BletchleyGeek
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Posts posted by BletchleyGeek
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
I hope the forum software behaves and doesn't eat my response... Thanks very much for your very detailed answer. It is appreciated, even if I am not 100% sure it was written with the purpose of inviting ideas to be exchanged.
QuoteKofman has been hit or miss in a lot of ways. He started out this war within the mainstream assessments, which all turned out to be built on some pretty shaky assumptions. They then spent the early part of the war trying to somehow line up reality with their assessments, as opposed to just looking at what was actually happening. Back last early summer we heard the exact same narratives on how the RA was taking hits but its grinding offensives were in fact signs of success and a shift in the war. We here on this forum disagreed vehemently, mainly because based on the reported RA mass they should have been seeing much larger gains, and the big one - still no actual break throughs. In order to make an operational assessment one really has to see operational level evidence or build a framework that links tactical observations to operational ones consistently and effectively.
Well, as you admitted in a few posts up, we can all say that we all have been wrong to a certain degree. How much more wrong is someone or another still needs to be adjudicated?
I am ESL and perhaps we understand different things for the expression "to break through". Yet I do not think one can classify how the initial phase of the war played out as anything other than breaking through all axis but one, which has barely moved since February 2022. The Russian Army penetrated deeply into Ukrainian territory, became overextended, and when it became clear to them that they were being defeated in detail, they pulled back from the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy axis. No major retrograde movements were appreciated in the south (the biggest success of the Russian armed forces, until they tried to reach out to Mikolayev and Kryvyi Rih, and became hopelessly overextended) and the NE (where they flanked the JFO forces covering the DNR and LNR proxies). Mariupol was devastated, surrounded, besieged, and conquered.
That was what the first Russian Army achieved in Feb-May 2022. Certainly everyone, including Michael Kofman, you, me, and the Russian command, were expecting that their initial forces (which are no more I think we agree) would achieve much more than that. Still significant, as they did severe damage to, yet did not destroy, the Ukrainian state. Slava Ukraini!
QuoteWe saw what happened last summer and what actually unfolded in the Fall. The UA went from "barely holding on" to being able to conduct two successful simultaneous operational offensives over 500km apart. I do not think most people realize just how hard that is to do and that the UA was nowhere near collapse, in fact all that time during Severodonetsk it would have been force generating and putting in place the architecture to make Kharkiv and Kherson happen.
On this last bit, I wholeheartedly agree. There was clearly a consensus being formed around the narrative that Ukraine was being defeated, slowly but relentlessly. This if anything was being amplified by the harrowing accounts of what was going on in Mariupol and evocations of that great "disaster" that was the evacuation of Kabul.
The Russian Army was still overextended after their initial retreats (or rout, I don't know it seemed quite touch and go)... and the dangerous thing for them was that they weren't aware of it. So they were surprised in Kharkiv and routed in what I consider was a masterful demonstration of the very same warfighting principles that lead to the smashing victory of the German army in very much the same area in May 1942. But, and this is a big one, the Russian Army managed to evacuate most of its personnel (yet not their material).
On the campaign for Kherson, I have mixed opinions. To my mind, that one clearly did not meet its most immediate objectives. The Russian Army was better entrenched and had (for the most part) better troops. But the logistics were not workable: it just took nearly two months for the Russian Army to realize that, aided by the progressive crumbling of their right flank, which was anchored on the Dnipro.
I have the sense that the secondary offensive (Kharkiv) turned out to be the one that exceeded expectations. I think it is indicative that the Ukrainian forces didn't have reserves to further exploit all the way to Starobi'lsk. Which did indeed seem doable for a fleeting moment in September.
QuoteBut lets say, ok, we here got lucky - broken clock is right twice a day. So what has happened since then to shift the calculus? Well the RA did mobilize and now has somewhere in and around 350k troops in country - but this is not all about mass - we keep coming back to this. Mass as we know it is not working in this war. So once again we see the RA playing smash face on a tactical objective that is has been trying to take for months. Their estimated losses at the low end are staggering. They bled out Wagner, they are bleeding out their mobilized troops. They are losing equipment they cannot get back - see tank production. They have not shown any evidence of creating the C4ISR, logistics or deep precision fires needed to turn into a force that can fight this war on even ground with the UA.
Yes, that is a fact that can be duly appreciated.
I'd rather say that the question is about what hasn't happened. I think it is fair to say that there was a wide expectation of Ukraine launching some form of an offensive in Winter as the ground conditions improved. That didn't happen, instead, the Russian Army went again on the offensive, with very little success, but a lot of fanfare.
QuoteSo here we are back at "Russia re-gaining its feet" and UA on the ropes.
I am sorry, but I am not sure anybody is claiming that the Ukrainian Army is "on the ropes". That the Russian Army got back on its feet is a fact, as they were the ones attacking, no matter how unsuccessfully.
QuoteFirstly, Kofman is not going to see what he needs to at Bakhmut - this is war tourism and showboating (gawd we saw a lot of that in the day). The actual data he needs to see to make accurate assessments are in strategic and operational HQs buried on hard drives and talking to the staff who work this problem.
That was an over-the-top remark, Captain. We have no idea about what the activities were, and I think it is likely that there were a lot of interviews with the planners and managers of the battle for Bakhmut.
QuoteSecond, the UA has been able to violate the historic force ratio losses attacker to defender, the RA has not shown any evidence of this. I would need to see this before even listening to any "1:1" loss rations.
Could you please state clearly what you mean by "historic force ratio losses attacker to defender"? Like showing a curve of the historical versus what you think the open source info evidences for this conflict? If you are quoting a document, could you please provide it?
QuoteThe steady stream of tactical anecdotes we see here do not support it, nor does open source intel collection. So I am pretty convinced the RA is losing at some pretty high force ratios compared to the UA, and on stuff that really hurts.
As we have discussed many times in the past, one can only count what comes to the surface of the open-source arena. Recently I saw clearly an episode where a Ukrainian mechanized platoon was pretty roughly handled by Russian artillery. They seem to be rarer events... but they happen.
QuoteThird, there is no evidence of UA bleeding out. Force generation is going on in full swing in places like the UK and Poland. There have been zero reports of shortages of manpower on the UA side, accept maybe right on the line units that in the teeth of this thing.
On this, I think I can't be other than in agreement. I am not sure who is saying that the Ukrainian Army is "bleeding out". That the casualties accumulate and degrade forces over time I think it is self-evident. Clearly as well, this is not happening at the same rate for every unit, everywhere.
QuoteFourth. I do not care if Russia could mobilize a million men, they do not have the operational system to actually turn that into effective military capability in time for this war. People keep pointing to WW2 and the re-emergence of the Russian bear. Newsflash, war has changed a lot in the last 80 years. Sure you can stick a teenager into a uniform and give them a rifle, point them at the enemy and hope for the best. But today you need a lot of enablers in order to create decision. Again stuff like C4ISR, logistics, engineering, force protection and projection. You do not create these in the middle of a war this size without a lot of signaling. These things also take years to build up to a 21st century competitive level. The UA has, largely because they have plugged directly into western architectures - from force sustainment to generation. All indications of what I have seen show the RA going the exact opposite direction.
Just consider for a moment a scenario in which the US (or NATO) practically loses ~50% of its professional forces, very much as the Russian Federation has. Do you imagine us coming back from that, like Britain in 1940-42? The answer to that question is the whole point of this "long game" discussion.
QuoteFifth. China. Sending a few hundred self-loitering munitions and boots is also not going to change things. Much in the same way a few dozen western tanks won't. China has been working on the C4ISR architecture to actually challenge the US but by all accounts it is 1) not there yet, 2) pointed in other directions - see Taiwan, and 3) China likely is not going to give away its actual C4ISR capability arc on saving Russia's dumb @ss.
Let me remind you that exactly a "few hundred self-loitering munitions and boots" was a significant chunk of the contribution of NATO to the defense of Ukraine... back in February '22. The question is, how much farther can the PRC go to match like for like?
Regarding the C4ISR the "not there yet" is I think based on too many cozy assumptions about incapability (see the Balloon saga and so-called "domain awareness gaps"), and pivoting C4ISR doesn't seem that hard (just as the US has done probably from the Pacific and the Gulf as well...). So let's not talk ourselves into a safe space, Captain.
QuoteIf China goes all in and somehow can link in the RA we will start seeing evidence. Much more precise fires and campaigns - UA logistics nodes exploding instead of RA ones, up to and including the operational level. Much more dynamic manoeuvre. Far more streamlined logistics. A lot more UA dislocation and disruption. Levels of actual SEAD and air superiority.
Agreed. This is indeed the benchmark.
QuoteSo What? I will not only draw a link to the UA spring-summer offensive, I will predict it will be catastrophic for the RA unless we see some real operational level indicators otherwise.
I recently finished reading B. A. Friedman "On Operations", and he made a very compelling case about the so-called "operational level" being something that has no purchase as an idea (that's now coming out with some balls). Clearly, in what respects the "operational level" (planning, sustainment, command & control, inter-service co-ordination, that is, all the "scientific" military disciplines) the Russian Federation sucks very, very hard. And this is very surprising. But it is not clear to me that you need to master all of those things all the time to avoid losing completely this war or prolong for a significant amount of time.
QuoteIf the RA was smart, it would have dug in along the lines they really want to keep, hard. They would have dug in those mobilized troops, mined everything and tried to drag this thing out.
From all the news I have that's what has been going on in the south (where they now know their logistics are weak) and Luhansk oblast to some extent (as there we're seeing a mixture of offensive-defensive stance).
QuoteInstead that went for a tactical objective and smashed thousands of forces against it. They lost several medium sized national militaries worth of equipment (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) - that is just insane by 2023 standards. Good thing the T-34 takes a day to make because before this is over they may be driving them. At this point they must have pulled from all down the line to try and take Bakhmut, their force density on that frontage was pretty thin, it is likely cut full of holes right now. Once that mud dries they have a real problem covering it off. And meanwhile the UA can see all those holes because they are linked into real time multi-spectral satellites being flown out of Vandenburg.
I am not sure about the Russian Army having had to weaken their positions elsewhere, Captain. If anything, a spoiling counterstroke would have followed, I have only seen what I would qualify as Ukrainian probes.
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10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Sure, but Kofman has been chasing shadows of things that don't exist. His credibility is quite low as he's been wrong about this war pretty consistently since before and after the invasion. He's not stupid or ill informed, not at all, but he does seem to be predisposed to thinking Russia is far more capable than it really is.
Definitely he sounds a lot like Peter calling wolf... yet, as recent events suggest, if the US/NATO is the (reluctant) Arsenal of Democracy, the other side may have China play the role of Arsenal of Tyranny. And like in 1941-45, when the Stumbling Colossus regained its feet and smashed the German Army in great part thanks to the arctic supply line, this "Sick Man of Eurasia" that is the Russian Federation may regain its feet too, and do even more damage.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
Haven’t we been here before? Back at Severodonetsk were we not told at length how Russia had reframed this war in their favour? And back then the RA still had massive artillery in play, now their indirect fires appear in trouble.
Regardless, we got the same stories of the UA bleeding out and “behind the curve”…and then Kharkiv and Kherson happened.
Here we are again. I am almost at the point that I am thinking this is a blue disinformation op aimed at getting the RA to keep pushing (and dying) at Bakhmut in order to weaken the line elsewhere. The reported Russian losses are staggering and unlike the poorly mobilized infantry, all those vehicles and equipment are not things the RA has a “bottomless sea” of within its inventory.
UA is going to take losses and frankly it is in their best interests to look desperate - just keeping that big win slightly out of reach while the RA continues to bleed out.
Here is an actual metric of the UA bleeding out: when they stop sending thousands of troops to western training centres. Once we can no longer load Ukrainians on these course streams because there are none left willing or able to fight, we know that the UA is actually in trouble. That or some sort of RA break through.
One year one I think it is clear that Michael K. (and other like-minded people, like Rob Lee) is concerned about reaching for conclusions prematurely. That's his job: to think out of the box and try to seek out the black swan. In particular, his concern is that the Russian ability to win this war is discounted prematurely due to the "Winter War"-like experience of Feb-April 2022. There were lots of comparisons out there with the first part of the Finnish-Soviet war of 1939 and 1940. Interestingly, those analogies seemed to forget how the war ended: with the defeat of the Finnish forces, crushed by the material superiority of the Red Army. He has been quite consistent for the time that I have been following him and reading his stuff. And now he's gone to check things by himself (how close to the heat I don't know, but I think we are in agreement that hands-on experience on a topic has intrinsic value).
Certainly, the Ukrainians are very good at selling the story that they are in trouble, and use this for maskirovka to misdirect the Russian Army (and also out of necessity, as otherwise, it would be even more difficult for them to get the equipment and ammunition that they do _desperately_ need, like mortars).
My thoughts about how hard things may be for the Ukrainian army follow from a very simple mathematical model which has been adopted by NATO war planning for a very long time. If you have blue suffering 1% losses per day, and red 10% losses per day, as long as Red has the ability to replenish the ranks, it won't be long until Blue casualties are also catastrophic (e.g. like losing 20% of fighting personnel, which I think is a heuristic used to determine loss of combat effectiveness). Then there is the tactical psychology angle in all this: the more casualties a well-trained, close-knit force suffers, the less willing it will be to come under fire. Inserting well-trained replacements into those formations (in the style of the US Army in 1944-45) is generally deemed to be a bad policy, so the alternative is to pull out entire formations and let them reconstitute.
There is a breaking point for everyone, and I think that making the question re: Bakhmut is valid. It is good to quote Nathaniel Greene regarding Bunker Hill "I wish I could sell them another hill at this price", but like also happened to the Continental Army later in Brooklyn, the roles of "buyer" and "seller" of hills can be traded inadvertently with pretty bad results.
I do think though, that drawing further inferences about what this means for hypothetical Spring counter-offensives treads on thin ice.
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1 hour ago, Grigb said:
Wagnerites, for example, had ceased taking Zek for at least one month prior. In Bakhmut, the core Wagnerites are being crushed. Prig recently asked Zelensky to leave Bakkhmut - if a Russian makes you a generous offer to quit the battle, it is an indicator that he is in deep sh*t and wishes you to leave him alone. Victorious Russian would never offer you anything.
I see your point re: professionals and not "zek"/shtraf personnel taking the brunt of the fight (and casualties).
About Prigozhin's statements... well, he also announced a few weeks the immediate deployment of semi autonomous Wagner UGVs in significant numbers (the real ones that were tested in Syria with "discreet" results, not mannequins on buggies). So please excuse me if I cannot take what he says (or is reported to say) at face value.
Having sad that, I have exactly zero knowledge of the Russian language. There may be a tinge of desperation that goes unnoticed.
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Boots on the ground...
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Bah, forum software ate half my message. Can't be arsed to rewrite it
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4 hours ago, Bil Hardenberger said:
There must be a higher level HQ over these Battalion sized Assault Detachments... did I miss that somewhere in that link? Where are they getting their ISR from? Coordination with neighboring formations? Logistics coordination?
This was addressed as part of the discussion in the Twitter thread. As @Beleg85and @Haidukmention these are ad-hoc formations that seemingly can only be generated by "division-sized" organic formations. I think you may want to have a professional chat with this guy, btw.
As @chrisl
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2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:
As far as I know 1st and 2nd corps, VDV, and some motor rifle brigades are doing this. They usually just form few of these "assault units" within the brigade/regiment. The quality and longevity really depends on the unit, but overall it's not great
I missed that remark, thanks @LongLeftFlank. Seems that division-sized formations are coming on top as the most viable ones.
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I am finding this gentleman's tactical analysis to be a must read
in the comments he foresee that these adaptations won't be very successful (?) in light of the top-down approach that dominates the Russian Army.
I think this links up nicely the ongoing conversation about the duality of mission and direct command with a case study that is quite fresh. In this case, DC is needed to allocate the resources (manpower, supporting arms) that make up these units. Obviously, MC kicks in when these formations are set in motion (much like a robot but made by people and "dumb" vehicles and weapons) and they need to handle whatever contingencies follow from engaging the enemy (e.g. interesting to see the allocation of a demining vehicle).
This is an example of adaptation rather than devolution. It's not clear though that they can implement it well due to materiel and personnel issues. But clearly there is someone, somewhere with both brains and time to come up with ideas...
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10 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:
I don't think shooting at the direction that has friendly force is pure panic and disorganize.
I guess the UKR side's original plan look like this
RUS side main defense position is on the right side of the video. UKR's original plan requires the BMP platoon take the road on the right side and get into the overwatch position along the treeline. Then the company task force on the left side bypass the treeline, no man land, and attacking the Rus position.
It looks like the UKR's company task force arrive at assembly area before the BMP platoon get into the overwatch position. And after receiving the direct fire, the first reaction is that the RUS troops are hiding in the treeline. It is quite logical.
UKR side realized where the real threat is after one minute of engagement, (and that is after the third APC hit) . Their reaction is relatively quick. They quickly maneuver to the right side of the field, avoid further loss.
Thanks for the analysis Chibot. Offensive operations are difficult. One misstep or failure of synchronisation and that's all what a competent defender needs to throw the attacker off the rails.
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10 minutes ago, chrisl said:
Don't leave out Bulgakov.
Luke Harding at The Guardian had an interesting piece touching how cultural legacy is perceived in times of existential war
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/dec/31/mikhail-bulgakov-museum-kyiv-calls-to-close
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Good luck with the search @Bil Hardenberger I suggest you make a posting on this list as well:
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2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:
This concentrated Russian thrust back along the Kreminna-Torske-Lyman road is constrained by the E-W Severski-Donets on the south, and by the Oskil - Zherebets - Krasny river lines, (with the land in between them deeply cut by E-W ravines and balkas), on the north. So not much room for flanking operations.
This has the look of an EPSOM-GOODWOOD 'funnel', with 20th CAA advancing on a 'front' of a single vehicle, or else probing through woodlands filled with UA rocket-toting jaegers.
It is definitely looking very rough for the Russian Army. Also and as noted by @Zeleban , the sheer pressure applied in this area is putting the AFU in the Siversk area between a rock and a hard place. As noted by Constantine in the video I linked earlier this weekend, the Siversk area doesn't look easy to defend now that the RuAF is pushing north from the Blahodatne area.
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4 hours ago, Fernando said:
1. Any Spaniard knows Alentejo is not Spain, but Portugal.
2. We would see if Morocco could take both cities. Some people also thought that Russia could occupy Ukraine in less than a month.My bad, I should have written "Iberian Peninsula". After ten years away maybe I am becoming something of an interpolation between nationalities.
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21 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
You see how little I know of Spain. Apologies to all inhabitants of that wonderful country
Totally okay and no need to apologise. If anything, what we need is to look at what things bring European countries together and don't involve football, singing or just mere free flow of money.
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14 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
When they hear Galicia, they think northwestern Spain, and we think Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg.
Let me kindly indicate you where Galicia or Galiza is, the Old Kingdom of the Suevii. SW Spain is the Alentejo.
And I would like also to remind everyone that between Morocco and Spain there is a significant body of water and the last large scale amphibious operation involving mechanised divisions happened in June 1944. Getting mothballed tanks out of storage is neither trivial or cheap. Monetarism and taking part in economic war with the Russian Federation aren't precisely compatible either.
It may not seem that way right now, or tomorrow, but "something" in the public consciousness is shifting.
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3 minutes ago, Butschi said:
France is considered to be more in the Southern Europe camp which is in the North-Western Camp more characterized by loose money spending politics.
Monetarism has become the new Catholicism.
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I am halfway through the latest video of Andrew Perpetua and Constantine (two Twitter personalities I have been following for a while) in which they do a "battlefield walk" around Bakhmut
I found quite enlightening to see what is the lay of the land in the area of those two pincers that the Russian Army is developing north and south of Bakhmut.
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1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Europe can be roughly divided into the Northwestern part (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries, unfortunately weakened by Brexit), democratic and cool headed, the Southern part (Greece and Italy), democratic but somewhat unpredictable and the Eastern part (Poland and Hungary) less and less democratic and therefor unpredictable
Interesting that you left entirely out the South Western bit of Europe (better food, inflation more or less under control, etc.)... I guess that is the legacy of three hundred years of on-off warfare with France and Spain...
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20 minutes ago, benpark said:
Tank sims seem empty with them to me.
That was what knocked Tank Crew dead in the water for me (and I bought into Tank Crew very, very early and I was happy to keep an open mind). GHPC at least have been showing infantry operating TOWs and stuff, not sure if they have those already integrated into the game.
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Bakhmut's defense left flank looks like it is a goner
Helios also refers obliquely to some chatter about friction between the Ukr levels of command (which seems to have gone on for a while). Maybe our Ukrainian speakers can write an explainer about what's behind these stories re: lack of unity of command?
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4 hours ago, RockinHarry said:
Aargh... and another push on the trigger.
https://gunnerheatpc.com/ Anybody tried that one yet? Nice relation to Microprose again since M1 Tank Platoon was my first tank sim IIRC.
Very fun tank sim. But I would auggest to wait for the dynamic campaign to be out.
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Well, some parts of the Russian Army may be starting to get some of their ideas right
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Apologies if posted already! I have finished reading this "sort of" AAR
https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/01/anatomy-of-a-russian-army-village-assault/
I found it quite interesting, well-written and relevant to the recent "Russia's Way of War Sucks" sub-thread. The author seems to arrive at conclusions that diverge a bit from what I think is the sensible, prudent assumption that the Russian Army may be able to change some of its ways.
Yet, judging from the reports in Vuhledar I really wonder... We will see what follows now in Luhansk oblast, the RF army has been conducting what look like classic "reconnaissance in force" operations to prepare for a major offensive operation. Or maybe that was it...
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Really is that the best answer you can offer to a honest technical question? How is that "obtuse flanking"?
For your information, I have been in that journey for a number of years.
Seeing your source now I understand your confusion. There is plenty of data that shows barely any correlation between force ratio and engagement result when considering large datasets of engagements. Factors such as force employment and surprise/shock trump superior numbers almost always. Chapter 2 of Steven Biddle's "Military Power" contains an extensive literature review addressing the point of view in the paper you shared and many others.
What a disappointment.