Posted on 10/12/2022 8:40:29 AM PDT by Kazan
Not to beat a dead horse, but most of the world has a delusional image in their head of the war in Ukraine. As I have written previously, much of the fault lies with Hollywood, which through a plethora of movies has conditioned the masses to think of war as the conquest of critical territory. But that is a misleading image when it comes to Ukraine. Yes, there are strategically important pieces of territory that must be captured or defended, but there also are vast swaths of plains (we call them prairies here in the United States) that are tactically difficult to control and, if you succeed in capturing an area of land, you create a problem of how to defend it.
Please take a look at the following video with this in mind. Although the video shows how Russia’s Wagner Group is building defensive lines, please focus on the general landscape rather than the work of the engineers: (video at link)
Russia has a decisive advantage over Ukraine when it comes to battling for this territory, even though it ceded some of it a few weeks ago to advancing Ukrainian troops. Why? Because Russia’s air force is still intact and can be used to attack massed Ukrainian units. Ukraine’s air capability has been eviscerated. Russia also enjoys a lopsided advantage in tanks. In case you have any doubts, the video above shows quintessential tank country.
At the beginning of its full-scale invasion in Feb., Russia had around 3,330 operational tanks (2,840 with the ground forces, 330 with its naval infantry, and 160 with its airborne forces), according to the Military Balance 2021 database. . . .
However, Russia still has some 2,000 battle-ready tanks at hand, as well as an enormous amount in storage.
The Military Balance 2021 database says Russian storage facilities have around 10,200 tanks, including various T-72s, 3,000 T-80s, and 200 T-90s.
https://ukrainetoday.org/2022/09/01/how-many-tanks-does-russia-really-have/
Tank battles on rolling plains is great grist for a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real peril for Ukraine has been on display over the last two days–Russia’s hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles and air launched rockets mangling power nodes and military headquarters throughout Ukraine. The Russian strikes in the last two days significantly degraded Ukraine’s ability to supply electricity and critical heat to its major cities. The attacks also are disrupting Ukraine’s cell phone network and its ability to move troops and equipment from the west to the frontlines in the east.
Ukraine does not have a comparable capability to counter the Russian attacks. Moreover, the Russian missile barrage has highlighter the weakness, if not absence, of Ukraine’s anti-missile defense system. It is neither a mistake nor a coincidence that Russia’s strikes in major Ukrainian cities–more than 100 missiles– caused very few human casualties, especially on the civilian side of the ledger. Despite Ukrainian claims that Russia’s strikes killed civilians, the evidence suggests otherwise–Ukraine’s own anti-missile system failed to intercept the Russian targets and then fell to earth and hit apartments and schools.
What is the United States and NATO going to do? Immediately deploy the Iron Dome anti-missile system? Unfortunately, these Western anti-missile systems are not designed to defeat the missiles Russia is launching. Then there is the logistics problem–i.e., getting those systems deployed and training personnel to operate them. This will take weeks, if not months. And Ukraine does not have the luxury of time in this regard. Making matters worse, the United States and NATO do not have the reserves to quickly resupply Ukraine:
The United States will soon be unable to supply Ukraine, as it has up to now, with the sophisticated equipment essential for its defense against Russia as its reserves are reaching their limits, especially in terms of ammunition. . . .
But US stockpiles of certain equipment are “reaching the minimum levels necessary for war and training plans” and getting weapons stockpiles back to pre-invasion levels could take years, Mark Cancian wrote in a recent analysis. of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Washington is “learning lessons” from the conflict about ammunition needs in a very powerful war, and that it is “much larger” than expected, said a US military official who requested anonymity.
https://www.archyde.com/us-army-exhausts-its-ability-to-supply-ammunition-to-ukraine/
Then there is the nightmare scenario for Ukraine and NATO of Russia invoking the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Russia asking Belarus to join the fray. Russian and Belarusian troops already are gathering on Ukraine’s northern border. Whether this is a bluff by Russia or genuine preparation for opening a new front in the north, the massing of forces requires Ukraine to deploy already depleted forces to the northern border. This will weaken Ukraine’s ability to hold off a Russian offensive in Kherson and Zaporhyzhia.
I believe that the events during the next five weeks will create a crisis within NATO and the United States. If Russia seizes the initiative and moves in force against Ukrainian units, NATO will not be in a position to rescue Ukraine from defeat on the battlefield. Any further intervention by NATO will make it, in the eyes of the Russians, a legitimate military target.
Compounding the military challenges confronting the United States and NATO, there are the economic and political headwinds. Joe Biden is likely to lose control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. If this happens, he will no longer have a congressional ally eager to keep shoveling money and weapons into Ukraine. The economic conditions throughout Europe of inflation and shuttering businesses will fuel more domestic unrest and diminish enthusiasm for keeping Ukraine afloat.
When you take all of these factors into consideration, the conclusion is clear–Russia enjoys a strategic and tactical initiative that will be difficult to surmount. Conversely, NATO is in trouble.
200 operational tanks actually will be damn useful, particularly when cold weather hits and they can roll south across the steppes to the Black Sea.
My bet is that by spring, the Russian will no longer have a land bridge with Crimea. And there's a chance they'll have no bridge at all.
“As winter approaches........................”
“Biden scrambles to avert cracks in pro-Ukraine coalition”
https://archive.ph/Uckd9#selection-273.0-273.56
“If it were that simple or Russia would have done that first. They’re attacking civilian targets because they can’t attack the military targets successfully.”
Disagree there. I don’t think even Putin is stupid enough to make this a worthwhile endeavor by destroying the very resources and people to make them work he’s going after. No one fights and wastes time, money, and resources over nothing worth while unless it is the only thing they have. So Putin has not really done the damage he can because it isn’t worth it.
U.S. defense officials told reporters this week that the Pentagon assesses that Russia has launched more than 1,100 missiles of all kinds since the war began. The U.S. officials have so far not said how many of those hit their targets and how many failed to do so.
Citing U.S. intelligence, three U.S. officials said the United States estimated that Russia’s failure rate varied day-to-day, depended on the type of missile being launched, and could sometimes exceed 50%. Two of them said it reached as high as 60%.
Reuters could not determine what a standard failure rate would be for air-launched cruise missiles. Two experts interviewed by Reuters said any failure rate of 20% and above would be considered high.
So if Russian has fired only 1100 missiles, and has accomplished the result with 40% of them, then that means overall around 440 missiles have reached their goals not shot down or launch failure. And Putin is just now really considering the cities a target. The Ukraine doesn’t have 440 major cities. Ukraine has 4 cities with more than a million people. And Putin wants to keep those, not level them. And they have a current stockpile of just under 6K missiles to use. They won’t run out very soon. New war.
wy69
That's not what is happening in Ukraine. The Russians are 7 months past the point of a first-phase air offensive in which unmanned missiles would have been used for SEAD missions. And they're using those missiles not to suppress enemy air defenses in anticipation of a larger air offensive, but rather to strike actual targets of value. And that is both insufficient and unsustainable.
A Pew Research poll shows that the share of Americans who are extremely or very concerned about a Ukrainian defeat fell from 55 percent in May to 38 percent in September.”
“Biden scrambles to avert cracks in pro-Ukraine coalition”
https://archive.ph/Uckd9#selection-273.0-273.56
Apparently, we not the only getting tired of or waking up to the incessant BS being spewed about....
A Pew Research poll shows that the share of Americans who are extremely or very concerned about a Ukrainian defeat fell from 55 percent in May to 38 percent in September.”
“Biden scrambles to avert cracks in pro-Ukraine coalition”
https://archive.ph/Uckd9#selection-273.0-273.56
Apparently, people getting tired of and/or waking up to the incessant BS being spewed about....
...
“Don’t Buy the Narrative on Ukraine”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dont-buy-the-narrative-on-ukraine/
I understand the training, but we saw this in the Gulf War: there was just no battle when M1s were aligned against older Soviet tanks. We had kill ratios of 10:1 and more.
Evidence-Ukrainian combat planes and helicopters are still flying more than six months later in the war. Russia does not fly air combat missions over Ukrainian held areas. Cruise missiles are expensive while Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs launched from planes are much cheaper. US used cruise missiles initially and then bombed with fighter aircraft.
A broken clock is right twice a day and just because the Drooler in Chief and the Democrats fell on the right side of the issue, does not take from the fact, Putin is Hitler(read WIll Strier's book rise and Fall of the Third Reich). Putin is using it as reference material.
Many other scary parallels here. Russia would put you all in Aushwitz if they could. Bad actors there.
“Do you think the US defense industry has been idle? Or do you think this military-industrial complex war has shifted into high gear so more sales can be made?”
Well, there is some lag time between when the demand for those weapons became apparent and when they can be delivered. But I don’t think Russia can take advantage of that, since we had plenty of older MANPADs and such that the US military no longer uses, but which are still plenty effective at shooting down most Russian assets. The West can probably continue to supply those until our production catches up to the demand.
And every time Russia wants to test the supply of missiles, they will have to risk losing more assets to do so. It’s not really a worthwhile gambit for them, since some of those aircraft are essentially irreplacable to Russia at this point, with the sanctions keeping necessary components beyond their reach.
You raise valid points and I don’t think this is the kind of war where defense contractors get rich (think 20 years in the sandbox) either. However, they always make money and the beltway bandit class (all those retired military officers on boards) sure pull out the pompoms for every explosion don’t they?
Putin is not a globalist and he opposes the Davos crowd’s push towards woke liberalization and “one world governance”. He was one of the main obstacles to their stated goals and many here on FR cheered him for it.
Make no mistake.... the “global elites” hate Putin. While I may agree with his well calculated statements on political ideology pushed by the West, I still view him for what he is.... a corrupt dictator. He does not state the obvious because he is a champion of traditional values, he does it as a political calculation. Russia has always had a deep-set “us vs them” mentality and his firm statements about faith and politics plays that up.
If he were a “man of the people”, an image he has never cultivated by the way, he would be giving a million dollars to the family of every Russian soldier who was killed in the Ukraine. He would NEVER run out of money. His wealth is incalculable and he is probably the wealthiest person on the planet.
Putin’s biggest miscalculation (among many) beginning his “special military action” was that he made little effort to really sell it to the Russian people so instead of a conflict that most Russians view as a fight for their own survival they view the whole thing as “Putin’s war”.
That does not exactly excite anyone to go put their life on the line for a “leader” who is not all that connected with the people. The “apathy” in Russia for whoever sits at the head of the table in the Kremlin is legendary.
Putin might kill us all........ the Russian people are too apathetic about it to care.
As I stated above, Putin should have taken lessons from the House of Saud on how to redistribute the oil money.
If this was sarcasm, it might actually be clever comment.
You're forgetting one small detail -- who's winning a war is determined by territory gained AND RUSSIA JUST ANNEXED 40,000 square miles of land.
You list a lot of very specific situations which are not at all analogs to the current situation though. As I said before, Ukraine won’t run out of any of those necessary resources as long as Russia is foolish enough to continue threatening the West. We can easily supply Ukraine as long as we supplied Russia to fight the Germans in WW2, and that will probably be quite long enough to make reduce the Russian army to a level that they will have to choose between continuing to attack Ukraine and being able to defend the rest of their country.
Norway gas = expensive
US gas = expensive
Russian gas = cheap
I know who is getting the last laugh.
Well, give it a month, and when this new Russian strategy still doesn’t result in any battlefield gains for them, perhaps you’ll change your assessment of its effectiveness.
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