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The_MonkeyKing

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Posts posted by The_MonkeyKing

  1. 3rd assault going to "save" Adviivka? To me this is smelling like the unfortunate end of Bakhmut all over again.

    In Finnish military thinking defense is supposed to be flexible and bend, like we saw at the start of the Ukrainian war. No point in "no step back" orders, when the situation is not advantageous in the current positions anymore. Then the ground is returned with a counterattack after the attacker has culminated.

    Image

  2. I see this as Ukraine restructuring and adopting. That is clearly needed in the light of the last years events.

    Change is best done by changing the people on the top. In commercial sector and militaries. In addition in democracy the elected officials cannot be changed outside elections.

  3. 19 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

    What message politically does that send the US? If you won't supply Ukraine to defend your own national interests, we'll reward you by paying you billions of dollars and do it for you?

    Defending Ukraine is in Europe's interests too of course, which is why they are spending money on it.  But for things like artillery shells it is better to invest the money in their own production capacity,  not throwing it at the US as a temporary solution and ignoring the long term one. 

    Particularly true if the US is going to become an unreliable ally that is going to abandon allies because of internal ideological politics.

    There are some key systems that are only available from the USA. Some of these are: HIMARS/M270 munitions, Patrioit intercepters, AMRAAM/AIM-9(airToAir&GroundToAir) ...

    Even if Europe made the decisions to invest in own production it could take a decade and would in many cases make very little sense. Of course it is important for Europe to raise its production capacity and it is already doing it, but there is the transitional period with the long "lead times" and some systems will never be made in Europe. 

    Lets make the hypothetical example that Europe had weapons available 5% of Ukraines needs and USA had 1000% available of Ukraines needs. Would it not make sense for the weapons come from the USA with cost split fairly between Europe and the USA?

  4.  

     

    With the US aid deadlock continuing European countries must start funding US arms for Ukraine.

    It is surprising to me this is not already happening. European countries are moaning about insuffient production capasity and empty stockpiles... How about purchasing the weapons from where there are plenty (USA, Asia...)?

  5. Here are the latest episodes of "The Russia Contingency with Michael Kofman" (paywall)

    A New Strategic Vision for Ukraine, part 1&2

    Mike sat down with his two co-authors, Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Dara Massicot, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The three discussed their recent War on the Rocks article, "Hold, Build, and Strike: A Vision for Rebuilding Ukraine's Advantage in 2024," which was published on Jan. 26, 2024.

    the article: https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/hold-build-and-strike-a-vision-for-rebuilding-ukraines-advantage-in-2024/

  6. https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/on-the-brink-examining-ammo-shortages?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1565454&post_id=141397066&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=22ez99&utm_medium=email

    "For several months, our team avoided discussing publicly internal issues to prevent potential Russian exploitation for propaganda. However, as these problems become increasingly visible and publicly acknowledged, we've chosen to openly discuss them."

    "As Russian forces persist in pressuring Ukrainian troops in Avdiivka, it is becoming evident that the fall of Avdiivka is not a matter of if, but when. "

    "The suggested plan for Ukraine in 2024 is to dig in and construct fortifications to minimize territorial and human losses. Unfortunately, this appears to be the only viable, albeit "forced," plan for Ukraine in 2024 unless substantial foreign aid is received and radical mobilization measures are implemented. While this plan is logical, it is not an ideal option."

    "The problem of adequately staffing military units has existed for a long period. Most individuals have been engaged in combat for nearly two years, undergoing rare and non-systematic, short rotations that are insufficient for a full restoration of their physical and, more importantly, mental well-being."

    "Although Ukraine urgently needs mobilization efforts to not only replace hundreds of thousands of individuals engaged in combat but also to establish new offensive capabilities, multiple problems are undermining these efforts that many media outlets and analysts prefer to avoid discussing."

    "The reputation of certain Ukrainian generals has plummeted to the point where they are now likened to Russian counterparts known for deploying careless frontal assaults. This situation is exacerbated by the lack of accountability for such failures or misguided approaches."

    "Our team has been informed about escalating tension between the Presidential office and the Commander-in-Chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, for over a year, although it has only recently come to public attention."

     

  7. "We want Russia to be faced with a decision by the end of 2024: either they have to sit down at the negotiating table on terms acceptable to Ukraine which means sovereignty and territorial integrity for all of Ukraine, or they will face a stronger Ukraine, which is backed by defense industrial base of the US and Europe. For Russia, this will be a difficult strategic choice."

    US gameplan. Sounds good to me

  8. 3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    I am not saying it is a bad idea to have advisors but they are not going to solve-all.  And you are in fact taking risks by inserting them.  The US/Western major mistakes were 1) trying to turn the UA into a western “mini-me”; that was not what won the battles for Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.  The Ukrainians came up with organic solutions that worked but apparently we did not learn from that and instead tried to make them “fight like us”.  2) I am not sure “how we fight” was ever going to work in the first place.

    So taking a partner force and trying to turn them into something they are not, and that “something” is largely unproven for the environment makes perfect “military sense” that a few advisors are not going to solve.  My advice would have been (and is) - double down on what worked before until it no longer works.

    Exactly. This realization(and many others) would have landed a lot sooner if the West had a better situational picture of what was going on on the ground. And then iterated the strategy accordingly in cooperation with the now better-understood Ukrainian side.

    Here I am referring to the recent Washington Post article.

    3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    You have never worked in defence, have you?  First off we actually do not know the footprint of US advisors on the ground right now.  For all we know each Bde HQ has SOF teams embedded.  I would be very surprised if the US did not already have some embeds in-country.

    Sure, there must be a footprint but telling by the results is not enough and in historical comparison, the scale is smaller by orders of magnitude. 

    Also seemed the intelligence community that has the "boots on the ground" had the better situational understanding. Not the Pentagon that doesn't have its guys on the ground on the scale it is used to with partner forces. Britain has a bigger footprint than US in Ukraine and that is also a small presence

    Here I am referring to the War on the Rocks crews reports; Kofman, Lee 

  9. 1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    What exactly were those US boots going to do?  They were already pushing a Gulf War solution that clearly was not going to work.  US advisors would have simply been pushing that solution forward.  US boots would not be connected to US AirPower so I am not sure how they would have made a difference.  All US boots would have done is likely get in the way and create US casualties as advisors got hit.

    Unless we are talking US fighting boots, which is just a non-starter and if people do not get why after 3000 pages I cannot help them.

    Getting the information flowing, institutionalizing the lessons learned, getting accurate understanding of the situation on the ground.

    Effects: Pentagon would have not have such false hopes for the offensive and it would have been adjusted, NATO training would match the realities of the war especially when done in-country, less friction between west-ukraine officials when the situational picture would match between them.

    Example companies would not even dream about running billion dollar operations abroad without significant boots on the ground.

    For any activity you need a effective feedback loop. We being human it means people of "our" organization being on site and involved directly.

    This became specially critical now that the West wanted to try something new that requested Ukraine to change and adopt significantly in it's tactics and force.

  10. 49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    First of two reports from the Washington Post about what went wrong with the summer counter-offensive.  First one is about higher level problems and differences between US and Ukrainian view points.  The article is very long and paywalled, but here are the top level points they explored:

    Part One:

     

    Part Two:

    Both articles are solid.  There wasn't anything in either that would raise eyebrows here.

    Stepping back and looking at everything, from the preplanning to the end result, I think both the US and Ukraine were correct.  The problem was each had concepts that were in opposition with each other.  It boiled down to the US saying Ukraine needed to strike fast and in one place, Ukraine said it needed more time and had to keep Russian forces elsewhere occupied.  Ukraine said it needed more forces to achieve anything significant, the US said they had what they needed if they concentrated.  US said they had to fire and move, Ukraine said they found moving didn't work without first firing.  Ukraine wanted more ammo than the West could supply, the US said they wouldn't need as much if they concentrated on one place.  Etc. etc.

    Both sides underestimated how difficult the Russian defensive lines would be regardless of how they were attacked.  The US underappreciated the role of drones (attacking and being attacked), Ukraine didn't seem to grasps that F-16s couldn't just be thrown into the battleplan. Etc, etc.

    My takeaway from this is that the big failing of the US and Ukraine was not understanding that both views were simultaneously correct and wrong.  This should have indicated that they needed to come up with a third option (sorry sburke if this makes you shudder!).  Something that both sides could agree was optimized for the situation as both perceived it to be.  Instead, Ukraine went with their strategic concept hoping that the West's training and equipment would make up for various shortcomings and the US reluctantly supported them because they were the ones doing the dying.

    I have NO idea what the "third way" might have been, but I agree with the US' assessment that not trying something would have made things worse.  Russia would have reinforced its defenses even more and been able to reconstitute its offensive power to a far greater extent than it did.

    Ukraine's decision to abandon the initial concept of the counter offensive was wise.  This likely prevented Ukraine from suffering the same fate as the Germans in Kursk 1943.  In both cases the attacker was surprised and humbled by the scope and scale of the defenses, but in the German's case they threw everything they had, the Soviets counter attacked, and the German lines collapsed.  In Ukraine's case, they reconfigured their attack plans, the Russians counter attacked for months without success, and the war grinds on without Ukraine collapsing.

    Steve

    To me this article confirms the biggest single mistake is the absolute "no boots on the ground" approach of the USA. That is something that has huge first and second order effect on pretty much everything.

    This article confirms with all the person friction and differences in the situational picture that both sides were in the dark without even realising it. Interestingly the intelligence community had the better picture this time than the Pentagon.

    The largest "proxy war" in recent history demands the largest in-country liaison officer and monitoring mission in recent history. And no, the couple of CIA guys and British spec-ops do not cut it at all.

    Much of this could have been prevented and rethought with working information flow. The Pentagon did not understand the Russians or the Ukrainians or the nature of warfare there.

  11. 47 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    First of two reports from the Washington Post about what went wrong with the summer counter-offensive.  First one is about higher level problems and differences between US and Ukrainian view points.  The article is very long and paywalled, but here are the top level points they explored:

    Part One:

     

    Part Two:

    Both articles are solid.  There wasn't anything in either that would raise eyebrows here.

    Stepping back and looking at everything, from the preplanning to the end result, I think both the US and Ukraine were correct.  The problem was each had concepts that were in opposition with each other.  It boiled down to the US saying Ukraine needed to strike fast and in one place, Ukraine said it needed more time and had to keep Russian forces elsewhere occupied.  Ukraine said it needed more forces to achieve anything significant, the US said they had what they needed if they concentrated.  US said they had to fire and move, Ukraine said they found moving didn't work without first firing.  Ukraine wanted more ammo than the West could supply, the US said they wouldn't need as much if they concentrated on one place.  Etc. etc.

    Both sides underestimated how difficult the Russian defensive lines would be regardless of how they were attacked.  The US underappreciated the role of drones (attacking and being attacked), Ukraine didn't seem to grasps that F-16s couldn't just be thrown into the battleplan. Etc, etc.

    My takeaway from this is that the big failing of the US and Ukraine was not understanding that both views were simultaneously correct and wrong.  This should have indicated that they needed to come up with a third option (sorry sburke if this makes you shudder!).  Something that both sides could agree was optimized for the situation as both perceived it to be.  Instead, Ukraine went with their strategic concept hoping that the West's training and equipment would make up for various shortcomings and the US reluctantly supported them because they were the ones doing the dying.

    I have NO idea what the "third way" might have been, but I agree with the US' assessment that not trying something would have made things worse.  Russia would have reinforced its defenses even more and been able to reconstitute its offensive power to a far greater extent than it did.

    Ukraine's decision to abandon the initial concept of the counter offensive was wise.  This likely prevented Ukraine from suffering the same fate as the Germans in Kursk 1943.  In both cases the attacker was surprised and humbled by the scope and scale of the defenses, but in the German's case they threw everything they had, the Soviets counter attacked, and the German lines collapsed.  In Ukraine's case, they reconfigured their attack plans, the Russians counter attacked for months without success, and the war grinds on without Ukraine collapsing.

    Steve

    Protip, no paywall if you just register. I think you get like 5 free articles a month 

  12. 34 minutes ago, poesel said:

    How to prepare an artillery position in frozen ground (video from last year):

    and what happens if you don't:

     

     

    A very familiar problem for Finnish artillery that is mostly towed.

    We have special tools and explosives that are used to create the anchoring points for the gun. Fast enough to be comparable to doing it in the summer.

  13. 2 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

    The whole plan of our big counter-offensive was based on a simple thing – Russians see Bradleys, Leopards and they run away. They didn’t, they were well-prepared for us.

    I wonder, what military genius planned this sh...t? I know, that all UKR offensve plans were playing in special computer simalations and HQ staff games with difefrent variants with participation of US and other NATO countries. Is this was their opinion too about "Russians will see western armor and run?" 

    There were cases when we requested artillery support to suppress enemy positions, but were denied because of M109 Paladin’s expensive shells. People died because of this. We also found out that our tankers never fired from Leopards before. They trained on T-72s the whole time and were sent to the south with different tanks.

    Typically for Ukrianian army. Especially with precise ammo usage permission. Now situation became better, because of we probably received many of these shells, baut anyway, to get permission for Excalibur you need in most worse cases an "ok" from brigade's chief of artillery, after he has seen several results of recon flights and personally will be sure this target is worth for sich ammunition and didn't decoy. Also he can refute if will consider this is not priority target battery or battalion has low level of guided shells. Then if a tank will shel-by-shell dismountle our positions, standing in one place about 20-30 minutes he also can reject, saying some sh..t like "this is your problems, ask for Javelins"

     

    I think that article is about what you can expect when you get opinions of a single company co.

  14. https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/some-preliminary-thoughts-on-ukraines-position-in-the-war/

    - The Ukrainian offensive has culminated 

    - The last high-risk attempt to cross the river in Kherson to achieve results.

    - Next year will be a year of static warfare 

    - The coming year will be more difficult than this year. Less resources and the change to balance ongoing military operations and the accumulation of new capacity.

    - It is important how the West commits to strengthening Ukraine's power. War economy and training**

    - It is important what Russia does, hopefully it will continue to attack by force in the same style, and will not start to accumulating new power.

     

    If there is no change in diplomacy and politics, militarily next year will be an intermediate year that will allow for solutions in 2025 onwards

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