How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

55 minutes ago, dan/california said:

One thing that is clear is that it was one helluva effective ambush.  I am not sure how to defend against it to be honest.  At the beginning those looked like ATGM strikes which could have been delivered by dismounted infantry way out.  Then you have scary accurate artillery, all being observed in high resolution by UAS who follow up with aerial attacks.  No recon screen is going to pick up infantry teams in wood lines up to 2kms away.  Without c-UAS you cannot hide a mech force like that (we don’t see the ISR systems above this), and that artillery is landing right on top of them, likely very quickly and accurately.  

If someone has a clever answer that does not involve a few thousand dismounted recon sweeping every bush 2kms on either side, a magic C-UAV wand that can’t be detected from space and a shield bubble that makes tanks and BMPs both invisible to western ISR and protect them from PGM - well let’s hear it.

This is interesting, everything I read from this war from direct participants suggest that ATGM's are effective, but slightly less so than in theory, due to obstructed range, complications with maintenance, shooting procedures and avenues of approach, availabilty of skilled crew or enemy's tactics. Russian tanks are still pain in the *** for Ukrainian infantry when used intelligently, especially when connected to observation drones. Tanks hunting even single soldiers over battlefield is not something unheard of; when used smartly, power of 125 mm gun can suppress almost anything around.

Also question of scarcity of high-end equipment at least on Ukrainian side is something that blocks us from drawing definite conclusions about future of conventional warfare. I am not sure for example how many PGM's Ukraine has and how widespread is their use. If you listen to soldiers on the ground, they are also very lucky to have any Western eqiupment at all; usually it is not much more than a drone, short AT launcher, maybe armoured car or old APC in mechanized platoons. 4x4 cars are now one of most sought of commodities, much more than hightech. ATGM's are considered fancy weapons for specialists rather than standard tube like in US military. So these visions of changing warfare are fascinating, but we should still be very careful when attribute ISR/PGM's/smart tactics to every sector and front. Local observation drone + sometimes artillery support (if lucky) seem to be best friends of average Ukrainian soldier on the ground. There are of course places when better weapons are available.

[dan/california]

As aside about small changes that make a huge difference the improved effectiveness you get from ~40 meters of cable from the Stugna-P launcher to the control panel continues to impress. Of course the next step is a digital data link that lets the operator be hundreds of yards away. We also haven't seen the Israeli spike missile yet. A widespread demonstration of them would great for MANY reasons.

[dan/california]

 

[dan/california]

He needs to get lot better at saying "Leave, Or Die"

[billbindc]

Just now, dan/california said:

He needs to get lot better at saying "Leave, Or Die"

The reaction to this has been...odd. 

The Quincy folks and some of the Congress members who signed that dumb letter are pointing at this news and taking credit for it. They've left unexplained how their announcement traveled back in time to force the White House to do something months ago. The all or nothing people are crying foul and think that this is a betrayal of the Ukrainian government. Neither take makes any sense at all. 

What the administration is doing in a very real way lowers the possibility of unchecked escalation and/or the Russian use of nukes in this war. It also allows the delivery of very clear messages directly to and from Russian leadership. All of that is *very good*. This is what competence looks like. Enjoy it while we have it!

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Exactly.  I did not see fundamental “sucking”, which is the problem with this philosophical point of view - every video is Russians sucking.  I saw a mech RA outfit get totally shellacked by a combination of what I think were ATGM, UAS and really nasty accurate artillery - how they got there is unclear.  

Those two “low intelligence and problem solving skills guys” were likely already in a state of f#cked up, the lack of weapons is a hint, then getting a UAS grenade in the face pretty much guarantee they are pretty much zombies after that.  

OK, I was too harsh on the second strike.  I agree, shock could well explain that.  However, I am not at all comfortable with ruling out idiocy as you are for them walking lazily down the road together the first time right after getting ambushed.  So I will rephrase

From what we know of the circumstances of this particular video, a (probable) mobik unit was sent into the jaws of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade.  Two major failures here which underscore that Russia Sucks™.  First, the fact is that Russia is routinely sending untrained forces to the front lines (fail 1) and then using them for tasks wildly out of proportion to their capabilities (fail 2).  We know from tons of information other than Twitter videos that this is wide spread.

A few pages ago I offered up a logical, rational reason why Russia is putting untrained men straight into the frontlines.  The decision, as inhuman as it may be, is at least trying to stabilize the situation and should be respected (I use that term very loosely).  But why is the situation so unstable in the first place?  Obvious answer that is backed up by tons of evidence is Russia Sucks™.

I could be persuaded to give the Kremlin some points for the reality of war decision making at the highest level.  However, the second failure of having them go on absolutely senseless offensive  undermines whatever temporary value the mobiks might have for plugging gaps as soon as they are dead.  Therefore, even if we give Russia points for a pragmatic solution, I think they should lose credit for wasting what little combat value the mobiks have on completely pointless and unnecessary attacks.  Which gets me back to Russia Sucks™ yet again.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This is not a sign of anything beyond the fact that HE to the face makes everyone have low intelligence and poor problem solving skills.  Having been under accurate mortar fire, I can say from personal experience all one has drills and muscle memory when the world starts exploding around you and we were nowhere near as bad off as those sods in the video.

Those clustered guys may be a symptom of poor training but I would not write off inexperience as it is human nature to huddle together in those situations, hard to reprogram that even in trained troops.

Granted, but that training should avoid situations like men walking casually down an open road right after getting their assess handed to them.  I'm willing to cut them slack for the second time (shock), but I don't think there's any reason to cut them slack for the first time.

At this point I will remind you that I am an equal opportunity critic in this war.  The horrible video of the two Ukrainian BMPs caught in an ambush and getting at least a half dozen men killed (two of which were run over by the panicking BMP driver) is a case in point.

Steve

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

One thing that is clear is that it was one helluva effective ambush.  I am not sure how to defend against it to be honest.  At the beginning those looked like ATGM strikes which could have been delivered by dismounted infantry way out.  Then you have scary accurate artillery, all being observed in high resolution by UAS who follow up with aerial attacks.  No recon screen is going to pick up infantry teams in wood lines up to 2kms away.  Without c-UAS you cannot hide a mech force like that (we don’t see the ISR systems above this), and that artillery is landing right on top of them, likely very quickly and accurately.  

If someone has a clever answer that does not involve a few thousand dismounted recon sweeping every bush 2kms on either side, a magic C-UAV wand that can’t be detected from space and a shield bubble that makes tanks and BMPs both invisible to western ISR and protect them from PGM - well let’s hear it.

If you're a country that has rapid electronics development capability, you have a couple years where you can do SEAV with anti-radiation drones.  Right now all the ISR drones are being joysticked, so both they and their operators are transmitting and giving away their locations.  Russia has no effective capability to triangulate on those and hit them.  There are people in Russia who know how to do that, but RU as a country doesn't have the resources to implement it, let alone have conscripts operate it.  Ukraine could receive equipment that would let them do it, and their operators are showing a really good understanding of how their AVs work, so they could probably take AV suppression equipment and a couple weeks training and use it effectively.

But that's only good for a few years, because the reality right now is that the ISR drones aren't autonomous - they're being joysticked.  If you're up against an opponent that can give their drones a true autonomous mode it gets much harder because they don't have to transmit very often, and neither do their controllers.  But one of the easiest things to make fully autonomous would be drones that just go and detect the transmissions of the enemy drones and their operators and bring fire on them, either with something organic to the drone or with a request to a missile from a few km back.

It will get a lot harder when the drones get fancier and have to transmit less data (e.g a few bits with coordinates and an ID rather than continuous video).  If they aren't transmitting, they're going to be hard to detect.

And I'm not sure what you're going to do about the guys with ATGMs around the perimeter.  Especially when the SEAV/ATGM owner has defined a geofenced area for the drones so that inside is a free fire zone for the drones and the guys on the perimeter are blowing up anybody who tries to drive.

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

The reaction to this has been...odd. 

The Quincy folks and some of the Congress members who signed that dumb letter are pointing at this news and taking credit for it. They've left unexplained how their announcement traveled back in time to force the White House to do something months ago. The all or nothing people are crying foul and think that this is a betrayal of the Ukrainian government. Neither take makes any sense at all. 

What the administration is doing in a very real way lowers the possibility of unchecked escalation and/or the Russian use of nukes in this war. It also allows the delivery of very clear messages directly to and from Russian leadership. All of that is *very good*. This is what competence looks like. Enjoy it while we have it!

Yup, when I first saw the message I did not think the sky is falling.  In fact, I read the statement and did not see any reason to panic.  The request was for Ukraine to stop loudly saying they won't negotiate, not that they should negotiate.  Big difference.

Then I read someone's reporting who very directly stated it was to assuage allies who are not as gung-ho on seeing Russia knocked out of commission as they are getting nukes off the table. Which, as a reminder, has been the topic of discussion as of late.

Another angle is the Admin is trying to head off the pro-Putin Republicans who are (likely) about to come to power in Congress.  They will no doubt get some support from the Loony Left wing of the Democrats.  As with the foreign allies, the anti-spending voices in US is noisy and looking for excuses to make more noise.  Looks like the Admin is trying to take some wind out of those sails.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, akd said:

Russia responds:

 

Well, in Russia's defense... they are running out of things to steal.

Steve

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

So everything for fifty kilometers back from the forward edge will will entirely diffuse drone systems with the absolute minimum of highly stealthed humans. And then you will have a fires complex with as much protection as an Aegis cruiser, and a price tag to match?

More, and more expensive.

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

As aside about small changes that make a huge difference the improved effectiveness you get from ~40 meters of cable from the Stugna-P launcher to the control panel continues to impress. Of course the next step is a digital data link that lets the operator be hundreds of yards away. We also haven't seen the Israeli spike missile yet. A widespread demonstration of them would great for MANY reasons.

Against Russia a 500m digital link would be great.  Against a technologically advanced military maybe less so.  A military that has sensors looking for radio signals that could indicate presence of an enemy position (e.g. for suppressing joysticked AVs) will be putting them on ground vehicles for similar purposes.  They may not detect the operator, who will be mostly in receive mode except when the "fire" signal is being sent, but it will detect the launcher.  A wired connection leaks a lot less signal for someone to detect.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This is one of the problems with these twitter videos - they make great war porn but the thing is so heavily edited that it is hard to actually make out what happened in any meaningful manner.  

Tell me about it.  I hate the editing.  There was another one a few pages back and the same KO'd vehicle was shown several times with other destruction inbetween.  I'm sure the Ukrainians really smashed the Hell out of the Russians in that location, but chopping up the footage to synch with music is crap for trying to figure out what happened.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I would say the outfit in question looks pretty green from some of the video, maybe coming under fire for the first time, but they had BMPs and tanks with gas in them and looked to be advancing in column before it all went sideways so still mounted mech capable.  I am wondering how they got into that ambush in the first place to be honest.

Obviously no answer to this particular battle, but what we've seen from various other battles and reporting (including from Russian sources) is that there's very little care being taken about these attacks.  Some officer far away is making decisions and issuing orders which are not well informed.  Due to the systemic dysfunction in the Russian military (going back to the Soviet days), the orders are either carried out or (more recently) there's a mutiny.  And so another bunch of zinc coffins get filled (even if euphemistically as the Russians often don't have a chance to recover their dead).

What this means in practice is some commander at the front rounds up enough forces, perhaps completely ad-hoc, to do the attack.  Recon doesn't seem to be done with any regularity or care, perhaps because it's not relevant since the commander doesn't offer the resources or time to do it properly.  Assuming, of course, there is anybody capable of doing recon work worth a damned.  I'd put money on most Russian sectors of front not having any ISR other than some quadcopters, which are not the be-all-end-all tool for the job.

Earlier in the war this tactic didn't work, but it seems to not have failed as miserably as it fails now.  Three reasons I can think of:

1. the quality of the soldiers is now exceptionally poor
2. outgoing artillery isn't what it used to be
3. Ukrainian defenders are more numerous, more capable, and better equipped than they were earlier in the war

It seems that the Russian attacks move straight into Ukrainian positions with little idea of what's in front of them and little support from artillery.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

One thing that is clear is that it was one helluva effective ambush.  I am not sure how to defend against it to be honest.  At the beginning those looked like ATGM strikes which could have been delivered by dismounted infantry way out.  Then you have scary accurate artillery, all being observed in high resolution by UAS who follow up with aerial attacks.  No recon screen is going to pick up infantry teams in wood lines up to 2kms away.  Without c-UAS you cannot hide a mech force like that (we don’t see the ISR systems above this), and that artillery is landing right on top of them, likely very quickly and accurately.  

If someone has a clever answer that does not involve a few thousand dismounted recon sweeping every bush 2kms on either side, a magic C-UAV wand that can’t be detected from space and a shield bubble that makes tanks and BMPs both invisible to western ISR and protect them from PGM - well let’s hear it.

Return to doing recon by force?  Units with the appropriate levels of training, doctrine, and equipment probe to determine what might be in front of them (in a static situation they should already have some clue) while the main attack force waits for information necessary to formulate a viable attack plan.  The recon force might get hammered by the ambushes, true enough, but that's part of the reason they exist.  If they do get hammered then the attacking force has information to act upon, which should include the option to NOT ATTACK until something changes such as hitting the suspected positions with artillery fire, seeking alternative routes, using feints to draw away defenders from A so you can attack B, etc.

Russia has shown it lacks the ability to do this, but I don't think we should presume the same lack of options for a true combined arms force built on the Western model.

That said, moving to contact against a defender who is determined and able to fight with sophisticated weaponry and Western style doctrine is not going to be easy for the attacker.  Physics rule at the end of the day.  Still, I still see ways to suck less than Russia does at offensive operations.  Because, well, Russia is in a league of its own for many well established and quite well documented reasons.

Steve

[dan/california]

38 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Against Russia a 500m digital link would be great.  Against a technologically advanced military maybe less so.  A military that has sensors looking for radio signals that could indicate presence of an enemy position (e.g. for suppressing joysticked AVs) will be putting them on ground vehicles for similar purposes.  They may not detect the operator, who will be mostly in receive mode except when the "fire" signal is being sent, but it will detect the launcher.  A wired connection leaks a lot less signal for someone to detect.

A piece of gear that is about to go from nonexistent, to absolutely omnipresent is a transmitter powered by a AA battery that emits a signal you have to work hard to figure out is not part of the actual network that is killing people and breaking things. Five hundred dollars "drones" that just fly semi coherent patterns in the general direction of the enemy and broadcast a similar mimic signal will also be very popular. We are at the very front edge of more things than we can keep up with. 

 

I will admit that my opinion of some of Sullivan's actual policies are coloring my opinion of these communications. Which actually do make sense.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Tell me about it.  I hate the editing.  There was another one a few pages back and the same KO'd vehicle was shown several times with other destruction inbetween.  I'm sure the Ukrainians really smashed the Hell out of the Russians in that location, but chopping up the footage to synch with music is crap for trying to figure out what happened.

Obviously no answer to this particular battle, but what we've seen from various other battles and reporting (including from Russian sources) is that there's very little care being taken about these attacks.  Some officer far away is making decisions and issuing orders which are not well informed.  Due to the systemic dysfunction in the Russian military (going back to the Soviet days), the orders are either carried out or (more recently) there's a mutiny.  And so another bunch of zinc coffins get filled (even if euphemistically as the Russians often don't have a chance to recover their dead).

What this means in practice is some commander at the front rounds up enough forces, perhaps completely ad-hoc, to do the attack.  Recon doesn't seem to be done with any regularity or care, perhaps because it's not relevant since the commander doesn't offer the resources or time to do it properly.  Assuming, of course, there is anybody capable of doing recon work worth a damned.  I'd put money on most Russian sectors of front not having any ISR other than some quadcopters, which are not the be-all-end-all tool for the job.

Earlier in the war this tactic didn't work, but it seems to not have failed as miserably as it fails now.  Three reasons I can think of:

1. the quality of the soldiers is now exceptionally poor
2. outgoing artillery isn't what it used to be
3. Ukrainian defenders are more numerous, more capable, and better equipped than they were earlier in the war

It seems that the Russian attacks move straight into Ukrainian positions with little idea of what's in front of them and little support from artillery.

Return to doing recon by force?  Units with the appropriate levels of training, doctrine, and equipment probe to determine what might be in front of them (in a static situation they should already have some clue) while the main attack force waits for information necessary to formulate a viable attack plan.  The recon force might get hammered by the ambushes, true enough, but that's part of the reason they exist.  If they do get hammered then the attacking force has information to act upon, which should include the option to NOT ATTACK until something changes such as hitting the suspected positions with artillery fire, seeking alternative routes, using feints to draw away defenders from A so you can attack B, etc.

Russia has shown it lacks the ability to do this, but I don't think we should presume the same lack of options for a true combined arms force built on the Western model.

That said, moving to contact against a defender who is determined and able to fight with sophisticated weaponry and Western style doctrine is not going to be easy for the attacker.  Physics rule at the end of the day.  Still, I still see ways to suck less than Russia does at offensive operations.  Because, well, Russia is in a league of its own for many well established and quite well documented reasons.

Steve

A LOT of the Russia sucks narrative is driven by the utter incompetence of their regular infantry. So they have to have their recon troops do a any regular infantry job that requires any thinking whatsoever, or a semblance of aiming. Then they have to use Spetsnaz for recon. Since both the recon troops and the Spetsnaz exist in a tenth or less the numbers required to do what the jobs they are actually being employed for, results are poor.

In the ambush that is the subject of today's discussion it is pretty clear not much recon got done.

Something else that has occured to me this weekend is that neither side in this war uses very much smoke at all, even in situations where even the old Soviet books call for it. Perhaps because neither side has enough training to do it effectively?

 

[Battlefront.com]

CNN report on Ukrainian MIA investigators looking for evidence of what became of Ukrainian soldiers known to be missing.  The report shows them going to a bunker position that had been overrun 6 weeks earlier.  They find remains of 5 soldiers of the 6 they were looking for.  Nearby they found a Russian soldier and recovered that as well.

 

[kevinkin]

26 minutes ago, dan/california said:

very much smoke at al

Here is an article from late summer that may help . Good old Popular Mechanics reminds me I need a hair cut.  

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a40921870/coded-visibility-smoke-makes-troops-invisible/

"The problem is that smoke worked against both sides. Smoke is often treated as temporary terrain by military forces, blocking vision just as surely as a mountain or a wall of trees. While smoke eventually subsides, it can both hinder and help attackers or defenders equally.

In the 1980s, technology finally intervened to give one side an advantage: the use of thermal night sights, which US and NATO forces used to see and shoot through smoke." "Today, most modern armies have thermal night vision, leveling the playing field. "

I might add that recon by fire is so deadly now, why bother with smoke at the small unit/individual level. One could also argue that Putin is such a blow hard, Russian smoke winds up in unintended places anyway. 

[Battlefront.com]

Apparently the Russians are running out of space to bury their dead.  Either that or they decided a median strip is good enough. Imagine how many miles of road would be needed to bury all the bodies Ukraine has in refrigerated rail cars.

Most of the graves look fresh.  At least one VDV flag. Luhansk:

The video starts after the beginning of the plot and before it reaches the visible end.  I count about 200 graves in what we can see, estimating for the last portion.

Steve

[Peregrine]

Bizarre. I obviously can't tell how heavy the road use and it could be a part of a large cemetery but if it isn't a minor traffic accident could be "I swerved to miss a dog and run over a half dozen war graves". Dumb and sad.

 

[chrisl]

11 minutes ago, Peregrine said:

Bizarre. I obviously can't tell how heavy the road use and it could be a part of a large cemetery but if it isn't a minor traffic accident could be "I swerved to miss a dog and run over a half dozen war graves". Dumb and sad.

 

Some of the comments in at least one of the threads where I saw it posted suggested it looks like a cemetery.  If I scroll slowly, it sort of looks like there are monuments in the background, but it's hard to tell for sure.  Filling a cemetery to the point where they're putting graves in the medians is kind of a lot, even if it's not so many that they're filling medians outside the cemetery.

[kevinkin]

Renaming that road to Memorial Parkway would not be very abstract at all. Putin should be chained to a chair and force to watch that on an open loop each morning before his trial. 

[paxromana]

10 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Renaming that road to Memorial Parkway would not be very abstract at all. Putin should be chained to a chair and force to watch that on an open loop each morning before his trial. 

Why would HE care ... that's what vatniks are for, pawns to be expended for his personal glory.

It sorta reminds me of the aftermath of one of the Slave rebellions against Rome (Spartacus IIRC) ... the Romans lined the road leading to Rome with 70 (? IIRC) miles of crucified rebels. 

'They make a desert and call it peace'

Standard Roman answer to rebels.

[Zeleban]

 

[The_Capt]

9 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

So in other words, hiding in the bushes, or in imperfectly covered holes, is becoming disintermediated?  The tactical rock-paper-scissors game continues to evolve.

....I'm starting to think there's actually some sense in my crackpot idea of replacing or augmenting (anti-bullet) infantry body armour with some kind of heavy man-covering/knee-length multilayer kevlar cloak sufficient to repel grenade fragments from most directions. Ideally, also combines anti-IR and ghillie suit camou features, as well as providing shelter from the elements. Back to the Viking days, Ukraine!

...It would reduce the lethal range of the frags, force the drone bombers to use heavier charges and also help defenders fully 'roof' their foxholes against small charges dropping in.

Or maybe that's still crackpot for reasons I haven't thought of.  I have spent enough time in deer blinds though to appreciate the value of a good windbreak and groundcloth, in spite of the extra weight.

I do not think it is crackpot at all.  In fact it is one of the few solutions that makes sense - up-armoured dispersed “light” infantry in powered suits.  You gain survivability, mobility and firepower where you need it, directly on the operator.  But you also can keep a lower battlefield profile and dispersion.  

The biggest issue is power.  If you want armoured infantry battle suits like Starship Troopers (book not movie) or The Expanse, one needs very high density but low weight power generation and I do not thin’ we are there yet.

[The_Capt]

9 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

So these visions of changing warfare are fascinating, but we should still be very careful when attribute ISR/PGM's/smart tactics to every sector and front. Local observation drone + sometimes artillery support (if lucky) seem to be best friends of average Ukrainian soldier on the ground. There are of course places when better weapons are available.

Your point on UA capacity accepted but we have seen the ISR/PGM/light infantry tirade too many times in the last 8 months to be able to ignore it - this last video is just a repeat of that theme.  We have heard opposite reports on ATGMs - the Javelin doing 80%+ percent shot/kill etc.  Without an operational AAR we cannot know how widespread the phenomenon really is but I have seen enough to come to the conclusion that something fundamental is afoot in the evolution of warfare.

To your points, I would pushback on ISR.  I think that for this war the ISR asymmetry between the UA and RA has been a definitive factor.  It has been widely reported that it is not only the mass use of tactical UAS but a layered western architecture going all the way to space plugged into the UA at multiple levels.  We are seeing a smaller, lighter force destroying a large heavy one largely due to that ISR dynamic - the UA can see the RA likely better than RA commanders are able to see themselves.

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, I was too harsh on the second strike.  I agree, shock could well explain that.  However, I am not at all comfortable with ruling out idiocy as you are for them walking lazily down the road together the first time right after getting ambushed.  So I will rephrase

From what we know of the circumstances of this particular video, a (probable) mobik unit was sent into the jaws of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade.  Two major failures here which underscore that Russia Sucks™.  First, the fact is that Russia is routinely sending untrained forces to the front lines (fail 1) and then using them for tasks wildly out of proportion to their capabilities (fail 2).  We know from tons of information other than Twitter videos that this is wide spread.

A few pages ago I offered up a logical, rational reason why Russia is putting untrained men straight into the frontlines.  The decision, as inhuman as it may be, is at least trying to stabilize the situation and should be respected (I use that term very loosely).  But why is the situation so unstable in the first place?  Obvious answer that is backed up by tons of evidence is Russia Sucks™.

I could be persuaded to give the Kremlin some points for the reality of war decision making at the highest level.  However, the second failure of having them go on absolutely senseless offensive  undermines whatever temporary value the mobiks might have for plugging gaps as soon as they are dead.  Therefore, even if we give Russia points for a pragmatic solution, I think they should lose credit for wasting what little combat value the mobiks have on completely pointless and unnecessary attacks.  Which gets me back to Russia Sucks™ yet again.

Granted, but that training should avoid situations like men walking casually down an open road right after getting their assess handed to them.  I'm willing to cut them slack for the second time (shock), but I don't think there's any reason to cut them slack for the first time.

At this point I will remind you that I am an equal opportunity critic in this war.  The horrible video of the two Ukrainian BMPs caught in an ambush and getting at least a half dozen men killed (two of which were run over by the panicking BMP driver) is a case in point.

Steve

Steve,  I do not disagree on the “force generation” sucking - I am not sure how much of that is “sucking” and how much is crisis of their own creation, but why split hairs?  

As to the video, the two guys moving down the road are unarmed as far as I can see and I suspect they may have been hit in the initial strike and were already in shock.  This is consistent with them simply getting back up even after getting hit by the drone and trying to march back down the road - those two were very well in shock the whole time but we do not see the first strike. In fact this whole outfit looks like it is in shock.

As to Russia Sucks - here is a clear example of my point.  This video, heavily edited for propaganda purposes, does not scream “Russia Sucks” to me.  It screams “UA is crushing it”.  The RA troops are likely inexperienced and may even be conscripts but that ambush was done from very long range/remotely - not a single UA soldier in view, and with extreme speed and precision.  Without several billion dollars of defensive system investments I am not sure a Canadian Combat Team would have survived it either.

I think where we differ on “Russia Sucks” is that I think Russia Sucks for very specific reasons related to this specific war.  Their strategy was and is a mess, peace on that; however, operationally and tactically they suck because they are in the wrong war.  They are fighting a 20th century war against an opponent with 21st century capability (even limited).  An opponent who has adapted that capability very rapidly and integrated it into something else.