Major General Mikhail Gudkov also led a brigade involved in combat operations against Ukraine. His death reportedly occurred during a Ukrainian attack on a Russian command post.
As a complete military noob: how does this affect the current conflict? By my naïve guess, it slows down the advance for a while, but ideally a well organised army has someone to stand in very shortly to minimise the effect. I understand it might lower the level of expertise, but considering such a large force (as in, many to pick from) I expect around the same level of competence from a substitute. Is it actually more significant than that? Are there other aspects I missed?
EDIT: Thank you all for the insights! It seems like it does have a tangible effect, and it actually takes longer to replace leadership than I anticipated. A life is a life, and nobody should die like this (especially when some power hungry megalomaniac sends you to), but you all helped me appreciate this news more, regardless.
Same as if the CEO of your employer gets switched out, with the difference, that the Russian Navy did not plan this. It is hard to find replacement and takes a while (6+ months). During that time, they have a disadvantage.
What’s even better, they got his deputy as well. Normally the deputy either gets a promotion, serves as the interim head or transitions the new incoming replacement.
Getting them both means the new replacements are coming in blind. Mistakes can be made due to lack of knowledge for the next year or so.
It also reduces the pool of available replacements because if the leadership keep getting killed, you end up with decidedly less volunteers for promotion.
Russia has lost a lot of senior officers already which will affect their overall operational effectiveness. Senior Officers need many years of training and experience and can’t be easily replaced.
In a normal military this would be a pretty big deal, but Russia has long used the strategy of “keep throwing bodies at them until you win”. That’s also likely the reason their navy and air force are a joke as that strategy doesn’t work so well when you have a finite number of craft to send those bodies on. There’s a reason that Ukraine’s tiny well trained military has been able to use guerrilla tactics to wipe the floor with Russia’s military.
So unfortunately this is likely to make little if any difference, Putin will just find a new piece of meat to stuff into that uniform and then kick him towards the front line. What does make a huge difference though is every time they manage to destroy a piece of Russian hardware (be that a boat, plane, tank, or artillery) as Russia has a very hard time replacing those unlike their practically unlimited supply of cannon fodder.
As a complete military noob: how does this affect the current conflict? By my naïve guess, it slows down the advance for a while, but ideally a well organised army has someone to stand in very shortly to minimise the effect. I understand it might lower the level of expertise, but considering such a large force (as in, many to pick from) I expect around the same level of competence from a substitute. Is it actually more significant than that? Are there other aspects I missed?
EDIT: Thank you all for the insights! It seems like it does have a tangible effect, and it actually takes longer to replace leadership than I anticipated. A life is a life, and nobody should die like this (especially when some power hungry megalomaniac sends you to), but you all helped me appreciate this news more, regardless.
Same as if the CEO of your employer gets switched out, with the difference, that the Russian Navy did not plan this. It is hard to find replacement and takes a while (6+ months). During that time, they have a disadvantage.
If my CEO gets killed tomorrow, nothing would change other than a lot of money stops going down the drain.
Yes Günther you heard me you are a useless fuck that doesnt do anything productive other than warming the air in winter while stinking.
What’s even better, they got his deputy as well. Normally the deputy either gets a promotion, serves as the interim head or transitions the new incoming replacement.
Getting them both means the new replacements are coming in blind. Mistakes can be made due to lack of knowledge for the next year or so.
It also reduces the pool of available replacements because if the leadership keep getting killed, you end up with decidedly less volunteers for promotion.
Russia has lost a lot of senior officers already which will affect their overall operational effectiveness. Senior Officers need many years of training and experience and can’t be easily replaced.
In a normal military this would be a pretty big deal, but Russia has long used the strategy of “keep throwing bodies at them until you win”. That’s also likely the reason their navy and air force are a joke as that strategy doesn’t work so well when you have a finite number of craft to send those bodies on. There’s a reason that Ukraine’s tiny well trained military has been able to use guerrilla tactics to wipe the floor with Russia’s military.
So unfortunately this is likely to make little if any difference, Putin will just find a new piece of meat to stuff into that uniform and then kick him towards the front line. What does make a huge difference though is every time they manage to destroy a piece of Russian hardware (be that a boat, plane, tank, or artillery) as Russia has a very hard time replacing those unlike their practically unlimited supply of cannon fodder.