Originally Posted by
ORAC
Ukraine mobilised about a million men after the invasion when they went on a full war footing. They’ve been training since last summer. The absence of any Ukrainian offensive might be indicative of how many troops have been involved in training roles. Plus of course those trained in the UK, Poland etc.
Theyve all been equipped with top line personal equipment by NATO countries, the shortage is artillery and armour - but that’s also been arriving from the USA etc.
They started with around 250K men, so even believing 100K casualties they should have over 1 million trained troops available.
On the other side Russia started with about 200K deployed troops - the cream of their standing army of about 350K. They’ve lost about 200K of those. They’ve mobilised around 300K, but as reported extensively they’ve been fed untrained straight to the front and they are currently losing around 600-1000 a day in their offensives against static Ukrainian defences. That’s about a division a week.
Best estimates are Russia currently has about 300K men dispersed across all fronts in Ukraine with no real training establishment left in Russia. Similarly they have no inflow of new equipment. They have a couple of factories refurbishing old T-64 tanks etc, but no major arms production facilities to expand that with new equipment.
Any further recruits can expect to be also thrown directly t9 the front untrained and ill or unequipped.
Result? A Russian army outnumbered 3 to 1, when it needs to be the other way around to start an offensive and increasing not only outranges but outnumbered in artillery on which they rely.
Putin is expected to start an offensive in the next few days. There are no reports of mass troop or armour concentrations near the front (which would be being decimated by HIMARS), so even a local major breakthrough seems unlikely. If they attack uncoordinated across all fronts their current loses rates can be expected to rocket.
From "Attack by Stratagem", Sun Tzu in the Art of War:
It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.
If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.
Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.
Surprising that a text written about 2,500 years ago remains mostly valid today.