How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Anybody got a guess of their full strength numbers? Is this 20% or half, or is this unit too hush hush for us to know that?

I think they are theoretically around 1500, which is three battalions at around 400 each plus recon and other support personnel.  It seems these units were up to full strength when the war started, but that could be wrong.

Assuming my numbers are correct, 47 KIA would be around 3% KIA or about 12% with WIA factored in.  I don't think the wall of pictures for the 3rd Spetsnaz gives us an accurate read on total casualty count unless the unit hasn't seen much combat or it wasn't nearly at full strength.

We've done previous calculations based on some amount of evidence (such as captured documents) and put the likely total casualty count at between 15% and 20% with roughly 1/4 being KIA.  To really get a guess about total casualties we have to estimate how many uniformed Russians have cycled trough Ukraine since the war started.  If we're going with a 5% KIA rate 1,000,000 would have had to been in Ukraine over the last 6 months.  That number is obviously way too large.  Therefore, either 50,000 KIA is too high or the estimated KIA rate is too low.  For example, a 10% KIA rate would mean 500,000 Russians were in Ukraine over the last 6 months.  That total number seems more than likely accurate, so it really comes down to us accepting Russia took 10% KIA over this time period.  Personally, I think it is plausible.

Steve

[FancyCat]

How do we know they didn’t use tanks to hit fortified positions? We could use more info. Mind you, more IFVs, APCs, are useful than more infantry, but mostly due to being able to mount infantry. But heavier firepower is important.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

33 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Anybody got a guess of their full strength numbers? Is this 20% or half, or is this unit too hush hush for us to know that?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Guards_Spetsnaz_Brigade#Structure

c.1600, but that isn't bayonet strength.

Spetsnaz isn't a true analog to USSF, SEALs, SAS etc. (where if you're in a firefight for more than 2 clips, your mission has already gone sideways).

They're more like Rangers, big tough paras pulling recce, infiltration and ambush, which are high risk ops. So you would expect pretty heavy losses, even within the RA playbook. 

And in the current war, with the command so short on assault infantry who will actually leave their vehicles and go into the bush / buildings to do what needs doing....

Edited September 11, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Vanir Ausf B]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Therefore, either 50,000 KIA is too high or the estimated KIA rate is too low.  For example, a 10% KIA rate would mean 500,000 Russians were in Ukraine over the last 6 months.  That total number seems more than likely accurate, so it really comes down to us accepting Russia took 10% KIA over this time period.  Personally, I think it is plausible.

Steve

500,000 seems improbable to me. Unless the Russian "stealth mobilization" has been far more successful than we thought.

RE: Tanks

Ukraine has about 5 armored brigades to cover a frontage of somewhere around 1800-2000 km. I think this is why we see tanks penny-packeted in company-size units and also why we are seeing wheeled vehicles used in assaults. It's not so much a deliberate decision to avoid mass as it is a condition imposed by this war. At least that's my guess

[dan/california]

47 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

For those doubting the 50k RU loss figure.

 

 

Second, not terribly bright question, I should have asked in the previous post. These units would be analogous to a ranger battalion at least in concept? Really high grade assault infantry acting in units of a company or more? As opposed to small team SOF? I get lost in the swirling morass of Russian unit types and abbreviations sometimes.

And yes I realize the are are nowhere near as good as the the Rangers, I am just talking about the basic unit type and employment. Not much evidence in this war the Russians are good at much of anything except atrocities.

[Calamine Waffles]

12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'd like to take this point and turn it around a bit.

What if we magically took tanks out of Ukraine's attack, would it be going as well as it is with tanks?  I suspect it would in Kharkiv for sure.  Why do I think that?  Because Russia simply doesn't have enough infantry to hold up an attacking Ukrainian formation.  From what we can tell Ukraine is SWARMING into these areas.  What is a bunch of tanks going to do about that?  Retreat or die, that's what.  How do we know this?  February through March of this war for starters!

So what happens if they happen to run into a Russian unit that happens to be armed with RPGs, perhaps some older Gaboy/Fagot ATGMs and mortars? Are they just going to back up and go around them, waste time and fuel?  What if they run into a strongpoint that they can't bypass due to geography or need to take for logistical reasons?

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OK, so what about Kherson.  I suspect tanks are more important there because the Russians have a higher density of better quality forces fighting from reinforced positions.  But would tanks be as important to Ukraine if the Russians had Javelins?  Probably not because they would lose them faster than they could make gains or keep those gains.  How do we know this?  Once again, February through March of this war.

Where is the heavier firepower going to come from? Purely artillery? Back to WWI tactics? Infantry + artillery? It would cost you far more lives. Ask the Pasdaran in the Iran-Iraq War.
 

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Now, how would Kharkiv go for the Ukrainians if they had more tanks?  Does anybody here think they would be taking even more ground faster with a lot more machines that break down frequently and require huge logistical support?

If you're going cross country, I don't think there is a significant difference in mechanical reliability between heavy wheeled AFVs and tanks. Both are going to consume a lot of fuel, and a wheeled vehicle has a lot more limitations in the terrain it can cross.
 

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Finally, would Kherson be going better for Ukraine if it had more infantry?  Perhaps not at first, but I think it's probable that it could sustain the attack longer and hasten taken ground after breakthroughs if they swapped out all their tanks for the equivalent logistical and monetary equivalent of infantry.

How do you achieve said breakthroughs using purely infantry and artillery?
 

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To summarize... I don't think Kharkiv would be going any better with more tanks, I don't think it would do significantly worse with less.  In Kherson I expect that initially Ukraine would do better with at least the tanks it has, though not sure more would be all that helpful.  However, Kherson with more infantry would likely benefit over the duration of the battle, if not right now.  Therefore, I don't tanks are the future of at least this sort of warfare (i.e. temperate environment between roughly equal opponents).

How do you think would they achieve the shock and breakthrough effect using purely .50 cal armed AFVs with some BTRs as backup that gives rise to the exploitation opportunity? Especially when you don't have that much artillery (only 500+ pieces spread across several fronts)?

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I'll throw another thing out there.  Would Ukraine be doing better with a huge fleet of BTR-4s rather than a few squadrons of T-64s?

This is a false dichotomy. Why does one have to choose between one or the other? What about diminishing returns? And also, the unit costs of a T-64 and a BTR-4 are both about ~1-1.5 million USD.

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Or how about no changes in IFV/AFV counts, but a massive quantity of heavily armed UGVs instead of tanks?  I suspect that Ukraine would be doing even better.  It's not just quantity over quality, but quantity of the right thing over quality of the wrong thing.

With what heavily armed UGVs will they be using for this assault? What is the difference between a heavily armed UGV and a tank other than the fact that one has a crew and the other does not?

How does one support a UGV in the field? Are you going to offload the logistics of rearming and repairing them to the infantry? Will they have to return to base for logistical support? What happens if it throws a track? Or needs to be unditched? How do you ensure the security and stability of communications for a UGV across hundreds of km?

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Lastly, let's remember that many military historians credit the Soviet Union's amazing advances in 1944 not to the T-34 but to the Studebaker 6x6.  One can argue that Russia might not have done worse with less tanks, but would have done worse with less trucks.

How will they break through the German lines with less tanks?
 

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

I keep thinking about the video posted yesterday of the Humvee leading an assault on a village, .50 cal blazing and AT4s popping off. This is exactly what tanks were designed for. Have the Ukrainians discovered that light vehicles are just as good or are they making do with what they have because tanks can't be everywhere?

 

[Battlefront.com]

I stumbled upon this gem of a Russian propagandist:

The comments to this post were pretty funny.  Either they were detached from reality, like the OP, or they were ridiculing her.

Then a few hours ago she posts some other Russian propaganda and says "see, I told you so!"

Fanaticism really doesn't lend itself to coping with reality, does it?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

500,000 seems improbable to me. Unless the Russian "stealth mobilization" has been far more successful than we thought.

RE: Tanks

Ukraine has about 5 armored brigades to cover a frontage of somewhere around 1800-2000 km. I think this is why we see tanks penny-packeted in company-size units and also why we are seeing wheeled vehicles used in assaults. It's not so much a deliberate decision to avoid mass as it is a condition imposed by this war. At least that's my guess

Remember, it isn't total forces committed at one time... it's how many have been rotated through that matters.  If Russia lost 10,000 KIA and replaced them with 10,000 new contractors, then the net force size doesn't change.  So we have to take Russia's starting force of roughly 250,000, add to it all the units it grabbed from all over the Russian Federation and Syria, then add to it all the volunteers and stealth mobilizations (in particular switching conscripts to contractors).  500,000 doesn't seem an unreasonable number.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I stumbled upon this gem of a Russian propagandist:

The comments to this post were pretty funny.  Either they were detached from reality, like the OP, or they were ridiculing her.

Then a few hours ago she posts some other Russian propaganda and says "see, I told you so!"

Fanaticism really doesn't lend itself to coping with reality, does it?

Steve

Oh, it gets worse than that.

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

25 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

How will they break through the German lines with less tanks?

They mostly broke through the German lines in places where there were very few Germans. When you have a battalion per kilometer of front, and they have a platoon, the details don't matter much. 

Edit: the Wagner attempt to overrun the U.S. base in Syria was an exception to this rule, but the disparities in tech level and support assets were incomprehensibly vast.

25 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

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Where is the heavier firepower going to come from? Purely artillery? Back to WWI tactics? Infantry + artillery? It would cost you far more lives. Ask the Pasdaran in the Iran-Iraq War.

If you have a 155mm gun section tasked directly to your assault unit with precision rounds you can probably get rounds on stationary positions at least as fast as a tank can. Javelins seem to work awfully well on things that move around. Pasdaran had neither.

 

25 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

f you're going cross country, I don't think there is a significant difference in mechanical reliability between heavy wheeled AFVs and tanks. Both are going to consume a lot of fuel, and a wheeled vehicle has a lot more limitations in the terrain it can cross.

Except the AFU break thru has been almost entirely on roads, and there the difference matters a very great deal. And No tracked vehicle is going very far through terrain that its fuel trucks can't follow.

Edited September 11, 2022 by dan/california

[dan/california]

Wasn't somebody working on a game to explore some of these questions?

[Calamine Waffles]

15 minutes ago, dan/california said:

They mostly broke through the German lines in places where there were very few Germans. When you have a battalion per kilometer of front, and they have a platoon, the details don't matter much.

So how did they find these places in a time before satellites and when SIGINT was in its infancy? Did they send Studebaker trucks to do probing attacks along the German frontline? Why were the Russians so stupid to keep investing in tanks when Studebakers would do? Why didn't the Allies also invest in just GMCs and use them to drive to the Rhine instead of wasting time with M4s?

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If you have a 155mm gun section tasked directly to your assault unit with precision rounds you can probably get rounds on stationary positions at least as fast as a tank can.

What if the enemy has counterbattery assets?

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Javelins

Infantry must dismount to use Javelins. They are also much more expensive than a tank HE shell.

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Pasdaran had neither.

They actually had very good artillery support. The Iranian artillery was much superior to the Iraqi artillery.

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Except the AFU break thru has been almost entirely on roads, and there the difference matters a very great deal. And No tracked vehicle is going very far through terrain that its fuel trucks can't follow.

This works because the Russians did not establish any defence in depth whatsoever. Can you always guarantee that will be the case?

Edited September 11, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[Vanir Ausf B]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Remember, it isn't total forces committed at one time... it's how many have been rotated through that matters.  If Russia lost 10,000 KIA and replaced them with 10,000 new contractors, then the net force size doesn't change.  So we have to take Russia's starting force of roughly 250,000, add to it all the units it grabbed from all over the Russian Federation and Syria, then add to it all the volunteers and stealth mobilizations (in particular switching conscripts to contractors).  500,000 doesn't seem an unreasonable number

I'm not sure where the 250,000 number comes from. The numbers I have seen are more like 140,000, or maybe 190,000 if you include DPR/LNR and Rosgvardiya. That would be 300% turnover if we're excluding DPR/LNR. I just don't see where they got that many replacements.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Vanir Ausf B

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

So what happens if they happen to run into a Russian unit that happens to be armed with RPGs, perhaps some older Gaboy/Fagot ATGMs and mortars? Are they just going to back up and go around them, waste time and fuel?  What if they run into a strongpoint that they can't bypass due to geography or need to take for logistical reasons?

They swamp them with light infantry and take them out using Javelins, IFVs, mortars, artillery, drones, etc.  Because Russian defending units are disorganized, poorly equipped, poorly led, poorly motivated, and badly spread out... works fine.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Where is the heavier firepower going to come from? Purely artillery? Back to WWI tactics? Infantry + artillery? It would cost you far more lives. Ask the Pasdaran in the Iran-Iraq War.

You missed my point.  I posited that if Russian defenders in Kherson had Javelins, tanks would likely not have much effect unless the other supporting arms, in particular infantry, were there to protect the tanks from competing in the turret Olympics.  No need for heavier firepower, just adequate quantities.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

If you're going cross country, I don't think there is a significant difference in mechanical reliability between heavy wheeled AFVs and tanks. Both are going to consume a lot of fuel, and a wheeled vehicle has a lot more limitations in the terrain it can cross.

Er, no.  This is the complete opposite of reality.  It's the whole reason the US adopted the Stryker Brigade concept and has EXPANDED it since its adoption.  Vastly lower logistics footprint, vastly higher readiness rate, vastly more self mobile.  And it's been tested in battle as well, so it's not just theory.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

How do you achieve said breakthroughs using purely infantry and artillery?

By defeating the enemy in front of you. 

Flip this around.  Russia has had dominance in tanks, IFVs, and artillery.  How many breakthroughs have they achieved in the last 6 months that got further than a couple of KMs and then stalled out again?  Seems their dominance in mass hasn't really worked out well for them.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

How do you think would they achieve the shock and breakthrough effect using purely .50 cal armed AFVs with some BTRs as backup that gives rise to the exploitation opportunity? Especially when you don't have that much artillery (only 500+ pieces spread across several fronts)?

Er, the way Ukraine is already doing it in Kharkiv?  They have very few tanks there in proportion to their total force.

Hint... people don't like the thought of dying.  A .50cal will pop a person open just as effectively as a 120mm tank round.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

This is a false dichotomy. Why does one have to choose between one or the other? What about diminishing returns? And also, the unit costs of a T-64 and a BTR-4 are both about ~1-1.5 million USD.

I was using an extreme example.  The lifetime cost of that T-64 is way higher than the BTR-4.  Same with cost per hour of operation.  Plus, you are not factoring in the original cost of the platform.  T-64s were all made a long time ago and paid for by the Soviet Union.  The cost difference between a new tank and a new medium IFV is not at parity.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

With what heavily armed UGVs will they be using for this assault? What is the difference between a heavily armed UGV and a tank other than the fact that one has a crew and the other does not?

Oh, where to start   First, a heavy armed UGV is a fraction of the cost of a tank, which means a nation can purchase a lot more for the same money as a tank.  Many UGVs can be transported in the same space as a tank.  Hell, I can put one in the back of my pickup truck or put several on my car trailer.  A tank?  Not so much.  They can also be airlifted by routine rotary aircraft, which means they can be deployed rapidly if needed.  As they are smaller per unit and vastly less heavy, they consume vastly less resources to maintain in the field.  They also can cross over much lighter bridges than tanks.  You only need to have 1-2 guys operating a UGV, and theoretically they can be in a strip mall in Florida fighting a war on the other side of the planet.  You can also more rapidly train the personnel to use it and that means you can cross train replacements at a far lower cost and faster than tank crews.  Maintenance personnel and support services are vastly simplified, which means you can deploy then faster and more sustainably for less effort and cost.

Should I go on?   I could, but I think that's sufficient.

Add armor to the UGV and you get less benefits but more survivability.  Still better than a tank, just not as much as the unarmored ones.

UGVs do have downsides, for sure.  But most of those downsides are compensated for, and then some, by their pros.  In particular the practicality of acquiring, fielding, an sustaining a much larger number of UGVs at a lower cost than would be possible with tanks.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

How does one support a UGV in the field? Are you going to offload the logistics of rearming and repairing them to the infantry? Will they have to return to base for logistical support? What happens if it throws a track? Or needs to be unditched? How do you ensure the security and stability of communications for a UGV across hundreds of km?

So... you're saying that tanks don't need any of this?  Because at best you're making an argument against both UGVs and tanks.  But since UGVs have a vastly reduced logistical need compared to tanks on a per vehicle basis, you could take the existing tank logistics infrastructure and support a vastly larger number of UGVs without breaking a sweat.

16 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

How will they break through the German lines with less tanks?

Ask yourself how they would have advanced hundreds of kilometers without trucks to move all the infantry, supplies, ammo, and parts for those tanks.

The fact is that Germany had very little armor standing in the way of the Bagration offensive.  I don't think the Soviets would have had as much success without the tanks they had, but the absolutely would not have been on Germany's doorstep within a couple of months without trucks.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

33 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Oh, it gets worse than that.

Oh the comments to his original question... oh my

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

10 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

This works because the Russians did not establish any defence in depth whatsoever. Can you always guarantee that will be the case?

I can't escape the feeling that some of the "lessons" we are seeing are artifacts of this war's peculiarities and may not be transferable to other conflicts, even near-peer. Is it that mass doesn't work or is it that you can't mass without denuding vast swaths of frontage, as the Russians are discovering to their chagrin.

24 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Wasn't somebody working on a game to explore some of these questions?

One can hope

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I'm not sure where the 250,000 number comes from. The numbers I have seen are more like 140,000, or maybe 190,000 if you include DPR/LNR and Rosgvardiya. That would be 300% turnover if we're excluding DPR/LNR. I just don't see where they got that many replacements.

My point still stands.  Taking the overall force number that Russia has at any one time does not reflect how many people went through Ukraine in the last 6 months.  What we need to know is that number, though of course it's not easy to piece together.

Take whatever starting force size you care to, add to it all the units they brought in after the invasion, and then add to it replacements from all sources.  What number do you come up with?

Steve

[chrisl]

25 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

So what happens if they happen to run into a Russian unit that happens to be armed with RPGs, perhaps some older Gaboy/Fagot ATGMs and mortars? Are they just going to back up and go around them, waste time and fuel?  What if they run into a strongpoint that they can't bypass due to geography or need to take for logistical reasons?

Once you're dealing with rockets that will kill any vehicle on the first hit, be it a tank or a Humvee, you're better off with the vehicle that's harder to hit - smaller, faster, and more maneuverable. Or just cheaper and available in larger quantities, because the armor doesn't matter anymore. RPGs are relatively short range and their operators can be suppressed with MG fire.  And does the RA have any ATGMs that are fire and forget and don't require an operator to maintain eyes on the target? I see three wire guided (Fagot, Konkurs, Metis) and one beam rider (Kornet).  And are they present in any kind of quantity?  It's unlikely every squad is carrying a couple.

 

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Where is the heavier firepower going to come from? Purely artillery? Back to WWI tactics? Infantry + artillery? It would cost you far more lives. Ask the Pasdaran in the Iran-Iraq War.

I think we've been watching that for about 6 months now.  When you can call in indirect fire accurate enough to hit a tank or a door in a minute or two, do you need the thing with the tube to drive up close?  Especially if you actually are concerned about ATGMs.

 

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How do you achieve said breakthroughs using purely infantry and artillery?

Didn't we just see that yesterday?  There were tanks in that, but it was a combined arms breakthrough and IFVs might have been a reasonable substitute.  There's an asymmetry in the ATGM supply (Ukraine has lots, Russia not so much), so Ukraine was able to go with vehicles.

 

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How do you think would they achieve the shock and breakthrough effect using purely .50 cal armed AFVs with some BTRs as backup that gives rise to the exploitation opportunity? Especially when you don't have that much artillery (only 500+ pieces spread across several fronts)?

If you have rocket support that can relight all the butts in an ashtray (and the ammo dump around it) at 70 km, do you really need a lot of tubes?

 

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With what heavily armed UGVs will they be using for this assault? What is the difference between a heavily armed UGV and a tank other than the fact that one has a crew and the other does not?

You feel a lot less bad when the robot gets blown up, and that does matter.  And the crew training costs you more and takes you longer to replace than the robot.

 

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How does one support a UGV in the field? Are you going to offload the logistics of rearming and repairing them to the infantry? Will they have to return to base for logistical support? What happens if it throws a track? Or needs to be unditched? How do you ensure the security and stability of communications for a UGV across hundreds of km?

I'm going to have recovery robots that follow behind and tow the busted ones back for repair and reload the empty ones.   How do you ensure the security and stability of comm for a tank or a squad across hundreds of km? How do we fly drones all over the world from our comfy chairs with a big-gulp holder in CONUS?  It's harder on the ground, but far from impossible, especially if you throw a little autonomy into the UGV.

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I can't escape the feeling that some of the "lessons" we are seeing are artifacts of this war's peculiarities and may not be transferable to other conflicts, even near-peer. Is it that mass doesn't work or is it that you can't mass without denuding vast swaths of frontage, as the Russians are discovering to their chagrin.

I agree.  Force quality is a huge factor in this war.  Ukraine has it, Russia doesn't.  If Russia wasn't so corrupt and incompetent at all levels, Ukraine would have been in for a much worse time for sure.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

The Führer has promised us wonder weapons!

The Express: Putin Deploys 'The Most Terrible Weapon In The World'....

No, not quite. It's the *other* most terrible weapon in the world.

You know, assuming the Ukrainian troops just sit there.

Look, if we built this large wooden badger...

 

 

[Calamine Waffles]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

They swamp them with light infantry and take them out using Javelins, IFVs, mortars, artillery, drones, etc.  Because Russian defending units are disorganized, poorly equipped, poorly led, poorly motivated, and badly spread out... works fine.

Yes, if your enemy is incompetent and poorly equipped, motivated, and led you can do that. Why even bother with AFVs in that case? Why not just use Cossack cavalry units with Javelins? They have an even smaller logistical footprint than AFVs.

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You missed my point.  I posited that if Russian defenders in Kherson had Javelins, tanks would likely not have much effect unless the other supporting arms, in particular infantry, were there to protect the tanks from competing in the turret Olympics.  No need for heavier firepower, just adequate quantities.

You say that as if the Russians do not already have their own very capable ATGMs like Kornet. Since that is the case, why did the Ukrainians bother with asking for T-72s and building up new tank brigades with Polish tanks T-72s that are ?

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Er, no.  This is the complete opposite of reality.  It's the whole reason the US adopted the Stryker Brigade concept and has EXPANDED it since its adoption.  Vastly lower logistics footprint, vastly higher readiness rate, vastly more self mobile.  And it's been tested in battle as well, so it's not just theory.

Against which peer or near-peer opponent? Why does the US Army keep the Abrams? Because it likes to waste money?

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By defeating the enemy in front of you. 

Flip this around.  Russia has had dominance in tanks, IFVs, and artillery.  How many breakthroughs have they achieved in the last 6 months that got further than a couple of KMs and then stalled out again?  Seems their dominance in mass hasn't really worked out well for them.

Because they are in the opposite extreme situation to Ukraine. They have too much material and too few men. You want to find a balance. The fact that they were also assaulting defensive lines that have been in the making for 8 years might have also probably had something to do with it.

I'll come back to this later.

[Vanir Ausf B]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

My point still stands.  Taking the overall force number that Russia has at any one time does not reflect how many people went through Ukraine in the last 6 months.  What we need to know is that number, though of course it's not easy to piece together.

Well, yeah I remember Girkin predicting last spring that Russia could raise a few "tens of thousands" of volunteers that would get swamped by the Ukrainian horde of millions. I'm sure he was spitballing, but still. I don't know what the number is but several hundred thousand would surprise me.

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

So how did they find these places in a time before satellites and when SIGINT was in its infancy? Did they send Studebaker trucks to do probing attacks along the German frontline?

They didn't much care how many infantrymen they got killed back then anymore than they do now. The whole process was slower but they made it work. And in terms of future force design one thing this war has just settled is every platoon, maybe even every squad is going to have a drone. I am very curious if the next version of the game will make them an independently controllable unit or abstract that somehow?

12 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

What if the enemy has counterbattery assets?

I would argue you pretty much have to have superiority of fires to launch an assault 2022. AFU is doing it around Kherson without a big enough edge, but it doesn't look easy. And even so counter-battery seems to be where the Russians are the weakest, or they couldn't do it at all.

15 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

They actually had very good artillery support. The Iranian artillery was much superior to the Iraqi artillery.

I would also argue that Iranian artillery in 1985 was simply not remotely similar to drone directed precision guided rounds. Better in that context means it took an hour to call a fire mission with a 100 meter CEP, as opposed to what multiple of both those numbers the Iraqis were. Just not even the same thing. Probably in Ukraine today, and certainly in a top tier force going forward from 2022 you are talking about the FDC and the FO/platoon commander looking at the same fused multi-drone fused sensor picture and mouse clicking which window they want the round to go through. They would actually be selecting from a menu of available assets so they didn't use more boom than necessary . This is all stuff that is live or at least in active testing in a proving ground somewhere in the desert southwest.

 

31 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Infantry must dismount to use Javelins. They are also much more expensive than a tank HE shell.

When you figure in the massive logistical tail that comes with the tank the difference is less than you think. 3 gallons to mile for the tank, and maybe five miles per gallon for the fuel truck add right up. Javelins come in a sealed tube and don't take 3 specialized maintenance personnel. Javelin is actually last generation tech, next version won't have that problem, will probably be able to cue from the drone and launch on the move.

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Yes, if your enemy is incompetent and poorly equipped, motivated, and led you can do that. Why even bother with AFVs in that case? Why not just use Cossack cavalry units with Javelins? They have an even smaller logistical footprint than AFVs.

Now you are just being silly.  Shock is still needed and something has to move the attacking forces over distances.  IFVs do that job quite effectively.

2 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

You say that as if the Russians do not already have their own very capable ATGMs like Kornet.
 

These are specialized weapons that appear to be in very short supply on the Russian side.  VERY short.  On the other hand, Ukrainians are swimming in Javelins and NLAWs.  Plus, a Kornet is more closely akin to Ukraine's Stugna, not a Javelin.  Javelin is in a class of its own.

2 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Since that is the case, why did the Ukrainians bother with asking for T-72s and building up new tank brigades with Polish tanks T-72s that are ?

Because tanks are still needed on today's battlefield as their logical replacements (UGVs) are not yet available.  So you go with what you can get.

2 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Against which peer or near-peer opponent? Why does the US Army keep the Abrams? Because it likes to waste money?

I was speaking to the logistics costs and support issues you seem to be ignorant of.

You also seem to not understand why the Stryker Brigade came about in the first place. Hint... tanks are expensive and f'all difficult to get into a fight on short notice.

And yes, now that you mention it, the US Army does love to waste money on big toys

2 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Because they are in the opposite extreme situation to Ukraine. They have too much material and too few men. You want to find a balance. The fact that they were also assaulting defensive lines that have been in the making for 8 years might have also probably had something to do with it.

There were no defenses around Kyiv or Kharkiv where Russia deployed the bulk of its forces.  They got slaughtered by light infantry.

As for the Donbas, the problem is that if you blow a hole in the enemy's defenses with tanks and artillery, then what?  Artillery doesn't advance and tanks without infantry to protect them are sitting ducks.  So, what good is all that mass if it doesn't take the ground you need to take?

Steve