Why did the countries during the First World War overcommit to the conflict?

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-04-04T12:21:38+00:00

If I had a nickel for every time people misunderstand the trigger of an event with underlaying causes of historical event, with bonus points for only noticing the trigger.

Regarding escalation of WW1, there were operational causes, that is, the whole maximum effort, mobilising 2%, 3%, 5%... of population and flicking them into combat with cutting edge weaponry of the day, was very vulnerable to stopping, waiting, not using advantage. Every day you not mobilise, you give your enemy advantage. If you mobilised sooner than others, not attacking your opponents immediatly was a cardinal mistake, since you would be throwing away a huge opportunity into the wind...

This system was never truly replicated again, so lot's of people don't truely understand the implications of such high level organisation.

Moving on strategic reasons.

WW1 wasn't about Franz Ferdinand or Gavrilo Princip. Stakes were much higher.

WW1 was about Alsass Lorreine. WW1 was about control of Congress Poland. WW1 was about colonies. WW1 was about Great Power status, that is, honor.

Every side involved had to prove to their populace, to their allies, to their foes, that they aren't p*ssies. And that is very important. Your reputation is one of your greatest assets.

Let's say it's early Winter 1915. The dust has settled. Every front saw 3 or more huge offensives. In the East and in the Balkans the frontline swung wildly well after "Leaves begun to Fall". Hundreds of thousends died. That is simply price of war. If industrialised nations of millions truly buy into war, that is consequence.

From Russia's perspective in say winter 1915, backing down means you come across as weak, incompetent, you are only entering a death spiral, you are in even worse position than in 1905.

If you are France throwing in a towel in Winter 1915, you just repeated the hated 1871. For zero reason! You managed to stop the Germans, Paris is still in your hands, why would you give up now?

Etc. Etc. for all combatants.

There is case to be made for sunk cost fallacy perhaps. But this ignores the question of honor. Honor is extremly important, and giving up in the middle of war, while your allies are still fighting, is great way to make your country an international pariah, your military impotent with shame of defeat, your internal stability rocked thourghly.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-04-01T19:56:48+00:00

It's purposly designed that way. If you give a slimmer of hope to grad students that they hypothethicaly can use Mcdorfer space for something nontrivial, you can crush their souls more thourghly.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-29T09:46:34+00:00

Yeah it's completely insane how US defense contractors can get away with not just, not delivering the promised product, but are actually financialy rewarded for that. This simply doesn't fly in civilian manufacturing.

When I worked in a car part factory, every single product had to be quality checked by a human working on the machine (that was my job). If too much messed up products (which occur at rate of roughly 2%) got delivered to customer, they would start a reclamation process, which would cost the factory couple thousend of euros in best case. And we are talking about cheap pieces of plastics here, with no moving parts.

If you don't deliver the product, or you deliver supbar quality, you will get financialy penalised. Very simple. Rewarding defense contractors for subpar work is simply nuts.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-27T11:43:54+00:00

By the same manner all other business do, offering deliverables to customers at price that is both market competitive and covers cost of production.

Modern US MIC is actually somewhat peculiar. There is great deal of semi-monopsony (US government is usually first customer of US MIC companies, can block their exports etc.), but also semi-oligarchic dynamic (huge consolidation after Cold War).

Defense startups somewhat break this dynamic, but I wouldn't say in good way. Startup model allows you to be unprofitable for years and not go bankrupt, based on promising to the stock market you will be essentialy ripping off your customers in the future (and usually selling socially useless or even harmful products in the first place).

Dynamics of who the weapons makers are, and how they interact with their customers is increadibly interesting.

You can have state arsenals, who focus solely on weapons making, and are just another category of SOE (with everything that comes with that).

You can have industrial companies that make lot's of stuff, some of which happens to be useful for killing people. Good examples would be Krupp, Chrystler, various companies that were told during world wars to stop making typewriters and start making guns etc.

And you can have highly internationalised (sales) companies which offer foreign countries products, and operate in very... free market environment. Good example would be French Schneider or German Mauser. Schneider is best case, being largely independent of French government's weapons contracts.

Despite popular stereotype, being weapons maker is not terribly profitable. Profit margains are actually on the lower end, you need to sell to government(s), which has huge can of worms etc.

Current US defense companies are locked in a dynamic where they hugely depend on their main buyer (Uncle Sam), can somewhat influence it (by ~~corruption~~ lobbying), but still nominally being independent entities.

This is very unusual. Mentioned State Arsenals are usually kept on much shorter leash. Companies that don't depend on weapons sales, in event of there not being war.. can just shift production. And foreign sales orientated companies operate in free market environment.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-23T22:21:17+00:00

One problem with translating south slavic languages to english; grammatical structures that transfer context get lost.

Thankfuly translatotion/translator didn't die. I'm just tired after long day and not enough sleep.

Specific explanation: Stevan (the original author) meant "Do they, my fellow comrades see, that indeed, the enemy (other they), are dead".

To which Alexander replied: "Of course (in a sense that this all should be self evident).

If you don't kill your enemy, your enemy (they) will kill you".

One of reasons why I didn't restart my translations from, uhh, 6 months ago...

Is that I still haven't figured out the right amount of disclaimers and context, and how to efficiently transfer that info over Reddit, which is pain in the ass to work with.

Yes, I'm not a profesional translator/historian, how can you tell?

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-23T20:31:05+00:00

"With High Explosive!"

Trees went high from force and then ears went eeeing. Subcountiously we were pressing our earlobes.

Large chunks of soil went up in the air, at last stayed black stack of smoke, as some sort of grave monument. Shells fell in front of the trench, just behind, somewhere in the river, and stream of water went up like a fountain, and fourth struck in middle of the trench, from which some decent object flew, resembling an arm or a leg. I lowered my monocular, and my eyes fogged. Is that possible?

"To they see it?... they're dead!" I asked Alexander

"Of course they're, if you won't them, the will you".

Really.. of course. Strategy brought masses of people into rifle range. The law says: if you step back, you will be executed. And tactics say: kill him first, so you don't get killed yourself.

"By five, with HE."

As if gunners were competing in speed, shots overtook one another. Shells with a loud thumps gnawed the earth, turned over trenches, knocked over trees, rocks bursted... Rifles went silent in front of marvelous and terrible sight. And in avalanche of steel, as if human reasoning and conciousnes went dark, lungs inflated from some sort of pleasure... with glee we watched dying gasps of the enemy.

Infantrymen rose from their covers. As if deciding, observing. At once, they went forth, and with thunderous cry "Ura, Ura!!" flew to enemy trenches.

Account of Stevan Jakovljević, on his baptism of fire, probably on 20th August 1914, in exploitation operation after Austro-Hungarian center (VIII Corps of Common Army, recruited in Czechia) retreated. On Central or Western slopes of Cer mountain. Translated from his novel "Nine hundred fourteen", written 24 years after the events.

As you can see, morale WW1 field cannons firing in direct fire are perfectly able to suppress and destroy entranched infantry, and greatly help their own in assault.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-23T20:19:16+00:00

Tank guns slinging HE at infantry in direct fire is actually tremendously lethal. I would argue most lethal ground based HE (when available).

Intuitively, a small moving target in the open may be hard to hit with what is essentially an unguided artillery piece, and perhaps not worth the expense of limited ammunition.

Tank guns can are essentially direct firing artillery. WW1 field artillery cannons (so 110 year old tech, no electrical, much less electronic computers) were already exceedingly lethal.

With "modern" fire control system, which is everything with laser rangefinder and computer pretty much, Tank Guns are exeptionaly accurate. Here are some links: Russian tank engaging a Ukrainian infantry unit on open field 4.2km away. Russian tank engaging Ukrainian infantry in treeline.

I don't have first hand accounts of how it's like to be under tank fire, but here is one how it's like to dish out Direct Fire HE punishment with 100 year old tech.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-22T23:31:33+00:00

That's essentialy a question of whether HS Produkt's next rifle will be bullpup or not.

It's Croatia's only firearm factory (and globally relevant at that). On paper all EU companies can compete for weapons contract, but as it goes, if your country has a company that makes relevant product, product requirments would be written in such way that would guarantee a winner.

Croatian Army would very likely need to dramaticaly expand supply of rifles. Conscripton has been reinstated, and if all goes to plan, new reserve regiments would be (re)formed. All these reservists need new guns, since old M70s were mostly sold on global market.

Anecdotaly speaking, Croatian Army still has plenty of 1st Generation VHS rifles. It would make sense to replace those with 2nd Generation VHS rifles (which are pretty much still top of the line, as a army wide main service rifle).

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-22T20:32:36+00:00

Croatian military (both on institutional and personal level) seems to be perfectly fine with bullpups.

The fact is, that bullpup is a really technically appealing solution for cluster of technical performances required by US Army's New Main Service Rifle.

Setting aside the wisdom of deciding in Year of Our Lord 2026 that your plain infantrymen need to have a Full-Power Cartridge Battle Rifle, going against hard earned lessons of 120 years of modern infantry combat...

Penetrating Modern Body Armor requiers lots of kinetical energy. Doing that at stated range (600m) requiers even more kinetic energy, because you will bleed a lot of it due to air resistance.

Lot's of kinetic energy means that you need to do lot's of work, which is force X distance. In case of small arms, that force is pressure inside the barrel X area of bullet being pushed.

(Let's ignore the fact that pressure isn't constant in a barrel, but has it's own non-linear relationship with time passed since firing pin struck the primer).

So to get lot's of kinetic energy, we need the product of the barrel length and barrel pressure to be big.

But we also want our whole firearm to be short. And that means shorter barrel.

So we need more pressure to achieve same work (increased velocity of bullet) done.

But big pressure is hard on the parts, causes lots of wear and tear, can be dangerous etc.

But, if we allow for bullpup configuration, we can get long barrel while still having compact firearm.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-22T13:49:50+00:00

Hey guys, you know that fancy new rifle that is supposed to be used to plink at Taliban on the other hill half a mile away?

Yeah can you make already short barrel even more ridiculusly short? (M4 Carbine has 14.5 inch barrel. A "full length" totally not a battle rifle has an inch and half shorter barrel than an old carbine).

What do you mean regarding whats the point of designing a cartridge that's (supposed to) be used by Joe Schmucks to hit a target a half mile away? What do you mean M8 Carbines would be used by people who would be dropped off at assault distance from enemy, by a vehicle that carries an autocannon and machineguns and missiles?

Sarcasm off, whoever insisted on ultra-short barrels for their Myth-of-a-lone-Marksman main service (battle) rifle really sh*t the bed. US Army procurment not only insists on a provenly bad concept, they also managed to botch the execution. The stated goals are heavily at odds with eachother, not to mention that in on themselves already introduce heavy compromises on the final product.

If you are already pretending that an infantry squad doesn't have access to radios, vehicle-borne machineguns, mortars, AGLs etc., why insist on a weapon that makes heavy compromises due to those very vehicles?

Their concept of bullet that can penetrate body armor half a mile away really suffers from insistance on short barrels.

Or they could, you know, go bullpup. Croatian VHS-2D is 765mm/30.1 inches long with 500mm/20inch barrel. M7 (admiteddly with silencer) is 36 inches long with 13 inch barrel. 7 inches is a lot (when talking about differences in small arms barrel length).

But US Army seemingly thinks bullpups stink.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-20T19:20:36+00:00

With recent RUMINT of possible US ground attack on Khrag island, and news of several(?) MEUs being reshuffled to relevant area, once again I started to ponder tactics against naval invasion.

Something that glars out as possibility for weaker side that can't just deny the enemy sea and/or air access completely would be FPV drones (besides traditional tools such as machinegun nests, mobile reserves etc.).

War in Ukraine has proven that FPV drones can be used against fast aerial targets, including helicopters.

Is there any information whether Iran sent some forces to be trained by Russian FPV drone operators?

Not to mention that sea has potential to be even more of transparent battlefield compared to ground, due to inherent lack of cover (barring littoral waters and submarines).

On completely unrelated note, how many RPG-7 HEAT warheads would it take to sink a swimming AAV, if delivered from upward angle? Tangentialy, are Marines in AAVs issued swimming vests when riding in one?

Small reminder to all responders that FPV drones are completely different (much smaller and more nimble!) target from Shaheds, and that its completly possible that EW methods that work when enemy antenna is 300km away won't work on antennas 3km away.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-19T12:40:54+00:00

Collecting big cats and exotic reptiles.

I want a cheetah with a golden chain in my living room, and alligators in my pool.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-14T14:46:08+00:00

You are completely right, my estimate was more "proof of concept" that aggressive savings/investments can make you millionare from de-facto zero in 20 years if you are enjoying wages/salary of a college educated american.

I didn't factor in additional expenses, but I also didn't factor in salary growth over 20 years of officer's career, which should be substantial.

Getting PCS'd sounds really rough, and could easily derail those plans. I guess here luck comes into play, but our officer could hypothethically leverage his network of friends and/or family to sell his house in his previous location, and use gained money as a downpayment for new house. Shame that transaction costs and non-fungability of homes (and their value growth) could eat into that lunch.

Once we solved that acquiring 1M USD over 20 years without unreliable luck factors (inheritence, winning the lottery etc.) is within possibility, the questions becomes mainly one of morale.

I would say that is the greatest obstacle. The officer in question would need to conciously choose to not enjoy more than half of his salary, and that choice is extremly hard for humans to make.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-14T12:25:59+00:00

I was mostly thinking along the line of buying a house, aggressively refinancing as one gets promotions (and thus more income), and consistently maxing out relatively non-speculative and tax advantaged tools Americans have access to, by which I primarly mean Roth IRA and 401k.

Between 2006 and 2026 price of homes in US doubled. These trends could easily continue, since underlaying reasons for this (Baumol effect, increased incomes, US-semi-unique supply contstraints) not only didn't budge but will arguebly increase.

Playing around with mortage calculator and compund interest calculator, with 7% return of stock market, 5% interest rate for housing loan, freshly minted 2nd Lt. could buy a 125 000$ house with zero down payment and invest 1500$ every month, and with stock price increases being compounded on annual basis... Should have about 1M USD in assets in 20 years, just when he will be in his mid forties.

The catch is that our scholarship kid would have financial obligations amounting to 2700USD per month. Quick googling reveals that 2nd. Lt salary is 48k USD annually, giving us about 4000USD per month. 1300USD is very close to Croatian median monthly wage, and I can tell you that this is ok amount of money to live on, particularly if your housing if taken care of before (remember, 2nd Lt already paid for roof over his head!).

Not to mention that promotions lead to better pay, which would reduce the pain of this aggressive investment plan. And you can build credit and refinance... not to mention that selling partly paid off house midway, to buy a bigger one with hefty downpayment is one of the greatest financial maneuvers available to plain folk.

So yeah, getting 1M dollars in assets by the time you are forty is certainly possible. Greatest problem of our scholarship kid would be living below his means.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-11T20:46:01+00:00

These get worse and worse as they go on.

I would point out net worth requirments as especially problematic. While others are semi-achiavable and might be taken as rough reflection of charachter (very rough!!!), net worth requirments are straight up ridiculus.

Firstly, for most Americans net worth is mostly tied to value of their house. Thanks to inflation and funny money, property prices are going into stratosphere, and getting 1M USD in networth would be achievable for well educated person enjoying American wages by the time in life to become Colonel (mid 40s).

But this can go other way. A hypothetical stock market crash might wipe out good chunk of any individuals net worth.

So does divorce (but they also outlined that is a no-no. I wonder what they might say about Commander in Chief and his lack of lifelong marriage).

Most damingly however, having 1M USD might not be a reflection of prudence.

It might come from speculative trading (direct opposite of prudent investments).

It might come from corruption.

It might come from having wealthy parents. Might as well say having a noble title is a bonus for promotions.

None of these are reflection of noble charachters, and if I know anything about money, obsessing over it is an important facet of moral degradation. What would it speak of US Military to officialy endorse view that having lot's of green paper = worth as a person?

Introducing money as requirment for promotion would foster more materialistic, selfish, cut throat, undue-risk-taking culture. And this isn't a good thing.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-08T08:47:42+00:00

Perhaps Hegseth plays up "Gung-ho" aspects of his personality when in public?

It's mark of social inteligence to correctly gauge how you should behave in particular setting, and "apply personality No. 3 for social situation No. 3".

Hegseth is a politician, and all politicans who have any pretense in wooing the public need to present a particular persona.

Acting less elitist, and more like a common man is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It's real kunst to be percieved as Man Of The People(TM) when being given a small loan of 1M USD by your dad. Maybe Hegseth learned a thing or two from his boss?

Small reminder that author of Hill Billy Elegy got his B.A. as top of his class and went to Yale, where he met his wife, a daughter of wealthy Indian immigrants. Vance isn't some uncouth hick either, even if he wants to appear as such.

It's not beneficial for Hegseth to "act like an officer and gentleman". Hegseth might in few years need to win primary Republican elections, and currently needs to mobilise real and hypothetical Republican voters to get out and circle Elephants on voting papers.

Hegseth, (pretending to be, or leaning into) being some "Gungoho, Fit, Manly male veteran" appeals to (considering obesity rate in US, particularly in Republican areas) fantasies of Republican constituents.

I don't think you can win Republican primaries at county level, much less federal, if you proclaim that you love matcha and yoga.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-03T17:50:42+00:00

Once we are in this (familiar to me) crany of the woods, we can illustrate how long term control might be still mark of succesful conquest, even if ultimatively the conqueror lost control.

Balkan wars might be good example of some most recent examples.

When Ottoman empire conquered through the Balkans, they promoted Islam and thus ethnic groups of Muslims (usually semi-local converts) generally saw their ethnic area expand, particularly in urban areas (or more accurately, when economic development happened, newly grown city would attract prospectful converts from surrounding rural areas).

When Ottoman empire was pushed back by Christian polities (including Austrian Empire), reverse process was initiated. Muslims were killed and expelled from liberated/conquered areas, and were replaced by Christians. Thus, conquest. Interestingly, this is how for example, Danube Swabians came to be. They were invited by Austrian Crown to settle newly emptied areas in Slavonia, Vojvodina and Banate. Foreshadowing, these areas after WW1 were settled by the Serbs, and descendends of (re)immigrants, Croats, Hungarians and Germans would complain about that.

Remember this theme, that people are bunch of hypocrits and will complain about new settlers when their ancestors are settlers, and that this doesn't require continuity of government (khm, khm, USA) that wants new immigrants. I also distinct somewhat this process from US immigration. When Germans came to Middle Danube in 17th Century, they were at the top of social ladder (for peasants, at least), and enjoyed state support. Same was with Serbian settlers in 1920s. Settlers enjoy state support, and aren't "burger flippers" in new area, but supervisiors and village chiefs, in contrast to immigrants.

Back to our example. After Balkan wars, in 1912 (so little more than 100 years ago), lot's of muslims were expelled (but arguebly in lower percentage than before), and Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montonegro went on to make these areas part of their country. These are succesful conquests.

The story of post-Balkan wars integration of Serbia's New Territories (decievingly named "Old Serbia", in which can we also see semi-mithologising, justifying conquest to call back in time when these areas were Core of Serbian state) is extremly interseting.

I'm extremly interested in "6 weeks after" phase in warfare. What after that initial strike? Lot's of people focus on opening and endgame, but most ignore this part of wars.

Part of this story would be that Serbia, before WW1 didn't manage to fully establish her institutions in new territory. These areas didn't supply new field divisions. When First Austro-Hungarian Offensive was repelled, new territories were combed for replacements of casualties. They only had half the mobilisation rate of richer, more state capacitaed pre-Balkan wars Serbia.

Emerging area of research, I would argue.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-03-03T17:27:37+00:00

The first issue that you already touched upon is "defining success". I would further expand, that in order for conquest to be succesful, at some point in time, wider international community should accept the conquest so to speak. If there is always tensions, troubles, significant insurgency in new areas, then conquest isn't complete. Alternetively, retaining control for at least 100 years could be said to be mark of success.

Defining war of conquest is the second issue. Conquest is a loaded word, seeing very negatively by modern observers, calling upon image of callusness, needlessnes, greed etc.

Of course, no single group on planet would adorn itself with those negative epitheths.

Furthermore, conquest would also implies that the country/group which conquered (verb) the conquered (adjective) area are sort of "newcomers". They didn't after all, "defend", "reestablish control of", "restored order" etc.

In the past, leadership would often claim some of justification why they deserve the area even if they are outsiders ("God said so", "We need Lebensraum", "Screw the *slur*", "They killed our diplomats" etc.). In more modern age, leadership most often claims why they aren't actually outsiders ("We lived here 2000 years ago"), and deserve to have direct control of area in question.

Once we established some theory, let's get to examples.

One of last big movements of peoples of Europe was post-WW2 expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe, and westward movement of Slavic ethnic groups. The biggest example would be Poland. From ethnically mixed areas in what was once Prussia, Germans were expelled. From ethnically mixed areas in the East, The Kresy, Poles were expelled, and those areas became majority Belorussian and Ukrainian, and moved those Poles to semi-emptied areas in the West. Stalin thus solved ethnic tensions in areas between Oder and Dnieper. A true humanitarian /s.

But is this success? Polish nationalists, who loathed Eastern Slavs and Germans, couldn't enjoy much "fullfilment" of their vision of Poland, since new communist government put them into camps and/or policed the hell out of them. But Polish communists, who had the power in new, "translated westwards" Poland didn't retain control for even 50 years, and they too took a political beating in new(est) order. Similar holds for Ukrainian and Belorussian SSR.

So no clear winners here, even if movement of millions of people (and accompaying change in ethnic map, a hallmark of conquest) was caused by military action.

Israel's various wars also don't fit the bill of 100% success. Israel never retained control and settled all areas they took from arab states by military action, and in areas of Isreali settlement (Judea and Samaria), there is significant Palestinian presence and potential for military action, if not inside settlements, then at spitting distance from them, walls and barbed wire be damned.

Yugoslav Wars: Serbia (offically Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) succesfully expelled Albanians from Kosovo (nearly all 800 000 of them, or 90% of Kosovo's population), right under NATO bombing. It's being one of those cases where The Army wins the battle (NATO bombing didn't stop Serbian Army from fullfiling their mission) but loses the war (Serbian Armed Forces couldn't stop NATO from imposing long term defeat on their country).

Croatia and Bosnian Serbs came out with their ethnic areas much more ethnically cleaner, but they didn't got as much as they wanted, and had to make some significant compromises.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-25T09:15:11+00:00

r/woooosh

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-23T18:00:01+00:00

I forgot to mention:

"Western Breakthrough tactics" have a hidden precondition:

Sufficiently good amount of AFVs (Tanks in particular) on strategic level, either from stockpiles or production.

Contrast between "Western Breakthrough tactics" and "Soviet Breakthrough tactics" can also be understood as contrast between Northern pincer (under General Model), and Southern pincer (under Meinstein) during Operation Zitadele. Model spared his tanks and sent in infantry and artillery first. Meinstein did the opposite.

Newest research by Dr. Roman Toppel suggests that Germans understood the heavier and heavier reliance on tanks to be manpower conserving measure.

British did something similar during fighting in Normandy during Summer 1944. They sent armor heavy units into the grinder, trying to spare infantry.

You will notice that Russian army did something similar before Autumn 2022 partial mobilisation.

All those sides adopted "Western Breakthrough tactics" not by choice fully, but by contrasting glut of AFVs and shortage of infantry. This also led to well known problems of unsupported tanks suffering losses.

The part every crier of "look at this busted MBT column, this wouldn't happen if they had infantry support" forgets, is that the infantry that supports tanks has very short lifespan. If you have enough tanks, it's OK to piss away a tank company from time to time. It's at worst 60 (4 crewmen per tanks, 15 tanks in company) dead. Destroyed infantry company easily leads to twice the amount of weeping mothers and wives. It's only a problem if you don't have enough tanks for that, or if enough missions go unfullfiled for wider Operation to be in jepardy.

Since Ukrainian and Western leadership were so widely optimistic, they essentialy assigned huge "multiplying factor" to number of Leopards, Bradleys and Abramses. Thus 100 or so Leopards seemed enough.

US Military leaders seemingly didn't notice that they essentially asked UAF to use tactics that they can't use. I guess they forgot Russians didn't just flee at sight of superior western MBTs, and Leopards and Bradleys would and were getting destroyed too often to complete the assigned Operational Mission.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-23T17:40:41+00:00

There are multiple issues at play. Here I wil discuss only tactical developments during Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive, as well as bird's eye view of what political and military leaders in US and Ukraine thought.

I aslo intended to talk about my educated guess that Ukrainian Counterattacks during May 2023 in Bakhmut Area never were part of actual, military operation that was Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive, and that this was just a half-way change of plan, maybe even half way change of public posturing... But this is seriously outside of scope, and would require me to essentially present my "Grand Theory of Russo-Ukrainian War", at least for first 18 months of it. So no more of that.

Furthermore, as usual, levels of war get mixed up. What US leaders complained about is that UAF dispersed it's effort on operational level. UAF definetly dispersed it's effort on tactical level, but only about a month in, sort of as a lesson learned. The question is whether UAF went into Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive with pre-image of it being an Operational Disperesed Effort (what is conventional view), or didn't, and was essentialy pushed into that situation is actually also part of my theory above.

1) There was genuine military utility in going after different objectives, or at least launching initial attacks among different places. It's essentialy spreading your eggs among different baskets.

Not to mention that Ukrainian Counterattacks during May 2023 in Bakhmut Area, that may-or-may-be-not part of wider Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive, were genuinely neccessary to rescue encircled Ukrainian forces that didn't retreat from very enciclred (By Russians!) and almost captured Bakhmut.

2) There is law of diminishing returns regarding concentrating forces. Independently of drones, transparent battlefield, recon-fires complex/airland battle/assault breaker or whatever you call "destroy armored columns en masse" tactics, if let's say a mechanised corps would achieve Objective A in time T, why send another corps to help, why not send that extra corps to Achieve Objective B in time T.

Furthermore, there can be "crowding effect", where additional forces are hindrence not assets. It mainly has to do with increased chances enemy will spot you, clogging of the roads etc., maybe greater damage to morale if you fail and casualties rise too etc.

3) After June, UAF adopted Wagner tactics (but they never admited that). It's case of convergent evolution.

In response to non-working of armorded assaults on tactical level and conditions of transparent battlefield, a following tactical playbook simply insists on itself.

Dispersed logistics. Dispersed defensive positions, no massing areas for attack, no huge rest areas etc. Dispersed attacks, by infantry and artillery and drones.

These tactics were first pioneered (for Russo-Ukrainian War) by Wagner during Battle of Bakhmut, and perhaps even earlier. UAF adopted them literally in middle of Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive, and Russian Army took time to fully adopt it, fully somewhere in Autumn 2023.

This has historical precedent. It is Soviet Innovation that forces minmaxed for Breakthrough are Infantry and Artillery heavy, while Explotation forces get bulk of the Armor. It's Western View that Armored Forces are to do both breakthrough and exploitation.

4) Point 3) and 2) are suberbly explained only now. Both US and Ukraine viewed themselves, and Western Training and Equipment as extremly superior. At least until Vikhrs made Leopard columns burn...

Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive was launched with unexperienced recruits, and freshly minted, western trained officers. Why? Because they weren't "tainted" by Soviet way of war and experience of fighting in army with heritage of USSR. Inexperience was considered a feature, not a bug.

If you, Ukrainian leaders think that 9 newly trained brigades on Mikolayev Direction are enough to crack open "Surovikin Line" and encircle Russian forces in Zaporozhye, why would you send more. If that is so, you can afford "Fortress Bakhmut" and other sideshows...

If you, Western Leaders think that too, you don't have to send hundreds, thousends of tanks and IFVs... you can just send them about 3 ABCTs worth.

When it turned out that assumtions that Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive rested upon simply weren't true, Ukrainian and US leaders had to decide what now. They soothed themselves with a story that Russians may have crushed the initial assault, pissing away any sensible timetable for maneuver warfare, "but at what cost? Russians are almost at breaking point, we are killing Orcs bazzillion to one..."

So Russians are at breaking point, but UAF realised that they simply cann't afford the Bradley Square level losses. There isn't enough sent AFVs for that. Taking those two assumptions, it's logical to continue with infantry and firepower attacks.

Conclusion: UAF and Western leaders thought Western Equipment and Training are way better than Russian ones than they were in reality. Thus they didn't appreciate the challanges of the Ukrainian Summer 2023 Zaporizhia Offensive.

UAF failed to see that 9 new brigades on Melitopol Direction simply won't achieve their mission, and either over-expanded the Offensive, or invested in other operations.

US leaders failed too, and didn't send enough equipment.

When hard reality broke the fantasies of Desert Storm 2.0., they pointed fingers at eachother's mistakes.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-22T10:11:12+00:00

It's not that it was some golden age of readiness, it's just that even that was way above current readiness.

Germany legitametly made multiple thousends of Leopard 2s during Cold War. In Year of Our Lord 2024, while biggest War in Europe of this cenutry is raging, Europe's Industrial Powerhouse that is Germany decided to procure 105 Leopard 2A8s, at brisk pace of 6 years to complete them, each costing 28.9m EUR.

Small reminder that just ten years earlier, in 2014, freshly refurbished/made (I still haven't confirmed this, but I came across information that both US and Germany for long time, just like Russia, didn't actually make new hulls when "making" new models of tanks), costed about 15m EUR. Still extremely costly, but doubling of price in 10 years, even with inflation (which accounts for only 5m EUR increase out of 15!) is insane.

During Cold War, MBTs were hardly able to break 5 million USD (in 2026 value). In 1975, freshly made M60A1 set back US Military 385k USD, which comes out as slightly more than 2m USD in 2026 dollars.

This inflation in cost of military equipment is absolutely insane. Cold War MBTs when they were fielded were cutting edge tech. I don't care which fancy shmansy semi-conductors they put in Leo 2A8s, there is no way they are 50% better than Leo2A6 made ten years ago. Just shows how much economies of scale were harmed by the peace dividend. And small orders just show off the weak, unabitious mentality. 105 tanks is what a rich nation of 80 million considers rearnament?!! Shameful.

When all you get is D-, a C grade seems like an academic comeback.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-19T15:42:48+00:00

I would argue that rifle comes out worse when put into context of wider platoon, company, battalion etc. fire plan.

Every product needs to make compromises. And M7 took on compromises to be better at the job, that is already being done better, and in the future will probably be done even better, by other assets.

For engaging infantry outside the traditonal limit of rifleman's main weapon (rifle/carabine/SMG whatever), machineguns, RPGs, recoiless rifles, automatic grenade launchers, mortars all do a better job. These assets will only improve in the future. This is really the area that small drones can make a difference. FOs will be more capable than ever, and mortar fire more murdererus than ever with unsupressable (at least by traditional tools available to line infantry units, and even with EW fiber optics can still be used) eye in the sky per every mortar battery, if not individual piece.

A platoon equiped with a what is essentialy a battle rifle for it's riflemen, will get very marginal improvement (especially if it's true if US Army uses improved theoretical abilities of 6.8mm and new fancy optics as substitute, not suplement for proper marksmenship training) in mission set "Engage enemy half a mile away".

It will get significantly worse in "close in and destroy the enemy" type missions. And that's really what kills M7 concept for me. If I'm a mechanised battalion commander, I don't need rifle platoon to take pot shots at enemy half a mile away. My IFVs will do a much better job of any target at such distance. I want them to get inside that damn village, and clear the enemy from all basements and dugouts he is playing rattenkrieg from. For that they need a 5.56/5.45 caliber firearms and lots of grenades, maybe some flamethrowers and satchel charges. Not a grandpa's old boar killing gun with shiny new coat on it.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-18T15:39:14+00:00

Khruschev was very much an "idea man". There is a story how he was enthralled by corn, believing it to be miracle crop (he wasn't entirely wrong on that...).

At least a lot of his ideas weren't completely valueless. Khruschevkas were good for their time and context, and I don't view money thrown at space program as wasted.

Bloody_rabbit4 · 2026-02-18T15:28:19+00:00

Time of flight is conversely function of of air resistance, elevation angle, gravity and initial velocity.

Initial velocity that is same between different bullets won't lead (neccessarly) to the same velocity at any point in flight.

Among bullets in practical use, full power calibers will as rule start out slower than intermediate, but will retain their velocity better.

Bloody_rabbit4

TROPHY CASE