maybe its a feint by the Russians
Posted on 06/16/2023 4:17:30 PM PDT by Kazan
Ukraine’s faltering offensive is completely lost on General Milley and Secretary of Defense Austin. Milley and Austin, put that face on full display Thursday as they briefed reporters on the results of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels.
The problem with the NATO plan for Ukraine’s faltering offensive is encapsulated in the following quote (it starts at the 8:51 mark in the video at link):
More than six thousand Ukrainians are being trained right now at 40 different locations (sic) training locations in 65 courses in 33 Nations on three continents. That is all happening right now today
Let me give you some facts. If you join the U.S. Army and want to learn to crew a M1 Abram tank, you are looking at a minimum of 6 months training. And that is just learning how drive the tank and fire shells. But that is only the beginning. Soldiers are not given their own personal tank to tool around the base. Once a soldier and his crew learn how to start, steer, shoot and stop, the team must then learn how to operate in a coordinated fashion with a company (150 soldiers ), a battalion (800 to 1000 soldiers), a brigade (5000 soldiers) and a Division (10,000 to 15,000 soldiers).
Instruction starts with the simple and proceeds to the complex. Effectively operating a tank as part of a Division is the most complicated task and mission. Guess what? To learn to do this requires at least two years of training. There are no shortcuts. I spoke the other day with a young Army Captain who remarked how difficult it was to train U.S. troops to carry out brigade level tank maneuvers even after two years of training.
With that as background do you now appreciate the stupidity of Milley’s comment? The Ukrainians are not being taken to one location in one country and asked to master two or three courses of instruction. Nope. They are in 40 different locations in 33 different countries and 6000 Ukrainian troops are being fed a firehose of 65 courses. Do the math. That works out to about 93 soldiers per course. And the instructors most likely do not speak Ukrainian, so the soldiers are getting translated lessons in English, French, German, Polish and Italian. This is a veritable tower of Babel.
So let’s entertain the assumption that these 6000 souls are really fast learners and magically complete the training. How do you integrate 6000 soldiers that have been in 33 countries and being trained to different standards? Short answer — you don’t. It is impossible.
But then consider this. During just one week of combat against Russian forces, the Ukrainians lost 7500 men (killed and wounded). All of those trained soldiers erased in the flash of an artillery shell, a mortar or a glide bomb. Again, do the math. If Ukraine is losing 6000 men a week, then the training pipeline better have at least 80,000 Ukrainians attending these courses. Otherwise, NATO training cannot keep pace with Ukrainian casualties.
What we are witnessing is military malpractice on a colossal scale. I find it hard to believe that Milley, Austin and their NATO compatriots are really this stupid in touting this training regimen as something responsible and wise. It is madness. The cynical part of me believes that Ukraine is just being used as a pretext to juice the Western defense industries. After years of neglect and outsourcing, the U.S. and its NATO partners have discovered that they no longer have the factories and materials necessary to supply an industrial scale war.
The hard truth it this — Ukraine does not have the manpower and NATO does not have the luxury of time required to ensure the Ukrainian soldiers have minimal levels of competence in the military arts they are trying to learn in a veritable crash course. Keep this in mind as Russian grinds the Ukrainian Army into dust. All of that money for training men whose life expectancy is counted in weeks, if not days. Who will be held accountable?
OK, neocon. Who’s paying you to post these brilliancies?
maybe its a feint by the Russians
TU-3
The old joke about the greatest Russian inventor being Regus Patoff (Registered US Patent Office)
There was never a plan to conquer Ukraine. There’s disinfo, then there’s rank lies like “plan to conquer Ukraine”.
This is the central fact all the pro-Russia voices are talking around while avoiding talking about it. Ukraine is probing and shaping the battlefield, not attacking in force.
"but a recently retired officer... 2 years total."
Who? When? Where? Do tell. Since this war is starting to really drag out, this is to be expected unless one side collapses first.
It’s really incredible the silly stuff posted about this war.
If you think someone is paying me to answer an idiot here, what chance is there you can intelligently evaluate a war?
Zero.
I spend very little time saying anything about the war. Mostly I call out delusional claims by others.
Like yours.
I lose track, are you the moron telling people that a major offensive is already over in 10 days, because you want it to be over?
I said nothing about offensives being over. If you had a modicum of patience, you’d figure out who posted what, instead of flinging random insults.
Pardon me for calling you a neocon. You actually argue like a liberal. Some play verbal chess, others prefer verbal checkers. So be it.
Other posters on the topic have failed to answer questions about whether they’re paid trolls. That speaks volumes about them. If you’re just an amateur geopolitical analyst, excuse me, I stand corrected.
However, you are disingenuous, to avoid using a stronger term. You’re not an occasional poster. You’ve been all over the war threads for months, even though you rarely can post anything that doesn’t devolve into one-liners or emotional blather.
War is hell. Deal with it.
After 11-12 (I lost count) rounds of sanctions, the Bidenistas and NAFOs have failed to stop Putler’s war machine. Only a major recession such as 2007-2008 will bring any sensible changes in policy.
As far as the political class, nothing will stop their destructive policies, unless there’s a major collapse of both political parties for corruption (similar to what happened in Italy in the early 1990s).
Ukraine hasn't come close to Russian's FIRST line of defense and will not.
How long do you and your ilk think you can keep making false promises and have any credibility left?
😂
WHERE? Ukraine hasn't even gotten close to the FIRST line of Russian defense. All the fighting has been in the grey zones and Ukraine has lost 7500 more troops.
You and your ilk like you breath. There are plenty of maps showing what's gone on and none of the show any significant Ukrainian gains.
But, Ukrainian lives nor wasted US tax dollars mean thing to neocon nimrods.
Don’t base your assessments on the New York Times.
They are a laughable cultural-Marxist organization, and thus secretly pro-Russia.
Exactly. It's ground the Russians are happy to concede temporarily because more Ukrainian soldiers are being fed into the Russian meat grinder.
Ten days with no progress equates to being on schedule? I guess if you mean to give the illusion Ukraine is accomplishing something in order to justify more money being sent to and laundered in Ukraine. In that sense, maybe so.
You’re all the same.
And that’s right I call out a lot of idiocy.
Ukraine did not take back twice the area of Bakhmut on the first day then stop.
why would anyone listen to you?
The Russians are “happy to cede” the villages they are losing.
Kind of like that knight in Monty Python who keeps losing limbs.
See here’s where I try to warn people about Russian frauds like you.
Could an army give up a village for tactical reasons? Sure.
No evidence whatsoever that’s what happened.
And absolutely no chance that you know every village the Russians are losing was given up “happily”.
You are a straight up Russian propagandist.
You are forging your comments exclusively based on Russian propaganda.
You should also read about all the destruction caused by the Ukrainians on the Russian side.. it’s massive. 200 Russian soldiers killed yesterday in one second with a Storm Shadow missile. Yes, as usual the Russians were so “smart” and regrouped together on a small spot easy to hit... they were supposed to listen to a speech from another “genius” Russian General. They all died, except the general what I heard. I guess he will die in a Gulag now...
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