The_Capt

Pretty damned significant. He could basically cut off Crimea’s back door for starters. Which would mean all logistics would be reliant on the strategic land bridge or sea. If he could spread the pain for enough he could severely cut off DPR/LNR - there are some corridors from the North they could try to push down. RA units would be in dire straights as they basically have very angry Ukrainians to the front of a very long front line, while Wagner plays merry f#ckery on what looks like about 80% of their LOCs. Wagner would basically have them by the sustainment testicles. RA could not let this stand as it would severely risk collapse of their front line positions in about a week of full choke is applied. Airstrikes are really problematic as a solution, not only because Wagner likely has AD but trying to figure out who is who on the ground gets really tricky. And then there is the SOF factor. Wagner is not only “elite”, they are set up to fight like SOF which means highly distributed. So we could see a boiling insurgency in front of the more conventional troops. If Prig is smart he could turn this into a real play by simply threatening the entire RA in Ukraine. Any chance him and Putin will make nice-nice and blame it on someone they can throw out a window?

I would say, “Yes”. This was all the discussion about a theory of Russian defeat…and right now it looks like there isn’t one. If Russia goes into complete free fall it could get very crazy very fast. We have never had a nuclear power have a full scale civil war, so let’s hope it does not come to it as we are basically off the map. Key thing to watch out for is the direction of the wind in the RA. If they start peeling off in support of Wagner in significant numbers the sh#tshow is likely on. If it stays down to “just” Wagner’s reported 25k troops in Russia plus whatever they have in other countries it might be slower burning…maybe.

Nothing good. Wagner is pretty big and wide scope so that will mean resources diverted to get this back under control. Priority will be Russia but Wagner is all over the MENA and can quickly turn into a highly hooked up terror organization - we might start seeming Russian industry/commercial and diplomatic interest having sudden accidents. In Russia, my guess is that Wagner will need to bring elements of the RA onto their side for this thing to go anywhere. Unless, gawd help us, Wagner has managed to get its hands on WMDs of some sort. High end, disruption gets so big the RA in Ukraine collapses strategically to try and contain this. Middle end, significant disruption, that has operational effects which could accelerate the UA timetable. Low end, this things get tied off quickly and tightly. Prig winds up taking a dirt nap, maybe after a show trial and Putin/MoD stays really nervous with more smoking accidents as I already mentioned.

Not quite ready to call that. However, why Russia abandoned its successes in GZ/Hybrid warfare and decided to "go loud" baffles me to this day. I mean lets say in an alt universe they pulled it all off. Ukraine falls, they occupy the country...how does this make things better? Finland and Sweden still running to NATO. NATO doubling down on Baltics (FFS, Putin managed to get Canadian tanks back in Europe...under a freakin Liberal government no less!) and securing heavy defence spending. We likely would have gotten all in on "support to Ukrainian resistance" as an insurgency from hell with safe havens all over the place except Belarus went to town. I am sure from inside the dark, warm and smelly place within the Kremlin there was a vision of victory here but this one has to go down as one of the worst strategic mis-steps of the last 100 years. Actually when you look at those 100 years, quite a crappy batting average by Russia overall wrt strategic decisions.

Well I for one fully support CMCW reading and playthroughs. FM 100-2-1 was a key reference for when we built the game.

It is not the mistress "knowing and telling" on the general. It is that on Tues she went to the love nest, which is weird because normally it is on Wed. Then on Thurs the driver had to in and get maintenance done on the car, which is off schedule. Then he picked up the cigarettes the general really likes that they cannot get in theatre. Then the generals EA got picked up telling Mom he is missing dinner on Sun. So what does that tell us? Well the general is moving off-schedule. Now link that into another few thousand data points with AI pattern recognition support and finding where that general is going doesn't take Prig/MoD dropping a dime...it is the simple fact that we have pointed so many assets and architecture at the problem. We save em up for multiple HVT strikes in a short period to cause shock within the RA C2 system - and as you note, suspicion. It really is just part of larger strategic shaping campaign that the UA and west have likely been conducting for months over the winter. None of this disproves the theory that Prig is off the leash, or other elements of Russian MoD are trying to do some cleaning. I suspect we have intel pictures on that as well. US/western intel has not been this energized since the Cold War - even GWOT likely did not get this level of density and unlike terrorists, RA assets are a lot harder to hide. And all that ISR is sitting on 21st century technology. We have seen evidence of this before during the wave of RA leadership strikes last summer leading into the Fall Offensive.

This goes a long way to explaining timing. It is the shock value to RA C2 in a short period of time. Clipping RA generals in onesies and twosies does not have the same impact as a bunch all at once, particularly if you are supporting a counter-offensive. As to Russian info security. Well first off they have been leaking like an incontinent horse this entire war. Second, I do not think people have a full appreciation of western ISR being pointed at this problem. Finding an RA general is not easy but people simply give off too much data to hide well in this day and age. That general has a driver, wife, mistress whatever and they all establish a pattern around the person. Short of the general camo-ing up and hiding in a hole, finding them is not what it once was.

They must have hit it hard. Likely created load restrictions that forced the backup.

Totally true. As to C4ISR, well as a total hypothetical - if western cyber has managed to penetrate an Russian network that yields them hi resolution LOCSTATS on RA HVT, they may have laid in wait for the UA counter-offensive for months. The sudden "improvement" is much more likely the end result of months of putting things into place in order to support the UA push. Any information trickling out of Russian MoD could be a leak, could be a pin-prick, could be a tick, could be a mole. My best advice is to keep an eye on all of them.

We have been wondering if this guy has been off the leash for sometime now. I think it is safe to say that he definitely looks that way now.

Long time listener, first time caller...welcome. Not a bad idea, however, I am always cautious about single node theories as they often have to be strung together by conspiracy. If I am reading you correctly your position is that Prig has flipped and now is barfing intel on HVTs, hence the recent successes? Could be a factor, however one has to realize that the C4ISR architecture being employed by the UA and deeply supported by the West is epic...and I am talking "in the history of the species - epic". The HVT strikes could simply be a result of the UA probing which has caused the RA C2 structure to light itself up. It could be a result of partisan asset activation that has remain dormant until the c-offensive. It could be a multi-domain hack that the west and UA have on an RA C2 vulnerability that they been saving up and just pulled the trigger. It is most likely a combination of all of the above to be honest. Or it could be an inside job to clean house of disloyal or problematic RA leadership - although I have to wonder why people would not do this the old fashion way of "sudden health crisis" as opposed to high profile Ukrainian HIMAR. My advice is to keep an eye out for more indicators but don't get scope eye on any one solution. In reality we likely will not fully understand what happened for years, maybe never.

Well I support the first activity, there will be time enough for the second in the post-apocalyptical afterglow. What do you think the odds are for a soft/silent-Article 5 that starts prosecuting non-kinetic targets inside Russia? Also, I am not sure what we do if radiation drifts into Poland or somesuch and then they go all Article 5.

Excellent finds. Good lord, they were still talking about close order in 1911?! I can see right away how their C2 requirements were colliding with 20th century firepower - that is another key consideration. You can see the beginnings of Mission Command here as well. There are several thesis opportunities here for anyone interested. Thank you very much for the Jutland ref, I can feel another journey of exploration ahead of me.

Ah crap…I had plans for this summer. And was so close to retirement. I don’t think my knees can take a third war.

US Congress just basically gave bi-partisan support for an escalation ladder to WW3…that is some spicy talk. Nuclear weapons release makes sense (although these were words we dared not speak in the previous 17 months). Destruction of a nuclear power plant = Article 5 is a pretty serious round to be loading in the chamber. I drifted off when everyone was talking about 6.8mm and woke up to this?! Where in the hell is @billbindc!

Uh…what? When the hell did all this happen?

The major problem being hindsight is 20/20 and a full picture of events that unfolded 200 years ago is never going to be complete. One also has to keep in mind (and here I point to myself) that all of these militaries largely lacked centralized bureaucracies for force development. Things like lessons learned and doctrine were largely decentralized or buried deep in largely powerless structures. Military doctrines were largely left to generals who tended to groom from their own internal cliques and clubs. Unlike the open information spheres of today, these military institutions largely lacked challenge functions or deliberate experimentation institutions. So your point on “reasonable” is heavily caveated by reasonable for the time, place and context. In reality given the context, without some highly visionary and powerful Alexander type it was very hard to break out of those boxes. I too continue to search. The conversation has me wondering about the naval forces in the same era. Unlike land forces, navies of the world appear to have evolved apace with the times. What functions allowed them to do this? In fact one could argue that naval power development and evolution allowed the Entente to ultimately win the war. Nor does naval power appear to have the same offence/defence dynamics over time despite also having vast increases to range and lethal in the same time periods. In many ways land warfare was a poor cousin to the efforts in naval power and I am curious if the priority may have also made a difference.

Well they are all surface laid...so not really that much of a stretch. Man, those look like some high densities. I think the Russians may have found something they are actually good at.

Bear: Furry omnivore that it is best to stay on good terms with

My bad on Gettysburg v Waterloo, totally mis-remembered that one. You are correct on relative sizes. As the Napoleonic Wars being the "largest and bloodiest in human history prior to WW1"...well it must be your turn to mis-remember: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests. I am inclined to lean towards Haggerman on the use of Napoleonic tactics in the US Civil War. I think that while they were not totally obsolete by 1863, the writing was starting to be seen on the wall. At places like Antietam Cornfield, and Peach Orchad/Devils Den at Gettysburg, it was clear that close order troops were entering into a dilemma. One did not need to mass for firepower in the same manner as they had in the past. A doubling of effective range of rifles has major effects on the battlefield, from fire control to formation. The equation of density-to-firepower changes, as does vulnerability. Read Azar Gat A History of Military Thought. He does an outstanding job of tracing the evolutions of military theory. The theories of the day drove mindsets and culture, which drove doctrine and organization, which drove application of strategy and tactics. One cannot get into a serious discussion of evolution of tactics without reaching back through all that into underlying theoretical thinking and the cultural frames they create. I think the cultural dynamic is a core concept in this and it is the one that many either miss, or misread. Yes, sieges were teasers of WW1...all of them. They are definitive examples of Defensive primacy and have been since the dawn of civilization. They require long grinding attritional offensives to exhaust the defenders or become exhausted oneself. The difference between US Civil War and Franco-Prussian War, was how those sieges were conducted. In the US Civil War great walled cities did not exist so sieges became trench-based. At Paris the battle of annihilation early on did not work in creating victory, and offensive options quickly ran out rendering the war a more drawn out affair. We are seeing a massive War of Sieges in front of us right now - yet I am still hearing all about combined arms manoeuvre and "yay tanks!". The character of modern day siege warfare is not the same as WWI, why that is and what it means is a central question we will have to solve. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/leavenworth-papers-4-the-dynamics-of-doctrine.pdf This plus a the UK 1914 infantry manual (I will keep digging), spell out that European militaries 1) did not totally ignore all the lessons of the previous wars, 2) did not evolve anywhere near as far as they had to by the beginning of WW1. Meeting a century old system "half way" and leaving it embedded into military culture is how the Somme happened. So why did they not evolve far enough? This is a major question that had enormous consequences. Military theory and doctrine drive force development, which drives money. That money pays for innovation and sparks further innovation. Technology does not spontaneously happen in a vacuum. If European militaries were still interested in firepower thinking it was for offensive uses, then industry is going to privilege this...why? Because that is where the money is. By failing to push far forward enough, European militaries simply created a self-reinforcing box. Or one could really pay attention to the smaller wars that proceeded them. Here I disagree. There was plenty of opportunity and evidence to rethink the box. War of colonization offered a myriad of different ways of fighting...but none were European (read: civilized) enough. The trend lines were all pointing in a direction that led out of the Age of Rifles directly to the Age of Firepower. Much in the same way the current trends point to moving from an Age of Steel to one of Information/Unmanned. How much actual experimentation or force development on trench warfare was done prior to WWI? We can see from the UK training manual that "Entrenchment" was a known thing; however, appears to have been treated as an inconvenience. Trench warfare was known and demonstrated back in the US Civil War. There is "unknowable" and then there is "failing to look, because we do not want to." The European militaries were absolutely trapped in a box, my argument is that they could see the walls of that box if they looked harder - the evidence of failure to do so is fairly well established. I do not believe that European militaries blindly marched into slaughter. I believe that the professionals all had a sense that something was changing and made stuttering steps to try and stay abreast of it. I also believed their failure is a cautionary tale for modern military thinkers. I think historical revision can be healthy and add nuance to what was no doubt a highly complex and uncertain time. However, I think broad scale forgiveness and apologist narratives let both them and us off the hook, which is extremely dangerous. I mean if the evolution of war is so undecipherable, then our doctrine should be to stick with what worked...until is doesn't? That to my mind is as dangerous now as it was then.

And a quick follow up: https://archive.org/details/1914-uk-infantry-training/page/53/mode/2up A whole lot of “marching up and down the square” at the front end. A quick read of Chapter 10 tells me that the “press of the bayonet” was alive and well in 1914. “5. The main essential to success in battle is to close with the enemy, cost what it may. A determined and steady advance lowers the fighting spirit of the enemy and lessens the accuracy of his fire. Hesitation and delay in the attack have the opposite effect. The object of infantry in attack is therefore to get to close quarters as quickly as possible, and the leading lines must not delay the advance by halting to fire until compelled by the enemy to do so. The object of fire in the attack, whether of artillery, machine guns, or infantry, is to bring such a superiority of fire to bear on the enemy as to make the advance to close quarters possible.” To this an entire appendix on “Bayonet Fighting”. Chapter 11 kinda suggests that Offensive primacy was still in the mindset: “1. The term defence is used here in its broadest sense, and includes :— i Active defence, in which the ultimate object in view is to create and seize a favourable opportunity for a decisive offensive. ii. Passive defence, in which the object may be to beat off an attack without hope of being able to turn the tables on the enemy by assuming the offensive at some stage of the fight, as, for example, in the defence of a fortified post weakly garrisoned. iii. The delaying action by means of manoeuvre, in which efforts are directed to gaining time without risking defeat, as in the conduct of rearguards, or when awaiting the arrival of reinforcements.” And then this nugget: ”13. Infantry in attack must not delay the advance or diminish the volume of fire by entrenching. Entrenchments in the attack are only used when, owing to further advance being impossible, the efforts of the attacking force must temporarily be limited to holding the ground already won. Th advance must be resumed at the first possible moment.” A quick scan of the Training Syllabus in Apx 2 shows that out of a “ten fortnight” (gotta love the Brits) training regime, troops had about 8 hours programmed for “Entrenching”. The details of Entrenching has been relegated to engineering field manuals. This one is very interesting as it is a source document from the time period. I personally think it supports the idea that the UK military was prepared for a very different war than the one they got. Nor does it demonstrate a whole lotta realization that the battlefield was becoming defensive primacy driven in nature, despite the evidence presented by observers of the smaller wars in the previous 50 years. I suspect the plan was to win quickly in the offensive as to not get bogged down in a static defensive battle (sound familiar?). How that was going to happen looked a lot like early 19th century doctrine but “now with machine guns.” Would be interesting to see what the other manuals had to say.

I do believed there was a spectrum of thinking - always is - as warfare evolved. However the issue of where the center of that bellcurve of military thought laid (or currently lies) is found in how the force generation money was spent before the major milestones that we pin as defining moments. So how were European troops training before WW1? Was there a lot of trench warfare/siege training going on? Was there a lot of artillery/infantry integration training? Were they experimenting on trench warfare before WW1? Now how about before WW2? You can apply this to any major conflict going pretty much as far back as you like. “Creating tactical conditions for the other teams failure” is a very broad topic. Firepower and mass are very simplistic but fundamentals elements. So are C2, logistics, ISR, force protection. Deeper stuff like culture, leadership and psychology. And finally theory and doctrine. One can argue that actual warfare is the collision of all these factors with reality. That reality creates a unique but artificial environment - there common elements across collisions, however, each collision is also unique. How well a military and the system that supports it can adapt to the environment is critical to success. Adaptation is directly linked to sustaining and creating options, and options matter. The easiest way to tell that militaries have gone into a conflict upside down is to assess just how far and fast they needed to adapt. Victory and defeat lay in how well they adapted relative to an opponent. This makes warfare as much an exercise in competitive collective learning as anything else. Collective learning with very high stakes. So What? Well mindset and culture are critical to how well we can learn. A closed conservative mindset is going to learn very differently than an open exploration one. I will let everyone make up their own minds on the military mindsets of the 19th century - the reality appears that they varied more than we thought but also less than realities demanded. This is not what is important right now though. What is important is our own modern military mindsets in the face of a changing military reality. Where do we stand on the spectrum? How well set up are we for rapid and effective adaptation as compared to our likely opponents? Looking back to the cautionary tales of the previous centuries informs the one in front of us.

Infrastructure is like any other system. Hit a single node and the system can surge to repair it quickly. Hit more nodes and the system takes longer to repair. Hit enough nodes and the system starts to fail. The ability to repair transport infrastructure relies on transportation infrastructure. Hit it hard enough and repair capability has to “literally” repair its own way into the system. There comes a point when the system fails completely. The question is, “what does it take to push the system to failure?”

Debunked by who? The decisive press of infantry attack was central to European military thinking in lead up and in the opening of WW1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_offensive#:~:text=The cult of the offensive,and therefore choose to attack. Now do not take wikis word for it, note the refs. Azar Gat is one of the leading historians on military theory evolution over the last 200 years. I have his works and we use them as textbooks at war colleges. Snyder and Taylor are now slouches either. Your example of a single RUSI article actually supports my (and their point), militaries do not waste ink on hard doctrinal “knows”. If European observers had seen the character of warfare shifting there would have been all sorts of articles published, because stuff like that gets attention. They were not publishing because everyone already knew what they knew. The same phenomenon can be seen in recent history - we get thousands of articles on cyber but no one has revisited combined arms doctrine since the 90s (recent Ukraine war generated thought excepted). I suspect that militaries were all hoping that rapid offensives would prevent an opponent from being able to dig in and establish hard defensive positions - so double down on offensive…because that was all they were built for. If they knew trench warfare was coming, then why did innovations like flamethrowers, creeping artillery and tunnelling/cratering take time to develop? Why were they not ready on Day 1? I am not sure where this WW1 revisionist history is coming from but “observed well beforehand” and “1500 dead per day” - on a normal day, does not compute. If someone can point to actual historical research that back this up I would really like to see it. I suspect that the senior leadership suspected that something was up, hard to miss really, but the preparations and planning do not match hard doctrinal conclusions. “We saw it coming but had no ideas. So we sent them over the top anyway.” actually makes things worse, not better.