ikalugin
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Posts posted by ikalugin
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1 hour ago, Haiduk said:
Can you prove this "regularity", coming from western intelligence sources? I repeat again - if in the sky of Ukraine armed B-52 and Tornado appeared, simulating stike on Sevastopol, British paratroopers dropped near Crimea and NATO ships maneuvered in Black Sea, then US and UK had too serious reasons to do this and spend money of own taxpayers and weapon resourses. Enough sharp reaction for "retired general statements".
Meanwhile in Crimea despite on some rains and snow, water reservoirs didn't fill again, consumption still too large. Putin actually rejected the project of desalination facility in Crema and said that Crimea can supply itself with own resourses. Local "power" anyway claims that thay will build the facility (hm... for what money and what technology?), but water can be received only up to 2023 (for which cost for population?).
This is information on the mid of December about water level in largest water reservoirs of Crimea. Blue bar is actual level of water, red bar - the "dead" level, which makes normal use impossible. Already now situation is worth - many districts of Simferopol have a dirty water with sharp chemical odor, because water supply company forced to use huge amount of reagents to supress stinky smell of water because of pumps lift the "dead zone" putrescent silt from the bed
Yes, during Zapad-2017 and Kavkaz-2016 there were similar allegations that Russia would attack. They happen every year more or less.
The B52 flights were less related with the situation in Ukraine and more to the Russian nuclear posturing over the situation in Belorussia, specifically Russian Tu160 flights but there were other components to it, such as first time a joint exercise between Iskander units and the nuclear weapon handling units was done publicly, with not-so-subtle signalling, as part of reassuring our Belorussian allies who were pushing the narrative of being under a threat of invasion.Same argument was applied to the bridge. Remember how Russia could never build a bridge into Crimea, with many reasons (ie complex geology) being cited? Yet we did.
Yes, I am aware of it. And guess what, this is not the first time Crimea has issues with availability of basic resources, particularly before the energy bridge was complete there were many electrical outages thanks to some Ukrainian activists who blew the power lines.
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The idea is that artillery commanders (ie battery commander) would go forward with the troops and command his guns from there, acting in part as a spotter.
Operating in a vacuum regiment's or brigade's artillery divizion (battalion) thus has what, 3 battery commanders and one divizion commander (?), so could support 4 manuever units (the divizion commander would be on the direction of main effort). Same applies elsewhere.
Incidentally becuase of this division the actual guns could be organised in various ways, ie centralised into a RAG, where the divizion's chief of staff would be handling the fires or dispersed.
BTG IMO handles well as a simplification/standartisation for the tactically focussed observers.
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6 hours ago, CHEqTRO said:
I am sorry, but I fail to see why that there was not an invasion in september, or now: its of any relevance to this discussion. The initial assestment of "Russia will invade in September" came from an article, and then the discussion moved as to why that invasion was a possibility, as Haiduk explained. The fact that it hasnt come to pass yet doesnt change that possibility.
The fact that Russia has geopolitical interest in Ukraine its easy to all to see, and the possibility that the Russians might try another military adventure into their territory its something that the Ukranians would be wise to prepare for.
I made my argument before, that such headlines get formed regularly and are a scaremongering tactic.
Which is why I am rediculing it now.
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It is late Jan and nothing happened. Where is the invasion?
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2 hours ago, fireship4 said:
I tell you what, I don't envy any BTG commander going up against dug in infantry with Javelins. A full battalion of artillery (18 155mm) tubes is not enough, lacking MLRS, the tanks would have to storm forward or sit back as their spotting won't do, smoke would have to be used liberally, or troops would have to creep foward and be mortared. Company mortars would have to be called in by platoon commanders for the most part, since there is one spotter per battalion.
Fires are normally controlled by forward deployed artillery officers, hence why separate spotters are rare.
In a high intensity war BTG is actually going to be a rare unit, but other mission orientated groupings (ie forward detachment) are going to be more common. So you are likely to expect a battalion sized force on a chosen (by the attacker ofc) axis to have commanding officers from the regimental/brigade/division artillery group with links to their artillery assets.
But hey, BTGs are an easy buzzword term to fetishise, especially if you are only thinking in tactical terms.
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3 to 1 is the norm driven by historical experience and lanchester laws.
That said the ways you achieve 3 to 1 norm (or better) are varied, you could reinforce, you could use a strike or deception measures to reduce the enemy force or... you could reduce attack frontage (concentration of effort), etc.
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It is poorly/lazily researched in general. Examples below:
1) GRU was reformed before 2017 and no longer existed under this name.
2) Those are nominal figures, note the nature of the 2016-2017 change.
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4 hours ago, fireship4 said:
Firstly links which should fit you bill exactly, especially the first one:
"The Russian Way of War" (2016): https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot Spots/Documents/Russia/2017-07-The-Russian-Way-of-War-Grau-Bartles.pdf
"Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook" (2016): https://www.multibriefs.com/briefs/rcaa/Russian_New_Generation_Warfare_Handbook.pdf
"The Tanks of August" a set of essays on the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 (2010): https://css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/publications/publication.html/119867
"'Lessons Learned' from the Russo-Ukrainian War (2015): https://prodev2go.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/rus-ukr-lessons-draft.pdf
"Learning Lessons from the Ukraine Conflict (2019): https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NS-D-10367-Learning-Lessons-from-Ukraine-Conflict-Final.pdf
"Lessons from Russia's Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine" (2017): https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1400/RR1498/RAND_RR1498.pdf
Secondly stuff that might be a little outside it:
"Russia Military Power" (2017): https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military Power Publications/Russia Military Power Report 2017.pdf
"Cyber War in Perspective, Russian Agression Against Ukraine" (2015): https://ccdcoe.org/uploads/2018/10/CyberWarinPerspective_full_book.pdf
"The Bear Went Over the Mountain" (1996), based on "Combat Actions of Soviet Forces in the Republic of Afghanistan" (1991), translated into English with additional commentary, was for internal use by the Russian military/military academia to learn lessons from the war, with information gleaned via interviews of military personell. It might be a useful primer on the problems they were trying to solve as they transitioned into the Russian Federation: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a316729.pdf
"The Other Side of the Mountain" (1996, with thanks to Sgt. Squarehead for the suggestion), companion to the above book told from the Mujahideen perspective, again from direct interview and personal experience: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a376862.pdf
"The Russian Way of War: Post Soviet Adaptations in the Russian Military" (2013): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA599655.pdf
"Russian Forces in the Western Military District (2020, posted in the forums recently by Ikalugin): https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/IOP-2020-U-028759-Final.pdf
"Russia's Military Strategy and Doctrine" (2019): https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Russias-Military-Strategy-and-Doctrine-web.pdf?x30898&x87069
Sadly the quality is, ehem, not uniform. And in some cases it is real sad, ie the DIA paper.
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That sounds like a bad idea.
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Would be nice to see any (all) of those programs reaching massed use.
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Also includes maps, analytics. While I do not agree with all the points made it is a relatively good work.
Link: https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/IOP-2020-U-028759-Final.pdf -
On 12/13/2020 at 12:01 AM, Armorgunner said:
I just bought 3 E-Books. T-72 Standard Tank, T-80 Standard Tank, and T-90 Standard Tank. Anyone know how accurate he is? T-72 M1, I know from first hand, the armour on. And penetration capabilitys of late coldwar era amunition. As I myself was a part in the testing. But thats it! I havent even started to read yet, just want your opinion about Zaloga?
Post 2000 books tend to be decent, good enough for a layman/enthusiast due to the availability of better source base for him to use.
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Well it is December and the Russian massed offensive is somehow is still not happening.
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9 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:
IF Russia is going to attack, then the next 60 days while the U.S. is in a transition period would present a window of opportunity.
After all, Armenia and Azerbaijan just fought a month long war without the ROW much noticing or caring.
A limited offensive that the Russians could argue was part of the ongoing border clashes could potentially work without much Western reaction.
On 11/18/2020 at 11:29 PM, Haiduk said:Meanwhile... In Simferopol water reservoirs only 14-15 % of water left, more critical situation with Ayan water reservoir, which also feeds this city and it outskirts - only 8% of water remained and pumping from it has termianated.
I guess I would return to this problem after the next POTUS gets sworn in.
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It is November, when was this invasion meant to happen?
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On 11/4/2020 at 6:28 AM, Erwin said:
Interesting article. But until I read the byline date I thought it was written ten years ago. The article focuses mostly on the Russian threat and barely mentions the current Chinese efforts to grab the entire South China Sea all the way down to Indonesia and worryingly close to Australia.
Last I looked, Russia has the GDP of California or Texas and is merely a regional power. China has aggressive militaristic aspirations globally and is an economic rival to the US. China was expected to overtake the US in 2019 (until the US got its economy moving and started confronting the Chinese).
As a result, I read this article with the sense it is selling a world view that minimizes the China global threat.
The economy argument is poor, as it as a rule uses nominal GDP statistic, which, due to the weak ruble, does not represent the real size of Russian economy accurately. Same applies to military spending figures, CNA published a paper to that end, after they adjusted for PPP and imports Russia had ~1/4 of US spending (and greater than any of the Europeans), China had ~3/4.
As to the regionality of Russian power - due to the Russian geographic position we have either direct influences in many of the key regions (Arctic, Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, Far East) and some indirect influence elsewhere (ie Russian operations in South America and Africa).
So while Russia is not the deamon behind all world ills (we don't have the capacity or will to be that) it is still globally relevant, if weaker power.
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https://warontherocks.com/2020/11/getting-the-fait-accompli-problem-right-in-u-s-strategy/
Interesting article by Kofman.
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A
1 hour ago, Erwin said:Good to see the tactics of advance (around the 3 minute mark) - but note how many units they have on a large "map". In the CM games one rarely sees that many units. That's why I doubt that RL tactics work in the CM game. Scenarios rarely provide players with the quantity to make the RL Russian tactics work.
At that bit they are moving towards loading area into the helicopters. The assumption would be that this movement is being done in the rear so to speak.
The 31st Air Assault Brigade was using airlifts to enable the larger force to conduct counter strokes, from what I remember.
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A cheesy documentary by Zvezda. Some neat footage though. -
For detailed day to day coverage of Kavkaz-2020 I would suggest following this author:
https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/tag/kavkaz-2020/
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2 hours ago, Haiduk said:
Todays US/UK activity spotted not only over Ukraine, but also near Balarus and Georgia.
Russia moved to Belarus additional forces of VDV for maneuvers - BTG in 900 men crossed the border recently. While three B-52H were busy over Ukraine, the forth approached to Belarus borders or Kaliningrad oblast of Russia from the Poland airspace, simulated launches and turned back
Over Georgia US jet CL-600 Artemis not only passed along the Russia border, but entered in airspace over occupied Abkhazia (the Abkhazia-Georgia border is marked by bright red line)
Cold war 2.0
Considering early Russian posturing around the Belorussian crisis it concerns me significantly more than the Kavkaz-2020/Crimea story.
For context this was the first time 12th GUMO has been seen exercising together with Iskander units, amongst other things (ie the Tu160 flights)
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On 9/21/2020 at 3:20 PM, Haiduk said:
Crimean experts say the peninsula have the reserve of water about to December when current limits of supply will keep and wasn't significant rains. If Russia couldn't open the canal with diplomacy, they will do it with a weapon. Else water defficite will hit Russian military and industry too. This can happen in this year or in the next. We must be on alert.
Or this is a part of a scaremongering campaign that happens every year and with every exercise. Remember the times where the land bridge was being justified with the impossibility of building a normal bridge into Crimea? Or by impossibility to supplying the peninsular with electric power?
Incidentally the parts of Crimea with the most Russian interest (tourism, military) are the ones in the southern coastal area and not the central/northern Tatar populated plains most affected by water shortages.
But I would suggest that we avoid really going to deep here as this may, ehem, turn political, so we can agree to disagree.
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On 9/14/2020 at 8:47 PM, Haiduk said:
US B-52s from this time will be fly in Ukrainian airspace permanently like a means of deterring of Russian agression on southern direction - UKR AirForces Command today said.
Three B-52H took off from the airbase in UK, entered in Ukrainian airspace, passed near Kyiv and turned to the Crimea direction. Ukrainian Su-27 fighters escorted them. After some maneuvers, B-52 refueled from three KC-135 over Black Sea. Per two RAF R.1 Sentiel and C-130J also conducted support mission along Crimea coast.
It is more likely to be related to Russian posturing due to the Belorussian crisis. It is now happening in mutual cycles.
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Russian arms topic revived... :)
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
T90M arrive to a combat unit in Western MD.