How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kevinkin]

 

50 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It certainly doesn't help that the 47th was given one of the most difficult tasks of the entire counter offensive so far.

Posted from 1945 a bunches of pages back and to your point:

Experience from 1991, but it rings true today:

Further, we were fully staffed by privates and crewmen who had trained for over a year on their combat vehicles, crews that were highly proficient in their individual tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and then additional training at the platoon, company, battalion, and finally regimental (brigade) levels. Even more critically: our leaders at each level – platoon through brigade – had experience commensurate for their positions – one to two years for platoon leaders, five years for a company commander, 12 to 15 years for a battalion commander, and 22 years for the regimental commander.

Ukraine has none of these components.

For example, one of the elite Ukrainian brigades, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, was commanded by an officer – 28-year-old Col. Oleksandr Sak – with about as much experience as a seasoned lieutenant in an American tank brigade. Virtually all of the Ukrainian offensive brigades have been formed and trained in mere months, with elemental training from NATO countries, given a hodgepodge of modern Western and old Soviet equipment, with grossly insufficient time to form cohesive units, much less coordinated and equipped combined arms formations.

A 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” 

Without significant NATO assistance, it's getting cruel to ask the UA to do what is nearly impossible on the west's behalf. If the west thinks Ukraine already won the war and Russian lost in geostrategic terms, let's move Putin over to our way of thinking. And fast.  

[dan/california]

34 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

 

Posted from 1945 a bunches of pages back and to your point:

Experience from 1991, but it rings true today:

Further, we were fully staffed by privates and crewmen who had trained for over a year on their combat vehicles, crews that were highly proficient in their individual tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, and then additional training at the platoon, company, battalion, and finally regimental (brigade) levels. Even more critically: our leaders at each level – platoon through brigade – had experience commensurate for their positions – one to two years for platoon leaders, five years for a company commander, 12 to 15 years for a battalion commander, and 22 years for the regimental commander.

Ukraine has none of these components.

For example, one of the elite Ukrainian brigades, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, was commanded by an officer – 28-year-old Col. Oleksandr Sak – with about as much experience as a seasoned lieutenant in an American tank brigade. Virtually all of the Ukrainian offensive brigades have been formed and trained in mere months, with elemental training from NATO countries, given a hodgepodge of modern Western and old Soviet equipment, with grossly insufficient time to form cohesive units, much less coordinated and equipped combined arms formations.

A 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” 

Without significant NATO assistance, it's getting cruel to ask the UA to do what is nearly impossible on the west's behalf. If the west thinks Ukraine already won the war and Russian lost in geostrategic terms, let's move Putin over to our way of thinking. And fast.  

 Don't necessarily disagree with anything you just said, But the ages of the officers are pretty standard for a formation  formed in wartime conditions, and a high attrition environment. 

Quote

Along with rapid promotion, the war also noticeably lowered the age of battalion commanding officers. In 1914, they were aged over 50, while the average age for a battalion commanding officer in the BEF between 1917 and 1918 was 28.

Quote

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_during_the_First_World_War#:~:text=Along with rapid promotion%2C the,1917 and 1918 was 28.

 

Now is the guy in charge of the 47th the right twenty eight year old? I have no idea.

Edited July 12, 2023 by dan/california

[dan/california]

Twitter seems to have suddenly purged the majority of the accounts I use to try and keep track of the war. Is anybody else having this issue?

Edit:Or maybe they are finally having a general meltdown. I have a windows laptop that isn't currently being used. I have been pondering setting it up just to use for telegram for a while. Anybody have any recommendations on how to translate telegram posts more or less wholesale?

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by dan/california

[kevinkin]

11 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Don't necessarily disagree with anything you just said, But the ages of the officers are pretty standard for a formation  formed in wartime conditions, and a high attrition environment. 

That's true. But this is a modern attrition war the likes of which we have not seen. When was the last time formations were recruited under such intense modern combat conditions? This is not our grand daddy's war. I don't think the US Army ever would find itself with such inexperienced leaders. If so, the war would have been decided well before that. So this war is unique in many respects. Ukraine does not have a knock-out blow to stop the carnage. The UA has to make do with what is can muster. But that level of experience does not lend itself to successful modern offensive operations using complex systems that need to be synchronized to dig the enemy out into the open. It's a problem. Donating small packets of systems from all over the map is not the solution. This is a war of survival for Ukraine. The armchair generals in western capitols are just throwing money at the problem without any plan except to drag two unwilling enemies to the table having exhausted themselves on the battlefield. Borders be damned.  

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

That's true. But this is a modern attrition war the likes of which we have not seen. When was the last time formations were recruited under such intense modern combat conditions? This is not our grand daddy's war.

So this war is unique in many respects. Ukraine does not have a knock-out blow to stop the carnage. The UA has to make do with what is can muster. But that level of experience does not lend itself to successful modern offensive operations using complex systems that need to be synchronized to dig the enemy out into the open. It's a problem. Donating small packets of systems from all over the map is not the solution. This is a war of survival for Ukraine. The armchair generals in western capitols are just throwing money at the problem without any plan except to drag two unwilling enemies to the table having exhausted themselves on the battlefield. Borders be damned.  

The U.S. army was in WW2 expanded ~200,000 in 1938, to a couple of million in 1945. This is not a new problem, just a bleeping unpleasant one. You have to ruthlessly promote the good officers, and fire the bad ones. Again we just don't have enough information to judge the performance of Ukrainian units. Is the commander of the 47th lousy, or was he given an impossible job? Was he given that impossible job for reasons that make sense in the larger picture? 

The only thing we know for sure is that Ukraine doesn't have the air force to do this offensive the way the U.S. would. they doing a different and sadly more expensive one, that doesn't mean it won't work.

And not everyone gets to fight there wars with oceans for moats,  unfortunately. It could be argued that the U.S. has NEVER fought a war that had the stakes this one has for Ukraine.

[cesmonkey]

24 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Anybody have any recommendations on how to translate telegram posts more or less wholesale?

It's pretty easy if your browser is Google Chrome. Just click the left mouse button and select the "Translate to ...", where ... is English for me.

And then you can click the checkbox to always translate Russian or Ukrainian or whatever language is detects on the current page.

[cesmonkey]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/world/europe/atacms-missiles-ukraine-us.html

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/11/world/europe/atacms-missiles-ukraine-us.html

As many, many, many people have said, it's always just been a matter of time.  The only likely scenario for the US not sending ATACMS is Russia removing all forces back to pre-2014 borders and/or the Ukraine government agreeing to end the war.  Seems ATACMS will happen first.

By chance I happened to listen to a Perun talk given last year about US aid to Ukraine and how it works.  He reminded people of how Lend Lease worked in WW2 and that it too was "slow" and what we now would call "escalatory".  He said that people tend to forget this and instead think that the US just produced a million of X and got them on their way at the snap of some fingers.  He also said that total monetary support to Ukraine should be in the hundreds of billions USD, so there us that

Steve

[chuckdyke]

The difference between this man and a Hamburger Sandwich. A Hamburger Sandwich is only four inches thick.

 

[Battlefront.com]

Speaking of Perun, I had some long driving today and was able to listen to the full episode on how wars end (this week's) and most of the one about Prig's mutiny/coup (last week's).  I recommend both very highly.

The one major takeaway from ending wars is identifying the enemy's "points of failure" and trying to punch them as hard as you can, while at the same time hoping that the enemy's ability to compensate isn't up to the task.  He talked about all kinds of factors, none of which are surprising to hear. 

The interesting point he made is that it is extremely difficult to predict how much pain/suffering an enemy is willing to take, especially when the leadership is not acting in the best interests of the state.  Which Putin and crew definitely are not.  He pointed out that you can correctly identify and smash an enemy's "point of failure" and find out that it doesn't matter as much to the enemy as you thought it did.  Economic conditions, for example.  You might think reducing the population's ability to have a decent meal should be enough to have things fall apart, but in fact they are willing to eat cold gravel instead of objecting.  And that might be because they fear the repressive state's thugs more than they do an empty stomach.

We are definitely seeing this play out with Russia.  There's so many points of failure out there to hit and through collective effort of Ukraine and its allies, they are all getting pummeled.  Yet even 1.5 years into this war we're still seeing only limited signs of Russia running out of room to maneuver in some areas.  Prig and company definitely changed the equation quite a bit in some respects, but still no major outward change.  Perun definitely addressed this phenomena in his talk and, as we have said so many times here, at some point reality can't be fooled with any more and the war ends in some form.

Steve

[Huba]

A very well sourced thread about NATO 155mm ammunition production, which is to hit 2.5 million rounds per annum in 2025, based only on the 6 biggest producers ( not including Turkey and France for example).

 

[Carolus]

How useful are ATACMS for Ukraine without the permission to target installations in Russia?

Is the bigger warhead such an advantage?

Or does it just increase the number of missiles that Ukraine has available?

Because correct if I'm wrong, but isn't basically everything in Ukraine in Stormshadow / SCALP range?

With Russian territory remaining off limits to Western weapons, what could Ukraine shoot that it isn't already shooting?

Not that I am against ATACMS but I would love to know how it would change Ukrainian abilities if Russian logistics and war factories behind its border are basically safe (the Ukrainian long-range drones and saboteurs have not been able to affect much so far).

Edited July 12, 2023 by Carolus
typos

[chuckdyke]

19 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Russian territory remaining off limits to Western weapons,

Really? It could very well be jargon for the domestic audience.

[The_MonkeyKing]

26 minutes ago, Carolus said:

How useful are ATACMS for Ukraine without the permission to target installations in Russia?

Is the bigger warhead such an advantage?

Or does it just increase the number of missiles that Ukraine has available?

Because correct if I'm wrong, but isn't basically everything in Ukraine in Stormshadow / SCALP range?

With Russian territory remaining off limits to Western weapons, what could Ukraine shoot that it isn't already shooting?

Not that I am against ATACMS but I would love to know how it would change Ukrainian abilities if Russian logistics and war factories behind its border are basically safe (the Ukrainian long-range drones and saboteurs have not been able to affect much so far).

Mainly just more long-range munitions.

Compared to storm shadow capability, ATACMS might be easier to intercept (this is unknown but possible S300/S400 can intercept them like they can other ballistic missiles), and ATACMS has a better ability to saturate target areas with the cluster warheads, for example taking out helicopter forward operating bases. 

[Hapless]

1 hour ago, Carolus said:

I would love to know how it would change Ukrainian abilities

It would make defence more complex for the Russians- for example:

ATACMs flies on a ballistic trajectory while Storm Shadow is a cruise missile, so one of each fired at the same target presents two different air defence problems at the same time (fast but telegraphed ATACMs vs slower but stealthier Storm Shadow). Mix in decoys, Storm Shadows changing direction etc and things can get real confusing real fast.

This might prompt the Russians to concentrate more air defence on more important targets, leaving other (still important) targets less well defended.

There's also the EW game- the Russians are inevitably going to get their hands on some kind of salvageable internals from whatever weapons are used, at which point they can dig into the systems and figure out how they can jam or spoof them. They've already apparently gotten hold of a Storm Shadow, so from here on out there's a possibility that Storm Shadow strikes can be degraded by EW effects.

Having more different types of weapons in the mix keeps things fresh (as it were), so there's always something up Ukraine's sleeve that the Russians haven't developed a counter to yet. At the same time, depending on the specifics, even if the Russians have worked out how to jam ATACMs and Storm Shadow, they might not be able to jam both at the same time because EW cna be finicky, or if they can, they might need more rare, expensive EW assets concentrated to do so.

Stuff like that.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Hapless

[DesertFox]

OK Visegrad, I know. Nevertheless it is an Interview with Budanov. Interesting enough in itself.

 

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1679035457483464705?s=20

[Carolus]

Thank you for the responses, Hapless and MonkeyKing.

[Lethaface]

7 hours ago, kevinkin said:

 

Without significant NATO assistance, it's getting cruel to ask the UA to do what is nearly impossible on the west's behalf. If the west thinks Ukraine already won the war and Russian lost in geostrategic terms, let's move Putin over to our way of thinking. And fast.  

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.

 

[DesertFox]

On the Leopard issue we discussed recently. Looks like Germany terminates the repair agreement.

 

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1679067504801464321?s=20

[Maciej Zwolinski]

24 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.

This is the view from Western Europe. 

For most people in the Baltics and Central Europe it is absolutely clear, that the Ukraine is fighting this war on our behalf. Every Russian soldier killed by the Ukrainians is someone our soldiers will not have to shoot at. I have a son of military age and another one who will be in a couple of years, so as callous as it sounds, I would gladly have the Ukrainians fight that fight for our money.

For what it is worth, I do not exactly understand why countries in Europe further to the West are not worried more. We are the next border after Ukraine, but the Netherlands are not exactly on the far side of the Moon either. 

[Huba]

Zelensky got straightened out a bit since yesterday it seems.

 

[Huba]

12 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

On the Leopard issue we discussed recently. Looks like Germany terminates the repair agreement.

 

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1679067504801464321?s=20

Polish military twittershpere consensus is more or less that it was to be expected. PL military industry is stretched to maximum already, and after bad experiences with Leo2PL is not willing to go an extra mile to make this service center happen without it being reasonably profitable. Like usually with this type of situations, there's not nearly enough public info to really get to the bottom of who is at fault here, and to what degree.

[TheVulture]

6 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

For what it is worth, I do not exactly understand why countries in Europe further to the West are not worried more. We are the next border after Ukraine, but the Netherlands are not exactly on the far side of the Moon either. 

I suspect a but factor might be something I heard from a Polish guy: for western Europe (and America) the second world war ended nearly 80 years ago, and was something from our grandparents generation. For eastern Europe, the second world war was something that ended 30 years ago when they were finally no longer occupied by a hostile power, and was something in the direct experience of the majority of people alive today.

After the war, while western Europe had 50 years of peace, albeit with the threat inherent in the cold war, eastern Europe had 50 years of being forcibly occupied by the Soviet Union, which Russia is obviously the prime mover of and the continuation of in most ways.

This has built some very different world views into the bulk of the populations in either region.

[DesertFox]

4 minutes ago, Huba said:

 Like usually with this type of situations, there's not nearly enough public info to really get to the bottom of who is at fault here, and to what degree.

Yep. Totally agree on that.

Here is the full Handelsblatt article on that:

Bundesregierung löst offenbar Deal für Panzerwerkstatt in Polen auf (handelsblatt.com)

As I already speculated yesterday, might well be that Ukraine will do the servicing and repairs themselves. Quote from the article:

Quote

 

Die Kampfpanzer könnten nun alternativ in der Ukraine selbst überholt werden. Dazu würden die Deutschen mit dem ukrainischen Rüstungskonzern Ukroboronprom kooperieren. 

Per Google translate: 

Alternatively, the main battle tanks could now be overhauled in Ukraine itself. To this end, the Germans would cooperate with the Ukrainian armaments company Ukroboronprom.

 

 

 

[cesmonkey]

Reported use of cluster munitions:
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif/2785
 

Quote

From the positions they report: they worked on us with cluster shells. Thrice. Since the personnel are in shelters, this did not cause any damage, but the situation is indicative: the day before there was a noticeable decrease in artillery activity, apparently caused by a shortage of conventional ammunition, and then cluster ammunition arrived (or were in reserve).

In the fourteenth, we first encountered cluster munitions in the direction of Peski. Placing positions in any forest stands then helped us out a lot: tree crowns absorbed a significant part of the damaging elements. In general, this type of ammunition poses a particular danger to equipment and personnel outside shelters, and to non-combatants due to the high degree of dispersal of low-precision weapons.