Posted by: HZ | Mar 6 2022 9:59 utc | 552
“>https://m.guancha.cn/WangShiChun/2022_03_06_629031.shtml
I have machine translated the above link from Chinese using DeepL as follows. See the original link for the pictures.
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Observer’s Weekly Military Review: Russia can always provide us with lessons
Source: Observer
2022-03-06 11:56
Wang Shichuan Author
Observer Military Observer
The most important military news of the week was, naturally, the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The course of the war over the past 10 days has proved that the Russian command clearly undertook a military adventure after 24 February in the hope of a systemic collapse of the Ukrainian army, and the relatively large losses suffered by the Russian forces confirm the failure of political speculation on the Russian side. For us, facing another war for the reunification of the motherland, this particular war, with its strange mixture of traditional warfare and unconventional military operations, is a very worthwhile lesson.
[pic crashed aircraft]
The Russian army didn’t fight a pretty war, it’s all about lessons for us
The battle line

Let’s start by talking about the situation facing the Russian army, so that readers can understand the current state of play. As of 5 March, when this week’s military review was written, the Russian army was conducting an offensive on four main fronts, mainly from the north to the south-east, and was making significant progress in all four directions and inflicting unrecoverable losses on the Ugandan forces in front of it. However, due to the length of the Russian front, which exceeded the maximum depth of attack distance set out in the regulations, and the fact that the Russians had run out of supplies carried by themselves, the Ugandan army sustained ambushes below company platoons costing the Russians over 500 men in losses.
[map]
This is the best picture of the battle on March 6 Photo source thanks to Twitter @RedRobeFirefly
In the northwest, the Kiev direction of interest, Russia continued to advance north of Kiev, with Russian airborne units continuing to split into the Kiev suburbs in the direction of Kiev, running towards the Hagostomel and Bucha regions, while Russian tank units on the east bank of the river may continue to split into the Chernigov region on the east bank of the Dnieper to join forces in the direction of Sumy, with the U.S. military speculating that Russian forces will surround Kiev from the northeast and east.
Despite the 100km advance, Russian light armour suffered two notable casualties in this direction, when two airborne platoon-sized units in the Buccha direction were wiped out by Ukrainian special forces in a close range sneak attack while marching in column. Video footage released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence confirms that the Russians lost 10 paratroopers belonging to the 76th Airborne Division in this area, with two losses estimated at over 50 men, and that the Russian Ministry of Defence has issued a “revenge order” against the Ukrainian special forces who have been recklessly publishing pictures of Russian corpses.
[pic gun on car and tank]
Russian troops continue to engage in a vigilante battle with small groups of Ukrainian special forces in northern Kiev Photo: social media
Despite the blows suffered by Russian forces in the immediate suburbs of Kiev, an interview with a Russian First TV reporter on 3 March on the close up of the An225 at Gostomeli military airport confirmed that Russian forces are under less threat in this direction and have held prisoners of war from the capital’s defence forces, a report that raises doubts on the battlefront, and a plausible explanation at the moment is that there are not many established and serious Ukrainian forces left north of the city of Kiev The only resistance forces left are Ukrainian special forces still active in the area, but these die-hard elements are still inflicting considerable damage on the Russian army by exercising their initiative. The Russian 76th Division and the Chechen National Guard are continuing their campaign against Bucha. Meanwhile, the Russian advance on Kiev from the east has been more successful, particularly in the direction from Sumy via Konotop and Nizin.
[pic reporter at Gostomel]
This photo is a better illustration of the war: two countries destroying the fruits of civilisation of the past with the weapons of the past era Photo: social media
In the direction of Kharkov, which is of interest to the outside world, the Russian forces are currently stuck in the west and east of Kharkov, with a temporary delay in penetration from Kharkov in other directions. The city’s artillery and technical weapons are being gradually consumed by the Russian forces. The Russian 4th Kanjemilov Guards Tank Division and the 27th Red Banner Sebastopol Brigade have spent the last 48 hours manoeuvring around the city to the east and west, but only superficially. On 3 March, the T-80BVM tanks of the 200th Independent Naval Infantry Brigade advancing from the Kharkov direction to Poltava were recovered by the local militia, along with some 2S19 self-propelled guns and other weapons, but there is no video of Russian equipment being destroyed in this direction, and the militia only claim that the weapons were “captured”. The author speculates that this may be a case of the Russian army’s own weapons being destroyed. The author speculates that after the attempted penetration of Poltava, the 4th Division’s superiors changed their operational plans and withdrew the troops to the rear to resupply and prepare for the next offensive, while the forward troops discarded some of the heavy weapons they could not recover in the process. However, to the south-west of Kharkov, on 3 March local time, troops of the Lugansk People’s Army advancing northwards from the south of Lugansk towards the town of Novoaidar in Kharkov met up with a Russian airborne brigade advancing into the area from the north.
[pic captured tank]
Naval infantry T-80BVM tank recalled by Ukrainian side after being abandoned Photo credit: Social media
[pic]
But in this direction, too, the U.S. Army is rapidly running out of technical weapons Photo: social media
On the southern front, however, Russian forces have made faster progress than on the northern front over the past week, as can also be seen by the number of Russian Heroes of the Russian Federation medals on the southern front. In the direction of Mariupol, Russian forces have basically taken control of the entire southeastern coastal direction of the Dnieper River, capturing Berdyansk to establish a new starting point for the offensive. Meanwhile, in the Donbass direction the Lugansk People’s Army and the Donetsk People’s Army advanced 30 kilometres each, and Russian forces had already joined up with the Donetsk People’s Army north of Mariupol, completely encircling Mariupol and continuing their artillery, long-range rocket and missile attacks on the city, with Russian ground forces suspending their offensive, but on 3 and 4 March the armed Donetsk forces in the north and The Russian army, which is advancing well on the southern front, may be ready to launch a street battle against Mariupol in the next 24-48 hours. The Russian army, which is advancing well on the southern front, may be ready to launch a street battle against Mariupol in the next 24-48 hours. The Russian side has now imposed a unilateral ceasefire on the Donbass front in Volnovakha and Mariupol on the morning of 5 March to open up humanitarian relief and evacuation routes for the trapped population in both areas, before resuming fire, reflecting subsequent moves by Russian forces.
[pic statue and tank]
Donbass working class forces pass the “Iron Workers” statue Photo: social media
In the western part of the southern front, the Russian side, after capturing Kherson, has launched a new offensive to the northwest, towards the city of Nikolaev, where the Ukrainian naval command is located, and Odessa in the southwest. So far, the Ukrainian Army has organised a sizeable defence in this direction, destroying some of the Russian spearhead’s mechanised weapons such as several T-72B3 tanks and capturing a BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle of the advancing force, but that is as far as it has gone, and the Russians have lost one Su-25 and one Su-34 attack aircraft in this direction, the largest single day of losses for the Air Force since the start of the war. losses. Russian troops are now on the outskirts of Nikolaev and are preparing to land in the direction of Odessa, although the landing is a feint and it can be assumed that the landing will be assisted by the establishment of contact between the Crimea and Odessa. In addition, the Russian army continued to advance in the direction of Zaporozhye and did not suffer any new large-scale losses in this reverse direction.
[double pic aircraft crashes]
The loss of three Russian fixed-wings in this direction was unacceptable Photo: social media
This is despite the fact that the Russian forces have overcome many disadvantages, surging over 100km in all directions and occupying hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of land. The Russian military strikes have largely defeated the organised defences of the Ukrainian army in a campaign that has lasted 10 days, with Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov saying on the evening of 5 March that Russian forces had destroyed more than 2,100 Ukrainian military facilities. Since the start of the operation, 2,119 Ukrainian military infrastructures have been destroyed, including 74 command posts and communications hubs, 108 S-300 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile systems, ‘Beech M-1’ and ‘Wasp’ air defence systems and 68 radar stations”, Konashenkov continued, “69 aircraft were destroyed on the ground, 21 aircraft were shot down in the air, 748 tanks and armoured vehicles, 76 flak rocket systems, 274 artillery and mortars, 532 units of special military vehicles and 59 drones. The Ukrainian army had about 2,000 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles before the war, and as the Russian war reports were largely credible, about half of the Ukrainian army’s technical armament had been largely consumed. For Ukraine, the losses were comparable to those of Saddam’s regime in 1991, and it would have been difficult for Ukraine, which lacked heavy industry afterwards, to return to its former military strength, even with NATO support. But despite this, Russian forces have suffered more losses than outside observers had previously anticipated during the week-long advance, with 498 Russian troops killed and 1,597 wounded since the special military operation in Ukraine, according to Russian defence ministry spokesman Konashenkov on the same day. According to Soviet military regulations, Russian divisions and brigades generally have a reserve of house materiel that can only support divisional and brigade-level units for three to five combat days, and although the intensity of the fighting varies from front to front, as the war enters its 10th day, Russian forces will inevitably stall to regroup and put in a second echelon of domestic follow-on troops to take over for a new offensive.
[pic of captured UA base]
The UPDF’s technical armaments have been largely destroyed and will require NATO assistance to rebuild them
Military adventure
As the first hotly contested battle in Europa since the turn of the 21st century, the war turned out to be a real surprise to everyone, including NATO and the Russian High Command. The losses incurred by the Russian army stemmed from the passive position of the Russian army on the battlefield, and the passive position of the Russian troops at the grassroots level was clearly the result of decisions made by the Russian high command, which defied military common sense.
Chairman Mao once pointed out: “The active position is not imaginary, but concrete and material. What is most important here is the preservation and assembly of the largest and dynamic army.” The practice of war shows that the side with the greatest strength is generally apt to take the initiative in joint campaign operations. The joint campaign should emphasise the concentration of superior forces, especially the concentration of equipment and firepower at decisive times and places, so that the campaign forces always develop an advantage over the enemy in order to gain a favourable posture and an active position.
In the past week of fighting, however, it has become clear that the Russians have given up their military advantage and actively placed their troops in a passive position. This can be seen in the long penetrations of Russian troops in violation of military regulations, in addition to the massive restrictions on the use of Russian artillery fire on their own side. The current Russian combat mission depth in this mission is far beyond the military capabilities of the Russian army, which has improved its military equipment compared to the Soviet era, but is not much more advanced than the Soviet army in terms of its full mission depth due to its logistical capabilities. According to the relevant operational regulations, in an offensive battle, the Soviet Army would determine the depth of combat tasks based on the formation of enemy groups and defensive positions, the battle (combat) intentions and combat capabilities of its own troops, and the terrain conditions. Under normal conditions, a fully mechanised Soviet infantry division can have a full combat depth of up to 50 kilometres, only 30-35 kilometres when breaking through fortified territory and attacking in impassable areas, and up to 80 kilometres when attacking a weak enemy on plain ground and moderately undulating terrain.
[map]
The posture map drawn by the Europeans shows that a BTG has to cope with a traditional brigade-sized territory
But the reality is that, on the tenth day of the war, the depth of the current Russian assault has exceeded the Russian military ordinance regulations. On the northern front, Russian troops have assaulted Buccha from the Russian-Ukrainian border as the starting point of the campaign in the space of a week, reaching a depth of 110 km. On the eastern front, the Russian Kanjemilov division has assaulted 100 km towards Sumy and 80 km north and south towards Kharkov, while On the southern front, the Russian forces were the most dramatic: from the Crimea to Mariupol, the Russian forces on the southern front raided 100 km in the direction of Zaporozhye, and in the direction of Mariupol, they raided a full 180 km to Mariupol on the Azov coast. These Russian detachments in place were not only out of range of the long-range firepower of the Russian helicopter airmen and groups, but also out of the logistical support of the Russian military superiors. In terms of the distance of the assault alone, the Russian Federation’s armed forces have already reached the distance of the first 10 days of US land operations in the 2003 Iraq war, but it is clear that the Iraqi forces in the Iraq war were far less willing to resist than the U.S. forces were.
[map]
While the Russian army was engaged in a major penetration, the size of the Russian troops involved in the battle was very small compared to the elongated front, and the Russian army still retained a large number of main forces that failed to go forward. At present, according to the composition of the Russian forces, the author has only found 138 (suspected), 27, 163rd Tank Regiment of the 150th Division, 136, 4th Tank Division, 37, and 126th Coastal Defence Brigade, 200th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Northern Fleet, 31, 7th, 76th Airborne, and several special purpose brigades of the GRU, with military affiliated air defence, artillery, and rocket and towed artillery and logistical supply forces, several battalions of the National Guard, and detachments of the Russian Federal Security Service. The current observation shows that the elite Russian Kandemirov is assigned to a synthetic combat group of divisional air defence forces, and that a single penetrating detachment is often responsible for a territory of nearly 100 square kilometres at the level of a reinforced battalion, even close to the territory controlled by a synthetic brigade after the reform of our army. For a country like Ukraine, which spans 500 kilometres from north to south and 1,000 kilometres from east to west, this is a very small number of troops. The Russian army has at least 20 divisions and brigades unused in the country so far. The Russian Ministry of Defence also released on 4 March local time the deeds and information of the first seven heroes of the Russian Federation, whose troops also fought in a territory that largely validates the size of the Russian army’s current troop presence.
[pic officer]
Tank drivers of the naval infantry, with courage and quality, defeated the UPDF in symmetrical combat
In such a passive position, the mere penetration of the old mechanised units of the Russian Army resulted in substantial non-combat losses. For example, in the 1979 self-defence counter-attack against Vietnam, the total number of our tanks involved in the battle was only seven regiments and two battalions, of which the main combatants were several army and military district tank regiments, of which over 600 tank armoured vehicles were lost in battle more than 500 times during the assault and penetration, but most of them were repaired and only about 40 tanks were eventually totaled due to excessive damage. However, such repairs occurred in the face of our absolute superiority in strength and firepower, with the 43rd Army Tank Corps advancing only 80 kilometres and with several armies in the rear. The problem facing the Russian Army at present is that the rapid penetration of troops on both fronts has seriously depleted the fuel and logistical supplies of its units, and the Russian Army’s main mechanised units are over-aged, with a large number of vehicles over 30 years old, and a large number of equipment which, although short in age, is in fact far less reliable than the Russian Army says it is, being discarded – effectively facing the need to rest The problem of resupplying to regroup before continuing into high-intensity combat Russian divisional and brigade-sized units, with assaults of over 80km on the northern front and nearly 200km on the southern front, would have suffered no small amount of non-combat losses.
[2 pics]
The excessive advance has resulted in the loss of a large number of field defence systems Photo: social media
As we currently have no objective means of accounting for Russian losses, because the Ukrainian military’s “base camp war report” is so exaggerated that it literally adds an extra zero to the results, we have to turn to open source information on the war. According to Oryx, a pro-Western open source intelligence enthusiast, who has identified and counted all the Russian and Ukrainian battle damage in photos and videos online, there are 555 photos of Russian mechanised equipment losses of all types, including 227 total losses, 131 abandoned and 189 captured, including 72 tank losses and 23 total losses, 75 infantry fighting vehicles, including 23 total losses. pieces, 17 mobile anti-aircraft missile vehicles, of which 6 were destroyed by TB-2 drones, and 184 photo pieces of various other wheeled vehicles. Although pro-Western open-source accounts like oryx also confuse “total loss” and “captured” photos extensively in their blogs, referring to a large number of videos taken by “Ukrainian countrymen” as “There is a lot of double counting. However, the open-source statistics of Russian losses show that the Russian army did abandon its main battle equipment, such as tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured transport vehicles, above the size of battalions and regiments, and that a large number of old wheeled vehicles were destroyed and abandoned in the course of the operation.
Although the UPDF did not launch a massive counterattack, the Russians still suffered some platoon level losses, and public video shows that the Russian advance in the first week of the war also suffered several major losses in the late days of February, including battalion and company level losses to front line equipment in brutal close combat, such as in the ambush on 27 February and 4 March in the direction of Buczavan, north of Kiev. In the ambushes suffered north of Kiev in the direction of Buczafon, for example, the Russians suffered two successive ambushes, suffered losses at the level of three airborne platoons, and lost more than 20 airborne troops and more than eight airborne combat vehicles. These losses also match the figure of 498 Russian troops killed during the operation, as confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Defence. What can be judged is that the Russian mechanised forces in the main offensive direction, which probably have around 1,500 main battle equipment and slightly fewer logistical vehicles and artillery support equipment than the main battle armament, have not suffered establishment losses so far, but after a week of low intensity fighting, the Russian front will need to wait for the follow-on forces to replenish before making another plan.
[pic tank]
The loss of Russian equipment also illustrates the passive nature of the Russian strategic posture. The advanced European and American weapons on hand, such as the Javelin and the TB-2, caused few losses to the Russian forces. So far the Javelin has not caused many results, and there is no video of the corresponding strikes, except for a T-80BVM, which was presumed to be the result of an ambush by the UPDF. At the same time, the convoy destroyed by the TB-2 was located in a weak Russian logistical convoy, and the TB-2 was rarely able to stop the Russian vanguard mechanised unit, protected by Armour and Tunguska, from attacking hard. It is fair to say that the Russian composite column, with its heavily reinforced attachments, did a good job of destroying the small Ugandan raids and accomplishing the intended campaign objectives. However, the main Russian losses instead came from logistical supply convoys, and subsequent artillery convoys, and it could be argued that the source of Russian losses even came from UPDF light weapons, mines, direct anti-tank weapons and Ukrainian imitation Soviet anti-tank missiles.
[pic from drone]
TB-2 inflicts some battle damage on logistical convoys
There are many reasons why the Russian army limited its own means of military action, and it is not difficult to surmise that it sought to minimise casualties among the population for the sake of the need to facilitate the post-war handling of the Ukrainian problem and its own international reputation. However, another part of the determination of the head of the Russian military command to act against military common sense clearly has a political purpose, but such a decision is clearly an act of opportunism.
Russia is the stronger side against Ukraine, but the weaker side against NATO, and the Ukrainian campaign is not entirely a “military account”, but has a large “political account”. In such a situation where the enemy is strong and we are weak, this speculative behaviourism is similar to the “leftist” opportunist military strategy of our country during the Agrarian Revolutionary War, in that it is hoped that a military adventure will change the dynamics of a strong enemy and a weak one. It can be assumed that the Russians wanted a “multipoint campaign” across Ukraine, with large numbers of troops interspersed in the direction of Kiev and Kharkiv, and even airborne troops penetrating alone, to overwhelm the Ukrainian government and army in terms of public opinion and morale, to achieve a “military parade”, to force the Ukrainian army to come forward and clash with the Russian mechanised forces for a showdown, and to force the The Ukrainian government was forced to issue an order to cease resistance.
But both military practice and historical experience have shown that the consequences of such a military adventure, if it failed, were unthinkable. The Russian army has not been able to withstand establishment losses in the week-long battle, but the strategic objectives that the Russian command had hoped to achieve have not been achieved. As we have seen over the past 200 hours, the dozen or so brigades in eastern Ukraine, despite their weak will to resist, did not manoeuvre and fight in formation over the past week, choosing instead to establish fortified positions in key cities and population centres, almost exclusively with the intention of fighting to the death on the ground, and the Russians did not find the opportunity to quickly destroy the Ukrainian army in manoeuvre. It could be argued that hundreds of “four-line warehouses” were built throughout the east of the Dnieper, with the aim of winning “international support” for the Ukrainian authorities in a “dignified death”. The aim was to win “international support” for the Ukrainian authorities in a “dignified death”.
[pic military observer hiding in childrens bedroom]
UPDF artillery observers crouched in children’s quarters
For the Ukrainian army, what they did in the first week of the war was the most rational choice. They were not in a position to repel the Russian attacking forces on their own territory, and although they were faced with a situation where the enemy was extremely strong and we were extremely weak, they could avoid the fulfilment of the Russian strategic intent by a number of means, namely by avoiding a quick victory for the Russians and a quick defeat for themselves. From the first day of the war, the Ukrainian army rarely moved from its positions, relying only on the large amount of supplies it had on hand, its strong fortifications and its proximity to populated areas, forcing the Russians to stop and switch to the offensive or forcing them to drop their moral baggage and bombard populated areas in front of the global media.
The UPDF has not lost its initiative completely, and the UPDF’s strikes against the Russians have made more use of NATO’s intelligence advantage, using small groups of forces to surprise the Russians with these scattered forces, and the following company attacks have been piecemeal against the Russians, and often “die together,” but the sum total adds up to as many as 500 Russian troops killed and more than 1,000 wounded today. The losses caused by this military adventurism were indeed a tactical error on the part of the Russian command. The series of losses suffered by the Russian army during the long manoeuvres, and the information warfare in the Western-controlled media, further encouraged the determination of the die-hard elements to fight to the end, and further discouraged the idea of a “quick victory” for the Russian army.
[map]
NATO’s early warning aircraft and cameras have helped the UPDF gain valuable intelligence
So far, the scales of war are still tipping in Russia’s favour, with the Russians still firmly in control of the battlefield as they increase the number of sorties by Russian Air and Space Forces fixed-wing fighters, drones and helicopter gunships, gradually loosen their fire-strike restrictions, and gradually deplete their combat forces with a lack of supplies and troops. Daily videos of Russian losses released by the UAF are decreasing, while the Russian front is gradually firming up and increasing in strength, with established UAF brigade headquarters continually being captured by Russian and Donbass militias. The current situation suggests that this long-delayed war will continue to drag on, as well as the changing geopolitical situation leaving the Russian forces still at a disadvantage.
[2 pics – drone plus strange pic]
The Chechens’ night vision and the Russian drones were more than the Ukrainians could handle
Another lesson from this politically opportunistic military adventure of the Russian command is that the Russian army has almost completely abandoned “propaganda” as a political tool. Chairman Mao had taught us that the propaganda work of the Red Army was the first major work of the Red Army. The Chinese Communist Party had a profound understanding of military propaganda from the very beginning of its political career and revolutionary struggle in China. Ukraine has a well-developed infrastructure, telecommunications facilities and mobile phone penetration, and the Russian army has a certain awareness of the effectiveness of using the internet to communicate military operations. However, in the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict, under the military decision of “politics over military”, the Russian military’s propaganda system has failed to break the persistent and tenacious will of the Ukrainian army to resist while choosing not to disconnect the entire Ukrainian territory, which is indeed a lesson to be learnt. For various reasons, the Russian side failed to make public the progress of its forces and the results of the battle in a timely manner, with the first videos of the results being released only 96 hours after the start of the battle, and the only videos released were of strikes by Air Force helicopter gunships. It is surprising that only the Chechen forces and the Donetsk and Luhansk forces made regular releases of information about the entire joint campaign, which spanned several groups of armies and air divisions and naval bases. This was something that none of us had anticipated at the beginning of the war.
[night vision pic]
Mobile phones and cameras have given the Ukrainian army a tired and valuable means of communication and command
Russian netizens, Ukrainian netizens and those of other countries outside the region received almost unilateral videos of the attrition of Russian vehicles captured by the Ukrainian public. Due to the “military adventures” of the Russian command, the inevitable attrition of the Russian mechanised columns during the ongoing assault and the relatively casual attitude of the Russian army towards the Ukrainian civilian population, such videos of “heavy Russian losses” began to fill the internet within hours of the start of the war. The internet began to fill up. Forty-eight hours after the start of the war, as a result of direct intervention by Western powers and the “network-wide censorship” of Western social media administrators, videos of damage to Ukrainian equipment disappeared from Western-controlled social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Oil Tube, leaving only a large number of videos of Russian troops abandoning their vehicles and damaging them, so that many internet users could only see Russian losses, not the annihilation of Ukrainian troops.
From what I have observed, these persistent videos of the annihilation of the enemy, combined with the rare drone combat results of the Ukrainian army, have greatly boosted the fighting morale of Ukrainian nationalists and indirectly influenced NATO’s determination to intervene. It can be said that the Russian propaganda system, especially its military propaganda system, which has long been the “children of other families” in the minds of our netizens, has disappeared in this Russian-Ukrainian conflict, as have the probe-drones.
Could we have done better?
It was a war of unprecedented “transparency”, and the team I worked with watched, analysed the battle and sorted it out to form effective information live in real time, which ended up being a miracle in the history of contemporary journalism and a manifestation of the nation’s concern for this war. This war is a light and strange war is a teaching without tuition, whether we or the comrades of the Division, for this war already have the same or different thinking, but these thoughts ultimately point to a common direction, for the face of the war of reunification of the motherland, when that day really comes, we can do right better?
In response to this doubt, the author has had some unclassified exchanges with some comrades in the army over the past few days, and the general consensus among us and our comrades in the army is that the answer to this is yes. First of all, our commander-in-chief makes decisions and certainly does not engage in speculation. As panorama broadcasters of the war, we all have a deeper appreciation of the phrase “the soldier is a matter of national importance, a place of life and death, a way of survival, and must not be ignored”. The military is a continuation of politics, and winning a military victory is the absolute first priority. The command should not have any military illusions for the sake of political speculation, modify the normal military decision-making scheme in the pre-program and weaken the strength of military strikes. In the words of the author’s friend, you can’t hit the Sichuan Road bridge under the Suzhou River before you start thinking about the “little soldier’s question”. Putin did not answer this question well, so the battle was very ugly. The political system of the Russian and Chinese armies is different. The fundamental principle and system of absolute leadership of the army by the party is the political quality and fundamental advantage of the people’s army that completely distinguishes it from all the old armies, and therefore our chiefs can never take military risks and political speculation with the lives of our soldiers.
[pic Chinese soldier]
The question, “Do you want a capitalist building or a proletarian fighter”, must be thought through before firing a shot.
Gaps in the commander-in-chief aside, the war has better lessons for many of our friends in the army. The shape of our future war for the reunification of the motherland will be very similar to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, and the Russian army showed all the disadvantages that our troops avoided as much as possible. The war brought with it a number of new questions and reflections for our comrades in the army, many of which concerned “how should we fight such a war”.
If the war of 1991 was a wake-up call, the war of 2022 will be a mere check-up for us. The war we are fighting is much more complex than the Kharkov offensive, and in view of this, many of my friends believe that the systemic gaps reflected in the Russian military campaign are all-encompassing, and not just minor issues such as “not enough probe-and-fight drones”. The Russian army used a large number of drones in the war, but even so, the Russian army did not have a unified information-based command system, and the information from the drones could not be processed, and could only be provided to small units for alerting. Due to the lack of information-based reconnaissance feedback, the Russian fixed-wing and drone forces were ineffective against the Ugandan special forces, who were organized into groups, and against the Ugandan mechanized forces, who were hunkered down in the cities.
If it were the PLA on the other side of the Eurasian continent, with the advantage of information technology built up since the “military reform”, and supported by advanced equipment and combat systems, the PLA would have fought a far more beautiful war than the Russians. The PLA was able to rely on its information superiority, to divide into zones and to strike the enemy’s forces with the same political aspirations through massive precision strikes. At the same time, the modernised mechanised infantry, with the advantage of its officer and non-commissioned officer corps, advanced observation and information-based communication systems, and under the cover of its own overwhelmingly superior air and artillery precision fire, was able to use the night and even daytime to launch an offensive, “pinpointing” every house and street in the city and rapidly dismantling the enemy’s defences. Speaking of the quality of officers, the Russian army rarely organised battalion and company level night battles during the war, probably because the Russian staff was not good enough to organise night operations for large units.
[2 pics drone launch plus one other]
This systemic gap just won’t work Photo credit: Social media
Ultimately, however, the Russian military is exposed for a variety of reasons that are still a matter of national strength. The Russian army has limited military spending and its Air and Space Forces fleet is only literally a fraction of the size of the PLA’s (the gap is about 1,400 to 400 for the fighter fleet, 80 to 1 for the five-generation fleet, and 10 to 1 for the special fleet), in terms of the vital special fleet, especially the fleet of electronic countermeasures and early warning aircraft. Even if outside observers were to make excuses, the absence of the Air and Space Forces since the start of the war 10 days ago is unwarranted, especially as the Air and Space Forces are an integral part of the Soviet-Russian style offensive campaign system. We will need to wait for the Russian side to decipher the absence of the Air Force afterwards, but one possible military speculation is that the Russian forces are still wary of the far stronger NATO countries’ warplanes. After all, it is now the Russian Air and Space Forces, and any aircraft shot down from Ukrainian territory can be called by the West as having been shot down by the Ukrainian side, as can also be seen only in the Pentagon briefing of 1 March. The US side insisted on claiming that Russia had not gained air control over Ukraine when the Ukrainian air force and air defence units were barely able to organise an effective defence. The fact that the Russian army has been slow to organise a decent air offensive shows that the Russian air and space forces still have to prepare for a “strong enemy” west of Lviv.
[pic J-20?]
Just as I was finishing the article, I came across this news: China’s military budget for this year is RMB 1,450.45 billion, up 7.1% year-on-year, an increase of 0.3 percentage points compared to last year. This is the first time since 2019 that China’s military budget has increased by more than 7%. Compared to the Russians, we are undoubtedly fortunate to be backed by a country that can constantly provide its people’s army with the most advanced warplanes. It is true that the Russian army can wage a war with the Yars and the Bulava as its backbone, but without the J-20, it really cannot fight this war as beautifully as the other hegemonic powers. For our part, we can safely contemplate whether our Dongfeng 41 is enough while providing the People’s Army with dozens of brigades of advanced fighters. In any case, the problems and lessons of the Russians would take three days and nights to write about, and if there is one sentence that sums up this glorious war, it is that the Russians will always have lessons to offer us.
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Posted by: BM | Mar 6 2022 13:16 utc | 601