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Comment by potato3732842 | Hacker News Reader

It's not like this results in a categorical difference in difficulty. Gauge switching infrastructure is common at borders. Yeah stopping and switching is slower than driving right through but it's not the end of the world in the long tail of military logistics.

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Russian military logistics _heavily_ depend on trains, everything that can go on a train, does so. Flight and vehicle stuff is mostly an afterthought.

Any hindrance we can put on the Finnish-Russian border to stop them just unloading 12 cars of fresh troops in the middle of the country is a good thing.

Another fun note about Russian logistics, they aren't palletized or mechanized. Thought being that cranes don't look good in parades. The train side seems smart or at least interesting, the pallets incredibly dumb.

https://x.com/TrentTelenko/status/1507056013245128716

Why invest in forklifts, container infrastructure etc. if your military has a near-endless supply of uneducated conscripts you can order to shuffle around shells and other items?

(Of course a more thorough analysis would probably come to the conclusion that better logistics is worth it. There's still an opportunity cost for those conscripts who could do something else instead, like dying in zerg rushes on the Ukrainian front. And even though those conscripts are 'free' they still require chow and a place to sleep etc.)

“ endless supply of uneducated conscripts “

Now you’re just being silly.

Regardless of how much education they have - they are treated as uneducated.

This is a debunked post I think.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1507056013245128716.html

Your cite?

i dont believe it is.

Trent and a lot of Ukranian war commentators have a habit of saying $X is catastrophic for the Russians (this is the worst on YouTube). Then those catastrophic things don't come to pass.

Related, I have seen one guy, over and over say "Why isn't Ukraine hitting Russian electric train transformer stations". I don't have a good answer, most of Russia's rail network is electric, transformers blow up easily, there are many of them, and they would be very slow to replace. Ukraine clearly has deep strike capabilities, and Russia cant defend every transformer. I don't think it's a humanitarian issue, or at this point even an issue with the US telling Ukraine they can't hit those targets.

Transformers are not very hard to replace or make though. All they are is some copper wound around iron. It will just be some added frustration and annoyance for them but no gamechanger. If they start doing it a lot Russia will just build a bigger electrical workforce and more backstock. They have plenty of people and the authorianism to make them do whatever they want. It's just a pissing contest. Russia did lots of cyberattacks on the Ukrainian electrical network in the years before the invasion. Didn't do anything either but send a message.

I would compare it to the Natanz cyber attack which reportedly cost a fortune and caused lots of business losses around the world. It only set the Iranian uranium refinement back a few percent.

Then Obama comes and talks to them, strikes a deal. That solved the issue entirely and cost much less. Of course then Trump comes and messes it all up again but that's another story.

Do you mean stuxnet? That was a cyber attack, natanz was a blackout caused by a blast/explosion IIRC.

Natanz was the site of the facility targeted by stuxnet.

https://www.nti.org/education-center/facilities/natanz-enric...

Russia is importing shells from North Korea. Transformers are more complex than you give them credit for, and Russia has a very limited ability to manufacture anything, it would make a difference.

Logical explanation, there are better alternative targets. (Supply of deep strike is finite, one must prioritise)

Yeah sure, but it doesn't take away from the fact that the Russians do not use pallets for logistics and therefore struggle with logistics as a result.

So I stand by my statement that his assessment is not wrong, even if it isn't as outcome changing as some may hope. It is however one of the many straws heaped upon the camel's back.

As for the transformer issue, I would imagine that these are somewhat related. Their train based logistics are inefficient, so Ukraine doesn't need to stop the trains running. If they did the russians may find a more efficient solution.

Crippling the Russian train system would be very much worth it. Russia would have to switch to limited diesel locomotives, and it would really hurt regular civilian logistics in those areas.

Compare this to the completely bonkers logistics of the US Military: https://youtu.be/iIpPuJ_r8Xg

Even Unicef has a massive logistics center in Denmark with pallets of stuff categorised and ready to be sent for any emergency: https://www.unicef.org/supply/warehousing-and-distribution

Well yes but the US usually fights in faraway places to bring freedom (though the only thing they manage to 'liberate' is oil, see how Afghanistan and Iraq turned into hellholes as soon as they turned their backs)

Russia just likes to kill the shit out of their neighbours which is a lot easier logistically.

And when most of their neighbours historically use the same rail gauge, it's a lot easier too :D

Gauge switching requires trains outfitted with specialized axles (increasing the cost to invade), requires trains to stop (increasing the train's vulnerability to attack), and requires switching stations which themselves are juicy targets and can't be repaired nearly as trivially as an ordinary length of rail.

It adds time for each train though.

And if you're Russia wanting to invade Europe, it's better to do the Gauge switching right near your own border rather than on the far side of Finland. So while this may make it harder to invade Finland, it makes it easier to invade Europe as a whole.

This. I am struggling to see how this is anything other than posturing by politicians. It’s hard to imagine this is strategy devised by military leaders.

The far side of Finland? That’s the Baltic Sea. Sure, there’s a little bit of Sweden, but it’s so far north that there isn’t much rail infrastructure there - certainly little enough that it could quickly be destroyed at the beginning of a war.

If the supply line is blown up at the beginning of the war then what was the point of switching gauges.

The stated reason for the gauge change is "to remove technical obstacles to transporting troops and goods between Finland, Sweden and Norway".

Those few connections in the sparse north of the country are the entire point.

The objective they try to achieve is not to slow down Russia's invasion into Europe, but to stop them at the border by being able to move assets throughout Europe relatively quickly. If they gain a proper foothold and full access to "euro gauge" rails, it's a different fight.

Of course, if it does go that far, tanks and trains can move rolling stock, rip up the tracks, blow up bridges and other infrastructure behind them if they're forced to retreat.

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