KHD wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 5:18 pm
The railways to me would be the most efficient way of moving large quantities of heavy weaponry and other equipment in large quantities accross long distances over large land masses though.
This is one of the points that's been made about the Russian's approach to this war (and has many parallels with their cousins', the Tories', preparation for Brexit) : they assumed that everyone else would do things the way they've been doing them in all their previous skirmishes, i.e. let them roll in, using their tried-and-tested, well-used rail network, and all would be well. It never occurred to them that the Ukrainians might disable their own railway system, leaving the Russians with no choice but to unload a million tonnes of ammunition and vehicles at a railway depot and truck it box-by-box over the last 200km. The infamous "40-mile convoy" was the first failure in this regard, and (apparently) they still haven't quite figured out how to do things differently.
Going off on a slight tangent, there have been and still are hordes of blood-thirsty westerners calling for the Ukrainians to slaughter every sitting Russian duck as and when they get the chance. The Ukrainians haven't. They knew perfectly well that that 40-mile convoy would grind to a halt if they cut off it's supply of fuel, and it did. Similarly, they knew perfectly well that the Russians would turn tail and run from Kherson city if they cut off supplies of fuel and ammunition, and they did.
That's why I'm reasonably confident in the prediction that Crimea will be the next major victory - it'll be so much easier to isolate than any part of the Donbass. Psychologically, though, it will be an almighty kick in the balls for Putin and his goons. If you were a Russian sympathiser living in Crimea, watching what's just happened in Kherson (as well as seeing the Black Sea Fleet weigh anchor and skidaddle off out of Sevastopol) would you hang around, or would you be packing your bags and legging it back to Mother Russia via the overland coastal route before the Ukrainians have it in range?
And at the end of the day, if Putin & Co. care so little about Kyiv, Karkhiv, Kherson and Crimea that they'll happily pull their armed forces out with little more than a half-hearted whimper, why would they even bother breaking open the seals on their nukes?