[deutschewelle]

Excellent read and some of these tactics would be still applicable in urban settings but the Russian army is in a very different state than in the 90s, early 2000s.

Although I ponder how you could defend against RPGs launched from a skyscraper or high rise.

[themodelplumber]

> Russian army is in a very different state

The article made me wonder what exactly their different state might be. Certainly they learned from Chechnya, at the time. But at the same time, I remember watching Motorola goofing around and then getting blown up from way back in 2014 and thinking, "this is not someone who's learning others' lessons." Yet it's also somebody RUS put in charge of significant combat elements. These people were doing so much improvisation.

So I wonder, what updated, material structures are there that are in use in RUS tactics since that time; can any of them be pointed out? What evidence do we have? etc.

[europewide]

Yup, they learned they need higher numbers. It’s weak to think the russian have a strong army. I imagine the propaganda of fear has worked, but they can easily be eliminated _with_ the right equipment and tech.

[Johnny555]

they can easily be eliminated _with_ the right equipment and tech

That's true of nearly any military threat, but the question is, does Ukraine have that equipment and if not, can they receive and be trained on it quickly enough for it to be useful?

[LegitShady]

An active protection system like the Israeli trophy aps

[baybal2]

They just repeated the Grozni fiasco yesterday.

Tanks, and apcs went near highrises in Kiyv, and all predictably got ambushed, and destroyed by roof shots from regular RPGs, not even nLAWs.

The video of MTLB with strelas escaping in panic is from that time. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russ...

Kiyv is a modern megapolis with hundreds of highrises, and skyscrapers forming urban canyons.

----

Russia deployed 60 BTGs to frontlines with 40 being held back behind lines.

Their losses now are 3-4 BTGs in 2 days. Some more were routed, or damaged, and may return.

At 3.5 BTGs per day, Ukraine needs to hold for 2 more weeks to make succesful Russian invasion with takeover of the whole country impossible.

Loss of half of invading force means retreat to any sane general.

My fear now is that they are mostly using conscripts now, not the professional units, and new hardware. It may be that they are using cannon fodder to expend defender resources before pushing in witch crack troops.

----

Excerpt on RPG 7:

"In December 1994, the Russian Army entered the break-away Republic of Chechnya and attempted to seize the Chechen capital of Grozny from the march. After this attempt failed, the Russian Army spent two months in deliberate house-to-house fighting before finally capturing the city.(18) During the fighting, the Russian conscript force was badly mauled by the moremature, dedicated Chechen force. During the first month of the conflict, Russian forces wrote off 225 armored vehicles as nonrepairable battle losses. This represents 10.23% of the armored vehicles initially committed to the campaign.(19) The bulk of these losses were due to shoulderfired antitank weapons and antitank grenades.

The Chechen forces were armed with Soviet and Russian-produced weapons and most Chechen fighters had served in the Soviet Armed Forces. The Chechen lower-level combat group consisted of 15 to 20 personnel subdivided into three or four-man fighting cells. These cells had an antitank gunner (normally armed with the RPG-7 or RPG-18 shoulder-fired antitank rocket launcher), a machine gunner and a sniper.(20) Additional personnel served as ammunition bearers and assistant gunners. Chechen combat groups deployed these cells as anti-armor hunter-killer teams. The sniper and machine gunner would pin down the supporting infantry while the antitank gunner would engage the armored target. Teams deployed at ground level, in second and third stories, and in basements of buildings. Normally five or six hunter-killer teams simultaneously attacked a single armored vehicle. Kill shots were generally made against the top, rear and sides of vehicles. (See diagram 1) Chechens also dropped bottles filled with gasoline or jellied fuel on top of vehicles.(21) The Chechen hunter-killer teams tried to trap vehicle columns in city streets where destruction of the first and last vehicles will trap the column and allow its total destruction.

The elevation and depression angles of the Russian tank barrels were incapable of dealing with hunter-killer teams fighting from basements and second or third-story positions and the simultaneous attack from five or six teams negated the effectiveness of the tanks' machine guns. The Russians attached ZSU 23-4 and 2S6 track-mounted antiaircraft guns to armored columns to respond to these difficult-to-engage hunter-killer teams.(22)"

[RamRodification]

Do you have a link to the video?

[Teever]

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/t17w2b/u...

I believe this is the video, there are also some more videos floating around from different angles.