How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Grigb]

Fresh Assessment from Girkin

Take with grain of salt. He might make mistakes. I might make translation mistakes. 

Summary - RU Donbase offensive is ending. The battle finished in a Draw slightly tilting to UKR side. He expects a pause in Donbass (implying RU forces). A new RU offensive is coming in between a week and month and half but definitely before autumn as RU political leadership cannot tolerate current conditions.  

Quote

 

Operational situation at the front.

It is characterized by the final completion of the Second ("concrete") stage of the so-called SVO. The offensive of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of the LDNR (which are in full subordination to the command of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, if someone has not yet understood this) in the Donbass - completely exhausted. Apparently, our troops have reached the limit of their offensive capabilities and now the maximum that can be expected is that they will be able to "home" the industrial zone of Severodonetsk and the remnants of the AFU bridgehead on the Seversky Donets in this area.
There was an operational pause in the remaining areas of active hostilities.

During the battle, which lasted almost two months, both sides suffered huge losses (in relation to the total number of manpower and equipment involved). In manpower, the Ukrainians lost noticeably more, but they are able to quickly make up for losses and even being "on a thread" from defeat, they did not use their main strategic reserves here, firmly adhering to the defensive tactics chosen in this operation.
In general, if we evaluate the past operation from a military-theoretical point of view, then it is incorrect to talk about "victory" on both sides:

- Russian troops have failed to achieve their strategic goals, or even significantly approach them (the complete liberation of Donbass is almost as far away as at the beginning of May). At the same time, it was still possible to liberate a number of important territories and large settlements (Popasnaya, Krasny Estuary, Severodonetsk), throw the APU behind the Seversky Donets and defeat a number of units and formations of the APU almost "to the ground".

- the Ukrainian command, in general, managed to solve its main task - to stay in the area of Donetsk and Horlivka, to prevent the defeat of the main forces of its Donetsk grouping and to gain time to create new reserves. At the same time, the price of this  result was cost a lot of losses and a drop in the morale of some troops.

In general, thus, the result of the May-June battle in the Donbas can be called a "draw". However, in general, the scales (in my subjective opinion) have slightly tilted towards Kiev. Why? - The answer is elementary: the gained time.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation failed to defeat the APU even partially "using last homemade cakes"[probably he means last available pre-war regular reserves]. The "pies" are almost completely "eaten" and need to be reformed and to have large replenishments to restore combat capability.

This, of course, does not mean that the Russian General Staff no longer has reserves at its disposal. There are reserves - they have been preparing "urgently" since April-early May. New formations are being put together - their replenishment (according to the idiotic-ostentatious desire "a la Hitler in 1944" - to have "as many formations on paper as possible") is creating lack of replenishment for already fighting and suffering heavy losses shelled military units. The result is that "completely raw" units will get to the front again, mixed with those withdrawn and replenished after the "first-stage run to the border".
However, the UKR picture is about the same: a lot of new units from recruits + some replenished personnel ahead of time, who escaped the "Donetsk meat grinder".

How long will the operational pause last and when will the summer battle for the initiative begin (from the great mind already "announced" by the same R.Kadyrov as "a rapid and effective stage") - I don't know. The period can be from a week to a month and a half. Hardly longer. Our military is unlikely to be able delay until the autumn the start of a new offensive operation, suffering continuously increasing attacks on Donetsk and the territory of the Russian Federation itself. Rather, it is unlikely that the political leadership itself will tolerate such restraint. Similarly, the Armed Forces of Ukraine - after heavy losses at the front, their military and political leadership urgently needs a major (or at least looks like such) military success.

 

 

[Grigb]

9 minutes ago, chris talpas said:

INot sure how wise it is to bunch all of this valuable equipment up?  Looks like a juicy target for Russian aviation or missile strike.

I would say photo was made in Poland as a guy in a beret at the bottom right does not look like Ukranian.

[Raptor341]

43 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The only takeaway lesson from this war I am drawing is - nothing is working like it was supposed to.  Airpower, cyber, armor/mech, and yes, artillery have not performed anywhere near what we thought going into this war.  No matter how hard we try and tie reality into knots to explain it, we likely will not know why for some time...and even then we will likely ignore it if history is any indication. 

Worse, I am hearing this is in military circles and moves to tie this to military procurement as politicians scramble to "spend more" in order to demonstrate collective resolve.  While military services are using this war as justification for stuff they have been wanting to buy for years without actually looking at what is happening on the ground.

Let's take artillery - "the king of battle" (talk about 'presents well'), no it has not been the ruling monarch in this war.  It has been the "king of attrition" but it has not been decisive in the least.  If massed artillery fires were still decisive the Russians would have taken Kyiv by now, let alone this small rump in the Donbas.  If "more guns" was the solution then Russia would have already taken their operational objectives instead of this war-by-inches bleeding out.  The one instance we did see decisive use of artillery was in the first phase of this war by the Ukrainians, and that wasn't any of that sexy western stuff.  It was highly integrated and linked to a superior UA C4ISR/information system so that the smaller artillery was hitting the right targets to cause the most stress to the Russian system - decisive attrition has been the "king of battle" if anything has been in this war so far, and even that is weird because we were supposed to be seeing the dominance of manoeuvre a la Gulf War.

Back to procurement; we are already hearing services drooling over "investment" in "new capabilities" we have had since WW2 and using this was as "proof".  Right now the only "proof" I have seen is for: unmanned like crazy including all forms of next gen ATGM/MANPAD systems (NLOS, self-loitering etc), dispersed light infantry that one can generate from reservists very quickly,  resilient and pervasive battlefield communications systems that include crowdsourcing, new forms of logistical systems that look more like Amazon than what we have, C4ISR that includes space-based assets to tie it all together rapidly.  And all that will buy you is an ability for large scale defence-thru-denial that may force an opponent's system to collapse under its own weight.  We have no idea what works for offensive operations because neither side has been able to do it yet.

"Tanks, guns, IFVs, F-35" are what are being pitched right now and that is billions of dollars into tools that Ukraine did not employ decisively to defeat the RA, but they are the capabilities that Russia invested heavily in, brought to this war, and are now scattered all over the Ukrainian countryside. 

One thing I am seeing out of all this is "we have to understand what 'fighting smarter' really means".  And it does not appear to be more expensive singular platform centric-warfare.  This is like France '40 - the French had more, better tanks but they had not created a smarter integrated tank-system - the Germans did (often in spite of themselves).  All domain systems integration, while denying the same to your opponent may be the future "king of battle" [when you really think about it, maybe it always has been] but again we have only see it work decisively on the defensive, so the jury is still out. 

I am hoping that the UA is employing this whole Severodonetsk thing as an attritional honeypot to bleed the Russians white in order to open up options for some old-school operational manoeuvre in Phase 3 of this thing.  My guess is this may occur in the western side of this theatre around Kherson-Melitopol as the Russians over-commit more and more to this baffling fight in the Donbas - "Lure your enemy onto the roof, then take away the ladder."

 

An excellent response; I agree fully. I have my own thoughts on future that we are seeing play out in realtime, and they are quite close to what you discussed above (Smart ATGMs, MANPADs, drones and small unmanned systems, dispersed, aggressive light infantry). I agree that just buying more “MBTs, IFVs, F-35” isn’t the solution in and of itself, but I do think that artillery, used well and employed correctly, is going to play a major role going forward, as it does now. Only wanted to highlight that it wasn’t often talked about much prior but it is definitely being talked about now. Long and short range fire support is critical - - it hard to imagine the UA doing as well as it has without the expert use of artillery, as we have seen. 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Raptor341

[Harmon Rabb]

GTBT released a new video explaining how this war is seen from the perspective of the middle east and how it could impact that region.

I think lot of people posting here are aware of the information presented in this video but visuals are always nice.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, Raptor341 said:

An excellent response; I agree fully. I have my own thoughts on future that we are seeing play out in realtime, and they are quite close to what you discussed above (Smart ATGMs, MANPADs, drones and small unmanned systems, dispersed, aggressive light infantry). I agree that just buying more “MBTs, IFVs, F-35” isn’t the solution in and of itself, but I do think that artillery, used well and employed correctly, is going to play a major role going forward, as it does now. Only wanted to highlight that it wasn’t often talked about much prior but it is definitely being talked about now. Long and short range fire support is critical - - it hard to imagine the UA doing as well as it has without the expert use of artillery, as we have seen. 

No argument on firepower, in fact I suspect we are entering into a new firepower centric age of warfare.  Long range fires across domains is likely smart money, so long as it can be integrated into a smart system.

I have been wondering if there is not an add-on to Arquilla's three new rules of warfare:

-small many beat large heavy few

- Finding beats flanking

- Swarming beats surging

- Mass beats disconnected isolation, integrated precision beats mass, and mass integrated precision beats everything.

Edited June 19, 2022 by The_Capt

[akd]

Hi-res of the strike on the Vasily Bekh (ends with secondary explosions from peaceful munitions carried on peaceful tug):

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by akd

[Ts4EVER]

8 minutes ago, akd said:

Hi-res of the strike on the Vasily Bekh:

Good to see that their music choices are getting better.

[akd]

Forcibly-russified child looks seriously worried about what is going to happen next:

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by akd

[Artkin]

38 minutes ago, akd said:

Hi-res of the strike on the Vasily Bekh (ends with secondary explosions from peaceful munitions carried on peaceful tug):

Wow, that was one big ass missile and one little boat.
It's about time we've seen this. Harpoons should have been on the table early on.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Artkin

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

No argument on firepower, in fact I suspect we are entering into a new firepower centric age of warfare.  Long range fires across domains is likely smart money, so long as it can be integrated into a smart system.

I have been wondering if there is not an add-on to Arquilla's three new rules of warfare:

-small many beat large heavy few

- Finding beats flanking

- Swarming beats surging

- Mass beats disconnected isolation, integrated precision beats mass, and mass integrated precision beats everything.

Very interesting takes as always. Some notes from layman historian:

1.Main questions as to this war (not your conclusions) stays the same: did Ukrainians did it through super-smart tactics, or it was rather Russian slopiness? Attacking huge, spacious determined enemy nation with unprepared and understaffed 150 k army was always a receipt for failure, regardless of new era in warfare. So nothing works as it should because it is not used as it should. Also Russians did concentrated artillery in Donbas now, but they lack mass (and quality) to breach lines; thus, their artillery is not used as it should be.

(Frankly, I suspected them to be so desperate to even concentrate several hundreds of cheap T-64's into some massive battering  ram at some place of Donbas battlefield and use blunt force to push through.)

2. The main lesson I see here in strategic terms is old, venerable Fabian strategy working in motion and supported by nature of the country. And civilian population paying the price. As for the rest- it or is too early to tell, or Russians being too arrogant and understuffed to apply their own rules.

3.I know you mean tactics not strategy, but in this enumeration, more significant factor should perhaps be space itself. Ukrainians are blessed to have it, others like Israeli or Balts do not. In your opinion the same tactical rules apply to them? Take for example hypothetical Israelis defending against Syrian/Iran coalition on Golan a la 1973. Can they apply swarming tactics and hitting supply lines, when have maybe 20 km bufor they can trade?

4. Russian southern front seem to be a limited success of older form of manouver warfare. Too early to tell what exactly happened there, but they did took large chunk of Ukrainian territory, used manouver to pass defended towns,captured important targets like Kahkovka dam or nuclear plant. And terrain was easier to defend at least at the start (narrow chokes, waterways with several bridges, open terrain).

5. Agree it will be super interesting to see if Ukrainians are able to put offensive in motion. Their enemies do not seem to have the same ability to wage this kind of elastic defence-in-depth.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Beleg85

[danfrodo]

20 minutes ago, akd said:

Forcibly-russified child looks seriously worried about what is going to happen next:

 

Welcome to post-reality world.  That is sick beyond belief.

But seems some good news: Huba and Beleg85 report UKR advance toward Melitopol.  Very very very interesting, I hope it continues.  That could be a serious problem for Putin's plan of making new 'independent' states -- hard to do when UKR back in control of much of it.

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Yesterday Ukraianian military correspondent Roman Tsumbaliuk claimed UKR artillery hit HQ of Russian 20th CAA in Kharkiv oblast. He claimed 40 of personnel was eliminated and wounded. 

Today Russian MoD quiclkly reported that their Kalibr cruise missile hit UKR command post in Dnipropetrovsk oblast, where many top-officers of General Staff, Air-Assault Command, "operative-startegical grouping "Oleksandria" (what?) and "grouping "Kakhovka" (why not Nova Kakhovka?) gathered. As if 50 UKR generals (!!!) and top-officers were killed. This is similar to their reaction on losses around Zmiinyi island on 7th of May, when Russian also flipped this developments upside down as if this is Ukraine suffered heavy losses. If they repeat it now, very likely informatin about 20th CAA HQ hit is true.

Hmm.... 

I'd want corroboration before taking this one to the bank, but still...

But the sword is cutting both ways, deeply...

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

6 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

Of course, you could see what happens when people believe that lie and try to make use of that sovereignty in 1968. But yeah, there were people who actually believed that ****.

A while ago, I found discussion forum like this one, focused on military history. Lots of people with lots of interesting points, mostly Czechoslovak People's Army veterans. Most interesting topic there was a former tank commander analysing Soviet plans of attacking west, tank battle tactics and organizational structure of CSLA (might actually be fun for CMCW reading, but it's in Czech so not a lot of people can read it. I can link it if there's interest.)

Even though it predates first Russian invasion in 2014, there was lot of stuff that was almost prophetic - Soviets not having enough logistics, the idea that all aviation would be taken out in first few days by long-range missiles, stuff like that.

But the saddest thing when reading it, especially when the discussion turned to who would win Cold War turned hot, was that even in year 2014, half the people on the forum believed in Warsaw pact and considered them "our side". Even though from the strategic level it was obvious they were there just to die to lower Soviet losses.

Reading that forum now is even sadder, because half the people there are pro-Russia. Bleh.

At least the attitude hasn't extended to the current government. Switching sides is hard for people, just seems to be a fact of life, especially when your side and your career re intertwined. I would love for you to post the link, google translate has gotten rather good. Although I admit I haven't tried it on Czech.

[LongLeftFlank]

I'm sure nobody here minds seeing more of this warrior goddess. 

Or these troops,

 

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, Offshoot said:

Guy is a good shot

 

Allow me to remind everyone AGAIN, that railroad sabotage is the most effective form of protest. And in addition, it can be done quietly in the middle of the night. You might actually get away with it  That isn't just my opinion, I stole it from Kamil Galeev.

[The_Capt]

12 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Very interesting takes as always. Some notes from layman historian:

1.Did Ukrainians did it through super-smart tactics, or it was rather Russian slopiness? Attacking huge, spacious determined enemy nation with unprepared and understaffed 150 k army was always a receipt for failure, regardless of new era in warfare. So nothing works as it should because it is not used as it should. Also Russians did concentrated artillery in Donbas now, but thye lack mass (and quality) to breach lines; thus, their artillery is not used as it should be.

2. The lsesson I see here in strategic terms is old, venerable Fabian strategy in motion supported by nature of the country. And civilian population paying the price.

3.I know you mean tactics not strategy, but in this enumeration, more significant factor should perhaps be space itself. Ukrainians are blessed to have it, others like Israeli or Balts do not. In your opinion the same tactical rules apply to them? Take for example hypothetical Israelis defending against Syrian/Iran coalition on Golan a la 1973. Can they apply swarming tactics and hitting supply lines, when have maybe 20 km bufor they can trade?

4. Russian southern front seem to be a limited success of older form of manouver warfare. Too early to tell what exactly happened there, but they did took large chunk of Ukrainian territory, used manouver to pass defended towns,captured important targets like Kahkovka dam or nuclear plant. And terrain was easier to defend at least at the start (narrow chokes, waterways with several bridges, open terrain).

5. Agree it will be super interesting to see if Ukrainians are able to put offensive in motion. Their enemies do not seem to have the same ability to wage this kind of elastic defence-in-depth.

1.  Likely a combination of both to be honest. On those initial axis of attack the RA had superiority in concentrated mass in both firepower and manoeuvre, it is likely how they managed to penetrate so deeply into Ukraine in the first couple weeks.  Technically those were pretty bold and rapid advances - the one north of Sumy was over 200km long.  Problem is that Ukraine did not go all "paralyzed" and collapse like they were supposed to, they spread out and hacked the Russian LOCs to pieces.  The dirty secret is that the RA operation did not look much different than how we would have done it, so our immediate reaction is "well they did it wrong"...and not "what is wrong with 'it' in the first place?"  Russians are using arty in Donbas right now in the tradition of WW1 by the looks of it - hammer, advance by inches and repeat.  We are all focused on Severodonetsk but in all that open rolling terrain south and west of Izyum, and up from Poposna the Russians also stalled, likely due to the UA light infantry-arty-ISR system, which massed artillery cannot seem to solve for either.

3.   Now that is a solid point, Ukraine had a couple hundred kms to trade and stretch out RA forces, for a smaller nation things like swarming will still work but you would need to really look at pre-emptive strategies and hitting a massing force while it is forming up.  Or take mass integrated precision fires to a whole new level at the front end.

4.  As per point #1, I agree, the RA did actually employ manoeuvre in the opening phase of this war...and it did not really work.  At least not enough to achieve their over all strategic objectives.  They took some ground and then stalled and had to fall back as focused attrition and imposed friction took its toll.  Now if they had really upscaled, say 1 million men and applied the same game plan it may have worked - they still would have taken significant casualties but they would likely have had enough "oomph" to at least go with the "sieging cities" option.  

The implications here are not small.  Everywhere-ISR with resilient communications systems, low cost small smart munitions with ridiculous ranges and lethality, and unmanned systems might very well mean that the fast-light-short-decisive wars we have been chasing for over 30 years by embracing manoeuvre warfare might be a pipe dream.  I mean it looked like a great idea, smaller but highly professional militaries are cheaper than massive ones even if they have more expensive kit.  Low impact on society as you do not need to conscript anyone.  Nice clean decisive wars where we assume our opponents will play freeze-tag and surrender once we take their capital (which they never do).

Instead we got very long unwinnable insurgencies or in a near-peer environment whatever this thing is turning into.  It is far too soon to be making bold corrections; however, there are enough question marks around this thing to at least force us to revisit our western way of war at a fundamental assumptions level. 

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The only takeaway lesson from this war I am drawing is - nothing is working like it was supposed to.  Airpower, cyber, armor/mech, and yes, artillery have not performed anywhere near what we thought going into this war.  No matter how hard we try and tie reality into knots to explain it, we likely will not know why for some time...and even then we will likely ignore it if history is any indication. 

Worse, I am hearing this is in military circles and moves to tie this to military procurement as politicians scramble to "spend more" in order to demonstrate collective resolve.  While military services are using this war as justification for stuff they have been wanting to buy for years without actually looking at what is happening on the ground.

Let's take artillery - "the king of battle" (talk about 'presents well'), no it has not been the ruling monarch in this war.  It has been the "king of attrition" but it has not been decisive in the least.  If massed artillery fires were still decisive the Russians would have taken Kyiv by now, let alone this small rump in the Donbas.  If "more guns" was the solution then Russia would have already taken their operational objectives instead of this war-by-inches bleeding out.  The one instance we did see decisive use of artillery was in the first phase of this war by the Ukrainians, and that wasn't any of that sexy western stuff.  It was highly integrated and linked to a superior UA C4ISR/information system so that the smaller artillery was hitting the right targets to cause the most stress to the Russian system - decisive attrition has been the "king of battle" if anything has been in this war so far, and even that is weird because we were supposed to be seeing the dominance of manoeuvre a la Gulf War.

Back to procurement; we are already hearing services drooling over "investment" in "new capabilities" we have had since WW2 and using this was as "proof".  Right now the only "proof" I have seen is for: unmanned like crazy including all forms of next gen ATGM/MANPAD systems (NLOS, self-loitering etc), dispersed light infantry that one can generate from reservists very quickly,  resilient and pervasive battlefield communications systems that include crowdsourcing, new forms of logistical systems that look more like Amazon than what we have, C4ISR that includes space-based assets to tie it all together rapidly.  And all that will buy you is an ability for large scale defence-thru-denial that may force an opponent's system to collapse under its own weight.  We have no idea what works for offensive operations because neither side has been able to do it yet.

"Tanks, guns, IFVs, F-35" are what are being pitched right now and that is billions of dollars into tools that Ukraine did not employ decisively to defeat the RA, but they are the capabilities that Russia invested heavily in, brought to this war, and are now scattered all over the Ukrainian countryside. 

One thing I am seeing out of all this is "we have to understand what 'fighting smarter' really means".  And it does not appear to be more expensive singular platform centric-warfare.  This is like France '40 - the French had more, better tanks but they had not created a smarter integrated tank-system - the Germans did (often in spite of themselves).  All domain systems integration, while denying the same to your opponent may be the future "king of battle" [when you really think about it, maybe it always has been] but again we have only see it work decisively on the defensive, so the jury is still out. 

I am hoping that the UA is employing this whole Severodonetsk thing as an attritional honeypot to bleed the Russians white in order to open up options for some old-school operational manoeuvre in Phase 3 of this thing.  My guess is this may occur in the western side of this theatre around Kherson-Melitopol as the Russians over-commit more and more to this baffling fight in the Donbas - "Lure your enemy onto the roof, then take away the ladder."

 

Don't hate me for saying this, but it is time for you to run for parliament. They need more smart people in that room who know what they are talking about.

[Suleyman]

The Russian Donbas offensive isn't over, even if they fully secure Severodonetsk they still want to push forward to Slavyansk. Whether the Ukrainians are able to destroy the next upcoming attacks is on them. The Russians have to go slow or the Ukrainians find weak points and do serious damage. I'm still surprised they don't turn every urban engagement into Grozny, where they had no remorse for any people just complete bombardment. 

In saying that though, it does seem they are being slowed down, I wonder if the Russians plan on holding ground for very long periods until they can get together more soldiers. Those guys are recruiting harder than the JROTC recruiters in my old high school. I can see a scenario where Ukrainians just do an unbearable amount of hard resistance to the point the Russians decide to just hold ground and call it a day.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Suleyman

[LongLeftFlank]

 

13 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

 

UA tank street fighting in Sieverdonetsk, good CM Level 3 style drone clip.

Poland's tax dollars hard at work.

For the future CM: Slava Ukraine! scenario design files:

 

 

 

Thinking like a SEAL, Chuck seems to see the Sieverdonetsk position as fully played out and time to pull back. But he ain't running things.

As @The_Capt showed us a while back, hanging out in those bare flatlands and treatment ponds down by the river could get pretty grim for the 'surrounding' forces. Not just big guns, this is prime mortar country. Expect intruders to sow mines though to hinder infiltration.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Haiduk]

57 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Wow, that was one big ass missile and one little boat.

57 m and 1600 tons of displacement not so little - this is close to missile corvettes of Buyan-M class. 

This was not just tug, but newest resque vessel with special equipment for underwater works, including small ЕМ-guided unmanned submarine device Falcon-1000, which allowed works on 1000 m depth. 

[LongLeftFlank]

10 minutes ago, Suleyman said:

I'm still surprised they don't turn every urban engagement into Grozny, where they had no remorse for any people just complete bombardment. 

That seems to be the case already for some time, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Suleyman]

Lysychansk looks to be a harder city to assault. If it gets to that point, the Russians will most likely go for the higher grounds first, maybe cross from the points that directly lead to the bottom of hills to avoid being picked out by long range. At least if I was them that's what I would do, high ground first for fire control, and ease of crossing. They still got some stiff resistance in Severodonetsk they have to get through first though. 

[MikeyD]

Just as people had begun to doubt the ~30,000 dead number we're given a new number ~37,600. The last Ukraine claim of an intercepted Russia death count that I can recall (after Russia had retreat from Kiev) was 26,000.

[Huba]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Back to procurement; we are already hearing services drooling over "investment" in "new capabilities" we have had since WW2 and using this was as "proof".  Right now the only "proof" I have seen is for: unmanned like crazy including all forms of next gen ATGM/MANPAD systems (NLOS, self-loitering etc), dispersed light infantry that one can generate from reservists very quickly,  resilient and pervasive battlefield communications systems that include crowdsourcing, new forms of logistical systems that look more like Amazon than what we have, C4ISR that includes space-based assets to tie it all together rapidly.  And all that will buy you is an ability for large scale defence-thru-denial that may force an opponent's system to collapse under its own weight.  We have no idea what works for offensive operations because neither side has been able to do it yet.

"Tanks, guns, IFVs, F-35" are what are being pitched right now and that is billions of dollars into tools that Ukraine did not employ decisively to defeat the RA, but they are the capabilities that Russia invested heavily in, brought to this war, and are now scattered all over the Ukrainian countryside. 

One lesson that you didn't mention here, and which I think is pretty clear at this point, is that well developed and managed IADS beats air force in a peer/ near- peer situation, perhaps second such example after Yom Kippur war. 

This stopped being discussed much, as everybody is interested in artillery duels, but UA ability to almost completely deny RU access to it's airspace is perhaps the most important UA success thus far.

Edit: but what's also quite clear is that "missiles will always get through", altough those alone are not enough to wage a successful air war. 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Huba

[dan/california]

 

 

38 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

1.  Likely a combination of both to be honest. On those initial axis of attack the RA had superiority in concentrated mass in both firepower and manoeuvre, it is likely how they managed to penetrate so deeply into Ukraine in the first couple weeks.  Technically those were pretty bold and rapid advances - the one north of Sumy was over 200km long.  Problem is that Ukraine did not go all "paralyzed" and collapse like they were supposed to, they spread out and hacked the Russian LOCs to pieces.  The dirty secret is that the RA operation did not look much different than how we would have done it, so our immediate reaction is "well they did it wrong"...and not "what is wrong with 'it' in the first place?"  Russians are using arty in Donbas right now in the tradition of WW1 by the looks of it - hammer, advance by inches and repeat.  We are all focused on Severodonetsk but in all that open rolling terrain south and west of Izyum, and up from Poposna the Russians also stalled, likely due to the UA light infantry-arty-ISR system, which massed artillery cannot seem to solve for either.

3.   Now that is a solid point, Ukraine had a couple hundred kms to trade and stretch out RA forces, for a smaller nation things like swarming will still work but you would need to really look at pre-emptive strategies and hitting a massing force while it is forming up.  Or take mass integrated precision fires to a whole new level at the front end.

4.  As per point #1, I agree, the RA did actually employ manoeuvre in the opening phase of this war...and it did not really work.  At least not enough to achieve their over all strategic objectives.  They took some ground and then stalled and had to fall back as focused attrition and imposed friction took its toll.  Now if they had really upscaled, say 1 million men and applied the same game plan it may have worked - they still would have taken significant casualties but they would likely have had enough "oomph" to at least go with the "sieging cities" option.  

The implications here are not small.  Everywhere-ISR with resilient communications systems, low cost small smart munitions with ridiculous ranges and lethality, and unmanned systems might very well mean that the fast-light-short-decisive wars we have been chasing for over 30 years by embracing manoeuvre warfare might be a pipe dream.  I mean it looked like a great idea, smaller but highly professional militaries are cheaper than massive ones even if they have more expensive kit.  Low impact on society as you do not need to conscript anyone.  Nice clean decisive wars where we assume our opponents will play freeze-tag and surrender once we take their capital (which they never do).

Instead we got very long unwinnable insurgencies or in a near-peer environment whatever this thing is turning into.  It is far too soon to be making bold corrections; however, there are enough question marks around this thing to at least force us to revisit our western way of war at a fundamental assumptions level. 

 

5 minutes ago, Suleyman said:

Lysychansk looks to be a harder city to assault. If it gets to that point, the Russians will most likely go for the higher grounds first, maybe cross from the points that directly lead to the bottom of hills to avoid being picked out by long range. At least if I was them that's what I would do, high ground first for fire control, and ease of crossing. They still got some stiff resistance in Severodonetsk they have to get through first though. 

The analysis of this war is greatly complicated by the fact that neither side has been able to assemble what NATO considers a full spectrum of capabilities. In the Donbas this has resulted in a weird asymmetric near stalemate with massive attrition on both sides.

1. If the initial Russian failure proved anything it is that modern tech/missiles have increased the cost of protecting supply lines by an order of magnitude, maybe more than one. This factor by itself may make an offensive war like the U.S. conducted in Iraq impossible. This is a LARGE strategic shift.

3. The Israelis have been acutely aware of this lack of strategic depth for forever. They have a stated policy that if an army from outside Syria crossed into Syria with even possible intentions of attacking Israel, that the Israeli air force would commence attacks the minute it crossed the Syrian/IRAQI border. I am quite sure they would feel even more strongly about it if the tanks were Iranian.

4. A lot of the early Russian success on the Southern front was due to the FSBs coop/subversion planning working there. There were SEVERAL key betrayals in and around Kherson in particular. I expect the Ukrainians to hunt those people for FOREVER.

5. Ukr still has not solved for Russian air attack when they attempt large scale offensive operations. Whatever exact combination of S300s,  manpads, and ? that is keeping Russian aircraft from overflying Ukr. territory just doesn't seem to work when the Ukrainians try a mechanized advance. So most of their offensive operations have to move at the tempo of marching light infantry.