this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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What is a meat assault?
Tactic developed by Wagnar.
The create a plan with fixed waypoints for a squad to run. They plan for 5-8 squads to run the route at set intervals.
The idea is each squad exposes the Ukrainian position so the next squad knows where to attack. By sending so many squads in a short space of time the Ukrainian position is overwhelmed.
Wagner would plan to have the first 4-7 squads made up of convict units with minimal training, with a trained well equipped squad operating as a reserve. The idea being as soon as a Ukrainian position looked to be close to failure the reserve is dispatched.
Fundamentally everyone apart from the well trained reserve exists to soak up bullets and explosives. They are "meat".
The Russian army had "well" trained battalions, as those battalions are attrited it would shrink them down to maintain effectiveness.
With Wagner's success they backfilled the battalions with convict and mobilisation soliders. Those soliders are used following the tactic above with the original remnants of the battalion representing the well trained reserve.
This is how Russia solved their inability to train new soliders
Russian strategy...
Just keep throwing bodies and hope the enemy runs out of bullets or are eventually overwhelmed by constant attacks.
It's like "meat for the grinder". Everyone knows if you get sent there's almost no chance of surviving, because retreat isn't an option and the only chance of "winning" is a fluke of luck. Even then it's the following waves after the luck that might have a chance.
Retreat is an option, but an equally deadly one.
Not equally....
You ain't surviving going back thru Russia. Because any other troops that see you, are making you join them. Probably after taking any functional equipment you have and handing you a shovel.
Equally, because Russia employs Barrier troops that will shoot people that run away.
I guess they misused the phrase meat grinder there
I assume it's a simple editing mistake, similar to when you're talking to someone and your brain decides to change the wording half-way through the words you were originally going to say and you end up saying a weird hybrid of the two. So they probably originally said "to assault" but while they were changing things around they meant to change it to "into a meat grinder" but didn't quite finish the job. I know I've made errors like that before.
No, I've seen this phrase used increasingly over the past few months to describe this kind of thing. The meaning is as you surmised, it's an assault that is known to be simply feeding men into a meatgrinder. The hope is apparently to jam the meatgrinder with too much meat.
Also forces the Ukrainians to use artillery shells and ammunition.
The Kremlin has basically made the cold hard calculation that one Russian life is worth less than an artillery shell and some bullets and the chance of delaying the inevitable for a while longer.
Wouldn't be surprised that by the time this is over, half a million Russians are dead.
Of course, to paraphrase Stalin, it's not the dead that count, it's the people who count the dead. I'm sure they'll simply deny half of them died at all, and families will have to live with it. Just Russia things.
Idk in military terms, but I assault my meat daily
You don't assault your meat?
Depends.
A good T-bone drenched in pure butter, I'll assault that thing in ways that can't be televised.
Yeah good question. I thought it was..... something else