LongLeftFlank

... and then waits for some well meaning 'scientist' to attempt to reason with him before pulling down his overalls and taking a giant fart-filled wet dump that he was planning to unload on us to begin with, claiming that well, we asked.....

я слышу голос от параши

Oh goody, now @BFCElvis has an entire subthread to rip out.

Hi Mum!

Problem is IMHO, blowing a bridge or a rail line or whatever doesn't force an existential crisis on a large enough chunk of Russian forces to be a game changer. There's plenty of stuff sitting in Crimea already, no doubt. And the Azov ports are available. I mean, sure, go ahead and do it if you can, but....

.... Disembowel those Russian forces sitting idle outside Kharkiv lobbing heavy shells into it. Menace the Belgorod oblast, the Rodina. Threaten to cut the rail line. UA doesn't have to win everything here, or restore the frontiers. But they might. The eastern environs of Kharkiv are quite built up clear to the frontier; it isn't pure open steppe. Lots of villages, good terrain for an infantry fight. Hard for Russian air power to find them, or their supplies, or to identify their axes of attack. There are lots. Probably more mass graves and rape camps too Again, the 'Sun Tzu' operational point here is to provoke the Russians into attacking again, now, while they're still reeling and bloody from the last go round. Ukraine holds the initiative at the moment. Handing it back to an implacable enemy 4x your size and hoping he still can't make anything of it in 60 days is not a decision to be taken lightly....

Already happening, I think. But the Dniepr is in the way. ...I had thought about a bold grab for Melitopol (not Mariupol, the next Azov port city west), which would threaten Crimea, the jewel in their irredentist crown and cut off a huge chunk of RA forces to the east. It would absolutely require a response. But it requires mobility [and perhaps mass] that the UA does not presently have at a scale beyond raiding. And Russian airpower becomes a serious threat there. IMHO, the UA offensive strong suit right now is really the same as their defensive one: highly motivated leg infantry who can envelop and maul Russian BTGs at will. So what could be accomplished in that 'suit'?

So if I'm Ukraine, which of these battles would *I* rather fight? 1. Because I entirely agree with you that short of Russians escalating to WMD, outside intervention is nae gwinna happen. So it's up to the Ukrainians to carve out victory on their terms, forget how Putin spins it. 2. Because a cease fire followed by a rematch later on won't be so easy. Don't bet your children's future on us, Ukes. Sadly, Putin was correct when he said 'the USA [and the West] is not agreement capable.' Ask the poor bloody Kurds. So, Sun Tzu, again.... VI.4. If the enemy is taking his ease, he can harass him; if well supplied with food, he can starve him out; if quietly encamped, he can force him to move. VI.5. Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected.... VI.11. If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.... VI.19. Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight.... VI.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.... VII.29. A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return. This is the art of studying moods. VII.30. Disciplined and calm, to await the appearance of disorder and hubbub amongst the enemy:--this is the art of retaining self-possession.... XI.18. If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, I should say: "Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will." XI.19. Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.... Risky? Hell yes! But what kind of crisis might the UA be able to force upon the Russians to force them to launch their next offensive early and half-baked?

Thanks, and Jomini also links via Osint to this short but important thread (albeit reconfirming what CM thread readers already know) EDIT: Ya know what? this is just too on the nose not to quote in full here, given its concision, plus the very high cred of the source: (1) BTGs are simply battalion-sized, task organized combined arms teams. All major armies have done this since WWII. (2) The Russian Army's current emphasis on BTGs (vice regiments/brigades) is due to a lack of available manpower - they were used an as expedient during the Chechen war that the Ministry of Defense adopted wholesale in 2013 as a manpower hedge. (3) Russian Army BTGs and doctrine are built around firepower and mobility, at the expense of manpower. (4) Western analysts believed that Russian BTGs were capable of networking long-range fires in real time (or near real time) i.e. the 2014 Zelenopillya strike (5) It turns out the BTGs can't actually do this. They cannot even communicate via secure means, much less target and strike quickly and effectively at long range. This negates much of their supposed combat power advantage. (6) The Russian BTGs appear unable to execute competent combined arms tactics. This is a fundamental failure as combined arms have been the sine qua non of modern fire and movement tactics since WWI. (7) This shows up big in the lack of effective infantry support. BTG infantry cannot prevent Ukrainian mechanized and light infantry anti-tank hunter/killer teams from attriting their AFV, IFV, and SP artillery. This is the primary job of infantry in tank units. (8) It is not clear if this is due to ineffective infantry forces or insufficient numbers of them in the BTGs; probably both are true. (9) The net result is that the BTGs lack the mass (i.e. infantry) necessary to take defended urban terrain by assault. At least, not at a reasonable cost in combat losses. (10) The leanness of the BTG manning (~ 1,000 troops) means that they cannot sustain much attrition without suffering a marked decline in combat power and effectiveness. (11) It will take a thorough analysis to determine if the performance of the BTGs is due to inherent flaws in Russian Army personnel and training or flaws in their doctrinal approach. Again, both are probably culpable. (12) In any case, these problems are not likely to be remedied in the short term. Fixing them will take a major reform effort. .... My hot take: So if I wuz the Russians, clutching at straws right now, I would be attaching a company of VDV paratroopers or naval infantry to beef up each BTG. Operating on foot like the Ukes, with their own tracks tasked to run supplies/medevac (as much as they can). NOT as gun platforms, save in self-defence. That dog don't hunt no more. ....Except that those very formations have been heavily ground down in the early fights for Kiev, Cherniev, Nikolaev and the ongoing Stalingrad at Mariupol; witness the very heavy officer losses! And that doesn't even come close to solving all the fire coordination problems, but right now I'm reading the above as BTGs are combat ineffective sitting ducks, being picked off at will by UA forces. They have to staunch the bleeding before they can even think about proper find+fix+kill offensive operations against the UA, as distinct from thrusting yet more all-hat-and-no-cattle mech columns down various roads.... I know 'macro guy' @JasonC has many nonfans on this board, but he is quite correct in this IMHO -- the Blitzkrieg stereotype of 'hit em where they ain't' maneuvering only takes you so far. Sooner rather than later you have got to engage and kill the enemy forces, at a higher rate than they are killing you. Get a clue: they don't just curl up and die because you're 'behind them'. Or, what damned good is a cauldron if you can't light the fire under it?

More like this, actually (the reality, not the Russian caricature)

Hey Russia, it seems the spirit of Stalingrad has passed on to better people. Don't pass this one by unread. It's the least you can do. No, really, the least. There are rumours floating around (Russian side so.... salt) that a supply (?) ship tried to make a run into Mariupol but was intercepted.

https://flightaware.com/

Well if both sides are able to settle down in place because it turns out (not yet proven btw) that mobile offensive warfare on the steppes is too costly, then I'd say that's basically a 'Russian win' (using a goalpost-shifting Russian definition, remember), even if shelling and raiding continues for some time. They keep their land corridor, Putin keeps running Russia for the rest of his days. He and his oligarchs reorient to their new role as China's resource trough, trading their opulent (confiscatable) London and Miami real estate for Hong Kong hi rises. [Kiss the tundra and Arctic ocean biosphere goodbye btw. The Bomb that may kill us all may be clathrates. But I digress] And if China truly becomes the new Enemy, who knows? Maybe Putin angles to betray them and weasel his way back into the 'Western' tent on his own terms. Uncle Sam has proved more than cynical enough to play such games.

Hey, I think the symbolism is great, and the Russian invaders are indeed evil in case anyone misconstrues me as apologising for them. But I guess I'm saying, we also need to consider what's achievable in terms of 'compeling the enemy to fulfil our will' vs. our ideals (Certainties).

Many thanks for this. This framework -- or having a framework -- is more than just an academic exercise. ...I notice a lot of the more prolific folks here making a lot of increasingly strident 'What Now Must We Do?' statements, usually beating drums for full on Western/NATO intervention, or uparming Ukraine with 'strategic' weapons like antiship missiles. With each atrocity bringing a higher wave of 'Ya see? Ya see???!!!!' confirmation bias. At the hard end of Certainty on here, we have the We [White] Men of the Civilised West MUST Unite Now To [Repel? Neutralize? Civilise? Exterminate?] These Mongrelized Asiatic Hordes line. Which carries its own implications and limitations: no compromise with the Orcs who are only mindless animals, take revenge, cleanse out the traitors among us, raze Moscow! And then on to Beijing! (scroll up a few posts) Which preemptively removes a lot of rather more actionable options from the table. And also limits the space for those umm-we-aren't-in-fact-Orcs Russians who might otherwise be pushing a 'Make peace, you fools!' solution at home (a few of them tried to speak up here and got angrily slapped down). Well if they're just all storybook Orcs, who cares? but if they *can* precipitate a withdrawal without a 2 year stalemate and 25,000 Ukrainian dead, then... Short of that, you also have the 'Balkan interventionist' line -- we must halt the killing at once, even if it means leaving the existing lines and injustices in place (not 'finishing the Job, whatever 'the Job' was). And then you get the War Is Hell attrition line, best captured by Steve's early comment that ultimately all the Ukrainians must do in the end to prevail is to keep killing Russians, which will eventually precipitate a collapse and withdrawal. 'Eventually' being an evolving term, of course. Anyway, sorry if this sounds incoherent, I'm just dashing it off. But what's important is to reflect on what courses of action one's Certainties and self evident truths are taking off the table. The opportunity cost, as it were.

Seems like a good time to repost (part of) this great comment from early in this thread (and very early in the war). While no doubt the author will refine it further in time, I find 'Collision of Certainties' has held up a lot better as a basic 'theory of the war' to date than the Who's Winning 'discounted he-said-she-said' scorekeeping approach in the video posted above. And I mean no disrespect to the analyst - his observations make sense but don't truly capture what's driving this conflict. Atrocities notwithstanding, this isn't (yet) a total war or a vernichtungsschlacht, so pure winning-losing metrics don't apply.

...And on page 10, @Armorgunner was first to throw down and assert the UA can win this! Door prizes, anyone?

So for those keeping score, wayyyyy back on page 9 of this epic thread @db_zero was the first to suggest that Russia might have bitten off more than it could chew, edging out @The_Captby 4 posts. Although the point then was occupation, not conquest.

I would hazard a guess that US and British special operators have been there for weeks already, live testing out various electric warfare and antidrone countermeasures they've been refining at least since ISIS began using drones in Mosul. And coordinating with the local lads who are gonna do the actual killing.... Much of which can be operated remotely from Nellis AFB or RAF Menwith Hill, btw. The 'air traffic control' concept Steve @Battlefront.com was referring to a few hundred pages back. I don't send you to kill, I send you to be invisible! ....So that the already stumbling colossus (h/t Glantz) is shorn of all comms on day 2 of its offensive, its drones simply falling out of the sky and its older generation radios squelched or spoofed. Fuel trucks sent to the wrong town, MLRS told to churn up empty fields. Forward combat elements (you know, like those hastily formed VDV and spetsnaz hunter killer teams trying to beat the UA at its own game) exposed, blind, cut off. Hunted animals.... Shorn of its commanders too, maybe. Like ULTRA but where the typewriters blow up, spectacularly! Hey Dmitro, when I tell you, arm and fire this missile over that way! Trust me, you'll like it bro! While TikTok warlord Kadyrov picks up his iphone only to vanish in a big pudgy pink mist....

And about that idea of the Russians 'digging in like ticks'. UA: Make my day.... This was flagged as 'sensitive content' but I can't really see anything very graphic going on. Mariupol streetscape. Either they fight for every house or they're wasting tons of ammo blasting them all.

Hot off the presses: 'the Ukrainian Way of War' short piece by St. Andrews prof of strategic studies. Few surprises for the Long Thread Marchers here, but nice to see affirmation in the mainstream press: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/ukraine-military-strategy-russian-failure-kyiv/629514/ The author's summary: Russian aircraft can and do bomb Ukrainian positions, but these missions seem very much to be of the in-and-out variety, and don’t involve the continual exercise of airpower.... The Ukrainians, having witnessed the Russian failures in heavy assault, may decide to avoid making the same mistakes and instead continue their light, attritional warfare. This will probably not result in a swift end to the war, but it offers the possibility of draining Russian military and political will, allowing Ukraine to achieve many of its aims in negotiations.

Once more, the long arm of the UA infantry. Not good times for tankers: Hmm, running short of flares so having to fly ultra low level? Bring in the ZPU-23s. The 'Tractor Works' still holds out! And sadly, I predicted Ivan would start using these tactics a few hundred pages ago:

The West might have seen it as cutting its losses in week 1. But at this point, I think most -- ex Germany -- are quite happy to see Russia get its nasty arse handed to it piece by piece and are in no particular hurry to see that stop, barring a reversal.

Sure, I could buy it, although such a strategy will require a lot of dwindling resources to execute and can be disrupted before it is completed. A few caveats: 1. A non-continuous line (i.e. hedgehogs) gets infiltrated easily especially by those wily UA irregulars. The redoubts are then isolated and defeated in detail in the absence of aggressive counterattacks by mobile reserves. The Russians have been pants at this to date, but true, they may get better at cross country maneuver in the steppes once the weather dries out. 2. One does not simply build a continuous fortified line including strongpoints, mine belts etc. right along the current line of contact with an aggressive, mobile enemy, or within range of his arty. You build it and then fall back to it, ceding ground... many kms of it in this instance. 3. Are these continuous defensive fronts an anachronism, the legacy of 3 million man armies and far less precise artillery? Perhaps. Simplistic math: 200,000 men / 800 km = 250 men per kilometer of frontage. And only some of those guys are actually manning the front. Sure, they might double bayonet strength with conscripts in 3 months. Do they honestly have that long? Again, the enemy gets a vote.... 4. Yes, Russian soldiers traditionally dig in like busy beavers the moment they stop moving. But don't their shellproof bunkers effectively become prefab tombs once the UA precision artillery figures out where they are? A few RT videos doth not a military revolution make, but UA itself may be starting to suffer some of that in its 2014 fortified lines. Standing still is risky for everyone these days.... 5. Digging Russian artillery into hardened firebases with secure comms to OPs (or drones) is about the most effective thing they could do and you're right, that is quite dangerous. But now we are in the world of counter-battery fire.

As many others have said here repeatedly, rectifying systemic deficiencies on this massive scale takes years. You don't just conjure up working NBC filters for AFVs etc, or order them from China. 1. Putin is a cold-blooded technocrat turned cynical caudillo, and he has miscalculated, terribly. And he knows it now. But frankly he shows no signs of insanity or irrationality. There is no other figure -- or grouping of figures -- I can see who can step in as 'White Tsar' to rule Russia in its current state. So I don't know that even a total defeat in Ukraine ends in his fall. Excepting some of their intelligentsia, Russians seem determined to double down on lalalala-I-can't-hear-you-stupid, as is being amply shown day to day. The army is in no position to execute a coup; the Soviet/Russian state has carefully kept things that way since 1917. 2. Joe Biden (and whoever else is running his admin) would give their left glands (pick one) to be able to do a non ground forces (which aren't really needed tbh) intervention in Ukraine on 'humanitarian grounds' and claim credit in the midterm elections for ending the crisis. A Russian use of NBC would provide just that opening. Putin knows it.