cyrano01

They have been using it since 2014. Tornado-S, armed with 9M542 rockets with GLONASS system. Ukraine developed similar modification of Smerch - GPS (?) missile "Vil'kha". Both have worse accuracy than HIMARS in satellite guiding mode.  Video of Tornado-S usage are known from recent times. 

Thanks guys.  Guess who got tagged to do a Future of Joint Warfare piece at work?  Yep, the guy who won't shut up about it.  If Steve was particularly profit driven he would charge a membership fee for this thread.

Going to speak out of school a bit - I have other jobs than just military faculty at a staff college.  I few years I came out of some higher level meetings with my boss - she is a simply brilliant civilian international lawyer type who is destine to run this country one day.  She had just got into her new job in our outfit so we were still getting to know each other.
The topic of discussion is not for here but it centered on how dangerous the world was becoming and how antiquated our Canadian theories of how it all worked were in the face of it.  Me and another military guy in the shop were going round and round on the unsolvable riddle that is Canadian Defence and Security.
Our boss broke in and said straight-faced "We should think about a strategic nuclear weapon program."  I think I peed my pants a little bit.
The old rules are buckling.  New ones will be needed.  The use of hard power, military power, as an extension of diplomacy is back on the menu, and that is not a vegan dish. 

I find a lot of this sort of analysis wrt escalation as "easy to say, very hard to do."  I do not think people fully understand what is at risk in widening this conflict.  The standard justifications are:
- Russia will never go nuclear.
- Russia will back down - they are full of BS.
- We got all the guns, what are they going to do?
Ok, I will buy the first one for arguments sake.  A functioning Russia will very likely not use the nuclear option unless we are talking foreign troops invading Russia itself. (a broken Russia is another story)  Russia may even back down.  They definitely talk a good game but so far those red lines have been pretty mobile.  And we do have a lot of military power within NATO...but herein lies the rub.  It only works if it is unified.
Professionally speaking, the single largest risk of escalation with Russia is a Russian response - controlled or otherwise - that triggers a NATO Ch 5.  We have already had errant missiles in Poland that became Ukrainian ones pretty damned quick.  If Russia starts lobbing them at a NATO nation in response to significant escalation within Russia...what happens?
Well, we essentially move to a NATO Ch 5 escalation, which will get out of hand pretty quick.  Or more likely, NATO falls apart.  An Article 5 could actually break NATO.  It could nations deciding that maybe Poland, or Estonia, or Latvia are not worth dying for.  We have had a single Article 5 declaration in the history of the alliance - 9/11.
 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm#:~:text=NATO invoked Article 5 for,the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And most of this was intelligence sharing and overflights/port usage permissions.  NATO stayed out of Iraq in '03 completely, GWOT as a concept was not sold in its entirety in the least - even given 9/11.  ISAF in Afghanistan did not come into play until much later in that war, and a lot of NATO nations kept their forces out of combat...and that was the Taliban FFS.
I am betting that those in power have already done this calculus and know exactly how vulnerable the alliance is right now.  A lot of people on this board have been asking "well why don' they just do X?"  "It about ATACMS stupid!"  Well it is likely because they know what is actually at risk and a lot of these capabilities are just not worth those risks...at this time.  In fact a lot of those capabilities value right now is as a threat to Russia as opposed to actual use.
This war is not simple, and there are no simple solutions.  If anyone starts believing that there are you are likely missing something.

I see that Shapps has now backed out of both of these ideas on the quiet. 
It's Conservative Party annual conference time in the UK, so this is now looking a lot like "announce loudly, gather the plaudits, slink off quietly" to try and boost his standing within his party.

Russians have drown Tu-95 on planes parking on Engels airfield. They need a course of 3D-drawing %)
 

This is yesterday strike on Zaporizhzia city eastern outskirts

I read the newsarticle Seedorf posted that somehow claimed new kind of evidence surfaced but everything in there was identical to the investigative report that was published in germany more in depth roughly a  month ago and was discussed here too. The german investigative report was very onesided and ignored a lot of evidence  that pointed in russian direction and it failed to plausibly establish how the Andromeda could do the northsteam sabotage.  The only  new "fact" in the dutch article was that traces of the explosive HMX was found at the site of sabotage. I am no forensic expert but there are different reasons I would be highly sceptical of this fact. But even if true. HMX would be one  of the most probable explosives that one would use for such a bombing by diver. And if the Andromeda was a false Flag, then it would be very easy for the perpetrator to plant the same kind of explosive that was used in the bombings.
You say the complexity of the operation was overestimated. Do you have any idea what kind of complexity is needed to do this kind of operation? I work in UXO,UXB, ERB disposal in the northsea, baltic sea and rivers. I work on specialised ships and with divers (most of them  with navy background) that do exactly this kind of work that would be needed for the northstream sabotage.
The complexity of this operation is a LOT more than just being able to do the dive. The equipment needed just to do the simple dive ignoring all of the  other specialised equipment: on the ships I work on this equipment is located in  containers that are half as big as the Andromeda. All those gastanks alone do take a lot of room. You need a lot more of those for a deep sea diving suit/ hard-hat than you would for a simple diving suit.
The first problem the divers  had to overcome is to find the pipelines and then the right locations for the bombing. This alone is a very big problem. To locate those you need a depth sonar or a submersible. Good luck instaling those on the Andromeda.  In those depths it is pitch black. Those divers have to work completely blind. They are trained to do so but they still need instruction  by those one the ship  with exactly this kind of equipment that the Andromeda lacks. And on top of that they did this on the same day at  three different locations. And they did the dive on a very instable plattform which means high chance of death.
Then there is the question of  the explosives. The theory that was presented in the investigative report was that only a small amount was used.  There exist seismic profiles of those explosions  and those hint  at  a  bigger amount of explosives used. It is not conclusive evidence but it points in another direction.
Not one of the divers I work with thinks its realistically possible to do the northstream sabotage from the  Andromeda in a short amount of time.
There is more  I could write but it is already late here I have to work very early tomorrow.
One thing I have to say. The reporting on northsteam really does remind me on the reporting in german media about MH17 after it happend. The media tried to be "neutral" but it was mostly pointing in ukrainian direction and sometimes it was just reciting russian propaganda. Even after Bellingcat could show exactly what BUK was used by which unit german media ignored this evidence. It was only after the dutch reports with conclusive evidence were published that the reporting did change.
 

Wrt to Taurus & ATACMS:

"White wolf" unit of SBU Alfa special forces has struck next AD radar on Russian territory. If in previous time they hit "Kasta" radar, now they hit 55Zh6U "Nebo-U" 3-coordinate meter range radar complex of air defense forces. Antenna, equipment cabin and radar remote control vehicle were struck by drones
"Nebo-U" was adopted in 1995 and first serial radars went to service in 2011. Now this radar is on armament of AD units of Western and Central military districts. Radar allows to detect "fighter" type target on altitude 500 m - up to 70 km and on altitude 20 000 m on 400 km in 360 degrees zone 
  

Act how?  Apologize for what?  “I am sorry I was not briefed?”  “As CDS I don’t do full background checks on everyone who visits Parliament?”  I call BS on that.  
We are becoming so apologist that those apologies do not mean anything anymore.  One can apologize for sins of commission or omission, yet none of these really apply in this situation.  The CDS was called to a special session of Parliament for the President of Ukraine.  Some nitwit 20-something staffer in the Parliamentary Protocol office didn’t double check on another nitwit 20-something staffer in the Speakers office - neither of whom have looked at WW2 history since high-school (and even then all we ever talk about is freakin Normandy).  The CDS stood up to honour a Ukrainian WW2 veteran, with everyone else, and then wound up wearing it when it comes to light that a 15 second Google search could have headed this whole thing off.
He has likely been ordered not to say or do anything while the Prime Minister try’s to stop the bleeding - a Liberal appointed CDS apologizing for “something” is essentially admitting culpability that Gen E is not entitled to and would be highly politicized.  So I am really not sure what the “Act” looks like in this situation.  I guess he could re-iterate that we in the CAF really don’t like Nazis?  Please do not apply for recruitment?  Nazis were really bad and WW2 was pretty big and complicated so please use Google and stop relying on Saving Private Ryan as your sole datapoint?

In documental film Serhiy Melnyk, chief of Kharkiv garrison told that in Day 1 Russians managed to destroy 90 % of AD around the city. He told Russians of course knew deployment of AD command centers around the city, being built as far as in USSR times and struck them first of all. 
Melnyk asked commander of 302nd AD regiment why he doesn't work and comamder answered he has almost nothing to do this, because his regiment almost detsroyed. Only during next hours and several days, survived S-300PT launchers and other equipment was grouped and engaged the enemy.
On first cadres of video destroyed AD command bunker is shown  
 

Suffering from lack of armored vehicles for huge number of new-formed brigades, Ukrainian industry have started in 2023 serial production of BMP-1LB - as claimed IFV (but indeed just tracked APC), based on MT-LBu hull
MT-LB and larger variant MT-LBu in own time were producing in Kharkiv - it's still unknown how much of MT-LBu still in appropriate conditions for remaking. MT-LBu is a paltform for wide number of special military vehicles like artillery control vehicles (1V12 complex: 1V13/14/15), air defense command posts, EW vehicles etc. Likely sharp change of artillery spotting and fire control methods, using of lighter vehicles for this -  even in comparison with ATO times allowed to release many of 1V12 complex vehicles to remake it into APCs (but maybe it still in service at least formally, I can't say, but I didn't see them already long time, using by own purpose). Also maybe some number of vehicles were taken from storages. 
But what we receieve it is really "сheap and cheerful"
What main changes were done:
- special equipment and other things inside were removed to furnish a compartment for infantry. Now vehicle instead 5-6 men can accomodate 10-11 men (driver, gunner, squad leader/vehicle commander and 7-8 soldiers)
- RWS with 14,5 mm KPVT HMG was set in rear part. RWS equipped with day optic and thermal sight. The place of gunner is in infantry compartment


- From the back side enough wide door is made. It's not apparel, but soldiers say disembarking through it quite normal. 

- 14 mm front- and 7-mm side hull armor of original vehicle was too weak, so additional spaced armor plates were mounted
 But these changes have own "back side of medal", which significantly reduced combat value of this vehcile
- KPVT is very sensitive to contamination. Because HMG in RWS is open, the dirt easily gets on the weapon. The system of bullet feeding is also badly designed, so HMG has a big chance to jam both because of dirt and feeding. Because of no more coax MG, in case of jamming/damaging by enemy fire of RWS, this vehicle turned out unarmed.
- Russian YaMZ engines of these vehicles already too old. After refurbishing they have 50 hours of test, but this insufficiently - during the movement engines often fail as well as gearbox
- Increaces weight because of additional armor, RWS and more people inside much more reduced capabilities of old engines. On the paved road BMP-1LB still can give 50 km/h, but on the ground it speed sometime is about speed of infantryman walk. Overheating of engine and increased weight makes maneuvers on this vehicle very hard (tracks also have problems)  
The cost of this behemoth is 380 000 $, and about half of this cost is RWS, assemling abroad, possibly by foreign manufacturer (but maybe and Ukrainian). It quality leaves much to be desired. In comparison, the cost of M113, which much better than this ersatz is about 300 000$
Looks like these armored headache got several 6x th brigades, which counted as "mechanized", but mostly on the paper. One of visually confirmed loss of BMP-1LB was spotted in Kreminna area in June - vehcle was damaged and abandoned because of close hit of likely 500 kg bomb
 

Just a some pleasure moments of past day
UKR drone hit this night fuel tank in storage in Adler airport near Sochi (Russia)
Russian Su-34 bomber of 47th bomber aviation regment, airfield Baltimor, Voronezh crashed today in Voronezh oblast. Pilots ejected

As someone who works in the area of electronics assembly and cable harness manufacture (not defense specific, but sometimes as a sub-supplier for defense contracts), there are now a lot of open tenders for F-16 parts from the NATO procurement office.
Might be just a coincidence. But last year I saw increased tenders for HIMARS and PATRIOT parts going online, always around the time the deliveries got announced publicly. I think they are really bust getting the vehicles ready for the next weeks and months.
The war is noticable on the industrial front, but still rather small numbers.

Exclusive: Ukraine’s special services ‘likely’ behind strikes on Wagner-backed forces in Sudan, a Ukrainian military source says (CNN)
War expands to the African continent? Hey @Haiduk, since you are our local expert on the Ukrainian military have you heard anything about this?

Enough accurate, though he skipped details of street clashes before pro-UKR forces came to Trade Union House. He also didn't tell pro-Russians not only threw Molotovs from the roof of House, but shot with firearms (pistol or hunting rifle), killing and wounding several pro-UKR activsts.  
Odesa, Zaporizhzia, Mykolaiv, Kherson oblasts were saved from Donbas/Crimea scenario due to active resistanse of more organized pro-Ukrainian citizens, when police either withdrew itself from own duties under the pretext "do not escalate" or secretly or directrly like in Odesa took pro-Russian side. Though, only in Odesa all was so violent, in other cities the level of pro-Russian uprising was very minor and all ended maximum with facebeating.  
Most originally separatism was suffocated in Zaporizhzhia. A handful of vatniks who dared to came on meeting for "Zaporizhzhia People Republic" under cover of police just was surrounded by pro-UKR people and they were pelted with eggs and flours.

This humilitation of "Russian world" lasted several hours, if pro-UKR activists would have also feathers, that pro-Rusian participants would became look like Guybrush Tripwood from Monkey Island 3 "Do you have a.... MADRE DE DIOS! El Polo Diablo!!!"
This action got the name "Egg Sunday" 

Sorry to reply so late to this, but I really wanted to point it out, because I personally adore BBC. BBC.com is blocked in Russia and in the occupied territories. Except the Russian BBC channel on Telegram that I personally follow, but that's just because they've given up trying to block Telegram That one is fast as a lightning and is easy to access, thankfully.
BBC posts in Russian language in Telegram very frequently on a wide range of topics and is covering all kind of things, and they're doing a very good job. If there's any one news source on this planet one should follow, that's BBC.

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-236-russias-long-war-economy
Adam Tooze, from late August. Not optimistic about likelihood of Russian economic collapse.
Setting aside the economist-speak, key points:
- Emigration and mobilisation may have cost the Russian workforce c.2% of male workers aged 20-49.... [Up to] 10% of the high tech workforce left Russia in 2022.
- Unlike Ukraine, Russia is running nothing like a total war economy.... [RU military spending] might be in the ballpark of US spending during the Vietnam war, at around 9-10% of GDP. This spending has provided a boost to some industrial sectors.
- The deficit in 2022-2023 of 2% of GDP is a large stimulus but far short of the kind of deficit that would trigger hyperinflation and a currency collapse. Kremlin policymakers still have measures available to sustain the militarised economy. Their planning cooly estimates the probability of rising unemployment and losses of real income.
- The war in Ukraine is woven into the fabric of public life in Russia....
 

What air defenses? ;D
Apperently, there's less and less of them. BBC was pretty quick to report the local (my hometown) events, so you may wanna check that out.
No air raid warnings, no nothing. Nothing is happening, as always. Just bavovna and smoke. Even the announcer at the train station skips the usual "be observant and careful, careful and observant" this morning. How come, I wonder?
 
ps: I'm okay, and the windows are fine, for now.

Strike hard who cares — shoot straight who can —
The odds are on the cheaper man unmanned system.
There, fixed it for Kipling, although it doesn't quite scan.
 

There is one massive flaw in this logic..well maybe two.  First is that SEAD and DEAD will work in modern context.  Western SEAD is designed specifically to take out IADS, big complex systems built in layers.  What we are seeing in Ukraine are highly distributed systems with more weight being carried by what we considered “point AD”.  Problem with “point” is that it becomes “area” if you have enough of them and can link them together.  We already see MANPADs capable of reaching up to 20000 plus feet, what happens when someone sticks a bunch of those on a UAS?
Let me be very clear…western “superiority” as we we know it may be dead as of this war.  The things we are seeing are on a very long trend going back to The Gulf War so this is not some flash in the pan phenomena, it is a building pressure wave.
Second flaw…guns will keep doing all the killing.  Guns are highly effective but they are big and have a very large logistical footprint.  The trend appears to be more and more loitering munitions and very long range systems be they rockets and/or unmanned.  Cheap, low footprint is the trend.
Finally the primary driver for corrosive warfare and Denial primacy does not appear to be weapon systems or capacity, it is C4ISR.  Our western forces have enormous logistical footprints that can be seen from space.  An opponent that can find them first and then hit them via any number of methods is going to be able stop us cold.  
So what?  The entry cost to fight a peer opponent has gone up dramatically.  Stand-off and denial technology has gone into overdrive because (surprise, surprise) adversaries want to blunt western advantage.  I am not convinced we have solved for any of this.  I know we are working on it but old faiths die the hardest.
UAS have nothing on UGV and that shoe will likely drop very soon.  Western powers need to solve for Unmanned, C4ISR and Precision Defence very quickly.  We won’t be learning Mandarin, we will be looking very long high intensity wars that our societies are incredibly poorly prepared for.

Strike hard who cares — shoot straight who can —
The odds are on the cheaper man unmanned system.
There, fixed it for Kipling, although it doesn't quite scan.
 

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

Amen. 
And there are hundreds of ways in which they can be taken out of the fight. For example - with the manned systems approaching USD 100 mil. per unit, I can easily see them becoming something like battleships, so costly that they cannot be risked on many missions, including those which would be feasible for cheaper platforms. For missiles there is a similar problem, already experienced by the Ukraine - once the Russians divided up the large ammo&POL depots into a multitude of smaller ones, they ceased to be economic targets e.g. for Storm Shadows because that would be exchanging "2000 pounds of education" for a "ten-rupee jezzail", to quote Kipling's "Arithmetic on the frontier".
Ultimately, the ground forces should be designed to be able to stand on their own, which includes developing a functional battlefield ADA.