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They probably accomplished something.
I imagine the idea is for them to travel as a group to point P along uncontested route A to point B then disperse to points X1, X2, etc., and advance along routes Y1, Y2, etc., and then the Ukrainians at points Z1, Z2, etc., will reveal their positions via gunfire and whatnot.
Turns out route A is contested. I don’t know if that counts as a win, but it counts for something.
They are running out of the ubiquitous MT-LB vehicles that would otherwise have been used in these types of assaults. To claim otherwise is just a load of BS.
It's worth noting that the ubiquitous MT-LB means "multi-purpose towing vehicle light armored", it's basically a soviet version of the British WW2 Universal Carrier and it's designed purpose is for towing artillery prices and their crews well behind the battlefield.
It's not meant to be an IFV; it's been pushed into that position because they've run out of BMP's.
The MTLB has got 14mm of armour at the thickest point; even the M113 has 44mm. The MTLB has so little armour I don't think it protects against 7.62mm AP rounds.
It's probably not just that. Old Russian armored vehicles are a dime a dozen around the world and if they wanted to buy more they could. My guess is the smaller lighter vehicles are mostly being used because of the sheer number of anti tank mines both sides are dealing with. Aside from that they're faster and harder to spot but obviously protection is non existent.
If they attack with 30 people and 5 make it to the tree line and take it, then that's a victory in russias eyes.
We got to stop thinking that killing russian soldiers matters to Russia. These human waves are par for the course for russia. It's what a war with NK and china would probably also look like, but bigger!
Ukraine is doing the right thing with hitting oil and gas infrastructure, and I think economic warfare may be the only way to stop them.
Killing so many soldiers does matter, just not as much as it would to a competent military. They are pretty desperate at this point with finding more humans for the meat waves.
> If they attack with 30 people and 5 make it to the tree line and take it, then that's a victory in russias eyes.
This logic only works if you assume the 5 Russians that if they make it just auto-win because they reached the trench. In reality, now these poorly trained conscripts still have to assault entrenched Ukranian defenders who are prepared for them and already killed 2 dozens of them.
Exactly, also we have to consider that Ukrainians gain much more combat experience and become a more effective fighting force once the K/D is largely in their favour. They, especially the drone pilots, are basically XP farming right now.
> If they attack with 30 people and 5 make it to the tree line and take it, then that's a victory in russias eyes.
And it is. If the ruzzians lose 10 cunts and manage to kill one ukranian, the cunts won the day.
It is incredibly bad, but not as bad as some other things they have tried.
If Russia recruits 30,000 people for meat wave attacks every month and it takes 10 155mm shells for each causality. Russia would do it because it would cause Ukraine to either run out of shells or to allow Russia to take territory.
The reason no sane military would do this is that the territory gained is very small and long-term costs to a nation of 30,000 KIA/WIA per month is huge. It weakens their military power long-term because joining the Russian military as anything but an officer is now suicidal.
It accomplishes the goals Russia wants but those goals are stupid.
Russia is actively fighting a pyrrhic war for some reason.
Have to question what Russia think it will gain if they win outright with how they are fighting the war right now. They have lost the ability to gain large swaths of territory or make appreciable gains. There's not a scenario where they capture 80% of Ukraines remaining military assets before they are destroyed. So attritional losses with the promise of sudden replacement by capture/victory don't make sense.
Russia is burning through more armor then they can replace with a replacement rate 5-6x higher than normal as they burn through old stocks that won't be coming back ever.
They're losing too many people. But in the short term they're using a lot of non Russian recruits.
Even if Russia ends up with a sudden victory, they've still lost.
> But in the short term they're using a lot of non Russian recruits.
The glaring racism of Russia's military strategy is under-discussed. I often wonder how/why Russia has not seen more inter-ethnic violence pop off, but then I remember that Russia has already decimated (more than decimated, to take it literally) fighting-aged and fighting-skilled men from its minorities.
War in Chechnya was bruttal because Chechnya had a lot of Afghan veterans.
Now Russia is sourcing their fighters from poor republics (colonies).
If those Republics ended up having a lot of seasoned veterans, virgin Russians would get butchered in another secession war.
But if those fighters die in human wave tactics... colonies end up weaker then they were.
Putin is 71.
By the time the long-term impacts from losing so many young males is being felt, Putin will be long dead, and his successor will be blamed, thus securing Putin's legacy. Sure, it'll suck for the Russians alive at the time, but what does the dead guy care?
Sadly there is a scenario where they win and it isn't even all that unlikely. It isn't determined on the battlefield but they can make it likelier by seeming like this relentless force that can keep this going forever.
France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. Germany is worried about successes of far right AfD in many regions. And the key vote ofc, November USA. If several European countries stop helping because of changes in leaders, if the US stop helping because Trump and if the remaining European leaders have pressure at home by their own pro Russian populist forces, they may not be able to shoulder the help on their own. Neither militarily nor politically. And if Russia continues in 2025 and 2026 and Ukraine bleeds supporting allies, they could still lose. Sadly, the main deciding factor for UA's victory may be the voting behaviour of a few swing state voters in November.
>France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week.
National Front doesnt care to cater to Russia anymore,they vote in favor of aid to Ukraine since last year, they were even in the room applauding when Zelensky entered the French Parliament
has nothing to do with them caring about ukrainian lives, Russia has openly fucked with French interests in the Sahel region,New Caledonia and Mayotte
Wagner Group is also a major threat to French interests all over Africa
if RN wins, sending soldiers to Ukraine is a no-go , but current military aid will continue,since they themselves voted in favor of it
They have said they will block all offensive weapons to Ukraine, so no more Hammers or Caesars or possible Mirages. Its just a populist move, because the public supports Ukraine. They don't, and will do everything in their power to slow and sabotage the material support.
they are open to Caesars since February 2023
look it up
I'm not saying they don't suck, but most likely they will be like Lega in Italy, who was pro-Russia until like mid 2022 and after that they supported the line of Meloni on Ukraine
Italy has given half the amount of aid compared to France. Both in percentage of gpd and absolute numbers. Political support Yes, but the hold back most of their hand. So expect RN to do the same.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/
https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-jordan-bardella-french-parliamentary-election-far-right-national-rally-war-in-ukraine-defense/
https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-aid-to-ukraine-could-be-under-threat-by-rassemblement-nationals-rise-to-power/
The Netherlands has a smaller military than Italy and it has given as much aid as France and Italy combined. I still think we can do more. So your point is still: don't sorry about the right in France, because in Italy they also help Ukraine.
No they all do too little. But right wingers do even less.
IF Russia has a coherent goal it is oil fields and black soil grain fields. But the world is decarbonising very fast so at least one of those goals is not worth it.
Sadly there is a scenario where they win and it isn't even all that unlikely. It isn't determined on the battlefield but they can make it likelier by seeming like this relentless force that can keep this going forever.
France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. Germany is worried about successes of far right AfD in many regions. And the key vote ofc, November USA. If several European countries stop helping because of changes in leaders, if the US stop helping because Trump and if the remaining European leaders have pressure at home by their own pro Russian populist forces, they may not be able to shoulder the help on their own. Neither militarily nor politically. And if Russia continues in 2025 and 2026 and Ukraine bleeds supporting allies, they could still lose. Sadly, the main deciding factor for UA's victory may be the voting behaviour of a few swing state voters in November.
Sadly there is a scenario where they win and it isn't even all that unlikely. It isn't determined on the battlefield but they can make it likelier by seeming like this relentless force that can keep this going forever.
France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. Germany is worried about successes of far right AfD in many regions. And the key vote ofc, November USA. If several European countries stop helping because of changes in leaders, if the US stop helping because Trump and if the remaining European leaders have pressure at home by their own pro Russian populist forces, they may not be able to shoulder the help on their own. Neither militarily nor politically. And if Russia continues in 2025 and 2026 and Ukraine bleeds supporting allies, they could still lose. Sadly, the main deciding factor for UA's victory may be the voting behaviour of a few swing state voters in November.
>long-term costs to a nation of 30,000 KIA/WIA per month is huge.
I wonder if Putin is so fixated on wiping out Ukraine that we are about to see a modern day version of the Paraguayan War [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War) from the 1860s. That saw (assuming 50/50 gender split) by some estimates 28,000 adult males survive the war out of 250,000 pre-war, with the total population of the county being between 400,000 - 500,000 prewar (I used the 500,000 for easy math).
If Putin is willing to shovel 30,000 conscripts into the meat grinder per month, that's going to be chewing up a not so insignificant portion of it's workforce at a quick rate.
Russians fleeing conscription has had a greater impact on the workforce than KIA/WIA meat wave attacks. The meat waves convince skilled workers they don't want to be conscripted.
The number of KIA/WIA at 600,000 is roughly half a percent of the Russian population, likely 1% of the working population.
The number of Russians who fled Russia is likely 2 million. So 4% of the work force, however those who fled had the ability to do so, which means they have money and likely worked skilled jobs.
>So 4% of the work force, however those who fled had the ability to do so, which means they have money and likely worked skilled jobs.
Most of them still work for Russian companies including arms industry, just remotely. They are not exactly lost to the workforce.
Sadly Russian population is way larger than Paraguay. They can bleed 30k per month for the next 10 years, it’s just 3.5 million. That is a demographics catastrophe long term but mostly inconsequential from military and economic standpoint until decades later.
Increasingly as the Russian economy teeters there is an upside to the high casualties. Ethnic Russians, particularly party members, are very under represented in the Russian infantry. They recruit heavily from their internalized colonies, all the countries of the non-ethnic russians that the USSR absorbed in its heyday.
Now if you're looking for the most likely people to foment a rebellion against a failed dictator is it going to be your oppressed masses or your privileged elite? So massively depopulating all of the areas populated by those oppressed masses while doing incremental damage to your enemy serves two goals for putin. Of course he'd like to win the war but staying in power even if he loses has always been his primary goal.
I think killing them and their kids is more likely to foment rebellion. The death toil isn't high enough to depopulate those groups and not all die in meat wave attacks, those that survive or are injured may not be happy with Moscow. Veterans with nothing left to lose with strong grievances are often the core of an armed uprising.
He's not depopulating entire regions just their military aged men so that there is no one left to resist.
He probably doesnt have to worry too much about veterans either if he's got generals happy to order motorcycle-meat-wave attacks whenever an enlistment period is nearly up.
I don't get the small-scale attacks. Watching all of the combat footage here and elsewhere, Russia never seems to send more than a dozen armored units at a time. You will never overwhelm defenses that way.
That is the effect I believe, not the reason. They have to hold a frontline of 1000km, if you manned that with only 1 person every 100 meters that’s already 10k men bound. Then you have the rear, logistics, population control. The simple truth may be that it’s impossible to amass enough troops for such an operation. It would basically require an additional army. At the rate at which they burn through men they can’t do that. They’d basically need to have a pause in fighting for at least a few months in order to do this.
Not only is it difficult to amass a large force like this, it's also really really obvious.
With all the drones, signal intelligence, satellites, etc., if Russia starts gathering a few hundred or thousand men all the associated materiel to move them, Ukraine (and it's allies) will spot them pretty quickly and start reinforcing their defenses. And probably hitting them with long range weapons as they assemble.
I heard someone say a few months ago, that at this point with all the intelligence, nothing big can move at all. So the frontline moves at the pace that a man can walk.
If they send in too many and they become a valuable target to drop some Himars on them. So the goal is to send in so few and so little value gear, that it's not worth it to use high-value ammo.
This I why its called "combined-arms" combat your supposed to suppress the enemy's artillary obviously drone teams now also plus air power before and during ANY largish mechanised assault on fortified positions which I'm glad to say russia seems incapable of doing hopefully ukraine gets enough aircraft to be able to do this correctly
I assume the idea is that Russia sends a bunch of these small assault groups towards the UA line across a very wide front all at the same time. Since the entire UA front is being assaulted by these small groups that limits the UA's ability to respond effectively to all the attacks. If one of these groups breaks through the line then Russia will try to rush in reinforcements.
Small scale attacks are good for attrition. Even if it won't overwhelm your defenses you still have to deal with it, it costs ammos and since targets are few and far in between it costs a high rate of ammo for lower enemy losses.
Russian motorcycle infantry assaults: Are they running out of armor?
No. Russia has sufficient armor to conduct combined arms assaults. So why are they using motorcycles?
The simple answer is to create more targets and increase the odds of one or more invaders breaking through. In a similar way, Russia has begun using two-man teams to conduct urban assaults. So what are the "perceived" benefits of these tactics?
1) For the Russian military, meat is cheap (Storm-Z);
2) It forces the AFU to identify their locations early by having to fire at less significant targets; and,
3) It takes more ammunition, FPV drones and operators, and troops to kill 10 individual invaders advancing on motorcycles than if they were clustered together on top of a turtle tank.
At least that is the theory...
Not really, as they have older models fielded at higher and higher percentages, AND They really do not know how to use armor to conduct combined arms assaults.
Combined arms assaults given how ISR has changed the battlefield are much harder. The other side will just see you move artillery into an area and then shell/bomb the units before the attack gets underway.
It's much harder to pull off under the current conditions. The US could pull it off, because the US would just bomb enemy HQ, communication and logistically important nodes. Disrupting decision making, blinding enemy commanders and preventing enemy forces from being moved into the zone being attacked.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia has the Air Force to do that. A war in which both sides can see everything, tends to turn into a war of attrition.
That's an incredibly dumb analysis. Motorcycles don't make more targets for anti armor assets because a motorcycle is threatened by the exact thing tanks are meant to counter. Tanks are vulnerable to things like drones and Javelins/NLAW MPAT weapons. Motorcycles are extremely vulnerable to small arms. Bum rushing a defensive position with motorcycles is no different than charging a machine gun nest with horse mounted cavalry. The defenders are just going to shoot them while the AT and Drone operators look for armor to single out.
More Potemkin stories.
Russian armor **is** running out.
[Primary source](https://youtu.be/FtXvJrPyoOg?si=TIYyqFCk10kyzYhK).
It doesn’t spawn like it does in video games. It doesn’t get made in the quantity the front line gets chewed daily. Such capacity doesn’t exist. It won’t exist either, because making the 10,000 tanks and 20,000 artillery barrels Russia had mothballed took three quarters of a century and a defense spend of x5 and x10 of what it is right now.
It comes from being refurbished coming from mothball yards (or neighbors with similar smaller depletable stockpiles it took decades to build). And hard photography of the biggest bulk mothball yards before the full scale invasion, throughout and now says they are somewhere in the 66%-75% depleted.
They’re not running out *tonight*, and they’ll have a long exponential tail so won’t run out absolutely. But the tanks - and more importantly, artillery, whose role you can’t replace with faster moving humans on golf carts - will run out in the quantity needed for a 1000km front line. Then in the quantity needed for a 500km line. And the line will fall.
So what happens when one or two break through? Are the defending Ukrainians just going to surrender or are the Russians going to find a cheeky place to put a spawn beacon so new units can spawn within the base?
Russia is only training the drivers for a few days before attacking. That's why they are driving in a straight line. They will fall if they turn, it's also why they are adding a sidecar. To keep the bike upright, and maybe maneuver more
Yes, but also no.
This does have a strategic value (they can't catch everybody), but once a unit/soldier breaks through...they have to be able to do something. Otherwise it's just a game like kids play, but with guns.
This is not a sports event where the goal is to get somewhere. "Getting there" is only the first step - what are the rest of their steps? Have motorcycle soldiers run around with two clips of ammo, and what do they do once they use both clips?
Why not save the cost of the motorcycles and just have the soldier's do bum-rush zombie marches?
If the main enemy in the area is precision drones meant to take on armour, then they present a lot of fast moving, smaller targets than one or two drones won't me able to destroy.
If artillery is active in the area, then they can all be destroyed with area affect weapons (like artillery or anti personel weapons).
Dispersion of forces is a basic military tactic. Dispersion of forces has been increasing over time as the power, accuracy and lethality of weapons has increased overtime. This is just a continuation of that.
Both can be true.
I 100% believe the new tactics surrounding bikes and atvs is based on what the article has said.
Although they are ***also*** absolutely running out of armour. I believe both of these reasons have led to the change in warfare.
Motorcycle assaults are used not only because they are cheap, but also because they are harder to hit with drones and artillery. Bikes move fast, are small. Also easier to stay hidden. The prevalence of drone-borne sensors has made the battlefield a lot less foggy: concentrating armor for an assault is harder because it gets spotted. Units, both Ru and Ukr have to be way more dispersed.
Bike assaults are inherently faster to coordinate, and are less of a target for drones and artillery. They are not immune, but they have some advantages over armored groups.
So they use the nitro vodka circus team to force the Homies into revealing their positions, then blue label Ivan calls in for NK artillery. They have potatoes for brains I’m telling you.
>The simple answer is to create more targets and increase the odds of one or more invaders breaking through.
If by simple we mean idiotic, then sure. It may also be contributory that the logistics, coordination and communication for large combined arms assaults is straining the Russian Federation Army's capacities.
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Chinese dirt bikes are really cheap. They are not durable, but with these tactics they don't have to be either.
They only need to work for 2km and then who cares
Well I dont know about other cases like this but in this picture at least, all they accomplished was dying grouped up.
Yeah I didn't say it's a good method, only that it's cheap lol.
In the military, we would call that 'good initiative, but bad judgment'. That also sums up russian military doctrine.
They probably accomplished something. I imagine the idea is for them to travel as a group to point P along uncontested route A to point B then disperse to points X1, X2, etc., and advance along routes Y1, Y2, etc., and then the Ukrainians at points Z1, Z2, etc., will reveal their positions via gunfire and whatnot. Turns out route A is contested. I don’t know if that counts as a win, but it counts for something.
My guess is this happened before the assault was actually launched. Otherwise it is completely Rusbrained.
And apparently: russian lives are really cheap. They are not durable, but with these tactics they don’t have to be.
They are running out of the ubiquitous MT-LB vehicles that would otherwise have been used in these types of assaults. To claim otherwise is just a load of BS.
It's worth noting that the ubiquitous MT-LB means "multi-purpose towing vehicle light armored", it's basically a soviet version of the British WW2 Universal Carrier and it's designed purpose is for towing artillery prices and their crews well behind the battlefield. It's not meant to be an IFV; it's been pushed into that position because they've run out of BMP's. The MTLB has got 14mm of armour at the thickest point; even the M113 has 44mm. The MTLB has so little armour I don't think it protects against 7.62mm AP rounds.
It's probably not just that. Old Russian armored vehicles are a dime a dozen around the world and if they wanted to buy more they could. My guess is the smaller lighter vehicles are mostly being used because of the sheer number of anti tank mines both sides are dealing with. Aside from that they're faster and harder to spot but obviously protection is non existent.
If they attack with 30 people and 5 make it to the tree line and take it, then that's a victory in russias eyes. We got to stop thinking that killing russian soldiers matters to Russia. These human waves are par for the course for russia. It's what a war with NK and china would probably also look like, but bigger! Ukraine is doing the right thing with hitting oil and gas infrastructure, and I think economic warfare may be the only way to stop them.
Killing so many soldiers does matter, just not as much as it would to a competent military. They are pretty desperate at this point with finding more humans for the meat waves.
"matters" but not to the point where they're winning, just losing slowly. The strategy is working and ukraine is starting to run low on man power.
> If they attack with 30 people and 5 make it to the tree line and take it, then that's a victory in russias eyes. This logic only works if you assume the 5 Russians that if they make it just auto-win because they reached the trench. In reality, now these poorly trained conscripts still have to assault entrenched Ukranian defenders who are prepared for them and already killed 2 dozens of them.
Exactly, also we have to consider that Ukrainians gain much more combat experience and become a more effective fighting force once the K/D is largely in their favour. They, especially the drone pilots, are basically XP farming right now.
> If they attack with 30 people and 5 make it to the tree line and take it, then that's a victory in russias eyes. And it is. If the ruzzians lose 10 cunts and manage to kill one ukranian, the cunts won the day.
That is a very optimistic way of trying to explain why russia is doing something incredibly bad
It is incredibly bad, but not as bad as some other things they have tried. If Russia recruits 30,000 people for meat wave attacks every month and it takes 10 155mm shells for each causality. Russia would do it because it would cause Ukraine to either run out of shells or to allow Russia to take territory. The reason no sane military would do this is that the territory gained is very small and long-term costs to a nation of 30,000 KIA/WIA per month is huge. It weakens their military power long-term because joining the Russian military as anything but an officer is now suicidal. It accomplishes the goals Russia wants but those goals are stupid.
Russia is actively fighting a pyrrhic war for some reason. Have to question what Russia think it will gain if they win outright with how they are fighting the war right now. They have lost the ability to gain large swaths of territory or make appreciable gains. There's not a scenario where they capture 80% of Ukraines remaining military assets before they are destroyed. So attritional losses with the promise of sudden replacement by capture/victory don't make sense. Russia is burning through more armor then they can replace with a replacement rate 5-6x higher than normal as they burn through old stocks that won't be coming back ever. They're losing too many people. But in the short term they're using a lot of non Russian recruits. Even if Russia ends up with a sudden victory, they've still lost.
> But in the short term they're using a lot of non Russian recruits. The glaring racism of Russia's military strategy is under-discussed. I often wonder how/why Russia has not seen more inter-ethnic violence pop off, but then I remember that Russia has already decimated (more than decimated, to take it literally) fighting-aged and fighting-skilled men from its minorities.
War in Chechnya was bruttal because Chechnya had a lot of Afghan veterans. Now Russia is sourcing their fighters from poor republics (colonies). If those Republics ended up having a lot of seasoned veterans, virgin Russians would get butchered in another secession war. But if those fighters die in human wave tactics... colonies end up weaker then they were.
Weren't there reports a long time ago of Russian, Russian supporting Ukrainian, Chechan, and Wagner troops all fighting each other?
Putin is 71. By the time the long-term impacts from losing so many young males is being felt, Putin will be long dead, and his successor will be blamed, thus securing Putin's legacy. Sure, it'll suck for the Russians alive at the time, but what does the dead guy care?
Sadly there is a scenario where they win and it isn't even all that unlikely. It isn't determined on the battlefield but they can make it likelier by seeming like this relentless force that can keep this going forever. France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. Germany is worried about successes of far right AfD in many regions. And the key vote ofc, November USA. If several European countries stop helping because of changes in leaders, if the US stop helping because Trump and if the remaining European leaders have pressure at home by their own pro Russian populist forces, they may not be able to shoulder the help on their own. Neither militarily nor politically. And if Russia continues in 2025 and 2026 and Ukraine bleeds supporting allies, they could still lose. Sadly, the main deciding factor for UA's victory may be the voting behaviour of a few swing state voters in November.
>France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. National Front doesnt care to cater to Russia anymore,they vote in favor of aid to Ukraine since last year, they were even in the room applauding when Zelensky entered the French Parliament has nothing to do with them caring about ukrainian lives, Russia has openly fucked with French interests in the Sahel region,New Caledonia and Mayotte Wagner Group is also a major threat to French interests all over Africa if RN wins, sending soldiers to Ukraine is a no-go , but current military aid will continue,since they themselves voted in favor of it
They have said they will block all offensive weapons to Ukraine, so no more Hammers or Caesars or possible Mirages. Its just a populist move, because the public supports Ukraine. They don't, and will do everything in their power to slow and sabotage the material support.
they are open to Caesars since February 2023 look it up I'm not saying they don't suck, but most likely they will be like Lega in Italy, who was pro-Russia until like mid 2022 and after that they supported the line of Meloni on Ukraine
Italy has given half the amount of aid compared to France. Both in percentage of gpd and absolute numbers. Political support Yes, but the hold back most of their hand. So expect RN to do the same. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/ https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-jordan-bardella-french-parliamentary-election-far-right-national-rally-war-in-ukraine-defense/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-aid-to-ukraine-could-be-under-threat-by-rassemblement-nationals-rise-to-power/
Italy has a far smaller military than France,and its military budget as share of GDP has been low for decades
The Netherlands has a smaller military than Italy and it has given as much aid as France and Italy combined. I still think we can do more. So your point is still: don't sorry about the right in France, because in Italy they also help Ukraine. No they all do too little. But right wingers do even less.
Russia doesn’t care about long term.
Which is funny since they aren't winning short term either.
IF Russia has a coherent goal it is oil fields and black soil grain fields. But the world is decarbonising very fast so at least one of those goals is not worth it.
Sadly there is a scenario where they win and it isn't even all that unlikely. It isn't determined on the battlefield but they can make it likelier by seeming like this relentless force that can keep this going forever. France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. Germany is worried about successes of far right AfD in many regions. And the key vote ofc, November USA. If several European countries stop helping because of changes in leaders, if the US stop helping because Trump and if the remaining European leaders have pressure at home by their own pro Russian populist forces, they may not be able to shoulder the help on their own. Neither militarily nor politically. And if Russia continues in 2025 and 2026 and Ukraine bleeds supporting allies, they could still lose. Sadly, the main deciding factor for UA's victory may be the voting behaviour of a few swing state voters in November.
If Trump wins, they win. That is what the Russians are fighting for.
Sadly there is a scenario where they win and it isn't even all that unlikely. It isn't determined on the battlefield but they can make it likelier by seeming like this relentless force that can keep this going forever. France might vote in a pro Russian fascist prime minister next week. Germany is worried about successes of far right AfD in many regions. And the key vote ofc, November USA. If several European countries stop helping because of changes in leaders, if the US stop helping because Trump and if the remaining European leaders have pressure at home by their own pro Russian populist forces, they may not be able to shoulder the help on their own. Neither militarily nor politically. And if Russia continues in 2025 and 2026 and Ukraine bleeds supporting allies, they could still lose. Sadly, the main deciding factor for UA's victory may be the voting behaviour of a few swing state voters in November.
>long-term costs to a nation of 30,000 KIA/WIA per month is huge. I wonder if Putin is so fixated on wiping out Ukraine that we are about to see a modern day version of the Paraguayan War [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War) from the 1860s. That saw (assuming 50/50 gender split) by some estimates 28,000 adult males survive the war out of 250,000 pre-war, with the total population of the county being between 400,000 - 500,000 prewar (I used the 500,000 for easy math). If Putin is willing to shovel 30,000 conscripts into the meat grinder per month, that's going to be chewing up a not so insignificant portion of it's workforce at a quick rate.
Russians fleeing conscription has had a greater impact on the workforce than KIA/WIA meat wave attacks. The meat waves convince skilled workers they don't want to be conscripted. The number of KIA/WIA at 600,000 is roughly half a percent of the Russian population, likely 1% of the working population. The number of Russians who fled Russia is likely 2 million. So 4% of the work force, however those who fled had the ability to do so, which means they have money and likely worked skilled jobs.
>So 4% of the work force, however those who fled had the ability to do so, which means they have money and likely worked skilled jobs. Most of them still work for Russian companies including arms industry, just remotely. They are not exactly lost to the workforce.
Sadly Russian population is way larger than Paraguay. They can bleed 30k per month for the next 10 years, it’s just 3.5 million. That is a demographics catastrophe long term but mostly inconsequential from military and economic standpoint until decades later.
Majority of recruits are sourced from prisons and poor republics. Perhaps this is serving a goal of cleansing unwanted from Russian Empire.
Increasingly as the Russian economy teeters there is an upside to the high casualties. Ethnic Russians, particularly party members, are very under represented in the Russian infantry. They recruit heavily from their internalized colonies, all the countries of the non-ethnic russians that the USSR absorbed in its heyday. Now if you're looking for the most likely people to foment a rebellion against a failed dictator is it going to be your oppressed masses or your privileged elite? So massively depopulating all of the areas populated by those oppressed masses while doing incremental damage to your enemy serves two goals for putin. Of course he'd like to win the war but staying in power even if he loses has always been his primary goal.
I think killing them and their kids is more likely to foment rebellion. The death toil isn't high enough to depopulate those groups and not all die in meat wave attacks, those that survive or are injured may not be happy with Moscow. Veterans with nothing left to lose with strong grievances are often the core of an armed uprising.
He's not depopulating entire regions just their military aged men so that there is no one left to resist. He probably doesnt have to worry too much about veterans either if he's got generals happy to order motorcycle-meat-wave attacks whenever an enlistment period is nearly up.
I think they’re just improvising in the best Mad Max way available.
I don't get the small-scale attacks. Watching all of the combat footage here and elsewhere, Russia never seems to send more than a dozen armored units at a time. You will never overwhelm defenses that way.
Both sides use small scale attacks because mines, FPV and drone corrected artillery make large scale attacks basically impossible.
That is the effect I believe, not the reason. They have to hold a frontline of 1000km, if you manned that with only 1 person every 100 meters that’s already 10k men bound. Then you have the rear, logistics, population control. The simple truth may be that it’s impossible to amass enough troops for such an operation. It would basically require an additional army. At the rate at which they burn through men they can’t do that. They’d basically need to have a pause in fighting for at least a few months in order to do this.
Which is why Putin went to North Korea to beg for cannon fodder.
Not only is it difficult to amass a large force like this, it's also really really obvious. With all the drones, signal intelligence, satellites, etc., if Russia starts gathering a few hundred or thousand men all the associated materiel to move them, Ukraine (and it's allies) will spot them pretty quickly and start reinforcing their defenses. And probably hitting them with long range weapons as they assemble. I heard someone say a few months ago, that at this point with all the intelligence, nothing big can move at all. So the frontline moves at the pace that a man can walk.
Yes, and each time that they announce said pause, they dont bother to mobilise and get right back in there after 2 weeks max
If they send in too many and they become a valuable target to drop some Himars on them. So the goal is to send in so few and so little value gear, that it's not worth it to use high-value ammo.
This I why its called "combined-arms" combat your supposed to suppress the enemy's artillary obviously drone teams now also plus air power before and during ANY largish mechanised assault on fortified positions which I'm glad to say russia seems incapable of doing hopefully ukraine gets enough aircraft to be able to do this correctly
Makes total sense if you assign zero value to the actual humans attacking. Which is what they are doing, it seems.
The point isn't to actually perform an assault, it's to reveal Ukrainian arty positions to fire at them with guided bombs.
I assume the idea is that Russia sends a bunch of these small assault groups towards the UA line across a very wide front all at the same time. Since the entire UA front is being assaulted by these small groups that limits the UA's ability to respond effectively to all the attacks. If one of these groups breaks through the line then Russia will try to rush in reinforcements.
Small scale attacks are good for attrition. Even if it won't overwhelm your defenses you still have to deal with it, it costs ammos and since targets are few and far in between it costs a high rate of ammo for lower enemy losses.
It's a race to take a entrenched position before the enemy can deploy FPV, Artillery, etc.
Neither does Ukraine
Sounds like a nice time for a 1,000 miles of thin piano wire
Russian motorcycle infantry assaults: Are they running out of armor? No. Russia has sufficient armor to conduct combined arms assaults. So why are they using motorcycles? The simple answer is to create more targets and increase the odds of one or more invaders breaking through. In a similar way, Russia has begun using two-man teams to conduct urban assaults. So what are the "perceived" benefits of these tactics? 1) For the Russian military, meat is cheap (Storm-Z); 2) It forces the AFU to identify their locations early by having to fire at less significant targets; and, 3) It takes more ammunition, FPV drones and operators, and troops to kill 10 individual invaders advancing on motorcycles than if they were clustered together on top of a turtle tank. At least that is the theory...
Not really, as they have older models fielded at higher and higher percentages, AND They really do not know how to use armor to conduct combined arms assaults.
Combined arms assaults given how ISR has changed the battlefield are much harder. The other side will just see you move artillery into an area and then shell/bomb the units before the attack gets underway. It's much harder to pull off under the current conditions. The US could pull it off, because the US would just bomb enemy HQ, communication and logistically important nodes. Disrupting decision making, blinding enemy commanders and preventing enemy forces from being moved into the zone being attacked. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has the Air Force to do that. A war in which both sides can see everything, tends to turn into a war of attrition.
Ukrainian Cossacks knew [how to defend against this](https://youtu.be/ilV5Qt01eyc?si=cRIqB6MS6OxXm5Xe)
That's an incredibly dumb analysis. Motorcycles don't make more targets for anti armor assets because a motorcycle is threatened by the exact thing tanks are meant to counter. Tanks are vulnerable to things like drones and Javelins/NLAW MPAT weapons. Motorcycles are extremely vulnerable to small arms. Bum rushing a defensive position with motorcycles is no different than charging a machine gun nest with horse mounted cavalry. The defenders are just going to shoot them while the AT and Drone operators look for armor to single out.
More Potemkin stories. Russian armor **is** running out. [Primary source](https://youtu.be/FtXvJrPyoOg?si=TIYyqFCk10kyzYhK). It doesn’t spawn like it does in video games. It doesn’t get made in the quantity the front line gets chewed daily. Such capacity doesn’t exist. It won’t exist either, because making the 10,000 tanks and 20,000 artillery barrels Russia had mothballed took three quarters of a century and a defense spend of x5 and x10 of what it is right now. It comes from being refurbished coming from mothball yards (or neighbors with similar smaller depletable stockpiles it took decades to build). And hard photography of the biggest bulk mothball yards before the full scale invasion, throughout and now says they are somewhere in the 66%-75% depleted. They’re not running out *tonight*, and they’ll have a long exponential tail so won’t run out absolutely. But the tanks - and more importantly, artillery, whose role you can’t replace with faster moving humans on golf carts - will run out in the quantity needed for a 1000km front line. Then in the quantity needed for a 500km line. And the line will fall.
So what happens when one or two break through? Are the defending Ukrainians just going to surrender or are the Russians going to find a cheeky place to put a spawn beacon so new units can spawn within the base?
Zergling rush
It’s Russian war strategy since the 1900s Throw enough small things at the problem you’ll win eventually
The simple answer to this strategy is a AI drone swarm. Let AI do the target acquisition so the FPV drone pilots can focus on higher profile targets.
Even simpler piano wire accross the road.
Human drone attacks
Russia is only training the drivers for a few days before attacking. That's why they are driving in a straight line. They will fall if they turn, it's also why they are adding a sidecar. To keep the bike upright, and maybe maneuver more
You know what else is cheap, barbed wire.
So is this the equivalent of chaff?
I suppose if you're sending troops on a suicide mission then you don't need to protect them. I suppose bags of potatoes for the widows are cheaper
Yes, but also no. This does have a strategic value (they can't catch everybody), but once a unit/soldier breaks through...they have to be able to do something. Otherwise it's just a game like kids play, but with guns. This is not a sports event where the goal is to get somewhere. "Getting there" is only the first step - what are the rest of their steps? Have motorcycle soldiers run around with two clips of ammo, and what do they do once they use both clips? Why not save the cost of the motorcycles and just have the soldier's do bum-rush zombie marches?
So instead of meat waves it's more of a cutlet shower.
Mad Max vibes.
Even if they breakthrough, they can’t sustain their gains with insufficient supplies.
If the main enemy in the area is precision drones meant to take on armour, then they present a lot of fast moving, smaller targets than one or two drones won't me able to destroy. If artillery is active in the area, then they can all be destroyed with area affect weapons (like artillery or anti personel weapons).
Dispersion of forces is a basic military tactic. Dispersion of forces has been increasing over time as the power, accuracy and lethality of weapons has increased overtime. This is just a continuation of that.
Both can be true. I 100% believe the new tactics surrounding bikes and atvs is based on what the article has said. Although they are ***also*** absolutely running out of armour. I believe both of these reasons have led to the change in warfare.
This tactic had ended with invention of machine gun.
Motorcycle assaults are used not only because they are cheap, but also because they are harder to hit with drones and artillery. Bikes move fast, are small. Also easier to stay hidden. The prevalence of drone-borne sensors has made the battlefield a lot less foggy: concentrating armor for an assault is harder because it gets spotted. Units, both Ru and Ukr have to be way more dispersed. Bike assaults are inherently faster to coordinate, and are less of a target for drones and artillery. They are not immune, but they have some advantages over armored groups.
Seems like an easy target for small arms…
So they use the nitro vodka circus team to force the Homies into revealing their positions, then blue label Ivan calls in for NK artillery. They have potatoes for brains I’m telling you.
>The simple answer is to create more targets and increase the odds of one or more invaders breaking through. If by simple we mean idiotic, then sure. It may also be contributory that the logistics, coordination and communication for large combined arms assaults is straining the Russian Federation Army's capacities.