re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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So if a modern army ( like the US) sent in 200k ground troops for a full scale invasion nearly 50% would be support troops ? Astonishing what it takes to keep modern combat units effective.

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Yep. It takes a lot of support to keep one man militarily useful.

"An army marches on its stomach." -- Napoleon Bonaparte
"Where are all these fricking Russians coming from and why is it so goddamned cold?!" -- Also Napoleon Bonaparte

I also note that Russia sent Mariupol an ultimatum to surrender three days ago. The defenders dismissed the ultimatum and Russia hasn't made any headway since. It seems to have been a bluff.

There may not be much left of Mariupol soon enough, with Russia openly declaring that they are "cleansing" the city of "Nazis" and "bandits" now.

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Probably a third to a half of the initial invasion force were combat arms if they are structured anything like most other modern armies.
So if a modern army ( like the US) sent in 200k ground troops for a full scale invasion nearly 50% would be support troops ? Astonishing what it takes to keep modern combat units effective.

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Probably at least that. Tooth to tail in the U.S. Army stands somewhere in the 1:10 to 1:12 range as a standing force (i.e., not deployed), if I remember correctly. We typically roll with something in the 35 - 45 Brigade Combat Teams (BCT's) on active duty at any one time + 9 Marine RCT's + 5 SF Groups + a Ranger Regiment + whatever other mish mash SOF units roll around out there.

If you do the math and account for a million different nuances, we typically stand with ~100,000 - 150,000 combat arms soldiers and Marines in our active units at any one time (was closer to 150,000 at the height of the Iraq War if I remember correctly).

Ours is bigger than the Russian military, but I'll take an educated guess and say they likely have a sharper tooth to tail ratio (generally, the more modern a force, the longer the tail usually is); maybe in the 5:1 - 7:1 range? That still doesn't leave a lot of combat arms units for them to leverage if they're getting chewed up at the rate of 10,000 casualties / week. They don't have the money or manpower to sustain that for more than another few months even if they start throwing in all of their reservists.

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55km in two days is damn near a route.

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55 - 30 is 25.

25km in two days.

Unless I read it wrong.

Still impressive.

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There may not be much left of Mariupol soon enough, with Russia openly declaring that they are "cleansing" the city of "Nazis" and "bandits" now.

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Drone footage looks really bleak. LINK

Putin's Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He's Holding Back. Here's Why

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As destructive as the Ukraine war is, Russia is causing less damage and killing fewer civilians than it could, U.S. intelligence experts say.

Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act. […] Understanding the thinking behind Russia’s limited attacks could help map a path towards peace, experts say.


In nearly a month since Russia invaded, dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns have fallen, and the fight over the country’s largest cities continues. United Nations human rights specialists say that some 900 civilians have died in the fighting (U.S. intelligence puts that number at least five times UN estimates). About 6.5 million Ukrainians have also become internally displaced (15 percent of the entire population), half of them leaving the country to find safety.

“The destruction is massive,” a senior analyst working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) tells Newsweek, “especially when compared with what Europeans and Americans are used to seeing.”

But, the analyst says, the damage associated with a contested ground war involving peer opponents shouldn’t blind people to what is really happening. (The analyst requested anonymity in order to speak about classified matters.) “The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets.”

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Looks like they gained 15 miles if breathing room. With this and the encirclement Ukraine had a pretty decent day.

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LINK

That was the map as of yesterday. Russia has been trying to cut off the UAF forces in Chernihiv which has stalled the Russian pincher that was supposed to encircle Kyiv from the east. If this news about pushing Russian forces an additional 15 km away from the eastern is true then it is big news because the Ukies have pushed the Russians away from the M01. The M01 highway is a nice 4 lane highway that was just completely repaved last year and was suppose to be the main artery of advance for the Russians, but has been a major supply route for the Ukies.

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The Ukies have captured themselves some encrypted Russian radios from a Spetznaz team in the Kyiv area.

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GumboPot

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Here is another Kremlin mouthpiece right on time.