In an op-ed in the Washington Post Michael O’Hanlon considers the question I asked earlier this week—what would it take for Ukraine to win in its war with Russia? He proposes a counter-offensive consisting of what is essentially a “human wave attack” against a particular point (unspecified) in the Russian lines. I have no basis for assessing the prudence of such a course of action in the absence of air superiority, something not considered by Mr. O’Hanlon, either. Here’s his analysis:
Popular lore notwithstanding, an offense does not need a 3-to-1 advantage in manpower or equipment across a whole military theater to have a good chance of success. But when attacking a prepared defense head-on, that kind of superiority is probably needed in the place where the army attempts to break through.
At or near this vicinity, Russia could be expected to have 40,000 to 50,000 troops within weapons range, or able to get there within a few hours — about 10 percent of the half a million troops it now has stationed along its 600-mile front line. To give itself a 3-to-1 advantage, Ukraine would need about 150,000 troops — at least 100,000 more than it would normally have along such a short length of front.
If Ukrainian troops punched through Russian lines, they could then work to widen the breakthrough corridor and penetrate farther. Eventually, they would look for an opportunity to encircle and cut off all the Russian forces holding Ukrainian land to the west of the breakthrough corridor — up to a quarter million Russian troops.
At this point, geography and topography would favor Ukraine, as it could attack Russian forces from behind. However, Ukraine still would probably not wish to fight Russia with less than an equal number of troops, and this means it would want at least 250,000 troops of its own (including the 150,000 deployed in the breakthrough). Some of these soldiers might be found by thinning out Ukrainian front-line positions elsewhere. But most will need to be fresh recruits or draftees. Ukraine’s current military strength of a little under 1 million troops would need to increase by at least 200,000 (and maybe even more, should Russia further strengthen its forces in Ukraine prior to a Ukrainian attack).
That’s a long-winded way of saying that Ukraine doesn’t have the soldiers it would need to carry out such a campaign. Where would it get them? By expanding conscription? That may be easier to say than accomplish. Millions of presently sub-draft age Ukrainian men have already left Ukraine. Furthermore, sending raw, notionally trained troops into frontal assaults against enemy lines with plenty of opportunity to fortify them is a formula for mass slaughter.
Do the NATO countries severally or corporately have the production capability to provide the munitions required for such a force? The existing evidence suggests not.
Would need to move them without Russia noticing. Hard to do nowadays. If you could do that, if you could find enough soldiers, if you had enough arms and ammunition, if you could do it without depleting troops elsewhere along the line it could work, but lots of ifs. (Russians should have air superiority but it doesnt seem to have mattered that much for them.)
Steve
Easy to say, much harder to successfully deploy and supply. Even harder when Russia controls the air and can observe large troop movements.
In WWI, the attacker would obliterate a defensive position on a single point of the line with artillery. The defenders would disperse and dig in. Possibly most of the defenders would die, run away, or throw their guns down and whimper. But a few would survive. When the infantry attack began, the few would come out of their trenches and man machine guns, cutting down anyone who crossed dead man’s land. Then repeat the tactic the next day, and the next.
Gunpowder weapons had become increasingly defensive weapons. From Gettysburg to Verdun (until the development of infiltration tactics and tanks).
O’Hanlon has no idea what he’s talking about.
One of the major reasons offensive operations in this war are so difficult is that it’s impossible to mass forces undetected. You need to concentrate forces for the offense to punch through defensive positions. But with ubiquitous satellite imagery, drone reconnaissance and other means of detection, massing forces is extremely difficult to do because once forces are concentrated, they become vulnerable to fires, particularly artillery, and it becomes about impossible to achieve tactical or operational surprise.
Add to this the fact that Russia is very good at static defenses and defense-in-depth, as shown last summer.
As a point of reference.
Ukraine’s raised 12 brigades (or approximately 50-60K troops) who undertook the “failed” counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.
O’Hanlon seems to be arguing to retry the counteroffensive (same number of troops, same direction of attack); but this time it will work if Ukrainians strictly follow Western doctrine (screw casualties and push!).
Is that what policy makers in DC believe was the root cause the counteroffensive fell far short of projections; Ukrainian failure to follow NATO doctrine and an aversion to causualties?
What struck me is that Mr. O’Hanlon is basically prescribing the same things that Marshall Foch did during World War I. I presume you recall how that worked out.