Russia's War Against Ukraine

[FarAway Sooner]

I'd be surprised if NATO allies aren't feeding the Ukrainians SIGINT out the wazoo on a realtime basis. 

Couple that with all the EW problems that we know the Russian army is having, and I have to think that it wouldn't be that hard to pinpoint the locations of Russian command posts from time to time.  I would also think that Russian generals wanting an understanding of what's going on would be venturing closer to the front than is normally their wont.

One thing we can probably gather from the Ukrainian War:  Russian military hardware seems to work pretty well.  At least, in the hands of the Ukrainian soldiers. 

If this were a Panzer General scenario, the Russians would be getting their asses kicked for failure to adhere to a time table.  From a geopolitical standpoint, the Russians have almost totally screwed themselves.  But I still suspect that the biggest losers in this whole bloody mess will be the Ukrainian civilians.

[Gusington]

"Russian military hardware seems to work pretty well.  At least, in the hands of the Ukrainian soldiers." - also quotable and hilarious, if it wasn't so serious.

Kyiv is now a fortress. I think the worst of this is yet to come when all of the Ukrainian cities being surrounded are stormed. It is going to be horrible for both sides with terrible casualties.

[ComradeP]

The Russians have little to no rear area security in all areas with the potential exception of the border with Belarus, but drones can still target Russian convoys there.

As Ukrainian territorial forces and bypassed regular forces keep targeting supply convoys and other rear area units on the move, at some point higher ranking officers will be hit. At this point, it's hard to tell if it's good SIGINT/HUMINT work that caused the casualties amongst Russian generals through deliberate, targeted, strikes or the lack of security in the areas the Russians are moving through.

Strange as it might seem, a potential downside to the poor progress the Russians are making might be a massive reorganization/restructuring of the Russian army after the war which makes it much more capable in the next conflict. That potency will hopefully be limited by the effects of sanctions and increased European NATO military spending.

[Con]

Let's look at it from the Russian side.
The Russians have been in the field and in combat for 2 weeks
Have had a range of combat casualties include wounded and captured from 10 to 30%
Don't have any new units or reserves
Have stalled or minimally progressing advances and unless 60 miles from railheads are out of food and gas
High levels of officers corps deaths
Their elite units (VDV parachutists) completely destroyed
Have not achieved air superiority meaning all support units can be targeted anywhere in Ukraine by drones and drone observed artillery
Lost so many of their trucks that they are using civilian vehicles which are a mix of different types and models making their logistics even more difficult to manage
Mud season is here trapping them in roads
Have lost comms and are getting stonked by the Ukrainians

My bet is the army breaks sooner rather than later due to morale issues and the above for the units that are deep in Ukraine and you see units just giving up wholesale.

[GDS_Starfury]

At this point, it's hard to tell if it's good SIGINT/HUMINT work that caused the casualties amongst Russian generals through deliberate, targeted, strikes or the lack of security in the areas the Russians are moving through.

Strange as it might seem, a potential downside to the poor progress the Russians are making might be a massive reorganization/restructuring of the Russian army after the war which makes it much more capable in the next conflict. That potency will hopefully be limited by the effects of sanctions and increased European NATO military spending.

its not hard to tell at all as the information is plain as day if you know how to sift through various outlets and mine the information.
a complete lack of secure comms and static hq get your officers dead.
I also wouldnt worry about a reorganized russian army for a very long time.  they couldnt afford their own new equipment before the sanctions and they sure as shit wont be able to afford it for the foreseeable future.

[Jarhead0331]

At this point, it's hard to tell if it's good SIGINT/HUMINT work that caused the casualties amongst Russian generals through deliberate, targeted, strikes or the lack of security in the areas the Russians are moving through.

Strange as it might seem, a potential downside to the poor progress the Russians are making might be a massive reorganization/restructuring of the Russian army after the war which makes it much more capable in the next conflict. That potency will hopefully be limited by the effects of sanctions and increased European NATO military spending.

its not hard to tell at all as the information is plain as day if you know how to sift through various outlets and mine the information.
a complete lack of secure comms and static hq get your officers dead.
I also wouldnt worry about a reorganized russian army for a very long time.  they couldnt afford their own new equipment before the sanctions and they sure as shit wont be able to afford it for the foreseeable future.

Actually the high casualties among field grade and general officers has been attributed to poor C&C causing them to lead from the front thereby exposing themselves to greater personal risk.

[Gusington]

Have all of Russia's elite units in Ukraine actually been totally destroyed?

From the reading I have done in the last few weeks to try and understand the Russian point of view (Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick and Fire Bird by Andrei Kozyrev with more to come) I have learned more about the sheer amount of death that has blighted Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe for the last 100+ years, even when there was no war actually going on.

For me and I would guess for most of the West, the numbers are just unfathomable.

In the East, the last 2.5 weeks have unfortunately been just the tiniest drop in the bucket of the last 100 years.

[Sir Slash]

So this is shaping-up to be a new 1940 Finnish War sort of thing. I wonder who will be the new Hitler and now believe the Russkies are push-overs?  :hide:

[GDS_Starfury]

Have all of Russia's elite units in Ukraine actually been totally destroyed?

I think what is considered elite needs to be reevaluated where the russian military is concerned.
backflips off a trampoline while throwing hatches at a target on fire just doesnt cut it.

[GDS_Starfury]

this one is for JH to pop wood over.
Ill let him tell you what the guns are.
Ukrainian SOF captured a Russian Eleron-3 UAV.

[ComradeP]

Though the exact nature of the intelligence provided by NATO and EU militaries is unclear, what is clear is that a lot of military intelligence efforts in Europe are focussed on providing the Ukrainians with intelligence.

Though the articles about poor Russian comms are convincing, I'm sceptical as to whether they're not also being used as cover for actions that were only possible due to NATO military intelligence.

It's also tempting to simplify logistics issues as being due to "mud", but this is not the Ukraine of the early 1940's. There are all-weather roads on every axis of the Russian advance.

backflips off a trampoline while throwing hatches at a target on fire just doesnt cut it.

That's a blast from the past, or a throwback to days of yore

[SirAndrewD]

Have all of Russia's elite units in Ukraine actually been totally destroyed?

I doubt all of them have been, but it does look like they had pretty extreme losses among their VDV forces in the first few days.   

One of their problems has been that even their elite units were equipped with many times substandard or second line equipment.  One thing that's been pointed out is how many military vehicles have been seen equipped with cheap civilian tires.   Their wheeled vehicles were simply breaking down and getting stuck in the thaw. 

You can have the best trained guy in the world but if he doesn't have food, proper clothing and ammo not a lot he can do to be an effective fighting man. 

[JasonPratt]

Relatedly, you can have the most elite airborne rangers in the world, but if their army doesn't catch up to them soon enough after taking the airport, they run out of supplies and then it's Rambo time (where that equals hiding in filthy swamps trying to get home).

Of course the point to taking the airports was to fly in the rest of the airmobile troops. So the Uks score big for stopping that from happening! -- but part of the breakdown has to be on the Russians: what's not only minimally necessary but sufficiently beyond minimally necessary to take and secure an airport long enough for your big heavies to safely arrive and pour out the troops? (Much less what you do with those troops once they arrive.)

On the other hand, if Russia didn't secure air supremacy as well as anti-anti-air supremacy (so to speak), then those big heavies would not be arriving much anyway. "Blue sky" doesn't only mean a lack of interceptors, it means a lack of flak, too. And when you send elite paratroops into a situation where you don't have a blue sky afterward (assuming you get basically one surprise drop before the sky lights up against more drops), then only the advancing thrusts can save them eventually.

[Jarhead0331]

You can have the best trained guy in the world but if he doesn't have food, proper clothing and ammo not a lot he can do to be an effective fighting man.

Tell that to the Marines.

[Tripoli]

Have all of Russia's elite units in Ukraine actually been totally destroyed?

...

You can have the best trained guy in the world but if he doesn't have food, proper clothing and ammo not a lot he can do to be an effective fighting man.

It also doesn't help when you load them up in transport aircraft and send them in contested airspace to get shot down.  All that backflipping hatchet throwing isn't any use against a SAM.  Similarly, seizing airfields/strategic locations deep in the enemy rear without rapid reinforcement is going to get you killed, no matter how good you are.  I think the fundamental problem was at the planning stage  of this operation, begining with the initial assumptions.  These basic failures have only been magnified by other deficiencies, such as training, logistics, leadership, communications, etc....  This Shambolic example of a Charlie Foxtrot of an operation will be studied for generations in war colleges as how not to do planning.

{Edit: and the epic failure didn't start with the military planning.  I think that Russia in general and Putin in particular are going to get a good, hard lesson in what Sun Tzu (actually it was Ts`ao Kung) meant when he  said to "count the cost" before going to war)