How this worked in Ukraine: >1) Hold the line. Let the enemy come, the attacker always loses more and if you can stall long enough you can wait overnight and regroup. Russia building WW1 style trenches in a modern war. No one expected this but it worked.
>2) Attack when it's "free". Only rush the enemy when they are weak and close. Same as above.
>3) Hit hard on their strongest force to demoralize. Self explanatory, if they can't win with elite units, what can the rest do? Bakhmut was a fortress, meaningless to beat for any other reason. Wagner was used up to take this, and it beat down a strong position of the Ukrainians, which could be used for this very purpose in propaganda.
>4) Shoot at them even if you can't hit them. Being shot at is scary and mentally tiring. Conserve ammo but you don't have to only shoot visible targets, just wearing them down also matters. Constant artillery shelling as a strategy.
>5) Long clear lines of fire. Don't hold forward positions, you will lose soldiers and the line itself sooner or later. Retreat to a safe location and make the enemy step out on the field, then obliterate them without exposing yourself. Robotyne and Avdeeka battles both worked out like this perfectly. It looked like the Russians were retreating and losing ground, but they actually performed a large version of the Roman tactic of having the middle unit fall back, luring the enemy into an encirclement.
