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To: marktwain

[I would expect the Ukrainian losses to be higher than that, but as noted, the Ukrainians have an enormous pool of manpower to draw from.]


No question the Ukrainians are losing way more civilians than the Russians are. But I expect Ukrainian military losses might be substantially lower, at least where they’re not clustered WWI style and engaged in trench warfare.

What the Ukrainians appear to be doing is shoot and scoot, against Russian formations and supply convoys that are strung out across miles and miles of territory. Think steppe raiders in the form of cavalry archers sallying out with their composite bows. Except Ukies are firing one-shot one-kill fire-and-forget man-portable PGM’s. Even if it takes 3 Javelins to completely turn 1 BMP-3 into scrap metal and hamburger scraps, that’s a huge advantage vis-a-vis the bow and arrow warriors of antiquity. Where steppe raiding mounted archers had to venture dangerously close to their adversaries, PGM-armed Ukies can unass the firing point almost before the Russians know they’re there, which has to be hugely demoralizing for the Russians on the receiving end of the munitions.


26 posted on 03/28/2022 4:12:44 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei
Think steppe raiders in the form of cavalry archers sallying out with their composite bows. Except Ukies are firing one-shot one-kill fire-and-forget man-portable PGM’s.

One of the big advantages of the Mongols and other nomadic raiders was they literally lived off the land. When conditions were good, as during the medieval warm period, their mounts could live off the steppes, and they lived off their mounts, to a large extent. That gave them a huge supply advantage.

The analogy of shoot and scoot is apt. The Russian forces gave up many advantages of armored forces by their inability to leave the roads, and their logistics problems.

It appears they completely misjudged the Ukrainians will to resist. They thought it would be a cakewalk.

29 posted on 03/28/2022 4:51:47 PM PDT by marktwain
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