How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Offshoot]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

CBC interview with Canadian volunteer recently back from the front:

 

He mentions Wali a lot, so here is an interview with him (Google translated). It gives some perspective of the war from the point of view of a foreign volunteer, not all good.

""It's a war of machines", where the "extremely brave" Ukrainian soldiers suffer very heavy losses from shelling, but "miss many opportunities" to weaken the enemy because they lack knowledge technical military, he summarizes. “If the Ukrainians had the procedures we had in Afghanistan to communicate with the artillery, we could have caused carnage,” he believes."

https://www-lapresse-ca.translate.goog/actualites/2022-05-06/retour-du-tireur-d-elite-wali/la-guerre-c-est-une-deception-terrible.php?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Edited May 10, 2022 by Offshoot

[MSBoxer]

22 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

I wouldn't if I was Putin.  Those troops can put on a fantastic parade.  It's probably the one thing they are good at. Why send them to Ukraine and risk them getting killed?

Reminds me of the wargame scene from The Dirty Dozen where the rag tag group totally owns the parade ground troops

[Suleyman]

I like this Wali guy, sounds like he’s very experienced. I feel bad for those two Ukrainian soldiers who died brutally. Assuming the tanks were out of range of Javelins, that means it was a T-72B3 since the gunner has better optics for targeting. Can’t lie I don’t even want to talk about that engagement. That was brutal and I feel bad for the soldiers who died. 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Suleyman

[cesmonkey]

6 minutes ago, Suleyman said:

I like this Wali guy, sounds like he’s very experienced. I feel bad for those two Ukrainian soldiers who died brutally. Assuming the tanks were out of range of Javelins, that means it was a T-72B3 since the gunner has better optics for targeting. Can’t lie I don’t even want to talk about that engagement. That was brutal and I feel bad for the soldiers who died. 

According to this article,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-canadian-forces-1.6443048
Wali is a famous Canadian sniper:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wali-alive-despite-russian-disinformation-1.6393191

[dan/california]

And yet another BTG, more or less.

[Suleyman]

I assumed he was Ukrainian but the name is middle eastern, didn’t know he participated in combat with the Kurds tho. Skilled sniper I see.

Going off what the volunteer said and the other accounts too, the firepower the Russians bring causes heavy casualties for Ukrainians. I wonder if they have a plan where they decide to go defensive after some minor gains and play a war of attrition by causing damage with their firepower advantage. 

Maybe that’s their most ideal game-plan right now. The Ukrainians can offset that by receiving more equipment and doing the same. Ukrainians gained ground around Kharkiv, but the reports show that Russians are massing up in Belgorod to push into Kharkiv, or maybe they’ll just be posted in Belgorod in case the Ukrainians try to push through the border.

Ukrainians need more tanks and IFV/APCs and other supporting units to be able to launch heavy offensives and do damage to RU forces. From what I’ve studied so far I don’t know if they can make huge drives against the Iziyum area with what they have right now. Maybe the lend lease will provide it for them. 

[akd]

 

[Canada Guy]

Welcome Alison,

Off topic -- I lived in Hong Kong for a while and loved it. My wife and I were actually thinking of moving there for 6 months a year after we retire (which admittedly is 11-12 years away) but since my whole family is very pro-democracy,  we now feel unsafe). It has in many ways the same problems as Russia. A country with great potential and squandered due to ruling elites needing to squeeze every yuan or ruble even if it destroys the country. Now we are looking at Japan as it is super cheap.

China is also moving towards the QBZ-191 assault rifle which is interesting. Looks like a copy of the M16 - interesting if they are looking at Taiwan

Everyone here seems to be stating that the Russians have already launched their offensive. With so little movement, are we sure? When I think of offensives, I think of Bagration. These seem like pinpricks at best - company or company+. 

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Suleyman said:

Maybe that’s their most ideal game-plan right now. The Ukrainians can offset that by receiving more equipment and doing the same. Ukrainians gained ground around Kharkiv, but the reports show that Russians are massing up in Belgorod to push into Kharkiv, or maybe they’ll just be posted in Belgorod in case the Ukrainians try to push through the border.

Ukrainians need more tanks and IFV/APCs and other supporting units to be able to launch heavy offensives and do damage to RU forces. From what I’ve studied so far I don’t know if they can make huge drives against the Iziyum area with what they have right now. Maybe the lend lease will provide it for them. 

I've seen this mentioned a couple times now about the Russians massing in Belgorod.  The figure that seems to be tossed around is some 19 BTGs.  What exactly does that mean I wonder.  It is pretty certain they aren't full strength.  Question is whether they are functional at all.

Edited May 10, 2022 by sburke

[sburke]

5 minutes ago, Canada Guy said:

Everyone here seems to be stating that the Russians have already launched their offensive. With so little movement, are we sure? When I think of offensives, I think of Bagration. These seem like pinpricks at best - company or company+. 

yep, we are sure.  Bagration was an enormous offensive with far more material and men than what are available now.  Weapons are also a lot more deadly now. The nature of this is also driven by the limitations of what Russia can do now, material conditions on the ground as well as the tactics and weaponry the Ukrainians are fielding.  It is highly doubtful (hopefully) we'll ever see anything on the scale of Bagration again.

The size and composition of the Russian army is pretty well known and most of it has been committed to this fight.

[Kinophile]

Belgorod is not just a staging but a rest/re-equip station, I believe?

So those Mother-of-All-BTGs grouping could easily be company sized, battle-trashed and barely functional line units recuperating from assaulting concrete, steel & kevlar lined UKR bunkers. 

This donbass offensive is more like a constant shoving, than a right-left hook. 

Do we have any idea of UKR infantry circulation, front line to rear and back to the front? There must be some refit/rest happening.

I'm curious if thats how the Kharkiv offensive was built up - the units that fought since D1 gained a rest when Russia fell back from Kiev (and started building for Donbass). When Donbass kicked off, the UKR held its strategic reserve back, watched for when the Donbass had culminated (but Ivan was still fully committed) then struck out of Kharkiv. Now Rus forces south and east of Izyum are tactically locked in with the UKR forces, doctrinally locked into tactical blinders (arty pacing the battle) and locked in politically (this offensive is the "war winner").

So if UKR can cut the Izium GLOCs the potential for collapse becomes stronger as the RUS tactical reality at the front (advance at all costs) is disconnected from RUS operational reality (about to be knee capped). My understanding is that soldiers morale can bebroken not just by direct surprise (****, we're flanked!) but also by reality/pyschological surprise - what they thought was secure and solid (esp important for soldiers stuck in a hard fight at the sharp edge) has suddenly fallen apart and shows no signs of recovery. I don't like to ref WW2, but the French army in 40' is a good example.

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Kinophile

[SeinfeldRules]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for sharing your experience.  I'll second what Billbindc said.  Some may think I come here out of a sense of obligation, whereas I really come here to learn.  Thanks to postings like this there is plenty to learn from!

As an artillery officer you must be seeing a lot in this war worthy of taking notes on.  This is the first modern artillery war on record.  Sure, artillery duels have been seen all over the place in the last 10-20 years (including lots of it in Ukraine over the last 8), but the scale of artillery use in this war puts it into a league of its own.

If you have some time and inclination, it would be great to hear your thoughts on what you've seen in this war from your perspective.

Steve

I probably have more questions then observations at this point. I don't think anything fundamentally has changed from previous conflict, even dating back to WW 1. Artillery is still a crucial arm of any modern military and is your only all weather, truly responsive means of shaping the battlefield. Artillery is the King of Battle, even with today's technology. I can't say I've been truly shocked at anything I've seen so far.

All of my observations are based off OSINT videos - I imagine most of the US military's observations of the conflict are still close hold at higher levels due to the sensitivity of collecting in an active conflict.

Drones have proven to be incredibly useful but I don't see anything revolutionary or fundamentally doctrine-altering with them - aerial observers have been a thing since the Civil War, and artillery battalions during WW2 literally had their own observation planes sometimes - we can just get them closer then ever before without risking a human. You still see a lot of "long range" observation from drones in these strike videos however - so there is definitely a real threat of ADA/EW that is keeping drones at a distance. It's harder then ever before to hide your forces from observation, but I imagine there are a lot of smart people churning away at a practical military answer to the UAV problem, and I think it will have an easier solution then the tank will have dealing with top down attack, fire-and-forget ATGM systems.

Loitering munitions I'm still not 100% sold on - probably useful for high value targets (radar, ADA, command posts), but seem hard to utilize at a more tactical level.  Honestly, it seems like a complex solution to a problem that isn't terribly hard to solve with more conventional and flexible fires. The Switchblade 300 is seriously unimpressive to me, a glorified flying grenade. Great for taking out an ISIS leader in the middle of a crowd, not so impactful in a war where individual casualties are a given and virtually meaningless in a tactical or operational sense. I don't think the Switchblade 300 is going to single-handedly stop a town from being lost. Would LOVE to see an actual statistical analysis on the effectiveness of loitering munitions, that isn't all buzz words and "ooooh scary kamikaze drones!!"

Armored vehicles seem to be more vulnerable to artillery then commonly believed in the US/NATO. Lots of footage of (what seems to be) destroyed vehicles due to rocket and cannon fire.

Not seeing much utilization of mortars. Not sure if this is due to a lack of use, improper characterization of OSINT videos, or a function of UKR/RUS TOE lacking a significant amount of mortar tubes?

Russian and Ukrainian artillery forces seldom use effective cover and are often lined up in neat rows in the open, instead of utilizing dispersion and tree lines. I think this is mainly a function of the manual nature of most of their artillery, which requires howitzers to be somewhat closer and more orderly for a variety of technical reasons I won't get in to (unless you would like me to). This is in contract to the digital, self-locating, self-laying howitzers the US military has, which have a more robust ability to "roam". Of note, the M777s we gifted to Ukraine do not seem to have this self-locating capability, as the two videos I've seen of the howitzers operating in Ukraine showed them lacking these digital systems. These may be the Canadian howitzers though. Will be following that one closely.

Lack of digital systems aside, the above does stir some questions in my mind on the actual effectiveness and feasibility of true "counterfire" - meaning a howitzer shoots, then immediately has to move to avoid rapid and accurate fires from an opposing artillery unit. I don't think UKR and RUS artillery units are so pig headed or naive to not appreciate the usefulness of emplacing in a tree line - I wonder if the impetus to do so is even there. What I mean by that is: how often are artillery units shooting and then immediately taking fire? I don't see many videos of fires being directed on artillery units actively engaged in shooting, displacing, or even moving between firing points. In fact, in most videos of fire against an artillery battery, I don't see any people at all! Just the howitzers. And videos I've seen of artillery units firing don't seem to have a terrible sense of urgency on the need to displace immediately, which raises even more questions for me on why that would be the case. Again, would LOVE to do a deep dive into counterfire procedures during this conflict, and the effectiveness of firefinder radars and whether we truly need to "shoot and scoot" after every mission to stay alive. From my limited view of things, I'm just not seeing the same counterfire fight our doctrine envisions us fighting - but maybe that's just due to the nature of what videos are actually released versus what is happening... would love to know the actual ground truth there.

[chuckdyke]

13 minutes ago, Canada Guy said:

I think of Bagration.

They had state of the art 2½ton trucks to enable logistics. We all know where they came from.  

[Suleyman]

Just now, sburke said:

I've seen this mentioned a couple times now about the Russians massing in Belgorod.  The figure that seems to be tossed around is some 19 BTGs.  What exactly does that mean I wonder.  t is pretty certain they aren't full strength.  Question is whether they are functional at all.

They should be functional. The Russians are learning slowly, the hard way. 19 BTGs worth of soldiers is the estimate could be even more since homeland turf, conscripts are assigned for sure.
 

Using guess work, they will have heavy artillery and airforce support since it’s Russian grounds. CAS will be available heavy artillery, MLRS. This is the area close to where the T-90M got torched (by what idk it is a pretty good tank) so they might have some top of the line gear. Logistics wont be a big issue since their supply line is right behind them.
 

If even with these local advantages the Ukrainians trash that new force build up then I would assume that the Russians will throw in the towel to avoid getting KOed
 

 

[Battlefront.com]

Combat footage from earlier days of fighting in Mariupol.  Ukrainian squad is hit from the flank while repositioning during street fighting.  At least one of the squad is hit and another is initially pinned down.  The pinned guy gets around to cover first then the hit guy does.  Seems his body armor did the trick as he seems pretty mobile.

Reddit, so only posting this as link due to stupid autoplay:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/um4sf7/battle_footage_filmed_by_one_of_the_defenders_of/

 

[dan/california]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, more like CTGs

Oh, for sure the expectation that there wouldn't be a shooting war poisoned the whole planning process, of that I'm sure.  But I personally believe the assumption of no serious combat was invented to make this war possible.

Senior Officer - "Comrade Putin says he wants to invade Ukraine"

Planning Staff - "Sounds good!  We'll get right on it.  One question, when can we expect full mobilization?"

Senior Officer - "Comrade Putin says we are not to mobilize.  This is to be a 'Special Military Operation' with our standing forces."

Planning Staff - "Ah, OK.  So we're just going to take over the Donbas then?  We can do that."

Senior Officer - "No, Comrade Putin wants a plan to take over all of eastern Ukraine."

Planning Staff - "Without full mobilization?  This is impossible.  We simply don't have the manpower to fight our way to the Dnepr."

Senior Officer - "That will not please Comrade Putin.  Isn't there some way we can do this with our existing forces?"

Planning Staff - "Yes.  If the Ukrainians offer no resistance we should be able to do it no problem."

Senior Officer - "Excellent!  Then it is done.  The Ukrainians will not resist.  Make a plan that is based on this truth."

Planning Staff - "Er, we were joking about the no resistance thing.  Are you just pulling our legs about building an invasion plan based on this assumption?"

Senior Officer - "No joke.  He wants this war and we need a plan to make it happen.  If the only way to make a plan is to presume Ukraine will not fight, then that is what we must do."

Planning Staff - "OK, well, if we divide up our forces and have them drive in small groups all over the place for 3 days then we can do it".

Senior Officer - "Excellent.  Finalize the details of your plan and I will submit it for Comrade Putin's consideration."

Planning Staff - "As you command.  We'll get started on a way to do this.  If we exclude Kyiv we might just have enough forces to make it happen, provide Ukrainians do not shoot at us."

Senior Officer - "Comrade Putin was very specific about taking Kyiv as well as everything east of the Dnepr."

Planning Staff - "What?  Even without any resistance we would need more troops than we have to make that feasible."

Senior Officer - "Not to worry, we have Chechens and police units.  And if absolutely necessary, Syrians and Libyans.  Since you said the Ukrainians won't shoot back they are as good as soldiers."

Planning Staff - "Wait, we didn't say the Ukrainians wouldn't shoot back.  We just said that is the only way to... never mind.  It seems this is what we must do so we'll come up with a plan."

Senior Officer - "Very good then.  Oh, and don't forget that conscripts have to be left at home."

Planning Staff - "Say what?  This definitely isn't going to work."

Senior Officer - "Of course it will.  Comrade Putin knows what he is doing.  He's a master at this sort of thing."

Planning Staff - "As you wish.  We should have a plan ready in about 6 months."

Senior Officer - "Didn't I tell you already?  We're invading next week."

Planning Staff - "Uhmm.... OK?"

Senior Officer - "Good job.  And when you're done get started on a second plan that has our glorious forces going all the way to the Polish border."

Planning Staff - silence

(note, this was not an intercept made by Ukrainian intel, but it does seem plausible, doesn't it?)

Steve

 

 

10 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Belgorod is not just a staging but a rest/re-equip station, I believe?

So those Mother-of-All-BTGs grouping could easily be company sized, battle-trashed and barely functional line units recuperating from assaulting concrete, steel & kevlar lined UKR bunkers. 

 

A lot of them weren't anywhere near full strength battle groups at the start of the war. The Potemkin army thing just got completely out of control. The only conceivable explanation for the Russian war plan is the one Steve laid out above. You can't even guess their strength from the "number of BTG", you need to actually count tanks and bodies.

[dan/california]

21 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

I probably have more questions then observations at this point. I don't think anything fundamentally has changed from previous conflict, even dating back to WW 1. Artillery is still a crucial arm of any modern military and is your only all weather, truly responsive means of shaping the battlefield. Artillery is the King of Battle, even with today's technology. I can't say I've been truly shocked at anything I've seen so far.

All of my observations are based off OSINT videos - I imagine most of the US military's observations of the conflict are still close hold at higher levels due to the sensitivity of collecting in an active conflict.

Drones have proven to be incredibly useful but I don't see anything revolutionary or fundamentally doctrine-altering with them - aerial observers have been a thing since the Civil War, and artillery battalions during WW2 literally had their own observation planes sometimes - we can just get them closer then ever before without risking a human. You still see a lot of "long range" observation from drones in these strike videos however - so there is definitely a real threat of ADA/EW that is keeping drones at a distance. It's harder then ever before to hide your forces from observation, but I imagine there are a lot of smart people churning away at a practical military answer to the UAV problem, and I think it will have an easier solution then the tank will have dealing with top down attack, fire-and-forget ATGM systems.

Loitering munitions I'm still not 100% sold on - probably useful for high value targets (radar, ADA, command posts), but seem hard to utilize at a more tactical level.  Honestly, it seems like a complex solution to a problem that isn't terribly hard to solve with more conventional and flexible fires. The Switchblade 300 is seriously unimpressive to me, a glorified flying grenade. Great for taking out an ISIS leader in the middle of a crowd, not so impactful in a war where individual casualties are a given and virtually meaningless in a tactical or operational sense. I don't think the Switchblade 300 is going to single-handedly stop a town from being lost. Would LOVE to see an actual statistical analysis on the effectiveness of loitering munitions, that isn't all buzz words and "ooooh scary kamikaze drones!!"

Armored vehicles seem to be more vulnerable to artillery then commonly believed in the US/NATO. Lots of footage of (what seems to be) destroyed vehicles due to rocket and cannon fire.

Not seeing much utilization of mortars. Not sure if this is due to a lack of use, improper characterization of OSINT videos, or a function of UKR/RUS TOE lacking a significant amount of mortar tubes?

Russian and Ukrainian artillery forces seldom use effective cover and are often lined up in neat rows in the open, instead of utilizing dispersion and tree lines. I think this is mainly a function of the manual nature of most of their artillery, which requires howitzers to be somewhat closer and more orderly for a variety of technical reasons I won't get in to (unless you would like me to). This is in contract to the digital, self-locating, self-laying howitzers the US military has, which have a more robust ability to "roam". Of note, the M777s we gifted to Ukraine do not seem to have this self-locating capability, as the two videos I've seen of the howitzers operating in Ukraine showed them lacking these digital systems. These may be the Canadian howitzers though. Will be following that one closely.

Lack of digital systems aside, the above does stir some questions in my mind on the actual effectiveness and feasibility of true "counterfire" - meaning a howitzer shoots, then immediately has to move to avoid rapid and accurate fires from an opposing artillery unit. I don't think UKR and RUS artillery units are so pig headed or naive to not appreciate the usefulness of emplacing in a tree line - I wonder if the impetus to do so is even there. What I mean by that is: how often are artillery units shooting and then immediately taking fire? I don't see many videos of fires being directed on artillery units actively engaged in shooting, displacing, or even moving between firing points. In fact, in most videos of fire against an artillery battery, I don't see any people at all! Just the howitzers. And videos I've seen of artillery units firing don't seem to have a terrible sense of urgency on the need to displace immediately, which raises even more questions for me on why that would be the case. Again, would LOVE to do a deep dive into counterfire procedures during this conflict, and the effectiveness of firefinder radars and whether we truly need to "shoot and scoot" after every mission to stay alive. From my limited view of things, I'm just not seeing the same counterfire fight our doctrine envisions us fighting - but maybe that's just due to the nature of what videos are actually released versus what is happening... would love to know the actual ground truth there.

Great post, and there is no such thing as too much detail on this board, not from people who know what they are talking about. 

Also, any opinion on what that drone solution will be? It is a problem that is much harder than it seems, or at least it has been so far.

[Kinophile]

28 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

I think this is mainly a function of the manual nature of most of their artillery, which requires howitzers to be somewhat closer and more orderly for a variety of technical reasons I won't get in to (unless you would like me to).

My friend, this is page 715 of amateur/professional uber-uber-nerding on the technical, strategic, operational, tactical, economic, political, cultural, geographic, naval, financial, geopolitical, manufacturing, infrastructural, demographic, psychological and comedic aspects of this terrible, stupid needless war. I assume you didn't get the memo yet >:)

YES we would like you to!

Edited May 10, 2022 by Kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Belgorod is not just a staging but a rest/re-equip station, I believe?

Yes, it is the primary base for the entire war effort.  Even the forces that were based in Belarus were tied to Belgorod.

17 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

So those Mother-of-All-BTGs grouping could easily be company sized, battle-trashed and barely functional line units recuperating from assaulting concrete, steel & kevlar lined UKR bunkers. 

That is what I'm thinking.  Off the top of my head I think I remember about 6 major units being withdrawn to Belgorod, 2 of which were from the first counter punch around Kharkiv just before or after the general Russian retreat.  If we presume 6 divisions each with 3 Regiments and those with 3 BTGs each we have a total theoretical count of 54 BTGs in the area.  If some were Regiments instead of Divisions, or some are back in Ukraine already, that obviously reduces the count.  The point is that there's been a lot of BTGs withdrawn and I'm guessing some of those have been pushed back to the border to form that 19 BTG count.  I doubt any of them are combat worthy yet.

17 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Do we have any idea of UKR infantry circulation, front line to rear and back to the front? There must be some refit/rest happening.

It seems they are doing refitting in place for the most part.

17 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I'm curious if thats how the Kharkiv offensive was built up - the units that fought since D1 gained a rest when Russia fell back from Kiev (and started building for Donbass).

Apparently 72nd MIB was moved in to provide additional manpower for the offensive.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

Seconded and thirded. Please wade in, @SeinfeldRules!

[dan/california]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, Offshoot said:

He mentions Wali a lot, so here is an interview with him (Google translated). It gives some perspective of the war from the point of view of a foreign volunteer, not all good.

""It's a war of machines", where the "extremely brave" Ukrainian soldiers suffer very heavy losses from shelling, but "miss many opportunities" to weaken the enemy because they lack knowledge technical military, he summarizes. “If the Ukrainians had the procedures we had in Afghanistan to communicate with the artillery, we could have caused carnage,” he believes."

https://www-lapresse-ca.translate.goog/actualites/2022-05-06/retour-du-tireur-d-elite-wali/la-guerre-c-est-une-deception-terrible.php?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Even for the meals, it is often the civilians who provide them. It's the same for gasoline to move in a vehicle. You constantly have to organize yourself, to know someone who knows someone.

While anecdotal, and weighted to the early 'crowdsourced' days of the Ukrainian defenseh, this kind of thing is far more worrisome to me than anything the Russians are doing right now.

Without consistently effective logistics and comms, UA will not be able to sustain more than localised offensive operations, especially against prepared positions (which I take it as a given that even inexperienced Russians can quickly get decent at, given a will and some time.  Intrenchment, after all, is an art hundreds of years old).

It would be catastrophic for this war to  go static with 20% of Ukrainian territory, especially Kherson, still in Russian hands.

[Kinophile]

https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/a-trip-to-kyiv-with-european-presidents/

A bit lyrical but interesting perspective.

[Aragorn2002]

6 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Well, let´s hope this finally will get the MiG ball rolling...or flying...

 

 

Payback time for those Soviet jets (often including Russian pilots) during the Korea war.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[a10]

just a short report from china, the China’s official news agency live broadcast the victory parade. However they cut the speech of Putin and the live broadcast suspended ahead of schedule. Very strange.