How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sross112]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

I'm beginning to suspect the pre-war estimates of how many soldiers Russia had to commit to the war was lower than estimated or, perhaps, at the lower end of whatever ranges were presented.  

If the prewar analysis relied upon counting units and guessing at their strengths, with the total force estimate based on the sum of the parts, then the question is to what extent did they account for under strength rosters?

Steve

Someone, Der Ziet maybe, posted the interview between Sikorski and Gen. Hodges yesterday. It was pretty good and Hodges touched on this with the initial overestimates. I believe he said in there with what we've seen as to the depths of corruption he would guess the total RA strength around 500,000. Of course that is a guess.

We could be generous and give them 75% and that would mean they went in with only 150,000. 50,000 less than what we said wasn't enough to start with. Take another 60-80,000 off that for dead and wounded and they are down to 80 or 90,000 out of their original force. Using the same percentages for equipment they have lost over 50% of their starting armor!! Ouch!!

[akd]

49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

17% of the total that went into Ukraine were conscripts

Not clear that the conscripts went into Ukraine (they are not supposed to), and they may have been withdrawn if they did. Rather than the whole brigade deploying, you probably have the brigade forming 2x BTGs and deploying those.

 

Quote

• the Brigade seems to be under strength by quite a lot, perhaps as much as 50%

It is shown in the total for the brigade: 80-85% strength (so 65-70% without conscripts).

Also note the the motor rifle squad (where billets are filled) is consistently 1 squad ldr, 2 crew and 4 dismounts (senior rifleman, MG gunner, RPG gunner and asst. RPG gunner).  7-man squad vs. the doctrinal 9-man motor rifle squad.  There are, however, squads with billets not filled, even in the no-conscripts battalions, the smallest having just 4 men.

Edited April 24, 2022 by akd

[sross112]

42 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

 

- Ability to negotiate with their own political level.  A weird one as most militaries do not find themselves in this position but...Russia.  The Russian military has likely been negotiating with Putin throughout this thing and will continue to, the only way they can do that is if they remain in control of the Russian military. Speed of Success is key here as faster is better because time is not on their hands.

 

Posted 14 hours ago by Battlefront

And this just stumbled upon.  According to Bellingcat's Christo Grozev, Putin has put himself in charge of the military:

Maybe they lost their negotiations?

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, sross112 said:

Someone, Der Ziet maybe, posted the interview between Sikorski and Gen. Hodges yesterday. It was pretty good and Hodges touched on this with the initial overestimates. I believe he said in there with what we've seen as to the depths of corruption he would guess the total RA strength around 500,000. Of course that is a guess.

We could be generous and give them 75% and that would mean they went in with only 150,000. 50,000 less than what we said wasn't enough to start with. Take another 60-80,000 off that for dead and wounded and they are down to 80 or 90,000 out of their original force. Using the same percentages for equipment they have lost over 50% of their starting armor!! Ouch!!

This was a major error in initial war estimates.  Everyone was counting BTGs vs UA formations and coming to conclusions.  While if one were to dig into these BTGs it was pretty apparent that they were disadvantaged from the initial design, which we have discussed at length, compounded by internal attrition due to a whole bunch of factors.

Add to this other soft factors like leadership and morale. Add in the lack of operational pre-conditions and this whole thing gets a lot more predictable.  Finally add in Ukrainian performance and approach against an already eroded Russian system that was not even given the opportunity to play to the strengths it had, and it gets even more pre-determined with respect to outcomes.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, sross112 said:

Posted 14 hours ago by Battlefront

And this just stumbled upon.  According to Bellingcat's Christo Grozev, Putin has put himself in charge of the military:

Maybe they lost their negotiations?

Bam.  If the military is no longer in charge of the Military Strategic space then this thing just got a whole lot worse for Russia - I know right?!  Is that even possible?  At this point Russia needs to pull a rabbit out of a hat, or Ukraine needs to stumble in a very big way in order for this war to swing from its current trajectory.  On its present course the Russian offence will likely collapse and its ability to defend what it took will be at significant risk. 

I also am betting that Ukraine knows this, that is why they are taking a harder line at the negotiating table, which is the battlefield right now.

[sross112]

8 minutes ago, akd said:

Not clear that the conscripts went into Ukraine (they are not supposed to), and they may have been withdrawn if they did. Rather than the whole brigade deploying, you probably have the brigade forming 2x BTGs and deploying those.

Good catch. I've been stumped as to why they would put all their conscripts into one BTG like that chart shows. I couldn't come up with a positive for that in the field and then thought maybe that would be a replacement formation for covering losses or something. What you say about taking the experienced contract soldiers for deployment and leaving the conscripts back makes more sense. 

Now add that into the list of problems they are facing at the unit level that The Capt has put together for us. I'm sure up until they got the deployment order those conscripts would have been spaced throughout all three battalions. So they mashed them up before deploying to the border and now they mashed up again with whatever manpower they can find after suffering combat losses. I'm sure there is a mathemagician around here that could work out how many compounded factors of suck that is for anyone left in charge of those units.

[kraze]

5 hours ago, sross112 said:

So a question for the smart technowizzes peoples on here.

Could say Anonymous hack the Russian media, I think the main channel is RT, and take it over or melt it down? If they could take it over and then feed war crimes, dead and captured soldiers and destroyed RA equipment 24/7 with some commentary from Russian speaking victims and deserters maybe they could fight some of their propaganda.

Russians know full well about war crimes their soldiers commit and know full well about their losses.

They are proud of the former and don't care about the latter.

[sross112]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Bam.  If the military is no longer in charge of the Military Strategic space then this thing just got a whole lot worse for Russia - I know right?!  Is that even possible?  At this point Russia needs to pull a rabbit out of a hat, or Ukraine needs to stumble in a very big way in order for this war to swing from its current trajectory.  On its present course the Russian offence will likely collapse and its ability to defend what it took will be at significant risk. 

I also am betting that Ukraine knows this, that is why they are taking a harder line at the negotiating table, which is the battlefield right now.

And I'm actually really surprised at this move from Putin. By taking charge of it he is accepting responsibility for the outcome. If he ordered a retreat back to the border right now he could point fingers at the FSB and the military, use them as scapegoats and maybe survive. If he continues the attacks at some point it is going to reach the catastrophic point with the assistance of the UA. A big loss and route back to the border under his command and I don't think he even gets a choice of poison, noose or kinetic.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, sross112 said:

And I'm actually really surprised at this move from Putin. By taking charge of it he is accepting responsibility for the outcome. If he ordered a retreat back to the border right now he could point fingers at the FSB and the military, use them as scapegoats and maybe survive. If he continues the attacks at some point it is going to reach the catastrophic point with the assistance of the UA. A big loss and route back to the border under his command and I don't think he even gets a choice of poison, noose or kinetic.

The only factor in favour of the Russian's right now is the fact that the UA has not been able to pull off an operational level offensive.  I think this thing down by Kherson is approaching that and it looks like they took a swing at it near Kharkiv but these still look like tactical gains.  If the UA can crack the code on a successful operational offensive/manoeuvre the whole rotten house of the Russian force might just cave in. 

[Battlefront.com]

46 minutes ago, akd said:

Not clear that the conscripts went into Ukraine (they are not supposed to), and they may have been withdrawn if they did. Rather than the whole brigade deploying, you probably have the brigade forming 2x BTGs and deploying those.

That's what I would have assumed prior to learning the source.  Supposedly these documents show the personnel that ws committed to the invasion, not the peace time staffing.  This could explain why the unit is under strength.

46 minutes ago, akd said:

It is shown in the total for the brigade: 80-85% strength (so 65-70% without conscripts).

Also note the the motor rifle squad (where billets are filled) is consistently 1 squad ldr, 2 crew and 4 dismounts (senior rifleman, MG gunner, RPG gunner and asst. RPG gunner).  7-man squad vs. the doctrinal 9-man motor rifle squad.  There are, however, squads with billets not filled, even in the no-conscripts battalions, the smallest having just 4 men.

Holy crap.  Well, I'm sure they did a non-administrative combination as a 4 man squad = 2 dismounts.

Whatever the case is, it is clear that the reports of Russia's forces going in under strength certainly applies to this particular Brigade.  And the mess that comes from this is evident to see.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I also am betting that Ukraine knows this, that is why they are taking a harder line at the negotiating table, which is the battlefield right now.

Just saw some government statement (not Zelensky, IIRC) that appears to signify a shift.  It stated the only possibility for peace is all Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory.  Not a cease fire or plan for withdrawal... out completely.  I am presuming that includes Donbas and might even include Crimea now.

This could be a context or translation issue and the position hasn't really changed, but for sure Putin's hand has continued to weaken over the course of this war.

Steve

[Huba]

13 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The only factor in favour of the Russian's right now is the fact that the UA has not been able to pull off an operational level offensive.  I think this thing down by Kherson is approaching that and it looks like they took a swing at it near Kharkiv but these still look like tactical gains.  If the UA can crack the code on a successful operational offensive/manoeuvre the whole rotten house of the Russian force might just cave in. 

I'm happy to be corrected at this, but my understanding is that Ukrainian side is getting progressively stronger as time passes (due to mobilization and influx of equipment from the west) while Russians are bleeding, with no prospect of significant reinforcements in sight. The time for large scale offensive action for Ukraine will come, but waiting seems like a smart thing to do now. It probably will mean sacrificing Mariupol unfortunately. I think that reasonably, UA won't take to offensive at least untll:

a) weather improves enough

b) NATO artillery and other equipment is reasonably integrated

c) newly mobilized reserves are available in meaningful numbers

d) outcome of current Russian offensive is known

Status of mobilization is hardly an open source info, I'm going to skip that.

For the first two points I think minimum is about two weeks ( May 8th to piss on Putin's parade? :P), but more probably end of May or later. 

As for the last point, for UA high command it might be known already, but I supppose that consensus is that we'll see the main Russian effort in upcoming week. It's outcome will dictate if UA will counterattack ASAP to take advantage of the opportunity that might present itself, or if taking a pause and continuing reinforcing will be preferable. 

Now as to where the UA counteroffensive will happen ( assuming no significant changes in controlled territories in next days). I'd bet on the south as there is by far the most to win there - unblocking the Black Sea trade, threatening Crimea, denying Sea of Azov to Russia and goes against Putins stated goals. 

Attacking fixed positions in Donbas does not sound very promising, and will mean a quagmire of managing the reconquered areas. Plus it means leaving the well established defensive positions. 

Reducing the Izyum salient I think would be done if there's an opportunity. Terrain is more defendable there, it's generally easier to reinforce for Russians and it is largely contained at the moment. It isn't as strategically important as Kherson region. 

So, here's this humble layman's idea about what's going to happen. What do you think? 

 

[DesertFox]

Let´s see how they can make it even more comfortable for the russians with these tools:

 

And of course EXCALIBUR...

 

 

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, Huba said:

I'm happy to be corrected at this, but my understanding is that Ukrainian side is getting progressively stronger as time passes (due to mobilization and influx of equipment from the west) while Russians are bleeding, with no prospect of significant reinforcements in sight. The time for large scale offensive action for Ukraine will come, but waiting seems like a smart thing to do now. It probably will mean sacrificing Mariupol unfortunately. I think that reasonably, UA won't take to offensive at least untll:

a) weather improves enough

b) NATO artillery and other equipment is reasonably integrated

c) newly mobilized reserves are available in meaningful numbers

d) outcome of current Russian offensive is known

Status of mobilization is hardly an open source info, I'm going to skip that.

For the first two points I think minimum is about two weeks ( May 8th to piss on Putin's parade? :P), but more probably end of May or later. 

As for the last point, for UA high command it might be known already, but I supppose that consensus is that we'll see the main Russian effort in upcoming week. It's outcome will dictate if UA will counterattack ASAP to take advantage of the opportunity that might present itself, or if taking a pause and continuing reinforcing will be preferable. 

Now as to where the UA counteroffensive will happen ( assuming no significant changes in controlled territories in next days). I'd bet on the south as there is by far the most to win there - unblocking the Black Sea trade, threatening Crimea, denying Sea of Azov to Russia and goes against Putins stated goals. 

Attacking fixed positions in Donbas does not sound very promising, and will mean a quagmire of managing the reconquered areas. Plus it means leaving the well established defensive positions. 

Reducing the Izyum salient I think would be done if there's an opportunity. Terrain is more defendable there, it's generally easier to reinforce for Russians and it is largely contained at the moment. It isn't as strategically important as Kherson region. 

So, here's this humble layman's idea about what's going to happen. What do you think? 

 

Well we have been talking a lot about the Russians, I think a discussion on “How Ukraine is going to win this thing” is long overdue.

I think Ukraine will establish pre-conditions before moving out.  It will likely have information superiority from the get go.  It is working on firepower and deep strike.  Air is a toss up, to the point that I am not sure what it means.  EW is interesting, in all this kit coming from the west not much mention of that?

Then the UA may do a bunch of shaping and feeling up of Russia positions, I suspect they are already doing this.  A properly developed recon phase that figures out what to pin and what to crush before crossing the start line.  Then, with all that set up, a relatively small but highly lethal formation may very well be capable of crashing the Russian line and sustaining it.  

The question is where?

[c3k]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

The only factor in favour of the Russian's right now is the fact that the UA has not been able to pull off an operational level offensive.  I think this thing down by Kherson is approaching that and it looks like they took a swing at it near Kharkiv but these still look like tactical gains.  If the UA can crack the code on a successful operational offensive/manoeuvre the whole rotten house of the Russian force might just cave in. 

Yep.

See my post (above, somewhere) about how the influx of precision fires for Ukraine will allow them to neutralize the Russian artillery. Once they break the backbone of Russian power (artillery) then we'll see some big Ukrainian gains.

Until then? It'll be too costly and too much of a slow grind.

I don't think it'll be armored sweeps: T72s are still good and the Russians on defense can inflict a lot of losses on armored opponents. 

Instead, Ukraine will hit Russian artillery, logistics hubs, supply lines, air bases and then, after they're attrited, they'll use aggressive infantry attacks (well supported by loitering munitions and artillery) to take out Russian armored hedgehogs. 

^^^

Quote me on that in a 4-6 weeks. 

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, c3k said:

Instead, Ukraine will hit Russian artillery, logistics hubs, supply lines, air bases and then, after they're attrited, they'll use aggressive infantry attacks (well supported by loitering munitions and artillery) to take out Russian armored hedgehogs. 

This is what they have been doing in the defence but I think you are right, they are going to hit the operational length along several points, then likely pick one where they figure they can get the biggest bang.

Off the top of my head, cutting that strategic corridor between Crimea and Donbas looks like a promising gain.  Also, for the bolder operational types, a river crossing East of Kherson and a sweep around the back of the city would also be bold but risky as hell as you could wound up cut off.

The real question is how to crumble the whole Russian position in a sector. It looks like they tried near Kharkiv but it looks like it faltered.

Or maybe they don’t do bold and simply give the RA a death by a thousand cuts everywhere.

Edited April 24, 2022 by The_Capt

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, c3k said:

Yep.

See my post (above, somewhere) about how the influx of precision fires for Ukraine will allow them to neutralize the Russian artillery. Once they break the backbone of Russian power (artillery) then we'll see some big Ukrainian gains.

Until then? It'll be too costly and too much of a slow grind.

I don't think it'll be armored sweeps: T72s are still good and the Russians on defense can inflict a lot of losses on armored opponents. 

Instead, Ukraine will hit Russian artillery, logistics hubs, supply lines, air bases and then, after they're attrited, they'll use aggressive infantry attacks (well supported by loitering munitions and artillery) to take out Russian armored hedgehogs. 

^^^

Quote me on that in a 4-6 weeks. 

This is similar to what I envisioned eons ago, but as you say it's impractical until Ukraine can reliably suppress Russian artillery fire.  Looks like things will change here soon and perhaps dramatically.

The other one they have to worry about is interdiction from the air.  However, Russia has helped out a lot by terrible at timely tactical support.  The losses of aircraft, in particular rotary, has been steadily going up.  This week has been a particularly bad one for all types of air (fixed wing, rotary, and drone).  I think it's already approaching "annoyance" level of threat, so if the artillery situation is addressed I think Ukraine is good to go.

As for the ground assault, a few hundred pages ago I talked about identifying fairly easy areas to clean up at first.  Pepper the defender with artillery, loitering munitions, etc. and keep 'em busy.  While this is going on have multiple platoon sized groups, loading them up with 3 days worth of food and ammo, find existing holes in the lines (there will be lots of them), flood the area with the marauders, have them cause maximum damage to logistics and morale, then start up ground attacks against (hopefully) demoralized and confused dug in Russian forces.  They might panic and get cut down in the open, they might surrender, or they might die in place.  Sure to be a mixed bag of this everywhere.

Once the low hanging fruit is picked off the tree, drive as much force through the cleared out area as makes sense.  Repeat the process in as many places as possible concurrently and there could be a rout of Russians on a larger scale.  Especially if there's an ability to make it seem like pincers are forming.

Steve

[Maquisard manqué]

4 hours ago, FancyCat said:

According to FT, Putin is committed to taking more territory.

 

Not that I can pretend to see sense in anything the Russian govt are doing but why seize territory that, in the taking, you turn into a depopulated wasteland?

With their recon by BTG and attack by indiscriminate arty approach, the best they can now do is create a desolation and call it peace/victory.

Guess they wouldn’t be the first though. That quote is quite long in the tooth…

[dan/california]

My vote is for dropping the Bridges and cutting off Kherson. They just shattered the command structure there apparently. I am thinking those units would not do well cut off from resupply. The bridges are already rigged to blow, so it isn't like you are going to capture them intact barring a true SOF miracle. And even then The Russians could probably bring them down with PGM. So why not just whack off the five-ish battle groups and liberate Kherson.

Edit

And it would be a huge propaganda/ info war win.

Edited April 24, 2022 by dan/california

[DesertFox]

Melting like snow in the sun...

 

 

[danfrodo]

2 hours ago, sross112 said:

And I'm actually really surprised at this move from Putin. By taking charge of it he is accepting responsibility for the outcome. If he ordered a retreat back to the border right now he could point fingers at the FSB and the military, use them as scapegoats and maybe survive. If he continues the attacks at some point it is going to reach the catastrophic point with the assistance of the UA. A big loss and route back to the border under his command and I don't think he even gets a choice of poison, noose or kinetic.

I've been thinking (and posting) for a while that this all smells like military planning done by a dictator.  Classic not paying attention to basic military realities until denial becomes untenable.  And now he simply makes it official, I guess.  

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Melting like snow in the sun...

 

 

Or as someone just said, let them bleed to death in place . Losing a BTG a day is not even a short term plan, much less anything longer than that.

[Huba]

There might  be multiple opportunities for counterattacks during the Russian offensive that we can't really predict, potentially leading right ito strategic counteroffensive. I think there is no point discussing that really. 

In more set piece scenario, cutting the landbridge seems like a thing to do. Everyone would love a drive to save Mariupol, but I think that going towards Melitopol and in direction of Crimea gives the "pincer effect" on all the forces around Kherson. Secondary pincer towards Berdyansk or even Mariupol would compliment it perfectly, but main effort should I think be placed in the westwsrd direction. 

In any case, if Ukraine is able to reach and hold a part of Azov shore, placing antiship missiles there means that Russians are more or less banned from using it. It is a big economic hit to Russia, cutting Rostov port and Volga trade from the world. If UA gets weapons to threaten the Crimea bridge, it means whole pennisula is effectively cut off, except for deliveries by sea ( and if Ukraine indeed has Neptunes, and not only UKs Harpoons, even that is at risk as those should be able to traget approaches to Sevastopol). From that position UA might think about continuing operations against Kherson and Crimea itself. 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Huba

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, sross112 said:

And I'm actually really surprised at this move from Putin. By taking charge of it he is accepting responsibility for the outcome.

There comes a time in a dictator's reign where he feels the only way to get something done is to do it himself.  The more something goes against the dictator's wishes, the more times his subordinates have failed to deliver, the more he'll interfere.  If the report of him taking a more intense interest in directing the war is true, then it is likely things will get even worse for the Russians on the ground in Ukraine.  There is no example I can think of where a dictator gets to this point and doesn't make things worse.

However, this sort of thing will not likely be made public within Russia.  I doubt very much we'll see Putin don a military uniform and say "I am now redirecting the cowardly military to victory!".  No, he'll most definitely keep himself clear of that sort of thing.  Which means the generals are still on the hook for this even though they might have even less influence than they had prior to this.

Steve

[The_Capt]

35 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Melting like snow in the sun...

 

 

So by my math the Russians are quickly coming up on about half of what the Iraqis lost in Gulf War ‘91 and their force was much larger than the Russian one at about 650k.  The online experts can talk about new recruits and parks of T62s all day, no modern military can sustain these losses for long.  At some point the entire system just buckles under its own weight.