Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Gusington]

For Putin and neo-Soviets the very real problem is that they lost the Cold War. And like abusers everywhere they are taking out their very real frustration on thr nearest target, Ukraine. Unfortunately (for Russia) Ukraine is not just lying back and taking it...making the Russians look and feel even worse.

[Con]

As I am looking at the newly released WEGO Stalingrad I wonder if in 80 years there will be a WEGO Battle of Mariupol.
While I am dismayed by the war and the tragic loss of life and humanitarian crisis and war crimes - the inner war nerd in me is looking forward to all the books, games and analysis.
Con

  I don't know.  Gaming-wise, the mess in the Ukraine pretty much invalidates all the Cold War games about the war that never happened.  The mess in the Ukraine suggests all games
about the Soviets and Russians and post 1980 stuff in general need some pretty serious revision at all levels.  I'm looking into how Harpoon V simulates missiles and finding it pretty enlightening.
Gotta start over at the tech level to get games working plausibly with crap like the mess in the Ukraine.

Well from a a pure gaming perspective this was should be teaching all the MoD bureaucracies out there to cut in half their tank programs and double the money to ATGMs and MANPADs.

[MengJiao]

For Putin and neo-Soviets the very real problem is that they lost the Cold War. And like abusers everywhere they are taking out their very real frustration on thr nearest target, Ukraine. Unfortunately (for Russia) Ukraine is not just lying back and taking it...making the Russians look and feel even worse.

  I would say, more or less in defense of English Romanticism and Sigmund Freud in his better moods, the intensity of an emotion (eg. frustration) does not necessarily properly connect it to
reality.  So the Russians might be really, really very upset about losing the Cold War, but the real problem there is channeling that emotion in a constructive direction.  So when a child gets upset and
knocks down some construction, we don't say, "Oh good!  That's that!" we say "Boom!  Can I help you rebuild something?"  Similarly, a more constructive solution to Russian frustrations would probably
not be to applaud them for blowing up Chetchneya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, but to suggest they come to terms with their own BS and quit blowing up things.

[Gusington]

^Haha of course - but clearly much easier said than done, especially when nukes are in the hands of the pissed off toddler.

[MengJiao]

As I am looking at the newly released WEGO Stalingrad I wonder if in 80 years there will be a WEGO Battle of Mariupol.
While I am dismayed by the war and the tragic loss of life and humanitarian crisis and war crimes - the inner war nerd in me is looking forward to all the books, games and analysis.
Con

  I don't know.  Gaming-wise, the mess in the Ukraine pretty much invalidates all the Cold War games about the war that never happened.  The mess in the Ukraine suggests all games
about the Soviets and Russians and post 1980 stuff in general need some pretty serious revision at all levels.  I'm looking into how Harpoon V simulates missiles and finding it pretty enlightening.
Gotta start over at the tech level to get games working plausibly with crap like the mess in the Ukraine.

Well from a a pure gaming perspective this was should be teaching all the MoD bureaucracies out there to cut in half their tank programs and double the money to ATGMs and MANPADs.

  Right.  I think after 1980, the days are over when imperial states could hope that half-trained armies of young men filled with the proper zeal
could be mobilized and sent to successfully carry out nearly suicidal wars.  It didn't work in the Iran-Iraq war
or for the Islamic State and it doesn't seem to be working for Russia in Ukraine.
Grumpy recruits don't have much chance against drones and missiles and other robotic systems
or even moderately-well trained and fairly well-motivated troops.
That being said, I doubt that Ukraine can hold on to the Donbas against what the Russians will eventually mass there.   It's not going to be pretty.

[Con]

I dunno. At the end of it the Russians aren't going to be able to spend their way to victory by paying mercs. Their equipment has been degraded. Missile stocks depleted. Ultimately their military moral will be the deciding point. I would put money in the Ukrainians winning that match. Especially if they get supplied with arty etc such as they are receiving from the UK.
I posted earlier about this I feel like it's 1918 again and will and morale are going to decide the conflict.  The Russians have taken an awful beating.  Hard to recover from being gang taped by the Ukrainians  and made their bitch on the global stage. Eventually that shit will get back along with the horrific casualty rates to the Russian people.

[MengJiao]

I dunno. At the end of it the Russians aren't going to be able to spend their way to victory by paying mercs. Their equipment has been degraded. Missile stocks depleted. Ultimately their military moral will be the deciding point. I would put money in the Ukrainians winning that match. Especially if they get supplied with arty etc such as they are receiving from the UK.
I posted earlier about this I feel like it's 1918 again and will and morale are going to decide the conflict.  The Russians have taken an awful beating.  Hard to recover from being gang taped by the Ukrainians  and made their bitch on the global stage. Eventually that shit will get back along with the horrific casualty rates to the Russian people.

I hope you are right.  The Germans seem to have thrown up their hands and sent some BMP-1a1s.  You can see the Germans are giving up on any rational solution to whatever Putin's problems are and
that seems like the only rational thing to do:

Germany's top diplomat tells CNN that "it's in Putin's hands" to end the war
From CNN's Emmet Lyons and Arnaud Siad

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told CNN that the responsibility for ending the war in Ukraine lays firmly at the feet of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It's in Putin's hands. He's the one who started the war without any reason. It is now his responsibility to end the war," Baerbock told CNN's Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview.

"The brutal reality is that Putin himself has chosen ... to fight a war against civilians and to fight a war against the European peace order," she said.

Germany has approved the delivery of 56 type Pbv 501 combat tanks to Ukraine, according to a German defense ministry spokesperson Friday. Germany's increased defense spending has marked a historic shift in the country's foreign policy.

Baerbock said that Germany is offering increased military assistance to the Ukrainian government as "we are in situation where NATO is standing there in solidarity with Ukraine and on the other hand, there is Russia which has made clear that there is no red lines for themselves."

"We are supporting from Germany with weapons we haven't done in the past because the reality has changed so brutally," she said.
"We had to change our course in Germany by 180 degrees because Ukraine needed our military support; we tried everything to avoid this war, but it was Putin's decision to do the opposite and that's why now we are also delivering weapons to Ukraine," she said.

The foreign minister said that sanctions have been effective in leaving Putin "totally isolated," but said that there are still strong energy links between Russia and Europe that needed severing. "The question we are raising about fossil fuels, oil, and energy, Europe is connected with Russia. Therefore we are working every day to phase out our fossil fuel dependency on Russia," she told CNN.

When asked by Amanpour as to what Putin is saying in diplomatic talks, Baerbock stated that the Russian president had "entered into this war with a false narrative, with lies. ... This wrong narrative he has been telling to the world is obviously also something he believes himself."

"When my chancellor, when others like the president of France are speaking to Putin, obviously they are telling him that he started this war with lies, that he broke with international law... but he is obviously not listening to my chancellor, and to other international partners," she said.

"The few people that are left behind him or around him who can actually speak to him do not dare to tell him the truth about the reality in Ukraine, that his troops are not being as successful as they obviously thought in the past," she added.

[Jarhead0331]

It looks like 2 Ukrainian MI-24s hit the fuel facility inside of Russia.

https://funker530.com/video/ukrainian-mi-24-attack-helicopters-destroy-fuel-depot-in-russia/?ref=asmdss&fbclid=IwAR3wU6z9sNDnqv53-MKmScdYsrb7csLdoEv7CFTx9G9W0U97rpuYsgHWKoM

[JasonPratt]

As I am looking at the newly released WEGO Stalingrad I wonder if in 80 years there will be a WEGO Battle of Mariupol.
While I am dismayed by the war and the tragic loss of life and humanitarian crisis and war crimes - the inner war nerd in me is looking forward to all the books, games and analysis.

I'd say the first gaming system to simulate it will be Close Combat. Because that engine is already perfectly tuned to simulate the goofy way the Sovs Russskies have handled their armor so far!  >:D

(Come to think of it, I seem to recall that Cross of Iron, previously CC3, was the most modded CC for various reasons; so maybe some ambitious modder has already started that project!)

It looks like 2 Ukrainian MI-24s hit the fuel facility inside of Russia.

https://funker530.com/video/ukrainian-mi-24-attack-helicopters-destroy-fuel-depot-in-russia/?ref=asmdss&fbclid=IwAR3wU6z9sNDnqv53-MKmScdYsrb7csLdoEv7CFTx9G9W0U97rpuYsgHWKoM

Forbes posted an article on MSN about this, too: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukrainian-attack-helicopters-just-slipped-into-russia-and-blew-up-a-fuel-depot/ar-AAVKjYt?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=34c6713973c8442dbc348626ce2de180

DCS has a Black Sea and Hind module, right? I'm not where I can check right now.

I dunno. At the end of it the Russians aren't going to be able to spend their way to victory by paying mercs. Their equipment has been degraded. Missile stocks depleted. Ultimately their military moral will be the deciding point. I would put money in the Ukrainians winning that match. Especially if they get supplied with arty etc such as they are receiving from the UK.
I posted earlier about this I feel like it's 1918 again and will and morale are going to decide the conflict.  The Russians have taken an awful beating.  Hard to recover from being gang taped by the Ukrainians  and made their bitch on the global stage. Eventually that shit will get back along with the horrific casualty rates to the Russian people.

I hope you are right.  The Germans seem to have thrown up their hands and sent some BMP-1a1s.  You can see the Germans are giving up on any rational solution to whatever Putin's problems are and
that seems like the only rational thing to do:

Germany's top diplomat tells CNN that "it's in Putin's hands" to end the war

Aw, yeah! -- time for Sweden to get on the "armored bandwagon" with Germany!  :D :D :D (Pbv stands for pansarbandvagn in Swedish)

[Tripoli]

As I am looking at the newly released WEGO Stalingrad I wonder if in 80 years there will be a WEGO Battle of Mariupol.
While I am dismayed by the war and the tragic loss of life and humanitarian crisis and war crimes - the inner war nerd in me is looking forward to all the books, games and analysis.
Con

  I don't know.  Gaming-wise, the mess in the Ukraine pretty much invalidates all the Cold War games about the war that never happened.  The mess in the Ukraine suggests all games
about the Soviets and Russians and post 1980 stuff in general need some pretty serious revision at all levels.  I'm looking into how Harpoon V simulates missiles and finding it pretty enlightening.
Gotta start over at the tech level to get games working plausibly with crap like the mess in the Ukraine.

I'm not entirely sure about that.  A lot (admittedly, not all) of the Russian problems are due to some very bad planning.  The same force, led more competently at the flag officer level and with better planning could have done a lot better.  With that said, there would still remain some significant training issues at the company and below level.  Additionally, there appear to have been some significant resourcing problems at the battalion level (which comes back to bad planning).  I believe that while a lot of assumptions made about the Russian army by both professional and commercial wargames need to be reviewed and modified, it would be dangerous (and likely a bad assumption) to presume that these problems won't be addressed.  Some of them, (like the bad planning) can be addressed without too much monetary expenditure.  Of course, replacing  the equipment lost won't be as cheap.  And the morale cost to the Russian army will take 10+ years (and a fair amount of money) to fix under peacetime conditions.

[ArizonaTank]

As I am looking at the newly released WEGO Stalingrad I wonder if in 80 years there will be a WEGO Battle of Mariupol.
While I am dismayed by the war and the tragic loss of life and humanitarian crisis and war crimes - the inner war nerd in me is looking forward to all the books, games and analysis.
Con

  I don't know.  Gaming-wise, the mess in the Ukraine pretty much invalidates all the Cold War games about the war that never happened.  The mess in the Ukraine suggests all games
about the Soviets and Russians and post 1980 stuff in general need some pretty serious revision at all levels.  I'm looking into how Harpoon V simulates missiles and finding it pretty enlightening.
Gotta start over at the tech level to get games working plausibly with crap like the mess in the Ukraine.

I wouldn't go as far as invalidating all "Cold War games about the war that never happened." I am far from an expert, but it has been more than 30 years, and the Russian military has been through a political, social, and organizational wringer since then; plenty of opportunity for it to degrade.

Sure the Soviets were not the 'ten foot tall' juggernauts we told ourselves they were, but they were organized and decently equipped. The Soviets only real military test was a low-intensity (compared to war in Europe) conflict in Afghanistan. They did poorly there, but that was a type of warfare they were not built to conduct. They were corrupt, but not to the extent that the Russians are now. The Soviets were also inflexible, unimaginative and somewhat behind the tech power curve, but they compensated for those problems with massive forces. Short of a morale collapse, I think they would have been a problem for NATO to deal with.

But thankfully, we will never know.

[MengJiao]

As I am looking at the newly released WEGO Stalingrad I wonder if in 80 years there will be a WEGO Battle of Mariupol.
While I am dismayed by the war and the tragic loss of life and humanitarian crisis and war crimes - the inner war nerd in me is looking forward to all the books, games and analysis.
Con

  I don't know.  Gaming-wise, the mess in the Ukraine pretty much invalidates all the Cold War games about the war that never happened.  The mess in the Ukraine suggests all games
about the Soviets and Russians and post 1980 stuff in general need some pretty serious revision at all levels.  I'm looking into how Harpoon V simulates missiles and finding it pretty enlightening.
Gotta start over at the tech level to get games working plausibly with crap like the mess in the Ukraine.

I wouldn't go as far as invalidating all "Cold War games about the war that never happened." I am far from an expert, but it has been more than 30 years, and the Russian military has been through a political, social, and organizational wringer since then; plenty of opportunity for it to degrade.

Sure the Soviets were not the 'ten foot tall' juggernauts we told ourselves they were, but they were organized and decently equipped. The Soviets only real military test was a low-intensity (compared to war in Europe) conflict in Afghanistan. They did poorly there, but that was a type of warfare they were not built to conduct. They were corrupt, but not to the extent that the Russians are now. The Soviets were also inflexible, unimaginative and somewhat behind the tech power curve, but they compensated for those problems with massive forces. Short of a morale collapse, I think they would have been a problem for NATO to deal with.

But thankfully, we will never know.

  In some ways now we do know.  I think if you wanted to simulate say an attack by the USSR on NATO in 1986, you'd have to at least glance at the kind of factors that seem to have
snagged the Russians in Ukraine in 2022.  I'm still not quite sure what those factors might be, but I would think games about big modern tank battles might want to take a peek at what
really happened in 2022 with lots of modern tanks in big modern tank battles.  I suspect NATO would not have been easy for the USSR to deal with even in 1986, but I have no real idea
what might be involved in digging into that.

[MengJiao]

^Haha of course - but clearly much easier said than done, especially when nukes are in the hands of the pissed off toddler.

  Ukrainian translates Putin into human language:

Russian forces "not strong enough" to attack Ukraine on all fronts, Ukraine's top diplomat says
From CNN's Emmet Lyons and Ken Olshansky

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN Friday he believes a regrouping of Russian troops is happening as "they cannot sustain the pressure" to continue an assault on Ukraine from three fronts.

Speaking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Kuleba said that the decision by Moscow to reduce military activity on the two fronts of Kyiv and Chernihiv came at a time when "Ukrainian forces started to successfully push them back from villages and small towns in the siege of Kyiv. The reason they said it was because they felt they cannot sustain the pressure and they cannot keep the front line around Kyiv."

Kuleba said that it may be indicative of Russian President Vladimir Putin becoming more realistic about his military strategy. "I believe he already has become more real since I cannot imagine that the withdrawal of Russian forces from the north of Ukraine was not ordered by him," the minister said.

"If we translate this recent movement into the human language, it literally means I do not have sufficient power to continue attacking Ukraine from three directions simultaneously. So I have to move part of my military strength to another direction to reinforce my army in that area," he said.

"Whatever his picture of reality is, from the steps they are making on the ground, I can conclude that he has an understanding that his power, that he is not strong enough to continue attacking Ukraine from all corners and that's clear now," Kubela added.

So there you go!  Some Putin thought translated into human language!!!

[FarAway Sooner]

A few random thoughts:

• The attack on the Belgorod fuel depots matter primarily because they mark the first significant Ukrainian attacks against assets in Russian territory.  Except that the Ukrainians have denied it.
• Ukraine enjoys the benefit of the interior lines of communication and transportation, for the most part, and at least half the Ukrainian army is East of Kyiv.  Might that work in their favor?
• The Soviet system fell because it was such a piss-poor meritocracy that it couldn't sustain its own weight (I'm happy to put that in Shadow Empires terms if somebody can't wrap their mind around the mechanics of how that affects a nation!    ;)).  It was obvious from a million different perspectives at the time (including that of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev).  The incompetence wasn't limited to the military, but the notion that the Soviet military would have been immune to this seems preposterous.
• It seems very likely that today's Russian military is suffering from the same failures.
• NOBODY understands what the Russian command loop looks like or even who's participating.  We can all speculate why this is the case, but in the final analysis, the technical terms for Russian decision making (at the military and national policy level) right now seem to be "shitshow" and "clusterfuck".

[JasonPratt]

FOOBARC also comes to mind: "Over-and-Over Beyond All Rational Comprehension".

I have at least 80% doubt that Putin will reform his army better for next time, though: he wants and needs most of it too weak and scared to oust him (and his mafia cronies) in a coup (and/or civil war breakup of Russia into more regions).