Buckminster
Well-Known Member
I haven't watched but this is a snapshot:
Why Ukraine Is Struggling to Puncture Russia’s Formidable Defenses
Why Ukraine Is Struggling to Puncture Russia’s Formidable Defenses
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
They love him apparently, a very popular guy.
petit_bateau
Active Member
- That terrain works both ways;
- If this is real, then a spoiling move does seem more likely;
- A Ukrainian push in this area opens up a lot of front for them to have to subsequently defend, and is not really directly addressing the main objective ("cut the Crimea land bridge");
- For both sides, either way this ties up a chunk of forces, though not necessarily mirror image numbers depending on who knows what and what the real intents are.
- Along the front from the Vasilivka to Donetsk city it is typically approximately 80km from the front to the coast, 70km to the coastal road; and far less (20-40km) to the railway line;
- The Ukrainian forces have so far carefully advanced 5-10k deep in at least three areas, each spaced 20-40km apart (Vasilivka, Orikhiv, Makarivka, Vuhledar) over a period of approximately one month (early June to early July), which is the spacing one would expect if preparing a front for sufficient thrust options that they complement each other in attack and do not allow the defender to focus in response;
- Ukraine is clearly working this front at serious depth, right through to the coast;
- Modern 155mm artillery such as the French Ceasar has a range of approximately 40km;
- Depending on rocket type the M270 MLRS has ranges that are typically in the 30-80km range;
- Given the rate of progress of (say) 5-10km/month and the four months dry weather remaining, even if Ukraine cannot breakout and reach the coast this Summer, it is likely to gain the ability to target all the road, rail, and port areas it needs using these 155mm and MLRS to so as to prevent large scale Russian resupply via the land bridge through the Winter;
- I was looking yesterday at some equivalent sized modern campaigns and came to the conclusion that (in some limited respects) the Allied breakout from Normandy through the German Western armies was somewhat analagous. Approx 500k+ combatants, heavy armour, artillery, etc. Political constraints on casualty rates heavily influencing both tactics, operations, and strategy on the west; wierd politics/command to the east. Difficult supply issues. Clearly huge differences vs Ukraine but nonetheless some interesting analogues. Anyway it took about six weeks from 6 June to 25 July before the assaults on Caen area in the east sufficiently fixed the main German forces, allowing the assault on Avranches in the west to break through the more weakly held lines (both of which were day 1 objectives for the Allies !). That breakthrough led to Falaise gap encirclement and the race across France before Winter set in at roughly the Siegfried line / Rhine area. The point being that these things take time.
- Best wishes for Ukraine, we in the West must keep our resolve fully behind them.
Random links
Why would you post some random video you have not watched? Does that add value? Should we just post pic of cats?
Maybe go read what Ben Hodges thinks or mark hertling or mike Kauffman but if you post something at least do us the decency to bother watching .
Perun addressed this bad thinking in this week's video
A screenshot:
Normandy is a very good parallel and the Allies had both air and sea superiority for the entire campaign, though supply was more difficult for the Allies than it is for Ukraine (sea route). There was a lot of hand wringing about how the invasion was a failure, it was also against the backdrop of the stalled Anzio operation which saw the Allies do a second landing in Italy in January of 1944 and have the beachhead become a stalemate for 4 months.
Normandy is also an example of how an apparent stalemate can break wide open in a matter of a day or two. Once the stalemate was broken the situation in France for the Germans collapsed so quickly that the Allies couldn't keep up with the retreating Germans and had to stop at one point because they outran their supply lines.
If the Russians have adequately manned the trenchlines, then this could turn into a 5 Km a month slog until winter. But there are reports from the Ukrainians that many Russian trenches are very thinly manned. The trenches are mostly filled in the east, but not the south. If the Ukrainian reports are accurate, then once the current line of defense is breached, Ukraine could end up taking ground much faster, though probably not at the pace seen last September unless the Russians go into full retreat.
There is also the political situation in Russia too. A second mutiny may get more legs and cause serious problems back home that would make keeping the army in a foreign country untenable. Especially if the various units in Ukraine start picking a side in a developing civil war. That would be an end to this war akin to the end of WW I for Russia.
I watched a bit of it. It's a rather generic but pessimistic analysis of the battles going on right now. The problem I have with the image is that the retired general who set up that demonstration shows barbed wire which the Russians have not deployed and he fails to mention that the dragon's teeth encountered so far were installed incorrectly and are useless as an anti-tank obstacle. Another issue with those defenses is the question of how many people are defending them. If the trenches are virtually empty, then the most significant obstacle is mines which are a lot easier to clear when nobody is shooting at you.
Another fallacy Peron talked about in this week's video was the tendency some people have to make a straight-line projection out to infinity and then draw conclusions. The offensive is moving slowly right now. That doesn't mean it's going to be moving slowly next week or next month. It could be moving slowly a month from now, but the Ukrainians could also be standing at one end of the Kerch Bridge waving goodbye to the Russian army a month from now if the political will to continue or political necessity to stop comes up on the Russians.
Ultimately this war will end with something changing with the Russians. If Russian will to fight held out and the Ukrainians managed to push the Russians out anyway, the Russians could continue to assault Ukraine with each month's missile production until Putin dies of natural causes. But when Russia either decides to give up on the sunk cost and cut their losses or the political climate changes to a point where it's no longer possible to fight the war, Ukraine will be at peace.
Even if the US cuts off Ukraine, they will continue to fight with whatever they can get their hands on. Ukraine's fight is an existential fight for their existence. For Putin it's an existential fight for his existence, but it isn't for Russia. If Russia wanted to leave Ukraine and forget it ever happened (much like the US has with Afghanistan), then they could continue on, probably still with sanctions, but nobody is going to invade them if the lose in Ukraine (they may think that will happen which is a problem with Russian PTSD about past wars, but it won't happen in the modern world).
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
I am only feeling marginally bullied at this point. I post a lot of things in the investor section which I hope is helpful. Much I post without screening first. I do not profess to be an expert in any of it so not sure if you would value my watching it or not. It is not random - it is WSJ.
My previous post attracted funny’s. Presumably nothing to do with the main topic which was about kids getting killed.
I will stop posting here if there is no appetite for opposing views.
Tiger
Active Member
Ethiquette here is almost as strict as on the Coronavirus thread
You can have opposing views and express them with sources unless it's based on widely known untrusted/biased sources
Ethiquette here is almost as strict as on the Coronavirus thread
You can have opposing views and express them with sources unless it's based on widely known untrusted/biased sources
You can express opposing views based on terrible sources too- just don't expect not to get called out on them.
It is fine to have an opposing view brought to a thread if you have a factually relevant basis for supporting the opposing view. The issue you will find is there are no factual examples where stopping fighting now has ever been a successful solution to conflict. Especially now that Russia has engaged in so many deliberate crimes against humanity on orders of the leadership. Missiles are not randomly sent by local company leaders whose troops were ambushed. They are sent by informed MOD officials located in Moscow and are designed to hurt the civilians.
That same general (talking head Kimmet) has been consistently wrong throughout this conflict. From pre feb 2022 to now. Wrong. Find the people that said Russia had issues and would not succeed in taking Ukraine (ie the people that were correct pre Feb 2022) and listen to their analysis. And people that were wrong (mr Kaufman at FP for example) did so largely by overestimating Russias capabilities because they believed the lies Russia spews. Not that he was an idiot but he based his analysis and predictions on a base of lies. His errors were revealed within months and he admitted his errors (Kaufman that is).
Give in and make peace has never in the history of the world been the right call. It has never secured peace. Not against the imperialistic govts of the 1700s through WWII, none post WWII. Israel being the best example. South Korea being another. We could go on through all the post WWII conflicts and you wont find a situation where some compromise was correct. From Bosnia (where dutch peacekeepers just stood by and watched serb death squads perform genocide) to Israel to Vietnam (yes vietnam ...they were right to not compromise) to Bangladesh/Pakistan to Ethiopia/Eritrea. Ukraine will decide it's own fate and live with it.
The difference here is that the support we give Ukraine also has implications for China/Taiwan to our relationship with the baltic states and Europe and middle east. So, it's not just that our behavior guides the speed of the ultimate outcome in Ukraine but that it guides the worlds view of America being willing to support freedoms. Biden has a Roosevelt moment and Rossevelt was a masterful strategist and tactician on the political stage. Lucky for Biden his opponents are not Stalin and Hitler and Imperialistic Japan (with dubious imperialistic allies and one rock in Churchill). Instead we have a low grade mafia boss and Xi (who has played a strong economic hand to the brink of crisis by focusing on anything other than economics). Biden has done ok but his entourage that keeps delaying weapons is doing the USA and the Ukraine no favors.
Imperialistic is the key. There are many dictators who keep their craziness within the borders of their own countries. That was the case with most of the South American dictators, probably a majority of African dictators, and quite a few Asian dictators of the last 100+ years. It's also been true of Lukashenko in Belarus and some European dictators before WW II.
When those dictators start making noises about hurting their neighbors, most can be bought off. Throw them some money or something else of value to them and they usually shut up.
The ones with imperial ambitions beyond their borders are the ones that need to be thumped and thumped hard. Those dictators are dangerous to other countries and sometimes the entire world.
Though I wouldn't put Vietnam in that category. Vietnam was once part of the colony of French Indochina. The Vietnamese saw themselves as a single culture but when the French left it was divided into two halves to throw a bone to the communists who controlled the north at the time. The US stepped into France's shoes to try and prop up the south because of the poor model of the domino theory which believed that if communism is allowed to spread anywhere, it would be like an out of control cancer. The people promoting the theory gave communism way too much power considering the form of government is much less common today.
If the US had just stood back and allowed the communists to take over South Vietnam, Vietnam would probably look much the same today without all the scars from the war. I doubt Ho Chi Minh would have had ambitions beyond the borders of Vietnam even if he didn't have to fight hard for the south.
Today the Taliban are in power in Afghanistan, which is terrible for the Afghans, but they aren't bothering anyone outside their borders beyond some residual trouble in Northern Pakistan stemming from the years they hid out there.
Putin has demonstrated that he is probably the most dangerous dictator with ambitions beyond his borders since WW II. Unlike some of the other dictators who tried to grab someone else's territory Russia has the means to make weapons and was sitting on one of the world's largest reserves of weapons at the start of the war.
But thumping Putin hard here sends a message to Xi who could potentially be worse than Putin. China has a lot of problems, but they probably aren't fronting about new weapons systems like the Russians were. They have good engineering, can do good manufacturing, and they appear to actually train their military.
Economic sanctions would likely hurt both China and the rest of the world much worse than the Russian sanctions. Russia is a resource extraction economy and while their oil is still needed in the world supply chain, most of the rest of their resources can be tapped elsewhere. China is much more tied to the rest of the world economically and in many more ways. A loss of Chinese goods would have a definite impact in many areas of world economies. We saw some of it with the disruptions due to COVID.
I'm not sure how serious China really is about taking back Taiwan. I know they make a lot of noise about it and the CCP kind of needs something to rally patriotic energy in the country, but at the end of the day I'm not sure if China ever would try it. The risk would be extremely high and the reward would be dubious at best. Taiwan has plans to evacuate the high tech industries out of the country and they are building facilities in other countries now (including the US). If China did manage to take Taiwan their losses would probably be high (and they aren't as intolerant to losses as they once were, individual Chinese have more to lose now), and Taiwan would probably ensure that any high tech China would want would be destroyed on the way out.
Then China would lose its rallying cry. They would be like the dog who caught the car.
I could be wrong, a possible decaying regime in Beijing could lead Xi to make some bad decisions. In any case, make an example of Putin as insurance against this impulse on the part of China.
The Times article quotes Kremlin spokespeople. They wouldn't lie would they?
Will Putler risk leaving Russia to attend the BRIC summit?
BRICS summit will be held in-person despite Putin arrest warrant, says South African president
BRICS summit will be held in-person despite Putin arrest warrant, says South African president
Not surprising that since the removal of Wagner forces from Ukraine, the Russians are now putting the Chechens there.
Chechen forces deployed to Bakhmut, heavy rain floods village near Sochi
Chechen forces deployed to Bakhmut, heavy rain floods village near Sochi
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
You can post opposing views, but be prepared to have people bring up counter arguments and to respond.
Your post reminds me of new posters that come to forums posting something critical of the subject product, expecting only people supportive of their view to respond, when that is not how forums work. Everyone is free to respond, including those with opposing views.
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
If you look back at my response I didn’t say anything suggesting that I was not expecting counter arguments.
Some other related thoughts:
Opposing views perhaps could be encouraged a little more. Some will find opposing the huge number of highly aligned experts here a little intimidating. Feel free to disagree with my posts - no need to respond as nobody is going to change their minds. We are all used to shouting down Tesla bears here. I feel this is slightly more warranted when 99% of climate activists agree. That is not the case on Ukraine.
I have just started reading "What we owe the future" which Elon has described as closest to his philosophy. Early chapter discusses the potential number of future people not yet born. 200k lost soldiers could equate to billions. I do struggle with how our culture deals with life. I don't think I am strongly pro life (except when on this thread ,and I'm not referring to abortion discussion) or even a pacifist (I do miss having a pacifist left wing to keep balance). Indeed, my preference would be for the UK to do a little more infrastructure development - much of which never happens because we are saving crested newts....
Benefits of opposing views; 1) makes this thread look less like an echo chamber. 2) those with opposing views get to see their side of the argument occasionally.
As a reminder, we are basically on the same side. I want Russia to be forced out. I think it is the most likely outcome. I just disagree that the many alternative outcomes add up to too high a risk and too high a likelihood. My career did involve a lot of engineering risk management which is why I tend to think in terms of severity x likelihood. Someone cleverer than me could draw up a decision tree which would illustrate my thinking better than I am able to.
What exactly then do you want the Ukranians to do? They are in a war for their lives. They didn't ask for this war. They don't have gradiose plans to take territory from any of their neighbors. They are not targeting civilians, schools, hospitals, churches, etc. They just want to survive as a country. Sadly that means killing, wounding, capturing as many Russian military as possible. The Russians invaded Ukraine with the idea to at best subjugate everyone, carve it up for profit but genocide is the new normal to deal with opposition to their invasion. The Russians troops are just murderers and thieves. They literally stole everything they can when they were driven out of areas of Ukraine. I have Russian friends, so it pains me to "like" something that details the huge Russian losses, but that is the only way this war ends. To make it painful enough that the Russians turn on the sociopathic kleptocracy and go back to their own country.
What is not tolerated well by most here is outright lying propaganda by Kremlin trolls. We are not always correct, much information isn't public, or is framed with a particular agenda and miltary security prevents us from knowing all the facts so a lot of the thoughts here can be way off, but like in the COVID thread, folks here are not stupid and don't find this a joke like the trolls do.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
The Ukrainians have been quite clear, and history shows us that Putin cannot be trusted, period. Any position which ignores both of these simple facts needs to be dismissed in the same way as TSLAQ nonsense. There aren't "two sides" to this argument anymore than there are two sides to someone breaking into your house, killing some of your family members, and expecting to stay in some of your rooms while promising not to kill anyone else.
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
I say we are on the same side. Your response includes tolerate, Kremlin troll and stupid.
I will leave you all in peace for a few days or weeks.
