How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

26 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Would it be too simplistic to say that the MANPAD will do to armor what the bullet did to the heavily armored mounted knight? What was the result then? Lighter cavalry used as pursuit and heavier cavalry used occasionally as shock but both being much lighter in protection and higher in speed than before. 

I think it is going to become something like this, yes.  Or perhaps another way of looking at it is that armor will become more like Special Forces; used for specialized and limited situations where the stakes are high and it's worth risking expensive/limited forces. 

Nobody would suggest having SF guys walking around pulling security duty in random unimportant locations, right?  Why have a multi million Dollar tank sitting around doing the equivalent?  Yet current doctrine has AFVs performing (or attempting to perform) such mundane roles.  In this war such doctrine seems to border on suicidal behavior.

Instead, I see operational planners first asking themselves if armor is even a good idea to include.  What a new concept, eh?  If the answer is "yes" then the next steps would be to select the point of the plan where it would be most effectively used, determine how to get it there, how to keep it safe while there, and finally how to get it out of the danger zone faster than the enemy can zero in on it.

In many ways I see the strategy of armor becoming more like US flamethrower teams in WW2 PTO.  As a general weapon they were completely useless and highly vulnerable, but as a specialized weapon they could be tactically decisive.

When a Japanese strongpoint was discovered they would first try to engage it with the platoon's normal array of Bazookas, grenades, small arms.  If that didn't work they determined the optimal place to use a flamethrower, carefully planned out a route to it from the rear, positioned forces to ensure that path was not under threat, then sent a scout team back to fetch the flamethrower operator.  The scout team would brief the flamethrower and escort it into position.  Once in position the flamethrower would blast the target and then immediately retreat with the scout team back to the rear along the same protected path or, I suppose, an alternate path if one was practical.  The point is the flamethower didn't stick around, it got out of there right away.  After the strongpoint was neutralized the infantry assault would continue.

In a sense this is no different than any other specialized support weapon.  You don't see commanders planning on having their Javelin teams march up front, right?  You don't have aircraft loitering pointlessly around an area just in case there might be something to shoot at, right?  You don't have engineer units doing recon, you don't have recon building bridges.  Armor has to become thought of as specialized, not versatile like it is today.

That's the way I see things headed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I don't know when I might get bored with Ukraine's trolling of Russia, but when I see things like this I know I never will.

 

[MSBoxer]

The tank is dead, long live the tank

[The_Capt]

44 minutes ago, sburke said:

actually not really true, yes there have been varying AT weapons from ATRs through AT guns, PF. PzShk and BAZ.  The issue now is proliferation, range and probability of kill.  Now you don't even need to see the tank with your Mk 1 eyeball to kill it whereas prior. IF you had a weapon in range to kill, odds are you'd be spotted and at risk the tank would get you first.

I don't think anyone has said the tank hasn't still played some role in Ukraine, just that it isn't used as it was designed and meant for. That being the case considering the expense and effort to keep it in the field and protect it, is there a better way to accomplish the role it is doing now?

The parking garage may affect that but there are only so many of them.   

I have always found the  "tanks have always died...so they are fine" argument stupid.  Right next to it is "there will be a tank until something can replace it."  You could say the exact same things about cavalry before WW1...and then the cavalry was done.  It happened when the lethality of the WW1 battlefield negated the capabilities of cavalry, there was no mitigation and cavalry could no longer deliver effects. 

So for the modern tank - 

- Lethality of the modern battlefield is clearly a problem for the tank system, maybe not as extreme as cavalry, but it has had an impact as demonstrated by constrained employment (and downright failure on the RA side) on both sides.

- Mitigation measures are either not in place, or do not exits. At least not enough to counter the current environment

- Tanks are also clearly unable to deliver the effects we build them for in this war, right now, but I am not convinced it is a "never again" situation. 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by The_Capt

[Battlefront.com]

38 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I think this is Steve's point.  If you have to do this to protect a tank...do we really need a tank?

Yup.  The amount of resources that go into protecting that tank could go towards something better.  The more resources that are needed, the more likely it is that there's a better investment elsewhere.  Failing to understand the point of diminishing returns on a particular concept leads to "brilliant" ideas like this:

[Grey_Fox]

18 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Or, here is crazy idea...stop doing Reddit style drive-bys that only reinforce Dunning-Kruger and go get some facts we can actually use.

What's with the ad homs?

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, holoween said:

But thats not what happened in ukraine. the russians got their system set up although badly and got stopped at the sharp end. To go back to the earlier analogy the spear tip got stopped not the shaft broken.

Go back through Oryx and the pages on this thread from the early war and a complete collapse of the Russian operational system is exactly what happened.  Completely broken on the Northern Fronts - casualty percentages of 50-60% for BTGs pulling out.  Count the logistical vehicles.  Count the abandoned and captured.

Ukrainians did punch the front end and bloodied it, plenty of evidence of that, but it was the deep strikes which created enormous friction along the overstretched Russian system is what broke it.  The entire Russian system of conventional mass collapsed.  The RA then devolved into WW1 tactics to try and re-establish an airtight operational corridor to make very small gains in Donbass.  Incredibly costly and was not decisive in any sense of the term.

Then Ukraine looks like they did it again in Donbass when they got HIMARs as the Russians never got out of the operational pause.  Now Ukraine have pointed the whole thing the other way, taken the initiative and are starting to setup for an offensive, or at least that is the consensus.

[Cederic]

35 minutes ago, photon said:

APS strikes me a bit like armoring the flight decks of aircraft carriers in the 40s. It's a fine idea as far as it goes, but it won't stop a dedicated attacker, it marginally improves survivability, and it reduces the plane handling capabilities of the ship. If you need the deck armor, something has already gone catastrophically wrong in the chain of things meant to prevent your carrier from coming under attack.

Wrong discussion, probably the wrong site, so don't want to distract in this thread, but: https://www.armouredcarriers.com/

Even the US now use armoured decks.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I don't think that Steve's scenario "overweight people fighting wars from the mall" is close at all... securing comms is not a trivial problem (if fixable at all).

It is close.  Very close.  Not as a total solution, for sure, but the US and other nations are investing very heavily in this direction.  Personally, I think it will be easier to solve the comms problem than it will keeping large, expensive, and difficult to field armored vehicles from competing in the Turret Olympics.  It's far more likely, cost effective, and practical to design an AI to take over from a loss of Human control than it is to protect an AFV from top attack munitions.

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:

And AFVs are not the only traditional land systems that are "under threat" of wholesale change.  Non-combat vehicles are almost certainly going to be transformed even more than AFVs.

Steve

[photon]

3 minutes ago, Cederic said:

Wrong discussion, probably the wrong site, so don't want to distract in this thread, but: https://www.armouredcarriers.com/

Even the US now use armoured decks.

Oh definitely - the carrier is worth the protection if you can armor the deck without reducing the size of the air wing or making the ship unstable. But if you had to choose an armored deck or 20 more Hellcats, I know which Spruance would choose.

[The_Capt]

27 minutes ago, Grey_Fox said:

What's with the ad homs?

Taking a deep breath... @BFCElvis warm up my "quiet place" 

Not aimed at any one individual, more a collective of migrant commentators who continue to spin in here and do largely dislocated and highly opinion-based drive by posts that range from supporting their own precious cows to attacking this entire thread itself, for "reasons".  They never actually bring facts or links to data we can use, they just cause disruption and continue to demonstrate not only a paucity to make positive contribution, but a propensity to an inability to learn anything.

Given the incredible effort of many contributors, some in the warzone itself, to this thread who have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to contribute, discuss and even disagree all the while supporting the overall integrity of this effort - which is to try and understand this war better, not win an internet argument - I have normally let nature take it course and poor unsupported ideas/arguments simply die away; however, something in this last exchange I find particularly odious is that we were actually in the middle of a really good discussion on the possible future of conventional warfare that was going somewhere before it got derailed by a useless argument about the future of a single military platform.

I will not point fingers nor make things personal; however, let me just say that some of the recent contributions that fall into the category of "loud useless opinion" are making me want to fall to my knees and beg @sburke for forgiveness for my disparaging remarks on his parking lot citadels idea; at least that had a kernel of valid contribution.

Edited August 24, 2022 by The_Capt

[holoween]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Go back through Oryx and the pages on this thread from the early war and a complete collapse of the Russian operational system is exactly what happened.  Completely broken on the Northern Fronts - casualty percentages of 50-60% for BTGs pulling out.  Count the logistical vehicles.  Count the abandoned and captured.

Yea now how did it collapse.

But they were able to generate the btgs. the degrees to where they werent capable were selfmade russian issues (low morale, manpower, desertions)

They then however did get stopped by ukrainian resistance. from what ive seen the usual was infantry ambush to disrupt the attack then holding them at a village and artying them when they were stuck on the road.

So the core failure point during the early stages was not being able to break through such positions. The ways to fix that would be to bring enough and trained infantry first, proper arty support second but at third the afvs weren able to perform.

 

[chrisl]

59 minutes ago, Cederic said:

No, but commit properly.

Don't invade, win and tell someone you like 'hey, you can run the place now'.

You have to spend literally decades running the place for them. Control the major institutions, lead the Government, fix the economy, build the infrastructure and help the locals understand that there's a different, better way.

It'll cost a lot of cash, many lives and you'll have to cope with decades of accusations of colonisation and empire building, but what you'll get out of it is India, Morocco, Japan.. conquered territories that now contribute to the world as independent nations.

If you can afford to do that, it’s easier to just make them economically dependent and run things indirectly.  Way easier, cheaper, and less unpleasant.  It’s really the way of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

if I am not put into spotlight, I do not mind sharing them really. I had plans to create a unanimous twitter account and forward maps there. But right now unfortunately I do not have time for that.  

And new map for the western part of Kherson direction.

Thanks for the re-reporting complete with maps!  Very helpful.

OK, so it seems there isn't anything special going on at the front.  The Russians are just doing their usual "we have to look busy for Papa Putin" by making small scale attacks with very small and immediate objectives.  Sometimes they manage to score a bit of territory, but usually they get defeated.  Same here as elsewhere.

It is very telling that the RU Nats are latching onto this minuscule attacks and attributing much larger intentions.  It means they have nothing else to hang their hopes on.  That's nice

As I said earlier, with the supply constraints I don't see how Russia can do more than this sort of thing.  Their only reliable way to take terrain is to expend enormous amounts of heavy munitions on very small patches of ground.  Much of it striking nothing but fields or civilians, BTW. 

This sort of thing is something Russia has needed railroads to keep going.  The thought that a flimsy pontoon bridge and a couple of ferries can compensate for the lack of two road and one rail bridges is crazy.  It just isn't physically possible.  Therefore, Russia's offensive capacity in Kherson is extremely limited.  I don't think its defensive capacity has much depth to it either.

Steve

[danfrodo]

Definitely a slow news week from the war.  Which means really fascinating discussion of future of warfare. 

I looooooooooooove tanks.  Yet even as one of The Faithful, I have a hard time seeing how current tanks work in a drone/ATGM world.  Looks to me like we still need ~protected firepower projection devices but since vulnerable they need to be smaller and cheaper and probably unmanned.  So very very very sad.  

I did see post where someone jumped in just to say something like "tanks aren't dead!" then jump out.  Talk about bringing a stick to a tank fight.  That's all ya got?  It's like entering a debate w einstein and saying you just need bigger rocket engine to go faster than light and thinking you just did a mic drop.

Hopefully Ukraine will soon go on a major territory-grabbing offensive and show us all how it's done.

[The_Capt]

28 minutes ago, holoween said:

Yea now how did it collapse.

But they were able to generate the btgs. the degrees to where they werent capable were selfmade russian issues (low morale, manpower, desertions)

They then however did get stopped by ukrainian resistance. from what ive seen the usual was infantry ambush to disrupt the attack then holding them at a village and artying them when they were stuck on the road.

So the core failure point during the early stages was not being able to break through such positions. The ways to fix that would be to bring enough and trained infantry first, proper arty support second but at third the afvs weren able to perform.

 

A core tactical failure point - of course the Russians made massive gains in phase I initially

Some of those advances are over 200kms long.  The UA and Ukrainian resistance did not defeat that by nibbling away at the front end in ambushes, they hit the entire columns in depth, right back to SLOC entry points when they hit those ships at the pier on the Azov.  That entire Northern front did not collapse because of ATGMs alone.  They definitely stalled them, but so did running out of gas, which eventually killed them: the lesson being that if you want to stop an enemy with overwhelming material superiority hit them along the entire length when you have the ISR to do so. 

I disagree that this was entirely self-inflicted by the Russians and I am not sure more infantry, afvs, tanks or arty would have made a difference.  They may have gotten to Kyiv and maybe even made it to the siege stage but their over  stretched LOCs were highly exposed and more importantly entirely visible to western ISR.  It wasn't ATGMs, it was UA deep strike, done by many means, that crippled that, but the whole thing does not work unless they can see exactly where the Russian are, and are not.  

My point is not that they were not stopped by Ukrainian resistance, it is where and how that resistance was delivered.  I don't care how much extra F ech capability one brings along - super tanks with super APS, it is not going to matter if your opponent can see and hit the logistical lines those big sexy beasts need to stop becoming a paperweight in about 3 days...and in this Russia totally failed. 

The biggest failures of Russian planning and execution (in my opinion) were:

- Complete failure to establish operational pre-conditions - make UA C4ISR go dark, cut off avenues of support from the west and establish air superiority early and keep it.

- Complete failure of joint targeting integration - that many missiles should have crippled the UA but they seems all over the map (literally)

- Complete failure to match force-space-time to a coherent plan, and having zero contingency if Plan A failed

- Complete and utter loss of the strategic narrative.

- Complete failure to align military and political strategy.

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by The_Capt

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, chrisl said:

If you can afford to do that, it’s easier to just make them economically dependent and run things indirectly.  Way easier, cheaper, and less unpleasant.  It’s really the way of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.

Russia is, by all reasonable standards, completely dependent upon trade with the West.  Logic said that would keep Russia from risking that trade by behaving badly.  Yet Russia never behaved and has, in fact, been behaving progressively worse even though its dependence on the West has been increasing.  In other words, the theory of peace through economic dependence has some serious flaws in it.  Right now everybody is trying to figure out if China also thinks this way.

The other flaw in the theory is that sometimes trade dependency works in the other way.  Germany has been the biggest enabler of Russia's aggression because it has continued to send Russia vast sums of money every year for energy while at the same time openly challenging its own allies when they try to address Russian aggression.  Both the little stuff (assassinations, kidnappings, corruption etc.) and big stuff (invading Georgia, invading Ukraine, annexing territory, etc.)

Putin's made the mistake in thinking that he had the stronger hand in terms of economic dependence.  He was wrong, of course, but that's the point.  Real economic dependence didn't convince Putin to play nice.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The biggest failures of Russian planning and execution (in my opinion) were:

- Complete failure to establish operational pre-conditions - make UA C4ISR go dark, cut off avenues of support from the west and establish air superiority early and keep it.

- Complete failure of joint targeting integration - that many missiles should have crippled the UA but they seems all over the map (literally)

- Complete failure to match force-space-time to a coherent plan, and having zero contingency if Plan A failed

- Complete and utter loss of the strategic narrative.

- Complete failure to align military and political strategy.

 

You forgot probably the most important one:

- Complete failure to recognize that the military being relied upon to execute the plan was more focused on stealing washing machines and raping women than it was achieving military victory.

Getting back to APS, I think only a fool would argue that it would have made any difference to Russia in this war had they installed them on every single AFV.  The war was lost before they crossed the start line, therefore the details aren't really relevant except for influencing how badly they'd lose.

If Russia had instead had competent infantry, command and control, and C4ISR... well... I still think Russia would ultimately lose, but not such an epic way.  Therefore, if I was in charge of Russian defense spending I'd sooner invest it into those things and not APS.  Then again, if I were in charge of Russian defense spending I'd probably be investing it in my yachts and dachas.

Steve

[The_Capt]

Just now, Battlefront.com said:

Complete failure to recognize that the military being relied upon to execute the plan was more focused on stealing washing machines and raping women than it was achieving military victory.

Ah, good one.  I believe the technical term is complete Force Generation failure…but yours works too.

[Haiduk]

Russians hit with unkown in present time missile (or missiles) railroad station Chaplyne in Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Passenger train was hit, four passenger cars were struck. In present time knowingly about 15 dead (among them 11 y.o kid) and about 50 wounded.

  

 

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Lt. Col. (probably) Pavel Apanovich, Deputy Commander for Military-Political Work (Zampolit), 114th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, 127th Motor Rifle Division:

 

[sburke]

Well one thing I can say for Russia.  When they decide to dig a hole for themselves, they go deep.  I am having a hard time figuring out how long and what it will take before there is any consideration for normalization of relations.  I don't think you can consider this a cold war situation as there really is no military threat, but a cold shoulder era yeah.

[JonS]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I think this is Steve's point.  If you have to do this to protect a tank...do we really need a tank?

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.

[Huba]

So reportedly the "VAMPIRE" anti-drone system from the latest arms package is a hard-kill system based on laser guided APKWS:

 

 

 

 

I assume with proximity fuse for the rocket, and some radar for target acquisition, this could be a pretty interesting system, with fairly low per-shot costs.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Huba

[billbindc]

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

You forgot probably the most important one:

- Complete failure to recognize that the military being relied upon to execute the plan was more focused on stealing washing machines and raping women than it was achieving military victory.

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.