How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Cederic]

36 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Otherwise it would really be uterly stupid.

Oh well, we can rule that out then. The Russians would never..

[Beleg85]

10 minutes ago, akd said:

They already have access to centralized piles of cash to pay mercenaries.  They want the Oligarchs to leverage their own loyalty networks for “volunteers.”

Perhaps he mean "state oligarchs", i.e. those holding offices and members of boards of big state businessess like Rosneft or Gazprom. They usually sponsor many enterprises in the regions, from cultural ones to serious infastructure. This could be akin to "mobilization" of petty state officials from early in the war to support Special Military Operation...hard to say, it all sounds stupid and rather contrary to centralization and pacification Putin builded his system upon for last two decades.

1 minute ago, Cederic said:

Oh well, we can rule that out then. The Russians would never..

1st Gazprom Assault Battalion, 25th Lukoil Reconaissance Regiment. Flamethrowers Storsstruppen from Rosneft...

[BletchleyGeek]

I am unsure of how related is to the topic at hand, but Azerbaiyan and Armenia just had a significant tussle. 

[Battlefront.com]

45 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

For people who like recon, it looks like proper first entry of Ukrainians into Kupyansk. Are near the bridge:

 

The BMP is Ukrainian and apparently not functional. The tank at the bridge is unknown, but also looks abandoned/KO'd.  Looks to me like these two guys are following up on an earlier action.

Steve

[Calamine Waffles]

1 hour ago, Centurian52 said:

Through a willingness to tolerate higher casualties. It's not that it's impossible to fight a war without tanks. It's just really inadvisable. I'm with you that tanks are critical to modern warfare (and UGVs really do just sound like next-gen tanks to me), but when you are arguing fervently for or against something it can be easy to paint yourself into a corner by making absolute statements. The trouble with absolute statements is that your opponent only needs to find a single counter-example to defeat your argument. Breakthroughs can be achieved with infantry and artillery only, and no tanks. They are just harder, require a higher tolerance for casualties, and have a lower chance of success.

Yes, this is correct, like with the Pasdaran using mass infantry infiltration + artillery support to overwhelm Iraqi mechanised forces. However, for most Western countries that live in an age of demographic decline/collapse (and this includes both Ukraine and Russia), a high casualty rate like seen in the Iran-Iraq War would be utterly unacceptable and potentially nation-ending.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I am unsure of how related is to the topic at hand, but Azerbaiyan and Armenia just had a significant tussle. 

Related only in the sense that Russia's no longer in control of the ceasefire, so a flair up in fighting is more likely than it otherwise would have been.  However, for now it just seems to be the usual sort of small scale clashes:

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/azerbaijan-armenia-border-clashes-resume-after-provocation

Steve

[Fenris]

Hey look... A tank with supporting infantry, that's new

 

[FancyCat]

nvm. didn't realize these border clashes were common. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by FancyCat

[Fenris]

Black Sea is going to need one hell of a vehicle expansion pack

 

[Calamine Waffles]

Probably my favourite picture to come out of this war

[alison]

Not directly related to the recent military offensive, but something that might be interesting to people looking at the Kremlin palace intrigue is that there is a meeting of SCO (China's wannabe NATO) coming up on September 15/16. Despite increasing COVID lockdowns at home, it's now been confirmed that Xi will attend in his first foreign trip since the pandemic began. Putin and Modi are on track to be there too.

There's not much concrete news about the summit yet, but a lot of rumors. Putin has said he will meet Xi one-on-one, and surely Ukraine will be part of that discussion. My guess is that Putin might seek support from Xi in cementing his grip on power. I still don't think China will step into this war, but the party is good at propping up foreign dictators, and could spin it as some kind of benevolent regional security agreement (see Solomon Islands). I don't know enough about domestic Russian politics to understand how that might be received there, but I'd be interested to hear from people with a stronger background in the topic. I also wonder what Xi would get out of any potential deal. Certainly not good press in the west. Flip side - Xi might prefer to play hardball with Putin to try earn enough goodwill to see some of Biden's sanctions and tariffs dropped.

[Beleg85]

37 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The BMP is Ukrainian and apparently not functional. The tank at the bridge is unknown, but also looks abandoned/KO'd.  Looks to me like these two guys are following up on an earlier action.

Steve

Tank has Z marks, so could be abandoned Russian one.

 

A list of US-donated equipment so far; the official at least.:

https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1569387346843533312

[asurob]

1 hour ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I am unsure of how related is to the topic at hand, but Azerbaiyan and Armenia just had a significant tussle. 

Not unexpected at all.  Russia has been revealed to be a paper...."bear"...This is the first of many Russian client states to act up.  Frankly I wouldn't be surprised to see Georgia poke the bear next.

[billbindc]

20 minutes ago, alison said:

Not directly related to the recent military offensive, but something that might be interesting to people looking at the Kremlin palace intrigue is that there is a meeting of SCO (China's wannabe NATO) coming up on September 15/16. Despite increasing COVID lockdowns at home, it's now been confirmed that Xi will attend in his first foreign trip since the pandemic began. Putin and Modi are on track to be there too.

There's not much concrete news about the summit yet, but a lot of rumors. Putin has said he will meet Xi one-on-one, and surely Ukraine will be part of that discussion. My guess is that Putin might seek support from Xi in cementing his grip on power. I still don't think China will step into this war, but the party is good at propping up foreign dictators, and could spin it as some kind of benevolent regional security agreement (see Solomon Islands). I don't know enough about domestic Russian politics to understand how that might be received there, but I'd be interested to hear from people with a stronger background in the topic. I also wonder what Xi would get out of any potential deal. Certainly not good press in the west. Flip side - Xi might prefer to play hardball with Putin to try earn enough goodwill to see some of Biden's sanctions and tariffs dropped.

Here's the thing...Xi holds every single card here. Russian gas is badly situated for China's market and years/billions in investment away from being...even then...a pricey alternative to what they have. Russia doesn't have much of anything China wants and is a shrinking percentage of China's foreign trade...especially compared with the US and EU. Russia is also a would be competitor in Central Asia and has differing interests in Southwest Asia, Africa, etc. 

Russia's value to China was as a distraction to and a thorn in the side of the US and the EU. Xi needed the latter to have a big, dangerous security threat that could be activated to disperse their forces. In short, Russia was supposed to be Xi's pitbull. The dog might be still vicious but it's turned out to also be decrepit and the US is, through Ukraine, knocking its teeth out.

So what does Xi do? I think close to nothing. A Russia that is more Austria-Hungary than useful is not worth investing in. China will do the bare minimum to maintain Russia's territorial integrity while asking the world in return in terms of trade deals, diplomatic access to the -stans and ultimately economic control in the Russian Far East. Unequal Treaties can go the other way, in time.

Edited September 13, 2022 by billbindc

[Raptor341]

10 minutes ago, asurob said:

Not unexpected at all.  Russia has been revealed to be a paper...."bear"...This is the first of many Russian client states to act up.  Frankly I wouldn't be surprised to see Georgia poke the bear next.

I’ve been thinking alot about Georgia and wondering if they will make any attempt to seize the opportunity if presented. I believe it would be fairly widely accepted right now, however, I don’t have much visibility on that area right now 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Raptor341

[sburke]

Russia state-media host calls for generals to be executed for allowing retreat from huge swathes of Ukraine (msn.com)

heh heh   "allowing"  yeah not quite the right word.

[kevinkin]

Swarms at the NTC recently:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/swarm-of-40-drones-over-fort-irwin-an-ominous-sign-of-whats-to-come

One key paragraph:
"The problem with missiles, guns, and even lasers is that they can only knock down a single drone at a time, so being overwhelmed and your defenses quickly overrun is a very real proposition, especially considering the relatively low barrier to entry. Drones that use man-in-the-loop control systems — basically, someone is flying it remotely — are easier to counter than an autonomous swarm as they rely on a direct and persistent two-way communications link that needs to maintain line-of-sight. When drones themselves pick and prosecute targets cooperatively and autonomously as a group, with little or no real-time human direction, things get much more challenging. Think hive mind here that can adapt on the fly to maintain its maximum potential. It is a very resilient and very troubling threat to counter. This capability is not science fiction and will increasingly be something to worry about, especially when facing a peer adversary like China which has been actively developing it in various forms for years."

Looks like the Army is researching this out to determine the positives and negatives that they or adversaries might encounter. 

 

[DesertFox]

30 minutes ago, asurob said:

Not unexpected at all.  Russia has been revealed to be a paper...."bear"...This is the first of many Russian client states to act up.  Frankly I wouldn't be surprised to see Georgia poke the bear next.

Agreed. The next decade we will see how russia will fall apart. 2021 already gave us a little "teaser" with Armenia - Azerbaijan border crisis and Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan clashes and 2022 Kazakhstan. That will spread and continue.

Edited September 13, 2022 by DesertFox

[MikeyD]

Lets remember, guys, that by all rights Russia should have won the war. They should have corrupted the Ukrainian politicians, exhausted their army, run them out of tanks and artillery shells, aircraft and anti-tank missiles simply by throwing bodies at them until Ukraine had nothing left to shoot them with. The fact that they didn't is testament to the Ukraine people and the nations around the world who stepped up to assist. Russia may be a terrible army, but Ukraine is a terrible opponent to face, as well.

[Kinophile]

6 hours ago, rocketman said:

The Russian setup zone is the exit zone.

Lmao Perfect 

[Halmbarte]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Here's the thing...Xi holds every single card here. Russian gas is badly situated for China's market and years/billions in investment away from being...even then...a pricey alternative to what they have. Russia doesn't have much of anything China wants and is a shrinking percentage of China's foreign trade...especially compared with the US and EU. Russia is also a would be competitor in Central Asia and has differing interests in Southwest Asia, Africa, etc. 

Russia's value to China was as a distraction to and a thorn in the side of the US and the EU. Xi needed the latter to have a big, dangerous security threat that could be activated to disperse their forces. In short, Russia was supposed to be Xi's pitbull. The dog might be still vicious but it's turned out to also be decrepit and the US is, through Ukraine, knocking its teeth out.

So what does Xi do? I think close to nothing. A Russia that is more Austria-Hungary than useful is not worth investing in. China will do the bare minimum to maintain Russia's territorial integrity while asking the world in return in terms of trade deals, diplomatic access to the -stans and ultimately economic control in the Russian Far East. Unequal Treaties can go the other way, in time.

If I were in the Russian government my long term worry would be the Chinese deciding to 'protect ethnic Han Chinese' that happen to live over the border in the oil and gas fields in Siberia. 

H

[LongLeftFlank]

Yes, and unfortunately that's why the 'grand strategy' / reelpolitik types in Washington and London will talk themselves -- yet again! -- into propping up a 'good Tsar' in Moscow. To the permanent detriment of its neighbours, not to mention the Russian people themselves.

....To prevent loose nukes and keep the Chinese 'out' of the Far East.

[sross112]

3 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

Yeah, I suspect there is a significant amount of variability in warfare that is distinct from changes over time. Just as, in WW2, the fighting in North Africa was very different from fighting on the Eastern Front, and both were different from the fighting in the Pacific, I suspect that if another high intensity war between two different peer or near peer armies broke out in another part of the world it would look very different from this one in a lot of ways. It's not that this war has its peculiarities, so much as every war has peculiarities. Differences in objectives, scale, level of commitment, doctrine, force structure, and terrain may create a massive amount of variability even in wars fought in the same time period. Time period/technology obviously does make a big difference. If you reran WW2 with modern technology, but all other factors kept identical, it would still be a very different war. But I think it is far too simplistic to think of time period/technology as being the only thing that makes wars different.

For an obvious example, there is probably a comparable amount of difference between a modern land war in eastern Europe and a modern air/naval/amphibious war in the Pacific as there is between a modern land war in eastern Europe and a 1940s land war in eastern Europe, or between a modern air/naval/amphibious war in the Pacific and a 1940s air/naval/amphibious war in the Pacific.

So I don't think we should be talking about how modern war is different from war of decades past, as if modern war and war of decades past are homogeneous things, but about how specific types of war are different from their older counterparts. How is modern European ground war different from European ground war of decades past. How is modern counter-insurgency in desert/jungle/etc... different from counter-insurgency in desert/jungle/etc.. in decades past. How is modern air/naval/amphibious war around scattered island chains different from air/naval/amphibious war around scattered island chains of decades past. How is modern peer vs peer desert combat different from peer vs peer desert combat from decades past.

War.......war never changes.....

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, sross112 said:

War.......war never changes.....

Hard to beat an army which has the will to fight.

 

[sross112]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

Agreed. The next decade we will see how russia will fall apart. 2021 already gave us a little "teaser" with Armenia - Azerbaijan border crisis and Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan clashes and 2022 Kazakhstan. That will spread and continue.

Hopefully Ukraine will keep up the warm fuzzies and clear all their territory of the RA while pummeling it into mush. Once that is done and Ukraine is secure there are several regions that could expect some pretty good support from Ukrainian volunteer units for reciprocity for their support. Georgian Legion, Chechen volunteers, Belarus volunteers and I suspect there are several others as well. I can't imagine Ukraine wouldn't support independence adventures vigorously where ever they could against Russia. Could be an interesting couple of years to see what all happens with the RA emasculated.