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K.Mooneyham wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:06 am The Russians obviously have some serious institutional failures within their military forces. You being a former US Army Captain, I'm certain you will understand the next thing I point out. We've seen, multiple times, Russian armored convoys being absolutely wrecked by lesser forces. Part of that is attributable to modern weapons, sure. However, it's also a serious failure of their leadership (thankfully for the Ukrainians' sake). For many, many decades now, it has been known and understood that armor cannot operate in a vacuum, so to speak. An armor force commander must have well-trained and coordinated infantry assets to work along with the armor, specifically to prevent the exact sort of enemy infantry (Ukrainian) response we've seen so far. Armor assets on their own become sitting ducks for trained infantry anti-tank teams. The Russians seem to have just tossed all those hard-learned lessons out the window. The Russians, again thankfully for the Ukrainians' sake, seem to have no good grasp of proper combined arms. And I'm just an amateur student of war, me being an aircraft mechanic, and never attended anything beyond a basic NCO school in the USAF. What the heck do they teach in the officer courses in Russia, the best ways to skim money from the budget?

World War II taught us that the most effective form of conventional land warfare is combined arms; infantry, armor and artillery working in close coordination. This remains true today. The Russian military has excelled in combined arms operations in the past, but has always been hampered by their overall operational and tactical doctrine. The Soviet model emphasizes rigid top-down discipline and command over individual initiative and adaptation. This has changed little since Joseph Stalin and has been further aggravated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ascendancy of Putin. The evidence is the apparent inability of the Russian forces invading Ukraine to adapt to whatever is stalling their advance and long lines of halted armor.

The Soviet model does not prioritize non-commissioned officer authority and training as does our model. I am both a graduate and instructor of the US Army advanced NCO training and officer training. Soviet model NCOs are little more than better-paid privates. The US model teaches and rewards low-level, individual initiative and adaptation, empowering captains and sergeants to win.

Retired Navy Commander Ward Carrol continues to publish insightful videos on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBV-FG0fg9c

Expecting the Russian government, and by extension its military, to behave as we do is akin to expecting violent criminal actors to behave as good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people. Just as violent criminal actors do not think as good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people, neither does the Russian government or its military. The US Army has Field Manual 6-27 (August 2019), the Commander's Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare which gives guidance on the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs ... WEB_v2.pdf If the Russian military has a book about LOAC, I feel confident that it very different from ours.

Based on Russian military actions during the Cold War as well as tactics used in Afghanistan and Syria, we can see their strategies and tactics have changed little. The Russian military started the invasion of Ukraine with a heavy artillery bombardment and air strikes aimed at defeating the Ukrainian air force. Putin's leadership seems to have resulted in a lack of maintenance and weapons procurement that may be an explanation for stalled convoys and the lack of the use of guided munitions. In the past, stalled Russian military leaders have used indiscriminate, large scale bombardment and chemical weapons.

Ward Carroll is a retired Navy Commander (O-5) who served 20 years as a Radar Intercept Officer in the F14 Tomcat. He has posted a clear and concise discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKtIsMoPoA

EXPOSED! What the Ukrainian Invasion has Revealed about Russian Military Power

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Sat Mar 12, 2022 2:23 pm Artillery and rocket barrages are battlefield denial weapons. They’re meant for flattening an entire grid square, not for surgically precise strikes.

Artillery, in its main role, is an indirect-fire, area weapon. However, the US has GPS guided cannon munitions having a circular error probable of 3 meters. We also have GPS guided rockets having the same CEP. The Russians do not have this same capability. The Russians do have smart bombs, but seem to not be using them. In any case, guided direct-fire missiles or smart bombs are much better weapons to use for urban areas.