sburke Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 6 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said: 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. Until they specifically say otherwise (and I doubt they will) it seems pretty clear there is a role for vehicles to play. It doesn't even say artillery is required. Again it is specific to the situation. Damn you are stubborn. You insist the situation MUST always require tanks to meet the definition of combined arms. Do you have some kind of financial investment in General Dynamics? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 9 minutes ago, sburke said: Damn you are stubborn. Could we maybe dump the ad homs and the logic policing? 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 9 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said: Could we maybe dump the ad homs and the logic policing? give me an alternative. I'm to argue against a negative? If they don't explicitly say it doesn't include tanks, it must include tanks? Cut me a break. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hcrof Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 17 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said: Could we maybe dump the ad homs and the logic policing? Plus one to this. This tank Vs drone debate is going nowhere. Can people only post on the subject if they can genuinely share some new information - responding to someone else's argument with a variation of what you have said a dozen times before doesn't count! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmouredTopHat Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 2 minutes ago, hcrof said: Plus one to this. This tank Vs drone debate is going nowhere. Can people only post on the subject if they can genuinely share some new information - responding to someone else's argument with a variation of what you have said a dozen times before doesn't count! Entirely agree, not a fan of the constant insinuation that I am tied to the tank defence industry for arguing a certain point of view, but I digress. Once again going to point out its artillery / mines and clusters that are typically blunting these mechanised assaults. Drones do an excellent job of cleaning up what is left. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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dan/california Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 (edited) 3 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: with mines being the likely culprit This does not help your case, losing platforms that cost anywhere between one and thirty million dollars to an antitank mine that costs less than fifty, and is followed up by a done that costs 500 is simply not viable. Getting back to my point about everybody is watching, the world has seen irrefutable proof that minefields are one of the most effective things you can do in a real, near peer war. There will be a lot more of them in the next war. Very much like drones they are a problem with EDIT(OUT) a good technological solution, at least there has been no sign of one that actually moves the needle. At the same time ways to lay mines mines remotely are proliferating like weeds, including many ways to lay them in lanes you just cleared. I haven't even gotten to smarter mines. They are not as far along as drones, but the technical path seems far more defined than any good way to deal with them. When I talk about smarter mines, just a mine that could send an automatic signal when it was being cleared would make a difference. That isn't hard. Edited July 23 by dan/california 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 5 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Combined arms literally means the inclusion of vehicles, including tanks right? No, it does not. Combined arms simply means taking various systems and using them in combination with each other. The specific elements are flexible and are likely to change over time. Unmanned systems, for example, fit right into the concept of combined arms even though they came many decades after WW2 established its importance. Second of all, there is no one concept of combined arms. Ukraine using UAS for ISR to direct artillery and infantry is the very definition of combined arms. No other arms have to be present in that equation for this to be an example of combined arms. You pointed to that quote from the Ukrainian colonel and said we should listen to what he said. I agree. What he said is that combined arms has not fundamentally changed. I agree, unmanned systems alone will not win wars or probably even battles. However, he did not say anything, one way or the other, about the importance or even necessity of tanks. At least not with that quote. Steve [Edit - belatedly I saw this was already covered, but I don't delete posts so I'm leaving this here] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Once again going to point out its artillery / mines and clusters that are typically blunting these mechanised assaults. Drones do an excellent job of cleaning up what is left. Which is a heck of an argument for for artillery, mines, and cluster munitions. The treaties trying to outlaw two out of three of them have effectively just died. The artillery is drone directed of course. And it is a drone that brought us this excellent video. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Entirely agree, not a fan of the constant insinuation that I am tied to the tank defence industry for arguing a certain point of view, but I digress. Once again going to point out its artillery / mines and clusters that are typically blunting these mechanised assaults. Drones do an excellent job of cleaning up what is left. The video brings up the other elephant in the room, how long can the Russians keep doing this? Based on this video they burned a mech company and a tank platoon, and got a wheat field or two for it, if they got anything at all. That math just doesn't add. The_Capt has repeated brought up the one more push mentality that drove much of the planning in WW1, but bleep me you would think even the Russians had learned something in the last hundred years? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 48 minutes ago, dan/california said: This does not help your case, losing platforms that cost anywhere between one and thirty million dollars to an antitank mine that costs less than fifty, and is followed up by a done that costs 500 is simply not viable. Exactly. There are many reasons vehicles of any sort are in a very dire situation in this war, with MBTs having absolutely no free pass on these threats. Having said that, mines are a peculiar feature to this war compared to most other wars, therefore of all the things we should be cautious about going forward is the assumption of mines being a problem to the degree they are now. And now for the caveat to that caveat. The ability for unmanned systems to sneak around placing mines in places that are likely to be traveled by the enemy is a new and very dangerous thing. Now you can spend $100m of lost equipment and dozens of lives clearing a lane and then some little UGV or UAS plops a mine down to be run over during the night when it was traditionally safer to move around. Not to mention UAS and more traditional threats such as artillery and airpower. The combination of cheap unmanned systems with cheap means of destruction is bad enough, but we'll soon be in a position where these things can operate on their own. That's going to take a bad situation for legacy systems (in particular vehicles) and make it so much worse. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 Speaking of wheat fields, as we look at a third year of almost static lines, and the fact nobdy is farming anything in the grey zone, will growing undergrowth start to change anything? How much longer will it be before much of the front is waist high brambles, instead something that still looks like farm field, and will this make any difference? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 (edited) Yuriy Butusov on the situation around Pokrovsk. Quote The situation in the Pokrovsky direction is critically difficult, which immediately requires systematic and balanced decisions by the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Over the past seven days, the enemy advanced 6 km in the direction of Mirnograd-Pokrovsk. On a narrow front, the flanks were shot through, but advanced. The city of Myrnograd is 14 km away. A total of 14. Mirnograd in the zone of long-range artillery fire. If the enemy is allowed to enter Mirnohrad, they get a zone of concentration and accumulation, and will be able to attack Pokrovsk itself. The Pokrovsk-Myrnograd agglomeration is the last area of defense before the Dnipropetrovsk region. The enemy is very close, the situation is critical, as the pace of the enemy's advance is alarming. According to the commanders and soldiers defending the Pokrovsk-Myrnograd region, the main problem in the conditions of intensive operations is primarily the management and organization of our actions. The Russian command attacks primarily those brigades that have the weakest management and organization, weak control and coordination. That is, the enemy is not looking for and pushing through the most vulnerable lines of defense, but the most vulnerable units and formations. When a weakly led brigade is attacked, it cannot hold even a narrow line. Therefore, all marching replenishment and reserves go to strengthen weak units that bear the greatest losses. This does not allow for the creation of significant tactical reserves, which would have time for additional training, could more often carry out rotations of fighters at zero, and equip the second and third lines of defense. The lack of prepared positions for defense, reliable fortifications occupied by the troops, does not allow stopping the enemy at any border. Virtually non-stop counter-battle, encapsulation during the offensive continues. The Russians advance in a patterned and predictable manner. The Russians carry out frontal attacks of small groups of infantry with great losses, the enemy's advance is very difficult, they also send everyone they can into battle, their companies are exhausted to the last man. The main axis of attack is along the railway track. It is convenient to hide there and disguise yourself in landings. Everyone understands this, but engineering means have yet to turn this route into an impassable one. A critical problem is the lack of single, competent leadership for all drone forces and EW assets, which continue to be deployed in a scattered and uncoordinated manner. Our own EW destroys a significant number of our own drones. Drone units are assigned tasks without regard to tactical and technical capabilities. I cannot say that the Ukrainian command does not see and does not understand the criticality of the situation. A lot is being done, none of the commanders sit idly by. Commander-in-Chief O.Syrsky pays personal attention. But we are obviously late in reacting, although the enemy's plans are obvious, well known to us, and intelligence gives a good idea of the next steps. The direction lacks coordinated brigade headquarters, the logic of the use of troops and ammunition. Assigning tasks to weak staffs of poorly organized brigades is ignoring the real combat capability of the troops, this practice is sharply criticized in the troops. Brigade headquarters are a key element of combat capability. Attempts to pull a bunch of subdivisions on some area does not produce an effect if there is no single clear logic of application. The situation requires focusing on the direction of at least one brigade with a high-quality headquarters that will be able to establish combat management of disparate units in the area of the breakthrough and reserve support for the brigades holding the flanks of the enemy's breakthrough to Myrnograd. Why do inexperienced brigade commanders and weak brigade staffs continue to rule while the ground forces command keeps in reserve dozens of experienced commanders with reputations earned in hard battles of 22-23 years? How to explain it? Why is the personnel problem not solved, although everyone sees that it is the main problem, and although we have experienced personnel? We need systemic solutions, we need to stop deceiving ourselves, we need those measures that will be favorably supported by competent commanders of brigades and battalions in the given area, and the chain of command needs to be urgently strengthened. Edited July 23 by Vanir Ausf B 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 3 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Once again going to point out its artillery / mines and clusters that are typically blunting these mechanised assaults. Drones do an excellent job of cleaning up what is left. I've made the following point dozens and dozens of times, but it is always worth bringing it up again. Traditionally when a vehicle was lost to a "mobility kill" (blown tire, blown track, hit to a critical system, etc.) or bad circumstance (out of fuel, fell into a ditch, blew a head gasket, etc.) there was an expectation of the possibility of recovery. Especially for the attacker. This is built into core assumptions the West has about maintaining a large and complex armored force. Sure, that $20m tank might get temporarily knocked out by a mine, but a few $10s of thousands and some recovery vehicles and bingo... $20m tank back in service again. One of the things that UAS is showing us is that these assumptions are now dead. If you lose a $20m tank to a $100 tank mine it is a sitting duck for a $3000 drone from 5km away will likely come and set it on fire. Now that tank is out of inventory permanently, whereas 20 years ago it probably would be back in service. The point of this is UAS has transformed the column of would-be-mobility-kills to permanent losses in a way no previous system could achieve. This is not a small issue. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grigb Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 6 minutes ago, dan/california said: Speaking of wheat fields, as we look at a third year of almost static lines, and the fact nobdy is farming anything in the grey zone, will growing undergrowth start to change anything? How much longer will it be before much of the front is waist high brambles, instead something that still looks like farm field, and will this make any difference? Yes, yes it does. The open farm fields are no longer open. This has an impact on defenders since natural defender instinct is to face the open field. However, since the fields are no longer open, your defensive positions are essentially become blind. Your overlapping fields of fire are not overlapping anymore. Furthermore, attacking through the field due drones and mines is still a bad idea. Thus, initial breaking occurs along the perpendicular tree line. However, your defensive positions that face the field are unable to fire at that tree line due to an obstructed line of sight. So, initial fortifications with the time became essentially useless. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holoween Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said: I've made the following point dozens and dozens of times, but it is always worth bringing it up again. Traditionally when a vehicle was lost to a "mobility kill" (blown tire, blown track, hit to a critical system, etc.) or bad circumstance (out of fuel, fell into a ditch, blew a head gasket, etc.) there was an expectation of the possibility of recovery. Especially for the attacker. This is built into core assumptions the West has about maintaining a large and complex armored force. Sure, that $20m tank might get temporarily knocked out by a mine, but a few $10s of thousands and some recovery vehicles and bingo... $20m tank back in service again. One of the things that UAS is showing us is that these assumptions are now dead. If you lose a $20m tank to a $100 tank mine it is a sitting duck for a $3000 drone from 5km away will likely come and set it on fire. Now that tank is out of inventory permanently, whereas 20 years ago it probably would be back in service. The point of this is UAS has transformed the column of would-be-mobility-kills to permanent losses in a way no previous system could achieve. This is not a small issue. Steve One thing to not there is that the soviet tradition used to be to just let damaged tanks sit around until the frontline moved and then let rear services eventually pick them up. While the west has put focus on immediately recovering damaged tanks with ARVs being quite common and tank recovery being trained even with just other tanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 24 minutes ago, Grigb said: Yes, yes it does. The open farm fields are no longer open. This has an impact on defenders since natural defender instinct is to face the open field. However, since the fields are no longer open, your defensive positions are essentially become blind. Your overlapping fields of fire are not overlapping anymore. Furthermore, attacking through the field due drones and mines is still a bad idea. Thus, initial breaking occurs along the perpendicular tree line. However, your defensive positions that face the field are unable to fire at that tree line due to an obstructed line of sight. So, initial fortifications with the time became essentially useless. You just made me want a new modern game even more, and I didn't think that as possible! Steve, can we request a new terrain type for this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 Quote https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/23/us/trump-shooting-gunman-snipers.html The Times recreated, in 3-D, the lines of sight for three countersniper teams and the would-be assassin. I am not trying to restart the political conversation, honest. This article is an extraordinary showcase of how drones and 3D mapping software can be combined to give an extraordinary level of detailed information. I post it only for that purpose. And to ask the question, what will AI be able to do with this level of detail in a few years? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FancyCat Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 twitter thread of Kofman, Russian artillery fire rates need to be relooked. Quote Sometimes oft repeated numbers need revisiting. One example is Russian artillery fire rates. These have generally been overestimated going back to 2022, along with ammo consumption rates, with sensational 60k per day figures. A short thread. 1/ First, what are we counting? The numbers given out are typically for main caliber artillery types: 152mm, 122mm, MLRS (300, 220, 122), and 120mm mortars. This figure is not inclusive of smaller infantry mortars, anti-tank guns, tanks used indirect fire roles, etc. 2/ Russian fire rates for 2022 were probably in the 15,000-20,000 range. Likely ~18,000 (see forthcoming podcast discussion on this). There’s little evidence that Russian fires reached 60,000 per day in 2022. The peaks were likely double the figure above, at 35,000-40,000. 3/ This brings the annualized fire rate closer to 5.5-6M in 2022. That does not include ammunition supplies destroyed in strikes, and it is difficult to account for what that might add up to. A conservative guess is another 500K-1M. 4/ Where did the 60k figure come from? At a certain point in Spring 2022 Ukraine was firing on average 5-6K per day. Russia had a localized 10:1 fires advantage in select areas. I suspect this was multiplied out to generate the 60k figure, but this was never representative. 5/ The Russian fire rate declined from probably 15k in winter of 2023, to less than 10k by the summer, and increased back again in October due to an influx of North Korean ammo. Ukraine had fires parity, and at times a slight advantage in the south during summer of 2023. 6/ By summer 2023 Russian forces increasingly used Lancets in counterbattery roles, had access to large quantities of FPVs, and increased numbers of PGMs, with reduced emphasis on a volume of fire approach for certain missions. 7/ The Russian average for 2023 is probably closer to 10k daily expenditure, and Russian fires have held steady at that figure so far in 2024. Notably, it has not declined significantly despite large quantities of FPVs, and other types of strike UAS being employed by the force. I would say it is fair to debate whether these figures should be inclusive of MLRS, conservatively, or limited to tube artillery. But in both cases the figures on fire rates and ammo expenditure need to be revised downwards. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1815826801836310607.html https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1815826801836310607 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 4 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Entirely agree, not a fan of the constant insinuation that I am tied to the tank defence industry for arguing a certain point of view, but I digress Oh man. I don't think anyone has said you are shilling for the tank builders. They just think you are just not listening. What is really happening is more "I have to have the last word", "no I do" over and over and over again. Last time I'm pointing that out since unless this gets you and Steve to stop it then this comment is not helping. 4 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Once again going to point out its artillery / mines and clusters that are typically blunting these mechanised assaults. Drones do an excellent job of cleaning up what is left. Well Steve pointed out one obvious way drones made a column of damaged vehicles into destroyed ones. I'll point out that more importantly: how do you imagine the artillery was guided into target? While we don't always know the specifics of each instance we have countless examples of assaults being broken up by artillery because there are drones there to spot. BTW that would be an example of combined arms between drones, artillery and mines. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmouredTopHat Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 (edited) 5 hours ago, sburke said: Do you have some kind of financial investment in General Dynamics? 17 minutes ago, A Canadian Cat said: Oh man. I don't think anyone has said you are shilling for the tank builders. Look up. For all the talk about suicidal mechanised offensives, these attacks can / do gain ground, even if it is at crazy cost. Interesting to see how drones can be subject to friendly fire and poor coordination as well. Its -almost- like drones are not the solution for everything and have their own problems of operation. Edited July 23 by ArmouredTopHat 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 1 minute ago, ArmouredTopHat said: For all the talk about suicidal mechanised offensives, these attacks do gain ground, even if it is at crazy cost. Of course. That's been the hallmark of this war since the start. Mass still wins, but only if you have tons of mass to expend and enough to replace it with. Russia has that sort of mass, Ukraine does not. 1 minute ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Interesting to see how drones can be subject to friendly fire and poor coordination as well. We've been tracking that since day one in this thread. In fact, the Russians complained bitterly about their EW being really super good at knocking out their own drones EVEN WHEN frontline units tried to coordinate with EW units. So much of it has to do with the Soviet legacy of using schedules instead of flexible communications. 1 minute ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Its -almost- like drones are not the solution for everything and have their own problems of operation. It's crap posts like this that keep me, and others, pretty damned irritated. Of course drones are not the solution for everything and they have their own problems. Only a complete and utter moron would make such a claim. Which is why not a single person here, nor source of information posted for discussion, has made this claim. So either you think someone here did (and by extension think they are a moron) or you are still struggling with the fundamental discussion we're trying to have. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 12 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said: Look up. you clearly don't get sarcasm or the level of exasperation. And no one thinks you are financially vested in GD. You are however heavily emotionally and psychologically invested in tanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said: Of course. That's been the hallmark of this war since the start. Mass still wins, but only if you have tons of mass to expend and enough to replace it with. Russia has that sort of mass, Steve until they don't anymore. In another parlance we might say they are throwing good money after bad, until they have no money. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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