Hapless

Sultan Command Vehicle or Samaritan Ambulance. British CVRT variant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_Reconnaissance_(Tracked)

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

I like the thinking, let's keep that up, however - there are issues
Ok, so let's unpack this a bit .
Area.  So a mechanized combat team in the advance over open country has up to a 2km frontage - giver or take.  We then need to extend that bubble to at least 8km, so double the range of the ATGM, so that the next tactical bound is secured, or at least scanned, before the mech force gets there.  So adding that all up we are talking an op box of about 16 sq kms, or in more tactical terms: 16,000,000 sq ms.  Why sq ms?  Well a 2-man ATGM team such as Javelin, takes up about 4 sq m (and I am being generous - but maybe they have quad or buggy for quick get away).  So the game here is to try and spot two humans, with little or zero vehicles that take up a 4 sq m area in an overall area of 16 million sq ms...and sustain it.
Finding.  Finding two humans in cover on the a conventional battlefield is still the third hardest ISR challenge that exists.  Even with TI, which is not designed to find people it is designed to find vehicles, is going to be severely challenged in doing this.  The average human being runs at 36 and change degrees C, which is only about 10 degrees hotter than ambient air in summer in temperate regions.  Then they wear clothes, modern uniforms actually are designed for some of this (https://www.innovationintextiles.com/protective/hohenstein-develops-textiles-for-screening-against-ir-radiation-for-use-in-military-uniforms/).  Next they are trained to stay under tree canopy, or dig into the ground, tall grass etc.  So this is not like those wands at the airport that are going to squawk when they find your keys.  A number of 500m was tossed around for a Tac UAV to be able to spot a human with TI, but I seriously doubt it if that human is half decently trained and equipped.  UAVs are the best bet, but it will not be easy by any stretch.  Those humans on the ATGM-side do not have the same problem as mech is huge, hot and loud - we can see them from space-based now - so this is not an advantageous exercise for the attacker from the get go...tale as old as time. 
Fixing.  The next major problem with the proposal is the role of SF "infiltration" as the lead edge of this screen.  I like where this is going, very hybrid, however: 1) that is a lot of "SF" - in reality decently trained light infantry would fill this role - to cover off all that ground, even doing "spot" close recce.  They are also going to take casualties so they will need medivac and support, Sustaining this is not small but doable.  2) The entire mech force can now move at the speed of "SF Infiltration" which is damned slow compared to mech advances - think walking speed.  So now a mech force which is designed to punch holes and advance quickly to an enemies rear areas to bring the righteous hand of gawd almighty to REMFs is crawling behind light infantry infiltration...kinda defeats the point of mech in the first place.
Finishing.  One big piece missing from the diagrams is indirect fires.   The logic of spotting small ATGM teams and then dropping the sky on them - rinse and repeat, makes sense even if it is at a human crawl.  However, that nasty indirect fire points in two directions.  The logistics train for a 2 man ATGM team hiding on 4 sq ms is pretty modest - like bag of trail mix and some toilet paper, modest.  The logistical train for this proposed hybrid advance mech model is pretty significant, and will also be seen from space.  So unless that SF infiltration extends out past artillery range, the tail of this mech force, the mech force itself, and with HIMARs, the parking garage said mech force was hiding in before it moved out, are going to get lit up and blown all to hell before the ATGM teams stop bird watching and start shooting. 
So we are back at Fog Eating Snow.
Why bring the mech force along at all?  In fact until you completely break an enemy line past the artillery support distance, mech forces would be held back until pre-conditions are met, namely - degrade enemy ISR, degrade indirect fires, collapse logistical system and crack the line.  This is firepower-attrition-to-manoeuvre, not the other way around which is in all our doctrine - [although honestly, I have to ask myself when have we ever actually done that?  We always lead with an air campaign that makes the Valkyries look like a chicken dance.] 
Anyway, SF infiltration, yes...slow but proven one of the few real ways to advance in this war.  Infiltration with all sorts of ISR to find, and then isolate any heavier force concentration - going to be a lot of screening battles, but their sneaky peeky ATGM teams do not matter...cause we didn't bring any "Ts" during this phase.  Instead of WW1 levels of dumb massed fires, back up that infiltration with precision fires to shtomp anything that they can find with accuracy - rinse and repeat, and continue to support with deep strike on anything that even looks high value - particularly C4ISR, EW, Logistics and throw in an airfield or two for the sunbathers.
You project this as a series of tactical undecidings of their operational integrity, until their system starts to collapse.  Here breadth is likely more important than speed.  You project corrosive force along their entire operational system, and when they buckle...then you send in the mech/armor to do the deep stabby work, before they can re-establish a defence line, tempo here will still matter...I think.
It is a theory, at least.  I have no idea if it would work - and it is not without problems of its own.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Oh man I am going to steal that and then sue Hapless for plagiarism later…
This is building on deep-strike as the new form of manoeuvre, and negative decision campaigning.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so.

It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

I think it's time for all the folks who have been focused on land war to read some naval history! In particular, Ian Toll's The Conquering Tide offers an example of exactly the sort of friction projection leading to collapse that you're describing at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. It also details how we build a military that was built around anti-friction capabilities.
At the tactical level: The friction of having to fly their Zeroes down the slot to engage Henderson field meant that a huge fraction of Japanese aviation losses were operational as opposed to combat for the duration of the Solomons campaign. Weather was the real killer. We projected more of that friction on them by degrading airfields further down the slot so that the Japanese would have to engage at long range. We built a system robust against that sort friction by incorporating self-sealing fuel tanks and by aggressively using PBY Catalinas and submarines to rescue downed airmen and return them to flying units.
At the operational level: we ran two offensive operations - the push in the southwest pacific under MacArthur towards Hollandia and Rabaul and the central pacific under Nimitz towards Saipan. This tick-tock operational cadence forced null decisions on the Japanese: the couldn't decide which offensives to mass against and consequently kept their battle fleet in being. That null decision also meant that the Japanese moved their ships around frequently without committing them to battle. More operational losses (and submarines!) and wasted fuel, which they had little of.
At the strategic level: our undersea blockade imposed enormous friction on the whole Japanese war industry - it's better to sink oilers than capital ships because without fuel, capital ships are lovely hotels. The Japanese navy bemoaned this, calling it the Hotel Yamato, because it would be too expensive to have it sortie regularly. Once the 3rd/5th fleet got up and running, that undersea blockade became something like modern deep strike. We could hit anywhere in the Japanese Empire with little warning, and we chose to disrupt their plane production and staging infrastructure regularly. That forced the Japanese to concede lots of territory without fighting for it, and to fight ineffectively and without reinforcement where they did decide to fight.
The whole Pacific Campaign was cumulativist friction projection onto the Japanese until their war machine collapsed into an armed mob. Of course, we could do that because our industrial might allowed us to put together the 3rd/5th fleet, essentially producing two whole additional US Navies during the war.
Here are some stay thoughts:
1. If your strategy is negative-decision focused, how do you maintain home-front morale without decisive battles? Abstract friction is great if you understand it. How do you sell that to people?
2. In WW1, the negative-decision strategy was one of exhaustion. Is there a negative-decision strategy that can win without that? We ultimately did engage in annihilational battles against the Japanese because we badly overmatched them by '44, and it still took a pair of nuclear weapons. Can you win without exhausting your enemy of without the shock and awe of some sort of annihilational capability?
3. What does a modern anti-friction capability look like in a military? What's the equivalent of self-sealing tanks and PBY Catalinas?

Another thing I've been thinking about is the idea of "decisiveness", both during a battle and surrounding a battle. In the ancient world, to use @The_Capt's language, there were two ways to force a positive decision to a war: deliver a siege to the enemy's capital or destroy their army in the field. The defender had a choice whether to fight in the field, and could (in limited ways) degrade opposing LOCs. But ancient wars were decided by a pitched battle or a successful siege. And often by a single one of those things. Ancient societies (with the exception of the Romans, to everyone's consternation) were not capable of regenerating meaningful combat power during a campaign season. So if you win one battle handily or successfully deliver your siege, that normative decides the war.
The theory that you produce a decision all at once with a single blow has continued to be popular into the modern age even though I'd submit that it is no longer possible against anything like a motivated peer combatant. The Japanese were obsessed with it, hence Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Philippine Sea, and Leyte, and the sortie of the Yamato. American commanders broke both ways: Spruance was an avowed cumulativist, and didn't seek to annihilate the Japanese fleet after the Philippine Sea, while Halsey chased the carriers at Leyte. Spruance is, I think well vindicated in no seeking a decision-in-one-action.
Certainly WW1 vindicated the cumulativist approach at the strategic level, WW2 reinforced that, and we're seeing the same thing in Ukraine: Russia's hopes of a single strategically decisive battle failed quickly, because modern forces can force a negative decision more effectively that they could even in WW1. It seems like the question on the table now is whether forcing a positive decision is possible for either side at the operational or tactical levels.
Even at the operational and tactical levels, the ability of the defender to produce negative decisions or undecide things is driven by the size of the bubble of lethality that they can project and how that compares to the bubble of lethality the attacker projects. Again, leaning on naval combat in the Pacific, the Japanese designed ships to decide a tactical battle in a single blow: night fighting with long range torpedoes. The planned operations to decide operational battles in a single blow: the destruction of the USN. They were spectacularly unsuccessful at this, because our carrier air power projected a bubble of lethality (except at night in close waters) that allowed us to refuse battle whenever we wanted.
I think one dynamic we're seeing now is that the undecision modern warfare imposed at the strategic level is now filtering down to the tactical level. I'm not sure how you end a war once that happens?

Ninja'd Looking forward to more of this account though.
I don't think any of it is surprising at this stage, but it does highlight a background issue. For want of a better description, there is a kind of 'zombie' aspect to the Russian army, where they don't really conform to Western expectations.

Perhaps for the troops north of Kherson the fact that they're existing with their logistics practically severed, abandoned by their commanders, scavenging for food, living in unsanitary conditions and slowly succumbing to disease isn't the kind of military disaster that we would envisage... it's just like being back in barracks.

Hiya Folks,
Some of you may remember those of us who put up the Red Army Studies site way back in the '00s or '10s. We had a host of files from the Soviet Military History Journal of the 1980s in pdf format that were on a very very slow server. I decided to make those files available once more by sharing them all through a shared Google folder. Everything within that folder can be viewed by anyone with the link below:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/125aCdAW_f5wXKx9jns5hzSJEN9Be5hVN?usp=sharing
There are also a number of handbooks and regs for both the Soviets and Germans in WWII. May they prove helpful in some capacity.
Best regards,
Grisha

Except the part where Sergie then double crosses you and sells you back to Russian security for another bag of rubbles.  Much better to put a bullet into Sergie's vodka soaked brain and vaporize him when the whole show goes up.
It comes from the observations so far that:
 - The UA is not supposed to have a high trajectory/high speed missile with this range (but might).
- No reports of a cruise missile, which is odd given the daylight nature of the strike.
- No UA aircraft reported.
- Russian fire safety "whoopsie" does not match the numbers or dispersion of craters.
So people are thinking SOF action.  Pretty long shot from where I am sitting, but is it possible?  Sure. 

I feel like the Russian's biggest concern right now is cutting the internet connection to Crimea and getting a barrage battalion to the Kerch bridge to stop all those tourists disappearing into the Motherland with footage.

I feel like the Russian's biggest concern right now is cutting the internet connection to Crimea and getting a barrage battalion to the Kerch bridge to stop all those tourists disappearing into the Motherland with footage.

I feel like the Russian's biggest concern right now is cutting the internet connection to Crimea and getting a barrage battalion to the Kerch bridge to stop all those tourists disappearing into the Motherland with footage.

I feel like the Russian's biggest concern right now is cutting the internet connection to Crimea and getting a barrage battalion to the Kerch bridge to stop all those tourists disappearing into the Motherland with footage.

I feel like the Russian's biggest concern right now is cutting the internet connection to Crimea and getting a barrage battalion to the Kerch bridge to stop all those tourists disappearing into the Motherland with footage.

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.