The_Capt

Walks like a high altitude/high trajectory mach 2+ duck, and blows the hell out of an airfield like a high altitude/high trajectory duck....

Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan would likely disagree, but I am not sure if an IED constitutes "sabotage", sure felt like it at times. If this was a SOF job, it was black bag. Not DA, zero evidence of that, and too loud to cover up. Small team that has likely been living in Crimea for some time, so now you need a cover. Have to feed them detailed ISR and targeting data, securely, unless of course they are already working at the airfield. Then get them the stuff for the job, or they have to source it locally - and quietly. They have to get access into the airfield and the secure areas (which based on photos were maybe not that secure); again, local workers, or if you have done your job very well Russian military. They then need to know what and where to hit in detail with what they have, small explosives on a pile of Russian air ordinance is not simple a "slap and go" job. Place to stuff, get out and remote detonate...then extraction of some sort because Russian security is going to lose its mind. There are variations here but essential elements are basically the same. Tricky, lotta points of failure on that, and a long time to set up. But if you did, first question the Russians are asking themselves: "where else do they have teams ready to do the same thing?"....and hilarity will ensue.

So I totally get the impulse to unpack this attack, especially from a forum of - let's just say - "detail orientated" wargamers. Kudos to those that continue to Zapruder this thing, and I am sure in time the details of how the UA pulled this off will come out (my bet is missile strike, but I would not rule out one helluva SOF black bag job - could be both in reality; complex attack). But for all the lurkers out there I would recommend we all keep an eye on the follow-on impacts of this strike on a strategic and political level. We bounced around this a few pages back but here are some thoughts: - All war is communication and that is a complex concept of 'the message', 'the means to send the message', and 'the method of transmission'. Every piece of those components in themselves create information that is interpreted in multiple dimensions. For example Ukraine said things thru this attack that create certainty and uncertainty - in case the second one is the most powerful: Ukraine stated, with certainty, that they can hit a high value target with extreme precision at 225km (at least) behind Russian lines. I say 'extreme precision' because it appears they did more damage with the secondaries than the initial strikes, and that takes a very high level of precision in time and space. This was not lobbing a missile at a target, they hit exactly where they needed to in order to create a very high profile "boom". That is communicating 'capability' that I am pretty sure the Russians were sure they understood, right up until yesterday afternoon - based on the scrambling narratives in the Russian info sphere. Ukraine has clearly communicated intent. If they wanted to hurt Russian airpower, they would have cratered the runway and then FASCAM'd the thing...but this was not about airpower. They were signaling that they are coming for Crimea, and the Russians were not safe...anywhere. This will likely create a lot of uncertainty in Russian thinking, as the pretty much figured they had Ukraine pinned down in the Donbas in a grinding war. We talked about it before but this is strategic manoeuvre thru strike. The kind of thing the US does by hitting Afghanistan from the other side of the world back on 2001 (https://www.airforcemag.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2016/December 2016/1216hours.pdf). This was a high profile attack that both demonstrated and signaled intent and resolve in a very visible manner - that is certainty creating uncertainty in their enemy. I don't care how constipated the Russian political machine is, and it is already trying to spin this in crazy directions to blunt the message - they get that much. No way to dodge it, this is very bad news for the Russians. They have been relying on the narrative of "hopeless cause": Russian has 'escalation dominance', it can create a never-ending 'stalemate', it can and will fight forever...there is no way Ukraine can win: so stop spending your money in a pre-recession...look we even have Steven Segal! This is clearly playing on the western psyche and our recent scars from places like Afghanistan. Ukraine just demonstrated that they can still hit a strategic target, with breathtaking precision, at the time and place of their choosing. That directly attacks the Russian narrative. Militarily, this type of attack creates enormous uncertainty. The fact we have people on vacation on a beach watching this happen, and then blow it up all over social media, is a clear indication that Russia considered this area outside the warzone. You can ignore or sidestep "industrial accidents" and the rash of weird fires we saw back in Mar-Feb, you can ignore HIMARs that hit your logistical system within 70-100kms. You cannot ignore a strategic strike, that just happened in front of the entire world, at over twice that range. The Russian military now needs to not only figure out how to secure itself at ranges it thought safe, it has to figure out how to defend Russian certainty, which just got seriously mauled. So what? Well the first reaction will be "it was a lucky one off", and "this is war, these things happen". However, information is funny with humans, we cannot un-think it. As a minimum, Russian has to re-think the battlespace, significantly. That is a lot of assumptions that just cracked in military planning - the fact that they did not see it coming in time to interdict is the biggest one. Russians may try to ignore it, but I am betting western ISR is picking up a lot of scrambling going on in the Russian rear areas right now. Again, this is more friction being imposed via uncertainty. And that uncertainty will spread like a virus. All those beach goers will scramble back home with it. The Russian reaction will be key to determining just how badly this strike hurt them. Now the war is not over. This was not positively decisive, at least not yet. The UA will have to follow up with more of these, humans are also able to ignore reality - which is paradoxical I know. More of these strikes will build up pressure until something gives. But for the west, this is a clear demonstration that our proxy is not only still in this thing, it demonstrates they are getting better at it. Better they are emulating warfare we recognize - high precision deep strikes on clear military targets with almost zero collateral civilian casualties. Nice, clean and very western - worth investing more into. I have heard at some pretty high levels the idea that "Russia has shifted this war into one that favors them"...well strikes like these send the message that Ukraine is shifting it back. May have been a 'one-off' or a lucky day; however, it is going to cause the Russians a lot of hot and bother to figure that all out...and in a war, that is good communication.

So having spent a fair amount of time around high explosives in my youth, these look like dead zones. Hollywood has led most to believe explosives are a big uniform ball of fire. The reality is that they are a bunch of waves of energy that bounce around like mad. They create dead zones, which make no sense unless you have seen them before. I have seen explosions where people basically next to them have survived, not seriously hurt, while people 100m away are cut in half. Considering that we have multiple explosions that seem to happened simultaneously, that makes a dead zone even more probable.

This was one of my favourites.

Those look like multiple strikes to me, but this is not my area. @Combatintman?

Lies, bad lies, statistics, and Russian "truth".

Lol! Talk about undeciding. If this was a SOF Op it is worse news for the Russians as infiltration and sabotage does not have a range limit. If true, or even suspected, this will tie the Russian security forces in knots for the rest of the war and likely beyond. They are going to be wishing it was HIMARs. If it was SOF, it will be one for the history books.

Technically the Soviet Union on that date…if we are going to play “Forum Thread Nitpick”

Whatever missile it was it is demonstrating a new threat range. It would be the precision that should terrify the Russians. This strike knew exactly where to hit based on the damage the secondaries have done. Hell, they may have been watching for a crew shift change on the Russian AD. Of course the Russians are going with “someone dropped a cigarette” line, literally. https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/large-explosions-rock-russian-military-air-base-in-crimea-1.6019633

Political, depending who one reads, and it does a pretty damned good job there as well. You list all the National Power dimensions, and Joint military domains and Russia is losing on each one as you point out. It underlines something we have said here for some time: Russia is figuring out how to lose this war, while Ukraine is figuring out how to win it. I have seen nothing to tell me that has changed. This attack shrinks Russian strategic options even further, while Ukraines expand.

Exactly. You have heard me go on about “decision” (to the point I am sure some are sick of hearing about it), well this is a strategic negative decision. This one strike, well coordinated and executed, just undecided the security of the entire Crimea, and anything else in that range. Depending on how one defines the military strategic level - normally as the bridge between the political and military operations, this strike will definitely reshape things for the Russians militarily and likely politically. It will have political implications for Ukraine as well, they just demonstrated that they remain the horse to bet on and are likely to win this thing…and we in the west really would like to back a winner (for once). Or if one subscribes to the “alignment of Ends, Ways and Means” this works too. Like the Moskva, this action may very well shift the narrative. Before Moskva - “Russia controls Black Sea, amphibious assault on Odessa imminent!” After - “Someone dropped a cigarette?! Bahahah.” We will see how it translates, always need translation which is never guaranteed; however, blowing up a major airfield in front of tourists and having that piped around the globe, memes already, is a damned good start.

So this is a strategic strike - it could be argued that the target was operational but the effect is definitely going to exceed the operational level, much like the sinking of the Moskva The level of ISR required to set this up is not small and I suspect the Russians did not even think that the UA had the capability to hit at that range. Let's all try and remember this the next time the Russians manage to take 100m of dirt in the Donbas.

Holy Crap, they hit something big.

Trick to game-changers is to be able recognize one when it comes along. Whole lotta pundits called it the "weapon of the week" but they were missing the fact it was the "last piece of the puzzle".

This You are describing a war of attrition, or exhaustion in which Russia is able to trade "ammo" for UA "people" - Russia has "endless ammo"; UA does not have endless "people" = Bad outcome for Ukraine in the long run. Would be true if that were the entire picture. Points: - It isn't about Russian "ammo", it is about Russian indirect fire capability. An ocean of 152 ammo is useless if one does not have the trains and trucks to move it, the guns and gunners to fire it, and the ISR to direct it. And lets not forget the assets to protect the entire system. That systems ability to translate solid materials into effective kinetic energy, and then apply that energy to a target is not solely a question of "Russian ammo". Through that lens, and we have heard anecdotes of how bad Russian logistics are getting, the Russian attrition picture does not look so good. - The graphic above is half the picture, there is a Ukrainian one going the other way - they are in collision. So as the Russians dry-hump their way, about 100m per day (and this has been consistent since Severdonetsk), the theory is that - just like WW1 - that "one more push" will cause the UA to break. Then the Russians can get back to doing what they do best; stringing mechanized forces without enough infantry, logistics and air cover along 100km advances, so that the UA can cut them to pieces because RA density becomes so shallow that the UA gains defensive manoeuvre in depth (go Russia!). This is "Effect" space, an the problem from the Russian side is becoming unsolvable. That ocean of 152mm ammo has a very low probability of delivering the Effects, Decision or Outcomes because it is too slow, and even if it leads to "fast" the Russians are worse prepared for that than they were in Feb. - The biggest missing piece in all this is the one thing the Russians can afford the least, and that is time. There is a perception in the West that "We have all the watches but Russia has all the time" - we see our greatest fears in our opponent and a long drawn out stalemate scares us cause that is how we got burnt in Afghanistan (and Iraq to some extent). Truth is that Russia does not have the time. Why? Because everyday they lose is one more day for the UA to get stronger, larger and better. With every shipment of support from the west, every training serial and further ISR integration the hill Russia has to climb gets steeper. Finally, back to that nasty Will thing, Ukrainian Will does not appear to be going anywhere because it is shored up by national power and stunning levels of unity, which for the Ukraine is growing via western support. Russian Will is held together by an autocrat and his cronies who have been adept at lying, suppressing freedom, and generally greasy dealings. All built on an economy that is making some ominous sounds, and a war machine that has already had to regress in order to stay in the game. From where I sit I think we might be at the end of the road for RA operational offensive capability - they never really came out of the operational pause of Jul, I am not sure they can. What we are all waiting for is the UA to solve the Riddle of the Modern Operational Offensive, if it can be solved under these conditions. I suspect it can but the UA are waiting for their moment, patience in your opponent is a bad sign as it means they have the initiative. In summary, I think the RA is doing everything it can with what it has because "the boss is watching" - but it is not enough, it will never be enough, Russia broke their best chance for victory in this thing back in Feb-March. The theories that Russian pundits have about EU falling apart in the winter, US presidents coming in and cutting off Ukraine, NATO collapsing are sounding more and more desperate...all the while the UA is poking and pinching, waiting for its moment.

Putin is a post-truth leader, “reality” is whatever he says it is (there is a bit of a global trend in this field of politics). So he could literally stop right now and declare “victory” right now. What is stopping him? He took his land bridge between Crimea and Donbas, took all of Luhansk and enough of the Donetsk. We literally have western “experts” supporting the idea that the UA is basically been destroyed (see: Macgregor) so demilitarized=done, and denazification is a made up term so he can define success however he wants. So anymore demonstrating does not make any sense. The idea that Ukraine would be bombed back to the negotiating table is pretty far fetched unless there is a big puzzle piece they can see that no one else can. Right now if Ukraine was shaky we would be seeing signals. Hell it is in the best interest for some if Ukraine was willing to negotiate, we would definitely be seeing more diplomatic pressure if it were the case. The reality is likely in the other direction, the UA is steadily increasing capability and capacity (we are now sending a mission to the UK to assist in training). The whole “Russia must attack or look weak”, has some traction but weak failed attacks do not make one look strong either. This baffling political bubble Russia has created should serve as a hard lesson for political levels everywhere. It won’t but it should, because it demonstrates very aptly the touted strength of a “great autocratic leader” to get things done, is offset by the complete lack of sanity feedback mechanisms that greater distribution of political power provide. Autocrats tend to “get stupid done” very well and Russia is a case study in this. Back to this war, a doomed RA offensive in the south (as noted, a reactionary one) is not going to accomplish anything given the battlefield conditions we can see, except demonstrate how badly off the RA really is. I am instead wondering if Russia is not posturing for defence, finally realizing that it has culminated and only a long dragging out provides a viable option set.

For the life of me, I cannot see what that would look like. If they wanted to try and take Zaporizhya why are they still hammering in the Donetsk? They have a 200km frontage down in the south so a left flanking north would make sense…a few months ago. So why do all that hemorrhaging in the Donbas as a breakout N of Mariupol could also flank E and take the ground they are doing frontals on? More simply put - a push around Zapoizhya would have been done by now if it was an option, so what changed? An RA offensive out of Kherson is insane (which means they may try it) because all of the LOCs have been cut or threatened. And that goes for the 200+ kms of massive river between Kherson and Zaporizhya as well. So to summarize, the Russians are going to do one last big push in an area they would have, if they could have for months. Or a suicidal attempt on the far side of a river while your opponent owns all the ISR and precision deep strike capability? All the while that logistics have been getting mauled? Am I missing something?

And I am not saying that people are not dying in Pisky or that it isn’t an intense fight. What I am saying is that until the RA can actually demonstrate operational success and/or breakthrough these are intense tactical actions i.e. localized. Now even if the RA could string a half dozen of these in rapid succession we could maybe take it as an indication of a shift, but another village ground down in slow time is just that. Even if the UA takes heavy losses, they have had months to mobilize and integrate western equipment and support, while Russia continues to wear out their already tattered force. The Russians packing guns into a small area and blasting their way 100m a day is not an achievement, it is a devolution of their doctrine and likely a forced one at that. Everyone recall the advances they did in Feb-Mar, we are talking 100km+ in a few weeks - that was the last and only time the RA has fought like it is supposed to since then they have been doing WW1 style, which has gained them very little. In fact I am not even sure Pisky qualifies as an end to the operational pause. Regardless, I am not saying the UA is invincible, or the RA is doomed (although, I have my suspicions). I am saying - especially to any lurkers out there who are worried - we need to stick to the facts here and base assessments on them. I think we brought it up before but can you imagine Dunkirk today?

Right?! Gawd help us if we in the west ever get into a real war. After the first setback we will be ready to wave white flags if this proxy war is any indication. I am losing count of how many times the Russians take a small berg somewhere after weeks of trying and people freak out - “aaah, see the Russians are winning! Abandon ship!!” Meanwhile the Ukrainians are basically spelling on bridges with arty shells and crippling Russian logistics, after collapsing a Russian front in the north, pushing them off Kharkiv, stalling then Donbas assault, and now this thing in Kherson. But those are just flukes as the “Russians bide their time” and wait for their moment…while bleeding all over everything.

DPICM

Oh very nice reference, well played sir.

Massed precision beats everything. We have been seeing precision deep-strike as manoeuvre in this war and it is likely how to break the deadlock. Once a side can 1) establish information superiority and learning superiority, 2) link that to mass precision deep strike capability and 3) integrate an infiltration-isolation-destruction cycle - the other side is in serious trouble. The UA appears to have #1. Is working on #2, and we have yet to really see #3 but it was employed by the UA on the defensive in Phase 1. Another concept to consider with respect to #3 - https://theconversation.com/john-keats-concept-of-negative-capability-or-sitting-in-uncertainty-is-needed-now-more-than-ever-153617 “being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” A military negative capability does not seek to impose order, it instead employs chaos as a means. This also follows the trend that this is a war of denial-to-attrition-to-decision. In order to do #3 a level of negative capability, which again we saw in the dispersed self-synchronized light infantry actions in phase one holds promise. The trick will be setting pre-conditions to enable it. And people were all worried about tanks….