Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[lloyd007]

It's called you secure your break through while also sending forces out to probe for more.
Plenty of reports indicate a lot of going on

Been hearing about 'a lot going on' since the offensive began, y'know what hasn't been going on very much? Retaking territory. And it's been a year and a half since the war started, as badly atrophied as Russia's industry probably is / was, they've had a year and a half to gear up for newly built kit, which while it may be crap compared to NATO built stuff is still arty / tanks / ifv's and etc. and is useful when you DNGAF about the wellbeing of the cannon fodder so long as they aren't mutinying. Moreover they have suppliers of their own such as Iran that is providing them with fresh built ammunition.

The strategy of burning through the Russian stockpiles of equipment and ammunition only works so long as they can't replace it as fast or faster than you can destroy it... and again they've had a year and a half to bring their industry online.

I think we have established by now that things rarely happen fast in this war, and if you bet too much on them happening fast, it's not gonna end well. But that doesn't mean said things don't happen.

The "nothing" is called 155mm and HIMARS. You build huge minefields and trenchworks before the terrain in question is under active fire control. Once it is, that gets a lot more costly.

Outside of Putin getting waxed (less likely with Prigozhin dead), he has all the time in the world left to fight this war, the Russian public caring less about its soldiers than the Kremlin does and you'd have to ISOT Russians with people that give a fk to change that sentiment.

Ukraine doesn't have that luxury since they are dependent on other nations.

 

[Marduk]

Outside of Putin getting waxed (less likely with Prigozhin dead),

Prigozhin was the tip of the iceberg. Visible and scary looking, but... if something is going to really fuck up your ship, it's the part that's not visible.
Everyone knows that without backing higher up he couldn't have done half the shit he got away with.
Everyone also knows, now more than ever, that if anyone is going to make a move against Putin, it will have to be surprising and decisive.

he has all the time in the world left to fight this war, the Russian public caring less about its soldiers than the Kremlin does and you'd have to ISOT Russians with people that give a fk to change that sentiment.

Caring or not, the quality of both the warm bodies and war material handed to them is only going down. This unavoidably has effects. Putin is actively trying, to a point of making several major mistakes in hindsight, to not find out how many bodies will it take for the rest of Russian public to start caring about the prospect of joining them.

Ukraine doesn't have that luxury since they are dependent on other nations.

Which means they don't have to make so many hard choices between recruitment, war production and civilian economy.

 

[AnimalNoodles]

Honestly, it'd be one thing if Ukraine had retaken a single large settlement in this counteroffensive, but seeing a dead Challenger 2 less than 10km from the front line 2 months ago sends a message that the Ukrainians aren't gonna overcome the Russian tactic of just slamming cannon fodder onto the front line and running out the clock until some kinda deal is forced with the front line being whatever the new DMZ is.

That's the fundamental problem Ukraine has, they've burned through most of their Soviet inheritance (and burn through more of it every day), have inadequate domestic industry and resources and are near completely reliant on other nations for their arms and ammunition (paid for by those same nations since they can pay bargain basement discount pricing, much less wholesale, much much less retail) while Russia can just keep flooding in the Pvt. Conscriptoviches to plug the gaps of their actual combat units.

Hilarious. The ones doing 'meat' assaults are the Ukrainians. The Russians just have to shell them while they zerg the trenches, then simply pull back to the next set of trenches once the Ukrainians get too close. How many men has ukraine lost slamming thier heads against the wall? 40,000? 50? 60?

Ive said it before, and ill say it again. Ill even wager money on it...when the losses are counted, barring extraordinary circumstances like outside intervention, this war will have the most lopsided casualty figures of any recent war in european history.

 

[LordsFire]

Hilarious. The ones doing 'meat' assaults are the Ukrainians. The Russians just have to shell them while they zerg the trenches, then simply pull back to the next set of trenches once the Ukrainians get too close. How many men has ukraine lost slamming thier heads against the wall? 40,000? 50? 60?

Ive said it before, and ill say it again. Ill even wager money on it...when the losses are counted, barring extraordinary circumstances like outside intervention, this war will have the most lopsided casualty figures of any recent war in european history.

I'm still trying to figure out what motivates you to buy the Russian propaganda so thoroughly.

 

[Buba]

And there little to nothing stopping the Russians from just building more huge minefields and trenchworks a couple of miles behind the fighting to be manned if/when Ukraine takes the current front line.

The "little to nothing" are:
- availability of mines
- availability of manpower and/or equipment for mine laying and fortification construction

 

[lloyd007]

The "little to nothing" are:
- availability of mines
- availability of manpower and/or equipment for mine laying and fortification construction

1. Mines are pretty much the easiest things in the war to mass produce, by some reports the two sides have mined an area the size of Florida. If the Moskva and the ships of the Black Sea Fleet are utterly irreplaceable for Russia and each loss is grievous... mines are the antithesis of that.

2. Unless Ukraine has been killing a LOT more Russians and destroying equipment at a much faster rate than even Kyiv's 'official' estimates show, they aren't running Russia out of rear line manpower and trenching equipment in the next 50 years. Russia threw up the Surovikin Line in a matter of a few months after the Izium / Kherson offensives, it's wishful thinking to believe they couldn't do that again IF Ukraine is even able to break through the current fortifications.

 

[Marduk]

1. Mines are pretty much the easiest things in the war to mass produce, by some reports the two sides have mined an area the size of Florida. If the Moskva and the ships of the Black Sea Fleet are utterly irreplaceable for Russia and each loss is grievous... mines are the antithesis of that.

Do we even have mine production numbers? Like with shells, i would assume they are in large degree running on the ex-Soviet stockpile.

2. Unless Ukraine has been killing a LOT more Russians and destroying equipment at a much faster rate than even Kyiv's 'official' estimates show, they aren't running Russia out of rear line manpower and trenching equipment in the next 50 years. Russia threw up the Surovikin Line in a matter of a few months after the Izium / Kherson offensives, it's wishful thinking to believe they couldn't do that again IF Ukraine is even able to break through the current fortifications.

You can use rear line manpower and trenching equipment at least 50-100km from the frontline.
If you want to build another one closer to the frontline, it's not gonna be that simple.
If they throw up another one in that region this far away, it will be pointless due to how close to the coast it would be.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Honestly, it'd be one thing if Ukraine had retaken a single large settlement in this counteroffensive, but seeing a dead Challenger 2 less than 10km from the front line 2 months ago sends a message that the Ukrainians aren't gonna overcome the Russian tactic of just slamming cannon fodder onto the front line and running out the clock until some kinda deal is forced with the front line being whatever the new DMZ is.

edit: ignore this post

Running out the clock? It's one thing to think that the Ukrainians are going to lose, but what on earth makes you think they aren't playing to win?

edit: ignore this post

 

[lloyd007]

Running out the clock? It's one thing to think that the Ukrainians are going to lose, but what on earth makes you think they aren't playing to win?

Russia already pared back their 3 day war dream when they 'annexed' the eastern and southern provinces that they partially / mostly occupied. The only Russian commander to have actually taken territory since Jan 1 2023 is dead and his forces destroyed / disbanded and they've gone almost wholly on the defensive, their last offensive being some attacks in Luhansk that took some some fields, one or two tiny ruined villages and, AFAIK, quickly got reversed.

...all that points to me is that they want to freeze the front line as much as possible and set up their podunk client statelets since they occupy 18% of Ukraine's pre 2014 territory while Ukraine occupies 0% of Russia's pre 2014 territory.

 

[Marduk]

Russia already pared back their 3 day war dream when they 'annexed' the eastern and southern provinces that they partially / mostly occupied. The only Russian commander to have actually taken territory since Jan 1 2023 is dead and his forces destroyed / disbanded and they've gone almost wholly on the defensive, their last offensive being some attacks in Luhansk that took some some fields, one or two tiny ruined villages and, AFAIK, quickly got reversed.

...all that points to me is that they want to freeze the front line as much as possible and set up their podunk client statelets since they occupy 18% of Ukraine's pre 2014 territory while Ukraine occupies 0% of Russia's pre 2014 territory.

I think you are not making a proper distinction between what Russian leadership wants and they are able to do.

Also Ukraine is politically blocked from taking pieces of Russia proper for the sake of annoyance or future land trading even if it had the tactical opportunity to do so.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Russia already pared back their 3 day war dream when they 'annexed' the eastern and southern provinces that they partially / mostly occupied. The only Russian commander to have actually taken territory since Jan 1 2023 is dead and his forces destroyed / disbanded and they've gone almost wholly on the defensive, their last offensive being some attacks in Luhansk that took some some fields, one or two tiny ruined villages and, AFAIK, quickly got reversed.

...all that points to me is that they want to freeze the front line as much as possible and set up their podunk client statelets since they occupy 18% of Ukraine's pre 2014 territory while Ukraine occupies 0% of Russia's pre 2014 territory.

My fault, I somehow misread your post as the Ukrainians trying to run out the clock, not the Russians. I apologize.

 

[lloyd007]

I think you are not making a proper distinction between what Russian leadership wants and they are able to do.

Also Ukraine is politically blocked from taking pieces of Russia proper for the sake of annoyance or future land trading even if it had the tactical opportunity to do so.

The Kremlin is full of corrupt, vicious AF mofos who would chuck you out a window if you inconvenienced them in the slightest and were within reach... but you're dangerously underestimating them if you think they wouldn't be delighted if Ukraine's backers forced Kyiv to deal and thus the front line was frozen Korean War style... at any point in this offensive.

And yes I'm well aware of Ukraine's political limitations, doesn't change the fact that 0% of Russia is occupied by Ukraine and Putin almost certainly has more worries about the Wagner remnants than all the Ukrainian backed 'Russian Freedom Fighters' combined taking and holding a single square inch of land.

 

[Marduk]

The Kremlin is full of corrupt, vicious AF mofos who would chuck you out a window if you inconvenienced them in the slightest and were within reach... but you're dangerously underestimating them if you think they wouldn't be delighted if Ukraine's backers forced Kyiv to deal and thus the front line was frozen Korean War style... at any point in this offensive.

No, they would not be delighted, as that would require said line to be on the border of Poland. It would be a consolation prize to be thrown away for another try as soon as an opportunity presents itself. Which is the only reason why their influence ops are interested in promoting such idiotic moves.

And yes I'm well aware of Ukraine's political limitations, doesn't change the fact that 0% of Russia is occupied by Ukraine and Putin almost certainly has more worries about the Wagner remnants than all the Ukrainian backed 'Russian Freedom Fighters' combined taking and holding a single square inch of land.

Implying he would care if they did. Let's be honest, regardless of the territorial calculus at any moment, Ukrainians need to break the Russian army or will to fight to win. Once that happens, getting territories back won't be too hard.
But no matter how much and what territories Ukraine holds, it will have to keep fighting as long as Russian army does, so either way, they have to focus on dealing with that.

 

[strunkenwhite]

The tire spaced armor defense is spreading to smaller Russian aircraft.

So it's the airplane version of ERA?

 

[The Whispering Monk]

So it's the airplane version of ERA?

Nothing could possibly go wrong!

 

[Husky_Khan]

Thank you very much for the threaded version, now that "X" has gone weird for those without accounts.

Oh I didn't realize it got weird.

Also in an appparently recent development copying twitter posts from Twitter goes to X.com now instead of Twitter.com so links here at least turn up like this... as opposed to this.

https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1701326869855871069?s=20

As opposed to this:



He's done so much good for the platform.

But anyways back on topic, pretty epic war footage. Wonder if that's the British Commando training of the Ukrainian Marines paying off here. Damn that Boris Johnson. They laughed at him leading Special Operations in Ukraine... whose laughing now?

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I'm still trying to figure out what motivates you to buy the Russian propaganda so thoroughly.

“I am against current thing.”

Yes, it’s that shallow.

 

[Zachowon]

I mean, they agree woth Code Pink and Tankies so.

 

[PsihoKekec]

So that the resident slacktivists don't pollute the meme thread with their longwinded morality plays, I'm dropping these here

 

[Marduk]

So that the resident slacktivists don't pollute the meme thread with their longwinded morality plays, I'm dropping these here

In that case, i will spare you any longwinded morality plays, never liked those anyway, instead i will go at it from a different direction and call it parroting of retarded FSB talking points, cringe.