How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[DesertFox]

30 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

While it's nice to see this wreckage, isn't the Su-57 Russia's newest fighter jet?

Are they beyond prototype status or is it on the same level with T-14 Armata?

[DesertFox]

Ha!

 

 

[cesmonkey]

3 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Are they beyond prototype status or is it on the same level with T-14 Armata?

 

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

30th brigade (or some of it part) fights around Bakhmut already long time. Initially they fought on southern part of front. They just not so media-strong like 93rd, or Madyar, though they have own social media accounts too. 

And insenly good musical support for some rason they don't use in their videos

 

More details about Vuhledar...Tatarigami thinks it was ethinc battalion made from Volga Tatars that did the dying there. 155th and 40th brigades were almost surely there as well (according to other data it was them that stormed the outskirts), but perhaps only in smaller detachments, as they were battered up in earlier fights.

All of it is interesting, since it may give us tase of how "shaping operations Russian style" may look like along other places of the frontline. Majority of those folks in videos were clearly inexperienced or panicked.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Beleg85

[DesertFox]

5 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Well for launching air-to surface missiles a MiG-31 would do as well. 929 Flight Test Centre in Akhtubinsk? How many of those pieces do they have?

[DesertFox]

New schoolbooks for little Ivans. Look at the map print. Maybe a little premature...

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I would argue from personal experience that “fighting spirit” and “experience” are inversely proportional.  A lot of times inexperienced troops are all pee and vinegar, ready to win the war single handed.  While the troops who been in it for awhile are basically trying to do their job and survive.  This could be where some of the OP narrative is coming from.

Famous example from early in WW2 proving this was the young Waffen SS soldiers.  More than once Heer officers commented on their recklessness leading to high losses.  When a whole unit thinks it is a bunch of supermen, it's bound to happen.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

In CMCW we got comments on how much harder the Soviet Campaign was than the US one…”BFC is all ‘USA,USA!’”  Well first off, no. We got zero pressure or direction from BFC corporate (also known as ‘Steve’) on content beyond “gimme 3 campaigns and 15-20 scenarios and for the love of gawd don’t screw this up” - seriously I think I still have the email.  

Yup, that sounds like me

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Then throw onto this a bunch of replacements who have zero experience and we see the ongoing erosion of the RA at a foundational level.  This is why another 150k rapidly mobilized troops can be more of a problem than solution - you need to have the C4ISR architecture to integrate them into the fight and offset both individual and collective inexperience.

We have already seen this play out with the first untrained mobik units that were sent to the front.  They were sometimes told to go to X and dig in, then that was it.  Nobody came to feed them, nobody told them what to do, no communications with other units, etc.  How much military value does that group have?  Just about zero.

The more mobiks in a section of front relative to "old hands", the more this sort of thing happens and the less useful those mobiks are.

Eventually things can settle down and the surviving mobiks turned into something resembling a soldier, but it sure is a wasteful way to get to that point.

Tying this into CM... you guys have played with Conscripts, right?  How many Conscripts do you need to accomplish a mission Regular forces could fairly easily do?  Twice as many?  I'd say at least that.  So that 150,000 reserve force is more like 75,000.

Steve

[JonS]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Famous example from early in WW2 proving this was the young Waffen SS soldiers.  More than once Heer officers commented on their recklessness leading to high losses.  When a whole unit thinks it is a bunch of supermen, it's bound to happen.

Steve

I kinda suspect that's at least part of why paras and commandos and rangers got the rep they did - I mean, aside from the deliberate PR campaign to elevate them, the strict selection criteria, and extensive and relevant training. Basically, they were combat n00bs so still full of piss and vinegar, and because they (usually, and by design) only spent short stretches in combat they didn't runs out of either.

There's a story from Market Garden which kind of sums that up. The Irish Guards (armoured battalion from Guards Armd Div) link up with the Paras, somewhere near Oosterbeek. One of the Paras, being pulled out of the line and sent back to England, calls out to a passing tank "Where were you! We've been waiting for four days!" The laconic reply was "Four days? Interesting. We've been fighting for four months. So far. Have fun back in England."

Edited February 8, 2023 by JonS

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Is this guy reading our thread?  Didn’t we talk about exactly this awhile back?

Nah,  Ben Hodges suggested it several months ago. 

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Nah,  Ben Hodges suggested it several months ago. 

Is Ben Hodges reading the thread?

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Harmon Rabb said:

I remember a user who used to be a regular poster on this topic suggested that the Internet Research Agency is aware of this thread. It would be a nice feeling if some of the good guys also pay attention to it.

Lots of wisdom in this corner of the internet.

It must be quite something for the Glavset boys to be reading this thread knowing with absolute conviction that none of the wisdom herein could possibly filter usefully through the sclerotic, corrupt, silovik sh*tshow they work for.

[kevinkin]

5 hours ago, Twisk said:

must be taken with large grains of salt since it doesn't represent the overall situation.

Well of coarse and it's just one observation as noted. However, what we are witnessing is a historically awful meat grinder.
Many have leaned on the UA experience, guile, spirit, and moral to get them though and kick the RA out. This n=1 soldier is saying experience does not matter in the actions he is seeing on a stationary front. Which means the UA must return to open warfare where experience etc.. produces battlefield opportunities that can't be realized stuck underground. So the guy might be saying don't give us your best and waste them here and now, hold them back for a strategically successful strike. Just a thought. 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

You're playing fast and loose with the word "Collapse" , my friend!  

The_Capt addressed this already, and we've had this discussion before about what "collapse" is and isn't.  What I'm talking about is "operational collapse", you seem to be thinking more along the lines of "strategic collapse".  Of course it would be wonderful if Russia suffered a strategic collapse at the front, but it is more likely it will suffer an operational collapse or two before that is a realistic possibility.

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

It suffered defeats because of local collapses but none of those threatened the overall operational force in themselves.

I disagree.  Russia came a hair's width away from losing a large amount of combat force in northern Ukraine if it hadn't ordered a retreat.  Instead, those forces (and a ton of equipment) went back into Belarus and Russia, then back into Ukraine.  If they hadn't withdrawn more-or-less when they had, I think we would have seen Russian units being overrun, surrendering in large numbers, and streaming back to the borders without any of their equipment.  It would have been catastrophic.

On a smaller scale there was the first Ukrainian Kharkiv offensive that resulted in pushing Russia out of the Kharkiv area.  The Russian units were spent and poorly supported, so Ukraine went in and kicked the door in.  Russia withdrew everything in the area, even forces that weren't significantly engaged in combat.  We don't have details, but at the time it sure did seem like things collapsed there and units either retreated on their own or the local command saw what was coming and proactively retreated them.  Either way, Ukraine got its victory with very little force applied.

The second Kharkiv offensive is another example.  Russian forces were so sparse in the area that they weren't able to set up defenses in two rather obvious defensible positions.  The defense of Lyman was another example of the collapse as the units defending the area retreated in a totally disorganized manner, at one point getting slaughtered because they didn't realize they were already cut off.

There have been multiple instances of more localized collapse, or near collapse, in the Donbas where units refused to attack.  They didn't refuse to defend, but then again the Ukrainians weren't pushing hard there at the time so hard to tell for sure how widespread the problems were.

I agree that Kherson was not a collapse, but it was certainly headed in that direction.  And the loss of those forces, like earlier in the north, would have been catastrophic.

Soooo... by my quick count that is two confirmed operational collapses (Kharkiv 1 and 2), one that was on the edge of happening (north), one that was headed in that direction (Kherson), and some smaller examples that under different circumstances might have manifested into something serious.

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Each time there has been a local defeat the rest of the operation has been fairly untouched and could hold its part while adjustments were made. None of the defeats compounded their effects across the force in general. 

There doesn't seem to be anything in 2023 that will break that process, except for UKR launching a massive, multi axis assault with compounding effects throughout the entire expeditionary force. 

Again, Russia pulled out just in the nick of time from several battles that could have ended the war or at least shortened it if they had stayed a little longer.  Putin is running out of places to retreat from, so if Ukraine manages to cause a significant tear into Russian lines again, as it has before, then we might see the sort of mass surrender/slaughter/route in 2023 that we ALMOST saw in 2022.

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Otherwise the Ivan will just suffer local defeats,  absorb the damage,  adjust and reconstitute and still be there next spring,  ready to go once more. 

Can't keep doing that forever.  Something will have to give.

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Your required collapse requires more than the ZSU can do this year. 

Can you be more descriptive of what you think the ZSU can do? 

Specifically where it can apply pressure?  Not yet.  But generally, wherever Russia decides to concentrate it's big offensive and winds up wearing itself out.  That's the pattern we've seen before.  And if not the point of where the offensive died, then the places where they grabbed troops to shore up the sagging front.  That's how Kharkiv 2 happened.

Steve

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, Lethaface said:

The 'only' thing UKR needs to do is convince the average soldier that 'further resistance is futile'. While some/a bunch  local tactical victories are indeed probably not enough, another wave of the Russian rear HQs/ammo dumps blowing up followed by another large strategic setback is a different casus. Everyone has his limits. 

The problem is the assumption that “the average soldier” knows as much as we do about the overall shape of the war, moment to moment. Given the depictions of the RA, the careless treating of newly mobilized/seized citizens as practically fodder, and the overall clamp within Russia on factual knowledge about events in the war and the world, I have doubts that average soldier will know about a defeat far away in another sector of the war. I have doubts they even know much beyond their own unit.

Whether higher command levels might become radicalized by defeats they do know of is another question. Love of Mother Russia and their military could conceivably come into play if they believe the civilian authority is destroying both. That too would be a big leap. WWII is fresher in Russian minds than 1917, and the military was, as we used to say in Wyoming, whipped like a rented mule -  prior to and during that war. Some sort of collapse of some kind will always be a possibility. The difficulty is understanding how likely, and when. The war is only been a year old now. 

Edited February 9, 2023 by NamEndedAllen

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Also:

https://eurasiantimes.com/in-ukraine-war-russian-su-57-fighters-destroy-targets-punch-holes/
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/russia-using-new-su-57-jets-against-ukraine/
 

https://www.airrecognition.com/index.php/news/defense-aviation-news/2022-news-aviation-aerospace/may/8406-analysis-first-use-of-russian-su-57-fighter-aircraft-in-ukraine-s-war.html

“According to the source, they are delivering standoff missile attacks. As the source specified, the Aerospace Force started to use Su-57 aircraft two or three weeks after the special operation began.

Used also for their more advanced sensors and networking abilities, besides as launch platforms.

Edited February 9, 2023 by NamEndedAllen

[billbindc]

 

Russian budget, no notes.

[cyrano01]

6 hours ago, JonS said:

FWIW I made some comments on this a while ago

 

In support of @JonS and @The_Capt 's posts on the subject. The build up of stress over time on troops in combat during WW2 is discussed by John Ellis in his book 'The Sharp End'. He quotes a 1946 paper by Lt. Col' Appel and Cpt' Beebe (US Army) in the Journal of the American Medical Assoc.  as saying that any soldier surviving that long would break down after 200-240 combat days. It seems the British used 400 days but this was reflective of different rotation practises and probably amounted to much the same thing.

Ellis goes on to suggest that, for trained troops peak effectiveness was reached after about three weeks of combat with gradual deterioration setting in after six. Rotation can delay or even restore this process a bit but it takes a long time out of the line. I guess the message is that experienced troops fight better and smarter until they don't any more. There is a rather chilling quote from a British 7th Hussarsa officer dating to 1941 saying that '...the actual business of fighting is easy enough. You go in, you come out, you go in again and you keep doing it until they break you or you are dead.'

Unlike some here I have never had to lead people in anything more hostile than a cricket match or even been shot at, I am pleased to say, so I have no personal experience to draw on. That said, it seems to me that the this sort of thing is more likely to be a problem for the UKA as their individual soldier is likely to have a longer lifespan than the Russians. Maybe the rotation of key formations out of the line give as much benefit in terms of psychiatric recovery as they do re-training on Western equipment.

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by cyrano01

[cyrano01]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Famous example from early in WW2 proving this was the young Waffen SS soldiers.  More than once Heer officers commented on their recklessness leading to high losses.  When a whole unit thinks it is a bunch of supermen, it's bound to happen.

Steve

Yes, and the oppoosite effect with some British formations who in Normandy who had just enough survivors of Italy / N Africa to give them a reputation for being 'sticky' in attack even if competent in defence. I vaguely recall reading that US formmations that saw first combat in Normandy started to see the same symptoms around the end of 1944 but couldn't be sure where I saw this.

@The_Capt's point about corporate expertise and staffwork is also a good one as it can accumulate amongst the the staff officers and higher commanders who are possibly a bit less likely to be killed as often. Assuming you can persuade them not to lead from the front too much (cf the BEF's problems with this in 1915-16).

Edited February 9, 2023 by cyrano01

[Kinophile]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The_Capt addressed this already, and we've had this discussion before about what "collapse" is and isn't.  What I'm talking about is "operational collapse", you seem to be thinking more along the lines of "strategic collapse".  Of course it would be wonderful if Russia suffered a strategic collapse at the front, but it is more likely it will suffer an operational collapse or two before that is a realistic possibility.

I disagree.  Russia came a hair's width away from losing a large amount of combat force in northern Ukraine if it hadn't ordered a retreat.  Instead, those forces (and a ton of equipment) went back into Belarus and Russia, then back into Ukraine.  If they hadn't withdrawn more-or-less when they had, I think we would have seen Russian units being overrun, surrendering in large numbers, and streaming back to the borders without any of their equipment.  It would have been catastrophic.

On a smaller scale there was the first Ukrainian Kharkiv offensive that resulted in pushing Russia out of the Kharkiv area.  The Russian units were spent and poorly supported, so Ukraine went in and kicked the door in.  Russia withdrew everything in the area, even forces that weren't significantly engaged in combat.  We don't have details, but at the time it sure did seem like things collapsed there and units either retreated on their own or the local command saw what was coming and proactively retreated them.  Either way, Ukraine got its victory with very little force applied.

The second Kharkiv offensive is another example.  Russian forces were so sparse in the area that they weren't able to set up defenses in two rather obvious defensible positions.  The defense of Lyman was another example of the collapse as the units defending the area retreated in a totally disorganized manner, at one point getting slaughtered because they didn't realize they were already cut off.

There have been multiple instances of more localized collapse, or near collapse, in the Donbas where units refused to attack.  They didn't refuse to defend, but then again the Ukrainians weren't pushing hard there at the time so hard to tell for sure how widespread the problems were.

I agree that Kherson was not a collapse, but it was certainly headed in that direction.  And the loss of those forces, like earlier in the north, would have been catastrophic.

Soooo... by my quick count that is two confirmed operational collapses (Kharkiv 1 and 2), one that was on the edge of happening (north), one that was headed in that direction (Kherson), and some smaller examples that under different circumstances might have manifested into something serious.

Again, Russia pulled out just in the nick of time from several battles that could have ended the war or at least shortened it if they had stayed a little longer.  Putin is running out of places to retreat from, so if Ukraine manages to cause a significant tear into Russian lines again, as it has before, then we might see the sort of mass surrender/slaughter/route in 2023 that we ALMOST saw in 2022.

Can't keep doing that forever.  Something will have to give.

Specifically where it can apply pressure?  Not yet.  But generally, wherever Russia decides to concentrate it's big offensive and winds up wearing itself out.  That's the pattern we've seen before.  And if not the point of where the offensive died, then the places where they grabbed troops to shore up the sagging front.  That's how Kharkiv 2 happened.

Steve

Correct,  my threshold for a RA collapse is a strategic level situation, as I view it as more than the force currently engaged, I view it as a strategic entity that must suffer strategic level effects for its nature and form to begin disintegration. 

In theory, a strategic situation rarely pops into being (eg Nukes v Japan suddenly presented an entirely strategic problem with no possible operational response) so they are born of cumulative operational level events. 

We can dicker around about the major four defeats RUS suffered (eg I view Kyiv as a precipitious retreat)  but you have not answered my main point:

Much as Russia suffered various heavy defeats and operational collapses, the force as a whole remained cohesive, maintained enough discipline and logistical structure to shift its CoG and attempt an even heavier assault from the east. It remained integrated as an institution and supplier of violence. 

Each of the defeats last year, while leading logically one to the other, were unable to compound their effects into a general defeat of the invasion as a whole. The geographic separation of the initial invasion axis had a silver lining for the RUS,  as defeat in Kyiv did not entail defeat in the Donbas or Kherson. 

To effect RA collapse will take far more than a bad defeat after bad defeat, if they are separated in their effects on time and space. That happened last year and sure,  mobiks/less armor etc so maybe this time around... 

But... Not really? Ukraine has been killing a LOT of Russians for over a year and while there are small instances of discipline failure the Russian Army as a whole remains extant, intact, organised, directed and supplied. 

I don't see anything UKR can do that will affect that at a strategic level and duration to cause strategic collapse. 

They could effect major,  reinforcing operational defeats,  but they would need to happen very vlose together and entail far more than just ground victories. 

 

I've a further thought but kids,  bath etc 

[Vet 0369]

On 2/7/2023 at 5:09 PM, Vanir Ausf B said:

The mind boggles. That's more HIMARS than in the entire US Army + Marine Corp.

I don’t doubt that the U.S. Marine Corps has fewer. If I’m not mistaken, they gave up all their long-range artillery (along with their Abrams) to better align with the next threat they perceive, the South China Sea.

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I don't see anything UKR can do that will affect that at a strategic level and duration to cause strategic collapse. 

They could effect major,  reinforcing operational defeats,  but they would need to happen very vlose together and entail far more than just ground victories.

Well the first thing is keep killing Russians.  One thing we have not really touched on is political collapse and heavy attrition could force that.  As to the RA, continued pressure/erosion, operational victories and positioning.  The RA really does not have to collapse entirely to win this thing.  They need to be put into an untenable position that forces withdrawal.  That is something that the UA can definitely do.    

[Vet 0369]

On 2/7/2023 at 3:59 PM, DesertFox said:

Tank action:

 

 

Very interesting “shoot and scoot” maneuver. I wonder if it’s been developed to make it more difficult for a drone to target them.

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, DesertFox said:

New schoolbooks for little Ivans. Look at the map print. Maybe a little premature...

Interesting if they choose date of publication purposefully...it would be like with Lukashenka and his map revealing axis of major attacks.

 

Article by Ms. Masicott.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/what-russia-got-wrong-moscow-failures-in-ukraine-dara-massicot

46 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

To effect RA collapse will take far more than a bad defeat after bad defeat, if they are separated in their effects on time and space. That happened last year and sure,  mobiks/less armor etc so maybe this time around... 

But... Not really? Ukraine has been killing a LOT of Russians for over a year and while there are small instances of discipline failure the Russian Army as a whole remains extant, intact, organised, directed and supplied. 

I don't see anything UKR can do that will affect that at a strategic level and duration to cause strategic collapse. 

They could effect major,  reinforcing operational defeats,  but they would need to happen very vlose together and entail far more than just ground victories. 

Btw. just a thought- when talking about strategic collapse, chances for new mobilization, threshold for losses etc. we should always remember that Russian military has very different strategic perspective involving thousands of kms of responsibilities. If one for example try to figure out 'where Russian military in this war is going?" judging by official statements/documents of Russian MoD, one sees how entire Ukrainian war is just a small part of their strategic considerations. When they lately announced new army reforms for 2023, with restructurization, new district, enlarged size and age limits one could think Gerasimov/Shoigu were in their own, pre-war world. There was a lot about new procurements for Navy, Rocket Forces and various military engineering projects. But entire Ukrainian war was barely present there, treated like some neocolonial adventure, and not vital military effort.

Now this could be just peculiarity of official Russian institutional messaging, but we should always keep at backs of our heads that Muscovite top top brass think as holistic empire with world-ranging tasks and means to achieve them. For example , how this current war is viewed by majority of Navy that is totally uninvolved or Strategic Rocket Forces (50k+ soldiers alone)? That is one of reasons I think they may be more susceptible to potential hundreds of thousands of new casualties in the end. Just think about length of their borders- Kaliningrad, Belarus, Stans, China-Russia + fleeting but not unsubstantial presence in Syria and Africa, and possible paranoia of "expanding West", which creates a need to secure them with proper units even more. Already they seem to keep only skeleton garrisons along Finnish border, but for example traditionally strong Kaliningrad garrison is considered dangerously understuffed. I bet it makes Kremlin much uneasy- they don't like their borders being nude.

I know, it's not an especially originial thought, just a note that we shouldn't limit our understanding of this conflict just to Ukraine and its struggle + Western support.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Beleg85

[billbindc]

Very useful: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1623317994624503808.html