How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Looks like sburke, Haiduk, and AKD are going to have some busy days ahead.  Reported by ISW:

That's potentially 20 Majors and LT Colonels that could have been affected by the strikes.  If all were there and most were injured we could be seeing 4-6 names added to the list over the next month as the info slips out.

Steve

I can't wait to see what's on the forum here Thursday AM my time

And I'll be praying that Steve is right about LPR/DPR unrest and that things escalate.  Would be some heavy irony if those locals who cheered RU intervention end up cheering UKR intervention.  I get some folks falling for that in 2014, but by now I should think they figured out they are all just farm animals to Putin, to be driven or eaten as Putin sees fit.

[Battlefront.com]

ISW put some nice numbers to how much land area has changed hands recently:

Quote

Since Russian forces resumed offensive operations following a pause on July 16 Russian forces have gained about 450.84 km² ...

Russian forces have lost roughly 45,000 km² of territory since March 21

Think about this for a sec.  The two time periods are roughly the same.  At this rate of advance it will take Russia about 8.25 *YEARS* of fighting to regain what they lost in 1 *MONTH*.  But Shoigu just said that Russia is going to slow down offensive operations to spare civilian life, so even 8.25 Years seems optimistic even if Ukraine didn't retake any ground within that time.

I assume the RU Nats can do simple mathematics, but they choose not to.

Steve

[JonS]

Yeah, but you know that maths is worthless. Counting kms in jun/jul 1944 would suggest Eisenhower reaching Berlin sometime in the 1950s, for example.

Edited August 25, 2022 by JonS

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, JonS said:

Yeah, but you know that maths is worthless.

For sure it's not something meaningful on its own.  Especially because I'm not giving strong odds of Russia surviving 8 more months of this war, not to mention 8 years

Still, it's a fair comparison to show how much Russia gave up at the height of their power and contrast it with what they recently took back.  It helps remind the people freaking out about the Russians taking a village after a weeks' fighting that in the scheme of things it's a rounding error.

Steve

[kevinkin]

I saw over the past months maps at the ISW showing Russian advances solely along roads. If the maps are representative of the Russian scheme of maneuver, the Russians seem incapable at fanning out off the road network allowing them to bypass villages and flank blocking positions / kill zones. Advancing in columns has classic disadvantages like not be able to use the firepower stuck along the roads to the rear. A broad front vs narrow front question.  What would be the reason why the Russians are not moving off road thereby extending Ukrainian lines? Maybe this was tried and failed. We are led to believe the terrain is ideal for armored warfare and encirclement operations aka tank country. Maybe the Russian can't field enough force to fill the battlespace to make a broad front strategy work. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by kevinkin

[JonS]

Mud? Mines? Fear?

[LongLeftFlank]

56 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

I saw over the past months maps at the ISW showing Russian advances solely along roads. If the maps are representative of the Russian scheme of maneuver, the Russians seem incapable at fanning out off the road network allowing them to bypass villages and flank blocking positions / kill zones. Advancing in columns has classic disadvantages like not be able to use the firepower stuck along the roads to the rear. A broad front vs narrow front question.  What would be the reason why the Russians are not moving off road thereby extending Ukrainian lines? Maybe this was tried and failed. We are led to believe the terrain is ideal for armored warfare and encirclement operations aka tank country. Maybe the Russian can't field enough force to fill the battlespace to make a broad front strategy work. 

This was very thoroughly covered early in the thread; there was a whole controversy around the 'Giant Red Blob' maps showing Russia eating almost 1/4 of Ukraine. Then someone else came up with the 'spiderweb' map showing how other than in the south they in fact controlled only the roads. Russiabots yelled BS but then Strelkov/Girkin confirmed, yup, that was indeed the situation

1.  most of the BTGs rolled into Ukraine at only around 40-60% total manpower and most of those were 'contract' specialists, crews and gunners; the bulk of their manpower shortage was in riflemen (conscripts).  Putin didn't mobilise which was what was supposed to happen to fill out these units.

So they couldn't execute proper infantry screening/sweeping tactics or combined arms, even if they wanted to....

2. even elite 'infantry' formations (VDV) with a fuller establishment of grunts were (are!) doctrinally tied to their vehicles, relying on HW 'recon by fire' and calling in the guns instead of foot sweeps.

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

What would be the reason why the Russians are not moving off road thereby extending Ukrainian lines?

Which army is doing that in Europe or Asia? You need roads and stay close to the logistics network. Anschluss of Austria no opposition and the German army advanced only on the roads. They lost something like 10% of their mobile units. Imagine if you go to cross-country. PS Market Garden failed because they were tight to one single road. NATO IFV's none is capable crossing rivers. The old M113 was capable and the US marines have some vehicles. Bridges are part of a road network. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by chuckdyke

[Huba]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

But to me, you've just made the case for the opposite:  the purpose of trundling around all those tons of armour, using a huge finicky fuel guzzling engine and super heavy duty drivetrain, is to protect some squishies (crew), who in turn operate a large cannon (or whatever).

...So what if the crew instead hops out of their vehicle a couple of kms from the FEBA, takes cover with their gear (including drones) under some high tech ghillie suits and then maneuvers and fires the UGV remotely. Do you still need all that armour?

Pushing it even further, does our Mad Max Future look something like this? [/tongue in cheek, but only partly]

....The UGV war buggies are so modular, they are literally *designed* to blow apart, leaving certain components salvageable (rather than burning to the axles due to all that extra fuel and ammo cooking off).... Or the launcher is the bit that's designed to blow off, leaving the platform (hull down) able to pull back

...soon to come again, all shiny and chrome!  Witness me!!!!!!

It really is about the communication. If you could reliably operate your UGVs from a long distance (perhaps via satellite link?), then you don't need the mothership at all. But if we assume that range bigger than few kilometers is not achievable, then by all means yes, you need this Namer with operators inside to follow the UGVs/ UAVs in the second echelon, probably together with similar APCs carrying infantry. And these vehicles, even though avoiding direct combat, have to be as heavily armored as possible, equipped with active protection and travel with some VSHORAD vehicles too, otherwise indirect fires will just kill them when trying to maneuver.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I assume the RU Nats can do simple mathematics, but they choose not to.

Steve

Yep, they are grumbling about it. But so far, they cover it with various excuses like this is war, we should not expect quick results. 

On the deeper level though I think they secretly hope for either imminent UKR army collapse - they are winning, they are capturing UKR positions, front is shaking! Or for imminent Kremlin decision to strike UKR civilian infrastructure so civilian moral will break and UKR surrender.

[Huba]

2 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Or for imminent Kremlin decision to strike UKR civilian infrastructure so civilian moral will break and UKR surrender.

You really don't have to be the brightest student of WW2 to know that this doesn't work that way, even if you firebomb the bejesus out of whole square kilometers. I guess this is the whole hubris/ "Ukrainians are subhumans" thinking, that is showing here again.

[Grigb]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

You really don't have to be the brightest student of WW2 to know that this doesn't work that way, even if you firebomb the bejesus out of whole square kilometers. I guess this is the whole hubris/ "Ukrainians are subhumans" thinking, that is showing here again.

Exactly. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wwyptq/multiple_himars_participating_in_an_attack_on/

I find it very strange we have now multiple times seen Ukrainians firing HIMARS as a group of 4.

This would be a huge no-no in the Finnish military.

 

Finnish military article on SPG battery tactics (in Finnish):
https://imgur.com/a/oj6r7Ra (google camera translate "works")
Not an MLRS but those systems are even more valuable and would be used with even more care. (SPGs operate alone as a part of the battery but never get grouped together)

[Huba]

Just now, Grigb said:

Exactly. 

What is amusing is how it contradicts the notions of "Ukrainians being Russians". For all the critique, Russian are rather hardy folk who for sure wouldn't surrender due to random bombing. I guess the moment you reject the Tsar's yoke you are supposed to loose all your moral qualities and change into a proper untermensch? Crazy thinking really...

[Huba]

Just now, The_MonkeyKing said:

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wwyptq/multiple_himars_participating_in_an_attack_on/

I find it very strange we have now multiple times seen Ukrainians firing HIMARS as a group of 4.

This would be a huge no-no in the Finnish military.

 

Finnish military article on SPG battery tactics (in Finnish):
https://imgur.com/a/oj6r7Ra (google camera translate "works")
Not an MLRS but those systems are even more valuable and would be used with even more care. (SPGs operate alone as a part of the battery but never get grouped together)

This might be a section of two M270s operating together here? If not, perhaps after scouting the route and pre-selecting the firing position, they deem it safer to roll the whole battery into the spot, rather than dispersing it and risking that a part will be detected due to operating in sub-optimal localization? I'm not sure how to weigh the threats here...

[Grigb]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

What would be the reason why the Russians are not moving off road thereby extending Ukrainian lines? Maybe this was tried and failed. We are led to believe the terrain is ideal for armored warfare and encirclement operations aka tank country. Maybe the Russian can't field enough force to fill the battlespace to make a broad front strategy work. 

Fighting outside of settlements favors UKR light forces and artillery. Pushes there are costly, even more slow and unreliable.  Settlements give them at least concealment from drones to survive UKR arty (unlike RU arty it does not level the whole settlement).  So, their current tactic is push from settlement to settlement along the road.

They do move outside of settlements, but it is mostly supporting pushes to prevent UKR from outflanking RU spearhead. 

[Grigb]

Time for another Mashkovets map. This time about the eastern part of Kherson bridgehead.

[Grigb]

Next is translation of Mashkovets post (24-AUF) without map regarding RU forces situation at Donbass

Quote

But, in this sense, two important factors should be taken into account...

- For all this "Bombass [Donbass] concert", the enemy uses mainly not its own regular troops, but their surrogate in the form of the so-called 1st and 2nd AK NM Dombabwe [Donbass+Zimbabwe]  and Luganda [Luhanks + Uganda] (including their captured "mobilization reserve"), respectively, reinforced by 5-6 "battalions" from various Prigozhin - Shoigov mercenaries garbage dumps... type of  "Wagner", "League", "Redoubt", "Patriot", etc. Actually, the Russian troops themselves are involved there only sporadically... mainly in the form of "special forces" and separate tank and artillery units. Yes, there are several tactical groups of airborne troops, MP and the 150th MSD of the 8th CAA, but they operate exclusively in separate areas, and mainly in the "second echelon".

– Such a "differentiated" approach has not gave the desired result yet. After all, all these "semi-finished products" are quickly "worn down" in continuous attacks, with minimal progress, or without progress at ll. It is possible, of course, to drive ALL the men from Dombabwe and Luganda into "mobilization battalions and regiments" and make these formations [L-DP republics] a kind of female ghetto led by Pushilin and Pasechnik as "inseminating bulls". But, even in this case, it hardly guarantees the result coveted in the Kremlin in the form of complete delight [liberation] of the Donetsk region of Ukraine simply because the average daily pace of progress of this pro-Russian herd in these areas does not correlate with the rate of losses of these "formations". Moreover, the mobilization capacities of these territories are also not infinite...

Of course, all this is due to the desire of the Russian command to save its own "forces and means" in order to at least be able to accumulate reserves on an operational scale. But the expediency of this already looks rather doubtful today, because the Russian command has tangible problems with the matter of "freeing its own forces and weapons" and the formation of reserves, too... Because the need for the current replenishment of his troops is also not small and continues to grow.

A side sign of this is that our group (IS) [Mashkovets OSINT group] has already recorded the transfer of ADDITIONAL forces and weapons of the central military district of the Russian Federation to the area of responsibility of this group. After all, the command of the enemy forces understands one simple fact - these bombass-like "mobs" in half with frostbitten [cruel] "Wagners" are quite possible, could all die in the end, but still not to fulfill their goals...

 

[Holien]

8 hours ago, danfrodo said:

9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Two possibilities. Either 1) Dannatt's an old Cold Warrior with an inflated opinion of Russian capabilities, or 2) he's Kim Philby.

With a nice sprinkle of Oswald Mosely.

 

Ok so I am a bit pissed off with this and would ask you two to reconsider, I can kinda forgive MikeyD as I sort of get where he is coming from but Dan you have added nothing and just attacked a UK Public Servant who has given a good part of his life to protecting the UK and Europe and working with America. So shame on both of you....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dannatt

Before you start slagging off people that don't agree with your views please take a look at the whole and if you do have any evidence that he is a racist I would love to see it.

So YES he is old school and you have to view the context of these senior leaders they don't always do detail and were very used to a life at the top being fed information to make the key choices on what to do.

He could well be wrong about the outcome of the war as he does not have the detail he once had access to. He is of course has life experience to draw upon which we don't have the same as him. Unless you served at the top of your armed forces?

What we want is a quick end to this war and from following here I am hopeful that will happen but it has not happened yet and for me the next phase is key to see if Ukraine can pull off a major victory and force Russia out of say Kherson.

This would be a good indication that they can turn the tables on Russia and win the war quickly.

Of course Kherson could all be a diversion and they have another target, that would be good too but so far we have not seen it and I wait in hope and keep looking at the Tea Leafs for signs...

 

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

What is amusing is how it contradicts the notions of "Ukrainians being Russians". For all the critique, Russian are rather hardy folk who for sure wouldn't surrender due to random bombing. I guess the moment you reject the Tsar's yoke you are supposed to loose all your moral qualities and change into a proper untermensch? Crazy thinking really...

No - anyone else but russians are untermenschen regardless of rejecting yoke or not.

The point is that russians are ubermenschen, gods walking the Earth - hence why they should never create anything themselves (and they don't, most still live in very medieval conditions, washing clothes in rivers, building buildings out of planks, no running water or gas etc). But everybody else, being untermenschen, are destined to be only their slaves and create everything for them. Hence why most "advanced" russian lands are those that they either occupied or the ones directly bordering countries they occupied. Hence why everything 100km east of Moscow is a barren wasteland with every town being a time portal to a few centuries back.

Maybe it really ties into their mongolian/nomadic ancestral roots where their ancestors were so used to simply taking better stuff from others but never cared about what they themselves possessed.

Edited August 25, 2022 by kraze

[chuckdyke]

6 minutes ago, kraze said:

Hence why everything 100km east of Moscow is a barren wasteland with every town being a time portal to a few centuries back.

It is Nature vs Nurture. Some people just won't survive if you place them in a university with the commitment to graduate inside an X number of years. Give them five acres of land and they are home for generations to come. How big is Siberia and why do they want to expand towards Western Europe? 

[Holien]

9 hours ago, billbindc said:

Dannatt is very similar to a lot of folks who work on this issue. They can tell you quite articulately how badly Russia is doing and how brilliant the Ukraine campaign has been but simply cannot see how Ukraine wins. I have had this conversation numerous times with legit experts and many cherish as an article of faith that Russia has another gear it can drop into an win the war...or at least not lose it. There are decades of attitudes and expectations in that view and it's just impossible for some folks to get over it.  

I think you have to view him and some folk through the lense of how they have served and there background.

Dannatt reached the top of a very slippery pole through long service in the British military. The skill required to do that is very different than what is needed as a Captain, Major etc... and while I don't like his politics he did serve actively our country so he deserves some respect for that.

As mentioned in a previous post when you get to the top the chances are that you don't always study the detail and are not aware of what is happening in the weeds. (A great general is BTW, and I don't think he was a great general). So I don't think he follows this thread and gives as much time to understanding the low level stuff as perhaps he should.

This thread does and it has come to a different view because of it and so far the thread has been more right than wrong on the outcomes.

Also you have to add in that folk  when dealing with the media need to take a position and be very clear and concise with a simple POV. Media don't ask you back to talk (and pay expenses) if you are full of greys, rather than blacks and whites when talking. 

So for Dannatt or anyone else to say that Ukraine will win it is tough to point to anything to say clearly why that will happen. He is working with an outdated conceptual model and it will take time for him to change that view. That is why the work of The Capt is so important and he needs to change views of these old school warriors...

 

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, Grigb said:

Fighting outside of settlements favors UKR light forces and artillery. Pushes there are costly, even more slow and unreliable.  Settlements give them at least concealment from drones to survive UKR arty (unlike RU arty it does not level the whole settlement).  So, their current tactic is push from settlement to settlement along the road.

They do move outside of settlements, but it is mostly supporting pushes to prevent UKR from outflanking RU spearhead.

Thanks to those who filled me in on the current thinking re: broad vs. narrow front operations in the tank country that is Ukraine. The short answer is that Russia can not field forces capable of off road maneuver even though they have numerous fully tracked vehicles. To do so they would need more light infantry operating untethered and the ability to maintain momentum, avoid getting pinned down, observed, and attacked by drones and artillery. They can't pull off large scale flanking attacks like they did in the Ukraine during WW2 without hordes of supporting infantry. Also, there is probably psychological comfort for the grunt Russian being on top of a main supply line, under a roof or hiding in their AFV behind a solid structure. This has become an informal agreement with officers just to keep troops in the field. So if not mud and mines, just plain fear of fighting out in the enemy's countryside.  

[BletchleyGeek]

1 hour ago, Holien said:

...

Also you have to add in that folk  when dealing with the media need to take a position and be very clear and concise with a simple POV. Media don't ask you back to talk (and pay expenses) if you are full of greys, rather than blacks and whites when talking. 

Excellent couple posts @Holien. TV producers cast their experts balancing many concerns and the requirement "specific and relevant expertise on given a topic" may sometimes take a back seat to other concerns.

In the same way that an obstetrician may not be the best person to bring to TV to make an assessment on vaccines safety, or a Computer Science professor to make assessments on why there is more matter than antimatter in the Universe, a former chief of staff with ample first hand experience in military police operations may not have the most insightful takes on a war that I think it is fair to say has defied everyone's expectations... at least twice or more times!

[FancyCat]