13:07
For lack of anything better, I have been pondering that I have always lived under the belief that high technology would be trumped by quantity over time. I guess that came from Germany’s superior quality being ground down over time by quantity and that, for example, Vietnam and Afghanistan could win over technology.
My logic has gone something like this – first the technological West is superior but over time we lose the advantage with high losses and it becomes brutal quantity that decides. Are we then really superior against China and Russia for example who have more of everything? GPS stops working when all satellites are shot down, we run out of advanced aircraft and artillery systems, etc.
There are a plethora of flaws in that thinking, one is that Germany was not fought by a quantitatively superior Russia but by the combined West + Russia.
Actually, what we see today is the first time Russia has been tested against Western warfare without being supported with materiel and other fronts that drained capacity. Then it was probably really the case that Germany should never have gotten as far as they did.
One thinks wrongly if they feel that they had bad luck in Stalingrad and that was the turning point, rather the opposite, they advanced on pure luck and the fact that Adolf was a rarely seen risk-taker but his generals were competent and always did the best of the situation as long as it lasted.
Armenia – Azerbaijan was probably an eye-opener for many and after this war Russian doctrine should be dead? The West has run the same concept for hundreds of years and always come out as the winner so we must be doing something right.
That said, I have felt throughout the war that there are 5-6-7 pillars that must constantly be in balance, and both sides work to unbalance the other side’s pillars while keeping their own balanced in order to win. To maintain this balance, one must make well-considered decisions every day and supply materiel – it is no easy task.
Without the Ukrainian infantry, this would probably have been heading towards a loss quite quickly even with HIMARS; it is the infantry and effective close combat units that have been the foundation on which everything else could be built.
Quite a few in the international units who came to the eastern front turned back. There has been a fundamental combat readiness and motivation in the Ukrainian infantry that Russia probably did not fully anticipate.
The infantry is by no means high-tech, but point two is – intelligence gathering. The Russians are like a preschool class on a field trip just about to get ice cream, while Ukraine can move HIMARS staffs daily right when staff meetings are held.
On top of that, the West has always taken care of the pillars as soon as they could. I never saw the value of the Gepard until Iranian moped-drones appeared, for example. Everyone was just waiting for when Solros2022 enlightened the thread about this wunderwaffe HIMARS.
A low-probability bet is that the artillery radar came when Russian artillery started being knocked out in double digits daily.
Now we know that 1,000 kamikaze drones are coming soon, and we can guess the chaos they will create on top of HIMARS, 777, wing grenades, SOF, air force, and army aviation.
The only thing not delivered is top-shelf armor and Western aircraft, but maybe that won’t happen – perhaps it’s still unwise to provoke Putin? (I don’t see the logic in that).
The conclusion I draw from this war is that in peacetime one can continue to analyze the pillars and create balance with the new black technologies that come, drones for example, and that one has motivated soldiers.
That is exactly what the defense does, but sometimes one overinvests in a system or makes lovely decisions like the great regiment death – if you want peace, you must prepare for war, it’s not more complicated than that and it applies 24/7 nonstop.
I think the USA does everything right all the time, and NATO can probably become a peacekeeping organization dominating the next 100 years or so. Each country contributes with its brigade and/or technology so that the total becomes impossible to counter for any rogue state. China will manage marginally better than Russia because the USA has quite a lot of exciting stuff in reserve that they can unleash if it comes to that.
They manage the tradition from the Napoleonic wars well, and I think the West has shown itself very much in 2022; they do not seize the chance to throw themselves over Russia and divide the country among themselves, they try to de-escalate in the most sensible way very responsibly.
We can be confident that the free West can continue its whack-a-mole of rogue states when they appear; the only thing one might need to be a little observant about is that the free West does not become repressive and a dictatorship. That is best countered through the fundamental democratic building blocks and a market economy where individual freedom is prioritized.
Sometimes it wavers, and in recent years I think we have had currents in all directions, in the name of the environment, in the name of equality, from SD and what else? It would, for example, be very easy to restrict individual freedom now with the Ukraine war as justification, and it is positive that the West has acted so balanced and responsibly here.
If the thread had gotten its way, Moscow would have had HIMARS already in March 🙂
08:29
Has probably been posted before but one of the war’s most disturbing videos.
Pro-Russian account by the way.
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1589375783113723905?s=20&t=F91kUuKuS238haXKGhFw6g
09:43
Yes, they are quite subdued and waiting their turn.
12:20
Now it is a Ukrainian victory in the long run and one must probably accept that there will be no top-shelf armor, 90 T72s should suffice for a while if they are modded into real Russian killers and M1117 is probably okay.
However, it stings a bit to see French Renault armored personnel carriers going into battle unarmed, they could at least have been delivered with the main armament?
Then there is actually something lower than promising nothing and that is making big promises that you later back down on. Now it turned into a lively thread about it but it is noteworthy that time passes. I also think that is why Biden was so clear in his communication so that no shadow would fall on the armed forces.
Renewed Ukrainian offensive imminent, at least in the Kherson area but probably also on other fronts.
I find Kherson highly interesting, there are different reports all the time and one tries to guess what the Russian side is planning. I still think it seems clear that they do not intend to abandon the city of Kherson but that they are prepared to abandon the area east of the Inhulets River if it gets tight.
They are also preparing for static defense along the eastern bank of the Dnieper River – that signals that they absolutely intend to hold the area behind the southern front (if they can…).
Evacuating civilians seems to have had a purpose – to get rid of all the messaging of coordinates for defense to the Ukrainian side?
If you take a look at the city of Kherson it is an excellent natural defense, a bit like a medieval castle with moats and the last defense in the tower. If I were the Russian side I would hold it as long as I could, especially now in winter and since there are no larger cities east of the Dnieper near the river, only small communities that Ukraine will have a hard time with.
With that in mind, I think the reason they are sinking all watercraft is to prevent their own units from fleeing. They control all crossings but the river in between is unguarded and boats can advantageously be used.
Now the sword is a bit double-edged because when it is time to retreat those watercraft would have been needed so it would have been smarter to move them to the eastern bank and let the FSB guard them but now it is the Russian imperial army we are dealing with here and stranger things have happened in this war.
In the city of Kherson they are probably hiding in built-up areas so it becomes harder to find the holes and the defense should be quite formidable, the elite units that have had half a year should reasonably be well established?
One detail I am not clear about is that the Russians possibly are evacuating VDV and elite units and replenishing with LPR/DPR and mobilized troops, there are too many ambiguous signals but it is a possible outcome.
If one is to guess, maybe they do this east of the Inhulets River but intend to hold the city of Kherson with their better units?
Over battalion commanders, administration, rear, artillery, FSB, Rosgvardia et.al seem to have been withdrawn in rounds over quite a long time and now they have discovered that Ukraine reaches them on the eastern bank too – that is quite a low level if you believe a river would offer protection and you relax field discipline as soon as you have crossed.
I feel that we are coming back to what we used to write when 777 came with guided ammunition that if they skipped the coffee breaks they could take out a BTG in defense in one morning.
Now at least the weapon platforms are not the bottleneck so maybe it is the ammunition, the Russians have also continuously reinforced the western bank so there are just more targets all the time.
But… all buried armor is grilling in the making, the all-seeing eye sees absolutely everything, we know that when they found all command posts that were moved daily and struck them precisely when the staff meetings were held – then you have target information almost in real time.
There is full speed on drones and winged grenades so a Russian in a trench is not safe in any way. A Russian in UFA or otherwise on the move is a target for tungsten rain, zone tube barrages, air or army aviation.
I am of the opinion that the Russians have no defense against this at all, they simply cannot build protection that protects. They can mix in with civilians or pitch their tents in nuclear power plants which they of course also do because it is the Russian imperial army.
But they will not be able to find an effective countermeasure – their air defense is taken out, their artillery is taken out, armor in defense is taken out and Russians in trenches are taken out and they can only wait for their turn.
What has surprised me, however, is the enormous sluggishness in the Russian army and Russian administration. We were waiting for the sniper effect when 777 and HIMARS were at their worst but they struggle against headwinds every day until they die. These small winged grenade drones are added to that arsenal and then (all of the West’s) SOF and partisans. Russian soldiers must reasonably feel like they are in the middle of a constant fox hunt but they sip their cheap vodka and grit their teeth and polish the washing machine with a swim ring around it which is the only thing that still makes them want to live – to become the king of the village with their own washing machine. The fact that the village has no electricity is a minor detail.