How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I guess my problem with the whole “combined arms is their problem” narrative is that it misses the overall trend lines.  

I think it also might be the traditional fuzzy definition of what "combined arms" is and how to discuss it.

When I think of combined arms I personally always think of it as tactical and operational.  At the tactical level you have things like artillery whacking defenses while armor covers the advance of infantry moving about in IFVs.  That sort of thing.

Operational combined arms is using the above but in a connected way with larger concepts, such as massed fires, deep strikes, movement of higher level enabling elements (like mine clearing), concentrated tank strike to the flank, etc.

I have a suspicion that the academics that just reported from the front are talking more about the operational scale, not the tactical.  I'm thinking they have a point.

In this war we have seen endless examples of Ukraine hitting a spot with a fairly small force, more or less a raid.  Maybe they take some terrain, maybe casualties and/or time mean they don't.  Maybe they keep the land they tank because the Russians aren't able to try and take it back, maybe they have to abandon it because there's nobody coming to relieve/reinforce them.

Maybe we're also seeing Ukraine take too much of a "wait and see" approach, where they launch one of these small scale attacks with no solid follow up plan.  Instead, they wait and see what happens and then form a plan based on that.  This means the Russians have time to do the same, which then makes the next attack all the much harder.

Now, I do NOT know if this is what the academics are saying.  I do NOT know if this is a fair reflection of what is in fact going on since Ukrainian OPSEC at this level is quite good.  But I think we have seen enough evidence to suggest that at least some of this is happening.  Which is understandable because planning and logistics are not easily done.

Maybe it has to be this way, but maybe it is Ukraine making do with what they are most familiar with.  What I'm suggesting is there might be a new way that is a hybrid of Ukraine's and the West's where there is more emphasis on small tactical fights (Ukraine's way) with more complex operational level coordination (West's way).

Steve

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, kevinkin said:

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. 

A little Naval action against Russian shipping and naval/air defences? Against their most economically important city? It would be war. 

Article 5 is a simple construct but the threshold to passing it (not causing or call for a vote) is pretty high,  both overtly and unspoken. 

NATO, as a political entity of very disparate nations, is highly averse to major expeditionary war with open-ended consequences for the home nations. Afghanistan was safely beyond the geopolitical horizon. It was also a clear cut case for Article 5. Balkans and Libya were theater-limited with zero ability to counterstrike NATO beyond their immediate borders. 

Russia,  for all its fumbles,  faults and failures,  is an entirely different beast. 

Finally, a clear NATO attack, without an unequivocal Russian cause, would shore up Putin's regime in a day.

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Kinophile

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1682435379935182848?s=20

 

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

It would be war. 

What the heck going on now? Seriously, I understand your point and fears of escalation. I just believe a war of the scale we are fighting can't be nuanced if the end result is something other than an ugly stalemate where Ukraine struggles to recover for years. Our so called leaders have to fess up and tell the world what their real goals are. Their actions do not support the stated objective that Ukraine will re-take its stolen lands. Something else is going on and it's as cold as a witch's tit. 

[billbindc]

5 hours ago, billbindc said:

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.) 

Some further notes: 

Girkin...for all of his grotesque extremism...is actually astute on the war, points out unfailingly that Prigozhin is no tactician or strategist and is profligate with the lives of his men. He nibbles at Putin...but he takes bites out of Prigozhin and the smarter sort of Russian fascist thinks he's right. He predicted in May that Prigozhin could launch a coup attempt and then after it happened he said Prigozhin should (reasonably enough) face treason charges. 

Girkin is no serious threat to Putin and Putin knows it. Furthermore, he's obviously a useful stick to beat up the driver of an attempted coup. But what's happened? Girkin is in jail and Prigozhin is not.

That says everything about who won and who lost the chevauchée.

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think it also might be the traditional fuzzy definition of what "combined arms" is and how to discuss it.

When I think of combined arms I personally always think of it as tactical and operational.  At the tactical level you have things like artillery whacking defenses while armor covers the advance of infantry moving about in IFVs.  That sort of thing.

Operational combined arms is using the above but in a connected way with larger concepts, such as massed fires, deep strikes, movement of higher level enabling elements (like mine clearing), concentrated tank strike to the flank, etc.

I have a suspicion that the academics that just reported from the front are talking more about the operational scale, not the tactical.  I'm thinking they have a point.

In this war we have seen endless examples of Ukraine hitting a spot with a fairly small force, more or less a raid.  Maybe they take some terrain, maybe casualties and/or time mean they don't.  Maybe they keep the land they tank because the Russians aren't able to try and take it back, maybe they have to abandon it because there's nobody coming to relieve/reinforce them.

Maybe we're also seeing Ukraine take too much of a "wait and see" approach, where they launch one of these small scale attacks with no solid follow up plan.  Instead, they wait and see what happens and then form a plan based on that.  This means the Russians have time to do the same, which then makes the next attack all the much harder.

Now, I do NOT know if this is what the academics are saying.  I do NOT know if this is a fair reflection of what is in fact going on since Ukrainian OPSEC at this level is quite good.  But I think we have seen enough evidence to suggest that at least some of this is happening.  Which is understandable because planning and logistics are not easily done.

Maybe it has to be this way, but maybe it is Ukraine making do with what they are most familiar with.  What I'm suggesting is there might be a new way that is a hybrid of Ukraine's and the West's where there is more emphasis on small tactical fights (Ukraine's way) with more complex operational level coordination (West's way).

Steve

Operational “combined arms” is really “joint” and about integration of domains/dimensions.  Even operational land warfare is about joint integration.  Combined arms is a land domain term that essentially integration of land effects into a framework that offsets weaknesses of each arm and maximizes strength.  Problem is that I think that what that used to mean has changed for a number of reasons.

As to why the UA may be nibbling vice chomping, this likely goes back to “what is happening with mass?”  Obviously concentration of forces without air superiority is dangerous for both sides. The RA learned this the hard way, which we have seen many, many, examples.  I suspect the UA has too.  With “63,000” US trained troops, even with the frontages we are seeing, should allow for something larger than a battalion or company raid, somewhere.  So the UA is likely not doing this for a very good reason - concentration of mass without setting conditions is suicidal.  The “learning” is determining what those “conditions” actually are for any given scenario.

Edited July 22, 2023 by The_Capt

[FancyCat]

Quote

Katerina Gubareva announces that her husband Pavel Gubarev, one of the early political leaders of the so-called DNR and a member of the "Club of Angry Patriots", has been detained. Another domino drops in the ongoing arrests of ultra-nationalists in Russia/occupied Ukraine.

 

[FancyCat]

Ahh nevermind, looks like he was released, and was just arrested as he was protesting Girkin's arrest. Shame.

[sburke]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Operational “combined arms” is really “joint” and about integration of domains/dimensions.  Even operational land warfare is about joint integration.  Combined arms is a land domain term that essentially integration of land affects into a framework that offsets weaknesses of each arm and maximizes strength.  Problem is that I think that what that used to mean has changed for a number of reasons.

As to why the UA may be nibbling vice chomping, this likely goes back to “what is happening with mass?”  Obviously concentration of forces without air superiority is dangerous for both sides. The RA learned this the hard way, which we have seen many, many, examples.  I suspect the UA has too.  With “63,000” US trained troops, even with the frontages we are seeing, should allow for something larger than a battalion or company raid, somewhere.  So the UA is likely not doing this for a very good reason - concentration of mass without setting conditions is suicidal.  The “learning” is determining what those “conditions” actually are for any given scenario.

I think "combined arms" has just become a buzz word(s).  The use of multiple types of weapons (or branches of armed forces if you will) that have different strengths in conjunction to achieve a desired result is as old as warfare.  "hey grog, you take the little guys and throw rocks at the Neanderthals while lunk and the rest of us big guys attack with clubs".

The problem is defining what are those 'arms".  We are used to thinking, tanks, infantry, artillery and aircraft.  Time to rewrite the definition of arms in "combined arms".

[Bulletpoint]

6 hours ago, kevinkin said:

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?

I think they drop most of the mines by MLRS...

[cesmonkey]

10 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

some pointers:

• 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

Thanks for the link!

Kofman spends some time on the idea that the officers that went to the newly formed brigades were not the best the Ukraine military has because the officers that experienced brigades would be willing to spare for this task were the ones that would not be missed much from the current brigade.

Whether that is based on speculation or some evidence he is aware of, I don't know. But if it were true, then, yes, it would partly explain the performance of the new brigades.   And it would reinforce the idea that it would have been better to upgrade existing brigades that create new ones.

It would be nice to hear from the NATO officers that trained these brigades what they thought of the quality of Ukrainian officers assigned to them.

So how does one extract a quality cadre from an experienced brigade for the purpose of forming a new brigade without hurting the existing brigade too much?

Edited July 21, 2023 by cesmonkey

[kevinkin]

26 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I think they drop most of the mines by MLRS...

A prime target for a/c in any rendition of of deep battle. Actually they are very vulnerable. 

[JonS]

2 hours ago, kevinkin said:

. I just believe a war of the scale we are fighting ca

“We” are not fighting a war. In case you forgot.

[kevinkin]

1 minute ago, JonS said:

“We” are not fighting a war. In case you forgot.

Give us a break. 

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, sburke said:

I think "combined arms" has just become a buzz word(s).  The use of multiple types of weapons (or branches of armed forces if you will) that have different strengths in conjunction to achieve a desired result is as old as warfare.  "hey grog, you take the little guys and throw rocks at the Neanderthals while lunk and the rest of us big guys attack with clubs".

The problem is defining what are those 'arms".  We are used to thinking, tanks, infantry, artillery and aircraft.  Time to rewrite the definition of arms in "combined arms".

COMBINED ARMS 3-54. Combined arms is the synchronized and simultaneous application of all elements of combat power that together achieve an effect greater than if each element was used separately or sequentially. Combined arms integrates leadership, information, and each of the warfighting functions and their supporting systems, as well as joint weapon systems. Used destructively, combined arms integrates different capabilities so that counteracting one makes the enemy vulnerable to another. Used constructively, combined arms uses all assets available to the commander to multiply the effectiveness and efficiency of Army capabilities used in stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks.

THE WARFIGHTING FUNCTIONS 4-19. To execute operations, commanders conceptualize capabilities in terms of combat power. Combat power has eight elements: leadership, information, mission command, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection. The Army collectively describes the last six elements as the warfighting functions. Commanders apply combat power through the warfighting functions using leadership and information. (See chapter 5 for a discussion of combat power.)

https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/ADRP 3-0 OPERATIONS 11NOV16.pdf

 

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

COMBINED ARMS 3-54. Combined arms is the synchronized and simultaneous application of all elements of combat power that together achieve an effect greater than if each element was used separately or sequentially. Combined arms integrates leadership, information, and each of the warfighting functions and their supporting systems, as well as joint weapon systems. Used destructively, combined arms integrates different capabilities so that counteracting one makes the enemy vulnerable to another. Used constructively, combined arms uses all assets available to the commander to multiply the effectiveness and efficiency of Army capabilities used in stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks.

THE WARFIGHTING FUNCTIONS 4-19. To execute operations, commanders conceptualize capabilities in terms of combat power. Combat power has eight elements: leadership, information, mission command, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection. The Army collectively describes the last six elements as the warfighting functions. Commanders apply combat power through the warfighting functions using leadership and information. (See chapter 5 for a discussion of combat power.)

https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/ADRP 3-0 OPERATIONS 11NOV16.pdf

 

show off, that is sooo 7 years ago  

Edited July 21, 2023 by sburke

[JonS]

56 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Kofman spends some time on the idea that the officers that went to the newly formed brigades were not the best the Ukraine military has because the officers that experienced brigades would be willing to spare for this task were the ones that would not be missed much from the current brigade.

This seems like the (predictable?) inverse of the Allied experience in the last year of WWII. This is from a thing I wrote a few years ago:

***

In the NWE campaign in WWII, so called 'veteran' units - especially infantry units - were predominantly manned by men with less than a couple of months service with the unit. The proof of that is in the casualty stats.

For example:
4th US Infantry Div suffered 250% of TOE strength in casualties (299 days in combat)
90th US Infantry Div suffered 196% of TOE strength in casualties (308 days in combat)
29th US Infantry Div suffered 204% of TOE strength in casualties (242 days in combat)

Therefore, on average, someone in:
4th US Inf Div saw 120 days of combat before becoming a cas
90th US Inf Div saw 157 days of combat before becoming a cas
29th US Inf Div saw 118 days of combat before becoming a cas

That’s averaged across the roughly 14,000 men in an infantry division, but the vast majority of those casualties were concentrated amongst the fairly small number of men in each division labelled "Infantry." Without rummaging through detailed statistics (which I anyway don't have access to), I suspect that no more than half that number of days-in-combat – about two months - would be the very upper limit of what a rifleman could expect to survive. Therefore I think that the average quality of individual riflemen probably declined across the campaign as long-service, highly trained men in the first waves were replaced by questionably trained men with little esprit de corps, led by 90-Day-Wonders.

In any infantry unit from mid-June onwards there'd have been a mix of men representing every stage of that chart (edit: Grossman’s combat effectiveness/exhaustion chart) which would tend to reduce the overall effectiveness of any given unit. As the campaign progressed and men started getting close to the 60 combat days referred to above, large-ish numbers of those survivors would have been in the combat-exhaustion and even vegetive phases. At the rifleman-squad-platoon-company level, infantry units were NOT on an ever escalating performance curve.

How, then, did divisions learn and improve if the individual riflemen weren't really getting a whole lot better at their jobs? They did it by becoming much better at the stuff that actually matters. Battalion and regimental staffs tended to survive much longer. And I specifically mean the staffs, rather than merely the commanders. Men in supporting arms like artillery, logistics, and even armour also had much greater longevity. Improvements in those areas meant that combat infantry units were fed into combat much better prepared and supported, and working to a plan based on realistic assessments and objectives. Given that, it didn't matter that Private Snooks in 3rd Squad, 1 Platoon, C Company, 2nd Battalion wasn't becoming a better soldier, because less was being asked of him, since he was being given more support to achieve objectives

***

The Ukrainians don’t have those competent and experienced higher level (bn, bde, and whatever they have above bde) staffs yet. Or, they do, but unevenly. This is equivalent to the position the US found themselves in at Kasserine, or the British during CRUSADER. They will get better (and are!), but it takes time, and there’s no shortcut or magic wand or uber-weapon-du-jour that will make the experiential shortfall just go away.

Edited July 21, 2023 by JonS

[kevinkin]

The more modern concept of combined arms assumes you don't fight war with two arms tied behind your back. In the current case, air and naval. Unless leadership is very dim and is only focused on achieving their war aims via a costly ground war. 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by kevinkin

[JonS]

Are the Russians and Ukrainians holding back their air and naval forces due to … exaggerated inter-service rivalry, or sumfink?

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

show off, that is sooo 7 years ago  

https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN18010-ADP_3-0-000-WEB-2.pdf

Says same thing.  Has not been refreshed but likely will soon.

[sburke]

Just now, The_Capt said:

https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN18010-ADP_3-0-000-WEB-2.pdf

Says same thing.  Has not been refreshed but likely will soon.

an improvement but still sooo 4 years ago.

You must be a reader.  Looking at your reading material makes me thirsty.

 

Fine I'll go read it.  Gotta have something to do in retirement.

[kevinkin]

42 minutes ago, JonS said:

Ukrainians holding back

No, the west's proxy is being held out to dry having to fight a war without the resources to obtain their stated goals and the goals of stuff shirts in the western capitals. sumfink like that anyway. 

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

Are the Russians and Ukrainians holding back their air and naval forces due to … exaggerated inter-service rivalry, or sumfink?

Well Ukraine has no naval forces. Ukraine also has a smaller air force in airframes and pilots. Russia also have a finite number of pilots, airframes so both are trying to preserve strength. The Russian Navy has wisely retrained from nearing the coast, and I doubt their ability to influence the war would improve if they began to try to get closer.

40 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

No, the west's proxy is being held out to dry having to fight a war without the resources to obtain their stated goals and the goals of stuff shirts in the western capitals. sumfink like that anyway. 

I don't disagree....but I kinda do? Fact is the West just does not have a ton of equipment to give to Ukraine to fight the war of attrition Ukraine is fighting. NATO would have just smashed the hell out of Russia with airpower, making a war of attrition irrelevant. Add in the concerns of escalation and we are here now.

Luckily, looks like Ukraine's strategy of equipment attainment continues to pay off. I recall estimates in the past of 1. When Ukraine ends the war, 2. Ukraine needs 2-4 years before it can get them, to lol and behold, Ukraine will get F-16 fighters before the end of the year.

Quote

Kirby: Ukraine to receive F-16s by end of year.   Ukraine will receive F-16 fighter jets before the end of the year, John Kirby, US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, said in an interview with Fox News.

 

[NamEndedAllen]

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

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.

We could also consider the simple fact of training in both militaries. For the Ukrainian side, we know that unit training has been compressed and truncated both within Ukraine and often at the various NATO host countries. Furthermore, training and experience in these doctrines at the higher command levels cannot conceivably be thick and varied. Even for WWII nations at war, it took hard experience and much time for each of the higher level command staffs to excel in the reality of combat.  Whatever flavor - operational art, doctrines of combined arms, Air/Land/Sea - it would seem premature to draw ultimate conclusions, while Ukraine is at such an early and rushed stage.

Russia? The forum has been filled with harsh judgments about every level of organization and command, for almost every military facet. Logistics, intelligence, planning, leadership, corruption, morale…Difficult to use Russia’s performance to date as a standard by which to judge the current best contemporary doctrines and thought at the Western War Colleges. 

 

[NamEndedAllen]

4 hours ago, JonS said:

The Ukrainians don’t have those competent and experienced higher level (bn, bde, and whatever they have above bde) staffs yet. Or, they do, but unevenly. This is equivalent to the position the US found themselves in at Kasserine, or the British during CRUSADER. They will get better (and are!), but it takes time, and there’s no shortcut or magic wand or uber-weapon-du-jour that will make the experiential shortfall just go away.

Ahhh…you said it better than I did! Just too early to be drawing too many conclusions about this level of command?