Vital lessons from two years of all-out war in Ukraine for British Army
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- It has now been two years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a former general has told Forces News how the conflict is teaching the British Army valuable lessons about fighting a modern digital land war.
General Sir Richard Barrons, a former head of Joint Forces Command, said the sheer attrition of the conflict had proven that even with huge amounts of modern technology, any force facing Russia must have scale.
"You need really big concentrations of forces to break through a really coherent defence, such as the one that Russia has built in southern Ukraine," he explained.
More: www.forces.net/ukraine/size-m...
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The lessons for the British Army is to actually have an army - and not a defence force
That’s what nato is for
@@lachlanchester8142 Let's be realistic, the future of NATO (as we know it to be anyway) is in jeopardy, with the comments ol' Donnie has been making. Britain needs to be a military leader in NATO.
We also cannot also purely rely on NATO.
NATO Article 5 does not purely rest on 'Is it your military/territory being attacked?". It has the caveat of "Is it your military/territory being attacked, AND, is it within North America, Europe, Mediterrainian or above the Tropic of Cancer in the North Atlantic?
The UK has a lot of overseas territories and while some of them are protected (Like Gibraltar) - some of them are not. Like the Falklands. So we still need that offensive force, that very capabile force that can deploy in large (enough) numbers to, at the very least, gain a foothold for other NATO forces?
The lesson is people have to join the army for national service age 16 for 2 years if they want a career then 4 years contract
Why don’t you support Britain instead off slaying it the biggest lesson ever is never follow Americans
Trust only Europe Australia also train Indian army to counter china and any other rising balls 🥎 with huge ego
India will be the key for Asia if trained well and Indian shut up and listen as they hate the uk yet all the systems are British but hey go can’t blame them for the anger
Also don’t shoot like the Ukrainians who can’t learn how to save bullets and actually hit targets
@@akhilShah-wu7pp Good luck finding them !
You need a properly sized, trained and equipped army the day before you need it, not WHEN you need it.
You need factories with unused surge capacity in peace time for when you need it in war time.
Small cost to prevent disaster.
Britain has roughly 30´000´000 females where´s the problem ?
@@GaminHasard Which is pretty hard to do when you destroy the domestic small arms industry by shrinking contracts and preventing civilian sales of items like semi automatic rifles and pistols which companies like sterling needed to stay afloat between government contracts.
Well said.
@@GaminHasardYou also need the ability to make steel in the form of a nationalised steel plant. Also, the Tories privatising everything was a huge mistake. As trying to get shells made for Ukraine has proved.
All lessons that cost money will be conveniently forgotten
Unless win would promise big profits.
All of these armed forces TH-cam videos need to be framed in the light that Boris Johnson PERSONALLY blocked a peace deal that would have save hundreds of thousands of people and lied to the Russians at the negotiation table.
accurate, just like no body armour in iraq and afgan, same with armoured patrol vehicles aswell, whats that... an IED? Guess i'll die for the corrupt toffs boys club government
Three main lessons from what I can tell:
1. We need more drones.
2. We need more personnel.
3. We need *a lot* more ammunition.
Are any of these going to be learned? Knowing the people in charge; probably not.
Or you need to stop poking the bear
And above all more common sense. This is not our war.
@@felipe-vibor What's it gonna do? Nuke us? We have nukes too.
@@felipe-vibor Nah mate.
@@Lordoftheflatbush You need a history lesson
America and Uk have to remember this is not Iraq 😮
Sadly the US and UK have short term memory.
trying to fight people who dress like civilians is hard. if the Geneva convention didn't exist, it would have taken only a year tops
This would be much easier for US UK. They own the skies. Hard to fight a enemy you can't see
Raytheon and Lockheed don't see the difference.
Tone we own the sky's over Afghanistan.
Over Russia, I'm not so sure!
There is only one important lesson to be learned - that the British armed forces are far far weaker than they need to be given an international situation more threatening than it has been for decades.
biggest lesson you can't rely on the united states
Not under liberal sleepy joe biden under trump you could or another republican leader
Quite correct sir, but don't complain, ,the US has spent tens of trillions of their money defending us Europeans. We should at least be very thankful (unfortunately we are not)
LOL, you can only write this because Americans saved you and still keep you safe. Like a kept woman you are.
Sure you can! You just need to get a cushy, high-paying job for the son of their president.
Ummm, like you have been for the last 80 years??
Every attempt by the British Army to ‘strengthen links with British society’ has been met with derision as if all the potential new soldiers have some sort of ‘identity’ issue or ‘dysfunction’ which clashes with the older image of the Brit soldier. (I mean no disrespect by that. I learned as a JNCO that people can surprise you.) I served 12 years in the British Army 1978-1990. So my only conflict was Op Banner. But that in itself was a honing of core infantry skills. I don’t really have a view about today’s youth. But recruitment seems to be facing serious difficulties. I’d take recruitment out of the private sector for a start. Granted that cuts into manning shortages but there must be aging SNCOs who could be farmed out to old-style careers offices. I’m 63. Fit. And would offer my services should the need arise. And I think NATO will fight Russia sooner rather than later.
“Army is smallest it’s been in 300year” …and what was the population 300years ago?
Would be interesting to see the ratio of Army size vs. population over that time… I have a sneaky feeling that right now it’ll be worse than we’re told.
it is indeed.
Did a quick search and according to wikipedia, the UK pop is 67m. Back in 1851 is was 27m. So if you went further to 1723 (300y ago), being generous you could say around 20-25m.
You might also find it interesting to look at ourworldindata, specifically the page on "Armed forces personnel as a share of total population, 2018". It shows a heatmap of military as % of pop worldwide. UK isn't particularly low/high. Mind the UK would've been higher in past when war was a lot more common. Higher military percentages are in the middle east, eastern Europe & Russia, parts of Africa and South America.
@@MouldyCheesePie
This isn't an apples to apples to comparison though.
In 1851 you had the British Army, as well as various colonial forces.
I think you guys need to focus on creating an army of resistance to migrants in your country before you turn into another Arab emirate
A big difference with this war, neither side has had air superiority over the battlefield, having air superiority will assist in being able to advance
And that probably not going to be possible for any coming conflict.
I think you are confusing air superiority with dominance. Russia has air superiority but not dominance until late March when Ukraine air defense completely fails through lack of munitions.
Same with night vision. One would argue if Russia was capable of doing a 24 hour operation instead of only in the day that would’ve been a game changer early on when they were at Kyiv. Instead it was the same old Soviet strat of rush men after when everybody had their lunch and on full alert
@@richardmarsden5610The VKS is just too risk adverse regardless, there was plenty of times, especially early in the war, where Ukraine's air defense was severely lacking yet they never capitalized on it, its seems endemic to the force for whatever reason
@@richardmarsden5610 That is why Russia would be very stupid to attack NATO, NATO air forces are likely to achieve and maintain air superiority/dominance. It was rather unreasonable of Nato to expect the Ukrainians to advance last summer with no decent air support. Its not something NATO would consider as a tactic.
lessons learned from russia/ukraine war. Unless you have the very best jamming tech then tactical aircraft and attack helicopters are redundant due to the AA systems now available. ALL AFV's including tanks are also really vulberable without a large deployment of troops. Low cost drones can and have made a huge difference.
Tactical Aircraft are not redundant- they just need standoff weapons. Russia has been getting greater success due to having a crash course in glide bombs.
thats just a tactic. Tactics dont win wars. Your whole nation needs a strategic plan for mobilization and production.
Russia has adapted to make tactical aircraft and attack helicopters extremely useful. Glide bombs turn a cheap dumb bomb into a 30-40 mile range satellite guided bomb with a cheap conversion kit allowing them to fire large numbers at standoff ranges out of range of all but long range air defence which then takes on more risk by being nearer the front. Some argue that Russia glide bomb usage has significantly accelerated the pace of offensives recently including taking Avdiivka as getting hit by 10+ 500kg bombs daily isn't fun.
Attack helicopters were a significant factor in destroying Ukrainian vehicles in their attempted 2023 counter offensive. They popped up, fired 15km range guided missiles including ones allowing lock after launch and destroyed or disabled modern Western MBTs.
Drones are certainly useful and appear to still be usable even with EW active but their main problem at the moment is lack of range. You can hit within a few miles but further than that adds cost and flying over enemy held territory increases shootdown risk like how medium drones were useful at the start but now are suicidal to deploy as defences have hardened. That gap over 2 or 3 miles is where artillery comes in paired with some recon drones.
Ultimately it's an interesting one that all planes can be useful even if it's too risky to loiter over the target area while reinforcing the need for organic air defence to force enemy aviation back even if you cant destroy them.
Avoid war would be only normal lesson
And when your Country is threatened and attacked like Putler did to Ukraine, how do you avoid war?
@@Don_ECHOguy to avoid war, first you want to do is stop being delusional and check some facts. Everything opposite to aggressive passion and wrong information like combined in your post.
@@Don_ECHOguy Completely ignoring the US backed coup in 2014, otherwise known as Maidan revolution. You've fallen for the intended narrative, to build hate against Russia.
@@Don_ECHOguyBut Putin has no interest in conquering the West. Why would he want to manage all the Woke crazy, and third World lunatics we have running around our cities? He has been quite clear about his war aims, and he seems to be sticking to them quite methodically. Don’t be played. Russia doesn’t want a World war, climate change isn’t real, and no farmers means no food, and finally current levels of immigration will leave us with no western values worth fighting for within two generations anyway. Try worrying about that.
@@Don_ECHOguy Simple, don't bomb russians in Crimea
You need a civilian militia that has been trained and equipped for unconventional defensive warfare. This type of force is a nightmare for attacking enemies, and is relatively cheap to maintain. It's also the backbone of the Swiss defense system.
No need for that
We are an island nation we need airfirce , navy and expeditionary forces
it is also for use when you have given all the control of the battle space to the enemy, ie after you have lost
You are already have Sharia civilian militia isn't it enough? Check your demographic lol
The most interesting thing about modern war to me is that by and large the high tech long range weapons will largely cancel each other out and the difference in the outcome of the war will be dependent on infantry.
The lessons being learned are meaningless unless we act on them.
Someone who is morbidly obese knows they need to exercise more and eat less, yet many still choose to do nothing.
For all the talk of vital lessons, we are still acting like there is a peace dividend; shrinking the army and failing to stockpile even basic necessities like ammunition and supplies.
Luckily we have our our enough steel industry to produce extra armoured vehicles. Oh wait…
Once again, the force not in a hurry
Always had tremendous respect for you brits. Theres a reason we all speak English today. Much love from your humble NATO ally - Bulgaria
Better sign up the old brigade as Dads Army Reserves, we still remember what a T72 looks like.
the time is now to have the size of the Army, Navy and Air Force enshrined in law. The Tories have cut the forces to the bone. A larger 100k Army, 40k Navy and 25k Air Force would be both sustainable and large enough to do something when needed.
and how did you force the soldiers, afapt to different needs
@@thodan467 Try weed, God and survival tactics.
It seems they can't currently fill the spots they have, so how will they recruit even more people? I heard they had to mothball a ship because they couldn't hire the personnel.
Well said! Experienced Observations
Can't afford to even fully supply or recruite for the regulars, reserves or the stockpiles. Just recuite more people when things happen, because that's not even more expensive at all!
Lessons learned from that war are: shovels are the best weapons, washing machines is great for technological salvage and sting that you’ve killed thousands millions billion doesn’t change the fact that you have to beg for money
To underline just how small the British Army currently is, the Ukrainian Army now has almost as many military amputees (60k+) from the war with Russia, as Britain has soldiers!
The main lesson you all forget is to have diplomacy, not war.
Its not the army you need, its the back up needed to keep it supplied. 🇬🇧
If the reserves are to play a bigger role going forward, then maybe now might be the time to enhance Reserve condition of service,and by that I mean to enact legislation by where a reservist's civilian job is protected when he or she is mobilised or when the reservist attends two-week annual training, similar to the Federal Law in the US that protects Reserve and National Guard civ. jobs.Time taken out for annual training for should not,for example,come out of employee annual leave.Another idea might be to have some sort of voluntary 'pension or savings scheme for reservists.
you do not have that?
The USa is pretty much the only country that treats their veterans somewhat well. And we even struggle to do that. soldiers, culturally, have always been disposable. @@thodan467
@@thodan467 basically only the Civil Service have it and only then they only get a Week added annual leave.
The NHS technically have it but there are issues with Ward managers denying leave as a lot of Them just don't understand.
Some companies will also do something similar, but a lot of places won't hire Reservists because they think the time commitments will interfere with their day to day operations.
This isn't just an issue with the Forces, Retained Firefighters (volunteers), the RNLI who man LifeBoats at sea, Mountain and Lowland Rescue. All need volunteers who are generally not supported by their jobs
@@Wakey585
Great
What UK Army 120 tanks? (70 tanks in working order). Land Army? 100K soldiers, how many can actually fight? 70%? This would be buried withing 2-3 weeks in any land conflict.
Biggest lesson is you aren't going to defeat Russia with expendables.
If one side or the other had anything even remotely close to air superiority it would be a completely different conversation especially regarding ground and sea operations.
He’s absolutely correct about mass.
Quantity is a quality of its own
Weapons shall be cheap - thus a state owned production.. The amount of modern cruise missiles launched by Russia for years now is unfathomable to the entire European defence industries..
The open topped trucks vs airburst cluster munitions and thermite a game changer LOL
and fpv drones/drone dropped grenades. i swear the british army is always years behind. their current mindset still feels like theyre stuck in the 80's
The cost of the regular army needs to be spent far more practically and be much, much smarter. This applies to quite a few armies. Among which is the UK, Italian and German armies, with the Germans being absolute bonkers at their military spending.
nice video
"Thank God for the sea"
That won't hold any inavding russians back. In fact, they just might count on the UK relying on the North Sea as a defense.
@@GoneTwitiching russia has been held in place by a river (dnipro river) and a lot of their amphibious assault ships have been destroyed by long range strikes and drones. We have a strong enough force to hold russia off but we do not have a strong enough force to fight russia in mainland Europe as we don't have enough equipement like tanks, ifv's, apc's and artillery.
Yep it’s pretty difficult to drive tanks across it. Plus the Black Sea fleet has shown how vulnerable it is.
It cant even hold back the illegal immigrants, what would it do against Russian Missiles?
The best defense we will ever have, our armed forces, fantastic as they are, are far too small to win any war in the forseeable future.
This government currently spends effectively less on defence today than it did ten years ago. General Richard Barron is spot on in what we need to do to be able to fulfil our international obligations. A defence expenditure of 2% of GDP is a nonsense. It should be at least 4% and possibly 5%. We need many more trained pilots and a more viable airforce to establish air superiority where necessary. We need a navy that can and will protect our own shores. Though our biggest immediate problem may well be the fifth column we have let in to the country that is determined to destroy our democracy.
It’s so tiresome that we can’t get anything out of these guys when they’re on active duty until they retire then they seemingly have all the ideas and solutions and won’t shut up.
Bit rude to say we didn’t get anything from him he was a general 😭 also everyone can have these ideas but you have to be defence secretary to actually make any changes
Having drone targets not people always a good idea, looking at systems like robot tanks , cheap,robust and with enough firepower to draw attention . Hoppa drones capable of carrying troops across mined areas and such ,maybe more practical than helicopters ? Lot of innovations in that area. Ukraine is a throwback in so many ways, breaking lines in depth and mobile reaction. Said at the start, and still relevant, that air control is crucial to concentrating any force multiplier in breaking such defence. don''t nuke ourselves into extinction, can see layered robot wars defence being a thing.
The current scale clearly is not enough, even as an SDF scale. Numbers of regular or reserve soldiers need to be raised, and weapon limitations need also be loose among civilians too.
Why would you loosen it among civilians? One of the best things about the UK is how gun crime is very low.
@@MouldyCheesePie Do you expect a civilian who seldom practices and uses his gun and other weapons could become a qualified rifleman, skillful reserve soldier even for civil defense? This time won't be like WW2, US could send weapons as they want for that. Even could, a rifleman needs practice for that. Still, lots of skills to learn & maintain. An urgent 2 weeks training would not be enough if the situation happens.
@@MouldyCheesePie gun crime is also low in Switzerland, Poland and even Texas
@@MouldyCheesePie"gun crime is very low" 😆🤣
@@weberismail1076Not worth losing day-to-day safety just in case of an invasion. Especially not worth it for the UK who are also on an island!!
We don't have enough troops.
Not enough equipment and ammunition
The Jackal seems like a death-trap. I'm sure it's great against IEDs and lightly armed insurgents in the plains of Afghanistan, but the open top doesn't spell success in Ukraine even before one considers drones. Procuring as many as they did seems extremely myopic and I hope they considered armour upgrades. I mean for god sake, there is already so much weight on those things, and they can't even give the gunner a shield. The jackal is a very expensive piece of kit to lose to a close-range MG spray, something a recce vehicle in the tight fields of Ukraine is going to experience a lot of.
Lesson 1: Have a Army.
Why have imagery of Jackal when discussing a conflict for which it is pretty much unsuited and a case of good kit for the last war but not safe to employ in the current one.
because you always fight the latest war with the equipment from the last war
My suggestion to UK politicians is instead to think about the enlargement of army capacity and devastating its own economy. Just keep doing what the politicians are best at. Always challenge the Russians, promote the war with your peaceful rhetoric, and leave other countries in Europe to worry about confrontation with Russians. The typical approach that the UK practiced in the last several decades. Unfortunately, your location will not save you. It is better to think about how to resolve this problem with Russians and consider the option that the world would be a much better place for all of us if some basic human principles are followed.
you mean how to defeat rus nazis?
Ivan did Russia tell you that it will attack tge UK or other European country ?
Ukraine provoked Russia into attacking it. Stop this nonsense your president is spreading saying Russia will attack europe 😂
You are not protecting any European countries instead the US and NATO are using your country as a cannon fodder.
If you like do not gain intelligence or a brain, keep listening to your coke induced president Zalinski and grow dumb
I've heard recruiting is losing out on people because of DEI: if that's true then they need to forget about that and just get on with making as easy as they can for someone to apply to and then become a member of the armed forces.
Do the British have an army, we don't have a police force or politicians.
I think it's even more relevant and important for western European nations to heed these lessons: they're the ones who may have to face off against the bear! At least the UK has a sea between it and continental Europe...
Artillery has shown its dominance as well as having competitive air defence cover that can easily manoeuvre and take down targets at short range. The british army really has none of this. The majority of our artillery is the 105 light gun which is easily outranged by anything that any potential enemy has and the Ukrainians have been having issues with the reliability of the AS90. We need better more mobile artillery, yes i know that we are getting archers to replace the AS90's that have gone to ukraine but the Archers are HUGE.
And in terms of air defence yes we have the stormer but the stormer is stuck with the classic british army 1980's mindset of to just have a vehicle sat in a tree line shooting down easy targets are medium range uncontested.
British army recruit 150,000 soldiers over 2 year's lower pass mark.
Training soldiers up to standard when reaching their respective regiments.
The British military is no longer top tier.
…..but we have lots of diversity!
''modernity''
When was it last top tier? Back in the 1800's. You were only ever successful against lesser organised and equipped peoples.
This is called reality hitting the little anglo mind.
@@jp3630end of the Cold War is when the cuts started.
During the Cold War Britain was a force to be reckoned with.
@@jp3630 this is just childish trolling
So him literally trolling "diversity" is fine but me pointing out a historical fact - that the British were only ever successful against weaker foes - is "trolling"?
And then you wonder why NATO cannot stop Russia...lmao.
@@andypurdie1917
One of our issues with upsizing our forces, even a reserve force would be our lack of ability to oroduce or reproduce greater numbers of our standard issue L85A3 or the Challenger 2. Reopening production for these would likely be just as costly and have little to no advantages over developing new solutions or purchasing existing solutions.
Challenger is to expensive, T-90 costs 2-3 million . . . western designs typically costs about 20 million - and its burns just like any other tank
The T-90 cost $4.5 million in 2016. Adjusted for inflation, that would be almost $6 million today, it has received upgrades since then however which would increase that further. The challenger 2's were priced at about £4 million in 1999, adjusted for inflation that would be £7.29 million ($9.25). However when you look at prices of products in different nations, it's relative to the wage rate in the nation. In Russia the average citizen earns $14,770 a year. The average wage in the UK is about $44,400, about 3 times as much. Which means the British Challenger 2, is MUCH better value as a domestic purchase for Britain than the T-90 is for Russia. Britain would have to spend at least $18 million per tank to get the same proportional return as the T-90 is to Russia. So as an example, if Russia made a tank worth $20 million, we could get a tank worth $60 million.
That is why it is needed to use the same equipment as other European countries. It makes R & D less expensive, one can negotiat better conditions for buying the systems, maintenance, learning to work and repair the systems, concentrate spare part production.
@@bertnl530 Yeah there's definitely pros to that but shouldering R&D costs also gives you the most benefit from sales. We have great defence companies and we'd likely kill them by only buying foreign offerings. NATO standardisation is definitely important but I think when we commit to a project, we need to see it through and make it more attractive for export, which often means buying quite a few upfront to establish an economy of scale which allows the per-unit cost to go down which makes our products more attractive. Oh and of course it needs to be well designed, effective and reliable of course! Running your own projects also allows you to build foreign relations, with partners contributing technologically and financially.
@@bertnl530 European Arms Manufacturers have the same goal, produce the most expensive tank going...
The average age is 43? Where in the world are all of the young men who should be willing to fight for their country?
They would do well to re-read the Haldane Report ....
Sir Richard Barrons two armchair general !
“Probably got” doesn’t sound like a reliable statistic.
The british army need to learn there own lessons as to why they lost there last two wars they ever fought in Afghanistan and iraq
Don’t pick fights with economically superior and better organised countries. Settle down and trade with them. Learn from them.
He who has the best drones wins
Stay well away - being the most obvious one!
no matter what kind of lessons they take, it matters little if they only have 70k-ish men to defend and not enough men willing to fight.
By the way a war has broken out in Europe, may not be full scale yet but it is like in invasion of Czechoslovakia REMEMBER CHAMBERLAIN
You are correct…..sadly there is no Churchill waiting in the wings and Britain is a shadow of its former self.
The first thing we need to do is fix our governments and get rid of the idiots politicians.
Other lessons
1) The end of large tank battles type Kursk ?
2) The limitations of tanks versus three layered defense lines ?
3) Drones drones drones and not necessarily the super expensive American ones type Reaper
All the Russian soldiers that will survive the war in Ukraine have to be counted as 1,5 (battle proven vets)
The other concern is heavy reliance on smart munitions that are more costly and take more time to build vs dumb munitions in a long drawn out war. Can a country be able to build more quickly to replenish their decreasing supple. I believe the French Navy ran into a similiar problem in Northern Africa during Obama's administration.
Here for the latte drinking social sciences students who comment about rich man's war and not wanting to die for heir country as if Russia is some friendly misunderstood fella.
Maybe they should study Russian instead. Well, Russian is a beautiful language, just quite hard to learn. Still have time before become Britaingrad.
Might want to have troops😊
The lessons you should be taking is that there's no place for DEI in an army let alone a battlefield and
The future is drone warfare so start acceleration in research & development of offensive and defensive drone capabilities
they are crazy if they think people will go along to fight for them after years of being treated with utter contempt by the uk government of all parties
so you are happy to let the enemy walk in and take over without any sort of fight then?
@@davedixon2068 Please compare how many people in Russia and then the UK were arrested for "speaking their mind" in the last two years. Seems the enemy is a lot friendlier to free speech than Britain is.
@@cesiumalloy troll
@@cesiumalloy Navalny, Preghozin, various oligarchs, freepress, people putting flowers out to commemorate Navalny's murder, people saying the word war, that'll do for starters, thing is, the ones in the UK are usually out in a few hours, the ones in Russia end up dead as often as not.
@@davedixon2068 The young face never owning their own home, lousy pensions and living with a climate crisis not of their making. Why should they die for the Tories or Labour, let alone inherited royal wealth?
Same lesson as WW2; a war with Russia is on an immense scale. German tanks like the Tiger and Panther were technically superior but were overwhelmed by the sheer number of inferior T-34s. NATO "game changer" weapons changed nothing because they were too few and their technical advantages could rarely be employed. Expensive NATO tanks ran over mines, were wrecked by ATGMs and drones or just got stuck in the mud or broke down. If you want to fight Russia you need enormous quantities of "good enough" stuff. You need to be able to produce it, train people to use it, and replace it quickly. A handful of expensive technical marvels, the bread and butter of NATO procurement, are for making MIC profits, not for fighting a real war.
What on earth are you babbling about.
Only a handful of NATO tanks have been hit, their crews survived which is the whole point of what makes them great.
Meanwhile T72, T80s etc. are coffins for crew members which means valuable skills are lost.
Number one World War Two was just not Russia it was the Soviet Union and they only won because they had most of Eastern Europe under their occupation and were forcing them to fight alongside them not to mention having Western Europe helping them to fight the Germans at the same time. Russia has nowhere near the military power of the Soviet Union or the allies as in World War 2
Check your history. Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania were on the axis side. The Baltic states were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1938 and quickly went over to the Germans when they were "liberated" in 1941. Finland was allied to Germany. "Western Europe" was the UK; the remainder was occupied by the Germans. The Soviet Union was geographically larger but the majority of the population and industry was located in what is now Russia. Ukraine, the second most populous region was occupied by Germany from 1941 through mid 1943.
It means if Britain goes to war and conscription occurs expect all foreign nationals to immediately leave as they did in Ukraine.
But they are fighting for Russia, ask yourself why they don’t fight for Ukraine
@@kabzaifyNo Ukraine has a foreign legion and Georgian legion. Russia Somalia Nepali and its money that draws these in
Thats just false @@kabzaify
also British-born ethnic minorities
you vannot conscript foreign citicens by law
Technology only gets you so far. If you can't replace it quickly or replace the man power its going to be hard to win. Drones and Artillery seems to be king in the Ukraine.
You can always count on the British Army doing the RIGHT THING. After they have tried everything else.
The general say's we must look to British society to support the British army lol, there's plenty of people we've imported into this country who would gleefully raise arms against us, whilst what's left of the British army would be fighting a foreign foe.
Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create soft people, soft people create hard times... guess where we are right now.
It's called conscription
The lesson for the British army is to take care of their own problems not to interfere with other countries sovereignty.
Be five times larger and have ten times your current heavy weapon ammunition. That’s the lesson.
This is all about defeating Russia, not about defending Ukraine.
For Russia this is a low scale conflict engaging 5-10 percent of their reserve potential. For Ukraine this could be an end game.
You are so correct (, the west has no idea.)
Ah, a military expert I see. I bet you have an extensive collection of toy soldiers. Does your mother get annoyed with you leaving them lying around
@@jamesjefferies3762 you think the 5% /10% post is a joke? ......
@@stevenvater2681 no, I think you're a joke
I would say it's more like 20% or 30% and they are they going slowly rather than risk a blowout. It looks like what Russia wants is the Eastern block (Everything east of the Dnipro river) if not the whole country. If they take the whole country they may set their sights in new terrority, but also maybe not as that would be a war with NATO and they will need to rebuild their forces for a while. I probably won't live to see that level on conflict (wwiii) in my lifetime. Taking the whole of Ukraine will probably be much more costly in terms of human life than it has been so far. I would say for Russia to take over Ukraine they would have to expend 2 million lives. It could be over in a couple days, but I think we all know why that won't happen. $$$$ companies, foreign governments, oligarchs, etc. are milking it for all it's worth. So war drags on, slowly but surely.
The main lesson learned is that the UK as a medium sized power needs to focus on what's happening (and what could be happening in just a few years) in our backyard which is Western Europe which will effect us directly (and kinetically) should things go south, rather than trying to pretend we are a global power and spreading our forces too thinly as a result. The Army must not be allowed to fall in numbers any further.
60,000 Amputees? Maybe peace is a better options.
i feel people still underestimate the Russian capabilities, as bad this sounds, they were smart enough to use prisoners as conscripts and even cannon fodder in some cases to preserve the life's of their regular forces. majority of their KIA WIA are conscripts or pmc's... go watch Grand thumb latest video very interesting.
Given the centuries of experience we've had, we shouldn't have to learn lessons. Anyone with half a braincell knew where all the cuts would lead, but as a nation we have the most clueless, disloyal politicians on the planet.
Why isnt half this video about drones?
The British army needs to be big enough to defend the UK and contribute its share of NATO need. I feel it is no where near this and we need to get ready and get ready NOW
The “unthinkable” has happened. We need to be ready NOW!!!
Big expansion of the territorials, incentives for weekend warriors that are sufficiently attractive. Subsidised purchase and maintainance of army suitable vehicles.
One thing that isn't mentioned in this video is culture and race. Russia is not a racially homogenous society, but a strong and tough government has meant all russians regardless of race and religion share the same central culture. As for Ukraine, you have a country with vast amounts of different cultures(Slav, Hungarian, Polish etc) but they share a race, all being white, culture and race bring soldiers together for a cause, something which the west does not have. Let's look at the UK for example, you have Sikhs and Muslims battling on the streets, Black citizens do not see themselves as being fellow countrymen with White citizens, you have Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the brink of Independence, and most of all you have a citizenry that distrusts the government (regardless of who leads it) to such an extent that nobody would overcome these cultural and racial issues to fight for them. Russia mobilised 60,000 additional troops in Januray and February alone, Ukraine are just now planning to demobilise possibly upwards of 100,000 soldiers who will be replaced not with ease but it will be done, tell me, does anyone truly believe that 2 years into a vast war with a military giant like Russia or China we could muster up 60-100,000 troops without dragging them off the street? if your answer is yes, please get your head out of a WW2 textbook, we are not that country anymore, and that's by design, but that's an entirely different subject.
Remember when all we worried about was people in sandals wielding AKs? I miss that.
Like that's not so different from drunken conscripts with 1970's kit
In these times our government is mad letting our forces get so small. We got caught out in the 1930’s & then look what happened. We shouldn’t forget past events.
British Army can train from Red alert 3...its a very good game.
Lesson here is to look for a smaller opponent to make you look stronger.
didn't go so well for Russia when they tried it
@@davedixon2068 Ukraine is anything but small country my dude. They had more ammunition then entire NATO in Europe combined. Only Russia had more because unlike Ukraine, Russia is producing all these ammunitions.
Ukraine was the strongest military force in entire Europe. Biggest number of manpower, of tanks, ifv's, planes, ammunitions, best school of artillery in world (soviet, just like in Russia), biggest number of artillery and MLRS and SAM's, biggest country in the Europe after Russia by landmass. It was second only to Russia in terms of military power in Europe. Ukraine was also funded and supported with NATO equipment even before war for last 8 years. It's army was trained by NATO instructors and there were a lot of investments to prepare Ukraine as a proxy against Russia when time comes. The opponent that Russia faced, is something that not even NATO has any idea how to fight against. And NATO is training Russia to fight this enemy, while NATO gets zero experience in modern warfare on their own. By the end of this war it is clear that Russia will stay as the most experienced country on the globe. Before this war started, Russia had the same understanding of modern warfare as any other country has right now. But today they are years ahead of every other country. They are learning very fast.
@@MrZlocktar troll
The General indicated that you cannot afford to have a BIG Army as the troops are TOO EXPENSIVE.... That was the ARGUMENT Pre WW2 and History Explains the FOLLY of that Avenue.
Post WW 2 there was a MASSIVE reduction in ALL Forces Manning Levels of Permanent Staff.... However the Korean War made it plainly obvious that there was a Dire need for Pre Trained Troops in all Three Forces, that is where National Service proved it's absolute necessity in times of need when added numbers of Pre Basic and Trade trained Troops were required urgently,
These National Services Troops thereafter their first Year, must complete one month a year of Service to be brought up to scratch on newer developments.
HISTORY WILL Prove the dire MISTAKE of TERMINATING NATIONAL SERVICE
Sobering
On the ISR, yes, but ....Both sides have ISR assets that can't be touched because geography or owned by non-combattants.
In a real war that wouldn't apply.
Simple fact is. You have to have air superiority. Simple as that. Win the air war win the war.
Start a civilian medical reserve to deal with emergencies, along the lines of the territorial army (paid) but not military. They will still work on injured soldiers at home and some might volunteer for combat medics.
so you want to bring back the old M.A.S.H units.
how about opening fullsized hospitals specifically for the armed forces in wartime but open to the NHS at other times....Oh yes they closed all of those a few years back....short sighted politicians strike again
It's nonsense to say that we cannot afford more soldiers. Countries with GDPs much smaller than or own can do it and we could do too if we did not have a corrupt government.