ArmouredTopHat

Never thought I would see an Tom Clancys End War tank reference here!

 

Some utterly insane CQB fighting between a Bradley and a BTR. A little amazed this kind of close in fighting can still happen with the modern emphasis on range and the plethora of drone recon. While rare I do feel this is why having direct fire capability is still very valuable on the battlefield. 

Some utterly insane CQB fighting between a Bradley and a BTR. A little amazed this kind of close in fighting can still happen with the modern emphasis on range and the plethora of drone recon. While rare I do feel this is why having direct fire capability is still very valuable on the battlefield. 

Some utterly insane CQB fighting between a Bradley and a BTR. A little amazed this kind of close in fighting can still happen with the modern emphasis on range and the plethora of drone recon. While rare I do feel this is why having direct fire capability is still very valuable on the battlefield. 

Yes, a very good point!  It's like russians aren't willing to revolt but they are also quite ready to stand aside if someone else takes out putin

I agree that the regime is more fragile than it seems to casual observation but those weren't oligarchs who were standing aside and letting Prigozhin make his run. They were power brokers amongst the siloviki who tacitly supported the challenge for their own purposes but were also not prepared to see someone like Prigozhin take the reins. He was a catspaw to force a renegotiation of terms between the upper edge of middle management and the CEO's office and nothing more.  
Those who were simply industrialists and/or money men have been eclipsed by those who have a foot in the intelligence world and also have broad experience running sectors of the government and/or economy. The next generation of the Patrushevs, Dyumin, etc are prime examples. Ironically, the greatest buttress of Putin's position at the moment is that they are all terrified of a proper collapse. Wagner entering Moscow could have quite easily triggered an actual popular explosion and in the end, that is the last thing any of them want. Control is all.

Russia's biggest energy company says it'll take it at least 10 years to recover gas sales lost because of the Ukraine war (yahoo.com)
Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy giant, likely won't recoup pre-war gas sales for a decade, research commissioned by the company said.
"The main consequences of sanctions for Gazprom and the energy industry are the contraction of export volumes, which will be restored to their 2020 level no earlier than in 2035," the study said, seen by the Financial Times.
By that year, gas exports to Europe will barely average a third of the volumes sold before 2022, when Moscow invaded Ukraine. Although Europe has long been the primary hub for Russia's gas, the war triggered a wave of retaliatory sanctions, upending trade with the West.
Gazprom was among the suppliers hit hardest by the measures. In early May, the firm disclosed a net loss of $6.9 billion in 2023, marking its first annual decline in over two decades.
The future doesn't look much brighter.
The study predicts that Gazprom's role in Russia's energy sector is fleeting, as the firm's dependence on pipelines will lose ground against liquified natural gas exports. What's more, the company will need considerable state funding to scout out alternative markets for its product.
Hope lies in the development of the Siberia-2 pipeline, a major proposal to connect Russia with China's market.
So far, the pipeline deal is stalled over disagreements about pricing and supply, but even if the project does come online, the added exports won't make up for lost European revenue, as Beijing has been buying Russian gas at a deep discount.
The buildout of pipelines pits Gazprom against another issue: sanctions have cut Russia off from necessary supplies to develop the infrastructure.
The report noted that Gazprom will struggle to increase export capacity if it has no access to western-made turbines, which are necessary to move gas through pipelines.
Developing turbines domestically will take five years and 100 billion rubles, a big undertaking for a firm that's already struggling financially.
Instead, the best solution would be to embrace LNG, diversifying away from pipeline exports and finding buyers beyond China, the study said. That's no easy transition for Gazprom either, as it has no technology to produce LNG at larger capacity.

Well I look at Florida's response to climate change and honestly denial it seems is a pretty human thing to do when you don't want to hear bad news.  Don't look up.

That could be the answer to “why didn’t we do this sooner”.  Biden’s play here appears to be to slowly boils this sh#tty little frog in a quagmire war.  It takes some sang froid to hold onto this strategy while so many people are dying but it looks like it was the plan.  I have been saying that the US and West have owned the escalation ladder since the outset of this thing.  We have far more strategic options in this arena than Russia.  Russia has slowly been compressed as we systematically erode its ability to wage war or force it into dilemma (eg mass mobilization).  My bet is the aim is to find a suitable off ramp and hope Russia takes it.
Now keep in mind the numbers on that graph are small, but IADs are also low density capability.
 

I think the difference there is that Russia is fighting a war, America is not. Russia is running its tank factories on triple shifts. America is not. I imagine if you flipped the circumstances American tank production would skyrocket. (Also America has no real need to actually make many tanks right now, they have so many of the buggers in storage as it is. Production currently is really more just to keep the factory running than anything else) 

This is full scale Russian tank production, its not getting any better without new factories. Its only 'keeping up' because of a cold war inheritance its spending at a frightful pace. The sh*t show element is tied to new weapons development in particular but also the fact it took them a while to even properly get their factories on gear and even then we hear some bizarre reports about how they are still not staffing properly. Peruns video on the Russian defence industry probably does a better job of explaining this better than I can. 
 
 

My take on things is that #1 and #2 were initially far more of consequence in the first year of conflict, especially in the first few months. As things stand now? Its clearly more weighted towards #3, though I would argue there is still plenty of evidence for the Russians doing a lot of questionable things and that Ukraine is still largely outperforming prior expectations in its ability to resist. 

The fact of the matter is, everyone expected Russia to launch its own version of desert storm, at least when it came to ground based capability and to see otherwise was a profound surprise. This stage of the conflict featured limited amount of NATO weaponry for Ukraine (especially high end stuff) while the Russians were entirely fresh with their new BTGs and clearly had at least some well equipped and trained units (VDV for instance) Drones for recon were certainly a thing but it was still very much adhoc, and of course there was nothing close to grenade dropping drones, or FPVs at all. In essence this phase of the war was about as conventionally 'traditional' as any other conflict prior outside of scale.

The Ukrainians were taken by surprise (At least in some areas) which allowed the Russians to make a pretty large scale attack on numerous fronts within the first twenty four hours.

Yet the Russians almost immediately suffered tonnes of horrendous reverses and were making a lot of questionable choices, while the Ukrainians clearly showed a resolve that -no one- was expecting even if it was not all going their own way in some areas. Things like  not having your AD network turned on properly to allow TB-2s to strike your air defence assets as one example of many is clear incompetence and it cannot be framed in another other way. Expecting your opposition to not fight back properly is another good example of how arrogance is a horrible trait for the battlefield and it was punished accordingly. 

As the weeks went by it was clear that something was deeply wrong as initial gains withered, supply columns measured in the dozens of miles were spotted from orbit and dozens upon dozens of videos of destroyed Russian columns appeared. This was a war that Russia should have been perfectly capable of fighting and yet it was not. We got snippets of what was going on as time went on, from Russian unit coordination between BTGs being shockingly poor, to the claim that most soldiers were not even aware they are in Ukraine until they were being shot at. I still remember the pictures showing Russians were relying on cheap Chinese radios instead of the fancy Akveduk systems they were supposed to have. You cannot tell me that Russian incompetence / lack of preparation was not key when Russian officers were struggling to contact their soldiers and having to resort to unsecured mobile phones to do so.

A lot of it I suppose was the propaganda bubble bursting, that the image of the Russian army with its modernisation efforts like Ratnik would be a credible peer adversary to NATO. Certainly the Russians seemed to think so. In reality of course, its clear that severe corruption has been a cancer to a lot of these efforts, and the results were clear just from 2022 how bad it had debilitated the entire force. These corruption issues are not things that go away easily. As Perun said quite well. It is a feature, not a bug. 
 

I think the difference there is that Russia is fighting a war, America is not. Russia is running its tank factories on triple shifts. America is not. I imagine if you flipped the circumstances American tank production would skyrocket. (Also America has no real need to actually make many tanks right now, they have so many of the buggers in storage as it is. Production currently is really more just to keep the factory running than anything else) 

This is full scale Russian tank production, its not getting any better without new factories. Its only 'keeping up' because of a cold war inheritance its spending at a frightful pace. The sh*t show element is tied to new weapons development in particular but also the fact it took them a while to even properly get their factories on gear and even then we hear some bizarre reports about how they are still not staffing properly. Peruns video on the Russian defence industry probably does a better job of explaining this better than I can. 
 
 

There is an "after war" to consider. Sea babies are going to be pretty useless for maritime policing and control (just like drones are going to be pretty useless for COIN).

Entirely agree that mines are certainly the thing that is restricting manoeuvre more than anything currently. Clearly mine ploughs are not enough. Sappers are horrifically exposed in clearing said mines as well which makes the issue only worse. Not even getting to anti-personnel mines which are even more of a hazard, not to mention morally disgusting. 

I feel that UGVs dedicated to mine clearance might be a potential answer, though half the time the issue is not so much the lack of ability to clear mines but being able to do so expediently. 

I did wonder, seeing as we saw Uavs being used to mark mines either visually or from thermal signature. Perhaps there is some application for an air UAV that can at least designate and identify minefields for easier disposal. 

I think its a bit unfair to say we have zero ideas on the subject. We have plenty of PD technology that works against a variety of missile threats, its really not that far out to assume we can design and build a small turret that can track and engage drone threats. Weaponry is a no brainer as well, presumably some sort of shotgun type weapon that would be light and reloadable. At that point you have something that can fit on pretty much any vehicle, UGV or otherwise firing literally some of the cheapest munitions available.

https://www.twz.com/tank-active-protection-systems-could-be-used-shoot-down-drones

I did some digging after the recent discussions and it certainly seems that at least with the Americans there is some serious thought about developing such systems. The linked article is honestly really informative. 




Interesting to note that the Ukrainians make it clear that conventional killers on the battlefield are still heavily prevalent as well. 
 

There is clearly a lot of talk about modifying existing current RWS systems as well. 
 
The article even mentions the idea of APS detection systems being slaved to RWS mountings for drone defence like I mentioned earlier, so clearly some level of thought is being considered to this.

I think its a bit unfair to say we have zero ideas on the subject. We have plenty of PD technology that works against a variety of missile threats, its really not that far out to assume we can design and build a small turret that can track and engage drone threats. Weaponry is a no brainer as well, presumably some sort of shotgun type weapon that would be light and reloadable. At that point you have something that can fit on pretty much any vehicle, UGV or otherwise firing literally some of the cheapest munitions available.

https://www.twz.com/tank-active-protection-systems-could-be-used-shoot-down-drones

I did some digging after the recent discussions and it certainly seems that at least with the Americans there is some serious thought about developing such systems. The linked article is honestly really informative. 




Interesting to note that the Ukrainians make it clear that conventional killers on the battlefield are still heavily prevalent as well. 
 

There is clearly a lot of talk about modifying existing current RWS systems as well. 
 
The article even mentions the idea of APS detection systems being slaved to RWS mountings for drone defence like I mentioned earlier, so clearly some level of thought is being considered to this.

Provided you have the information and can make pragmatic assessments based on reasoning and evidence, even armchair generals can make pretty accurate assessments / conclusions on military operations. We can be overwhelmingly pro Ukraine and still make such balanced assessments regarding both sides military operations provided we scrutinise the AFU in the same we do to the Russians (The Ukrainians can and do make mistakes that have received plenty of criticisms here and elsewhere)  

Saying that something 'failed dismally' without much of anything to back it up is both crude and in this case flies in the face of reality, at least from the information that we have access to.

The fact that the Israelis are able to employ mass armour effectively in a tight, urban environment against opposition that has a fair bit of AT capability (Both home grown and imported) with minimal losses is clearly something significant, especially when we know that traditionally this is an environment that tanks have normally suffered horribly in. (Grozy comes to mind, same level of insurgency against mass armour) How are the systems Hamas use any different from the systems the Russians have when it comes to ATGMs and RPGs?

If we saw masses of burned out Merkava's I would be less certain, but its clear they have pretty dominant so far. 

My argument would be if APS was of dubious value then Israel would not be actively clamouring for as many as they can get their hands on. A decade of them going 'this works well and we want more' seems to be pretty compelling to me and is anything but short term. I seem to recall they were pretty cautious with the system at first. Now they want to equip -every- vehicle with it. All evidence shows that the system has been working and has undoubtedly saved far more in terms of monetary value of potential lost vehicles to the cost of the system as a whole. 

I am not saying its a silver bullet system, but its just another step down the road of a very complex and continuous war between protection and firepower and seems pretty obviously of value. 

Thank you, it honestly means a lot. I for one am enjoying the different perspectives here, even if I have my reservations or disagreements and concerns with some of them. No one is making bad or poorly structured points and I honestly find it refreshing. 

Thank you, it honestly means a lot. I for one am enjoying the different perspectives here, even if I have my reservations or disagreements and concerns with some of them. No one is making bad or poorly structured points and I honestly find it refreshing. 

This is not quite accurate, at least according to official armoured force doctrine of 1942:
Medium tanks.-(a) The primary mission of medium tank units is to assist the attack of the light tank units, chiefly by neutralizing or destroying the hostile antitank weapons. When organized resistance is encountered, especially antitank guns, medium tank units will usually precede the light tank units for this purpose. The use of one or more platoons of medium tanks following the attack of light tank units for supporting fire will frequently be desirable. Tanks so employed, for short periods, should assume turret defilade positions from which they can bring direct fire to bear on hostile antitank weapons as they are found.
(b) Medium tanks also protect the light tanks against the attack of hostile tanks. When the enemy is composed of mechanized troops, a large medium tank component, if available, is held in the reserve.

Tank destroyers meanwhile:
 
Missions.-(a) The mission of the tank destroyer with the armored division is to assist either by offensive or defensive action in the protection of the division against hostile mechanized forces.
(b) The battalion may be used to-
1. Protect a bivouac, assembly area, or rallying point.
2. Guard an exposed flank.
3. Protect the rear of the division.
(c) The battalion may be used as a unit or companies may be attached to armored regiments or combat commands. Except when actually emplaced to protect a bivouac, assembly area, or rallying point, tank destroyer units should be held in mobile reserve, prepared to move promptly to any threatened area.

Straight from armoured force: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/PDFs/FM17-10.PDF

It is probably more accurate to say that tank destroyers battalions were designed to  counter large, concentrated armour actions, while the tanks were designed and required to pretty much fight everything they encountered if needed, but had particular focus on the neutralisation of anti tank assets in turn. 

I really did believe he was going to do something of the sort, just abruptly declare victory in his SMO and push for withdrawal / ceasefire after it was clear things were not exactly going ideally. It would of at least given him a reasonable off ramp he could get to stick domestically while preserving his military. Instead he doubled down and annexed four more Oblasts without even actually controlling any of them fully, including one of the four -capitals- of the oblast itself (which was soon joined by a second with Kherson liberated) 

Any fleeting notion to me that Putin was playing some strange form of 4D chess well and truly died by that point. He really is just riding this sorry train ride until it reaches the wrecked bridge at the end of the railroad. 

Hamas has both domestically produced tandem RPGs and stuff imported, they are by no means defenceless, especially in a city environment with extensive tunnel systems. They even received some Kornets somehow:

 https://www.thecipherbrief.com/a-look-inside-hamass-weapons-arsenal

Hezbollah also have plenty of AT weaponry and the Trophy equipped tanks have gone up against them as well just fine. I am not suggesting that the disparity is anything equal here (its not) as I said before this is very reminiscent of Grozy where poorly armed Chechens went up against entire tank units. They typically had little more than basic RPGs yet were able to devastate tank units. Here the Israelis are clearly enjoying more success. 

From the footage we have, we clearly see Hamas are trying to ambush Merkevas with multiple RPGs. Seeing everything from Rpg-7 to 29s. This is not the most poorly armed group of people I have seen. Some source even state they have some North Korean ATGMs. Its a truly crazy variety of kit but its still dangerous in a city environment. 

You joked about them having an RND department...but actually...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasin_(RPG)

Poignant, graphic and horrific at the same time. Apologies if already posted.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/world/europe/ukraine-destruction.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
(may be pay-walled)

The Thing is Russia could have declared victory, and gotten a pretty good deal in March of 2022. Recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and bunch of small and medium sized stuff. Putin simply did not have the sense to settle for a small win, so he has ground the Russian military to rotting meat paste and rusting scrap metal instead.