How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Bil Hardenberger]

This is the first time I've seen a thread with over 1 million views.  Amazing conversation, amazing and insightful contributors.  Must be the best non-professional source on the war online.

[Haiduk]

17 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Some areas in Eastern Ukraine  start to look like Vietnam when late spring comes. Music is very appropriate.

@Harmon Rabb

Here is second part of "over jungle flight" with more Vietnam vibes (lower video)  Soon maybe some old PBRs will come %)

 

 

[billbindc]

Steve, Bil and Capt...I have a question for you: 

I keep having conversations with pretty smart folks hereabouts and I consistently run into the steady conviction that Russia retains escalation dominance in this war. I don't (vociferously) agree. What's your view?

[Chibot Mk IX]

6 hours ago, Grigb said:

From RU comments I got a feeling that they are upset about French artillery. References to French 155mm pop up regularly. Cannot say why but can speculate that a somewhere a respectable RU artillery man got really mad at something he considered to be Caesar and spread the word. 

Another "Tiger/Ferdinand phobia"? Everything that move on tracks is a Tiger tank, anything they destroyed is a Ferdinand?

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Slowing is one aspect but I also think they can influence the RA OODA loop to make bad decisions quicker.  I also suspect, as you note, this has been what has been happening at the strategic level all along...in fact if the Russian political OODA loop slowed down it may perform better.

There's been real tangible evidence of forcing Russia to make very "bad decisions quicker" on the battlefield.  The three big ones I can think of are:

• Putin's grand plan required taking Kyiv.  Ukraine made it clear very quickly that it wasn't practical to do, but Putin was insistent.  Russian leadership felt the heat, the humiliation, and acted desperately for about a month.  Massive amounts of resources were invested using LOCs that were inadequate to the task, which then presented more humiliation and battlefield weakness, which seems to have spurred on yet more idiotic attempts to take Kyiv.  In the process Ukraine laid waste some of Russia's best units.  This got so bad that staying put wasn't an option, so they withdrew and allowed the world to see the barbarity of Russian occupation.
• The big Donbas offensive was horribly rushed, which downgraded Russia's chance of pulling off a success there.  It was rushed for many reasons, some of which were sanctions and political considerations, most of it probably a sense of desperation to get the war going in Russia's favor.  Instead, another humiliating and destructive two months getting almost nothing in return.  The desperation was an element, for sure, in the rushed river crossings that resulted in yet more humiliation and destruction of its forces.
• Effective Ukrainian defenses and local counter attacks have kept Russian forces needlessly active offensively in places that Russia couldn't possibly exploit even if there was a local success.  All apparently in order to keep up appearances of being a big angry bear.  This has again led to massive losses for just about no gains.

There's other examples, but these are some of the big ones that seem to have resulted from rushed and desperate Russian actions which yielded net negative results.  Encouraging Russia to do more of this sort of stuff before someone higher up gets a clue is a great concept for Ukraine to pursue.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Doing it on the battlefield may be killing the right leaders and leaving the impulsive and weak ones in place.  This is an extension of where we wound up in COIN/GWOT...leave the idiots in charge, take out the talent.  Otherwise you risk positive Darwinian pressure on your opponent, when you want negative pressure.

I think we've seen some of the positive Darwinian effect already.  However, we're talking about the battlefield sorting out the worst of the worst and leaving only command still in the hands of what we'd consider pretty bad leadership.  Effectively, Darwin's laws do not favor something evolving if it is too far out of synch with its environment.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

The Russians do have a history of being able to learn quickly in war, especially when they are losing - thing is, I do not think they are willing to admit or recognize that they are losing.

I think this is the most important point to make.  Russia is capable of learning, true, but other elements determine how much time on the clock is available for that.  Russo-Japanese War, WW1, Winter War, almost WW2, 1990/1991, 1st Chechen War, and the First Russio-Ukraine War are all examples where Russia did not have the time to learn from its mistakes and ultimately come out on top.  At best it has managed to cause its enemy to sue for peace on terms slightly more favorable to Russia, but vastly less than it sought at the start.

I did not include Afghanistan in this list because that's an example of Russia having a lot of time and just not learning how to win.  ISAF put in double that amount of time and also failed, so it is probable that there just isn't a way to militarily win a war in Afghanistan.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I do suspect the Russians are close to burning out.  We have been calling it for some time but the signs were there before all this and after nearly two months of intense combat the Russian forces have to seriously be eroded. 

Yup.  Russia has figured out some tricks to keep the war going, but there's a lot of stuff going on that's still limiting the overall amount of time the war can continue.  The economic and domestic situations being the biggest looming problems.

Steve

[Ultradave]

IAEA concerned about safeguards again. Specifically, the verification of nuclear material by on site inspections. Realistically I doubt there is a problem because Ukraine would have no use for diverted material and really neither would Russia. They already have plenty of weapons making material. Spent fuel is dangerous to handle and doesn’t lend itself well to the manufacture of say, an improvised dirty weapon. There are much easier methods, like medical sources. 
 

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-82-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR2jL3BDTN7CxjCRCLmWDsfC20qzwL7wZG-kze0-XrB4uQ4xAj6Lt7xFCDA

[Combatintman]

30 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Steve, Bil and Capt...I have a question for you: 

I keep having conversations with pretty smart folks hereabouts and I consistently run into the steady conviction that Russia retains escalation dominance in this war. I don't (vociferously) agree. What's your view?

Why are they saying that Russia retains escalation dominance and who are they claiming Russia has escalation dominance over - Ukraine, US, NATO?

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Steve, Bil and Capt...I have a question for you: 

I keep having conversations with pretty smart folks hereabouts and I consistently run into the steady conviction that Russia retains escalation dominance in this war. I don't (vociferously) agree. What's your view?

No, I don't agree.  Does it have options to escalate in some ways?  It sure does.  Nukes being the biggest one of them all, but there's also chem and bio that could be put into play.  But there's lots of other things it could do, the recent helicopter violations of NATO airspace being one of them.  Another obvious one is actively engaging a NATO asset with either a kinetic or cyber weapon.  It could still do more with energy supplies or make life for the West unpleasant in other ways.  It still has influence campaigns in countries that it can use to create headaches.  It has a very experienced "wet works" capability that could target key people outside of its borders.

However, as unpleasant as any of these escalation options might be, none of them provide Russia with "dominance".  The West has the ability to retaliate in response to any of these and that response is likely to be more painful to Russia than whatever it inflicted on the West.  Further, each time Russia escalates it will find it harder to do so again within that domain.  I include nukes in the mix.

A good example of how this is playing out right now is Russia escalation of disrupting energy deliveries to Europe.  The response from Europe?  Fine, we have other options, though costly, we can put into place very soon and in the future we won't be buying energy from you because clearly you aren't a reliable partner.  Since Russia requires energy revenue to fund its state activities, Russia just created a 10-20 year budget shortfall.

I think we can also envision a direct confrontation with a NATO country would not end well for Russia.  Conducting wet works activities against a NATO nation would likely end very badly as well.  So on and so forth.

That's the strategic picture.  On the battlefield Russia is spent.  There's nothing I can think of that Russia can do tomorrow that it isn't already doing or tried earlier.  All it can do, and decreasingly so, is "more of the same".  By definition that is not escalatory.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

42 minutes ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

This is the first time I've seen a thread with over 1 million views.  Amazing conversation, amazing and insightful contributors.  Must be the best non-professional source on the war online.

A bit surprising and very humbling

Steve

[Sojourner]

8 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

even better:

 

CNN report saying UKR intelligence is expecting new RU attacks NE of Kharkiv - drone footage of concealed RU positions. Wonder if these were the targets of HIMARS launch. Intel briefing starts at 1:44.

 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/06/22/kharkiv-ukraine-russia-preparing-assault-kiley-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/

[Haiduk]

8 hours ago, Huba said:

MLRS (?) launch gone wrong:

 

This is Alchevsk, Luhansk oblast, occupied since 2014. Russian AD works, but missile failed.

This night several UKR missiles (Tochka-U? HIMARS?) hit another large ammunition storage in Stakhanov (new name Kadiivka), Luhansk oblast, occupied since 2014, on territory of SVZ (Stakhanov railway carriage works). Locals reported about all-night detonations in that place

 

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Grigb said:

RU consumer situation is relatively better than we expect given the circumstances.  Everything else is much worse than we expect. 

RU government considers the consumer situation to be critical for overall political stability (you can lie about everything else far longer than about what consumer see himself).  So, it employs various tricks and gimmicks to keep the situation above water. 

Everything else is much worse because I was told that almost every RU aspect of economy relies heavily on imported goods from West.

For example, I have close contact - top IT guy who works in RU Food industry (he did not manage to escape die to family reasons). He worked from sausage production to distribution of bottled water drinks and everything in between for top RU companies. 

Back in March he told me that RU Food Industry depended on Wester import like at least 80% and up to 90% in some cases. It simply cannot exist without West imports. He said right now industry was running on accumulated reserves and RU government pouring money and resources to patch it somehow. He expected that the whole situation would not last longer than August. 

Important disclaimer - take it with the grain of salt because while there is no question about his professional competence and knowledge, he is a [RU] liberal guy and he most probably massaged facts to better suit the [RU] liberal narrative. Still the RU economy dependence on western import is much greater than anybody thinks. As such, the overall situation is much worse than we expect.

So many good posts from you on the previous page, it's going to take me a while to catch up on them all

Your contact in Russia is absolutely correct, even if he's seeing things through a biased perspective.  The reason being that the economy is inherently independent of politics.  Yes, yes, yes... politics can heavily influence economic factors, positively and negatively, but inherently it is separate.  If this weren't the case then nations would have long ago figured out how to avoid things like recessions and depressions, reliance on unstable nations, steady employment, etc.  The reason why politics (government) can't control these things is they are far too complicated and increasingly interconnected.  Pandemic problems just proved that.

So, liberal viewpoint or not the facts are still the facts.  Russia largely pulled itself out of the 1990s chaos (which resulted from the 1980s controlled chaos) by integrating its economy into the West and the world generally.  It exported energy and raw materials, it imported almost everything else.  The simple fact is its exports have dwindled and its imports have been dramatically curtailed.  There is no amount of clever sanctions dodging that will address the negatives of either.

Economists for months have been saying that the Russian consumer economy is going to hit a brick wall sometime towards the end of the summer.  This will be the point at which prewar inventory has been exhausted and sanctions dodging tricks no longer able to slow the visible decline.

To me, anecdotally, it seems that even pro-war Russians are seeing where this is headed, at least generally.  That can't be good for Putin's health.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

This night several UKR missiles (Tochka-U? HIMARS?) hit another large ammunition storage in Stakhanov (new name Kadiivka), Luhansk oblast, occupied since 2014, on territory of SVZ (Stakhanov railway carriage works). Locals reported about all-night detonations in that place

It is likely that these stockpiles that Ukraine is hitting have been built up over many years.  Losing them all of a sudden is going to have a noticeable impact on operations, even if only locally.  Ammo is bulky and not easily moved in large quantities.

Steve

[The_Capt]

44 minutes ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

This is the first time I've seen a thread with over 1 million views.  Amazing conversation, amazing and insightful contributors.  Must be the best non-professional source on the war online.

Non-professional?!  Bil,..ouch.  Unpaid maybe.  There is a lot of professionals from a lot of fields here, it is what makes this whole thing work in my opinion.  That and "the professionals" really haven't done much better as far as I can tell...and I am being kind in some examples.

[Haiduk]

Russian propaganda pearls:

23rd of June. In red circle a number of destroyed UKR artillery/mortar systems

24th of June.

3002 - 2088 = 914 artillery systems for one day!

 

[kraze]

I wouldn't be surprised if other numbers are just as legit. As we know everything in Russia adds up not to 100% but to 146%.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Grigb said:

Found interesting attempt of LDNR volunteers to publish first version of drone manual. I roughly translated it so you can get a snippet at LDNR drone operations. AFAIK originally it was UKR tactics but LDNR learned them and adopted. BTW as you can see, they started an unofficial program of training RU regulars. In square brackets my own comments.

@Battlefront.com FYI

 

Thank you VERY much for that.  Your translation and the original are now safely stored on my drive for (near) future use.

One thing that struck me about the manual is it's pretty simple stuff, but someone trying to do this from scratch would definitely benefit from it.  The advice about shading the screen from sunlight, for example, is a pretty critical one for a drone operator to be thinking about before going out into the field.  It's hard enough to read highly contrasting text on a smartphone in the sun, for a moving image it's pretty much impossible.

Steve

[hcrof]

Those are some big numbers almost 1000 artillery pieces a month is probably more losses then the whole Soviet Union took in WW2!

[Battlefront.com]

21 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Non-professional?!  Bil,..ouch.  Unpaid maybe.  There is a lot of professionals from a lot of fields here, it is what makes this whole thing work in my opinion.  That and "the professionals" really haven't done much better as far as I can tell...and I am being kind in some examples.

Before the war I would define a "professional" as someone that is paid to accumulate knowledge and filter it through analytical process sufficient enough to produce advice/guidance relevant to a conflict.  Now I think it mostly means someone paid to accumulate knowledge.  "Expertise" does not correlate to "professional" as much as I used to think it does.  This war has clearly shown there are quite a few "amateurs" who have more "expertise" than the "professionals".

Steve

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

This is the first time I've seen a thread with over 1 million views.  Amazing conversation, amazing and insightful contributors.  Must be the best non-professional source on the war online.

Wow, a million views, that's great.  And to those lurking about and might be interested, I just noticed that Combat Mission Cold War is on sale 30% off on Slitherine!  CM stuff rarely goes on sale so get it while it's hot.

Back on subject:  What is the deal w the contractor nowadays?  I've seen reports of 3 months contracts, etc, and soldiers w contracts expiring.  If RU simply not letting them leave when their contracts are done?  

I suppose for LPR/DPR folks there's no rights whatsoever -- good choice wanting to be part of Putin's Russia for those that were pro-separation from Ukraine.  Good call for sure.

EDIT:  CM Black Sea 30% off also on Slitherine.

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by danfrodo
addition

[Suleyman]

That’s got to be a typo unless their propaganda is worse than the USSR’s 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Suleyman

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

Steve, Bil and Capt...I have a question for you: 

I keep having conversations with pretty smart folks hereabouts and I consistently run into the steady conviction that Russia retains escalation dominance in this war. I don't (vociferously) agree. What's your view?

Ok, let's try this one on.  I am guessing the "pretty smart" folks you are talking to all went to some graduate strategic studies schools where Colin Gray is their god...maybe with some SAMS folks tossed in for flavor.  Well "I ain't no senators son" so I will give it a "best-shot".

I don't think escalation dominance exists as a viable or workable strategic military concept, or strategy - at least not in the modern era.  It is a "pipe dream" a unicorn with a 38 inch bust....weird, slightly erotic and pure fantasy.

So if I recall the term basically describes overmatch.  My own thoughts on those metrics: 

Parity - all things being equal, decision spaces are symmetrical and outcomes determined by chance as much as anything else.

Asymmetry - Your opponent is in a state of dilemma with respect to decision space and are forced to pick the "best bad".

Overmatch - You opponents decision space is irrelevant because all outcomes are the same.

That is a scale/spectrum with lots of sliding distance but to my mind lays out the strategic states with respect to conflict.  In my own terms, if warfare is vision/certainty, communication, negotiation and sacrifice - you basically take the opponents voice away by leave zero negotiation space and driving sacrifice to infinity.

So in this case we would be talking about the Russians being able to create a condition of strategic overmatch on the Ukraine...and this is simply not attainable.  Why?  Well:

- Russian strategic escalation is bounded and restricted externally by the West.  If the West/US had stayed neutral, or did not exist, Russia would have likely escalated already.  They talk a good game but they know that escalation against the West is a dead-hand game of chicken that no one wins and it is directly connected to the current war in the Ukraine.  The only way Russia achieves dominance in this area is if we fail to act.

- Conventional escalation in the form of a formal declaration of war and full mobilization is restricted internally and externally.  Internally, there is domestic pressure - and it is real, as Russia is tying itself in knots to not mobilize while pulling on every other resource it can...so bounded.  Then there is the possible Western reaction to full Russian mobilization..."Ok, Vlad, you want to raise a million man army...how about we give Ukraine 400 HIMARs?"  That is an external bounding; this war is not happening in an isolated bubble.

- Unconventional escalation.  Here the gun is pointing the other direction.  Ukraine could escalate unconventional warfare and the West could as well. This has all sorts of options from leveraging power brokers in the back field, to sabotage, to subversive warfare, to cyber/information.  These things are likely already happening but the escalation ladder is not in Russia's favour in this space, why?  Because they did the one thing they absolutely should not have done in thru this war - unify people against them while dividing their own.  Unconventional war relies a lot on internal divisions and this war has narrowed them in the West while widening them in the Russian sphere.

Finally, as to the term in the modern era...impossible. Why? Because tangled and relative rationality.  The USA has the largest military in the history of humanity - more destructive power than Ghengis or Alexander even taking into account population differences.  And the US has never been able to achieve "escalation dominance" in the modern age.  Terrorism and terrorist groups demonstrated this in spades.  In a modern entangled world completely stopping asymmetric escalation in other dimensions is impossible - it is the superpower dilemma of the 21st century; the only way to preserve the world is to destroy it.  

During GWOT it was AQ/ISIL that "escalated" and threatened to escalate all the way up to WMDs, if they could.  All the US hard power was completely dislocated by a tiny group that was using an idea, the internet and a shoe string budget to make attacks on the US homeland.  After a lot of effort we regained parity and even asymmetry against terror groups but we never achieved escalation dominance and it was dangerous to even think we could deter them through this strategy.'

My problem with Gray (and Clausewitz for that matter) is that these strategies always assume a rational actor and we know that in war those are hard to find.  Rationality becomes relative very quickly.  So the idea of - shooting each other when we have already jumped off the building together ("I will die but you first!") - makes perfect sense locally even though it looks insane to an outside observer.  Escalation dominance does not work on a suicide bomber, never will; they are already at the sacrifice infinity point.  Not saying Ukraine is suicidal; however, if driven to it, Ukraine will fight and escalate well past an outside rationality point - even if it means massive losses...because "it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees" short-circuits the foundational logic of escalation dominance as a strategic theory...and it is in play.

So what?  Well we have an escalation system in parity by my eyes.  Russia is bounded as I described but Ukraine is as well.  The west will only tolerate so much - for example Ukrainian terror groups active in Russia killing civilians is not going to fly with us.  Nor would giving Ukraine nuclear weapons as we fear if things get desperate enough for them to use them.  Ukraine has no mobilization escalation bounding, they are already there.  Conventionally we are slowly negotiating what strikes into Russia look like, but it is not zero.

Finally, I suspect what we are really talking about is comparative strategic options spaces.  And here Ukraine does not need to escalate, they need only sustain theirs, while Russia is doing a glorious job of collapsing their own.  There will come a point when Russia starts to think about irrational escalation as those options spaces collapse, even in the face of Western power...the trick is knowing where that point is and ensuring we get off this ride first.  I suspect it is the Russian land border...Crimea is a question mark.  But one second to midnight at a time....

Edited June 24, 2022 by The_Capt

[Haiduk]

How Ukrainian troops were withdrawing from Siverodonetsk

LPR also issued two videos  with captured UKR soldiers from Zolote-Hirske area with total number in 46 captured. 

 

[Taranis]

Ukrainian soldiers move a US-supplied M777 howitzer into firing position, in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, June 18, 2022. EFREM LUTASKY/ AP

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

Another "Tiger/Ferdinand phobia"? Everything that move on tracks is a Tiger tank, anything they destroyed is a Ferdinand?

 

Yes, except it is not a fear, more like concern. Like they shoot us from long range? Must be French one.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Grigb