Gnaeus

I'm not going to participate in this off topic discussion, but just would like to say this. Germany has learned it's lessons and is one of the most decent and democratic countries in Europe. To compare present Russian (war) crimes with German (war) crimes of the past, in order to weaken the severity of the Russian crimes is unjust.

So this post got me thinking and raises a really good set of points.  Right now we have been handing out a lot of fish on this thread.  We pull in the data, filter it, assess and then pull out analysis, which leads to some level of prediction.  What we (I) have not done is provide enough fishing rods.  Of course you guys are swimming around the internet and being exposed to all sorts of narratives, some good and some bad.  It may be helpful to arm you with some ways to do your own analysis so that while you are out there you can come at it better.
Everyone has got their own system, western military teachings all tend to cover the same ground (e.g. PMESII, OPP, whatever that thing Bil does, which must work because he keeps beating me).  Eastern approaches are different and take into account different criteria, I am not an expert on these so I will let someone else weigh in on them.  I will give you my personal system and the one I teach, see if it helps and if it does not keep looking around.
My system is pretty simply to be honest and focuses on two main areas: what is seen, what is not seen, but should be.  That first one is much easier, the second requires a lot more depth but we can walk to that.
What is Seen
I think I posted this before and @sburke lost his mind a bit.  Let me try a less-powerpointy version (seriously guys it is the message, not the medium).

Ok so this is a representation of what is essentially the western operational system.  It starts on the left with what is basically "Command" and works its way to a desired Outcome.  Everyone is focused on the "Boom"...of course you are...it is exploding!  The reality, however, is that the Target is really only in the middle of this whole thing.  It is an indicator - one of many - but it is not the only indicator.  I think everyone here gets that but they often do not know what else to look for (although some clearly do).
So the big red system on the left is often referred to as the "kill chain" (thanks for nothing Brose).  It is really the center of what we call a "targeting enterprise" and frankly we in the west are very good at this.  This is "cause" space that translates human will, through capability, into energy (and here it can get quite complex), through mediums (also crazy complex) and onto a target and foresaid "boom" (yay!).   Be it an ammo dump, shopping mall, tank or goose (I hate geese) the process is pretty much the same, and volumes have been written as to how to do this faster/better than an opponent.
The point of the big red circle is that when we see a "boom" it is important to analyze the entire Cause chain all the way back to determine 1) if that was the actual intended target or was it simply happenstance, 2) how well the chain is doing in competitive terms and 3) what is this all signaling about Will?  All of this also has to take into account context and the situation on the ground.
Cool. We now have a bead on Cause.  Effect is much harder and more important.  The big blue area is where the pay dirt really sits.  A lot of big booms are impressive, but trust me if they do not translate into that big blue space you are going nowhere loudly - and I speak from experience here.  
So the first question is "what effect is this actually happening?"  Here an effect is a "consequence of action", so for example the effect of all those HIMARS booms - who are at the end of their own kill chain - was (allegedly) to have the Russian logistics system tie it self in knots to get away from them.  Great, outstanding...but was it decisive?
Second is Decision.  I have written about the three types of decisions available in warfare (at least) - positive, negative and null.  Let's leave off the last two and just focus on the first one.  A positive decision is a "death of alternate futures".  There was a future where Russia pounded Kyviv into submission for two months in Mar-Apr 22.  The Ukrainian government tapped out because western support was being cut off from the west and Russia occupied half of Ukraine and the capital, set up a puppet government and then enjoyed an insurgency-from-hell that would last 20 years.  That future died in March when the Russians were held off and pushed back from Kyviv: it was positively Decisive.  The Russians may actually have a future where they are back at Kyviv but it won't be in Mar-Apr of 22, the reality will be very different.  The HIMARS are having an effect, that much is clear.  What is not clear is how decisive the sum of those effects are as yet.  If the Russians lose the ability for operational offensive for a significant duration (e.g. this "pause" never ends) then we can say it has been decisive, because there are dead futures on the floor.
Last are Outcomes.  "What is the difference between a Decision and an Outcome Capt?"  My personal definitions is that an Outcome is a death of options, normally strategic options.  The sum of decisions in western doctrine is supposed to lead to "Objectives" which are the "Deal Done" points in western military planning.  Frankly these have let us down in the past, so I go with Options.  If Options die, they kill off entire fields of futures....a future-cide if you will.  Here something like the entire collapse of the northern Russian front was an Outcome to my mind because the Russian strategic options space collapsed.  Same thing happened after the first week of this war as the strategic options spaces that led to a quick war also died - it is why we got all excited about it back then.  The most significant Outcome is the end of the war of course, but that Outcome is the sum of a bunch of other ones, that all loop back to Will.
So whenever something blows up, look both left and right on that spectrum, and ask a lot of questions.  How is the Cause chain doing comparatively? What is happening with Will? What is the problem with Russian Capability translating into Energy and Targets?  Really keep a close eye on the Blue circle, the indicators of the important stuff are there:  what is the actual effect?  Is this decisive?  what was the Outcome?
Ok, so that was the easy part.
What is not Seen, but should be.
While books have been written on the first part above, the second is the land of experience.  Here a deep understanding of history comes in very useful as it provides a lot of context.  This space (which I do not have a snazzy picture for) is essentially "what should be happening but is not..."  It is very tricky and takes a lot of experience to "see the blank spaces", it is where the effects should be happening but are not based on whatever time and space we are in within a given scenario.
For example, let's take the Russian cruise missiles (and this is not a beat up of @panzermartin, he is asking some good questions).  We know the Russians have a lot of missiles (https://missilethreat.csis.org/country_tax/russia/) and they had launched roughly 1000 of them in about a month at the beginning of the war.
And another report that they were at 2125 total "68 days into the war" (https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-ill-fated-invasion-ukraine-lessons-modern-warfare#:~:text=Russia launched more than 1%2C100,68 days of the war.).  Now if we take "What we see" as the only indication, well this is a clearly functioning Cause chain.  Will, Capability all landing on targets.  A little shaky on the dud rate and "missing" military targets by many reports, and the Medium of UA AD has been pretty effective (then we get into competitive system effects which is a whole other thing - there are red and blue circles in collision); however, that is a lot of "boom".  The Effects we saw were a lot of damage, some of it military and the UA definitely had to react to defend itself by moving AD and C2 around.  I am not sure they have been Decisive, but we will get to that.
So that is what we saw, and on the surface 2125 incoming missiles all over the Ukraine is not small and frankly looks scary...but I only see what is missing:
A Ukrainian strategic center of gravity is the inflow of support from the western world.  We are pushing a lot of money and boom-boom over the border from Poland.  High on Russia's list of high value targets has to be to cut off that incoming support anyway possible.  They have done strikes in Lviv on training bases, so they clearly have the capability to hit.  But what are we not seeing?  I am not seeing rail infrastructure being crippled in Western Ukraine.  I am not seeing road infrastructure being destroyed faster than Ukraine can repair.  I am not seeing 30 Ukrainian ammo depots in western Ukraine being hit to cut off the supply of 155mm shells - it is what I am not seeing that is the biggest indicator something is going very wrong on the Russian side.  The Russians have the capability - range is no excuse as they could park missiles in Belarus, so why are they not using all them there 2125 missiles on what really matters?  First answer is that they are "dumb" but that is too easy.  Split Will, missiles spread across disjointed commands all lobbing on their own priorities much more likely.  Lack of ISR to consistently hit things when they need to be hit like UA ammo dumps and logistics nodes, which tend to move around...also very likely.
This is the same thing very early on in the war - why was I still seeing Ukrainian social media feeds 72 hours into this war?  All them tanks getting lit up, old ladies with balls of steel etc.  Rule #1 of country invasion: make it go dark.  Russian failed in this, it was missing and should not have been.
Wargamers have an advantage here as they play these problem sets all the time.  We have seen it a lot on this thread.  A wargamer can ask..."why did they not do this?  I would have."  
And this has nothing to do with an echo chamber either, but we do need to be careful.  For example, we have not seen UA operational offence yet, and nothing that looks like all traditional arms manoeuvre.  This one has me particularly puzzled and we are getting more data in on why this may be happening.
I will sum up by saying that in order to really filter the "reality" from opinion and BS, take all this and apply it to what we can actually see and not see.  We can build assumptions but they have to remain on speaking terms with the facts.  Once an assumption becomes a fact [edit for @Combatintman. “without sufficient validation”]  we are in trouble.  Enough facts put through the lenses of the two frameworks I give here become a trend, and it is those trends that told us that Russia was losing the first part of the war while most of the mainstream were figuring out how to deal with a Russian victory.
Good luck and surf safe.
 
 

I agree this war will end as a stalemate, but not this year and perhaps not even next year. And I don't believe in a diplomatic solution. The Russians want to destroy the Ukraine, or at least weaken it so much that they can destroy it anytime they want in the future. That's no peace, that's postponed execution for the Ukrainian nation. As long as the Ukrainians want to fight, we must support them with all we can and make the Russians suffer. At the same time Ukrainians will also suffer, but that's their call. They are not fighting for a piece of land where the majority is Russian or for their right to belong to the West, but they are fighting for their very survival as a people and a nation. That's what folks who are talking about a diplomatic solution don't seem to understand. This is a fight to the death. And it must be the death of many Russian soldiers and with that the death of Russia's ability to wage war and inflict terror upon their neighbours. I agree that our support must be intensified, even if that means taking risks with our own safety. Ukraine must hold on, at ALL costs. The costs for the West don't interest me at all. Economical crisis, inflation, energy shortage? Welcome to the new reality, where finally the bill for all those cheap words about democracy, environment and freedom is presented to us all. Personally I would gladly give up my holidays, my second car and all of my luxury to get rid of the Russian menace once and for all. The price of facing an encouraged and vengeful 'Novorussiya' will be far greater than all that. So, yes, keep the Russians bleeding and the Ukrainians fighting. They have bloody good reasons for that. Remenber the Holodomor for instance. And let us keep our cheap Western lamenting for peace at all costs to ourselves. If I was an Ukrainian soldier, fighting in a destroyed and suffering country, I would vomit on that.
In the mean time and I'm ashamed to say it, Ukraine is buying us precious time to rearm and prepare for war, that will come in some form or shape. We must consider Ukraine to be part of the West, which it is, and act accordingly. By the end of this year Western Europe can't be blackmailed by Russian oil or gas anymore and we can go to the next level. Unlimited support and weapons for Ukraine and unlimited sanctions against Putin. Payback time.

It is ridiculous that anyone would prioritize a PC wargame over the events we are seeing unfold on the ground in Ukraine.  These events have global impact - we have seen this already, and it is just the start, and merit staying informed about as much as possible.  Why?  Because if you live in a democracy in the western world, at some point you will be asked to use the phenomenal power of your vote to influence this war and it is your responsibility to understand what that means...or at least it should be.
The lack of sacrifice I am referring to is on anyone who is not willing to put aside hobbies and free time and actually devote that time to staying informed about this war as much as they are able.  Everyone on this thread is willing to put that work in, and yes, sacrifice time, in many cases money, and it at least one case volunteer for military service. These are very small sacrifices compared to what the average Ukrainian is going through (Haiduk's dedication and ability to keep us informed while his country is being torn apart is frankly humbling) but everyone here is at least willing to do that much, along with personal donations etc.  
Based on your posts, you are not even willing to sacrifice a distraction from a wargaming hobby.  Now, I do not know your personal circumstances - perhaps you are a humanitarian aid worker who has to deal with the cost of this war on a daily basis, and just want to come here to get away from it all.  I get that, but for the rest of us here this is where we go to put the time in and do our small part.
I appreciate the shout out for CMCW, we had a lot of fun doing that title and have future plans - trust me.  However, right now I would prefer you respect what is going on here as something more than a bunch of "war-porn voyeurism"; it is a communities' efforts to understand what is going on and support each other while it happens.  We did the same after 9/11, and Iraq '03, and Afghanistan, and the Crimea...and now the Russo Ukrainian War.  CM will be there after this war is over, it has survived a lot in the last 20 years, but for now this is bigger than my hobby.  If it is not based on your personal circumstances, hey we get that, however, there is no need to come here and make trouble for those that are just trying to sort through the mountains of information (good, bad, and ugly) and make sense of it.

I am not talking about CMCW (I do believe it is best CM game so far) because of an obvious lack of time. As soon as war is over, I will go to that subforum.
And my "obsession" with war stems from the fact that I wanted to leave my past in the past. But now my past is threatening my quiet European life and everything I stand for.  I cannot stop them with bullets but at least I will make their propaganda less successful, at least here. 

All right guys, this is a post where I spill my guts in quite an emotional manner, please move along if your're not up for it.
I'll start with stating that I'm really fond of this community that I accidentally found thanks to @Der Zeitgeist. While we differ in perception of some minutiae of the events unraveling in front of us, we all seem to share the same view on whats right and moral in this context. And that is really a lot, more that I could expect from most of my average 'real', 'physical' acquaintances.
For my whole life, since I was an 8 years old kid listening to my grandpa's war tales, I was deeply interested in all things military related. It is easy to get a young boy interested  in this kind of stuff - the power, the agency, the feeling of purpose this provides is unmatched by anything else in the world. Of course  when you're still an adolescent, your understanding of what war/ armed conflict means cannot be deep enough. As I was entering my adulthood, even studying military history academically, I grew to hate the very notion of armed conflict and violence. I guess getting the real grasp of what war means to a regular person was too much to me at this point. I retained my interest, but didn't really pursue it apart from theoretical knowledge. Especially, I dodged the last years of draft i Poland - neither me, nor Polish civil society in general was really ready for it in early 2000's. I was living my life happily since then, like if "The End of History" was and undisputed fact of life.
And it really changed with the start of war in Ukraine. I could easily picture myself in the position of average Kyiv or Kharkiv citizen, a guy in his late 30s, with a reasonable career in IT, concentrated on making a living for his wife and young kids, who is suddenly confronted with the need to physically fight for all that is important for him. 
Of course, in this great community we mostly  concentrate of relatively coldly analysing what is going on, trying to get a grasp of events the way a historian narrates the Battle of Kursk - it is of course THE WAY to practically understand the events and be able to draw conclusions. That's how a commander should look at it, putting his feeling aside. This however isn't the only way to talk about war, especially it isn't the only "right" way to do so. 
On a personal or local society level, what this war is is the fight between right and wrong, between liberty and slavery, between good and evil. Of course, if you are a mature individual, you understand that the good and bad are very relative terms, and it's best to avoid such violent situations at all. Yet, it if comes to the conflict like this, for me the only true way to talk about the people on the very front line, in the trenches facing The Enemy, is poetry and epic prose. The cold analysis is of course important to practical understanding of the situation, yet it doesn't do justice to a person giving his or her life for a greater cause. Having said that, I run at a few videos kept very much in the spirit I outlined here:
A music video to Sabaton's 40:1 song, really fitting the evens of the first few weeks of war. We might've forget it already, but the first days were about the grassroots citizen resistance that in many cases stopped the orcs. Videos from February and March are really reminding of what it is all about:
Here's an Azov oath from 2015, it's as powerful as it gets:
And a subtitled Ukrainian anthem:
There's a conclusion to this rant - today I sent a letter to my local Territorial Defense brigade. They are overflowing with volunteers at the moment, but I'll should be able to join in the winter, early next year at the latest.
It's OK, I'll have the time to get used to morning jogs I guess.

This is a translation of that tweet thread?
Lot to unpack here and I am not sure I agree with all of it - for example we have no idea what the Russian losses around Severodonetsk have been, so “minimizing risk for gain” could be way off.
One thing I do not see on the Russian side is an actual strategy.  For example, if the strategic end is to “take the Donbas and declare victory”, what is the Russian plan for the very real possibility that Ukraine won’t let them hold it?  Russian strategy has been and continues to be in this war, entirely in isolation of reality and largely based on hope.
Do they hope Ukraine has had enough and taps out?  Do they somehow figure they can call the Donbas “mother Russia” and go nuclear?  The reality is that it is taking just about everything the Russian have to take very small chunks of ground right now.  I do not think they will be able to actually take the Donbas, Luhansk maybe, but not Donetsk; however, even if they do will they have broken the will of Ukraine to resist?  The West?
The West cannot not allow Russia to gain from this in anyway.  Russia at a min must be economically punished, back to 2014 lines or better and with new internal power structure, one we can actually negotiate with, in place. If we cannot do that the western global order has failed…and China is watching. 
Ukraine has all the hallmarks of a nation that has embraced a war to the point it is now part of their culture.  You do not defeat a nation in this state by taking a few hundred square kilometres of real estate, you would need to break their backs and shatter that unity or completely exhaust them.   So long as the West keeps supporting, Ukraine will keep fighting…and we have reason to keep supporting.  
So back to Russian long game…and we have been over this.  How do they defend what they have taken while Ukraine continues to mobilize and modernize, and they are heading in the opposite direction?  How does Russian defend an extremely long front without enough troops against a very motivated opponent with increasing capability?  Beyond that, how does Russia renormalize to remove sanctions, scare Sweden and Finland away from NATO, get NATO national to not spend trillions on defence and wipe humanities memory of their complete gong show so they can re-emerge as a great power?
Short answer is that they cannot.  At best, the Russian government may convince or cow enough domestic population in order to stay in power and basically get to sit at the same lunch table as North Korea for the next 25 years.  That or we fail and the global order and all it pays for is at risk - and for the record, this is what happens when you let things slide.  We failed in 2014 and here we are, we fail again and what does 2030 look like?

Doctrine is doctrine - but if you want to get into it...
If you look past the tactical vignette the dilemma is the same as it has been for ages; however, how it is delivered is different.  Those "recce dudes" now have eyes in the sky that stretch for kms in all directions and are linked to quick response (and pretty accurate) indirect fire.  So the Russian forces can either stay dispersed and hidden - and have their combat power dislocated and/or static.  Or they concentrate that combat power to manoeuvre, get spotted at much longer ranges and get hammered - Finding beats flanking.
Do that in enough locations across the Russian positions (and indications are that is exactly what the UA was doing - this account sounds very familiar), and now they can because "eyes", and you have attrition across the Russian system, which can (and perhaps did) cause collapse.  It is a form of attrition-to-manoeuvre, as opposed to the other way around, which we have been slavishly adhering to like a religion for years.
Infiltration - even if by UAVs - and attrition is not a "mere nuisance", over time it erodes the physical and moral elements of combat power (upscale it and you can strain the social as well).  Which means more rotations of units to and from the front, which leads to more friction.  
The only way out of the box appears to concentrate your mass to such a ridiculous extent that you overcome the artillery through sheer bloody-mindedness - a Zap Brannigan strategy if there ever was one.  It will gain you a few kms of ground on a narrow front but you will pay dearly for it.  The force ratios the Russian are having to employ to do this are crazy - e.g. Severodonetsk - 900 guns to cover a 30 km frontage is just insane...and that got them to inching.  The old MRD had, by my count, about 216 tubes and was expected to cover off 20 kms ( see: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-3.pdf, pg 4-39, and: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf, pg 5-19).  Even with a second MRD in depth, that is about double the gun density for frontage being employed compared to what the Soviets had planned on to invade West Germany. 
So What?  Well if that is what it takes to create enough mass to attack in a box while staying secure from those "nuisances", then I would say that the combined arms tactics being described are pretty damned effective.

This absolutely, various op eds are working hard to undermine the current US support for the war because of ...well reasons.  Mostly to do whatever damage they can to the current administration. 
Say what you want about the current occupant of the White House.  His handling of the Russian invasion of a European democracy and the unifying of NATO countries to oppose it has absolutely been spot on.  We all know with a certainty how this would have gone had the previous administration been in charge. 

Maybe chuckdyke should be watching this video:
 

Maybe chuckdyke should be watching this video:
 

Ahhh, the internet. Here's a 🍻 for you, Freyberg. And the developers, betatesters,  modders and scenario designers.

Ahhh, the internet. Here's a 🍻 for you, Freyberg. And the developers, betatesters,  modders and scenario designers.

Ahhh, the internet. Here's a 🍻 for you, Freyberg. And the developers, betatesters,  modders and scenario designers.

Ahhh, the internet. Here's a 🍻 for you, Freyberg. And the developers, betatesters,  modders and scenario designers.

Ahhh, the internet. Here's a 🍻 for you, Freyberg. And the developers, betatesters,  modders and scenario designers.

Ahhh, the internet. Here's a 🍻 for you, Freyberg. And the developers, betatesters,  modders and scenario designers.