Eliminatus said:

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74OA said:

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AGS-R-TUFF said:

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Zobel said:

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On paper a javelin for a tank seems like great ROI. But the US has provided some 7,000 to Ukraine which is probably around 1/3 of our total inventory. Allegedly we can make around 6,500 a year. Javelins arent the only anti-armor platform (NLAW etc) though.

The Russians have 2800 tanks in service and some silly number like 10000 in storage plus another 20000+ other kinds of armored vehicles. We can speculate about the condition and combat worthiness of those tanks, but the bottom line is the Russians have a lot of armor ranging from garbage to good to expend.

From what I've read, the javelin vs tank number is not the relevant metric. It's about trained soldiers and morale, and I'm not sure that favors Ukraine. Those are two things we can't ship them.

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Yes the Russians have crapload of armor. But I would argue that the trained soldiers and moral losses are working more against the Russians than the Ukes. Their use of stand-off attacks is solely designed to limit the already incredible KIA/WIA casualties they have sustained to date.

But there major Achilles heal has been and will continue to be holding territory indefinitely and protecting resupply routes. Russian gains will be temporary and losses will continue to mount.

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Moscow's Achilles Heel also includes an imploding economy and worsening demographic trends, both of which severely undercut its ability to materially sustain a hugely expensive long-term offensive/occupation against a determined opponent whose hatred of Russia is now off the charts.

Ukrainians have proven they are willing to bleed for their country. We'll see how long Putin's propaganda machine can motivate Russians to die killing fellow Slavs while the Rodina is steadily impoverished.

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I tend to agree. Even acknowledging my own bias, I still think the Ukes will continue to fight for everything. They have given so much and suffered extremely already. Their national spirit does seem to be undampered and their hatred towards the orcs is not even debatable.

Now real sustainability is another thing of course. Guts and spirit are effective if you have the bodies to back it up. Both sides are just grinding each other down from what I can tell last few weeks. This is the attritional warfare that Russia should still have an edge on and I think we may see that in the end in the open field.

Who will outlast who? This is the question at this point. I don't see any sweeping military genius unfolding to snatch an outright victory at this point. Just two bodies of men and material blasting each other to bits nonstop.

Awful stuff. We need to keep feeding the Ukes. They are fighting the war we trained multiple generations for. Just the fact alone that Russia has been exposed was worth the investment. Every weapon sent is another blow to the Russian power on the continent and we should follow through to the end.

In the coldest take possible, it's nice being on this side of a proxy war for once.

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Ukraine has ~11M males between the ages of 15 and 53, so if even only half are available for service supplying raw bodies is unlikely to be an issue. Meanwhile, there's a lot of effort by the West to organize long-term material support. For Example

Rossticus said:

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Thankful to @WeTheBrandon for clueing me onto this. As far as I’m aware neither the British nor Ukrainian governments have officially confirmed the details of the article.https://t.co/hOAeSzgjaF

— Patrick Fox (@RealCynicalFox) May 24, 2022

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We already know the CIA was training the Ukes months before the war and with some of the weapon systems overthere you can bet we have CIA and/or Green Berets there. As with most wars in the past 50 years this is just another proxy war.

Zobel said:

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On paper a javelin for a tank seems like great ROI. But the US has provided some 7,000 to Ukraine which is probably around 1/3 of our total inventory. Allegedly we can make around 6,500 a year. Javelins arent the only anti-armor platform (NLAW etc) though.

The Russians have 2800 tanks in service and some silly number like 10000 in storage plus another 20000+ other kinds of armored vehicles. We can speculate about the condition and combat worthiness of those tanks, but the bottom line is the Russians have a lot of armor ranging from garbage to good to expend.

From what I've read, the javelin vs tank number is not the relevant metric. It's about trained soldiers and morale, and I'm not sure that favors Ukraine. Those are two things we can't ship them.

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I believe that both in trained soldiers and morale, the numbers do favor Ukraine. Russia has run out of fresh forces in the hopper to send to Ukraine. They are in the process of Shake & Baking their spring conscript class but they cannot train or transport them rapidly. If they have plenty of modern infantry weapons and equipment for their forces then why has the Rosvgardia been carrying crap since the very beginning?

The Russian ammo stockpiles are seriously unreliable. Their PGMs hve been allowed to go stale because the money for periodic testing and replacement of ba lots has been pocketed. The people in charge of maint these munitions never thought they were going to be used anyway so they just used the money to line their own pockets. Who's gonna know?

With the embargo of semiconductors and other components, Russia cannot produce more weapons and ordnance. Ther factories and fuel farms also keep catchingon fire.

Russia has expended the nameless battalions from across the Stans and their equipment is wrecked. They are pushing new conscripts into the fight with mothballed equipment and poorly trained and poorly motivated leaders. Every day brings them closer to having to use units from the Moscow and St Petersburg region. The population in these regions is more than happy to swallow and regurgitate the propaganda about denazification and demilitarization and deny the Russian death toll until it's their sons that are getting roasted and ripped to shreds. I don't believe that's going to last very long when the units that parade annually through Red Square get sent to Ukraine.

Consider that Putin ostensibly sent an invasion force of 200k that was probably only 160-170k in actuality. All of those units saw heavy combat. Probably only about 100k of those forces are still in the fight. The new forces are being fed into the machine as fast as possible and will not be employed well.

The T-62s are very effective for slaughtering unarmed civilians in occupied regions but their side armor is vulnerable to almost every shaped charge RPG manufactured in the past 30 years. Recall that the first T-90 that was confirmed as destroyed by the Ukrainians was killed (surprisingly) by a Carl Gustaf, not even an NLAW or Javalin. As for fighting other tanks or trained infantry the T-62 is a sitting duck. It is from an era in which it was equipped with a searchlight instead of a thermal imagery for target acquisition at night.

Ukraine has a lot more military available manpower (~650k) that is already in the AO and shorter internal lines of supply. They have nowhere to go and face an enemy that will butcher them or send them to gulag camps scattered across Asia if the surrender, erase their names and idenities, and steal their children for slave labor. The Ukrainians have a lot more fight left in them than the Russians do because they have a lot more to lose.

The war is going to drag on and the losses are going to be very high for both sides but Ukraine holds to winning hand for a long war.

P.U.T.U said:

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Rossticus said:

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Thankful to @WeTheBrandon for clueing me onto this. As far as I’m aware neither the British nor Ukrainian governments have officially confirmed the details of the article.https://t.co/hOAeSzgjaF

— Patrick Fox (@RealCynicalFox) May 24, 2022

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We already know the CIA was training the Ukes months before the war and with some of the weapon systems overthere you can bet we have CIA and/or Green Berets there. As with most wars in the past 50 years this is just another proxy war.

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We routinely train dozens of friendly militaries around the world, Ukraine included. To conclude that means Russia's invasion and our support for Ukraine's subsequent self-defense is a US proxy war is mindboggling logic.

Possibly Russia's biggest tactical mistake in all of this was making surrender not an option for the Ukrainians.

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

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Possibly Russia's biggest tactical mistake in all of this was making surrender not an option for the Ukrainians.

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Come again? Are you saying that would have changed things?

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

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Possibly Russia's biggest tactical mistake in all of this was making surrender not an option for the Ukrainians.

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Their biggest tactical mistake was assuming the current Ukraine regime would crumble in hours/days of an invasion and they'd easily install a puppet government that would rubber stamp their new territory in the Donbas, Crimea, and Kherson.

The Russians will still get the territory, but now they'll have a big swath of territory that will require constant military presence and generate casualties. They'll annex Kherson and the Donbas, but Ukraine will never recognize it. However Ukraine doesn't have the military power to take back the territory.

Basically you'll have what a part of the Donbas was from 2014-2021 on a much bigger scale.

We have been in a proxy war against Russia on and off since WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Africa, Syria (this one was more direct even though we mostly fought the Wagner group), and now Ukraine. A large part of this is MAD since during a direct war there would be a series of escalations until someone pressed the little red button.

CondensedFoggyAggie said:

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Retired Russian Major General Kanamat Botashev has been shot down and killed in skies above Ukraine - BBC

3 former subordinates confirmed info. Botashev is highest-ranking 🇷🇺 pilot killed in 🇺🇦, indicating either lack of pilots or difficulty of tasks https://t.co/NeqTIHEyZA pic.twitter.com/YSuobpdgVj

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) May 24, 2022

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Or a volunteer that couldn't do without the combat adrenaline runs.

More bodies: Mariupol

With all due respect, we keep overusing the "demographic trends" comment b/c some silly talking head said something. Sorry not pick on this topic, but it is overused in this forum.

"Demographic trends" don't impact this war. Current demographics do, but not the "trends". Their population size and number of fighting age males has more to do with demographic trends 18 years ago.

AgBank said:

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With all due respect, we keep overusing the "demographic trends" comment b/c some silly talking head said something. Sorry not pick on this topic, but it is overused in this forum.

"Demographic trends" don't impact this war. Current demographics do, but not the "trends". Their population size and number of fighting age males has more to do with demographic trends 18 years ago.

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The adequacy of Russia's pool of human resources to both sustain this war/occupation and maintain its economy is not an immediate crisis, but neither is it merely a long-term issue. Human capital was a major national shortfall even before the war, which is why Russia's pre-war economy--its best in decades--nonetheless produced only half of California's GDP. Those demographic trends are being rapidly exacerbated right now by the need to also feed the war machine.

74OA said:

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AgBank said:

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With all due respect, we keep overusing the "demographic trends" comment b/c some silly talking head said something. Sorry not pick on this topic, but it is overused in this forum.

"Demographic trends" don't impact this war. Current demographics do, but not the "trends". Their population size and number of fighting age males has more to do with demographic trends 18 years ago.

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The adequacy of Russia's pool of human resources to both sustain this war/occupation and maintain its economy is not an immediate crisis, but neither is it a long-term issue. Human capital was a major national shortfall even before the war, which is why Russia's pre-war economy--its best in decades--nonetheless produced only half of California's GDP. Those demographic trends are being rapidly exacerbated right now by the need to also feed the war machine.

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I am splitting hairs. "pool of human resources" is current demographics issues. Demographic trends is a long term issue.

I am pretty sure Japan has worse demographics and demographic trends, but its GDP doesn't lag.

Russia sat with a public equities P/E significantly below 10 since I can remember. It wasn't b/c of demographics, it was due to the historical lack of property rights and sovereign overhang risks.

I agree demographics doesn't help their war machine.

Will be interesting to see what this amounts to…

Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban declared a wartime state of emergency after he was reelected in April 2022. It will come into effect today at midnight and will give the government “maneuvering room and the ability to react immediately” 1/3

— Hromadske Int. (@Hromadske) May 24, 2022

We see that the war and the Brussel sanctions have led to a huge economic shock and a sharp rise in prices," said Orban in a video message on his Facebook page 3/3

— Hromadske Int. (@Hromadske) May 24, 2022

Not sure how anyone can say that Ukraine has a numbers advantage over Russia. Russia's population is roughly 3x that of Ukraine, and accordingly Russia has around 21 million military age males, Ukraine roughly 7 million.

You rightly note that Ukraine is in an existential conflict, but I think people forget that regardless of whether we agree or understand with their reasoning Russia views this as an existential conflict as well - or at least their leadership does.

I don't disagree with anything you've posted here, and I see the challenges Russia faces. I just don't think it is immediately clear that Ukraine is in a favorable position for a prolonged conflict.

I think it is a fact that absent immediate cash, weapons, ammunition, materiel, and intelligence infusions from the West (i.e., the US) Ukraine would collapse in short order. Russia is under sanctions to the tune of a 20-30% GDP collapse, but Ukraine is in the 40-50% range itself. Ukraine needs $7bn a month just to keep going.

I agree with Eliminatus here. We need to keep Ukraine in the fight because it is the right thing to do geopolitically and every piece of equipment Russia loses in Ukraine prevents that from being used (or lost) in Moldova, Romania, Poland, etc. Bias needs to be left out, Ukraine does not have a hand that shows certain victory.

NM

I think Ukraine has numbers because they can justify having every capable person fighting. Russia still isn't at "war" yet, and their populace will flip **** if they're moved into mobilization and conscription for a special military operation Russia started. They may have population numbers, but they can't utilize them.

Yes, but Russia has thousands of miles of borders to protect. They cannot simply pour all of those potential soldiers into Ukraine without leaving themselves open to attack by numerous countries. They are in a much more precarious position than Ukraine.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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I think Ukraine has numbers because they can justify having every capable person fighting. Russia will isn't at "war" yet, and their populace will flip **** if they're moved into mobilization and conscription for a special military operation Russia started. They may have population numbers, but they can't utilize them.

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Exactly. Raw demographic numbers quickly become operationally meaningless. I keep pointing out that despite its much smaller population, Ukraine nonetheless has roughly 11M males aged 15-53. If only half are available for service, that's still over 5M bodies to steadily feed into the grinder, even before adding females and older males. Despite that, like Russia, Ukraine is nonetheless materially incapable of supporting an army larger than what it already fields.

ChemEng94 said:

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Yes, but Russia has thousands of miles of borders to protect. They cannot simply pour all of those potential soldiers into Ukraine without leaving themselves open to attack by numerous countries. They are in a much more precarious position than Ukraine.

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Plus, Russia's economy was suffering from a severe shortage of workers even before the war. Extracting tens/hundreds of thousands of already scarce working age males would further damage its contracting economy.

Which is why they stole almost a million from Ukraine. If reports are around 30k dead Russians that means 60-100k WIA on top of that. So far they are in the positive as far as work force

I hear you, but from Russian perspective inability to defend borders is the whole reason they must secure Ukraine.

I'm not guaranteeing a Russian victory by any means. I just don't think it's clear that Ukraine has the upper hand. Their continued ability to fight is completely contingent on external factors outside of their control. That alone poses a huge risk to consider.

Another thought. From a grand strategy perspective I think the best possible outcome from this for the US is a protracted Pyrrhic victory for Russia. That's the way to ensure the maximum cost for them - keep them fighting as long as absolutely possible. To do that they must continue to believe they can win. Since this war is being perpetuated only by our involvement, I would think the best outcome for the US is what should be expected. Open to other ideas of what best for US looks like, though.

ChemEng94 said:

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Yes, but Russia has thousands of miles of borders to protect. They cannot simply pour all of those potential soldiers into Ukraine without leaving themselves open to attack by numerous countries. They are in a much more precarious position than Ukraine.

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But who is going to backdoor Russia? That would all but guarantee a nuclear response.

Somebody with 1 billion people to spare and a thirst for raw materials. Like somebody on Russia's southern border.

txags92 said:

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Somebody with 1 billion people to spare and a thirst for raw materials. Like somebody on Russia's southern border.

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I agree that China will take advantage of the situation. I do not see them sending armed forces into Russia.

EastSideAg2002 said:

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txags92 said:

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Somebody with 1 billion people to spare and a thirst for raw materials. Like somebody on Russia's southern border.

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I agree that China will take advantage of the situation. I do not see them sending armed forces into Russia.

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Did he mean India, maybe?


Edit - my geography memory sucks today. I was thinking that China was more east of Russia