How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

27 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Good point as well. i especially agree with the paragraph in bold.  LDNR Volunteers seem stronger because they have a bigger share of fighting alphas. Anyone who came there voluntarily is already above average. 

Yes, and this explains a part of what The_Capt was wondering about in terms of how it is that Russia can keep attacking.

I think it's pretty clear to all of us that the vast bulk of the Russian Armed Forces (gotta include the Naval units!) is not capable of attacking in any meaningful way.  When you think of the volume of Russian forces manning the front compared to its offensive activity, it's a pretty low ratio.  And when there are attacks they are very small scale, uncoordinated, events that quickly fail.  Russia's main efforts have similarly been concentrated along a very small sector of front and even then rather unequal offensive performance has been noted.

What we're seeing is the strategic picture basically mimicking the tactical description I wrote above.  For example, out of 100 BTGs only 10 of them are really capable of attacking while the rest are either fully incapable or have only limited ability to attack.  Why?  Because Russia has a shortage of the type of soldiers necessary to keep more than a small portion of its BTGs offensively capable at any one time.

It seems that Russia has figured this out and is attacking in ways that more-or-less conform to reality.  I think the beginning of the Donbas Easter offensive hammered that home.  Pretty much failure across the board.  Success only began to take shape when Severodonetsk became the singular focus.

Also the "übermensch" cultural attitude fits right in with the machismo mindset.  "I am a superior, brave, feared warrior!  I am not going to look weak in front of my comrades, especially when we're fighting rats."  It's a toxic mix that is getting a lot of people killed.

Steve

[The_Capt]

35 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Because after thinking about what you said I have to admit you are probably right. But that means UKR sucess in Kherson (aka RU collapse and subsequent gesture of goodwill) depends on whether UKR can keep RU defensive there and humiliate them with deep strikes long enough to deprive them of superiority feeling.

Now I would like to go back to your comment regarding the puzzling lack of operational maneuvers in this war. It became too dangerous. But what if maneuvering to enemy rear for him to collapse is not the only option now.? What if we can force it by precise strikes shaping his rear to our needs? 

Why push tanks/IFVs forward to cut LOC and risk losing them if we can wreck his rear? Enemy LOC will be useless if we demolish his warehouses, his vehicle maintenance depots and put all logistical avenues under arty and AT missiles fire. 

What's if an operational deep striking is a new operational maneuver?

Ok, now we are getting somewhere, seriously good stuff.  Valuable insight into RA mindset, I would pin it up on the board and lets see if it flies but we may be on to something here.  I have wondered why the RA is still able to do offensive with shattered and cobbled together units.  Attack is harder than defence - a human being will naturally defend themselves, moving out from safety to attack takes some working up to particularly if you know the opponent is ready.  The "insecure superiority complex" could go a long way to explain some of what we have seen in this war.

Now your last line: "Operational deep strike is a new operational manoeuvre" - I have been wrestling with this from about day 3.  I suspect this is correct; we have seen essentially manoeuvre via projected friction (i.e. firepower) throughout this war.  And here I mean manoeuvre in it purest sense - the ability to find and fix (expose), and hit an opponent's vulnerabilities at a faster tempo than they can deal with, leading to systemic collapse; it is in essence "manoeuvre without manoeuvring" , at least in the traditional sense. This was a principle tenant of AirLand Battle, with airpower doing the deep strike and traditional combined arms doing the manoeuvre - what is weird about this war is that the effects of manoeuvre warfare look like that may happen without the combined arms part.  It is a form of manoeuvre thru attrition.  What has changed here is the level of precision of that deep strike and ISR available to find it.

Taking this with your first part, then theoretically the UA need only deep strike/project friction in order to force the RA into the defensive, and they have effectively attacked an RA morale center of gravity.  Now that is a hypothesis! 

 

[danfrodo]

A good post today on DailyKos.  Sums things up nicely, might be having private side chats w TheCapt and Steve, since they all seem to have the same talking points.  One thing I didn't know was how much progress was being made on the Melitopol front, toward Tokmak, which would sever a critical rail line linking east-west RU stolen landbridge.  And it does seem that Herr Putler is quite wisely reinforcing Kherson. 

"Yes, please, send more to Kherson -- do you have any BMP3s & T90s left?  We love those.  And if you could pull them off the Melitopol axis it would be greatly appreciated.  Also be sure to consolidate your artillery ammo for more efficient distribution.  Yours Truly, V Zalensky  PS: keep it up, you are a super genius.  Victory is in sight!"

LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/21/2111620/-Ukraine-update-Ukraine-s-upcoming-strategy-is-starting-to-take-shape-look-to-the-southeast

[Battlefront.com]

I know that some got a little wigged out by the small group of Republican Representatives in Congress that voted (repeatedly) against supporting Ukraine and/or punishing Russia.  Here's something that is more reflective of the real mood in Congress:

Quote

A group of Democratic and Republican senators on Thursday introduced a resolution recognizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide, a symbolic yet powerful signal of bipartisan support for the U.S. and international community to put an end to the violence and hold perpetrators responsible.

The resolution is led by Sens. Jim Risch (Idaho), the top Republican the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Ben Cardin (Md.), the second-ranking Democrat on the panel. 

“There is no question that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is a genocide,” Risch said in a statement. 

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3568856-senators-introduce-bipartisan-resolution-recognizing-russian-acts-in-ukraine-as-genocide/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

The CIA is saying that Putin is healthy.  What wasn't clarified, though, was whether the CIA would have said the same thing 2 months ago.

I still have no doubts in my mind that something physical was wrong with Putin earlier in the war.  The recent appearance of Putin in Turkey does seem to indicate that whatever was going on with Putin's health in the first months of the war has improved rather dramatically.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3568743-cia-director-dismisses-reports-of-putin-being-in-ill-health/

Steve

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I know that some got a little wigged out by the small group of Republican Representatives in Congress that voted (repeatedly) against supporting Ukraine and/or punishing Russia.  Here's something that is more reflective of the real mood in Congress:

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3568856-senators-introduce-bipartisan-resolution-recognizing-russian-acts-in-ukraine-as-genocide/

Steve

And those gentlemen usually can't agree on what day of the week it is. No clearer indication possible of how Putin has united people against him.

[billbindc]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The CIA is saying that Putin is healthy.  What wasn't clarified, though, was whether the CIA would have said the same thing 2 months ago.

I still have no doubts in my mind that something physical was wrong with Putin earlier in the war.  The recent appearance of Putin in Turkey does seem to indicate that whatever was going on with Putin's health in the first months of the war has improved rather dramatically.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/3568743-cia-director-dismisses-reports-of-putin-being-in-ill-health/

Steve

MI6 head said the same thing at Aspen today. I'd take it tot he bank.

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

And those gentlemen usually can't agree on what day of the week it is. No clearer indication possible of how Putin has united people against him.

Kind of like

 

I hate you, but I hate him worse...

Okay.  I hate you too, but yeah I hate him worse as well.

[Billy Ringo]

Alpha males are usually the first to volunteer.  The first to lead the battle.  And oftentimes the first to die.  We are 5 months into this war.

 

How many alpha males does Russia have left?

Edited July 21, 2022 by Billy Ringo
update

[Letter from Prague]

Speaking of the new "deep strike without airpower".

I wonder how that could be defended against? We spend a lot of time discussing how drones might change everything and how defence against drones would be a necessity. Would the same defences work on something like GMLRS? Would C-RAM stop it? Is there overlap?

And speaking of Ukraine, I'm curious if this is a temporary thing - Russia seemed to be very vulnerable to drones and there was new TB2 video every week, and now those are barely heard of since Russia started to actually apply their air defence. Is there some counter to this newest threat as well and are we looking at short-lived spike or do they have nothing they can field at all?

Intuitively I'd say traditional AD wouldn't work, since Ukraine can probably fire order of magnitude more rockets than Russia has AD missiles - and that might even be true for anyone, if the rockets are way cheaper than the missiles.

[Battlefront.com]

31 minutes ago, billbindc said:

MI6 head said the same thing at Aspen today. I'd take it tot he bank.

I wonder what prompted both to come and say this right now, seemingly out of the blue.  Previously it seemed Western intel was also suspecting health issues.

There was never a consensus on what might have been wrong with Putin to start with.  However, I think we've all seen people we know seemingly go from death's door to apparently fine within a very short period of time.  I know I have.  Therefore, I think that whatever was wrong with Putin has been, at least for the time being, addressed successfully.  Er, successfully for him that is.

Steve

[billbindc]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder what prompted both to come and say this right now, seemingly out of the blue.  Previously it seemed Western intel was also suspecting health issues.

There was never a consensus on what might have been wrong with Putin to start with.  However, I think we've all seen people we know seemingly go from death's door to apparently fine within a very short period of time.  I know I have.  Therefore, I think that whatever was wrong with Putin has been, at least for the time being, addressed successfully.  Er, successfully for him that is.

Steve

My assessment would be that Putin's travel overseas and/or the preparation for it gave them a better look in some way. Erdogan certainly isn't our buddy but the Turks would certainly share that kind of information with the US. 

[Grigb]

Just now, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder what prompted both to come and say this right now, seemingly out of the blue.  Previously it seemed Western intel was also suspecting health issues.

There was never a consensus on what might have been wrong with Putin to start with.  However, I think we've all seen people we know seemingly go from death's door to apparently fine within a very short period of time.  I know I have.  Therefore, I think that whatever was wrong with Putin has been, at least for the time being, addressed successfully.  Er, successfully for him that is.

Steve

There was wild rumors in March-May that Putin had serious condition that needed operation. Not urgent but still required and better to do sooner than later. Rumors said he was postponing it fearing for his life. Stopped looking into it as it was a wild rumor. But could be it was true, and he did have that operation after all. 

[Sojourner]

16 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder what prompted both to come and say this right now, seemingly out of the blue.  Previously it seemed Western intel was also suspecting health issues.

There was another report right after Putin's trip abroad that saying photos from the meetings showed evidence that Putin was ill, talked about thyroid cancer and that he had been treated by surgeons 35 times in the past four years (or something like that). Reporters seeking confirmation from official sources were probably what prompted the CIA and MI6 announcements.

But on the bright side, there's an adage that you can't believe a rumor until it is officially denied. 

[poesel]

30 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder what prompted both to come and say this right now, seemingly out of the blue. 

Easy: if he drops dead of 'natural' causes tomorrow, both agencies had obviously nothing to do with it.

[Harmon Rabb]

Putin was walking kind of funny in this video but we are talking about a 69 year old man who just spent time on an airplane. So once again not going to read too much into this.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[Grigb]

21 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

I wonder how that could be defended against? We spend a lot of time discussing how drones might change everything and how defence against drones would be a necessity. Would the same defences work on something like GMLRS? Would C-RAM stop it? Is there overlap?

Modern AA with AHEAD type rounds should be able to deal with both

 

I prefer Thales RapidFire due to the flexibility of CT40

 

And the vehicle of my dream is this baby if it could be made to engage air targets.

However, I believe both guns have insufficient range to deal with Orlan at max altitude. But I believe LMM will be able to deal with it. 

So, Jaguar Air Defence variant with LMM is what I believe is needed. One vehicle that can give love to almost anything on battlefield except MBT. But for MBT it can always call friends with MMP.  

Regarding the future I hold an opinion that laser is necessary. It is a combination of range, accuracy, reaction time and low cost per shot that potentially is unmatched for both applications.

[riptides]

21 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Putin was walking kind of funny in this video but we are talking about a 69 year old man who just spent time on an airplane. So once again not going to read too much into this.

After seeing that, I doubt the CIA and MI6 assessments.

[acrashb]

2 minutes ago, riptides said:

After seeing that, I doubt the CIA and MI6 assessments.

I look like that or worse just getting out of a car, and I'm considerably younger than Putin - sports injuries.  He's just stiff from a longish plane ride.

[dan/california]

5 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Modern AA with AHEAD type rounds should be able to deal with both

 

I prefer Thales RapidFire due to the flexibility of CT40

 

And the vehicle of my dream is this baby if it could be made to engage air targets.

However, I believe both guns have insufficient range to deal with Orlan at max altitude. But I believe LMM will be able to deal with it. 

So, Jaguar Air Defence variant with LMM is what I believe is needed. One vehicle that can give love to almost anything on battlefield except MBT. But for MBT it can always call friends with MMP.  

Regarding the future I hold an opinion that laser is necessary. It is a combination of range, accuracy, reaction time and low cost per shot that potentially is unmatched for both applications.

!00% agree laser is the only real solution. Everything else has a huge issue with either range or cost per shot. And you really have to solve both problems. Shooting 5,000 dollar drones, and hundred thousand dollar GMLRS missiles with million dollar interceptors is just not a long term plan.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Letter from Prague said:

I wonder how that could be defended against? We spend a lot of time discussing how drones might change everything and how defence against drones would be a necessity. Would the same defences work on something like GMLRS? Would C-RAM stop it? Is there overlap?

Here's another mind bender for our friend The_Capt to add to his pile.

We've been talking about how vulnerable concentrated rear services (in particular ammo and fuel) are in the era of deep strike precision munitions.  Especially ones like HIRAMS and super sonic weapons that are coming into service.  The Russian reaction of moving its distribution and storage centers further from the front isn't a solution even for this war as it is now, not to mention of Ukraine gets weaponry that can go 100s of KMs.  Hardening facilities is only practical for home turff stuff, so not viable either.

Logically, the solution is to reinvent logistics so that concentration is no longer practiced.  Not only does it spread the risk in the event of a strike, it greatly complicates intel gathering and strike planning.  There's only so many launchers and so much time available, so having 100 targets spread out all over the place is a not more difficult to deal with than 10.

However, the sorts of defensive weaponry needed to keep logistics sites safe are always going to be in limited supply.  EW and AD in particular.  These systems will also be themselves a target of attention, which further strains the limited supply of the systems.

What this leaves us with is a dilemma between the pros and cons of spreading out vs. consolidation. 

My instincts say consolidation will win out, but only richer nations will have the means to do so somewhat effectively.  However, for a longer war in the stage the current Ukraine war is in, spreading out might be the better solution.  At least for Russia as it doesn't seem Ukraine has the same degree of vulnerability as Russia does.

Steve

[acrashb]

14 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Everything else has a huge issue with either range or cost per shot.

And logistics.  High rate of fire == lots of resupply trucks.  This assumes that our laser is powered electrically, not by buckets of corrosive / toxic chemicals (e.g., COIL lasers). Also affects cost per shot / pulse.

Lasers have range limits as well, don't know how they compare with kinetics for a reasonably-sized emitter / mirror.  The emitter size and frequency determine focusability, which is the limit in a vacuum, then atmospheric interference sets other limits.

Where lasers excel is insensitivity to barrel wear, variance in charges weight, windage, gravity.  Generally getting rid of internal and external ballistics is a huge win for accuracy.

[Blazing 88's]

  

58 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Putin was walking kind of funny in this video but we are talking about a 69 year old man who just spent time on an airplane. So once again not going to read too much into this.

Probably a flair up of an old injury. I am guessing from this one. His eight goal celebration don't you know!.......  LMAO.
 

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Blazing 88's

[Taranis]

"A boy walks in a vegetable garden in front of the remains of a Russian battle tank, destroyed in the battles this spring, in the village of Velyka Dymerka, northeast of kyiv, on July 21, 2022. SERGEI CHUZAVKOV / AFP"

*T-72A

[A Canadian Cat]

10 hours ago, Grigb said:

Nobody in RU except marginal Nats believes in RU propaganda 100%. Even hardcore LDNR volunteers say it more for public consumption (in private they are far more reasonable than on public. They just need to say something to cover their war crimes). On average RU believe 50% of propaganda

Indeed. However we have seen examples right here on this forum. Russian citizens saying don't worry we know we cannot believe our government propaganda, we are not fooled. Next sentence is about how bad western media is. Next post or sometimes the next few sentences sound just like the talking points of the government propaganda the just claimed not to believe. Makes your head spin.

BTW thanks for the perspective and information you have been posting. Many here really appreciate it.