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Ukraine ping

Cathi:[- Formation of two new-old districts - Moscow and Leningrad.

- Formation of an army corps in Karelia.

- Formation of two motorized rifle divisions in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

- Two new airborne assault divisions in the VDV.

- Seven motorized rifle and tank brigades stationed in the districts, as well as in the Northern Fleet, will be reorganized into divisions.

- Marine brigades will also become divisions.

- The reform will also affect the VKS (Aerospace forces). Eight bomber and one fighter regiments will be formed.

- Deployment of six brigades of army aviation.

- Eight artillery divisions and brigades, including large-capacity ones.

- Gradual change in the age of conscription from 18 years to 21 years, as well as the age limit of 30 instead of 27 years.

- Increase in the number of armed Forces to 1.5 million people, including 670 thousand contractors.

- Each tank army should contain a mixed air division (Army Aviation?) and an Air-Def brigade.

Everything that has been announced as a whole looks like a large-scale reform of the Armed Forces following the results of 10 months of the SMO in Ukraine. Well, the main question is how, and how qualitatively it will be implemented in practice.

@milinfolive]

What I’d like to see is how quickly Russia’s wartime procurement machinery is spinning up, and how much resource Putin is allocating. If he can get back to the volumes of artillery fire he had earlier in the campaign, then his forces should be able to resume their advances. The question is when the tooling for greatly-expanded howitzer and artillery shell production can be made and set up. So long as Western gear dispatched to Ukraine continues to be throttled in quality and quantity by Biden, Russia has plenty of opportunity to regain the initiative, provided sufficient big guns and shells can be produced and transported to the front.

During WWII, the US spent 40% of its economy on the military (vs today’s ~4%). Rationing was one of the ways it managed to harness big chunks of the economy to the war effort. If we start hearing of rationing in Russia, that’s when we’ll know Putin is serious about winning.

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_spending_history

Kamil Galeev has repeatedly suggested that Russia is Latin America with nukes. I think that’s stretching it. Russia is the #5 steel producer in the world. If you can make steel, you can make machinery. And Russia already has plants for making tanks, artillery and shells, blueprints for all of the above, and an entire world from which to recruit skilled talent at whatever price it needs to, so as to plug gaps in the Russian skills base. It won’t be cheap, but $200K apiece in death benefits for Russian casualties is no bargain, either.

Cardboard Prop Solders...

If you can make steel, you can make machinery. And Russia already has plants for making tanks,
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If Russia could churn out more tanks, other than the occasional T-90M, it would be fielding T-14s which it is not.

Plus, Russia has sent a good portion of its manufacturing workforce to the meat grinder and they won’t be returning to the workforce ... ever.