Livdoc44

Interesting thread from UKR serviceman from engineer-position building unit of engineer brigade (these units subordinated to Support Troops Command, not to Ground Forces Command) about why unlike Russians UKR forces have so poor fortifications (if they were built after the big war started), which often dig hastily with shovels and limided engineer means of brigades instead to be prepared beforehand by engineer troops of Support Command.
1. Why we have so small number of useful fortifications. According to General Staff directive of Marh 11 2016 the infantry unit, seizing area of defense is a disposer of defense lines, and the performer of works of building and equipping of this defense line is Support Forces, which have to do it according to requests of infantry brigades engineer service chiefs.
2. Many of chiefs of infantry brigade engineer services do not know how to plan ahead and send requests to Support Command untimely. When I arrive on the place, I have neither a map nor enginner justification of positions. As a rule I hear some sort: "Dig here from the stump to tree-plant". But this is not work in this way. The defense must be continous. Ше must have a depth and the enemy hadn't to bypass it. But infantry engineers in stupid way don't know how to plan this and we have to do it themselves or even to shut up and to gig there, where they to tell, because your business is to shut up and execute.
3. Why is thete no concrete? According to the order of Engineer Troops Chief and a resolution of Chief-in -Command of July 4 2017, the character of defensive positions determinates by Operative Tactical Groupment Commands - OTU (wood cladding) and Operative Strategical Troops Groupment Commands - OSUV (pouring with a concrete) after appropriate request of the infantry unit, seizing defense area.  Wood is provided by Engineer seervice of OTU, and concrete and technic are provided by OSUV. The second defense line have to be cladded with a wood and the thired defense line with a concrete. Why there is no this, because, again, brigade's engineer services have no will to denand this and OTU have no money, because deals (author used a word more corresponding to "frauds") with a wood is a separate theme. 
4.Concerning a concrete - I report. There is no one engineer unit doesn't supply with corrwsponding technic (like and NATO too). These works performs civilian technic, but this is contracts with business. Moscovites just rob technic for works, but we can't do in such way. And again - where is third defense line should be? No one infantry brigade on East didn't provide a project.
5. Where are the tractors? According to numerous directives, orders, normative documents to maintain the defense line have to a units of Support Forces with a supply of infantry units. Alas, an excavator doesn't work on the water - it needs a diesel, and soldier, who works in it have to rest somewhere and to eat something, 
6. As result - with all my respects to engineer services of 110th, 47th, 53rd brigades, you guys are guilty themselves, that your troops hadn't proper trenches. And to all other collegues in Twitetr I recommend to study documents and contact the proper address.    
7. Concering to our work. We work from 6:00 to 17:00 and build continuosly, having more poor funding and more vulnerable technic. Pay attantion, there are many fundrising requestes, but no one engineer unit doesn't ask about a tractor or excavator. Because we undcerstand - the needs of infantry is more important. But instead the infantry for some reasons considers us as useless appendage 
    

https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1762413281933709718?t=p1K73kamQpdNPgK7p9QpfQ&s=19
Singing the CV90s praises. The barracuda coating works. 
Western tech living up to the promises. 

Disappointing does not even begin to describe that the AFU has to plan for this. it is good that they are letting the world know they will have a plan to continue fighting, regardless what happens in D.C. 
 
 

I don’t think anyone of serious power in the West wants a full Russian collapse.  The overall Western grand strategy since the end of the Cold War has been “stable status quo”.  We have spent the last 33 years pretty much working on all fronts to sustain “the system”.  We toss scarfs and hats on it but at its core is a central unchanging stability.  Why?  Because stability is good business.  The West, with the US at the centre built the scheme that “won” the Cold War and want that party to keep going because we get very rich off it.  The rest of the world makes our stuff for cheap, while also buying our other stuff.  
But pretty much from Day 1 “the others” pushed back.  First was the intra-war years, interventions and then terrorism.  Now this has upscaled to “revisionist states” and “power competition”.  Russia invaded Ukraine for several reasons but one of them definitely was to demonstrate that they are not going to be bound by western rules (Hell, Putin said exactly this in that speech back in Sep ‘22).  This puts the West in a dilemma, they can either do too little and Russia threatens the system, or they crush Russia…and it threatens the system.  So they appear to have chosen the middle path, which of course is getting hijacked by the internal movements who want to…wait for it…change the system.  MAGA, alt-right, nationalists, whatever, all disagree with “the system” even though it has made everyone richer.  The reality is that it did not make everyone equally rich so discontent is natural.  Worse, power spheres exploit this so they can get more powerful (and richer).  So Rust-Belt yokels eat this stuff up and start to dismantle “the system”, which includes democracy apparently.  The reality is Trump is a symptom, not a cause and I am not sure even they realize how dangerous this game they are playing is.
So Ukraine happens and becomes a symbol of a “war for, and against, the system.”  It isn’t about the fact that killing innocent Ukrainians is wrong - hell if morales like human life mattered we wouldn’t have Gaza.  No, Ukraine is all about “the system” and both sides appear to be waging it viewed through that lens.  Russia needs to show that they are going to play by their own rules, but not completely break themselves.  One could ask “why is Russia fighting this war by half measures?”  Do they enjoy a quagmire?  No, Putin understands what he has gotten himself into and is adopting a slow burn strategy, hoping we will get distracted and caught up in our own nonsense…and he might be right.
The rest of the West is trying to step up, but frankly we have grown awfully fat, dumb and happy on the back of the US - who now is having a bipolar fit.  In the end, we can live with a fallen Ukraine.  We can shore up the borders and lock Russia out.  We can live with a partial victory in Ukraine, do we really care about Crimea, LNR and DNR?  No, we did not in ‘14 and we don’t now.  We can’t live with a completely imploded Russia.  Those are where the real risks lie.  Too many unknowns that could really break the system.  So we wind up with a half hearted war designed to punish Russia for challenging the system but not destroy them.  Ukraine is, and I am being brutally honest here, is almost secondary to the entire conversation.  It was simply a very unfortunate country where both sides could try and prove a point.  We love Ukraine all of a sudden because they are an opportunity to show that 1) Russia was wrong to challenge the system, and 2) the system still works.  
I strongly suspect this is why this war is also so muddled in military circles.  We are watching a war to defend the system..that is demonstrating the weaknesses of our own military system at the same time.  So we put blinders on and try to pretend it isn’t happening.  Our military power has to still be relevant…otherwise how can we defend the system?
So to answer your question, “yes, the US and the West know exactly how important Ukraine really is and are fighting this war based on that calculus.”  The answer however is “somewhat important”.  We care and feel bad, but care much more about our own issues.  Putin read the short game about as wrong as one can.  He may have read the long game extremely well.  The way to beat the West is not outright confrontation, it is apathy.  2 years is forever for a culture addicted to clicks and flashing lights.  Putin’s off ramp is being able to draw a victory line somewhere of his choosing and he is shooting for that.  And we might just let him get there.
Now I would not start freaking out and worry about a second attack on Kyiv.  Something that dramatic might actually get our attention again.  No, this needs to become a boring war - I am starting to think Putin’s Tucker Carlson interview was smarter than we thought.  What better way to get Western audiences to yawn and start to change the channel than a history lesson?

Yeah, no way it was West.
I think this really really shows the disconnect in thinking between Russia and the West.
Putin is already saying this is existential war for Russia, he is already saying his objective is to destroy the West, and his people - whether random Russians or weirdos and traitors and useful idiots everwhere in the world - are already believing it. He is already doing everything in his power to do that too - from propaganda to interfering with elections to financing fascist parties to helping Hamas to working with Iran and China to assassinating people in other countries to attacking food to cause famine in Africa because refugee crisis empower Western Fascist to whatever else I have lost track.
Russia already escalated as high as they dared. If they could do worse, if they could do something more despicable, if they could do something more monstrous, they would have done it years ago.
I remember all these red lines - nuclear war if West gives Ukraine Javelins, nuclear war if West gives Ukraine tanks, nuclear war if West gives Ukraine planes, nuclear West gives Ukraine gets HIMARS, nuclear war if Ukraine attacks Russian warships, nuclear war if Ukraine fires missiles into Russia ... So really I think if West shot down Russian plane they would do nothing like every time before.
At the same time, the Western decision makers think (or behave as if they thought) that Russia is a country and not a mafia, and that they are not actually at (hybrid) war with us, and that they can be reasoned with and that keeping some kind of "civilized behavior" with Russia is something that makes sense. This is of course wrong - Russia only understands strength and considers humanity a weakness to be exploited - being civilized or nice only makes you hurt.
So no way it really was West - if West had balls to engage Russia directly, our current conversation topic on this forum would be "do you think the warlord Ivanov will also take south of Moscow?" and not "it's not good that Ukraine is losing ground and people because West decided to not supply them with enough ammo but what can you do, it could be worse".
...
Anyway, one thing I wanted to say: This actually is an existential war for Russia in a way. It is existential for Putin, sure, but as we came to understood during the war and as we discussed a few times, the common (but by no means only) mindset in common Russians is "things are ****, they used to get better and now they don't, but you know what, at least we are a badass empire". They might be even deluding themselves into thinking that things being bad is a voluntary sacrifice for that badass empire. Lot of people are willing to suffer a lot for being part of something they consider greater than themselves.
Being decisively shown that Russia is not in fact a cool badass empire they be proud of even if they don't themselves have indoor toilets might really break their worlds. Whatever comes out of that would not be Russia as we know it anymore. This is not existential war for Russia because they will end up in mass graves or enslaved if they lose (like it is for Ukrainians), but it is existential for the Russian imperial mindset.

Two years ago. How it begins. Hostomel
 

A-50 and IL-22 were hit in a previous incident.

 
Yesterday, only A-50 was hit:

Yesterday, there was confusion over the number of planes and helicopters hit because initial yesterday's videos showed two separate fires and one witness claimed that one fire was caused by a helicopter.
Separately, some UKR channels claimed that IL-22 was also downed but later these claims disappeared (probably confused it with previous incident). Nobody else claimed IL-22 or anything else was hit. 
There is a small probability that the second fire was from another plane. But it is small.
Ae you sure you are capable of judging other's work if you missed these basic things? 

Friday's Su34 of choice confirmed. 
 

Lol
 

I don't remember seeing Abrams yet:
Hard to tell exactly what's doing the fighting later on in the video- or if it's Abrams shooting at stuff- but it looks a lot like Abrams in CMBS shooting straight through things.

True, but I suspect this is where things are at.  Any ISR on the breach will mean PGM artillery and long range loitering munitions.  A lone ATGM team with a modern system can take out lead vehicles.  And standoff tac aviation has demonstrated what it can do.
To be perfectly honest our entire mechanical/explosive breaching tactic has only ever been done in one war that I can think of, Gulf War.  And we essentially did all the pre-conditions I am talking about with air power…and Blind Pew and his dog rolled right through them.  We never actually did live opposed minefield breaching operations.  We exercised them for decades and always “won” but never under real battlefield conditions, let alone modern ones.
The very uncomfortable truth of this war is that there is a whole lotta stuff we have only ever exercised going back into the Cold War.  ATGMs, air parity, denied environments, firepower parity, EW.  All things we practiced but never had our assumptions tested.  Gulf War looked like a validation but that war had specific context.  We assumed every war would be like that one and ‘03 reinforced that idea, even though the hints were starting to show up.
Then this war comes along and presents some major counter evidence that our tactics work at all.  So we say “Russia Sux”, “Ukraine Sux” “but we are good” like a benediction.  Worse we are tying the narrative to all of this.  If Ukraine can’t “win like we would”, well then it is on them.  The reality is that we had (have) a bunch of assumptions that have never really been tested and I suspect they are being tested in this war.  Some are enduring, like training quality, infantry and precision.  Others are not holding up too well at all, and it is making us very uncomfortable.  “Well we would roll over those minefields just like we did back in ‘91”.  Well this is not ‘91, and it is not that war.  This one has the look and feel of Korea, with 21st century technology.  

Our tactics underpin our operational constructs (manoeuvre and Mission Command), which all support our military strategy (short sharp wars of massive overmatch), which all feed into funding and spending in the trillions.  So when a war comes along that suggests we might be in the wrong movie, you can easily see people start getting their backs up. “Aw unmanned is a flash in the pan.  Someone will invent counters and things will go back to the way they were.”  But the evidence is piling up.  It is not just unmanned.  Precision weapons like the Javelin or artillery fires.  C4ISR that pretty much anyone can cobble together, including the Russians.  Denial, which will impact us as well.  It is all adding up to something shifting but most do not want it to shift too much.
Basically we are at the situation where if the enemy Blind Pew and his dog can see that minefield while we are breaching it, and they have a few precision smart weapons in range…the breach will likely fail because that breach is reliant on maybe 6-10 critical systems that can be hit very accurately by a number of systems we cannot fully deny.  We put APS on the breaching teams and PGM artillery drops on them.  We push back the artillery and UAS come in with more mines and reseed the breach.  We do everything right and the enemy has c-moves ready to bottle up the breach.  And this is before the real stuff that can defeat our defensive systems has even shown up (stand off EFP, ATGM sub munitions and mines with legs).
We need to start coming up with new ideas, not stuff to bolt on our old ones to try and keep them alive.
 

Excellent Heart of Darkness reference, I remember reading that Joseph Conrad novel back when I was a school kid. 🙂
Anyway on to the subject. I do find it interesting how the usual pro-Russian suspects like that lowlife David Sacks as well as the convicted sex offender Scott Ritter( I hope you read this David and Scott, I know this topic gets around to some interesting places 😎), are gloating about Avdiivka.
Yet an actual Russian source who is much more familiar and connected to the war, literally killed himself over this great Russian victory.
 

Ok, enough banter.  Time for serious talk. You have probably noticed that you are not that popular here?  Now I am sure you are telling yourself is is because you are “too real” and enjoy flying by to shake up the “liberals and Europeans”.  But that isn’t why people don’t like you.  No, they don’t like you because you really don’t add anything to the discussion.
You see, people here do a lot of things.  Some are really good at collecting information very quickly.  Others ask really good questions and some of us try and make sense out of this whole crazy thing because we have spent decades in the war business and can contribute that experience - and I do not just mean military vets, I mean dedicated wargamers who are all historians, theorists and philosophers to some extent.
So what this thread is trying to do is understand better.  Before when I poked you to find examples of me “being wrong” about a prediction, well it was a trick question.  I rarely ever make firm predictions because frankly things are simply too dynamic.  I see trends, big ones.  Trends that are becoming unavoidably large and looming.  These trends point to the fact that we are very likely within an RMA right now.  It started back in the early 90s and has been progressing for 30 years.  The effects that information technology, miniaturization and energy density - along with dozens of others, all have on warfare is emerging with increasing speed and impact.  So when I say “unmanned systems are not a temporary thing” well you can take it or leave it but that judgement is based on about 35 years of observations on the changes within military affairs.
Your problem is that you do not come with new information.  You do not come with good questions.  You don’t even come with good analysis and arguments to back things up.  You come with opinion and positions.  And the come on this thread like an evangelist - this is not discourse, it is preaching.  You are trying to make a lab into a chapel and it just makes people angry.
But we should be about forgiveness.  So here is a fun thing we can try: what don’t you know?  What questions do you have about this war that you do not understand?  Maybe we can start there and help you understand better.  Because right now it really looks like a lot of very uninformed “well let me tell you college boy” BS.  You want to make an argument that unmanned systems are a flash in the pan? Why not go out and find some actual analysis that supports that.  We have got hundreds of pages of social media videos, professional analysis links and expertise that disagrees with you.  But do some proof of work and come back with some solid analysis and assessment and we can discuss.
If not, well there are a lot of other forums on the internet where everyone will agree with you, or really lose their minds if that is your kink.
Finally as to the point at hand…the issue is not “counter-drone gear”.  Of course counter-systems will be introduced, and the  counter-counter systems as we will see primacy shift back and forth.  The issue is that this competition will profoundly change how we wage war, it already has.  Data superiority, AI superiority, Silencing, deception, redesign of land units and formations for the first time since WW2…these are all on the table.  We cannot assume dominance based on where we were..we will need to earn that dominance and frankly accept that we won’t always have it.  This will mean hard fights and harsh calculus.  The lazy days of air supremacy are likely over as a minimum. Bilindc noted that one would need to “Deny ISR”, he is right, and I have no idea how to do that on the modern battlefield.  And trust me, if I don’t, you don’t either.  So we can discuss how that could happen or you can keep hand waving and going “aw shucks…airplanes”.  Or you can keep getting tossed onto everyone’s ignore list until Steve comes along and chases you away again.

Nothing like flying drones inside buildings:

Shades of the Battle of Hampton Roads.

I think Avdiivka itself was not very important to UKR. 
I feel we got too fixated on Avdiivka. I believe the intent of the RU command was a significantly more ambitious, which explains the UKR command's unwillingness to commit large forces to the defense of Avdiivka. RU generals are fond of ambitious encircling operations. What if RU intended to attract UKR reserves to the defense of Avdiivka, smash them there, rupture UKR defenses, and simultaneously attack from Avdiivka, Zaporojye, and possibly Bakmut (according to UKR reports, RU has begun to push there as well) to encircle and destroy a significant portion of AFU formations?
It explains:
Why RU kept significant mech force not far from Avdiivka Why UKR command committed so few lightly armed forces to the defense Why Abrams and Bradly equipped units did not counter-attacked RU units when they started to advance toward Lastochkino Why Patriot arrived only now Recent UKR reports from Rabotny that RU are preparing something big Adviivka's battle was most likely a prelude. The main battle started just now.

At 20km range they are going to have to put APS on every truck, jeep and bicycle in order to keep an LOC.  
It looks very much like the UA is using drone warfare (in all shapes and sizes) to offset artillery shortfalls.  It also looks like it is working.  This development is world breaking in land warfare and I suspect things are just getting started.
I do not know what the mech solution is.  Right now dig and disperse along with EW appear to help on defence but no one has really figured out how to project unmanned into offence.  Ukraine did not last summer and Russia sure did not at Adiivka, or at least not what we saw.
So here we are again, scratching our heads and wondering what happens next.

Airplanes. RU demonstrated extreme sensitivity to airplane losses. 
 
They pulled WW2 howitzers out of storage. RU mil reporter Saponkov reported on Feb 3
Also, UKR claim that RU are replacing losses with mostly towed guns (not necessarily with D-1s) slowly downgrading to WW2 level.
 
The infantry is best transported by up armored APC. Even MRAP is ok as it can get in out quickly Close support is best provided by AFV with automatic weapon. The best is Bradley with two men crew. MRAP with 50 cal will do the job Tank (preferably with HESH rounds) provides long range (2-3 km) fire support against hardened targets (concreted bunkers) using drones for adjustment The assault technique is as follows
FPV drones take out crew manned weapons (ATGMs, HMGs etc)  around objective 155mms pound the objective Tank demolishes bunkers and other hardened targets APCs with Bardleys arrive at objective and clear out remains of the enemy The biggest difference is APS with ability to counter drones. No APS, no difference. Well, crew survivability of modern AFVs increases overal AFV formation morale and aggressiveness. 
 

If Ukrainian will collapses over this one small town, in a slow motion attack that has taken 4 months to culminate, then we are backing the wrong horse in this whole thing.  The US and West cannot supply the Will to Fight - that is all on the Ukrainians.  They have shown incredible resilience for two years and I personally doubt this will break them.  But if it does, or there are serious signs of it collapsing, then stopping aid starts to make sense because it would likely simply fall into the hands of the Russian's.  If the Ukraine are the Government of Afghanistan then it won't matter how much aid we end up sending them, this war is already lost - of course this the narrative being pushed in some camps.
I think that like Bakhmut and Severodontesk, the UA will re-set, new lines will be drawn and the RA will kill itself trying to take the next smallville in the Ukrainian countryside.  My money is that the RA will run out of gas before Ukraine runs out of small towns.

$75 billion in aid and the coordination of another $54 billion or so from our allies but hey, what have you done for me lately? 
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
Which is another way to say that if you are concentrating on particular weapons systems  instead of aggregate economic/military/diplomatic aid than I think you are doing it wrong. 
And on that note, I'm going to head out to a very excellent dive bar of my acquaintance with some friends and drink to the $450 million or so that some old pro-Putin bastard lost in court in NY today. 
Cheers.

Don't judge the Western Navies based on Russian Navy incompetence.
Let's look at Russian ship Caesar Kunikov

What protection does it have against small boats? Two twin 57 mm (2.2 in) DP guns

It is old Soviet tech, and most likely it does not work properly. If it works at all.
What else does it have? Well, guys like this.

This is absurd. It's no surprise that his tin can is now submersible (or at least what remains of it).
Now, let's look at Type 45 Destroyer because it is the main escort of the White Elefants.

What does this fellow have?
Two DS30B rapid fire cannon

Two Phalanx CIWS

By the way, here Phalanx fires at surface target
Two .50 Cals

It is already impressive but here is more. 
T45 usually have at least one helicopter

The name of the helicopter is Wildcat, and it can carry up to 21 LMM missiles. 

When this boi gets into the air, the swarm attack stops.
Is that all? Nope - as soon as vodka hits the fan 30mm will get their own LMMs

This is how LMM works (different mount)
The swarm of small boats is not a new threat. Western Navies have been preparing to counter it for a long time. But RU Navy haven't since difficulties of dumb Western Navies do not apply to superior Russian Navy and do not impede my thieving activity. Now RU chickens come home to roost.
Do not be dumb and do not be corrupt is the main lesson we can get from RU Navy drone debacle. 

Called it! Also how they took out the Ivanovets -  I think that was up to 10 drones involved f and at least 2 hit the same spot. 
No ship at sea can resist being hit repeatedly and quickly in the same exact hull section. Not guaranteed to sink but very guaranteed to lose mobility, which is death in a swarming attack.
Even a carrier would feel the effects and anything quick and serious enough to hit that would do an enormous amount of damage with compounding kinetic energy, especially I suspect, on the second hit. 
Some Observations:
It's a very gentle sea state 1,

With clear weather and clear of the coast. The mad bounce of the drones is a reflection of their speed rather than the waves. 
(The image above is very nicely accurate to the drone v ropucha size comparisons) . 
Despite the loss of previous lone ships, including a missile corvette (!)  the Kunnikov was not escorted. No search lights, very little point defense and no air cover. 
Why was it alone? Why has the BSF not yet enacted convoy-ing? Why does such a large an important vessel have no air cover on call? Why is the AVFR not immediately strafing? The ship wasnt far from shore, easily within coverage range for extended overwatch. Doesn't have to be this ship in particular, just an area/corridor with attached air assets. 
There have been exercises against drones that developed effective counter-tactics. Improved point defense and observation for sure, but also travelling at least in pairs, using organic air assets (if you dont have a helo then a ship you're with should have one (ideally 2) and also launching small boat counter attacks. There is a serious concern with the last about confliction (point defense on the ship could hit your own boats) but that is still solvable with good fire command and training.
Any one of these would have impeded the attack and stacked together would have seriously degraded the chances of success.
There's a LOT the Russians could have done with the assets and existing tech they have that would have been vastly more effective than just sailing a non-upgraded HVT unescorted in open waters and clear weather through a war zone with a previously successful known enemy attack tactics. 

They just got done swatting down a border bill that had everything they were asking for, because Trump needs that issue to run on to scare older white folks who live nowhere near a good Mexican restaurant. He has no other issue to really campaign for. 
The US mis leadership class, if willing to just allow a two bit conman to become dictator, proves that this system and those that defend it deserve every heap of scorn that radicals put on them.  
I'm not going to accept American Putinism, even if they win the election. I will not comply and I hope most of the civil service and military defies him and his thugs, openly and directly.