How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kevinkin]

Are any significant numbers Bradley IFVs prepositioned in Europe or are most coming from the states? Here are some on the move in March. Maybe that's what POTUS is referring to. Dozens can't hurt in the short term. 

https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002961577/

[dan/california]

see below

Edited December 29, 2022 by dan/california

[dan/california]

7 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Maybe you missed that Helicopters have been vulnerable to enemy fire for a long time. There was an instance in Iraq where a flight of Apache's got into an unfortunate chance encounter with what was, IIRC, a ZSU-23-2. Didn't end well.
In Somalia IIRC some people hit Black Hawks with RPGs. 

The SOP is that you don't fly helicopters into enemy AA envelope, so either stay away far from m and or stay low enough and hit & run (preferably standoff 'hit').
Ukraine has actually shown a couple instances of how 'it's done' this year, they even struck inside Russia with some ol' Mi-24s. They stayed under /outside the radar coverage and probably were lucky that there was nobody holding a Manpad or manning an AA gun directly on their route.

The biggest utilization of 'vertical lift' helicopters is and already was OUTSIDE the enemy AA envelope (logistics/etc), so if that envelope gets larger they'll have to stay further back.

I sort of don't get the 'hype' you're on about drones. Drones have been around for a long time (what is the difference between a Tomahawk cruise missile and a kamikaze drone?). I mean I do get the hype (nowadays everybody can get similar capabilities for a fraction of the cost), but it's not like everything has to be a 'drone' now or else. 

 

I am saying that the AA envelope you have to stay out of is rapidly expanding from ~5km to -40km. At what point does that imply the need for a different plan? 

[Lethaface]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

I am saying that the AA envelope you have to stay out of is rapidly expanding from ~5km to -40km. At what point does that imply the need for a different plan? 

Although I'm not convinced that IRIS-T is the magic boombox that has expanded 'the AA envelope' from ~5 to 40km, I think there's plenty of utility for 'vertical lift' >50km away from the frontline.

On another note of course it is wise to analyze what the introduction of new hardware / tactics etc means for current practice. But that's not the same as saying 'helicopters are now useless'. Akin to the tank discussion.

[kevinkin]

What's safer? Poor and at the front or rich and behind the lines?. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sudden-russian-death-syndrome/ar-AA15MHof

 

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Although I'm not convinced that IRIS-T is the magic boombox that has expanded 'the AA envelope' from ~5 to 40km, I think there's plenty of utility for 'vertical lift' >50km away from the frontline.

On another note of course it is wise to analyze what the introduction of new hardware / tactics etc means for current practice. But that's not the same as saying 'helicopters are now useless'. Akin to the tank discussion.

At 50k from the front line does it need to cost 50 million dollars per copy?

 

[Lethaface]

 

9 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Putin's feared gas weapon turned out to be a weak fart.

But even after watching this video, I am not sure how it was possible to replace so much Russian gas so quickly.

 

The 'spot price' (i.e. what you have to pay 'now' for a m3 gas if you need it 'now'.) was artificially high because of everything that happened. Usually you don't supply a country with gas bought at spot price. But there were a couple of countries all suddenly needing gas now, while a lot of the usually available gas wasn't available anymore. So it drove up the price crazy, while there's plenty of gas on the world. But not all of that is available 'now' and it's located somewhere on the globe. The same can be said about grain.
Although I'm not confident that the gas prices will stay stabile low in the near future, but it's at least a positive trend.

[Lethaface]

14 minutes ago, dan/california said:

At 50k from the front line does it need to cost 50 million dollars per copy?

 

Depends on the requirements you have for the product, among other things. But you said no more helicopters, I don't feel like moving the goalposts too far. Whether a given helicopter is worth $50m is another question. Whether it is worth it to delay such a lengthy procurement process for an analysis which is still in need of happening is another question as well.

Also not every war is a full-spectrum war against a 'near-peer' who is deploying IRIS-Ts around the whole country, or even S-300s / or manpads for that matter.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Lethaface

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Depends on the requirements you have for the product, among other things. But you said no more helicopters, I don't feel like moving the goalposts too far. Whether a given helicopter is worth $50m is another question. Whether it is worth it to delay such a lengthy procurement process for an analysis which is still in need of happening is another question as well.

Also not every war is a full-spectrum war against a 'near-peer' who is deploying IRIS-Ts around the whole country, or even S-300s / or manpads for that matter.

All true, but also mostly weighs against the fifty million per copy program.

[danfrodo]

4-5 months to prepare for May/June offensives to end this war.  I wonder if the training & infrastructure & logistics for some bradley/Leo2 battalions could be in place?  And can this happen while UKR is concurrently working its winter operations??  I understand that's it's a big task and many folks here are skeptical (for good reasons it seems), but sooner or later this probably needs to happen.  And if we never start we never get there. 

How could Poland/US/other help by operating repair facilities in Poland?  And is that just too far away?  What about contracted maintenence and repair folks that are operating somewhere in UKR? 

[Huba]

14 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Depends on the requirements you have for the product, among other things. But you said no more helicopters, I don't feel like moving the goalposts too far. Whether a given helicopter is worth $50m is another question. Whether it is worth it to delay such a lengthy procurement process for an analysis which is still in need of happening is another question as well.

Also not every war is a full-spectrum war against a 'near-peer' who is deploying IRIS-Ts around the whole country, or even S-300s / or manpads for that matter.

This is what you have to expect in a neer peer conflict in 2030, assuming you're fighting a NATO level oponent. Poland expects to have 44 batteries ( probably more, as this doesn't include the land forces systems) of this this type of system by then - enough for 1000 km frontline AND covering critical objects in the operational depth. And we're the poor cousin of powerhouses like France or such. 

[FancyCat]

I recall the defense minister of Germany giving incoherent reasons for preventing the transfer of some armored cars to Ukraine some time ago that was rapidly rolled back on? Same reason that a Bradley might be close enough to a tank to put big pressure on Germany for Leopards, or maybe those Marders at least.

[The_Capt]

9 hours ago, womble said:

"Material" corruption, the diversion of hard resources and currency, I can see as being put in the "too hard" pile, to be dealt with in a long term (possibly pie in the sky, but still well-intentioned) future. I'm thinking of the "targeting decisions", for both aid and military action: what was it that kept the West doing things that pissed off everyone-but-the-Government's-Cronies? Why did they keep on "...oblig[ing] them through all sorts of military actions which actually alienated large swaths of the population..." as The_Capt puts it? Did we just not have the intel to realise we were being played, or was it just politically impossible to either refuse the regime's priorities? And if the latter, how come the fact of this couldn't be used to support earlier extrication from an untenable, unpopular, unprofitable (in any sense) situation?

Is there any danger of this vicious circle arising in Ukraine? I get the sense that there isn't; Zelensky's regime isn't going to be turning HIMARS on different sectors of Ukraine's population in the same way that the Afghan regime used Western assets to settle scores and command dominance (like the crop burning example).

 

Combatintman already answered this in detail, all I can add is that at higher levels - strategic and political - at some point Afghanistan stopped being about Afghanistan.  Military services competed for shine, SOCOM came out on top with Army and then Air Force close seconds - the poor Navy was stuck in the Gulf of Oman intercepting “Taliban ships”.  Political agendas became about scoring points back home, or denying them to the other political team - seriously, get me drunk sometime and ask about “girls schools”.  And this was not just the US by any stretch, every western nation got in on this drug deal in some shape or another, hell Canada only went to Afghanistan because we skipped out on the Iraq cheque.

So in the end we dumped money into a corrupt system, took pictures of blue thumbs and risk managed the whole mess until the last guy finally pulled the trigger on the whole house of cards.  We were not in it to really fix Afghanistan because that was impossible…why?  Because Afghanistan did not want to fix itself - well that is half true, their “fix” was the Taliban but the TB was on the wrong side.

Example of how futile it was, Combatintman refers to land reforms, Afghanistan is living under roughly 13th century feudalism (and I am probably being generous).  No Afghan farmer actually owns the land they are on, everyone was a sharecropper or in some form of serfdom to landowners who stretched back for generations.  It is a crazy idea but people who do not own the land they live on are less likely to fight for it, we found that out the hard way.  So if you want to change Afghanistan you have to completely reform land ownership - we are talking 1917 Russia level of reform.  You then change the deep economic bedrock of the nation, and the cultural will follow.  Of course no one, and I mean no one was interested in taking this on.  So in reality we simply moved the deck chairs around until the TB came back, but we looked damned good doing it.  We also kept AQ bouncing and hands clapping, so there was that.

As to Ukraine, very different environment and nation - with the possible exception of the Donbas and Crimea.  Ukraine will come out of this war with a stronger central identity - they were the nation to take on a nuclear power in a stand up conventional fight  and won, only North Korea and Vietnam can really claim that one (I am probably forgetting someone…Algeria?). However, the west is likely going to back the winner of this war as opposed to totally shutting them out so the post-war trajectory for Ukraine will be very different…so long as they stay the course and remain the good guys.

In reality Ukraine has already won this war.  The shooting could stop right now and we re-draw the international borders by nightfall. Ukraine is in NATO and under article 5 protection by morning, the one deterrence Putin still seems spooked by.  No one will be happy but the money will start pouring in for reconstruction and Ukraine will likely be the safest country on the planet by the weekend.  Not optimal nor what anyone wants as an end-state but that is the current worst case - short of nuclear apocalypse but again, one second to midnight at a time.  Ukraine has corruption but if it can keep its democratic processes clean they will be golden because we will back the little guy who won and defended the system.  In Afghanistan we were trying to resurrect a dead patient, in Ukraine we are not nation building, there is already a strong one there, we are alliance building and friend-shoring.  For the time being Ukraine is still about Ukraine. Just as long as we do not lose the bubble.

Edited December 30, 2022 by The_Capt

[Huba]

7 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

How could Poland/US/other help by operating repair facilities in Poland?  And is that just too far away?  What about contracted maintenence and repair folks that are operating somewhere in UKR? 

PL has reasonable Leo2 repair capabilities, and Germany is half a day away from the UA border. On the other hand. there's no established Bradley support infrastructure in the entire Europe AFAIK. 

[Splinty]

11 minutes ago, Huba said:

PL has reasonable Leo2 repair capabilities, and Germany is half a day away from the UA border. On the other hand. there's no established Bradley support infrastructure in the entire Europe AFAIK. 

The US still has repair and maintenance facilities with Bradley support capabilities in Bavaria. There is an ABCT still stationed around Kitzegen, Bamburg and Bad Nauheim if memory serves.

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Splinty

[Battlefront.com]

21 minutes ago, Splinty said:

The US still has repair and maintenance facilities with Bradley support capabilities in Bavaria. There is an ABCT still stationed around Kitzegen, Bamburg and Bad Nauheim if memory serves.

 

What I'm curious about is how many of the pre-positioned heavy stuff was used up by the reinforcements sent over to bolster NATO?  Was their equipment back at home shipped over afterwards, thus replenishing the pre-positioned stuff?  The sensible answer is "yes", but the Army doesn't always do sensible

Steve

[Splinty]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What I'm curious about is how many of the pre-positioned heavy stuff was used up by the reinforcements sent over to bolster NATO?  Was their equipment back at home shipped over afterwards, thus replenishing the pre-positioned stuff?  The sensible answer is "yes", but the Army doesn't always do sensible

Steve

Facts. But one thing the US military is good at is getting lots of stuff moved long distances very quickly. If they pull the trigger on the Bradley deal, most of the logistical support could be moved in relatively quickly. The various command and maintenance facilities are already there. And there are are US division support facilities forward in Poland as well.  

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Another video from the TERRA detachment from the Bakhmut region (English subtitles available). First, the adjustment of the fire of friendly artillery, then the attack on the village of the Ukrainian mech infantry. Then the detection of enemy artillery and its suppression. It is clearly seen how the smoke of the battlefield interferes with the correction of artillery fire from the drone

Great video, thanks. If anything the West can learn from Ukraine it is about leadership and 'mission command'.

[Huba]

1 hour ago, Splinty said:

Facts. But one thing the US military is good at is getting lots of stuff moved long distances very quickly. If they pull the trigger on the Bradley deal, most of the logistical support could be moved in relatively quickly. The various command and maintenance facilities are already there. And there are are US division support facilities forward in Poland as well.  

It takes less than 4 weeks for a ship from the East Coast to arrive in Gdansk. If US makes the decision to deliver Bradleys to UA, travel time from across the pond won't have a decisive impact on the overall speed of the events. 
What would be interesting is to see how and where the training on the type would be done. I'd think that Bradley would greatly benefit from a much longer training program when compared to the APCs delivered so far ( like the Sisu-180 or VAB). US announced that it will be giving UA troops training in combined arms - as I was speculating previously, equipping these guys with NATO standard equipment would be the best way to supply it to the UA and leverage the training period to the maximum.

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

4-5 months to prepare for May/June offensives to end this war.  I wonder if the training & infrastructure & logistics for some bradley/Leo2 battalions could be in place?

There was talk in Poland about acquiring an intermediate IFV, until we are able to put the Borsuk and hypothetical heavy IFV into production. There's no official info on this, but rumors are that we've already sent around 400 BMP-1s to the Ukraine, but it still leaves about 800 in the active service. Sending another several hundred, while re-equipping our mech with M2s would make a lot of sense I guess, allowing instant deliveries of vehicles that UA army is familiar with. It shouldn't replace the direct deliveries of M2 to the UA, but would allow additional deliveries of equipment that they know how to operate already, and as training of PL units progresses, would allow for creation of additional support base for the type.

Also, I'm sure that the remaining ~200 PT-91s will be sent to UA rather soon, the several that were sent up to this point were not participating in the fight up to this point. BTW, I was at my brother-in-law's place today, a house on the very edge of Biedrusko training ground - you could hear the M1s roaming in the forests through the whole evening, our tankers are re-training on them like crazy.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Huba

[The_Capt]

40 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Great video, thanks. If anything the West can learn from Ukraine it is about leadership and 'mission command'.

I think we are taking a lot of notes on this war - https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadian-army-eyeing-new-weapons-in-response-to-lessons-learned-from-ukraine-war-1.6212004

I know I am, and every now and then someone does a still ask me.

[Lethaface]

2 hours ago, Huba said:

This is what you have to expect in a neer peer conflict in 2030, assuming you're fighting a NATO level oponent. Poland expects to have 44 batteries ( probably more, as this doesn't include the land forces systems) of this this type of system by then - enough for 1000 km frontline AND covering critical objects in the operational depth. And we're the poor cousin of powerhouses like France or such. 

I guess it's safe to assume USA won't be fighting many NATO opponents around 2030

Edit: wrt China, I'd say 'vertical lift' will be very important in a potential war against China.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Lethaface

[Huba]

Just now, Lethaface said:

I guess it's safe to assume USA won't be fighting many NATO opponents around 2030

Not a NATO one, but I'm sure the Chinese are watching attentively and taking notes as we speak.

[Lethaface]

Just now, Huba said:

Not a NATO one, but I'm sure the Chinese are watching attentively and taking notes as we speak.

You wuz faster than my edit, funnily I didn't see your post before.

[Lethaface]

3 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Are any significant numbers Bradley IFVs prepositioned in Europe or are most coming from the states? Here are some on the move in March. Maybe that's what POTUS is referring to. Dozens can't hurt in the short term. 

https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002961577/

Most probably, yes.

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

What I'm curious about is how many of the pre-positioned heavy stuff was used up by the reinforcements sent over to bolster NATO?  Was their equipment back at home shipped over afterwards, thus replenishing the pre-positioned stuff?  The sensible answer is "yes", but the Army doesn't always do sensible

Steve

FWIW I saw pictures of AFVs arriving through ports in Rotterdam but I didn't see pics about AFVs moving from some area's in the very south of the Netherlands (where there are pre-positioned things).

Edited December 30, 2022 by Lethaface