Posted on 08/21/2023 1:54:01 PM PDT by delta7
When the history of Russia’s proxy war against NATO — i.e., the Special Military Operation in Ukraine — it will mark the point in history where conventional military operations predicated on doctrine established in World War II will be vanquished. ISR — i.e., Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance — is the true game changer and Russia, not NATO nor Ukraine, emerges as the military that has recognized this reality and adjusted its tactics accordingly. The West, by contrast, was lulled into complacency over the last twenty years because it employed its ISR, especially drones, against enemies that could not counter Western technology or shoot down our drones.
It is now impossible for conventional militaries to move men and equipment without being detected. During World War II the Soviets and the Brits were very creative and effective in deception operations, such as creating fictitious armies, that fooled the Germans into believing an attack was coming from one direction while failing to detect the real build up of forces. Locating enemy forces on the move or gathering in strength relied solely on fixed wing aerial surveillance, limited interception of encrypted communications and human sources (i.e. spies).
Today, the ISR capability of both the West and Russia is like the all-seeing eye of Sauron. During World War II darkness and cloud cover enabled commanders to move forces without a great risk of being detected. That is no longer the case, especially with satellite coverage of contested territory. Satellite optics and those on board fixed wing aircraft — both manned and unmanned — pierce the night and the clouds.
What does this mean for the Generals charged with preparing and executing battle plans? You must assume you are being watched by the other side and take measures to mitigate the various eyes watching your troops move into battle.
This brings me to the Ukrainian counter offensive and why it is failing. Ukraine, following the advice of NATO planners, is sending its forces across heavily mined, open fields without any air cover. This is the equivalent of a World War II banzai charge by despairing Japanese soldiers who are low on ammunition. They ran towards entrenched American positions hoping their numbers would overwhelm the defenders. They rarely succeeded and suffered devastating casualties in the process.
Today Ukraine is employing a similar tactic. But Ukraine is not sending 200,000 men in thousands of tanks and armored personnel carriers hoping to overwhelm Russia’s capability fire enough artillery, drones, missiles and bombs to stop the assault. Instead it is sending units, perhaps as large as 2000 men with a scattering of tanks and vehicles, and are melting away in the face of a Russian firestorm.
The following videos highlight the desperate plight of the Ukrainian forces:
Video
If you want a benchmark for comparisons sake I suggest you read Big Serge’s latest on substack — Götterdämmerung in the East. The size and scale of the Soviet offensives in 1944 and 1945 dwarf anything happening today in Ukraine but illustrate the power of large scale troop movements backed up by robust artillery, thousands of tanks and air superiority. Neither Ukraine nor NATO are capable of anything on this scale.
Russia is being very chary about revealing publicly its disposition of forces. However, I find it hard to believe that the United States and NATO, thanks to their ISR assets, do not have a pretty good idea of how many troops Russia has deployed along the 900 mile line of conflict. Any plans for attacking a strong point is a simple math problem — you have to have enough men and firepower to overwhelm the Russians. Yet we know the answer to that calculation — Ukraine is lacking in manpower, tanks, vehicles, artillery, mobile air defense and combat air. It does not have the power to punch through all of the Russian defenses, much less even the first line of defense erected by General Surovikin last fall.
So here is the billion dollar question — why did the West not encourage, hell, demand that Ukraine use Himars and Storm Shadow missiles to attack those defensive lines while they were being constructed? I believe the answer is simple — Ukraine lacked the offensive tools required for such a mission and, even if such supplies had been available, the odds are high that Russia could have thwarted those efforts.
We are witnessing military malpractice by the West on a grand scale. Did the NATO planners really believe the propaganda nonsense that portrayed the Russian military as a decrepit, doddering army of incompetents? If so, the West is now learning a very hard lesson and now must come to grips with the fact that NATO’s delusional calculation that Ukraine could shatter the Russian military is a complete bust.
No good guys here. Best to keep out BUT I fear forces are at work to pull us into the fight—one way or another. Poland, once hot for the war is getting cold feet. Germans are sick of war, it falls on us us to enter the list of combat. World war by December is my prediction. Lets hope I am wrong—real wrong. Pray for Peace. 1. Russia wins, Ukraine is crushed and lots of folks dead. 2. Ukraine Wins and lots of Ethic Russians dead as “Collaborators” in Ukraine. Victory means death.
German technology at the front. By plan and design, the US foments and stirs up trouble, hoping to engage Russia and when this happens have some one else do the fighting for them, pretty clever....! hmmmm
yalensis
Awful Avalanche
Sun, 20 Aug 2023 17:51 UTC
Ukraine Soldier
© AFU OS Command
Dear Readers:
This story is kind of gross, for which I apologize. And it might just be war propaganda, so take with a pinch of salt. Or smelling salts, if you need them. The reporter is Dmitry Yermolaev, who is basically copy/pasting from a report by the news service Argumenty i Fakty (”Arguments and Facts” - AiF).
Yermolaev: The number of dead and wounded Ukrainian soldiers is catastrophic. At a certain moment there were some actions and protests by widows, and certain scandals involving rumors of “organ transplanters” at the front. Zelensky’s office found a solution for all these problems: Simply burn the bodies in crematoria. This is also a good way to conceal the number of casualties. Thus, the army of the Kiev regime is employing mobile crematoria on the front lines. These devices were built in Germany. In Germany, they use these devices to burn the bodies of animals.
The German manufacturers offer a lifetime warranty on their equipment. The ovens are meant to be fired up and work around the clock. AiF reporters learned that the residents of Berislav and Kherson were complaining about a strange odor coming from outside the city limits. Rearguard units of the Ukrainian army had stationed mobile crematoria in two hangars where, it was noticed, army vehicles were coming and going all the time, bringing and unloading sacks.
More information came from interrogations of [Ukrainian] POWs. Many of them complained that Ukrainian army families were not receiving death benefits for loved ones who disappeared without a trace. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are obeying a directive from Kiev: to “minimalize the number of casualties”.
The public learned about a prikaz from the Commander of the 123rd Brigade, who had ordered the cremation of bodies in connection with the fact that all the morgues were Kherson were full to capacity. He had ordered his second-in-command of the rear guard to find a suitable location for field crematoria, and to organize the work of the ovens. The third bullet point of the prikaz was particularly interesting: He ordered the commanders of the units to obtain, by August 15, the signature of every soldier, giving his permission to be cremated in case of death.
[yalensis: I wonder what would happen if somebody refused to sign?]
In this way, adding to the endless “meat storms”, Ukrainian Army Commanders have created a perfect Factory of Death: In front of them, Russian machine guns. Behind them, Blocking Brigades. And in the deep rear the ovens are working around the clock...
I know what you mean.
There is a Military Age Male in Ukraine called “Pavlo From Ukraine”.
He makes mundane videos about living in Ukraine.
I often wonder why he hasn’t been conscripted to serve in Ukraine Military.
“”””Poland certainly didn’t send fighter plans on their own when they could have.””””
Are those the MiGs Biden was blocking and that Trump wanted them to have?
This was expected, given the skill and experience of the Russians. And deep down, I strongly suspect, the NATO planners knew this all along, but since they were Ukrainians...(I’ll leave it there).
————-
Are you saying the US is allowing/ advising/ advocating their pet Nazi’s storm into Vlad’s meat grinder? …..that has certainly been the case…” to the last Ukrainian “ is still some of the US politician’s cry. The Russian Derangement Syndrome has infected way to many Americans.
This was early and Biden wanted the Poles to take responsibility for sending them from a US base and the Poles said they needed US approval.
Biden wouldn’t give the approval and Trump thought they should be sent.
If Trump had been president there wouldn’t have been any need for the war and Nato wouldn’t be an option for Ukraine.
So those are the MiGs for Ukraine that Biden was blocking and that Trump wanted to be sent, I thought so.
Supposedly Ukes are pulling their own 82 Airborne out of reserves and into the fight.
—————
They were sent to the West for training. Problem, some went to the US, some to Germany, some to Poland, many to England. They were part of the grand offensive forces- typically younger commanders ( some in their 20’s) with no recollection of Soviet Army training, equipped with Strykers, Challengers and MRAPS…held back in reserve…..the initial bunch of cannon fodder were equipped with Bradley’s, Leopards, M113’s, Humvees, of which now lie in smoking ruins.
Their 82nd airmobile “ group” ( and other battalions) were to relieve the first initial strike group the moment they punched through Ivan’s defenses , that never happened ( the Infamous “ Bradley Square ” slaughter), and now the Ukies are using those reserves…..needless to say- their NATO training, tactics, weapons ( without air and artillery) failed them, their losses are horrendous.
Much written on social media about what the Ukie soldiers thought about NATO training. The sad part, they were the youngest, not the 40-60 year old ex- Soviet trained types. Loads of geo located video showing the Ukie trenches filled with balding men ( and bodies) presumably those press ganged into service.
How is the Ukrainian 82nd doing? Last I saw they were in the center of Robotyne and the Russians were flanked and getting ready to be made into fertilizer. Russia has basically had to demobilize the Wagner Group their only militarily effective unit because they posed more of a threat to Moscow than Kyiv. At some point this year, probably in the Winter the Russian army is going to collapse. It will be sudden and unexpected and triggered by logistical problems, a lack of everything from food and clothing to artillry barrels and ammo. Troops will wholesale throw down their weapons after shooting their officers. It is the end of August now. Talk to me in six months. It will be just like WWI.
You think Poland and Ukrainians hate our guts? Why, because it fits into your fantasy?
Ukraine is fighting with our help, Poland is a NATO ally that wants to be even more aggressive.
——————
Try reading Polish social media- best to ditch the western narrative- but that would require effort on your part…..Hint: Polish elections coming soon.
Bakhmut
Whole brigades went missing
—————
….and the US is on record to have shipped 150,000 US made fake arms and legs to the Ukies. The huge amount of amputee casualties are in line with Vlad’s artillery hammer.
Yeah Russia won. It is a great power, a vast and expanding empire with the GDP and industrial capacity of greater Houston. It sucks to be NATO with three or four times Russia’s population. BTW how is that moon landing going? Almost as good as the special military operation where a country with no navy sinks half your Black Sea fleet.
Gay Liberal diversity liberation supremacy
Glory to Satan - marxist dnc - neocon liberals
that is brillian battlefield strategy, committing the remainder of your reserve forces to a losing cause so that the other side has a clear signal that you are finally defenseless.
Russia on Tuesday said one of its jets it had “destroyed” a Ukrainian reconnaissance boat near a gas production facility in the Black Sea. Russia also said it had downed two attack drones near Moscow overnight, which makes it the fifth consecutive night the Russian capital has been targeted by such attacks.
Passchendaele.
Ukraine just doesn’t have the heavy equipment required to kick out 200,000 Russian occupiers. A couple hundred donated Bradleys and few dozen NATO standard tanks is never going to conduct a campaign on the scale required. Biden’s handlers have limited aid because they want another frozen conflict and back to business as almost usual with Putin. On Iran, Russian energy to EU, etc.
It is hilarious to see the Potemkin Russian army dig in like scared rabbits, though.
Ukrainians fighting for Ukraine in Ukraine against an invader, is not another country’s young men being sent anywhere.
Those damning Ukrainians for fighting for Ukraine won’t fight for their own country. And that’s why they hate them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.