this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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The main defense a rail network has is that it is fairly easy to repair track at an industrial scale so long as you can clear the area and rebuild, and as a result that even though a train is a very very vulnerable large loud target, it is difficult to know WHEN to ambush a train because you might just be standing in the middle of nowhere for hours and the train never comes before hostile patrols make contact with you.
Under this logistics system however rail networks become constant sources of intelligence on enemy movements, this seems like a disastrous idea to me given the sophistication and skill of Ukranian UAV and unmanned ground vehicle operators. Also, it wouldn't take much to stop a whole kilometer long length train of these unmanned logistics carts, you just need to blow the one up in front with an FPV drone and the rest of them are stuck. This is the war equivalent to placing a traffic cone in front of a self driving car in order to immobilze it, and by virtue of not using a truck or a train with a human driving it Russia leaves itself open to massive amounts of logistical disruption this way... which is what loses wars ultimately.
As you point out Russian troops are screwed if they aren't near train tracks but that also means Ukrainian intelligence can assume the Russian troops are having to tactically come within a certain distance of tracks to resupply which makes their movements massively more predictable and easier to disrupt. You just look at a satellite image and start drawing lines to the closest rail lines in enemy territory and extrapolate from there...
Trying to predict where an MRAP or APC will rush in much needed supplies to a heavily suppressed defensive unit on the otherhand is much harder to do both from the increased mobility standpoint but also from the standpoint of needing to muster a far greater degree of precise firepower needed to knock out the logistics vehicle even if you can predict where it will be.