How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[poesel]

12 hours ago, acrashb said:

So, like the Golgafrinchans you think that, say, hairdressers ('salons') and telephone sanitizers aren't needed?  How did that work out for the Golgafrinchans?

Well, _we_ are the Golgafrinchams.

Automation: the fear that automation will take away jobs is as old as automation itself. The word 'sabotage' stems from the wooden shoes ('sabot') of french weavers. They threw them into the mechanical looms in protest.
What automation does is shift jobs from one group of persons to another, and usually creating more jobs than before. That is bad for the first group, but a net positive effect for the economy.

[Grigb]

Girking continues to rant. Nothing interesting except:

• There is ongoing cross border shelling in Kursk region (Tetkino and Dronovka villages)
• Football club Zenit offered 14 million euros for a Hungarian football player

[Haiduk]

Kraken detachment raid in Bilohorivka village 12th or 13th of July, Luhansk oblast. The same village on Siverskyi Donets, which became mass grave after Russian river crossing - there is other Bilohorivka on the road Bakhmut - Lysychansk.

According to this video Kraken claimed they engaged elements of 24th Spetsnaz brigade. They captured two Russians (thoug, red tapes on one fighter likely shows he belongs to LPR). Also one fighter of Kraken was injured

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Haiduk

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Panserjeger said:

Interesting views from a RUSI analyst about the Air War:

Here is the RUSI report that is mentioned at the end of the video:

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/ukraine-war-paving-road-survival-victory

The actual RUSI report is so good I am citing it twice (have not watched the video):

“This report has sought to outline Ukraine’s foremost tactical requirements if it is to be able to retake the ground lost to Russia and thereby achieve the operational defeat of the Russian Army. First, Ukraine must suppress Russia’s artillery advantage by destroying the logistical enablement of Russia’s massed fires. Second, Ukraine must employ its own fires to prevent Russia concentrating to achieve positive force ratios. Third, the Ukrainian military must be able to strike Russia’s EW architecture to enable the kill chains to win the fire fight. Fourth, this should enable Ukrainian offensive ground manoeuvre, but will require large-scale training in infantry skills, support to Ukrainian brigade and divisional planning, and the provision of protected mobility. Finally, Ukrainian training bases, critical national infrastructure and population centres need greater protection from Russian long-range precision strikes, which demands the provision of support in tracking cruise missiles and point defences.”

I fully concur with almost all of this and this is one of the first “ground truth based” analysis I have seen - but remember, validate.  My one caution is on the push to create western based mass as the solution to offence at scale.  The reports on RA success with small “storm groups”; however this does not fully translate as RA rate of advance has been abysmal.  If the UA can establish pre-conditions then old school combined arms mass may work, but a central problem remains unsolved: how do you hide/protect it long enough for it to do the job?  UA mech and armor will be just as visible as RA’s, and the study already notes that the UA cannot mass due to Russian artillery.  Massing a UA combined arms formation will be highly visible and make it a target for RA deep strike - it is a western biased solution, which we have assumed will work…and I am not so sure.

I am still thinking that an up scaling of dispersed infantry in a hybrid warfare fashion, supported by precision fires, effective C-EW and ISR/TA superiority- “fog eating snow”, may be a better solution; however it also comes with the limitations on speed - how does one upscale this at speed?  I am not sure; however, unless the UA can really establish air, fires, EW and info dominance, massive a western-looking combined arms formation could end very badly; as it has very just about every Russian attempt at it.

That said everything else in this report is right on point.  Note the beginnings of the pressure to move to fully autonomous unmanned systems on page 11.

[Huba]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I fully concur with almost all of this and this is one of the first “ground truth based” analysis I have seen - but remember, validate.  My one caution is on the push to create western based mass as the solution to offence at scale.  The reports on RA success with small “storm groups”; however this does not fully translate as RA rate of advance has been abysmal.  If the UA can establish pre-conditions then old school combined arms mass may work, but a central problem remains unsolved: how do you hide/protect it long enough for it to do the job?  UA mech and armor will be just as visible as RA’s, and the study already notes that the UA cannot mass due to Russian artillery.  Massing a UA combined arms formation will be highly visible and make it a target for RA deep strike - it is a western biased solution, which we have assumed will work…and I am not so sure.

If other pre-conditions listed there are met (especially countering RU EW), then perhaps mass use of PGMs in counterbattery fire could neutralize Russian artillery to the point of it being impotent? If this can be achieved or not is an open question of course, as you mentioned previously, but IMO it is the only probable way at the moment. 

Edit: according to ISW Russians are about to end the operational pause already. Perhaps soon we'll see how their artillery does against UA, now when they have the GMLRS and substantial quantities of guided 155. It might give us some idea about how things will look in the future.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Huba

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, Huba said:

If other pre-conditions listed there are met (especially countering RU EW), then perhaps mass use of PGMs in counterbattery fire could neutralize Russian artillery to the point of it being impotent? If this can be achieved or not is an open question of course, as you mentioned previously, but IMO it is the only probable way at the moment. 

It might but it won’t solve for Russian missile systems/deep strike which can hit UA logistics chains if they mass up…unless one hits them as well but now we are talking subs in the Black Sea.

The report only glances off space based ISR and communications but it impacts are pretty significant.  Even Russia has “intermittent” spaced based ISR in play.

[Grigb]

Well, it seems I managed somehow to replace my post about Khodakovsky interview with double post of Murz/Girkin rant

So, I read yesterday interview of Khodakovsky [LDNR Vostok commander]. It was not as interesting as I hoped except for one paragraph. Khodakovsky said that UKR are provoking RU into firing then hit it hard. It looks like he was implying that UKR were hitting RU arty. He explicitly stated UKR arty recon is excellent and response time (implying CB) is instant.

Looks like UKR recently got enough tubes, shells and CB equipment to start CB battle. The HIMARSing we saw might be the first phase of CB battle and not the prelude for the new offensive.   Given that CB battle is fought before any offensive then we might need to be patient for couple of weeks. 

[Huba]

23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

It might but it won’t solve for Russian missile systems/deep strike which can hit UA logistics chains if they mass up…unless one hits them as well but now we are talking subs in the Black Sea.

That's a fair point. It will take some time before UA takes to the offensive though, and I assume vast improvement in it's A2A capabilities would be a decisive pre-condition. And for a defensive artillery battle, the great thing about PGMs is that is cuts the volume of materiel to move by an order of magnitude (or two). Really hard to interdict that, compared to trainloads of dumb shells/ rockets.

Edit: Haidai commented on the effects of HIMARSing the ammo dumps. Seems that RU indeed moved railheads far away and are moving ammo by truck straight to the recipients:

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

BTW, for our RU friends

 

And what RU high Command said

Quote

I asked MO [D] where they hit in Vinnitsa. Answer: 'To the Officers' House, there was a temporary accommodation point for the Nazis.'

And the photo was sent.

I publish it as sent.

They do not have any targeting info what's inside. They are shooting blindly.

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

What automation does is shift jobs from one group of persons to another, and usually creating more jobs than before. That is bad for the first group, but a net positive effect for the economy.

IMHO that is a common misconception. We are look at the first industrial revolutions that happend so far and extrapolate that it will always be so.

But the taxi driver who will be replaced by autonomous vehicles will not do AI development. And it is not 10 jobs in AI development for 10 jobs taxi driver jobs because an AI developer is more expensive than a taxi driver. Plus, and that is the real issue here: Average human intelligence is limited. While the average human can drive a taxi, the average human is not able to develope complex machines. This is something that is not widely discussed because it means admitting that not all humans have the some chances and abilites and hard work goes only so far. AI means a total paradigm shift because contrary to whats happened in the past, it will even increasingly replace jobs that require higher educaction. Even now AI is able to do (very, very basic) programming - wait another 20 years and even jobs in software development will vanish.

With increasing capabilites of machines it will then be what is cheaper, human or machine? There will be jobs but with lower and lower wages. And this is what we see already now: In many industrialized countries unemployment itself is not that high but there are lots of people who work all day but can hardly make a living from that.

 

 

[Haiduk]

At the dawn next Russian ammo dump was HIMARSed in Skarhivka, Luhansk oblast (27 km north from Siverodonetsk). Locals write at 3:20 they heard BOOM and about 30 minutes of intensive detonations, then level of explosions became low, but they was lasting until 7:00 of morning

 

[theFrizz]

12 hours ago, Artkin said:

With that, I am finished.

Fabulous news 

[Haiduk]

15 hours ago, danfrodo said:

well, now that we are done w whatever the F all that was....

Seems nothing new out of Kerson region other than UKR hitting some more ammo dumps.  I still wonder whether this is will be a feint offensive or the real deal.  RU seems to be treating it seriously enough, which may be the whole point.  With the Slovyansk front now straightened, UKR arty can use its longer reach to punch RU assets.  In the salient UKR had to put arty in relative danger due to the 3-sided RU front.

RU has satellites, so I suppose it'd be impossible for UKR to really mass troops w/o RU knowing it.  So how does one pull off an offensive other than methods championed earlier by Steve -- infiltrate, disrupt, then strike w small armored teams, consolidate, repeat.

Kherson area two days ago - FIRMS layer on Deepstate map. Dark Red dots - fires within last 6 hours.  

Yes, Russians have satellites, but they can't monitor situation real-time.  There it's need a time to recognize satellite shot, to asses the threat, to develop some counter-measures, to send orders down. etc. Also Russian military machine is very slow-reacting. But anyway, don't expect large offensive in WWII style. At least to the mid of Autumn, when lend-lease will work, when we will saturate our troops with armored vehicles, artillery, when more trained and re-trained units can be moved to frontline. Until this you will hard positional withstanding, artillery shellings, counter-battery fire, strikes on enemy ammo depots and command centers - all this, which allow to grind as much enemy as possible, to reduce their artilelry potential and to harden logistic. On the background of this will be possible some tactical offensive actions, which if successful can develop in "semi-operative". But until the Autumn - only all "infiltrate, disrupt, strike with small armord forces, consolidarte, repeat". I would be add before "infiltrate" the word "hammered with artillery".   

Edited July 16, 2022 by Haiduk

[Bulletpoint]

Is the war in Ukraine basically a climate change war?

In case you're now rolling your eyes and letting out a groan because you are fed up with hearing about climate change, I get it. But I think there's actually an argument to be made here:

1: Russia's economy is massively built upon revenue from oil and gas.

2: Fossil fuels are now rapidly being phased out due to climate policies. Electric vehicles are booming in many countries and the demand for oil is therefore set to decrease.

3: The world's population is still growing, and it's becoming harder to produce food due to more chaotic weather patterns. So while demand is increasing, supply is set to fall. This will make food production a more important resource in the future.

4: Ukraine is a huge food producer.

Therefore, if we look at it from a purely cynical perspective, and if we assume Putin cares about Russia's future greatness, I think it makes rational sense to try to seize Ukraine.

I'm not saying climate change is the only reason for the war, but I think it might be one of the most important ones.

 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

At the dawn next Russian ammo dump was HIMARSed in Skarhivka, Luhansk oblast (27 km north from Siverodonetsk). Locals write at 3:20 they heard BOOM and about 30 minutes of intensive detonations, then level of explosions became low, but they was lasting until 7:00 of morning

 

That must be a very satisfying job, those HIMARS-boys are having. 

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

At least to the mid of Autumn, when lend-lease will work, when we will saturate our troops with armored vehicles, artillery, when more trained and re-trained units can be moved to frontline.

Well a key indicator in the direction of this war will be when either side is capable of operational manoeuvre.  The constraints and restraints on massing appear to have increased dramatically in this war; we are even seeing the risks of Russian massing of fires on their logistical system in the last two weeks.

Once one side can establish the pre-conditions for manoeuvre, which is a steep hill, the next problem will be sustaining it.  There was no breakthrough in WW1, will be interesting to see if one can happen here.

[Grigb]

Well, Terminator appeared. But date unknown

 

 

[Haiduk]

Interesting news of local Russian media - 100 cossacks reinforced volunteer cossack detachment Kuban', operating in Ukraine. Knowingly, that Kuban' went to front on 4th of May in the strenghth of 400 cossacks. And in at the end of artilcle information issued that 52 cossacks already lost and 200 wounded. There is unknown either this information about Kuban' or about all cossack volunteers, participating in operations.

At the end of May there was knowingly about four cossacks volunteer detachments (400-500 men each):

- Don (formed on the base of 21st MRB and having BMP-2M). Since April were involved on right flank of Izium axis

- Kuban' -  since 12 of May were deployed in Zaporizhzhia oblast, then moved to Lysychansk direction

- Tavrida - since 24th of April were on Donbas

- Yermak - since 15th of MAy were in Luhansk oblast.

Since the mid of June Don-2 detachment began to form.

And here is typical personnel of cossack units - some of them returned for rest to Samara

In addition about volunteer units, which substitute real mobilization

So called "BARS" battalions, formed from retired servicemen of Soviet and Russian army (BAttalion of ReServists), as well as from veterans of war on Donbas - in present time there is knmowingly abot at least 20 such battalions, which have names BARS-xx, so last known unit has #20. According to some information sucj battlioins already 40, but probably rest 20 are forming now. From theese 20 battalions three formed by SDD (Donbas Volunteers Union), rest - under control of MoD. SDD battalions have own names - Oryol (Bars-9), Ryurik (Bars-13), Grom (Bars-20)

On the photo - chevron of BARS-12 battalion.

Also looks like each Russian region have to form own battalion. Mostly this is autonomous repuplics, like Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Northern Osetia etc, but theese battlions were formed and in some "pure Russian" oblasts. Some republics like Tatarstan already formed two battalions, so we have estimate +85 battalions more in the strength about 450 men each. But more realistic maybe the number 50 battalions. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Haiduk

[Grigb]

Tried to listen interview with this guy:

Mikhail Delyagin
Deputy of the State Duma
State Duma Committee on Economic Policy (Deputy Chairman of the Committee)

Well, I endured 10 minutes. The end game of these guys is very simple - this fall Europe and US will plunge into deep catastrophic crisis. Europe will have deep energy crisis (will be frozen) + waves of immigrants (due to lack of food) will destroy it. In US Republicans are going to win November elections and will impeach Biden and Kamala. So, democrats are going to "explode" US in deep political crisis - no HIMARS for Ukraine [HIMARS got under RU skin]. And RU will suffer mild economic crisis but nothing more. 

Basically, they want to stay in the fight until fall when Europe and US collapse. Sorry, no further details - enough RU madness for today. 

[poesel]

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

But the taxi driver who will be replaced by autonomous vehicles will not do AI development. And it is not 10 jobs in AI development for 10 jobs taxi driver jobs because an AI developer is more expensive than a taxi driver.

That's what I said: the new jobs won't be done by the same persons as the old jobs. Coal miners won't be making solar cells.
But automation makes stuff cheaper, and that creates demand. Bottom line is that you make more stuff, which need more people to make/transport/sell/service that stuff.

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

 This is something that is not widely discussed because it means admitting that not all humans have the some chances and abilites and hard work goes only so far.

That is true with or without KI or automation. But that discussion would be really off-topic.

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

AI means a total paradigm shift because contrary to whats happened in the past, it will even increasingly replace jobs that require higher educaction. Even now AI is able to do (very, very basic) programming - wait another 20 years and even jobs in software development will vanish.

Now we come to something that is pertinent to this war. The current state of 'AI' has nothing to do with intelligence as we understand it. What AI is, is really, really good at pattern matching. And with 'really, really' I mean really magically good.

'Pattern matching' answers questions like 'is there a tank on this picture?'
I expect that a lot of more things to have video cameras, and those things will be comparatively small. The AI part will be able to identify well camouflaged units and be able to act accordingly (send information or actively fight). The time for analyzing the battlefield will be dramatically lower than anything before. I wouldn't be surprised if those systems already exist, and we just haven't seen them yet.

Should computers ever really be intelligent, it will either be Skynet or paradise. But that will be after we have working fusion.

About AI replacing programmers: here's a tweet that explains everything

 

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Is the war in Ukraine basically a climate change war?

...

I'm not saying climate change is the only reason for the war, but I think it might be one of the most important ones.

If anything at all, this war has massively sped up the move away from fossil fuels. If that was Putins plan right from the start, he has succeeded. Like his plan to enlarge NATO.

[Huba]

Giving in to one murderous dictator to fight another  No other way, and overall a very positive development for our economies. I really hope we'll do away with fossil fuels as soon as possible...

[Billy Ringo]

I'd bet the house that Putin doesn't give a damn about global warming.  He might have paid it lip service at some point, but global warming is about 1,342nd on his priority list.  And he's still trying to fix 1-17.

 

 

[Harmon Rabb]

Can anyone confirm if this is the individual who launched the attack that killed the little girl in Vinnytsia? I ask because when I hear the name Anton Gerashchenko I become a little suspicious, because as @Haiduk pointed out what he says is not always accurate. 

 

[dan/california]

15 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Can anyone confirm if this is the individual who launched the attack that killed the little girl in Vinnytsia? I ask because when I hear the name Anton Gerashchenko I become a little suspicious, because as @Haiduk pointed out what he says is not always accurate. 

 

Every Russian ship and Submarine in the Black sea has launched attacks against civilians for months. All of the officers of all of them should be on a very special list. That list should be actively pursued until the Sun burns out.

[Calamine Waffles]

6 hours ago, Grigb said:

BTW, for our RU friends

And what RU high Command said

They do not have any targeting info what's inside. They are shooting blindly.

This has been observed by people who watch the Syrian War. The Russians basically have no idea what is going on past 30-40 km behind the FEBA.