How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

Wagners yesterday posted a video with own flag on multistorey building on right bank of Bakhmutivka river. One of their fighters told in comments they conducted surprised attack and could push off UKR from the river because of bad weather (strong wind and heavy snow) didn't allow them to use drones for monitoring and coordination

And approximate situation inside the town

Edited April 1, 2023 by Haiduk

[Kinophile]

@chrisl and @The_Capt -  ref GPS dependencies

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2Zyb20tdGhlLWNyb3dzLW5lc3Q/episode/NjA2MDczZTctMjBmZC00OTgxLWE5MGUtMTE2NzMwZjY0NmJm?ep=14

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Kinophile

[Kinophile]

Everything is fine. 

[cesmonkey]

26 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

@chrisl and @The_Capt -  ref GPS dependencies

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2Zyb20tdGhlLWNyb3dzLW5lc3Q/episode/NjA2MDczZTctMjBmZC00OTgxLWE5MGUtMTE2NzMwZjY0NmJm?ep=14

 

It was an OK podcast. My takeaways were that the GPS signal, by design, is so feint compared to background noise that it's relatively easy to jam.  And such jammers are becoming cheap and commonplace.  If you want to improve your resistance to jamming, give your device a focused antenna that only looks in the upward direction for the GPS signal and not omni-directional.  Finally, other major powers, Russia and China, overcome some of these GPS signal limitations by using powerful terrestrial-based location signal generators that are much less resistance to jamming. The US would be wise to match that capability.

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, chrisl said:

Not easy (and harder to do with everything moving), but doesn't violate any laws of physics.

Well it sounds like an EW swarm, and a lot of possible points of failure.  Of course if one can get 2-3 unmanned systems on a single enemy platform, why bother with EW? Just kill the thing.  I mean with the amount of effort we are talking about to blunt one system it will likely be easier to simply hammer it.  Even if it is another UAS, if you can have three other UAS in an array to corrupt its signal (and if it is fully autonomous it is really the ISR data feed) then it would likely be easier just take out the enemy UAS outright as you have 1) found and fixed it, 2) can track with multiple targets so you do not lose it in trees or terrain and 3) are already projecting low level energy at the thing.  Why not just use one of the array UAS to directly engage?

The advantage of high energy systems is they deny really wide areas.  But they also are highly visible.  I think you are describing an area network of EW, all low level energy and very precise - I can see applications in SOF work for specific jobs, however in conventional warfare c-UAS swarms would probably be a better (and easier) way to go.  Now if it is a conventional platform like GSR or C2, again easier to simply guide in PGM than try to speaker/microphone the thing in what sounds like a pretty complicated plan.

Finally, if your opponent mounts it comms network on a mobile dynamic UAS mesh net, you are going to need 2-3 times the UAS to blind it using this approach, that does not sound very practical when one takes into account terrain.  We have not even started on UGS or got into higher altitude systems.  And the we got space to worry about.

[The_Capt]

Following up.  Now something like this has a lot more promise: https://www.srcinc.com/products/ew-spectrum-operations/silent-impact-munition-launched-ew-system.html

Wont do as much against fully autonomous systems but could play merry hell in the backfield in making a lot of noise we can’t do much about.  They are temporary but are cheaper so can be employed for local superiority/C2 backbones.

[Haiduk]

Interesting application of commercial magnitometer + drone for aerial mine searching.

Though, this guy now is serviceman of State Emergency Service, not army sapper. 

 

[Kinophile]

31 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Interesting application of commercial magnitometer + drone for aerial mine searching.

Though, this guy now is serviceman of State Emergency Service, not army sapper. 

 

I saw this a month ago,  pointed to that Ryan Hendrickson guy,  @thetipofthespear on Twitter. He was interested. 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Kinophile

[Haiduk]

Locals say Russian ammo dump was hit in Andriivka village 19 km SE from Volnovakha town, Donetsk oblast. Detonations all the night.

[Haiduk]

Some more "spring" on Donbas ) 

 

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

Ukraine Victory Unlikely This Year, Milley Says
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/03/ukraine-victory-unlikely-year-milley-says/384681/

 

I agree with this assessment and it seems everybody here who has contributed does as well.  The only way 100% of Ukrainian territory is taken back this year is if the entire Russian government collapses and the Crimean criminals ask to become a part of Ukraine again.  Highly unlikely.  But could Ukraine regain most of the remaining 2022 occupied territory?  Quite possible.  Still difficult, but militarily possible.

On the topic of collapse and Crimea.  We have to remind ourselves that the Crimean occupation government is already semi-independent of Moscow.  After Russia militarily occupied it in 2014 they appointed local organized crime figures to government positions.  There were some power struggles between Moscow and Simferopol, but for the most part (from what I remember) the locals won more than they lost and remain firmly in control.

What this means is if Russia descends into chaos to any degree the Crimean occupation government will gain more autonomy.  The most likely scenario is that they will organize to fight a Ukrainian ground attack regardless of what is going on in Moscow.  In an extreme collapse scenario I could see them negotiating some sort of peace deal with Ukraine and cut Moscow out of it.

I see the same thing happening in DLPR, however they are so spent from years of fighting I'm not sure how motivated they'd be to "go it alone" if Moscow is unable or unwilling to continue supporting them.  Geographically it would be much harder for them to defend against a Ukrainian ground attack and they've long since wiped out their manpower reserves.

Steve

[Kinophile]

https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-soldiers-criticize-changes-to-combat-bonus-pay/

Hmmm. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Well it sounds like an EW swarm, and a lot of possible points of failure.  Of course if one can get 2-3 unmanned systems on a single enemy platform, why bother with EW? Just kill the thing.  I mean with the amount of effort we are talking about to blunt one system it will likely be easier to simply hammer it.  Even if it is another UAS, if you can have three other UAS in an array to corrupt its signal (and if it is fully autonomous it is really the ISR data feed) then it would likely be easier just take out the enemy UAS outright as you have 1) found and fixed it, 2) can track with multiple targets so you do not lose it in trees or terrain and 3) are already projecting low level energy at the thing.  Why not just use one of the array UAS to directly engage?

The advantage of high energy systems is they deny really wide areas.  But they also are highly visible.  I think you are describing an area network of EW, all low level energy and very precise - I can see applications in SOF work for specific jobs, however in conventional warfare c-UAS swarms would probably be a better (and easier) way to go.  Now if it is a conventional platform like GSR or C2, again easier to simply guide in PGM than try to speaker/microphone the thing in what sounds like a pretty complicated plan.

Finally, if your opponent mounts it comms network on a mobile dynamic UAS mesh net, you are going to need 2-3 times the UAS to blind it using this approach, that does not sound very practical when one takes into account terrain.  We have not even started on UGS or got into higher altitude systems.  And the we got space to worry about.

Agreed.

I think the whole ISR/EW discussion can sometimes get a bit lopsided in a way this is similar to past arguments when some new tech comes into existence.  People predicted the "paperless office", for example.  Many futurists thought we'd all be in flying cars by this point.  The death of all brick-and-mortar stores by online shopping hasn't happened and, in some cases, is going the other way.  Then there's the crypto currency folks who said traditional currencies would die.  So on and so forth.  While the trends might have been correctly predicted, the speed and/or thoroughness of taking over for established systems/processes was not.  ISR/EW is not going to replace the need or the benefit of hard killing your opponent's stuff.

In my vision of a Desert Shield type pre-ground battle operation I see hard kill goals being right up there at the top of the list.  The best way to defeat long range PGMs is to destroy whatever deploys them.  Artillery systems are vulnerable to discovery and increasingly vulnerable to counter fire.  Drones can't perform their missions if they are detected and engaged.  EW and ISR assets don't work so well when they've been turned into burnt metal.  So on and so forth.  And whatever survives the pre-ground battle operation will stick out like a sore thumb as soon as the ground operation starts, leading to its quick demise.

Saturating a large battlespace with EW and ISR is really just a means of enabling precision hard kill systems, not a substitute for them.

Steve

[kevinkin]

https://weapons.substack.com/p/leopards-challengers-and-abrams-tanks

"The trouble with our" "friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

Talk about taking technical details out of operational context. 

[danfrodo]

38 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I agree with this assessment and it seems everybody here who has contributed does as well.  The only way 100% of Ukrainian territory is taken back this year is if the entire Russian government collapses and the Crimean criminals ask to become a part of Ukraine again.  Highly unlikely.  But could Ukraine regain most of the remaining 2022 occupied territory?  Quite possible.  Still difficult, but militarily possible.

On the topic of collapse and Crimea.  We have to remind ourselves that the Crimean occupation government is already semi-independent of Moscow.  After Russia militarily occupied it in 2014 they appointed local organized crime figures to government positions.  There were some power struggles between Moscow and Simferopol, but for the most part (from what I remember) the locals won more than they lost and remain firmly in control.

What this means is if Russia descends into chaos to any degree the Crimean occupation government will gain more autonomy.  The most likely scenario is that they will organize to fight a Ukrainian ground attack regardless of what is going on in Moscow.  In an extreme collapse scenario I could see them negotiating some sort of peace deal with Ukraine and cut Moscow out of it.

I see the same thing happening in DLPR, however they are so spent from years of fighting I'm not sure how motivated they'd be to "go it alone" if Moscow is unable or unwilling to continue supporting them.  Geographically it would be much harder for them to defend against a Ukrainian ground attack and they've long since wiped out their manpower reserves.

Steve

Crimea independent.  Interesting.  They don't even have their own water.  They can't grow much food.  They have no oil.  No one w any valuable skills would want live there.  Gonna be a real economic powerhouse. 

I am w Milley on 2023 likely outcomes.  Land liberation of Crimea is really problematic, same w breakaway Donbas.  I am hoping for returning to 2022 borders & RU military collapse such that RU is not a threat for many years.  The dream for me is regime collapse where various RU republics spin off.  RU becomes a bigger NKorea but with no oil.  Well, a fella can dream, can't he?

[kevinkin]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

enabling precision hard kill systems, not a substitute for them.

And by enabling them you can win without fighting (area denial) which is the ultimate form of maneuver warfare i.e. preemption. Why fight with my kinetic weapons tried behind my back? 

[cesmonkey]

16 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

https://weapons.substack.com/p/leopards-challengers-and-abrams-tanks

"The trouble with our" "friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

Talk about taking technical details out of operational context. 

I had to look up the author.
https://yorktowninstitute.org/fellows/stephen-bryen/
https://www.bryensblog.com/about/
 

He definitely has some expertise.  I do understand that the Israeli active  armor defense and iron dome systems provide some good capabilities that would be nice to have. I do wonder if he is a little biased in support for them given his Israeli/Jewish ties.

[Battlefront.com]

Guest essay in the NY Times (paywall, probably) about why Russians fight.  Nothing new, but it is a good summary of how male ego, propaganda, and poverty are driving Russians to willingly go to war.  The same things also lead to them thinking the war is "just". 

At the end the authors presented the same possibility of support collapsing as you've seen me repeat over and over again.  The incompetence, broken promises, losses at the front, etc. add up and opposition to the war might finally become meaningful (even if it is only draft dodging on a large scale).  However, they also put forward the possibility that Russia might be in such a deep state of psychosis that, like a death cult, people will stick to Putin all the way to the end. 

Quote

Such support, of course, is contingent. The longer the war drags on, bringing more casualties, loss and broken promises, the harder it may become to sustain such levels of acceptance. Then again, it may not. Collective emotional turmoil could deepen the feeling that the war must be won, no matter what. In the absence of an alternative vision of the future, Vladimir Putin and his war will continue to hold sway.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-soldiers.html?smid=url-share

Over the past year I've become more and more convinced that the only way support for the war will end is if the frontline collapses.  Meaning Ukraine not only takes back large swaths of territory in some dramatic fashion, but also kills/captures a large chunk of the Russian forces while doing so.  Even then I think Russian support will remain strong, however it won't be enough to keep the war going due to equipment lost in such a collapse.  Russia simply doesn't have the ability to replace such large quantities of stuff at all, not to mention quickly.

Of all the things Putin has gotten right with this war is successfully shedding the last vestiges of a modern country and transitioning it to a medieval state.

Steve

[kevinkin]

12 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

He definitely has some expertise.

"And it is increasingly likely that plenty of the main battle tanks from Europe and the United States will go up in smoke, along with their crews."

Does the writer actually think that NATO is teeing up its armor (albeit old) for failure? I think the interesting discussion is how will they be used on the battlefield. They are coming. Ukraine is not returning them to the sender. 

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well it sounds like an EW swarm, and a lot of possible points of failure.  Of course if one can get 2-3 unmanned systems on a single enemy platform, why bother with EW? Just kill the thing.  I mean with the amount of effort we are talking about to blunt one system it will likely be easier to simply hammer it.  Even if it is another UAS, if you can have three other UAS in an array to corrupt its signal (and if it is fully autonomous it is really the ISR data feed) then it would likely be easier just take out the enemy UAS outright as you have 1) found and fixed it, 2) can track with multiple targets so you do not lose it in trees or terrain and 3) are already projecting low level energy at the thing.  Why not just use one of the array UAS to directly engage?

The advantage of high energy systems is they deny really wide areas.  But they also are highly visible.  I think you are describing an area network of EW, all low level energy and very precise - I can see applications in SOF work for specific jobs, however in conventional warfare c-UAS swarms would probably be a better (and easier) way to go.  Now if it is a conventional platform like GSR or C2, again easier to simply guide in PGM than try to speaker/microphone the thing in what sounds like a pretty complicated plan.

Finally, if your opponent mounts it comms network on a mobile dynamic UAS mesh net, you are going to need 2-3 times the UAS to blind it using this approach, that does not sound very practical when one takes into account terrain.  We have not even started on UGS or got into higher altitude systems.  And the we got space to worry about.

It's actually very redundant, because once you have multiple units per target, each improves the suppression on *all* the targets - if you lose one out of N in the swarm, the suppression on all the targets is reduced by 1/N.  So unlike an area denial system that's just radiating a huge amount of power that says "shoot me first!" you have a bunch of little radiators and you have to hit each one individually, with hitting any one of them not giving you much improvement in getting your signals through.  And while you have to have a lot of them, they can probably all be pretty small - essentially a plague of locusts. Or maybe sparrows. You might be right that it's easier to just shoot everybody who's radiating because you've found and fixed them - with a similar but smaller network of detector sparrows you can localize everybody.

The space part is kind of interesting. Basically if you can afford to launch something like starlink you can do it from space for signals that are going up to space. The time lags and beam spread (unless you have ginormous antennas) will make it hard to do hyperlocalized suppression from space.

 

[chrisl]

59 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Agreed.

I think the whole ISR/EW discussion can sometimes get a bit lopsided in a way this is similar to past arguments when some new tech comes into existence.  People predicted the "paperless office", for example.  Many futurists thought we'd all be in flying cars by this point.  The death of all brick-and-mortar stores by online shopping hasn't happened and, in some cases, is going the other way.  Then there's the crypto currency folks who said traditional currencies would die.  So on and so forth.  While the trends might have been correctly predicted, the speed and/or thoroughness of taking over for established systems/processes was not.  ISR/EW is not going to replace the need or the benefit of hard killing your opponent's stuff.

In my vision of a Desert Shield type pre-ground battle operation I see hard kill goals being right up there at the top of the list.  The best way to defeat long range PGMs is to destroy whatever deploys them.  Artillery systems are vulnerable to discovery and increasingly vulnerable to counter fire.  Drones can't perform their missions if they are detected and engaged.  EW and ISR assets don't work so well when they've been turned into burnt metal.  So on and so forth.  And whatever survives the pre-ground battle operation will stick out like a sore thumb as soon as the ground operation starts, leading to its quick demise.

Saturating a large battlespace with EW and ISR is really just a means of enabling precision hard kill systems, not a substitute for them.

Steve

FWIW, I don't think there's any paper in my office less than about 5 years old, and I get in trouble any time I need a pen for something.  That's been one of the best things ever, because the admins always complained about my overflowing mailbox that I never emptied.  I still don't empty it, but nothing gets put there, either, except the occasional envelope with a piece of physical schwag in it.  

And don't get me started on crypto...

You and The_Capt are both right as far as once you've got enough EW drones in the air for the phased array to spot everybody you should send them something that explodes instead of sending them an electric field that confuses them.

[Kinophile]

https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/army-green-berets-test-silent-arrow-gd-2000-cargo-delivery-drone/?amp

1500 Lbs sent 40km,,accurately. Seems like a winner. 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

https://weapons.substack.com/p/leopards-challengers-and-abrams-tanks

"The trouble with our" "friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

Talk about taking technical details out of operational context. 

I think we should have sent brand new tanks, and AFVS from current units with APS, and have sent them months ago. That said Russian tanks and ATGMs are about sixth on my list of worries regarding threats to the new NATO equipped units. The thing that worries me the most is mines, which to knowledge is problem nobody has solved for very well. I realize breaching/engineering vehicles are being sent as well, but mines are still an unsolved problem in a lot of ways. The second thing is whatever semi guided and/or cluster MLRS munitions the Russians have left. The third is a once NATO tanks are committed to battle the Russian air-force might might be ordered to do the kind of semi suicidal close support missions it has so far sat out. Of course if their are enough SAM systems forward that they are trading an SU-35 for every tank they take out that is probably a win for Ukraine.

I do think Ukraine is going to have to do some fairly cold hearted things, using NATO tanks on overwatch while T-72s/T64s advance into danger. But the NATO stuff should be so much better at range, and especially at night the harsh truth is that it just makes sense to do it that way.

Edited April 1, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

47 minutes ago, chrisl said:

FWIW, I don't think there's any paper in my office less than about 5 years old, and I get in trouble any time I need a pen for something.  That's been one of the best things ever, because the admins always complained about my overflowing mailbox that I never emptied.  I still don't empty it, but nothing gets put there, either, except the occasional envelope with a piece of physical schwag in it.

Heh.  Yes, and that's another thing that happens when you hear someone deride those who predicted a paperless office.  Sure, it hasn't happened 100%, but it's probably 90% for most of us and oh boy that's a good thing!

47 minutes ago, chrisl said:

And don't get me started on crypto...

Nobody should get anybody started on crypto

47 minutes ago, chrisl said:

You and The_Capt are both right as far as once you've got enough EW drones in the air for the phased array to spot everybody you should send them something that explodes instead of sending them an electric field that confuses them.

The use of drone swarms to interfere with signals is a solid strategy for the defense industry to work towards.  As you say, the physics check out.  It's absolutely the right way to go.

That said, it needs to be part of a much larger structure with quite a few complimentary systems that don't yet exist.  It's like going back to the 1960s and trying to imagine a SEAD against radar guided anti-air missile systems.  Dropping a bunch of strips of metal just wasn't good enough any more.  One had to do things like that as well as detect emission sources so that they could be explicitly targeted.  Over time that developed into PGMs explicitly designed for SEAD.

The lessons from Desert Shield and Operation Noble Anvil (bombing of Serbia) is that if you have the right tools and the luxury of time, SEAD can burn through the enemy's defenses and leave the skies open for offensive activities against the full array of ground based targets.  The SEAD phase doesn't have to be 100% successful, just successful enough that the ground based targets can't be meaningfully protected and while at the same time keeping friendly losses to a minimum.

Steve

[dan/california]

8 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Donbas in deep snow again now. This is Bakhmut

Though, Russian territory also affected with snowfall - "Don" highway in Rostov oblast was paralized with 60 km traffic jam.

Excellent discipline and hard work to get that trench shoveled out. That must have &$%$& E&ER&. And of course your clothes are soaking wet when you are done, and that is pain in a trench as well.

Am I correct that this storm has absolutely blanketed the Donbas, but missed a bunch of the land bridge in Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson? Because if so this might the moment to take at least a nibble out of the land bridge. Nothing much is going to move in the Donbas after that blizzard for a week or more given the mud that will surely follow.

Edit: Forecast for the next two days in Donetsk is warm rain. The mud is going to be whatever is worse than bottomless.

Edited April 1, 2023 by dan/california