How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

If I were the Russians, I’d do my best to make Kharkiv not worth holding for Ukraine. Completely level it a la Grozny. I don’t know if they have enough KABs or artillery within range to do it, but I guess if they were able to hit power and water and take it offline reliably, that would go some towards achieving the effect.

The central problem for Ukraine is not that Russia has a real chance of encircling Kharkiv (it does NOT), nor is it that Russia can level it with artillery (Russia already tried that and failed).  Instead the main problem for Ukraine is that it's a new front they have to pour resources into in order to make sure Russia can't encircle and flatten Kharkiv.  Which it can do, but that comes at the expense of other operations.

The interesting thing to me is that this is also a distraction for Russia.  Resources going to this bridgehead could be used elsewhere.  Maybe they've calculated that they get more out of distracting Ukraine's efforts than they lose by diluting their own?  I think there's a lot of evidence to support this premise.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

I don't think they will like "their" Kharkik in total ruins 

They didn't mind having "their" Mariupol in total ruins.

Steve

[ASL Veteran]

 

 

Bunch of random stuff I ran across

Quote

The Russians prepare to destroy a lot of artillery shells using DKRP-4 line charge, and many blocks of TNT. I wonder what is wrong with them.

This was from a post on X, but I'm having technical difficulties getting it into my post

Russian motorcycle troops in action

 

 

[Sequoia]

I've not been able to keep up with the amount of posts on this forum, so forgive me if this has been discussed of late, but I am curious about the current domestic situation in Beyelorus and Kaliningrad.  I'm rather surprised there hasn't been more unrest in Beyelorus since Uncle Vlad is otherwise occupied. I also read now that Finland has joined NATO, Kaliningrad has lost much of its strategic value to Moscow. Troops stationed there were being transferred elsewhere, emboldening a growing independence movement.

[Letter from Prague]

This is the first time I ever heard of Kaliningrad independence movement. Is it even self sufficient? Or would they want to join Poland or something?

[Letter from Prague]

48 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

They didn't mind having "their" Mariupol in total ruins.

Steve

Yeah, I would expect that by this point, any "Russians wouldn't do X because it's too inhuman" has been thoroughly debunked for all possible X.

Just like the claims "they did the initial invasion in a way to limit the damage" are just Russian apologia. They specifically targeted hospital and kindergartens and did the whole Bucha thing in the initial invasion.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, panzermartin said:

Yeah, the numbers and the data seem impossible at the moment. Bear in mind at the same time the size and the many corridors make this city hard to defend also for Ukraine (that has numerical disadvantage) . 

I don't think a complete encirclement will be ever possible. But semi encirclement, control of critical junctions, the northern buffer zone and constant harrasment of supply routes are possible and will make the situation difficult for the defender. 

I think you are confusing numbers with combat power.  I would argue that the UA has the higher levels of combat power and the benefit of being on the defence.  This is not some master-bold Russian play, it is far more likely a gambit to draw away some of the incoming western support to a side-show to take strain off the main RA effort in the south.

You are also viewing this thing through a skewed lens.  “Russia get all upside and Ukraine all down.”  Russia is going to lose a lot of people and equipment if they try much more than nibbling, and even that is going to cost them.  But of course if one has bought into the “bottomless Russia” narrative it is easy to simply discount Russian losses…right up to the point you can’t.  Russia is not “bottomless.”  It has a breaking point, we know this because we have seen it.  

We have sat through more “uh oh, this is it” noise in the last six months than the entire war.  Yet was Russia really have to show for it?  A few more small towns. A few more chunks of ground.  No operational breakthroughs, no major positional advantage. The closest we got to “very bad” was when the UA started running out of AD and artillery, but that appears to be easing off.  “Ukraine is desperately short troops!”  Who says?  Do we really know Ukrainian troop numbers?  What is in the force generation pipeline?  

Now, another push near Kharkiv is the sign they are going to encircle and cut supply lines.  If the RA could do that why are they not doing it down south?  This is freakin dance floor grinding in slow motion.  If something does really happen we will see it.  Until then at least try to keep a level of objective assessment.

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, panzermartin said:

Yeah, the numbers and the data seem impossible at the moment. Bear in mind at the same time the size and the many corridors make this city hard to defend also for Ukraine (that has numerical disadvantage) . 

I don't think a complete encirclement will be ever possible. But semi encirclement, control of critical junctions, the northern buffer zone and constant harrasment of supply routes are possible and will make the situation difficult for the defender. 

How many encirclements has Russia succeeded at so far in the war?  They've struggled mightily to fail at encircling even a few km^2 of villages that have a single road intersection.  As pointed out by Steve and @The_Capt, Kharkiv is a huge area of very hostile environment to even attempt.  And that they failed miserably at when they had at least the pretense of surprise and fresh troops and their best equipment.

 

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

If I were the Russians, I’d do my best to make Kharkiv not worth holding for Ukraine. Completely level it a la Grozny. I don’t know if they have enough KABs or artillery within range to do it, but I guess if they were able to hit power and water and take it offline reliably, that would go some towards achieving the effect.

Russia might have an artillery tube advantage, but Ukraine likely has sufficient "action at a distance" and untouchable ISR to limit that.  Russia can't just park a few battalions of tubes and send shells for days - they'll be spotted on their way to park and drones will get them within a few rounds if they don't move.  So they can probably launch a long steady harassing fire on Kharkiv, but attempting to level it at this point would require tactical nukes, and if Putin hasn't gone there yet, I don't think he's going to go there just to level Kharkiv. If he were considering doing that, why bother with a ground attack?

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, ASL Veteran said:

 

 

Bunch of random stuff I ran across

This was from a post on X, but I'm having technical difficulties getting it into my post

Russian motorcycle troops in action

 

 

The artillery delivered mines are several more nails tank is dead coffin. The Russians stacked so much armor and EW equipment on the top of a tank that is can barely move, see, or shoot. And then they die like the little ducks at a carnival game. A few kilograms of explosive can wreck an an armored vehicle that weighs many tens of tons, and costs many millions of dollars, and there simply too many ways to deliver that bang.

[Probus]

Don't you think that armor will just have a new incarnation? One in which top and side armor is designed to combat the threats of these small inexpensive drones.  May take 5-7 years...  Who knows. With CAD Systems the development time may be slashed.

[hcrof]

Some thoughts on how to do tanks here:

I believe that the tank needs to change a lot, but with my concept they can become relevant again. They are smaller, more lethal and bring their own drone swarm... 

Edit - haha Probus, I think I just answered your question the moment you asked it!

Edit 2 - hit me with your criticism everyone - I am interested if you can pick holes in my design. 

Edited May 11 by hcrof

[Eddy]

47 minutes ago, chrisl said:

but attempting to level it at this point would require tactical nukes, and if Putin hasn't gone there yet, I don't think he's going to go there just to level Kharkiv

Yep, and on that very subject:

Summary: very highly unlikely in order to win in Ukraine, less highly unlikely but still unlikely if Russia faces a disaster.

As to how he comes to these conclusions .... watch the vid    

[The_Capt]

30 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Some thoughts on how to do tanks here:

I believe that the tank needs to change a lot, but with my concept they can become relevant again. They are smaller, more lethal and bring their own drone swarm... 

Edit - haha Probus, I think I just answered your question the moment you asked it!

Edit 2 - hit me with your criticism everyone - I am interested if you can pick holes in my design. 

Ok.  I guess my first question is “what does this really give us?”  I like the idea of mixed potent light tanks but these are still 1) highly visible, 2) will have long logistics tails and 3) very expensive - you specifically are porting tech from F-35s (eg transparent hulls).  So for all that money we get:

- a 105 direct fire gun

- a 40mm gun

- ATGMs 

- and a drone control platform

The problem immediately is that I can get all that effects-wise with distributed light infantry, PGMs and drone swarms at much less cost and far harder to see and hit.  We just had a video of the drone control platform being four guys in a basement.  The direct fires support is already being replaced by PGM artillery and FPVs…and ATGMs are..well already man-portable.  Why stick them on a heavy vehicle when I can simply put them on fast dismounts all over the place?  I can put them on a quad bike for mobility. Or better yet a UGV.

To my mind this is a novel re-think of the system that assumes we still need the overall system to deliver effects when it is becoming clear we really don’t.  I do not see how this new tank platoon is going to fare much better in say 10 years. Drones will be fully autonomous by then with new forms of stand-off attack. ISR will be even more ubiquitous. PGMs will be everywhere. These are lighter than current MBTs but still are 30t hot steel that rely on ground movement and direct fire. This kind of looks like trying to invent a better horse in 1918.

Edited May 11 by The_Capt

[OldSarge]

NVM, was already posted earlier.

Edited May 11 by OldSarge

[poesel]

My guess is that Russia gambles on a freeze in '25 and tries to grab as much territory for a better position in the bargain. The losses from the war don't bother Putin politically (and in every other aspect) so every additional square meter is a win for him.

Militarily, the Kharkiv thing doesn't make sense, but politically it does. If they could, they would create more similar areas. Unfortunately, Ukraine cannot respond in kind.

[hcrof]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok.  I guess my first question is “what does this really give us?”  I like the idea of mixed potent light tanks but these are still 1) highly visible, 2) will have long logistics tails and 3) very expensive - you specifically are porting tech from F-35s (eg transparent hulls).  So for all that money we get:

- a 105 direct fire gun

- a 40mm gun

- ATGMs 

- and a drone control platform

The problem immediately is that I can get all that effects-wise with distributed light infantry, PGMs and drone swarms at much less cost and far harder to see and hit.  We just had a video of the drone control platform being four guys in a basement.  The direct fires support is already being replaced by PGM artillery and FPVs…and ATGMs are..well already man-portable.  Why stick them on a heavy vehicle when I can simply put them on fast dismounts all over the place?  I can put them on a quad bike for mobility. Or better yet a UGV.

To my mind this is a novel re-think of the system that assumes we still need the overall system to deliver effects when it is becoming clear we really don’t.  I do not see how this new tank platoon is going to fare much better in say 10 years. Drones will be fully autonomous by then with new forms of stand-off attack. ISR will be even more ubiquitous. PGMs will be everywhere. These are lighter than current MBTs but still are 30t hot steel that rely on ground movement and direct fire. This kind of looks like trying to invent a better horse in 1918.

I appreciate the feedback. Yes they are expensive but they are not just a direct fire platform - they are equally strong at indirect fire and with drones and 105mm they can engage enemies up to 20km away. Its just they can also splat anything with direct fire if required, especially in urban combat.

Maybe UGVs will become effective, maybe not. They have terrible issues with control signals which are pretty physics limited and full autonomy is hard... As for quad bikes - not very good at attacking as the Russians like to show us. 

I am not saying this will be used by itself - a drone swarm will sanitise a zone like a tac nuke, and this will be the armoured fist to punch through anything that survived (supported by much cheaper wheeled APCs, mortar vehicles and drone carriers that I described in the same thread). Importantly, the platoon has tools to create its own bubble of denial so it can potentially "do Manoeuvre" without getting zapped by drones.  If UGVs work, then everything is obsolete, but we could build these tanks with todays tech. 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.threads.net/@maks_23_ua/post/C61y2oCLzVT

TOP NEWS TODAY BAVOVNA: Oil Depot in Rovenki, Luhansk region,

Lukoil oil refinery, Belgorod and Donetsk.

The UK is delivering its largest ever military aid package to Ukraine (£500m).

A fuel tanker caught fire at the "Kuberle" railway station in Rostov region, Russia.

Another Russian Su-25 was shot down in the Avdiivka direction, - 110 OMBR

USA approved possible sale to Ukraine of HIMARS and program support ($30 million).

 

 

[The_Capt]

26 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I appreciate the feedback. Yes they are expensive but they are not just a direct fire platform - they are equally strong at indirect fire and with drones and 105mm they can engage enemies up to 20km away. Its just they can also splat anything with direct fire if required, especially in urban combat.

Sure but we already have tactical reach out to 20kms, why do we need to put it on heavy metal?  In urban combat why won’t these be steel coffins like tanks are now?  What I am not seeing is fundamentally how these are going to improve survivability or firepower beyond what can be delivered now. Quads are fast but vulnerable…now how many quads with ATGMs can I buy for the cost of a single platoon of this new armor?

What this system would offer is mobility and maybe better than what we have now, but that is offset by the fourth tent in the pole - visibility.  Next-gen ISR is going to see these well out from contact, they are massive metal targets that have to sit back 10-20kms providing long range fires…which is exactly what MBTs are doing in this war.

As to unmanned, the major shortfall in western thinking is “signal”. Fully autonomous systems are already today’s technology.  They are only going to accelerate over time for the exact reason your new tank system is supporting: because full autonomy can defeat the systems we keep using, better and cheaper.  There is no “maybe” on UGVs, not after this war.  Once air and ground fully autonomous systems are in the field, and here we are talking months, maybe a few years, not decades, then this entire system is obsolete; unless you can uncrew the entire thing and make it lighter, smaller and more distributed.  The future is to fight like the fog, not the snow.

Finally, I am still not sure on the armoured fist requirement.  If we have swarms that can sanitize and area, why do I need to send armor to punch when I can send more drone swarms?  Out of all those vehicles in that package, maybe the armored drone platform has some traction.  Put a defensive drone swarm around it and maybe you have a hands-back C4ISR platform with some speed and survivability doing AWAC/JTAC type battle space management of fully autonomous unmanned systems.

Otherwise this still looks like a better hammer, but my sense is that the time of the hammer is over. We are moving to a time of needles.

Edited May 11 by The_Capt

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

This is the first time I ever heard of Kaliningrad independence movement. Is it even self sufficient? Or would they want to join Poland or something?

Królewiec is a huge military base. The ratio of soldiers and sailors to civilian population alone discourages any serious idea of an independence movement. Also, such movement would have no national or historical roots - practically no one living there nowadays had any antecedents in the area during the Prussian reign.I am afraid that if there is any pretense of separatist movement all its members are FSB provocators.

[hcrof]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Sure but we already have tactical reach out to 20kms, why do we need to put it on heavy metal?  In urban combat why won’t these be steel coffins like tanks are now?  What I am not seeing is fundamentally how these are going to improve survivability or firepower beyond what can be delivered now. Quads are fast but vulnerable…now how many quads with ATGMs can I buy for the cost of a single platoon of this new armor?

What this system would offer is mobility and maybe better than what we have now, but that is offset by the fourth tent in the pole - visibility.  Next-gen ISR is going to see these well out from contact, they are massive metal targets that have to sit back 10-20kms providing long range fires…which is exactly what MBTs are doing in this war.

As to unmanned, the major shortfall in western thinking is “signal”. Fully autonomous systems are already today’s technology.  They are only going to accelerate over time for the exact reason your new tank system is supporting: because full autonomy can defeat the systems we keep using, better and cheaper.  There is no “maybe” on UGVs, not after this war.  Once air and ground fully autonomous systems are in the field, and here we are talking months, maybe a few years, not decades, then this entire system is obsolete; unless you can uncrew the entire thing and make it lighter, smaller and more distributed.  The future is to fight like the fog, not the snow.

Finally, I am still not sure on the armoured fist requirement.  If we have swarms that can sanitize and area, why do I need to send armor to punch when I can send more drone swarms?  Out of all those vehicles in that package, maybe the armored drone platform has some traction.  Put a defensive drone swarm around it and maybe you have a hands-back C4ISR platform with some speed and survivability doing AWAC/JTAC type battle space management of fully autonomous unmanned systems.

Otherwise this still looks like a better hammer, but my sense is that the time of the hammer is over. We are moving to a time of needles.

So I better understand what you are saying now - you are going "all in" drones and think that the full range of autonomous systems will be here so fast that it is not worth investing in an intermediate platform. At this point none of us know the future but personally I would hedge: the current generation of land vehicles are all '80s vintage concepts with some add-ons bolted on, which are effectively obsolete already, and I think we need a replacement platform.

I agree fully autonomous flying drones are just around the corner, butcompanies like Anduril are already demonstrating a way to put up a protective bubble to deny/degrade enemy drone ISR within a certain area. This does not eliminate the drone threat, but it does increase the cost so they may not be as permanently dominant as they are today. Instead, you would need to fight for drone superiority and use that window of opportunity to defeat the enemy (i.e. put boots on the ground somewhere). 

UGVs are both much, much harder to automate than UAVs and also much more reliant of very comprehensive automation. Personally I don't see it happening in the next 10 years. Even if you can make UGV that can handle unpredictable muddy terrain at night, then identify a target which is extremely well camouflaged (see below) can you do this without sucking kWatts of power and draining the battery in just a few hours? I see that technology supplementing crew performance in crewed vehicles for a while before it hits the big time (i.e. aim assist, automatic flagging of potential threats, route suggestions etc.). 

And are the novel tanks so hot and easy to see? With Multi-spectral camouflage (Barracuda), rubber tracks, electric drive within 20km of the front line and movement at night to hide the dust cloud you are going to be hard to spot and hear (remember you also have your own drone bubble up to counter enemy drones). Yes radar can identify something moving, but you can move a bunch of dumb UGVs (or quadbikes) with radar reflectors at the same time to conceal your intentions. 

Better not to be stuck in 2035 with a bunch of guys with ATGMs and a wishlist for UGVs that have not arrived yet.

I am not saying it is 100% the correct answer (I am just a desk jockey in a civilian job) but its fun to game it out!

[JonS]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

The artillery delivered mines are several more nails tank is dead coffin.

Then the tank has been dead since the late 1970s - RAAM is very old tech.

[JonS]

51 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

As to unmanned, the major shortfall in western thinking is “signal”. Fully autonomous systems are already today’s technology.

The thing I wonder about fully autonomous (well, ok; one of the things I wonder about with fully autonomous) is how much it's going to slow down the OODA loop. If I have a bunch of fully autonomous drones tooling around at the FEBA, they're likely working on yesterday's or last week's targeting data. When a new target pops up today, NOW, it's going to take a lot longer to get a fully autonomous drone squadron up and at 'em than calling up a gun battery or a friendly tank platoon to sort the problem out.

[hcrof]

11 minutes ago, JonS said:

The thing I wonder about fully autonomous (well, ok; one of the things I wonder about with fully autonomous) is how much it's going to slow down the OODA loop. If I have a bunch of fully autonomous drones tooling around at the FEBA, they're likely working on yesterday's or last week's targeting data. When a new target pops up today, NOW, it's going to take a lot longer to get a fully autonomous drone squadron up and at 'em than calling up a gun battery or a friendly tank platoon to sort the problem out.

So I agree a gun battery is likely to have faster effects on target, but a tank platoon needs to have line of sight on your target and has a max range of 3km or so. The grey zone in Ukraine is 20km wide so it is very unlikely that they will be in the right place at the right time.

[Battlefront.com]

38 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Królewiec is a huge military base. The ratio of soldiers and sailors to civilian population alone discourages any serious idea of an independence movement. Also, such movement would have no national or historical roots - practically no one living there nowadays had any antecedents in the area during the Prussian reign.I am afraid that if there is any pretense of separatist movement all its members are FSB provocators.

My understanding is that the civilians in Kaliningrad are not unified in their desire to stay with Russia or to become independent.  My guess is that if Russia started to crumble the public opinion would shift towards independence, with some pretty solid support from its neighbors.  However, absent a Russian central control collapse scenario I don't think anything will change there.

Steve

[poesel]

Ok, we got 7 points from Ukraine in the ESC. That assures future German support.