The_Capt

Way too slow. This is actually basically how sappers do silent breaches but switch out vehicle with 8 guys at night. Problem with people is that they show up on thermals. The vehicle will draw fire as soon as it enters the minefield. If somehow it manages to stay quiet it sure as hell will draw fire after the first charge goes off.

Heading in Hobarts Funnies here. How do you keep these guys in a straight line? First strike and they are pretty much done so you would need to follow up with more in a breaching lane. And then there is the terrain problem. The divots from artillery and just plain old rocks will knock these off course. I think you would wind up with lanes all over the place that follow on troops would have to try and follow. This would likely see them slaloming through the minefield, which is bad. My personal favorite would be UGVs with GPR that have a bunch of small little spider buggers with shaped charges to find and then lay down over top the mines. Detonate all in sequence and then you have a safe lane...right up until the enemies little spider bastards crawl back into the safe lane or they just drop more FASCAM n the safe lane. Best way to avoid minefields is to kill an opponent before they can lay them to be honest.

First problem is power. Mine breaching rollers weigh a lot and need a powerful prime mover to push them cross country. Second is likely survivability. If an MBT is taking punches, how long is a truck with a water barrel going to last? Third is exploit. Tank has nice big ol gun which can provide cover to bridgehead force. Truck with barrel has an AM radio, which troops can dance too but doesn’t do much in the way of hurling explosives at counter-attacking forces. There are other solutions but they are not designed for this war: Example. That is for AP mines and maybe IEDs. It might be able to take a single AT mine strike which is no good for a high density minefield. Biggest problem is all the money and energy went into IED and route clearing. Our conventional mine breaching has not changed much in 30 years (kinda like engineering in CM).

Ugh, we are going to be playing grab-a$$ with these guys for years.

I am pretty sure that automatically makes you a Canadian citizen.

Damn you Hapless. He got first post on page 3000.

Not sure it would have made a decisive difference. It isn’t the weight of armour, it is being able to breach high density minefields 500m across while under the eyes of UAS, ATGM, tac aviation and artillery. Even as beat up as the RA is it is a pretty low bar to detect, hit and kill the lead breaching vehicles with the levels of ISR on display. Maybe the UA could have tried more breach lanes but I just don’t see how they could get through all three belts with more tanks when the lead ones get taken out. Once those minefields were in place it raised the difficulty of offensive operations for the UA dramatically. Further is requires conditions that they are unable to create - it may require conditions no modern military can create at the moment. I am loathe to give the RA credit but Bakhmut may have been largely diversionary to allow for the creation of all these minefields. It pulled a lot of UA attention away to deal with while the RA built the defensive belts. It was one helluva expensive diversionary operation but it may have succeeded in that the UA summer-fall offensive was blunted. The only counter-point to this is the fact that the RA had not a very great track record of operational synchronization prior to this.

Well then there is “you get what you paid for”. I am sure Putin can keep stuffing the front with convicts, immigrants and trailer trash but he is not going to get anything resembling a professional military out of them. Which means they can dig in, try to hold on and die. Or advance, get no where and die. The RA is done as an operationally offensive force once the bulk of its forces are made up of bullet catchers. Even if he manages to keep “elite” forces in reserve there is no way to sustain them. He can forget retaking anything significant and can only keep spending silly amounts of money as these meat puppets start driving his tanks and IFVs. Quality people matter and in that regard Russia is losing this aspect of the material war badly. Apparently dumb low quality mass still works if you throw enough minefields in front of them but that is about it.

Heh, oh yes the internal battle lines are drawn up. If one looks at Kharkiv that was not an armoured breakthrough. It was Corrosive Warfare culmination resulting in an RA operational collapse - it redefined what RA over-extension meant. The attitude of "new addition to mechanized warfare" died as an idea North of Kyiv. With respect to new technology history actually demonstrates the exact opposite. We far more often discount the impact of emerging technology or simply try and cram it as an add-on to existing systems (MG batteries anyone?). Actually seeing emerging technology and getting out in front of it is very rare. With this guy's attitude AirLand Battle would have never happened, Saddam would have delivered crushing losses on the Allied coalition and Ukraine would have fallen in a month. At Kharkiv it was Light forces that led the breakout while heavy shored up the shoulders. This year we have watched both sides try larger armored heavy offensives and failed. Why do we suppose that is happening? The standard answer from the conservative camp is "well the Ukrainians and Russians are doing it wrong"...after nearly two years? What we have is a bunch of old men, or scions of old men, who are deeply invested in the old conventional system. They have built entire careers out of it. RMA never happened. Precision Fallacy. Edges vs Core. They are stuck in a cognitive prison of their own making. I have had a sinking suspicion something was very different since Feb '22. When I saw that UAV chase down a single RA soldier, I was pretty much sold that we are no longer in Kansas anymore.

Accept for the part where tanks don’t seem to matter anymore. The material war is in artillery, UAS, PGM and C4ISR. Not sure we should be investing billions in tanks at all to be honest. I cannot find a single operational level result that happened on the backs of tanks. In fact back in Mar 22, the RA had all the tanks and it got them exactly nowhere. If the UA is going to continue with operational offensives they are going to need to come up with a way to do it without tanks. Or find a way to eliminate all the things the RA can do to stop their tanks. If the UA decides it is time to hold and let the RA continue to break its hands, then they need things that will kill tanks…which is no longer another tank. If we are going to do material warfare let’s make sure we are talking about the right materials. It would take one side or the other pulling off an operational level breakthrough, that they can sustain. To even put tanks back on the board. For C4ISR and UAS this is a very different picture and Ukraine is not on the back feet. The problem we are seeing now is that the political narrative machine has gone into overdrive because Ukraine fears the West will lose interest. There is some truth there but I am afraid it is creating a lot of noise as opposed to actual analysis.

Sorry guys yesterday was a wash out for me. Want to ping this one…Yeesh. So basically the Russian spin is that this is a “new novelty misery” compared to the old ones? What a bizarre bunch. I do think we need to avoid dehumanizing Russia and Russians. Yes, there are going to be abhorrent examples of mothers celebrating the death of sons but keep in mind these are very likely designed to make us doubt if Russia could ever fail. Russia appears to be a weird place and does have a unique culture, but they are human beings. WW1 broke them. The Afghan War broke them over time. The Cold War broke them too. Russia can be broken, the question is “how?” If we want to talk about the high water mark of uniform unbreakable resistance, that would be WW2 Japan. But those were pretty unique circumstances. Russia is in a discretionary war. Putin may have sold it as otherwise but even in the darkest hearts of Russia there will be a seed of doubt. My thinking is that the cost simply has not gotten high enough. Macro-social structures can be incredibly resilient. They are designed to survive the natural strains of too many underdeveloped primates trying to live in small places together. 21 month is not enough to break that unless there are some serious pre-crisis fractures in place. And let’s not forget Priggy came damn close to accidentally couping the whole damn thing. My money is that Russians will get sick of dying in another country well before Ukrainians get tired of dying for theirs. Question is when?

Maybe a few trillion dollars in economic development will help: https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-in-ukraine-ahead-of-enlargement-decision/#:~:text=KYIV — European Commission President Ursula,said on X from Kyiv. But you right…we suck. It is all our fault. That is the narrative to take and totally does not play into the hands of people who want to withdraw support.

Rumblings on mainstream: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/exhausted-and-disappointed-with-allies-ukraine-s-president-and-military-chief-warn-of-long-attritional-war-1.6630107 It reflects what I have been worried about for sometime. What if the character of warfare has simply shifted? What if Denial has simply become too large for offensive action to overcome? What if Corrosive warfare has run out of runway? My fear is that there may be no way, no matter how many resources pushed, to break through. If the RUAF could not achieve air superiority, how are we supposed to build up the Ukrainian Air Force past that level? It takes years to create that kind of air power. We have written pages of analysis on the drone problem. More tanks are not going to solve it. The truly concerning reality might simply be that no matter what or how much we send, Defensive primacy has emerged. The implications of that are enormous. The technology and tactics to achieve deeper offensive objectives might simply not exist. So what? Well first I am not totally convinced we are there yet - but the UA CHOD and president’s assessment is not promising. They have essentially admitted the summer-fall ‘23 offensive has culminated. Unless this is also part of an information ploy. My sense is that Ukraine might just dig in and hold on while shaping negotiations. Or maybe there is one more rabbit to pull out of the hat. We may be at the “best of bad” stage. But let’s not forget that Russia is likely in worse condition. I suspect their recent tactical offensives are simply attempting to convince that they still got game. Those very well could have been the tail end of what the RA has left in the tank. Regardless, won’t change what we have been discussing the last couple of pages. One thing this war has taught me is that most wars end this way. The total victories of WW2 are an anomaly. Far more often wars end with no one happy. No complete resolution. Open wounds and a whole bunch undecided. We might have to re-learn how to live with that.

And this is how we snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Ukraine will fight as long as it can and we should support them until that end. Here we are discussing one possible end - I am not sure we are even at probable but we need to be ready for it. Conversations well above my pay grade will land on how things finally resolve with respect to the war. After the war we need a modern day Marshall Plan. One for the history books. We turn Ukraine into South Korea in a month. Even if EU and NATO somehow remain off the table there are plenty of other ways to secure that nation. Not least of which would be stationing western troops on their soil a la the US 8th Army. We need to follow through or we risk blowing the whole thing. All the money spent to date will be lost if we leave Ukraine hanging during reconstruction. If we double down on this and turn Ukraine into a regional economic powerhouse…a friendly democratic regional economic powerhouse, that is how we cement this as a major strategic victory.

Gawd, right?! Let’s not give Russia a win it never earned. We could stop this thing right now and it won’t change what has already happened. This is 1905, not 1945. We take the strategic competition victory and make sure we do not screw up the follow through.

I will just pick this one. “Serious preparation”. Canada is talking about a Brigade in Latvia…under a Liberal government. Russia’s single biggest loss, beyond all the hardware and credibility, is that it did exactly what it should not have done…it unified the West. Further it pushed up to overcome our deep apathy. We did not care back in 2014 when Putin went “I want this”. Hell we argued about legality etc for years after a soft invasion that took the entire Crimea. Move to 2023 - the West no far how it puts its head up its own butt is not going to forget this. Further, there is too much money to be made ensuring Russia stays in its box. We spent billions ensuring Ukraine stayed independent. We will spend billions more to ensure it stay out of the Russian sphere and that Russia stays in that box. This is everything we should have done back in 2014. And here is the thing, that strategic corridor won’t matter to that calculus. I say all this with confidence because the wheels are already in motion. Money is being spent…a lot of money. Russia just put NATO back in business for the next 20 years. That is done. Decided. How is that for sober? Look guys this isn’t late game rose coloured consolation prizing, I have been saying it since last summer. Russia lost this war, badly…already. The blow to their prestige and warfighting machine is pretty bad. For example, Russian can produce about 200 tanks per year (ya, let’s pretend tanks still matter). That is over 10 years of expensive production to replace what they lost in this war. Their military is battered beyond recognition. Any professional talent they had is pushing up sunflowers all over Ukraine. What is left is hastily trained and mobilized recruits and that includes the officer Corp. These are not things one can fix over night…and they are not cheap. Hey if the UA can do a break out and cut that corridor - fantastic! But it is not a critical requirement. Russia was a scary monster and it just got mauled by a minor power supported by about as an ad hoc framework as I have ever seen. Russia will not recover tomorrow or the next day. They will remain a threat but one we will contain. They want dance in South East Ukraine again? Go for it. It only gets worse for them over time, not better. At some point the economics and drug deals with China will sour and they will run out of juice. At that point we may have other problems if Russia unravels. But this entire “Invincible Russian Monster Bear” is a myth. It died at Kyiv. It died at Kharkiv. It died at Kherson. It won’t be resurrected soon. Now the next big question that really matters: “what are we going to do with the time we have taken?”

Ok, how? How is it a “major strategic victory”? How is Russia’s position better than it was before this war if that is all they gained? Is it decisive? Does it create strategic options we cannot counter? It sucks and we all would like it other wise. But calling it a “major strategic victory” is hyperbole. I will even buy operational. Strategic would be half of Ukraine under Russian control and the other half held by a Vichy-esque puppet. While NATO starts falling apart. We got Finland and Sweden. We got political Will for a decade. We will get the rest of Ukraine. Russia got a corridor of land which will secure Crimea better but it cost them far more than that was worth. That corridor is an arbitrary metric. Right next to “all of Crimea” and “every inch of pre-2014”. They have sentimental value but in the hard calculations of geopolitics and military gains they do not mean as much as people think. The West is not going to fall because this war got stuck where it is. Ukraine is not going to slide back into Russian control. Hell Russia doesn’t have the forces to exploit that corridor for a long while yet. And by the time they do I am sure it will be mined and defended to the hilt. In war there is what you must do. Want to do. And hope to do. The trick is really understanding which is which.

So what does Russia sell? What sustains this gold throne? Oil and gas. The West ain’t buying it anymore and that is going to continue. So Russia sells to China or India (Iran has their own). 1) all the infra is going West so know they have an eastward problem. 2) China and India are going to guy Russia and undercut profits 3) A lot of expertise ran away and keeps running away. That brain drain is going to really start hurting. No, the Russian economy does not get away with this all scot free. Major market shifts are not painless. Can Russia still do Grey zone crap and play silly buggers, sure…but we already risked managed that for over a decade. It is going to cost Russia billions, maybe hundreds of billions to rebuild military power after this war. Will there be oligarchs? Yup. Will Putin stay rich? Yup. Will Russia be in a position to do Ukraine War 2.0 in the next 10 years…no freakin way. None of this is “good” but it ain’t all bad either. The dance will continue but Russia is boxed up and can only do so much. Our biggest risk is taking our eyes off this ball as we go all scope eye on China.

You are no doubt correct…but he is contained. Pragmatically the West political calculus is that this is a problem that cannot be solved. If we destroy Putin/Russia we have a whole other set of more dangerous possibilities. If we let him get away with murder (literally) we set ourselves up for worse. Russia just took “the 2nd most powerful land army” on the planet and smashed it to a pulp in Ukraine. Putin might not care about convicts and country rubes, but he does care very much about nearly 3000 tanks and a submarine. It will take the RA decades to come back from this mess. However, they still need to be enough of a threat to justify NATO spending targets and positioning. Conveniently a stalemate outcome supports this. A lot of you in Ukraine/Eastern Europe think we in the West “don’t get it”. We actually do, very well. What you do not understand is that our level of investment has a different end-state. We never wanted to see the complete and utter defeat of Russia as a state. The hazards of a nuclear power in complete free fall are simply too high. Putin can lie to himself and his people all he wants, but he knows that any hopes of Russian imperial expansion died North of Kyiv…he did that and everyone knows it. Will Russia be back? Sure. Or maybe we will get lucky and when Putin dies we get a more moderate jerk we can do business with. But for now, the US and Canada sell more oil and gas to Europe. We sell more weapons to Europe. And we contain Russia, just enough. Act 2: China. Would it have been nice to drive home the “point” a little further? Sure. But now Ukraine can support an insurgency in the occupied territories for a decade instead of Russia doing other way around. We know Putin doesn’t care and will continue to play his game. But the outcome of this war, even if it stops today, made want Putin “wants” irrelevant. He shattered is military means to achieve it. He also broke his Diplomatic and Economic means in the bargain. So we fall back on Plan Korea. We can live with that. Optimal? Definitely not. But when I said back last May that if the UA offensive goes nowhere over the summer and fall that “there would be difficult conversations”…well this is that conversation. I personally don’t actually think we are done yet to be honest. Let’s see where winter takes us. But the UA CHOD basically admitting we are at “positional warfare” - which is just code for slow grinding attritional warfare - then it is clear we can see those hard conversations coming. Next will be to see if there is any political movement on either side.

I don’t think it is nearly as cut and dry as the average person thinks. There are upsides to a stalemate at this point. To be totally brutal an endstate where both sides can claim victory (and defeat) often makes for the best outcome. Ukraine is still a free nation, our support ensured they stood up against an illegal invasion and largely repelled it when there should have been no chance of that success. Russia and Putin can claim victory as they took an additional 7% of Ukraine at an eye-watering cost. But this will likely keep ol Flat Face in power for a few more years before Time does its thing for us all. This avoids a Russian free fall experience, and we get the added bonus of Europe buying our oil and gas (or alternatives) while we righteously continue to isolate Russia -this is why it won’t matter who is in the White House post-war. A lose-lose starts to look like a win-win. US administration can point to all the upsides going into ‘24, plus we are looking at Armageddon in the Middle East which keeps the Bible Belt focused elsewhere. We hopefully do a whole bunch of reconstruction in Ukraine and go all South Korea on the place. Russia continues as downward spiral but slowly enough they don’t start WW3. And we can all focus on China as the next big threat worthy of trillions in defence spending on bloated military capabilities that probably won’t work. So you see, a stalemate is not the end of the world. In fact I would not be surprised if in some circles they are kinda pushing for it. The total and utter crushing of Russia has some serious risks. This outcome sidesteps a lot of them. Now everyone is both happy and unhappy. Sometimes no decision is the best decision. I for one am not convinced we are there yet, but we definitely can see it from here.

A bit more complicated but the sentiment is not entirely off. We did an exercise about 10 years back trying to figure out all the components of military value. In the end it looked like the Drake Equation, which was scary enough and then some egghead pointed out that some components were non-linear over time. Over all military value is a pretty complex beast with all sorts of tangible and intangible elements. So when considering something like a new platform one has to try and consider its value as a delta V to an overall system. How is X giving an entire system an advantage to an opponents comparative opposing system. So infantry in battle suits is not simply “how much does the suit cost versus the things that can kill it” it is “how does the system create effects advantage”. Cost becomes an attritional factor but is offset by advantage. So beating up on the poor tank. It isn’t the fact that cheap ATGMs or UAS can kill them that is driving their value down. It is the fact that ATGMs and UAS are killing them before the tank can deliver its military value on the battlefield. If tanks could survive long enough to create operational tempo and manoeuvre then we would not be having this conversation, even if we were looking at the same loss rates. It is the fact we are seeing the loss rates without the tank being able to deliver value. That is what is killing the tank. Making it worse is the cost factor and those tanks being eliminated by incredibly cheap systems compared to the cost of the tank. So if armoured infantry in battle suits can live long enough to create effect, force decision and sustain options then they have value that far outweighs strips cost. Of course there is a threshold for this, we see that in WW2 Germany. The Tiger was brilliant but far too costly to sustain even with the effects it could deliver. The Tiger 2 is like modern tanks. The damn things were very expensive and most could not even get to the start line. So is a military capability below a cost sustainment threshold? And does it deliver value for that costs? When and where that value happens is also incredibly important. In reality it is very complex - let alone when you factor in historical and cultural value. There is a Perun video (if he hasn’t already done one, that guy has to be in FD somewhere).

Mass.is.broken.

"Gainey noted that the electronic systems work “pretty good” against smaller unmanned systems, but he has previously said that the rise of autonomy in unmanned operations has limited the effectiveness of EW as “now you’re not cutting a link.” This is driving adversary R&D in full autonomy. They also do not have legal or policy regimes pushing back on this.

A little Eurasian centric, but then again these were the people "recording history". If (and it is a big if) I ever do a PhD, it will be on pre-historic warfare. That map would see a massive mist of small lights that was the background warfare of pre-civilization. Also there were very likely some very big battles in North America pre-contact...but of course no one wrote them down.