Arkanghelsk Tue Oct 22, 2024 2:39 am
flamming_python wrote: kvs wrote:The figure of 848193 KIA + WIA is way too low. The total must exceed 1.5 million since the KIA are closer to 500,000.
Not necessarily. I've seen it mentioned that when it comes to serious injuries that disable fighters or disqualify them from service, the Russian figure is a fraction for what it is for Russian KIA. While of course the total Russian wounded is much larger than Russian killed; the majority of those wounded recover and are fit for duty again.
So I presume the same is true of the Ukrainian army. If they have 500k KIA, then the amount put of our action by their injuries for good might be around 50-100k, with maybe another 200-300k currently recovering but that will eventually be back in action. Without knowing the methodology used it's hard to judge how the figure was arrived at.
Yeah the Russian side based on different sources has anywhere from 60-80K KIA and adding LDNR you get to 110-120k KIA based on mediazona and even Putin and the MOD admissions of 1 to 5 RU to UKR losses, but it’s a bit misleading because they aren’t including irrecoverable Ukrainian losses which really pushes it to 1 to 10
Russia has superior battlefield medicine, medevac, helicopters that can get soldiers to hospitals quickly and better logistics - casevac ability with overall more vehicles and generally more competence than Ukraine by fact of resources and economy
This means they stick to the conventional wisdom of 1 KIA for 3 WIA - taking our BBC numbers above we extrapolate to 360k WIA- of this number it’s generally accepted that 25-30% are irrecoverable losses , so 80-100k is a figure in line with both RU+LDNR heavy wounded , the difference is sanitary losses , so 260k is also a number in line with figures analysts were using a couple of months ago - this number is the number of sanitary losses or light injuries by Soviet definition - and this figure is a bit tricky as it could be a third of the true number , based on the fact that you could double or even triple count light injuries and these guys usually get put back into service
Now for Ukraine - using the MOD and Putins numbers from few months ago , are at 600k KIA , with 1.8 million wounded, and that number being 50/50 sanitary to irrecoverable, making Ukraines total losses of dead and maimed 1.5 million and the difference being those who lived to tell the tale and don’t get rotated out and probably end up in the KIA and irrecoverable number only a few weeks or months later
So Russian total losses of KIA and irrecoverable are 120k + 80 k for 200k , and Ukrainian are at about 1.5 million , that gives a respectable 1 to 7.5 RU to Ukrop losses
And that fits in with the US numbers of 400-500k Russian losses (they use sanitary losses as the baseline for their estimates)