How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[ArmouredTopHat]

13 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I really do challenge this without more real world data.  And I am not sure how we are defining "major effect on the battlefield."  The IDF have not been in any peer-on-peer wars, all COIN/CT level stuff, even now in Gaza.  They have swatted some insurgency ATGM, ok, cool.  But that is not a "major impact on the battlefield" by any stretch.

And again, IDF mounting on their armored vehicles is not proof of anything really.  Militaries have long proud histories of investing in short-lifespan stuff.  I mean I suppose it proves that the IDF think they are worth it, for operations that the IDF are likely to face...in the past.  The IDF is not facing anything close to what we are seeing in this war.

The fact that the Israelis are able to employ mass armour effectively in a tight, urban environment against opposition that has a fair bit of AT capability (Both home grown and imported) with minimal losses is clearly something significant, especially when we know that traditionally this is an environment that tanks have normally suffered horribly in. (Grozy comes to mind, same level of insurgency against mass armour) How are the systems Hamas use any different from the systems the Russians have when it comes to ATGMs and RPGs?

If we saw masses of burned out Merkava's I would be less certain, but its clear they have pretty dominant so far. 

My argument would be if APS was of dubious value then Israel would not be actively clamouring for as many as they can get their hands on. A decade of them going 'this works well and we want more' seems to be pretty compelling to me and is anything but short term. I seem to recall they were pretty cautious with the system at first. Now they want to equip -every- vehicle with it. All evidence shows that the system has been working and has undoubtedly saved far more in terms of monetary value of potential lost vehicles to the cost of the system as a whole. 

I am not saying its a silver bullet system, but its just another step down the road of a very complex and continuous war between protection and firepower and seems pretty obviously of value. 

Edited June 4 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

17 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

To be honest, I do not think that this has anything to do with "sucking" and everything to do with costs and possibly the threats they have been facing.  We are again back to Russian performance being written off to "sucking" without any real proof one way or the other. We have no evidence of the poor performance of the system by design or faulty implementation.  

The costs of trying to outfit every vehicle may have simply been to high for the RA and impossible to sustain in a war of this intensity (possibly a lesson for us there).  Or perhaps it was the threat systems being used on those APS - it has been noted that current APS systems are not effective against top down attack, and the Javelin is reported to have very high Pk rates.

Except we know from evidence that Russian weapons procurement is truly a **** show due to an inherently corrupt system that means lots of money disappears instead of actually being used to develop a working weapon. 

I think its pretty evident that something of the sort likely took place with Arena, with cost coming in to put a nail in the coffin. Yet from the literal thousands of destroyed tanks in Ukraine well before FPVs were even in use, its clear they made the wrong decision in going for mediocre upgrades like T-72B3 instead of something more long term. (they even screwed that up with Armata)

How many of those destroyed tanks might have been saved with a working APS system in widespread use, even if it meant cutting overall tank numbers down by 30% to do so (Trophy reportedly costs 30% of a Merkeva Mk4) Even something that might be less effective than Trophy would have substantially reduced the attrition rate taken from Stugnas, NLAWs, Javelins and the plethora of other threats that were doing the majority of the tank killing for 2022-2023. 
 

[The_Capt]

23 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

As a note to FPV usage in general, this is the first conflict that has truly demonstrated the value and potency of such system in widescale use. Against inventories of vehicles designed largely in the cold war its no surprise in many respects that FPV's have been so deadly. No one has really had to sit down and look at the reality as it stands on the battlefield to this degree before. 

I challenge the drone supremacy thinkers among us to think on this. What happens when the shoe is on the other foot? Historically new weapons or systems tend to be countered in some form of another, and we are only just at the starting point for weaponised drones. Is it not possible to consider that systems  could or will be designed in the future that heavily curtail drones? We already see plenty of systems in areas like EWAR that inflict pretty heavy losses on drone platforms, to me it feels a little strange to think that said systems will not evolve and be complimented by others, even as drones evolve themselves. I feel like the only certainty here is that there will be a race of sorts to be acted out, or just an extension of the rivalry between offensive and defensive systems that we have seen on vehicles since the first world war. 

Consider the following scenario. One nation goes all out on drones and unmanned systems while largely discarding manned vehicles, while another goes heavy on APS / drone killing technology on their own vehicles. Of course this is all entirely theoretical (I dont think anyone really can predict the future of warfare with any certainty) but just hear me out.

What happens if it turns out that a mass of new gen vehicles operating APS / drone countering systems are able to effectively deal with drones. Suddenly the other nation might be regretting getting rid of its tanks or manned mobile elements when its getting overrun by its enemy without a proper means to deal with them. 

I suppose the point I am trying (and likely failing) to make is that I am very wary of singular systems turning the whole system on its head, or assuming that other systems are going to remain exactly the same. Its obvious drones are going to be a very real and massive element on the battlefield, but I cant help but feel like systems currently in use will simply adapt like they do when any new fangled technology reaches the battlefield. 

I do apologise for the rambling. 
 

Not rambling but I would encourage you to widen your aperture - you clearly have demonstrated the potential in these discussion but I fear you remain somewhat restricted by conventional boxes.

The aim here is not to create "and all drone force" or "all APS c-drone force." and have them play smash-smash until one side wins.  The aim here is to evolve our land warfare systems to best effect. Hcrof has already outlined some very good ideas on how to do this and none of them include "and all drone force".

So I for one would stop investing in heavy metal...period.  We can find way to repurpose the metal we have, and yes, that will include protections for it.  But heavy metal - and here I am talking armor, IFVs and AFVs will need to be re-rolled to a greater or lesser degree.  So what do I want?

- C4ISR - best in the world.  I want a fully illuminated battlefield in real time that can integrate all my shooters in a cloud-like concept.  I see targets early and can pull from that cloud of a self-healing network of offensive systems.  From sub-surface, surface, air, space and cyber - I want See, Hear, Understand superiority.  With that I can beat just about anyone.

- Precision (see C4ISR).  I want a precision based force.  300 bullets means 300 kills.  I want that precision linked and able to swing on a dime to bring massed precision to any point on the battlefield.  I want to be able to melt an opponents operational system in quick time from front end to industry.

- Unmanned (see Precision and C4ISR) - I want humans doing what they do best - battlespace management.  I want fewer of them but they are the owners of the nodes, not mass.  Mass needs to be machine based because it is 1) sustainable as dead metal has much less effect on human will, 2) cheaper in the longer term (humans are very cheap in the short), 3) much less prone to errors and friction.  I want unmanned to be the front edge of battle. I want it armed with Precision and ISR.

- Fires.  Strike is not going anywhere.  If someone told me I have 5B dollars..."where do you want it?"  A good slice would be into over-the-horizon fires - guns, missiles and loitering.  I do not want an "unmanned force" - I want a Firepower Force.  See it, kill it, repeat.  I want to use fires as manouevre.  

- Infantry.  Not for mass but there is a reality that people will be needed forward. Likely paired with machines but the human brain is still the most powerful processor in the universe (that we know of) and war is still all about people.  I want light, fast and dispersed infantry.  Crawling into everything like sand up the bikini, and they can take the machines with them.

All of that means Denial at worst and crushing corrosive warfare at best.  I would take that up against any military on the planet right now.  I do not care if an opponent comes at me with f#cking dragons with wizards on them; I will be able to see and hit from so many different angles that there is no force protection in existence that will allow them to advance.  Wrap your tanks in bubble wrap, I will hit logistics back to the break rooms. Further, that advancing would be capable of terrifying offensive effects.   

I want mass precision beats everything.

Now I am not going to get that, but I want investments to take us in that direction and not backwards.  Why?  Because there is a lot more evidence coming from this war, and the ones before it, that this is the direction where things are heading. More than any way we have fought in the past. As a student of military history, I can see the writing on the wall - we are looking at a shift, again. We will continue to negotiate with the future, everyone does, but we can at least be smarter about it. 

Edited June 5 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

17 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

The fact that the Israelis are able to employ mass armour effectively in a tight, urban environment against opposition that has a fair bit of AT capability (Both home grown and imported) with minimal losses is clearly something significant, especially when we know that traditionally this is an environment that tanks have normally suffered horribly in. (Grozy comes to mind, same level of insurgency against mass armour) How are the systems Hamas use any different from the systems the Russians have when it comes to ATGMs and RPGs?

If we saw masses of burned out Merkava's I would be less certain, but its clear they have pretty dominant so far. 

My argument would be if APS was of dubious value then Israel would not be actively clamouring for as many as they can get their hands on. A decade of them going 'this works well and we want more' seems to be pretty compelling to me and is anything but short term. I seem to recall they were pretty cautious with the system at first. Now they want to equip -every- vehicle with it. All evidence shows that the system has been working and has undoubtedly saved far more in terms of monetary value of potential lost vehicles to the cost of the system as a whole. 

I am not saying its a silver bullet system, but its just another step down the road of a very complex and continuous war between protection and firepower and seems pretty obviously of value. 

Mass armor...really?  I mean sure they are employed but "mass" is a bit of a reach.  Then the question of "ok, so how many instances of insurgent ATGMs are we talking about?"  Swatting a dozen missiles when an opponent has a dozen missiles is a 100% success rate but hardly is definitive.

Again, I am sure APS is valuable to the IDF, no debate there. But as you, and others have noted repeatedly, what is going on with the IDF in that action may not translate to this one, nor may it translate to the next one.  If I were building a low level COIN force I would say the evidence is solid for APS.  I would not extend that deduction to a peer-on-peer conventional war.

[Battlefront.com]

26 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Is it not possible to consider that systems  could or will be designed in the future that heavily curtail drones?

Sure, and by your metric we should see them on the battlefield in about 10 years because nothing seems to be ready to take on the threat.  At least nothing practical, cost effective, or reasonably holistic.  We have pounded over this ground so many times already.

Let's also not forget that APS produces a very distinguishable, traceable, and trackable electronic profile.  ISR will be all the easier to do with the board lit up with the exact locations of the things you want to take out.

As for the weaknesses of the APS concept, as a concept, we've covered that ground many times already.  It's got very significant practical and technical limitations.  Some of which could be improved, others less likely to.

And again... why try protecting something that really needs to be phased out in favor of something else?

Steve

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Except we know from evidence that Russian weapons procurement is truly a **** show due to an inherently corrupt system that means lots of money disappears instead of actually being used to develop a working weapon. 

I think its pretty evident that something of the sort likely took place with Arena, with cost coming in to put a nail in the coffin. Yet from the literal thousands of destroyed tanks in Ukraine well before FPVs were even in use, its clear they made the wrong decision in going for mediocre upgrades like T-72B3 instead of something more long term. (they even screwed that up with Armata)

How many of those destroyed tanks might have been saved with a working APS system in widespread use, even if it meant cutting overall tank numbers down by 30% to do so (Trophy reportedly costs 30% of a Merkeva Mk4) Even something that might be less effective than Trophy would have substantially reduced the attrition rate taken from Stugnas, NLAWs, Javelins and the plethora of other threats that were doing the majority of the tank killing for 2022-2023. 
 

Ya, sure but, and here is where the contradictions drive me nuts, that same highly corrupt ****show is somehow managing to churn out hundreds of MBT per year.  It is also keeping Russia in this war.  Assigning APS failure in Ukraine to Russian corruption is really a bit of specific stretch, no?

Further, I would even buy this now but this war has been going on for two years.  We noted here back in Spring '22 the lack of APS effects on the battlefield. Maybe the Russians did not have them, maybe they never did, or maybe they didn't work and got blowed up with the 3000 MBTs they have already lost.

Regardless, the burden of proof for APS as an effective counter to UAS/FPV is simply not been met.  I cannot link limited APS successes in Israel to widescale future success on a battlefield like Ukraine, no matter how many militaries are ordering.  I have spent my life in the military and we have got an abysmal history of ordering the wrong stuff, getting rid of the right stuff and generally missing signals and trends.  In fact, if militaries are all buying something, I immediately get suspicious because our track record is so poor.

[ArmouredTopHat]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Mass armor...really?  I mean sure they are employed but "mass" is a bit of a reach.  Then the question of "ok, so how many instances of insurgent ATGMs are we talking about?"  Swatting a dozen missiles when an opponent has a dozen missiles is a 100% success rate but hardly is definitive.

Again, I am sure APS is valuable to the IDF, no debate there. But as you, and others have noted repeatedly, what is going on with the IDF in that action may not translate to this one, nor may it translate to the next one.  If I were building a low level COIN force I would say the evidence is solid for APS.  I would not extend that deduction to a peer-on-peer conventional war.

Mass is pretty much accurate.
They are using tanks pretty heavily alongside other armoured vehicles. Its pretty massed when it comes to modern armour usage in urban environments yes. 




As for trophy usage, the sources I read state 'dozens' of uses in 2014 without failure. With the current conflict I assume there is far more usage of the system and I have found no sources stating it not working, outside of a few tanks that were caught initially not using the system and getting knocked out (I have no idea why they were not switched on)

You could be right in that it might be a unique case, though the interest in the system outside of Israel would perhaps suggest its at least viewed to be of value elsewhere. I dont really see why Trophy would not work just as well on the battlefields of Ukraine against comparable missile systems. The fact its defeated Kornet and that is one of the more capable systems out there is pretty compelling evidence. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya, sure but, and here is where the contradictions drive me nuts, that same highly corrupt ****show is somehow managing to churn out hundreds of MBT per year.  It is also keeping Russia in this war.  Assigning APS failure in Ukraine to Russian corruption is really a bit of specific stretch, no?

Further, I would even buy this now but this war has been going on for two years.  We noted here back in Spring '22 the lack of APS effects on the battlefield. Maybe the Russians did not have them, maybe they never did, or maybe they didn't work and got blowed up with the 3000 MBTs they have already lost.

Regardless, the burden of proof for APS as an effective counter to UAS/FPV is simply not been met.  I cannot link limited APS successes in Israel to widescale future success on a battlefield like Ukraine, no matter how many militaries are ordering.  I have spent my life in the military and we have got an abysmal history of ordering the wrong stuff, getting rid of the right stuff and generally missing signals and trends.  In fact, if militaries are all buying something, I immediately get suspicious because our track record is so poor.

Because they are not -making- hundreds of new tanks every year. 90% of 'new production' builds are them literally taking existing tanks and upgrading them. The only new tank the Russians make from scratch are T-90Ms, which have a monthly production rate in the low double digits at best despite the factory working 24/7. Everything else is reactivated or refurbished which is why we see such a disparity in tank types. Half the reason we are two years into this war is because we all genuinely underestimated how much corruption in the Russian system has compromised its ability to wage war and this was evident from the very start. You dont enjoy overwhelming advantages in more or less every category (in 2022 anyway) yet fail dismally at your surprise invasion without something being dreadfully wrong.

It is only because of the unique position that Russia has in that they had a large stock of cold war frames to work with that they have been somewhat able to keep up with loss rate. Its an increasingly finite supply and has its own problems that have to be taken into account. There is some excellent work from CovertCabal on this subject that makes for a great watch. Russian vehicle storage areas are being emptied at an alarming rate:
 

 

Edited June 4 by ArmouredTopHat

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

They are using tanks pretty heavily alongside other armoured vehicles. Its pretty massed when it comes to modern armour usage in urban environments yes. 

This is a perfect example to illustrate why it is important to sort out the battlefield conditions before drawing conclusions.  If this were in Ukraine, either side, there would be a very happy opposing side.  The IDF is not fighting the same war Ukraine and Russia are, that's for damned sure.

Also, imagine what would happen if they had their APS on and a single RPG came into the bubble.  APS doesn't shoot spitballs.  Friendly damage from APS is a real danger and this image illustrates it perfectly.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is a perfect example to illustrate why it is important to sort out the battlefield conditions before drawing conclusions.  If this were in Ukraine, either side, there would be a very happy opposing side.  The IDF is not fighting the same war Ukraine and Russia are, that's for damned sure.

Also, imagine what would happen if they had their APS on and a single RPG came into the bubble.  APS doesn't shoot spitballs.  Friendly damage from APS is a real danger and this image illustrates it perfectly.

Entirely fair to say, I am not suggesting such blobbing would work in Ukraine. I am merely pointing out that tanks previously would get utterly mauled in such a situation yet the Israelis have so far pretty much minimal armoured losses so far. (Heck it was the Israli experience of tanks in urban combat that pretty much instigated trophy development to begin with) Again struggle to think of what is the issue though when you plant an APS equipped tank in Ukraine, especially before FPVs. Stugnas and RPGs are not exactly that far apart from what Hamas have been using. Trophy specifically has top attack protection capability as well (Though I do not believe we have visual evidence of that. Its a credible claim given its record so far I would argue) 

The collateral issue is very much a concern yes, though Trophy have seemingly made that a goal to minimise as much as possible. Tanks were already not especially safe to be next to as infantry (certainly dont want to be on the sides of a 120mm gun when it fires) but at least its better than something like Drozd, which had 107mm rockets being shot at the problem. 

I am sorry if I am missing on replies here. Been trying to answer everything as best I can...

Edited June 4 by ArmouredTopHat

[FancyCat]

 

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya, sure but, and here is where the contradictions drive me nuts, that same highly corrupt ****show is somehow managing to churn out hundreds of MBT per year.  It is also keeping Russia in this war. 

we shouldn't be understating the corruption and falsehoods occurring in the russian system, as that would distort the stats given out from said system no? weren't prewar basis for Russian power based on the figures and analysis from Russia's only internal reporting? could we not say that weren't it not for the Russian government being a mafia, money exhorting state that their military and intelligence system been more able to manage the invasion in favor of Russian victory? 

[dan/california]

 

44 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

(Trophy reportedly costs 30% of a Merkeva Mk4)

The Merkava probably cost at least triple what a T72-B3 does, you would literally be doubling the price of those. And it might effectively be more than that, since it would probably need a lot of components Russia can't make, and would have to pay hard currency for.

The way for the Russians to win the war in March 2022 was to have planned on doing some actual fighting. They could even have done that with fully manned units, and supplies that didn't expire in 1985. They have been trying to dig out the hole they dug for themselves ever since.

[Billy Ringo]

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.

 

[The_Capt]

29 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Because they are not -making- hundreds of new tanks every year. 90% of 'new production' builds are them literally taking existing tanks and upgrading them.

Sure, but 10% new tank production is still hundreds per year.

https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/analyzing_russian_report_of_2100_tanks_produced_in_2023_and_wheres_the_catch_in_these_data-8511.html

"The leap in rates of production comes unexpected, since the earlier open data suggested that russians could make only about 200 new tanks per year, namely those of the T-90M Proryv type."

So while corruption is definitely a thing, even half-@ssing it, Russia can still churn out stuff.  None of this speaks to APS production, which is pretty complex stuff.  I suspect they had pretty low stocks at the beginning of the war and a lot fo them were destroyed.  Regardless, Russia is not prioritizing APS for some reason, even though they are still doing eye watering levels of spending in this war (heading to over 6%) and having access to Chinese high tech industry...to a point.

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

 

[The_Capt]

42 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Mass is pretty much accurate.
They are using tanks pretty heavily alongside other armoured vehicles. Its pretty massed when it comes to modern armour usage in urban environments yes. 




As for trophy usage, the sources I read state 'dozens' of uses in 2014 without failure. With the current conflict I assume there is far more usage of the system and I have found no sources stating it not working, outside of a few tanks that were caught initially not using the system and getting knocked out (I have no idea why they were not switched on)

You could be right in that it might be a unique case, though the interest in the system outside of Israel would perhaps suggest its at least viewed to be of value elsewhere. I dont really see why Trophy would not work just as well on the battlefields of Ukraine against comparable missile systems. The fact its defeated Kornet and that is one of the more capable systems out there is pretty compelling evidence. 

That is a picture of a troop and maybe a half squadron in the other...we have very different definitions of "mass".

[photon]

36 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

You don't enjoy overwhelming advantages in more or less every category (in 2022 anyway) yet fail dismally at your surprise invasion without something being dreadfully wrong.

So, I think the question is "what is dreadfully wrong"? And it seems like there are three hypotheses on the table, with reality probably mixing all three:

1. Russia sux.

2. Ukraine wildly outperforms Russian expectations.

3. Things are just different now.

I think what all of us are trying to suss out is how much #3 there is in the mix. I'd suggest that @The_Capt is taking the position that what we're seeing is mostly down to #3. It seems like you'd put more relative weight on #1?

We're lucky in our collective reasoning here because we can aggregate relatively many datapoints thanks to the wide variety of open source information we have access too, much of it contributed by folks in theater.

Here are some questions I have about each of those three hypotheses:

1. The early hypothesis here was that Russia would break sooner than it has, either militarily or civilly. What would it take to cause a military operational or strategic collapse? And is there anything Ukraine and the west can do to accelerate that? The consensus seems to have been "inflict mass casualties on the RUAF", which has not caused a collapse. Why not?

2. If Ukraine can achieve some sort of air denial, how does that change things? What does the Black Sea look like at the end of this? How does Ukraine set political and diplomatic conditions for a Russian loss? What does Ukrainian society look like now and in five years?

3. What is mechanized mass for? Like, let's say that you could somehow protect a whole BTG sized unit, including all the fuel trucks, with good APS and some sort of counter-drone CAP. Is this an underpants gnome situation? What's step 2 that doesn't result in the BTG being absolutely mauled by the insurgency-on-steroids that it would leave in the backfield? What do you do with that BTG sized unit?

 

Editing in more questions:

1. Is it possible that, inhuman as they are, "meat assaults" make operational sense in the current threat environment?

2. So, the point of armor is to protect a force projection system as it moves through dangerous ground so it can deliver effects. It's not at all clear to me what force projection system you would need to armor at this point to deliver the effects you want? If we think of an armored formation as fast carrier task force onion, what is the force-projecting core of that?

Edited June 4 by photon

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

 

we shouldn't be understating the corruption and falsehoods occurring in the russian system, as that would distort the stats given out from said system no? weren't prewar basis for Russian power based on the figures and analysis from Russia's only internal reporting? could we not say that weren't it not for the Russian government being a mafia, money exhorting state that their military and intelligence system been more able to manage the invasion in favor of Russian victory? 

Definitely.  In fact all the economic panicking about "Russian GDP is just fine" are all based on Russian generated reports.  We are really talking about a force protection system that has not seen a lot of love from either side in this war. I suspect it is because the APS we have built are designed for direct fire ATGMs and not FPV swarms.  Even with the corruption, Russia could prioritize these systems and very much would have it meant they could keep attacking and be more effective.  Russians are not zombies, they do learn and evolve, just at a slower rate than Ukraine.  If an effective c-FPV system existed based on the APS chassis, I am pretty sure we would have seen it over the winter.  Instead we got barns/turtle tanks and suicide thunder runs by the score.

My honest assessment is that APS will not keep up with threat evolution.  FPVs with smart sub-munitions, EFP, spoofing and other systems are simply too easy to manufacture these days. APS to my mind is a lot like those shotguns for FPVs, better than nothing but not a war winner.

[ArmouredTopHat]

10 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

A huge thanks for the great discussions over the past few days, enlightening on many subjects.  And a special thanks to ATH for stepping in over the past couple of weeks to add another angle to the point/counterpoints.  This forum is excellent.

 

Thank you, it honestly means a lot. I for one am enjoying the different perspectives here, even if I have my reservations or disagreements and concerns with some of them. No one is making bad or poorly structured points and I honestly find it refreshing. 

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

That is a picture of a troop and maybe a half squadron in the other...we have very different definitions of "mass".

And a tank company parked like that in Ukraine would get an Iskander, or an entire six pack of GMLRS in ten minutes or less.

[NamEndedAllen]

10 hours ago, paxromana said:

Seems to be an Urban Myth ...

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Soviet-soldiers-that-had-been-disabled-due-to-fighting-in-WW2-were-systematically-wiped-out-by-the-Russian-authorities-as-crippled-veterans-on-the-streets-wasn-t-the-image-that-the-new-Soviet-Union

... though treatment was not great, they weren't actually euthanised.

Barrier troops were real though.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/army-cccp-barrage.htm

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, photon said:

So, I think the question is "what is dreadfully wrong"? And it seems like there are three hypotheses on the table, with reality probably mixing all three:

1. Russia sux.

2. Ukraine wildly outperforms Russian expectations.

3. Things are just different now.

I think what all of us are trying to suss out is how much #3 there is in the mix. I'd suggest that @The_Capt is taking the position that what we're seeing is mostly down to #3. It seems like you'd put more relative weight on #1?

We're lucky in our collective reasoning here because we can aggregate relatively many datapoints thanks to the wide variety of open source information we have access too, much of it contributed by folks in theater.

Here are some questions I have about each of those three hypotheses:

1. The early hypothesis here was that Russia would break sooner than it has, either militarily or civilly. What would it take to cause a military operational or strategic collapse? And is there anything Ukraine and the west can do to accelerate that? The consensus seems to have been "inflict mass casualties on the RUAF", which has not caused a collapse. Why not?

2. If Ukraine can achieve some sort of air denial, how does that change things? What does the Black Sea look like at the end of this? How does Ukraine set political and diplomatic conditions for a Russian loss? What does Ukrainian society look like now and in five years?

3. What is mechanized mass for? Like, let's say that you could somehow protect a whole BTG sized unit, including all the fuel trucks, with good APS and some sort of counter-drone CAP. Is this an underpants gnome situation? What's step 2 that doesn't result in the BTG being absolutely mauled by the insurgency-on-steroids that it would leave in the backfield? What do you do with that BTG sized unit?

Pretty good summary.  I think the very loud declarations of #1 - which I have heard everywhere, and some of #2 are masking #3.  Further by reducing this to a platform debate we are really missing #3 because this si much bigger than platforms.

"Dreadfully wrong" for Russia was an opponent who was able to project friction, everywhere all at once. The RA was simply not prepared for this drag and collapsed, three times.  How that opponent created that friction has been repeated many times, yet we seem to fall back on #1.  The UA created friction through ISR, fires, precision and unmanned - all integrated into a C4 system.  They did not do it through heavy manoeuvre, air superiority or anything we recognize as conventional warfighting approaches.

So in reality, #3 favored #2 in ways we simply did not expect.  Or we go with #1 but as time goes by that explanation gets more and more strained.  Example, this winter the UA ran out of artillery ammunition, vehicles and infantry.  Its defence was being held together by ISR, dog faced infantry and FPVs in many places.  The RA pushed hard, losing thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles, they pushed EW forward and even figured out 2024 CAS with bomb lobbing.

But the UA held....dammit they held on a shoestring, C4ISR, infantry and FPVs.  I do not know how much more proof people need that #3 is happening.  The debate now is really "how much?"

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, dan/california said:

And a tank company parked like that in Ukraine would get an Iskander, or an entire six pack of GMLRS in ten minutes or less.

And a few dozen FPVs, followed by good old artillery.  And that is if they were parked within 20-30kms of the front line.  Very different wars.

[ArmouredTopHat]

26 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

That is a picture of a troop and maybe a half squadron in the other...we have very different definitions of "mass".

Apologies, but to clarify things: by massed use I am referring to the use of Israeli armoured brigades being fully utilised in sustained combat in an urban environment as opposed to a more adhoc system where smaller armoured units are being parcelled out to other units for support or are performing limited combat operations only. The point I was trying (and clearly sucking at conveying) is that we know this is usually difficult at for armoured units at best, and often disastrous in many cases. I apologise for this. 

To be sure, this seemingly successful use of the armour is not entirely because of Trophy, but I would argue its clearly having an impact that is tangible. Especially when the same brigades were having trouble beforehand in operating within urban areas and were taking notable losses in tanks. Tactics no doubt improved as well of course, but the APS was desired for an understandable reason. 

Edited June 4 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

26 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Sure, but 10% new tank production is still hundreds per year.

https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/analyzing_russian_report_of_2100_tanks_produced_in_2023_and_wheres_the_catch_in_these_data-8511.html

"The leap in rates of production comes unexpected, since the earlier open data suggested that russians could make only about 200 new tanks per year, namely those of the T-90M Proryv type."

So while corruption is definitely a thing, even half-@ssing it, Russia can still churn out stuff.  None of this speaks to APS production, which is pretty complex stuff.  I suspect they had pretty low stocks at the beginning of the war and a lot fo them were destroyed.  Regardless, Russia is not prioritizing APS for some reason, even though they are still doing eye watering levels of spending in this war (heading to over 6%) and having access to Chinese high tech industry...to a point.

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

 

Is it though? The article you sourced literally points out this out:
 

Its pretty clear that new production is not nearly enough to compensate for losses in the field.

Edited June 4 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

17 minutes ago, dan/california said:

And a tank company parked like that in Ukraine would get an Iskander, or an entire six pack of GMLRS in ten minutes or less.

 

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

And a few dozen FPVs, followed by good old artillery.  And that is if they were parked within 20-30kms of the front line.  Very different wars.

Just to clarify again, I am not suggesting that this level of concentration is at all appropriate for the conflict in Ukraine. The comparison is purely for the sake of pointing out these tanks are surviving in an environment that is normally -extremely- hostile to them. 

We have seen plenty of footage of said tanks being attacked from numerous angles by RPG teams, something that has been hard for Israel to deal with in the past (for anyone using tanks in this kind of environment) Same footage shows a lot of Trophy systems successfully destroying incoming projectiles. Surely even the most dire hard armour hater can concede that APS is saving vehicles that would otherwise be destroyed by tandem RPG rounds? Which then leads to the vehicles being able to perform their mission without the significant emotional event of being blown up.