How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

OpEd piece arguing that the US should take advantage of Russia's weakness and woo former Soviet central Asian republics, in particular Uzbekistan, away from Russian and Chinese influence.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3884101-us-can-help-uzbekistan-build-resilience-against-russia-china/

This is a reminder of the other reason why China is happy to have a weakened and distracted Russia... it's been hard at work gaining influence in this area.  Now that work is, theoretically, easier.  Russia's loss is very much China's opportunity for gain.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Video of a recent battle in Avdiivka.  I feel like I've seen something here already, but just in case:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PNVmilitary_community/comments/11hwrvd/before_and_after_the_russian_offensive_near/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers surrender via 'I want to live' hotline since its creation (yahoo.com)

Nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers have willingly surrendered themselves to the Ukrainian army via the "I want to live" hotline, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported.

Launched in September 2022 by Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence, the 24-hour hotline allows Russians to willingly surrender themselves or their units to the Ukrainian army. Russian military personnel are held in compliance with the Geneva Conventions.

In addition to the hotline, there is also a chatbot and a website in Russian run by Ukraine's Defense Ministry with information about the program.

It would be great to know how many POWs Ukraine has taken in this war so far and also what percentage were from the "I want to live" program.

Russia has probably put 750,000 men into Ukraine over the past year.  Maybe more.  If we take this POW number at face value, that's about 1.3% of Russia's total force.  Not big as a percentage, but certainly a large number of POWs for a supposedly victorious mighty attacker to give up.

Steve 

[LongLeftFlank]

4 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I am like a setup guy for you so that you can step in & knock down amateur-hour ideas.

Sorry DF, that slot's taken 

You can challenge for the title once you draw at least a half-page sized text Wall of Exasperation from @The_Capt.

[sburke]

message to Lukashenko?

Shadow Group Linked to Russian Plane Explosion Is Coming to D.C. (yahoo.com)

[Grigb]

12 hours ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

Same as forehead, but with more brains behind it. It is gamer lingo.

Of course, if we take this punning to it's logical conclusion,we may infer the existence of the threehead. And I think I have found proof of it. Behold:

What did those poor MTLBs ever do to deserve that treatment?

It's just such a bad idea on many levels, I just cannot fathom what they were thinking. Except that someone either made a quick buck with this **** or the Russians don't have the number of BMP 2s and 3s that they'd like to have.

Agent Murz says that there aren't enough replacement BMPs, thus RU began using MTLB in BMP duties. That's most likely how this mutant was created.

11 hours ago, dan/california said:

So does anything else in the Russian land forces use the same ammo as this thing? Or do they not expect them to live long enough to need reloading.

Rumor has it that cannons are being replaced by KPVT.

 

[Grigb]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Whatever offensive stuff Russia tried this winter failed and that should hammer that point home that offensive activity is out of the question for the near term.  If the MoD accepts this reality (and it might not), then it will need to switch into defensive mentality and try to retain a very long border against a very capable adversary.  If Russia is to have any hope of doing this the MoD will need to revisit its entire military doctrine, from top to bottom, so that it is tailored to the reality of its forces today instead of what they were a year ago.  What are the chances they are are able to do that?

Steve

Here is a bit of unverified rumor:

Officers on the front lines beg for a total shift to a defensive strategy throughout the whole front, claiming they are unable to fulfill the request (some even request withdrawal, stating that they will not be able to keep existing territory anyway). The top leadership appears to recognize it, but they (especially Gerasimov) appear to be unaware of the extent of the RU army's inferiority. So he plans the action, nonetheless, based on his very optimistic estimations.
Furthermore, while Putin is sympathetic toward the concept of shifting to a defensive approach, he demands full control over one of the UKR provinces first.

The RU's "meat assaults" are still on the menu.

[Grigb]

Agent Murz today published 7 posts (yes, 7).

I will translate the most interesting part (adjusted for readability)

Quote

RU infantry losses and overall trend

Firstly, our command has wiped out almost all of the somehow trained infantry in the "meat assaults" of recent months at the front from Vuhledar to Kremennaya. If in the summer the "assaults" were carried out with artillery support by the remnants of at least somehow trained experienced infantry, where there was still some junior command staff, now everything is much sadder.

For example, they say to a unit filled with Russian Mobiks that they are going to assault in the morning. "Take more grenades." And Mobisks respond - "But we don't know how to use them. We never throw grenades even at the landfill [landfills are used as makshift RU training grounds]." What will be the result of attempts to drive unprepared, unreliable people to the assault? Right. Threats of executions and mass "SOCHs" [AWOL] - people don't even want to survive any more, they want just some chance to survive. The trend is predictable, not very common yet, but already "at the gates".

RU Mobiks training

Recently I saw a colleague from a long time ago, who is engaged in training of mobilized for assault - coordination with military vehicles, with tanks. At first, I was relieved and glad - well, at least they are doing it somewhere, at least somewhere they managed to make training for combat as for combat. And then it turned out that there was nothing much to train with - there were no portable walkie-talkies for the commanders of assault groups that works in the range of R-123 and R-173 tank walkie-talkies. I gave the person 3 pieces of R-169P1-01...

Vehicles and Comms for RU Mobiks

Another seemingly gratifying news is that the battalions and regiments of Donbass "mobiks" who survived are being assembled into brigades, are being given artillery. But there are no vehicles, [so] "motorized riflemen on auto transport". Communication equipment - the already mentioned portable Kirisun, purchased by the Ministry of Defense without spare batteries, without base stations, without repeaters (as far as I understand, the news about the repeaters available somewhere in the regular units of the Armed Forces of RU - the most adequate heads of comms "on the ground" thought hard and bought repeaters themselves, the benefit of civilian equipment). In general, it is the [failed] story of the "Azarts" repeaters, just in miniature, on a smaller scale, on smaller funds, so to speak. By the way, there are persistent rumors that the long-advertised "Azart-2" will be able to DMR immediately, with the first firmware, which, perhaps, will compare it in usability with the P-324 from "Radio Engineering" [RU civilian supplier], but, again, authors [Generals] - where are the base stations and repeaters with a long shoulder for your "Azarts"? Or at least repeater planes in the right quantities, capable of supporting maneuverable combat operations in a complex landscape.

The result, in addition to shell starvation, which has been going on for almost six months, is probably (and there is no end in sight) sad.

State of troops, vehicles and artillery

We have few troops, we cannot withdraw units to the rear entirely, for training, replenishment and re-equipment, and there is not much to re-equip them with - tanks arriving for replenishment from storage are old and often faulty, ahead is the mass use of antique T-62s in general. BMPs are coming to an end and more and more often MTLBs are being used in their role with little success.

Artillery, in addition to the actual shell starvation, is experiencing a terrible hunger for normal fresh barrels - the guns are already worn out, the rifling was "licked" off by a large shoout outs. I do not know who and how deals with this issue, which is directly related to the scale of ammo needs (the fresher the barrels, the more accurate the fire, the less shells are needed to defeat targets).

Well, the UAV. Alas, in the segment accessible to front-line commanders, we have mainly Chinese "consumer goods"[Commercial Off the Shelf], vulnerable to enemy EW equipment that they will try to equip their attacking units with in a large numbers.

 

[Grigb]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

OpEd piece arguing that the US should take advantage of Russia's weakness and woo former Soviet central Asian republics, in particular Uzbekistan, away from Russian and Chinese influence.

They are actually very fond of Western friendship. They looked at how pro-RU Armenians lost, how pro-Turk (aka NATO country) Azerbaijanians won, how RU is currently fighting, how pro-NATO UKR are fighting and made obvious conclusion.

[chuckdyke]

How Will the War End? Thoughts on Ukraine, Russia, and a Theory of Victory - Modern War Institute (usma.edu)

The Budapest Memorandum was violated by Russia and it doesn't mean it is not binding for the US and the UK. It will continue to keep the moral high ground.

[The_MonkeyKing]

On 2/7/2023 at 9:21 PM, The_MonkeyKing said:

lol, they just keep coming. Add +100 to that number

and yes, the Danish and Netherland Leo1 is just in addition to their Leo2

and coming:

M113 and Leopard 1 will be one of Ukraine's main mech equipment types by the year's end and the following year's.

[Grigb]

Couple of interesting bits:

According to estimates by RU opposition journalists, the RU MOD mobilized 520 thousand men (not 300 thousand as RU MOD claims). This could be the reason there is no second wave yet - it has already happened. 

According to other RU opposition journalists, while Putin pretends to be an ascetic fanatic married on Russia, he unsurprisingly lives in very luxury Armitage like Valdai residence with Kabaeva and small children. The point being that he is not an unhinged zealot with nuclear WW3 in mind but just another dictator who is not keen on premature dying For Za Russia.

[Grigb]

Example of what Murz was talking about.

Quote

One of the few survivors after the assault of the Avdiivka fortified area, a resident of the Irkutsk region refused to go on the offensive on March 2 and 3. For his refusal the mobilized [man] from the destroyed regiment 1439 was put in the basement [basement is usual place for RU detention and torture chambers] and was threatened to be executed "without trial and investigation," his wife told the editorial Siberia.Realities.

"My husband turned out to be almost the only one who remained alive and unharmed after the March 1 assault. He refused to get into the APC and go to the slaughter - they grabbed him and threw him into some pit, locked him in the basement. On his first refusal to go on March 2, they threatened with a tribunal and a jailtime, now they say: "We'll shoot you here."

From February 28 to March 1, former drivers, locksmiths and builders mobilized to the first and second battalions of the regiment 1439, without training and support, were sent to storm the Avdiivka fortified area near Donetsk. Recently the relatives of the two mobilized [men] reported Siberia.Reality is that the entire regiment was almost destroyed - several people were wounded, the rest died, but are counted as missing [by officials].

The irony is RU Nats used to tell Ukrainians - why are you so keen on joining the West?  Heinous Westerners will use you as cannon fodder in their wars, they are going to send you without training and equipment to your certain death.

When RU Nats talk about the heinous West, they actually describe RU. 

[Grigb]

Comedy break.

RU Nats reviewing their simplistic and cheap anti-drone rifle assembled from cheap parts from AliExpress. The funniest part? The operator asks the engineer if RU can manufacture such simple rifles in RU using only RU manufacture capabilities - resounding NO. RU cannot manufacture chips. 

[poesel]

9 hours ago, chrisl said:

Except it doesn't work out that way.  I've been in the US civil aerospace industry for a while and we think we do that, but we do lose technologies and capabilities when people retire. 

But then you were building and flying new planes in the US, didn't you? You didn't just keep the ones from the 60s and 70s?

The comparison falls short as the missiles are not actually used. But you could have put a DC-9 in storage in 1970, do maintenance and replace parts meticulously. After 50 years, you roll it out of the hangar and 9 out of 10 would fly.
Obviously, no one would do that, but if money is of no concern, you could.

Since you continuously order spare parts over 50 years, the knowledge to make those parts will be kept alive. Even if the original designers are long dead.

 

Edit: just checked - according to Wikipedia, 31 DC-9s are still flying...

Edited March 5, 2023 by poesel

[chrisl]

17 minutes ago, poesel said:

But then you were building and flying new planes in the US, didn't you? You didn't just keep the ones from the 60s and 70s?

The comparison falls short as the missiles are not actually used. But you could have put a DC-9 in storage in 1970, do maintenance and replace parts meticulously. After 50 years, you roll it out of the hangar and 9 out of 10 would fly.
Obviously, no one would do that, but if money is of no concern, you could.

Since you continuously order spare parts over 50 years, the knowledge to make those parts will be kept alive. Even if the original designers are long dead.

I don’t do aircraft.  But we do sometimes have to store things for years or even decades before use, and when you pull them out they sometimes have very unexpected failure modes. Often because either the storage conditions or susceptibility to them weren’t what you thought they were. You have to do a bunch of testing and sometimes refurbishment to verify it hasn’t changed.

Making or buying the same part for 50 years turns out to be harder than you might think. Getting the same thing for even 10 years can be a problem. Raw material sources change, chemical suppliers change processes because of cost or availability of equipment, manufacturers change processes without knowing it as their staff turns over or equipment ages.  If you aren’t doing frequent system and subsystem level testing you don’t catch side effects of those changes.  Sometimes materials just stop being available because the one supplier stopped using it- even the US weapons program has run into that in the past.

Turning over staff adds another level of complication.  I was running into it pre pandemic where engineers were already in increasing demand, so lots of mid career people were moving to other companies for higher pay.  We ended up seeing a whole bunch of companies well staffed with talented mid-career people who didn’t have a clue about how to make their core products, and the companies were struggling to deliver without years of delay. If you’re heavily bureaucratic and somewhat corrupt, a lot of bad parts are likely to get shipped and accepted.

 

 

 

 

[womble]

28 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Making or buying the same part for 50 years turns out to be harder than you might think. Getting the same thing for even 10 years can be a problem. Raw material sources change, chemical suppliers change processes because of cost or availability of equipment, manufacturers change processes without knowing it as their staff turns over or equipment ages.  If you aren’t doing frequent system and subsystem level testing you don’t catch side effects of those changes.  Sometimes materials just stop being available because the one supplier stopped using it- even the US weapons program has run into that in the past.

A very simplistic example:

Land Rover agreed to provide spare parts for the vehicles they sold to the British Army for 30 years after the model went out of production at their assembly lines. In order to do this, they sourced a load of components and put them in storage, specifically earmarked for MoD use.

Then that storage burnt to the ground because of a forklift fire. No more spare parts for old Army Landies. Or, at least, they have to be sourced from the "general market", so are much more expensive and availability is potentially spotty.

Keeping "legacy" equipment maintained is always going to be a bit of a lottery, unless you actually keep the entire production process "live", which is hellishly expensive. Maybe the Russians have had enough to spend to do this for the strategic forces for the last thirty years, maybe they haven't. Still risky to assume a 100% failure rate of the systems, though.

A side question: how much of the Russian offensive missile establishment is based in "core" Russian provinces? If the RF collapsed, what proportion of those 60 Insanities would be under the de facto control of the "successsor" states who'd be in the same position as Ukraine were at independence, i.e. unable to maintain or contain the systems?

[Seminole]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

The US was acting under UN Resolution 1244, which legitimized the actions taken by the US generally.  Facilitating an illegal war through propaganda or military communications puts the infrastructure firmly in the "legitimate target" category.  As for the civilian deaths, this falls into standard international laws governing warfare.  Employees directly facilitating the illegal war are legitimate targets.

 

So when we invaded Panama without a fig leaf from the UN, should we have prosecuted any military members that were ordered to attack their radio station?  ‘Cause that sounds like bull**** to me.

Or is there another reason under the ‘rules based order’ that’s its ok when we do this stuff.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/12/21/us-forces-crush-panamanian-military/53644e38-d493-4042-bc5b-5aad14a58ebd/

Yesterday afternoon, a state radio station that had remained in loyalist hands broadcasting defiance throughout the first day of American intervention reported that it was under attack by U.S. forces. "Alert, alert, we're under attack," the announcer said before the station's signal went silent at 4:50 p.m.

https://apnews.com/article/f968dc18cc41ccc76a33b43baf4018b4

 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ The General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly condemned the U.S. invasion of Panama as a ″flagrant violation″ of international law and called for the swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. 

The vote was 75 to 20, with 40 abstentions.

 

I can’t recall a U.S. invasion, internationally sanctioned or not, that didn’t involve attacking comms.  A giant radio tower in the capital is a dual use military target, isn’t it?

[Harmon Rabb]

Perun discussing the history of mercenaries in general and Prigozhin's "musicians".

[kraze]

4 hours ago, Grigb said:

Couple of interesting bits:

According to estimates by RU opposition journalists, the RU MOD mobilized 520 thousand men (not 300 thousand as RU MOD claims). This could be the reason there is no second wave yet - it has already happened. 

According to other RU opposition journalists, while Putin pretends to be an ascetic fanatic married on Russia, he unsurprisingly lives in very luxury Armitage like Valdai residence with Kabaeva and small children. The point being that he is not an unhinged zealot with nuclear WW3 in mind but just another dictator who is not keen on premature dying For Za Russia.

Of course he is not keen to die. RU "opposition" journalists simply forget to mention that putin is just doing what his people demand of him

(there are english subtitles)

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/fuer-panther-produktion-rheinmetall-will-panzer-fabrik-in-der-ukraine-aufbauen-a-8c1a27cf-9be8-42ad-ba51-d0b526c05719

Rheinmetall is working on additional 50 L2A4 tanks for ukraine with 30 ready.

In addition these will be a new modernized version. Idea being "A4 from the outside but A7 from the inside". 

[poesel]

3 hours ago, chrisl said:

I don’t do aircraft.  But we do sometimes have to store things for years or even decades before use, and when you pull them out they sometimes have very unexpected failure modes. ...

 

2 hours ago, womble said:

A very simplistic example:

Land Rover agreed to provide spare parts for the vehicles they sold to the British Army for 30 years after the model went out of production at their assembly lines. ...

Agree and agree. And you both have given the solution to those problems: money. And since this is the Russian state that wants that problem solved, money is of no concern.

Again, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it is possible. And I believe it has and will be done for the Russian nukes.

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, Grigb said:

Agent Murz today published 7 posts (yes, 7).

I will translate the most interesting part (adjusted for readability)

 

If true - even half of it - that is a military in the process of systemic failure. It highlight institutional level failures, nearly across the board:

Force Management - inability to conduct troop rotations, plummeting morale and pretty abysmal culture right now.

Force Development - in ability to adapt comms to environment. UAV failures.

Force Sustainment - the entire Artillery problem.

Force Generation - incredibly poor training quality of new troops.

Force Employment - well this one is pretty self evident.

I mean I do not know this source or how reliable it is but this is what military that is failing looks like.

[poesel]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

In addition these will be a new modernized version. Idea being "A4 from the outside but A7 from the inside". 

I think this point is about Austria modernizing their Leo2s. Not about sending them to Ukraine.

This: https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/fuer-panther-produktion-rheinmetall-will-panzer-fabrik-in-der-ukraine-aufbauen-a-8c1a27cf-9be8-42ad-ba51-d0b526c05719
is about Rheinmetall wanting to build a tank factory in Ukraine for producing KF51 Panthers. But this is still in discussion and I will believe it when the contracts are signed. Although Medvedev already promised to bomb the factory to smithereens with Kalibrs...
A bit of ironic that Russia may have enabled the production of Panthers in Ukraine
Or maybe the Russkies were right with those Ukronazis?

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

How Will the War End? Thoughts on Ukraine, Russia, and a Theory of Victory - Modern War Institute (usma.edu)

The Budapest Memorandum was violated by Russia and it doesn't mean it is not binding for the US and the UK. It will continue to keep the moral high ground.

Firstly, everyone should actually read the Budapest Memorandum, it was a pretty flimsy piece of work.  Ukraine took the money for nukes it could not sustain nor really employ, the security guarantee was essentially backstopped by the UN and had holes one could drive buses through:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

“The Budapest Memorandum was negotiated at political level, but it is not entirely clear whether the instrument is devoid entirely of legal provisions. It refers to assurances, but unlike guarantees, it does not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties.^[1][46] According to Stephen MacFarlane, a professor of international relations, "It gives signatories justification if they take action, but it does not force anyone to act in Ukraine."^[45] In the US, neither the George H. W. Bush administration nor the Clinton administration was prepared to give a military commitment to Ukraine, and they did not believe the US Senate would ratify an international treaty and so the memorandum was adopted in more limited terms.^[46]The memorandum has a requirement of consultation among the parties "in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning the ... commitments" set out in the memorandum.^[47] Whether or not the memorandum sets out legal obligations, the difficulties that Ukraine has encountered since early 2014 may cast doubt on the credibility of future security assurances that are offered in exchange for nonproliferation commitments.^[48] Regardless, the United States publicly maintains that "the Memorandum is not legally binding", calling it a "political commitment".^[21]
Seriously this thing ranks up there with the Munich Agreement.  

Regardless, one thing this war has taught me is that strategy in warfare cannot simply be a “theory of victory” in the 21st century, it must also be a theory of defeat for an opponent.  This is a major shortfall in the entire concept.  We have literally been watching Russia figuring out how to lose this thing for about 6 months now. They need to “win at losing”, almost as much as Ukraine does at winning, or none of those policy objectives in this article are going to work.