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Zelenskyy: Russia Loses Entire North Korean Battalion in Kursk Within 48 Hours (united24media.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Hubi@feddit.org to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

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[-] normanwall@lemmy.world 58 points 2 days ago

For anyone who also doesn't know what a battalion is, Wikipedia says

"A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of up to one thousand soldiers.[1] Commanded by a lieutenant colonel and subdivided into several companies, each typically commanded by a major or a captain. The typical battalion is built from three operational companies, one weapons company and one headquarters company. In some countries, battalions are exclusively infantry, while in others battalions are unit-level organizations."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalion

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 37 points 2 days ago

Soviet-style battalions are half that size though. They usually get augmented with more hardware and are then used as independent units, in what the Russians call a Battalion Tactical Group.

If they lost a battalion, that's 500-600 people, if they lost the whole BTG, it's 700-800.

[-] atro_city@fedia.io 16 points 2 days ago

Losing that many people in 2 days is impressive though. What a meatgrinder.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 10 points 2 days ago

It's a good question what "loss" means here. A total disorganized rout is also a total loss, even though some men might be recoverable and still in fighting shape. The hardware is cooked though. And actually, a rout usually means the Ukrainians get to capture it, so there's your new tank.

And I wouldn't want to be the guy trying to find where hundreds of North Koreans ended up near Kursk, with them not speaking any language anyone would understand and not knowing the area.

The Kursk front has some of the biggest single hits the Ukrainians have delivered to Russian manpower though. Remember the troop convoys where artillery hits were killing dozens to hundreds of soldiers all at once since the freshly mobilized troops didn't know where to go and were just sitting densely packed in trucks on the road?

[-] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 days ago

That’s a big point… when you degrade a battalion, you degrade (generally) the line troops. There are support troops, admin, logistics, etc associated that are not generally killed. A truck strike like those vehicles gets everyone.