How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Khalerick said:

 Not to pull a Godwin's Law, but I can strong,

...

I think I need to inform you that this forum is exempt from Godwins Law.

If mentioning that the Nazis did or did not something would immediately and an argument here, this forum would be full of millions of very, very short threads...

So, please go ahead.

[FlemFire]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Your position that this war did not start out as a "war of conquest" stands in solid contrast to all the facts we have in front of us, including well documented research into captured documents.  For those of us truly paying attention to the details, we saw this ahead of the war and were only surprised that Putin was stupid enough to give it a go.

It doesn't do your position any favors to come into a mature discussion, declare everybody wrong, then not bother to support your position.

Steve

Why is it that when there is disagreement, it's just me "telling everybody they're wrong"? You characterize it like a disagreement is a one-way street. How is this fair at all, seriously? By definition, we're having a discussion. I don't mind but others treat it like I'm napalming villages here. Even crazier when these disagreements are not exactly that big to begin with.

I don't understand why you keep saying I don't support this position. My evidence is that Russia went after Ukraine with 40,000 men some of which carried parade equipment and riot gear. This tells me they expected Ukraine to rollover. 40,000 men does not strike me as a force capable of capturing Kiev in an actual fight anymore than the 200,000ish total invasion force seems even remotely sufficient to occupy Europe's largest country whose populace hates your guts. What I see is they wanted those eastern territories that they quickly annexed and are now occupying. I mean, either this or that, it's an act of aggression and an attack on a nation's sovereignty, which is basically the system we have all agreed to. I don't know if the extent of Russia's objective set is exactly all that important when the fundamental starting point is the same.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Khalerick

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

With reference to Russian industrial capacity....

In my experience, it takes 6-12 months before major supply chain disruptions really start affecting the economy.  My customers, (I work with large industrial supply, repair parts, etc. wholesalers) were able to leverage pipeline inventory, source inventory from one domestic location or another, cannibalize parts from assembly and/or production sources for about 6-12 months depending on the industry during Covid and the recent supply chain disruptions. Then it got ugly.

Russia may be getting to the end of that window before industrial production really starts taking hits.

That's basically a long winded way of saying, just because some Russian manufacturing sectors have been running for the past 12 months doesn't mean they will keep running at the same capacity.  Or at all.  And when one sector fails, every other sector dependent upon those products suffer as well.

 

There is also the fact that Russia's economy is not operating on free market principles.  It's not exactly a command economy, but if Moscow wants something done it has plenty of tools to make it happen.  This allows the Kremlin to interfere in market systems in order to favor what it wants favored.  We saw a lot of this in the early stages of sanctions, in particular as it related to monetary policy.

I will say that Russia's ability to shore up the short term needs is quite impressive.  However, there's no free lunch here... if they mess around with something now it will almost certainly cause a problem downstream. 

Steve

[poesel]

5 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

With reference to Russian industrial capacity....

In my experience, it takes 6-12 months before major supply chain disruptions really start affecting the economy. 

...

Russia may be getting to the end of that window before industrial production really starts taking hits.

...

Not wanting to disagree, but there is one factor in favor of the Russians here. Russian businessmen expect less stable supply lines (even in peace time) than their western counterparts. So they usually have a much greater stock of stuff than in western just-in-time networks.
Russian companies will last longer in supply chain disruptions than western ones. This may be a factor why we don't see a breakdown, yet.

[danfrodo]

Piling on to TheCapt most recent post about RU issues.  The occupied landbridge area is supplied by just two rail routes.  East-west through tokmak.  And the Kherson bridge -- leaving crimea this branches to two lines.  Hench just three lines, one of which is under UKR fire, often.  The other two will be in range of some of the new missiles being sent.  That is a very very serious vulnerability from which UKR simply doesn't suffer.  It has solid internal supply lines that would be much more difficult to significantly interdict.

So how is RU gonna cope if the land bridge supplies are cut by 50% or more?  It will be OK for a little while but once the stock on-hand starts to dwindle then RU's most important factor, artillery, becomes increasingly impotent.

[FlemFire]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, so this is pretty much the crux of your entire argument as far as I can tell?  I mean if there is more please feel free to post it, again a few references or fact could be helpful.  Like for instance how big is Russian military industrial capacity?  How does that translate into military production?  How does that stack up with Ukraine's?  How does it stack up to western industrial production?  What is happening to Russian industrial production?  Hint, it does not look good:

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/industrial-production#:~:text=Industrial Production in Russia averaged,percent in January of 2009.

Ok, back into my wheelhouse, the military situation.

"Victories of yore"...? we are talking last Nov.  So in 3 months of what has really been leg dry humping in the Donbas, the entire UA war machine, one that was able to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives over 500 kms apart while being hit by Russian operational strikes...is on the verge of being wiped out.  Or is in an untenable situation?  The UA has lost the initiative and can never get it back?

So here is where I won't be snide or take personal shots.  Instead I will say up front and simply: you have no idea what you are talking about.  Now if you are really interested in exploring and widening you knowledge base, stick around by all means.  If you here to promote unfounded points of view and insult everyone...well nature will take its course.  

I am not sure who you have been reading or listening to but my best advice is to stop because they don't know what they are talking about either.  Here is what Russia is not going to do because there is not pocket dimension that they can drive their military into and reform/rebuild it over 10 years - but only a few days in our time - and then drive it back out and actually change the course of this war: 

- They are not going to solve for the C4ISR asymmetry, which is absolutely killing them (literally).  In order to gain a level of parity they need to either expand the conflict dramatically and directly attack US ISR assets, or spend billions, compress time and space and invent a competitive ISR architecture in comparison to the US.  That is a tall order China cannot meet but that is what Russia will need to do in this war to turn it around.

- They are not going to solve for air superiority.  Closely linked to C4ISR, the inability for the Russian Air Force to get in this game and fight the war they need it to is nearly insurmountable.  The air denial being exerted in this war is pretty definitive.  Add to that the Russians never really had a CAS doctrine to speak of, so there is that.

- They are not going to solve for operational pre-conditions.  The Russian military has demonstrated again and again a failure to effectively dominate the: information/communications infrastructure of Ukraine (and now it is been hardened and integrated with the west), transportation infrastructure to effectively cut off western support and sustainment, and disrupt the linkages between military strategic and political decision making - i.e. shock.  They also have not demonstrated an ability to establish effective levels of force protection - we see that nearly daily.

- They are not going to solve for logistics.  This has been the major problem for the RA and the UA/Western actions have made it nothing but worse.  At this point Russian logistics is functioning but has severely been eroded.  They have had to disperse logistical nodes and their losses on logistical equipment is approaching horrendous.  More facts: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html...and these are simply insane numbers btw.

This is the operational stuff and it does not even begin to address the effects of UA corrosive warfare and precision asymmetry at tactical levels.

At the strategic level, as we have gone on at length about, Russia has a lot of larger problems.  Force Generation is likely the biggest one.  Russia can produce all the hardware it can but it is useless unless they can turn it, and people into functioning fighting units and formations.  We have seen indications that Russian FG is occurring, likely in better order than we had hoped, but it is no where near what the west is providing the UA with.  We know the RA cannibalized its training schools last spring-summer, which can damage force generation for years.  They have been able to turn out massed dismounted infantry but this is 2023, we have gone on at length at the challenges of training mechanized forces, let alone the number of specialist required to fix those four big operational points above.  Force Generation-wise the RA will need to demonstrate that it can create divisions that are enabled comparative to the UA, and we have seen no evidence of this. 

And then we get into the political level, and have gone on at length at Putin's constraints and restraints.  I just posted an ISW analysis of his risk calculus which outlines some of this.

So against that you have..."well Russia is really big and bad".   The first step to getting out of the Dunning-Kruger hole is to recognize that your are in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

 

Some of Russia's industries have virtually collapsed. If these industries were of military concern, we'd be in agreement. But they largely are not. Dunking on consumer goods is actually a good way to drum up discontent internally, but insofar as war effort is concerned the impact is minimal. It's not like, say, the loss of car production just vanishes into thin air. The slack is being pulled into war production. In democratic nations this might cause a stir, but unfortunately Putin rules Russia with an iron fist and people who complain suffer from bad cases of defenestration.

 

I mean, the rest... I'm not sure if I've made myself clear, but I can say it again: Russia is not a competent fighting force. The ugly flipside of this is you don't have to be a competent fighting force to win a war. An even harder pill to swallow is that fighting competently against an incompetent force doesn't even mean you'll win a war. Like, I'll totally grant everything you want there. You say Russia basically sucks at everything and they can't do anything right and they're running out of men, etc. Alright. I mean, if that is the case, then Ukraine shouldn't sue for peace. They should in fact keep grinding until Russia collapses internally. How's that for common ground?

[Billy Ringo]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

I will say that Russia's ability to shore up the short term needs is quite impressive.  However, there's no free lunch here... if they mess around with something now it will almost certainly cause a problem downstream. 

Steve

 

3 minutes ago, poesel said:

Not wanting to disagree, but there is one factor in favor of the Russians here. Russian businessmen expect less stable supply lines (even in peace time) than their western counterparts. So they usually have a much greater stock of stuff than in western just-in-time networks.
Russian companies will last longer in supply chain disruptions than western ones. This may be a factor why we don't see a breakdown, yet.

Agree with both of you and so it may take a little longer than 6-12 months, but it will eventually catch up with them.  And when it does is when we'll see a much larger impact from sanctions.

[The_Capt]

19 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

As for the conclusion or I guess my position, it's not negotiate "now." It's negotiate when you take the initiative. Two different things. Diplomacy and negotiation require compromise, and compromise is best had when you have bargaining chips. I said this a long time ago, or at least implied it, but today's statesmen leave a lot to be desired. When I see both sides making irreversible claims, it gives me a bit of WWIII-is-coming concerns. Both sides are failing to leave the door open to compromise and that genuinely scares me. Anyway, right now, Ukraine is not in as good of a position as it was in Fall 2022. Say Russia goes on some other major offensive and Ukraine eats their lunch a 2nd time? Negotiate. And in that case, very likely negotiate from a stronger position than Fall 2022, in which case the ongoing strategy would be a win. But I just don't think there's any fundamental common ground here when you use language like "how the RA is going to turn this around." The Russians are occupying territory they want. What is it they need to turn around, exactly? They seem very content. So I guess to answer your question, if I get into the Russians' head, I don't change much of anything. I let convicts exchange their lives for contacting Ukrainian positions and simply ramp artillery expenditure until the cows come home. If I'm operating from the assumption that Russia seeks conquest, then I declare war and roll in the rest of the army and see if NATO blinks while I prepare my nuclear bunker for a 20-year vacation.

Ok, last chance and then maybe we put it down?  Maybe there is no fundamental common ground. 

Let's talk about negotiation and positions thereof because before this war is over we may have to swallow some salt.

First off the Russians are clearly "occupying the territory that want" - the 900 casualties per day on attacks in Jan kinda suggest that they are not done yet.  So Ukraine could sue for peace, I am sure Putin would be an a##hat and drag all sorts of concessions, like formal recognition of annexed territories and neutrality, so Russia could try again in 5 years. 

The simplest answer is "why should Ukraine negotiate when it can still take back more of what it lost?"  Here is where the disagreement lies.  Many think this is impossible, clearly Ukraine and the western powers disagree.  We are not going to sue for peace until we absolutely have to...and we are not there yet. 

Awhile back I went on about measuring war by assessing the comparative options each side has in the conflict.  I demonstrated how the Russian strategic options space has been compressing, quite dramatically from its start state on 24 Feb.  So what has fundamentally changed?  Russia has not expanded its options spaces at all - actually not true, it bought a bunch of Iranian drones and did a soft-mobilization, so there is that.  Ukraine on the other hand is only going to negotiate when it is out of viable options.  This is not a poker game, it is an existential war for this country.  I argue pretty vehemently that Ukraine as of 6 Feb 23, is not out of options and all that western hardware says we don't think so either.  So they are not going to negotiate, and neither are we because no one has to yet.  This is not "bad statesmanship" it is good "warfare".

Now let's say Ukraine gets to the doorstep of the Crimea...I know, a really long shot based on your assessment.  But if they do, the question will be asked..."is retaking the Crimea a viable 'good' option?"  It is that 'good' that is going to stick.  It is at those pre-2022 but post 2014 lines that options for Ukraine could take a hit.  Ukraine has every right to retake those territories but should they...now?  Very tough question, and we discussed it at length - lot of emotion in the question.  Not going to open it up here, but as a hypothetical if Ukraine runs out of viable good options for offensive action due to political reasons within the post-2014 areas, well then negotiation will no doubt be discussed.  

Personally I do not like it and would love to see Russia pushed back to her own borders but there are some pitfalls and serious traps in all this that I cannot un-see.  Regardless, until Ukraine and the west are at that point, why would they vie for peace now?  Because Russia is big and bad...I think they shot that bolt already.  Because Russia may exhaust them...well maybe, maybe not.  I come from the school of not tapping out when I think the other guy may win.  I am not doing it until they win, and even then reserve the option for low-level insurgency and subversive warfare in the backfield...but that is just me. 

So yes, we may have to sit down to a negotiation table before this is over.  But we want it to be from a position of strength, and last Fall was not strong enough.  And we obviously think we can make it stronger.

[Zeleban]

Interestingly, it looks like drones are now used right during the battle to repel mechanized attacks.

[Battlefront.com]

31 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

Why is it that when there is disagreement, it's just me "telling everybody they're wrong"? You characterize it like a disagreement is a one-way street. How is this fair at all, seriously? By definition, we're having a discussion. I don't mind but others treat it like I'm napalming villages here. Even crazier when these disagreements are not exactly that big to begin with.

You came in swinging, which sets the tone for everything to follows.  Then you make a declarative statement that is categorically at odds with reality and claim we need to agree with this unreality to understand your point of view.

31 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

I don't understand why you keep saying I don't support this position. My evidence is that Russia went after Ukraine with 40,000 men some of which carried parade equipment and riot gear. This tells me they expected Ukraine to rollover. 40,000 men does not strike me as a force capable of capturing Kiev in an actual fight anymore than the 200,000ish total invasion force seems even remotely sufficient to occupy Europe's largest country whose populace hates your guts. What I see is they wanted those eastern territories that they quickly annexed and are now occupying. I mean, either this or that, it's an act of aggression and an attack on a nation's sovereignty, which is basically the system we have all agreed to. I don't know if the extent of Russia's objective set is exactly all that important when the fundamental starting point is the same.

This just indicates that your degree of "research" is superficial because it is you that haven't been paying attention, not us as you claimed.

You could go back and read the excellent discussions that were had here at the time the invasion started.  In fact, I'll save you the trouble as I recently had a look back at that timeframe to refresh my memory as to how exactly right we've been about this war.  I posted this on February 24... the first day of the war:

“As should be the case in a rapidly evolving war, it's a little difficult to make sense of what's going on.  I'd like to take a stab at it.

Putin's obvious goal is to effectively control Ukraine.  At least everything along the line Kiev to Crimea and everything east and along the Black Sea coast.  This is logical as the area contains most of Ukraine's forces, its two largest cities, all access to water, and arguably enough territory to matter.  The symbol of Kiev falling alone has significant propaganda value.  It also gets Putin his land bridge to Crimea.

To do this the Russians launched five major pushes with apparently three goals.  I'm going to name these so as to make it easier to reference.  And yes these names might sound familiar

Group North consists of two forces; A and B.  North A is coming down from Belarus through Chernobyl to encircle Kiev from the west and North B coming from Belarus and Russia to encircle from the east.  Primary objective is to take out Kiev.

Group Center pushes straight westward through Sumy and Kharkiv.  The immediate objective seems to be to separate Kiev from the forces deployed around the Donbas.  It is responsible for securing the left flank of North B.

Group South came out of Crimea and appears to be splitting into two.  South A is attempting to move westward down the coast to cut Ukraine off from Odessa and the Black Sea.  South B is attempting to move eastward up the cost of Azov to take Mariupol.  Both are the immediate objectives.

Group Donbas.  We now know why very few forces appear to have moved into Donbas after Putin made his big to-do about supporting the call of DPR and LPR for aid.  The traditional front is mostly there to hold Ukraine's ATO forces in place so that Group South B and Group Center can encircle and destroy it from all sides after they have completed their initial objectives.

Once this is all done I think Putin presumes that Ukraine will cease fighting in any sort of organized way.  Therefore, I'm not sure he intends to do much more than what I just described.  However, having all forces swing westward is an obvious thing to do if there's enough fores in reserve to hold down the captured territory. "

 

We've talked about this ever since.  The conclusion we came to (including the experts) is that Putin had a goal in mind and nobody told him it couldn't be done.  Instead, they concocted something that theoretically could work if Ukraine rolled over and died.  FSB and GRU provided the basis for presuming that is what would happen.  And the disaster that happened from all of this is plain to see.

Here's one really great early summary of the war.  Well researched and from one of the few think tanks that has been at the lead of helping us understand this war:

https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202204-operation-z-web.pdf

Steve

[FlemFire]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, last chance and then maybe we put it down?  Maybe there is no fundamental common ground. 

Let's talk about negotiation and positions thereof because before this war is over we may have to swallow some salt.

First off the Russians are clearly "occupying the territory that want" - the 900 casualties per day on attacks in Jan kinda suggest that they are not done yet.  So Ukraine could sue for peace, I am sure Putin would be an a##hat and drag all sorts of concessions, like formal recognition of annexed territories and neutrality, so Russia could try again in 5 years. 

The simplest answer is "why should Ukraine negotiate when it can still take back more of what it lost?"  Here is where the disagreement lies.  Many think this is impossible, clearly Ukraine and the western powers disagree.  We are not going to sue for peace until we absolutely have to...and we are not there yet. 

Awhile back I went on about measuring war by assessing the comparative options each side has in the conflict.  I demonstrated how the Russian strategic options space has been compressing, quite dramatically from its start state on 24 Feb.  So what has fundamentally changed?  Russia has not expanded its options spaces at all - actually not true, it bought a bunch of Iranian drones and did a soft-mobilization, so there is that.  Ukraine on the other hand is only going to negotiate when it is out of viable options.  This is not a poker game, it is an existential war for this country.  I argue pretty vehemently that Ukraine as of 6 Feb 23, is not out of options and all that western hardware says we don't think so either.  So they are not going to negotiate, and neither are we because no one has to yet.  This is not "bad statesmanship" it is good "warfare".

Now let's say Ukraine gets to the doorstep of the Crimea...I know, a really long shot based on your assessment.  But if they do, the question will be asked..."is retaking the Crimea a viable 'good' option?"  It is that 'good' that is going to stick.  It is at those pre-2022 but post 2014 lines that options for Ukraine could take a hit.  Ukraine has every right to retake those territories but should they...now?  Very tough question, and we discussed it at length - lot of emotion in the question.  Not going to open it up here, but as a hypothetical if Ukraine runs out of viable good options for offensive action due to political reasons within the post-2014 areas, well then negotiation will no doubt be discussed.  

Personally I do not like it and would love to see Russia pushed back to her own borders but there are some pitfalls and serious traps in all this that I cannot un-see.  Regardless, until Ukraine and the west are at that point, why would they vie for peace now?  Because Russia is big and bad...I think they shot that bolt already.  Because Russia may exhaust them...well maybe, maybe not.  I come from the school of not tapping out when I think the other guy may win.  I am not doing it until they win, and even then reserve the option for low-level insurgency and subversive warfare in the backfield...but that is just me. 

So yes, we may have to sit down to a negotiation table before this is over.  But we want it to be from a position of strength, and last Fall was not strong enough.  And we obviously think we can make it stronger.

I am not in the diplomatic roundtables, but I mentioned earlier that I would be hardpressed to end this conflict with Ukraine still out of NATO. There are concessions to be made for this result, and that would be the eastern territories and maybe giving Russia back its frozen assets and whatever extra crap Putin can flaunt before his own people. Diplomacy means giving him his own 'win' to show off, that's kind of the crux of compromise anyway. If I'm Ukraine, I take that deal, personally, and not only take it but consider it in fact a win to go home to. Submitting the territories via negotiation and just assuming a cease-fire/peace is not really an option to me. Russia wants Ukraine defanged and hapless, and its pursuit of this goal leads to an almost tautological conclusion which is that Ukraine has to in fact have an army and a substantial one at that. I mean, this is the stupidity of the war, is it not?

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Agree with both of you and so it may take a little longer than 6-12 months, but it will eventually catch up with them.  And when it does is when we'll see a much larger impact from sanctions.

Yup.  The first batch of economic experts pointed to the end of Summer 2022 before the real pain set in.  It seems they, like so many of us, under estimated Russia's ability to delay the inevitable.  People who don't understand the fundamentals think that this means Russia pulled a rabbit out of its hat.  Nope.  What we saw is that Russia was willing to make sacrifices and show flashes of ingenuity that were not anticipated.  But tricks are just that... tricks.  They eventually lose their effectiveness.

Steve

[MikeyD]

About 'Goodwin's law'. That dictum was first coined back last century, 32 years ago when legitimate comparisons to Hitler were indeed very few and far between. But a lot has happened since then. In the third decade of the new millennium modern correlations to Nazi/Fascist behavior and Hitler cultism have multiplied like daisies on a summer lawn. 'Goodwin's law' is out of date.

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

Interestingly, it looks like drones are now used right during the battle to repel mechanized attacks.

An inevitable result of experience and confidence.  It is also a GREAT time to use a drone because the battlefield noise will mask the drone's approach and focus.  Those guys hiding behind the tank would be hard pressed to have a conversation with each other due to the engine noise, so hearing a drone is just flat out not going to happen.

We're obviously missing footage of this engagement, but it appears to me there were 4 soldiers operational on the ground and 3 wounded the tank deck.  Then we cut to all 7 being on the ground, with the 4 hit by the first bomb being clustered together and the wounded from the tank on the ground in two places (2 to the left, 1 to the right).  At the very end there's an 8th wounded visible at the extreme right.

So what happened?  The tank clearly drove off, perhaps dumping the thee WIA in the process.

Steve

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

I mean, the rest... I'm not sure if I've made myself clear, but I can say it again: Russia is not a competent fighting force. The ugly flipside of this is you don't have to be a competent fighting force to win a war. An even harder pill to swallow is that fighting competently against an incompetent force doesn't even mean you'll win a war. Like, I'll totally grant everything you want there. You say Russia basically sucks at everything and they can't do anything right and they're running out of men, etc. Alright. I mean, if that is the case, then Ukraine shouldn't sue for peace. They should in fact keep grinding until Russia collapses internally. How's that for common ground?

Ah, no and if this is what is coming off then it is on me.  This is not a "Russia sucks, so we win" argument and in fact even though this board heads that way sometimes we do try and pull back to the center.

Russia is sucking, no missing that.  But it is why it is sucking that really matters.  Russia is built for a different war and that is a fundamental problem.  They had a very large and powerful military (note I said "had") but it was built for another type of war, not the one they got.  

Enter what the UA has been doing and corrosive warfare.  So the UA stopped the RA in phase I with three things: light dispersed infantry, fires and C4ISR. I cannot stress how much that should not be possible.  This was back when the RA had all the BTGs and initiative.  This is not sucking, this is being in a war you are totally not setup to fight.  So the RA does not suck in general as much as the UA is making them suck at this war.

Corrosive warfare...something you cannot even google but us starting to make some noise.  Warfare based on precise, rapid and in depth directed attrition aimed at critical nodes and connectors along the entirety of an opponents operational system, that leads to degradation of that operational system up to the point that it collapses under its own weight.

This thing is turning the whole game on its head.  Russia is a massed based force.  Its BTG massed along axis of advance to overwhelm and quickly.  They then massed fires in Phase II.  And here in the back end of Phase III they are massing infantry.  It is pretty fundamental to their theories of success and frankly has been since WW1.  But as we have seen, that system continues to fail.  The UA hammers logistics, C4ISR, engineering, EW, and AD...all the enablers.  If armor or mech show up, they hit them too.  So mass is really in the wind right now.

To be honest, this is not about Russian offence, it is about defence.  We saw this both at Kharkiv and Kherson.  Russia failed to defend in both locations and suffered a thousand cuts in each.  At Kharkiv this led to rapid operational collapse. At Kherson it was more deliberate and the RA extracted.  What we do not know is if the trend will be Kherson because the RA has adapted, or more Kharkivs because we have continued to arm and enable the UA.

So the real question that continues to be out there is "Can Russia hold/freeze this conflict with poor quality mass?"  It is the one thing it can push forward...why they are wasting it on offence is beyond me - likely because "the boss" is watching again.  If Russian can make itself corrosive-proof then maybe.  But I am still not sure how they can do that with all the ISR pointed at them.  How does one sustain a mass of troops if your entire logistical system can be seen from space?  And then hit 150kms back?  How can you avoid isolation and being killed in detail with very low troop densities? (We have done the math and the RA has about 225-250 troops per km, post mobilization, and that is nowhere near enough).

There is a test of all this coming, and if the RA say stops the UA at Mariupol, well then negotiation might be in the cards.  But until then I really do not think the red flare needs to go up yet. 

Mass beats isolation, precision beats mass, massed precision beats everything.    

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

About 'Goodwin's law'. That dictum was first coined back last century, 32 years ago when legitimate comparisons to Hitler were indeed very few and far between. But a lot has happened since then. In the third decade of the new millennium modern correlations to Nazi/Fascist behavior and Hitler cultism have multiplied like daisies on a summer lawn. 'Goodwin's law' is out of date.

I consider us to be in the 2nd Age of Fascism.  I just don't know where we are in the 2nd Age.  The beginning, the middle, the end??

[FlemFire]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

You came in swinging, which sets the tone for everything to follows.  Then you make a declarative statement that is categorically at odds with reality and claim we need to agree with this unreality to understand your point of view.

This just indicates that your degree of "research" is superficial because it is you that haven't been paying attention, not us as you claimed.

You could go back and read the excellent discussions that were had here at the time the invasion started.  In fact, I'll save you the trouble as I recently had a look back at that timeframe to refresh my memory as to how exactly right we've been about this war.  I posted this on February 24... the first day of the war:

“As should be the case in a rapidly evolving war, it's a little difficult to make sense of what's going on.  I'd like to take a stab at it.

 

 

Putin's obvious goal is to effectively control Ukraine.  At least everything along the line Kiev to Crimea and everything east and along the Black Sea coast.  This is logical as the area contains most of Ukraine's forces, its two largest cities, all access to water, and arguably enough territory to matter.  The symbol of Kiev falling alone has significant propaganda value.  It also gets Putin his land bridge to Crimea.

 

 

To do this the Russians launched five major pushes with apparently three goals.  I'm going to name these so as to make it easier to reference.  And yes these names might sound familiar file:////Users/Steve/Library/Group%20Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/TemporaryItems/msohtmlclip/clip_image001.png

 

 

Group North consists of two forces; A and B.  North A is coming down from Belarus through Chernobyl to encircle Kiev from the west and North B coming from Belarus and Russia to encircle from the east.  Primary objective is to take out Kiev.

 

 

Group Center pushes straight westward through Sumy and Kharkiv.  The immediate objective seems to be to separate Kiev from the forces deployed around the Donbas.  It is responsible for securing the left flank of North B.

 

 

Group South came out of Crimea and appears to be splitting into two.  South A is attempting to move westward down the coast to cut Ukraine off from Odessa and the Black Sea.  South B is attempting to move eastward up the cost of Azov to take Mariupol.  Both are the immediate objectives.

 

 

Group Donbas.  We now know why very few forces appear to have moved into Donbas after Putin made his big to-do about supporting the call of DPR and LPR for aid.  The traditional front is mostly there to hold Ukraine's ATO forces in place so that Group South B and Group Center can encircle and destroy it from all sides after they have completed their initial objectives.

 

 

Once this is all done I think Putin presumes that Ukraine will cease fighting in any sort of organized way.  Therefore, I'm not sure he intends to do much more than what I just described.  However, having all forces swing westward is an obvious thing to do if there's enough fores in reserve to hold down the captured territory.

 

 

 

We've talked about this ever since.  The conclusion we came to (including the experts) is that Putin had a goal in mind and nobody told him it couldn't be done.  Instead, they concocted something that theoretically could work if Ukraine rolled over and died.  FSB and GRU provided the basis for presuming that is what would happen.  And the disaster that happened from all of this is plain to see.

Here's one really great early summary of the war.  Well researched and from one of the few think tanks that has been at the lead of helping us understand this war:

https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202204-operation-z-web.pdf

Steve

So it's a conclusion. Other people have other conclusions.

In your own words, you "took a stab" at it and you "think" Putin presumes xyz. This is called speculating. I don't see the controversy in saying we actually do not fully grasp Russia's internal thinking or that their army/intel ops are so superficial that grognards on the internet can plot it out by opening a newspaper or putting an ear to a think tank. I brought up George Kennan earlier. He was the preeminent source on all-things Russia for the Cold War, but even he himself ultimately concluded you can never really know a foreign nation's thinking or what they intend. There are entire schools of international relations quite literally built upon this unfortunate reality. Are we going to seriously imply the likes of Morgenthau, Waltz, Niebuhr, Thompson, Carr etc. were just wasting their time, and we can in fact just divine a country's intentions that easily and thus there is no need for all this gamesmanship? I mean, make your argument, fine. Maybe you're right. The point is "maybe," and I don't think I deserve chastisement cause you to talk as if you have spies in Putin's inner circle and listen in on what those goons are up to because I know for an actual fact you do not nor do any think tanks nor do any YouTube bloggers. BTW, this goes the same in the other direction. Someone brought up I think MacGregor who routinely makes claims with 100% certainty. It's all the same basic fact: none of us are in those rooms, whether it is with Zelensky, Putin, Biden, etc. This is all speculative and tearing me a new one for participating from a different angle is absolutely unfair.

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

I am not in the diplomatic roundtables, but I mentioned earlier that I would be hardpressed to end this conflict with Ukraine still out of NATO. There are concessions to be made for this result, and that would be the eastern territories and maybe giving Russia back its frozen assets and whatever extra crap Putin can flaunt before his own people. Diplomacy means giving him his own 'win' to show off, that's kind of the crux of compromise anyway. If I'm Ukraine, I take that deal, personally, and not only take it but consider it in fact a win to go home to. Submitting the territories via negotiation and just assuming a cease-fire/peace is not really an option to me. Russia wants Ukraine defanged and hapless, and its pursuit of this goal leads to an almost tautological conclusion which is that Ukraine has to in fact have an army and a substantial one at that. I mean, this is the stupidity of the war, is it not?

Yes, this entire war is stupid from the start through to whenever its conclusion might be.

We've had many discussions about the possible ways this war can be negotiated into some sort of lasting peace and I don't think we've ever come up with a scenario that seems plausible.  Even Russia completely collapsing doesn't seem to offer much hope of the war being fully ended.  Likewise, if Ukraine feels obligated to temporarily end the war it will (justifiably) be plotting how to restart whenever the timing is favorable.

Clearly Russia must drop its maximalist demands for anything to happen and it seems Putin doesn't want to do that.  At least not yet.  Now that Russia is so weak Ukraine has little incentive to drop its maximalist demands.

All I know is this war will end with Russia's defeat.  When and exactly how is still up in the air.

Steve

[Twisk]

1 hour ago, Khalerick said:

Russia can hang themselves in maneuver warfare. They can't hang themselves sitting in trenches bombing the hell out of you. If you roll the clocks back a bit and actually look at NATO's military doctrine, and more importantly the USA's back when Russia was their focus, there's a pretty vested interest in meeting the Soviets in open plains. There is not much interest in getting into artillery slugging matches with them.

This just doesn't sound particularly realistic for the situation at hand. Again Ukraine would have to retreat something like 60-70km out of the Donbas totally to get the Russians to engage in "maneuver warfare" and that assumes the Russians would actually oblige them and not just move forward 50km and say "come at us".

And again I'm brought back to last summer during the worst days for the Ukrainian army. We had all kinds of bad news pouring out of certain areas that looked like the Ukraine was on its last legs in the Donbas only for the season to culminate in a huge victory for Ukraine. I've seen no evidence to suggest that this is a different situation.

I'm seeing evidence that war is costly for Ukraine but no solid evidence that Ukraine cannot fight the war successfully.

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

So it's a conclusion. Other people have other conclusions.

Some people conclude that the US landed men on the moon, some people conclude it was faked.  Two conclusions, one that stands up a bit better than the other.

12 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

In your own words, you "took a stab" at it and you "think" Putin presumes xyz. This is called speculating.

Note that I did this hours after the invasion started and I nailed it.  You can call it speculating, I can call it applied knowledge from decades of studying warfare and, in particular, the 2014/2015 conflict on a day by day basis.

12 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

I don't see the controversy in saying we actually do not fully grasp Russia's internal thinking or that their army/intel ops are so superficial that grognards on the internet can plot it out by opening a newspaper or putting an ear to a think tank.

Right, except that in this case they are that superficial.

12 minutes ago, Khalerick said:

I brought up George Kennan earlier. He was the preeminent source on all-things Russia for the Cold War, but even he himself ultimately concluded you can never really know a foreign nation's thinking or what they intend. There are entire schools of international relations quite literally built upon this unfortunate reality. Are we going to seriously imply the likes of Morgenthau, Waltz, Niebuhr, Thompson, Carr etc. were just wasting their time, and we can in fact just divine a country's intentions that easily and thus there is no need for all this gamesmanship? I mean, make your argument, fine. Maybe you're right. The point is "maybe," and I don't think I deserve chastisement cause you to talk as if you have spies in Putin's inner circle and listen in on what those goons are up to because I know for an actual fact you do not nor do any think tanks nor do any YouTube bloggers. BTW, this goes the same in the other direction. Someone brought up I think MacGregor who routinely makes claims with 100% certainty. It's all the same basic fact: none of us are in those rooms, whether it is with Zelensky, Putin, Biden, etc. This is all speculative and tearing me a new one for participating from a different angle is absolutely unfair.

This is flawed.  Your premise is that just because something can't be known with 100% certainty than any crackpot theory is just as valid as any well thought out one.  Moreover, evidence that supports one theory can be dismissed without counter evidence because evidence itself is subjective.  Sorry, that's just not the world we live in.

Steve

[FancyCat]

 

[FlemFire]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Some people conclude that the US landed men on the moon, some people conclude it was faked.  Two conclusions, one that stands up a bit better than the other.

Note that I did this hours after the invasion started and I nailed it.  You can call it speculating, I can call it applied knowledge from decades of studying warfare and, in particular, the 2014/2015 conflict on a day by day basis.

Right, except that in this case they are that superficial.

This is flawed.  Your premise is that just because something can't be known with 100% certainty than any crackpot theory is just as valid as any well thought out one.  Sorry, that's just not the world we live in.

Steve

 

This is, btw, what I meant earlier by "absurd" responses.

You took what I said and immediately stretched it out to the most extreme BS possible, comparing it to moon landing conspiracy-thinking and eventually being more forward in calling it "crackpot." So, quite plainly, everybody who doesn't agree with you is a crackpot, right? They're all just a bunch of dummies, right? And then I sit here and have people coming out of the woodwork telling me I'm the one being snide...? 

Do you have Russia's battleplans in your lap? Do you have a microphone into their war room? Did you wiretap their red telephones? Where do these certainties even come from? Think tanks? Two seconds ago you said you got into it with a Marine over WMDs in Iraq. Should I unfurl a giant scroll of think tanks who said there were totally WMDs in Iraq? Because I bet that Marine sure did. You argument boils down to you "know" what Putin is thinking, and what he's thinking is really stupid, therefore Putin is really stupid and Russia is totally borked. Man, I totally get that from an emotional standpoint. But from a logical one, nobody who "studies warfare" should ever say anything is a certainty when it comes to an outcome of an ongoing war.

[Battlefront.com]

OK, enough distraction... back to discussion

7 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Then they are not really proponents of maneuver warfare. Attrition and maneuver warfare are both viable means to defeat your enemy.

Absolutely.  The guys I've debated here, however, would say that attrition is supposed to be a one sided coin where you maneuver to the point where you can attrit the enemy without putting your own forces at significant risk.

7 hours ago, kevinkin said:

To defeat the enemy efficiently, you need an open mind. Sometimes it's best to suck it up and use attrition.

I fully agree.  Which is why Bakhmut gives me heartburn.  I can see hints of damage being done to both sides, but the impact it is having on each is not clear to us yet.  For sure the Russians are getting the worst of it, zero doubts on that, but we don't know what it means in terms of something as critical as this summer's fighting.  I *think* Ukraine is making the best call and using attrition, but I am not fully convinced due to the lack of information of impact.

7 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Maneuver today means much more than the movement of forces around flanks seeking the famed battle of annihilation aka Cannae. People tend to fall back on Hart's book on the indirect approach when thinking about maneuver warfare. His book is just a subset of what maneuver warfare it thought of today. To avoid attrition warfare, the UA must be constructed and used differently than the RA. As a whole, Ukraine must strive to defeat Russia psychologically and give them no option other than 100% withdrawal. Otherwise, toe to toe, the battles will just come down to numbers and staying power. I believe NATO knows this and it will be interesting to see how asymmetry manifests itself in equipment and techniques this year and ends the bloodshed. 

This has always been a concern of mine.  The Gulf War and OIF made me even MORE concerned as I've been afraid the US and its NATO partners might have learned the wrong lessons from some aspects of their victories.  In particular that maneuver warfare works best when the enemy isn't capable of conducting attritional warfare on any scale worth noting.  I know many in the US military (and I presume others as well) share this concern.  And now this war has brought that discussion out into the light.  Good.

7 hours ago, kevinkin said:

OK, RAND is at it again:

I took a skim read of their conclusions and find them to be a tad bit better than some of the other stuff they've put out, but it is still flawed.  As with past conclusions they seem to base their primary premise on a "frozen conflict" on Russia being able to maintain a conflict of this scale indefinitely.  It is, of course, possible that may turn out to be true.  But indefinitely is a long time and it seems Russia wasn't able to maintain the 2014-2022 frozen conflict despite Ukraine not actively resisting and the West largely sitting on the sidelines while sending trainloads of money into Russia for energy products.

I've been saying this since BEFORE the war started... this can only turn into a frozen conflict if Ukraine allows it to be one.  I don't see that happening.

Steve

[Kraft]

Only today about a dozen videos of wounded writhing Russians getting picked apart by near dead on grenade drone drops. One guys on fire running through a field, one drowns in knee deep shallow water because of spinal injuries or something, disturbing to say the least.. Oryx tracked 6 russian tanks down, 15 vehicles total yesterday. 30 claimed by Ukraine today.

Seems Putin is intensifing his efforts to invert the countries age distribution by advancing on Vuhledar.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Kraft

[kevinkin]

Undetected? Well there's the middle finger explanation for you. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-military-failed-to-detect-prior-chinese-incursions-general-says/ar-AA17bb2B

Let's hope they treat the remains as a biohazard. And at least our chips didn't fry this weekend. 

“As NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America,” Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, who oversees the North American Aerospace Defense Command, told reporters during a news briefing. “I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.”

VanHerck declined to elaborate, saying only that it was the U.S. intelligence community that “made us aware of those balloons” after the fact.