BletchleyGeek

UKR artillery strikes at the targets in the forsets
 

This article on The Atlantic will sound familiar to readers of this thread
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/ukraine-is-winning-war-russia/627121/
 When I visited Iraq during the 2007 surge, I discovered that the conventional wisdom in Washington usually lagged the view from the field by two to four weeks. Something similar applies today. Analysts and commentators have grudgingly declared that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been blocked, and that the war is stalemated. The more likely truth is that the Ukrainians are winning.
So why can’t Western analysts admit as much? Most professional scholars of the Russian military first predicted a quick and decisive Russian victory; then argued that the Russians would pause, learn from their mistakes, and regroup; then concluded that the Russians would actually have performed much better if they had followed their doctrine; and now tend to mutter that everything can change, that the war is not over, and that the weight of numbers still favors Russia. Their analytic failure will be only one of the elements of this war worth studying in the future.

This article on The Atlantic will sound familiar to readers of this thread
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/ukraine-is-winning-war-russia/627121/
 When I visited Iraq during the 2007 surge, I discovered that the conventional wisdom in Washington usually lagged the view from the field by two to four weeks. Something similar applies today. Analysts and commentators have grudgingly declared that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been blocked, and that the war is stalemated. The more likely truth is that the Ukrainians are winning.
So why can’t Western analysts admit as much? Most professional scholars of the Russian military first predicted a quick and decisive Russian victory; then argued that the Russians would pause, learn from their mistakes, and regroup; then concluded that the Russians would actually have performed much better if they had followed their doctrine; and now tend to mutter that everything can change, that the war is not over, and that the weight of numbers still favors Russia. Their analytic failure will be only one of the elements of this war worth studying in the future.

Some caution on sourcing and the Uralvagonzavod report:
 

This article on The Atlantic will sound familiar to readers of this thread
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/ukraine-is-winning-war-russia/627121/
 When I visited Iraq during the 2007 surge, I discovered that the conventional wisdom in Washington usually lagged the view from the field by two to four weeks. Something similar applies today. Analysts and commentators have grudgingly declared that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been blocked, and that the war is stalemated. The more likely truth is that the Ukrainians are winning.
So why can’t Western analysts admit as much? Most professional scholars of the Russian military first predicted a quick and decisive Russian victory; then argued that the Russians would pause, learn from their mistakes, and regroup; then concluded that the Russians would actually have performed much better if they had followed their doctrine; and now tend to mutter that everything can change, that the war is not over, and that the weight of numbers still favors Russia. Their analytic failure will be only one of the elements of this war worth studying in the future.

My former coworker was born and grew up in Belarus. He lives and works in the USA now but is in daily contact with his father, relatives, and friends in Minsk. Today he returned my phone call and told me that for the last few days Belarusian armed forces started calling up their reservists aged 25 – 40. Not good, unless Belarusian attempted invasion of NW Ukraine results in a hopefully successful coup against Lukashenko.

I saw RF drone footage of a MLRS firing at Rf positions then driving across the city to this Sport Life gym and reverse in. The RF knew what was there and bombed it in the same drone footage YT upload. The explosion seems aimed to flatten the gym and the ground floor adjacent.
Not sure if the rest of the building was flattened as well but the gym doesnt exist anymore.
Good RF use of drones and a precision strike, I guess.

That was a great find @keas66, thank you! I think many concerns around where this conflict may be going are justified. I would like just to share a few thoughts of mine on this.
Today I had an online chat with a wargaming friend based on Seattle. As we were catching up, it became apparent to me that he was quite anxious and worried about the implicit threat posed by Putin declaring Russian nuclear forces to adopt a "higher" degree of readiness. He lives close to the water, across the huge US Navy shipyards in Puget Sound. An obvious target for an SS-25 Topol or worse. You don't need to "play" a bit with this little thing
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
to be worried.
That somebody implies a threat to start a nuclear war is something sure to attract attention and focus the minds. But to what end? Is he really going to trigger the end of the world (for Russia definitely would be the end of the world, and probably cripple our cities and economies for generations too)?
Now, let's say that you're leaving a bar in Long Beach late at night, walking to your car, and the another car stops and some dude walks out with a gun and puts it to your head (real story from a good friend from LA). Do you give them your wallet? Or you turn around, look into his eyes and dare him to shoot?
In the real world story, obviously my friend gave away the wallet. Did that make them a coward or a really smart person? I want to think it was smart because all the incentives were for that gunman to shoot at them if they weren't cooperative: there was no real possibility of retribution or "negative reward" if they were uncooperative and finished off.
Putin isn't even pulling out the gun, or putting it on top of the table, or anything like that, more like giving an order to "make sure that there are no birds roosting in the launchers, and every vehicle has their battery". Which given what we're seeing in Ukraine at the moment, it may already be a tall order.
He also doesn't know for sure how good the US anti-ballistic missile defence systems are. He doesn't know how effective the US and British SSBNs can be at making sure that him and anyone related to him would have a horrible death within 15 minutes of the first Russian ICBM taking off. What he knows is that if he started a nuclear war there would heaps of "negative reward" flowing the way of everyone, and first and foremost his people. Maybe he doesn't give a turd about his people, but I am pretty sure he gives one about his legacy. And what a great legacy would be to have all major cities in Russia become graveyards, and Siberia gingerly colonised by the Chinese in 30 years or so. Sure, you have also ruined Europe, the US and anybody else they're targeting, but not really a great legacy, by any reckoning.
Maybe he's a psychopath and doesn't give a damn about his legacy or anything or anyone else. Then we're already royally screwed guys, and we should all check out the NUKEMAP app to see where we should be relocating. Unless someone produces a time machine from their garage (John Kettler?) and goes pays a visit to Harry S. Truman to convince him to forget about the work at Lost Alamos, and give the go-ahead for Operation Olympic.
Let me consider another counterfactual, and a more serious one. Let's go back to 1938. And now let's imagine that the French and British tell Mr. Hitler to sod off, and he goes and launches a "special operation" on Czechoslovakia. Without straining credibility, let's consider that the 1938 Wehrmacht gets hopelessly bogged down trying to break through the Czech fortifications at the border (which were quite serious). Let's imagine those Panzer I and Panzer II being taken out by the same anti-tank rifles and guns from Brno that then armed the Nazi war machine early in World War 2. Would have the Third Reich then "escalated" and launched an attack on Poland (or France)? Nope. Can Czechoslovakia counterattack and go all the way to Berlin to force a German surrender? Nope.
I think we're right now at an scenario very much like the counterfactual above. The blatant difference with respect to 1938 is that Mr. Hitler's alter ego now has the means to "escalate" or to credibly threaten with escalation. But giving the appearance of having the means for an escalation doesn't mean that those means 1) are ready or 2) they are really willing to use them.
 

Specially made medals for each city? Sounds like Russian war preparations and logistics were concentrating on the important stuff then.

I don't know if this was posted before but this is great!  
 

Yes, pretty much that's the country like along the Ukraine-Belarus borders, from the Polish border to the Dnepr. The Russian western pincer on Kyiv trusted everything to a few roads (two or three). And then they got hit by the most massive military traffic jam in the last 80 years or so.

Winter war was totally comparable to current UKR situation. Only difference is 80 or so years.
Soviets going for an unjustified attack with extremely low morale, unrealistic politically motivated operational plan, insufficient force and getting bogged down because of many factors like in Ukraine.

Landing Ship is unloaded at port facilities. So no landing at Odesa? 
 
 
 

Even a cursory reading of northern Ukraine/Belarus maps shows the railway spine goes EAST-WEST, Poland to Kiev.
Not good for Belarus (I'm assuming it has the same logistical underpinnings as the Russian Army).
Belarus will probably need to attack close to the main Russian effort west of Kiev - better rail net available. 
But still, that is some bad country to be fighting across, against a ready, prepared, well supplied and very angry defense force.

"But Capt, we didn't control the entire route up to Bagdad..."
True but two very different things at play.  First off we adopted the Combat Logistics Patrol (CLIP) which is basically a fighting logistical unit that can push through attacks.  And second, we are talking about an entirely different level of opposition.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, we had an insurgency, which by definition is a marginalized group of sub-society who decide armed violence is a means to a political end.  They are in the minority, often working in lose networks and cells with limited support.  In Iraq, that band of disgruntled ex Iraqi military were still able to make life a living hell for logistical resupply in the early days of the insurgency.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban did it for 20 years despite everything we could throw at them...the Ukrainians are not even in the same league, in fact they are a different species entirely.
The UA's hybrid approach is built on a foundation of widespread resistance, which is not normally in the minority nor is it marginal.  Further, they are able to project hybrid forces behind those lines, armed with next-gen weaponry.  So a Russian CLIP is just going to get cut to pieces at range and we are back to "controlling corridors" where as has been mentioned the math does not add up.
And here I do express frustration with the endless stream of "experts" because they are either using the wrong math metrics (force sizes) or simply missing the math that matters.  [aside: When I see a "bro" with either ballcap/slick backed hair and their SF T-shirts on, I immediately stop listening because this is war college level stuff.  The US has an entire sub trade(s) quals that are groomed to do this sort of planning].
The Russian math hasn't really added up since day 1 in my book, but they might have another shoe to drop...you know so now both feet are naked.  

Amazing how many fall for these false narratives and then propagate it for the Russians as it fits within their internal narrative about some political parties. Just the number of folk that post that BS in this thread as some sort of justification for the Russian attacks saddens me.

So I think we are at the point that we can call it, I think the Russian strategic Offensive Phase of this war is pretty much at an end.  We went from Quick War, to Siege/Grinding War, to what is looking more like Balkan War as Russian forces appear to be 1) pulling back and consolidating and, 2) trying to assert control in the areas they do "control".  This does not mean we won't see offensive action at the tactical scale, in fact I suspect the Russians will burn assets and troops trying to take Mariupole and any other hub they can; however, the big red sweeps are likely over, at least for now.
So what happens next?  Or maybe what could happen next? 
- Strategic Pause.  The Russians almost look like they are trying to conduct a strategic pause, which is in effect and attempt to re-mobilize within political constraints/restraints.  Stories of troops being pulled in from the east and weird "contracts" are a possible sign that Russia is trying for a major re-org/re-boot before they would likely double down on Plan A.  Given how badly they have been chewed up this theory is not too far out there.  If Russia goes this way, it means they think they can sustain the war for months into the summer and make another run at Putin's Dream.  They will need to re-stock a lot of equipment and ammunition so there should be signals in strategic Russian production and pulling out of war stocks.  On the pers side we might see some sort of rumors of a Russian version of "stop-loss" as they start playing fast and loose with military contracts.  I don't think Putin has the backing to go full national mobilization (or he would have likely already done it), so this will be "as much as we can and still be able to call this a 'special operation' nonsense".
- Grab, Hold, Bargain.  More likely, but not exclusive of the Strategic Pause theory is that Russians are going to try to dig in and hold onto as much leverage as they can in order to shore up their position at the negotiating table.  This will likely see lots of medieval stuff to terrorize the UKR government into concessions.  We saw exactly the same ploys in the Bosnian War with Sarajevo (and Mariupole is starting to look worse than that).  The question will be how long this takes but it cedes the pressure back onto the UKR government in a typical extortionist/domestic abusers argument of "it is your own fault that I have to beat you". 
- Last Gasp.  Another option, and one I know favored by Steve, is that this is the beginning of the end for the Russian military in Ukraine.  What we are seeing is a lot of "scrambling for success" a the lower levels so that they can say "we did our part" while the higher levels are no doubt thinking about "alternative options".  The test as whether this is collapse or simply digging in will be how well the Russians can hold up to inevitable UA counter attacks.
So Whats?
    First off the Russian military has an enormous defensive problem, entirely of their own making.  By my rough measurements, by attacking along 4-5 separate operational axis of advance in an attempt to take the whole eastern part of the country, they now have a frontage of roughly 1400km+ to try and "defend".  That is roughly three times as long as the entire Western Front in WW1.  To make any areas they control even close to airtight, they are going to need hundreds of thousands of troops to do it.  Troops I am not sure they have, nor can equip, let alone conduct C2 for at this point.  If Russia is serious about Grab, Hold Bargain, they may have to simply wholesale abandon some axis and gains likely in the East in order to be able to create credible defensives and pressures.  We do know the UA has troops all along those 1300km frontage, they are either regular, hybrid, or resistance/territorial defence.  They know the ground intimately and are continuing to see a steady flow of weapons in from the west.  How the UA counter-offensive goes will be key to determining the actual situation of Russian forces.
    Second, without making the areas they defend "airtight" they will continue to be plagued by attacks along their LOCs.  The Russians might try to make ironclad support corridors but given the ranges of the UKR weapons systems this is a huge undertaking of interlinked strong points just to get the supplies to some sort of front.  This will make the logistics problem worse.  That, and defence still puts a lot of strain on logistical systems, but in different ways.  Ammunition, not gas becomes the central issue.  Field defence stores and landmines take a lot of truck space, so we should be seeing more of that, along with of course artillery and other ammunition.  That and now Russia needs a lot more manpower, which all need a lot more pers-based supplies such as food, water, clothing, sanitation (unless you want General Disease getting into the game) and medical.
    Third, C4ISR in the defensive is a bit of a nightmare.  Whereas in the offence you can prioritize your main efforts, in the defence you have to be able to see and coordinate fires everywhere at the same time.  Doing that along a 1300km frontage is...well, simply insane but hey here we are.  The UA, did a pretty good job of it but it was their ground, they had the HUMINT going their way, and very likely buckets of ISR feeds from the west.  The Russian architecture has not demonstrated they are set up for this.  Further, this is contested airspace so one cannot simply dig in and sit, they are going to have to keep high value assets moving, like artillery, all the time or it will get tagged and hit quickly.  This will mean that Russians will need to employ a dynamic manoeuvre defence, much like the UA did, and I am not seeing that within the Russian repertoire.
    The UA counter-offensive will be key.  I suspect they will stick with the game that has carried them this far and simply cut up Russian rear areas to isolate and then chop up slices piecemeal to keep making gains.  Their hybrid "sharp mass" has been extremely effective in the defence, we will see how it does in the offense but I give them good odds to be honest.  
   If the Russians can do a full Strategic re-set, a big ask, then we could see a Round 2 Offensive Phase of this thing but the odds of it success get worse everyday as the UA "beginners" are becoming veterans very widely.  Further they are likely refining C4ISR building on their successes and more and more lethal aid is pouring in from the west.  If the Russians cannot get back up and moving before that $800M from the US shows up, well they too deserve what happens next.   
   To be honest, if someone tasked me with shooting for a Russian Strategic re-set, I would tell them it is going to take years because whatever they came with in this "come as you are war" was a failure and we are talking about deep military reforms and training in order to re-build a force that could actually pull off what the aspiration of this thing.  In fact you might need to invent a military that does not exist on this planet.  In '03 the US had to advance roughly 500kms to Bagdad and they owned the sky and the sea, had set operational pre-conditions, massive C4ISR overmatch, and have some of the best military logistical systems on the planet.  It took the US 3 weeks to take Bagdad and they were fighting a eroded and beaten Iraqi military that had zero outside support.  The US did not try a 4-5 axis grab along a 1300km frontage because the military planners knew it was impossible with what they had, which was 2-3 times what the Russians brought to this fight (466K, over 500k with allies).  And, politics completely aside, Iraq '03 was not well thought of and still is not well thought of in professional military circles as it failed to secure the gains and led to a multi-year insurgency.  
   So as we proceed on this journey, I am wracking my brain to make a list of the "Dumbest Wars in History" but this one has to be on it and moving upwards rapidly.
 
 

On a second thought, that video is not that different from the poignant art produced by North Korean illustrators

 

A heart attack after learning the casualties suffered by Russian naval infantry.

How the heck does the deputy of human resources of the Black Sea Fleet get killed?  That's like the most deskbound of deskbound jobs that anyone could have in the military - and he was in the navy to boot!

I think Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) may be appropriate here.  It is a term that had cache back in the late 90s/early 00's and then lost it because it never really showed up, or at least we could not see it as we got bogged down in one COIN action after another.  But RMAs rarely happen overnight, we might realize them overnight, but they take decades to build up to.  Take WW1, which is an easy example, the hints of what that conflict was likely to turn into go back as far as the US Civil War (entrenching, tunneling around Richmond).  The impact of a group of technologies - long range smoke-less rifles, the machine gun, rapid indirect fire artillery, naval gunnery, info-over-wire, railway technology and canning/food preservation - all took decades to create but when pulled together led to a complete breakdown of military doctrine of the day.
In the modern era, it has been information and AI.  These technologies have been rapidly evolving over the last 20 years into modern C4ISR, long range and highly lethal smart-munitions, unmanned and what looks like crowd-sourced warfare.  We are seeing them being all pulled together in Ukraine and the result has been jarring, especially for the Russians.
I think the term "sharp smart mass" may best describe what the UA has managed to do.  They have highlighted a method, again that we will be studying for years, that looks like a digital jump but is in fact been on a long journey since about 1991. I mean the fact that we have Haiduk, in Kyiv right now, able to push us information directly from the field through social media, is mind blowing. 
One way or another, this will be a "Moneyball moment" for military affairs as we all try and figure out what just happened.  Because by any traditional metric the Russian military should have sliced through the UA and be smashing Kyiv to bits by now instead of bordering on collapse.  We can (and will) put a lot of this on the Russian doorstep; however, we should also be thinking how the UA approach would have faired against western military doctrine and how we might have to adapt our own methods.

That was a great find @keas66, thank you! I think many concerns around where this conflict may be going are justified. I would like just to share a few thoughts of mine on this.
Today I had an online chat with a wargaming friend based on Seattle. As we were catching up, it became apparent to me that he was quite anxious and worried about the implicit threat posed by Putin declaring Russian nuclear forces to adopt a "higher" degree of readiness. He lives close to the water, across the huge US Navy shipyards in Puget Sound. An obvious target for an SS-25 Topol or worse. You don't need to "play" a bit with this little thing
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
to be worried.
That somebody implies a threat to start a nuclear war is something sure to attract attention and focus the minds. But to what end? Is he really going to trigger the end of the world (for Russia definitely would be the end of the world, and probably cripple our cities and economies for generations too)?
Now, let's say that you're leaving a bar in Long Beach late at night, walking to your car, and the another car stops and some dude walks out with a gun and puts it to your head (real story from a good friend from LA). Do you give them your wallet? Or you turn around, look into his eyes and dare him to shoot?
In the real world story, obviously my friend gave away the wallet. Did that make them a coward or a really smart person? I want to think it was smart because all the incentives were for that gunman to shoot at them if they weren't cooperative: there was no real possibility of retribution or "negative reward" if they were uncooperative and finished off.
Putin isn't even pulling out the gun, or putting it on top of the table, or anything like that, more like giving an order to "make sure that there are no birds roosting in the launchers, and every vehicle has their battery". Which given what we're seeing in Ukraine at the moment, it may already be a tall order.
He also doesn't know for sure how good the US anti-ballistic missile defence systems are. He doesn't know how effective the US and British SSBNs can be at making sure that him and anyone related to him would have a horrible death within 15 minutes of the first Russian ICBM taking off. What he knows is that if he started a nuclear war there would heaps of "negative reward" flowing the way of everyone, and first and foremost his people. Maybe he doesn't give a turd about his people, but I am pretty sure he gives one about his legacy. And what a great legacy would be to have all major cities in Russia become graveyards, and Siberia gingerly colonised by the Chinese in 30 years or so. Sure, you have also ruined Europe, the US and anybody else they're targeting, but not really a great legacy, by any reckoning.
Maybe he's a psychopath and doesn't give a damn about his legacy or anything or anyone else. Then we're already royally screwed guys, and we should all check out the NUKEMAP app to see where we should be relocating. Unless someone produces a time machine from their garage (John Kettler?) and goes pays a visit to Harry S. Truman to convince him to forget about the work at Lost Alamos, and give the go-ahead for Operation Olympic.
Let me consider another counterfactual, and a more serious one. Let's go back to 1938. And now let's imagine that the French and British tell Mr. Hitler to sod off, and he goes and launches a "special operation" on Czechoslovakia. Without straining credibility, let's consider that the 1938 Wehrmacht gets hopelessly bogged down trying to break through the Czech fortifications at the border (which were quite serious). Let's imagine those Panzer I and Panzer II being taken out by the same anti-tank rifles and guns from Brno that then armed the Nazi war machine early in World War 2. Would have the Third Reich then "escalated" and launched an attack on Poland (or France)? Nope. Can Czechoslovakia counterattack and go all the way to Berlin to force a German surrender? Nope.
I think we're right now at an scenario very much like the counterfactual above. The blatant difference with respect to 1938 is that Mr. Hitler's alter ego now has the means to "escalate" or to credibly threaten with escalation. But giving the appearance of having the means for an escalation doesn't mean that those means 1) are ready or 2) they are really willing to use them.
 

On a second thought, that video is not that different from the poignant art produced by North Korean illustrators

 

Hello, I am Vladimir Putin and this is Jackass.

On a second thought, that video is not that different from the poignant art produced by North Korean illustrators