The_Capt

Ukrainian manpower has been at “a breaking point” for about 18 months now. Do we have any actual evidence of the state of Ukraine force generation, or are we seeing doom and gloom? The obstacle dynamic is interesting. Minefields are supposed to be useless unless “covered”. What appears to have changed is what it takes to “cover” a given obstacle. It used to be dug in troop organizations, now it is UAS and ATGMs linked to artillery. So the bill for effective coverage has gone down significantly. This is all starting to add up to the blindingly obvious - this is not a shift to Defence Primacy, it is a shift to Denial Primacy. We have been seeing denial in the air and on land (now projected onto the sea). Denial effectively raises the cost of action to a level that is unsustainable. One does not “hold ground” one simply makes the cost per foot too high. We appear to be entering into an age of denial. Closely linked to corrosive warfare concepts as Denial essentially is very expensive friction, the question remains whether or not the UA can overcome and project its own level of friction back onto the RA at a rate higher than the RA can sustain. It has been a summer of slow grinding and not many signs of success but remember the metrics are not territory as much as they are systemic erosion. Which side is eroding faster? I do not know if the UA can reach a tipping point that leads to major advances. We have until about Nov and then the whole thing will peeter out, if last Fall is an indication. If the UA cannot achieve a major breakout by then, well there will have to be some difficult conversations I expect.

Fair point, and I am not saying language skills are a bad idea. It is the self-righteous BS of judging a volunteer in the middle of this war because he does not speak enough Ukrainian for some plug sitting at home at a computer terminal that gets me going. The guys will pick it up as stuff like “Excuse me I think my legs was just blown off and I need assistance” gets picked up pretty quickly. Been on this thread from the start but this is a bit of a low point in my opinion.

So US C4ISR is highly integrated with UA ops at this point, and has been noted many times is integral in the prosecution of this war…what language do you suppose that is being spoke in? And the UA training support, I personally know guys doing this and the working language is English. All this HIMARs, what language do you suppose the manuals are written in?There is no doubt translator support but English is all over this thing as it is the language of the support that is keeping Ukraine in this freakin war. And as I have pointed out repeatedly…this is not solely Ukraines war. As to our track record of lack of local language skills - of course it is an issue but what do you suggest? Adding on a year of language training to already overloaded force generation systems. “A few simple phrases”? Which ones? And then there is context because a few simple phrases can start a gunfight in the wrong context. My overall point is that if a guy wants to go overseas and fight for Ukrainian freedoms, putting his life on the line everyday; a bunch of armchair generals on this forum getting huffy because his Ukrainian is not “up to snuff” is disrespectful and self-inflated. It is also ignorant of 1) the extent English is employed in the theatre and 2) the realties of warfare. Lack of language skills is going to limit the individuals utility and of course it would be great if everyone was fluent, but this is dire straits and harsh times - if he can freakin shoot Russians he is good enough for the job. Frankly the level of discourse on this entire forum is sinking if we honestly want to pick apart a volunteers willingness to serve in the cause of greater freedom because of some latent anti-Anglo/US -insecurities. For all those that think this volunteer is “doing it wrong”. Well go learn a bunch of Ukrainian and then go over and join the fight…then you might have a leg to stand on.

All the support and guns are coming from an English speaking alliance. The fact that English will dominate operations and permeate throughout should not be a surprise to anyone…would be my point. And the simple fact that putting language barriers to foreign people who want to fight for what is right in the middle of an existential war is monumentally stupid…that would be another point. Dude, seriously where have you been the last 30 or so years? We have been sent all over the freakin planet to fight (and die) for “our guys” in one steaming sh#thole after another…and now it is dawning that we did not learn all their local lingo?! How dare we?!

Working language in NATO is English. Further, all US C4ISR support will be in English, as will most of the instruction going on outside of Ukraine. Equipment manuals, English. It is a US world, we only live here. Beyond that warfare does not need a lot of flowery discourse, pretty blunt and simply stuff really.

Any professional worth their salt would 1) not have access to enough information to outline recommendations in any detail, or 2) if they did have access to enough information would not say anything as it would likely violate security. So what that major caveat up front; generally (and not pulling on anything but open sources/unclass) I would recommend: 1. Continue shaping until major RA cracks form. 2. Widen those cracks with pressure to the point the RA are forced into dilemma. 3. Exploit that dilemma into a collapse and take enough ground to keep the West happy without over extending. While at the same time pushing hard enough to put RA back into a position where you can repeat the process. More simply put: Corrosion - Cracking - Concussion. Do not stop until you hit a point where you cannot sustain defensive superiority against extant RA capability (which is a pretty low bar) as this would also be over extension. Tactically I would recommend to continue with what works - Infiltration, Isolation, Annihilation, Exploitation, along the entire RA operational system. Last point - when do we know when to stop? If nothing is working we likely have to admit Defensive Primacy and either wait for a development to break that, or start thinking about a frozen conflict. If massive C4ISR superiority, deep strike and infantry are not enough to break the RA defence - then admit we are in a new ballgame and start playing it.

So there have been wars sparked by lack of resources or competition for resources; however, the idea that all wars or conflict can be reduced to this cause is a myth. Many wars were about social uncertainties or in some cases downright fantasy (e.g. The Crusades). Lack of resources can be a powerful driver but a lot of time the most uncertain thing is what another group of people may or may not do, if we do not know/trust them. Take this war. This was not about resources in the least. It was about power, social power. Russia wanted to demonstrate power, Ukraine did not want to give its own up. Neither side could live with the uncertainty of the loss of power and were driven to act in response. We have gone to war over the dumbest and most irrational things. We have gone to war when it was going to make things much worse resource-wise (see Pre-WW1). We go to war over ideals and identity, grudges and vengeance, rumours and fears. In many ways humans are always afraid, we just need a reason to let it out. Sometime we just hate the other guy for no rational reason and will kill our selves just to take them with us - two people stabbing each other as they both fall off a building. And that animal has the bomb and AI, what could possibly go wrong?

It is because of who we were…middle of the food chain. Prey animals are driven by fear because it is necessary programming to survive. We were right in the middle until we figured out how to 1) leverage energy, 2) communicate, and 3) lie to each other and ourselves. Our big juicy brains allowed us to do this at an evolutionary escape velocity rate. Good/bad, altruistic/selfish have no real scientific meaning - an eagle swooping in to kill another animal is not being anything morally, it is simply surviving. We built social frameworks that allowed us to create social metrics such as good and evil…which are basically metrics of relative behaviours. We are in fact both and will leverage them based on context. In frames of certainty and safety we will act altruistically and “good”. Pump in enough uncertainty and fear and we will start to eat each other in a surprisingly short period of time - see Hurricane Katrina. People want to believe we are good because their sky-god or whatever made us that way but in reality “being good or evil” is an artificial set of conditions. The role of government is to sustain frameworks of order and certainty so we stay within a “good” frame. War is a collision of two or more social frameworks that creates a completely new environment along with a new set of social metrics. “Being good” is killing other people. Being good is committing suicide to save others so they can kill other people. Being evil is to not kill other people and run away, or kill the wrong people. War is also a state of massive uncertainty so we often see devolution happen very quickly. Of course that is what military machines are all about - sustaining violence through order in a massive environment of fear and uncertainty.

Of course in this one the US is supporting the not-terrible-regime, so there is that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_War I dunno, I do not believe that Russia or the RA are some monolithic juggernaught that can keep taking punishment indefinitely - hell, we came within inches of a freakin coup, even if it was more likely an accidental one, in Jun. Russia has basically torn off the steering wheel but there will be a point when economic ruin and dead Russians will stack up. Beyond that a ZOS or some other UN BS might be an option but it won't stop the missiles or UAVs. So to answer your question the best way to make Russia fail faster is what we did not do in the 80 - stop buying the oil and gas. Hell we can't even agree to kick them out of the Olympics. But in order to do any of this we would have to negotiate with a new reality ourselves. The one where hard power and war are going to be at the forefront of diplomacy instead of sweeping up the "dust of empires". I think it is still too soon to call the UA offensive a bust. We have been here before, pecking and pinching, then one morning "whammie." If it completely fails then there will definitely be some tough conversations.

Not going to throw stones, however, this is what happens when one adopts an extreme definition of “winning”. It has been a problem going way back to last summer. To even suggest a half measure of victory for Ukraine was to admit defeat…which is simply not true. For some, yes even on this board, victory for Ukraine is 1) regaining every inch of the pre-2014 borders, 2) a completely defeated and dismantled Russian state and 3) regional security for Ukraine from now until the end of time. I can clearly recall this narrative being promoted here and used as justification as to why we need to give the UA every weapon under creation yesterday. Well 1) how realistic are these criteria given realities of modern warfare? 2) items #2 and #3 on that list are in strategic tension with each other? And 3) so if Ukraine (or the West for that matter) fail to achieve these goals, does that equal Ukrainian defeat? Grown ups do not talk in terms of absolutes. They talk in terms of negotiation. How can Ukraine negotiate the best outcome it can out of this war? As to victory, Ukraine is already there because the actual core objective of remaining an independent state has been met. The rest is negotiation; violent and bloody negotiations. Everyone wants Ukraine to succeed as much as possible but “what winning looks like” is a moving target. If the UA cannot break the strategic corridor and set conditions for retaking the Crimea then this conflict will likely freeze. Ok, so what? How does Ukraine still achieve its strategic objectives if this happens?

I gotta be honest, I have kinda lost the bubble on what we are talking about in this sidebar. Training and experience are part of a learning cycle. E.g. experience is captured, codified and then taught to incoming troops so that they do not need to make the same mistakes. Do it long enough and it becomes doctrine. So I suspect the UA has a significant advantage in this learning cycle, again we are supporting them here as well; however, it is not something we can really do for them. We do not have the experience of this war, beyond support, and so they are the ones that are collecting the lessons learned etc and translating into training. We do not own either end of that spectrum, so beyond the basics of warfare - which still apply - we can only support this cycle and take a lot of notes as our own doctrine and training will be in need of revisions based on some of what we have seen. My overall point at the beginning of this discussion was that there is no magic US/western training silver bullet. Nor is the UA "simply not getting 'it'", which seems to be some of the narrative coming out of online commentators. We don't get "it" in many ways and as such can only support the UA in learning about their own war, faster better.

Well I would not write off quality entirely. Compared to what an average conscript in the RA receives I suspect that UA at the ground level are getting much higher quality training. But this is more than content, it is stuff like resources and facilities. As to staff level, well I am sure there is some training support happening here as well but 1) we do not really have experience in running Div/Corp level operations in a high intensity conventional war - we have theory and doctrine, but how well that is working right now remains to be seen. And 2) Staffs need more than individual training, they need time to gel and click, that is not something we can really "do" for someone without going in and taking over. This is all part of a much larger force generation problem that the UA is supported by the west in solving. But it is not like we are wizards who are teaching them magic. More like running a bunch of basic training courses that will allow them to stay alive longer than their RA counter-parts.

The primary challenge, as I understand it, with the UA is mobilizing a bunch of civilians and turning them into coherent fighting forces. So we are really talking Company and below. Basic stuff like weapons handling and drills. Fieldcraft and hygiene. Patrolling, offensive and defensive drills. In short, “the basics”. That is an enormous challenge, let alone more advanced stuff like crews for vehicles, specialist and weapons crews. Above this is stuff like staff at formation level - we normally get people at 15-20 years in their careers before we teach them operational level staff stuff, obviously the UA does not have that time. The whole “bottom up initiative” culture is great in a professional force but much harder to manage in a group that were civies 20 mins ago. In some ways the genius of the Soviet template is that it could churn out millions of troops all dancing to the same tune. We always tout “initiative” and good ole “gumpshin” but in reality a bunch of inexperienced people doing their own thing under fire is in reality bad. Military machines work very hard to beat uniformity into people to get them to fight as a unit…in the old days we called it “discipline”.

Gawd, who wants them? Expensive and likely useless. Last military to try old-school Soviet mass in the modern context was Iraq, and we all know how that worked out.

I do not use the Ignore function often but in this case may I recommend it. “Real men do not fear the bomb” is just dumb. It was during the Cold War and dumber now. If some people want to wrap themselves in dumb and feel all safe and warm, well there are entire social media platforms dedicated to that.

Absolutely. But I think it is the enablers to those “3” that are the prize right now.

So I suspect this is what the UA may be building up to. It would be the culmination of corrosive warfare. We saw “infiltrate-isolate-annihilate-repeat” last fall to significant effect so the question is scale of this approach. One thing missing from the academic criticisms is “why?” The UA has demonstrated the ability to run two simultaneous operations, 500km apart, last fall. “But over Xmas they forgot all that and are now penny packing Coy nibbles…silly Ukrainians”? This is why I am convinced this is shaping. By employing this probing and poking strategy they are obviously doing so for a reason. Most likely to draw out RA HVT such as artillery. These small scale nibblings are not designed to yield breakthroughs, they are designed to stress the RA system until a dispersed mass operation can be set in motion, which then may enable a more traditional mechanized breakout. Ukraine is doing extra steps because that is how the battle space works. As to the West, well the Taliban demonstrated that we are really no better than anyone else once you take away our advantages. I suspect that warfare itself is evolving away from the advantages we had in many ways and we need to rethink things. We do have the high ground on C4ISR for now. However if we do not solve for force protection, particularly AirPower at all altitudes, we may find ourselves in serious trouble as other redefine the battle spaces.

This actually proves my point better. It wasn’t just “competence and training” at Kasserine or Cusader. It was learning. Much like this war the theories that militaries went into WW2 with did not survive contact with reality. Almost every military thought in terms of WW1 doctrine going into WW2. So even the best trained and experienced staffs and line commanders were experienced and trained on the wrong doctrines going in. We saw the same before WW1. My point being that it is less about “training” because who trains for the war unfolding in front of us? It is not about sharing experience because no one in the west has fought a war like this in over 60 years. We can hold onto the basics but the level of shift in warfare can even impact those basics. More plainly, we could stick a US or other NATO nation in the exact situation the UA is in, with the same constraints and limitations and I do not think we would perform any better. In fact we would likely perform worse as we have become far to dependent on all those things the UA is working without. The next question is “which of these constrains and limitations are unique to this war and which are now universal”. So, no, I do not believe that it is a case of both the RA and UA lacking “training” because there is no training for this. Experience can only be earned over time but the UA currently has the market on contemporary conventional warfare experience, not us. Hell the RA has more experience than the US in high intensity conventional warfare right now - despite their baffling inability to learn from it. Combined arms in this context is off the freaking map and I strongly suspect as this war progresses that aspects of it may be off that map to stay.

https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN18010-ADP_3-0-000-WEB-2.pdf Says same thing. Has not been refreshed but likely will soon.

COMBINED ARMS 3-54. Combined arms is the synchronized and simultaneous application of all elements of combat power that together achieve an effect greater than if each element was used separately or sequentially. Combined arms integrates leadership, information, and each of the warfighting functions and their supporting systems, as well as joint weapon systems. Used destructively, combined arms integrates different capabilities so that counteracting one makes the enemy vulnerable to another. Used constructively, combined arms uses all assets available to the commander to multiply the effectiveness and efficiency of Army capabilities used in stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks. THE WARFIGHTING FUNCTIONS 4-19. To execute operations, commanders conceptualize capabilities in terms of combat power. Combat power has eight elements: leadership, information, mission command, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection. The Army collectively describes the last six elements as the warfighting functions. Commanders apply combat power through the warfighting functions using leadership and information. (See chapter 5 for a discussion of combat power.) https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/ADRP 3-0 OPERATIONS 11NOV16.pdf

Operational “combined arms” is really “joint” and about integration of domains/dimensions. Even operational land warfare is about joint integration. Combined arms is a land domain term that essentially integration of land effects into a framework that offsets weaknesses of each arm and maximizes strength. Problem is that I think that what that used to mean has changed for a number of reasons. As to why the UA may be nibbling vice chomping, this likely goes back to “what is happening with mass?” Obviously concentration of forces without air superiority is dangerous for both sides. The RA learned this the hard way, which we have seen many, many, examples. I suspect the UA has too. With “63,000” US trained troops, even with the frontages we are seeing, should allow for something larger than a battalion or company raid, somewhere. So the UA is likely not doing this for a very good reason - concentration of mass without setting conditions is suicidal. The “learning” is determining what those “conditions” actually are for any given scenario.

So in this scenario UA ISR does not see a few tanks/BMPs tens of kilometres out? - which they would because a bridgehead is very valuable real estate. And then hit them before they can even get near the infantry bridgehead by any number of systems that can do so at tens of kilometres (PGM artillery, Switchblade 600s etc)? For the Javelin it range seems to depend on the CLU. The lightweight CLU can hit out to 4,000 m and the terrain, plus UAS can support those shots. If the UA knows “sending a Coy tanks over a ridge is a good way to lose a Coy of tanks” then why are the rules different for the RA. In fact from what we have read and seen the most likely involvement of RA tanks will be as mobile indirect fires. You could do this scenario in CMBS right now. Just beef up the Blue ISR and give them all the UAS, and see how it goes.

You mean like they had north of Kyiv when they stopped them cold? Have we seen an actual “armoured counterattack” in this entire war? That and as soon as the RA formed up to make that c-attack they would be lit up by ISR and pounded. I suspect the issue is not RA armor but RA fires, enabled by ISR that are the major problem. Likely why the UA seems intent on killing as much RA artillery as possible. It is looking more and more like a cat and mouse game with the Russian guns. I knew they looked tepid from what we could tell, and hoped it was a sign of systemic failure, but perhaps they are holding them back.

I guess my problem with the whole “combined arms is their problem” narrative is that it misses the overall trend lines. The RA was noted at the beginning of this war as failing to properly conduct combined arms. This was a little odd as the Soviets essentially invented combined arms at scale and the RA was constructed around combined arms doctrine and concepts. But we all agreed that “Russia Sux, LOLZ” and watched war porn streams with glee while yammering for “more Leopards!!”. Now the UA on the offensive is also “failing to coordinate combined arms at scale” after extensive equipping and training by western forces. So to my mind either two completely separate militaries coming at the problem have both mystically failed to grasp and execute the essentials of combined arms. Or there is something fundamentally changing about the concept of combined arms itself. As to armchair quarter backing the UA in mid operations, well sure anyone with a podcast and a half decent academic background can nitpick. It is called friction and it has always been in every war, forever. Why? Because human systems are filled with nasty human agency and perception, and error. To point to a slow operational offensive “because units missed timelines” is weak and amateur analysis. The biggest problem with trying to get professional assessments is that those able to do them are in the game and not going to speak publicly about what is actually going on. What that means is that the calculus of this war remains opaque until the thing is over for a few years and we can get access to what actually happened - “How Did This Thing Get Hot?” thread coming hopefully soon. The rest is academics and pundits trying to promote a bunch of angles. We heard the same stuff at Bakhmut, Kherson and in the early days. The fundamental questions are more along the lines of “can the UA translate corrode to breakout without air power as we knew it?” “Has Defensive Primacy actually happened (again)?” “What the hell is happening with mass?” This is not pro-Ukrainian copium either. The reality may be simply that offensive operations in this war do not work anymore. We could be looking at the beginning of a frozen conflict line a la Korea. But why offensive operations may not work is not because a UA unit had their map upside down anymore than when the RA stopped using their tanks as tanks and made VBIEDs out of them. That all said, my own assessment is that this still feels like shaping. I nice little feel up before heading to paradise. It lasted for at least two months at Kherson. I suspect we have the rest of the summer with this weird Grade 9 gym dancing until something gives and the UA drops the hammer and goes for it. In fact we have not seen a full scale formation offensive yet - as has been noted - the reason is more likely because conditions have not been set. Now another big question is “are the UA shaping or leg humping?” Well given the C4ISR differences between the two forces my money is still on operational shaping, but we will have to wait and see.

So would not this: Be a result of this: And why they are doing this: ? Also, why would the RA be rationing artillery ammo? Finally, does anyone think that maybe the UA is fighting in a more distributed manner (pretty much from Day 1) because that is what works on the battlefield now? Large concentrations are highly visible from way back and can be hit so they are in fact a liability. The RA is the low bar of precision in this war but it looks like they are still able to disrupt UA mass even with the sub-par ISR and dumb artillery mass they have. This is not a coordination or training issue it is a modern warfare reality - precision beats mass, mass precision beats everything.