Posted on 10/04/2022 6:53:43 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Reasons for the retreat near Kherson. Of the units I am acquainted with, almost all of them reached out, losses are small. The men fought like lions, but this time fortune was not in their favor.
The reasons I see are:
1. No unit rotation. Units of the 126th Brigade have been fighting since March. Soldiers would go on leave for five days at best. Seven months on the front line without rotation. Constant battles, wounds, experienced and seasoned men were bombarded for seven months in a row.
End of August, these same guys knocked out the AFU’s 128th Transcarpathian brigade so badly that they declared mourning. Our men were left at their positions. The Ukrainians rotated out the 128th, brought in additional tank units and a month later knocked us out of our positions.
Miracles do not happen, no matter how heroic our soldiers may be, if the village is defended by 15 people, and the enemy hammers them with attacks and artillery fire for seven months in a row, sooner or later the unit will lose combat effectiveness.
2. Judging by the nature of the losses, the enemy used a tactic of wedging themselves between our strongpoints. Wildly short on infantry, ours sat at the strongholds, i.e. in the villages and plantations.
After months of reconnaissance, the enemy found places to infiltrate between the strongholds. Then came the insertion of mobile units into the gaps that were wedged open.
Our troops were severely strained, the strongpoints held, but the mobile reserves needed to stop the breakthroughs either did not exist, or were insufficient.
The strongholds would stay intact, but instantly, in the first few hours, would find themselves surrounded, fight until they ran out of ammunition and break out under fire.
By the way, the Ukrainians would have so little strength that they weren't even really trying to catch the encircled men, most of them made it back to us.
Weather was bad, neither side used artillery. So it's logical to suppose if we had some BTGs equipped with heavy copters, capable of seeing several kms, the breakthrough would have been stopped. But I have no info that the tankers fought to the last man, please excuse me if so.
3. Guys from the field report en masse that our tactical insignia, i.e. Z and V, was applied to enemy equipment, causing confusion in the first hours of the battle as the front collapsed.
If this is true, it means the enemy has an American network-centric battle management system, where all units on the battlefield are net-linked and marked on computers, even at company level, let alone at battalion-regiment level.
Thus, even a company sergeant in a Humvee, BMP, or T-64 can see on the screen where his own are and where the others are, and he doesn't care what marks are on the armor.
If this is case, then that's very bad news, since that's a qualitatively new level of troop control, and our retreat would be a consequence of losing parity.
*formidable
It doesn't mean that at all. And it would be wildly impractical anyway. It is basic us and Western military doctrine to push decision making down to the lowest levels. This source is talking about having centralized collection and redistribution of information/data, not centralization of small-unit decision-making.
The decisions have to be made by on-scene Ukrainian commanders at the battalion level and below. Trying to make decisions above that level destroys the very decision-making flexibility that has enabled the Ukrainians to be so successful.
The West has given the Ukrainians the tools to be far more effective, but it is the Ukrainians themselves who are actually employing those tools.
A Ukrainian soldier commented yesterday that his battalion is reorganizing along NATO standards. He said he’s taking some R&R then training for a month in his new position. The Ukrainian regular army isn’t NATO spec but it would not surprise me if some smaller special forces units are getting pretty close.
That’s possible too. The training the Uke’s received in terms of tactical philosophy and decision-making could explain why it may look like it is network -centric in comparison to the rigid and inflexible Russian system.
(Russian Source) - so we need a propaganda translation:
“losses are small” - losses were catastrophic
“The men fought like lions” - the new recruits tossed down their weapons and ran for their lives
“fortune was not in their favor” - The stupid Chechnyans who were supposed to shoot the ones retreating didn’t do their jobs
“ If this is true, it means the enemy has an American network-centric battle management system, where all units on the battlefield are net-linked and marked on computers, even at company level, let alone at battalion-regiment level.”
Count on it.
The West has given the Ukrainians the tools to be far more effective, but it is the Ukrainians themselves who are actually employing those tools.
Agree. Look at all the gear we left in Afghanistan and how little good it did. Putin couldn’t help himself and promised to wipe Ukraine off the map. That motivated some very brave Ukrainians to stand their ground. No he looks a fool and hundreds of thousands are dead.
So then Putin is the savior against the Liberal World Order we anti resetters need in the US, Ukraine and elsewhere? Maybe Putin can invade the US too, right?
Nah.
It's up to the people here in the US, Ukraine and elsewhere to retain their freedom against the LWO.
“ The Great Reset crowd that wants to exterminate 90% of the global population is winning!”
An unsupportable opinion.
The Ukrainian people, against all odds, are defending themselves. The Ukrainian people don’t want to be ruled by Putin OR Soros. They want their own nation or they would not be fighting as they are.
You can offer zero proof that the citizens of Ukrainian are for “The Great Reset”.
You are also on the side of the Nazis who have done everything they can to exterminate the Russian speaking population of Ukraine.
I would also expect that a modified form of a western battle management system is being adapted as quickly as possible for the Ukes.
What a transparently despicable lie.
This is the US hiding behind NATO pretending Ukraine is fighting.
“ The West has given the Ukrainians the tools to be far more effective, but it is the Ukrainians themselves who are actually employing those tools.”
Bingo; and Russian command and control is top down to the extreme.
Not really, unless you think NATO still has a bunch of Russian and Ukrainian speakers.
It means the Ukrainians have been equipped with better comms (and have developed some of their own) and been trained much better than they were.
There's increasing evidence that the Ukrainians are now using effective combined arms (artillery & armor) attacks at least on the BTG level.
Ukraine was also able to cancel the autumn conscription because they have enough volunteers.
Based on history, overthrow their government.
Ukraine has taken out A LOT of Russia’s armor. Also, recall how much was abandoned and broken down on the side of the road for minor reasons like flat tires, dead batteries, faulty spark plugs, etc.
Russian corruption is just as much responsible for this debacle as Ukrainian tactics are.
“...the Nazis who have done everything they can to exterminate the Russian speaking population of Ukraine...”
Tell that to my family and friends in the Donbas who are Russian speakers and patriotic Ukrainians. You bought into Russian propaganda.
One reason the Russians cannot maintain a munitions depot in the Donbas is because human intel gets the word out about the location and BOOM! Thousands of Russian speakers from the Donbas are part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The real Nazis are the Russian agents who created the fake “separatist” movement and murdered those who bravely opposed it. Now, the Hammer and Sickle flags are coming down and the Ukrainian flags are going back up as AFU advances.
This is of course a lie. Th Russian speaking portion of the population was probably greater than 40% or 50% of the population, so "exterminating" it would have been impossible.
In 2014, Russian intelligence services and some Donbas oligarchs allied with Putin bribed, coerced and bamboozled part of the Russian speaking part of the population into separating from Ukraine.
After 8 years of gangster government in the east and experiencing the tender mercies of the Russian military, more and more Russian speakers identify as Ukrainian, for which you can thank Putin.
If you oppose fascist Russia you are a “nazi” and if you oppose Democrats you are a “white supramacist”? Putinist Russia uses the same gaslighting techniques Democrats do in an effort to dupe low info voters.
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