Russia Plans to Grow Military Personnel from 1 Million to 1.5 Million Over the Next Four Years

68 thoughts on “Russia Plans to Grow Military Personnel from 1 Million to 1.5 Million Over the Next Four Years”

1. It is interesting to see the same tribalism of the US left/right political divide almost exactly playing out in the UKrain/Russo online debates.

   I think a few things can be definitively stated:
   Both sides lie.
   Both sides respective oligarchs are getting richer through war.
   Both sides are losing men and equipment.
   The global trade structure Russo uses has been damaged, long term consequences remains to be seen.
   UKrain infrastructure is a slow moving train wreck.

   The way I see it, at this time –
   Major Loser: UKrain
   Minor Losers: EU and Russo (SSR)
   Minor Winners: US, India, Mid East
   Major Winner: China

   UKrain war – HOOORAH for CHINA !!!!

   Stated ironically. I really wish it had never started, poor Ukrainians.

2. I’m really confused about all this and the Ukrainian war. Let’s see first the elected Ukrainian leader who was an actual Ukrainian is thrown out of office after an uprising where both protestors and police are shot dead. Yet the bullets found in the bodies were from the same gun in many cases. Then a Jewish billionaire from Switzerland comes to Ukraine and runs the country. Other Oligarchs, either Jewish or controlled by Jews do the same. All this time the Ukrainian State is shelling indiscriminately civilians who just so happened to all be ethnic Russians for eight years in the eastern Ukraine. Eight years and then finally Ukraine talks seriously about joining NATO. So after eight years of shelling ethnic Russians and lack of guarantees on Ukraine not joining NATO, Putin has enough and invades to free the eastern portion and stop Ukraine from joining NATO. But apparently, or so they say on the Jewish US State TV, Putin is an expansionist bloody killer who wants to take over the world, or something like that.

   And now we are told that Russia is losing the war, repeatedly, as the Ukrainians lose territory after territory and all their power is interrupted and their electric trains are stopped, but never mind that, the Russians are losing. And recently a petition to the, once again Jewish President of Ukraine, is sent from family members of Ukrainian Men who say they have not heard from them at all. No letters, no calls, 320,000 Ukrainians. Could these be possibly MIA if they have somehow vanished?

   So maybe someone will make sense of this for me, as what the US Jewish State TV says and the facts on the ground do not collaborate very well.

   • Russia is bad. NATO and the West are good. The UN has declared much of what Russia has done in the Ukraine now and before as a war cime. Internationally-agreed borders matter. What does Jewishness have to do with anything? What else is there to say?

     • It’s not that NATO or the West may be good, but Russia had no business invading another country, Nazis or no Nazis. If this were really a problem, Putin could have used his permanent seat on the UN Security Council to negotiate some really harsh economic sanctions on Ukraine until they aquiesced to stop the genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbas or whatever it is that Putin claims they were doing. I doubt the US, France or England would exercise their veto power over sanctions to a country they up to now had no contact with.

       But no, that would still leave the Ukrainians poor but out from beneath his boot, so he tried to solve the problem the way Russians usually do, by land conquest; and this frightened the Eastern Europeans enough that NATO decided to take a stand, or risk the Kremlin decide that after they were done with Kiev, now they wanted Transnistria or Warsaw or Carpathian Ruthenia…

   • One thing is for certain. The Ukrainians do not want to be part of the “Russian Empire.” They’re fighting to their death for their desire to be free.

3. In your wet dreams, Russia will be vanquished. But time shall tell. It is likely that Russia will be only stronger in 5 years’ time.
   Btw, your statistics regarding number of Russian KIA is utter hogwash.

   • Russia WILL be vanquished. Your buddies are dying by the hundreds of thousands and are now bogged down in war of attrition they cannot win. This will not end well for Russia, and the more Ukrainians and Europeans your buddies kill, the stronger the resolve to vanquish Russia will become.

     • “…The Sun reported that US intelligence estimates total Russian military casualties in Ukraine as 188,000 as of January 20, suggesting a possible 47,000 Russians killed in action in less than a year of fighting.[18] The historical ratio of wounded to killed in war is 3:1, suggesting that Russian casualties in Ukraine thus far are close to the total US deaths in the Vietnam War.[19] The US National Archives estimates that the total US battle deaths in Vietnam is roughly 58,000 across eight years of fighting.[20] Soviet forces suffered 15,000 deaths across nine years of war in Afghanistan, a threshold that the UK Ministry of Defense assessed Russian casualties surpassed in May 2022 after just three months of hostilities.[21]…”
       https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-21-2023

       • There are reports that the Russians (Wagner) have lost over 40,000 troops in battles of Bakhmut and Soledar alone.

     • I think the key issue is not whether Russian forces can be militarily expunged or contained at 2014, or better without Crimea and Donbas (or whatever that region is) borders, but whether their unwanted ‘soviet-flavoured’ influence and relentless ‘oligopoly-focussed’ infection can be sanitized from nations that truly don’t want that system of values – the constant hyper-machismo, heritage-based, historic-myth-drive, expansion-craving existence like the tired-old politburo, so unable to function in any kind of merit-based system. It would be reasonable if the russian federation was something to be proud of – a system of true individual- and community-merit (not empty tech showmanship), based on a rich system of cultural celebration and togetherness rather than a rancid display of ethnic separation and wealth misapproriation. I am sure that the Russian federation has something of redeeming value if they can focus on their people and culture and infrastructure; not misguided attempts at recapturing former glories and misery-distracting annexations. The best result would be to contain Russia and just let it’s internal politics work itself out.

4. Brian – Please stop posting military news on this site!

   • You don’t have to read the article. Skip it. The title tells you what the article is.

     • Thank you Brian,news like this is important.

       • Why is Europe so far behind the US in science, technology,movies, medicine, military ,and business?
         One reason is European universities ban military research, while in the US,students,teachers,researchers business and the military all work together on national security projects ,as well as a myriad of non military avenues of inquiry.
         So not only is Europe totally helpless militarily and can’t keep from killing each other, but they fall further and further behind the US,economically,and in science and technology.

         • Your assessment is not even remotely correct. I know. I was there on multiple projects.

       • I can see China making a move once Russia is depleted.

         • Well. If the pacific-situated, powers-that-be can show a certain level of force and intolerance for a chinese invasion of taiwan, in That Sea, perhaps Beijing may indeed turn westward and northward looking for ‘opportunity’.

     • Please post more of this stuff Brian. I just love how all those people high on Russian propaganda go out of their woodwork once you start serving them the facts. This conflict actually determined that Russia wont be part of the Next Big Future of successful countries. This is the last kick of a dying horse. Their demographics, economy, diplomacy, culture and current events made that country incompatible with what is needed in todays age.

       • Small impoverished third world economies should not wage existential wars with the civilized world.

         • Large impoverished first world economies should not wage wars with small impoverished third world economies. Vietnam, North Korea, and Afghanistan are examples of why this is true.

           • The key word is existential.

5. Historically, Russia and/or the USSR never quits before losing 500,000 combatants. They always have quit when that number is reached. Chances are, with current demographics, technology, economics, and political situations, that number may be considerably lower now.

   So the brutal but obvious strategy for Ukraine is to go for maximum kills. If that means letting the Russians take tiny little towns of 10,000, or even larger, it is fine if it means bringing them into the killing grounds. Ukraine has 461 towns, of which Soledar is/was one of the very smallest.

   It took a year to get the first 100,000 Russian combatants dead (with probably 2.5 times that in wounded and maimed). It won’t take four years to get the next 400,000. With endless munitions, superior weaponry, and excellent recon, the numbers of dead Russian soldiers are going to escalate rapidly as they funnel enormous numbers of undertrained and untrained human bodies into the killing grounds with inadequate weapons, ammunition, equipment, vehicles, supply, coordination, morale, and leadership.

   The current thrust on Soledar and its environs has taken many months, even while the Russians were losing ground elsewhere. Even if this was sustainable, at this rate, it could take decades just to conquer one oblast (Ukraine has 26 others). But 12 more such pyric victories will put them over that 500,000.

   It’s kind of like the old joke about the condemned man that convinces his king to spare his life if he can teach a horse to sing in one year. A guard later tells the elated prisoner that he is still doomed, to which the condemned man replies, “But I have a year, many things can happen in a year. The king could die, the horse could die, I could die . . . or the horse could learn to sing.”

   Putin is acting strangely, sick or not, and he probably is very ill. Be that as it may, at his age the stress alone could kill him. He also no longer has a monopoly on violence in his own country as there are several mercenary outfits with small armies. Coups could come from several places. And, just as likely, the Russian army in Ukraine may break and run . . . or just dissolve. It’s happened before. Or Russia could still be around in 4 years and have an addition 500,000 troops, never mind the fact that, for the most part, they would be armed with pointed sticks and eating their own boots (or each other). Even so, that’s kind of like the horse learning to sing outcome.

   • Well. In fairness, this part of the world is essentially post-Medieval. The low-trust, fifedom-flavoured, small village and family-oriented cultures, minimal regular movement and negligible enthusiam for non-military travel/ adventure, and lack of true home-grown research, tech, and industriousness. Of course, they have all the amenities and vacation/business experiences and industries of western Europe and North America, but these aren’t the key cultural elements of Eurasia. If it wasn’t for the Industrial Revolution of the UK, bits of north Europe, and perhaps bits of China – these lands would never have aspired to such modernity, productivity, and convenience. Fear of being overwhelmed by neighbors in war, outperformed with agriculture and luxuries such as their people would leave in times of famine, and drawn by the wealth of royalty and private businesses, they grudgingly allowed some assimilation. Though the cultural feuds continue – imprisoned by long-forgotten land disputes, artificial and arbitrary borders and monarchies, and untamped resentment from past wrongs and conflicts, they squabble. Until we fence off the most ‘traditional’ of these cultures, the Russian federation – to either integrate, develop, or implode, this pedantic grouping will forever seek to swarm and brutalize its neighbors. It’s only recently that tech and industriousness have provided enough of a military imbalance that we needn’t be fearful of a land-based invasion into mid- or western Europe – combine that with recent energy/ mineral trade detachment; and we can honestly ignore future threats – as long as we resolve the borders east of Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia – ideally with Ukraine intact, we can move on to a brighter future.

     • It could probably be argued that this should be one of the terms in the Fermi Paradox – ability for a culture to industrialize technology – not just locally invent or conceive, but to ponder, plan, design, attract labor and capital, fabricate efficiently on a grand-scale, spawn improvements and distribute widely – a technology beyond what could be assembled by hand based on found object.

   • Yeah,problem is Urkraine has heavy military losses as well as innocent children, the Germans are true to form ,I’d like everyone to always use the word NAZI whenever we use the word German,it would be accurate, and maybe someday we could pry them from their close alliance with Russia.
     I saw an American hero, died fighting for Ukraine,I wish Biden weren’t such a cowardly old woman and give them F-16’s.

   • Zeihan says this. Bit then younhave Chechnya and Afghanistan

   • How many data points are you getting the 500 000 casualties from? Because until the 20th century soldiers were all that Russia had. The only way they could lose was via excess manpower loss.

     Once we get to the 20th century, equipment starts to be a factor. You can lose if you lose your weapons, even if the death toll is way under 500 000.

     In the Russo-Japanese war, Russian losses are somewhere between 40 to 120 thousand. Numbers that the current war has already reached or exceeded. But they ran out of high tech equipment (naval vessels) and couldn’t continue fighting.
     WW1 had 2.25 million dead (Russian loss) and WW2 had 11 ish million dead military, and even more than that civilians (Soviet victory). So those wars and death tolls were quite a lot larger, though in at least WW2 there was no way to “give up and go home” obviously.

     Since then there was the Russian-Afghan war with ~26 000 dead.

     Of these, I suspect the Russo-Japanese and Afghan conflicts are much more applicable to the current situation. A conflict caused by Russian attempted expansion that is, once pride is swallowed, able to be solved by simply giving up and going home. Though in both cases the loss of the war contributed to a revolution at home occurring soon afterwards. Something the current Russian government is probably well aware of.

     Yet another confusing factor is that the denominator in our equations keeps changing. When we say “Russian dead” in a war, that often includes Ukrainians, Estonians, Kazaks, Uzbeks, even Fins. Those populations are now out of the equation, so Russia is fighting from a smaller base, without a lot of sacrificial populations they used to have available. (c.f. British empire with Irish, Indians, Burmese, Pakistanis, Canadians, Australians, etc. Now they are reduced to only the Scots and the Welsh as disposable bodies to throw in first.)

     • As far back as history goes, technology has always played an important role in warfare, of course it is still true today.

       • Tech has always played a part in war, at least since people started improving their clubs over just picking up a stick.
         But when dealing with armies equipped with individual weapons, whether spears, bows, muskets or rifles, I can’t think of any cases where you can lose all your weapons without mass loss of soldiers too.
         In the Russo-Japanese war, by contrast, the Russians lost their naval fleets (Pacific and Baltic fleets) with a loss of “only” ~100k men. They still had heaps of manpower, but no longer had the ships to send them to the war zone. They could, in theory, have gone overland by rail, but that was too hard. So they decided that it was a lost cause.
         Likewise, it is possible that the current war would leave Russia still with millions of possible conscripts, but insufficient armoured vehicles, missiles and artillery to keep the war going with any realistic chance. (Though this is by no means the current situation.)

6. Kind of funny to see commenters suggesting that Russia has only lost 25k-30k soldiers. If losses were so low then why would they have done a snap mobilization with a second mobilization in the works?

7. Russia needs these men to father children. Dead men can’t do that. They are sacrificing their future for very little gain. Eventually their neighbors will subsume them no matter the result in Ukraine. It is a demographic certainty.

   • I kind of suspect that, if China doesn’t itself collapse, Russia is soon enough going to end up it’s junior partner, and eventually swallowed up. Cutting themselves off from Europe this way really left them no other option.

   • Hah. Yes.
     Did you see the splurge of articles late last year in pop.media about how Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine could ‘freeze their sperm’ for free? If that doesn’t tell…

     • Many of the Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine in the winter were probably already freezing their sperm, even before Putin offered to do it for them. They just weren’t using their cellphones to send home videos of it (we sincerely hope).

       The Ukrainians used Geiger counters to assess the mess after the Russians pulled out of Chernobyl. They might want to check things over with black lights once the current batch is driven out.

   • We need to support breakaway Russian republics, they are bearing the brunt of the load, and are already moving to independence.
     Leave Putin with Moscow and St Petersburg. The problem is the Germans, Nazis.

     • That would be great.
       But that’s what the Russians want – to bring us down to their level of violence, might-makes-right, best-society-as-shown-on-the-battlefield, chip-on-the-shoulder, cultural values. That’s a world value system no-one wins, because that part of the world isn’t happy unless they are bullying others, taking glory in someone else’s failure, celebrating some kind of victory/ hard-won freedom/ overwhelming odds from some mythical past. That’s not even a zero-sum game, that’s a downward spiral to south-central LA of the 80s/90s – gangs, retribution, hierarchies of bulliness, etc., etc.
       It’s a shame that the EU isn’t doing more to re-establish a better balance/ equilibrium by pushing back to int’l borders, but the west’s fear that Russia will simply tactically nuke all over eastern Europe is a pretty fair assessment if we simply crush them and of course, Ukraine, as the noble victim in this case, is just as full, rightly so, of retribution -Russia and Ukraine are cousins of the same value system. Soon Ukraine is pushing beyond Crimea and Donbas – shelling the outskirts of Moscow and St.Pete’s – which they deserve to do – but that’s the over-testosteronated value system that got WW1 started.
       The West will do the right thing – they will send some kind of rolling armor, better missile systems, better artillery, more drones… It will work out, the world is watching. We’ll have 2014 borders + a bit of Crimea by Fall.

     • At least the Germans are not Bolsheviks, the worst of the worst.

       Twelve million dead UKrainians.

   • Yep. A demographic collapse. They already lost a million or more from the war. Death or exodus

8. The last partial mobilization resulted in more young people fleeing the country than were conscripted. So far, Putin’s police state has been comparatively liberal but he’d have to go full DPRK to try to pull this off. If he does that, he’d have to seize control of most of the economy. That would start with locking the door. Russia is now very much a corrupt Capitalist economy lacking the all the central control and planning for military production of the USSR. All that has to be recreated. When it was originally built, by Stalin, he just bought most of the equipment he needed from the US and the West generally. Sanctions will matter to this.

   • All advanced countries are capitalist countries, including the ‘communist’ ones, which are just engaged in state capitalism, rather than private.

     “Capitalism” is one of those fundamental advances that there’s basically no going back on, like agriculture instead of being hunter-gatherer, or using money instead of barter. EVERYBODY does it.

9. If they really do this, which I doubt, the purpose won’t be to win in Ukraine. It will be to suppress attempts by the rest of the Russian ‘federation’ to escape.

10. This is not sustainable obviously. Their economy is shrienking, their sources of revenue from energy production are seriously dwindling. Their deficit is already very bad. and with a decreasing population they don’t have this kind of willing man power for a 140 million country. Something will have to give in, the equations for Russia do not add up.

11. I don’t get purpose of this war. one dying nation fighting another dying nation, supported by declining powers having enough of their own problems. the winner gets devastated, abandoned land, the rest gets challenges resulting from global warming and likes. probably it’s always like this with wo&mankind, or?

    • Psychology. Group psychology.
      The mental hang-up of thinking that a group’s culture is the One-True Path, not to be contained or challenged. To be looked at in awe and reverence, even when nothing really about that culture is really that great. Imprisoned by previous delusions of grandeur and glory – deceived by the possiblity of future episodes of such glory – if they can just show it on the world stage, convince and motivate their own people to live up to their deluded potential.
      Group psychosis.
      Metal Ilness writ large.
      They need to be contained so they can stop hurting themsleves and Others.
      Then they either recede, improve, or implode.

12. No matter how much they overhaul their military, there’s no way that Russia comes out of this with a win in Ukraine, taking over it the way Putin wants. They won’t even come out of it with a third of what Putin wants.

    I’m of the opinion (and that’s a it is) that these types of figures mean nothing to the current conflict. Russia doesn’t have the officer structure left to command those troops. Hiring mercenary officers to lead them will only result in further human rights abuse shich will garner further support in favor of Ukraine.

    The only way this growth means anything is, if after Putin pulls out of Ukraine– which will eventually happen, whether anyone likes it or not; that is inevitable– Putin or someone like him remains in power and they decode to use that force elsewhere. And that will never work out. At least, it doesn’t seem that it ever would.

13. I am sorry but you are just spouting nonsense. There is no evidence of Russia losing 80k troops. Best estimates are around 25k to 35k Russian losses compared to around 130k to 150k Ukrainian losses.

    I am totally against this war but ridiculous claims like this have no place here.

    • Dont be silly. We dont know the exact figures, but we do have a precise list of destroyed equipment. It is on a site called Oryx. Every single piece of destroyed equipment that has picture/video evidence gets recorded in there. Russians have they own database. And guess what. Russians are loosing 3.5:1 times the equipment of the Ukrainian side. It is VERY VERY probable that the same ratio will be in lost personnel. So you are right about the losses but it is the other side around.

      • If you believe Oryx I have a bridge to sell you.

        • Haha, so they do photoshop their evidence or what? Damn, you are inhaling that copium really hard. And as I have mentioned, the Russians keep a separate database at lostarmour.info and *drums* it does not have more Ukrainian losses.
          You are really deep into some cheap Russian propaganda. S

        • I’m one of the contributors to the Oryx project and I can tell you a huge amount of work goes into eliminating duplicates and pictures/videos submitted from other conflicts. I can also tell you that the published numbers aren’t just low but are VERY LOW. We’ve modeled it out and we’re confident that we’re only reporting ~45%-65% of Russian losses. I’m convinced that the numbers publicly reported by western intelligence (and they *DO* know) are purposefully low by a significant amount.

          • Somehow I do not believe a word of anything you wrote after stating that NATO intelligence sources are keeping the numbers of Russian casualties low.

        • So do you have any source for your claims of high Ukrainian, low Russian losses? And why would this source be the one to believe?

          • Scott Ritter cited monthly artillery shell usage. It was about 60,000 a day vs. 6,000 a day at the peak. Surprisingly, both Western and Russian sources were reporting the same numbers, at least what I read.

            I believe is is down to about 20,000 to 1,200 last I read on a Russian leaning site. Supposedly the Russkies developed (more likely received) electronic targeting upgrades in November. Rogozin (ex leader of Roscomos) spear headed the upgrades. He was targeted at a hotel, but survived. Russphile websites say that the Ukrain are lopsidedly losing the artillery duels.

            So vastly different citations on equipment, personnel losses. So who knows?

            Both sides approximately agreed on the numbers of artillery pieces and usage.

14. It’s a weird theatre.
    Backward tech, poor small unit and strike force strategy, barely disciplined/ trained troops, nearly non-existent air support, lack of planning with support lines and ammo depots, and poor bird’s eye info from the Russians.
    Mis-matched and band-aid-repair rolling armament, sparse but super accurate back-field NATO artillery and rockets, top notch field info from NATO, intensely-driven but somewhat under-supported Ukranians with hot-cold partisan support behind and in-front of the lines.
    It’s likely to be a war of attrition with Russians throwing endless fodder troops at all lines with near-useless drones and soviet-era missiles aimed at infrastructure – an attempt at simply overwhelming and demoralizing the Ukranians. The Russians have not got enough shock troops, Spetsnaz, Wagner units, armored transport, etc., to really ‘take’ significant tactical positions, but the larger pockets of troops can swarm and encircle some areas, I guess.
    My big question is whether Ukraine has the troop numbers to hold all the lines indefinitely no matter how much NATO tech and info they get. If Ukranians -throwing it out there – can manage 5-to-1 casualty ratios and demoralize certain field commands, it may be possible to get the nuclear plant, Kherson and part of Crimea back later this year – and hold it. Don’t forget Russians are clearing out occupied areas and Russifying the infrastructure, taking valuable shore and agriculture. If the EU can support Ukraine to the end of the year, they may get back to 2014 lines plus most of Crimea.
    NATO must realize that winning Ukraine and making it (or what remains) a NATO/ EU member is the only way to long-term contain Russian ambitions – otherwsie all eastern European old Warsaw Pact countries are vulnerable.

    • Totally agree that this war is pivotal to re-establishing an equilibrium in Eurasia and to keep the internationally-recognized Russian border intact. This may have been Russia’s last chance to spread its ‘values’ and it needs to be a watershed moment in history to choose whether to let that happen. I don’t consider russia evil per se, but they just have a system of cultural values – from government to the common folk that is inconsistent with pro-tech, productive, world economic collaboration. They are broken and they know it. It may be unfixable and it may mean they lose major international credibility and socio-economic opportunity for decades. It is time to get out of mid-last-century world-politics thinking and into AI, space inhabitation, new-world transportation solutions, and other world-affirming adventures – which means about focussing less on these petty squabbles and obsolete historical baggage.

      • Wouldn’t that be lovely.
        Probably way easier to give half Ukraine away, including much access to the Black Sea, and then just re-secure, modernize, enrich, and hyper-militarize the old East Bloc countries Romana, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, etc. New bases. Top land and air tech. Super-secure border. Never understood Serbia’s loyalites, though. We should probably try to bring Moldova on board though, best alcohol in the world.

15. US tend to estimate Russia vs Ukraine lost is 1:1 because it fits their narrative. But Russia has huge advantage in air force, massive out-gun Ukraine in artillery, much more tanks and armored vehicles, better drone and electronic warfare. How could Russia exchange 1:1 in this attrition war? I guess the exchange rate at least 1:3, most likely around 1:5 in favour of Russia. Ukr likely lost about 150k vs 30k Russia lost.

    • You haven’t actually been following the Ukraine war – or is there somewhere in the world that Russian disinformation is so effective that these things are generally believed?

    • You do realize that, were any of that true, they’d actually have won, right?

      • He is inhaling the Czars Copium. Hard to argue with people inhaling that stuff, they are not interested in reality, they have their own where Russia is winning every day.

    • “huge advantage in air force”

      Why then don’t they use their air force? Oh right if their air force flew over Ukraine then it would be shot down and their air force can’t help support a ground war because it was based on bomber interception. Do you have any other useless observations?

16. Since Ukraine began using 105mm&155mm Howitzer Cluster munitions Russian attrition has risen from ~350 to ~800 dead conscripts per day. Historically wounded are 3X dead. Russia must conscript several million men to keep pace.

    • That dead to wounded = 1:3 is not a very robust number.
      In most of history, up to (coincidentally) the Crimean war, it was more like 1:1. If you were wounded badly enough to drop out of the army in Napoleonic times, then your chances of infection and eventually death were fairly bad.

      Then, as (thanks to people like Florence Nightingale) medical treatment of wounds became both technically feasible AND something that militaries actually put some resources into, the number who survived started to go up and up.

      In the early 20 century they did indeed get values of about 1:2 or 1:3. With the number of survivors increasing even further when penicillin came on the scene in late WW2. Since then, widespread of use of both body armour and significant investment in field medicine, rapid evacuation and well equipped military field hospitals have pushed the numbers up towards a reported 1:10 or more.

      That is, shrapnel or bullets would hit the same number of men, but body armour would stop them getting killed, just wounded. Then rapid and effective medical treatment meant that almost all the wounded end up surviving.

      BUT, all these numbers come from western militaries. US, UK etc. They can’t be applied to the Russians without a thorough analysis of their armour, tactics, and military medical resources and policies.

      What little data has appeared in the media on this subject is suggesting the Russians are currently operating on 1:2 or even 1:1 killed:wounded. You do see 1:3 mentioned a lot, but that appears to be some writer who is just reading the number out of a first world war text and thinks it’s a universal rule.

      • Yes, the numbers are both classified and difficult to estimate. Impossible to verify reports from inside Russian hospitals say half the Russian wounded die. Another confounding factor is Russians stopped retrieving wounded conscripts from the battlefield. Military doctrine allocates three to one numerical superiority for the attacking army because attacking losses are expected to be nearly three times higher than defending losses. Russia has been attacking, Ukraine defending.

        I can cite some lopsided victories in the past. Battle of New Orleans. Goths vs Romans at Adrianoble. Battle of Agincourt. Battle of Cannae. Battle of Zama. Battle of Okinawa. General MacArthur famously said “In war, there is no substitute for victory.”

17. They can grow it all they want, but if they don’t have the Generals to win battles…. It’s propaganda.

    They might try to do something with the T-14 Armata, with it’s “Arena” active protection system, but by then the Western allies might have projectile velocities that will be able to get through the active protection system.

    I’d like to see a railgun on the Nex-gen Abrams

    • I love rail guns, and military tech, but I gotta disagree with you. I look at Tanks the same way I look at Aircraft carriers, a dead tech. Tanks are pointless if you control the skies. Carriers are pointless in a real (big player) war. They will be the first things sunk, just 1 carrier sunk means thousands dead, and loads of aircraft & ammunition being removed from the board. They are relics, yes, even the Ford Class.

      • Yeah… but the US military still thinks that tanks and aircraft carriers are worth pouring heaps of resources into developing and buying.

        Ok, so the US military are idiots who still think it’s 1944?

        But the Chinese military also want more and more tanks and aircraft carriers. And the japanese. And the indians. And the russians. And iranians. And tanks are also wanted in bulk quantities by the koreans and the poles and the estonians. And the Ukrainians, who probably have a really good idea of what 2020s war is like.

        So… as convincing as the argument is, I’d reserve judgement until actual militaries, some of whom are actively fighting modern wars, also decide that these two platforms are past their use-by-date.

    • I don’t think anyone genuninely thinks that Arena even works. Even if it did, it would still be vulnerable to top attack munitions such as the SMArt 155mm (doesn’t fit the profile APS systems are designed around). While the Armata theoretically has some design improvements, there aren’t enough of them to make a difference and the first time one of them is destroyed it will be plastered all over the internet. Russia’s defense industry has taken enough Ls recently. No reason to expose one of their remaining “wunderwaffe” to reality.

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