kluge

One of variants - UKR T-64BV with a "basket" for dismounting infantry )

I think properly exploring that question would require modeling...wait for it....infantry riding on top of vehicles

I think properly exploring that question would require modeling...wait for it....infantry riding on top of vehicles

We know what the payload requirement is- one grunt with gear, less knees (350lbs) plus 50% margin (175lbs) so let’s say 525lbs.
Not coincidentally, there are a ****load of heavy lift drones being developed to carry this much (Boeing’s cargo drone, Griff 400). You are looking around 30 minutes max flying time, so realistically 10 minutes of loaded flight before having to fly back.
Now, a winged design would give you more range, which is why I favor it over a pure quadcopter.
Also, think how loud helicopters are. Then think about a bunch of smaller rotors moving faster.

It all depends on the velocity and mass of the fragment when it hits that cast iron block. Cast iron is not particularly resistant to penetration, especially small fragments of a very dense metal that is traveling at a very high velocity after being ejected by the explosive power of a HIMARS. I remember when I used a cast iron fry pan for target practice, set on edge at 100 yards using a 30-06 1956 Czech Mauser K95. I put eight rounds of 30-06 “silver tip” hunting rounds (not even full jacketed) completely through it without knocking it over. Don’t judge by size, judge by impact energy, and cast iron isn’t very resistant to impact energy.

As others have pointed out, there will be holes in EVERYTHING. Not just engine parts.
Holes in your wheels, brake discs, suspension, chassis, fuel system, axel, electronics. Pretty much everything is buggered.
 
There was footage, not long after GMLRS was introduced, of a Russian maintenance and repair dude going over a Ural that was exposed to tungsten rain. And boy, did he have an opinion on his superiors asking him to fix it.

Not going to throw stones, however, this is what happens when one adopts an extreme definition of “winning”.  It has been a problem going way back to last summer.  To even suggest a half measure of victory for Ukraine was to admit defeat…which is simply not true.  
For some, yes even on this board, victory for Ukraine is 1) regaining every inch of the pre-2014 borders, 2) a completely defeated and dismantled Russian state and 3) regional security for Ukraine from now until the end of time.  I can clearly recall this narrative being promoted here and used as justification as to why we need to give the UA every weapon under creation yesterday.
Well 1) how realistic are these criteria given realities of modern warfare?  2) items #2 and #3 on that list are in strategic tension with each other? And 3) so if Ukraine (or the West for that matter) fail to achieve these goals, does that equal Ukrainian defeat?
Grown ups do not talk in terms of absolutes.  They talk in terms of negotiation.  How can Ukraine negotiate the best outcome it can out of this war?  As to victory, Ukraine is already there because the actual core objective of remaining an independent state has been met.  The rest is negotiation; violent and bloody negotiations.
Everyone wants Ukraine to succeed as much as possible but “what winning looks like” is a moving target.  If the UA cannot break the strategic corridor and set conditions for retaking the Crimea then this conflict will likely freeze.  Ok, so what?  How does Ukraine still achieve its strategic objectives if this happens?  

For a different perspective:

If the USA invaded Mexcio to enact regime change and instead suffered a string of embarrassing defeats, lost an aircraft carrier, was forced to rely heavily on Blackwater only for them to attempt a coup and had lost it's military reputation along with international influence, narrative control and huge numbers of men and military hardware...

I don't think anyone would think the US was winning because they were squatting in the northern half of Chihuahua. They've still lost, incurring significant all-spectrum damage in the process.

Of course, Mexico might be unable to regain it's international borders and a frozen conflict might develop... but that isn't going to make the US less crippled and Mexico less undefeated.

Not to provoke anyone with this statement but I currently see Russia winning.
Why? I'm not a Putin troll, I don't believe in the Russian Master Plan™ that has some 1 mio men waiting behind the Ural equipped with T-14 or similar nonsense. I also don't think the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed because they lost a few Leopards and aren't yet on the way to Moscow. (Edit: Oh, and of course, there is no infinite pool of bodies Russia can throw at Ukraine!) I see that the war itself isn't really going well for Russia.
It seems to me, though, yeah weird thought in one of the largest conventional wars of the last decades, that this conflict has become kind of asymmetrical in nature. Because, like in guerilla warfare, currently Russia wins by not losing while Ukraine loses by not winning.
As long as Russia somehow manages to stay in the war they win. And "stay in the war" could even mean Ukraine regained all their territory but the Russian army still remains a threat and there is no formal peace treaty. A smoldering or even a frozen conflict still means no NATO and/or EU membership for Ukraine. It also means no or reduced foreign investments to rebuild Ukraine. And I think (but maybe the experts can chime in) that is enough for the current regime to sell the ongoing war to the general population. Keeping the Nazis out of NATO or something. The part of the Russians that's not just apathetic seems to actually support the war. Sure, hard to tell in Russia but even many "Spätaussiedler" (people from Russia with German roots) who immigrated to Germany and other Russian immigrants here seem to be on board with that way of thinking.
On the other hand, we all think that Western support for Ukraine will eventually shrink especially if we don't see significant progress. There is also the uncertainty of the upcoming US presidential election. So while militarily time is on Ukraines side for now, overall I think Ukraine is running against the clock.
So, anything short of a regime change or a total collapse of the Russian army that makes it absolutely clear that Russia won't be a threat for the next one or two decades has the potential to eventually lead to a Russian "victory". Sure, Putin seems to have lost power but there is no guarantee that a successor would stop the war. We are also seeing cracks in the Russian armed forces but given that we've been speculating on a collapse soon™ for around a year now, that seems a bit too optimistic, too. We have also discussed direct Western interventions and (generally) come to the conclusion that this isn't going to happen for various reasons.
Sorry for this bleak outlook. You may now start throwing stones. Seriously, though, what am I missing?

Now we are talkin fireworks!🎇 

In original text used a word "copters". In Russian and Ukrainian military slang this word is reduced form of "quadcopter, hexacopter, octocopter"  - and means a drone with helicopter-type engine. Helicopter in our slang will be "vertushka" (from Russian word "vertoliot" = "helicopter"), means "pinwheel"

Interesting document - the warning order of 12th July for units, defending positions in 4km north from Robotyne. Now these positions already under control of UKR forces.
On the piece of map you can see minefields marking and fire sectors
 
Commander of 1429th motor-rifle regiment colonel Chernyshov orders:
1. <Covered>... enemy activated offensive actions, inflicts fire effect, ..... main efforts concentrates on....
2 <Covered> .... defense sustainability, reinforcing of discipline, ...., denying of unauthrized withdrawing from combat....[positions]. 
3. Up to 20:00 of 12th of July 2023 with a forces of 4th motor-rifle company (without 2nd platoon) of 2nd motor-rifle battlaion of 1429th MRR, with a group of medical company in interaction with commander of 429th MRR of 19th MRD to substitute 6th motor-rifle company of 2nd motor-rifle battalion of 1429th MRR in occupied area of defense. 
4.  To reinforce the 6th motor-rifle company of 2nd motor-rifle battalion of 1429th MRR with three crews of AGS-17, 3 crews of ATGM, 3 servicemen of sniper company, 3 servicemen of recon company and to the end of day to put at disposal of commander of 70th MRR of 42nd MRD. The area of transferring 6th MRCoy of 2nd MRBn of 1429th MRR is western outskirt of Verbove.
5. Area of defense of 5th MRCoy of 2nd MRBn of 1429th MRR to leave unchaged. 
6. The moving of personnel to conduct in the dark by small groups with in compliance of blackout. 
7. To enter into interaction with units of Rosgvardiya in areas of responsibility of specified units, provide full assistance in functioning of barrier detachments of Rosgvardiya
8. The readiness to executing of tasks from 7:00 of 13th of July 2023 
 
1429th regiment is Territorial Troops unit. Looks like 70th regiment of 42nd division suffered losses or UKR pressure in their section too strong, so Operative Groupment HQ (or even HQ of 42nd division ) ordered comamner of 1429th regiment to send own company at disposal of 70th regiment.    

The primary challenge, as I understand it, with the UA is mobilizing a bunch of civilians and turning them into coherent fighting forces.  So we are really talking Company and below.  Basic stuff like weapons handling and drills.  Fieldcraft and hygiene.  Patrolling, offensive and defensive drills.  In short, “the basics”.  That is an enormous challenge, let alone more advanced stuff like crews for vehicles, specialist and weapons crews.  Above this is stuff like staff at formation level - we normally get people at 15-20 years in their careers before we teach them operational level staff stuff, obviously the UA does not have that time.  
The whole “bottom up initiative” culture is great in a professional force but much harder to manage in a group that were civies 20 mins ago.  In some ways the genius of the Soviet template is that it could churn out millions of troops all dancing to the same tune.  We always tout “initiative” and good ole “gumpshin” but in reality a bunch of inexperienced people doing their own thing under fire is in reality bad.  Military machines work very hard to beat uniformity into people to get them to fight as a unit…in the old days we called it “discipline”.

Obviously targeting civilians is bad and it is a war crime. But civilians are being attacked all over the world - by all sorts of regimes and terror groups - and the west has long decided not to play whac-a-mole with every set of bad guys on the planet. In many cases the best these targeted peoples can hope for from the west is a sternly worded speech in the UN. They're not getting weapons, they're not getting ammo, they're not getting armor, they're not getting planes. But Ukraine is getting all those things and more.
We have to pick our battles. Ukraine is already getting a lot of support from the west. Could it be more? Sure. It could also be an awful lot less. I understand why people wish for more. It is tempting to imagine that just one more delivery or one clean strike would at least reduce civilian casualties, if nothing else. But there is no magic wand. This is war. Lots of people are going to die. It's awful.
Either way, I don't think it's a very constructive conversation. Every time it comes up on this thread we end up with pages of back and forth that don't change anyone's opinions, meanwhile actual war news and analysis gets lost in the mix.

Highly useful. : 
 
https://theins.ru/en/politics/263596

Wagner associated telegram channel released numbers about casualties of the PMC:
totally employed 78.000 fighters, 49.000 of which were convicts and 29.000 were regular mercs 22.000 killed, 40.000 wounded, so ca. 62.000 casualties of 78.000 in total (79,5% casualty rate, 28% death rate) 25.000 are now "alive and healthy", so 16.000 who were never wounded and ca. 9.000 who recovered (so 32% of deployed force still available) 10.000 of those supposedly already in or going to Belarus as per agreement after the mutiny / coup attempt  Convict troops had 90% casualties, so 44.000 either killed or wounded from 49.000, and the rest of the casualties, being 18.000, must have come from the 29.000 mercs (ca. 62% casuality rate mercs only).
Recovery rate returning to service roughly 1 in 4. Deaths to wounded ratio ca. 1:2.
Does not account for troopers who were wounded multiple times, so rates might be lower.
Also I suppose the surviving convicts would get released and reduce the number of PMC members by 5.000, unless they sign up again on their own, so ca. 20.000 PMC members left.
Source is Wagner-related so all regular caveats apply etc.

The question facing military professionals everywhere out of this war are:
- "What is unique to this war?"
- "What is universal to all future wars?"
We had a whole thread going on the General Forum on development of warfare over the 19th century and I believe modern militaries are facing a similar conundrum.
"How would NATO do in this war?"  Well it depends which side we are going to be.  As Ukraine against Russia we would likely have seen a shorter sharper war but the costs would have been a serious shock to the western world. [note: let's not get dragged into another nuclear equation discussion, we can just put that one to the side]  We are talking likely tens of thousands of casualties and a lot of expensive kit lost.  Why?
- Air superiority.  I do not know what this means in a modern context.  A2AD capability is rapidly becoming distributed and highly portable.  We may have been able to gain air superiority over 20,000 feet but below that we would have been taking serious losses as there is not such thing as SEAD for MANPADs basically everywhere.  Modern MANPADs and IADs can operate independently all over the battlefield.  Further they can deny airspaces at much higher altitudes and higher ranges.  Why?  Because while we were stonking Iraq, Libya, Serbia and a bunch of dirt farmers in Afghanistan competing states were taking notes and investing heavily in the tech.  Take away our air supremacy and the western way of warfare is immediately in trouble.  And, shocker, places like Iran really don't like us and do not want to be invaded.
Below 20,000 feet it is the freakin wild west right now.  I do not care how many lasers we strap on every tank, IFV or truck.  I do not care how much EM is pumped into space - birds f#ucked up for the next 20 years.  Unmanned systems are 1) cheap, 2) highly effective and 3) everywhere.  Whether they are doing ISR or strike they have changed the fabric of warfare between about 3 to 20,000 feet...and they are just getting started.  Air superiority below 20,000 feet does not exist as a concept right now.  Hell we lost it below 2000 feet in Iraq to freakin ISIL, who were basically the lowest bar one can get with respect to conventional warfare.   If we were fighting the RA the UAS problem would be extremely costly...as in freakin nations pulling out after losing too many people, costly.  Can anyone imagine if the Taliban got their hands on this tech and started dropping old cluster munitions right on our heads back in the COPs and FOBs?  I slept for weeks about 200m from a 50,000 gallon fuel bladder that was resting under an open sky ...let that sink in.
So what?  Well "wither goest Air Superiority" is one of the biggest questions of this war, and as you can see it is a multi-dimensional one.
- C4ISR.  Russia does not have a world class C4ISR architecture.  But even with what they do have the principle of "making them go dark" to establish C4ISR superiority - far more important in this day and age then any domain superiority - is also in question.  With everything being a sensor hooked into crazy comms and networks - hell with hotspotting everything can be a node in a comms network.  So I am not even sure how to make an opponent go dark anymore (see unmanned).  I am sure we got people working on it but the fact that an even poorly armed opponent can see me tens of kms out makes me nervous.  Worse, they can see my logistics train as well.  The fact they can record all this and stream it all over the planet in real time turns really concerns me.  A half decent opponent would be broadcasting every screw up and horror show, which makes sustainment of national will a big problem.
- PGM.  Artillery, ATGM...insert whatever nightmare comes next.  No one is ready to face this.  I cannot begin to imagine trying to do an obstacle crossing when my opponent can hit me at 3-4kms with an 80% success rate with ATGM.  "Oh that is ok, we have APS"...fantastic, right up until someone comes up with workarounds like sub-munitions or EFP.  And even if we do magically put bubble wrap around ourselves, nothing on earth can stop artillery round that can land directly on my head.  Oh and this is while I am still trying to deal with old stuff like mines, and new stuff like UAS.
All of that  adds up to some very disconcerting calculus.  As in "is combined arms dead as we know it?" type of calculus (someone is going to try and answer this, someone always does...just don't bother.  I do not post my mil quals for some very good reasons but trust me when I say no one has this figured out yet).
Now here is the punchline: this is all if we were fighting Russia.  I, frankly, am far less concerned about fighting Russia - now more than ever.  I am very worried about fighting Ukraine.  If we get stuck on the wrong side of a proxy war and our opponent is armed with C4ISR, PGM and A2AD like Ukraine is right now, we are in very serious trouble. 
"Well we just won't fight those wars."  Ya, that is not how it works.  We don't get to choose the wars we decide to fight, gawd that is a post-Cold War perception that needs to die, and fast.  This is the nightmare scenario and I do not know if you guys have been paying attention but we kinda been doing a lot of expeditionary operations in all sort of places to push the brand.  What happens when Chinese space based ISR start lighting us up?  We wind up in a hybrid fight with the other side armed with HJ-12s?
I do not know.  This is a big reason when [insert talking head] says "Ukraine needs to do this"  "We need to give them that"...and the war will be over in a week.  My advice is to stop listening.  No one in the west has been in a war like this since Korea and the freakin needle has moved miles since Korea.  I say this without hyperbole, we are going to be spending the rest of this century trying to figure this all out as things like UGVs start coming online.  Tell your (grand) kids to get into the sciences of killing because it is a major growth industry.  For now, the best we can do is watch and learn.  Both the UA and RA are feeling their way through a war unlike any we have seen before.   

They've already walloped the Odessa grain terminal and stated that the grain deal is over. Looks like they don't care what the potential purchasers of Ukrainian grain think of them. And now they're declaring unrestricted warfare against traffic into or out of Ukrainian ports... Trying to gain escalation dominance? Hoping to prove that nothing they do will provoke Western escalation? Will they really fire into Turkish-flagged vessels? Maybe they're just reserving the right to board and inspect.
I'm curious what the Russians mean by: (as the article linked above puts it) "...demands for Russian exports had not been honoured." Were some sort of concessions made on Russian exports as part of the grain deal?
The language is odd, since demands are not honoured, commitments are. Demands are acceded to, or permitted or some such, not "honoured". Maybe that's just linguo-cultural translation, or maybe it's indicative of the Kremlin's solipsistic attitude that all of their wants are automatically promises made by other people to fulfill them...
 

That is my point though. I don't think we are. The size of the explosive is only one variable. The shape of the change matters, the point of impact matters and (I think the most important here) the confined or openness of the space matters.
I used to study rail accidents. The same amount of material spilled on the ground and set a lite is spectacular and dangerous. The same amount or, worse, less confined inside a rail car is way way more dangerous and can cause fatal effects much further away. Not just because parts of the rail car can fly multi hundred meters away (record I found was 3000m) but because the explosive effect itself is even bigger. A large energy release in the open is nasty, the same energy release in a confined space is devastating.
The only caveat is I don't have good understanding of the other variables because I'm not an explosive expert but the confined space under that span will have a multiplicative modifier on the effects of the explosion. My guess is that was why that section of the bridge was targeted with this type of munition.

Great general wrap-up of the situation according to Rob Lee, Michael Kofman, Konrad Muzyka "crew"
unroll the tweet(s): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1681240456754077697.html
 

Are you guys really discussing indescriminately shelling civilians in a traffic jam and/or kidnapping children? 
Seriously,  WTF. Is this a Wagner Telegram channel or some ****? 
Get a grip on yourselves. 

So this is the rub.  By saying "Ukraine, no NATO until war is over", we have basically incentivized Russia to drag this war out for as long as possible to achieve on of their key strategic aims - halt NATO encroachment into their Near Abroad.  Of course we are in a dilemma in that if we took Ukraine in now, and they immediately declared an Article 5, we either go to war or the whole freakin scheme falls apart.  So political leadership did what they always do...risk managed, push to the left and choose bad over worse. 
Ukraine could absolutely cut the occupied territories loose and we all redraw the lines of recognized "Ukraine" - they are lines on a map.  Further they could dump the occupied territories on the international community and say "Ok UN, now they are your problem to negotiate with Russia."  As has been mentioned more than once, there are not likely many actual Ukrainians in some of these areas and a whole lot of people who do not see themselves as Ukrainians which is a potential post-war issue.
The biggest reason to not push any of these buttons yet (and yes, this would be a form of diplomatic escalation that we do indeed control) is that we are not sure who is actually in charge in Russia right now.  So trying to assess agendas and calculus is extremely hard.  Maybe those behind the curtain actually know what is going on but sitting in the cheap seats it is become just bizarre.

That thing doesn't look close to the sort of yield needed to shift that span. Troll farm out in force in that comment section too.

So I think we mentioned before that this sort of thing is an indication of stress and strain on the RA military system.  The question remains “how far and deep” does this go?
Militaries are funny things, big collective organisms.  And like any complex collective organism failures can be isolated or cascade into something bigger.  Two thoughts on this:
- Militaries are not symmetric.  We strive for uniformity but every unit is different, every echelon is different.  So we might have units refusing orders for different reasons.  The only thing they can agree on is that “this ain’t working”.  It is a serious thing to disobey orders, an offence under military law.  One can go to jail and in extremis face capital punishment.  So for this phenomenon to be seen widespread is a clear sign that something is not going well with the RA at a genetic level.  Further, the thing about systems is that they are also interdependent.  So we could have an entire battalion that is still raring to win the war but if the supply/transport company says “no way” the thing still falls apart.  So what we are not seeing are the cracks and fissures between RA sub-systems which erode trust and overall effectiveness.  At it worse entire militaries will simply mutiny but I am not sure we are there yet.
- Corporate learning turns into corporate culture.  Some very good lessons on this from Vietnam.  Basically old timers teach how to “dodge and avoid to survive” to newcomers, who then pass on when they become the old timers.  This sort of corporate culturalization is incredibly hard to root out as it tends to take root within informal leadership systems which do not show up on a chain of command diagram.  I suspect that after over a year and half of desperate and high loss warfare the RA has adopted aspect of a survival culture and this is an example of it.  One can fire generals all day once this ting sets in but it won’t make a bit of difference, troops will have elevated shirking and dodging to an art.  Usually the only thing to break this sort of thing is a massive win or loss.  A massive win tends to change the salinity of the social waters, while massive losses get everyone killed and you basically start from scratch - one hopes for that first one.
If verified, this report is way bigger news than that explody bridge.

I wonder why the rail bridge was not targeted