How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[DesertFox]

Looks like someone was smoking on the bridge...

 

 

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

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.

Heh, depends which part of the military one finds oneself within...we are not all - "simple".

Well I can say what the effect in the West has been - "hey it looks like Ukraine might be winning this thing - let's send them more support cause Russia sucks at this." so despite whatever wicked/upside down internal security calculus is being applied they probably should have considered that one.

 

[Kinophile]

To clarify,  not so much numbers, as quality of infantry. 

Highly accurate  ATGMs and UAVs are dangerous to a weakly motivated and equipped infantry-armor force. But if that force has equivalent quality & equipped  infantry then would they not start to cancel/match each other,  allowing armor to maneuver. 

The classic example from this war is how to road-bound and flank vulnerable  the RUS invasion columns were.  Run the attack on Kyiv as a NATO force, even assuming contested air space, and let's see how NATO infantry deals with the flank and  GLOCs vulnerabilities.  Pretty sure you don't lose as many tanks and get way further way faster.  

RUS infantry is sh*t explains a lot of RUS problems. 

[hcrof]

18 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

To clarify,  not so much numbers, as quality of infantry. 

Highly accurate  ATGMs and UAVs are dangerous to a weakly motivated and equipped infantry-armor force. But if that force has equivalent quality & equipped  infantry then would they not start to cancel/match each other,  allowing armor to maneuver. 

The classic example from this war is how to road-bound and flank vulnerable  the RUS invasion columns were.  Run the attack on Kyiv as a NATO force, even assuming contested air space, and let's see how NATO infantry deals with the flank and  GLOCs vulnerabilities.  Pretty sure you don't lose as many tanks and get way further way faster.  

RUS infantry is sh*t explains a lot of RUS problems. 

I think we should write off the first few weeks of the war as an aberration - we can't learn very much from that other than don't get cocky. 

The question is how a modern army would handle the donbass. I'm sure the US could with enough air power, but if the Ukrainians had a NATO quality army I'm not sure they would do much better. If nothing else the attacker would suffer heavy casualties and potentially get bogged down (and the donbass is only held by a few brigades, not divisions).

Edit: and just imagine a non-US force try to take the donbass. Our UK/CAN/GER/NED force would be cut to pieces.

Edited August 22, 2022 by hcrof

[The_Capt]

18 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Highly accurate  ATGMs and UAVs are dangerous to a weakly motivated and equipped infantry-armor force. But if that force has equivalent quality & equipped  infantry then would they not start to cancel/match each other,  allowing armor to maneuver.

The problem is artillery.  High quality infantry are not artillery proof and with ISR doing what it is, employing infantry anyway except dispersed or under the cover of WW1 style artillery (literally see that chart Poesel posted.) seems problematic.

I am not sure how the best infantry in the world deal with being spotted from kms away and hammered with high precision artillery, all the while their logistics train is also being hammered by precision deep strike.

In order to manoeuvre thru that one needs to solve for a lot.  And even then, a small two man team can kill and MBT at 4+ kms with 80-90 percent accuracy after having the target handed off by satellite and tac UAVs.

Crazy days.   

Edited August 22, 2022 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I think we should write off the first few weeks of the war as an aberration - we can't learn very much from that other than don't get cocky.

Disagree and we need to be very cautious here.  I have been reading a lot on Pre- WWI and the signs were up front and readily visible that warfare had shifted to the defensive as early as the US Civil War.  European powers talked themselves out of it completely by seeing all those examples as "aberration". 

Second, Ukraine has been employing the same methods throughout.  Even in the Donbass, Russia was pounding away WW1 style, advancing by 100m per day because Ukraine could still find, fix and finish any mech armored manoeuvre while it was forming up, while HIMAR-ing (yep, it is a verb now) the RA logistics chain.  It is the same problem, the RA just tried to solve it a different way, and it still did not work.

Now we must see what Ukraine does, but there have been plenty of signals that their offensives will look very different. 

[Battlefront.com]

For you fans of early viral videos, I bring you this...

 

[MSBoxer]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For you fans of early viral videos, I bring you this...

 

I am waiting for a re-make of the bunker scene from Downfall, except with a realllllly long table.

[danfrodo]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For you fans of early viral videos, I bring you this...

 

ah, the world has so many very brilliant creative people.  Good to remember that during challenging times.  That was great!

[Vergeltungswaffe]

24 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For you fans of early viral videos, I bring you this...

 

I was wondering when we'd see a good remake of that.

Nice find.

[sburke]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

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.

pshaw.  You are just mad that I proposed the mobile parking garage to the Pentagon first!  Damn I forgot about that height thing... must make new design before next procurement meeting!

On a serious note you should see this parking garage setup they have in Japan last time I was there.  You pull your car up to an elevator, get out, it gives you a code for retrieval and your car just disappears.  Would totally mess with my MBT plan.

Edited August 22, 2022 by sburke

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, photon said:

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.

Interesting observations with, I think, a pretty straight forward reason... anti-armor capabilities have become substantially more lethal and vastly more plentiful since the Cold War days.  In 1970s or early 1980s when you moved a battalion of tanks there wasn't too many options to counter it except for other tanks or maybe artillery.  Even ATGMs of the day were probably not sufficient to defeat such a large mass of armor.  Now?  So many different weapons systems can be scrambled to counter a large armored attack and cumulatively lay it to waste.

In fact, this was one of the core principles of NATO air power during the Cold War.  In the days of the "tank gap" debates it was pointed out by some that air power would eventually attrit the armored forces enough that what remained could be effectively countered by ground forces.  However, from what I remember of the arguments they still expected the Soviets to make large territorial gains before being stopped. 

Today the situation is quite different.  We can see in Ukraine that it's not even certain that a mass of armor can take a 1 KM of territory, not to mention 10s of KMs, before losses (and fear of losses) neutralize the attack. And THIS IS WITHOUT A MASSED DEFENSE!!!  The diverse and dispersed means of thwarting a massed armor attack seem to hammer home that ARMOR - INFANTRY = DEFEAT.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

I was wondering when we'd see a good remake of that.

Nice find.

Thanks guys!  I do think they should have gone and done the horrible early digitized voices, but other than that no complaints!

Steve

[Letter from Prague]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

I think we should write off the first few weeks of the war as an aberration - we can't learn very much from that other than don't get cocky. 

The question is how a modern army would handle the donbass. I'm sure the US could with enough air power, but if the Ukrainians had a NATO quality army I'm not sure they would do much better. If nothing else the attacker would suffer heavy casualties and potentially get bogged down (and the donbass is only held by a few brigades, not divisions).

Edit: and just imagine a non-US force try to take the donbass. Our UK/CAN/GER/NED force would be cut to pieces.

I think NATO armies would do better. The picture we see is skewed because Russia doesn't have good ISR and it doesn't have (effectively) PGMs.

I think war with good ISR and PGMs on both sides would be significantly faster and bloodier affair (for both sides).

[FancyCat]

 

 

[hcrof]

Can someone from the "but if only they had good infantry camp" explain how infantry solves this problem? Honestly I can't understand how it is supposed to work.

In CM sure, good infantry will let you crack an enemies defense, with tanks cleverly keyholed and positioned carefully by an all-knowing commander for best effect. But in the real world, that means the momentum of the attack is fading by the minute and the defending division commander is presumably calling in more precision artillery, and the operational reserves to stop you? 

My impression of a breakthrough attack (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that it is not that sophisticated once it gets going. Pre registered targets are flattened, the tanks move forward at speed and they hose everything down with mg fire until they are through, with infantry following to secure the (hopefully empty) objectives. Sooner or later a tank blows up and at that point 120mm fire destroys what did it pretty promptly. I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's not a delicate process that more infantry can solve? If the infantry have to dismount the attack is increasingly at risk of failure until everything speeds up again?

[LongLeftFlank]

51 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks guys!  I do think they should have gone and done the horrible early digitized voices, but other than that no complaints!

Steve

For great justice! 

 

[Battlefront.com]

I think we can all agree that the Dugin assassination is meaningful, even if we disagree with what the meaning might be.  Dispensing with the things we seem to agree are NOT going on, it seems we've got two possibly motivations for the attack:

1. Some group decided to send a message to the RU Nats that they need to remember their place. 
2. Internal feud between Dugin and some other non-governmental group resulted in violence.

Even in Russia the use of high profile violence indicates something pretty big or extreme.  From what we know of Dugin he and his family don't really fit the typical profile of someone who would be into something big enough to warrant a bombing like this.  However, Dugin's major patron is definitely involved in big stuff.  And this, I think, might be the angle.

Konstantin Malofeev is one of the founding fathers of the 2014 Novorossiya movement in Ukraine.  He personally financed quite a lot of the operations there, including Girkin and Borodai.  Dugin is the source of the philosophy that ties all these guys together.  So while Dugin might not be well known or influential beyond this clique, the clique itself is important in the context of the war in Russia.

It could be that Dugin was targeted by a "business" rival of Malofeev, but it could also be that simmering problems in the DLPR have gotten to the point of concern where a message needed to be sent to the founders.  Remember, Malofeev, Dugin, Girkin, Borodai, and the others of this group are zealots, and zealots can be dangerous when crossed.  Putin might have determined that he needed to send a message of "we made you, we can unmake you".

Whatever happened, I am convinced it was a message and Dugin was chosen explicitly because he was expendable.  I do not think he was targeted because of anything unique to his personal life.

Now, there is another wrinkle to this... the (probably) fake resistance group.

This was released to media very deliberately.  It is not the sort of thing that is improvised because it carries with it so many possible unintended consequences on a whim.  FSB and GRU are the likely agencies to have done such a thing and this isn't something they would have thrown together within a few hours of the assassination.  Both are pretty careful with planning, even if they are sloppy with executing those plans. 

If the FSB was caught unaware by the attack they would have stuck with blaming Ukraine or some idiotic "accident" explanation.  GRU would not have improvised any sort of response to coverup or leverage the attack.

So here's another possibility to consider... GRU and FSB power struggles.  The competition between these two organizations is very well known and their relationship now must be more strained than at any time in decades.  It could be that GRU set up the whole operation to embarrass FSB and to make them look inept.  "Hey, FSB missed identifying and dealing with an entire resistance movement!  Look at how stupid they are!".

It could also be that Dugin was targeted as part of a larger FSB plan to round up and/or discredit Kremlin critics, including RU Nats.

Cripes, there's so many plausible explanations for the attack!

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

18 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Can someone from the "but if only they had good infantry camp" explain how infantry solves this problem? Honestly I can't understand how it is supposed to work.

Armor has never been able to hold ground on its own.  A swarm of infantry can easily dislodge and destroy unsupported armor.  That's been the case since armored vehicles were invented.  It's why historians still snicker that the Germans didn't think they needed MGs on the Ferdinand TD  

Think about a CM scenario where you drive a bunch of unsupported tanks into enemy territory.  How sure are you that your armor has detected all the enemy's infantry?  If you say "very sure" I say "so, this tells me you don't win many games"   AFVs, especially more primitive ones suck and finding infantry.

What this matters is that AFVs, especially tanks, have a very difficult time covering each other while on defensive.  There simply aren't enough of them in a given area to be assured that some grunts with grenades are sneaking up on them.  This is why you need infantry.

The other reason is that when you take ground with armor your enemy likely knows what you have and where.  This gives them an opportunity to hit it either while it's on defensive or as soon as it moves out for another attack.  Armor, therefore, should not hang around once it's accomplished its mission.  If there's no infantry to hold those positions, then withdrawing the armor means there's no effective control of that patch of ground.

Infantry also has the advantage of being harder to find and kill.  They can hide in parking garages!  So again, if you are trying to take a place that is swarming with enemy infantry armed with all kinds of mean and nasty weapons, you want to be surrounded by your own infantry to deal with them.

Then there's the whole problem of Ukrainian infantry running around in the rear where Russia's softer stuff is.  The lack of Russian infantry to protect supply columns, HQs, artillery systems, etc. led to massive losses.

To sum up, in this war Russia's shortage of infantry has produced major problems for both offensive and defensive operations.  It struggles to take things then it struggles to hold them after they are taken.

Steve

[Grigb]

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Sniffed around where, if you don’t mind me asking?

RU fighters, commanders and frontline reporters' posts, comments, stories and videos. There is no single post I can translate but every day I process like few hundreds of RU Nats posts and watch dozens of videos from the frontline. While majority is a waste of time but occasionally there are some useful bits here and there. After some time these bits form a certain pattern. This is what I report. 

 

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I ask because if your assessment is accurate then something has definitely gone wrong with RA armour.  The problem is that I don’t think we know if it is uniquely a Russian problem (eg not enough infantry) or indicative of a much larger shift.

Everything we see in this war we must treat carefully because none of the armies' possess NATO capabilities. It is kind of a unique situation that must not be used to judge blindly the relevance of NATO tactics. However, my point is not whether RU/NATO are right or wrong and not whether there is bigger shift.

My point is looking at RU patterns I see that RU tactics now are shifting away from cold war classical doctrine - we must not expect massed armor push any more by default. Survivors of UKR war will not make mistake rushing NATO AT weapons anymore. They learned their lesson the hard way. Rats will fight from keyholes, suddenly will pop out from unexpected ridges (because they are guided by drones), will fire few volleys from 3-4 km and quickly retreat into towns. Rinse and repeat.

 

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

2km can longer be considered “long range” in a war there 250+ kms is in play.  In fact I am not even sure it is medium range when a man-portable ATGM can hit out to 3+ kms at a reported 90% accuracy.  

I was talking about classical tank ranges. But while we are at it, I must warn about simple range comparison. We need to keep in mind that ATGMs (especially RU ones) are vulnerable as well. So, they must be kept at least 1 but better 2 km away from the front line (there is net of ATGM nests few km behind assault groups). As result tank operating 2-3 km away from front line mostly invulnerable against most RU infantry ATGMs. Hence both sides' tanks are trying to do that.

Drone enhanced lethality of the modern battlefield forced RU-UKR tanks out of 2+2 km area along the front line but also made them invulnerable because AT weapons were pushed away as well. 

 

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Using tanks as some sort of mobile armoured long range snipers “from urban” areas as opposed to a fundamental component of combined arms manoeuvre is a major break from conventional land warfare doctrine.  One, that if confirmed, likely has to do with the nearly 2000 Russian tanks lost in this war, which is starting to rival Iraqs losses in the Gulf War.

Except UKR are doing it as well. In the current war both sides experience a very simple problem:

• You attempt to maneuver close to the frontline - you will be hit by ATGMs
• You attempt at outshoot ATGMs from cover - you will be hit by drone adjusted arty

The solution both sides are using now:

• hide outside of drone range preferably in urban areas
• shoot from longest range from unexpected position possible to minimize chance of timely discovery
• get away back to cover as soon as possible before retaliation 

 

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Further, this is beyond the vulnerabilities of logistical support and more in line with a front end impact.  Keeping sniper tanks gassed and fed ammo will still be a challenge - perhaps less so than offensive manoeuvres- but using tanks as mobile AT guns in what sounds like a purely defensive role is a devolution as well.

Both sides do use tanks in attack like assault guns (similar to sturmgeschützs) shooting infantry on to objective. Well, it is also similar to allied tanks tactics in Normandy where allied tanks shot infantry on to objective. Basically, both sides devolved tanks tactics due to the same problem of vulnerability of tanks to prevalent AT weapons.    

 

11 hours ago, The_Capt said:

As to the cover of buildings, NLOS ATGMs have already done their job if those tanks are huddled behind high rises. PGM artillery can finish the job from there as we have learned that there is nowhere to hide on this battlefield - at least if you are Russian.

I doubt ballistic will allow any 155mm round except Smart reliably hit targets at the base of buildings. But the problem is not ballistics alone. Urban areas are good for hiding.

•  Commercial drones have difficulty penetrating urban areas - 2 km is range in open. In urban areas it is a few hundred meters. Add EW and forget about commercial drones.
• Noncommercial drones are not very useful as well - against normal sized urban areas oblique observation will not work. You will have to put drone on top of the area right inside RU AD.
• Recon team with laser designator will have to infiltrate RU stronghold. Not a good idea.
• So, we are down to a satellite feed which is not without disadvantages as well - simple reparking of tanks between satellite runs or attaching multispectral cammo nets to buildings significantly decrease effectives of satellite observation.  

Do not underestimate the cunningness of RU.  

[hcrof]

16 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Armor has never been able to hold ground on its own.  A swarm of infantry can easily dislodge and destroy unsupported armor.  That's been the case since armored vehicles were invented.  It's why historians still snicker that the Germans didn't think they needed MGs on the Ferdinand TD  

Think about a CM scenario where you drive a bunch of unsupported tanks into enemy territory.  How sure are you that your armor has detected all the enemy's infantry?  If you say "very sure" I say "so, this tells me you don't win many games"   AFVs, especially more primitive ones suck and finding infantry.

What this matters is that AFVs, especially tanks, have a very difficult time covering each other while on defensive.  There simply aren't enough of them in a given area to be assured that some grunts with grenades are sneaking up on them.  This is why you need infantry.

The other reason is that when you take ground with armor your enemy likely knows what you have and where.  This gives them an opportunity to hit it either while it's on defensive or as soon as it moves out for another attack.  Armor, therefore, should not hang around once it's accomplished its mission.  If there's no infantry to hold those positions, then withdrawing the armor means there's no effective control of that patch of ground.

Infantry also has the advantage of being harder to find and kill.  They can hide in parking garages!  So again, if you are trying to take a place that is swarming with enemy infantry armed with all kinds of mean and nasty weapons, you want to be surrounded by your own infantry to deal with them.

Then there's the whole problem of Ukrainian infantry running around in the rear where Russia's softer stuff is.  The lack of Russian infantry to protect supply columns, HQs, artillery systems, etc. led to massive losses.

To sum up, in this war Russia's shortage of infantry has produced major problems for both offensive and defensive operations.  It struggles to take things then it struggles to hold them after they are taken.

Steve

Don't disagree with any of that - Russia sure has an infantry problem. The question I have is how more/better infantry would help Russia during its attempts to mass armour for the breakthrough. 

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Don't disagree with any of that - Russia sure has an infantry problem. The question I have is how more/better infantry would help Russia during its attempts to mass armour for the breakthrough. 

Grigb and The_Capt are having a good discussion about the limitations Russia (in particular) is feeling in this specific war.  Keeping the AT screens, drone operators, FOs, etc. from having the opportunities to rain on Russia's armor parade is a high priority.

What Russia SHOULD be doing is using an infantry heavy combined arms force to engage Ukraine's outer most defenses.  Armor can be brought up to "snipe" particular trouble spots (as described by Grigb).  Once progress is made through the outer defenses the infantry and armor can play leapfrog until they are through the organized defenses.  Then they do a classic move forward and leave infantry to screen rear/flank while more infantry is used to deal with unorganized defenses.

At the moment what is happening is an armored force with paltry infantry moves into contact with Ukrainian defenses, they exchange fire (likely losing some vehicles and soldiers), then retreat.  They don't have the ability to engage the infantry before this happens.

In other spots Russia's artillery hammers a position hard enough that the armored force moves in with inadequate infantry.  The same armor heavy force might now be sufficient to take the position, but after doing so are faced with the same problem all over again with the next line of defenses.

Ukrainian counter attacks in other sectors are the same in reverse.  Ukraine hammers something, moves in with an infantry heavy force, Russia can't deal with it, retreats, calls in massive amounts of artillery, Ukraine's attack flow is disrupted and that delays (or even precludes) taking the next position.

Or something like that

Steve

[Grigb]

39 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So here's another possibility to consider... GRU and FSB power struggles.  The competition between these two organizations is very well known and their relationship now must be more strained than at any time in decades.  It could be that GRU set up the whole operation to embarrass FSB and to make them look inept.  "Hey, FSB missed identifying and dealing with an entire resistance movement!  Look at how stupid they are!".

Yes! This is what I missed completely. Indeed, GRU and FSB are both at silent war with each other. And it is very plausible that GRU is behind the resistance group. But I do not think the purpose of the operation is just to hurt FSB. I think it was a nice bonus. 

But what GRU could gain from assassination? I do not know - GRU is military, unlike FSB they are focused on military objectives. What military objective can be reached by assassination of Dugin daughter or Dugin himself? May be they are trying to use this FSB trick to increate RU Nats motivation for enlistment.

On the other hand GRU might decide to make a move in political game.

Anyway I believe we have insufficient info right now. I will need to sniff around RU Nats and will see.   

[photon]

Another thing I've been thinking about is the idea of "decisiveness", both during a battle and surrounding a battle. In the ancient world, to use @The_Capt's language, there were two ways to force a positive decision to a war: deliver a siege to the enemy's capital or destroy their army in the field. The defender had a choice whether to fight in the field, and could (in limited ways) degrade opposing LOCs. But ancient wars were decided by a pitched battle or a successful siege. And often by a single one of those things. Ancient societies (with the exception of the Romans, to everyone's consternation) were not capable of regenerating meaningful combat power during a campaign season. So if you win one battle handily or successfully deliver your siege, that normative decides the war.

The theory that you produce a decision all at once with a single blow has continued to be popular into the modern age even though I'd submit that it is no longer possible against anything like a motivated peer combatant. The Japanese were obsessed with it, hence Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the Philippine Sea, and Leyte, and the sortie of the Yamato. American commanders broke both ways: Spruance was an avowed cumulativist, and didn't seek to annihilate the Japanese fleet after the Philippine Sea, while Halsey chased the carriers at Leyte. Spruance is, I think well vindicated in no seeking a decision-in-one-action.

Certainly WW1 vindicated the cumulativist approach at the strategic level, WW2 reinforced that, and we're seeing the same thing in Ukraine: Russia's hopes of a single strategically decisive battle failed quickly, because modern forces can force a negative decision more effectively that they could even in WW1. It seems like the question on the table now is whether forcing a positive decision is possible for either side at the operational or tactical levels.

Even at the operational and tactical levels, the ability of the defender to produce negative decisions or undecide things is driven by the size of the bubble of lethality that they can project and how that compares to the bubble of lethality the attacker projects. Again, leaning on naval combat in the Pacific, the Japanese designed ships to decide a tactical battle in a single blow: night fighting with long range torpedoes. The planned operations to decide operational battles in a single blow: the destruction of the USN. They were spectacularly unsuccessful at this, because our carrier air power projected a bubble of lethality (except at night in close waters) that allowed us to refuse battle whenever we wanted.

I think one dynamic we're seeing now is that the undecision modern warfare imposed at the strategic level is now filtering down to the tactical level. I'm not sure how you end a war once that happens?

[Twisk]

9 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Don't disagree with any of that - Russia sure has an infantry problem. The question I have is how more/better infantry would help Russia during its attempts to mass armour for the breakthrough. 

If you look at Soviet main attacks during WW2 they almost all start, initially, with an infantry heavy force that is needed to bludgeon its way through outermost German defense. This force is to take the brunt of losses and open a hole for the armor to break out into enemy rear.  The armor is, ideally, not making the breakout itself because you do not want the armor force to wear itself thin against enemy main line of resistance. This is not only in terms of casaulties but wear and tear on vehicles, ammo expenditure, men become tired. However, the Soviets almost always must commit armor early to make breakout happen.

This is basics of armor breakthrough of defensive line and is still true today. Many specifics have changed though.

Since current Russia does not have infantry force for breakthrough of main line of resistance then it must use armor to do so but this means armor is at highest risk of casualties as it fights through prepared defenses and then after breakthrough Ukraine will have time and men to throw into blocking armor.

---------------------------------------------------------

 

Also additional problem that lack of infantry mean lack of fixing enemy in place. More and better infantry can patrol, raid, attack enemy positions to keep enemy infantry from having best time placing defensive. It is not just about time of major attack but of all the minutes and hours across front where small infantry fights shape battlefield.