OT: Putin's War in Ukraine

[Targan]

It's exactly the sort of conflict that turns really, really ugly in terms of the behaviour of the troops on the ground. Exacerbated by the well-understood Russian doctrine of using brutality against the civilian populace to break the will of the opposing side to fight on. Except in many cases it makes the opposition fight even harder, and engage in brutal tactics as well.

[Fallenkezef]

Originally Posted by Targan

It's exactly the sort of conflict that turns really, really ugly in terms of the behaviour of the troops on the ground. Exacerbated by the well-understood Russian doctrine of using brutality against the civilian populace to break the will of the opposing side to fight on. Except in many cases it makes the opposition fight even harder, and engage in brutal tactics as well.

I never understand why people think this crap works. Germany pounded London and we never broke. The RAF flattened every German city and the German people did not break. The nazis tried this with Ukraine in WW2 (look up the bastards of the Dirlewanger brigade) and the Ukrainians did not break back then.

Russian tactics did not break the Afghans back in the 80's.

All it does is make every person a potential enemy combatant and none of your troops are safe, anywhere in theatre.

[Raellus]

I think it's more about driving civilians out of targeted settlements so that the artillery can level potential defensive positions, than efforts to break the will to fight of the Ukrainian populace. The demoralizing effect of random shelling and missile attacks is a "bonus", rather than the primary objective of said strikes. Do the Russians really care about civilian casualties? Clearly not, but I think they're trying to maintain the facade that they do.

The Russians have a long institutional memory. They learned how difficult MOUT is 75 years ago during the battles for Berlin, Danzig, Konigsberg, etc. Their attempts at a decapitating "Thunder Run" during the first battle of Grozny and, again, during the Battle of Kiev, were costly, abject failures, so they've reverted back to just shelling cities into rubble before trying to seize territory.

"Light", preliminary bombardment prompts evacuations of civilians. Then the Soviets can go hard. Or maybe they just don't give a crap about civilian casualties, I don't know.

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