Was Donbas Russia’s “Battle of the Bulge”?

[Juin]

Wait on it, patience is a virtue.

Zelensky doesnt have all the time in the world.

The Orc army has spent its wad. Western artillery- tubed and rocket are changing the metrics. The massive logistic support the Orcs need to pummel their way into the Ukraine is being blown up before reaching the orc artillery.

You will have to toot your horn after Ukraine's million man army retakes Kherson, Mariupol, Crimea etc. Ukraine and the West put up serious points on tweeter, but no yardage on the ground.

The Orc navy has to stay well offshore or lose more vessels. The Orc cannon fodder is losing its desire to die for Putin.
Considering Putin figured the 'special operation' would have been over weeks ago The Ukraine is very successful. Try and paint the Orc meatgrinder as a victory and you'll have to use Orc blood for pigment...

The Orc Army has Kherson, just about the totality of Luhansk, Melitopol, Mariupol, Lysychansk, Severodonetsk under its belt. That is serious yardage. Ukraine and the west has their task cut out for them: kick the Orc Army off that real estate. They can take all the time in the world. But until they get some yardage you cannot award points

 

[maxparrish]

Wait on it, patience is a virtue. The Orc army has spent its wad. Western artillery- tubed and rocket are changing the metrics. The massive logistic support the Orcs need to pummel their way into the Ukraine is being blown up before reaching the orc artillery. The Orc navy has to stay well offshore or lose more vessels. The Orc cannon fodder is losing its desire to die for Putin.

Considering Putin figured the 'special operation' would have been over weeks ago The Ukraine is very successful. Try and paint the Orc meatgrinder as a victory and you'll have to use Orc blood for pigment...

Until such time as the West, and in particular Joe Biden, understands that their penny packet mentality cannot bring this war to a winning conclusion I remain skeptical.

Should the size of Ukraine's HIMAR/M270 force rapidly increase to 4x the current number, should an effective short/medium range anti-air system appear in quantity (not a measily "two systems" as Biden promised), should F-16s with the full range of western anti-radiation SAM suppression appear...then its a different ballgame.

But my bet is that the slow escalation will only give Putin the opportunity to force Beylorussia into the war (or the formal merger of the two countries) because as always, our side moves too sssssllllloooow.

 

[EnigmaO01]

All the ordinance that has been fired has obviously created a haze, blocking the sun and making it had to get that much sought after war time tan

 

[notquiteright]

Until such time as the West, and in particular Joe Biden, understands that their penny packet mentality cannot bring this war to a winning conclusion I remain skeptical. Should the size of Ukraine's HIMAR/M270 force rapidly increase to 4x the current number, should an effective short/medium range anti-air system appear in quantity (not a measily "two systems" as Biden promised), should F-16s with the full range of western anti-radiation SAM suppression appear...then its a different ballgame. But my bet is that the slow escalation will only give Putin the opportunity to force Beylorussia into the war (or the formal merger of the two countries) because as always, our side moves too sssssllllloooow.

Remain whatever you wish. Pouring gas unto The Ukraine fire is foolish. Send the F-16 into the conflict (which would have to be manned by USofA pilots) and the conflict goes nova. The Ukraine seems to have effective ADA defenses- Russia isn't sending strike aircraft to Kiev, they send missiles.

Russian helicopters into The Ukraine stopped rather quickly. The blitz to take the capital was an embarrassment. The meat grinder approach is a ticket to losing. Back in my youth I was 11Bush. I'm not much for taking to heart military advice that thinks an enemy is at 100% commitment so our escalation will have no effective response.

Your extensive military experience may have you believing one more 'surge' will send the enemy packing, but history isn't on your side. Vietnam, Somali, Iraq, Afghanistan... we never seem to learn the lesson of 'the enemy doesn't obey our script'.

Mighty Russia not being able to quickly overrun a rather weak neighbor quickly isn't inspiring Belarus to send its soldiers to die for Putin. Finland didn't invade Russia even as Germany's ally. Don't count on Russia getting little more than a fig leaf from Belarus.

Old gunfighter saying- Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It's going fast enough; Russia is being given the excuse of massive Western aid defeating them or requiring strategic weapons in responce.

Steady in the ranks, wait for it... GAWD is on our side- pick whichever steadies you...

 

[maxparrish]

Remain whatever you wish. Pouring gas unto The Ukraine fire is foolish. Send the F-16 into the conflict (which would have to be manned by USofA pilots) and the conflict goes nova. The Ukraine seems to have effective ADA defenses- Russia isn't sending strike aircraft to Kiev, they send missiles.

Russian helicopters into The Ukraine stopped rather quickly. The blitz to take the capital was an embarrassment. The meat grinder approach is a ticket to losing. Back in my youth I was 11Bush. I'm not much for taking to heart military advice that thinks an enemy is at 100% commitment so our escalation will have no effective response.

Your extensive military experience may have you believing one more 'surge' will send the enemy packing, but history isn't on your side. Vietnam, Somali, Iraq, Afghanistan... we never seem to learn the lesson of 'the enemy doesn't obey our script'.

Mighty Russia not being able to quickly overrun a rather weak neighbor quickly isn't inspiring Belarus to send its soldiers to die for Putin. Finland didn't invade Russia even as Germany's ally. Don't count on Russia getting little more than a fig leaf from Belarus.

Old gunfighter saying- Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It's going fast enough; Russia is being given the excuse of massive Western aid defeating them or requiring strategic weapons in response.

Steady in the ranks, wait for it... GAWD is on our side- pick whichever steadies you...

I have yet to read a cogent and specific explanation of how a military wins a war by letting the enemy pound them, hoping that the enemy will just get tired of their killing and go home. No war was ever won by trying to hold the line, but almost all wars have been lost by a failure (or an inability) to take to the offense.

I think this so obvious that it astounds me that the lay public, or our own administration, doesn't get this. The allies did not and could not have won, or even survived WW2 waiting for the axis powers to stop killing them...a strategy to dumb to require further elaboration.

Moreover, it was "low and slow" escalation by small, compromised surges that led into a war based on your "strategy" of not winning, of hoping that increasing the body counts of the enemy, rather than taking back national territory AND SECUREING IT, was all that was necessary to tire out the enemy and make them go home.

Methinks the conceptual problem that many like you have had is that you are uncomfortable with both options - either ignoring Ukraine's pleas for help or giving unreserved war material in a minimal amount of time. It's a sort of crippling human condition, like an armed citizen who knows he's got to shoot a rapist attacking a helpless woman but has a hard time doing it.

So the shooter screams and yells stop, shoots warning shots, even intentionally misses. Having failed to stop the rape, the armed citizen can walk away claiming he did his best.

It's a moral cop out.

 

[Median Voter]

A more apt comparison would be Russia as the USSR and Ukraine as the Third Reich, in the later stages of WW2.

 

[Jredbaron96]

A more apt comparison would be Russia as the USSR and Ukraine as the Third Reich, in the later stages of WW2.

This modern Russian army has no where near the level of operational art as the RKKA did.

 

[Nilhus]

Russia gained territory in the Donbas region when they threw everything they had into the offensive. But did they largely expend their resources in this “last gasp” much like the Germans did in the Battle of the Bulge?

On the contrary, they threw into the low intensity semi-battle mostly garbage from the soviet era that they'd have to scrap if not used in this conflict.

The real battle has yet to begin. It would involve striking power stations/grids, telecommunications, and the slave rats taking orders from Washington.

 

[Fledermaus]

On the contrary, they threw into the low intensity semi-battle mostly garbage from the soviet era that they'd have to scrap if not used in this conflict.

The real battle has yet to begin. It would involve striking power stations/grids, telecommunications, and the slave rats taking orders from Washington.

Ummmm

No.

The "mostly garbage from the soviet era" equipment and personnel are what are entering the battlefield now.

 

[Fledermaus]

Remain whatever you wish. Pouring gas unto The Ukraine fire is foolish. Send the F-16 into the conflict (which would have to be manned by USofA pilots) and the conflict goes nova. The Ukraine seems to have effective ADA defenses- Russia isn't sending strike aircraft to Kiev, they send missiles.

Russian helicopters into The Ukraine stopped rather quickly. The blitz to take the capital was an embarrassment. The meat grinder approach is a ticket to losing. Back in my youth I was 11Bush. I'm not much for taking to heart military advice that thinks an enemy is at 100% commitment so our escalation will have no effective response.

Your extensive military experience may have you believing one more 'surge' will send the enemy packing, but history isn't on your side. Vietnam, Somali, Iraq, Afghanistan... we never seem to learn the lesson of 'the enemy doesn't obey our script'.

Mighty Russia not being able to quickly overrun a rather weak neighbor quickly isn't inspiring Belarus to send its soldiers to die for Putin. Finland didn't invade Russia even as Germany's ally. Don't count on Russia getting little more than a fig leaf from Belarus.

Old gunfighter saying- Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It's going fast enough; Russia is being given the excuse of massive Western aid defeating them or requiring strategic weapons in responce.

Steady in the ranks, wait for it... GAWD is on our side- pick whichever steadies you...

Actually Finland did aid Germany in WWII in the invasion and siege of Leningrad.

Not greatly. But they did. They recouped lands lost in prior Soviet engagements and were part of the line surrounding Leningrad...

 

[Nilhus]

The Ukraine seems to have effective ADA defenses- Russia isn't sending strike aircraft to Kiev, they send missiles.

Russian helicopters into The Ukraine stopped rather quickly. The blitz to take the capital was an embarrassment.

They don't really have anything. Besides those choppers flying pretty close to Kiev(very few were hit), they managed to get a very large column of vehicles around Kiev - which it really means that the Russians controlled the skies, otherwise that column could have been destroyed.

There was no plan to attack Kiev, save for a few military target here and there. There wasn't any kind of blitz. They only tried to scare Kiev into negotiations. It didn't work and they concentrated on what was their objective from the start: Donbas.

"strategy" of not winning, of hoping that increasing the body counts of the enemy,

There's no strategy of winning, because Ukraine can't possibly win! The actual war hasn't even started. The strategy was cooked up in Washington and it solely involves wearing down a bit the Russian military - using Ukrainian lives.

ignoring Ukraine's pleas for help

No one cares about Ukraine. Apparently not even the Ukrainians themselves. They're expandable stuff used cynically by Washington to inflict some relatively minor damage on Russia.

 

[MAGAnificent]

Russia is just warming up. Russia did fumble the 1st Quarter, but that is to be expected, Russia always fumbles the openers. The Russo Finnish war being a case in point. But the bear usually gathers its itself after a knockdown and through sheer brute force finishes strong.

I will say in the present 2nd Quarter Russia is in its element. It is fighting the old fashion Orc way. Stalk the adversary, pin him down,, then bludgeon him to pieces.

Right now as we are talking the Orc Army is at the gates of Seversk, Soledar and Bakhmut. Bakhmut got a mother of all clobbering a night or two ago from Orc artillery

Ultimately Ukraine will end up Afghanistan Part 2 for the Russians. No matter how much territory they mange to take, they will be stuck with an indefinate insurgency that they will be unable to quell, just as in Afghanistan.

 

[Nilhus]

No.

The "mostly garbage from the soviet era" equipment and personnel are what are entering the battlefield now.

Yes.

The soviet garbage entered from day one.

These are T72, 50 year old stuff:



Those long range missiles were just a tiny part of what actually entered Ukraine

 

[Nilhus]

stuck with an indefinate insurgency

Super-unlikely because the Ukrainians are not driven by the ideology of radical Islam, they're mostly modern people who want to live peacefully(even if under Russian influence)

 

[Fledermaus]

They don't really have anything. Besides those choppers flying pretty close to Kiev(very few were hit), they managed to get a very large column of vehicles around Kiev - which it really means that the Russians controlled the skies, otherwise that column could have been destroyed.

There was no plan to attack Kiev, save for a few military target here and there. There wasn't any kind of blitz. They only tried to scare Kiev into negotiations. It didn't work and they concentrated on what was their objective from the start: Donbas.

There's no strategy of winning, because Ukraine can't possibly win! The actual war hasn't even started. The strategy was cooked up in Washington and it solely involves wearing down a bit the Russian military - using Ukrainian lives.

No one cares about Ukraine. Apparently not even the Ukrainians themselves. They're expandable stuff used cynically by Washington to inflict some relatively minor damage on Russia.

 

[Fledermaus]

Yes.

The soviet garbage entered from day one.

These are T72, 50 year old stuff:



Those long range missiles were just a tiny part of what actually entered Ukraine

T-80s were regularly doing the jack in the box routine.

Pop goes the weasel.

And the M1 Abrams 40+ year old model.

The Russians have been forced to reactivate T-62 museum pieces to make up their losses.

T-62. A tank that got spanked by M-60, Centurions, and ever upgraded Israeli Sherman's.

 

[maxparrish]

They don't really have anything. Besides those choppers flying pretty close to Kiev(very few were hit), they managed to get a very large column of vehicles around Kiev - which it really means that the Russians controlled the skies, otherwise that column could have been destroyed.

There was no plan to attack Kiev, save for a few military target here and there. There wasn't any kind of blitz. They only tried to scare Kiev into negotiations. It didn't work and they concentrated on what was their objective from the start: Donbas.

Copium -​

A metaphorical opiate inhaled when faced with loss, failure or defeat, especially in sports, politics, and other tribal settings.

The effects of copium include, but are not limited to: extreme rationalizations for the defeat, outlandish theories of conspiracy supposedly perpetrated by the opposing side, extreme rage directed at the other side, unconvincing allegations of fraud and abuse in the system, and rejection of the system of perception as a whole.

Example: Supporters of the Russia claim that Russia didn’t really lose as the battle of Kviv; they say it was just an intentional Russian sacrifice of massive quantities of men and material to induce negotiations. (Alternatively: they say the object was to throw Russian bodies and vehicles at incoming Javelins, Nlaws, and artillery shells so as to deplete Ukrainian stocks before the "real" offensive in the Donbas begins.

Treatment: at least one year of intense mental therapy focused on confronting pathological denial combined with an intense exposure to reality.

There's no strategy of winning, because Ukraine can't possibly win! The actual war hasn't even started. The strategy was cooked up in Washington and it solely involves wearing down a bit the Russian military - using Ukrainian lives.

No one cares about Ukraine. Apparently not even the Ukrainians themselves. They're expandable stuff used cynically by Washington to inflict some relatively minor damage on Russia.

"Ukraine can't possibly win" is, of course, the self-fulling mantra of bead clutching defeatists and/or isolationist Russophiles who are determined to make sure that they don't. Similar too, but not necessarily identical to, the same lobby who insisted the Ukraine would be defeated in days with, or without, western help.

"No one cares about Ukraine" is the hope of those determined to make sure that "Ukraine can't possibly win".

 

[Tangmo]

NATO wants to degrade the Russian armed forces in return for their invasion of Ukraine which initiated the first all out war in Europe since the long era of a common peace and prosperity that began post WW2. Russia has established itself as a kinetic menace to Europe and Western democracy except it doesn't have the muscle or the Nordic warrior acumen of the Nazi Germans or the Norman French cross channel conquerors of a thousand years ago.

With the severe and extensive war sanctions on Russia in addition to existing sanctions Russia will be hard pressed to rebuild on its costly military expenditure in Ukraine and in every respect. Likewise the PutinPatch of Donbas will be a Cold War East Germany DDR ghetto because of it.

I have great respect for Gen. MacArthur yet his "victory has no substitute" dogma is dangerous in the age of nuclear device weaponry. Russians are known to suffer from severe hubris so inflicting a crushing defeat on 'em in Ukraine is just not an inviting option. Wear 'em down and let 'em tucker out. Making the Russian whimper a lot is good while the take no prisoners approach is problematic.

 

[notquiteright]

Actually Finland did aid Germany in WWII in the invasion and siege of Leningrad.

Not greatly. But they did. They recouped lands lost in prior Soviet engagements and were part of the line surrounding Leningrad...

They didn't invade Russia or cut off the northern ports, they didn't seal off the eastern approaches to Leningrad. They took back what they lost in '39 and stopped. I don't see Belarus doing even that much...

 

[notquiteright]

They don't really have anything. Besides those choppers flying pretty close to Kiev(very few were hit), they managed to get a very large column of vehicles around Kiev - which it really means that the Russians controlled the skies, otherwise that column could have been destroyed. There was no plan to attack Kiev, save for a few military target here and there. There wasn't any kind of blitz. They only tried to scare Kiev into negotiations. It didn't work and they concentrated on what was their objective from the start: Donbas.

The Russians tried to 'bounce' Kiev, capture the airport, land a wave of specialist Infantry to run The Ukraine's government out of town. They managed to get large columns near Kiev, bogged down and suffered causalities without achieving the objective. Kiev was a major objective, not a stunt, bluff or feint.

They wanted to capture Kiev and the 'special operation' would be over before it even begun. No bluff all blunder...

 

[Fledermaus]

They didn't invade Russia or cut off the northern ports, they didn't seal off the eastern approaches to Leningrad. They took back what they lost in '39 and stopped. I don't see Belarus doing even that much...

By September 1941, Finland had regained its post–Winter War concessions to the Soviet Union: the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia. However, the Finnish Army continued the offensive past the 1939 border during the conquest of East Karelia, including Petrozavodsk, and halted only around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from the centre of Leningrad. It participated in besieging the city by cutting the northern supply routes and by digging in until 1944.

 

[kaerin]

Russia gained territory in the Donbas region when they threw everything they had into the offensive. But did they largely expend their resources in this “last gasp” much like the Germans did in the Battle of the Bulge?

That offensive, from December 16, 1944, to 25 January 25, 1945, was partly successful because of bad weather that limited Allied air support. The Russian offensive has ground to a halt partly because of the better, more advanced artillery Ukraine has received from the West, comparable perhaps to the air strikes that demolished the Germans after the weather cleared.

Could very well be

 

[kaerin]

and the slave rats taking orders from Washington.

A Latvian rooting for RU?

 

[Evilroddy]

Russia gained territory in the Donbas region when they threw everything they had into the offensive. But did they largely expend their resources in this “last gasp” much like the Germans did in the Battle of the Bulge?

That offensive, from December 16, 1944, to 25 January 25, 1945, was partly successful because of bad weather that limited Allied air support. The Russian offensive has ground to a halt partly because of the better, more advanced artillery Ukraine has received from the West, comparable perhaps to the air strikes that demolished the Germans after the weather cleared.

RobertU:

I doubt it, but Ukraine may well turn into the Russian Federation's Russia/Soviet Union (1941-45).

Be well and stay alive.
Evilroddy.

 

[Schrott]

I have yet to read a cogent and specific explanation of how a military wins a war by letting the enemy pound them, hoping that the enemy will just get tired of their killing and go home. No war was ever won by trying to hold the line, but almost all wars have been lost by a failure (or an inability) to take to the offense.

I think this so obvious that it astounds me that the lay public, or our own administration, doesn't get this. The allies did not and could not have won, or even survived WW2 waiting for the axis powers to stop killing them...a strategy to dumb to require further elaboration.

Moreover, it was "low and slow" escalation by small, compromised surges that led into a war based on your "strategy" of not winning, of hoping that increasing the body counts of the enemy, rather than taking back national territory AND SECUREING IT, was all that was necessary to tire out the enemy and make them go home.

Methinks the conceptual problem that many like you have had is that you are uncomfortable with both options - either ignoring Ukraine's pleas for help or giving unreserved war material in a minimal amount of time. It's a sort of crippling human condition, like an armed citizen who knows he's got to shoot a rapist attacking a helpless woman but has a hard time doing it.

So the shooter screams and yells stop, shoots warning shots, even intentionally misses. Having failed to stop the rape, the armed citizen can walk away claiming he did his best.

It's a moral cop out.

What a load of crap, General.