BletchleyGeek

Throwing rocks at stuff is underrated...

 
... these things don't show on thermals! H4XX0R!!!

Your nickname made me smile. In Australia, it is a way of saying "piss".

Steve, probably you just don't understand what the Ukrainian military are. They dont have any air force left, they dont have any weapons younger than 20 years in reasonable numbers. Actually they have like 3 Oplot tanks in the whole country, and they tank plant in Kharkov degradation to the monkey level.BTR-3E what they've build for sell were too bad what customers.
They have no reservs left, and they fighting will are too low due to corruption, idiotism of the government and bad organisation.
 
Also Steve, do you really believe to the words of that woman?
 

First off I want to thank you every one for participating in this interesting discussion! Please do continue presenting your visions/speculations about the tactical and strategic nature of this hypothetical war.
 
I will now follow with my "case study" for a Ukraininan defensive delaying action in a strategic location along the E101 Highway near town of "Krolevets"
When planning this study I was struck by the enormous distances each military unit will have to cover. Gone are the days when battalions, brigades or even divisions would share common borders with their Areas of Operations. I was also struck by what seemed at first glance as impossible terrain to defend or even to conduct delaying action of any sort. However after some late nights spent with google earth i began to find some defendable locations along the Moscow-Kiev Highway, wich would be vital to clear and capture regardles of the ultimate goal of the war. It is simply strategically very important if you are going to attempt offensives towards Kiev.
 
One of these locations is Krolevets with it's surrounding terrain of forest, marshy riverbeds, hills and gullies with broken farmlands and minor villages. It is by far NOT a perfectly defendable location, (if there ever is one) and would be bypassed eventually, but the aim here is to buy as much time as possible and deplete the enemy as much as possible, even with the prospect that the defending troops never get to go home again.
 
The following picture is the rough outline of defensive sector of single Ukrainian Mechanized Brigade (would be most likely the 72nd)
 

 
The AO for the brigade is way way too large but the problem here is that ukraine military does not have the brigades to defend along the entire border. Therefore we must make do with what we have and this is my estimate of a possible AO. Now the catch is this: There is also a ukrainian artillery brigade or at least elements of it, within the Mechs AO near "Baturin" wich should be able to use their BM-30 smerch (or similar systems) to strike at advancing RA-forces  along the E101 and as well as other locations of importance (demonstrated by the yellow "explosion" markers)
 
The brigades objective is to act as the first line of defence, buy time, wear down the RA-advance units and protect the artillery brigades assets while they pound the invading enemy as long as they can (asuming the first airstrike wont neutralise them withing first hours of war). Brigade has been divided into three separate mechanized combat teams: one in Krolevets, one screening the SE direction near Konotop and one in reserve near Baturin ready to reinforce either one of the two other combat teams and/or conduct counterattacks with or without support from armored brigade situated around "Borzna, Nizhyn, Ichnya" -area. If the brigade is bypassed or otherwise compromized, the remaining units are to fall back towards Chernigov for regroup and refit. Expected RA forces will range from 3-4 mech and tank brigades in strenght, attacking in battalion formations. Brigade must rely on recon screen in Shostka, Buryn, Terny -directions  to provide intel on enemy axis of advances and counter them by redeploying battalion combat teams accordingly as well as provide target info for the artillery brigade assets.
 
Next picture is the possible locations I have planned to map (if RL allows) in the Krolevets area:
 

 
Each should be reasonably plausible locations for actions ranging from platoon to company/depleted battalion scale. They can also be easily converted for use with more robust defensive formations (for example an entire brigade defending the locale) and should cover the most likely paths of advance by RA-units locally (naturally the entire locale is possible to bypass elsewhere)
 
Next three pistures are my very rough demonstrations of a possible defensive plan for the ukrainian Mechanized taks force defending Krolevets:
 

 
-the broken blue arrows represent the intended direction of retreat  and should these direction be compromized the battalion will be isolated quickly. The "toothed" blue lines are possible prepared defensive locations wich a mechanized company can occupy according to the situation at hand. As with the brigade, the battalion must also rely heavily on intel to be able to respond to the multiple possible directions of threat. This intel is to be provided by attached brigade level recon screen and drones.
 

 
-Likely russian routes of advance, the hollow arrows point out the threat of flanking through "Yaroslavets-Bezkrovne" -area but that is something the defenders will just have to live with.
 

 
and finaly the rough demonstration of planned demolitions and minefields to cut the highway E101 and provide some security along flanks. Naturally each mechanized company has own mine fields and other demolitions in their corresponding AO's  depending on available time and materiel. The primary taks of the attached brigade level engineers and corps level engineer assets is to deny the E101 from the enemy. The more time there is to prepare the better. If preparations are begun well before the advent of war, all of the avenues of advance will be covered with extensive minefields, demolitions, and AT-ditches.
 
The defending battalion must be proactive in it's defence and ready to pull back to secondary and tertiary defensive positions in timely manner before the inevitable RA artillery grinds to dust any known point of resistance. Concealment must be taken from built up and wooden areas. Krolevets will be the last stand before the remaining men and materiel are to fall back towards west and north west. (I seriously doubt there will be any!)
 
Any thoughts, comments and/or critique is much welcomed!
 
Cheers!
-H1nd
 

Yeah what would ever give us the impression attacks on that airport were led by Russian regulars.
 

 
Boy those separatists stole quite a few tanks, marked em up like Russian tanks too...

This view (that I am about to express) is hypo-theoretical only. It comes from my personal point of view, and open source information I could gather. I would try to keep this scenario going, if it is of interest to the local community.
 
First of all, what are the Russian (political) objectives in this conflict? To sum up - precluding Ukraine from joining NATO military-political block, precluding Ukraine from being a valid threat to Russia in the future, negating any claim Ukraine has on Crimea, to defend the interests of pro-Russian people of Ukraine.

(p.s. - I seriously doubt NATO intervention should Russia openly intervene in the conflict, not in the time scale I think it would happen in).
 
To accomplish this Russia requires a substantial buffer zone with friendly (or at least neutral) population, with sufficient economic power to sustain that region, at least partially, to destroy Ukrainian means of fighting war (ie it's armed forces and defence related industry). Such buffer zone would probably be in the form of the Pro-Yanukovich regions (could be seen from voting patterns here)


Hence from military perspective we have the objectives of:
- rapidly defeating the Counter Terrorist Operation Forces east of Dnepr.
- securing the designated territory, installing pro Russian regime there.

What is the balance of forces (I would expand this if requested)?
- Russia has a complete control of air and complete superiority in terms of reckon-strike complexes, intelligence gathering, superiority in quality of equipment and of troop control and command (above battalion).
- Russia currently arms and trains the separatist forces, organising their brigades into corps type structures, restructuring brigades up to mechanised standards.
- both parties (Ukrainian loyalists and Separatists) suffer from major corruption issues, both sides are primarily limited by the supplies of weapons in equipment when rising their military units, as well from manpower deficiency (currently separatists did not enact mobilisation, previous waves of mobilisation has proven to be inefficient for the loyalist forces). Thus any estimates of their forces must be made with utmost caution.

Due to the military-political situation, ie the ongoing Counter Terrorism Operation, poor intelligence (even with NATO support from means such as imint, humint, elint and so on), poor leadership, presence of real and present threat from separatist forces, I doubt that Ukrainian Counter Terrorism Operation Forces would be capable of sending any substantial force out of their area of operation before Russian Armed Forces strike or blow the bridges prior to such an attack.

What is the military geography of the region? The depth of operation is approx. 250km (from Russian jump of points next to the border to the Dnepr river line, objectives in Odessa would be achieved by forces out of Crimea - with amphib, airborne and land borne advances). This constitutes 1, maybe 2 days of advance. There are no valid obstacles before Dnepr, Dnepr itself would be crossed using pantoon bridges and amphib vehicles at points of convenience, providing the encirclement of any actually defended bridgeheads (which were not yet taken by the VDV forces). Pripyat marshes may appear to be a formidable obstacle (to a strike from the north), however they were crossed by Soviet forces in 1944. The road network is sufficient to allow bypassing all of major cities (which would be controlled by special forces, local separatists), the terrain is fairly open, allowing movement away from roads.

What is the required force, to enact the plan? 4 combined arms armies (southern MD, western MD, partially - central MD), VDV forces, Black Sea Fleet.

If so requested I could draw a more complete plan, with OOB for all sides, map of operations and so on. I hope you find this post of interest to you.
p.s. What I don't understand - where does NATO intervention come from? In the scenarios that I for see there is no time for NATO to respond to the developments (unless NATO forces attempt to mount an offensive after Russia has secured it's objectives, but this would be stupid in my opinion).
I would also suggest reading on:
- Bagartion, Vistula-Oder, Manchurian offensives (1944-1945), especially from the point of logistics.
- Reading the articles by the Office of Soviet Studies such as "The high roads of war" (or atleast I think that is what it was called).
- Reading "Red Army" by Ralph Peters if all else fails.

I believe your aggressive move in the beginning was the best move. You seized key terrain and inflicted a serious blow to the Ukrainians.
Even if you had concentrated on the town and even if you had completed that mission before the arrival of the Americans, you would still have to face an overwhelming force, but at long range and with no buffer. Your forces in the woods and gullies will certainly slow him down and maybe even cause some helpful attrition. You might not pull this one out, but I think your strategy gives you the best chance. Either way, thanks for the AAR!

ScoutPL and Bil, at least at some point in the past five years.
And let me say that JK is right re the QJDM. If you try to use the model yourself, you'll appreciate there's several quite "magic numbers" in the model, like "Surprise" or the "Comparative Effectiveness Value". Or more technically, plenty of opportunities for overfitting. It always works best when "fitting" the past, tweaking the many knobs on it, than predicting the unseen by deriving plausible outcomes by working on first principles. A bit like the Ptolemaic model of the orbits of the solar system, compared with Newton's. The former works very well on our Solar System but is useless when trying to account for Alpha Centauri.

I do find personally that it doesn't account at all for what Robert S. Leonhard refer to as "maneuver warfare", and is very biased towards "attrition warfare". Which is understandable, as Dupuy models were basically invented in the 1960s, a time US doctrinal thinking was obsessed with firepower alone.

ScoutPL and Bil, at least at some point in the past five years.
And let me say that JK is right re the QJDM. If you try to use the model yourself, you'll appreciate there's several quite "magic numbers" in the model, like "Surprise" or the "Comparative Effectiveness Value". Or more technically, plenty of opportunities for overfitting. It always works best when "fitting" the past, tweaking the many knobs on it, than predicting the unseen by deriving plausible outcomes by working on first principles. A bit like the Ptolemaic model of the orbits of the solar system, compared with Newton's. The former works very well on our Solar System but is useless when trying to account for Alpha Centauri.

I do find personally that it doesn't account at all for what Robert S. Leonhard refer to as "maneuver warfare", and is very biased towards "attrition warfare". Which is understandable, as Dupuy models were basically invented in the 1960s, a time US doctrinal thinking was obsessed with firepower alone.

Let me second Ian. Your move was the right one. Assaulting the town would have taken more than 15 mins, you'd probably have a more degraded force due to losses and still would the fricking Host of the Valar be coming right on your backside.

Then of course there is always Bored of the Ring.
 
In the eastern sky, Velveeta, beloved morning star of the elves and handmaid of the dawn, rose and greeted Noxzema, bringer of the flannel tongue, and clanging on her golden garbage pail, bade him make ready the winged rickshaw of Novocaine, herald of the day. Thence came rosy-eyeballed Ovaltine, she of the fluffy mouth, and lightly kissed the land east of the Seas. In other words, it was morning.

Let me second Ian. Your move was the right one. Assaulting the town would have taken more than 15 mins, you'd probably have a more degraded force due to losses and still would the fricking Host of the Valar be coming right on your backside.

Let me second Ian. Your move was the right one. Assaulting the town would have taken more than 15 mins, you'd probably have a more degraded force due to losses and still would the fricking Host of the Valar be coming right on your backside.

Let me second Ian. Your move was the right one. Assaulting the town would have taken more than 15 mins, you'd probably have a more degraded force due to losses and still would the fricking Host of the Valar be coming right on your backside.

Pffft!   Pay no attention to the back seat / woulda / shoulda / coulda commentary.  You make your bets and you take your chances.  It's all educational.
 
Thank you for providing ALL the AARs you have done over time (not just this one).  For this one, had you hung back and not pushed hard early as you did, we would have missed out on the story thus far, or at least experienced a different story.
 
Perhaps the next one will be a more balanced meeting engagement...

Excellent! Now watch it use air burst when you do the real thing , but it sounds like you should be good to go. Happy wall busting!

That green up arrow is the plus one...

While I wait for Scott to send the next turn I am thinking about how I want to proceed.  This is a key deicsion point in the battle.  I want to keep a strong force to face the US reinforcements, but I also want to start to take down the units in the pocket and grab some of those objectives.
 
This map is several turns old, but should be a good reference for the discussion:
1st MRC  - After moving through the terrain that this company is sitting on I have concluded that Scott will not move that way even if his reinforcements come in there.  The woods are impassable to vehicles except in a very few narrow corridors.. so any force he tried to move through those woods would be channelized and would have to advance single file.  A dream for me to defend.. but I doubt it'll come to that.  
 
What I plan to do is push some AT teams as far forward as possible and take up reverse slope positions to attack any armor that might move laterally out of this corner of the map.  I will deploy a lot of the 1st MRC infantry in depth in ambush positions in case Scott does try to bull his way through.  I will also keep a platoon of BMP-3s as support and they will be positioned fairly far forward in the gullies and dry stream beds as a counter-attack force and for quick sniping if it looks like Scott is presenting a flank I can take advantage of.  
 
At least one Platoon of BMP-3s and the T90 platoon will remain in the rear of 1st MRC and be ready to advance to hull down positions to cover any other contingencies.  The key is to get as close to Scott's US units as possible to negate his range advantage.  Or, to hit them in the flank or rear when the opportunity presents itself.
 
The remaining BMP-3 platoon will be moving out and I will discuss them in a bit.
 
2nd MRC - I am not comfortable with this company staying on the forward slope of center hill so I am planning on pulling them back to cover the flanks and the area especially between 1st and 2nd MRCs.. I suspect Scott will seek open ground to move through, especially now that I have this hill well covered.  He probably will not want to move through this terrain where he could run into hidden AT teams.  I will be leaving several AT teams in hide positions to pop out if Scott does try to recapture the hill.
 
One platoon of BMPs and two of the T90s (the two that have suffered some damage) will be moving out and I will discuss them in a bit.
 
GL Platoon and ATGM Section - These units will remain in their current positions to secure the area between the two MRCs and the open area to the north,  I doubt the GL Platoon will be of much help, but I have to work with the resources I have available.  I will strengthen them by moving the second remaining GL Platoon BMP 3 from the north to the area between the two MRCs.
 
3rd MRC - This formation which has no vehicles (which really sucks by the way   ) has already started to scout the Power Station objective and will attack it in the next few turns.  One platoon is moving up to the area around my immobilized T90 to provide some support and to scout that approach for follow on forces.
 
Recon Company - This formation is too weak to be a viable offensive force other than the platoon that has two BMP-3s (without Arena).  This BMP platoon will move across the river (one has already done so) and cause some havoc on any enemy units on the north end of the town.  Many other teams have been scouting forward in to the town for several turns already and will continue that mission as a distraction and to keep Scott's forces in place.
 
Assault Company Team (clever name TBD) - This new formation will be made up of the following units:
Command: Tank Company HQ tank BMP-3M (Arena) Platoon/1st MRC BMP-3M (Arena) Platoon/2nd MRC 2nd Tank Platoon (-) - two tanks that have suffered damage. 3rd Tank Platoon (-) - two tanks - this is my reserve tank platoon, the platoon leader's tank from 3rd platoon is the immobilized tank Mission - this formation will strike hard at the enemy units in the pocket.  I have yet to decide their scheme of maneuver but they will assemble near the Power Station objective over the next few turns.
 
Objective - kill as many enemy units as possible and make Scott believe he has to increase his tempo with the US relief force which could cause him to get careless and rash with his US force.