[AndyJackson]

In conventional doctrine (both NATO and Cold War Soviet) artillery is meant to suppress enemy positions in order for the attacker to penetrate his defenses, break through and exploit into maneuver warfare. Artillery is not supposed to bombard for months on end.

Damn Russians violating doctrine. They are paying for it with dead Ukrainians everywhere. Blowing up the whole countryside to kill people is against the laws of war. It's just not on.

[buwaya]

The damned Russians also had the same doctrine as the “west”, carried over from the Soviets. Maneuver warfare was the whole point of their initial BTG (battalion tactical group) organization evident in Feb-March 2022, self contained units oriented to exploitation.

That didn’t work for them, for many reasons, so bombardment was the fallback. These artillery tactics are the result of failure. They failed to win through maneuver so they have been trying to win through attrition.

For what it’s worth I doubt the attrition tactics are working. We will find out eventually.