Russia's War Against Ukraine

[ArizonaTank]

Is Austria next on the NATO train? Probably not...but that doesn't stop the German press from dreaming...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/will-austria-abandon-neutrality-to-join-nato/ar-AAXyBza?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0f3648b2608b46b5b630f2bfa0cbf11e

As a side note...I once asked an Austrian acquaintance what was the difference between Germans and Austrians; "That's easy" he said, "the Austrians are the 'happy' Germans."

[Gusington]

^Great link - fascinating.

[FarAway Sooner]

Captain Koloth, I think those are the two most relevant questions.  The best answer I've found is the one supplied upthread:  The rot has spread so far in Putin's Russia that the whole military command structure just collapsed once it faced a significant challenge.

The Soviet system had been rotting for a long time when Mikhail Gorbachev published Perestroika in 1987.  While the Soviet Union dissolved and the Communists were thrown out, the rot--the corruption, the centralization of power and wealth, the lack of emphasis on merit or performance--was never really addressed.

I was raised in the US, but spent a little time in Western and Eastern Europe in the first half of 1986, literally as the Iron Curtain was rusting away.  The rot in the Soviet system was obvious then.  You saw it in the broken-down state of their infrastructure, you saw it in the filthy pollution and the never-ending construction projects that littered their cities, you saw it in military equipment rusting by the roadside, you saw it in the way people talked about the crudeness and inability of the former regimes to execute on even basic principles. 

The Soviet system was rotten and collapsed under its own weight.  It simply couldn't handle complexity.  Had they gone to war with NATO in the earlier 80s, I think you would have seen an epic fail that could have resulted in nuclear war.  Fortunately, we never went there.

I think that the Russian combined arms practice has been a disastrous failure.  It's probably been a perfect storm of too-lean infantry assignments in the now infamous BTGs, a lack of training/morale among the infantry, the dramatic underperformance of Russian C3I systems, inept commanders, the proliferation of man-portable AT weapons among Ukraine troops, and the vast improvements in Ukrainian small-unit tactics fighting in the Donbas for the last 7 years. 

One can argue that all of those are attributable to 'the rot'.  Western countries are FAR from perfectly meritocratic.  But it's obvious that the Russian system is much worse than we are.  I'd be very surprised if that doesn't extend to almost every corner of Russian society, from their hospitals to their utilities to their construction techniques to their agriculture.

[Gusington]

So we're just seeing that epic fail 30 years later - still with the risk of nuclear war.

[FarAway Sooner]

It's unclear if Russia has been this corrupt consistently over the last 30 years.  Corruption in most countries is something that ebbs and flows, with changes in leadership, competition for resources, signals from outside, etc.  But there is little to suggest that the rot within Putin's Russia today isn't at least as bad as it ever was under the Communists.

The Communists at least had to pay lip service to the lie of solidarity with the Russian proletariat.  Putin's oligarchs had no such compunctions.

I say this not having spent a minute inside Russia in my life, although I've paid a lot of attention to the country over the last 35 years.  Those with real-world experiences in Russia and the former USSR could probably comment with more credibility than I could.

[Gusington]

Russia has always been close to ungovernable because of its size, going Ivan the Terrible and probably even before.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

As a side note...I once asked an Austrian acquaintance what was the difference between Germans and Austrians; "That's easy" he said, "the Austrians are the 'happy' Germans."

Well, except for those disgruntled artist types.

[GDS_Starfury]

[JasonPratt]

^ Excellent meme!

Going back to the initial (and ongoing) SEAD/DEAD failure: now that we've had a few months, what's the assessment of Putin's initial missile strikes across basically all of Ukraine? Normally you'd be throwing those at CCC areas for disruption purposes and also at AAA areas to suppress them while the Air Force arrived just behind them to move some more mud (and maybe clear out any CAP loitering on guard), shutting down the air bases. (And then, at least theoretically, dropping airborne chutes onto as many airbases as feasibly possible to take and hold the ground until their air-mobile divisional assets could arrive and land behind them in gliders and, more importantly, normal transports -- to be forged up with the blitz push across the borders, of course.)

So, what exactly did that initial wave of missile strikes accomplish, if anything?

[Uberhaus]

So, what exactly did that initial wave of missile strikes accomplish, if anything?

From April 15 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61106245

The fact he is even sitting here speaking to us is somewhat remarkable - especially given the fact that "many air defence facilities were destroyed fully or partially" in the first days of the war.

It's a rare public admission by Ukrainian forces that they suffered significant losses in the early stages of the war.

But despite these losses, the air defences which survived have still been used to good effect...
Capt Kravchuk told the BBC: "We now lack medium and long range air defence systems... we do not have enough."

A renewed Russian offensive in the Donbas will put another serious strain on Ukraine's limited air defence.

So Russia's initial SEAD hadn't completely failed and the interviewee states that the Ukrainians are hoping for more and modern AD.  The Russians should have done better but fortunately have not.  Ukraine AD also has to deal with Russian missiles.

Ukraine is having to use its air defences not just to target Russian aircraft, but also Russian cruise and ballistic missiles. They are having some success, but they can't destroy everything.

Capt Kravchuk estimates that his unit is shooting down between 50-70% of Russia's longer-range missiles. As an example, he says when Russia fired six missiles around Dnipro recently they managed to stop four.

That still suggests a significant number are getting through. The Pentagon says that Russia has launched 1,550 missiles since the war began.

As to a glider assault, why not?  ;) It would be amusing at least.

[GDS_Starfury]

gliders Pratt?    L:-)  :DD

[Dammit Carl!]

The way things have been playing out for the Russians, using gliders would be a shit-show of biblical proportions - but on the other hand, why the hell not at this point?

[Uberhaus]

To build gliders, they at least won't have to cannibalize any dishwashers for the new model Russian Air Force.

Pratt: We know you're discussing past airborne military theory.

[JasonPratt]

Yeah, I can tell a neuron must have chirped in "YOU'RE TRYING NOT TO FORGET ANYTHING SO DON'T FORGET THE GLIDERS!"  ::)  :hide:  I didn't even realize I had typed that until y'all mentioned it!

In related news, I got my first bifocals Saturday, so I get to deal with these for the rest of my natural life.  Yet another step on the "aging" track.

[FarAway Sooner]

It's okay, Jason, at least you weren't talking about a phalanx of massed Gatling guns!

I think a detailed breakdown of the Russian failures in SEAD/DEAD will have to wait at least a year or two after the end of the conflict to be finalized, but if I had to guess, in no particular order, here's my guess as to what happened:

• The initial Russian attacks, while disruptive, probably didn't have quite as detailed or accurate targeting info as is needed to really achieve the desired missions.
• I suspect that the Russian Air Force had little training, and no combat experience, in suppressing even vaguely modern air defense systems from missions flown in Syria, Chechnia, or the Donbas in 2015 (2014?).
• My understanding is that, for SEAD to work, you really have to have suppression craft loitering over the combat zone for much of the time, making sure that as soon as somebody lights up their radar, you're on them.  I don't know that the Russian Air Force ever had the patience or the capability to do that, but they certainly didn't have the will.  The Russian Air Force never really trained for Close Air Support missions, so even if they'd been able to accomplish the SEAD, I'm not sure it would have helped near the front in any event
• I think the NATO allies flooded the country with Stingers in the early weeks of the war, making it perilous for Russian pilots to come down to the deck and do the kind of knife-fighting you really need to accomplish SEAD.  The more sophisticated Russian SAMs seemed to work pretty well in the opening stages of the war, and it's probably also been easier for NATO to train a couple hundred Ukrainian air defense soldiers how to use and support Patriots than it would be to train an entire Ukrainian Armored Division how to use Leopards.
• Given that air drops these days are accomplished by helicopter insertion rather than glider attacks (LOL), the abundance of Russian-made SAMs in the Ukrainian Army on day one made the seizure and reinforcement of air bases dearly expensive (the Russian airborne assault on the Kyiv airport in the first 48 hours of the war was an expensive failure for the Red Army).  That problem only grew worse as more and more Stingers made it to the front.

The Ukrainian Air Force has had more symbolic value to the Ukrainians than military significance, I think.  It's another huge middle finger to the Russians, as portrayed on Ukrainian social media.

The real question that I don't see anybody answering today is whether the Russian Air Force is having any luck disrupting Ukrainian supply flows to the fronts in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.  I'd have to assume that, between plane attacks and missile attacks, they've bombed the crap out of railroad lines leading East in Ukraine.  So most supplies are flowing from Poland to Kyiv, and then eastward, via trucks. 

I assume that the Battle in the East of Ukraine a bit resembles the Allied breakout from the Normandy beach head in 1944.  Both sides are racing to get more units and logistics to the front, and we'll see if the Ukrainians can get enough stuff there in time to drive the Russians back anywhere.  The Russians haven't been able to do much with their aerial superiority due to the robust Ukrainian ground-based air defenses, but they've still got to be able to restrict the flow of Russian supplies as long as they're willing to let combat aircraft loiter over the battlefield.