Posted on 09/25/2022 1:34:39 AM PDT by Cronos
Tooth to tail ratio.
Out of officially prewar 900,000 you can expect only 1/4 to 1/3 to be combat arms effectives - “teeth”. The rest is admin/logistics/services “tail”. That gives Russian combat effectives of 220,000-300,000. It seems likely though that such numbers were overstated. There is a Falstaffian aspect to Russian numbers, from the very beginning of this folly.
About 150,000-200,000 were committed initially, not counting 40-50,000 LR/DR levies. Since then, over seven months, Russia did everything to boost forces in the theatre, including rotating in distant garrisons, expanding contract troops through bonuses and high pay, bringing in Wagner and various Chechen and Buryat militias, and more yet. How many men have been in Ukraine at some point is probably at least twice the initial commitment, and moreover the LR/DR has been pressing men all the while.
IIRC every major unit in the Russian Army has been identified in Ukraine.
The men in Ukraine are most certainly much more “teeth” than “tail”, as most service branches need not be in Ukraine. Combat units are artillery, AA, tank, infantry and recon, special forces, etc. These would also absorb the vast majority of the casualties.
Go try this on the US army/nat guard and you will see the same. Out of 1,000,000 in the active, reserve and national guard, and 250,000 civilians (most other armies would have military personnel where the US employs civilians), the US effectively maintains 20 available divisions. Assuming 10-15,000 combat personnel per division (division also have a lot of “tail”), thats 200-300,000 men.
More realistically, Russia and Putin are in a bind. Putin's amateurish war plan foolishly assumed that Ukraine was a pretend country that would quickly collapse, that the Russian military was competent and well-organized, and that the US and NATO would stand by and do nothing.
As it is, the Russian economy is beginning to collapse due to sanctions. Mobilization will do little more than send masses of unmotivated, poorly trained, and ill equipped Russian men to their deaths. Ukraine will continue to have the benefit of US and NATO support and push the Russians back. In a matter of months, less than a year, Putin will be dead or otherwise out of power, with a new government installed that will sue for peace and hope to hold Russia together.
Your continued obtuseness seems to be serving your purpose of wasting peoples time. Congratulations!.
Russia’s classic incompetence on full display.
They will never recover from this historic rout.
What are you saying?
You stopped supporting Putin?
Rumours continue to circulate that ATACMS missiles are being sent or are already in Ukraine. Not confirmed by US but Russia seems nervous about something. They are now pulling jets out of Crimea. Fear that Ukraine can reach the peninsula and can destroy them is the most likely reason.
You say both that Westmoreland (”why w. failed”) lost and that he won (”when even winners fail”). Therefore, I cite you as a reference that you don’t think straight.
If this were a war between Ukraine and Russia it would have been over five minutes after it began.
The reason it wasn’t is because of the billions upon billions of US dollars, materiel and personnel being funnelled to it.
Salaries of $5k a month, in Russia, should have been a clue. Some actuary is running the numbers and they know the government wouldn’t be paying that for many months.
“There was a WW2 veteran standing in line as a volunteer“
A 13 year old in 1945 would have been born in 1932, making them 90 years old.
Does that make any sense to anyone?
It’s a parody of the non-stop Daily Mail type propaganda written by somebody on Twitter. If you go to the link you’ll know this.
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1573720820400242692
The giveaway, at least for Russians, is that the city of Petrovadosk is next to Finland, and 3,000KM from Kazakhstan.
But many Europeans and Americans, already stewing and steeping in a steady bath of similar current Tokyo-Rose-level propaganda, accept it as true.
The parody was so over the top that it was easy to disprove, but many still believed it.
No one has ever denied ukraine is taking losses. How many is unknown. But they have fought the russians to a standstill and have even starting taling land back. Of course that is going to cost lives and material. Duh.
And of course z wants to getall the help he can get to continue. But yet it is russia who claims to have only 5k kia yet needs to mobilize. And Its putards who claim ukraine has lost. Then why mobilize?
A deployed e1 without any extra bonuses gets about $4200. You are a big behind times. The average is certainly above $5000.
I will speak to the limited reserves of modern armies:
In WWI and WWII, we went from a small standing army to a much larger army mostly by using conscription to fill out already existing National Guard and Reserve units. While conscripts could be trained in a relatively short time to perform specific duties, you needed cadres of seasoned officers and NCOs even back in those wars.
Nowadays, the training and experience needed to field effective army units is much more demanding.
In the Persian Gulf War, no NG units were part of the assault divisions, not even NG “round out” brigades of those divisions. Some NG combat support units were mobilized as part of Corps assets, as were a good number of AR service support units.
In hindsight, the decisions involving the National Guard and Army Reserve look like the correct decisions. But, if the war hadn’t gone as it did, if - for example - Iraq proved to be a tough foe, we would have had to dig deep into our reserves, and that would have required time for training and deployment.
The long war was different. The original plan was for our units to be replaced by the blue helmets of the U.N. But, the resistance we met meant that we would be an army of occupation until we could train up an Iraqi army capable of defending the country.
Even digging deeply into our reserves, we were hard pressed to do these things. Thinking they had done it, the Bush administration decided to replicate the success it thought it had achieved, in Afghanistan.
Eventually, as it became apparent that the Afghanis and the Iraqis - other than the Kurdish-Iraqis - weren’t worth shit, the American public turned against the war.
My point is that there are limits to mobilization. Yes, Russia is an authoritarian state, controls the media, and suppresses protest. These are advantages to people such as Putin. They think this gives them more freedom to wage war. But, even such a state has limitations based on its industrial capability, its manpower, and the will of the people.
Replacements for Russian losses were first ginned up by offer of pay and bonuses to conscripts to convert to contract, redeploying units from other missions, and such. Now, Putin is mobilizing anybody who once served in the military (mainly past conscripts). These people are designated as reservists. I suspect mobilizing current conscripts is next.
Few of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine are from either the Moscow or the St. Petersburg region. Instead, Russia calls upon the ethnic minorities and the rural masses. As happened in this country during the Viet Nam War, when the government ended college deferments, when Russia starts to draft the children of the privileged classes, the war will end.
In the meanwhile, there are a lot of poorly-trained, poorly-equipped, poorly-led, stupid and drunk Russians to kill. It’s a damn shame.
That’s in the US. I imagine to some kid coming out of Eastern Russia, $5k is kind of a big deal.
I apologize...I did not follow the link.
I thought it absurd at the point I commented. Then I finished reading, and it got more absurd.
Thanks for setting me straight.
Nope, I am talking about Russian wages.
Why is it you think so highly of Russia?
Serious question.
Putin is reducing Russian population quicker than Covid did.
“Does that make any sense to anyone?”
I think that’s the point
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.