Thread by @LivFaustDieJung

While it's not insane to use uparmored trucks to move infantry to the assault (ala motorized infantry), it isn't something you do unsupported. Because these trucks can't defend themselves & are highly vulnerable to... well everything. The piecemeal commitment of troops &

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1778449016071622958

equipment is a guaranteed way to ensure losses. Russia seems to be caught in this loop of "Send large force, and if large force gets mauled, that's bad," but their large forces are the only ones capable of making break throughs. So instead they commit to these micro assaults

of just a few vehicles (and I mean 2-20 vehicles), that invariably get wrecked, but the end result is that assault wasn't *that* costly by itself. And who knows maybe it will find a weak point & break through.

But then taken in aggregate, hundreds of micro assaults with a few

vehicles each leads to attrition that might only be platoon - company sized in each attack, but becomes brigade & division sized overall.

Don't get me wrong, I hope they continue this practice, it's a large part of why Ukraine is able to stem the loss of territory so well. It's

a LOT easier to focus on a singular assault, likely not backed by real time coordinated artillery, and kill/damage a few vehicles & kill or force a retreat of a platoon of guys then to do so on a grander scale.

The smaller the assault, the more dedicated ISR assets can be

leveraged to track it, & then exploit it via artillery & drone attacks, preventing it from ever reaching friendly troops.

What I can't understand, is why Russia has failed to learn that even if the attack is very costly, the only time they can actually seize ground is when they

commit heavy combat groups backed by coordinated artillery with sufficient airpower allocated directly in support.

It feels like this comes down to commanders fear of big losses impacting their support from Moscow. That they have to continue attacks to show they're pushing but

that if they commit big and fail, they risk losing faith in their command.

And so here we are. Two unarmed, lightly uparmored trucks, crossing a UXO laden (& probably heavily mined) battlefield, in broad daylight, without the slightest bit of cover or concealment, without

any supporting combat arms to cover their crossing. With predictable results.

Many of the scoffers at Ukraine's successes point to the largesse of the Russian military & their ability to soak up losses ad infinitum. But a military that can continuously take losses is not reduced

to committing its forces in continuously smaller & less equipped fashions. A military that can bleed forever would commit to heavy assaults that, while costly, gain ground.

I wrote about this 6 months ago or so, that the Soviet inheritance is large, but not inexhaustible. I

think we're beginning to see this play out, more and more. Fewer grandiose attacks, more of them equipped with a hodgepodge of new production (often foreign, like the Chinese golf carts), & ancient gear.

I hesitated to draw conclusions when Russia began supplementing formations

with T-55s, because they were still churning out T-90s and more modern T-72 variants, with T-55s taking on a (relatively sensible) role of supplementing artillery as a kind of short range IDF option

But now we're literally seeing T-55s pushed into combat. Trucks sent unsupported

across open terrain. Tank convoys that lack any sort of air defense/EW vehicles to provide short range AD or wrecker capability to withdraw damaged vehicles, leading to company sized losses that are irretrievable.

The Russian military that began this war was ill led, & often

confusingly mismatched in its equipment & manpower in contrast to their doctrinal documents on how they're supposed to work.

But it was a large military, reasonably coherent, & capable of being well supported. What one *expects* to happen when a force like that is committed to

combat, is that even if they suffer heavily & don't achieve the tactical success they want, that they will grow into a seasoned force that understands how to best operate with the situation & power that they possess. Combat is usually an evolutionary process, where even the loser

winds up hardened & applies lessons learned throughout the conflict to either exploit success, or delay defeat.

What we are seeing instead with the Russian military is a devolution. The Russian military is, broadly speaking, growing weaker & less capable across the board. There

are bright spots (for them) where they are learning & growing (drones, some small unit tactics that have had success, foreign procurement), but overall, the Russian military of today is a significantly weaker force, neutered by terrified commanders, with drastically less of its

Soviet inheritance to draw upon when the coffers run dry to buy more modern gear.

Anyone predicting when or how this conflict ends is an idiot that wants to sell you something, but one thing remains certain- the post Soviet Russia that could pose a (conventional) threat to *all*

of its neighbors is dying off, & absent a decades long rearmament program, the Russia that emerges will likely be capable only of harassing it's former Soviet satellites not yet in NATO & nothing more than nuclear saber rattling at everyone else.

Ukraine has, as we would want in

a NATO partner, taken this war (and the 10 years prior) as a time to shed many of its less desirable military attributes, grow a more capable & more flexible force, & prove, time & time again, it can, will, & does adjust to the situation as it changes, & can capably ingest

modern equipment in a timely & efficient manner.

However this conflict ends, it ends with a far more capable Ukraine, and a far less capable Russia. And that's a good thing for everyone.