How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is typical KGB/FSB cruelty of killing someone and humiliating them at the same time.  Having a heart attack while doing S&M with a whore type of thing.

Steve

Some folks pay good money for that.

[Machor]

The interior of a T-72B3 that apparently was penetrated in the turret from the gunner's side, Thales TI controls visible. The blood stains tell a story:

[Machor]

On 5/9/2022 at 7:44 AM, Lurb said:

Maybe he is a pro FPS-gamer. Everyone knows Mosins are always one shot kills while you need multiple hits with an AK 

More seriously, I guess properly scoped that would be a nice budget sniper rifle, but naked and with a bayonet...

I think I know why hapless DNR/LNR conscripts are issued Mosins instead of AK-47/AKM/SKS: This way, they can simply be distributed 7.62x54R ammo pulled from PK belts or intended for SVD, as opposed to worrying with the logistics of supplying 7.62x39. [Whoever lives long enough and is sufficiently fanatical to come back for more ammo gets the PK/SVD.  ]

Also, thank you, Steve, for clarifying the story behind the Woodland BDU. @G.I. Joe in case you missed Steve's post, it's on page 711.

[Machor]

On 5/9/2022 at 11:52 AM, alison said:

I think if the party is to succeed in its designs on Taiwan, it will need Putin's failed "take the capital in 3 days" strategy to actually work. I would be very interested in a wargame that tackles this scenario.

@G.I. Joe already suggested CMO; I wanted to bring to your attention one of CMO's big DLC campaigns, which is exclusively focused on China: Chains of War.

Same boat here with G.I. Joe: I've yet to play this, though I bought it long ago. What I can gather from the page I linked to is the campaign has China trying to pull the modern equivalent of what Japan tried to do in the beginning of the Pacific War: Quickly knock out or take all enemy strategic assets, and negotiate from a position of strength. China is diplomatically helped in this by the hostilities actually getting started by South Korea - hard to believe Russia started the current war without 'Ukrainian terrorists' blowing up apartment buildings before February 24.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Machor
'negotiate from a position of strength', not 'power'

[FancyCat]

Another interview with the foreign minister of Ukraine, that's pretty detailed. Looks like Ukraine wants all her land back, Crimea and Donbas. Some major confidence coming from him.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/10/ukraine-foreign-minister-us-weapons-delay-russia-00031493

 

[kraze]

6 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Where there any Ukrainian soldiers In WW2 toilet bowl stealing Red Army? 

Yes. Our grandfathers also did horrible things, incl. against their very own here. Which I also mentioned. Ukrainian SSR was a DPR project that became "legit".

And that's a trauma Ukraine still deals with, but our people are more willing to accept this truth now, even though it is incredibly hard to stomach for many.

[Canada Guy]

The Russians were not wrong to think that they could send in some special forces and overthrow the govt. They used this technique in Afghanistan in Operation Storm-333. The problem was that they ended up with someone even less popular, competent, or supported.

They made some bad assumptions but similar to what they thought in Afghanistan. That Ukrainians would generally support the Russians or at least the new puppet govt, that the current UKR govt would flee, and that this was just going to be a quick peace-keeping mission to ensure the new govt was supported enough to create a fait-accompli. Zelensky's best response was to stay in Kyiv. This forced western govts to support him or show they were paper tigers. If UKR fell in 72 hours, we would have said, nothing we can do unless we want to fight Russia directly. But Zelensky changed the narrative. Now we had to support him. What other choice did he leave us ? 

[Battlefront.com]

Related to the discussion we've had on-and-off about how the Soviet Union's failure to "de-Sovietize" after it's collapse in 1990 directly led to crisis we are in now.  I know I've had many frustrating conversations with people (Russian and Western alike) that just do not understand how horrific the Soviet Union was (in particular under Stalin, but also before and after) and how bad it is that Russians were not forced to face the crimes of their forefathers like the Germans were.

Oddly enough, there was an OpEd piece in The Washington Post about this very topic.  It's behind a paywall, but here's the intro and (after the ellipse) the conclusion:

Quote

Immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, longtime Soviet dissident and human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky called for a trial of the leaders of the Communist regime. Bukovsky argued that, just as the Nuremberg trials had demonstrated the connection between Nazi ideology and Hitler’s murderous reign, so too a public trial of Soviet rulers could demonstrate the inextricable link between Soviet communist ideology and the starvation, persecution, torture and death of many millions.

 

Today, when Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his regime’s countless other transgressions are inspired and justified by Soviet-era ideology, we see how tragic it is that such an accounting never took place.

...

It is impossible to say whether Putin would be in power today if Soviet crimes had been tried, as Bukovsky urged. But the public atmosphere would undoubtedly be different. It is a platitude that, as George Santayana noted, those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Today’s Russia shows that those who do not confront the truths of the past are doomed to remain its victims and to victimize many others along the way.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/putin-nuremberg-style-soviet-trials/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F36cb5f0%2F62793770956121755a6ee36c%2F5b6a1f5bade4e277958a3cb5%2F54%2F72%2F62793770956121755a6ee36c

Steve

[Fenris]

Quite a list

 

[Battlefront.com]

Interesting up-close video interview with various units of the 93rd Mech, made maybe a week ago judging by the greenery, upload date, and where the unit was thought to be around that time.  Use Closed Caption.

It's a really good look at the casual side of the frontline behavior.  The Ukrainian soldiers seem to be relaxed and in excellent spirits.  At the beginning there's some good natured banter between the Company CO and a Senior SGT about a BMP-3 he destroyed. 

Just before the 7 minute mark they talk about Russian artillery.  Again more discussion at the 13 minute mark.  The soldier jokes about blessing the Russian aimers because they don't seem to be good at their job.

Just before the 8 minute mark there are two female soldiers, one of which took the picture of the now famous T-72 turret sitting in the field. 

At the 10 minute mark a soldier explains he's been active in fighting since the war started, but his unit has been rotated out of the front a couple of times.

About 17:30 mark there is an interview with SPG personnel and they speak of what they've destroyed and that they are being hunted by specific Russian units.  They show some damage they took during an artillery duel, but no casualties on their side.

And finally, at the 23 minute mark an artilleryman talks about losses and what motivates him to keep on fighting. 

 

[Battlefront.com]

19 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Quite a list

Indeed.  I am quite happy to see the body armor quantity that high.  Last time I saw it was at 25,000.  Having just watched the Mariupol video of a soldier getting shot and apparently being fine underscores how important it is for this gear to get into the hands of Ukrainian soldiers who are otherwise lacking body armor.

Steve

[Kinophile]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This just shows everybody who thinks mud ain't a problem for tracked vehicles how wrong they are.  The 2S19 Msta almost turned into a submarine.  Quite the effort to get it out.

Steve

The key visual is in the difference between the msta tracks  vs. the tractor's rear wheels.

One is specifically designed to spread friction and pressure as evenly as possible over as wide an area as possible in soft, deep soil - the other is a generalised solution to a moving a top-heavy massive weight across reasonably solid and supportive ground. 

Put the generalised solution into a specific situation that its design does not account for and glug-glug-glug, msta in da mud.

Sorta apropros for the RUS invasion effort as a whole, tbh.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

So much to glean from this intro paragraph from ISW's May 9th update

Quote

Russian forces continue to face widespread force generation challenges. A senior US defense official stated on May 9 that the US has not observed any indicators of a “new major Russian mobilization” and that members of the private military company Wagner Group “urgently” requested hundreds of thousands of additional troops to reinforce Russian efforts in Donbas.[1] The official noted that Russia currently has 97 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) in Ukraine, but that BTGs have been moving in and out of Ukraine to refit and resupply, suggesting that Russian troops continue to sustain substantial damage in combat.[2] ISW has previously assessed that most Russian BTGs are heavily degraded and counting BTGs is not a useful metric of Russian combat power.[3] The Main Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate (GUR) claimed that under-trained, ill-equipped Russian conscripts are still being sent into active combat despite the Kremlin denying this practice.[4] A prisoner of war from the BARS-7 detachment of the Wagner Group claimed that a ”covert mobilization” is underway in Russian to send conscripts to clean damage caused by combat in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.[5]

Any of this sound familiar?

The last bit really made me chuckle because I just got done suggesting that Putin would do this if Russia formally annexed the Donbas.  Apparently I was correct about using the conscripts for such a role, but wrong that Putin would first do the annexation.  Which makes sense because the shortage of troops is acute and now.  Even a rushed annexation would take about a month, maybe two.  Guess things are so bad that he couldn't wait!

Steve

[G.I. Joe]

On 5/9/2022 at 7:44 AM, Battlefront.com said:

Russia is loaded with commercially produced camouflage uniforms.  They very often mimic/steal patterns familiar to the West.  US Woodland is a favorite for pretty much everybody, but you can see A-TACS and Multicam knockoffs all over the place with Russian forces in Ukraine.  Especially the Chechens.

It seems to me this guy in the Woodland uniform got whatever was handy to either him or to the local unit.

It's not just with Russians either.  The Ukrainian volunteer units wear a wide variety of surplus and commercial uniforms.  You might have seen a couple of videos with Ukrainians with Britain's variation of Multicam, complete with Union Jack on the sleeves (it's sewn on).  Some have said "ah, UK volunteer!", but really it is a Ukrainian with a $15 bit of surplus kit.

Steve

Thanks, appreciate the background. Very true...I remember Cabela's catalogs where all kinds of civvy camo gear was available in patterns ranging from World War II HBT to the famous South Vietnamese tiger stripe pattern. I've also definitely seen commercial knockoffs of CADPAT, at least for accessories and such.

2 hours ago, Machor said:

@G.I. Joe already suggested CMO; I wanted to bring to your attention one of CMO's big DLC campaigns, which is exclusively focused on China: Chains of War.

Same boat here with G.I. Joe: I've yet to play this, though I bought it long ago. What I can gather from the page I linked to is the campaign has China trying to pull the modern equivalent of what Japan tried to do in the beginning of the Pacific War: Quickly knock out or take all enemy strategic assets, and negotiate from a position of strength. China is diplomatically helped in this by the hostilities actually getting started by South Korea - hard to believe Russia started the current war without 'Ukrainian terrorists' blowing up apartment buildings before February 24.

Glad I'm not the only one who buys games they don't have time to play.

I have the DLCs, but I need to check the non-DLC scenarios and the (massive) Community Scenario Pack to see if there are any Taiwan Straits scenarios without third-party intervention/involvement. Specifically ones that could be relevant to comparing an air/sea campaign first approach vs. a day-one landing.

[kraze]

Better question is - if russians already lost 1/3 of all active (and thus the best) tanks they had - what's the point in more cannon fodder that will have to ride T62s in the end with no way to restock tanks - whereas Ukraine has a non-zero chance of greeting those with Leopard 2 or Abrams eventually.

Their parade alone was a reminder of how much hardware they lost. A sunny weather being blamed for no air show is certainly a new one.

Edited May 11, 2022 by kraze

[Battlefront.com]

Still reports of a burning Russian ship, presumably the one supposedly hit a few days ago:

https://m.censor.net/en/news/3339422/russian_frigate_is_burning_near_zmiinyi_island

[Fenris]

Not pleasant

 

[domfluff]

3 hours ago, Machor said:

@G.I. Joe already suggested CMO; I wanted to bring to your attention one of CMO's big DLC campaigns, which is exclusively focused on China: Chains of War.

Same boat here with G.I. Joe: I've yet to play this, though I bought it long ago. What I can gather from the page I linked to is the campaign has China trying to pull the modern equivalent of what Japan tried to do in the beginning of the Pacific War: Quickly knock out or take all enemy strategic assets, and negotiate from a position of strength. China is diplomatically helped in this by the hostilities actually getting started by South Korea - hard to believe Russia started the current war without 'Ukrainian terrorists' blowing up apartment buildings before February 24.

I think a better match is likely to be a map game, like this:
http://www.wargaming.co/professional/details/britisharmy1956.htm

CMO is great, but the focus is not on the ground stuff, and won't give you a good idea of the kind of time/motion and engineering challenges involved here, and whether it would be possible to do this kind of thing in three days.

Clearly the data in the above is all derived from WW2 stuff, so it's not an exact match, but it'd be where I'd start if I wanted to get a feel for that.

In terms of more commercial stuff, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191989/next-war-poland is probably the best/most popular at the moment.

[SeinfeldRules]

23 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for the follow up post!  My comments here are intended to continue the conversation if you're so inclined.  These are my thoughts as a sim guy trying to figure out what we need to be keeping in mind as we move forward.  Because, as you just said, artillery is such an important part of this battle

 

21 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm curious to know why you think that a quadcopter isn't sufficient for a battery to perform a fire mission in the sort of environment we have going on now.  Obviously range from the operator and length of time in the air are two important considerations for larger scale artillery actions, especially preemptive ones.

However, the 3-4km range quadcopters seems to be quite adequate for close in tactical support by the D-30s and Grads that Ukraine is heavily dependent upon at the moment.  3-4km range from an FO close to the front would allow the guns to be decently behind the front and still able to hit what is spotted.  In fact, the range of a quadcopter is greater than the range of something like the TOS MLRS.  Why would such situations benefit or require RQ-7 type UAVs?

Steve

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

There's a lot of pushback against drones based on past or current limitations.  They aren't looking ahead enough to what is coming.

Steve

I think most of the questions you had for me have already been broadly covered, and I don't have too much to add. JonS answered the quadcopters question with exactly what I had in mind - currently, they don't have the technical capabilities to produce effective and targetable data. Now granted, I have some bias myself, as I have spent the last two years observing training in a desert, and it's much harder to terrain associate you quadcopter footage with Google Maps in a barren wasteland, as opposed to Ukraine with it's clearly defined fields and villages. But adjustments become a problem as you don't have a firm grip on your observer direction, and then there is the vulnerability to small arms as you have to get much closer to produce more accurate data. You could certainly kit up a quadcopter to achieve those effects, but then you run into weight issues, and power issues, and size issues; is your quadcopter now something that you can hand off to an infantryman and have him stuff in a truck? I think it will be a useful tool for observation and mortar fire on enemy battle positions, but not something you can routinely use to target maneuvering formations.

I wouldn't describe a lot of opinions on drones as "pushback", but more along the lines of hesitancy. Militaries are quick to tout the capabilities of their new systems, but when the soldiers get a hold of them, reality rears its ugly head and the ground truth of their real capabilities becomes apparent. The US Army is full of such examples, some that you probably wouldn't even realize. Yes, at some point in the future we may be able to solve some or even most of these problems, but you also can't write doctrine based on a future capability that isn't even fully realized. Look at something like Nett Warrior, which has gone through many iterations and different equipment sets but has yet to be realized in the extent originally envisioned. The Army could probably dump a lot of time and effort on developing doctrine for an infantry platoon that has the capability to seamlessly network with every rifleman, but why would we, when we don't even have a system of record that can achieve that. You don't want to fight the previous war but you also can't pretend the next war is going to be fought with systems that haven't even been proven yet. Not saying the UAV isn't proven - clearly they are effective systems in the current operational environments - but more along the lines of things like micro UAVs or UGVs.

I'm not foolish enough to believe that war never changes and things will always be the same, but I'm also not going to buy off on having to completely change up our doctrine to counter threats that haven't even been fully realized. Drones  are dangerous and units will have to adapt their procedures to survive, but at the end of the day countering UAVs is about reducing the enemy's ability to observe you, and HEY, maybe you should figure out how to make the thing flying around and looking at you go away first, before completely changing up how we do things. Right now there is certainly an equipment gap when it comes to dealing with UAVs that is making things difficult, but a slow, poorly armored aircraft, with limited sensors and payloads, and a critical requirement to maintain comms to do its mission, and that has no effective means of cover or concealment and relies solely on a small signature and distance for survivability, certainly strikes me as system with vulnerabilities. Drones may be cheaper then manned aircraft but there is a limit on how many can be shot down before UAV operators have to start changing their tactics.

But I'm a pessimist I guess, and have burned by plenty of equipment that didn't hold up to what was promised. If you're gonna tout the next new thing that's going to change war, you need to prove to me that it's actually achievable first. I guess I won't be applying to Army Futures Command any time soon.

In regards to a question I can't find anymore, about what I think potential solutions to the UAV problem may be:

I think there are a couple options out there. We can already target mid-size drones (think TB-2 or RQ-7 equivalents) fairly easily with current equipment, the main issue is probably range. So maybe we need a UAV specific missile that sacrifices speed and payload for range, as they aren't chasing down high performance jets at altitude anymore.

Where are the anti-UAV drones? We need a new Fokker Scourge, with drones swooping out of the sun to shoot buckshot at loitering quadcopters. I mean it sounds cool, right??

If we can track a small mortar round traveling hundreds of feet per second through the air with counterfire radars, how come we can't utilize similar technology to locate small UAVs? I am not a radar expert by any means, but it sounds feasible? Tie in a decentralized UAV finding radar with Avenger style systems operating down to the company level, and anytime a UAV comes within your bubble, rollout of cover and shoot it down with missiles or - even cheaper - proximity fuzed 20mm cannon rounds. Provide some sort of optical assistance and you can maybe even forgo the radar except for early warning.

Maybe some sort of weapon system that takes advantage of the noise a drone creates? Quadcopters have quite the unique sound profile, maybe there is some sort of way we can take advantage of that. I don't know, I'm just a dumb artilleryman.

18 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Mortars actively use both sides. Mortar was a main weapon of UKR infantry during position warfare 2016-2022. So, many our mortar crews became real "snipers", especially having such systems like GIS Arta and other.

Also many of strikes on the videos with burning Russian vehicles this is a work of 120 mm nortars, not howitzers.

Thank you for these insights! Good to see the mortar still has their traditional place on the battlefield. I imagine the infantry fight is much harder to turn into sexy Twitter videos and we won't see a lot of this on OSINT channels.

15 hours ago, Haiduk said:

@SeinfeldRules here the 120 mm mortars work or combined work of mortars and howitzers.

 

 

11 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Too far for ATGM to our positions and no incoming ATGMs seen on the video. This is March, so no any guided ammunition. 

So honestly some of the hits do look like ATGM hits. The "B Roll" footage interspersed shows a much closer view of the convoy that seems to be well within ATGM range, you can clearly see the lead vehicles engaging something with their main gun, and (gonna channel my inner Trent here) some of the hits on the vehicles have a very distinctive "plume" of rising smoke I see with a lot of ATGM hits. And near the end, one of them definitely hits a mine. I think what we may be seeing is a perfect doctrinal example of an Engagement Area - artillery and mortars to disrupt movement and keep infantry in cover or in their vehicles; dismounted ATGM teams engaging lead vehicles of the convoy to stop forward movement; all in concert with an obstacle plan.

12 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Obviously it's difficult to tell what's going on just by looking at videos, however it does seem that Ukraine is often using only batteries and not battalions.  This might be a function of limited ammo, limited guns, and/or deliberately keeping artillery spread out (i.e. battalion fire no longer practical).

11 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Batteries are too vulnerable, on the videos you can see mostly platoons or even 1-2 guns 

This is an excellent observation, and one I hadn't really internalized! I agree that this is probably due to survivability requirements. 

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Oh, I get that, trust me. 

If we are going to do this, then we have to list the downsides to massed fires.  Targeting individual vehicles will always be a challenge with artillery, at least until technology jumps a long way.  However, if all we need is "dumb saturating mass" then why invest millions in digitized FCS?  I doubt we are going to see one-shot-one-kill anytime soon but faster more precise fires, has to be the goal here.  Even a 50% increase in efficiency has enormous benefits, I suspect this is why it is competitive space.

So let's take your example above (i.e. treeline).  By that logic, based on the advances in ATGMs, we have to hammer every treeline for kms in order to advance.  I am not buying "no need for Find...we will just hit everything" because it is not a practical solution.  The biggest downfall of mass, is exactly what we saw with the Russian tepid attacks so far, they all rely more heavily on logistics.  The more we need to pull on logistics trains, and mass means a lot of rounds and guns, the more vulnerable our entire system is.  That, and for expeditionary militaries that means weight which adds to the force projection bill.  Then there is the collateral damage bill.  I know we all want to go back to "war in the old way" but the reality is that reckless destruction of civilian infrastructure is never going to "brief well" and we have had to get a lot better at this.  I get it if massed fires is the only solution to the problem, we will have to eat the costs; however, at some point that will likely change, the question is "when?"

I think you do hit on an important point, cost.  Until PGM systems come way down in price (and they are) you are likely correct here.  PGMs have gone from very special (i.e. SOF), to special to "well, not all the time" in 30 years.  I have no doubt this war is just another sign-post along the way.  Once the cost goes down and technology matures - not sure if this war is it or not - then we will see the shining city on hill - massed precision fires. 

I am not sure which GOs you have been briefing but in my experience it goes the other way.  Trying to get senior leaders to trust new technology to the point that it replaces old doctrine never "briefs well" in my experience.  

Digital Fire Control Systems are not so much about precision but rather speed. Digital systems greatly speed up the ability to lay and shoot howitzers. The howitzer is firing the same data that it would be if it were using optical systems, the difference is that the crew can just lay the howitzer faster and easier. If anything, I would argue that the digital FCS's greatest advantage is in fact the ability to mass even more. A wide range of howitzers unit could mass quickly on a single mission, displace and have the ability to conduct a quick "hip shoot" at any point during their survivability move - theoretically at least. Reality is, as always, more complicated.  But still, digital fire control systems have probably been the largest gain in capability for executing indirect fires in the last 100 years, I think even more so then the introduction of computing software to calculate firing data.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy the logistical issues. Army's have been firing unfathomably large amounts of howitzer rounds since World War I, with much worse logistical transportation equipment. I'm sure the invention of the machine gun and automatic rifle greatly increased small arms expenditures beyond what militaries were used to but I don't think the answer was reduce our ability to output small arms fire. You couldn't have replaced German machineguns at the Somme with snipers and achieved the same effects. Large volumes of artillery fires brings a certain suppressive effect that can't be matched with other systems. And mass isn't about blasting every treeline - it's about bringing all your available assets to bear at the same time to achieve a desired effect- sometimes that's a rear area command post, sometimes that's a platoon in a trench in a treeline. And a lot of times it's not even about killing the platoon in the trench - it's about keeping their heads down until my infantry can maneuver in and shoot them in the face.

In regards to GOs and obsession with precision, in 2014 the Field Artillery Commandant laid out a standard that 80% of targets acquired should have a Target Location Error within 10m to 5m

8 years later we didn't even come close to achieving this as an Army and the goal is long forgotten. Why? Because the ability to achieve that Category 1 and 2 TLE required cumbersome additional steps that are completely unfeasible for forward observers to accomplish in LSCO environment. You'd be hard pressed to make these requirements go away as well due to the physical and geographical nature of the target mensuration steps required to achieve CAT 1. Is it worth generating that CAT 1 grid for a command post? Absolutely, you wanna make that round count. But the infantry commander on the ground? He doesn't have time to wait on his FSO to mess around with his target mensuration software, squinting at a blurry satellite image and making sure that he is picking the right tree in the forest that's hiding the machine gun position. He needs suppressive fires now, and needs it for the next 30 minutes so he can organize his troops and maneuver on the enemy. Precision munitions are not as simple as point laser, shoot PGM - when you're dodging incoming small arms fire, you don't have time to make sure you have the right grid for the machine gun position, instead of the bush that's 50 meters in front of it that your laser clipped. For a precision round, that's enough distance to greatly limit your effectiveness, no matter how cheap they are.

 

[Holien]

Morning folks while military aid is essential for Ukraine I want to draw attention to other aid that is available and that folk in Ukraine might not be aware of.

I saw this on local TV the other night and I want to ensure the news is spread.

So I would ask any one with Ukrainian friends to take a look and pass this on as it is a unique opportunity that will make a difference to those that succeed in the application process and might make a big difference to Ukraine.

Oxford University is running a scheme to fully fund 20 Ukrainians to study for one year at Oxford.

FULLY funded so they get accommodation and even £7500 spending money for the year.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/fees-and-funding/fees-funding-and-scholarship-search/graduate-scholarship-scheme-for-ukraine-refugees

Applications to be made by Monday June 20th.

Please pass this on as it is IMO a fantastic opportunity.

 

Quote

Thanks to the generous support of the University and its colleges, as well as donors and funding partners, up to 20 graduate scholarships for one-year full-time postgraduate courses (master’s) will be awarded for the 2022-23 academic year. The scholarships are open to candidates who meet the eligibility criteria below and have been selected for a place on one of the eligible master’s courses (see the Eligibility section of this page for further details). Courses are available in a broad range of academic subjects. 

Each scholarship will cover your course fees in full and will provide you with £7,500 to cover your living expenses for the duration of your course. Free accommodation and meals, when the college kitchens are open, will be provided by the participating colleges.

The deadline for applications to the Graduate Scholarship Scheme for Ukraine Refugees will be 12:00 midday UK time on Monday 20 June 2022. Please refer to the eligibility criteria and application instructions in the Eligibility and How to apply sections of this page.

 

 

[kraze]

During a phone call a russian invader is taken aback by the cruelty of his wife, who is mad at deported Ukrainian children that refuse to celebrate occupation of Europe, suggesting that if she could - she'd be cutting off our children's penises and carving stars into their backs, or at least cutting off a finger or an ear a day so they would scream in pain and suffer until "re-educated". And also lamented they weren't shot when getting deported.

SBU needs to translate and subtitle these things, seriously.

https://censor.net/ua/video_news/3340551/ya_b_ym_pysky_rezala_zvezd_na_spynah_vrezala_y_voobsche_po_uhu_b_kajdyi_den_otrezala_po_paltsu_drujyna

And yeah it doesn't matter if it's a small percentage of russians which is so barbaric. It just takes a few of them to do evil and the rest to not interfere.

And yes, russians did exactly this from 1918 till 1991.

Edited May 11, 2022 by kraze

[G.I. Joe]

55 minutes ago, domfluff said:

I think a better match is likely to be a map game, like this:
http://www.wargaming.co/professional/details/britisharmy1956.htm

CMO is great, but the focus is not on the ground stuff, and won't give you a good idea of the kind of time/motion and engineering challenges involved here, and whether it would be possible to do this kind of thing in three days.

Clearly the data in the above is all derived from WW2 stuff, so it's not an exact match, but it'd be where I'd start if I wanted to get a feel for that.

In terms of more commercial stuff, https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191989/next-war-poland is probably the best/most popular at the moment.

Thanks...my counterpoint to that would be that the air/sea battle is worth looking at in its own right because if the PLA can't get across the Straits, the time/motion and engineering challenges of a land invasion are as academic as the Heer side of Operation Sealion.

But yes, definitely a good point and I would be interested in getting further into that aspect. One thing that has struck me from photos of the coastline and Google Maps is that the terrain does not look like there are many good potential beachheads...

[G.I. Joe]

34 minutes ago, Holien said:

Morning folks while military aid is essential for Ukraine I want to draw attention to other aid that is available and that folk in Ukraine might not be aware of.

I saw this on local TV the other night and I want to ensure the news is spread.

So I would ask any one with Ukrainian friends to take a look and pass this on as it is a unique opportunity that will make a difference to those that succeed in the application process and might make a big difference to Ukraine.

Oxford University is running a scheme to fully fund 20 Ukrainians to study for one year at Oxford.

FULLY funded so they get accommodation and even £7500 spending money for the year.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/fees-and-funding/fees-funding-and-scholarship-search/graduate-scholarship-scheme-for-ukraine-refugees

Applications to be made by Monday June 20th.

Please pass this on as it is IMO a fantastic opportunity.

 

 

Sounds like a great idea. I also came across this item a few days ago. I know there's been talk of the "brain drain" on Russia and it's worth noting that Ukrainian scientists and other academics are actively working to prevent Ukraine suffering from one as a result of the invasion:

Ukrainian scientists see working amid war as act of defiance (msn.com)

[domfluff]

Oh, and CMO is fantastic for that, obviously - there's a reason why it's one of the COTS wargames that various parties have been using.

[JonS]

14 hours ago, The_Capt said:

And I think that is the problem we are solving for because we are not looking for slow and grinding, we want fast and quick.  So how do we take these conditions and do that?  I am basically at, if we had to the fight the UA current methods, how would we do that?

Is fast and quick really that important? You know what they say about the triple constraint of projects ...

Pick any two you want, and watch the third suffer.

(except in combat case the corners would be something like time, casualties, and resources)

 

Anyhoo, what I had in my mind is basically a smaller scale implementation of your proposal for the UA offensive against the hypothetical RA defence of the Donbas. Ie, the one where UA isolates and reduces each company position before moving on. Except in the case of NATO vs UA it'd be finding, isolating, and reducing each platoon or section position, before moving on. It's not going to win many Rommel-esque style points, but it'd get the job done at tolerable cost in casualties, I think. In other words, I'm choosing to sacrifice Time in the above triangle in favour of Casualties and Resources.

And, of course, logistically in the hypothetical NATO vs UKR war it'd be UKR in the strat log position that RUS is currently in (no friends, no suppliers), rather than being the beneficiary of an endless magical conveyer belt of free splodey goodness.

Edited May 11, 2022 by JonS