Tux

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.

Whether the analogy stands up has, of course, yet to be seen. There is every possibility that it doesn’t and that there is a dimension to all of this which makes it wholly new. However anti-drone systems, doctrine, etc are clearly the missing piece at the moment and so the first order effort has to go towards implementing such ASAP, in my opinion. The sooner it is tried and being tested, the sooner we can begin to try and work out the whole puzzle, whether analogies to aircraft or tanks turn out to have been helpful or not.

This is closest to the point, imo, when it comes to how attack will be carried out in future. I see lots of talk about semi-/autonomous drones selecting their own mobiks, vehicles or guns to target but as far as I can see that totally misses the key requirement, which is to destroy/deny the enemy’s drone force. No kind of mass will ever advance as long as the defenders’ drones can fly straight past the attackers’ and continue doing exactly what they do today. Even if the attacker launches so many drones they manage to find and kill all the local defending drone operators (which nobody seems to be capable of yet) there will be many more, tens of kilometres away, who will be busy raising their own hell-cloud with which to bring fire and brimstone down on the attacking force. Drones vs ground is already done. It’s there. It’s denying and it’s attriting the enemy and it is the problem right now. Semi-autonomy, full autonomy, these things will increase the effect but that’s all. You all knew it was coming and yes, I know the horse is dead but imo it needs another whack: Drone vs drone is the key. The Western Allies eventually advanced at pace through Western Europe in no small part because they had basically invented the concept of air supremacy. I don’t see any reason that drone supremacy shouldn’t be just as effective.

The West is watching: look busy! This doesn't surprise me: bridgeheads are famously challenging to maintain and the existence of the UA on the east side of the Dnieper undermines the value of the entire land bridge. It's like a new Debaltseve and I guess we can expect the Russians to be just as uncompromising while trying to take it.

Both absolutely right. In a year or so the sky above a battlefied may already look exactly as you describe. Until then, though... The conversation covering some possible ways the drone war will develop is interesting and healthy but at the moment we haven't really started JonS' loop. Each side has recce/strike drones and that's about it. So whoever fields the first effective 'drone-fighter' will likely gain a brief but significant advantage in *this* war. Perhaps they'll even name it the "Eindecker" and someone will have a modern-day Fokker Scourge to deal with.

I think we’re talking at crossed purposes. I’m talking about small, very cheap drones that have maybe 30mins’ endurance, detect RF signals being transmitted from anywhere at or above their altitude and attempt to collide with the transmitter. They send a single pulse signal when on a collision course with and within, say, 300mm of a target, so you know that that target is likely hit. The intention is that they scrub the sky clean of all drones that are sending out a signal (including your own, if IFF is too difficult, but that can be accounted for in when/where/how high you fly them). If you find or manoeuvre yourself into a situation where empty skies would be to your advantage, launch 10 of these things and listen for the ‘I got one!’ pulses. If you hear 10 pulses, launch another 10. Rinse and repeat as appropriate. Don’t want to wait? Launch 100 and forget about them. No need for optical guidance since they aren’t intended to attack ground targets.

Quite possibly, yes. It should be easier to field RF-seeking kamikaze drinkers en masse than those autonomous drones though, no? So my point is the current problem doesn’t seem impossible to address before autonomous becomes the norm. Even then autonomy doesn’t automatically buy immunity from RF-focussed hunting algorithms, assuming people will often want to receive a video feed from even fully autonomous drones. Otherwise how do you know whether they are effective? I am convinced that warfare is changing and that a drone-based arms race is underway. If you lose that race (or even fall behind) the consequences will be painful. My point is that we/Ukraine should therefore be simultaneously trying to win that arms race and making plans for if they (even temporarily) lose it.

The only thing preventing this from also being true of traditional CAS assets is AD, right? The hardware to throw at this problem is anti-drone weaponry. First side to field an effective anti-drone solution* wins the ability to flip the board whenever they want and force a drone-free fight upon the enemy. *As I’ve mentioned before my suggestion would be a cheap fighter-drone design that autonomously homes in on any airborne RF emitter. Autonomous drones are a problem for another day.

I honestly think a significant portion of people, especially young people, would be driven to vote for Trump specifically to make this happen. What’s more fun than bending a rule and watching it break? Think of the memes! I hope our American friends manage to tidy things up before they get that chance. Come on, now. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to make of the rate at which support has been sent to Ukraine; there’s no need to pretend Russia are somehow getting a better deal from NK and Iran. Russia pay for what they get, for a start.

As someone who grew up in east London I had good neighbours and school friends whose families came from Turkey, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Guyana, Iran, Iraq, Malawi, The Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Albania, Kosovo, Russia, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Israel, Ethiopia, Germany, Sri Lanka, China and Laos (and that’s the ones I can remember of the top of my head). Between them they represented various different Christianities, Sikhism, Islam, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism and Buddhism. We all celebrate Xmas (or not) however we bloody want and oh dear god I don’t have the strength to do this again… I feel like there’s a lot of pent up fear, anger and frustration being vented on the board recently. I guess that’s understandable from certain members at least but wow, are there some ridiculous things being said. Slava Ukraini.

No. As our Left Flank said I’ll leave it for perhaps some of our other Ukrainian members to try and help. I find myself agreeing with this but mainly because I think it must be incredibly difficult to gather so many diverse Allies together to agree a strategy when all but one of them are not at war. Having said that, surely if there was a coherent strategy we would absolutely not read about it in the tabloids; it would be a closely guarded secret to prevent knowledge of our end goals and strategy from being abused by Russia and others? Is the third bad assumption that the West has a magic button it can press to quickly make that wonderful situation come about? I think we should remember that, just like The_Capt, we’re all baffled as to how the Russian Army is still functioning properly. I’m personally in two minds as to whether we are still in a state of things ‘going slow before they go fast’ (and a collapse is just around that next corner, for reals this time) or whether we’re all culture-blind and missing some peculiar Russian meme that will keep them going for a long time to come. Either way we (Ukraine and the West) basically have achieved what our initial strategy probably was: something akin to “steadily and smoothly ramp up the pressure and support to avoid the Russian Federation catching fire while enabling Ukraine to bleed the Russian Army until conditions are set for it to collapse”. Russia hasn’t gone all Yugoslavia and the conditions appear pretty well set for a collapse to happen. Maybe we can be self aware enough to forgive a few western tacticians for potentially also being a bit nonplussed.

This.

From Reuters: I imagine they see this as a far quicker way to make an impact. It’s caught our attention, after all. No, it hasn’t “long since” disappeared. There have been 2-3 articles on Ukraine on the BBC main page in the last week or so, from memory. It’s just mostly been trumped by Israel/Palestine, recently. However, as per the above, the reason they are attracting attention to themselves in this way is because they specifically have an issue with unlicensed Ukrainian drivers damaging their business (or so they claim). Blocking Ukrainian trucks at the border by way of protest seems fairly rational, given that. Like I said, I’m not here to justify things or tell you how to interpret the news - especially given your country’s desperate situation. I do think there are fewer portents of doom going around than you do, though.

The first tweet you posted did. Ukraine is going through a horrific time right now but other countries still have to go about their daily lives. These kinds of issues, rooted in micro-social rifts and insecurities that have nothing to do with Ukraine, were and are always going to happen. The rest of Europe, that is not at war, can't and won't cease their normal internal politics and focus solely on Ukraine. It's just not realistic. Most people in the West have seen Ukraine's summer offensive fall pretty flat without really understanding why, so they feel a bit deflated. Israel-Gaza has mostly knocked Ukraine off the front pages in western media, basically because there is so much controversy involved rather than the 'pure' good vs. bad that is Ukraine/Russia. Winter is also here and so it's cold and dark and people are stressed about Christmas and family and energy bills. Beneath that all, though, support for Ukraine is basically unaffected. If you want to find signs that Ukraine isn't the only thing that concerns the rest of Europe and then interpret that as 'switching sides to support Russia' I can't stop you but do understand that that is what you are doing.

Yeah I've got you both and I think we are basically agreeing with each other. Perhaps where we might differ is that I look at certain societies' ability to generate and accept sacrifice as a sign of their overall weakness: I think most, if not all human beings will avoid sacrifice as long as that makes them feel more secure. They/we will then choose sacrifice once we hit a certain threshold of insecurity or at least once we believe said sacrifice will offer us significantly more security. Some social systems are better at offering and generating a sense of security to their citizens, which results in a relative reticence to make sacrifices. In the context of whether that's suitable for winning wars it can be seen as a weakness but overall it's a good thing. Living in a society which can be slow to react to wars is better than living in a society which is so angst-ridden that it starts the things. At worst history seems to demonstrate that, even though relatively secure populations (e.g. today's western democracies) are slow to commit to warfare, they tend to do quite well once they do get there. Small sample size maybe, but it is what it is. Which circles back to this: I fully agree with every word here, except the concern about western resolve. I think that, when it matters enough to 'the West' the resolve will be there. On a personal level it grieves me that Ukraine's pain doesn't hit our threshold for full commitment more readily but we are not dealing in personal dynamics here, we are talking about populations. Rational persuasion takes generations to move populations (if it does so at all), that's why those who see these things coming appear to be 'ignored'. I know that's not new to anybody here but I think remembering such important context might help us not become those "panicked over societal decline" that Randall Munroe warns about. We will pay heavily for our slowness and we will retrospectively castigate whichever Chamberlain-figure we decide to scapegoat after the fact but ultimately I don't think it will be the West who come out worst.

What hard decisions are they making which they don’t at least believe they have no choice but to make? I certainly agree that we generally do everything possible to avoid putting ourselves out on other people’s behalf (witness the many global conflicts that don’t incur the kind of response Ukraine has) but I suspect that so does every society. It’s the nature of large groups of humans, which I think may be one of your points, to be fair. This actually relates to how I see western support for Ukraine developing in the coming year or so: I think that, if a settlement appears which could be palatable to Ukraine and Russia, western governments will push hard for that solution. We won’t feel the need strongly enough to choose a prolonged effort to try and beat Russia harder. However I think the West will feel the need to not lose this. As long as Russia may be able to claim some victory I think ‘we’ will feel we have no choice but to ratchet up our commitment to Ukraine, even if only to maintain current support levels with new production, for example.

Are we sure that the distinction between late-19th century Europe/today’s West and any other human society really stands up to scrutiny, in this respect? Sure, Ukraine are sacrificing but they have no choice. Russia are sacrificing but we are repeatedly reminded that the people there very much believe they have no choice - as far as they’re concerned the government has taken them to war (incidentally fully intending to be done within 3 days, let alone by Xmas) so, like bad weather, they’d better just deal with it. The entire planet refused countless, relatively cheap and painless opportunities to prevent climate change from becoming an existential problem. It may not quite be a truly existential threat just yet but we are very much already at the point of being forced to choose between bad options to deal with it. Perhaps I’m speaking out of turn here and what you describe is an established, well-demonstrated phenomenon but I’m honestly struggling to think of any society which has ever voluntarily made this kind of sacrifice without either being forced to, believing the sacrifice would be far smaller than it turned out to be (“home by Xmas”) or believing they had no other choice.

I was talking more about operational-level "goals" but of course this is where the discussion ends up, anyway. We can quibble about how easy it might be for Putin to sell "Crimea, Donetsk and land bridge" as a win within Russia but there's no need and ultimately I agree that's likely where they are now. If they've got their heads screwed on, they'll be looking for a way to freeze things. We've seen Russia, Ukraine and NATO (to varying extents) commit and lose large amounts of their existing weaponry stockpiles. Everyone's warehouses and depots (certainly in Europe) have more moths than shells in them and so we are into the second phase; that of building new equipment based on experience gained. Short term production capacity of existing systems is limited and we don't yet know exactly which 'new' kit we should bet the farm on mass-producing (see recent 'What Drone?' discussions, ect.). So I think, as things stand, Ukraine can maintain a coherent strategy that acknowledges all the above and still focuses on territorial integrity: If they think Russia want to freeze along existing(ish) front lines and if they can get confidence in ongoing Western support and supply of key weapon/ammunition types, then I think it's clear that they should settle down and focus on corroding Russia's entire occupation force on the land bridge from range. Talk to allies and focus all efforts on production of artillery pieces, 155mm ammo, PGMs, drones and ISR. They might not be able to evict the Russians but they can certainly charge an eye-watering rental fee. Yeah it's because the West is a group of independent nations and not dominated by the USA quite to the extent that it is sometimes portrayed. Ultimately though I think everyone's goal is maintenance of the Rules-Based Order 'platonic ideal' even if each country might be looking at a different projection of it. For example I think the UK likely wants to settle some scores with Russia while appearing to be strong and leadershippy without EU membership and simultaneously setting ourselves up for a long, close friendship with Ukraine after the war (because we need some friends now we don't have EU membership). Those incentives all reflect different facets of the same Rule-Based Order that the US, Canada, Poland and France want to protect, if for different specific reasons. I think China, Iran and India have already 'won' as much as they were ever going to, to be honest. The Rules-Based Order was challenged (*tick*); Russia was weakened and left dependent on them for support (*tick*); clues as to the way conventional near-peer war is evolving are freely available, allowing them to try to sidestep US dominance of traditional warfare domains in their own force designs (*tick*); and there's more. Funnily enough I think that, insofar as they want to affect the war, they might want to err towards prolonging it more than Russia does. Exactly why I think Ukraine may need to stop advancing, since advancing seems like it may soon start to reduce their Option space rather than expand it, simply through force attrition. They should maintain sufficient force coherence at the front such that an advance may still be an Option but instead elect to Decide that Russia can not expand its land bridge, Undecide that Russia can maintain efficient and unmolested control of the land bridge and focus their Effects on the Russians' willingness and ability to sustain the occupation. That seems to me to be as good a holding pattern as any until they/we can properly solve for offense.

They have to have a goal though, right? If they are advancing because, for example, they want to get within x-distance of the coast so that the whole land bridge can be taken under fire then that’s one thing. If they’re advancing because they can but they understand that defensive primacy has re-emerged and they know they have no hope of making major gains then they should stop and put their manpower to more efficient use, no? I’m sure they do still have a goal but at this point I don’t think it could realistically be very spectacular.

Perhaps the best strategy for now is for Ukraine to consolidate their own defences and then concentrate on making Russian Army’s life on the land bridge as uncomfortable as possible. Get back to plinking HQs and logistics nodes with PGMs and put the onus on Russia to come up with a solution.

It certainly seems like Ukraine have spent the operational initiative they had after Bakhmut but I’m not sure Russia have gained much (pending the outcome of the Avdiivka operation). What terms do you think both sides might agree upon within the next three months? It’s not totally inconceivable (but I think it is extremely unlikely) that Ukraine calls exhaustion and offers terms for a freeze but can Putin really accept that? ‘We’ve got a land corridor and there’s no chance in hell the Russian Army can take any more from puny Ukraine so I’ve agreed a ceasefire’…? Surely Putin would/could only accept that if he thought it was better than continuing to fight, in which case Ukraine would be encouraged to withdraw the offer and get back to the trenches? In my opinion we have hit a temporary military stalemate but we are far from actual exhaustion on the part of either side.

Close but Anvil still looks too heavy and expensively built, to my eye. Make it half (or less) the weight, hand-launched, use the cheapest possible components and materials for mass production and remove all the networking capabilities. An effective rf seeker/guidance combo with 10km flight range, enough mass to likely disable whatever it hits and an on/off switch. That’s all I was thinking.

As I mentioned a few pages back I think this is a good idea for the early years of the drone wars and I think the bestish solution for the next decade would be a cheap ‘fighter drone’ that autonomously homes in on airborne radio emitters and collides with them. That at least forces the enemy to solve the ‘how to make an effective autonomous drone’ problem before they can harass your ground forces again.

In an attempt to drag us back at least towards the topic: I will be absolutely fascinated to find out (probably in a decade or two’s time) what Russian servicemen think they are fighting for in this war. I think the precise nature of the macro-social narrative which is somehow successfully holding the RA together (or whether it’s actually more of a confluence of thousands of complementary micro-social imperatives) will be important to study. Any thoughts? What keeps the RA going seems to be the one major gap in the collective understanding of the West and so is almost certainly not being attacked as effectively as it could be?

I can feel Steve glaring even as I write this but I cannot let it stand unchallenged and thereby assume what I would consider an undeserved aura of credibility. So I will just say that, at a glance, I think I count at least one flawed assumption, one bald assertion and three non sequiturs. In other words I disagree with the above “disagreeable” post.