The War in the Ukraine

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reservior dogs

Junior Member
Registered Member
Biscuits said:
If one were to say the industrial capability of US is a dwarf compared China, it would also not be wrong to say that Russia's industrial capability is a dwarf compared to US.

So vis a vis Russia, I'm sure that if US prioritizes arms, they will easily be able to supply Ukraine and their volunteer forces with adequate equipment.

But in practice it is not that easy. America's real target is China, if the world's largest economy with a huge bloc of the world's population under them can't be defeated or at least contained, then any US ambitions of imposing their "order" on the world is gone.

Each equipment, each value of currency, each industrial sacrifice sent to Ukraine, is a distraction of much needed resources. The Ukraine front will never hurt China no matter what the result becomes, but it can hurt NATO if they fumble it.

If NATO overcommits their industry and manpower, they will have weakened themselves at 0 cost to China while the latter is just continously growing stronger. So if US mobilize their economy, they need to defeat Russia in the shortest amount of time, but the chances of that are low, and there is no telling how a defeated Russia would even react. Plus there is always a (large) risk that China will put its own industry behind Russia if Russians are being defeated due to NATO openly marching in with state of the art equipped "volunteers".

Then, the situation will turn around. Instead of US fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, it will be China fighting NATO to the last Russian. This is not favorable for NATO.

The ideal situation for NATO is probably that Russia can be battlefield defeated by light volunteers and donated equipment only, driving Russia deep into the Donbass and away from the South(Kherson, Mariupol area). Then, Ukraine can sign peace with only minimal territorial losses around donetsk and luhansk, while keeping complete access to the black sea. Pushing any further than that, risks involving the whole Eastern bloc.
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I think that is why Russia chose a very slow advance in Donbass. Normally, the attacking side must pay a big price for conquering. However, if you just bombard them into submission while keeping a static defensive line close to home base, the cost is minimal and it is the Ukrainian side that must expand cost and energy to send their troops a long ways off to fight in this front. In the long run, equipment like tanks and cannons and men from the Ukrainian side are exchanged for some cannon shells on the Russian side. The longer this goes on, the more Ukraine becomes an economic basket case. Life become more and more unbearable inside Ukraine. The West must not only provide funding to keep the war going, we must also fund the cost of living for 30 million Ukrainians. In the meantime, Europe is deindustrializing due to persistently high energy costs and even unavailability of energy. If support for the war collapse in Europe, it will have a domino effect on the other countries providing support. If Russia only sells energy to countries in Europe that stop supporting the war, there will be a big draw for the others to follow. Russia just have to slowly conquer Donbass, then keep a static line of defense for many years and watch the cracks to develop.

There is simply no chance that a lightly armed NATO troops will make a big difference in this war.

If NATO send in equipment that makes a difference, and if I were the Chinese, I would definitely send stuff to North Korea who will be selling these to the Russians. Not enough to quickly win the war but to keep it going. In five years time, with European industries hollowed out. the West will look back and see it as the quagmire that it is. It does not even cost the Chinese that much money, some drones, cannon shells will do wonders. Maybe some critically lacking components that allow the Russians to build stuff on their own.
 
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phrozenflame

phrozenflame

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
They needed to deploy this on like day -1 lol, but better now than never. Utterly baffling why Russians waited until now to deploy existing strategic ISR platforms that can help from well within the borders of Russia.
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Probably because it wasnt really ready and the top bosses claimed it ready for the big boss and PR. Corrupt and rotten to the core.

Botnet said:
Looking alot like an Izyum 2.0. It's interesting that Russia seems to be unable to blunt the Ukrainian salient. A candidate for such a counterattack would be the 3rd Army Corps, but they seem to be MIA after a quick stint in the Kupyansk/Izyum axis.

Worse comes to worse, Russian troops will be able to withdraw from Lyman since Ukraine has not proven themselves to be capable of an encirclement, although Russian troops have had a disturbing record of leaving behind their equipment while fleeing.

All said and done though, there'll be plenty of news articles like "Ukraine takes another key town. Russia has lost this war" or something like that, "mass graves" will suddenly be found, and the international condemnation starts rolling in. Rinse and repeat.

I do hope that with the mobilization, Russia will be able to turn the tables around, but call me a skeptic until there's actual results on the ground.
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This rinse and repeat of 'just another key town taken' will eventually lead to Russia loosing all the additional territories they gained, and if it reaches that stage, that means Russia has exhausted all it's fighting power and the mainland itself would be threatened.
 
R

reservior dogs

Junior Member
Registered Member
SlothmanAllen said:
I agree the China has a larger industrial capability, but does it currently have a larger military industrial capability? I only point that out as at this point, as I think it is important to break down industrial output by individual industries that directly relate to war.

Like clearly the US can produce more planes and helicopters of all types then China can. Same goes for turbofans. While on the other hand, China can clearly produce far more ships.

I am not sure total output gives an accurate accounting of the different between the two nations. Anyway, sorry for the off-topic rant. I just think it is more accurate to look at things on the micro level in this case.
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You have to look to see if there is a civilian/commercial analog to the military production. Turbofans are dominated by a handful of makers, military or civilian, so this is an odd category to discuss. There are very few military products that do not have at least some components that also have similar capability in the commercial side. In 99% of the cases, the commercial side is huge compared to the military outputs. In the case of China, the huge commercial manufacturing industry allow them to at least provide many parts to the military side. Both U.S. and China governments have the capability to command civilian capacities for military use .
 
T

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Zichan said:
I think this should not be surprising. HIMARS warhead is pretty small: just 200 lbs.

In the Vietnam War, it took the US 7 years of bombing to finally destroy the Thanh Hóa Bridge. They hit it with upwards of hundreds of bombs, but bridges are tough targets and it remained operational after quick repairs.

It was only once they introduced 2,000 lbs laser guided bombs able to bit the supporting pillars that they finally collapsed the bridge.
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Can't assume its only Himars. The Himars are fired in combination with Grads and other MLRS for a massed saturation attack. Many won't get through due to the air defenses but a few will hit. Because only a few gets through you would need a sustained effort of saturation barrage. Any of these other MLRS are also hitting. On top of that, the Russians are getting good in picking out Himars from the saturation barrage and prioritizing them, but this can also result in the other MLRS getting through.

Communist Cold War bridges are tough because they were designed in the event of a nuclear war.
 
B

Biscuits

Major
Registered Member
Maikeru said:
Putin's mobilisation is unlikely to change the military balance on the ground. The quality of the new recruits will be very poor.

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MilitaryLand update. Quiet in the South.

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It's not like they need to be of exceptionally high quality, just better than the Ukrainian conscripts which are more or less in the same circumstances except theyre more forced and even poorer.

Plus as long as you back conscripts with firepower advantage, their morale will be better compared to the other side.

Above all, Russia needs more bodies so they can mass push in the south.
 
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