How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Those who sow the wind must reap the whirlwind.

It was a nice car maybe they did it for something uncomplicated like the insurance payout. With their corruption it wouldn't amaze me one bit. 

[Grigb]

7 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Hmm... @Grigb  you think it is credible? Rogue Russian anarchists sounds too Bond-ish for me and smells FSB provocation. On the other hand there are certainly groups in Russia that actively opose regime and Dugin- as a symbol of pan-Russian nationalism- could be considered a natural target for them. This explanation would answer questions about strange subject of attack we asked before.

I am skeptical as well. There is so much wrong with this group that I cannot accept it as a real resistance group.

• I do agree with @kraze that Ponomarev is a suspicious guy. He is touted as oppo politician, but I have to google him. I mean he is a second or even third-rate oppo politician and that is usual target for FSB recruiting. But on other hand he might not be straight FSB agent. FSBs are cunning basterds. When they approach you, they do not tell you - Hello! We are evil FSB and want to recruit you.  They tell you story that they are actually your friends, they are from FSB good wing, they are resistance inside of FSB and just want some little help to understand whom they can trust. Please help us. So, the guy might even know that it is FSB but he might still believe these are good guys and helps them with their cover story.
• The name of the group - National Republican Army is BS name from RU point of view. It is confusing, meaningless and sounds too much un-RU. Compare it to Freedom of Russia Legion. The guy who came up with National Republican Army either did not care about it or was FSB guy who wanted un-RU name to pin it later on heinous foreigners.
• The manifest is strange. It is not anarchists. It has soft but still discernable old USSR propaganda and modern RU Nats undertones and sprinkled with bits of liberal's ideas. From an ideological point of view it is a weird mix written by a guy without any ideology. 
• The author of manifest is actually trolling young RU audience. Look at this phrase: Wherever you are - fight like us, fight with us, fight better than us! It is almost carbon copy of catch phrase from Eastern European kids sport show very popular in USSR in 80s. It has a funny unserious undertone, yet these supposedly serious hardcore guys are using it. It is literally trolling of RU youngsters. 
• So, I would say the whole thing was created by a bored FSB guy of my age.

Having said that I need to say that I agree with Steve again - FSB ploy is never as simple as cover for False Falg operation. We are talking about people who literally live according to the principle - Betrayal is a matter of date. To betray in time means to foresee [the future]. Putin is paranoid because he operates among people for whom betrayal is the way of life. That is why the punishment for betrayal (killing relatives in front of you) is so severe.

It is interesting development because FSB has now an open and active Anti-Putin organization. How they are going to use it I do not know but I believe in few months we will found out. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

10 hours ago, The_Capt said:

14 hours ago, Grigb said:

I sniffed around and the answer is they are used more as long-range direct fire support and less as shock force. They are used as mobile protected long range direct fire support.

Sniffed around where, if you don’t mind me asking?  I ask because if your assessment is accurate then something has definitely gone wrong with RA armour.

Hang on, is is not how we are supposed to use tanks in Combat Mission anyway?
 

Infantry in the front to spot&make the enemy fire positions reveal themselves, tanks at the back, as far as the LOS/effective range of weapons allows, preferrably keyholed, APCs/IFVs as battle taxis, out of LOS most of the time. This is what I have read in the many tactics threads on this very forum.

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Infantry in the front to spot&make the enemy fire positions reveal themselves, tanks at the back, as far as the LOS/effective range of weapons allows, preferrably keyholed, APCs/IFVs as battle taxis, out of LOS most of the time. This is what I have read in the many tactics threads on this very forum.

It depends with modern optics tanks make better spotters than infantry in modern warfare. Thermals spots snipers the moment they fire. Present battle in Ukraine it looks like the Russians are a generation behind western Intel Operations. 

[hcrof]

12 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Hang on, is is not how we are supposed to use tanks in Combat Mission anyway?
 

Infantry in the front to spot&make the enemy fire positions reveal themselves, tanks at the back, as far as the LOS/effective range of weapons allows, preferrably keyholed, APCs/IFVs as battle taxis, out of LOS most of the time. This is what I have read in the many tactics threads on this very forum.

I get the impression that the battles in CM are very unusual compared with mobile warfare doctrine. Both NATO and warpac were not planning on fighting carefully balanced scenarios and take heavy casualties despite tactical genius by the commander. It was more like bomb the hell out of an area and then drive a tank battalion through it at speed for the breakthrough. 

Careful dancing around with keyholed tanks on the offense may happen in reality but I don't think it is doctrine.

[Maquisard manqué]

26 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I get the impression that the battles in CM are very unusual compared with mobile warfare doctrine. Both NATO and warpac were not planning on fighting carefully balanced scenarios and take heavy casualties despite tactical genius by the commander. It was more like bomb the hell out of an area and then drive a tank battalion through it at speed for the breakthrough. 

Careful dancing around with keyholed tanks on the offense may happen in reality but I don't think it is doctrine.

That’s very true and speaks to the challenge of a game - which needs to have balance and challenge. In RL, a close run thing would be something to avoid! You’d stack the deck in your favour in any way possible and ruthlessly exploit your advantage.

[Grigb]

18 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Careful dancing around with keyholed tanks on the offense may happen in reality but I don't think it is doctrine.

Not yet. Currently it is an unofficial tactic used mostly in volunteer units as well as in regular units fighting with volunteers in current offensive (for example Bakmut direction in support of Wagnerites). It is the same with drones - initially only volunteers used them but after few month it was spread to regulars' units. Some UKR tank units use similar tactics with RU reporting it significantly minimized losses. 

I see reports that RU regulars at Kharkiv direction still make massed tank pushes (up to battalion size) but not much details from that direction yet.

Interesting thing is that indirectly I see shift in RU military doctrine from massed armor shock assault toward current overwhelming arty grinding. I see that RU military thought now is - enemy anti-tank weapons are too strong, but we can respond with overwhelming arty fire, see our glorious sucess at previous and current offensive! 

And that makes some sense for them - they cannot produce complex weapons, but arty shells are dumb. They just switch from spamming armor as it did not work to spamming arty as they believe it works. 

[Bufo]

 

[The_Capt]

11 hours ago, sburke said:

Not true in an urban environment.  Parking garages etc provide plenty of opportunity for covered locations.  Maybe the Russians just haven't figured that out.

Seriously?  The MBT is now relegated to hiding in parking garages?  That is not an effective strategy.  First off they are now extremely limited in LOS (ie 2km from parking garages).  Second they cannot manoeuvre from said parking garage, so have become glorified parking garage pillboxes.  Third, infantry have a serious advantage in finding and hitting tanks in the parking garage.  Fourth, if that all fails, we already know where the parking garages are, thank you Google, so JDAMs for all - God keep this parking garage and all tanks who huddle in the parking garage.

Just reinforces my point.

[LongLeftFlank]

16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Seriously?  The MBT is now relegated to hiding in parking garages?  That is not an effective strategy.  First off they are now extremely limited in LOS (ie 2km from parking garages).  Second they cannot manoeuvre from said parking garage, so have become glorified parking garage pillboxes.  Third, infantry have a serious advantage in finding and hitting tanks in the parking garage.  Fourth, if that all fails, we already know where the parking garages are, thank you Google, so JDAMs for all - God keep this parking garage and all tanks who huddle in the parking garage.

Just reinforces my point.

You know our standing orders, Kaminski:  Out of commission, become a pillbox. Out of ammo, become a bunker. Out of time, become heroes.

Edited August 22, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Pete Wenman]

This seems significant if accurate

 

 

 

P

[billbindc]

42 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Seriously?  The MBT is now relegated to hiding in parking garages?  That is not an effective strategy.  First off they are now extremely limited in LOS (ie 2km from parking garages).  Second they cannot manoeuvre from said parking garage, so have become glorified parking garage pillboxes.  Third, infantry have a serious advantage in finding and hitting tanks in the parking garage.  Fourth, if that all fails, we already know where the parking garages are, thank you Google, so JDAMs for all - God keep this parking garage and all tanks who huddle in the parking garage.

Just reinforces my point.

Lol…also the average height of a parking garage interior is about 8-9 ft with tight turns at every ramp. You might get a T-72 in. Good luck getting it out again with or without a JDAM.

[billbindc]

3 hours ago, Grigb said:

I am skeptical as well. There is so much wrong with this group that I cannot accept it as a real resistance group.

• I do agree with @kraze that Ponomarev is a suspicious guy. He is touted as oppo politician, but I have to google him. I mean he is a second or even third-rate oppo politician and that is usual target for FSB recruiting. But on other hand he might not be straight FSB agent. FSBs are cunning basterds. When they approach you, they do not tell you - Hello! We are evil FSB and want to recruit you.  They tell you story that they are actually your friends, they are from FSB good wing, they are resistance inside of FSB and just want some little help to understand whom they can trust. Please help us. So, the guy might even know that it is FSB but he might still believe these are good guys and helps them with their cover story.
• The name of the group - National Republican Army is BS name from RU point of view. It is confusing, meaningless and sounds too much un-RU. Compare it to Freedom of Russia Legion. The guy who came up with National Republican Army either did not care about it or was FSB guy who wanted un-RU name to pin it later on heinous foreigners.
• The manifest is strange. It is not anarchists. It has soft but still discernable old USSR propaganda and modern RU Nats undertones and sprinkled with bits of liberal's ideas. From an ideological point of view it is a weird mix written by a guy without any ideology. 
• The author of manifest is actually trolling young RU audience. Look at this phrase: Wherever you are - fight like us, fight with us, fight better than us! It is almost carbon copy of catch phrase from Eastern European kids sport show very popular in USSR in 80s. It has a funny unserious undertone, yet these supposedly serious hardcore guys are using it. It is literally trolling of RU youngsters. 
• So, I would say the whole thing was created by a bored FSB guy of my age.

Having said that I need to say that I agree with Steve again - FSB ploy is never as simple as cover for False Falg operation. We are talking about people who literally live according to the principle - Betrayal is a matter of date. To betray in time means to foresee [the future]. Putin is paranoid because he operates among people for whom betrayal is the way of life. That is why the punishment for betrayal (killing relatives in front of you) is so severe.

It is interesting development because FSB has now an open and active Anti-Putin organization. How they are going to use it I do not know but I believe in few months we will found out. 

You will all be happy to know that the FSB has found our culprit: 

 

Apparently, our Ukrainian super agent did the legwork for the hit in her Mini Cooper in the company of her 12 year old daughter. Case closed!

In all seriousness, pretty much everything that’s been thrown up into the air on this in the last 24 hours is chaff. As Grigb has noted, the FSB’s “resistance group” effort barely makes an effort to be credible while the grand conspiracy behind the hit itself is fundamentally ridiculous. **This is not the sign of a planned FSB effort.** It looks a lot more like a bit of private enterprise that various factions are trying to use to their benefit. 

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Hang on, is is not how we are supposed to use tanks in Combat Mission anyway?
 

Infantry in the front to spot&make the enemy fire positions reveal themselves, tanks at the back, as far as the LOS/effective range of weapons allows, preferrably keyholed, APCs/IFVs as battle taxis, out of LOS most of the time. This is what I have read in the many tactics threads on this very forum.

This.

2 hours ago, hcrof said:

I get the impression that the battles in CM are very unusual compared with mobile warfare doctrine. Both NATO and warpac were not planning on fighting carefully balanced scenarios and take heavy casualties despite tactical genius by the commander. It was more like bomb the hell out of an area and then drive a tank battalion through it at speed for the breakthrough. 

Careful dancing around with keyholed tanks on the offense may happen in reality but I don't think it is doctrine.

Tanks are designed to be used en mass, in fact they are the very metric of military mass, that would be why they show in so many info graphics.  The snipey-peeky-pokey tactics of some CM scenarios is not the foundation of modern all arms doctrine…or at least it wasn’t.  

Now there must be a forcing function that is driving Russia in this direction.  My guess is a combination of ISR, infantry smart-ATGMs and PGM artillery.  In phase I of this war it became obvious that mass was in trouble based on it vulnerable logistics trains. Now in phase 2 it might be more straight up lethality of the modern battlefield.  How this is solved for in Phase 3 is going to be critical.

 

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, billbindc said:

You will all be happy to know that the FSB has found our culprit: 

 

Apparently, our Ukrainian super agent did the legwork for the hit in her Mini Cooper in the company of her 12 year old daughter. Case closed!

In all seriousness, pretty much everything that’s been thrown up into the air on this in the last 24 hours is chaff. As Grigb has noted, the FSB’s “resistance group” effort barely makes an effort to be credible while the grand conspiracy behind the hit itself is fundamentally ridiculous. **This is not the sign of a planned FSB effort.** It looks a lot more like a bit of private enterprise that various factions are trying to use to their benefit. 

Been out for a couple days but this car bomb thing is all over main stream media.  Not sure it is worth overthinking.  The overall effect has been that Russian internal security integrity has been undecided, much like the airfield and ammo depots in Crimea.  The perspective from the west appears to be “well someone is hitting these Putin cronies, good”.  If it were an FSB “false flag” it was an exceeding stupid one as it makes the reach of Ukraine appear endless, which kinda makes me want to send them more stuff.  But “smart” and Russian security apparatus have not been on speaking terms for some time now.

So recall that diagram I posted awhile back…what is the Effect - Decision- Outcome here?

[photon]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This.

Tanks are designed to be used en mass, in fact they are the very metric of military mass, that would be why they show in so many info graphics.

 

CMCW drove this home for me for the first time. I generally think of CM tactics as either closed (reverse slopes, keyholes, peek and sneak, low tempo &c.) or open (unobstructed lines of sight, fire superiority, high tempo). The Soviet ability to effectively exploit mass with open tactics -- especially in the Soviet training campaign -- was really eye opening in a way than none of the previous games had been.

Open tactics in CMBS have always been a disaster for me, whichever side I play as. I might not be doing them well, but I suffer unacceptable losses and can't achieve fire superiority.

[billbindc]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Been out for a couple days but this car bomb thing is all over main stream media.  Not sure it is worth overthinking.  The overall effect has been that Russian internal security integrity has been undecided, much like the airfield and ammo depots in Crimea.  The perspective from the west appears to be “well someone is hitting these Putin cronies, good”.  If it were an FSB “false flag” it was an exceeding stupid one as it makes the reach of Ukraine appear endless, which kinda makes me want to send them more stuff.  But “smart” and Russian security apparatus have not been on speaking terms for some time now.

So recall that diagram I posted awhile back…what is the Effect - Decision- Outcome here?

Exactly. The attack makes Russia's enemies look *more* powerful without a similar payoff for the FSB or anyone else and the shambolic attempts at using the event were clearly opportunistic. The likeliest call here is that some sort of shabby intra-nationalist business was conducted more violently than usual because their usual minders have other things going on at the moment. The FSB is now just looking busy to appear to be on top of the situation. 

[Huba]

 

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Seriously?  The MBT is now relegated to hiding in parking garages?  That is not an effective strategy.  First off they are now extremely limited in LOS (ie 2km from parking garages).  Second they cannot manoeuvre from said parking garage, so have become glorified parking garage pillboxes.  Third, infantry have a serious advantage in finding and hitting tanks in the parking garage.  Fourth, if that all fails, we already know where the parking garages are, thank you Google, so JDAMs for all - God keep this parking garage and all tanks who huddle in the parking garage.

Just reinforces my point.

Big fan of @sburke but holy meatballs that was a funny put down. 

I shall strive forever and always to match this. 

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Big fan of @sburke but holy meatballs that was a funny put down. 

I shall strive forever and always to match this. 

S'ok, he had it coming for the whole "Russian Mass" running gag...I am quite confident he is waiting in the tall grass and my time will come.

[Beleg85]

Reportedly Antonovsky Bridge is seriously damaged, rumours about its partial collapse appear.

 

"Almost 9 thousand Ukrainian military men have died in the war against Russia, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said."

Unlikely figure unfortunatelly even if it excludes all other branches of military, probably many more died.

4 hours ago, Grigb said:

• he author of manifest is actually trolling young RU audience. Look at this phrase: Wherever you are - fight like us, fight with us, fight better than us! It is almost carbon copy of catch phrase from Eastern European kids sport show very popular in USSR in 80s. It has a funny unserious undertone, yet these supposedly serious hardcore guys are using it. It is literally trolling of RU youngsters. 
• So, I would say the whole thing was created by a bored FSB guy of my age.

Interesting take, this manifesto indeed looked strange. That is why cultural context is always crucial. 

Perhaps name National Republican Army may be inspired by IRA? Given how fascinated Russians seem to be with everything British-connected it is possible.

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The thing is Dugin's influence was mostly out of the public eye.  He has many, many followers and is the spiritual leader of the core nationalist reasons for invading Ukraine in the first place.  While it is true that his direct influence on Putin is vastly overstated, his influence on the people who work for Putin seems to be more the point.

We know that the war is going badly for Russia.  It seems the followers of Dugin are aware of this to some extent.  Some to the point of thinking that Putin has to either declare full scale war against Ukraine or removed so that someone else can.

I am really not sure about Dugin influences nowadays. "His" ideas weren't even his, unless somebody counts this religious, esoteric sauce he specialize in. Pan-eurasianism was created long before he was born, so was Narodno-Bolshevism, Panslavism and Revolutionary Conservatism. All these fringe ideologies were much coherently thought of and put by people more serious than Dugin, who was treated as sort of esoteric tin-foiler rather than real-world nationalists, both by Kremlin and pragmatic nats.

Sure people like him resonate with some parts of society, being vessels for ideas that are already there. But frankly, even as-crazy Limonov would be probably treated more seriously as danger for Kremlin. And Russki mir, the catch-phrase used now by Kremlin propaganda, is rather ad-hoc propaganda meme (in Dawkins-sense of the word) coined by modern spin doctors based on broad nostalgia rather than some deep esoteric political theory.

Cruscially, of all nats Dugin was not critical of Putin in any special way, at elast officially. To the contrary, this war was like fulfilling his prophecy. So it may be right that there were hidden interests of business/politics at play here we don't see...just Dugin does seem to have the bones to challange Kremlin in any serious way. This is not this type of guy, nor his enterprise. In other words, Dugin is tin-foiled nuts, not "nationalistic Pope" with some wide political connections. Kompromat or intimidation would be more than enough on him if Putin wanted to show who is in charge.

Strange case.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So recall that diagram I posted awhile back…what is the Effect - Decision- Outcome here?

Too early to tell for now. Unlike military, which are relatively narrowly-focused institution (effectivness), we don't have simple tools to judge effects of secret services and their methods. Especially in case of Russia with so many possible factors.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Beleg85

[Kinophile]

52 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This.

Tanks are designed to be used en mass, in fact they are the very metric of military mass, that would be why they show in so many info graphics.  The snipey-peeky-pokey tactics of some CM scenarios is not the foundation of modern all arms doctrine…or at least it wasn’t.  

Now there must be a forcing function that is driving Russia in this direction.  My guess is a combination of ISR, infantry smart-ATGMs and PGM artillery.  In phase I of this war it became obvious that mass was in trouble based on it vulnerable logistics trains. Now in phase 2 it might be more straight up lethality of the modern battlefield.  How this is solved for in Phase 3 is going to be critical.

 

It could easily be as simple as RUS Infantry fail at Tank-Infantry combined arns at a Battalion+ level. 

From early on this thread has identified RUS Infantry as a critical fail point in the invasion force - not enough of them for the task, not enough of the right equipment, not enough coordination with Air/Arty,  and not enough of the right training and leadership  (at all levels). 

UKR has enough motivated Infantry to keep a deep, well armed, screen on the front line, whereas RUS does not seem to have equivalent quality. 

I'm not a vet or an experienced analyst, but I'd far prefer to see what a full NATO level infantry can do in support of their tanks. 

If UKR can train & equip up an effective sized, NATO-lite striking force then we'll get a least a better sense of how much in danger massed tank attacks actually are.

Better infantry solves a LOT of problems, from Front Line to GLOC defense. RUS infantry is **** compared to NATO infantry and this amplifies and exacerbates all the structual/platform weaknesses of the other RUS arms. 

It's like trying to keep a car together with superglue and bond aid, where as NATO infantry are welded into and form the welds of the Western car. 

[FancyCat]

Ukrainians who get sent from the occupied territories into Russia sometimes make it out thru 3rd party countries, if Russia is touting the assassin left via Estonia, I expect crackdowns on this method to occur as a result.

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

It could easily be as simple as RUS Infantry fail at Tank-Infantry combined arns at a Battalion+ level. 

From early on this thread has identified RUS Infantry as a critical fail point in the invasion force - not enough of them for the task, not enough of the right equipment, not enough coordination with Air/Arty,  and not enough of the right training and leadership  (at all levels). 

UKR has enough motivated Infantry to keep a deep, well armed, screen on the front line, whereas RUS does not seem to have equivalent quality. 

I'm not a vet or an experienced analyst, but I'd far prefer to see what a full NATO level infantry can do in support of their tanks. 

If UKR can train & equip up an effective sized, NATO-lite striking force then we'll get a least a better sense of how much in danger massed tank attacks actually are.

Better infantry solves a LOT of problems, from Front Line to GLOC defense. RUS infantry is **** compared to NATO infantry and this amplifies and exacerbates all the structual/platform weaknesses of the other RUS arms. 

It's like trying to keep a car together with superglue and bond aid, where as NATO infantry are welded into and form the welds of the Western car. 

Could very well be, the RA has been noted as pretty tepid on infantry.

Problem I am having is that I am not sure more infantry would solve the issue, at least not how we have employed them - it is the ranges.

So a "deep well armed screen" in the old days meant 1-2 kms.  Now I am not sure how to deal with highly accurate ATGMs and UAVs that can hit at 4kms+, let alone PGM artillery.  We have not even seen Ground Unmanned yet, which ought to be interesting. Current mech infantry are still wed to their vehicles, which like tanks are highly visible - and none of this solves the bigger logistics problem.  Dispersed Light Infantry seems to still work but they are slow.

Somebody has to be thinking Starship Troopers in DARPA right now.

[billbindc]

Of interest: https://ridl.io/playing-by-new-rules/