Best strategy to win the SMO

This is a spin off of the Ukraine war thread.

What in your opinion is the best strategy to win the SMO?

Should Russia continue the war of attrition or perhaps mobilize more men and win the war with numbers?

If you look at the Great Patriotic War, you can clearly see that numerical superiority was a significant factor in Soviet victory:

You need to define what kind of "Win" you're wanting.

At minimum tho getting everyone to agree on current Territory is now Russian seems achieveable with current means.

Stealthflanker wrote:You need to define what kind of "Win" you're wanting.

At minimum tho getting everyone to agree on current Territory is now Russian seems achieveable with current means.  

That would be a failure for Russia.
1)Everything that does not include Kharkov, Nikolaev and Odessa (and ideally also Dnepropetrovsk region, also to have more control over the Dnepr and rebuild the dam) is a loss for Russia.

2) At minimum, the win condition should be for Russia to get all of them plus all of left bank (east of Dnepr) Ukraine plus Kiev region.

3) Real win condition for Russia should be to get all of 404 as Russian territory, including the north west as either russian regions or as russian protectorate (Puerto Rico style.

As far as international recognition, or everyone to agree, it is useless. Some countries do not recognise the English occupation of the Malvinas, but the only thing that counts is the defacto rule.

Russia should not make any concession in order to have its new south western borders (actually old pre-1992 south western borders) accepted by unfriendly nations.

As far as what is needed, yes numerical superiority is needed for massive advances, but such advances are also extremely costly in term of human losses.
Currently Ukraine is losing between 1000 and 2000 men per day, I do not believe the situation is sustainable for them.

Having the kind of numerical superiority you want will need also to remove many men from their work and their families, and could create more problem for Russia than the advantages it would create.

Furthermore, all of these people would need to be properly equipped, otherwise they will be not much different from the Ukrainian cannon fodder being removed daily from 404 streets.

In addition, there is a stable influss of new russian volunteers, which will probably amount to at least a couple of hundred thousand net increase of boots on the ground each year. And Russia has already to provide good equipment for more of them

Putin made the goals of the Special Military Operation (SMO) clear when the invasion started.

Demilitarization i.e. neutralization and denazification of Ukraine.

Both of those goals have still not been met so the SMO continues.

Throwing more meat to speed up the conflict might be counterproductive since the US could just throw the Poles and maybe the Romanians into the Russian woodchipper next. It is also too early to do it without a viable counter for the FPV drones. A drone is much cheaper than even your average infantry soldier.

Making this a war of numbers is IMHO a mistake. Russia still has a lot of cards they could use. They could destroy the steam power turbines in the Ukrainian nuclear power plants for example. This is doable with the latest precision weapons. The turbine building is a thinly protected structure. The nuclear reactor should be safe in the main containment building and should be able to be shut down safely with the emergency diesel generators. It would basically render the Ukrainian electric infrastructure into something worse than in a 3rd world nation. According to Ukraine Russia already destroyed 9 GW of power generation i.e. roughly half their electric generation capacity. Destroying the nuclear reactors would take down most of the rest. Ukraine would be reduced to using 3.5 GW of intermittent solar power panels and maybe a couple GW more of other portable generators. Maybe 15-20% of their original generation.

Ukraine would become unlivable without power for the current population and you will likely see another mass migration from Ukraine into Europe. Making the job of taking Ukrainian cities easier for Russia.

The power connections between Europe and Ukraine could be struck again. The gas and oil pipelines from Russia to Ukraine could be cut.

Russia could also use the RS-28 Sarmat with conventional warheads to strike large Ukrainian cities as a final warning. RS-28 Sarmat, much like US Prompt Global Strike program, can do conventional strike missions. Given Russia's stance of Ukraine being a brotherly nation the RS-28 would be used against large military installations or strategic targets in Ukraine. With Mach 25 Avangard impactors not even the deepest underground bunker would survive. With the impactors, any deep Ukrainian oil or gas storage facilities could also be destroyed.

Since Ukraine is continuing losing men with unfavorable loss ratios of 4:1 and the like I think Russia should just continue the attrition strategy. The objective should be to make anyone else think twice of being used as a battering ram against Russia.

lancelot wrote:Putin made the goals of the Special Military Operation (SMO) clear when the invasion started.

Demilitarization i.e. neutralization and denazification of Ukraine.

Both of those goals have still not been met so the SMO continues.

Throwing more meat to speed up the conflict might be counterproductive since the US could just throw the Poles and maybe the Romanians into the Russian woodchipper next. It is also too early to do it without a viable counter for the FPV drones. A drone is much cheaper than even your average infantry soldier.

Making this a war of numbers is IMHO a mistake. Russia still has a lot of cards they could use. They could destroy the steam power turbines in the Ukrainian nuclear power plants for example. This is doable with the latest precision weapons. The turbine building is a thinly protected structure. The nuclear reactor should be safe in the main containment building and should be able to be shut down safely with the emergency diesel generators. It would basically render the Ukrainian electric infrastructure into something worse than in a 3rd world nation. According to Ukraine Russia already destroyed 9 GW of power generation i.e. roughly half their electric generation capacity. Destroying the nuclear reactors would take down most of the rest. Ukraine would be reduced to using 3.5 GW of intermittent solar power panels and maybe a couple GW more of other portable generators. Maybe 15-20% of their original generation.

Ukraine would become unlivable without power for the current population and you will likely see another mass migration from Ukraine into Europe. Making the job of taking Ukrainian cities easier for Russia.

The power connections between Europe and Ukraine could be struck again. The gas and oil pipelines from Russia to Ukraine could be cut.

Russia could also use the RS-28 Sarmat with conventional warheads to strike large Ukrainian cities as a final warning. RS-28 Sarmat, much like US Prompt Global Strike program, can do conventional strike missions. Given Russia's stance of Ukraine being a brotherly nation the RS-28 would be used against large military installations or strategic targets in Ukraine. With Mach 25 Avangard impactors not even the deepest underground bunker would survive. With the impactors, any deep Ukrainian oil or gas storage facilities could also be destroyed.

Since Ukraine is continuing losing men with unfavorable loss ratios of 4:1 and the like I think Russia should just continue the attrition strategy. The objective should be to make anyone else think twice of being used as a battering ram against Russia.

War of attrition on Nazi Banderastan combined with asymetrical and creative war against the west. I am more than convinced that Russia has actually been doing sabotage to make smoking very bad for factory workers and those involved in infrastructure in North America and Europe in recent months, and honestly they should have done this months or even years ago. As soon as Joe the Bidet says he is shipping US weapons, there needs to be all sorts of ships going up in harbor across the east coast of the US. Similar fires in Rotterdam and Antwerp and Hamburg need to be burning non stop for days. Rail junctions in Germany need to taken out of action. Arms factories and ammo dumps need to mysteriously catch fire. Also, sabotage acts need to be done against EU energy and gas infrastructure. They blow up Russian pipelines under the Baltic? Blowing up LNG portals and electric plants in the EU should be fair game. Same for the US. Arson and sabotage will be blamed on Russia, but prove it actually was.

Maybe there will be some connection in the brains of western elites between the pain and reaction to change their idiotic policy. But we
are looking at some sort of advanced brain rot in the elites where they are making decisions detached from reality. On one side not
triggering NATzO is the right approach, but it may also be the case that they need pain and enough of it for us not to go off the cliff.

kvs wrote:Maybe there will be some connection in the brains of western elites between the pain and reaction to change their idiotic policy.   But we
are looking at some sort of advanced brain rot in the elites where they are making decisions detached from reality.   On one side not
triggering NATzO is the right approach, but it may also be the case that they need pain and enough of it for us not to go off the cliff.

In the US you have dementia Joe. He's basically a man stuck in time reading the script his handlers wrote for him from a teleprompter.
And the US is basically leading the entire West in its suicide mission.

Arrow wrote:The Sarmat is not yet in service and has so far only undergone one flight test in 6 years.  Why Sarmat for PGS?  For a conventional attack, you can use Yars, which they have in large numbers.

You are wrong. Sarmat entered combat service late last year.

As for why to use Sarmat, it has a much larger throw weight, which is what you need to have significant terminal effect even with a conventional warhead. It is also in production, so it can easily be modified to do the PGS mission. With conventional warheads you also need higher terminal accuracy than the late Cold War era missiles had.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82_%28%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%29

"The Avangard (Yu-71) guided warheads used in this product also for the first time provide the potential opportunity to use Russian and Soviet ICBMs in local wars using the “global strike” strategy, with the destruction of strategic objects by the kinetic energy of the warhead, without the use of a nuclear explosion".
...
On November 23, 2022, General Director of the Makeev State Rocket Center Vladimir Degtyar announced the start of mass production of the rocket.

Serial production of the Sarmat ICBM is carried out at the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant. The first production samples of the Sarmat entered the 62nd missile division in Uzhur, Krasnoyarsk Territory in 2022 and the 13th missile division in Yasny (Orenburg region) and were put on combat duty.

On September 1, 2023, the Sarmat strategic missile system was put on combat duty.

Arrow wrote:After only one flight test?  They always tested them multiple times before introducing ICBM and SLBM.  Bulava also passed the first test at the beginning.

It is still more trustworthy than the UK's Trident II SLBM fired from their Vanguard submarines.
Russia can just do the firing tests of the Sarmat on the Ukrainian underground gas storage facilities instead of sending inert warheads to the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Arrow wrote:The Trident has been tested many times by the UK and USA.  Of course, the missile is old and may have problems.  However, it is strange that the Russians rely on the new ICBM missile after only one test, when it will carry a significant part of the Russian nuclear arsenal.  Ultimately, about 50 Sarmatians of 10MIRV each.  It's very strange.

Is it? Modern liquid rockets can be pretty reliable. It is pretty common for space launcher liquid rockets to enter use after a single successful flight. If anything it could be that the last stage with the MIRV bus lacks testing and might be unreliable. But I wouldn't be surprised if the launcher rocket itself was already reliable enough. Especially considering it would be made with modern CNC machines. Not hand crafted like the Soviet R-36Ms.
Solid rockets like the Bulava are traditionally way more finicky to test and build reliably. It's not like you can test a solid rocket engine by firing it to duration and inspect the remainder engine for weaknesses. The solid rocket engine basically consumes itself when you fire it to duration. Only the nozzle is left.

Russia has enough men. They just need to close the border with the West by driving down from Belarus. They don't need to do it with too much force. Just attack with about 50K men using a railway line for logistics. When the AFU tries to stop them, attack somewhere else and pound their way forward with FAB 3000s. Any resistance FAB FAB FAB. Just rain hellfire on that corridor as they move forward and blow bridges and and rails that cross the border. Allow Ukraine to move food and certain types of medicine through Belarus inspected by Russians for weapons or contraband. Move the war to the western border. If a single bullet crosses the border from NATO send an Iskander back to that nations capital.