Ukraine

What we really want is for them to run out of artillery shells.

I read a article that suggests the Ukrainians think the Russians have about 3 days worth of supplies left

I read an analysis that concluded that Russia has a limitless supply of generals so they’re going to keep sending them forward until the Ukrainians run out of ammo, then the real Russian attack will begin.

The report of 3 days remaining supplies looks to be sourced from here

I’ll take a pinch of salt with that

Found via here https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesstaffreports/2022/03/21/live-russia-ukraine-invasion/?sh=1947a0a23689

All the usual caveats, poss UKr propaganda, unconfirmed etc. but there are lots of reports on Twitter claiming a large Russian force has been encircled NW of Kyiv.  A couple of examples.

According to unconfirmed but realistic looking reports, Russian troops have got surrounded in Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel area near Kyiv, cut from supplies. If true – the biggest defeat of a Russian army until now, and Ukraine needs to start worrying about too many POWs. pic.twitter.com/8t10oZIk7d

— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) March 22, 2022

Read this. Third source that in W Kyiv the Russians are in trouble.
https://t.co/0NyjdsJbNp

— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) March 22, 2022

I won’t believe ANY* figures of dead/injured, on either side

Either way, I think it’s going to be “A Shit Ton” I think we (in the west) are used to seeing the sorts of wars that are pretty much one sided, even the insurgency type of war we saw in Gulf and Afghanistan; the sorts of IED ambush,  and short fire fire that were often on the news, are nothing like what’s going on here.

Russia have deployed 190,000 troops with modern battlefield artillery, tanks and so on, the Ukrainians have approx. 250,000 in the fight and are very much deploying, “one hand on the enemies belt buckle” type engagements. Add to that the lack (on both sides) of the sorts of very qualified and experienced medics at the front line, helicopter Casevac, and well equipped rear field hospitals, and the losses are mounting. The final count will be shocking I think

Not sure if this doesn’t deserve a separate thread, but it describes Putin and his enablers so much better than I can put in (ha!) to words…

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/22/putin-proves-there-are-no-statesmen-left-just-thugs

I also read this article earlier – the Russians put a prototype of one of their top MBT’s, with special reactive armour into front-line action. Hands up anyone who’d like to guess how well it went…

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44855/russias-only-prototype-t-80um2-tank-was-destroyed-in-ukraine

the Ukrainians have approx. 250,000 in the fight

The Ukranians potentially have every male between the age 18 and 60 ready to resist the Russians in any way they can, I’d guess in the millions if it comes to it. Most obvs with no military expertise but as history has shown someone fighting for their homeland will fight harder and longer than a paid/conscripted soldier

Most obvs with no military expertise

No, they’ll all have done national service, so they might be as well trained as the Russian conscripts.

Yep don’t underestimate a little national service. The Swiss people I knew could handle a gun a lot better than me.

I read a article that suggests the Ukrainians think the Russians have about 3 days worth of supplies left

I don’t believe that for a minute – you don’t have a military the size of Russia’s without having a stockpile of ammunition and the war factories to produce more. Unless the claim is that they only have access to 3 days’ worth on the frontlines?

I think that’s more likely – that they resupplied post the initial invasion and will soon have to do so again. I suspect they could go on for a very long time like this.

Many articles (again of limited provenance) about how disfunctional the manufacturing supply chains and maintenance / logistics are as a result of the cronyism, kleptocrats and fearful yes-men. It’s entirely plausible to believe they’re simply running out of stuff that is fundamental to sustaining a war.

I don’t believe that for a minute – you don’t have a military the size of Russia’s without having a stockpile of ammunition and the war factories to produce more. Unless the claim is that they only have access to 3 days’ worth on the frontlines?

Again, this comes very much from social media and “sources report…” type stuff but there seems to be widespread consensus that the Russian military is institutionally corrupt with vast sums of money and/or vast amounts of general supplies simply unaccounted for. The actual frontline stuff seems to be of good strength but its all the back-up and logistics that is lacking. There’s a fair stab at it here (written as the build-up was starting):

Feeding the Bear: A Closer Look at Russian Army Logistics and the Fait Accompli

I don’t believe that for a minute – you don’t have a military the size of Russia’s without having a stockpile of ammunition

1. It’s amazing how quickly armies get through ammo. 2. It’s really difficult to get more than a few weeks worth forward at a time, even if you’ve got really organised logistics support which 3. the Russians don’t have, and haven’t had from the get go.

As an historic comparison, the French and Germans at the start of the WW1 threw so much at each other than within days they were down to just 3 shots from each gun a day and It took the french until 1917 just to get back to what they had at the start of 1914.

Mariupol has, effectively, been razed to the ground.
That will do one of two things to Ukrainian military and citizens:
either
– strengthen their resolve to resist
or
– cause them to think…this is what will happen to all our towns and cities if we continue fighting.

To those politicians who played nice with putin and failed to properly recognise the threat just over the horizon, contempt is too good for you.
Everything now being done to support Ukraine is too little and too late.

I’m not so sure about that. It’s getting a lot of airtime rightly because it’s horrendous and unthinkable but the Russians are getting a fight that they hadn’t considered in their wildest dreams. The tide of conflict can turn suddenly and without much warning. The resolve of the Russian armed forces to stay in the fight in the west is being tested to it’s maximum now and if some proper retaking of territory and defeat of a large section of ground forces may come a very rapid recalibration of what’s possible and sustainable. If the Ukrainians clober them back towards the Belorussian border in a significant way it both prevents the cutting off of Western supply lines but scores a very severe blow to morale of an army that’s clearly already struggling to motivate towards any sort of initiative. It’s ugly but it’s by no means certain cities would fall one by one. My other suspicion is the Western front is a feignt to keep a large portion of armed forces engaged away from the eastern half which is what Putin eyes as the prize. What happens months from now when the Ukrainians decide they want parts of their country back is also unclear.

I don’t believe that for a minute – you don’t have a military the size of Russia’s without having a stockpile of ammunition and the war factories to produce more. Unless the claim is that they only have access to 3 days’ worth on the frontlines?

Russias main issue with logistics is they are heavily bound to the railway network rather than air/trucks to shift stuff. Once they get outside of the motherland they don’t have the rail network to depend on, though you’d have thought they’d have enough trucks to nip across the border and back so it does seem strange.

My other suspicion is the Western front is a feignt to keep a large portion of armed forces engaged away from the eastern half which is what Putin eyes as the prize. What happens months from now when the Ukrainians decide they want parts of their country back is also unclear.

They appear to be using fairly raw/untrained troops at the moment (for reasons unknown) – the Chechens and Syrians are on their way now so things could get really nasty as I don’t think wither of those have a particularly good reputation for acts of kindness. Its such a horrible nightmare watching NATo tip toes around trying to not start WW3 whilstall this happens in front of them.

Colourful description

I cannot begin to tell you how big a thing this loss is for Rurrian forces.

Ukraine now has a whole lot of political leverage to get MIG-29's and SAM's from NATO, whatever the De-escalation factions in DC wants.

The DoD, CIA and NSA have collective boners the size of a
1/ https://t.co/nKRYBoW9S2

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 22, 2022

Submarine…Trident submarine, in case you were wondering what their boners were the size of… (predictive text kept changing it to Binners 😂)

Not sure about Syrians but Chechens appear to have been there for some time (and are fighting for both sides). Quite a number of them got wiped out in the early days (unverified). And there was a video posted by Kadyrov apparently of him on outskirts of Kyiv which was geolocated later to…Grozny. There was also some footage of them fighting in Mariupol, which consisted of them firing machine guns at an apartment block…

you’d have thought they’d have enough trucks to nip across the border and back so it does seem strange.

Thing is that the further you go from the railhead, the fewer trips each truck can make each day. The Russian supplies all have to be hand loaded and unloaded from the trucks (the stuff in pictures isn’t palletized and they won’t have forklifts at the frontline), so the turnaround for each truck at each end of the journey will be slow. If you assume things are going really smoothly and they can turn the truck around in one hour at each end and can drive at 50 mph on good roads, that’s a four hour round trip at 50 miles distance. So, one truck will probably make three or four trips per day for short journeys under ideal conditions. If the turn-around is two hours at each end and you can only drive at 30 mph, you’re looking at one trip per day for a 100 mile journey.

That’s without having Ukrainians hiding along the roads blowing up trucks that then block the roads. All the debris from the blown up trucks will shred the tyres of other trucks that drive through the scene so they have to detour around those, which means going off road. This is why the Russian advance stalled, they just don’t have enough trucks to supply their army over long distances so they have to stay close to railheads.

That command post thing – it’s undamaged and appears to have been abandoned. How is that possible if it’s that important?

Unless it’s deliberate? In which case there could potentially be a fifth column in the Russian army? I’m filing that idea under fantasy for now though.

thols2 – are you a military logistics specialist?

Unless it’s deliberate? In which case there could potentially be a fifth column in the Russian army? I’m filing that idea under fantasy for now though.

That was the theory with the Pansir air defense thing which was captured intact, and still switched on! IE it was deliberate. My guess is not so much a fifth column as an attitude of ‘We really don’t want to be here, why are we even attacking these people, it’s not our fight, let’s just **** the whole thing up and then we can go home’

I was wondering about the dead/wounded ratio in the estimates of Russia casualties. It didn’t seem to add up. Whatever the real numbers are, they must be truly horrifying.

…or POW categories.

That lack of "Missing" & "POW" categories, which are standard in professional military casualty reporting, is a "poker tell" regards there being more Russian military casualties & losses.

There are a lot of small Russian columns wiped out by
2/ pic.twitter.com/l15TbUOjJo

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 23, 2022

thols2 – are you a military logistics specialist?

No, but I once had a job that involved logistics and lots of loading, unloading trucks – the principle is the same, you need more trucks to ship the same quantity over a longer distance. What I wrote is just a summary of what a military logistics guy put on Twitter, I was too lazy to go back and search for his original thread. It won’t be too hard to find if you do a quick search. Key point is that Russia relies on trains for logistics and just doesn’t have enough trucks to supply an army very far from a railhead.

Unless it’s deliberate? In which case there could potentially be a fifth column in the Russian army? I’m filing that idea under fantasy for now though.

One theory I’ve seen is that Russian conscript soldiers are trained to strictly follow orders, they are not trained to act independently like Western professional soldiers. They will not destroy their own equipment unless an officer orders them to. If they destroy it, they might be court-martialed or just shot on the spot. Better to let it be captured than take the risk. Just a theory, but it is amazing seeing all the stuff just left sitting in fields.

This article explains why Russia can’t advance far from railheads. They don’t have enough trucks, plus there are Ukrainian forces roaming the countryside attacking convoys behind the Russian advance.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/

there are Ukrainian forces roaming the countryside

This article explains why Russia can’t advance far from railheads. They don’t have enough trucks, plus there are Ukrainian forces roaming the countryside attacking convoys behind the Russian advance.

Feeding the Bear: A Closer Look at Russian Army Logistics and the Fait Accompli

Thats an interesting read! Seems Poland can’t be invaded by Russia mostly because it has a different gauge railway to that of Russia and Ukraine, yet there is one wide gauge railway line between Ukraine and Warsaw, so an attack on Poland may be feasible if Russia conquers Ukraine first and secures the railway line.
I suspect Poland will have plans to destroy or disable that railway line at the first sign of any Russian aggression to them.
And having a wide gauge railway in Ukraine made them vulnerable to invasion in the first place, so when all this is over, Ukraine needs to swap out it’s railway infrastructure to a non-wide gauge system at the earliest opportunity…

And this demonstrates why Ukraine is never going to trust Russia to abide by any ceasefire or peace treaty that isn’t enforced by a powerful Ukrainian or NATO military.

For months, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and many other Russian officials repeatedly denied Russia planned to invade Ukraine – and then invaded anyway.

I put this to Peskov: after all those lies, how can anyone ever believe Russia in future negotiations? pic.twitter.com/fRYEQSnDuC

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) March 22, 2022

The Russian supplies all have to be hand loaded and unloaded from the trucks (the stuff in pictures isn’t palletized and they won’t have forklifts at the frontline), so the turnaround for each truck at each end of the journey will be slow.

I mentioned way back somewhere in this thread that I was a cold war warrior.  Early in my career in the 1980s I worked at an Ammunition depot in Germany which amongst other things stored Lance tactical nuclear missiles, but mostly lots and lots of war reserve conventional ammunition.  Artillery ammo, mortar bombs, mines, grenades, small arms ammo etc.  Our wartime role which we practised regularly, was to quickly empty the depot and disperse the stock to dozens of remote field storage sites dotted around the countryside.  Generally in forestry blocks or farms.  As a sproggy Ammunition Technician corporal, I ‘commanded’ one of these field storage sites.  Mostly shitting myself about the spetznaz that would inevitably be coming to slit our throats whilst we slept!

Each site would have a couple of ‘Eager Beaver’ off road forklifts to load and unload pallets of ammo from trucks.  They were articulated in the middle with massive balloon tyres and superb on rough ground.  Unlike the image, the ones we had did not have a cab rollover cage.  Sadly a young lad died at the depot when he rolled one.

useless factoid: the US army invented the palletised shipping container to make shipping shit to Vietnam easier. It’s since moved to the wider shipping and logistics world going on to make global commercial capitalism grow at an exponential rate since the 70’s

Thanks US army, good work 👍 (irony)

So Putins 3 day ‘special operation’ has dragged onto a month long war with many 1000s dead and no end in sight.
Even if Russia is failing to take Kyiv the push in the South is progressing slowly.
Theyre will be no let up for the civilians trapped in horrendous conditions in besieged cities.
I can’t see Putin backing down until Donetsk & Luhansk oblasts and Odessa and the entire coast captured and Kyiv pummeled
Another month of this at a minimum?

useless factoid: the US army invented the palletised shipping container to make shipping shit to Vietnam easier.

No, they popularised something that was invented long before the Vietnam war (patented in 1956).

So Putins 3 day ‘special operation’ has dragged onto a month long war with many 1000s dead and no end in sight.

Yep, it’s just turned into a messy indiscriminate destructive nightmare now.

I’m still not sure what the expectations were – walk in there, be welcomed as conquering heroes, barely a shot fired? Quick skirmish with “Ukrainian loyalists” then into Kyiv in time for tea and medals?

Now it’s just another Yugoslavia which may well be one of the few ways it can end with regions carved up 🙁

“Another month of this at a minimum?”

I think it’s likely we’ll be looking at many months yet, if not years. I’d never be happier to be proven wrong though.

Also, reports of extensive railway sabotage in Belarus could mean that the railhead to the north has potentially moved back a meaningful distance.

predictive text kept changing it to Binners 😂

He acknowledges he’s a big-boned chap! 😀

Most obvs with no military expertise but as history has shown someone fighting for their homeland will fight harder and longer than a paid/conscripted soldier

As Stalin observed numbers have a quality of their own.

As Stalin observed numbers have a quality of their own.

He did. But he was also fighting The Great Patriotic War, for Mother Russia, against the Nazi Invader.