How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[womble]

53 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

Shocking news: In England there is real commotion, public unrest even, because.. an impatient driver killed three ducklings.

No joke, that is what people are more angry about than this horrible war with hundreds dying every day!!!

Sure, I like duckies too, but sometimes I think this whole world is going crazy.

[Looks out the window]

No commotion here. Just because some clickbait outlet has captured some pointless vox pop doesn't mean it's the primary concern for anyone other than that ranting, self-selected, self-appointed arbiter of importance. Any more than your outrage over someone's (probably temporarily misplaced) sense of proportion is more important than the existential struggle for the life of the rules-based international order that's going on in Ukraine. People can be concerned about more than one thing at a time, you know.

[Haiduk]

The head of Luhansk military administration Serhiy Haidai claimed UKR troops pushed off Russians [I think, LPR really]  from Toshkivka village in 9 km south from Lysychansk and held positions there.  

[Ultradave]

1 hour ago, Seedorf81 said:

Shocking news: In England there is real commotion, public unrest even, because.. an impatient driver killed three ducklings.

No joke, that is what people are more angry about than this horrible war with hundreds dying every day!!!

Sure, I like duckies too, but sometimes I think this whole world is going crazy.

We get The Times, both print and digital. Used to live in England so we still like keeping up. No less than 4 articles on Ukraine on the front page today. I don't see the duck story anywhere, but I'd say short of armageddon, there will still be a Sports page, no doubt, because the Premier League goes on, and silly local stories, while still posting the war headlines. 

Dave

Edited May 23, 2022 by Ultradave

[SeinfeldRules]

15 hours ago, dan/california said:

You are/were an artillery officer, I'm not, don't take this as not respecting your experience., I do, beyond immensely.

But in this case you are bordering on counter-acting your own point. 3 RQ-7s gives you one instance of the scenario I described above. Against a more competent opponent than the current version of the Russians that gets you to ten AM on opening day. The Ukrainians ares shooting down ~5 Orlans a day with shoulder fired SAMs, Soviet era radars and maybe a few modern jammers. The Russians have shown the intellectual flexibility of a Brontosaurus, so in this war both sides are keeping stuff in the air, and inflicting major losses with drone directed fire. And yes I realize it is not nearly as simple as the videos make it look, but one army that no one gave any credit three months ago, and one army that turns out not to deserve any credit to speak of seem to be capable of making it work. 

It is quite possible that the other side in the next war might be minimally competent, and not utterly crippled by rampant corruption. They are going to think REALLY hard about how to shoot down drones, and how to bring enough of them to deal with losses. A certain large Asian country is known for it competence at mass production, they are going to show up with every intention of just drowning us in eighteen wheeler loads of something like switch blades, launch things like Orlans in flights of thirty or forty, and Baryaktar equivalents  in flights of ten and twenty. The only job of the first wave is to spot most of what killed it, because they will have another wave, and another one after that. Drone warfare is going to become as attritional as the current artillery slugging match in Donbas. We have to learn to think of them like ammunition. The side that shows up with most, wins. And again, no disrespect intended. 

 

But Trent specifically mentions that Grey Eagle in relation to the Orlan-10, and how the US Army won’t have enough to fight the next war, when the two aren’t comparable in capabilities or roles. The Army wouldn’t be using it in situations where it stands to lose so many. This is what he posted:

“The US Army is too high on the price/capability curve versus modern air defenses & needs a drone 1/5 the cost, five times the numbers and about 70% the capability of a Grey Eagle”

That UAV literally exists. It is called the RQ-7 Shadow. 

So I understand your point, but we have to be careful when discussing future capability and force structure for future wars. The manufacturing capability and operational structure to produce and utilize thousands of cheap drone isn’t here yet. If we start re-designing our force structure and doctrine under the assumption that we will have these thousands of cheap drones, we are going to be in quite the predicament if the technology doesn’t exist when war comes. 

Prove to me the capability to manufacture, distribute, transport, operate and resupply thousands of cheap drones across a theater of operations. It doesn’t exist now, and I’m not saying it won’t in the future, but until that capability materializes we can’t claim that’s the future of warfare. We may never actually reach the point where it’s feasible. There’s costs associated with all this beyond physically making more UAVs. You can treat them like ammunition but they can’t just be loaded in a gun and fired. They can’t be stuck in a magazine in someone’s chest rig. We will need more pilots, more mechanics, more transport trucks, more launchers, more fuel trucks, more everything. Who runs all this? Is there now a UAV branch and do we expand the military with more personnel? That’s often times not financially feasible, so which branch foots the personnel bill? Infantryman? Tankers? Artilleryman? Logistics units? What does a UAV replace on a supply truck going to the front? Artillery ammo? Tank rounds? Food? Fuel? Medicine? What does a Switchblade replace in an infantryman’s rucksack? How many infantryman are now trying to control dozens of switchblades instead of pulling security?  What airfields are launching dozens of Grey Eagles and TB-2s? Do they have the capacity for all these new UAVs and are we now cutting spots for manned, high performance jets and their different capabilities? Do we now have to have construction units assigned that can build hasty UAV airfields? Where exactly can we afford to cut now that we have these drones? Those are decisions that can have profound effects on a militaries capabilities, so it’s hard to say that it’s the future of warfare when we haven’t even shown the capability to manufacture and support them in such large quantities. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but someone needs to show that it can be done before we start reorganizing our entire military and its doctrine to support them. Fielding drones in the thousands is asking for exactly that. 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by SeinfeldRules

[JonS]

This is intriguing ...

https://thespinoff.co.nz/live-updates/23-05-2022/new-defence-force-deployment-to-help-ukraine-war-effort

... for a number of reasons:

1) Training 230pax *probably* means they're training a battalion/UK-regiment of 3 batterys/18 guns. Aka, the artillery component of a combined arms bde.

2) The training will be done by the end of July, which provides a case study for one of the questions raised earlier in this thread - ie, 8-10 weeks to learn a new artillery system

3) NZ is providing lethal training, as opposed to something like medical or logistics or mine clearing.

4) the Light Gun is a lovely piece of kit, but compared to the 777 or similar 155s it's an intimate weapon that's really good for light infantry offensive ooperations. Coincidence?

Edited May 23, 2022 by JonS

[chrisl]

54 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

Prove to me the capability to manufacture, distribute, transport, operate and resupply thousands of cheap drones across a theater of operations. It doesn’t exist now, and I’m not saying it won’t in the future, but until that capability materializes we can’t claim that’s the future of warfare. We may never actually reach the point where it’s feasible. There’s costs associated with all this beyond physically making more UAVs. You can treat them like ammunition but they can’t just be loaded in a gun and fired. They can’t be stuck in a magazine in someone’s chest rig. 

If I'm the marketing guy at your local defense contractor, the pitch is that you're already there.  The Javelin is quite literally a short dwell time drone with a rocket motor instead of a battery or long duration combustion motor.  It's got all the basic features, and the only thing it's missing is duration and connection back to the local ISR mesh, both of which can fit in the existing package.  Even the systems you need to create the mesh and for data fusion aren't likely to be difficult to come up with or fit into existing platforms - you can make a mesh with cheap cell phones that don't even need a connection to a cell network, just each other.

[Cederic]

56 minutes ago, JonS said:

4) the Light Gun is a lovely piece of kit, but compared to the 777 or similar 155s it's an intimate weapon that's really good for light infantry offensive ooperations. Coincidence?

Big gun fans like big guns, let's not suggest they're compensating. The light gun is however half the weight of a 777 and its ammunition is smaller and lighter too.

Lower range, lower hitting power. Far far easier to get it to where it's needed. It's all trade-offs, which is why the US have both.

[dan/california]

 

1 hour ago, SeinfeldRules said:

But Trent specifically mentions that Grey Eagle in relation to the Orlan-10, and how the US Army won’t have enough to fight the next war, when the two aren’t comparable in capabilities or roles. The Army wouldn’t be using it in situations where it stands to lose so many. This is what he posted:

“The US Army is too high on the price/capability curve versus modern air defenses & needs a drone 1/5 the cost, five times the numbers and about 70% the capability of a Grey Eagle”

That UAV literally exists. It is called the RQ-7 Shadow. 

So I understand your point, but we have to be careful when discussing future capability and force structure for future wars. The manufacturing capability and operational structure to produce and utilize thousands of cheap drone isn’t here yet. If we start re-designing our force structure and doctrine under the assumption that we will have these thousands of cheap drones, we are going to be in quite the predicament if the technology doesn’t exist when war comes. 

Prove to me the capability to manufacture, distribute, transport, operate and resupply thousands of cheap drones across a theater of operations. It doesn’t exist now, and I’m not saying it won’t in the future, but until that capability materializes we can’t claim that’s the future of warfare. We may never actually reach the point where it’s feasible. There’s costs associated with all this beyond physically making more UAVs. You can treat them like ammunition but they can’t just be loaded in a gun and fired. They can’t be stuck in a magazine in someone’s chest rig. We will need more pilots, more mechanics, more transport trucks, more launchers, more fuel trucks, more everything. Who runs all this? Is there now a UAV branch and do we expand the military with more personnel? That’s often times not financially feasible, so which branch foots the personnel bill? Infantryman? Tankers? Artilleryman? Logistics units? What does a UAV replace on a supply truck going to the front? Artillery ammo? Tank rounds? Food? Fuel? Medicine? What does a Switchblade replace in an infantryman’s rucksack? How many infantryman are now trying to control dozens of switchblades instead of pulling security?  What airfields are launching dozens of Grey Eagles and TB-2s? Do they have the capacity for all these new UAVs and are we now cutting spots for manned, high performance jets and their different capabilities? Do we now have to have construction units assigned that can build hasty UAV airfields? Where exactly can we afford to cut now that we have these drones? Those are decisions that can have profound effects on a militaries capabilities, so it’s hard to say that it’s the future of warfare when we haven’t even shown the capability to manufacture and support them in such large quantities. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but someone needs to show that it can be done before we start reorganizing our entire military and its doctrine to support them. Fielding drones in the thousands is asking for exactly that. 

 

 

Every word of this is dead on, but someone smarter than me had better be thinking about it, because the Chinese sure as bleep are. There are two things they aren't short on, bodies and mid grade manufacturing capacity. FWIW I have my doubts manned aircraft will be a thing all that much longer. Missiles and literal laser beams are improving faster than human G tolerances and reaction times. And one manned fighter cost about as much as 200 quarter of a million dollar drones. 

[SeinfeldRules]

4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

Every word of this is dead on, but someone smarter than me had better be thinking about it, because the Chinese sure as bleep are. There are two things they aren't short on, bodies and mid grade manufacturing capacity. FWIW I have my doubts manned aircraft will be a thing all that much longer. Missiles and literal laser beams are improving faster than human G tolerances and reaction times. And one manned fighter cost about as much as 200 quarter of a million dollar drones. 

Well this is one thing we can probably agree on, I think manned fighters are good as dead in the not too far future. Or at the very least you can expect to have drone wingmen. The human in the loop is starting to become a hindrance. Would love to see some thoughts otherwise though. 

[chuckdyke]

Another victory on the diplomatic front. 

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-23-22/h_5182b29b8442cef223575b98e83d1951

[JonS]

17 minutes ago, Cederic said:

Lower range, lower hitting power.

So, one of the things about that is that the lower hitting power makes it really good for suppression during a dismounted assault - upright (ie, moving) infantry can safely get a LOT closer to bursting 105mm than they can to 155 before the fire has to lift, which means theres a much shorter period when they're closing in on the enemy with no active suppression.

Edited May 23, 2022 by JonS

[dan/california]

5 minutes ago, JonS said:

So, one of the things about that is that the lower hitting power makes it really good for suppression during a dismounted assault - upright (ie, moving) infantry can safely get a LOT closer to bursting 105mm than they can to 155 before the fire has to lift, which means theres a much shorter period when they're closing in on the enemy with no active suppression.

The higher rate of fire really matters, too. If you need to suppress a couple of football field worth of bad guys, more shells in less time goes a long way. The aren't nearly as good at counter battery but that isn't the only job. Faster to emplace and displace too.

The best illustration of this is 60mm vs 81mm vs 120 mm mortars in game. There are few formations that have off board 60mm and they are just a rain of death against infantry and truly light vehicles.

[c3k]

7 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

This can't be real because the Russians destroyed Ukraine's entire air force. 

Must be leaked footage from the new Top Gun movie.

Nice video...but the loft-launching of unguided rockets will not be too effective. (The nose pitched up during the launch, so the longitudinal spread will be even worse.)  

 

[sburke]

Ukrainian intelligence chief: Putin survived assassination attempt 2 months ago (yahoo.com)

[c3k]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I am curious why Ukraine seems to be unable or unwilling to commit new units into the fight in Donbas.  Shifting forces around and using TD forces beyond their capabilities is not enough.

Russia has gone over on the defensive in Kherson, so that allowed (apparently) two battalions of the 80th Air Assault Brigade to be deployed to Kharkiv and Popasna bulge.  But that's a piecemeal approach to what is definitely an operational level threat.  The situation there calls for a more substantial counter attack or, at a minimum, more forces to bottle the Russians up like in Izyum.

As for Severodonetsk, it's amazing they've held out for as long as they have and losing it isn't of strategic importance, especially because defensive lines improve by withdrawing over the river.  Evacuating the forces there before they can't reasonably retreat seems to be prudent at this point if there's no cavalry riding to the rescue.

The big question still is... how much force does Russia have to invest into the Popasna bulge?  One source said they are assembling 18 BTGs for the push, but that's a load of horsecrap.  Russia doesn't have even 8 to put into that fight, not to mention 10.  And I'm talking 8 very depleted and beat up BTGs, not even full strength ones.

The overall situation is not great, but Russia has a knack of taking something "not great" for Ukraine and transforming it into "disaster" for Russia.  I have faith that Ukraine can still turn this around, but they'd better get a move on it soon or it a counter attack won't be relevant.

Steve

You've hit the nail on the head.

There are, to me, only a few possible answers as to why Ukraine is doing this:

1. They are not confident in their ability to generate an operational win in the Donbas region. This lack of confidence may be well grounded. I am sure that Ukraine is far better equipped to determine this than I am, if this is the case.

2. They are allowing Russia to continue its relatively fruitless attacks (some small tactical gains, minor operational impact thus far) but at high cost to Russia.  (Never stop your enemy when he is making a mistake.)

That's all I can come up with.

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Another victory on the diplomatic front. 

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-23-22/h_5182b29b8442cef223575b98e83d1951

That is good.  It would be better if there were more, but I'll take it.

Show of hands... how many read Boris Badenov instead of Boris Bondarev?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

From ISW's report from May 23.  Quite a bit about the deteriorating support for the war, as it is currently being fought, within Russia.  This was my favorite bit:

Quote

The Assembly’s letter may be a leading indicator of elements of the Russian government and society setting informational conditions to declare partial mobilization. However, the Kremlin has so far declined to take this step likely due to concerns over domestic backlash and flaws in Russia’s mobilization systems.

...

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on May 20 that Russia will form 12 new Western Military District units (of unspecified echelon) before the end of the year in response to NATO expansion.

Russian forces may intend to man these units with newly mobilized personnel, as it is unclear how else the Kremlin could generate the manpower for new units.

The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces are withdrawing old T-62 tanks from storage to form new BTGs.

Russia is likely continuing to exhaust its remaining combat-ready reserves to maintain the momentum of the Battle of Severodonetsk, rather than prioritizing preparations for new reinforcements. ISW previously assessed that Russian mobilization is unlikely to generate combat-ready force due to hasty training.

Yeah, what Russia needs now more than anything else are more paper strength formations!  That will put the fear into pesky Finnish tractor drivers

Seriously though, the report of T-62s coming out of monthballs is a confirmation of what long war pessimists like me have been saying since this war started.  Russia simply does not have the military capacity to wage a war on this scale with these sorts of losses.  Since Russia seems intent on high levels of losses and not changing the scale of operations, they are doomed.

Steve

[fireship4]

I'll have to leave my refutation of your earlier Malthusian comments for another thread... I'll just say that 'overpopulation' is not the cause of any of today's problems.

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

For what it's worth, the only other time I've seen a Russian tank putting out smoke was in one of the Bilohorivka bridge videos.  There was a tank providing smoke for the third bridge (#3), which indicated yet again how ill prepared the Russians were to execute their own bridging doctrine.

Steve

Could you tell from the video that it was definatively tank launched smoke grenades?  I did read that the Russians had set obscurative fires at one of the crossings.

8 hours ago, Vacillator said:

You mean 'Pop smoke'?  Various German tanks have this in-game, saved my bacon (well Panther actually) in Barkmann's Corner Re-visited recently.  Or do you mean you were surprised the TacAI did it?

Nope (not if you mean the TacAI/user activated smoke grenade launchers), I have a hazy memory from the demo scenario 'Monster Mash' of one of my Panther tanks reversing out of a depression or something, leaving a long trail of white smoke behind it, and failing to get them to do it again.

[Battlefront.com]

32 minutes ago, sburke said:

Ukrainian intelligence chief: Putin survived assassination attempt 2 months ago (yahoo.com)

I'd be surprised if there wasn't more than just the one, though it sounds like this one got far enough along to be a real threat.

Let's see, about a month ago there was a rash of oligarch "suicides".  At the time I suspected they had been somehow tied up in an assassination attempt, even if on the periphery, and their particular gruesome family related massacre was definitely intended to send a message to others.  An attempt a month earlier would be about right to shake out who did it and to plan on how to deal with them.

Steve

[fireship4]

We have an image here of fire detection data on a normal satellite map of Lyman Lake:

Source: https://nitter.net/Osinttechnical/status/1528858228649791488#m

Edited May 24, 2022 by fireship4

[akd]

22 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

I'll have to leave my refutation of your earlier Malthusian comments for another thread... I'll just say that 'overpopulation' is not the cause of any of today's problems.

Could you tell from the video that it was definatively tank launched smoke grenades?  I did read that the Russians had set obscurative fires at one of the crossings.

Nope (not if you mean the TacAI/user activated smoke grenade launchers), I have a hazy memory from the demo scenario 'Monster Mash' of one of my Panther tanks reversing out of a depression or something, leaving a long trail of white smoke behind it, and failing to get them to do it again.

There is at least one drone video of a Russian tank launching smoke from its smoke grenade launchers and retreating.  Definitely posted to this thread.

[dan/california]

57 minutes ago, c3k said:

Nice video...but the loft-launching of unguided rockets will not be too effective. (The nose pitched up during the launch, so the longitudinal spread will be even worse.)  

 

Both sides do this with both fixed and rotary wing aircraft, I really question if it a worth the logistics and and airframe wear. I mean the CEP has to be AT least a thousand meters doesn't it? And I realize it actually a long skinny oval, but you get my point

[MikeyD]

I wonder if we could correlate the time of the supposed Putin assassination attempt with when he abruptly began looking like he's at death's door.

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

I wonder if we could correlate the time of the supposed Putin assassination attempt with when he abruptly began looking like he's at death's door.

I hope he was poisoned w the same stuff that's been used for all the murders he's done of dissidents outside of Russia.  That would make me smile and sing a happy song. 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, fireship4 said:

I'll have to leave my refutation of your earlier Malthusian comments for another thread... I'll just say that 'overpopulation' is not the cause of any of today's problems.

Cool!  I had to look up a word I didn't know

2 hours ago, fireship4 said:

Could you tell from the video that it was definatively tank launched smoke grenades?  I did read that the Russians had set obscurative fires at one of the crossings.

In this particular video it was continuous, so for sure it was the standard engine produced smoke.

Screen grabs of the smoke.  First one is of the 1st bridge (Yellow) with what looks to be two vehicles on the right providing smoke.  Second one is of 3rd bridge (Red) with one tank producing smoke.  Watching the videos it's pretty clear that they might as well not bothered for all the good it did.  Smoke generators should have been employed, but they are nowhere to be seen. 

Steve