How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

44 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Plus, hearing the Moscow...and it's always just Moscow when people tell this story...is achieving Weimar flights of excess is not exactly the flex Russians might imagine it to be. The decadent capital ignoring the realities about to come crashing in was precisely what happened in the late WWI and Civil War era.

And what's new, of course, is old: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250113.Novel_With_Cocaine

You've got it totally wrong BillBinDC.  Moscow wealth is definitely indicative of the state of the larger country.  Just look at Pyongyang.  Both of these countries have benevolent philosopher kings who care only for the well being of their people, especially the poorest and most marginalized. 

But seriously, yes, looking at luxury cars is not a good measure of anything.  It's like when there's bad economy in US but "2nd home ownership is up!".  Yes, for all those who can afford 2nd homes (btw, this was actually something someone said once during a tough recession) 

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Plus, hearing the Moscow...and it's always just Moscow when people tell this story...is achieving Weimar flights of excess is not exactly the flex Russians might imagine it to be. The decadent capital ignoring the realities about to come crashing in was precisely what happened in the late WWI and Civil War era.

And what's new, of course, is old: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250113.Novel_With_Cocaine

In general, the state of a nation's capital tends to distort the nation's health in either direction.  The obvious "the capital is spotless and vibrant" is more well known and can be seen in places like North Korea, where inordinate amounts of the nation's resources are invested in putting on a good show for the world.  There is also the opposite where people attach too much significance on the state of the capital. Japan, France, UK, etc. you hear people judging how expensive it is to live in country X because of how expensive it is to live in the capital.  Generally if you drive 10 minutes outside of the capital prices start dropping off dramatically.

How this pertains to Russia is quite important.  We've discussed before how important Moscow and St. Petersburg (in particular) are to regime stability.  If he loses support there, he's screwed even if the rural areas remain faithful.  Conversely, the big urban areas can't survive without the rural areas willingly sacrificing on their behalf.  When Putin is faced with a decision to screw over one or the other, he will most likely screw over the rural areas because they are more willing to accept less.  But there will come a point where they won't.  And if that comes at the same time that the urban areas feel they aren't getting "their fair share", revolution won't be far behind.  This is what brought down the Soviet Union more than anything else.

So far Russia has had enough money and goods to keep the Muscovites comfortable enough that they aren't ready to riot.  How much of this is coming at the expense of the rural supporters?  Hard to say precisely, but indications are that both are on a downward trend.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Just for information - the composition and price of UKR "Aerorozvidka" R18 drone complex, notorious "Baba Yaga" (ugly old evil witch, from Russian fairy tales) as it called by Russians

- R18 octocopter with three pods for RKG-1600 HEAT ordnance - 2

-  control and targeting device - 1

- onbaord videomodule - 2

Total price rough 3 536 000 UAH (95600$)

If our "Aerorozvidka" developers could upgrade this beast for more long range, this would be complete pain for Russians. They already announced this summer new upgraded drone of this type R34 - hexacopter with six pods, but no more information about it and I didn't read yet about its usage

"Aerorozvidka" - an institution, having own combat unit, public organization, volunteer fundation, design bureau and research ceneter of military IT-technologies (except drones, they participated in development of famous "Delta" battelfield managment system), who claims each 1$ invested into R18 inflicts 1000$ of damage for enemy and first successfull mission completely recoups invested funds. 

This is a good reminder (as if we need more!) of how screwed big ticket vehicles and infrastructure are.  Sure, it's pretty bad when a $500 drone can take out a $5m tank, but if it takes a $100k drone to take out a $5m tank that's still a pretty damned good exchange.

My point is that the entry level for destroying a $5m tank is so low that you can increase the costs by orders of magnitude and you're still at a fraction of the cost of what it can destroy.  If there is to be an arms race to see who can come out on top, drones or drone defenses, the easy bet to make is on drones.  Which means the other easy bet to make is that expensive AFVs have already lost the race.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

27 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

In general, the state of a nation's capital tends to distort the nation's health in either direction.  The obvious "the capital is spotless and vibrant" is more well known and can be seen in places like North Korea, where inordinate amounts of the nation's resources are invested in putting on a good show for the world.  There is also the opposite where people attach too much significance on the state of the capital. Japan, France, UK, etc. you hear people judging how expensive it is to live in country X because of how expensive it is to live in the capital.  Generally if you drive 10 minutes outside of the capital prices start dropping off dramatically.

How this pertains to Russia is quite important.  We've discussed before how important Moscow and St. Petersburg (in particular) are to regime stability.  If he loses support there, he's screwed even if the rural areas remain faithful.  Conversely, the big urban areas can't survive without the rural areas willingly sacrificing on their behalf.  When Putin is faced with a decision to screw over one or the other, he will most likely screw over the rural areas because they are more willing to accept less.  But there will come a point where they won't.  And if that comes at the same time that the urban areas feel they aren't getting "their fair share", revolution won't be far behind.  This is what brought down the Soviet Union more than anything else.

So far Russia has had enough money and goods to keep the Muscovites comfortable enough that they aren't ready to riot.  How much of this is coming at the expense of the rural supporters?  Hard to say precisely, but indications are that both are on a downward trend.

Steve

As @Bearstronaut astutely commented a few pages back, Sacrifice® is far easier when it's offloaded/offshored onto some other poor dumb bastige.

[JonS]

14 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Hunt For Red October

I was more thinking of Red Storm Rising. Your precis is uncannily similar to the overall arc of the bits of that book set in West Germany

[Zeleban]

 

The Russians note that cases of Ukraine using Tochka-U missiles have become more frequent. Although it was previously believed that the reserves of these missiles had long since run out

[Haiduk]

Russian milblogger Romanov92 issued a map of Krynky, according to words of Russian soldiers from this place - purple color is new UKR gains of last days. He claims UKR froces agian seized part of the forest, because of soldiers of 328th air-assault regiment of 104th air-assault division abandoned own positions. Other source adds information that allegedly Russian position was simultainosly hit both with Ukrainian and own friendly fire, that caused panic and uncontroled retreating.

104th air-assault division is restored unit (104th airborne division in Soviet and early Russian times) on the base of 31st air-assault brigade, training center of 83rd air-assault brigade and two former motor-rifle regiments of territorial troops turned into "air-assault". Redently was known only about 1044th MRR TT in composition of this division, likely 328th is a number of second regiment, which was unknown to this time. Still unknown is this original numbe of TT regiment or new number, because 328th regiment was an existed recently unit of 104th airborne division and TT unit can be renamed for "tradition following" 

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

The full text of his announcement, I actually find the bit about the Kremlin allowing him to run as the perfect "tame" candidate to be somewhat persuasive. He is the perfect bogey man  for Putin to wave around and scare everyone with the prospect of who is coming next.

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://www.threads.net/@ukrainemonitor/post/Cz1picSAyiw

Video of Ukrainian FPV drones knocking out Russian artillery wholesale. Either the range of the FPV drones has gone up, or the continued deterioration in barrels and and ammo quality is forcing the Russians to get closer to the front lines. As Steve says we are rapidly approaching a battlefield where there are drones, and targets.

[LongLeftFlank]

 

 

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Zeleban said:

I don’t care whether it’s true or not that Russia has increased profits from selling oil to the West. I don’t care whether it’s true or not that Russia has found an opportunity to operate its fleet of civilian aircraft. I don’t care what Moscow residents drive or where they fly on vacation. I only care about the fact that Putin has enough money to buy meat for this war and that’s a fact. The only way to defeat Russia is to deprive it of money.

Except the part where your post (translating from another) appears to blame the EU and western powers for somehow funding Russia’s war.  This is simply not true based on the same website the post references.  That is weak and bordering on disinformation.  And I care very much about avoiding those pitfalls as they don’t do anyone any favours and in fact can cause some harm.

We aren’t going to fully “deprive” Russia of money in the short term. That same site outlines that India and China are the main buyers of Russian oil and that is not going to change.  It is not good news for Russia in the long term as those two nations are going to gut them price wise as Russia can no longer sell to its former best customers.

Let me be really and brutally honest here.  Guilting the West as a theory on how to sustain support is counterproductive.  We have enough guilt and shaming going on internally right now.  Having a nation we are trying to support turn around and point fingers, blame and shame is going to go nowhere fast.  I am not sure why some people do not get that but these kind of narratives only make the job of those of us who do fully support Ukraine much harder.

6 hours ago, Haiduk said:

This is old info. I posted Bloomberg article with newer data - sacnctions don't work, Russia has doubled own income from oil export since April 2023:

 May as well hit this one while we are at it.  Since Apr 23 sure but look at the trend overall:

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/russia/federal-government-revenue-and-expenditure-general/federal-government-revenue-oil--gas#:~:text=Russia Federal Government Revenue%3A Oil %26 Gas data is updated monthly,RUB bn in Feb 2009.

So Russia has already lost money over time and that was all money that had to pay for a lot more than this war.  “Russia spent 170b on the war but got 550b” is extremely misleading as they are paying for a lot of stuff other than the war with that 550B in the first place.

They are the only major economy that is seeing negative growth:

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/

As to the means for this war.  Well they can likely keep paying poor Russian bumpkins to fight at the front but keeping military industry afloat or buying jacked up priced stuff abroad is going to get harder.

As to “defeating Russia” well as we have talked about a lot, we had better start negotiating what that actually looks like.  Because a complete collapse is likely outside its timeline - economics will definitely impact the next war.  Military capability seems to have entered a deadlock.

So as I have said repeatedly, we may start to have to learn to live with things as they stand now.  I am hopeful that a snappy winter offensive may break the deadlock but we are running out of time here.  I suspect keeping Ukraine able to defend what is has is going to endure.  But massing what it may need to break what could be a simple fact of modern warfare may be out of reach.  The economic pain Russia will suffer is going to be generational and greatly hamper redo of their own military, which is a good thing.

 

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

I was more thinking of Red Storm Rising. Your precis is uncannily similar to the overall arc of the bits of that book set in West Germany

Definitely could be.  I am at that wonderful age where I cannot really recall where stuff comes from that pops into my head.  I guess I should enjoy it as what comes next is stuff falling out of my head.

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is a good reminder (as if we need more!) of how screwed big ticket vehicles and infrastructure are.  Sure, it's pretty bad when a $500 drone can take out a $5m tank, but if it takes a $100k drone to take out a $5m tank that's still a pretty damned good exchange.

My point is that the entry level for destroying a $5m tank is so low that you can increase the costs by orders of magnitude and you're still at a fraction of the cost of what it can destroy.  If there is to be an arms race to see who can come out on top, drones or drone defenses, the easy bet to make is on drones.  Which means the other easy bet to make is that expensive AFVs have already lost the race.

Steve

And the R18s are reusable - you're not expending the $100K drone every time you take out a tank, you're expending 1 to 3 $100 munitions.  (edit- the RKG-1600 are closer to $100 than $500)

And maybe most importantly - unlike the guys in the tank, the drone operator is at essentially zero risk during the operation.  If something goes sideways and you lose the drone, the operator just goes back to base and picks up another one.  

Edited November 19, 2023 by chrisl

[Kraft]

3 hours ago, danfrodo said:

You've got it totally wrong BillBinDC.  Moscow wealth is definitely indicative of the state of the larger country.  Just look at Pyongyang.  Both of these countries have benevolent philosopher kings who care only for the well being of their people, especially the poorest and most marginalized. 

But seriously, yes, looking at luxury cars is not a good measure of anything.  It's like when there's bad economy in US but "2nd home ownership is up!".  Yes, for all those who can afford 2nd homes (btw, this was actually something someone said once during a tough recession) 

Yes look at Pyongyang and count the amount of times these poor starving farmers have risen up and disposed of the people responsible for their suffering.

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Yeah, I have been wondering too whether the Russians might crack the lid on chemical weapons, if not to 'break' the stalemate, at least to amp up strain on the UA infantry and LOCs.

1. Purely militarily, would (rocket delivered*) agents be helpful in reducing a fixed position like Avdiivka? Could they kill and disrupt enough to allow Russian troops to occupy the salient without becoming debilitated themselves (well, give or take a few hundred more mobiks, yawn)?

2. Could they conduct more 'focused' attacks (and are these militarily useful, or is gas warfare still really a blunt instrument, only useful in saturation quantities across large areas)?

And by also tossing around some tear gas, WP and thermite, could they muddy things enough to just loudly deny deny deny it all, intending to control the critical real estate before an organised investigation, air and soil sampling, etc. can occur? (thinking here about the many reported incidents in Syria)

3. Politically, whether or not we could 'prove it', what could the West do in response that we're not doing already? Send NBC gear, fine. But it's not like we're in a position to send the UA chemical warheads.

...And short of them gassing civilians in quantity, would it be a casus belli for intervention? I personally doubt it. Just another folder for the war crimes file.

* aerial spray / crop duster delivery being assumed unavailable, unless large drones could somehow do it on a local basis

So my honest guess is that unless they started dropping Sarin in downtown Kyiv…no, the West would not likely do a direct intervention.  We have other escalation routes.  The big one is that it may very well galvanize some political will in the west if Russia start lobbing chemical weapons around.  We could see more and deeper military capability.  We could also see pressure ramped up in other arenas.  

But as you note the war crimes seal has already been broken numerous times by Russia.  If they used chemical weapons (and they supported this in Syria already) against military targets and confined it to a military operation and followed up with an IO campaign to try and blame the UA I definitely think they could get away with it.  A thin veneer of denial would go a long way.

Now they haven’t likely because they are being restrained by fears of western escalation but I am not sure how long that would hold.  If the RA does start employing them suddenly it could be a sign things are getting very bad back in Russia and Putin needs a win or risks being deposed.

Tac nukes are another story.  Those I could see being held off until they are on Russian soil…but what is “Russian soil”?  That bottleneck to the Crimea makes me nervous.  If it is going to happen it will likely be there.  In that location tac nukes could actually be deterministic given the very narrow frontage.  Everyone would freak the hell out and the West would be faced with some very stark choices.  I mean do we start WW3 over Crimea or does the US go “ok, that is enough we are stopping this thing”?

I really hope we do not find out.  But I am wondering what is still holding Russia back.

[Haiduk]

27 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

 

 

Full version

 

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

As @Bearstronaut astutely commented a few pages back, Sacrifice® is far easier when it's offloaded/offshored onto some other poor dumb bastige.

You cut me deep man.  I write pages on sacrifice dynamics and you give Bearstronaut (what the hell is that anyway? One who journeys across bears) the win?  I think we may need some relationship counselling.

[Battlefront.com]

Here's the first estimate of Ukrainian POWs held in Russia I've seen - 3574 military and 763 civlians:

https://censor.net/en/news/3456171/4337_ukrainians_are_in_russian_captivity_including_3574_military_personnel_ministry_of_reintegration

I saw an estimate that 1/3rd of Russian POWs held in Ukraine are former prisoners, but no indication of the total held.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You cut me deep man.  I write pages on sacrifice dynamics and you give Bearstronaut (what the hell is that anyway? One who journeys across bears) the win?  I think we may need some relationship counselling.

Come on man, after 3000 pages you know I only really deal in superficial one-liners, preferably paired with memes or song lyrics.

My best guess as to the origin of @Bearstronaut's handle is here. (and I totally want the score as a ringtone)

[LongLeftFlank]

Interesting pairing of CM Level 1 and Level 4 tactical assault footage, for the first minute anyway.  Hopefully there's a longer version out there.

Per Necromancer, seems to be Bakhmut area and 'not recent' (although notice the hard frost)

Edited November 19, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[chrisl]

9 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Interesting pairing of CM Level 1 and Level 4 tactical assault footage, for the first minute anyway.  Hopefully there's a longer version out there.

 

Now put a fast computer and data link in the drone and give the guys on the ground (or at least their non-com) AR goggles connected to it and you've got borg spotting.  

[LongLeftFlank]

10 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Now put a fast computer and data link in the drone and give the guys on the ground (or at least their non-com) AR goggles connected to it and you've got borg spotting.  

In close contact, taking your eyes off your environment is likely unwise, but perhaps  provide some kind of feedback from drone spotters via a weapon scope or NV goggles, showing bearing and distance to enemy positions? A year ago I would have said that's sci-fi, but now....

[Kinophile]

12 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

In close contact, taking your eyes off your environment is likely unwise, but perhaps  provide some kind of feedback from drone spotters via a weapon scope or NV goggles, showing bearing and distance to enemy positions? A year ago I would have said that's sci-fi, but now....

The British Army (and I think US Marines?)  have been specifically looking at a platoon level Tech Op (or whatever they wanna call it).

As noted above,  the need for both aspects us there -  immediate, in person, in-the-trench tactical awareness AND technical augmentation of that awareness integrated with supporting fires and adjacent units.

As I understand it (from John Spencer I think,  at al) BA realised that you can augment the Section/Platoon Leader with tech but that using the stuff detracts from something else.

Better to specialize by adding a guy to the standard formation and also educating the rest of the men to be able to step into the role.

[Fenris]

58 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

In close contact, taking your eyes off your environment is likely unwise, but perhaps  provide some kind of feedback from drone spotters via a weapon scope or NV goggles, showing bearing and distance to enemy positions? A year ago I would have said that's sci-fi, but now....

I imagine tactical glasses or goggles doing augmented rather than full virtual reality could be helpful.  Have to keep the HUD very simple, compass at the top of the viewed area, red dots show range/direction of enemies etc.  Most games have stuff like this already so no need to re-invent the wheel.  I wouldn't be surprised if we see things like this is our lifetime with a human operated drone per squad to start with and then eventually autonomous drones and finally drone networks doing precision weapon guidance at range with human infantry only moving in to mop up.

Edit to add - the precision weapons will include swarms of available killer drones waiting to strike, like the allies did with the cab rank system after Normandy.  The beginnings are here, I'll just link this, the second clip is longer and includes the first.  It's graphic footage of drones striking infantry as seen from another surveillance drone.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1725921479882101234

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Fenris

[chrisl]

58 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

In close contact, taking your eyes off your environment is likely unwise, but perhaps  provide some kind of feedback from drone spotters via a weapon scope or NV goggles, showing bearing and distance to enemy positions? A year ago I would have said that's sci-fi, but now....

That's why it's AR goggles (as @Fenris points out).  It would be an overlay of the stuff you can't see through the smoke and terrain, like a heads up display.  So it wouldn't be taking your eyes off anything - it puts your eyes on things behind obstacles when you look that way.  There were people already developing this more than a decade ago.