How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

45 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

But at some point in time all Germans left in the kessel surrendered and were shipped to Siberia. According to Polish Wikipedia there was 100,000 of them. That brings the total losses including POWs to approximately 1:1, right? 

Or does Forczyk distinguish the Stalingrad city fight (i.e. the part with Germans as the attackers) from Uranus +kesselschlacht (obviously, Russians as the attackers)? Actually it may be necessary as without such split it would be difficult to use Stalingrad for any attacker vs defender statistics due to the change of roles midway through the fight.

Considering the troops outside the city were there because of the city I am not sure how one can divorce these losses.  Urban terrain pulls in more troops and pins troops both inside and outside urban areas.  At Stalingrad we see roughly a 1:1 in the battle but the operational and strategic consequences were definitely not 1:1.   It was a pivotal defensive battle the changed the course of the war.

[pintere]

35 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Thank you! Do you perhaps have the statistics for the 3rd phase, final surrender included ? I am wondering if the relationship between losses from 2nd phase was completely reversed

Unfortunately Forczyk‘s third book does not tell us this…

But the Germans did definitely suffer far greater losses than the Soviets in this phase, as not only the combat units but also all the support units would’ve been entirely lost.

[Probus]

1 hour ago, akd said:

Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a small problem:

 

I’m at an event and can’t watch this. What exactly did he say? Is he encouraging Russia to attack NATO to get NATO involved to kick Russia’s butt? Or… did he say something really stupid? Never know with him. 

[JonS]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

that was today.  he is campaigning in South Carolina.

well, we now know of at least one person who watch the TC interview, and thought "Ayup. That all sounds legit."

[The_Capt]

45 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

How does that concept differ from battlefield interdiction and isolation? As far as I understand, interdiction is also aimed at various enablers, and people doing it certainly try to make it targeted, precise and rapid.

https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_03.pdf

Intent and scale.  Interdiction is designed to destroy, disrupt and dislocate the enemies combat power before it can be brought to bear.  Corrosive warfare intent is to set the conditions/engineer for the enemy’s operational collapse under its own weight.

Those are two very different things with two different objectives.  Both do require precision strikes but scope and scale of Corrosive warfare requires much more robust C4ISR/targeting enterprise in order to 1) fully map an enemy operational system, and 2) provide a feedback loop as to progress in creating collapse.  That is a much higher bill than dislocating a portion of an opponents combat power.  Military systems are extremely robust and resilient by design.  So Corrosive Warfare would constitute an operational campaign of its own, or more likely a series of operational as part of a broader strategy.

I think we can see the shadow of full on Corrosive Warfare in this war.  We watched as the UA targeted the entire length of the RA system at Kyiv and Kharkiv.  These were strikes from; tactical to stop or slow down enemy combat forces, operational level strikes at support nodes and strategic strikes along LOCs.  This was also linked into a major IO campaign to promote narratives and political enabling and demonstration.  The UA did not simply dislocate the RA at Kyiv, the slowed, stopped and then rusted them out in very quick time.  The RA was not over-extended until the UA made them so - recall all the abandoned vehicles out of gas.  Corrosive Warfare also has a psychological element and we have been living it.  Continual demonstration and signalling of key high value systems…and then showing those hits.

The results at both Kyiv and Kharkiv make no military sense without a mechanism like this.  Russia does suck, but that assumption starts to falter under scrutiny.  Poor planning and C4ISR definitely contributed to these failures but the UA was largely unprepared for the size of the initial invasion - 5-6 simultaneous operational lines of attack along a 1400km front.  Reports from early on in the war show the UA reacting and caught off guard.  What they did have was a world class C4ISR architecture, duplicated with an ersatz JADC2 built on a public backbone.  This allowed for deep operations and frankly breathtaking precision.  This projected Denial costs onto the RA to the point they buckled under their own weight.  Initial invasion numbers show the RA had a 12:1 force advantage on that drive to Kyiv.  The RuAF had significant AirPower and should have had air superiority.

 None of that mattered.  So either the Russians suck so badly that they were unable to leverage these massive offsets.  Or something fundamentally happened to warfare.  Given that the RA, although no all stars, have combat experience over the last 15 years.  More so they have operational experience, I can accept a level of “sucking” but it would be a dangerous assumption they were so incompetent as to blow what should have been a roll-over.  Given the fact that the RA demonstrated an ability to concentrate and sustain mass at Severodonetsk and conduct complex withdrawal operations at Kherson, I am definitely leaning towards…something is happening here.

Now the real question: why did it not work over last Summer?  No idea.  Could be that defence costs are so low that Corrosion did not work for what the UA could provide.  Could be the UA abandoned the concept and tried the western approach - mechanized breaching ops to break out.  Maybe the RA hit a low energy state where Corrosion stops working with current technology and capability.

We do know that the RA is not, and likely cannot, do the same level of Corrosive Warfare.  They are instead doing more traditional front edge attrition.  This does not mean they do not have deep battle, but they lack the C4ISR to really set UA collapse conditions.  But they do have mass, and are now using it to hold on while making expensive tactical demonstrations to prove to everyone “I am still here”.

Or at least this is the working theory.

 

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Probus said:

I’m at an event and can’t watch this. What exactly did he say? Is he encouraging Russia to attack NATO to get NATO involved to kick Russia’s butt? Or… did he say something really stupid? Never know with him. 

He is beating the NATO “pay up” drum again.  It is BS and dumb. NATO is the major arms customer for the US defence industry.  Letting “Russia do whatever to those ‘who don’t pay’” could mean NATO allies start buying Russian…and I am damn sure he cares about that.

Whatever. This is telling a poorly aware mob what they want to hear.  Now State Dept and DoD will be doing damage control.

[JonS]

53 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Considering the troops outside the city were there because of the city I am not sure how one can divorce these losses.

Weren't you just talking about setting conceptual boundaries, otherwise every conversation has to include everything? Wait - maybe that was Steve.

Anywho, I fear we may be missing the point of Operational Research. It's purpose is not to explain the causes and courses of a war, or a campaign, or even a battle. It's to provide metrics and rules of thumb to answer operational questions - like "if I attack a city, all else being equal, how many cas should I expect?"

I don't have Rowland's book (although it's on my Amazon wishlist now), but his reputation does precede him so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. And, given that you managed to completely butcher the interpretation of a simple diagram/graph/chart/thing, in this particular case I am also inclined to disregard your attempted criticism of his work.

Edited February 11 by JonS

[JonS]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Letting “Russia do whatever to those ‘who don’t pay’” could mean NATO allies start buying Russian…and I am damn sure he cares about that.

Do you think? I'm not sure - I mean, it's not like he, personally, stands to benefit from arms sales to Europe, so I expect he doesn't give a flying feck where the weapons come from ... other than making his daddy happy by getting folks to Buy Russia(tm).

[Maciej Zwolinski]

40 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

At Stalingrad we see roughly a 1:1 in the battle but the operational and strategic consequences were definitely not 1:1.   It was a pivotal defensive battle the changed the course of the war.

Absolutely, even setting aside the particularly far reaching effects of the Stalingrad battle (although I would say they occured as joint result of what happened at Stalingrad with the destruction of Panzerarmee Afrika shortly thereafter), in any battle for Germans and Soviets the nominal 1:1 parity was never an effective  1:1 parity, because of the much greater capability of the Soviets to regenerate that 1 plus adding several more units in the next wave of reinforcements released to the front.

Re. the Russo-Ukrainian War I think on this board we have generally settled that 3,5: 1 is the effecitve parity at which the Ukrainians can trade casualties. Although this is AFAIK based at the general comparison of population size, so it is a bit crude methodology,

[Maciej Zwolinski]

23 minutes ago, JonS said:

well, we now know of at least one person who watch the TC interview, and thought "Ayup. That all sounds legit."

Unfortunately I read many  more positive opinions on Twitter, based mostly on the following schema: "Putin speaks about history, and I am completely ignorant on the subject, therefore he seems to be a great and profound intellectual". Or "He looks more healthy than Joe Biden, therefore he seems a great leader". Those rather obviously invalid syllogisms were surprisingly persuasive. Or maybe Russian bots were repeating them, I can't tell

[dan/california]

13 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Unfortunately I read many  more positive opinions on Twitter, based mostly on the following schema: "Putin speaks about history, and I am completely ignorant on the subject, therefore he seems to be a great and profound intellectual". Or "He looks more healthy than Joe Biden, therefore he seems a great leader". Those rather obviously invalid syllogisms were surprisingly persuasive. Or maybe Russian bots were repeating them, I can't tell

When the guy that owns and operates the platform is on your(Putin's) side, it is truly amazing how good your reviews can be.

[sburke]

58 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

He is beating the NATO “pay up” drum again.  It is BS and dumb. NATO is the major arms customer for the US defence industry.  Letting “Russia do whatever to those ‘who don’t pay’” could mean NATO allies start buying Russian…and I am damn sure he cares about that.

Whatever. This is telling a poorly aware mob what they want to hear.  Now State Dept and DoD will be doing damage control.

it wasn't even the dumbest thing he said.

Quote

 

Speaking to potential voters, Trump went into a rant about Haley and her husband Michael, saying, “Where’s her husband? Oh, he’s away. What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone. He knew.” And what wasn't mentioned in discourse on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after his comments were made, Haley was happy to fill in herself.

"Michael is deployed serving our country, something you know nothing about," she wrote in a post to X, along with a clip of Trump's tirade. "Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief."

As CNN points out, Michael Haley is deployed in Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard in support of the United States Africa Command, his second active-duty deployment overseas. The outlet also underlines the fact that former first lady Melania Trump has not joined her husband for any public campaign events since his presidential announcement in November 2022 and has not appeared alongside him at any of his court appearances.

 

The best comment of all though was from Nikki's husband

Quote

Michael Haley also seemingly responded to Trump in a post on X, tagging him alongside a meme saying, “The difference between humans and animals? Animals would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.”

 

[cesmonkey]

1 hour ago, Probus said:

I’m at an event and can’t watch this. What exactly did he say? Is he encouraging Russia to attack NATO to get NATO involved to kick Russia’s butt? Or… did he say something really stupid? Never know with him. 

I found that part of his speech. You can listen at the time stamp below. The context was if NATO members weren't paying their fair share, would the U.S. come to their defense? To that, he answered no. If you don't pay, you don't get any protection from the U.S., and he would then encourage Russia to attack those NATO countries is Russian wanted to.

 

Edited February 11 by cesmonkey

[danfrodo]

38 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

I found that part of his speech. You can listen at the time stamp below. The context was if NATO members weren't paying their fair share, would the U.S. come to their defense? To that, he answered no. If you don't pay, you don't get any protection from the U.S., and he would then encourage Russia to attack those NATO countries is Russian wanted to.

 

"NATO not paying their fair share" is just trump's excuse to do putin's bidding.  It's all bull**** and it plays into MAGA's ever present fantasy that everyone except them are 'takers', stealing from the MAGA folks, the world's only hard working, tax paying 'Murican's in the world.  It's not about the money.  Trump is just playing them as the fools they actually are.

It's similar to when Sen Rand Paul spins his bull**** about caring about whether US aid has proper oversight.  Everything else out of Paul's mouth on the subject shows that he thinks Putin should have UKR and is totally justified in his invasion.

Edited February 11 by danfrodo

[Kinophile]

There's something about Syrsky that feels somehow more 'modern'. I'm not concerned (not that I've any right to be and my opinion of ZSU staffing is worth less than zero).

But of the two, I suspect in my bones that Syrsky could pull off transforming the front line from how the Russians want to fight into how the Ukrainians can and should fight. That is, I suspect that he will shift the tactical structure on the Ukrainian side from orienting on Lines (trenches, cities etc) to dominating spaces/volumes, avoiding static fixed points for RUS artillery to pound. 

Currently, while RUS has the initiative I think its because the ZSU is fighting in the way that Russia needs it to in order for Russia to be able to get the initiative. The ZSU's current configuration values the same things as the Russians - lines on maps, place names, etc. Geography and overlayed political mapping, islands of resistance joined into a web of linear static priorities.

If the ZSU begins to fight in a different ways, like say around Kiev, valuing different things from the RUS and willing to trade what it values less for what it now values more, then they could achieve operational balance before unbalancing the Ivan.

Part of this idea is that the ZSU could deepen the front line zone, ignoring trenches, never staying put and constantly moving within a much broader battlespace. Flowing instead of standing. Utilizing C4ISR to constantly outflank and corroding the 1,2,3 echelons of Russian front lines all at once. IE simultaneously conduct attack-defence in the same zone, at the same time, where attack is defence and defence is attack, in contrast to the simplistic Russian approach focused on progressive subjugation of a series of points and lines.

Mobility would not be forced into or on the Russians but provided to the Ukrainians within their own "side" of the battle space. Blur the operational contact area between the forces and rapidly corrode tactically. 

Zaluzhny can see the value of drones and their danger, within his existing viewpoint of military force. Sysrky, I hope, can see a new paradigm - or at least the need and path to one. I think he will initially focus very heavily on the training funnel, shifting to a smarter, more responsive and intuitive process. This will cost him time and space but provide him with better forces in the medium/long term, forces that can handle and expand a new tactical and operational mindset.

 

Edited February 11 by Kinophile

[Sojourner]

Sadly, that's not all. Now it appears we know the real reason Senator Tuberville was blocking military promotions.

Tuberville took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to share his thoughts about Carlson's sit-down with the Russian leader.

"Last night's @TuckerCarlson's interview with Putin shows that Russia is open to a peace agreement, while it is DC warmongers who want to prolong the war. That is why I'm voting to stop 60 BILLION MORE of our tax dollars to this conflict," the senator wrote.

Senator Defending Putin Sparks Furious Backlash (newsweek.com)

[dan/california]

This photo has never been explained, but this photo explains everything.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Sojourner said:

Sadly, that's not all. Now it appears we know the real reason Senator Tuberville was blocking military promotions.

Tuberville took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to share his thoughts about Carlson's sit-down with the Russian leader.

"Last night's @TuckerCarlson's interview with Putin shows that Russia is open to a peace agreement, while it is DC warmongers who want to prolong the war. That is why I'm voting to stop 60 BILLION MORE of our tax dollars to this conflict," the senator wrote.

Senator Defending Putin Sparks Furious Backlash (newsweek.com)

Tuberville is such a rube I am honestly not sure if understands he is working for the Russians.

 

Edit: Forgive me for adding something quite a bit later, but this is the rational place to put this.

I have just realized the other thing that happened with Tuberville, There was was IMHO a right ring communication plan and talking points in place before the Putin interview to lean into Putin's attempt to undercut Western support. Carlson has more than enough MAGA connections to at least attempt something like that. I suspect many people who were cued up to say things in the same general vein as Tuberville realized the interview had been a complete failure and had the sense to simply throw the planned remarks un the trash. Tuberville, being Tuberville simply barged ahead regardless. The man would make an excellent Russian general.

Edited February 11 by dan/california

[Artkin]

13 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, so what were the urban combat loss ratios then?  Also, on German losses…so it was what?  A draw?  German losses were not significant?  

So I was a little wrong there. It seems all of 6th army was eventually destroyed.

In terms of forces involved - yeah all of the Soviet troops fighting in the city were conscripts - 62nd and 64th armies were reserve armies deployed that year. They did have fighting experience during Blau but it wasn't good experience - both armies were pretty much already decimated by the time they retreated to the city.

This is a complex question because many units were shifted around over months, and it can't be answered without going in depth. It's the reason why I'm committing to a Kursk campaign first instead of a Blau campaign.

The assault on the city began on September 13th 1942.

 

---------------------Troops trapped in pocket------------------------

6th army was composed of many late wave divisions:

1st wave - 44th ID (August 1939)

2nd wave - 71st ID, 76th ID, 79th ID (August 1939)

8th wave - 295th ID (February 1940)

12th wave - 113th ID (August 1940)

13th wave - 305th ID (November - December 1940)

18th wave - 384th ID, 389th ID (December 1941)

19th wave - 376th ID (March - April 1942)

100th Jager (July 1942 .. Eight days after Blau commenced)

3rd Motorized (October 1940)

60th Motorized (August 1940)

14th Panzer (August 1940 from the 4th ID)

16th Panzer (November 1940 from 16th ID)

24th Panzer (28th November 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division .. The only cav div in the heer)

 

4th Panzer Army:

29th Motorized - Before 1940

20th Rumanian

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tracking the strengths of units:

Soviet:

I'm not going to draw conclusions from all the data but if you look you can see decently sized Soviet divisions disappearing in a week. Many divisions were rebuilt on the spot. For the third picture you have Authorized/Actual strengths. It's hard to calculate totals when you're dealing with this.

 

I can't find any definite numbers on the Germans from September 13th because the staffwork was not the best afaik. This is important because we don't know what strength the Germans actually had when they entered the city. I do have 6th army's primary source documents in pdf form but I'm not sure where to look to find their "Iststärke" (Actual strength) numbers.

I have numbers for the later months but they are not very useful without an initial strength value.

For 24th October:

And mid November:

Sorry about the off topic post. I know this also doesn't conclude much. A serious in depth look is required on this topic.

[Zeleban]

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I completely agree, but I think this was essentially what got Zeluzhny fired.

Now, with the new general, I expect to see a new and more brutal offensive by Ukraine in the spring. And this time, they won't call it off even when the casualties really start to mount.

 

Offensive? Through what means? Ukraine now receives only about 10% of the aid it received last year. And that help turned out to be insufficient for the offensive. Everyone is well aware of this, especially the generals. Currently, the front line is held only by FPV. And as we see near Avdeevka, as soon as the weather does not allow the effective use of FPV, the Russians manage to break through the front.

[dan/california]

19 minutes ago, Artkin said:

So I was a little wrong there. It seems all of 6th army was eventually destroyed.

In terms of forces involved - yeah all of the Soviet troops fighting in the city were conscripts - 62nd and 64th armies were reserve armies deployed that year. They did have fighting experience during Blau but it wasn't good experience - both armies were pretty much already decimated by the time they retreated to the city.

This is a complex question because many units were shifted around over months, and it can't be answered without going in depth. It's the reason why I'm committing to a Kursk campaign first instead of a Blau campaign.

The assault on the city began on September 13th 1942.

 

---------------------Troops trapped in pocket------------------------

6th army was composed of many late wave divisions:

1st wave - 44th ID (August 1939)

2nd wave - 71st ID, 76th ID, 79th ID (August 1939)

8th wave - 295th ID (February 1940)

12th wave - 113th ID (August 1940)

13th wave - 305th ID (November - December 1940)

18th wave - 384th ID, 389th ID (December 1941)

19th wave - 376th ID (March - April 1942)

100th Jager (July 1942 .. Eight days after Blau commenced)

3rd Motorized (October 1940)

60th Motorized (August 1940)

14th Panzer (August 1940 from the 4th ID)

16th Panzer (November 1940 from 16th ID)

24th Panzer (28th November 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division .. The only cav div in the heer)

 

4th Panzer Army:

29th Motorized - Before 1940

20th Rumanian

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tracking the strengths of units:

Soviet:

I'm not going to draw conclusions from all the data but if you look you can see decently sized Soviet divisions disappearing in a week. Many divisions were rebuilt on the spot. For the third picture you have Authorized/Actual strengths. It's hard to calculate totals when you're dealing with this.

 

I can't find any definite numbers on the Germans from September 13th because the staffwork was not the best afaik. This is important because we don't know what strength the Germans actually had when they entered the city. I do have 6th army's primary source documents in pdf form but I'm not sure where to look to find their "Iststärke" (Actual strength) numbers.

I have numbers for the later months but they are not very useful without an initial strength value.

For 24th October:

And mid November:

Sorry about the off topic post. I know this also doesn't conclude much. A serious in depth look is required on this topic.

The_Capt requested we bring reciepts, you seem to have shown up with half a library's worth. Just outstanding.

[Fernando]

8 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

If the set of new ideas/technologies required to break the stalemate is not there, adopting a defensive strategy is better than attacking just for the sake of initiative. Better retreat to the Hindenburg Line than remake of the Somme.

Of course. Ukraine doesn't need a John Bell Hood 2.0. Before launching an attack, you need to have a real chance of an offensive being successful. What I am saying is that surrendering to a general strategy of attrition would be a mistake for Ukraine.

[Fernando]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

I don't recognise this description of the second half of WWI, other than as a general outline.

The British had shown several ways to break in to solid defences in 1917 at Messines, at Passchendaele, and at Cambrai. Bite and hold is fundamentally attritional, but it's also really productive. At least in the context of 1917.

The German attacks worked - ever so briefly - in early 1918 because they had good force concentration and ratios as a result of moving forces from East to West, and because the Allied - especially British - forces they faced were themselves heavily attrited. Lloyd-George had deliberately withheld replacements from shipping to France as a way of preventing Haig mounting another offensive. However that also left the British lines wildly undermanned, and when combined with a poor defensive doctrine that hadn't previously been tested the British front line positions collapsed. Yes; the new tactics definitely helped. But the Germans would have - at least they should have - been able to advance even without them.

But the Germans couldn't sustain their own offensive. Why? Because they themselves had been so heavily attrited at the tactical, operational, strategic, and political levels. Ze Germans didn't stop in front of Ameins because they're such good sports. They stopped because they were tactically and operationally spent. Ludendorff deliberately eschewing an overarching operational plan didn't help either. "Let's just attack and take it from there! Let's see what happens!" I mean ... WTF?

The latter German attacks through to July were even stupider operationally, and wildly unsuccessful tactically. Shall we, for example, talk about the wonderful "new ideas" and "infiltration tactics" on display on 15 July? Probably best not to, eh?

Overall the main effect of the Spring offensives was to inflict such severe attrition on the German forces that, when the French and British went on to the offensive from August, they had all the defensive coherence of a wet paper bag. At that point attrition had truly done it's thing, and operational movement recommenced.

What I have said is that 1918, which had NOTHING to do with the previous period from 1915 to 1917, essentially saw a battle of tactics and ideas that broke the stalemate. The Germans introduced infiltration tactics and new ways of using artillery. The Allies countered them by introducing defense-in-depth tactics. Wherever Germans or Allies used the same tactics used in 1915-1917 (Caporetto excepted, which was a case of use of the new tactics), they repeated the disaster of the previous years.

What I have wanted to say all this time is that forming a strategy of attrition, fighting positionally until you are left with the last living soldier, seems to me to be a huge mistake. And I think Zelensky thinks the same.

[JonS]

13 minutes ago, Fernando said:

1918, which had NOTHING to do with the previous period from 1915 to 1917,

Ok ... this is not a comment that can be taken seriously.

[Fernando]

7 hours ago, Kraft said:

Im not trying to get pulled into this discussion too much but there have been significant changes in the way infantry attacks due to the prevelance of artillery, drones and low amount of soldiers.

These sort of small groups were already used to great effect by wagner more than a year ago, attacking with just small squads of 5-8, a waste for artillery and without drones they still manage to overcome small group defenders often enough. Progress is just at a snails pace.

There can be no "breakthrough" as the front is not static because of massive fortifications but because of the all seeing drone, that relays the location of any significant gathering and minutes later that gathering is gone, unless ofc republicans decide to block shells.

Not much you can do about drones atm, besides crawling 2km through a sewer pipe or dig tunnels as russians did - both times surprising defenders.

Until jammers are widespread on vehicles and infantry can be given a chance to clear mines somehow, the bog continues.

 

Infiltration tactics initially worked because small groups did not engage in fighting to take the strongpoints they found. They used tactics that could be defined as proto-blitzkrieg. They surpassed the strongpoints and it was the troops that followed them that faced those strongpoints, which at that moment they were defended by troops in positions that had been surpassed, with enemies in their rear and with communications cut off.

In Ukraine it seems that these groups do not really infiltrate, but rather take strong point by strong point without any idea of deep penetration and exploitation of the gap. I wouldn't call them true infiltration tactics, but small attacks which try to have a cumulative effect.