The_Capt

Cisza po polsku!! according to G-translate. Grumpy? I thought I was politely and gently steering the fella to a forum full of East Front lunatics who could help him out. Grump? Good lord these young fellas should have been here back in the Madmatt days. We are positively tender and loving by those standards.

Hey cool, I encourage and wish you best results on your learning journey. I would suggest that you may want to head over to the Red Thunder forum a lot of expertise on this topic over there. This thread is supposed to be about the current war in Ukraine - we do wander a bit - and I am not sure how your knowledge quest links back to it? Unless there is an underlying hypothesis we are missing?

Right. So a innocent random post-1944 "Red Army" FYI? The whole "into meat grinder" remark and the heavy implication that "Russians sucked 1941-1942 but had it coming because...Russians" and "all victories after 1944 were not-Russians" were simply colour commentary? I think we are all pretty clear on the point being made, it was not subtle...never is. My point is that diminishing and sullying the sacrifices a nation made over 70 years ago in an existential war on their own soil because of this war is not cool. The two events and strategic contexts are completely different unless one subscribes to the "every Russian man, woman and child is evil, everywhere and forever", which the narrative appears to suggest. Russian leadership is definitely evil and needs to be removed - those responsible held to account. Russian military has lost its footing on the slippery slope of war and it is a stain they should wear from here on out - again those accountable held responsible. The Russian people who openly supported this war are wrong or misled, and they will need to come to terms with that...much in the same way the US had to come to terms with Vietnam, Indigenous genocide or slavery, or the UK in India, South Africa etc, or French in...well pick a spot in Africa. The Russian people who have died resisting, or have fled their nation, or continue to resist as best they can should be supported in hopes the seeds of a better Russia lay within their hands. And at some point in the future the Russian children who pick up this mess that they had nothing to do with will need to try to make their country functional again and hopefully ensure this sort of war does not happen again. Of course if this was just an innocent "FYI" from the OP, then we are all golden. To that I would only humbly suggest that his comments - pretty much from day one of this thing - may be easily misconstrued.

It appears as this is a pretty contentious issue (not surprising). Estimates are pretty difficult given the really big numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union I would use this as a start point and not definitive. Everyone seems to agree on about 27 million across the board. Distribution is the politicized part. These figures above get used a lot (http://www.aalep.eu/deaths-soviet-republic-world-war-ii)& (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country). According to this site Belarus actually took the highest hit per capita loss: https://www.businessinsider.com/percentage-of-countries-who-died-during-wwii-2014-5?r=US&IR=T Regardless, the idea that Russians (who either "are" or "are not" a real thing depending on the day, apparently) sat back fat, dumb, and happy while their colonials did all the dying in ww2 does not really measure up anymore than the same line fits the British or French Empires. A whole lot of Russian people died in that war in order to defend their nation, diminishing that in this one to somehow make Russia "more bad" really is beneath the normal acceptable standards of this forum.

Ok, c’mon let’s be consistent in our analysis. Back in the early days of this war it was all about how the Russians were firing very expensive weapons to try and hit cheap UA drones = “Yay”, Perun even did a video on this. Now that it is Russian cheap drones and expensive UA counters it is all “Well one has to consider PRICIE/DOTMLPF”?! Look the reality is that cheap unmanned systems are flipping the cost equations of waging war everywhere. We have been here before when it was costing us millions to kill two guys in a pickup. Unmanned systems are a cost disruptor no matter what side we are talking about. We will be spending years figuring that one out. For now it is the depth of pocket that is far more determinative. Russian strategic depth is shrinking, likely why they have switched to low cost systems…[that is learning btw which is also not a positive signal. Of course the fact the Russians are still hitting civilian terror targets shows they are not learning that quickly]. The UA still has the deep pockets of the West, so firing off expensive missiles is an affordable counter. That, and the psychological and information payoff is also not small. In the end Russia may have long range loitering munitions but they clearly do not have the competitive C4ISR architecture to plug them into. It has driven the cost of this war up for Ukraine and the west…ok, let’s live with that and move on.

Sure but for every Stalingrad there is a Bulge where holding defensive objectives actually worked…hindsight and all. In my line of work there is a saying “time equals options” and it cuts both ways. I am not saying the Russians have picked the right objectives or has been particularly successful in stringing them together into something that looks like a campaign. I am saying that allowing Russians time and space at Kherson over the winter is likely not a good thing. Now if the UA can link this to more attrition - and remember the lines on a map only tell part of the story - then perhaps this will work out fine. Of course it is a matter of time for the RA, they can only sustain this level of attrition for so long, Kharkiv demonstrated that very well. But affording them any breathing room on a key front is not a “win”.

Potato…Asparagus. No real disagreement but if the RA still holds Kherson by winter then they will have actually accomplished a likely operational (and strategic for that matter) objective. Doesn’t signal the end of days, but could signal that the RA has more left in the tank than assumed. The RA achieving a defensive objective - hold Kherson - equals strategic and political options, or at least sustaining the few they had left. And that is not a good thing by any metric. If we want to crawl out of an echo chamber we must note Russian successes. We did so on the few acres back at Severodonetsk, as costly as they were. We will have to note that they made it to their likely defensive objectives if they still hold the northern bank of the Dnipro when the snow flies. This will likely achieve the predicted aim of Putin to drag out the war past the US Congressional elections and shoot for that small ray of sunlight a shift in US politics and a deepening recession may provide for him. Putin and Russia will have more options as of January if they can do that as opposed to them being at the Crimean border or cut in half at Melitopol. Now also keep in mind that the tipping point may be only a few days away and we will see the operational collapse we have been looking for well before then…here is hoping.

Well the issue is that this war is definitely of the old way, slow and grinding with sharp pulses. Analysis needs phenomena to unpack and evaluate. From that one can test assumptions and theories, or synthesize new ones. We only see a limited amount of actual new phenomena. We see lots of tweets of tanks getting blown up, or arty or aircraft or infantry but these are all tactical vignettes. Sometimes these vignettes yield an insight but often they are just snapshots. Russian bashing makes people feel better in a pretty uncertain time, so it is bound to happen. In a bizarro world in Russia there probably is a small wargame company forum filled with people Ukraine/West bashing. One thing that is becoming troubling is the lack of movement at Kherson. UA is still projecting corrosive warfare on the Russian operational system but that system, though falling back, is still holding. The theory was that fog-eating-snow would erode the RA forces on the wrong side of the river until they collapsed, much as they had done elsewhere, but that still has not fully developed. I think we said that end-Oct the weather turns against the attacker, maybe early Nov. So the UA might have 2-3 weeks to make gains, or at least gains that do not cost too much? Not sure what is happening but it is possible that ISR and precision are not enough, or maybe they need more precision mass. Possibly not enough heavy mass, although we have seen little of that utility outside of Kharkiv. Or maybe these things just take more time and the RA will fully collapse next week. Either way if the RA can hold then we likely have to revisit the underlying theories and assumptions. All of this will take more solid data, and until we have that…well not much to do but wait.

Cognitive superiority.

This is really good. I would add Scalability, you can have the other three but if the weapon you are using is not scalable to the effect you want on the target you get over or under kill. Taking this above the tactical one needs the ability to Communicate effectively in order to hand off Knowledge to other systems for better prosecution. Finally you need unified and timely informed Authority or Command to ensure that prosecution meets the Time requirement and you are synchronized laterally towards a common objective. And now that we are on it, the Russians do not have advantage in any of these areas either. So vertical integration of Knowledge, Time and Control (maybe Scalability is part of this) and horizontal integration of Communication and Command are all lagging in the Russian system. So what? They are relying on mass which has a much lower vertical and horizontal integration requirement when compared to precision. However mass runs into a final component Capacity. One needs it at the back end for either precision or mass, but mass is far more vulnerable.

I am not an expert on US politics but we do spend a lot of time worrying about up here. My bet is that this will not be a complete turning off of the tap, not even the most ardent pro-Russian Republicans can justify that to their own voters at this point. What it may mean is a lot more pressure to “tie this thing off” sooner than later, or make it a European problem. Further it could mean bumps for follow on reconstruction support coming out of the US but as I understand it that is a lot more complicated than which party has the gavel as US companies could gain a lot from a massive reconstruction effort. Bottom line is that there could be some tough decisions ahead and some less than optimal outcomes on the table at least as far as US support is concerned. If Putin was smart he would shift the narrative with the US audience in mind, sow some seeds of doubt as to what this is all about. Of course the continuous stream of warcrimes is not helping. Further the Russians appear so wound up right now in some circles that any concessions or shift, it might blow up in his face. We are coming to a particularly tricky phase of this thing from a political perspective unless something dramatic happens on the ground.

It is interesting to see that the Russia thinking seems to be that mass still matters. This is not the first time we have seen Russia tout mass as a key metric of the situation from the very beginning. Yet repeatedly we have seen the UA with less mass achieve the greater result. I think it is a fundamental flaw in the Russian theory of war and has driven so much of their thinking - “if only we could get more X, we could then win”. This echoes WW1 thinking which took years and millions of lives to shift. We shifted from mass to mobile mass to synchronized mobile mass, and now face smart synchronize dispersed mass. This is a trend that an extra 300k troops will not solve.

Hey so long as it is an observation I think we are fine. Once it becomes a planning assumption things get potentially more risky. Mistranslating everything the Russians are doing to fit a “they suck” assumption is much worse. One should not oversubscribe an enemy anymore than undersubscribe until one is totally sure. I personally think that the RA is pretty much shattered and is on a downward one-way slope. I do not think Wagner mercs or any other rabbit in the hat is going to save them. But those pictures are of a professional old-school obstacle belt in the making. This is a bit concerning as the RA has enough gas in the tank to try these works but they are going to need a lot more, and even then I am not sure they will work as intended. I am less in the “Russians suck camp” and more in the “they came dressed for the wrong war and now are pretty much broken” camp. I am far more interested in what war this is actually happening right now because it will directly influence the next one.

Logistically a massive effort. It has been awhile and my old tables are in boxes but SWAG is for 1000m of a single line of what they are doing in that picture, and they need to do 3-5 of these in depth to really make anything close to a Maginot/Siegfried line: - roughly 2000 dragons teeth, likely coming in at a ton apiece. - somewhere between 1500-3000 AT mines depending on density. At the high end that is about 27000 kgs or 13 tons. - at least a line or two of AP mines. - barbwire and defensive stores - a lot. - gas and supplies for engineers doing all the digging That is for a single km and a single belt. Multiply times 3 at least per km to make a full belt. They are doing 10kms according to the tweet, and they will need to do 100s of kms. So for example to do 100km of full belt = roughly 1.5 million AT mines, which is about 13,500 tons of munitions in mines alone. And we have not factored in concrete emplacements, bunkers or anything really elaborate.

Yes, the “Russians suck” bandwagon has become about as much groupthink as “The Russians are giants” narratives were at the beginning of this thing. The Russians are in bad shape and are experiencing multiple systemic failures at just about every level of warfare; however, that obstacle belt looks professionally sighted and constructed for purpose to me. Now wether it will be part of a much larger effective defensive, is another question. I would highlight, again, the Russians are fighting by the same playbook we use. The UA is playing by a new set of rules they have had to evolve to by necessity. A real risk of “Russians suck” is the implied “Ya but in a real war we would do the same but correctly, because we do not suck”. This is pretty much the exact same narratives coming out of European militaries before the First World War.

I am not sure it will work either. These defences are designed to stop a lot of armor and IFVs, we had fields of them pre-planned in Germany. Problem is we have not really seen massed armor employed in this war, except maybe at Kharkiv but in narrow circumstances. The UA appears to be pushing out with light infantry/SOF, finding. Fixing with ISR (UAS very widely employed), and then finish with precision artillery, rinse and repeat. If the RA tries to use armor, maul with smart-long range ATGMs and hammer logistics in depth. Large complex obstacles will do much less against that. Dismounted Infantry are like sandflies, they get into everything and drive you nuts. They will make small breaches in defensive belts and crawl between hard points. This was quaint in the past as these raids could only do so much damage but now when they are linked to PGM, armed with UAS and carrying ATGMs that can fire and forget kill a vehicle at 3 kms with 90% accuracy, suddenly they go from nuisance to manoeuvre.

Well the standard practice is to do a passage of lines and pull back over the obstacle in good order. My bet is the RA will hold forward while thinning out, leaving fodder to die up front. You can drop scat mines by a lot of indirect fire systems, UA could try to plug safe lanes but the RA would be in prepared positions behind them. You would bag some but it is not going to solve the problem of the complex obstacles.

So whoever put the labels on is a little off. What they label as “First Trench” is an AT ditch, they even have left the berm up. The “Second Line” is the fighting position. It is a textbook complex obstacle, assuming mines all along those dragons teeth and ditch. That monster, when sighted and covered would make for an entire breaching op to assault. Of course one needs more than 10km of it on this terrain, unless there is a swamp somewhere to tie it into. What is interesting is that the UA did not appear to go this way on the defence. Likely because they did not have the resources, however, they were still able to stop the RA advances cold. Another oddity in this war.

In this war 10km is a bit close for a major obstacle belt project like this. You build stuff like this at least an operational bound to the rear, so 20-30kms out of indirect fire range…well before HIMARs and the like.

So obstacles such as these are force multipliers, much like artillery. The idea being that you can hold broader frontages with fewer forces because the cost of obstacle breaching is so much higher for the attacker force-wise. Theoretically, all the Russians really need is sufficient artillery and ISR with fewer troops on the ground, spaced in hard points with AT and radios. Even lower quality troops would do along defensive belts like this. Problem for RA is twofold- first as I outlined earlier is whether or not UA will play by the old rules - which I doubt, they have not so far. Second is the frontages they are covering, even with these belts is truly immense. Even with the Kharkiv contraction it still looks like 400km along the L-D-Z line, which is still near Western Front levels. Even with the best obstacle belts in the world, assuming the UA allows the RA the months to build them, that is going to require a lot of artillery and manpower - one has to have the initial troops to multiply. And the ISR architecture to cover all that in near real time. Lastly there is the logistical problem. That is literally millions of mines weighing thousands of tons to make those belts work and the UA keep hitting ammo dumps in depth and the trucks that move them. Russian game appears to be driving up cost of retaking ground in hopes to deter UA, might work but the RA would need months and a lot of resources to pull it off. I doubt the UA will give them that time. Of course obstacle belts are also very good at canalizations of enemy forces…so if we are still talking tac nukes it could be a set up for that but only if the UA is dumb enough to mass in a convenient KZ. My guess is that the UA might not even need to assault these lines, they will just continue to deep strike logistical lines until the RA folds inward and then walk over them. It is clear that the Russians are playing by the old playbook, same one we would use. The UA is writing a new one. How those rulesets play out in this particular collision is still somewhat up in the air.

Sorry for delay, I am in the middle of the North Atlantic right now. Those were not fighting trenches, they were anti-veh/armour complex obstacles. That one ditch by the rail head is actually quite brilliant as mineploughs will be stopped by the rail, and anything cresting the rail rise has to deal with an AT ditch very exposed. It may even cause a serious problem with explosive breaching. In fact almost all of that video was major AT obstacles being built. An AT minefield around those ditches is going to be about 400m deep and can be kms long, covered by observation (UAS no doubt) and fires. To traditional mech warfare these are pure poison and an enemy with time, space and resources to build them is not good news. First I have seen of this in war, or at least to this extent. Question will be whether or not they actually work as well as intended. If the UA is going with light infantry-UAS-arty as the primary offensive mechanism then these types of obstacles will not do as good a job - the Russians are clearly building defensive belts for how they (and we) fight, not necessarily how the UA have been. Infiltration, isolation and precision hammering may be able to get through these much faster and cheaper; however, we simply do not know that for sure. If the UA tries a traditional heavy assault on these, it is going to get costly very fast - and we are back to the liabilities of heavy in this war. Even the weak RA ISR will spot a complex breaching op from, well back, and massed artillery on the choke points of the breach are very bad news (as the RA has already learned). My sense is that dismounted infantry infiltration of those obstacles along with precision fires will be needed first - along with a pretty good idea of RA weak points - to create a bridgehead of some sort. Along with deep precision strikes to interdict any counter moves force because this will be a slower process. And then try for the mech break in, with another light force for the break out, much as they did back at Kharkiv. The central question will be time. Can the UA use this distributed method faster than the RA can respond? If yes, attrition to maneuver still holds. If not, we could be looking at Defensive primacy at least in this area, unless the UA can find a gap or work around.

Bullsh#t. Military doctrine and NATO Stanags both treat them differently - there are two completely different recording documents and procedures. The CCW at Geneva, the actual international law, treats them differently - different legal restrictions. And the use of non-explosive boobytraps, which pre-dates written history is well outside the convention. Just because the treaty writers made sweeping definitions resting on sand and weasel words does not clarify anything. The Geneva convention is very clear on the term boobytrap vs land mine. You may have overlooked it on the ICRC webpage: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=C247A97A7ABA5900C12563FB00611D94 It also has a definition for “other devices”which encompass IEDs. The treaty itself is the legally binding document. A committee meeting opinion, or legal opinion by the Red Cross legal are just those, opinions…good for them. The treaty itself has holes one could drive a truck through, but people wanted to feel good and keep trying to make it more than it is. I have heard more nonsense attributed to the Ottawa Treaty than I can recall, largely by enthusiastic amateurs. Some actually believe it is a warcrime to employ AP mines (it isn’t). The treaty itself was conducted outside of the CCW, largely by political operators (and it shows). It is not airtight, binding or clear. In the end it is left up to a state to determine what a “munition” is or is not, which is key to defining “mine”, which is central to the definition of “land mine”. People can spin it however they want but I have to ask why did not the Ottawa Treaty define them beyond “well we all know what they mean”? Even when they used the CCW definition for “mine” verbatim. Answer: because they could only sell the largely symbolic treaty they had.

C’mon, you are cherry picking here. This is a follow-on committee meeting for clarification, not an amendment to the treaty itself. Specifically it was addressing Articles 5 & 7 (clearing mined areas and transparency, which are linked to funding). It specifically states “ Hence, States Parties affected by the latter type of anti-personnel mines must address them as part of their overall implementation challenge under the Convention including, in the fulfilment of Article 5 and Article 7 (transparency measures) commitments.“ Addressing as part of “implementation challenge” carries no weight as how a nation addresses is them up to them. Within the treaty itself, not a committee meeting translation, the term “munition” is undefined, which is code for “states go define it for yourself”. States so not rely on the Ottawa Treaty to do it for them. There is precedent for this within Civil Aviation already: “Article 35 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation states: “(a) No Munitions of War or implements of war may be carried in or above the territory of a State in aircraft engaged in international navigation, except by permission of such State. Each State shall determine by regulations what constitutes Munitions of War or implements of war for the purposes of this Article, giving due consideration, for the purposes of uniformity, to such recommendations as the International Civil Aviation Organization may from time to time make” https://tc.canada.ca/en/aviation/reference-centre/advisory-circulars/advisory-circular-ac-no-600-009 So you want to tell me that anyone is going to make a fuss if Ukrainian resistance is employing IEDs near Melitopol right now? All Ukraine need to do is adopt their own definition of “munition” - the US one looks pretty decent, and they have an easy out. Finally, the entire treaty leaves enforcement up to signatory states themselves in Article 9. Ukraine could impose a 5$ fine for violations within its borders right now and be well within the thing. The treaty clearly puts the impetus on the signatory states and has no real teeth beyond peer pressure. Ukrainian law is what matters here and I am pretty sure considering they are being invaded by someone waving tac nukes around that their law is pretty forgiving right now.

“Such term does not include the following: (i) Wholly inert items. (ii) Improvised explosive devices.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=10-USC-359415543-428117826&term_occur=5&term_src= So you have an broad treaty interpretation legal blog site making an argument to try and roll them into the definition. They are taking the broadest definition of munition, which Cornell law (of all places) does not agree with and many nations within the treaty will likely play with when under the same position as Ukraine. By the definition you have cited those Molotovs fall under the definition. Go check dictionaries and you get mostly “military weapons and supplies”, so by that I could rig up an IED with all civilian components and am outside the treaty. And the there is the nasty non-explosive boobytraps etc. Look the Ottawa Treaty was great, got a lot of traction back in the 90s and did move the needle on state manufactured AP land mines, trying to extend that into broader definitions goes no where fast. Any nation in Ukraines position could easily walk around the edges and no one is going to call them on it. Hell Ukraine could pull out of the treaty and I doubt it would even cause too much of a stir so long as they stay in line with the Geneva conventions - but why take the risk? AP mines would not yield the battlefield effects they needed on the defence given the massive frontages, so why even risk it for something that might, at best, be a nuisance to the Russians?

Ok, let’s play semantics then. The treaty says: “Mine means munition designed to be placed under, on or near the ground or other surface area and to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person or vehicle” http://www.icbl.org/media/604037/treatyenglish.pdf IEDs are allowed because they fall outside the definition of “munition” then so are boobytraps. A boobytrap is essentially an improvised explosive or non-explosive device, which has Geneva convention regulations but does not fall under the Ottawa treaty. Further, non-explosive booby traps are also outside the scope of the treaty. Now each nation is free to interpret these finer points as they wish. However, I am pretty sure a good public affairs spin could get the UA off the hook if they employed boobytraps or IEDs in defence of their nation. Now if they employ a few million AP land mines… Finally what is actually a matter of international law: https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?chapter=26&clang=_en&mtdsg_no=XXVI-2-b&src=TREATY