DeansMusings

I'd like to start by  Reviewing assumptions on force levels & losses, to which I devoted an entire post, as it was at the heart of my assumptions on the war. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2024/09/ukraine-war-part-8-casualties-force.html In part 8 of this series I had estimated the manpower and loses of each side – and thereby the number of combat units they could field now and in the future. This was based on two approaches, which had several assumptions, though both converged on the same number. These were: 1. Units known to be in combat and their expected strength - with different data points giving similar numbers &  2. A theoretical calculation: Starting manpower + Recruitment – casualties = current manpower. I used the concept of irrecoverable casualties, which was dead + seriously wounded + missing + prisoner to estimate the number of people who would not be able to fight. Each of these numbers had assumptions, some less validated than others. There was subsequently

P art 7 – The war against Hezbollah It has been just over a month since the IDF began a full-fledged war against Hezbollah. Before analyzing that, it would be useful to see how operations against both Hamas and Hezbollah have taken place compared to what I predicted in previous posts. Hamas: In my post of 25 Aug I had suggested that the fighting against Hamas was largely over and Hamas, having lost the bulk of its fighters was incapable of offering organized resistance. I had identified three IDF divisions that would handle Gaza, not by occupying the whole Gaza strip but by cutting it off from outside support and cutting parts of Gaza from each other, by occupying corridors. The IDF would them conduct air strikes, or limited ground incursions against Hamas fighters, until Hamas’s fighting ability is fully degraded. As suggested, the 162 nd , 252 and 143 rd Divisions have, since the beginning of Sept, been the only formations operating against Hamas in Gaza. As both the 252 nd a

In my last post (part 8), I had suggested that there are credible sources to calculate casualties from both sides. These estimates match known numbers of the strengths of each army pre-war, recruitment figures & current strengths, in which the balancing figure is `irreplaceable casualties’, which are 247000 for Russia and 377000 for Ukraine, upto 10 Sept 24. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2024/09/ukraine-war-part-8-casualties-force.html Based on the known strength of each side in 2024, this post attempts to explain operations in each part of the front, based on Russian strategy, the size of forces on both sides, in each sector and Ukrainian losses this year in each sector. The following two tables should be referred to. The first is open source data on the Order of battle (ORBAT) of each side in each sector. The Second is the Russian Ministry of defense estimate of sanitary losses (all dead and wounded) for each day this year on every part of the front. As we have seen in the