[Goose]

As the war goes on, more and more conscripts/volunteers or whatever get sent into combat.  How much training they have makes a difference, but no amount of training can prepare you for the first time people start shooting real bullets at you trying to kill you. You always survive these events in training, but you don't in real life combat.  The better trained learn faster, but the training takes longer.  Morale and leadership play a significant role. How well the two sides deal with this issue will be very important gong forward.

Absolutely agree. Another important consideration is whether the new troops are joining an "experienced" unit or are part of a newly-formed unit with few experienced NCOs/officers. Green troops always are a problem until they are no longer "green". Ukraine at the beginning of the war had many green units with no training. They still do, in the sense many home guard units haven't yet seen much combat. This is an ongoing problem. These units simply can't execute offensive maneuvers.

Russia has the same problem, only worse. They are often reconstituting existing units that have effectively been destroyed. On paper, it may be an experienced, even elite formation. In reality, it is a bunch of new guys led by a bunch of new guys. The people assigning troops to tasks may not know the true situation. On top of that, most of the Russian troops don't really know why they are fighting anyway. It is more that they have little choice. The current Russian situation is ideal for them in a way. They don't need troops that can move to contact and fight. They can wait in trenches until the Ukrainians are on top of them. At that point, the Russian troops are fighting to survive. Surrendering in that kind of a fight is just not really an option. Somebody will just shoot you.

It also should be noted that in infantry fights like we are seeing in Ukraine, 90% of the casualties that are caused by infantry fire are caused by a small number of "killers". Everybody may be shooting, but it seems there are always a few troops who ave very effective and everybody else is just there to make noise. This has been studied forever, with an idea of how to improve the effectiveness of the majority. Some significant improvements in training have evolved, but fundamentally this situation is still true.

[Goose]

As the war goes on, more and more conscripts/volunteers or whatever get sent into combat.  How much training they have makes a difference, but no amount of training can prepare you for the first time people start shooting real bullets at you trying to kill you. You always survive these events in training, but you don't in real life combat.  The better trained learn faster, but the training takes longer.  Morale and leadership play a significant role. How well the two sides deal with this issue will be very important gong forward.

Absolutely agree. Another important consideration is whether the new troops are joining an "experienced" unit or are part of a newly-formed unit with few experienced NCOs/officers. Green troops always are a problem until they are no longer "green". Ukraine at the beginning of the war had many green units with no training. They still do, in the sense many home guard units haven't yet seen much combat. This is an ongoing problem. These units simply can't execute offensive maneuvers.

Russia has the same problem, only worse. They are often reconstituting existing units that have effectively been destroyed. On paper, it may be an experienced, even elite formation. In reality, it is a bunch of new guys led by a bunch of new guys. The people assigning troops to tasks may not know the true situation. On top of that, most of the Russian troops don't really know why they are fighting anyway. It is more that they have little choice. The current Russian situation is ideal for them in a way. They don't need troops that can move to contact and fight. They can wait in trenches until the Ukrainians are on top of them. At that point, the Russian troops are fighting to survive. Surrendering in that kind of a fight is just not really an option. Somebody will just shoot you.

It also should be noted that in infantry fights like we are seeing in Ukraine, 90% of the casualties that are caused by infantry fire are caused by a small number of "killers". Everybody may be shooting, but it seems there are always a few troops who ave very effective and everybody else is just there to make noise. This has been studied forever, with an idea of how to improve the effectiveness of the majority. Some significant improvements in training have evolved, but fundamentally this situation is still true.