How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The Steppenwulf]

7 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Russian say we are "fascists", ok - then here our MG42... ok... M53 or MG3

'Remember this.... your old friend, "the Linoleum Ripper"!'

Edited April 15, 2022 by The Steppenwulf

[Battlefront.com]

And since I dug up my emails from before the war, I think you guys might find these two interesting.

The first email is from December 9th.  I bolded two particularly interesting bits.  The first is me with my military cap on, the second is a clue as to why I shifted my thinking from "this is definitely a bluff" to "er, crap, maybe it isn't".  Fortunately I was spot on correct with the first bit, unfortunately I was also spot on correct with the second bit:

Quote

Hi again!

 

I also question the timing of January for a big attack, however the timing of the January 2015 offensive in Debaltseve was completely up to Russia and they chose to do it.  So there is precedent.

 

Gen. Kyrylo Budanov was just interviewed in NYT and he pointed out something that should be taken into consideration… Russia’s strategic capabilities.  These have so far not played into the war against Ukraine as it would have made it even clearer that Russia was the one fighting the war, not “separatists’.  I don’t see any reason to doubt that the Russians know where to hit the Ukrainians hardest (ammo, logistics, HQs, etc.) and can do so without Ukraine being able to do much about it.

 

If the Russians were to go balls to the wall attack then I think Budanov is correct that the existing forward deployed Ukrainian forces would find themselves beaten up pretty badly.  He then went on to talk about partisan war against Russian occupation forces.  However, I think there’s an in-between stage that would be more problematic for Russia that Budanov skipped over.

 

In 2014 we saw what happened when Russian forces moved beyond their jump off points.  They were often effectively interfered with by relatively small numbers of poorly trained and armed Ukrainian forces (first regular army, then volunteer units).  I am 1000000% convinced that this interference was so problematic for Russia that they scaled back what they had intended on doing and in fact struggled at times to get what they probably considered their minimum footprint in Donbas.

 

With the Ukrainian forces in the field, in immediate reserve, and in call-up reserve the ability for Ukraine to drag out the active combat phase is significantly better than it was in 2014.  Tripping up Russian progress and causing serious casualties would be a very likely outcome I think.  Probably to a point that Putin wouldn’t be able to cover up and suppress like he did in 2014.

 

Back to the “is this buildup different” question.  I believe what we’re seeing now definitely is different than anything in recent years.  The amount of hardware that the Russians have been moving into position since the summer and leaving there is out of the norm.  Since the behavior and scale of that behavior is different, it is logical to conclude that the Russian strategy has morphed into something new.  The question seems to be if this change is just an extension of past saber rattling behavior or if it’s really intended to put invasion on the table as a viable option.

 

As for military aid, the NYT article mentioned 88 tons of ammunition having been recently delivered as well as more Javelins on the way.  Certainly they need more of that than pillows  Hopefully Ukraine will at least benefit from this situation by getting more relevant war material.

 

Steve

Next email is from February 14th intended to kick off a longer discussion (which it did!).  Note the last line in my email:

Quote

Heya,

Figured I’d start a separate discussion about the notion that Ukraine would fall quickly to a full on invasion by Russian forces.  I’m not so sure that’s a safe assumption.

You cited a bunch of things that Ukraine can throw at Russia should it invade.  The ATGM capability is, as you say, something that would be pretty taxing of Russian forces.  Terrain, weather, and sheer numbers of Ukrainian defenders also come to mind.  But there’s another factor in my mind.

Russian forces have never faced a straight up battle with a prepared foe.  The closest they came to that was Georgia, but in that case Georgia was only prepared to take on separatist type forces and NOT a full Russian assault that was planned and timed according to Russia’s will.

For sure the bulk of the fighting was done by Russian “volunteers”, mercenaries, and local thugs armed with “captured Ukrainian weapons” and so their poor battlefield performance wasn’t all that surprising.   However, there were a few pretty well documented failings of some of Russia’s top units as well as standard line units using more-or-less current Russian equipment.  In particular there was the failings of the airport battles by special forces, the disintegration of the VDV company that got hit by artillery, and instances during the Debaltseve where Russian units repeatedly got the stuffing kicked out of them.

Given that these failings of Russian forces were when they faced very ill prepared Ukrainian Army, National Guard, and volunteer units, that were riddled with every problem known to a modern battlefield, this doesn’t make me thinking that the Russians are just going to drive to Kiev and have some vodka to celebrate.  I think it’s likely that the offensive will stall in places, perhaps utterly collapse, which will inevitably cause significant duress to whatever the invasion goals are.

Sooooo… now Russian forces would fight Ukraine with full frontline units, but they would also be facing a much better opponent than in 2014/15.

Me thinks things won’t go so well for the initial Russian invasion than the pundits think.  And that could undo everything the Russians were hoping to achieve by attacking.

Steve

I'm posting this stuff mostly to show that what has happened since February 23rd hasn't been a total surprise to me.  If it's not been a total surprise to me, it's not been a total surprise to others.  Although I have a fairly poor opinion of many talking heads and so-called experts out there, I know there's a lot of people more experienced and smarter than me that didn't miss what was going on at the time.  Based on what has happened I'd say that the US government had a lot of those people working for it and their voices were listened to by the most important decision makers.

I am not being political when I say that President Biden should be remembered very positively for how his administration handled the intel and what they did with it.  It would have been very easy for a political animal to have dismissed uncomfortable information coming across his desk as politically inconvenient.  In fact, several European leaders did exactly that by publicly calling the US intel into doubt.  There were several times I heard "yes, we've heard what the US is saying but our sources don't show it so we're going to go with not believing it, thank you very much.  Next question."

Having the US (in particular) preparing for this war ahead of time might be one of the most important events of this entire war.  It gave the West time to discuss and to plan, something that democracies need.  It also denied the waffler's an easy way to squirm out of taking responsibility once the war started.  Putin was given every chance to back down and he chose not to, so why would anybody think he'd back down after launching the war?  Nope, he had his chance and the wafflers couldn't try to muddy the waters with "caution" and "off ramps" after the war started.  Decisive action is what we saw instead.

While it is true that Ukraine is doing all the dying and suffering, and the ultimate victory over Russia is theirs and not the West's, the last thing Putin wanted was for the West to have any time to think before he acted.  I think it's pretty clear to see why.

Steve

[FancyCat]

1 minute ago, womble said:

I was trying to make a point somewhat tangential to Putin's evolving personal calculus of risk, namely: "Are we underestimating the accuracy and precision of the NATO appreciation of Ukraine's likely durability in the face of Russian attack?" 

Some of what we're seeing wrt RA readiness kinda doesn't come as a surprise, "with hindsight", but is it wishful thinking to imagine that the professionals who spend their working lives examining and analysing the Russian threat, using sources of information none of us have access to, would have seen enough signs to put together a prediction that BTGs wouldn't work, that formations would be dislocated and understrength, that equipment wouldn't function as designed due to shoddy maintenance, that Ukrainian political resistance would be staunch (because the potential hostile actors within the political establishment had been neutralised) and that RA logistics would be... inadequate?

Maybe it's not a question that can be answered until memoirs come out and papers get declassified, but perhaps those with more experience of what intelligence organisations can do are able to shed some light?

If the Russians were lying to themselves, Western Intelligence whos reading Russian lies, would be imparting the same conclusions as the Russians themselves. 

I saw this one tweet, I cannot find it again, that noted that the Russian intelligence capability on Ukraine was woeful, and emblematic of how Russia and Russian society sees Ukraine and Ukrainians, from a scholar on Eastern European colonialism and imperialism.  

I'll pull some quotes since paywalled from this Washington Post article: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/11/putin-misjudged-ukraine-hubris-isolation/

Quote

At issue is a broader quandary that will occupy historians for years: How could Russia — a country with such deep familial, cultural and historic ties to its western neighbor — get Ukraine so wrong?

“Historically, there just hasn’t been expertise on Ukraine in Russia at all,” said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis. “When you don’t believe a country’s a real country and a people’s a real people, why would you invest any expertise in a thing you don’t think exists?”

Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the Russian leadership doesn’t see Ukraine, a place once controlled by Moscow, as deserving of rigorous study.

“There was this false sense of familiarity,” Gabuev said. “That’s what Russia completely misunderstood.”

 

Russia relies primarily on its foreign intelligence service, the SVR, to collect information about countries such as the United States and China, but when it comes to countries in the “near abroad” including Ukraine, Moscow enlists the FSB, primarily a domestic intelligence service.

 

Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in Russian intelligence, said the FSB regularly failed to understand the popular and grass-roots movements fundamental to Ukraine’s political culture.

 

A Ukrainian intelligence official said the FSB had spent millions recruiting a network of pro-Russian collaborators who ultimately told Putin and his top advisers, among them the current FSB director, what they wanted to hear: The central government in Kyiv wouldn’t hold and resistance would collapse.

 

The official singled out pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who made Putin the godfather of his daughter, as a significant source of misleading information. Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician who has long promoted Russian interests, was charged with treason last year. Ukrainian authorities initially said he escaped house arrest shortly after the invasion, but Zelensky posted a photo of him captured and in fatigues on Tuesday, crediting Ukrainian intelligence with apprehending him.

 

European officials said the Kremlin was also getting information from out-of-touch former elites associated with Yanukovych, who, like Medvedchuk, stood to gain from a Russian power grab. In the weeks before the invasion, the British government warned that Russian intelligence was plotting with Yanukovych’s former prime minister, chief of staff and deputy prime minister.

 

Regardless of the information stream, Putin believes himself to be the biggest expert on Ukraine, Soldatov said, noting the tendency of Russian officials to assume they understand Ukraine.

“This level of chauvinism — you can see it everywhere,” Soldatov said. “It’s a direct legacy of this unfortunate imperial past.”

 

 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, sross112 said:

The talk of the upcoming offensives today is based on the concept of destroying a large number of UA in the Donbas. Our general synopsis is that without some sort of magic wand it is fairly impossible for the RA to do this. With an all out effort and a bunch of luck the RA might be able to pull off the breakthrough and encirclement but I'm pretty sure no one here thinks that they would have anything left to reduce the "trapped" troops. Like we talked about a couple weeks ago, if they did manage to make the kettle, who would truly be surrounded? The UA has a lot of combat power in there and it isn't likely to roll over and play dead. On top of that, this has been their AO for several years now so I would think that they would have lots of supplies stockpiled within that area and wouldn't run out of beans, bullets and Band-Aids as fast as and encircled pincer would. 

Basically we are gaming the same thing that the "experts" are gaming. Said experts haven't gained our confidence and trust so far so why are we following their lead? Yes it is the most obvious attack from a military stand point if your goal is to destroy the enemies military, but is that their goal? If we compare to the negotiations Putin has realized that his vaunted military might wasn't what they thought it was, the UA is a beast, the people are very troublesome to logistics and everyone on his side is running low on combat power and high tech munitions. The surviving generals have to know this too and such and operation is out of bounds by May 9th. Throw in some crappy weather on top of it and how could they realistically expect to achieve that goal? If they have rolled back their demands on the negotiations I would think that means they know what kind of pickle is coming for them if this isn't over fairly soon.

I said a couple weeks ago that I thought they would do whatever it takes to clear Mariupol, secure their land bridge and any gains in the L/DPR and then shoot for a ceasefire. Their problem right now is they don't have anything to bargain with. How do they get a bargaining chip that Zelensky will take seriously and the west will pressure for a cease fire? They need hostages. Where is a big bunch of hostages that they could take? Kharkov. 

It's been pointed out several times that the forces that withdrew from the Kyiv area haven't been moved south to form a stronger pincer from that region. The reinforcements coming in aren't predominantly going south. The units being rebuilt and reinforced haven't been moving south of Izium. So if this Donbas pincer movement is expected to take place, why isn't there a southern pincer? Especially considering for the past few weeks that has been deemed to be the weak point in the line. That is where the schwerpunkt should be coming from. Instead all the forces remain in the northern sector where the UA and the world expects the attack and is building up for it. Even if the Donbas encirclement worked the UA units in the kettle really don't work as hostages. Even if the RA managed to somehow reduce the entrapped UA units in the end the losses that they would sustain ends the ability of the RA to do anything else for a very long time. The "victory" would surely lead to defeat as they have nothing left to defend against a Ukraine that has added more resolve to crush them and continues to grow their military through western aid and training up reserves. No win this way.

So instead, encircle Kharkov. Everyone expects the attack to the Southeast, go Northwest. Shorten the encirclement distance considerably. Pocket only a couple brigades instead of a dozen that you have to deal with. Your combat power can be more focused out than in. Even if half the population of Kharkov and the surrounding area has left you probably still have a million civilians in the cauldron. Now you have an instant humanitarian crisis and a nice hostage to trade for some concessions at the negotiation table (Putin keeps L/DNR and land bridge, gives up Kherson and Kharkov). Since you are a soulless piece of dung you make your point by an intense 24 hour indiscriminate artillery barrage just to add some pressure to act quickly at the negotiation table.

Do I think this is possible? Probably not due to all the problems with the RA ops so far, but they'd have a much better chance at this than a Donbas encirclement. It also works with who they are, what they are willing to do and what we've seen with their troop locations/movements so far. It's really the only way I see for them to get any leverage for negotiations.

Thoughts?

You are assuming the Russians can shift their axis of attack faster than the Ukrainians can shift to meet it, and/or that the Russians could take the Ukrainians by surprise when every ISR asset on earth is looking at this patch of ground. It is worth mentioning that Kharkiv was intentionally designed as a defensive bastion when the Soviets rebuilt it after WW2. That is why the Russians couldn't take it the first time.

It might be a great time to pull a surprise attack in Africa, or southeast Asia. But from Poland to Moscow it is currently a fishbowl in some sort of very fancy laboratory where the gear displays the heart beat, oxygen level, and nutritional in/out of every guppy. As well as its six dimensional movement vector

Edited April 15, 2022 by dan/california

[Haiduk]

Grad platoon of 53rd mech.brigade, JTO

 

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I am not being political when I say that President Biden should be remembered very positively for how his administration handled the intel and what they did with it.  It would have been very easy for a political animal to have dismissed uncomfortable information coming across his desk as politically inconvenient.  In fact, several European leaders did exactly that by publicly calling the US intel into doubt.  There were several times I heard "yes, we've heard what the US is saying but our sources don't show it so we're going to go with not believing it, thank you very much.  Next question."

I'm a liberal Dem and I endorse this statement! I should also make it clear that I like to point out to folks from time to time that the GHW Bush administration did an absolutely stellar job at handling the end of the Cold War and the Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Love or hate an administration politically as you will but it's important to not let it get in the way of analytical thinking. Bravo.

Also, if you guys want to know what's up with the FSB, Soldatov is your man: 

 

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

And since I dug up my emails from before the war, I think you guys might find these two interesting.

The first email is from December 9th.  I bolded two particularly interesting bits.  The first is me with my military cap on, the second is a clue as to why I shifted my thinking from "this is definitely a bluff" to "er, crap, maybe it isn't".  Fortunately I was spot on correct with the first bit, unfortunately I was also spot on correct with the second bit:

Next email is from February 14th intended to kick off a longer discussion (which it did!).  Note the last line in my email:

I'm posting this stuff mostly to show that what has happened since February 23rd hasn't been a total surprise to me.  If it's not been a total surprise to me, it's not been a total surprise to others.  Although I have a fairly poor opinion of many talking heads and so-called experts out there, I know there's a lot of people more experienced and smarter than me that didn't miss what was going on at the time.  Based on what has happened I'd say that the US government had a lot of those people working for it and their voices were listened to by the most important decision makers.

I am not being political when I say that President Biden should be remembered very positively for how his administration handled the intel and what they did with it.  It would have been very easy for a political animal to have dismissed uncomfortable information coming across his desk as politically inconvenient.  In fact, several European leaders did exactly that by publicly calling the US intel into doubt.  There were several times I heard "yes, we've heard what the US is saying but our sources don't show it so we're going to go with not believing it, thank you very much.  Next question."

Having the US (in particular) preparing for this war ahead of time might be one of the most important events of this entire war.  It gave the West time to discuss and to plan, something that democracies need.  It also denied the waffler's an easy way to squirm out of taking responsibility once the war started.  Putin was given every chance to back down and he chose not to, so why would anybody think he'd back down after launching the war?  Nope, he had his chance and the wafflers couldn't try to muddy the waters with "caution" and "off ramps" after the war started.  Decisive action is what we saw instead.

While it is true that Ukraine is doing all the dying and suffering, and the ultimate victory over Russia is theirs and not the West's, the last thing Putin wanted was for the West to have any time to think before he acted.  I think it's pretty clear to see why.

Steve

This got me to remembering.  Recall back in the good old days when the pro-Russian crowd called this all propaganda? Sigh, I wish they were right. They are all pretty much gone now, not sure if we will see them again.

I will miss the accusations of being pro-US and short changing the Russians/Soviets.  The arguments about crappy T-72 spotting…harkens to a kinder gentler time…January.

[Battlefront.com]

54 minutes ago, acrashb said:

I haven't seen a single convincing narrative as to why Russia went all-in, just dribs and drabs and mixtures of the above.  I thought they were bluffing - Lucy and the football again with the West in the role of Charlie Brown - to extract concessions, as has worked so well before and as fits the traditional Russian negotiation strategy. 

I haven't seen anybody able to fully explain it either.  As you say, that will probably take an honest discussion with Putin himself.  However, I think this is the most likely scenario:

Putin has never wanted a full scale war in Ukraine, but he wanted full scale domination.  After 2014 he thought he could reestablish the old methodology of corruption and "5th column" work to achieve that.  Using the frontlines in Donbas as pressure also completely in the picture.  He was hoping that Minsk 2 would be a part of that, but Ukraine kept thwarting it and the West was either ambivalent or supportive of Ukraine's position.

Putin had been growing frustrated by the day.  Dictators are never OK with not getting what they want.  No matter how patient and calculating they might be, at some point they snap.

At the same time it was clear to him that his domestic position was becoming less stable.  Despite all the talk in the West that the sanctions weren't hurting Russia, they were when added to Russia's inept and corrupt government.  This gave him a sense that something had to be done and by something I don't mean backing down from what apparently has been a key part of Putin's goal of reconstituting the Soviet Union.

Added to this was Ukraine was not behaving as expected.  It was becoming stronger politically and economically.  This directly threatened Putin's narrative that leaving Mother Russia was not a good thing.  If word got out that things are better without Russian domination, Belarus might be next.  And here is something I think most people haven't considered...

The large scale unrest in Belarus was in part caused by Ukraine setting a bad example.  Putin saw how difficult it was for Lukashenko to hold onto power.  Without Russia's intervention he likely would have been ousted, just like Yanukovych did.  While Putin did stabilize Belarus, for how much longer with Ukraine free to show a new path?  And how much longer after that would Russians begin to wonder if they too had options?

I don't think it's a total coincidence that only months after stabilizing Belarus that practical planning for a war against Ukraine started (evidence suggests planning started in summer 2021).

Combine all of this stuff together and there's a strong case to make that time to invade Ukraine was running out.  But wait, there's more

I have not mentioned yet that Ukraine was also getting much stronger militarily.  Putin could see that Ukraine's military was improving in part due to Western training which he could not reasonably interfere with.  How much longer would it be before Ukraine started taking large shipments of Western weaponry?  It had already started, so it would be logical to assume it could get worse.

Now we have time sensitive reasons to squash Ukraine's "bad example" coupled with a concern that waiting might prove more costly militarily.

I think Putin was correct that he had a limited window to attack.  The problem is that the window was probably 8 years ago.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I should also make it clear that I like to point out to folks from time to time that the GHW Bush administration did an absolutely stellar job at handling the end of the Cold War and the Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Love or hate an administration politically as you will but it's important to not let it get in the way of analytical thinking.

Funny, when I was thinking back on what other political leadership event in my lifetime that was on this scale of importance, I thought of this very thing.  With the exception of Romania and two small scale armed scuffles within the Soviet Union (Lithuania and Moscow), the transition from one of the longest and most well armed military standoffs in history ended peacefully and to the benefit of 10s of millions of people.  The US, led by GH Bush, had a huge role in how that unfolded.

Steve

[altipueri]

Like Napoleon on the night before Waterloo, Putin thought he had a 90% chance of winning.

But the dice rolled badly.

--

The rest is history. Or will be for a long time.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, altipueri said:

Like Napoleon on the night before Waterloo, Putin thought he had a 90% chance of winning.

But the dice rolled badly.

--

The rest is history. Or will be for a long time.

Well, in this case Putin might have thought he had a 90% chance of winning but in fact had a 10% chance.  Whatever dice he rolled, reality determined the outcome rather than his belief.  As the old saying goes, "reality can be a real bitch!"

Steve

[Markus86]

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/satellite-image-pinpoints-russian-cruiser-moskva-as-she-burned/

Quote

Update – Russian Navy Movements In Black Sea April 15

Since the sinking, Russia’s reaction has been subject to speculation. At around 6.30pm local time on April 15 a radar satellite covered Crimea. Two formations of Russian Navy warships, likely including Landing ships, are seen steaming northwest. Their direction suggests that they are sailing towards the Ukrainian coast.

 

[Suleyman]

Hey guys, I've been playing combat mission for a while. On and off actually. Decided I come onto the forum. 

Keeping up with this conflict, I've noticed both sides are inflating the damage they do on each other, for good reason too. If I was Ukraine especially I'd make it sound more brutal than it already is, to mess with the Russian morale. Ukraine has done a lot of damage to Russian armor from what we can see. We have more access to Ukrainian information than the Russians.

Besides the humiliating defeats the Russians took (Withdrawing from Kiev oblast, various defeats on the Eastern front, losing their flagship) I've come to see that they targeted a lot of Ukrainian logistics, command units, bases, and so on with cruise missiles as well as other precision weaponry. Are these having any effect on the Ukrainian military? The Russians don't have a numerical superiority, but I wonder if those strikes are lowering their conventional combat effectiveness. 

 

[sross112]

25 minutes ago, dan/california said:

You are assuming the Russians can shift their axis of attack faster than the Ukrainians can shift to meet it, and/or that the Russians could take the Ukrainians by surprise when every ISR asset on earth is looking at this patch of ground. It is worth mentioning that Kharkiv was intentionally designed as a defensive bastion when the Soviets rebuilt it after WW2. That is why the Russians couldn't take it the first time.

It might be a great time to pull a surprise attack in Africa, or southeast Asia. But from Poland to Moscow it is currently a fishbowl in some sort of very fancy laboratory where the gear displays the heart beat, oxygen level, and nutritional in/out of every guppy. As well as its six dimensional movement vector

Nope, you are assuming that their axis of attack is to the south and southeast. If you look at Izium and the salient they have there the road network leads out in 4 major directions. They pushed out and widened their bridgehead in all directions. Then they continued to probe to the south along a couple avenues of advance. Those avenues are the ones everyone expects them to attack down because they are still showing a little push here and there and it ties in to the plan of a Donbas encirclement.

Yes it is a fishbowl, but if there is a tank parked in Izium can you reliably tell me which road it is going to take from there? You can't, I can't, only the guy that gives the order can. If I'm giving the order and you are commanding the defense, I want you to put every swinging dick you got to the south because in the end I'm not attacking there. We were talking about possible maskirovka (sp?) options and how the RA could achieve any level of surprise. They can't really deceive anyone as to their disposition or composition of forces but they sure could with their intentions. 

Kharkov may be a defensive bastion but I'm not saying to assault it. Encircle it, pound it, make it a hostage to negotiate with. The RA absolutely doesn't have the combat power to take it and shouldn't try.

I'm just trying to be open minded and look at alternative options to the ones that everyone else is so focused on.

The Ardennes? Not possible. They will have to attack through the low countries or smash themselves on the Maginot Line because that is what we think they will do!!

 

[Battlefront.com]

An article in the SUN, of all places, about a British national fighting with the Ukrainian Marines in Mariupol who was likely part of the "1000" that just surrendered to Russian forces:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/5105022/haunting-final-call-hero-brit-surrender-russian-mariupol/?rec_article=true

Steve

[Fenris]

1 hour ago, womble said:

Most convincing for me is the argument that "Russia" (at some level) was convinced that their 5th column would prevail, the centre wouldn't hold and all the (or at least enough) military districts would be neutralised by similar actions to what happened around Kherson.

Whether this didn't happen because of NATO/UKR intelligence successes, or GRU peculation/failure/overreporting-of-success, or because the RUS assesments were based on sheer self-delusion I don't have the foggiest  But it seems to me that Putin and anyone who could persuade him to take a different path were convinced that Ukraine was a house of cards that needed only a firm push to topple.

There's this story going around... Obviously IDK if it's true and it is the internet, but it makes for a good story.

Quote

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/...-prison-a77301

Head of the Fifth Service of the FSB arrested, and thrown into one of Russias very worst prisons and 150 FSB officers sacked at same time. Fifth Service was Putin's personal baby he created in 1998.

Fifth Service is in charge of foreign intelligence, and in part cultivating resistance and operational pockets with Russian sympathetic nationals in various countries, including Ukraine.

Beau of the Fifth Column just posted video about this. The rumor that accompanies this story is that the invasion was based on reports and relationships these Fifth Service officers fed back up the food chain. These relationships and resistance groups are supposedly fed cash to earn their allegiance.

In this case the rumor is that none of it existed, the reports from the officers were essentially faked and the cash used to fund their local operations went to into their own pockets instead. In other words, if true, Putin was cheated and betrayed by his own directorate, and the reason this invasion is such a **** show is because it was based on fake Intel that there be local resistance groups aiding Russia, coordinated via the FSB directorate. None of which exists.

Here's the youtube vid mentioned

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Fenris

[Saberwander]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

An article in the SUN, of all places, about a British national fighting with the Ukrainian Marines in Mariupol who was likely part of the "1000" that just surrendered to Russian forces:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/5105022/haunting-final-call-hero-brit-surrender-russian-mariupol/?rec_article=true

Steve

For anyone interested, Aiden has a instagram account/twitter account Cossackgundi and he was pretty active poster. When the war started and Russians reached Mariupol he went "dark" and left his account to his friend who was relaying Aiden's messages and in general retweeting interesting stories. 

[MikeyD]

Waaaay at the start of this thread I recall a post citing FBS leaking that they weren't to blame for Ukraine. They had been out of the planning loop, and when they sent Putin their regular intelligence reports on Ukraine they'd be returned, claiming the reports were 'wrong' with orders to 'fix' them. Apparently, 'someone' high up was feeding Putin only information he wanted to hear.

Edited April 15, 2022 by MikeyD

[Huba]

20 minutes ago, sross112 said:

Nope, you are assuming that their axis of attack is to the south and southeast. If you look at Izium and the salient they have there the road network leads out in 4 major directions. They pushed out and widened their bridgehead in all directions. Then they continued to probe to the south along a couple avenues of advance. Those avenues are the ones everyone expects them to attack down because they are still showing a little push here and there and it ties in to the plan of a Donbas encirclement.

Yes it is a fishbowl, but if there is a tank parked in Izium can you reliably tell me which road it is going to take from there? You can't, I can't, only the guy that gives the order can. If I'm giving the order and you are commanding the defense, I want you to put every swinging dick you got to the south because in the end I'm not attacking there. We were talking about possible maskirovka (sp?) options and how the RA could achieve any level of surprise. They can't really deceive anyone as to their disposition or composition of forces but they sure could with their intentions. 

Kharkov may be a defensive bastion but I'm not saying to assault it. Encircle it, pound it, make it a hostage to negotiate with. The RA absolutely doesn't have the combat power to take it and shouldn't try.

I'm just trying to be open minded and look at alternative options to the ones that everyone else is so focused on.

The Ardennes? Not possible. They will have to attack through the low countries or smash themselves on the Maginot Line because that is what we think they will do!!

 

We discussed such possibility few pages ago and the conclusion was more or less that Russians might attack in unexpected direction, but their plan will become very obvious very fast (even if they manage to keep it secret until they start).

Think is that you don't need Izyum for attacking Kharkhiv. There are better positions closer to the city that Russians hold for longer. As you'd advance westward, I'd think it would be much better to proceed along the northern bank of Siverskyi Donets and Mzha rivers to have your flank protected.

I'd think that Russian concentration around Kharkhiv is purely defensive in nature. If they completely retreated it would endangered their flank on the Izyum axis even more, and it would expose Belgorod, at least making it vulnerable to artillery and rocket strikes.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Huba

[db_zero]

21 hours ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

Looks like regular, the testing scenario also incorrectly put the scenario at day time, clear weather condition. 

I did a testing myself. Even with correct parameter, night time, heavy rain , sea state 5, a novice Moskva can easily defeat a salvo of 16 subsonic Harpoonski.

An EMCON D Moskva can detect the ASM at 16nm away and begin the engagement at 12nm away.

An EMCON A Moskva first detect ASM at 10nm away , the ASM turn on the weapon seeker radar there, broadcast their presence to Moskva . With a 18 seconds OODA cool down SAM left the tube at 7nm away. Most of ASM will be intercepted.

 

But, there is one trick to make a two Harpoonski strike successfully penetrate a radar silence Moskva's defense. Don't use automatic fire. Use BoL fire.  First do a calculation to predict where the Moskva will be when the ASM reach that area. Mark a point on the map then make the ASM aim at that point , in BOL mode ASM will turn on their radar there. It is supposed to be somewhere very close to Moskva.    They will hit the Moskva before her OODA cool down.

Took me a while to get down. I set the Moskva 60 nm South of Odessa as reported. I then placed 3 Bayraktar drones near the Moskva. I had a Klub-M-Tel ground based SSM (only Russian based one I could find for Ukraine).

I has a NATO AWACS operating from NATO territory feeding intel data.

I fired the Klub SSMs at the Moskva using Engage Target Auto modeand when the entered the air search range of the Moskva I would move the Bayraktars over the Moskva and harassed it and I got hits. Seems like I had to be on top of the Moskva to get this to work. Below is a shot from one of my earlier unsuccessful attempts.

Klub-M-Tel does seem to have an attack profile different than what was actually used. I'll try Harpoons later.

Edited April 15, 2022 by db_zero

[dan/california]

14 minutes ago, sross112 said:

Nope, you are assuming that their axis of attack is to the south and southeast. If you look at Izium and the salient they have there the road network leads out in 4 major directions. They pushed out and widened their bridgehead in all directions. Then they continued to probe to the south along a couple avenues of advance. Those avenues are the ones everyone expects them to attack down because they are still showing a little push here and there and it ties in to the plan of a Donbas encirclement.

Yes it is a fishbowl, but if there is a tank parked in Izium can you reliably tell me which road it is going to take from there? You can't, I can't, only the guy that gives the order can. If I'm giving the order and you are commanding the defense, I want you to put every swinging dick you got to the south because in the end I'm not attacking there. We were talking about possible maskirovka (sp?) options and how the RA could achieve any level of surprise. They can't really deceive anyone as to their disposition or composition of forces but they sure could with their intentions. 

Kharkov may be a defensive bastion but I'm not saying to assault it. Encircle it, pound it, make it a hostage to negotiate with. The RA absolutely doesn't have the combat power to take it and shouldn't try.

I'm just trying to be open minded and look at alternative options to the ones that everyone else is so focused on.

The Ardennes? Not possible. They will have to attack through the low countries or smash themselves on the Maginot Line because that is what we think they will do!!

 

The Siversky-Donetz river runs south west - north east thru between Izyum and Kharkiv with small towns/large villages at most of the crossings. Unless the Russians have improved by at least an order of magnitude they aren't going to take those crossings fast enough to encircle Kharkiv before the Ukrainians can get reconfigured to use Kharkiv as an anvil to to beat them to death on. At this point in the war I really think it safe to assume the Ukrainian General Staff can read a map. And the last time the Russians went with the surprise order trick didn't work out well for them either.

[akd]

27 minutes ago, Markus86 said:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/satellite-image-pinpoints-russian-cruiser-moskva-as-she-burned/

 

More games with empty landing ships?  Possibly, but more likely erroneous interpretation of the data.

[Huba]

8 minutes ago, akd said:

More games with empty landing ships?  Possibly, but more likely erroneous interpretation of the data.

Or gross incompetence. Sail AWAY from the missiles Ivan, AWAY!

Edited April 15, 2022 by Huba

[Maquisard manqué]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Sending the family a picture of the body, and a picture of the ID card does make the point rather thoroughly. The Russians can go home anytime. The only thing waiting for them in Ukraine is a zinc coffin, if there is enough left to bury, and the Russians bother to recover their dead.

No but the Russians more or less systematically try to make every single problem worse. From Le Pen, to Assad, to who knows how many African dictators, they pick the worst actor on a given stage and back them. Sometime they back them a lot, sometimes jus enough to keep them from sinking. But there goal is alway more chaos, more disruption of the rules based order, and hey if there is some money to be made in blood diamonds or whatever, that's cool too.

Sorry, is that an American talking about people taking sides in Africa and maybe cosying up to warlords? Heavens! I suppose you’re right. No American administration would stoop to that!

Have you heard of the Cold War?

Edit: and yet the point about Putin playing the angle each time he can is true, and stooping as low as he can in terms of cruelty. He remains however small and not anything like the Soviets in terms of actual reach or ability. You do him too much credit…

Edited April 15, 2022 by Maquisard manqué

[c3k]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I have been seeing some of this in the mainstream as well.  From where they are now to Dnipro is 160kms of basically the same terrain.  I think the Russians might try this, as they have not shown any realistic objectives management in this war but it is the height of military insanity:

- They will likely not make it 50kms, let alone 150km unless the do some major re-tooling.  This is not at a "hey let's throw in more troops" this is at a doctrinal level.  They need to re-invent the BTG, or at least only ask a BTG to do what it can realistically accomplish and make more of them, along with a coherent formation structure on top of it.

- If they do success in carving a 160 km corridor to Dnipro they now have to defend it from both sides.  That is a lot more challenging than a corridor half that length between Izyum to Donetsk, which was going to be hard enough.

- You also have to take the entire length of the Dnieper River to Zaporizhia or you leave an open resupply corridor for the UA, albeit a river crossing. 

I am not sure why mainstream military analysis is still thinking in terms of big sweeping muscle movements for Russia at this point.  They tried that in the first phase of the war and failed.  We have discussed how "more troops" does not translate into "more combat power" extensively.  But I am still seeing talking heads discussing Russian offensives in pretty expansive terms.

Maybe there is something we are missing or seeing incorrectly but I just can't square it off.

^^^

My bold, above.

The Russian doctrine has been shown to be deeply flawed. They not only need to come up with a new doctrine, but they need to re-equip based on that doctrine, and re-train based on it.

Oh, and whatever that new doctrine will be? If they want it to be an EFFECTIVE doctrine, they will game it out, test it, stress it, and modify it as needed.

It would be very difficult for any nation to do this within 5 years...if it's a nation willing to self-examination and critical, truthful, review. Russia is none of these.

Putin (because he is the driving force here) MUST attack. He's lost too much not to keep going. Can you imagine the internal dialogue going on right now? No general will say, "Pull back to the borders and sue for peace." They'll get replaced and, if they're lucky, just fired. 

As can be seen by the Black Sea Fleet admiral, defeat is being blamed on the individual in command.

This is not the atmosphere that is conducive to being flexible with doctrine.