I remember reading Kofman back at the beginning that he doubted that Russia would have the capability to last 3-6 months more in terms of war resources. It is true that his discourse is poised, but often times he gives his opinion followed by "who knows" or "we need more information" or "fog of war". So yes, he is not pontificating that "this is what is going to happen for sure" etc...And I like his general tone, the way he analizes, but he lost me quite a lot in predictions at the beginning with that dicourse, he just failed miserably and it showed that he had little idea what was going on besides explaining things after events already happened
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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So this is the 3rd time on the last page alone that this sentiment has been expressed. I wasn't planning to respond to it, because it is a part of the same arrogant Western thinking that has led Ukraine this far down the garden path. The people who now say NATO would effortlessly smash Russia in a direct conflict are the same people who 2 years ago were saying the Russian army would collapse by summer 2022, or that Western sanctions would shatter the Russian economy within months and make it impossible for Putin to continue the war.
But by a happy coincidence, earlier today one of the most unwaveringly pro-Ukrainian outlets (Times Radio) published a lengthy interview with one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters, 'General Sir' Richard Shirreff (NATO's former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander). In short, he knows what he's talking about. And here he is, today, saying that NATO is nowhere near ready to fight a war with Russia, and won't be for many years unless very severe changes are made now across all NATO countries.
There is a reason why every single Western leader is on record as setting "never entering into a direct war with Russia over Ukraine" as the one indelible red line in this conflict, and it has nothing to do with "Putin may use nuclear weapons". It would be complete and utter carnage for both sides. Again, don't take my word for it. Listen to actual NATO commanders. How many leaders of democratic Western European nations are ready to campaign on the back of sending (as it would require) literally hundreds of thousands of their soldiers to die in a war with Russia? Putin, we are told, is ready to sacrifice all these Russian lives, because he's an ectothermic psychopath. Are your leaders ready to do the same? As Richard Shirreff suggests in that video, it would take a monumental effort on the part of politicians to convince their voters to go along with the types of colossal sacrifice required to fight a war with Russia.
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I think Ukraine needs to retaliate by redirect their long-range weaponry against Crimea, especially in downtown Sevastopol as a statement of intent. Being the nice guy can only go so far.
What would be the point of that statement of intent? Better use it for actual military targets.
Cool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
It's wasted on a troll as you suspect, but still, thanks for posting!Cool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
Dont think we can find this level of expertise,firsthand on the topicCool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
Thank you
This is just a ridiculous suggestion. What would it accomplish?
Yeah, lets kill civilians at random and if possoble ukranians that want to be liberated. Is very nice to have the opinion to ask to kill civilians. How would you feel if your country would be at war and a random guy without 0 stake would suggest to attack your DT city from its desk eating cheetos in a sleeveless white shirt?
Wars are never won by the side that plays totally nice. If you start believing that it is possible, then it is pure naivety. Every single winning side to any conflict throughout history had to cross the line and resort to quite some really dirty stuff enough times in order to move the needle forward.
@4bars Don't sell me that crap about Ukrainians waiting to be liberated anymore in Sevastopol. That horse has left the barn over the last 10 years and particularly in the last 2.
Oh. You dont think there are thousands of them? You dont think that 25% (100k) are not proukraine? Regardless, even pro russians that had been in sevastopol for generations that just try to get by with their lifes without harming anyone deserve to die bc putin took that decision. Who the feck are you for eagerly suggest that innocent people should be killed because you want to play hearts of iron IV?
That's the suggestion of a random bloke on the Internet advocating for war from the comfort of his couch.
His views and understanding of the world are akin to Ed Woodward's of Manchester United.
This is very interesting, cheers! Need a breakdown of the acronyms though.Cool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
The one who sees why no one in the Allied world had any iota of sympathy for German nor Japanese civilians until both of their respective fascist regimes folded and were never allowed to fester again. You're the one who don't have a single clue about history here. You never negotiate nor appease with fascists; they only stop when they either choose to give up early or when they lose everything.
And by the way, I couldn't give a flying toss about the pro-Kremlin people in Crimea because they were brought in to replace the real native people who used to live there: Tatars. So you know where to put your sympathy for pro-Kremlin.
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This is one of the most informed and one of the best posts I've seen here. I mean it.Cool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
By reading it, I can safely conclude that the Russians are shit, their army is shit, their military doctrine is shit and their equipment is shit.
So why is that we're currently hammered by the media about the danger of Russia gobbling up Ukraine (which they couldn't in the first place and won't), then turning on the Baltic States, engaging (and defeating) NATO to finally swallow the whole of Western Europe?
Genuine question.
He called it: UPOD.
A shit army still is a danger if it is fully committed. Those dangers only exist if no one supports each other, so just read it as a call to stand together to all NATO countries.
Thanks. Great postCool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
So basically you are proposing throwing atomic bombs to crimea or any city in russia (Japan) if we following history, right history boy? Things changes
Also, another lesson. Russia lost 27 million in the WWII and didn't fold. Do you think Putin would blink for Crimea?
And of course you don't give a toss about civilians, why should you? you are comfy looking the conflict like a board game
That was the Soviet Union not Russia and I don't think they could loose anywhere near these types of losses and sustain their attack on Ukraine.
Well, will get into semantics now. I am not talking about killing 27 millions. also, another point that we are in another point of history to keep doing the same as he propose
Nevertheless, I am talking that in comparison, killing some thousands of civilians in crimea as he proposed, would not move the needle one bit and the civilians would die in vain for pointless revenge.
I don't disagree on the civilian point. That said I don't think Putin survives the loss of Crimea.
Bombing civilians in sevastopol as he proposed it doesn't equal losing Crimea, which I agree, would be a lethal blow to this war. Putin would kill everyone and destroy everything if that would mean keeping Crimea. But bombing Sevastopol downtown for retaliation is dumb. Would accomplish nothing and would kill innocents. At the same time Ukraine would lose support and Galvanize Putin
To lose Crimea you would need to destroy the bridge, the harbours and the airfields. Not downtown Sevastopol. That's the point why that suggestion is stupid.
NATO have always been guilty of this since it's inception.
"The enemy are too powerful, we need action and we need it NOW or we will be overrun!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/what-was-missile-gap#:~:text=The Missile Gap was in,that of the United States.
https://www.historynet.com/mig-25/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538895
The missile gap is the funniest, NATO basically went into a frenzy that the ICBM count and quality by the Soviets were much higher and better. The reports that came out of press releases were that by 1962 the Soviets would have 500+ ICBM's to USA's 100.
The reality? Soviets, at the time, had four (4) ICBMs. The prediction was off by 125x! As a result, the US threw $$$$ into ICBM production and research anyway.
The Cruiser Gap was also funny:
If you have time look at the development lifecycle for the F-15. When the Mig-25 first released, it sent Western Air force planners into a frenzy, believing they had no counter to this amazing new air superiority fighter. They beefed up the requirements for the F-15 to a unfathomable level and threw infinite dollars at it. Then a Mig-25 pilot defected and the western analysts looked at it -> The mig25 was a hulking mess of an airframe that couldn't do half of what the intelligence analysts thought. What ended up happening was the West now had a plane (F-15) that was designed to counter a Soviet Plane that only existed in fiction. Which was why in the consequent decade F-15 absolutely ruled the sky in every engagement it fought in, with the best performance record of a fighter plane in history, with a Kill-Loss ratio of 104 : 0
Look at the way the Gulf War was predicted.
Just before Desert Shield/Desert Storm kicked off, US CENTCOM estimated around 10k dead Americans and 20-30k wounded Americans. 10,000 Body Bags had been flown into Saudi Arabia in anticipation for this and all this was released to the public for expectations management.
The reality? 292 KIA, of which half was friendly fire. 776 were WIA, of which half were friendlyfire. The estimates were off by around 50x for KIA and 40x for WIA.
https://www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2016/05/17/assessing-the-1990-1991-gulf-war-forecasts/
tl;dr: NATO loves a good exaggeration to manage the public expectations and to also obtain more funding.
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Also, even if the Russian army is shit, it can still kill tons of people, destroy cities, and rob other lands, and Putin is not willing to stop it despite the losses they have.
Want poof?
It is a bit of weird question to ask if Putin is dangerous for the countries around him. There are also other ways that he can act that may threaten those countries as well.
Want poof?
It is a bit of weird question to ask if Putin is dangerous for the countries around him. There are also other ways that he can act that may threaten those countries as well.
Listen to yourself mate, you're asking for ukraine to kill civilians without achieving any kind of military goal.
but what if Trump
Just asking since most numbers are Russia and USA
What does rest of Nato have?
So what happens if Trump wins and leaves NATO?
Just asking since most numbers are Russia and USA
What does rest of Nato have?
Turkey, Britain, Poland, France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Finland, Sweden etc. It wouldn't be a weak alliance but obviously the US is the top dog.
This is very interesting, cheers! Need a breakdown of the acronyms though.
Trump cannot.
A bipartisan bill was signed into law last month, sponsored by both the GOP and Dems, that a US president cannot unilaterally leave NATO
https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-...to-prevent-any-us-president-from-leaving-nato
In fact, it was the Republicans who put this safe-guard in to protect the country from Trump.
Guess which numpty's voted against this.
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Ah okay nice I didn't know
Thanks for the answer
This image sums up perfectly the state of the VKS, as an example.
This is an SU-34, a jet that was designed, streamlined and procured well after a large number of the current Western airframe development lifecycles.
They boast radars, excellent sensor data, targeting pods, flight characteristic performance, etc etc...on paper.
In reality? Their electronics systems were so bad that for communicating they were using openWave Radio Channels and to work out their location...
They strapped cycling GPS (Garmin) and Driving GPS (TomToms) to their main pilot HUD (see image below).
This is the footballing equivalent of buying shinpads from SportsDirect to play in the FA Cup Final.
Tomtoms? Yaisus
This image sums up perfectly the state of the VKS, as an example.
This is an SU-34, a jet that was designed, streamlined and procured well after a large number of the current Western airframe development lifecycles.
They boast radars, excellent sensor data, targeting pods, flight characteristic performance, etc etc...on paper.
In reality? Their electronics systems were so bad that for communicating they were using openWave Radio Channels and to work out their location...
They strapped cycling GPS (Garmin) and Driving GPS (TomToms) to their main pilot HUD (see image below).
This is the footballing equivalent of buying shinpads from SportsDirect to play in the FA Cup Final.
Absolutely fascinating.Cool:
I served in the Army Intelligence Corps for 8 years, did two tours to Afghanistan, three times advisory attache for the diplomatic mission to Poroshenko's Government in Ukraine, spent cumulatively two years at Lask AB, and two consecutive stints serving on Scaparotti's SACEUR staff operations in Belgium before moving to the private sector to advise on weapons procurement and performance for the AFU. I am also married to a Ukrainian woman
What you see is typical Nato public speech. At SACEUR they called it "UPOD". Under promise, over deliver. NATO is a political organization as much as it is military one and one of our playbooks was to always tell how poorly we would perform in a shooting war to try and convince the politicians in respective NATO nations to provide more money and funding.
Part of my job was to provide accurate assessments of Western military capability in contrast to Russia, mine specifically was on the tactical fires level. You are right in that we were all wrong in 2022.
All of us, collectively, were horrified at how poorly the Russians performed. Every bit of intelligence gathered on Russian doctrine, equipment performance, usage was just horribly miscalculated. We assumed that the Russian capability was about 3-3.5x what is was (we have a complex numerical system for calculating weapon platform effectiveness).
Without breaking any OPSEC and NDA's on how bad the Russian Army actually is, I can highlight to you a few broad points regarding the sheer level of incompetency that the Russian Armed Forces is in:
- Russian pilots calculate airtime on their frames differently to the west, whilst the hours remain high, the way their resource allocation and scheduling works means that pilots in the same squadron do not get a lot of air-time together. Which is why air support by Russia is very piecemeal and usually comes in pairs, they simply do not have the training intimacy to go beyond that.
-complete lack of aerial ELINT and AWACS support. Complete lack of network centric warfare. AFU were sharing radar tracking data to LASK and the boys at LASK were pointing out that Frogfoots were running tactical bombing missions without any AWACS support, C&C assets for hundreds of miles, if at all. Guidance and mission planning was all done beforehand. NATO stopped doing this in the mid 1980's. We were all incredibly confused by this - how can a modern airforce operate without real time operational command and control? Well, turns out the estimations of VKS assets was completely off, because the satelitte images of those planes on runways were just old cannibalized parts that weren't able to fly. As of 2024, Russia in total has less than 10 flyable frames that can do C&C/AWACS.
-The simple inability in 2022 (and still to this day) to handle 1970's 'Shoot and Scoot' Tactics employed with MLRS systems. This is all linked to the above; without eyes in the sky to pinpoint MLRS fires, it's very hard to launch counter batteries. This problem still exists today.
-Their air defense systems, on paper, are excellent. The problem is any singular weapons platform needs to be integrated with the broader doctrine of its utility. S300/400 is a strategic level asset that requires layered defenses against tactical level threats. On paper, Russia had this. S3/400's supported by Pantsir's, Tor's and Buk's. Then we started getting reports of jerry-rigged Mig29's with old variants of HARMS somehow taking out S-400 control stations. Why? Because the complete lack of co-ordination between the control stations and the tactical level assets. Complete misuse of very good weapons platforms due to obsolete doctrines and a terrible standard of training on the air defense crews.
-Tooth to tail ratio's are completely screwed. Russian BTG's operated with a 1:2.5 tooth to tail ratio which is absurd. NATO brigades operate on a 1:5 -> 1:9 tooth to tail ratio. This means that you sometimes have 10 soldiers responsible for somehow repairing and refuelling 20 armoured vehicles in a 24 hour period.
-Russian Army prior to 2022 had a very nice, on paper, strategic doctrine. Gerasimov was the theorist who came up with the doctrine and it is called the "Gerasimov Way of War" in Russian. Yet, when the war broke out, the Russians did not follow their own, documented, doctrines. BTG's were not co-ordinating with one another, nor were they reacting in real time to the battlefield around them. This is a result of a combination of lack of training, lack of material, lack of non coms and a lack of ability of the Chief of Staffs to actually implement the doctrines they wish to employ.
I could go on and on, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen and I'm also not going to risk going any deeper due to OPSEC.
Thanks for posting
Wtf, pretty surprised I missed that. Seems like a very important bit of legislation in light of current events.
That is amazing. I appreciate your postingsIt's not just a once off either
Meanwhile, F-35 HUD
Thanks a lot, mate.
The MiG-25 was designed as an interceptor, not an air superiority fighter though. It never was intended for what the F-15 does, and did its job very well.
Without taking anything away from the F-15, it has only been in overwhelmingly favourable combat situations, against poorly trained pilots flying in obsolete airplanes, and no enemy air-defense to speak off. The US and the West have yet to fight a real war since WWII, against a capable adversary. So I'd truly refrain from shitting too much the Russians despite their numerous and massive blunders.
The myth of Iraq having the "world's fourth best army" was a masterpiece of propaganda, when in fact Iraq was on its knees after the Iran-Iraq war. There was no fight, as a poorly lead, equipped and demotivated Iraqi army disintegrated and in most cases refused to fight/surrendered. Only the Republican Guard offered some resistance.
The US massive bombing campaigns preding the ground offensive, and the ridiculous Iraqi doctrine of a static defense on a flat terrain against an enemy that had complete the technological and air superiority did the rest.
Regarding Mig-25's, you're speaking with hindsight. Western analysts at the time were basing what they thought the Mig-25 was based on satellite imagery. The design characteristics (mostly around wing span and twin engines) led to the panic.
The Mig-25 did not do its job well. The MIG-25 existed to solve a problem that no longer existed - US overflight over Soviet Union with high altitude and ranged spy planes/strategic bombers. The engine quality was appalling, the frame was mostly built with lightened steel and the engines would burn out very quickly if it flew at its intended intercept speeds. The electronics onboard the plane were already obsolete by the 1970's. The MIG-25 is a perfect example of the problems plaguing the Soviet military-industrial complex. Lack of proper tertiary civilian industry (domestic electronics market, materials science engineering research, commercial engine research) led the military having to make-do with some poor trade offs and compromises.
You can point out the West's lack of experience in near-peer conflict, but your assessment of Iraq is completely off. Iraq's military in 1991 was a magnitude stronger than AFU in 2022. That's right by the way, for the first six months of the war, Ukraine's military was also absolutely horrific. Thankfully, they had the west to correct them on the basics. To this day, Ukraine's main armoured backbone is its T-64 supported by a small battalions of T-80's. Iraq was fielding export versions of T-72's by that point. Iraq's weakness in '91 is exactly the kind of weakness that Russia showed. Decent equipment on paper, lack of training, lack of cohesion, lack of a proper Non-Comm officer corps and complete lack of inter-unit co-operation.
Again, you assume Saddam's "doctrine" was static ground defense, but the truth could not be further away. In fact, the Iraqi Army followed the classic "defense - in - depth" doctrines that the Soviets employed and distributed at around a similar timeframe. Undermanned static defenses were purposefully deployed to be delaying troops, anchored by defensive hardpoints, creating funnels through which the enemy can breach. These funnels would allow the enemy to push deeper into the lines, before they were counter-attacked by well trained, mobile, armoured units and defeated through detail. The Republican Guard divisions were those mobile armored units, the problem was the gap between Iraq and the Coalition was so strong that it didn't matter what the Medina or Tawalkana Divisions did, they would get minced.
The problem was that the West was so much more technologically advanced that this Soviet doctrine was pretty obsolescent - so much so that shortly after, Russia and China both abandoned their concepts of defense in depth. Both countries (Soviet Union) too, had their defensive strategies exactly the same, just with more material and in Russia's case, somewhat better material. Fat lot of good defensive hardpoints do when enemy Air Cavalry divisions can just helidrop 10k troops in 4 hours 100km behind your lines, or when 2000 MBT's can roll through a desert through satellite navigation.
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf
Read Chapter Six of translated and annotated Soviet Field Manuals, it specifically discusses Defense in Depth, the concept of platoon level hardpoints, regional breach counter attacks and destruction-in-detail. Saddam followed this very well - it wasn't this that was the problem.