How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Taranis]

Russian authorities in Kherson create local militia

Quote

The government installed by Moscow in the Ukrainian region of Kherson announced today the creation of a local militia, which all the men remaining in the city can join. Russian authorities last week ordered the evacuation of civilians from Kherson, one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia said it annexed last month, even as Kyiv forces made significant military progress.

https://t.me/VGA_Kherson

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Cripes, the numbnuts in the Kremlin could just download the US military PDFs on theory, practice, lessons learned, etc. and probably improve their knowledge of how to fight Ukraine by a factor of 10 and take steps to implement things in a logical, prioritized manner that is consistent with Russia's capabilities.

You are of course assuming the US or anybody truly understands modern warfare at this point.  I think Ukraine understands it better than any nation on earth and there are even things they are stumped by.

If you look at the performance of the RA across all three phases of this war I do not see a bunch of pretenders flailing - I think the steady diet of tactical vignettes is skewing the viewpoint on this thread.  I do see the RA attempting to fight according to the logic of their capabilities; the problem is their capabilities.  For example:

- Phase I - they had a lot more armour and air power as well as sea control as well as the element of multiple avenues of approach.  They went in looking a lot like the US did in Grenada with respect to a disconnected but attempt at a joint fight.  They were using position advantage and the speed /shock to try and overwhelm Ukrainian resistance before it could form up.  They were not counting on the UA having access to Western ISR and an ability to hit their entire operational system - in fact no one was. They were instead expecting a front-edge fight which they had advantage upon.  They then tried attritional warfare but were severely overstretched and did what made sense and narrow axis of offence to the south.

Phase 2 - given that the pretty much destroyed their leading edge in phase I and armour was not (and still is not) working like it should.  They had to switch again to a heavily attritional systematic grinding offensive around Severodonetsk using freakishly high density of artillery with infantry follow up.  This bought them some ground - again they are focusing on ground and not UA capability, which is old thinking - as they tried to smash their way to something they could call a victory.  By end Jul it was clear that they were running out of gas and due to the introduction of HIMARs in combination with Western backed C4ISR they could not sustain the offensive anymore.

Phase 3 - The RA has clearly gone on the defensive, they have mobilized for defence and are aligning their defensive objectives to the capabilities they have left.  Hell they are even conducting what looks like a withdrawal operation in Kherson right now.

None of that was conducted with a qualitatively good military - you get what you pay for - but it was/is not illogical.  The fact that the RA has lasted until now demonstrates that they can and have adapted. They just cannot do it apace with the UA. I propose that their major issue is not that “they suck”, although they definitely have quality issues, it is instead that the military they brought was prepared to fight the wrong war.  Again roll back the clock to 1991 on both sides and relook at how things could have gone, and the RA starts to make more sense.  They still did not have enough infantry and their logistics was not great but their advantages of mass would have likely worked much better.  They were in short fighting in the wrong war.  The final nail in the cargo cult theory is that if the RA was in fact simply pretending then the UA in their current condition should be at the pre-2014 border by now.  No, the RA is conducting a defensive operation, pretty messy and ugly but the cargo cult as described could not start landing planes if they suddenly showed up, the Russians still are.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

 

Actually, they are sowing dragon's teeth so that some warriors grow up from them. Chmobiks have turned out to be not quite warrior material.

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

NY Times article on Ukraine's fight to keep its skies clear of Russian/Iranian drones:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/23/world/europe/ukraine-russia-drones-iran.html

And something that every single person in the West who questions the benefit of aiding Ukraine should read and, if they don't understand it, have it read to them as slowly as it takes to get them to understand just ONE reason why this is so important for purely selfish reasons:

I just read the article and have seen a few videos of groups of people trying to shoot them down.

There are a couple problems - there's the long term "how do we do it efficiently" and there's the "how do we deal with it RIGHT NOW".  The "right now" seems to be screaming for equipment and approaches right out of CMBO - truck mounted M2s (maybe twins) with tracer set out in perimeters.  It's something that even a TD-lite could be trained to do, where it might be "drone defense squads" who are really only trained to maintain a truck mounted MG setup and spot drones way back from the front lines.  The shahed isn't going to shoot back so they don't need training to deal with that.  The ad hoc attempts to shoot them down seem to be light on tracer, where air defense is where tracer really shines, so to speak.  Especially against a drone - with crewed aircraft it gives away the position of the gun.  With the shahed dumb-bomb it lets you lead it properly and the drone is too dumb to care where you are.

For detection further out an acoustic sensor network might help.  Either ground based sensors set a bit back from the front lines so there's not a lot of background to drown them out, or even balloon mounted sensors in groups of 2-3 (at least two will let you get direction and speed, with a third for redundancy) networked a lot like they're doing with artillery. If Ukraine has layered defensive perimeters set up, one of the back lines could do maintenance of the first line of acoustic sensors, ideally located somewhat away from their positions so as not to give them away when the sensor transmits.  And all you really need for a sensor is a cheap smartphone with enough battery to last a while.  A phone network that runs on personal phones in the background (like how apple tags or tiles are tracked, but acoustic instead of bluetooth) and does geolocation like MLAT would help to keep drones tracked as they change directions.  The acoustic sensing itself it is probably the easy part.  The 4 cylinder 2-stroke in the drone is going to be pretty distinctive and relatively easy to isolate automatically with filters.

[JonS]

1 hour ago, TheVulture said:

And likewise the western military system is something that the west evolved as an effective way for people from western cultures to fight. It isn't automatically going to work the same way if you just copy it and plug in people with different culture, social norms and attitudes.

I've just finished reading The Ledger by Kilcullen and Mills, covering the denouement in Afghanistan last year.^

It was written in a rush - a rush of time, and a rush of anger - and it shows. However, one of the more coherent points they make is that, clearly, Afghanis can fight. And fight. And fight. What the ANA couldn't do, however,  was fight effectively within the construct of the pseudo-western military that had been forcibly grafted onto them, and which then had vital enablers - which the ANA couldn't generate or sustain for themselves - withheld right at the time they were desperately needed.

^ good grief. Only last year. Time really is non-linear at the moment.

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, JonS said:

I've just finished reading The Ledger by Kilcullen and Mills, covering the denouement in Afghanistan last year.^

It was written in a rush - a rush of time, and a rush of anger - and it shows. However, one of the more coherent points they make is that, clearly, Afghanis can fight. And fight. And fight. What the ANA couldn't do, however,  was fight effectively within the construct of the pseudo-western military that had been forcibly grafted onto them, and which then had vital enablers - which the ANA couldn't generate or sustain for themselves - withheld right at the time they were desperately needed.

^ good grief. Only last year. Time really is non-linear at the moment.

Now if you want to talk cargo cult militaries…and that one cost us a lot more than the investments in the UA.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

27 minutes ago, chrisl said:

The "right now" seems to be screaming for equipment and approaches right out of CMBO - truck mounted M2s (maybe twins) with tracer set out in perimeters.  It's something that even a TD-lite could be trained to do, where it might be "drone defense squads" who are really only trained to maintain a truck mounted MG setup and spot drones way back from the front lines.

Actually, they coluld strip KPV and DshKs from the BTRs and ship them to cities to be remade into anti-drone batteries. They seem to be marginally more effective than rifle calibre guns when mounted in APC's, but could really do God's work when fighting cheap drones.

Bringing back the 57mm AA gun into service would be even better, provided not all of them have been scrapped.

Until lasers can be used for anti-drone work or fighter drones are perfected, the return to  gun AA looks like the only way to fight cheap drones without the defender being forced to expend his AA missile stock on them or spend a fortune constantly restocking.

[Holien]

18 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

the return to  gun AA looks like the only way to fight cheap drones without the defender

Could well be the case. But helmets will be needed to keep population safe from all that goes up - falling back down again!!!

[Maciej Zwolinski]

8 minutes ago, Holien said:

helmets will be needed to keep population safe from all that goes up

Judging by Afghan weddings and funerals, turbans will suffice

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, CAZmaj said:

Prostrates self, stupefied, in fear and trembling, Shock and Awe, before the Elephantine (nay, Brobdignagian!) Wall Of TLDR* Text. Which took longer to scroll than it will take the UA to breach or flank those dragons teeth. Truly the MOAP: Mother of All Posts!

EEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeEEEE!!!!

* Well, actually I did, but you know there are these things called Links.

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by LongLeftFlank
Misspelled 'Brobdignagian', just like some Yahoo....

[BletchleyGeek]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

I've just finished reading The Ledger by Kilcullen and Mills, covering the denouement in Afghanistan last year.^

It was written in a rush - a rush of time, and a rush of anger - and it shows. However, one of the more coherent points they make is that, clearly, Afghanis can fight. And fight. And fight. What the ANA couldn't do, however,  was fight effectively within the construct of the pseudo-western military that had been forcibly grafted onto them, and which then had vital enablers - which the ANA couldn't generate or sustain for themselves - withheld right at the time they were desperately needed.

^ good grief. Only last year. Time really is non-linear at the moment.

Kilcullen was doing the rounds on the Australian national radio 5pm news on a Friday, back in early September, when there was that moment immediately following the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in Kherson. When Russian bullcrap was very loudly claiming that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were being obliterated in mindless fashion, like extras in a schlocky contemporary Russian movie on WW2 or All is quiet in the Western Front.

Kilcullen's take was that, as "das experten" consensus at that moment was,  AFU had failed. His was one of many voices coming forward reasoning that the West had got this war wrong and that we were ruining our economies and causing undue suffering amongst Ukrainian people by supporting them, but without wanting to involve troops, planes and ships into it. That we should be offering an off ramp to Putin, and let Russia take whatever they fancy. That the Ukrainians were a corrupt, anarchic, lazy lot that probably were selling the secret of Steel to the Russians. And so on.

That same night first news came through about AFU breaking through the Russian lines, reaching the river Oskil in about 20 hours, in what by all reckoning was a stunning reversal. The rest is history.

The next Monday 5pm news opened up with 10 minutes of coverage of the Ukrainian victory, and das experten were quite confused.

I hope they had a chance to review any "advice for the future" before going to press... It's a different war, in a different land, with different motivations. This conflict cannot be further from the Afghan war. Yet I agree with the following: it is possible that the same mistakes are done.

To wit, that instead of offering terms when our side is winning (as should have been the case in 2007-2008 perhaps) we decide to double down and effectively wish for the annihilation of the adversary without willing to put forward the means to wage a war of annihilation. And vice versa, that instead of keeping a firm steering on policy, an off ramp is offered to the losing side when they were getting some respite, in a premature fashion, causing chaos, mayhem and despair.

Edited October 24, 2022 by BletchleyGeek

[poesel]

10 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

YES! My grandparents are smiling from up On High.The Phillies are going to the World Serious.

Do say, how many countries are participating in that 'world series' of yours?

 

4 hours ago, CAZmaj said:

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, however, claimed that they would welcome Russians because "Anyone who courageously opposes Putin's regime and thereby falls into great danger, can file for asylum on grounds of political persecution."

There seems to be disunity in the question of how should the democratic world view the fleeing Russians. So let’s unpack the situation.

You have to take into account German history here. Our last experience with a dictator is not so long ago, and many fled the country at that time. In retrospect, Germany is grateful for all countries that took our refugees. So the German perspective on Russian refugees is different from that of other countries.

And if I may add: you might want to cut your posts into several, smaller and shorter ones. It's a bit hard to read all that stuff and to remember the beginning when you reached the end.

[BletchleyGeek]

On other important news too

 

 

[Kinophile]

23 minutes ago, poesel said:

Do say, how many countries are participating in that 'world series' of yours?

 

 

It's named after a newspaper,  not the actual globe. They used "World" to make it seem grandiose to local markets. 

[Ultradave]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Someone in the comments said, basically, that this was the US Navy reminding Russia that the US has really nasty subs too, and a lot more of them than the Russians do.

Steve

Right. It doesn't NEED to be anywhere near that close to do it's job, other than as a reminder. There are several more scattered about somewhere too. 

Dave

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Kilcullen was doing the rounds on the Australian national radio 5pm news on a Friday, back in early September, when there was that moment immediately following the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in Kherson. When Russian bullcrap was very loudly claiming that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were being obliterated in mindless fashion, like extras in a schlocky contemporary Russian movie on WW2 or All is quiet in the Western Front.

Kilcullen's take was that, as "das experten" consensus at that moment was,  AFU had failed. His was one of many voices coming forward reasoning that the West had got this war wrong and that we were ruining our economies and causing undue suffering amongst Ukrainian people by supporting them, but without wanting to involve troops, planes and ships into it. That we should be offering an off ramp to Putin, and let Russia take whatever they fancy. That the Ukrainians were a corrupt, anarchic, lazy lot that probably were selling the secret of Steel to the Russians. And so on.

That same night first news came through about AFU breaking through the Russian lines, reaching the river Oskil in about 20 hours, in what by all reckoning was a stunning reversal. The rest is history.

The next Monday 5pm news opened up with 10 minutes of coverage of the Ukrainian victory, and das experten were quite confused.

I hope they had a chance to review any "advice for the future" before going to press... It's a different war, in a different land, with different motivations. This conflict cannot be further from the Afghan war. Yet I agree with the following: it is possible that the same mistakes are done.

To wit, that instead of offering terms when our side is winning (as should have been the case in 2007-2008 perhaps) we decide to double down and effectively wish for the annihilation of the adversary without willing to put forward the means to wage a war of annihilation. And vice versa, that instead of keeping a firm steering on policy, an off ramp is offered to the losing side when they were getting some respite, in a premature fashion, causing chaos, mayhem and despair.

yeah, Kilcullen has had a few holes shot in his various boats on the CMSF boards over the years. 

He's a super smart guy, spent enough time getting shot at to have cred, and also a good writer.  But his papers also tend toward that 'just so' Journal Article Unifying Theory, which I guess ensures a lucrative career for him.

Not a condition unique to the MIC by any means.

[LongLeftFlank]

2 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Right. It doesn't NEED to be anywhere near that close to do it's job, other than as a reminder. There are several more scattered about somewhere too. 

Dave

When something mysteriously shows up in the Caspian and shoots down a bunch of TU95s as they lazily maneuver to release their ALCMs at Ukrainian cities.... then vanishes just as mysteriously, without trace.... THAT will be one for the record books!

Philadelpia Experiment, anyone?

[Ultradave]

Interesting that it's definitely a SSBN and not one of the 4 SSGNs. Having an SSGN nearby would be a signal to Iran, not necessarily Russia. Disclosing a boomer location (not really disclosing mind you as the Arabian Sea is vast and you can't find an OHIO class) is a signal to Russia for sure. We're not going to nuke Iran.

Dave

[panzermartin]

Last night I dreamt that Putin was assassinated and in the next hour nuclear bombs started to fall all over Europe and I could see the distant flashes in a stormy beach and we were rushing for cover in buildings. And while dreaming, I thought I wanted to post on this forum that someone who argued that we have not that much to fear because of bad russian maintenance of WMD, was deadly wrong. 

I need to stop reading this forum everyday and stop drinking beers late at night

[Huba]

1 hour ago, BletchleyGeek said:

On other important news too

 

 

It's even funnier that this post suggests - it looks like we have too much gas at the moment, time to turn up the heating

 

[LongLeftFlank]

54 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Interesting that it's definitely a SSBN and not one of the 4 SSGNs. Having an SSGN nearby would be a signal to Iran, not necessarily Russia. Disclosing a boomer location (not really disclosing mind you as the Arabian Sea is vast and you can't find an OHIO class) is a signal to Russia for sure. We're not going to nuke Iran.

Dave

LOL, 101st Airborne sitting directly opposite Crimea is an even more direct FA->FO signal.

Notice Uncle Sam doesn't even *bother* putting naval assets into the Black Sea (are you taking notes here, China?)

*****

Winter is, umm, Here....

https://turcopolier.com/allies-dig-in-to-give-ukraine-winter-edge-over-ill-equipped-russians/

Also read the comments by the bloggers (Pat Lang and TTG).

Edited October 24, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[acrashb]

5 hours ago, TheVulture said:

And likewise the western military system is something that the west evolved as an effective way for people from western cultures to fight. It isn't automatically going to work the same way if you just copy it and plug in people with different culture, social norms and attitudes.

As a for example, often used as a differentiator, Western ground forces teach NCO-level initiative.  But initiative is baked into Western cultures, so if one tries to teach Russian NCO's initiative, it is likely to fail and would certainly do so systemically.  So the RA and its weak NCO corp may actually be a reasonable adaptation to their culture.

4 hours ago, JonS said:

IIt was written in a rush - a rush of time, and a rush of anger - and it shows.

[...]However, one of the more coherent points they make is that, clearly, Afghanis can fight. And fight. And fight.

[...]What the ANA couldn't do, however,  was fight effectively within the construct of the pseudo-western military that had been forcibly grafted onto them

1) I may pick it up, but if 'it shows', not sure how objective it would be.

2) When the withdrawal happened, elements of the US political class denigrated the Afghan army, trying to shift blame - but up to 92000 of them died fighting, there was no systemic lack of courage or determination. 

3) I don't doubt that the tribal culture of Afghanistan is a key reason that Western ideas failed to take hold (although the main reason the Taliban 'won' is support from neighbouring countries) - as Steve put it, they don't want what we were selling - but the main reason the Afghan army lost, aside from the abrupt abandonment by their key and necessary ally, was graft and corruption. 

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Judging by Afghan weddings and funerals, turbans will suffice

Firing straight up (as at an Afghan wedding etc.) is relatively safe (although clearly not an ideal situation), the bullet returns no faster than if it was simply dropped from a plane, and typically base-first.  You're welcome to get a copy of Hatcher's Notebook to confirm.  Firing at an angle, as in trying to shoot down a drone, that's dangerous, the bullet will have lethal velocity for up to five or six miles.

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

You have to take into account German history here. Our last experience with a dictator is not so long ago, and many fled the country at that time. In retrospect, Germany is grateful for all countries that took our refugees. So the German perspective on Russian refugees is different from that of other countries.

Is it necessarily a matter of German history? There are good arguments in favor of giving Russians who oppose the current regime -for whatever reason- a safe haven. Even if it's just for dodging the draft. There are different views on the topic and not only the Ukrainian one is valid.

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

yeah, Kilcullen has had a few holes shot in his various boats on the CMSF boards over the years. 

He's a super smart guy, spent enough time getting shot at to have cred, and also a good writer.  But his papers also tend toward that 'just so' Journal Article Unifying Theory, which I guess ensures a lucrative career for him.

Not a condition unique to the MIC by any means.

There's a video out there somewhere of Kilcullen and Rory Stewart going off after the Afghan pullout and it's a really incredible exercise in un-self aware buck passing. I actually respect a lot of Kilcullen's work...but his inability to comprehend the gap between means and ends or to properly place Afghanistan and the WOT where it belongs on a list of strategic priorities is utterly glaring. He reminds me of the acolytes of 'self driving' cars. They always tell you that the solution is just around the corner, that more money and research will break down the insoluble problems and that ultimately the user/consumer is to blame when it fails to work.

BLUF, beware the critiques and analysis of anyone who has a strong interest in the outcome.

[Harmon Rabb]

53 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Last night I dreamt that Putin was assassinated and in the next hour nuclear bombs started to fall all over Europe and I could see the distant flashes in a stormy beach and we were rushing for cover in buildings. And while dreaming, I thought I wanted to post on this forum that someone who argued that we have not that much to fear because of bad russian maintenance of WMD, was deadly wrong. 

I need to stop reading this forum everyday and stop drinking beers late at night

This forum has not invaded my dreams yet. But sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I almost reflexively grab my iPhone from the nightstand beside me, to see what folks in other time zones have posted here .