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[–]AidsVictim69 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

This was most prevalent in the hype around Ukrainian infantry armed with javelins. As if a light infantry force armed with good equipment and squad tactics was enough to match a force with superior armor and artillery.

I think Ukraine has actually been signaling the importance of infantry. Ukraine has only been able to hold out because built up fortifications and lines of infantry have proven so effective at slowing down the materially superior Russian army. Anti air systems have made the Russians somewhat hesitant about fully committing their air assets as well. The US is in a unique position because it's airforce is much (operationally) larger, experienced, and sophisticated but everyone else can't rely on airpower in the same way. It's true artillery has been the "star" of this war but it's in the context of allowing infantry lines to advance.

It's armor that has really been falling behind in importance in modern warfare - Syria and Ukraine have both seen the side with vastly superior armor capabilities relying on other assets and tanks taking more of a supporting role. They still have key roles in certain situations but they aren't nearly as dominant or doctrinally central as they used to be following WWII.

In general military targeting systems have advanced to the point where it's really about who can deliver the most munitions fastest (whether the delivery system is missiles, aircraft, artillery, or infantry level equipment) and it doesn't matter much whether it's armor, infantry, air or other systems in the way because they will all be annihilated, at least in the case of all out war between two modernized and capable forces. Entrenched infantry has the greatest chance of surviving and being able to hold areas, especially urban ones, in the face of these systems.

[–]TheJamesRocket 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Excellent observation. The main reason why Russia has been unable to completely steamroll Ukraine is because of the imbalance of infantry. Russia has a shortage of infantry due to the structure of their battalion tactical groups, while Ukraine has an abundance of infantry. Because of this, the Russians dominate in open terrain but are unable to contest the Ukrainians in closed terrain and urban areas.

The Ukrainians are able to field a larger military than the Russians due to their use of poorly armed and trained militias. This enables them to hold their entire frontline in strength, which the Russians cannot do. This conflict is an example of a conventional war with relatively small militarys fighting across a very large area, which means the force densitys are low. It is unlike any other modern war. The Ukrainians are completely outmatched in artillery and are suffering grievous losses, but due to their numerical superior infantry, they are able to hold a stable front line.

u/casparvoneverec

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes, infantry is necessary to hold ground and support tanks and artillery but they're mainly a supporting arm now. The focus is around setting up guns and getting rounds down range. Commanders aren't focused on air striking infantry, they're focused on destroying enemy artillery as fast as possible. Tanks are next on the list and then infantry.

In terms of priority given to destruction,

SAMs

Heavy MLRS

Light MLRS

Self propelled artillery

Towed artillery

Tanks

APC/IFVs

Infantry

You basically need formations to hold a frontline and Ukraine essentially shoves rifles into the hands of sparsely trained men to raise ''brigades''. They are good at serving as shell sponges and some guard duty but not much else.

In order to conquer Ukraine, Russians will need to mobilize 600,000 men and field something around 20 divisions.

[–]TheJamesRocket 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You basically need formations to hold a frontline and Ukraine essentially shoves rifles into the hands of sparsely trained men to raise ''brigades''. They are good at serving as shell sponges and some guard duty but not much else.

With respect, your not really seeing the full picture. The war in the Ukraine is a low force density conflict, the ratio of troops/space is low. It isn't like WW2 where both sides were able to hold a continous frontline. The Ukrainians come closer to that than the Russians, simply because they are an infantry-centric force which also makes heavy use of militias to buff up their numbers. The problem that the Russians have is that there are miles wide gaps between the battalion tactical groups deployed to the Ukraine that they are unable to fill.

This milblog analyses the trends in the Ukraine war, and touches on the problems caused by the Russians numerical inferiority. They don't have enough infantry to even provide proper protection to their tanks when they are undergoing maintenance in bivouc. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian infantry are literally everywhere; they hold their entire frontline in strength, exerting a constant pressure on the Russians.

In order to conquer Ukraine, Russians will need to mobilize 600,000 men and field something around 20 divisions.

Agreed. The Russians tried to conquer the Ukraine in a blitzkrieg campaign with limited mobilisation, but that plan did not go so well. They underestimated the determination of the Ukrainians, and the willingness of the West to openly supply them with huge caches of weaponry (on the same scale as WW2 Lend Lease). Once the element of surprise wore off, the Russian campaign bogged down, and they were forced to withdraw from Kiev. They have refocused their efforts on the Donbass, using their artillery to bleed the Ukrainians white. Putin has reservations about full mobilisation, presumably for domestic political reasons. But if he wants to bring this conflict to a decisive end, the only way he can do that is by fully mobilising Russia.

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, Russia does have a lack of infantry. Russia has a lot of divisions and brigades, but they're kept at partial strength. It would be too expensive to fill them all with professional soldiers and the use of conscripts in combat is a big political no-no in Russia since the Chechen wars. So, they keep a lot of undermanned formations when it comes to infantry. They prefer to focus on specialist roles like radio operators and artillerymen when it comes to professional soldiers.

Their strategy is likely to call up reservists and train them into infantrymen in case of a major war. For minor wars and operations, they can rely on a few fully manned high readiness units like VDV.

Putin so far has not called up reserves publicly but there is news that they're being raised in the rear. They've raised a lot of volunteers and Mercs so far in the rear, amounting to 60,000 men.

The issue for the Russians is that the frontline is too long for them to man. The border between Russia and Ukraine is 2500 km long. The current frontline in the war is as long as the distance from Hamburg to Naples. It's longer than the Eastern front and Germany struggled to man that front with 3.7 million men.

This is why the Russian offensive soon ran out of steam in the south after the breakthrough from Crimea. Lengths that were supposed to be held by brigades were held by companies essentially. The Russians withdrew from Kiev and Chernigov not because they were pushed out or got bogged down, but because they got spread out over too long a distance.

Whoever was responsible for the Chernigov operation needs to be fired from the military because it was absolutely braindead to run a narrow line 300 km through enemy lines with no flank protection.

Basically, for the first month, the Russian invasion had no joint commander at all. Not even any unified plan of action, because the generals, officers, and soldiers weren't even told that there was going to be an invasion. Plus, the FSB thought that Ukraine would fold immediately like Afghanistan, forgetting that these are 98 IQ East Slavs who are stubborn as well. The FSB basically made deals with local governors and mayors but the SBU and CIA foiled these plans.

The real issue in the early part of the war was that it was done with too few troops and no preparations.

The question then arises, is Putin just incompetent?

No. He wanted to conquer Ukraine and wanted a war but was well aware that if he made his intentions clear early on and prepared as such, elements within the Russian elites would've started agitating and plotting against it. They like their cosmopolitan corruption of taking Russian money and putting it in London and NY. They likely would've just derailed the whole thing.

Putin thus in a sense bungled Russia into a war and let the west sanction the Russian oligarchs to death. It's somewhat like Chamberlain in 1939. A large part of the British elite had no interest in going to war with Germany, so he bungled Britain into war and things straightened out over time. Same with Roosevelt in 1941.

Returning to the war, the Russians withdrew from Kiev and Chernigov in good order and refocused their efforts in the donbas with a new strategy. Or I should say an old one, the verdun strategy. The idea was essentially that Ukraine was a large country that was difficult to occupy in classic fashion without huge numbers of troops. So it was necessary to destroy the Ukrainian army first. The strategy to do so was the same one Falkenhayn picked in 1916, to attack a target from which the enemy could not withdraw from due to to psychological reasons and destroy them with superior firepower.

Donbas has been made into the verdun for Ukraine and over the last three months Russians have been inflicting 10:1 casualties and now Ukraine is almost all out of trained men, heavy equipment and ammunition.

Meanwhile, behind the front, the Russians are mobilizing quietly. There has been hiring drives in all military industries. As many as 80 T-90M tanks are built every month, along with large quantities of missiles and ammunition. Massive stockpiles of tanks and artillery are being taken out of storage and refurbished. 48 new heavy UCAVs have been built since the opeartion has started and its possible that production has been ramped up for other aircraft as well.

The military budget is also seeing a huge boost. The war will basically give Russian gov the excuse needed to fully modernize their military stocks.

Recently a law was passed that allowed the government to compel any private company to abide by its orders to supply the military.

Then finally there is the issue of reservists. There are reports that they are being trained. It would make sense considering the huge numbers of equipment being pulled out of reserve. Reservists however take time to train. At least 6 months is required turn a citizen into a soldier. The German army expanded from 1,500,000 during the Polish campaign to 4 million by the time of the French campaign.

Germany had 9 months and still in May 1940, half the troops dedicated to the French campaign were sparsely trained. Even all the way in 1944, France, the US was suffering shortage of well-trained infantry.

So Russians will likely only be able to beef up their existing formations with the necessary infantrymen and raise new formations by September of this year. By that time, the Donbas will have been conquered, the front lines shortened and the Ukrainian army further depleted morally and physically.

The grand offensive to take everything east of the Dnieper can then begin.