*** Official Putin Started Shootin' Thread ***

[MadMojoMonkey]

Russian ground troops were ordered to stop Wagner's path, but they simply did not.
They were ordered to fight, but they did not.

Prigozhyn made a public statement about children being sent to stop trained military men, but that he would not order his men to attack children. Which is kinda fucked to hear from Mr. Warcrimes himself, but that was his public statement.

I didn't hear about the plane shot down, but the helicopters reportedly fired on Wagner before Wagner fired back... according to Wagner. Who knows what really happened, though.


The air superiority issue may not be appreciated by poopy. Or maybe by me.
The lack of air superiority in Ukraine means the RAF is hobbled, which in turn has dramatic negative effects on their ground troops' potential.
I'd presume that Wagner doesn't have robust air defenses to stop a sortie of attack planes. But I may be wrong.
Under the assumption, an air force would just stomp a ground force.


*shrug*
Maybe Putin didn't attack Wagner with the AF because the only problem with Wagner is Pirgozhyn. Once Prig. is out of the way, Putin may be expected to get thousands of new recruits to the Russian militaries... and those recruits already trained.

[Poopadoop]

The air superiority issue may not be appreciated by poopy. Or maybe by me.
The lack of air superiority in Ukraine means the RAF is hobbled, which in turn has dramatic negative effects on their ground troops' potential.
I'd presume that Wagner doesn't have robust air defenses to stop a sortie of attack planes. But I may be wrong.
Under the assumption, an air force would just stomp a ground force.

A powerful air force could seriously damage a ground force, but even it wouldn't wipe out a 25-50k size force in three days. In Iraq War 1, I very clearly recall the Allies having air superiority and precision bombers. They were bombing Iraqi ground forces for a month straight before the tankers even switched on their engines. They also blew up some infrastructure, but a significant part of their mission was to soften up the ground forces. Iraqi losses for the entire conflict were in the tens of thousands, so the math of doing 25k worth of damage in 3 days doesn't really add up.

And I doubt the Russian air force has that kind of strength sitting around waiting for someone to drive down the road to Moscow anyways. There's certainly no evidence they do, and what evidence that does exist strongly suggests they don't.

But let's imagine they did, and were just saving it for a surprise strike. The idea the Wagner Group would just be sitting ducks doesn't make sense either. Modern ground forces nowadays have surface-to-air missile capability as well as anti-air flak guns. They certainly did ok against those helicopters. And planes flying at a high altitude is not a guarantee that they can't be shot down. SAMs can hit planes at 30k feet easily.

[Poopadoop]

There's plenty of examples in history of a powerful air force attacking enemy ground forces with zero or negligible opposition from the enemy AF. The entire Western Front of WWII from 1944 onwards, Iraq1 and 2, Vietnam, Afganistan. In none of those did they deliver the kinds of casualty rates you guys are presuming Russia could deliver.

[OngBonga]

The maximum casualty rate of an air raid on ground troops is basically the same as however many people you can cram into a given area.

[Poopadoop]

Oh.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...sia-air-force/

[OngBonga]

Oh.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...sia-air-force/

The conclusion from this is pretty much one of two things...

1) it's all smoke and mirrors,
2) the Russian air force is nowhere near as competent as we assumed.

This report you link suggests it was a convoy of 100 trucks, nice to finally get a number of vehicles instead of random numbers talking about men. Such a convoy should hardly be feared by a global superpower on their own territory.

To say the Russian air force is incapable of taking out this convoy is to say they are a shit air force.

[Poopadoop]

The conclusion from this is pretty much one of two things...

2) the Russian air force is nowhere near as competent as I assumed.

fyp

When you lose a bunch of multimillion dollar aircraft attacking 100 trucks, you're definitely not a competent air force.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Oh.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...sia-air-force/

Great read. Fills in a lot of open questions we had in this thread with data from on location.

Like... why were Wagner so effective at taking out Russian helicopters?
The helicopters had to get closer than they do in Ukraine to distinguish civilians from Wagner troops.

Why was Wagner able to take out a plane?
It was too close and had too little armor for the situation, not sure why it was so close, though.

[OngBonga]

RAF in this context = Russian Air Force. Sorry if that confused you.

It actually did. You were blabbering about WWII around the same time.

[OngBonga]

Wagner using civilian highways to convoy put the Russian AF in a more difficult spot.


If they just fired on every vehicle in the convoy, they'd be targeting Russian civilians.

If the threat to the capital is real, then this is collateral damage. A few dead civilians on the roads is a preferable outcome to lots of dead civilians in the capital.

Of course it is a factor that the Kremlin has to consider, but ultimately if they think the approaching force is capable of causing serious turmoil in the city, then their hand should be forced.