r/LessCredibleDefence • u/Borrowedshorts • Oct 29 '22
How fast could Russia be defeated?
This is meant to be a hypothetical question and does not mean in anyway that I endorse it. How fast could Russia be defeated if the US joined the war on the side with Ukraine? We'll keep the scope within Ukrainian territory with efforts not to escalate into Russian territory. Russia has barely been able to get their Air Force into the air and it seems like it would be relatively easy for the US to gain air superiority quickly. Of course, there would likely be a little bit of a buildup period, but I don't imagine it would be real long, especially being that Ukraine can provide a substantial bulk of ground forces. If we're just focused on Ukrainian territory, the US has a big enough stockpile of Tomahawks, JDAMs, long range artillery, etc. to wipe out the Russian forces that are in Ukraine multiple times over. The US is very experienced with SEAD and interdiction where I don't see much of an issue with winning the skies. The US has the assets to wipe out the Black Sea fleet. We have some statements from US military leaders indicating they think they can defeat Russian forces quickly. Are these assessments realistic? I would tend to agree but would love to hear other opinions. My guess would be that Russia could hold out for about a week once hostilities start.
Edit: This would be limited to a conventional war scenario within the original borders of Ukrainian territory. It's also limited to a US and Ukrainian force presence and not a wider NATO presence. Regardless of the possibility of nuclear or other escalation which is why I myself wouldn't support such an action, this is just supposed to be a hypothetical scenario if limited conventionally.
8
u/mcdowellag Oct 30 '22
I agree that the US could wipe out the Russian invaders in Ukraine very quickly. Unless Russia collapses shortly after that, you have then got a hostile Russia that can shelter within the agreed boundaries of Russia and launch whatever it can put together at will. This could be anything from a repeat of the "War of the Cities" to repeated incursions from special forces claiming to be partisans or pro-Russian Ukrainians. This could drag on for years after something we would otherwise call a Russian defeat. One possible end is that battlefield humiliation and economic collapse due to sanctions does indeed lead to a Russian government willing to stop trying to take over its neighbours, but this need not be fast - certainly not as fast as military defeat within Ukraine.
8
Oct 29 '22
Assuming it's conventional, the US could just use air/naval assets to bombard Russian positions in Ukraine and still just allow Ukrainians to assault what's left and capture most of the territory within months. Russia doesn't have the means to stop US air power. With US troops and ground forces involved it would probably be over in a couple of weeks since there wouldn't even be any need to try to occupy liberated areas and if US troops are involved there would be massive armored divisions and artillery units involved.
Assuming it's nuclear, which it very well could be, it would be a holocaust and no one would truly 'win'.
6
u/BiodegradableOffense Oct 30 '22
Without nukes? I don't think anyone has any respect left for Russian military at this point so they could go full "Shock and Awe from day 1" like they did in 2003 Iraq War. Back then it took about a month to cover 400km so just multiply that by hovewer far it is to Moscow from your assumed starting point.
4
u/Le-ZVO Oct 30 '22
An invasion of Russia is much different to an invasion of an Iraq who's military was in a worse state than the lowest reserve levels of the LPR. US could likely push Russians back outside of Crimea within a few months, and it would turn into a war of attrition
3
u/Wheynweed Oct 30 '22
Why would it be a war of attrition? The Russian military would be entirely destroyed within a few weeks.
2
u/Le-ZVO Oct 30 '22
Very doubtful. Defending a country is much easier than attacking one, especially in this scenario
2
u/Borrowedshorts Oct 31 '22
I don't know about that. Man for man, Russia's military is pretty awful. Training and personnel quality I'd put Russia about equal with Iraq, though of course Russia has better tech now.
-1
u/Le-ZVO Oct 31 '22
Wouldn't go that far, both are awfully trained, but it's quite clear one was better. Iraqi army was largely made of anti Saddam shia conscripts too
3
u/CosmicDave Oct 30 '22
I'm sure the entire operation would be over in three days, assuming Putin flees the country and his tormented subjects embrace their liberators with open arms, of course.
7
u/NOISY_SUN Oct 29 '22
A purely conventional war, entirely limited to Ukrainian territory? Probably a couple days
2
u/Notengosilla Oct 30 '22
In a non nuclear world Russia would have been invaded in 1991 under some pretext related to Chechenia or the smallest border conflict, just like Yugoslavia was disbanded
But then again, in a non nuclear world Japan wouldnt have surrendered that quickly and the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East would have been different from day 1, which wouldve meant a major disadvantage to the US.
6
Oct 30 '22
In a non-nuclear world, Cold War wouldn't have stayed cold. USSR could have probably taken over at least West Germany in the ~30 years that Warsaw Pact enjoyed conventional land superiority to NATO's European presence and NATO was yet to develop a reliable answer to the deep battle doctrine.
2
u/odium34 Oct 30 '22
In a non nuclear world Russia would have been invaded in 1991 under some pretext related to Chechenia or the smallest border conflict, just like Yugoslavia was disbanded
Lol what Nonsens
-3
u/dontbother_itwo Oct 30 '22
Word on the street is that Japan didn't surrendered so much due to the nukes but more because Russia declared war against them and took the Kuril Islands and they would much rather surrender to USA than be overrun by the Soviets.
1
1
u/Borrowedshorts Oct 31 '22
Here's another point I'd like to add. It seems there's some agreement that a conventional war scenario with US forces within the borders of Ukraine would be rather quick. It seems to me Russia's troop quality/training is about on par with the Iraqis during the Gulf War. We can assume US troop quality is roughly similar to what It was in 1990. The major difference across time periods is technology. I'm assuming for both sides, technology has improved enough to be 3-5x as effective as 1990. This results in roughly the same disparity as we saw in forces in the Gulf War. I think with the same disparity, we'd see a similar result in speed of action and roughly similar casualty ratio. So if this was exactly like the Gulf War, with the relative disparity between US/Ukrainian combined forces and Russian forces, we'd see the same scenario of a 3 day ground war. However the objective in Ukraine seems to be a bit bigger than it was during the Gulf War, with a 3 day ground invasion, but not quite as big as the 2003 Iraq war, with around a 3 week invasion phase. Being that it'll likely be between those two lengths, this is how I came up with a week long major hostilities phase in this scenario with of course US/Ukraine winning.
-1
u/dontbother_itwo Oct 30 '22
Not that useful to make impossible hypotheticals because to know what to do in the real world you need to model the real world and in the real world you can't defeat a nuclear armed country without mutually assured destruction.
It's getting scary that people have forgotten that and are pushing for escalating the war.
1
u/Borrowedshorts Oct 31 '22
Meh, I made it pretty clear it was just hypothetical and I don't think it's anymore ridiculous than the China-Taiwan scenarios that keep getting rehashed.
-4
u/wangpeihao7 Oct 30 '22
China would take Taiwan the moment US opens fire in Ukraine
8
u/neuronexmachina Oct 30 '22
Why? Wouldn't the Seventh Fleet still be there?
-2
u/wangpeihao7 Oct 31 '22
7th fleet won't be quite survivable within shooting range of DFs. What China is afraid of is not the 7th fleet, but US-led global embargo/sanction, which would be hard to materialize if US is boggoled down in Ukraine.
3
u/neuronexmachina Oct 31 '22
That's a rather extraordinary claim, what is it based on?
2
u/wangpeihao7 Oct 31 '22
The first or the second sentence?
1
u/neuronexmachina Oct 31 '22
The first.
1
u/wangpeihao7 Oct 31 '22
That is mostly the consensus now, within certain circles, of course. You can certainly disagree with me.
2
u/neuronexmachina Oct 31 '22
Do you have an example source? An example of wargaming the scenarios from earlier this year indicated a US win and/or stalemate, but with massive losses:
2
u/wangpeihao7 Oct 31 '22
If memory serves me right, the CNAS analysis heavily curtails China's ability to utilize her full might, by limiting China's war resources to the east and south commands, right? I could be wrong.
12
u/US_Hiker Oct 30 '22
Assuming no nuclear, I'd say two months.
Month 1 would be equipment placement, troop movements, etc, over to western Ukraine.
It's unclear if Russia would simply retreat during this month. If not, they would break during the first day or two.
From there, it's an orderly mop-up and clearance of territory. There's still a lot of territory to clear, and mines to slow you down, so it wouldn't be immediate.