How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[akd]

“They paint the sun black.”

Survivor testimony from Hostomel:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hrjzhrjEjs954FVfLweVY7EnPfCKJr0kVHTJN2KWraU/edit

[The_Capt]

51 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I've been fairly prolific these last few pages, so I am going back into listen mode for a bit. But please note I am only paraphrasing @JasonC and make no claim that I have portrayed his views accurately. He doesn't come here any more, so we should probably just speak for ourselves.

Fair point, I edited out any attribution on his part.  Too bad he does not post here anymore, we rarely agreed but the guy knew his stuff and had an amazing historical depth of knowledge.  We would be better for him coming back, although don't quote me on that.

[Erwin]

43 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.

https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very long but very interesting article.  Thanks...

[Kinophile]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Fair point, I edited out any attribution on his part.  Too bad he does not post here anymore, we rarely agreed but the guy knew his stuff and had an amazing historical depth of knowledge.  We would be better for him coming back, although don't quote me on that.

Too late.

[Lethaface]

7 hours ago, Strykr45 said:

I'm sorry.

Free speech is being discouraged here.

I will just go back to thinking I was in the "Old" USA.

I remember when we could question "Authority."

I never insulted anyone.

 

No, critical thinking is encouraged here. However, after several encouragements didn't work the mood swayed into ridiculing morons.

[Haiduk]

Captured Russian ammunition - this is 9M117M1-3 Arkan - TGMs for BMP-3. There is no information about their usage, but they present in ammunition load 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, CHEqTRO said:

So, according to this article, the (in)famous BMPT-72 has been seen heading towards Ukraine. If they actually end up fighting in Ukraine; it will be interesting to see their performance, not so much from a tactical perspective (its esentially an BMP2M with the armor of a T72) , but from a doctrinal one. There has been a lot of discussion, also in this thread, about the end of the MBT, with the usual conclusion beinbg that while they will not disappear, they must evolve, as well as all the doctrine surrounding them. Considering that this vehicle is esentially halfway between an MBT and an IFV, some lessons (that will depend of how the Russians end up using them of course), could be drawn about the future of armor.

Note the circular identification markings.  This is for the northern group that came out of Belarus and has since been withdrawn.  All vehicles now being redeployed should get Z or V markings.  That indicates this vehicle has already been deployed or was intended to be and never did.  Either way, they were probably at least deployed to Belarus and not sitting way behind the front until today.

Steve

[FancyCat]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

1. Despite the obvious military reversals, Russia is still striving to achieve its primary strategic goals while seemingly abandoning a lot of minor ones.  The strategic goals boil down to:
   1. Demilitarization
   2. Denazification (nobody really understands this one)

 

57 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

While I do not disagree with Steve's assessment, I think we need to drop these as the "stated Russian strategic goals".  These are a list of BS that is starting to really reek and none of them hold up to serious analysis:

1. Demilitarization.  Nothing in the Russian strategy beyond "let's try to grab it all" points to this as a real strategic goal.  Further, I am sure Russia has no problem with Ukraine having weapons, so long as it is their people in power, all those weapons are bought from Russia, and they are all pointing westward.

2. Denazification.  So this is a bit like Counter Violent Extreme Organizations (C-VEO) that the west bit off during the big ISIL push.  Beyond not making any sense, BTGs and cruise missile strikes are not how one does it.  This is stuff like counter-self-radicalization programs, which in Russian terms is lining people up and shooting them, apparently.  Nope, I call BS.

So these are garbage, bordering on propaganda that we should put in the bin next to "Black Bioweapon Sites" and "Ukrainian Alien Mind Waves Making Russian Men Droopy".

Remembering that all war is communication, I offer the real political goals of this war were:

1.  Demonstrate and re-assert Russian global power, effectively undeciding the outcome of the Cold War.

2.  Pull all of Ukraine back into its sphere of control as a lesson/signal to a fracturing global order.

3.  Send a message to the entirety of its near abroad that "this is what stepping out of line looks like for you"

4.  Show NATO/EU/UN and especially the US as 1) divided, 2) weak and dithering, and 3) not the pony to bet on.  

Probably not a bad start but I think this is a more accurate view of the Russian Vision on 24 Feb 2022.  Now that whole edifice has crumbled, so frankly I don't think Russia has any real coherent political goals left other than the worst "choose-your-own-adventure-of-survival" book in a long time.

Hi, just wanted to say CMSF was a lovely game, and I'm happy to see Battlefront is still ongoing all those years later. 

 

Denazification has been taken by many people as only referring to Azov and the far-right in Ukraine, but that is ignoring Russian rhetoric, which has been casting the Ukrainian government as Nazis since before the war, and hyping up Ukrainian military buildup and evolution as a dagger at the separatist republics. The rhetoric also declares the Zelensky government illegitimate representatives of the Ukrainian people whom Russia is overthrowing. During the early part of the war, Russia called on the Ukrainian military to overthrow the Kyiv government and facilitate peace talks, seemingly in complete ignorance of the reality of the resolve of Ukraine. Considering how badly Russia has misjudged Ukraine and its resolve, it's important to note while it is "propaganda" in a sense, Russia's government probably believed in it enough to have disastrously underestimated Ukrainian resistance. It's also important to note people predicting Russia was not going to invade fully, probably downplayed or did not take seriously Russian rhetoric towards Ukraine, especially domestically. 

https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/unpacking-putins-denazification-ukraine-and-my-forecasting-failure

Something to note, Russian rhetoric has been extremely virulent and dangerous, as seen in the RIA state media op-ed, which represents a escalation of blame, in response to Ukrainian resistance and the shattering of the illusion of Russian troops being warmly greeted as liberators, while Russia invaded fully, it did so under a "special military operation", important to emphasize that the newer rhetoric accuses the majority of the Ukrainian population as Nazis, tainted and needing to be "cleansed" and its important if Russia intends on pursuing the conflict in a longer term to use more dangerous rhetoric to justify mobilization. 

[Vacillator]

'Recent video posted to social media has severals (sic) Terminator tank support vehicles heading toward Ukrainian border...'

So several vehicles is a flood now?  Until I got to the statement about Russia's unprovoked invasion I thought I was reading Russian propaganda.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

While I do not disagree with Steve's assessment, I think we need to drop these as the "stated Russian strategic goals".  These are a list of BS that is starting to really reek and none of them hold up to serious analysis:

Yup, and there were more than just those 4 when the war started.  There's the language thing, culture thing, and the late addition of bioweapons thing.

The Point of my summary was looking at what Putin has told his own people about the reasoning behind the "operation" and how he is going to try and sell victory to them.

Using the old adage from the Soviet days, if the Russian leadership says that their reason for doing X is Y, the only sure thing you know is that Y is false and that they are really doing X is Z.  So start looking for Z if you want to know what is really going on.  And that is what The_Capt did here...

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

 

Remembering that all war is communication, I offer the real political goals of this war were:

1.  Demonstrate and re-assert Russian global power, effectively undeciding the outcome of the Cold War.

2.  Pull all of Ukraine back into its sphere of control as a lesson/signal to a fracturing global order.

3.  Send a message to the entirety of its near abroad that "this is what stepping out of line looks like for you"

4.  Show NATO/EU/UN and especially the US as 1) divided, 2) weak and dithering, and 3) not the pony to bet on.  

Probably not a bad start but I think this is a more accurate view of the Russian Vision on 24 Feb 2022.  Now that whole edifice has crumbled, so frankly I don't think Russia has any real coherent political goals left other than the worst "choose-your-own-adventure-of-survival" book in a long time.

These are all correct in my view, but there is one more:

5.  deny the Russian people any easy way to compare/contrast what post Soviet life could look like with better governance.  This is yet another reason the Baltics are such a thorn in Putin's side.  Finland too.  However, none of these are considered "Russian" by the population of the western Russian people.  Ukraine is.  The ties between the two are extensive and the language barrier inherently lower.  A flourishing pro-Western Ukraine threatens everything.

OK, next up is looking at how novel these goals are to the current war.  They are not novel at all.  In fact these goals are the same ones Putin has been increasingly focused on after getting "his house in order" by settling Chechnya, clawing back power from oligarchs (in particular petro power), and getting the political opposition out of the way.  It was these goals that led to the war with Georgia and subverting local control of the near abroad through financial corruption.  In particular Ukraine.

When it became clear that Ukraine was going to strike out on its own despite all of Russia's efforts, it launched the 2014 war explicitly to support the above stated goals.  The 8 years between then and now showed Russia increasingly frustrated that it wasn't making much progress and, in fact, was losing ground with Ukraine.  Therefore, Russia launched a second war with the intent of settling this militarily.

And now we get to the difference between the two sets of Russian objectives; the public ones and the real ones.

Russia's public goals would have been defacto achieved if it had secured its real goals.  Russia apparently has figured out that it's ability to affect victory on any level for its real objectives is, at least for now, largely impossible.  Therefore, it is focusing on its public goals and trying to at least hang onto power.  Because if it fails to achieve those, the chances of retaining power long enough to come back from the defeat is very small.

This is why Russia appears to be focusing on concocting stories to sell to its own people so that it can claim this to be a successful "operation" and then keep pursuing it's real goals.  Which is why Russia needs to be defeated openly in Ukraine.

Steve

[DesertFox]

 

 

[DesertFox]

 

 

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

5.  deny the Russian people any easy way to compare/contrast what post Soviet life could look like with better governance.  This is yet another reason the Baltics are such a thorn in Putin's side.  Finland too.  However, none of these are considered "Russian" by the population of the western Russian people.  Ukraine is.  The ties between the two are extensive and the language barrier inherently lower.  A flourishing pro-Western Ukraine threatens everything.

That is a really good one.  This was supposed to send a message to the Russian people as well.  I suspect "they are all out to get us but stick with me and I will save mother-Russia" fits in here as well.  Out of the "real" political objectives, this last one may still be in play as if Putin lies hard enough and can make a silk purse out of this sows ear he could secure a large enough echo chamber.  But that line of Russian kids coming home in pieces (if they come home at all) is going to get harder and harder to explain away.  I am sure they are lining up "it wasn't useless/hopeless Ukrainians that killed our boys, it was NATO/US weapons but we took 12 square feet of ground, so I saved us."

[DesertFox]

Man könnte kotzen...

 

 

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

 

 

Again, "The Russians Suck" to explain what has happened.

The awkward reality is that the BTG concept is not that far from the western Battle Group concept, but I am sure the "Russians were doing it wrong".   This is an easy exit from the more awkward, "what did the Ukrainians Do Right, that made the Russians Wrong?  Because we might be wrong-ish too".  

[CHEqTRO]

Lets see where this goes

 

EDIT: So, the "attack" was just a polish soldier taking the piss out of the Belarussians it seems. There is a supposed video of the incident and it just a soldier throwing rocks at the border with a slingshot. Hardly casus belli I would say.

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[Haiduk]

 

@sburke @Kinophile

+3

Mayor Yegor Sannikov. No other info. Probably artillery officer.

Lt.colonel Dibir Dibirov, 291st motor-rifle regiment of 42nd MRD, 58th CAA. Duty unknown. Kileld 9th of April. 

Lt.colonel, deputy chief of the staff, chief of artillery recon of 49th CAA Viacheslav Savinov. Participated in Syria operation. Killed 12th of March

PS. Yes, he was a chief of artillery recon of whole army level. 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Destoying of Russian convoy on 31st of March in Dmytrvka village west from Kyiv - old video, but in better quality

 

[G.I. Joe]

7 hours ago, domfluff said:

I actually suspect that the situation in Ukraine might be proving that the Western way of doing things offers a significant advantage. People have been claiming that stuff as low-level as air conditioning in an armoured vehicle is "soft" or "weak" forever, and that the "rugged" approach that Russia takes is superior in some sense, be that morally or otherwise.

I suspect one of the lessons that will (or perhaps should) be learned from this war is that paying attention to your troops and keeping them happy, warm, dry and fed (or as much as possible) is actually crucial to effective operations, and pays dividends over the longer term. That it's not just something one "should" do, but actually makes objective, logical and economic sense.

I was thinking this recently when there was a comparison made between a recent US recruitment ad and a Russian one. The former (which I imagine you've seen, there was a lot of media attention around it) was a personal story of a US army officer, raised by two mothers, and full of references to her history of socially-aware protest and activism. The latter was hyper-masculine, emphasising the hardships and torment the VDV go through. Both are propaganda, obviously. They're recruitment ads, and are both trying to sell something.

...but I wonder if the Russian lies died at Hostomel.

Excellent point, I strongly agree. Though I also suspect that anyone who hasn't already drawn that lesson from (for example) looking at the Western Allies in World War II compared to the Axis or the Soviets, either isn't paying attention or has already reached a dogmatic opinion that will be impervious to "soft" and "decadent" ideals like reason, logic and evidence...much less empathy for the average soldier or concern for the rights of individuals.

[slysniper]

OK, looking at Russian losses, I see large amounts of T72's of all versions that have been lost so far within the war. a decent amount of T80's

But so far, only 17 T90A's

what is the possible reasons for this.

What units have these tanks and where are they presently located?

 

Is there still well equipped units that have not been committed to the fighting?

 

 

[Aragorn2002]

2 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.

https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very interesting indeed. Explains a lot and gives hope for the coming fighting.

[sburke]

Maybe this guy doesn't realize the implications of Article 5.

 

Russian Legislator Calls Ukraine 'Total War,' Demands Attack On NATO Convoys (msn.com)

"I am certain that in the very near future," Morozov said, "we will see special operations, both from our air forces and from our special units, in order to destroy weapons shipments from NATO countries."

"The West wants this war to continue for as long as possible," Morozov added. "They presume that this war will exhaust our military and economic resources."

He also acknowledged, without saying so directly, that the Russia has failed to achieve its military goals.

"The war has changed, and we can only win this war by using means other than those we have been employing up to this point," Morosov said.

Recent history provides some indication of Moscow's possible next steps. Before the start of the current conflict, Russia had been credibly accused of employing covert operations on the territory of NATO countries in order to disrupt weapons shipments to Ukraine.

On October 16, 2014, a Czech arms depot in the town of Vrbětice exploded, killing two workers. According to an investigation by the Czech magazine Respekt, the weapons belonged to Bulgarian arms dealer Emilyan Gebrev, who was planning to send the shipments to Ukraine. At the time, Ukraine was fighting a defensive war against Russian-backed separatists in the country's eastern Donbas region.

In April 2021, the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats after evidence emerged that the explosion had been caused by agents of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence division. The agents in question, Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, had arrived in Prague on October 13, 2014, and departed on the day of the explosion. Records show that, during their trip, they used false documents in order to request access to the arms depot where the explosion subsequently occurred.

In February 2020, Bulgarian prosecutors accused three Russian GRU agents of attempting to assassinate the arms dealer Gebrev. The attack was carried out in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia in the spring of 2015.

Although Morozov called the current conflict "a total war with the collective West," Russia is not known to have taken any similar action on the territory of any NATO country in recent weeks.

[Pelican Pal]

RE: Ukrainians being pocketed South of of Izium.

The Russians haven't shown the capability to fight their way out of a paper bag excepting the first 2-3 days near Kherson. While the Ukrainians have shown good capability to fight defensively and at the same time I've not seen any evidence that the Ukrainians are capable/wanting to launch counter-offensives that have to wrest ground from the Russians.

Keeping troops in the area seems to make good sense. It plays the UA strengths and RUAF weaknesses. I'd also just question the capability for the Russians to seal the pocket and liquidate it? How many men would you need to seal the pocket, then to defend against UA attacks from the outside of the pocket, and also liquidate it?

8 minutes ago, G.I. Joe said:

Excellent point, I strongly agree. Though I also suspect that anyone who hasn't already drawn that lesson from (for example) looking at the Western Allies in World War II compared to the Axis or the Soviets, either isn't paying attention or has already reached a dogmatic opinion that will be impervious to "soft" and "decadent" ideals like reason, logic and evidence...much less empathy for the average soldier or concern for the rights of individuals.

Troop comfort seems tied pretty tightly to economic power so I'm not entirely sure how important it is on its own. During WW2 the USN had entire ships dedicated to ice cream production. Did the U.S. win the war in the Pacific because it cared more about its troops or because it had so much excess economic power that it could just dedicated an entire ship/crew to ice cream production?
 

[womble]

4 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

The Russians haven't shown the capability to fight their way out of a paper bag excepting the first 2-3 days near Kherson

And there's a strong suspicion that the defenses of Kherson were compromised by treachery, so even that example of apparent competence may flatter.

[Aragorn2002]

15 minutes ago, slysniper said:

OK, looking at Russian losses, I see large amounts of T72's of all versions that have been lost so far within the war. a decent amount of T80's

But so far, only 17 T90A's

what is the possible reasons for this.

What units have these tanks and where are they presently located?

 

Is there still well equipped units that have not been committed to the fighting?

 

 

Good question. At first I was expecting the Russians would keep their best units in reserve for the Baltic states, but according to several experts here that's not the case.