How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[THH149]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Things will be ugly in the west for only a short time before Russia suffers an obvious defeat.

Zelensky and some retired US generals are suggesting the Russian  forces will be on the defensive after 25 March (ie their 10 days from now statements made around 15 March).

I'd be expecting high rates of losses from the newly mobilised Ukr forces if committed to attacks. 

[THH149]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

That worked See previous post.

[billbindc]

Delete

Edited March 20, 2022 by billbindc

[CAZmaj]

22 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

It is definitely going that way, sad to say.

But I'm also hoping that there are enough ethnic Russians fighting for the UA, so that the wannabe ethnic cleansers (which sadly may include some folks on here ) don't get to have their day, a la Croatia's savage retaliatory expulsion of Serbs (and Bosniaks) from the.... wait for it... Krajina region.

There is no future for Ukraine as an 'ethnic state' along the lines of the Baltics...

1/ there were no Bosniaks in Krajina.

2/ ...along the line of the Baltics...? You mean - Balkans?

[CAZmaj]

18 hours ago, Hapless said:

Potential footage of it:

Never really got the hypersonic thing, but if we're going to see more gimmicky weapon systems maybe they'll roll an Armata out so the Ukrainians can blow it up.

No secondary explosion(s)?

[DesertFox]

2 minutes ago, THH149 said:

I'd be expecting high rates of losses from the newly mobilised Ukr forces if committed to attacks. 

I wouldn´t, If they keep a good ratio of mixing experienced soldiers with newly mobilized ones. But I don´t know how exactly they handle it. A good way is to at least pull every second in command (Btl, Coy, Plt, Grp) from an active unit for takeover of command (Btl, Coy, Plt, Grp) in a new build unit to get the lessons learned into the newly mobilized soldiers.

[Zveroboy1]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

You might ask... "so why bother attacking towards it if there's no chance of taking it?".  A good question that apparently nobody in the Kremlin is asking.

Yes I don't know why they pushed in that direction either. It could simply be to consolidate their position around Kherson so it is less vulnerable to a possible Ukrainian counter attack; it could also be in anticipation of the fall of Mariupol to threaten Zaporizhzhia. Or perhaps just to appear to be making small gains before a new round of negotiations.

But whatever it is, it is surely a lot more sound that the isolated thrust to nowhere in the direction of the nuclear plant. That was just plain absurd.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

  Sumy has been surrounded since the war started. 

Sumy wasn't really surrounded to be fair, more like enveloped. But if the last rounds of maps are correct it is now a lot closer to being fully encircled.

But yeah the situation has been quite static for the past 10 days or so with not much visible progress, so I thought it was worth it to point out these recent potential developments.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I might be forgetting some of the obvious goals, but I think that covers the majority of them.

You could maybe add the demilitarization of Ukraine if you deem that this wasn't just an objective put forward for propaganda reasons. I think there has been a few strikes on Ukrainian armament factories. But this is really going to be more of a long term thing, not having much impact on Ukrainian resistance for now and I don't know how systematic this has been.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Zveroboy1

[DesertFox]

17 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

No secondary explosion(s)?

I would remain highly suspicious of this until proven to NOT be pure russian propaganda. See thread below:

 

 

[DesertFox]

History repeats...

 

 

[dan/california]

18 minutes ago, THH149 said:

Agree here, but I would add that blooding the Russian Forces will be an important outcome for the other things he wants to do vis Baltic states. Only real world experience can develop an armed force beyond a corrupt payday into something that can change facts on the ground with finality. Russian is learning a lot of lessons on how to fight, that the US learned in Iraq 1 and 2.

There is a BIG difference between "blooding", and shattering utterly. Most of these Russian units are being used up to the shattered point or worse. A U.S. infantry brigade that did a couple of reasonably hot tours in Afghanistan could be considered blooded, casualties of 2 or 3 percent total over the two tours, everybody has heard enough hostile fire to react instead of panic . There is a confirmed post a few pages back of regiment that lost it ENTIRE senior leadership. The commanding Colonel, XO, several other senior people were all wiped. This was confirmed by their funeral announcements at their home base in Russia. I am going to make the entirely reasonable assumption that the brigade suffered 25 to 40% casualties for that to happen. There isn't anybody left to learn anything. The Russians just don't have the long serving NCO corps to learn anything and pass it on. Everybody in that unit who gets out of Ukraine alive is going to get out of the army as fast as they can, and get as far away from it as the can, preferably with a vodka bottle. It might as well be 100% casualties, that unit and virtually all of it personnel are militarily useless, forever.

[THH149]

23 minutes ago, dan/california said:

There is a BIG difference between "blooding", and shattering utterly.

Thats true. RF now knows what it "really" takes to be near-peer even to a Ukr, so knows what needs to happen to achieve that. The carcass of what's left is the only base from which to start that. Whether the Army can give up the corrupt pay-days to do that in reality is something else, and may well need a FSB/Commissar Corp to monitor where the money goes, actually achieve the necessary training standards and have higher training standards, plus changes to doctrine supported by encourage not discouraged small unit initiative. Whether the RF leadership can trust the army to do that will be seen.

[Battlefront.com]

This link was posted above somewhere.  I think it should be mandatory reading so I am reposting

This is one of the examples that think tanks and professional commentators seem to be lacking awareness of.  They talk about X Russian forces being able to do Y stuff in Z time seemingly without doing the math to see if they can.  The math is critical for stuff like this.

Here's an example.  As the Stryker Brigade concept was being developed there was a mandate for the Strykers to be light enough that the whole brigade could be airlifted anywhere in the world within something like 72 hours.  Around 2002 RAND was commissioned to do a study to see if this was indeed possible.  I purchased a PRINTED copy of that study, BTW   I'm tired at the moment, but I think it is here:

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2002/MR1606.pdf

What did RAND do?  They did the math.  The took the number of vehicles that needed to be transported, figured out realistically how long it would take to fly from various places to other various places, counted up the number of planes that existed, etc. and concluded that even under ideal circumstances there just wasn't a way to do it unless the SBCT was forward deployed and pretty much the entire air cargo fleet was dedicated to move it.

Soooo... long winded way of saying that logistics matter.  A lot.  So any analysis that doesn't take a serious look at logistics before they make prognostications isn't worth much.

Steve

P.S.  if I was ever to go back in time and sign up for service I would want to be an S4.  I have logistics in my blood.

 

[Battlefront.com]

10 minutes ago, THH149 said:

Thats true. RF now knows what it "really" takes to be near-peer even to a Ukr, so knows what needs to happen to achieve that. The carcass of what's left is the only base from which to start that. Whether the Army can give up the corrupt pay-days to do that in reality is something else, and may well need a FSB/Commissar Corp to monitor where the money goes, actually achieve the necessary training standards and have higher training standards, plus changes to doctrine supported by encourage not discouraged small unit initiative. Whether the RF leadership can trust the army to do that will be seen.

Russia had a choice under Putin that will be the same choice under whomever replaces him.  Russia can either have a big military or a good military, it can not afford to have both.  Period.  It simply does not have the money for it even with corruption kept under control (which is its own problem, of course).

In order to pose a perceived threat to NATO Russia needs a big military.  But it won't be a real threat because it won't be a good military.  If it instead develops a good military it will be too small to post a real threat to NATO.  So either way, Russia can't pose a real threat to NATO.  Period.

Steve

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

Some insights about the truck problem the russians face, and it will get worse...

 

 

He makes a lot of good points. After a year in Iraq, our company's vehicles were thrashed - so much so that we left many of them in country when we returned to Germany. The military is hard enough on vehicles during peacetime, but during combat ops the abuse is ramped up exponentially.

This picture from our time there sums it up well.  

[THH149]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Soooo... long winded way of saying that logistics matter.  A lot.  So any analysis that doesn't take a serious look at logistics before they make prognostications isn't worth much.

When I chat to fellas in the Australian army the real thing they talk about is the supply chain and logistics as fightng a war is all about getting your team in the righ place at the right time, and then the fight can happen. Its bread and butter of all militaries but because its so unsexy it always gets ignored. 

For example the Japanese navy in world war 2 didnt want to provide escorts for its merchant fleet because they wanted to be busy finding the US carriers, so the merchants wer left to be sunk by US submarines. 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Yes I don't know why they pushed in that direction either. It could simply be to consolidate their position around Kherson so it is less vulnerable to a possible Ukrainian counter attack; it could also be in anticipation of the fall of Mariupol to threaten Zaporizhzhia. Or perhaps just to appear to be making small gains before a new round of negotiations.

But whatever it is, it is surely a lot more sound that the isolated thrust to nowhere in the direction of the nuclear plant. That was just plain absurd.

Sumy wasn't really surrounded to be fair, more like enveloped. But if the last rounds of maps are correct it is now a lot closer to being fully encircled.

But yeah the situation has been quite static for the past 10 days or so with not much visible progress, so I thought it was worth it to point out these recent potential developments.

You could maybe add the demilitarization of Ukraine if you deem that this wasn't just an objective put forward for propaganda reasons. I think there has been a few strikes on Ukrainian armament factories. But this is really going to be more of a long term thing, not having much impact on Ukrainian resistance for now and I don't know how systematic this has been.

Ukraine will be able to order from Lockheed like everybody else in NATO when this is over...

[chuckdyke]

44 minutes ago, THH149 said:

When I chat to fellas in the Australian army the real thing they talk about is the supply chain and logistics as fightng a war is all about getting your team in the righ place at the right time, and then the fight can happen. Its bread and butter of all militaries but because its so unsexy it always gets ignored. 

For example the Japanese navy in world war 2 didnt want to provide escorts for its merchant fleet because they wanted to be busy finding the US carriers, so the merchants wer left to be sunk by US submarines. 

It would be a game by itself. Same with the C2 there are no signal units in the game. 

[sburke]

Kind of old news

 

Russian spy chief arrested, officials split over Ukraine invasion (msn.com)

Colonel-General Sergei Beseda, the head of the Fifth Service of the FSB intelligence service, and Beseda's deputy were being held under house arrest, according to a report by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) non-partisan think tank.

The Fifth Service was responsible for providing Russian President Vladimir Putin with intelligence about Ukraine leading up to the war. "It looks like two weeks into the war, it finally dawned on Putin that he was completely misled. The department, fearful of his responses, seems to have told Putin what he wanted to hear," Russian investigative journalists Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov wrote in the CEPA report.

On Saturday, a US official told The Wall Street Journal that the reports about Beseda being placed under house arrest were "credible," adding that bickering had broken out between the FSB and Russian Defense Ministry concerning the invasion of Ukraine.

 

When asked for comment Putin said "it is all going to plan" 

Edited March 20, 2022 by sburke

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

It would be a game by itself. Same with the C2 there are no signal units in the game. 

The signals/ecm/sensor complexity of the modern battlefield is staggers the limits of human comprehension. There are COMPLICATED back and forth games going on from the near ultraviolet end of the visible spectrum to the Furthest low frequency radio waves. The is at a minimum sensing, jamming, communication, and direction finding happening right across the entire spectrum. The military is going to need E5s with the equivalent of bachelors degree in electrical engineering, and O3s that might as well be Phds in computer science. They will not only have to train these people but then RETAIN them when they get a civilian salary well into six figures. It is not going to be easy. 

[chuckdyke]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The signals/ecm/sensor complexity of the modern battlefield is staggers the limits of human comprehension.

I went through the job description of the Australian army. It started with, the opportunity to have a degree in.......... But it would make an interesting game. 

[Doc844]

6 hours ago, womble said:

Genitals, meet blender.

I had tears rolling down my cheeks 

[Homo_Ferricus]

4 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:

This is a warning to slow down! Once a thread reaches 999 pages the entire BF forum will become quickly unstable and descend into an irreversible crash.... this will spell a terrible omen for the world!

It's obvious that this thread has become utterly unsustainable and has no hope of meeting it's original objectives. I predict in no longer than 10 days this thread will hit a culmination point, at which point the topic will either be resolved (unlikely) or the entire forum will collapse in on itself. All the ingredients are present--flame wars, spam, conspiracy theories, off-topic rants. We've barely seen any gains in information or useful discussion here for the last two weeks. No way the forumites can keep this up for much longer.

 

XD

Edited March 20, 2022 by Homo_Ferricus

[Doc844]

Maybe Russian generals should have studied how the U.S. and its allies managed the logistics of iraq and afghan.  That was a massive undertaking, I saw both with my own eyes and that was in countries that were no where near as hostile as Ukraine and did not have anywhere near peer equipment or training.  As people have previously said everyone loves the cool shiny gear, we used to, we would always nick cool gadgets if we had the chance.  But the logistics is what wins battles.  Hell the main reason the allies push across france into germany came to a standstill was because of logistics.  The unsung heroes of any effective military force are the logistics arm.

[Gpig]

And why so much effort was generated to deny all those ports to the Allies. They were blown to bits, jammed up with scuttled ships, and secreted with long-delay-explosives (like Cherbourg, Naples, Antwerp etc.).

So important to see Rail bridges getting blown up, Belarus railways being ****ed with, and the attention given to the RF's convoys.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Gpig

[Doc844]

The situation of Belarus is very intriguing, a country that has had the snot kicked out of it for the last century, mainly by the Nazis and the USSR.  Now it finds itself in a position where 1, it could realistically oust Lukashenko, his pay master has alot on his plate just now.  2, it could at the same time determine the fate of Putin and Russia as a nation, close the back door and the northern russian cough 'offensive' cough, falls apart.  This may be their best chance to finally be their own country.