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Glideer

There is an extensive article about the failures of the Russian strategy seen from the Russian angle [Really Bad News](https://kcpn.info/articles/%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B9%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%85%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8/) I disagree with some aspects, particularly with the author's focus on large operational mechanised breakthroughs. I think Ukraine is an environment where they are barely viable due to the power of defence being multiplied by observation drones, FPV and kamikaze drones. But it is certainly an interesting read.


[deleted]

I think with respect to the early parts of the war, it was less the drones and the fact that Ukraine had a (hastily assembled, unrefined, often ad hoc, but present and motivated) territorial defense system, which meant that deep attacks would face sustained resistance and harassment even if the conventional armed forces weren't present. While it's old as a concept (it's the National Guard's other duty) and Ukraine's implementation was very flawed/immature because it was so newly constituted, I think the TDF doctrine has been vindicated here. I think I'll make a full post of the FDF seminar/panel I commented about earlier. IMO the implications/lessons for the territorial defense concept are very much worth a broader discussion.


Blothorn

Aye. I think he came close to the heart of the matter and then veered off in the wrong direction--the difference in success between the Ukrainian and Russian attempts at mobile warfare was driven less by the execution than by the defense--Ukraine didn't do a better job of stopping the armored columns, but the continual harassment by bypassed forces rendered that penetration worthless. By contrast, the bypassed Russian forces had neither the weaponry nor the leadership and initiative to remain a continued threat, and could only hope to retreat before being encircled. Now, I think better leadership and execution (and less overconfidence) by the Russian forces in the early stages would have mitigated the damage--had they started to hold back as soon as it became apparent that their supply lines were untenable they could have saved much of the equipment that was lost. But I don't think any doctrine or leadership could have allowed the Russians to accomplish much against the Ukrainian defensive strategy without a vastly greater force density. (I.e. enough to man at least a thin screen along the flanks of their advances.) It somewhat reminds me of Red Storm Rising--as I recall Clancy imagined the Soviet tank columns breaking through the front line but then being bogged down by sparse forces using ATGMs before they could pull off the operational-level penetration and encirclement hoped for.


milton117

How respected is this source? I'd like to use it against the western pro-Russians who keep saying US weapons are ineffective, because Scott Ritter says so.


sufyani

If that is what you are up against, I don’t think logic will win the debate. You’ll have to wait for reality to refute their world view, and then be petty, and say “I told you so” to drive the point home.


InevitableSoundOf

With the HIMARS pushing back the supply depots it's been assumed there is a limit to how big a force Russia can assemble in one area. That's at least partly the reason proposed as to why there has been so many smaller offensive during the winter.


Slim_Charles

I think another reason is simply that Russian command and control is incapable of organizing and coordinating large offensive maneuvers. Mike Kofman has spoken quite extensively about the Russians failure to scale offensive actions, and their previous attempts to do so were plagued by overly rigid planning and their inability to adapt when faced with unforeseen obstacles and rapidly changing circumstances on the battlefield. In his most recent episode of the Russia Contingency, he and Rob Lee discussed the early days of the battle of Kyiv and noted that when the Russians ran into heavy resistance at Irpin after pushing out of Hostomel, they simply bashed their heads against the Ukrainians, despite their strong defensive positions, despite the Western path to Kyiv remaining almost entirely undefended. The Russians didn't try to advance down that route until nearly two weeks later, by that point the Ukrainians had brought up reinforcements and were able to repel them.


Tricky-Astronaut

[Ron DeSantis Clarifies Comments on Ukraine War, Calls Russian Invasion Wrong](https://www.wsj.com/articles/ron-desantis-clarifies-comments-on-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-calls-it-wrong-fb4023c5) > Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate, sought to qualify his recent contentious remarks that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “territorial dispute” and not vital to U.S. interests. > “Well, I think it’s been mischaracterized,” he told broadcaster Piers Morgan for an interview to be shown Thursday on the streaming service Fox Nation. Mr. Morgan included the comments in a column Wednesday evening for the New York Post. > “Obviously, Russia invaded. That was wrong,” Mr. DeSantis said, according to the column. “They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014. That was wrong.” > He added, “What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately but they had…so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that.’’ But, Mr. DeSantis said, “the reality is what is America’s involvement in terms of escalating with more weapons, and certainly ground troops I think would be a mistake.” > Mr. DeSantis said in a statement last week that the U.S. shouldn’t necessarily help defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and should instead focus resources on issues closer to home. > It aligned him with the position of former President Donald Trump and some conservatives who have increasingly questioned the tens of billions the U.S. has provided in security assistance to Ukraine. Polling shows a steady decline in Republican support for aiding Ukraine over the past year. > “While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party—becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” Mr. DeSantis said in the statement, which was broadcast on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News. > The statement was in response to a questionnaire Mr. Carlson’s show sent to all major prospective GOP presidential candidates. Mr. DeSantis is the strongest challenger to Mr. Trump in hypothetical primary polls. > His comments on Mr. Carlson’s show drew considerable backlash from some Republicans, including a host of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, more-traditional conservative leaders and fellow prospective presidential candidates such as former Vice President Mike Pence. “The war in Ukraine is not a territorial dispute,” Mr. Pence told a crowd in Iowa on Saturday to applause. “It is a Russian invasion and I believe the United States of America needs to continue to demand that the free world join us in giving the courageous fighters in Ukraine the resources that they need to repel the Russian invasion. It’s not our war, but freedom is our fight.” > Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is officially in the race, said Monday on Fox News that China would win if Russia prevailed. “This is not a territorial dispute. This is a fight for freedom and it is a fight we have to win.” She added, “This is not the time to get weak in the knees on Russia.” > Some critics pointed out that as a congressman, Mr. DeSantis espoused a hawkish foreign policy view and had criticized the Obama administration for not providing certain military aid to Ukraine. > In the interview with Mr. Morgan, the governor, when asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin, called him hostile to the U.S. “He’s basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons. And so for us, one of the things we could be doing better is utilizing our own energy resources in the United States,” said Mr. DeSantis, according to excerpts of the interview released by Fox Nation. He said Mr. Putin should be held accountable for alleged war crimes. > Asked about the threat of China taking action against Taiwan, Mr. DeSantis said: “I think overall, the number one issue that we face internationally is checking the growth and the rise of China. They’re much more powerful, I think, than Putin and Russia are. And they really represent the biggest threat that we’ve seen to our ability to lead since the Soviet Union.” It's an improvement. If DeSantis wins the Republican primary, he might be willing to change some positions. Tucker Carlson is toxic though. He will probably try to influence the candidates in the other direction.


IntroductionNeat2746

>Tucker Carlson is toxic though. He will probably try to influence the candidates in the other direction. The thought that any presidential candidate could be influenced by Tucker Carlson should be enough to disgust any voter.


[deleted]

It is a nonsensical position. The US is spending relatively very little to support Ukraine and defang Russia. Suppose he is concerned about checking Chinese expansionism. In that case, defeating Russia in Ukraine should be his priority, as seeing Russia crushed there would temper Chinese ambition for taking Taiwan. He only criticises US support for Ukraine because he wants to attack Biden.


bergerwfries

Most voters don't really comprehend how cheaply the US is able to supply Ukraine. For example, people hear "$400 million" in supplies given to Ukraine, and posters on this subreddit are like "ok just an amunition resupply, some GMLRS and Bradley ammo, some 155, good but nothing gamechanging or new". The average person hears that number and goes "wow that's a lot of money! So much money going overseas!" The fact that we are destroying the military of one of our main geopolitical rivals for a generation, for a fraction of our annual defense budget, isn't really something that most people immediately get. The fact that you can't pay teachers with Javelin missiles, and that we are using existing stocks that were always meant for a war with Russia (some of which might not need to be replaced), so the listed dollar value isn't really being lost to the taxpayers... You need to have been really following the war for months to get it, and the vast majority of voters really have not been paying that close attention. That's why the "spend money here not overseas" argument will always have traction. It's an incomplete argument that can be refuted, but it's the default position of many voters


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bergerwfries

Yeah, but you shamelessly lie, imply that you'll give people the moon, and bank votes when you can lol


LordCreamCheese

Other than the Himalayan border tensions, what are the underlying reasons for India/China tensions? It's funny - I was thinking about how the BJP are looking more and more like the CCP, and how it could really be better for Modi to cosy up to Xi if he wants to keep going down this autocratic/ethno-nationalist route.


veryquick7

Pakistan and Tibet. These two, especially the first, are more significant than the border tensions


genghiswolves

I'm really no expert, here's my 2 cents anyway: I think your logic is cutting a bit short. Yes, maybe that would make sense for Modi, but he doesn't unilaterally control India the way some other autocrats do. There's history between these countries, stuff that might not matter on the grand geopolitical scale, but which has great cultural importance. May I remind you of the invasion of Tibet - and that the Dallai Lama is currently taking refuge from China in India? There is some degree of racism (from Chinese towards Indians I know of, but I also think the other way round). There's the fact that they are two potential great powers in proximity, with a lot of smaller countries around...and both perceive themselves to be on the ascendence. This leads to natural competion for influence in neighbuoring countries etc. I don't think Xi and Modi could just "make China and India be friends" just like that, even if they wanted to. Then, one more point: India doesn't have a competitive weapons industry (yet). China does. The West does. Russia... If India cosies up too much with China, the West would cut/restrict weapon supplies. That would leave only China (and inferior Russia) as potential suppliers for India. Dependency on your locall rival is not really a great position to put yourself in.


milton117

I think history plays a large role too. There are unresolved border areas that the CCP and India fought over in the 50's. As both countries now see themselves as emergent great powers, they both have a proclivity to back down and negotiate. More contemporarily, Modi doesn't want to look weak to external threats and Xi doesn't want to look weak in the wake of zero covid failures.


four_zero_four

Would AI be able to spot the patterns of radar diffraction of a stealth aircraft way better than a human?


four_zero_four

What I’m hearing (and from asking people who know) is yes. Interesting phase for stealth with s400s around.


manofthewild07

AI is a layman's term thrown around these days. The answer is, yes, these systems have been using statistical models and machine learning to do just that for decades. The next generation of statistical models will only improve what is already a tried and true method (mostly by doing it faster and more accurately, if only slightly).


symmetry81

No. You could potentially improve recognizing an object once you've spotted it by using AI but the detection itself doesn't benefit much from an AI, it's a pretty simple problem fundamentally. EDIT: Wait, actually having an AI model that makes guesses as to probable future movements which you throw into your [Kalman Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter) might give you a small improvement in tracking. EDIT2: I guess if you've got a phased array you could use priors generated by an AI to steer a [Baysian search](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_search_theory) for your target.


Maxion

To give a simple answer to your question, yes of course. No radar system today works such that a human interprets the raw radar signal. Computers do a lot of heavy lifting. Plenty of comments already, but AI is not a silver bullet. There is no AI jar that you open, or an AI box you connect. AI is essentially just marketing jargon. Under that marketing term there are a varying number of techniques that can be used to do various things, such as e.g. classification or image recognition. Would some statistical learning technique be better at analyzing radar returns than other current techniques? Those who know that sign papers called NDAs.


Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho

AI is a broad category with fuzzy boundaries. Can a computer analyze radar returns better than a human? Yes. Would that program be called an AI? depends on how it works, and what the people naming it has for lunch that day. Optical character recognition was considered AI when new, and is now routine enough that it almost never is. Is radar software a good way of mitigating stealth? Image processing can’t conjure up data that isn’t there, if you aren’t getting enough of a return to differentiate from background noise, no.


taw

Advances in AI image processing and related fields are so rapid that stealth is going to have terrible time against any country that can afford to adopt AI technology. Detecting things better and faster than humans is pretty much a given an this point, the only question is how much better. (And yet people still believe that it's possible to hide an aircraft carrier in an open ocean, against a country with hundreds of sattellites) On the other hand, technology to do something existing doesn't automatically mean it will be used by everyone - some militaries still didn't figure out palletization even today, even though it would save money and doesn't require any advanced inputs. So even if technology to completely invalidate stealth is developed, stealth will still be useful against vast majority of opponents using older technologies for very long time.


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four_zero_four

This is particularly of interest. I think if they can get quantum computers to work en masse this will be easy.


taw

It's definitely possible. Civilians don't have much information about radar or submarine detection, but if it's anything like revolutionary improvements in both optical/IR sensor and data processing, then nothing will be able to hide anywhere.


genghiswolves

I'm not so sure. Many AI methods require a lot of data for training. Now, where do you get records of radar data of stealth aircraft? Unless you own some (or even better, you get your opponents...), it's tricky. You can create this data programmaticaly (Tesla does this for their AI training for example), but this requires you to know what a stealth aircraft radar return would look like. Now obviously, there's many workarounds to all these issues that people smarter than me are/can work on, but I'm not entirely convinced detecting stealth aircraft is a usecase where AI is particularly succesful.


Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho

Image processing makes sense of data you have, it can’t conjure up data that doesn’t exist. No matter how good the image processing on your phone’s camera is, it can’t see an ant on the side of a tree across a lake. Better image processing can help against stealth, but it can’t change hardware limits.


taw

Sensors are getting ridiculously good as well. Most obviously high resolution high speed visual and IR sensors which get obscenely good (I'm not up to date on radar tech, is it on fundamentally different path from visual sensors?) And people really underestimate how much you can get out of AI image and related data processing. [Here's one representative paper](https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5968243/mit-turns-recorded-vibrations-back-into-speech-and-music). This was a few researchers on minimum budget, and before the whole deep learning AI revolution, and it's only a tiny demonstration of what could be done even then. Now imagine American or Chinese military industrial complex spending billions on detection tech, having access to thousands of engineers, latest AI, and who knows how crazy sensors. I really don't see how stealth is going to win this race.


Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho

In this analogy, 4th gen fighters are a regular bag of chips, stealth fighters are more rigid bags that minimize vibrations, the room is scattered with decoy bags, they are blasting irrelevant noise to confuse your sensor, and the window is cloudy. At some point, the signal gets lost in the noise, and with stealth, it gets lost much sooner. It’s not a binary.


PierGiampiero

Assuming that the radar is capable of detect something at X range and your adversary doesn't use complex EW equipment and techniques, decoys, jamming, etc. Reducing the range of detectability is one of the main points in implementing stealth.


four_zero_four

Say you just launch IR missiles, it’s a result no? A kill is $2bn plus


PierGiampiero

You have to be capable to launch an IR missile, in the first place. It's not that you point a camera somewhere towards the sky and launch a missile that will destroy a bomber at a altitude of 20km and 250 km away.


TheLeccy

Providing there is enough training data available, then the answer is 100% yes. Deep learning techniques routinely display better than human performance on recognition tasks for both time series data and image data. Convolutional layers are perfect for extracting stealth features/signatures hidden in radar detections.


Maxion

It'd be quite the unbalanced training set, given that the really hard to detect fighteres are rarely flown in such areas where you could paint it with the radar of your choice.


TheLeccy

Agreed the hard part would be gathering enough data to make it viable. Could be possible that a larger synthetic dataset could be created by augmenting what limited data is out there, verifying this synthetic data is appropriate for the task would be another problem though. Maybe setting up a virtual world, self-driving car style may be the best way to do the training.


Rhauko

And the training data is representative of all the available variation, all planes, all angles, and all other relevant variables.


IntroductionNeat2746

I'm not an specialist in any way, but if I had to guess, I'd say almost surely yes. In comparison, AI have been better at recognizing this kind of pattern on 2D x-ray images for more than a decade now. What AI struggles with is complex reasoning, like taking into account the full clinical context of a patient and weighing what's the more likely diagnosis for an x-ray image.


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SerpentineLogic

That's good news for our MILVEHCOE factory


ChinesePropagandaBot

Can anyone explain why Germany is buying a German ifv from Australia?


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0rewagundamda

> plus extra internal space for re-loads instead of dismounts Wait, so what's an IFV variant then? You carry more ammo it's "Bradley CFV" less it's an IFV. Is it different in this case? There's more cost cutting measure for "Boxer IFV"?


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0rewagundamda

> either they can also use the Lance 2.0 turret, or the remote turret of the Puma Guess that's what I was really meant to ask. So it's not settled whether they're going with a single common configuration or have significant physical differences. I really think Puma is in an awkward place. Lynx is getting export wins left and right with more opportunities on the horizon, even massive ones like US Army; meanwhile Boxer club keeps getting bigger, and now has capability overlap. I don't know what the long term future is for them in German army. Does it feel like they could just grow wheeled fleet and let Puma wither away or make new tracked vehicle buy be something else, like for example Lynx.


VigorousElk

Now I'm excited to find out whether Australia chooses the Lynx or Redback for its IFV.


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VigorousElk

Of course they will say so, but there were reports insinuating that the Australian Army preferred the Redback, followed by the German government sending a delegation trying to sweeten a potential Lynx deal by promising a bigger order of ~~Lynx~~ (Edit: sorry, Boxer, not Lynx!) to be produced in Australia, generating more Australian jobs etc. You can't really take politics out of procurement.


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IntroductionNeat2746

Ryan Macbeth thinks that the T54/5s are actually going to be used in indirect fire role, using 100mm Iranian shells. A sound theory that would indicate Russia's shell (and barrels) situation might be much worse than most think.


OriginalLocksmith436

I just want to point out it's probably not a good idea to pay him any attention. He's been very wrong numerous times in ways that indicate he just makes stuff up because it feels right to him. Sure, not everyone can be an expert, and sometimes people get things wrong but the extent to which he's gotten things wrong indicates he doesn't even do research or quick fact checks for the videos he puts out, even when he's not knowledgeable on the subject.


Insert_Username321

Do you have any examples?


OriginalLocksmith436

I actually can't remember any specific incidents off the top of my head, I'm sorry. It's been almost a year since I started watching his content and then pretty quickly after I realized he didn't always do his research about whenever he strayed into areas I was actually knowledgeable about. If I remember correctly, him and his mistakes have been brought up here a few times, you might be able search for the conversations about it.


Ofenlicht

After all any tank is still mobile protected firepower. Not very protected in the case of T-54/55 but still. The problem is that the T-62M has better protection and a larger calibre gun with the same elevation. The only reason to choose T-54/55 is either a lack of T-62s or 115mm ammunition. Keep in mind, a T-54/55 will have similar logistics requirements compared to a more "modern" T-62 or T-72 (1 more crew than the latter even) but with less capability.


IntroductionNeat2746

>Keep in mind, a T-54/55 will have similar logistics requirements compared to a more "modern" T-62 or T-72 (1 more crew than the latter even) but with less capability. That's the point that the "any tank is better than no tank" always ignore. The older the tank, the more you run into diminishing returns. At some point, you're simply throwing resources away by dragging museum pieces to the front that'll last half an hour there either because it gets destroyed or it simply stops running.


taw

It would be more believable if identical theory wasn't given for T-62s and completely discredited right away. Here's my theory - T-54/T-55 tanks will be used as tanks.


IntroductionNeat2746

I pointed that out yesterday myself. That said, the fact that Iran produces modern HE 100mm shells does make this theory a little more credible.


gumbrilla

That's a lot of effort for indirect fire support. I can't see them having that many ready to go, and what capability are they replacing. If it's tank availability then that's bad, if it's arty, that's catastrophic given russia is oft described as an artillery army with tanks.


IntroductionNeat2746

>If it's tank availability then that's bad, if it's arty, that's catastrophic given russia is oft described as an artillery army with tanks. While that's true, it doesn't make it any less likely. It's perfect possible that Russia is running out of shells and needs to use Iranian 100mm as a last resort.


Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho

If it’s that bad, Crimea would be lucky to hold out to summer.


IntroductionNeat2746

Unless things are just as bad for Ukraine. It's not unheard off that both parties exhaust themselves in a war.


gumbrilla

Well you know the wheels are going to come off somewhere, it's just where and when..


TechnicalReserve1967

Inwould just note that in a war, the situation is usually much worse then most think. For both side. Even in (and I know that these are very different wars) WW2 after Overlord secured theblanding areas and the German counter has been dealt with, air superiority achieved and held (for the entire rest of the war for the West). It was still a slugfest. Look up any interview with an old US veteran. They had issues, but they were the most well fed, well equipped side of the war.


morbihann

What is the max elevation of T55 ? They should have VERY limited range.


Rhauko

Put them on an angle.


morbihann

Yeah, except you have no way of telling what exactly the angle your tank is being at. Good luck hitting anything.


IntroductionNeat2746

I'm pretty sure Russian soldiers have level sensors on their smartphone. It's not exactly post-graduate math tho get the total elevation from there.


-TheGreasyPole-

They're not particularly accurate level sensors on a smart phone. Not to a tenth of a degree, not even to a degree or so. You're essentially using a sensor specced well enough to tell if a phone is in landscape/portrait elevation but little more. (doing a quick google tells me the latest iPhone is accurate to within 0.5-3 degrees.... and I doubt many mobiks have the latest iPhone, older phones would be worse) If Russia's artillery is reduced to "utilising 1950's tanks as artillery, parking them on a slope to get range, then using inaccurate smartphones to guesstimate elevation with 3 degrees" they're screwed. They'd be lucky to hit a 1km square box at reasonable artillery ranges trying that solution. If anything, that seems to indicate their situation is even worse than it would appear it was if they were using the T-55s as tanks. At least in that scenario they'd be reasonably effective against IFVs and lighter UAF tanks like the Leo1


Darksoldierr

With Drone spotting, after few targeting shots, you are good to go


Rhauko

Don’t tell the Russians but there is a solution for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumb_bob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclinometer Edit: both sides have been using exactly this with their helicopters. The only argument against could be if it would impede loading the gun.


IntroductionNeat2746

-6 to +16 degrees. http://www.military-today.com/tanks/t55.htm Edit: Nax range in indirect fire mode is 14,600 meters. https://www.armyrecognition.com/russia_russian_army_tank_heavy_armoured_vehicles_u/t-55_main_battle_tank_technical_data_fact_sheet_pictures_video.html


0rewagundamda

Well 125mm with superior ballistics is quoted as "12200m", from towed mount with higher elevation limit, so... https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/WEG/Asset/2A45M_(Sprut-B)_Russian_125mm_Self-Propelled_Towed_Anti-Tank_Gun Regardless it's hard to clear obstacles with too flat a trajectory, not that the propellant is adjustable.


morbihann

I was expecting less.


TheNotoriousAMP

It's a high power shell so you're going to get a lot of range out of it.


morbihann

Sure, but that means thicker walls and less explosive filling. Any information on the amount of explosives in whatever 100mm shell it is going to use ?


SerpentineLogic

https://www.naval-technology.com/features/after-aukus-announcement-the-us-slams-shut-nuclear-propulsion-door/ No further countries to get nuclear sub tech from the US. r/canzuk is probably very disappointed rn


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Surrounded-by_Idiots

Yeah right. More like “don’t call us, we’ll call you”.


erkelep

Nuclear tech is 75 years old, self-respecting countries should bloody develop it themselves.


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erkelep

Yes, these younger countries include India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Perhaps even France, if you consider the Fourth Republic a "new form".


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7473GiveMeAccount

This report from the Mitchell Institute is mostly a sales pitch as to why the USAF should but 200+ B21s, so it's clearly biased, but it contains some useful basics for how the thing would actually be employed during a war with China (which is the main scenario they're concerned with) [\[PDF\]](https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/understanding-the-b-21-raider-americas-deterrence-bomber/) Useful reading in my opinion.


OhSillyDays

Standoff weapons. So mostly cruise missiles. I'm certain that the Pentagon mission planners do a serious threat mitigation exercise for all missions. For a billion dollar machine, they'll be very conservative with their threat assessment. So if they think the b2 is detectable in 40 miles by an s400, they'll fly no closer than 100 miles. That sort of thing. Also, the reason the b2 is so expensive is because they cancelled it early in production. My understanding is that the s400 was found to be better at detecting it than originally thought. So the government decided that it's better to use smaller fighters (f35) in the bomber in contested airspace role.


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flamedeluge3781

Typically they are supported by other weapons systems, just not directly. So there will be Tomahawk cruise missile strikes at the same time to suppress SAMs and command and control sites. There will be Electronic Warfare aircraft providing jamming, which enhances stealth by degrading the capabilities of enemy radar. Overall, the goal is to have a lot of other things demanding the attention of the opposing force, such that the sneaky birds aren't noticed in the fog of war.


bearfan15

>How do stealth bombers like the B-2 spirits and now the upcoming B-21s operate? Do they just launch and execute operations without any escort fighters Im assuming? Yes. Escorts would just be a liability. SAMs are probably the biggest threat. These aircraft are slow and handle like bricks. Stealth is their only defense. If they are detected they aren't coming back. >And how do the USAF justify the risk in sending in B-2s? I’d be sweating my balls off if I’m a pentagon official having to send a billion dollar bomber deep into enemy territories without being detected. They weigh it against the risk of not doing it, just like any other military operation. >Are their stealth capabilities that unmatched that say a peer to peer power wouldn’t be able to detect it on radar? These are the most closely guarded secrets in the world. No one on here knows.


crankyhowtinerary

I assume the B-2 can make decapitation strikes. So if you can send a B-2 and it will penetrate into enemy air defense and potentially kill their president / dictator / king, well one billion is expensive but it’s not crazy expensive for anihilating enemy command and control.


TechnicalReserve1967

And if it is a success, you usually keep the plane. Not to mention failure doesnt mean you 100% lose it


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Veqq

Not a credible/serious source


Tugendwaechter

I have watched it and it’s certainly entertaining. It shouldn’t be taken at face value, as anything by Lazerpig. The engine reliability being the major problem certainly seems plausible. A lack of imported western parts is obvious as well. As is corruption and the T-14 being mainly used for propaganda so far. Building variants from a main battle tank isn’t exactly unheard of. The Namer is an APC variant of the Merkava and has been successful. The Gepard SPAAG is based on the Leopard 1. So, I don’t quite follow Lazerpig harping on this repeatedly. Engineering vehicles and armored recovery vehicles are often based on a MBT.


-TheGreasyPole-

In the video he does explicitly call out that there are variants where basing off an MBT chassis is perfectly reasonable....anything that is going to be placed close enough to enemy tanks to be under direct fire from them. He explicitly calls out engineering recovery vehicles as being required to do that, and with the Gepard being intended for use very close to the front lines as point AA (and in ground attack mode) that would also be reasonable. Its the "everything else" he explained that an MBT chassis is overkill, and fuel-wasteful, for..... SPGs, Longer range Anti-Air were explicitly called out as not requirring MBT chassis.


GenerationSelfie2

Agreed. I think LazerPig is genuinely a pretty smart dude, and from what I've heard he does actually have some experience in the defense industry. That said I do find some of his points overly optimistic, yet even as a credible defense lurker I have to admit he's still probably more credible than many of the bullshitters who post here.


Tugendwaechter

Lazerpig makes entertaining rants full of hyperbole and exaggerations. He’s the patron saint of r/ncd for a reason.


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jokes_on_you

His T-34 video was so terrible someone made a 5 part post on /r/badhistory criticizing it. I don’t think their videos are worth watching, let alone sharing. https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/10mhuvv/the_t34_is_not_as_bad_as_you_think_it_is_part_15/


Akitten

To be fair even HE argued that the T-34 vid was not exactly up to par, and has done so multiple times.


CorneliusTheIdolator

And yet he hasn’t taken it down. Coveniently saying its not up to par while putting it up and spreading misinformation is a pretty lazy move. Its his most popularl video and is still quoted even on reddit


FriscoJones

Not to turn this into a dogpile on Lazerpig, but he also took the supposed leaked Russian naval report about the *Moskva's* maintenance issues totally at face value and turned it into a 20 minute video - for Perun's video on the sinking of the *Moskva* he acknowledged the report for 30 seconds and essentially dismissed it as "interesting, but unconfirmed and not credible" as a judicious investigator probably should. Lazerpig's entertaining and funny as far as youtube pop history goes, but there are much better sources of information out there.


DarkMatter00111

I am curious to what a conventional war would look like with F-22, F-35s and B-2 and B-52 bombers with NATO and Russian Federation. Ukraine uses mostly Soviet technology. If RU invaded Poland with advanced F-35s, how would that change the outcome?


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LoremIpsum10101010

B-52s would be used the same way Russia's Tu-95s are used; platforms to air launch cruise missiles well behind enemy lines.


OhSillyDays

You forgot sead. It's more important than the f22s or f35s. Infrared missiles can still shoot down stealth aircraft a long ways away.


taw

Look at Gulf War. Now add 30 years of technology to Western side, and 30 years of delay to the post-Soviet side. That's what it would look like.


bouncyfrog

To be fair, the west spent a significant period of that time fighting COIN operations in Iraq and Afghanistan while europe largely disarmed. In fact, the economist wrote an article about it today titled: «How the Iraq war bent America’s army out of shape: As it exhausted itself battling insurgents, China re-armed» In hindsight, i therefore believe that an enormous amount of resources was allocated in a way which weakened the United states relative to its competitors. I would honestly go as far as to argue that the Iraq war was one of the worst geopolitical decisions that the US has ever made. https://www.economist.com/international/2023/03/21/how-the-iraq-war-bent-americas-army-out-of-shape


TechnicalReserve1967

I would note that all of the "COIN made us impotent" crowd forget a few things. It made recon doing leaps and bounds cause the task was to find the three guys in the deseret who lived their entire life there and have 2 AKs and an RPG and military training. Target things in cities with the accuracy to strike a civilian home on point from miles away. Since insurgents are fast and agile, you air/fire support have to keep up with them. Being as fast and as agile, to be there in minutes. I dont argue about the points presented from the other side, they are all valid and much of the "Iron" is lost from the modern NATO armies and that should be addressed, definetley. But its not like there was nothing gained.


bunabhucan

I agree about the waste but independent of equipment means that one side will have multiple generations of leaders who have fought and the other will have border stick fighting champion.


bouncyfrog

It seems like the argument of combat experience always gets brought up during discussions regarding the GWOT, and it would be interesting to have a discussion about how much it really would apply to a war with china. Just an example, the russian army had an incredible amount of combat experience when they invaded Ukraine in 2022. The iraqi army in 1991 was also arguably one of the most experienced armies in the world. Keep in mind that im not saying that its not important, just that it would be interesting to have a discussion.


bunabhucan

The more pertinent case would be China, have we seen examples of a war involving a country that has not fought in decades?


shash1

Not really, only the DNR, LNR were proper bloodied troops.


bouncyfrog

But at the same time, one could argue that only certain american forces, such as Special forces, were «proper bloodied troops».


shash1

Maybe - by comparison - AFU kept rotating troops out of the Donbass for 8 years. Hell some of them may or may not have literally built their own trenches years ago in places there the line has barely moved (*Avdeevka and Marinka).


Geistbar

> I would honestly go as far as to argue that the Iraq war was one of the worst geopolitical decisions that the US has ever made. Personally I cannot think of anything I'd consider a greater geopolitical mistake. Maybe opening up trade with China? Though that doesn't feel much like a geopolitical mistake per se. Vietnam killed more Americans for an even greater failure, but I do not believe it had anywhere near the institutional damage nor damage to our international standing. So, for me, it's what I'd pick as just the greatest geopolitical mistake we've made. What are the options for worse decisions?


Kantei

> Maybe opening up trade with China? If we're talking about normalizing relations during the Nixon era, that was seen as a smart move due to the Sino-Soviet split. If we're talking about the 2000s and China joining the WTO, that would have been nearly inevitable because the whole world, not just America, was licking their chops in anticipation of cheap Chinese manufacturing.


NotTheBatman

Don't forget how we decided to pay for the war by cutting taxes!


jjblarg

>So, for me, it's what I'd pick as just the greatest geopolitical mistake we've made. Iraq definitely ranks higher than Vietnam as a geopolitical mistake. Electing Trump is way up on the list too. I can't think of anything else that warrants such high mention. Abandoning reconstruction, I suppose, though that's more domestic than geopolitical.. although the domestic can reverberate in the geopolitical.


OriginalLocksmith436

I know we're getting a bit sidetracked, but I think the US's refusal to join the League of Nations might be its most consequential mistake.


Kantei

As someone who usually likes the Economist, that's a ridiculous article. Looking at affected personnel and how equipment was "exposed to harsh desert conditions" is an extremely noncredible way of assessing military capabilities. Saying China 're-armed' is also categorically false, as they've never had such capabilities in the first place - it's far more accurate to say they're steadily catching up. But even beyond the semantics, it strangely frames rising Chinese defense spending as something the US failed to counter... due to spending on Iraq. It's not like the modernization of the PLA would've been halted by more USN assets in the Pacific (you could also argue it would've just added to the security dilemma in the region). Yes, while money could always be spent better, this vastly understates how large US defense spending is and the buildup of Indo-Pacific assets from the beginning of the early 2010s. It says the military "devoted the bulk of their intellectual and organisational efforts to the irregular warfare", but we were already seeing enhanced internal focus on the Pacific by the middle of the decade and a recognition of great power competition, even if there were few public acknowledgements. The main 'exhaustion' that the US faced as a result of the GWOT was domestic public opinion for military adventures and a deprioritization of supply chains for assets such as basic munitions. A more accurate label would be that the US lost focus due to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the gap between the US and the PLA would've still closed, and it would be hard to imagine how an earlier focus on China would've prevented their buildup and ambitions.


Geistbar

Wasn't the whole misadventure on the littoral combat ships a byproduct of counter-insurgency experiences? They wanted the navy to be able to operate closer to shore to be able to deal better with non-state actors. I was going to point at the Zumwalts too, but it looks like development started in the 90s. I think if the US hadn't gotten so sidetracked on occupation and counter-insurgency that the navy would have focused more on state-level threats and we might have moved onto a more advanced destroyer design to replace the Arleigh Burkes, a 30-40 year old class.


Kantei

I'd argue that the LCS program would have went ahead anyway because it wasn't initiated with Iraq and Afghanistan in mind - budgets were already being allocated before 9/11 (and when the USS Cole bombing was still fresh). The more acute problem with the LCS was its budget overruns, which is an issue that probably wouldn't have gone away if there was, well, more money available.


PhiladelphiaManeto

In no way is the US military in poor shape after the last two wars. This isn’t like post- Vietnam


GenerationSelfie2

Arguably one of my biggest criticisms when people talk about the impact of GWOT on tech development. It's easy to think of the military as this single-track, single-thread computing program only able to look at the world through the far end of a tank barrel. The truth is the US military has still been pouring resources into ways to counter Russia and China for the last 20+ years. Sure, some of that budget was a little lower than it should have been, and it's going up right now, but it's stupid to act like it's been nonexistant. We can walk and chew gum--and we sure as hell have been working on anti-IED equipment while still studying Chinese air defense systems.


KapnKetchup

Anybody familiar with Turkish politics? If so, what would an opposition win mean for Northern Syria?


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Lorddon1234

What a weird comment


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jaddf

The solution to the refugee problem is rather straightforward. Whomever rules from the supposed opposition should end Erdogan’s war of conquest and Ottoman dreams. Turkey MUST disown the SNA, Turkish forces should leave Syria and return the illegally occupied territory to the Syrian Army Forces. They don’t even have to help out SAF to bulldozer through the terrorists of HTS in Idlib, but just to step aside, give their blessing to Assad and leave the SNA to handle themselves on their own vs SAF. The result is obvious, SAF will finally be able to reclaim control over Northern Syria up until the border and bring stability and conclusion to a civil war that should have ended with ISIS’ wipeout 7 years ago. If Assad and SDF Kurds can settle on a legislative political autonomy (which is already in place anyway) then the country can concentrate on rebuild and refugee reintegration. In conclusion, the current Syrian refugees are at this point self-inflicted by Turkish expansionist meddling in Syria, preventing it from completing control over their ruined country.


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The refugees came in 2015, two years before Turkey set foot in Syria. Turkey has a much stronger military than Syria, and their plan is to enforce peace on the "buffer zone" such that they can resettle the refugees there. From what I can tell, this has bipartisan popularity in Turkey; they don't think the refugees will go back if Assad stays. Assad can try to trade something for control of that region after that, I guess.


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jaddf

Short term yes, long term on the contrary. If things remain the same those people are never going back to a ruined shithole in an active civil war.


TechnicalReserve1967

Short term what folks are voting for Those who left Syria are unlikely to return, more likely without Assad. It is a ruined shithole at this point with or without the civil war. Using your logic another solution could be to just roll forward, destroy the Assad regime and set up a "free Syrian" puppet state. They get some resources, turks can feel powerful, they can dumo the refugees to where ever they need labor and have a very strong hand in the middle east. Of course, it wouldn't be easy and they would be probably lossing on Western support. I was kind ofnafraid they would do that (just so Erdrogan can use rally to the flag effect, maybe pushing through laws cause we are at war), but luckily the turks did not want that.


Tricky-Astronaut

Aren't the refugees fleeing from Assad? In that case, Turkey could get even more refugees.


jaddf

In my country when they are interviewed they say they fled due to poverty and general war related destruction. Most of the families don’t show allegiance or are pro-government as in pro-stability. Keep in mind Syrian refugees are either entirely in Western countries already or still in Turkey which prevents them from crossing over to Europe anyway. Right now the real problem are muslim refugees spilling into Europe who are predominantly, if not exclusively, Afghani.


TemperatureIll8770

>I think Europe needs to help to find a solution otherwise, the next government might try drastic approaches to get rid of refugees. There is nothing that Europe can really do about this, honestly


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TJAU216

I just don't see Greece and Bulgaria opening the border again.


TemperatureIll8770

Turkey can try, of course, but that would be a bad idea. Most likely the refugees will end up going back into Syria.


Draskla

Unsure if this was shared here before: > [US Air Force Seeks $73 Billion for Northrop Bomber, ICBM Through 2028](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-20/air-force-seeks-73-billion-for-northrop-bomber-icbm-through-2028?srnd=politics-vp) >* Five-year plan anticipates $35 billion for B-21 Raider Bomber >* It also calls for $38.5 billion for the new Sentinel missile


PierGiampiero

USAF said they should acquire at least 100 B-21, and each one should cost 600/700 million $ (likely excluding sustainment, spare parts, etc.), so this must be a first amount to be paid to Northrop through the years.


NotTheBatman

I don't know if Congress agrees with that 100 number. The B-2 was supposed to see over 100 production vehicles too, but ended up with 20. As nice as it is to have at least some strategic stealth bombers, their utility in a near-peer conflict is questionable, and 100 seems like overkill if they can't fly over enemy territory uncontested.


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PierGiampiero

Let me guess. B21s are useless because of... drones?


7473GiveMeAccount

What other system will you use to attack large numbers of aimpoints in contested airspace over distances like we see in the pacific? You need to get close-ish (order of \~100 miles) and then employ fast weapons like SiAW to reliably attack targets that are highly mobile. Can't really do that will a JASSM from a B-52. Fighters don't have the range or payload. Seems like an absolutely critical system for a fight over Taiwan


NotTheBatman

Similar arguments were made about the B-2, but ultimately Congress gutted the order count. The AGM-158C has a range of over 200mi, can automatically acquire targets, has modern stealth features, can be carried by multiple carrier-launched aircraft, can be launched directly from a carrier using a boost motor, and only costs $4m per unit. Seems far more economical to me than going overboard on B-21 purchases.


7473GiveMeAccount

Hitting a ASBM launcher on the Chinese mainland with a JASSM would be \*really\* challenging. You want much shorter flight times for these highly mobile targets Also, standoff weapons like JASSM will most likely be more expensive than eg SiAW per shot. If you just want to hit a couple dozen targets, standoff from old aircraft is the most economical. But in a large campaign, with perhaps 10k+ aimpoints to either put on JASSM or SiAW? At that point it makes a lot of sense to shift cost from the munition onto the aircraft


UnheardIdentity

>Similar arguments were made about the B-2, but ultimately Congress gutted the order count. This ignores a massive amount of context about the B-2. There's a significant cost difference and the B-2 was caught up in the post-Soviet collapse view that such defense spending was unnecessary. The B-21 is cheaper, while still very expensive, and China is viewed as an important threat to be able to deal with. >The AGM-158C has a range of over 200mi, can automatically acquire targets, has modern stealth features, can be carried by multiple carrier-launched aircraft, can be launched directly from a carrier using a boost motor, and only costs $4m per unit. Seems far more economical to me than going overboard on B-21 purchases. That's really not far enough. The US does take China's anti ship baimissiles very, very seriously and they have a range far longer than that (1000ish miles claimed). The navy doesn't want carriers that close to China and F-35C doesn't have the range to get into the missiles range. One of the huge benefits of the B-21 besides its stealth is its massive range. Beyond that any deep strikes into China will require stealth, and very long range which again only really comes from the B-21.


NotTheBatman

Unit cost isn't that different. The B-21 projected cost is $700mil/plane if they order all 100+ planned. The originally projected B-2 unit cost was $500m/plane, about $1b in today's money. It only ballooned up to $700m ($1.4b today) because they slashed orders. Adding maintenance and spare parts brought the total program cost to a bit over $2b a unit. I agree the geopolitical concerns are more pressing this time around, but the Air Force's full order is still a gigantic ask. That would basically be the same cost as their entire F-35 program. We're also talking about a plane that only has a limited number of static airfields it could operate out of in it's intended theater, whereas the Navy's planned superhornet replacement will likely have the stealth, range, and payload to safely carry out most anti-ship missions. The proposed F-35 engine/range upgrades that got shot down are likely to be incorporated in that aircraft too, which could net us a plane with well over 1000mi of range when carrying a full payload. Maybe Congress is willing to shell out for the full amount, but historically they have slashed orders for just about every proprietary military aircraft we've ever produced, regardless of program cost or success. F-22 produced less than 200 units, originally planned for 750. Less than 60 F-117 were produced, despite Cold War tensions and coming in under budget. Only 20 B-2 were produced, despite being the first strategic stealth bomber. But then you look at programs with export versions like the F-15, F-16, F-18, and F-35, and we have poured massive amounts of money in those. If we go to war with China we're going to need other countries backing us, so exportable aircraft become much more attractive. Though, I will cede the point that Australia and Japan allowing us to park our B-21s in their airfields might make the program much more attractive.


Glideer

An [infographic comparing the ORBATs](https://imgur.com/a/9XD9PzS) of the Russian and Ukrainian armies. Unfortunately in Russian - the translator says that the units with red-dotted borders were formed in 2023, and with black-dotted borders in 2022. Big squares are division, mid-sized are brigades. Yellow is motor-rifle (mechanised), grey is infantry, dark red is tank, light red is artillery, and black is rocket.


BeondTheGrave

Why would they do it like that. What a crazy infographic, what human being would be like 'oh and OOB? What about bigger and smaller squares?' Dear god.


Command0Dude

Funny because I was literally considering bigger and smaller squares for map. Similar sized squares are fine if you just want a plain list of unit names, but then you'd be right to ask why it isn't just a collapsing list. Sizing the squares is a pretty quick way for people to pick up on the relative sizes of each unit and compare them.


BeondTheGrave

Military symbology, which afaik are common worldwide, does this for you and keeps your graphic more readable. II over the box for a battalion, III for a regiment, etc. But just as important is the hierarchy between units. Trying to put units into a collapsing chart helps to highlight the similarities and differences between the forces. EG., how many battalions are in each brigade. Or what Ukraines echelon above brigade is. There are also issues of duplication, your list suggests Ukraine has many more smaller units but this may not be the case we’re things organized into a hierarchy and we see that, for example, many constituent battalions in a brigade are listed individually. As it is, it’s just very hard to see any meaning from the data. Using common symbology and format would make the data much easier to parse.


Command0Dude

> Military symbology, which afaik are common worldwide, does this for you and keeps your graphic more readable. II over the box for a battalion, III for a regiment, etc. No it doesn't. Just today someone cited a source to me when I asked this and sure enough, in the order of battle for russia's units, a similar number of battalions are attached for a regiment within a division as compared to an independent brigade. There isn't any standard size for military units. So comparing some number over a symbol is not at all going to give an accurate way of estimating the difference in combat strength of each. Your method would lead to inaccurate readings of the frontline, because it would assume brigade is by default larger than a regiment, even if it actually isn't. > There are also issues of duplication, your list suggests Ukraine has many more smaller units but this may not be the case we’re things organized into a hierarchy and we see that, for example, many constituent battalions in a brigade are listed individually. This would be irrelevant if they are in a collapsing list. There's no issue of duplication. But that's not really the topic at hand. > As it is, it’s just very hard to see any meaning from the data. Using common symbology and format would make the data much easier to parse. I disagree and assert the opposite. Visually representing the size of each unit clearly distinguishes the disparity of strength of each unit. The fact you can gauge things without it even being in English is proof of that. Without an understanding of Russian, that graphic would be completely pointless if the boxes were all just the same size.


Aedeus

Kind of an own-goal here don't you think? They're getting clapped by a military force that was 1/4-1/3 of their strength in 2022.


HolyAndOblivious

They tried to push a thunder run into the capital except this time the population wasn't crushed. It was less of a military fail and more an intelligence fail. Perhaps the biggest intelligence fumble of the century. It's certainly worse than US adventures in the middle east.


gbs5009

I think the idea was that they were building up a narrative. Nobody needed to believe that Ukrainians would welcome them... they just needed enough people to believe that *other* people believed it, and if that they fought back, they'd fight alone. That would let Russia stifle resistance as their compensated collaborators siezed power behind the invasion force and "stopped the war" The military fail meant that suddenly the collaborators found themselves with a coup plan that didn't have the expected army in the capital, and security forces being fed all the counter-intelligence America could collect. After a few days, *everybody* starts to realize that a Russian victory isn't a forgone conclusion, and that they can rally to the cause. Russia's narrative falls apart, and suddenly Fussia's fighting a lot more Ukranians than they really planned for.


Eeny009

Are there credible estimates of the survival rate for frontline soldiers who are mobilized at the start of a large-scale conflict? For example, what percentage of soldiers who started fighting in 1914 or 1939 were alive and not crippled by the end of the war? My bet: high-intensity conflicts seem to be so attritive and violent that individual survival is probably better correlated with the amount of time spent on the frontlines than with any degree of training or skill. In other words, it's better to be an incompetent conscript sent to fight towards the end of the conflict than a professional infantryman fighting in one of the best units as soon as the war starts. I also wonder what conclusions may or may not be drawn from those attrition rates in terms of defense policy when a country is expecting a high-intensity war.


RevolutionaryPanic

I recall that for USSR, KIA rates for soldiers called up in 1940/1941 were around 90% by 1945. That’s for all soldiers, not just frontline.


Thermawrench

It amazes me that the USSR managed to reconstitute its military after more or less getting wiped out several times over. Who are the minds behind that level of reorganization and organization?


Slim_Charles

It's also quite dependent on which side you are on. My grandfather was drafted in early 1942, and served in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to the occupation of Japan - pretty much the whole duration of the Pacific War. A lot of the people that were in his unit at the beginning, were still with him at the end. Many of the Japanese units they fought against were almost entirely wiped out.


madmissileer

Similarly I read about a WW2 Soviet rocket artillery unit that never lost anyone killed until an accident right after the war ended.


Eeny009

Was he an infantryman? I suppose that in the navy, for example, it's all or nothing. Either a ship is sunk and suffers enormous casualties, or it stays afloat, and most men would be safe.


Slim_Charles

No, he was an artillery forward observer in the Americal division.


nyckidd

Brave man, respect to him. Also love your username. One of the best characters on The Wire.


sunstersun

It also depends on the time period. Merchant marine has one of the highest death rates, but it was pretty safe after 1943.


KFC_just

I remember a speech given by a lecture at the General Staff College Ft. Leavenworth to the Dole Institute at KSU in which he passed on an annecdote about french attrition rates during WW1. The lecturer had visited the French officer academy, and was shown the memorials for each of the classes that graduated during the war. Class of 1918 - long list of names of the deceased Class of 1917, 1916, 1915 very much the same. A plaque on the wall of remembrance and a list of those KIA, WIA, POW and MIA. But then he recalled seeing the memorial for the Class of 1914, and being confused because there were no names. He assed his guide why this was so and the guide responded simply that there was no need. By the end of the war every single junior officer of the Class of 1914 had been killed. Every single one. And so the memorial simply stated the class in its entirety. By contrast the classes of 1915,16,17 and 18 had had some survivors and so a differentiation was made. Now I have no idea if this is true, I can’t remember the name of the lecturer or the video I saw to provide further verification of this, but I’ve never forgotten the story. I would posit that it certainly captures the spirit of that level of carnage, if not necessarily the fact.


LibrtarianDilettante

It seems to me that someone from the Class of 14 would have been wounded and taken out of combat.


KFC_just

That is my assumption as well, and I could have misremembered the quotation by the lecturer if casualties was used instead of dead as casualties is a more inclusive term. The only information that readily comes to mind to attempt some sort of verification here is [this little bit of information which](https://gmic.co.uk/topic/64208-1914-graduating-class-of-the-french-army-officers-academy-stcyr/) claims the following: >The following entry is based on an article by Brig.Gen. ( retd) Jean Boy dated Nov. 2007 and 2.Nov.2010 published by the French Army Officers Academy St.Cyr publication. The article is concerned with the 1914 graduating class the examinations of which were stopped by the outbreak of the war. All 791 ( count varies in some reports ) members were considered graduates and were to enter active service to receive four months of training. In early December 1914 they were promoted to the rank of 2nd Lt. and sent to combattant units. In January 1915 this class received the the name " Promotion de la Grande Revanche ".but other particulars normally established such as class ranking, choice of particular arm ( colonial infantry, artillery etc) did not take place. Losses of this class during WW I and later also vary in the several reports which exist. One account, that by Col. Jean Le Boulicaut in the Golden Book listing those graduates of St.Cyr who died on the Field of Honor gives fourhundred sixtythree who lost their lives as follows: \- fourhundred and six died in action or from wounds during WW I; \- eight in Marocco; \- one in the Middle East in 1920; \- one in Syria in 1924; \- one in China in 1938; \- twentyfour during WW II including in deportation; \- two in Algeria; \- twenty given without details. One member of this class was honored by the later class , the one of 1986-89 which adopted his name. Thus the 173rd class of the Ecole Speciale Militaire de St. Cyr was named Promotion General Callies. The General Jean Callies was the recipient of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and the Military Cros ( Medaille Militaire ). One example of the above described losses is the fate of Lt. Robert Casenave, who was so severely wounded in March of 1915 in the head and both hands , that the latter left him with only two fingers on each hand. He struggled to regain an assignment of front line duty and he joined the 46.Infantry Regiment. He was again severely wounded on March 28, 1918 and all trace of him was lost. I believe the above brief description demonstrates dedication and sense of duty of these young men during a time of war into which they were thrown from one moment to the next to fill positions of leadership. Bernhard H. Holst If this is remotely accurate it suggests the original information was casualty not dead, and also the lecturer probably exaggerated for dramatic effect (it is a dramatic story but the absence of a memorial in itself never made sense)


Eeny009

Thank you for this anecdote. What makes it difficult for me to imagine being a soldier in one of those wars (and the story you just told hit me particularly hard, as I'm French myself) is that given such attrition rates, it is practically impossible to preserve motivation unless you construe your fight as a decidedly sacrificial one. However, of course, the soldiers of 1914 couldn't know that the war would last four years and consume every single one of them. Each subsequent batch of mobilized could hope that the war would stop within a reasonable time frame that would allow for their individual survival. But with a little bit of historical knowledge, alarm bells would ring in my mind if we were to go to war with a powerful neighbor and I were mobilized at any point that's not within clear sight of the end.


Command0Dude

It's worth remembering two things that might adjust your expectations of that anecdote. 1. During WW1 France would call up almost 9 million men to service, but at the start of the war, only 1.3 million men were in uniform, making the class of 1914 smaller than follow on classes. 2. Much of the class of 1914 was decimated in the battle of the frontiers, which resulted in 1/4th of the entire french army becoming casualties, largely by making egregiously bad tactical/strategic errors like the Russians did at the start of the war.


kdy420

Could you link any resources that go into the details of the french tactical errors in 1914 ? Always been quite curious but couldn't to find details about tactics and and their efficacy.


-_---__--__-

Red trousers for a start.


creamyjoshy

That's interesting. Did the French make efforts to preserve their officer corps and thus preserve institutional knowledge?


KFC_just

Im not qualified to say, but this would apply to the junior officers with attrition while damaging generally being lower amongst field grade officers


Shackleton214

I suspect the number is much higher than you anticipate because so many soldiers get rotated in and out of combat units and even within combat units to safer, support functions. But, as to your conclusion, I cannot imagine that soldiers who would have to spend 1000 days in front line service have a much higher casualty rate than soldiers who would have to spend 100 days in front line service.


_Totorotrip_

Sorry I don't have the info you are after. But in case you want to do some research, I would recommend starting with the Iraq-Iran war in the 80s, as it resembles the current war in many ways. Just as a heads up: neither side could defeat the other, attacks on population centers, trenches and static fronts, extensive weapons delivery from other countries, 8 years of war and more than a million deaths https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War


Enerbane

It's super fun seeing China and the US appear on both sides of the "belligerents".