[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I was listening to GEN (Ret) Wesley Clark, a former commander of NATO, on CNN the other day. (Yes, I know what some of you think of CNN; let's not go into that right now.) He said that while the troops and equipment are enough to make a wreck of Ukraine right now, to properly subjugate Ukraine, Russia would need on the order of 800,000 troops with attendant armor and vehicle to move the supply chain, and enough aircraft to gain air superiority over Ukraine.

The Russians don't have this right now. Mass conscription would be necessary, and the first task of the new troops would be to get currently POS vehicles running. While training for combat.

However, the invasion of Ukraine is going badly for the Russians. Even Russian commanders (secretly) acknowledge that they are overwhelmed at how badly the campaign is going. The war is also very unpopular in Russia herself, and conscription is going to go over like a lead balloon. You'll need loyal troops to provide armed guards over the conscripts to make sure they don't desert, and in general start a reign of terror over the conscripts.

You're also going to have a situation like in the 1960s-70s in the US, where conscripts "burn their draft cards" and generally don't show up when they are conscripted. They'll join the antiwar effort instead. Where they will be arrested, and then conscripted. There will be press gangs roaming Russia.

It's going to be a mess.

As far as I know, Russia has universal conscription. Every male serves from 18 to 20 and then goes into the equivalent of America's IRR (inactive ready reserve). That means every Russian male is going to "get a taste of Hell." I just don't know how a sustained occupation would be affordable to Russia's military. I'm not even sure the US could do it now with our debt load.