War in Ukraine, technical and military aspects only

[Yama]

59 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

But it does rather underline the necessity for further air defence missiles or terminal defence capability, which seems to be the argument they are trying to make.

Maybe. Lots of rumours about Ukrainians running out of SAMs, and sudden surge to request (and deliver) air defence systems indicates there might be something to it.

OTOH, any such shortage is not reflected on RuAF activity. In fact over last month, Russian air strikes have become pretty rare, and those which are delivered are still low altitude attacks. Ukrainian AF seems very inactive too. Weather discouraging air ops?

[seahawk]

5 hours ago, ink said:

Don't know if this is legit so perhaps take it with a pinch of salt:

 

She said 100.000 - so it seems the number is correct.

[ink]

Well, in that case, I wonder what the KIA/WIA or MIA ratio is. Because if the Ukrainians have lost 100k soldiers so far (and the Russians around 30k), that sounds quite serious.

[glenn239]

40 minutes ago, Yama said:

In fact over last month, Russian air strikes have become pretty rare,

What's the source for that?

[Yama]

12 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

What's the source for that?

Ukrainian MoD communiqeas. Some days they have reported just like 5 airstrikes. This morning they reported 47 airstrikes, which is again fairly big number. Weather, of course, may be playing part.

[seahawk]

31 minutes ago, ink said:

Well, in that case, I wonder what the KIA/WIA or MIA ratio is. Because if the Ukrainians have lost 100k soldiers so far (and the Russians around 30k), that sounds quite serious.

1:3 or 4. And That is about exactly fitting the number of around 400.000 battlefield causalities floating around one month ago: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/war-and-regrets-in-ukraine/

[glenn239]

20 minutes ago, ink said:

Well, in that case, I wonder what the KIA/WIA or MIA ratio is. Because if the Ukrainians have lost 100k soldiers so far (and the Russians around 30k), that sounds quite serious.

Indeed so.  The British recently said that the Russians have lost 9300 KIA, which sounds in the ballpark.  Here, it says 100,000 Ukrainian KIA.  That's the type of exchange rate where armies will walk off the battlefield.  

[ink]

14 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Indeed so.  The British recently said that the Russians have lost 9300 KIA, which sounds in the ballpark.  Here, it says 100,000 Ukrainian KIA.  That's the type of exchange rate where armies will walk off the battlefield.  

Not sure about walking off the battlefield but if the Ukrainians hit half a mil of KIA+WIA+MIA in less than a year of war, that has serious implications going forward.

[Der Zeitgeist]

After they covered the Air War recently, RUSI has now released a first extensive report about the ground war. Well worth reading, especially the insights into the first weeks of the invasion.

 

[bojan]

There is (forgot where exactly, maybe lostarmour.info, but I am not sure) list of Ukrainian officers killed, that like BBCs one used public obituaries and social media posts. It has about 1500 names on it. 

Problem is that it is bloody hard to find ratio of officer/other ranks KIA for any recent war of comparable size.

[glenn239]

Vanilla article on Russian army about using more modern weapons that contains one tidbit,

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/russia-should-use-advanced-weapons-in-ukraine-shoigu-says/ar-AA14K5Qh?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=0c7aefb4f41949e181d0e3e5d2756d44

 Ukraine, Shoigu said, counter-battery fire was being improved by using long-range rocket systems such as Tornado-S and high-power "Malka" artillery systems.

"This makes it possible to effectively hit foreign rocket and artillery systems," Shoigu said. His comments were shown on state television.

 

Seems to be saying that Western systems such as HIMARS operating at long ranges are too difficult a target for current Russian counterbattery doctrine and that new doctrine is being cooked up using more advanced delivery platforms.   Also suggests that whatever Tornado-S production is coming off the line might be prioritized into counter battery work.

Edited November 30, 2022 by glenn239

[bojan]

It is lack of the effective recon assets that is a problem for Russia.

[glenn239]

That makes sense, but something more and more drones can address.

This article tracks to the idea of Tornado-S having a high anti-HIMARS priority, goes into it a bit further.   Also contains more details on Lancet, such as that flight time has been boosted to one hour,

https://eurasiantimes.com/outranging-himars-russia-bets-big-on-its-tornado-lancet/

 

 

[crazyinsane105]

1 hour ago, bojan said:

It is lack of the effective recon assets that is a problem for Russia.

Agreed. By the time HIMARs are fired, it's already too late to target those positions anyway. Those trucks are already on the move within a few minutes, making counterbattery very difficult even if general area is known. 

[glenn239]

I check the Tass sight every day or two.  Normally not much of interest, but today for some reason there were more interesting pieces than normal.

Some details on the mobilization,

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/. Some 3,000 instructors are training mobilized Russian troops on more than 100 grounds in Russia and Belarus, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reported on Wednesday.

"About 3,000 instructors are training new troops on more than 100 grounds in this country and in the Republic of Belarus. Over the past two months, more than 300,000 reservists, including volunteers, have been trained," Shoigu told a Defense Ministry board meeting.

According to him, about 8,000 members of combat vehicle and tank crews, artillery and missile defense crews as well as UAV and electronic warfare teams have been trained at training centers.

[glenn239]

This Tass piece is a direct response from Russia to von der Leyen's admission that 100,000 Ukrainians have been killed.  Quoted in full, 

MELITOPOL, November 30. /TASS/. Irretrievable losses of Ukrainian troops have so far exceeded 200,000 people and are twice as heavy as the estimate presented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Vladimir Rogov, who heads the We Stand With Russia movement, told TASS on Wednesday.

"The estimate could have been relevant back a few months ago, but so far the losses sustained by the regime of [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky are much greater than the figure mentioned by von der Leyen. Not just the estimates, but the information from Ukrainian hospitals and clinics confirms that. According to information at my disposal, irretrievable losses of Ukrainian militants and national battalions have topped 200,000, and the number of those wounded, often severely wounded people who will never be able to either get employed or return to normal life, is as large," he specified.

According to Rogov, the statement by von der Leyen can be viewed as information about heavy Ukrainian losses made public. "Huge losses that can no longer be hushed up are being legalized. Being more sophisticated in manipulating public opinion, the Europeans are neatly legalizing 100,000 killed Ukrainian troops, while they know only too well that irretrievable losses exceed 200,000 people," Rogov explained.

Earlier on Wednesday, von der Leyen said it was estimated that more than 100,000 Ukrainian military officers and more than 20,000 civilians had been killed since February. The EC also raised its estimate of the damage sustained by Ukraine in the conflict from €385 billion as of late October to €600 billion. The European Commission later deleted the information about 100,000 killed Ukrainians from von der Leyen’s video address and the readout.

 

 

 

  

[Pavel Novak]

Glenn let's say you are right regarding ukr losses. 100k dead and 300k WIA, MIA . That is 400k losses. Out of 700k mobilised they are left thus with some 300k now.

Now for Russians use their presented numbers and with the additional mobiks they would have on front now about 200k. Russians have also superiority in equipment in all fields and causing 5:1 losses to ukr - your number.

And despite all this somehow ukr got Cherson back. How is that possible?

[seahawk]

Western mercenaries and NATO troops.

[Ssnake]

West-controlled Russian Elite backstabbing its own army, duh!

[Stuart Galbraith]

Somewhere Ludendorff must be feeling a deep glow of pride.

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, Pavel Novak said:

Glenn let's say you are right regarding ukr losses. 100k dead and 300k WIA, MIA . That is 400k losses. Out of 700k mobilised they are left thus with some 300k now.

700,000k mobilized (let's say), plus 300,000 under arms at the start (let's say) for a total of 1,000,000.  So by your numbers there that would be 600k Ukrainians right now.

 

Quote

And despite all this somehow ukr got Cherson back. How is that possible?

The river and the Ukrainian buildup.  The Russians appear to have been worried that NATO could supply the kit to Ukraine needed to cut supplies across the river.  

[Markus Becker]

T-62 question:

Have we seen modernized ones with the new sights, FCS and ERA? The Russian factory that does the reactivation has offered or proposed this. Or are the 62s in their original configuration? 

[Josh]

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

The river and the Ukrainian buildup.  The Russians appear to have been worried that NATO could supply the kit to Ukraine needed to cut supplies across the river.  

Outside HIMARS, which was already in play, I don't know what else NATO could or needed to supply to isolate those forces. They should have been able to be sufficiently supplied by boat and bridge to keep them fed, as most everyone on the board agreed. That apparently wasn't enough as far as the Russians were concerned. It seems to me that either the above assumption is untrue or ZSU pressure on the Russians was what forced them to fall back.

[bojan]

1 hour ago, Markus Becker said:

T-62 question:

Have we seen modernized ones with the new sights, FCS and ERA? The Russian factory that does the reactivation has offered or proposed this. Or are the 62s in their original configuration? 

With FCS and thermals:

[Markus Becker]

5 minutes ago, bojan said:

With FCS and thermals:

Thanks. Do we know what's exactly in there and can thus say how it rates compared to what's on the T-72/80/90? Average, better than or worse? 

PS: In understand there is a wide range of variants of the modern tanks in use. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Markus Becker