Ukraine war: Russian reservists fighting with shovels – UK defence ministry | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine war: Russian reservists fighting with shovels – UK defence ministry

bbc.com

8 pointsrntn19 comments

It's surprising seeing this piece of Russian propaganda coming from the UK defense ministry. Spetsnaz using shovels in hand-to-hand combat is something of a heroism trope in Russian circles. Interesting spin that it's because they're running out of ammo. My hope is that they're going use the shovels against the officers sending them to slaughter but you can't expect much from people who believe themselves to be the real rulers or Europe.

With the risk of spreading more Russian propaganda, here you go: http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov6/01.html:

"The spetsnaz soldier loves his spade. He has more faith in its reliability and accuracy than he has in his Kalashnikov automatic. An interesting psychological detail has been observed in the kind of hand-to-hand confrontations which are the stock in trade of spetsnaz. If a soldier fires at an enemy armed with an automatic, the enemy also shoots at him. But if he doesn't fire at the enemy but throws a spade at him instead, the enemy simply drops his gun and jumps to one side."

These reeks of WW2-style propaganda. It's laughable to think that 'the enemy' would drop their gun when facing someone armed with a shovel.

Article: Russian reservists are *likely* using "shovels" for "hand-to-hand" combat..

So?

Russia is running out of armor and mechanized infantry. You can see this reflected in their own military documents. Their new organization schemes keep the tanks in the back and minimize artillery support, preferring to send small squads of underequipped, dismounted infantry. A shovel is a reasonable weapon for hand to hand combat, but hand to hand combat is not an important part of modern warfare. The story is that some hapless mobiks are being thrown into the meat grinder to a greater extent that before.

It's not an important story. just a symptom of a continuing theme.

>Russia is running out of armor and mechanized infantry.

First reported: March 2022.

I'm not sure what exactly this is supposed to imply.

For what it's worth, while Russia has been losing tanks on a daily basis, it has not been seen as a limiting factor quantity wise until recently. People have been calling Russia's tank losses unsustainable for a long time, and they were correct, but its only now beginning to materialize as actual deficiencies that requires a change in battlefield tactics.

Russia of course still has a lot of tanks. But not enough to support mechanized infantry units effectively at the scale of yolo squads they're sending into the front. They've also lost pretty much any remaining sense of competency among their tank crews. See the clown car pileup of tanks not knowing what to do in a minefield in Vuhledar recently.

US Navy used shovels in WW 2 to fight Japanese. It is good weapon for close combat.

Shovels are very common and effective weapons in close-quarters trench warfare.

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