How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[cesmonkey]

U.S. Senate hearing going on now:

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/countering-russian-aggression-ukraine-and-beyond

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Butschi said:

This kind of talk always give me headaches. At the end of the day the US fought their last peer to peer war in WW2. Korea if we are very generous and that didn't end so well. The same is true for all other western armies. Vietnam was the last war a western army had to face significant losses. Vietnam also didn't end so well. Desert Storm while surely large in scale was nowhere near peer to peer.

I wanted to come back to this in more detail to demonstrate how easy it is to dismiss historical comparisons based on flawed thinking.  Let's take Afghanistan and Iraq for example.

It is absolutely true that the overall US/NATO way of fighting conventional warfare did NOT work against a determined insurgent based domestic fighting force.  This wasn't just the fault of the military but of the political leadership surrounding it.  Therefore, if you want to evaluate US/NATO's strategic chances of winning such a war (winning defined as establishing a stable and self sustaining country) you'd be quite correct to doubt it would go well.  I share in that opinion.

However, that's not the sort of war we are talking about in Ukraine.  We're talking about a conventional war of equipment and doctrine based on national resources dedicated to making war.  To put it crudely, it is a war of equipment first and foremost because BOTH sides have built their capabilities around equipment.  The various insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan did not.  ISIS is another example which is somewhere between and that actually did turn out well for the US/NATO system (but that is another discussion).

What did we learn from Iraq and Afghanistan?  That the US/NATO had a wide range of ways to kill anything it decided needed killing.  Not just maybe kill, but definitely kill.  This required complex and expensive equipment, doctrine, training, and industrial capacity.  It worked extremely well.  It is proven fact, not theory.

OK, so what are the variables that Russia throws into the mix that the likes of the Taliban did not?  Counter equipment.  Well, we have seen that sort of equipment in use elsewhere (I already listed some) and the US/NATO combined arms concept crushed them.  The S-400 and EW capabilities that Russia has developed more recently have been tested out by Ukraine in various ways and have been found to be an incremental improvement at best.  Which is not surprising because many experts pointed this out years ago. 

Therefore, from an equipment standpoint it isn't likely that the Russian posses much that would change the outcome in a favorable way.  It might be a bit more of a challenge for the US to gain air supremacy than in Iraq, but I don't think by much.  Especially at this point in the war.  Some US/NATO doctrine and capabilities might be more limited than is desired, for example use of rotary aircraft close up to the front, but then again maybe not when we look at Ukrainian Mi-8 rushing around right under Russian noses.

OK, so what about training and doctrine?  I could go on and on about what we've seen in this war so far, but it is safe to say that Russia Sucks At War™ sums it up well enough.

Add this together and the Russian side of a match up with US/NATO would be fairly similar to Desert Storm in nature, but in effect easier because Ukraine has already ground down Russia's forces pretty severely.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

In Ukraine against the Russians, very likely but when we are talking US/NATO next-war, this little shindig in Ukraine is the “sampler”.  You are basically describing the western doctrine that got us through the last 30 years of dominance.

Yup, and Russia is as well.  As long as the adversary plays the same game, US/NATO will crush it.  Which is why US/NATO didn't win Afghanistan and struggled horribly in Iraq.  Those opponents did not play the same game.

Eons ago we theorized what would happen if the US/NATO doctrine had to go up against a Ukraine type adversary.  I don't think it would end well for US/NATO, though I do think it would do vastly better than what Russia managed to do.

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Question is, “is that doctrine over?”

It will be sometime soon, of that I'm sure.  China is already figuring out how it can fight more like Ukraine than Russia.  That is troubling because China has the resources to do vastly better than Ukraine.  Relying upon China to fight like Russia is now was one of the big things US/NATO had going for it up until this war, so not good that this is likely to change.

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Problem #1 - Air superiority.  The war in Ukraine is what massive air denial looks like and it is very likely to get worse not better.  Against another nation or coalition with significant ISR (space to ground networks) and dispersed cheap air denial systems gaining air superiority is the lynch pin we may very well get stuck on.

Except that even Russia is still able to use stand off weapons from fixed wing aircraft and there's nothing Ukraine can do about it.  The US in particular has vastly superior fixed wing stand off capabilities, therefore the type of scrappy air denial that Ukraine has scraped together would be even less relevant. 

There is also the dimension of space to consider.  If the US/NATO goes up against a Ukraine type force in a Ukraine sized country, that's one thing.  Going up against a Ukraine type force in an Estonian sized country is an entirely different thing.

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Problem #2 - Our tanks need gas too.  Our western doctrine of conventional mass requires enormous effort to secure its LOCs under the old rules.  We saw insurgents cripple our supply lines for short periods of time.  Against a peer opponent our current LOCs are extremely vulnerable because we are massing and burning a lot of energy to achieve overmatch.    Take Problem #1 and project it into our rear areas and we might simply run out of gas before we can crush anything.

Absolutely.  But Russia's complete lack of ISR and inter unit cohesion even at the most basic level (e.g. commanders not giving a flying fig if the trucks they ordered forward ever made it back) really made this a fairly ideal situation for Ukraine to take advantage of.  The US/NATO system of war would be stressed very badly, I am sure, but it would function and get better after a few bloody noses.

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Problem #3 - We still think and act linearly.  I am getting the sense that against an opponent wired the same way we are, enabled the same way we are, we are in fact at a disadvantage.   The issue is that our doctrine still looks at the problem sets as linear manoeuvre problems.  Against an opponent that creates and projects a force that is fighting along a non-linear game plan we already know we are vulnerable - we saw this in COIN.  However when that opponent is a peer force, well it changes the game in ways we are not well set up for.

Except if the peer defender in question is interested in the same things we are designed to deny.  Equipment retention and seized ground come to mind.  The Taliban didn't care too much about losing anything, so taking things away from them (men, equipment, territory, even leaders) didn't matter in the end because their strategy for victory didn't require any of them.

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Problem 4 - Will.  The elephant in the room is not even a military problem.  Right now in police forces we don’t know who to trust if the problem at hand is along a divisive fault line.  And I am not talking about the US here, I am talking about Canada.  This is bigger than How We Fight but is directly going to impact both the inputs and outcomes.  So if we get into a peer war, I am not convinced our internal integrity will hold longer than theirs.  This is a precondition more important than air superiority and we do not even think in these terms while our opponents do.''

This is the big one.  I personally believe Russia would fold like a house of cards if it was hit hard enough.  It has almost folded up shop a couple of times in this war simply due to prolonged corrosion.  Losing 5000 men and all the equipment along a 10km front in a couple of hours or days would be more likely than not to produce better and more immediate results.

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So as an example to pull this all together in your western crushing offensive - in the East somewhere in ten years NATO/US face off against an unnamed peer adversary who counters your entire scenario with -

Yup, my scenario is only applicable to this specific war within 1-2 years from now tops.

Steve

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup, and Russia is as well.  As long as the adversary plays the same game, US/NATO will crush it.  Which is why US/NATO didn't win Afghanistan and struggled horribly in Iraq.  Those opponents did not play the same game.

Eons ago we theorized what would happen if the US/NATO doctrine had to go up against a Ukraine type adversary.  I don't think it would end well for US/NATO, though I do think it would do vastly better than what Russia managed to do.

It will be sometime soon, of that I'm sure.  China is already figuring out how it can fight more like Ukraine than Russia.  That is troubling because China has the resources to do vastly better than Ukraine.  Relying upon China to fight like Russia is now was one of the big things US/NATO had going for it up until this war, so not good that this is likely to change.

Except that even Russia is still able to use stand off weapons from fixed wing aircraft and there's nothing Ukraine can do about it.  The US in particular has vastly superior fixed wing stand off capabilities, therefore the type of scrappy air denial that Ukraine has scraped together would be even less relevant. 

There is also the dimension of space to consider.  If the US/NATO goes up against a Ukraine type force in a Ukraine sized country, that's one thing.  Going up against a Ukraine type force in an Estonian sized country is an entirely different thing.

Absolutely.  But Russia's complete lack of ISR and inter unit cohesion even at the most basic level (e.g. commanders not giving a flying fig if the trucks they ordered forward ever made it back) really made this a fairly ideal situation for Ukraine to take advantage of.  The US/NATO system of war would be stressed very badly, I am sure, but it would function and get better after a few bloody noses.

Except if the peer defender in question is interested in the same things we are designed to deny.  Equipment retention and seized ground come to mind.  The Taliban didn't care too much about losing anything, so taking things away from them (men, equipment, territory, even leaders) didn't matter in the end because their strategy for victory didn't require any of them.

This is the big one.  I personally believe Russia would fold like a house of cards if it was hit hard enough.  It has almost folded up shop a couple of times in this war simply due to prolonged corrosion.  Losing 5000 men and all the equipment along a 10km front in a couple of hours or days would be more likely than not to produce better and more immediate results.

Yup, my scenario is only applicable to this specific war within 1-2 years from now tops.

Steve

Almost like the world could use a really detailed simulation of what war will be like against a China-like adversary in about 10 years.  Something that lands somewhere between game and research tool…hmmm, I wonder where we could find something like that?

As to your original premise in this war against Russia, I totally agree, NATO would cut through that is left of the RA faster than it rolled thru Saddam in ‘91.  In fact if it weren’t for the nuclear equation I think we would have Gulf War’d this thing months ago.  I am at the point that the RA has devolved so far back (human wave attacks, seriously) that a good old fashion front door kicking at the right place and time might just do the job.  For example, what is the state of Russian C4ISR?  

[MikeyD]

Rereading my Sun Tzu, a lot of 'The Art of War' describes battles to NOT attempt, foes to NOT fight, terrain to NOT cross, cities to NOT besiege, orders from the sovereign to NOT follow. The art of prudently picking which wars to fight has always been an issue. As the book says, ideally your war would be won before you even started. Sometime it goes the other way, you embark on a war that was never going to succeed no matter how artfully you wage it.

[The_Capt]

Just now, MikeyD said:

Sometime it goes the other way, you embark on a war that was never going to succeed no matter how artfully you wage it.

I think you just described the last 30 years of western military intervention.

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 hours ago, Combatintman said:

@Shady_Side - to add to my previous post and to provide a documented example of converting from one armoured platform to another, the British Army until fairly recently used to do a thing called 'Arms Plotting' which saw regiments re-role every few years - in the case of infantry from light role, to mechanised, to armoured infantry and in the case of the Royal Armoured Corps from formation reconnaissance to armour.  To give a flavour of what it takes to as you put it "they will be starting with crews that already know the fundamentals of armored combat" the links below will take you to the Regimental Journal of the Life Guards for 1980 and 1981 which describe the regiment's conversion from formation reconnaissance to armour.  Bear in mind that this regiment used to change roles about every six years so anybody in the regiment with longer time in than that would have been familiar with Chieftain rather than jumping straight into one from scratch, a luxury Ukrainian tank crews will not have.  Now I accept that the timescales to convert the regiment would be longer back then because of the demands of peacetime soldiering such as: handing over the old camp and equipment; taking over the new camp and equipment; booking training areas; letting soldiers go on leave; area cleaning; site guards; and, marching up and down the square but the bottom line is that the Life Guards took about a year to convert properly to Chieftain to the point where the regiment was capable of fighting effectively as an all-arms Battlegroup.  According to the 1981 journal, B Squadron took four months to fully convert to the point that it was capable of fighting effectively as an all-arms Squadron Group.

Acorn 1980 by LGregsec - Issuu

Acorn 1981 by LGregsec - Issuu

The more I think about it more strange does it soundline.

How can Finland make mechanised forces in 6mos for dismounts, 12mo for tank crew, 12mo for all NCOs and platoon leaders? (company commander and above are professional in mech forces)

Must be related to that company CO and "sergeant" are professional career soldiers. 

[riptides]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

combat effectiveness = quantity x skill x tech-quality

More to it than that I think we all would agree. For the current war at hand, add leadership and availability to the mix.

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, riptides said:

More to it than that I think we all would agree. For the current war at hand, add leadership and availability to the mix.

Not my equation.  The actual algorithm does not exist because the entire thing is built on a biomachine made up of gooey stuff and about 2 million years of evolving to be the "best ape".  We stick "great grandson-of-Checkers" in a moving 60ton giant steel box while other monkeys lob steel at him at 2km per second and wonder why it is "taking so long to train?!".

[Combatintman]

22 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

The more I think about it more strange does it soundline.

How can Finland make mechanised forces in 6mos for dismounts, 12mo for tank crew, 12mo for all NCOs and platoon leaders? (company commander and above are professional in mech forces)

Must be related to that company CO and "sergeant" are professional career soldiers. 

Funny you should mention the professionals - it was a recruiting slogan for many years. the two videos from the 70s reinforce the professionals slogan plus the requirement to have a whole bunch of skillsets plus the see the world piece:

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Combatintman

[Kinophile]

Probably the best simple summary for non-Mil of Why NATO tanks are not going to be quick:

The 18 wheeler is the crux, eh. Not much use anything else if you can't get to where you are needed... 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Kinophile

[kevinkin]

7 hours ago, Shady_Side said:

I think a good argument could be made for giving me the older simpler equipment and I will overrun your whole country while your troops are redoing boot camp.

That's always a consideration in general when fielding armies throughout history. When is to much technology to much for the task at hand? In the present situation, Ukraine is moving over to western systems. Other than tactical rifles, mortars and alike, the west does not have really simple systems. They are engineered for lethality and survivability which is the traditional approach when arming a force having inferior numbers. In WW2, they called it "bullets not bodies". Closing with the enemy is very deadly and the west wants that process to be almost a done deal before bayonets are fixed. So, I don't think the west has a lot of simple equipment to give to the UA. Longer range missiles and GPS shells fit that requirement. But most new AFVs are going to need re-training. We can table F-16s. One good thing is that training can accelerate as classes move through schools. They used to be called training outfits. Once Ukraine has those in place things will speed up. 

[Der Zeitgeist]

If anyone misses the fun "what the hell is wrong with Scholz"-discussions we had, get ready for the ultimate "Estonia wants to send German-made DPICM artillery rounds to Ukraine"-Clusterfu***. 

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Der Zeitgeist

[JonS]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

How can Finland make mechanised forces in 6mos for dismounts, 12mo for tank crew, 12mo for all NCOs and platoon leaders?

Cadres.

[danfrodo]

6 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

If anyone misses the fun "what the hell is wrong with Scholz"-discussions we had, get ready for the ultimate "Estonia wants to send German-made DPICM artillery rounds to Ukraine"-Clusterfu***. 

 

It's almost as if the Baltic countries don't like Russia for some reason?  I wonder why?  

[kevinkin]

WSJ today:

This will be the fourth-closest approach recorded, according to Dr. Farnocchia. He said there were two instances in 2020 and another in 2021.

Asteroids are big rocks and harder to recognize than comets, which usually have spectacular tails.

2023 BU was first spotted by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, from his observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Jan. 21. 

NASA had to briefly consider the man was drunk and watching a Kh-22 go by before validating his observation. 

[Twisk]

At a basic level any sort of guess for how long it will take for Ukraine to get tanks fighting fit is going to be a huge estimate I think. We actually don't even know when the Ukrainians began training on these vehicles. For all we know they've had crews cycling into these vehicles for months. We also don't know Ukraine's training goals and how much of the training can be cut during an actual war.

What we can discuss is the weather and  it seems the weather is not cooperating with the capability of mechanized attacks. Its apparently too wet across too much of the front so that even if Ukraine had Abrams today they couldn't do anything particularly useful with them. Rasputitsa is going to hit in like ~2 months? and that will last for about a month or two if I am correct? So barring anything else it looks like the capability for Ukraine to launch a major attack is going to be weather limited to sometime 5-6 months from now. Is there any reason to disbelieve this? Maybe things freeze solid in a month but is that enough time for Ukraine to launch a major attack?


So reasonably Ukraine could probably launch an attack sometime over the summer and at that time they could reasonably have western IFVs and tanks integrated into some sort of combat capable formation? What will Russian forces look like at this point?


 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Twisk

[JonS]

7 hours ago, Butschi said:

Those Super Etendards did have Exocets...

Exocet (air and land based), pucara, better boots, better artillery, better cold and wet weather equipment, better armoured vehicles, shorter logistic links, land bases for aircraft, more troops in theatre, ...

[cesmonkey]

22 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

If anyone misses the fun "what the hell is wrong with Scholz"-discussions we had, get ready for the ultimate "Estonia wants to send German-made DPICM artillery rounds to Ukraine"-Clusterfu***. 

Someone else would have to lead the way, for sure, before Germany would even think of agreeing to that.

What countries still make their own cluster munitions? Turkey? Finland? Poland?

[JonS]

3 hours ago, Seminole said:

How did the WW2 cruiser vs SSN turn out?

About as well as you'd expect, although amusingly the skipper didn't trust his new you-bewt weapons and used a WWII torpedo instead. But I'm not clear on the link you see between that and the peer-to-peer ground fighting on the islands?

Edited January 26, 2023 by JonS

[Der Zeitgeist]

5 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Someone else would have to lead the way, for sure, before Germany would even think of agreeing to that.

As far as I understand, there's no way Germany would be able to agree to that since we're signatory to and have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which is very clear on these points:

Countries that ratify the convention will be obliged "never under any circumstances to":

• Use cluster munitions;
• Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions;
• Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Der Zeitgeist

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Probably the best simple summary for non-Mil of Why NATO tanks are not going to be quick:

The 18 wheeler is the crux, eh. Not much use anything else if you can't get to where you are needed... 

The US is usually pretty good at getting tanks to where they are needed though.

Here's another version of the analogy:

 

You own a dirt track, but you want to get into Formula 1 racing.

You have an experienced dirt track driver, but he hasn't driven F1. He's very motivated and quick to learn.

You happen to have a friend who has:

-about 8000 Formula 1 race cars in storage

-Lots of experienced F1 mechanics

-Many highly trained F1 pit crew

-a large number of other drivers

-contracts w/ engine/tire companies

-a number of 18 wheelers to get to races

-a completely legal money printer

Edited January 26, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[The_Capt]

33 minutes ago, Twisk said:

At a basic level any sort of guess for how long it will take for Ukraine to get tanks fighting fit is going to be a huge estimate I think. We actually don't even know when the Ukrainians began training on these vehicles. For all we know they've had crews cycling into these vehicles for months. We also don't know Ukraine's training goals and how much of the training can be cut during an actual war.

What we can discuss is the weather and  it seems the weather is not cooperating with the capability of mechanized attacks. Its apparently too wet across too much of the front so that even if Ukraine had Abrams today they couldn't do anything particularly useful with them. Rasputitsa is going to hit in like ~2 months? and that will last for about a month or two if I am correct? So barring anything else it looks like the capability for Ukraine to launch a major attack is going to be weather limited to sometime 5-6 months from now. Is there any reason to disbelieve this? Maybe things freeze solid in a month but is that enough time for Ukraine to launch a major attack?


So reasonably Ukraine could probably launch an attack sometime over the summer and at that time they could reasonably have western IFVs and tanks integrated into some sort of combat capable formation? What will Russian forces look like at this point?


 

Well I am not sure if we can even clearly define what we mean by "attack" at this point.  I expect that the UA will continue to conduct a series of deep strike and attritional campaigns, continually eroding the RA at its critical points.  Then once the corrosive phase of warfare is over, they will kick the door in (insert western tank shots).  My money is on a diversionary push in the east, and then a main effort punch to cut that strategic corridor.  Once they do that, they can go to work on Crimea and compress the RA back into the box where it started in the Donbas. 

They get to that point and we are basically at the "ok, so where do we draw the line?" arguments.  Ukraine, obviously will want to push all the way back to pre-2014; however, the west might not be all onboard for this war to drag all the way into 2024 (and maybe beyond). That is a lot of money and hardware to finish that job and commitment may wane.  But as I always say, let's walk to midnight one second at a time.

[DesertFox]

Good thread about the US decision to sent Abrams to Ukraine:

 

 

[Lethaface]

4 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Very interesting information!

Then we come to the point of "good enough". Lets take into account mass, skill and tech-quality.  If it would be equation: combat effectiveness = quantity x skill x tech-quality. This would mean we can live with smaller value on skill part when the other two are compensated enough to account for this. We also are compromising on the skill part to get better timing strategically. It helps that Russian equation is not looking good at all especially in the skill part. 

Also there is the "on the job" training and the commanders can take this into account by starting with operations with a really stacked deck in Ukrainian favor.

Not everything relates to a mathematical equation though. While I'm a big fan of 'good enough', in my line of work this way of calculating often creates more problems than it solves. It is often tried though, although not near me anymore :).