Kinophile

Wierd quoted wrong post

I should clarify that I don't see the Western strategic approaches being inherently better than Ukraine's current process at those levels. I emphasize and highlight the NATO level training up of Ukraines office corp as a strategic advantage because their institutional mass improvement and deeper professional development is the direct opposite of Russias current process. If we're talking how smart mass precision beats dumb mass hand-over-fist I'd argue that it's not just in the realm of technology and hardware but also in mindset. As we can see, an institution where exploiting smart mass precision is in the cultural bedrock will adapt to and explore future technologies far quicker and more easily than one that does not have that culture. That is exactly what is happening right now on the battlefield, but the unique amplifier for the ZSU is the external factor of NATO and its massive technological and intellectual depth. By contrast, the Russian MoD has no one else to turn to for intellectual development, and probably has no interest in that very idea. The chauvinistic mentality is a roadblock to deeper exploration of new concepts and strange technologies. So while AFRF is crawling towards a modern FORCE concept, the ZSU is getting into NATOs battlewagon and uber-ing off. NATO is not some font of wisdom or amazing perfection - but it comes from two continents wort of advanced technology and deep military exploration and professionalism. Russia has nothing like that to draw on for it to adapt to this future war. The AFRF is going to keep making the same fundamental mistakes because it has no one else to offer alternative ideas, it has no interest in outside teachings above tech transfer and it politically incapable of accepting the idea e that it is wrong.

This is what I've also read,and has been noted by Haiduk et al. Notably: 16/17 In the areas where these mistakes were avoided, units performed greatly. While the Ukrainian army improved a lot, it's not always possible to turn a colonel or a general with 30 years of soviet-style experience into a NATO-like commander by performing a 3-month course. This might be explain why when I look at videos of UKR officers in Western training I see relatively few over 30s. They seem to be sending the newer, "fresher" minds to NATO for early and clean training in Western approaches, the older guys are already engaged at the front and why try to train an old dog in new tricks? After those Western trained officers hit the front line this late spring/summer they will disperse throughout the force, supplanting the older Btt level cadre and accelerating the transformation of the ZSU. Wagner et al will doubtless adapt, but the Russian MoD simply won't. There's nothing in the intellectual bank except tactical variations. This is all we've seen. The higher level RUS command are still making the exact same mistakes as D1. The current offensive is shaping up very like their other assaults - too many disparate axis that disperse their schwerpunkt with incoherent coordination and loss of pressure at critical points. They consistently plan big but think small, dreaming up large scale encirclments then jumping from local opportuniy to opportunity to grind forward by map inches. It seems the Soviet mindset is embedded like a tick in the AFRF, and for that the ZSU should be grateful as it is their one true and immutable strategic advantage. The ZSU corrosive, resilient strategy functions at all three levels and expands its own effects as it progresses. The approach requires an entirely different mentality to the Soviet Wow, which is why we see inconsistencies in UKR successes (due to existing officers not "getting it") but also why we see steadily building successes in particular veins as newer officers push into positions of effect. Unfortunately it implies that this year will be a builder year for 2024, when the ZSU will have purged, lost or moved on enough of the old mindset to truly transform at a operational level.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/leopard-2-ukrainian-crew-fired-its-first-shot/ UKR crews training hard

Hey, one is about to waste away into the nothingness they came from and mercifully the other is now half zombie in his face and can't sing. It's getting even better up here every day!

Caaaannnnaaadddaaaa..... Caaaaannnaaadaaa...heed her siren call...

It's perfect. We can have fun with its various Iterations,contractions, expansions, alterations, verbability, etc

Ohh. Ohh I like this word. Compression of Cannonade (salvo of cannd blasting) and Buffoon(ery)?

While RUS is further grinding down its "elite" (read, above AFRF average training with good equipment) units in strategically useless (but operationally useful) assaults on Bahkmut, the ZSU is building fresh Line units with excellent training and superb equipment into a strategically critical operational reserve. One force is throwing a lot of its best infantry into a meat grinder, the other army is forming the core of a new model army. Six months from now Bahkmut won't matter and will have no effect on the course of the war, while six months from now the ZSU will be in full swing of NATOization of its fighting units, indeed its entire operational posture and formatting. RUS Army is fighting for short term gain. UKR is holding off that gain while building for long term quality.

For the non-Mil here (such as myself), these observations from a relative in the British Army: The fella fighting was going through a mag every couple of seconds. They all need to be reloaded. The grens are shipped in two parts, fuse and body and they have to be married almost immediately beforehand. The RPG warhead has to be fused, and married to the motor. The frightened bloke did well to keep at it. He came out to fire at one point, but fighting bloke told [him] to get back in. There is enough work in that intensity to take half a section* out just maintaining the fire. In a platoon the Reserve is constantly rebombing the mags and sending them forward. That pit was held because of the sheer amount of suppressing fire that bloke laid down, and it was only possible with the support from the frightened guy. [The Shooter] has been in that position for weeks, but I’m surprised he didn’t have a firing ledge cut into to get better visibility. You’d wonder at the BMP crew. They just ate a RPG, and second one, and didn’t return fire into the position. Might have been too close to depress their cannon. Yeah, milchat is laughing at ‘most engagements are at up to 300m’ yeah chew on 30m.... So the comments I've seen (not here) mocking the second guy are just sheer, stupid amateur ignorance. In a fight everyone plays a part and not everyone is a hero every time. Artillery explosion overpressure waves and constant combat (and the threat of combat) do awful things to the human brain. The bravest man can be steadily reduced to a nervous cat with enough concussive impacts. The "scared" guy could just as easily be the hero next time. Or not, but who knows - unless you're in the fox hole and you're him or his shooter buddy. No one else knows. Any commentary beyond that is just talking uninformed ****e. *In the BA a Platoon is made of Sections. In the US they're called squads or teams (I believe? ).

Not really. There's often analogies to WW1 here (I've made them myself) but that's more about the broader tactical situation of using infantry:mech at a late WW1 ratio. Extended and close-in Trench warfare was a totally WW2 thing also, and onwards.

Ohhh I get it! The RU Air Force is gonna start acting like...an Air force! Kwatz, the Ukies will never see THIS dastardly trick coming! *shakes head in astonished admiration* Those clever, clever clever Ivans...

If this war lasts another two years,, expect to start seeing experimental DE AD... https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2Zyb20tdGhlLWNyb3dzLW5lc3Q/episode/MzEzNDZlY2QtMTgyOS00NjVlLTg3NTgtMGQ1YzViZWYzNjA2?ep=14 ... And definitely in the war after this.

So We're now almost at the point where Putin has expended the equivalent of his original invasion force (150K, effectives). He has achieved and retained just one of his original objectives, the land bridge to Crimea. Everything else has been an outright failure or lost to Ukrainian counter attack. The current offensive, even if early stages, shows no signs of being any better conceived, organized, equipped or commanded and if anything is significantly degraded in all those fields (or worse, solidified, in the case of Leadership with the originator of the invasion plan now in charge of the actual fighting). I'm not writing off the Russian Army (I'm very wary of optimistic hand-wavery) but if this year's plan is More Of The Same Only ****tier then if Ukraine can hold Bakhmut it will reverberate through to next year.

So east of Greenwich is +US/-EU, West of Greenwich is -US/+EU

Selfish Stupidity gets you pretty far, as an occam's razor approach....

By industrializing the mistake? You can sue or physically arrest a doctor, or take away their licence. A true AI (not today's semi smart algorithms dressed up as "AI") will represent too massive a financial & political investment and be too complex a system of systems to remove it from the healthcare sector. So you can only hope that the base design follows sound ethical and medical principles. I shudder to think what a Chinese Gov, or gawd, Russian/ Saudi Arabian healthcare AI would be like...

Bakhmut holds, and is getting reinforced. Western worries about Bahknut being a manpower trap are not thinking like Ukrainians (duh). Zaluzhny seems to feel that grinding the RUS army to a standstill is the primary shaping condition before any counter attack. That takes manpower and inevitably, losses. If they can both hold Bahkmut and throw back the encircling horns then they have a real chance at at a local morale and command failure in the RUS army. Time that with a Zaporizhia assault and they can more easily protect the Eastern flank of that push to the Azov.

Thanks! Interestingly, with WW1 the transformative technologies were already very mature in physical firm, with the tactical applications "simply" refining the lethality. With WW2 the final true nature of tanks (rapid long range maneuver) was revealed and if anything, helped load the button to go, as everyone had a sense of what was possible and also had realised that the first side to properly exploit those possibilities could gain an overwhelming advantage extremely early. A possibly war winning one, as the Fall of France showed. The war had to be fought to see how it would be fought. This was the black curse of the Spanish Civil War - it was long enough, intense enough and varied enough in terrain/theatres to pre-explore almost all the major technologies and military ideas of WW2. A local civil war that touched the lives of people all over the world. So I fear the long arm of this current Russian Invasion will touch far more than just Ukraine, and coupled with the slow avalanche of climate change will leave its bloody fingerprints on everything for the next fifty years, inaugurating a long period of gradually intensifing and spreading violent chaos. There will be no more Declarations of War, only justifying press conferences after the already-in-motion facts of invasion, destruction, occupation and subjugation. Happy ****ing Valentine's Day, everyone!

Btw, if we're use WW1 as a reference frame (and I don't disagree with this) the Russo Ukrainian War is more like the 1st or 2nd Balkan Wars. No alliance lock-ins, no actionable security commitments. The major current alliance is defensive and requires voting, so that's a welcome brake on automatic collective suicide. It's the time after this war that will make states lock themselves into alliances for perceived security, one's that are more definitively aggressive in consequences if activated. Tbh, this timeframe now is more a wierd blend of pre-WW1 (the imperialistic mindset in Russia, China is alive and kicking) and pre-WW2 (western fear of war's damage gives hostiles the wrong idea). This makes sense in that our current time did not just pop into existence, the modern political structure is a twisted outgrowth of the 20th century's rivalries, ideologies, pressures and security conflicts. Of course, these had their own roots in the 19th century, and so ad infinitum...

But it does stand to my earlier note that once the seal is broken, the [Bradleys] will flow. I'd say there's a few more SeaLift ships loading or inbound with extra vehicles past the nominal replacement numbers...

@JonS "naturalization"...?

I suspect that the tank saga will go the way if Gepards, AAs, Caesars etc. Remember when they got, what 4 Gepard and that was A Big Deal? Once the seal is broken (done) and tanks start arriving (not yet but soon) the arms supply conveyor belt will shift into gear. This means contracts, future revenues, yearly margins will all be affected, ie increased. That will add lubrication to the provision process (steadily more tanks arriving) and conversely friction to cancelling the effort. For me, I don't care so deeply about tanks per se. It's more that they're almost yhe final hurdle - almost everything else is relatively lightweight (relatively) but tanks are the heaviest and most serious ground component. Once that link is made and the Tanks Flow a lot of linked economics become hard change. That will then help make other things, like F16 or whatever more possible and likely.

The thread is about Ukraine and the war, and the game, specifically how the game both echoes and misses the reality as it turned out in the current situation. How many war games get their hypothesis tested out in real life? The thread serves the function of concentrating lessons learned and note worthy data from real life. It's scattershot in its data collation and presentation, often off topic but does generally stay the course. Almost every single thread in the CMBS subforum is about the game; surely we can leave one thread for the actual war the game was built to explore?

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-13-2023 Ah, ISW, love your style.