How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_MonkeyKing]

33 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

here is the second part:

 

some pointers:

• At the start of the southern offensive, we saw the employment of multiples of single companies, not brigades
  • Ukraine is limited in its ability in embodying larger formations in an integrated way. Limited by enablers, operational environment, and experience.
• Was to the idea of establishing new "western" brigades proven/disproven?
  • another way to go would have been to reinforce the existing experienced units with new battalions.
  • a lot of the progress in the south was made by the older experienced units
  • jury is still out but already merits questioning was this the way to go? Eighter way it was worth trying
• Was the idea of trying to make Ukraine to fight like "us" proven?
  • Ukraine's way of war has been attritional, using fires decisively that then enables moment. Most actions have been platoon/company level where Ukraine has excelled compared to Russians. 
  • The argument has been the west does not have the ability to sustain this type of war.
  • The question is does the west then have the ability to train and sustain Ukraine in the western way of war? This would mean the enablers the western way of war requires, starting with air supremacy. The answer seems to be no.
    • might be better to improve Ukraine's ability to fight the way it is already fighting
  • Ukraine uses tanks in almost the complete opposite way than the west
    • in Ukraine's experience driving a company of tanks over a ridge is a sure way of losing a tank co.
    • Tanks are used in infantry support or indirect fire roles. Mainly in pairs. Same on the Russian side at this point
    • AT role is mainly done with ATGM infantry
    • This is what Ukraine has learned and thinks what works for them
• Now:
  • New brigades have been bloodied and are going through some changes. This is good
  • Ukraine is adapting
  • The fight is now mainly an attritional fight with platoon/company-level infantry attacks
    • problem is this is unlikely to achieve breakthrough and exploitation
  • Mine clearing capacities are in high demand like Nammo APOBS. Now main ways are bangalores or grappling hooks. These are slow and create tiny lanes and do not enable vehicle moment.
  • Now ongoing attritional counter-battery fight seems interesting and promising for Ukraine. Still hard to judge from the outside
  • Russia is saving most capabilities and ammo for large vehicle formations. This rationing is often confused with Russia lacking artillery. 

[The_Capt]

So would not this:

23 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

At the start of the southern offensive, we saw the employment of multiples of single companies, not brigades

• Ukraine is limited in its ability in embodying larger formations in an integrated way. Limited by enablers, operational environment, and experience.

 

Be a result of this:

24 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Russia is saving most capabilities and ammo for large vehicle formations. This rationing is often confused with Russia lacking artillery. 

And why they are doing this:

24 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Now ongoing attritional counter-battery fight seems interesting and promising for Ukraine. Still hard to judge from the outside

?

Also, why would the RA be rationing artillery ammo?  

Finally, does anyone think that maybe the UA is fighting in a more distributed manner (pretty much from Day 1) because that is what works on the battlefield now?  Large concentrations are highly visible from way back and can be hit so they are in fact a liability. The RA is the low bar of precision in this war but it looks like they are still able to disrupt UA mass even with the sub-par ISR and dumb artillery mass they have.

This is not a coordination or training issue it is a modern warfare reality - precision beats mass, mass precision beats everything.

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This is not a coordination or training issue it is a modern warfare reality - precision beats mass, mass precision beats everything.

Well put.

What the US air supremacy is, it is mass precision at its finest.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Finally, does anyone think that maybe the UA is fighting in a more distributed manner (pretty much from Day 1) because that is what works on the battlefield now?  Large concentrations are highly visible from way back and can be hit so they are in fact a liability. The RA is the low bar of precision in this war but it looks like they are still able to disrupt UA mass even with the sub-par ISR and dumb artillery mass they have.

This is not a coordination or training issue it is a modern warfare reality - precision beats mass, mass precision beats everything.

In case the question is not rethorical, I agree.

From the podcast, I get the impression that Kofman agrees too, but in order to avoid making a too broad statement, he presents it in terms of "this is what works for the Ukrainians" versus something else that "could work for us". I just interpret those statements as meaning "this is what works in this war".  He quite explicitly said that the experience in the Ukrainian war was that if you move a company of tanks to a treeline, this is a great way to lose a company of tanks because it would act as a magnet for all kinds of fires from the RUS which those tanks would not withstand.

However, his point about insufficient coordination was to my understanding connected with something else. He and Lee presented a list of examples of units missing directions, missing timelines, not having a back up plan, etc. This was of course anonymised for OPSEC reasons and therefore difficult to agree or disagree with. I assume that he and Rob Lee know that those things happen in all wars, so I understand that in their judgement, there were too many of those incidents, caused by lack of experience in the new brigades.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Mine clearing capacities are in high demand like Nammo APOBS. Now main ways are bangalores or grappling hooks. These are slow and create tiny lanes and do not enable vehicle moment.

In my impression, that last sentence was a very important point for Kofman and Lee. They talked about this several times. Because of that even a succesful Ukrainian infantry attack successfully crossing a minefield and taking a position does not mean that the successful unit can be reinforced and supplied. Before it happens, the minefield, which is now at the back of new Ukrainian position, has to be cleared in the way suitable for vehicles. This also applies to medevac, which means that each casualty is carried by hand. This takes away several men from the front unit - the wounded plus up to 4 soldiers to carry him several hundred meters.

Russians also are aware of this, so as soon as the Ukrainians take a piece of land, there is an armoured counterattack because at that point the Ukrainians are going to be dismounted infantry only with portable AT weapons. 

[cesmonkey]

A few miscellaneous tidbits:
https://t.me/RVvoenkor/49657

Quote

The enemy showed preparations for breaking through the defense at Orekhov with the help of the American M58 MICLIC demining system
Zaporozhye front. The footage shows the 15th brigade of the National Guard "Kara-Dag" making passages in the minefields in the area of Novodanilovka - Rabotino.
Coordinates 47.49137, 35.85339.
Now the enemy has not been conducting active offensive operations for several days, regrouping and pulling up assault groups to the lines of advance in the Rabotino-Verbovoye area.
In the area of Novodanilovka, the delivery of assault groups and the placement of armored vehicles are recorded: Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, as well as tanks in closed firing positions to support infantry attacks.
Demining vehicles have also been deployed to the area to make new passages in the minefields.
In the near future, offensive operations are expected to be resumed by forces of the 65th and 47th brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the 15th brigades of the National Guard.

https://t.me/dva_majors/21752

Quote

Data on the use of cluster munitions by the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being received from the Zaporozhye, Artemovsky (Bakhmut) and Kherson fronts.

A lot of voices are echoing the CNN story on:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/20/politics/pentagon-watchdog-report-ukraine-weaponry/index.html
Pentagon watchdog finds some Western weaponry sent to Ukraine was stolen before being recovered last year

What I find interesting is this part from that story:
 

Quote

The report is dated October 6, 2022. In late October, the US resumed on-site inspections of Ukrainian weapons depots as a way to better track where the equipment was going.

 

[Carolus]

2 hours ago, Tux said:

Noted and I now understand where you're coming from.  I think the fact that people on this thread have previously opined that Ukraine should be yanked into NATO and the EU as soon as the war is over probably primed me to interpret what you wrote the wrong way.

I understand. I also think that this will be a long-term process. There may be some exceptional circumstances (like a large-scale rebuilding plan that helps Ukraine which other EU candidates did not benefit from), but outside of that, I agree that the general candidacy process before membership will be observed. Especially since we must also consider the political circumstances in Ukraine after the war. The entire people will be traumatized, and fringe political movements might take advantage of that, which are not compatible with the EU.

Quote

Again I better understand your thought process now but I still struggle with it a bit:

I acknowledge all the points you list below this text passage and yes indeed, there does seem to be too much deliberation for things to be mere coincidence in terms of escalation of support.

And it certainly makes sense that parts of this deliberate plan will be kept very secret. I actually forgot something I was saying last year to people who wondered about the sometimes hot-and-cold messaging of Western governments:

We don't know which part of this is aimed at us, the population, and what is aimed indirectly at Russia and what parts are deliberately left out.  

If a grander strategy like this is going on, I suspect that the organizers sit across the great pond in America, where "power politics" is a much more well-preserved skill (outside of economics, which is the only power interest European nations have majorly pursued, and as we see, usually to the detriment of classical power and security interests).

The back-and-forth around various topics regarding equipment and sanctions (French and Germans fulfilling existing supply contracts with the Russian Army in 2022, the London oligarchs, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, Turkey all being European or NATO nations which will gladly reach for any blood money that is offered etc.) just left me with the impression that I don't trust the West to conceive of and follow a grander scheme.

But I truly and erroneously spoke from the gut instead of the brain on many points in the previous post, so it is good you corrected me.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Carolus

[The_MonkeyKing]

24 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

In my impression, that last sentence was a very important point for Kofman and Lee. They talked about this several times. Because of that even a succesful Ukrainian infantry attack successfully crossing a minefield and taking a position does not mean that the successful unit can be reinforced and supplied. Before it happens, the minefield, which is now at the back of new Ukrainian position, has to be cleared in the way suitable for vehicles. This also applies to medevac, which means that each casualty is carried by hand. This takes away several men from the front unit - the wounded plus up to 4 soldiers to carry him several hundred meters.

Russians also are aware of this, so as soon as the Ukrainians take a piece of land, there is an armoured counterattack because at that point the Ukrainians are going to be dismounted infantry only with portable AT weapons. 

Yeah, and this type of attack is so slow that Russians will expand their minefields and fortifications at least the same rate as Ukraine is advancing. Leading to never ending loop without breakthrough and exploitation. At least until force attrition breaks the cycle.

[Kinophile]

21 hours ago, kevinkin said:

 

I doesn't matter, St Pete was just thrown out there. But do something western capitals. Your weapons have already killed Russians. Kick it up a notch and grow some initiative. The west can't fight with its navy nor air force. They are so tied up Houdini couldn't figure this one out. They are playing right into whatever strength Russian has - ground forces. Putin's nuclear bluster has to be challenged. Better to do it now rather than kicking the can down the road for the next gen to figure out under even worse circumstances.

It does matter. It would take NATO ships and planes to do it. It would be a flat out act of war, ie Not going to happen. 

[Carolus]

Supposedly Igor "Strelkov" Girkin was arrested by Russian authorities.

 

 

[Kinophile]

Yup

https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1682339409671200768?t=cM7ByVUQuQ2FgLMjyuALcg&s=19

[kraze]

So hopefully both Girkin and Navalny will have another live debate quite soon. Now about who sleeps near the toilet.

[Beleg85]

According to TG, in the words of his wife, Girkin was detained under the article 282 of Russian penal code- extremism. Quite approriate given recent whatabouts of his "club".

https://twitter.com/SomeGumul/status/1682341372978778112/photo/1

[billbindc]

53 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Yup

https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1682339409671200768?t=cM7ByVUQuQ2FgLMjyuALcg&s=19

It will be amusing to find out which "former employee of Wagner" requested Girkin's detention. Who wants to bet that turns out to be Prigozhin?

(Note: it would be extremely naive to believe it was actually Dmitriy Petrovskiy who set this in motion.) 

Edited July 21, 2023 by billbindc

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

However, his point about insufficient coordination was to my understanding connected with something else. He and Lee presented a list of examples of units missing directions, missing timelines, not having a back up plan, etc. This was of course anonymised for OPSEC reasons and therefore difficult to agree or disagree with. I assume that he and Rob Lee know that those things happen in all wars, so I understand that in their judgement, there were too many of those incidents, caused by lack of experience in the new brigades.

I guess my problem with the whole “combined arms is their problem” narrative is that it misses the overall trend lines.  The RA was noted at the beginning of this war as failing to properly conduct combined arms.  This was a little odd as the Soviets essentially invented combined arms at scale and the RA was constructed around combined arms doctrine and concepts.  But we all agreed that “Russia Sux, LOLZ” and watched war porn streams with glee while yammering for “more Leopards!!”.

Now the UA on the offensive is also “failing to coordinate combined arms at scale” after extensive equipping and training by western forces.  So to my mind either two completely separate militaries coming at the problem have both mystically failed to grasp and execute the essentials of combined arms. Or there is something fundamentally changing about the concept of combined arms itself.

As to armchair quarter backing the UA in mid operations, well sure anyone with a podcast and a half decent academic background can nitpick.  It is called friction and it has always been in every war, forever.  Why?  Because human systems are filled with nasty human agency and perception, and error.  To point to a slow operational offensive “because units missed timelines” is weak and amateur analysis.  The biggest problem with trying to get professional assessments is that those able to do them are in the game and not going to speak publicly about what is actually going on.  What that means is that the calculus of this war remains opaque until the thing is over for a few years and we can get access to what actually happened - “How Did This Thing Get Hot?” thread coming hopefully soon.

The rest is academics and pundits trying to promote a bunch of angles.  We heard the same stuff at Bakhmut, Kherson and in the early days.  The fundamental questions are more along the lines of “can the UA translate corrode to breakout without air power as we knew it?”  “Has Defensive Primacy actually happened (again)?” “What the hell is happening with mass?” 

This is not pro-Ukrainian copium either.  The reality may be simply that offensive operations in this war do not work anymore.  We could be looking at the beginning of a frozen conflict line a la Korea.  But why offensive operations may not work is not because a UA unit had their map upside down anymore than when the RA stopped using their tanks as tanks and made VBIEDs out of them.

That all said, my own assessment is that this still feels like shaping.  I nice little feel up before heading to paradise.  It lasted for at least two months at Kherson.  I suspect we have the rest of the summer with this weird Grade 9 gym dancing until something gives and the UA drops the hammer and goes for it.  In fact we have not seen a full scale formation offensive yet - as has been noted - the reason is more likely because conditions have not been set.  Now another big question is “are the UA shaping or leg humping?”  Well given the C4ISR differences between the two forces my money is still on operational shaping, but we will have to wait and see.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Russians also are aware of this, so as soon as the Ukrainians take a piece of land, there is an armoured counterattack because at that point the Ukrainians are going to be dismounted infantry only with portable AT weapons.

You mean like they had north of Kyiv when they stopped them cold?  Have we seen an actual “armoured counterattack” in this entire war?  That and as soon as the RA formed up to make that c-attack they would be lit up by ISR and pounded.  

I suspect the issue is not RA armor but RA fires, enabled by ISR that are the major problem.  Likely why the UA seems intent on killing as much RA artillery as possible.  It is looking more and more like a cat and mouse game with the Russian guns.  I knew they looked tepid from what we could tell, and hoped it was a sign of systemic failure, but perhaps they are holding them back.

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

It would be a flat out act of war

What have you been missing since February 2022? Did a lot of peace break out? No. The west just keeps suppling the UA the means to turn Russian troops into rat food. I little naval action would be kids play. But you are right. It's not happening - for all the wrong reasons. 

Edited July 21, 2023 by kevinkin

[Maciej Zwolinski]

16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You mean like they had north of Kyiv when they stopped them cold?

No, not that scale.

Rember this is in Zaporozhe, so terrain is like in Kherson - big fields with narrow tree lanes between them. I imagine this scenario looks like this: once the Ukranian attack succeeds, and their (very limited) objective  has been taken, a few Russian tanks or BMPs (say a platoon) come out of the treeline on the Russian side and shoot up the treeline on the Ukrainian side, trying to make the Ukrainians retreat. They stay as far away as possible from the Ukrainians and if they manage to get a LOS from further away than the Javelin range (2,7 km AFAIK) they are relatively safe, because it is unlikely the UKR would bring a longer ranged AT weapon on their backs through a minefield.

Eventually the UKR may call artillery fires to make the Russians withdraw or the Russians sufficiently hurt them with fire, that RUS infantry can come back and reclaim that treeline.

[BornGinger]

On 7/16/2023 at 10:43 PM, Offshoot said:

The making of a fake war hero: An American who reinvented himself as a social-media soldier in Ukraine is accused of 'stolen valor'

It seems this Vascuez character was using the same kind of method as the Chechen TikTok Army and claiming things that wasn't true.

I'm sure that we soon will have something about this on Netflix or Amazon's film and tv-series service.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

No, not that scale.

Rember this is in Zaporozhe, so terrain is like in Kherson - big fields with narrow tree lanes between them. I imagine this scenario looks like this: once the Ukranian attack succeeds, and their (very limited) objective  has been taken, a few Russian tanks or BMPs (say a platoon) come out of the treeline on the Russian side and shoot up the treeline on the Ukrainian side, trying to make the Ukrainians retreat. They stay as far away as possible from the Ukrainians and if they manage to get a LOS from further away than the Javelin range (2,7 km AFAIK) they are relatively safe, because it is unlikely the UKR would bring a longer ranged AT weapon on their backs through a minefield.

Eventually the UKR may call artillery fires to make the Russians withdraw or the Russians sufficiently hurt them with fire, that RUS infantry can come back and reclaim that treeline.

So in this scenario UA ISR does not see a few tanks/BMPs tens of kilometres out? - which they would because a bridgehead is very valuable real estate.  And then hit them before they can even get near the infantry bridgehead by any number of systems that can do so at tens of kilometres (PGM artillery, Switchblade 600s etc)?  For the Javelin it range seems to depend on the CLU.  The lightweight CLU can hit out to 4,000 m and the terrain, plus UAS can support those shots.  If the UA knows “sending a Coy tanks over a ridge is a good way to lose a Coy of tanks” then why are the rules different for the RA.  In fact from what we have read and seen the most likely involvement of RA tanks will be as mobile indirect fires.

You could do this scenario in CMBS right now.  Just beef up the Blue ISR and give them all the UAS, and see how it goes.  

[kevinkin]

Few days old:

https://www.businessinsider.com/minefields-force-ukraine-to-change-counteroffensive-strategy-russia-2023-7

Ukraine has been forced to change its counteroffensive strategy after repeatedly coming up against dense Russian minefields, a report says.

Ukrainian units are leaving behind the battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles donated by Western allies and advancing slowly on foot, The Washington Post reported.

"You can no longer do anything with just a tank with some armor because the minefield is too deep, and sooner or later, it will stop, and then it will be destroyed by concentrated fire," Ukraine's commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny told The Post.

Russian forces also continue to drop more mines from the air onto areas that Ukrainians have cleared, further complicating Ukraine's clearance efforts.

No fly zone? What a freaking thought?

Shaping operations? Yep, western media is shaping the public so they understand the going will be slow if not impossible without more direct NATO involvement. UA soldiers are now attacking dense minefields without US armor protection. The media shaping ops are more effective than Ukraine's have been. Which might not be a bad thing in the end. What's the old saying "you just can't throw money at the problem" and go to Ocean City for the weekend. 

[kevinkin]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66267136

Ukraine's Zelensky sacks ambassador to UK Prystaiko after criticism

Edited July 21, 2023 by kevinkin

[The_MonkeyKing]

The full episode now out (last week they released the first 30min):

"When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, one of its first targets was the city of Mariupol. Despite being outnumbered by—and less well equipped than—their adversaries, Ukrainian defenders held out for three months. As the Russian siege of the city intensified, Ukrainian forces defended a shrinking perimeter with a command post in the Azovstal steel plant. One of those Ukrainian defenders was Sergeant Arseniy Fedosiuk. He joins John Spencer on this episode, relaying his experience in Mariupol, exploring the unique challenges of defending urban terrain against a superior enemy, and describing what happened at the end of the three-month battle, when he was taken prisoner by Russian forces."

 

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/defending-mariupol/

 

[Chibot Mk IX]

Former head of DPR militia Igor Strelkov detained in Moscow — wife - Society & Culture - TASS

 

 

[Carolus]

The first 10 Leopard 1A5 from Germany are on the way to Ukraine, along with miscellaneous other items. A little bit of 155mm ammo too: ca. 1500 "conventional" shells and 2000 smoke shells, and 10 ground surveillance radars.