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Russia invades Ukraine XV

TIDE-HSV said:
Here's an interesting article on Medium by Andrew Tanner. I don't often link him because his grudges, mostly against officers and the ISW make Cooper seem downright Pollyannaish. It doesn't show as much here and he has some good thoughts, although I really come down more on the side of Cooper's ideas on the wieldiness of F-16s. He, like Cooper does not understand the political hazards to Biden with each gift to Ukraine. BTW, can everyone see what I'm linking or is there a paywall in the way?

Tanner
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I can read down to the paragraph that ends with "state of California alone." After that the article fades.
I predicted stasis and I was right. The glacial pace of the offensive allows the Russians to send reinforcements and build new lines behind the ones they lose.
Ukraine's best chance of victory remains regime collapse by Putin. Not likely.
 
Tidewater said:
I can read down to the paragraph that ends with "state of California alone." After that the article fades.
I predicted stasis and I was right. The glacial pace of the offensive allows the Russians to send reinforcements and build new lines behind the ones they lose.
Ukraine's best chance of victory remains regime collapse by Putin. Not likely.
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I can’t help but wonder when Russia is going to start running out of ammo. Tanner mentioned that “Moscow’s defense industry may be big for an economy of its size, but it’s still less than half as large as the state of California alone.” I don’t think N Korea is going to be of much help, and I have doubts about the Chinese.
 
Go Bama said:
I can’t help but wonder when Russia is going to start running out of ammo. Tanner mentioned that “Moscow’s defense industry may be big for an economy of its size, but it’s still less than half as large as the state of California alone.” I don’t think N Korea is going to be of much help, and I have doubts about the Chinese.
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Ammo is not the problem. They are short of arty ammo, but ramping up production takes time and now they have now been at this for 20 months.
Small arms ammo, however, is not an issue.
Plus, Russia has plenty of money because they are selling gas and oil elsewhere. Those are fungible commodities.

I think if Ukraine is going to win, it will be because of a collapse of Russian national morale on the home front (and morale in the military).
 
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Tidewater said:
Ammo is not the problem. They are short of arty ammo, but ramping up production takes time and now they have now been at this for 20 months.
Small arms ammo, however, is not an issue.
Plus, Russia has plenty of money because they are selling gas and oil elsewhere. Those are fungible commodities.

I think if Ukraine is going to win, it will be because of a collapse of Russian national morale on the home front (and morale in the military).
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I was thinking more in terms of missiles and artillery shells. This war seems to consist in large part of missiles, artillery, drones, and mines.
 
Don Hill again, writing under Cooper's account. A world of detail, plus dozens of Twitter links, which I can't see, since I dropped my account. This is just the first of three installments again. As soon as I get the others read, I'll append them here. BTW, can everyone see Substack?

Hill I
Hill II
Hill III (Not as much here, but a couple of interesting-looking links)
 
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The Cooper post today didn't have a lot in it. However, one of the links in the comments did. Prepare for a long read. As he says attrition warfare tends not to move much until suddenly (paraphrase)...

Daily Kos
 
TIDE-HSV said:
The Cooper post today didn't have a lot in it. However, one of the links in the comments did. Prepare for a long read. As he says attrition warfare tends not to move much until suddenly (paraphrase)...

Daily Kos
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Historically that makes perfect sense. In the civil war Lee was holding at Petersburg and then the attrition finally added up to the point that the dam broke. The same thing happened with the Germans in WW1. They finally reached a breaking point as American forces began to weigh on them as well as British and French.
 
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TIDE-HSV said:
The Cooper post today didn't have a lot in it. However, one of the links in the comments did. Prepare for a long read. As he says attrition warfare tends not to move much until suddenly (paraphrase)...

Daily Kos
Click to expand...
It looks like we can supply them with 155mm cluster munitions until the end of time. And if all the promises come through, they could have around 200 tanks - a couple of brigades worth.
 
AWRTR said:
Historically that makes perfect sense. In the civil war Lee was holding at Petersburg and then the attrition finally added up to the point that the dam broke. The same thing happened with the Germans in WW1. They finally reached a breaking point as American forces began to weigh on them as well as British and French.
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I agree with the Petersburg analogy, but Grant did one thing through maneuver: he kept stretching the lines. His guys held trenches near Petersburg, and he kept flinging a corps to the southwest of town forcing the Confederates to meet them (because that was where the railroads were) and each time Grant did that (Jerusalem Plank Road, Globe Tavern, Ream's Station, Hatcher's Run) the trench lines got longer and longer. Given the epidemic of desertion after Lincoln's re-election, the number of troops per kilometer of trench dropped lower and lower until it snapped on April 2, 1865. The Confederates were gone that night.
 
Why MAGA Wants to Betray Ukraine

"Whatever Republican hard-liners may say, they want Putin to win. They view the Putin regime’s cruelty and repression as admirable features that America should emulate. They support a wannabe dictator at home and are sympathetic to actual dictators abroad.

"So pay no attention to all those complaints about how much we’re spending in Ukraine. They aren’t justified by the actual cost of aid, and the people claiming to be worried about the cost don’t really care about the money. What they are, basically, is enemies of democracy, both abroad and at home."
 
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PaulD said:
Why MAGA Wants to Betray Ukraine

"Whatever Republican hard-liners may say, they want Putin to win. They view the Putin regime’s cruelty and repression as admirable features that America should emulate. They support a wannabe dictator at home and are sympathetic to actual dictators abroad.

"So pay no attention to all those complaints about how much we’re spending in Ukraine. They aren’t justified by the actual cost of aid, and the people claiming to be worried about the cost don’t really care about the money. What they are, basically, is enemies of democracy, both abroad and at home."
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for decades now, they have been showing us exactly who they are. sadly, there is quite a large contingent of our fellow citizens who are totally not on board with that, but ….
 
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Tidewater said:
I agree with the Petersburg analogy, but Grant did one thing through maneuver: he kept stretching the lines. His guys held trenches near Petersburg, and he kept flinging a corps to the southwest of town forcing the Confederates to meet them (because that was where the railroads were) and each time Grant did that (Jerusalem Plank Road, Globe Tavern, Ream's Station, Hatcher's Run) the trench lines got longer and longer. Given the epidemic of desertion after Lincoln's re-election, the number of troops per kilometer of trench dropped lower and lower until it snapped on April 2, 1865. The Confederates were gone that night.
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You are 100% correct. Many of the troops were getting letters from home about how bad things were and they knew the whole thing was lost and wanted to go home and take care of their families.

The other interesting thing is that Grant was willing to keep the pressure on the Army of Northern Virginia. During the Overlanf Campaign he just kept sliding to his left and trying to get past Lee’s right flank. When he wasn’t successful he was willing to frontally assault prepared positions like those at Cold Harbor. He suffered more casualties during that campaign than Lee had in his army and he just kept coming. Because he could replace the troops The other generals before him would lose or have a stalemate, such as Antietam, and let Lee rest, refit, and work to refill his ranks as much as possible. Grant kept the pressure on and bled Lee dry. It was a good strategic plan, but it was brutal. I’ve always thought Sherman was the better field general. How he handled the Atlanta campaign was a masterclass in winning without frontal assault after frontal assault.
 
AWRTR said:
You are 100% correct. Many of the troops were getting letters from home about how bad things were and they knew the whole thing was lost and wanted to go home and take care of their families.

The other interesting thing is that Grant was willing to keep the pressure on the Army of Northern Virginia. During the Overlanf Campaign he just kept sliding to his left and trying to get past Lee’s right flank. When he wasn’t successful he was willing to frontally assault prepared positions like those at Cold Harbor. He suffered more casualties during that campaign than Lee had in his army and he just kept coming. Because he could replace the troops The other generals before him would lose or have a stalemate, such as Antietam, and let Lee rest, refit, and work to refill his ranks as much as possible. Grant kept the pressure on and bled Lee dry. It was a good strategic plan, but it was brutal. I’ve always thought Sherman was the better field general. How he handled the Atlanta campaign was a masterclass in winning without frontal assault after frontal assault.
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And he would be considered a war criminal today. I say that as someone who had a GGF in the 1st Alabama Cavalry, Sherman's right hand men...

1st Alabama
 
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Here's Cooper's latest installment. Apparently the RF tried a "Bulge"- type maneuver to pinch off the ZSU salient towards Tokamak and failed. Also, in the remarks, it comes out that Tom is being translated into Ukrainian at Censor.net. Rep. Meuser of PA is claiming that NATO has only contributed 60% of what we have to Ukraine. I read last night that the contributions of the others now exceeds ours. Truth just doesn't matter any more...

Cooper
 
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