How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

48 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

1000 times this. The intelligence agencies had a better idea partly because of their not insubstanial presence on the ground near the front.

? How did we get to that conclusion?  Not that they didn't, I've just never heard any reference prior that it was boots on the ground versus monitoring Russian communications and satellite imagery.

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

? How did we get to that conclusion?  Not that they didn't, I've just never heard any reference prior that it was boots on the ground versus monitoring Russian communications and satellite imagery.

Secondhand, from a friend who was on the ground!

EDIT: If I was better connected, I’d be the next Gerard Villiers. I don’t know if I could come up with a better start to my series of books than “le long coque noir” though.

Edited December 5, 2023 by kimbosbread

[Sojourner]

57 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

A look at Palmer Lucky's defense startup, including brief interviews with him and his executives.

 

Related to this, at the Reagan National Defense Forum this past weekend...

Air Force Secretary: Military needs AI to augment human capabilities

Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf was on the same panel with the AF Secretary.

https://spacenews.com/air-force-secretary-military-needs-ai-to-augment-human-capabilities/

[dan/california]

Doing a better job of not freezing will be a non-trivial factor this winter.

 

[The_Capt]

14 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

First of two reports from the Washington Post about what went wrong with the summer counter-offensive.  First one is about higher level problems and differences between US and Ukrainian view points.  The article is very long and paywalled, but here are the top level points they explored:

Part One:

 

Part Two:

Both articles are solid.  There wasn't anything in either that would raise eyebrows here.

Stepping back and looking at everything, from the preplanning to the end result, I think both the US and Ukraine were correct.  The problem was each had concepts that were in opposition with each other.  It boiled down to the US saying Ukraine needed to strike fast and in one place, Ukraine said it needed more time and had to keep Russian forces elsewhere occupied.  Ukraine said it needed more forces to achieve anything significant, the US said they had what they needed if they concentrated.  US said they had to fire and move, Ukraine said they found moving didn't work without first firing.  Ukraine wanted more ammo than the West could supply, the US said they wouldn't need as much if they concentrated on one place.  Etc. etc.

Both sides underestimated how difficult the Russian defensive lines would be regardless of how they were attacked.  The US underappreciated the role of drones (attacking and being attacked), Ukraine didn't seem to grasps that F-16s couldn't just be thrown into the battleplan. Etc, etc.

My takeaway from this is that the big failing of the US and Ukraine was not understanding that both views were simultaneously correct and wrong.  This should have indicated that they needed to come up with a third option (sorry sburke if this makes you shudder!).  Something that both sides could agree was optimized for the situation as both perceived it to be.  Instead, Ukraine went with their strategic concept hoping that the West's training and equipment would make up for various shortcomings and the US reluctantly supported them because they were the ones doing the dying.

I have NO idea what the "third way" might have been, but I agree with the US' assessment that not trying something would have made things worse.  Russia would have reinforced its defenses even more and been able to reconstitute its offensive power to a far greater extent than it did.

Ukraine's decision to abandon the initial concept of the counter offensive was wise.  This likely prevented Ukraine from suffering the same fate as the Germans in Kursk 1943.  In both cases the attacker was surprised and humbled by the scope and scale of the defenses, but in the German's case they threw everything they had, the Soviets counter attacked, and the German lines collapsed.  In Ukraine's case, they reconfigured their attack plans, the Russians counter attacked for months without success, and the war grinds on without Ukraine collapsing.

Steve

Yup, that tracks.  US/West came up with an obsolete solution that was only going to work in narrow context, definitely not this war.  A “single concentrated” strike would have been seen well ahead of time by the Russians and countered.  More mass just means more casualties - the RA has proved this repeatedly.  Western planners have no combat experience in this sort of war either.

Ukraine tried a more dispersed approach akin to what they did in Kherson (after trying the concentrated method a few times).  Which simply cannot pull together enough combat power to crack the defences.   Further they made the mistake of moving towards “western mechanized” when it was likely clear that is not what they needed, nor would it work under these conditions.

US/West designed and supported a solution for them.  Ukraine tried to use a solution for them but equipped and trained for the western one.  And they lost time trying to equip and train for it as well. They ended up with a Frankenstein’s Monster while the RA sat back and waited.

Third Way: focused corrosive warfare.  So rather than spending billions on making western mechanized forces, spend that effort and money on - UAS/UGV, Deep strike and infantry…lots of infantry.  Do corrosion and then infiltration…deep infiltration.  During the battle for Kyiv the UA had light infantry very deep into RA lines.  So deep they could be called SOF.  Focus on air superiority below 2000 feet.  Go semi/full autonomy hybrid on unmanned.  And then hit the Russian system everywhere all at once.  You are still going to lose people but your chances are better.  Russians do not like being surrounded and the inexperienced troops they have are more likely to bolt once UA infantry start showing up all around them.  Once the RA starts to buckle, then do the mech thing to pursue/breakthrough.

And here’s the, thing I am not even sure that will work but it is probably better than what they tried.

Edit : [dear gawd, I think I just signed onto LLFs Ranger Bns idea]

Edited December 5, 2023 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

To me this article confirms the biggest single mistake is the absolute "no boots on the ground" approach of the USA. That is something that has huge first and second order effect on pretty much everything.

This article confirms with all the person friction and differences in the situational picture that both sides were in the dark without even realising it. Interestingly the intelligence community had the better picture this time than the Pentagon.

The largest "proxy war" in recent history demands the largest in-country liaison officer and monitoring mission in recent history. And no, the couple of CIA guys and British spec-ops do not cut it at all.

Much of this could have been prevented and rethought with working information flow. The Pentagon did not understand the Russians or the Ukrainians or the nature of warfare there.

What exactly were those US boots going to do?  They were already pushing a Gulf War solution that clearly was not going to work.  US advisors would have simply been pushing that solution forward.  US boots would not be connected to US AirPower so I am not sure how they would have made a difference.  All US boots would have done is likely get in the way and create US casualties as advisors got hit.

Unless we are talking US fighting boots, which is just a non-starter and if people do not get why after 3000 pages I cannot help them.

[Battlefront.com]

Haiduk, I'll edit your posts to embed the links (see previous page) until you get things sorted out.

Have you tried a different browser?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

A look at Palmer Lucky's defense startup, including brief interviews with him and his executives.

 

We need 5 of these companies and 5 less of the ones we already have.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Doing a better job of not freezing will be a non-trivial factor this winter.

 

I wonder if Russia is once again losing personal kit faster than it can be replaced or if these guys are simply considered too disposable to outfit correctly.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

40 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

And here['s the] thing I am not even sure that will work but it is probably better than what they tried.

Yeah, this is what I came around to several times over the past few months.  We know what doesn't work and that is massed attacks.  Not only do we know it doesn't work for Ukraine, it doesn't work for Russia either. 

We also know that quality of force has a huge impact on outcome, but we have only partial evidence.  For sure know that a mixed quality force hobbled by maneuver warfare deficiencies (i.e. Ukraine) can eek out mixed results, at best, that in the end don't justify the costs.  We also know for sure that a "hot mess" (i.e. Russia) is, at best, going to have a couple of battles that do nothing except be excepted from the anthology of History's Worst Battle Results.  Rephrased, a good quality force will struggle, a poor quality force will fail.

What we have no evidence for is what an excellent quality force (i.e. fully equipped, trained, and experienced with all aspects of maneuver warfare) could do with the situation Ukraine found itself in.  That's because no such force has ever been faced with this sort of challenge.

My guess is that if the US military and the best NATO forces swapped out Ukraine's forces 1:1, with air power added to the mix, the results would have been significantly better than what Ukraine was able to do.  However, the overall operation would have failed to produce the desired outcome and it would have cost vastly more than NATO was prepared to lose.  Therefore, it would fail but in a different way.

I don't know that there was a "3rd way" for Ukraine to get the sort of success it needed in 2023 so that 2024 wouldn't be a different sort of disappointment.  This is what the US military was, I think, correct about.  Ukraine needed to hurt Russia very badly in 2023 and a long string of tactical victories wasn't going to do that.

This is why I still insist the counter-offensive, as it was and as it ended, put Ukraine ahead of where it started and maybe in a better position for 2024 than it otherwise would have been.  Was it enough?  I don't know yet.  I don't think we'll know for many months.

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

What exactly were those US boots going to do?  They were already pushing a Gulf War solution that clearly was not going to work.  US advisors would have simply been pushing that solution forward.  US boots would not be connected to US AirPower so I am not sure how they would have made a difference.  All US boots would have done is likely get in the way and create US casualties as advisors got hit.

Unless we are talking US fighting boots, which is just a non-starter and if people do not get why after 3000 pages I cannot help them.

Getting the information flowing, institutionalizing the lessons learned, getting accurate understanding of the situation on the ground.

Effects: Pentagon would have not have such false hopes for the offensive and it would have been adjusted, NATO training would match the realities of the war especially when done in-country, less friction between west-ukraine officials when the situational picture would match between them.

Example companies would not even dream about running billion dollar operations abroad without significant boots on the ground.

For any activity you need a effective feedback loop. We being human it means people of "our" organization being on site and involved directly.

This became specially critical now that the West wanted to try something new that requested Ukraine to change and adopt significantly in it's tactics and force.

[Carolus]

Please proceed with caution due to the content containing corpses and blood from short range on video.

 

This strike on a Russian column of trucks was already shown and noted in this thread.

What I have not seen is the following video made by Russians at the location of impact about the aftermath. It allows to estimate the casualties versus the claimed casualties by both sides, as well as the clear usage of GMLRS M30A1. The canvas covering the back of the trucks is shredded by tungsten balls and provided no protection for the mounted troops.

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Carolus

[Kraft]

Carolus was quicker.

Tungsten Ball Party

Quote

 

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Kraft

[Haiduk]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Haiduk, I'll edit your posts to embed the links (see previous page) until you get things sorted out.

Have you tried a different browser?

Steve

Thanks!

I've solved the problem. Interesting, when I try to sign up pointing out my mail, I was getting message about wrong password and locking my account for 15 minutes. But when I tried at last to enter my forum name, I've signed in successfully. Both on PC and phone. Thus, signing in by emal isn't working... 

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Effects: Pentagon would have not have such false hopes for the offensive and it would have been adjusted, NATO training would match the realities of the war especially when done in-country, less friction between west-ukraine officials when the situational picture would match between them.

You have never worked in defence, have you?  First off we actually do not know the footprint of US advisors on the ground right now.  For all we know each Bde HQ has SOF teams embedded.  I would be very surprised if the US did not already have some embeds in-country.

Second, military advisors come from the same organization making the “expectation decisions”, that come with a lot of bias baked-in.  Lastly, even if you get someone who sees reality for what it is, there is an entire mechanism to buff out dissent.  Lord knows we have never ignored ground truth and inserted our own (WMDs in Iraq, anyone?)

I am not saying it is a bad idea to have advisors but they are not going to solve-all.  And you are in fact taking risks by inserting them.  The US/Western major mistakes were 1) trying to turn the UA into a western “mini-me”; that was not what won the battles for Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.  The Ukrainians came up with organic solutions that worked but apparently we did not learn from that and instead tried to make them “fight like us”.  2) I am not sure “how we fight” was ever going to work in the first place.  As a minimum we would need to establish air superiority in the entire airspace column, and as we have discussed at length that is damned hard, maybe impossible.  Above 2000 feet is a dense maze of AD layers which include next-Gen MANPADs that we really cannot SEAD.  Below 2000 feet is the tac UAS problem, which no one has solved for entirely.  The rest is minefields, fully illuminated battespace and long range precision fires that simply take out the breaching systems.  Could the US find and kill every ATGM team linked to a bird sized UAS for 5000 meters past that minefield?  I honestly doubt it.  Maybe for the first belt but the second and third would have gotten ugly. Our entire western operational system has never been tested in this environment.  We have not done an opposed minefield breach since the Gulf War…and this sure as hell is not the Gulf War. So what proof do we have that our doctrine even works?

So taking a partner force and trying to turn them into something they are not, and that “something” is largely unproven for the environment makes perfect “military sense” that a few advisors are not going to solve.  My advice would have been (and is) - double down on what worked before until it no longer works.

[Haiduk]

Aftermath of R18 night bomber raid from Russian point of view (there was a video of "Magyar Birds" with this strike). Near Krynky two newest ATVs were detsroyed. Russia ordered in China 1590 "Desertcross 1000-3" ATVs. Many of them likely got new formed 104th air-assault division as well as other VDV and Spetsnaz units. 500 already in service and other 1090 will come in first quarter of 2024. "Magyar" told these ATVs are enough maneuverable and very suitable for forward positions logistic 

Desertcross 1000-3. It can carry up to 550 kg of cargo or 9 men (can be placed in front of cabine, in cabine and in the body. ). 87 h.p. engine, maximum speed 80 km/h, range up to 250 km. it can overcome fords 0,4 m deep

Edited December 5, 2023 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Meanwhile, when an attention of all attracted to Avdiivka, Russians launched offensive on the flanks of UKR salient between Robotyne and Verbove. Their obvious goal - to eliminate this salient and completely to zero even such small success, which Ukraine gained so hard for three months. 

As reported UKR soldiers in TG, most active actions were 2-3 days ago, when Russians attacked very strong from SW and could advance up to outskirts of Robotyne, so was even a risk they can take back this village, but UKR forces in series of fierce counter attacks could threw Russians back on their start positions. As told a soldier - these were very bloody clashes, many bodies of infantrymen of both sides now lie in fields and treeplants as well as destroyed and abandoned vehicles, though Russians suffered significantly bigger losses.  

One of episodes of Russian attack:

But if near Robotyne UKR troops restored situation, that between Verbove and Novopokrovka Russians could retake about 700 m of territory

Edited December 5, 2023 by Haiduk

[Ultradave]

14 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Protip, no paywall if you just register. I think you get like 5 free articles a month 

Used to subscribe, but won't even read it anymore after their Editorial Board article opining that step one to reducing the deficit is cutting back on veteran's benefits. Nope. 

The gist of their opinion being that veterans are getting partial disability but still able to work. Well, duh. It's not JUST about work. It's about life. What if the partial disability was that they lost a hand or lower arm and can no longer play piano, or they lost almost all of their hearing, or they were a marathon runner and lost a lower leg, or two....  I could go on, but it's about compensation for life altering injuries caused by being sent into combat. Sure, in *all* of those examples, the veteran can work, at some job, even good jobs, maybe even the job they were in before the service. But life overall has become different now, with great loss to the important things in life. It's not *just about work. As a former chief engineer who was our group leader told me once (and one of the smartest guys I ever knew), "You work to live, not live to work." 

Sorry for the off-topic but this is a huge sore spot with me. The WaPo got slaughtered in the comments for that editorial but they did not retract it or comment in any way. Someone pointed out that no one who wrote that garbage ever served. Not surprised.

We return you now to your regular warfare news.

To make an on-topic post, for myself, being essentially a Cold Warrior (although things in the 82d could occasionally get "interesting"), I would have *loved* to have the technology that is available for today's artillery. Watching all the videos of using drones to call and adjust artillery fire. These are real game changers in supporting fire. Imagine the savings in ammunition there has been because of the ability to see the enemy so much better, or to see him AT ALL, even when out of sight of any forward observer. And even at that, both sides burn through artillery ammo at a staggering rate. Coolest thing we had were the very first laser target designators and we thought that was Star Wars level stuff at the time. 

Dave

PS - I subscribe to the NYT and the Times of London, so if anyone wants an article gifted from those, let me know

 

[Haiduk]

Not bad. But autoloader is critically needed ( 

 

[Haiduk]

Night tank attack of 63rd mech.brigade on Russian positions somewhere on Kreminna direction. Russians fled from positions

 

[Haiduk]

Nepal asks to Russia to stop recruite Nepalians to Russian army. According to Nepal officials at least six already were killed and about 150-200 citizens of Nepal still in Russian army. But from the words of captured Nepalian on the video below, his compatriots in Russian army told him about 4000-5000 of Nepalians signed contracts.

https://www.reuters.com/world/nepal-urges-russia-not-recruit-its-citizens-into-army-says-six-killed-2023-12-05/

Captured Nepalian, who signed contract, because he was short of money to study further in Russian univercity. He tell own story in English. 

8 other Nepal merceneries got own contract-sign payment of 195 000 RU, but turned out more clever - after two weeks of service in rear or in training camp they just deserted.  

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Haiduk

[Yet]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Nepal asks to Russia to stop recruite Nepalians to Russian army. According to Nepal officials at least six already were killed and about 150-200 citizens of Nepal still in Russian army. But from the words of captured Nepalian on the video below, his compatriots in Russian army told him about 4000-5000 of Nepalians signed contracts.

https://www.reuters.com/world/nepal-urges-russia-not-recruit-its-citizens-into-army-says-six-killed-2023-12-05/

Captured Nepalian, who signed contract, because he was short of money to study further in Russian univercity. He tell own story in English. 

8 other Nepal merceneries got own contract-sign payment of 195 000 RU, but turned out more clever - after two weeks of service in rear or in training camp they just desreted.  

 

How long until we find Somali pirates in the trenches?

[The_MonkeyKing]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I am not saying it is a bad idea to have advisors but they are not going to solve-all.  And you are in fact taking risks by inserting them.  The US/Western major mistakes were 1) trying to turn the UA into a western “mini-me”; that was not what won the battles for Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.  The Ukrainians came up with organic solutions that worked but apparently we did not learn from that and instead tried to make them “fight like us”.  2) I am not sure “how we fight” was ever going to work in the first place.

So taking a partner force and trying to turn them into something they are not, and that “something” is largely unproven for the environment makes perfect “military sense” that a few advisors are not going to solve.  My advice would have been (and is) - double down on what worked before until it no longer works.

Exactly. This realization(and many others) would have landed a lot sooner if the West had a better situational picture of what was going on on the ground. And then iterated the strategy accordingly in cooperation with the now better-understood Ukrainian side.

Here I am referring to the recent Washington Post article.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You have never worked in defence, have you?  First off we actually do not know the footprint of US advisors on the ground right now.  For all we know each Bde HQ has SOF teams embedded.  I would be very surprised if the US did not already have some embeds in-country.

Sure, there must be a footprint but telling by the results is not enough and in historical comparison, the scale is smaller by orders of magnitude. 

Also seemed the intelligence community that has the "boots on the ground" had the better situational understanding. Not the Pentagon that doesn't have its guys on the ground on the scale it is used to with partner forces. Britain has a bigger footprint than US in Ukraine and that is also a small presence

Here I am referring to the War on the Rocks crews reports; Kofman, Lee 

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Nepal asks to Russia to stop recruite Nepalians to Russian army. According to Nepal officials at least six already were killed and about 150-200 citizens of Nepal still in Russian army. But from the words of captured Nepalian on the video below, his compatriots in Russian army told him about 4000-5000 of Nepalians signed contracts.

https://www.reuters.com/world/nepal-urges-russia-not-recruit-its-citizens-into-army-says-six-killed-2023-12-05/

Captured Nepalian, who signed contract, because he was short of money to study further in Russian univercity. He tell own story in English. 

8 other Nepal merceneries got own contract-sign payment of 195 000 RU, but turned out more clever - after two weeks of service in rear or in training camp they just desreted.  

 

 

17 minutes ago, Yet said:

How long until we find Somali pirates in the trenches?

 

Added a comment from lower down that I suspect is relevant.Many of these people are being lied too from the moment they leave their villages, until they wind up under artillery fire. As someone mentioned above I would expect people from a fair bit of the third world to start showing up.

[kimbosbread]

49 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Many of these people are being lied too from the moment they leave their villages, until they wind up under artillery fire. As someone mentioned above I would expect people from a fair bit of the third world to start showing up.

Spectacular opportunity for our intelligence agencies to insert people into the Russian military and cause chaos behind the front lines. Hopefully we are using it.

EDIT: We don’t even need to insert people, but just loudly announce we are doing it.

Edited December 5, 2023 by kimbosbread