Russia's War Against Ukraine

[JasonPratt]

^ 'Mostly'

[Gusington]

American combat veteran Matt Gallagher, who trained Ukrainians to defend themselves, talks about foreigners volunteering to fight the Russians:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/opinion/us-veterans-ukraine.html

'The Ukrainian Foreign Legion currently has around 20,000 troops, 3,000 of which are American.'

'There's little doubt an American captive, particularly a veteran, would be a propaganda coup for the Kremlin. It's also plausible that a veteran would be treated as a combatant, regardless of his or her actual work in Ukraine. There must now be thousands of Americans in the country, working in both military and humanitarian capacities. I fear it's a matter of when, not if, one of them falls into Russian hands and becomes the main character in a cautionary tale.'

[GDS_Starfury]

why the russian BTG concept sucks:

https://twitter.com/dupuyinstitute/status/1513243631066439691

[FarAway Sooner]

Excellent content, Star!  Thanks for sharing.

In other news, this is an interesting analysis of how Germany could easily end its dependence on Russian natural gas by the end of 2023, but it involves re-embracing nuclear power, which seems like a political no-no within the current German political structure after what happened in Fukushima.  The author is wicked smart but sometimes long-winded.

https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-germany-wont-keep-its-nuclear?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo4MDQwMjQ2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjo1MjAwNzEwMSwiXyI6ImhuUXA5IiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ5NjkzMTY5LCJleHAiOjE2NDk2OTY3NjksImlzcyI6InB1Yi0zNDc1MzMiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.3J-PIGpnmO09nb48a_pCrUg3Y8fiUsZ8Eq9occl1r-4&s=r

[JasonPratt]

Star as usual scores again! 

why the russian BTG concept sucks:
https://twitter.com/dupuyinstitute/status/1513243631066439691

(11) It will take a thorough analysis to determine if the performance of the BTGs is due to inherent flaws in Russian Army personnel and training or flaws in their doctrinal approach. Again, both are probably culpable.

No doubt, plus logistic problems including maintenance. (I doubt these flaws are doctrinal outgrowths, in any official way, although maintenance could be a training flaw.)

The comment thread is pretty good, too. Though if anyone wants to see the original tweets as one post, they've unrolled it here (without comments): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1513243631066439691.html

Michael Koffman's April 3rd analysis (which may have already been linked to upthread) is still relevant: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1510681888700215307.html

Moscow is trying to fight a war with the largest country in Europe {NB: by land area} without declaring a state of war at home. Ukraine has fully mobilized, and has extensive Western support. Russia may technically have more manpower and materiel on paper, but it is politically inaccessible. 3/

This is a reference to manpower reserves not being mobilized; the standing army is going in, and new recruits are being drafted to supplement them, but the official reserves aren't being mobilized. The political point of mobilization in Russian history since before WW2 (via Shaposhnikov), remember, is that mobilization IS war -- there can be no partial mobilization, and those troops will be used somewhere, even if the politicians would rather not later. "Don't play games with mobilization." This is also no doubt part of the point to calling this invasion a "special operation". In short, Russian mobilization would be the same as World War III, one way or another. But then also, I seriously doubt they have the logistic capability to support official mobilization anyway: they've overstretched their capabilities already.

(On the other hand, they now have rather less logistical strain due to having a lot fewer vehicles than before, not to say manpower...  >:D )

Koffman notes later in his thread, some ways in which Russia is trying to get around the no-mobilization political quandry.

Concurrently with TDI's analysis of the failure of the Russian BTGs due to being manpower-lean by design, Koffman thinks that the manpower has been only 75% of the lean design! Compare this with the famous Stalin Line of the USSR before 1939 (when Stalin started dismantling it after Hitler invaded Poland): the Fortified Sectors were designed to provide a corps' worth of firepower but manned by a division or even a brigade, but the obvious big difference is that the manpower was designed to fight on defense with extremely well-protected interior lines of support, at the most dangerous end of a modernized Slavic motte-defense security corridor -- practically the opposite of a modern Russian BTG force design.

Maybe this could have been rectified if they had focused on two large mutually supporting thrusts toward a target like Kiev, bringing along something like interior lines of overlapping support between them; but they'd still be stuck low on manpower trying to assault Kiev. A low-manpower defense can work; a low-manpower offense.... eh...

Reportedly, there's an 8-mile long convoy revving up now for the next 'phase' of invasion. We'll see what, if anything, the Russians have learned, too late or not for them. (I'd provide a link to the article, but the link has disappeared since I last saw it.  ??? If I manage to run across it again, I'll post it up.)

Hopefully what they learned was, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia, when death is on in the line! BWA HA HA BWA HA HA HAAAurk--"  :D \m/

[JasonPratt]

From two comments on the TDI thread: "One problem I see was the numbers of BTGs deployed. The BTG numbers exceeded 100 and I doubt that their parent Divisions, far behind and lacking actual Theatre command, knew where all of them were - hence coordination and logistics fails.
10:01 PM · Apr 10, 2022"

"Agreed. Trucks going all the way back to Div/Corps for supplies from each BTG is a massive duplication of effort and clogs the roads.  Having Bde/Regt as relay stores between BTG and Div/Corps increases transport productivity and supply responsiveness to the frontline.
3:32 AM · Apr 11, 2022"

That subthread is well worth reading in its own right: https://twitter.com/Musso01A/status/1513351440391348225

The original poster's most recent comment is that the BTGs were supposed to relieve the airborne assault force at the airport(s), which would normally be slated for the first 36 hours. This is a little backwards from an ideal assault in Russian doctrine, however: first, close-air support suppresses airport defenses (not sure that was done at all or how well); then paratroops take the airport (technically done); then the main airborne assault division elements land by glider and cargo transport (but the Uks overran the paratroops first!  :clap: so I'm not sure if anything was even sent by air??); THEN your forward element assault on the ground is supposed to arrive catching any enemy defenders in a crossfire.

[JasonPratt]

Kind of doubt this is from that "8-mile convoy", even though posted only two hours ago by the Sun -- but hopefully this is what we can expect!

[Tripoli]

...


Hopefully what they learned was, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia, when death is on in the line! BWA HA HA BWA HA HA HAAAurk--"  :D \m/

Just because you mentioned it, and it is a classic:

[Gusington]

^ ;D

[FarAway Sooner]

I always thought classic combined arms doctrine was that infantry and artillery units lead the initial assault (with some tank support), and then the heavier concentration of tank units is massed behind the original attack to exploit the original breakthrough?  Has that changed in the last 85 years?  Or were the Russians just expecting low-intensity warfare and they weren't prepared for high-intensity warfare.

Jason, my understanding is that the initial airborne assault at the airport didn't go as smoothly as planned for a couple reasons.  The key reason (as you suggest) is that the ground columns didn't arrive in time to relieve them (similar to Market Garden in Arnhem in WW II), but it was complicated by 2 or 3 other factors that the Russians got wrong:

1) Ukrainian units near the airport fought back hard and quickly.

2) Local SAM assets (details unknown) proved more durable and effective at preventing aerial reinforcement for the brief period of time when the Russians apparently had control of the airport.  I remember reading unconfirmed reports of several large Russian transport planes being shot down in an effort to reinforce that initial airborne assault.  My guess is that this was a prelude to the same small-unit initiative and tactics that choked Russian logistical supplies in the assault on Kiev.

3) I've read that the airborne assault vehicles simply didn't have the ability to withstand the firepower of hand-held antitank weapons, but no specifics on that were ever supplied.

[Windigo]

I have heard an early, very initial and unverified report that Russia has used chemical weapons in Mariupol...



uh oh...


may be legit if the majors have picked it up.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukrainian-battalion-accuses-russia-using-chemical-weapons-civilians-1697052

[bobarossa]

I have heard an early, very initial and unverified report that Russia has used chemical weapons in Mariupol...



uh oh...


may be legit if the majors have picked it up.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukrainian-battalion-accuses-russia-using-chemical-weapons-civilians-1697052

Note that the report is from the AZOV battalion/regiment. 

[acctingman]

and now there are reports of Russian soldiers raping old Ukrainian women?

[Pete Dero]

and now there are reports of Russian soldiers raping old Ukrainian women?

Russia's Interfax news agency :

Russia's Vladimir Putin hailed his "brave" and "effective" troops in Ukraine today.

The Russian leader vowed that his "noble" war against Ukraine would be successful and defiantly said his country could not be isolated from the rest of the world.

"There is no doubt that the goals and tasks of the operation in Ukraine will be fulfilled," he said, claiming "confrontation with the growing anti-Russian forces in Ukraine was inevitable" and only "a question of time."

"The Russian Armed Forces have acted bravely, efficiently, and effectively in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, using the most contemporary kinds of weapons," he said.

"What we are doing is helping people, saving people, on the one hand, and on the other hand—we are simply taking measures to ensure the security of Russia itself. It's evident that we had no other choice, this is the right decision,"


Meanwhile, evidence of possible Russian war crimes in the country has continued to grow, as Ukraine's human-rights ombudswoman told The New York Times and the BBC that Russian troops held more than two dozen women captive in a basement in Bucha while they occupied the devastated town.

Nine of the women in that group—which included girls as young as 14—are now pregnant, according to the ombudswoman, Lyudmila Denisova.

"Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children," Denisova told the BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61071243


In one of the most heinous allegations against Russian troops so far, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday confirmed reports that a Russian soldier sent around video of himself sexually assaulting a baby.

According to Russian media reports, the soldier in question, Aleksei Bychkov, was arrested on Russian territory.

[acctingman]

I hope and pray that every one of those motherfuckers gets anally raped by a RPG