Vanir Ausf B

Combat Mission LAN party this weekend.
"This week, top U.S. and Ukrainian commanders will hold a high-level planning meeting in Germany to game out the offensive planning, another senior U.S. official said. The drill, the official said, is meant to align Ukraine’s battle plans with the kinds of weapons and supplies NATO allies are contributing."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/us/politics/ukraine-crimea-military.html

Combat Mission LAN party this weekend.
"This week, top U.S. and Ukrainian commanders will hold a high-level planning meeting in Germany to game out the offensive planning, another senior U.S. official said. The drill, the official said, is meant to align Ukraine’s battle plans with the kinds of weapons and supplies NATO allies are contributing."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/us/politics/ukraine-crimea-military.html

Ill make the case that the power of at weapons is overstated mostly due to bad tactics and a tech disparity.
We know since WW1 that tanks or rather generally AFVs are vulnerable in low numbers. And at the latest since WW2 we know that you have to protect tanks with infantry from close range at. It seems however that the russians have unlearned these lessons.
This experience report seems to suggest this and this video equally seems to confirm this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpx7TWc58PI And in general ive not seen any good infantry armour combined arms from the russian side.
The ukrainians seem to do this much better and id argue that this on its own massively contributes to the loss disparity between russian and ukrainian afvs.
 
There is also a massive disparity between most russian afvs and western afvs that is hard to overstate: thermals.
Take the video ive linked and imagine just replacing the bmp2 with any modern western ifv. Once the mobility kill happens (even NLAW isnt perfect) youd have 2 independently swung thermal imagers searching for them. And given they were in line of sight and repeatedly firing from the same position for 10min just 350m away even with 2nd gen thermal imagers they would have been spotted.
If we now pair this with proper AFV tactics so no continuous fighting from the same position, supporting infantry, a seconf IFV to support, and maybe some squad or platoon level spotting drones overhead this entire situation suddenly becomes practically impossible for the infantry. And if you add an active protection system they are screwed either way.
 
 
This has some quite significant caveats.
1. unless you have lock on after launch capability youre still limited to los engagements and that dramatically lowers the area a vehicle has to keep track of. It also means to engage the vehicle you have to be in los to the vehicle itself putting you at potential risk. That risk is quite low if youre 1000m away in complex terrain shooting at a single t72 but it becomes much higher if its a platoon of modern mbts. 8 high qualits thermal imagers scanning for you have a quite good chance spotting you even at distance.
2. And if you use lock after launch missiles you can keep yourself safe but still need something to tell you where the tank is. And especially if used at longer ranges its time of flight is significant enough that its better compared to organically called precision artillery.
A tank is definitely easier to find than an infantryman but both can be found and the ammount of drone footage of arty destroying infantry directed by drones is proof of that. A tank however is far more difficult to actually fix in place once spotted compared to infantry.
 
And this leads to The main reason why AFVs are unlikely to ever go away: As demonstrated in this war to gain grund you have to take it from the enemy and to hold it you have to defend it with infantry. No matter the firepower be it precision in cae of the ukrainians or mass in case of the russians can clear an objective. It has to be taken and cleared by infantry.
And once you have to take ground you have to be exposed and you will be detected and you will be shot at. And infantry is vulnerable to literally everything on a battlefield and it cant move at any significant speed on its own. So With drones everywhere the infantry is likely to be spotted and shot to pieces before they can even reach the jumpoff point for an attack or at the latest once the attack actually happens.
Try intercepting this with arty:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw8RDpS1uOE
 If AFVs were truely obsolete Ukraine wouldnt ask for hundreds of tanks and ifvs to enable them to attack.
 

Very interesting post from Maschovets. Previously, he repeatedly in his posts indicated the actions of some Russian units called "Storm"(in the sense of a natural phenomenon and not a assault actions). When translating, I usually skipped this name, because I did not understand what kind of unit it was.

Now he finally clarified what kind of unit this is.
The first units of this kind appeared among the Russians during the battles for Izyum and Liman. But they received real distribution and wide application later, in the area of Svatovo and Kremennaya. Storm Detachment (this is essentially a kind of Russian mini-BTGr, in the form of a reinforced motorized rifle company, as they say in the army, sharpened specifically for assault, attacking actions)
Etymology of its appearance:
-      a certain account of the experience of the war (or rather, such a desire ...)
-      an attempt to get rid of the shortcomings of bulky and ineffective BTGrs and increase the level of effectiveness of their attacking units.
-      be presented by the Russian military command as a kind of "know-how", but in fact it bears all the same negative imprints of the "Soviet-Russian military school" ... specify which ones.
But, one thing, this kind of reflection, the name, as an example - the Russians again created some kind of, this time a mini-monster of a tactical level and again, as usual in their style - “headless” (4 people to establish full control and coordination actions by a reinforced assault company, consisting of at least 10 units, are clearly not just few, but critically few ... but who cares for them).
It is created as a separate unit or as the fourth battalion in a brigade (regiment).
The typical staffing of the detachment is 161 servicemen.
 Оrganizationally it includes:
- management - four people (troop commander, deputy troop commander, senior officer for guidance and target designation and spotter);
- motorized rifle company - 93 people (three motorized rifle platoons in total, up to 10-11 BMP-1\2, sometimes BTR-70\80, or even MTLB);
- mortar platoon, or battery - 17 military units (three 120-mm ‘Sani’ mortars and three Ural-4320 trucks, sometimes supplemented by a fire platoon of 82-mm ‘Podnos’ mortars);
- tank platoon - nine \ twelve military personnel (three or four T-72B3M tanks);
- howitzer self-propelled artillery platoon - 10 people (Ural-4320 truck and two 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled guns, recently, due to a significant shortage of 122-mm artillery shells, 152-mm Msta-B sometimes began to be fixed "" as part of fire artillery platoons of units of the "Storm" type, in these cases "Ural-4320" 3-4 units);
- grenade launcher platoon - six servicemen ("Ural-4320" and two AGS-17);
- ATGM department - three servicemen (ATGM "Metis");
- reconnaissance squad - seven people (Ural truck, sometimes 1-2 AFVs of the "Tiger" type);
- engineering and sapper department - five military personnel (truck "Ural", sometimes there is an IMR);
- flamethrower squad - four servicemen (eight RPO-A "Shmel" + 1 MTLB, or armored personnel carrier);
- medical squad - three military personnel (usually without evacuation transport, but sometimes it happens that armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles are added specifically for the evacuation of the wounded).
In addition, in units, as a rule, 2-3 vehicles of the UAZ-469 type, or UAZ "Patriot" ... can also be used up to 3-4 civilian jeeps (used mainly in command or intelligence departments) ... and 2-3 units of trucks separately for logistics (including tankers).

summary of the Finnish situation with the Leopards: https://corporalfrisk.com/2023/01/15/free-the-leopards/
some picks:
Because Finland “can’t send many tanks“. And here is where I call a foul. Finland can send a significant number of tanks, but it would be expensive and we would take a national security risk.
The short version is that we could send all Leopard 2A4, which would mean the tank part of an under-strength armoured brigade.
The Leopard 2A4-force was slated for a mid-life upgrade already a decade ago, but that was eventually scrapped due to cost and the opportunity to buy second-hand 2A6NL from the Netherlands at throwaway cost. The word then was that they would replace the 2A4 which we couldn’t afford to upgrade, but as it turns out the Finnish Defence Forces decided to instead double the armoured force.
Here we run into a particular quirk of the Finnish Defence Forces: The Army doesn’t like to talk. This isn’t just restricted to tanks, but in general they don’t discuss their wartime formations, and as such they don’t talk about their plans for the future as that would lead to people getting ideas about the current situation.
 If we send the Leopard 2A4s somewhere else, they would obviously need to be replaced, and for once we have something approaching a reasonable cost-estimate. The Norwegian project to acquire new tanks sport a budget of approximately 1.8 billion Euros (19.3 Bn NOK) for 72 new tanks.
So why would Finland send tanks to Ukraine? Why can’t anyone else do so? The whole point was that the Leopard 2 is in widespread use, right?
Scratch the countries in Asia and South America, because so far the Ukraine aid has been a decidedly North American and European affair. Then you can remove Greece and Turkey, since neither will part with any armour before it literally is falling into pieces. This leaves Norway, Spain, Poland, Canada, and Finland. 
The counter-argument is obviously that we aren’t a NATO-member (yet), which makes things tricky. I agree on that, and that is indeed the key question which only the top-diplomats can currently answer – how safe does the current status as applicants make us feel? How much of a risk would we take by halving our tank force for half a decade?
As mentioned, the Leopard 2A4 are by now approaching a decade since the planned MLU was cancelled, meaning that they will need either a serious upgrade or a replacement within the next five to ten years in either case. As such, the option of shipping them off to secure Finnish interests in another country is not as outrageously expensive
As such, it’s not that Finland can’t deliver a serious number of tanks to Ukraine – it’s that we aren’t prepared to pay the costs and take the risks such a decision would include. And I for one does not know for certain if that is the correct decision or not.
 

Maybe I wrong, but sounds like you read this like describing of situation in UKR regiment, but this about Russians ) 
One soldier, fighting in Bakhmut trench mud told he prefers old good AK, than AR, because:
1. AR will not survive endless shooting and he hasn't time to clean it all time, when AK can shoot much longer between cleanings. 
2. AK is more suitable for maintenance and fast disassembling and more resistive to mud 

I think he meant that 100km range air-launched weapons like SDB or JDAM-ER won't allow you to strike deeper than with GMLRS. I wonder though what would be the point of supplying Ukraine with Western jets and not including at least some such weapons - not necessarily JASSMs, but at least some JSOWS or SLAMS? Without such weapons, these jets will be forced to attack tactical targets along the front (which in itself can probably be done with JDAM equipped MiGs) or air defence - which is nice but apart from protecting critical infrastructure rather pointless in such SAM-heavy environment.

If Merriam Webster ever needs a new definition for "hubris", here is a perfect example.😉

Longer range and heavier precision missiles is the easiest magic. Example ATACMS
I cannot really think of other "magic bullet" class ones. Not even western air frames.
I actually think western air frames would not be such a big deal at least in the short and medium term. UKR is not going to be able to compete with RUS air force. The airspace is going to stay contested and practically denied for both. Western air frames would raise the UKR anti air capacity even further and reduce the need for ground based AA systems. But you can achieve "close enough" results by just providing overwhelming amounts of ground based AA. (this might just not be as cost efficient) Also planes would impose more cost and attrition to RUS air force, more so than just being denied to operate.
The best UKR could aim to do with the air frames would be same as Finnish air force. Finland would use its air force as the other half of its air defence network. The other half is ground based AA. The other mission in Finnish air force has is doing long range precision strikes, JASSM and the likes.
Even if UKR gets air frames it doesn't mean they are getting example JASSM as well. And there are ground based long range precision fires as well. 

Here's a new and very disheartening article about GLSDB. In short:
- there are no political reservations against sending the weapon, it is not considered "escalatory" by the administration ( this are the only "good news") 
- there are issues of bureaucratic nature though, weapons were not yet ordered
- lead time for the first weapons is assessed at 9 months, with perhaps 750 that could be delivered till the end of 2024.
- this runs contrary to previous statements by Saab representative, who IIRC mentioned that they could start delivering them already in the spring
If this informations are reliable, then UA  won't get any longer range strike capabilities this year, except perhaps some ER-GMLRS from initial production runs. That is, unless we break through another taboo and get them ATACMS or some cruise missiles, which still sounds rather unlikely. 
 

https://warontherocks.com/episode/therussiacontingency/28081/where-russias-war-in-ukraine-is-going-part-1/

paywall podcast bulletpoints:
- transitional period and it is unclear where exactly it is heading
- not clear at all if RUS can restore offensive potential. What he sees in Bakhmut is not impressive at all from RUS
- UKR has only made modest incremental gains recently but this doesn't mean the next operational attack would not be successful 
- RUS transitioned to defensive
- biggest question what is going to be done with the rest of the mobilized force
- RUS in autumn downsized the front and probably doubled the force available. Now the have reserves, multiple lines..
- belarus based force is unknown in terms of combat readiness. Probably very much not ready
- western military district performance was historical underperformance compared to expectations. 
- southern and eastern military districts performed better.
- RUS military system was designed to mobilize before or at the start of the war. Mobilized were to buff up the professional units. Now it mobilized 8 months into the war, when force and equipment that was supposed to be buffed up was mostly out of action.
- regional volunteer battalions were a flop. They just ate up the resources from the actual mobilization in piece meal.
- now mobilized do not really have equipment or structures where to integrate to
- mobilization system was also the place where RUS has cut the most over the years. They themselves have stated in the past large scale land war is not something they are planning for.
- mobilization system was also probably most guilty of "readiness padding"
- about half of the initial mobilization force was used to stabilize the collapsing fronts
- Kharkiv operation was a great success thanks to too little RUS force and good UKR planning
- Kherson was difficult fight for both and RUS did succeed in the pullout. Everyway very different from Kharkiv.
- In Kherson RUS retreat was well planned and executed and also UKR force was probably worn and exhausted. 
- Kofman thinks Gerasimov&Shoigu are "an absolute joke in the Russian military"
- after Kharkiv Putin might have also realized the above point. And so Surovikin
- Surovikin had the idea to create more coherent military effort. It was clearly promised that Donbass would have been taken enabled by the Kherson retreat.
- Talk about internal power plays between Prigozhin + Kadyrov vs. Shoigu. Putin might also play these against each other.
- Arguments in media and analyst recently have brought up points: significant mobilization force buildup, new attack from Belarus, RUS regaining offensive potential. Mike and Dara are very sceptical of all of these. These arguments need concrete evidence, where is the material and human capital coming from for these?
- Will there be another mobilization? They suspect more of a dispeched and rolling approach in future.
- RUS are now thinking in terms of years. This is already a long war, even by historical scale. Also unclear will this war end or just have a pause and again a continuation war (that this war also sort of is for 2014). Plenty of historical examples.
- The RUS army is not anymore the same army as it was in 2021. So it is unfamiliar animal to all of us.
- RUS military is now living from its soviet legacy that it will never get back. They cannot rebuild the equipment or ammo they have inherited from the USSR.
- They are using up the military inheritance of the USSR. Inheritance of another power that will never come back.
- RUS military will become more of an european military after this war than not. Interims of potential.
- RUS can rebuild limited offensive potential but will be limited by ammunition and force quality.
- RUS military is fires and manpower driven military. Now it has gone from having fires and lacking manpower to lacking fires but having manpower.

Now that is the million (maybe billion dollar) question.  We do not know.  I am not sure what people believe as far as "gee-whiz" armor protecting sensing but last I checked landmines and optical guided ATGMs still worked.  Fancy western kit needs gas and parts - all hot and heavy on long logistical lines.  
You have asked the most terrifying question on the board right now, which can be distilled down to "Given the modern battlefield emerging in Ukraine, are our trillion dollars of defence investment as useless as 30 year old soviet POS?"  And the level of clucking, gasping and brandy spilling going on within higher military echelons is hilarious.  Facing an opponent with UAS/UGVs everywhere, ISR from the ground to space and armed with smart precision weapons...where will that leave us?
Now Russia is in bad shape.  They may be at the point where good old fashion conventional mass works.  But they also might not be. They have UAS and ISR. It is not comparative to the UA (with western support).  They also have a lot of anti-armor systems and artillery - again not as advanced or precise as Ukraine's.  The reality is that the error in logic is in the very argument:
- Ukraine has lost a lot of armor and AFVs and is down to HMMVS and MRAPs, we need to do something!
- Uh. ok.  Given that the UA had all the ISR in the world creating enormous advantage, how did they lose they armor they had?
 - Well the RA sux!
- Well yes they do, but apparently not enough to stop them from eroding the UA to the point they are down to MRAPs and HMMVs.  So how do we know that whatever method in which the RA did all that damage so far - to the point we need to send in 1000 Bradleys - is not going to work against the Bradley's we send in? 
- Cause they Rock...USA..USA! (Or insert the western nation of you choice)
- Um, ok.
We know most of the killing is being done by artillery.  RA artillery has attrited the UA fleet to the point is needs help.  Our vehicles are immune to artillery?  They are invisible to ISR? 
My point stands.  Your favorite CM platform is not going to make or break this war. Setting the UA for long term continued success along multiple lines of support - of which western equipment delivered in a coherent sustainable manner is but one - is going to be required for years.  They will get Bradleys and Marders and whatever.  But for now we need to keep an eye on the game changers that got us here and think carefully about the next steps.

Mmmm? Where? If we had thousands of its, why, in this case, only two brigades from six, established in Dec 2014 became mechanized (on BMP), when other four - motorized (BTR/BMP in one comapny of battalion, rest on trucks). And why later these motorized brigades got BRDM-2L1 for 7-men squad, like herring in the barrel... And why in 2016-2017 we bought several dozens of former Сzech BMP-1AM?
Maybe you used Military Balance info, but they give total number of vehicles, not operational. Many of UKR armor was sold since 1991, but much more became a rusty trash. All what we could repair, all this was brought to service as far as before a war. And we continued to buy BMP-1 in other countries, but in small number.   

I generally feel like your typical cold war QBs should be Attack/Defend.
Even what would be referred to as a Soviet "meeting engagement" isn't the same thing as a "meeting engagement" in CM/wargaming terms, which typically means "an even fight" or something similar. Instead the term refers to an attack from the march.
With the points from an Attack, a Large qb has enough points for a full BTR MRB, with sufficient artillery support, and a huge qb has enough points for a full BMP MRB with some change.
This force was a little cut down from what would be ideal - an entire BMP company was left behind, and I had lass artillery than I'd like. 
Priorities though:
I start with the combined arms, task group formation.
It's important to have a mixture of infantry, armour and air defence. The pair of Shilkas I had here were very important, because the US had some significant air assets which weren't discussed in the video. You always want two.
Dropping a company as "off-map reserve" is fine doctrinally, sinve that force can exploit your success, so that's a reasonable option.
Dropping armour is suspect, you don't get a ton in an MRB, and you need them to do work.
Artillery then is the interesting bit. I've said before that I don't know how to attack with a red battalion with less than three batteries (a battalion, if you like) of artillery (that is 18 tubes of something).
The reason for this is that the battalion should be accepting three tasks, and each task needs to be enabled by artillery support.
Each battery should have a single FO.
The 120mm mortars are organics to the battalion, so should be taken - since the call-in times for those are reasonable, in my fires plan I often leave those as a "reserve", ready to be reactive, rather than proactive.
Next up are your standard regimental artillery, the 122mm self propelled gun battalion, and divisional artillery, the 152mm self propelled gun battalion and the battalion of rocket artillery.
The lower level assets will have less boom, greater rate of fire, and faster call-ins.
122mm should be your default in CMCW (in cmbs this is now the 152mm). A medium mission on max duration lasts something like 12-15 minutes, which is a lot of rounds going downrange, and a lot of denial.
The 152s have significantly more boom, and a mission there can last 30 minutes total, so is ideal for denying key terrain, or digging out handprints.
Rocket artillery is a specialised tool, and it's hard to use well in a cm context. Ideally it's doing counter-battery fire, or it's targeting fixed positions and hoping to actually kill things, where the other two can aim to suppress or deny. The best generic use-case I've found for it is to target an urban area - Soviets tend to find urban combat especially difficult, so a couple of BM-21 barrage can help a lot.
All of the other artillery is more highly specialised (the big mortars are bunker-busters, for example), so should mostly be ignored.
Ideally, I'd take the battalion mortars, and three batteries of artillery, possibly in a mixed load, with their intended tasks defined well in advance.
Artillery have four jobs - suppression, denial, destruction and obscuration, and each of those assets is good at different things.
In the above QB I have battalion mortars and two batteries of 122mm - less than I'd like, but still hitting that minimum of three groups of artillery.
One nice thing about thinking in threes is that you can continuously adjust and move around these fires having two hitting things, whilst a third adjusts in on to the next step.
One thing that you do see in the video is this continual adjustment of fires - the tempo gains that I'd made allowed the fires to be adjusting whilst free whisky was reacting, so they were able to start landing when he was just getting into position.
Likewise, the same advantages in tempo meant that I was frequently ahead of where his artillery was falling - he was forced to react to things that were by now firmly in the past.
 
 
 
 

I add very important thing, which wasn't told in this article. But first of all about some other tactical things.
Main tactical unit of Wagner is so-called "assault detachment" (rus. "shturmovoy otryad") - it approx equal to reinforced company in 120-150 men (though, other sources say this is battalion-level unit). Lower level is assault group. Groups are froming due to current task and can be from squad to platoon size.
In many cases assault groups attack in some different way, than was described above. For example if suprize attack is need or arty support is not available, than assault groups try sneak under cover of terrain or in the night, fog, rain etc as close to UKR position as possiable and wait command. Then they divide on subgroups of suppressive fire (MG, RPG, RPO, RShG) and attackers. Latter rash to the UKR positions on the distacnce of grenade throwing and just rained it with grenades, which they carry in big number. If they can shock opponents with grenades they burst into trenches and clean it. 
But main reason of Wagners effectiveness is not their human waves, which having huge losses eventually degerade opponents defense, but in their battlefield control system and experienced commaders, which unlike in Russian army feel free in achievment of goals. For control over the battle Wagners detachment commander use drones and special software on the any gadget. If Ukrainian soldiers use own small tactical drones like Mavic only for recon and arty/mortar targeting, but very rare for control over the battle (this do mostly special drone teams like TERRA and other), than Wagners widely use commercial drones for battlefield command. 
Here is screenshot from gadget of killed Wagner detachment or assault group commander. This is battlefield control software.

There was an opinion that these color dots on the screen are locations of each soldier in his detachment and we can see here two assault groups (green and purple), but other think (and this is more logical) - we can see here battlefield waypoint grid. Software allows to make plan of battle and merging it with picture from drones to command, for example, to one assault group - go by waypoints 1,2,3,4 - objective XXX. Assault group leader(s) has(-ve) this battle plan and via radio comms or maybe via gadgets can receive some corrections. Also important note - Wagners put tasks only based on combat capabilities and quality of units. Tasks for "zeks" small groups are primitive but not more complicated, than their training level. If they will be kileld in battle, other meat substitute them, until this primitive task is completed. There is no way back. Withdrawal is allowed only for wounded and if group obviously lost own attack capabilities. Else - a death penalty.
So, detachment commander actually plays some sort of CM game, contrloling situation with drone or several drones. This is really mixing of Soviet "human wave" and HiTech.  So, one way to disrupt Wagner plans is get down their eyes in the sky. 

The problem with this eminently pragmatic suggestion is the same for Putin as it was for Hitler.
He's gone way beyond the pale with his war in Ukraine. Russia could stop fighting tomorrow and the sanctions would remain  until reparations and withdrawals have been made. Ukraine would and be seen as justified in continuing to take back territory. Domestically, Russia is a regime that rules by fear and violence. That means that, especially in the elites, there are a lot of folks who have axes to grind and the means to vie for power or take revenge if only enough of them decide to do so at once. What would be a very likely catalyst for that unity? The reaction to a losing war of choice that has destroyed their wealth, their lifestyle and their futures. 
So...what do you do if you are an older man who has trouble admitting error and no particularly appetizing choices? You grind it out, you subject all of your decisions to the demands of keeping domestic control and you hope that you somehow get lucky. It's been said that in a political and military sense Hitler was a degenerate gambler. Putin took the same path and now he's come to similar dilemma because depending on luck is an extremely stupid way to run a country. 
 

Leopard 2 version "tree":

source:
There is going to have to be a wide deal with internal swapping between countries I am sure. To get only 1-2 types to UKR

By that same logic, I could wish every single American soldier to suffer and die because of historical US war crimes, atrocities and support for repressive regimes, but that would be absurd - even though the average American combat soldier is a volunteer and has way more political say in the running of his/her country than the average Russian.
 
Do they really have all this information? Where is that coming from? They live in a propaganda bubble and the ones getting mobilised are not the guys with education and wealth. They are mainly poorer guys from the countryside. The ones escaping to the West are the relatively privileged and informed, like the "fortunate sons" who could dodge the draft for Vietnam.
About motivations for going to war, I'm sure some of the Russians want to go plunder, but so do some of the international volunteers going to 'fight for Ukraine'. As we recently saw in the interview with the British volunteer.
In any army, there will be good people and bad people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of individual people with their own motivations and background. Wishing suffering and death on all of them is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. Let's instead wish that the people responsible for this war, and the soldiers who commit war crimes, get what they deserve.
 
If they are even real at all, these intercepted phone calls are cherry picked exactly for the reason to make us feel the Russian army is made up of subhuman brutes bent on rape and plunder.
How many intercepted calls have there been, and how many calls have Russian troops made in total? The Russian army is very large, yet we point to a handful of calls and say "Look, this proves that they are all orks".
Well, I'm 100 pct sure some of them ARE orks and deserve a bad fate. But I'm also sure not all of them are. I'm not going to sit here and look at videos of people getting blown to bits and cheer because I make myself believe I can judge them and their character from a drone view.
I know this is an unpopular and uncomfortable position to take on a military forum in the middle of a horrible war. I don't blame Ukrainians for being in mental survival mode. But when it comes to people like myself and others on this forum, who live safely away from the fighting, I think we should try to keep a sense of perspective and not forget our humanity in this, even though we see so many things done that are inhumane.

Since this particular statement attributed to  Michael Kofman has for some reason become controversial it should be pointed out that he never actually said it. That was @The_MonkeyKing paraphrasing the host of the podcast, Ryan Evans, who in turn was paraphrasing comments Kofman wrote in an article two weeks ago.
_____
The Russian strike campaign, targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, is part and parcel of this strategy. Timed to coincide with onset of cold weather, Russian strikes are steadily degrading Ukraine’s electricity, and water management infrastructure. This campaign could grow in significance, and is one of the better organized Russian efforts since the strikes conducted in the first days of the war. An additional effect is draining Ukrainian air defense of ammunition, which could result in Ukraine having to choose between covering the front line, and defending its cities. Acquiring Western air defense, and a stable supply of air defense missiles, is therefore a near term priority for Ukraine.
Fortunately, the Russian military exhausted a large percentage of its long-range precision guided weapons over the course of the spring and summer. There is growing evidence that Russia is using recently made missiles, and much older missile types with dummy warheads to stimulate air defenses, which could suggest dwindling stocks. What this means in practice is that eventually waves of Russian missile strikes may diminish to the amount that its industry can produce monthly. Consequently, Russia is also growing in dependence on imports of Iranian strike drones to supplement its missile inventory.
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https://ridl.io/the-russo-ukrainian-war-ten-months-in-taking-stock/

Since this particular statement attributed to  Michael Kofman has for some reason become controversial it should be pointed out that he never actually said it. That was @The_MonkeyKing paraphrasing the host of the podcast, Ryan Evans, who in turn was paraphrasing comments Kofman wrote in an article two weeks ago.
_____
The Russian strike campaign, targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, is part and parcel of this strategy. Timed to coincide with onset of cold weather, Russian strikes are steadily degrading Ukraine’s electricity, and water management infrastructure. This campaign could grow in significance, and is one of the better organized Russian efforts since the strikes conducted in the first days of the war. An additional effect is draining Ukrainian air defense of ammunition, which could result in Ukraine having to choose between covering the front line, and defending its cities. Acquiring Western air defense, and a stable supply of air defense missiles, is therefore a near term priority for Ukraine.
Fortunately, the Russian military exhausted a large percentage of its long-range precision guided weapons over the course of the spring and summer. There is growing evidence that Russia is using recently made missiles, and much older missile types with dummy warheads to stimulate air defenses, which could suggest dwindling stocks. What this means in practice is that eventually waves of Russian missile strikes may diminish to the amount that its industry can produce monthly. Consequently, Russia is also growing in dependence on imports of Iranian strike drones to supplement its missile inventory.
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https://ridl.io/the-russo-ukrainian-war-ten-months-in-taking-stock/

Since this particular statement attributed to  Michael Kofman has for some reason become controversial it should be pointed out that he never actually said it. That was @The_MonkeyKing paraphrasing the host of the podcast, Ryan Evans, who in turn was paraphrasing comments Kofman wrote in an article two weeks ago.
_____
The Russian strike campaign, targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure, is part and parcel of this strategy. Timed to coincide with onset of cold weather, Russian strikes are steadily degrading Ukraine’s electricity, and water management infrastructure. This campaign could grow in significance, and is one of the better organized Russian efforts since the strikes conducted in the first days of the war. An additional effect is draining Ukrainian air defense of ammunition, which could result in Ukraine having to choose between covering the front line, and defending its cities. Acquiring Western air defense, and a stable supply of air defense missiles, is therefore a near term priority for Ukraine.
Fortunately, the Russian military exhausted a large percentage of its long-range precision guided weapons over the course of the spring and summer. There is growing evidence that Russia is using recently made missiles, and much older missile types with dummy warheads to stimulate air defenses, which could suggest dwindling stocks. What this means in practice is that eventually waves of Russian missile strikes may diminish to the amount that its industry can produce monthly. Consequently, Russia is also growing in dependence on imports of Iranian strike drones to supplement its missile inventory.
________
https://ridl.io/the-russo-ukrainian-war-ten-months-in-taking-stock/

source: https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1611089317962866691

At the risk of piling on ...
Russia has done a lot of things. This is one of them. Of the things they have done, this one is amongst the most dangerous and effective. Not necessarily dangerous or effective in an absolute sense, but in a relative sense.
Also, just because you haven't seen an effect, that doesn't mean there hasn't been an effect. Strategic campaigns by their nature tend to be slow burn - thinking about the US sub campaign against Japan in WWII or the RN blockade of Germany in WWI here. Or the USN/RN/RCN campaign against the U-Boasts in WWII. In all three cases there was no identifiable break point where the campaign was clearly "won" or at least "winning", instead there just cumulative corrosion/attrition of the opposing side's ability to sustain/oppose the ongoing campaign, and in the case of the blockades against Germany and Japan the consequent widespread impact on those nation's ability to wage or even sustain the war.
Fast forward to 2022. If Russia is able to sustain widespread interdiction of Ukraine's national grid, then it reasonably follows that there will be a consequent impact on Ukraines ability to sustain or wage the war. Yes, bullets and bombs will probably keep showing up on the Polish border. Yes, most all of the noisy mil kit runs on diesel or petrol, and the deployed stuff that runs on electricity can be powered by portable generators. But that isn't really true of higher, base, or fixed mil infrastructure. And it certainly isn't true of the civilian economy. No sparks means no cooking. It also means no traffic lights, or radio, or - critically - interwebs. Even if that effect is regionally isolated to "only" Kyiv and points east of the Dnipro, that would still seriously impact on Ukraine's ability to wage war at the way it has been, and deny the success that approach has bought them.
And that mostly ignores the impact on an already very battered civilian economy.
 
IF
Russia can sustain their strike campaign
AND
Russia doesn't drop a nut and revert to sprinkling love all over the place rather than concentrating on coherent and achievable goals
AND
the West's AD assistance/gifts prove niggardly and/or ineffective
AND
etc.
THEN,
yeah: the strike campaign could prove dangerous and effective in both an absolute as well as relative sense.