How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Two men trying to remind folks why Ukraine retaking Crimea is not optional but necessary.

Something tells me Ben Hodges and Jan Lipavský would get along just fine.

Gotta tell you, I am kinda in the Hodges camp right now.  Russia controls 15% of Ukraine, and it controlled about 7-8% before the war started.  So all this has been over 6-7%.  I agree that Crimea is the way to go, however, it will need a successful offensive in the next few months to split the land bridge, bring the new missiles within range of the Crimean Bridge and roll the RA back into the bottle neck south of Kherson (on this, why are we not hearing about terror/harassment arty into Kherson...did I miss that?).  

If Ukraine can retake Crimea, and Russia does not start WW3 over it, we have a very clear and undeniable Russian defeat.  Donbas, as we have discussed here is a solid "meh", not critical, not a lot of Ukrainian left there, open would insurgency possibility - just a lot of bad, hell even kraze agreed in the end.

[Seedorf81]

56 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Next year the kamikaze drone won't even need an operator. The recon drone can pass the gps of the target, and in a high jamming environment an terrain matching map automatically recorded by the recon drone. Any number of systems are already capable of pattern matching the picture of the basement opening for terminal guidance. Maybe the recon operator, or his assistant needs to pencil in the desired final attack vector in a 3d map view. There is no reason a two man team of drone operators couldn't dispatch an appropriately targeted kamikaze drone every thirty seconds in a target rich environment. And this is before someone wades into it with real AI. 

Yeah, war always speeds up technology-development.

I suspect it won't take long before we see synchronized drone-clouds (hundreds?) with explosives and "human-recognizing"-software. One operator steers them to the target-area, and then the drones "hunt" individual soldiers. (And any unlucky civilian that is around.)

Scary stuff.

[kevinkin]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/ukraine-rejects-western-fear-putin-nuclear-weapons-crimea

Just a reminder of the positions some have on the rest of this year. They pretty much align with the post just above. If Crimea is so important to Russia, let them overly defend it for know. Use that against them operationally.  

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

(on this, why are we not hearing about terror/harassment arty into Kherson...did I miss that?).  

It has been steadyish, but perhaps declining slowly.

 

Quote

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/26/ukraine-journalist-killed-russian-snipers-bogdan-bitik-corrado-zunino#:~:text=“Today%2C our correspondent Corrado Zunino,Ukraine%2C” La Repubblica said.&text=“Bitik unfortunately did not make,his wife and a son.

You can certainly get killed if you stand up and wave at the Russian's from a prominent spot on the shore. I do have an impression that whatever artillery ammo the Russians have to shoot on speculative harassment and interdiction is being directed towards the line of contact east from the river towards Adivka.

It may be that Ukraine can hold their side of the river with such a low. troop density that even the Russians can figure out there is not  much point.

Edited May 2, 2023 by dan/california

[Centurian52]

41 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Gotta tell you, I am kinda in the Hodges camp right now.  Russia controls 15% of Ukraine, and it controlled about 7-8% before the war started.  So all this has been over 6-7%.  I agree that Crimea is the way to go, however, it will need a successful offensive in the next few months to split the land bridge, bring the new missiles within range of the Crimean Bridge and roll the RA back into the bottle neck south of Kherson (on this, why are we not hearing about terror/harassment arty into Kherson...did I miss that?).  

If Ukraine can retake Crimea, and Russia does not start WW3 over it, we have a very clear and undeniable Russian defeat.  Donbas, as we have discussed here is a solid "meh", not critical, not a lot of Ukrainian left there, open would insurgency possibility - just a lot of bad, hell even kraze agreed in the end.

What's the longest range missile they've got? Because the last I heard they got the GLSDB (150km). That might just about be good enough, although some longer range munitions might be better. Using the measurement tools on liveuamap.com I get a distance of 148km from the Berdyansk Spit to the Kerch bridge if they push towards Berdiansk, 205km from Mariupol, 135km from the Obitochna Spit near Prymorsk, 178km from Melitopol, or 145km from Kyrylivka.

Based on this, assuming the GLSDB is still the longest range munition they've got, and that they intend to cut off Crimea, I'm guessing they are going to push towards either Berdiansk, Prymorsk, or Krylivka. Krylivka sits beyond Melitopol in the same direction, so is a reasonable stretch objective for an offensive to liberate Melitopol. Berdiansk and Prymorsk are both close enough together that they could be reasonable objective in the same offensive. So I guess my prediction is that it will either be a Melitopol offensive or a Berdiansk offensive, and that it probably will not be a Mariupol offensive. 

Melitopol is of course the only major city still in Russian hands that they captured after 24 February 2022, and has the M-18 highway leading right to it. So a Melitopol offensive is very appealing from a PR standpoint, from logistical standpoint, and from a basic "liberate as many Ukrainians as possible as quickly as possible" standpoint. The downsides are that the Russians seem to have concentrated the bulk of their static defenses in the area, and the Molochnyi Estuary complicates a further drive beyond Melitopol to reach Kyrylivka and put the Kerch bridge in striking range.

Berdiansk doesn't appear to have as many defenses in the way, has no big bodies of water in the way, and since it's further to the east capturing it would trap more Russian units. But it is less prestigious (I doubt many people who don't live in Ukraine or who haven't spent hours pouring over maps of Ukraine have ever heard of Berdiansk), and is more logistically challenging (there is the H-30 highway going towards it, although it's a longer run from current Ukrainian lines). Still, there does appear to be a rail line going directly towards Berdiansk from the current lines, so perhaps the logistics situation is good enough. And being further east capturing it is sure to result in the eventual liberation of Melitopol anyway.

I think if I were planning the Ukrainian offensive, for whatever that's worth in guessing what the actual planners intend to do, I'd probably push towards Berdiansk.

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Next year the kamikaze drone won't even need an operator.

I emphasize again, while I do think warfare is headed in that direction, it is still a long way away. As impressive as chat GPT looks from the outside, AI just isn't there yet.

Fully autonomous weapon systems are next decade's tech (at the earliest), not this decade's.

[sburke]

Putin Grooms Russians for Defeat in Leaked Crisis Manual (yahoo.com)

After spending the last year reassuring Russians that victory is inevitable in the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin is now frantically working to lower expectations—and rolling out a contingency plan to lessen the impact of a humiliating defeat.

A new manual prepared by Russia’s presidential administration and distributed to the Kremlin’s army of propagandists contains some surprising instructions: Do not “underestimate” Ukraine’s impending counter-offensive and do not spread the idea that Kyiv is somehow “not ready” for it.

That’s according to the independent news outlet Meduza, which says it obtained a fresh copy of the manual and spoke to sources close to the Kremlin about it.

“If the offensive is unsuccessful, it will be possible to say: the army [of Russia] skillfully fended off an attack that was superior in power,” making the “victory” that much more impressive, the sources were quoted saying.

But perhaps more importantly, the sources explained, if the Ukrainian military manages to take back territories and claim battlefield victories “with the help of weapons from the U.S. and Europe,” Russia’s losses will be understandable—after all, they were up against the “entire West.”

In that case, the sources said, the Russian military will also be seen as having “pulled through.”

And just in case any Russian citizens begin to wonder about the colossal amount of funds the government is funneling to the very same Ukrainian territories it decimated before declaring them “part of Russia,” propagandists are advised to steer clear of the subject.

Instead, Kremlin spin doctors want their mouthpieces to churn out material on Russia upgrading schools and kindergartens, or hospitals.

“It’s clear there will be problems with the economy, and it’s clear why. Spending on the ‘special military operation’ isn’t going anywhere,” one source close to the presidential administration said, noting that funds will go towards the “new regions” rather than the old ones and people will inevitably feel neglected. “It is better not to show in specific amounts how much was taken [for the new regions].”

The Kremlin’s new guidelines are a stunning reversal from just a year ago, when propagandists were still pushing the idea that Russia would soon be reborn as a mighty superpower taking control of huge swathes of Ukraine.

At that time, the war was still a distant reality for many Russians—unlike now, when even residents in St. Petersburg and Moscow are on edge over drone attacks and even, in some cases, bomb-toting “Ukrainian pigeons.”

Security concerns were cited as the reason for the cancellation of Russia’s beloved Victory Day celebrations in some cities on May 9.

This Is Make or Break Time for Desperate Vladimir Putin

“There will be no parade, so as not to provoke the enemy with a large concentration of equipment and military personnel in the center of Belgorod,” the governor of the border region said last month.

Even in Moscow, the country’s biggest Victory Day parade this year will forego its traditional procession of the Immortal Regiment, which sees thousands march carrying portraits of loved ones who died fighting in World War II. Authorities reportedly feared some people might show up carrying portraits of troops killed in Ukraine, inadvertently calling attention to the staggering losses there.

The Kremlin reportedly instructed its propagandists not to “play up” preparations for the parade.

And Moscow officials are also on high alert over any potential embarrassing disruptions in the parade: Utility workers have been ordered to patrol the city in search of bombs or drones ahead of the event, according to Sota.

That move came after a Ukrainian banker publicly offered 20 million hryvnias (about $545,000) to anyone who can design a drone—ideally painted with “Glory to Ukraine!”—that will land on Moscow’s Red Square in the middle of the parade.

[Vanir Ausf B]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

What we do not know is how much of this was cannon fodder and how much as enablers and operational level capabilities.  

Depends on how we define cannon fodder. Publicly available numbers (which are probably less than half of the actual total) suggest about 31% of casualties Dec - February were prison inmates. Most of the rest were mobiks of various types.

 

[Battlefront.com]

31 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I emphasize again, while I do think warfare is headed in that direction, it is still a long way away. As impressive as chat GPT looks from the outside, AI just isn't there yet.

Fully autonomous weapon systems are next decade's tech (at the earliest), not this decade's.

Nah, the technology is already in place to have kamikaze drones without operators.  In fact, it has been in use for decades in some form or another.  Here's how it would work:

Observer drone parks near target area.  It either moves directly over target and secures GPS coordinate, establishes coordinates using a laser and compass heading, or geolocates target using Google Maps and gets.  All three produce a GPS location.

GPS data is uploaded into a kamikaze drone and the drone is launched.  Once in the air it flies a straight path to the coordinates and boom.  A fancier method is to upload a flight path to the drone that uses GPS waypoints and speeds.  This is the sort of thing that isn't found in a cheap drone, but it isn't that expensive to add that sort of "brains" to a drone.

That said, to have a truly effective kamikaze attack you do need to have the terminal part of the attack be a bit smarter than smashing a coordinate.  The AI for that absolutely exists now (e.g. self driving cars), but is definitely not readily available at the commercial level.  It wouldn't take long for it to happen, though.  1 year?

Steve

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

I emphasize again, while I do think warfare is headed in that direction, it is still a long way away. As impressive as chat GPT looks from the outside, AI just isn't there yet.

Fully autonomous weapon systems are next decade's tech (at the earliest), not this decade's.

That may be true of a completely AI run system that finds the targets, checks for friendlies, prioritizes the targets, dispatches the kamikaze drones, updates the shared model of wider battlefield, the inventory of various munitions, and files a report. Although Ai seems to have made ~twenty years progress in eighteen months, so I wouldn't bet the kids college fund on that assumption.

But in the absence of a true AI running the whole show everything I describe already exists in pieces somewhere. The terrain following is how cruise missiles worked before GPS. The image recognition guidance is used by the Javelin, and a slew of other weapons systems, and Palantir could run up a system to set up the final attack vector in 3d in afternoon, if it doesn't exist already. 

Edit: Cross posted with Steve.

Edited May 2, 2023 by dan/california

[A Canadian Cat]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

But in the absence of a true AI running the whole show everything I describe already exists in pieces somewhere. The terrain following is how cruise missiles worked before GPS. The image recognition guidance is used by the Javelin, and. slew of other weapons systems, and Palantir could run up a system to set up the final attack vector in 3d in afternoon, if it doesn't exist already. 

The last piece of the puzzle that is defiantly not ready yet is identifying enemy vs friendlies.

Steve is right if you setup an autonomous drone in an area you know there are no friendlies all is good. If there is a chance the guys running for cover into the bunker (to refer back to the footage that started this) then you do not want an AI drone choosing to target or not.

[Mattias]

Woha! Sorry if this has been posted previously. But it is a curious one.

 

[Seedorf81]

1 hour ago, Centurian52 said:

I emphasize again, while I do think warfare is headed in that direction, it is still a long way away. As impressive as chat GPT looks from the outside, AI just isn't there yet.

Fully autonomous weapon systems are next decade's tech (at the earliest), not this decade's.

Well, in my opinion we could be very surprised on how war, and the growing threat of more war (global even), expedites funding of, and progress of, development in technology and weaponry. (By the way, this also goes for medical and logistical etc. developments.)

In 1933 famous scientists (Einstein, too) said that they believed that nucleair energy/weapons would be impossible. https://www.facebook.com/veritasium/videos/why-einstein-thought-nuclear-weapons-were-impossible/310406717550229/.

Only twelve years later, ARMS-RACE and WAR years later, the Hiroshima bomb exploded. It was predominantly the almost ridiculous amount of money for the Manhattan-project that made the exceptional scientific progress possible. Money that never would have been allocated in peace-time.

So war, and even the threat of war, unleashes funds and capabilities that can have stunning results. I believe we ain't seen nothing yet.

 

P.S.: When watching D-Day 1944 film-footage I always think of the unimaginable exponential growth and functionality (mind-blowing logistics, from USA to Birma, China, Africa, Europe, Russia, Middle-east, Australia and all over the entire Pacific) of the United States Army in WW2.

If the current USA would only have half of that WW2power, (which lies dorment at the moment, I think) then it would be wise for anyone not to go to war with the United States.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Seedorf81
spelling as always

[Haiduk]

Meanwhile UKR trops, according to Russian TGs became to push back exhausted Russian/DPR units in Avdiivka area, striking in northern section of upper Russian "claw"

In southern "claw" area UKR troops also pushed back the enemy near Vodiane (again, according to Russian TG). Ukrainain source both official and "trench" keep silence.... or almost silence %)  

Edited May 2, 2023 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Next railroad diversion and again in Briansk oblast (Russian Volunteer Corps at work?) Locomotive and 20 train cars were derailed as result of rails explosion. Reportedly a spill of sulfur and saltpeter is happened. 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Haiduk

[Centurian52]

56 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Nah, the technology is already in place to have kamikaze drones without operators.  In fact, it has been in use for decades in some form or another.  Here's how it would work:

Observer drone parks near target area.  It either moves directly over target and secures GPS coordinate, establishes coordinates using a laser and compass heading, or geolocates target using Google Maps and gets.  All three produce a GPS location.

GPS data is uploaded into a kamikaze drone and the drone is launched.  Once in the air it flies a straight path to the coordinates and boom.  A fancier method is to upload a flight path to the drone that uses GPS waypoints and speeds.  This is the sort of thing that isn't found in a cheap drone, but it isn't that expensive to add that sort of "brains" to a drone.

That said, to have a truly effective kamikaze attack you do need to have the terminal part of the attack be a bit smarter than smashing a coordinate.  The AI for that absolutely exists now (e.g. self driving cars), but is definitely not readily available at the commercial level.  It wouldn't take long for it to happen, though.  1 year?

Steve

Fair enough. Flying to and hitting the target is well within what modern technology can do. So kamikaze drones probably don't need a "pilot" anymore. I was thinking more in terms of target selection and identification. And in that respect we are still a long way from being able to take the human out of the loop. I think we are going to see three stages of autonomous weapons.

1. The weapon is smart enough to find its own way to the target, but the target still has to be identified and selected by a human. This is where we are today.

2. The weapon is smart enough to identify and select its own targets, but with a high enough error rate that a human needs to be in the loop to explicitly approve the target before the weapon can be allowed to kill it. I think we'll get here over the next decade.

3. The weapon is smart enough to be trusted as a fully autonomous system. We have a ways to go to get here.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Centurian52

[Haiduk]

Russian TGs openly say Russian pilots drop guided bombs mainly as training and tests of new weapon before future strikes on UKR reserves. 

Tramslation: not working school in Lyzunovka village, Chernihiv oblast was destroyed today with FAB-500M62 with UMPK kits (=JDAM-ER). In this way MAF RF continue to work out curernt and future potential objects of AFU deployment at frontier.

 

In result of this strike one kid was kileld. 

Also several guided bombs were dropped on one of Dnipro islands near Veletens'ke village. Reportedly 3 civilians were kileld, 5 injured.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Haiduk

[Rokko]

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So that is about 833 casualties per day, Jan-Apr 23.  That is approx half of the daily rate of WW1 on the western front when things got going.  That is double all the KIA in 80s Afghanistan in 4 months.

What we do not know is how much of this was cannon fodder and how much as enablers and operational level capabilities.  

To put things into perspective: At this rate they would fully burn through the September 2022 mobilization of 400'000 (w/ change) in 480 days, i.e., by the end of next January.

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Fair enough. Flying to and hitting the target is well within what modern technology can do. So kamikaze drones probably don't need a "pilot" anymore. I was thinking more in terms of target selection and identification. And in that respect we are still a long way from being able to take the human out of the loop. I think we are going to see three stages of autonomous weapons.

1. The weapon is smart enough to find its own way to the target, but the target still has to be identified and selected by a human. This is where we are today.

2. The weapon is smart enough to identify and select its own targets, but with a high enough error rate that a human needs to be in the loop to explicitly approve the target before the weapon can be allowed to kill it. I think we'll get here over the next decade.

3. The weapon is smart enough to be trusted as a fully autonomous system. We have a ways to go to get here.

I agree we are a long way #3, I would ague that in a lot of ways, the Javelin's targeting system for instance, and a lot of functionality in air defense systems, we are already at #2. The next stage will be those sorts of systems on things like a tanks main gun. Where the gunner just clicks an image with a mouse, and the tank's FCS does everything else. And then the next iteration gunner can click three images, and watch the FCS engage them in order, while all he does is make sure he is still happy with the targets, and the barrel isn't about to smack a tree. At which point we come to Steve's favorite question, does the gunner have to be in the tank?

[dan/california]

32 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Meanwhile UKR trops, according to Russian TGs became to push back exhausted Russian/DPR units in Avdiivka area, striking in northern section of upper Russian "claw"

In southern "claw" area UKR troops also pushed back the enemy near Vodiane (again, according to Russian TG). Ukrainain source both official and "trench" keep silence.... or almost silence %)  

Probably just opportunistic, hey boss there is only a squad manning that whole kilometer. That said, if Ukraine really is strong enough attacking between Donestk, and Luhansk, then driving South to the Azov BEHIND Donestk City would be about the strongest statement it is possible to make, short of driving on Moscow

[womble]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

does the gunner have to be in the tank?

The gunner can only not be in the tank if you are 6-sigma certain that nothing is going to interfere with their telepresence. Which is difficult when the enemy knows that all they need to do to render a critical weapon system (whether that's a swarm of UGVs or a single Citadel Tank) inoperative is to disrupt the comms. The more remote operation stuff there is, the more treasure will be spent on busting the comms links and the more treasure will have to be spent on hardening those links.

Also, if the gunner isn't in the tank, the rest of the crew aren't either, and field maintenance and repairs that the crew do "traditionally" become a new problem that will need solving.

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, womble said:

The gunner can only not be in the tank if you are 6-sigma certain that nothing is going to interfere with their telepresence. Which is difficult when the enemy knows that all they need to do to render a critical weapon system (whether that's a swarm of UGVs or a single Citadel Tank) inoperative is to disrupt the comms. The more remote operation stuff there is, the more treasure will be spent on busting the comms links and the more treasure will have to be spent on hardening those links.

Also, if the gunner isn't in the tank, the rest of the crew aren't either, and field maintenance and repairs that the crew do "traditionally" become a new problem that will need solving.

All true.

[Centurian52]

18 minutes ago, dan/california said:

I agree we are a long way #3, I would ague that in a lot of ways, the Javelin's targeting system for instance, and a lot of functionality in air defense systems, we are already at #2. The next stage will be those sorts of systems on things like a tanks main gun. Where the gunner just clicks an image with a mouse, and the tank's FCS does everything else. And then the next iteration gunner can click three images, and watch the FCS engage them in order, while all he does is make sure he is still happy with the targets, and the barrel isn't about to smack a tree. At which point we come to Steve's favorite question, does the gunner have to be in the tank?

I'm probably not qualified to say much on air defenses. But the Javelin is thoroughly at #1. It just locks on to a heat signature. It doesn't make any decisions about whether or not to lock on to a particular heat signature.

We can pretty much already do what you described for tank FCS (well, not the next iteration part about lining up multiple targets, yet). Modern tank FCS uses automatic target tracking, in which all the gunner has to do is lock on to the target and make the decision to fire. The FCS does all of the rest of the work. So modern tank FCS is also thoroughly at #1. It does all of the work in figuring out how to get the round to the target, while the gunner does all of the work of deciding what is a target and when to kill it. Which is a pretty optimal division of labor honestly. Let the computers do what's easy for computers and let the humans do what's easy for humans.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Centurian52

[hcrof]

12 minutes ago, womble said:

The gunner can only not be in the tank if you are 6-sigma certain that nothing is going to interfere with their telepresence. Which is difficult when the enemy knows that all they need to do to render a critical weapon system (whether that's a swarm of UGVs or a single Citadel Tank) inoperative is to disrupt the comms. The more remote operation stuff there is, the more treasure will be spent on busting the comms links and the more treasure will have to be spent on hardening those links.

Also, if the gunner isn't in the tank, the rest of the crew aren't either, and field maintenance and repairs that the crew do "traditionally" become a new problem that will need solving.

Not necessarily true, another crew member can take over gunners duty if the link goes down, albeit at reduced effectiveness. Hopefully that is just temporary and the tank can return to 100% when the link goes back online. 

Edit: a driver is the only crew member who absolutely has to be there if the link goes down or the vehicle gets stuck. All other crew can be moved to another vehicle to make the tank smaller/lighter/cheaper

Edited May 2, 2023 by hcrof
Extra point

[Haiduk]

Bakhmut. Russians still don't attack in mass, just continue to shell the city and outskirts. No "shell shortage". Ukr troops conducted some local counter-attacks, pushed of Wagners from some buildings, but don't gain a foothold, so somewhere grey zones appeared. All atatcks on Khromove, Ivanivske area are repelled. Korsuns'koho street in most part still under UKR control. 

Way to Bakhmut through  SW road

According to UKR TG, against us in Bakhmut area operate 26500 pf personnel, 65 tanks, 450 armored vehicles, 154 artillery pieces, 56 MLRS.   

Video collage of 228th TD battalion of 127th TD brigade (Kharkiv city) of combat actions in Bakhmut. 127th TDBr currently is backbone of city defense together with part of 93rd mech.brigade

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Haiduk