How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Aragorn2002]

23 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Either those fellers can't spell or they are talking funny.  

who is it and what did they say?  

Well, this guy says that Poland tried to get Leo2 tanks for their old T-72s, but their gamble didn't work out. And that the EU pays for all this, not Poland. And I fully agree with that. Just another example of Polish blackmail and more proof that they always and only have their own interest at heart. This doesn't bode well for the future of the EU, mark my words.

Does anybody know how much tanks Germany can produce in a month?

Edited July 19, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[sburke]

5 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Well, this guy says that Poland tried to get Leo2 tanks for their old T-72s, but their gamble didn't work out. And that the EU pays for all this, not Poland. And I fully agree with that. Just another example of Polish blackmail and more prove that they always and only have their own interest at heart. This doesn't bode well for the future of the EU, mark my words.

Does anybody know how much tanks Germany can produce in a month?

Considering Poland is pretty much on the frontline now, I don't think it is that bad a deal.  No different than the US supporting Germany when it was the frontline.  it would seem to behoove all European security to make sure Russia isn't going to come through Poland.  The Germans certainly haven't made the best effort to keep up their military.

[Letter from Prague]

Have we seen this new complete insanity yet?

Russia Says It’s Losing Because Ukraine Has Experimental Mutant Troops Created in Secret Biolabs

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-says-losing-because-ukraine-104546288.html

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

The US system is designed to be fractious, and it is; party discipline is completely different, for example, than in Westminster-based systems.  The 18 'no' votes don't constitute meaningful dissent nor can they be spun that way - it's business as usual.

Yup.  It's throughout the US political system.  In my town a certain group of people vote against receiving money that is owed to the municipality from State and Federal sources.  EVERY SINGLE YEAR!  That is because they go into the voting booth and check the NO box on every single item.  Nobody takes them seriously because they aren't serious.

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

18 minutes ago, sburke said:

Considering Poland is pretty much on the frontline now, I don't think it is that bad a deal.  No different than the US supporting Germany when it was the frontline.  it would seem to behoove all European security to make sure Russia isn't going to come through Poland.  The Germans certainly haven't made the best effort to keep up their military.

We can all agree on that, but not only Germany made that mistake. Every German tank that gets produced will help to defend Poland, whether delivered to German or Polish armed forces. Poland has a lot more tanks at the moment than Germany, so it's understandable the German army gets priority. 

Besides the thought of Russia attacking Poland is ridiculous. They simply haven't got the means. Warsaw simply is trying to take advantage of the situation. As usual.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Taranis]

Six Caesar guns, promised by Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine, are on their way
Six additional Caesar guns, the flagship of French artillery, are "en route" to Ukraine, said Tuesday the head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna. Twelve Caesar guns have "already been delivered" and "the other six are on the way", she announced to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Committee in Paris. She did not specify the expected date of arrival on Ukrainian soil of this reinforcement which had been announced by Emmanuel Macron on June 16 during his visit to kyiv.

Source : Le Monde

[Harmon Rabb]

 

17 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Have we seen this new complete insanity yet?

Russia Says It’s Losing Because Ukraine Has Experimental Mutant Troops Created in Secret Biolabs

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-says-losing-because-ukraine-104546288.html

 

I have an exclusive image showcasing one of the new Ukrainian Biolab™ created super soldiers.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[danfrodo]

1 minute ago, Taranis said:

Six Caesar guns, promised by Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine, are on their way
Six additional Caesar guns, the flagship of French artillery, are "en route" to Ukraine, said Tuesday the head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna. Twelve Caesar guns have "already been delivered" and "the other six are on the way", she announced to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Committee in Paris. She did not specify the expected date of arrival on Ukrainian soil of this reinforcement which had been announced by Emmanuel Macron on June 16 during his visit to kyiv.

Source : Le Monde

So overall lots of good news for UKR.  More Caesars.  More T-72s.  And maybe long range missiles.  

I get that Kherson is the focus right now, but I wonder how long they want Kharkiv to be in howitzer range.  Maybe that will be hot sometime soon also. 

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Grigb said:

Does he understand that it will immediately ignite Civil War? I think yes - he is not stupid. But he (and majority of RU Nats) believe they will be able to murder enough people to force RU population into total submission.

That is my take on it.  As part of his recommendations he is clearly advocating murdering any Russian citizen that disagrees with his plan.  If that is not begging for a civil war, I don't know what is.

The first part of his plan is quite sensible, even if unrealistic.  The rest of it is standard totalitarian crap, complete with genocide.

This is one quote of his that I find particularly humorous:

Quote

Liberate and denazify the whole of Little Russia at least to the "Curzon Line". In advance (right now) to create a controlled government of Ukraine-Little Russia on the liberated territory, recognize it as the only legitimate government in Ukraine, conclude agreements on military assistance with it and (immediately) begin the process of legal registration of the entry of Little Russia-Ukraine into the Union State with an eye to the subsequent (after the "quarantine period of denazification") reunification with Russia. Accordingly, by this act to deny the Kiev junta any legitimacy.

I've been thinking that if Russia tries to annex the occupied regions that Ukraine should run a parallel campaign at the same time to annex Russian territory previously part of the old Kievan-Rus state.  Just take whatever language Russia comes up with and swap out proper nouns.  I am a big proponent of State Sponsored Sarcasm

Steve

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, Lethaface said:

On holidays so no time to watch the video, but it is my understanding that after the lost battle of Jena the Prussian army performed an analysis of what went wrong. Conclusion was that traditional planning and control were simply not realistic as high command was basically trying to manage a war based on info that was already outdated before it reached them. The battlefield was chaos and trying to control it in detail from higher up didn't make stuff any better or probably rather worse.

Later on von Moltke developed the concept (and afaik coined the phrase 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy') mainly as a better way to deal with the chaos and other challenves large scale modern war brought.

 

Well it was a matter of time until someone brought this up.  Watching the video now and it kinda sounds like an academic semantics argument up to the 1 hour mark.  I really like the link back to the 19th century and colonial wars but did not hear the most interesting leap.  Auftragstaktik, as a concept as we envision it...no matter where it came from has a very long history in "the way of war of the savages".

If one studies pre-history warfare, indigenous warfare and/or war amongst horse borne tribes from the steppes to the American West, "mission command" was simply an extension of a way of life.  Warrior based culture did not have hierarchical chains of command we see in modern militaries.  For example, in the Comanche culture a war leader was followed only as long as he was winning, often by extended family members.  There was no legal constraints nor punishment for leaving a war party; there were for cowardice in battle, but this was a cultural stigma as opposed to a formal legal mechanism.

In Europe, Central Asia and the Far East as armies got bigger the ability to move and fight larger formations required a whole system of command, control and training - we invented "formation" so that mass human power could be marshalled, sustained and directed. To do this we had to remove human agency from those standing "on the line".  Tales of 19th century officer standing tall as cannon balls flew at their heads is a poignant example of the power of formation and conformity.  This system worked great for phalanx, pikes, muskets and rifles - mission command was relegated to the cavalry as an enabler arm for the most part.  And when cavalry was decisive it had to mass up old school regardless and take the guns to the front.

Then we ran head long into massed firepower and the whole thing came apart.  Mass was just a quick road to "mass death", as was proven repeatedly on the Western Front.  In WW2 we invented armor and mech and suddenly the main thrust of warfare could move, quickly.  So Mission Command, or at least the original idea was designed to build on this new ability to move and allow for initiative and agency in a hybrid modern military form.  I like to think we got the idea from the colonial wars of the 19th century and its philosophical influence on a generation of officers in the late 19th century. 

And then it got political.

My hypothesis is that modern "Mission Command" as a cornerstone of Manoeuvre Warfare a la Cold War was more sales job than actual military doctrine.  The idea is still seen in modern doctrine where Manoeuvre Warfare - empowered by Mission Command - allow friendly forces to exercise initiative [aside: it also plays well as an extension of 'democracy' but isn't] to go along with all that new found mobility.  This combination means much smaller (and affordable) forces can dance around and through much larger ones to create effect.  This whole thing built up into AirLand Battle as an idea; however, remained largely untested.  It did however become a cult as the entire west, following the US, bought into the uni-polar philosophy of Mission Command and Manoeuvre as how we will defeat a larger, dumber and more command constipated opponent.

As I said...where was the proof?  We got hints of it in the Arab-Israeli war, Gulf War and '03 but these were not definitive, particularly the last two as mass airpower appeared to play as much, or more a role than the land doctrines.  Then we had all sorts of COIN/interventions where nothing worked, Mission or Detail Command did about as much as air supremacy in Afghanistan.  The Taliban employed it far better and more than we did but it worked for an insurgency likely because of its root in tribal based warfare to start with.

And now we have this war, and why so many are watching so closely.  Is Mission Command delivering?  Is Manoeuvre War delivering?  What are the trends and where do thing seem to be going?  My guess today is "its complicated".  There are definitely signs the UA is employing a form of this to effect, we saw this in Phase I; however, there are also signs that on the digital battlefield higher may know more than lower due to modern ISR and as such Detail Command may be back on the rise.  Attrition warfare is clearly not going anywhere, so fast cheap and easy wars may have been a mirage all along.

So what?  Well what we do not know about warfare as a result of what we are seeing in Ukraine is growing, not shrinking.  I do not know if Mission Command and Manoeuvre Warfare will survive as concepts - we will definitely hold onto them tightly as we have invested a lot into them.  My sense is that something else is emerging from this war that we can only see peeks, shades and outlines of based on events so far.

[G.I. Joe]

1 hour ago, Letter from Prague said:

Have we seen this new complete insanity yet?

Russia Says It’s Losing Because Ukraine Has Experimental Mutant Troops Created in Secret Biolabs

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-says-losing-because-ukraine-104546288.html

 

Insanity indeed... Doubly hilarious for fans of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, because it seriously sounds like they cribbed it straight off of the Final War on Old Earth in the Honorverse backstory.

[Battlefront.com]

23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

If one studies pre-history warfare, indigenous warfare and/or war amongst horse borne tribes from the steppes to the American West, "mission command" was simply an extension of a way of life.  Warrior based culture did not have hierarchical chains of command we see in modern militaries.  For example, in the Comanche culture a war leader was followed only as long as he was winning, often by extended family members.  There was no legal constraints nor punishment for leaving a war party; there were for cowardice in battle, but this was a cultural stigma as opposed to a formal legal mechanism.

Funny enough, I'm re-reading a sci-fi book from the 1990s where Earth comes into contact with an alien civilization that is inherently adverse (and bad at) warfare, despite fighting a war for thousands of years.  One of the many aspects they struggled to understand about Humans was its hierarchical military command structure.  In their culture it made no sense at all.  When they saw how Humans applied it in warfare they had an ah-ha! moment and determined the lack of parallel and "artificial" command structures was likely partly responsible for their own suboptimal combat results.

It got me thinking how natural this concept is to those of us who study and/or work in/with Western based traditional corporations, law enforcement, military, large government, or similar.  Every person has a place and that place is inherently irrespective of things outside of that particular sphere.  For example, a 60 year old worker with 5 years experience working for a 30 year old with 10 years experience.  Yet outside the work environment that 30 year old might respect and even revere the 60 year old's wisdom and life achievements.  In traditional societies they are all kinda mushed into one concept.

Anyhoo, it's an interesting thing that I hadn't thought much about in a long time.  I very take it for granted.  And with that, my wife is telling me it's time for lunch.  Because I understand the command structure, I'm off for some lunch

Steve

[danfrodo]

11 minutes ago, G.I. Joe said:

Insanity indeed... Doubly hilarious for fans of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, because it seriously sounds like they cribbed it straight off of the Final War on Old Earth in the Honorverse backstory.

Folks have recommended that series to me, but I just can't get past the telepathic cat that's mentioned in the description.

How can people watch RU propaganda and not figure out that it's insane?  It makes alex jones look like sane.

[Huba]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Well, this guy says that Poland tried to get Leo2 tanks for their old T-72s, but their gamble didn't work out. And that the EU pays for all this, not Poland. And I fully agree with that. Just another example of Polish blackmail and more proof that they always and only have their own interest at heart. This doesn't bode well for the future of the EU, mark my words.

Does anybody know how much tanks Germany can produce in a month?

Oh please. Like it was about money for Poland. We bought 250 brand new M1s from US  instead. And got 116 used  "for free" - only that many, cause we can't afford to maintain more, they are just too expensive to run. US is still making a killing on that deal. The problem with DE proposal was that it was just a homeopathic amount, and way too late. 

What I was hinting at was that DE has hardly anything to offer regarding heavy land forces equipment, both due to not maintaining any reserves, and not having meaningful production capacity anymore, and can't be a serious partner in the defence business in anything but total peace conditions. 

And as I said, it's not about bashing, it is just that the state of affairs that was bared by the war in UA is not only sad, it is outright scary. To the point that Poland has to review it's security arrangements and give up on it's biggest partner in armor, cause he's just not up to the task. IMO  it calls for a certain amount of outrage on our part. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Huba

[Taranis]

"Russian forces have partially captured Pokrovske village near Bakhmut"

 

[Harmon Rabb]

Putin meeting Khamenei in Iran.

Just aesthetically speaking what a strange photograph. 

[Der Zeitgeist]

23 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Putin meeting Khamenei in Iran.

Just aesthetically speaking what a strange photograph. 

Just like in Lord of the Rings, how they filmed Gandalf and Bilbo with these forced perspective tricks. 

[akd]

Orkfall:

Second owngoal for Russian AD in as many days.

Edited July 19, 2022 by akd

[womble]

is this evidence that Putin doesn't feel he's under threat of a "coup"? A few drones certainly aren't worth the risk of leaving the country if he did.

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Well what we do not know about warfare as a result of what we are seeing in Ukraine is growing, not shrinking.  I do not know if Mission Command and Manoeuvre Warfare will survive as concepts - we will definitely hold onto them tightly as we have invested a lot into them.  My sense is that something else is emerging from this war that we can only see peeks, shades and outlines of based on events so far.

I agree.  What we're seeing with Ukraine is a sorta hybrid between the old Soviet style ridged centralized system and the West's Mission Command concept.  I don't think Ukraine has the balance right yet, nor do I think it will wind up working universally well (I suspect it will fail in COIN just like everything else).  It's interesting to watch it evolve.

The other indicator comes from Russia's insistence on sticking with it's centralized system (not that it has a choice) that is inherently tainted by power politics and fear.  Ukraine's system seems to work very well against Russia's, and Russia's seems to be incapable of adapting to new circumstances.  I strongly suspect that if Ukraine had been 100% NATO certified Mission Command Qualified™ that Russia would still be at a significant disadvantage.

The incident that really hammered this home for me is my favorite river crossing debacle   That was an excellent example of Western style Mission Command with a bit of Ukraine's 8 years of experience seamlessly melded together.   I doubt very much that if the shoes had been on the other feet that Russia would have secured a similar result as Ukraine did.

Steve

[Haiduk]

36 minutes ago, akd said:

Orkfall:

Second owngoal for Russian AD in as many days.

In that time our AD Command claimed this is our SAM work. They wrote enemy Su-35 attcked a pair of our Su-25 in Nova Kakhovka area, but was shot down. Let's see what type this jet was indeed.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Haiduk

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I've been thinking that if Russia tries to annex the occupied regions that Ukraine should run a parallel campaign at the same time to annex Russian territory previously part of the old Kievan-Rus state.  Just take whatever language Russia comes up with and swap out proper nouns.  I am a big proponent of State Sponsored Sarcasm

Steve

UKR has historical grounds to annex heartland of RU. There is a reason why Putin called Grand Prince of Kiev Yaroslav the Wise Russian. To fully understand the extent of the issue, check the location of the historically well-known RU city Yaroslavl that the Prince founded. 

 

[Haiduk]

Result of Sunday strike on pension "Chaika" in Lazurne, Kherson oblast. Pinpoint accuracy - destroyed Russian low-altitude radar 48Ya6K-1 "Podlyot" for S-300/S-400

And how it looked

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Haiduk

[poesel]

Now Reuters reports that gas will flow to Germany after downtime (at 40%):

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-russia-seen-restarting-gas-exports-nord-stream-1-schedule-2022-07-19/

I think that must be Schrödingers gas - you only know when you see it.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, poesel said:

Now Reuters reports that gas will flow to Germany after downtime (at 40%):

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-russia-seen-restarting-gas-exports-nord-stream-1-schedule-2022-07-19/

I think that must be Schrödingers gas - you only know when you see it.

If you were to pick one answer, would you say that people in Germany are more concerned/scared by this situation, or annoyed/ outright furious? 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Huba