Good American Morning to the Farms.
I used to think the Gulf Wars fried people's perception of war. Now I think it is even worse.
People are celebrating that Kyiv hasn't fallen after a mere, what? Three days after the start of the war? How strong must the Ukrainians be to have held the Russian Menace back!?! This is a major military disaster for PUTIN!!!!!!
Bullshit.
Or at the very least, being completely unrealistic in expectations.
Let me give you some numbers and statistics:
2nd battle of Fallujah:
Coalition forces had complete dominance in manpower, airpower, equipment, and training. The opposition had extremely little artillery, minimal anti-armor assets, effectively no air defenses, patchwork communications at best, basically no armored assets, and well over half of their forces had no real training to speak of. US and allied forces had quite a bit of time to surround the city and pre-position all major assets before the offensive to take the city started. And the city was effectively clear of civilians. Coalition forces outnumbered the insurgents by 3 to 1.
It still took a full five (5) days to take the city.
The most recent Battle for Raqqa:
Coalition forces, notably backed very heavily by US support assets, took 4 fucking months to take the city back from ISIS. That is with the assault force outnumber the ISIS forces by over 10 to 1, complete air dominance, extreme recon and intelligence overmatch, a monopoly on armor and artillery support, and US Spec Ops support. Many civilians had evacuated, and coalition forces din't care much about collateral since it wasn't an officially US lead operation (despite all the material support, notably artillery, which flattened the city).
Again, 4 months after having entered the city for the first time, and 3 months after having completely surrounded and cut off the town.
These two towns are tiny compared to the Ukrainian cities being talked about here. They are also being defended by forces which aren't illiterate 3rd world peasants, armed with nothing but zeal, knock-off AKs, and improvised explosives. And these battles were conducted mostly after the allied forces had secured the surrounding territory, and had complete freedom of preparation and movement. This as opposed to the ongoing Russian assaults which do no yet have that benefit.
To give another couple points of comparison:
The First Gulf War:
Five Weeks of air assaults lead-up to the breach.
A brilliant misdirection leading to an outflanking maneuver enabled by the then new GPS technology, combined with every technological advantage ever conceived of, was just the start of the advantages. Allied coalition forces outnumbered active military numbers for Saddam. Allied leadership had actual leadership capabilities, especially in comparison to the arab army. Widespread use of Smart Munitions made their combat debut.
It was a lightning fast campaign for something this size, and the ground assault lasted 13 days before Saddam called for a ceasefire.
The Second Gulf War:
Somehow the Allied Coalition forces setup an even more absurd overmatch the second go-around. The Iraqi Army really hadn't rebuilt its forces, and its conscripts knew it. Their moral was about as low as any force in history, and the surrender rates show it. US and coalition forces had even stronger technological advantages this time, and they used it and lessons learned from the previous war to maximal effect.
The US and Allied forces steamrolled their way across the country in just over 25 days.
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To tell you all my point as explicitly as possible: Manage your expectations.
The Ukrainian military is reasonably well equipped. They have/had modern air defense systems, including many MANPADs. They have/had strong armored forces as well as anti-armor forces. They have/had a decently trained core of soldiers. And as importantly, they aren't Arabs. In addition to all this, the Russians still have their heavy armored and Artillery forces in reserve. They are being remarkably gently in this operations so far, considering that the usual MO for the Russian forces is to "Grozny" a city if it gives them any trouble (I expect this to change as time goes on).
Of course the Russians weren't going to take Kyiv in the first fucking 3-4 days of war. The only way that would have happened is if the Ukrainians stright-up surrendered. Which was unlikely.
Considering all this, the Russians are doing pretty damn well, and that is coming from someone rather pro-Ukrainian.
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TL ; DR: Wars take a long time. City fights take forever and a day. The Russian Campaign is going rather well, despite some minor setbacks.
