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Hapless

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Posts posted by Hapless

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    Quote
    There is a difference between tactics and strategy: one that decides the fate of civilizations. Western war (the professional kind) is more than a collection of random battles won or lost. This is a thread on how Ukraine squandered it’s best chance to win the war in April 2022
     
    1/ First, some ground rules. I don’t care about your globohomo conspiracy theories. I don’t care who is right or wrong. I don’t care that the illuminati and the lizard people are secretly controlling Zelensky. This is analysis. Do some peyote and tell your dog. They might like it
     
    2/ Secondly, you can disagree with the analysis all you want… that is how analysis works, you are likely wrong, but that’s ok: we are all learning. But “SLAVA UKRAINE FELLA” is not a rebuttal to “the UKR 72nd Mech should have enveloped the Moschun pocket”, you sound dumb.
     
    3/ Third, I’m not saying this would have been easy, or maybe even possible. All war is a gamble, I understand how a UKR army still in the walk phase couldn’t pull this off. Got it. But if you can’t objectively assess a tactical/strategic problem, you NGMI.
     
    4/ Tactics vs Strategy:
    Tactics win battles. Lee was a great tactician. Grant was a great strategist. Grant piled multiple tactics together (blockade, control of the Mississippi, multiple axis of constant advance) into a strategy tailor made to defeat the South.
     
    5/ “LeE wAs THE bETteR GenERAl!!!” Don’t care.
    Strategy is “hey, we are going to island hop across these islands, we are going to cut off their resources, we are going to trade ground X for gain Y”. Strategy is how you intend to win the war.
     
    6/ Sure, some wars are won by great battle tactics (Waterloo), and some wars are lost by thinking too strategically (the Stan). But in order to win a war, you need to sit down and put together a plan of how to get from A to B… how are we going to do this?
     
    7/ What do I have to do? Because once the war starts, it is often too late.
    This is either what Ukraine failed to do, or planned wrong for. Ukraine had/has no hope to defeat Russia on its own in a protracted conflict.
     
    8/ So, like Prussia, Ukraine needed to win early before the arithmetic of attrition became a thing… unless they were counting on direct NATO intervention. Maybe, I dunno. But despite the mewlings of NAFO meme lords, that bet too has failed.
     
    9/ However counting on someone else to die for you is often a bad bet, so lets assume they counted on NATO weapons, but no NATO Wilhelms. Unless they are drinking too much Horilka, they knew they could not withstand a protected war with Russia.
     
    10/ They know Russia better than anyone. I forgive the Western intelligencia projection of “THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE WONT WITHSTAND LARGE LOSS OF LIFE!” because they are silly and ignorant. They wishcast they own weakness onto their opponent and take it as fact. Ukraine knows better.
     
    11/ So what is left to our friends in Kyiv? That’s right, the old Prussian technique of win a big *** decisive battle up front, and then negotiate from a position of strength. Which, they nearly did… but like a nervous DnD gamer on prom night, couldn't close out.
     
    12/ Any analysis begins with understanding your opponent, so lets look at the Russian situation in early 2022: Aka the “Holy **** these dudes suck, we were worried about this dumpster fire?” Days…. but as we saw…. Russia, given enough time and bodies, always gets better.
     
    13/ The Russian Army was a shambles organizationally and logistically. Following a series of defense reforms, they had tried to model their army after the modular US one, and didn’t do a very good job.
     
    14/ From over mechanization of Airborne units, to the abysmal state of readiness, training, and supplies for units at REDCON 1. This was partly due to corruption and incompetence, but also to the ridiculous level of secrecy involved in the planning to invade Ukraine
     
    15/ Many units didn’t even know they were going to war until they started marching south. Many cannibalized as much supplies as they could find, after having lied on their readiness reports, but it wasn't enough.
     
    16/ From the day the Russian Army arrived in their assembly areas and started to rely on their logistics trains to survive, that Army had a shelf life until it collapsed, and they needed to take a capture Kyiv before that arrived.
     
    17/ That was the Russian plan, the same as it has always been. Send in airborne troops to capture a skybridge, and then reinforce and decapitate with ground forces. it is a simple play, and it is a play to win.
     
    18/ To do this they wanted to use the Western Deep Penetration/Thunder Run/Flying Column. Just push progressively smaller units faster until you reached the objective. The US did it in ’03 in Iraq, and it worked for them...? Hold that thought for later.
     
    19/ Unfortunately for Russia this type of war is also the most dependent on logistics, mobility, command, and control: all things they struggle with. So, also like the Prussians, they needed to win quickly before their abysmal logistics situation became a factor.
     
    20/ If Russia takes Kyiv early, they delegitimize the UKR government, they are in a strong position to cut off Western supplies, and they hold every card in the deck. But they had to go fast, because their troops were literally starving for food and their tanks for fuel.
     
    21/ It was a gamble.
    Russia planned to take Kyiv in 24 hours. It is over 2 years into the war, and the closest they ever got was a lost Military Police convoy with giant balls and empty vodka bottles doing their own thunder run. So why did it fail?
     
    22/ Mostly because Ukrainians and Russians are like Hatfields and McCoys, they know each other. UKR knew this play was coming, and set up (with a ton of help) a masterful defense in depth.
     
    23/They constantly relocated air defense assets, they bent but didn’t break, they used natural terrain obstacles and made the best use of tactical choke points. They handed out weapons to civilians. They planned to lose, and then destroy the airfield at Hostomel, and were right.
     
    24/ They also used modern weapons and a fighting spirit (both absent in Iraqis) to blunt more heavily equipped Russian units trying to probe for weakspots. They were like the moneyball A's beating the overpayed, overrated Yankees.
     
    25/ The balls to the wall drive the US executed in 2003 was only successful due to the weakness of the opposition, and the power of the tank over the infantry being at it's zenith.
     
    26/ Had the Republican Guard had the weapons, or a quarter of the fighting spirit the Ukrainians showed, 2003 looks different, but that is a thread for another day.
     
    27/ But in addition to stopping armored columns, the Ukrainians used their technology to fight the kind of war that Deep Penetration fears the most: one on its supply lines.
     
    28/ The Ukrainians blew up dams and flooded rivers, they stretched Russian supplies to the point Russia tried to build an oil pipeline to the front. It was a disaster for the Russians, but the Russian Army pressed on towards victory.
     
    29/ They managed to get some units to the front to reinforce the beleaguered VDV, but the relief column of the entire 35th Combined Arms Army never made it to the front. Their long an infamous convoy was stuck, strung out, and bleeding out.
     
    30/ The tanks and trucks of the Russian main effort bogged down in the marshy, wet, forests of northern Ukraine under constant Ukrainian attack before they could come to the aid of their brothers at the front.
     
    31/ And these were some of the best units in the Russian Army… (no, the Russians did not hold a secret army in reserve, you are a clown). Whomever helped the Ukrainians prepare their tactical response had done a damned good job
     
    32/ So as the Russians that did make it to the outskirts of Kyiv bore down onto the capitol from the North, every kilometer they went made it harder for them to sustain.
     
    33/ The Ukrainians, led by the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, some National Guard nerds from the 112th Brigade, the Georgian Legion and some SOF finally stopped bending at Irpin and Moschun, where they fought the Russian advance to a standstill.
     
    34/ The Russian 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade, 76th Guards Air Assault Division, the 64th Motor Rifle Battalion and some allied Chechans tried desperately and bravely to force a crossing of the Irpin river. But they wore themselves out on Western NLAWs and Ukranian blood.
     
    35/ North East of the capitol, the same scene played out with the Russian 36th Combined Arms Army’s 90th Tank Division and 55th Motorized Rifle Brigade were checked by the Ukrainian 1st Tank Division at Chernihiv.
     
    36/ Ukrainians were doing a NATO Phase 1 in the north, giving up ground and letting the Russians wear themselves down to prepare to counter attack, encircle, and destroy prime Russian units… but they forgot the second part.

    37/ See, the war was raging not just at Kyiv, but in the Donbas, around Kharkiv, and from Crimea. The Russians were pushing everywhere, trying to spread the Ukrainians thin. The best response from Ukraine would have been to trade ground in some areas, at the gain of time and men.
     
    38/ While the most important battle was raging around their capital, the Ukrainians were wasting valuable men and resources on local counter attacks for meaningless ground in places like Milova.

    Is it hard to give up part of our own country temporarily?
     
    39/ Sure… but war’s hard son. But keep in mind, Russia isn’t just going to let you encircle the VDV and a Guards Army and wipe them out… they would take resources from those fronts and try and rescue their trapped units.
     
    40/ This is Newton’s Third Law, OODA Loop stuff… Ukraine’s tactics were brilliant, their strategy terrible.
     
    41/ In March of 2022, a month into the war, the front around Kyiv was a potential disaster for Russia… they had a massive formation running low on literally everything, stalled outside of Kyiv trapped between an impassable river, and the Ukrainian Army.
     
    42/ Every attempt they made to break the stalemate just resulted in more exposed units. North East of Kyiv in Sumy, they had entire formations separated from the main advance, which was itself precariously thin.
     
    43/ This was the decisive point that all Western Warfare since Marathon and Hannibal at Carrhae was based on. They had advanced too far, and now their vulnerable flanks and rear were exposed. Their entire invasion, and the fate of Putin stood in the balance.
     
    44/ Every Western general throughout history was screaming from the grave: “Now! Now is the time, encircle them, cut them off and destroy them!

    45/ But the Ukrainians had no way to envelop and destroy them… so the Russians just… left... they literally took their ball and went home and the Ukrainians watched.

    The Ukrainians had put all their eggs into stopping the Russians, and none into “what do we do when we do?"...

    46/ ..."How do we win?” Would this have secured victory? Maybe, maybe not. Would Russia have pushed on? Probably. But Ukraine needed a big, bold win, and they didn’t get it.
     
    47/ This was it… this was the decisive point of the war. Everything after has been kabuki and math. Simply murder while little is gained. Just whittling each other away while rich men get richer and US and China both watch.

    @dan/california Seen as though I was eyeballing it.

    Having to re-read it to edit this post down only makes it sound crazier.

    1

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    21 minutes ago, White2Golf said:

    My guess is trying to show the difference between strategy and tactics.  I'm just curious what this audience thinks of the analysis, by itself.  

    It kinda looks like he's trying to say that Ukraine can't possibly prevail in a war of attrition against Russia, so they needed a sexy Western-style decisive victory to prevail- specifically the envelopment and annihilation of Russian columns stalled on the way to Kyiv.

    But he also explicitly says that probably wouldn't have delivered victory anyway and now its stalemate.

    So... I dunno. It think at best its not even analysis, at worst its rehashing Russian propaganda points from a different angle.

    1

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    Yeah. There are plenty of possibilities, not all of them false flag and if there's anything Putin has shown himself to not be it's the 4d chessmaster Bond villian we all thought he was before 2022.

    No doubt more details (and 'more details') will come out, but the timing seems awfully convenient.

    1

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    50 minutes ago, Carolus said:

    5.56 and 7.62 are too small for explosive or airburst bullets, but what would a flechette bullet do to a drone? It was in development during the Vietnam era.

    Or maybe these modern dumdum rounds which splitter on impact??

    I don't think a flechette round is going to do anything that your basic 5.56/7.62 isn't- the problem looks more like drones are very difficult to hit, rather than current ammunition doesn't do enough damage.

    It's got me wondering though- how big do jammers need to be to be effective? Could you stick one inside a 40mm grenade with a parachute and bloop them off into the sky a la instant EW barrage balloons?

    4

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted · Edited by Hapless

    [Edit: Ok, I missed that this popped up earlier in thread. But hey, looks like that video got deleted so at least there's a link again.]

    Back to the Tactical problem- this is apparently from a foreign volunteer unit, so plenty of English being spoken. Clearing trenches, kamikaze drones, and at 7:50 some absolute mind-boggling insanity.

    Seriously, that's the craziest thing I think I've seen so far.

    2

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    To chip in on the WW1 front-

    The interplay of tactics on both sides is important. The only reason the Germans could suceed with infiltration tactics in 1918 was because the Allies were reorganising to dispersed defence in depth. Infiltration attacks in 1915-17 would have found no gaps to exploit... hence the Allies doubled down on the scripted set piece.

    And that's to some definition of 'suceed'. There were plenty of German infiltration type attacks in the Spring Offensive that were massacred to no effect.

    But anyway, back to the war in Ukraine... I'm sure we'll see the same dynamic.

    1

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    I think 70km the other side of Belgorod means this is either some very ballsy SF with MANPADS or- more likely- the kind of SAM raid we've already seen a few times.

    Roll a Patriot further forward than normal, light up a juicy target, bug out. Just an exercise in extending threat into areas the Russians think are safe.

    Last week it was a Mainstay, this week it was Il-76.

    4

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    13 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    the Somme was a massive operational level offensive about as well planned and resourced as they come.  Its complete and utter failure was a clear indication that something had fundamentally shifted.

    Complete and utter failure is a bit harsh- the defenders lost 400,000 men and voluntarily abandoned the whole area because they believed it was untenable.

    There's an interesting perspective element here though re the current the conflict- who won the Battle of Sievierodonetsk? The side that got punished the most or the side that was evicted? A pyrrhic victory is still a victory... right? Unless it's the other side.

    1

    How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    Meanwhile, in Russia:

    Assuming this is accurate, the TLDR of fun questions that popped up:

    "When will the war end? When will there be peace in the skies? When will peace talks begin?”

    “Why does your reality differ from ours?”

    “Mr President, when will real Russia stop being different from the one on TV?”

    “Hello, how can I move to the Russia they talk about on Channel One?”

    “Cucumbers 900 roubles/kilo, tomatoes 950 roubles/kilo, lettuce costs 1,500. I won’t even bring up the price of fruit. Give us normal prices!”

    Not great optics, I haven't watched the thing and don't speak Russian (and Galeotti says it's the most boring, vapid thing he's watched for ages), but I assume Putin isn't answering these.

    That might not seem like it matters, Russia functionally being a dictatorship, but Galeotti insists that it matters more. If you upset the people in a democracy, you get voted out in the next election and hop on the gravy train. If you upset the people in a dictatorship... there's the chance you get dragged out of a sewer pipe and executed on the spot.

    1
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