Doc844

I am actually hoping Belarus just has a nice little rebellion instead. But if they are getting more involved wouldn't it make more sense to use their logistics to reinforce on of the current attacks? Putting more troops in the field just seems idiotic when you can't supply the ones that are already committed. Of course that would be in keeping with the rest of the planning of this war. If the troops being ordered to attack don't rebel, though, right after they are committed would be a great time for the very large opposition in Belarus to kick one off.

Yeah. The local defense brigades in that area haven't had to do any fighting yet, and have had 3 weeks of full-war prep time. The Belarusian troops aren't as well equipped, trained, supported or motivated as the Russians were. Genitals, meet blender.

"Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle (...) If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second."
- Josip Broz Tito

I played a quick battle, with downpour and mud. at Huge rough-water-town map. I was the defender, with a reinforced Ukrainian company. The Russians attacked with a reinforced BTG. But it became too realistic, so it was not fun to play. 2/3 of the Russian vehicles got stuck in the mud.
 
I have a picture from the game, what it looked like.
This is ingame screenshot after 25 min of play

Heard this multiple times here and elsewhere so I think it is time for us to have a Pause talk.  We pretty much know the Russians have pretty much halted operational level offensives and are stalled, that is all over the place and even mainstream media has picked it up.  So the theories on what is happening to the Russian forces now are roughly assembling around 3 possibilities:
- Stopped, cannot start so digging in for a long haul, which will see broad operational defensive operations with limited tactical offensive actions designed to terrorize the population.
- Stopped, will never re-start and are heading towards total collapse.
- Stopped, conducting an operational pause to consolidate/re-org before re-starting the massive offensive to surround major cities and begin the Russian Grind strategy. 
I am going to leave off the first two and focus on that third one.  A military war machine is a really big system built in layers, we do this for both C2/span of control and sustainment reasons.  Normally a modern military will lay itself out in echelons of some shape or size in depth, the Soviets had a really organized system for this, the Wests was a bit more fluid but we all are set up to fight in what are essentially structures waves since the Roman legions (somebody google the opening of the HBO Rome series and you can see it in action).
For arguments sake let's go with the rule of three and say the Russians are setup in three tactical layers (the West kind of does it as well with "2 up, 1 back and the last one as "Reserve", bit more of a pyramid scheme).  The first tactical layer will be given main objectives and then some stretch ones, unless they are using mission-command then it gets a bit more opportunistic, but the concept is the same; whistle blows first wave into the breach. 
That echelon/wave is expected to be able to fight for a certain period of time based on a lot of factors like attrition, distance, logistical consumption; however, the old rule is that in human based systems you can get about 72-96 hours of action (i.e. little to no sleep) before people start to break down ("beware the 5th day" by Moltke (I think)).  So that first wave can theoretically do up to 4 days of intense action before it needs to be relieved by the second wave.  This can change based on conditions but it is important to understand that it can get shorter but not longer because we are still fighting with human beings as the basis of the system.  So no matter how tough the guys might think they are, or how many chin ups they can do, after 4 days without sleep their brains start to shut down (trust me, been there and done it).
Then the second wave is supposed to conduct some sort of passage of lines and process continues for another 72-96, and then the third wave (if you have one).  While the second and third are doing their thing the first wave is supposed to be going through a tactical consolidation which include resupply/reinforcements/replacements and reorganization.  This is also when things like vehicle and weapons systems maintenance happens because vehicles will break down like people.
Now that whole system, which for arguments sake we can call the "operational system" is designed to be able to keep this up for weeks to months.  However after a certain amount of time all the losses and wear & tear start to add up and you need...wait for it...an operational pause.  [Aside: eventually, all these operational pauses add up and you see a strategic pause but that can take much longer].  This pause is basically an entire system overhaul to do all sorts of things that look like refitting a ship.  Replacements, rotations and re-organization of tactical units.  Planning and boring stuff like orders.  A lot of logistical and ISR scene setting for the next phase, and lastly...don't let your opponent know you are doing an operational pause until it is over.  So you will still see tactical action such as feints, tactical offensives but with short small gains - more jabs than actual punches - are often employed to try and make it hard for an opponent to figure out that you are in fact pausing...why?  We will come back to that.
Ok, so how does that apply to the current situation.  Let's accept that this is an operational pause for a moment and the big nasty Russian Bear is just cleaning the blood out of its fur before going back to ravaging Ukrainian bunnies.  Well first off it was not a planned pause, it happened too quickly.  Based on the big maps and overall tempo, it appears like the Russians were really advancing hard for the first 3-4 days.  We did see a likely echelon flip on the next 3-4 days as they pushed depth forward but by about day 10 of this thing everyone was starting to notice that the big red blotches on the map had stopped moving.  So let's give the Russian the benefit of the doubt and say they actually managed to use all three echelons effectively, well what likely did not happen was that 1st wave reloaded while waves 2 and 3 continued.  Remember formations are designed to be able to do this for weeks and out to months if the situation allows. So having the whole operational system come to a stop in 10 days is a very good indication that this was not in the plan.
10 days into this war was 5 March, a week and half ago.  Even the most uninformed journalist (and here I cast a baleful eye at our own CBC because it is harder to find a more uninformed bunch when it comes to warfare) is getting the drift that the Russians are not moving.  Now remember when I said "don't let your opponent know you are pausing"?  The reason for this is that you do not what them to try and grab the operational initiative, it is bad if they do because you are now on the defensive pretty much by definition.  Now if you plan for this, you can do all sorts of clever things like pull you opponent into over reaching etc, not sure I see a masterful design on the Russian side here.  But the UA has shown more offensive actions and c-attacks.  We have all been talking about a big UA operational strike, not sure if it will happen but the Russians are leaving the door open to one because of this pregnant operational pause. 
So to summarize, the Russian operational pause: 1) came much earlier than it should have, why?, 2) has lasted the length of an Old Testament reading in modern warfare timelines, and 3) is handing initiative over to their opponent.
So what?  Well if this is a Russian operational pause (at this rate, and with rumors of those other 40 BTGs it could be strategic) it is not a good one.  The conditions that led to that are very likely really poor pre-planning, ample evidence of that, and systemic failures that happened very quickly.  This speaks to a brittle operational system that they are having to almost re-tool from the ground up.  I have serious doubts that the Russians, who have lost some of their best troops, can come out of this as a new "super-force" able to mass joint effects and cut through the UA in days.  The types of planning and quality organization/preparations, from logistics to C4ISR, that a military force needs to do in order to pull off what the Russians are attempting takes years to prepare and build.
So if this is an operational pause, it is probably a master class in "how not to do this" and I doubt it will solve much for the Russian forces who are now coming up on two weeks of time they have given their opponent to prepare, supply and continue to hit them as they are pausing.

Or they could use their reserve forces to take over the line and redeploy their regular forces elsewhere?
 

There must be more to it than that.
Western Intel must be complementing UKR work, with airborne/space surveillance providing realtime location to UKRVSF command.
Their decapitation strikes have been far above what a Tier 1 v Tier 2 conflict should permit. Basic tactical security for RUS command groups should be able to deal with headhunter attacks. The guys getting killed are dying because they can't escape the kill plan, which itself must therefore be robust enough, layered enough and informed enough identify them, geolocate, rapidly coordinate the kill teams and describe escape routes/options, to quickly hit, trap and kill them.
They're getting hit because UKR has correctly identified C4 as critical to disjointing RUS operations, but they're actually dying consistently due to real time Western ISR.
One or two lucky kills I could see. But this current campaign of nobz-killin is systematic, rigorous, carefully selective and relentlessly successful. Western hallmarks.

Saw this the other day, gave me a chuckle
 

Doc844,

In some ways, Ukraine has practically become a temporary Sixth Eye in the super tight FIVE EYES (US, UK, CA, AU, NZ), with privileged access to Ukraine related ELINT shared among them, together with anything relevant obtained from pro-Ukraine countries in the area, none of which want a visit from the Bear. Ukraine  is operating sophisticated comms and ISR provided by the US.  It's been reported the US has recon sat teams in Poland, so would imagine that Ukrainian authorities are getting some sort of help on that end, too, whether IMINT INTSUMs alone or reduced res imagery and IMINT INTSUMs as well I couldn't say. And there is now a tremendous amount of commercial military grade recon sat imagery available, too.  It helps greatly, too, that the weather has been clear, for it makes it very hard to hide anything of consequence from overhead detection, targeting and destruction. The US has provided this sort of intelligence support before, such as it did to the UK during the Falklands War, though UK is a FIVE EYES member, but remember, that's for ELINT. In the Falklands, the British maps dated back to the 1800s, so it was US IMINT, not just of the Falklands, but the sea around it and the Argentine naval and air bases, that was crucial.

Regards,

John Kettler

Hers a link to uncut version with analysis. 
 

Unverified reports of russia using thermobaric bombs, how will this change the political landscape seeing as how they are against the Geneva convention.  Yes I know russia is not a signatory, but NATO is and I think we may see NATO's stance becoming even firmer with more pro-active action, otherwise how far do we let Putin go.  
 
He said he wouldnt bomb indiscriminately, binned that cause the going got tough, threatened nukes, now just to test the waters again he authorises the use of thermobarics.  At some point NATO has to give him and russian forces a severe bloody nose, enough is enough, no more lines will be crossed.

We had a long seminar on the Ukraine crisis at my Uni today, if they post a video I'll upload it. (not sure, there were tech problems) Mostly it was everything a lot of you guys already know, and to a room of undergraduates. The crowd skewed older, 20-22, but much of the discussion varied from basic questions about historical context to ideologically driven questions about how to 'make the world a better place.' Most of the students had their hearts in the right place and brought some interesting questions. 
Some interesting points that came up: Our resident expert on political economy had a lot to say about sanctions and Russia's future. He suggested that in the short term the Russian economy was heavily insulated from economic shocks. Its war chest was large and sanctions, while bold in concept, were not as extensive as the west makes them out to be. My previous predictions of doom (I believe I compared the Russian economy to Chernobyl) may have been a bit..... enthusiastic. He suggested that between access to Chinese markets, German reluctance to pull the plug on gas, and the watering down of SWIFT sanctions, the situation today isn't as bad as first appears. On SWIFT specifically the prof said that banking sanctions are all or nothing, if even one bank is excluded it will become the breathing tube for the rest of the economy. So long as banks in Russia are willing to play ball, and the west doesn't plug the tube, a single bank can float much of the rest of the system. More troubling in the long run, he suggested that this sanctions regime has probably destroyed the Russian economy for a generation, and a bad generation it will be. He pointed out, correctly, that Russian manufacturing lags behind the rest of Europe. This is because the ruble is artificially overvalued thanks to oil. More people buy oil, more people want rubles, more people want rubles, ruble price goes up. But Russian industry isn't up to the value of the ruble and that blocks foreign investment. What little foreign investment there has just died. China was building a new Jetliner with Russian companies. That will almost certainly die thanks to western sanctions. So will most east-west trade deals with Russian businesses. Companies will still want to make one of deals with Russia (we'll buy x mil bbls of oil at y price) but nobody will make long term deals with a country that is so economically self destructive all the time. The situation that Russia is facing is the same as Venezuela in a way. Tons of economic potential but nobody is willing to make a deal or help them out because of poor policy. The only exception is in Oil (Russia has more mineral wealth of course, but its biggest and most valuable is oil). Several problems with Russian oil. First sanctions will crash the price of Russian oil. Bad but not catastrophic. Second and more catastrophic, Russian oil is extremely expensive per bbl to pump. It and Canadian oil sands (said the professor) are the most expensive to pump in the world. Much of this is down to geography. Russian oil is remote, its really far from its customers, and its in some pretty bad terrain above the Arctic circle. Saudi Oil, on the other hand, is the cheapest /bbl. Third Russia will never pump more oil than it does today, in a broad sense. That is, the world is moving away from petroleum energy just like it did with coal and wood and dung. The single greatest 'sanction' the EU could impose is a law banning gas heating in new construction. And theyd be glad to do it, because its green. Between green energy and green cars and green cities, the world is going to use less and less oil. Russia will be the first to suffer. 
Both the military historian and the Russian historian were pretty set that Ukraine would not last much longer without a fundamental revision in the conflict. The Russian historian was pretty convinced that Putin would not lose power to a popular movement in the short term, though he did note that the last two times regime change came to Russia it was after a failed war. He felt though that this conflict, while embarrassing, was not so bloody or onerous as World War One. More of a risk was the oligarch and military classes. They have less tolerance for failure and economic chaos. Putin, the thought, is more likely to drink polonium tea than he is to be gunned down in a dacha basement. Both also agreed that if the fundamental situation did not change, the Russian bear would eventually squeeze the life out of Ukraine. Though one student did ask a question that went mostly unanswered about parallels to Iraq. Hard to convey exactly what was said, I think that many of you would agree with most of the facts they laid out but some would definitely challenge the tone. Shame @The_Capt wasn't there to ask a more stark question about the possibility of an insurgency. 
RE social media the group also pointed out something everyone should remember, lot of bad videos out there, lot of partial information. Everything we see here in this thread, on Reddit, on Twitter is very biased. Even if the person who filmed it didn't think so, there are strong perspective biases that were getting here. We maybe see 1% of whats really going on. 1% of 1%. Just because I havn't seen T-90s doesn't mean they arnt out there (plsplspls post every T-90 or BMP-3 vid you see, and if you see a wrecked T-14, put that pic in a mail and send it to me!) Just because we see a pattern evolving doesn't mean our analysis is based on good info. I dont mean to poo-poo everything were doing here or what were posting, I just want to throw in a little cold water and put things into perspective. It was a point, to be honest, that hit me close to home. 
We also had a few Ukrainian students come and say a little bit. A former Yugoslavian professor also reminded the room that its all abstract theory and ideology when youre in a classroom in rural Ohio. Its a lot different when its your home, your family, your life on the line. That was a bit of cold water I think. I bring it up just so that we can all take a second to think about the real people, Russian and Ukrainian, who are dying over things were writing pet theories about. For us its info-tainment. For them its life and limb. Respect to those risking life and limb to bring us news and updates.  
If I think of anything else worth mentioning I will, if they post the video link (again, there were tech problems they may not) I will. Mostly though the questions were pretty basic, but from the sense of the student's questions more generally it seemed like most were genuinely curious about the context of the conflict rather than the type whose already decided ahead of time. We also have a good bunch here though. I also have a vague feeling that Zoomers, for better and worse, are very open to new ideas. I dont want this to devolve in to a generational schlacht so Ill stop, I think Elvis barely survived this mornings slap fights. 

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So maybe it's time for some back channel talk with russian generals/opposition leaders, sort of like, hey your army is in the **** in ukraine, your economy is tanking hard, so maybe if you  "remove" Mr Putin from power and begin a phased withdrawal back to your own borders we will reverse the worst sanctions before Mr Mad starts throwing nukes around cause hey we all have grandkids.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

So this thread has been really good for following the WAR in Ukraine and seeing peoples views on tactics and operational options etc.  However I would say that last couple of pages have turned into theological semantic back and forth bulls**t.  He stole my toy first back in 19th century whatever.  These arguments have a time and place but for me not on this thread.  You want to discuss conspiracy theories, who has the moral high ground etc, then open your own thread and have at it, cause if you dont I can see this interesting thread with its wealth of information getting shutdown.  Plus I cant be bothered wading through all that drivel.
 
Thanks in advance.

Russia now saying that if Finland were allowed to join Nato that there would be severe military repercussions.  Is this how the sTory goes, Putin threatens military action to paralyze nato in case ww3 kicks off.  Bit of a rock and a hard place in my opinion.  If nato does nothing putin will grow bolder and ww3 may still happen, probably even more likely.

Russia now saying that if Finland were allowed to join Nato that there would be severe military repercussions.  Is this how the sTory goes, Putin threatens military action to paralyze nato in case ww3 kicks off.  Bit of a rock and a hard place in my opinion.  If nato does nothing putin will grow bolder and ww3 may still happen, probably even more likely.