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Russia's Logistical Nightmare Will Keep Getting Worse
The Triad

Russia's Logistical Nightmare Will Keep Getting Worse

They are short on both money and time.

Jonathan V. Last's avatar
Jonathan V. Last
Mar 14, 2022
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The Bulwark
Russia's Logistical Nightmare Will Keep Getting Worse
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Russian military trucks and buses are seen on the side of a road in Russia's southern Rostov region, which borders the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, on February 23, 2022. (Photo by STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

1. Logistics

One of the truisms of military affairs is: Tactics are for amateurs. The professionals understand that wars are won and lost through logistics.

The great Tom Ricks has written a short, but deeply informative, piece about logistics that everyone ought to read:

Say you and your family want to visit Granma back in Indiana, about 500 miles away. You and your partner throw the kids, the dog and some clothes in the minivan, and you’re ready to go.

But wait: There is no food available on your route. So you go back inside and pack up a couple of days of meals, squeeze it into the back. And you feel ready.

Also, there are no gas stations on the way. You don’t feel comfortable carrying gas cans in the car, so you get your pick up truck, and fill up some cans, and put them in the back. You can drive that while your partner drives the minivan.

But also there are no dependable sources of potable water. So you put 200 gallons into cans and lift them into the back of the pick up.

Also, there are no doctors or hospitals. So you persuade some medical people you know to come along in their own car. But they also need food and water and gas, and space for their bandages and medicines and equipment, so they bring two pickups with them, loaded up.

Now we have a convoy of five vehicles. Ready to go? Not quite. There also is reliable information that you could be attacked along the way. So you get five truckloads of soldiers—two for the front, two for the back, and one to control and command their operations.

Yes. This. Read the whole thing.

And now keep that in mind when you look at this Phillips O’Brien thread on the maps showing Russian gains:

Twitter avatar for @PhillipsPOBrien
Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien
Logistics Rule--look at the map. You might be wondering why the Russian invasion of Ukraine looks like a group of almost equidistant road-linked thrusts stretching from Russian and Belarus into Ukraine. (thanks to @Nrg8000 for this)
Image
7:45 PM ∙ Mar 12, 2022
8,759Likes2,631Retweets
Twitter avatar for @PhillipsPOBrien
Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien
Turning to this War on the Rocks piece, it is said that the average Russian unit has a truck lift to take it to 90 miles (140km) from the closest large supply dump (see below). You would have to double the trucks on hand to get to 180 miles. warontherocks.com/2021/11/feedin…
Image
7:45 PM ∙ Mar 12, 2022
1,522Likes217Retweets
Twitter avatar for @PhillipsPOBrien
Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien
Here is the map with a 140km/90mile line (handdrawn, apologies) in black in the middle. What you can see is that there have hardly been any Russian thrusts that have exceeded the natural limit set by their truck lift.
Image
7:45 PM ∙ Mar 12, 2022
1,677Likes240Retweets

As O’Brien notes, the only Russian thrust that has significantly exceeded the 140 km threshold is the one ranging from Sumy to Kyiv.

Here is the principle you must always keep in mind about logistics:

Twitter avatar for @PhillipsPOBrien
Phillips P. OBrien @PhillipsPOBrien
The Russian campaign seems to be being controlled by logistic limitations, severely restricted by Ukrainian attacks on their trucks. Logistics rule because they limit
7:45 PM ∙ Mar 12, 2022
2,394Likes276Retweets

2. Money

Logistics are not an easy problem to fix.

Because it is not normally the case that an army has tons of spare materiel sitting around the yard back home and that they just sort of, you know, forgot to pack it.

“Hey, Dmitri! We probably need 5,000 of those trucks we left back at Belgorod. Can you back, load them up with Krasnopols, petrol, and spare tires and drive them out to the front? Spasibo comrade!”

Normally, fixing a logistical fiasco requires two things: Time and a great deal of money. You throw money at your logistical problem and hope that the force in the field can sit tight until the cavalry gets there.

Twitter avatar for @KevinRothrock
Kevin Rothrock @KevinRothrock
Russia’s finance minister revealed today that, due to sanctions, Moscow has lost access to $300 bil of Russia’s $640 bil in reserve funds. As a result, “debts in countries unfriendly to Russia we will pay in ruble equivalents.” That’s a default, folks.
t.meМедуза — LIVEИз-за санкций Россия лишилась доступа к половине своих золотовалютных резервов ДАННОЕ СООБЩЕНИЕ (МАТЕРИАЛ) СОЗДАНО И (ИЛИ) РАСПРОСТРАНЕНО ИНОСТРАННЫМ СРЕДСТВОМ МАССОВОЙ ИНФОРМАЦИИ, ВЫПОЛНЯЮЩИМ ФУНКЦИИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА, И (ИЛИ) РОССИЙСКИМ ЮРИДИЧЕСКИМ ЛИЦОМ, ВЫПОЛНЯЮЩИМ ФУНКЦИИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА…
12:38 PM ∙ Mar 13, 2022
2,383Likes823Retweets

Whoops.

You may remember that way back on January 13 I told you that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine and that one of the reasons Putin would do it was that he viewed his massive foreign currency reserves as a moat.

He did not believe that Western sanctions could possibly go so far as to attack Russia’s central bank and render those foreign currency reserves inert.

Meaning: Putin cannot throw money at his logistics problems.

But how about time? Does he have it?

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