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Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if this metric (3:1 to attack a prepared defender) was originally just a way of saying, "don't expect to win just because you outnumber the foe, if they are in a prepared defensive position". Because prior to having a simple metric like this, untrained commanders might have used an even more simple metric, like "I have twice their numbers so I can take this castle".

Like a lot of things, the simple rule might have been better than what came before it, yet still get you in trouble if you believe it too literally.

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Sun Tzu was even more pessimistic.

> 8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

What does "divide our army into two" mean? Retreat, leaving half your army as a rearguard or something?

In the Art of War Denma Translation (excellent BTW!) the text says:

And so the method of employing the military—

When ten to one, surround them.

When five to one, attack them.

When two to one, do battle with them.

When matched, then divide them.

When fewer, then defend against them.

When inadequate, then avoid them.

Thus a small enemy's tenacity ~

ls a large enemy's catch. ~

https://www.infoplease.com/primary-sources/philosophy-religi...

You don't have enough forces to overwhelm with a direct attack, but you have enough that you can send half to another location (perhaps a flank attack), while still holding your current position.

I believe the 3:1 metric is to be taken literally with equally skilled/equipped forces (source: was in the military). The Ukrainian military is outperforming the Russian military and the Ukrainians have a ton of equipment the Russians weren't anticipating, so the 3:1 metric isn't working out so well.

I don’t believe Russia had. 3:1 advantage though. I’m not even convinced they had more troops than Ukraine. The concentration of the troops was enough for early local differences. But they never had these kinds of numbers in, say, Kyiv.

Yeah, I remember hearing about "190000 Russian troops" at the outbreak of this operation, and thinking that that was an awfully small number given the size of Ukraine.

Ukraine was pretty pathetic back when Russia took Crimea. It probably would have been an easy sweep of kyiv and others at the time with those forces.

Russia didn’t pay attention and Ukraine spent the last decade getting extremely prepared for exactly this.

Russia attacked Crimea on 2014. In 2022, Russia attacked Kyiv and Kharkiv and other areas well outside of active separatist zones.

Yes. I’m saying had Russia attacked kyiv in 2014 I think it would have won. Idk if it would have been as practical to just swoop in via Belarus at the time.

Ukraine was in civil war when Russia took Crimea.

This is not true. The president had abandoned his post and ran away and much of the military and security aparatus was infiltrated by Russia, which left Ukrainian forces in Crimea surrounded in their bases, without orders and much of the gear disabled.

The Donbass war started in the following months, with many of the "separatists" and "volunteers" coming from Russia, including early leaders like Girkin-Strelkov (a GRU officer).

Could be attributable to corruption inthe military. It all looks good on paper, so they went with it. They also failed to account for the spirit of the military, and the leaders seem to believe in some romanticized notion of greatness. Detached from real world.

The rumor is, the FSB (previously known as KGB) had been given funding after 2014 to bribe Ukrainian military officers to insure little resistance. Then, the FSB (thinking there was no way an invasion of Ukraine would actually happen) pocketed the money intended for bribes, and told Putin the bribes had been accepted. Thinking the Ukrainian top officers were all corrupt, he told the military there would be little resistance.

A long line of tanks on a road is a nice show of strength if all you expect is unorganized and ill-equipped civilian resistance.

Of course, we have no way of knowing if this rumor is true, at least not for now. It would also explain the many arrests of FSB agents so far this year.

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