How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chris talpas]

6 hours ago, IanL said:

. A large energy release in the open is nasty, the same energy release in a confined space is devastating.

The only caveat is I don't have good understanding of the other variables because I'm not an explosive expert but the confined space under that span will have a multiplicative modifier on the effects of the explosion. My guess is that was why that section of the bridge was targeted with this type of munition.

An interesting and educational video recently released by Veritasium on fireworks illustrates the impact of confining an explosive quite nicely (see around 6-8 minutes and the 12:34)

 

[Carolus]

https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2023/7/2023-07-18-rheinmetall-receives-major-order-for-artillery-shells-by-bundeswehr

 

Things are moving. Germany ordered ammo sufficient for a few weeks of war.

[cesmonkey]

Big update from Mashovets. Kind of a mixed picture, but I"ll let someone else dig further.

[cesmonkey]

Crimean authorities order the evacuation of four small villages near the site of the exploding ammunition storage:
https://t.me/RVvoenkor/49528

Quote

In Crimea, an ammunition depot detonates at a training ground in the Kirovsky district

An operational headquarters was created to eliminate emergencies at the training ground, it was headed by the head of the Crimea.
From the area adjacent to the landfill in the Kirovsky district, it is planned to temporarily evacuate residents of 4 settlements, this is more than 2 thousand people.
Transport is redirected to a detour of the blocked section of "Tavrida".

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

20 hours ago, kevinkin said:

For example, is it sustainable? Which side benefits. What would it take for the west to go all in to prevent said months long attritional fighting?

These questions imply that UKR have a choice between attritional style war and some other style, weighing the pros and cons of each and deciding. I am quite sure that is not the case. I simply don't think they see any other way of attacking on the Zaporozhe battlefield, than "artillery conquers, infanry occupies".

[DesertFox]

Nice one.  military training ground in the Kirovske district, Crimea

Fire at military base in Crimea forces evacuation of more than 2,000 people | Reuters

[Maciej Zwolinski]

19 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Meanwhile in the south, Ukraine is showing that it is very good on offense and Russia's has so far only shown itself capable of  bleeding out behind minefields.

I assume it is getting a "very good" mark in the category of WW I style "bite and hold"/French 1940's style "bataille conduite" which implies that a quicker and less costly in men and materiel manner of attacking is impossible. Do you think that the balance between attack and defence has shifted towards the defence to generally cause this?

Both Gady and Kofman having returned from their field trip to Zaporozhe suggest, that the Ukrainians are deficient in combined arms tactics and a better tactical training could make their attacks more powerful and successful. I am skeptical as I just cannot imagine how the UKR could have achieved better results in e.g. breaching minefields near Orichiv by better coordinating their forces. Obviously, they did not bring in the air force, but that is not a failure of coordination, it is a failure to have enough of the planes and helis left at this moment of the war.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

19 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

It seems pretty apparent that Russia made a calculation that they could cut the southern force down to the bone in order to increase its potential elsewhere. 

I call it "the Dan Frye school of defence" after the iconic MMA fight.

 

[kevinkin]

19 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

These questions imply that UKR have a choice between attritional style war and some other style, weighing the pros and cons of each and deciding. I am quite sure that is not the case. I simply don't think they see any other way of attacking on the Zaporozhe battlefield, than "artillery conquers, infanry occupies".

Ukraine has no choice. The point is that the west does. If the UA relies on arty and that is in short supply, the west has to innovate to try to show the public (voters) that the offensive is working and the UA soldier is not being held out to dry. You and I understand how difficult their task is. But the public's attention is short and they generally want results now. Every few weeks there is another aid package. It's never a good idea to normalize war especially a horrific one. It can be self defeating. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

39 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Ukraine has no choice. The point is that the west does. If the UA relies on arty and that is in short supply, the west has to innovate to try to show the public (voters) that the offensive is working and the UA soldier is not being held out to dry.

Do you mean that the West should find an actual way of changing the attritional, artillery-centric paradigm via some innovation (technical? tactical?), or just try to make a show of it to keep the morale up on the homefront? No reservations on the second, but I am quite sceptical of the former. 

The three fundamental assumptions: (1) NATO armies will not join the war; (2) NATO will not give to the Ukrainie too much of equipment that would have to be taken away from NATO active units, to avoid disarming itself even temporarily  (3) NATO will not share its newest equipment for the fear of Russian/Chinese/Iranian reverese engineering  - mean that we are unlikely to see Ukrainians getting a Wunderwaffe to quickly win the war for them. I think the UKR will have to fight it their way, and the West can only support them with more or less suitable weapons, in more or less sufficient amounts.

To be precise: HIMARS was almost a Wunderwaffe, but under very specific conditions, almost tailor made to hurt Russians fighting in the way they fought the previous Summer, which they were able to subsequently modify. That trump card was played on the defense and is no longer that potent. I do not think UKR will be so lucky to get another weapon capable of having so big impact on the battlefield. Neither ATACMS nor F-16 in the numbers likely available to UKR seem like such Wunderwaffen.

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Both Gady and Kofman having returned from their field trip to Zaporozhe suggest, that the Ukrainians are deficient in combined arms tactics and a better tactical training could make their attacks more powerful and successful.

This is a cop out line that gets tossed when people cannot think of anything else to say.  Training can always "be better" and combined arms "better coordinated", this applies to any military on the planet and you are going to see it in AARs almost universally. 

Problem is that it is essentially meaningless.  So what is the training standard that will guarantee UA success in their current situation?  "Well more until they succeed..."  I also suspect it misses the new realities that the UA (and RA) are facing, instead clinging to a superior way of western war that has never been tested in the environment these two forces find themselves within.  These narratives completely miss the trees because all they can see is forest.

Edited July 19, 2023 by The_Capt

[kevinkin]

58 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Do you mean that the West should find an actual way of changing the attritional, artillery-centric paradigm via some innovation (technical? tactical?), or just try to make a show of it to keep the morale up on the homefront?

Both. But the latter should be more efficacious than a show of force. The west has almost met its geostrategic goals with NATO expanding and Russia is in disarray economically and socially. So the west appears to be in this thing not to lose rather than for Ukraine to win back its borders. I am not sure who they would like to break first - Russia or Ukraine? Either way that gets the west to negotiations which is their true aim anyway. But in the meantime the Ukraine is being led on by dribs and drabs of assistance for fear of actually pissing Putin off. So the heroes in Ukraine are fighting for the cowards in the west's capitols. We can't let nuclear blackmail stand. Or if we can't stomach that, we shouldn't stand by and let its use destroy a smaller country through conventional attrition.  

[Teufel]

10 hours ago, chris talpas said:

An interesting and educational video recently released by Veritasium on fireworks illustrates the impact of confining an explosive quite nicely (see around 6-8 minutes and the 12:34)

 

I'm not sure whether any simplified model can be taken as a common rule.

There are so many types explosives to start with but generalized one can say with certainty that the main parameters for blast waves are; blast pressure, velocity as well as released thermal energy. Even with extensive knowledge and advanced mathematical modeling it’s hard to predict an exact output.

All simulations are rather theoretical, so different scenarios can result in different blast characteristic. I am not familiar with simulation programms but there are at least few which can support a design of a blast with desired parameters.

Having the explosion occur above water, will further complicate the prediction. One simplified example is that liquids in contrast to gases are non-compressible (auto critique - they are actually under specific conditions when they turn into solids). Blast waves in a liquid or just above a liquid will not allow forming gases to escape into more space as it does in air. Interface between air and water, if blast occurs in the air, will reflect blast waves directed against the surface. Making the blast wave come back towards the point of explosion, liquids behave like solids in the interface with air. If there are obstacles that met the first wave, they will partly be hit again.

With all that being said, there are so many parameters in such reactions that it’s close to impossible to predict accurately. Particularly not knowing even the fundamentals of the system.

See this very simplified but educational example of blast waves in liquids and gaseous environments. With assumptions of exactly the same type of explosion occurring in both - a hand grenade.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/explosion-land-water.htm

Edited July 19, 2023 by Teufel

[hcrof]

15 minutes ago, Teufel said:

I'm not sure whether any simplified model can be taken as a common rule.

There are so many types explosives to start with but generalized one can say with certainty that the main parameters for blast waves are; blast pressure, velocity as well as released thermal energy. Even with extensive knowledge and advanced mathematical modeling it’s hard to predict an exact output.

All simulations are rather theoretical, so different scenarios can result in different blast characteristic. I am not familiar with simulation programms but there are at least few which can support a design of a blast with desired parameters.

Having the explosion occur above water, will further complicate the prediction. One simplified example is that liquids in contrast to gases are non-compressible (auto critique - they are actually under specific conditions when they turn into solids). Blast waves in a liquid or just above a liquid will not allow forming gases to escape into more space as it does in air. Interface between air and water, if blast occurs in the air, will reflect blast waves directed against the surface. Making the blast wave come back towards the point of explosion, liquids behave like solids in the interface with air. If there are obstacles that met the first wave, they will partly be hit again.

With all that being said, there are so many parameters in such reactions that it’s close to impossible to predict accurately. Particularly not knowing even the fundamentals of the system.

See this very simplified explanation and examples of blast waves in liquids and gaseous environments. With assumptions of exactly the same type of explosion occurring in both - a hand grenade.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/explosion-land-water.htm

It is possible to model a blast with a decent degree of accuracy, and this is done a lot when for example designing things you expect to get attacked, or to forensically determine what happened at a blast site. An example of some software that does it is viper, but there are others and they are all validated by physical testing.

https://www.viper.as/

The key, as you mention, is to get your inputs right and we just don't have the information to make an accurate assessment!

[RandomCommenter]

12 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Just a bit of clarity on the “Battle of Bunker Hill” (actually a misnomer because the hill where the battle occurred was actually Breed’s Hill). First, the Rebels fortified the hill against orders. Second, the Rebels outnumbered Howe’s Regulars by a ratio of 2 to 1. Yes, Howe carried the win, but it was a Pyrrhic victory since he was unable to strike out of Boston at all because he suffered such extreme losses. This was actually a good thing for the Rebels because after the battle, because the Rebels only had enough powder and shot to last three minutes in a fight with the Regulars. That equates to nine rounds for each militiaman. Even after Washington took command of the Militia after the battle, they didn’t get any more powder and shot until the Continental Marines took New Providence Island in the Caribbean. If Howe had known that, he could have cleared out the whole bunch.

The point I was making was only that for the first two assaults, the militia mowed the Brits down. Howe somehow rallied the Brits to have a third go and the militia had run out of ammunition, were thirsty, tired, and then they broke. You would not have expected a third attempt to succeed where the first two had been so disastrous. That is my analogy to the Russian lines in the South. They are holding, they are holding ... until they don't. The troops manning those lines have been there for weeks now without relief. They do seem to have plenty of ammunition. I question the quality of nutrition and sleep they are receiving. Human beings have a breaking point and I feel like these lines may suddenly collapse.

Agreed r.e. all your other points. It was Breed's Hill but has come down to the public as Bunker Hill. And for sure it was a pyrrhic victory. The British lost about a quarter the troops they had in Boston and reinforcements were 3,000 miles away. Also it showed the Americans that militia (not to mind the mooted continental army) could stand up to red coats. And of course the most important long term outcome of that battle was, in my opinion, the promotion of Howe. It is my personal opinion that Howe made a series of errors in New York and that a different, more aggressive, British commander could have won the revolutionary war for the British right there (although even if they won that war in 1776 they were never going to hold America long term, there would just have been another revolution ten or twenty years later).

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

This is a cop out line that gets tossed when people cannot think of anything else to say.  Training can always "be better" and combined arms "better coordinated", this applies to any military on the planet and you are going to see it in AARs almost universally. 

Problem is that it is essentially meaningless.  So what is the training standard that will guarantee UA success in their current situation?  "Well more until they succeed..."  I also suspect it misses the new realities that the UA (and RA) are facing, instead clinging to a superior way of western war that has never been tested in the environment these two forces find themselves within.  These narratives completely miss the trees because all they can see is forest.

A pretty typical outing from Kofman in that he provides some interesting data but his analysis is essentially a list of platitudes. 

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

A pretty typical outing from Kofman in that he provides some interesting data but his analysis is essentially a list of platitudes. 

Typical academic - "be more combined armsy!" 

Ok great, hey Sergeant Major go tell the guys to be more "combined armsy"...what?  No seriously, that is what I got....  You threaten to retire at least once a week, you know its a job you love to hate.

[Carolus]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

A pretty typical outing from Kofman in that he provides some interesting data but his analysis is essentially a list of platitudes. 

Isn't Kofman's field of expertise the Navy?

Not saying that precludes knowledge of land warfare, but I remember, in this very thread, another visit of Kofman to the frontlines back when the defensive battle for Bakhmut was still raging and it also didn't find much appeal here.

But yes. This war seems very much focused on "spot it, shoot it, spot the supply behind it as far as possible, shoot that, repeat 50 times, then rush the position with the minimum forces possible and hope the previous shooting had its effect".

This is very much "widespread introduction of the machine gun" era except it is L52s + indirect spotting.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Carolus

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I assume it is getting a "very good" mark in the category of WW I style "bite and hold"/French 1940's style "bataille conduite" which implies that a quicker and less costly in men and materiel manner of attacking is impossible. Do you think that the balance between attack and defence has shifted towards the defence to generally cause this?

Sorta.  Mostly I meant that Ukraine has shown much better ability to retake ground than Russia has.  Which means that Russia has reason to be concerned about the situation around Bakhmut and in the south, whereas Ukraine doesn't have much to fear about Russian counter attacks against them or the situation north in the Kupyansk area.  Even when Russia gains ground it does so in an unsustainable way that eventually causes them to lose it again (Bakhmut being this year's big example).

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Both Gady and Kofman having returned from their field trip to Zaporozhe suggest, that the Ukrainians are deficient in combined arms tactics and a better tactical training could make their attacks more powerful and successful. I am skeptical as I just cannot imagine how the UKR could have achieved better results in e.g. breaching minefields near Orichiv by better coordinating their forces. Obviously, they did not bring in the air force, but that is not a failure of coordination, it is a failure to have enough of the planes and helis left at this moment of the war.

I agree with this and what The_Capt and billbindc said about analysis like Kofman's.  I have no doubt that Ukraine's offensive capabilities are still peppered with shortcomings by Western standards, however it is stupid to compare them to that standard when they clearly are not equipped in the same way. 

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Isn't Kofman's field of expertise the Navy?

Might have started out that way (I don't know), but he has became a general Russian military expert long ago.

8 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Not saying that precludes knowledge of land warfare, but I remember, in this very thread, another visit of Kofman to the frontlines back when the defensive battle for Bakhmut was still raging and it also didn't find much appeal here.

Oh, we skewered him at the time, just as we did at the beginning of the war when he showed himself utterly clueless.  He's gotten better since then, but he apparently is still prone to oddly framed analysis.

8 minutes ago, Carolus said:

But yes. This war seems very much focused on "spot it, shoot it, spot the supply behind it as far as possible, shoot that, repeat 50 times, then rush the position with the minimum forces possible and hope the previous shooting had its effect".

Exactly.   NATO forces would experience the same thing, but in my view it wouldn't be in this position mostly because it would have annihilated Russian forces to the point of collapse in the first weeks of the war.

Which is an interesting enough point to bring up in a separate post

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

Someone should probably point out that the unpopular Kofman opinion getting kicked around didn't come from Kofman. It was written by Franz-Stefan Gady.

[Battlefront.com]

We have wondered how well NATO forces would do if they were in Ukraine's shoes.  With the same equipment restrictions, I'd wager they would do a little better.   Maybe keep casualties down a bit, but even then I'm not totally sure about that.  So call that a hunch.

The talk we've had about how NATO needs to figure out how to better survive this sort of war are all valid, however it seems we sometimes forget that the whole point of NATO's overmatch capabilities is so they don't have to.  Whether it be prolonged expenditure of munitions, loss of armored vehicles, air defenses, etc. it all comes down to NATO having designed its forces around the strategy of being able to deliver a "knock out punch" in the opening phase of conflict.  Therefore, this sort of war would only be fought by NATO if its primary strategy failed miserably.

Based on everything I've seen from this war up to this point, I have a high degree of confidence that NATO's  "knock out punch" strategy would work.  The best boxer in the world probably doesn't need to worry about how he's going to fight exhausted in the 10th round if his opponent is an egotistical bully with no track record of winning a fair fight.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Someone should probably point out that the unpopular Kofman opinion getting kicked around didn't come from Kofman. It was written by Franz-Stefan Gady.

Ah, thanks for that clarification.  But wasn't Kofman part of that assessment?  I thought that's how those guys worked when they did their visits.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

18 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Someone should probably point out that the unpopular Kofman opinion getting kicked around didn't come from Kofman. It was written by Franz-Stefan Gady.

It was written by Gady on Twitter, but said by Kofman in the "Geopolitics Decanted" podcast released this Saturday. They were all returning from the Ukraine and recording on the train to Kiev. They are saying the same thing.

[Vanir Ausf B]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ah, thanks for that clarification.  But wasn't Kofman part of that assessment?  I thought that's how those guys worked when they did their visits.

Steve

 

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

It was written by Gady on Twitter, but said by Kofman in the "Geopolitics Decanted" podcast released this Saturday. They were all returning from the Ukraine and recording on the train to Kiev. They are saying the same thing.

That's a terrific podcast but I did not remember Kofman saying that. After reading your post I went back and re-listened to his sections and he never mentions the UA needing better training, or anything else about UA training. Maybe it was Lee or Alperovitch? If you can find it give me the time stamp, please.

Kofman has been openly skeptical of the efficacy of western-style combined arms training for the UA since it's inception, so the idea that what the UA needs is more of it would be a rather un-Kofman thing to say no matter what his traveling companions may think. Here's something Kofman really did say about UA training by NATO forces back in December:

• Understand US is trying to find ways to improve outcomes and reduce UA dependence on high rates of arty fire. Less attrition, more maneuver. Training to do combined arms at company/battalion level is good in and of itself, but it won’t necessarily solve this problem.
• I have no doubt UA can learn combined arms maneuver, and saw elements of this at Kharkiv. However, without USAF air superiority, US logistics, C4ISR, etc it’s a bit hard to ‘fight like Americans.’ How well would we do without airpower?
• More importantly, it misses that attrition is what enabled maneuver in UA offensives. Against a well prepared defense, with sufficient density of forces, it wasn’t nearly as successful and casualties were high. This is why Kherson was so difficult compared to Kharkiv/Lyman.
• UA way of war depends on fires, exploited by maneuver. It is a successor military to the Soviet military, which was arty centric, and in that respect is much closer to the Russian military than our own.
• You have to work with what has proven successful for your partners. Deep strike, precision, better ISR, can help improve UA performance. My bias is that I’m  wary of seeing a solution that implies trying to turn that military more into us.
• That said, there’s no easy answer here. The US is not optimized to support a protracted artillery-driven war in Europe. Folks can also judge for themselves, looking at the history how good we are at converting other militaries to ‘fighting more like Americans'

https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1606637882994819072

Edited July 19, 2023 by Vanir Ausf B