i was unaware that there were any posting here.
Omnibus Russia Ukraine crisis
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
Yeah sure - but they need to be mobilized and that's only just happening now - the initial invasion was done by russian troops.
Now - there is a HUGE difference between the national guard and the russian reserves. As i understand it for the most part they had ONE year of training on whatever they learned to fight with, be it guns or tanks etc. And then became 'reservists' when they left the army. Unlike the national guard they don't practice regularly after that. And nobody would pretend the national guard is as competent as regular American forces who do that stuff daily - they might be very good for reservists but they won't be as good as the full time military people.
You definitiely can't throw russian reservists into battle and expect them to do as well as the regular troops who just completed their training. They might not do MUCH worse but they're not going to do better. And 200,000 of those guys already failed, so i'm just not sure what putin is hoping out of this batch.
Does he even have winter clothes for them all?
When war is declared the regular army gets mobilized. Until then its all through Wagner and Territorial Defense using conscripts and contract volunteers.
Rosgvardiya
Rosgvardiya (Russian: Росгвардия) is the internal military force of Russia, comprising an independent agency that reports directly to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin under his powers as Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of the Security Council.[2]
The National Guard is separate from the Russian Armed Forces.[2] A law signed by President Vladimir Putin established the federal executive body in 2016. The National Guard has the stated mission of securing Russia's borders, taking charge of gun control, combating terrorism and organized crime, protecting public order and guarding important state facilities.[3]
The establishment of the National Guard was seen[by whom?] as an effort to enhance efficiency and to avoid duplication of responsibilities within the Russian security system,[4] a result of an extensive assessment of strategic challenges facing Russia.[5]p. 6 Others have accused the Rosgvardyia of being an attempt by Vladimir Putin to create a private army to control civil strife or attempts of a colour revolution,[4] not only domestically but also abroad in friendly regimes.[6]
As of 2018 the National Guard numbered approximately 340,000 personnel in 84 units across Russia; it consolidated the forces of the MVD Internal Troops, SOBR, OMON and other internal military forces outside of the Russian Armed Forces.[1]
Rosgvardiya (Russian: Росгвардия) is the internal military force of Russia, comprising an independent agency that reports directly to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin under his powers as Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of the Security Council.[2]
The National Guard is separate from the Russian Armed Forces.[2] A law signed by President Vladimir Putin established the federal executive body in 2016. The National Guard has the stated mission of securing Russia's borders, taking charge of gun control, combating terrorism and organized crime, protecting public order and guarding important state facilities.[3]
The establishment of the National Guard was seen[by whom?] as an effort to enhance efficiency and to avoid duplication of responsibilities within the Russian security system,[4] a result of an extensive assessment of strategic challenges facing Russia.[5]p. 6 Others have accused the Rosgvardyia of being an attempt by Vladimir Putin to create a private army to control civil strife or attempts of a colour revolution,[4] not only domestically but also abroad in friendly regimes.[6]
As of 2018 the National Guard numbered approximately 340,000 personnel in 84 units across Russia; it consolidated the forces of the MVD Internal Troops, SOBR, OMON and other internal military forces outside of the Russian Armed Forces.[1]
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According to the FSB, 261,000 Russians have mobilized themselves out of Russia....
My point simply was you don't have to be regular army to be trained to fly combat a/c and operate MBTs. I never suggested that they'd be as effective as regular troops though. And clearly they're not in this case.
Sure, i mean the reservists WERE all regular army at one point. Service is compulsory after all and then you're automatically put into the reserves. So i don't disagree with you for the reserves being mobilized right now.
But, you have to remember the premise being offered was that the initial invasion was being done without the russian military, that it was all mercenaries (wagner) and volunteer convicts and the like. Because it would have been illegal for the military until war was declared.
The russian military would not have been interested in turning over their planes, choppers, tanks etc to a mercenary army of course. and those people wouldn't be trained to fly them etc. It's ridiculous. Using them here and there as additional troops is one thing, putting the entire invasion in their hands .... well, i don't know that we need to discuss how insane that idea is any further.
But yes i'm sure the reservists can drive a tank or fly a plane with a little refresher training, but as we seem to both agree it's not going to be nearly as effective as the front line soldiers who already got their butts handed to them and are currently losing.
So i'm back to wondering what putin is thinking. i mean MAYBE if he could surge them all in at once tomorrow, but it's going to take a long time to get them all organized, equipped, give them at least SOME refresher training and you don't move that many men to ukraine overnight. If they just show up slowly the Ukrainians are going to eat them alive faster than they did the regular russian forces.
Dude, if those were front-line Russians soldiers then Russia's neighbours have little to worry about, conventionally at least anyway. I've been watching footage of them and the Ukrainians and the Russian battle doctrine is either horribly pathetic or the troops were piss poorly trained with piss poor officers and NCOs.Sure, i mean the reservists WERE all regular army at one point. Service is compulsory after all and then you're automatically put into the reserves. So i don't disagree with you for the reserves being mobilized right now.
But, you have to remember the premise being offered was that the initial invasion was being done without the russian military, that it was all mercenaries (wagner) and volunteer convicts and the like. Because it would have been illegal for the military until war was declared.
The russian military would not have been interested in turning over their planes, choppers, tanks etc to a mercenary army of course. and those people wouldn't be trained to fly them etc. It's ridiculous. Using them here and there as additional troops is one thing, putting the entire invasion in their hands .... well, i don't know that we need to discuss how insane that idea is any further.
But yes i'm sure the reservists can drive a tank or fly a plane with a little refresher training, but as we seem to both agree it's not going to be nearly as effective as the front line soldiers who already got their butts handed to them and are currently losing.
So i'm back to wondering what putin is thinking. i mean MAYBE if he could surge them all in at once tomorrow, but it's going to take a long time to get them all organized, equipped, give them at least SOME refresher training and you don't move that many men to ukraine overnight. If they just show up slowly the Ukrainians are going to eat them alive faster than they did the regular russian forces.
Not to mention that most of their equipment is dated and outclassed by Western weapon systems. They keep losing a/c because they have a critical shortage of smart and guided munitions. Putin launched his "special military operation" when it was still the rainy season which meant his tanks would either bog down in the mud and become easy targets for an anti-tank strike or have to remain on the roads and become easy targets for ambushes.
Also, with the limited troop numbers he's been using he's trying to take and hold too much with too little. Although that could be because he grossly underestimated the Ukrainian response.
Way back on this thread there was a notion that Putin is like Hitler. I still disagree with that notion. Especially now because he looks more like Mussolini. Only in this case, Putin doesn't have a Hitler that will try to bail his ass out of his misadventure.
Well that has been commented. The Russians are being thoroughly embarrassed and the "Might" of their military is being called into question. And this isn't the first time they've under performed. Putin and others have been out frantically selling the latest russian gear because they don't want their vassal states and allies to stop believing the gear they give or sell them is any good.
It was only about 10 years ago that russia started to move away from a small core of professional soldiers who volunteered and mostly relying on conscripts (who used to serve for 2 years) to a larger volunteer army, people who intentionally sign a contract to serve. Some of their special teams are pretty serious professional soldiers but the quality over all isn't there. And it has been confirmed that some of the forces in the ukraine were actually this years' batch of conscripts who wouldn't even have had a full year's training yet.
The gear isn't as good as some russians would have people believe either - their tanks notably have little in the way of seperate ammo storage and tend to fireball and "jack in the box" when hit.
Yeah. There's often a 'late freeze' and i think they were counting on that but it didn't happen this year and that forced them to the roads, and that's death. And without a doubt their tactics are more suitable to an enemy armed with 1980's equipment. Drones, precision munitions and more accurate artillery have made for a very deadly combination. Obviously the plan was a simple steamroller - rush in, grab the capital Kviv, grab other key areas and infrastructure, force a surrender and call it a day all within 4 or 5 days.
Yes. It appears he believed that he could win in a week or less, and that wouldn't be enough time for other countries to send help. But they held on, and suddenly large amounts of the best gear started flooding in and the russians were in trouble.
Haha - yes, very interesting comparison.
For putin, he HAD to win the war in a week or less. obviously somehow he or the people around him believed that was entirely possible. But Ukraine knew the war was coming, everyone did, and they obviously came up with a winning counter strategy.
And they had some luck. Weather favored them, and there was the 'miracle at kviv" where a young kid and his dad were out flying a drone at night looking for the russians, spotted the main russian column heading for the city because a truck left it's lights on, and called the defense forces and gave a precise location and the artillery ate the column alive.
MSN
www.msn.com
After that a network of drone operators was created and it changed the face of the war permanently.
But without a doubt this not only makes putin look bad, it makes their military look absolutely horrible.
Russia never expected this to last more than a week, the whole strategy was to capture Kiev, take down Zelensky, have some show trials showing that Ukraine is full of Nazi's and install a pro-Russian Gov.