How Many Kalibr and Kh0191 Cruise Missiles Would Russia Need to Win in Ukraine?

No Sponsor, just a fun video/thought experiment on a topic that isn't practical in real life.

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Credits:

Footage:
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

The NATO Channel

Ministry of Defence of Estonia

Department of Defense (US)
"The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."

KCNA - North Korea State Media

Music:

[johnde]

The answer is "too many", but you did a good job analyzing the whats and ifs of that thought experiment

[charliedontsurf]

If missiles were the war winning weapon, the the US won in Vietnam in 1965.

[neurofiedyamato]

I'd say realistically, you'd double the 31k to 62k because as you said, damage assessment, repairs, replacements, and intelligence failures etc. And even then Ukraine's warfighting capability maybe severely degraded but not completely defeated. Just keep in mind that for example during WW2, Germany brought factories back online the very next day despite suffering the largest bombing raids in history. Ukraine brought half its power plants and step-down stations that were struck in a week. After the initial 30-60k strikes, Russia would still have to maintain a consistent several hundred to nearly a thousand a month to keep everything down while their ground forces advance.
And Ukraine's front line wouldn't collapse immediately. Ukraine would still have thousands of tanks, guns, bullets, ATGMs, fortifications, soldiers, and enough food and fuel to last awhile. It'll take like months to half a year before such a massive strategic bombing campaign start to have a noticeable effect on the front. So Russia has to maintain tens of thousands more strikes before Ukraine front line start to collapse and fall back. And assuming Ukraine doesn't capitulate, Russia would have to keep this level of bombardment up as they continue to advance.
For Russia to win, It probably would approach 100k weapons. This isn't a one-time strike and its done. Its a constant bombardment until ground forces secure enough territory to collapse the Ukrainian state so needing 100k from start to finish seems more reasonable to me.

[saltmerchant]

Cruise missiles cannot take, occupy and pacify territory.
Quote me on it.

[fredza]

Holy fuck that's allot of missiles even with all excepions

[Aeronaut]

LOL! as if Russia don't ever look at a map and say: "where are best hospitals, schools and markets" that we can strike?

[TrueChell]

People give missiles too much credit. In Finland many people believe, that their entire military could be deleted with just few hundred missiles or less.
Apparently it's the same in Taiwan.
I spent years conversing with people. But there's nothing I can tell them, and no links I can give them that can convince them otherwise. :'D
This video would be great to link to people. But I know they won't watch it anyway.

[rsKayiira]

Great video. Would be nice to do one on how many SAM systems the Russians have

[ycplum]

Some targets, like runways and rail hubs can be repaired fairly quickly. It takes a few hours to half a day to repair runways, depending on equipment and material available on hand. Consequently, you have to constantly attack those targets to deny their use. During WW II, the US would crater Japanese runways on various island bases and then placed the runways under constant naval bombardment overnight from naval ships to prevent the Japanese from making repairs. The navy did not need to use 16" shells. The smaller guns firing high explosive shells were enough to keep repair teams off the runways. Russia can not do this with missiles and drones.

[michaelthayer]

This is also why I'm skeptical of all the doomsayers who worry about China and its missile arsenal. Missiles are very expensive, slow to produce, and there are always more targets than you can hit. It will really suck to be in Taipei, or on Guam and Okinawa for a month or two though...

[donwyoming]

The problems you run into when you can't win air superiority. 🤠

[sprucegoose]

This was such an incredible video to watch -- it's crazy how much effort you put into obtaining and running the numbers. Thank you!

[janwitts]

Modern Christmas's tree lights can run quite nicely with any number out.. you must be using old legacy sets

[Shaterrer]

Would love to see an update on "How many tanks/artillery russia has"

[Aitch-Two-Oh]

@Covert Cabal, please do a video "How many oil and gas storage tanks does Russia have still?"

[jeremyr]

Russia "runs out of missles" every week for 2 yrs. Let's talk in terms of washing machine chips & hypersonic shovels..

[sche]

A lot of details weren't mentioned. For example, to collapse the entire energy system, you don't need to destroy every object, you just need to destroy the distribution power stations that ruin the whole system. Without electricity a lot of military factories and railways will slow down dramatically.

[JarodFarrant]

The Ukraine military industrial complex deserves a video ❤ literally they’ve been increasing their numbers of fps drones, attack drones, Neptune missiles, tank and artillery, ammunition, and even their own built self-propelled howitzers. I’d say that their numbers have increased last year and will increase this year and that’s the key thing that could give Ukraine the edge they need. They have most of their own military industrial complex and factories and railroads intact as long as they do that’s the key to the

[dozer]

Great Topic. Nice to have fresh Ideas on Youtube in an ocean of the same topics, eaten, spat out, and repainted day after day. Keep being you bro.

[WILLIAMWALES]

World War II, whether it is the British then the Germans, then the Japanese with all the huge amount of bombing. It was never going to result in them surrendering and Ukraine will be exactly the same.