How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

I'm just halfway through this video, but it is really great. Author discussed three most important political philosophers of Ru regime (spoiler alert - no Dugin). I saw a few other of his videos and really recommend the whole channel.

 

[womble]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

Fair points, my position is that this area is rather fit for self learning algorithms (I'll call it flight-by-AI). Of course mother earth still rules this place and extreme conditions will make anything impractical, but the 'problem' has already been 'solved' in nature and or by mankind. I'd say in ten years there are bird/insect like drones doing their business without much human involvement apart from, hopefully, giving the things orders. Might not be cheap though

Nature solves high winds problems for small flying things by having the small flying things stay out of the air. For the most part. Seen plenty of crow-sized critters barely keeping it together and going downwind but not so many getting where they most want to go against the wind.

[JonS]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

Don't most militaries use winged drones, not quadcopters?

Most militaries who're serious about drones have more rotary than winged by headcount (c.f. the US Army has more air frames than the USAF).

And that makes sense - when you give every section commander a black hornet and every platoon commander a mavic, you end up with a LOT of those platforms. Conversely, a winged platform would just be a PITA for them to carry and employ.

Edited November 1, 2022 by JonS

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Pancreatic

Cancer remains a death sentence and, if that report is true, whatever succession plan in place might be acted on in the coming months - not years. Could fake negotiations be set up just to call Putin's health bluff e.g. get him out of hiding for the world to see him in all his feebleness? A probing attack. 

[Fenris]

Some close up vision of two very old warhorses

And some nice vision of a NONA

Last one, I imagine this makes it feel worth it to these guys.

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Fenris

[Haiduk]

15 hours ago, kevinkin said:

In so many videos, I have been impressed by the age of the Ukrainian soldier. Is this an artifact of who is allowed to be on tape? Or is the warrior mentality part of their culture to a point where even older men are well trained and ready to face off against Russia? I believe it's the latter and the country will remain free because of that mind set. And here I think a round of golf on a hilly layout is exercise. Of course I do get to practice both mounted and dismounted operations as long as it's not raining. And the halfway house is a worthy objective when logistics (college beer girl's cart) breaks down.

In Ukraine the age of persons, liable for military service in wartime is 18-60 years. Many of theese aged soldiers in army jokingly named "diad'ky" (eng. "uncles") and say that "diad'ky are towing all war on their shoulders". Yes, many of them served recently in Ukrainian or even in Soviet army, but this was many years ago and their value not in this. Many of theese 40-45-50+ men are from villages and small towns, where no enough comfort life like in big cities, but hard handwork in agricultural enterprises, on their farms and on their homesteads. Yes, often theese men are addicted to alcohol and have only basic shcool education, but they used to be in hard conditions. They can do everything from anything. They can coock without field kitchen, they can repair any vehicle without special repair unit, they can dig and build blindage without sappers and then made from it not dirty hole, but something like this:   

Many of modern "city generation" - IT, office employees, used to comfort life, which for example can be cool coders or managers, but often can't hammer a nail stright (because they have a money to hire an "uncle" for this), just would be loss at this war without theese "uncles". They are mainstay of infantry, armor and artillery. Youngers maybe fight more effectively, they more capable in command, tactic and application of new toys like drones, but "uncles" give them own experience of real life and skills. 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Haiduk

[womble]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

Cancer remains a death sentence

As someone with a cancer diagnosis, it's fairly clear that's not as true nowadays as it was when it killed my mother... Some cancers, or late diagnosis have very poor prognosis. Pancreatic's one of those. But as a general statement, it's no longer true.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Soldiers she talked with were from 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, they even mentioned Ivano-Frankivsk oblast as depot area.

You know, as soon as I saw this I slapped my forehead!  Of course that is correct.  The battery commander said as much and he's wearking the chevron of the 10th Mountain.  Duh

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

34 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Some close up vision of two very old warhorses

 

Like so much stuff we've seen in the last couple of months, these vehicles were obviously stored outside for (probably) many decades.  The paint is weathered very badly and rust is evident all the places one should expect rust.  The second one had a catastrophic barrel explosion, most likely because the barrel was already beyond its service life before being taken out of service.  Seems Russia did very little to these vehicles other than weld cope cages and stick on some ERA (which might not even be real for all we know).

 

34 minutes ago, Fenris said:

 

 

Last one, I imagine this makes it feel worth it to these guys.

Notice all the Ukrainian actors by the sides of the road that were funded by British MI6 agents.  Very convincing!

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

33 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

In Ukraine the age of persons, liable for military service in wartime is 18-60 years. Many of theese aged soldiers in army jokingly named "diad'ky" (eng. "uncles") and say that "diad'ky are towing all war on their shoulders". Yes, many of them served recently in Ukrainian or even in Soviet army, but this was many years ago and their value not in this. Many of theese 40-45-50+ men are from villages and small towns, where no enough comfort life like in big cities, but hard handwork in agricultural enterprises, on their farms and on their homesteads. Yes, often theese men are addicted to alcohol and have only basic shcool education, but they used to be in hard conditions. They can do everything from anything. They can coock without field kitchen, they can repair any vehicle without special repair unit, they can dig and build blindage without sappers and then made from it not dirty hole, but something like this:   

Many of modern "city generation" - IT, office employees, used to comfort life, which for example can be cool coders or managers, but often can't hammer a nail stright (because they have a money to hire an "uncle" for this), just would be loss at this war without theese "uncles". They are mainstay of infantry, armor and artillery. Youngers maybe fight more effectively, they more capable in command, tactic and application of new toys like drones, but "uncles" give them own experience of real life and skills. 

This same dynamic is often cited as one of the reasons the Soviets did so well against the Germans.  For the most part German soldiers came from urbanized areas and had very little practical experience with machines, making things, being in bad conditions, etc.  Soviets, on the other hand, were largely rural and had experiences making a living from very little and doing it in harsh conditions. 

People that do not work the land do not understand how long it takes to acquire these sorts of skills.  For sure some urban people can pick up the basics very quickly, but my money is always going to be on the rural people.  I say this as someone who was raised urban and lives in a rural environment by choice.  People around me might not know how to balance a checkbook in Excel, but they can fix damned near anything to get a job done.  Anybody that is a farmer or has farmers for friends know this to be true.

Steve

[Beleg85]

Interesting interview by Neil Hauer with commander of 63rd Brigade; this particular journalist had decent (albeit pessimistic) reporting from Lysychansk battles previously:

https://intellinews.com/ukraine-s-63rd-brigade-gears-up-for-kherson-push-261060/

Edited November 1, 2022 by Beleg85

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This same dynamic is often cited as one of the reasons the Soviets did so well against the Germans.  For the most part German soldiers came from urbanized areas and had very little practical experience with machines, making things, being in bad conditions, etc.  Soviets, on the other hand, were largely rural and had experiences making a living from very little and doing it in harsh conditions. 

People that do not work the land do not understand how long it takes to acquire these sorts of skills.  For sure some urban people can pick up the basics very quickly, but my money is always going to be on the rural people.  I say this as someone who was raised urban and lives in a rural environment by choice.  People around me might not know how to balance a checkbook in Excel, but they can fix damned near anything to get a job done.  Anybody that is a farmer or has farmers for friends know this to be true.

Steve

As a former cow-botherer and now couch-inhabiter, I can attest to this. I mentioned as much wayyyyyyy early in the thread when we were discussing the UKR TDF -  I noted that farmers I grew up with were tough, practical and bluntly realistic about life etc. I've seen a lot of the sort of country and living conditions in eastern Ukraine and I often thought "this is not a rich area, which makes life hard,  which makes the people tough". 

Hell, that difference between rural v urban underpins the fall of every empire before the advent of large scake mechanical industry. 

[sburke]

Interestingly when Yamamoto was visiting the US, he was driving cross country. His car broke down in the middle of nowhere.  A local woman fixed his car. At that moment he knew war with the US was gonna go south fast. 
I don’t think she was a farmer. Could have been though. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by sburke

[chrisl]

10 hours ago, womble said:

Winds are only (that much of) a problem for flying drones. Your ISR bubble next-up will have crawler/creeper/walker/runner/roller scout drones as well, because of that. They'll be small, and infiltrate ahead of time at night, radio-silent. They'll creep under bushes and climb up trees under autonomous guidance (to maintain opsec), then come awake as needed to be the eyes of the force they're scouting for.

There'll be active ones nearer the fighting forces, too. Obviously, a ground drone doesn't get the great view that a flying one does, so you'll need more of 'em. But most FOs have been footsloggers (or at best passengers in a ground vehicle), historically, so you're just not getting the additional improvement of being airborne.

Cyberpunk RPG players have probably already developed SOPs the military could use as a starting point.

Not to mention satellite-based SAR.  It can see through clouds.  It doesn’t necessarily help vs rapid tactical movement, but if the weather is bad enough and muddy enough, the environment might be changing slowly anyway.

[chrisl]

10 hours ago, billbindc said:

We've had artillery launched mines for a long time. When are we going to have artillery launched cameras/sensors/monitors? 

I had rockets with cameras on them when I was a kid.  It’s a lot lighter acceleration than an artillery shell. I’ve done concept designs for fancy-ish optics that could take that kind of impact but haven’t managed to get anybody to throw money at me to make it happen.

[sburke]

Cry me a river

so about those oil prices

https://www.yahoo.com/news/saudis-tell-us-iran-prepping-222623076.html

[Artkin]

Lolwhat? The Saudis have some of the best military equipment in the world. 

[sburke]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chief-wagner-group-private-military-125700250.html

[JonS]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

Not to mention satellite-based SAR.

The kinds of drones that get pushed around by the wind are the intimately tactical ones - section, platoon, and company level, whose commanders have those drones in their hip pocket and can use them whenever they want to look around the next corner or over the next hill ... weather permitting. Commanders at that level do not have access to intimate support from satellites which are used to surveil entire regions or countries. Comparing satellites to quadcopters is like comparing a dingy to the Wonder of the Seas because they both go on water and both take passengers.

Edited November 2, 2022 by JonS

[kevinkin]

4 hours ago, womble said:

As someone with a cancer diagnosis, it's fairly clear that's not as true nowadays as it was when it killed my mother... Some cancers, or late diagnosis have very poor prognosis. Pancreatic's one of those. But as a general statement, it's no longer true.

Sorry for any confusion, I was referring directly to pancreatic and was not meant to be a general statement on the state of cancer treatment.

[chrisl]

22 minutes ago, JonS said:

The kinds of drones that get pushed around by the wind are the intimately tactical ones - section, platoon, and company level, whose commanders have those drones in their hip pocket and can use them whenever they want to look around the next corner or over the next hill ... weather permitting. Commanders at that level do not have access to intimate support from satellites which are used to surveil entire regions or countries. Comparing satellites to quadcopters is like comparing a dingy to the Wonder of the Seas because they both go on water and both take passengers.

Modern SAR can give detailed enough information fast enough to know exactly where a river crossing is starting to happen and start shelling it.  It doesn’t replace the small drones, but it can give you information that’s usable at pretty low levels in conditions that even the fixed wing drones can’t fly in.  And if you’re the side that has it and the other is droneless, it’s a major advantage.

[Battlefront.com]

46 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Modern SAR can give detailed enough information fast enough to know exactly where a river crossing is starting to happen and start shelling it.  It doesn’t replace the small drones, but it can give you information that’s usable at pretty low levels in conditions that even the fixed wing drones can’t fly in.  And if you’re the side that has it and the other is droneless, it’s a major advantage.

True, but JonS' point is that they aren't in the same ballpark.  If you're Buck Private trying to figure out where the 60mm mortar that's been shelling you for the last hour is, you're not going to get a 2 or 3 star general to divert a satellite to help you hunt it down.  Not going to happen, obviously   Therefore, not comparable. Therefore, if your tactical drones are grounded, that's a capability loss.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Interesting interview by Neil Hauer with commander of 63rd Brigade; this particular journalist had decent (albeit pessimistic) reporting from Lysychansk battles previously:

https://intellinews.com/ukraine-s-63rd-brigade-gears-up-for-kherson-push-261060/

Good piece.  Some interesting tidbits relevant to us keeping track how things are going overall:

1. The ability for Russia to hit back has been diminishing.  They still hit Ukrainian lines with artillery, but not as much as before.  It has been a month since they had a serious ground attack on their positions.
2. They attribute the major reduction in Russian counter-attack behavior to their reliance upon cannon fodder.  The last attack cited sounded like a slaughter.
3. I really liked the distinction between "captured" and "surrendered".  They have seen a big uptick in surrenders, which I presume means soldiers who are proactively giving up the fight rather than giving up only after being overwhelmed and/or wounded.
4. Confidence in mid and higher level commands by Ukrainian troops seems to be solid.  I've seen this confidence in other pieces before, but anecdotally I feel like I've been seeing far less "our commanders are idiots" that we saw at the beginning of the war (to be fair, mostly by TD units).  This means trust, and trust is NOT easily established.  Especially in a legacy Soviet force.  It's not a surprise to me, just something that we've not mentioned recently.
5. Coupled with the above, this notion of patience in order to minimize friendly casualties is means that higher level commanders are effectively communicating their thinking down to the lowest ranks.  This is something the soldier in the trench can appreciate more than anybody else.
6. They compared themselves to the Russian way of war and, of course, it isn't a very flattering comparison   I think this quote sums things up really well:

“Russian commanders, on the other hand, they give orders and tasks to their soldiers without knowing how they will achieve them. Then they sit back while their troops fight, not caring how many of them will die or not. In order for your soldiers to trust you, they must see that you are not somewhere far away, but there at the forward positions with them. That’s the exact opposite of how Russian officers think,” he says.

This is spot on and it is, in fact, the way Russia has fought since it adopted a mass mobilized military system.  Maybe even before then, but that's not my area of expertise.

Something that's been going through my head a lot, but especially lately, is how the average Russian male is OK with this horrific arrangement that puts them in the service of a government that has absolutely no concern whether they live or die.  They will stick to the system even when they are rounded up by force, have to purchase their personal gear out of their own money, then get sent to Ukraine to fight without training, equipment, ammo, or even orders!  To them it is normal and accepted.  Even the ones that surrender to Ukrainian forces did so only after they passed up all opportunities to resist being treated as a piece of garbage.

Nothing new, of course, but still something I have difficulty truly grasping.  Intellectually I get it, but man... I really just don't get it.

Steve

 

[dan/california]

9 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

By the way, staying within Air defence topics, I had very interesting conversation lately with one US soldier who happen to station in my city and was moved from Bahrain. He was very into technical details and claimed that most Iranian drones of Shaheed series can have problems if really deep winter comes, as they were designed to be used in Persian Gulf area only. Reportedly Iranians regularly loose them on tests even in higher parts of Zagros mountains.  There was some specifics details (sorry, I am not tech guy ) about supposedly batteries working bad in very low temperatures, not able to generate enough heat, which may lead to some subsystems switching off. I am curious if he may be right.

I have seen some discussions that a lot DJI batteries will have issues if the weather is much below freezing. I would really like to know how big of an issue this is.

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

As a former cow-botherer and now couch-inhabiter, I can attest to this. I mentioned as much wayyyyyyy early in the thread when we were discussing the UKR TDF -  I noted that farmers I grew up with were tough, practical and bluntly realistic about life etc. I've seen a lot of the sort of country and living conditions in eastern Ukraine and I often thought "this is not a rich area, which makes life hard,  which makes the people tough". 

Hell, that difference between rural v urban underpins the fall of every empire before the advent of large scake mechanical industry. 

An empire of the sword inevitably becomes an empire of the pen, and then along come some people with swords and very poor attitudes. 

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

Lolwhat? The Saudis have some of the best military equipment in the world. 

Yeah, it is soldier quality where they have real issues. We won't even discuss the nationality of 99..5% of their maintenanceI  personnel. 

[chrisl]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

True, but JonS' point is that they aren't in the same ballpark.  If you're Buck Private trying to figure out where the 60mm mortar that's been shelling you for the last hour is, you're not going to get a 2 or 3 star general to divert a satellite to help you hunt it down.  Not going to happen, obviously   Therefore, not comparable. Therefore, if your tactical drones are grounded, that's a capability loss.

Steve

No diversion of a satellite necessary.  
 

Commercial coverage gets you revisits of any point on Earth multiple times a day - all you have to request is pointing and data acq.  The people who have gov satellites are also buying that coverage and already are watching where everything is.  Ex-PFC Wintergreen can’t redirect a satellite, but his company commander is getting fed information without being told where it came from.  There’s a *lot* of stuff up there, and a lot of bandwidth to get data down.  If that 60 mm mortar hasn’t moved in an hour it very well might get made by a satellite.