Russian Regrets: Why Mass No Longer Matters On the Modern Battlefield

The latest 300,000 Russian conscripts are just another mass of cannon fodder headed for the meat grinder, like their great-great grandfathers in WWI  and great grandfathers in WWII.  

BA Friedman reports in Twitter:

It used to be mass and combat power had a direct relationship. That direct relationship no longer exists. These days, it's more about the quality of the troops and the planning, coordination, and the tactics they employ. Throwing every able-bodied male in uniform can get you units, but they can't get you capable units. Especially in modern warfare where physically-massing ground forces isn't a strength but a liability. I don't expect these 300,000 hastily trained replacements to give the Ukrainians much trouble. It's going to be tragic but they're headed for a meatgrinder. This Russian mobilization is a pretty clear attempt to use mass to stem the metaphorical bleeding on the battlefield through mass, but this is very unlikely to work. A (short) thread on mass:

 

Mass or concentration is probably the most common principle of war. It's commonly said quantity has a quality all its own. And it does, but that mass has to be used somehow.Throwing every able-bodied male in uniform and shipping them out can get you units, but they can't get your capable units. Especially in modern warfare where physically-massing ground forces isn't a strength but a liability.

 

It used to be you could get away with this. For example in 1793 the French Revolutionary armies were faltering, so France launched the first levée en masse, putting 800,000 men into uniform within a year. That worked.But that was a time when units still literally fought in massed formations. Mass indeed had a quality all its own because mass and combat power had a direct relationship.

 

That direct relationship no longer exists. These days, it's more about the quality of the troops and the planning, coordination, and sustainment of the tactics they employ over time. The operational art.

 

It's in the operational art where Russia has truly failed, ironic since it was Russian theorists who absolutely pioneered operational theory. But its Ukraine that has mastered this art, and matched it with the professional officer, SNCO, and NCO corps that really fuel it.I really don't expect these 300,000 hastily trained replacements to give the Ukrainians much trouble. It's going to be tragic but they're headed for a meatgrinder. Russians have always deserved better leaders than they've had, whether tsars, chairmen, or presidents.