Russian has been having logistic problems to supply their troop of 200K men. I was wondering how they could supply a fully mobilized troop. 200K at a time?
Task and Purpose has some discussion by a former USMC Lt Colonel who now works for the RAND corporation as an analyst.[1]
“It won’t be pretty, it won’t be efficient, but they’re going to be able to find the people. I think the more relevant issue is: How capable and ready are they going to be — not very. How much training are they willing to give them before they send them out to the front lines. Right now, the indications are — the way they’ve pumped units into Ukraine — is not a lot and certainly not enough.”
This is a classic Russian style of warfare. Throw conscripts into battle. The survivors will become good soldiers or die.
Usually countries do this when they're being invaded, desperate, and fighting on their own territory with the support of the locals. It's rare to see it for a country that's the attacker and is operating in hostile territory. That takes a lot more training, organization, and support.
This can go on for a long time. Russia does not have enough power to conquer Ukraine, and Ukraine does not have enough power to conquer Russia. But they can fight for years.
To call what is happening now the classic Russian style of warfare is a flanderization of Soviet Second World War tactics. The Soviets were indeed attacking en masse, but they were not voluntarily sending people to a meat grinder with no hope of success. They instead were using their sheer numbers to annihilate the ability of the enemy to mount a defence. The fact that the Soviets are renown for not retreating was also due to their enemy losing the initiative.
> the rest of line the you quote from is important.
I understand their argument, but I dispute it. The way things are going, the war is not going to last for years. Russia's military is collapsing. They have low morale, little training, bad leadership, little to no will to fight, deprecated weapons, no strategy, no allies. Ukraine's military has great motivation and morale, phenomenal public image, good training (and getting better every day), good troop rotation, great intelligence, numerous allies. And now they have the silver bullet too, in the from of HIMARS.
We are not watching a slog. We are watching a lopsided fight.
If Russia throws badly trained, led, equipped and supplied troops into battle, their losses are likely to be horrendous and their morale rock bottom. They would be far better served by a smaller number of well trained troops; but that would take too much time.
> If Russia throws badly trained, led, equipped and supplied troops into battle, their losses are likely to be horrendous and their morale rock bottom.
Russia's strategy seems taken straight out of Zapp Brannigan's Art of War, where they are banking on Ukraine's arms supplies to eventually run out after spending them all wiping out wave after wave of Russia's "badly trained, led, equipped and supplied troops" until there's no resistance left.
Starting from day 1, Russia has been sending unwitting and unequiped conscripts through the Ukraine frontlines until they draw contact.
Russian actually had a problem with too much hardware and not enough people (let's overlook for a moment that most of that hardware is soviet-era, badly maintained, incomplete and low quality).
Why do you think so much hardware was captured by Ukrainians? Because there just wasn't enough people to drive it all back when they retreated.
Russian tactics suffers because they are sending tanks without infantry. The tanks are meant to support troops to achieve results, not be standalone solution.
Now, the reason I think the mobilisation will not help is actually different. I think somebody summed it up pretty well: "$50M piece of artillery driven by an 18yo". There is already not enough experienced soldiers and now they will be diluted with even more that have no idea what they are doing.
It will also put a clock on whatever Putin is trying to do. Now that this is done, he will absolutely have to show results or public opinion will start deteriorating very quickly.
> Russian actually had a problem with too much hardware and not enough people (let's overlook for a moment that most of that hardware is soviet-era, badly maintained, incomplete and low quality).
That's not exactly true. Russia has problems supplying themselves, but thanks to the astronomical casualty rate they've progressively getting fewer bodies on the few gear they have.
Their units are chronically underequiped to the point whole units barely have boots or bullet proof vests to equip their grunts.
Russia has been rushing their ancient 50 year old tanks to the front lines even without maintenance or any type of update.
Russia is now in such a state of despair that Russia, once one of the world's to arms exporter, are resorting to buying gear from Iran, of all places.
> Russia is now in such a state of despair that Russia, once one of the world's to arms exporter, are resorting to buying gear from Iran, of all places.
IIRC, Iran has a pretty impressive domestic arms industry. The thing they should probably be more embarrassed about is buying arms from North Korea.
> Why do you think so much hardware was captured by Ukrainians? Because there just wasn't enough people to drive it all back when they retreated.
Those vehicles had crews, that's how they got to the battlefield in the first place. The vehicles are being abandoned because they don't have the fuel to make it back to friendly lines because their logistics is a joke. So crews are abandoning vehicles rather than sitting in a Javelin magnet waiting for a fuel truck that will never arrive.
In a professional army if a vehicle managed to run out of fuel or was damaged but serviceable its unit would detach some soldiers to watch over it while an engineering vehicle (an armored tow truck essentially) was dispatched to retrieve it.
If public opinion didn't deteriorate till now (since people in russia generally grok what has been actually happening, lets not dumb whole population down to brainless incompetents), official war won't make a dent big enough to concern Putin. Those willing to protest largely already left the country or are in jail/worse. You can't apply democratic thinking to place like russia, you will fail tremendously in understanding and predicting anything.
I agree with dilution of skills, with modern equipment number of troops alone mean almost nothing, high motivation and morale can be easily 10x multiplier etc...
But equipment left in Ukraine - that's often part of that low morale. There are countless videos of russian soldiers ignoring their fellow soldiers lying on the ground bleeding and concerning about themselves only. Whole tank crew coming to police station to 'ask for direction', effectively giving up. Imagine US soldiers doing that anywhere... That's something that won't get fixed in 10 years even if they started in right direction now, and they aren't and won't.
These are fragilities of dictatorships, where ass kissing and corruption trumps competence every time. This is one of the cores of what russia is as a state now. I say good for us, since they will never reach even fraction of potential their numbers and equipment gives them.
> people in russia generally grok what has been actually happening, lets not dumb whole population down to brainless incompetents
There is a difference between understanding what is happening and caring about it.
I believe Russians do understand what is happening, for the most part. But I believe most Russians just don't care enough to do something about it. That might change when their sons, fathers, husbands are on the hook to go to a bloody war.
It is kinda like eating meat. You know it comes from an animal that most likely had to live in poor conditions and then be killed. Most people do understand that this is what is happening, and yet they do not act on it because it is easier to not do anything.
> That's something that won't get fixed in 10 years even if they started in right direction now, and they aren't and won't.
I agree. The Russian regime is based on corruption and cynicism. This breeds an attitude of everyone for himself. It is not fertile soil to grow a competent army in.
> These are fragilities of dictatorships, where ass kissing and corruption trumps competence every time.
There have been plenty of autocracies that have had good armies. E.g. Alexander, the Roman Empire, the Rashidun Caliphate, Nazi Germany.
> There is already not enough experienced soldiers and now they will be diluted with even more that have no idea what they are doing.
Just as a caveat, note that the provisions of the current partial mobilization explicitly exclude students and conscripts and is for 300K “reservists who have previously served in the Russian army and have combat experience or specialised military skills”. So, I don’t think the mental image of fresh recruits who have no idea what they are doing is necessarily accurate.
> Why do you think so much hardware was captured by Ukrainians? Because there just wasn't enough people to drive it all back when they retreated.
Yeah, I read somewhere that their units are so undermanned that they've been sending APCs into action with just the drivers, which apparently is both ineffective and also makes them really vulnerable to the kinds of anti-tank missiles that Ukraine has been getting by the truckload.
> Because there just wasn't enough people to drive it all back when they retreated.
Also Russian soldiers didn't care whether it was captured or not. They just care about saving their own lives. This does not make for an effective army, but it's all Russia can do.
