How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Zeleban]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/12/15/a-looming-russian-offensive

This was posted above and I just got around to reading it. Color me somewhat skeptical that Russia is going to generate 200,000 battleworthy soldiers any time soon. Does anyone have any hard data pro/con?

 

 

if Russia manages to call on 1,000,000 soldiers of which 800,000 thousand will die. Then the remaining 200,000 will become excellent soldiers

[Huba]

Regarding the "death of the tank", I'm just listening to a Twitter room with general Jarosław Gromadziński, who used to be a commander of 18th Mechanized Division (one that is being rearmed with M1s), and now is vice-chief of Ukraine Defence Contact Group. You might assume that he knows a thing or two about tanks, and how these work in UA from sources other than accessible to us. And his points are:

- war in Ukraine proved that the tanks is anything but dead, in fact tanks are indispensible and form a core of any serious action

- the tactics of tank usage have changed and times of whole battalions rolling through an open field are definitely over, but there's no offensive operations without tanks

- regarding Polish army adaptation of K2, he favors the "light" for the future K2PL, sacrificing some (side) armour for mobility

- hard-kill APS is a must and non-negotiable going forward

The whole discussion was about something else and these points weren't argued for, but he treated them as axioms when answering other questions.

Edit: 

He made an interesting indiscretion - according to him, there's more than 600 NATO-caliber artillery pieces in Ukraine at the moment. That is way more that I thought, I was placing the number at ~400.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Huba

[FancyCat]

tbh, i assume the IFVs and APCs are more useful than the tanks, tho I'm sure if I'm a tanker, I wouldn't mind the Leo, aren't they more spacious than the current Soviet workhorses? and honestly, it would be nice to get some NATO vs peer data, I recall the Abrams didn't explode that hugely in Iraq vs ISIS, but it would be nice to get some data from Ukraine if possible vs full extent of Russian and Soviet anti-tank and artillery. Same with the Patriots, and it's good we found out the PzH 2000s are not useful for high intensity fire, hopefully they can update the design to accommodate it for the future. 

I mean yes, potential for this stuff to fall into enemy hands, but we gave the Patriot system to Saudi Arabia, PzH to Qatar, Abrams fell into ISIS hands more than once, etc, I don't think it represents a bigger security risk moreso than prior exports. 

[danfrodo]

54 minutes ago, billbindc said:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/12/15/a-looming-russian-offensive

This was posted above and I just got around to reading it. Color me somewhat skeptical that Russia is going to generate 200,000 battleworthy soldiers any time soon. Does anyone have any hard data pro/con?

 

Kind of hard to believe RU has 200k 'battleworthy' troops -- that implies motivation, training, equipment and supply.  I suspect that if they do have 200k troops they'd be thrown in the fight ASAP in the ongoing, desperate hope to freeze the conflict on current lines.

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, holoween said:

So during 2 years ive seen 4 issues that stopped tanks from running. 1 was a blown cylinder on a driving school tank (failure at 9am back in action at 2pm with replaced powerpack at the slow workpace of civilian contractors), one was the engine controll unit failing on one of ours. And 2 hydraulic pump failures. one caused the tank to go to depot becaue the tc decided to ignore warning lights and caused the breaks to overheat and burst into flames and one was fixed in 15min.

Yea they require constrant maintenance but that depends on a lot of factors. usually we simply take one day per week on exercise as maintenance day but that has a big margin of error for wear so skipping it isnt a big deal.

Great to hear from someone w actual hands-on experience, thanks much for sharing that. 

What do you think of Leo2 vs T72?  -- I mean relative lethality, mobility, survivability

Edited December 15, 2022 by danfrodo
edit

[Beleg85]

19 minutes ago, Huba said:

He made an interesting indiscretion - according to him, there's more than 600 NATO-caliber artillery pieces in Ukraine at the moment. That is way more that I thought, I was placing the number at ~400.

There were some valid rumours not long ago we by ourselves could give up to 200 pieces of both barrell and rocket artillery. Add Chechs (non-insignificant numbers), of course US, whole Anglosphere, France + N.Europe and many other countries like African or Balkan ones, which send older equipment in heaps. So yup, numbers are believeable. Still not enough, especially since at least some of Ukraine's own 122 mm and 152 mm calibres seem to be collecting dust due to lacking ammo. I really don't get why West did not try to ramp up more production of old Soviet calibres.

A graphic from LostArmour showing confirmed UA lossess in equipment:

https://twitter.com/wolski_jaros/status/1603298439483252736/photo/1

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Sojourner said:

Ahhh, sanctions... a way for a country to feel good without actually doing anything.

The irony is that cutting off the supply of Big Macs and KFC is doing them a favor.

 

I think I may have hurt myself rolling my eyes so hard at this....

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

I think I may have hurt myself rolling my eyes so hard at this....

Yeah but you gotta give credit for the funny line, at least:

"The irony is that cutting off the supply of Big Macs and KFC is doing them a favor."

[dan/california]

45 minutes ago, Huba said:

Regarding the "death of the tank", I'm just listening to a Twitter room with general Jarosław Gromadziński, who used to be a commander of 18th Mechanized Division (one that is being rearmed with M1s), and now is vice-chief of Ukraine Defence Contact Group. You might assume that he knows a thing or two about tanks, and how these work in UA from sources other than accessible to us. And his points are:

- war in Ukraine proved that the tanks is anything but dead, in fact tanks are indispensible and form a core of any serious action

- the tactics of tank usage have changed and times of whole battalions rolling through an open field are definitely over, but there's no offensive operations without tanks

- regarding Polish army adaptation of K2, he favors the "light" for the future K2PL, sacrificing some (side) armour for mobility

- hard-kill APS is a must and non-negotiable going forward

The whole discussion was about something else and these points weren't argued for, but he treated them as axioms when answering other questions.

Edit: 

He made an interesting indiscretion - according to him, there's more than 600 NATO-caliber artillery pieces in Ukraine at the moment. That is way more that I thought, I was placing the number at ~400.

That is the best NEW information we have had in days.

Edit: Was it in Polish or English? Some spaces have recordings available.

Edited December 15, 2022 by dan/california

[LukeFF]

Some of the very ugly side effects of pouring vast amounts of cash and weapons into a region like this:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/14/us-ukraine-aid-cable-00073803

Quote

“We know that the Russians are trying to sow doubt in our assistance to Ukraine by pushing these stories about misuse of weapons,” Jacobs said. “Every indication I’ve seen is in fact there hasn’t been misuse of weapons. But is it a valid concern by us that we are spending taxpayer dollars and we are giving weapons to a place that prior to this conflict had been one of the proliferators of small arms in Europe? Yes.”

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/weapons-delivered-to-ukraine-beginning-to-filter-to-africa

Quote

[Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has warned], "Regrettably, the situation in the Sahel and the raging war in Ukraine serve as major sources of weapons and fighters that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in the region."

 

[kevinkin]

Tracking has to be a nightmare. The front is a chopping Pacman right now. The US has struggled in peacetime to account for 100% of all allocated funds times. Imagine the administrative disaster Russian is. They fear losing a tank to enemy fire as much as just losing track of it on the way to the front. 

 

 

[dan/california]

19 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Some of the very ugly side effects of pouring vast amounts of cash and weapons into a region like this:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/14/us-ukraine-aid-cable-00073803

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/weapons-delivered-to-ukraine-beginning-to-filter-to-africa

 

I am not exactly convinced the President of Nigeria is the world's most credible source. I would bet rather a lot he bills Putin by the word.

 

[sburke]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

I am not exactly convinced the President of Nigeria is the world's most credible source. I would bet rather a lot he bills Putin by the word.

 

having visited Nigeria....  credible isn't a word I'd associate however war profiteering is a fact of war. Nothing unique there though we are likely talking small arms.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, holoween said:

Neither exists as an upgrade to the leo2 in the german army thats done by specialized vehicles and crews.

Snorkeling is not something usually trained. Its got quite limited use cases and if you want to use it for an operation you have to peplan it in advance quite a bit so training the crews on it then is the way to go.

1 they arent easily damaged. Outside of enemy action a freshly trained crew isnt going to damage the tank much more often than a seasoned crew.

2 you dont. your readiness rate is simply going to be lower as you have to ship them back until you have managed to train up the maintenance crews.

If you want to create essentially a armoured brigade from scratch yes youre going to take well over a year if you want to get them to nato standards. However noone is doing that. All the training for ukrainian soldiers in western countries is training up seperate pieces.

Giving them equipment they are already used to is done with priority (ringtausch) but there is only so much kit around.

Getting ukrain 100leo2s is also incredibly unlikely give the generally low inventories. Realisitcally were looking at a western battlaion size (44 tanks) with 10-15 spare tanks to keep the battalion up to strength while the damaged ones are send to the west.

No that doesnt give ukraine a formation that can run over the russianss as the us was running over iraq but that still gives them a fairly powerfull unit.

Sorry but I see a lotta of points of failure here. 

1. In combat anything that can be damaged will be.

2.  Shipping back to Poland for second line is going to be just crazy.  You are going to have half those tanks out of battle in a few weeks while they slowly wind their way back across the Polish border.  The UA does not have the German Army's setup.

3.  River crossing are key - the RA died on at least on of them.  Take a look at the map fo southern Ukraine a lot of water features and fording is one thing but snorkeling is going to be needed. 

4.  Mine breaching.  I do not get the German Army's approach on this one.  Both Canada and the Fins are employing them on theirs.  In Ukraine this won't be optional in the least.

I am not worried by the "limited kit" issue either to be honest - pretty low risk to take there.

Still not convinced that Leo 2, M1s or whatever MBT is the way to go here.  The UA is using their tanks for indirect fire right now so something is really going on there.  The time and resources to create a fighting formation in the UA with all this kit is just not reasonable, and it might not make a serious difference.

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, danfrodo said:

After the war can upgrade UKR army so that if RU tries this again in 5 years, it would be a heaping mess of burned out armor before it went 10km.

I cannot get over how right this sentence is.  Bring them into NATO - arm the living daylights out of them.  Get them to teach us about corrosive warfare and unmanned systems.  But all of this is post-war or if this war goes on for 2-3 years, do it in parallel.

This, is deterrence.

[NamEndedAllen]

17 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This means Ukraine will continue to suffer until Russia collapses.  No amount of Leo2s or ATACMS will likely make it happen any quicker.

Steve, agreed… all your points make sense. I do need to know more about your last point though, due to being a lot less knowledgeable on the critical specifics. Earlier in the war, the advent of HIMARS and the other upgrades extended the range and lethality of Ukrainian fires. This forced the enemy to push back its HQs, supply dumps, GLOCS protected by distance, etc - specifics you are better informed of. The outcome was disrupting and degrading the efficiency and speed for support and control of their frontline forces, and for Ukraine, increased shaping of the battlefield. 

If this is more or less correct, isn’t there another similar layer beyond Ukraine’s current limit of reach, that the Allies’ existing weapons not yet provided could enable? Not deep strategic strikes far into Russia! Simply another extension to the distance Russia can safely organize - just as happened with the initial tranche of upgraded artillery etc? That’s what I have been hoping for, and frustrated not to see introduced. A logical, incremental next stage of boiling the wretched Russian frog, helping to choke Russia’s ability to supply their troops, freeze them, starve them…force them back farther towards Russian borders. Or…we’ve reached a natural limit with the current reach Ukraine has? They can’t target anything beyond that limit without grinding there way forward? Thanks for insights on this.

Edited December 15, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[dan/california]

11 minutes ago, sburke said:

having visited Nigeria....  credible isn't a word I'd associate however war profiteering is a fact of war. Nothing unique there though we are likely talking small arms.

And tracing an AK something something on its fifth, or fifteenth owner is is not an exact science either. Actually given that Russia and Ukraine, or proxies acting on their behalf, are BUYING everything available on the global market I am deeply suspicious of the the basic idea that there are more weapons floating around Africa right now.

[Huba]

Just now, The_Capt said:

But all of this is post-war or if this war goes on for 2-3 years, do it in parallel.

It's already 10 months in and if we start now, by your own timelines we can expect NATO armor on the battlefield on the eve of 3rd year of the war. Shouldn't we be starting with it then?

[Beleg85]

8 minutes ago, sburke said:

having visited Nigeria....  credible isn't a word I'd associate however war profiteering is a fact of war. Nothing unique there though we are likely talking small arms.

There was an article here some time ago a propos  Victor Bout. Author, police guy tracking gun smuggling nets through Central Europe, told that war in Ukraine is still minor issue compared to truckloads of small arms that flood markets after Afghanistan debacle. Reportedly well-connected organized crime in Europe and abroad started to even customized their weapons in various extras as combat flashlights,lasers,NVG etc. a la SF "military hipsterdom". Everyone wants to get fashionable, even some Talibans finally stopped looking like goat herders.

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Steve, agreed… all your points make sense. I do need to know more about your last point though, due to being a lot less knowledgeable on the critical specifics. Earlier in the war, the advent of HIMARS and the other upgrades extended the range and lethality of Ukrainian fires. This forced the enemy to push back its HQs, supply dumps, GLOCS protected by distance, etc - specifics you are better informed of. The outcome was disrupting and degrading the efficiency and speed for support and control of their frontline forces, and for Ukraine, increased shaping of the battlefield. 

If this is more or less correct, isn’t there another similar layer beyond Ukraine’s current limit of reach, that the Allies’ existing weapons not yet provided could enable? Not deep strategic strikes far into Russia! Simply another extension to the distance Russia can safely organize - just as happened with the initial tranche of upgraded artillery etc? That’s what I have been hoping for, and frustrated not to see introduced. A logical, incremental next stage of boiling the wretched Russian frog, helping to choke Russia’s ability to supply their troops, freeze them, starve them…force them back farther towards Russian borders. Or…we’ve reached a natural limit with the current reach Ukraine has? They can’t target anything beyond that limit without grinding there way forward? Thanks for insights on this.

All available evidence is that every kilometer you push back the the point where the Russians have to unload trains onto trucks degrades their operations.

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Steve, agreed… all your points make sense. I do need to know more about your last point though, due to being a lot less knowledgeable on the critical specifics. Earlier in the war, the advent of HIMARS and the other upgrades extended the range and lethality of Ukrainian fires. This forced the enemy to push back its HQs, supply dumps, GLOCS protected by distance, etc - specifics you are better informed of. The outcome was disrupting and degrading the efficiency and speed for support and control of their frontline forces, and for Ukraine, increased shaping of the battlefield. 

If this is more or less correct, isn’t there another similar layer beyond Ukraine’s current limit of reach, that the Allies’ existing weapons not yet provided could enable? Not deep strategic strikes far into Russia! Simply another extension to the distance Russia can safely organize - just as happened with the initial tranche of upgraded artillery etc? That’s what I have been hoping for, and frustrated not to see introduced. A logical, incremental next stage of boiling the wretched Russian frog, helping to choke Russia’s ability to supply their troops, freeze them, starve them…force them back farther towards Russian borders. Or…we’ve reached a natural limit with the current reach Ukraine has? They can’t target anything beyond that limit without grinding there way forward? Thanks for insights on this.

A Leo2 gives Ukraine a slightly better version of something they already have and it would be on a small scale.  Not going to amount to anything.  ATACMS, on the other hand, would likely put further stress on Russia's stumbling war effort.  That could translate into meaningful impact.  So if I had to choose between giving Ukraine Leo2 or ATACAM, it would be ATACAM hands down.

The thing is Russia is losing this war with what Ukraine already has.  Adding ATACMS to the mix won't likely end Russia's ability to wage war any sooner than without ATACMS.  Russia will adapt as they did to HIMARS.  Assuming that Ukraine didn't use ATACMS in a way that provoked Russia into switching gears into all out conventional or nuclear war.  Either of which would be very bad.  Which is, like it or not, the concern of NATO governments.

Steve

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

Regarding the "death of the tank", I'm just listening to a Twitter room with general Jarosław Gromadziński, who used to be a commander of 18th Mechanized Division (one that is being rearmed with M1s), and now is vice-chief of Ukraine Defence Contact Group. You might assume that he knows a thing or two about tanks, and how these work in UA from sources other than accessible to us. And his points are:

- war in Ukraine proved that the tanks is anything but dead, in fact tanks are indispensible and form a core of any serious action

- the tactics of tank usage have changed and times of whole battalions rolling through an open field are definitely over, but there's no offensive operations without tanks

- regarding Polish army adaptation of K2, he favors the "light" for the future K2PL, sacrificing some (side) armour for mobility

- hard-kill APS is a must and non-negotiable going forward

The whole discussion was about something else and these points weren't argued for, but he treated them as axioms when answering other questions.

Edit: 

He made an interesting indiscretion - according to him, there's more than 600 NATO-caliber artillery pieces in Ukraine at the moment. That is way more that I thought, I was placing the number at ~400.

I gotta be brutally honest here, and with due respect to the good general - the last person I would trust with an assessment of armour performance and trajectory within this war and beyond is a modern armoured general officer.  Or even a Cbt Arms officer at this point.  History is filled with examples of service general officers seeing what they want to through the lens of their service culture.  Cavalry hated tanks.  Battleship captains slagged carriers. 

I mean I am sure the man knows what he is talking about but I have heard so much biases coming out of western land forces on this one.

I am waiting for an assessment of what the tank is actually doing because nothing is matching what doctrine says, or at least very little.  I mean the RUSI report of tanks in the indirect role blew my mind.  I don't think the tank is dead but its role is definitely going to evolve - we talked about that a few times now.

[NamEndedAllen]

4 hours ago, Twisk said:

It seems to me that the best support for Ukraine is continued ISR support and precision weapons. Do you need a tank when you can drop a PGM on them?

More and better drones and more and better PGM. Re: ATACMs I think there are significant portions of occupied Ukraine which cannot currently be hit. They would offer a chance for Ukraine to make the danger zone the entirety of occupied Ukraine. (I believe the M14 highway is out of range for example).

I think “The Tank Is Dead Bandwagon” is dead. And starting to smell bad! But otherwise agree with your points.

Edited December 15, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

I gotta be brutally honest here, and with due respect to the good general - the last person I would trust with an assessment of armour performance and trajectory within this war and beyond is a modern armoured general officer.  Or even a Cbt Arms officer at this point.  History is filled with examples of service general officers seeing what they want to through the lens of their service culture.  Cavalry hated tanks.  Battleship captains slagged carriers. 

I mean I am sure the man knows what he is talking about but I have heard so much biases coming out of western land forces on this one.

I am waiting for an assessment of what the tank is actually doing because nothing is matching what doctrine says, or at least very little.  I mean the RUSI report of tanks in the indirect role blew my mind.  I don't think the tank is dead but its role is definitely going to evolve - we talked about that a few times now.

I had the same reaction.  While I do respect that the general is open minded (he admitted fleets of tanks operating together is out), I don't think he's correct to assess that tanks are the decisive factor in offensive actions any more.  Russia had a ton of tanks going into this war and Ukraine stopped them cold with very few of their own.  Tanks were not decisive there.  Nor do they seem to be decisive now.  Artillery, on the other hand, is taking on an entirely new dimension thanks to inexpensive real time ISR options and PGMs.  Which, as we've seen, puts further strain on the usefulness of tanks.

Steve

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, Huba said:

It's already 10 months in and if we start now, by your own timelines we can expect NATO armor on the battlefield on the eve of 3rd year of the war. Shouldn't we be starting with it then?

Tricky.  Does the UA have the capacity to take enough troops off the line for 6-12 months of training?  Does the UA logistical system have the slack to be re-tooled?  The West could set it up, nothing money couldn't solve.

If we think this war is going to last another 12-24 months then I would seriously start thinking about it, along with a domestic Ukrainian arms industry.  The UA is going to run out of Soviet-style equipment eventually and the Russian's have deeper pockets on paper.

Gotta admit it is an idea.