due to sanctions.
Ukraine on the other hand is both building their own, and are now receiving cruise missiles with ranges above 500km. And, they will soon receive their ATACMs in larger numbers. Ukraine have some, sort of as a test if they will use them in the allowed manner.
Missiles are though less important than tanks and artillery in Russia. But very important for Ukraine.
End of offensives
Russia no longer has any offensive capability at all. 500 tanks does not cut it.
Ukraine is soon getting both Abrams and Leopard II tanks. And they already have more tanks than Russia does.
Russia no longer have enough long range artillery to lay the ground for an offensive. Ukraine is receiving new systems each day.
Russia knows this. And they are changing their tactics. Now it is back to defensive lines only. And they are building them on a massive scale, and they are building them everywhere.
In Ukraine, in neighbouring parts of Russia, heck even in Siberia.
Many pundits mistakenly think this is for the winter, and that in the spring Russia will come storming forth in a big push.
How wrong they are.
Without heavy equipment you just can't storm forth against a better equipped enemy that has numerical superiority.
And with an ever widening technology gap this equation just becomes ridiculous.
Russia knows this.
Another sign is that Russia has started to blow the bridges behind them. An army that is doing a tactical retreat for the winter is not blowing up bridges, they will need them in the spring.
No, they are blowing up bridges to defend themselves from a stronger army that is coming for them.
It is simple really.
Problem is that Ukraine is good at crossing rivers and have half of all the bridging equipment in Europe.
By now Russia is just holding on in the hope that by being stubborn they will get something in the upcoming negotiations.
Obviously they are wrong in this. They will at best get assurances about their territorial integrity.
Winter is Coming
Rasputitza
The season of mud is upon both parties.
This is obviously slowing down Ukraine, but with better and more mobile gear they are slowly pushing forward using lighter modern armoured vehicles.
It is slow going, but very steady.
Russia is now only trying in Bakhmut and Vuhledar (Pavlivka to be specific). The latter is a try to take back territory that Ukraine have liberated recently (Pavlivka).
Let us leave Putins genital fantasies about Bakhmut behind for now.
Vuhledar
This is where the war will be decided. At least geographically, the war is already decided in most other respects. The Ukrainians just have to do the legwork and kill more Russians and chuck the remainders across the border.
Vuhledar is the lynchpin to do that. By taking nearby Pavlivka Ukraine open up access to roads leading to many interesting places behind Russian lines.
They can push down the road eastwards to Novotroits'ke and the H20 up to Donetsk and open a new front there.
They can go southeast to Volnovakha and onwards to Mariupol.
Or southwest towards Tokmak and Melitopol.
Or even all of them at once, and the entire time using a fairly well built up road network.
Good for Rasputitza.
Russia will have to deplete the other fronts to reinforce here, or they will lose Donetsk and the rest.
Problem is that Ukraine has enough on the other fronts to continue attacking at those. Vuhledar will simultaneously tie down significant Russian resources. Or Ukraine will concentrate here and just smash through when the ground firms up later in the winter.
Winter is Coming
And it is not the friend of Russia.
With far better equipment and logistics the Ukrainians will be fat, happy and warm.
Russia will be hungry, depressed and freesing. So much so that many Russians will die from the Winter.
And with the cold comes solid ground, perfect for belting across the endless fields of Northern Ukraine on the frozen ground with heavy equipment. Expect progress soon to pick up the pace as the ground goes from mud to rock hard surface.
What few tanks Russia have will disappear in the ensuing tank battles.
And tanks will be incredibly important all of a sudden, because there will be no greenery to hide in.
And Ukraine sees well due to satellites, drones, and so on. Tracked artillery and heavy tanks will have a field day (in the true sense of the phrase).
Mobilisation
At a loss rate of 3000 per day Russia is losing an entire mobilisation phase each 100 days.
Don't expect this number to go down, expect it to go up as time passes and the technological devolvement of Russia continues.
This will lead to political will devolving.
This will lead to popular morale devolving.
Peace talks
Quietly and slowly the stage is set for the negotiations.
Ukraine and the allies know that they have won, and they are prepaired to do the legwork all the way to Moscow if needed.
Russia knows that they have lost, and they are for now hoping for a miracle.
But, slowly every number and metric is inching towards Russia having to throw in the towel.
Or that someone throws in the towel for them (China).
Now the only choice left to Russia is to throw in the towel willingly, walk home, and hope that China does not Rear End them without vaseline.
Russia is now talking more and more, and at ever higher levels.
This is a sign of what is to come.
I still say 24th of December, it is all in the numbers of death and destruction.
If not I will insert a new date, and that is 21st of September as Tanks roll from Khodynka via Tverskaya to the Red Square flying that gorgeous Blue and Yellow flag... I call this the crazy stubborn Ivan option.
Anyhoos, I have devolved into the stage where I ramble."
The numbers crunched in more detail.
It truly is grim stuff.
"
Sadly wars can to a large extent be put into an equation, and out comes a result.
Great military leaders knows this, and always try their best to have the numbers on their side.
Lesser commanders and politicians instead talk about Moral Fibre, Historical Destiny, and some similar deadly drivel.
Motivation and troop morale definitely have an effect. It is though limited, and tend to favour those who do their math.
Anyway, I have lately talked about equipment numbers quite a bit, I have also talked about the difference in effectiveness and power due to differentiation between weapons generations.
I have also alluded to the difference in effectiveness between trained and untrained soldiers (that is also a number in the equation).
In fact, all of these numbers are now in the Ukrainian favour, quite a bit of it is due to the allies super-charging Ukraine with current and future tech weapons, and in a couple of cases what I call Hell Class Weapons like the Gungnir, Iris-T and a few others that I can't mention.
There is also the training received since 2014, both training of soldiers and their commanders.
What I have not really talked about is the only figure where Russia had the advantage and could potentially come out on top in the future.
Yes I have talked about Russian Meat Targets, but I have not to the best of my recollection put it into numbers.
Unlike Ukraine that has steadily increased the number of trained and armed soldiers Russia have been more up and down.
So let us talk about Russian numbers.
At the start of the war Russia had officially 900 000 in total in their defence forces and a reserve of 4 500 000.
Neither Russians, nor Western think-tanks seems to ever have put these numbers in correlation with the Russian defence budget.
These numbers did never match each other. There was not enough to fund that many soldiers with enough equipment, nor pay for the upkeep of it all. I am not even going into the money that got lost on the way and became floating shiny things.
So, either the number of soldiers was fib, or the equipment was lacking.
It turns out that Russia had 600 000ish real troops, and the reserve was more like 1 000 000. The reason is as per usual Superyachts, Vodka, Cocaine and Hookers.
As I have previously stated, the equipment for the reserves had grown legs and been converted into... you guessed it.
Drowning by Numbers
There are many things similar between Peter Greenaways fabulous movie and Russian lives being squandered in silly games.
Out of the 600 000 of existing bodies in the Russian defence force roughly half was soldiers, the rest was divided between the air force and the navy.
Out of 300 000 soldiers available 225 000 was standing at the border of Ukraine on the 23rd of February.
This was the official number of Russian solders, problem is that it was pure bullhork.
There was another 225 000 soldiers if we count in Luhansk and Donetsk forces, and on top sprinkle very liberally with the Wagnerites and Kadyrovites.
So, on the 24th of February 450 000 men stepped across the border to steal as many toilets and washing-machines as possible.
Of those 275 000 was fairly well trained, the regulars and the Wagnerites. With the Kardyrovites as an inbetween and the LD forces being riffraff.
This was roughly double the number of the Ukrainian forces, but they defended, and when defending you normally need between 1/3rd to 1/5th of the number of the attackers.
For Russia this is the moment the Deathometer started, while ukraine rapidly increased their numbers with reserves, and later on freshly trained soldiers.
Russia quickly understood that they needed new bodies for the grinder, so they pressganged people from Luhansk and Donetsk, called in volunteers, moved in their reserve of 75 000 soldiers.
When this was not enough they started grabbing sailors and air force personel to fill in the gaps.
At mid-september it was clear that Russia had an accute problem and that a collapse was imminent.
They had pushed in 200 000 new soldiers, lost 300 000 in dead and wounded, and all of a sudden they had an army of 350 000 men in Ukraine, while Ukraine had 700 000 men and was pushing them out rapidly.
Also, the quality of the Russian soldiers had dropped, less than half of the fairly good regulars and Wagnerites remained in service, at around 120 000.
At this point Russia panicked and tried to call in 1 200 000 soldiers to swamp Ukraine in Meat Targets.
This failed for fairly obvious reasons.
Roughly half ended up in Ukraine, so far at least. The other two quarters are locking down Ukrainian troops from Belarus, and the other locking down Ukraninas and manning the Belgorod Defence Line.
This gave Russia near parity in bodies with Ukraine at 650 000 to 750 000 Ukrainians.
Russias problem is that due to the low level of training, and the new Ukrainian weapons, the Russian Deathometer has reached staggering levels with 3000 dead and wounded per day, and the only thing holding the numbers down is the Razputitza mud season.
If the Ukrainians still had been pushing full speed those numbers would have ramped up considerably.
Now, let us ponder the Ukrainian Deathometer, it is at an average of 1000 dead and wounded, the difference is that far more Ukrainians survive.
Now let us crunch this.
That is 1 460 000 dead and wounded on the battlefield per year.
This is even higher than the numbers from the Western Front during the First World War.
Now
Russia is currently trying to call in 180 000 in the 18 to 21 age group. It is not going well, even the Russians are quietly hoping to get at least 50 000...
After that they will try for another 300 000 in January.
We are here obviously talking about pure bodies dressed in faux adidas, without weapon and with orders to search for a gun on the battlefield.
In January it is expected that Ukraine will hit the big One. 1 000 000 well equiped and well trained troops.
In the unlikely event that Russia is still hanging around in January things will move extremely quickly and Russia will be kicked out in the spring.
If Russia at that point continues it will end in September with Zelenskyy rolling down Nevsky Prospect to find something alive to sign the Articles of Surrender, a hoofprint from Putin's goat would probably suffice at that point.
Final Thoughts
I still have 24th of December as the end. But, I freely admit that it is depending on their being a single brain in Russia that can do the numbers without drowning.
I know I may seem flippant in how I write and in my remarks. Obviously an entire generation being erradicated is not funny. But, it is my safety valve in the insanity. Just thought I should say it out loud.
The Deathometer seems to be the squared potential of the Yachtometer.
Moscow indeed Drowned by Numbers."
It truly is grim stuff.
"
Sadly wars can to a large extent be put into an equation, and out comes a result.
Great military leaders knows this, and always try their best to have the numbers on their side.
Lesser commanders and politicians instead talk about Moral Fibre, Historical Destiny, and some similar deadly drivel.
Motivation and troop morale definitely have an effect. It is though limited, and tend to favour those who do their math.
Anyway, I have lately talked about equipment numbers quite a bit, I have also talked about the difference in effectiveness and power due to differentiation between weapons generations.
I have also alluded to the difference in effectiveness between trained and untrained soldiers (that is also a number in the equation).
In fact, all of these numbers are now in the Ukrainian favour, quite a bit of it is due to the allies super-charging Ukraine with current and future tech weapons, and in a couple of cases what I call Hell Class Weapons like the Gungnir, Iris-T and a few others that I can't mention.
There is also the training received since 2014, both training of soldiers and their commanders.
What I have not really talked about is the only figure where Russia had the advantage and could potentially come out on top in the future.
Yes I have talked about Russian Meat Targets, but I have not to the best of my recollection put it into numbers.
Unlike Ukraine that has steadily increased the number of trained and armed soldiers Russia have been more up and down.
So let us talk about Russian numbers.
At the start of the war Russia had officially 900 000 in total in their defence forces and a reserve of 4 500 000.
Neither Russians, nor Western think-tanks seems to ever have put these numbers in correlation with the Russian defence budget.
These numbers did never match each other. There was not enough to fund that many soldiers with enough equipment, nor pay for the upkeep of it all. I am not even going into the money that got lost on the way and became floating shiny things.
So, either the number of soldiers was fib, or the equipment was lacking.
It turns out that Russia had 600 000ish real troops, and the reserve was more like 1 000 000. The reason is as per usual Superyachts, Vodka, Cocaine and Hookers.
As I have previously stated, the equipment for the reserves had grown legs and been converted into... you guessed it.
Drowning by Numbers
There are many things similar between Peter Greenaways fabulous movie and Russian lives being squandered in silly games.
Out of the 600 000 of existing bodies in the Russian defence force roughly half was soldiers, the rest was divided between the air force and the navy.
Out of 300 000 soldiers available 225 000 was standing at the border of Ukraine on the 23rd of February.
This was the official number of Russian solders, problem is that it was pure bullhork.
There was another 225 000 soldiers if we count in Luhansk and Donetsk forces, and on top sprinkle very liberally with the Wagnerites and Kadyrovites.
So, on the 24th of February 450 000 men stepped across the border to steal as many toilets and washing-machines as possible.
Of those 275 000 was fairly well trained, the regulars and the Wagnerites. With the Kardyrovites as an inbetween and the LD forces being riffraff.
This was roughly double the number of the Ukrainian forces, but they defended, and when defending you normally need between 1/3rd to 1/5th of the number of the attackers.
For Russia this is the moment the Deathometer started, while ukraine rapidly increased their numbers with reserves, and later on freshly trained soldiers.
Russia quickly understood that they needed new bodies for the grinder, so they pressganged people from Luhansk and Donetsk, called in volunteers, moved in their reserve of 75 000 soldiers.
When this was not enough they started grabbing sailors and air force personel to fill in the gaps.
At mid-september it was clear that Russia had an accute problem and that a collapse was imminent.
They had pushed in 200 000 new soldiers, lost 300 000 in dead and wounded, and all of a sudden they had an army of 350 000 men in Ukraine, while Ukraine had 700 000 men and was pushing them out rapidly.
Also, the quality of the Russian soldiers had dropped, less than half of the fairly good regulars and Wagnerites remained in service, at around 120 000.
At this point Russia panicked and tried to call in 1 200 000 soldiers to swamp Ukraine in Meat Targets.
This failed for fairly obvious reasons.
- The high number of Russians that fled or became Campniks.
- There was not enough equipment, uniforms and rifles.
Roughly half ended up in Ukraine, so far at least. The other two quarters are locking down Ukrainian troops from Belarus, and the other locking down Ukraninas and manning the Belgorod Defence Line.
This gave Russia near parity in bodies with Ukraine at 650 000 to 750 000 Ukrainians.
Russias problem is that due to the low level of training, and the new Ukrainian weapons, the Russian Deathometer has reached staggering levels with 3000 dead and wounded per day, and the only thing holding the numbers down is the Razputitza mud season.
If the Ukrainians still had been pushing full speed those numbers would have ramped up considerably.
Now, let us ponder the Ukrainian Deathometer, it is at an average of 1000 dead and wounded, the difference is that far more Ukrainians survive.
Now let us crunch this.
That is 1 460 000 dead and wounded on the battlefield per year.
This is even higher than the numbers from the Western Front during the First World War.
Now
Russia is currently trying to call in 180 000 in the 18 to 21 age group. It is not going well, even the Russians are quietly hoping to get at least 50 000...
After that they will try for another 300 000 in January.
We are here obviously talking about pure bodies dressed in faux adidas, without weapon and with orders to search for a gun on the battlefield.
In January it is expected that Ukraine will hit the big One. 1 000 000 well equiped and well trained troops.
In the unlikely event that Russia is still hanging around in January things will move extremely quickly and Russia will be kicked out in the spring.
If Russia at that point continues it will end in September with Zelenskyy rolling down Nevsky Prospect to find something alive to sign the Articles of Surrender, a hoofprint from Putin's goat would probably suffice at that point.
Final Thoughts
I still have 24th of December as the end. But, I freely admit that it is depending on their being a single brain in Russia that can do the numbers without drowning.
I know I may seem flippant in how I write and in my remarks. Obviously an entire generation being erradicated is not funny. But, it is my safety valve in the insanity. Just thought I should say it out loud.
The Deathometer seems to be the squared potential of the Yachtometer.
Moscow indeed Drowned by Numbers."