this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ukraine is doing great. I know Russia is a meme, but they do have far more resources and man power. These guys are working with tech they just got trained on. Russia is well fortified. Keep in mind, the counter offensive is still developing. Often things are said publicly to skew the other side.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Mission accomplished

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah. this is still in the "probing" and "shaping" phase, the Ukrainians are launching attacks to see which bits of the front are softest and to force the Russians to commit their reserves so that when a breakthrough happens they have fewer options to respond with.

Just today the big news was about Ukraine blowing up a vital bridge the Russians need for resupplying their lines, for example. And yesterday I was reading an interesting analysis about how the Ukrainians might actually be able to attack across the former Kakhovka reservoir now that the Russians blew up the dam and drained it. Even if they don't do that it might make sense for them to look like they're considering it so that the Russians have yet more front lines they need to reinforce.

People have been spoiled by reading history books in which they can take in a summary of a years-long war in a paragraph or two, or by Desert Storm which was rather a different sort of war than this one. This offensive could take months, and it doesn't have to have a clear "beginning" and "end" moment where one side captures a flag and declares victory over the other.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I really don't think it's just in the probing stage. Ukraine has had a lot of losses trying to punch through Russian lines and have even publicly stated they have called for an operational pause to re-evaluate their tactics.

The tactical/strategic reserves just haven't been deployed because a breakthrough hasn't happened yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Could you link a source on those Ukranian wins you mention? I'm interested to read on those.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

The only one I mentioned specifically was bombing the Chonhar bridge. Not sure how you missed that, Russian media has reported on it and Russian politicians are making threats of retaliation over it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Although disappointing, not entirely unexpected. Assaulting and defending are two different things and without air or artillery superiority, the assault phase is even more difficult. So these lads are pressing in on well prepared defensive lines without a ton of battle space preparation. Hopefully, they can perform well enough, and violently enough to overcome the typical 3:1 requirement for beaching and destroying fortified positions.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks

"The capacity to detect and strike targets at ever-greater distances and with ever-growing precision increases the vulnerability of dense troop concentrations, and therefore limits the ability to conduct large-scale sequenced and concentrated operations. As such, in order to enhance survivability, current battlefield conditions are forcing military units to disperse into smaller formations, dig in, or both, unless these conditions are effectively countered. As a result, the battlefield tends to become more fragmented, offering more independent action to lower tactical formations as the depth of the front is expanding to a considerable extent."

"As a survey of decades of history illustrates, Russian military strategy over the past decades has correctly forecasted a number of implications of advancements in weapons, as well as sensor technologies, that are currently affecting the character of warfare in Ukraine."

"The operational level of war sits between tactics, which consists of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield, and strategy, which involves aspects of long-term and high-level theatre operations, and the government's leadership. The Soviet Union was the first country to officially distinguish this third level of military thinking, when it was introduced as part of the deep operation military theory that its armed forces developed during the 1920s and 1930s and utilized during the Second World War."

"After the failure of the initial invasion, the subsequent period of the fighting in the Donbas was at first marked by Russian dominance in fires. Besides precision munitions, the employment of UAVs for target detection greatly enhanced the effectiveness of Russia’s large numbers of legacy artillery systems. Russian artillery batteries employing UAVs for target detection generally showed themselves capable of engaging Ukrainian positions within minutes after being detected. As a result, Ukrainian infantry companies were forced to disperse and often occupied front lines up to three kilometers wide. Consequently, battalions covered frontages that are traditionally the responsibility of brigades. Russian artillery superiority and sensor density even prevented Ukrainians from concentrating in units above company size, because anything larger would be detected prematurely and effectively targeted from a distance."

"Russian forces also rarely employ armor and infantry in concentrated assaults and in the defense occupy dispersed positions, while increasingly drawing on artillery to blunt Ukrainian attacks."

"However, current battlefield conditions are adding the related difficulty of achieving the concentration of forces necessary for establishing main efforts during offensive operations. This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare. Only by disrupting the opponent’s kill chain can larger formations regain the ability to concentrate and engage in maneuver warfare. During the war in Ukraine, superiority in kill-chain effectiveness has become one of the prime objectives for both sides. In this war and any other characterized by the same dynamics, this superiority becomes an essential condition for victory."

With a doctrine advantage, western acknowledged electronic warfare, indirect fire, and air support superiority combined with an established, modernized supply line its JOEVER

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

So gringos want to continue war... so sad

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Big problem is the Russian air force has been holding off for just this moment. Low flying helicopters and drones are hard to hit and doing significant work defending the lines. It's why we've seen a lot of helicopters downed in the last week too.

Give it time, there'll be a solution eventually.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

The imperial managers are looking for a way out, so they're slowly allowing mainstream media to report some semblance of the truth, namely that Ukraine has absolutely no chance without participating in peace negotiations in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sad for Ukraine. I wonder whether we're back to WWI with long, static defensive lines and grinding, awful, slow advances.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's also a factor of Russia not competently executing the initial invasion and got themselves bogged down. Similar to the Germans in WW1 on the western front, they got bogged down before they could take their key objectives, but the eastern front remained mostly mobile during the war because of the vast size of the front, and they eventually won on that front. Because you either win by our maneuvering your enemy an encircling them, or attriting the hell out of them till they have nothing left, and I think the pendulum has swung again towards a defensive advantage, especially with UAVs and remote mine laying systems, and precision artillery munitions.

It's a big part of why US doctrine is so focused on quick fast and overwhelming assaults and a strike first mentality. Even in Desert Storm they were severely worried about being bogged down by the Iraqi Army and starting a prolonged conflict with massive American losses. So it was imperative to flank the Iraqi Army from the western desert by the French Armored Corps.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We now know that Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement back in March, and Russia pulled back as a show of good faith. Then the west told Ukraine that the agreement was unacceptable and that's how we got where we are today.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

What nonsense is this? They are doing a great job. Assaulting heavily fortified positions is extremely hard, whoever thinks Ukraine is not fast enough probably knows nothing about shit. Just look at the Allies offensives in Europe during WW2, especially the beach landings. It took months to break the lines of defense.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They should try advance through minefields as vast as an ocean and then criticize.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's understandably difficult when the Ukrainians fail to make gains, but it's Russian incompetence when they do it?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Interesting. With how poorly Russia has done so far, I think the expectation was for the counter offense to be fast and severe. I wonder if their training is better suited to holding land, if they were holding back their more competent troops from the front line, or if the soldiers are more invested in their defense than the offense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Russia did a shit tonne of work putting in mines, trenches, and structures everywhere. They might not fight for shit, but they can dig holes and place dragon teeth. Doesn’t really require much advanced thought or tech.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Well, the quality of some of that work leaves much to be desired, in some cases. But even if it's all crap there still is an awful lot of it so it'll take time to clear a path.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Also, while the morale of russian front-line soldiers is shit, their artillery in combination with minefields are responsible for most Ukrainian losses.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

As long as the dragon teeth aren’t hollow

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That may have been the case in meme-circles, but anyone looking at the war objectively knew it was going to be slower. The Kharkiv counteroffensive only was so brutally effective, because the russian defensive lines were so weak and they didn't have any secodary defensive lines to fall back on. Meaning that once the defense was breached, Ukrainian Humvees could just keep driving and pursiung fleeing russians.

Kherson had a better defense setup, but with the bridges over the Dnipro cut, russia couldn't supply them.

Now, russia had time to create layered defensives and their logistics are harder to cut. The push towards the south is the most difficult offensive Ukraine has undertaken so far, so it's only logical for it to take the longest.

There is also a difference in tactics: While russia employs zerg rushes of convicts and mobilized into fortified Ukrainian positions, Ukraine tries to achieve local supperiorities of firepower and taking russian positions into pockets. That lowers your own casualties, but makes offensive operations more difficult.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think the expectation was for the counter offense to be fast and severe.

Only if you've been chugging western propaganda. It was pretty clear beforehand, and has been very clear since it "started".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Offense has been losing to defensive technology since after WW2 the major exception being ICBMs of course.

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