cyrano01

Steve, gotta push back on this one a bit.  We were discussing various historic wars as they relate to this one.  Generalship as we see the Ukrainian CHOD switch out.  Urban warfare analysis as it relates directly to phenomena we see in this war.  If we cannot look back on historical precedent and discuss what we are seeing in this war as it relates to that then this thread largely becomes a war porn channel - video after video of Russian stuff getting blown up.  So I get your rabbit hole point but if the UA regain operational advantage and offensive, how can we not compare that to other wars?  Particularly when we get into military theory.  I mean it is your party but I have little interest in simply commenting on one Russian vehicle getting blown up after the other, even if it does yield some tactical minutia insight.

Russian TG rejected yesterday claims of other Russian TGs about capturing of transport depo in northern part of Avdiivka and approaching to railway station. Westren OSINTers give next sitaution for yesterday
General Tarnasvskiy claimed about reserve units invilved in the battle. Unknown is this 3rd assault brigade or not.  Commander of 47th mech.brigade Dmytro Riumshyn told Russians now assault with small groups, sometimes applying armored vehicles. 

Ok ... this is not a comment that can be taken seriously.

I don't recognise this description of the second half of WWI, other than as a general outline.
The British had shown several ways to break in to solid defences in 1917 at Messines, at Passchendaele, and at Cambrai. Bite and hold is fundamentally attritional, but it's also really productive. At least in the context of 1917.
The German attacks worked - ever so briefly - in early 1918 because they had good force concentration and ratios as a result of moving forces from East to West, and because the Allied - especially British - forces they faced were themselves heavily attrited. Lloyd-George had deliberately withheld replacements from shipping to France as a way of preventing Haig mounting another offensive. However that also left the British lines wildly undermanned, and when combined with a poor defensive doctrine that hadn't previously been tested the British front line positions collapsed. Yes; the new tactics definitely helped. But the Germans would have - at least they should have - been able to advance even without them.
But the Germans couldn't sustain their own offensive. Why? Because they themselves had been so heavily attrited at the tactical, operational, strategic, and political levels. Ze Germans didn't stop in front of Ameins because they're such good sports. They stopped because they were tactically and operationally spent. Ludendorff deliberately eschewing an overarching operational plan didn't help either. "Let's just attack and take it from there! Let's see what happens!" I mean ... WTF?
The latter German attacks through to July were even stupider operationally, and wildly unsuccessful tactically. Shall we, for example, talk about the wonderful "new ideas" and "infiltration tactics" on display on 15 July? Probably best not to, eh?
Overall the main effect of the Spring offensives was to inflict such severe attrition on the German forces that, when the French and British went on to the offensive from August, they had all the defensive coherence of a wet paper bag. At that point attrition had truly done it's thing, and operational movement recommenced.

By the by; 100kg probably isn't enough for a soldier and their equipment. It's /probably/ enough for a wounded soldier, on the assumption they're stripped of weapons, webbing, helmet, & armour before being loaded in 'the coffin.'
A 200kg max load would give an adequate performance margin in most circumstances I should think, or possibly 150kg if you're prepared to accept failure more often (because hot and high, or "just one more" AT4 stuffed in there, or etc).
But otherwise I quite like the idea of the flying coffin as a platoon mule. As Syd Jary once wrote, bring back my carrier (talking about bren carriers at the platoon level).

Isn’t the completely failed strategy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2023 grounds for the dismissal of the commander-in-chief?
Let's look at 2023 from the perspective of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The loss of Bakhmut, the failure of the offensive in the Zaporozhye region. Underestimation of Russia's mobilization and industrial capabilities and, as a result, the encirclement and probable loss of the large fortified hub of Avdeevka.
To be honest, I don’t quite understand why Ukrainians idolize Zaluzhny so much? Although perhaps this is understandable. This is exactly the image of the victorious general in 2022 that was painted by Ukrainian and foreign media. Well, how can you not fall in love?
Let's look at Zelensky's culpability in the loss of foreign (American) support. Do you really think that Zelensky’s personality was the reason for blocking Ukrainian aid in the House of Representatives?
 
I believe this is just part of the Republicans' plan to take power. And it doesn’t matter who would be the current president of Ukraine: Poroshenko, Zaluzhny or Stepan Bandera, aid to Ukraine would still be blocked.
Perhaps you think that this influenced the blocking of borders by Polish or Slovak farmers? But I think that this also has nothing to do with Zelensky’s personality or politics

So generals who become inappropriately involved at the political level are just as dangerous as politicians who try to be generals.  This is a tooth to tail judgement issue, which frankly no politician is qualified to make unless they have held high military command.  The factors in what creates that ratio are pretty complex but this is not a political issue.  The UA is running a series of military operations along an 800km front - that is roughly the length of the Western Front in WW1.  The logistics and support demands are enormous.  The C4ISR requirements, which have kept Ukraine in this war, all take staff.
Best line I ever heard on this came (surprisingly) from a Canadian GO - “there are teeth, there is a tail; in between are a lot of vital organs”.

Under normal circumstances a 5km gap is already encircled, based weapons ranges.  I suspect those red swaths on the map are in fact blotches and the RA does not have firepower dominance of that 5km gap.

It depends. Speed and weight of response from the guns remains superior, so if I find myself in the **** I'd want the guns since they're available within minutes, regardless of our spatial relationship to each other.
If I'm just dicking around inflicting some attrition, and time or co-ordinated maneuver aren't important, then gimme drones.

There are several layers to it. In crude terms, it's that Zalushny has a different vision going forward for how to fight the war that includes, inter alia, very large mobilization and an emphasis on drone warfare. He also feels quite comfortable talking outside the chain of command and in public to attempt to make his vision of the war apply going forward. Zelensky has what could be described as a more political take on the war but really it seems like the biggest issue is that he believes that the civilian primacy over the Ukrainian commander should be complete. It should not be a competition, whatever tensions may exist within the relationship and Zaluzhny has to some degree made it one...even if with pretty good intentions. 
I tend to agree with Zalushny's assessment in military terms but I think in the long run Zelensky has the right of it. If Ukraine is really going to reject the "Eurasian" model Putin sells than it has to fully buy into elected, civilian control of the security services writ large.
My 2 hryvnia. 
 

Interesting question.  The earlier item about shell shortages said that this was undermining the UKR counter-battery capability and I wonder about UAVs doing CB. If your opponent was moderately competent and willing to shoot and scoot then you would have to have your UAVs already in the air near the target battery already in order to get your CB mission away in a timely fashion. Artillery shells and rockets arrive a bit quicker. 

It is really the old debate on persistence over reaction time.  If one has 50 FPVs out hunting 10-20km in depth they may very well find the guns before they have a chance to shoot (big heavy pieces of metal).  Or when the guns do shoot one already has an FPV that can track and hunt.  
Artillery CB essentially gets a signal and tries to drop rounds on it before the enemy can move.  Of course if artillery is linked into UAS ISR then one can effectively hunt enemy artillery the same way as FPVs.  They are in fact complimentary systems.  Guns have the advantage of weight (for now) but suffer from logistics burden.  FPVs etc could pass artillery for utility but would need to be able to duplicate the weight of fires - either through high precision or swarming.
Interestingly the main limiting factor for FPV range appears to be signal, not actual onboard energy:
https://www.getfpv.com/learn/fpv-essentials/beginners-guide-long-range-fpv/
This is interesting because I suspect a lot of the precision FPVs bring to bear is coming from the human operator.  We have seen a lot of precise targeting of tanks and IFV based on knowledge of their weaknesses.  It is much harder for fully autonomous AI to do the same precise targeting right now (eg which square foot on a tank to hit to trigger secondaries).  So keeping the operators brain forward linked is likely going to remain a requirement up to the last few hundred meters for awhile yet.  Therefore links back to a human operator become the major factor to range, solve that and there appears no reason why FPVs cannot be striking back 20km or more which is gun support ranges.
So the major advantage of a human operated FPV is that is it infinitely more intelligent than a dumb artillery round (and orders of magnitude more than PGM).  Application of that intelligence at scale will remain a central challenge.  But if one can do it: massed precision beats everything….

That makes the drones very tiny while raising the requirements to mil standard for howitzer ammo.
When I think future I think about the American palletizing cruise missiles.
That also makes me think of glide bombs.
We are focusing on tunes a lot because that's what the Russians and Ukrainians use.
I think the NATO way sounds more like a fat glide bomb that opens up like a cluster bomb and releases the drones over an area. Strap a rocket engine on for range extension if needs be.

Now there is something cheap industrial balloons can do.  Put them up all over the place with plenty of decoys.

Much faster, in theory. Frame is one piece, can be injection molded plastic or carbon fiber at large scale. Motors just drop in, same with compute module and cameras and warhead. Balancing it is a thing. Assuming sufficient supply of these components, an assembly line of a few people should be able to crank out a hundred per day. Transmitter range from base station (send control signals) , and transmitter range on drone (send video and diagnostics back). So if you have mast at the base station, you can get a few more km, and if you have a repeater drone, some more. But you figure these drones have 20-40m endurance at 60-100kmh speed, so there’s more possible range than is capable with a small, low transmitter. Autonomy is how you solve it. My personal opinion is repeater drones are probably the best option as they protect the operators better.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-2-2024
 
Open-source investigations indicate that Russian forces are benefitting from Ukraine’s ammunition shortage and inability to conduct sufficient counterbattery warfare. Ukraine-based open-source organization Frontelligence Insight stated on February 1 that Russian forces previously established stationary artillery firing positions for long periods of time from late 2022 to early 2023 when ammunition shortages limited Ukrainian counterbattery warfare capabilities.[20] Frontelligence stated that Russian forces began to concentrate their artillery in a similar way in January 2024, suggesting that Ukrainian forces are again running low on artillery ammunition. Frontelligence stated that Ukrainian forces can sometimes strike Russian artillery but overall lack adequate ammunition for effective counterbattery fire. Frontelligence stated that the lack of Ukrainian counterbattery fire allows Russian artillery to largely destroy settlements, making it nearly impossible for Ukrainian forces to defend the settlements. Frontelligence stated that many of Ukraine’s FPV drones lack the range to strike the numerous Russian artillery pieces deployed 15 to 24 kilometers from the frontline.

Aw c'mon man, not before lunch.

I got to be honest, I am not sure what your opinion is at this point.  That autonomous AI technology will dominate warfare?  I think that is a solid assumption. 
Will AI be able to do everything a human can, better?  No, not likely for some time re: context - and human context applies to every war (really don't need references for that point).
The side that can take the strengths of AI/autonomy and humans, and pair them together into a supporting system will have advantage?  Not really sure how that is much different than what we already do.
That we need to be cautious oversubscribing what AI can do, as much as we need to be cautious undersubscribing?
Give me an opinion to inform and then we can talk references.  

Definitely getting closer then.  I suspect we are going to see killboxes where fully autonomous drones will be free to engage anything and everything.  They won’t be perfect and prone to deceptions but the advantages are clear - no operator link to cut.  This severely blunts EW, which has been about the only way to hold UAS off in this war.
I am waiting to see a drone chase a Russian around and tree, but completely autonomous with no human operator.  Next challenge will be target deconfliction between autonomous systems to ensure distribution of targeting but that is a really good problem to have.

If communications are effectively jammed by by EW i would argue both would go up a lot for a drone that doesn't need to phone home versus one that does.

Always tricky to pick out the right lessons though, and even harder to do so if they contradict your existing doctrine. The then Chief of the Air Staff(CAS), Sir Cyril Newall, described the Luftwaffe's support of ground operations in Spain as a gross misuse of air-power!
To be fair to Newall he was subsequently CAS during the Battle of Britain so perhaps deserves some of Dowding and Park's reflected glory.
 

Always tricky to pick out the right lessons though, and even harder to do so if they contradict your existing doctrine. The then Chief of the Air Staff(CAS), Sir Cyril Newall, described the Luftwaffe's support of ground operations in Spain as a gross misuse of air-power!
To be fair to Newall he was subsequently CAS during the Battle of Britain so perhaps deserves some of Dowding and Park's reflected glory.
 

Tanks behaving like they often get used in CM games? As an uninformed tangent, I always got the impression that most players used tanks in CM (thinking WW2 games here) in a historically unrealistic way, where instead of tanks being the spearhead, in CM games they were more often kept hidden until the infantry had identified targets and enemy AT assets had been located.
In CM, this is the combination of:
(a) scenario balance means that if you've got a platoon of tanks, the other side very likely has the capability to kill a platoon of tanks (as opposed to reality, where an assaulting tank company might just roll through the enemy positions because they didn't have anything that posed a threat to heavy armour - but that would make a boring CM scenario)
(b) Borg spotting, perfect terrain knowledge and the players' ability to co-ordinate their entire force to a wholly unrealistic degree meaning that they can afford to keep tanks at the back because they will be able to scoot forward through defilade to a keyhole firing position to take out a threat in literally 1 minute, while in reality that's more like 15+ minutes with far more chances to screw up, go the wrong way, shoot at the wrong building etc.
So is it possible that the incredible C4ISR available, replicates in effect much of point (b): enemy positions are known pretty well in advance, real time drone observations funneling information back to units on the ground, and so on, mean that something closer to (although still far short of) CM player levels of planning, co-ordination and responsiveness is achievable, meaning small armour packets can be held back and used on demand with more effect than a full platoon could two decades ago - never mind the increasing number of things that can quickly kill an exposed and hard to conceal tank.
And on a higher level, the higher situational awareness, and prevalence of longer ranged things that can kill vehicles in particular mean that it is hard to create a situation where you can mass e.g. a tank force against a position that has no meaningful defence against it. They will see it coming, and tank-killers can hit from a much larger range, so wherever you attack there is going to be meaningful anti-tank capability, meaning you're always in more of a "balanced CM scenario" kind of situation in practice.

Bias…exactly.  Something is definitely happening, that much I can feel in my bones…exactly what remains kinda opaque.  What do we actually “know?”  Well:
- Mass does not seem to work like it used to.  ISR appears to be having a disproportionate effect on mass.  This is not just drone feeds but AARs and deeper reporting.  Weird densities, weird groupings and sometimes just bizarre packaging.  These all point to some serious pressures on military mass but the exact mechanisms remain largely unknown.
- C4ISR, first war in human history with these levels of C4ISR.  This effecting a lot more than just mass.  How deep this rabbit hole goes remains unclear.
- Artillery is still doing the majority of the killing.  We also know that “precision” appears to be making artillery more effective in rounds per effect (but that is still not proven), but both sides are still using an ungodly amount of fires, as demonstrated by ammo strain.
- Heavy is in trouble.  I think we have seen enough indicators that heavy forces are struggling. Enough reports of tanks and mech being held back or blunted have surfaced to call that one.  But is this forever, or just a temporary condition?
- Unmanned is definitely a thing and is accelerating.  But at this point I am still not sure how much is strike, and how much is ISR.  If we see some sort of data on just how much damage drones are actually doing in comparison to artillery it would help immensely.
- Corrosive warfare (or something like it) is a thing, but we still do not know its full parameters, assumptions, constraints and restraints.  We have seen it happen more than once but “why” it happened is still a bit of a mystery.  Was it projected friction, or was it simply Russian over-extension?
- Denial.  Definitely on the board, particularly in the air.  Some pretty good analysis on this out there.
- Deep Strike.  Appears to be a new form of manoeuvre.  Formerly it has been used to shape and set preconditions but en masse it appears as though it can directly create results, not simply enable them.
I am probably missing something but you will note most of these are only partially visible.  We have seen some possible indicators but no one has been able to pull up the entire UA summer offensive and show that 90% of the time they were using micro-groupings because if they massed above company level they were spotted and hit 82% of the time.  Nor can we see that UAS have outstripped casualties caused by direct fires and artillery by 23%.  All we really see by this point are shadows and hints.
So while I have working theories, they are pretty fluid.  I am getting firmer on some aspects… but watch that will be when things shift again and they are totally blown out of the water.  There was no way the RA was supposed to withstand the Summer offensive.  They were a shattered force that had bled all over Bakhmut at WW1 loss levels…but here we are.
Anyway…strap in, this ride ain’t over yet.

I tell my students that militaries only really do three things:
- We carry out policy.
- We provide sound military advice to policy.
- We guarantee the policy making framework.
If you are doing anything else in uniform, you are heading towards a mutiny or coup. 
What we tend to forget is that #2 is absolutely critical to the integrity of the entire scheme.  And frankly we fail at it far too often.