How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[akd]

@Haiduk, is this just ru.wikipedia hijinx or something?

Dmitry Bulgakov Acting Defense Minister since March 14, 2022.

Edited March 25, 2022 by akd

[TheVulture]

From the world of economics, China showing some caution:

 

 

[Lethaface]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Finally technology trends are on the side of unmanned systems.  More miniaturization, greater processing power, smaller better cameras, longer and lighter battery life leading to increased endurance, more potent explosives technology meaning higher lethality in smaller packages and, the big one...decreasing comparative costs per unit. Everything that is giving one a slimmer, better cellphone is driving unmanned systems farther and faster.   

If other sectors are an indication, the most disruptive 'trend' will be software aided driven research/design, development and flexible mass production. 
If the rumor is true that the next generation US fighter has already made flight hours and has been designed and prototype produced in a record tempo, that's an indication of how disruptive that can be. 

The biggest question on that regard is, imo, whether the bureaucratic procurement / requirements processes are ready for that sort of change.

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Lethaface

[dan/california]

 

[Holman]

18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I totally agree.  Fortunately, we all have a handy dandy simulation for that sort of stuff readily available to us   All it needs is a few more unit types and bingo, ready to go.

Until then, this simulations guy has no doubts about what he'll see when MBTs go up against a "full spectrum" force less tanks in 2025.  None at all.

Steve

As an alternate example, imagine if someone came to their final conclusions about the value of armor by studying the WW2 Pacific theater and ignoring the European theater.

[Holman]

[Oops double post]

Edited March 25, 2022 by Holman

[dan/california]

 

Please tell me it won't take until 2025 to Get a revised modern game out? Please... But if that is how long it will take to deal with the new flood of military customers we will almost forgive you.

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I totally agree.  Fortunately, we all have a handy dandy simulation for that sort of stuff readily available to us   All it needs is a few more unit types and bingo, ready to go.

Until then, this simulations guy has no doubts about what he'll see when MBTs go up against a "full spectrum" force less tanks in 2025.  None at all.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, Holman said:

As an alternate example, imagine if someone came to their final conclusions about the value of armor by studying the WW2 Pacific theater and ignoring the European theater.

A counter to that is studying the ETO and concluding what the PTO needed was more tanks.  See what I did there?

Of course context for testing a theory is a critical consideration.  What I'm talking about is in context with what is considered the ideal employment of MBTs, not some corner case.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

22 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

From the world of economics, China showing some caution:

 

 

China is still quite sensible.  They are not likely to risk worsening economic relations with the West over Russia without thinking they will benefit from it at the end of the day.  I'm guessing Beijing is not convinced Russia is the better bet right now.

Steve

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

Hmmm. I am not sure big guns are all that they used to be. These day modern targeting and fusing doodads can make auto-cannons plenty deadly. 120mm HE's "close is good enough" isn't really needed as much as it once was.

 

I am thinking armour of the future is going to be (or at least, should be IMHO) a multi-role vehicle. A large-ish auto-cannon (where is the 50mm there was talk of a few years back?) backed by ATGMs for the vehicle and perhaps the handful of onboard infantry. And its own drone bay. Ideally a drone that aside from recce can also guide an ATGM to an otherwise unseen target.

Unmanned? For patrols, recce, forward supply runs and maybe for tip of the spear stuff with actual humans nearby in support. But there's still so much you need a set of hands for. Who is going to put a thrown track back on a unmanned vehicle?

 

Ultimately though, it's gotta be mechs. Because **** ground pressure, mechs are cool.

Have you seen the progression of Atlas robot over the years? 

Now think of that big fat algorithm Google has been working on. If we're still as ethical as today in 30 (arbitrary number) years from now, it might come with an optional semi-automatic target kill acknowledgement UI, with default/fallback behavior being full autonomous decision making based on a predefined 'pre approved' ruleset.

Who knows in our lifetime eBay might offer such full-service vacationers, with the optional 'custom ethical module' offered at a premium  

[Vet 0369]

On 3/24/2022 at 12:28 PM, db_zero said:

Korea has some armor, but much of the country is not suited for armor.

Old and dangerous thinking. In 1950/1951, the U.S. positioned only light and medium tanks in South Korea because the “Omnipotent” brass insisted that it wasn’t tank friendly terrain. When North Korea  attacked, the attack was spearheaded by T-34s, which were considered medium to heavy armor. They weren’t stopped until the U.S. “heavy” artillery behind the Pusan perimeter. We wouldn’t give any heavy artillery to Syngman Rhee because we were afraid he’d start a war with them.

[Kinophile]

FYI, I've taken @sburke's list an made an excel file, to help visualize RUS OOB and their Command losses.

RUS Invasion - OOB, losses

Its about 99% done. Some conflicting names/units to clean up but a good visualization.

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

I think that all should be present - both modern equipment and high-motivated personnel with proper combat spirit. Having combat spirit only there is too hard to withstand with "steam roller". And when you have modern weapon without a will to fight this is also useless (example Iraq army against ISIS).

Soviet and Russian propaganda created the image ot typical Ukrainain as funny ingenuous mild slightly cunning farmer, which likes to drink horilka (Ukrainain analog of vodka), eat borshch and salo. But our nation had not only farmers, but nobles and warriors too. Ukrainans have "frontier nation" mentality, formed during 14-17th centuries - in peaceful time it sleeps, but when hazard come, this "frontier call" wake up in "farmers" a warrior spirit. Ukrainians mostly "anarchic" nation. Unlike Russians we don't sacralize central power, we can self-organize and act with multiple control centers.  

 

Here the translation of good article how we make war NW from Kyiv. This is some artistic text, but it shows the same about told that marines.

But in first order some explainations of names in the text:

Wilderness (other name Wild Fields) - territory of modern Ukraine and partially of Russia SE from Dniepr (ukr. Dnipro) river to Black and Azov seas. Wide steppes, the theater of endless clashes with nomads, where cossack mentality and spirit had been formed. Best analogue is Wild West or Texas.    

Kholodnyi Yar (means Cold Ravine) - location in Cherkasy oblast forests, which several times became a center of rebellions up to the Soviet times in 20th years. The symbol of fighting for freedom and revenge, sung in poem of Taras Shevchenko in strings "and a new wind will blow from Kholodnyi Yar", like a vision of new fight for freedom of Ukraine

 

In the Kyiv region if full-fledged Wilderness. Just in one small forest near small village, which is being contested I counted Armed Forces, National Guard, Territorial Defense, police. some of glorious volunteer units, SOF, SBU, some mysterious unknown special forces guys with strange barrels and just armed muddy guys. 

All this stuff is constantly moving, engaging and withdrawing, someone is brought in, someone is taken away, and everyone tries to get rich with a weapon and ammunition from enemies or allies. Nobody has  coomunication and coordination with no one. The central commans if even exists, it doesn't control anything. Coordination is poorly feasible - it is worth to deal with someone on joint action, as in few hours you find another unit on their place. 

The forest is under systematical hysterical shellings of the enemy of different intensivity and succees level, from which all run away and later gather in new configurations. When the enemy tries to enter the village, our forces eliminate them and armed muddy guys run under fire to collect the weapons, smearing with a blood. Someone grabs Russian helmets, someone takes a shots of enemy corpses, someone writes combat reports. 

Or tank accidently encounters thre enemy BMPs, knoked them fu...g out and drove away. Fu...g shocked enemy infantry is decimated from three sides by unknown people. Whos tank was it, from where it came and where did it go, no one could answer

The single idea, which unites everyone like a cornerstone is TO KILL. 

This is Cossakship. This is the same "wind from Kholodnyi Yar", which hasn't a single center of coordination and supply - where all these people come from, where they arm themselves, where they go after, even they do not know. 

No one military academy in the world taught how to resist this. Welcome to the hell.                

I would be hard pressed to try and give a better description of self-synchronizing distributed hybrid warfare.   This is literally embracing the chaos and making it work.

[holoween]

3 hours ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

A Bayraktar tb2 costs from $1-2 million, and AH-64 costs over $30 million... for the cost, they UAVs give a much better bang for the buck.

well lets compare to a us build drone so we dont need to do currency conversions etc to reach a comparable price

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper#Variants

somewhere around 25m so not actually that much cheaper.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

But it was by the TB2 - I swear there was video, hell the damn thing hit a train.  And, more importantly ISR on that column.  why the UA did not crush that thing remains a bit of a mystery but the obvious reason is that they did not feel they had to based on frozen feet and abandoned vehicles.   

The advantages of unmanned systems are a lot more than endurance by a wide margin:

- Unit Cost - including up front and lifetime maint.

- User Training

- Logistical Tail

- Losing Cost in terms of not losing a very expensive crew

- Profile - they are much smaller and harder to find than an Apache

- Ubiquity-ocity - All the above lead to a lot more of them per sq km than AH.

Their major weaknesses are payload, speed, survivability (if you can hit them).  But they have a lot of offsets for these most of it being in overall scale of use.

For the drone vs apache comparison i mostly agree except the profile part. the drone doesnt have much lower wingspan but more importantly the apache can fly below treetop level masking it entirely from enemy observation while the drones will have to fly quite a bit higher making it easier to observe. And still for pure combat performance the apache is miles ahead which is quite important for a weapon intended to be used at the point of main effort.

But thats not an manned vs unmanned equal system comparison. for that wed have to compare drones with something similar but manned like:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano#Specifications_(EMB_314_Super_Tucano)

It practically costs the same and brings the same capabilities. With the big difference of endurance and having a crew.

So less time spend circling overhead but able to operate in an ew environment.

 

This brings me back to a poin that i think everyone keeps ignoring. These drones are at best as difficult to shoot down as a ww2 attack aircraft and at worst actually quite a bit easier as they are a lot slower.

Now dont get me wrong i dont think that drones wont make a difference. They do require an adjustment of tactics and a buildup of short range air defense but the drones that most affect combat are not the medium to large sized drones carrying weapons. These can be neutralized with good tactics and equipment. The small and tiny drones used to recon and guide artillery are making a far bigger impact and ar far more difficult to counter.

[BeondTheGrave]

20 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Old and dangerous thinking. In 1950/1951, the U.S. positioned only light and medium tanks in South Korea because the “Omnipotent” brass insisted that it wasn’t tank friendly terrain. When North Korea  attacked, the attack was spearheaded by T-34s, which were considered medium to heavy armor. They weren’t stopped until the U.S. “heavy” artillery behind the Pusan perimeter. We wouldn’t give any heavy artillery to Syngman Rhee because we were afraid he’d start a war with them.

Its a bit more complicated than this. Great history to check out (IMO best written on the Korean War) Is Alan Millett's 2 Volume (maybe one day 3?) War for Korea. 

He makes a strong case that ultimately the South Korean Army was simply not designed to fight the North Koreans. This wasn't a product of Rhee's ambitions, he was smart enough to know that the US was going to be the one that kept him in power. Rather, the US had built and equipped the ROKA to fight a counterinsurgency in the north-central mountains. Here light infantry, trucks, some direct fire recoilless rifles, and lighter artillery were all more important than heavy tanks, artillery, or big AT pieces. This worked very well to quash northern backed guerillas that popped up across the country in 1947-1949. By 1950 the last of the Northern groups had been rounded up and arrested/killed (along with, surprise surprise, virtually ever non-communist member of the opposition. Oops.) The ROKA began to stand down and rotate towards border security, but in the North Kim Il Sung was faced with a choice: Either back off the south completely (the people's war had failed) or go all-in with a conventional invasion. This is when you start to see major diplomatic moves between North Korea, China, and the USSR. When the North crossed into the south (NKA had about 50/50 T-34s and SU-76s, the SU-76s were vulnerable to all AT weapons possessed by the South. The T-34-85 was totally impervious) the ROKA fought brilliantly and bravely, but only scored bit successes in the hills where they employed asymmetric tactics and ambushes to get molotovs and satchel charges onto the decks and into the fighting compartments of Northern tanks.  While the ROKA lost the first battle along the border, Millett makes a compelling case that the quite simply the North was unable to sustain an offensive south of Seoul. Its logistics were largely based on human portage and it could barely get fuel and spare parts up to the line. Pusan was save because by the time the NKA got to the defensive perimeter it was totally exhausted and unable to fight the same kind of armored offensive it started with (where have I heard this before). Big credit also goes to USN carrier aviation which put the screws to NKA supply columns and very much helped create this situation. By the time of the Inchon landing there wasn't a running NKA truck or train in the south. 

A better, IMO, historical comparison would be to South Vietnam. Probably too much to get into, but Donn Starry makes a compelling case (to me) in Mounted Combat in Vietnam that the south's reputation as 'bad tank country' was unfounded both on climate grounds, its much drier than people think, and also on the grounds of practical results. Worth a read if you are interested in a very different take on the war. 

[Cobetco]

your comparing an apple to an orange, the TB2 is considerably smaller than a mq-9 reaper and Super Tucano. and sizes are only going to get smaller still. this is the issue, not just thing is sky does thing in sky things.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Cobetco

[akd]

Really enjoying this T-72B obr. 1989 thanks to the invasion markings:

Edited March 25, 2022 by akd

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, holoween said:

For the drone vs apache comparison i mostly agree except the profile part. the drone doesnt have much lower wingspan but more importantly the apache can fly below treetop level masking it entirely from enemy observation while the drones will have to fly quite a bit higher making it easier to observe. And still for pure combat performance the apache is miles ahead which is quite important for a weapon intended to be used at the point of main effor

Ok, so I think we are miscommunicating here, what do you define as a "drone"?  UAVs are an entire suit of unmanned aerial systems, from the size of a very small bird/large bug to global hawk.  The TB2 is a MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) which we would call a Class 2 UAV.  These things are literally everywhere and every service has Class 2 and Class 1 UAVs as organic systems.  The really big stuff HALE like Global Hawk are held as strategic assets.

So the TB2 might have a higher profile but a handheld but smaller Class 2s and Class 1s are like the small UAVs you can buy commercially which have much smaller profiles than any AH.  

24 minutes ago, holoween said:

This brings me back to a poin that i think everyone keeps ignoring. These drones are at best as difficult to shoot down as a ww2 attack aircraft and at worst actually quite a bit easier as they are a lot slower.

So we are talking about a layered system of separate classes all plugged into a C4ISR system here. So even if you do managed to shoot down a larger Class 2, good luck with the smaller systems.  Worse, those smaller systems include the NLOS smart ATGMs like Spike and self-loitering like Switchblade (which is about 2 feet long and weighs about 50 pounds) which you can fire into the air all day and not hit.  Put this system into the air and link it to artillery and you basically cannot hide, or run for that matter.  Your LOCs are very vulnerable - how do you knock down a 2 foot flying Javelin warhead that can hit a target at 80kms?  How do you knock down 100 of them?

And we have not even started in on unmanned ground vehicles, which are not that far off.  Now you get a small, very low profile cross country rugged vehicle that can operate at distance...with a Javelin on it.  It can not only park and wait like a lurker, it can move and re-position as well.

If this was only about TB2s or even MALE UAVs it would be challenging enough, as aptly demonstrated by this current war, but add in all the smaller systems and self-loitering munitions and that is what we are talking about as a game changer. 

Finally even the Class 2 TB2 types are no where near the WW2 prop driven attack planes.  Why?  Because a WW2 CAS aircraft couldn't stand off 11km away and kill you with a Hellfire.  That is farther than most MANPADs and even SHORAD systems so we are talking IADs, which the Russian had and they did not seem to do much for them.  So western militaries are investing a lot to try and do something will all these systems but we definitely live in a gap right now.  We will see how it goes.

Edited March 25, 2022 by The_Capt

[holoween]

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, so I think we are miscommunicating here, what do you define as a "drone"? 

Id define it as a drone if its supposed to survive and as a munition if its supposed to explode on a target.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

51 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

China is still quite sensible.  They are not likely to risk worsening economic relations with the West over Russia without thinking they will benefit from it at the end of the day.  I'm guessing Beijing is not convinced Russia is the better bet right now.

Steve

Agree.

I think china might have backed Russia more if they weren't alluding to nuclear escalation. As much as China enjoys making the West squirm, I cannot imagine they appreciated that level of recklessness. And of course Russia tripping over their own dick hasn't helped. They are going to buy cheap Russian oil/gas and otherwise stay out of this.

[The_Capt]

10 minutes ago, holoween said:

Id define it as a drone if its supposed to survive and as a munition if its supposed to explode on a target.

Well you are losing me there.  So with modern MALE systems one can literally sit within an friendly AD bubble and strike an opponents rear areas.

Eventually someone is going to mount a Switchblade onto a Class 2 UAV so now you have an airborne system carrying another system that together have an 80km range which means they can hit SLOC entry points in the theatre.  Then someone is going to create a self-loitering system with smart DPICM and hit strategic targets like a ship or port…oh wait.

S’ok though we got AA Guns.

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Well you are losing me there.  So with modern MALE systems one can literally sit within an friendly AD bubble and strike an opponents rear areas.

Eventually someone is going to mount a Switchblade onto a Class 2 UAV so now you have an airborne system carrying another system that together have an 80km range which means they can hit SLOC entry points in the theatre.  Then someone is going to create a self-loitering system with smart DPICM and hit strategic targets like a ship or port…oh wait.

S’ok though we got AA Guns.

so what you are saying is we are effectively making war obsolete?  Instead of hitting an SLOC let's just decapitate the leadership.  Facial recognition, bug size UAV... zap

[db_zero]

2 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Old and dangerous thinking. In 1950/1951, the U.S. positioned only light and medium tanks in South Korea because the “Omnipotent” brass insisted that it wasn’t tank friendly terrain. When North Korea  attacked, the attack was spearheaded by T-34s, which were considered medium to heavy armor. They weren’t stopped until the U.S. “heavy” artillery behind the Pusan perimeter. We wouldn’t give any heavy artillery to Syngman Rhee because we were afraid he’d start a war with them.

I said much, not all and also mentioned there is some armor and that some armor includes M1s and Korean K1 and K1A tanks but overall its not flat rolling tank country like Ukraine or parts of Europe. Those T-34s could only operate in parts of the country.

But in the end your point is well taken and there are currently a pretty large number of tanks in Korea and the infrastructure is more advanced than it was in 1950.

Edited March 26, 2022 by db_zero

[John Kettler]

9 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

There are many German WW2 sources saying Russians are stubborn and keep making the same mistakes over and over. For example in the Tiger crew manual. I used to think it was just propaganda.

Bulletpoint,

Let me give you a Soviet perspective on initiative, which is doubtless what you're seeing in this war. In a translation of an article from their homeland air defense journal where it talked about free hunt (fighter sweep) and initiative, it said: "Initiative consists of exact conformity to the commander's plan." Yes, you read that correctly. Almost fell out of my chair at work in shock.

Everything is driven by the plan, and failure to execute a combat order has dire, possibly fatal, consequences. Unless, or until, the order is changed, that's where and how the attack will be done. The Russian Army in Ukraine is falling apart because there is no one (because blown up, run away, captured) to straighten out the mess, and for those still around, no real comms. If you read the GPW accounts, things got sorted out at army and front, generally not quickly, either, but typically not at lower echelons, where it was mostly do or die with fire being breathed on them from multiple directions.This isn't to say that at times some didn't buck the system and take potentially fatal chances to sort out problems, but the overall mindset was to carry out the combat order in exacting detail.

In Hackett's Third World War August 1985, he presents a vignette in which the Soviets are trying to break a NATO defensive position, but they can't do it because they can't get the MRLs' impact zone to fall on the target in an effective manner. If the MRLs were allowed to displace a bit to the rear and laterally, then the problem would be solved, and the attack would succeed. When the Soviet MRL commander pointed this out to higher, the political officer intervened and told him retreat was categorically forbidden. When he pressed the point, he was removed from command at gunpoint, hustled out, and his deputy took over. He, of course, cooperated with the political officer, resulting in yet more failed attacks. Such COs as remain in Ukraine now appear to be deathly afraid of issuing new orders and so either keep trying to execute the last one or simply do nothing. Indeed, they may be unable to do anything useful, for want of, well, everything needful. The troops trained to exercise initiative (VDV, SO, SOBR, etc.) have been shredded, captured or both, depriving the Russian army of eyes and means of delivering swift, deadly strikes, too. From what I can tell, most of what remains faces a slog, starting with adverse weather for which they're ill equipped, mud and  messed up logistics, in the face of a well equipped, well armed (and getting more so by the day), well fed, utterly determined and implacable foe, backed by people who can, will and do resist on their own and with own troops. When the octogenarians come out to fight you, you've got a real read on how much resistance you're facing. 

For me, it's no surprise at all the Russians keep hitting the same place over and over again--and failing and failing and failing. In the attack, the Soviet/Russian rule is to reinforce success and strip bare the failed attacks to break through and disembowel the foe, but they can't do that, either, because their mobility is almost nil. They're roadbound almost exclusively and even if they wanted to, can't effectively shift forces, for want of basic resources, especially fuel, and because their rear and LOCs are under merciless and effective attack, depriving them of much of the little they do have. Such forces which do attack seem to do so in the most ineffective, oft militarily stupid ways possible, such as the single or handful of tanks parades gadding about with no infantry support at all, no FS and no air support. Frankly, my brain's about to melt from simply trying to make sense of the plainly senseless things I'm seeing and hearing. Daily. A now, we're in weapon usage territory the likes of which I've never imagined or read of, still less seen. At no point in my Soviet Threat Analyst career was there ever so much as a whiff of using a TBM for attacking ships in port. We worried about CPs, radar site, air bases and such, but. not once strikes on a port. We were aware of Tochka-U, but only as SS-21b, having watched the Russians try to hide the submunition craters on their test range from our spy satellites.But I guarantee you at no point did we ever envisage a port strike which would destroy one vessel outright, blow up a warehouse and damage two other ships, all with one missile and a few dozen smallish submunitions. Talk about a cost effective attack!

Summing up, I seriously doubt there's been so much chaos and commander losses, woundings and captures, at such high levels, since the early days of Barbarossa within first the Soviet, and now, the Russian military.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[John Kettler]

12 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

There are many German WW2 sources saying Russians are stubborn and keep making the same mistakes over and over. For example in the Tiger crew manual. I used to think it was just propaganda.

Technical problems resulting in duplicate posts. Deleting what I can.

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by John Kettler