How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

EW becomes an asset that has to be wielded with precision and appropriate mass like with air power or ground power. BUT if you do so many of the same principles reassert themselves.

So we are not talking about EW, or at least not just EW.  We are talking about an ISR superiority bubble, that if collapses results in a quick ignoble death.  A Sense bubble included data and information superiority.  If everyone has these then

1) surprise is pretty much dead because we are talking decentralized bubbles not a singular big brain one can hit.  You can collapse a Local Bubble but what about the rest?  You might even degrade the operational systems but any given maneuver unit has enough integral capability to create their own bubbles.

2) You have to re-think manoeuvre warfare from the ground up.  The whole thing is predicated on avoiding strength and hitting vulnerabilities, which is pretty hard if an opponent can see you coming miles off.  Further a local Sense bubble collapse also sends a clear signal of effort, which one can also not hide.

3) Mass might be suicidal.  As in Airland battle concentration leading to death does not necessarily flow from air superiority.  By seeing high mass concentration from well back, or even at it is forming means interdiction can come from many vectors.  This plus PGM means NLOS over the horizon massed fires before you even make contact can destroy concentrations of mass.  This indicated land warfare might start to resemble naval warfare but distributed.

And I think this only scratches the surfaces as that Sense bubble has to include a logistics tail or security is impossible.  Honestly I am going to need a bit of time to digest this all, it was Hapless’ mention of snow globes that clicked it. 

[akd]

Russia now seeding minefields with MLRS:

Video of an Azov unit operating:

 

[The_Capt]

12 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

"Win EW" is also going to include winning control of various space domains too to destroy enemy satellites and (hopefully) attempt to defend your own from destruction - both for intelligence gathering and for communications.

Countries are also going to need to develop backup systems if their satellite comms get taken out - such as a network of high altitude drone access points that can talk to each other creating a damage-resistant web much like the internet.

Exactly, we cannot EW our way out of this.  There are too many sensors everywhere.  We cannot jam the entire battle space out up to…er, space.  The amount of energy to even try is enormous and of course very visible.  One would have to collapse the Sense snow globe but I am not sure how to do that, some sort of penetrating cyber maybe?  Nanotechnology?  Imagine trying to hit every snowflake in that globe, the amount of energy required to do that is crazy, even if you could point it.  You cannot even attack processors as they would be distributed too.

[Battlefront.com]

44 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I think this might be one of the key take aways from this war to be honest, the entire loss of an ability to surprise. It may be at the heart of what killed, or at least severely wounded Russian mass.  I think our ability to process all this ISR data may have also caught up with our ability to collect it, or perhaps the UA distributed approach is one way to deal with it.

We have been focusing on ATGMs/UAV strikes but these are just the end of the kill-chain.  What may have crippled the Russian military here is the simple fact that they could not mass without being detected and hit...along with a healthy does of just plain old incompetency.  I am getting a whole "they were ready for the last war" vibe.

I've been thinking a lot about this in the past couple of weeks:

If I had a choice between unlimited UAVs or unlimited ATGMs, which would I take?

The more and more I see from this war the more and more I think I'd opt for UAVs.  Both are force multipliers for sure, but there are multiple alternatives for dealing with armored vehicles that don't involve fancy ATGMs.  The amount of ways you can foook up the enemy if you know where and when he is has far greater impact than fancy boomsticks.

Steve

[akd]

Mobilization continues in Crimea:

 

[DesertFox]

2 minutes ago, akd said:

Mobilization continues in Crimea:

 

Poor pigs transported to the slaughterhouse...

[The_Capt]

Ok, coalesced into a deduction.  It is naval warfare principles on land.  Naval forces already live under these conditions, so how they fight is very different and extremely high stakes.  We are talking a form of naval-like warfare on land.  Very attritional.

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

It will be interesting what the developing field of optical / adaptive camouflage brings to the party.  May not be effective against thermal systems but visual systems which is the dominate domain of most drone sensor systems and a fair amount of middle / low tech combat sighting systems.   Think the 'Predator' movie adaptive camouflage of the Predator.  That is in development and I recall seeing a video of a demonstration of a infantry man system that appeared to be quite effective.  Mind you, testing lab to the actual battlefield is the challenge.  And upscaling it for vehicles would likewise be quite the challenge.  I don't know how any adaptive/optical system would still work once said vehicle drove through a field of mud and is covered with it.   Still, stealth tech for everyone is the potential.  But I am not sure it will survive the wear and tear of the battlefield to be force multiplier or to cloak your army.  Still, development is ongoing for these systems.

I don't think we're anywhere near having these systems in play.  The practical issues with them are pretty daunting, including the power required to run them.  And if such a system is developed I bet it will have an electronic signature that can be detected.

Steve

[DesertFox]

 

 

[DesertFox]

 

 

[db_zero]

I may have posted here years ago about the British work on making a tank invisible. Since that announcement they’ve gone silent…

It was the British who invented chobham armor so maybe the invisible tank is next….

https://science.howstuffworks.com/invisible-tank.htm

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, akd said:

Mobilization continues in Crimea:

 

The report I saw via Ukraine's General Staff is that Rosgvardiya coming from Crimea (and other places, probably) are being put into places like Kherson to tamp down the population and also to free up combat forces.  This does not bode well for Russia's plans if Rosgvardiya wind up having to defend against Ukrainian attacks.  They are not cut out for it.

Steve

[Thomm]

29 minutes ago, akd said:

More Chechening in Mariupol:

I wonder: Will any of these guys ever be taken prisoner?

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, coalesced into a deduction.  It is naval warfare principles on land.  Naval forces already live under these conditions, so how they fight is very different and extremely high stakes.  We are talking a form of naval-like warfare on land.  Very attritional.

Nicely put.  While a single tank doesn't equate to a ship or a platoon of tanks to a carrier group, the principles are not that different when talking about surprise.

Let's put it this way.  Some random person now has intel from a front thousands of miles away in a timeframe that no battlefield commander would have had prior to drones and cellphones.

You know, as much as I've been following this since 2014 I don't think the full implications have yet to register with me.  I say this because pretty much every day of this war I find myself having a new insight.

Steve

[DesertFox]

3 minutes ago, Thomm said:

I wonder: Will any of these guys ever be taken prisoner?

Nope!

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Thomm said:

I wonder: Will any of these guys ever be taken prisoner?

I expect neither Azov of Chechens to do much prisoner taking.

The end of the Azov video posted on the previous page showed a room full of prisoners.  My guess is they weren't Chechen.

Steve

[db_zero]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

War efforts always finds a way. Cars are not the best example as they are a profit driven, highest bidder wins acquisition process (yes yes I know I know military industrial complex is even worse yadda yadda) - but urgent national military priorities trump commercial priorities so chips end up being produced for military needs (missiles down the enemy's throat) instead of domestic wants.

Essentially, if the US needs to rapidly replenish it's ATGM stocks you can be to your bottom dollar they'll find the chips to do it. 

Russia, on the other hand...well, Russia's ****ed.

Might not be a quick. The tolerances for microchips can vary and the process of manufacturing them is a lengthy process. May even require some retooling.

Disrupting the civilian economy carries risk. 

While governments can do things by decree in todays divided environment it’s best avoided.

Even if the government issued decrees the actual manufactures of the weapons may not be able to crank out a lot fast. These are precision instruments of war and the manufacture of them probably require highly skilled workers and engineers.

It’s not like rosy the riveter or making N95 mask or ventilators.

In any event it’s a red herring…looks like the military is gearing up to request a boost in money to replenish the stocks of missiles.

they should ask for more than what was handed out

Edited March 26, 2022 by db_zero

[sross112]

17 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, coalesced into a deduction.  It is naval warfare principles on land.  Naval forces already live under these conditions, so how they fight is very different and extremely high stakes.  We are talking a form of naval-like warfare on land.  Very attritional.

What are the naval principles and how would they apply/change land principles? 

[sross112]

We've seen quite a few videos of RA prisoners the last couple days. Does anyone know of a source that would have good numbers on POW's? Haiduk or Kraze?

 

[JonS]

  

45 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

"Win EW" is also going to include winning control of various space domains too to destroy enemy satellites and (hopefully) attempt to defend your own from destruction - both for intelligence gathering and for communications.

The proliferation of commercial and third party satellite constellations is going to make that ... tricky. In a putative future war between, say, the US and the EU, would /either/ side take out a nominally Chinese constellation (either govt or commercial)?

In a traditional hierarchy, though, maybe it kinda doesn't matter. The Chinese release photos of the 101st Div HQ from 2 days ago ... that's a problem, but routine displacement SOPs /can/ deal with that. The Chinese release sat images of a platoon harbour from 2 days ago ... lol, whatever.

Which gets us back to timeliness of info and the kill chain that The_Capt has been banging on about. At the end of the day, some cold, hungry, tired and scared kid has to be looking in the right direction at the right time then pull the triggger at the right moment.

45 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Countries are also going to need to develop backup systems if their satellite comms get taken out - such as a network of high altitude drone access points that can talk to each other creating a damage-resistant web much li

I wonder if HF can get enough bandwidth, or brevities and compression can close enough from the other direction.

[sburke]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Nicely put.  While a single tank doesn't equate to a ship or a platoon of tanks to a carrier group, the principles are not that different when talking about surprise.

Let's put it this way.  Some random person now has intel from a front thousands of miles away in a timeframe that no battlefield commander would have had prior to drones and cellphones.

You know, as much as I've been following this since 2014 I don't think the full implications have yet to register with me.  I say this because pretty much every day of this war I find myself having a new insight.

Steve

might want to send a note to the Russian command.  they don't seem to have figured this out yet and are still playing from the old playbook.

I'd be really curious to see what kind of movements the UKR high command is seeing from those forces above Kiev. Weather looks like it will be getting wet starting Wed and running for over a week.

From that mine laying bit it appears Russia has thrown in the towel for anything more than murdering civilians on the Kharkov axis.  22 miles from their own border...  at least it isn't that long a walk home.

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, sross112 said:

What are the naval principles and how would they apply/change land principles? 

Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground

Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.

Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability

Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon

Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.

Positioning, not manoeuvre.

These are just for a start. 

[JonS]

5 minutes ago, sburke said:

might want to send a note to the Russian command.  they don't seem to have figured this out yet and are still playing from the old playbook.

Never interrupt the enemy when he's making a mistake.

trad., anon.

[akd]

More from that Azov NG unit:

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, db_zero said:

Might not be a quick. The tolerances for microchips can vary and the process of manufacturing them is a lengthy process. May even require some retooling.

Disrupting the civilian economy carries risk. 

While governments can do things by decree in todays divided environment it’s best avoided.

Even if the government issued decrees the actual manufactures of the weapons may not be able to crank out a lot fast. These are precision instruments of war and the manufacture of them probably require highly skilled workers and engineers.

It’s not like rosy the riveter or making N95 mask or ventilators.

I don't think this matters much during a conflict.  Like everything else for the past 50+ years, you can only count on what you have in hand.  Protracted occupation type conflicts are a different beast.

The real impact of resource restrictions is on a country like Russia or North Korea where their ability to produce or procure the high tech stuff is greatly restricted.  In this case they go to war without it.

Steve