Even that could become less of a risk after a few “quislings” direct assassination squads into the bulls-eye of a prepared kill zone…
Yes. They don’t have weeks for transition training. Si vis pacem, para bellum. ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ Ukraine would have had to have seen this coming a year ago and gotten the planes then, and they were on Trump’s fecal roster for not giving him dirt on Hunter Biden. (Yes, Trump wasn’t President a year ago, but he recently had been.) But given that amount of lead time, they could have obtained more Su-25s.
Wikipedia says the Ukrainian Air Force has (or possibly ‘had’ now) 37 MiG-29 Fulcrums, eight of which were used for training. They also have/had 32 Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers, six of which were used for training.
ETA:
I do not know.
The problem is he can back that up with nukes if he really wants to.
For comparison, here are numbers of aircraft for the Russian Air Force (some numbers reduced recently, I believe).
Just sticking to the aircraft mentioned here recently:
- Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker: 172
- Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrum: 259
- Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot: 193
I am not a pilot.
While I imagine that a fighter jet pilot could learn the A-10 in a day or two as far as take off, landing and navigation, weapons systems would be a whole nother kettle of fish.
Not to mention needing to resupply the weapons.
For that convoy, I suspect a dozen or so mobile M2 50 cal machine guns (and crews) would cause havoc. Yes logistics for that is rough too, but they are fish in a barrel.
Javelin missiles are expensive. If the tanks are backed up in traffic then they don’t have to be destroyed. The treads/drive train can be disabled with cheaper weapons. That turns a convoy into a parking lot of equipment that needs to be fixed and blocks the road. Either they have to drag them back or fix them on site which requires soldiers to defend unusable assets.
This is asymmetric warfare and Ukraine needs to use it’s assets wisely.
What kind of terrain is this convoy on? Is is hilly in any way or flat open plain. I suspect both.
…and a shitton of sunflowers.
16,000 foreign volunteers have joined the fight on behalf of Ukraine. That’s a substantial number. Maybe equivalent to an army division?
And that’s the “first” 16,000, too, so there may be a lot more.
What would be the best way to utilize such volunteers? Front line fighting? Rear-area service? Humanitarian aid?
My guess:
Those who have actual military training, fight on front lines. I sure wouldn’t want to be a Russian conscript going up against ex-SEAL/ex-SAS in downtown Kyiv.
Those who have experience training and organizing others, such as ex-Green Beret, would be good as front-line fighters AND trainers/instructors.
Those who have little to no training are best off doing behind-the-scenes support, such as cooking, driving, etc.
Medics do medic stuff.
You probably need to sort them out. I doubt that it makes sense to use them in some uniform way.
You’ll get everything from some US SEAL guy whose grandparents are Ukrainian and in the line of fire to some creepy dude who spent the last ten years writing murder porn on the internet and feels like this is his chance to go real-time.
If I was them, I’d probably try to find a multilingual psych exam or translate one that’s good for identifying psychopaths’ , a second one for basic intellect, and then ask their military history. Depending on that, I’d slot some for permanent ditch digging duty and others to be the teacher for the rest of the people in their language group. Probably, I’d pair those with a bilingual Ukrainian as a translator/assistant.
At that point, they’re basically just regular fresh troops, the same as local Ukrainians who just joined. Maybe you give them a little bit more autonomy, figuring that their training won’t match everyone elses’.
Unfortunately, the creepy dude who wrote murder porn for ten years, as you put it, will probably be disgruntled at not getting the taste of combat he came for, and wanted to brag about.
There may be no choice but to just put him on the front lines as cannon fodder for the Russians, and hope he is a brief nuisance to them before they take him out.
There are unconfirmed reports that a top Russian general has been killed in combat.
https://wtmj.com/national/2022/03/03/live-updates-top-russian-general-killed-in-ukraine/
I don’t know, Ukraine and Russia are far more similar cultures than the U.S/Iraq and the US/Afghanistan, the invaders are not so “alien” to them. (this on the other hand could create even MORE resistance, civil wars being usually more savage than foreign wars).
Another factor is religion, how much impact did fundamentalist (or even plain vanilla) Islam had in the fanatical resistance in Afgh/Iraq?
Yet another factor is socioeconomical levels, well-off people tend to be more accommodating and less prone to risking their life in the resistance than poorer ones.
A few questions for those who know how to find information on such topics.
Several posts mention Russians that have surrendered or been captured. I imagine that running a POW prison inside Ukraine isn’t the safest of activities these days. Are those prisoners being shipped out to Poland, Romania, Hungary, etc? Maybe just sent to some place in far western Ukraine, maybe west of Lviv?
Has there been any news about the Ukrainian navy? I know that they’re small, but maybe they could still be of use if they’re still around. Something like guarding a resupply convoy to Odesa or some such thing.
It looks like there are already enough people willing to fight to the death that the inevitable destruction that comes with this initial resistance will create less-well-off people with little to lose by resisting.
Putin’s latest broadcast on state media:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the war in Ukraine was “going according to plan,” despite defense assessments from other countries.
“The special military operation in Ukraine is going according to plan, in strict accordance with the schedule," Putin said, using the euphemism the Kremlin uses to describe the invasion of Ukraine.
“All tasks are being successfully being carried out,” Putin said in remarks to his Security Council broadcast on state television.
Putin has become his own Baghdad Bob. At least Saddam had a sidekick to do the job.
I am not going to comment on the A10 option, as others have pointed out the flaws as well as I could. Just comment that in the realm of military ideas, this ranks right up there with Pickett’s Charge (IMHO as always; YMMV).
I will comment on the lack of Russian aircraft to establish Air Supremacy; one other possibility is the same thing we have been commenting on regarding that column of trucks and tanks; lack of maintenance. Combat Jets and Helicopters are maintenance hogs, and if the personnel are not well-trained/motivated, a lot of them could be down for maintenance at any one time. And if a critical spare part is held up in production, dozens of aircraft could be down for it. How many? Well, the Rus are unlikely to tell us. We’ll see if they show up this coming week or not.
As for the “16,000” rushing to serve in Ukraine, a simple question? How many do you reckon speak Ukrainian? What you may well have is a polyglot of folks that can’t effectively communicate with each other and have different training/skill levels and have never cooperated as a team. Best you can do with them is use them to free up Ukrainian troops from behind the lines and take on duties such as truck driver/cook/warehouseman/etc.–necessary jobs, allowing more Ukrainian soldiers to head for the front, but don;t be looking at these folks as a band of Rambo’s…ain’t going to happen.
Which isn’t to say the Ukrainian Army won’t get some of them (Americans/Germans/Brits first and foremost) to the front so they can get publicized (and shot). Bloody-minded of me, but war is not for the timid.
As noted above, IMHO. YMMV.
Or just migrate to other countries where they educational level will allow them to be well-off again.