Armored assaults aren’t dead. Robots got the credit, but it was Ukrainian infantry in armored trucks that reversed a year of Russian gains near Lyman
6 days ago by supersquirrel to c/fediverse_vs_disinfo
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/72208315
Russia spent 18 months building its salient toward Sloviansk; Ukraine took much of it back in three. By 30 September, three of four planned phases in, the operation had returned 176 sq km to Ukrainian control, taken 250 Russian prisoners, and cost Russia more than 5,000 killed and wounded, Ukraine's presidential office said. It also foiled a Russian plan to break into the rear of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban area, the office said.
Defying critics who insisted vehicles couldn't possibly survive in the drone-patrolled gray zone, the 3rd Army Corps repeatedly deployed mechanized forces as it counterattacked across a roughly 100 sq km salient the Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies had extended toward Sloviansk, one of the last two big free cities in Donetsk Oblast.
Maneuvering for months under a veil of secrecy, the 3rd Army Corps found and exploited gaps along the flanks of the 20th and 25th CAAs, ultimately breaking into the Russian armies' rears and forcing them to pull back across the Zherebets River in order to avoid encirclement.
Human Beings in armored vehicles NOT Robots, do you "AI and drones beat everything" techbro armchair generals in the back hear that? Do we need to keep repeating it? Yes? It is called Combined Arms for a reason.
taken 250 Russian prisoners, and cost Russia more than 5,000 killed and wounded,
That casualty to POW ratio means one of two things - the casualty number is either terrifically inflated or... those mechanised Ukrainian troops have been perpetrating an awful amount of war crimes.
I see no evidence of war crimes, in fact the entire point of mechanized armored maneuver is to enclose large swaths of enemy fighters who refuse to stop trying to kill you and invade your country in order to force their surrender with minimal fighting. Yes you can use it to conquer territory filled with people who don't want you there but it is an illusion since you will be simply resisted by guerilla forces rather than an organized military and you will lose all the same.
There is no other reason to be proficient at it, which is why russia isn't, they already treat their own soldiers like worthless prisoners, at an institutional level the russian military is incapable of understanding the value of alive human beings and it is why they have lost this war.
If you want some war crimes how about how poorly russia treats its frontline troops in the Pokrovsk area? All Ukrainian forces really had to do after all the operational planning was ernestly offer food and shelter to get the russian fighters to surrender, which reveals how pathetic and murderous the russian military is towards its own people.
I see no evidence of war crimes, in fact the entire point of mechanized armored maneuver is to enclose large swaths of enemy fighters who refuse to stop trying to kill you and invade your country in order to force their surrender with minimal fighting. Yes you can use it to conquer territory filled with people who don't want you there but it is an illusion since you will be simply resisted by guerilla forces rather than an organized military and you will lose all the same.
There is no other reason to be proficient at it, which is why russia isn't, they already treat their own soldiers like worthless prisoners, at an institutional level the russian military is incapable of understanding the value of alive human beings and it is why they have lost this war.
Sorry but where are you getting any of this from?
First, the previous poster is absolutely correct to say that - if this were true - it would be making their case for them. They're arguing that the number of prisoners, relative to the number of wounded and dead, is too low and this is evidence of war crimes.
As I've stated elsewhere, the people with actual experience in modern mechanized warfare that I spoke with completely disagreed with their assessment and found there to be absolutely nothing remarkable about the reported ratio of prisoners to casualties.
But what you're apparently arguing is that Ukraine is somehow employing a method of warfare designed exclusively to capture rather than kill the enemy. If true, this would completely validate their otherwise baseless claim that the casualty numbers reported are suspiciously low.
It's not, of course. Everything you wrote here is, forgive me for being blunt, abject nonsense. Again, this is not my expertise speaking here, but that of the actual mechanized infantry soldiers I spoke with. The people who do this exact thing professionally.
Yes, mechanized warfare is intended to exploit gaps in an enemy's defense, and yes, where possible the ideal outcome is an encirclement. But true encirclements are rare, and more often the threat of one is what forces an enemy to retreat. And mechanized assaults themselves are just one small component of the broader structure of combined arms warfare. The normal approach to an attack like this would be to heavily damage the enemy positions with drones, artillery and other long range fires before even approaching. And once closely engaged the fighting can often become brutal and intense as you make your way into the enemy trenchlines. Russians are known to pre-range their own positions for artillery fires and then immediately call in strikes the moment coms go down, which can often lead to their wounded becoming their dead instead of ending up as captives.
As for the notion that Russia does not employ mechanized warfare... I can hardly think of a more absurd statement. Russia largely invented the modern form of mechanized warfare. While it has its roots in German blitzkrieg, which was really just a propaganda term for "Prussian Maneuver Warfare But With Truck", the idea of the infantry fighting vehicle as an integrated component of the section in combat is a specifically Soviet evolution, one that NATO quickly adopted, though not nearly as fully as the Russians did. To this day the vast majority of the US Military still does not have organic transport, while the entire Russian military does. In terms of overall level of mechanization they are probably the most mechanized military in the world.
I think you're also confusing division level and company level operations here. Mechanization allows the division to move quickly, exploit gaps, and ideally create encirclements, but at the company or even batallion level an attack still typically involves sending your forces against their forces in an attempt to push back or break through their lines. Those battles are, by necessity, bloody and violent, and casualty counts can be extremely high with the nature of modern weaponry as we've seen in so many of the reports coming out of Ukraine.
in fact the entire point of mechanized armored maneuver is to enclose large swaths of enemy fighters
So do tell, genius - what happens to those "large swathes of enemy fighters" after you've enclosed them, eh?
it is why they have lost this war.
I've been hearing that since the start of this war... are you sure you're correct this time?
was ernestly offer food and shelter to get the russian fighters to surrender,
Really? If that's true... why so few POWs this time around?
in fact the entire point of mechanized armored maneuver is to enclose large swaths of enemy fighters
So do tell, genius - what happens to those “large swathes of enemy fighters” after you’ve enclosed them, eh?
These are baby questions about war, go do some basic reading about it.
What happens is hopefully for everyone's sake they surrender.
Maneuver seeks to inflict losses indirectly by envelopment, encirclement and disruption, while minimizing the need to engage in frontal combat. In contrast to attrition warfare where strength tends to be applied against strength, maneuver warfare attempts to apply strength against weakness in order to accomplish the mission.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare
A common thread runs through these critiques: the relationship between tactics and victory. The maneuver versus attrition dichotomy treats some tactics as inherently bad and others as inherently good. What matters is whether tactics can translate to strategic effect that serves to achieve the political end state, a relationship rendered opaque by the imposition of the operational level of war. Finally, the actions after tactical victory is achieved determine strategic effects. Tactical victory is insufficient as an end state.
https://www.mca-marines.org/...
If Ukraine were to start slaughtering surrounded, defeated, starving russian fighters not only would it be a war crime, it would also NOT break the fighting will of russians and russian fighters, it would do the opposite and strengthen their resolve to fight to the bitter pointless end, that is why Ukraine isn't doing it... on top of it being inhumane and also resulting in traumatizing their own soldiers.
None of this is to say Ukraine is perfect, war is a disgusting thing and everything gets messy, but as a pattern no, Ukraine is not needlessly killing russians when they attempt to surrender that would backfire spectacularly for Ukraine on so many levels it makes my head hurt. I have also never seen credible evidence Ukraine is systematically mistreating their prisoners of war, conducting genocide and human rights crimes against occupied territories nor systematically targetting russian civilians in acts of mass terror that do nothing to change the frontline reality russia is losing... all things it has been well established russia is doing by independent international entities.
These are baby questions about war
Clyde... I knew the difference between a taught and a slack tripwire before your father was done with potty training, and long, long before you decided to learn about these things by playing Call Of Duty.
Okay?
What happens is hopefully for everyone’s sake they surrender.
So you're trying to claim Putin achieved something that neither Trotsky nor Stalin could achieve, eh? Turning Russians into the non-surrendering automatons that Western propaganda has always pretended they were?
That's quite the claim... methinks Putin would be quite flattered by it.
Rather than jump to any of my own conclusions here I ran this past some people I know with actual military experience, and the response was "Yeah, those seem like perfectly normal numbers."
Could there be war crimes happening? Sure, no one is going to deny that. Killing of POWs happens in every conflict, and it would be exceptionally unsurprising in this one. The CAF - the people I spoke with - were infamous for this in WW2. But nothing about those numbers implies that in the way you're claiming.
Prisoners generally happen when positions get overrun or surrounded, but both of those scenarios are much less common than the one where your enemy falls back, generally taking their wounded with them. Mass surrenders are fairly uncommon events in modern warfare even with Russian morale as depressed as it is.
I think you're ultimately leaping to dangerous conclusions here without good reason.
people I know with actual military experience,
If this was US-style "shock and awe" warfare - with massive air and artillery support - the casualty-to-POW ratio would seem believable... but that's not what the Ukrainians were doing, were they? To get that kind of ratio through mainly infantry warfare (mechanised or not) seems extremely dubious.
Mass surrenders are fairly uncommon events in modern warfare
I wouldn't say that - just look at the mass-surrenders during the US invasion of Iraq.
My guess is that - war crimes notwithstanding - is that Russian casualties have been grossly inflated for propaganda purposes.
I think you missed the part where I said that the people I spoke to are in the CAF - Canadian Armed Forces.
Specifically, our mechanized infantry. These are the people who trained the modern Ukrainian military, and CAF tactics form the backbone of their approach to warfare.
So no, I'm not assuming a specifically US style of warfare. I'm assuming an approach that fairly closely mirrors that of the experienced infanteers I spoke with.
And, again, this is their knowledge I'm relying on, not my own. I'm just trusting the actual experts on this one.
I think you missed the part where I said that the people I spoke to are in the CAF - Canadian Armed Forces.
And how experienced are the CAF at fighting Russians these days?
It's more than that, though - there's a damn good reason why historians (both professional and amateur) quibble about these things decades after the fact - it's because the claims made by both sides in nearly every war isn't reliable in the slightest.
Hell, if I were to believe all the casualty claims made by SADF vets (who I, unfortunately, grew up with) I'd be easy to convince that they managed to exterminate the entire population of Angola.
Ie... even the people who were there's word cannot be taken as gospel.
This this not state sponsored astroturfing?
Do you think the Ukraine War is a joke or some product or brand I am trying to sell?
Let me be clear, I want the Ukraine War to stop, I want russia to stop attacking and invading Ukraine. Those are the things that motivate me in this context. I do not need to be paid by someone to care about this.
He's projecting. LocalAreaMan is a Kremlin shill. He happens to pop up everywhere Ukraine is mentioned, goes on about how Nazis overthrew the Ukrainian government, then Russia invaded to protect the democratic rights of ethnic Russians, Russia is a victim of the west, etc.
Same shit from 2014-2016, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2024
Connect the dots for me here. Is the poster a state actor? The article seems to be intended to clarify that reporting about robotic warfare during the fight against Russia's invasion is potentially misleading because humans soldiers are very much still part of the equation. That's basically the gist of it. A bit of a non-article maybe (because duh) but it seems to fit the premise of the community reasonably well.
The site directly funded by several Western governments, including several subsets of the Open Society Foundation.
That's not dots or red yarn, it's a giant blinking neon arrow.
So your complaint isn't with the content of the article, it's just with the source? What's on your approved list?
@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.
Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.
What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.
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@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Pointing out, debunking, and spreading awareness about state- and company-sponsored astroturfing on Lemmy and elsewhere. This includes social media manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns, among others.
Propaganda and disinformation are a big problem on the internet, and the Fediverse is no exception.
What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? The inadvertent spread of false information is misinformation. Disinformation is the intentional spread of falsehoods.
By equipping yourself with knowledge of current disinformation campaigns by state actors, corporations and their cheerleaders, you will be better able to identify, report and (hopefully) remove content matching known disinformation campaigns.
Community rules
Same as instance rules, plus:
- No disinformation
- Posts must be relevant to the topic of astroturfing, propaganda and/or disinformation
Related websites
- EU vs Disinfo
- FactCheck.org
- PolitiFact
- Snopes
- Media Bias / Fact Check
- PEN America
- Media Matters
- FAIR
Matrix chat links
go to feed...
The notion that drones have ended mechanized assaults has always been as ridiculous as the notion that modern anti-tank missiles have negated the usefulness of the tank.
Both impressions seem to have come about through a combination of two factors; the media tendency to emphasize the new and the strange, and to eschatologize everything into it's most extreme form, and the fact that one of the two sides in this conflict is a very poorly run military which has proven shockingly slow to adapt when presented with new and unexpected threats.
Western anti-tank missiles slaughtered Russian tanks in the early stages of the war partly because those were the exact tanks they were designed to defeat, but mostly because the Russians used their tanks very poorly, often with little to no infantry protection meant to defeat such an attack.
Ukrainian drones have been slaughtering Russian armored and foot assaults for very similar reasons. The Russians do not sufficiently plan their attacks, and they move units haphazardly and without proper support. This means that they lack the eyes or the guns needed to spot and shoot down an incoming drone.
For all the things drones can do, there's plenty they cannot. An FPV drone is much slower than a missile or launched grenade. It is much more susceptible to jamming, hacking and interception. And it still relies quite heavily on line of sight to the operator under most circumstances. Militaries already have to deal with threats like artillery, ambush strikes, beyond visual range weapon systems, and so on. Drones are a new dimension in that threat model, but it is still, fundamentally, the same threat model. The basic principles of warfare apply, they just need to be applied with forethought and understanding.
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