Russia - threadbanned users in OP

General Mark Hertling (former commander of the US Army in Europe) says he's had his suspicions for over a decade that the Russian army was of a very poor calibre. He's basing this on personal experiences too - he visited Russia on three different occasions and was shown around military installations, watched Russian troops training etc.

It's not about writing it's about analysis. Over the last 2-3 pages on this thread you have posted 10+ times and rattled off 15+ question's.

Tell me this 200k troops that you think he can field. What will they be armed with. Will they have access to APV'S and trucks to get them to the front line.

Will they all have bullet proof vests like the US and the other western armies provide it's troops. Will they have tanks, artillery, radios ( even the unencrypted ones the Russian army use at present), trained officer's and experienced NCO's.

Russia has the largest land border of any country. It borders China which it has to be wary of. It's involved in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, the Congo, Moldova as well as Ukraine.

It's Wagner group was supposed to similar to the US military contractor system. They are probably not as capable as professional soldiers from any Western nation. They are basically enforces for the regime. These are the losses of the Russian army in the last six months from sources on the net

Personnel – 43750 (+200)

Tanks – 1876 (+12)

Armored Fighting Vehicles – 4141 (+15)

Artillery Systems – 985 (+5)

Multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) — 261 (+0)

Means of air defense – 136 (+0)

Aircraft – 233 (+0)

Helicopters – 195 (+1)

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operational-tactical level – 787 (+3)

Cruise Missiles – 187 (+0)

Ships/Boats – 15 (+0)

Automotive equipment and tank trucks – 3044 (+5)

Special Technique – 92 (+1).

The other problem it's now facing is that any tanks or APV's still at the front are reaching factory overhaul timing and may need to be pulled. Because it used non precision artillery bombardment's to try to bomb Ukraine into submission many of its artillery pieces need barrel changes which they do not have it seems.

If they send 200 k troops into the Ukraine it's the Zulus against the Redcoats and we know how that ended.

Yeah but nuclear war chief.

That’s not good.

Have you ever noticed that lots of different news websites will all report the same news stories at more or less the same time? Do you think that each of these does independent research to confirm facts and then they all simultaneously reach the same conclusions and then independently report the same story, amazingly, using exactly the same wording and photos?

I'll let you in on a little secret, only one of them comes up with the story, the rest just cut and paste it. It's the same with stuff like Russian force estimates - and they are only estimates. Probably only one or three security services actually have the resources to come up with the estimates, and most won't make those estimates public. So while you are trying to justify your numbers with a claim that numerous sources back them up, your claim is false - they are just all echoing the one source capable of making the estimates.

The CIA are prone to exageration, because it serves a purpose of unnerving the US public and politicians and making it easier to get approval for large defence expenditure. This CIA exageration was quite prevalent during the cold war. The Russians also exagerated their numbers as it also served their purposes to appear like a more serious threat and therefor be taken more seriosly.

Did you know that during the cold war, the official population of Russia was supposedly 225 million, and that Moscow was a city of 5 million? The science fiction author Robert Heinlein actually went on a holiday with his fluent Russian speaking wife to the USSR in 1960 and did some private investigating to try and confirm the nubers and came to the conclusion that Moscow probably only had a population of about 600,000 and that the population was probably a lot less than claimed. He was right.

"but Soviet military manning and procurement was never as robust as the CIA estimated. The CIA depiction of a Soviet military Goliath with global reach and even control of international terrorism bolstered Reagan’s portrayal of an “evil empire.” CIA publications regularly discussed a “relentless Soviet buildup” and a “disquieting index of Soviet intentions,” which reflected institutional bias and not reality. CIA distortions of military issues also contributed to delays in disarmament negotiation with the Soviet Union" https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/25/intelligence-and-ideology-the-exaggeration-of-the-threat/

Have you heard about the very serious issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

The CIA factbook probably should be taken with several pinches of salt.

Oh, and this tells you a lot about Russian military might:

"Vladimir Putin offers one million rubles to Russian mothers with 10 children as the country battles a demographic crisis

President Vladimir Putin is offering a one-off payment to Russian mothers who have given birth to 10 or more children as a way to address the country's demographic crisis. - August 19, 2022" https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/vladimir-putin-offers-one-million-rubles-to-russian-mothers-with-10-children-as-the-country-battles-a-demographic-crisis/news-story/062f502d80957b7d913a1ecd06df6d32

The main issue with Russia declaring a war is that the current "special military operation" is actually a bullshit term. It's already a full-blown war. Russia declaring war would indeed allow them to mobilise reserves, and go to war production, but there isn't exactly anything stopping them from doing all that at any point right now.

If their production goes to "war mode", then sure, they'll have new tanks, guns and ammo, but not any time soon. The same with mobilisation, it takes a long time call troops, equip them, and train them to a basic level, and then move them to the war zone. None of this is going to happen this year, even if they started right now.

Then there's the matter of sanctions - I'm sure they can get some parts needed for production, but it's not simple.

It's true Russia didn't have enough troops to start a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Yet they did. That's why it hasn't gone great for them. Maybe they can gather up more strength, and re-launch their offensive, but who thinks they'll do better next time?

Must have been transporting ammo

Stop with the nonsense, Putin wanted all of Ukraine but got stopped.

Now he has a somewhat larger chunk than he had last Christmas but is getting pummeled all along the front line and will most likely lose a chunk of what he controls now by the end of the year.

How do you assess that? Nobody seems to know what Russia's objectives are/ were/ will be with this 'special operation'. Do they know themselves? Variously we hear that they regard the whole of Ukraine as Russian territory and they'd also have their eyes on all the Baltic states as they regard this as part of their heritage & empire. This is an imperialist war, driven by a desire to expand territory and command natural assets. Nothing else.

Putin's only weapon this winter is gas, gas and gas.

You say above he could throw in thousands more troops into a winter campaign - sheer madness.

So Kiev and Odessa were never targets ?