How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

Oh I forgot, Ukraine has a shortage of IFVs no? Russia has vehicles, old but a IFV is a IFV. Until NATO gets the shipments going, Ukraine probably does not have enough IFVs for its needs. Reviewing https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html I don’t think the current pledge amount is enough tho….

[poesel]

 

This has a nice picture of Russian air defence around Crimea. Later on in the thread he discusses that the abilities seem to be theoretical as most Russian stuff.

[Huba]

14 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Oh I forgot, Ukraine has a shortage of IFVs no? Russia has vehicles, old but a IFV is a IFV. Until NATO gets the shipments going, Ukraine probably does not have enough IFVs for its needs. Reviewing https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html I don’t think the current pledge amount is enough tho….

The "fighting" part of IFV's seems rater underutilized in this conflict, it really is mostly about armored taxis at this point. There might well be many more M113 in the pipeline, on top of the 300+ already announced. And France is supposed to supply a significant number of VABs, which hopefully means hundreds, available stock is really huge.

Regarding your previous post, I wholeheartedly agree that to win the way we expect it too, UA has to be able to pull a large scale offensive. The Davidyv Brid seems to be a test more than a serious committed attempt at it, and I'm sure lessons were learned from it. At least equipment wise, there's a lot that will change in next 2 months, that might allow it to succeed:

- many many more APCs are to arrive, at least the 200 US M113s

- a lot of 155mm SPGs (probably part/ all of 54 Krabs, additional 20+ M109s etc, the numbers will double at least)

- GMLRS is to become A LOT more common (at the moment there are to be 17 launchers as opposed to 4 in the theater today)

- Gepards are to be deployed, and in 2 months time perhaps NASAMs too, this might be a game-changer that makes RU CAS irrelevant locally ( "might", not "will" of course)

I really hope that it will be enough to tip the scales in UA favour, coupled with newly trained units getting into line.

BTW, for tracking the pledged/ delivered equipment I really recommend this page:

https://jamesrushton.substack.com/p/western-heavy-materiel-support-to

Edited July 1, 2022 by Huba

[The_MonkeyKing]

43 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Oh I forgot, Ukraine has a shortage of IFVs no? Russia has vehicles, old but a IFV is a IFV. Until NATO gets the shipments going, Ukraine probably does not have enough IFVs for its needs. Reviewing https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html I don’t think the current pledge amount is enough tho….

most countries do not disclose their aid and most aid gets announced after it crosses the border.

Hard tell what UKR military looks one year from now

[Huba]

 

[Armorgunner]

Anybody know if the US delivered this, with the M777?

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Armorgunner

[Taranis]

5 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

Anybody know if the US delivered this, with the M777?

 

The CAESAR is also known to be able to fire it. There are only rumors but I haven't seen any evidence so far of a possible delivery. And then from what I know, it's a very rare shell in the French army's stocks.

[Armorgunner]

1 minute ago, Taranis said:

The CAESAR is also known to be able to fire it. There are only rumors but I haven't seen any evidence so far of a possible delivery. And then from what I know, it's a very rare shell in the French army's stocks.

Hmm maybe the US stocks are larger? It´s in incremetal use, after the M712 copperhead. Even if the US, is working on a better round! 

[LongLeftFlank]

...Take Macron off call waiting.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[The_MonkeyKing]

45 minutes ago, Huba said:

 

Interesting that in the press promo videos they are no using the autoloaders. Same with the Pzh2000

[rocketman]

7 hours ago, sburke said:

Now that is a table....

Putin's preposterously long table at Kremlin dwarfed by gigantic table at a summit he attended in Turkmenistan (msn.com)

You know what they say: preposterously large table, small ….

[Huba]

Best summary of Russian successes in the Donbas:

 

[Beleg85]

12 hours ago, Machor said:

The TAK cannot be a false flag operation run by Erdoğan because they started when Erdoğan had recently become the PM and did not have control over the state security apparatus. Also, TAK bombings reveal another pattern: They almost always carry out an attack after the PKK suffers a heavy loss, clearly indicating their morale-boosting mission for the PKK.

However, it is true that their attacks have helped Erdoğan win election victories, and there is no need to seek a conspiracy behind this: The PKK LOVES Erdoğan! 

Think about it: Arguably the worst human rights abuses against Turkey's Kurds since the military junta of 1980 were committed during Çiller's campaign against the PKK, yet few cared in the West. She was Turkey's first woman PM, had a PhD from the US - she oozed 'progressive', and few cared to look beyond.

Thanks for clarification and this informative post. TAK was created before Erdogan, but they always looked suspiciously like "instant terrorists" ready to use by hardliners in MIT or military according to their own needs. That was at least the case in 2016. And already after 2004 they seemed to not align very well within PKK goals. But on the other hand, you may be right this is probably first time PKK would allow other paramilitary to form in their own backyard.

The tragedy of Turkish Kurds in last decades was that hardliners on both sides seem to actually benefit from this status quo of constant war. That's why HDP winning some votes in Parliament was so dangerous in short-term for Erdogan himself, and long-term for TR government- they offered at least some kind of way out of hostilities that could (jn time) catch up with broader audience tired by war. From several Kurdish friends it was known to me that also Demirtas & coy. was by no means loved by hawkish PKK commanders. Not to mention wide swaths of Turkish nationalists, who get white hot by even mentioning idea that their beloved nation isn't actually that homogenous as they were taught in schools. So, the bloodsheat will probably continue in foreseeable future.

 

Ok, back to Ukraine as it is already too much offtopic:

Zolkin does another- massive- checkout of Russian prisoners ready for exchange that apparently Kremlin is not interested in finalizing.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Beleg85

[billbindc]

16 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Congrats to Ukraine for driving Russia out of Snake Island! But yeah, Ukraine attempting to land forces on it would be a huge mistake and I doubt they will try to do that right now.

It's not important if the UA is on Snake Island, it's huge the Russia is *not* in the context of any negotiations to end the war.

 

[Harmon Rabb]

More footage of daring exploits by Kadyrov’s Tik-Tok troops.

[rocketman]

5 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

More footage of daring exploits by Kadyrov’s Tik-Tok troops.

The Clown Corps is at it again. Dear oh dear……

[Probus]

Since we are almost 1000 pages in, I was wondering if a few guys could post some links to previous posts in this thread that are:

• The most important/informative
• The most predictive of what would or did happen
• Those of strategic importance 

I ask because some folks have recently joined us here and may need to do some catching up. 1000 pages is A LOT of catching up to do. Please upvote if this would be useful to you. 

Thanks a bunch!

Probus

[The_Capt]

11 hours ago, sross112 said:

The RUAF tried in the early days but they don't have the SEAD capability that we are used to seeing from the USAF. I think it was The Capt that advised the US is the only nation that trains extensively for SEAD and has dedicated planes, pilots and formations for the mission. I'm a ground pounder so I'm probably not explaining it as good as others could but basically the RUAF is not capable of neutralizing the UA air defense and has been relegated to launching cruise missiles from long stand off range or operating only right on the front lines. 

This is one of the biggest pieces missing from both side's ability to conduct maneuver warfare. Neither of them can operate above the other and neither has the ability to neutralize the other's air defense. If either of them could it would be a game changer. Most of us thought, like you, that the RUAF was very capable and would dominate the skies with air superiority in all aspects within a matter of days when this war kicked off. Apparently the RUAF is pretty much ran like the RA where a lot of their capabilities have proved to be overstated.

If either side had capabilities approaching what the USAF or USN has there would be a serious bloodbath for the opposing forces. The RUAF has no chance of developing it at this point. Again, I don't know much about this but from what I've read here it takes awhile to get a pilot competent on an airframe and awhile longer to get competent with weapons, tactics, etc. So conceivably the UAF has a chance if the war drags on over a year? maybe longer? There has been a lot of training going on for extended periods without it being publicized on different weapon systems and there has been talk of Ukrainian pilots being trained in western countries so it is possible. One of the 1st squadrons I remember being sent to Europe was F18 Growlers so they could already be working on it in Germany. I know that it is all probably wishful thinking on my part but it is possible. How probable, maybe some experts on here could enlighten us?

Excellent observations and questions.  Like a lot of things about this war - we simply do not know, let alone understand a lot of what is happening, let alone why, air competition is just one more.

A lot of this was has been about denial, in fact it often looks more like a competition of denial than anything else we recognize at times.  Denial - a defensive strategy designed to make it prohibitively difficult for an opponent to achieve objectives (https://www.britannica.com/topic/denial-military-strategy), which is a sub-strategy of the broader strategy of exhaustion.  Ukraine has elevated Denial to a strategic level, in a modern context, and frankly we are still trying to figure out the implications.

How did they do it?  That is the first question.  As far as we can tell from the evidence, my guess is that they quickly adapted C4ISR and the benefits of the modern weaponry they had to create very broad denial effects across the Russian capability portfolio, while the Russians have relied on traditional mass based systems, which are extremely expensive but can create a Denial effect for the Ukrainians as well.  Ukrainian defence has leveraged some major changes in modern technology on a broad scale and that applies in the air as well. 

Suppression of Enemy AD (SEAD) - so this is more than a single capability, it is an entire system.  It encompassed a massive C4ISR effort, air platforms that rely heavily on stealth, and even integrates SOF; it is a lot more than HARMs and Growlers.  In many ways SEAD is an entire specialized operation in itself, aimed at clearing and sustaining clearance of Integrated AD Systems (IADS).  IADS is an umbrella term; however, it leans towards large multi-layered integrated systems that link C4ISR to a network of AD systems designed to cover from the ground up (even into space).

The issue modern IADS have is UAS.  IADS were designed with large manned aircraft systems in mind form tac aviation to higher altitudes.  UAS bend these systems that by being extremely small and hard to detect, able to "pop-up" without any infrastructure needed to support them beyond two guys and some batteries, and low cost = every-freakin-where: we designed IADs to hit eagles, not sand-flies.  The most powerful thing UAS bring to the battlefield is ISR.  Strike is nice but the ability to extend the range of tactical ISR, and then integrate it into an operational system is one of the key takeaways from this war: seeing beats flanking.  Further, the RA reliance on concentrated mass makes them very vulnerable to this because it is very hard to hide a BTG.

The last brick in the wall are MANPADs.  A lot of the next gen MANPADs are passive and as the name suggests "man portable".  The reality is that MANPADs were always a problem for SEAD, no military has a baked in capability to counter two guys in a bush with a Stinger.  This is where air-land integration was supposed to come in, the land forces could support the air through control and sweeping of MANPAD threats (little threats), while air supported them by hitting the big stuff - a mutually supporting system.  Within SEAD, MANPADs were also a managed threat.  The theory was that if you blinded an enemy IADs system and took out the big radar guided systems, MANPADs would be minor nuisance, largely isolated and with limited range and altitude (5000 feet).  More something for tac aviation to worry about, and why we up-armoured stuff like Apaches. 

So UAS and real-time space based ISR and communications on the back of redundant civilian systems (including space based) makes the "blinding portion" really hard, maybe impossible.  I have no doubt in Ukraine we have distributed forces with UAS seeing CAS much farther out, handing off to others which then link back to MANPADs who can now position to wait for the aircraft - this is not even considering satellite based stuff being fed by the US.  And then MANPADs did not get the memo on "5000 feet", some of these systems can hit up to medium altitudes (e.g. star streak = 16k).  Finally, those traditional IADs are still integrated but not how we thought.  A higher altitude capable SAM that employs radar can now hide in silence, wait until the distributed C4ISR system picks up the fast movers and turn on at the last minute....like a big ass MANPAD.

Note that the above is what I think we are seeing in the UA system.  The RA is relying on traditional AD but the UA does not have a lot - so this is really air self-denial by virtue of very limited Ukrainian air capability.

So What?  Well we have air parity, largely through denial on both sides.   Ukraine has far too little, and generating massive airpower takes years.  Russia has significant capability but it was never set up for this environment, no one was.  I am not sure NATO could handle what is happening to be honest.   We would make something work but the costs would be much higher than we are used to and we would have to accept loss of air superiority at some altitudes as a basic assumption going in.  The Russians could likely achieve local air superiority above 20k right now but it would be very costly.  Going below 20k feet is very dangerous as we have flooded the UA with MANPADs, and the C4ISR thing I was talking about.  I expect they are saving it for an operational emergency or for the UA to put enough density in one place to make the effort worth it - trading a fighter-bomber for a single tank is not a good equation.

As to offence-defence.  Well Ukraine made defence offensive in the first phase of this war as Russian over-extension collapsed in the north.  I think they are doing versions of this right now in the Donbas as we have entered into an attrition-based contest.  Russia's answer to this has been to devolve in terms of warfare, falling back on a very old form of over-mass.  The only report of the Russians stopping the UA unmanned-indirect fire- infantry system has been in Severodonetsk, and they did so through extremely high concentrations of forces. That mass of Russian EW did nothing against space-based assets, so we do not know how badly they got mauled, nor Russian artillery.  Russia did show that if you push enough into a small space you can advance by inches - we do not know what it cost them nor how long they can sustain it.

This leads to some fundamental and big questions:  What does modern mass look like (sburke, don't do it!)?  Is manoeuvre warfare in trouble?  Is offence in trouble?  Is a principle of war - surprise, dead?  What does modern C4ISR really look like?  Hell, we are questioning Mission Command because in this environment higher commander may very well know much more, in higher resolution, than lower commanders.  

Nothing is definitive, but a whole lot is on the auction block right now and implications are pretty big if even a few of them are confirmed. 

I would close that the Russo-Ukraine war is an indicator of change but it is likely showing the tips of icebergs.  For example, we have not really seen what self-loitering can (or cannot) do in this war.  We know the US sent the smaller Switchblades, but I have seen no reports of significant numbers of the 600 series which can hit and kill with a Javelin warhead at the same ranges as the HIMARs.  We have not see NLOS ATGM or anti-vehicle systems like Spike.  We have not seen military grade micro and small UAS.  Sticking some grenades onto a few commercial drones is one thing, a swarm of military grade micro-drones that cannot be jammed, all armed with precision DPICM is something else entirely - and we have that technology right now.  Same goes for C4ISR, this is what Ukraine could do with a fairly ad hoc civilian backbone, some of the stuff being developed is truly impressive - and we have not even started to see the effects of AI/ML.

The Crimean War of 1854 is often referred to as the "First Modern War", well history is a circle, and I suspect the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 will likely go down in history as the "The First Future War". 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

 

Double.

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by The_Capt

[rocketman]

31 minutes ago, Probus said:

Since we are almost 1000 pages in, I was wondering if a few guys could post some links to previous posts in this thread that are:

• The most important/informative
• The most predictive of what would or did happen
• Those of strategic importance 

I ask because some folks have recently joined us here and may need to do some catching up. 1000 pages is A LOT of catching up to do. Please upvote if this would be useful to you. 

Thanks a bunch!

Probus

Another thing about this, Steve check the forum software so that the page counter can handle three four digit numbers. Would be a shame if the thread crashed due to a Y2K-like bug.

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Grigb said:

Everything is according to the plan from civilian "Girkin" (Nesmyan)

Agriculture prospect

Never thought about this one.  We have similar problems here in the US with over dependence upon a few major suppliers for seed stocks.  Fortunately those suppliers are domestic.

I am FASCINATED by all the unintended consequences of sanctions and disrupted trade.  This is akin to the military experts thinking Russia's military was strong instead of a Paper Tiger.  Economic experts have been saying that Russia's efforts to be more self sufficient would lead to sanctions having a minimal effect.  They apparently bought the Russian propaganda story about how independent it had become since 2014.  Too much focus on one or two high profile successes, like cheese.  They also didn't seem to take into consideration that whatever Russia's successes were, it took many years and dedicated effort of an otherwise functioning economy.  Few experts appear to have taken into consideration how Russia would be able to respond to an across the board severing of trade ties all at once while also being cut off from international financial systems.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Grigb said:

There are still X-22 missiles. But due to the specifics of their launches at "non-standard" targets [originally X-22 is Naval missile], they will inevitably lead to incidents similar to the Kremenchug one. And you need to understand that the fighting in this case is moving to the practice of the Second World War, when the selectivity of bombing was among the least important tasks that the war opponents were thinking about.

The above is from Girkin.  The most interesting thing about all these Girkin reports and missives is that they are largely factually correct.  It is clear that his disdain for propagandizing cheerleaders is quite real and deeply rooted in his psyche.  In the example above he voluntarily points to the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians as being a) caused by Russia and b) the result of using poor quality weaponry.  The propagandizing nationalists would not admit to either.

I have to say that Girkin is one of the most interesting "actors" in this entire 2014-2022 war.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Grigb said:

Interesting development. Yesterday Chairman of the Donetsk Supreme Council Pushilin published decree creating commission for approval of humanitarian goods. Only licensed companies will be able to import such goods after submitting formal requests for approval. Trick is that in LDNR drones, personal armor, medical supplies, comms and so on are counted as humanitarian goods.

Basically, Putin is putting uncontrolled volunteer non kinetic war supplies under official RU control. In RU it usually means those who are not loyal to RU officials will be cut off from supplies. But there are no any un loyal volunteers anymore. They were dealt with already. There are only those who are displeased with Putin "softer" approach to UKR (Tyra and Azov exchange scandals).

Not only Putin forcing nat propagandists to use softer rhetoric toward UKR, he is also preparing to pull the war supply plug from hardcore LDNR.  

This is a very interesting "tea leaf" for our reading the future!

There is another possible reason for the new restrictions... Putin recognizes these things are in decreasing availability to Russia on the whole, so he might want to have controls in place to divert remaining supplies to Russian military forces at the expense of DLPR forces.

Steve

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I am FASCINATED by all the unintended consequences of sanctions and disrupted trade.

I gotta be honest, I am not sure how much was "unintended".  Economic is a dark art and, like military affairs, what the public actually know is not anywhere near how it actually works.  Most people see sanctions as "not giving them money = hurts bottom line = coercive pressure".  Which makes perfect sense from a "you or I" personal finances position; however, is not really how modern economies work - caveat: this is not my field, so follow up anything I say.

Nor do I think Putin and his crew understand it either, as they stuffed a whole bunch of rubles in the mattress before this thing, thinking they could weather the storm.

This is not "taking money away" as much as it is "decoupling globalization" and I suspect there are folks that know exactly what this is and can do.  As I understand it, globalization creates enormous pressure to further integrate economic systems in order to remain competitive.  Autocratic nations always try to be more independent so that when they "do naughty" they are harder to coerce.  This might work for a small African dictator but a major global economy cannot exist in the modern world in isolation, and remain a major global economy. 

We have been seeing the damage decoupling is causing already, for example the hi-tech industry in Russia is tanking - and before this war it was a emerging light.  I suspect there is a lesson here with respect to China, but I am not entirely sure what it is yet. 

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I gotta be honest, I am not sure how much was "unintended". 

Quite right.  I should have said "unanticipated".  I doubt anybody in the West was thinking about the hundreds if not thousands of things that would go wrong for Russia on a case by case basis.  Instead, they simply shut everything down and now we're finding out what Russia's economic weaknesses really are.  For sure in February I never thought "wow, this is really going to impact Russia's seed supply!"  Instead I simply thought "wow, this is going to wreck Russia's economy".

 

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Nor do I think Putin and his crew understand it either, as they stuffed a whole bunch of rubles in the mattress before this thing, thinking they could weather the storm.

Absolutely, though there are three different reasons for it.

First, it is clear that Putin never expected the near total isolation of the Russian economy.  Instead, he thought he'd have Ukraine under his thumb within a week or two and the West, in particular Germany and France, would not want to do much about it.  Just like 2008 and 2014.  He apparently ignored the direct signals from the West that this time was going to be different and either didn't have or ignored information gathered through Russian intel.

Second, Putin made the decision to invade without consulting pretty much anybody.  There was no time for various branches of the government to do an assessment of "worst case scenario" and properly inform Putin of Russia's vulnerabilities. 

Third, it appears the Russian government's ability to communicate with itself competently and honestly is just about zero.  Covering up for corruption and incompetency are bad enough, but fearing telling the Boss what he doesn't want to hear pretty much closes the door on properly informed decision making.

In other words, Putin didn't seek advice, he didn't want to consider anything other than fantasy best case military outcome, no realistic consideration was given to worst case sanctions, his toadies didn't want to tell him things he didn't want to hear, ass covering for corruption and incompetency colored whatever information was passed around, and so on.

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This is not "taking money away" as much as it is "decoupling globalization" and I suspect there are folks that know exactly what this is and can do.  As I understand it, globalization creates enormous pressure to further integrate economic systems in order to remain competitive.  Autocratic nations always try to be more independent so that when they "do naughty" they are harder to coerce.  This might work for a small African dictator but a major global economy cannot exist in the modern world in isolation, and remain a major global economy.

Globalization allows a country that is lacking something to gain access to it quickly, cheaply, and without the need for supporting systems.  This benefits both the provider and the receiver of whatever it is.  For all its faults and downsides, it works extremely well and GENERALLY provides all involved some amount of short term net gain.  Which is why Russia bought into globalization instead of trying to be self sufficient.

This gets back to Putin's "social contract" with the Russian people.  The gist of it is the Russian people give up certain personal freedoms and expectations in exchange for an increasing standard of living.  There is no way that Putin could have lived up to his side of the agreement without globalization, which is why the West thought Russia was going to become more peaceful instead of less.

The flaw in this arrangement is that globalization can only do so much for an economy.  At some point the purchasing power of the individual tops out because there aren't enough high wage job opportunities due to outsourcing too much.  Corruption, incompetence, and a lack of accountability makes it even worse, but even with good governance it's only a matter of time before things go sideways.  The Western economies are experiencing these sorts of problems in various sectors.  Plus, the vulnerability to disruption exists for all participants in the global economy, regardless of intentions.  COVID disruptions continue to prove this.

Soooooo... if Russia was going to go the self-sufficient route, it would have had to start on it decades ago and come up with an entirely different method for keeping the Russian people from demanding better government.  Because the social contract that Putin did with the Russian people could only work with globalization as a central part of it.  Which is why the social contract being broken by Putin is increasingly obvious to the Russian people.

Steve