How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Combatintman]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya, whatever this thing is, it aint working.  It feels like an unholy compromise to be honest.  I mean if one beefed it up, layered a next-gen unmanned system and hooked into a integrated C4ISR system, one could make an argument for a more self-contained tactical organization.  One that when employed on concert with others could see daylight in the whole dispersed and distributed operations idea that the west has been toying around with.  Not sure how one solves for logistics as that is the tether that never goes away but you might be onto something.

Staffed with people like me and you naturally ... milk with that brew sir?

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

Staffed with people like me and you naturally ... milk with that brew sir?

I have used this Russian war as an example of “what wrong looks like” to a whole bunch of up and coming brass.  The one thing about war that is constant is that it does hinge on the qualities of the people waging it, and how well those in charge can stay out of their way.

Speaking if tea, I spit some all over the keyboard when I heard on assessment of the Russian officer corps as “on par with any in the West”.  Further the Russians do not have an NCO Corp, they have a collection of people wearing the ranks.  

[acrashb]

56 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

slowly and costly

"медленно и дорого"  But everything sounds better in Latin: Operation Tardius et Pretiosi

[c3k]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Longer video of how Russian Mi-8 was shot down with Igla MANPAD 21st of April near Malynivka, Zaporizhzhia oblast with 

 

 

Extended version: That helo crew knew they were in a high-threat zone. Many changes in heading and altitude as they tried to escape/get through the zone. (Check the shadow of the helo, visible in parts of the video. Altitude is at or below 100'/35m, for much of that maneuvering.)

Good discipline by the manpad operator not to try to launch too soon. 

There is an art/science to flare dispensing, based on the seeker you're trying to defeat. Not sure if they ran out of flares, thought they were past the threat so stopped, or just tried a longer pause and were just about to start launching more.

Shrug. More Russian losses.

[c3k]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya, whatever this thing is, it aint working.  It feels like an unholy compromise to be honest.  I mean if one beefed it up, layered a next-gen unmanned system and hooked into a integrated C4ISR system, one could make an argument for a more self-contained tactical organization.  One that when employed on concert with others could see daylight in the whole dispersed and distributed operations idea that the west has been toying around with.  Not sure how one solves for logistics as that is the tether that never goes away but you might be onto something.

As built the BTG looks more like a "medium weight" institutional cop out.  Looks good on a power point as one could argue it can swing heavy or light but without the formation-level enablers light is going to be tepid and heavy too slow and vulnerable.  It looks like the Russians experimented with distributed mass and did not land on it at all, in fact they managed to invent distributed-weak-dim-mass.  The UA on the other hand, at least in the defence, has clearly locked onto something with distributed-smart-sharp mass; however, we have not seen them able to translate that into large offensive operations either.  

Let's face it, this has been a Defence war.  Defence has had primacy pretty much the entire course of it so far, which kinda throws things for a bit of a loop.  I may even go further and say that this has been a Denial War, with most of the denial being inflicted on the Russians; a lot of null and negative decisions being forced on the Russians as they seem unable to solve some riddles here, while bleeding on everything.  This is ironic as heel considering a major political objective of Putin's was to undecide the outcome of the Cold War...insert ironic "wah, wah, waaaah" sound here.

The lack of recon by Russian forces:

The organic recce forces in a BTG are far too light to achieve anything in the face of resistance armed with 14.5mm/.50 cal machineguns and up. I think the Tigr wrecks found all over are proof of that. (Yes, used by SOBR and Spetsnaz troops, other SOF.)  So, you need something heavier...

Specialized recce equipment and forces are totally absent. The idea of specially trained personnel, with specialized equipment, POWERFUL enough to OVERCOME defenses just does not exist. (Not my area of knowledge, but I'd say that this also applies to the US, if not other Western forces, as well.) 

Ground-based probes are being relegated to BTGs. "Ivan, go here, get that."   ("Heh, comrade. Let's see if Ivan can make it there. If not, we'll know where the Ukrainians are. If yes, very good.")  <- That is my impression of what they seem to be doing with their BTGs just pushing down every road they can that's in the general direction of their CAA objective.

When all you have is BTGs, then everything must be done with BTGs: battlefield recce, probes, advances, attacks, etc.

I'm sure the fallback is that when the BTGs are stopped and an enemy position can be identified, then artillery can be called in to pummel it. 

It's slow, and it uses up men and equipment, but it (according to Russians) should be a steady and sure way of advancing.

 

At least, that's how I think this Izyum offensive has unfolded.

[akd]

Guess we’ll see…

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

They still appear to be road-bound,

Isn’t it still muddy? Don’t the Russians still have a lack of infantry? Admittedly, this is expensive losses for Russia, but unless Russia goes purely defensive, they don’t seem to have a lot of options to inflict damage on Ukraine to spoil their defense than these pushes. I suppose Russia could leverage their artillery, go defensive and let Ukraine attack, except unless Ukraine attacks, the only thing I can think of is Russia does not have enough artillery rounds, and a lack of intel enough to use what ammo is remaining to simply bomb everything in front of them.

I mean I think the Russians are going to pursue offensive action, but I’m struggling to find a reason against them not going to the defensive, and focus on punishing Ukraine for any offensive moves, and use their artillery to disrupt Ukrainian buildup. Is this considered normal probing actions not indicative of a greater offensive? Am I missing something? 

[Combatintman]

24 minutes ago, c3k said:

The lack of recon by Russian forces:

The organic recce forces in a BTG are far too light to achieve anything in the face of resistance armed with 14.5mm/.50 cal machineguns and up. I think the Tigr wrecks found all over are proof of that. (Yes, used by SOBR and Spetsnaz troops, other SOF.)  So, you need something heavier...

Specialized recce equipment and forces are totally absent. The idea of specially trained personnel, with specialized equipment, POWERFUL enough to OVERCOME defenses just does not exist. (Not my area of knowledge, but I'd say that this also applies to the US, if not other Western forces, as well.) 

Ground-based probes are being relegated to BTGs. "Ivan, go here, get that."   ("Heh, comrade. Let's see if Ivan can make it there. If not, we'll know where the Ukrainians are. If yes, very good.")  <- That is my impression of what they seem to be doing with their BTGs just pushing down every road they can that's in the general direction of their CAA objective.

When all you have is BTGs, then everything must be done with BTGs: battlefield recce, probes, advances, attacks, etc.

I'm sure the fallback is that when the BTGs are stopped and an enemy position can be identified, then artillery can be called in to pummel it. 

It's slow, and it uses up men and equipment, but it (according to Russians) should be a steady and sure way of advancing.

 

At least, that's how I think this Izyum offensive has unfolded.

Sort of - remember recce is designed to find stuff so it has to be stealthy and agile, not massively protected; however, I agree the point about when all you have is BTGs, then everything must be done by BTGs.  If we go back to the old school battalions, none of them had organic recce and; therefore, the grown-ups have no idea as to how to employ it effectively.  Every move becomes in effect an advance to contact which is fine if you have an HQ that can cope with assessing the situation on the fly, adapting accordingly and having sub-unit (Coy/Sqn) commanders empowered to use their own initiative to execute the direction given in line with the commander's intent.

Qualities which have been amply demonstrated to be absent in the Russian Army.

[BeondTheGrave]

3 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

Sort of - remember recce is designed to find stuff so it has to be stealthy and agile, not massively protected; however, I agree the point about when all you have is BTGs, then everything must be done by BTGs.  If we go back to the old school battalions, none of them had organic recce and; therefore, the grown-ups have no idea as to how to employ it effectively.  Every move becomes in effect an advance to contact which is fine if you have an HQ that can cope with assessing the situation on the fly, adapting accordingly and having sub-unit (Coy/Sqn) commanders empowered to use their own initiative to execute the direction given in line with the commander's intent.

Qualities which have been amply demonstrated to be absent in the Russian Army.

An interesting thought, what were the two greatest strengths of the old Soviet army? The death ride, mad dash forward, hell for leather, dont stop for nothin advance. Weve chatted a bunch in the CW subforum about the viability of this, but if it was going to work it required a very strong and well organized forward detachment with a combat recon unit to push out and find the strongpoints before the battalion/regimental/divisional column crashes face first into a NATO position. The other is the well planned, highly detailed, and very limited set piece attack. The key here is pre-operation recon and planning, asset assignment, accurate prediction of the enemy's response, etc.

It seems to me like the setup of the Russian BTG and much of their doctrine is still based on this set piece operation, where everything is managed and planned to the last detail. BTGs dont need recon because we already know where the strongpoints are. They dont need much organic support because weve assigned them artillery based on their role in the operation. But yet the planning and execution of the initially attack was the march to contact style battle, command from the saddle. This mismatch could explain a lot. And if you have an officer corps trained for the command-oriented, preplanned battle they would be quite lost without detailed orders from HHQ. HHQ just gives them a mission, derived as much from political needs and bad assumptions as the smart military choice. Instead of everything rigid, planned, and highly managed, the Russian Army seems like it tossed its units into a fluid and dynamic situation which it was totally unprepared and untrained to fight through. 

[Haiduk]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This looks like some sort of recon-in-force as they are trying a lot of different tactical axis probes, and those are expensive probes.  It kinda looks like the Russians are using BTGs to try and find a hole in the UA defence instead of a recon screen based on the battlefield loss observations.

 All we can see is that Russia is still on the offensive in the Donbas and it is moving pretty slowly and costly [aside: perfect name for this operation, can we get a Russian translation?] for the first week.

Our intelligence made a statement about the same - currenst stage of offensive is a series of active probes with intensive artillery and aviation support to take more advantageous positions before throwing in the battle main echelone. Main phase expects within next week

Slowly and costly it will better tranlate like "dolgo i dorogo" (a long while and costly)  

[sross112]

12 minutes ago, c3k said:

When all you have is BTGs, then everything must be done with BTGs: battlefield recce, probes, advances, attacks, etc.

When we were talking about the BTG's a couple weeks ago I believe the general consensus was that they were formed due to a lack of manpower. I'm thinking that the RA looked at the task force groupings of the west and saw their success over the years and tried to replicate them to an extent. The more experienced and educated can correct me if I'm wrong but I think what makes the TF system work well is the flexibility of employment of assets. But that is only possible in an environment where initiative and experience are present. 

I know we discussed the BTG's a couple hundred pages ago and pointed out a lot of it's failings. I'm not trying to be a western army fanboy but I think if you took a BTG and manned it with western troops and they got familiar with the equipment they would have a lot more success. The conceptual TO&E is clumsy and not optimal but it could work with good soldiers, good NCO's and good officers. 

Again, correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not an expert on the RA, but I see it to be impossible for them to effectively utilize a BTG or TF type concept. The problem is in the RA itself with the biggest problem being a lack of a professional NCO corps. The second biggest problem is cultural or systemic stifling of initiative. Corruption fits in somewhere on the list as well. I don't know much about their officer corps but it doesn't seem to be very impressive either.

So basically the RA needs to do a radical change which is almost impossible when the change is so contrary to the culture of the nation or re-structure to work with what they have. The old Red Army structure is probably more in line with their capabilities. They could do an acceptable job of combined arms at the divisional or corps level but expecting it at battalion or lower is too much. 

But that takes us back to the manpower issue and what got them to where they are right now. They are trying to field 12 armies and 4 independent corps. A lot of their armies are only around 2 divisions worth of teeth, some less and some more. It seems they are trying to do too much with too little and in the end they have an extremely top heavy organization with limited teeth. Mix a bunch of corruption into that recipe and here we are. 

I think massive reform from top to bottom is their only hope and I don't think that will happen. Their warfighting capabilities will continue to be rudimentary at best.

[Huba]

Strikes in Odessa, allegedly by Kh-101 types launched from Tu-95 with some were reportedly downed by AD.

 

[The_Capt]

38 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Is this considered normal probing actions not indicative of a greater offensive? Am I missing something?

It is in who is doing the probing, normally one does not do probing with the main organizations that comprise ones combat power.  There are many reasons for this but the primary ones are visibility and cost.  BTGs are highly visible, especially in an environment where their opponent is winning the ISR fight so that makes them sub-optimal for probing unless you can quickly follow up with more structured mass.

Further the losses one takes trying to use a force designed to “fix and finish” in “finding” the enemy is bad battlefield economics.  As @Combatintman points out, there are circumstances where this will work but you need a highly switched on formation level C2 structure that understands how to synchronize the follow on forces.  Even with that it is sub-optimal as there are organizations equipped, designed and armed with doctrine who are supposed to do this job, we call them reconnaissance.  In the west recon troops have a combination of long range ground sensors like FLIR, UAVs combined with close recon scouts that come more heavily armed but are not designed to take and hold ground but outline where the enemy is, or is not and survive that “bump in the dark”.  To this artillery and joint fires are highly integrated, along with CAS and tac aviation.

The only way the Russians are doing it now that makes any sense is if this is a feint.  Then “probing with no intent to take me to church” kinda makes a bit more sense but operationally that also makes no sense here either.

 

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, sross112 said:

I think massive reform from top to bottom is their only hope and I don't think that will happen. Their warfighting capabilities will continue to be rudimentary at best.

And they gave themselves about a 3 weeks to to do it before rolling into this fight. This has been our fundamental disagreement with mainstream assessments: the things broken in the Russian military as demonstrated by phase 1 of this war require years to fix, and as such the outcome of this thing does not change based on Russian shifts to date.  This is likely because we (collectively) see war at a genetic level in CM and that is where things screamed out the loudest from Day 1 in this whole thing. 

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, Huba said:

This is confirmed by Polish state media

 

The Poles have been all in from day 1, they really could not have done a whole lot more without just joining the war. I have a deep suspicion there are also a lot of people in Ukrainian uniforms with "distinctive accents from the border around Lviv".

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Our intelligence made a statement about the same - currenst stage of offensive is a series of active probes with intensive artillery and aviation support to take more advantageous positions before throwing in the battle main echelone. Main phase expects within next week

Slowly and costly it will better tranlate like "dolgo i dorogo" (a long while and costly)  

Ya, my guess as well but "probes" are supposed to be more than junior high school foreplay - both humorous and unfulfilling.  They are supposed to not only inform where the enemy is vulnerable, they are also supposed to shape the battlespace through a lot of inductive effects.  I am not seeing any real design here on the Russian side, I see a lot of poking resulting in loses of up to a BTG per day but not a the jabs before the main event.

How the RA is expecting to set up a main event and not get spotting, considering that the amount of layered ISR over this region is likely able to cook an egg, is beyond me, but let's not let that get in the way of ambition.  

I guess we will see next week.  My instincts are telling me that the RA will pick a main axis and get on with this but it will be a mad bull rush Russian Frontal (seriously do they only teach this manoeuvre?) of fire and smoke without the ability to quickly follow up.  They may even take Slovyanks but they will then run out of gas (literally) while they try to "re-probe" for the next stage, again because they do not have what looks like a recon-battle here and it is sapping any momentum they can muster.

 

[sross112]

10 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The only way the Russians are doing it now that makes any sense is if this is a feint.  Then “probing with no intent to take me to church” kinda makes a bit more sense but operationally that also makes no sense here either.

 

Or is this the only fight they are able to fight right now? We've established that when all you have is BTG's then everything becomes a BTG problem. I'm not sure the actual ground conditions but everyone says it is muddy and they are road bound. If we are correct in those two assumptions then this type of offensive action is all they are capable of. Push a BTG forward down the road to the next village or town, pound it into submission with arty and clear it. Rinse and repeat as that is the only game in town for the RA. Truly expensive and slow but it shows progress to the command staff and Putin and if you are able to do it enough times before your forces are truly depleted then you've met your operational goals. 

Granted I think they will bleed themselves to death before meeting any comprehensive operational goal by doing it this way. They should just put up a mobile screen, play the UAV/arty game, rebuild what they can and wait until it has dried out enough to go off road. Until then they aren't able to play the only trump card they have with mass and massed fires.

Effectively emasculating themselves and playing to the strengths of the UA at this point.

[The_Capt]

Just now, sross112 said:

Effectively emasculating themselves and playing to the strengths of the UA at this point.

[Haiduk]

10 minutes ago, Huba said:

Strikes in Odessa, allegedly by Kh-101 types launched from Tu-95 with some were reportedly downed by AD.

 

Reportedly there was salvo of dozen missiles from Tu-95 over Kaspian sea. Four flew at Odesa. Two were shot down by air defense, but parts of one intercepted missile hit residual, cusing fire and destructions. Other missile hit other building, but didn't explode. Fourth hit military object. Also were shot down two UAVs, which either maintained filming of strike results or were used for EW interfering of AD assets.

Reportedly 6 civilians killed, including 3-month child, 18 wounded.

Other missiles flew on Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipro. Results currently unknown.

Screenshot of missile over Odesa

 

[Haiduk]

Training of some Marines unit, which now in process of combat capabilities restoration. Reportedly they got MG3 and Browning M2 machine guns

Edited April 23, 2022 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Longer video of how Russian Mi-8 was shot down with Igla MANPAD 21st of April near Malynivka, Zaporizhzhia oblast with 

 

 

Perfect example of why flares aren't useful in a high threat environment.  They only work if they are deployed.  As soon as you stop deploying them, then you're as good as naked.  While on the move, as we saw here, you have to deploy them extremely frequently because as soon as you move away from them they aren't useful.  Either the pilot thought he was out of danger and stopped firing them off, or he ran out of them.  Whatever the case was, all those flares fired off prior meant absolutely nothing.

Steve

[sross112]

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

It is in who is doing the probing, normally one does not do probing with the main organizations that comprise ones combat power.  There are many reasons for this but the primary ones are visibility and cost.  BTGs are highly visible, especially in an environment where their opponent is winning the ISR fight so that makes them sub-optimal for probing unless you can quickly follow up with more structured mass.

Further the losses one takes trying to use a force designed to “fix and finish” in “finding” the enemy is bad battlefield economics.  As @Combatintman points out, there are circumstances where this will work but you need a highly switched on formation level C2 structure that understands how to synchronize the follow on forces.  Even with that it is sub-optimal as there are organizations equipped, designed and armed with doctrine who are supposed to do this job, we call them reconnaissance.  In the west recon troops have a combination of long range ground sensors like FLIR, UAVs combined with close recon scouts that come more heavily armed but are not designed to take and hold ground but outline where the enemy is, or is not and survive that “bump in the dark”.  To this artillery and joint fires are highly integrated, along with CAS and tac aviation.

The only way the Russians are doing it now that makes any sense is if this is a feint.  Then “probing with no intent to take me to church” kinda makes a bit more sense but operationally that also makes no sense here either.

 

I was looking through some of the RA army structures for dedicated recon units. It appears that the divisions have a dedicated battalion but that was all I found. No recon regiments at the army level and no recon companies at the brigade level. So what they have is basically what is indigenous to the BTG's themselves and as you pointed out they don't appear to be equipped for the task. 

The only exception was some of the armies had an ISR brigade. Maybe they thought their electronic and UAV based stuff was enough? 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Occupants disassemble Drama theater ruines in Mariupol. Bodies, found there, transport to Mangush town for burials in mass grave. There is assesment that from about 1000 of people, which found a shelter in this theater about 300 were killed or died from wounds under ruins, when Russian hit the building.

 

This is very interesting.  One of Russia's top priorities was to dig up a high profile warcrime and bury the dead.  If they hadn't made this public I would have thought they did it to cover up their crime.  "See, no bodies.  You were lied to".  But they made sure people knew they were doing this.  And as a priority activity.  I don't get it.

Steve

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is very interesting.  One of Russia's top priorities was to dig up a high profile warcrime and bury the dead.  If they hadn't made this public I would have thought they did it to cover up their crime.  "See, no bodies.  You were lied to".  But they made sure people knew they were doing this.  And as a priority activity.  I don't get it.

Steve

That sort of sums up every significant Russian action in this war doesn't it? The people making decision are just so detached from objective reality they can't rationally plan/evaluate anything. No sign they are getting better at it over time either.

[The_Capt]

17 minutes ago, sross112 said:

I was looking through some of the RA army structures for dedicated recon units. It appears that the divisions have a dedicated battalion but that was all I found. No recon regiments at the army level and no recon companies at the brigade level. So what they have is basically what is indigenous to the BTG's themselves and as you pointed out they don't appear to be equipped for the task. 

The only exception was some of the armies had an ISR brigade. Maybe they thought their electronic and UAV based stuff was enough? 

And this raises the another "huh?" in my mind; what in the hell have the Russians being doing for the last 3-4 weeks in this sector?  They had a month to do recon and ISR work before they started all this "probing".  That is enough time to put special recon in every haystack and put UAVs (even crappy Russian ones) all over the place.  Why do the Russian's need to probe now at all?  That is why the lack of a deliberate assault is baffling to me.  These frontages are huge and the UA has a lot of ground to cover off, the idea that the RA couldn't push recon well beyond UA lines is beyond me.  They should already have Ukrainian logistical nodes, engineering infra and troop concentrations at least broadly locked in because they had three weeks to infiltrate...so why all the knocking around with BTGs at this point?

The only answer is that they did do this phase because any special recon is 1) dead, or 2) did not exist in the first place.  So this is a cold-hard-knock job, which of course history has demonstrated that nothing could possibly go wrong.