Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Now that’s a very very good point. History could well repeat itself.

Jesus that’s impressive, do you have a link or anything to this, I’d like to know more.

Individual people powering their homes via Russian carbon fuels have little enough choice in what their utility provider sources.

Those trading off the back of Russian currency rates are making deliberate choices and are pure scum. With their hands dipped in blood.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/american-commandos-russian-mercenaries-syria.html

It happened over an oilfield

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham&ved=2ahUKEwjR_7yL9bH4AhUHacAKHWHuAJMQFnoECE0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1z6D5J8OizO4PDzCADiDYV

I’d posit that it’s not so much the equipment but the Command & Control and leadership capabilities that were the deciding factor. Iraq in particular had a very centralised C2 system, both prior to Desert Storm and afterwards. One of the major surprises that came out of Desert Storm was how quickly that system collapsed, first for the air defense forces and later for the ground forces. Back when I was younger, I read a book called “Every Man a Tiger”, the memoirs of USAF General Chuck Horner, the architect of the air war against Iraq during Desert Storm. It is naturally slanted towards the US viewpoint, but he clearly describes that during the planning phase, USAF planners expected KARI, the Iraqi integrated air defense system, to be a threat much longer than it actually was. When the system effectively collapsed within the first week of concentrated air strikes, it led to a lot of confused commanders in Coalition headquarters in Riyadh.

It was a similar story on the ground. Whilst I’m not an expert on ground warfare and so am naturally open to correction by users who are more experienced in that field, it seems to me that Coalition success at the Battle of 73 Easting during the ground phase of Desert Storm, whilst certainly helped by superior western equipment, was due to better reconnaissance, coordination and leadership, with US tank and even scout units regularly surprising unprepared Iraqi units. To me, the descriptions of said battle read like Iraqi units were waiting for orders from further on high, while Coalition units were routinely able to act on their own initiative and take advantage of opportunities on the battlefield.

This goes back to something I’ve said repeatedly in other posts here. Whilst equipment is of course a key factor on a modern battlefield, training, leadership and tactical freedom are equally important. When on-scene commanders, be they the COs of brigades, companies, or even platoon leaders, have the tactical training to recognise an opportunity, and the freedom to exploit that opportunity without having to wait for orders to go all the way up to division or even theatre HQ, this will carry just as much weight as having a few extra tanks. That is something the Russians are lacking and that the Ukrainians have learned the hard way. We’ve seen it time and time again in this war, small fireteams taking advantage of openings on the battlefield and exploiting them right then and there, often inflicting outsize casualties on the Russians.

I just hope that Ukrainian leadership hasn’t fallen into the trap of trying to micromanage the war, now that Kyiv is out of the direct firing line, and giving the Russians the type of fight that suits Russian doctrine. With some of the news that I’m hearing out of Severodonetsk, it comes across that way at times.

Medvedev sounds like some cheap hack writing for the Sun or the Daily Express. It's amazing to think this is a former "president" speaking - they're a nation of yobs.

Yeah I just realised it was behind a paywall but I was able to read it without a subscription the first time for some reason. Anyway as "Bass Reeves" mentioned above the wagners group were trying to take an oilfield. Some other things I had heard were that thee Marines had spent some hours literally begging the Russians to withdraw or not to attack, not out of fear but out of confidence in their own ability to destroy. They did not want to slaughter the Russians but were left with no choice and then about 30 minutes into the intense counter attack the Russians were on the radio to the Marines begging them to stop.

On paper it was an armoured Russian/Syrian Battlegroup of 500 with T72 tanks vs a platoon of Marines and Commandos, but everything about the Russian army is on paper. They do not do combined arms, the Marines brought artillery and airpower down on them and destroyed them in minutes. That is what would happen if Russian sent an army into Poland/Lativia/Lithuania/Finland/Norway/Bulgaria if they are not capable of protecting skies in Ukraine from MIG29s they would be slaughtered when they try go up against Eurofighter/F16s/F35s.

translation:

"Surrealism. Citizens of the Russian Federation from the Free Russia Legion fighting for Ukraine captured Ukrainian citizens from the LDNR formations fighting for Russia"

It's such an old lesson that it's almost surprising now that all armies don't do it: train the troops well and encourage small-unit initiative. While the Germans in WW2 are often thought of as having been mindlessly obedient automatons under the Nazis, in fact individual initiative was very much encouraged. While orders in the Allied armies tended to be quite prescriptive e.g. "attack the village at this time, from this direction, in this formation", German orders were much more mission-oriented e.g. "take the village by 0800"; the local commander on the spot being left to work out the details himself, since he was the closest to the situation and knew the ground best. Known as "auftragstaktik" (in the west as "Mission Command"), this is one of the things that made the Germans so effective in the attack and on the defence, and was the approach also used by Napoleon when issuing orders.

Also...

These factors appear to be in play in Ukraine at the moment. Let's hope that if they are, the Ukrainians don't let their advantage slip.

The Russians killed about 1 in 3 Afghan men in the 80s

The analogy I was speaking of would not even involve US troops. European Nato troops are trained to pretty much the same standard and with pretty much the same leadership and equipment. Russians and Ukrainians are testing one anothers armies to the limits.

European NATO troops would destroy any Russian invasion without US troops. "Burgerface"s rereg is living in a 1975 fantasy world regarding the ability of the Russian Army.

It would not be a big effort