re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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So let me get this straight: Putin is not arrogant enough to use a nuke on a battalion or town, but is somehow arrogant enough that if we don’t stop him here that he’s going to take Poland and the rest of Europe? Have yall actually thought your positions through at all, because Putin is much less likely to get nuked wiping out an entire Ukrainian battalion using a MOAB or a nuke than he is invading Poland.

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There is a lot of stupidity to unravel in this post.

1st Putin isn't going to use tactical nukes in Ukraine. That would change the strategic calculus immediately. Hey may bluster and threaten, but he's not going to do it.

2nd. At this point, I do not think Russia has the combat ability to take on any further countries. There is zero chance he will push beyond Ukraine. This war has shown to anyone paying attention (except maybe Lima) that NATO would mop the floor with Russia. Russia would lose most of its air force and probably most of its navy within the first 48 hours.

3rd Do you understand the limited scale of a MOAB or Tactical nuke strike? Both impact a relatively small area and wouldn't wipe out a battalion on the battlefield. Not unless they were all standing in the same field when it hit. Using MOABs and tactical nukes will not result in any significant battlefield advantage due to their limited impact areas. The front is over 1000km long...a couple of kilometers doesn't make much difference. I believe a tactical nuke would hurt Russia far more than it would help.

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I don't think SOME serious people would agree with you

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You are certainly entitled to your opinion, I'm sure some serious people would agree with me.

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It’s limited in scope, will kill a shite ton of soldiers

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How many soldiers would you expect it to kill?

When the US did nuclear testing using soldiers 1 mile from ground zero, the results showed that infantry in trenches and bunkers didn't have anything to fear (not counting radiation exposure) from a nuclear blast...where are most of the Ukrainian soldiers?

Neither side appears prepared to operate in a post-nuclear environment, so any ground the Russians nuked would be unavailable to them as much as Ukraine.

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our conventional war fighting skills have atrophied over the last twenty plus years,

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I agree. Our warfighting skills and training have been focused on fighting jihadis in the desert. That is why the Army has made a major direction change and is focusing on large-scale peer-to-peer and near-peer warfare again.

I also agree that SOME of the US weapons are not functioning well in the war now due to Russian GPS Jamming. I don't think you can look at the performance of the Abrams we gave Ukraine and say that the US Army's Abrams would suffer similarly. The Army gave them the much less capable version, and Ukraine does not have the organizational history of combined arms operations that the US does. Anyone trying to draw direct comparisons is guilty of grossly underestimating the competition.

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How many soldiers would you expect it to kill?

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Depending on the concentration, maybe 7000-8000?

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When the US did nuclear testing using soldiers 1 mile from ground zero, the results showed that infantry in trenches and bunkers didn't have anything to fear (not counting radiation exposure) from a nuclear blast...where are most of the Ukrainian soldiers?

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Fair because they’re definitely in the trenches and bunkers, but going to need a second opinion how effective a MOAB or small nuke would be on the bunkers if hit within a mile or two.

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how effective a MOAB or small nuke would be on the bunkers if hit within a mile or two.

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MOAB= Blast radius of 1 mile.
Tactical nuke= Depends on yield
1 kiloton is about 400 meters
15 kiloton is about 1.5 km

Those are the numbers from a quick Google search.

There is nowhere on the battlefield with a high enough troop density for 7K soldiers taken out by a tactical nuke. You might get a few hundred.

Tac nukes don't have a very large impact radius. Strategic nukes do but that's even less likely to happen than a tactical nuke. And the chance of a tac nuke strike is 0%.

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I don't think serious people would agree with you, and I don't mean to be too glib but our conventional war fighting skills have atrophied over the last twenty plus years, and our equipment is not showing up well in Ukraine, and the Russians have specifically designed their equipment to frustrate ours, their dominance in the field of jamming for example would just play havoc with the way we expect to operate. I think it would be mess. Man for man the Russians are now more experienced than we are too. And then you get into the issue of sustaining the war. We have expeditionary armies that are designed to fight short high intensity conflicts. We'd run out of everything from spare parts to artillery ammunition trying to fight a serious conventional war. I think it would be a shite show.

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I know we don’t have the conventional force today as we did in my time over 30 years ago during the Cold War. But I disagree it would be a shite show if NATO and Russia finally came to blows. Would it be easy? No. But our forces, especially combat units, are are still better trained and equipped than their Russian counterparts.

Having said that though, I will agree with you that logistics would be an issue, especially since we’ve depleted a lot of our arms stocks sending aid to Ukraine. What would be required is a massive mobilization of not only military reserves but also industry. The big question is how well would our Western societies tolerate the strains of such a mobilization?

Russia has had a bad time with logistics versus Ukraine. How bad would it be with US AirPower dominating?