Interesting report from Russian volunteer who fought in LNR in the winter

[Krater]

The author was in charge of communications platoon for the LNR "August" battalion, participated in the fighting during the fall and winter.  As he fought around Lugansk, he has relatively little to say about Debaltsevo, except to note that his impression is that DNR forces are better organized then LNR forces.  The main points he makes are:

 

1) The expansion of DNR/LNR forces during fall and winter has resulted in critical dilution of combat-experiences personnel by new recruits.  The local recruits are motivated primarily by having a chance to get a steady paycheck.  Their interest in fighting, as such, is minimal and they are prone to quitting.

 

2) Decision to combine separate battalions into brigades and corps has introduced an extra level of supervision, without providing it with experienced staff officers.  In practice, brigade HQs are useless and are acting as logistics distribution points. Individual battle groups are commanded straight from "Corps" level.

 

3) The issues mentioned above has led to heavy casualties during the offensive.

 

4) Russia is supplying DNR/LNR with AFVs, IFVs, APCs etc. however the spares and tools needed to keep the equipment running are consistently very scarce. Same is true of the radio equipment. That leads to very low servicability levels and issues with C&C.

 

5) He has not seen Russian army formations being currently deployed, however he acknowledges that such formations were deployed during the summer.

http://kenigtiger.livejournal.com/1555492.html

[Apocal]

I read that and laughed pretty hard at "Indiana Jones and the Fuel Filters."

 

Anyway, a nice RUSRUS)) on another forum translated it, I'll get his translation and, if he's coll with it, paste it over since machine-translation sucks pretty damned bad and the guy is legitimately funny in some parts.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Apocal

[Apocal]

Thanks to Crueldwarf for translating this and allowing to cross-post it:

 

Part 1:

I was there, in Sanzharovka and Debaltsevo, I fought on the side of Lugansk People's Republic in battalion "August". This is not a compilation of texts from internets or eyewitness accounts. I saw all of this by my own eyes.

And another point. Citizens who wish to tell me that I'm an ukrop (Crueldwarf commentary: deragotory term for ukrainians, literally "dill") spy and by writing this I harming the common cause - get lost. I do not reveal any military secrets unknown to the enemy in this text. If anyone want to tell me that I'm an alarmist and "all is lost" kind of guy - you're welcome to join me in my next trip to Novorossia and see all of this with your own eyes.

Also I will answer right away to the claims like "by writing this you will scare off future volunteers from Russia and they will not go to war". If the truth is so scary for them - they have no need to go. Let them work in Russia helping the soldiers at the front materially. Because if such guy come to us, we will teach him, expend our time and resources at him and when the **** will inevitably hit the fan he will run away. The end result? Time and resources spent in wain.

I write this text because I want to win this war with mininal loss of life. I realized that I must write this text right after I returned from Novorossia and found a wave of victorious rambings in the internets accompanied with totally innapropritate mood of false triumph...

Two articles (Turning point and Victory) of Vlad Shurigin also played their part. Level of triumph in them growed considerably and obviously. He started with "command was forced to implement non-standart solutions to create reserves for troops fighting around Debaltsevo. Servicemen from rear and staff units were used to create consolidated companies which reinforced attacking force" in first article and finished with "Novorossian command did not commit all the reserves" in the second. (Indeed, my military historian comrades, it was a "non-standart solution". He will probably invent a bicycle next). But our political officer comrades really must to define the official version of the events at last. What happened? Either we had a victorious march without need for comitting reserves or we had a dire need to use our support personell as frontline troops. What was especially infuriating is author's desire to paint systemic failures of Novorossian command as "some drawbacks" and to use enlisted personell and junior officers as the scrapegoats for them. This is a classic mistake for which generations of soldiers pay with their lives.

Epigraphs:

"Every leutenant is Napoleon. Every ensign is Prince of Savoy and no one left to actually fight.."
© "There were two comrades in arms", soviet movie about Civil War.

"Examination of captured equipment of invincible ukrainian army led to general confusion... Frankly, I sincerly believed before that there was no possibility that the mess larger and more ****ed than russian military can exist. Now I can tell with sincerity: it is possible! If condition of all other units is similar to what we have here I do not understand why we stopped at Crimean ishtmus. Automative battalion have 130 wheeld vehicles but only 9 is more or less intact. And we still were forced to tow three of them during 50 km march.

Only commander UAZ jeep and field kitchen were fully operational. We have data that it is the same all way to the north from Perekop and Chongar (Crueldwarf commentary: aka mainland Ukraine).

However, all stuff (even irrecoverably damaged ones) was neatly painted. They had plenty of rare antique stuff from 60-70, especially in communication department. Afgan-era hand held radios still kept in warehouse caused a tear of emotion"
© Strelkov account about one ukrainian unit in Crimea.

"A miracle happened, mother! A squadron was found which is worse than ours" © attributed to count Alexey Orlov, reporting to empress Catherine II about victory at Chesma.

Instead of prologue for a better understanding.

When I read phrases like "NAF did not commit any reserves" which are wandering from one creative of political officer (Crueldwarf commentary: political officer - политрук - is used here not as literal political officer but as a term for a generic propagandist) to opuses of another, I remember the night near Debaltsevo railroad and two BMP - one BMP-2 of ours, last operational IFV of our battalion and attached BMP-1 from neighbour brigade. We were less than company. About 30 of dismounted tankers from our battalion and 30 more volunteers freshly from Lugansk military comissariat, who were given their first rifles before my own eyes only yesterday. Shooting exercises? Training? **** no. People who raised their hand on the question: "who served in the military?" were appointed as platoon and squad commanders. It was all.

Senior commander who accompanied us to the front, showed us the way, told us the codename of battlegroup commader and added: "Identification is a green flare. But I do not have a flare gun or flares for you"

We did not have a single PKM machineguns in our band. Not a single underbarrel grenade launcher. "Mukhas" (RPG-18 disposable AT launcher//CD) were of my age and only 1 of 3 was in working condition on average. On the next day we moved through positions of "Ghost" brigade and reached ukrainian lines, we saw the bodies of another similar consolidated company before them. The only difference was that they were former artillerymen. And they were killed not by scary polish mercenaries or hellish american marines but by simple ukrainian soldiers under command of agronomist.

And try to tell me about uncommitted reserves after this.

Main failure point and consequences.

Main system problem of creation of NAF was that firstly all was done by worst standarts of the worst times of Soviet Army and secondly all was done like the fighting would start in the next year or even a year after that.

At the beginiing someone sent the militia a new OOB for motor rifle brigades under corps structure with various support formations. Take your place, they say. All anarchists with their leaders were put into orders and a new people were recruited for the empty spots. If anyone disagreed - they were left without "voentorg" (aka military equipment from Russia//CD). Mozgovoy (commander of the "Ghost" brigade and one of the more prominent rebel warlords//CD) disagreed and he was right in the end.

Someone also decided that more stuff is better. Especially when it is more of tanks and artillery. Voentorg casted his powerful magick and NAF acquired plenty of tanks and artillery. And it was like noone really thought that 100 or 200 of tanks without proper logistic train have very little combat value. Also they forgot for some reason that the artillery without good communication and properly trained officers and observers is more dangerous for their own units.

And there was time to do all of this in the smart way. There was a way to establish proper chain of command. Firstly they had to establish a policy "you don't follow orders - you do not get ammo and stuff from Voentorg" for the warlords. They had to appoint more sane warlords in command positions over parts of the front and each battlegroup must have a few representatives to watch for the exectution of orders and about usage of stuff from "center". Repair and training facilites had to be deployed in rear areas. There had to be a possibility to company/battalion commanders to recruit and train their own personel in such facilities. Warlord have a tank crew? He send in to the facility for evaluation and training and recieve a fully functional tank with spare parts and ****. And spare parts for this tank must be available on call to this facility.

People with a duty to think for 5-10 turns in the future did not think even for 2-3. No one thought that it is impossible to create brigade level command structure in a few months. No one thought about amounts of spare parts, diesel fuel and ammo required for a training of a single brigade. OOB of brigades were filled by various "anarchists" from the front and empty spots were filled by freshly recruited people. No one prepared new people for combat. As the result - horrendous losses in the first days of fighting and mass desertion and resignations after. Some people have written reports with words such "no one is fighting like that" and others just have left without a word.

Losses of 3rd Brigade near Uglegorsk were heavy. Casualties mostly from green recruits who happened to go into their first and last battle. About 300 of ours against 1000 of theirs. Vicious fighting far worse than anything at the infamous airport.

This is a not my words but words of Zhenya Kryzhyn from DPR. And some people think that there is less chaos in DPR. Hundreds of our soldiers fallen not only near Uglegorsk but in fighting for Redkodub and Chernoukhino. Huge and uncontrollable mob with was recruited during the days of ceasefire was very quickly shrank to the level manageble by existing command structure. It is very quickly became clear that the brigade headquarters and separate battalions were unable to effectively control the battle groups at the front. Consolidated battlegroup was formed on the base and was controlled during battle directly from corps-level HQ. There was no reason to translate orders through lower-level HQs because it was only a delay. The sole practical function of low-level HQs was attempts to bring fuel, spare parts and more people to the frontline.

As I can understand no one in command was able to understand the consequences of creation of actually paid military in country without real workplaces. It is natural that the ranks were filled by people who only desired to sit the war out and recieve a pay and ration for it. Fight? Why we will go into combat? And if we have an AFV we will not drive it. It will broke down at the most important moment. The result? A very little effect from large number of vehicles manned by people who had no desire to fight. Shurigin wrote about this in a very vaguely:

"Significant number of people enlisted in september - october period had no other motivation for serivce except receiving material incentives because of acute shortage of work in the region. And after hostilites restarted many of such people deserted. This suggests that there was no proper selection of volunteers and officers werent engaged in the process of motivation of their soldiers properly".

What can I say? It was a very smart move from command in such condition to suspend the pay for militamen until "Capture of Debaltsevo". "You will waste yourselves right after recieving the payment". Of course the men were much honored by such faith into people by our high command and reacted by another wave of resignations. The effectiveness of others whose families were at home without a penny declined sharply. For me it was a very unpleasant experience when I was forced to quote captain Bragado from famous movie to my soldiers. One of these soldiers had a pregnant wife without money at home and because of hunger and weakened immunity she cathed some disease as the result. For me it was a lot easier - I do not smoke and do not have dependants.

It shows that everybody understand beforehand how it would end. No validation of new recruits was possible under such time constraints... And that ultimately killed the most motivated recruits and unmotivated fled, leaving the army without needed numbers to cover the front and spreading news about "bloody massacre" and "cannon fodder attitude of the command" and "they want to kill us all to keep our pay for themselves". No one ****ing care. You can always cobble together some consolidated companies from support personell and valuable specialists which were so hard to acquire and train. And of course to send them into massacre. Here we are training these guys for three months to shoot accurately from howitzers. Let's use them as an infantry unit to assault the city! The result is very much predictable. But we also have some dismounted tankers! Let's throw them into the city too!

Do you want harsh truth not from my mouth? Read this account of DPR medic. Neglible effect from huge amount of AFVs without spare parts. Tanks in condition of "very scary looking tractor" which means that even "Utes" (a machine gun on turret) isn't operable. Technical maintance? What technical maintance? And Shurigin is again very vague about this:

"Similar problems were revealed in mechanized units. Tank crews received initial experience of driving and shooting but not fully mastered entrusted vehicles and had little experience in its repair. Which often led to unnecessary abandonment of equipment with only minimal damage. In addition, the crews did not have the proper experience of acting as units, which significantly reduced the efficiency of these units and led to a large unjustified losses in people and material."

Well, it is the easiest way to write off everything on the poorly trained crews. Who would gladly ****ing trained for necessary experience if they had at least some spare parts. I'm not saying terrible words "it is normal to check equipment before transferring it to the troops." Ok, what was given, it was given. Well, let us to have at least some parts to fix it. People waited for weeks, months to repair their stuff. Hunted for parts on their own, looted the burned tanks in an attempt to find some rare part. You was able to shoot an action adventure "Indiana Jones and fuel filters" without any the cost of makeup and scenery in LPR militia.

Needless to say that I saw the first Technical description and instruction manual on any armored vehicle in the headquarters in the middle of the offensive? Prior to that, and before the arrival of volunteer instructors only source of sacred knowledge aboutcombat vehicles inner workings were pdf files which I found and printed in hundreds of sheets while printer was still operational.

In the end uncontrollably large brigades and battalions that had OOBs of dozens of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, mostly in unoperable conditions were split into combat groups of 20-200 people, each with several armored vehicles and controlled directly to the commander in chief. When all four of operational tanks were sent into Debaltsevo after us, commander in chief of Lugansk People Militia personally assigned them to assault teams. And you must know how many tanks must be in a battalion? If you do not - ask the internets. At the end of the operation we had 10% of operational vehicles with crews who still wanted to fight. After Debaltsevo was captured some of these crews resigned with words "**** this circus".

The same result can be achieved with more reasonable approach which I described earlier. But we would have lost fewer people, we would have an experienced reserves BUT... someone wanted a neat OOBs and shoulder straps with shiny stars, orderly formations three times in a day, checkboxes in the reports and other ****ing useless things. Instead of reasonable "you did not follow the orders - you do not recieve a fuel and ammo" principle they preferred a mountains of paperwork. They tried to create an army on soviet template which required several years at least. And they ****ing knew that they did not have these years.

Just if someone does not know that. HQ planned to encircle Debaltsevo in three days. Three days were also allocated to clear the cauldron. The degree of isolation from reality in high command was immense. They apparently thought that they had fully equipped and trained Russian Army corps under command.

Okay, let's now be sad about particular sectors...

 

 

Part 2:

Logistics

DPR medic which account i linked in text above is a very clever man. He guessed correctly that a road pointer "First aid post" on the way to his dislocation is really good idea. But for the higher ups this idea was apparently obscure. I will not even speak about german or US experience in the matter, they are our enemies, so we ****ing cannot allow copying them (this is sarcasm //CD) . But at least we could remember ours ancestors experience with various road-pointers "Medical unit", "Sidorov's household", etc? Could we install roadsigns on crossroads and intersections with brigade symbols and numbers for battalions/companies? Or at least write callsigns of the commanders on them? **** this ****, it would be to easy! Let brigade quartermaster with ammunition supply will look for a his own tanks on the broken road at night. And may he be saved by commander of communication squad of separate mechanized battalion who was also seeking for his unit on foot but found quartermaster's tanks by sound when they started their diesel engines.

On the whole, lower ranked people on the frontline (leutenants and so) apparently preferred the easier way than their own command. Signs like "August" or "Crab" appeared on the fences of abandoned houses when soldiers stopped by a few days. But in rear areas, drivers were able to sarcastically answer to the order to take something somewhere "will you show the way, yeah?"

No one at the top was ready for a real war, it is clear. No one thought about how people will act on the frontline in a real combat. For example no one even attempted to train reserve crews for IFVs from their motor riflemen. Many people at the top had combat experience, they understood that soldiers will be delivered to the frontlines only by IFVs and APCs because threat of enemy artillery and only at night because these IFVs and APCs would be used in attacks against enemy positions during the day. A vehicle could work for 24/7, but people require rest. I do not even speak about shower of laundry - this is all burgeoise luxuries. I speak about eating normally and not in the driver's seat and sleeping not in the freezing BTR which cannot be heated because there is no diesel fuel for that.

And about diesel fuel. Do you ever saw process of refuelling a whole tank battalion by buckets? No, do you ever heard it in all glory of russian speaking language? Yes, first proper fuel tanker we saw when we were already in Debaltsevo. But this is technical maintance stuff.

Technical maintance

People who wrote to me privatly about PTTs for tank phones with phrases like: "Why do you cling to such insignificant technical details? It was all good as the whole! Die erste kolonne marschiert? Die zweite kolonne marschiert? Marschiert. So what the **** is wrong with you, boy? Calm down!" So how can I explain anything to such people? You see, a proper modern war is a single one continous technical detail. One continous detail without respite even for Kalashnikov because even a newly fresh AK right from the box must be cleaned from grease with something and properly lubricated before firing. You want to be calm because "kolonne marschiert" overall? You need to be born in another century. And even not in the XX.

Logistics and proper technical support are the first steps to create an army from anarchistic bands. But of course, we did not start with this steps. Instead of checking equipment before sending it in the units, everything from batteries to talkies to tanks was sent "as is". As a result, I have absolutely not a surprise that we had one tank towing cable in whole battalion. Yes, for a whole battalion. Right before combat. And there was no spare to be sent.

Tank spare parts and tool sets? You know, I had an idea of a very cruel sneer. To ask a question to our tankers during a formation: "Comrades, please make sure that your tank have a emergency 3-meters wire antenna". And watch how many wires they will found. Density of artillery fire was so great that antennes were cut off by shrapnel regularly. I found one in Sanjarovka but it wasn't from one of our tanks.

We promised spare parts boxes with head sets and PTTs most importantly. Commander-in-chief promised it by himself before formation of our tankers and many of them are no longer alive. It happened in the beginning of january. I left in the end of feburary right after end of fighting from Debaltsevo. No toolsets, no spare parts, no PTTs. There was no single one specialist in tank intercoms in whole Lugansk People's Militia. I would understand if we had new tanks. But most of our tanks were of my age at least. And tank without an intercom, a radio is a deathtrap for a crew in modern combat. We saw it in our first attack when our tank blindly drow into "ukrops" positions and was disabled. Infantry saw it but wasn't able to communicate - the tank radio was unoperational.

My chairborne comrades, when you start to discuss how much UAF have tanks and how much we have tanks., please understand that tank by itself have no real combat value. It only have a combat value when firstly it have all the stuff operational - a cannon, a machineguns, gunsights, chassis, intercom and radio. Secondly it must have trained and motivated crew. Wherein even if this crew is very motivated but cannot hear or communicate with the commader on the intercom than the tank is not ready for combat. It is not ready for a march on the clear road by the way. It is an armored bunker at best. Or do you want an example of a ****ing circus? How can you lose a several trained tank drives in the winter without a combat? Just send them into training march when it is 15 degrees below freezing point with wind and blizzard. Guys will have a pneumonia in no time and extensive ramblings from the command about protective headgear for drivers will not help. Because there is no such gear available and tanks will not participate in fighting because drivers are in hospital.

Therefore all speeches about "they have 150 and we have 200" have no connection to reality altogether. You need to know actual combat readiness state and spare parts availability. Let's see another quote from DPR medic account:

Necessary forms to ensure the material needs of military medicine are extremely inadequate, or rather non-existant: transport and communication are absent (we must have a 15 medical MTLB amongst our brigades but only by heroical efforts we managed to repair 4 or 5 vehicles. All of them were damaged in combat or were disabled because lack of spare parts. Wheeled transport was in same condition), there is no spare parts and no funds to acquire them.

So OOB have 15 vehicles but only 4-5 operational before fighting starts. And zero operational vehicles when the fighting ends. It is great, isn't it? We were doing fine with our 5 operational tanks. Or we were rather lucky.

Communication is another matter to be very sad about. It is possible to complete the history of our efforts to create a working technical maintance system with one story: do you remember when I saw first "technical description and instruction manual" for AFV? Yep. But I never saw a catalogue of units and spare parts. For any of our vehicles. All paperwork was done but most important. It is impossible to create proper logistics without such book for every single vehicle type in every unit. You cannot support a two ****ing army corps without ability to order the spare parts by alphanumeric codes. Did they not know about it? I doubt it. Were the books were at least scanned?

I am writing all of this now and recall DPR soldier A., a volunteer from St. Petersburg, during collection of captured equipment in september. He ran around broken vehicles from ukrainian column and screamed to the soldiers "take headsets with wires from all vehicles!".
He knew something...

Infantry.

As I said earlier,the brigades were mostly created by incorportaing of existing units into paper OOBs sent from above. Recruitment for empty positions was also on brigade level. There was not a single one exercise even on battalion level. Not a single "battalion" was ever formed in one place, given the task and sent to сarry it out. Brigades, corps...

As the result and as I said earlier after huge losses of new recruits in the beginning of the operation all the work was done by recon units and assault teams of veterans of summer and autumn battles. All paper OOBs were discarded and only things that left were HQ of Lugansk People Militia corps commander at the one side and these assault teams on the other. While they gnawed enemy fortification with support of a few operational tanks and IFVs, conveyor for creation of consolidated companies from random people was at work in the rear areas. Exhausted commander stood before irregular line of soldiers in "flora" camouflage. He spoke not too eloquent speech that there is no war without struggle and losses and people who often did not have even basic firearm training were sent to the frontline.

The sole unit which was able to succesfully operate as whole was a Mozgovoy's "Ghost brigade". Mozgovoy refused to accept new OOB becaue he believed that it will reduce combat ability of his units. And he was right.

Mozgovoy was cut off from "voentorg" for that, from the source of new vehicles, artillery, fuel and ammo but he was also able to tell "**** off" to the staff planners and their ideas about sending lightly armed people without armor and artillery support against fortifications. Mozgovoy's men had their own proper communication system acquired through unofficial channels with their own money, they had good level of cooperation between units and they were commanded by people with actual combat experience. "Ghost" was a sole place where I saw a modern large scale map of Debaltsevo in the hands of a man who must had such intel - in the hands of company commander in the field. In fact when we arrived into "March 8" area, Arkad'ych from "Ghost" was in control of all action there.

And there was a plenty of action to control. I shuffled between ours positions in Debaltsevo several times a day and was near HQ a few times. And every single time someone's column stopped there. People with looks of very serious operating operators dismounted from cars and started to take cool-looking poses and walk very carefully aiming the guns somewhere. It was very uncomfortable for me to distract people from this very important work but I asked them a question every time: "What are you doing, guys?". And every time these wonderful people have reported to me that they are "clearing Debaltsevo". It was very embarassing to tell them that the area was cleared a long time ago and they have an opprotunity to drink tea with the commander in the next building.

Now of course both Dremov and Mozgovoy would be declared or rather already declared to be guilty for all the losses becuase their losses are smaller. As Shurigin already written:

Despite all the efforts a certain part of LPR armed groups (Mozgovoy's brigade, cossacks) retained their volunteer status at least partially. And it had a most negative effect on the course of operation. Tasks assigned to these units were not fulfilled or only partially achieved. There were cases of retreat from battle such as retreat of cossack unit during battle of Logvinovo in the wake of UAF counterattack. As the result unit from regular NAF brigade was left alone and suffered heavy casualties - 2 dead and 20 wounded.

That is it. When recruits from LPR people militia retreat in panic after being sent into ****ing massacre by genious plan of high command - it is OK, no one is to blame.

By the way, surprisingly there is now no easy way to disarm Mozgovoy. Now they will be forced to talk with him because after all NAF losses he have one of the last combat capable units in the army. Attempt on his life was a desperation move as I can understand. Are we mad enough to disarm one of the last of our combat ready units?

I almost forgot the cherry on the cake about training. Company commanders had to go on a "week command courses" in Lugansk, but were recalled from the last couple of days. Platoon commanders - did not have time, war already began. The fact that the losses in the platoon are directly proportional to the skill of the commander apparently did not bother anyone.

 

Part 3:

Artillery

There was a lot of artillery, artillery was everywhere. Sometimes natural congestions from "Grads" happened in the streets. But Shurigin who is very much proud of "moonscape around Debaltsevo" shows the true value of all this artillery by a single beautiful phrase:

"Apotheosis of this war was fire support of whole Grad division for an attack by a single assault team..."

All military people already understood from this phrase where is the problem. If an "assault team" needs the support of whole Grad division (it is about 15 vehicles) it means that there is no proper fire correction and no tube artillery in this sector, "**** the tube arty" they say. Some people do not understand that Grads in any numbers are mostly useless against proper field fortification. "You have a whole Grad division as fire support! How you managed to **** up?"

Experience of long (many days) fire missions of World War I teached us that moonscape at the enemy position means a very little in terms of success of the offensive. It is only alert the enemy about where will the offensive be. The correct modern fire support is very short and abrupt with corrected fire on surviving enemy positions and transfering of fire into the enemy rear areas. Grad division as support for an assault team? It is desperation move for a situation when there is no possibility of coordinating fire of Grad battery with Gvozdika battery and no way of communicating with infantry in real time. Artillery commander just came to infantry and they decided the timetable for fire mission. Infanty will wait for big bang, attack and clear the remaining strongpoints. It is very good if they have a tank or BMP-1. If they haven't - this cycle can repeat itself several times.

Promptness is a most important thing in modern artillery work. And you can hardly expect a promptness (and accuracy too) from people who recieved their guns three months ago and had very limited opprotunities to try them in action. Promptness is a communication + interaction. I remember how Shurigin questioned the Mozgovoy's actions "He had enough artillery! Why the **** he wasn't acting succesfully?" Well, comrades, by chance I was at Mozgovoy's HQ at the moment when Arkad'ych interviewed the first candidates in forward observers. Arkad'ich asked a few questions about their future tasks. As the results officers from the corps taken the guys back because they didn't pass the exam.

What can I say, "moonscape" by artillery with three months training period is just a fancy fireworks and whole trainloads of ammo to the waste. There is no use from artillery fire which lands somewhere between 50 meters from your own positions and 500 meters from enemy. Who had the proper experience - they worked properly. But how many artillery commanders with experience of summer and autumn fighting was among two militia corps of DPR and LPR?

Medicine

No, I will not complain about that practice when soldier see and first aid kit and tourniquets only after he recieved his first rifle. Than no one realy bothered to explain to soldiers that it is bad idea to fasten the tourniquet on a rifle stock. I simple believe that sometimes in the future they will do it properly. Just because before the infantryman can shoot at the enemy with his rifle he usually comes under fire of enemy artillery. It is very much logical from my point of vew. And it is normal when you have about dozen of first aid kits in possession of field medic for about 60-70 people at the frontline, is it?

By the way, we were very lucky with our medic. Our battalion had only three officers at the frontlines constantly - political officer, communication officer (author of this text//CD) and medical officers. So everybody had to be a part-time field commander too. Our field medic was a good field commander because we did not have enough of them.

Did he manage to complete medical training for our people? What is first aid kit and how they must use it? How good the situation was in other units of DPR/LPR? The answer on this question is the same: the rifle first and tourniquets and first aid second. And as many people recieved their rifles a one day before the combat - so is there any questions about first aid?

Communication

Well, let me be sad about my own industry for now. About the reasons for "communication do not exist" © a medic from DPR. I must say that it wasn't as bad always and everywhere but sometimes and in some places it is indeed was really bad. And I can tell the reasons for it.

Firstly, not many people bothered with communications because of cellphones existance. When ukrainian national guard complains that they do not want to train in radio operations because cellphones, I remember our situation with a sad smile. Sometimes the cellphone was only way to communicate with anyone further away than close rear areas. You go to some street in Sanjarovka, find the area with a stable signal, turn on your own "Kievstar" (ukrainian cell network provider) and let's the battalion commander to hear your situation report - the sound of 120 mm mortar shells explosions around you.

So, signalmen in our military as in russian, soviet and russian again militaries are special type of people who have debt of service but recieve nothing to actually to provide their service. Foremost they do not recieve enough people. It is my second point.

Signal units were formed last and from non-combatants mostly. Sometimes commanders were much confused - "why do you need 18 people for signal platoon in battalion? Do we need so much slackers? You will have these three girls and a grandpa for work the switchboard. Also you will have these ten people to have a full OOB but they will fight at the frontline and will recieve other tasks. The rest? You have 4 people. It is enough". And it was even enough while battalion was at operation base. Yes, you understood correctly. No one had a thought about how we will provide communication in combat conditions.

I had precisely four people in my platoon when hostilities resumed. I recieved two of them only a week before and I was able to train them only for basic tasks - work with tank radio sets and intercoms, with 159 (a old soviet company-battalion level radio), how to charge batteries for 159. We had only new "dry" batteries for 159 at our base and I had no opprotunity to show them how to work with older liquid ones, so the guys barely managed to avoid an explosion in the frontline HQ during fighting. I was nearby by chance and was able to explain that you need to open jars of charged liquid battery. But what you can do if one of the guys is a pastry chef by trade and the other is a musician? They are great guys, I even asked for a medal for a pastry chef, he deserved it. And musician returned to the front from Moscow not a long time ago and I must thank some good people from Barrayar empire for some nice radio equipment. But **** me, FOUR people from 18. No one will even try to sent a tank in combat with one crewmember, but they will expect from quarter-strength signal platoon to provide communications in 2-3 points at the front and with the base in the rear too. And when they suddenly finds that a signalman cannot work for three days without a sleep and clone itself afterwards to be in two places at once it is like the revelation for them. "You can have this guy! Train him!" Oh, thank you very much. Just in time.

By the way, we were probably a sole unit who were able to make these new dry batteries for 159s work properly. Most of the signalmen as I can understand recieved very strange R-159s from storage with ****ing old liquid and mostly unoperational batteries. We recieved 5 from 12 prescribed R-159s. Two of them were broken from the start and there was no spare parts for them.

25% operational radio sets at the start of operation. In mechanized unit. In 70 years from Berlin offensive.

And these 25% are operational only because we managed to get a new batteries. But of course there was a catch as you can understand. We recieved new batteries but no chargers for them. We charged them by cobbling some stuff together. This was a thrid point.

Techical maintance for communications. First field generator we recieved during the combat for Sanjarovka right after it turned up that we did not have any free people to leave at the base to recharge our batteries. We also recieved a bunch of P-159s during the fighting but no additional peope to service them. Not a single cross-country vehicle like UAZ or similar. Situation is very close to that from the report of DPR medic. No transport is available and if you try to find some on your own accord they will file a criminal case on you.

As the result of personell and transport shortage we lost a few radios and batteries during transportation by other units trucks. Why do I need a two "paper" tanks in my signal platoon OOB? I need one real UAZ, so I will not ****ing lose any more equipment during another "emergency evacuation"!

I already told how it all works in the real war. Huge uncontrolable units reduce their size to managable levels very quickly. They reduce their size but leave hulks of burned vehicles and dead bodies during the process.
Also you can guess who had a more or less workable signal service with transport and enough people? Yep, Mozgovoy.

I was told, that signal platoon recieved a Ural truck after my departure. Hurray! It is a nice "jeep"! It is a beautiful and easily spotted from long distances target. As I can understand it is supposed that the signalmen must carry all the stuff on them in the zones of possible artillery fire, yes?

 

Part 4:

Tankers from Buryatia.

Also I would like to adress the subject of "buryatian battalions", "buryatian tankers" and this idea that "russian troops are doing actual fighting and milita is only a smoke screen".

Guys, I would be very happy if russian troops were actually fighting and rebels would be able just to stand on the side and applaude. I would be very happy if russian military would repeat "summer campaign" and seal the Debaltsevo pocket without our participation. But alas. Alas, alas, alas. All of these was doing of rebel militia under mountains of paperwork which presumably helped in some way to transform into combat capable army. If any officer of modern russian army will look at the condition of militia troops you cannot expect from him words other than "What the ****ing mess and bedlam!" And this is why all successes were bought by heavy losses. Avoidable heavy losses in the case of proper building of army and not blind adherence to the standart.

Alas, I did not have the opprotunity to see russian military during all actions of this winter. Some specialists? Yes. Volunteers? Also yes. Individual vehicle crews? Maybe. But tank battalions? Any battalions at all which were fighting as proper army units? No. Maybe HQ decided to "call the friend" by the end of operation? I do not know. I would be happy to see russian army in action but alas, I haven't seen. At least in LPR zone of operations.

How did you manage to win at all?

This question is repeated very often. "If all was that bad as you tell us, how did you win?"

Strelkov explains early rebels victories during sallies from Slavyansk in this way. And balance of power at this time was even worse.

"All early engagements we won almost without losses and with inflicting losses to the enemy. You can explain such things with lucky circumstances one time or two times as few separate cases. But when you try to explain all of this together you cannot imagine anything other than divine intervention. Ukrainian constant failures created an image of some supersoldiers which were fighting against them.

But we weren't supersoldiers even close. We had all deficiencies of newly born militia army. Some people fought, some people hid, some people ran from the battle. But in the end ukrainians had the perception of us as some cyborgs, superwarriors worth ten men each"

In general I also think that higher powers have something to do with events of summer, autumn and winter. It is all sorcery and it was called "Magic of **** It All". Who cast this spell on huge amounts of ukrainian soldiers and officers is uknown to me but result was outstanding. Enemy artillery was shooting everywhere but the target, columns were travelling without foward recon, cooperation between the units and within the units was unexistant. Soldiers were busy with their own things and just waited to be ****ed by militiamen who weren't under effect of the spell and tried constantly to maintain the initiative while it was possible. Russian army is also happened and created Ilovaysk debacle and all was good.

But (surprise!) the enemy still had people who didn't say "**** it" and by the winter the enemy managed to bring enough of such people to the front. Our propaganda stated constantly that the enemy had three kinds of soldiers: conscripts who are sent in combat under threat of force, nazies who are driving conscripts into the slaughter but are cowards in heart and polish and other kinds of mercenaries who are real deal and can fight well enough. But reality was that besides these types the enemy had enough of motivated people. I do not think that they were motivated by their love of Poroshenko, Obama or some other political leaders. They had very different motivations - vengeance for the dead comrades, protection of the family from advancing "colorado" (deragotory nickname for rebels because of color similarity between the beetle and St. George ribbon). I do not know about how they feel about fight to the death but they fought resiliently most of the times at least until some direct fire from "large sniper rifle" aka T-64 or T-72.

These people were the reason why our offensive stumbled. They waited in deep trenches during our long and not very accurate artillery fires. They got out after shelling stopped and pinned down the advancing infantry with smallarms, mortar and grenade launcher fire. Textbook case. The same people crewed the tanks which were counterattacking us during fight for finishing the encirclement.

We had the same deficiencies and bedlam in our forces as they had in theirs. And we won because we had more motivated people than they had. And these people tried to fight the bedlam. They repaired the vehicles, they brought humanitarian and technical aid. This is how the question about the victory is answered in the epigraph to this article. The squadron in the other side of the front happened to be worse than our.

Units dispersed into combat-capable elements clustered around operational AFVs after first failures and losses, after disruption of all plans so beautifully painted on maps. In most cases such elements consited of already coherent groups of militiamen with experience from summer and autumn battles and "armstices" with some survived and undeserted rookies. There was a confusion in HQs for some time. "Why it is taking so long?" But they started to understant that the war will be different from what they imagined before and pictured neatly on the maps. Real combat forces emerged from the web of internal military-politcal intrigues of armstice period and from the mountains of useless paperwork. These combat forces consisted from groups of 20 and at most 200 men with support of last operational AFVs, which were commanded directy from Corps HQ (note: each republic had a single corps in their military, so it is a general staff level more or less//CD) because translation of orders through lower level HQ was only a useless delay. Low level HQ could not coordinate the actions of such groups dispersed along the frontline. The logistical support became a sole mission for battalion/brigade level commands.

And these battlegroups instead of paper battalions or brigades were gnawing through enemy defenses. When we managed to establish the artillery support we started to make successes at last. Tanks arrival into important parts of the front also helped. And at last we ahcieved our goal in three weeks of vicious fighting instead of one lightning strike and clearing for a week. We are victorious even if our face was beaten into a bloody pulp. The enemy is knocked down and we are sitting nearby exhausted and counting the broken ribs. Something like that.

Self-compacency in ukrainian HQ also served a vital role. "It is all good, my dear marquise" (a popular soviet-era pop-song//CD) was performed from top to down at first and from down to the top at last. Because of this collapse of Debaltsevo pocket was a total surprise for them. "We are winning! Winning! Winning! Oh.. shi... No, we still winning! We killed so many separatists! We burned so many tanks! If anyone thinks that Debaltsevo is not a victory, he is a Moscow agent!". Maybe someone will prompt them about ace phrase of their senior comrades - "succesful contraction of the frontline" (it is a jab towards WWII german general memoirs//CD)

 

Part 5:

Conclusion

The victory in the battle for Debaltseve was very difficult and bloody for NAF, sometimes the situation teetered on the brink of defeat. Undestatement of systemic failings that led to the difficulties and heavy losses, and not dealing l with them is a way to defeat next time. Over-confidence, self-glorification and underestimation of the enemy by NAF command can lead to a situation analgous for the Second World War, when after a successful Moscow counteroffensive, we can have an analog of Barvenkovsky pocket or a situation similar to the Soviet overambitious attack on Kharkov. The defeat near Kharkov led to a massive retreat of the Red Army to the Caucasus to the Volga and to the battle for Stalingrad. Similarly, after Stalingrad in the spring of 1943 the advancing Soviet units were defeated in another battle for Kharkov by Manstein's counterattack. In the case of Novorussia this will end with irreplaceble loss of trained personnel and a turning point in the war.

I understand that for many residents of the Internet even an opportunity for some local victory of UAF seems so impossible now that discussing it does not make sense from their point of view. People made an opinion about the combat capability of the UAF from these artilleryman notes or these diaries of confused conscript-intellectual or from this accusatory open letter (there were links on various articles in russian). But it is not a full picture. And especially it is not a picture of relative capabilities. Is there no drunkenness and desertion in NAF? Is all the equipment is working? All the soldiers are properly trained and equipped? All is just the same.

I will try a little objective analysis of the situation.

The first and foremost. Human resources.

Ukraine's population without Donbass -is about 35+ million. The remaining population of Donbass how many times less? About 9-10 times. Draft evasion on the other side it is balanced by the fact that there is no draft in Novorossia, and a significant portion of the men went to Russia with their families during summer. Some people laugh about overaged ukrainian warriors, but I recommend to look how NAF looks in comparsion. There is a plenty of people over 50+ and even 60+. Including some frontline commanders. People who are to carry a maximum amount psycho-physical load in fighting. Medic from DPR confrims the point in the report to which I often refer, Situation in DPR is the same and all "secondary" areas such as communications and medicine are manned by "girls and grandfathers." Now add to this a bit of perspective. We have a large losses because of Debaltsevo offensive and significant number of deserters, who spread the news about the losses around the Donbass. And we have a very eloquent stream of coffins. Therefore, we are likely to get significant personel shortages soon. There are, of course, volunteers from Russia, but they will not chage the situation in terms of the relative total population.

It is common to laugh about usage of the word "rotation" in the russian segment of the internet. But we ought to be envious. Ukrainian army could afford to have one part of personell in training, second group on the frontline, the third one - in the rear, on vacation. And NAF coud not. Situation with trained junior officers and sergeants is especially bad. And loss levels both in active fighting and during "calm" periods are depend directly on quality of low-level command. Sane and reliable junior commanders are not many, they literally live on the frontlines without rest and respite.

Past offensive seriously depleted the reserve of "experienced people" because wherever rookies fled or simply gave in, "old men" just worked for themselves and the other guys with the corresponding results in the end. Formal approach to military construction was paid not only by the lives of recruits, but also by the lives of "old men" who then did the work of dead and dying, because the task was too hard. And who replaced the dead now? Some notorious marauders whom conscience allowed to loot destroyed Debaltsevo.

Second. Command and rear areas.

I understand that now everyone is absorbed by infighting in the Ukrainian leadership and have forgotten what was going on at the top of Novorossia. And for a moment, it is a literal murder unwanted warlords with the approval or on the direct orders of the authorities. Yes, I'm talking about Batman. Who at the time of his death was quite a chief of staff of the 4th Brigade of PM LPR. And I'm not sure that the weakness of PM LPR apparent after Debaltsevo will somehow sober the leadership, which is now striving for total centralization of power and military force. They enforce their desire in a very bizarre way, and it is likely that can end with some little internal war against Mozgovoy or Dremov, or at least attempt of their disarmament. Or attempt to reform them into "brigades" which is almost equivalent to disarmament.

I have already described the logistical situation. I'm terrible. According to my information, little has changed in the past month. Only more of commissions and inspections.

- You here! This crap does not work! Fix it!
- We do not have spares!
- Write an application!
- We did it hundred times already. Zero reaction.
- Write more!

Rear areas are gradually reduced to simply provide the military in terms of civilian life cycle . Basic services, housing for officers plus all sorts of little things such as taxis. Plus families of combatants, plus those who are able to somehow feed themselves by subsistence farming. It is all. Industry and everything that requires a long-running investment is not workingt because nobody want to invest in that. Whether we are an independent country, or we are about to tucked back into Ukraine? Who will have property rights on what in that case? Donbass still turns to Switzerland, but this Switzerland is from 15th century or so. And there is a good chance for hungry riots in the rear .

Also there are "excellent" news about humanitarian aid. Ddelivery of any significant military and technical assistance to the militia not through "Voentorg" channels is very difficult now. Apparently, the "Voentorg" is confident that the army, clad in tarpaulin boots, dressed in "flora" with four-mags pouches and equipped with ancient P-159 can achieve the goals perfectly. Well, well. Needless to say that volunteers do not have such obstacles on the opposite side.

Summary - humanitarian catastrophe in the Donbass is ended. It was a period of a humanitarian catastrophe in developed industrial society. Now we are in "besieged fortress" mode with all the implications for mobilization of manpower. People just leave because they are tired of the war with no end in sight. Because they can be forced back into Ukraine as the result of this war.

By the way, yes, another reason for detoriation of soldiers spirit is all this **** after signing of the next truce and promises of "now there will be peace and we will bring you back into Ukraine" and commanders are forced to explain to the soldiers that this is all just bull****, paperwork and formalities. And people start to wonder - why Crimea is allowed to be a part of Russia but bleeding Donbass is not? Is Putin for russians or for booty?

Third. Equipment and training.

It's all basically rests on the staff and in providing spare parts and diesel fuel. Human resources are replenished very slowly because of the losses and resignations in various forms of "**** this circus!". We are lacking in military technicians of different specialties and professional signalmen. Noone is giving enough diesel fuel for normal joint exercises of infantry and armor. Noone is giving parts in amounts needed to keep the vehicles operational for the future fighting and for stocks of essential consumables. So the stories about that "but we captured so much tanks that it is enough for a couple of battalions" ... We already have plenty of unoperational ones. We had 50% operational (capable of moving and shooting from the main gun) vehicles at best before beginning of the fighting, and 0-10% by the end of it.

People who imagined that the "Army of Novorossia can compete with a first-class armies of Europe" live in another world. Army of France or Germany will not leave us a chance. Half will scatter, other half will die heroically. We press on the ukrainians only as long as there are at least some people who are still want to fight.

Fourth. The situation at the front.

Offensive and defensive are two very different things. A small militia force with relatively high percentage of experienced fighters was able to effectively defend themselves during last summer against army units and NG which had their own first time in fighting. Active defense, night raids, ambushes ... Everything was fine until one day Yampol battle proved the obvious. Artillery, tanks and infantry under united command dominate everything. No modern ATGMs in the proper amounts? You can chill in encirclement. Once the UAF accustomed a little war, it became clear that tanks rule in Donbass summer plains. And militia was kicked back into cities and to the border until russian army arrived.

Then there was a truce, formation of the brigades and explosive growth of the militia. There were a lot of small battles and skirmishes on stable front. The first not too negative combat experience is worth a lot, and now most of the UAF units included in the rotation and have it. And we now have dramatically lower percentage of experienced fighters and commanders because of Debaltsevo. Enemy is now seeking the best possible way to prepare for battle at the lowest level sof command - to better communicate with their neighbors, to create alternate positions, etc. If we will not spend time and effort to build the logistical infrastructure, the next offensive will be very short as already not very high percentage of serviceable equipment will fall sharply again, as it was the case in Debaltsevo.

Debaltseve pocket was extended forward and a was a potential cauldron. We were required to advance for 20-30 kilometers without serious terrain obstacles Look at the map with the current front line - where else we can find a target similarly easy? Nope, we can't. All of these shouts "Tomorrow we go to Mariupol," "Tomorrow we go to the Slavyansk", "Tomorrow we go to Lisichansk" - that's all from non-science fiction. Armies of LPR and DPR will be forced to drive wedges far deeper and with much greater speed. And to successfully stop counterattacks. Wwe had a logistical distance of 15 km for each army, it is impossible to do anything more on our technical level. Of course it is possible to start, but it will end with retreat after a significant loss, or with a pair of cauldron. I have already given a few examples of similar arrogance by the Red Army. Yes, UAF is not the Wehrmacht in terms of preparedness. But they are learning. They acquire combat experience and even advanced electronics from their allies. And there is just more of them. In the absence of insurmountable differences in training advantage of the numbers is decisive.

What to do?

The best option for NAF is to focus on training units and on small local operations to improve the positions and of course on active recon and intelligence. If the UAF will attack first there is a good chance to inflict a decisive defeat on them. If NAF will try to carry out the another encirclment in current configuration of frontline it may result in defeat.

As I said, one of the main reasons of Debaltsevo defeat for the ukrainians is universal performance of the hit "All is well, my dear marquise" at first bottom-up throughout the chain of command and from top to bottom after that, and so in the cycle. If Will we perform the same song we lose too. And the perfomance have begun already. The victorious colonels awarded themselves a few medals and continued in the same vein as before. To live in a world of paper reports and useless commissions.

What can we - ordinary people, junior officers, sergeants and privates - do? We can prepare for the worst, without looking at the bravura mood of superiors and overconfident internet propaganda. We must acquire more equipment and, most importantly, more means of communication. We must train people constantly during all the free time. And, of course, we must try somehow reverse the situation with the supply of equipment spare parts and fuel. Otherwise - all is lost.

Spring can be calm and we can manage to sit it out on the defensive with some local battles for better positioning but there would be a big fight in summer most certainly.

One more thing. if anyone will try to say you something in the vein "you aren't needed, they need only military professionals, specialists" - spit him in the eye with a chewed carrot.
We need anyone who give a ****.

This is it.

[dan/california]

It compares remarkably well the experience of foreign volunteers in the Spanish civil war doesn't it?

 

The side which shows up with more of this wins.

 

" Artillery, tanks and infantry under united command dominate everything. No modern ATGMs in the proper amounts? You can chill in encirclement. Once the UAF accustomed a little war, it became clear that tanks rule in Donbass summer plains. "

 

I must say the basic tactical rules of CMBS seem rather well validated.

[Jargotn]

This just makes me sad.

 

I really hope, for all parties involved, that the conflict will end rather soon. However, looking at both the situation on the ground and the international political situation, I don't think that that will be the case. Thanks for the translated version, I believe that it offered me some insight into the sotuation on the ground. I expected a "all is f*****" mentality, but it surprised me that the situation was that bad.

[467Mike]

"Like a giant skeletal robot, its veins slashed and bled dry, the electrical pylon stands in the fog of eastern Ukraine. It is one of many on the road to Nikishino, a sort of honour guard of destruction, leading to a town of almost total desolation.

In the street Galina stands like a sentinel, staring into an unknown future. She holds two plastic bags, one with aid donated by UN agencies, the other from the Irish department store Dunnes, holding personal effects from her destroyed house. She has just come from there and is going to the house of her dead mother, a rare dwelling relatively unscathed by the conflict.

“I’m 65,” Galina says. “And everything I have, I’m holding.” "     (UNHCR - Sparks of Hope among the Ashes  http://tracks.unhcr.org/2015/03/sparks-of-hope-among-the-ashes/)

[John Kettler]

Krater,

 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

 

Apocal and Crueldwarf,

 

Many thanks for getting us a way better than many I've read English translation!

 

Observations

 

A very gutsy and withering critique of a military organization which is so primitive it would be almost reasonable to argue it's only a few steps higher tech than having fire! If you were to deliberately do everything wrong when assembling, training, supplying, maintaining, motivating, organizing  and leading a partially mechanized combat force for modern war, it'd be difficult to do much worse. Provided you left the early war Ukrainian units out of the assessment. Equally, it's abundantly clear that the UNCONs of the real world and CMSF would mop the floor with these guys, for the jihadis in Iraq,Syria and Afghanistan are fanatical, heavily armed at the lower levels, ferocious fighters, have had at least some military training, with many having combat experience, do have fairly decent communications, etc.

 

One of the things which stood out for me wasn't merely the huge disparity between TO&E and actual equipment, AFVs, softskins, radios and such, but acute personnel deficiencies, worse, near total absence of vital specialists (never mind using tank crews and artillerymen as assault infantry), and on and on.

 

Something I'd dearly love to see added into all the CMx2 and beyond games: the ability, in scenario and campaign design, at least, but preferably also in QBs, to apply variable levels of dings (incremental, maybe even randomly assigned, damage levels) to various AFVs, softskins and other equipment with subsystems which can be damaged. The dings would reflect things like things like ordinary effects of wear and tear, lack of maintenance, accumulated battle damage still unrepaired and many other things, too. As it stands, you either have a fully intact AFV or immobilized AFV, but the account makes quite clear there is a lot more going on than that. You've got guns not properly boresighted or which have lost zero. You have sights and sensors which have been damaged in all sorts of ways or even shot out. You have radios with no antennae (common problem from artillery fire and lack of spares). No headsets and/or intercoms in AFVs. AFVs barely wheezing for want of parts. Trackwork and suspensions in dire need of TLC. You have radio nets missing most of their radios, and what they do have probably ought to be modeled as under ECM attack, even if there is none, for that's how bad it is. You doubtless have AFVs with missing ERA blocks, as seen in MOUT footage in Syria. You can count on issues with complex things like autoloaders,too. These are but a few examples. Seems to me that if the game can handle damage inflicted during a battle, it ought, theoretically at least, to be able to handle damage applied before the battle.

 

I believe that my proposal, were it doable, would create all sorts of fascinating possibilities, add immersion and provide insight into the military history we've read and some here have lived. Combat operations under less than perfect conditions, with not merely force depletion depicted (a capability we already have), but with the kind of abuse real armor and other systems are subject to, conditions not found in a well-organized and properly supplied motor pool, yet very much the case, to a lesser or greater degree, in the field, especially after sustained combat operations. I'd imagine a number of people here found the readiness numbers horrible and the late in the campaign stuff outright gasp inducing. The numbers certainly start higher and end higher for better forces, but look at some of the figures for the Russian Army in the GPW's later phases. Huge losses to breakdowns and combat, leading not merely to absolute force reduction, but severe force degradation among the survivors. In turn, this helps explain how a counterattack with even small quantities of fresh reserves can exert such a crushing effect. To a considerable degree we can model the quality, physical state and morale of the men, but it would be fantastic were we able to tailor AFVs, softskins and other weaponry in an analogous way. Any number of combat accounts talk of these things, and panzersaurkrautwerfer gave us a fine example of the kinds of things which can befall even the Abrams, and he was talking about doing gunnery training, not fighting a war.

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

Edited April 8, 2015 by John Kettler

[Sublime]

While.an interesting proposal i.d rather bfc focus on other things first. I think such a feature if introduced would.probably be very rarely used. For example Id much rather see persistent map damage and destroyed vehicle remains.from previous battles, along with the ability to make operations more.in the sense of CMx1. You could have a master map thats huge like Studienka and many smaller actions fought on chunks of it, with the smaller chunks of action progressing forward or backward.

[cool breeze]

That's a cool idea about the pre-battle damage John K but if it were done randomly it could be pretty annoying sometimes, some bad rolls on the damage could leave you with mostly tanks without main guns.  Maybe critical systems could be exempt,  would be kind of silly to send 5 tanks to a battle but only 2 can drive there and only one of which has a its weapon control system working.

 

Edit to add:  critical systems could still start with damage it would just have to be yellow status rather than red (if its going to be randomly applied to the vehicles in question).

Edited April 8, 2015 by cool breeze

[John Kettler]

Sublime,

 

I take your point, but I believe one reason BFC hasn't gone the persistent map damage and wrecked vehicle thing is that it's a huge processor hit to do so. I know quite a few people want an Ops layer to CM, too. My proposal would, though, I believe, be vastly easier to do than the two you named.

 

cool breeze,

 

Was thinking on two paths: specific damage allocated by the scenario and campaign designer on the one hand, and modest, but annoying, handing out of damage reflecting the things I named. Limiting it to yellow would be trivial from a logic setting standpoint. In fact, with my awful coding skills, I could've written the IF/THEN loop for something like that in 1978. Never did I envision a tank with a dead gun. That would be a bit much, but I have no issue with things like AAMG shot away, broken CROWS, FCS not quite right, perhaps one or more vision modes affected, woes with LWR, DAS, APS, loose tracks,  radio out, touchy engine, slow traverse and the like. Not only would this add some real world chrome to the game, but it would put a bit of a kink in by the numbers deterministic gameplay, whether attacking or defending, because of the resulting additional uncertainty generated.

 

There was a WW II sim called "Battle Stations" which did something similar for notoriously mechanistic naval warfare. This was done by breaking ship functions down by categories: speed, gunnery, handling and whatnot, then putting as much as plus or minus 5% on those things by die roll, reflecting things like poor intel, someone having a good day, sub par maintenance, Scotty in the engine room and other. Now, when you came charging in, even if your armor was still rated at 100%, you might be facing an overmatch while in your (theoretical) immunity zone. Contrariwise, maybe your ship takes an otherwise brutal hit, but somehow the armor holds. Maybe a fast battle group might have to slow down by two knots because one ship is having a bad day with the boilers. Shells don't work quite properly on one ship, but maybe torpedoes are a bit more accurate than usual. One ship salvo chases better than another of the same class. This game had a judge, so players didn't really know where they stood, until whatever issue it was became a factor. Since pretty much everything else we want to know in CMx2 is already under the (locked) hood, I would think this could be done, too, obviating the need for a judge. Case in point. 3rd RTR in the Western Desert. The tanks bang away at each other until one side calls it quits. When the tanks go to move, that's when a number of TCs discover their tracks and running gear are shattered. In our games, we would know this immediately, but the clangor of war prevented that from being known then. I think we know altogether too much, too soon, despite doing away with Borg spotting.

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler