The trouble with Russian armaments
It seems pretty apparent from the Ukraine war that Russia has a problem with its military equipment. This article summarizes some of the reasons, among them [emphasis added]:
–Russia should theoretically have military equipment better than anyone but the U.S.
–One reason they don’t: Attempted capitalism without privately owned arms companies.
–“The Soviet military industry was full of unprofitable State enterprises, obsolete factories and, above all, a great deal of corruption.”
–The U.S. bids out contracts. The Soviets depended on state monopolies.
–“Russia has never embraced free market capitalism.”
“According to Vladimir Putin, the problem with communism was not the centralized economy but an economy based on ideological principles. In other words, if you want to improve the efficiency of the system, it is enough to change the managers and put technocrats in charge. Technocrats who have been forged in the bosom of the KGB and who have a pragmatic mentality, totally free of the romanticism of communism or any other ideology. This type of person has a name: “SILOVIKI”. And so, just what was Putin’s formula for bringing his military industry into the 21st century? Very simple: To put Silovikis in all managerial positions. This is how Rostec was conceived in 2007, a conglomerate of companies designed to be the great umbrella of Russian defense. Under this umbrella are more than 700 armaments companies: all of them State-owned.“
Nevertheless, Russia may have enough functioning armaments to take over portions of Ukraine. They certainly have enough to inflict terrible damage.
This was linked at the Instapundit this morning. In these analysts’ eyes, Putin has three option, bad, worse, and even worse than that:
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/04/ukraine-endgame-putins-bad-options/365842/
The first is to negotiate for what Russia can get, and hope to get the Donbas; the second, to dig in on established lines in the Donbas and south Ukraine and try to hold on without a negotiated end, and third, to launch an all-out offensive in east Ukraine.
They had pretty crappy stuff in WW II. Much of their factory work was redoing tanks and artillery and similar items which failed long before the design was, supposedly, going to need major maintenance. One reference I saw said it was one-third. Their famous T34 tank had only one advantage; it could be cranked out in huge numbers. Its crewing, ergonomics, reliability, and communications were all terrible.
The Red Army loved our Studebaker trucks. We shipped 200,000 of them. There is even a memorial to them.
https://www.rbth.com/history/333156-how-us-studebaker-became-soviet
The Luftwaffe mega-aces flew on the Eastern Front against sub-par aircraft.
There were plenty of reasons for this, but the cumulative issue is…Russian stuff isn’t very good.
And there’s corruption. One tank unit commander, upon his unit being alerted, discovered–presuming he didn’t already know it–that 90% of his tanks wouldn’t run. Parts sold on the black market, apparently. He killed himself.
People who’ve been paying attention to videos of the conflict claim lousy tactics making Russian armor vulnerable to new anti-tank weapons. Might be true, might be AT is ahead of the game just now no matter your tactics. To count those losses as part of lousy equipment will distort the answer to the question.
Kate. There’s another issue. I’ve heard for sure that two and possibly up to six oligarchs and their families have died of Epstein.
It seems to me that the oligarchs are not Russia Firsters, not wedded to the Rodina, have no particular issue with NATO. But they stand to lose as long as the war goes on. What influence, of what strength, of what type, legal, illegal, lethal, does the top oligarchy have that Putin might think opposes him with some effectiveness?
If that is decapitated, he may feel his hand is freer to do stupid stuff.
Richar Aubrey, Putin will do whatever he thinks he needs to for maintaining his control. Not only his control, but his life now depend on this. The question is whether the Russian war infrastructure and economy give him enough time to accomplish either goal two or goal three in that “Defense One” article. As Neo’s linked article says, Russian defense industry is still state-owned and run by “experts.” This means it is not resilient or inventive.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Besides the example above of WWII there’s always the example of the MiG-25. The US developed the F-15 based on how good they thought the Russian plane was. Long story short, the MiG is no where near as good as we thought it was.
well the top gun at miramar, started because the mig 19? over vietnam, had been quite effective,
more like the previous model
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2021/01/15/mig-17-in-vietnam/#:~:text=The%20MiGs%20encountered%20in%20Vietnam%20came%20in%20three,over%20half%20of%20all%20MiG%20kills%20were%20-17s.
I read BATTLESWARM as part of my repertoire. He is measured but draws much from legacy media. The DREIZEN report had an interesting post Sunday also.
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/04/24/russias-plan-a-and-plan-b-explained/
When it comes to the Russia Army the adage, “Quantity has a Quality all of its own.” applies. Russia has plentiful munitions and is using them. Dumb shells and rockets aplenty. There is a story from a politician many years ago in WWII. His unit captured a SS anti tank unit in Italy. When he was lording it over the SS commander the commander wearily answered “You sent a tank down the road and I destroyed it, you sent another tank down the road and I destroyed it and another and another. Eventually I ran out of shells but you didn’t run out of tanks.”
Puts the lie to the propaganda that Russia was running out of shells, tanks, ammo, fuel and food. They make all in abundance. They aren’t begging any one for APV or munitions.
This explains the Russian tactics of shelling until the Ukrainian units crack. That has been their doctrine for many years including WWII. The famed Katyusha rockets is an example. If you have seen the movie “12 Strong” there is an example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc3cFlDuwxo&ab_channel=ReadyClips
You don’t want to be on the receiving of a regimental barrage. They are impressive in operation. The US also had multiple rocket launchers in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Precision munitions on the allied side eliminated the need for those units.
Imagining that ex-KGB agents are some sort of higher order of being is way beyond hilarious and deep into cloud cuckoo land. Of course as we’ve seen in reality you just end up with a bunch of oligarchs that are merciless kleptocrats. And it’s all run by a machiavellian gangster.
Russia is able to destroy a lot of infrastructure and kill a lot of civilians. If they succeed in taking over the east and south of Ukraine, what have they got? Ruined cities, and a sullen, hostile population. They were driven out of Afghanistan by guerrilla warfare and low oil prices. Does Putin understand that history lesson? IMO, Putin has few good choices at this point. The best choice, which he won’t choose, would be to cut his losses and make the best deal he can. Every day that this war goes on he loses and digs a deeper hole for himself.
Unfortunately, Biden doesn’t grasp the lesson of the fall of the USSR. Low oil prices and Reagan’s military buildup bankrupted the USSR. Unleashing our oil and gas industry and emphasizing military lethality (vice social justice issues) would help in the present situation. Not holding my breath on that.
of course he doesn’t when he was lucid, he was a Soviet stooge, he didn’t even support the nicaraguan resistance, kerry was likewise, now adays he curries favor for china and iran, so was podesta obama was even more off the rails,
https://freebeacon.com/media/obama-keynotes-disinfo-conference-alongside-allies-linked-to-fake-news-scandals/
Whatever those behind the times armament factories were doing before the invasion, you can be sure all those sadly slightly Soviet arms factories are cranking it out 24/7 now.
Also do not write off the possibility that Russia is saving up some weapons and ammo for NATO and the USA.
They may have thousands, of tanks and AFVs, they may have thousands of tubes (artillery), do they have tens of thousands of young men to man them (and die quickly because their tactics suck) and the NKVD and Gulag to keep those conscripts in the line and dying?
Attrition Vlad, “Quantity (of dead Russian soldiers) has a Quality all its own.” The Russian army has refused to fight before (1917). They aren’t fighting German (Nazi) invaders on Mother Russia this time.
It has been reported that Chechins are being used to ensure obedience, prevent desertion or refusal to fight? How long before Chechin units suffer unfortunate blue on blue incidents on a large scale? Crocodile tears will be shed.
Well when the Roosians decide to reclaim Alaska give me a call Gerald.
The longer the war goes on replenishment becomes more important than initial inventory. I’ve read that in the last year they produced 250 tanks, which means they’ve lost the last two years worth already.
With artillery the issue becomes ammunition. If they fire 1,000 rounds a day (just a made of number for example’s sake) can they produce 1,000 rounds a day? I don’t know what their production capacity is, but that, in the long haul, is the crucial number that determines what tempo they can keep up. It will have a lot to do with which of the three choices are the most viable (assuming Ukraine keeps getting supplied by the West).
The reasons are mostly corruption, corruption, corruption, and corruption.
(Did I mention corruption?)
However, before one gets too triumphalist, sneering or moralistic, note that there’s corruption in the US military procurements sector, too—$800 toilet seats, anyone? (for example)—though fortunately, not as much as in Russia; of course the US is only 250-odd years old…so maybe we should give it a fair chance…
In the following, search for “Serdyukov” and then “Shoygu” (i.e., “Shoigu”):
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1497993363076915204
Continued:
Note that Shoygu/Shoigu is no longer around….
Barry. The toilet seat issue is complicated. If a particular unit of plumbing needs a particular seat, one not in the inventory and not even manufactured, the design and testing expense has yet to be expended. And if you only need, say, eight hundred of them, each one carries a pretty good chunk of getting it right. I’m not sure if that’s the case with the toilet seat, but it was true of a particular wrench. Had to do a Thing no existing wrenches were designed to do, with a reach, ditto. In some cases, maybe you didn’t want a metal which might strike a spark.
I recall, back when people smoked a lot, hearing that a particular ashtray, stamped out of some brass alloy cost a ton to design–which alloy, which thickness, what stamping machine modifications, which packaging–for what was essentially a flat sheet of metal with a shallow bowl and four grooves on the edges. Each one’s share of development was maybe a couple of cents. OTOH, had there only been a couple of hundred made….
On the other hand, I heard Schumer passed one of those little laws which forbade the military from purchasing generic yogurt for the mess halls. Got to be a top-end brand. Not sure how his charitable impulse got him there….
I recall Rumsfeld saying the DoD was handicapped, having to prepare to fight wars with equipment procured by virtue of influential congressmens’ district’s defense plants.
I always figured there was a certain amount of black money hidden in those budgets as well.
No May 9th Victory Parade?
Time will tell.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/25/ukraine-now-has-more-tanks-than-russia-and-things-look-worse-in-the-future-n555837
There is an election this November.
Spartacus
Deluge barrages from tube arty can, eventually, wear anything down. However, vaious countries are providing the Ukes some arty, mostly 155mm. long guns, not howitzers, and counterbattery radar. So it’s possible that “eventually” may not be reached.
M777 howitzers and Excalibur 155 ammo may give Russian batteries an unpleasant surprise. Not your father’s or grandfathers arty, Vlad.
Yes shoygu is a tuvan siberian tribesman of turkic descent he seems to have a race based animus like general dewitt the executor of eo 1066.
Actually, no. Reports are that tank production at Russia’s largest tank factory has stopped due to lack of parts because of the sanctions. Even before the most recent invasion, Glonass (the Russian version of GPS) satellite production had ceased due to post-2014-invasion sanctions. Pion, Lotus, and Persona spy satellite constellations are all operating short-handed because Russia can’t get parts for them.
Then there are the fires at Russian missile factories and science labs….
Russian production is not zero, but it is hurting.
Richard, I know…I know…
Toilet seat issues are ALWAYS complicated….
(Kinda reminds one of the NASA-designed-super-duper-pen-for-writing-in-outer-space joke…)
@ Barry > “Kinda reminds one of the NASA-designed-super-duper-pen-for-writing-in-outer-space joke”
Hey! I have some of those!
So….having laughed at the joke again, I decided to see what the Webz had to say.
Snopes, as usual, rained on the parade.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-write-stuff/
Rating: FALSE
…and then added some more useful information, including –
Sightings: This legend was referenced in an episode of NBC’s The West Wing TV series (“We Killed Yamamoto”; original air date 15 May 2002):
BUT – it turns out there really is a Space Pen!
And it’s very versatile.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/
“The space pen’s mark on the Apollo program was not limited to facilitating writing in microgravity. According to the Fisher Space Pen Company, the Apollo 11 astronauts also used the pen to fix a broken arming switch, enabling their return to Earth.”
I use my pens for more mundane things, like pushing teeny reset buttons, but the idea’s the same.
Barry. There was the six thousand dollar coffee pot. Turns out to be the same the airliners use. So the R&D was taken care of but…I guess standing on the pad somewhere in ND in January is different from in my kitchen and Mr. Coffee’s economy model didn’t get it.
I went to high school when lots of guys carried T squares around. Managed to avoid the classes requiring them, but I talked to the guys about the assignments. Just to give them a sense of what they’re supposed to be doing, they designed…simple stuff. Time-consuming, laborious, and that was frequently something already developed. Like a hammer.
There was a congressman from Texas–had elaborately curled eyebrows, iirc–who got a lot of DoD biz for his district. Famous for it. That’s more of a problem than a high-cost one-off.
Used to live in a district whose congress critter was against defense spending but was pretty lively when we got a big truck order. His phone-answering person asked, rhetorically, how an army is supposed to run without trucks.
@I Am Spartacus
On the whole I agree on that front, but I think the issue is that it is one thing to produce or to have said supplies aplenty. It is another thing entirely to get that material to where it is needed. This along with massive overconfidence were probably the two biggest problems the Russian military had in the early weeks of this war, and it bore a bitter fruit when they were strung out in front of Kyiv and Kharkhiv being shot at by Territorials from the Woods, harassed by Bayraktars and the occasional plane sally from above, and so on. Historically logistics has typically been one of the weaknesses Russian militaries have faced in the last several centuries (they seem to have been quite good at it in their classical history such as the assorted Viking Raids they tried on Eastern Rome and the time of the Kyivan Rus and retaliation, but modern warfare requires a lot more than a boat, a bunch of your “drugs”/friends, and muskets with powder) and that seems to have been the issue there.
And to their credit the Russians have taken the steps towards rectifying it, even making really painful choices like the decision to leave the Northwestern advance altogether and return to Belarus. Which is why we’ve seen a sort of decrease in the frantic energy of the first few weeks in favor of the slower process of consolidation, resupply, and in the far East siege operations. But that doesn’t mean the logistics projection issues are gone if and when they begin the advance again, it just means that the Russians have pulled back into a state that’s more convenient to deal with.
Secondly: We should expect both Russia and Ukraine to run low on a lot of equipment and supplies due to the hot tempo of the war compared to their previous experiences. That’s not a knock on either per se so much as on how supply estimates usually fall short.
Thirdly: “Quantity has a Quality all of its own” probably is not the friend to the Russian military that it was in WWII (which was already much less than old Wehrmacht Generals made it out to be) or Georgia. In particular, the Russian Land Forces are rather undersized and underfunded for the amount of things their nation has to do, and in particular they’re rather badly mismatched for what they have to do in Ukraine. Which is one reason why the operational plans (at least as far as we can tell from the moves that happened) bore such resemblance to large scale “Pacification” Operations like the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, but with forces that were vastly more meager than the ones deployed for that and on ground that was far larger and more heavily populated.
This thread I think sums it up well.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1511528319656755205.html
Basically, Putin is trying to fight this war on a manpower budget, as shown by his attempts to deploy only volunteer units or contract soldiers to the front (or at least in a visible way; one of the scandals of the war was the deployment of conscripts to Ukraine illegally, which when found out caused a stir). Russia’s demographics are nowhere near as robust as they were at the time of Stalin’s alleged comment on qualities. Ukraine’s aren’t either but they have the advantage of fighting a declared war on home soil with the at least passive support of most of the populace.
That said: as for the idea that Russia’s forces DID NOT intend to seize Kyiv re: Dreizen, Sorry, Don’t buy it. Almost every single major Russian/Soviet military operation for the past half century or more has focused on rapid and and supposedly overwhelming marches on the capital to either conquer it or put it under threat. We saw this in Czechoslovakia with Operation Danube and the quick seizure of Prague, we saw this with Operation Storm-333 and Kabul in Afghanistan, we saw it with Grozny in both Chechen Wars, and we saw this with Tbllisi in Georgia in 2008, where they were deterred by a US cordon but still intended to put artillery on. We also saw this in the 2014 strikes in Crimea (emphasizing the peninsula’s centers of power) and Donbas (hence the lengthy siege of Donetsk Airport). Heck, you can even see these things in Russia’s internal conflicts like the 1991 Coup attempt and the Crisis.
The main exceptions to this are operations where the capitol had already been secured (like most of the Afghan War) and Syria, and even the latter saw a lot of siege operations.
The reason I think is fairly clear. Shock and surprise are force multipliers and dealing with the enemy being in or around your capitol before you know what you’re doing is incredibly demoralizing and disorienting and also is grounds for hoping the war will end that much faster.
At a minimum I expect the Russian forces attacking towards Kyiv hoped to put the city under Siege and set up grounds to bombard it and slowly strangle it even if they did not attempt a direct attack, and they largely drew back when the supply cluster as well as resistance showed that it probably wasn’t likely to succeed. So they pulled back, and even more than I thought they would. So this smells a bit too much like uncritically buying the Kremlin’s “it was a feint” claim without scrutiny.
Certainly, that’s true. But the issue is that as Chuikov put it, “Time is Blood.” Moreover, two sides can play the battery game and indeed even during the earlier parts of the Donbas War saw even with battery fire on both sides of it that the Russians had trouble making advances. And of course there is the risk of more time allowing the Ukrainians to reinforce, dig in, and get more aid.
Oh absolutely agreed there, and Russia has been a land of artillery virtuosos for a long time.
Agreed. But I do think precision munitions are one thing the Russians will run short on and sooner rather than later, so we’ll see a reversion to the heavy, quick, and dirty use of dumb munitions. Fair enough though with some downsides.
Anyway, now to a few other issues on Dreizin’s article:
Welcome to treason and collaboration. Literally. It’s not like this is breaking news; if you’re a local official and you collaborate with occupying troops more than necessary by law, you get regarded as a traitor. This isn’t that controversial and it was ironed out quite harshly in WWII by groups like the Polish Home Army and the Soviet Government with its Partisan commands.
It’s bad when I have to chew him out for a conclusion I largely agree with because of how sloppy and frankly borderline moral blackmail it is.
Let me count the tiers of trash:
Firstly: Putin and many other senior Russian officials have been VERY UNSUBTLE about making references and veiled threats about WMD. Ergo, it is reasonable and hardly “off one’s rocker” to consider they might be serious.
Secondly: “You don’t use those weapons when you’re winning” is the kind of remark that seems pithy and apt unless you know the material, at which point you realize it’s garbage.
The fact of the matter is that the two largest applications of WMD in history-was by the German military in WWI starting in 1915 (in this case Chemical Weapons)- and by the Japanese Empire starting in 1937 in China (Chemical and Biological WMD), at a time when both believed they were winning. And indeed in Germany’s case KNEW they were winning on the Eastern Front.
Which brings us to the next point:
What if for whatever reason you feel you are not winning FAST Enough? Victory Day is only a few weeks away and while I will not say for certain that Russia is committed to some kind of grand strike of victory by then (indeed, it showed more institutional maturity than I thought by the decision to withdraw from around Kyiv) I would not put it past it. Especially since a Victory Day without some notable achievement will be bad PR even if survivable.
This is the kind of absolute horseshit that makes me doubt Dreizen’s competence and sanity.
The National Guard of Ukraine are much like the National Guard of Russia and the TOs of the Former Yugoslavia or the National Guard of the US, semi-regular territorial forces designed to be a bit below par for professional “line” units but to be able to serve as police and support units.
The SS were a centralized party paramilitary and administration designed to provide the National Socialist German Workers’ Party an investigative nervous system that did not have to go through the old Semi-Imperial and thus unreliable bureaucracy, and military muscle not dependent on either the Regular Military (who again were semi-Imperial) or the SA (who in Hitler’s eyes had proven to be dangerously unreliable). They were meant to be the elite of the party, and they were a separate army unto themselves.
So in other words, even if Dreizen’s accusations on their conduct is accurate (and frankly in spite of the atrocities I know Azov have committed I’m not inclined to trust him) they are- in essence- doing EXACTLY what we’d expect National Guard units to do: Second Line Combat Units, Garrison Duty, and Policing in order to free up Regular Units.
There’s not much that lies better than the truth, and if you want to see someone’s bias take a look at what they’re not saying.
Firstly: Dreizen is telling the truth about the essential arc of British public reaction (though as I’ll get to he is intentionally ripping away A LOT of context, because it doesn’t fit his ludicrously pro-Kremlin narrative). And indeed, British reaction did do something: It resulted in a massive decrease in Western support for the Ottoman Empire and Britain’s neutrality in the crisis from 1876-78, as well as helping to try and pressure the Turks into concession, which the Turks (unwisely) refused.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1877/01/16/80361295.pdf
Notably, Dreizen is pointedly ignoring the fact that the Western and Central Powers were cooperating in this with the Russians and thus tacitly accepted the Russian decision to go to war.
Secondly: Dreizen’s telling of the war acts as if All of a Sudden after Russia entered the war, the British public opinion turned on its heels and denounced the Russians and demanded support for the Porte. This is manifestly untrue, but more importantly is that he “conveniently” omits the reasons why, instead waxing poetic about how the Bulgarians were “Forgotten.”
In reality, British public opinion turned from Pro-Russian (which is remarkably rare if you know Britain in the 19th century) to anti-Russian on the subject for a few very good reasons. Starting with the fact that the Russians and their assorted allies and co-belligerents largely steamrollered the Turkish Army almost all the way to Constantinople, thus threatening Russian control of the straits.
But at least as important was that the shoe of genocide and ethnic massacres was on the other foot. No longer were the Bulgarian Christians the ones being massacred by a brutal and corrupt autocratic empire, but now they, their Russian allies, and assorted other friends were the ones doing the massacres.[
https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/the-balkan-reconquista-and-turkeys-forgotten-refugee-crisis/
Nobody is quite sure how many victims there were, but we’re probably looking at about a third of a million between the murdered and the displaced. Certainly one of the largest humanitarian catastrophes in 19th century European history.
Which coupled with the threat of the Russians possibly taking Constantinople and dominating it, finally led to enough indignation to allow the British government to return to its pro-Ottoman inclination and send the Royal Navy to Constantinople to demand the Russian forces stop or face war, which the Russians wisely did.
Now the irony is that if Dreizin had mentioned this, it would only have reinforced his thesis about a fickle Anglosphere and Western public opinion, switching from one “George Floyd” to the next with erratic and destabilizing effects on international relations.
But that would require acknowledging the Russians and their allies could play the role of villain and genocidaire just as earnestly as the Turks could, at least a century and a half ago. It would also raise the issue that Western public opinion is not quite so fickle, temperamental, or petty as to shift on a dime for no reason and might in fact be reacting rationally to reports of horrifying $hit and the possibility of a rival power capitalizing on victimhood to commit its own atrocities and re-balance the balance of power. I wonder why he did not decide to mention these things? Excuse me while I thoughtfully stroke my chin in contemplation….
Of course, if you’re not someone who has dabbled in 19th century history or studied (wargamed in my case) this conflict, you probably won’t even know what he’s leaving out and aren’t going to be sure what a quick Wikiwalk will leave out given Wikipedia.
This is a pretty reprehensible little trick and does nothing to make me trust this guy.
Thirdly: While it’s petty, may I note that there’s something kinda disgusting about dismissively referring to people Dreizin doesn’t agree with or who he thinks are bought in to “the narrative” as “peasants”? Especially since most of the victims of the massacres by the Ottomans and then the anti-Ottoman alliance in this war were…of course.. peasants.
If I wanted insufferably snooty Classism I’d go for David French.
As for the prognosis on the Russian Army just sitting tight and shelling, that’s possible though less likely than it seems given the political pressures and time crunch. And in particular I think the estimations that the Russians will be able to claim victory when/if they make a Cauldron is rather optimistic. Certainly possible, maybe even probable, but I am old enough to remember the Debaltseve fiasco, where a Ukrainian defeat that should have been a disaster turned into one of the great phased withdrawals of modern military history.
miguel cervantes – that was actually a small part of the problem. The real issue was doctrine. The Air Force and Navy thought that dogfighting was passe and that missles would rule. The F4 went into service without an integral gun system and this had to be corrected with a gun pod. Both Top Gun and Red Flag were developed to relearn dogfighting skills .
It’s a military truism that the attacker needs three times the combat power of the defender to have a reasonable chance of success.
This is subject to endless caveats, but the idea of having more than the other guy seems like something worth attempting. You don’t want less.
However, on a tactical level, the attacker is moving, is not under cover, is moving into terrain the defender knows, into terrain which may be mined. There’s an anti-tank gun, camouflaged, dug in and at least partially protected against small arms and fragments from mortars. In front–speaking WW II tech–may be trees or rocks whose side facing the defender is marked out in white. This one is 800 yards….that one 1200, this other one, 900.
So the likelihood is that the first round will hit, as will the second, as the loader is standing next to the breech with another round. And maybe the third. Then the attacker’s tanks, the ones not burning, see it.
Multiplied by a thousand times…the rifleman in a hole shooting at a guy who’s up and moving.
This can be overcome by tactics–break a mountain line and attack right and left against the ends of the defender’s line. Or technology.
But in the current case, Ukraine has the technology–anti-tank weapons, anti-air weapons–eminently suitable for defense. And it’s the Russians who are up and moving.
Win, lose, or draw, Putin’s forces will be drained of equipment and confidence.
This brings up two, possibly three, questions. Given what Putin will know–this time likely for sure–about his resources, what will be his next ambitions? What will be the result of a further aggression if he decides he can manage?
And what does he think about the establishment which has been telling him how things are, from the furthest tank depot to the latest Infantry training syllabus’ success, to the general views of the populace in his next target?
It was said not too many months ago that Xi, as soon as he stops laughing at our Astan bugout, would invade Taiwan. Perhaps Putin’s adventures have counseled caution.
I agree with another poster that these comments are a fabulously rich look at history in an area not often covered by conventional education.
But I also think it’s pretty much irrelevant if we don’t know which of these factors, and to what intensity, are in PUTIN’s head. What Russians think, what somebody thinks Russians should think, would think, may not apply to those who are not ethnic Russian. Or be of any interest to Putin.
Putin is The Man, here. If he’d stayed home and shipped oil, he and his oligarch buddies would have gotten richer. The corruption would have continued without cities being devastated.
What does it mean that two–or reports of up to six–oligarchs and their families have died of Epstein recently? Does it mean that Putin’s bigger than mere money and fears the influence of the non-nationalist oligarchs whose receipts are down?
I submit we do not know Putin and that’s the only thing that counts.
Placing him as the inevitable result of decades or more of various things happening is possibly a valid point, if we knew which things interested him and which interested historians only.
From Battleswarm blog:
“In 2017, NPO Novator could only produce 60 Kalibr missiles in six months. As you can imagine, these figures are ridiculous if we take into account that, in just one month of war, Russia has launched more than 1,200 missiles.”
Which kind of puts paid to the “let’s crank up production” idea.
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=51256
With a link to the youtube video he’s citing. (skip to about 1:30 if you watch it, thu.)
That’s the point I was driving at above when I mentioned that, once a shooting war starts, replenishment replaces starting inventory as the metric to pay attention to.
Ukraine is being resupplied by NATO. Russia has to largely resupply itself. In a static artillery battle, if Russia cannot produce what they can fire in a day, then the volume of their fire will of necessity decrease. That means a static battle of attrition is not in their favor at all.
Russian production numbers, which I don’t know, are crucial in evaluating what they can and cannot do in the near future. If they can’t maintain the tempo of their operations over time, then they either have to roll the die and attack now or hope they can get the Ukrainians to the negotiation table before their position weakens even more.
Russias most famous military piece of equipment is the AK-47.
Designed to be mass produced, good enough quality, and usable by barely trained draftees that don’t know how to properly maintain the gear. Great plan for something fairly simple like an assault rifle, idiotic plan for more advanced gear like tanks, APC, or missiles.
The issue isn’t just the poor quality of their armaments it is also their command and control structure. Some of you might remember the 400 page article I posted on the Russian Army reorganization. Indeed there are a lot of resources talking about Russian’s heavy reliance on Junior officers to do everything. Here is a link for one article. You can search for more that talks about this.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russia-noncomissioned-officers-us-military/
However I have a suspicion the Ukrainian Army has done so well has been changes in their military CinC structure.
Wiki has some insight on this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_ranks_of_Ukraine#Proposed_system_2009
I believe that the change to the NATO command structure and it’s over reliance on NCO’s along with the past 6 years of Warfare have developed a decent veteran NCO corp. Meaning the average Ukrainian military unit is much more flexible and organic during the fighting than the average Russian Unit.
I cannot validate this though and I will have to ask whomever of my veteran friends who returned from Ukraine to get a clearer picture if their military organization is similar to NATO.
But I suspect that this is similar to the case.
Their famous T34 tank had only one advantage; it could be cranked out in huge numbers. Its crewing, ergonomics, reliability, and communications were all terrible.
Not exactly. In 1941 T34/76 was one of the best tanks in 1941, and had a good mix of firepower/mobility/armor. It’s two man turret was a serious drawback (fixed in the later T34/85), but it was a serious shock to the Germans in 1941. The later T34/85 fixed some of the worst failures and is probably still operational in the world today.
The Luftwaffe mega-aces flew on the Eastern Front against sub-par aircraft.
Some mega-aces flew on the Western front. However, the Russians produced some excellent aircraft in WW2, much of it not much noted in the West. The success of German fighter pilots in the air on the Eastern Front is probably mostly due to a mix of training, doctrine, and a Western approach to things. Not so much the technical superiority of German aircraft. Eric Hartmann in particular (352 kills) would usually see his opponent first and ambush them.
The issue isn’t just the poor quality of their armaments it is also their command and control structure. Some of you might remember the 400 page article I posted on the Russian Army reorganization. Indeed there are a lot of resources talking about Russian’s heavy reliance on Junior officers to do everything.
It is also a cultural thing. You have to trust your subordinates to make the Western model work. It is pretty much a requirement of successful democracy as well as a well functioning military to have a high trust society. If Ukraine is doing well due to this sort of trust is says something about them as a society.
Also, on the social trust thing–what has the left been doing to that in this country and what will be the result?
In large measure the right doesn’t trust media, government, scientists, elections, etc., all with good reason. At the same time open borders allow the influx of low trust cultures (which is what all third world cultures are). This was done based upon tactical or short term strategic goals of the left, but there will be long term consequences.
Don:
If the T-34/85 is still in use today it is because in some situations “any tank” beats “no tanks.” Just pray those with “no Yang’s” have “no RPG-7s.” 🙂
However, before one gets too triumphalist, sneering or moralistic, note that there’s corruption in the US military procurements sector, too—$800 toilet seats, anyone? (for example)—though fortunately, not as much as in Russia; of course the US is only 250-odd years old…so maybe we should give it a fair chance…
That seat thing likely isn’t corruption. I was working for a major DoD contractor and on one project we were supplying obsolete computers that cost the government a large amount of money per unit. But it wasn’t due to corruption. In fact it was probably partially due in part to anti corruption policies in place.
The computer in question had to be made with the exact specified parts, so we had to locate the obsolete parts in new condition, and could not substitute cheaper, modern parts even if they would work better. Also the computer was designed to fit in a specific chassis, a tight fit in a custom metal box.
It is inherent in a top down type government procurement system.
so is the problem the russian weapons are killing too few people, or two many, I’m a little confuzzled, of course some of the casualty numbers seem overstated, purposefully,
If the T-34/85 is still in use today it is because in some situations “any tank” beats “no tanks.” Just pray those with “no Yang’s” have “no RPG-7s.”
Sure, but it is still one of the better WW2 tanks. And T34/76 was definitely good by 1941 standards. T34/85 was good by 1943 standards. But at the same time T34 is perhaps the most over rated WW2 tank.
Sherman was the best WW2 tank, overall.
so is the problem the russian weapons are killing too few people, or two many, I’m a little confuzzled, of course some of the casualty numbers seem overstated, purposefully,
The problem for the Russians is that their weapons are not leading them to victory.
They are pretty good at killing people using arty and long range missiles. But battlefield victories have been difficult for them.
M777 howitzers and Excalibur 155 ammo may give Russian batteries an unpleasant surprise. Not your father’s or grandfathers arty, Vlad.
It seems to me that those would combine well with Ukrainian drone surveillance and possible NATO SA info provided to Ukraine to mess the Russians up. 155s with the right intel would have a significant impact.
@miguel cervantes the problem is their performance is way below expectations. Let’s take some of the tank casualty figures from Oryx.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
You can click on some of the pictures provided on the link you’ll see some of the T-72 with the active protection still intact while the tank is destroyed. Russia has talked about the capabilities of their tanks active protection which is suppose to be on par with western NATO active protection. Yet they have face higher tank casualties in 2 months of fighting compared to Allies tank casualties in 20 years of Afganistan and Iraq.
Or to put it another way if you look at total Vehicle losses that is more AFV losses than Isreal lost in the last 70 years of fighting and they were using ww2 tanks in the earlier parts of fighting.
That level of performance is way below par on what has been predicted by western analysts.
They should have performed better because those same vehicles when used by other nations when facing similar ground opponents like the Iran Iraq 1980’s war performed better against their equivalent modern opponents.
BigD on April 25, 2022 at 1:16 pm said:
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Besides the example above of WWII there’s always the example of the MiG-25. The US developed the F-15 based on how good they thought the Russian plane was. Long story short, the MiG is no where near as good as we thought it was.
miguel cervantes on April 25, 2022 at 1:31 pm said:
well the top gun at miramar, started because the mig 19? over vietnam, had been quite effective,
MiG-25 was intended as a high altitude interceptor. The US thought it was a high performance fighter, but that wasn’t what it was for. It was intended to intercept high altitude US reconnaissance flights and bombers.
In the Vietnam era the US had focused on air to air missiles and aircraft more suitable as interceptors. In Vietnam that was a problem in dogfights with nimble MiGs. So the F-15/F-16/F-18 were designed with high performance dogfighting in mind.
Don
Don’t want to get into rivet counting. The T34 was the best tank the Russians could kick out in the numbers necessary. Had it been better, the numbers would have been less important.
C&C were tough, given lack of radios.
Story of pre-war confidence building meetings. Russian officers were being shown around a German tank plant. “Cool, said the Russians, “but where are the heavies?” “These are the heavies,” replied the Germans. Followed some Russian expressions of disbelief. But the Germans never twigged to the possibility that the Russians had a different definition of ‘heavy” for a reason.
The T34 was a shock due to the German tank doctrine of pre and just into the war.
Didn’t make it a quality tank except in numbers. The Germans thought enough of it to build the Panther, but never got the power train right from Panther on up. Had they stuck with the Mk IV and skipped the fancy stuff, they’d have been in better shape, including numbers of runners versus the–cue Wagner on the cello..Big Cats back in the motor pool.
The same would have been true of the T34, but they didn’t have the manufacturing skills to do it right even if they’d taken their time.
This is kind of an analogy for today. Except maybe for the numbers.
I may have referred to the 200,000 Studebaker trucks we shipped, superior to anything the Reds could make and that was just a truck. They sent a memorial document which is in the Studebaker museum. They couldn’t even match the trucks made by an auto company wihich quickly switched to war work.
Just for grins, the cubic space taken up by 200,000 trucks could have been used for…..if the Reds could make a serviceable truck. Or we’d have had to send fewer ships on the suicide run to Murmansk. Lost fewer guys.
https://youtu.be/6HVpnWlJXkk
Where Ward Carroll talks with Justin Bronk about Bronk’s new article titled “Why Russian Air Superiority in Eastern Ukraine Might Not Matter”.
@Richard Aubrey
Sure, a lot of that was. Particularly when they hit peak war and were churning out stuff with decreased standards. But they were still a fundamentally more serious force than most militaries were, since they planned to go to war on a level most others didn’t.
Honestly that was partially intentional; a particularly ruthless form of Planned Obsolescence. Which certainly fit.
I can’t go quite that far. The T-34 was a good tank- even superlative one- for its era in terms of armor, mobility, and firepower, and in particular the default/design specifications were remarkable, down to things like the commander’s sights. The issue is that basically no T-34 between 1941 and 1945 was ever designed to factory specifications due to quick, shoddy work. Which meant that its flaws were exaggerated and its advantages muted.
Still a formidable match for most tanks on the field though, and helped carve away the Axis armor’s dead flesh.
Oh yes indeed. The importance of Western trucks and other supplies for the Eastern Front is one of those things that often gets lost in the cracks.
Eh, the Luftwaffe Mega-Aces were by and large true professionals who fought wherever they were ordered to, Western Front, Eastern Front, Africa, where have you. It’s just that those fighting the VVS had a more favorable environment to rack up truly eyewatering kill amounts due to a generally less competent (and indeed even less numerous) enemy than those fighting the Western Allies did, which is one reason why Axis Aviation hung in longer in the East than it did in the West and elsewhere.
And even this requires some caveats, since there was a fair bit of overlap between the areas of Western Aerial activity and the Eastern Front; for most of the war Romanian and German pilots defending the homeland at Bucharest or Ploesti were more likely to confront the USAAF and RAF than they were the VVS.
Honestly I think the bigger issue is that Russian stuff was not built to good tolerances and was under a regimen that accepts heavier losses than it should.
Ayup.
Honestly you can deal with superlative AT and vulnerable tanks to some degree, like we’ve seen with the latest German tanks, with proper design and tactics. The Russians though have had rather poor tradecraft and tactical employment.
turtler
My point about the Studebaker trucks is not that our material support was important.,
It was that the Russians couldn’t even make good trucks and had to import them.
They’d had–figure how long, maybe since Stalin took over–to look at mech warfare in Russia. And didn’t/couldn’t put together the simple ideas Studebaker did once war started, Studebaker making cars for US roads figured out pdq how to make superior trucks for war in Russia.