How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Carolus]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/11/06/ukroboronprom-ukraines-kamikaze-drones-with-1000-km-combat-radius-in-mass-production/

 

“It is being produced. In particular, in cooperation with foreign partners. I will not tell you where exactly for security reasons. The main thing is that they fly and explode, and the Defense Forces order them.”

This is one factor that can really change the donkeycart around.

Europe doesn't have much in terms of military material, but the EU has coffers full of tax dollars / euros. More than Russia can even dream about.

If every EU country is too pigheaded to increase defense spending on their own, Ukraine can use the EU support fund to dangle a nice order bid in front of Western companies who would love to jump at the chance to build stuff for them, and are actually flexible and have good reaction times when business calls. 

As I wondered before, I don't know how mobilised the Ukrainian civil population is for a war economy, but every war economy eventually makes life for its people more miserable. By producing outside of its borders, Ukraine can take pressure away from that part of the war of attrition.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Carolus
typos

[zinz]

 https://youtu.be/dcsf5yuEHDY?si=gb-6j3eUT155DsAi

Drones dropping tm62 mines as bombs

[cesmonkey]

A four minute summary of the changes Zaluzhny said Ukraine needs to be successful against Russia:

 

[Vet 0369]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ah, how I love a good “Holy Grail” clip! I much prefer a “Castle Anthrax” clip though

 

 

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

Does anyone know which colour on the Deepstate map corresponds to which kind of fortification? I did plenty of googling but haven't found the map legend anywhere.

I'm thinking red lines must be infantry trenches, but there are also yellow and blue lines, as well as magenta dots:

Yellow: dragon's teeth, blue: anti tank ditch? Magenta: artillery pit ?

Edited November 8, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/some-preliminary-thoughts-on-ukraines-position-in-the-war/

- The Ukrainian offensive has culminated 

- The last high-risk attempt to cross the river in Kherson to achieve results.

- Next year will be a year of static warfare 

- The coming year will be more difficult than this year. Less resources and the change to balance ongoing military operations and the accumulation of new capacity.

- It is important how the West commits to strengthening Ukraine's power. War economy and training**

- It is important what Russia does, hopefully it will continue to attack by force in the same style, and will not start to accumulating new power.

 

If there is no change in diplomacy and politics, militarily next year will be an intermediate year that will allow for solutions in 2025 onwards

[Harmon Rabb]

GUR strikes again. Good riddance.

[cesmonkey]

Hopefully this is not true:
https://tass.com/politics/1702489
 

Quote

Russia uses S-400 in Ukraine to launch missiles with active homing warheads
It is reported that the S-400 missiles were fired at maximum distances to hit targets at altitudes of about 1,000 meters
MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. The Russian army has used S-400 Triumf systems to launch anti-aircraft guided missiles with active homing heads, a source close to the Russian Defense Ministry has told TASS.

"Russia used S-400 Triumf system in tandem with the A-50 early warning and control aircraft in the special military operation in Ukraine. S-400s launched anti-aircraft missiles with active homing heads. The system's use against enemy aircraft was successful," the source. TASS has no official confirmation of this.

On October 25, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said the army’s new anti-aircraft missile systems shot down 24 Ukrainian aircraft in five days.

According to another source, the S-400 missiles were fired at maximum distances to hit targets at altitudes of about 1,000 meters. "New warheads" were reportedly used.

 

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Hopefully this is not true:
https://tass.com/politics/1702489
 

 

You're quoting Tass, a Russian state-owned news agency. Of course it's not true.

[The_Capt]

31 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

If there is no change in diplomacy and politics, militarily next year will be an intermediate year that will allow for solutions in 2025 onwards

This is really just an academic cop-out -“F#ck knows, so let’s call it ‘intermediate’ and dump the solution forward”

Some fundamentals of warfare have shifted.  Mass manoeuvre on offence is clearly broken as we knew it.  Establishing conditions to re-start it remain out of reach.  Neither side has been able to project and sustain mass precision, or at least the levels required to break deadlock.  I am not convinced that there will be a technological or doctrinal solution by 2025.

I think we are going to start seeing difficult conversations.  Ukraine will likely need to dig in and adopt small power strategies of continuing to bleed the RA.  At some point Russia will realize this is a waste of time and effort, probably need a few more disasters to drive that point home.

Defensive primacy might be back (for now).  Denial primacy definitely is happening.  Themes of Denial, Corrosion, projected friction, precision, smart mass, Illumination, Hyper-connectivity, dispersion, deception and attrition seem to really dominate.  A battlefield of negative decisions - I can’t have positive decisions but neither can you.

The military problem may be unsolvable.  Over to the political side.

[danfrodo]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This is really just an academic cop-out -“F#ck knows, so let’s call it ‘intermediate’ and dump the solution forward”

Some fundamentals of warfare have shifted.  Mass manoeuvre on offence is clearly broken as we knew it.  Establishing conditions to re-start it remain out of reach.  Neither side has been able to project and sustain mass precision, or at least the levels required to break deadlock.  I am not convinced that there will be a technological or doctrinal solution by 2025.

I think we are going to start seeing difficult conversations.  Ukraine will likely need to dig in and adopt small power strategies of continuing to bleed the RA.  At some point Russia will realize this is a waste of time and effort, probably need a few more disasters to drive that point home.

Defensive primacy might be back (for now).  Denial primacy definitely is happening.  Themes of Denial, Corrosion, projected friction, precision, smart mass, Illumination, Hyper-connectivity, dispersion, deception and attrition seem to really dominate.  A battlefield of negative decisions - I can’t have positive decisions but neither can you.

The military problem may be unsolvable.  Over to the political side.

Perhaps instead of focusing on things that evidence-based and seem to be very true you could spend a little more of your time telling me things that make me feel good instead?   What is it with you anyway?  

I do keep hoping that RU gets weak enough that UKR can make some solid gains, somewhere.  I don't actually think this is likely, unfortunately.  Seems RU can lay mines faster than UKR can get through them.

[kimbosbread]

9 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I do keep hoping that RU gets weak enough that UKR can make some solid gains, somewhere.  I don't actually think this is likely, unfortunately.  Seems RU can lay mines faster than UKR can get through them.

If Ukraine has sufficient large kamikaze drones (ie cheap cruise missiles), that means Ukraine can destroy infrastructure and other fancy targets faster than Moscow can build or repair them.

[Kinophile]

Pekka's Vatnick soup as a YouTube show 

 

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

20 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

If Ukraine has sufficient large kamikaze drones (ie cheap cruise missiles), that means Ukraine can destroy infrastructure and other fancy targets faster than Moscow can build or repair them.

Well, no. Have you seen the size of it? Most of Russian stratregic targets are out of range

[Maciej Zwolinski]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:50 PM, The_Capt said:

My personal favorite would be UGVs with GPRby that have a bunch of small little spider buggers with shaped charges to find and then lay down over top the mines.  Detonate all in sequence and then you have a safe lane...right up until the enemies little spider bastards crawl back into the safe lane or they just drop more FASCAM n the safe lane

Why necessarily UGVs? Could this not be done by drone UAV dropping those spiders as currently they do mortar bombs?

[Kinophile]

 

 

[Kinophile]

 

 

[Kinophile]

Last one I promise, good news but not locked yet. 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Kinophile

[Hapless]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Defensive primacy might be back (for now).  Denial primacy definitely is happening.  Themes of Denial, Corrosion, projected friction, precision, smart mass, Illumination, Hyper-connectivity, dispersion, deception and attrition seem to really dominate.  A battlefield of negative decisions - I can’t have positive decisions but neither can you.

The military problem may be unsolvable.  Over to the political side.

If no one can attack the result is... peace?

I mean, caveats ahoy and not necessarily a warm, fun peace that everyone enjoys... maybe more like the 90s where it's 'peace' if you live in the right places and people living everywhere else double down on that asymmetry thing.

[Kinophile]

I lied,  there's more. 

 

[Kinophile]

 

 

[Kraft]

Not sure if this has been posted already.

 

[The_Capt]

36 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Why necessarily UGVs? Could this not be done by drone UAV dropping those spiders as currently they do mortar bombs?

I like that. Definitely.  So long as the lead GPR UGVs are linked in and can send the data back the breaching drones could be air dropped, or even artillery or rocket launched like a DPICM.  Once they land they scuttle over to a pre-found target and wait until told to detonate.

Would work for dumb mines but smart ones could also try to move.  

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I like that. Definitely.  So long as the lead GPR UGVs are linked in and can send the data back the breaching drones could be air dropped, or even artillery or rocket launched like a DPICM.  Once they land they scuttle over to a pre-found target and wait until told to detonate.

Would work for dumb mines but smart ones could also try to move.  

The smart crawly ones are not here yet in any quantity. Sometimes you have to take it one war at a time.

[Beleg85]

Good Interview, but short one, from one of AFU veterans: