How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, Ales Dvorak said:

Can I ask which two wars?

Former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

[Seedorf81]

5 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

How mother nature protects its territory. I had one making its home in my attic. But had to call in the council ranger. Orangutans don't have that problem. Possums are protected lol.

 

Is the orangutan Ukrainian and the possum Russian??

[Seedorf81]

Just saw this, thought it was a hoax, but it's the BBC, they do not makes things up. It is unbelievable.

Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia were wrong, Putin says.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66784638

One snippet:

Mr Putin said: "We acknowledged a long time ago that that part of the Soviet policy was mistaken and only led to tension in relations. One must not do anything in foreign policy that comes in direct contradiction with the interests of other peoples."

How crazy is this???

[Ultradave]

2 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

It could make sense.  Especially in countries which are not in a war for a long time, those with conscript and/or underfunded armies the  popular view and self-image of soldiers can get low. I.e., poor underfed low IQ country boys easily intimidiated by anyone, mostly trying to survive until the end of their term. I remember stories in 1990s Poland of soldiers being slapped around by local gangsters or even hooligans at country discos. Since a soldier needs courage and initiative on the battlefield, it makes sense to try to psych him up and make him more aggressive, if you can get that by referring to him by a more aggresive name than just "soldier"- sure, go ahead. 

By the way, surely it is evident for everyone the US army is not designed for self-protection but expeditionary warfare. POMCUS? REFORGER? The Marine Corps? Come on.

I did say "supposed", however, REFORGER? I'll say come on to that. That was to reinforce NATO (REinforce FORces in GERmany), in the case of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Nothing else. It was practice for the supporting our allies part of what I said, and rehearsal for a defensive stand that thankfully never came.

Dave

 

[Bearstronaut]

I always look forward to reading a post by The_Capt. If you ever decided to write a book I would buy it in an instant. In regards to the whole "warrior" discussion, despite nearly a decade of service on active duty in the US Army I was never comfortable calling myself a warrior. I was an intel nerd and despite my knowing full well that my job was to facilitate the death of other people and that tactical SIGINT is quite dangerous to me warriors were the maneuver guys going around kicking in doors and shooting people in the face or blowing stuff up with tanks. I think this stems from my formative experience as a soldier in basic training. I went through POG basic at Fort Jackson, SC with a company full of intel, logistics, and maintenance trainees. My three platoon drill sergeants were all infantry NCOs with combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan and they derisively referred to us as "warrior" throughout my three months in basic. That stuck with me and anytime someone since then has called me "warrior" I've kind of snickered in my head. Perhaps that would be different if I had ever seen combat but the closest I got to any real danger was two tours holding the line in South Korea.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Bearstronaut

[Billy Ringo]

Am not one to decipher whether to call one who served a warrior, a soldier, an intel or any other moniker.  But as one who never served I do have three words for those that did:

Respect.

Thank you.

 

[Taranis]

"A soldier of Ukraine's 3rd Separate Assault Brigade near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, September 4, 2023. LIBKOS / AP"

[Harmon Rabb]

23 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

Just saw this, thought it was a hoax, but it's the BBC, they do not makes things up. It is unbelievable.

Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia were wrong, Putin says.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66784638

One snippet:

Mr Putin said: "We acknowledged a long time ago that that part of the Soviet policy was mistaken and only led to tension in relations. One must not do anything in foreign policy that comes in direct contradiction with the interests of other peoples."

How crazy is this???

My first thought would be maybe Putin is trying to improve relations with Hungary and Slovakia.

I think we can all agree that Hungary under Orban is the most pro-Russian country in the EU right now. If Robert Fico wins in Slovakia he will basically be a second Orban as far as support for Ukraine goes

[Holien]

1 hour ago, Ales Dvorak said:

Can I ask which two wars?

My guess the Boer war and WW1?

Am I right....

 Am I Am I....

 

DARN TOO SLOW.... Doh!!!

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Holien
Too Slow...

[The_Capt]

19 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

I always look forward to reading a post by The_Capt. If you ever decided to write a book I would buy it in an instant. In regards to the whole "warrior" discussion, despite nearly a decade of service on active duty in the US Army I was never comfortable calling myself a warrior. I was an intel nerd and despite my knowing full well that my job was to facilitate the death of other people and that tactical SIGINT is quite dangerous to me warriors were the maneuver guys going around kicking in doors and shooting people in the face or blowing stuff up with tanks. I think this stems from my formative experience as a soldier in basic training. I went through POG basic at Fort Jackson, SC with a company full of intel, logistics, and maintenance trainees. My three platoon drill sergeants were all infantry NCOs with combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan and they derisively referred to us as "warrior" throughout my three months in basic. That stuck with me and anytime someone since then has called me "warrior" I've kind of snickered in my head. Perhaps that would be different if I had ever seen combat but the closest I got to any real danger was two tours holding the line in South Korea.

Thanks, I am writing and will likely publish in the next 12-18 months but it will be the last thing people expect.  I will get back to warfare and theory but am going to take a break to do other things.

As to your experience.  Again, we have not defined the term.  It is not about combat or how close on gets to the bullets.  It is an idea, an identity.  A drone operator that is willing to sacrifice themselves in the service of a righteous cause is just as much a warrior in the modern sense as a door kicker.  We all want bragging rights but at the end of the day, I do not care if one sits in a cubicle back at HQ for the entire war, the ethos is universal.  Some organizations get it, the Marines are a good example.  Everyone is a Marine first.  Well I want everyone to be a Warrior first, but again we need to define a universal definition of what that really is.  

[Splinty]

24 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

I always look forward to reading a post by The_Capt. If you ever decided to write a book I would buy it in an instant. In regards to the whole "warrior" discussion, despite nearly a decade of service on active duty in the US Army I was never comfortable calling myself a warrior. I was an intel nerd and despite my knowing full well that my job was to facilitate the death of other people and that tactical SIGINT is quite dangerous to me warriors were the maneuver guys going around kicking in doors and shooting people in the face or blowing stuff up with tanks. I think this stems from my formative experience as a soldier in basic training. I went through POG basic at Fort Jackson, SC with a company full of intel, logistics, and maintenance trainees. My three platoon drill sergeants were all infantry NCOs with combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan and they derisively referred to us as "warrior" throughout my three months in basic. That stuck with me and anytime someone since then has called me "warrior" I've kind of snickered in my head. Perhaps that would be different if I had ever seen combat but the closest I got to any real danger was two tours holding the line in South Korea.

As a former infantryman, Military Policeman, Signal Soldier, and Air Defender in the US Army, I always preferred Soldier. Warrior, and Warfighter never sat well with me. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Splinty
Can't spell

[Centurian52]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:20 AM, Tux said:

Did you read the link?  From what I saw the headline was slightly misleading. Milley said “There's still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days' worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren't done.”  I think it’s the headline writer who has turned that into “Ukrainian offensive could only have 30 days left”.  Not helpful, for sure.

In any case nobody knows how long the offensive has left and even Milley wasn’t trying to imply that his estimate is a hard-and-fast number.  We all know that wet weather (not the cold weather the article-writer seems hung up on) could force a halt due to mud.  If for some reason it doesn’t get too muddy then the weather may not halt the offensive at all.  And of course the offensive could run out of steam all on its own before the next 30 days are up.

 

Time passes. Things change. It’s a non-story. 

Everything you mentioned, and the offensive is in the south where the mud doesn't get as bad (which is not to say that it won't be a problem at all). From what I recall being told last year, the northern regions of Ukraine tend to get hit the worst by the mud seasons.

Assuming the Ukrainians have the resources to sustain the offensive for that long, I don't think the weather is going to force it to stop (it might slow it down a bit though, and right when things should start really speeding up).

[Letter from Prague]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Thanks, I am writing and will likely publish in the next 12-18 months but it will be the last thing people expect.  I will get back to warfare and theory but am going to take a break to do other things.

Are you sure because we expect Prigozhin romance.

[dan/california]

 

14 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Thanks, I am writing and will likely publish in the next 12-18 months but it will be the last thing people expect.  I will get back to warfare and theory but am going to take a break to do other things.

As to your experience.  Again, we have not defined the term.  It is not about combat or how close on gets to the bullets.  It is an idea, an identity.  A drone operator that is willing to sacrifice themselves in the service of a righteous cause is just as much a warrior in the modern sense as a door kicker.  We all want bragging rights but at the end of the day, I do not care if one sits in a cubicle back at HQ for the entire war, the ethos is universal.  Some organizations get it, the Marines are a good example.  Everyone is a Marine first.  Well I want everyone to be a Warrior first, but again we need to define a universal definition of what that really is.  

First things first

The_Capt, you are simply an excellent writer, that is a completely separate thing from subject matter expertise. To be sure you have a vast quantity of that as well, but so do a lot of people who can't EXPLAIN any of it. Anyway, if you write a book on 18th century Chinese porcelain styles, I will buy it, simply because you can WRITE.

Edited September 12, 2023 by dan/california

[Holien]

Right a bit more on topic and I was lucky enough to see Sir Anthony Beaver being interviewed by James Holland at "We Have Ways Fest" this weekend and he was being asked about the research into his Stalingrad book.

An excellent interview and might be on line at some stage. Some points that caught my attention that tie into the current war.

He mentioned that during his research at the Russian archives that he stumbled upon all the reports back to Stalin and that Stalin had demanded to know the whole truth warts and all... This was a gold mine for the book and gave a pretty good view of the reality of the situation to Stalin.

I wonder if x years’ time will we find that Putler is being told the truth warts and all?

Did it really help inform Stalin’s choices? We think Putler does not know the truth and he might do things differently but maybe now he knows the truth but he can’t change his choices and as noted is doubling down in the hope things will change…

Sir Anthony also mentioned how poor the food was at the canteen of the research place – his Russian researcher used to say he was too spoiled. But what he did get a laugh from is that he used to get excellent hot dogs from a certain person who fell out of the sky a while ago… That was a name we were not expecting to pop up in a Stalingrad talk…

Sir Anthony also made a big point about the Soviet brutality and how this really has not changed from WW2 to modern times. He talked about the feral starving Russian kids that were tempted by Germans for crusts of bread to go and fill their water canteens at the river. The Russian snipers were ordered to kill the Russian kids….

Quite a few other horrific examples were given and nothing has changed in Russia in regards to brutality…

A couple of tankers Waitman Beorn and Hamish de Bretton-Gordan gave at times an interesting talk and touched upon issues in Ukraine.

On a WW2 note a (then)18 year old Tank driver by the name of Richard Aldred gave a very entertaining talk about his experience in Normandy driving a Cromwell…

One to try and find on the WWW when it might appear…

Here is a newspaper article about the veteran...

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/history/day-cornwall-veteran-aged-98-7472744

 

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, holoween said:

These are simple canvas sheets for camoflage. They remove the obvious shaddow line at the front and below the vehicle. Its standard practice for all german combat vehicles. Though the ones pictured are otherwise really low on camoflage.

That makes total sense.  But it does make me wonder if dragging a steel bar with some plates on it, suspended by crossed chains (to limit lateral movement), could be effective in detonating AP mines while on the move.  It's one of those ideas that might work in theory but in practice not, so I'm assuming that's why nobody does it.

4 hours ago, SteelRain said:

Some information on the Leopard 1 training in Germany.

- done by Danish, Dutch and German instructors
- basic course lasts 6 weeks with 6 days of training per week and 12 hours of training per day
- its the fifth rotation in its fifth week of training
- there were multiple gunnery runs this day. within these runs multiple states of equipment failure where simulated e.g. aiming with and without stabilization or worst case hand crank everything using the backup optical sight and try to score a hit while moving slowly
- Ukrainians stick to 3 tanks per platoon

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NdpHjoPkS8M

 

English subtitles are available

 

Thanks for that video!  High quality, crisp video of Leopard 1 is great to watch.  I admit that I find them quite sexy!

One thing that came to mind is that the Bundeswehr (and others) have still have very fresh institutional knowledge about these vehicles since they've only recently been retired by most nations.  Compare this to Russia rolling out T-55s where the instructors likely had to crack open some books to familiarize themselves with them.

A small detail to note.  The Bundeswehr provided the Ukrainians standard issue BW uniforms.  I've seen other training videos where the host country supplies uniforms.  They should have sprung a few extra Euros to also give them some Panzerkombi (coveralls) and not just the standard 2 piece uniform (one guy was wearing a parka without liner, which I found odd).  Sorry, I'm a uniform grog so couldn't help mentioning it.

I only saw German officers and, briefly, the sleeve of a Ukrainian uniform.  A one star general shown briefly at the beginning wears the beret of the German-French Brigade. 

Steve

[Artkin]

6 minutes ago, Holien said:

He mentioned that during his research at the Russian archives that he stumbled upon all the reports back to Stalin and that Stalin had demanded to know the whole truth warts and all... This was a gold mine for the book and gave a pretty good view of the reality of the situation to Stalin.

Probably because of Stalin's nasty methods including commissars and sending his hatchetmen like Mekhlis to execute failed commanders. It's no wonder commanders made up fake numbers, from army to front. Even during Kursk Rotmistrov commander of the 5th Guards Tank Army inflated his army's tank kills, but that was something like 8 months or so after commissars were done away with. 

As for communication, Stalin was consistently (Iirc weekly) in personal contact with his front commanders Eremenko and Timoshenko in particular. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Bearstronaut said:

My three platoon drill sergeants were all infantry NCOs with combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan and they derisively referred to us as "warrior" throughout my three months in basic.

I think the US Army appoints only the best of its sarcastic and "linguistically creative" NCOs to the position of Drill Sergeant.  Cripes, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a special course they attend before taking up their duties

Seriously though, this gave me quite the chuckle because it is SO easy to picture it.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

4 hours ago, Ultradave said:

I really do not like the pervasive use of the terms "warriors" and "warfighters" that many, mostly in government or the military upper echelons, refer to service members.

Thank you jesus! Fortunately the marines don’t have this issue, as the concepts of marines is already sufficiently badass. Same idea with paras.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So we definitely need to develop a modern definition and concept here and build a concept that not only better fits modern society but resonates.

“Space marine”

EDIT: Didn’t see the later post which mentioned the marines. This cold medication is throwing me for a loop.

Edited September 12, 2023 by kimbosbread

[kimbosbread]

52 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Are you sure because we expect Prigozhin romance.

Yeah. We won’t even judge you if you use ChatGPT to flesh it out.

[LongLeftFlank]

Tangentially OT, but I bought and played CM:Touch briefly in 2015, and liked it for its CM1 QB-like ease of play.

The scale (map size, AFV count and smallish fire teams) is actually pretty close  to a lot of the tactical actions we see here in UKR.

Any chance of doing a quick makeover for Black Sea?

BMPs for tanks, APCs for HTs, add mines, quicker arty response, longer range ATW,  thumb up the fatigue thresholds so infantry can't dash around so much over long distances.

...Could make a useful training aid too, for small unit leaders to practice the basics of recce, moving to contact, suppression and envelopment. Less of a learning curve than the full CM.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

Are you sure because we expect Prigozhin romance.

Not that far off the bubble…but if I wanted to make money that would be the way to go.

[JonS]

3 hours ago, Holien said:

at "We Have Ways Fest" this weekend

Huh. I wondered if you'd be there. Good? I seriously toyed with the idea of going, but spent the weekend in Lithuania instead.

[Centurian52]

On 9/10/2023 at 8:38 PM, Battlefront.com said:

As a line from one of my favorite TV shows says, "sometimes a thing gets broke can't be fixed".

One of my favorite shows as well

[Beleg85]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The actual term of "warrior" has deep roots within indigenous cultures around the world.  In many it was a class of citizen with a clearly defined purpose.  You can read a lot on this but the most common and prevalent definition was in line with "One Who Does War" on behalf of their people.  A person whose role within a society is the function of warfare.  In most cases it became part of a cast or class system.  In some cultures this was seen as a sacred duty-to-protect bordering on a pseudo public service.  The recent bashing of the term has drifted into colonial insensitivity in some cases as it really reads like "white folks screwed it up, so now all 'warriors' are bad" when in fact indigenous cultures have employed the concept for millennia and many, like North American natives, still hold it sacred.

Extremely lucid post.

However, I'd disagree a little with this point. Historically it is correct, but up to a point- it could argued that development of nations in late XVIII cent gave rise to new, massive conscipted armies fully representing their societies...and these tend to fight much more bloody and stubborn wars than professional mercs or feudal elites. Yet, the term soldier won and developed, while warrior was abandoned, as warfare was more and more sophisticated and redistributed among large segments of new nation-states, . Sticking to beformentioned definitions, we should call guys in the trenches of WWI or those in WWII warriors. They fight (especially in the latter) existential war involving whole, mass societies on every level.

I think that nowadays, in popular perception difference between warrior/soldier as group  identity seem to more break on lines of dualism between nature vs. culture rather than purpose vs. contract. Warrior in popular imagination (I know it is simplification, but subcultures dwell on them anyway) is a guy stalking his enemies in some jungle or mountains, crushing skull of his enemies, fighting close and dangerously, sorrounded by similar-minded group of males. He generally is accustomed with mud, blood, bones and all that gritty stuff of waging war.

So can artillelryman, logistician or pilot can call himself warrior? Perhaps less so, because even despite the fact they often do most of the actual killing, they lack this direct animalistic (and often mistyfied) contact with the enemy. There is a reason why this military hipsterdoom we often see is chiefly domain of special forces and paratroopers, and we constantly prefer to watch movies about guys fighting against overhwelming odds in some failes SpecOps or shooting in tank battles than about mechanics repairing their vehicles or logisticians making it all possible. Because the latter are not viewed as real warriors in most carnal sense, even if they are 100% soldiers.

There is of course another factor in this breakdown, and actually for example historians of ancient Rome developed quite interesting discussions about it. Namely warriors tend to be unruly and rather flexible in their way of fighting; they lack discipline, sophisticad organization and obedience to superiors. This is why Roman authors often used this distinction between bellatores and milites. Even later term milites (which in medieval times meaned broadly knights) bore much distinction from the crowd of other armed guys.

So yeah, a fascinating topic, but partly also belonging to anthropology of communciation and mass culture as much as to history and military organization. For example, are these soldiers or warriors?".

I would say functionally, they are soldiers. Symbolically however, phenomena of very bad boys living outside of societal constrains seem to be too sexy for some segments of it to not view tham as genuine warriors. Because you know, "Wagner fights".

Edited September 12, 2023 by Beleg85