How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Compared, Kadyrov is much more grounded in reality, despite behaving like mumbling idiot.

Until I thought about the stupidity of not "tossing a bone" to the Asiatic republics that are fighting the most, I hadn't really thought about the difference in behavior between Kadyrov and Putin from an autocrat standpoint.  Your statement above put that into focus.  And I think I know why.

Putin is at the top of a very large organization in which he has purged pretty much everybody with an ounce of independence or integrity.  Competency is also in short supply, because that usually goes along with the two aforementioned qualities.  Furthermore, he has dismantled the old Soviet system of checks and balances on executive power.  As dysfunctional and corrupt as it might have been, it existed and did serve a function.  Just as the Tzar's court did before Soviet times.  This has left Putin without anybody willing or able to challenge him, but it also leaves him with very few to offer sound council. 

In this case, it is unlikely anybody senior enough is saying to Putin "hey, we should get back a dozen Buryats to keep the locals happy" because people tasked with this sort of thinking aren't likely at the senior level any more, or even advising the senior level.  If there was, it would likely be in the FSB and Putin seems to have put them in the corner for f'ning up the prewar intelligence so badly.  I'm not sure anybody there is anxious to stick their neck out.  Even more disturbing is that they are deliberately not offering advice because they want Putin to fail.  Given the nature of Russian governance, I am guessing that is going on generally.

This is a very, very common autocrat situation.  And it always winds up with the system failing the autocrat, often spectacularly.  We can even see it in democracies where autocratic minded executive leadership generally begets administrative incompetence for exactly the same reasons... poor quality people put into positions that matter, good quality people ignored because they say uncomfortable things.

And then there's Kadyrov.

Unlike Putin, he's a senior middle manager of sorts.  He doesn't have the luxury of having all the cards in his hands.  So he knows he needs to play games and is likely to enlist help doing it.  Further, Chechnya is tribal and that system is still very much in evidence.  This means Kadyrov has internal checks and balances on his decision making and advice, whether he likes it or not.  Sure, they are all corrupt and nasty people, but I doubt the sort of "yesmen" that Putin has surrounding him.

So there we go... Kadyrov, bumbling idiot or not, is playing the autocrat game much better than Putin is at the moment.  Which furthers the risk to Russia of a conflict with Chechnya when the timing is optimal for Chechnya.

Steve

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

You know that I treat information overload seriously and with all these names of settlements flying around it is difficult to understand what is happening. I am trying a new format - with a map. Because everything is better with a map! 

Has Deepstate language choice at last? Useful map, but I could't post it here because it hadn't English language

Edited July 29, 2022 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So I have been thinking about the fundamental measure in warfare.  In physics we have the meter, the second and the gram - all framed by the speed of light in a vacuum.  Within information theory the famous “bit”.  Chemistry has the “degree”.  In economics we have the mighty $.  Almost every field of study can be boiled down to a few fundamental units.

So what is the fundamental unit of warfare?  And I have not found it yet.  First response is “body count”, or a death…easy.  Problem is that as a unit it does not track. The body count does not directly correlate to the course or outcome in too many cases.  We have had wars of extermination in which body count did become the basic unit, such as the Mongol invasions. 

However, we have had wars with millions of dead, like WW1, but it was not those deaths that determined who won or lost.  WW1 ended due to economic exhaustion, to which loss of human capital was a factor but not the deciding factor.  We have also had endless wars where the body count did not seem to matter, like Vietnam or Afghanistan.

Further we have had wars that were decisively determined with very low body counts, such as the Falklands.

So “killing” appears as a means or way, not an end.  It can give an indication but is not determinative.  If war is a collision of certainty, then it follows that the fundamental unit is a measure of that collision.  Will has to be central to that but Will is an incredibly complex and squishy concept with a lot of layers.  I have played with the idea of a “wit” as placeholder but have not got a bead on what it actually looks like or how to measure it.

Regardless, the biggest problem with “a kill” as the fundamental unit is what does one do when it does not work?  Easy answer is “more killing” up and including “all of them” but we all know that extermination not only has blowback in the community of humanity, it deeply affects internally.  

Killing does affect collective will but it is not a direct relationship, unless you completely remove that collective - and even here it might not work as the “idea” of the will of an exterminated collective can outlive the people who came up with it…like Christianity.

 

Great post.  Thanks.

Another thing is scale of casualties not mattering.  The US military lost more paratroopers in one tragic plane crash than it did in "Black Hawk Down" (Somalia), yet the casualties from the accident were accepted (so to speak) while the casualties in Mogadishu resulted in the US pulling out.  The Beirut bombing ended all notion of peace keeping there, yet 20+ years of Afghanistan casualties didn't disrupt the will to stay until the very end.  In ALL instances the % casualties of the entire US military was a rounding error in terms of losses vs. available forces.  So we can conclude that the casualties themselves weren't the deciding factor.

Yet in instances like Somalia and Lebanon, the casualties were the single most important factor for bringing about the end of those operations.  Why?  Because the public was not fully onboard with the mission.  In fact, the military itself wasn't necessarily fully onboard.

What I'm saying here is that it seems sometimes casualties don't matter one iota, other times they are the decisive factor.  There's no set rule to this, except that perhaps the weaker the will and capacity to continue with the military operation, the more weight casualties might have on the decision to keep fighting.

In Ukraine right now, wiping out the Kherson Russian positions in a spectacular way might have that sort of impact.  We don't really know.  What we do know, for sure, is the war won't be over quicker if they stay there.  Therefore, Aragorn2002's thinking is not wrong in this case.  Maximum casualties might not in the end have that much of an effect as something like economic collapse, but it certainly holds out the possibility that it can at the very least accelerate the end.

In short... as long as the "enemy" is defined as the armed forces of Russia and their administrators in the occupied territories, then I totally agree that killing as many of the enemy as soon as possible should be a high priority for Ukraine.

Steve

[Grigb]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So there we go... Kadyrov, bumbling idiot or not, is playing the autocrat game much better than Putin is at the moment.  Which furthers the risk to Russia of a conflict with Chechnya when the timing is optimal for Chechnya.

Steve

2 cents regarding Chehcnya - one RU soldier said that young Chechens already do not speak RU. They use older guys for translation.  Chechnya for all intents and purposes is already separated from RU. 

[Grigb]

New map - this time Kherson. Added scale and time.

[akd]

Visit to the Kharkiv front:

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So I have been thinking about the fundamental measure in warfare.  In physics we have the meter, the second and the gram - all framed by the speed of light in a vacuum.  Within information theory the famous “bit”.  Chemistry has the “degree”.  In economics we have the mighty $.  Almost every field of study can be boiled down to a few fundamental units.

So what is the fundamental unit of warfare?  And I have not found it yet.  First response is “body count”, or a death…easy.  Problem is that as a unit it does not track. The body count does not directly correlate to the course or outcome in too many cases.  We have had wars of extermination in which body count did become the basic unit, such as the Mongol invasions. 

However, we have had wars with millions of dead, like WW1, but it was not those deaths that determined who won or lost.  WW1 ended due to economic exhaustion, to which loss of human capital was a factor but not the deciding factor.  We have also had endless wars where the body count did not seem to matter, like Vietnam or Afghanistan.

Further we have had wars that were decisively determined with very low body counts, such as the Falklands.

So “killing” appears as a means or way, not an end.  It can give an indication but is not determinative.  If war is a collision of certainty, then it follows that the fundamental unit is a measure of that collision.  Will has to be central to that but Will is an incredibly complex and squishy concept with a lot of layers.  I have played with the idea of a “wit” as placeholder but have not got a bead on what it actually looks like or how to measure it.

Regardless, the biggest problem with “a kill” as the fundamental unit is what does one do when it does not work?  Easy answer is “more killing” up and including “all of them” but we all know that extermination not only has blowback in the community of humanity, it deeply affects internally.  

Killing does affect collective will but it is not a direct relationship, unless you completely remove that collective - and even here it might not work as the “idea” of the will of an exterminated collective can outlive the people who came up with it…like Christianity.

 

I think here it is useful to go to Clausewitz. 

‘War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale… an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will,’ directed by political motives and morality. (Clausewitz 1940: Book I, Ch. I)

"Clausewitz: War as Politics by other Means | Online Library of Liberty" https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/clausewitz-war-as-politics-by-other-means

[Taranis]

"Interception of call by Security Service of Ukraine suggest that camp with Ukrainian POWs was blown up from inside"

 

[dan/california]

31 minutes ago, Grigb said:

New map - this time Kherson. Added scale and time.

My personal opinion:   Kherson proper, and the bridge close to it are already in the outer limits of 155 range. If the Ukrainians can get within 155 range of Nova Khakova the Russian position on the west/north side of the Dnipro will just disintegrate as the supply situation goes from bad too non existent. My read mk1 eyeball map read is that the Ukr need to make 15k from their current Inhulet's crossing. Thoughts?

[DesertFox]

6 minutes ago, Taranis said:

"Interception of call by Security Service of Ukraine suggest that camp with Ukrainian POWs was blown up from inside"

No surprise for me after Butcha. The russians are nothing but human waste. They have to be wiped from Ukraine.

[Taranis]

3 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Pas de surprise pour moi après Butcha. Les russes ne sont que des déchets humains. Ils doivent être chassés d'Ukraine.

And "coincidentally" the dead are Azov fighters that Russia wanted to get rid of. Russia couldn't kill them openly in front of the media but neither could Putin release them for the Russian public opinion....

Edited July 29, 2022 by Taranis

[Grigb]

9 minutes ago, Taranis said:

"Interception of call by Security Service of Ukraine suggest that camp with Ukrainian POWs was blown up from inside"

 

They guy is saying RU yasterday relocated all 200 men to new barrack in Industrial Zone. At night Grad hit nearby and later there were a few explosions, a few automatic shots and fire.

Also, there is a new video from RU that alleged HIMARS did not hit any of RU guards.

 

They started mass execution of POW

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, Grigb said:

They guy is saying RU yasterday relocated all 200 men to new barrack in Industrial Zone. At night Grad hit nearby and later there were a few explosions, a few automatic shots and fire.

Also, there is a new video from RU that alleged HIMARS did not hit any of RU guards.

 

They started mass execution of POW

The Russian regime literally amoral. they don't even understand what the word means. The only available way to educate them is sending back CARGO 200 until the Russians run out of zinc and have to switch to wooden coffins. Hopefully these BLATANT warcrimes will get ATACMS and the state sponsorship of terrorism done. 

[akd]

31 minutes ago, Taranis said:

"Interception of call by Security Service of Ukraine suggest that camp with Ukrainian POWs was blown up from inside"

 

Dmitri translated this here:

Interviews with 3rd Tank Brigade tankers.  The NLAW shipping container mounted on the back of one of the tanks is interesting. Wonder if it is empty and repurposed, or they keep one on hand for close defense / tank stalking?

 

[akd]

Who needs Switchblade 300?

 

[cesmonkey]

This was an interesting podcast episode:

https://wavellroom.com/podcast/this-means-war-ep-5-logistics-trent-telenko/
This Means War: Ep 5 – Trent Telenko on Russian Logistics

where Trent describes Russian logistics as still following a 19th-century model dependent upon plentiful conscript manual labor, which they are seriously lacking these days. The West, conversely, has mechanized most of their logistics handling decades ago.

 

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I think here it is useful to go to Clausewitz. 

‘War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale… an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will,’ directed by political motives and morality. (Clausewitz 1940: Book I, Ch. I)

"Clausewitz: War as Politics by other Means | Online Library of Liberty" https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/clausewitz-war-as-politics-by-other-means

It is part of the answer but I am with Keegan on this one, war is often a lot more than political or about will.  Some wars are commercial - a way to make a living.  And others are cultural - “my god told me to go to war”.  In fact the Clausewitzian doctrine is what gets us into trouble on body counts (i.e.  results of duels).  

[FancyCat]

I'm not familiar with the conflict in Ukraine, has such a large number of PoWs in Russian custody been killed at once? How unprecedented is this?

Making it so that every Ukrainian defender fights to the death, every Ukrainian civilian stays loyal to Ukraine is just a insane notion. It worked in Chechnya yes, but failed in Afghanistan.

 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

The Russian regime literally amoral. they don't even understand what the word means. The only available way to educate them is sending back CARGO 200 until the Russians run out of zinc and have to switch to wooden coffins. Hopefully these BLATANT warcrimes will get ATACMS and the state sponsorship of terrorism done. 

Make the bastards pay, Ukraine.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Butschi said:

Metres, kilograms, seconds don't matter, you can just as well use feet, pounds and... ok, alternative time units... ? Anyway, the quantity matters, length, mass, time, etc. It's actually not even really about those. Physics is mostly about energy and the way energy manifests itself.

I think you miss my point, I am likely not describing it clearly.  We live in, or at least view it as, an information-based universe.  Standard unit that describe quantities (or qualities e.g. density) are built off of universal constants that are in effect packages information.  We see physical phenomenon and we measure it via different slices of those universal constants.  e.g. a meter is how far light travels in a vacuum in a set period of time. This is all information, packaged, transferable and universal.

Economics is about value.  How it is made/determined and how it is distributed and how it transitions.  We use a completely arbitrary unit to describe value and measure it - currency - fundamentally in economics everything boils down to a value-information unit.

No matter how one looks at it, we have fundamental units - you can call them something else, measure them in a different way but they are all wrapped around a fundamental piece of information.

In warfare, we do not have that.  This enormous human enterprise, in some ways as large as economics - in fact we measure war in dollars as well as blood.  We do not have a fundamental unit.  This would be like trying to understand physics without a standard unit of time or length.  Or a universal constant like the speed on light.  

Not really asking for an answer, if anyone had one I would be shocked - and I have looked for a very long time.  My point was that applying “killing” as a sole primary metric, or fundamental unit of information within war is problematic and proven as inaccurate in many cases.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Great post.  Thanks.

Another thing is scale of casualties not mattering.  The US military lost more paratroopers in one tragic plane crash than it did in "Black Hawk Down" (Somalia), yet the casualties from the accident were accepted (so to speak) while the casualties in Mogadishu resulted in the US pulling out.  The Beirut bombing ended all notion of peace keeping there, yet 20+ years of Afghanistan casualties didn't disrupt the will to stay until the very end.  In ALL instances the % casualties of the entire US military was a rounding error in terms of losses vs. available forces.  So we can conclude that the casualties themselves weren't the deciding factor.

Yet in instances like Somalia and Lebanon, the casualties were the single most important factor for bringing about the end of those operations.  Why?  Because the public was not fully onboard with the mission.  In fact, the military itself wasn't necessarily fully onboard.

What I'm saying here is that it seems sometimes casualties don't matter one iota, other times they are the decisive factor.  There's no set rule to this, except that perhaps the weaker the will and capacity to continue with the military operation, the more weight casualties might have on the decision to keep fighting.

In Ukraine right now, wiping out the Kherson Russian positions in a spectacular way might have that sort of impact.  We don't really know.  What we do know, for sure, is the war won't be over quicker if they stay there.  Therefore, Aragorn2002's thinking is not wrong in this case.  Maximum casualties might not in the end have that much of an effect as something like economic collapse, but it certainly holds out the possibility that it can at the very least accelerate the end.

In short... as long as the "enemy" is defined as the armed forces of Russia and their administrators in the occupied territories, then I totally agree that killing as many of the enemy as soon as possible should be a high priority for Ukraine.

Steve

Now that is something - the weight of violence is not a constant.  Seems obvious but that is profound.

I am not sure this is an attritional equation where killing a lot of Russians will deliver - but hey worth a try.  I do think that killing a lot of the right Russians at a high rate may get us closer to where we need to be.

Will need to think on this but I just got that “tip of tongue” feeling. 

[holoween]

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

 Some wars are commercial - a way to make a living.

so the political motive is making money. nothing unclausewitzian about it

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

 And others are cultural - “my god told me to go to war”.

again this is the political motive.

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

 In fact the Clausewitzian doctrine is what gets us into trouble on body counts (i.e.  results of duels).  

But clausewitz doesnt consider simple body counting usefull. To paraphrase the war will be won if either side gives up or is put into a situation where it can no longer resist the other.

[Grigb]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Has Deepstate language choice at last? Useful map, but I could't post it here because it hadn't English language

Nope, I do not see any language options. Mine is English by default. Looks like it checks browser language. 

[The_Capt]

Just now, holoween said:

so the political motive is making money. nothing unclausewitzian about it

again this is the political motive.

But clausewitz doesnt consider simple body counting usefull. To paraphrase the war will be won if either side gives up or is put into a situation where it can no longer resist the other.

Problem with this is that is broadens the definition of “political” to mean everything which then really means nothing.  So ISIL going to war with the west as basically a doomsday cult…is political.  Barbary Coast pirates waging war as a vocation…political.

At this end of the spectrum, may as well say “war is an extension of human” because everything human is “political”.   This is about as useful as saying “war is war”. 

[Grigb]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

This was an interesting podcast episode:

https://wavellroom.com/podcast/this-means-war-ep-5-logistics-trent-telenko/
This Means War: Ep 5 – Trent Telenko on Russian Logistics

where Trent describes Russian logistics as still following a 19th-century model dependent upon plentiful conscript manual labor, which they are seriously lacking these days. The West, conversely, has mechanized most of their logistics handling decades ago.

 

Not exactly 19 centry - they have trucks. It is more like USSR 1930-40s logistics. Explanation of logistics.

Quote

In general, according to Soviet doctrine, there should be a support platoon of 36 people in a motorized rifle battalion, but the Armed Forces of RU got rid of this heavy relic, in a parade battalion, a battalion deputy is added to three company foremen and three company deputy technicians.

The entire rear and technical support of the Armed Forces of the RU begins in a brigade or regiment. Sort of, for example, the RAV service [arty and missiles supply], or the clothing or the RCBZ [NBC Protection]. There is a head of service, there is a clerk (maybe even two, or maybe zero) there is a warehouse manager, a couple of storekeepers and a that's it... All loading and unloading operations are carried out by the forces of conscripts, whom the head of the service asked for in the morning at a meeting. And it's all in one place.

Such a scheme allows units and formations to exist at the point of permanent dislocation, but with participation in SMO problems begin, not with us naturally [sarcasm].

For example, the commander of a moto rifle company, in order to get material things, simply takes/pulls the personnel out of the trench, pulls the APC out of the neighboring trench and sends them to the brigade warehouse, which is just one, in a large hangar (there is no way to disperse the warehouse of people and equipment anyway) to get ten mattresses and one hundred dry rations.