How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

Syrsky looking at his recruitment and training process first, while the ZSU tries to hold on. He's right. 

Any thoughts or extra info from our UKR friends? 

Edited February 23 by Kinophile

[The_Capt]

47 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I dunno, but I if theres one thing I personally took away from last year's summer offensive, it's that single lane mech assaults led by heavy slow engie vechs into defended dense minefields are pointless.

Multiple lanes on a broad frontage with many expendable and immediately replaceable Unmanned mine-cearers offer better odds. 

I think mech and explosive breaching could work but one has to set pre-conditions.  Essentially scrubbing an area of enemy, or suppressing them.  Pushing guns back or destroying them.  And somehow blocking enemy UAS (air superiority below 2000).  Get a bridgehead across in front of all that and the old 2-4 conventional breaching lanes may stand a chance.  But that is a lot of pre-conditions.  Pushing the enemy back 20-30kms and denying enemy UAS is going to take a massive firepower suit.  Which will of course give the game up and allow the enemy to position c-moves, so now you have to do it in multiple locations with deep strike to interdict.

I don’t think anyone has invented cheap/expendable/replaceable mine clearance that can be done quickly.  The old way was to use people but they are too slow.  Those minefield really remain a tough riddle.  The only other way I can see around them with the current forces is to attrit the RA until it is so brittle that it collapses.  But that takes time, and we are not even sure what that will take.

So there we are.  Waves of FPV systems, like hundreds in waves, backed up by a lot of fires is probably the best start.  Or UGVs but no one seems to be ready to upscale production.  Behind that, air superiority but that is a bit of a mirage.  And finally, attack where the minefield are not…but that gets smaller everyday.

Edited February 23 by The_Capt

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, Butschi said:

@Battlefront.com@Kinophile Thanks for the additional ammo.

Absolutely true. It's not for their benefit. I like to (repeatedly, sign of getting old?) tell people what John Ellis (see e.g. here: https://physicsworld.com/a/a-life-after-cern/ looks like Gandalf so has to be right...) said back when I was at CERN as PhD student. We were about to switch on the LHC and all the conspiracy theorists went ballistic because people at CERN were all mad and evil scientists that wanted to destroy the earth with a black hole. John Ellis said, we have to go out there and keep telling the facts and proving those people wrong. Not to convince the hardcore conspiracy theorists who 4 or 5 or 6 sigma away from normal people. We will never convince them. But to convince the people who are 1,2,3 sigma away, who listen to the 6 sigma people but still can reasoned with.

Plus if you switch it on and it creates a black hole that instantly destroys the earth it's not like they'd have time to notice...

(btw - have you read "A Hole in Texas"?

[chrisl]

16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I don’t think anyone has invented cheap/expendable/replaceable mine clearance that can be done quickly.  The old way was to use people but they are too slow.  Those minefield really remain a tough riddle.  The only other way I can see around them with the current forces is to attrit the RA until it is so brittle that it collapses.  But that takes time, and we are not even sure what that will take.

I think we've seen some hints of what could become an approach for the surface scattered minefields.  The different heating/cooling rates (and probably reflectivity, too) makes them very visible with the right camera. For a planned breaching op you might want to do something like map one day and then have a truck full of those dragofly/sparrow sized drones that are much dumber (and cheaper) than the US ones that are basically fed the coordinates of the mines and go land on them with small charges to detonate them.  Sort of like a smart line charge.

[JonS]

38 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I think mech and explosive breaching could work but one has to set pre-conditions.  Essentially scrubbing an area of enemy, or suppressing them.  Pushing guns back or destroying them.  And somehow blocking enemy UAS (air superiority below 2000).  Get a bridgehead across in front of all that and the old 2-4 conventional breaching lanes may stand a chance.  But that is a lot of pre-conditions.  Pushing the enemy back 20-30kms and denying enemy UAS

At that point, though, you don't really need mech and explosive breaching. With those conditions set you could probably achieve a breach by deploying Blind Pew and his three-legged dog.

Edited February 23 by JonS

[Battlefront.com]

Good article in Politico debunking some of the biggest myths that the right uses as its primary arguments against supporting Ukraine.  The two guys who wrote this would fit in well here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/22/4-myths-about-ukraine-war-00142513

Steve

[Fenris]

Opinion piece from Mick Ryan.  Site is paywalled but I think you get the first few page views free.  Doesn't really say anything new for people like us, it's in one of the most read news papers here so is more for the average Joe rather than for war nerd Joe's on the CM forums.

Quote

 

Two years on, Ukraine’s moral courage shames fickle West

The Ukrainian people have seen off these threats. They have demonstrated the resilience, creativity, courage and sacrifice inherent in a mature, sovereign polity. But, most crucially, the people of Ukraine have demonstrated will. It is the kind of will that many Western nations, with their short attention spans and avoidance of personal and political risk, appear to have in short supply.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/two-years-on-ukraine-s-moral-courage-shames-fickle-west-20240221-p5f6rb.html

 

 

[cesmonkey]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/experts-analyze-state-of-ukraine-war-2-years-into-russias-invasion

Quote

Saturday marks two years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With the conflict at a frozen and brutal stalemate, Nick Schifrin discussed where the war is, where it could go and U.S. policy toward Ukraine with Michael Kofman, John Mearsheimer and Rebeccah Heinrichs.

 

[Kinophile]

8 hours ago, Grigb said:

He was talking about the UKR economy. 

Well yes, of course UKR. But why is there some excessive cost to An armored brigade? ZSU has extensive experience with armored formations. What am I missing? There's a translation issue here I suspect, probably on my end. 

[Kinophile]

 

 

[fireship4]

On 2/21/2024 at 9:09 PM, Haiduk said:

UKR reenacting community lost two guys at once, reenactors of WWII Brits

Here they are both during pre-war reenacting event

 

RIP

Without prejudice, out of academic interest, the flag is not a proper Union Jack, and the rifle is a Mosin.

Edited February 23 by fireship4

[Kinophile]

 

[poesel]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Good article in Politico debunking some of the biggest myths that the right uses as its primary arguments against supporting Ukraine.  The two guys who wrote this would fit in well here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/22/4-myths-about-ukraine-war-00142513

Steve

Good article that probably those people who are in need of reading it, never will.

Fun fact: they are citing Scholz for debunking myths about Ukraine.
How far have we come?

[Bulletpoint]

9 hours ago, Kinophile said:

I dunno, but I if theres one thing I personally took away from last year's summer offensive, it's that single lane mech assaults led by heavy slow engie vechs into defended dense minefields are pointless.

Multiple lanes on a broad frontage with many expendable and immediately replaceable Unmanned mine-cearers offer better odds. 

Something like this?

 

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

 

 

full vid

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, JonS said:

At that point, though, you don't really need mech and explosive breaching. With those conditions set you could probably achieve a breach by deploying Blind Pew and his three-legged dog.

True, but I suspect this is where things are at.  Any ISR on the breach will mean PGM artillery and long range loitering munitions.  A lone ATGM team with a modern system can take out lead vehicles.  And standoff tac aviation has demonstrated what it can do.

To be perfectly honest our entire mechanical/explosive breaching tactic has only ever been done in one war that I can think of, Gulf War.  And we essentially did all the pre-conditions I am talking about with air power…and Blind Pew and his dog rolled right through them.  We never actually did live opposed minefield breaching operations.  We exercised them for decades and always “won” but never under real battlefield conditions, let alone modern ones.

The very uncomfortable truth of this war is that there is a whole lotta stuff we have only ever exercised going back into the Cold War.  ATGMs, air parity, denied environments, firepower parity, EW.  All things we practiced but never had our assumptions tested.  Gulf War looked like a validation but that war had specific context.  We assumed every war would be like that one and ‘03 reinforced that idea, even though the hints were starting to show up.

Then this war comes along and presents some major counter evidence that our tactics work at all.  So we say “Russia Sux”, “Ukraine Sux” “but we are good” like a benediction.  Worse we are tying the narrative to all of this.  If Ukraine can’t “win like we would”, well then it is on them.  The reality is that we had (have) a bunch of assumptions that have never really been tested and I suspect they are being tested in this war.  Some are enduring, like training quality, infantry and precision.  Others are not holding up too well at all, and it is making us very uncomfortable.  “Well we would roll over those minefields just like we did back in ‘91”.  Well this is not ‘91, and it is not that war.  This one has the look and feel of Korea, with 21st century technology.  

Our tactics underpin our operational constructs (manoeuvre and Mission Command), which all support our military strategy (short sharp wars of massive overmatch), which all feed into funding and spending in the trillions.  So when a war comes along that suggests we might be in the wrong movie, you can easily see people start getting their backs up. “Aw unmanned is a flash in the pan.  Someone will invent counters and things will go back to the way they were.”  But the evidence is piling up.  It is not just unmanned.  Precision weapons like the Javelin or artillery fires.  C4ISR that pretty much anyone can cobble together, including the Russians.  Denial, which will impact us as well.  It is all adding up to something shifting but most do not want it to shift too much.

Basically we are at the situation where if the enemy Blind Pew and his dog can see that minefield while we are breaching it, and they have a few precision smart weapons in range…the breach will likely fail because that breach is reliant on maybe 6-10 critical systems that can be hit very accurately by a number of systems we cannot fully deny.  We put APS on the breaching teams and PGM artillery drops on them.  We push back the artillery and UAS come in with more mines and reseed the breach.  We do everything right and the enemy has c-moves ready to bottle up the breach.  And this is before the real stuff that can defeat our defensive systems has even shown up (stand off EFP, ATGM sub munitions and mines with legs).

We need to start coming up with new ideas, not stuff to bolt on our old ones to try and keep them alive.

 

[cesmonkey]

Quote

The Ecuadorian government announced in January that it would send what it called "Ukrainian and Russian scrap metal" to the U.S. in exchange for modern equipment worth $200 million.

Washington said it planned to transfer the arms to Ukraine, followed by Moscow condemning Ecuador’s decision and limiting banana imports from the country.

Noboa told CNN Espanol in an interview that he had changed his mind about sending the Soviet-era equipment after finding out about its planned delivery to Ukraine.

"To our surprise, the United States publicly communicated that this was going to be carried out for the armed conflict in Ukraine, we do not want to be part of it," he said.

Read also: US: Moscow funds disinformation campaigns across Latin America

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, claimed on Feb. 2 that Ecuador's decision was a breach of contract between the two countries, adding it was made "under serious pressure from outside stakeholders."

A day later, Russia banned imports from five Ecuadorian banana companies, claiming that a disease had been discovered in previous shipments. Ex-Ecuadorian diplomat Carlos Estarellas reportedly said the ban might have been a retaliatory move to the arms deal.

Noboa emphasized in the CNN interview that Russia was the third most important trading partner for Ecuador, adding that they did not want to violate any international treaty.

Ecuador is one of the world's leading banana exporters. More than one-fifth of its exports in 2022 went to Russia.

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://www.ft.com/content/428fdef6-57e8-4aeb-b7f6-9845fcc045f9

main points:

"Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told EU counterparts on Monday that Ukraine needed 2.5mn artillery shells this year but that the bloc had only sent 400,000. He pleaded with them to find a solution fast.

“The Ukrainians couldn’t care less where these shells come from, and who pays for them,” said one EU diplomat. “We’re arguing over acronyms while they suffer on the front line.”

Some EU members have already chipped in, say officials familiar with the Czech scheme.

Prague needs financial contributions from national governments because EU capitals are at loggerheads over a proposed €5bn top-up of the European Peace Facility, the main EU vehicle for funding weapons supplies to Kyiv.

EU ambassadors failed to reach agreement on the EPF at a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and have set a target of agreeing the rules of a fresh capital injection before a summit of EU leaders on March 21.

Germany is insisting that its notional contribution of roughly €1.25bn be reduced to reflect its large bilateral military aid to Ukraine, worth €7bn this year.
“What is crucial for Ukraine is that military aid reaches it without bureaucratic delay. Bilateral support is very quick and efficient — it should be considered as an equivalent contribution to the European Peace Facility,” said Michael Clauss, Germany’s ambassador to the EU.

France and Greece insist that an expanded EPF should only buy weapons and ammunition from EU and Norwegian manufacturers — which would prevent it financing the Czech plan or ammunition from the US.

The French government maintains that EU funds should be used to strengthen the bloc’s defence industrial base. Greece is concerned that contracts could be signed with Turkish defence companies.

“Of course we should be buying more to help Ukraine including from outside the EU,” said French military analyst François Heisbourg. “But politically it is going to become very difficult to buy artillery shells from the US when the US Congress is refusing to send further military aid.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said EU annual production capacity will rise to 1.4mn shells by the end of 2024, outstripping the US, which is expected to hit 1.2mn next year.

In a paper for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, analysts, Franz-Stefan Gady and Michael Kofman concluded that Ukraine would need 75,000-90,000 artillery shells a month “to sustain the war defensively, and more than double that — 200,000-250,000 — for a major offensive”.

They added: “At this stage, the western coalition depends mostly on US stocks to sustain the lower range of this figure and does not have the ammunition to support a major offensive next year.”

Russia is able to make 2.5mn shells a year, according to the Royal United Services Institute think-tank. Ukrainian officials say the figure is 4mn including refurbished munitions. But that rate is far below Russia’s own frontline needs. Its forces are estimated to have fired 12mn artillery shells in 2022 and 7mn in 2023."

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

 

Earlier in the war, when Russia's airforce was largely quiet, I didn't think Western aircraft would make much of an impact on the fighting other than replacing what Ukraine's losses with something better.  However, with Russia's new found ability to drop very large dumb bombs relatively effectively on frontline positions... my opinion has changed.  While I still believe these are in no way a strategic "game changer", I do think they could have a real impact on the fighting in a way that nothing else realistic (e.g. 3-4 more Patriot batteries) can deliver.

Then there's something else to consider... Ukraine's proven ability to take just about anything and extend their special operations abilities.  I can picture something like identifying a weakness in Russia's air defenses and sneaking 2 fighters in to strike something high value in a dramatic way that perhaps can't be hit with anything else they currently have.

Steve

[Hapless]

I don't remember seeing Abrams yet:

Hard to tell exactly what's doing the fighting later on in the video- or if it's Abrams shooting at stuff- but it looks a lot like Abrams in CMBS shooting straight through things.

[Joe982]

I would have thought it's not the number of artillery shells, but how effectively they are used.

[Kinophile]

17 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

I would have thought it's not the number of artillery shells, but how effectively they are used.

There's a threshold where the quantity matters first, in terms of availability. 

[Kinophile]

We'll see. Yet more blather while Ukrainians bleed. 

[Grigb]

And now for something completely different:

RU comms instructions: Use brief call signs such as "clitoris" [yes]. UKR's comment: it explains why I typically hear stupid call signs in intercepts.

 

[Grigb]

UKR test prototype of individual solder multishot anti-FVP weapon