How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Paraphrasing a lot ... they talked about if and when Ukraine will be prepared to conduct a successful offensive.  Kofman's take was that the later the better as he doesn't feel that Ukraine has enough ammunition stocks at the moment and he views Ukraine as an artillery-based army that needs lots of artillery to be successful. Also, the doesn't think Ukraine has enough well-trained battalions to conduct an offensive yet. Unfortunately, adequate supplies of artillery munitions from the West won't become available until 2025 when the expanded production capacity comes online.

I doubt Ukraine will wait for perfect offensive conditions.  They will try something big and soon, I have no doubts.  While time is on their side relative to Russia's, they don't have endless time.  Plus, progress is expected by pretty much everybody, therefore sitting idle through 2022 won't sit well with Ukrainians or international patrons.

Fortunately, I think, Kofman is probably wrong   And for the same reasons he was wrong before this war started; focusing on bean counting instead of the larger picture.  Ukraine has already successfully gone on the offensive with arguably weaker forces against a stronger Russian force than exists today.  It did very well, though with some favorable considerations helping that might not be present today.  The lack of those things (Dnepr River and unprepared Luhansk defenses) might be balanced out by overall lower quality of Russian forces and shortages of pretty much everything.  Time will tell, obviously, but I see Kofman being off the mark.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Peregrine said:

China might show the West one day this thinking is wrong

They are still in the phase that the leader of the opposition is in the Woods with his Band of Merry Men.

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Peregrine said:

China might show the West one day this thinking is wrong but yet another leader for life attitude says to me they are going to make the same mess of themselves as all the others do.

China did largely shut down sending trash to their country for "processing" (often it was just dumped in open air mountains).  So it isn't completely out of the question it might do something similar with its mining concerns.  However, if it does it had better have a damned good 5 Year Plan at the ready because their economy will crater without it.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I doubt Ukraine will wait for perfect offensive conditions. 

Was it Patton? "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan next month."

[Beleg85]

24 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Paraphrasing a lot ... they talked about if and when Ukraine will be prepared to conduct a successful offensive.  Kofman's take was that the later the better as he doesn't feel that Ukraine has enough ammunition stocks at the moment and he views Ukraine as an artillery-based army that needs lots of artillery to be successful. Also, the doesn't think Ukraine has enough well-trained battalions to conduct an offensive yet. Unfortunately, adequate supplies of artillery munitions from the West won't become available until 2025 when the expanded production capacity comes online.

Not very heartwarming thoughts indeed.

On the other side, there are some rumours lately Ukrainians started to more intensivelly train some small air-mobile detachments. They don's seem to be very rich in spare helicopters, so if precious machines were delegated to training instead of regular missions it's quite possible they may have something in plans. Or perhaps that it is another PsyOps in order to scare muscovites as to divert their resources.

 

[danfrodo]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I doubt Ukraine will wait for perfect offensive conditions.  They will try something big and soon, I have no doubts.  While time is on their side relative to Russia's, they don't have endless time.  Plus, progress is expected by pretty much everybody, therefore sitting idle through 2022 won't sit well with Ukrainians or international patrons.

Fortunately, I think, Kofman is probably wrong   And for the same reasons he was wrong before this war started; focusing on bean counting instead of the larger picture.  Ukraine has already successfully gone on the offensive with arguably weaker forces against a stronger Russian force than exists today.  It did very well, though with some favorable considerations helping that might not be present today.  The lack of those things (Dnepr River and unprepared Luhansk defenses) might be balanced out by overall lower quality of Russian forces and shortages of pretty much everything.  Time will tell, obviously, but I see Kofman being off the mark.

Steve

Yeah, what the heck is he talking about??  UKR is not facing a great RU army every mile of the HUGE front line.  And if they can break through they can cause a lot of pain.  UKR has better ability to move assets up & down the line.  THey also have the freedom to decide where to strike.  Sure, so does RU, except that RU is much less mobile so can't exploit anything.  Plus, a 50km push by UKR, like to Starobilsk in the north or along the southern front would wreck RU defenses/logistics in ways that RU can only dream of doing to UKR.  

So what the heck is he talking about??  Does he think UKR needs 10million shells because it'll be months to crack the line, like WW1 style?  Maybe, but the evidence seems to indicate RU will not be able to properly man/equip the 500km line properly and so will be very vulnerable.

[Kinophile]

Dara Massicot on missile strikes 

 

[Kinophile]

ChrisO pointing out just how widespread and growing are the internal complaints from Mobiks.  I mean cry me a river, not  one is saying stop the war,  it's wrong, so I've very limited, ie none,  concern about them being sent to "senseless slaughter"  in "pointless assaults".  The whole goddamn war is senseless and pointless.  

So,  good to get visuals on the growing stress points. 

Its an excellent thread,  and in summary:

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Kinophile

[LongLeftFlank]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Must. Not. Lose. Entire. Weekend. Watching. This. Entire. Series.  Aaaargh!!!

 

 

[dan/california]

 

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/sustainability/do-mine-tailings-contain-rare-earths/

Quote

Tailings mounds and dams might be a pre-packaged source of the critical minerals and rare earths vital for modern green technology.

And there a LOT of them out there.

Edited March 11, 2023 by dan/california

[The_Capt]

41 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

 

Yeesh, that report did not age well:

“The key military tasks of the unified strategic operation are all related to engaging targets beyond the range of Russian ground forces and artillery. These tasks are long-range conventional strikes against critical military and civilian targets; electronic warfare (EW) to disrupt command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); counterspace actions; and cyberattacks against critical infrastructure.”

Russia could not get a unified operational level operation, let alone a strategic one.  We were expecting this at the opening of this thing and instead got whatever this missile lobbing exercise has been.

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Yeesh, that report did not age well:

“The key military tasks of the unified strategic operation are all related to engaging targets beyond the range of Russian ground forces and artillery. These tasks are long-range conventional strikes against critical military and civilian targets; electronic warfare (EW) to disrupt command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); counterspace actions; and cyberattacks against critical infrastructure.”

Russia could not get a unified operational level operation, let alone a strategic one.  We were expecting this at the opening of this thing and instead got whatever this missile lobbing exercise has been.

It is a great window in to the prewar forecasts of how the war would go. Rand is STILL giving Russia to much credit. They are a major piece of the "don't make Putin mad" side of the policy debate. 

[Battlefront.com]

27 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

These tasks are long-range conventional strikes against critical military and civilian targets;

Well, one can argue that RAND at least got the last part correct.  I mean, Russia is for sure going after civilian targets, even if they can't be specific about which ones they hit.

Steve

[The_Capt]

26 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, one can argue that RAND at least got the last part correct.  I mean, Russia is for sure going after civilian targets, even if they can't be specific about which ones they hit.

Steve

Critical shopping malls and apartment buildings.  No way to dress it up, the Russian “strategic” deep strike campaign has been a flop.  It caused a lot of misery and committed a lot of warcrimes, but that just amped up support for Ukraine and painted stark lines in this conflict.  It did not drive Ukraine or the West towards political dilemma in fact it did the exact opposite.  And it did very little in supporting strategic military goals.  

A really skeptical part of me thinks there was a movement to sell Russia as more dangerous than it was for various reasons.  Turns out Russia was a pretty sad and sorry bear - but even as such we are still dealing with capacity and preparedness issues.  Basically Russia set the bar pretty low and we are still finding out how hard it is to jump over it.

[sburke]

16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Critical shopping malls and apartment buildings.  

and what is an integral part of shopping malls and Apt buildings..?  C'mon you know you want to say it.

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Yeesh, that report did not age well:

“The key military tasks of the unified strategic operation are all related to engaging targets beyond the range of Russian ground forces and artillery. These tasks are long-range conventional strikes against critical military and civilian targets; electronic warfare (EW) to disrupt command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); counterspace actions; and cyberattacks against critical infrastructure.”

Russia could not get a unified operational level operation, let alone a strategic one.  We were expecting this at the opening of this thing and instead got whatever this missile lobbing exercise has been.

I started to skim it but immediately suffered severe cognitive dissonance.  I wasn't sure if it was me or them.

I'll assume it was them and try not to look at the rest of it.

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

It is a great window in to the prewar forecasts of how the war would go. Rand is STILL giving Russia to much credit. They are a major piece of the "don't make Putin mad" side of the policy debate. 

They're cold warriors at their core, and despite the past 30 years are probably still harboring a view of Russia as the USSR (which really wasn't even the USSR that we thought they were).  

Or maybe it's all the secondhand smoke from all the weed on the street in Santa Monica.

[LongLeftFlank]

52 minutes ago, chrisl said:

They're cold warriors at their core, and despite the past 30 years are probably still harboring a view of Russia as the USSR (which really wasn't even the USSR that we thought they were).  

Or maybe it's all the secondhand smoke from all the weed on the street in Santa Monica.

 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Yeesh, that report did not age well:

“The key military tasks of the unified strategic operation are all related to engaging targets beyond the range of Russian ground forces and artillery. These tasks are long-range conventional strikes against critical military and civilian targets; electronic warfare (EW) to disrupt command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); counterspace actions; and cyberattacks against critical infrastructure.”

Russia could not get a unified operational level operation, let alone a strategic one.  We were expecting this at the opening of this thing and instead got whatever this missile lobbing exercise has been.

Well Dara did post an amusing Wartime Pettiness Thread on Shoigu.  (Warning, contains shirtless middle aged despots)

...It of course culminates in Prigozhin's WTF dude??!!!! moment being locked out of the office, and ghosted by the boss.

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Critical shopping malls and apartment buildings.  No way to dress it up, the Russian “strategic” deep strike campaign has been a flop.  It caused a lot of misery and committed a lot of warcrimes, but that just amped up support for Ukraine and painted stark lines in this conflict.  It did not drive Ukraine or the West towards political dilemma in fact it did the exact opposite.  And it did very little in supporting strategic military goals.  

A really skeptical part of me thinks there was a movement to sell Russia as more dangerous than it was for various reasons.  Turns out Russia was a pretty sad and sorry bear - but even as such we are still dealing with capacity and preparedness issues.  Basically Russia set the bar pretty low and we are still finding out how hard it is to jump over it.

And we need to pick up our game fast enough to convince China NOT to invade Taiwan and wreck the world economy. 10,000 155mm shells a day need to start rolling of lines where they more or less literally never touched by anything except a robot. 

[cesmonkey]

Kofman gave a talk with a few PowerPoint slides looking back at why the Russian invasion plan failed. It was for a Canadian security conference. I find this to be fairly coherent presentation in which he doesn't try to predict the future.  The first part is a long introduction of Kofman, which I skipped. It was uploaded 3 days ago but I don't know when the conference occurred.

 

[womble]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Critical shopping malls and apartment buildings.

At least they've switched from exclusively targeting the "do not target" list, and not just because (I think) they've flattened all the schools and hospitals... Even Vlad recognised that approach was counterproductive for the Russki image, internationally (I give him no credit whatsoever for recognising the barbarity of the tactic).

[Haiduk]

UKR soldiers hide in the basement when Russian tank works at their building. 

Buildings in CM should have underground levels

 

[Haiduk]

11 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Was also several years hanging around reconstruction groups, but ancient ones (still do some educational projects for them), so there a non-zero chance we met somewhere if you ever was in Poland.

And come on, Time of Honour was terrible. I still try to figure out why we cannot do in this country proper historical movies like Czechs, Norwegians and others do.

I was involved in 13th century re-enactment and was in Chersk in 2013 ) 

Series always have some "author vision", it's just a question - to what degree when developments turn out into pure fantasy or "by motives". I read then about persons of AK and developments, mentioned in this movie, and has found, that discrepancies and "author vision" is not so hight to call this series terrible. It was interest to watch, my wife especially liked Lars Rainer because he was showed as interest and non-standard character ) 

In Ukraine alas, there are no even such "terrible" series. There were three attempts to make movies about UPA, but they turned out more in style of "Ukrainian poetic movie", than historical films.

[Haiduk]

Lancet against Stormer

... and likely Excalibur against Buk M2 or even M3 

PS. Excalibur against Osa

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Haiduk