How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[mosuri]

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-central-bank-machine-guns-putin-1927013

The carnival of insanity that is russia gets a little more insane by the day. I don't know if they would do this even in Central American countries where homicides and kidnappings happen all the time.

[Tenses]

57 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I'm note sure how, at a tactical level, air superiority is better than drone superiority. A 5th gen fighter will struggle to shoot down fpvs and orlan-10s, or hunt ATGM positions. 

But air superiority could make all the lights go out in Moscow and that is how you would win the war. 

Having air superiority at tactical level we have at least:

• Removal of enemy air force. From Ka-52 up to and including TU-95. No more FAB-3000 or even FAB-500 dropped on the trench line. As I understand current problems on the frontline this is the most pressing issue as you can't do nothing with it and no strongpoint is safe from that. Heavy bombers removal would put slightly less strain on the cruise missile defence which is also a big plus, but probably not a game changer. With introduction of Shahed type cruise missiles its visibility and logistic chain is much too small to totally destroy this kind of threat on tactical level.
• Attrition of long range missile artillery from MLRS to ballistic missiles. Currently only a handful of drones can effectively do that and these drones are not cheap, which is main adventage of drones. Success rate is also not very big so untouchable air force would do much better here.
• Attrition of heavy artillery. With both enemy air force and long range artillery destroyed this can be also done with own counter battery fire assuming better ISR. Air force still would do better and most importantly faster. Counter battery must be in a good position to target detected enemy, for fighters flying supersonic speeds this is not an issue. The same issue is relevant to slow flying drones with limited range - they might be effective but only in some specific conditions, where air force operating in air superiority environment is not constrained.
• Tank is Dead™ served Desert Storm style. Any heavy eqipment is having hard time when figter planes operate freely. This is very similar to drone issue. Instead cheap drones you have not so cheap but still affordable bombs dropped from expensive planes. This might be looking like a worse solution but the same as before, situations when you can successfully deploy tactical bomber and destroy enemy are much more achievable than when you send even a swarm of small drones. In my opinion it is still worth the extra cost, when you know that job will be done and you are not constrained by anything.
• Logistics attrition on the new level and much farther from the front. No more food, fuel or batteries for drones in quantities allowing warfare as we see it now. This is affecting everything.

These are for tactical level only. For strategic effects infrastructure would be bombed on a daily basis and Tanks would be Dead because Uralvagonzawod would have additional craters in the middle of the assembly line.

In general assuming air superiority with current technology for prolonged time, like 1 year, the war is won. The real question is, if it is really possible to achieve and I don't expect to see an answer to that at least in this war.

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Tenses said:

Having air superiority at tactical level we have at least:

• Removal of enemy air force. From Ka-52 up to and including TU-95. No more FAB-3000 or even FAB-500 dropped on the trench line. As I understand current problems on the frontline this is the most pressing issue as you can't do nothing with it and no strongpoint is safe from that. Heavy bombers removal would put slightly less strain on the cruise missile defence which is also a big plus, but probably not a game changer. With introduction of Shahed type cruise missiles its visibility and logistic chain is much too small to totally destroy this kind of threat on tactical level.
• Attrition of long range missile artillery from MLRS to ballistic missiles. Currently only a handful of drones can effectively do that and these drones are not cheap, which is main adventage of drones. Success rate is also not very big so untouchable air force would do much better here.
• Attrition of heavy artillery. With both enemy air force and long range artillery destroyed this can be also done with own counter battery fire assuming better ISR. Air force still would do better and most importantly faster. Counter battery must be in a good position to target detected enemy, for fighters flying supersonic speeds this is not an issue. The same issue is relevant to slow flying drones with limited range - they might be effective but only in some specific conditions, where air force operating in air superiority environment is not constrained.
• Tank is Dead™ served Desert Storm style. Any heavy eqipment is having hard time when figter planes operate freely. This is very similar to drone issue. Instead cheap drones you have not so cheap but still affordable bombs dropped from expensive planes. This might be looking like a worse solution but the same as before, situations when you can successfully deploy tactical bomber and destroy enemy are much more achievable than when you send even a swarm of small drones. In my opinion it is still worth the extra cost, when you know that job will be done and you are not constrained by anything.
• Logistics attrition on the new level and much farther from the front. No more food, fuel or batteries for drones in quantities allowing warfare as we see it now. This is affecting everything.

These are for tactical level only. For strategic effects infrastructure would be bombed on a daily basis and Tanks would be Dead because Uralvagonzawod would have additional craters in the middle of the assembly line.

In general assuming air superiority with current technology for prolonged time, like 1 year, the war is won. The real question is, if it is really possible to achieve and I don't expect to see an answer to that at least in this war.

The problem with air superiority in this war is that a side can never really achieve freedom of action, while denying same to enemy.  They can both do that last part but that first part is elusive.  The problem being AD capabilities teamed up with all domain ISR.  IADs are murder, and are only turned on for short durations. MANPAD capability is striking higher and further.  So we have this mutual denial situation, which the RuAF has only solved by lob bombing from distance.  AirPower appears to be just as stuck as mechanized warfare.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Yes, some of you might claim that in future drone swarms will destroy armor column in seconds. My answer is No. It is fantasy that does not take in to consideration laws of physics, cost and C-UAS capabilities. End of story.

Doesn’t need to do it in seconds, and doesn’t even really need to hit the tanks.  Armor and mech have long and heavy lines of logistics support in order to function.  We cannot protect those lines from ISR and about 1/2 dozen types of over the horizon fires.  The NATO 120mm only works if you can get it to within 3 kms of the target and as we have seen in this war, 3kms is point blank range.

Fully autonomous UAS are demonstrated now and will likely be on the battlefield in the next few years in numbers.  There is no proven c-UAS technology against these systems.  We have seen FPV flights destroy mechanized and armored attacks.  What we do not know is how far this whole thing goes.

No one can really predict where this is going, no definitive answers are verifiable with the evidence at hand.  End of story.

[hcrof]

1 hour ago, Tenses said:

Having air superiority at tactical level we have at least:

• Removal of enemy air force. From Ka-52 up to and including TU-95. No more FAB-3000 or even FAB-500 dropped on the trench line. As I understand current problems on the frontline this is the most pressing issue as you can't do nothing with it and no strongpoint is safe from that. Heavy bombers removal would put slightly less strain on the cruise missile defence which is also a big plus, but probably not a game changer. With introduction of Shahed type cruise missiles its visibility and logistic chain is much too small to totally destroy this kind of threat on tactical level.
• Attrition of long range missile artillery from MLRS to ballistic missiles. Currently only a handful of drones can effectively do that and these drones are not cheap, which is main adventage of drones. Success rate is also not very big so untouchable air force would do much better here.
• Attrition of heavy artillery. With both enemy air force and long range artillery destroyed this can be also done with own counter battery fire assuming better ISR. Air force still would do better and most importantly faster. Counter battery must be in a good position to target detected enemy, for fighters flying supersonic speeds this is not an issue. The same issue is relevant to slow flying drones with limited range - they might be effective but only in some specific conditions, where air force operating in air superiority environment is not constrained.
• Tank is Dead™ served Desert Storm style. Any heavy eqipment is having hard time when figter planes operate freely. This is very similar to drone issue. Instead cheap drones you have not so cheap but still affordable bombs dropped from expensive planes. This might be looking like a worse solution but the same as before, situations when you can successfully deploy tactical bomber and destroy enemy are much more achievable than when you send even a swarm of small drones. In my opinion it is still worth the extra cost, when you know that job will be done and you are not constrained by anything.
• Logistics attrition on the new level and much farther from the front. No more food, fuel or batteries for drones in quantities allowing warfare as we see it now. This is affecting everything.

These are for tactical level only. For strategic effects infrastructure would be bombed on a daily basis and Tanks would be Dead because Uralvagonzawod would have additional craters in the middle of the assembly line.

In general assuming air superiority with current technology for prolonged time, like 1 year, the war is won. The real question is, if it is really possible to achieve and I don't expect to see an answer to that at least in this war.

I don't disagree with anything you say but is a precision strike from an F35 really the most efficient way to achieve the same tactical effects? Sure a $50k JDAM is not that expensive but you also need to factor in another $30+k per flight hour of the platform and some sort of amortised cost of attrition since you will be losing planes too. So now you might be at $80k per effect on the enemy. But there's more: 35s don't just fly in racetrack patterns over the enemy looking for targets - against air defence every strike requires a long time to plan and a large package of aircraft to break into the AD Network. Now your reaction times are slow and you need 5 aircraft and 50 personnel to hit a loaf van.

In a real war those planes are much better off causing strategic effects, not plinking tactical targets. 

Edit: and before you say that you use those planes after you have destroyed the enemy air force and 99% of their ground based air defence, the war is effectively over at that point so using the planes tactically is just adding insult to injury. 

Edited July 23 by hcrof

[Offshoot]

1 hour ago, mosuri said:

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-central-bank-machine-guns-putin-1927013

The carnival of insanity that is russia gets a little more insane by the day. I don't know if they would do this even in Central American countries where homicides and kidnappings happen all the time.

This ties in with the earlier post of the podcast talking about the Rosgvardiya being stretched thin. All the CEOs and whatnot now have to moonlight as their own security at the central bank.

Quote

The National Guard, or Rosgvardiya, is Putin's internal military force and is responsible for the protection of state buildings, as well as domestic security.

 

Edited July 23 by Offshoot

[ArmouredTopHat]

Note how the Ukrainians are pointing out that drones do not change the fundamentals of combined arms warfare even with their potency on the battlefield. 

When the most innovative pioneers of drone warfare in active combat are telling us this we should probably listen.

Edited July 23 by ArmouredTopHat

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Note how the Ukrainians are pointing out that drones do not change the fundamentals of combined arms warfare even with their potency on the battlefield. 

When the most innovative pioneers of drone warfare in active combat are telling us this we should probably listen.

Exactly.  But listen to what they are saying, not what you want to hear.

Combined arms is not going away.  Infantry are still needed to take and hold ground and will for a long time to come.  Artillery is, as it has been for hundreds of years, critically important.  Even more so by combining UAS ISR with PGM artillery.  UAS has come out of "nowhere" to become a solid, important complimentary to both infantry and artillery.  It has the potential to rival traditional concepts of airpower.

I can't read the Economist article, but I did note in the quote above that the Ukrainian colonel, whom you said we should listen to because he knows what he is talking about, thought to mention infantry and artillery alongside drones.  Did you notice what he didn't mention?

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, mosuri said:

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-central-bank-machine-guns-putin-1927013

The carnival of insanity that is russia gets a little more insane by the day. I don't know if they would do this even in Central American countries where homicides and kidnappings happen all the time.

This is a pile of "tea leaves" that reinforce the notion that things are far worse inside Russia than perhaps even we believe them to be.  We have no evidence that bank executives have been targeted (well, except by Putin's goons), yet there seems to be high level talk about arming them. 

The importance of this is that the discussion is a proactive one.  In other words, some very powerful people in the highest circles of power expect trouble sometime in the near future.

That is significant.

One of the concerns is probably found in this linked to Newsweek article on the realities of Russia's mentally disturbed, violent veterans:

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-kremlin-veterans-violence-1927948

It's been a while since we talked about the long term risks Russia is creating for its people and institutions by releasing already known defective people into a brutal combat environment where the brutality is often being done by, if not made worse by, the Russian state.  Resentment, anger, personality defects, mental defects, and experience with violence are not a good thing to do in a country with a bad track record of dealing with complex problems with violence, indifference, and incompetence.

This isn't good for the world either.  Many here remember the impact of the Soviet Union's collapse on organized criminal activity in the West.  Violent "nothing to lose" attitudes are very difficult for Western civilization to handle.

Steve

 

[cesmonkey]

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

 

 

A timely video, considering the discussion on this page!

One thing that has been mentioned a lot, but so far not in this current discussion, is about the ability to sustain a high attrition rate over a prolonged period of time.  It's one thing to have a war that lasts a few months, it's an entirely different thing when a war lasts years because cumulative losses put strain on replacements of both the aircraft and the pilots.  This, in turn, cumulatively reduces the ability to use the aircraft for other purposes.  Since nations with large amounts of aircraft tend to have more than one need for them, this matters.

If the US Air Force engaged an enemy right now and took 20% losses, that would be horrific and would take probably a decade or more to recover from.  If the war was favorably ended within a few months such losses likely wouldn't matter because the residual 80% would likely be sufficient to meet national goals while the losses are replaced.  The opposite is true for a protracted war with high attrition rates. 

To the extent the loss rate exceeds the replacement rate this becomes even worse because it means either combat capabilities are harmed by having fewer actively engaged aircraft or drawing aircraft from other purposes.

And let's not forget wear and tear.  It's a very different thing to run your airforce high tempo for a couple of months vs. doing so for a couple of years.

It's these sorts of things which, like the tank, start to raise questions about cost effectiveness for aircraft performing some of their traditional roles vs. handing them off to other platforms (in particular UAS).  The argument that a $35m plane should be put at risk to kill a couple of guys in a trench, for example, is pretty dumb.  But where is the line drawn?

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Did you notice what he didn't mention?

Combined arms literally means the inclusion of vehicles, including tanks right?

[danfrodo]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

In that first video the tank is doing indirect fires.  I think there may be a medium/long range fires role for armor, but they need PGM rounds to do it.  Of course a 25 million dollar mobile gun might price itself out of business pretty fast.  We don’t spend money an armor for indirect fires, or defensive sniping.  We invest in them as platforms that can exploit manoeuvre.  Steel horses able to break out and dislocate an opponent.  That decisive effect is worth 25 million a pop…however, if it cannot deliver, even a fancy mobile gun system is going to get priced out of the business pretty fast.

The UA could not absorb all that hardware; training, maintenance and logistics alone are a major issue if they upscaled on western equipment.  And then there is a complete lack of any battlefield evidence that they would be able to regain the offensive with said hardware.  All that western equipment could easily become an investment money/resource pit with very little returns - oh look we can lob more HE shells…woo hoo.

I think many commanders in Ukraine understand the reality of this war as it evolves.  I suggest we listen to them.

Yeah, what the hell was I thinking?  A stupid stream of consciousness post that I regretted half an hour later.  All I really was planning on saying was that it's interesting that many of us are excited by RU running out of armored vehicles while at the same time saying armored vehicles don't matter.  They do matter, but matter less & less all the time.  I drunk posted though I haven't had a drink in 22 years-- lingering effect of alcohol I guess.

I should've said "I wish UKR was given 1 million 155 shells and lots of mobile tubes plus more long range strike capabilities".  

[cesmonkey]

Quote

On Monday, former Ukrainian Armed Forces commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi delivered his first public address since assuming his new role as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Land Warfare Conference in London, Zaluzhnyi urged democratic countries to “wake up” and decide how to protect their citizens and suggested that society must be prepared to sacrifice some freedoms in times of war. He also asserted that technological advancements made during Russia’s war against Ukraine will shape “the art of war in the 21st century.” Meduza shares key moments from his speech.

Quote

Until recently, one could confidently say that unmanned systems are the main reason for changes in strategies, forms, and methods of application. But even today, it is probably necessary to introduce a broader concept — technology. […] Simply put, today we have already invented a way to fight and win against stronger armies in the 21st century. Obviously, it is the technology that should ensure the sustainability of the Ukrainian nation.

 

[chrisl]

4 hours ago, Grigb said:

 

1. Short example - Drones as weapon are not guaranteed to halt a massed armor attack in time. Properly executed armored attack (mech infantry company + tank platoon) will overran forward platoon or company strong point. However, drones are expected to cause 70%-90% percent of losses during assault itself and right after. This is of the reasons RU can often force UKR from their forward defensive positions but rarely can force operational breakthrough

This is really just a question of current availability/prevalence of drones and is only going to get worse, not better.  As has been pointed out many times (by Steve most recently), you have to get the tanks to the front edge intact, and we're seeing the combination of ISR and drones taking out whole platoons and companies of armored vehicles on their way to the front.   And technically it's not really a drone problem so much as an ISR problem - the vehicles are going to get spotted very early and hit with something (drones, artillery, HIMARS, ATGM) before they can get into their own effective range.  And those "something"s are all much more accurate than they used to be, and often at much lower risk/exposure to their users than AT weapons used to be.

Edited July 23 by chrisl

[Maciej Zwolinski]

4 hours ago, Grigb said:

Short example - Drones as weapon are not guaranteed to halt a massed armor attack in time. Properly executed armored attack (mech infantry company + tank platoon) will overran forward platoon or company strong point. However, drones are expected to cause 70%-90% percent of losses during assault itself and right after. This is of the reasons RU can often force UKR from their forward defensive positions but rarely can force operational breakthrough.

Actually, I think this is an argument in favour of the side, who says that tank is dead. Storming a platoon strong point at the expense of 70% -90% of mechanised company reinforced by a platoon of tanks  is not a viable way of fighting

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

Sorry to interrupt the beating of a dead tank (geddit?) but I want to talk about air denial in higher altitudes.

In his last video while talking about North Korea having like 20 SAM launchers in total, Perun said how that this war is special because it's basically two countries with largest GBAD arsenals in existence fighting each other and we should be careful to apply that lesson elsewhere.

What does the room think?

 

4 hours ago, hcrof said:

I'm note sure how, at a tactical level, air superiority is better than drone superiority. A 5th gen fighter will struggle to shoot down fpvs and orlan-10s, or hunt ATGM positions. 

But air superiority could make all the lights go out in Moscow and that is how you would win the war. 

The first thing to keep in mind is that all sides are trying to learn the lessons of this war. Everyone has seen an IADS system hold back the third best air force in the world. Or at least everybody thought it was before this war. That is going to massively incentivize investment in those systems going forward. In particular I expect the Chinese to redouble their efforts in this regard. Furthermore they will be eager to equip proxies with those systems. So I think we have to assume a higher threat level going forward.

I also think a lot of the trends working against tanks are working against aircraft. Big, hot, and expensive is not the bet we want to make right now.

Having said both those things, I think real air superiority is decisive if it can be achieved. If there was not a train running wiihtin five hundred kilometers of the front line, that front line would be at the 1991 borders. The Polish one if Russia could achieve it, and the Russian one if Ukraine could do it. It is the achievability part that I question.

[ArmouredTopHat]

4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Everyone has seen an IADS system hold back the third best air force in the world.

The VKS is / was nowhere near the third best air force in the world. Many NATO countries have more capable individual airforces on their own its safe to say at this point, let alone the grouping of NATO in total. The VKS never had the training / pilots / practical expertise to be anything like what we see from more comprehensive airforces and that was demonstrated since 2022. It was truly a night and day difference in performance compared to something like Desert storm. 

The Russians have been struggling to defend themselves properly from a handful of ATACMS strikes and some HARMS missiles fired in their most ineffective setting fired from some Mig 29s. One can imagine the damage a dedicated SEAD campaign would do to their defences over time. Factor in 5th gens that can readily target their best AD systems without fear of effective reply and you can imagine why the Russians are so petrified of NATO airpower. Their AD is still potent of course, especially to 4th gens but NATO air is just in another league at this point.

Half the reason this war is relatively static is the lack of decisive air power. Its easily one of the top failings of the Russians in that regard. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

20 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Actually, I think this is an argument in favour of the side, who says that tank is dead. Storming a platoon strong point at the expense of 70% -90% of mechanised company reinforced by a platoon of tanks  is not a viable way of fighting

Vast majority of drone kills are on tanks already knocked out by other means, at least going by visual data (most FPV kills on tanks are on abandoned platforms, with mines being the likely culprit) We also know that tanks eat plenty of hits that dont actually destroy the vehicle. 

We seem to be concluding an awful lot about tanks despite said tank victims being modernised platforms that originally existed in the cold war that have no means of dealing with drones outside of improvised protection and some jury rigged jammers. I would personally wait and see how modern platforms at least designed to factor in the drone heavy environment and carrying planned countermeasures would fare before committing to such hypotheticals myself. 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 minute ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Vast majority of drone kills are on tanks already knocked out by other means, at least going by visual data (most FPV kills on tanks are on abandoned platforms, with mines being the likely culprit) We also know that tanks eat plenty of hits that dont actually destroy the vehicle. 
 

1. Does 'other means' include immob kills by prior drone strikes (sure, there are a lot of flubs and misses as the FPS signal goes wonky at low level)?

2. 'Vast majority'. If I may, it's (unfootnotable) declarations like this that keep getting you in trouble here. You seem to be pretending to a qualitative authority you just don't have (none of us do). 

Andrew Perpetua has tried root causing, but I suspect that effort would elude even the Ukrainian Army itself.

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

 

 

I think this is the same jet and a confirmation the manpad hit was in fact a frame kill. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

2 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

1. Does 'other means' include immob kills by prior drone strikes (sure, there are a lot of flubs and misses as the FPS signal goes wonky at low level)?

2. 'Vast majority'. If I may, it's (unfootnotable) declarations like this that keep getting you in trouble here. You seem to be pretending to a qualitative authority you just don't have (none of us do). 

Andrew Perpetua has tried root causing, but I suspect that effort would elude even the Ukrainian Army itself.

I mean, I base such a claim off the typical daily lose rate from Andrew Perpetua that you mention. Its the best data we have on the subject really. The cause of abandonment is of course not clarified. It could be prior drone strikes, but it also could likely be mines or other action. We just dont know for certain. 

The point is that 'active' tanks being attacked by FPVs are usually damaged and not destroyed, at least typically. 

[sburke]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Combined arms literally means the inclusion of vehicles, including tanks right?

no it does not, no matter how much you wish it so.  by definition

"Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects"

It doesn't in itself define what those combat arms are, the actual answer is specific to the situation it is applied to.

[ArmouredTopHat]

21 minutes ago, sburke said:

no it does not, no matter how much you wish it so.  by definition

"Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects"

It doesn't in itself define what those combat arms are, the actual answer is specific to the situation it is applied to.

And nowhere do they say tanks / vehicles dont have a role in regards to this. Ergo they are still part of that combined arms force they insist is still relevant because they operate them in their force makeup.

Until they specifically say otherwise (and I doubt they will) it seems pretty clear there is a role for vehicles to play in the Oob.

 

Edited July 23 by ArmouredTopHat

[LongLeftFlank]

26 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

I mean, I base such a claim off the typical daily lose rate from Andrew Perpetua that you mention. Its the best data we have on the subject really. The cause of abandonment is of course not clarified. It could be prior drone strikes, but it also could likely be mines or other action. We just dont know for certain. 

The point is that 'active' tanks being attacked by FPVs are usually damaged and not destroyed, at least typically. 

Thanks (I don't X, so haven't seen this in a long time. Plus, work).

The shared consensus here seems to be that there are likely still 'use cases'* for the tank, but it isn't going to be central in combined arms any more.

...I'm reminded of the StuG detachments used in the late Wehrmacht. An economic and useful stiffener for a thinly held infantry/Pakfront, but its presence or absence was not decisive (sure, occasionally it did decide a tactical engagement, which is kind of what you're showing us here).

... still, as the cool kids keep cautioning us, an infantry division keeping a dozen StuGs or Hetzers running in the field in 1944-45 was a very different task from sustaining modern MBTs. So the question: is the 'linebacker' worth it? remains trenchant, although nobody can answer with certitude on that side either.

Anyway, I shall speak no more on this well-worn topic.

* Come to think of it, crypto may be a relevant analog here as well. Can blockchain do cool stuff, trustlessly and permissionlessly? Absolutely. For each use case, are there easier and cheaper existing ways to do 99% of the same thing? Mainly yes. Yet the quest for 'economic' use cases continues, allthough it's generally hammers seeking nails. YMMV

Edited July 23 by LongLeftFlank