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hcrof

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Posts posted by hcrof

  1. 12 minutes ago, womble said:

    The gunner can only not be in the tank if you are 6-sigma certain that nothing is going to interfere with their telepresence. Which is difficult when the enemy knows that all they need to do to render a critical weapon system (whether that's a swarm of UGVs or a single Citadel Tank) inoperative is to disrupt the comms. The more remote operation stuff there is, the more treasure will be spent on busting the comms links and the more treasure will have to be spent on hardening those links.

    Also, if the gunner isn't in the tank, the rest of the crew aren't either, and field maintenance and repairs that the crew do "traditionally" become a new problem that will need solving.

    Not necessarily true, another crew member can take over gunners duty if the link goes down, albeit at reduced effectiveness. Hopefully that is just temporary and the tank can return to 100% when the link goes back online. 

    Edit: a driver is the only crew member who absolutely has to be there if the link goes down or the vehicle gets stuck. All other crew can be moved to another vehicle to make the tank smaller/lighter/cheaper

  2. 1 hour ago, billbindc said:

    Russia isn't employing a military strategy when it hits Ukrainian civilian targets. It is employing a political strategy. Domestically, it provides evidence to the mass of Russian hardliners that there is no length that Putin won't go to win. In Ukraine, it sends the message that Russia will relentlessly attack in all ways without remorse until Zelensky submits. This isn't mass bombing in the style of WWII or even Vietnam. It is communication.

    As far as I can see the vast majority of these hits on civilian targets are just misses from nearby (real or imagined) military related infrastructure (they have a fairly loose definition of that though). The Russians are not deliberately terror bombing they just don't care if they hit civilians while they go after what they perceive as higher value targets. 

    These misses are caused by old/bad information, inaccurate missiles, poor mission planning, AD shootdowns etc. The Russians (rightly or wrongly) think they are targeting ammo dumps, machine repair shops, factories, training centres, transport infrastructure, hospitals, substations etc. 

    If the Russians really wanted to do a terror bombing campaign they would just fling a bunch of dumb bombs or rockets randomly at Kharkiv or Kherson and we would be getting daily updates of the destruction. 

    Don't take this as me defending them, but they are not carpet bombing like it's 1945, and they don't want to waste million dollar missiles on a handful of civilians in a tower block. 

  3. 1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    Well I can’t speak to “smug” - perhaps you meant “informed”, but we have been seeing these sorts of reports since this war began.  Some come from a place of honest fear that Russian superiority will assert itself, others from hope that it will (e.g. Macgregor).

    As to the “hundreds of Russian aircraft”, well the other factor is the Russian willingness to lose them.  Unlike mobs of poorly trained men, Russia has a limited amount of effective fix wing aircraft and a big @ss sky that it needs to control, largest sovereign airspace in the world.  So I expect, much like this entire war to date, the Russia’s willingness to throw its remaining AirPower away in a denied airspace is pretty damn low.

    As to your points:

    - not sure where you are getting “easy” from, nothing easy about any of this.  What it won’t be is “impossible” which is what both the OP and articles seem to suggest.  Seems like many fear/hope for the opening of the Somme.

    - We really need to get over WW2 and the Russian defence myths.  In this war Russia has failed on defence pretty consistently.  We had no siege of Kherson, or Kharkiv.  Instead we have seen three operational level collapses.  The biggest issue with the “bloody Russian defence” is that they are not defending Russian soil, this is a discretionary invasion war in another country.  I am sure some units will dig in but a lot of others - now mauled by whatever this crazy winter assault was - are likely going to buckle early and fast.  We should see a new line being drawn somewhere but I suspect it will be a scramble back to the Crimea bottleneck and an Eastern line N-S.

    - I am a military engineer by trade and frankly have no idea how obstacles will work in this environment.  Given the effects of corrosive warfare that we have seen so far, I am not even sure these will work as viable investments.  The Russians are clearly thinking “force multipliers” but there are basic calculus’s in the wind right now.

    - If Russia had the ability to conduct deep operational battle (e.g. static bridges, rail etc) via AirPower, then why has it waited until now to use it?  It bled itself white over the winter trying to grab something/anything and we did not see a single coherent operational level air campaign. So now while it is being assaulted it is suddenly going to figure that out? I am sure we will see some weak disjointed attempts but if Russia could do this - do it freakin now before those reported 9 fresh UA Bdes form up on the start line.

    - Russian EW and UAS will add friction to the attack.  But they need to to more than that.  They need to disrupt and dislocate.  This means Russia need to be able to employ a defensive form of corrosive warfare (the ability to project enough precision attrition and friction on an opponent to create wide systemic failure in their military operational machine).  We have not seen this.  Russia has been relying almost entirely on old school front edge combat attrition, trading 3 men for 1 theirs type stuff.  

    - Ukrainian formations are green?  What kind of shape do you suppose the RA units are in?  They are 1) pretty banged up and replacements likely rushed into place and 2) have not had a free and donated western force generation stream to pull on.  The UA has experience in conducting operational level offensives, the staffs and HQs that pulled that off are anything but green.  All of it rested on an increasingly more integrated western supported ISR and targeting enterprise.  In the competition of “who is in rougher shape before the spring/summer offensive of ‘23”. I gotta go with Russia.

    I am not predicting a rout of the RA back to its borders (but if it goes well enough that is not off the table), but this thing has the hallmarks of another Russian operational collapse in the making - highly eroded operational systems, significant C4ISR asymmetry, and still no sign they can establish favourable strategic or operational pre-conditions in any domain.  If they do manage to hold the UA back effectively, then something fundamental will have changed and we damned well will need to understand what that is because it might mean that this war is done pretty much where they stand now and we are out of military solutions.  But I am not there yet, quite the opposite, I am wondering how successful the UA will be and whether not it will be enough to keep the west engaged in this.  As we saw at Kherson - which many western pundits ping to with disappointment- the bar of western expectations is sometimes unreasonably high, largely because we have no modern experience in wars like this one.

    Regardless, I guess we will see soon.

    I think we are generally in agreement, it's just that there is so much effort to debunk the naysayers here that sometimes it feels like it has gone too far in the other direction. 

    To clarify some of my points:

    The Russians are definitely being stubborn in this war, there are quite a few stories of blocking detachments, medieval punishments etc for troops who retreat and we have seen stories of Russians killing themselves before being captured. Even when they retreated in Kherson and Kiev they did so in reasonably good order. Kharkiv was different but I think it will always be an outlier. 

    Obstacles: any breaching operation is always going to be difficult and risky. I am not sure the Ukrainians have such an overwhelming advantage in corrosive warfare to offset that.

    In Kherson we saw russian airpower being used against temporary bridges (I remember a few videos of vehicles moving past a lot of destruction at various choke points). Also, yes the Russians are holding back now, but will they do so again if they feel it is all or nothing?

    Russian EW is now disrupting starlink and is continuing to adapt. Russian drone warfare is still behind the Ukrainians but they are only 6 months or so behind from what I can see so it is still being felt. 

    I am not denying that the Russians are in a bad shape, but they will try to project enough friction to make the Ukrainian operation collapse under its own weight (and green troops just add more friction). They hope that mobiks in trenches combined with a more assertive Russian air force is enough to do that. Let us hope they are wrong. 

  4. 4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    I think I would need to see some clear evidence that Russia can actually achieve air superiority, or even parity in order for them to “stop shows”.  My honest recommendation is to stop reading any online “expert” who solely talks about capability.  “Look napalm bomb”, “Look a Russian HARM”.  Arguing solely from a tactical capability perspective is the hallmark of an amateur.

    First off the Russian C4ISR system would have to dramatically increase its ability for rapid target queuing and joint integration between air and land power pretty much from tac to strategic. Can anyone point to where this has actually happened?  The Russian air war is still happening in glorious isolation of the land war from what we have seen so far.

    Second, we would need some indication that Russian can establish conditions where they are able to create freedom of action to exploit that C4ISR advantage (which they do not have).  We have not.  If Russia could establish even pockets of air superiority they would have done it at Bakhmut or any of the high profile offensives they tried over the winter.

    And third, one would need some evidence that Ukrainian Air Denial ability is slipping.  So far we have a leaked report (which may or may not have been doctored) and a few Russian “ARM” strikes.  There has been no degradation of Western ISR support, in fact it has gone the other way.  Ukrainian Air Denial is more than just Radar AD, the MANPAD situation has driven the Russian’s batty.  And more Air Denial systems are coming online - not less.  So this one is dodgy at best.

    Finally, we did not see a Russian Air Apocalypse last Fall during the last two Ukrainian offensives?  Have things gotten better for Russia in the interim in the air picture?  About the only positive they have is that as they lost ground and while retreating they were in fact shortening the time and distance to air support.  Beyond that I do not see why or how the Russian Air Force suddenly becomes a wall of steel and precision fires only 5 months after being totally ineffective while the UA took back about 50% of Russian gains had left after the Northern front fell.  I mean seriously, the Russian Air Force is able to stop a major UA offensive now, but they stayed out of Kherson?

    I have no doubt the Russian Air Force will be in play but it would need full air supremacy to turn things around at this point.  That is complete C4ISR dominance, watertight SEAD and a demonstrated ability to integrate air and land battles.  And this still would not solve for UA deep precision fires superiority.

    Why do people keep coming up with Russian “magic rabbits in hats”? Seriously if Russia had one or two they would have used them by now.  One does not wait until you are teetering on operational collapse to “finally get serious”.    

    I think there is a little bit of smug misinterpretation of what he actually said there. He was surprised by the napalm because you have to fly low and slow to deploy it. This implies either the Russians are either suicidal (and we haven't seen any massive losses in the VKS) or at least somewhat confident they can fly low and slow over part of the front. 

    The other point which I think is worth taking seriously is the fact that the hundreds of russian planes currently preparing for the Ukrainian offensive don't need to be very effective to be a threat. They will introduce a significant amount of friction and constraints into the offensive, just like in Kherson. 

    Related: a lot of talk here like the whole operation is going to be easy and the Russians have learned nothing/are terminally incompetent.

    1. The Russians may be incompetent at (pointless politically driven) offence, but they are still stubborn on the defence. 

    2. The Russian defensive trenches, mines and anti tank ditches are a formidable obstacle

    3. The Russian air force will be used to bomb rear areas, ammo dumps, bridges etc. They may be slow to react and inaccurate but a e.g. bridge isn't moving anywhere and they will hit it eventually. That puts constraints on the operation. 

    4. Russian EW and drones will be used to add more friction: your arty has to move due to counter battery fire, a Lancet hits an hq vehicle on the move, your attack is blinded by EW etc

    5. The Ukrainian formations doing this did not exist this time last year. They have not had a lot of time to train together and are still quite green. 

    I am not predicting disaster, in fact I think the offence will be a limited success, but I think we should not write the Russians off just yet.

  5. 2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    Correct, but these are not purpose built loitering munitions :)  These have the ability to "return to base" if they don't find something to smash into.  Provided, of course, the drone doesn't exceed it's return range, which was the case for the video I pointed to.  Either the operator presumed (or assumed) there was something juicy to hit, and made do with a tractor, or they had enough of these lying around that committing to targeting a tractor was deemed worth doing.

    Steve

    Not sure I want a quadcopter with an armed PG7 round duct taped to it landing anywhere near me!

  6. 22 minutes ago, beardiebloke said:

    Some pretty wild conspiracy theories there.  App looks pretty cool though.

    Yeah, it kinda sold me on the app - seems pretty good! 

    I can't see how using an antiquated soviet bureaucracy which is rife with corruption could ever be better than a transparent online system modelled on a successful application in Estonia, and has survived everything the Russians can throw at it for years? But conspiracies...

  7. 35 minutes ago, billbindc said:

    More than anything, the trench lines look like make work for mobiks that couldn't be properly armed and put in the line a la the Imperial pososhniye iyudi. It's "look busy" as a strategic decision. 

    On 3/27/2023 at 10:38 PM, Battlefront.com said:

     

    Trenches are easy to dig with an excavator, even easier with an entrenching machine. Looks like a "reserve" position that can be improved quickly if/when they decide to man it with mobiks

  8. 5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    Because we haven't had a "tank is dead" discussion for a few days, here's something to look at.  This is a German vehicle designed to replace the Weisel airborne support vehicle.  Small, highly maneuverable, light weight, and yet significantly armed.  In theory vehicles like this can be produced quickly and cheaply (compared to heavier MBTs) armed with a variety of weaponry, including SPIKE or Javelins, to take on pretty much anything out there.  Now picture this slightly smaller and controlled remotely.

    As I've said about the Sherman for more decades than I can count... I'd much rather have a lot of something and know I can always count on it being there than something that's technically better but much less likely to make it to the fight.

     

    You mean like this?

    https://community.battlefront.com/topic/142139-new-armoured-vehicle-concept-lessons-from-ukraine/#comment-1973330

     

  9. 14 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

    Hmmm once again, a very strange "malfunctioning camera" graphical effect that seems to start before the actual collision and then the camera starts working again later and we see the bent propeller. Looks like they wanted to simply censor out part of the footage.

    But yes, the footage does seem to show a deliberate attack on the drone.

    Maybe there is a lag in the signal of a few frames so that the "hit" happens before the signal is actually sent? 

  10. 4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

    Interesting clip in a lot of ways. What struck me was that despite relatively accurate fire from the IFV, the troops in the trench were surpassed but not obviously hit. Am I correct in thinking this is one of many cases we have seen where an auto-cannon with programmable airburst would be vastly more effective?

    The thing that struck me is that a drone makes fighting along a trenchline much less dangerous. You don't need to expose yourself since you can throw grenades blind into the correct section of trench. 

  11. 21 minutes ago, Grigb said:

    The following is my analysis and interpretation of Mashovet's posts.

    Mortars are not appealing. As a result, the UKR political and military leadership did not give them adequate attention before the war. This caused a system/structural issue with UKR's manufacturing capabilities for both mortars and shells. Worst of all, the mindset remained unchanged once the war began. They don't have any stock, can't make anything, and can't take any requests.

    We must remember that everyone loves the role of elite artilleryman lobbing 155 from afar. Nobody loves being a dirty infantry mortarman buried beneath the majority of RU shells.

    My question is why relevant Western military agencies are not putting pressure on the UKR command to resolve the matter. It appears that relevant Western military agencies do not completely comprehend the situation, which is unfortunate because the necessity for mortars was obvious back in summer 22.

    While I agree with the above, I will also point out that rates of fire for mortars can be extremely high so maybe they genuinely blew through all available ammo? 

    Does anyone know the relative cost of a mortar bomb Vs an artillery shell? Mortars are very crude so they must be a lot cheaper?

  12. 28 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

    If Russia lost 150000 and Ukraine lost 75000. They are not casualties Ukraine can afford. This war is a tragedy these guys should compete against each other in the Olympics not on a muddy cold battlefield. I am not holding my breath that putin will ever be tried as a war criminal. 

    While every death is a tragedy, Ukraine has a population size similar to the UK in WW2 and is also supported by external powers (the US). We are a long way away from WW2 levels of casualties so it is probably reasonable to suggest Ukraine has a lot in the tank in terms of deaths, for better or for worse.

  13. 15 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

    Serbia?  I thought they were pro russia?  I guess not.  I gotta keep up. 

    I believe their government wants to join the EU for the sweet, sweet free money (and I guess they see the writing on the wall re: Russia) but there is still a lot of pro Russia/anti NATO history to get over first...

  14. 26 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

    We heard the exact same arguments at Kherson...and it went the way it did.

    Well using civilians as human shields to protect military logistics is a war crime in itself.  Further it does leave a lot of room for collateral damage calculations.  And of course humanitarian aid is off the hit list, which I am also sure Russia will try and employ etc.  In the end however, it takes lot so sustain a large military organization, even 10-20% attrition of supplies can lead to some pretty stark calcs.  If the UA can deny access to military platforms and military controlled shipping, they are onto something.

    In the end, yes there will be human suffering - not sure why we in the west think war is somehow sanitized now.  The UA will likely do everything they can to try and keep this pointed at RA military capability but it will be a siege, and those suck...best to get used to the idea now.

    I'm not saying you are wrong necessarily but I am personally struggling to put together a realistic plan to "do a Kherson" in my head. Because of the narrow choke points, Russia will not have to expend supplies at the same rate as the larger Kherson front. On top of that, even if the whole land bridge is captured to the shores of Azov does that mean that Ukraine fires a harpoon at anything moving in the black sea? How do they stop civilian ferries sneaking across the Kerch straits or even further south? And if they do they have to deal with the bad press of a lot of dead civilians on a civilian vessel which Russia will claim was transporting children and puppies. 

    In my mind the long ranges, long shoreline and easier to defend positions make the problem harder, and it was already very hard due to the Russian habit of using human shields in Kherson.

  15. 12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

    Well the Dnepr was hard enough to get them to give up Kherson.  Crimea does have a lot of coast line, the trick will be sustaining the tonnage required to sustain land forces, which can get pretty high.  So while a lot of people here have been positively gushing over tanks, the UA likely has an anti-shipping/interdiction requirement right now that is much higher priority.  Western ISR will be able to pick up any shipping, but being able to deny this space will get tricky and require different capabilities.  Crimea will definitely extend this war deeper into the maritime domain.  

    Russia supplied Kherson by loading civilian vehicles with military supplies and also mixing them with civilian traffic. I am sure they will do the same to supply Crimea so unless Ukraine wants to starve the whole place out while bombing civilians I am concerned that "choking them out" will be a difficult process. 

  16. 4 hours ago, dan/california said:

    This is probably more accurate than firing them from a helicopter, and takes a twentieth of the resources.

    Note the added stabilizer legs and the fact they are firing quite slowly. Definitely going to be more accurate than earlier in the war when they would just spray off rockets from the back of an unmodified pickup. 

  17. I will add that there are likely to be some local "national guard" type units to support the 1500-2000 Russian soldiers but the territory is so narrow they have zero way to manoeuvre and the best they can hope for is a bloody siege of tiraspol and blowing up the arms dump if the Ukrainians intervene.

    Edit: the cobasna arms dump appears to be 2km from the Ukrainian border so a coup de main type attack is definitely a possibility 

  18. 16 minutes ago, billbindc said:

    Not so enamored of the analysis in this. Should Russia launch a coup attempt and/or military intervention in Moldova is doesn't complicate anything at all for the US, EU or Ukraine. It proves every claim of Russian adventurism and imperialism yet again, it's a military commitment Moscow cannot afford or succeed in and in fairly short order, the Transnistrian forces would be ovewhelmed by Ukrainian intervention. Putin is rattling this particular cage because he wishes to demonstrate the supposed reach of Russian power. Don't buy it. 

    Agreed, those Russian troops in transnistria are utterly isolated from Moscow and can't be resupplied or reinforced. I seem to remember they have to use an airport in Moldova proper to rotate troops! There is a military airport in tiraspol but it is 7km of flat fields from the Ukrainian border...

  19. 12 minutes ago, billbindc said:

    A month ago I was saying this but it's clear now that there are very strong forces in Chinese government that are set on confrontation. Whether they made the balloon incident occur or if they simply took advantage of it, their approach is clearly ascendant. We should keep our power dry.

    There are also forces in China which are for cooperation. They have not yet commited to helping Russia (see the post above about the Chinese visit to Moscow) or invading Taiwan. 

    I agree we should be prepared but keeping our powder dry also means not pressuring China into a confrontation ourselves. Just like in the cold war, direct conflict is not inevitable. 

  20. 22 minutes ago, billbindc said:

     

    The most compelling explanation I have seen is the above. Russia had numerous motivations, both strategic and contractual, to explode the pipelines and it looks pretty clear that an accident forced their hand. In addition, the ships Hersh claimed did it where nowhere near the location and in one case was not even in service yet. His role as a conduit for Russian misinformation continues.

    While I think this has some merit, it just seems too much of a coincidence that NS2 had an accident at that exact moment when it wasn't even operational at the time. I can believe that Russia wanted to blow up NS1 to force the Germans to accept NS2 but the "accident" is a step too far for me.

  21. 6 minutes ago, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgese said:

    For the non-Mil here (such as myself), these observations from a relative in the British Army:

    The fella fighting was going through a mag every couple of seconds. They all need to be reloaded. The grens are shipped in two parts,  fuse and body and they have to be married almost immediately beforehand. The RPG warhead has to be fused, and married to the motor. The frightened bloke did well to keep at it. He came out to fire at one point, but fighting bloke told to get back in.

    There is enough work in that intensity to take half a section out just maintaining the fire. In a platoon; The reserve is constantly rebombing the mags and sending them forward. That pit was held because of the sheer amount of suppressing fire that bloke laid down, and it was only possible with the support from the frightened guy.

    [The Shooter] has been in that position for weeks, but I’m surprised he didn’t have a firing ledge cut into to get better visibility.

    You’d wonder at the BMP crew. They just ate a RPG, and second one, and didn’t return fire into the position. Might have been too close to depress their cannon.

    Yeah, milchat is laughing at ‘most engagements are at up to 300m’ yeah chew on 30m.... 

    Nice summary, although I wouldn't be surprised if the BMP crew simply didn't notice that a RPG round flew over their vehicle - I think the first shot went high and given their poor sights and the fact they are deafening themselves with their own shooting I guess the situational awareness of the BMP was very poor. 

  22. 7 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

    Looking at the map, it seems to me the obvious location for a Ukrainian summer offensive is in the south, from Orikhiv to the coast at Berdiansk, cutting the occupied areas in two and putting the whole western part, including Crimea, in one big pocket.

    But maybe I'm wrong.

    Is there any reason they wouldn't do that, apart from it being too obvious?

    Melitopol is a shorter drive and would achieve the same effect. Even if you didn't capture the city outright, you would still cut the Russians in two with fire control. Then you just need to reduce the pocket.

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