Meat Part 5: Is it Supposed to Smell Like This?

I left off with my last article on Meat pontificating on the politics of Meat, but I wasn’t done on the topic yet, there was still too much left to discuss.

Note to readers, this article is more of an anthology of random thoughts I’ve had on the topic that either didn’t make it past the cutting room floor for previous articles, or popped into my mind recently. For those of you who like the topic of Meat, Bon Appétit!

Getting Old Sucks

Those familiar with discussions about the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) mobilization laws will have picked up on their peculiar policy that favors mobilizing older men to serve predominantly as infantrymen. I’d discussed this strange phenomenon in Meat Part 3 in the section titled “Older Man’s War.” For those who haven’t read it (shame on you!), at the start of the war Ukraine’s mobilization laws specified that men aged 27-60 years old were subject to mobilization, which was then lowered to 25 years old in Spring 2024 as a result of Ukraine’s infantry manpower crisis.

Many people defend the Ukrainian legislative decision to avoid the younger men and mobilize the older men as a rational decision. After all, don’t the demographic charts of the ages of Ukrainian citizens demonstrate that there are far more older men than younger? Then, of course, they should have a law that protects the fewer and more valuable younger men versus the icky older men, with their ear hairs and weird smells!

But why should we assume the decision was rational? For that matter, when did the Ukrainian government have the foresight to pass a law to favor the more plentiful, expendable older men over the fewer, more valuable younger men?

On a lark, I looked into why old men are Ukraine’s prime target for mobilizing cannon fodder, and I found the answer hidden in plain sight, right there in the April 2024 law that revised the age statute, which references the original law that stipulated the 27-60 mobilization age limit.

In the text of the Law of Ukraine "On Military Duty and Military Service" (Vidomosti Verkhovnoi Rada of Ukraine, 2006, No. 38, p. 324 with subsequent amendments), the numbers and words "27 years of age" shall be replaced by the numbers and words "25 years of age" (Google Translate)

There you have it, that law isn’t recent, it’s from 2006. Not right before this war started, not even when the Donbas War started in 2014.

I noticed something interesting when reviewing that. At the time, those Ukrainian men who were 18-26 years old would have been born between 1980 and 1988. As the Ukrainian age demographic chart shows, that group represents the largest number of Ukrainian men born since at least 1924. Which means that at the time of the passing of that bill in 2006, the politicians running Ukraine, for whatever reason, logical or illogical, decided to exempt their largest number of military-aged males from mobilized combat service.

And yet, those protected in 2006 by being 18-24 years old, they would be 34-45 years old when this war started in 2022, which meant they were the expendable Meat that Ukrainian society was comfortable with to feed the Russo-Ukraine War. Protected once, thrown away the next.

Is that irony? A paradox? Whatever it is, it’s messed up.

North Korean Meat Gogi

In Meat Part 3, I had wanted to discuss the intervention of the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) in the Russo-Ukraine War. But I’ll be honest, I’ve felt very frustrated and uncomfortable with the off-the-wall messaging surrounding the topic, filled with outrageous claims such as pornography addiction, drunkenness, and face melting, not to mention confusing and contradictory statements like how the North Koreans were withdrawn from Kursk one week, and then not even a full week later they had returned. But the spewing of outrageous propaganda has died down recently, some insightful information has come out, and even Putin confirmed the North Korean involvement in Kursk, so I think it’s a bit safer for me to put my thoughts on the record without feeling like a fool.

Here is what I’d like to discuss: Were the North Koreans used to support the Russian counteroffensive to retake Kursk being used as Meat, aka expendable infantry?

Interestingly, the KPA infantrymen seem to have been studs. Described as young, physically fit, "shockingly disciplined", great marksmen, solid tacticians, et cetera, they were not barely trained old men, convicts, and “superfluous people.” Probably to be expected as the KPA sent their best light infantrymen from their XI Corps, aka the “Shock Corps,” the pick of the litter in terms of elite North Korean soldiers, apparently a larger, KPA version of the US Army’s Ranger Regiment.

Overall, reports suggest they fought pretty well, earning the respect of the AFU personnel, who seem to consistently review them as a dangerous and competent adversary. However, some questionable incidents marred their performance. For example, back in early to mid-December 2024, KPA troops were reportedly involved in multiple platoon-sized or larger dismounted infantry attacks. One attack was even described in detail by AFU defenders as being made up of three separate company-strength waves of dismounted infantry.

I laid out my own definition of a “Human Wave Attack” in Meat Part 2, writing that the reports of Wagner conducting Human Wave Assaults during the Bakhmut campaign were false, primarily because they didn’t fit the customary definition; staggered out squad or fireteam-sized attacks lack the numbers necessary to be described as waves of people. But battalion-sized dismounted infantry attacks, with companies in echelon, advancing regardless of failures of the first and second echelon attempts, that fits my definition of a Human Wave Attack pretty well, hitting the high points of most historic descriptions. Therefore, if the above report is true, then the North Koreans did indeed perform Human Wave Attacks against Ukraine. Remember, it doesn’t matter if they meant to do that, it matters what the defender’s experienced.

That said, even if those AFU reports of echeloned battalion attacks were bullshit, the video evidence above still shows larger than platoon-sized dismounted infantry advances caught in the open by drones and heavy targeted. Which is why large-scale dismounted infantry advances aren’t done in this war, they’re too risky; getting caught in the open with large groups will result in a Turkey Shoot. But that raises a question: if those elite infantry were used callously, cheaply, and/or stupidly by their commanders, does that make them Meat? And if so, were they conducting “Meat Gogi Waves” in Kursk?

Part of me wants to say yes. After all, we’re talking about North Korean soldiers, loyal followers of a regime who most agree doesn’t give a shit about its people. And those platoon plus dismounted attacks, come on! What were they thinking? But that doesn’t matter, because if elite, highly skilled KPA infantry can be labeled as Meat because they were used improperly by a flawed chain of command, probably still in the costly early learning phase of realizing doctrine and reality conflict, then it means anytime any high quality infantry (or special operation forces) screws up their attack and takes heavy losses in past or future conflicts then they’re Meat too. And that just isn’t true. Planning and executing an attack badly doesn’t mean those doing it are Meat, sacrificial, disposable, and without value. It just means that somebody screwed up.

Therefore, the elite XI Corps KPA soldiers used in Kursk weren’t Meat.

Which means, despite probably having performed “Human Wave Attacks,” they didn’t perform “Meat Waves.”

How is that for being pedantic?

Who Wore it Better?

I had discussed extensively in previous Meat articles the history of the convict volunteers in this war. To sum up, it started with the Ukrainians only days into the start of the war but then seemed to have been canceled, then Wagner embraced it in the summer of 2022, then the Russian Ministry of Defense stole it from Wagner afterwards, and in mid-2024, the Ukrainians officially adopted it on a large scale too.

It’s since taken on a strange twist. Starting as far back as maybe early 2023, the Russians recruited female convicts to serve as assault troops in the SMO in Ukraine.

Let that sink in: Female. Convict. Assault troops.

I’m at a loss for how to process this. Is this a ruthless but smart way to find motivated manpower for cannon fodder jobs, like the use of male convicts? After all, somebody has to do the probing attacks or suicidal assaults, right? Should I be celebrating the fight for inclusion, with women finally having proper representation as Meat? Or is this disgusting decision made out of desperation?

What does the fair and balanced Euromaiden Press have to say?

Such use of women prisoners is yet another indication that Moscow is confronted with massive losses and is prepared to use almost all measures to find additional troops without announcing a general mobilization that could easily trigger anti-government actions across the country.

A bit harsh, but that about sums it up for me on a personal level. I find this decision to be repugnant.

But how did this insane project work out for Russia? I’m not really sure, the reporting I’ve read on it is very conflicting. For example, a Ukrainian Military Intelligence spokesman claimed that by spring 2024 most female convicts initially recruited were already killed or seriously wounded; but the GUR is notoriously full of shit, so take their claims with a hefty grain of salt. Later reporting in summer 2024 stated that no female convict had reached the front lines as assault troops by that point, due to problems with the program, declaring it a total failure. Could things have since improved? The Ukrainian state-owned media reported in late 2024 that female convicts were being used for assaults, and another source claimed in April 2025 that many female inmates were still volunteering. I guess it’s working well enough for the Russians to keep doing it.

But, as I mentioned already in the past, I’m biased. Because of that, I don’t think I should be the arbiter to judge whether a program to use female convicts as Meat assault troops has been a success or failure based just on how Russia did it. What we need to properly judge it is another example. Preferably, a much more competent nation and military, one that is Basically NATO™. Luckily, we have that opportunity!

Not to be outdone by their adversaries, in July 2024, right after their own convict recruitment program kicked off, Ukrainian female convicts joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Where would the female convicts serve? You guessed it, inside assault units, the only unit type they are legally allowed to serve in.

As I was doing research about how both Russia and Ukraine were recruiting female convicts as Meat, it reminded me an awful lot of certain tabloid fashion magazines that have similar columns showcasing two celebrities wearing the identical outfit with some sort of spin on the phrase “Who Wore it Better?”

As a thought experiment, I want everyone reading this to view the reporting of the media outlet Radio Free Europe as they covered the same story, the recruitment of female convicts as assault troops, from different points of view:

Female Convicts To The Front: How The Kremlin Tried, And Failed, To Bolster The Ukraine Invasion

Ukrainian Female Prisoners Swap Cells For Combat Unit Roles

You tell me, readers, who wore it better?

Anyone following this war, who doesn’t have their head up their own ass, will have seen for themselves the occasional episode where the propaganda has gotten totally out of hand. This is one of them. And I don’t think I’m the only one who got a good laugh out of how the same story is written so differently for Russia versus Ukraine. The writers of Radio Free Europe clearly think the outfit looks best on Ukraine.

Though I’m of the mind that the outfit is too hideous for anyone to look good in.

Beating the Meat: How to Counter Expendable Infantry

The best way to deal with cannon fodder is more cannons. The End.

Just kidding. You’re not getting off that easy.

Back in early 2023 as I was watching the Bakhmut campaign play out, observing how some of Ukraine’s best combat units were chewed up defending against mostly Wagner convict Meat, besides wondering why the hell the Ukrainian leadership were ordering such a tenacious defense for an unimportant city (especially after their flanks collapsed), I was also wondering how does one properly defend against such a tactic. That wonder has only grown since then.

I think this is a pretty important conversation to have, as there are quite a few nations that might face the prospect of fighting cannon fodder on future battlefields: What are some good countermeasures to mitigate the threat of large numbers of expendable infantry?

For example, a traditional defense against an enemy infantry attack relies on the defenders mostly relying on organic small arms fire to wipe out attackers as they enter prearranged kill zones, calling in supporting arms as necessary to finish them off (mortar and artillery, maybe some air strikes).

But doesn’t that benefit a Meat recon-in-force probing attack? After all, they are used hoping the defender gives away their location by lighting them up with small arms, at which point an overwatching recon drone spots the defensive location, at which point it is pounded with fires, at which point a deliberate attack is launched to take it. Or bypass it. Or the position will be destroyed by fires. Obviously, the attacking Meat infantry needs to be destroyed if possible, but with the threat being that traditional defensive tactics lead to detection, the solution must be to defeat the Meat probing attack without giving away the location of the defenders.

At a minimum, that requires the prioritization of long-range stand-off weapons, making it a good opportunity to rely heavily on designated marksmen, snipers, grenade launchers, medium and heavy machine guns (firing in very short bursts, without tracers), recoilless rockets firing airbursting HE-frag rounds, and any supporting mortars and artillery, plus strike drones. And it makes for a great argument to mass issue suppressors for rifles and machine guns, as those will help conceal firing signatures when they do need to be used, making it more difficult for the enemy to detect the direction and distance of incoming fire.

Prior to 2024, before the realization hit home for me of the full realities of the drone threat, I’d have recommended a mobile/maneuver defense to mitigate the threat of a fires-centric opponent, and especially the threat of constant probing attacks. Stick and move, maximize tactical mobility, don’t remain in one location long enough to ever be decisively engaged after detection. However, in a battlefield dominated by drone-directed reconnaissance fires complex, tactical mobility for the defender is just as dangerous as for the attacker, moving means being out in the open, and that paints a big target on the defenders when enemy recon drones are overhead. So, as repellent as the idea is, it’s probably safer to stay put and fight a positional defense.

But that doesn’t mean this. I believe that a proper positional defense requires defensive positions built properly. And in a war like this, defenses should be competing with the Japanese at Iwo Jima in terms of winning the blue ribbon for the best cover and concealment in the history of modern warfare. At a minimum, open-top trenches need to be concealed from the bird’s-eye view of an overhead drone using thermal imaging-resistant materials.

And I can’t stress this enough, defensive positions cannot be too dispersed. Some degree of dispersion is necessary, the transparency of the battlefield requires it. And it’s all well and good for anti-armor centric defenses to be dispersed, as they rely on ATGM teams in forward positions engaging blatantly obvious mechanized attacks from kilometers out. But a front line of isolated small-unit defensive positions many hundreds of meters apart, sometimes kilometers apart, not mutually supportive, means they are just asking for infiltration attacks from an infantry threat. Mind those gaps, or the enemy will.

Also, invest in anti-personnel mines. Lots and lots of them. Screw the memory of Princess Di, the more Bouncing Betties, Toe-Poppers, and Butterfly Mines, the better. In static positional warfare, enemy infantrymen should be so worried about AP mines that they pre-tie tourniquets around their legs before the mission starts. If they aren’t that worried, there aren’t enough mines.

But that’s just how to stop offensive Meat. We’ve seen plenty from both sides in the Russo-Ukraine War when expendable infantry are also used to hold ground. Sometimes they’re there just to eat the destructive prep fires that will ravage forward positions after being identified, but some Meat defenders specifically seem to be serving another purpose.

From my perspective, their chief role seems to have been to serve as bait.

That sounds bombastic, but here me out: An attritional strategy that is recon fires-centric requires enemy targets to be detected before they can be engaged. In the case of an active defense strategy, to include a tactical adoption of a “Line of Drones” strategy, defenders need attackers to be out in the open to detect and target them. How to do that?

Take people that society doesn’t give a crap about, mobilize them by force if necessary or otherwise convince them to enlist, give them bare minimum training because it won’t matter anyway, and then put them out front in weakened and isolated positions, legitimately appearing ripe for an attack. Then watch and wait.

Meat defenders have become a tethered goat, drawing out the man-eating tiger from the cover of the jungle, while alert hunters watch from hidden tree stands behind, waiting until the tiger appears in the open to put a bullet in it.

And it’s not just the Ukrainians doing that, the Russians manned their most forward defensive positions to stop the 2023 Counteroffensive around the Orikhiv-Tokmak-Melitipol axis with Storm-Z convict units, so they’re guilty too. And whether or not it’s a deliberate decision for their Meat defenders to serve as bait doesn’t really matter, the effect is the same, they’re baiting attacks.

If that is the case, the center of gravity of the defending enemy isn’t the Meat defenders, it’s their ISR, fires, and command and control, all the pieces needed to run a recon fires-centric defense. Therefore, offensive success requires a solid plan to reliably dismantle the defender’s recon fires complex. Blind the hunter or kill him in the tree, and the goat is easy for the tiger to take.

How to do that? I have no clue. It seems like it’ll require a whole lot of technical innovation. But as my wife will attest, I can’t figure out how to fix a broken light switch, so don’t ask me…

Infantry: Queen Pawns of Battle?

Since WW1, including most of this war, artillery has been the reigning King of Battle. But things have changed, at least since late 2024, it appears that strike drones have taken the top position.

If artillery has been demoted, does that make it the new Queen of Battle? And if so, where does that leave the former Queen of Battle, the infantry? How low have they been demoted?

More so, are they now fit only to serve as Pawns? Has it reached the point that in a conventional modern war, infantry are only really fit for little else than to serve as Meat?

I’ve read the comments online from many individuals already jumping to those conclusions, suggesting that, like the tank, well-trained infantry are obsolete for the same reason as they think the tank is obsolete, the Russo-Ukraine War showed them how easy they are to be killed. Simply put, “they” say it’s a waste to invest in quality manpower, or to even properly train them.

But I think that’s a load of crap. Tanks and infantry were always pretty easy to kill in conventional wars, this war didn’t start that trend, it only solidified it. Though I will admit, it’s been getting ridiculous in the Russo-Ukraine War to kill them, especially the infantry.

I mentioned their problems already in this article, but defensive operations are no cakewalk against an attacking enemy possessing a well-supplied reconnaissance fires complex. Times are tough, even in the supposedly dominant form of warfare. For example, earlier in the conflict, the inability of a front-line infantry unit to rotate out defending soldiers from the most forward outpost and strongpoint positions every few weeks, if not days, was indicative of some major problem in either that unit’s command and control, or a lack of reserves. That’s since changed. Now, due to the growing capabilities of Russia’s drone-directed fires, the norm for the Ukrainians is to wait and rotate out the defenders of the furthest forward defenses after many weeks or even months, as the rotations themselves are too risky.

The constant threat of fires and assaults makes occupying those positions incredibly dangerous, I can’t imagine how physically and mentally exhausting that must be. And yet, it has become too dangerous to routinely relieve defenders in place by vehicle or foot, as the troop movement and rotation leave them all too exposed in the open to an enemy embracing battlefield transparency, actively searching for and targeting those rotations because they make for easy kills. That’s pretty insane. But is it game-changing? With the threat of fires to defenders, does it pay to man the “Zero Line” defenses with quality infantrymen? Or should it be Meat?

Offensively, Meat has been used extensively in this war to perform recon-in-force probing attacks (especially by the Russians); it’s debatable if those can be done in a way that doesn’t necessitate high casualties, but what about deliberate attacks? Despite the planning and coordination that goes into those, if the greatest danger for any type of advancing infantry, regardless of their mode of travel, is the threat of drone-directed fires during the approach march, does elite infantry have any better odds of survival than cannon fodder?

The previously mentioned North Korean elite infantry is a perfect example of that issue. Reportedly, they took pretty heavy losses, and I can’t imagine a situation where they wouldn’t have. Obviously, the Russians needed large numbers of infantrymen to support their counteroffensive to retake Kursk Oblast. But did those assault troops need to be elite?

Is it a waste of time and effort to find quality personnel to turn them into quality infantry when they die more easily than ever before?

I’m putting my foot down. The juice is worth the squeeze, the efforts necessary to build and maintain quality infantry as the standard ARE worth the investment and sacrifices.

First off, I know from having done the job as an infantryman, there is nothing simple about it. There is nothing an incompetent infantryman is good for other than screwing up. Even if the mission allows for most of them to become casualties as Meat, like sending them on a probing attack to find the enemy by walking into kill zones and being shot at, improperly trained infantrymen will screw that up too. To succeed, they need individual tactical and technical competence, and need to properly work in a team to conduct complex missions. They need morale, discipline, and confidence in their own abilities. They need physical fitness, a rarely discussed topic but a cornerstone to being a good infantryman.

Just look at the efforts of the Russians and Ukrainians, who both field tiered infantry units, some garbage, while some range from pretty good to really good. The Russians have certain PMCs, militia units, units of the airborne and naval infantry, and select assault detachments within conventional motor rifle or tank units, and they’re all pretty good infantry, getting shit done. The Ukrainians are no different, they too possess numerous elite infantry units, some Far Right-affiliated groups like Azov, others are conventional mechanized or assault units, also getting shit done. Why? They all invested in quality, making the effort to staff positions with good people, making them elite in the literal sense, able to pick and choose who enters their unit. And they are training them. And the results speak for themselves, those units regularly outperform non-elite units. Meanwhile, the veterans of both sides, officers and enlisted, are constantly calling for more training, more quality, and calling for an end to the use of Meat, because they know the value!

This situation reminds me of WW2 and the heavy bomber crews of the US Army Air Force. It required twenty-two months to create a B-17 heavy bomber pilot, and eight months to create the lowliest gunner, and that was just individual training after basic training. And then those crewmembers went on to take horrific attrition; the Eighth Army Air Force, responsible for the strategic bombing of Germany from England, lost more airmen killed than the US Marine Corps. And that wasn’t relying on substandard, expendable personnel to man the crews of Bomber Command, quite the opposite, the USAAF had at their disposal the best and brightest of inducted US Army personnel (page 183). Why did they bother? Because that job was hard enough without trying to do it with low-quality personnel, trained poorly.

And so with the infantry. Those who say “Quantity has a quality of its own” have no clue what he life of a grunt entails. The job is hard enough, they deserve every benefit they can get to achieve success.

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This about wraps up most of what I had to say about Meat. Maybe if things change in the Russo-Ukraine War, I’ll write some more on the topic, but for now, I’m putting the Meat in the freezer and moving on. I hope you enjoyed the taste!