Lethaface

I think we may be past tactical, at least for some areas.
So denial is essentially the ability to impose an intolerable cost.  It does not exert positive control over an area, it denies an opponent to establish control - a spoiler.  Denial is very good a making an area or point in a campaign undecidable.  I think in the air over Ukraine we are at operational denial, maybe even strategic. 
In this war I cannot even say that there is defence primacy as of yet.  It may be too soon.  But we can say we are seeing Denial primacy.  The air domain is mutually denied above 2000 feet. Unmanned ISR combined with artillery and precision weapons is denying ground force mass for offence.  The maritime domain has been denied as well.  The Russian Navy has been forced back by cheap land to sea missile systems.
We can see the intolerable cost whenever someone tries to go on the offensive.  Cheap and everywhere is defeating firepower and manoeuvre.  Russians were firing artillery at levels approaching WW1 last summer.  They vastly overwhelmed the UA.  Straight out of the Soviet playbook - fire to manoeuvre.  They had massive firepower overmatch…and went nowhere.  In fact they burned themselves out and got collapsed.  So in a way traditional firepower is denied.  The UA was to spread out and firing back with precision while Russian dumb massed fires were blowing up trees.
Right now there is no easy work arounds.  One cannot simply “establish air superiority” or “fires superiority”.  One has to establish denial and then a level of asymmetry.  Or better yet force an opponent into asymmetry.  
And don’t worry about Flimflam - I am pretty sure he isn’t following half of what I am talking about.  

Whoa, that was rather uncharitable. That post didn't veer any closer to the ditch than any of your meme posts. 
Besides, I think he may be going through a difficult phase in his life at the moment, so a little slack perhaps.

As someone who DOES basically think the border not being open is close to fascist, you're patently and categorically mischaracterizing the Dems and the state of the border. As someone who has regularly traveled back and forth across it, I haven't the slightest idea what you mean. There's so much law enforcement and much of Republican policy from trump and every previous deportation  happy administration is intact. Biden could put HIMARS and land mines on the border and Republicans would ask why he won't start a special military operation in Juarez.

I am sorry if this has been proposed and dismissed already, but would not the entire operation be massively simplified if instead of using air mobility systems to move soldiers above the minefield, one used air mobile systems for creating an explosive breach? 
I mean an explosive breach is just blowing up explosives placed on the ground. Why not have them placed by drones? If you release say fifty or a hundred drones whose only job will be to touch down for a second, deposit an explosive charge and skedaddle that is going to be massively more difficult to stop than trying to make a breach with a few tank sized vehicles which automatically draw fire from all ATGMs, PGMs and other AT systems in the vicinity.
In a sense it would exploit the same principle as tank did during WW I and II- instead of having the attack conducted by infantrymen,who can be killed by all weapons, the tanks were vulnerable only to a small subset of weapons, which in effect could be overwhelmed. Now AT weapons are ubiquituous, but AA not so and could be overwhelmed by a swarm of drones.
 

Firepower is anything but “a simple equation” (there we go with amateur reductionism).  Russia had massive firepower advantage at Severodonetsk and was moving by inches.  Simply being able to lob HE at and opponents in greater quantities is not even close to the firepower competition space.  Nor will it break defensive or denial deadlocks by simple volume.
Firepower has multiple dimensions - economy (cost vs payoff), range, precision, targeting, command and logistics, to name a few.  As to trench warfare - it is a solution for the defender.  It is a problem for the attacker.  In order to not be pulled into an attritional slugfest an attacker must move.  Position can break an opponent if it 1) can be done faster than an opponent can react and 2) if it breaks an opponents LOCs - this essentially cause an opponent into a condition where they break formation/organization while you retain your own.  So in order to break a static defence one needs mobility and firepower - in the business we call that manoeuvre.  Trench warfare is a symptom of defensive primacy, not a cause.
What is causing defensive primacy - “Well just establish X superiority”.  Gee wish we had thought of that.  Superiority meet Denial.  Right now we are trying to figure out what superiority means.  Is it unmanned superiority?  Is it data superiority?  Is it precision superiority?  At the same time we are seeing denial at scope and scales we are not really understanding.  Force ratios and traditional metrics are all shot to hell in this war and probably will be for the next one.  The problem now is that superiority is not working.  Which was excellent news for Ukraine back in early ‘22.  But not so good in summer 23.  A lot of the problem is restructuring fire and manoeuvre to fit the texture of the modern battlefield.  Neither side in this war has figured this out yet…but we are working on it.

Ah you hit on the critical part of all this.  Main ground force breach and link up.  I am not even sure what that ground force would look like - could be IFVs and tanks, could be medium/light but it needs to be mounted and ready to move quickly. 
So lets say we have three 500m minefield belts in front of us in say 5km of depth.  Specifically designed to slow and attrit.  Defended by all the stuff I posted earlier.
Phase 1 - Recon.  ISR the living crap out of the place.  Do not prosecute targets yet, map them.  Map networks, control nodes and c-move routes in depth.
Phase 2 - Suppress.  C-UAS, C-EW, C-everything you can see.  You need to do this in multiple places or the enemy is going to know exactly where to prepare. Here CB will be critical.
Phase 3 - Isolate.  You want to cut off the 5x1 breaching operation, so think 5x10.  You need to cut C4ISR and c-moves.  Here our own FASCAM and Deep Strike will be critical.
Phase 4 - Bridgehead X-ing.  Combination of air mobility systems - jetpacks, quadcopters etc.  Push JTA(G)Cs, UGVs and weapons to the far side of first minefield.  Out to 1-2 kms.  Night, smoke and suppression anyway one can.
Phase 5.  Establish bridge head.  Set those JTA(G)Cs loose and hunt every ATGM team.  Cut off any c-moves.
Phase 6.  Breach.  Main ground force has about 5 mins to crack that minefield.  Explosive and mechanical.  And this would be after a thorough recon.
Phase 7 - Rinse and repeat.  You have already set local conditions.  Sustain them and move fast. Next bridge head force bounces next minefield.  Next breaching wave  (another 5 mins).  
Add that all up and theoretically one could do it in maybe an hour so now you have the isolation window.  You are basically killing anything looking to move into that box from well out.  HIMARs and deep strike on logistics nodes.  Good news is most RA are moving by trucks.  Tanks and IFVs are still out there so those UGVs need Javelins. 
Trickiest part is enemy ATGM teams.  If you miss a few (and you will) you will need redundant breaches built in.  But more importantly you need to be able to spot and kill those teams, likely with FPVs very quickly.
This whole dance is not easy or cheap. But if you can sustain momentum, you could have a mounted breakout force on the outer edge of this belt in about 60 mins by my calcs.  You would need to drill it.  You would need to enable it and empower it.  It would cost a helluva lot of money.
And it still may fail.  But so far it is the best idea I have heard.  One might be able to do it from afar with nothing more than a swarm of UAS, but I am not sure the tech is there yet with respect to endurance.  Human and UGV pairing gives the ability to hold those bridge heads.  C2 forward means you can react faster.  
Finally...and here is the real rub:  you need to do this in several places at the same time.  Overload RA C2 which is likely very comfortably static right now.  Force a manoeuvre decision on them and then layer it with friction.  Let them make the mistake.  Once you get break out, you have  whole new set of problems but minefields might not be one of them.
And damn won't the post-war movie be epic.  Now whether it is a drama, tragedy or comedy is up to the Red God.
 

Surprise, concentration, speed, assuming we have local drone supremacy before launching, I think we need to go deeper on the initial lift to get the disruptive effect we want on the defenders ability to successfully counter, in my mind particularly decision making ability/cycle time. I am not sure what a ground component looks like, although I really do like 's @dan/california idea of drones dropping MICLIC to speed up mine clearance.

@The_Capt to your point, if the initial lifted force is primarily infantry or SOF JTA(G)C teams, with ISR support to identify and neutralize previously undetected defenses in depth, we still need someway to out tempo the defense's ability to recover/restore their front, some form of superior maneuver speed, so the offensive force breaks out leaving the defender with only the choices of staying and get cut off or withdrawing. A number of folks have posited networked human/UGV units. If the combined UGV/human unit has the maneuver speed needed to break the defense, great.  Once a grunt is on the ground his sustained unopposed maneuver speed is about 3/mph.
The risk I see so far in our discussions is we achieve partial penetration (yes I hear all the innuendo comments), but not fast enough to breakout, and end up with an expensive salient it's probably not worth holding.
We're solving breaching the minefield not breaking the defense.

This is an equipment solution that gets us beyond the depth of prepared defenses in a single lift, which I think is what we want. To restore tactical offensive primacy the offensive op-tempo will need to exceed the defenders ability to react in time other than to withdraw. I am not sure a series of 500m hops through the minefields is going to do that.
"Though at first glance it looks like the sort of quadcopter drones used to make videos, the T-600 is about the size of a compact car. It's an electric-powered demonstrator craft that is easily broken down for transport, has a payload of 200 kg (441 lb), top speed of 140 km/h (87 mph) and a range of 80 km (50 miles)."
https://newatlas.com/military/t-600-heavy-lift-drone-anti-sub-torpedo/#:~:text=Though at first glance it,80 km (50 miles).
@The_Capt I am still trying to find/understand EMP anti-drone capabilities and both 'cheap' commercial and military drone EMP resistance. As mentioned a couple pages ago understandable military interest in countering drones, EMP being a serious candidate. 

I guess my concern is what happens if Trump does get elected but a state refuses to recognize it because he was never on their ballot?
Of course if the US actually votes in a guy quoting Mein Kampf in campaign speeches...who then buddies up to Putin who is fighting an illegal "de-nazification" war in Ukraine.  I mean how weird does it need to get?

So I am not sure everyone understand the problem with these minefields.  I mean yes the splodey mines are bad but what is stopping the UA is a combination of things:
- minefields in depth.  High density monsters about 500m deep and laid in belts.  They no doubt have AP strips and combinations of mines - pressure plate, tilt rod and likely some magnetic impulse.  On their own midfields can be breached with some risk but what makes them harder are stuff like ditches and dragons teeth - we call these complex minefields.
- ATGM teams.  Even RA ATGMs are long range, small and relatively portable and able to take out western gear.  The RA are using these teams to cover the minefields and counter breaching attempts.  The UA are doing the same thing as was demonstrated in that interview with the Bn commander a page or so back.
- Artillery.  Even though it has been blunted, artillery is still a major killer particularly in minefields.  This is due to the fact that breaching forces an opponent to canalized into a narrow column.
- Unmanned.  UAS are able to see far and from a lot of different angles.  This makes them really hard to smoke off.  These systems basically become a tactical ISR net that can queue all the defensive systems across a minefield.
- Other support.  Here sniping tanks, IFVs and even AH can be pulled forward (based on ISR queuing) to pre-sighted positions.  AD of course is denying the airspace above 2000 feet.
So you add all this up and breaching becomes near impossible.  The layering of system’s guarantees the breaching team and covering forces get detected well out and engaged.  Lone columns of vehicles get picked off.  Lead breaching systems taken out and everyone else gets taken out by mines and artillery.  So how does one try and solve this problem?  Well the breaching is actually the last step in the process, not the first.
- Recon.  One needs to be able to see and identify as much of the defence as possible.  And in depth.
- C-artillery.  The UA was and will need to do a lot of CB to suppress artillery and  artillery TA systems.
- Deep strike.  Look for and find the supporting systems, like sniping tanks, before they can get into position.
- ATGM teams.  Suppress with artillery and drones as much as possible.
Ok, the UA likely tried all this and still went nowhere. Why?  “Because infantry protect tanks!”  Kinda hard to do when one has to cross a half a kilometre of open minefield to even get at the problem.  Enemy UAS can pick up sapper breaching teams trying to do it silently but very slowly.  Bull charging on foot is a good way to get a bunch of people killed to no effect.
So the problem is getting a bridgehead force across the minefield to clear those ATGM teams, counter against any armor and push any C-UAS capability forward.  That force will likely be infantry heavy but should include a mix of UAS and UGV.  Air Assault with helicopters is suicide because they are too big, hot and denied.  So one needs speed and a way over (or under) the minefield because there is no “around”.  A major airborne operation is not crazy but once again you need air superiority which is not likely.
So we are at: how does one get a bridgehead force across with enough eyes and firepower to protect the breach?  In a perfect world the breach would go in, reset push forward and one would redo the entire process at the next minefield as quickly as possible.  So you don’t have to do this once, you likely need to do it a half dozen times…as quickly as possible.
No bad idea time.  But trust me, there is no real conventional way around this problem.  A massed UAS strike that includes c-UAS systems appears to be a start point.  But there is little room for error.  A single ATGM takes out the lead breaching vehicle and an entire platoon/company crossing may fail.  The consequences are high - as in, the UA does not advance in 2024 - high.
Discuss.

A feel good video, you need one of those now and again.

Unlike, say, flying across a minefield with a backpack full of Jet A1 and a big hot thermal signature?

Alright Steve we have just outlined the new game, Combat Mission New Model Air Assault, get busy. 🤣

So Steve, in spite of your best efforts, it seems CM: Space Lobsters of Doom© will -- yet again! -- frontrun military reality by about 2-3 years.

 

Instead of a jetpack, use a heavy lift quad/octocopter. Should cut the cost a lot. Same platform for manned, unmanned where it basically has a payload attachment to carry a supply container, a UGV or an infrantryman.
The soldier shouldn’t have the lug the whole thing around; just clips in gets whisked to their destination at very low altitude and then the drone flies back to swap batteries/fuel and pick up the next soldier/UGV/supply.
EDIT: Obviously they’ll be autonomous
EDIT2: The interesting thing is if you have on-demand organic airlift for small groups of infantry that can move them say 5-10km with full combat load in a few minutes. Is maneuver back?

I have a faint hope that Ukraine can still survive this winter (I don’t know what exactly influenced my opinion, objective reasons, or another bottle of Madeira I bought this evening). The key events, in my opinion, will unfold not on the front line, but in the rear. It all depends on whether our president will be able to change public opinion, destroy the influence of the Russian information machine on the consciousness of our citizens, and also restore the faith of our citizens in the armed forces of Ukraine. Zaluzhny previously expressed the opinion that Ukraine needs to return to last year’s level of citizen mobilization. 
However, Zelensky said at a press conference that another 500,000 mobilized Ukrainians are needed. This means that Ukraine's armed forces must increase by another third of their original strength. This clearly contradicts Zaluzhny’s assertion that everything is normal and no special mobilization measures are needed.
 
Be that as it may, I can be guided by the mobilization of my youth acquaintances from Krivoy Rog. They have significant abilities to corrupt any government bodies. Even if these guys were drafted into the army, then everything is very, very bad. So far, fortunately, none of my friends have been drafted into the army

The two coolest things I found today.

I mean the trite answer is it's their combination that hurts most but I still think this is a useful question.
I would argue that defenders dug in to fortifications with artillery support has been solved and aren't causing many new problems in this war.  The unholy pair in this war is laaaarge minefields and plentiful drones.  Without the minefields today's drones could be partially defended against by moving fast and/or light.  The Capt's ink-blots would work to neutralise lines of defense.  Without the drones you might be able to leverage stealth and operational confusion to effect a breakthrough in at least one or two places.  As it is though the mines don't allow you to move fast and the drones let the enemy watch you do it.  That then multiplies the effectiveness of artillery and mobilising reserves and, well, here we are.
 
For this war I would warn against trying to come up with a solution that carries out the entire attack for you.  This hell-swarm idea may be a thing in a few years but it's more than is needed now.  The minimum solution that we need today is to undo the effect that attack drones and drone-assisted C4ISR have had, then let your legacy units attack as they were always meant to.  That means finding a way to neutralise the vast majority of enemy drones, at least over a localised area and for at least a day or two.
As OBJ points out (and as others have theorised over the previous 70,000+ posts) the solution could be technical or doctrinal.  Doctrinal might be more efficient (I like LLF's Army-of-Rangers thinking) but would require re-training and potentially re-organisation which would take months, if not years to properly carry out.  A technological solution could theoretically be fielded within weeks of design freeze.

Krynky bridgehead. Next TOS-1A, which was spotted by SOF was destroyed by night drone bomber of 36th marines brigade
Situation in Krynky still heavy for Ukrainian troops, but completely catastrophic for Russian troops
Just some Russian TG messages from there:
They are killing our guys. No EW. They [command] just wait something. 

Krynki. Situation is very hard. Khokhol's artillery fu...ng hit us, we can't supress it, drones like a bees. 
My friend called yesterday. There is meat grinder. Arty and drones hit like fu...g hell. On Tuesday a company in 130 men came there on positiosn. And yesterday so far they were withdrawn to the rear. Only 18 men left.
Tell anybody about bodies evacuation.
There is too hard in Krynki. We can't go out within three days until it's quiet.
  
It's obvious, why NYT issued two days ago pessimistic article with interview of "UKR wounded marines", who told about "useless operationin Krynky", "huge losses". Russia invested huge money now to PsyOps.  Putin on own briefing told "Russian troops has only several sanitarу losses in Krynky, when Ukraine - dozens of killed"

At first, we were surprised that Putin would actually go ahead and invade.
Then we were surprised that Ukraine didn't simply collapse.
Then we were surprised that the Russian Army was beaten badly and had to let go of huge areas.
Then we were surprised that the Ukrainian summer offensive completely failed, despite all the Western weapons.
An then now we are very surprised that the Russians are able to not just prevent collapse, but even mount a winter offensive and are taking ground.
 
I would be surprised if this is the last surprise of this war.

We all know how long "soon" can take in your world, Steve. 😀

No idea, 'how do we,' Break the Stalemate.
From my limited understanding of historical precedent relative to WWI western front defensive primacy:
1. 1918 Germans developed a doctrinal solution, Stosstruppen, infiltration tactics
2. 1916 British developed a technical solution, the tank
3. The Germans then combined both in WWII

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtroopers_(Imperial_Germany)#:~:text=Under a creeping barrage%2C Stoßtruppen,enemy headquarters and artillery strongpoints.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiltration_tactics#:~:text=Hutier favoured brief but intense,%2C artillery%2C and command centres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_in_World_War_I#:~:text=In Great Britain%2C an initial,Army on 2 February 1916.
 
So maybe flying over the minefields just needs a combination of doctrine and technology to work. Still not sure how the sustainment logistics would work, maybe they fly over too.
At some point I think we also need to account for what is unique in Ukraine, and might not be applicable in all sectors of a wider war.

Sorry, just trying to synthesize/wrap my head around what everyone has said above in the last ~6 hours, through Zeleban at 07:50 EST, about the UA counter offensive and why it failed. I think I hear everyone saying what follows. I am confident all of you will point out what I missed or got wrong:
1. UA early war experience and successful practices were either not applicable or not applied to the UA 2023 offensive.
2. The UA pause in late 2022 offensive operations to receive and train on a piddling hodgepodge of different complex western mechanized systems gave RU time to consolidate and prepare defenses in depth.
3. When UA did attack, they did not concentrate their effort according to western doctrine, quickly took losses UA judged to be unsustainable, transitioned to trying to find ways to breakthrough with most emphasis on how to breach very high density RU minefields, and to date have not found operational practices that would allow them to penetrate to the depth of the RU defenses
4. Both sides have leveraged the ubiquitous presence of cheap drones to reveal maneuver to enable effective counters.   
5. The ubiquitous presence both ISR and attack drones, given the length of the front and density of forces, has resulted in stalemate significantly favoring the defender.
6. RU defensive practices have included low manpower density coverage, 'waves' of defenders being sent forward to replenish losses and high casualty local counter attacks.
7. UA has been able to convert RU tactics into high RU losses.
8. RU has much greater manpower resources than UA and given RU social and military cultures will win a protracted war of attrition.
Put all this together I get an uneasy feeling it's appearing more likely RU maybe left in place to consolidate what they have taken, reconstitute their forces, and resume their aggression in the next year, or two, or three, with the loss of Western political will being a, if not the, deciding factor.

I wonder whether another factor behind the UA's 'difficult summer' was a kind of doctrinal disorientation suffered by the military leadership?
Ukraine successfully defeated the initial invasion force through more-or-less ad hoc corrosive warfare tactics: distributed light infantry with modern ATGMs, shop-bought Mavics and a hotline to artillery backup.  The tactics used seem to have been largely improvised due to the fact the UA was caught off-balance and massively outnumbered by the invading force.  The forces which achieved such success included a relatively large proportion of TD units which, in theory at least, were not really supposed to be that effective but had done their jobs when the chips were down.
After the first phase was over the UA was still not properly on its feet and so it dug in and kind of leaned into the same tactics; trying to absorb Russian attacks with mostly light infantry and an increasing number of artillery PGMs allowing their gun park to perform effectively despite overall limited ammunition stocks.  In one major instance this undermined Russian operational systems to the point that they totally collapsed around Kharkiv.  Around Kherson, where Russian defence was perhaps a little more deliberate, it sorta kinda worked to the point that the UA reached the Dniepr but I think we all identified at the time that things hadn't gone quite as neatly as may have been expected, given what probably should have been the critically vulnerable nature of Russian logistics across the river.
During the Bakhmut phase it feels like the UA may have lost a little more faith in the 'corrosive warfare' operational method (perhaps the Kherson experience contributed to this?).  I may be misremembering but isn't this about the time we were reading accounts of Ukrainian TD units kicking off and maybe occasionally abandoning frontline positions in protest at their apparent newfound status as line infantry?  I wonder whether that, combined with a degree of horrified awe at the power of Russia's artillery ever since Severodonetsk, may have worked to persuade the UA's leadership that distributed mass had been a successful means to an end but that, given the choice and their own training, soviet-style world-ending application of force was the thing to aim for.
We should also remember that, throughout this period, a very hot topic was Ukraine's repeated and insistent requests for tanks.  Lots of tanks.  As many tanks as allies could spare and especially some of those shiny, modern, western MBTs, please.  Even at the time I remember wondering why.  I think I might even have posted on this thread that 'maybe it's misinformation to scare mobiks and really what they want is drones, shells, SAMs and access to more C4ISR'.  Is this more evidence that, at a senior level, the UA hadn't actually learned all the lessons we were crediting it with having taught us?
In addition to all that, Ukrainian servicemen were being carted across Europe to undergo NATO standard training.  We've heard various accounts of how such training was ignorant of the realities of the war as it was being fought, so this effectively ended up as a third doctrinal flavour (and a flawed one, in the minds of at least some UA soldiers who went through it), somehow operating in parallel with the UA's soviet institutional heritage and its recent, bleeding edge experience.
So then came the summer offensive.  Well before it started there seems to be evidence to suggest that there was overt disagreement between the UA and western advisers with regards to what that offensive should look like both in terms of scale/breadth and tactics used (although I haven't seen any suggestion that either side were advocating a continuation of corrosive warfare tactics - how curious).  In the end it seems like Ukraine implemented western tactics with western equipment and (very) freshly western-trained units until they got a bloody nose and not much longer.  Now, I'm not saying these tactics would have worked if they tried harder but they only tried for, what, a couple of weeks?  Then they reverted very quickly to what looked like an uneasy, almost incongruous marriage of drones/PGMs with regular, more traditionally soviet-style blunt attacks.  At this point they were trying to attack everywhere despite not really having the numbers to be able to do that and properly reinforce success wherever it may be close.  Our very own Haiduk was often telling us of complaints about various levels of UA leadership and their dogmatic adherence to wasteful frontal attacks.  All of the above suggests a horrible lack of unity within the UA in terms of how and where things were being done versus how and where they should be done.
So, the Ukrainian military leadership was caught organising a full-scale offensive while having to consider:
Should they lean hard into western tactics and doctrine, which none of them were trained in and only a few of their (admittedly near best-equipped) tactical units were partly trained in? Should they take advantage of the fact they have caught their balance after the first year, they have secured fresh supplies of ammunition and equipment and the Russians are on the defensive in order to implement a proper, full-blooded soviet-style assault in the way they were always trained to?  Even though such theory isn't really intended to carry the day against an enemy with numerical and potentially materiel superiority? Should they discard both doctrinal frameworks in favour of what has worked so far, even though absolutely no-one is trained in that; they only did it because they couldn't do much else; it might only have worked because the Russians were so over-stretched and disorganised; perhaps they should step away from using TD units and towards 'real' combat units, now; and who's in charge here anyway, comrade General or that mouthy wannabe-NCO who won't stop carping on about reconnaisance and toy planes? Is it any wonder they ended up kind of doing all three at various times and places?

tl;dr: is there a case to be made that, rather than the fact the tactics were imperfect (and who could blame them for that in the current environment?), it was the fundamental uncertainty and consequent indecision in the minds of UA leadership itself which shaved those critical percentage points of speed and effectiveness away such that the offensive appears to have stretched the RA but did not break it?
P.S. I promise I will work on structuring my thoughts more succinctly in future, when I have time.