Comments by "Solo Renegade" (@SoloRenegade) on "Ukraine Matters"
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@GARDENER42 they did have enough to push. it's all how you do it. had they pushed, it would take them even Less people than they need now, to hold the front lines.
The issue is people aren't bold enough. People lack basic understanding of critical aspects of warfare. I've personally witnessed this over many decades, both in my own combat experience, as well as in studying military history and current conflicts. Ukraine could have struck a crippling blow to Russia in late 2022 with the onset of winter, but failed to press their advantage, failed to seize upon the opportunity.
The US's failure was in advising Ukraine in methods Ukraine is not capable of executing. They need to let Ukraine fight their way, and to adapt any way they see fit that works. US advisors failed to give Ukraine advice they could act upon. I've witnessed this first had myself in actual combat. My specialty was unconventional warfare, and I was great at it, but it meant being willing and able to cast aside doctrinal thinking at a moment's notice and create new tactics from thin air on-the-fly. The higher-ups in the US military are not good at this type of warfare, but I thrive in this environment. I trained for this kind of fighting. I fought this way for real. My unit was unique as well in that we were often self-sufficient for extended periods. W ran our own missions, did our own QRF, did our own recovery ops, ran our own supply convoys, etc. All with only 100-120 men. We didn't need a large supply train. I also developed tactics for having no supply train at all on a modern battlefield.
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@davidkottman3440 "Assuming everything you claim is true, there is still no reason to think that Ukraine had the ability & knowledge to implement your tactics."
You are 100% correct. and that is precisely why Ukraine needs to be hesitant to follow US military advice on how to fight this war. The higher up US military doesn't think like me, nor fight like me. And the way I fight, while not hard nor magical, is a type of fighting the average soldier and combat leader struggles to understand none the less. I'm only stating what went wrong, what should have been done differently, partly so people LEARN from it.
"Much of the Kherson offensive last fall was carried out under a media blackout, & was obviously a very tough fight. It's not entirely clear what capabilities remained at that point..."
The two major land grabs Ukraine achieved in 2022 were fought the way Ukraine fights, not the way the US fights, and it worked. They needed to keep that up.
"I agree it's unfortunate that they didn't or couldn't follow-up on the momentum gained."
exactly. I feel like too much outside influence stalled the advance. It's the greatest frustration I have, as Ukraine was on the cusp of being able to pull off a stunning victory and should have reclaimed most if not all of their land by now.
But war is hard. Mastering real-life warfare is THE hardest job on earth, bar none (due to the sheer number of complex disciplines one must understand and account for simultaneously, but a few crazy people like me thrive with challenges like that). Most people will never come close to achieving such mastery. It's harder than being a physicist, brain surgeon, etc. And war wins or loses on the single most important job in the world, Leadership. There is no singular job more important in human history than good Leadership. Leadership is the most important job on earth, and master of war is the most difficult job on earth. Yet neither of these jobs is highly valued nor can you get good formal training in either of them.
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@donnievance1942 "I think that one thing you're not taking into account is that Ukraine held off on the sort of early push you're talking about because they were promised deliveries that were worth waiting for. Then they didn't get them, or they didn't get them in the quantities and in the time frame they were told."
wrong. they needed no such items to keep the pressure on throughout the winter. And once they got deliveries, they failed to make a decisive push.
In combat you make do with what you have. you NEVER make plans on promises or what you Think you might have someday. You fight with what you have today, knowing that certain misstep in the moment, like allowing russia to dig in and mine everything for example, is a fatal flaw. You can't stop. They had russia on the cusp of breaking and they did nothing.
"Even assuming ultimate success, the sort of strategy you're talking about is risky and would entail big time losses in engagement with an enemy like Russia. You have to admit that."
you need to learn how to read and comprehend. I never denied it, and I already acknowledged it. But long run, the total casualties would be lower. this is why you and others will never be good at war. you can't make teh tough decisions, you can't handle the costs of war. You don't have what it takes to win. And there is always the chance of having surprisingly low casualties by fighting my way. In fact, history shows my way is low cost of life. My unit and my own combat experiences proved this, and history shows it too. Casualtuies can be minimized, but not without taking the risk in teh first place.
" I don't know where you were fighting, but it wasn't against the unbelievably massive Russian army. And you undoubtedly had on-demand, call-up air support."
again, speaking on things you know nothing about. My unit was self-supporting. We never got artillery support, never got air support, etc. we were always operating alone prepared to operate 100% alone, outnumbered, surrounded. But the way we did it made teh enemy afraid to engage us, and over time they stopped fighting us altogether as they knew they stood no chance against us.
"So, given the risks and the inevitable heavy losses entailed by an aggressive early push, can you blame Ukraine for holding off until they could get the promised resources?"
yes I can, becasue it may well have cost them the war, and they've suffered more casualties in 2023 already than my tactics would have cost them.
" It sounds like you were part of an exceptional outfit that consisted of top notch superbly trained personnel. "
wrong again. small understaffed group of individual motivated people. We were 20% short of the number of people we were supposed to have the whole time too. We all signed up to fight like the Ukrainians, fought for what we believed in like the Ukrainians, and we had minimal to no real training. We made it all up as we went. We learned form EVERY mission and adapted constantly, until eventually we had a highly scientific methodology and set of proven tactics. We fell into a job no one knew how to do, on equipment no one had ever seen before, and came out brilliantly successful. The exact kind fo fighting suited for the war in Ukraine.
"You can't extrapolate that to the scale of the Ukrainian army, most of whom were newly trained people from civilian life."
I absolutely can, and the circumstances in Ukraine are exactly the same as that of my unit I fought in combat with.
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@eugeniocorvelo8279 "that works very well for small special operations. In a war of this scale its not possible to just scale up what works on small operations. "
wrong. what my unit did literally any unit can do, no need to be any sort of special forces. I could teach it to 18yr olds in only a few days. And the battlefield and territory we applied it to was multiple times larger than the entire front line in Ukraine. Uktraine is a small war compared to what I am used to. Myself and others predicted the return of trench warfare nearly 20yrs ago, and we were using drones in combat same as Ukraine for many decades, we just never talked about it and shared our tricks with the world. But there is nothing Ukraine is doing now with drones nor trenches that hasn't already been done before you were alive. I have about 5 books on my library of military history dedicated to Nothing but trench warfare, spanning multiple wars. It's a topic I have studied for many decades and informed the tactics we developed in combat.
"We will continue learning new warfare from this war years to come."
as we always do/will from literally every conflict ever fought. but that doesn't invalidate a thing I said, it only reinforces it. I know how to fight in Ukraine as there is literally nothing new thus far in this war. Everything that has happened thus far I predicted months in advance. I predicted that if Ukraine stopped their assault in winter of 2022 russia would be able to dig in. Within 12hrs of russia invading Ukraine on Feb24, 2022, without looking at any news reports, only combing through actually combat footage and data, I was able to predict Russia was going to fail and would be forced to retreat. I was able to do that because I've studied combat history for so long i know the details off the top of my head for numerous wars, what works, what does, why. Anything from logistics, to equipment, to leadership, to training, to tactics, etc. I don't know everything, but I know the key elements at a First Principles level. Anyone can learn it if they spend enough time studying it and practicing it in various ways.
" This is a multy domain modern big war."
actually, it's NOT. its a VERY basic war lacking in many "multidomain" areas as you call them. There is almost no air war. Almost no air support. No SEAD. No strategic bombing. Ukraine is demonstrating interdiction capability.
But by and large this is a basic infantry, tanks, artillery fight. With some modern tech sprinkled in. Without drones, satellites, GPS, etc. this would literally just be a repeat of WW1.
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@shooster5884 "Or is this some fantasy you have about what they should or could have done?"
it's called studying history. Not only have i studied it, i've fought. and in fighting we had ideas, and we tested those ideas for real. if it worked, we kept doing it, if it didn't we abandoned it. along teh way you learn what works and why. then you study more history and repeat over and over again until understanding war is as easy to you as breathing oxygen.
Just like learning first principles of math, physics, etc, and applying it to more complex things.
"And their military were better than anyone at thinking outside the box..."
not really. US military thrives in chaos and outside teh box thinking. lots of good examples of this in recent US military history in actual combat. including some high level high profile examples. again, gotta study history.
" I'm not military but had they had the cluster bombs and himars and everything else to disrupt the Russian supply chains, stores, rail lines, concentrations of troops, command centres that were planning and laying the defences , yes they could possibly have kept moving forward carefully and steadily in tandem with fresh trained troops arrival...""
Exactly, you;re not military, you don't understand combat, you haven't studied enough military history in nearly enough detail.
Ukraine didn't need HIMARs, didn't need cluster munitions, etc. They needed to be bolder. They still fight like Soviets, even though they've learned and adapted a lot, they still fight like Soviets. They don't know how to fight the way I know how to fight. But I could teach them. I could show them how.
They had the capability to take some critical lessons from history, namely from US military history in numerous wars since WW1. And then adapt those lessons to their situation. They had the ability to do it. They proved that. But they failed to understand the principles, failed to see the opportunity. Psychology is a major factor in how my plan would have worked. Psychology is a powerful weapon. Psychology always gets ignored, but not by me. They failed to consider how a few bold moves would have caused russia to react. they were thinking like you think. they didn't think bigger picture.
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