Russia Doesn't Train Troops for Urban Warfare. It's About to Learn the Consequences in Ukraine.

[Sherman A1]

8 Mar 2022
Military.com | By Gary Anderson
The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to [e-mail] for consideration.

Gary Anderson served in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 and directed several urban war games in 1994-95. He served as chief of staff for the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab during the Urban Warrior experiments and later directed the follow-on Project Metropolis study as the director of the Marine Corps' Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities.

Vladimir Putin's plan for a quick decapitation of Ukraine's government and swift capitulation of its major cities was the first casualty of his war. Now, the Russian military is faced with urban combat, something for which it is not prepared.

Russian combined-arms doctrine has generally advised against making cities primary objectives. The belief has been that if the enemy's main force in the field is destroyed, then his cities will surrender.

Although Russian special forces are probably given some instruction in urban combat, there is no indication that the average conscript has any training in the physical and psychological rigors of street fighting.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2022/03/08/russia-doesnt-train-troops-urban-warfare-its-about-learn-consequences-ukraine.html

[MLAA]

1. I think it appropriate to comment by a saying FAFO Russian Military.

Fuck around find out

[Irish_Dem]

2. I am continually dumbfounded by what I am reading about the Russian military.

On paper this should have been a quick operation.

Russia has the world's second-most powerful military. Russia has 900,000 active duty troops and two million reservists, eight times the size of Ukraine's.

Putin prides himself on his military might and his covert intelligence gathering apparatus.

Yet he overestimated his own military, while underestimated the Ukraine resistance and Western response.

Putin has been an evil genius bringing down western democracies but totally screwed up Ukraine.

[wnylib]

4. Corruption. You can't successfully

fight a war when your contract suppliers and people in charge of training are too busy skimming for themselves to do the job.

[Irish_Dem]

5. Yes, I read that the RU military leadership had embezzled the military budget.

Putin is said to put billions into the Russian military. He probably expected some skimming but not for most of it to go missing?

This is a man who prides himself on knowing everything all the time. And is supposed to have one of the best secret intelligence services in the world, ranked higher than the US.

I guess it is true, Putin is either not listening to his people or they are not telling him the truth.

[wnylib]

6. That last sentence - It is both.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Wouldn't you think the generals would know a day of reckoning would occur?

When they were called into combat?

Maybe none of them knew how much the other generals were stealing.

Or they thought they could bluff their way through a war.

Maybe they were not thinking.

And now some of the are dead.

[wnylib]

8. Any one of those or a combination

of some of them could be the case.

So full of greed and entitlement that they can't see or care about the consequences.

[Irish_Dem]

10. They probably knew the consequences but simply didn't care.

Unless they were generals in name only and didn't know what they were doing.

Probably thought they could get away with it because they were rich.

Get on one of their yachts and sail some where safe. They didn't know that most of the world would take away their escape pods and hidden cash.

[Collimator]

11. Knowing consequences. . .

. . . and not caring or acting on them is the general mindset of every person and business that thinks they can keep building profits on a system that lacks sustainability.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Good point

[Crowman2009]

9. It's reminicent of the Imperial Russian army from the first world war.

Nothing but corruption, nepotism and endless defeats.

[Walleye]

3. My boyfriend was in the 11th airborne in the 50s. He always said the sergeants won World War II

I don’t know about now but Americans used to know how to organize when working together in small groups, chose a leader and a tactic and go with it. Advantage was they didn’t have to appeal it up the chain of command first. I think Putin is like the aging gunslinger getting by on his reputation as his skills deteriorate, until confronted by the young cowboy willing to draw against him.