"... according to American intelligence estimates. The conservative side of the estimate, at more than 7,000 Russian troop deaths, is greater than the number of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. It is a staggering number amassed in just three weeks of fighting, American officials say, with implications for the combat effectiveness of Russian units, including soldiers in tank formations. Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks.... 'Losses like this affect morale and unit cohesion, especially since these soldiers don’t understand why they’re fighting,' said Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration... 'It is stunning, and the Russians haven’t even gotten to the worst of it, when they hit urban combat in the cities,' [said] Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado...."
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The Tsar, Stalin, Putin. Russian leaders have never considered such losses a problem. After all there are more peasants where those came from.
Patton said a division loses effectiveness when the rifle platoons are at 30%. This would include replacements.
Whatever the point, it depends on training, unit cohesiveness, and company-grade command.
When I was an Infantry training officer, we'd pick a trainee at random and tell him to organize ten guys for the problem, including two subordinates. They, in turn, would organize their guys. Point was not that we had time to cover all the guys, but everybody was watching, just in case they were next. And, hopefully, thinking, "what would I do?"
As for morale, in the Great Patriotic War, Stalin had special units behind the lines pour encourager les autres.
The other day David Petreus said the job of a commander is to allocate scarcity. If the Russians are short on artillery dumps, then shelling civilian areas would mean they are not planning a high operational tempo. If the Ukrainians go over to a counter-offensive, then the Russians will husband their ammunition for use in defense. Reducing damage to civilians.
Oops, Petraeus.
This site seems pretty good on assessing the war. It updates every day,
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-16
I feel very strongly how little I really know about the war but I also feel that getting locked into alternative views proposed by the likes of CNN is bound to be wrong. e.g., humanitarian disaster OR World War III. The Russians might be engaging "frightfulness", (behaving like beasts and shooting at apartment buildings and hospitals to terrorize people) and yet the Russians still might be losing regular soldiers who do not want to fight or who are being killed at very high rates - all at once. Maybe the Russians are going to encircle cities and then starve as many people as they can as they did in Warsaw in 1945 or maybe a large part of the Russian army has deserted and is hiding out between the lines or maybe it has Red Army flu (like the blue flu) or maybe the officers are getting shot in the back (officers are being recruited right out of the military academies) or maybe the casualties are very high due to well-planned ambushes - and the result is the main force can't move anywhere.
In the last 150 years, no major power has lost more battles or taken more casualties than Russia. In the battle of Berlin they lost over 80,000 people against a beaten army using cobbled together weapons. 7,000 is a big number by western standards but let's not be too surprised if the Russians seem to think it's acceptable.
The Russian troops in Ukraine may not know why they were ordered there, but they also certainly aren't being told about losses of Russian troops. So they have that going for them, I guess.
Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks
The Russians are being decimated. Literally.
I am going to stick with Winston Churchill's observation that the first casualty in war is the truth.
1) I find several things odd about this figure of 28,000 losses and 7,000 dead. First the Ukrainian losses are a fraction of this. Yet, its the Russians who have the Air power, Tanks, Missiles, and heavy artillery. We get no details in the article. We don't get a breakdown by unit or location. Giving KIA/WIA and no unit strength numbers is useless.
2) Where are the POWs? On either side. The Russians lose 28,000, gain large amounts of territory, yet take few prisoners and lose few. Something doesn't add up.
3) The Russians lost 7 million soldiers in WW II. So I don't think 7,000 will "destroy their morale".
4) Guesstimates of Enemy losses are almost always exaggerated. The US Army in WW II put a lot of effort into gauging Japanese/German KIA and we still vastly exaggerated.
Yeah, we’ll see about that. That 10% number is based on American units that have a much higher tail to tooth ratio compared to Russians and others. Meaning that 10% of the unit is probably far more than 10% of the actual shooters in a US unit. Whereas in a Russian unit 10% of the unit may only be 20% of the shooters, or so.
If you point out that Russian soldiers are largely conscripts and are getting screwed you are a Putin puppet.
If you point out that Putin and the DC Regime are destroying the lives of the Russian and Ukrainian people through their policies and warmongering you are a Putin puppet.
Don't think about what is actually going on or humanize any of the people involved.
Just stupidly bleat about sending other people to fight WW3 and act really tough on your keyboard.
Don't be a pussy. Let's risk nuclear war so we can protect all of the corruption.
Joe and Mitt need you to keep those biolabs open. They got kids on the Board you know.
…according to American intelligence estimates.
In the NYT no less.
That said, if the report is accurate, what a tragic loss across nations due to a monumental miscalculation by Putin.
I don’t believe Putin was pushed into this by western machinations. He saw weakness and opportunity and struck.
Even if Biden were a smart, charismatic and lucky statesman, I’d say it’s unlikely he'd emerge unscathed.
At this point I'm not sure even battlefield nukes could intimidate Ukraine soldier and civilian enough to keep them from fighting in urban/guerilla warfare. Either would be disastrous for the Russian Army.
At this point I'm not sure even battlefield nukes could intimidate Ukraine soldier and civilian enough to keep them from fighting in urban/guerilla warfare. Either would be disastrous for the Russian Army.
"Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks.... 'Losses like this affect morale and unit cohesion, especially since these soldiers don’t understand why they’re fighting,'"
sorry no. more like 20%. Higher if you are the IDF
I used to be an Army analyst doing combat simulation studies of European war in support Army resourcing and requirements. This was at the Center for Army Analysis.
I attended numerous technical exchange meetings with decision makers in the Army medical, personnel, logistics and resourcing communities. The normal combat ineffectiveness factors were 20% though we sometimes used a higher number in early days of the conflict. The OPLAN studied was 4102 and I remember vividly the section on our Armored Cavalry screen.
It went like, "after the remnants of the two ACR's conduct their rearward passage of lines, the will be consolidated and employed as rear security forces"
I appreciate the effort to supply a yardstick by which to measure Russian losses, but Iwo Jima was a different battlefield, different tactics, different world. I believe the Allies had tens of thousands of casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
As a military historian that is a poor analogy. You had about 6,100 Marines dying taking Iwo Jima over the course of a month, not "nearly 7,000". You can get much closer to that 7,000 figure by adding in the sailors killed with over 700 sailors dying. But that was for an island a little over 8 square miles in size. The ferocity of fighting at Iwo Jima was far, far above what is happening in the Ukraine. Remember that Japanese lost 18,000 men defending the island so you have over 25,000 people dying on a volcanic rock 8 miles square. The Russians may have 150,000 men in the Ukraine but they are spread out over multiple fronts covering thousands of miles.
I don't think anyone really knows how many men the Russians have lost so far but I'd be very surprised if it was 7,000 killed. They may have 7,000 casualties (killed, wounded, missing) but at Iwo Jima American total causalities exceeded 27,000.
It is almost like someone picked Iwo Jima because the total losses were similar.
If anyone cares here is my two cents. The spring thaw is coming which will freeze everyone mostly in place due to the mud. That will mean 2-3 months where major operations are not possible. I think Putin is talking negotiations now because he can get a cease fire and use that time to move his logistical base forward without being harassed by Ukrainian operations. If he gets what he wants at the table he can say he won and withdraw. If not he has used that time to resupply and reorganize his forces and he can launch a new offensive when the ground firms up again at the start of summer. Despite all the happy talk from Ukraine and the West Putin can still win this war unless the Ukranians have sufficient combat strength available to prevent Russian forces from encircling the major cities.
Is it possible that the Russian Army will collapse? Yes but at the moment I'm not seeing it. They are taking losses but that has always been the Russian way of war- quantity has a quality all its own. And I hope I'm wrong as the world is in a better place if the Ukraine can fight the Russians to a standstill.
From what I've read, the Soviet Union got a lot of victories during WWII by, basically, throwing bodies against the Germans until the Germans retreated or were all dead; the number of dead SU citizens didn't much matter as long as they won to many of their commanders, and definitely to Stalin.
The Russians seem to have some of that attitude still.
I have low confidence that American intelligence actually know how many Russians have been killed and even less confidence that they (or the Ukrainians or the Russians) would tell us the truth if they know it.
When the Russians get into Kiev and start clearing city blocks it'll take one Battalion Group per block. Then for all intents and purposes that Russian BTG will be combat toast until it rested, resupplied and taken replacements.
Unless of course they do it the old Soviet way ala' Berlin in 1945 - bring up the artillery and level whole blocks by just smashing them with large caliber cannon fire. Other than for ballet the Russians are not known for delicate peregrinations particularly in combat.
I wish I had more faith in American intelligence estimates. The American intelligence community seems to have been screwing up most of my adult life.
Putin has already lost this war, he's just not ready to admit it and pull out without some concessions. He'll probably get some. This has crippled his reign if not begun the end of it.
It doesn't seem like people understand what is going on in Ukraine or how Russia fights battles.
I just don't believe any of the numbers in the NYT. They have squandered their credibility.
There will be more money made from this war than from the vaccine scam.
And that's a lot!
Anyone want to calculate the GDP of a nation reduced to rubble, and with any remaining people in it unable to do more than clean it up?
What, exactly, will Putin have "won" here?
What Russian soldier will want to step into the street of any Ukrainian village, town or city, to try to force citizens to do anything, knowing there are armed people in hiding waiting to kill him?
Will Putin order reprisals as the Nazis did for their troops being killed?
What native Russian will want to go to Ukraine to till the wheat fields, work the mines and do the more advanced work of Ukrainians who have fled?
What about all the modern facets of an industrialized society with a strong service economy: who will manage all that?
For argument's sake, I'll take the numbers as a given. The usual ratio of dead to wounded in modern land combat is 1 to 3 (or more) which would figure out to, say 30k total casualties out of the initial 200k or so.
It is impossible to say what amount of infantry combat has taken place, but in the normal course of things the PBI would account for most of those casualties; the basic Russian formation is a tank and artillery- heavy small brigade; Putin is (reportedly) trying to recruit mercs to do things in urban combat that Russian boys might quail at . . .
Not-very-well-aimed artillery and air attacks may be all the Russians have at this point,
and their logistics support is neither massive nor particularly efficient.
It is in a sense a distributed strategic siege, with commitment and supply weighing more than numbers and weapons, and if the Ukrainians aren't as tough under bombardment as other people have proven, I'll take a virtual bite of the Prof's fedora.
Again, assuming anything like accuracy in the public view.
Trust no numbers:
I remember Peter Jennings solemnly intoning on ABC news that 63,000 people had died in the week-long uprising against the evil Romanian dictator Ceausescu.
The actual number was about 700.
Have all the comments been posted? Are any being hung up in moderation? Or banned?
Because I'm not seeing the comments from the surrender chorus urging Russia to surrender to stop all their death and suffering.
Comments run the gamut. I posted mine unaware of the others.
First, it's WAY past time for Westerners to stop patronizing the dull dumb brutish Russian soldier, indifferent to his own death. (And sometime the very same people point out the NKVD blocking units--which would seem to undercut the stereotype.)
The Red Army that fought in 1939-40, and then in 1941-1945 was practically, literally, a new force every year or campaign. Morale in the first months of Barbarossa was pretty dismal overall; morale in the assault on Berlin was a different matter--on account of all that happened in the interim, and very few Red Army soldiers lived through both.
Putin growls about nuclear war and Russian national honor and existence, but if he takes a settlement that's far less than complete he won't be in Stalin's 1945 position at home or abroad, he'll be in Stalin's position in early 1940 but without the rest of Europe being at war already.
Again, assuming.
The most likely reason this article was published, incompetent US spooks have absolutely no idea what is happening on Ukrainian frontlines and are trying to goad the Russians to release some numbers they can work with.
we don't know what's truly going on, and the numbers given are suspect. What we can say with absolute certainty is that the operation is not unfolding according to Putin's best laid plans. Putin can't claim victory which is itself a kind of defeat..... On the propaganda war front, Zelensky is far and away the big winner. He really does project something forceful and worthy. Ukraine might be a corrupt country, but they don't shell maternity hospitals.....I can see how it is possible for Ukraine to lose, but I can think of no scenario where Putin wins.
Russians military published 500 soldiers dead after first week of fighting, which are serious losses by modern standards.
Next two weeks the fighting was less intense, interrupted by several cease-fires to allow for civilian evacuations. Some sources report about 1000 dead, which seems probable.
Ukrainians are dying in much greater numbers, because they are surrounded, attacked from different directions, including from the air. Russian Air Force has complete air control and conducts bombing raids against Ukrainian military targets at will. Majority of dead soldiers are yesterday civilians pressed into service by “heroic” Ukrainian government. They are fighting to the end and by and large choose not to surrender. So armchair warriors in US can be really proud of them.
failed state
Another fog of war story from another good site to follow the Ukrainian / Russian war, insurrection, invasion, tragedy, action, operation.... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44797/the-case-of-russias-apparently-back-from-the-dead-black-sea-warship
"The conservative side of the estimate, at more than 7,000 Russian troop deaths"
That's an unbelievable number, as in, I don't believe it. The Russians had 7000 soldiers killed in the 10-year Chechen war. That includes the initial nine-month combat phase as well as the insurgency. The Soviets had 14000 killed in the ten years of the Afghan war. The Ukraine war has been no more intense than those other two. The Russians simply haven't been pushing very hard.
Anyone trying to template what is going on using historical Soviet/Russian norms is delusional; the facts on the ground are that Russia of today is not Russia of yore. For one thing, large families are rare--Most of those conscripts are only sons, the hopes of their families for the future. As well, the culture isn't the same as that of the former Tsarist and Soviet times. People don't have the expectation that their sons are the state's for the taking, and if you think that there won't be a price to be paid for all of these new "zinky boys", welllllll... I'll just point out to you that a large component of what went into the fall of the Soviet Union was the experiences of the Afghantsy and all the subterfuge about the casualties in Afghanistan.
All that equipment you see abandoned? Those troops didn't walk home. Every one of those tanks had a three-man crew. All the APCs? Should have been carrying 7-8 men apiece. Each truck, two men minimum. There have been some bodies shown, but by-and-large, the scenes of all this very expensive abandoned equipment look about like the Mary Celeste. The men that manned all of that went somewhere, and if not into captivity, then likely into hasty graves.
They say that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires; I think that Ukraine is going to earn a reputation as the tar-baby of them. Not least because the spring Rasputitsa still hasn't really begun...
heartless aztec
From what footage I've seen of the Berlin fuss, it was of what should have been conventional arty used in the direct fire role.
What happened outside of the camera's view finder might have been something else.
Poor little Putin believed all the Trumped up hype that Ukraine would be a cakewalk.
Achilles does make a great point about the plight of the Russian conscripts. They didn't deserve this either. Their best option is to go home like it's 1917 and remove the Tzar.
The tactical nuclear deployment scenario is interesting. The Russian built Chernobyl plant in Ukraine sent radioactive material over Europe and contaminated an area of the Ukraine. A tactical weapon would repeat this courtesy to Europe and theoretically kill some Europeans, like Chernobyl theoretically did.
The purpose of a tactical device is to destroy troop concentrations and logistics centers, Ukraine has none, just civilian cities. The nuclear threat is purely strategic, that is, blackmail to the death of millions. Blackmail to Ukraine and blackmail to Europe.
The Russia of the future will have a new iron curtain, except it will be made to keep Russians in and the rest of the world safe. There was no pressing need for Putin to do this, he is like the Mayor of Chicago, his/her dick is just bigger. Putin thought the rest of the world would invade Russia? Why.
The Russian immigrants I know are very nice, funny, smart people, I morn for their likes still in Russia.
I doubt the casualty count is 7000, but even if it was, it's a reasonable ballpark bodycount for a war. Remember that in WW2, on average 10,000 soldiers lost their lives *every day*. There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers involved in this conflict. 7000 dead on flat terrain over three weeks is a drop in the bucket. It's also not even close to the 10% whereby units are supposedly rendered ineffective.
Further to Maynard, Churchill also said "In wartime, truth is so precious she must always be protected by a bodyguard of lies." [Or something very close to this, as this quote is from memory.] This quote was the source of the title of Anthony Cave Brown's "A Bodyguard of Lies", which, for those interested in the history of the Second World War, is a superb history of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the deception campaign against the National Socialists (which culminated in the Calais landing deception that kept the 15th Panzer Division there rather than moving SouthWest to Normandy to oppose the "diversionary" Overlord landings there), and a great deal more.
In many ways, the Allies' success in the European Theater depended on (i) the ability to decrypt Enigma traffic (thanks to, more than almost anyone, the Poles for getting one of the machines and undertaking the initial decryption analysis, and one of the greatest mathmeticians of the 20th century, Alan Turing, for his furhter on that decryption work at Bletchly Park and, basically, inventing the first working electronic computer to do so); and (ii) the SOE's deception operations, including the "Double Cross System" and the "Man Who Never Was".
<\history diversion>
wondering if better analogy for Russia/Ukraine is Israel/Palestinians.
Arabs supporting Palestinians /irrededentism / = West supporting [and egging on] Ukraine wrt DonBas
In Spring 2003 the US and UK invaded Iraq with a force about the size of Russia and Belarus invading Ukraine. Took Baghdad in 3 weeks. Well under 200 dead. Putin seems to have thought he would improve on that performance.
takirks said...
Anyone trying to template what is going on using historical Soviet/Russian norms is delusional; the facts on the ground are that Russia of today is not Russia of yore.
Well said. The Russians do not have the demographics to do the meat shield/bullet sponge tactics of old*. Neither do the Ukrainians, however they are defending their homes and the Russians are the ones that are invading. That is a factor in who is willing to take the beating longer.
*Nor do they have Kazaks and Uzbeks to throw in the first wave.
ConquerorofAllFoesCheese said...
At this point I'm not sure even battlefield nukes could intimidate Ukraine soldier and civilian enough to keep them from fighting in urban/guerilla warfare.
While the Ukrainians would get hit by an initial tactical nuclear strike, they are not the target.
I spent 3 years in the (peace time) US Infantry. It was common knowledge that body counts during the war games was grossly inflated. a squad leader would claim 2 and by the time it got to Battalion HQ it would be 10-12. We sent many senior NCOs to Viet Nan TDY. When they returned they had the same stories except there were no games and the bodies were real.
allot of people here talking statistics and history. Because your half-smart, otherwise known as book-smart, otherwise known as dumb.
Birthrates are the only statistics that matter. At the beginning of WW2 the Russian birth rate was 7 per woman, now it's 1.5. Russia is dying and Ukraine (1.2) is dying faster. This is all bullshit. These countries won't exist in a couple of hundred years. You're watching two homeless bums rolling around in the mud, fighting over a half empty bottle of vodka. None of this matters.
You're welcome!
The NYT. Evelyn Farkas. Intelligence sources. Jason Crow of Colorado.
Why should anyone believe any of this?
is almost like someone picked Iwo Jima because the total losses were similar.
You are today’s winner. That is all the comparison was for.
I agree with Chris Daley. Comparing Iwo Jima to what's going on now in Ukraine is historically illiterate and incomprehensible. Our journalist class has no knowledge of history and these are our Elite. What an indictment of our educational system.
Most official sources and the MIC seem to be encouraging greater involvement on the part of U.S. and NATO. In that light, I would expect Russian loss estimates to be inflated to lead people to the conclusion that the Russian army is weak/ineffective and greater involvement of US/NATO would be low-cost. Shorter version - "Don't believe the jive, man."
Three weeks into their invasion and Russia doesn’t control the airspace over Ukraine?
That’s an EPIC fail.
FWIW, the Israeli 188th Armored Brigade started the 1973 war on the Golan heights with 170 tanks. After 30 hours, they were down to 15, still fighting and never pulled off the line. They won.
Note, their families were living 10-20 miles behind them in a death struggle. Ut does tend to focus the mind.
"American officials say" is kinda a non-starter for me anymore.
"None of this matters."
Thanks, genius. In the long run we're all dead, too.
"7,000 is a big number by western standards but let's not be too surprised if the Russians seem to think it's acceptable."
It's almost half of the 15000 they lost in the 10 years of their occupation of Afghanistan. That's a lot of people to lose in a few weeks by modern Russian standards. This isn't 1945 and Putin really can't sustain that kind of loss for too long.
Re: Prince Hal:
In many ways, the Allies' success in the European Theater depended on (i) the ability to decrypt Enigma traffic (thanks to, more than almost anyone, the Poles for getting one of the machines and undertaking the initial decryption analysis, and one of the greatest mathmeticians of the 20th century, Alan Turing, for his furhter on that decryption work at Bletchly Park and, basically, inventing the first working electronic computer to do so); and (ii) the SOE's deception operations, including the "Double Cross System" and the "Man Who Never Was".
In other ways, it was also the 400,000 trucks and 10,000 tanks, etc. we supplied to the Soviets. Given the apparent logistical problems the Russians are now running into, they probably should have stocked up on a couple hundred thousand more trucks for their invasion.
Blogger hydropsyche said...
"It doesn't seem like people understand what is going on in Ukraine or how Russia fights battles."
In Syria 400 Russian and Syrian troops tried to over run a US base staffed by special operators. Most of the attacking troops died all the rest were wounded. Not one special operator died. According to estimates I've seen by various sources Russia has committed 65% of it's troops to the Ukraine operation. I don't think Putin can commit more without leaving his other areas weak. Even then the Russian tactic of sending armor and troops enmass to make a breakthrough isn't working very well. Poor planning, poor maintenance and corruption seem to be what's going on in the Russian armed forces.
I bet that, if Putin were attempting to take over a land area of about ten square miles (like Iwo Jima) instead of a land area of more than 230,000 square miles (like Ukraine), his casualties would be a bit lighter.
This is rank dishonest cheerleading.
Drill Sgt. Read about that. Either there was something wrong with the book which contained it, or they'd had no recon whatsoever. Every other minute was an ambush from an unanticipated terrain feature.
"Just stupidly bleat about sending other people to fight WW3 and act really tough on your keyboard.
Don't be a pussy. Let's risk nuclear war so we can protect all of the corruption.
Joe and Mitt need you to keep those biolabs open. They got kids on the Board you know."
Putin Puppet keeps coming up with things that aren't happening in order to pretend to be on the moral side of this debate. This isn't anywhere close to WWII, there's no risk of nuclear war, and those biolabs aren't weapons facilities.
I've lived my whole life with anti-American, pro-Soviet and pro-Russian useful idiots screaming that we're "risking a nuclear war". Time has proven over and over this is just Soviet and now Russian propaganda.
How come we never hear that worry when China and India - nuclear powers who have a whole lot more possibility of getting one loose - come to blows?
Simple answer: Because it's bullshit. Same with false equivalence between the US and the Soviet Union (and now Russia). It's all the same BS coming from the same source for the same purpose. Soviet then, Russian now.
Here's a clue for the Putin Puppets - The people who were junior leaders in the USSR are now senior leaders in Russia. They may have sold off a chunk of their state industries to private oligarchs, but all of those oligarchs were part of the power structure under the Soviets. It's the same people and families with the same world view and the same useful idiots in the West.
People keep saying "It's not the Soviet Union anymore". Yes, yes it is. The tiger hasn't changed it's stripes nor have its elites changed their worldview or nationalist dreams. And they want it to be the Soviet Union with a more profitable economic model so they can get richer than the ol' Reds did.
"This isn't anywhere close to WWII, there's no risk of nuclear war, and those biolabs aren't weapons facilities."
It's not close to WWIII yet because the Ukrainians are doing all the fighting. If NATO ends up in a shooting war with Russia (by trying to impose a no fly zone over the Ukraine for instance) it could quickly get to that. One of the reasons we haven't seen war between nuclear powers yet is that no one knows how that would go and everyone is scared shitless to find out. You don't have to be on Putin's side (I sure as hell am not) to understand the dangers we face here.
Using that number of American deaths to try to make whatever point the NYT was after sounds historically illiterate. Much closer to home, 7,000 is about the number of Soviet soldiers who died on an average day during WW2, along with about 10,000 civilians. It was a very different time.
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