How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

 

  

Yet another example of why Russia has very little capacity to change how it fights this war.  Think of all the things wrong that have to be fixed for there to be significant improvement:

1. Russia spent time and money training these guys for a specialty, then did not use them for that function.  This is an incredible waste of resources unless, of course, there is no more artillery for them to man.
2. Training for artillery was rushed and barely counts.  They appear to have experienced live fire training a grand total of one time.
3. Training as infantry was almost non-existent.  Russia sees no reason to spend money and time on infantry, so whatever they could have learned from this war is not being imparted upon the soldiers fighting it.  Which means they are as tactically inept as they were to start with, only worse since it is probable that prewar contract soldiers had better training.
4. The only reason it would make sense to retrain artillerymen as infantry is if Russia no longer has guns for them to crew.  If that's the case, then Russia's got an even bigger and compounding problem to deal with.
5. The supposed full integration of DLPR forces into the Russian MoD is obviously fantasy.  The two structures think selfishly and independently, which means all kinds of negative things for cooperation between them.
6. Morale is not improved by not knowing what unit you belong to, who your commander is, or where you are.  Yet all of these things are being done deliberately by higher authority in order to hide the truth from various people.  Not just the general population, but most likely various components of the military.  Officers can't be held accountable for losses if nobody knows these guys exist.
7. Criminal activity (extortion) is still fundamental to the Russian way of war.  Not only does extorting money from soldiers destructive to morale, but if the threats of premature posting to the front are carried through then Russia's war effort is even more directly harmed.

That's what I got out of this one video, but many of these aspects have been seen in previous soldier "appeals" videos as well as other sources.  This is not isolated and it seems nothing has gotten better since the early days of the war.

Those who think Russia has the capacity to learn from their mistakes need to learn from theirs instead.  Expecting Russia to be able to change its ways is a mistake.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Well, because one way or the other it would be the beginning of a Cold War and sanctions from the West.

Russia bet too much on European self interests and divided US politics producing a 2008 Georgian or 2014/2015 Ukraine type response.  Something uncomfortable, but not fundamentally destabilizing to the regime's economy and way of doing business.  It did not anticipate anything that happened at the front, in politics, or economics.  Again, if Putin had anticipated even 50% of what happened he would have likely chosen a far more restrained action.

Steve

[MikeyD]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

One ruzzian tank coy stuck in mud.

I thought, when rumors started circulating that a new Russian offensive was set to start on the anniversary of the invasion, that didn't work out poorly for them due to the early thaw?

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So, as much as I love to bash Russia for stupidity, the lack of contingency planning for the war going badly isn't one of them.  Based on the assumptions they made, it would be illogical to spend time and resources getting their economy and military ready for disaster.  The assumptions is where the stupidity comes into play big time.  And I'm being kind here

Too kind by a half.  I tell students that if they don’t have a Plan B, then they really don’t have a Plan A.  In Russia’s case here the Plan B was an exit strategy.  The Russians must have had an extraction plan for after winning the war, why or how they did not have a partial victory off ramp demonstrates insular executive power that desperately needed a red team.  I am sure they in no way expected the total drubbing they are receiving but history is filled with imperial quagmires - even Russian history!  To not have a back up plan for getting out is pure amateur hour.

 

[Aragorn2002]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia bet too much on European self interests and divided US politics producing a 2008 Georgian or 2014/2015 Ukraine type response.  Something uncomfortable, but not fundamentally destabilizing to the regime's economy and way of doing business.  It did not anticipate anything that happened at the front, in politics, or economics.  Again, if Putin had anticipated even 50% of what happened he would have likely chosen a far more restrained action.

Steve

It's the only answer that makes sense, but what a mistake to make. Vlad must really have a low opinion of the West.

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said:

It's the only answer that makes sense, but what a mistake to make. Vlad must really have a low opinion of the West.

We've dived into this in great detail a bunch of times to check ourselves for being too, uhm, harsh with our judgement.  It's not just us here that have come to these conclusions, but also those experts who have called the war (more or less) correctly from the start.  Including US intelligence sources.

Simply put, Putin thought he could roll over Ukraine in 3 days and the world would be too shocked and cowered to do anything significant about it.  Crimea 2014 scenario, in other words.  Everything was premised off of this basic assumption, even though the US blew the whistle very early on which allowed the West to get their minds wrapped around the invasion before it ever happened.  Which is why on Day 1 of the invasion the sanctions came crashing down. 

Many speculate that Germany and others only agreed to some aspects of the sanctions because they thought Putin wouldn't do it.  Which, in a way, means that those countries might have also miscalculated their responses.  Why plan for having no gas or trade with Russia if you don't think Russia is dumb enough to put gas and trade at such risk? 

All of this because one man decided to roll the dice.

Steve

[Chibot Mk IX]

21 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

I thought, when rumors started circulating that a new Russian offensive was set to start on the anniversary of the invasion, that didn't work out poorly for them due to the early thaw?

I think this video was shot back in last year. Early Feb 2022, couple days before the invasion begin. And based on this video, many people believed that a full scale invasion is unlikely to happen. Marching under this kind of ground condition is unimageable.

[sburke]

6 hours ago, Ales Dvorak said:

Still after 30 years? 

I remember this .. https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/frank-zappa-eastern-europe-vaclav-havel/

ha, my very first concert was Frank Zappa!

[dan/california]

 

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

We've dived into this in great detail a bunch of times to check ourselves for being too, uhm, harsh with our judgement.  It's not just us here that have come to these conclusions, but also those experts who have called the war (more or less) correctly from the start.  Including US intelligence sources.

Simply put, Putin thought he could roll over Ukraine in 3 days and the world would be too shocked and cowered to do anything significant about it.  Crimea 2014 scenario, in other words.  Everything was premised off of this basic assumption, even though the US blew the whistle very early on which allowed the West to get their minds wrapped around the invasion before it ever happened.  Which is why on Day 1 of the invasion the sanctions came crashing down. 

Many speculate that Germany and others only agreed to some aspects of the sanctions because they thought Putin wouldn't do it.  Which, in a way, means that those countries might have also miscalculated their responses.  Why plan for having no gas or trade with Russia if you don't think Russia is dumb enough to put gas and trade at such risk? 

All of this because one man decided to roll the dice.

Steve

 

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Too kind by a half.  I tell students that if they don’t have a Plan B, then they really don’t have a Plan A.  In Russia’s case here the Plan B was an exit strategy.  The Russians must have had an extraction plan for after winning the war, why or how they did not have a partial victory off ramp demonstrates insular executive power that desperately needed a red team.  I am sure they in no way expected the total drubbing they are receiving but history is filled with imperial quagmires - even Russian history!  To not have a back up plan for getting out is pure amateur hour.

 

The one man part is the fundamental issue. When there is no way to tell the top guy he is about to bleep it up completely, or even tell that he HAS bleeped it up completely, BAD things happen. That why Xi is so worrisome right now....

[billbindc]

37 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Too kind by a half.  I tell students that if they don’t have a Plan B, then they really don’t have a Plan A.  In Russia’s case here the Plan B was an exit strategy.  The Russians must have had an extraction plan for after winning the war, why or how they did not have a partial victory off ramp demonstrates insular executive power that desperately needed a red team.  I am sure they in no way expected the total drubbing they are receiving but history is filled with imperial quagmires - even Russian history!  To not have a back up plan for getting out is pure amateur hour.

 

I doubt they planned on getting out for quite a while. They expected an easy war but the high likelihood is that they expected to advance to the Dnieper/Kyiv and stay for quite a while.

[Battlefront.com]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Too kind by a half.  I tell students that if they don’t have a Plan B, then they really don’t have a Plan A.  In Russia’s case here the Plan B was an exit strategy.  The Russians must have had an extraction plan for after winning the war, why or how they did not have a partial victory off ramp demonstrates insular executive power that desperately needed a red team.  I am sure they in no way expected the total drubbing they are receiving but history is filled with imperial quagmires - even Russian history!  To not have a back up plan for getting out is pure amateur hour.

 

I was feeling generous

Of course Putin should never have gone into this war without any sort of exit or contingency plan.  However, I am sure he had both.  The problem was that they were not capable of handling a loss of this scale.  Again, nobody sane would go into a war of choice, designed to produce positive results for the regime, if there was a significant chance of utter destruction.  So far not one person of note has declared Putin anything but sane.  Therefore, it is logical that whatever Plan B Putin had in mind was sensible given the initial mistake in thinking this war was going to be easy.

Everything comes back to Putin being dumb enough to believe in his own country's greatness and abilities to project power.  That one fundamental mistake explains absolutely everything, including not having an adequate contingency plan.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I doubt they planned on getting out for quite a while. They expected an easy war but the high likelihood is that they expected to advance to the Dnieper/Kyiv and stay for quite a while.

I am convinced that Plan A was outright military defeat of Ukraine and Plan B was a sort of Minsk 3 situation where the active fighting would be frozen with Russia's goals mostly, but not totally, secured.  There would be fighting for many years, but at small enough scale that Russia could easily handle it. 

A relatively quiet front would allow Russia to focus on "pacification" of the occupied lands.  Putin likely counted on passivity and collaboration as happened in Donbas and Crimea, not an insurgency like Chechnya.  And he would have been correct to do so.  The partisan activities in occupied lands is fairly mild as most of the potential troublemakers evacuated.

Russia could have sustained such a situation for a very long time.  Then, when the time was right, Russia would try for something else, perhaps the rest of Ukraine or perhaps Belarus.  Whatever Putin planned on, it certainly was never going to be only about taking eastern Ukraine.

Steve

[pintere]

A great example of a Russian mother defending Christian values in this video. Nothing screams virtue like the willingness to give up her sons for Putin's war. And why does that willingness exist? Because she can just have more...

 

 

[Seminole]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia bet too much on European self interests and divided US politics producing a 2008 Georgian or 2014/2015 Ukraine type response.  Something uncomfortable, but not fundamentally destabilizing to the regime's economy and way of doing business.  It did not anticipate anything that happened at the front, in politics, or economics.  Again, if Putin had anticipated even 50% of what happened he would have likely chosen a far more restrained action.

Steve

Undeniable.

So... how does he miscalculate next?

[Kinophile]

23 hours ago, masc said:

Clearer version without music:

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/114qlyy/ukrainian_killing_3_russian_soilders_attacking/

5:00 minute version without music but less clear:

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/114u66s/the_full_version_of_the_video_with_a_ukrainian/

Guy filming survived allegedly and posted these to a private instagram.  He said on telegram that his comrade there was "paralyzed by fear".  This comes from reddit comments so take it with a grain of salt as I don't have a telegram and can't see his posts.

For the non-Mil here (such as myself), these observations from a relative in the British Army:

The fella fighting was going through a mag every couple of seconds. They all need to be reloaded. The grens are shipped in two parts,  fuse and body and they have to be married almost immediately beforehand. The RPG warhead has to be fused, and married to the motor. The frightened bloke did well to keep at it. He came out to fire at one point, but fighting bloke told [him] to get back in.

There is enough work in that intensity to take half a section* out just maintaining the fire. In a platoon the Reserve is constantly rebombing the mags and sending them forward. That pit was held because of the sheer amount of suppressing fire that bloke laid down, and it was only possible with the support from the frightened guy.

[The Shooter] has been in that position for weeks, but I’m surprised he didn’t have a firing ledge cut into to get better visibility.

You’d wonder at the BMP crew. They just ate a RPG, and second one, and didn’t return fire into the position. Might have been too close to depress their cannon.

Yeah, milchat is laughing at ‘most engagements are at up to 300m’ yeah chew on 30m.... 

So the comments I've seen (not here) mocking the second guy are just sheer, stupid amateur ignorance. In a fight everyone plays a part and not everyone is a hero every time. Artillery explosion overpressure waves and constant combat (and the threat of combat) do awful things to the human brain.  The bravest man can be steadily reduced to a nervous cat with enough concussive impacts.

The "scared"  guy could just as easily be the hero next time.  Or not,  but who knows - unless you're in the fox hole and you're him or his shooter buddy. No one else knows. Any commentary beyond that is just talking uninformed ****e. 

 

*In the BA a Platoon is made of Sections. In the US they're called squads or teams (I believe? ). 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Donaudampfschifffahrtsgese

[hcrof]

6 minutes ago, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgese said:

For the non-Mil here (such as myself), these observations from a relative in the British Army:

The fella fighting was going through a mag every couple of seconds. They all need to be reloaded. The grens are shipped in two parts,  fuse and body and they have to be married almost immediately beforehand. The RPG warhead has to be fused, and married to the motor. The frightened bloke did well to keep at it. He came out to fire at one point, but fighting bloke told to get back in.

There is enough work in that intensity to take half a section out just maintaining the fire. In a platoon; The reserve is constantly rebombing the mags and sending them forward. That pit was held because of the sheer amount of suppressing fire that bloke laid down, and it was only possible with the support from the frightened guy.

[The Shooter] has been in that position for weeks, but I’m surprised he didn’t have a firing ledge cut into to get better visibility.

You’d wonder at the BMP crew. They just ate a RPG, and second one, and didn’t return fire into the position. Might have been too close to depress their cannon.

Yeah, milchat is laughing at ‘most engagements are at up to 300m’ yeah chew on 30m.... 

Nice summary, although I wouldn't be surprised if the BMP crew simply didn't notice that a RPG round flew over their vehicle - I think the first shot went high and given their poor sights and the fact they are deafening themselves with their own shooting I guess the situational awareness of the BMP was very poor. 

[Vet 0369]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

And one last one before heading off for a nap... Ukraine apparently struck something hard in southern occupied Kherson.  Side note, look at the scars on the Russian's head.  I wonder if he received them from the earlier part of the war (one part of the scar still looks red) or if he had some sort of civilian based accident. This got me thinking... aren't we about due for some sort of deep strike from Ukraine?  It's been a while since they have done something that grabbed our attention for several days.  I know they don't owe us anything, but it would be nice to have something to wonder "how did they do that?!?"

I expect the answer is Ukraine is waiting for the Russian offensive to be in full motion before doing something spectacular again.

Steve

February 24 is next Thursday. Perhaps they are planning to present Putin with an “Anniversary” present?

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

February 24 is next Thursday. Perhaps they are planning to present Putin with an “Anniversary” present?

Yes. Putin wanted a 'win' to talk about next week. More grist for my argument that Russia is as much fighting the war as a political argument in Moscow as it is fighting it in a military sense in the Donbas.

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgese said:

So the comments I've seen (not here) mocking the second guy are just sheer, stupid amateur ignorance. In a fight everyone plays a part and not everyone is a hero every time.

Thanks for posting a professional opinion.  I said the same thing a few pages ago, though with less detail about why reloading is time consuming.  And in a situation where seconds count, that's an important factor.  The shooter seemed to grasp the situation was better with the guy keeping him loaded than having him engage.  Although it was touch and go for a bit, I do think that it was the best way to hold the trench.

As for the BMP, my guess is that the first round went wild and the BMP crew might not have seen it at all as they themselves were firing.  Hard to see what's being done at such close range under those circumstances.  The second RPG round probably took the vehicle out of action, though for some reason a third RPG was sent at it.  Maybe to make sure, maybe because he saw some activity we couldn't.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

53 minutes ago, pintere said:

A great example of a Russian mother defending Christian values in this video. Nothing screams virtue like the willingness to give up her sons for Putin's war. And why does that willingness exist? Because she can just have more...

 

 

I know many think that characterizing Russians as being largely unconcerned about life is a trope, a stereotype meant to dehumanize them by the West.  And yet...

Steve

[sburke]

Propagandists of Wagner Group accidentally reveal repair base near Luhansk (yahoo.com)

[danfrodo]

51 minutes ago, Donaudampfschifffahrtsgese said:

For the non-Mil here (such as myself), these observations from a relative in the British Army:

The fella fighting was going through a mag every couple of seconds. They all need to be reloaded. The grens are shipped in two parts,  fuse and body and they have to be married almost immediately beforehand. The RPG warhead has to be fused, and married to the motor. The frightened bloke did well to keep at it. He came out to fire at one point, but fighting bloke told [him] to get back in.

There is enough work in that intensity to take half a section* out just maintaining the fire. In a platoon the Reserve is constantly rebombing the mags and sending them forward. That pit was held because of the sheer amount of suppressing fire that bloke laid down, and it was only possible with the support from the frightened guy.

[The Shooter] has been in that position for weeks, but I’m surprised he didn’t have a firing ledge cut into to get better visibility.

You’d wonder at the BMP crew. They just ate a RPG, and second one, and didn’t return fire into the position. Might have been too close to depress their cannon.

Yeah, milchat is laughing at ‘most engagements are at up to 300m’ yeah chew on 30m.... 

So the comments I've seen (not here) mocking the second guy are just sheer, stupid amateur ignorance. In a fight everyone plays a part and not everyone is a hero every time. Artillery shockwaves and constant combat (and the threat of combat) doe awful things to the human brain.  The bravest man can be steadily reduced to a nervous cat with enough concussive impacts.

The "scared"  guy could just as easily be the hero next time.  Or not,  but who knows - unless you're in the fox hole and you're him or his shooter buddy. No one else knows. Any commentary beyond that is just talking uninformed ****e. 

 

*In the BA a Platoon is made of Sections. In the US they're called squads or teams (I believe? ). 

If we gave awards for best post every day, this one would win for a whole week.  thx much

[danfrodo]

Behind paywall, but great story if you can access.  A woman from a picture we saw in the first days of the war when everyone including women & old people, were lining up for rifles to defend Kyiv.  NYTimes followed her story. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/world/europe/ukraine-teacher-combat.html

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I am convinced that Plan A was outright military defeat of Ukraine and Plan B was a sort of Minsk 3 situation where the active fighting would be frozen with Russia's goals mostly, but not totally, secured.  There would be fighting for many years, but at small enough scale that Russia could easily handle it. 

A relatively quiet front would allow Russia to focus on "pacification" of the occupied lands.  Putin likely counted on passivity and collaboration as happened in Donbas and Crimea, not an insurgency like Chechnya.  And he would have been correct to do so.  The partisan activities in occupied lands is fairly mild as most of the potential troublemakers evacuated.

Russia could have sustained such a situation for a very long time.  Then, when the time was right, Russia would try for something else, perhaps the rest of Ukraine or perhaps Belarus.  Whatever Putin planned on, it certainly was never going to be only about taking eastern Ukraine.

Steve

So the part I do not get is that they kinda had this back in Sep.  They did the whole superbowl ring thing and simply declared that where they stood was now "Mother Russia".  They could have simply dug in and cried crocodile tears for Minsk 3.0 from there.  Instead they kept dry humping around Bakhmut and chasing some imaginary line in the Donbas, and then they had two fronts collapse - I mean take the hint.  

I think at some point after the Phase III defeats, this war got all "total" and zero-sum for Russia, or maybe it always was in the Russian thinking.  Point being that if one is going to wage a total war, make damned sure it is actually existential.  I mean a discretionary total war, as evident by no Plan B, is frankly insane.  Unless Putins strategy was to turn a discretionary war into an existential one.  However, that doesn't make sense either as he has not gone all in.  This is a "kinda existential war - with provisos and addendums"?

[Battlefront.com]

About time.  US has made it's first official declaration that Russia is committing Crimes Against Humanity.  Harris' speech is official US policy, for sure, which means we can expect to hear more about this in coming months.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3864453-harris-us-has-formally-determined-russia-has-committed-crimes-against-humanity-in-ukraine/

Steve