How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kevinkin]

3 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

pupusas

I couldn't say it any better. BTW, as a chef, engineer, and chemist I never heard of those things. If I did, they were called something else. Anyway thanks. I try not to let a day go by without learning something new. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by kevinkin

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-6-2023

Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor reported that Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) banks are providing their customers’ personal information to Russian authorities in preparation for a new wave of mobilization.

 

LNR is trying to round up the the last platoon worth of "able bodied" cannon fodder. I have a strong suspicion their definition of able bodied is something along the lines of having three limbs that sort of work.

Quote

Ukrainian forces continued to make gains in western Zaporizhia Oblast on September 6. Geolocated footage shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced along the trench line west of Verbove (about 20km southeast of Orikhiv).[39] Russian milbloggers claimed that heavy fighting continues along the Robotyne—Verbove line and that Ukrainian forces are trying to break through in the direction of Novoprokopivka (2km south of Robotyne).

Progress seems to accelerating.

[G.I. Joe]

7 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

The sad thing to me is that the noble guerilla in the jungle with kalashnikov is much more romantic than some four-eyes like me with a pile of drones, pupusas and whatever beer is commonly available. Nobody is gonna have the latter on a tshirt!

I don't know...anything that makes war harder to romanticize has to be a positive on some level in my books.

I guess I have to count that as a silver lining to the possible looming obsolescence of fighter aircraft. 

[chrisl]

13 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Anduril (Oculus guy’s drone etc. company)pings me weekly, but I imagine like any decent software engineer, the allure of jumping through security clearance hoops, bad software quality, not working remote and getting paid significantly less… is not that exciting.

This is kind of a problem in my view. The US has lots of very good software engineers, but it’s going to be difficult to lure them to even the newer companies in the defence space with the low salaries and office requirements (and for a decent fraction of us, drug testing). I suspect we’ll lose out to the Eastern Europeans in short order who are more “motivated” to put it lightly.

I don't think it's really a pay issue - contractors can pay whatever they want and throw around equity and if the gov't needs the service and that's the price, it's not that hard to write the contract.  Especially for creative development where you're going to hire a roomful (or even a small building full) of mechatronics people to build transformers.  They each might cost a lot, but even a decent sized small company isn't going to be that expensive.  Way back at the start of my career I watched someone who was only a couple years ahead of me leave a semi-gov't job (FFRDC) to take a job at a small company developing UAVs at ~3x the salary, plus they'd pay to get a helicopter license.

The harder part about attracting engineers to that is the working environment - going into the classified world tends to be a one way trip, or at least a deep rabbit hole that people take a long time to pop out of, and then they can't even show off their cool stuff.  And the whole working on the classified side of things makes it more complicated to find and pull in outside stuff that's supposed to be air gapped, but that might be useful to incorporate.

The big cost comes in paying for the production run and all the costs wrapped around that.  

[cesmonkey]

A good day for destroying Russian artillery:
 

 

[zinz]

https://masto.ai/@ragnarbjartur/111023006687873004

Highest losses of artillery reported by Ukraine sofar. 215 in the last 7 days. 

I would love to know the composition of those losses. But D30 close to the front line will get shredded much faster than self propelled artilleries. Since the dailykos article another 1400 artillery pieces are declared as destroyed. 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/6/2179504/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-doe

 

Reported artillery losses remain incredible high since the start of the Ukrainian offensive. 

https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/dfbcec47-7b01-400e-ab21-de8eb98c8f3a/page/p_puy9yu3a6c?s=iQsXRj4QRj0

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, zinz said:

https://masto.ai/@ragnarbjartur/111023006687873004

Highest losses of artillery reported by Ukraine sofar. 215 in the last 7 days. 

I would love to know the composition of those losses. But D30 close to the front line will get shredded much faster than self propelled artilleries. Since the dailykos article another 1400 artillery pieces are declared as destroyed. 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/6/2179504/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-doe

 

Reported artillery losses remain incredible high since the start of the Ukrainian offensive. 

https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/dfbcec47-7b01-400e-ab21-de8eb98c8f3a/page/p_puy9yu3a6c?s=iQsXRj4QRj0

I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt. Ukraine claims to have destroyed 4500 Russian tanks, but Oryx has "only" confirmed a bit more than 2000.

[The_Capt]

17 hours ago, Teufel said:

Posted footage of the drone that carries AT-mines with 7kg payload some days ago that “DefMon3” reported on. This is claimed to be that same system in action.

Russians left plenty of these buried and Ukrainians will now kindly return them, from above. One has to acknowledge the massive blast that these AT-mines cause in relation to RPG drones and grenades. Just waiting for videos of Russian counterattacks being ambushed by AT-mines falling down all around them.

Longer thread that offers perspectives on the shortcomings, inexperience and lack of situational awareness that 32nd has faced since deployed. Of course extrapolating to other NATO trained units and assuming they all suffer the same problems. As always, it’s good to see perspectives that call out BS before it becomes accepted as truth.

Not suggesting it’s all sunshine and lollipops but well balanced reply to the KI article referenced.

 

On the training post: a lot of what is in that story rings true.  The issue, which we have pointed out here before, is that western troops have no frame of reference for this war.  The more I hear descriptions of company operations in this war, the more they sound like a SOF action as far as C4ISR goes.  A GF Comd does pretty much what they are describing as a Company Comds role in this war - pulls back and manages the engagement from a pan C4ISR node.  Conventional military experience does not do this.  Tactical commanders get more feeds but pretty much fill the same roles as they did 30-40 years ago.  The Battalion TOC has changed a lot but the mass use of UAS for ISR is still not at the forefront.

The offensive focus also rings true.  I got into an argument a long while back on modern war and the offensive doctrine of most western militaries.  A lot of doctrine was built during the Cold War and then adapted to the insurgency wars we fought over the last 30 years.  The few times we went conventional, the opponent was so overmatched that we kind of confirmed a false positive - offensive primacy.  This war is showing the holes in that theory.  This is a war of Denial - drones and artillery.  That takes a fundamentally different training approach.

We all “yay’ed” when western troops began training support, and we still add a lot of value in some skill areas.  However, we may very well be teaching  bad lessons.  For example, that well documented and broadcasted failed minefield breach back in Jun. To my eyes it was a textbook western mechanized breach.  It looks like it got stopped by enemy UAS, a couple helicopters, a few ATGM teams and some pretty tepid artillery.  Our minefield breaching doctrine has not been refreshed since the Cold War and it ran headlong into 2023 reality.  Our impulse is to declare “well the UA is doing it wrong,”. Of course this assumes we actually know how to do it right in the first place.

I can only hope the AAR process is firmly in place and is capturing these observations.  However, in most cases the AAR guys are cut from the same corporate cloth as the training delivery guys so there are going to be biases to overcome.  We likely need to adapt the training significantly.  SOF may need to take over infantry tactics training because the reality is closer to their environment than our conventional experience.  However, SOF are pretty low density.  Conventional can focus on equipment (eg “night driving”), it still does this better than anyone else.

I have brought up the point on this war being as much about competitive learning as much as about actual warfare before.  The UA learns very fast, Russians slower…but they do learn.  The question is, “how fast are western militaries learning?”  They are part of this war too, they make up a significant portion of the Ukrainian force generation stream.  As such they should be in a direct feedback loop from the front line. We need to be learning at a better pace than the Russians - “EOD is taboo” (likely because we have framed them as exclusively a COIN thing).  This will mean breaking out of our own boxes, which is a damned hard thing to do at the best of times.  In reality we should be getting then UA to train us on how to train them.

Edited September 7, 2023 by The_Capt

[Carolus]

5 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt. Ukraine claims to have destroyed 4500 Russian tanks, but Oryx has "only" confirmed a bit more than 2000.

The real numbers are likely somewhere in between.

Oryx is the conservative approach (sensibly), but some internet sleuths who counted Russian depot contents on satellite pics concluded that the UA numbers might not be that far from reality.

The personnel losses number seems, however, a bit wonky. Depending on who you ask it is the number of dead, the number of casualties, or permanent losses (dead, disabled, disappeared).

 

[kraze]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt. Ukraine claims to have destroyed 4500 Russian tanks, but Oryx has "only" confirmed a bit more than 2000.

Oryx uses visual data to confirm stuff. Photos/videos only. Somebody has to spend time taking them across the 2000 km frontline while getting shelled. And that's exactly what their disclaimer says right there.

Edited September 7, 2023 by kraze

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, kraze said:

Oryx uses visual data to confirm stuff. Photos/videos only. Somebody has to spend time taking them across the 2000 km frontline while getting shelled. And that's exactly what their disclaimer says right there.

Visual data plus total loss on tanks that were pulled from the field plus wear and tear is going to look a lot more like the Ukraine number than the Oryx number. Perhaps higher.

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

On the training post: a lot of what is in that story rings true.  The issue, which we have pointed out here before, is that western troops have no frame of reference for this war.  The more I hear descriptions of company operations in this war, the more they sound like a SOF action as far as C4ISR goes.  A GF Comd does pretty much what they are describing as a Company Comds role in this war - pulls back and manages the engagement from a pan C4ISR node.  Conventional military experience does not do this.  Tactical commanders get more feeds but pretty much fill the same roles as they did 30-40 years ago.  The Battalion TOC has changed a lot but the mass use of UAS for ISR is still not at the forefront.

The offensive focus also rings true.  I got into an argument a long while back on modern war and the offensive doctrine of most western militaries.  A lot of doctrine was built during the Cold War and then adapted to the insurgency wars we fought over the last 30 years.  The few times we went conventional, the opponent was so overmatched that we kind of confirmed a false positive - offensive primacy.  This war is showing the holes in that theory.  This is a war of Denial - drones and artillery.  That takes a fundamentally different training approach.

We all “yay’ed” when western troops began training support, and we still add a lot of value in some skill areas.  However, we may very well be teaching  bad lessons.  For example, that well documented and broadcasted failed minefield breach back in Jun. To my eyes it was a textbook western mechanized breach.  It looks like it got stopped by enemy UAS, a couple helicopters, a few ATGM teams and some pretty tepid artillery.  Our minefield breaching doctrine has not been refreshed since the Cold War and it ran headlong into 2023 reality.  Our impulse is to declare “well the UA is doing it wrong,”. Of course this assumes we actually know how to do it right in the first place.

I can only hope the AAR process is firmly in place and is capturing these observations.  However, in most cases the AAR guys are cut from the same corporate cloth as the training delivery guys so there are going to be biases to overcome.  We likely need to adapt the training significantly.  SOF may need to take over infantry tactics training because the reality is closer to their environment than our conventional experience.  However, SOF are pretty low density.  Conventional can focus on equipment (eg “night driving”), it still does this better than anyone else.

I have brought up the point on this war being as much about competitive learning as much as about actual warfare before.  The UA learns very fast, Russians slower…but they do learn.  The question is, “how fast are western militaries learning?”  They are part of this war too, they make up a significant portion of the Ukrainian force generation stream.  As such they should be in a direct feedback loop from the front line. We need to be learning at a better pace than the Russians - “EOD is taboo” (likely because we have framed them as exclusively a COIN thing).  This will mean breaking out of our own boxes, which is a damned hard thing to do at the best of times.  In reality we should be getting then UA to train us on how to train them.

The quote that stuck out in the original essay about the training problems was approximately "We only have a couple of drones, and we can't use those because of bureaucratic reasons". There is some excuse for not having many drones around, since Ukraine is literally sucking a vast percentage of the world supply.The not allowed to use them bit though is a case study in how lose the opening phase of the next war.

It goes back to something Mick Ryan wrote in the last week or two. Very approximately it said that one of the West's greatest failures in this whole thing was never making decisions at war time speed. The fact that Ukraine MIGHT get M-26 rockets a 14 months after they asked for them, and two or three months after we started delivering 155 DPICM is the most obvious case in point.

[kevinkin]

24 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Very approximately it said that one of the West's greatest failures in this whole thing was never making decisions at war time speed.

Great point. The equation for kinetic energy (i.e. warfare) has a key variable - velocity. 

[Centurian52]

3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt. Ukraine claims to have destroyed 4500 Russian tanks, but Oryx has "only" confirmed a bit more than 2000.

Oryx only counts the visually confirmed losses. We know for a fact that the Oryx numbers are an undercount, because they work hard to ensure that their numbers are an undercount. The real figure being a little over twice the Oryx figure seems entirely plausible to me.

Even so, overclaiming is a real issue in almost every war. It is hard to be sure exactly what you've destroyed*. Frankly I'm amazed that number of tanks that Ukraine is claiming to have destroyed is only a bit over twice the visually confirmed number. That suggests to me that they are being pretty restrained in what they are claiming. They may have some good systems in place to cut down on overclaiming. Or perhaps it's simply easier to be sure of what you've destroyed on the modern drone filled battlefield.

*As an example, Allied pilots in WW2 often thought they had destroyed a German tank, when in reality it was completely unscathed. Missed bombs would kick up a large cloud of dust that would obscure the tank, making it look like it had been hit (especially to a pilot who needs to focus on flying, and may only be able to look back for a few seconds). As far as I know overclaiming was usually the result of this sort of fog of war, not the result of deliberate lying. But nonetheless the claimed number of aircraft shot down or tanks destroyed was usually many times higher than the real figure.

[Jr Buck Private]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Visual data plus total loss on tanks that were pulled from the field plus wear and tear is going to look a lot more like the Ukraine number than the Oryx number. Perhaps higher.

I agree that it's probably closer to the Ukraine number.  Another way to look at it is how Russian is pulling out old T-55's from storage.   If they're using those now then they've probably lost a lot of tanks, whether it can visually be proven or not.

[Centurian52]

47 minutes ago, Jr Buck Private said:

I agree that it's probably closer to the Ukraine number.  Another way to look at it is how Russian is pulling out old T-55's from storage.   If they're using those now then they've probably lost a lot of tanks, whether it can visually be proven or not.

I don't think the T-55s were for making up tank numbers. Based on Covert Cabal's counts they never had very many T-55s to begin with, and they still have thousands of T-72s in storage (based on the last count). The most plausible theory I've heard is that the T-55s were the most suitable platform the Russians had for firing the 100mm artillery ammunition they got from North Korea. Apparently they don't have any 100mm artillery pieces of their own (lots of 122s and 152s, but no 100mm guns), making the T-55 their only platform capable of firing 100mm ammunition.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Centurian52

[Tux]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

In reality we should be getting then UA to train us on how to train them.

I have to believe that our collective militaries are smart enough to have started down this road months and months ago.  It’s surely that obvious.

As mentioned this was discussed on the thread months ago and I seem to remember The_Capt and others making it quite clear that the major benefit to Ukraine would be the simple fact of free, safe basic training for a larger number of recruits than they could train on their own (and maybe some cultural advantages in terms of low-level initiative and flexibility being encouraged).  Otherwise there was absolutely no reason to think NATO training would somehow be better suited to this war than Ukrainian training. 

[dan/california]

38 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I don't think the T-55s were for making up tank numbers. Based on Cover Cabal's counts they never had very many T-55s to begin with, and they still have thousands of T-72s in storage (based on the last count). The most plausible theory I've heard is that the T-55s were the most suitable platform the Russians had for firing the 100mm artillery ammunition they got from North Korea. Apparently they don't have any 100mm artillery pieces of their own (lots of 122s and 152s, but no 100mm guns), making the T-55 their only platform capable of firing 100mm ammunition.

Two observations, the first is that the T55s may have stood up better to to decades of open storage in a harsh climate. If the same part on all those thousands of T-72s has failed due to corrosion that could be huge problem for getting them back in service. The second observation is that if you are bringing back sixty year old tanks, to fire thirty or more year old ammo, because that is all you can get, your bleeped. The tanks are presumably far less effective indirect fire platforms than actual artillery of the same age among other things. Of course with the ammo they are probably shooting accuracy has left the building, anyway.

[Tux]

44 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I don't think the T-55s were for making up tank numbers. Based on Cover Cabal's counts they never had very many T-55s to begin with, and they still have thousands of T-72s in storage (based on the last count). The most plausible theory I've heard is that the T-55s were the most suitable platform the Russians had for firing the 100mm artillery ammunition they got from North Korea. Apparently they don't have any 100mm artillery pieces of their own (lots of 122s and 152s, but no 100mm guns), making the T-55 their only platform capable of firing 100mm ammunition.

Or that, if you’re going to lose tanks anyway, why not lose your oldest ones?  Or if you prefer:  which tanks would you rather be left with once the war is over?

I dunno, it just always made sense to me, to be honest.  T-90s get blown up almost as quickly as T-55s so yeah, roll out those battered old T-55s!

[Tux]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

It goes back to something Mick Ryan wrote in the last week or two. Very approximately it said that one of the West's greatest failures in this whole thing was never making decisions at war time speed. The fact that Ukraine MIGHT get M-26 rockets a 14 months after they asked for them, and two or three months after we started delivering 155 DPICM is the most obvious case in point.

I guess when you’re not actually at war though it’s difficult to justify making the kind of sacrifices countries which are at war are forced to make in order to achieve those speeds?

Not that I don’t think things could have happened at least a bit faster but you get my point. 

[masc]

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/16capv7/compilation_of_russian_ambushes_on_ukrainian/

Strong warning: Video shows the aftermaths of the ambushes and looting of bodies all in first person view.

I'm sharing it though because the poster's provided background on the compilation mentions that they take place in the least talked about front in the north:

"Source of this footage claims these ambushes happened on the northern border, where practically no battles happen. So it makes sense that all important armoured vehicles are used on the frontlines, while regular cars are used in “calm” areas. These ambushes and raids happen from both sides btw"

I sounds like the border is quite porous both ways unfortunately.

[cesmonkey]

 

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Our minefield breaching doctrine has not been refreshed since the Cold War and it ran headlong into 2023 reality.  Our impulse is to declare “well the UA is doing it wrong,”. Of course this assumes we actually know how to do it right in the first place.

Totally agree with everything you said, including that the UA should be teaching us how to do breaching and not the other way around.  I also think it is stupid to expect the UA to perform NATO standard doctrine without a force (including air) that is up to NATO standards.

However, as we've previously discussed when talking about the probable gaps in NATO doctrine is that we really won't know how "off the mark" it is until it engages in a similar land war with a similar opponent.  My personal guess is that NATO forces would have done a better job breaching than the Ukrainians did because air support, better trained engineers, more support equipment (variety and quantity), etc.  However, I also think said NATO force would have taken casualties (men and equipment) far in excess of what it would consider acceptable under current doctrinal guidelines.

If my guess is correct, what this indicates is that there's a LOT that NATO can learn from UA, but that it's a process of reforming current NATO doctrine rather than chucking it out and starting fresh.

Steve

[kevinkin]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I also think it is stupid to expect the UA to perform NATO standard doctrine without a force (including air) that is up to NATO standards.

I could not agree more and acknowledging this is very important. Many have been pointing this out for a year. The policy decisions are not matched up to the rhetoric. One of those have to change. I personally believe the rhetoric is fine, but the policy is too weak.   

[holoween]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

However, I also think said NATO force would have taken casualties (men and equipment) far in excess of what it would consider acceptable under current doctrinal guidelines.

If my guess is correct, what this indicates is that there's a LOT that NATO can learn from UA, but that it's a process of reforming current NATO doctrine rather than chucking it out and starting fresh.

Steve

Do you have any specific documents you could point to for NATO doctrine?

Because non of the german documents ive read and nothing ive been taught leads me to believe there is anyone expeting not to take heavy casualties in a comparable war.