How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Vacillator]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

If those are the 600 series Switchblade, they are terrifyingly nasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade , up to 80km range!

Although there's something about that page that makes me think AeroVironment wrote most of it.  Nevertheless, if it works it works.

[DesertFox]

 

 

[sross112]

I also made myself giggle on the way home today. I live in the middle of nowhere upper great plains. As I was driving home thinking of this topic and thread I was looking out over the pastures and prairies. I started to think about how many Ukrainians would be in the same position this summer driving along through agricultural areas. Then as they are looking over the fields and pastures they spot the farmer dragging a feed wagon out to the cattle with an 8 wheeled pickup that they cut down from a BTR with an acetylene torch.  Say what you want but the Ukraine is kinda like the Texas of Europe so you know they have some redneck engineers that are already thinking about this sort of thing! 

[Vacillator]

2 minutes ago, sross112 said:

the Ukraine is kinda like the Texas of Europe

'The Ukraine' is not a good start, but who knows...

[akd]

Re: Switchblades.  Was reading elsewhere that one delivered Switchblade “unit” is 1x control station / launcher + 10x munitions, so that makes the 100 units a bit more understandable.  Still not clear if these are 300s or 600s, although the former would seem the most likely to be on hand and ready to deliver in those numbers.

Edited March 18, 2022 by akd

[sburke]

1 hour ago, General Jack Ripper said:

The rational discussion I've received has been for people to tell me I'm wrong, then tell me to read 275 pages of forum posts.

 

What I don't get is that they really seem to have drank the kool-ade and not deployed their best stuff. Either they didn't think they needed it, or they're waiting. If they are waiting, why?

Thanks for the conversation.

The suggestion wasn't to just be a sh1t to you but that we've been having this discussion for weeks.  Walking into the middle of a conversation that has been going on for hours and stating something others have been debating for that long would normally get a similar response.  Blank stares because folks are not sure where to start and don't really want to rehash hours of conversation.  Honestly I was surprised when you said you'd just started reading it.  As Elvis noted you've been a regular here.  Made me kind or worry if you've been dealing with some stuff.

Anyway in regards to that question.  What are you referring to by stuff?  Russia seems to have committed all it's first line units.  The call up they are doing now is dredging all the guys who are 2nd line, or worse Syrian irregulars. Hell they even threw in their parade divisions.  May Day is gonna suck this year.

 

[DesertFox]

5 hours ago, keas66 said:

New  Vehicle Signs  appearing in field ?

Yep. new ones. Also here:

 

 

[dan/california]

Secret Russian General Staff planning session. Although it might be giving them too much credit.

[DesertFox]

100mm AT Gun wow...

 

 

[akd]

Some more Amazon drone deliveries:

 

 

[dan/california]

Truth

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

Okay.

 

Did you bother reading the assessments of this very website? Todays one: 

"Russian forces did not make any major advances and Ukrainian forces carried out several local counterattacks on March 17. Russian forces made little territorial progress and continued to deploy reserve elements—including from the 1st Guards Tank Army and 810th Naval Infantry Brigade—in small force packets that are unlikely to prove decisive. Russian forces continue to suffer heavy casualties around Kharkiv, and Russian attempts to bypass the city of Izyum are unlikely to succeed. Russian forces continued assaults on Mariupol on March 17 but did not conduct any other successful advances from Crimea."

https://www.understandingwar.org/

[General Jack Ripper]

1 minute ago, sburke said:

The suggestion wasn't to just be a sh1t to you but that we've been having this discussion for weeks.  Walking into the middle of a conversation that has been going on for hours and stating something others have been debating for that long would normally get a similar response.  Blank stares because folks are not sure where to start and don't really want to rehash hours of conversation.  Honestly I was surprised when you said you'd just started reading it.  As Elvis noted you've been a regular here.  Made me kind or worry if you've been dealing with some stuff.

I still think all of my bullet points are correct and valid, and I've not seen anything that refutes anything I've said, aside from people misinterpreting what I said to mean something else.

For example: I said, "Ukraine cannot control their airspace," which people immediately misinterpreted as me saying, "Russia has complete control of Ukrainian airspace." This is not now, nor has it ever been what I said, what I meant, or even a point I made, but you should be able to understand my frustration when this is the sort of response I get.

I think it's called 'The Zebra Crossing Fallacy' (not my name for it) where if you are not one thing, then you MUST be the exact opposite thing! Because there is no middle ground anymore, about anything, ever. Combine that with the fact that I type very slowly and I do tend to get overwhelmed by a fast moving thread which makes me tend to not give a ****.

I've been gone for some time, blame the Beer Situation and the fact my workload is directly related to it. I just popped back in because I figured some discussion was happening given current events, started reading the thread, saw how long it was, said "Screw it," and posted my existing synopsis figuring I'd catch up on any replies to it when I eventually read my way up there. What I didn't expect was the response I got.

"Everything you said is wrong, go back and read 275 pages to find out why."

Well, I don't come here often even on a good day, and given I really thought long and hard about posting, even about the snarky bits, that irritated me immediately. Okay, it's fair to call me out on the bit about the Winter War, or me laughing at the idea the USA is going to play political hardball in any capacity, but if you (not you specifically but a general "you") deny the political maneuvering statement out of hand as nothing but 'trolling' then you haven't addressed it either.

What gets me though is if you guys have been discussing this for weeks, I would expect someone to take my bullet pointed synopsis (I PUT BULLET POINTS IN IT! I WAS TRYING!!) and simply refute each point with a sentence or two and go on about their day. I would eventually have read my way through the thread, saw what I had missed or gotten wrong, and said, "Thanks for the info."

I think people got more hung up on my tone, than got bothered by anything I actually said.
Well I'm not apologizing for my tone. It's just my style. We're all adults here.

Sorry, where were we? I do tend to ramble on.

Quote

Anyway in regards to that question.  What are you referring to by stuff?  Russia seems to have committed all it's first line units.  The call up they are doing now is dredging all the guys who are 2nd line, or worse Syrian irregulars. Hell they even threw in their parade divisions.  May Day is gonna suck this year.

It will indeed. I hadn't realized the Russian deployment was so extensive. Most of the info I've seen still maintains the original divisional assignments. Is this a case of RUS using other units as a replacement depot of sorts or are they committing intact units wholesale? Is the call-up for replacements or are entire reserve units being activated?

The casualty figures I've seen are quite large, but not nearly enough to consume several divisions wholesale. I have to assume given the fact Russia hasn't fought a major war in a generation at least their divisions were at full strength when they stepped off, with ten thousand of personnel per division or so, and we had several divisions engaged.

Even with casualties of up to 10,000 -20,000 (likely less than that?), those initial divisions are no longer combat capable but they are hardly destroyed. It's very difficult to figure though because every single source I see has different numbers which vary wildly, most of which are news articles copy-pasted from other news articles written by people who drink starbucks every morning (it's like five bucks a cup!?) and live in their parents spare bedroom.

Aw shoot, I'm rambling again.

I guess what I really meant was, what information do we have that all of the Russian first line units have been committed? Did they pull everything from everywhere? Do we have video or satellite of trains hauling divisions worth of stuff to the front? Have they re-deployed their Baltic unit? Has their been a major air power redeployment? Have squadrons or wings been pulled from other assignments? Have we seen indications of gasoline shortages in civilian areas indicating a shortage of production or excessive consumption? Has the pace of their shelling eased off indicating a lack of ammunition? Have we seen food shortages in areas outside of Ukraine?

There's a whole lot of stuff we simply don't know (because the Russian media doesn't tell us, and the western media doesn't care to find out), and in the face of this uncertainty I have to assume the reports of 'imminent collapse of everything' are suspect at the very least. I also have to assume there are units elsewhere that have not been committed but could be if Putin wanted to. We've seen units of the Western and Southern District identified, but two 'Armies' (Divisions) are missing (St. Petersburg and Caucasus), and that's not counting if they wanted to borrow units from other districts. They still, (by my count using wikipedia fwiw) have six airborne units (div or bde) and two divisions in the central district which could be easily transported. That's 70-80,000 dudes they could bring in if they wanted to, with hundreds of tanks and various sundries.

If this has already happened then I would of course, stand corrected. It just seems difficult to believe that everything available has been consumed in just a few weeks.

Geez, is it 9:36pm already? I haven't even had dinner.

[General Jack Ripper]

12 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

 

Did you bother reading the assessments of this very website? Todays one: 

"Russian forces did not make any major advances and Ukrainian forces carried out several local counterattacks on March 17. Russian forces made little territorial progress and continued to deploy reserve elements—including from the 1st Guards Tank Army and 810th Naval Infantry Brigade—in small force packets that are unlikely to prove decisive. Russian forces continue to suffer heavy casualties around Kharkiv, and Russian attempts to bypass the city of Izyum are unlikely to succeed. Russian forces continued assaults on Mariupol on March 17 but did not conduct any other successful advances from Crimea."

https://www.understandingwar.org/

As I explained before, I did not see today's report.
EDIT: It is most interesting to see Russian Naval Infantry in the fighting report considering just yesterday it said they wouldn't be able to land.

I guess they landed?

Edited March 18, 2022 by General Jack Ripper

[c3k]

49 minutes ago, akd said:

Some more Amazon drone deliveries:

 

 

From release to impact, about 5 seconds. 

Drone height about 400 feet or 125m above the target. FWIW.

[akd]

14 minutes ago, General Jack Ripper said:

As I explained before, I did not see today's report.
EDIT: It is most interesting to see Russian Naval Infantry in the fighting report considering just yesterday it said they wouldn't be able to land.

I guess they landed?

They weren’t on those ships, and probably no marines are at all. They went overland through Crimea, or possibly by ship into occupied Berdiansk.

[Rokossovski]

4 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

[Snip] Nord Stream 1 and 2 are still pumping gas, aren't they? We'll see. [Snip]

Nord Stream 2 was suspended by the German government on February 22 in response to Russia's recognition of its puppet "Donetsk and Luhansk Republics." Nord Stream 2 AG then filed for bankruptcy on March 1. It is not pumping gas.

My understanding is that Nord Stream 1 remains in operation.

[akd]

Firefight in woods:

 

[sburke]

43 minutes ago, General Jack Ripper said:

It will indeed. I hadn't realized the Russian deployment was so extensive. Most of the info I've seen still maintains the original divisional assignments. Is this a case of RUS using other units as a replacement depot of sorts or are they committing intact units wholesale? Is the call-up for replacements or are entire reserve units being activated?

My understanding is limited, but @Haiduk  and @akd can chime in here with real info about organization of units etc

Actual data is always hard to come by but this is what the reforms under Shogyu looked like. 

Shoygu also focused on forming battalion tactical groups (BTGs) as the permanent readiness component of the Russian army, rather than brigade-sized formations. According to sources quoted by the Russian Interfax agency, this was due to a lack of the manpower needed for permanent-readiness brigades. BTGs made up the preponderance of units deployed by Russia in the Donbass war. By August 2021 Shoygu claimed that the Russian army had around 170 BTGs

Deployment in Ukraine at the start was 120 BTGs. i.e. 70% of the regular forces.  A significant portion of that force is conscripts which it seems is a big issue for employing outside Russia.  There was a big to do a few weeks ago where Putin had to commit to no conscripts serving in Ukraine (which they partially got around by forcing troops to sign up just beforehand).  Conscripts serve a year and that year is up right around now.  The new wave of conscripts is completely untrained.  As a special operation it is unclear what that means for troops who's term is up but there has been at least a few examples of soldiers refusing to commit to another deployment. Meanwhile the Russian army is actively recruiting in Syria, not a particularly encouraging sign.

Putin has already said he would not order a full mobilization partly due to pushback from the Mother's organizations which seem to have an outsize influence.  It also becomes a hard sell that this is just a "special operation" facing limited resistance if you are having to fully mobilize.  There are also indications that basic maintenance even for these 120 BTGs was not being performed regularly which doesn't bode well for those units not even participating in exercises.

Again  @Haiduk  and @akd would be able to provide much better info.

 

[Fenris]

edit - adk posed the vid.

Quite intense - according to the youtube comments - "He was saying: "I'm 300" (wounded) and then "I'm not finished, I'm still alive"

Edited March 18, 2022 by Fenris

[BeondTheGrave]

25 minutes ago, Rokossovski said:

Nord Stream 2 was suspended by the German government on February 22 in response to Russia's recognition of its puppet "Donetsk and Luhansk Republics." Nord Stream 2 AG then filed for bankruptcy on March 1. It is not pumping gas.

My understanding is that Nord Stream 1 remains in operation.

NS1 is operating, there was one crazy bastard that said that Germany was considering shutting that down. But that seems unrealistic, Germany will not shut it down. Certainly not until the summer when they dont need it. NS2, OTOH, is dead for now. In a post sanctions world we might see it make a return (my own prediction) as its virtually complete, but with Nord Stream AG out of business thats going to be painful. So probably a longer term (more than a few weeks) project. 

@General Jack RipperI think people may be a bit put off by the attitude youre showing in this thread. Seems like youre coming from a good place, but you've missed out on a lot of previous conversation and ought to get yourself better up to speed before you start throwing hands with people who have been through all 281 pages now. You ought to follow Institute for the Study of War if you haven't already, and on Reddit (that is the Reddit Institute on Russian Studies and Foreign Relations, not accredited) youll find good recap threads on r/WorldNews. I believe r/CredibleDefense has been keeping up with the war as well. You may find that they have materials in a more digestible format for a working man such as yourself. I think you might understand that some get frustrated when you make long winding posts about how you've realized what everyone figure out a week ago or more. You ought to give some understanding to the fact that the conversation has evolved in ways its hard to keep track of unless you've read it. My own thoughts on the war, for example, are shaped not just by hundreds of great posts from @Haiduk, but from very thought provoking analysis from @The_Capt @BletchleyGeek and @Battlefront.com. Thats not to say a lot of other people havn't said very important and meaningful things, but just that if you go back and just read some of their posts, especially Capt's earliest posts here, you might find you understand the conversation a lot better.

Importantly, I dont think youre wrong about airspace. UA has not taken superiority, as evidenced by Russian jets continuing to fly sorties across the country. But they have established an effective deterrent AD net which has been imposing serious costs on Russian strike planes, as evidenced by all the RAF attacker aircraft getting shot down. I would dispute the idea that Helos are playing a meaningful role now, I havn't seen a heliborne assault in days, and attack helos have also been MIA. Likely the strong UA AD response has cleared the skies to all but high level fixed wing aircraft, which they can sometimes intercept. Thats a huge denial and a big win right there. And then as Capt has pointed out, UA does actually seem to dominate the skies below 10k ft, or about drone range. UA drone warfare has been very public in terms of their successes, but I tend to agree with Capt that their battlefield surveillance role is actually much more important right now. All this leads to your #1 assumption, that Russia can eventually grind through and win. I believed that myself from pretty much day one. Russians, I thought, did manage to get by typically on a shoestring logistics budget. They could make it work even in tough situations. But I've slowly gotten the feeling that this is something different. UA counterattacks in certain areas have furthered this feeling. This is not a 'tough but winnable' war. I increasingly do not believe that Russia has the capacity to wage the kind of war it would need to win even in the short term. Turing Kyiv into Grozny is possible, IF you have the arty shells to do it, and IF the enemy isn't constantly dropping RPGs and Hellfire's onto your batteries, and IF you have enough gas to get the tanks and IFVs where they need to go. Tactically, Russia might still have what it takes to win. But on the operational scale their logistics situation is bad, and the UA is only making it worse and worse. Russia needs to pull increasingly large numbers of forces off the attack and into convoy protection, when of course the road isn't gridlocked, because UA AT teams are just wreaking havok on everything they see. And UA SOF seems to be headhunting BTG commanders and arty batteries. It would sound unthinkable on 2/24, and I hope I am not jinxing things, but I think Ukraine has a realistic path to an operational stalemate here. Well see how powerful their counterattacks will become. But even a stalemate along these lines would be strategically disastrous for Russia. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by BeondTheGrave

[pintere]

9 minutes ago, akd said:

Firefight in woods:

 

A great example of how lots of firefights actually work. There’s a ton of gunfire, you never actually see the enemy (I don’t think you can see any Russians in the video?), and every now and then someone gets hit by a random bullet. 

[BeondTheGrave]

9 minutes ago, sburke said:

My understanding is limited, but @Haiduk  and @akd can chime in here with real info about organization of units etc

Actual data is always hard to come by but this is what the reforms under Shogyu looked like. 

Shoygu also focused on forming battalion tactical groups (BTGs) as the permanent readiness component of the Russian army, rather than brigade-sized formations. According to sources quoted by the Russian Interfax agency, this was due to a lack of the manpower needed for permanent-readiness brigades. BTGs made up the preponderance of units deployed by Russia in the Donbass war. By August 2021 Shoygu claimed that the Russian army had around 170 BTGs

Deployment in Ukraine at the start was 120 BTGs. i.e. 70% of the regular forces.  A significant portion of that force is conscripts which it seems is a big issue for employing outside Russia.  There was a big to do a few weeks ago where Putin had to commit to no conscripts serving in Ukraine (which they partially got around by forcing troops to sign up just beforehand).  Conscripts serve a year and that year is up right around now.  The new wave of conscripts is completely untrained.  As a special operation it is unclear what that means for troops who's term is up but there has been at least a few examples of soldiers refusing to commit to another deployment. Meanwhile the Russian army is actively recruiting in Syria, not a particularly encouraging sign.

Putin has already said he would not order a full mobilization partly due to pushback from the Mother's organizations which seem to have an outsize influence.  It also becomes a hard sell that this is just a "special operation" facing limited resistance if you are having to fully mobilize.  There are also indications that basic maintenance even for these 120 BTGs was not being performed regularly which doesn't bode well for those units not even participating in exercises.

Again  @Haiduk  and @akd would be able to provide much better info.

 

I would love to hear from someone with western experience, how does this compare to the way other NATO, esp US, forces are organized? IIRC the US also uses a BTG approach. How, if at all, are US BTGs organized differently than Russian? Does this speak at all to what were seeing on the ground? 

[Fenris]

Re discussions about manpower (obviously can't verify accuracy of that figure)

They do seem committed

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Fenris

[Lethaface]

24 minutes ago, General Jack Ripper said:

As I explained before, I did not see today's report.

Ah, wasn't there yet.

Among various other sources (including this thread) I've been following their assessments since the start. Extrapolated I think the conclusion can be made that the war hasn't been going good for Russia, not at all. While the south has been looking threatening since the beginning of the war, it is now 18 March.

Invading a country from 3 sides and sieging it's capital indicates that the political objective was regime change (although that was already clear from other things). The goal was not to create a new Afghanistan and stop winning after few years ;-).

On paper Russia has a lot more men and material. But can they actually bring them on the battlefield and apply combat power? More than what was already available to them? It's not looking like that at all. 

Ukraine has undoubtedly taken casualties as well, it doesn't look like the defense is crumbling; rather the contrary. 

From geopolitical and economical perspective this war has arguably already caused big losses to Russia. The question is whether the political objective will be reached. Imo the chances for regime change are bleak or rather non-existent. And should Putin manage to install a puppet government, how long will that last? 

Strengthened NATO, reunited EU (for how long nobody knows), economic fubar, military giving show of incompetence and hints of corruption.

No, from my perspective Russia isn't winning. They have technically already lost from geopolitical and strategical perspective. The operation has been a fiasco so far. So fair to say that it's already lost, but not over.
I think the consequences of the war are that large that Putin feels he can't throw in the towel yet, given the little results to show for. But will the situation get any better? I doubt it.

So he might have the will to continue the war until something is reached, but does his army / the people also have the will to stay with him until that moment? And do they have the capability on economic/logistical/military fronts?