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War on the rocks - hypothetical NATO-RUS


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28 minutes ago, BTR said:

Hm, not sure if this is directed at me, but if it is please go back and re-read what I was writing back then. I stand by it still after two years have passed.

Still wrong, but I'll give you credit for consistency ;)

22 minutes ago, BTR said:

Pretty irrelevant I say. I know some reports don't satisfy the "millions Russian dead" bloodthirsty wishful thinking of some, but that is that. Unless more detailed information is available, I'm sticking to the only available report. 

You don't understand.  This is not about wanting Russians to die, it's about trying to bring more truth to discussions.  It is also about bringing Russia's public image of itself to be more in line with reality rather than propaganda.  Australians and New Zealanders might refer to this as "Tall Poppy Syndrome".  The more Russia lies the more some (including me) feel compelled to point it out.

Steve

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34 minutes ago, BTR said:

As for helicopters in Syria, helicopters burned as part of a landfire created by mortar fire. No personnel reported injured on Syrian or Russian crews. 

a "land fire"?   Maybe a translation issue here.  We are talking an airbase with concrete or asphalt.  What land would be burning to destroy all those helos?   They park in a field of charcoal briquets?

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1 minute ago, sburke said:

a "land fire"?   Maybe a translation issue here.  We are talking an airbase with concrete or asphalt.  What land would be burning to destroy all those helos?   They park in a field of charcoal briquets?

The before picture doesn't show much vegetation or anything else that could burn.  Anyway, even if the latest Russian explanation is to be believed, it still means there was an attack on the base.  Sometimes the Russian government admits things by mistake.

Steve

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15 minutes ago, sburke said:

a "land fire"?   Maybe a translation issue here.  We are talking an airbase with concrete or asphalt.  What land would be burning to destroy all those helos?   They park in a field of charcoal briquets?

Doesn't have to be grass, can be ruptured fuel tanks and their leaks since we are talking about a mortar attack. Helicopters don't really tolerate fires that well. I can't really see any impact craters around the helicopters though. Maybe I'm not looking at the right things, there could be one covered in soot. A Syrian source on the airbase also reported that fires started around the helicopters, but fire crews were unable to do their work due to mortar barrage.  

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I'm not sure what we are arguing. Either a mortar/rocket destroys the aircraft via direct impact, or it ignites POL/ammo that spreads to the aircraft and destroys it. Both sound like the aircraft were destroyed in a mortar/rocket attack to me. Or, you can't say that they were destroyed by a totally fire that was totally unrelated to the ongoing attack on the base and expect anyone with a shred of awareness of these things to believe you. I don't think a cigarette did that.

As for the idea of it being spread by POL on the deck, I've spent a lot of time on airfields and I don't buy it, unless the Russians are criminally negligent. We don't park our aircraft in standing fuel puddles, and a spill isn't just ignored because maybe it will go away. So the ground fire doesn't seem likely, although one burning aircraft can spread through direct fire to another nearby one. The Russians in Syria seem to be keeping their kit in close proximity to make defense against sabotage and the like easier (photos of the S-400 put it within a couple dozen meters of the flight line). This is one of those risks. 

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6 hours ago, BTR said:

Doesn't have to be grass, can be ruptured fuel tanks and their leaks since we are talking about a mortar attack. Helicopters don't really tolerate fires that well. I can't really see any impact craters around the helicopters though. Maybe I'm not looking at the right things, there could be one covered in soot. A Syrian source on the airbase also reported that fires started around the helicopters, but fire crews were unable to do their work due to mortar barrage.  

Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus.  

It's rare to get mortar derived ground fires.  They spit out fragments pretty well, but there's nothing especially flammable about them.  You'll get lucky hits every now and then that trigger something explosive, like the FOB Falcon AHA incident, but that would be less common.  The fact that much of the soot and burn pattern is disconnected is also interesting, as is the fire crossing roads and tarmac (while not entirely uncommon, it's behavior usually associated with firestorms or other high wind events).

The Russian version of events, or perhaps versions of events all do not seem to be doing an especially good job at explaining what little we know about what happened.  

In any event it as all simply swamp gas and Venus.

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...and unrelated to the topic in hand. 

But hey,  I'm not an Admin.

@Battlefront.com -  Steve, I'm still unconvinced by your statement of Major Russian  losses in Syria. So far it still just amounts to some men and few expensive machines. 

Major,  to me,  suggests something much more - units combat ineffective, heavy machine losses (air or ground),  prisoners, wanat level attacks. 

That doesn't seem to be the case for the Russian intervention,  so far at least. 

Edited by kinophile
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Major doesn't have to mean strictly military terms. Major can simply be an effective attack that undermines the spin one side or the other puts on an event. So for example, it didn't take many minor incidents which in and of themselves caused few US troop losses to make the Mission Accomplished photo op moment by President Bush look pretty sad. A successful ISIS attack on a military compound questions the spin Russia has put out on their effectiveness in Syria. Yes it is only one incident, but it is media and a loss.  It demonstrates a capability along with the bombings in Latakia that provides a counter to Putin's message. Hopefully for his sake he doesn't do a Mission Accomplished photo op or statements about the light at the end of the tunnel as odds are this is only the first of the attacks like this.  

Edited by sburke
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4 hours ago, kinophile said:

Major,  to me,  suggests something much more - units combat ineffective, heavy machine losses (air or ground),  prisoners, wanat level attacks.

"Major" is always a relative term.  The US took 18 KIA and 74 WIA (of all types) in the infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident.  As I linked to earlier, the US took more casualties than that in a single cafateria attack in Mosul.  In the first case the US basically decided to pull out of Somalia, the second incident had no similar effect.  Relative to their military context, Mogadishu was "major" the Mosul incident "note worthy".  But these are just words and so people are free to agree or disagree.

The important thing to understand is that counting heads, especially out of context, is never a good way to assess impact.  The US "body counts" in Vietnam are a prime example of why.

How Russia reacts to this is yet to be seen because they're still in active denial mode.  As sburke pointed out, they have to lie because they built the entire mission in Syria on a lie to Russian people and the whole world (i.e. low risk, high payoff).  Up until now the casualties suffered in Syria have been small enough and spread out enough that they've been able to do the same thing they've done in Donbas... cover up the deaths.

I doubt Russia will pull out of Syria, but I do expect something significant to change as a result of these losses.

Steve

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Sept 12, 2012, Camp Bastion Afghanistan. A Taliban attack severely damaged eight Marine Harrier jets and entirely destroyed another two. Though it was the largest single combat  loss of American aircraft since the Vietnam war the incident was barely a blip on the national radar (mostly because the assault on the safe house in Benghazi Libya the day before was taking up all the national attention). My point is you get involved in a foreign conflicts and stuff like this is going to happen. People are going to try to blow up your airplanes and helicopters or shoot up your compounds or sabotage your power grid or drive a truck bomb into your road block. That kind'a comes with the territory. If you're uncomfortable with it perhaps you hadn't ought to be in the business of foreign wars.

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Steve,

While I freely admit that things got considerably far afield, the whole point of the information I presented was to elicit a response from you on this question: In light of the listed nonnuclear military-technical armaments described, what the Russians themselves characterize as "revolutionary," has the fundamental dynamic changed regarding the traditional defensibility of cities and other built-up areas, such as large industrial complexes? Seems to me that's an issue which would be significant in the context of what might happen if the Russians attacked Mariupol directly.

Regarding the various articles on the Russian helicopter losses from one or more causes while on the ground recently, some here have presented numerous details of attacks on US in-country bases in Afghanistan. But if you look at the Vietnam war, there is instance after instance of people who worked inside such installations being found doing things such as pacing off the distance from the wire to the TOC. Also, there were, I recall reading, quite a few instances in which the Vietnamese workers simply vanished before a major attack hit the base. They were VG or VC supporters of one sort or another who had scoped out the base or fire base from within and had no operational need or desire to be there when the attacks started.

As for Russian ammunition storage and handling practices, they are notoriously bad. The worst was May 1984 one at the Severomorsk Disaster, which, depending on the source citing it, dealt a serious-crippling blow to the Red Banner Northern fleet. 

Here are two telling examples from very recently which occurred in Russia.

We have the simply spectacular one of 13 million artillery shells in 2013 near Chapaevsk in the Samara region.

http://www.military.com/video/explosions/blasts/russian-ammo-depot-explodes/2491353114001
 

Another in 2015 at something called Ammunition Depot APU. Small arms for sure (that popping sound) and don't know what else. That may be why it's not one or more enormous explosions but a series of smaller ones.


But in my view all it takes to see how something like Rostov is possible is to look at this telling example of ammunition packing density, in this case, tank ammo stockpiles left over from the Cold War and disintegrating in place. Free explosives for terrorists, No guards!

In this instance, apparently 2012, at least there were protective berms (none in above tank ammo depot pics), which as you can see on this high resolution drone video, didn't hold up well! Judging from the crater sizes, I'd say this was probably from artillery shells.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited by John Kettler
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8 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Sept 12, 2012, Camp Bastion Afghanistan. A Taliban attack severely damaged eight Marine Harrier jets and entirely destroyed another two. Though it was the largest single combat  loss of American aircraft since the Vietnam war the incident was barely a blip on the national radar (mostly because the assault on the safe house in Benghazi Libya the day before was taking up all the national attention). My point is you get involved in a foreign conflicts and stuff like this is going to happen. People are going to try to blow up your airplanes and helicopters or shoot up your compounds or sabotage your power grid or drive a truck bomb into your road block. That kind'a comes with the territory. If you're uncomfortable with it perhaps you hadn't ought to be in the business of foreign wars.

It's all relevant to  messaging and perceptions though.  A mess of badly damaged Harriers was an unpleasant surprise....but a costly complicated war, another unpleasant surprise was oddly enough not at all unsurprising.  The "cheap easy war" narrative wore off years before, and frankly given the transparency involved in the conflict, there never was I would argue a shocking dramatic turn for Afghanistan, it was just rah-rah 'murica until Iraq hit the fan, then the "other" war you could go that wasn't as scary as Iraq, and then the slide into "why did we even come here" it has gotten to. 

The Russian narrative is somehow the Russians are going to make everything better by being Russian because realistically Syria is a simple problem of terrorists and good guy President Assad, and all it will take is good Russian soldiers and guns to make the problem go away, and the middle east will return to peace and everyone will love Russia most because Russia is good!  While played up for sarcasm, this really isn't far off base from Russian claims.  Things that run counter to these claims like major setbacks, uncooperative locals, ineffective regime operations, the fact there's "terrorists" on both sides undermine this narrative deeply, which can make a fairly modest loss of equipment rather outsized in terms of how "major" the attack was.

It doesn't help too that the lack of Russian transparency on the entire ordeal makes it really easy for folks to both totally discard the Russian account, because honestly there's still no Russian troops in the Ukraine, and the Ukrainians shot down MH-17 if we're going down that route, and then fill in a reality that is much worse than what actually happened.  It wasn't just a really effective rocket strike, using insider intelligence, it was actually a kill squad of traitor ethnic Russian converts who defected, and snuck into the base murdering several dozen Russian troops who will be gradually "killed" via "accidents" in order to hide the truth of this terrible event.  It was actually a battle between Russian and Syrian troops who'd found out Putin is not going to end the war, but instead keep it going forever to test out Russian weapons on innocent Syrians.  Frankly, Russians are just too stupid and drunk to not smoke on the flightline, and accidentally tried to put out the fire with a gasoline truck haha stupid dumbies, etc, etc, etc.

As a sort of TLDR summary, rarely will "major" victories in a asymmetrical war have much to do with actual losses, but will have everything to do with the effect the outcome has on how the conflict is seen.  Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a steaming disaster, and American forces proved able to take the attack on the chin, and strike back with a vengeance.  However shown to a public tired of the war, the "victory" was irrelevant next to the "reality" the war just wasn't going to ever end, and by god why are we still fighting in that stupid country?

The overall Russian death count might be pretty low at the end of the day, but one can imagine how even a handful of dead might become a major defeat if those dead were filmed being dragged behind trucks driven by the people the Russians came to "save."

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Yeah, Mogadishu is the more recent example of this (as I mentioned before), but an earlier one was Beirut.  The US pulled out very quickly after losing 238 Marines and Sailors to a massive truck bomb, despite the fact that Reagan was President (i.e. a strongly popular President who was not afraid to use force).  In the end the Reagan Admin figured that Lebanon was a massive mess and sorting it out meant a HUGE escalation of force and going to war against Iran and Syria in the process.  The incentives for that weren't there, so the US sent in the USS New Jersey, blew the crap out of some Druze positions, then that was about it.

Point here is that political will can change dramatically in the face of losses.  The US has never, ever shrunk from a conventional fight... but it has a history of assessing messy unconventional conflicts very differently.  Especially when there doesn't seem to be a strong and trustworthy partner on the ground.  Hence why there isn't 50,000 US forces in Iraq fighting against ISIS right now.

Steve

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Fair enough. 

Re a a Russian advance to firm a land corridor to Crimea,  I'm. Not convinced it's necessary. A land bridge is under construction (at last). 

Let's posit an alternate scenario - UKR attacks the Donbass.

Let's put it 2-3 years from now. 

Russian Army is at the time stretched by an accumulating number of smaller, widely placed conflicts (stuck in Syria,  rebellions in the Caucasus, Armenian-Azeri full war,  Kazakhstan unstable in transition from one despot to the next). Domestic unrest due to a now 4 year recession and still rampant corruption further distracts and stretches the RUS government and military. 

UA sees it's chance,  pressures for an attack. Separatists see it coming,  plead for support -  limited Russian assets available (primarily  Air). 

Local aggressiveness by UA units spreads and escalates in full contact. UKR vacillating government's hand is forced and it authorizes an attack that is essentially already in play. 

UKR forces rapidly break through and begin a series of deep strikes into September territory  -  the objective being to overrun the region,  breaking the separatists into kettles,and avoiding heavy urban warfare but emplacing a 'bridgehead'  into each  of the 4 major cities for later expansion.  

UKR has initial tactical air superiority though this is steadily eroded by RUS air and A2AD. 

In response:

RUS drastically reduces presence in Syria,  repo's those Ground and Air assets to Crimea. 

RUS launches amphibious assault from the march across the Azov and inland to Melitopol, in tandem with limited  counter attacks  in the Donbassvto a least form a single front line.  

Melitopol is targeted in order to fully outflank the heavily  committed UA forces in the Donbass -  the ultimate objectives are the right banks of Zaporizhia and Dnepropetrovsk. 

Melitopol is a cross roads of 4 different routes. It's still a full city but would be lightly defended so deep in the rear. Even so,  UA units can  be expected to put up a stiff fight. RUS artillery will be limited initially.  Possibly Naval missile strikes will be used against key obstacles to the RUS advance. 

This is an attack intended to:

1) stop the UA attack in its tracks by threatening it's deep rear echelon 

2) inflict heavy casualties on recovering,  reinforcing,  and staging UA units, 

3) if possible, outflank and encircle a large segment of the UKR  ATO theatre forces. 

 

Edited by kinophile
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Idk Pz. You.re a combat vet and Im not so I have to bow to that. And the essence of US popular opinion changes you said i agree with too. Except  I dont know if me, most the vets that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and could compare ( much more respect for the Taliban and theyre fighting will and capabilities ) and a lot of the public would consider the Afghan situation pretty scary too. People still do remember where 9/11 started from really.

But yes it basically was the biggest surge of patriotism I ever saw in my lifetime (march 85 to present) which dwarfed the surge of patriotism i remember post ODS and probably was the highest since 12/7/41. The next couple of years stayed like that. Discontent started mid to late 04 with a last "high" on Saddams capture. All downhill quickly from there. By '08 we wanted out no questions from both countries. By '12 we wanted out of Afghan and the governments lucky the average person is a flipperhead who doesnt realize that we have US bases still in Iraq. At least one I know for sure because the attack there recently.

As far as OBL that was a satisfaction moment and I wont lie i looked at my infant son and was glad that someon who.d gleefully kill my.son was dead and the world for everyone was that much safer. But most Americans dont realize OBL, like Zarqawi is a head of a hydra and that his death dodnt mean Afghanistan was over. I recollect a lot of civilians ignorant of such things wondering aloud why we were still there.

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Wait Rus forces from Syria being repositioned launch an amphibipus attack on the march? No way. Itd be a disaster.

Plus you dont think the US wouldnt leave a confidential folder with SIGINT and sat photos of all the stuff a successful Red- er Russian amphibious invasion of Ukr would entail? Nah man I dont buy it. I can hardly think of any times the USSR or Russia has ever done a full amphib landing except the Kurile Islands perhaps.

And again if you mean just pulling everyone else out from Syria and think planes can ferry and also sortie same mission and you can pack up a force in Syria move them to the Black Sea and whilst still on the transports jump off into combat in the Ukraine.... man noway...

Edited by Sublime
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I dunno,  the Russians can do a lot when necessity strikes. 

But let's modify it,  to the Syrian forces are used to take the place of the Crimean garrison, which is then used to attack across the Azov. 

The ex-Syrian units are meanwhile re-equipped and somewhat rested to form a second wave. 

Even just a landing and assault into Melitopol will act as a spoiling attack on the UKR Donbass forces,  slowing their momentum.  UKR command will HAVE to respond to it. 

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Once UKR forces are commited fighting a two front war, then Russia can threaten Kharkiv and force a peace...

Edited by kinophile
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True. Wheres the logistics for this amphic force coming from? The Kerch straits also make a superb bottleneck for NATO air support or **** even UKR air to surge and really bring some hurt on the amphib forces. Second I truly dont know the quality ofthe Crimean garrison forces. But Russian garrison forces have a horrible record. Of course Crimea probably would get better garrison troops. Thats still not to say that the Syrian and Ukraine wars havent 1. Put a major strain on Russ logistics and airpower. Plus probably a lot of weapons stocks.

2. The best of the best for Russia went to Syria. Well a lot of those troops at least. Again this isnt gonna be a surprise.like the polite men crimea thing. The US definitely would know before a landing and therefore so would the UKR.

3. This would widen the war significantly. Also Russia would overtly be invading Ukraine now. No more little word games. That means more penalties and while we wont go to a nuke war with Russia over Ukraine I can see us giving Putin the finger and doing limited air support and a lot of lethal aid in arms. Maybe even US aircrew or troops without insignia on almost like the Russians did to us in air combat in Korea and vietnam.

I respect your intelligence Kino but its really easy to draw lines on a map etc. Everyones acknowledged the Russian navys a total mess. Show me another amphibious invasion besides the Kuriles or the Kerch jump in WW2 when they liberated Crimea ( which was a sideshow to the real fighting in yhe Crimea ) and I dont the Kerch jump is ANYTHING like what you.re proposing. I could see them bringing the soldiers to Crimea and maybe trying to attack over land but amphibious landings? Large scale? Of course you must know how many colossal f ups and times we had to do it before the US and what became NATO could do it at all and still with heavy casualties usually, exceptions being Inchon, and the Marines landing in Vietnam. In both cases the fun for those guys was inland.  The Ukraine isnt as weak as the DPRK in fall of 50 and is waaaaay stronger than the VC circa 1965.

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2 hours ago, kinophile said:

Fair enough. 

Re a a Russian advance to firm a land corridor to Crimea,  I'm. Not convinced it's necessary. A land bridge is under construction (at last). 

It isn't strictly necessary, but they gave it a go in Spring 2014 and failed.  That was there chance and now it's pretty clear that they can't achieve it without a large scale mobilization of both the military and the economy.  I highly doubt Russia views a land bridge to Crimea as worth that sort of investment.  Especially since the more level headed leadership would rate the overall chance of swinging by their necks on lamp posts to be very high.

Therefore, proactive Russian attack into Ukraine on this scale is not very likely.  So let's look at a Russian response to a Ukrainian attack which, I am sure, is a real possibility at any time.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

Let's posit an alternate scenario - UKR attacks the Donbass.

Let's put it 2-3 years from now. 

Russian Army is at the time stretched by an accumulating number of smaller, widely placed conflicts (stuck in Syria,  rebellions in the Caucasus, Armenian-Azeri full war,  Kazakhstan unstable in transition from one despot to the next). Domestic unrest due to a now 4 year recession and still rampant corruption further distracts and stretches the RUS government and military. 

UA sees it's chance,  pressures for an attack. Separatists see it coming,  plead for support -  limited Russian assets available (primarily  Air). 

Local aggressiveness by UA units spreads and escalates in full contact. UKR vacillating government's hand is forced and it authorizes an attack that is essentially already in play. 

UKR forces rapidly break through and begin a series of deep strikes into September territory  -  the objective being to overrun the region,  breaking the separatists into kettles,and avoiding heavy urban warfare but emplacing a 'bridgehead'  into each  of the 4 major cities for later expansion.  

This is a plausible course of events.  Ukraine has a very advantageous position in that it doesn't have to take back territory to win it.  If it kicks the enemy back into Russia it wins by default.  Much easier to clear a city when there's no organized resistance!  Therefore, any full Ukrainian offensive in the Donbas would be along the same strategy as summer of 2014.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

UKR has initial tactical air superiority though this is steadily eroded by RUS air and A2AD. 

Provided NATO does nothing at all, agreed.  Though in a fast moving environment it's questionable what sort of impact Russian air superiority would have.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

In response:

RUS drastically reduces presence in Syria,  repo's those Ground and Air assets to Crimea. 

The Donbas would already be decided before this could have an impact on the conflict.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

RUS launches amphibious assault from the march across the Azov and inland to Melitopol, in tandem with limited  counter attacks  in the Donbassvto a least form a single front line.  

The Donbas would already be decided before this could have an impact on the conflict.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

Melitopol is targeted in order to fully outflank the heavily  committed UA forces in the Donbass -  the ultimate objectives are the right banks of Zaporizhia and Dnepropetrovsk. 

Russia does not have the logistical capacity to support such a strike and live to tell about it.  They would likely know that better than I and not even attempt it.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

This is an attack intended to:

1) stop the UA attack in its tracks by threatening it's deep rear echelon 

The conflict would be effectively complete before this could materialize.  The incentives to attack after the Donbas was largely lost to Russia would be low even if they thought they could mount such an attack.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

2) inflict heavy casualties on recovering,  reinforcing,  and staging UA units, 

If everything went well, but then what?  Russia has a deep penetration that can't be easily supplied nor defended.  Not a position I'd want to be in as a military commander.

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

3) if possible, outflank and encircle a large segment of the UKR  ATO theatre forces. 

Not sufficient for Russia to come out ahead.  Russia would have to be successful enough to force Ukraine to surrender.  And I do mean surrender, not cease fire.  I don't see that as a likely outcome.  A more likely outcome is Russia puts itself in the position of the single largest military defeat since WW2.  Since sensible leaders weigh the potential gain vs. the potential loss, then evaluate likely outcome, I don't see this happening.

As with other comments I've made, Russia fully invading Ukraine most likely will end with the Russian Federation ceasing to exist as we know it today.  Especially if it is already engaged in significant military distractions elsewhere.  Russia would need a full and total military and political victory over Ukraine to come out ahead from a very large scale military action in Ukraine.  Given the fact that Russia couldn't achieve such a victory when Ukraine was vastly weaker (2014) and the West caught by surprise, it's pretty doubtful they could achieve such a victory even if they put all effort into it.  Ukraine, on the other hand, doesn't have to win the war... it simply has to make sure it doesn't lose it.  The last 2 years has indicated that it is capable of doing that.

Steve

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It's difficult to calculate what Ukrainian forces would be available to oppose a major Russian invasion because it would be scaled to whatever Russian action was taken.  At a minimum I put the immediate available count at around maneuver 14 Brigade equivalents plus several artillery Brigades.  In the event that Ukraine launched a full offensive in Donbas my guess is that 8 maneuver Brigades minimum would be involved.  To combat this Russia would have to insert 3-4 minimum to have an impact.  To hold there and launch an offensive elsewhere it would probably have to commit roughly 10-12 *and* pray that it was amazingly successful very quickly, because that's only a 1:1 ratio on the offensive.  Very bad odds there unless one has vastly superior capabilities and a brilliant plan, neither of which I think Russia can count on.

What this means is if Russia is to go on the offensive it would have to come up with at least 20 maneuver Brigades with another 10 in support or rotation positions.  That's a force that would require a massive number of conscript units.  Not a good plan unless the Russian population is 100% behind the action even if it isn't going well.  That seems unlikely.

Remember that Russia has to fake a story to provide justification for invading Ukraine.  Ukraine doesn't have to fake a story to resist a Russian invasion.  This is important to keep in mind.

Steve

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Good stuff.

@Sublime  to be clear - in this scenario the Ukraine is the initial aggressor - there is no legal reason for NATO to become involved. Even a punitive Russian counter attack into Melitopol does not give NATO a reason to pick a fight. Russia, I suspect, would be very clear on that point. Now, the UN could MAYBE (somehow avoiding the RUS veto) still intervene and "authorize" NATO air strikes, a la Libya, in order to gut the Russian offensive. But even then, a serious commitment of US, German, British or even Polish ground forces is unlikely. Plus Russia has a very solid AA/AD network and would view any attack on its forces as tantamount to war.

Plus yes the Russian navy is a mess, but it is not combat ineffective. And really, all it needs is to exist - the Ukrainian navy is a joke. The black sea fleet does not need to defeat the US/NATO - it just needs to defeat the Ukrainians. This it can achieve. Its ships can shell inland and it has the missiles to strike deep into the Ukraine. Even the small force that is there can do significant damage inland, as an off shore bombardment fleet. Coordinating with inshore units, I dunno, I doubt they have the skill. But they can still can achieve local naval superiority and help an amphibious assault directly, and at least in its early stages.

Finally, an amphibious landing would probably be un-opposed at the beach and perhaps fro several miles inland. I doubt the UA has the forces to properly guard the whole coastline.

@Battlefront.com Steve - I'm not sure we can really say that Russia, as in proper Russian units, lead and equipped by the Russian military with integrated air support, made that Summer 2014 attempt at Mariupol. From my understanding (naturally, limited and please correct) it was a primarily Separatist affair, with limited RUS support. Badly lead and executed and very much an opportunistic, local attempt at seizing control. So it could not really be used as a comparison to a proper, organized Russian attempt.

In terms of getting the Syrian forces north, and/or using the Crimean garrison - how fast do you think the UA can defeat the Separatists? I would guestimate a month (?), at the earliest. The Separatists have a lot of gear and are still a pretty viable force. Initial resistance would be quite strong, but if the Ukrainians can break through then I doubt the Separatists have the training, organization or discipline to shift to a maneuver war (especially from such a long-term positional one) and to retreat in step and seal the front. I suspect one, maybe two breakthroughs and the Separatists will start to quickly pocketize, unable to effectively coordinate and vulnerable to morale breaks from flank and rear attacks. Even so, I suspect 2-3 months as a timeframe.

Either way, a month is still sufficient time to transfer a strong contingent from Syria.

If Russia throws in its 3-4 Brigades it can at least solidify a defense around Luhansk or Illoviask regions (this assumes Donetsk has fallen or is encircled, Donetsk being the political heart of the Donbass and as such, a primary objective). All Russia needs is a legitimate looking toehold, from which it can hold the UA and counter attack.

A UKR attack will inevitably cause civilian casualties, fuel for the Putinganda machine to build a narrative around. Building a fake-ish story is all in a day's work for Moscow. Add in a UN directive spun a s anti-Russian and Putin can start drawing on Russians patriotism to squash domestic discontent and unit the country  - he loves an external aggressor as a deflector, so a UN directive would play right into his hands, no matter its wording. An encircled or embattled Donetsk would also give a focal point for media spin.

Re 20 brigades - yes, if we place Russia as going for a knock-out blow. But what if it doesnt? As you mentioned, sensible military leaders would not overstretch themselves like that. 

So, if Putin's directive is DEFEAT THE NON-EXISTENT STATE OF UKRAINE! -how do you do it, as a Russian Commander?

Your constraints are - limited logistics support in time and space; limited forces (say 12-15 maneuever brigades, total, to stabilize the Donbas front and conduct a counter attack) and limited time (before UN/NATO finally mans up, or the Donbass is lost entirely).

 What if instead it launches its own deep, punitive raids, where it tears at the fabric of eastern Ukraine, forcing political destabilization and material disintegration of critical infrastructure?

- It takes Melitopol as a base, a thorn in the UA's side and deadly threat in its rear.

- It raids/attacks Kharkiv

- It bombards Odessa, with select cruise strikes on Kiev jsut to prove a point

- It sabotages/strikes Ukrainian power grids, cuts the gas and bribes/threatens every Ukrainian official it can.

 

Since the start of this thread Ive been trying to avoid thinking in conventional, military force on force confrontations. I doubt a Russian Commander will allow many restrictions on what he can do. He'd find a way, with his only real, true constraint being Time..

 

Edited by kinophile
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10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Good stuff.

@Sublime  to be clear - in this scenario the Ukraine is the initial aggressor - there is no legal reason for NATO to become involved. Even a punitive Russian counter attack into Melitopol does not give NATO a reason to pick a fight. Russia, I suspect, would be very clear on that point.

And NATO has made it clear that if Russia attacks outright that Ukraine will have access to "offensive" aid.  No UN vote needed for that sort of thing.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Plus yes the Russian navy is a mess, but it is not combat ineffective. And really, all it needs is to exist -

No, it needs to be capable of swift, coordinated, and well executed operations.  It's not clear it can do all three of those things, but all three is exactly what it would need to do.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

@Battlefront.com Steve - I'm not sure we can really say that Russia, as in proper Russian units, lead and equipped by the Russian military with integrated air support, made that Summer 2014 attempt at Mariupol. From my understanding (naturally, limited and please correct) it was a primarily Separatist affair, with limited RUS support. Badly lead and executed and very much an opportunistic, local attempt at seizing control. So it could not really be used as a comparison to a proper, organized Russian attempt.

Everything was led by the Russian Federation at some level, all of it was organized by the Russian Federation, and all of the equipment came from the Russian Federation.  There were no "separatists" involved in that operation because there were no "separatists" in the area at the time.  The invasion came from Russian territory by both land and sea.  There was no air support.

Now, how much of the force was 100% pure Russian Federation forces is not known, but it hardly matters because the conditions have changed dramatically since then.  The sector of front is not lightly defended, the Ukrainian forces there are very competent, and Ukraine is no under the illusion that Russia won't launch attacks from its soil.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

In terms of getting the Syrian forces north, and/or using the Crimean garrison - how fast do you think the UA can defeat the Separatists? I would guestimate a month (?), at the earliest. The Separatists have a lot of gear and are still a pretty viable force. Initial resistance would be quite strong, but if the Ukrainians can break through then I doubt the Separatists have the training, organization or discipline to shift to a maneuver war (especially from such a long-term positional one) and to retreat in step and seal the front. I suspect one, maybe two breakthroughs and the Separatists will start to quickly pocketize, unable to effectively coordinate and vulnerable to morale breaks from flank and rear attacks. Even so, I suspect 2-3 months.

The bulk of the forces opposing Ukraine in the front lines are light infantry that ranges from decent to thugs collecting paychecks and shaking down the locals.  First sign of a major Ukrainian push and a big chunk of that force would disappear within days.  This would leave gaping holes and huge uncertainty all along the front.  Russia would probably beef up forces prior to a large scale Ukrainian attack, but they would most likely be held in reserve in order to see where Ukraine attacks before committing its forces.  All Ukraine has to do is fix the reserves in place and bypass them where it made sense to.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Either way, a month is still sufficient time to transfer a strong contingent from Syria.

True, but I don't that Russia could afford a month.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

If Russia throws in its 3-4 Brigades it can at least solidify a defense around Luhansk or Illoviask regions (this assumes Donetsk has fallen or is encircled, Donetsk being the political heart of the Donbass and as such, a primary objective). All Russia needs is a legitimate looking toehold, from which it can hold the UA and counter attack.

If Ukraine allows them to.  I don't think they will.  As the Ukrainian commander I would do the following within the first 3-7 days:

1.  Trash the frontline holding forces in enough places that either obligates the remaining unchallenged positions to withdraw or become irrelevant.  This gives me freedom to drive internally within the DPR/LPR territory wherever I want.

2.  Advance enough forces against Russian Federation forces to fix them in place, then hammer the Hell out of them with artillery.  This reduces their capability to cause problems, but also gives me an opportunity to inflict maximum Cargo 200 in the shortest space of time as possible.  Better still to have a few units surrender, such as happened in 2014.  And yeah, I'd have my camera crews and drones there to make sure the news got out instantly.

3.  Pick and choose a few critical non-urban places to seize and hold.  Those positions would be selected to interfere with reinforcement and general lines of communication between the Russian Federation forces.  The positions would be carefully selected to be both defendable and reinforceable with minimal attention to the initial frontline positions.  I would plan on holding these with significant forces and keep mobile groups at the ready to ensure nobody cuts them off.

4.  See what the Russian reaction is and adapt to it. 

I would not take back very much territory at this point, but that's fine.  The main purpose is to shred the existing defenses and to inflict maximum damage upon the formal Russian Federation forces.  The mixed Ukrainian/Russian militia forces would be of secondary concern and seen as targets of opportunity.

Presuming Russia tries pushing a few more BMGs, or perhaps even full Brigades, into Donbas I'd do my best to interdict them with artillery at the soonest possible opportunity.  Once I figured out where they were headed I'd repeat Step #2 above and expand #3.

Oh, and there would be lots of interesting things going on politically.  But that's not the focus of this discussion ;)

 

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

A UKR attack will inevitably cause civilian casualties, fuel for the Putinganda machine to build a narrative around. Building a fake-ish story is all in a day's work for Moscow. Add in a UN directive spun a s anti-Russian and Putin can start drawing on Russians patriotism to squash domestic discontent and unit the country  - he loves an external aggressor as a deflector, so a UN directive would play right into his hands, no matter its wording. An encircled or embattled Donetsk would also give a focal point for media spin.

It didn't have a major impact even in 2014, so I don't think it's very important in a future offensive.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Re 20 brigades - yes, if we place Russia as going for a knock-out blow. But what if it doesnt? As you mentioned, sensible military leaders would not overstretch themselves like that. 

So, if Putin's directive is DEFEAT THE NON-EXISTENT STATE OF UKRAINE! -how do you do it, as a Russian Commander?

Without large scale mobilization and overt use of that force?  The answer is simple... militarily it isn't possible to defeat Ukraine.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Your constraints are - limited logistics support in time and space; limited forces (say 12-15 maneuever brigades, total, to stabilize the Donbas front and conduct a counter attack) and limited time (before UN/NATO finally mans up, or the Donbass is lost entirely).

 What if instead it launches its own deep, punitive raids, where it tears at the fabric of eastern Ukraine, forcing political destabilization and material disintegration of critical infrastructure?

- It takes Melitopol as a base, a thorn in the UA's side

- It raids/attacks Kharkiv

- It bombards Odessa, with select cruise strikes on Kiev jsut to prove a point

- It sabotages Ukrainian power grids, cuts the gas and bribes/threatens every Ukrainain official it can

This will not work.  All it will do is piss off Ukrainians even more and make the international reaction to Russia's actions even worse than a straight forward military offensive.  It would also need to be sustained long term, and that isn't very feasible.

10 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Since the start of this thread Ive been trying to avoid thinking in conventional, military force on force confrontations. I doubt a Russian Commander will allow many restrictions on what he can do. He'd find a way, with his only real, true constraint being Time..

Time is absolutely Russia's worst enemy, but mostly because Ukraine has showed itself willing to stand up to its aggression.  Russia is not used to that.  At least not from an opponent of this size and capability.

I am sure Russia would try a whole host of dirty tricks and "creative" thinking.  But it's already tried most of these already and they've, at best, stalled the inevitable defeat of the DPR/LPR puppet states.  The only thing Russia has not tried, so far, is a massive scale conventional military action.  That's what it needs to "win" the military conflict in Donbas, though ironically it pretty much assures that it will lose in the end.

Steve

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One problem with the concept of Russia grabbing swaths of territory with a massive blow is what comes after. Their supply and communications lines extend and they open themselves up to endemic guerilla warfare. Nobody's un-invented the fertilizer bomb IED over the last 10 years. Ukraine has 44x the population of Chechnia, 77% ethnic Ukrainian. This is why professionals war-game out things like this. Because winning individual battles does not mean winning wars. There's got a be an achievable endgame to make the game worth the penny.

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