How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Yet unconfirmed, however:

 

 

Amazing 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Kinophile

[DesertFox]

 

 

[BeondTheGrave]

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by BeondTheGrave

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

hmm, I suspect the Donbass/Donets area troops might need some more training:

both videos absolutely unbelievable. Not sure if the explosion part is edited? but still...

Doctored explosions or not, these videos are showing far more than poor ammunition handling.  Up front one has to admit this could be isolated incidents but they track with a lot of other battlefield indicators we have been seeing pretty much since Day 1.

This shows a seriously lacking NCO corps, I can hear the rage of eons of Sgt Majors echoing across time.  It shows a lack of training and training standards.  It shows a serious lack of expertise.  It brings into question "what else is happening?".  In the second video, the one with a truck that is going to drive over those rounds scattered all over the ground, I immediately wonder when the last time it had a 1st line maintenance check?  If the crews are comfortable tossing live ammunition into a pile, what else have they neglected?

So back to the Capt's qualitative rants, it is incredibly hard to get troops to consistently and reliably get the basics right.  Particularly as combat systems have gotten more complex.  We drill it into them and then have to keep drilling it into them to do the essentials and basic combat skills to keep a very large and complex war machine in operation.  Then when one goes into a warzone or combat arena, you have to work harder as everyone starts to get distracted by stuff, like getting killed.  Weapons maintenance, vehicle maintenance, sanitation and hygiene, mental maintenance,  TTPs/Drills, SOPs, reports and communications are an entire set of skills that anyone in these situations needs to master before we give them specific training within their chosen trade.  We spend billions on this annually and it is the unsexy reality of 90% of the effort to create and sustain a modern military. 

It appears silly and "overdone" to most people but if you have lived the life it is essential.  Example, I had an SSM back in the day, who insisted that the troops empty their mags and stretch the loading springs out every week.  Lotta eye-rolling and grunts but it was pure genius.  First off, if you leave the rounds packed in a mag for 6-12 months, there is a chance the spring will compress and you might see misloads at the back end of the mags.  But the genius was it got the troops to actually pay attention to their weapon on a schedule by forcing them to go through the boring chore of loading and reloading their mags.  Further, the SSM insisted the troops adopt a 2-8-2-8-2-4-3 pattern of alternating tracer - ball (everyone had a proprietary system).  This engrained that pattern into the troops heads so that when they did get into a dust up they knew the tracer indicator counts by heart.

So when I read about how the Russians can muster "millions of troops" and smother the Ukrainians and I see videos like this, I immediately think "smother will millions of corpses more likely".  You cannot take a teenager and turn them into well trained and disciplined troops in 90 days anymore (I am not sure we ever could...thank you WW1 and WW2 mobilization myths).  You can however create uniformed and armed "dead men walking" where your best hope is that the Ukrainian Army will run out of ammo in the process of killing them.     

[Kinophile]

I've heard the BA process also described as "the agony of training vs the agony of dying - choose one". 

Helps to focus minds. 

Per reports DPR and LPR are pulling kids out of university and into the attack after what, a month?

The eventual UKR counter attack will roll through towns empty of young men.

[Hister]

Guys, I ask for your help. I managed to follow this thread daily but due to extra work and family obligation fell out of the thread wheel. I stopped reading on page 315 (Monday evening). Can you guys pretty please put me back up to speed and tell me the most important developments since then? I can't reserve enough time to get through all the posts since without being helplessly behind and news on TV are lacking as always.

 

So there were indications Ukraine started pushing Russians back in the Kiev theater. How strong was the Ukraine push?

Are there any more significant signs that Russian army is collapsing/in serious trouble?

Anything majorly new?

Broad info is good enough.

[Kinophile]

Probably the easiest process for you going forward is to "follow" posts by:

@Haiduk for videos, confirmation of events/units

@The_Capt for analysis and overview 

@Battlefront.com for analysis and compare/contrast with expected events v. Actual v. CMBS 

@sburke for lists of RUS officers squished

Me because I'm fecking hilarious (screw you guys I am).

 

[White2Golf]

5 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

both videos absolutely unbelievable. Not sure if the explosion part is edited? but still...

As others have noted, the explosions seem fake.  But I have seen that sort of UXO/Ordnance handling by, how shall we say, less than professional soldiers before.   Most of near death experiences in the Army were from people handing stuff like this, poorly.   Yikes.  "You morons realize that thingy is supposed to explode, right?  Maybe you want to handle it with care?"  

This is right up there with smoking around ammo, especially M256 main gun ammo.   

[White2Golf]

2 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Me because I'm fecking hilarious (screw you guys I am).

Yes.  We are laughing with you, not at you, promise.    

[womble]

5 minutes ago, Hister said:

Guys, I ask for your help. I managed to follow this thread daily but due to extra work and family obligation fell out of the thread wheel. I stopped reading on page 315 (Monday evening). Can you guys pretty please put me back up to speed and tell me the most important developments since then? I can't reserve enough time to get through all the posts since without being helplessly behind and news on TV are lacking as always.

 

So there were indications Ukraine started pushing Russians back in the Kiev theater. How strong was the Ukraine push?

Are there any more significant signs that Russian army is collapsing/in serious trouble?

Anything majorly new?

Broad info is good enough.

The high points of my recollection:

"They sunk my landing ship". A decent sized RUS naval transport got "burned to the waterline" in port, probably while unloading.

More RUS generals got geeked.

The southern advance towards Odessa has pretty much been called off, and UKR might even have pushed back towards Mikolayiv.

In the Kyiv area, there are reports that a handful of RUS combat groups are pocketed NW of the capital, and further reports of territorial gains for UKR some 70km NorthEast(ish) of Kyiv.

Mariupol refused to surrender, is now fully invested and being bombarded into rubble.

The Belarusians continue to prevaricate.

The Donbass separatist areas are calling up lots of people they shouldn't have to, and feeding them into the meatgrinder. Russia is bringing in troops from other hotspots and recruiting Syrians to fill up their depleted ranks. It doesn't seem to be doing much good. 

All in all, the general prospects for UKR look about how Steve and the Capt. called it a couple of weeks ago, and the cracks in the RUS war machine are becoming more evident as time passes.

One UKR tractor has been disabled by a landmine. The war is over.

[FlammenwerferX]

[BeondTheGrave]

8 minutes ago, Hister said:

So there were indications Ukraine started pushing Russians back in the Kiev theater. How strong was the Ukraine push?

Seems like the Russian operational concept (the deep battle-style offensive) is totally spent. Havn't seen much in the way of broad-frontage attacks in weeks. Strong indications now that the Russian army is switching over to defensive warfare and is digging in everywhere. The key exception is Mariupol, which the Russians have encircled and besieged. In the last few days they have been like the snake slowly squeezing the city to death. Ukrainian defenders have held out stubbornly and as far as I can tell are fighting for just about every block. Russian troops are continuing to gain ground however, and things are looking bleak for the city. Some scuttlebutt suggests a potential Russian 'out' (one that the west nor Kyiv will surely accept) is the annexation of Kherson, Mariupol, and the Donbas back to Russia. 

Regarding the UA, things continue to go well for them. However the counterattacks that I have seen have so far remained tactical in nature. Vigorous action has kept the Russians from encircling Kyiv like they did with Mariupol, and potentially in the future we will see this transition into much broader pushes against Russian positions. Some here think that the UA will fight well against Russian defensive positions thanks to their knowledge of the terrain, western ATGMs, and of course the tremendous ISR advantage they have thanks to drones and the west. Potentially this would allow them to map out Russian positions in greater detail than either the Russian commander is aware of and then attack and destroy them. Like I said, I personally haven't seen any signs of anything quite like that happening. Yet. 

I would describe the last few days as both sides having reach a general operational equilibrium. Russia can no longer push forward and seize substantial amounts of ground, the UA for various reasons has not yet. Given how it looks like this war is going, I dont think were quite ready yet for a cease fire. I've read some talk that basically Russia is still non-serious re: terms. So the fighting will continue and we shall see which side is able to break this short term equilibrium. Re: Signs of collapse? I think many of the indicators remain that Russia is on the brink of a bad place. But IMO they have neither move closer nor further from the edge. They are, however, slowly grinding themselves into a find powder. Collapses are one of those things, before they happen its all so theoretical and subjective. Nobody can really say 'collapse today.' But once it happens then everyone will turn around and look at the road weve traveled and say 'see, I told you!' Right now were still, unfortunately, looking forward. 

To everyone whose been reading through, how'd I do? 

[Taranis]

Another joke !
 

Quote

L’armée russe reconnaît 1 351 morts en Ukraine
La Russie a reconnu vendredi la mort de 1 351 de ses soldats depuis le début de son offensive militaire en Ukraine, il y a un mois, a rapporté l’adjoint au chef de l’état-major des armées, Sergueï Roudskoï, lors d’un point de presse. En outre, 3 825 militaires russes ont été blessés.

Par ailleurs, la Russie a accueilli 419 736 réfugiés d’Ukraine depuis le début de l’opération, selon Mikhaïl Mizintsev, directeur du Centre national russe de gestion de la défense.

Russian military acknowledges 1,351 dead in Ukraine

Russia acknowledged on Friday the death of 1,351 of its soldiers since the start of its military offensive in Ukraine a month ago, Deputy Chief of the Army Staff Sergei Rudskoy reported during a meeting. a press briefing. In addition, 3,825 Russian servicemen were injured.

Separately, Russia has taken in 419,736 refugees from Ukraine since the start of the operation, according to Mikhail Mizintsev, director of the Russian National Center for Defense Management.

Source : Le Monde

[TheVulture]

News from related theatres (Azerbaijan / Armenia / Nagorno-Karabakh) - I believe that this is an Armenian source:

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by TheVulture

[Taranis]

14 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Seems like the Russian operational concept (the deep battle-style offensive) is totally spent. Havn't seen much in the way of broad-frontage attacks in weeks. Strong indications now that the Russian army is switching over to defensive warfare and is digging in everywhere. The key exception is Mariupol, which the Russians have encircled and besieged. In the last few days they have been like the snake slowly squeezing the city to death. Ukrainian defenders have held out stubbornly and as far as I can tell are fighting for just about every block. Russian troops are continuing to gain ground however, and things are looking bleak for the city. Some scuttlebutt suggests a potential Russian 'out' (one that the west nor Kyiv will surely accept) is the annexation of Kherson, Mariupol, and the Donbas back to Russia. 

Regarding the UA, things continue to go well for them. However the counterattacks that I have seen have so far remained tactical in nature. Vigorous action has kept the Russians from encircling Kyiv like they did with Mariupol, and potentially in the future we will see this transition into much broader pushes against Russian positions. Some here think that the UA will fight well against Russian defensive positions thanks to their knowledge of the terrain, western ATGMs, and of course the tremendous ISR advantage they have thanks to drones and the west. Potentially this would allow them to map out Russian positions in greater detail than either the Russian commander is aware of and then attack and destroy them. Like I said, I personally haven't seen any signs of anything quite like that happening. Yet. 

I would describe the last few days as both sides having reach a general operational equilibrium. Russia can no longer push forward and seize substantial amounts of ground, the UA for various reasons has not yet. Given how it looks like this war is going, I dont think were quite ready yet for a cease fire. I've read some talk that basically Russia is still non-serious re: terms. So the fighting will continue and we shall see which side is able to break this short term equilibrium. Re: Signs of collapse? I think many of the indicators remain that Russia is on the brink of a bad place. But IMO they have neither move closer nor further from the edge. They are, however, slowly grinding themselves into a find powder. Collapses are one of those things, before they happen its all so theoretical and subjective. Nobody can really say 'collapse today.' But once it happens then everyone will turn around and look at the road weve traveled and say 'see, I told you!' Right now were still, unfortunately, looking forward. 

To everyone whose been reading through, how'd I do? 

For me, that sums it up nicely
I will also add the spectacular destruction of the Orsk (Russian Landing Ship) at Berdiansk, which is one of the images of the week

Edited March 25, 2022 by Taranis

[Taranis]

More on Donbas

 

Quote

Moscou dit se concentrer sur la « libération » complète du Donbass, selon l’agence russe Interfax
Le ministère de la défense russe a annoncé, vendredi, que ses forces se concentreraient désormais sur une « libération » complète du Donbass – région ukrainienne située dans l’est du pays, à la frontière avec la Russie –, rapporte l’agence russe Interfax. Le ministère a également précisé qu’il s’agissait d’une des options de départ de leur « opération spéciale », l’autre étant la conquête de l’ensemble de l’Ukraine.

Moscow says it is focusing on the complete “liberation” of Donbass, according to the Russian agency Interfax
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Friday that its forces would now focus on a complete "liberation" of Donbass - a Ukrainian region located in the east of the country, on the border with Russia -, reports the Russian agency Interfax . The ministry also clarified that this was one of the starting options for their “special operation”, the other being the conquest of the whole of Ukraine.

[Ultradave]

51 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

It appears silly and "overdone" to most people but if you have lived the life it is essential. 

We had constantly drilled into us that we'd better be ready every day, that we were "come as you are, no notice deployment".  That meant training, maintenance, medical, even everyday personal affairs, had to be up to date all the time and we trained and trained and trained and cross trained endlessly. It costs the DOD a lot of money. Not as sexy as buying new jets or submarines, but probably MORE important to keep the equipment and troops you have in top readiness than buying new stuff.

Dave

[acrashb]

5 hours ago, Taranis said:

"long feu" (I don't know what is the English equivalent, but the charge doesn't burn immediately but can later when you open the breach....)

"hang fire"

[akd]

Let me guess: multiply by 10, but same ratio.

 

[TheVulture]

Interesting non-military overview of the situation so far from GeopoliticalFutures.

Quote

Ukraine and the Long War

Thoughts in and around geopolitics.

By: George Friedman

 

For as often as it happens, nations typically don’t elect to enter wars if they know they will be long, drawn-out, uncertain and expensive affairs. They enter wars when they think the benefits of winning outweigh the risks, or when they think they have the means to strike decisively enough to bring the war to a quick resolution. Long wars result from consistent and fundamental errors: underestimating the will and ability of an enemy to resist, overestimating one’s own capabilities, going to war for incorrect or insufficient reasons, or underestimating the degree to which a powerful third party might intervene and shift the balance of power.

If a nation survives the first blow, then the probability of a victory increases. This is particularly the case in the long war. The nation initiating the war tends to have committed available force at the beginning, maximizing the possibility of an early victory. The defending power has not yet utilized its domestic forces or those of allies prior to the attack. Therefore, the defender increases its military power much more rapidly than the attacker. The Japanese could not match American manpower or technology over time. The United States underestimated the resilience of the North Vietnamese, even in the face of an intense bombardment of their capital. There are exceptions. The Germans in 1914 failed to take Paris, and in the long war were strangled by the British navy and ground down on the battlefield.

This is not a universal truth, but long wars originate in the attacker's miscalculation, and with some frequency with the attacker moving with the most available force, while the defender, surviving the initial attack, has unused resources to draw upon. It is possible for the long war to grind down the defender's resources and will, but having survived the initial attack, the defender likely has both will and resources to draw on, while the attacker must overcome the fact that it is fighting the enemy’s war, and not the one it planned.

The war in Ukraine is far from over and its outcome is not assured. But it began with a Russian attack that was based on the assumption that Ukrainian resistance would be ineffective, and would melt away once Russia came to town because the Ukrainians were indifferent or hostile to an independent Ukraine. This faulty assumption is evidenced by the relatively casual deployment of Russian armor. It also explains the Russian strategy of both bombing and entering cities. It’s difficult to subdue cities by bombing alone (think London, Hamburg and Hanoi). They are resilient, and the tonnage needed to cripple them is exorbitant. And they are notoriously advantageous for their defenders, who are more familiar with alleyways, roads, dead ends, and so on. The fact that the Russians operated this way indicates that they had low expectations of their enemy. This is to say nothing of Russia’s massive intelligence failure, which misread the enemy. (There are reports that the chief of the FSB intelligence agency's Ukraine unit has been placed under house arrest.) The most important failure was the failure to see that Ukraine would counter with a large, relatively decentralized infantry force.

The protraction of the war allowed the West and its allies to initiate economic warfare against Russia on an unprecedented scale. It takes time to implement economic warfare, and the Russians gave away precious time. Similarly, Moscow didn’t anticipate the substantial military aid that would flow into Ukraine, particularly the kinds that were ideally suited for a light infantry force.

None of this has defeated the Russians, of course, but it has created a crisis. A military force shocked by the inaccuracy of intelligence must determine without confidence in its intelligence what to do next. Russia thus seems to have abandoned the goal to occupy all of Ukraine or even Kyiv, shifting instead to a strategy of creating a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. If there is no military dimension to the future, this is a reasonable retreat for the Russians. But a long, relatively narrow salient – military-speak for a bulge or vector – is vulnerable to many forms of interdiction. This leaves the Russian salient at the mercy of Ukrainian action at the time and place of Kyiv’s choosing.

The question of the long war depends on Russian resources, without which there is nothing to discuss. Russia is apparently short on infantry, or it would not be recruiting and trying to integrate Syrian and other soldiers. The possibility of having forces that don’t speak Russian and haven’t experienced Russian training would only be considered by a force short of manpower. And such a force, depending on how it is integrated and what the mission would be, would be taking a large risk in maintaining large-scale operations.

The problem has thus become political. The initial war plan failed. The Russians are certainly able to continue the war, but they apparently need more people and an overall better logistics system, which is hard to improve in the face of constant combat. The United States, facing the same essential problem, chose to continue the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost was substantial but did not threaten core national security because of the vast oceans between the war and the homeland. The Ukraine war is on Russia’s doorstep, and an extended war, with intensifying distrust of the government, can result in a trained Ukrainian special forces group expanding the fighting into Russia. Russians cannot assume immunity.

It is painful, from a political point of view, for presidents and chiefs of staff to admit failure and cut their losses. The desire to keep trying, coupled with a reluctance to admit failure, carries with it myriad problems. Russian President Vladimir Putin needs an honest intelligence review, but he had one before invading. It was not a lie; it was just wrong. In a long war, the defender has the opportunity to grow strong, and the attacker is likely maxed out in anticipation of victory and the intent to throw everything into it. If Russia has resources not deployed and held in reserve for another possible threat, and doesn’t ruthlessly cut its losses, it will be joining a long line of defeats, from Algiers to Khartoum to Hue.

 

[White2Golf]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

This shows a seriously lacking NCO corps, I can hear the rage of eons of Sgt Majors echoing across time. 

My very first impression of the Russian VDV guys we did a few patrols with in Bosnia was this....   Their NCO's were very "un-NCO" like.  Also their BTR's were garbage.  They flew this big flag from the lead BTR while we were running around, well, until it broke down about 15 km in.  Apparently not much has changed.

[billbindc]

9 hours ago, dan/california said:

It is worth remembering that the ENTIRE self driving business/idea was kick started by a DARPA contest ~20 some odd years ago. The results of said contest were hilariously bad, but with steady grinding, an enormous investment, and the ongoing miracle of Moore's law, we are now getting close. 

I'm in a self-driving adjacent business and follow it quite closely. We really aren't that close to true self driving. That said, a battlefield has much less demanding parameters for control and safety than an average American street so I'd expect their advent in the field much sooner than on the highway.

[Commanderski]

[The_Capt]

44 minutes ago, Taranis said:

More on Donbas

 

Moscow says it is focusing on the complete “liberation” of Donbass, according to the Russian agency Interfax
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Friday that its forces would now focus on a complete "liberation" of Donbass - a Ukrainian region located in the east of the country, on the border with Russia -, reports the Russian agency Interfax . The ministry also clarified that this was one of the starting options for their “special operation”, the other being the conquest of the whole of Ukraine.

There it is...moving the goal post.  I have avoided getting into "well here is how the Russian's could have succeeded" discussions too deeply as there is still a real war and it is kinda disrespectful to people still fighting and dying but maybe we are far enough along to offer a few ideas.

If Russia had made the Donbas and the infamous "land bridge" to the Crimea to sole operational objectives of this war, they may have actually achieved, or at least had a better chance at their strategic and political ones.  If they had focused their main efforts to 2 main axis of advance with a limit of exploitation pretty close to what we are seeing on the maps now in the SE, along with "shock and awe" strikes across Ukraine they could theoretically have:

- Achieved their objectives much faster by concentrating their combat power and logistical capability.  This would have prevented or at least mitigated the UA build up and influx of western support.

- They could have simply dug in, took Mariupol and the land bridge and declare "mission accomplished".  Russia would have demonstrated its "immense power" to the world.  A shortened war (and I am not talking 72 hours but maybe a couple weeks) would have lessened western resolve and shaped the negotiation table.

- A short hard modest successful demonstration would have left a lot of "doubt" on the table for the West and Ukraine.  This would have made a threat of "further special actions" much more effective on the calculus on the West.  It also would have kept a lot more strategic options open as compared to where they find themselves now.

- It may have fractured the west more than fused it.  If Russia could demonstrate restraint and humanity in a "internal border dispute" it immediately call into question the economic sacrifices the rest of Europe will be making in what has become an economic war with Russia.  Further, it would play on the ever widening political divides in just about every western democracy.  It would have kept China very happy, without risking becoming one of their provinces. 

- If Putin really was a "genius", his play would be to immediately call for UN Peacekeepers in a ZOS once he had gained what he needed to.  Not western troops but Malaysians or Brazilians, a crew he could keep in his pocket.  We would have crumbled into a hot burning mess if Russia, backed by China and India, called on the global collective diplomacy and security body to intervene...it would have broken us.  If we say "no freakin way", then who are the warmongers who are pushing their agenda and supporting a massive military industrial complex?  If we say yes, we are in for years of negotiation and diplomacy, likely false but we built the system now we have to use it, all the while those sanctions start to go stale and erode.  

But here we are on the possible threshold of some really scary stuff, led by an insulated and deluded madman surrounded by yes-men, who decided that he could pull off a modern land invasion on the scale of the Fall of France with a couple hundred thousand poorly supported troops and complete failure to establish pre-conditions or align his strategies. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by The_Capt

[akd]

Hmm…