How would US troops fight a numerically superior enemy today?
Quantity vs. quality.
BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED FEB 10, 2023 9:46 AM EST
Former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin is credited with saying that “quantity has a quality of its own.” The Russians appear to be putting that axiom to the test in Ukraine by throwing mercenaries for The Wagner Group into wave after wave of suicidal frontal assaults against Ukrainian defenses.
As a result, Russian casualties have been heavy in recent months. One picture posted on social media in January purportedly shows dozens of Russian bodies clustered close together, indicating they were mowed down by the Ukrainians.
In Bakhmut, Ukraine, the Russians continue to use Wagner mercenaries to make incremental gains despite heavy losses. Of the 40,000 Russian convicts who have joined Wagner, 80% have been killed or seriously wounded, András Rácz of the German Council on Foreign Relations told National Public Radio recently.
While Wagner mercenaries continue to carry out these frontal assaults as cannon fodder, the private military company is using this tactic much less in recent months, said Karolina Hird, a Russia Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War think tank in Washington, D.C.
“The Wagner Group likely experienced significant losses in attritional offensive operations in eastern Ukraine over the past few months,” Hird told Task & Purpose. “The high number of casualties — convicts and otherwise — is likely constraining the Wagner Group’s ability to continue offensive operations that accumulate casualties at such a high rate.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-war-of-attrition-massive-attacks/
