How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

First video I've seen from an operator of a TOW:

 

Steve

[sburke]

51 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Before you guys think I've suddenly grown soft on my criticism of Russian performance, have no fear!  I still think the Russians suck at war.  It's just in this case they suck less than they do elsewhere.

Steve

In a previous portion of my career, I worked for a dot com.  A boutique hosting and content delivery outfit.  Best job I ever had.  A suggestion was made to our marketing department that our new slogan be "we suck less".  It was entertained seriously for a few minutes.

[Battlefront.com]

ChrisO posting some more info about the base shooting in Russia.  Seems his predictions of who the shooters were is being verified:

I also figured these guys were foreign workers rounded up to be illegally, under both Russian and international laws, mobilized.

Steve

[dan/california]

36 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I've been giving the Russian defense of Kherson some more thought.

What we see there is a fairly competent fighting retreat carried out by the remains of Russia's "professional" prewar army concentrated into one spot. They were lavished with reinforcements and supplies, as well as priority for constructing fixed defenses.  They also started with relatively good positions and terrain favorable to the defender.  Command appears to be pretty solid and they've even managed to do at least two significant tactical withdrawals without getting their arses handed to them.  This despite the fact that Ukraine has committed significant forces to take back the area.  And Russia has done all of this with minimal supply capacity and HIMARS whacking supply dumps, HQs, and of course the bridges.

This recognition of Russia's ability to fight effectively is deserved, especially because I was one of the others who figured they would collapse after a period of heavy fighting.  I was wrong.  Their morale has held up despite the futility of their mission and the conditions under which they have been fighting.

Before you guys think I've suddenly grown soft on my criticism of Russian performance, have no fear!  I still think the Russians suck at war.  It's just in this case they suck less than they do elsewhere.

What we're seeing in Kherson is pretty much the best fighting Russia has managed in the war so far, yet they are still steadily losing ground.  In a war of choice against a smaller neighbor, losing less badly is not something to be particularly thrilled about from the Russian perspective.

Steve

We also don't have good casualty figures. They may be coming back east/south across the river with half or less of what they went west/north with. Indeed the one thing the Russian seems good at is taking casualties. There are multiple conversations on war translated that flatly state their units have taken seventy, eighty, evn ninety percent casualties. It almost defies accepted military logic that what is left of these units is still on the field. Somehow starting out so awful, and with so little cohesion makes them more resistant to complete dissolution. This also why I think even Ukraine's casualty estimates for Russian losses are probably low. The Russians have fed more people to the meat grinder than ought to be possible.

[chrisl]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

In a previous portion of my career, I worked for a dot com.  A boutique hosting and content delivery outfit.  Best job I ever had.  A suggestion was made to our marketing department that our new slogan be "we suck less".  It was entertained seriously for a few minutes.

That's pretty close to the actual slogan for BBEdit, a really nice, inexpensive text editor for the mac: "It doesn't suck.(R)" 

There's even a free version that's very well featured for light development work.

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

We also don't have good casualty figures. They may be coming back east/south across the river with half or less of what they went west/north with. Indeed the one thing the Russian seems good at is taking casualties

While we don't have casualty figures for Russians fighting in Kherson, ChrisO just posted this about the possible state of affairs in the Bakhmut area:

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, chrisl said:

That's pretty close to the actual slogan for BBEdit, a really nice, inexpensive text editor for the mac: "It doesn't suck.(R)" 

There's even a free version that's very well featured for light development work.

You guys have no idea how much you all should thank BBEdit.  It is my primary text editor for CM's TO&E needs

Steve

[Sojourner]

4 minutes ago, chrisl said:

That's pretty close to the actual slogan for BBEdit, a really nice, inexpensive text editor for the mac: "It doesn't suck.(R)" 

There's even a free version that's very well featured for light development work.

[Battlefront.com]

Apparently some of Russia's anti-drone weapons are as good as their helmets and body armor:

Also, nice to see some heavy duty non-combat vehicles being given to Ukraine.  Very much needed.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Russian seems good at is taking casualties.

They have a rich tradition. 360000 KIA,WIA or missing and still emerging victorious. (Battle for Berlin. Never write them off. They were the Soviets though. 

[kraze]

34 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

They have a rich tradition. 360000 KIA,WIA or missing and still emerging victorious. (Battle for Berlin. Never write them off. They were the Soviets though. 

Not comparable, from 1944 russians were a minority in Red Army, throwing everybody else into the meat grinder, as discussed before.

When Red Army was mostly composed of russians in 1939-1942 - they've been chased off to Urals. If Germans weren't as violent and as barbaric as their former allies, which resulted in them losing local support in Ukraine and Belarus and locals rushing to join Red Army en masse in retaliation - the outcome on the eastern front could've been very different.

Edited October 21, 2022 by kraze

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, kraze said:

Not comparable, from 1944 russians were a minority in Red Army, throwing everybody else into the meat grinder, as discussed before.

When Red Army was mostly composed of russians in 1939-1942 - they've been chased off to Urals. If Germans weren't as violent and as barbaric as their former allies, which resulted in them losing local support in Ukraine and Belarus - the outcome on the eastern front could've been very different.

https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471

It is rare for me to take more than three days to read a book. The one above taking the better part of a year because I can only take it in microdoses, not joking. The excellent author has some of his actual classes on youtube/podcast though. I recommend them, and him, highly. It doesn't help that the bleeping Russians seem determined to add a couple of chapters.

Edited October 21, 2022 by dan/california

[MikeyD]

About the TOW launch, certainly not a TOW 2B. Maybe the Pentagon concluded a LOS HEAT warhead has more general purpose utility in an infantry-heavy theater. I'm not sure if the overhead flight 2B platter charge round has any utility besides killing tanks.

[sburke]

Russian TV Pundit Admits on Hot Mic Kremlin Lying About Iranian Drones (msn.com)

[sburke]

Explosive-laden drone found near Nord Stream pipeline (msn.com)

 

don't know this news source and haven't found any other reports of this find

[JonS]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

our new slogan be "we suck less"

heh. The head of a previous org (technology and equipment delivery to a larger org) I worked at had the ill-advised idea to open up the development of the new company slogan to everyone. "Everyone" in this case being highly cynical and mischievous. The two most popular submissions were

"[org]: yesterday's technology tomorrow!"

and

"[org]: we're not happy till you're not happy!"

 

The word on the street was that the head very nearly selected the second one, until one of his advisors leaned in to explain the joke.

Boaty McBoatface indeed.

Edited October 21, 2022 by JonS

[JonS]

5 hours ago, sross112 said:

I just find the catastrophizing hard to stomach.

"OMG the Republicans are going to take over the House and everyone will be forced to go to church, have babies, own a gun and get a job!!"

or

"OMG the Democrats are going to take over the House and everyone will be forced to burn their church, kill their babies, turn in their guns and lose their job!!"

Amusingly, while one of those is hyperbole the other is ... bole, but not of the hyper variety.

[MikeyD]

If it weren't for false equivalence there'd be no equivalence at all.

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, danfrodo said:

excellent point.  The other side of the coin is a stalingrad analogy.  Hitler was right that stalingrad kessel was tying up lots of soviet troops (ignoring the fact that only immediate withdrawal/breakout would've saved them).  So an operational victory buying some time but at the cost of losing the entire force in the kessel, which is what that kherson operational victory would mean, even if its defeat doesn't come for 3 or 4 months from now.  And like Hitler, Putler is also hoping for some miracle, somehow pulling rabbit out of a hat that actually has no rabbit.

Sure but for every Stalingrad there is a Bulge where holding defensive objectives actually worked…hindsight and all.

In my line of work there is a saying “time equals options” and it cuts both ways.  I am not saying the Russians have picked the right objectives or has been particularly successful in stringing them together into something that looks like a campaign.  I am saying that allowing Russians time and space at Kherson over the winter is likely not a good thing.  Now if the UA can link this to more attrition - and remember the lines on a map only tell part of the story - then perhaps this will work out fine.

Of course it is a matter of time for the RA, they can only sustain this level of attrition for so long, Kharkiv demonstrated that very well.  But affording them any breathing room on a key front is not a “win”.

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I don't work in defence, but I do live in a Procurement world, and this guy's analysis is dead on, though some here might find it wonky.

Ok, c’mon let’s be consistent in our analysis.  Back in the early days of this war it was all about how the Russians were firing very expensive weapons to try and hit cheap UA drones = “Yay”, Perun even did a video on this.  Now that it is Russian cheap drones and expensive UA counters it is all “Well one has to consider PRICIE/DOTMLPF”?!

Look the reality is that cheap unmanned systems are flipping the cost equations of waging war everywhere.  We have been here before when it was costing us millions to kill two guys in a pickup.  Unmanned systems are a cost disruptor no matter what side we are talking about.  We will be spending years figuring that one out.  For now it is the depth of pocket that is far more determinative.  Russian strategic depth is shrinking, likely why they have switched to low cost systems…[that is learning btw which is also not a positive signal.  Of course the fact the Russians are still hitting civilian terror targets shows they are not learning that quickly].  The UA still has the deep pockets of the West, so firing off expensive missiles is an affordable counter.  That, and the psychological and information payoff is also not small.  In the end Russia may have long range loitering munitions but they clearly do not have the competitive C4ISR architecture to plug them into.  It has driven the cost of this war up for Ukraine and the west…ok, let’s live with that and move on.

[cesmonkey]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Explosive-laden drone found near Nord Stream pipeline (msn.com)

 

don't know this news source and haven't found any other reports of this find

From 2015, right?

https://www.worldpipelines.com/equipment-and-safety/09112015/rov-with-explosives-seen-near-nord-stream-pipeline/
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/6296977

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, kraze said:

Not comparable, from 1944 russians were a minority in Red Army, throwing everybody else into the meat grinder, as discussed before.

And I will once again call BS on this assertion. Cite a credible source on Red Army demographics.

[The_Capt]

22 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

And I will once again call BS on this assertion. Cite a credible source on Red Army demographics.

It appears as this is a pretty contentious issue (not surprising).  Estimates are pretty difficult given the really big numbers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union  I would use this as a start point and not definitive.

Everyone seems to agree on about 27 million across the board.  Distribution is the politicized part.  These figures above get used a lot (http://www.aalep.eu/deaths-soviet-republic-world-war-ii)& (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country).  According to this site Belarus actually took the highest hit per capita loss: https://www.businessinsider.com/percentage-of-countries-who-died-during-wwii-2014-5?r=US&IR=T

Regardless, the idea that Russians (who either "are" or "are not" a real thing depending on the day, apparently) sat back fat, dumb, and happy while their colonials did all the dying in ww2 does not really measure up anymore than the same line fits the British or French Empires.  A whole lot of Russian people died in that war in order to defend their nation, diminishing that in this one to somehow make Russia "more bad" really is beneath the normal acceptable standards of this forum.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

34 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Regardless, the idea that Russians (who either "are" or "are not" a real thing depending on the day, apparently) sat back fat, dumb, and happy while their colonials did all the dying in ww2 does not really measure up anymore than the same line fits the British or French Empires.  A whole lot of Russian people died in that war in order to defend their nation, diminishing that in this one to somehow make Russia "more bad" really is beneath the normal acceptable standards of this forum.

This is not the point Kraze was making. He specifically referred to the period after 1944 as the time when the Russians were in the minority and to the period 1941-1942 when it was mostly Russians fighting. The Wikipedia statistics quoted above are for the whole war so they do not refute his point, as it is possible that the majority of ethnic Russians casualties happened in the first phase of the war. There is evidence for Soviets conscripting heavily from the regions vacated by the Germans as soon as the front moved further west.

I would be very interested if someone has the data specifically for 1944 onwards.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Maciej Zwolinski
Edited for clarification.

[LongLeftFlank]

59 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

It appears as this is a pretty contentious issue (not surprising).  Estimates are pretty difficult given the really big numbers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union  I would use this as a start point and not definitive.

Everyone seems to agree on about 27 million across the board.  Distribution is the politicized part.  These figures above get used a lot (http://www.aalep.eu/deaths-soviet-republic-world-war-ii)& (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country).  According to this site Belarus actually took the highest hit per capita loss: https://www.businessinsider.com/percentage-of-countries-who-died-during-wwii-2014-5?r=US&IR=T

Regardless, the idea that Russians (who either "are" or "are not" a real thing depending on the day, apparently) sat back fat, dumb, and happy while their colonials did all the dying in ww2 does not really measure up anymore than the same line fits the British or French Empires.  A whole lot of Russian people died in that war in order to defend their nation, diminishing that in this one to somehow make Russia "more bad" really is beneath the normal acceptable standards of this forum.

Thanks for this, yes, although I prefer to leave the burden of proof on the accuser.

....Because he can just claim your stats were all falsified by Stalin, the same way his demographers had the average Georgian male living to age 99, blah blah blah.

I mean, there is no question that after 1942  the Red Army was either shooting as a fascist or else conscripting every male it could lay hands on as it retook territories in the RSFSR, Ukraine, White Russia and then various non-Slavic possessions.

(This would seem to imply that Russia proper did its fair share of dying, relative to the entire USSR)

....But as you note, his conclusion is... simply false, and of a piece with the rest of what he spews on here. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by LongLeftFlank
(not my business)