Thoughts on the Russo-Ukranian War?

[lljadw]

What is it about dictators and their desire to terrorise civilians instead of attacking military targets while the war on the ground turns against them.
How many V1 and V2s were wasted on cities when attacking the invasion ports may have actually slowed the Allies up.

This is not correct :in a war all cities are legitimate military targets where also live civilians .
Britain and the US did the same as the Germans : Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Coventry were each equals .
V1 and V2s were not wasted on cities : they could not be used against Omaha, Gold, Utah,etc because they were not accurate .
They were used against the Port of Antwerp, but failed and killed mostly civilians outside the port .
On 16 December 1944 a V2 fell on the Cinema Rex in Antwerp, 567 people died .296 Allied soldiers and 271 civilians .
In London 2754 civilians were killed,but the port on London continued to work . . V2s were directed against Ipswich and Norwich but because their inaccuracy, they failed to reach these cities .

 

[lljadw]

The answer to that is both yes and no.
They can press gang and hoodwink enough of their population to fill 800 tanks after all it is only 3200 people and some of them will have had experience in something with an engine which seems to make them eminently qualified in Russian military eyes hell friends had a 1980 Lada Niva and it performed in almost every way like tank until it fell apart.

So yes they can crew 800 tanks but no they can't crew 800 tanks with qualified and experienced crews so 801 ATGMs pretty much solves the problem, 50% success rate on the missiles and 400 abandoned and broken down tanks thanks to quality Russian vodka fuelled workmanship.

I doubt it : 300000 reservists were called up ,let's assume 150000 former conscripts ,young,but with less experience and 150000 former professionals with more experience but also older .
For these 800 tanks 3200 experienced men are needed,not only with a tank experience but also with the experience of how to collaborate with the infantry and the artillery . How many of these 300000 reservists have had the training of these old tanks ? Are these oldies still used ,or are they stored somewhere in depots ?. But,this is not all : we may count that for every new old tank more than 100 men of infantry,artillery and support men are needed and we may not forget that these 300000 reservists must include also the needed replacements for the infantry losses .
And there is also the problem of the technicians :if you never have worked on an old tank,how will you do it ? And what about the spare parts ? And are there still instructors available ?
A thorough retraining is needed and that will take not weeks, but months .

 

[MontyB]

This is not correct :in a war all cities are legitimate military targets where also live civilians .
Britain and the US did the same as the Germans : Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Coventry were each equals .
V1 and V2s were not wasted on cities : they could not be used against Omaha, Gold, Utah,etc because they were not accurate .
They were used against the Port of Antwerp, but failed and killed mostly civilians outside the port .
On 16 December 1944 a V2 fell on the Cinema Rex in Antwerp, 567 people died .296 Allied soldiers and 271 civilians .
In London 2754 civilians were killed,but the port on London continued to work . . V2s were directed against Ipswich and Norwich but because their inaccuracy, they failed to reach these cities .

Right, but had the limited resources they been thrown against high value targets for example the embarkation ports in the UK or even the Mulberry harbours in France it would have forced the Allies into spending resources to defend them and at critical points in time such as the month around D-Day they could have proved invaluable but instead they were wasted on cities where anything of value was spread out which made them useless.

Incidentally they also fired 11 of them at the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen and missed.

 

[MontyB]

I doubt it : 300000 reservists were called up ,let's assume 150000 former conscripts ,young,but with less experience and 150000 former professionals with more experience but also older .
For these 800 tanks 3200 experienced men are needed,not only with a tank experience but also with the experience of how to collaborate with the infantry and the artillery . How many of these 300000 reservists have had the training of these old tanks ? Are these oldies still used ,or are they stored somewhere in depots ?. But,this is not all : we may count that for every new old tank more than 100 men of infantry,artillery and support men are needed and we may not forget that these 300000 reservists must include also the needed replacements for the infantry losses .
And there is also the problem of the technicians :if you never have worked on an old tank,how will you do it ? And what about the spare parts ? And are there still instructors available ?
A thorough retraining is needed and that will take not weeks, but months .

I am not convinced the Russians are putting too much effort into training their troops to do anything, this is borne out by the fact that untrained conscripted troops are already surrendering in Ukraine.
I really doubt that spare parts are an issue as the ones that aren't abandoned on the way too the front will most likely be abandoned sat the first sight of resistance.
Overall I have little doubt that the Russians can get 800 T-62s running and I don't doubt they can jam 3200 crewmen into them but I do doubt they will be anything more than raw recruits with as much training as can be gained in the drive from where they pick up the tank in Ukraine to the front line.

 

[lljadw]

Right, but had the limited resources they been thrown against high value targets for example the embarkation ports in the UK or even the Mulberry harbours in France it would have forced the Allies into spending resources to defend them and at critical points in time such as the month around D-Day they could have proved invaluable but instead they were wasted on cities where anything of value was spread out which made them useless.

Incidentally they also fired 11 of them at the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen and missed.

They ( the V2s) were totally inaccurate :CEP was between 2,5 and 12 km
Their destruction power was very limited
Their operational range was also very limited : 320 km .
There were not enough of them .
When they were ready, in September 1944, the role of the Mulberry Harbors was almost finished .
To destroy the port of Cherbourg ,hundreds of V2s would be needed ,in a very short time.
And ,again the V2s ,there was no defense possible .
Defense against the V1s (primitive cruise missiles with a small destruction power ) was easy : they could be shot by aircraft or by artillery .
There is also the fact that more or less attacks on harbors had almost no effect on the amounts of supplies that left the harbors.For Antwerp (and it was not different for the other ports ),what was leaving the port was not determined by what was entering the port, but by the distance from the port to the front (road capacity ),by the capacity of the railways and the waterways .
Of course,if the Germans could launch 1000 V2s in one day against Antwerp,the port would no longer be operational, but daily 1000 or even 100 V2s against the same target ,was impossible .
That was the principal reason why cities were targeted,with the hope (illusion,self-deceit ) that British civilians would break ,while German civilians did not .

 

[George]

t I do doubt they will be anything more than raw recruits with as much training as can be gained in the drive from where they pick up the tank in Ukraine to the front line.

There's a video of a tank driving onto mines just sitting on top of the road....

 

[MontyB]

There's a video of a tank driving onto mines just sitting on top of the road....

I saw that and my overall impression was that it was staged but then again I don't know what the vision is like in a Russian tank or how drunk the crew were, after all also saw the video of the drunk Russian firing his weapon before he stood on a landmine so it seems anything is possible in the Russian army.

I am also trying to make sense of the Russian tank driving at speed while mounted troops are being thrown off before it hits tree and stops.

 

[MontyB]

They ( the V2s) were totally inaccurate :CEP was between 2,5 and 12 km
Their destruction power was very limited
Their operational range was also very limited : 320 km .
There were not enough of them .
When they were ready, in September 1944, the role of the Mulberry Harbors was almost finished .
To destroy the port of Cherbourg ,hundreds of V2s would be needed ,in a very short time.
And ,again the V2s ,there was no defense possible .
Defense against the V1s (primitive cruise missiles with a small destruction power ) was easy : they could be shot by aircraft or by artillery .
There is also the fact that more or less attacks on harbors had almost no effect on the amounts of supplies that left the harbors.For Antwerp (and it was not different for the other ports ),what was leaving the port was not determined by what was entering the port, but by the distance from the port to the front (road capacity ),by the capacity of the railways and the waterways .
Of course,if the Germans could launch 1000 V2s in one day against Antwerp,the port would no longer be operational, but daily 1000 or even 100 V2s against the same target ,was impossible .
That was the principal reason why cities were targeted,with the hope (illusion,self-deceit ) that British civilians would break ,while German civilians did not .

I don't disagree but my point is that had they used their resources on military targets rather than the delusion idea that killing civilians was going to get them a win they may have done better.

Let's be honest surely Putin has studied some history and if WW2 tells us anything it is that bombing civilian populations doesn't work.
The Luftwaffe bombing London failed, the RAF bombing Berlin failed and both cost more in resources and operational capability later on than they were worth.
What modern history does tell us is that is that attacking civilian populations only hardens their resolve.
Much in the same way that treating occupied people badly only turns them against you and makes enemy troops fight harder.

It seems Russia has learned nothing from WW2 at all.

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

I don't disagree but my point is that had they used their resources on military targets rather than the delusion idea that killing civilians was going to get them a win they may have done better.

Let's be honest surely Putin has studied some history and if WW2 tells us anything it is that bombing civilian populations doesn't work.
The Luftwaffe bombing London failed, the RAF bombing Berlin failed and both cost more in resources and operational capability later on than they were worth.
What modern history does tell us is that is that attacking civilian populations only hardens their resolve.
Much in the same way that treating occupied people badly only turns them against you and makes enemy troops fight harder.

It seems Russia has learned nothing from WW2 at all.

The military isn't a popular career choice in Russia, that's might explain the questionable performance by the Russian troops and why that haven't learned much from previous wars. I get the impression they are quite Clausewitzian in their approach to war. Find the enemy and defeat him with superior number without any regards about their own forces and their own casualties.

 

[MontyB]

The military isn't a popular career choice in Russia, that's might explain the questionable performance by the Russian troops and why that haven't learned much from previous wars. I get the impression they are quite Clausewitzian in their approach to war. Find the enemy and defeat him with superior number without any regards about their own forces and their own casualties.

These days Russia isn't a popular career choice for Russians but I am prepared to believe their doctrine stopped development in the 18th century.
There has always been the idea that Clausewitzian philosophy leads to extreme actions if conducted in a vacuum (ie no political or external interference) but I would argue that Western military doctrine is heavily conditioned by Clausewitz as it extremes are tempered by other factors in comparison Russian doctrine is more Ghengis Khan than Clausewitz.

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

These days Russia isn't a popular career choice for Russians but I am prepared to believe their doctrine stopped development in the 18th century.
There has always been the idea that Clausewitzian philosophy leads to extreme actions if conducted in a vacuum (ie no political or external interference) but I would argue that Western military doctrine is heavily conditioned by Clausewitz as it extremes are tempered by other factors in comparison Russian doctrine is more Ghengis Khan than Clausewitz.

Or Genghis Khan and Attila combined. It must be embarrassing for the Russian to rely on Iranian drones. This bombardment doesn't reduce the Ukrainians ability to conduct military operations. The reduction of the Ukrainian power grid only make the Ukrainian civilians pissed.

But that is easier to hit civilians than to hit military and legitime targets.

 

[lljadw]

Or Genghis Khan and Attila combined. It must be embarrassing for the Russian to rely on Iranian drones. This bombardment doesn't reduce the Ukrainians ability to conduct military operations. The reduction of the Ukrainian power grid only make the Ukrainian civilians pissed.

But that is easier to hit civilians than to hit military and legitime targets.

Hitting civilians is legitimate,as long as it is unintentionally .
See :Hiroshima .Etc .

 

[MontyB]

Hitting civilians is legitimate,as long as it is unintentionally .
See :Hiroshima .Etc .

It is a rather dubious distinction given today's precision weapons.

 

[MontyB]

Or Genghis Khan and Attila combined. It must be embarrassing for the Russian to rely on Iranian drones. This bombardment doesn't reduce the Ukrainians ability to conduct military operations. The reduction of the Ukrainian power grid only make the Ukrainian civilians pissed.

But that is easier to hit civilians than to hit military and legitime targets.

I am not sure the west has less to be embarassed about, France has been a little better than useless, Germany has been shown to be indecisive and reticent to supply anything and on the whole it is probably a good thing Russia didn't attack the west as it's state of preparation has been woeful.
Probably the outstanding support seems to be coming from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania given their size (I have omitted USA and UK).

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

I am not sure the west has less to be embarassed about, France has been a little better than useless, Germany has been shown to be indecisive and reticent to supply anything and on the whole it is probably a good thing Russia didn't attack the west as it's state of preparation has been woeful.
Probably the outstanding support seems to be coming from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania given their size (I have omitted USA and UK).

But there is a difference, Germany has jeopardized its own arms industry, when they prohibit other NATO countries to deliver stuff to Ukraine. Russia, "the superpower" (it is more a third world country with nuclear weapons) being dependent on another country to get drones.

 

[lljadw]

It is a rather dubious distinction given today's precision weapons.

Hm : maybe better :today's not precision weapons .
The attacks with drones have been criticized because they resulted in ''excessive ''collateral damages.J.Carter was whining that hundreds of civilians were killed by drones ( I know that it is Carter ), but last year (August 2021 ) a drone killed in Kabul 10 members of the the same family ,of whom 7 children .
A lot of people believe the drone propaganda from the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex "a woman sitting in a chair in a room in DC directing a computer to kill thousands of km s away a dangerous terrorist,without causing civilian casualties ''.
Maybe we should admit the truth which is that it is impossible to kill military without killing civilians .

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

The bottom line is; for each weapon fired and hitting civilians is not fired against military targets. Therefore, the drones, missiles, and/or artillery shells fired against civilians are not improving the Russian war effort. The reduction of the Ukrainian power grid doesn't decrease the Ukrainian armed forces ability to conduct operations against the Russians.

Btw, it is illegal to attack civilian targets (Geneva Convention IV Art 53) unless these targets also have a significance for the military. The Ukrainian power grid doesn't have a military value when it doesn't reduce the Ukrainian military. However, it has never been a war without deliberate violations of the laws of war. The laws, aka Geneva Conventions has its purpose to reduce violations and also holding participants accountable for their actions.

 

[MontyB]

Hm : maybe better :today's not precision weapons .
The attacks with drones have been criticized because they resulted in ''excessive ''collateral damages.J.Carter was whining that hundreds of civilians were killed by drones ( I know that it is Carter ), but last year (August 2021 ) a drone killed in Kabul 10 members of the the same family ,of whom 7 children .
A lot of people believe the drone propaganda from the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex "a woman sitting in a chair in a room in DC directing a computer to kill thousands of km s away a dangerous terrorist,without causing civilian casualties ''.
Maybe we should admit the truth which is that it is impossible to kill military without killing civilians .

The argument is not that civilians get killed in wars as throw enough ordinance around and even the most careful actions are going to result in civilian deaths, the argument is that the Russians are specifically targeting civilians.

 

[MontyB]

The bottom line is; for each weapon fired and hitting civilians is not fired against military targets. Therefore, the drones, missiles, and/or artillery shells fired against civilians are not improving the Russian war effort. The reduction of the Ukrainian power grid doesn't decrease the Ukrainian armed forces ability to conduct operations against the Russians.

Btw, it is illegal to attack civilian targets (Geneva Convention IV Art 53) unless these targets also have a significance for the military. The Ukrainian power grid doesn't have a military value when it doesn't reduce the Ukrainian military. However, it has never been a war without deliberate violations of the laws of war. The laws, aka Geneva Conventions has its purpose to reduce violations and also holding participants accountable for their actions.

I have to admit I really think the Ukrainian military are relieved that the Russians are wasting their ordinance on blowing up playgrounds in Kiev instead of troop concentrations in Kherson.

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

I have to admit I really think the Ukrainian military are relieved that the Russians are wasting their ordinance on blowing up playgrounds in Kiev instead of troop concentrations in Kherson.

Yes, and that's the point of attacking civilians, it is better to attack a Ukrainian logistical hub somewhere instead of an apartment building in any Ukrainian city