Replies

Red6: "While combat power affects casualties, casualties are estimated using a separate tool we used to call a “casualty estimator” since there are other variables that go into estimating losses.
It takes many-many different variables into account both blue and red and will provide you an estimate of what to expect in KIA and WIA."

Sure, and all such tables are based on past historical experiences and will be just as valid as today's conditions match those of previous wars.
In Ukraine, even though we see First World War-like trenches and artillery duels, many other factors are very different from any past war, notably drones and real-time intelligence on enemy movements, among others.

So, I think whatever charts and tables were produced based on past wars to estimate battle casualties, those have been and are currently being updated with new algorithms based on experiences in Ukraine since 2022.

Red6: "The Russians have pretty much accomplished most of what they wanted.
(1) Prevent NATO accession by Ukraine. Political
(2) Seize the majority ethnic Russian areas in Eastern Ukraine. Military"

Really? Are you serious?

In fact, Vlad the Invader has accomplished the opposite of his stated goals, including:

Driving Finland and Sweden into NATO, something that neither Stalin, Khruschev nor Gorbachev ever dreamed of.
Reanimating a moribund NATO to near Cold War levels of serious purpose and unity.
Achieving Pres. Trump's goal of getting Europeans to contribute much more to their own defenses.
Uniting a coalition of at least 54 Western-style democracies to help in the defense of Ukraine.
Forging Ukrainians as a people and country in the fires of existential war.
Exiling Russia from the community of civilized nations and into the Axis of Evil Dictators' client status, like NoKo's nasty Little Kim, to the CCP China's Xi-snake.
Destroying whatever non-military capacities the Russian economy had before 2022, as Russia is currently on a near 100% mobilized war footing.
Beginning the destruction of Russia's energy infrastructure.
Failing in Vlad's original goals to seize Ukraine's capital and major cities in a matter of days or weeks.
Largely destroying Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
Making Crimea increasingly untenable for Russian occupation and indefensible against Ukrainian air and sea-born attacks.
Producing circa 500,000 Russian military casualties, plus tens of thousands of military vehicles, while inflicting just over 1/3 that number on Ukrainians, overall.
Driving at least one million Russians to flee Russia since the beginning of Vlad's "Special Military Operation" in Ukraine.
In 2024 so far, Russia has conquered perhaps another 50 square miles of Ukraine's territory at a cost of well over 1,000 Russian casualties per square mile.
Ukraine is roughly the size of Texas, 233,000 square miles.
Vlad the Invader is now guaranteeing Ukraine's eventual membership in both NATO and the European Union.

How Vlad's invasion will finally settle is anybody's guess right now, but I don't think it will be with nukes and I doubt if it can happen while Vlad is still among the living.

Red6: "At this point, the focus is likely shifting from terrain to the enemy.
Meaning that it's the Ukrainian military itself which is the target for the Russians.
There the goal will be two fold as well.
(1) Prevent the Ukrainians from being able to reconstitute a military force capable of real offensive operations.
(2) Keep the pressure on so that there is a realization in the West that as time goes on Ukraine simply gets worse off, we have to keep sending billions and even more billions in equipment, and there is no advantage in continuing the war."

What certainly seems true is that neither side today is capable of major offensive operations, but that Russians keep launching suicidal "Meat Wave" assaults against Ukraine's defense-in-depth -- assaults producing Russian casualties in the range of 10 for every one Ukrainian.

What also seems true is that Ukraine will not launch another major counteroffensive until the battlespace is properly "prepared" and Ukrainian forces are as capable as they need to be.

As for Western aid to Ukraine, it is entirely possible that Europeans will be forced to step up and carry a much larger share of the load as Americans "pivot" and refocus on acute crises elsewhere -- in the Middle East, Indo-Pacific and our own borders.

How the war will finally settle is anybody's guess right now, but, as I said above, I doubt if it will happen while Vlad the Invader is still alive, and I doubt if Ukrainians will ever accept anything less than full sovereignty over their own 2013 borders.

Red6: "We are failing in every respect regards Ukraine, but that was likely a known outcome and a far more sinister, Machiavellian plan is behind all this.
It is becoming clear, even to our NATO partners, that this war in Ukraine is part of a US geo-political strategy.
Our allies still are not making the leap that maybe we wanted this war, instigated this war, but the fact that this is part of a bigger US vs. Russia campaign has become clear."

Naw... that is all just fact-free babbling Russian propaganda nonsense with no contact whatever to actual events.
The first obvious absurdity is accusing our current Democrat administration of having some kind of intelligent plan.
The truth is, they have no higher IQ than a rock -- sure, if you hit your head hard enough on a rock (as Vlad the Invader did in Ukraine), it will hurt like h*ll, might even kill you.
But that doesn't mean the rock has an intelligent plan or devious intentions, no!
You did that to yourself, dumb-*ss!

Red6: "We created a security problem for Russia that was impossible to ignore.
We had to have known that war would ensue when we offered NATO membership to Ukraine, fast tracked things, and stonewalled the Russians.
The Russians stopped us in the Republic of Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2014.
With our violations of Minsk, withdraw from the Ballistic Missile Treaty, massive intel activity in Ukraine which was actively working against Russia...
We poked this bear pretty hard and then pretended like we were attacked "unprovoked" in a "war of aggression."
They were not going to accept this."

All that is just more pure Russian agit-prop, and every word of it is lies which no reasonable person should be repeating.

The real truth is that Russia has well-earned, through Vlad's bad behavior, every action that every neighbor has taken to defend itself against threats and assaults from "the bear".
And the list of those threats against Russia's neighbors is long and growing daily, and this is not even counting the infinite lunatic rantings of Vlad's official propagandists:

Russian threats to neighbors since 1991:

Azerbaijan (1990–1994);[1][2]
Moldova (1992–present);
Georgia (2004–present);
Lithuania (2006);
Estonia (2006–2007);
Poland (2006–present);
Belarus (2007);
Ukraine (2014–present);
Syria (2015–present);
Turkey (2015–2016);
Kazakhstan (2021–2022) ;[3] and
Armenia (2022) [4] amongst others.[5]

Red6: "Imagine this scenario: In our global chess game at trying to seize oil and gas rich nations in South America, North Africa and the Middle East which are aligned with Russia, weakening Russia militarily and economically assists our efforts.
By causing this war in Ukraine, we have the Ukrainians doing the bleeding, the Euro's flipping 1/2 of the bill and taking on most the refugees, and we stand to benefit from it around the world!"

I'm sorry, but yet again, all of that is pure fact-free paranoid Russian propaganda insanity, with no connection to reality that any normal person can accept.

Red6: "But that does not change the fact that Ukraine will get sacrificed in this process."

Well, the truth is that for many centuries Ukrainians have sacrificed themselves unsuccessfully to achieve independence and sovereignty from the Russian Empire.
Today they have their best opportunity ever to achieve full success and we don't today know how it will turn out.

Naturally, I hope for the best for Ukrainians and the worst possible for Russia, because no country has behaved as evilly as Russia in Europe since the end of the Second World War.

Russians need to suffer major negative consequences, including reparations for the destruction in Ukraine and loss of Ukrainian lives.
I think that bill right now is roughly $1 trillion and rising rapidly.

US Allies, Partners and Friends***:

***Not completely accurate since Turkey and Bulgaria are NATO allies; India, Vietnam and Mongolia are friendlies, especially as relates to CCP China; Laos and Cambodia are more oriented towards China, iirc.
Moldova is friendly, though partly occupied by Russian forces, Serbia not so much.
Pakistan and Iraq I'm very unclear about.

There is so much wrong with your write up that it's impossible for me to address all the errors.

India is not our friend. If they had to choose sides, they would choose Russia.

Nicaragua, where I have been, is aligned with Russia. You have it aligned with us on your map (green).

Brazil, Egypt and South Africa are green but in BRICS and they do not really like us all that much. Not even the blacks in South Africa like us (most are commie, tribal...) and especially the whites (whom we threw under the bus) have no love for us.

Belarus and Russia are about as close as two nations can get without engaging in sexual relations on the geo-political map. What are you talking about? A dispute that was resolved politically is now a threat of war and invasion? You're just making crap up!

Vietnam is controlled by the PRC and they do not like us. No different than PRC, they just want to do some business with us. They shouldn't be green.

Not even the Mexicans like us. If you leave the tourist areas, it's not a compliment when they call you a Gringo. We annexed their lands, treat their citizens like shit in our country, threaten outright invasion and military strikes because it's a good sound clip for some politician that is grand standing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD4kFxyHALo Recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dw1pcDoewY

Armenia has 10,000 Russian troops in their country and they are shitting their pants as the Russians are withdrawing these troops because they are needed elsewhere. Armenia has security issues and the Russians are their life-line.

To much to correct...

You live in an imaginary world.

When you deny reality, the physical realities around you, nature or physics, will eventually catch up with you.

Ukraine is already an abject failure. The only question now is how bad of a failure it will become and how we can exit this while saving face?

If you live in a dream world like Adolf did, and you keep going to the bitter end, that defeat will be a hard reality to deal with when it inevitably comes.

If you're smart, you look at geo-political realities like a business, maximize returns and minimize losses. You apply the concept of risk and ROI. But that is not how a government bureaucrat or politician thinks.

Having a good imagination is a great thing.

Allowing this imagination to fill in the voids where you really don't know much, or to substitute reality with this imagination, can bring you awful results.

Ukraine will only slip further and further into a big hole as this war rages on. Not only is Russia in a superior position in near every respect: GDP, industry, manufacturing, military aged males, population, Intel service size, military size...

Russia also is absolutely NOT suffering from any sort of morale issues regards this war:

https://www.norc.org/research/library/new-survey-finds-most-russians-see-ukrainian-war-as-defense-against-west.html

https://kyivindependent.com/poll-77-of-russians-support-war-in-ukraine/

Russia is not fully mobilizing may that be conscription or converting to a wartime economy. Russia is partially mobilizing. Even Ukraine still has a fairly large pool of military aged men they could tap into. Their conscription starts at age 25, but it may not be socially acceptable to conscript younger folks, down to 18.

Regards Russia: “only citizens who are currently in the reserve and, above all, those who served in the armed forces, have certain military specialties and relevant experience would be subject to conscription.” https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-62977634 (limited mobilization)

Russia is ramping up their war machine, spending about 6+% GDP (a balanced approach), while Ukraine, desperate, is sitting at 37% GDP for their war machine and running out of bodies. I'm not talking share of government spending from a federal budget, but percent (%) of GDP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures

Why does this matter?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_versus_butter_model#:~:text=%22Butter%22%20represents%20nonsecurity%20goods%20that,weapons%2C%20ships%2C%20or%20tanks.

As a nation focuses more on guns, the butter gets less and less. Ukraine is already a nation that cannot pay for their own government employees, retirements, health care, were it not for direct outside assistance (US and EU) infusing money and basic necessities month after month.

It is Russia that is in a sustainable position. Not Ukraine.

All the Russians need to do is keep the pressure on, which is what they are doing. Demographically, running out of new soldiers that can be conscripted, and economically trying to pour that level into ones war machine, cannot be sustained by Ukraine. But Russia can sustain where they are at.

Russia was never interested in conquering all of Ukraine. Why would they? Those areas that are majority nationalist would become a nightmare to hold.

All this babble of the Russians wanting to keep invading further and further, is literally “propaganda.” It is not even feasible, but it sounds alarming and gets people motivated to support the cause.

Likewise, Kiev was never a real objective. The Russians shot for Kiev in order to force Ukraine to dedicate reserves and other forces to the defense of the capital. It's similar to a feint. This made taking those areas which Russia does want to take and hold in Eastern Ukraine, easier. However, that does not mean that the Russians would not have sacked Kiev had the Ukrainians not reinforced the defense of this city.

The idea is simple: No one can defend everything everywhere at all time. You choose something of extremely high value to the enemy and which could possibly be taken in an attack. However, this is not really your main objective. When you go for this high value target you force the enemy to react. You force the defender to dedicate forces and equipment that they would otherwise be able to use against you as you go for the main objective. Divide and conquer.

So, as folks like you were celebrating the victorious Ukrainians holding Kiev and “kicking those Russian's asses” you were actually losing ground in Eastern Ukraine which Russia took and has been holding ever since. It made the taking of a port city and the heart of Ukraine's steel industry easier, Mariupol. It made taking the heart of Ukraine's industry in Eastern Ukraine, easier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_of_Ukraine

But you really don't have a choice. That's the problem when being put in a situation like that. Not dedicating forces to a hasty defense would mean you'd lose something even more important. You essentially get forced into a situation where you must draw forces off your main defense. And for the enemy attacking you, this feint is successful if it draws forces away, or actually takes the objective.

We do this too, and it can even be achieved without a single shot fired. For example, we are plussing up our personnel in the Balkans (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia), conduct really big exercises, not because we are threatened by Russia, but because we are putting the Russians under pressure, making them react to our very public demonstration which causes the Russians to pull forces that could otherwise be used in Ukraine. So the Russians are forced to send thousands of men to twittle their thumbs along a border in the Balkan states.

https://news.usni.org/2024/06/05/nato-to-kick-off-largest-baltic-operations-exercise-to-date

When on the topic of tactics, a few things need mentioned.

1.) It is technological innovation which drives tactics (mostly). For example, the civil war era Gatlin Gun ended the idea of a frontal assault. A few Gatlin Guns can take out a lot of people coming your way in the open. Trench warfare began at the end of the US Civil War and was continued in WWI.

2.) The tank ended trench warfare and began the era of maneuver warfare by the end of WWI.

3.) Maneuver warfare was continued and perfected in WWII with the concept of the Blitzkrieg.

*** However, the tank in its current day form has been obsolete for a while. Against a modern military equipped with advanced ATGMs and RPGs, drones, and mines, the MBT/IFV/APC is at a disadvantage. The reason why the M1 or Leo for that matter stuck around for as long as they have, is because we were fighting third rate military's in the Middle East that are poorly equipped, trained, and usually are incapable of fighting a joint and combined battle. So, this obselete hardware was still survivable. However, in a battle with the Russians we are right back to trench warfare.

*** Furthermore, ISR in the form of satellites, drones, robots, balloons, high power thermal sights, GSR, is not only extremely capable, it is also proliferated and something that provides intel all the way down to the squad or even individual convoy as they move out. Capabilities that once were reserved for the most strategic levels and required national assets, are now providing this information down to a fire team or squad, using networks that provide this information in real time. What does that mean? Massing troops, trying you create concentration to achieve a penetration is difficult. This isn't WWII where the Germans can hide a huge force in a forest and surprise us in a Battle of the Bulge. That battle would never happen today. As soon as 4 or more tanks are sitting in close proximity, some sort of arty/missiles would be fired at that location.

Mechanized/armored warfare has a reduced survivabilty and concentration is hard to achieve. So what are you left with? Trenches: https://www.magicmurals.com/civil-war-trenches.html

What is sad is that there simply was no need for this. Any of it. There was no eminent security need either for Ukraine or the US which required Ukraine to join NATO immediately! There just wasn't: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/ This was a 100% avoidable war.

Nothing prevented us from continuing to provide military assistance to Ukraine, intel, foreign aid. Nothing was preventing us from training their troops like we had been for years. The course we were on was good for Ukraine and good for us. Why the course change?