How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

 

Yesh.  No much worse could have gone wrong for this attack.  Seems half the Russian infantry was already WIA/KIA before the BMP got to the Ukrainian trench.  There's missing footage there, but it seems the BMP didn't survive for very long and the surviving infantry found themselves stuck without enough force to move forward and no ride home.  And yet another example of a drone bomber going out so the infantry doesn't have to.

This assault shows the major limitations of Soviet IFV/AFVs.  The soldiers don't ride inside because hitting a mine or getting smacked by an AT weapon probably means death due to the extremely poor armor protection.  Riding on top improves survivability until the point of contact with defensive small arms or nearby artillery hits (or a Javelin... that is messy too). 

The insanity of these attacks is really hard to understand after 1 year of war.  The attack was soundly defeated long before the lone BMP tried to get to the trenches.  The survivors should have retreated and tried again later.  It's like CM's AI carrying on with a plan because that's what it was scripted to do, not because there's some reason to think it might work.

Steve

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

At some level my argument is that if there is a drone overhead, it is about to start directing the PGM artillery anyway. I think, and the U.S. army apparently at least sort of agrees, that laser based systems are the best short to medium term solution to that problem. They at least have much more range, much better logistics, and don't have the spent round problem. Killing UAVs with other cheap UAVs is obviously the best plan, but it must be at least slightly harder than it looks, or the Russians wouldn't still be flying Orlans, and the Ukrainians wouldn't have to kill them with million dollar SAMs they don't have enough of.

So we should help them by projecting enough energy into the environment it can be seen from space?  High energy solutions are problematic as they then need more high energy solutions to keep them alive.  And no one has solved for a 155mm PGM round, or HIMAR coming in at Mach 3+.

The fundamental flaw with some US (and most western militaries)thinking is that they are trying to citadel their existing structures and treating UAS/unmanned as something to be managed.  This was the overall strategy for ATGMs (detectors, smoke, manoeuvres, combined arms and finally APS), which was never really tested en masse but that did stop us from assuming that these ATGM counters would work.  Worse, we assumed that these counters would continue to work as ATGM tech marched on.

As the Russians have found out 1) next-gen ATGMs are incredibly hard to “manage” in fact for some they really can’t be and 2) UAS in combination with C4ISR are changing the fabric of the battle space.  This is not manageable, it requires some deep rethinks on how military power is projected in the future.  

Strapping high energy lasers on everything and then trying to do Bn TF manoeuvres just like we did in Iraq is going to lead to a really, really bad day…and to be honest most people in the biz know this already.  Protecting legacy systems will be required but it will only buy a narrow context of advantages in a narrower set of employment.  Point defence systems need to be just that “point” as in last minute “holy crap some got through” not “queue the Disco Star Wars soundtrack and start burning holes all over the sky”.  It is the other layers of the bubble that will need to be developed along with new types of organizations and TTPs.

But if I know military thinking we will see a 90 ton tank with so much crap slapped on it the damn thing won’t be able to stay upright.  Then we will have to do same with logistics and suddenly a viable BCT will weigh roughly as much as Pluto…because gravity does not care about your feelings, cap badge, investments or budgetary profiles

[The_Capt]

18 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

More on drones reaching nearly to Moscow

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-explosive-drones-are-getting-very-close-to-moscow  Several locations in Russia, including near Moscow - as well as Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula it has occupied since 2014 - were reportedly hit by Ukrainian drone attacks Sunday and Monday, according to the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD), local government officials and various media accounts.

A Ukrainian UJ-22 drone packed with explosives was found near Moscow, in what appears to be the closest discovery of a weaponized Ukrainian drone near Russia’s capital. However, there was a discrepancy in reporting about exactly where it landed.

Hmm, well it was a matter of time until someone called Russia on its whole “I will take us all to hell so we can shout at the Devil together” BS.

[Kinophile]

Christ, we're not far off someone strapping a dirty nuke to an octocopter and flying it into a mass public event. 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Kinophile

[akd]

Claim that JDAMs are now in use:

 

[Haiduk]

New-formed 37th marines brigade got M-ATV Oshkosh and AMX-10RC

https://mil.in.ua/uk/news/morski-pihotyntsi-opanovuyut-bronemashyny-amx-10rc-ta-oshkosh-m-atv/

[kimbosbread]

6 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Christ, we're not far off someone strapping a dirty nuke to an octocopter and flying it into a mass public event. 

Psssh, you could cause a stampede just by dropping a bunch of dollar bills over a public event. Way cheaper than a nuke.

[Bannon]

3 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Russia's new T-14 Armata battle tank debuts in Ukraine - RIA (Reuters)

British military intelligence says that if Russia does deploy these tanks, it will be mostly for propaganda purposes.

Would be neat if Ukraine could take out a T-14 and get it on film for their own propaganda purposes.

I am looking forward to the photos and videos of a Ukrainian farmer pulling a T-14 with his tractor!

[Astrophel]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

 An interesting alternative view of where we are now

Sudan proves that the only thing worse than Western meddling is Western absence (yahoo.com)

Excellent and thought provoking.

 Despite all the propaganda about "western hegemony" the west has been retiring during the past 20 years.  Countries that may have been expecting a western bailout or other intervention have been disappointed.  Ambitious nations like UAE and Saudi Arabia have been flexing their muscles, and Wagner has been appearing all over the place along with ISIS militias (and who is directing them?).  The vacuum started with Obama. Trump sucked the oxygen away completely allowing misrule to flourish.

The United Nations is rendered impotent by Putin and Xi, while USA is no longer playing the hegemony game.  Nations like Sudan and Libya and those over indebted to China are being left to their own devices.  Nations like South Africa are allowed to descend into corruption, while Wagner extends. 

Into the vacuum leaps Vladimir Putin with his vampire reconstruction of the Russian Empire.  The west needs to put an unambiguous nail into his heart.  The much discussed Ukrainian counter offensive should, hopefully, make a strong statement that undermines his support in "russia" and provokes its disintegration.  Depending how you look at it, "russia" is either 45 separate nations or 7 separate nations or some other mix.

The bold statement would be the recapture of Mariupol.  Mariupol is Putin's signature dish.  He has even been rebuilding and recreating it.  Militarily it might not be the best win, and it should not cost too many lives in any case, but symbolically it should put a knife in Putin's vampire heart.  It might even be the final straw for the idea of the new russian empire.  Mariupol has a symbolic value much greater than kilometres in Kherson, and is much less likely to trigger a nuclear escalation.

What the propagandists fail to acknowledge is that the west is evolving and discarding what does not work  What does work we have yet to discover.  Hopefully Ukraine can show the way and we give them full support.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Astrophel
cosmetics

[Kinophile]

 

 

[Kinophile]

I'm a fan of RBGB. They epitomise the revenge of the Nerds, which I love, for I am of their ilk. 

[sburke]

34 minutes ago, Astrophel said:

Nations like South Africa are allowed to descend into corruption, while Wagner extends.

I retired from Mckinsey and Co almost 2 years ago now.  During my time there this was a major event. 

McKinsey Charged in South African Corruption Case - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

This bit turned out to be utter BS. “We believe the charges filed against our South Africa office are meritless and we will defend against them,” a spokesman for McKinsey said in a statement.

In the end they almost shuttered their SA operation and a few folks lost their jobs.  I can hardly blame China for it.

Edited April 25, 2023 by sburke

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So we should help them by projecting enough energy into the environment it can be seen from space?  High energy solutions are problematic as they then need more high energy solutions to keep them alive.  And no one has solved for a 155mm PGM round, or HIMAR coming in at Mach 3+.

The fundamental flaw with some US (and most western militaries)thinking is that they are trying to citadel their existing structures and treating UAS/unmanned as something to be managed.  This was the overall strategy for ATGMs (detectors, smoke, manoeuvres, combined arms and finally APS), which was never really tested en masse but that did stop us from assuming that these ATGM counters would work.  Worse, we assumed that these counters would continue to work as ATGM tech marched on.

As the Russians have found out 1) next-gen ATGMs are incredibly hard to “manage” in fact for some they really can’t be and 2) UAS in combination with C4ISR are changing the fabric of the battle space.  This is not manageable, it requires some deep rethinks on how military power is projected in the future.  

Strapping high energy lasers on everything and then trying to do Bn TF manoeuvres just like we did in Iraq is going to lead to a really, really bad day…and to be honest most people in the biz know this already.  Protecting legacy systems will be required but it will only buy a narrow context of advantages in a narrower set of employment.  Point defence systems need to be just that “point” as in last minute “holy crap some got through” not “queue the Disco Star Wars soundtrack and start burning holes all over the sky”.  It is the other layers of the bubble that will need to be developed along with new types of organizations and TTPs.

But if I know military thinking we will see a 90 ton tank with so much crap slapped on it the damn thing won’t be able to stay upright.  Then we will have to do same with logistics and suddenly a viable BCT will weigh roughly as much as Pluto…because gravity does not care about your feelings, cap badge, investments or budgetary profiles

All true, and it has been since they invented this thing. 

But there is also a TON of video of the Ukrainians digging Wagnerites out of holes with grenades. So at some point the highest tech stuff ever built has to interface with the poor bloody infantry. Those infantry need to ride most of the way AFVs or it is too easy to kill with them WW1 tech. I am not sure we know how this works in a decade. Can we actually build useable robot dogs to go dig with grenades?

We also need to tell the Russians that unless they get along with losing the war softly, a whole lot more toys like this one are going to show up and help them lose it very, very hard.

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by dan/california

[Haiduk]

Enough rare Russian ELINT equipment was destroyed near Lymanivka village, Zaporizhzhia oblast (about 22 km from frontline). This is MKTK-1A "Dziudoist" ("Judoka" - who comes up with such stupid names? ). This asset is adopted in 2012 and appointed for measures of communication safety control, protecting important information channels, assesment of electromagnetic environment.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Haiduk

[Beleg85]

Interesting snippets from interview with gen. Sirsky, especialy regarding this aplication Russians use to mark defenders:

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Beleg85

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

All true, and it has been since they invented this thing. 

But there is also a TON of video of the Ukrainians digging Wagnerites out of holes with grenades. So at some point the highest tech stuff ever built has to interface with the poor bloody infantry. Those infantry need to ride most of the way AFVs or it is too easy to kill with them WW1 tech. I am not sure we know how this works in a decade. Can we actually build useable robot dogs to go dig with grenades?

We also need to tell the Russians that unless they get along with losing the war softly, a whole lot more toys like this one are going to show up and help them lose it very, very hard.

 

Right and pretty soon someone is going to put a little angry/hungry brain on each one of those cluster munitions.  Of Russia is hooped, question is how bad and where is the off-ramp if such a thing even still exists?  Next war is what I am worried about because Russia is also going to figure all this out, eventually.  China probably already has.

[Haiduk]

Starlink in the cage. 

But this is not against Lancets. Here is a story of minds battle in electronic warfare, which has written by UKR serviceman, one of enthusiasts of different communication and SIGINT/ELINT improvements. 

Russians have found a method to interfere work of Starlinks - UKR servicemen spotted so far that sometime some wrong with their terminals in some places. Since some time a directive of Russian command to some EW unit was intercepted, whith describing of this method.

Russian EW equipments can't affect satellite frequensies of Starlink, but they found other weak point - GPS module. When it GPS is under supressing, Starlink terminal passes authentification very hard and even it can pass it, soon speed of channel quickly degrades down to almost zero. The problem is not that the module can't locate itself, but because sinchronization lose itself. 

If recently Russians hide EW assets in lowlands to supress commercial drones and in order it was hard to find it, that now they set EW assets on heights to supress Starlinks. In Bakhmut, for example, they locateds EW assets on the roofs of tall buildings. Also their complex "Pole-21" appointed to attach on cell base stations masts. UKR drone operators in zone of workk of such devices immediately spotted their drones stopped to see GPS signals even on the ground. 

So, now in UKR troops in "social network communication mode" the counter-measures are shared:

1. To make "Faraday's cage" around the terminal and it's desirable to ground it (like on the photo)

2. More simple method - just set terminal into the pit 0.5 m in depth. But to maintain enough wide open space under antenna in order it can see satellites properly. Also this method can allw to detect either your problems because of terminal malfunction or because Russian EW - just set terminal in the trench, if this solve the problem, that Russian EW assset is turned on somewhere.

3. To detect, find and destroy any Russian EW assets  

Edited April 25, 2023 by Haiduk

[Centurian52]

On 4/20/2023 at 1:11 PM, BlackMoria said:

My take after 6 months peacekeeping in Bosnia in '93 -  Savagery is baked into human beings.  Sorry, there is no 'better angels of our nature'  My time in Bosnia dispelled that myth real quick.  The 'better angels of our nature' happens because we employ the frontal cortex to govern ourselves.  But warfare is very primal and hits the primitive emotional centers of our brains first.   Once that happens, the excesses of violence humans are capable of know no bounds.  Which is why in the 22nd century in the future, historians and people will be examining the genocides of the 21st century and asking the same questions.

6 months of seeing the worst of humanity convinced you that there is no better part of humanity? No offense, but I think there might be some sampling bias at play here.

[Kinophile]

 

[Centurian52]

On 4/21/2023 at 12:41 AM, Bulletpoint said:

I don't know why it would be surprising that Russia is only near-peer, with the amount of western hi-tech weapons and training flowing into Ukraine.

Actually I would expect the casualty rates to be much higher in Ukraine's favour than just 2:1. My guesstimate would be more like 3:1 or higher, based on what I've seen so far.

Just looking at Bakhmut, we've seen nine months of constant brute-force assaults straight into the strongest UKR defensive positions, and it's still not taken.

I said breaching 2:1 is an exciting possibility, not that it's surprising (please don't put words into my mouth). My sense from the early part of the war was that the fighting on the ground was pretty even, so through 2022 I assumed the loss ratio was probably around 1:1. Over the last few months I've seen a lot of casualty estimates, each giving very different numbers for Russian and Ukrainian casualties, but all being remarkably consistent in the ratio of Russian to Ukrainian casualties. So long as the same methodology was used to estimate both Ukrainian and Russian casualties, the ratio was always roughly in the range of 1.5 to 1.8 Russian casualties for every 1 Ukrainian casualty. The absolute casualty numbers being estimated were not consistent, but the casualty ratio was fairly consistent, leading me to suspect there was probably some truth behind it.

Now, a loss ratio of 1.5-1.8:1 is doing pretty damn good by any reasonable standard. In a typical peer v peer war a 1.5:1 loss ratio means that you are absolutely dominating your opponent. So I saw a 1.5-1.8:1 loss ratio as proof that the Ukrainians were seriously outperforming the Russians. But a loss ratio of over 2:1 is even better, so I was excited to see a plausible estimate that put the loss ratio that high.

[dan/california]

This bit is worth highlighting.

8 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

 

[Centurian52]

On 4/21/2023 at 1:14 AM, Seedorf81 said:

This awful K2 video reminds me of the numerous stories from (pre-drone) wars and the soldiers' struggle on what to do when mortars zero in on you when caught in the open or partially open.

Veterans seemed to be fairly equally divided on what to do.

A. Drop down, don't move and wait until the worst is over or

B. Immediately run as fast as you can to get out of the kill-zone.

Although it looks to me that drones "solve" this problem by making any escape virtually impossible, I find it remarkable that the only surviving soldier in this clip is the one who got up and started to run. Would that be luck or wisdom?

I don't know, but the more I see these vids, there more I count myself to be very, very VERY lucky not to be in a war.

That is a bit tricky. I always try to keep my pixeltruppens' heads down during a barrage, although that doesn't always work out. From what I've heard, lying down reduces your chance of getting hit by any one shell by a factor of 10. But that doesn't mean that you are only 10% as likely to be killed if you get down as if you got up and ran out of there, since you could be exposed to 10x as many shells if you stay in place vs if you get up and book it out of the target area. I suppose it depends on how long you think the barrage will last and whether there are any gaps. If there is a gap in the barrage, take the opportunity to get out of the target area or get to better cover. If you think it is going to be a short barrage, which will be over before you can leave anyway, then you should stay in place. If you hear the shells incoming and there is some cover you can get to on short notice, such as a building, trench, or bunker, then make a run for it towards that cover. If you have a trench to hide in, which improves your chances of surviving by a factor of 10 again over lying down in the open (so that's 1% as likely to be killed by each shell if you are in a trench vs standing in the open), then you should probably err more in favor of staying put. And if the enemy is targeting a large area that it isn't practical for you to run out of then it might be better to stay in place.

That's a lot of contingencies to remember and it's probably going to be pretty difficult to force your brain to think through them while it is being repeatedly shaken around by large shockwaves, so honestly my view is, if in doubt, get down and stay put. Ultimately it's a grim lottery, and there is nothing you can do that will guarantee survival. If you have enough functioning brain cells to think through one contingency in the middle of a barrage, then I'd say if you're in cover then stay in cover, if you're not in cover then run for cover (I was hoping to come up with a clever mnemonic, but I got nothing).

[Vanir Ausf B]

3 hours ago, akd said:

Claim that JDAMs are now in use:

They definitely are, and have been for a few months now.

________

At the time of the document's publication — which, for many of the documents that were leaked, is late February or early March — Ukraine's air force had dropped at least nine JDAM-ER bombs against Russian targets, but four of them appear to have missed due to Russian jamming. The confidence in this particular assessment was medium to high. The document recommended neutralizing the jammers as before JDAM-ERs are used for best results.

________

https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-jamming-maybe-interfering-us-bomb-kit-ukraine-leaked-documents-2023-4

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, akd said:

Claim that JDAMs are now in use:

 

Certainly not a drone dropping some VOG-15

I'm certainly no expert on this stuff, but I'm thinking these explosions are way bigger than we'd see from HIMARS, especially that third hit.  So either Ukraine has started deploying its own wonder weapons or this is a confirmation that JDAMs are now officially in use.

(ninja'd by Vanir.  I thought the earlier ones were viability tests more than anything else.  Hopefully this video is showing them in more active use).

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I think it's safe to point out to presume we are in the opening phase of Ukraine's Spring/Summer counter offensive.  We have now seen deep strikes on all sorts of things, including naval facilities.  Seems the tempo and scale of these attacks is increasing.  I hope that's not just confirmation bias

Steve