The_Capt

I never heard of HIMARs as “ersatz AirPower before this war”. I also know an entire military service that would have fought that idea tooth and nail - in fact they still are. Which of course gets into another factor of innovation stifling - service equities. I do think we sure as hell would have figured it out though. The trade off of the Western system is economy, speed and lethality. We prioritize lower casualties and quick deadly wars, while Russia comes from the old school of blood-volumes. Even the Soviet manoeuvre doctrine was built on savage attritional echelons. We simply do not think that way anymore - the fact that we never stockpile enough ammo is a pretty clear indicator. The issue is that we have streamlined ourselves to fight our wars. We are not anymore set up for robustness than Russia was for the information environment it found itself within. This is not something we could glue together quickly in a conflict and hopefully capacity-matters is one lesson we come away from this war.

I have heard this inspirational "innovative verve" argument before and I am not entirely sold to be honest. At strategic and operational levels we did not adapt in Afghanistan or at least nowhere near enough. We became hammers looking for nails and never prioritized the non-kinetic over the kinetic. In Iraq we also failed to win a peace by setting in motion sectarian alienation. Place it still a mess. Now in some ways these wars were (are) unwinnable as the adaption we would need to make to win them are off our maps. Tactical innovation does stand out but troops everywhere have been doing this for centuries. Largely due to Darwinian pressure on the battlefield - those who cannot improvise, die. I am not sure we can definitively say we are better or worse than other forces to be honest. So the evidence that at the scope and scale of this conflict that we would really do any better going off-doctrine than the UA already has, is pretty limited. We are pretty dogmatic about how we fight, for example to suggest that we should start thinking about Detailed Command, and the utility of Mission Command could be limiting is outright heresy in western military circles. And although you won't be taken out and shot for speaking heresy in the west, you will still be sidelined and isolated. Military cultures are extremely conservative - look at our track record in the people space, we have always lagged the rest of society on social change (don't ask, don't tell, integration of women etc) I think the only real advantage we may have is in learning because the west is built on liberal education. That does allow for a lot faster and more agile collective learning potential, but again we counter it with culture in a lot of ways. In the end I am not sure what we would do if airpower was removed. I think we would likely initially try to do what we have always done with airpower and suffered setbacks. We then likely would have also adopted more cautious and deliberate strategies much in the same way the Ukrainians have. I like to think we would done better than the RA because they are extremely wasteful in chasing attrition, and have demonstrated an extreme aversion to actually learning. However, we may have also stuck too close to manoeuvre and decisive battle as opposed to the far more distributed defence we saw from the UA in Phase I, which could have gotten us into serious trouble given the battlefield realities we saw emerge. I never assume advantage or overmatch until I am damn sure we actually have it. Understanding ones weaknesses is almost as important as understanding theirs, same goes for strengths.

Sure, a lot of this is force management and leadership/culture. But let’s also not get too high on ourselves here either. Plenty of militaries have won wars not employing either our culture, C2 philosophy or force management methods. Taliban just handed the west and its proxies their bums and they definitely do not follow our systems, as an example. The whole “the UA is winning because they fight like us” has a lot of flaws and holes that sound nice and make us feel good. But they also just reinforce the belief that “we are just great as we are”, which is really dangerous given that some fundamentals are currently up for grabs. We can say that the UA has sustained troop quality far better than the RA, which is definitely something.

No need, I have no doubt there are significant supporting relationships happening here. We already know the west (US specifically) is directly involved in ISR and targeting. We are definitely lending our expertise in terms of western equipment and force generation. But the west is not managing the application of this war. The risks are way too high for both us and the Ukrainians to go down that road. I think we are tightly linked and may even have a veto authority on some weapons systems/targeting; however I also strongly suspect that the Ukrainian military has complete unity of command up through to the political level. If there are any management pressures being applied, the political level is the place to do it - trying to micro-manage a proxy war just doesn't work and is in fact a pretty key metric of being in a "bad proxy war" position (see. Vietnam). And then the Ukrainians own the "ping space". The returns from the environment are coming from them as they are the ones in contact. We may be able to see a lot but they are feeling it. This means that they are in a better position to really build the instinctive understanding of the environment, not us - to really learn about a war you need to be all in it. I have no doubt we are in deep on supporting roles in this, but they do not subsume supported roles - tails wagging dogs is another terrible way to wage a war. Based on what we have seen there is just too much positive evidence that this is that way things are being run. As such the UA is really out in front (and should be) on all this. We are likely already lining up their leadership for book deals and doctrine positions - we need to learn very quickly from this war, faster than our opponents.

Well dammit you are right - now we have to redo all the artwork. Obviously "The Niven", not "The Lancaster"...damn how could we miss that?! Oh and I know that generation very well, they were our DS on training - and first NCOs when we got our platoon. Hard as f#ck, a charge record as long as your arms and all died in their 50s because as it turns out liquor, smoking and warfare are not good lifestyle choices.

Exactly. Let's be brutally honest with ourselves here. Western warfare theory and doctrine is highly elegant and has demonstrated superiority in some contexts. However, it is also very fragile. Books have been written about why this is and how we got here - to be honest I am leaning towards the "let's sell war as political 'fast-food' - cheap, fast and goes down easy" linked to a bloated military industrial complex (War Incorporated) as the primary reason. Regardless our entire military doctrine is based on a highly interlinked and dependent system that we have labelled many things over the years - combined, joint, JIMP, multi-domain, all domain. It is a brilliant theory but it is not robust. You pull out one critical component and the whole thing falls apart. And of course being us, we have highly incentivized finding ways to pull out critical components for our adversaries. Saddam H was a monument on "How not to fight the western world" and everyone who might be "agin us" took a lot of notes - and modern asymmetric warfare doctrines were born. A2AD, grey zone, subversive, hybrid, NavWar, swarms, cyber and a bunch of stuff which we probably have not even thought of yet all got a lot of heat and light because they could be weaponized to help the western way of war fall apart. Say what you will about the Russian way of war but it is damned robust. What is happening is a final exam on whether dumb resilience can still stand up in the modern era - my guess is "no". However, our system is very vulnerable. Take away air power and AirLand Battle falls apart. Take away armor and combined arms falls apart. Take away C4ISR and the whole damned thing falls apart. The best generals right now train by taking things away because that is what our opponents are going to do. So to clarify my point. Given the same forces that the UA has, I do not think western commanders would have done better and in fact may have very well done worse. Manoeuvre warfare clearly needs some rethinking in this environment and we already saw what happens when it is blindly applied, by the RA. The RA are the ones who started this war fighting in a manner very similar to our own, not the UA - they did something else entirely. Now at some point, good old fashion western manoeuvre (aka dirty tank-love) is going to work, but likely after a long campaign of corrosive warfare. And right now the experts at managing that corrosive warfare campaign are in the UA, not back in NATO.

We worship the old gods here on the CMCW side of the franchise.

Of course this makes the somewhat biased assumption that NATO commanders know how to fight this war any better. In fact in many ways fighting this war employing NATO doctrine would be worse and likely lead to operational cul de sacs. I am not sure mission command is always appropriate or effective in this sort of environment.

My honest “guess” right now- As soon as weather gets right and the UA is ready there will be a diversionary offensive, likely in the east on the Luhanks front. This will be followed by a main effort offensive in the centre towards the Azov to cut the Russia theatre - best guess is Melitopol. Once the UA does that they can threaten the Crimean bridge with what they have and start to choke out Crimea, which will likely contract a la Kherson back to 23 Feb lines and try to hold on. They will then start to box up Donbas. This will be a decision point as to how far the UA is going to take this thing. Do they tie it off and freeze the conflict back at the 23 Feb lines, or do they keep going? I think they can do the Tie Off option by this year. The Whole Pierogi may take the whole thing to the ‘24 election, but a whole lotta “conditions based” stuff in there that could dramatically shift things. We can (and have) debated the goods and bads of both options at length.

And those 10% should be flown to a killing field in Bucha, might push the percentage a little bit. Regardless, Russia is screwed.

Actually I think another major aspect of Putin’s strategic failure has been the effect this conflict has had on creating US political unity. There is always going to be a far-something that is going to oppose, more often simply because they do not want the other team to have a win. However the US political mechanisms are working as they should and we are seeing a lot more unity than we have in years. The main reason for this is that beyond the laughably poorly informed opinions of some frankly pretty crappy social media feeds, Putin and Russia are way above thresholds of attribution and response - there is no real question or ambiguity here. Now if this war had been a quick war it may have dislocated response but it has dragged on and only someone with their head’s completely up certain offices can deny the egregious war crimes, violations of international laws and just plain lack of human decency being demonstrated on the battlefield. Atheists and god fearing folk both agree that Jesus would find this pretty f#cked up. This was a major mistake for Putin, maybe the mistake. He also unified NATO and the EU (to a greater extent), all in direct opposition to his obvious political goals. This war has become a historic demonstration of a self-defeating strategy if there ever was one.

Two way over-hyped celebs that are turning into statues, and a cheesy sludge that should be above asbestos as a human health risk….this is what we show the world? No I say!

This really is a “you guys” thing, so I am going to leave out any and all personal opinions one way or the other. However what I do not get is that the US government is one of the most transparent governments in history. So if I am sitting on my back porch and someone in my sphere says “the government is spending all that money on Ukrainians and screwing Ohio-ians, damn [insert political party of your choice]”. It literally takes an internet connection and about 10 mins to unpack this thing to a level that at least lays out some actual facts: https://www.policymattersohio.org/research-policy/quality-ohio/revenue-budget/budget-policy/review-of-ohios-2022-23-budget https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/assets/organizations/legislative-service-commission/files/historical-revenues-and-expenditures-table-1-grf-lpef-and-lgf-revenue-history.pdf https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/publications/historical-revenues-and-expenditures https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-aid-by-state So the punchline is that the US federal government spent about $40B on Ohio alone in 22-23 (12B in grants which are code for “we never except to see them back”) and Ohio is in the top ten states to receive federal funding annually. Yes, it looks like FEMA is being particularly dense and bureaucratic - and they likely need some executive nudging, however, we are talking about apples and unicorns here in both scale and funding streams. And finally, there is a lot of some pretty convincing arguments flying around that said dangerous cargo was supposed to be off that train but…politics: https://apnews.com/article/wv-state-wire-north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-2e91c7211b4947de8837ebeda53080b9mp-us-news-ap-top-news-transportation-1936e77a11924c909880f1ef014c7ca7 So what? Well could the federal government be doing more cut through the red tape and support East Palestine Ohio - looks like it could. Is the US government blowing all it money on Ukraine and therefore cannot support Ohio-eons? No, that does not track. Do US rail safety regulations look like they need a revisit - yes, probably a good idea. Is there a direct link between East Palestine Ohio and US support to Ukraine - no. In fact trying to find and indirect link is pretty hard. The US federal budget was roughly $6.27T in 2022. The $50B in aid to Ukraine comes to about .8% of that. So for perspective if an average family income in the US is about 71k per year: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-276.html So in parallel terms this would be the same as that family spending about $560 dollars, or about $46 per month. And last point, one of those corrupt former Soviet republics is Russia, a P5 UNSC member and nuclear power, and is directly threatening US global interest and influence, on a great power scale - you wanna stay on top? You have to fight for it.

Ok politics aside, that was a pretty ballsy move.

Having the back blast pull the snot out of your nose when being #2 was always fun.

Good. We can stop the very unnatural and unhealthy tank-lust trend that has polluted our thinking. Disgusting really.

Canadians had the M2 since the 60s. This was not a new weapon. Lugging a “big empty tube” on training was always fun.

So no magic rabbits. Well I am not sure if dumb mass is dead, but they are calling the family to the bedside based on this war.

Pshh, Space Lobsters are so 2005. CM: World War Z, now there is a money grabbing concept.

Interestingly I think the step the Russians missed was the same one that a lot of western mainstream analysts kinda glossed over at the start of this war, and is near and dear to just about everyone on this forum - the war game. In military planning this is a major step/exercise (in fact we do it at least twice). In strategic planning it is normally done through a series of operational war games and results summed, but you can do a version of opposed strategies. In the war gaming phase one takes a plan and smashes it up against an opponents counter-plan. What a lot of students miss is that it is not about winning, it is about completely acid washing your concepts. War games are not supposed to be fun, they are supposed to brutalize your planning before your opponent does it for real on the battlefield. Until you see every flaw and hole in your plan, you cannot fully understand the risks. You can even do this for non-linear campaigning, but it is trickier. One has to re-think the war game for emergent phenomena, and here a bottom up micro-sampling based approach may work better. However even for top-down - and here I think a lot of western experts made this mistake - one can see macro-masking leading to significant poor assumptions. This just underlines how hard a discipline this is to carry out when you are really trying. As far as I can tell Russia did not war game this out. When the boss has a habit of having people who disagree with him thrown out windows, it is pretty hard to get honest assessments of holes in his plan. This is a planning environment of lethal group think which is just a perfect recipe for progressive unreality. But for a few dozen copies of CMBS and Putin not being a gamer, a war was lost.

So that really is not how it is done. Those all feel like elements of Plan A, and negotiating with its failure - not separate plans in themselves. Normally when doing this sort of thing one assesses your opponents Most Dangerous to Least Dangerous and then apply probability (Least Likely to Most Likely). Then when you pull the trigger on an operation of this scale and risk, you would have branch plans (with assigned resources) for just about every eventuality. At least this is how linear planning normally works. To give Russia fair shake, perhaps they employed non-linear planning - so more of an exploratory "choose your own adventure"; however, if you are going to do that you need to leave a LOT of agility and flex in the system. And you had damned well be sure you have the C4ISR architecture to support non-linear approaches. Now Russia was all over non-linear design and campaigning in subversive warfare - particularly in the intelligence schools where Putin comes out of. so maybe this was a "too clever by a half" strategy that was not aligned with conventional military capabilities. In reality if Plan A was to defeat through Dislocation - which all the parts you list are really components thereof; plan B was to fall back on Attrition. Not a terrible idea but... - You have to make sure you have advantage in force generation. This whole thing falls apart if you cannot separate Ukraine from western support. In this Russia failed miserably, and as far as we can tell really didn't even make a play for it considering I can still fly business class to Kyiv from Frankfurt. - You have to make sure your own house is in order for this sort of fight. Assuming "everything is fine at the depots" is just plain stupid. If we know there is corruption in the RA, ya think they know it too? Further you need an escalating mobilization plan that you can sell way out. Putin has not done this. They built some economic and industrial resilience but nowhere near what they would need to fight an attrition war of this scale. Have outsourcing contract ready, fall back industrial bases lined up - not this mad scramble. - And on scale, understand what you are talking about. Ukraine - if they do not touch the ladies - has around 7M fighting age males (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_manpower_fit_for_military_service). Even if you assume 1/3 of them are going to fight, that is over 2M troops that they can pull on. But remember Russia pushed Ukraine into an existential corner and then sprinkled it with pretty widespread war crimes - so I am betting Ukraine is far more motivated and will dig much deeper into that force pool. So what? Well Russia had better have planned for over 5M troops minimum (that is barely keeping a 2.5:1 advantage) and had them ready to go before they crossed the start line. - Make damn sure you know when Plan A fails and move faster than your opponent to Plan B. The RA sat around like exploding cows for over a month up on the Northern Front. They knew that Ukraine was not going to fold after maybe a week? It was pretty clear to us, and our internet is wide open, that this was the case. If the RA had bailed on the Northern front after a week. Reconsolidated and fell back on an Attrition Plan in the south - ok, that is how it is done. Bleeding 1st ech troops white on roads to nowhere for another 4 weeks in not a plan, it is paralysis. So if Plan A was aimed Russian assessments of Most Likely, ok cool - those assessments were crap in the end but "no plan survives etc..". This does not mean you fail to create a safety net for the fall back plan and have it ready to go. Last point - strategy should never be relative. It cannot be a "good strategy from our point of view" as the sole metric of good or bad. Strategies must have a universal objective component, they have to take into account reality. If they fail to do that then they really are not a strategy at all, they are a wishlist.

So the part I do not get is that they kinda had this back in Sep. They did the whole superbowl ring thing and simply declared that where they stood was now "Mother Russia". They could have simply dug in and cried crocodile tears for Minsk 3.0 from there. Instead they kept dry humping around Bakhmut and chasing some imaginary line in the Donbas, and then they had two fronts collapse - I mean take the hint. I think at some point after the Phase III defeats, this war got all "total" and zero-sum for Russia, or maybe it always was in the Russian thinking. Point being that if one is going to wage a total war, make damned sure it is actually existential. I mean a discretionary total war, as evident by no Plan B, is frankly insane. Unless Putins strategy was to turn a discretionary war into an existential one. However, that doesn't make sense either as he has not gone all in. This is a "kinda existential war - with provisos and addendums"?

Too kind by a half. I tell students that if they don’t have a Plan B, then they really don’t have a Plan A. In Russia’s case here the Plan B was an exit strategy. The Russians must have had an extraction plan for after winning the war, why or how they did not have a partial victory off ramp demonstrates insular executive power that desperately needed a red team. I am sure they in no way expected the total drubbing they are receiving but history is filled with imperial quagmires - even Russian history! To not have a back up plan for getting out is pure amateur hour.

https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/weapons/lightweapons/machineguns/c5machinegun.htm Tabletop game sites are also pretty good at this stuff. https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/free-nations-infantry/52830-canadian-mechanised-platoon

Mahatma Ghandi - "If you f#ck with me, I will cut you up like a chicken!"