Ukraine invasion

[billd91]

After getting spanked by Ukraine, I don't expect Russia will have the hunger to take on a NATO member for some years.

Spanked, maybe. But they didn’t provoke direct intervention because of the nuclear threat. And may end up with largely what they wanted anyway.
My guess is the next actual test will be in Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbian proxies while Russian colonists will start agitating in the Baltics, all funded with Russian oil money.

 

[Umbran]

Spanked, maybe. But they didn’t provoke direct intervention because of the nuclear threat. And may end up with largely what they wanted anyway.

Yes, but they seem to have lost more troops in a month than the total the US has lost since the end of the Vietnam War. Those losses are a problem, and indicate many other problems.

My guess is the next actual test will be in Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbian proxies while Russian colonists will start agitating in the Baltics, all funded with Russian oil money.

Years from now, perhaps. But this test has shown they don't have the equipment, training, or logistics for taking on peers. It will take time to develop it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Years from now, perhaps. But this test has shown they don't have the equipment, training, or logistics for taking on peers. It will take time to develop it.

I kind of suspect that the equipment they had was fine where it was maintained but that most of what was paid for never arrived at front line units or was stripped and sold off after installation.
It is the pervasive and top to bottom corruption that is the root problem and the best hope to counteract it is a fairly transparent society. Which is not compatible with oligarchical rule.

 

[NotAYakk]

I kind of suspect that the equipment they had was fine where it was maintained but that most of what was paid for never arrived at front line units or was stripped and sold off after installation.
It is the pervasive and top to bottom corruption that is the root problem and the best hope to counteract it is a fairly transparent society. Which is not compatible with oligarchical rule.

It is more than that.

Russia's military is poorly trained/educated. Their economy is barely bigger than Canada's, and they are maintaining a huge number of tanks and other weapons; they simply cannot afford to modernize them, keep that many in service, and maintain them.

It relies on conscription, which you can avoid by getting a degree; this means it relies on the poorest who cannot avoid service.

It has weak off-rail logistics. Their units have something like 1/3 of the off-rail (trucks basically) logistics capabilities of "western" military units.

And then, we have the plausible story that the Tank is dead as a weapon. Modern anti-tank weaponry (both drones and man-portable) are able to kill tanks easier than tanks can kill them for 10x to 100x less cost. That really isn't a price ratio you want to be fighting against.

I mean, battleships died in WW2 with the aircraft carrier for the same reason (air planes are many many times cheaper than battleships, and can sink them). We still have ships with guns, but they aren't the battleships of WW2 and before, queens of the sea which engaged in a technological arms race for larger caliber barrels and thicker armor and faster engines. Instead they are secondary escort craft.

It looks like tanks are now ineffectively armored most-terrain light artillery and poor infantry transport mechanized units.

Not sure what to replace it with. Maybe massively reduce armor (keep enough to beat small arms; force the enemy to have anti-person and anti-mech weapons), add in drone escorts? (Refueling and controlling drones can give you around-corner kill capabilities) Stick anti-tank weaponry on some of the drones and you can beat a tank before it sees you.

Dunno.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It is more than that.

Russia's military is poorly trained/educated. Their economy is barely bigger than Canada's, and they are maintaining a huge number of tanks and other weapons; they simply cannot afford to modernize them, keep that many in service, and maintain them.

They cannot afford not to either but we would have to get into the weeds of what exactly Russia has been spending on military over the last 20 years but but I do not see how the situation would not be improved by less corruption.

It relies on conscription, which you can avoid by getting a degree; this means it relies on the poorest who cannot avoid service.

It has weak off-rail logistics. Their units have something like 1/3 of the off-rail (trucks basically) logistics capabilities of "western" military units.

And then, we have the plausible story that the Tank is dead as a weapon. Modern anti-tank weaponry (both drones and man-portable) are able to kill tanks easier than tanks can kill them for 10x to 100x less cost. That really isn't a price ratio you want to be fighting against.

This is something about which we simply do not have enough information. We do not really know, if the Russians, at any point performed any of the force protection measures, typically undertaken by the US in similar circumstances or if the tank losses was cause by poor training, lack of combined arms coordination or lack of maintenance. It will be a couple of years before we will have the information to make a real judgements on this.

I mean, battleships died in WW2 with the aircraft carrier for the same reason (air planes are many many times cheaper than battleships, and can sink them). We still have ships with guns, but they aren't the battleships of WW2 and before, queens of the sea which engaged in a technological arms race for larger caliber barrels and thicker armor and faster engines. Instead they are secondary escort craft.

It looks like tanks are now ineffectively armored most-terrain light artillery and poor infantry transport mechanized units.

Not sure what to replace it with. Maybe massively reduce armor (keep enough to beat small arms; force the enemy to have anti-person and anti-mech weapons), add in drone escorts? (Refueling and controlling drones can give you around-corner kill capabilities) Stick anti-tank weaponry on some of the drones and you can beat a tank before it sees you.

Dunno.

Too early to make judgements. Too much of the information is coming from Ukraine sources, we are not getting the Russian side and Ukraine is playing a blinder on the information war.

 

[Nikosandros]

I expect that sanctions will lift when a peace agreement is reached. I don't expect that to be a full withdrawal and a return of Crimea - that would constitute an unacceptable loss of face for Russia. I will be unsurprised if Russia gets out of this still holding Crimea, a chunk of the Donbas region, and with an agreement that Ukraine will not seek to become part of NATO or the EU.

Which stinks, but that's my expectation at this point.

We'll see. Germany might be wavering, but I reckon that the US and the UK see things differently. Putin has crossed a red line and I don't envisage things going back to "normal" any time soon. IMHO, of course.

 

[Umbran]

While not yet solidly established, we now have reasons to doubt that Russia is implementing a coherent strategy, or acting on the basis of reality, because Putin may not be informed of the reality:

"A U.S. official provided NBC News with declassified intelligence claiming that there is "persistent tension" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD), allegedly because Putin's senior advisors are "too afraid to tell him the truth" about Russia's battlefield failures.

“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth," the official said.

The official did not provide evidence for these claims, citing a need to protect sources and methods.

They said that Putin was unaware that the Russian military had used and lost conscript soldiers in Ukraine, saying that this lack of information showed "a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian President.""

(From NBC News: Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Russian units 'forced' to turn back to reorganize)

 

[Imaculata]

Actual footage of Putin being informed by his advisors:

 

[Guest 7034872]

While not yet solidly established, we now have reasons to doubt that Russia is implementing a coherent strategy, or acting on the basis of reality, because Putin may not be informed of the reality:

"A U.S. official provided NBC News with declassified intelligence claiming that there is "persistent tension" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD), allegedly because Putin's senior advisors are "too afraid to tell him the truth" about Russia's battlefield failures.

“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth," the official said.

[...]

Okay, wow. I mean, ^^ this is almost exactly how the U.S.'s second invasion of Iraq started. We had bad intel and believed it because Saddam had bad intel and believed it.

Wow.

 

[Zardnaar]

Reasons for Russian underperformance.

Basically their military is to big for the budget. Their artillery and missiles work fine and they have a large amount of nukes.

But they announce all these Miracle weapons (T-14 Armata, SU-57) and barely build any.

Consider on paper they have 12000 tanks. Most of these however are USSR leftovers around 2500-2800 in service. Something like 800 odd are "modernized".

The modern tanks are upgraded T-72 and T-90's and T-80. All off them suffer from small tank big gun which means weak armor and that autoloader.

All those pictures we're seeing of T-72's with the turrets blown off? That's an ammunition detonation. Pretty much all Soviet/Russian tanks since the T-34 have terrible crew conditions and safety.

So even without corruption how does a country with an economy similar in size to Texas, Canada, Australia and Italy maintain an army that size?

Well the proof is in the pudding. Poorly trained and equipped it seems.
The majority if their tanks are T-72B barely upgraded maybe with ERA strapped on. That design is Soviet dating from 1985 with 1985 electronics. The upgraded T-72's have things like computers in them.

T-90 isn't very good and they're using a few A models from the 90's. It's just a glorified T-72 with a T-80 turret.

So Ukraine has probably taken out a large % of their upgraded models. As an added bonus they can't replace or upgrade replacements. Apparently the tank factory has closed down due to a lack of parts due to sanctions.

Most if those 12000 tanks on paper are in storage and haven't been maintained in decades mostly T-72A models and older (T-55's maybe T-64).

I don't think Russia has T64 in active service Ukraine does. T-64 was the best Soviet tank 50 years ago. T-72 was cheap replacement for T-55 and T-80 was a cheaper T-64.