How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[cesmonkey]

I hope this spike in the number of Russian artillery systems claimed to have been destroyed means Ukraine is started to receive artillery rounds in bigger quantities, i.e., counter-battery fire.
 

 

[The_Capt]

And from the "with friends like these" file:

https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-04/240419_Snegovaya_Backin_Stock.pdf?VersionId=R.2JNVf7ECi8Jyk_9QVWuP8_g5KLkbCe

Edited May 4 by The_Capt

[zinz]

57 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

I hope this spike in the number of Russian artillery systems claimed to have been destroyed means Ukraine is started to receive artillery rounds in bigger quantities, i.e., counter-battery fire.
 

 

Most likely glmrs rockets. Artillery rounds more likely for the infantry. 

[Carolus]

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

11 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Personally I don't know how I feel about tanks being on the way out vs not but probably good to bring up these tweets. Makes sense to me, if offensives can't happen and you need something to use against enemy pushes and everything else is in short supply....is it ideal? Guess not but better than dead friendlies.

Random poster I follow but he brings up a really good point that does not just apply to Abrams but to just in general the mindset of full on conventional conflict and the amount of losses expected and the fact the West haven't had the type of playing field in forever and the last time comparable was a cakewalk (ish).

So....what was the expected tank losses in a full on conventional NATO vs USSR conflict?

 

More stovepipe arguments that totally miss the bigger picture.

It is correct to say that losses are expected in war and therefore losses shouldn't be surprising.  It is also correct to say that no system is invulnerable to enemy action, mechanical stress, or Mother Nature and so when any of those conditions cause a loss it shouldn't be surprising.  It is also correct to point out that the conditions of any specific war are unlikely to be duplicated exactly in any future war (or past for that matter), therefore one needs to be careful about drawing the correct conclusions for A and misapplying it to B.

The problem with all of this is that context matters.  If Ukraine lost 16% of its total Abrams and the rest were sitting with muzzles pointed into Crimea, that would be one thing.  Instead, it lost 16% failing to breach Russian lines in a meaningful way.  Further, one of the reasons it hasn't lost more Abrams is because they are being stashed in the rear and only brought up for very deliberate hit-and-run sniping missions.  Something that Lee points out is not what it is supposed to be doing, but there's very little else for it to do because of the nature of this war. 

So what we have here is a situation where an exceptionally expensive platform with a huge logistics tail and slow delivery times is unable to perform the role for which it was intended.  And if it tries to it runs a significant risk of being knocked out in exchange for little gain. 

This leads people like Lee (whom I respect) to look at this situation from the wrong end.  His argument boils down to:

The Abrams is currently in a less than ideal situation, all wars are different, and the next one might be ideal.  We should try to ensure the next war is ideal

Instead, I think the position should be:

The Abrams is currently in a less than ideal situation, all wars are different, and the next one might be even less ideal.  We should try to ensure we have what is needed for a less-than-ideal war

The arguments defending the tank were dubious at the start of this war because they were dubious before it started (i.e. there has been a strong argument against heavy armor for quite a while).  The prewar skeptics are seeing their arguments play out, the prewar supporters are floundering.  The longer this war goes on the more dismissive the supporters are of the trend lines.

Steve

[The_Capt]

42 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This leads people like Lee (whom I respect) to look at this situation from the wrong end.  His argument boils down to:

The Abrams is currently in a less than ideal situation, all wars are different, and the next one might be ideal.  We should try to ensure the next war is ideal

Instead, I think the position should be:

The Abrams is currently in a less than ideal situation, all wars are different, and the next one might be even less ideal.  We should try to ensure we have what is needed for a less-than-ideal war

The arguments defending the tank were dubious at the start of this war because they were dubious before it started (i.e. there has been a strong argument against heavy armor for quite a while).  The prewar skeptics are seeing their arguments play out, the prewar supporters are floundering.  The longer this war goes on the more dismissive the supporters are of the trend lines.

Just to pile on, the military conservatives arguments are getting weaker and weaker.  There is no military on earth that is going to prepare or go to war as they would have in 2021.  We ignored Azerbaijan-Armenia but we cannot ignore Ukraine.  The harsh reality is that our adversaries in all directions are going to work very hard to make sure our next wars are not “ideal”.  Our ability to make war “ideal” is in fact the historical anomaly and frankly it has a single data point - Gulf War.  Every fight we have been in since then has been far less than ideal by adversarial design. Why?  Because they do not want to be Saddam in another freakin Gulf War scenario.

So forget ideal.  That ship has sailed.  We are going to be looking at acceleration of trends and collisions of others.  The flip side of this whole Abrams thing is the Russian experience.  Russia has lost in the order of 3000 MBTs and around 5600 AFVs.  It is not the horrendous losses, it is what they accomplished with them - largely defensive deadlock and limited tactical gains…after three operational collapses.  The lesson here is that battlefield friction has fundamentally changed.  It has changed for everything, not just the precious tank.  Cheap, many and ISR have hunted heavy and expensive into very limited utility - not zero but much more limited than we ever imagined.  This is a large system failure.

We are pretty much at the point where only truly fanatic devotees of the old conventional system are even arguing.  Most modern military complexes are wrestling with how deep this hole is or is not.  We know we are looking at a shift, we are all arguing on how much.

[Probus]

https://www.twz.com/air/jdam-er-winged-bombs-with-seekers-that-home-in-on-gps-jammers-headed-to-ukraine

This is encouraging.

[chris talpas]

10 hours ago, Kraft said:

Uraaaaaaaaa

 

 

Glad that the Ukrainians seem to be more in line with Patton’s thinking 

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

[MikeyD]

Wasn't there a report pages and pages back that said Ukraine had lost 68 tanks in a month but Russian losses were 3 times as high, or a similar statistic? So five Abrams could be seen as 5 out of 68 total losses instead of 5 out of 40 Abrams.

[Battlefront.com]

23 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Wasn't there a report pages and pages back that said Ukraine had lost 68 tanks in a month but Russian losses were 3 times as high, or a similar statistic? So five Abrams could be seen as 5 out of 68 total losses instead of 5 out of 40 Abrams.

The 5 Abrams were lost last year, so not relevant to any specific month's accounting this year.

Steve

[Probus]

I know this is kinda old news, but do we know what took out each Abrams?  We're some of them just mobility kills from mines?

[holoween]

30 minutes ago, Probus said:

I know this is kinda old news, but do we know what took out each Abrams?  We're some of them just mobility kills from mines?

At least 1 was taken out by atgm. there is a video where it gets hit twice in the left side. 1st in the hull and 2nd in the turret.

[MikeyD]

I recall during one of the Gulf wars the Pentagon, in mid-invasion, received a (false) rumor that Iraq had got some Kornet missiles from Syria, and they FREAKED! Caused them considerable consternation.

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, holoween said:

At least 1 was taken out by atgm. there is a video where it gets hit twice in the left side. 1st in the hull and 2nd in the turret.

This article states two were taken out by ATGM and one by an FPV (presumably a Lancet):

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/05/03/harried-by-100000-ukrainian-drones-a-month-russian-troops-learn-to-dodge-and-beg-for-shotguns/?sh=4c1fb23b1e05

At the time of the article he apparently didn't know about the other two.  Apparently 3 others were damaged.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

58th Mech put out a video showing 40+ destroyed Russian vehicles.  No timeframe on their destruction, but many of them have extensive cages on them.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=462563436207861

Other news tidbits show that Russia had a REALLY bad day yesterday.  Ukraine claims 1200 Russians KIA, which was the 6th day of reporting 1000+.

Steve

[Eddy]

And a Su25 shot down is being claimed too

https://bsky.app/profile/noelreports.bsky.social/post/3kronzlzdz22h

Quote

Soldiers of the 110th Mechanized Infantry Brigade shot down a Russian Su-25 in the Donetsk region.

I'm hoping that it indicates that SAM resupplies are arriving. Is the 110th Brigade the one that relieved the 47th when things went a bit wrong the other day? I can't remember. 

[LongLeftFlank]

On 5/1/2024 at 11:58 PM, dan/california said:

Lets just say he is unimpressed with his commanders...

Assuming a straight translation, this cri de coeur was written by a starshina (senior NCO), so perhaps born around 1980?

Say what you will about Russia sux, but.... I just can't imagine a US Army master sergeant of similar vintage (high school diploma late 1990s, maybe some college) being able to organise their thoughts in writing in this way.

Compare the late Roman chronicler Ammianus (5th century AD):

The affair caused more joy than fear and educated flatterers immoderately praised the good fortune of the [Emperor Valens], which unexpectedly brought him so many young recruits from the ends of the earth, that by the union of his own and foreign forces he would have an invincible army. In addition, instead of the levy of soldiers, which was contributed annually by each province, there 
would accrue to the treasury a vast amount of gold.

TL:DR  For all its dysfuntions, Russian civ clearly had some things far better to offer to the world than what they are showing now... a country where chess is a spectator sport. Those of us with Russian friends would agree with this, I suspect. (But no doubt foreigners with educated German friends thought some of the same bemused thoughts in 1941)

...I can't even begin to imagine the fury I would feel, were I a Russian, at the cynical throwing away by Putin and his mafiya of an entire generation that includes among the 'meat' many well-educated and motivated people.

[Battlefront.com]

Nice footage of a Russian MT-LB loaded up with infantry knowing they are being followed.  They have a very interesting method for dismounting (Hail Mary Style™), which was a good move because a Bradley was already on its way:

Steve

[photon]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Say what you will about Russia sux, but.... I just can't imagine a US Army master sergeant of similar vintage (high school diploma late 1990s, maybe some college) being able to organise their thoughts in writing in this way.

Not a US Army master sergeant, but an Imperial Japanese officer in 1943 or 1944? Totally. The parallels are worrying for threading the needle of defeat-without-total-collapse. It takes a lot to shake a society to its senses once it's decided that glorious death is as good as victory.

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, photon said:

Not a US Army master sergeant, but an Imperial Japanese officer in 1943 or 1944? Totally. The parallels are worrying for threading the needle of defeat-without-total-collapse. It takes a lot to shake a society to its senses once it's decided that glorious death is as good as victory.

There is a good Phd thesis in that comparison somewhere. I think by far the most obvious difference is that the Japanese upper classes considered military service to be the most honorable profession there was, and they meant it to. Their army did not consists of societies rejects. Russia seems to consider the war a chance to practice some quick and dirty eugenics, as it feeds the meat grinder with prisoners, minorities, and the poorest of the poor.

One of the things both cultures share though is that they have their roots an enormous societal disruption. Japan had the quickest, all be it arguably most successful, entry into the modern world of pretty much any country on earth, And Russia has seen its entire system turned upside down twice in a century. 

[Vet 0369]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Assuming a straight translation, this cri de coeur was written by a starshina (senior NCO), so perhaps born around 1980?

Say what you will about Russia sux, but.... I just can't imagine a US Army master sergeant of similar vintage (high school diploma late 1990s, maybe some college) being able to organise their thoughts in writing in this way.

Compare the late Roman chronicler Ammianus (5th century AD):

The affair caused more joy than fear and educated flatterers immoderately praised the good fortune of the [Emperor Valens], which unexpectedly brought him so many young recruits from the ends of the earth, that by the union of his own and foreign forces he would have an invincible army. In addition, instead of the levy of soldiers, which was contributed annually by each province, there 
would accrue to the treasury a vast amount of gold.

TL:DR  For all its dysfuntions, Russian civ clearly had some things far better to offer to the world than what they are showing now... a country where chess is a spectator sport. Those of us with Russian friends would agree with this, I suspect. (But no doubt foreigners with educated German friends thought some of the same bemused thoughts in 1941)

...I can't even begin to imagine the fury I would feel, were I a Russian, at the cynical throwing away by Putin and his mafiya of an entire generation that includes among the 'meat' many well-educated and motivated people.

This! The National prejudice attitude that many on this forum seem to have toward Russians tends to color their comments and lead them to dehumanize and demonize the Russian people as ignorant savages who are always drunk, raping and killing babies. Yes, possibly the conscripts and prisoner “volunteers” are more brutal and resigned to their deaths than seems the norm. Can you say Igor Sikorsky, Tolstoy, Tchikovsky? Not everyone is ignorant, uneducated, and brutal. No one should be surprised by Russians who make intelligent and insightful statements. I see the same ignorant and prejudicial statements about every opponent the U.S. has ever faced. It’s much easier to kill a fellow Human being when you make that person out to be so inferior to you.

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of the people in the thirties who refused to believe Nazism could take hold in Germany. "But but but... Its the land of Goethe!'

[Kraft]

[G.I. Joe]

3 hours ago, MikeyD said:

I'm reminded of the people in the thirties who refused to believe Nazism could take hold in Germany. "But but but... Its the land of Goethe!'

At the end of the day, we're all human...that always cuts both ways.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

This! The National prejudice attitude that many on this forum seem to have toward Russians tends to color their comments and lead them to dehumanize and demonize the Russian people as ignorant savages who are always drunk, raping and killing babies. Yes, possibly the conscripts and prisoner “volunteers” are more brutal and resigned to their deaths than seems the norm. Can you say Igor Sikorsky, Tolstoy, Tchikovsky? Not everyone is ignorant, uneducated, and brutal. No one should be surprised by Russians who make intelligent and insightful statements. I see the same ignorant and prejudicial statements about every opponent the U.S. has ever faced. It’s much easier to kill a fellow Human being when you make that person out to be so inferior to you.

I don't think anybody here has concluded that all Russians are dumb as rocks.  It's just that the ones who aren't dumb as rocks don't tend to be fighting at the front and those that are haven't shown a lot of Humanity in their conduct.  The Sikorsky, Tolstoy, and Tchikovsky types are either living abroad in exile, hiding their true selves within Russia, or are actively in support of what's being done in their names.

I had a much better and more optimistic view of Russians before and shortly after the war started.  I've been quite disappointed how little has changed in their national character.

Steve