How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, danfrodo said:

From which thing, pray tell?  

@haiduk showed some really interesting bits from Krynky.  I wonder if UKR had secondary/backup plan of using their bridgehead to kill lots of RU, assuming primary plan was for more territorial gain on left bank to get Kherson City out of RU artillery range.  RU doing nice job of attacking and failing so far.   

I swear to god we have had the same conversation before.  Different location, but same analysis.  Maybe it is just me.

[danfrodo]

Some good little snippets here today.  Some rather biting humor/satire.  Some heartwarming xmas stuff.  And a little thing about NK ammunition -- looks as good as we'd expect.  Hopefully lots of shells are inaccurate and even more blow up in the barrel, with any luck ending the service life of the crew.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/9/2210683/-More-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-Problems-with-North-Korean-ammunition?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

 

[Offshoot]

A Ukrainian FPV takes out a Russian UGV reportedly used for carrying ammo near Avdiivka

 

[Battlefront.com]

An interesting, probably paywalled, NYT article last week detailing Wagner's prisoner recruits from a specific prison. I just had a chance to read it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/world/europe/russia-prison-wagner-ukraine.html

The gist of it is what we already know, but they did paint a picture of how the horrific life in Russian prisons made serving in Ukraine seem a good deal in comparison.  They documented 197 prisoners from IK6 prison who went to Ukraine.  They documented the fates of 176 of them, finding that roughly 25% died and most of the rest suffered serious injuries.  They interviewed 16 survivors and checked their accounts with other sources, thanks to Mediazona (opposition publication operating in exile).

Steve

[poesel]

If the Russians produce so many more drones than the Ukrainians, where are all those videos of Russian drones blowing up stuff? The Russians were never shy to show their achievements if they managed to have any.

[Kraft]

58 minutes ago, poesel said:

If the Russians produce so many more drones than the Ukrainians, where are all those videos of Russian drones blowing up stuff? The Russians were never shy to show their achievements if they managed to have any.

Freely available on russian TG channels. Because nobody wants to see videos here of UA soldiers getting their legs and arms blown off or being cut in half while alive.

I posted a text from a UA soldier about russians managing to take a position purely by killing everyone who didnt flee with fpv drones a while ago.

The only quantitative Assessment who blows up more: I posted # geo located fpv drone strikes chart a month or so ago, in which UA was pulling ahead in the amount of strikes since early 2023.

Issue is, this is cheap stuff that can be produced in mass with the right funding and enough workers. It does not require high tech, so once russian slow military procurement adapts to this (and yes they will), they can shift the balance significantly vs crowd funded, garage built drone industry.

They are already ahead with nvg/cheap thermal night FPV drones hunting medevacs and supply/rotation vehicles, packed full of soldiers.

The videos posted here of these mother drones carrying fpv drones to strike far deeper, were afaik wrongly labeled and actually russian engeneers testing this.

[Astrophel]

20 hours ago, Butschi said:

Well, the numbers say Taiwan is already not far behind (in supplying Russia). But why should Taiwan be better at scaling production than China?

Surprised you can state Taiwan is already supplying volumes of drones to russia.  I would like to see your source.  For one thing Taiwan is likely to be building its own reserves of weapons at home, and for another they are relying on military support from US and some other western countries who would be not amused if what you say is true.

Why do I think Taiwan is a manufacturing force to be reckoned with?  Well you do know Foxconn is a Taiwanese company?  Taiwan taught China how to do high volume manufacturing.  Since 2010 thousands of Taiwanese component companies have been disinvesting on the mainland and lots of production has been brought back to Taiwan.  The trend is continuing apace.  An additional factor to consider is that Taiwan is a key supplier of all advanced technologies needed and has been innovating around them for two decades or more.

Taiwan and Ukraine should buddy up more.  There is no excuse not to now China is exposed for selling weapons to russia.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Kraft said:

Freely available on russian TG channels. Because nobody wants to see videos here of UA soldiers getting their legs and arms blown off or being cut in half while alive.

I posted a text from a UA soldier about russians managing to take a position purely by killing everyone who didnt flee with fpv drones a while ago.

Not interested in the gore but RA tactical capabilities are important.  If we don’t keep an eye on both side of this was we simply become a skewed echo chamber.  If the RA is using UAS en masse, to the point that they are essentially replacing artillery, then this war is shifting.  

If Russia can begin to employ corrosive warfare on Ukraine then it is possible for them to shoot for operational offensive actions.  For that I don’t need to see RA video streams because we will definitely see a major RA operational success on mainstream.  But to understand why it may happen is a different story.  

I get that video after video of RA soldiers and vehicles feels good.  But if the RA is increasing ISR/Unmanned/PGM capabilities then we need to know about it.  

[poesel]

Speech of Scholz on the party congress. I've linked to the essential Ukrainian part. You could scroll a bit backwards for more if you like.
Remember that this is the party which tried to be friends with Russia for 50 years.

Speech in German, but automatic subtitles work very well.

TL;DR: Germany is prepared to support Ukraine for a long time (years...) and will step up its game should others slack off.

 

[Beleg85]

Destroyed Russian Grad. Very nice form, could stand in some New York gallery.

 

[Carolus]

12 minutes ago, poesel said:

Speech of Scholz on the party congress. I've linked to the essential Ukrainian part. You could scroll a bit backwards for more if you like.
Remember that this is the party which tried to be friends with Russia for 50 years.

Speech in German, but automatic subtitles work very well.

TL;DR: Germany is prepared to support Ukraine for a long time (years...) and will step up its game should others slack off.

 

Almost all analysts I have seen agree that Scholz wakes up once or twice a year to provide a well-worded speech but is unable to materialise these words into action.

Let us look at the facts:

1) Germany is still providing weapon manufacturing capability to Russia

2) German industry has become the biggest exporters to Kyrgistan and Kazachstan and thus to Russia 

3) Scholz own party is responsible for most of the parliamentary blockades of help to Ukraine and just recently one of the biggest supporters (Roth) of weapon deliveries and aid to Ukraine was voted out during a party summit. It contains an influential amount of members who in a choice between Russia and America would choose the former rather than the latter because the United States is, hold on to your hats, too "warlike"

Edited December 10, 2023 by Carolus

[Butschi]

4 hours ago, Astrophel said:

Surprised you can state Taiwan is already supplying volumes of drones to russia.  I would like to see your source.

My source is @Haiduks post you replied to originally:

Quote

Here is diagram, from where Russia imports spare parts for own drones production (it's unknown either assembled drones included or not)

China - 54.29 %

Taiwan - 20 %

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Butschi

[Maciej Zwolinski]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

If the RA is using UAS en masse, to the point that they are essentially replacing artillery, then this war is shifting.  

That was already happening in Zaporozhe in August-September this year. Especially at the tip of the summer offensive (Orichiv -Tokmak axis) the UKR were winning massively the counterbattery battle and heavily attritting RUS tube artillery. There were reports that Russians are shooting back mostly with lancets and glide bombs released from 50 km behind the front line.

Obviously with the pressure in Zaporozhie lessened, they will supplement the traditional artillery in those units, but that is going to be in addition to the lancet launchers present in place. Also, in the latest reports from AFAIK Andreevka direction Mashovets mentions artillery brigades and Lancet launcher units side by side as equally important elemets of RUS fire support.

Since it is probable that at some point Russia will encounter bottlenecks in production of artillery barrels but they can keep churning out cheap suicide drones the drones are only going to take over more and more of artillery's job in the Russian army.  

[kimbosbread]

15 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Since it is probable that at some point Russia will encounter bottlenecks in production of artillery barrels but they can keep churning out cheap suicide drones the drones are only going to take over more and more of artillery's job in the Russian army.  

100%. You can literally order parts by the hundreds of thousands straight from our lovely Chinese brothers and sisters, and set up an assembly line and just churn these out.

As we’ve discussed a while back, the total footprint of small drones in terms of cost per casualty is just so much lower than every other weapon. I’d be shocked if Russia didn’t go all in on small drones and forgo artillery in many situations and no longer need to worry about counter battery and lugging shells around.

Ukraine obvs has some counter-battery-but-for-drones techniques ie intercepting the video signal then figuring out where the operators are and then hitting them, but a more automated SDR-based approach is the only way to scale this to work across the front.

 

[The_Capt]

56 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

That was already happening in Zaporozhe in August-September this year. Especially at the tip of the summer offensive (Orichiv -Tokmak axis) the UKR were winning massively the counterbattery battle and heavily attritting RUS tube artillery. There were reports that Russians are shooting back mostly with lancets and glide bombs released from 50 km behind the front line.

Obviously with the pressure in Zaporozhie lessened, they will supplement the traditional artillery in those units, but that is going to be in addition to the lancet launchers present in place. Also, in the latest reports from AFAIK Andreevka direction Mashovets mentions artillery brigades and Lancet launcher units side by side as equally important elemets of RUS fire support.

Since it is probable that at some point Russia will encounter bottlenecks in production of artillery barrels but they can keep churning out cheap suicide drones the drones are only going to take over more and more of artillery's job in the Russian army.  

That is particularly disconcerting.  One thing the Russian military knows is firepower.  Not sophisticated or precise, just massed firepower.  If they can translate that doctrine into sustained massive waves of tac UAS, then we have a far more serious problem.  I also suspect the RA will be pushing hard for fully autonomous systems.  Current EW technology does little for that.

[Beleg85]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I also suspect the RA will be pushing hard for fully autonomous systems.  Current EW technology does little for that.

Russia wasn't leading in developing autonomous systems so far; it demands significant investments, brain-centres and likely technology that may be seen as superficial from Kremlin perspective. Waves of normal drones are in turn already in place, luckily many russian commanders have the same "mental blockade" as older AFU ones, not taking anything other than recon drones and maybe dedicated Lancets as serious replacements for artillery.

Regarding lack of clips from Russian FPV strikes- unfortunatelly untrue for many months already, here some recent compilation:

For more one would need to install TG.

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

That is particularly disconcerting.  One thing the Russian military knows is firepower.  Not sophisticated or precise, just massed firepower.  If they can translate that doctrine into sustained massive waves of tac UAS, then we have a far more serious problem.  I also suspect the RA will be pushing hard for fully autonomous systems.  Current EW technology does little for that.

Yup.

If things are indeed moving in this direction, shouldn't a deep (dozens of kms?*) no-mans-land or 'denuded front' already be forming on both sides? within which anything, moving or stationary, that presents a human sized or bigger heat signature is strictly living on borrowed time. (Heavily mined/trapped too, to further hinder the enemy from moving in long enough to build drone-resistant fortifications**).

....whether 'denuded' by unit COs throwing their manuals away and adapting their tactics/deployments, or because they very quickly run out of live bodies to put in holes up front.

* whatever depth is sufficient that enemy FPV drone operators would need to enter the death zone to control their own devices. 

Of course if small simple drones can loiter, spot and strike single man-sized targets out to dozens of kms already, then this concept could already be moot.

** Well looky here. OK, Trent can be hit or miss but...

Thread: https://nitter.net/TrentTelenko/status/1733646004417700317#m

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Russia wasn't leading in developing autonomous systems so far; it demands significant investments, brain-centres and likely technology that may be seen as superficial from Kremlin perspective. Waves of normal drones are in turn already in place, luckily many russian commanders have the same "mental blockade" as older AFU ones, not taking anything other than recon drones and maybe dedicated Lancets as serious replacements for artillery.

Regarding lack of clips from Russian FPV strikes- unfortunatelly untrue for many months already, here some recent compilation:

For more one would need to install TG.

I knew that the RA had drones and were doing strikes but no one has really articulated "en masse".  Anyone have some reliable stats on this?  I mean stream of individual strikes are interesting but I would be interested to see some statistics.  This would go a long way to explaining why the UA cannot concentrate for mechanized assaults.

[The_Capt]

Just now, LongLeftFlank said:

Yup.

If things are indeed moving in this direction, shouldn't a deep (dozens of kms*) no-mans-land or 'denuded front' already be forming on both sides? within which anything, moving or stationary, that presents a human sized or bigger heat signature is strictly living on borrowed time. (Heavily mined/trapped too, to further hinder the enemy from moving in long enough to build drone-resistant fortifications).

....whether 'denuded' by unit COs throwing their manuals away and adapting their tactics, or because they very quickly run out of live bodies to put in holes up front.

* whatever depth is sufficient that enemy FPV drone operators would need to enter the death zone to control their own devices. 

Of course if small simple drones can loiter, spot and strike single man-sized targets out to dozens of kms already, then this concept could already be moot.

Well yes.  We are basically talking Defensive supremacy at its full expression.  If the RA can marshal and project hundreds of strike tac UAS capable of penetrations of 10s of km.  And the UA is doing the same...well this thing is essentially frozen no matter how much hardware we throw at the problem.

Ukrainian president and CHOD have admitted that we are at stalemate/positional warfare but no one has really articulated "why?"  With that density of UAS, no force on earth could break this right now.  I am not even sure the US could handle this if someone introduces full autonomy into the equation, even if it was for the last 1000ms.

Short of strikes at Russian supply chains, there isn't much room to manoeuvre here. 

[Pablius]

Zelenski a few minutes ago here in Buenos Aires...

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Well yes.  We are basically talking Defensive supremacy at its full expression.  If the RA can marshal and project hundreds of strike tac UAS capable of penetrations of 10s of km.  And the UA is doing the same...well this thing is essentially frozen no matter how much hardware we throw at the problem.

 

Ukrainian president and CHOD have admitted that we are at stalemate/positional warfare but no one has really articulated "why?"  With that density of UAS, no force on earth could break this right now.  I am not even sure the US could handle this if someone introduces full autonomy into the equation, even if it was for the last 1000ms.

Short of strikes at Russian supply chains, there isn't much room to manoeuvre here. 

All this (sorry, I mean my questions) of course begs the question of what constitutes a 'front line' in this war? 

for some decades, IIUC, it's been at core an infantry screen for OPs that exert fire control forward (I'm sure you have a vastly better definition)

A very twisted version of the already ironic Juvenal epigram: 'who watches the watchers themselves?'

***

A little anecdata. NoelReports is doing the best job overall of covering the tactical situation imho. 

I assume they've been cannibalising these improvised cover materials from local structures. but it shows the Ivans out here aren't yet at the end of the rope logistically.  PS. No gore here.

Edited December 10, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Pablius]

Zelenski speaking with Orban, who is also here in Buenos Aires for our new president inauguration...the graph says "President of Hungary" because people in the news business apparently don't know/don't care about the details anymore...

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Pablius

[The_Capt]

42 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

All this (sorry, I mean my questions) of course begs the question of what constitutes a 'front line' in this war? 

for some decades, IIUC, it's been at core an infantry screen for OPs that exert fire control forward (I'm sure you have a vastly better definition)

A very twisted version of the already ironic Juvenal epigram: 'who watches the watchers themselves?'

Well unless someone has invented new terms it is a layered concept.  There is the FEBA (Forward Edge of Battle), FLOT (Forward Line of Own Troops) and FLET (Forward Line of Enemy Troops)…the “front line” being somewhere in all that. But these terms mean less and less in OOTWs.  Not sure if they apply in conventional warfare anymore.  At the operational level we use AO, AOR, Area of influence and Area of Interest.  Contiguous and Non-Contiguous.  These are more defining authorities, responsibility and accountability with respect to C4ISR.  We also have intelligence terms (NAIs etc).  And then you get into op boxes and KZs.  I mean you want control lines?  We got em by the bushel…all trying to sustain certainties in an inherently uncertain contact sport.  

In COIN the front line was wherever one of us was standing.  In this war we do see rough areas of control but area of effect are just crazy on both sides.  The tactical “front line” really seems to be about 50+km from the FLOT/FLETs, maybe further.  The line between tactical and operational is also blurring as tactical elements have operational ranges for capability - deconfliction must be a nightmare.  

Edited December 10, 2023 by The_Capt

[Butschi]

48 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

 

Russia wasn't leading in developing autonomous systems so far; it demands significant investments, brain-centres and likely technology

Not really, I think. As I mentioned before, much of the state of the art AI research, including ready made code, is available on the internet. I work in autonomous driving, we often use or modify that kind of stuff.

Autonomously flying drones are a reality already, acquiring targets using image recognition isn't to difficult. It really boils down to what success/failure rate you are willing to tolerate (including friendly fire). If you have enough supply and no problem killing your own troops by accident (we are taking about Russia here) autonomous FPV drones should be quite doable.

Hardware is a bit of an issue but that basically only modifies your success rate.

[Kraft]

Russian anti drone modifications to their trenchlines.