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Why is it that Russian military operations can never square off with those of the United States?

Hop on this amazing new narrative, which clarifies why and how the United States is far more completely ready for World War III than Russia.

By InfoPublished about a year ago 6 min read
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Russia Can't Compete ❌🛫🏴‍☠️💣❌

Hop on this amazing new narrative, which clarifies why and how the United States is far more completely ready for World War III than Russia. ❌🛫🏴‍☠️💣❌

  • One of the best indicators of an efficient military is good logistics. In the end, if your soldiers cannot be adequately supplied, rearmed, and cared for, it does not matter how far, how quickly, or how many you can deploy. The logistics process has been perfected by the US military. The US is able to support combat operations anywhere at any time thanks to its extensive domestic industrial base, overseas basing, prepositioning, and forward-deployed replenishment capabilities. The US has demonstrated this logistics prowess by fighting a two-front war halfway around the world for almost 20 years. On the other hand, Russia has had logistical problems as a result of its invasion of Ukraine.
  • Military experts and the media have frequently criticized the Russian army's inadequate logistics. However, they haven't really provided an explanation for why their logistics are so poor, prior to now. Before we go into great detail about how Russian logistics cannot compete with the US military, it is important to note that Russia has not committed every error. The Russian military has adopted a progressive innovation by using smaller vehicles. For instance, the M1 Abrams is about ten feet shorter and 20 tons lighter than their main battle tanks, the T-72, T-80, and T-90. This has a benefit from a logistics standpoint alone, putting the effectiveness of each tank aside. Tanks that are shorter require less space in ships.
  • Tanks that are lighter require less fuel to transport and move more quickly. But not only has the Russian army exercised some forethought. Additionally, the Russian navy has made preparations for access to the sea. East Prussia was divided up and largely absorbed into Poland at the end of World War Two. Only a tiny portion of it, though, was sent to Russia. This small area of Russian territory, referred to as the Kaliningrad enclave, is very important in providing Russia with year-round access to a warm-water port. This is due to ports like St. Ships and submarines cannot be deployed when Petersburg or Archangel freezes over in the winter. This was one of Russia's main justifications for getting involved in Syria—they wanted more ports with warm water.
  • They helped Russia obtain permanent basing rights in Latakia on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. The 2014 invasion of Crimea also played a big role in capturing the Sevastopol port. Russia sought to retake what formerly served as one of the Soviet Union's main ports because it needed a more desirable port on the Black Sea. Sevastopol has long been favored as a submarine base and acts as a significant logistics hub due to its steep decline from the port to the ocean floor. Naturally, Russia had to break international law to obtain Sevastopol. Despite the advantages of their typically lighter combat vehicles and aggressive approach to securing warm water ports, Russia's military as a whole has struggled to adequately support forward-deployed units on land, sea, and in the air.
  • The complete incapacity of Russia for air and sealift has been the most glaring example of its shortcomings. The Russian Air Force had about 500 aircraft with a combined lifting capacity of close to 30,000 tons in 1992, shortly after the Soviet Union's dissolution. Additionally, the Russian Navy operated about 80 amphibious and logistical ships with space for over 600 tanks. Russia's forward-deployed combat capability is just under 6,000 tons of gear and about 200 tanks, with less than 20 ships and about 100 airplanes remaining. Combat operations outside its borders are severely constrained by such a drastic decline in lift capacity. Lack of support for ships and aircraft outside Russian borders is a significant factor that restricts lift capacity.
  • The fact that Russian warships could not resupply their troops in the theater during the Russian campaign in Syria was a known weakness. In contrast to the US Navy, the Russian Navy does not even have the capability of routine underway replenishment, let alone practice it. Developed by the US Navy during the First World War, underway replenishment is a technique for refueling and restocking ships at sea. US Navy and NATO vessels approach the oiler from a distance of about 180 feet during underway replenishment operations. One vessel will shoot shot lines to the other to bring over the spanwire and in-haul haul lines. These then join the ship to pump fuel and transfer pallets of supplies, food, and ammunition between the ships.
  • The Soviet navy had limited capabilities for refueling operations and no capability for taking supplies during missions, but the Russian navy has given up trying altogether. While underway replenishment is a regular practice on all US Navy ships, it is not on Russian vessels. Instead, they must spend time and money making port calls to refuel, rearm, and re-equip. The Russian Air Force's performance isn't much better. Few nations will grant Russia over flight rights because it has alienated the majority of the world. Military aircraft must obtain over flight authorization before flying through any nation. If a nation objects, the aircraft must change course to travel through airspace that is open to them.
  • There isn’t much airspace where American aircraft are forbidden from overflying, thanks to the NATO alliance and the friendly relations the US has with the majority of the world. However, friends are few and far between for Russian aircraft, the longer routes that Russian aircraft must take in order to support combat operations waste time, fuel, and money. However, Russia does not have any overseas bases to support its aircraft, even if more nations like Belarus allowed Russian planes to fly through their airspace. Aircraft that are grounded-based must have runways, in contrast to naval aviation, which can take off and land on aircraft carriers.
  • The US has spent the last few decades cultivating relationships that have granted American aircraft basing rights all over the world. This luxury is not available to the Russian air force. Because of this, with a few exceptions like Syria and Belarus, Russian aircraft would have nowhere to land unless Russian troops took control of foreign bases through force. The Russian army's excessive reliance on railroads for transportation should be taken into account as well. Russia's military relies more heavily on rail systems than any other European nation due to its size and vast areas of practically uninhabited land. Since the majority of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations were equipped with a standard, wide gauge track during the Cold War, the Russians adopted this tactic.
  • They did this so that, in the event of a war, there would always be a large number of rail heads at which to discharge supplies and avoid having to travel far too forward units. However, there are several significant holes in this logic. First of all, the Russians need to assume that they will always have a firm grip on a sizable portion of their crucial rail hubs. Second, the logistics units designed to support forward-deployed units are ineffective in comparison to US and NATO units due to their excessive reliance on rail. For supporting units of equal size, western militaries typically employ three to four times as many logistics personnel as Russian ones. Russia is stuck in a sort of logistical wasteland in Ukraine because they haven't been able to take many population centers.
  • The few remaining logistics troops are forced to support forward-deployed units in large truck convoys that leave from the nearest rail hubs that Russia does not control because there are no railheads from which to draw supplies. Typically, these convoys have to leave from Belarusian or Russian soil. Once on the road, these convoys are constantly attacked by artillery and drone fire from Ukraine. Furthermore, due to the way that Russia treats its draftees, these frequently unmotivated, inadequately skilled, and even worse-led soldiers are left to maintain the trucks and vehicles that supply the army.

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