How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Combatintman]

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Heh, he just couldn’t resist showing up an officer.  Trust me, if it comes down to believing me or @Combatintman when it comes down to intel analysis, go with him every time.

Au contraire - I just felt that with everyone going on about the war winning capabilities of half-decent NCOs, it was worth demonstrating what we bring to the party.  Anyway - I've got some more map colouring in to do ... 

[photon]

6 hours ago, Machor said:

Grognard objection:  The Italian battleships were at anchor; the British were underway: Big difference for the RN. From "Death of a battleship: The loss of HMS Prince of Wales" (p.63):

"Prior to the deployment of the Prince of Wales and Repulse to the Pacific, the Royal Navy had been operating for over two years (September 1939 - December 1941) in the Mediterranean in the face of intensive attacks from German and Italian land-based aircraft. These airplanes were able to damage the convoys but not totally stop them. British battleships had been repeatedly attacked but never sunk. Based on that recent war experience, it certainly appeared risky but possible to operate in waters covered by enemy land-based air. What was not understood, due to a serious intelligence failure, was the fact that the Japanese bombers based in Indo-China were not an ordinary formation of aircraft but were a force especially trained and equipped for "ship killing". These planes were specifically stationed there because of the predicted arrival of Prince of Wales and Repulse in Singapore. No other enemy or allied air force had this equivalent capability at the time. As the war progressed, ordinary land-based bombers (US B-17s, the Germans and Italians in the Mediterranean) continued attacking ships at sea with limited success. The RAF, using torpedo and rocket-equipped twin engine planes against German coastal convoys, and USN carrier-based planes (using torpedoes and bombs) and USAF B-25s, using skip bombs against Japanese coastal shipping, would finally gain the equivalent potency of these Japanese land-based aircraft later in the war."

Grognard escalation:

When revolutionary changes happen, we look for ways to obscure them. This is, I think, an example.

The difference between ships at anchor and ships on the move *seemed significant* to contemporary military theorists in the same way that it's tempting now to say, "well, the Russians are bad at mechanized warfare". That's a factor that *obscures* a revolutionary change in tactics and operations. It turns out that whether capital ships are at anchor or not, they are terribly vulnerable to the combination of dive and torpedo bombers and to hammer and anvil tactics.

Everything materially needed for attacks of the sort the Repulse and Prince of Wales suffered was in place in 1940 for every major power. The British had the Beaufort and Swordfish, the Americans the Catalina and Devastator, the Germans the Ju-88 and Ju-87, the Japanese the G3M and Kate and Val. And most of those were products of the mid 1930s, so we can see that navies are contemplating and wargaming the sort of operation that sunk the Repulse and PoW for at least half a decade before it happened. In contrast to what that book argues, *most* major powers (maybe not the Italians and Soviets) could execute an operation like the sinking of the Repulse. The Germans rendered HMS Illustrious combat ineffective with similar aerial tactics about a year *before* the sinking of the Repulse despite the Illustrious having CAP overhead.

What the book you cite is pointing to is a difference in quantity, not quality. That is, between late 1940 and early 1942 we moved from *some* land based aerodromes projecting no-go zones for enemy shipping to essentially *all* land based aerodromes projecting that same no-go zone (and the no-go zones growing larger as the tactics and weapons employed by land based bombers caught up to their range). A British or American admiral proposing an operation involving major capital ships without air support in late 1943 would be laughed out of the room. When the Japanese actually undertook such operations, they were (without exception) suicidal.

To bring home the comparison to what we're seeing now, we're in that transitional period where it probably is suicidal to engage in mechanized operations without a snow-globe like anti-ISR bubble surrounding your force. No one has *developed* that snow-globe-like anti-ISR bubble yet, so we're in an interim period like the period between, say Coral Sea and Philippine Sea. At least one side in the conflict can project power in this new way (maybe both? we haven't seen Ukraine present mass to be targeted yet). Neither side (I don't think) has developed a plausible defense against the new way of projecting combat power. The USN eventually came up with one; the combination of excellent radar, picket destroyers, CAP, and the CIC. I think some of the discussion here is about what that looks like on land.

[Haiduk]

34 minutes ago, Holien said:

I think that some of this is just human nature, we had the same when Germany occupied the Channel Islands, France had same in vichy areas. 

This is "thin red line" of compelled conformism and betrayal. I doubt this Bobby or vichy, or Polish police were too happy in this situation or demonstayted doggie loyality to ocupants. As I know what wrote our soldiers about Donbas police, procecutors, judges etc - many of them dreamed about Russia would come here. This is another guilt of former power, that since 2014 libarated part of Donbas wasn't cleaned from active and hidden pro-Russian elements. 

[The_Capt]

20 hours ago, acrashb said:

I’m interested in your comments especially in two areas: a) have I just re-invented the wheel in terms of thinking more about volume and less about frontage (I hope so; I'm not ground-breakingly brilliant and surely this is an ordinary concept in military circles )?;  b) overall how does this interact with the theoretical frameworks that you use at work?

Jomini would be proud, this is very much in his "let's take geometry to war" type of thinking.  It is also one of the reasons Clausewtiz did his thing as a counter-reaction.

So frontage is a pretty complex beast.  It is, in land warfare, what you can physically control and influence at the front edge of ones land (and air) power.  Note I say "physically" because once you introduce multi-domain concepts we get into cognitive and conative frameworks which transcend inches and feet. 

So how that land power is packaged is incredibly important when discussing frontage.  For example, the RA is using what I have called "dim mass", this means they are relying on masses of people and equipment to try and generate and project that land power (and air, but that is different).  They do this to "hold ground", which is, as you point out, really a 3 dimensional construct on the battlefield.  This will drive them to have to have a force-to-space metric of effective density in order to defend, and another to attack.  This is again really complicated as we get into C2 and logistics architecture, as well as Ukraine's road infrastructure but the terrain basically soaks up so many troops based on how those troops are trained, equipped, commanded and supplied/supported. 

For Russia that metric of troops-to-space is going to be higher, likely much higher than the UA.  They have not demonstrated wide spread effective integrated ISR, their logistics are a mess and air power is really disjointed.  They do have a lot of artillery though [aside: this is where the term "force multiplier" comes from] but can they integrate it?  So what? The UA has: a lot of ISR advantage due to their overall approach and western feeds, a much more distributed logistics infra, intimated knowledge of the terrain, much better equipment and training and far better force integration.

So, so what?  Well the RA is in a asymmetric frontage control situation, they need more troops to try and influence a chunk of physical space than the UA.  So the last thing the RA should be doing is attempting massively long frontages, it is a bad "combat power" economy.  They will need to pour more and more troops in just to try and make that line controllable, while Ukrainian defence becomes offense and can attack all the holes in the Russian line to isolate and chew up the defence piecemeal.  What is clearly missing in Russian planning is that their metrics are broken and have been since day 1.  They thought that X-thousands of troops/equipment could do A, when it turns out it could only do Z.

As to my "work", oddly, land warfare is more of a side gig and vestige of a misspent youth.  I work in "other spaces" now but this war has forced me to dust off the old land war shelves and work some dormant muscles. 

Edited April 18, 2022 by The_Capt

[kraze]

42 minutes ago, Huba said:

@kraze  @Haiduk Thank you for your replies. So to summarize:

- In LDPR it is unlikely that locals will be actively hostile, more like indifferent. The most Pro-Russian elements are already fighting, or will evacuate to Russia. After recent actions of Russians there ( like forcibly pressing men into the army), attitudes towards Russians are probably turning to worse.

- Crimea has a big ethnic Russian population, including recent immigrants. It will be hard to count on  general local support there, and some at least might be openly hostile. Some of the locals (what is left of Crimean Tatars, remaining people who identify as Ukrainians) might be unhappy with the ongoing russification though, but in general the attitudes are conflicted. TBH this sound like a ground for a local "civil war" type scenario a bit, might be nasty.

There won't be any, russian mentality is about invading something, looting it and ruining it - but it's never about defending own rights. russians have been legit trying to instigate civil war in Crimea since 1991, they even had a large military base there all this time - but, apart from an occasional murder by their own soldiers stationed there, nothing ever happened. Only literal invasion and occupation "helped" russians to get what they want.

In fact whole post-USSR is a proof that russians will never try to launch any separatist movement, no matter how "oppressed" they think they are (and oppression to russians equals to anyone else but russians existing in the universe). There has never been a single civil war in post-USSR in 31 years. Every single war was started by russian army just coming somewhere and grabbing the land.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, kraze said:

There won't be any, russian mentality is about invading something, looting it and ruining it - but it's never about defending own rights. russians have been legit trying to instigate civil war in Crimea since 1991, they even had a large military base there all this time - but, apart from an occasional murder by their own soldiers stationed there, nothing ever happened. Only literal invasion and occupation "helped" russians to get what they want.

In fact whole post-USSR is a proof that russians will never try to launch any separatist movement, no matter how "oppressed" they think they are (and oppression to russians equals to anyone else but russians existing in the universe). There has never been a single civil war in post-USSR in 31 years. Every single war was started by russian army just coming somewhere and grabbing the land.

There were multiple cases of locals resisting the invading (Russian) army though - Chechnya, Georgia, now Ukraine. What I wonder is how Russians in Crimea would react to a perceived "Ukrainian attack on their land". Especially as we see the Great Patriotic War rhetoric being totted by the propaganda macine. Hopefull they just sit and watch, or leave as you suggest. 

[LongLeftFlank]

Tweet thread goes on to note that these helos are forced to stay down on the deck, increasing crew losses.

2. Second Guards Tank Battalion has learned the first lesson in How Not To Be Seen: not to stand up! However, they have chosen a rather obvious bit of cover....

3.  On the not quite so funny side, amazing CM-level 4 style drone footage of a tactical infantry ambush, with some grim mop-up at the end. It's all shot from a distance, but still....

Looks to me like hapless OMON cops being whacked, based on the black uniforms and body armour (and civvie vehicles)... and total absence of tactical drills.  You guys were talking about cops....

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Battlefront.com]

Another point about the occupied Donbas regions... from what I understand the "best and the brightest" pro-Russians left for Russia long ago or more recently when Russian passports were handed out.  Which means the bulk of the original Ukrainian inhabitants remaining there are either pro-Russian/Soviet and lacking skills, agnostic and lacking skills (don't care one way or the other), pensioners lacking ability to work or relocate, or criminals there only to enrich themselves.  Russians that have moved into Donbas probably fit in well with the latter group.  This is not a population that I'd like to govern, that's for sure.

One other problem for Ukraine is that many pro-Russian/Soviet pensioners moved to the Ukrainian side of the line because it was the only practical way to keep getting their government money.  These are the people you hear interviewed who disparage Ukraine and mourn the life they imagined would come with Russian "liberation", but didn't because Ukraine supposedly keeps the war in Donbas going.  These people, I think, are probably some of the ones in Ukrainian Donbas that are eagerly awaiting Russian forces even to this day.

Steve

P.S. thanks for nobody pointing out my repeated use of "starboard" instead of "port" in my post from a few days ago.  I do really know which is which.  In my defense, I don't know my right from my left so...

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Tweet thread goes on to note that these helos are forced to stay down on the deck, increasing crew losses.

With all the hand wringing on the future of the tank I am surprised that the idea that air superiority is also “in trouble” has not sparked the same discussions.  Tac Aviation has also been demonstrated as extremely vulnerable in this war as next gen AD evolves.

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Looks to me like hapless OMON cops being whacked, based on the black uniforms and body armour (and civvie vehicles)... and total absence of tactical drills.  You guys were talking about cops...

I wonder how this slaughter of Russian special police forces is going to affect the situation back in Russia if things start to get out of hand with its own population. They are not an inexhaustible resource.  And unlike the conscripted soldiers Russia is throwing away as meaningless, these guys are disproportionally career types.  Or at least not being rotated out every year.

You'd think by now Russia would realize that throwing these police forces away without gaining anything wasn't very smart.  But, well, this is Russia we're talking about.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

With all the hand wringing on the future of the tank I am surprised that the idea that air superiority is also “in trouble” has not sparked the same discussions.  Tac Aviation has also been demonstrated as extremely vulnerable in this war as next gen AD evolves.

Helicopters have been living in a high threat environment for a long time now, but their uses in the past 40 years have only occasionally seen them employed against a capable defender.  This has allowed, I think, bought it more time than it probably would have if this sort of war happened 10 years ago or if the Taliban were better equipped.

Like the discussion with tanks, helicopters will remain a feature on the battlefield as long as there isn't a viable replacement.  Having said that, it would seem that attack helicopters will be the first to go because of the same tank arguments I've made. They have (nearly) viable replacements already in the pipeline.  Transport helicopters, like ground based transport, is going to stick around for a lot longer because it isn't so easily replaced.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder how this slaughter of Russian special police forces is going to affect the situation back in Russia if things start to get out of hand with its own population. They are not an inexhaustible resource.  And unlike the conscripted soldiers Russia is throwing away as meaningless, these guys are disproportionally career types.  Or at least not being rotated out every year.

You'd think by now Russia would realize that throwing these police forces away without gaining anything wasn't very smart.  But, well, this is Russia we're talking about.

Steve

Galeev agrees... 

 

 

[kraze]

24 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

 

Looks to me like hapless OMON cops being whacked, based on the black uniforms and body armour (and civvie vehicles)... and total absence of tactical drills.  You guys were talking about cops....

 

 

Best part in that video is one of the orcs pushing grenade towards his own, effectively helping our guys kill them all.

Also how casually Azov fighter walks away after throwing that grenade.

Edited April 18, 2022 by kraze

[Haiduk]

About situation around Kreminna, Luhansk oblast. 

As stated the head of Kremiina military-civil administration Olexandr Dunets, hevay clashes for the town lasted three days. Russians concentrated big armored forces there, Dunets told on one direction agaist one UKR platoon Russian threw in attack 43 armored vehciles (full battalion). This night Russians entered to the town, but couldn't hold position, so they heavy shelled the town with artilelry, damaged seven resedential buildings and large sport center (probably they though this is a base of UKR troops). Now UKR forces have abandoned town, just small rearguard detachments is covering their withdrawal on Kreminna outskirts.

Kreminna surrounded by forests, so probably Russians could approach throug hsome forest roads with a help of traitors. In previous days units of 128th mountain-assault brigade has sucesfully been repelled attempts of LPR forces to take the town. Looks like Russians decided move here large part of own troops to take the town and open the way to Sviatohirsk and Rubizne, for which continues heavy street clashes.

  

There was yesterday's information that UKR troops threw out enemy from Kreminna on several kilometers. This was obvious "broken radio effect". This information was actual as far as 10 days ago, but somebody have seen it only now and hurry to post it again. But situation is changing too fast. 

Izium, Kreminna, southern direction - unlike JTO zone, which have tough strongpoints, these areas have in best case light trenches. The war on these axises mostly is series of meeting engagement punches exhcange of multiple small tactical groups + continous artillery strikes, so some territories can change owners day by day.  

Here is just illustrative map of Kremiina area, which was actual 7-10 days ago. Current frontline configuration still unknown

Edited April 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[cyrano01]

10 hours ago, chris talpas said:

Wondering if the Neptune missiles might have set off some of the SS-N-12 Sandbox missiles?  Always seemed like a risky weapon design from a damage resistance perspective.

I'm wondering if the fire might be the result of unburned missile fuel in the Neptunes catching alight . This was certainly a big factor in the loss of HMS Sheffield to an Exocet hit during the Falklands War.

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

There were multiple cases of locals resisting the invading (Russian) army though - Chechnya, Georgia, now Ukraine. What I wonder is how Russians in Crimea would react to a perceived "Ukrainian attack on their land". Especially as we see the Great Patriotic War rhetoric being totted by the propaganda macine. Hopefull they just sit and watch, or leave as you suggest. 

Ah but key thing here is that russians don't consider Crimea their land. Sure, they believe they own the rights to it (just like any area on planet Earth they invade and occupy) - but they don't feel it's theirs.

This is why russians gradually turn any place they steal into a grey, dystopian garbage dump (especially well seen in the formerly russian occupied parts of EU to people in EU as an example). They don't feel the connection. Especially when they live in a place where one half of towns has Greek names and the other half has Tatar names. Crimea is alien to them in every way but "we just want to have it".

Edited April 18, 2022 by kraze

[Holien]

Just read a report that Google might have removed the obscurity settings over sensitive Russian military sites? Not tested myself but might be of interest to folk following this thread? 

[kraze]

Just now, Holien said:

Just read a report that Google might have removed the obscurity settings over sensitive Russian military sites? Not tested myself but might be of interest to folk following this thread? 

https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/04/18/7340423/

seems to be true, our journos already grabbed a few screencaps

[Der Zeitgeist]

9 minutes ago, Holien said:

Just read a report that Google might have removed the obscurity settings over sensitive Russian military sites? Not tested myself but might be of interest to folk following this thread? 

Yes, it looks like a lot of sites now have much higher resolution and newer imagery. I checked out a few naval bases and airfields and it's a remarkable difference in quality.

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, mosuri said:

One thing I've been wondering is -- since Stugna-P is laser guided AIUI -- we're seeing very few vids of tanks popping smoke. Don't RF tanks have detectors, are they only facing forward, or is it just operator ineptness?

In CMBS smoke popping and reversing happens the instant someone points a laser a tank's way ... BFC please fix or something

I suppose, CMBS Stugna-P was modelled as its export version Skif. The difference is UKR ATGM hasn't laser range finder in own guidance module, when Skif has it.

No one Russian tank, except T-90A has laser beam detectors. And there are many discussions about will this detector react on weak and short LRF pulse or not. 

Stugna-P has two modes of work - semi-automatic and manual.

If manual mode using, this ATGM fires as usual ATGM, missile flies by direct line, operator controlls it by joystik on remote module. It can initilaly keep the mark some aside of target to avoid LWR reaction and move it on the target before a strike. 

Semi-automatic mode requires thermal sight. Some of Stugna-P since 2019 were equipped with such thermals Eye LR S of Turkish "Aselsan" or SLX HAWK of Itlalian-British "Selex Leonardo". Thermal sight can detect  a range to the target (and then you can see the range on the display), transmit it to guidance module for calculations and then, guidance system launches the missile by over-target trajectory, automatically moving the beam on the target in last second before impact, so LWR will have no time to activate smoke. 

So, really CMBS behavior of Stugna-P and reaction of tanks on it must be fixed, because it hasn't LRF and it riding beam doesn't touch the target before hit.   

Edited April 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[chuckdyke]

One hundred and twenty years behind the times when international relations were settled by the right of conquest. Queen Victoria died in 1901 she too believed in the right of conquest. 

[c3k]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

2. Second Guards Tank Battalion has learned the first lesson in How Not To Be Seen: not to stand up! However, they have chosen a rather obvious bit of cover....

 

^^^

Above video: At ~1:27 mark, an AFV is obviously hit and a big piece (ammo?) comes arcing up and out, trailing a smoke line. It then hits inside the treeline.

I was thinking, if that were happening to me in CM, that piece of debris would've landed on my most important unit and killed it.

On topic: the plinking aspect of that video (120mm mortar?) is amazing. I wonder how many Russians were still manning their vehicles while that occurred? It has edits/cuts, so there's no way to tell how much time it took.

[Kraft]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

3.  On the not quite so funny side, amazing CM-level 4 style drone footage of a tactical infantry ambush, with some grim mop-up at the end. It's all shot from a distance, but still....

Looks to me like hapless OMON cops being whacked, based on the black uniforms and body armour (and civvie vehicles)... and total absence of tactical drills.  You guys were talking about cops.... mh

God damn that whole wall at 1:05 is littered with Russians not just near the red van.. it would be amazing if this could be geolocated.

The Azov guys go about it as if it were just another monday, incredible footage.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Kraft

[BeondTheGrave]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Like the discussion with tanks, helicopters will remain a feature on the battlefield as long as there isn't a viable replacement.

It seems like the Helicopter is just as reliant on surprise and range as ever. From what I've seen it seems like Russian prefer to use their helos in a 'thunder run' fashion, flying quickly over targets with dumb rockets and cannons blazing. Bad idea. But the Apache in American usage was theoretically as a long range ATGM platform, typically with the Hellfire. During the GWOT that was changed somewhat I suppose but most of the peer-to-peer Cold War era stuff I've read suggests shoot-and-scoot was the name of the game. I could see that being a niche still needing to fill, though you would think that a stealth design would really benefit an aircraft in that mission. It would be odd if Apache-Next were basically Comanche II. 

Then again if you can get a drone to carry a single Hellfire and do the same thing with (basically) impunity, what advantage does the attack helo really have? Very interesting dilemma. 

Also for those more in the know than me, is it possible to have drones launch airstrikes in the CM engine AND still spot for targets? I imagine you could set up a TB-2 as essentially a faux airplane and do one. But both? 

Edited April 18, 2022 by BeondTheGrave

[c3k]

Attack Helos and Russia's Ka-52 losses (and US Army Apache debacle when overflying an Iraqi Guards unit...):

Yes, drones and loitering munitions can and will do much of what Attack Helos do. Is their time over? I don't think so. The effectiveness of the Ukrainian defense can be ascribed to Russians using the same ingress/egress routes. Remember, all Manpads require a cooldown time. If you're predictable, or orbiting or hovering in LOS, you're gonna get fired upon.

AH-64D with mast-mounted sight allows defilade observation and firing.  Of course, the helo needs to know when and where to use that defilade.

Route planning is a critical tactical skill. Would a platoon commander on a raid behind enemy lines exit out on the same path he entered in? Well, only if he wants to get ambushed (or is Russian).

Having said all that, yes, the environment to operate Attack Helos is getting more difficult. The man-on-scene still has a role to play. It could be that role would be to control a drone swarm/anti-drone swarm and THEN use its weaponry...

(A single Switchblade 600 can take out a single vehicle. An Apache can take out 16. (Or launch 16/32/64 Switchblade 600s. The lift represented by an Attack Helo is significant.)