How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

putin was up to a few years ago a friendly head of state you could do business with. Now he has become a reptile you can't do business with.

Germany was in deep long before Putin came around when the supplier was the Soviet Union.  A supplier that was militarily occupying half of its territory and threatening the other half with conventional and/or nuclear destruction.  The Germans made their peace with the devil a long time ago.

There was a link a bunch of pages ago that detailed how the US, in particular, consistently since the very start tried to get Germany to recognize this was not in their own best interests long term.  Germany did not listen and instead made things worse each successive year.

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Germany was not the only country who got it wrong.

No, but they dove in deeper than others AND wield more power within the NATO alliance and the EU than pretty much anybody else.  That meant Germany's dependence on Russian energy translated into an outsized influence on policy towards an increasingly aggressive and repressive country. 

Plenty of signs that this day of reckoning was coming, such as Russia illegally stealing Yukos assets, incorporating them into state controlled companies, ignoring International Court rulings against them, cutting Poland and Bulgarian gas off in 2006, cutting Ukraine gas off in 2007, waging a war of aggression against Georgia in 2008, waging a war of aggression against Ukraine in 2014, and countless examples of hints that energy was now weaponized.

Germany had the resources to do things other countries would have struggled with.  They chose not to.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, akd said:

It’s a N-S bridge and the damage is all shown in the closer view you quoted.  The rest is not damaged. No collapse of any part, but concentrated holes and structural degradation of the bridge deck.

Silly me   I saw that but disoriented myself as to which side is which.  Yeah, I know the bridge is N/S, but I still think of it in terms of river banks (east and west), so goofed my terminology too.

OK, so what I think I saw in that night video was maybe concrete from the underside of the impact areas falling into the water.  "exit wound" sorta damage.  Because I'm positive that video I referenced showed something big falling just after the impact.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Germany had the resources to do things other countries would have struggled with.  They chose not to.

Here is the guy who almost got Messiah status. German politics without him is unthinkable. Their goal was reunification.

 

[Battlefront.com]

From an email for NY Times subscribers I found quite amusing:

Quote

“There is an axiomatic policy — don’t poke the bear — that’s been around for decades,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk assessment firm in Washington. “The Ukrainians are turning that policy on its head. And the bear has proven remarkably pokable.”

 

[sburke]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

200 pers would a bde HQ at least. /Killing/ 200 at a single HQ would make it a div or corps HQ. Not sure if Rus airborne has HQs that big?

I'll settle for a handful of colonels etc for the list. 

[sburke]

42 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, so what I think I saw in that night video was maybe concrete from the underside of the impact areas falling into the water.  "exit wound" sorta damage.  Because I'm positive that video I referenced showed something big falling just after the impact.

Steve

Nah that was Russian hopes of being able to hold the west bank falling into the river.

[LongLeftFlank]

10 hours ago, The_Capt said:

My point on AP landmines is pretty simple: the political cost will not be offset by the battlefield gains.  If you find that frustrating, well try fighting an insurgency with a hand and three fingers tied behind you back and come back to me.

Well noted mate, and I'm not trying to twist your tail here as some-rando-on-keyboard.

(... and while I've never personally toted a rifle in anyone's service but my own, my personal life experience with conflict zones and landmines, and with their victims, is nonzero).

You seem to be of the view though that the war of attrition is going for Ukraine militarily.... how? as well as can be expected? (I won't put words in your mouth).

****

Let me flip a few of our fondly held ideas on their heads here, for argument....

1.  How long can Ukrainian society *really* keep this up? Yes, they have no choice and are putting a valiant face on it all, but war economies basically eat themselves over time. Some 10% of the people are DPs, internal and external, a net economic drag. Winter comes early.

2.  Ukraine's true rear area -- unmobilised Western economies -- is slowing down, a secular trend. The Globalisation 2.0 asset auction is largely played out now (that's where I carry a rifle, metaphorically). Compassion fatigue, hard choices and 'cutting losses' lie ahead.

3. Russia is running way short on a lot of key inputs. But they show little sign yet of being unable (or unwilling) to hold their ill gotten gains to date: the Izyum bulge, the Azov shore and the shattered Lukhansk zone.

With the exception of the Kherson salient, which he'll need to let go in the fall, Putin actually does appear to be 'freezing' the conflict, at least since June.

Sure, that strategy is forced on him by RA's failure to advance, and is nothing close to what he wanted, but such a stalemate may be something a battered but stubborn Russia can drag out for years. Can Ukraine?

4. This thread has amply demonstrated the limitations of historical analogies, but Ukraine is in a France 1915 situation. Some 1/5 of its lands (1/4+ if we count 2014 losses) are under enemy control, disproportionately heavy industry.

We've skipped the Marne (and thankfully, so far, the Somme) and have gone straight to Verdun. Also, as yet there is no BEF sharing the blood price, and unlikely to be.

5. How long can Ukraine's fighting pool of some 1.2 million brave, still mainly cheerful, Vikings remain effective and superior, even at a reduced 'stalemate' level of intensity? Again, there's a massive economic cost to having these guys and gals sitting in trenches.

TL:DR   A lot of major dynamics change as and when this war goes 'long' and by no means all of them swing against Russia.

Edited August 27, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[JonS]

6 months is not a 'long' war, by any stretch. The only shorter one I can think of is the Falklands. And the Football War. Even GWI was longer, although granted not by much. And the French /were/ on the winning side in WWI.

[Letter from Prague]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think you misunderstood his point.  Or maybe I did?    I took his comment to mean that one of the only reasons Germany was able to phase out both coal and nuclear power was because it had cheap Russian gas to replace it with.  If there was no anti-nuke movement then maybe there wouldn't be the dependence on Russian gas.  Or put another way, if there was no Russian gas the anti-nuke movement would likely not have been so successful.

The irony is that the German people genuinely wanted to have a better and safer environment, now they are sitting downwind from a potential nuclear catastrophe caused by a war that the German people partially funded and enabled through Ostpolitik.  This is what happens when people don't carefully examine the fine print or long term costs of the "cheap" thing they purchase.  And before anybody thinks I'm picking on Germany, don't.  My own country has the same problem (cough... Saudi Arabia... cough... fracking... cough... deep sea drilling... cough)

Steve

That is where I was going, yes. And there is open question whether "outsourcing world's manufacturing to China" should be on the same list Russian gas and Saudi oil is, and if so, the whole world has the same problem.

[G.I. Joe]

44 minutes ago, JonS said:

6 months is not a 'long' war, by any stretch. The only shorter one I can think of is the Falklands. And the Football War. Even GWI was longer, although granted not by much. And the French /were/ on the winning side in WWI.

Good point. If we're not counting wildly lopsided conflicts like Operation Urgent Fury or the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 or border skirmishes like the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War of 1941 and the 1995 Cenepa War between the same two countries, the Six-Day War and the October (Yom Kippur) War are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head to add to the list...

[Letter from Prague]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

From an email for NY Times subscribers I found quite amusing:

 

This Finnish MP has I think the best response for "poking the bear".

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, G.I. Joe said:

Good point. If we're not counting wildly lopsided conflicts like Operation Urgent Fury or the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 or border skirmishes like the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War of 1941 and the 1995 Cenepa War between the same two countries, the Six-Day War and the October (Yom Kippur) War are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head to add to the list...

Can I point out that virtually all the really quick ones happen in deserts...

[G.I. Joe]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Can I point out that virtually all the really quick ones happen in deserts...

Good point, although that does remind me that I was forgetting the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

6 months is not a 'long' war, by any stretch. The only shorter one I can think of is the Falklands. And the Football War. Even GWI was longer, although granted not by much. And the French /were/ on the winning side in WWI.

So you toss out a metric that is utterly useless in isolation: 'war duration, months'. And then proceed to cite completely irrelevant analogies.

Followed by an empty statement that well, the French won, so who cares? Nothing to see here.

Why did you even bother? Your comments are usually a lot more thoughtful than this.

Edited August 27, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Aragorn2002]

44 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

This Finnish MP has I think the best response for "poking the bear".

Great quote. On the other hand, while knowing the nature of the bear, you could kill it while it's sleeping.

[JonS]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

your comments are usually a lot more thoughtful than this.

Thanks? I guess I don't understand what you post was supposed to be about. It came across as "This has gone on too long! And look! The French were on the poo in a completely different context!"

So, um. Yeah? The Ukrainians have lost some land, but they do have a (very) modest foreign legion, and far more importantly they are getting free toys from something like 75% of the global economy who are meanwhile very definitely not supporting Russia. That's worth far more right now than a few fields of sunflowers on the far side of the Dnipro.

In terms of duration, so far this war has lasted about one (1) operational rotation. Or half of one if you happen to be in the US Army. This has simply not been a long war. There are any number of examples of existential wars from the last century that lasted multiple years. People have astonishing endurance when they're motivated - do you really doubt Ukraine's motivation? I don't.

[Letter from Prague]

I think the concern is twice:

1) Will the Western support last?

2) How will Ukraine take things back?

For the first one, it is impossible to know, for the latter the bet seems to be fog eating snow (at long range and precisely), but that is helluva bet to make - on a bad day, I don't often believe it myself.

I would say another concern would be Putin giving up Donbas (after stirring a mutiny in LDPR) and asking for white peace "I leave but only to 2021 borders" and what that would do with Western support.

[chrisl]

23 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

I think the concern is twice:

1) Will the Western support last?

2) How will Ukraine take things back?

For the first one, it is impossible to know, for the latter the bet seems to be fog eating snow (at long range and precisely), but that is helluva bet to make - on a bad day, I don't often believe it myself.

I would say another concern would be Putin giving up Donbas (after stirring a mutiny in LDPR) and asking for white peace "I leave but only to 2021 borders" and what that would do with Western support.

US support will likely last at least until the next administration starts.  Poland also appears to be very committed, having been on the receiving end far too often historically.

The US showed decades of patience in Iraq and Afghanistan, well past the point of there being any return for the country but there still being a cost in lives and (lots of) dollars.  If someone else's people are doing the fighting, the amount of money is rather small on the scale of the US military budget and the return is huge in terms of real-world lessons learned about modern equipment on a modern battlefield.  And it's reducing a historic conventional threat with the cost to the US only being dollars, and not that many of them.  

So support will last at least to the end of the first Biden term.  Can Russia last that long?  

Is Ukraine going to do in Donbas and Crimea the same thing Russia did in 2014?  Militarily Russia is stuck and their situation is only going to get worse.  Can Ukraine demoralize Russian troops and limit their supplies sufficiently that at some point the UA just start filtering in and taking surrenders?  Or filtering in to find that Russian troops have just wandered off?

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

200 pers would a bde HQ at least. /Killing/ 200 at a single HQ would make it a div or corps HQ. Not sure if Rus airborne has HQs that big?

This wasn't HQ or at least not only HQ. Locals write this hotel used as barrack for troops and elite bordello for officers. Girkin wrote in disgust: "10 HIMARSEs - the hotel in the rubbish. And together with it a bunch of military, which were used to make war with comfort, whiskey and wenches".

Security near this hotel was so tough, that locals, which walked nearby, scared even to turn head to the hotel side - it often caused brutal reaction of guarding fighters. I doubt about 200 KIA, but locals write in TG there are casualties really took place, and LPR investigators told the missiles completelt destroyed 5th floor and pentrated building down to 2nd floor.

Locals also write that 2nd battalion of 6th cossack motor-rifle regiment of LPR, not "paratroopers" was deployed there. Though, by other info some elements of 31st air-assault brigade could be moved there for R&R. 

Officilally Russian MoD claimed UKR missiles struck in that day a "hospital" in Stakhanov, which caused death of 3 men and 7 were wounded.

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Haiduk

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

Thanks? I guess I don't understand what you post was supposed to be about. It came across as "This has gone on too long! And look! The French were on the poo in a completely different context!"

So, um. Yeah? The Ukrainians have lost some land, but they do have a (very) modest foreign legion, and far more importantly they are getting free toys from something like 75% of the global economy who are meanwhile very definitely not supporting Russia. That's worth far more right now than a few fields of sunflowers on the far side of the Dnipro.

In terms of duration, so far this war has lasted about one (1) operational rotation. Or half of one if you happen to be in the US Army. This has simply not been a long war. There are any number of examples of existential wars from the last century that lasted multiple years. People have astonishing endurance when they're motivated - do you really doubt Ukraine's motivation? I don't.

Fair enough, thanks for elaborating, but I'm sure you agree we must cross index 'combat intensity' (e.g. bloodshed, extent and totality of destruction, consumption of materiel, etc.) with 'time'.  Not all days count the same.

...And no, I don't doubt Ukrainian motivation or will/ability to continue. I'm just kind of challenging the complacency here, as I do from time to time, that victory or collapse or whatever is just a matter of time and patience. I enjoy reading the responses.

In my view, it's a risky course for UA to just keep on gnawing away at RA with HIMARS, counterbattery fire and infantry probes, straight into the winter. The brave Ukrainian people pay an awful price for every day this drags on. I also continue to believe Ivan is frantically digging in already ('freezing his gains', or trying to) and the longer offensive action is put off, the bloodier and more fraught retaking those lands is going to be.

...So, again, my view is that they either need to take some risks and find a way to solve for larger offensive ops, or else materially ratchet up the Russian death rates to a level that forces their withdrawal, especially targeting the 'volunteer' forces @Grigb discussed. 

I am not seeing them achieving that with precision artillery alone; maybe I am wrong. The HIMARS stuff makes great press, but I don't see higher rates of Ivans killed on the line.

So I floated the idea of waging unrestricted mine warfare within defined 'killing zones'. @The_Capt and others pointed out the downsides of that. Useful discussion, in my view.  And here we are.

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[poesel]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I took his comment to mean that one of the only reasons Germany was able to phase out both coal and nuclear power was because it had cheap Russian gas to replace it with. 

"one of the only reasons" is an... interesting phrase

Replacing coal & nuclear with gas was the easiest and cheapest solution. There were and are others, but all of them more expensive money wise and/or political.

Ironically, it was the plan of the new government of late '21 to build more gas plants as an intermediate solution until solar, wind & hydrogen would replace gas in 10 years or so.

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If there was no anti-nuke movement then maybe there wouldn't be the dependence on Russian gas.  Or put another way, if there was no Russian gas the anti-nuke movement would likely not have been so successful.

No, that turns it on the head. The anti-nuclear movement has different roots and has no dependency on the availability of gas.
Even if Germany had gone French and all out nuclear, who can say that we wouldn't have bought the uranium from the Soviets?

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Germany was in deep long before Putin came around when the supplier was the Soviet Union.  A supplier that was militarily occupying half of its territory and threatening the other half with conventional and/or nuclear destruction.  The Germans made their peace with the devil a long time ago.

...

Germany had the resources to do things other countries would have struggled with.  They chose not to.

7 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Here is the guy who almost got Messiah status. German politics without him is unthinkable. Their goal was reunification.

Thanks @chuckdyke for bringing it up. Reunification was a very strong wish, and everybody knew it would only happen with the consent of the Soviets (or WWIII). Also, all the little improvements between the two German states (like being able to travel) would have to pass Moscow. So there was a real incentive to be on good terms with Russia that no other state had.
After the fall of the SU there was still the feeling of being indebted to Russia for, of course, WWII, and not creating a massacre during the reunification (which had been a real possibility).
Last but not least, there was still the hope that a rise in Russian wealth would automatically create a better Russian society, and they would eventually come over to the West. Now proven quite wrong, unfortunately.

[Taranis]

"Ukrainian servicemen fire a Soviet 2S7 Pion self-propelled gun in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, August 26, 2022. STRINGER / REUTERS"

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

Now proven quite wrong, unfortunately.

Yes, and European Social Democrats are under suspicion in the US. The Democrats want to adopt some of the social safety net rules in the US. Look at the suspicion it creates. German unification made unification of the two Koreas next to impossible. South Korea would have to burden the bill for it. 

[Huba]

This is interesting, another FU to Putin from Kazakhstan:

 

[Haiduk]

Russian attack with two BMP-3 finished too fast.

Here a two Russian propagandists:

ColonelCassad: this was BMP zerg-rush of AFU on positions of Pacific Fleet naval infantry

VladlenTatarskyi: Yes. Just there is a little nuance - theese are BMP-3 on cadres. They recently appeared on armament of 155th naval infantry brigade. BMP were blew up on mines, but all still alive.

[I have seen only six running troopers, probably a driver - seventh was hit]

Also more likely this is not 155th naval infantry brigade, but volunteer battalion "Tigr" of Primorye region, formed with support of 155th brigade. There were mentions, they are operating on Vuhledar direction.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Haiduk