How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I a not sure mass is dead, I think static mass is dead.  Agile mass capable of very wide dispersion and then rapid concentration is likely still on the table.

As for your scenario above, I guess my question is how would this be any different than Phase I of this war?  The RA might be able to get crazy gun concentrations and then mass all them big ol tanks, punch a big hole in the UA line and charge!!....but into what?  They will get strung out on longer LOCs, have their logistics hammered because they can be seen from space and we are back to stalling and corrosion.  They could try smaller punches that only advance a few kms at a time but then you are also defeating the purpose of a big punch through because you opponent has time to react and re-set.  The very purpose of "punching a hole" is in doubt because it cannot create disruption when you opponent has ISR superiority...they will watch you punch the hole, then shoot all your gas until you run out, and then watch your crews abandon their vehicles and walk back. 

I do believe you when you say that the RA may try it, it has that WW1 feel of "one last push and we are onto Paris/Berlin" feel to it.

“For the sake of the nation’s life, it was necessary to restore the army’s will to die.”

Alexander Kerensky on the Spring 1917 Offensive

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

So it seems chief AT defence of average (not elite) UA soldiers remains RPG-types, mines and normal barrell artillery rounds but heavily corrected by drones.

No, there are enough video, where even brigades of 4th Reserve Corps equipped with western AT-weapon, maybe not always NLAW/Javs, but with enough number of AT-4/Matador etc. Even some TDBr had theese toys. Some problems were in May-July with 1xx th mech.brigades - "third wave", they really had lack of modern equipment as well as a lack of trained commanders on all levels, which caused their mostly poor effectiveness

This war erases borders between nominal "elite" and "average" units. Almost all cadre brigades involved in fight since 24th Feb, rotating only some battalions time-by time for short period. All effectiveness depends from command - from squad leader to brigade HQ. The same Kraken - exellent unit, but only for specific tasks, they are just force recons, hunters, infiltrators, shoot-and-scoot, cleaners, but not "line" unit for head-to-head showdown, like usual infantry 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

4 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

As for effectivness of ATGM's it is much more complicated. There was detailed discussion lately by one polish expert about how Javelins/NLAW's are effective in this war, and the conclusion was that they work differently than in shooting range. 

Care to post a link? Thanks!

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, akd said:

More failure at Pavlivka.  Looks like tank is getting hit from trenches at very close range:

 

The same video without lock

Russian BMP-2, captured in Pavlivka area

Russians attack along the gardens with 7 units of armor and on the second video T-80BVM ambushed in Pavlivka - both videos filmed on 2nd of November. One of theese tanks, hit in Pavlivka was showed as captured on the video of "Omega" Special forces unit of National Guard 

Though, Russian also inflicted some losses during the fight for Pavlivka - "Lantsets" hit two M777 in tree-plant near Bohoyavlenka village 20 km NW from Pavlivka, which supportred UKR troops. It's hard to say either howtzers destroyed or damaged, but obviously, they taken out. 

 

 

 

[Beleg85]

48 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

No, there are enough video, where even brigades of 4th Reserve Corps equipped with western AT-weapon, maybe not always NLAW/Javs, but with enough number of AT-4/Matador etc. Even some TDBr had theese toys. Some problems were in May-July with 1xx th mech.brigades - "third wave", they really had lack of modern equipment as well as a lack of trained commanders on all levels, which caused their mostly poor effectiveness

Yup, but AT-4/Matadors/Panzerfaust are not ATGM but AT granade launchers, effective at 150-300 m (Matador has nominally better range). These were indeed plenty on almost any video from this war, but they will not be able to keep Russian tanks at 2.5 km killing distance. According to many reports/interviews I saw, soldiers prefer to call artillery or even better own tanks to counter Russian armour. Of course it can be perception issue, but as I remember even Zaluzhny himself scaled down the role of atgm's in stopping Russian offensive in feb/march. So ATGms are there and do the job, but they are not silver bullets; at leats not alone.

48 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

This war erases borders between nominal "elite" and "average" units. Almost all cadre brigades involved in fight since 24th Feb, rotating only some battalions time-by time for short period. All effectiveness depends from command - from squad leader to brigade HQ. The same Kraken - exellent unit, but only for specific tasks, they are just force recons, hunters, infiltrators, shoot-and-scoot, cleaners, but not "line" unit for head-to-head showdown, like usual infantry 

For sure, at Kupyansk offensive they were immediatelly followed by regular mechanized troops on BTRs or whatever had wheels/tracks. Question of "how many Ukrianian soldiers in fact use smart elite infantry tactics", in a way described on this forum (i.e. using entire toolset of modern warfare including PGM's) still will need to be answered when we will have more proofs/evidence. We know some of them certianly do; others are bound to improvization. A lot of common units seem to be more into "grab and hold trenches" regular infantry tactics, using all means available to them. Plus drones, of course.

35 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Care to post a link? Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiFvGJNUcP0&t=1694s

Additional info was scattered on his channel (Wolski has limited credibility when comes to tactics/strategy/osint, but ATGM's and more broadly techicalities is his field of study).

Edited November 7, 2022 by Beleg85

[sburke]

51 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Sounds promising...it seems these shocking numbers reported by UA several days ago did not came from thin air.

 

he's optimistic -"surviving mobiks returning"

[Maciej Zwolinski]

7 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiFvGJNUcP0&t=1694s

Additional info was scattered on his channel (Wolski has limited credibility when comes to tactics/strategy/osint, but ATGM's and more broadly techicalities is his field of study).

Ah, the weekly. I am not that interested in the new procurements, so I tend to give this a pass.Thanks!

[dan/california]

Someone asked for the translation. Short, No training, no food, no gear, worse than no leadership. Didn't think being treated like that rated dying for Putin.

[Haiduk]

16 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

So ATGms are there and do the job, but they are not silver bullets; at leats not alone.

Of course, no, but I wanted to say - western AT ammunition was shared among all brigades, without dividing on "elite" or "usual". I've seen information, that NLAW was company-level weapon and shared among platoons, in that time that Javelins were on armament of AT-battalions of brigades. But the way of current war probably has broke typical TO&E

[Beleg85]

30 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

But the way of current war probably has broke typical TO&E

That is definitelly the case.

There is also separate issue of how effective are various AT shoulder launchers against Russian armour, we will probbaly have very high ratio of penetration/per shots fired after comparing real data after the war. Now we only have anecdotal evidence, like for example one of defenders of Azovstal in translated inteview claiming that they needed to let Russian tanks go through because all their standard RPG/AT-4 weapons were bouncing off kacaps armour like rubber pellets. Only reserve AT teams with Matadors and Panzerfausts were able to burn russian tanks that were too bold to drive into the heart of urban maze.

So it's all complicated and highly dependant on context, and our evidence is unfortunatelly still fragmentary. I have my doubts that so many Ukrainian soldiers bravely defending their trenches in Bakhmut or Pisky with launchers, granades and rifles feel like they are on the cutting edge of new way of war (except drones); if able to choose, they would most probably exchange their several ATGMs for more tanks and increased artillery support...you know, old mass. But again, other sections of the front may look differently.

37 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Someone asked for the translation. Short, No training, no food, no gear, worse than no leadership. Didn't think being treated like that rated dying for Putin.

Curious, they are directly from Moscow. Well well, a rare breed.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Beleg85

[Haiduk]

7 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Curious, they are directly from Moscow. Well well, a rare breed.

But one of soldiers says that they are from "9th regiement" - this can be only DPR unit.

[fireship4]

Fans of Joseph Wright of Derby may appreciate this photograph I found via @WarMonitor3, hosted by the NYT, captioned by him as 'Bakhmut, 58th Brigade':

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by fireship4

[Harmon Rabb]

Usually Perun's quality videos get posted on Sunday here. Better late than never.

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

“For the sake of the nation’s life, it was necessary to restore the army’s will to die.”

Alexander Kerensky on the Spring 1917 Offensive

Last time the army had other ideas...

[Beleg85]

33 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

Fans of Joseph Wright of Derby may appreciate this photograph I found via @WarMonitor3, hosted by the NYT, captioned by him as 'Bakhmut, 58th Brigade':

Fan here. Good catch. Btw this is one of most photographed war in history; puting aside grave topic, I saw tons of formally splendid photos made by even common soldiers. Some of these could go straight into bakground loading screens for new CMBS campaigns.

Btw. an article not directly connected to military situation, but giving fair and good insight into civilian tragedies behind all of these dry numbers of killed every day; could be worth reading if one have a spare moment:

https://www.coffeeordie.com/ukraines-survived-wines

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ah, but by this point they had already crossed the Rubicon of committing forces to 4-5 other operational axis.  They pushed hard with what they had left.  If they had concentrated all 300k forces - with the exception of deceptions - in the Donbas on day 1, concentrated their operational and strategic strike on that and the supporting regions I argue they very well could have taken the entirety of the Donbas fast enough to leave the west dislocated and divided.  Call it an R2P operation, create enough BS Ukrainian oppression stories in the region and then seal it up quickly.  I do not think the reaction from the west would have been the same.  This was possible and Russia Sucks theory does not hold up in this "what if" because, as you note, the UA would have been holding without widescale western support.  Russia was still sucking but its strategy would have been aligned with its capability.

We are in agreement on this.  Which is why, until about Feb 22 or so, I thought the Donbas with land bridge next was what Putin had put into motion.  I am sure they would have done a lot better as Russia's primary failings would have likely been minimized and mass would been applied from the start in concentrated form.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well that does not match the western analysis I have seen, 2014 was full on liminal warfare and they took half the Donbas and the entire Crimea without much of a western response, so "win" by any metrics.  The tactical lessons observed show that Russia was leaning into a modern way of warfare that was starting to concern us, I have already posted several of these analysis and none of them point to "Russia sucking", in fact quite the opposite. 

Again, we are in agreement.  Putin played his cards very, very, very well and got some of what he wanted without triggering an immediate reaction from the West.  But Putin wanted all the things he's trying to get since Feb 22nd, and he wound up with Crimea and a chunk of the Donbas.  He also got sanctions and the West paying attention.  Worst of all, he awoke the Ukrainian national spirit and the end of Russia's attempts to create a counterbalance to the EU and NATO. 

When looked at objective based on what Putin's war aims were, he came up very short in 2014/2015 and set in motion all of the things which ensured that Russia would not win this war.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

In that conflict the UA was noted as fighting like it was 1982 and got clobbered, hence why they went hard at military reforms including a lot of western training missions. 

So the evidence, at least as far as I have seen, point to more limited gains by Russia due largely in part to them wanting to keep that war in the "uncertainty" space to keep that war obfuscated and the west confused and divided, not poor battlefield performance...and it largely worked as Europe kept by Russian energy by the buttload, while making squawking noises.  In fact the 2014 war is largely why the west kept over-estimating the RA before this one.  

I am going to have to see some further evidence to join you on the 2014 version where "Russia Sucks so they went to Minsk".

This is wrong   Before I back this statement up with a narrative, let me point out something that should be very clear:

2014-2015 war between Russia and Ukraine served as base from which to build 2022 predictions on for a plethora of obvious reasons.  Right?  Right.

With that in mind, ask yourself which of these two scenarios do you think is more likely:

1. I misunderstood 2014-2015, based my conclusions for 2022 on that flawed understanding, and wound up being (largely) correct about 2022's outcome.
2. Analysts misunderstood 2014-2015, based their conclusions for 2022 on that flawed understanding, and wound up being (largely) incorrect about 2022's outcome.

Yes, I'm saying I'm 2 for 2 and the analysts are 0 for 2.

I'll post my thoughts on 2014-2015 in my next post so as to not clutter this one.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

And here we land at what is probably the point of disagreement, one that I do not think can be settled until we have a lot more data, likely after the war is over.  I do not think what Russia did or did not bring to the table were the most important.  Their very poor political and strategic thinking definitely set the conditions, again I do not see any evidence these were easily predictable...in fact I think most were surprised just how overtly Putin went in on this.

Yes, this is the shocker aspect of the war.  It was so clear to me, and others, that Russia was in a poor position to conduct a full scale war, yet it went ahead with it anyway.  Very un-Putin like.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

What was the most important condition in my opinion was highly unpredictable and that was what happens when the UA combination of highly empowered dispersion, ubiquitous ISR, and precision weapons met traditional conventional mass - poorly formed, trained and C2'd mass fully accepted but I am not sure if the Russians had better C2 and combined arms performance it would have really made a difference.  Their logistics would still have been highly vulnerable and nothing the RA could have done could have solved for western ISR integrated into the UA, which likely the single biggest factor in the outcome of this war at the operational-to-tactical level.

So here's the thing... my prediction about Russia getting its ass handed to it by Ukraine was mostly intuitive.  Aside from my thinking about how tactical battles might play out, I did not put deep thought into such things as Ukraine's incredible ISR capabilities.  Yes, I knew of all the elements, in particular drones, but no I didn't think how f'n well Ukraine would tie them all together.  I did, however, think that Russia would screw up its logistics and be spread too thin to win a war, just not how badly Ukraine would exploit those deficiencies.

Which is why I said the most important reasons for Russia's defeat where known before the war.  Things like under performing equipment, uneven and incomplete modernization, crap leadership, crap logistics, crap communications, massive levels of corruption, poor morale, etc.  This is what doomed Russia to failure, not Ukrainian ISR.  Ukrainian ISR just made it happen much more spectacularly and quickly.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You posted this one first but I will leave it to last.  You seem to be alluding to the idea that somehow we in the west - who do not suck - would somehow stop this operation?  That is not how military operations work.  If we in the west were caught up in a war taking significant casualties we would do everything we could think of to mitigate that but we would not simply cry "stop the war".  Canada's military, or any other western military for that matter would keep fighting for as long as its people told them to, regardless of the brutal casualties; history is on my side on this one.  Do you not think we knew how useless the war in Afghanistan was from the ground level, yet we kept going because there were no other options?

You're still missing the point I made.  Canada might not stop fighting the war, but it would stop doing suicidal attacks that lost it 25-50% of its forces!  It would certainly not do dozens of them per day every day for months on end.  That's because Canada doesn't suck militarily (or in any other way, in my humble border state opinion!).

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I suspect the RA is in the exact same situation.  They have not adapted, but I am not sure how much they can at this point. 

They never could have because they went into this war totally inept and bereft of all the elements necessary to improve.  Leadership and morale being two of the most important ones.  Even with this there were easy options available to it which they could have done if they didn't suck.  Like not doing penny packet suicide attacks day after day after day.  But Russia Sucks™ so they kept it up anyway.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Now for my interpretation of 2014-2015 at the time it happened.  I went on the record back then and since, so this is not me being revisionist...

Russia set up proxy forces and armed, trained, and led them.  From the very start there were Russian units involved, though at first much of the proxy force was staffed by Russian Army contract soldiers "on vacation'.  At the tail end of the Spring and start of the Summer Ukraine stabilized the situation and started retaking ground.  A lot of ground and with a lot of speed.  Hopes of spreading the war to Odessa, Kharkiv, and even Mariupol were squashed.  Firmly.

As the Russians saw things going badly for them they inserted more direct conventional forces, mostly special forces of various types and VDV.  They didn't fair well either.  The Dontetsk Airport was a horror show for the Russians and a precursor to the sort of poorly executed attacks.  In another case the Ukrainians learned where a VDV unit was billeted and blew the crap out of it with artillery.  In another case a VDV unit was caught in march order and slammed with artillery, causing the survivors to abandon their vehicles, flee, and post to Telegram about getting the snot knocked out of them.

Does any of that sound familiar?  It should, because we've seen this happening for the last 8 months on a grander scale

Up until August the evidence is very clear that despite all of Ukraine's challenges and Russia's advantages, Ukraine had largely defeated Putin's grand plan and was about to make what remained of it (the rump of Donbas) a large cauldron by snipping off the border crossings to both Luhansk and Donetsk as well as separating Luhansk from Donetsk.  And Ukraine did this without any help from the West.

It was this success that led Russia to do a full scale invasion in August.  Ukraine was caught unprepared for it and initially suffered significant casualties in the south.  It also lost the two thrusts that were chopping up the interior lines of Donetsk and Luhansk.  But in the center and the north Ukraine largely withdrew to a new defensive line and held it from Donetsk city, north of Luhansk city, and to the Russian border.  Russia could have pushed harder in the south, but as you say they were self constrained in order to keep up the ridiculous facade that it wasn't fighting in Ukraine.

And here is the important point that many analysts missed.  Russia found that even though it attacked with the element of surprise into Ukraine's southern flank with a superior force, they did found it tougher going than they thought.  They didn't push Ukraine back from Donetsk City, for example.  They didn't even take the f'n airport they wanted so badly.  They made no few gains in the middle and modest ones in the north.  They certainly didn't push down into Mariupol or retake the other parts of Luhansk and Donetsk it lost earlier in the Summer.  In particular Slovyansk, which was highly symbolic for the Russians.

Russia sensed that it would have to invest a lot more into Ukraine if it wanted to even hold what it had retaken, so it got Minsk agreed to so that it could withdraw most of its regular forces.  It put them back in again for Debaltseve and the Donetsk Airport, winning both only after spilling a lot of their blood and NOT causing the Ukrainians to buckle.  I am sure Russia had intended to take more territory than they did.

Minsk 2, which was already agreed to, allowed Russia to freeze the conflict and withdraw most of its conventional forces.  It also allowed Ukraine to "up its game" while Russia apparently got even sloppier than it was the first round.

Steve

[billbindc]

 

Feels like this needs a big revision.

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

. But the way of current war probably has broke typical TO&E

That alone would justify a serious Black Sea expansion. Not just on the UKR side,  but the RUS as well.  An interesting expansion would be where the "original war"  reignited,  but without US involvement -  where Peace was gained at the cost of NATO membership, yet then RUS did attack again. 

But this time,  UKR forces are vastly different and mimic current structures/trends/ equipment.  

 

[dan/california]

 

[Battlefront.com]

The Russian MoD's first ever public response to criticism from the families of cannon fodder units seems to indicate that there's more trouble brewing for the Kremlin's war.  Reading tea leaves we see two potential shifts.  First is that family members might be getting more agitated and second the Kremlin doesn't feel doing its usual "ignore it and it will go away" behavior isn't working.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

This is a cool concept, even if the video is kinda sucky.  It shows a drone recovering a friendly downed drone.  Something we've not really discussed about all this drone stuff is the high probability that they will become specialized along the same sorts of lines as the vehicles they replace.  Or perhaps more accurately, drones will probably have swappable packages so they can perform various specialized tasks, such as drone recovery, placing mines, clearing mines, transporting supplies, etc.  This on top of the fairly obvious ones we've seen or discussed, such as EW, bombers, ISR, etc.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/yp5zj8/crashed_ukrainian_drone_is_rescued_by_another/

Steve

[chrisl]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is a cool concept, even if the video is kinda sucky.  It shows a drone recovering a friendly downed drone.  Something we've not really discussed about all this drone stuff is the high probability that they will become specialized along the same sorts of lines as the vehicles they replace.  Or perhaps more accurately, drones will probably have swappable packages so they can perform various specialized tasks, such as drone recovery, placing mines, clearing mines, transporting supplies, etc.  This on top of the fairly obvious ones we've seen or discussed, such as EW, bombers, ISR, etc.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/yp5zj8/crashed_ukrainian_drone_is_rescued_by_another/

Steve

That's like an extreme version of the claw game.  So you need your military to have kids who played mechanical arcade games, too, not just video games.

[womble]

8 hours ago, dan/california said:

Didn't think being treated like that rated dying for Putin.

Obviously neither did this lot...  An attack of sense breaking out in the ranks?

[Grossman]

 

"Kherson is a gateway to Crimea," says Marina Miron, researcher in defence studies at Kings College London. "Recapturing it would pave the way to reconquering Crimea, which Ukraine aims to do in this war.”

"Ukraine's next major target is the town of Beryslav, upstream on the Dnipro river," says Ms Miron. "Once they take that town, then they can mount an attack on Kherson itself. It could be only a matter of weeks away.”

 

However, says Ben Barry, Senior Fellow for Land Warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Ukrainian forces have been making quite slow progress towards the city of Kherson."They still have to break through the Russian frontlines north of Kherson," he says. "They may be slowed up by muddy terrain. They may not be able to break through to get to the city.”

 

Mackenzie Intelligence estimates that Russia has between 5,000 and 10,000 troops defending the city, including units elite troops. The Institute for the Study of War suggests they are preparing defensive positions within Kherson and to the north west of the city. 

 

Source: BBC  Nov 8-22