How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Tux]

17 hours ago, dan/california said:

Their is absolutely no reason except our own idiocy that DPICM shells were not supplied with the first 155mm guns.

Apart from the general logistical principles raised by The_Capt I’m pretty sure DPICM would actually have been particularly difficult to provide at that point in the war, since many of the nations who were making up the supply chain to the Ukrainian border had signed a treaty specifically obliging them not to facilitate the use of DPICM, even by transporting them elsewhere.  We’ll all recall that it took a while to find a diplomatically acceptable way around that and I’m pretty sure they/we only bothered because of the lack of alternatives as conventional ammo types ran low.

[Ales Dvorak]

Is it true?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68120973

[Holien]

Yes corruption exists in all societies, so likely true.

In WW2 people were involved in corruption and other crimes.

During the national COVID crisis there were many who ripped off the UK, hopefully some are getting justice now...

To think that in Ukraine there will be no corruption is naive.

It is good it is being tackled and those caught dealt with.

[Anthony P.]

Eastern Europe in particular has problems with corruption. Wartime means a lot of additional room for it as procurement ramps up significantly, oversight can't keep up (or is even scaled back to prevent time consuming administration from hampering procurement and delivery) and people spot opportunities to engage in corruption when and where they deem it likely to be undiscovered in the confusion and stress of war.

[chris talpas]

Latest drop from Perun and certainly relevant to this discussion:

 

[cesmonkey]

 

[Astrophel]

2 hours ago, Ales Dvorak said:

Is it true?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68120973

You refer to Ukraine arresting people for corruption.

Every country is vulnerable to corruption.  What matters is whether the government takes action.  UK is struggling with this at the moment and UK is supposed to be setting a lead.

Ukraine is taking action and arresting people.  Good for them.

[The Steppenwulf]

40 minutes ago, Astrophel said:

You refer to Ukraine arresting people for corruption.

Every country is vulnerable to corruption.  What matters is whether the government takes action.  UK is struggling with this at the moment and UK is supposed to be setting a lead.

Ukraine is taking action and arresting people.  Good for them.

The old Soviet states are particularly notorious and the problem is rooted way back in the soviet era. Big bureaucracy, low accountability of officials and processes, and little in the way of internal checks and balances.

Allegations of corruption in Ukrainian govt administration were identified from the very start of the conflict - one of things that WiU (for all the stuff that he's wrong about), and other commentators did highlight. I personally considered there to be substance to the allegations for all the reasons above.

But it's wrong to compare it to the west as it's on a different order of magnitude - a major impediment in fact for the progress of Ukraine's application to join the EU in the near term.   

Edited January 28 by The Steppenwulf

[Bulletpoint]

5 hours ago, Carolus said:

 

I guess it has to be true since it was posted by some random user on Twitter.

[Vet 0369]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Kerch bridge - so now we can talk about the next level, options.  First off the Ukrainians do have the capability to hit that bridge.  The Storm Shadow system has the reach (the thing can hit that bridge from freakin Kharkiv) and punch (it has twice the warhead weight compared to ATACMs).  But Ukraine does not seem interested in hitting that bridge, again.  Why?  Well my guess is that the bridge really is not critical right now.  Other than an annoyance, Ukraine does not have an ability to exploit the pressure dropping that bridge would provide - it offers no options to justify the risk/cost.  It may feel good but there is a lot of other stuff Ukraine can use that weapon system to hit.  Ukraine does seem to be comfortably ramping up the strikes into Russia and Crimea - a submarine hurts a lot more than a bridge right now.  They are clearly using a different payoff calculation.

There could be another reason. Sun Tsu in “the Art of War” suggests that one should leave the enemy a means of retreat if possible. A cornered enemy with no way to retreat will fight like, well cornered rats! If Ukraine drops the bridge, the Russians in Crimea will fight “like cornered rats,”as they have before. What do you think was the real reason that Eisenhower refused to allow Patton to close the Falaise Gap and prevent the Germans from retreating?

[Harmon Rabb]

My take regarding Ukraine and corruption.

While I think most people here know I firmly support Ukraine and its just war against Russian aggression. I know that corruption is still an issue in Ukraine.

I think it was one of the posters living in Ukraine who explained it best to me on this forum. Basically corruption was used as one of the tools by Putin to keep Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence. Ukraine's oligarchs knew that if Ukraine was serious about joining the European Union it would need to clean up its act regarding corruption, and that could mean possible jail-time for some of those oligarchs. Who were happy that Ukraine be tied to Russia and the status quo preserved.

Corruption or not I still hope Ukraine is granted NATO membership soon after this war is over so this nightmare that the Ukrainian people are going through does not repeat itself.

As far as the EU goes I hope Ukraine will take it's efforts to battle corruption as seriously as they are battling the Russian military on the battlefield right now. I'm optimistic about Ukraine's chances because if other former communist countries in Europe were able to improve in this regard, I don't see why Ukraine cannot also improve.

 

 

Edited January 28 by Harmon Rabb

[Vet 0369]

7 hours ago, Holien said:

Hmmm dangerous for any side doing this as the camera leading up to the event can give away important information about the area behind the lines.

The age of digital recording and desire to be a digital media superstar is making it harder to keep OpSec.

 

Not really. Just take away everyone’s digital phones and cameras. In the Vietnam war, it was common practice to ensure that any Marine “in the field,” I.e. on patrol or on an operation, carried only their ID card and the “Geneva card” with them, of course, we had an NCO core that could and did make that happen. If the men in the unit don’t have enough discipline to surrender their electronics before combat, then they deserve to die and lose.

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

There could be another reason. Sun Tsu in “the Art of War” suggests that one should leave the enemy a means of retreat if possible. A cornered enemy with no way to retreat will fight like, well cornered rats! If Ukraine drops the bridge, the Russians in Crimea will fight “like cornered rats,”as they have before. What do you think was the real reason that Eisenhower refused to allow Patton to close the Falaise Gap and prevent the Germans from retreating?

I don't think that really applies here to be honest.  If the UA was carrying out a compression offensive on Crimea, maybe, but I suspect the juice is just not worth the squeeze yet.

Re: Falaise Gap - considering that operation bagged roughly 80-100k German troops, and maybe let up to the same number go, I really do not buy that it was planned as part of some broader strategy.  The Allies wanted to grab the whole thing but some Germans squeaked out, happens.

[Vet 0369]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

I don't think that really applies here to be honest.  If the UA was carrying out a compression offensive on Crimea, maybe, but I suspect the juice is just not worth the squeeze yet.

Re: Falaise Gap - considering that operation bagged roughly 80-100k German troops, and maybe let up to the same number go, I really do not buy that it was planned as part of some broader strategy.  The Allies wanted to grab the whole thing but some Germans squeaked out, happens.

Well, I respectfully disagree. Patton was furious and very vocal about Eisenhower ordering him to stop his advance to close the pocket. Why would that have been done if the supreme Commander hadn’t wanted to ensure they had a way out? Yes, granted, the corridor was very narrow and under almost constant Air and Artillery attack.Many died attempting to escape through the corridor. But it probably allowed the remainder to consider surrendering vs. the high risk of attempting to escape by way of the corridor.

When I was training for urban combat in the 1970s, we were trained to enter the building from the highest point possible (sometimes we would have up to three Marines on each others shoulders so the rest of the assault team could climb up them and enter from the roof. The reasoning was that if we entered from the ground floor and drove the enemy up, they would be trapped and die fighting. Also, as we’ve all seen in multiple videos, it allows the enemy to toss grenades down the stairs. I don’t know what the circumstances were that caused the change of tactics, I just know how we were trained to do it.

[cesmonkey]

 

[Holien]

2 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:

it's wrong to compare it to the west as it's on a different order of magnitude -

Hmmm any evidence on that?

I know a certain Lord is being investigated and assets frozen for rather a large sum of British tax payers money.

So for you to say the corruption in Ukraine is a different order of magnitude seems to indicate that you have some figures or evidence to prove that?

Love to hear / see it?

Humans are humans and an element will try and get rich off the backs of others, no matter what country you care to mention.

What matters is how it is policed and a consistent law applied to everyone in that country.

[The_Capt]

46 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Well, I respectfully disagree. Patton was furious and very vocal about Eisenhower ordering him to stop his advance to close the pocket. Why would that have been done if the supreme Commander hadn’t wanted to ensure they had a way out? Yes, granted, the corridor was very narrow and under almost constant Air and Artillery attack.Many died attempting to escape through the corridor. But it probably allowed the remainder to consider surrendering vs. the high risk of attempting to escape by way of the corridor.

When I was training for urban combat in the 1970s, we were trained to enter the building from the highest point possible (sometimes we would have up to three Marines on each others shoulders so the rest of the assault team could climb up them and enter from the roof. The reasoning was that if we entered from the ground floor and drove the enemy up, they would be trapped and die fighting. Also, as we’ve all seen in multiple videos, it allows the enemy to toss grenades down the stairs. I don’t know what the circumstances were that caused the change of tactics, I just know how we were trained to do it.

Do you have any sources to back this up?  I have read about his operation pretty extensively and nowhere have I seen the idea that the "gap" was intentional.

"General Bradley himself later considered the failure to close the gap a mistake, and he placed the responsibility on Montgomery. He recalled that he and Patton had doubted "Monty's ability to close the gap at Argentan" from the north, and they had "waited impatiently" for word from Montgomery to authorize continuation of the XV Corps advance. While waiting, according to Bradley, he and Patton had seen the Germans reinforce the shoulders of the Argentan-Falaise gap and watched the enemy pour troops and materiel eastward to escape the unsealed pocket. It seemed to him and Patton, Bradley remembered, that Dempsey's British Second Army, driving from the northwest, accelerated German movement eastward and facilitated German escape by pushing the Germans out of the open end of the pocket like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. "If Monty's tactics mystified me," Bradley later wrote, "they dismayed Eisenhower even more. And ... a shocked Third Army looked on helplessly as its quarry fled [while] Patton raged at Montgomery's blunder." [30]"

"If Patton, in a subordinate role, could only rage at Montgomery's tactics, and if Bradley thought he might offend a sensitive Montgomery by requesting permission to cross the army group boundary, Eisenhower, who was in France and following the combat developments, might have resolved the situation had he thought it necessary. Yet General Eisenhower did not intervene. Interfering with a tactical decision made by a commander in closer contact with the situation was not Eisenhower's method of exercising command. Long afterward, General Eisenhower stated that he thought Montgomery should have closed the gap and that closing the gap "might have won us a complete battle of annihilation." [33] Montgomery's chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Sir Francis de Guingand, also believed that the Argentan-Falaise gap might have been closed if Montgomery had not restricted the Americans by means of the existing army group boundary, a restriction, Guingand thought, American commanders felt strongly. [34]"

https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_17.htm

Patton was pretty angry but it wasn't Eisenhower that even gave the order, it was Bradley.  And the situation was complicated.  Bradley appears more concerned about over-extension as Monty and the Canadians could not hold up their end.  Pretty much everything I have read is that everyone agreed on one point - kill as many Germans as possible, so we don't have to fight them later - not some bizarre Sun Tzu-esque "be like water over oil"

As to your training experience...it also sounds very bizarre - and frankly Cold War games.  Drive the enemy to the top floors and then blast them all to hell on those floors until the building drops.  Why on earth would one give them an escape route where they can relocate and kill you all over again?  I grew up in the find-fix-finish...forever...school so it could be a generational thing. 

Edited January 28 by The_Capt

[Vacillator]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I have read about his operation pretty extensively and nowhere have I seen the idea that the "gap" was intentional.

Perhaps we can also discuss whether Hitler allowed the British to escape from Dunkirk ?

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Perhaps we can also discuss whether Hitler allowed the British to escape from Dunkirk ?

heh or we could just stay focused on Ukraine and not rehash WW2. 

[JonS]

40 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

As to your training experience...it also sounds very bizarre - and frankly Cold War games.  Drive the enemy to the top floors and then blast them all to hell on those floors until the building drops. 

Nat Fick (of Gen Kill fame) talks about from-the-top-down as the correct doctrinal approach to clearing buildings in the late '90's in One Bullet Away. I don't think that has any Sun Tzu-esque veneer though - its just that it's easier to assault "downhill", and easier to set up a ground-level cordon when you dont have to create an entry corridor for the clearance team. Also, defenders most often orient themselves to contesting a ground level assault, so coming in at the top out flanks all that and makes the initial breach a lot easier.

But it does depend on resources (ie; loads of helos, and an operating concept that embraces hot LZs) that most militaries dont have access to.

Edited January 28 by JonS

[Vacillator]

19 minutes ago, sburke said:

heh or we could just stay focused on Ukraine and not rehash WW2.

I agree, but we'd started on Falaise already .  I will cease and desist...

[The Steppenwulf]

48 minutes ago, Holien said:

Hmmm any evidence on that?

I know a certain Lord is being investigated and assets frozen for rather a large sum of British tax payers money.

So for you to say the corruption in Ukraine is a different order of magnitude seems to indicate that you have some figures or evidence to prove that?

Love to hear / see it?

Humans are humans and an element will try and get rich off the backs of others, no matter what country you care to mention.

It's not hard to conclude that corruption is endemic in Ukraine even from a 2 minute online sweep, including widespread discussion across mainstream publications over many months:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/opinion/ukraine-war-corruption.html
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/graft-accusations-dog-top-zelenskiy-aides-2023-09-19/

Ukraine is ranked 116 from 180 countries on corruption by Transparency International: 
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/ukraine

In addition, as I mentioned some (Ukrainian) commentators were discussing corruption allegations even at the start of the war. It was commonly known to be an issue.

It's simply a matter of public record that corruption was a concern raised by the EU, as I asserted. The EU Anti Corruption Initiative is now committed to assist Ukraine Govt tackle it, as a prerequisite to membership (link below).

Quote

What matters is how it is policed and a consistent law applied to everyone in that country.

Legal enforcement is part of the issue. That's why I mentioned shortcomings in checks and balances. All enshrined in general accountability:
https://euaci.eu/news/finansuvannya-vidnovlennya-ukrajini-udoskonalennya-na-zasadax-prozorosti-pidzvitnosti-ta-dobrochesnosti
 

Quote

you have some figures or evidence to prove that?

 
Do not confound evidence with proof.  

Edited January 28 by The Steppenwulf

[kimbosbread]

Re corruption in Ukraine, someone involved in the post 2014 - pre 2022 training etc told me that around 80% of the US aid just went poof.

[hcrof]

27 minutes ago, JonS said:

Nat Fick (of Gen Kill fame) talks about from-the-top-down as the correct doctrinal approach to clearing buildings in the late '90's in One Bullet Away. I don't think that has any Sun Tzu-esque veneer though - its just that it's easier to assault "downhill", and easier to set up a ground-level cordon when you dont have to create an entry corridor for the clearance team. Also, defenders most often orient themselves to contesting a ground level assault, so coming in at the top out flanks all that and makes the initial breach a lot easier.

But it does depend on resources (ie; helos, and an operating concept that embraces hot LZs) that most militaries dont have access to.

I also believe that coming in from the top flushes the enemy into the street... Where you have a pre-planned kill zone.

[Battlefront.com]

For sure Ukraine still has significant corruption problems at all levels of society.  That's a hold over from Communism which is a hold over from bad governance since the tribal days.  I doubt any Western country is in the same ballpark as Ukraine in terms of the endemic nature of corruption.

There are two things to keep in mind after recognizing this fact.  First, that the West has massive amounts of corruption in absolute terms.  Nearly 30 years ago the Big Dig project in Boston was audited and they couldn't account for $1b, but they did notice all the sub contractors had brand new personal pickup trucks.  And despite the bazillions invested in that someone still cheaped out on some bolts and heavy panels inside the tunnel failed, killing one person and required massively disrupting and expensive repair work.

At a lower level every US state has cases in courts where individuals abused Federal aid programs set up to help businesses survive the pandemic.  Some as blatant as making up a factious company with factious employees and then blowing the money on fancy cars, gambling, and drugs.  Cumulatively it is estimated to be $100 BILLION.  That's right, more stolen for a US domestic program than given to Ukraine.  Which means Ukraine could have stolen 100% of what the US gave it and Dollar wise it would be about the same.

The other thing to keep in mind is progress.  Ukraine has been making steady and impressive improvements in tackling corruption.  It has a long way to go to get to the West's level of corruption, but compared to where it was in 2013?  Massive improvement from what I can tell.  Compared to Russia it's a beacon of transparency and accountability.  Which is one reason why Putin wants Ukraine crushed.

Steve