How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

13 minutes ago, Huba said:

In it's last update from 15 minutes ago, UA General Staff informed about pushing Russians from a number of settlements in Luhansk oblast. Looks like Ukrainians finally hold full control of the Zherebets line and there are hardly any obstacles on the way to Svatovo - Kreminna.

 

Wagner/the Russians seem to have been building fortifications all the way back at the 2/24 lines north of Luhansk City, and along the Siversky Donetsk river. Hopefully Ukraine can roll them ll the way back to there before Christmas. 

[Battlefront.com]

31 minutes ago, acrashb said:

People like me did not.  I work in tech, and my exposure to Russians - going back to the early '90s - has been people who were educated and urban, which I assumed reflected the general population. 

Our personal experiences are often not to be trusted.  Tech has a lot of brilliant and hard working, Western orientated urbanized people from all kinds of countries that largely aren't like that.  The easiest case to point to is the tech wizards from India who are so prevalent in Western companies.  They represent the rest of India far less than the children who strip plastic off of copper wires do.  But we don't have the latter working in the West.

This is a sort of reverse racism/discrimination, where personal experience forms a distorted POSITIVE opinion of a group of people that does not conform to objective reality.

31 minutes ago, acrashb said:

I expect that this would be similar for analysts like ISW, and while they have less excuse, this type of exposure would skew the thought process.

I think the major failing is that they didn't understand how important culture is to the ability to wage war according to Western standards.

31 minutes ago, acrashb said:

This goes beyond sloppy / easy macro quantitative vs. harder-work micro-qualitative and into cultural assumptions.  I'm still trying to build a full picture of why (almost) every analyst was wrong.

The simple way to look at it is they were focused too much on the bling instead of the substance.  They took the ideal that Russia promoted and deducted some for technical failings that were obvious to see.  What they should have done is looked at what Russian culture and history first and then predicted what it would likely produce.  In theory the two should come to the same conclusions, but I think it's easier to make an error by starting with an ideal and knocking it down than taking a fresh look at the ingredients and determining its limitations.

An analogy...

Person A sees a dark brown cake with decorative icing in the display case at a shop.  It looks beautifully made label that says "Double Dark Chocolate Forest Cake".  Looks really good!!  But he's interested in organic ingredients, which the label would brag about if it was made from them.  He reduces his expectations accordingly, but not all that much.  He buys the cake.

Person B knows the owner and the quality of his staff.  He pokes around and looks through health inspection records and finds that the shop has bee cited for violations many times over.  In fact, he finds a news clipping that shows only a few years ago they made a whole lot of people very sick.  Then he pokes further and finds out that there's been mysterious deliveries of sawdust to the shop late at night.  Hmm... maybe the cake isn't even made of wheat flour?  Looking around the shop he also notices signs of rat turds in the corners where someone obviously didn't want to spend the time sweeping.  He not only doesn't buy the cake, but he warns people they shouldn't shop there.

If Person A and B get together they will have an argument about their perceptions.  Since Person A hasn't tried the cake yet, he doggedly sticks to his perceptions despite all the evidence.  He then eats the cake and finds the texture and flavor to be bad and it gives him diarrhea.  Now he says that he wasn't wrong about his assessment, it's just that nobody could have possibly known how badly the cake was made.  Person B tries to not explode with rage

Steve

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

Is it because it needs the money?

Money no. But how about 100+ Shahed-136s for an off the shelf Russian tac nuke?

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Also interesting short thread (PL and UA, autotranslate) about what Russians really may be doing in Kherson, with link to interview with Kiryl Budanov, chief of UA intelligence:

https://twitter.com/MarekKozubel/status/1584465779537637376

He basically thinks that Russian do not plan to evacuate Kherson but turn it into a fortress, and last withdrawals and panick in media was concious campaign on behalf of muscovites to empty region from civilians and take better defences. Worth to read both thread and a link even iy one does not agree, as Budanov was generally right till now in his assessments.

It is troubling concept, as it may mean that brutal fights awaits Ukrainians before they reclaim Kherson. It can be truth, though; it is not in Putin's style to abandon anything just like that.

But then we get back to the question of does that make any military sense. In Kherson, Russia is fighting with its worst logistics, and where Ukraine has its best logistics. Himars, Excalibur, and NATO ISR seem to be decisively swinging the artillery fight in Ukraines favor. If Russia wants to lose a huge portion of its ever deteriorating, and probably irreplaceable, fires capability in a losing fight on bad terms, Ukraine will oblige them. Losing several Ka-52s a day trying to hold a fundamentally impossible position is not going to work.

[Ultradave]

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

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.

To expand on this a little, all training I was exposed to as the "victim" or the trainer put a lot of emphasis on the unexpected. In field training, we were constantly bombarded with trainers throwing wrenches in the works, just like the old saying that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. All of us, from officers to riflemen were trained to be flexible, to modify the plan, to listen to each other and take suggestions. 

So while we had an excellent foundation in combined arms operations, we also had no problem shifting gears. 

And one more thing I was thinking of. I had no hesitancy in asking my team sergeant for his opinion and recommendation. Every one that I had working for me were smart, had about 10 years experience, and a lot of valuable input. Good officers will take advantage of that. Sure we had some "know it alls" who's attitude was that they were the officer.  As an Asst S3 (as a Captain), our S3 (a Major) actively solicited our advise and planning input too. 

I don't think any of this is present in the Russian army of today, or in the Cold War period.

Dave

 

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Also interesting short thread (PL and UA, autotranslate) about what Russians really may be doing in Kherson, with link to interview with Kiryl Budanov, chief of UA intelligence:

https://twitter.com/MarekKozubel/status/1584465779537637376

He basically thinks that Russian do not plan to evacuate Kherson but turn it into a fortress, and last withdrawals and panick in media was concious campaign on behalf of muscovites to empty region from civilians and take better defences. Worth to read both thread and a link even iy one does not agree, as Budanov was generally right till now in his assessments.

It is troubling concept, as it may mean that brutal fights awaits Ukrainians before they reclaim Kherson. It can be truth, though; it is not in Putin's style to abandon anything just like that.

Personally, I think the Russians plan on keeping Kherson as a fortified city.  I don't think they are going to fully withdraw as they did around Kyiv and Kharkiv City.  Putin's got too much riding on this particular city and he probably is thinking "I approved of abandoning Kyiv and Kharkiv, and what good came from that?".

What I predicted long ago, though, is that this plan isn't viable.  I don't think Russia's best units or worst ones have shown much interest in dying to defend something.  Dying to take something?  Yes, but that's not what this is about.  Look at eastern Kupyansk and Lyman for recent examples, or for that matter the northern portion of the Kherson bridgehead. 

If Putin orders the MoD to hold the city they will of course try to do that, and for a while they probably will do so reasonably effectively.  However, at some point the forces in Kherson will see that it's pointless and try to flee even if there are blocking units (and I presume there will be).  They will not fight to the last man in the last basement.

Steve

[dan/california]

12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Our personal experiences are often not to be trusted.  Tech has a lot of brilliant and hard working, Western orientated urbanized people from all kinds of countries that largely aren't like that.  The easiest case to point to is the tech wizards from India who are so prevalent in Western companies.  They represent the rest of India far less than the children who strip plastic off of copper wires do.  But we don't have the latter working in the West.

This is a sort of reverse racism/discrimination, where personal experience forms a distorted POSITIVE opinion of a group of people that does not conform to objective reality.

I think the major failing is that they didn't understand how important culture is to the ability to wage war according to Western standards.

The simple way to look at it is they were focused too much on the bling instead of the substance.  They took the ideal that Russia promoted and deducted some for technical failings that were obvious to see.  What they should have done is looked at what Russian culture and history first and then predicted what it would likely produce.  In theory the two should come to the same conclusions, but I think it's easier to make an error by starting with an ideal and knocking it down than taking a fresh look at the ingredients and determining its limitations.

An analogy...

Person A sees a dark brown cake with decorative icing in the display case at a shop.  It looks beautifully made label that says "Double Dark Chocolate Forest Cake".  Looks really good!!  But he's interested in organic ingredients, which the label would brag about if it was made from them.  He reduces his expectations accordingly, but not all that much.  He buys the cake.

Person B knows the owner and the quality of his staff.  He pokes around and looks through health inspection records and finds that the shop has bee cited for violations many times over.  In fact, he finds a news clipping that shows only a few years ago they made a whole lot of people very sick.  Then he pokes further and finds out that there's been mysterious deliveries of sawdust to the shop late at night.  Hmm... maybe the cake isn't even made of wheat flour?  Looking around the shop he also notices signs of rat turds in the corners where someone obviously didn't want to spend the time sweeping.  He not only doesn't buy the cake, but he warns people they shouldn't shop there.

If Person A and B get together they will have an argument about their perceptions.  Since Person A hasn't tried the cake yet, he doggedly sticks to his perceptions despite all the evidence.  He then eats the cake and finds the texture and flavor to be bad and it gives him diarrhea.  Now he says that he wasn't wrong about his assessment, it's just that nobody could have possibly known how badly the cake was made.  Person B tries to not explode with rage

Steve

So much of the Pre war problem was actually the combination of the Russians not really understanding how BAD their problems were, and Western intelligence being so impressed with their ability to read the Russian General Staffs email that they believed the Russians own projections about the war.

Edited October 24, 2022 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

And one more thing I was thinking of. I had no hesitancy in asking my team sergeant for his opinion and recommendation. Every one that I had working for me were smart, had about 10 years experience, and a lot of valuable input. Good officers will take advantage of that. Sure we had some "know it alls" who's attitude was that they were the officer.  As an Asst S3 (as a Captain), our S3 (a Major) actively solicited our advise and planning input too. 

I don't think any of this is present in the Russian army of today, or in the Cold War period.

This is a huge part of the cultural problem.  In the West's traditions a leader is perceived as weak if he DOES NOT ask his experienced subordinates for advice and/or does not listen to them when they speak.  In the bravado, macho culture Russia has asking inferiors for advice is a sign of weakness and it undermines confidence of the rank and file.

In fact, there's a big difference right there.  In the West the NCOs are "subordinates" while in Russia they are "inferiors".

Of course this is just broad strokes and I'm sure there are Russian units that have learned through combat to have a more-or-less Western style approach to challenges.  However, unlike the West this is something they picked up on-the-fly instead of having it baked into their entire military ethos. 

Steve

 

[danfrodo]

28 minutes ago, Baneman said:

Scotland is in the World Series ? 
 

( sorry, couldn't resist ) 

The rosters include a McCormick, a McCullers, and a Brogdon.  So some scottish representation I suppose.  

[MSBoxer]

43 minutes ago, Baneman said:

Scotland is in the World Series ? 
 

( sorry, couldn't resist ) 

Nope,  Texas vs the U.S.

[Beleg85]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Personally, I think the Russians plan on keeping Kherson as a fortified city.  I don't think they are going to fully withdraw as they did around Kyiv and Kharkiv City.  Putin's got too much riding on this particular city and he probably is thinking "I approved of abandoning Kyiv and Kharkiv, and what good came from that?".

What I predicted long ago, though, is that this plan isn't viable.  I don't think Russia's best units or worst ones have shown much interest in dying to defend something.  Dying to take something?  Yes, but that's not what this is about.  Look at eastern Kupyansk and Lyman for recent examples, or for that matter the northern portion of the Kherson bridgehead. 

If Putin orders the MoD to hold the city they will of course try to do that, and for a while they probably will do so reasonably effectively.  However, at some point the forces in Kherson will see that it's pointless and try to flee even if there are blocking units (and I presume there will be).  They will not fight to the last man in the last basement.

Steve

It's quite possible, but it means destructions of the city and wave of Ukrianian casualties, both military and civilians. Author of the thread admits that Russian plan has many drawbacks as it has advantages. Russian forces will be much more cramped and easier targets for artillery. If they abandon too much terrain, UA barrel artillery will also start oblitorating the supply lines throught the river that are still in use. However, note that despite our predictions here, Russians did manage to secure enough supplies to hold most of their bridgehead till now. And Kremlin seems to be very determined to do something with its dirty bomb narrative.

[sburke]

11 minutes ago, MSBoxer said:

Nope,  Texas vs the U.S.

man we are in more trouble than I thought if Philly=US....

A man's (city) got to know his limitations..

 

 

[hcrof]

4 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

It's quite possible, but it means destructions of the city and wave of Ukrianian casualties, both military and civilians. Author of the thread admits that Russian plan has many drawbacks as it has advantages. Russian forces will be much more cramped and easier targets for artillery. If they abandon too much terrain, UA barrel artillery will also start oblitorating the supply lines throught the river that are still in use. However, note that despite our predictions here, Russians did manage to secure enough supplies to hold most of their bridgehead till now. And Kremlin seems to be very determined to do something with its dirty bomb narrative.

I wonder how easy it would be to hold a city with a population that is so eager to be liberated and has plenty of opportunities to communicate with the outside world? I know the Russians cut the internet lines but I imagine the Ukrainians might already be smuggling in weapons and Comms equipment while the front lines are relatively long and porus - there have been rumours of occasional firefights in the city over the last few weeks...

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

True, however there's the pesky "for every good result there is a bad side effect" problem.

We Germans are very often like this. If it's not a 100% perfect solution to the problem it's rubbish so we rather leave the problem 100% unsolved instead of having something that's not perfect but better than nothing.

I'm not sure if "better than nothing" applies here. But we were not talking about indiscriminately letting in everyone. We were talking about (political) asylum. Asylum is not the most popular topic in Germany and so there is usually at least some kind of examination to see if what the refugee says checks out. By no means water proof but not letting in everyone.

Be that as it may, I can see Germans grumbling about it, we have to pay for it, after all. What I don't get is why the Ukrainians should be against that. I mean apart from the impulse to not let any Russian get off the hook so easily. But every Russian who does not become a soldier is a soldier less even if he would be an ineffective one.

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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.

Nope, no assumption   I was talking about relative improvements.  For example, there is no cure for Cancer but there's a range of treatments that can be applied to a specific situation with some hope of success.  Despite all this information being out there to utilize, Russia is still opting to go with blood letting and leaches.  My suggestion is that that if they went to the Internet they could dramatically improve their treatment options.

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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 sure that's a lot of it, but their capabilities are also a problem.  They are trying to fight a war that they don't really understand at the most basic level.  Worse (for them), they seem to think that when something fails it was because they didn't try hard enough, rather than assessing that they have to try something radically different.

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

 

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.

For sure that's correct.  Which is why I don't knock them too hard for the first couple of days, maybe even week or two.  Their prewar assumptions were completely wrong, which led to the wrong strategy, which led to disaster.  But after this what did they do?  Start using their combined arms potential ("capability") to achieve better results?  Nope, they instead did this...

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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.

Yes, and this shows that Russia never had a combined arms capability, only the facade of one.  They don't even appear to know how one works.  This is the sort of thing that got the Cargo Cult analogy being brought into the discussion.  Russia does not have a combined arms capability to use in this war and, in fact, doesn't seem to understand how one works.  It has old, brute force application of firepower with only the most crude cartoonish concept of maneuver.

Put it this way.  Let's say the US military went into a country with a large scale Thunder Run that quickly showed was a very bad idea.  What would they do?  They would adapt to a more conservative, traditional combined arms fight.  Why? Because that capability is real and was just not being used.  Russia simply doesn't have it, despite outward appearances.

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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.

Again, they are showing that they don't have the capability to do more than brute force defense.  It is not necessarily ineffective (the Vietcong were very effective, though wasteful by Western standards), but it also doesn't show much signs of being particularly "modern".  Figure out where enemy is going to go, put down mines and trenches.  See enemy coming at you, blow it up.  Enemy too strong, die in place or retreat.  Where are the tactical counter attacks led by armor to regain key locations or to remove pressure from losing them?

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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. 

Do the Russians "suck" at fighting and dishing out pain?  No.  Do they "suck" at fighting a modern combined arms war?  Absolutely they do.  Why?  Because they don't have a modern combined arms force to fight with, despite the appearance of having one.

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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.

The point I think you're missing is that the Russians pretended they had a modernized combined arms force, but everything on the battlefield shows that what they really have is still some sort of Cold War mashup with limited high tech capabilities.  Looks more like a 1945 army with a few drones sprinkled into the mix.  Hell, I think one could argue that the Russian ability to conduct maneuver warfare is worse than in even 1942 given the hardware they have (sorry, HAD) available to them at the start of this war.

Steve

[sburke]

9 minutes ago, Butschi said:

But every Russian who does not become a soldier is a soldier less even if he would be an ineffective one.

If I am understanding the earlier dissertations on the subject (which were really pretty awesome @CAZmaj.  Wish I'd have had access to that years ago) it really has no significant impact on the numbers Russia can field however it acts as a pressure release valve for internal conflict within Russia. Accepting the 'refugees" actually prolongs the problem and doesn't help move it towards a resolution to fundamentally alter the Russian status quo.

[JonS]

4 hours ago, acrashb said:

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

Oh, I think it's worth reading. They have a lot of good insights, including on and the nature and causes of corruption (hint: when you carpet bomb a country with literal pallet loads of money AND make it clear you don't intend to see the thing through, don't be surprised when the flowers of corruption blossom), but there is some wading required.

[cesmonkey]

20 minutes ago, sburke said:

Accepting the 'refugees" actually prolongs the problem and doesn't help move it towards a resolution to fundamentally alter the Russian status quo

I consider this a plausible but entirely unproven theory.

One could equally argue that the exposure of the refugees to an open society and free media would forever intellectually alter the thinking of at least some of the refugees in a direction that will result in a more positive future for Russia.

Or you could argue that the removal of some of the most talented labor from the Russian economy will hasten a Russian economic collapse.

[kraze]

7 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

One could equally argue that the exposure of the refugees to an open society and free media would forever intellectually alter the thinking of at least some of the refugees in a direction that will result in a more positive future for Russia.

Russians literally in every single western country prove this is not the case.

In fact to this very day you cannot name a single russian "freedom loving" leader of any "liberty adoring" faction of some kind in their whole history, both sides of the border. Just various shades of imperial insanity.

Edited October 24, 2022 by kraze

[cesmonkey]

 

2 minutes ago, kraze said:

Russians literally in every single western country prove this is not the case.

I think that is a gross exaggeration - but understandable from your point of view. 
I know some Russian emigres in the US that I consider to be thoughtful and reasonable.

[riptides]

8 minutes ago, kraze said:

Russians literally in every single western country prove this is not the case.

In fact to this very day you cannot name a single russian "freedom loving" leader of any "liberty adoring" faction of some kind in their whole history, both sides of the border. Just various shades of imperial insanity.

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

[billbindc]

6 minutes ago, kraze said:

Russians literally in every single western country prove this is not the case.

In fact to this very day you cannot name a single russian "freedom loving" leader of any "liberty adoring" faction of some kind in their whole history, both sides of the border. Just various shades of imperial insanity.

This is a profoundly absurd statement. There are plenty of freedom loving Russians in the west and they are very, very easy to find. Beware of staring too long into the abyss.

[Butschi]

17 minutes ago, kraze said:

Russians literally in every single western country prove this is not the case.

How many Russians in how many western countries do you know about that you can make this claim? @cesmonkey explicitly said "at least some of the refugees". That means, in order to "prove this is not the case" you have to prove that not "at least some of the refugees" are altered, which means you have to prove that this applies to none of the refugees. So you better know about every Russian in every western country, otherwise your statement is wrong.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Butschi
Typo

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is a profoundly absurd statement. There are plenty of freedom loving Russians in the west and they are very, very easy to find. Beware of staring too long into the abyss.

Correct.  Same from my US perspective.  However, Kraze is not entirely wrong.  This has been the experience of the Baltics more than anybody else.  It's taken 20+ years and the literal dying off the old Soviet types for progress to be made.  The experience of large numbers of Russians in Berlin demonstrating in favor of the war when it started and the "Australian Cossacks" video we just saw prove that.  Then there's more isolated incidents such as expat Russians attacking Ukrainian refugees to throw into the mix.

So, the only question is what percentage remains tied to traditional thinking, what percentage switched totally to Western, and how much is somewhere between?  I have no clue, but honestly... it does seem the traditional mindset is not a small minority.

Steve

[dan/california]

42 minutes ago, sburke said:

If I am understanding the earlier dissertations on the subject (which were really pretty awesome @CAZmaj.  Wish I'd have had access to that years ago) it really has no significant impact on the numbers Russia can field however it acts as a pressure release valve for internal conflict within Russia. Accepting the 'refugees" actually prolongs the problem and doesn't help move it towards a resolution to fundamentally alter the Russian status quo.

 

16 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

I consider this a plausible but entirely unproven theory.

One could equally argue that the exposure of the refugees to an open society and free media would forever intellectually alter the thinking of at least some of the refugees in a direction that will result in a more positive future for Russia.

Or you could argue that the removal of some of the most talented labor from the Russian economy will hasten a Russian economic collapse.

The overall balance of what increases pressure on Russia more is very uncertain. One way to look at is that masses of men in the most productive phase of their lives greatly increases the economic cost of the conscription campaign. If figures  are accurate Russia is losing close to two productive workers for every body that the MOD actually manages to acquire. And the economic cost are probably even higher that than ratio because it take money and other resources to leave, so they are probably above average taxpayers.

The whole political pressure angle cuts the other way...