What if Russia hadn't attempted their offensive against Kyiv and instead had used these troops elsewhere, how different would the war have unfold...

What if Russia hadn't attempted their offensive against Kyiv and instead had used these troops elsewhere, how different would the war have unfolded?
Could they have taken Kharkiv or Odesa instead?

I think it's safe to say that, while Ukraine probably suffered noticeable losses during the Kyiv campaign in the North, Russia probably suffered the most there. Losses aside, it was also unrecoverable momemtum. There is no way Russian military heads are still not filled with regrets over this.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Odessa requires different forces anyway. Using VDV there would have resulted in a similar shitstorm.
    And their naval infantry were too busy with the locus of world history and Mariupol to do an operation on Odessa.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      By taking Odesa, I meant taking Mikolaiv first and then sieging Odesa. I don't believe a direct naval+airborn assault on Odesa would've worked either.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Odessa would have been the biggest moronic attack Russia could have ever done.
        It would have literally been Kyiv feint 2.0 as the west supplies it from Romania and the civvies and military all hide in the catacombs

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I wish they had. Imagine getting to go out in speed boats and shoot drowning Russian sailors/soldiers.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >What if Russia hadn't attempted their offensive against Kyiv and instead had used these troops elsewhere, how different would the war have unfolded?

    The start of the war and how Russia is fighting now are completely different. The first few days were supposed to be an all out blitzkrieg because Russian general have the same kinds of fantasies as HOI4tists. Later on, Russia regroup and has become a lot more competent in fighting. It would have ended the same way

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      russians should have trained on wargame red dragon instead of hoi4

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        but they did use Wargame tactics
        >fast move 100+ point tanks down roads
        >mass helicopter assaults with VEH DEE VEH

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      > Later on, Russia regroup and has become a lot more competent in fighting
      More like, went from shit to meh. and only because they've lost so much armor that they are actually using infantry, though in reduced numbers overall. even then they are now losing ground.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I don't think that's exactly how it went. Russia doesn't want to get into infantry fights with Ukraine because Ukraine's equipment overmatches Russia's. Ukraine ground forces have more accurate rifles, body armor, good optics, etc. What Russia actually did was switch from unsupported armor pushes to massed artillery. They have many more guns than Ukraine does, so it has been playing to Russia's strengths.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I thought for sure they were going to pressure Kiev to tie up forces and resources, then sweep the southern coastline, seize a lot of terf and then have the Ukes come to the table and let the Russians keep their gains. I think its fairly common to the Russians unironically got too wienery and thought they'd be able to walk into Kiev with a heroes welcome. Unfortunately for them they havent been able to recover from that early mistep and have been bogged down since. My guess is the Russians felt secure in their operational capabilities due to successes in Crimea, Venezuela, Africa and Syria and simply hadnt considered or prepared for the major escalation that a well equipped peer-ish threat would pose.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Odessa couldn't have been taken in the first week without an amphibious assault against a prepared defence i.e. one of the most brutal forms of warfare there is. The Russians would need at least a 5:1 numbers advantage to pull it off and even then it would make the meme-republic meat grinder look like a joke.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Ukraine would have just funneled their troops into the east. Greater concentration of troops, likely southern gains would have been slowed.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    More focused logistical lines would ha e occurred and they probably would have doubled the amount of occupied territory they have.
    Ukraine lucked out that the FSB’s infiltration was piss poor or they would’ve had a definite defeat.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This is the bargaining phase.

    Russia thought they were a superpower and that they would just effortlessly roll over a smaller country right at their doorstep. They were in for a rude awakening.
    >oooh, but maybe if we took a different route, we would have....
    No. There was no excuse for Russia to perform this badly. Looking at the relative size of the countries, their economies, their armies there is no excuse for this failure. This frickup was not caused by some minor thing like which direction they attacked from.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      That's a pretty immature and biased take.
      There hasn't been any conflicts remotely similar to this one before, so basing yourself off America bombing Middle Eastern countries to judge Russia's performances in this war is unfitting.

      You're also conveniently ignoring NATO aids and intel. Without this Ukraine would've already capitulated.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Russia has performed like shit. Half of their fronts were absolutely defeated and their troops routed. Secondary objectives have been achieved only at merciless expense and every branch of their military has had spectacular failures of every kind. From red on red air force losses to losing their flagship to missing targets with long range missiles.
        It's been a disaster.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >There hasn't been any conflicts remotely similar to this one before
        Can you go back to crying about the ghost of Kyiv?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >basing yourself off America bombing Middle Eastern countries
        That's exactly what Russia did. They thought they were strong like America, and that they could wage a quick modern war.

        America is the exception though. Remember that they expected to have 50K casualties when they attacked Iraq, and then they were surprised they barely lost any soldiers. And all their wars have been like that ever since.

        It's so ironic the US were cautious and everyone was surprised how strong they were, meanwhile Russia was reckless and overconfident, and everyone was surprised how weak they are.
        All they can do is a good old slugfest. Let the bodies hit the floor. Enjoy life before you're drafted, I guess.
        Turns out the only reason the Russian army was relevant were the huge ancient stocks of arms inherited from the Soviet Union. They will burn through that in this war, so their army will never be a threat again. The sames as North Korea. A failed state who's occasionally chimping out with nuclear threats.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Its important to remember that western doctrine revolves around the premise that ammunition is always cheaper than human lives, and PGMs are more effective (and thus cheaper overall) than dumb munitions.

          Even in WW2, the US was criticized for its liberal use of fire support, but there's no denying its effectiveness at limiting allied casualties as seen in every conflict since, both gulf wars being the poster child for it.

          • 2 years ago
            Based Charlie Magne Poster

            >western doctrine revolves around the premise that ammunition is always cheaper than human lives
            this is also russian doctrine, though somehow it's bad when russia does it.

            • 2 years ago
              Based Charlie Magne Poster

              >though somehow it's bad when russia does it.
              No it is not, it is Russia that uses it badly. everything we seen so far proved that Russians are subpar to NATO, meaning if Americans can call fire support in1 hour it probably takes two or three times for Russians to do the same. Not even going to mention PGM

              • 2 years ago
                Based Charlie Magne Poster

                >blah blah hohol lies blah
                ukraine MOD has mentioned several times that the delay between their being spotted by russian drones and russian artillery landing on target is under 4 minutes.

              • 2 years ago
                Based Charlie Magne Poster

                and how much times does it take for squad leader to reach his CO and for his CO to get artillery battalion for them to launch a drone?
                Army is complex machine, you fricking Black person, getting visual feed from drone and hitting the target is just a part of process.

              • 2 years ago
                Based Charlie Magne Poster

                >and how much TIME does it take
                ftfy ESL-kun.

      • 2 years ago
        Based Charlie Magne Poster

        >There hasn't been any conflicts remotely similar to this one before
        two US invasions of Iraq and an invasion of Afghanistan say hi
        >basing yourself off America bombing Middle Eastern countries to judge Russia's performances in this war is unfitting
        only because the US is actually a superpower, while russia larps as one.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Russia didn't even have a theater commander for Ukraine until over 40 days into the conflict. There's no denying Russian incompetence and arrogance.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Russia has lost more men and equipment in 100 days than the US did in 20 years. The US has never looked better.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >That's a pretty immature and biased take.
        From the very beginning, they didn't bring enough troops to do this. You should have at least a 2:1 or 3:1 advantage to attack an enemy and they brought 200k to fight the 200k Ukrainian military. Now they're scrambling for troops because they're moronic.

        America is completely correct when it never fights a battle without absolute overwhelming advantage.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      sauce?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There's the saucenao function on PrepHole for a reason
        https://isekai-maou.fandom.com/wiki/Shera_L._Greenwood

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Now the entire thread which could have been for an interesting discussion is gonna be derailed, frick you.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It's a bit difficult to have interesting conversations on /k/ considering most posters are Americans and have a really hard time applying objective analytical thinking when it comes to a subject like Russia.

        • 2 years ago
          Based Charlie Magne Poster

          Having interesting conversation isn't that hard to be honest. I do agree there is too many Americans, meaning you get mostly one perspective on things. Then again mentioning nationality is surefire way of starting mud slinging.

          • 2 years ago
            Based Charlie Magne Poster

            >there ARE too many Americans
            ftfy ESL-kun.

            • 2 years ago
              Based Charlie Magne Poster

              Honestly, that is just from reformatting my sentence and general careless then typing.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              The funny thing is Biden is referring to Republican's take over the election system and how they're just overtly saying they'll refuse to recognize anyone who wins that isn't their party pick.

              The Red's always stick together

  8. 2 years ago
    Based Charlie Magne Poster

    Maybe it would have been different if they cut off Ukraine from Poland. That initial push would fare better due to less forces being stationed on east.
    But this reminds me of wehraboos, saying Nazi Germany would have won if they did this or that and if they didn't do this. Russians simply can't win.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    russians would have been annihilated if they dared to attempt an amphibious assault
    the area is even more entrenched and more defended these days so its literally impossible to get even minor tactical success down there, they exclusively only have airborne or land invasion options

    also they did try to take kharkiv since thr start of the war, they even had it half surrounded at one point
    now they lost all the footholds to it

  10. 2 years ago
    Based Charlie Magne Poster

    >Could they have taken Kharkiv
    very unlikely, the logistics problems faced at Kyiv would simply have moved to Kharkiv
    >or Odesa instead
    very unlikely, it took hundreds of thousands of troops months to take odessa during ww2. russia could have landed troops at odessa but wouldn't have been able to supply them, meanwhile the relief column would have to cross nearly a dozen rivers between the crimean land bridge and odessa.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >very unlikely, the logistics problems faced at Kyiv would simply have moved to Kharkiv
      That doesn't really make sense to superpose things in a 1:1 manner considering Kharkiv is a lot closer to Russia's border. Bad faith kind of logic here really.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Maybe. Or maybe Russian supplies start getting shelled as soon as they cross the border.

      • 2 years ago
        Based Charlie Magne Poster

        russia couldn't keep their guys supplied 40 miles from belorussia. it's impossible to make bad faith arguments about the horrid quality of russian logistics.

  11. 2 years ago
    Based Charlie Magne Poster

    Disregard that, I suck wieners hahahaha

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    For more grounded what-ifs like this one, feel free to read next month's pulp books about Stalin waking up from cryosleep and taking personal command of the battle against the super nato mutant biolab pigsoldiers from mars.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Rushing kiev with VDV and tanks was a winning move, they just did too poor a job, and the US sent one too many intel reports on russian whereabouts. Same thing would've happened wherever they pushed because the problems were/are systemic not tactical

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I still don't understand how Gerasimov and his entourage weren't beaten to death for this kind of frick-up.

    • 2 years ago
      Based Charlie Magne Poster

      It is brave to assume they had say in any of this, this whole military operation seems like Putin's brain child. More and more it look like nobody in Russian army thought invasion was really going to happen.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        You know literally everyone has a phone nowadays and they can easily produce an app like Uber for artillery ?
        It's not the 90s anymore

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >what if russia wasn't moronic

    I dont know Black person maybe they wouldnt be such a shitstain on this planet

    • 2 years ago
      Based Charlie Magne Poster

      This, in orders for this operation go they way Russia wanted, you would need to go seven years in past and westernize whole Russian army as well as state.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Pootin was just overconfident and he wanna show his buddy, Xinnie the pooh
    How he can
    >Take Kyev in two days.
    >raise his eyebrown.
    >If I can take Ukraine, You can take Taiwan

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The reaction of Ukraine's people and the world in general would not have been the same if Russia didn't make clear it wanted to take over all of Ukraine. When Kyiv itself was under threat, it was an Alamo moment. Repelling the northern advance was a massive moral boon to Ukraine and the west's commitment to supporting Ukraine. It showed that Ukraine could win if it had help. Dividing its forces also slowed down Russia's offensive in the east.

    All in all, the botched northern advance was what fricked Russia more than anything else in the war so far.

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