How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Carolus]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Yup, that tracks.  Most disconcerting is that no one knows how much overmatch is required to break this deadlock.  The next question is "can we actually build that and sustain it?"  Doubling down on the three main components of this war - C4ISR, Infantry and Fires and ensuring Ukraine has them will at least ensure that the costs go up for the RA dramatically.  Further, it is possible that the RA will break itself overtime, particularly if the UA can continue deep strikes.

Is strategic a possible angle?

Precision ammo and surveillance is getting cheaper, but most countries still need a supply chain that involves more than what it has within its own borders.

It is not a possibility for Ukraine, but in case of a NATO intervention, a strategic long range bombing against military goods factories and logistical nodes within Russia could lead to a quick deterioration of Russian capabilities. Drones fall from the sky like potatoes. Continuous capability requires consistet resupply. 

There would be losses, but the RAF and USAF had their share of those too in the past when it mattered. Russian AD is not what it was hyped up to be. 

(Nuclear is not an option within this scenario).

Tbf the degree to which one can cripple a country is largely based on how many scruples you have, which would quickly fall away in a war which really matters.

That is why I am not that worried about an existential showdown with China if it stays non-nuclear.

China has a lot of very fragile civil infrastructure. Unless you fear a nuclear response, the water sources of the major Chinese rivers can be interrupted by bombing a few mountain passes in the Himalayas (the main reason why China occupied Tibet, next to it being simply an easy target for imperialist swallowing of territory), and these are almost impossible to guard. 

I have a lot of different ideas like that. Someone should hire me.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Carolus

[billbindc]

12 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

Not a cheery read, I would argue the greatest flaw in the strategic vision though, was in the Whitehouse at about the three month point of the war. They just vastly overestimated their ability to fine tune how this thing was going to end. Now they are vey close to allowing the bad guys to make a late game comeback. 

I would strongly suggest going back and reading the best informed people circa late April of the first year of the war. I think you will find that the White House did a pretty credible job from what what known/expected then. 

[The_Capt]

39 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Is strategic a possible angle?

Precision ammo and surveillance is getting cheaper, but most countries still need a supply chain that involves more than what it has within its own borders.

It is not a possibility for Ukraine, but in case of a NATO intervention, a strategic long range bombing against military goods factories and logistical nodes within Russia could lead to a quick deterioration of Russian capabilities. Drones fall from the sky like potatoes. Continuous capability requires consistet resupply. 

There would be losses, but the RAF and USAF had their share of those too in the past when it mattered. Russian AD is not what it was hyped up to be. 

(Nuclear is not an option within this scenario).

Tbf the degree to which one can cripple a country is largely based on how many scruples you have, which would quickly fall away in a war which really matters.

That is why I am not that worried about an existential showdown with China if it stays non-nuclear.

China has a lot of very fragile civil infrastructure. Unless you fear a nuclear response, the water sources of the major Chinese rivers can be interrupted by bombing a few mountain passes in the Himalayas (the main reason why China occupied Tibet, next to it being simply an easy target for imperialist swallowing of territory), and these are almost impossible to guard. 

I have a lot of different ideas like that. Someone should hire me.

So we have to admit there is a strategic/political wall in this fight.  It will do us no good if we try and pretend it does not exist.  That wall appears to be strategic level campaigning.  Russia can't seem to do it in Ukraine, although we see weak starts.  But Russia cannot take this war to Ukraine's strategic supply chain without starting WW3.

And we are in the same boat.  We all really want Ukraine to win and dammit if the little guy did not simply amaze (and shame us to an extent) on what humans can do if they simply unite and stand up - I think we forgot some of this over the last 30 years or so.  But, and it is one big @ss "But", Ukraine is not worth WW3.  WW3, even if it stayed conventional would quickly escalate to total.  It would result in a requirement for the total defeat of Russia as a nation state.  We could do this, likely at enormous cost, but then we would have to live with the aftermath.  The cost and effort to 1) defeat Russia, and 2) keep the post-war situation from completely deteriorating would cost so much that I suspect we would be very stretched to try and counter the rise of China.  In fact, worst case, it could break us.  I suspect China already knows this and by keeping Russia as a strategic spoiler they may be able to sustain some options they want to.

A defeated post-war Russia would very likely shatter completely into its loose federations.  We would have a 6000 nuclear weapon problem to deal with, along with a humanitarian crisis that makes Gaza look like a "minor boo-boo".  And this is all making the huge assumption that the whole thing does not go nuclear, which it very likely would as we start bombing Moscow.  It would not start with a full scale attack, more likely a single release in Ukraine as a warning shot. So maybe Kharkiv or Kherson.  We would likely see battlefield use even before that.

So any campaigning in Russia would have to be under the waterlines.  Cyber (to a point), SOF and internal resistance.  If people think sanctions take time, these sorts of strategic campaigns can take years to set up and see gains from.  They can also go sideways very quickly and get way out of hand...see WW3.  So, no, I do not think that strategic disruption or dislocation is really an option for us anymore than it is for Russia.  We have a high intensity conventional war in a box (thank God).  We are just going to have to live with it.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Is the land corridor important?  Yes.  Does it constitute a victory by Russia's own definition?  Absolutely not.  This is not what they started the war to achieve.  They started this war to wipe Ukraine from the map and to reassert Russian dominance over its neighbors as well as increase its influence abroad.  It was also a war designed to cement regime control over the Russian people by having them voluntarily give up their remaining freedoms.  Fail, fail, fail, and fail.

An analogy is that I managed to steal your TV from your house.  Victory?  Well, let's consider that I drove my own truck to your house with the intention of looting everything.  On the way I lost control of the truck and it crashed, destroying it.  I then had to walk (well, limp, because I injured my leg) to your house.  I broke in the back door and cut my hand pretty badly smashing the glass.  I went in and the only thing I could carry was the TV, so that's what I took.  I smashed up a bunch of stuff out of spite and anger, as well as bleeding all over the place.  You got this all on security cameras, including me pooping in my pants when I saw your dog, which tore at my other leg as I left. 

After getting out of your house it started to rain and it is below freezing, now I have to walk all the way back home with your TV, which it turns out no longer works because I dropped it after the dog attacked me.  We don't know how this story ends because I'm still dragging the broken TV behind me as I limp my way in miserable conditions back home.

Even if I make it home, and there's no sense that I will, did I really "score" something valuable?  Maybe, but I'll have to put a bunch of my own money into fixing the TV before I can actually use it.  Was the "score" worth it?  I might tell my 4 buddies (that's all the friends I have and they actually don't really like me) and anybody that might listen that I am a master thief, but I know the truth.  Which is I made a terrible mistake.

As for you, there is damage and the outrage of violation that you have to contend with.  You don't have a TV any more, well downstairs that is.  You still have two upstairs that I didn't get to because the dog and my lack of ability to transport them.  What's more, the TV that was stolen wasn't even your best TV.  But the police know that I did it and everybody around you is on your side.

Sooooo.... did I "win" and you "lose"?

Steve

You forgot the part where no one in the neighborhood ever invites you to the monthly BBQ.  You get awkward dinners with the Chinese couple next door, but it is just so...not normal.  And that weird sweaty NK guy who lives all alone in the house where the lights are never on wants to be your best friend.  

[Carolus]

Who would have imagined this man would prevail like this when he was first elected?

No, Zelensky isn't perfect and depending on which Ukrainian you ask, he is more or less liked.

But damn was Ukraine lucky to have a man of his caliber in office. It could have been much, much worse. Beside a few minor hiccups in diplomacy (e.g. the missile debris in Poland) he and his team find the right words. Most western politicians wish they could be half the leader he is. 

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, Carolus said:

Is strategic a possible angle?

Precision ammo and surveillance is getting cheaper, but most countries still need a supply chain that involves more than what it has within its own borders

…

China has a lot of very fragile civil infrastructure. Unless you fear a nuclear response, the water sources of the major Chinese rivers can be interrupted by bombing a few mountain passes in the Himalayas (the main reason why China occupied Tibet, next to it being simply an easy target for imperialist swallowing of territory), and these are almost impossible to guard. 

I have a lot of different ideas like that. Someone should hire me.

Absolutely. Also remember that Asians have slightly different hair genes, and a reasonably bored government biolab could have some fun making every Chinese women extremely hirstitute (sorry about the collateral, rest of Asia). God I’m looking forward to smart bioweapons.

18 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So any campaigning in Russia would have to be under the waterlines.  Cyber (to a point), SOF and internal resistance.  If people think sanctions take time, these sorts of strategic campaigns can take years to set up and see gains from.  They can also go sideways very quickly and get way out of hand...see WW3.  So, no, I do not think that strategic disruption or dislocation is really an option for us anymore than it is for Russia.  We have a high intensity conventional war in a box (thank God).  We are just going to have to live with it.

Sure, and that’s why the sabotage of trains and signal cabinets in Russia is one of the most important efforts in this war. Obviously locomotives and rolling stock need to get taken out too.

Start taking out some fiber junctions too. I remember when a few years ago when a Google datacenter had a fire on the 2nd floor, and then the fire trucks sprayed the hell out of it, and then the water went down to first floor network switches and took out a lot of GCP. That was a fun time to be their an infrastructure engineer for their main customer!

There are so many soft targets there for the taking. Think about poisoned luxury goods for the Russian elite. Or even just go for champagne that has too high pressure (like what killed some Chinese guy a decade ago with a cork to the temple).

[The_Capt]

12 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

There are so many soft targets there for the taking. Think about poisoned luxury goods for the Russian elite. Or even just go for champagne that has too high pressure (like what killed some Chinese guy a decade ago with a cork to the temple).

Easy there.  One also still has to adhere to those pesky laws of armed conflict too.  Executive actions are very tightly controlled and need to be precise.  

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Easy there.  One also still has to adhere to those pesky laws of armed conflict too.  Executive actions are very tightly controlled and need to be precise.  

We have done a crap job at what should have been the obvious targeted ones ,though. A real effort to actively sabotage Russian military production by feeding them them bad parts, components, cyber attacks directly on the machine tools, and..., and.... just doesn't seem to have been done at all really. 

[LongLeftFlank]

There seems to be a series of strikes going on targeting Russian air defence assets in and above Crimea, possibly following on the damage done by the freak storm.

I've observed before here (and I am far from the only one) that retaking both banks of the Dnpr river mouth, preferably as far in as Oleshki Sands prior to a ceasefire seems quite strategically important to Ukraine, as it not only puts Kherson out of tube artillery range but somewhat lessens Russian ability to interdict shipping out of Odessa and Nikolaiv.

This terrain is infantry country; marshy (is it true the Ukes can also reflood a lot of this area if they want to?) and road poor. It also lies at the exposed far left end of the Russian front, and is hideously difficult to resupply and support.  As we see....

Any RU defence would need to rely heavily on air power. Sytematically degrading their AD network seems like a nice first step, especially if Ukraine fields F16s this coming spring.

Edited December 1, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Carolus]

Economic tea leaves? Little bit?

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

Drones and EW still evolving...

https://armyinform.com.ua/2023/12/01/zahyst-vid-bpla-u-minoborony-dopustyly-do-ekspluatacziyi-novi-zrazky-okopnoyi-reb/

(per NoelReports)

In the conditions of modern war, the high intensity of use of enemy UAVs, aviation, missile weapons, the role of EW specialists is difficult to overestimate. Our soldiers in advanced positions desperately need reliable protection from swarms of Russian drones. We are talking about modern developments of the so-called trench EW complexes.

As the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Lieutenant-General Ivan Havrylyuk, informed ArmiyaInform, the Ministry of Defense, together with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, completed the testing of tactical means of radio interference to barrage ammunition and FPV drones, developed by domestic enterprises, which confirmed their tactical and technical characteristics in conditions of use close to to combat Currently, these tools are recommended for codification and registration as standard items of supply for the purpose of further supply to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, it is planned to test a number of tactical means of radio-electronic combat against UAVs and UAV detection means in the near future.

Among the systems that were recently put into operation by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is a radio-electronic warfare complex, which is used to combat all types of enemy UAVs, capable of suppressing control signals, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou satellite navigation data transmissions, as well as creating a variety of false signals The complex has a passive system of detection and direction finding of drones.

Currently, two more samples of domestic "trench EW" systems are undergoing codification in the Ministry of Defense. We are talking about a complex that will counter Russian Lancets and a complex that will protect against enemy FPV drones.

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Letter from Prague]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

We seriously need to define “Russian victory”.

I think this is really the big point of disagreement.

My line of thinking - and tell me in which ways I'm wrong - is that if the objective of Russia is to take over and/or destroy Ukraine, anything than Russia being kicked out from basically everywhere (other than Donbas, I guess) is a major Russian victory.

Russia holding Crimea means there will be basically no maritime trade. Any large disputed territory means no Ukraine in NATO and/or EU(*). Any other result than Russia being decisively kicked out in a way that shows "try again and we will kick you out again" means there will be no reconstruction, because Russia will try again, and who would rebuild stuff when Russia is just going to blow it up again? No investments, no industry, no refugees ever returning.

Yes, Russia will not take over rest of Ukraine militarily. Yes, Russia is paying a price (though the payments are not evenly distributed - the people in Moscow likely don't even notice). We obviously can't read Putin's mind, and if he planned massive Soviet restoration then he failed, but if the objective was abusive spouse being "I'll have you and if I can't have you then I'll kill you." then I find it hard to see current state as anything other than success.

Of course Russia wanted more. But if I buy a lottery ticket for five bucks (few hundred thousand minority and prisoner lives) and win 10k (significant part of Ukrainian territory and destruction of its future) is it a failure because I in my dream I saw myself winning the jackpot (all of Ukraine forever)?

...

I mean I can also go back to lurking if I'm annoying you people.

 

_____

(*); this is orthogonal discussion to whether extending the EU without figuring out some way out of veto bullying is even a good idea

[LongLeftFlank]

I don't post gore pr0n or drone kill shots that have no tactical insight or relevance, but I made an exception for this grim walkthrough (second video). The vids aren't related AFAIK

There are at least 20 bodies in this area, with a hodgepodge of kit. Nothing too obviously dismembered so I assume it wasn't heavy HE that did it, but it's still on the ground shots of dead human beings. You have been warned.  

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[JonS]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Sooooo.... did I "win" and you "lose"?

It's not really zero-sum though. Russia not-winning doesn't mean Ukraine isn't losing (and ... my apologies for asking you to parse through multiple negatives there)

In any negotiation there is win-win, win-loss, lose-win, and lose-lose. Right now we seem to be firmly in lose-lose territory, and the ongoing negotiation (all war is negotiation, remember) is over who loses least.

Losing least can easily be framed as a kind of success by way of "yeah that hurt, but you should see the other guy!"

 

Edit: I'm typing on my phone, which sucks. On each axis there's a spectrum which runs from 'win bigly' to 'lose like a republican voter'. The four quadrants - ww lw wl ll - above are just a convenient shorthand for a complex rainbow of possible outcomes.

Edited December 1, 2023 by JonS

[acrashb]

Another interesting drone in development.  This one can intercept aircraft, other drones, can be one-shot or re-usable, does VTOL and is fast.

Yikes.

 

[Artkin]

7 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Another interesting drone in development.  This one can intercept aircraft, other drones, can be one-shot or re-usable, does VTOL and is fast.

Yikes.

 

Low cost, carbon fiber? Wtf lol

[dan/california]

10 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Another interesting drone in development.  This one can intercept aircraft, other drones, can be one-shot or re-usable, does VTOL and is fast.

Yikes.

 

The military industrial complex has joined the chat, finally. Ukraine will take them all.

Edit: and helicopters are done...

Edited December 1, 2023 by dan/california

[LongLeftFlank]

9 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Ex-USSF TTG who now runs Turcopolier following the passing of Col. Lang had this quite interesting comment on the sabotage campaign. 

As I hope most grogs here know, the Special Forces core mission is less to be Rambo superman commandos than 'Jesuits of Democracy', providing training, liaison and, when required, shadow leadership for allied fighters, conventional or uncon.

Support for the Ukrainian 'Forest Brothers' and other anticommunist movements in Iron Curtain Europe was one of their earliest  projects, though generally unsuccessful and still mainly classified.

https://turcopolier.com/russias-main-link-to-china-paralyzed-after-tunnel-sabotage/

I’m fairly confident this is the work of SBU or SBU led partisan sabotage. Since early in the war, things all across Russia have been catching fire and blowing up. I doubt it’s all due to industrial accidents. This concentration of UW activities across both the occupied territories and Russia is a product of Ukraine’s total national defense doctrine and, I’d like to think, many years of MTTs from 10th SFG(A). This was our reason for being ever since the group’s activation in 1952.

 

[kimbosbread]

49 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Low cost, carbon fiber? Wtf lol

And jet engines. Not gonna have a long flight time.

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

Low cost, carbon fiber? Wtf lol

and why do I need a kamikaze drone to land????  In case no target found?  

[chris talpas]

39 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

And jet engines. Not gonna have a long flight time.

Depending on what it’s real world kill probability turns out to be as well as its cost, it could be quite cost effective against aircraft.  Carbon fibre may be to reduce RCS.  Might be much harder to detect than SAMs or opposing fighters.  Never knew what hit him

i can see it supplementing AD.

 

[sburke]

What were we saying recently about the state of Russian aviation?

Boeing-777 with 422 passengers on board crash-lands in Russia (yahoo.com)

An Aeroflot Boeing-777 made an emergency landing in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, while flying from Moscow.

Source: Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti; Telegram Mash

Details: Chassis issues were the reason behind it. The pilots were able to land the aircraft in spite of the difficulties.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) gave the Russian Federation a "red flag" rating for flight safety. There are only four nations with a "red flag" in the world: Bhutan, Congo, Liberia, and Russia. Such an evaluation points to significant declines in Russian aviation safety.

Foreign aircraft account for about 70% of the Russian Federation's civilian fleet, which handles 95% of all air traffic. The Russian air fleet has decreased from approximately 900 aircraft in early 2022 to less than 800 aircraft in just one year. The industry will decline with the departure of Western aircraft. Russia has only 150 passenger aircraft of their own production, but there are numerous issues with these.

Airlines face a choice: disassemble aircraft into parts or use non-original parts, risking safety. Lack of insurance and problems with spare parts complicate the operation of aircraft.

The situation turned out to be so acute that the Russian Federation's Ministry of Transport approved every asset for repairing foreign aircraft, including the use of third-party parts. At least 50 aircraft, or 25% of the total fleet of the biggest airline Aeroflot, are grounded due to a shortage of spare parts.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

It's not really zero-sum though. Russia not-winning doesn't mean Ukraine isn't losing (and ... my apologies for asking you to parse through multiple negatives there)

Absolutely true.  My point is that under no reasonable definition has Russia "won" this war.  That does not mean that they "lost" and Ukraine "won". 

If this came down to a zero sum evaluation, which it does not, I would asses Russia with a "Strategic Loss" and Ukraine with a "Strategic Victory".  This is not a good reflection of reality, which is why Combat Mission uses asymmetric victory calculations.  Looking at a whole war, vs. a battle or campaign within a war, should have two levels of victory determination for each side.  One evaluates if one side has more territory than when the war started and the other evaluates the cost of the war as a whole.

In sorta-CM terminology this would be like assessing Russia a "Tactical Victory" (i.e. grabbing the land corridor) but also assessing it a "Strategic Defeat" because it failed at just about everything else it was trying to achieve.  And quite badly too!

On the Ukraine side I would asses them as a "Tactical Defeat" because they not only lost terrain but lost something of significance (i.e. the land corridor).  I would also assess them something like a "Strategic Draw" as they did not completely defeat Russia, yet are well poised to make Russia continue to pay a high price for continuing the war.

Whatever the case, I will argue with all my might that in no way shape-or-form has Russia "won" this war.  Further, I will argue that it has so thoroughly lost that there is no reasonably realistic circumstance imaginable that can Russia deserves the title "victor".  Russia's losses are too massive and the results so massively short of their war aims for it to wind up being anything but a "Strategic Defeat" for Russia.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

I think this is really the big point of disagreement.

My line of thinking - and tell me in which ways I'm wrong - is that if the objective of Russia is to take over and/or destroy Ukraine, anything than Russia being kicked out from basically everywhere (other than Donbas, I guess) is a major Russian victory.

Russia holding Crimea means there will be basically no maritime trade. Any large disputed territory means no Ukraine in NATO and/or EU(*). Any other result than Russia being decisively kicked out in a way that shows "try again and we will kick you out again" means there will be no reconstruction, because Russia will try again, and who would rebuild stuff when Russia is just going to blow it up again? No investments, no industry, no refugees ever returning.

Yes, Russia will not take over rest of Ukraine militarily. Yes, Russia is paying a price (though the payments are not evenly distributed - the people in Moscow likely don't even notice). We obviously can't read Putin's mind, and if he planned massive Soviet restoration then he failed, but if the objective was abusive spouse being "I'll have you and if I can't have you then I'll kill you." then I find it hard to see current state as anything other than success.

Of course Russia wanted more. But if I buy a lottery ticket for five bucks (few hundred thousand minority and prisoner lives) and win 10k (significant part of Ukrainian territory and destruction of its future) is it a failure because I in my dream I saw myself winning the jackpot (all of Ukraine forever)?

...

I mean I can also go back to lurking if I'm annoying you people.

 

_____

(*); this is orthogonal discussion to whether extending the EU without figuring out some way out of veto bullying is even a good idea

OK, here's what I see as the flaws in your framing of how to assess this war.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that before this war started Russia had control of a significant chunk of the Donbas and all of Crimea.  If this war were to end tomorrow, retaining occupation of these two areas is a non-factor for Russia because they already had them and THEY, not Ukraine, started this war.  Therefore, Russia retaining Donbas and Crimea means absolutely zero in terms of evaluating Russia's victory/defeat.  It *might* matter in terms of assessing Ukraine's, which is a totally different discussion.

The next important thing to consider is what value is the newly occupied terrain bestows upon Russia.  You say it gives them more reach into controlling the Black Sea, yet Russia has had to relocate its black sea fleet out of Crimea.  That's WORSE than things were before the war started.  The Azov ports gained by Russia were always under Russia's control since they had to pass through Kerch.  Further, Russia can not base any assets in Kherson to interdict shipping as they are within reach of Ukrainian weapons.  So I ask, what benefit does Russia get from having part of Kherson that it didn't already have before the war?  My answer is *less*, not more.

The gambling analogy is fitting for Russia, but you are not assessing it correctly.  Let's say you took all of your savings plus borrowed money, then went to the casinos with the idea that you are going to come back richer than when you started.  You gambled for a long time and won some and lost more.  You return home with less money than when you started.  Worse, because you went on your gambling trip without proper planning you return to a job that now pays less and pretty much nobody wants to talk to you because they think you were a dick to leave your family in such a situation.

Does it really matter if you won $10,000 at black jack if you lost $100,000 in total AND have reduced income for the foreseeable future AND your wife is thinking of leaving you AND some of your kids now hate you?  You can brag as much as you like about how you won at blackjack but I'm still going to think you're a f'n loser.

Steve

 

[sross112]

3 hours ago, acrashb said:

Another interesting drone in development.  This one can intercept aircraft, other drones, can be one-shot or re-usable, does VTOL and is fast.

Yikes.

 

If they don't need those big bulky containers, the SBU could have a ball with some of these inside Russia. Thinking along the lines of a half dozen or so a few clicks from the Russian base that the bombers firing missiles at Ukraine launch from. 

The absolutely horrifying thing about a lot of this tech that we are seeing is what it could do in terrorist hands.