Posted on 12/16/2023 11:09:34 AM PST by Mariner
“If you want to live, dig.”
The words, often spoken by Ukrainian troops, are universal advice for trench warfare in general, but especially for both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Normally expressed as advice to the individual soldier, the maxim now applies to the country as a whole.
Twenty-one months into the full-scale war, World War I-style tactics, with the high-tech edge brought by drones and other innovations, continue to dominate.
Russia and Ukraine are diving head-long into a winter campaign looking to be no less brutal than the last, and it is Russian forces that have taken the initiative on a wide stretch of the eastern front line and look likely to keep it for the foreseeable future.
As Ukraine wrestled with internal political tensions, the threat of Western military aid drying up, and the slow realization that the summer counteroffensive had ended in a strategic failure, questions began to be raised about Ukraine’s preparation for a long defensive fight.
On Nov. 24, Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced the creation of a new working group headed by himself and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to “coordinate the efforts of all authorities and the military in matters of construction of fortifications.”
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The penalty will be onerous.
Uke Nazi Cannon Fodder is Cheap, however they will run out of ‘em.
Russian advancement speed increasing in recent days in the east (still slow though)
This includes the Bakhmut flanks that Ukraine took back over the summer
All the north flank is back in Russian hands and then some. About 40% of the southern flank has been recaptured
Ukraine has Landed troops in a small bridgehead across the river from Kherson. Russia keep bombing the hell out of it and blowing up boats trying to cross. No progress has been made in weeks. Ukraine Taking big loses
Get your ass back across the river .. it’s a trap
Some observers said last summer that Ukraine should have just fortify defensive lines instead of the hyped up counter offensive
Dig a second defensive line just outside artillery range using backhoes and bulldozers. Worst case scenario you never have to use it. As the Germans were pushed up Italy in World War II, they always had a new defensive line to fall back on when the front line failed.
And contrary to popular fiction as printed in most history books, the Maginot Line actually worked as designed until the French pulled out almost all the decent troops and some of the artillery. The Dyle line (K-W line) on the other hand, was not fully built out, and the pillboxes that were built were not equipped with weapons, with the foreseeable result.
Don’t worry about it. The far-left’s ‘media” war HQ has got this one well in hand.
Agreed. I guess it is to be expected, given the situation. This has been a horror for the people of Ukraine and it’s getting worse.
If you wanted to start WW III, it wasn’t a failure.
I don't know how true this is. Ukraine has been at war in Donbas since 2013, and created a string of bases, bunkers, fortifications from Lysychansk, Horlivka to Donetsk, Bahkmut, Avdiivka, etc...
Russia has had to confront and slowly dismantle each one.
Where do they have similar defensive lines behind those? No one seems to be saying clearly
Clint Eastwood to Eli Wallach in the movie, “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”: “There’s only two kinds of people in the world: Those with guns and those who dig. You dig.”
;-)
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