The_Capt

“Why didn’t they just fly the Giant Eagles all the way to Mordor?” ”ISR Billy, ISR”.

We won’t really know until final TO&Es are put in but we had planned pretty much the full gambit of UK units - if it was in the BAOR or had a chance to get pulled in, we put it in for submission to the game. For the Canadians, I basically recreated 4 CMBG from the old ‘76 redesign - beefed it up some and tried to get some cool stuff put in. Not sure I can post much more than this - BFC has a pretty uptight policy until we get the thing entirely baselined.

First answer to “Did NATO forces plan etc?” Absolutely, yes. The 11 ACR (V Corp) owned this ground: had war gamed it, exercised over it and planned for a Soviet attack in this area for decades. They had PTPTs (peace time prepared targets) already sketched in, in some places only needed to add mines or explosives to obstacles pre-sighted. In game I was probably too forgiving for levels of US/NATO prep but there was a strategic surprise element built into the backstory. Soviet doctrine actually had a fair amount manoeuvre built into it, however, it was normally only ever exercised at operational levels. An MRR or TR was really considered a tactical munition - point at enemy and pull trigger. One had to go up to divisional level before anything resembling manoeuvre warfare kicked in. The Soviets were hampered by centralized control however, so we really do not know how things would have really panned out. Mission 3 is extremely realistic from a Bn or Regt COs point of view. This is day 3 or 4 of the war so recon would have largely been stripped away in the forward Recon Battles. So formations and units would be relying on their own recon/FSE’s. An MRB CO would have been pointed and ordered at a primary objective with limited recon against an opponent how really knew and owned the ground. A collision of this sort (I.e. rolling straight into a KZ situation) is very realistic for the forces and time of the battle. Removing the Soviet players ability to shape or pre-position was by-design to reflect this situation. You are an MRB CO smashing forward. If you die, there are entire echelons behind you that may bypass but you are stuck with this situation. We really were aiming to put the player in realistic Soviet shoes, not simply allow them to fight as westerners in Soviet kit. Is it unfair? Most definitely. Is it realistic. Absolutely.

I think we have been slowly amping up the targeting list pretty effectively. By doing slow, steady and increasingly costly deep strikes Putin has been responding with “nothing to see here” because to actually admit to defence failures hurts his position. They also have not been shock and awe, which risks both escalation and driving support into Putin’s arms. I suspect we are going to see more of the same with a steadily expanding target list. The Western Powers definitely get a vote as they essentially own the majority of the C4ISR architecture that enables a lot of these strikes. The current strategy is effective as it projects a dilemma onto Putin: deny and suffer continued strikes or admit weakness to rally a broader response. He, of course, has picked the middle ground and uses these instances to blame NATO and reframe this war as such, but that also has strategic potholes. Ukraine (and Western) strategy of death-of-thousand-cuts is smart…so long as we actually back it up with resources to drag this thing out to a “win”. I think any hope of a “quick war” are basically over short of a strategic collapse of the RA; however, as we have discussed that will likely mean a sudden violent political collapse in Russia itself - which is something no one who has a clue actually wants.

We actually have no idea what Putin’s real base of genuine support is or is not. First off he controls any and all “polls” either directly or indirectly so trying to gauge who really supports him, who is pretending simply to avoid trouble and who opposes but is afraid to say anything, in real terms is basically impossible to do inside Russia, let alone outside looking in. “Look a bunch of people lined up to support him” is not a viable basis for deductions. Second problem is that support, in a functioning democracy, is founded on a basis of “informed decision”. This means that all sides can spin, argue and slant but in the end the news media and objective journalism is supposed to provide a voter with a range of diverging viewpoints and facts. Voters can then decide who to support, or not support based on their own personal perception and understanding. This is damned hard to do in a functioning liberal democracy; however, in Russia it is likely impossible. Putin controls the mainstream media - we have heard endless stories of dissenters being arrested or charged, hell he passed laws making criticism of this war illegal. He also has a lot of control within social media, suppressing sites and flooding the RUSNet with stooges. We have seen enough outright lies and insane claims out of Russian media in the last two years to know that the average Russian simply is not able to access much beyond what Putin wants them to see and hear. Under these conditions “real support” is nearly impossible because no alternative facts, ideas or even options are ever presented. Finally, as our Ukrainian friends like to point out continually, the average Russian is poorly educated, poor wealth and largely ignorant…this is why they keep signing up for this war. To now accuse these people of “knowingly supporting Putin” as if they have access to alternatives is short-sighted at best. Further, Kraze’s continued insistence to call every living Russian on the planet as vicious war loving murders is not only disingenuous, it treads dangerously close to genocidal narratives that have no place on what is supposed to be a rational objective forum. We know Russians opposed this war, a few hundred thousand ran away. Others are resisting passively. We also know that many really do not even understand what this war is or is not because Putin is preventing them from seeing any truth but his own. We also know some Russians also buy into this war and Putin fully even knowing the reality. In the end we are going to have to deal with all of them in some form or another because as much as some people are acting out emotionally here, we are not going to wipe Russia off the face of the earth and salt the ground on their mass graves. So be pissed off, but do not come here and promote outright disinformation in some sort of weird attempt to get us to all buy into some “every Russian is evil and must die” nonsense. There are all sorts of sites on the internet where people on both sides can engage in that emotional orgy, but it should not be here. The second this forum becomes one of those places, I for one, am out.

I can fully understand and sympathize with their positions and sentiments. But lies are lies, no matter who is pushing them. We either try and hold onto objective truth or we can just become another echo chamber showing one sided war porn and offering weak analysis. We are challenged enough to avoid our own biases without completely abandoning what this entire thread was supposed to do in the first place. I oppose disinformation no matter the source.

Considering that he basically: controls the media, makes real opposition disappear (or kills them outright), has central control of internal security who are arresting anyone who even has a whiff of real dissent, and anyone running against him is basically approved by him - Russia isn't even close to a functioning democracy at this point anymore than North Korea is. To come here claiming otherwise is disinformation of the worst sort.

BS of the highest order. You have zero proof of this and just about no one who knows anything about election processes outside of Russia agrees with you.

I thought RA FPV usage and effectiveness was on the rise. To the point there was fear of UAS parity. These charts would suggest otherwise.

Depends on context of the kinetic environment (there are many variations of that environment). If we are talking disciplined well coordinated response any of those three would be great. If you need “zero to f#cking 60 at the bat of an errant eyelash” go with the less traditional partners like Jamaicans or Afghans.

Very good point. I have said before and will re-state here and now, a free fall Russian collapse will make the current war a fond memory compared to what would likely happen next. Our best case scenario is a slow and steady decline of an isolated Russia until they are pretty much a client state of China, who will of course recognize “being shackled to a corpse” and all that entails. I think a full Russian failure is in the cards without a major regime change in a direction that simply remains extremely remote - I.e. full Russian pivot back towards democracy and a European facing political ruling class. The question is really “how fast?”

There you go. You finally landed on it. So this is pretty much what they tried to do. In fact they started to tie the hands of the Red Team to stop them from winning.

If those USVs bring UAS with them those nets will have to cover the entire ship. I am interested in a few ideas beat nets. First are very small unmanned bots who swim in and manually cut the nets up. Second is tandem attacks. Third are standoff EFP which will simply blow through the nets.

I remember hearing about that ex, caused quite a stir. They ended up re-setting and re-floating the fleet. I think we are going to see hybrid surface/sub-surface systems. Sub-surface for long range positioning and then pop them up and go fast for close in kill. Very small USV/UUVs are hard to pick up on sonar and impossible on radar. Once they get close enough surface and go hydrofoil or somesuch and swarm. Not a bad idea to launch a bunch of air systems at the same time. Like UAS only way to really counter this will be a screen of ones own USVs. This approach basically takes the strength of sea mines but makes em a lot more mobile and flexible. Further it allows for offensive employment. Like heavy in land warfare, large expensive platforms are at risk of becoming liabilities as opposed to assets in this sort of environment.

I think you have just articulated why Russia cannot simply sit back on defence. Add to this political considerations etc. A defensive war against an opponent that can hammer really expensive stuff, like infrastructure - while the same opponents warfighting infrastructure is effectively inside NATO nations is a sure fire way to losing in the long run. Putin needs to keep the pressure up until something gives because he really has no real other viable options. If he can get the west to falter and start talking ceasefires, he can then reframe this fiasco as the greatest Russian victory since Bagration.

I have a serious problem with this narrative that somehow Russia “did Adiivka” and has now fully recovered. This entire position is based on some pretty sketchy vehicle production stats, most of the info coming out of Russia itself. As far as we can tell the RA wrecked an entire MRD at Adiivka. This is on top of loses elsewhere. The idea that Russia simply stamped out an entire shiny new MRD to replace it is disinformation as far as I am concerned. Russian force quality has been on a one way trajectory from the start of this war, except for a few notable areas: UAS and ISR - and we still are not sure if these are anomalies or trends. In other capability areas it is exactly as you describe, more older equipment. (equipment less suitable for this environment) This is due to RA losses exceeding Russian industrial capacity to generate modern equipment. It has been noted by more than one expert that Russia is draining its Soviet legacy force pool of equipment and ammunition. So the idea that Russia is simply shrugging off all these losses - losses that Ukraine is barely able to sustain, while quaking under the giant footsteps of an unstoppable Russia, all the while the weak and puny west sits back and watches…well this borders on propaganda not worthy of this forum. These sorts of gross oversimplifications without any real evidence, or skewing evidence need to stop as they play directly in Russian information operations. I suspect the Ukrainian posters who have pitched these angles are a combination of war weary and/or are thinking that by continuing to promote a desperate Ukrainian situation that we will somehow become politically motivated. However, they are missing the very real risk that some who read this forum may take this entire narrative as a sign that Ukraine is a lost cause, and we are all out of patience with lost causes. By continually shouting “Ukraine is dooooomed” they might just convince enough people that they are right. The answer won’t be to “double down and support Ukraine” it may wind up being “cut out losses and move on”. That is what makes this angle such a powerful pro-Russian tool. Russia must make this war appear “too hard, too complicated” because we in The West hate those situations. Any and all skewed or heavily biased assessments like these simply play into Russian hands.

Not really but maybe half way there….? My point was that a societies military is a lot more than a lone political ideological data point. If we somehow built a perfect Afghan military that aligned with their society and culture the outcome would have likely been the same. This is because the issues with Afghanistan were deeper than defence and security. The ANA was very often a domestic army of strangers because the locals were voting with IEDs. No equipment or training was going to solve that. Maybe a couple hundred years of social evolution but it really wouldn’t matter how we built a central military in that nation because it did not want to be the nation we wanted it to be. Hell the Taliban do not have full internal security control and they are far better aligned to Afghan reality. The failure to “graft” an Afghan security force was a symptom of a larger disease, not the disease in itself. My larger point is that there is a link between a society and its military (obviously) but we should avoid oversimplifying that relationship or ignore a lot of other factors as we apply a nice neat template to the war in Ukraine. When one is doing Military Assistance, you definitely have to take into account “how they fight” but one cannot bet on that single pony and expect success. “How they live”, “Where they live”, “How they pay for it”, “Who they fight and fight for” and “Why they fight” are much larger than whatever political ideology is in play. In reality this entire discussion is not about building militaries around the world, it is about intervention as a broader strategy. Based on the last 30 years it has been the major strategy of the Western world, we are doing a version of it in Ukraine right now. However, our successes in employing this strategy are spotty at best, with many high profile failures. How much longer we are going to keep trying it? Well that is a very good question.

I guess the primary evidence is not in losses or numbers, it is in the fact that the RA have not been able to translate tactical advances into an operational breakout/breakthrough. If the UA were totally overmatched the RA would be advancing tens of kms, if not hundreds. Does anyone think that Russia can do this right now but is holding back due to restraint? What is clear is that the UA is still able to deny air, land and sea spaces even with the ammunition disparities. Now as to how long either side can sustain this, or if Ukraine is somehow losing more than the RA - well we do not know, none of us. The UA has been holding actual casualty numbers very close to their chest. So far the Ukrainian president has said openly that the UA has lost about 31k KIA and one can extrapolate about x3-5 wounded. Is that enough to buckle UA force generation? Again, unknown. All we do know is that neither side appears close to operational collapse, and the UA is holding the line and costing the RA heavily. We do not know what the breaking points of either military are or are not. Any other “bright and shiny” or “doom and gloom” assessments are pretty much being pulled out of @sses by this point.

Well kudos for trying to wrestle with it. There is a lot in the wind with respect to warfare right now. All of my theories could easily collapse tomorrow. I spent the first year of this war, mouth agape, trying to figure out what was going on. The second year, things started to form, but they are nothing more than shadows we can see from the outside. Now into the third year, I am convinced of some things, which if wargaming has taught me anything, is about the time Bil H drops the bomb and blows up my entire plan.

Outstanding summary…much better than mine. I would add that “Air Superiority” is also about “range, reach and persistence”. We relied on air power dominance for deep battle, which is critical to the western way of warfare. If that is denied we run into serious trouble. The Soviet system relies of air power more for, as you note, denial and strategic shaping. The Soviets really did not have a CAS or operational air power complex like we developed in the west. Even Tac Avn was seen as a firepower projection element and not an integral part of manoeuvre. Beyond Air, the west relies heavily on multi-domain superiority. We not only need to own the air, but also the maritime, space and cyber for our system to really work. The major problem is, and will continue to be that potential adversaries are not stupid. They know that if they cannot dominate a domain, they only need to deny it in order to create cracks in the western military system. They have, and will continue to invest heavily into these denial capabilities. The problem is that denial has become increasingly easy to achieve. This has been due to several driving factors but miniaturization of processing power has been central. By being able to load more complex processing power, and sensors to inform that processing…all cheaper and lighter. It means weapons for denial have become not only smaller - allowing for greater range - but more autonomous and precise. This is potentially enormous. It redraws the fabric of warfare at some pretty fundamental levels. In the past it was some very small things. The ability to create overwhelming firepower in the form of things like machine guns and fast fire artillery had a massive impact on warfare. But in reality the largest impacts on warfare were a rail line, signals wire and tin can. Rail lines allowed for massive quick force projection on scales and timelines we never saw before. Signals wire linked all that firepower volume together. And tin cans meant we could keep troops in the field for 365 days a year. Those three relatively disconnected technologies changed warfare forever. What we are seeing on the modern battlefield is even more profound. We are talking about artificial thinking and decision making. We are seeing everything in real time and feeding it back to these systems. To try and pin this on a Western or Soviet military school of thought is really not useful in my opinion as what we could potentially be seeing is so much larger.

Danger young “S”. This is not the first time this distillation has been attempted. As I allude to in my post, the link between military schools of thought and the societies behind them is not 1) unidirectional, nor 2) in glorious isolation. There is truth to the above argument but only partial truths. For example, in war societies themselves shift and change (see Japanese internment camps) so the evolution of their military will also shift and change. In the examples you cite, these are less failures in military transposition but in a larger political ideology. More bluntly we cannot reproduce western democracies in many of these nations. The failure of western military school in these same nations is a symptom of a large issue. At the same time history is full of “westernized” indigenous troops who were successfully integrated and operationalized out of line with their home cultures - Sikh Regiments anyone? A military must be a recognizable extension of its society but that is far slipperier and squishier concept than the picture on the cereal box.

There is some truth to the idea that militaries are an extension of the people who make them, however, one cannot become too focused on political ideology as the sole source of an overall school of doctrine. History, resources, infrastructure, culture, environment and even things as simple as education and literacy all play important roles in how a military is generated and employed. We can see vast differences in communist military approaches, for example. North Vietnam had a very different approach than the Soviets, as did China and other non-Soviet communist states. Western militaries also differed, not only internally but over time. There is a vast difference in US military doctrine as it went from conscription to an all volunteer force. Its conscription based force actually favoured mass until the 70s as did many other western nations. I think this risks dangerous oversimplification of the issue. Ukraine is on a democracy spectrum, not a full fledge liberal democratic state yet. Russia is also technically a democracy, but far more in the “locked in” autocratic/oligarch end. Neither Ukraine or Russia are communist states (see their economic systems). So boiling this all down to Russia = dictatorship = communism = Soviet system: Ukraine = democracy = western system, is a serious oversimplified lens through which to view the situation on just about every point of the algorithm. The initial Russian invasion was constructed pretty much as we expected - BTGs under Brigade formations. The nature of the assault was multi-axis manoeuvre designed to overwhelm an opponent. The RA did not employ a Soviet style military approach here, they were much closer to western military philosophy and doctrine - fast moving warfare based on strategies of rapid annihilation through manoeuvre. We did not see MRDs in an echeloned system designed to attack in multiple waves or the massive fires complex that are hallmarks of the Soviet system - in fact if Russia had gone with a Soviet style attack, with the numbers behind it, they may very well have won. No the RA tried to employ what was basically a western style opening attack but it failed, nearly completely. Now why it failed is interesting and two camps have sprung up. The main one is that “Russia Sux” and cannot do western doctrine, despite trying to look like us, for various reasons - a BTG is nothing more than a type of Battle Group. The other camp is of the mind the RA failed because conditions on the modern battlefield have changed. The first camp has been the loudest but the evidence in support of the second is growing. The western school is far more than training and kit - it is a deeper military philosophy that generates strategy, which in turn generates campaigns…pretty much like the Soviet school but taking very different routes to get to a similar end-state. Now as the war has progressed the RA quickly saw that their was little hope for them by holding onto the western doctrinal school, they appear have to fallen back on mass but even here in small bite sized chunks…why? This is the Soviet style but descaled. The immediate answer to this descaling was “Russia Sux..LOLZ” but this does not make sense. Russia managed a 5-6 axis, high speed operation at the beginning of the war but cannot figure out a Battalion level attack two-years in? The good news is that it appears the Soviet approach is also under constraints based on the environment as well. High concentration is too dangerous so they too have to de-aggregate. As to the UA the idea you appear to be proposing is the “one more XYZ and they can win” idea. It is that if we can only make the UA more like us, enough, that victory will somehow happen. This does not match observations either. Ukraine started this war fighting hybrid. Mixes of conventional and unconventional defence along the entire length of the RAs overstretched operational system. That was not western doctrine nor Soviet, it was something we have seen in COIN but upscaled and empowered. The core C2 component of the Soviet style system is centralized control and task-command. We saw neither of these from Ukraine in the opening days of the war. They were far more western in that resistance in that regard. Last summer was a testament and watershed moment. It is well documented that the UA had a lot of western equipment and tens of thousands of western trained troops. The UA tried Bn level mechanized breaches in the centre south that are straight out of the western manuals. They clearly trained for them in Europe and operationalized them. They also failed…dramatically. So either the Ukrainians can’t do western (another narrative that sprung up) or there are weaknesses in the western technology based approach on these battlefields. I argue the latter. The single largest one is the over-dependence of the western system on air superiority. Without that the entire western school starts to fail. And in the modern UAS environment air superiority is impossible. So it won’t matter how much western equipment and training we provide, our current doctrine looks like it will not work on this battlefield. So what? We need a new doctrine. It really doesn’t, in Ukraine and both sides have pulled back from the western style approach as they have been pulled into an attrition war. The western school vs Soviet school is less about politics and more about military strategies. Both were built for Annihilation strategies but the Soviet school has a far higher tolerance for attrition warfare. Ukraine has kept the high technology approach but western style manoeuvre is simply undoable in this environment at any scale. Or it may take a scale so high that it looks more Soviet than anything else. Your position sounds an awful lot like the militaries of WW1 - one more push and we are through. But now they just need more F16s. The Russians have taken the same philosophy but are basing it on human capital and not kit. I suspect both camps are incorrect. The western school of rapid overwhelming manoeuvres may be dead due to nearly complete battlefield illumination and modern friction. Dumb mass is definitely dead for essentially the same reasons. Neither side will adopt either the Western or Soviet approach in full because both of these schools are 80 years old and designed for a different time. The Western school cannot deal with a modern attrition based war and the Soviet one cannot deal with the technological realities. Neither schools can address the realities of denial and friction we are seeing. So we are going to see the evolution of something else. And our job over here in the safe sidelines is to try and stay out of Ukraine’s way while they figure it out…and take notes. In summary, both militaries started this war more western than Soviet. It worked for the Ukrainians on defence but has failed them on offence. The Russians started with a more western-style approach on offence but once it failed ran back into the loving arms of Soviet doctrine on defence. The Russian have tried a much smaller scaled down version of Soviet style on offence and it has provided limited gains at horrendous costs. Ukraine has tried western style offensives, also at smaller scales, which have essentially done as well as the Soviet system, but with much lower casualties. So here we are, neither school is really working on offence but can do defence. Hence the growing belief that we are into something larger than either school - defensive primacy. So, solutions. Well doubling down on either school is likely a dead end. We probably need a new school entirely. One we have not seen yet. This war, and the next one will be a race of adaptations. We have yet to see where it will end. My position is that neither the Western or Soviet schools are working in this war, even though they have been attempted. We should not even try to make the UA more like the US Army at this point. Nor will expunging “Soviet legacy” fix the situation for Ukraine. I suspect we have yet to see a new school of military art and thought emerge. It is largely built on a foundation of artificial intelligence/forward processing that can create massed precision fires. Both sides appear to be trying to figure out this problem, my money is that Ukraine is ahead in the game but not unassailable.

I think you are mixing a lot of themes here to the detriment of objective analysis. The Soviet system was designed to create as much mass as possible and project it at an opponent. It may appear "cruel and uncaring" but in reality it was built on the brutal lessons of the Eastern Front and how a quick violent short war was far better than a drawn out one. We vie for the same aspiration of short wars, we simply lean on technology instead of human capital. And frankly we have no real proof either system is truly superior. The Soviet system is a poorer fit for modern democracies; however, before we sit too high on that horse, lets not forget democracies fought in WW1 too, and were very able to throw human capital at a problem at great loss. The reality is that there is nothing inherently "wrong" or "evil" about the Soviet military system - talking political ideology out of the equation - so long as one asks that system to do what it was designed to do. The exact same thing goes for the Western military system. In this war, both sides have tried the western approach...and it did not work. Now they are in a grinding war of attrition for which the western systems is also a very bad fit. Nor is there proof that democracies can't do attrition either. We have proven that we are very capable at spending a lot of lives to win. What I oppose is this reoccurring narrative that somehow all the problems all sides are having are "Soviet legacy" and any successes are somehow western modernization; this is simply not proven by what we have seen. Russia has fallen back onto a more Soviet-like approach to force generation and employment...and clearly it is working for them. They are able to hold ground and even conduct tactical advances even with appalling losses. The UA is moving much farther to the western doctrine, and frankly some of it is working for them too. They are able to hold, strike deep and have very high precision. The weaknesses of either system are also on display for all to see as well. For the Soviet system it is rigidity and logistical weight, which is untenable on the modern battlefield. For the Western system it is the serious lack of depth and capacity. I suspect that each side is evolving to some sort of hybrid, or at least trying to. Either way, it does us little good to point at every problem and go "difficulty upscaling due to Soviet legacy" which frankly does not even make sense based on what Soviet legacy really was. As to that last part I highlighted - well yes and no. The Mongols created smart fast mass and took over half the planet, so not entire a new idea. The Soviet system could generate modern mech and armor forces like no one else. Their operational art was very advanced on how to employ that mass. In many ways they really are a defining school of modern warfare, the counter-point to the western schools. We have no actual war to try and decide which system was better to worse to be honest. The Gulf War was the closest but it really was a poor analogue. This war has shadows of the Soviet system but overlapped with other schools.

I have no argument on either the Ukrainian or Russian military medical system shortfalls. I do have a problem with hitting the "Soviet legacy" button too often. Hell the rampant corruption within that system may even apply; however, we (or they or whoever offers this analysis) have been far too quick to assign too many problems to "Soviet legacy" in my opinion. This makes for weak analysis as we basically now have an iron clad assumption and do not need analysis anymore. The Russian medical system is failing because a lot of their sustainment systems are failing. They were never designed for the war they got. In fact if Russia did have the Soviet era military medical system, they likely would be in far better shape.