DeansMusings

This post has been because the use of Long range missiles by both sides, has escalated the war andtaken analysis around the war into the realm of a possible nuclear war or World war 3. I wanted to look at open source data to examine what each side hopes to achieve from this. Before that an update on the fighting: November is the first month, since June when Ukrainian casualties (all dead & wounded) have not increased. Sanitary losses (which is how Russia defines all dead and wounded) in Nov was 60000, compared to a high of 70450 in Sept – to which must be added desertions and prisoner which is probably 3-4000 per month. Half of these sanitary losses will be irrecoverable. Only inside the Kursk salient (where Ukraine lost half the territory it captured in August) will Nov casualties be higher than in Oct. The fighting in Kursk had been analysed in detail in my previous posts.  In part 8 of this series, I discussed in details the concept of sanitary and irrecoverable losse...

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 subsequ...