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How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?


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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I tried to buy Watling's book the other day and was too stupid to find an easy way to purchase it directly from RUSI.  Do you have a link?

Steve

I got it on Kindle I'm afraid so if you don't want to pay Amazon I can't help, sorry!

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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I tried to buy Watling's book the other day and was too stupid to find an easy way to purchase it directly from RUSI.  Do you have a link?

It's not published by RUSI. It's published by Bloomsbury if you don't want to pay Mr Bezos :)

 

The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century: New Perspectives on Defence and Security Jack Watling Bloomsbury Academic

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9 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I got it on Kindle I'm afraid so if you don't want to pay Amazon I can't help, sorry!

I always try to cut out the middleman when possible, but sometimes that's the only option.  (oh, new post to respond to!):

 

2 minutes ago, Eddy said:

Ah, that explains it.  But would it kill RUSI to have a link to their own publication on their own website?  Sheesh ;)

I'm going to cut out Mr. Bezos on this one.  Thanks!

Steve

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Left bank of Dnipro. 

Judging on videos of Russian FPV strikes, UKR troops have significant gains as for so small landing forces:

- Russian strongpoint NW from Pishchanivka village is captured

Image

- Russian strongpoint north from Pidstepne village is captured

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Russian TG Romanov92 reported UKR troops delivered 20 men more on 4 boats to central part of Krynky village, so UKR presence in this looooong village (9 km) increased with new bridgehead. Later Romanov wrote "9 boats more landed UKR troops from railways to Krynky"

Image

Russian artillery and FPV actively work on Krynka, Russians also drop 2-3 dozens of glide bombs on right bank of Dnipro each day, but Krynky stands.

German journalists showed training of UKR units of river crossing with M3 Amfibious Rig. UKR srviceman didn't hide: "Our main question is Dnipro crossing"

 

 

Edited by Haiduk
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2 hours ago, hcrof said:

Genuine question: how small and cheap can you make a gas engine? 

And fixed wings are possibly a way forward, but they can't maneuver like a quadcopter. When you are relying on hitting the back of a tank turret or trying to stay very low through complex terrain that might be important, especially if your control system is a bit dumb and needs to make last-minute adjustments.

I would not be surprised if both types are useful though. The Russian Lancet certainly seems useful, if much easier to shoot down with a RWS than a quadcopter. 

 

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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Maybe the Soviet era preference for riding on top of IFVs to be safer from mines might need to be reconsidered.  That FPV would not have done the same thing against infantry riding inside.

Steve

You are missing the point.  RU is using the soldiers as energy absorbing extra armor layer to protect the BMP.  Very clever!  and a good use of resources since RU knows that its people have zero value while BMPs are in shortage.

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1 hour ago, Twisk said:

When talking about major anti-drone systems being a waste I wonder how much of this is an over focus on land warfare due to this being a ground war and also a ground simulation forum. A laser based system seems like it would be very useful in a naval context and within the U.S. military context naval capability is huge. After all the putative "next war" for the U.S. being a naval/air/strategic war in the Taiwan Strait. With all the advances in drone usage if you removed the nuclear umbrella NATO would roll over Russia in a matter of months and it would only take that long because NATO wouldn't be rushing things. And even without drones a NATO (SEATO?) invasion of mainland China would probably approach Operation Downfall scales.

 

Again not saying that the discussion about land warfare usages isn't useful or interesting to read. But a lot of the discussion seems to be eliding the naval requirements. Granted I don't know much about naval warfare but it seems the requirements to win Coral Sea 2.0 would be significantly different than the 6th Battle of Karhkov or the 3rd Invasion of Iraq.


 

Well then we are really talking about Sea-Air battle at that point.  I think for naval warfare the situation may be worse.  The problems there are:

- No cover, except weather.

- Much larger concentrations of military capability tightly centralized.

- Freakishly high costs per conventional platform unit.

About the only thing it has going for it is stand-off range being essentially the horizon.  For maritime warfare the air problem is not small as a big giant laser can only target one itty bitty Drone at a time.  So still a really big energy pull but shipborne power can haul a lot more.  I think in the open ocean this will be mitigatable but the littorals are going to become pure murder.  That will change the naval warfare maps.

And then there is sub-surface unmanned.  In the old days we called them torpedoes, but the modern era is aching for a small fast system that can approach underwater...and then send a swarm of UAS at really close range.  Likely won't kill the ship but do enough damage that it may as well have.  Big problem with this sort of stuff is that the carrier group concept is not built for it.  It is built for large aircraft stand-off strikes and ASW (which is hard enough). 

I honestly think naval warfare is in for just as large a shock, maybe a larger one.  Small unmanned with ISR and explosives are going to re-shape naval power as much, possibly more than land power.   

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3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

There are strikes on US bases in Syria reportedly with casualties. Somebody very want to set huge fire on Middle East, additioanlly to Ukraine to disperse US aid and involvement.

 

Image

I'm pretty sure that was last week.  There were also missile attacks on a US ship from Yemen.  Nothing unusual about it, though the timing could have been an opportunity to coordinate with Hamas.  Just like Hezbollah is doing with Israel.  I doubt Russia had anything meaningful to do with this.

Steve

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3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Somebody very want to set huge fire on Middle East, additioanlly to Ukraine to disperse US aid and involvement.

Indeed. That somebody (cough Iran cough cough) has wanted that for decades. Honestly, I just don't see it happening. Iran is the only one that actually wants some kind of war with Israel. Even Iran doesn't want to do it directly they are just another rogue state run by a chaos monkey. All they can do is what they are doing. Sure it will rile things up but no other country is going to join in with an attack on Israel and the bad actors that Iran has been supporting are just going to kick up some dirt and die horrible deaths finally finding out there are no virgins.

Bringing this back on topic - it might spur some members of the US congress to get their **** together and actually pass some funding that will help both Ukraine and Israel.

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1 minute ago, IanL said:

**** together

"act together", I meant "act together" yeah that's it, that's the ticket.

I'm still unclear on why swearing is censored. I mean really, we have videos that show people getting killed for ****s sake and a little colourful language is not allowed. Sheesh.

Oops I did it again :D

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9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Well then we are really talking about Sea-Air battle at that point.  I think for naval warfare the situation may be worse.  The problems there are:

- No cover, except weather.

- Much larger concentrations of military capability tightly centralized.

- Freakishly high costs per conventional platform unit.

About the only thing it has going for it is stand-off range being essentially the horizon.

Ships gotta get near shores, even if it is to let their squids off ship to pee and visit houses of ill repute (possibly at the same time).  Pearl Harbor was a little while ago and even that demonstrated that being in port has some disadvantages even before drones.

In this war we've seen Ukraine score more successes against the Russian Black Sea Fleet in a couple of weeks than (arguably) it secured on the ground in months.

So I'm with The_Capt here, navy is probably more f'd than the ground forces.  As much as it sucks to lose a company of tanks in one engagement, it sucks a lot more to lose a ship.

Steve

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13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ships gotta get near shores, even if it is to let their squids off ship to pee and visit houses of ill repute (possibly at the same time).  Pearl Harbor was a little while ago and even that demonstrated that being in port has some disadvantages even before drones.

In this war we've seen Ukraine score more successes against the Russian Black Sea Fleet in a couple of weeks than (arguably) it secured on the ground in months.

So I'm with The_Capt here, navy is probably more f'd than the ground forces.  As much as it sucks to lose a company of tanks in one engagement, it sucks a lot more to lose a ship.

Steve

Oh that is a good one.  Forgot all about the strategic strikes on naval infra and ships tied up.  Ya, that is a whole other spin.

Ukraine basically does not have a blue water navy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Ukrainian_Navy_ships

And it has done this:

 

image.png.f027c9f86160483b66b06ab10914af9f.png

Edit:  Yeesh, looked it up.  The Moskva and Rostov were worth about $1B in total.

Edited by The_Capt
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Recently there was information, that Russian police conducts raids in markets, mosques and residental areas, where in Russian cities, especially Moscow, they can find migrants from Central Asia (but not Caucasins - those guys can beat up police and  this will not have any consequences). Those, who had Russian citizenship, police takes to enlistment centers, where they had choice - to sign a contract with Russian army or cancelling of Russian citizenship. Looks like many of them choose the first variiant:

In first time to one of 7th air-assault division units, a  replenishment has arrived, consisting completely of Centarl Asia migrants, who received Russian Federation citizenship. Russian airborne troops cease to be Russian  

 Image

Edited by Haiduk
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7 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Recently there was information, that Russian police conducts raids in markets, mosques and residental areas, where in Russian cities, especially Moscow, they can find migrants from Central Asia (but not Caucasins - those guys can beat up police and  this will not have any consequences). Those, who had Russian citizenship, police takes to enlistment centers, where they had choice - to sign a contract with Russian army or cancelling of Russian citizenship. Looks like many of them choose the first variiant:

In first time to one of 7th air-assault division units, a  replenishment has arrived, consisting completely of Centarl Asia migrants, who received Russian Federation citizenship. Russian airborne troops cease to be Russian  

 Image

ISW spent some time on this yesterday.  It not only pointed out Russia's "press gang" replenishment techniques, but also put it in the context of Russia's population problem (sburke noted that a few pages ago).  ISW highlighted Russian blogger's encouragement using Asians for cannon fodder and getting more Russians to crank out children. 

Steve

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