The_Capt

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.

Surprising given the levels of mis/dis information some of these guys were pushing. I would have figured Russian-central would just let them keep rolling, just another example of Russia burning every good idea. I am pretty sure we are well past "good and instructive conversations" once the metal started flying. As you note, they are now "the enemy". Probably a little while before we can re-engage in useful dialogue.

When you play the Soviet campaign, the Bradleys show up and will try to kill you couple times.

"Won the war"? Russia has singlehandedly: - Destroyed its ground forces and likely mauled its air and naval forces, if simply through funding attrition. Its credibility as a modern military power is in tatters. - Destroyed its international credibility and driven it towards economic isolation - Driven Sweden, Finland, and very likely Ukraine itself into the arms of NATO - Unified Europe and the Western world (and man, that was a tall order) - Energized western military funding for at least a decade - Will likely wind up a very vulnerable partner with whoever will do business with them in the future. I am sure I am missing a few, everyone feel free to jump in.

Aw I kinda miss the pro-Russian crowd @dbsapp where are you?! They all bolted pretty damn quick after 24 Feb as their entire Russian narratives fell apart. It would be interesting to hear their twisted view of things, but that would just descend into nonsense pretty quick. Of course some of them could be pushing sunflowers by now for all we know.

Could be, lot of spinning going on. But if you look at the after shots only a few smoking craters, looks a lot like Excalibur rounds to me.

That has to be PGM. Precision beats mass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order Pretty much the intent but one cannot help becoming cynical. I am sure plenty of scholars have tried to wrestle with it and I am pretty sure no one entirely agrees. And then there is the economic twists and turns falling out of Breton Woods and creating multi-lateral financial institutions, which I am one expert on but have read enough to see how we gamed the system: So you can see that in about 1950, after WW2 we kinda got well, fast. The whole world got well in fact but the West well out of proportion of the rest of the world. Plenty of analysis and competing narratives on why this happened but simply put I am pretty sure we rigged the game in our favour after the war while the Soviet Union did its own thing., which did not turn out well. Regardless oh where one lands this entire thing constitutes “the Deal” and as long as everyone plays by the rules (multilateralism, humanism - to a point, democracy-to a point, and free trade- to a point, we will all get along fine. Everyone will continue to get well but of course some will be weller than others. Problem is there are those down the list of the pecking order who are calling BS and want a new deal…and then all the fuss starts. However, within policy shops and the halls of power this term gets thrown around a lot. For example “rules based international order” is mentioned about a dozen times in the latest US National Security Strategy https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf I think what they really mean is “the order in which we get to write the rules” but you are not going to see that written down anywhere. Regardless whatever it is, it keeps us on top and we like being on top so we are likely going to have to defend the thing and renegotiate from a position of strength in the event certain nations decide to buck…like we are with Russia right now.

“It is our world, you just live in it.” The term being thrown around is “Western Rules Based International Order”. Pragmatically we need to simply call this what it is because China is clearly working on an Eastern Rules Based International Order. So while we debate the term they just keep doing it. The reality is we built the system that survived the Cold War and now need to defend it again.

So this is one of the central problems with "send them all the tanks!" We are not even sure tanks will work, while creating extra burden on the UAs sustainment systems. Everyone goes back to "tanks have been dead before etc", but this is the first real peer-to-peer war with 21st century weapons and ISR. We have read a raft of reports that send some really weird signals on the tank, and by extension heavy mass. This is the problem. A cheap man-portable fire-and-forget ATGM system, some of them with obscene ranges. To the point that the RUSI report, one of the few actual comprehensive professional reports done on this war, has noted that UA tanks are currently majority employed in an "indirect fire" capacity at ranges of 10kms. When last we thought about Soviet vs Western equipment an ATGM that could reach out to 3000m had vulnerabilities - missile was large and slow, straight line and had to be visually and actively guided onto the target by a human. The weapon systems were larger, much less portable. Modern systems have improved enormously while the defensive feature of the tank is still armor. In fact we never really tested modern tanks to the actual environment of the Cold War, so we have a lot of theories but little evidence. The answer is "well sweep the enemy infantry with our own infantry". Well when that ATGM has ranges in kms, that is a lot of ground to sweep before one can secure the area for tanks. I am sure tanks still have a role on the battlefield, but it is likely far more niche (e.g. breakout battles as opposed too break in) and definitely more supporting. At least until someone can figure out a counter. I am sure we will send the UA tanks, but for anyone expecting a quick victory I would just be cautious. Also you can expect a lot of pictures of burning western equipment coming out of the Russia info sphere to demonstrate how Russia is fighting and winning against NATO. The only good news is that Russia has a lot of older ATGM systems so we have that on our side, and the Chinese don't seem interested in selling them this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HJ-12.

Looks like the warcrimes myths are alive and well: https://legal.un.org/icc/statute/iccq&a.htm “Consistent with international human rights standards, the International Criminal Court has no competence to impose a death penalty. The Court can impose lengthy terms of imprisonment of up to 30 years or life when so justified by the gravity of the case. The Court may, in addition, order a fine, forfeiture of proceeds, property or assets derived from the committed crime.” That is the ICC. If we are talking about Russian prosecution, well I am not sure he would ever make it to trial. Likely “our heroic leader died suddenly of natural causes”, type of thing. Too many with vested interests in not seeing Putin on the stand and taking all the blame. And yes, we all remember Saddam, different country and very different circumstances.

Halliburtooooon! And money shall be their god, all else will fall to shade. You are correct on scale but these guys can build cities if you have enough money.

I doubt that volunteer contractors getting paid 4 figures a month are going to be what breaks the political calculus. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if there were not intelligence contractors in country already. Moving to logistic support is not a giant leap. In fact the if Ukraine is paying, the US government cannot stop western contractors from taking the jobs regardless. Hell we couldn’t keep westerners from joining and fighting with ISIS.

Now that is interesting. Not sure how accurate but the long range artillery (which should include the HIMARs, as they are not being employed for dumb volley area denial fires), ratio is telling. Also everything Russia has significant superiority in does not seem to matter….why? is a really big question that needs to be answered.

Then you will need techs forward to do the switch calibrate the equipment, gun plumbing stuff. These are MRTs now that need to be equipped and specialized in that sort of work. Could train crews to do it but remember we have cut down crew training to essentials. The skills to do “whole tank” do not disappear, they can be distributed or centralized but not removed. In order for the tank to stay forward you need to bring the skills to it. And we are back to a heavier logistics bill or contractors in-country.

The damned talkies ruined everything!

For what are essentially paid western mercenaries? I seriously doubt it. No more than we have seen political backlash for westerners killed in combat from the international legions. We learned in Iraq that contractors on the battlefield are pretty much spinning the wheel and taking chances. A maint depot get hit and kills a dozen contractors is less a political issue and and more of an economic one.

I think may work for helicopters but the problem with a minimalist approach to amour logistical support stretching back to Poland is that you are going to need 2-3 times the number of tanks to keep what you want in the field. A tank with a relatively minor issue, say in the FCS, will need to be pulled all the way back to Poland - and out of battle. While a more forward logistics support concept sees the tech go to the tank and simply switch out the parts. In western nations this is up to entire power packs, the aim is to keep the tank forward near battle for as long as possible. This will mean if you want 100 tanks in battle, you can count on 2/3rds either on their way back or forward for maintenance and repairs. And then add logistical vulnerability of having a LOC extending well over 1000kms. This will mean rail/heavy haul unless you want to burn out your tanks driving them. I gotta be honest, I am not sure why Russia can have contractors doing assaults, while the west is shy about having them run maint depots back a dozen kms.

For most people not in the business the time, cost and effort on training is a bit of a mystery. It would be a bald face lie to say that military training is the high point of human efficiency; however, the reality is that it always takes longer than you think. Further, training is directly linked to quality of output. If you want cannon fodder, well sure you can train them up in a few days. If you want decent troops with a better chance to stay alive well denying that chance to an opponent, well no free lunch. And then there is supporting systems. So I had a very interesting offline side conversation with a German tanker and the German system is setup to minimize training time compared to the Canadian one. They can do in weeks what it takes us months to do. Why? Well it is not because Germans are better or that they are taking risks, it has to do with the logistics systems supporting that tank. In Germany tank crews do not do a lot of what we would consider first line repairs and maintenance. They have built a plug and play logistical system designed to simply pull out a piece of the tank and rotate in a new one. This means that all that crew training we do to fix/maintain a tank in situ is not required for the German Army because their logistical system is taking the load off. And then there is collective training. A lot of what we have been talking about is individual training, which is frankly the easy part. Getting a bunch of primates to fight as an organization takes a lot of effort and again it is linked to supporting systems. If we give the UA a platform that is capable of new methods of info sharing, communication and targeting, it is going to take time for the UA to incorporate that into how a unit fights. Otherwise, like the Apaches, you are going to see Challengers (or freakin Leo 2s) fought like T-72s, which defeats the entire point as any competitive advantage will quickly fly out the window and then all the Macgregors of the world can point out why it was a huge waste of money to send them in the first place. These are not magical chariots, these are complex weapon systems that need to be integrated into an extant system and then change that system without totally disrupting it. Some stuff, the stuff we should be prioritizing, are low cost, high impact. They can be incorporated quickly to effect without too much disruption to the rest of the UA system. ”But, but, the Pz2000s!” Well yes, I would like an assessment of how those and the 777s actually performed and how bad of shape the fleet is in right now. A lot of mud has been thrown at “delicate western systems” from guns to rifles, but these are not peacetime weapons, all of them saw about 20 years of warfare somewhere in the world. In Kandahar those M777s were firing every day for months/years. Now the warfare in Ukraine has been far more intense, however, how much damage to those western systems has been user error because we pressed them into service so quickly? The absolute gold are the systems that the UA already had, or nearly automated western systems that come in compete packages (ATGMs, AD and HIMARs). And even those are likely going to show training issues when we fully unpack them, for example there was a video early on in the war of a guy using a Javelin at about 800 meters on a truck. Well trucks need to die, and maybe that was all they had but a Javelin is designed to kill a tank at 2.5 kms, and there were few of them. I personally would let the truck go, or find a better way to kill it…like a machine gun. I just keep coming back to the point that CM is the last 60 minutes of effort that takes years to build, and this war is not a series of CM battles.

Ok now this could be a game changer, if confirmed. We have yet to see tac aviation make an impact on the battlefield, in fact many think it might be dead. But the Apache should come with Hellfires which can hit out past 10km, link that into the existing UA ISR advantages and this thing could become a night terror for the RA. No idea how long to train up people on these things but the fleet will likely be small.

That is exactly the kind of thing the intel guys focus on. We know the start state of this outfit (or at least as best we can - they would look for corroboration) and then track it over time.

What surprised me was the “Coy commanders with line units”, we have had a lot of reports of officers basically missing from the tactical equation in the RA. Now this is a mobilized unit, not one actually in combat yet, so stuff like leadership and logistics could shift dramatically. When I first misread (Syrian desert body armor was an obvious give away: The_Capt was chagrined at his error as a result) is as the UA my initial reaction to the training was “damn I thought they were doing better then that”.