The_Capt

Now that is what a "complete capability package" looks like. You want to re-tool the UA, this is what is looks like and it will take years. I can definitely see this for the post-war reconstruction era, and if we got it all together maybe even a formation before the end of this war. That mass might be enough to do the trick...maybe, so long as you integrate it with ISR and fires.

This right here is where the wheels come off the theory of success. First off, the UA already has AFVs and tanks - if some of the charts being tossed up here are accurate, the UA already has a large fleet of each, in the thousands....so why have they not been able to "actually fight for and hold ground w minimum of casualties" already? How are a couple hundred western tanks going to fundamentally allow the UA to do more than what they are already doing? None of the numbers being thrown around are going to equate to numerical advantage nor a shift in force ratios. How is a Leo2 going to succeed where a T72 has failed in this war? This has been the deep flaw in the "send them all the tanks" argument...there is no argument. No one has been able to articulate what and how these vehicles are going to create competitive advantage on the battlefield. We have articulated a lot of risks and opportunity costs but the other side of the argument is pretty much "Leo2s = win!!" This is not thinking...this is a bandwagon. What we have seen on the RA side is that it doesn't freakin matter what tank you show up in; T90s to T62s, you are spotted and made dead before you can get into direct fire range in order to support the infantry. Most of these western tanks excel at the one thing we have seen the least of in this war - killing other tanks. We have seen some such actions but they are in the marginal minority. This much steel rolling around the battlefield and we have not seen one major amour clash or decisive action, yet somehow we are doubling down all over this capability. "But infantry support!" Well the UA looks damn well like it has figured out infantry support, that much is obvious. Those poor shivering HUMMVs and MRAPs took back half of what Russia tried to grab in less than a year, which according to almost every western military doctrine should be impossible. Now there is an argument that the Soviet-model fleets are drying up, so a deliberate conversion to western systems would make sense in that regard, but then pick a single fleet and buy in bulk and expect a long integration, and not this jumbled nightmare forming up. "But the UA asked for them!!" Well dare we speak heresy and push back on the UA? What evidence do they have that more tanks will actually work? A lot of the UA higher ups are western trained, are they falling into the same trap as us? Is the UA thinking post-war? Well they are getting exactly what should not have happened, a hodge-podge grab bag of western tanks in various states of readiness. The UA are not stupid and we will see some western tank somewhere shooting (they did the same with the arty), but when the RA is not swept away by 12 Challenger 2s, the blow back from the pro-Russian crowd is going to get very loud.

I have raised this point a couple times but it is worth re-stating, we are victims of our own “history” - and by this we are talking about 30 years, Steve does have a point on short human attention spans. Since ‘91 all of our “real wars” have been measured in weeks. All those grubby unsportsmanlike and messy COIN things do not count. So when we hit an actual peer-level conventional war and it isn’t over in a month..well clearly things have gone terribly wrong. In short if all war is certainty, we in the western world have become very uncertain and jumpy as this war looks and feels very strange. So we start jumping to all sorts of conclusions in order to try and regain certainty, it is human nature. First we fear that our side is not winning/cannot win or some disaster is looming. Then we start the “they are doing it wrong” narratives because clearly we would be done by now. And this leads us down all sorts of weird back alleys - which frankly we are in one now as we celebrate Spain dumping 20 year old tanks in need “of some maintenance” along with a hodgepodge and logistical nightmare of military hardware that is starting to resemble the family “spare charger” drawer. I am sure those won’t be the last time this happens, recall the scrap drives during WW2, which as I recall made everyone feel better but had little impact on the outcome of the war. The reality is that this war has been very fast paced for one of this intensity and relative symmetry. This looks and feels like a historical conventional war - long periods of brutal grinding punctuated by intense high intensity operations, this much has not changed. The western wars of the last 30 years have been the anomalies, not this one.

I am going with @Lethaface on this one. We are in the middle of winter and other than some dry humping by the RA there is not much going on. The reflex is “oh my god, the conflict is frozen!” So the follow on “send them the entire German military!” to keep things unfrozen makes sense…from a certain point of view. I suspect - also from that video Steve posted - the weather has not cooperated and it is too muddy for any major UA operations. It took the UA the entire summer to set up for the Fall Offensive, so if a major winter offensive is off the table it is not because the UA is unable to attack, it is because they do not want to. Conditions are not right and it is more advantageous right now to let the RA break its hands at places like Bakhmut.

That is an outstanding example of what I think is happening all along the frontline. It is corrosive warfare in action. The precision with which they are calling fires is insane - “move a little right and hit that trench”. They are clearing trenches and hitting single vehicles from kms away. Now if we want to really make a difference it looks like the UA needs: more trained and equipped recon infantry, better UAS with longer endurance and can see in all-weather, and as much artillery as we can send them. And while we are at it as far as I can tell we have not sent the UA anything like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_Munition They have the larger Excalibur but a JDAMs-like attachment to an existing lighter mortar would make things even more deadly and could be put into action soonest.

6-8 month for formed units. Fighting formations that can sustain themselves is going to take longer. Now the UA could take risks, but a well broadcasted screw up with burning western tanks is the last thing anyone wants, except the Russians and their supporters. These are endgame systems and endgame needs to be timed right. Of course no one is going to listen to this and in a month there will be cries of “why aren’t the Ukrainians using our tanks?” all over the place. And of course there is also the uncomfortable possibility that massed manoeuvre forces are just as vulnerable and not able to do what they are supposed to for the Ukrainians as much as they were for the Russians. Well now that the tank nuts are happy can we get back to actually winning this war?

Hmm, well another spin on this is that the RA is effectively fixed (and fixated) at Bakhmut. In order to sustain these grinding assaults the RA is pretty concentrated in supporting the effort. Given UA ISR superiority (and if they don’t have it, why not?), then knowing where the RA is, and keeping them there is worth the effort, much as the battles around Severodonetsk were last summer. None of the new kit everyone is howling about is going to be fed into Bakhmut anytime soon. So long as the UA has ammo and ISR they should be able to concentrate and chew up RA assets at speed, which could very well make the next offensive more viable, just like exhausting RA at Severodonetsk made the Fall offensive more viable. Probably a good sign that Ukraine is definitively winning, western powers are armchair quarterbacking.

Now I will be interested to see if the UA holds as it has done in the Donbas, or if they give ground and let the RA string itself out and then go to work on them as they did earlier in the war. Considering that the UA would be able to see the preparations of a major RA offensive from space, there will be no surprise. Any rumours of civilians being evacuated?

Well then we have to be missing something. Politicians do not normally voluntarily toe themselves into knots just for giggles. I mean having German tanks killing Russians in Ukraine is already pretty loaded given those two nation’s history. However, we know the “escalation excuse” is getting weaker, so what is the real issue? Does this guy run a minority or coalition government right now? Ultimately he is in a position where it is better to dither than commit, I mean based on the back and forth it looks like Germany hopes this war ends before they even need to send the things. The export agreements are upside down, but frankly that is also on the nations dumb enough to sign onto the agreement…like Canada. We literally bought a replacement based on an old fleet we bought when we had a Bde in Europe, because cheaper and “Afghanistan” which was so incredibly dumb, and disingenuous it boggles the mind. But here we are stuck with a European tank we cannot push on without permissions. While our closest ally has parks literally filled with M1s (let’s not get into “we can’t look too much like the Americans” debate. Regardless, I suspect that there is more going on here inside the German political house but it still does not explain why people are getting so hot and bothered.

Oh hey look, I almost missed German bashing day. Frankly this all looks and feels like internal Euro politics. No countries are lining up to push hundreds of tanks into Ukraine with the notable exception of Poland, which kinda makes sense. And these were all tanks that Ukraine was already set up to support. Beyond that we have some sort of drug-deal between Germany Czech, Slovenia and the Netherlands again T72s, the French Light tanks and the very recent UK company's worth of Challengers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#:~:text=124 million kn (€16.5,Croatia by 13 August 2022. In fact the list of German aid is not small. They are number 4 overall, and although their per GDP is a little bit tepid, you then get into internal politics resting on economic pressures. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts?gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVvJ-eE-irSZCq06UxjoLkqWvc1xQgIgZurr6Wc5jXKHYdoebsJl6s8aAr6fEALw_wcB So "tanks" are the only metric of effective donations now? Well neither the US or Canada have gone this way either but I am not seeing the fervor over that here. Germany only has 350 Leo2s in its entire fleet, which does not point to a massive surplus. Hell, Canada has over 100 Leo2s and our land threat consist of badly behaving American tourists and bears. And yet everyone is yelling at Germany like they skipped out on the check? Is there some sort of military alliance obligation I missed? To me, a simple "colonial", this appears more an excuse for Europeans to yell at each other than actually fight and win the war, of which I have stressed at length that tanks are a secondary priority right now. In fact if you dig into the actual list of German contribution there is 'minor' stuff; like spare parts, engineering equipment, radars, boatloads of ammunition and winter clothing...but hey if it isn't a freakin Leo 2...well "that just sux!!" Oh and then there is the 12.5B Euros in humanitarian aid, the stuff that keeps people fed and some sort of medical system in motion. Finally on escalation. A tricky beast at the best of times but the standard thinking is to 1) be deliberate, 2) communicate effectively with your opponent, and 3) leave yourself somewhere to go. If the west dumps a traffic jam of tanks onto Ukraine...and they don't work, well that limits the escalation room in the conventional sphere pretty dramatically. So I can see why western powers are holding back some - they might need the threat later, cos' Russia. Now the narrative is clearly getting lost in Germany's case but I am pretty sure these are not the first politicians to fart in church, and they wont be the last.

Oh younglings, if you want to dig deep into the lore: - “Brengun tripod” aka “Doroshing”- basically code for some incredibly niche and boutique feature or item that someone treats like the holy grail of gaming and if it is not included yesterday CM is now a warcrime. - “This is my dog, I made him show his teeth”, a Ralph Wiggum of posts- sweetly honest but bafflingly obtuse. - “Fionn me, Fionn me, take a rope and hang me!” Reference to an imminent banning of a particularly difficult forum member. In honour of Fionn Kelly, singing with the angels out there in the internet somewhere. - “Peng Thread” , a nonsensical effort that set back progress of human civilization by about 50 years. Filled with the worst refuse and villainy that the CM community has to offer. - “Kettler”, Affectionate name for the resident conspiracy nut job in any discussion. Lovably upside down the guy normally gets about a thousand chances until put down. Really should have a blog somewhere. - “Cold War-ing it”. Not something I totally just made up in blatant self-interest. To finally see and enjoy a version of the game that Steve swore he would never do. Vietnam and Arab Israeli wars there may be hope for you yet.

One might think the US and Ukraine are doing integrated planning or something. Now I wonder where the next UA operation is going to happen? My honest guess is the pull another one-two punch, starting in the east to pull the RA, and then hit Melitopol to cut that strategic bridge and render the RA split.

So this is interesting. Guess what is in 150km range of those towns on the Azov coast just south of Melitopol? It rhymes with “strategic bridge that once cut leaves troops in the Crimea hooped”.

Now we are getting somewhere.

Man and we take a lot of flak for "not understanding Europeans". So where do you think western will to continue to push money into this war will go if we all send in 2 Bdes and they are done in a single op? I mean it had better be the last one because the steady stream of burning/cannibalized/abandoned western equipment is going to do absolutely zero good things for sustaining support for this war in the west. It will be ammunition for the vocal minority that do not support this war at all, and moreover they all think it is unwinnable....heading into an election year. The second best option could end up being the worst one at that point as the other equipment the UA really needs might just well get thrown out with the bathwater. So someone had better be damned well convinced that those 2 Bdes on that "one op" are going to win this thing before we spend all the effort to build them. And here is another cynical spin just waiting to happen. The UA arguably has 4 strategic objectives right now: 1. Defeat the RA and set conditions for and end for however, wherever this thing ends, in Ukraine favour. 2. Get ready for the shenanigans that will likely follow post war as Russia, being the pissy bunch that they are, go back to subversive warfare or whatever. So lash up NS/ND. 3. Support political objectives of reconstruction and reinforcing relationships with the west. 4. Create and sustain a military that can provide effective deterrence and be ready for the next war. So here is the thing about #4 - I think it is brilliant to grab as much as they can while we still see them on the national news every morning. Westerners have a serious attention problem and we will forget about Ukraine about 15 mins after the ceasefire - that is for those who are actually paying attention in the first place. We will toss some loose change into boxes at Xmas time to "support Ukraine relief" but mostly we will get back to our lives, especially here about 9 time zones away. So frankly I think the Ukrainian CHOD making long asks - which is not disingenuous as all of this kit can and will be used in this war, because he is likely also hedging his bets that western support turns into a drip once the war is over. It might not, but no one can guarantee it. Smart, damn smart. But. Those that oppose this war over here, and either implicitly or explicitly support Russia are going to make as much hay out of any overreach - they already are. So this is not simply "lets all dump all the guns on Ukraine" because the pushback and blowback is not insignificant. At some point the mainstream are going to call BS, as we navigate a recession, if they get really turned off, Ukraine could be screwed when it comes time for reconstruction, so this is a more delicate operation than a lot of people think.

I posted a bit back yesterday. Do the rest right and sure we can turn Ukraine into a western tank boneyard. We have written pages on why there is a lot of risk with this idea - training and sustainment. This strategy of dumping "what we do not need" begs the question, "well what do we need?" I find the UAs push for these systems 1) a mystery, and 2) very political. I am not sure about the first one, the UA has about 1000 tanks and 3000 AFV according to graphics being thrown around. They definitely need support in sustaining that fleet, but I am still not seeing what a bunch of western hardware with potential severe support limitations is going to do exactly. As to the second, wont even touch it. Absolutely. Keeping them in a fight is much, much, harder. It will burn through ammo and spare parts in a month what the UK may have in stocks to support training and low intensity conflict for years. Having spent time in military procurement and operational support, if the UK was trending towards dumping these tanks then the ice cube has been shaved down a lot already - I know ours has. Once again, do not simply dump hardware on the UA, it will create a total mess. Create complete units and formations that can do the right job at the right time.

Ok, let's really get into this because I am seeing the fundamental flaw coming out of the "everything is just fine" camp. The argument, largely coming out of professional military armored circles or those who really love tanks, is pretty much the same. It posits that: - Both sides in Ukraine are "doing it wrong". - "Russia sux" - "If they all fought like we do, it would all be over by now." Meaning the conventional combined arms doctrine in context of some form of manoeuvre warfare and AirlLand battle. - "APS will save us!" Then, like here we get some cherry picked anecdotes and some really weird twisted logic to somehow defend heavy systems. They downplay the realities of risk and technological development in this war, which is part of an ongoing trend that had been unfolding for at least a decade. And never really address the fundamental shifts within the key components of ground warfare which have shifted, not in their communities favour. So lets unpack some pushback points head on: Sure for some systems - NLOS and stand-offs such as the Stugna P get around that, and I am pretty sure there will be heavy investment in these systems in the near future. Some shooters have to step out/up for a few seconds at range with the current systems. But we are talking about spotting and engaging a small team effectively in seconds at rages out to 2500m. It has never been and never will be easier to spot a single man with a man portable system at 2500 than that individual can spot a 60t vehicle. Shorter ranges are not that better either. Sure they have thermals, but those thermals have to pointed in the right spot and in seconds. And a dismounted man is nowhere near as hot as a 60t vehicle burning gas. And here is the thing...so freakin what? A team of ATGM gets knocked out, hurrah! Right up to the point that there are twenty more out there. At a min manoeuvre has slowed to a crawl. So that is a small recon team moving out for close recon in broad daylight with no ISR support as far as we can tell. Well first it is pretty anecdotal. We have seen dozens of videos of tank strikes by hidden teams, we have also seen infantry spotted and killed by artillery. There is a risk of being spotted, definitely. Modern recon have ground radars designed to detect motion, lot of EM flying everywhere. But in order to bypass the asymmetric disadvantage posed by these systems you have to observe and control every inch of an enormous area. Further, operational and strategic ISR can pick up vehicle formations from space - so those small teams can be prepositioned well ahead of an advance. So I have seen a lot of these videos as well - "look at how accurate these new systems are". "IF" you can spot the target at range is a huge "IF" The evidence from this war is showing that it is the small teams of infantry that are spotting first. And again the entire cost equation is totally upside down. A nation can replace light infantry at a much higher rate than it can replace tanks/AFVs - so even if you do use laser precision 90% of the time, that 10% is going to whittle an armored force to pieces over time. You still have not solved for the fundamentals of visibility and range. Your vehicle now has to scan an enormous arc to hopefully see a guy expose himself for a few seconds, and then you are dead if you are slower than he is. If NLOS are "easy to intercept" then why are UAS everywhere on the modern battlefield? They are not "easy" to intercept when used in large numbers. We are talking systems that are going to skim treelines and hills until they lock and hit. They will only need a shot/kill ratios of around 50% - at $210k a pop, to overwhelm the costs of the armored systems they are hitting. And there are rumours in this war of Javelin coming in at 80-90%...which is nuts. As to walking mines, the lack of imagination I find baffling. So if someone plants a set of UGV mines that can move and get under a tank to kill it from below. They can be hidden everywhere so until they move you likely will not detect them. Then they wait until the armour/AFVs are nice and close, and suddenly you have got explosive cockroaches all scuttling at you. We have no counter to that. This is like the Battle of Yonkers in WWZ, all those fancy guns that can shave a peach at 1500m are going to be useless. Now to the underlined part - how can I not know where you are? This is the biggest take away of this entire war. A modern armored Battlegroup is about 5-10kms long on the march, when one takes into account F/A1/A2 and B echelons. Given the ISR environment shaping up, I will know exactly where you are and very likely where you are going to be, because I can also see the terrain and shape the space. So 1 million dumb mines are a complete waste of resources when a few thousand can be prepositioned, re-position if they need to. Best case is you spot them before they swarm you, at which point your move is completely stalled until you can figure out a counter. So this was your response to "AFVs are vulnerable to artillery". Well I would point to the steady stream of evidence coming out of this war and the simple fact that artillery is doing 80-90% of the killing. Beyond that, this argument is symptomatic of what I have seen coming out of the "community", it basically buries the head in the sand. Just going to jump to the end here. So this is sticking to old metrics. Light infantry move faster operationally but lack punching power of heavy. Well guess what? They found their punching power. So out of all of that we have bad assumptions, underplaying risks and over-playing capability. This is pretty consistent with what has been coming out of the "heavy community" mainstream since last spring. So instead of having an actual analysis and assessment of where heavy is going, we are instead being told that this entire war is an anomaly. The UA, who have demonstrated an amazing ability to learn on this battlefield and in many way are ahead of any western doctrine are "doing it wrong." I propose that they are doing it exactly right for wherever warfare is heading and the fact that they are winning is clear evidence. The analysis you provide is directly in line with what mainstream assessments came up with at the beginning of this war. Based on the rules as we understood them, Russia should have won this war. It had massive advantages in mass. Oh that is right "they suck" and the UA just got lucky. Or, and everyone say it with me now, the fundamental components of warfare are shifting. And this is driving an evolution on how wars will be fought. Historically those that get with the program quickly have advantage for the next war. Or we can cling to "tradition" and get our asses handed to us.

So if I am reading this right, “Let’s make Ukraine a dumping ground for a bunch of equipment we do not want and can no longer support”? So how is Ukraine going to support them if the UK does not think they can?

Ok, well we have not addressed a lot so issues beyond throwing some old assumptions at them. Next gen ATGMs are all trending to fire and forget, they lock on and the infantrymen are pretty much out of the picture. They are also seeing ridiculous kill/hit ratios. Visibility. You can find mass infantry but finding small teams is still extremely challenging, and now they are all carrying those next gen ATGMs. Even with thermals, good luck finding two guys a couple kms out in a treeline. And frankly thermals are pretty easy to spoof. Range, your proposed solution does not solve for the ranges we are talking about. “They will be spotted and shot up?” At 2500ms? Even hitting where you think two guys in a treeline are at 1000m is damned hard. You are going to wind up pouring buckets of ammo into every treeline, further stressing logistics. Combined Arms cooperation. So you have to sweep out to 2500m in order to try and keep your armoured vehicles safe? Your opponent spotted them over the horizon through about a zillion ISR possibilities. So they knew you were coming potentially hours before you arrive. So you are telling me that infantry even with UAS of their own are going to sweep several million square meters and it will be business as usual? This does not even count the really long range NLOS stuff, or mines that can walk. AFVs are also big and hot, and die pretty well against those ATGM, and artillery systems. In fact we know the UA has been dismounting well before contact while the RA stays in vehicles and dies. I am half convinced the lack of infantry armoured coop has nothing to do with bad tactics at this point, it has to do with the fact that the tanks are back 10kms because they are dead any closer. I am not talking about dug in infantry positions, those are likely a bad idea. I am talking about do fast moving light infantry all armed with NLAWs and radios. Infantry is vulnerable…but there a lot more of them than we have tanks. You can do this in CMBS right now, and frankly based on this war that game needs an update. Take 10 fully loaded Javelin teams on a sparsely wooded map, a big one, the biggest you can make - not these 2x2s, go get the ones from CMCW. 4x5. Now have your opponent have free reign to place them and FOs where they like and give them all the UAS and some decent arty. Then do your combined arms thing and see where things go. You are going to have a lot of burning vehicles and dead troops and you might bag 20 enemy guys in the end. That is an equation no military can win. Oh and we have not even begun to discuss the vulnerable logistics system, which can and will be also hit at 2000ms and last I checked our tanks still need gas. There are no easy solutions. No “oh they suck, we will just do what we were doing but better.” Too many fundamentals have shifted - visibility, range/reach, lethality, autonomy/precision, and the death of surprise. And we are only debating armor and AFVs here within the current war. Ukraine is like the early days of aircraft when the pilots would shoot pistols at each other. What happens when NLAW 2 can hit like Spike? Or when UGVs hit the ground? No, I was willing to give the old system a chance but it has clearly failed both sides to an extent in this war (tanks used as indirect fire platforms). If anyone clings to the old way of doing business and planning to fight the last war they deserve what is coming to them.

Fair points but western Will is not infinite and the pipeline is limited. There will be nasty hard fights, but let’s remember that the UA is still pretty well armed in the tank/AFV department. My thinking is that so long as we prioritize: C4ISR - from space to UAS, to battlefield radars to whatever. Integrated and networked backed up by US/western architecture. And this stuff is not cheap by the way. Fires. Tubes, missiles, mortars and loitering munitions. As much as we can possibly put in their hands. Why? To do what needs to be done in corrosive warfare - accelerated precision attrition. If someone said we had $10M and the choice was a Leo 2 (with all the support) or 50 Spike NLOS, I would take the missiles at this point. Guns, so many guns and ammo, drowned them in ammo and as much PGM as we can come up. HIMARs double whatever they have. Infantry. Once again the dog faced human on the ground is a critical part of winning this war…that much has not changed. Anything and everything that can 1) make infantry better and 2) make more trained infantry. Once we got all that in the bag (and it is not there yet), then start sending the heavy stuff in complete unit packages. So don’t send 10 Challengers, send a combat team built around the Challenger. This includes logistics and engineering. No point in talking about “hard points” unless we are talking assault engineering - MCLCs, AEVs, armoured bridges and the flip side, mine warfare equipment to fix an opponent in place once isolated. You wanna win? Focus on finding, fixing and killing Russians right now, and then build in the later stuff for the finishing battles deliberately like professionals. If we can do both, great. But I suspect we will have to prioritize and phase in.

Well except for the fact that the war you describe has not actually happened in this conflict. We had a hybrid defensive screen that cut a massive heavy advantage to pieces in Phase I, we saw the RA try what you are describing in Phase II and fail, we then saw forms of corrosive warfare in Phase III where after a level of erosion the RA buckled or simply left. So gotta be honest not sure why everyone thinks this is a “break through the trenches problem”, at least not yet. Right now it is infiltrate, isolate and eliminate - rinse and repeat, while fending off the other guy. Any armoured build up and charges on either side are going to lack all elements of surprise, which is essential. Further the RA while definitely on the poopy end of this stick, still has a lot of anti-vehicle weapon systems and artillery that bites so premature assaults could very well end up in disaster. And then there is precision strike. Keep hitting the RA on critical nodes and connectors at ranges they cannot deal with until they cannot sustain themselves. Then try for the break out assault, if the enemy has not simply left by then. I suspect that we will finally see a more conventional warfare break through but it will be the result of, not the cause of, RA collapse.

That is really a good point. We just saw a video where digging in a static location = dead. As things progress is digging in an option or does one have to constantly be on the move? Of course moving heightens visibility. I think someone mentioned cloud-like warfare and I think that definitely is worth exploring. Offence and defence might not mean anything until one side breaks. I honestly do not know, we are off the map here. In these situations emergent behaviour with under Darwinian pressure tends to be how things evolve. The UA is trying a lot of stuff and clearly some of it is working. Now applying the right method to the right situation is going to be the really tricky part.

We have been caught here before. In fact it drove the operationalization of the tank itself. My guess is that UGVs may be the game changer, but I am still not sure in which direction.

Oh dear god we were so innocent back then. “Ukraine has staged hundreds of civilian strikes and thousands of deaths!” What is scary is that there are people still trying to peddle this. Seriously, a real war is a wake up call on all our BS, or at least it should be.

Matches a lot of what we have been seeing and reading about: This is part of the problem with Russian tactics. Tanks in groups are vulnerable, but as singles or duos with no direct support they are almost assuredly dead. The NLAW is crazy effective, light, easy to use, pretty cheap, and will kill most anything on the battlefield. We like them because we can launch them in trees without creating wood shrapnel from the back blast. With the NLAW, I can take a guy with no AT experience at all, and in less than an hour he will be deadly to vehicles, including main battle tanks. The counters are problematic - As this weapon type get smaller, lighter, less expensive and more wide-spread, even down to the small team level, this will pose a real problem for vehicles in contested areas. The counter to it I suppose is support, air, troops and drones, so you can push the weapons out of range. I am no grand strategist nor a a tactical wizard, but, based on what I am seeing, This is something that seems – like drones – game changing to some degree. Two major issues are 1) Range, and 2) Visibility Asymmetry. 1. NLAW is good out to 1000m. That is pretty far, but maybe doable to sweep out with UAVs etc. NLAW 2.0 or other systems can reach out to well past 3000m (some Spike systems can reach out 10s of kms). Once you extend to that range the amount of area in the threat circle around the tank get insanely high - 1000m = roughly 3.14 million sq meters to "sweep". 2500 m = 19.6 million sq ms. 10,000m = 314 million sq ms. UAS/UGV everywhere, multi-spectral automated systems. I am not sure how we are going to do it to be honest. 2. A large hot 60t peice of metal is orders of magnitude easier to find and fix, via many means, than two guys hiding in a ditch/bush/culvert. So in the competition to "see first, shoot first" the tank is at a serious disadvantage. In facr one can see the tank-system (i.e. logistics) from space, which is its own problem. APS makes the most sense but from what I have read ATGMs are way out in front. Spotting a smart-missile that is using passive targeting is incredibly hard. Spotting such a missile that is using a high parabola approach, to the point it is essentially a loitering munition. Stopping or spoofing that missile is next-level, and this is before sub-munitions and UGVs (e.g. walking minefields) make an appearance. It is going to be an interesting few years at least....maybe longer.