Russian Invasion of Ukraine - tactics and logistics

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It wll be interestng to see what Barbos thnks about this. How the story told to Russians is different than the story told elsewhere.

I'll take a stab. "It is a most unfortunate accident. Glory to the sailors defending us from Nazis."

 

[Patooka]

It wll be interestng to see what Barbos thnks about this. How the story told to Russians is different than the story told elsewhere.

"The glorious crew of the Moskva sacrificed themselves by ramming into the Ukrainian Nazi Death Star, saving all of humanity."

 

[ZiprHead]

I read somewhere that the ship had a crew of almost 500 but only about 50 were retrieved from the water. I can't find it now to confirm.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I heard that as well. Early reports made it seem that the crew mostly escaped unharmed due to a fire out of control. It doesn't add up. If the ammunition explodes that likely kills a lot of crew. Maybe a handful is all that escaped alive.

 

[Copernicus]

I read somewhere that the ship had a crew of almost 500 but only about 50 were retrieved from the water. I can't find it now to confirm.

The reporting is murky, and Russia is obviously trying to cover up its embarrassment over the loss of its flagship. They have reported that over 500 sailors were evacuated, the fire put out, the ship being towed, etc. However, it seems that a Turkish ship was the first to arrive on the scene, and they were only able to rescue 54 of the crew.

"At 1.14 a.m., the cruiser lay on its side, and after half an hour, all the electricity went out. From 2 a.m., the Turkish ship evacuated 54 sailors from the cruiser, and at about 3 a.m., Turkiye and Romania reported that the ship had completely sunk. The related loss of Russian personnel is still unknown, although there were 485 crew on board (66 of them officers)," Anusauskas said.

See

Turkish ship rescued 54 sailors on damaged Russian naval cruiser Moskva​

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only reason you still have a country is your nukes.

I have a feeling we are going to find out if any of them still work.

I have a feeling that the answer is mostly going to be 'no'.

Nuclear weapons are very difficult and complex devices. There are a lot more ways to not have them work than there are to make them work - if that weren't the case, the Manhattan Project would have taken a couple of weeks and cost a few thousand bucks.

These are not weapons that can be expected to work after years of neglect, and they contain components that can be profitably sold on the black market, so exposure to corruption is even more debilitating.

I would be quite surprised if as many as half of Russia's nuclear weapons were able to actually cause a nuclear explosion.

Sadly, half of a lot is still a lot. Even a hundredth, or a thousandth, of their nuclear arsenal could seriously fuck up your entire day.

Disagree. Nuclear weapons aren't all that hard to build. The hard part is obtaining the U-235 (via isotope separation) or Pu-239 (via breeder reactor) to build it out of. You also need a nuclear physicist to design it. Neither of those will decay over time. The bomb itself will of course be subject to corrosion and the like and a few components will decay, but maintenance isn't that big a deal. I'd expect a lot more trouble with the delivery system than the bombs.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only reason you still have a country is your nukes.

I have a feeling we are going to find out if any of them still work.

I have a feeling that the answer is mostly going to be 'no'.

Nuclear weapons are very difficult and complex devices. There are a lot more ways to not have them work than there are to make them work - if that weren't the case, the Manhattan Project would have taken a couple of weeks and cost a few thousand bucks.

These are not weapons that can be expected to work after years of neglect, and they contain components that can be profitably sold on the black market, so exposure to corruption is even more debilitating.

I would be quite surprised if as many as half of Russia's nuclear weapons were able to actually cause a nuclear explosion.

Sadly, half of a lot is still a lot. Even a hundredth, or a thousandth, of their nuclear arsenal could seriously fuck up your entire day.

Very true, but it's a mute issue. We'll see their missiles in air. We'll retaliate before their missiles hit the ground. No more Russia. But also, no more world. I don't know. I'm pessimistic right now. Haven't had my coffee. But if the world can't 100% unite to stop an imperialist invader, maybe we deserve a nuclear fate.

You're being very pessimistic if you're expecting launch on warning.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Jokes aside, this is an amazing success for Ukraine. Although it doesn't help with the effort in Eastern Ukraine, it makes it less likely that Russia would be able to try to retake Odessa later. And it may make it easier to target other ships because Moskva's main function was air defense.

Most importantly, it's a huge propaganda victory. Only about 50 sailors were rescued, according to reports, so that means there could be over 400 casualties. I'm not happy about it but war is war.

And it shows how poorly Russian stuff is functioning. It had both long range and short range SAM launchers and CIWS guns. If Ukraine got through that without a swarm of missiles things were really not working well.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The only reason you still have a country is your nukes.

I have a feeling we are going to find out if any of them still work.

I have a feeling that the answer is mostly going to be 'no'.

Nuclear weapons are very difficult and complex devices. There are a lot more ways to not have them work than there are to make them work - if that weren't the case, the Manhattan Project would have taken a couple of weeks and cost a few thousand bucks.

These are not weapons that can be expected to work after years of neglect, and they contain components that can be profitably sold on the black market, so exposure to corruption is even more debilitating.

I would be quite surprised if as many as half of Russia's nuclear weapons were able to actually cause a nuclear explosion.

Sadly, half of a lot is still a lot. Even a hundredth, or a thousandth, of their nuclear arsenal could seriously fuck up your entire day.

Very true, but it's a mute issue. We'll see their missiles in air. We'll retaliate before their missiles hit the ground. No more Russia. But also, no more world. I don't know. I'm pessimistic right now. Haven't had my coffee. But if the world can't 100% unite to stop an imperialist invader, maybe we deserve a nuclear fate.

The world would keep going even if that happened. But it's very improbable to happen. Putin is not suicidal. And if he's removed, whoever replaces him is not suicidal, either.

 

[Copernicus]

...Putin is not suicidal. And if he's removed, whoever replaces him is not suicidal, either.

Nobody really knows that, and I don't understand why people keep saying it. It's not impossible that he is totally suicidal. Nobody really expected him to invade Ukraine, but he did. Let's not jump to unwarranted conclusions about the state of Putin's mind because we don't want to believe that he is suicidal or stark raving mad. If he were totally rational, Russia would not be invading a huge country like Ukraine in the hope that the war would only last a few days. Anyone who replaced him would need to find some way to put lipstick on the pig that this war has become.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

...Putin is not suicidal. And if he's removed, whoever replaces him is not suicidal, either.

Nobody really knows that, and I don't understand why people keep saying it. It's not impossible that he is totally suicidal. Nobody really expected him to invade Ukraine, but he did. Let's not jump to unwarranted conclusions about the state of Putin's mind because we don't want to believe that he is suicidal or stark raving mad. If he were totally rational, Russia would not be invading a huge country like Ukraine in the hope that the war would only last a few days. Anyone who replaced him would need to find some way to put lipstick on the pig that this war has become.

The assessment is warranted. It's based on observations of his behavior. Purely for example, he seems very concerned about his own safety, to the point of taking measures to prevent covid that are extreme and not warranted given vaccination. Is he worried about covid, or about getting killed in some other manner? I do not know, but he does seem pretty concerned about his own life and health, and definitely not trying to get killed. He's also very worried about his position, ruthlessly eliminating opponents he deems dangerous. And those are just examples. His behavior does not suggest that he is suicidal, and in fact provides overall evidence against that hypothesis (which already has a very low prior, as the vast majority of humans aren't suicidal, and that includes ruthless leaders).

Second, his view of a great Russia and restoring an empire does not seem to have changed. But he seems to have tried to speed up the process. Perhaps he is ill and does not have much time left in power and he knows it. Maybe it's something else. But in any case, he has always been trying to create some sort of greater Russia (under his iron fist, of course), rather than take action that would destroy Russia, and even he realizes that a full scale nuclear attack on the US would do just that.


Third, what do you mean no one expected him to invade Ukraine? The US and UK governments predicted it. And given the available info, it seemed very probable that he would attack, even weeks before he did. Moreover, it was already known that he invaded part of Ukraine in the past, in Crimea and part of the Donbas region.


Fourth, of course he is not totally rational. Very few people are; in the particular case of Putin, his view of a great Russia and his views of history or his assessment of what Western leaders intend, etc., appears epistemically irrational on the basis of the available evidence (I do not know that his prediction that Russia would win quickly was as irrational as it may look based on currently available info, though. Even a few days before the invasion, a quick victory - though at the cost of thousands of casualties - was predicted by US military experts). But then, he's also not irrational enough not to see that a full scale nuclear war would kill him and destroy Russia, and he loathes both outcomes.

 

[bilby]

The only reason you still have a country is your nukes.

I have a feeling we are going to find out if any of them still work.

I have a feeling that the answer is mostly going to be 'no'.

Nuclear weapons are very difficult and complex devices. There are a lot more ways to not have them work than there are to make them work - if that weren't the case, the Manhattan Project would have taken a couple of weeks and cost a few thousand bucks.

These are not weapons that can be expected to work after years of neglect, and they contain components that can be profitably sold on the black market, so exposure to corruption is even more debilitating.

I would be quite surprised if as many as half of Russia's nuclear weapons were able to actually cause a nuclear explosion.

Sadly, half of a lot is still a lot. Even a hundredth, or a thousandth, of their nuclear arsenal could seriously fuck up your entire day.

Disagree. Nuclear weapons aren't all that hard to build. The hard part is obtaining the U-235 (via isotope separation) or Pu-239 (via breeder reactor) to build it out of. You also need a nuclear physicist to design it. Neither of those will decay over time. The bomb itself will of course be subject to corrosion and the like and a few components will decay, but maintenance isn't that big a deal. I'd expect a lot more trouble with the delivery system than the bombs.

It's not the 1950s anymore. Nuclear weapons means H-bombs, not A-bombs; And Tritium decays fast enough to be a very important consideration when keeping a stockpile of weapons operational.

 

[bilby]

Jokes aside, this is an amazing success for Ukraine. Although it doesn't help with the effort in Eastern Ukraine, it makes it less likely that Russia would be able to try to retake Odessa later. And it may make it easier to target other ships because Moskva's main function was air defense.

Most importantly, it's a huge propaganda victory. Only about 50 sailors were rescued, according to reports, so that means there could be over 400 casualties. I'm not happy about it but war is war.

And it shows how poorly Russian stuff is functioning. It had both long range and short range SAM launchers and CIWS guns. If Ukraine got through that without a swarm of missiles things were really not working well.

CWIS only works if it's turned on. Ask the survivors of the HMS Sheffield.

 

[Copernicus]

...Putin is not suicidal. And if he's removed, whoever replaces him is not suicidal, either.

Nobody really knows that, and I don't understand why people keep saying it. It's not impossible that he is totally suicidal. Nobody really expected him to invade Ukraine, but he did. Let's not jump to unwarranted conclusions about the state of Putin's mind because we don't want to believe that he is suicidal or stark raving mad. If he were totally rational, Russia would not be invading a huge country like Ukraine in the hope that the war would only last a few days. Anyone who replaced him would need to find some way to put lipstick on the pig that this war has become.

The assessment is warranted. It's based on observations of his behavior. Purely for example, he seems very concerned about his own safety, to the point of taking measures to prevent covid that are extreme and not warranted given vaccination. Is he worried about covid, or about getting killed in some other manner? I do not know, but he does seem pretty concerned about his own life and health, and definitely not trying to get killed. He's also very worried about his position, ruthlessly eliminating opponents he deems dangerous. And those are just examples. His behavior does not suggest that he is suicidal, and in fact provides overall evidence against that hypothesis (which already has a very low prior, as the vast majority of humans aren't suicidal, and that includes ruthless leaders).

It's possible that his behavior only means that he is unwilling to relinquish control of power while he lives. While he is in power, he has no incentive to sequester himself in a bunker and commit suicide as his enemies close in. If he can't satisfy himself that he will go down in history as the greatest Tsar of "all the Russias", he might well see nuclear holocaust as the most desirable alternative.

Second, his view of a great Russia and restoring an empire does not seem to have changed. But he seems to have tried to speed up the process. Perhaps he is ill and does not have much time left in power and he knows it. Maybe it's something else. But in any case, he has always been trying to create some sort of greater Russia (under his iron fist, of course), rather than take action that would destroy Russia, and even he realizes that a full scale nuclear attack on the US would do just that.

But suppose that he sees his dream of achieving that legacy to be highly improbable. What would he do then? I don't pretend to know, and I don't think that we can risk the fate of the world on wishful thinking. People who are irrational don't always behave in the way that we expect.

Third, what do you mean no one expected him to invade Ukraine? The US and UK governments predicted it. And given the available info, it seemed very probable that he would attack, even weeks before he did. Moreover, it was already known that he invaded part of Ukraine in the past, in Crimea and part of the Donbas region.

Governments were making such predictions in public, but they did not behave as if an invasion were inevitable, and most people in both Russia and Ukraine, not to mention Western Europe, really didn't expect him to choose the option of going for the whole enchilada by attempting to seize Kyiv. Even his military seems to have been taken by surprise, because they really hadn't planned for this kind of full scale invasion. A lot of their behavior makes it look that they were frog-marched into launching that northern attack, which resulted in vehicles running out of fuel and troops going without adequate food supplies. The invasion in the south worked better only because they had short supply lines. Even people in this very thread (myself being one) had predicted that occupation would be nearly impossible to maintain even after a successful military invasion, but not even I believed that Ukraine would be so successful in stalling a full scale invasion and actually beating it back. Everyone was taken by surprise at the level of resistance that the Ukrainians were able to mount.

Fourth, of course he is not totally rational. Very few people are; in the particular case of Putin, his view of a great Russia and his views of history or his assessment of what Western leaders intend, etc., appears epistemically irrational on the basis of the available evidence (I do not know that his prediction that Russia would win quickly was as irrational as it may look based on currently available info, though. Even a few days before the invasion, a quick victory - though at the cost of thousands of casualties - was predicted by US military experts). But then, he's also not irrational enough not to see that a full scale nuclear war would kill him and destroy Russia, and he loathes both outcomes.

As I said, he might very well be making a desperate attempt to find any way possible to salvage victory from the jaws of defeat before committing suicide. He has nothing to lose, unless he voluntarily admits failure. The alternative to victory for him is suicide. If victory appears impossible, then he is Hitler in the bunker with a loaded gun. Only, in this case, his loaded gun is a nuclear arsenal. Should anyone survive a global nuclear war, then he would certainly have a lasting place in memory as long as human beings managed to eke out an existence in a post-nuclear dystopia.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Governments were making such predictions in public, but they did not behave as if an invasion were inevitable, and most people in both Russia and Ukraine, not to mention Western Europe, really didn't expect him to choose the option of going for the whole enchilada by attempting to seize Kyiv.

But they did behave as if an invasion was extremely probable. In fact, they withdrew their diplomats from Kyiv, and told their allies that an invasion was imminent. France had a different view, and Macron fired his Vidaud over his failure to understand what the US and UK did understand.

Everyone was taken by surprise at the level of resistance that the Ukrainians were able to mount.

Yes, that is true, which lessens considerably the degree of irrationality required to predict a quick victory. Even the US seemed to predict so, even though they also thought it would be very difficult to keep the occupied territory beyond Donbas.

As I said, he might very well be making a desperate attempt to find any way possible to salvage victory from the jaws of defeat before committing suicide.

As I said, many things are possible but very improbable.
Still, if that were the case, he would still have serious options before becoming suicidal (see above).

If victory appears impossible, then he is Hitler in the bunker with a loaded gun.

Why? Hitler would have been captured or killed by enemy forces. Enemy forces won't capture or kill Putin over Ukraine.

Only, in this case, his loaded gun is a nuclear arsenal.

Well, he does have a tactical nuclear arsenal that probably outnumbers the West's several times over. And it's close to the theater of operations. If he wants to go nuclear, it's small fission bombs in considerably large numbers fired from rocket launchers and the like, not strategic missiles with fusion warheads.

Should anyone survive a global nuclear war, then he would certainly have a lasting place in memory as long as human beings managed to eke out an existence in a post-nuclear dystopia.

As I mentioned, a global nuclear war is very improbable at this point. Putin's own change in strategy indicates that. Moreover, it's not even clear to me the orders would be followed.

But if it happened, chances are most people would survive. Do you think there is a significant chance that he would launch large numbers of nukes against China? India? Africa? South America? Iran, Iraq, Syria, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, etc.? Every nuke used to kill non-enemies is a nuke not used to kill enemies (well, except when the enemies and the non-enemies live side-by-side, but my point is there is no significant incentive to attack countries that are not enemies of Russia, even if they are not allies either; there are some exceptions e.g., countries whose governments recently turned on Putin, but even then more than a limited strike would be a waste of nukes that could instead be used against the US, UK, etc. ).

 

[Elixir]

Imagine a scenario wherein Pootey is located on or near the earth’s surface, and a MOAB or a tactical nuke is used to take him out.
Does his next-in-line order the launch of the entire Russian nuclear arsenal? Against whom?
Just wondering… doesn’t seem like that would make sense.

 

[Elixir]

Anyhow … came across this. The thread has become rather dark. I was almost hoping barbos would show up and tout the versatility of Russia’s Black Sea flagship:

 

[TV and credit cards]

Postulations.

So the loss of the Moskva lessens Russia's ability to strike distant targets: supplies and airfields. It may also force Russia to reconsider how close to shore they choose to place the rest of their ships. So on to Plan Д or is it E now?

Also, I've read Russia is having trouble conscripting more forces to engage in Operation Forlorn Hope. I surmise conscripts redeploying from the North/Northeast to the Donbas region must be seriously bummed out about their career trajectories. I don't think this Eastern assault is going to be the spectacle one might expect; that Russia will just have to throw forces in the fight as they become available. I do expect there to be much bombing/shelling with little Russian troop advancement. There just isn't the will for this level of personal risk. Russian foot soldiers are fighting at the crack of the whip. Every chance they get to hunker down, they will. Lobbing munitions from the rear; sure. Advancing on foot building to building; not so much.

 

[Elixir]

Advancing on foot building to building; not so much

… unless there is much looting and raping in the offing. Which there will be.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Advancing on foot building to building; not so much

… unless there is much looting and raping in the offing. Which there will be.

Yeah. I had a blurb about mercenaries in there but I edited it out. Your average kid conscripted in, pulled off the farm in Lower Slabbovia probably isn't this kind of person.