ikalugin

Well, why is it safer and more efficient? Combat statistics (including modern conflicts) show that not only do most hits occur on turret armour, but also that there is a trend of the increase of probability of a turret hit. Thus ammunition placement in hull is safer than placement of it in a turret. Morever, the move to get everything out of turret means that there is no need for turret to have heavy duty armour protection it would require otherwise. This in turn allows to move all the armour from the turret down into the hull, increasing the armoured protection of hull (where the critical components such as crew and ammo are) per same mass/technology level. Hence due to the new layout (not to mentioned improved armour technology) - Armata is expected to have very strong protection within the safe angles of manuever. The obvious problem with this layout is that the unmaned combat compartment is not as easy accessible by the crew in case of a failure (though as experience shows autoloader rarely fails), it is difficult to provide panoramical purely optical sights (this is not as bad as it may be seen, because most of panoramic scopes are either TV or TI based).

Thanks. On the topic: I agree with BTR that the correct historic comparison would be with the Desert storm of 1991, only without the lengthy build up of Allied forces in theatre. The other historic parallel of current Ukrainian situation would be with the 2nd Chechen war - tactical groups ripped from their parent units, disunity of command, poor logistics and so on. The difference is that unlike in 2nd Chechen war they are (now) going to fight a ready, mechanised force (the numbered brigades of separatists and maybe Russian Armed Forces), rather than (well armed and trained but still infantry heavy) militias.

Yes, I am the same Ikalugin. Unless we see actual verification of this data (ie actual interviews with relatives and so on) I would assume that that report is based entirely on Gruz-200 information, which is not credible. Over all, sadly, a number of Russian organisations (such as Gruz-200 and others) use the alleged losses by Russian Armed Forces and Ukrainian CTO Forces to gather funds for their reburial and (if they were allegedly captured) their return to their homes. As far as I am aware there were no credible reports on success of such operations nor any materials on how those funds were spent, thus leading to a suspicion that those organisations are simple war profiteers. As this topic is entirely political in nature and possibly inflammatory I would try to avoid discussing it any further.

At the moment PRC is de facto Russian ally. Why ask?

Could you please be more specific in your criticism of the Armata layout? (note that the 3d model is only an artist's impression from the open source materials on Armata, not an accurate depiction). I would then try to elevate any doubts about it.

Crew is completely separated from the ammunition, ie they sit in an armoured and well protected capsule, which is separated from the ammunition compartment by a thick bulkhead. This image shows the overall obj 195 layout, which (as far as I know) was kept on the Armata: Yes I am the same old Ikalugin. I am but the third Wargame Forums member that I know of on this forum - Panzerkrautwerfer and BTR were here before me.

Some comments on the topic. I apologise in advance if you find this post too long or somewhat incoherent. First of all, the Russian Armed Forces evolution post 1991 - the short version. Originally Russian Armed Forces derived from the Soviet ones and thus were an army made for a single and one purpose only - to fight a major mechanised war. Thus it was mostly made out of reserve (cadre) units, often with the older equipment internal MDs would be left with. However young Russian Federation could not sustain such Armed Forces, not if there were intended to have a given active component (as a lot of manpower was used up in cadre units), thus leading to transformation of the VDV (and a number of other units) into those elite forces mentioned by the Battlefront (the Admin), they have performed with mixed result in the first Chechen war, in the 080808 war. The 080808 war lead to the expansion of this "elite constant combat readiness" tag onto the entire armed forces, first creating the constant combat readiness brigades, beginning their rearmament (Armed Forces did not receive much of anything prior to the GPV2015). The second part of the reform (happening under Shoigu) is the expansion of those brigades into divisions, large combined arms exercises, ie Russian armed forces never lost the sight of fighting a major (regional on one front) war and have began preparations for such war before the Ukrainian events. A historic parallel could be made with WW2 events - the mechanised corps were disbanded and tnk brigades were formed, which later were expanded into new mechanised and tank corps. Thus talking about Russian Armed Forces being limited to the elite parts (which ones by the way?) is simply wrong in the post 2008 world. A summary of those events (pre Shoigu) written by CAST could be found here: http://www.cast.ru/files/book/NewArmy_sm.pdf Secondly, the build up on Ukrainian border was of demonstrative nature (show of force, a deterrent and so on), and thus is not indicative of Russian capabilities to deploy such forces in that area. If anything Russian exercises some distance from the border have shown the capability to rapidly redeploy forces into the theatre, into the range of possible single leap manuever operations. Ie - Russian forces do not have to sit across the border looking scary to attack, they would attack from some space within the border, from movement, as to preclude identification of the time place and intent of the attack. That much should be obvious to any student of the Soviet (and by the extension Russian) way of war. Thirdly - onto the balance of forces. The factors one must account here are: - shortage of weapons for the Ukrainian loyalists (they loose more than they could repair/produce, and currently the level of equipment is dropping severely as they pull out equipment that was not properly stored, much less properly maintained or upgraded in the past 25 years and send those items to the front line without critical parts such as radios. Unless there is some sort of massive aid to the Ukrainian loyalists they would be fighting on the unreliable (due to bad maintenance) 1970s vintage systems. - shortage of trained men on both sides, the mobilisation you have mentioned would be that of essentially untrained (Ukrainian Armed Forces were hit even worse than Russian ones) or elderly (whose who may remember their Soviet training) men. While the separatist draw on the pool of Russian volunteers (who may have decent training due to the post 2008 reforms) and maintaining their size means that most of their troops would have combat experience and training, the expansion of Ukrainian Armed Forces (the kind you envisioned, though from past experience I would say that the new waves of mobilisation would fail) would lead to the majority of their troops not having anything but most basic training (the kind provided semi accidentally by more experienced troops) and poor morale (being forcefully conscripted out of their houses). - complete dissaray of Ukrainian loyalists chain of command, not only are the troops micro managed from up high (the local sectoral and brigade command has very little authority about what they are doing), there are signs of double command (from the High Command and from the Command of Land Forces - later normally being purely admin body before the ambitions of the man in question took over his sense of duty) and this is Armed Forces alone (ie in reality there are more than 2 authorities in command of forces there, leading to poor operational security and troop command). While one could argue that this overview is based on past experience (as recent as this winter actually) I see there no movement for improvement in the direction of improvement. Thus while the local commanders (battalion and below) may have some form of tactical experience, they have no successful experience of fighting war on the level above battalion, nor do they have experience of fighting a mobile war (those who did were cauldron'ed this summer). - the efforts of Russia to equip and organise the separatist forces into new units (numbered brigades) and into operational level formations (corps) with unity of command on operational axis. While those efforts did meet some friction (recent events with "Batman" illustrate this) overall they are progressing forward, essentially bringing those forces under (essentially) direct Moscow command, eliminating any opposition or competition inside the separatists ranks. Those forces would provide a substantial threat to the Counter Terrorism Operation Forces as they would have superior or equal equipment, high morale (all are volunteers, vs forcibly conscripted Ukrainian troops). - ultimate superiority of Russian Federation in air (both fixed and rotary wing), in operational level firepower (recon-strike complexes, recon-fire complexes, TBMs, anti missile SAMs such as the S300V4 and so on), in C3 (deployment of new command systems post 2008 through out the armed forces, especially above company), intelligence (ability to gain intel from Ukrainian HQs due to poor operational security, ability to locate and intercept unprotected communication means Ukrainian CTO Forces use and so on) and logistics (logistics are centralised, have organic rail road element and so on) and others. As to the operations themselves. The likely scenario on strategic level in my opinion would: - consists of advance on 4 separate operational axis. - be conducted by 4 Combined Arms Armies (that is around 16 combat brigades and divisions), all of VDV troops, most of Specnas forces, the Black Sea Fleet. - be supported by the (nearly) entire Russian Airforce and intelligence gathering means. - be conducted from the posture of an exercise (in south-west of Russia and an exercise with Belarus), of the "readiness check" type, thus precluding any obvious and lengthy build up (which for some reason people assume for both Russian and Soviet scenarios). - be supported by extensive under ground movement in the potentially pro Russian areas, as well as special forces operation. - be supported with the newly formed separatist forces under direct Russian command, within the Russian chain of command (under the Army level HQ, hence corps designation vs army designation). Such preparation would take less time than any extensive aid efforts by the US, weapons would take time to be delivered and more so to be trained with and pushed into service, there is a degree of political drag in decision making, this means that by the time the aid from US reaches the front lines the mobile phase of operation would be over. The effect of the war on public - according to my media acquaintance Russia has essentially mobilised population at the moment, thus allowing for standard 30 percent losses of the first echelon troops (and more). as a p.s. - I think I really should work out this scenario with OOBs and what not. currently I got in contact with hind, I think we may work this one out at some point. p.p.s. "cargo 200" and the owner of that resource - the lady shown above are completely mad and murder poor book characters, football team members and those from the university acceptance lists. I would strongly advise against using their materials as source information.

Ammo is separated from the crew into a sealed compartment within the hull, blow out panels are provided. In general closest US tank project in concept to obj 195 and Armata would be the TTB.

The thread name has the word "strategic" thus those questions should be asked if there is no high level background provided. Not that I don't appreciate the great work he did

You could access artist's depiction of Armata (the tnk version) here, I believe it is reasonably accurate to provide the general idea: http://rosinform.ru/photo/osnovnoy-tank-t-14--na-baze-tyazheloy-unifitsirovannoy-platformy-armata/ The actual vehicle would be accessible to public during the parade rehearsals - as parade vehicles pass through central Moscow for that.

I think further political derailment would be unwelcome. Please refrain from it. (I would try to hold myself together too).

The rule is strategic->operational->tactical. Without knowing that the other routes are covered, that there is an operational mobile reserve (where is it stationed, what kind of strength does it have?) it is difficult (atleast from my perspective) to define any sensible scenario. I would remind you that most of Ukrainian Forces would be down south, either fighting the separatists directly, or positioned to do so, however, again, the specific posture would depend on the over all strategic->operational situation. The idea is to: - enfix. - bypass by mobile grouping/forward detachment (on the way to whatever objective there may be, for example - immediate objective of such detachment could be the Ukrainian artillery). - reduce the enfixed, bypassed and by this point encircled troops (this could take time, but then you get burritos to do the job of cleaning infantry out of cover). For historical reference you could see the reduction of Japanese fortified areas in 1945 or any of the Eastern Front 1944-1945 examples. Well, if you won't discuss the overall picture, then good luck determining authentically the local specifics.

Yes, however I think it would be interesting to pose a diversionary attack against Kiev to force remaining free Ukrainian Forces there (and then attack elsewhere).

Hence why I do not think that NATO (and Russia too actually) would openly participate in that war - the stakes are too high.

Good work. Three questions: - why do Russian Forces attack on that specific operational axis (and do not instantly shift south when meeting resistance, for example down to Sumy-Romny-Kiev). - are there any air assaults or para drops? - why do Russian Forces do not enfix the Ukranian Forces well forward (ie Krolevec) while pushing from up north via the Klimovo-Gorodnya-Chernigov axis? The other obvious question is - why concentrate the main effort against Kiev (and relevant routes towards it) at all, if there are no objectives there?

Well, meanwhile (we wait for the OP to make the summary that he has promised), some of the items Russian Armed Forces is to procure this year (ie in 2015): - 701 AFVs (including but not limited to, for the parade only, 12 BMD4Ms, 12 BTR-MDMs, 12 Kurganets IFVs, 12 Kurganets APCs, 12 Armata MBTs, 12 Armata IFVs, 12 Bumerang APCs). - 1545 automotive vehicles. - 126 fixed wing aircraft. - 88 helicopters. Note - the "parade" vehicles may be already procured and in reality more may exist now and/or by May, as information about the presence comes from the maintenance orders for the "parade" grouping. Sources: http://www.militarynews.ru/story.asp?rid=1&nid=362731 http://zakupki.gov.ru/epz/order/extendedsearch/search.html?sortDirection=false&sortBy=UPDATE_DATE&recordsPerPage=_10&pageNo=1&searchString=Техническому+надзору&placeOfSearch=FZ_44%2CFZ_223&searchType=ORDERS&morphology=false&strictEqual=false&orderPriceCurrencyId=-1&okdpWithSubElements=false&orderStages=AF%2CCA%2CPC%2CPA&headAgencyWithSubElements=false&smallBusinessSubject=I&rnpData=I&executionRequirement=I&penalSystemAdvantage=I&disabilityOrganizationsAdvantage=I&russianGoodsPreferences=I&orderPriceCurrencyId=-1&okvedWithSubElements=false&jointPurchase=false&byRepresentativeCreated=false&selectedMatchingWordPlace223=NOTICE_AND_DOCS&matchingWordPlace94=NOTIFICATIONS&matchingWordPlace44=NOTIFICATIONS&searchAttachedFile=false&changeParameters=true&showLotsInfo=false&customer.code=01731000045&customer.fz94id=727414&customer.title=Министерство+обороны+Российской+Федерации&extendedAttributeSearchCriteria.searchByAttributes=NOTIFICATION&law44.okpd.withSubElements=false

As far as we know this is not Armata, but rather a separate design by Omsk on Armata chassis.

There is a difference between stating a possibility of a regular Russian crew and stating with certainty that not only this was the Russian crew, but that said regular Russian crews were providing a substantial input into the overall separatist war effort in that particular operation. Beyond digiflora on one of the tank crew members I do not see anything else that could be viewed as hinting that the crews were regular Russian (much less proving that or proving the truth of other related statements).

A few points: - you assume that those resources are extensive (and not carried by the units themselves, the depth and the nature of the initial operational leap allows that to happen actually), are not pre positioned (in Belgorod and Kursk) or cannot be pre positioned rapidly and covertly (something Russia and USSR did on a number of occasions in last 40 years). - you assume that Ukraine has a capability to deliver valid missile and air strikes against Russia to preempt such an attack. This notion is simply false, as Ukraine lacks the firepower even for a single saturation attack (count how many combat aircraft and TBMs Ukraine has available), as I have said Russia has a complete air and fire power superiority there.

Raptor, where on the video do you see Russian regulars?

I would add that currently separatist forces are being rebuilt around mechanised OOBs.

Donetsk Airport (as you may have noted) has been attacked mainly by non numbered brigades/corps, thus making the use of that example rather dubious, and comparable to (for example) the inability of Counter Terrorism Operation Forces to take the Saur Mogila heights. Considering that there would be token forces in the area at best, meaning lack of continued defence and lack of substantial mechanised reserves for counter strokes, Russian air and fire, troop command, intelligence and control superiority, enfixing attacks of separatists against the bulk of Counter Terrorism Operation Forces, I do not see anything that would preclude rapid advance, on the post breakthrough WW2 rates (if you are interested I would gladly provide those, as well as the depths of such operations). Morever 250km is not all that deep (by Russian/Soviet terms) - this is completely within a single operational bound. Weeks would be spent consolidating ground, reducing pockets of resistance, installing the pro Russian authorities and so on. The initial advance itself would be rapid (days). Thus while the entire operation could (and most likely would) take time, due to the small depth of the objectives and afore mentioned conditions, the initial advance would be conducted in one leap (with relevant airborne and amphib assaults), which would (most likely) go at a high rate of advance (100+ km/day). p.s. I assume that the war begins in Spring, after the likely offensive by Ukrainian loyalists.

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.