How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chrisl]

17 minutes ago, Maquisard manqué said:

Yes and no. Where sufficient AD is deployed, it seems to work resoundingly well (if everything was indeed intercepted over Kiev), but other cities were also hit and there were fatalities, which suggests that either there isn’t the same coverage everywhere, or that it didn’t work as well in places other than Kiev.

Can Ukraine/NATO afford to saturate Ukraine with AD to the level it has in Kiev? If not, I imagine the Russians will switch to a wider strategy of secondary or tertiary cities. Less effective in some ways (propaganda not as good), but still likely to cause damage and loss of life - which seems to be all the Russian state gets out of bed for.

Even overmatched systems are still lethal and effective if used intelligently/ruthlessly.

Forcing RU to pick alternate targets is a good thing.  Kyiv is a very large urban area, so they don't need particularly good accuracy to *something* if the missiles get through.  Possibly the only other large urban area in range is Kharkiv, and after that, things get smaller or less dense, or both fairly quickly. If RU has terrible accuracy (and so far their performance suggests that they do), then switching to other targets means they have a smaller chance of hitting something other than dirt, even if the missiles do get through.  

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes, it's such a strange video. Could he be a hated officer?

But even so, why steal his helmet of all things? Not a watch or a wallet or a gold wedding ring?

And by leaving him alive, they risk that he makes it back to friendly lines or gets found by more friendly friendlies, and then there could be hell to pay.

These are Russians, perhaps even Russian convicts.  Think money first.  They are probably going to sell the guy's body armor and helmet to the next bit of meat that comes along.  Way more valuable than a watch.

As for why they didn't finish him off... it's a line that perhaps they weren't ready to cross.  There's plenty of examples of criminals being cruel and indifferent to Human life, yet still avoid directly taking one.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

More pics and videos are coming in. Discussion arises if explosions you see on video are effect of fallen debris, downed missiles or aimed hits. Perhaps Gepards are heard in background, which ofc. means rockets get very close.

 

I think it is less likely that a missile was aimed at a spot just beyond a Gepard than it crashed after being hit.  Unfortunately, missile interception needs to disrupt the warhead and fuel cell in the air in order to minimize effect on the ground.  Meaning a successfully intercepted missile can still hit the ground with all the explosive power of a direct strike, just not where it was being aimed at.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, MikeyD said:

The black areas on PzH 2000 turret above appears to be anti-cluster munitions matting, sheets with long rubber spikes on it. I imagine a submunition hitting the soft mat would cushion the impact to the point where the fuse is not triggered. At least that's how I imagine how it works. 

I thought this was to absorb energy from sensors (radar, laser range finders, etc.) or to diffuse heat signature.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Remember when everyone was all a twitter about Russian escalation dominance?  Interestingly, and something I never considered, denial is a form of escalation.  In hindsight it is obvious, denial compresses an opponent options spaces - very effectively as it turns out.  It also neutralizes an opponents ability to escalate.

You are a Cold War Warrior, so due to your age I'll forgive your memory lapse.  Remember the whole hissy fit the Soviets had about Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system?  They were threatening to declare WW3 right there and then because the US was proposing a defensive weapon system.  Definitely escalatory.

At the time I didn't quite understand the implications on the Soviet's escalatory strategy with nuclear ICBMs being at the top of the pyramid.  The proposed system would have (if it worked) taken away their biggest card to play in that game.  No wonder they weren't happy about it.  No wonder the Russians have also repeatedly bleated on and on whenever Patriots were moved closer to the Russian border.  Now we know for sure why!

Steve

[sburke]

52 minutes ago, Maquisard manqué said:

Yes and no. Where sufficient AD is deployed, it seems to work resoundingly well (if everything was indeed intercepted over Kiev), but other cities were also hit and there were fatalities, which suggests that either there isn’t the same coverage everywhere, or that it didn’t work as well in places other than Kiev.

Can Ukraine/NATO afford to saturate Ukraine with AD to the level it has in Kiev? If not, I imagine the Russians will switch to a wider strategy of secondary or tertiary cities. Less effective in some ways (propaganda not as good), but still likely to cause damage and loss of life - which seems to be all the Russian state gets out of bed for.

Even overmatched systems are still lethal and effective if used intelligently/ruthlessly.

They already do that.  hell they hit the hometown of the Ukrainian Eurovision entry just before they were to perform.  So no they can't switch to an alternate strategy that is already part of their strategy.  The attempt to hit Kiev in force was simply a failure.  No other way to present that one.  Russia only has a limited capability to keep producing these weapons and they just flushed a significant portion of them.

[sburke]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

ROFL!

 

 

well they weren't TOTALLY wrong.  "US manufactured Patriot Surface to air missile system has been struck by Krinzhal hypersonic glide vehicle in Kiev."

[Battlefront.com]

57 minutes ago, Maquisard manqué said:

Yes and no. Where sufficient AD is deployed, it seems to work resoundingly well (if everything was indeed intercepted over Kiev), but other cities were also hit and there were fatalities, which suggests that either there isn’t the same coverage everywhere, or that it didn’t work as well in places other than Kiev.

Yes, coverage is absolutely the main challenge.  As long range as these systems are, there's only so much they can do on their own.  Massed attacks require massed defenses, which is extremely expensive.  It's why all the drone swarm systems I've seen advertised are not the solution.  You can not possibly install one of those on every single likely enemy target, especially when taking terrorists into account because they will target whatever they can hit.

At the moment the number of Patriot systems in Ukraine is small in number and only arriving very recently.  So many of the attacks you're referencing predate Patriot.

57 minutes ago, Maquisard manqué said:

Can Ukraine/NATO afford to saturate Ukraine with AD to the level it has in Kiev? If not, I imagine the Russians will switch to a wider strategy of secondary or tertiary cities. Less effective in some ways (propaganda not as good), but still likely to cause damage and loss of life - which seems to be all the Russian state gets out of bed for.

Even overmatched systems are still lethal and effective if used intelligently/ruthlessly.

Right, which is why Russia was moronic to have thrown away their stockpiles of these offensive systems on kindergartens and shopping malls week after week after week.  They've largely lost their ability to do massed attacks, which means their range of responses to this new AD are greatly reduced.

Steve

[The_Capt]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

You are a Cold War Warrior, so due to your age I'll forgive your memory lapse.  Remember the whole hissy fit the Soviets had about Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system?  They were threatening to declare WW3 right there and then because the US was proposing a defensive weapon system.  Definitely escalatory.

At the time I didn't quite understand the implications on the Soviet's escalatory strategy with nuclear ICBMs being at the top of the pyramid.  The proposed system would have (if it worked) taken away their biggest card to play in that game.  No wonder they weren't happy about it.  No wonder the Russians have also repeatedly bleated on and on whenever Patriots were moved closer to the Russian border.  Now we know for sure why!

Steve

Ya but SDI was a bluff.  Patriots are definitely not.  We need some of that good ol Cold War thinking right about now.  We got all post modern “let’s all agree or do nothing” and “what are they gonna do next”.  How about we get them worrying about we are going to do next.

[kimbosbread]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya but SDI was a bluff.  Patriots are definitely not.  We need some of that good ol Cold War thinking right about now.  We got all post modern “let’s all agree or do nothing” and “what are they gonna do next”.  How about we get them worrying about we are going to do next.

What’s our escalation space?

For air defense, it would just be more missiles, unless we have friggin space lasers or something.

For aircraft, it would be modern NATO aircraft or flying tigers (which we should have had in month 3).

For tanks and ifvs, we are already doing that, though perhaps not in desired quantity.

For artillery and standoff weapons, already doing but not in quantity and range desired.

For information, it’s not clear Russians are super vulnerable to information warfare.

For diplomacy, obvs Transnistria, Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan etc are very interesting.

For navy… now there we have some options. Why don’t we lease a Walrus to Ukraine, or have letters of the marque to pursue Russian oil tankers? I could easily rustle up some fellow idiot boaters to go chase tankers off the Barbary coast on a RIB with some RPGs.

EDIT: Open Wagner Safari would also be an option in Africa, and hurt their cashflow.

Edited May 16, 2023 by kimbosbread

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya but SDI was a bluff.  

Oh, I think the US really thought they could pull it off given enough time and money.  But either way, the Soviets had to assume it was going to become reality.

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Patriots are definitely not.  We need some of that good ol Cold War thinking right about now.  We got all post modern “let’s all agree or do nothing” and “what are they gonna do next”.  How about we get them worrying about we are going to do next.

Exactly.  And as is being discussed above, the Chinese are probably peeved that they have to go through all their assumptions again in order to recalculate how a war with the US over Taiwan might play out.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What’s our escalation space?

For air defense, it would just be more missiles, unless we have friggin space lasers or something.

For aircraft, it would be modern NATO aircraft or flying tigers (which we should have had in month 3).

For tanks and ifvs, we are already doing that, though perhaps not in desired quantity.

For artillery and standoff weapons, already doing but not in quantity and range desired.

For information, it’s not clear Russians are super vulnerable to information warfare.

For diplomacy, obvs Transnistria, Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan etc are very interesting.

For navy… now there we have some options. Why don’t we lease a Walrus to Ukraine, or have letters of the marque to pursue Russian oil tankers? I could easily rustle up some fellow idiot boaters to go chase tankers off the Barbary coast on a RIB with some RPGs.

EDIT: Open Wagner Safari would also be an option in Africa, and hurt their cashflow.

This is a good point.  At the moment it looks like militarily we've hit a nexus where all the bad guy's weaponry has proven to be completely outclassed by existing NATO systems.  There could be some refinement, but it does seem that at the moment we are at a point of diminishing returns.  The costs for getting to the next level of capability seems to be wildly expensive and yet the enemy's capabilities are not likely to get significantly better than they are now.

EW and unmanned systems are the two that need to be focused on now.  Nano and bio need to be kept in mind for the near future.

One of the big things that we've kinda missed in all the discussions about Russia going down the tubes is that their defense industry is going down with it.  OK, we've definitely mentioned that many times, but specifically the R&D segment is going down with it.  The Russians, and the Soviets before them, were able to regularly introduce systems that posed some degree of challenge to existing NATO capabilities.  They're ability to do that has been waning over the years, but in some areas (EW for example).

With the inevitable breakup, or at least breakdown, of the Russian Federation as a functional state, China is really the only "red force" innovator out there. 

Steve

[sburke]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is a good point.  At the moment it looks like militarily we've hit a nexus where all the bad guy's weaponry has proven to be completely outclassed by existing NATO systems.  There could be some refinement, but it does seem that at the moment we are at a point of diminishing returns.  The costs for getting to the next level of capability seems to be wildly expensive and yet the enemy's capabilities are not likely to get significantly better than they are now.

EW and unmanned systems are the two that need to be focused on now.  Nano and bio need to be kept in mind for the near future.

One of the big things that we've kinda missed in all the discussions about Russia going down the tubes is that their defense industry is going down with it.  OK, we've definitely mentioned that many times, but specifically the R&D segment is going down with it.  The Russians, and the Soviets before them, were able to regularly introduce systems that posed some degree of challenge to existing NATO capabilities.  They're ability to do that has been waning over the years, but in some areas (EW for example).

With the inevitable breakup, or at least breakdown, of the Russian Federation as a functional state, China is really the only "red force" innovator out there. 

Steve

Is it time to talk satellite warfare?

[Artkin]

Since the cold war is kinda coming to a close, we should be looking forward to reducing the amount of taxes we pay. The military budget is out of control. It's been getting significantly larger recently. 

[kimbosbread]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

With the inevitable breakup, or at least breakdown, of the Russian Federation as a functional state, China is really the only "red force" innovator out there. 

I could see 90’s eco-terrorists a la Rainbow Six being a thing. A home built bio lab is remarkably easy to build now and the CRISPR genie is out of the bottle.

But for nation states, it’s all China for now.

[Splinty]

1 minute ago, Artkin said:

Since the cold war is kinda coming to a close, we should be looking forward to reducing the amount of taxes we pay. The military budget is out of control. It's been getting significantly larger recently. 

The Cold War isn't over. It's just switched opponents. China is in the process of becoming the new Cold War focus. 

[The_Capt]

22 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What’s our escalation space?

For air defense, it would just be more missiles, unless we have friggin space lasers or something.

For aircraft, it would be modern NATO aircraft or flying tigers (which we should have had in month 3).

For tanks and ifvs, we are already doing that, though perhaps not in desired quantity.

For artillery and standoff weapons, already doing but not in quantity and range desired.

For information, it’s not clear Russians are super vulnerable to information warfare.

For diplomacy, obvs Transnistria, Belarus, Chechnya, Dagestan etc are very interesting.

For navy… now there we have some options. Why don’t we lease a Walrus to Ukraine, or have letters of the marque to pursue Russian oil tankers? I could easily rustle up some fellow idiot boaters to go chase tankers off the Barbary coast on a RIB with some RPGs.

EDIT: Open Wagner Safari would also be an option in Africa, and hurt their cashflow.

I think you kind of answered your own question here.  There is more of the things that really mess the RA up.  There are longer range and nastier systems such as ATACMS - I am willing to bet that is being held back for specific reasons.

We have a number of options that could be explored in Russias Near Abroad, as Russia appears weaker the cracks are definitely going to start showing.  Third nation interest are always another great way to put pressure on.  And then there are places with direct Russian interest like the Arctic.

As to subversive warfare inside Russia itself, I do not believe for a second they are immune to this.  It is likely already happening but we cannot see it…kinda how subversive works.

The real coup would be to convince China to cut Russia loose, however, we also need to engineer a Russian defeat that does not see total collapse.

And then there are scary doors - no fly zones, sea denial, cyber and finally direct involvement either in Ukraine or on another border but these are a ways up the list.

The real question is “what does Russia have left for escalation room?”  They are basically at WMDs.  Conventionally they could not raise a viable million man army right now even if public will got behind it.  Oil and gas were a threat but Europe did not freeze in the dark over winter so that ship has sailed.

We have got the options space and Russia does not…and that is how wars are won.

[Centurian52]

21 hours ago, Artkin said:

But as history has proven time and time again, this is too late to drive to Moscow, or Stalingrad, or the Caucuses successfully. 

I'm not so sure about that. I have been won over to the view that of all the problems the Germans had during Operation Barbarossa, starting too late was probably not the most significant (and starting earlier runs into the spring mud season, which effects pretty much the entire former western Soviet Union). It was probably more of a combination of mounting casualties, dwindling fuel reserves, and stiffening Soviet resistance that stopped the Germans in 1941 than anything to do with the weather. Their advance had been visibly slowing long before winter actually hit. And the cold weather would have done more harm to the Soviets, since they were the ones on the offensive through most of December and January.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Centurian52

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Splinty said:

The Cold War isn't over. It's just switched opponents. China is in the process of becoming the new Cold War focus. 

Sadly, yes.  China has been pretty clear about its intentions.  Like Russia, it has no legitimate need for a military of the size and capability that it has.  Nobody is threatening China, just like nobody was threatening Russia.  Yet both built offensive capabilities which clearly are intended for border expansion and, as a side business, increasing the costs of armed conflict around the world.  We saw what Russia did with its capabilities, China is pretty honest about what its intentions are.

What I'd like to see is more R&D money put into developing less expensive alternatives to the weaponry we currently have.  We do need to move away from deliberately pursuing the most expensive solutions.  Back in the Cold War this was a good strategy to bankrupt the enemy and it most definitely helped win the Cold War.  Now?  The economic scales have tilted and it's more likely Iran and North Korea can bankrupt us than the other way around.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Our discussion of Russia's lost opportunity to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses by sustained and concentrated mass attacks made me think, once again, that we might see Ukraine doing this in the next couple of weeks against select targets in the south.  Russia's air defenses have proven quite incapable against even isolated attacks, imagine would would happen if 2 dozen Storm Shadows, HIMARS, glide bombs, and other things were launched at a specific target?  Probably 90%+ hit rate.  While overkill for something like an HQ or munitions depot, it certainly would make an impact on an airbase or a certain bridge.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

3 minutes ago, sburke said:

Is it time to talk satellite warfare?

Several issues:

1. How expensive is it to take down a satellite?
2. How bad is a the debris cloud for friendly and enemy satellites?
3. How expensive is it to replace the satellite? How fast can it be replaced?
4. How expensive is it to launch? How fast can we launch?

SpaceX and friends are rapidly solving (3, 4) to the point it will be cheaper to throw up some new birds than a $10+M antisatellite missile. (2) is a huge problem, however.

[kevinkin]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

What I'd like to see is more R&D money put into developing less expensive alternatives to the weaponry we currently have.  We do need to move away from deliberately pursuing the most expensive solutions.  Back in the Cold War this was a good strategy to bankrupt the enemy and it most definitely helped win the Cold War.  Now?  The economic scales have tilted and it's more likely Iran and North Korea can bankrupt us than the other way around.

High quality of product, speed to market, low cost of product. We have to decide which one to drop. Given there will always be a defense industry and it helps fuel the overall economy, we might consider dropping speed to market. Another thing to think about is how aggressively China steals technology. We need to stop that as well. Projecting power across two oceans to keep sea lanes open is costly and to lower the expenses significantly would require rethinking platforms like 13 billion USD carriers and how the military is structured and fights. I am afraid will will not see that in our lifetimes. The defense industry and government move at snail's pace. I am all for out of the box thinking. But those two entities struggle with that.  

[sburke]

1 minute ago, kimbosbread said:

Several issues:

1. How expensive is it to take down a satellite?
2. How bad is a the debris cloud for friendly and enemy satellites?
3. How expensive is it to replace the satellite? How fast can it be replaced?
4. How expensive is it to launch? How fast can we launch?

SpaceX and friends are rapidly solving (3, 4) to the point it will be cheaper to throw up some new birds than a $10+M antisatellite missile. (2) is a huge problem, however.

1.  probably cheap.  A small object at high velocity..

2. really bad.  Be best if we weren't using kinetic energy

3.  Easier for us than China

4 Cheaper and faster for us.

[dan/california]

 

 

 

44 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I think you kind of answered your own question here.  There is more of the things that really mess the RA up.  There are longer range and nastier systems such as ATACMS - I am willing to bet that is being held back for specific reasons.

We have a number of options that could be explored in Russias Near Abroad, as Russia appears weaker the cracks are definitely going to start showing.  Third nation interest are always another great way to put pressure on.  And then there are places with direct Russian interest like the Arctic.

As to subversive warfare inside Russia itself, I do not believe for a second they are immune to this.  It is likely already happening but we cannot see it…kinda how subversive works.

The real coup would be to convince China to cut Russia loose, however, we also need to engineer a Russian defeat that does not see total collapse.

And then there are scary doors - no fly zones, sea denial, cyber and finally direct involvement either in Ukraine or on another border but these are a ways up the list.

The real question is “what does Russia have left for escalation room?”  They are basically at WMDs.  Conventionally they could not raise a viable million man army right now even if public will got behind it.  Oil and gas were a threat but Europe did not freeze in the dark over winter so that ship has sailed.

We have got the options space and Russia does not…and that is how wars are won.

 

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Our discussion of Russia's lost opportunity to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses by sustained and concentrated mass attacks made me think, once again, that we might see Ukraine doing this in the next couple of weeks against select targets in the south.  Russia's air defenses have proven quite incapable against even isolated attacks, imagine would would happen if 2 dozen Storm Shadows, HIMARS, glide bombs, and other things were launched at a specific target?  Probably 90%+ hit rate.  While overkill for something like an HQ or munitions depot, it certainly would make an impact on an airbase or a certain bridge.

Steve

First and foremost in terms of grinding Russia's face into its own failure is wrapping up Sweden's entry into NATO. The second is to facilitate Romania annexing Moldova, and cleaning up that whole ugly little nest of Russian misbehavior. Then we make it clear that if the Ukrainians have to launch a fall offensive they will do it with couple of hundred Abrams, and all the kit that goes with them. The way to make the other side quit is to convince them that NOT quitting is going to be much, much worse than quitting. It is time to make sure that Russia gets that message. And yes as a general planet improvement project there needs to be a bounty on every single member of Wagner, world wide open season, no limit.

As far as SDI goes, it was wildly ambitious at the time, parts of what was proposed would be rather ambitious now, but I am pretty sure the tech development chain it started just won this war. Steve is correct of course that a there needs to be a lot more work done on systems where the cost per shot is not quite so excruciating. But that is a lot easer to do when you have something that WORKS to start the program with.

Edit: And we should start very publicly spinning up the second coming of the Flying Tigers, make it clear that fall offensive will have REAL air support. And make sure every mobik knows it, they are just targets that smell even worse when they are dead.

Edited May 16, 2023 by dan/california

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

 

 

 

First and foremost in terms of grinding Russia's face into its own failure is wrapping up Sweden's entry into NATO. The second is to facilitate Romania annexing Moldova, and cleaning up that whole ugly little nest of Russian misbehavior. Then we make it clear that if the Ukrainians have to launch a fall offensive they will do it with couple of hundred Abrams, and all the kit that goes with them. The way to make the other side quit is to convince them that NOT quitting is going to be much, much worse than quitting. It is time to make sure that Russia gets that message. And yes as a general planet improvement project there needs to be a bounty on every single member of Wagner, world wide open season, no limit.

As far as SDI goes, it was wildly ambitious at the time, parts of what was proposed would be rather ambitious now, but I am pretty sure the tech development chain it started just won this war. Steve is correct of course that a there needs to be a lot more work done on systems where the cost per shot is not quite so excruciating. But that is a lot easer to do when you have something that WORKS to start the program with.

A few impracticalities and very likely illegal executive actions but I like the spirit.