How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Butschi]

36 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

It seems to me that Ukraine has realized that what the game is and is fighting like it is 1918 and the Russians are still fighting in 1915.

I'm not sure that is true. To be a little nitpicky to start with: In 1918 the Allies had more or less figured out how to go on the offensive. It was still slow going but I think they were a bit farther down that road than Ukraine is now.

Anyway, I think it may well be that the Russians have realized what the game is, too, and what they are doing now is the ... best ... well, not the worst way to play it given their resources and the circumstances.

It is quite obvious that Russia has no brilliant masterplan but I think we have to acknowledge that we probably don't know what their current plan is. Or their goals for that matter. If their goal is still to win this war in the maximalist sense, like conquer Ukraine, occupy Kiev, etc. than whatever their plan is, it sucks. If, on the other hand, like it was speculated here before, they have realized that the best outcome they can achieve now is to freeze the conflict, lick their wounds and start over in a few years, then what they are doing right now makes, well at least for this armchair general, a bit more sense.

They could just deploy defensively and try everything to hold the line with the help of comrade landmine. I guess that is a valid strategy but I feel completely seizing the initiative to the other side is rarely a good idea. Now obviously wasting the few reserves you have on attacks that are doomed to fail usually isn't that much of a good idea, either. If you believe that all you have to do is hold out long enough for the West to come to the conclusion that Ukraine can't win this war, either, or to just move its attention elsewhere then even a doomed attack could make sense as long as the news show Russia to be on the offensive and not Ukraine. Because that may be what sticks with decision makers or at least their voters when, as is happening at the moment, media attention moves almostv exclusively to the next crisis. (With the current events in Israel media seem to have more or less forgotten about Ukraine)

Now back to the 1915 part: If all the Russians have is badly trained troops to throw into the meat grinder and get slaughtered right now, but this is sufficient to achieve the effects described above and convince the West that Russia is still far enough from collapsing any time soon, then I have zero doubt that is exactly what they will do.

[Bearstronaut]

24 minutes ago, Butschi said:

I'm not sure that is true. To be a little nitpicky to start with: In 1918 the Allies had more or less figured out how to go on the offensive. It was still slow going but I think they were a bit farther down that road than Ukraine is now.

Fair enough. Maybe 1917 works better. The Entente had figured out that what they had done in 1915 and 1916 wasn't working and were experimenting but still hadn't figured out how to achieve that elusive breakthrough. Although historical analogies never align 100%.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Bearstronaut

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

Fair enough. Maybe 1917 works better. The Entente had figured out that what they had done in 1915 and 1916 wasn't working and were experimenting but still hadn't figured out how to achieve that elusive breakthrough. Although historical analogies never align 100%.

Drones are the essential element of why the war works the way it does. We all know that. An effective technological solution that grounded one side drones would almost certainly result in a huge swing in the battlefield. The big question is does this solution exists, and can one side deploy it at scale faster than the other side can adapt. The other known tech shift that is just hanging out there waiting is much greater AI/autonomy/swarming. Could one side do that scale fast enough to matter.

[cesmonkey]

9 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Drones are the essential element of why the war works the way it does. We all know that. An effective technological solution that grounded one side drones would almost certainly result in a huge swing in the battlefield. The big question is does this solution exists, and can one side deploy it at scale faster than the other side can adapt. The other known tech shift that is just hanging out there waiting is much greater AI/autonomy/swarming. Could one side do that scale fast enough to matter.

Maybe a bit escalatory, but an EMP with a precise enough area of effect that if detonated in the enemy territory it degrades the enemy's capabilities much more than your own.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Possibly most effective use of DPICM seen yet:

 

Shame the quality of the video is so crappy!  I would like to watch that in real time without edits.

Looks like a mine plow tank in the lead with a large number of BTRs behind it, probably a full company's worth.  A couple BTRs take DCIPM hits but keep on moving, but one is knocked out completely which divides the column into two segments.  The lead one gets right up to what is probably its objective (treeline) and then heads back with its BTRs following it!  One takes a KO hit the others keep retreating.  Meanwhile, the rear portion tries to go around the knocked out BTR and no less than three hit mines and are incapacitated.  The column continues to take DCIPM hits.  Dismounted infantry try to get to the woodline and continue to be peppered with DCIPM.

I think we've seen some stills from the aftermath of this battle.

Steve

[cesmonkey]

The White House's funding request for Israel, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, and the southern U.S. border:

Fact Sheet:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/10/20/fact-sheet-white-house-calls-on-congress-to-advance-critical-national-security-priorities/
 

Letter to Congress:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2023/10/20/letter-regarding-critical-national-security-funding-needs-for-fy-2024/

Actual Request is in the appendix:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Letter-regarding-critical-national-security-funding-needs-for-FY-2024.pdf

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Featured analysts on "War and the Rocks" see significant development in Russian tactics in the recent Avdiivka offensive.

Not significant improvement enough to turn an offensive that might have been doomed to fail no matter the people behind it into victory. They see that the coordination and implementation of forces was a significant step up from anything we have seen for a long while from the Russians.

If the trend continues and Russians keep being able to learn and raise the quality of their force it will have an impact next year. 

I'll take a listen sometime this weekend to hear the details of this argument, but I still don't buy it.

Russia started the war conducting battalion sized attacks along multiple axis simultaneously.  Really poorly at first, then less so during the spring and summer of 2022.  Massed attacks were the norm for them.  Then that died down as their capabilities were worn out. 

Just because we haven't seen something like this for a long while doesn't indicate "learning" or "improving".  It just indicates that they've realized that they're not going to "win" this war by platoon and company sized attacks.  Therefore, they have decided to attempt larger scale attacks again.

Interestingly, this is what Ukraine learned as well.  The small scale attacks around Bakhmut have resulted in consistent gains, but not dramatic and certainly nothing that gets Ukraine closer to "winning" this war.  So they tried large scale battalion sized attacks and, like the Russians before them and at Avdiivka, learned that it doesn't work against a well resourced fortified defender.  So Ukraine went back to small scale attacks.

I think we all agree with the sentiments in the Deep State quote above... large scale mechanized combined arms attacks will fail if the enemy has mines, artillery, and drones.  Note that I didn't mention air superiority because that doesn't seem to be a factor during the battle.  Having effective air superiority ahead of the battle focused on knocking out the defender's artillery, on the other hand, could prove decisive.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

9 minutes ago, Butschi said:

I'm not sure that is true. To be a little nitpicky to start with: In 1918 the Allies had more or less figured out how to go on the offensive. It was still slow going but I think they were a bit farther down that road than Ukraine is now.

50 minutes ago, Bearstronaut said:

Fair enough. Maybe 1917 works better. The Entente had figured out that what they had done in 1915 and 1916 wasn't working and were experimenting but still hadn't figured out how to achieve that elusive breakthrough. Although historical analogies never align 100%.

Late August 1917-early September 1917. After Pilckem Ridge, before Menin Road.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

 

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Just because we haven't seen something like this for a long while doesn't indicate "learning" or "improving".  It just indicates that they've realized that they're not going to "win" this war by platoon and company sized attacks.  Therefore, they have decided to attempt larger scale attacks again.

Also, a lot of experts are yearning to see a large scale mechanised attack because that is what they think proper war looks like, and everything else must be an aberration or at best, coping with inadequate resources. I imagine a French or Prussian liaison officer looking with disdain at the Union attack at Cold Harbor in 1864 and shaking his head at the inability of the colonials to press home a bayonet charge or better coordinate attack columns etc.

[cesmonkey]

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

53 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Maybe a bit escalatory, but an EMP with a precise enough area of effect that if detonated in the enemy territory it degrades the enemy's capabilities much more than your own.

EMP does not have to be generated by a nuclear explosion, so there are ways to do it in a non- escalatory way. On the other hand, AFAIK it is fairly easy to harden equipment against it, provided that someone remembers that stuff must be hardened. 

[dan/california]

Another TOS-1 departs for the afterlife with a TRULY spectacular boom. I wonder what they have to threaten the crews of these things with to get them to even go near them. The guys behind this one, perhaps the people charged with making such threats? Any way I am guessing they will double the follow distance to the next one, if they aren't to concussed to do anything besides drool.

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think we all agree with the sentiments in the Deep State quote above... large scale mechanized combined arms attacks will fail if the enemy has mines, artillery, and drones. 

I wonder what navies will learn from this, both USN and PLAN.

25 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

EMP does not have to be generated by a nuclear explosion, so there are ways to do it in a non- escalatory way. On the other hand, AFAIK it is fairly easy to harden equipment against it, provided that someone remembers that stuff must be hardened. 

IIRC a nice conductor, say wire wrapped around an explosive cylinder, detonating at one end, should generate an EMP as the wire expands.

But that’s poverty. In America, we have masers, and a sufficiently strong directed signal at 2.4GHz will fry the living **** out of many things. Obviously you can shield things against this, but it will fry sensors.

Even cooler would be a lightning gun like in video games, or using your Halliburton weather machine to generate a thunderstorm. I wonder if there’s a way to basically create an ionized pathway to every conductor in a localized area and cook it?

[dan/california]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

4 hours ago, akd said:

Possibly most effective use of DPICM seen yet:

 

Don't miss this one. WW1 levels of horrific.

And yes, I definitely see the Russian army 'learning' here. [/sarc]

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

 

Also, a lot of experts are yearning to see a large scale mechanised attack because that is what they think proper war looks like, and everything else must be an aberration or at best, coping with inadequate resources.

Well, the problem is there is only one established method for taking ground relatively quickly against an organized, mechanized defender... massed mechanized maneuver warfare.  That's it, there's nothing else quick.  Vietnam and Afghanistan level insurgency type warfare, backed up by more conventional forces, is not quick.  It is also requires a degree of suicidal fanaticism that neither Russian nor Ukraine possess.

Without any changes to the tactical capabilities we have in front of us now, the only way I can conceive of a massed mechanized attack succeeding is through multiple, massive, sustained actions that are aimed at rupturing defensive lines instead of on taking specific geographical targets.  Such operations would need to presume the first and perhaps second waves of attackers would become combat ineffective in the process of breaching.  At this scale, it would mean 6-10 brigades being written off before the operation even began, therefore another 10 or more would need to be held in reserve.

Ukraine did not do this for its summer counter offensive and so it has to commit its exploitation force in the hopes of achieving a breakthrough.  That almost worked, but since they had nothing left to rotate in the breaches were not turned into breakthroughs and certainly not exploitation.

The Russians have an advantage at Avdiivka in that they don't need any forces for exploitation.  Instead, they only need enough units to breach since once they do so Ukraine will be obligated to withdraw or face annihilation.  Fortunately, it appears that Russia didn't stack up enough units to achieve a meaningful breach, though the end is not written in stone yet so it's possible they have.

Steve

[Ultradave]

51 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Another TOS-1 departs for the afterlife with a TRULY spectacular boom. I wonder what they have to threaten the crews of these things with to get them to even go near them. The guys behind this one, perhaps the people charged with making such threats? Any way I am guessing they will double the follow distance to the next one, if they aren't to concussed to do anything besides drool.

Quite the visual effect of the shock wave there. Would not have wanted to be anywhere in the neighborhood!

Dave

[Vanir Ausf B]

 

[Kinophile]

On 10/19/2023 at 8:45 AM, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Do you have access to the paid stuff? If yes, is it worth the price?

I havent paid up but I might. He's rock solid. 

[Kinophile]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

(from Kriegsforscher twitter)

[Haiduk]

22 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

persona that is perhaps known to folks who followed the conflict from 2014, this former spetsnaz member

Babay never served in Spetsnaz. This is just DPR-tales ) In 1995-1997 he served in air defense unit. Since 1995 he also enlisted to Kuban' Cossacks. 

[acrashb]

8 hours ago, akd said:

Possibly most effective use of DPICM seen yet:

Watching that video tells me several things, both IRL and in-game:

IRL:

1) tanks are done in their current role, which means' they're overall done, unless 40-plus-ton pieces of armour that can only be significantly hardened from the frontal aspect can somehow be rendered invisible in an active/passive multi-spectrum detection environment.  We are in the "what can be seen can be killed, and everything can be seen" era.  No combination of APS or point-defence is going to stop DPICM or its replacement AWP, or suicide drone swarms, etc.  Of course there are counters to everything (suppressing artillery, counter-drone swarms, advanced camoflage, etc.), it's just that a meshed defensive system seems to beat big offensives consistently, and the much-noted lack of air superiority isn't really relevant.  Air superiority would not have changed the outcome from the video, although it might have made it less likely (the artillery might have been suppressed / destroyed before the armoured push through the minefield) - and with cheap manpads etc., I'm not so sure that air superiority in the sense of full overmatch is even achievable in a peer-to-peer conflict.

So I'm not seeing the point of MBTs in future warfare.

For extra fun, the future of UGVs - not mini-excavator-sized tracks, but goats (not the men who stare at them): Marines are preparing to send 'robotic goats' with rocket launchers into battle (msn.com) 

2) Mines are back, baby!  One assumes every major armed forces is reviewing their mine-laying technology and inventory.

In-Game:

1) in CM:BS it takes minutes to adjust indirect fire.  In the video, it looking like it was being adjusted in real-time - so when do I get my real-time indirect patch?

2) in CM:BS and other titles, heavy armour (MBTs) are almost immune to indirect fire, even large calibres, and pretty close to the same for IFVs and other light armour, which has been mentioned before in this thread. Please fix or do sumfink.

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by acrashb

[Haiduk]

30 minutes ago, acrashb said:

in CM:BS it takes minutes to adjust indirect fire.  In the video, it looking like it was being adjusted in real-time - so when do I get my real-time indirect patch?

CMBS reflects reality of 2011-2012, when artillery had usual Soviet communicatin system. In 2014 during ATO calling of fire of supporting unit of artilery brigade could take 15-30 minutes and some less for own brigade artilelry. Since 2015 Ukrianian volunteers developed special softawre for PDAs, which could communicate each other via digital radio network or via commercial sattelite, so some local information battlspace can be created and this allowed to increase significantly accuracy of coordinates determination, reduce a time of artillery firing data calculation and got fast information exchange between different levels and units, so even usual platoon commander or recon got an opportunity to target the enemy, without artillery spotters and if arty wasn't busy, they could open fire through 3 munutes (when it was ready to fire) and their fire could be ajusted immediately. 

But all ajustment and targeting anyway was classical - from the ground. Ukrainain army became use drones for artillery ajustment only since 2016-2017, when first Furia and Leleka in small numbers went to artillery brigades. Civil drones like Mavics in that time were not widely used, mostly some mortar batteries and recons had them. The art of drone usage - recon, spotting, targeting, ajustmemt, dropping - have been developing through several years of ATO and rised on new level since large-scale war. So, classical CMBS shouldn't have enough fast artillery fire call and ajustment. But anyway it should be more fast than in CMCW. 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Haiduk

[LongLeftFlank]

Another complete clusterblyat at Krasnorivka (sorry if this was posted before, I only search back 5 pages).

Not sure this is the same demolition derby, but yeah, are the Russians learning yet Kofman?

Tag 'em and bag 'em... 

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by LongLeftFlank