How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

16 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I measured a new front line a bit more precisely than The_Capt did

Hey, I think my prowess in IPB and map usage is well documented in the Beta AAR with Bil, I have war colleges begging me for my secrets.

The only other option is to try and build citadels but they can be isolated even easier and you just lose more troops faster.  My bet is the Russian play is to hand off to the local republics as quickly as possible also known as the "Kabul Kasbah" manoeuvre and the local forces can take the blame when the whole thing collapses. 

And back to options spaces...I can see how Russia is just going to go from one crisis after another after this.

Oh and this is the same answer even if the RA pulls off a miracle in the next few weeks and take all of Donbas...the problem of frontage and holding it does not go away, it may even get worse.  Why?  Because they failed in the first part of this war - defeating the oppositions will to resists.  In fact they did the exact opposite. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by The_Capt

[FancyCat]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Let a movie or two be made, starring Jeremy Remer - "Hells Factory - Mariupol" and then as Russia gets weaker and the UA becomes the best armed military in Europe, then I would go for the big wins and take it all back in 48 months.  When Russia, with a newly established government, is begging Ukraine not to attack across the border and the West is willing to pay them not to do it, that is what winning looks like militarily.   

Hmm, I think Ukraine will probably never undertake offensive action beyond the border, beyond precise targeted targets aimed at a specific goal or motivation. Too much risk for giving Russia more motivation for war/escalation. While more time is better for Ukraine, I would caution a timeframe of 48 months is too long, the West wants this war to end sooner than later, and more importantly, Ukraine needs peace to rebuild, as without it, economically, investors will not be willing to invest in potentially broken infrastructure. 

Ukraine needs to regain territory sooner than later, to prevent further warcrimes, if these deportations are real, Ukraine literally will be liberating its civilians before they get shipped off to Siberia, that is and will be a important motivator in pursuing offensives in a shorter timeframe than 2 years down the line. Ukraine also needs to impart offensive action to emphasize to potential collaborators that cooperating with Russia is going to end up with them hanging from a tree soon enough. 

Ukraine will launch a offensive before the end of the year is stretching it is my guess. 

[Huba]

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Now that is another conversation.  My thoughts are that this long a frontage is too long for the Russian forces, and they are likely to try and hand the defence off to as many contractors, DNR/LPR conscripts and Arabs as quickly as possible so that they can show the "Russian boys coming home".  So it will be a porous and brittle lines without integrated ISR or fires, its LOCs will be exposed and fragile as C-UAV is just not in the cards for Russia right now.

So my guess is that UA forces will still employ a hybrid approach but it will be to infiltrate, isolate and then destroy at key seams in the Russian defence, all the while hammering LOCs and logistics with deep strike capability. [aside: if the UA gets PSM HIMARS Ukraine could hit Moscow from its NE border...crazy].

Russian defence will buckle and then break as they slowly get chewed up but at this point Ukrainian political has to think about drawing Russian back in and trying to re-build, all the while keeping the good will of the West.  More likely, if I were on the Ukrainian staff I would advise to wait, build up and let the sanctions do their work while putting every single war crime investigation back on the front pages of western media.  Let a movie or two be made, starring Jeremy Remer - "Hells Factory - Mariupol" and then as Russia gets weaker and the UA becomes the best armed military in Europe, then I would go for the big wins and take it all back in 48 months.  When Russia, with a newly established government, is begging Ukraine not to attack across the border and the West is willing to pay them not to do it, that is what winning looks like militarily.   

 

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

With how thin the Russian forces are, and how little they would have in reserve, I would not be too afraid to make very large and long maneuvers.  Because once the front vaporizes there really isn't much to stop a mobile force in that sector and not much to attack the flanks from neighboring sectors.

I'd get a significant partisan force going in the south (the start of one is already there) to really stress out the Russians in that area.  I'd pick a few sensitive spots along the DLPR line to cause some serious grief, but the main effort would be the south.

I would blow open the entire front line between the Dnepr and Donetsk, pretty much all at one time.  I'd have small pincers to either destroy or retreat everything that is forward deployed.  A large task force would go south to Melitopol and a secondary effort would push along the Denper towards Kherson (I am assuming getting over the river at Kherson is too difficult, BTW).  My ultimate goal would be to cut off escape to Crimea and then reduce all the forces along the Dnepr.

After this, I'd assess options and then work to eradicate the rest of the Russian forces in probably two more counter attacks.

I think this could all be done by the end of this summer and fall.

Steve

The key difference in your assessments seem to be the expected state of Russian army and their little helpers. If they stop the foolishness right now and go to strategic defense, will they be able to hold until Russia mobilizes? It includes the window when new Ukrainian units are ready, while Russia's are not, it's going to be few months I think?

On the other hand, if they continue to press the attack and bleed their forces, as it seems they are still doing (arguably I admit), depending how (un)successful they are, there's risk of route or total collapse, with Ukrainians in hot pursuit. Does that sound right?

If looking at this from this perspective, they can either stop right now and hope for the best, or press the attack hoping for "victory". It boils down to how clear they see things at the top, and their track record up to today is not that good. The second options seems favorable to the Ukrainians, as the occupation of their land will be shorter, meaning less losses and human suffering. So, go Russia?

Edited April 21, 2022 by Huba

[dan/california]

I would propose an alternative method of timing Ukraine' large scale offensive. It will be one day after better Nato supplied air defense systems simply wipe Russian airpower out of the equation. That is one day after those systems are actually active and shooting on the front lines in the Donbas, not when they get shipped over the Polish border. 

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, FancyCat said:

I would caution a timeframe of 48 months is too long, the West wants this war to end sooner than later, and more importantly, Ukraine needs peace to rebuild, as without it, economically, investors will not be willing to invest in potentially broken infrastructure. 

Definitely tricky, these would be the political considerations.  If they go too soon they risk failure, too late and you have other issues.

On the economic front, if the West does not have a Marshal Plan ready when this thing stabilizes than shame on us and we deserve what happens next.  And I am not talking a loosie-goosie feel good "free market capitalism" thing - that can come later - I mean nation re-building and serious mega-development, under-written by western economies.  We do it for the exact same reason we did it for Germany, to build a functioning buffer state between us and Russia.

If this turns into "pass the hat" and "hey look what is on the other channel" we could seriously screw this up. 

[akd]

BTR-82A in Mariupol takes multiple hits, get dragged away by T-72B3M:

Later same T-72B3M (I think) takes hit (to front hull?) on this street and survives, but then gets abandoned by crew:

EDIT: pointed out elsewhere that left track appears to be headed for an AT mine on surface just before explosion.

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by akd

[FancyCat]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

Definitely tricky, these would be the political considerations.  If they go too soon they risk failure, too late and you have other issues.

On the economic front, if the West does not have a Marshal Plan ready when this thing stabilizes than shame on us and we deserve what happens next.  And I am not talking a loosie-goosie feel good "free market capitalism" thing - that can come later - I mean nation re-building and serious mega-development, under-written by western economies.  We do it for the exact same reason we did it for Germany, to build a functioning buffer state between us and Russia.

If this turns into "pass the hat" and "hey look what is on the other channel" we could seriously screw this up. 

Ukraine should also consider ending the war sooner, as with public opinion and favorable administrations in France, Germany (yes they are cautious about weapons but money i dont doubt german finance is itching to advance in Ukraine), the EU, the US with Biden especially, Britain, the sooner the war ends, the better deals Ukraine can sign with them, than in 2024 with whoever replaces Biden for example. 

[Huba]

16 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Hmm, I think Ukraine will probably never undertake offensive action beyond the border, beyond precise targeted targets aimed at a specific goal or motivation. Too much risk for giving Russia more motivation for war/escalation. While more time is better for Ukraine, I would caution a timeframe of 48 months is too long, the West wants this war to end sooner than later, and more importantly, Ukraine needs peace to rebuild, as without it, economically, investors will not be willing to invest in potentially broken infrastructure. 

Ukraine needs to regain territory sooner than later, to prevent further warcrimes, if these deportations are real, Ukraine literally will be liberating its civilians before they get shipped off to Siberia, that is and will be a important motivator in pursuing offensives in a shorter timeframe than 2 years down the line. Ukraine also needs to impart offensive action to emphasize to potential collaborators that cooperating with Russia is going to end up with them hanging from a tree soon enough. 

Ukraine will launch a offensive before the end of the year is stretching it is my guess. 

The idea I was toying with is the offensive into Belarus. In general, as a mean after at least most Ukrainian territory is liberated but Russia refuses to make peace.

It would strongly depend on the political situation there, but Ukrainian forces might be welcomed on Belarus, or at least locals not be hostile depending on how the operation would be performed. There are already Belarusans on UA, forming a (very small) nucleus of Free Belarusan Forces or something along these lines. Again, depending on the political situation, BY army might not be loyal to Lukashenka, there was talk of them outright refusing to go to Ukraine. There was even some partisan activity against Russian logistics.

It's a smaller escalation, the length of the frontier from Ukrainian perspective remains the same. Flanks are secure from all sides except east.

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Huba

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Ukraine should also consider ending the war sooner, as with public opinion and favorable administrations in France, Germany (yes they are cautious about weapons but money i dont doubt german finance is itching to advance in Ukraine), the EU, the US with Biden especially, Britain, the sooner the war ends, the better deals Ukraine can sign with them, than in 2024 with whoever replaces Biden for example. 

Ok, but if sooner means "before Russia is fully baked" you can see the problem.  This will likely be conditions based and not a set timeline.  Unless you mean by "ending" simply giving up territory at the negotiation table, but I do not think that is reasonable. 

I am not so sure all our western political crap really matters in this.  Our options are back off and risk another Russian rogue movement or go with the Cold War strategy of containment.  This is bigger than political party cycles, or at least I hope it is.

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Huba said:

The key difference in your assessments seem to be the expected state of Russian army and their little helpers. If they stop the foolishness right now and go to strategic defense, will they be able to hold until Russia mobilizes?

If Russia were to go into full mobilization NOW, yes it could make a difference in terms of stalemating this whole thing.  But eventually Ukraine would still have the upper hand because it's their war to end, not Russia's.

My assumption is that Russian mobilization is not feasible, so my assessment of Ukraine's options are based on Russia stopping the fighting now, putting all their remaining reserves into Ukraine for defense, and hoping for the best.  They won't have time to create more pseudo republics worth anything for this fight.  And as we saw with the assassination in Kherson, Ukrainian patriots are keeping an eye on collaborators.

Steve

[keas66]

7 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Ukraine should also consider ending the war sooner, as with public opinion and favorable administrations in France, Germany (yes they are cautious about weapons but money i dont doubt german finance is itching to advance in Ukraine), the EU, the US with Biden especially, Britain, the sooner the war ends, the better deals Ukraine can sign with them, than in 2024 with whoever replaces Biden for example. 

Is the Current US Administration really in that much of a hurry for this to end ? Apart from supplying arms and money - no American lives are threatened and we get to watch a Strong Russia turn into a mere shadow of itself .  Europe strengthens its own defenses and China watches from the sidelines seeing what happens when you try to go up against Western Trained Defense forces ... I'd like to see the US supporting this  until the Ukrainians have had enough .

[FancyCat]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

The idea I was toying with is the offensive into Belarus. In general, as a mean after at least most Ukrainian territory is liberated but Russia refuses to make peace.

It would strongly depend on the political situation there, but Ukrainian forces might be welcomed on Belarus, or at least locals not be hostile depending on how the operation would be performed. There are already Belarusans on UA, forming a (very small) nucleus of Free Belarusan Forces or something along these lines. Again, depending on the political situation, BY army might not be dependable to Lukashenka, there was talk of them refusing to go to Ukraine, there was even some partisan activity against Russian logistics.

It's a smaller escalation, the length of the front from Ukrainian perspective remains the same. Flanks are secure from all sides except east.

 

The big question is the recent Belarusian moves to end their neutrality of stationing nukes on their territory, if those nukes are there, Russia has a feasible move to intervene, and risk escalation. The problem is while the Belarusian military does not want to die in Ukraine, they helped stop the overthrow of Lukashenka, unless lower tiers of the military coup him, its likely they will stand behind him. 

If Ukraine really wants to, they could probably liberate Belarus without too much trouble, but I doubt Ukraine wants to pursue offensive action like that. Maybe if their contacts in Belarus signal some positivity on a quick end.....

I don't have a source, apparently, Ukrainian forces are already in western Kupyansk. 

 

[Huba]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If Russia were to go into full mobilization NOW, yes it could make a difference in terms of stalemating this whole thing.  But eventually Ukraine would still have the upper hand because it's their war to end, not Russia's.

My assumption is that Russian mobilization is not feasible, so my assessment of Ukraine's options are based on Russia stopping the fighting now, putting all their remaining reserves into Ukraine for defense, and hoping for the best.  They won't have time to create more pseudo republics worth anything for this fight.  And as we saw with the assassination in Kherson, Ukrainian patriots are keeping an eye on collaborators.

Steve

I just fail to see other option for Russia other then straight out throwing the towel or escalation to nukes. The fact that they are stalling is hard to explain in other way then them being delusional. We will see soon enough.

[Haiduk]

21 minutes ago, akd said:

BTR-82A in Mariupol takes multiple hits, get dragged away by T-72B3M:

Later same T-72B3M (I think) takes hit on this street and survives, but then gets abandoned by crew:

 

On the first video operator says this was BTR-82A of platoon commander and there remained his radio and documents, so this APC had to be evacuated in order all this didn't fall into the hands of Azov. Also he said BTR was immobilized becuse blew up on AT-mine but platoon commander was a lucky and got only arm injury. Azov shot in BTR twice with RPG-7, but both hits despite penetrations didn't set fire to BTR. Despite this, he added, APC need in serios repair. 

Looks like tank also ran onto mine

Edited April 21, 2022 by Haiduk

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, Huba said:

will they be able to hold until Russia mobilizes

Based on the Russian losses...mobilize what?  So by my count Russia is about half-way to the losses of the Iraqi military during the Gulf War.  Now Russia has reserves of equipment but plenty of doubt as to the condition of those reserves.  Men, well sure but it takes months to create a basic rifleman and years for anything beyond that.  Everyone keeps bringing up "Russian Mobilization" but I am really not sure what that looks like given the serious damage done to their field force, steadily increasing pressure from economic sanctions and the Will of the Russian people.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

I don't have a source, apparently, Ukrainian forces are already in western Kupyansk. 

Could you please find one? Last I heard the push from Kharhkiv was beaten back to Donets river. That would mean a crushing defeat of 1/3 Russian army.

Meantime, this sounds quite big too:

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

Based on the Russian losses...mobilize what?  So by my count Russia is about half-way to the losses of the Iraqi military during the Gulf War.  Now Russia has reserves of equipment but plenty of doubt as to the condition of those reserves.  Men, well sure but it takes months to create a basic rifleman and years for anything beyond that.  Everyone keeps bringing up "Russian Mobilization" but I am really not sure what that looks like given the serious damage done to their field force, steadily increasing pressure from economic sanctions and the Will of the Russian people.

Yup.  However, what Russia lacks now more than anything is infantry.  So if they did a mobilization of 200,000 men, for example, they could get basic training and fed to the front and theoretically make a difference rather quickly.

Personally, I doubt Russia could find 200,000 conscripts that would be worth a damned in a fight.  I know Russia doesn't have body armor for all these guys, so they'd be going in with hats and uniforms only.  Maybe not everybody would even have a rifle.

But if cannon fodder to slow down Ukrainian advances is what the situation calls for, Russia could make that happen.

Not that it would make any difference.  Russia's contractors ran away from combat and are trying to get out of serving, so I don't think a double dose of conscripts is going to do anything to improve the situation.

Steve

[Huba]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Based on the Russian losses...mobilize what?  So by my count Russia is about half-way to the losses of the Iraqi military during the Gulf War.  Now Russia has reserves of equipment but plenty of doubt as to the condition of those reserves.  Men, well sure but it takes months to create a basic rifleman and years for anything beyond that.  Everyone keeps bringing up "Russian Mobilization" but I am really not sure what that looks like given the serious damage done to their field force, steadily increasing pressure from economic sanctions and the Will of the Russian people.

They have to do SOMETHING to try to at least man the frontline. If situation turns to worse they won't have a choice. I don't expect it to be effective really, but they'll have to at least for internal propaganda purpose.

[Haiduk]

3 minutes ago, Huba said:

Could you please find one?

Nearest point to Kupyansk now, controlled by UKR forces on the R07 road is Korobochkyne in 60 km west

[TheVulture]

14 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

I don't have a source, apparently, Ukrainian forces are already in western Kupyansk. 

 

Not to be too much of a pessimist, but that sounds really implausible unless Russia has just hit staggering new levels of incompetence. That would mean the Russia's Izyum offensive just turned into the Izyum pocket.

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

I don't have a source, apparently, Ukrainian forces are already in western Kupyansk. 

I haven't seen anything myself, but I wouldn't be surprised to know that Ukraine was able to make good progress.  The Russians do not have defense in depth, so any push down a road is probably more constrained by logistics and sensible military practices than anything else.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Nearest point to Kupyansk now, controlled by UKR forces on the R07 road is Korobochkyne in 60 km west

That seems more reasonable than Kupyansk

Steve

[Chibot Mk IX]

On 4/20/2022 at 8:25 AM, BeondTheGrave said:

My wargaming what-if for this war is quickly becoming "How would things have changed if the Russian army had retained a stronger Regimental system and not the BTG." Seems like a combined arms (combined function) Regiment would be in keeping with Russian warfighting practice, its numerical strength, and its lack of command flexibility. 

I have the same opinion with you, a function Regiment—Division—Army structure should have a better result compared to current BTG-Brigade-Army structure in this crazy full scale invasion war.

But the question is: can Russian afford a function Regiment system in the first place? I guess the answer is a no. and that’s why they went through all those reforms.

 

On 4/20/2022 at 9:17 AM, The_Capt said:

I think maybe the Russians were reaching for some western concepts here but wound up with an unholy compromise.  Decentralized and dispersed, highly empowered tactical units are theoretically capable of rapid exploitation and accelerating decision cycles but they come with significant costs.  They need a lot of ISR support and integral enablers.  They also cannot avoid the realities of a long logistical tail, or you employ them as one-shot fire-and-forget but have a whole bunch more in the operational magazine. 

Further, this also greatly increases the load on the operational level to make sense of what all these tactical units are doing and provide clear and concise task command when needed (everyone forgets this in the warm liberal glow of "do whatever feels good" mission command - which is not that either].   That is a lot of C4 architecture to plug everything into and a significant training bill to make sure everyone knows what they are doing. 

It is like the Russians built an impression of this but did not understand how all the parts fit together.  That, or they were shooting for something else entirely and I am not seeing it.

 

Here is my thought:

Instead of a proactive change, the Russian military reform is a result of admitting the de facto status that they lack manpower, resources to keep the old structure functional.  

What is a 20% strength regiment good at? Why you have to cut paychecks for those officers while you cannot find enough cannon fodder to fill the ranks. There are a huge nuclear arsenal needs maintenance, nuclear attack submarine and nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet have the higher priority, flying boys also asked for a budget increase.

In short, Mother Russia cannot afford everything. So, the Army must cut their budgets to adapt to the new reality. That’s the background of Serdyukov’s reform.  It shrinks the OOB, cut a lot of branches (Logistics, always logistics personal be fired first) while keep Artillery and armor strength relatively intact on paper. I have read some studies on this topic, basically Russian Army converted 136 BTGs from 120 Brigades/Regiments. So it is a big lay off + assets sale to keep a healthy cash flow. Regarding ISR support and C4, that’s not the focus of the reform. Neither the treasure chest can afford that nor the big boss is interested in (How can you put a military concept on a May 9^th Parade?).

On the bright side , a reform is good opportunity to have new equipment and dedicated professional personal enlisted. Of course due to the corruption the fund for new equipment are used for expensive Italian yachts, dedicated professional personal actually means the mistress in Paris.   But that’s belongs to different topic.

 

Not everyone is happy about the reform. A flat organizational structure means less promotion opportunities. After Shoigu was appointed as Minister of Defense, he made some changes to restored to the old traditional way. He pretends that the dissatisfy from the young officers group has been heard, but in reality he is a genius good at office politics. He appeases every faction and make them think he is one of their close allies. So he restored some of the old division but that’s it. He didn’t solve any manpower shortage problem for these divisions (aka didn’t significantly increase the budget mother Russia must afford) . As some of the analysis indicated, these Guard divisions have nothing but shrining insignia, their battlefield performance are even worse than those BTG/Brigades.

 

On 4/20/2022 at 1:31 PM, The_Capt said:

These BTGs look like they were prepared for a internal security operation and not a conventional war. 

Indeed, they are not fit for a conventional full scale war. IMHO, I think they will do a far better job in a low scale border conflicts (Sino-Vietnam war 1979 and the conflicts between 1979-1991 came into my mind)

That is a solution similar to cavalry carousel, one Army put two BTG in the frontline, and support them with the whole army’s assets. After two days operation, withdraw the two BTGs from the frontline and sending two new fresh BTGs into the meat grinder.

But I guess anyone who dare to speak the truth in Jan will be shot by Putler, so here we go with a full scale invasion   

*********************************

Sorry, I am 20 pages behind the latest updates.  

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Chibot Mk IX

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Huba said:

They have to do SOMETHING to try to at least man the frontline. If situation turns to worse they won't have a choice. I don't expect it to be effective really, but they'll have to at least for internal propaganda purpose.

Standard play is "somebody else's kids" so they will milk that cow until it bleats (already have).

As to 100k or even 200k.  In the west it takes us about 1-2 years to create a functioning basic infantry person.  That is basic and battle school, even our reserves here in Canada take at least a year.  These are totally inexperienced with no heavy weapons training, minimum fieldcraft and just enough skill not to shoot themselves or each other too often.  

But this rabble do not make a tactical unit.  You need NCOs, Officers, technical specialist etc.  A recce troop takes 3-5 years to make, a good NCO 5-10, a junior officer (if one waives a degree requirement) 2-3 years - more if they are in a technical trade. 

So yes, if they want kids standing in trenches holding a rifle they could technically "mobilize".  But they will not hold ground under pressure and forget anything complex like offense.  I mean if you want third world quality, sure Russia can mobilize but they will get crushed in days.  The UA is producing veterans at an alarming rate, to the point I would be concerned about taking them on with a western military right now.  They are on their home soil so no worries about motivation, and they are being equipped with some of the best weapon systems in human history.  But I am sure Russia will stick an 18 year old with strange holes and stains on his uniform, in a different country, no real support and an AK with one mag and call it a "Wall of Steel".   

[Battlefront.com]

This report confused me.  It is posted as if it is from today and at first it looked like a lot of Russian offensive activity that I've seen nothing about anywhere else.  Then I read the details and realized this is a report from yesterday. 

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/04/21/russian-forces-resumed-offensive-in-donbas/

Eagerly awaiting ISW's report to see if today was as quiet as it seemed it was.

Steve