dan/california

Yet more suicidal Russian tank operations. "Lets drive around unsupported until the Ukrainians kill us, it will be fun."

I am out of likes, so will simply say agree 100%. The plan was for a Coup/Czech 1968 scenario. There was not the slightest thought given to it not going well. Everything since is 100% improvised, in a system where it takes six months of planning to do ANYTHING. It is going about as well as you would expect. The suicidal river crossing have whiff of outright panic in at least parts of the Russian command structure.

If I may be permitted the notable sin of quoting myself, sort of. The amount of active ISR at every frequency from the ultraviolet to the furthermost point where microwaves start shading into plain old radio is enough to fry every egg in the Donbas. The passive ISR is looking at an even broader set of wavelengths, including ALL of the Russian communications, apparently. The river crossing was not going to work unless the Russians could suppress every Ukrainian artillery section that could range the pontoons, and the Russians provably suck at counter battery. It isn't clear they suppressed ANY of it, so they got hammered in to scrap metal with ugly caburized stains. The only conceivable reason Putin hasn't had this army pack up and leave is that he thinks it deserves to die for its inability to execute his grand plan.

And when you LOSE the battles...... I am really starting to expect the Russians to just collapse and shatter any day now, An army just can't take this level of pointless failure for forever, or even all that long.

With the sadly notable exception of Mariupol every single Russian attempt at an encirclement of anything bigger than a platoon has ended in disaster for them. They just don't seem to be able to deal with the logistics. And even in Mariupol the Russians have suffered a massive strategic defeat, even if they eventually do clear the steel plant. Having ten plus BTGs tied up there for months, and then leaving to broken to do much of anything else was one of the many stakes driven into this zombie excuse for a plan.

I keep thinking they should drop the bridges that supply Kherson, there is video of the Russians rigging them to blow, it isn't likely they can take them intact.

I don't think the Russians will use WMD over Kherson, it just doesn't pass even the expanded version of the crazy test. They haven't had it for three months yet, whatever BS propaganda they come up with. Crimea might be different. The following is one hundred percent my opinion. Ukraine should let Crimea go in return for Nato and EU membership with Russian acquiescence. I don't say this because I think Putin deserves anything, other than some of his own polonium tea. I say it because Ukraine will be a far happier, far easier to run country without taking in that much hostile population. Crimea is just not as Ukrainian as the rest of Ukraine. The little green men trick wouldn't have worked if it was. In Mariupol the little green men got their buts kicked. And this was before close to a decade of strongly encouraged Russian immigration. They can't run the place with the willing consent of the populace, and their European support won't let them use less pleasant methods. Living well is the best revenge, just let it go.

Assuming it is a real image..... Maybe they made a last ditch attempt to swim/snorkel them, and figured if it didn't work it was better than donating the Ukrainians most of a tank company in working oder? Maybe??

I am out of likes so let me just say great post! As to specifics, I think a great deal of it comes down to the fact that being able to space those strong points at least five or ten times further apart increases the amount of artillery it takes takes to suppress them by more than a reasonable logistics train cam move, at least for old style area fires, which seems to be the only kind the Russians have in any quantity. It would make them more vulnerable assault by infantry, but the Russians don't seem to have any. Thoughts?

One of the questions we probably won't get answered for at least a year or three is how many hundreds of Nato analysts, and how many gigawatts of server farm were expended every day to turn the several zillion incoming ISR streams being generated into a coherent picture of the battlefield that is handed to the Ukrainian General Staff as a bow-tied present every morning, and again after afternoon tea. The Russians have essentially never generated even a tank company sized surprise action that I am aware of, much less anything on a scale that might matter. Anyone who actually wants to win the next war is going to have to figure out how to deal with that.

At first I thought they were cooking Owen........ Edit Then I typo in my joke.....

At least it hasn't ended as badly as the forest road adventure those two Russian BTGs wandered off on, yet....

Well said!

Going to be tractor in every monument to this war.

Drones in the next war It will be like the way Ukraine has used ATGM assets in this one. They have handed them out at probably ten times the rate/density of pre-war doctrine. Which would seem crazy, except they are winning, so it isn't crazy, and will probably be the NEW doctrine

This seems first and foremost to be a case if inducing a bad assumption, and then taking advantage of it. You convinced them to re-task there ISR, and then caught acting like it was in two places at once. Which, sort of anyway, brings me back to what I am convinced will be the main difference between Ukraine right now, and the next unresolvable disagreement. Drones now are pretty much a one or two at a time thing. The next war they will be a one or two HUNDRED at a time thing, minimum.

Exactly, the whole complex of vehicles will have to move around together. Maybe the value of the 8 inch shell is that it can have an ablative layer to absorb point defense, and still have enough payload.

Let's lay out a few assumptions about what I near future for us is going to look like. For this discussion I will assume that it will be possible for systems bigger than an infantry man in a very good ghillie suit, and a drone that's trying very hard to look like a goose are capable of surviving. This may be a bad assumption in which case you wind up in a completely different place. I did not mean to imply that I meant the 2S7 specifically. I am talking about the Panzerhaubitze 2000, fully digitized, new from the ground up version of the 2S7. Assuming that the concept of large and expensive tracked vehicles are still viable, it is my assumption that various different kinds of such vehicles are going to have to operate together in order to create a viable onion layer defense. You're not going to be able to have your artillery running around without co-located electronic warfare and point defense assets. It is also my assumption that you were logistics train is going to have to have nearly as much, maybe as much, protection as your front line assets. Autonomous drones that hunt trucks are going to be a thing very, very soon. So the trade-off I am thinking about is that a 2S7 class self-propelled howitzer certainly has a large footprint, but the logistical footprint of each shell fired would be considerably smaller than a rocket with the same throw weight. Does this matter? Does this matter enough?

Thanks for keeping us in the loop Haiduk, we really appreciate it. We so hope Ukrainian losses were light. It's always glorious to watch the Russians feed a few more battle groups to the meat grinder. I am struck over and over and over again by the fact that the current Russian general staff is not bothered to read their own history's. Maybe the fact that an operation in literally the same place was nearly suicidal for the red army against opposition with the merest fraction of the technology is that the Ukrainians now have access to didn't work out very well could have informed their planning. They don't exactly have the red armies endless reserves a manpower to play with either.

Let me throw something out there to get this off the mess that is American politics. There seems to be a reasonably strong consensus on the board going forward a first rate militaries primary goal is to maintain an ISR bubble around its indirect fire assets and degrade that bubble around it's opponents indirect fire assets to the extent that that you achieve superiority of fires at the desired point. Specifically point I wanted to raise is does the 203 mm class self-propelled artillery have a place in the scheme. They obviously throw bigger shells farther, but they have a large logistical tail associated with them. Is this a job that is better left to rocket it to rocket based systems? The equivalent to an Excalibur 155 in a 203 mm size would obviously be useful, is it worth it?

A BTG per day, every day, Minimum.

Erdogan has any number of medium sized issues with both the EU and the US. It is possible he wants a corrupt Turkish banker let out of jail, or some obscure corruption based sanction lifted. Maybe he wants some level of forgiveness for the S-400 deal? Needs must when the devil is driving, pay the man and move on. It grates my *%$&$& but I am sure Orban will want some sort of bribe/concession as well. Just part of it.

The tank has improved by a great deal since WW2. Unfortunately for tankers the things infantry has to kill tanks with have improved by about two orders of magnitude more.

I have been convinced forever that that a ground launched Hellfire/Brimstone system would be a very useful thing. I guess the the Israeli Spike is similar. Really hoping this makes it into the next game.

One of the overwhelming Russian failures throughout this entire war is a complete inability to operate with any dispersal to speak of. My interpretation of this massive and ongoing failing is that nothing happens outside of the LOS of a company grade officer. As soon as the company commander is out of sight any real work halts, and the looting and drinking start, if there is anything to loot or drink. I am open to other interpretations of this demonstrated failing. But the lessons don't get much sharper than a stiff rain of 152/155, and the Russians are still exhibiting zero learning.