Ukraine - Russia Conflict

[Gordus]

Yes I have no doubt about that. The Black Sea Fleet was on my dream hit list since the start.
@Gordus just be careful with info from chuck pfarrer, he’s been caught out several times posting inaccurate info, I would double check everything he posts, I ended up blocking him, but that’s just me.

Thanks for the heads up pardus. I'll keep that in mind.

-

Was curious and did some quick ( rough ) math on the Russian documented vehicle ( total not just damaged ) losses according to current Oryx data.

Most notable losses are:

1359 tanks, including 788 T-72, 313 T-80 and 29 T-90.

If IIS 22 is correct, that is nearly 10% of the T-80 active and stored fleet combined. The vast majority of active T-80 tanks were thus taken out, also over 1/4 of active T-72s.
In theory, Russia has several hundred more T-90s, several thousand more T-80s and T-72s, it could throw at Ukraine. But those are just numbers and I don't think they want to waste so much of their, especialy more modern equipment, in such a localized conflict. When there are other actors, like China and NATO to be concerned about from their POV.

1268 IFVs, including 157 BMD-2, 56 BMD-4, +211 BMP-1, +593 BMP-2 and 175 BMP-3.

That would be nearly 1/3 of active BMP-2s. But like with T-72s, they allegedly have a stupid large number of BMPs and BMDs in an unknown state, stored away as reserves.

466 APCs, including 63 BTR-D, 124 BTR-80 and 319 BTR-82.

Notable here also, that BMD-2/4s and BTR-Ds are used only by Russian airborne troops. It seems they took a beating in the first few months.

647 vehicles titled as 'AFV' by Oryx. Mostly armored multi-role vehicles like the MT-LB, mainly logistics.

220 ( battery ) command & ( observation ) communications vehicles, also 16 radars.
Plus 251 SPHs and 148 MRLs.

60 fighter aircraft and 39 gunships.

1 guided missile cruiser.

The loss of many hundreds of trucks and other soft utility vehicles ( over 1800 vics ) on top of strikes against bridges, railroads, oil / munition depots and trains ( both in Ukraine and Russia/Russian occupied territory ), must have also heavily impaired Russian logistics.

 

[AWP]

I'm dumb (and waiting for a weekly Teams call with people I don't like), so I did more digging on the Russian OOB. I drew upon a couple of resources:

https://www.benning.army.mil/Armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Spring/ARMOR Spring 2017 edition.pdf (A fantastic article starts on page 9)

Russian Army operates around 170 battalion tactical groups — defense chief

If you have 170-ish Battalion Tactical Groups (I'll round up to an even 180) and each group has one tank company of 10 tanks each, that leaves us with 1800 tanks necessary for the ENTIRE Russian army. I think I've posted, or others have, that the Russians possess about 2000 active tanks with another 6000-8000 in reserve. If you have 1800 tied up in BTG's then the 2000 number sounds about right.

Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine

That puts Russia at 1306 destroyed or captured tanks. Assuming 2000 mission capable tanks at the beginning of the war (likely not that number, but we need a rough starting point) that's 65% of Russia's active tank force! Even counting for units pulled from storage, refurbed, and sent to the front that's...50 percent, 45, 40, 55...a shit ton of their active force.

If you assume 10,000 tanks in various stages of readiness for the entire country, that's 13 percent of its total force.

Imagine a world in which the US lost 1306 tanks. 1306 is 326 US tank platoons (a US tank platoon is 4, right?). If a US armor company is 14 tanks that's 93 companies.

Those are 1942 losses for the Russians. (Roughly 46 percent)

 

[BloodStripe]

I'm dumb (and waiting for a weekly Teams call with people I don't like), so I did more digging on the Russian OOB. I drew upon a couple of resources:

https://www.benning.army.mil/Armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Spring/ARMOR Spring 2017 edition.pdf (A fantastic article starts on page 9)

Russian Army operates around 170 battalion tactical groups — defense chief

If you have 170-ish Battalion Tactical Groups (I'll round up to an even 180) and each group has one tank company of 10 tanks each, that leaves us with 1800 tanks necessary for the ENTIRE Russian army. I think I've posted, or others have, that the Russians possess about 2000 active tanks with another 6000-8000 in reserve. If you have 1800 tied up in BTG's then the 2000 number sounds about right.

Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine

That puts Russia at 1306 destroyed or captured tanks. Assuming 2000 mission capable tanks at the beginning of the war (likely not that number, but we need a rough starting point) that's 65% of Russia's active tank force! Even counting for units pulled from storage, refurbed, and sent to the front that's...50 percent, 45, 40, 55...a shit ton of their active force.

If you assume 10,000 tanks in various stages of readiness for the entire country, that's 13 percent of its total force.

Imagine a world in which the US lost 1306 tanks. 1306 is 326 US tank platoons (a US tank platoon is 4, right?). If a US armor company is 14 tanks that's 93 companies.

Those are 1942 losses for the Russians. (Roughly 46 percent)

Ask the Marine Corps how it feels to lose all your tanks.

 

[Gordus]

I'm dumb (and waiting for a weekly Teams call with people I don't like), so I did more digging on the Russian OOB. I drew upon a couple of resources:

https://www.benning.army.mil/Armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Spring/ARMOR Spring 2017 edition.pdf (A fantastic article starts on page 9)

Russian Army operates around 170 battalion tactical groups — defense chief

If you have 170-ish Battalion Tactical Groups (I'll round up to an even 180) and each group has one tank company of 10 tanks each, that leaves us with 1800 tanks necessary for the ENTIRE Russian army. I think I've posted, or others have, that the Russians possess about 2000 active tanks with another 6000-8000 in reserve. If you have 1800 tied up in BTG's then the 2000 number sounds about right.

Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine

That puts Russia at 1306 destroyed or captured tanks. Assuming 2000 mission capable tanks at the beginning of the war (likely not that number, but we need a rough starting point) that's 65% of Russia's active tank force! Even counting for units pulled from storage, refurbed, and sent to the front that's...50 percent, 45, 40, 55...a shit ton of their active force.

If you assume 10,000 tanks in various stages of readiness for the entire country, that's 13 percent of its total force.

Imagine a world in which the US lost 1306 tanks. 1306 is 326 US tank platoons (a US tank platoon is 4, right?). If a US armor company is 14 tanks that's 93 companies.

Those are 1942 losses for the Russians. (Roughly 46 percent)

I was thinking the same. Those feel like WW scale losses. Crazy amount of material getting wrecked within months.

Nice, thanks for sharing. I'll go with your numbers and IISS. In 21 for example, they claimed the Russians had over 10,200 mostly T-72s and T-80s, plus about 200 T-90s, in storage. Russian sources on the other hand seem to always double those figures and I suspect those are just 'slightly' inflated, to intimidate.

 

[AWP]

I was thinking the same. Those feel like WW scale losses. Crazy amount of material getting wrecked within months.

Nice, thanks for sharing. I'll go with your numbers and IISS. In 21 for example, they claimed the Russians had over 10,200 mostly T-72s and T-80s, plus about 200 T-90s, in storage. Russian sources on the other hand seem to always double those figures and I suspect those are just 'slightly' inflated, to intimidate.

I would not be surprised if they had less than 10k at the start. If you take that number, whatever it may be, then Russia’s defense situation is dire which explain Russia’s nuclear posturing.

Putin’s worried he can’t defend Russia from external or even internal threats.

 

[DA SWO]

Do they NEED or want to get it from Russia? I understand that Russia is a vital supplier of Fertilizer but are there alternative suppliers? The energy supply from Russia situation went from vital to unnecessary in fairly short order, with some possible exceptions. I’m sure there are countries that need the goods and/or a cheaper price than elsewhere but some are openly supporting Russia which is unacceptable. The west should also help financially for countries that need help purchasing more expensive goods, this is the opportune time to make an investment into democracy that will help everyone long term.

Worldwide shortage, Ukraine, Russia and China are the leading exporters. China has throttled exports because they need it. Ukraine supply is effectively destroyed, unavailable. That leaves Russia.

Global economy.

FWIW- I had an ACSC class where the guest speaker said wars would become a thing of the past because of the global economy and multi-national corporations shutting governments down if they get too aggressive.

Made some sense then, but obviously did not age well.

 

[Jaknight]

I was thinking the same. Those feel like WW scale losses. Crazy amount of material getting wrecked within months.

Nice, thanks for sharing. I'll go with your numbers and IISS. In 21 for example, they claimed the Russians had over 10,200 mostly T-72s and T-80s, plus about 200 T-90s, in storage. Russian sources on the other hand seem to always double those figures and I suspect those are just 'slightly' inflated, to intimidate.

I have read that one of the reasons for the staggering losses in World War 1 is the combination of old tactics with new and better weaponry. I wonder if the same applies here and eventually tactics will help offset the losses or is this going to be standard for modern day nations going to war.

 

[Devildoc]

FWIW- I had an ACSC class where the guest speaker said wars would become a thing of the past because of the global economy and multi-national corporations shutting governments down if they get too aggressive.

Made some sense then, but obviously did not age well.

My mother had a cousin, he was a 3-war Marine: WW2, Korea, VN, retired E9. I loved his stories. He said he was furious when he was sent to Korea, not because he had to go to war, but because everyone had been told after Hiroshima and Nagasaki that wars would become a thing of the past. To quote you, "made some sense then, but obviously did not age well."

 

[Devildoc]

Some good analysis, and some..."interesting"...analysis:

Vladimir Putin's failed strategy

 

[Steve1839]

FWIW- I had an ACSC class where the guest speaker said wars would become a thing of the past because of the global economy and multi-national corporations shutting governments down if they get too aggressive.

When I was in the FA39 (now 37, 38?, nee FAO) program, I posited that the US should be independent in regards to the energy sources that fueled our economy and independent in our food supplies. The political science profs that ran the program responded as if I was advocating child abuse and drowning puppies. Interdependence was the key to a peaceful world, they said. Yeah, that shit worked out just fine...

 

[Muppet]

Ooops.

 

[ThunderHorse]

I don't think the Russian SOF were nearly as effective as the ANSOF. But the forces supporting both seem to have been relatively similar in how shitty they are. (Sorry if you trained ANA, you did your best they just sucked as people) The difference of course being one was fighting an insurgency and one was fighting a war of aggression. But I think you could do a case study on both, and possibly even look at how degraded US SOF got due to their high op-tempo. Rather than create more say Ranger Battalions or a whole other regiment we created more SEAL Squadrons and more SF Battalions. But used them pretty often in the same exact way as we would a Ranger Battalion as it related to commando level tasks for elite infantry formations. Early on in both Iraq and Afghanistan we had incredible opt-tempo for SOCOM that made no sense.

We needed more elite infantry formations that we could throw around. Sorry 82nd and 173rd, not you, but maybe in a different timeline.

But the reason I'm bringing this up, ANSOF Commando formations is what created a lot of the early successes of the ANA when they were "alone". But because the supporting infantry formations were trash or died in place (this is exaggeration, we know what the casualty rate was of ANA and gosh the life expectancy was similar to a Marine 2nd LT in Vietnam). And there were just more Taliban. Who somehow, were better trained and better funded by our adversaries. But thems the breaks. But you're seeing it with the Russians, they wasted whole regiments of their elite formations early on in the war to attempt to capture Kiev. They took a lot of ground. Had a lot of success, much like ANSOF did. But Putin literally sent all of his elite formations whether they were Paras, Commandos, Tankers in a blitzkrieg in hopes he'd seize the capitol and the folks with dual passports would all be like the idiots in Donetsk and become Russo Simps. Well, bud. Wars of Survival tend to do one thing for those who have time. And like us in Afghanistan, clock is ticking on Putin.

 

[Blizzard]

I don't think the Russian SOF were nearly as effective as the ANSOF. But the forces supporting both seem to have been relatively similar in how shitty they are. (Sorry if you trained ANA, you did your best they just sucked as people) The difference of course being one was fighting an insurgency and one was fighting a war of aggression. But I think you could do a case study on both, and possibly even look at how degraded US SOF got due to their high op-tempo. Rather than create more say Ranger Battalions or a whole other regiment we created more SEAL Squadrons and more SF Battalions. But used them pretty often in the same exact way as we would a Ranger Battalion as it related to commando level tasks for elite infantry formations. Early on in both Iraq and Afghanistan we had incredible opt-tempo for SOCOM that made no sense.

We needed more elite infantry formations that we could throw around. Sorry 82nd and 173rd, not you, but maybe in a different timeline.

But the reason I'm bringing this up, ANSOF Commando formations is what created a lot of the early successes of the ANA when they were "alone". But because the supporting infantry formations were trash or died in place (this is exaggeration, we know what the casualty rate was of ANA and gosh the life expectancy was similar to a Marine 2nd LT in Vietnam). And there were just more Taliban. Who somehow, were better trained and better funded by our adversaries. But thems the breaks. But you're seeing it with the Russians, they wasted whole regiments of their elite formations early on in the war to attempt to capture Kiev. They took a lot of ground. Had a lot of success, much like ANSOF did. But Putin literally sent all of his elite formations whether they were Paras, Commandos, Tankers in a blitzkrieg in hopes he'd seize the capitol and the folks with dual passports would all be like the idiots in Donetsk and become Russo Simps. Well, bud. Wars of Survival tend to do one thing for those who have time. And like us in Afghanistan, clock is ticking on Putin.

Your post raises an interesting question: How much of the Soviet's SOF have been burned through? Looking at the jawdropping casualty statistics, I have to believe the percentage is pretty high.

 

[ThunderHorse]

Your post raises an interesting question: How much of the Soviet's SOF have been burned through? Looking at the jawdropping casualty statistics, I have to believe the percentage is pretty high.

Well a whole regiment of VDV was blown out of the sky early in the war. So let's say upwards of 50%? As much as 70%?

 

[Gordus]

Your post raises an interesting question: How much of the Soviet's SOF have been burned through? Looking at the jawdropping casualty statistics, I have to believe the percentage is pretty high.

I don’t think there is any reliable figure specifically on SSO losses ( yet ) and may never be one. Someone, prob CAST or the Poles, will most likely publish a piece about their involvement and role. Though I take CAST analysis with a grain of salt.

There is however this:

Russia Lost 900 ‘Elite’ Soldiers in Ukraine Fighting — Report - The Moscow Times

At least 337 marines have been killed since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, while the National Guard’s special forces and riot police lost 245 troops, Russia’s military intelligence lost 151 soldiers, elite paratrooper units saw 144 members killed and the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Guards Service (FSO) together suffered 20 deaths, according to the BBC. Many of the dead were officers.

In addition, at least 67 combat pilots, including navigators and mechanics, have been killed, according to the BBC.

 

[Blizzard]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588554287600533504

 

[Blizzard]

^ Meant to add two observations:

1. Soviets apparently still haven't learned the need for infantry with armor

2. Not sure what the other tank was doing. It's main was pointed in the direction of the Ukrainian soldier but took no action. Already dead/abandoned? Seems to be the only logical explanation, although it appears intact and the main gun seems to move slightly in one of the close ups.

 

[AWP]

Another crunchy doing crunchy stuff, sending a modern tank to hell because the latter didn't follow 80 year old tactics USED BY AND AGAINST HIS OWN COUNTRY.

 

[pardus]

2. Not sure what the other tank was doing. It's main was pointed in the direction of the Ukrainian soldier but took no action. Already dead/abandoned? Seems to be the only logical explanation, although it appears intact and the main gun seems to move slightly in one of the close ups.

Unless the gunner happened to be looking through his sights at that exact moment it’s not surprising, You can’t see shit from inside an armored vehicle, hence why you need infantry in support.

 

[Blizzard]

This could and probably should be in the Syria thread, but "Russians"...
So, for a lighter moment, leave it to a tanker crew - 'no intent' :
Air Force claims 'no intent by the pilots' to draw sky penis near Russian base in Syria