a323109
Trafficante
Ma non si puo' indebolire l'Italia, cosa dici?
L'Italia è un incassatore estremo, come Fantozzi, Fantozzi è immortale
Situazione Ucraina
- Creatore Discussione superb@ffone
- Data di Inizio
L'Italia è un incassatore estremo, come Fantozzi, Fantozzi è immortale
superb@ffone
NoTax
Meno carburante e prezzi più alti: il peso degli attacchi ucraini contro le raffinerie russe
Kiev in almeno 81 casi ha colpito con i droni i siti petroliferi russi, provocando danni economici alle aziende che producono benzina e gasolio
captain sparrow
Forumer storico
Another Ukrainian Brigade Is Disintegrating As It Deploys To Pokrovsk
The 157th Mechanized Brigade ‘did not undergo the necessary combat training.’
www.forbes.com
ForbesBusinessAerospace & Defense
Another Ukrainian Brigade Is Disintegrating As It Deploys To Pokrovsk
The 157th Mechanized Brigade ‘did not undergo the necessary combat training.’David Axe
Forbes Staff
David Axe writes about ships, planes, tanks, drones and missiles.
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Jan 27, 2025,01:57am EST
157th Mechanized Brigade soldiers.
Via Militaryland
For the second time in a month, a newly formed Ukrainian army brigade is disintegrating as it deploys to the front line in one of the most urgent sectors of Russia’s 35-month wider war on Ukraine.
“This newly formed brigade did not undergo the necessary combat training,” one relative of a 157th Mechanized Brigade trooper told Hromadske, “but it was immediately sent to the hottest areas” including the besieged fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
Capturing Pokrovsk is one of Russia’s top objectives as its wider war on Ukraine grinds into its fourth year. Defending it is one of Ukraine’s top objectives. Given its importance, it’s shocking to many observers that the Ukrainian army keeps reinforcing the city with dysfunctional units, including the 155th and 157th Mechanized Brigades.
Both units began falling apart before they even arrived in Pokrovsk.
“The situation in the 157th Mechanized Brigade mirrors that of other brigades in the 150th series,” noted Militaryland, a collective that tracks the Ukrainian military force structure. “Soldiers were taken during the formation process, units hastily deployed to the front and sent without proper training, resulting in heavy casualties.”
The 157th Mechanized Brigade is one of the eight 150-series brigades—also including the 151st, 153rd, 154th, 155th, 156th, 158th and 159th Mechanized Brigades—that formed in 2023 or early 2024 and, after a lengthy period of training, began arriving on the front starting late last year.
The brigades are big, some with roughly double the usual 2,000 manpower billets of a Ukrainian ground combat brigade. But they’re also fragile—with inexperienced leaders, too few modern armored vehicles and poor morale that often results in a high desertion rate.
The brigades are fragile because they lack a core of experienced troops around whom new recruits can rally. Ideally, “new people join the 30 experienced guys from the company who already know how to give them advice and explain something,” one alarmed officer told Hromadske. In the 157th Mechanized Brigade, “everyone is new.”
It’s no wonder, then, that the 157th Mechanized Brigade was falling apart as it arrived in Pokrovsk. There were reports of brigade troopers taking one look at their trenches—and promptly abandoning their positions.
Senior commanders in the fortress town sensed imminent disaster and began plucking companies and battalions from the brigade and assigning them to experienced brigades that have been hurting for manpower.
But that only accelerated the 157th Mechanized Brigade’s collapse. “There is no chance for the new brigade to achieve proper coordination because it has been broken up into spare parts,” Militaryland observed.
The 155th Mechanized Brigade is the most notorious of the 150-series units. But it’s not alone in disintegrating on first contact with actual combat conditions. In late December, the 155th Mechanized Brigade deployed to Pokrovsk with its German-made Leopard 2A4 tanks—and immediately crumbled.
The inexperienced and poorly led brigade suffered heavy losses in its first clashes with the Russians. Commanders in Pokrovsk broke up the brigade and assigned its surviving companies and battalions to veteran units in the same sectors.
In the view of critics, the Ukrainian general staff in Kyiv should’ve broken up the demoralized brigades before they reached the front. The individual soldiers and tanks could’ve restored experienced but war-weary brigades—brigades that already knew how to fight the Russian and survive. “Why not replenish the long-established brigades?” one soldier asked Hromadske.
“The issue is in organizational and leadership failure,” according to Tatarigami, the founder of the Frontelligence Insight analysis group in Ukraine. Leaders in Kyiv were apparently eager to prove to their foreign allies that they still had the manpower, and the political will, to expand the Ukrainian army and sustain the fight against the invading Russians.
To inattentive foreign observers, the formation of eight new Ukrainian brigades is much more impressive than the reinforcement of scores of older brigades.
So Kyiv stood up a bunch of fragile, amateurish units—and sent them to the front to get destroyed. First, the 155th Mechanized Brigade. And a few weeks later, the 157th Mechanized Brigade.
“One can only wonder why these issues are being overlooked by the top command and hope that the remaining not-yet-deployed brigades—namely 156th, 158th and 159th—can learn from these mistakes,” Militaryland stated.
There’s reason to be optimistic. Learning of the 155th Mechanized Brigade’s collapse, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly halted the formation of new brigades—and ordered new recruits to join existing units. That directive clearly came too late to save the 157th Mechanized Brigade, however.
captain sparrow
Forumer storico
Ucraina: la guerra prosegue male, mentre i russi avanzano. Scontro ai vertici della Difesa
Il ministro attacca la capa per l'agenzia degli armamenti
superb@ffone
NoTax
superb@ffone
NoTax
A123 sapevi che i preservativi servono per fare bombe?……
a323109
Trafficante
No, non lo sapevo
superb@ffone
NoTax
Sono curioso
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