How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chuckdyke]

China is watching with glee an imploding Europe. For them Putin is truly a useful idiot. NATO will be damned if they don't interfere and damned if they don't. I hope the strategy of NATO fighting to the last Ukranian works with modern NATO weapons. I give it at best a fifty, fifty chance. 

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Taranis said:

 

Good video.  Obviously this is the equivalent of Russian media, but without the lying

There are two things in this video that have interested me for the last day or two:

1.  The small (in this case thick) circle is a new variation I've seen now a few times.  One of the vehicles I first saw it on is now in Izyum, likely from a unit withdrawn from Belarus.

2.  The Russian food seems to be improvised.  Looks like standard takeout plastic containers, probably from a unit kitchen unit.  I've seen these before in the Kiev wrecks.  Not really significant, just interesting to me.

Steve

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

China is watching with glee an imploding Europe. For them Putin is truly a useful idiot. NATO will be damned if they don't interfere and damned if they don't. I hope the strategy of NATO fighting to the last Ukranian works with modern NATO weapons. I give it at best a fifty, fifty chance. 

Europe is imploding?  They seem rather unified at the moment to me.  I think I am missing your meaning?

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

China is watching with glee an imploding Europe. For them Putin is truly a useful idiot. NATO will be damned if they don't interfere and damned if they don't. I hope the strategy of NATO fighting to the last Ukranian works with modern NATO weapons. I give it at best a fifty, fifty chance. 

I said it before in long hand, but I don't think the Chinese are very happy about what they are seeing.  Unified NATO/West, significant pain rained down on Russia's economy despite pain to the West, Russia discovered to be a Paper Tiger, proof that a small motivated force can defeat a larger one, etc.  The Chinese are pragmatic, so I don't think they're missing these points.  All of which offer some discouragement to an invasion of Taiwan.  Especially if Russia implodes and/or breaks apart because of it.  China is terrified of that happening to them.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

33 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Europe is imploding?  They seem rather unified at the moment to me.  I think I am missing your meaning?

Europe covers an area from the Atlantic to the Urals. Putin is fighting the democratization of Eastern Europe and China is frightened it may happen to them. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan show the prosperity democracy can bring. The USA leads NATO and Western Europe. Why did you think Putin flirted with a dissident president?  America first and not accepting the outcome of an election. It was a president who talked Putin's language. He also woke up western Europe and us in Australia too. Don't take the US for granted the mistake the Kurds and the Afghans made. 

[dan/california]

41 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I said it before in long hand, but I don't think the Chinese are very happy about what they are seeing.  Unified NATO/West, significant pain rained down on Russia's economy despite pain to the West, Russia discovered to be a Paper Tiger, proof that a small motivated force can defeat a larger one, etc.  The Chinese are pragmatic, so I don't think they're missing these points.  All of which offer some discouragement to an invasion of Taiwan.  Especially if Russia implodes and/or breaks apart because of it.  China is terrified of that happening to them.

Steve

I am strongly of  the opinion that XI is incandescently angry at Putin for selling him this "Short Victorious War", and then screwing it up worse than anybody thought possible.

Edited April 10, 2022 by dan/california
dropped a word

[chuckdyke]

52 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia discovered to be a Paper Tiger, proof that a small motivated force can defeat a larger one

It is what Hitler thought from June till Christmas 1941. Just let's look in a years' time, I truly hope I am wrong. 

Edited April 10, 2022 by chuckdyke

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This tracks pretty much what we have been seeing.  This is not so much an in the field problem for the Russians right now, as it is a Force Generation problem.  Most militaries would need months, maybe years to re-set from the war so far, Russia does not have that kind of time.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-9

If they send in those ad hoc restructured units or totally Green untrained ones, they are simply going to kill them faster.  Further skill sets like logistics planning and execution are even harder to replace, let alone engineering and gunnery.

All without Joint integration (something a military does not do overnight either) or operational pre-conditions.  

This is a great summary of things we've been discussing here for the past few weeks.  People who say or fear that Russia is going to come roaring back to life need to read this.  And they didn't even go into the strategic problems Russia will have getting these guys the equipment they need.

One particular thing to note is their excellent explanation as to how to account for "combat ineffective" units.  When a unit is deemed combat ineffective you must remove its entire fighting strength from the overall total forces available for combat ops, not just the amount KIA/WIA.  Meaning, a 1000 unit that suffered 200 casualties isn't X - 200, it is X - 1000.  At least for the short term.  And since Russia doesn't have time to sort out the mess they made, this matters a lot.

Earlier some had asked how quickly Russia could redeploy the forces from the Kyiv retreat (I liked that ISW used that word!) and I said 1-2 weeks minimum, but they could rush it to be 1-2 days.  ISW is saying many months.  Who is correct?  We all are, because the figures I gave (and qualified at the time) represent how quickly the units could be physically put back into the frontline, not how quickly they would be ready to fight. 

ISW's assessment is probably on the generous side for some units.  Units that are effectively wiped out take disproportionally longer to rebuild because it's like raising a brand new unit.  6-12 months might be more like it for those.

It has yet to be seen how Russia handles rebuilding its forces.  They could use the German model from WW2 for extreme rebuilds (as opposed to what their replacement system was designed to handle) which was to take a functional battalion (for example) and split it into two under strength battalions.  To these would be added survivors from other units too far gone to rebuild so that they'd have two functional battalions much faster than if they tried to build a new one from scratch.  It worked very well for the Germans, so I think it would work well for the Russians.  But it still takes months to do this, not days or weeks.

What they can do within days or weeks is tie up forces at the front for a show of strength that should be pulled to the rear instead.  We've seen already, I think.  For sure some of the battered units of the 4th Guards Tank Division were pushed into Izyum in the past day or two after being withdrawn from the Kharkiv area.  And apparently all they are doing is sitting in place, not attacking.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

It is what Hitler fought from June till Christmas 1941. Just let's look in a years' time, I truly hope I am wrong. 

Good gosh man... are you reading ANY of the stuff being posted here?  Start with this:

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-9

While few of the pre-war experts called it correctly, some of us said within days of the war starting that this is where Russia would wind up - dead in the water with no viable options.  And that is exactly what happened.  Not in months, not in years, just a few weeks.  There will be no war in a "year's time" to check in on because it will be over by then.  Your time horizon is completely detached from the reality of this war.

Case in point: in about 1-2 months Ukraine will have more soldiers committed to battle than Russia started off the war with. 

What do you think they will do with all of that force?  How about the flood of weaponry and other war material flooding in from the West?  Do you think Ukraine has shown any intention of sitting around waiting for Russia to recover?  It would be foolish to even think that.

You don't have to hope you are wrong about this because I can safely say you are wrong

Steve

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

I can safely say you are wrong

I hope I am wrong wars used to be long term. Wars used to be normal, easily lasting a human lifetime. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, sross112 said:

There was a lot of talk earlier about computer chips and them being a major stumbling block for Russian manufacturing of armament. Can computer chips be repurposed? Would a chip out of my F150 be usable or be able to be made usable for a weapon system of some sort? Just wondering if they would be able to cannibalize other existing stuff to fuel their production short term.

Could a chip designed for something like a Ford F150 be used in a weapon?  Definitely not.  It would be like putting a chimpanzee brain inside a Human.  Even with 99% DNA cross compatibility, same basic physiological design, same love of bananas, etc. it wouldn't work. Chips are custom made for specific purposes and the thing it is plugged into is engineered explicitly for it

Here's some fun facts for those who think Russia can "retool" quickly.  Ford pretty much invented assembly line production and they have billions of Dollars to spend on solving a relatively simple, straight forward, and limited problem -> chip supply.

It took Ford nearly 2 years into the supply chain mess to develop a strategy, which they announced late last year:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/11/18/ford-globalfoundries-collaborate-advancing-chip-manufacturing/8665187002/

Now nearly THREE YEARS since the supply chain problem started, and 4 months since their announcement, they have once again had to put production on hold.  This is from March 4, 2022:

https://fordauthority.com/2022/03/2022-ford-super-duty-production-once-again-impacted-by-chip-shortage/

This is one very rich and experienced company trying to solve one specific (limited) deficiency in a country that makes the machinery that produces chips.  They have every incentive to get this done quickly, yet it is taking them years.  Now, why again should I think that a corrupt, inefficient, police state like Russia can fix thousands of problems of this sort all at once without any manufacturing resources or money to do so?  If someone still thinks I should believe it, they also need to convince me that Russia can do all of this within the next few weeks, because that's how quickly they need to show results for it to matter.

Steve

[dan/california]

34 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

I hope I am wrong wars used to be long term. Wars used to be normal, easily lasting a human lifetime. 

Modern systems, and soldiers for that matter, just can't be built/trained fast enough. So the fight last until one side runs out of modern gear/trained people and has to quit. 

Edited April 10, 2022 by dan/california
spelling

[danfrodo]

51 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Europe covers an area from the Atlantic to the Urals. Putin is fighting the democratization of Eastern Europe and China is frightened it may happen to them. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan show the prosperity democracy can bring. The USA leads NATO and Western Europe. Why did you think Putin flirted with a dissident president?  America first and not accepting the outcome of an election. It was a president who talked Putin's language. He also woke up western Europe and us in Australia too. Don't take the US for granted the mistake the Kurds and the Afghans made. 

totally roger that, Chuckdyke.  I misconstrued where you were going. 

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

I hope I am wrong wars used to be long term. Wars used to be normal, easily lasting a human lifetime. 

The US invaded Panama and it was over within a couple of weeks and completely over in about 5.  That's 5 weeks, not five months or 5 years or 5 decades.  So what exactly is your point?

Wars only last as long as they take for the sides (can be more than two) to decide to end it.  That's been true since wars were invented.  So the way to predict how long any one particular war might last requires looking at the facts of that war, not other wars.

The facts of this war show that it MIGHT drag out in a stalemate for quite a while, but not years.  I don't even see stalemate in the cards for Russia.  And I've said why about 100 times already and defended my points whenever challenged.  I'm quite satisfied with my track record of calling this correctly so far, so I think I've got a pretty good handle on where this is headed.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

So the fight last until one side runs out of modern gear/trained people and has to quit. 

Or carry on with outdated gear. It will be a brave Ukranian mounting a T72 tank. I thought autoloaders were a great idea, but this war changed my mind. I also accept that we can't put these tankers in Abrams, Challengers, or Leopards 2 without extensive training first. See what happens even one Ukrainian dying in this conflict is one too many. For the Russians better desert than selling your soul. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:

Or carry on with outdated gear. It will be a brave Ukranian mounting a T72 tank. I thought autoloaders were a great idea, but this war changed my mind. I also accept that we can't put these tankers in Abrams, Challengers, or Leopards 2 without extensive training first. See what happens even one Ukrainian dying in this conflict is one too many. For the Russians better desert than selling your soul. 

Nothing wrong with autoloaders in concept.  Vehicles with ammo stacked in the open around their crews is, however, a major threat to crew safety.  Just like it was in WW2 without autoloaders.

Steve

[kraze]

3 hours ago, db_zero said:

This approach sends a message to any potential despot that the way to avert NATO/US direct intervention is to possess a nuke.

Except right now the message is - if you are a despot and have a nuke - you can invade, occupy, do horrible war crimes in a whatever non-nuclear (protected) country you wish.

Better yet - if you also have oil and gas - other countries will keep supporting your warcrimes with hard cash

[kraze]

3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Putin is fighting the democratization of Eastern Europe 

You think too high of that guy.

He's fighting to restore russian empire that included everything from Berlin to Alaska.

Of course he figured out he's not getting it because this time he has no Hitler to use as an excuse to occupy half the Europe - and the one he invented is beating his "#2" army up so bad - he will have nothing to invade even a country as small as Lithuania with.

Edited April 10, 2022 by kraze

[kraze]

I like how russian cope maps went from "successes of special operation" where they captured 1/3 of Ukraine and Transnistria being there

https://twitter.com/robbieburr/status/1512586971813584904?s=20&t=mzdWDRg54ZrauGmzqXnLuw

To "ongoing special operation", with the "containment zone" in the north (whatever that means) and Transnistria evaporating

https://twitter.com/KyleJGlen/status/1512523742009823240?s=20&t=mzdWDRg54ZrauGmzqXnLuw

Edited April 10, 2022 by kraze

[Aragorn2002]

8 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

President Zelensky and Prime Minister Johnson taking a walk through the streets of Kiev.

Can't help it, but I like the bugger.

[Taranis]

An interesting link about russian war crimes (also link on this one with other websites about Ukrainian heroes and War pictures).
https://war.ukraine.ua/russia-war-crimes/
 

 

 

[womble]

8 hours ago, Fenris said:

Nothing too exciting, a captured T-72 firing a few times

 

Heh. Russian losses coming back to haunt them.

[Markus86]

Last paragraph of an article of the German "Zeit". (translated with google) https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2022-04/waffenlieferungen-ukraine-christine-lambrecht-bundesregierung

Quote

Not responsible, not able, not willing: A Chancellor who felt responsible for the country’s biggest crisis since the fall of the Wall and who would be willing to help Ukraine the way it deserved would have long since had a Corona crisis team instead set up a Ukraine crisis team headed by a general and headed by his minister in the Chancellery, in which representatives of the most important ministries work together instead of criticizing each other through interviews and speeches in the Bundestag and certifying that they are not responsible. Scholz, however, seems obsessed with surviving the war with minimal effort, expecting as little as possible of the citizens and returning to business as usual as quickly as possible. Yes, his speechwriters foisted it on him with the "turn of the era"; but act on it? nope The chancellor has exactly the secretary of defense he deserves.

 

[womble]

6 hours ago, dan/california said:

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-9

ISW is even more negative on the condition of available Russian forces than what I would loosely describe as the thread consensus. A lot of detail about units just refusing to go back in the fight.

Indeed. If elements of the VDV and Spetznaz are (as reported) refusing to fight, that's very telling. Much more so than some Ossetian "National Guardsmen" objecting to being sent a thousand miles from home when they signed up to play soldier on the weekend in their own backyard.

Something else they mentioned that I hadn't cottoned on to before was the "ad hoc" groupings of BTGs drawn from different Brigades and Regiments into the operational area, adding internal friction to their activities, and the knock-on consequences of that being that they will continue to have to do this, since their initial approach leaves no intact next-tier-up formations from which to form new, more coherent BTG groupings. The only reason I can think of for them taking the approach to begin with was that they wanted to cherry-pick the "best" troops for their "special operation", too, so any followup BTGs are going to be drawing from the "B Team" personnel and equipment to start with.

Edited to add: And what if the reason they took BTGs from all over the place was that the readiness state of any one Bde/Rgt was insufficient to provide sufficient working assets to produce more than one BTG? Do we know anything about the establishment left in those formations that have already sent their Top Guns? Given that I think we're fairly sure not all the BTGs sent into Ukraine had their full establishment of SPA and AD assets, for example, does that mean that the remnant units have none of those assets ready to bring to the fight?

Endedit

And the last point about overall command structure might throw up some "interesting", too. Having a large chunk of Dvornikov's supply coming from Zhuravlyov’s military district asks all kinds of questions about ambition and blame-sliding behaviour. Where is Dvornikov's incentive to ensure the smooth flow of replen, and minimise the losses due to accidental misdirection corruption? The chaos of a large "military operation" offers any number of ways of self-enrichment, if the top brass are willing to turn a blind eye.

Edited April 10, 2022 by womble
Afterthought

[Taranis]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Good video.  Obviously this is the equivalent of Russian media, but without the lying

There are two things in this video that have interested me for the last day or two:

1.  The small (in this case thick) circle is a new variation I've seen now a few times.  One of the vehicles I first saw it on is now in Izyum, likely from a unit withdrawn from Belarus.

2.  The Russian food seems to be improvised.  Looks like standard takeout plastic containers, probably from a unit kitchen unit.  I've seen these before in the Kiev wrecks.  Not really significant, just interesting to me.

Steve

@Battlefront.com @akd @Haiduk
Have you any idea about the signification of the black O markings variants ? It seems rather late variant for me. (Mid March ?)

Edited April 10, 2022 by Taranis