The soldiers believe that instructors have never fought a war like Russia's invasion of Ukraine — the first clash of two heavily-armed militaries for decades.

Most Western forces have experience of very different conflicts, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan where their side had huge advantages in resources and far superior technology.

Well, that makes sense. Not every tactic and strategy works for every situation, battlefield, the arms at location and enemy.

The Western army fought no army on the same level as them for quite a while. Always inferior ones. And all memes aside, the Russian army is not that far away from the Ukrainian army, despite all incompetency and corruption. It's also rare for Western armies to not have air superiority.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

i'm sure his complaints are right on target, but like you say it's completely understandable.. this trench battle has a ton of new elements that both sides are adding to the global tactical lexicon on a daily basis.. there's no training base in the world capable of getting people up to speed on current conditions there.. a big proportion of the effective responses to those conditions are brand new and being learned in the field for the first time.. the Ukrainians are the experts who should be training everyone else now..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

An exception to that would be the Falklands.

While the UK were superior on paper, the specifics of the situation meant that it was a lot closer than it should have been. If Argentina had been a little more brash in their tactics against the task force then it could have went badly for the UK.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If I remember correctly just a single functional older Type 209 submarine was a major nuissance for the British and to this day the Argentinian side insists to have shot a salvo of several torpedos at one the British carriers that missed because of a technical malfunction...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They missed because they didn't connect the guiding wires to the torpedoes properly, not because German torpedoes fired from a German sub don't hit their target.

Ask American carrier group admirals.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The Falklands are a great case study of 'you don't have to be the best, just better than the other guy'.

Because there was a couple of really major opportunities that could have legitimately won the war for Argentina if they zigged instead of zagged.

The one that comes to my mind is during the San Carlos landings the Argentine aircraft chose to attack the major surface vessels and left the landing craft completely unmolested. If they had made runs on the mostly undefended soldiers rather than the big ships, or at least split between them then they would have dealt another significant blow to a force that was already pretty on the brink after the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor and the desperately valuable supplies and resources on it.

The British commanders had also made some pretty significant strategic blunders as well, such as placing the Type 42 Destroyers as the fleet med-high AD and early radar picket despite well knowing and being fearful of the Exocet missiles in the Argentine inventory. The Exocet was a surface skimming system which the defensive and detection systems on the Type 42s were unable to do anything about. After the sinking of the Sheffield the picket was made up of a Type 42 and 82 as they complimented each other to provide a wider AD capability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think that "first clash of two heavily-armed militaries for decades" is quite misleading here.

They always manage to make this sound like idiot Westerners are decades behind as they haven't fought a serious war for so long they have no clue. When the reality is the opposite: Their instructors don't remember how to fight trench wars 1950s style with only light infantry and very limited support... because why would they?