How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[fireship4]

Speaking of Robert Kagan (well I was, a few pages ago), for those worrying about the next US election, this is well worth a read:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/

For those whose article shows up curtailed, turning on 'reader view' in Firefox and refreshing the page should do the trick.

Edited December 20, 2023 by fireship4

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.threads.net/@tsua_23/post/C1C75k_NoRT

Along with the nightly queues for eggs, long queues for fish are starting to appear in Russia. In Voronezh, the picture is as if from the Soviet past, when ordinary food was in short supply.

 

I am starting to hear creaking noises again....

[Twisk]

4 hours ago, chrisl said:

Both of those jetpack-y things are going to be big, loud, noisy, and hot enough that they're really more for getting people into a spot where there's little or no opposition, but there's some sort of difficult barrier (river, cliff, minefield, etc.) and you need to get people over there to rig a bridgehead of some form.  If you try to make an army of flying monkeys with them, it's not going to go well.

Even with turbofans, which are way more efficient than jets, the available flight time is going t be pretty limited if it's hauling a full grown person with full kit.  When you're doing stuff that leaves the ground and has to stay off the ground, mass (the kg kind, not the mongol hordes kind) drives everything.

I'm not sure how the loudness and heat signature matter particularly.

- Its loud

So are tanks, artillery, aircraft, minefields, and infantry if they get into a fight

- heat signature

I highly doubt they are going to be A2A missiled and if you have IR setup you are going to pick up tanks, aircraft, and a fair amount of infantry already.
 

 

Given the range of roughly 3 miles you'd be looking at something like this. Jump jets land in the purple area with traditional ground infantry following behind. So not grabbing a huge amount of terrain.

There might be some areas of the front that are particularly denuded of infantry but it feels like investment in kamikaze drones to just kill everyone in the blue circle (and repeat) would be more effective.

 

 

[cesmonkey]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

 

I am starting to hear creaking noises again....

https://russiapost.info/regions/majority

...After reading this list, I once again thanked fate that I was not born in Moscow and still had not lost touch with reality. Because if we take two thirds of the Russian population as the “Russian people,” then the “Russian people” have not lost any of this. Because they had none of it to begin with.

The last time they, the people, held dollars in their hands was 1997 – to amuse themselves, nothing more. They never went to theaters and did not notice how the best directors left Russia and left them, the people, with nothing.

****

https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-12-11/ukraines-demographic-drain-puts-its-post-war-recovery-at-risk.html

There are 6.3 million refugees who, like Soroka, left Ukraine during the war and have not returned, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). More than half are women and a third are minors.  According to a UNHCR survey last July, 18% of those displaced abroad wanted to return to Ukraine within the next three months and 62% when the necessary security and stability conditions are in place; the remaining 20% were inclined not to return.

When the Russian invasion began, Ukraine had 44 million inhabitants. In 2023, the number stands at 36 million, including the territories occupied by Russia. If the data is limited to the regions of unoccupied Ukraine, the figure drops to 32 million, a 38% decrease from 1991. 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Yet]

if heat and sound are no issue, might as well add hoovercrofts in the equation with jetpacks. 

[Ts4EVER]

Adding to the Ukrainian refugee issue, as a German school teacher I can tell you that there is a massive „lost generation“ coming up, of refugee children and teenagers in foreign countries who didn‘t finish their Ukrainian schools and at the same time learned close to nothing in their „new country“, in part because they felt they would soon be back home and took nothing we did seriously.

Now the rumor is that the education ministry in our state will pass down new directives soon to cover this up, regarding the grading of the students. Normally the rule is that we start grading them the 2nd year they are in country (we did it like that for the Afghans and Syrians etc.), but the performance of the Ukrainian students is so catastrophic that apparently the rules will be changed.

[Rokossovski]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

... Take my chances with the jet pack…at least you get one cool ride. [Snip]

But hey if someone else has a better idea…mutant badgers?

Why not both? Fortunately, the next module will permit us to test the viability of exactly that combination. Coming 2nd Quarter of 2024:

[The_Capt]

10 minutes ago, Rokossovski said:

Why not both? Fortunately, the next module will permit us to test the viability of exactly that combination. Coming 2nd Quarter of 2024:

This has to be AI generated. And damn if they aren’t adorable. 

[Zeleban]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

...After reading this list, I once again thanked fate that I was not born in Moscow and still had not lost touch with reality.

This is true. Residents of the rest of Russia hate residents of large Russian cities (especially residents of Moscow). Since they sell resources from all over Russia to the west, but the lion's share of the proceeds remains in Moscow. In turn, Muscovites despise the inhabitants of the rest of Russia, considering them stupid losers

Contradictions and mutual hostility between Moscow and other major cities of Russia on the one hand and the rest of Russia can become one of the “levers” for destabilizing and subsequent dismantling of the Russian Federation. Of course, if the world community finally decides that the last empire of our time has no place in the future.

[Zeleban]

 

[Rokossovski]

19 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This has to be AI generated. [Snip]

Drat, I should have done it that way. It would have been so much easier than it was to sew those little uniforms and then train the badgers to fly jetpacks so I could snap the photo with my iphone. Oh well, lessons learned I suppose. 

(Okay, a more talented person than I am could have drawn it. But it was AI).

Edited December 20, 2023 by Rokossovski

[Rokossovski]

Error

Edited December 20, 2023 by Rokossovski

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Twisk said:

I'm not sure how the loudness and heat signature matter particularly.

- Its loud

So are tanks, artillery, aircraft, minefields, and infantry if they get into a fight

- heat signature

I highly doubt they are going to be A2A missiled and if you have IR setup you are going to pick up tanks, aircraft, and a fair amount of infantry already.
 

 

Given the range of roughly 3 miles you'd be looking at something like this. Jump jets land in the purple area with traditional ground infantry following behind. So not grabbing a huge amount of terrain.

There might be some areas of the front that are particularly denuded of infantry but it feels like investment in kamikaze drones to just kill everyone in the blue circle (and repeat) would be more effective.

 

 

So I am not sure everyone understand the problem with these minefields.  I mean yes the splodey mines are bad but what is stopping the UA is a combination of things:

- minefields in depth.  High density monsters about 500m deep and laid in belts.  They no doubt have AP strips and combinations of mines - pressure plate, tilt rod and likely some magnetic impulse.  On their own midfields can be breached with some risk but what makes them harder are stuff like ditches and dragons teeth - we call these complex minefields.

- ATGM teams.  Even RA ATGMs are long range, small and relatively portable and able to take out western gear.  The RA are using these teams to cover the minefields and counter breaching attempts.  The UA are doing the same thing as was demonstrated in that interview with the Bn commander a page or so back.

- Artillery.  Even though it has been blunted, artillery is still a major killer particularly in minefields.  This is due to the fact that breaching forces an opponent to canalized into a narrow column.

- Unmanned.  UAS are able to see far and from a lot of different angles.  This makes them really hard to smoke off.  These systems basically become a tactical ISR net that can queue all the defensive systems across a minefield.

- Other support.  Here sniping tanks, IFVs and even AH can be pulled forward (based on ISR queuing) to pre-sighted positions.  AD of course is denying the airspace above 2000 feet.

So you add all this up and breaching becomes near impossible.  The layering of system’s guarantees the breaching team and covering forces get detected well out and engaged.  Lone columns of vehicles get picked off.  Lead breaching systems taken out and everyone else gets taken out by mines and artillery.  So how does one try and solve this problem?  Well the breaching is actually the last step in the process, not the first.

- Recon.  One needs to be able to see and identify as much of the defence as possible.  And in depth.

- C-artillery.  The UA was and will need to do a lot of CB to suppress artillery and  artillery TA systems.

- Deep strike.  Look for and find the supporting systems, like sniping tanks, before they can get into position.

- ATGM teams.  Suppress with artillery and drones as much as possible.

Ok, the UA likely tried all this and still went nowhere. Why?  “Because infantry protect tanks!”  Kinda hard to do when one has to cross a half a kilometre of open minefield to even get at the problem.  Enemy UAS can pick up sapper breaching teams trying to do it silently but very slowly.  Bull charging on foot is a good way to get a bunch of people killed to no effect.

So the problem is getting a bridgehead force across the minefield to clear those ATGM teams, counter against any armor and push any C-UAS capability forward.  That force will likely be infantry heavy but should include a mix of UAS and UGV.  Air Assault with helicopters is suicide because they are too big, hot and denied.  So one needs speed and a way over (or under) the minefield because there is no “around”.  A major airborne operation is not crazy but once again you need air superiority which is not likely.

So we are at: how does one get a bridgehead force across with enough eyes and firepower to protect the breach?  In a perfect world the breach would go in, reset push forward and one would redo the entire process at the next minefield as quickly as possible.  So you don’t have to do this once, you likely need to do it a half dozen times…as quickly as possible.

No bad idea time.  But trust me, there is no real conventional way around this problem.  A massed UAS strike that includes c-UAS systems appears to be a start point.  But there is little room for error.  A single ATGM takes out the lead breaching vehicle and an entire platoon/company crossing may fail.  The consequences are high - as in, the UA does not advance in 2024 - high.

Discuss.

[The_Capt]

18 minutes ago, Rokossovski said:

Drat, I should have done it that way. It would have been so much easier than it was to sew those little uniforms and then train the badgers to fly jetpacks so I could snap the photo with my iphone. Oh well, lessons learned I suppose. 

(Okay, a more talented person than I am could have drawn it. But it was AI).

I would pay you good money for a real badger in a little rocket outfit.  I mean seriously…

[The_Capt]

23 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

 

This is where @billbindc comes and tell us it is all going to be ok? Because my civil war warning light just went off like a badger in a rocket suit.

[poesel]

14 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Ha ha, you ninjaed me by like 30 seconds!!!!

(PS, it is WAY better in German)

(link to YT Starship Troopers is not quoted)

Gee, thanks. Now I spend two hours of my life to watch it - again.

 

[riptides]

9 hours ago, chrisl said:

Both of those jetpack-y things are going to be big, loud, noisy, and hot enough that they're really more for getting people into a spot where there's little or no opposition, but there's some sort of difficult barrier (river, cliff, minefield, etc.) and you need to get people over there to rig a bridgehead of some form.  If you try to make an army of flying monkeys with them, it's not going to go well.

Even with turbofans, which are way more efficient than jets, the available flight time is going t be pretty limited if it's hauling a full grown person with full kit.  When you're doing stuff that leaves the ground and has to stay off the ground, mass (the kg kind, not the mongol hordes kind) drives everything.

One has minutes to react to these things. People have a hard enough time acquiring targets on the ground. Now imagine if you will a spurt of a heat signature, on the ground, in the air, on the ground, where? They already accomplished their mission, they are somewhere behind you. How many? What was it? Where exactly is it?

 

[poesel]

This is the last war where mines play a significant role.

Now that I have your attention, I'll explain why.
Mines are detectable. Either visually or by radar (GPR - ground penetration radar).

Visual
AI is insanely good at visual pattern recognition. To cut it short: if a human can see it, AI will, too. And AI doesn't tire and can do this stuff as long as the batteries hold.

Radar
I'm not an EE, but this link was the first that came up after searching for 'gpr radar diy':
https://gpradar.eu/onewebmedia/TU1208_GPRforeducationaluse_November2017_FerraraChizhPietrelli.pdf
That is something any hobbyist can put together for <1000€

Put a camera and the GPR on a small tracked UGV. Add a dispenser for small shaped charges. Run it over the minefield and drop a charge on every mine found. Explode charge. Repeat.

Sure, doesn't work on any terrain. Field of sunflowers - nope. But anything that is reasonably flat should be good.
Sure, those things need cover. But they are small and of low height. Hard to hit. Anyone shooting at this will expose himself. Any precision you throw at it is most likely more expensive than the UGV.

Unless you have an UGV that can take out these things. And if you have armed UGVs, then mines won't work anyway. And then no one will use mines.

 

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, poesel said:

This is the last war where mines play a significant role.

Now that I have your attention, I'll explain why.
Mines are detectable. Either visually or by radar (GPR - ground penetration radar).

Visual
AI is insanely good at visual pattern recognition. To cut it short: if a human can see it, AI will, too. And AI doesn't tire and can do this stuff as long as the batteries hold.

Radar
I'm not an EE, but this link was the first that came up after searching for 'gpr radar diy':
https://gpradar.eu/onewebmedia/TU1208_GPRforeducationaluse_November2017_FerraraChizhPietrelli.pdf
That is something any hobbyist can put together for <1000€

Put a camera and the GPR on a small tracked UGV. Add a dispenser for small shaped charges. Run it over the minefield and drop a charge on every mine found. Explode charge. Repeat.

Sure, doesn't work on any terrain. Field of sunflowers - nope. But anything that is reasonably flat should be good.
Sure, those things need cover. But they are small and of low height. Hard to hit. Anyone shooting at this will expose himself. Any precision you throw at it is most likely more expensive than the UGV.

Unless you have an UGV that can take out these things. And if you have armed UGVs, then mines won't work anyway. And then no one will use mines.

 

Last war where dumb mines play a role perhaps - but I suspect they will still be used because they are cheap.  So the counter is obviously smart mines that can relocate or conduct stand-off attacks.  As well as target and kill those other UGV clearing systems.  Again we are back to an unmanned outer edge battle with UGVs as part of that landscape.

[poesel]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Last war where dumb mines play a role perhaps -

Oh, yes. 'Stationary mines' is probably the correct term.

[Seedorf81]

2 hours ago, Yet said:

if heat and sound are no issue, might as well add hoovercrofts in the equation with jetpacks. 

And Ospreys!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So I am not sure everyone understand the problem with these minefields.  I mean yes the splodey mines are bad but what is stopping the UA is a combination of things:

- minefields in depth.  High density monsters about 500m deep and laid in belts.  They no doubt have AP strips and combinations of mines - pressure plate, tilt rod and likely some magnetic impulse.  On their own midfields can be breached with some risk but what makes them harder are stuff like ditches and dragons teeth - we call these complex minefields.

- ATGM teams.  Even RA ATGMs are long range, small and relatively portable and able to take out western gear.  The RA are using these teams to cover the minefields and counter breaching attempts.  The UA are doing the same thing as was demonstrated in that interview with the Bn commander a page or so back.

- Artillery.  Even though it has been blunted, artillery is still a major killer particularly in minefields.  This is due to the fact that breaching forces an opponent to canalized into a narrow column.

- Unmanned.  UAS are able to see far and from a lot of different angles.  This makes them really hard to smoke off.  These systems basically become a tactical ISR net that can queue all the defensive systems across a minefield.

- Other support.  Here sniping tanks, IFVs and even AH can be pulled forward (based on ISR queuing) to pre-sighted positions.  AD of course is denying the airspace above 2000 feet.

So you add all this up and breaching becomes near impossible.  The layering of system’s guarantees the breaching team and covering forces get detected well out and engaged.  Lone columns of vehicles get picked off.  Lead breaching systems taken out and everyone else gets taken out by mines and artillery.  So how does one try and solve this problem?  Well the breaching is actually the last step in the process, not the first.

- Recon.  One needs to be able to see and identify as much of the defence as possible.  And in depth.

- C-artillery.  The UA was and will need to do a lot of CB to suppress artillery and  artillery TA systems.

- Deep strike.  Look for and find the supporting systems, like sniping tanks, before they can get into position.

- ATGM teams.  Suppress with artillery and drones as much as possible.

Ok, the UA likely tried all this and still went nowhere. Why?  “Because infantry protect tanks!”  Kinda hard to do when one has to cross a half a kilometre of open minefield to even get at the problem.  Enemy UAS can pick up sapper breaching teams trying to do it silently but very slowly.  Bull charging on foot is a good way to get a bunch of people killed to no effect.

So the problem is getting a bridgehead force across the minefield to clear those ATGM teams, counter against any armor and push any C-UAS capability forward.  That force will likely be infantry heavy but should include a mix of UAS and UGV.  Air Assault with helicopters is suicide because they are too big, hot and denied.  So one needs speed and a way over (or under) the minefield because there is no “around”.  A major airborne operation is not crazy but once again you need air superiority which is not likely.

So we are at: how does one get a bridgehead force across with enough eyes and firepower to protect the breach?  In a perfect world the breach would go in, reset push forward and one would redo the entire process at the next minefield as quickly as possible.  So you don’t have to do this once, you likely need to do it a half dozen times…as quickly as possible.

No bad idea time.  But trust me, there is no real conventional way around this problem.  A massed UAS strike that includes c-UAS systems appears to be a start point.  But there is little room for error.  A single ATGM takes out the lead breaching vehicle and an entire platoon/company crossing may fail.  The consequences are high - as in, the UA does not advance in 2024 - high.

Discuss.

What this boils down to is the breaching force having four options for a defensive war like we're seeing now:

1. Go around
2. Go through
3. Go over
4. Go home (stop fighting)

Option 1 is probably non-existent or, if it does exist, not of practical value.

Option 2 is apparently no longer viable thanks to a combination of UAS and various PGMs.

These are the two options that traditional maneuver warfare promotes, whether it be NATO or Soviet based doctrine.  That leaves us the remaining two.

Option 3 used to be incorporated into maneuver warfare but, in the past few decades, has been largely ruled out as impractical due to the earliest forms of PGMs... heat seeking air defense missiles.  And like we're seeing now, concentration of mass (i.e. big aircraft with dozens of paras) was found to be too risky.  Even moderate concentrations of mass (i.e. helicopters with a dozen soldiers) seem to be too risky.

Option 4 is the only option right now that doesn't involve a lot of losses for little gain.

Thinking about traditional airborne ops in the context of our jetpack discussion, should we really be so surprised that ground based maneuver warfare has suffered so horribly at the hands of the combination of detection and PGMs?  Air and airborne force projection has been under strain from this combo for decades, to the point where helicopters are largely held back from the frontlines and airborne ground forces are largely restricted to SpecOps and rear logistics.

Steve

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What this boils down to is the breaching force having four options for a defensive war like we're seeing now:

1. Go around
2. Go through
3. Go over
4. Go home (stop fighting)

Option 1 is probably non-existent or, if it does exist, not of practical value.

Option 2 is apparently no longer viable thanks to a combination of UAS and various PGMs.

These are the two options that traditional maneuver warfare promotes, whether it be NATO or Soviet based doctrine.  That leaves us the remaining two.

Option 3 used to be incorporated into maneuver warfare but, in the past few decades, has been largely ruled out as impractical due to the earliest forms of PGMs... heat seeking air defense missiles.  And like we're seeing now, concentration of mass (i.e. big aircraft with dozens of paras) was found to be too risky.  Even moderate concentrations of mass (i.e. helicopters with a dozen soldiers) seem to be too risky.

Option 4 is the only option right now that doesn't involve a lot of losses for little gain.

Thinking about traditional airborne ops in the context of our jetpack discussion, should we really be so surprised that ground based maneuver warfare has suffered so horribly at the hands of the combination of detection and PGMs?  Air and airborne force projection has been under strain from this combo for decades, to the point where helicopters are largely held back from the frontlines and airborne ground forces are largely restricted to SpecOps and rear logistics.

Steve

Option 5.  Go defence.  Play into attrition and corrosion.  Hope your opponent breaks before you do.

There is a "Go Under" as was tried in WW1 but I am honestly not sure what that would look like.  "Go around" could include amphib ops via the Black Sea but that is a lot of capability to try and build.

[OBJ]

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/six-ways-to-disable-a-drone/

My favorites are 5 and 6.