dan/california

Now with video...

My new analogy for what we are trying to do. The U.S. is the sponsor of a race car team. we want to win the whatever cup by a respectable margin, but not by so much that the other main team quits and the public loses interest in the whole thing. The problem is, as the sponsor of one team, we have no control of the fact the other guys are run by idiots. If they alternate the last six races by driving into walls, and spreading engines all over the track in little tiny pieces, this is going to be a blow out. It also isn't clear they have enough money to continue next year regardless. All of this is beyond our control.

This would be exhibit A when the Ukrainians say the lack of ATACMS is getting people killed.

One hundred percent agreement. Losing fast is in the best interest of virtually every single Russian outside of the MOD building, and the Kremlin.

I could care less who denies what for the next fifty years as long every Russian airbase in Crimea is nothing but smoking, cratered wreckage. Ukraine has ALREADY been reported to have pulled back on various operations inside Russia at the "request" of the U.S., denying that Ukraine is submitting target list for approval seems trivial by comparison.

There is also a non zero chance all of the down beat information/outlook is some combination of standard CYA and an info op to delay the next round of forcible mobilization by Putin as long as possible. https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1651256491460968450 A lot of people on this board, and other places , think their is a real chance the Russian defenses just dissolve. If they do Ukraine is going to pursue with maximum speed and violence until something makes them stop. There is a best case, ok a super duper case, scenario where Russia simply abandons the land bridge, and tries to hold the choke points at the top of Crimea, and a north south line from from Mariupol to Donetsk City and then their current lines from that point north. Who knows if that would be enough to push the whole Russian Government off a cliff. I have been somewhat vocal about support for Ukraine being finely adjusted to produce predictable outcomes. How is that for neutral phrasing? But there are too many moving parts here for that level of control. If Russian morale and and command and control shatter on a broad enough front, and their logistics are severed at both ends of the land bridge, even third tier Ukrainian forces, mounted on pick ups and tractors, will be enough to keep the pressure on. Worth keeping in mind that eliminating the land bridge greatly reduces the frontage, it is an interesting question which side that helps more. Also, trying to cross post something from twitter didn't work the way it usually does, anybody else having an issue?

Which raise the question about which rules reflect deeply held and important principals, and which ones were the result of successful Russian influence operations. I have an opinion about DPICM, you are certainly entitled to yours.

I would argue that tactical games simply have to have bigger maps. When a well equipped infantry platoon can have SEVERAL systems whose range is measured in kilometers, and high troop densities are sort of suicidal, the definitions have to adjust. Edit: This is somewhat terrain dependent obviously.

And I have a sneaking suspicion those rules would change after about a week of the casualties the Ukrainians are taking...

This bit is worth highlighting.

All true, and it has been since they invented this thing. But there is also a TON of video of the Ukrainians digging Wagnerites out of holes with grenades. So at some point the highest tech stuff ever built has to interface with the poor bloody infantry. Those infantry need to ride most of the way AFVs or it is too easy to kill with them WW1 tech. I am not sure we know how this works in a decade. Can we actually build useable robot dogs to go dig with grenades? We also need to tell the Russians that unless they get along with losing the war softly, a whole lot more toys like this one are going to show up and help them lose it very, very hard.

The Chinese are going to shove full autonomy into drones as fast as they physically/technically can. They idea that they will have moral qualms about it is laughable. At some point we are going to have to have a conversation with the lawyers, or just lose. Not that big an issue for this war, but it is going to loom rather large in the next one.

At some level my argument is that if there is a drone overhead, it is about to start directing the PGM artillery anyway. I think, and the U.S. army apparently at least sort of agrees, that laser based systems are the best short to medium term solution to that problem. They at least have much more range, much better logistics, and don't have the spent round problem. Killing UAVs with other cheap UAVs is obviously the best plan, but it must be at least slightly harder than it looks, or the Russians wouldn't still be flying Orlans, and the Ukrainians wouldn't have to kill them with million dollar SAMs they don't have enough of. The longer term question is whether or not heavy, and even medium mechanized forces are still a viable thing. That tipping point is probably much closer than previously assumed, just due to developments in AI since the war started. The state of the art is at least a decade ahead of predictions, is another jump imminent, or impossible, well nobody knows. So now we move into a classic military quandary, how much do we invest in a legacy force structure that is looking ever more obsolescent in the long term, and how much do we trust the new stuff, if the bad guys just say bleep it and go for a full scale, bleep the casualties attack.

All this is true, or at least likely. However a lot of brave men have died so we could respect Scholz's and Macron's sensibilities. Nothing about Macron's performance in the last ~two weeks makes me think that was a good bargain. if Baerbock winds up as the next German Chancellor I guess the overall strategy will get a passing grade from the historians.

I just can't shake the feeling that they have tried too hard to modulate to a just so outcome, and not quite hard enough to outright win this thing and let Russia figure out how to lose it. It is also possible that my spine being a borderline disaster area is making me dyspeptic and grouchy. Edit: and maybe we are about to see some stuff that will actually surprise us...

If only they had thought about that nine months ago, and sent the Ukrainians what they asked for, when they asked for it. You know, like there was a war on or something. They could STILL ship a couple of hundred ATACMS this WEEK if they just bleeping would. All those Russian airbases in Crimea would go puff... I realize there is also a non zero possibility that that Biden's team is sandbagging enemies both foreign and domestic. But.....

Hopefully at least the corollary is true? If if Ukraine takes back half the land bridge and mauls the Russian Army by the Fourth of July it will get the support to prosecute the war until the last Russian leaves.

The last paragraph of a much longer article.

I would respectfully disagree about Melitopol. If Ukraine could cut the Crimean land connections, and then sever the land bride at any spot east of Melitopol, the city is is just a trap for Russian forces. It is exactly the kind of place you attack last, when it is under a tight and hopeless siege, and every Russian soldier in the place knows that the only two possible endings are a POW camp or a bulldozed over ditch.

The potential for even a credible threat to cross the Dnipro and move straight for the choke points at the top of Crimea to cause the above mentioned panic is the thing that could turn the spring offensive into a truly war changing event. Match it with a hard push anywhere from Melitopol to Mariupol, and all of a sudden every Russian unit in between is looking at being cut off except for highly interdict-able seaborne supplies. A lot of them might decide it is time to leave. The best case scenario would the "Highway of Death Part II" with Ukrainian units trying to outdo their Finnish exemplars in eating Russian columns from two and a half sides at once.

Good stuff!

I count 16 airfields, my back of the envelope says Ukraine Needs 160 ATACMS or cruise missiles soonest. And hey i just got started on this weeks letter to my Congressman.

I think crossing the river in force is probably just too hard. But if the Ukrainians are considerably stronger than I think, there are good paved roads from Kherson and Nova Kakhovka Straight to the choke points at the top of Crimea. If the Ukrainians could even credibly threaten along this axis, while also attacking towards Melitopol from the North, it could unhinge the entire western third of the land bridge . Of course if Ukraine strong enough to do this, then they are probably going to smash the Russians almost regardless of the plan.

The other thing strongly implied in todays ISW is that the ground is still bottomless bog, and we are therefore at least a week out from the Ukrainians kicking off for real.