How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Saw this Keegan quote on the internets today and it seems entirely apropos: "Inside every army is a crowd struggling to get out, and the strongest fear with which every commander lives—stronger than his fear of defeat or even of mutiny—is that of his army reverting to a crowd". In the case of this war, it looks like 80% of the Russian Army didn't become a mob, it went in as one. 

slight change.

hell it is like the Russian war plan was essentially a flash mob raiding a 7/11.  For those not in the US, yeah that was a thing.

[FancyCat]

I want to bring up some interesting points about the early days in Kiev thanks to the WP article. Despite political leadership and self-doubt in the military, it looks like their preparedness saved the day, moving units and equipment off bases saving them from Russian first strikes. Interesting that that European officials stated it was impossible for Russia to take Kiev, or had enough troops to do so, despite US and UK warnings that they would try. As a result, or perhaps simply due to lack of enough units, only one mechanized formation was defending the capital, the 72nd brigade. 

The defense at Hostomel, despite Russia eventually taking it over, Ukraine counterattacked and preventing vital reinforcements arriving in the early days to overwhelm Kiev. 

UKR PR was very good, including simply pushing the buttons of Western officials via sending photos of the destruction and horrors directly to high level personnel in their governments, including the U.S National Security Advisor and members of Congress. 

Also Zelensky pressing the buttons of European leaders with his potential death was considered to be quite emotionally effective.  https://www.axios.com/2022/02/25/zelensky-eu-leaders-last-time-you-see-me-alive

The flooding of the Western front of Kiev brought their offensive to their knees. Communications with Higher Command were impacted by Russian jamming, so many actions were undertaken on lower unit initiative. Very significant in why Ukraine won the battles i think. Civilian, civil society resistance were extremely high and helped the defense. 

For me, the most important takeaway, the battle for Kiev could have gone into a Russian victory, despite whatever disadvantages Russia had, and therefore I want to emphasize that had Ukrainian resistance been less effective, had Zelensky fled, resistance might have well collapsed or not been as strong in all segments of the population, had Ukraine not done preemptive measures to secure their forces, Russia's reliance on the first strike may have worked. 

Interesting that the idea that Russia would go for it all, seems pretty unthinkable for all the people interviewed for this article, but that their response was not to freeze up. 

Quote

A reconstruction of events shows that even as Ukraine’s political leadership had downplayed the likelihood of a full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian military had taken critical steps to withstand Russia’s initial assault. Commanders had moved personnel and equipment off bases, despite in many cases their own doubts about what was to come.

Given the array of Putin’s forces along Ukraine’s borders, Syrsky had determined that if the Russians did attack Kyiv, their columns would advance along two or three major highways on what they foresaw as a fast, decapitating drive to the government quarter in Kyiv. The Kremlin battle plan assumed the city would be left defended by only weak Ukrainian forces, disoriented by the political chaos as Zelensky and his ministers fled.

To protect the city, Syrsky had organized two rings of forces, one in the outer suburbs and one within the capital. He wanted the outer ring to be as far from the inner ring as possible to protect the downtown area from shelling and keep the Russians fighting on the approaches to Kyiv.

Syrsky divided the city and the surrounding region into sectors and assigned generals from the military education centers to lead each area, creating a clear chain of command to which all Ukrainian military units and security services would answer. Tactical decisions would be made immediately by officers on the ground without having to consult headquarters.

About a week before the invasion, the Ukrainian military had moved all command posts into the field toward the probable axes of a Russian advance. Syrsky had also issued an order to move the army’s aviation assets, including helicopters and jets, off major bases, putting them well away from obvious airstrike targets.

In one video call with European leaders, he said, “This may be the last time you see me alive.” Ukrainian mothers are watching their children die in pursuit of European values, he told them. It left some of the European officials in tears.

Yermak, the head of the presidential administration, said that over the subsequent weeks, he regularly texted photos of slain Ukrainian children and ruined Ukrainian homes to the cellphones of officials around the world, including Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser; Karen Donfried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs; and members of Congress.

“I confess these were ghastly photos that were keeping me up at night,” Yermak said. “Ninety percent of the people who received them, they reacted, they called back and they started doing even more.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/kyiv-battle-ukraine-survival/

 

[Panserjeger]

Ukraine will get the Black Hornet 3 drone: https://mil.in.ua/en/news/norway-and-great-britain-to-transfer-to-ukraine-black-hornet-micro-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-and-nightfighter-anti-drone-systems/

I´ve actually used this drone myself, incredibly easy to operate after a short briefing. And it is so small that you can´t hear or see it if it is more than 10 meters away. It is designed to be used in Squads or Platoons for recon, also suitable for urban conditions as it can fly very low undetected to look under bridges etc.

[Twisk]

Regardless of the type of tank that exists in the future armies will want something that can move under fire, survive close hits, and travel far with lethality. Light infantry is not this. A tank can be spotted more easily but requires more explosives and more accuracy to result in a kill. What is especially important is if tanks are able to break into rear then it must be met by either defense in depth (already positioned) or armor of the enemy. The alternative is to wait till armor reaches point of supply or geographic exhaustion. So maybe future armor breakthrough is not one of many hundreds of km but 20-30 km and then reset but even in this war 30km breakthrough would be big distance. 

I say already positioned because while small teams are able to destroy a tank if those small teams must reposition even 15km quickly then having intelligence superiority in area of attack will allow precision munitions to destroy this reactionary force. So tank arm is not so much itself destroying enemy but creates disruption that forces enemy into open and allow shooters (intel + smart munition) to get kill. The tank is more bird dog to flush enemy than it is hunter.

 

 

I clarify more Part of problem in Ukraine war is that Russia cannot gain ISR(I do not know this term but I think is intel) superiority in area of front. Without this it cannot also gain fire superiority from its indirect smart munitions. Without this tanks are of no use because tanks themselves are not the keystone force. On other hand Ukraine is in situation where it does not need to concentrate armor and has low armor supply so why take risk if they are guaranteed supply of plentiful smart munition and ISR superiority from West?

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Twisk

[sburke]

9 minutes ago, Twisk said:

So tank arm is not so much itself destroying enemy but creates disruption that forces enemy into open and allow shooters (intel + smart munition) to get kill. The tank is more bird dog to flush enemy than it is hunter.

That is one expensive bird dog.. and once it runs out of fuel in enemy territory it is an expensive bird doghouse.  The weakness that it really faces in the discussion on these pages isn't the tank itself (though there is that as well) but the logistical tail it requires. In Desert storm the US against a weaker enemy did need an operational pause to allow supply to catch up and later had to spend a lot of effort to keep those supply lines clear. This against an enemy with no drones, nowhere near the level of commitment of its civilian population and no external enemy supplying tons of the latest military hardware and ISR.

remember that 40 mile column back in March?

Kyiv: Here's what we know about the 40-mile-long Russian convoy outside Ukraine's capital - CNN

Edited August 24, 2022 by sburke

[The_Capt]

23 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Saw this Keegan quote on the internets today and it seems entirely apropos: "Inside every army is a crowd struggling to get out, and the strongest fear with which every commander lives—stronger than his fear of defeat or even of mutiny—is that of his army reverting to a crowd". In the case of this war, it looks like 80% of the Russian Army didn't become a crowd, it went in as one. 

I have thought a lot about this.  Keegan was ornery old crank but I find myself more often than not in his camp.  I think it is a question of orientation. A military (army, navy what have you) is a macro-social construct, one within a larger macro-social construct of government, within one larger than that, the state.  None of these are natural or organic.  We did not spontaneously come up with this as part of human natural social bonds, we constructed them.

The problem is, and always has been, how does one get a young man (and now person) to re-orientate towards the desired ends of an artificial macro-social construct versus the one that he (they) are born into?  And then how does one make that orientation stick under the pressures of warfare?  A military going back to antiquity is an exercise in social engineering; however, it is always in tension with that natural organic micro-social structures we are born into.  [Aside: this all came up with the realization that we had in fact been fighting within micro-social constructs and losing around the world because we had completely missed the context in many cases]

The exact same dynamic exists for both parties in this war but with very different effects.  Ukrainian micro-social construct have been galvanized and energized into singular purpose in this war - this is fairly rare, but an existential war definitely will do it.  Those micro-social structures are aligned with the macro, or at least better aligned than one would normally see. 

Russia is almost the exact opposite.  They went into this war completely misaligned. Macro structures like military and government want one thing, micro-social (i.e. "back home") is nowhere near as homogeneous - see refuseniks etc.  For a military to have a real hope of sustaining warfare, it needs that micro-social alignment, or things like desertion, officer fragging and other counter-productive behaviour begins to move to the fore - in other words the army starts behaving like a crowd.  The difference between a soldier and deserter is orientation.  A soldier remains orientated towards the macro-social structure of the army - even when it is his buddies.  A deserter is orientated towards micro-social structures - "screw this I am going home".

So back in early days when we saw more and more abandoned vehicles and really odd (and often abhorrent) RA soldier behaviour the damage of misalignment became clear.  And they have done nothing to fix that, in fact it has gotten worse with every deep strike and visible loss.  So when people say "Russian mobilization" as if it is the boogyman, I really am not too concerned because it won't matter how many troops the "make" if they don't fix that root problem, in fact more troops can make it worse as sub-cultures form.

What is really weird is that we live in a time when it is possible to directly target, with precision, at the micro-social level.  This has kicked things like Influence Activities into high gear.  

[hcrof]

5 minutes ago, Twisk said:

Regardless of the type of tank that exists in the future armies will want something that can move under fire, survive close hits, and travel far with lethality. Light infantry is not this. A tank can be spotted more easily but requires more explosives and more accuracy to result in a kill. What is especially important is if tanks are able to break into rear then it must be met by either defense in depth (already positioned) or armor of the enemy. The alternative is to wait till armor reaches point of supply or geographic exhaustion. So maybe future armor breakthrough is not one of many hundreds of km but 20-30 km and then reset but even in this war 30km breakthrough would be big distance. 

I say already positioned because while small teams are able to destroy a tank if those small teams must reposition even 15km quickly then having intelligence superiority in area of attack will allow precision munitions to destroy this reactionary force. So tank arm is not so much itself destroying enemy but creates disruption that forces enemy into open and allow shooters (intel + smart munition) to get kill. The tank is more bird dog to flush enemy than it is hunter.

If you have enough intelligence superiority to destroy the enemy reserve armour (or those cool buggies with atgms that would be faster and just as lethal) then why do you even need tanks? Just blast the enemy with artillery or air power. 

On the other hand, that artillery or some truck mounted brimstones will mess up your armour push quite nicely as you have kind of flushed yourself out. 

That's assuming you managed to catch every infantry squad before you get attritted by their AT weapons. A well equipped Ukrainian (or NATO) squad is carrying multiple javelins/NLAWs each which is more AT firepower than a full cold war company.

[Twisk]

Just now, hcrof said:

If you have enough intelligence superiority to destroy the enemy reserve armour (or those cool buggies with atgms that would be faster and just as lethal) then why do you even need tanks? Just blast the enemy with artillery or air power. 

It would be good to have way to dislocate enemy force out of its defense and concealment.  The real battle is one fought over intelligence assets and long rage precision weapons you can concentrate this in area that once you have superiority of you can push armor out. This draws enemy fire and operational response that you detect and then destroy with intel + precision weapon.

While buggies are just as lethal (and faster) they are more able to be destroyed by close hit. Mortar explosion 2 meters away will kill and wound but this will not kill and wound tank. Tank requires relatively larger precision explosive (and more precise) weapon.

 

(Part of this is that always armies look for ways to make large gains fast. So what does this look like? This thing will become tank of the future)

 

7 minutes ago, sburke said:

. In Desert storm the US against a weaker enemy did need an operational pause to allow supply to catch up and later had to spend a lot of effort to keep those supply lines clear. This against an enemy with no drones, nowhere near the level of commitment of its civilian population and no external enemy supplying tons of the latest military hardware and ISR.

Yes which is why I mention making much smaller push and then reset. Abrams has operational range of 400km so a push of 30km and then stop is not out of reason. This would be great distance in Ukraine war since fighting moved to eastern front.

[BletchleyGeek]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

UGVs will be a huge part of the battlefield of the very, very near future.  We're talking about a few years, not decades.  People who do not understand this are either ignorant or in denial (I do not mean this in an insulting way, just being factual).  Which systems doing what in what way is yet to be hammered out, but the trends are already emerging and the basics established.

Here's some videos:

I agree with that, just not convinced at all about Haldeman's "Forever Peace" scenarios being the defining way that we will see these platforms used and introduced.

And thanks for the videos, I knew about the second one (that's my Stugna on wheels reference) the first one was news to me. Looks a bit "regressive" to me.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

Which gets us back to 'what is tank'? The intangible onion layers provide "armour" ... which isn't a 40 ton steel box anymore. And that still leaves you with some tangible mobile firepower.

Mr S continues to drop the good questions.  The old DS answer was a big gun dressed up with mobility and survivability.  Now I am not so sure. 

Direct fires - we need this but do we need 120-125 mm of it?  Most of a tanks direct fire is to kill other tanks.  If other systems are doing this better, further etc, then do we need a big AT gun?  Ok, let’s say no for arguments sake.  The we still need direct fires for anti-vehicle, anti-material and suppression.  Does a big gun do this better than cannons, GLs, now drones with all sorts of hell attached, and/or missiles?  How about a direct fire system made up of all of those, along with indirect fires? Are indirect fires becoming so precise that they can step in for direct fires? 

Mobility.  Well all the candidates to replace that big gun are actually more mobile because they are all lighter.  Which also means they will use less energy and lighter logistics loads, not too mention infrastructure loads (bridges etc).  Gotta give this to anything but a tank really.

Survivability.  The church the old tank built.  Nothing beat big bad armour…but didn’t we just point out a bunch of flaws in this one?  Visibility is a big negative.  Protection is unbeatable, except for everything that wants to kill the thing.  But you cannot deny the thing can take a punch.

So what is the new tank concept?  Is it even a single vehicle anymore?  If you pull the tank apart and disaggregate it across multiple cheap capabilities, would that work?

My personal assessment is that I am not convinced the tank as a concept is in fact dead.  I think the old concept of what a tank means may be.  I suspect a heavy unmanned system will replace it, along with other systems shouldering the capability offloads.  I also suspect it’s employment range will also be narrower, however not necessarily less critical.

None of this solves the much bigger issues we tackled today though, the whole conventional mass problem on a fully illuminated battlefield is going to take some time to crack.

[sburke]

22 minutes ago, Twisk said:

Yes which is why I mention making much smaller push and then reset. Abrams has operational range of 400km so a push of 30km and then stop is not out of reason. This would be great distance in Ukraine war since fighting moved to eastern front.

30 km is not truly an attack into the depth though. (Kharkiv to the Russian border is under 40km to give perspective) You haven't really managed to dislodge the enemy and create a bird dog scenario. And apparently it is out of reason as RA can't manage even a couple kilometers despite massive expenditure of artillery ammo.  I think @The_Capt outlined many many pages ago what kind of frontage would be required to push your armor through and secure your supply lines with the range that current AT weapons alone have. It was a ridiculous amount of space and even then it only protected your logistics from AT weapons not precision arty.

The push in Desert Storm of a few hundred km did create the tempo for what you are suggesting in that the Iraqi army now had to consider large scale movement of units exposing them to air and long-range assets.  Replace the situation in Iraq and put the US 3rd Army in Ukraine and things would get a lot more complicated to the point that both Steve and The Capt question how effective the US might actually have been.

[Huba]

More RU TV madness:

And a lovely SEAD story:

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Huba

[sburke]

why not?  Russians are okay with forgiving him for the atrocities committed on his own people.  

[Beleg85]

37 minutes ago, Huba said:

More RU TV madness:

They have a clear problem with wardrobe department in this program...

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So back in early days when we saw more and more abandoned vehicles and really odd (and often abhorrent) RA soldier behaviour the damage of misalignment became clear.  And they have done nothing to fix that, in fact it has gotten worse with every deep strike and visible loss.  So when people say "Russian mobilization" as if it is the boogyman, I really am not too concerned because it won't matter how many troops the "make" if they don't fix that root problem, in fact more troops can make it worse as sub-cultures form.

What is really weird is that we live in a time when it is possible to directly target, with precision, at the micro-social level.  This has kicked things like Influence Activities into high gear.  

Really interesting post. I wonder what effect on conflicting alignments among Russian soldiers had early contacts with Ukrainian civilians and how much destruction of morale of Russian army was a work of Ukrianian psy-ops. Of course most of them probably did not believed or cared if Ukrainians were real nazis as propaganda claimed; but simply seeing a booing crowd that throws curses at you, even if nothing is thrown in your direction and you sit in fully armoured tank, can pretty quickly destroy morale of even elite units. Especially if crowd is similar in appearance, customs and share common laguage.

There was an article about Israeli army I read several years ago that quantitatively concluded that soldiers often facing such crowd situations- even when enjoying absolute theoretical firepower advantage - get burned out even faster than during combat. They needed to rotate units that stationed in ralatively non-violent areas of Palestine more often than those in Lebanon because of sheer psychical drainage of daily facing contesting crowds. And they didn't even share some common cultural traits with local population like Russians and (eastern) Ukrainians do.

Point: we are really social animals. And I doubt many RUssian soldiers have anti-riot training.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Beleg85

[hcrof]

39 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Mr S continues to drop the good questions.  The old DS answer was a big gun dressed up with mobility and survivability.  Now I am not so sure. 

Direct fires - we need this but do we need 120-125 mm of it?  Most of a tanks direct fire is to kill other tanks.  If other systems are doing this better, further etc, then do we need a big AT gun?  Ok, let’s say no for arguments sake.  The we still need direct fires for anti-vehicle, anti-material and suppression.  Does a big gun do this better than cannons, GLs, now drones with all sorts of hell attached, and/or missiles?  How about a direct fire system made up of all of those, along with indirect fires? Are indirect fires becoming so precise that they can step in for direct fires? 

Mobility.  Well all the candidates to replace that big gun are actually more mobile because they are all lighter.  Which also means they will use less energy and lighter logistics loads, not too mention infrastructure loads (bridges etc).  Gotta give this to anything but a tank really.

Survivability.  The church the old tank built.  Nothing beat big bad armour…but didn’t we just point out a bunch of flaws in this one?  Visibility is a big negative.  Protection is unbeatable, except for everything that wants to kill the thing.  But you cannot deny the thing can take a punch.

So what is the new tank concept?  Is it even a single vehicle anymore?  If you pull the tank apart and disaggregate it across multiple cheap capabilities, would that work?

My personal assessment is that I am not convinced the tank as a concept is in fact dead.  I think the old concept of what a tank means may be.  I suspect a heavy unmanned system will replace it, along with other systems shouldering the capability offloads.  I also suspect it’s employment range will also be narrower, however not necessarily less critical.

None of this solves the much bigger issues we tackled today though, the whole conventional mass problem on a fully illuminated battlefield is going to take some time to crack.

What about a 2S9 Nona with a sensor mast, Spike NLOS missiles and a fleet of drones? 

It would be cheap, mobile, always in defilade and could rain hell down on any enemy up to 10km away. 

[chuckdyke]

The T72 is obsolete, the concept of the tank is not. The designers will come up with something. The Sagger made the Centurion obsolete, the next generation had laminated armor. The tank will depend more on combined operations, but it will carry on in some way. 

[danfrodo]

48 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

1 hour ago, Huba said:

More RU TV madness:

They have a clear problem with wardrobe department in this program...

yeah, kinda makes me wish I was color blind.  Can't unsee that.  Another RU TV atrocity.  I would love to know just how many people in RU can hear this and say "yeah, that makes sense".  And yet another promise to attack Poland and Germany as soon as possible.  unbelievable.

[Gpig]

What do you guys think of this radio commentary?

Former British Army chief Lord Richard Dannatt tells #TimesRadio that President Zelensky should ‘start negotiating’ with Russia as ‘Russia is not going to lose this war.’

YouTube clip

He seems to be confident that Russian Forces will never be forced out by the Ukrainians, contrary to our general consenting views, herein.  He thinks the Ukrainians will never be strong enough.

He doesn't seem to take into account the mobilization on the UA side, OR the equipment and material still coming/arriving from the West.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Gpig

[chuckdyke]

The Brits have their share of Neville Chamberlains, the Russian Conscripts seems to me have lost the will to fight. To put it in CM terms nervous and rattled before they are committed. 

[MikeyD]

Two possibilities. Either 1) Dannatt's an old Cold Warrior with an inflated opinion of Russian capabilities, or 2) he's Kim Philby.

[chuckdyke]

The two guys in their foxhole. They think Russia will lose this war. 

 

[Vet 0369]

21 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, imagine where there is no rider at all and instead the vehicle is "manned" by a driver, a navigator, a weapons operator, and a commander sitting 1000 miles away in an air conditioned shopping mall.  Logistics for the crew?  Meal cards for the food court, free bathrooms, and a parking lot where they can safely drive back to a base housing that will never get attacked.

That is the future.  Or I should say near future.  It's coming very soon.

Steve

P.S.  if this is an American op there would be a lawyer added to the crew.

P.P.S. there would also be a lot more women as no problem with combat roles.

P.P.P.S. as long as the crew can get to the control room on time, the 25% of the population that is too fat and out of shape to get into the armed forces is now available for recruitment.

P.P.P.P.S. no problem having 60 - 70 year olds onboard either as typical age problems aren't relevant.  Can have dialysis or hip replacements without affecting operational tempo.

P.P.P.P.P.S. if you think I'm being snarky... you're wrong.

Unfortunately, you’ll still need the Grunt. Whatever tech humans can create can and will be defeated by opposing humans, ensuring that you’ll always need the Grunts to go in and dig them out after the Techies” disable or destroy the defensive tech.

[billbindc]

18 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Two possibilities. Either 1) Dannatt's an old Cold Warrior with an inflated opinion of Russian capabilities, or 2) he's Kim Philby.

Dannatt is very similar to a lot of folks who work on this issue. They can tell you quite articulately how badly Russia is doing and how brilliant the Ukraine campaign has been but simply cannot see how Ukraine wins. I have had this conversation numerous times with legit experts and many cherish as an article of faith that Russia has another gear it can drop into an win the war...or at least not lose it. There are decades of attitudes and expectations in that view and it's just impossible for some folks to get over it.  

[billbindc]

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2022/08/24/sobrani-materiali-na-desyatki-ugolovnih-del-fsb-gotovit-zachistku-armii-iz-za-fiasko-v-ukraine-a23555

Let the games begin...

[hcrof]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

What about a 2S9 Nona with a sensor mast, Spike NLOS missiles and a fleet of drones? 

It would be cheap, mobile, always in defilade and could rain hell down on any enemy up to 10km away. 

Ok, here is a more developed concept for a tank-like system for the modern battlefield. The observer/hunter/killer team. The purpose of the system is to punch through enemy defenses and exploit the rear, or it can be used defensively. 

Killer: as per the concept above. It remains behind cover at all times and destroys enemy vehicles and strongpoints with its gun-mortar and atgm at ranges 5-10km.

Hunter: a light tank with IR and visual sensors, as well as the ability to deploy a small drone for scouting. It is small and light, with a 3 man crew and front armour that can withstand 30mm fire. Its main armament is a quick firing 15-20mm cannon (think ciws), with a few starstreak missiles. Using its sensors it can detect enemy drones and shoot them down. It can suppress and destroy infantry and if it encounters a heavy vehicle it calls the killer vehicle which destroys it. If the enemy launches an atgm, the IR sensor will automatically detect the launch and the cannon will shoot the missile down. APS is the final line of defence. 

Observer: travels just behind the hunter. Another small vehicle which is basically just a drone carrier. Its job is to search every potential enemy position in advance so it can be destroyed by the killer vehicle or artillery. 

Combine that team with mechanised infantry to secure the terrain and clear out urban areas. 

In this way the team can push forward a dense ISR bubble while degrading that of the enemy. The gun-mortar provides prompt integrated fires that will destroy enemy vehicles while the hunters deal with infantry and atgm teams. The lightweight vehicles are fast and mobile with reduced logistical requirements.