Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 625

On November 15 2023 02:35 Gorsameth wrote:
Because for this war to end Ukraine needs to do more then just hold.

On November 15 2023 00:30 Yurie wrote:
Calling it a disaster is strong wording since it has had small impact on the future war progress. Calling it a success would be just as faulty. It did not achieve its set out goals.

On November 15 2023 03:30 KwarK wrote:

Citation needed.

There are many win conditions. Overwhelming military victory is just one of them but it’s not how Germany bested the Russian Empire in WW1 for example.

On November 15 2023 06:35 sertas wrote:
Russia has been conducting heavier attacks now and having losses higher than any point in this war in the last month. I guess it's because they just have an abundance of troops with their 20k recruiting every month so they feel like it's time to burn some because they have a steady stream of money seekers joining the cause. Seems like russia prefers winter/autum offensives rather than any other time aswell

On November 15 2023 20:09 JoinTheRain wrote:
This is how they won WW2, disproportional losses in manpower and material, yet they drowned the Germans in more men than they could kill.

On November 15 2023 08:50 Manit0u wrote:


They're losing 800-1k troops/day according to the reports. I'm not sure it's just the fact that they're recruiting so much but also end of a year drawing near and no real successes to show off to the public to justify investing further into this war.

It's a tough sell if you tell people that you've lost 40k troops to capture one small town while at the same time losing ground elsewhere, getting 2 more of your ships sunk etc. After all, presidential elections in Russia are coming up in March.

On November 15 2023 20:17 KwarK wrote:

Their army in WW2 rode in American jeeps and marched in American boots.
The lesson from WW2 is the side with American industry backing it will always win.

Postwar German officers wrote histories of the war in which they portrayed the Red Army as swarming the superior Wehrmacht, overwhelming quality with quantity. This narrative wasn't strongly contested for a few decades because the Soviet Union wasn't open to western historians and, as the new enemy, the narrative wasn't controversial. Since 1990 there's been a pushback on the idea of low quality Russian zerg rushes.

On November 15 2023 20:57 Simberto wrote:


While a lot of that is true, what is also true is that the soviet union lost by far the most soldiers in WW. It really isn't even a contest, the soviet union lost more soldiers than Germany (all fronts, all war) and China combined.

A lot of this is murky and i don't know enough about actual historical research to even try to interpret this stuff confidently. I think your analysis might also be a bit too one-sided.

In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials (equivalent to $133 billion in 2021):[56] over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[57] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans); [58] 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras)[59] and 1.75 million tons of food.[60]

On November 15 2023 20:17 KwarK wrote:
Their army in WW2 rode in American jeeps and marched in American boots.

On November 15 2023 20:17 KwarK wrote:
The lesson from WW2 is the side with American industry backing it will always win.

On November 15 2023 20:17 KwarK wrote:
Since 1990 there's been a pushback on the idea of low quality Russian zerg rushes.

On November 15 2023 22:57 JoinTheRain wrote:

Indeed, an absurd amount of material was syphoned towards the Russian war effort back then. Funnily enough, they didn't even deny it, I remember reading Zhukov and Konev memoirs of the war and both stated and acknowledged the American help. They were salty cause their soldiers were unfamiliar with the equipment initially but no one denied the support.


I wish this was true for I hate the Russian way of war waging with a passion. Yet experience from Vietnam and more recently Afghanistan proves otherwise, it's not just the American industry, there's other factors.


Russians on the Western front had a vast superiority in manpower. We don't need to delve, we just need to look at the major battles, be it Kursk, Stalingrad, the Russians had more men and more machinery. And more importantly, they were able to fill their appalling losses better than the Germans could. I still vividly remember a passage from Zhukov's memoirs and he was saying something like "At that battle we managed to bleed the enemy's divisions while we replenished our own losses and subsequently we succeeded in overwhelming their defensive lines." So I sat there pondering what it means to bleed entire divisions dry, how many thousands must have been disabled on both sides? How do you wage a war against a nation that bleeds yours and their divisions, then replenishes the body count and pushes on? With no hope of swift conclusion of this war, Ukraine is in deep trouble and I only hope support in the US doesn't waver before the Russians. Knowing how they managed to survive the blockade of Leningrad for almost three years, eating dirt with sugar after the bombing of the sugar factory, I don't think Russians will waver...

On November 15 2023 22:57 JoinTheRain wrote:

I wish this was true for I hate the Russian way of war waging with a passion. Yet experience from Vietnam and more recently Afghanistan proves otherwise, it's not just the American industry, there's other factors.

On November 16 2023 00:52 Manit0u wrote:


The thing with Vietnam and Afghanistan are another part of the equation.

1. Never invade a mountainous country because you will always lose.
2. Having US military backing wins, unless #1 is in effect.

Unfortunately in this case Ukraine is not a mountainous country, but it's a fortunate thing that they have NATO backing it up.

President Zelensky’s Chief of Staff has confirmed the establishment of bridgeheads by Ukrainian Marines east of the Dnipro River in southern Kherson, paving the way to future operations to recapture Crimea.

“Against all odds, Ukraine's Defense Forces have gained a foothold on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro,” Andriy Yermak said on Tuesday evening at the Hudson Institute during a US diplomatic visit.

He added that this is part of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and it would pave the way to Ukraine’s liberation of Russian-occupied Crimea.

“Step by step, they are demilitarizing Crimea. We have covered 70% of the distance. And our counteroffensive is developing,” he said.

This is the first official confirmation of the recent developments in Kherson. The statement could be interpreted as Ukraine’s attempt to consolidate US support by demonstrating positive results amidst the US Congress’s uncertain funding decision.

On Wednesday afternoon, Russia also for the first time admitted that “small groups” of Ukrainian troops had established positions on the Russian-held side of the Dnipro river.

Some Ukrainian soldiers were “blocked” in Krynky, a small village on the eastern bank of the Dnipro river, and were facing a “fiery hell” from Russian artillery, rockets and drones, the Moscow-installed head of Ukraine's Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said in a post on Telegram.

Russian state media earlier this week reported the withdrawal of Russian troops further inland. However, they later retracted the statements and said they were “issued by mistake.”

Reports of Ukrainian bridgeheads across the river first surfaced in late October, with Ukrainian Marines capturing the village of Krynky, close to 1.7 kilometers (1 mile) inland from the Dnipro in Ukraine’s Kherson Region.

Analysts placed the estimation of Ukrainian troops at 300-500 soldiers and less than 20 vehicles of all types, according to an earlier Kyiv Post report.

Soldiers in the Kherson region also cited heavy Russian defenses against Ukrainian advances.

“The Russians are well prepared. They have solid lines of defense,” said a soldier identifying himself as Armyanchik.

Pro-Russian former militia leader Igor Girkin, imprisoned by Russia on extremism charges, expressed concerns over the Ukrainian bridgeheads and claimed it would threaten Crimea in an earlier prison letter.

Ukraine’s top commander, Valery Zaluzhny, previously stated that recapturing Crimea was part of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and they expected to reach Crimea within four months during the summer. However, field conditions have prevented Ukrainian forces from reaching this goal.