The_Capt

We aren’t the only ones wondering “whither goest Crimea” https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/ukrainian-official-offers-plan-for-a-crimea-without-russia-1.6339284

I am still on the fence on the infantry note. We have definitely seen a re-emergence (or perhaps just a re confirmation) of the role and value of light fast moving infantry on the UA side, particularly in the defence. However for the RA we were thinking that “if only the BTGs had more infantry…silly Russians”. However, in this last phase (phase IV) Russia definitely had the infantry advantage in the areas of its assaults, and it did not lead them to success. In that (and I am sure it will be famous after the war) “battle for the T” the RA had significant infantry advantage and were still at a loss. The infantry could not do its primary job of “taking and holding ground via closing with and destroying the enemy” despite numerical advantages. This leads to an immediate question - if the amount of infantry the Russians threw at Bakhmut was not enough, how much infantry do you really need now? While the UA with smaller forces have continually been successful despite having less infantry. Back to Phase I and II, based on what we have seen in Bakhmut I am not convinced that more infantry or that even better combined arms coordination would have made that much of a difference when the main enemy of mass - artillery- still has information dominance. From what we have seen, more empowered infantry is definitely a lesson learned; however, it is the nature of that empowerment that has been deterministic in this war.

The only difference is in the file naming. If you use the one without brackets file saves can get weird as then system will start numbering saves as 1982, 1983, 1984 etc. The campaigns should be the same, the differences are between ‘79 and ‘82 where the equipment for both sides reflects the 3 year shift.

Following up. Now something like this has a lot more promise: https://www.srcinc.com/products/ew-spectrum-operations/silent-impact-munition-launched-ew-system.html Wont do as much against fully autonomous systems but could play merry hell in the backfield in making a lot of noise we can’t do much about. They are temporary but are cheaper so can be employed for local superiority/C2 backbones.

Well it sounds like an EW swarm, and a lot of possible points of failure. Of course if one can get 2-3 unmanned systems on a single enemy platform, why bother with EW? Just kill the thing. I mean with the amount of effort we are talking about to blunt one system it will likely be easier to simply hammer it. Even if it is another UAS, if you can have three other UAS in an array to corrupt its signal (and if it is fully autonomous it is really the ISR data feed) then it would likely be easier just take out the enemy UAS outright as you have 1) found and fixed it, 2) can track with multiple targets so you do not lose it in trees or terrain and 3) are already projecting low level energy at the thing. Why not just use one of the array UAS to directly engage? The advantage of high energy systems is they deny really wide areas. But they also are highly visible. I think you are describing an area network of EW, all low level energy and very precise - I can see applications in SOF work for specific jobs, however in conventional warfare c-UAS swarms would probably be a better (and easier) way to go. Now if it is a conventional platform like GSR or C2, again easier to simply guide in PGM than try to speaker/microphone the thing in what sounds like a pretty complicated plan. Finally, if your opponent mounts it comms network on a mobile dynamic UAS mesh net, you are going to need 2-3 times the UAS to blind it using this approach, that does not sound very practical when one takes into account terrain. We have not even started on UGS or got into higher altitude systems. And the we got space to worry about.

I think I would need to see an example of this fielded. As I read this we are talking low energy precise signal jamming. It has to defeat anti-jamming (eg frequency hopping) and somehow remain undetected or be mounted on a light unmanned platform. This would mean basically jamming at an individual level - so one jammer per system being attacked, as opposed to the broad area jamming now. I would like to see what that looks like. And then there is direct LOS systems - https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44037/the-air-force-wants-laser-communication-pods-to-securely-link-fighter-aircraft-with-satellites I mean I like the idea but I see a lot of counter moves and hurdles.

This is interesting but I am really not sure how it would work. For example, I have an ISR platform out there sniffing around. I can jam the link between platform and ISR architecture, the link between operator and platform or the link between operator and architecture. The aim here is to effectively stop the information flow be it platform guidance or intel feedback. So spoofing is feeding false signals within that triangle. But every modern military operates with encrypted systems. So you can either insert enough noise into the signal (high energy) to jam or break the encryption and insert a false signal (low energy). I get the point on low energy being more precise and that would be very cool on a unmanned platform but I do not understand how a low energy EW system could spoof or confuse unless it had access to the encryption. It would simply be filtered out as low level noise. “Looking like the real thing” would mean breaking an opponents encryption completely. This would basically mean hacking the signals of an opponent, which is also a cool idea but these are hardened self-contained military grade systems so that is easier said than done. Beyond that is basically massive EM surges (which I am not even sure are EW) but these can also be shielded against. GPS is also an odd example. Open GPS, sure but militaries also all have encryption backbones. So if you are posing as a false GPS signal trying to throw off a guidance system, you need to be pinging as a positive encrypted device. Now of one had Quantum decryption in play (and everyone is chasing that) then it is a different game, but we are not there yet. And of course they are working on the next bound - too much at stake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography Or is there a third way I am missing here? [edit. Thought of one, cyber infiltration and exploitation operations in support could break encryption and then hand off to EM. Of course cyber has to actually be able to pull it off. And frankly if one can get that deep into a system one could hijack platforms without bothering with all the EW stuff in the first place.]

You are very much welcome. FYI the scenario I did up for the tourney is on a Pete W creation for CMCW BAOR - a bit of a teaser. The scenario planned for it is very different (first off there will be Canadians on it) but we thought putting one out there for the tourney would be kinda cool.

I actually do not know what that looks like. We have seen lasers and guns being sold as point defence, but they fall into the same trap as EW - blazing away at bird sized UAS is going to get one lit up pretty fast. Further UAS are going to go more autonomous so zapping them will not get so far. My sense is that the best defence against a drone swarm will be another drone swarm. Then when UGV show up we are going to have the same problem against small kamikaze ground systems that jump out of bushes and strike - a highly mobile and autonomous mine. Then add the systems with a Javelin mounted and denial ranges get out to some crazy distances. There is a crowd that are pushing C-unmanned and APS as a way to somehow reset things back to the way they were, the whole “we have been here before with ATGMs” cynicism. Problem is first, we never really saw the full expression of ATGMs outside of some very early Arab-Israeli wars. We did not fight the Cold War (outside CM) and really have no reference point for just how much those older systems would have impacted warfare, let alone next gen fire and forget. (Hence why this war it being watched with so much interest) Second, one has to protect the entire system which for heavy formations can extend back 10s of kms. Slapping APS and EW dazzlers on all ones tanks is useless if the fuel trucks are naked. So the bill to shield the entire system drives the costs up dramatically. To the point that I am not sure it will be viable. We will end up spending more to protect a tank/AFV/whatever than the platform is worth itself.

Problem with current EW is it projects a lot of energy into the environment. This basically is the equivalent of the old IR spotlights, so EW, like direct energy weapons essentially become c-fire magnets. Further as unmanned goes fully autonomous what E are we W-ing? We can already harden military IT systems from EMP so an autonomous drone that ignores big beams of EM pointed at them is going to happen. While one can see the EW emitter from space. EW has become this magic wizards wand in gaming but in reality it has a lot of weaknesses especially in denying large areas. The RA has been able to establish narrow regions of EW superiority, but how much that cost them is a key question in this war.

The problem will be the “flash”. You will need to concentrate faster than an opponent can see and counter-hit, which frankly the laws of physics do not support well. Artillery simply flies faster than a ground unit can move. Another option is to stay distributed entirely and rely on corrosive warfare but speed up attrition and precision.

Not a crazy idea but how do you support this? Logistics is normally a series of centralized nodes (e.g. Resupply points). The further one distributes mass the wider the logistics network has to become. And like everything else if you concentrate logistics you wind up just becoming targets. We will need to be rethinking a lot of things in this sort of scenario.

Game difficulty settings become the battlefield: I want mine to be Recruit while forcing my opponent to play Veteran.

This is fundamentally the modern warfare problem. We have a lot of our military capabilities on things that have evolved too slowly in comparison to the technology able to find them and hit them. We have ISR systems that can see far better than we can hide, and shooters that hit much farther away with greater precision. Worse, the things that can still hide the best are also the things that can do the seeing and hitting. This puts us into a massive Denial dilemma with current capability. Now I think the RA has been so eroded (or will be) that traditional conventional mass may work, but we cannot count on this for the next war. The tank being dead or not is irrelevant - concentration of mass has become toxic which shifts some pretty fundamental concepts of warfare.

Goes some way in explaining why no one is protesting this war in the streets of Moscow. Putin has clearly been building this internal security architecture, and likely using it for years. The difference now is that it is under new levels of strain. Russia is a big country and the potential blowback from this sort of system failing is not small.

Good lord, the damn things will be knocking on the hatch soon.

And the Javelin is last-gen tech. This is just one reasons of many that we need to rethink combined arms and the concept of mass.

"Within each town the TOG would appoint a garrison commander from the Russian military who would have an assigned detachment of garrison troops. These troops would occupy a building – usually the police or fire station – and set up facilities for detention, processing, interrogation and torture.70 The fact that the layout of these facilities is consistent throughout the country, and the equipment used in torture chambers, including specialised electrocution machines, were the same across multiple oblasts demonstrates that this was a systematic plan and not improvised sadism." https://static.rusi.org/202303-SR-Unconventional-Operations-Russo-Ukrainian-War-web-final.pdf.pdf (pg 22)

Among the other tasks that Major General Kulinich is alleged to have received from the FSB through Sivkovich was to exert influence on the higher political leadership of Ukraine to convince it of the need to abandon the course of joining NATO and to adopt a neutral status just prior to the invasion.30 Refusal to join NATO, according to the Russian special services’ plan, along with other Ukrainian concessions to Russia, should have been the impetus for anti-government protests, similar to the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, when President Yanukovych refused to integrate Ukraine into the EU. Mass protests were intended to simplify the task of the Russian special services to destabilise Ukraine internally and paralyse the system of state and military administration, providing the conditions for a Russian military invasion. https://static.rusi.org/202303-SR-Unconventional-Operations-Russo-Ukrainian-War-web-final.pdf.pdf (pg 9). So when your opponent is working this hard to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and EU...we should probably do exactly that. Further this piece is presenting a lot of evidence that Russia was going to do this thing one way or the other. Once does not defensively build decades old networks and cells aimed at the level of general political buggery happening here - and even if it could be sold as defensive, one normally waits for an actual crisis before pulling the trigger, not a Tues in Feb because "reasons".

This is pure gold.

Depends on the dog, there are some pretty shady dogs. To this list I would add “Identity” - who we are. So much of this war has been about Russian internal identity that I am beginning to think of it as the major cause. Ukraine was one of Russia’s best customers: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/ukr/partner/rus And this was even after 2014. We have already debunked the resources grab argument. There is no real ideological difference here. And ethnicity is also pretty weak as they were essentially the same ethnic parity as Canada and the US. So we are back to identity. Russia started a war because of who they think they are and a driving need to sustain that certainty. It was in direct collision with Ukrainian certainty about who they are. And here we are.

Any number of military FLIR and SAR type systems. What is weird about this thing is that is sounds a lot like it was written by ChatGPT or somesuch. A lot of technical terms and buzzwords (Kinetic Action) being used out of context or in an odd context.

Someone is going to claim it was UA SOF because they could operate that deep. No western trained SOF is going to blow cover 30 km behind enemy lines to scare a couple civilians. ”The Statue of Liberty is kaput!”

It was a trick the Taliban taught us back in the day.

Do it know as to #2 but as to #1, good question. Both sides have smoke ammunition but we have not seen it being employed that often. My guess is that smoke on the modern battlefield acts as a big flashing sign “hey look over here!” If both sides have tac UAS and ISR a bunch of smoke anywhere is going to draw a lot of attention. It may blind locally but once it pulls in a half dozen UAS any advantages kinda go out the window. What I am interested to see is if either side starts using smoke as a feint mechanism drawing attention in one place while putting main effort somewhere else.