How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, John Kettler said:

keas66,

Please tell me how much you read and from which link before questioning my sanity? I provided a ton of information in those links, and it's by no means confined to any one link....

Apologies for piling on our dear old comrade JK, but this last summoned the classic exchange from 'A Fish Called Wanda':

OTTO:  "Apes" don't read... Philosophy.

WANDA:  Yes they *do* Otto, they just don't understand it!

....In 22 years on these boards I have never Ignored anyone, but I think at this point it's an act of mercy.

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, db_zero said:

When all is said and done Ukraine is going to possess a western trained military with a lot of combat experience that is far different than the Middle East.

They'll have more experience than the US versus a peer adversary.  The student might in some ways have much to teach the instructor.

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Boche said:

To be honest IMO I dont think there is such a thing as light infantry anymore. There hasnt been for a long time.

What about the 10th Mountain Division then?

[panzermartin]

I just realized that if you put all the Z together you get the cause of the  slow russian advance.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Thanks for the insight Haiduk, Kraze and all. Probably yes, there are more infantry battles than we can see on our screens. The other thing I guess is that the russian army still is on tactical maneuvering around cities trying to encircle and secure roads rather than clear house to house with infantry. 

[TheVulture]

5 minutes ago, db_zero said:

Based on a video posted earlier today a picture is emerging regarding the Ukrainian army. Apparently it was riddled with corruption and in a piss poor shape in 2014. It was re-organized and the western nations tasked with training it started from the bottom up working on the basics like tactics, weaning it away from the over-centralized Russian model and empowering the NCO's to make decisions instead of relying on officers to micromanage.

Sounds like the past few years much was done on a higher level training mid and senior level officers the operational skills like combined arms and coordinating units and other operational skills.

I think that is what has impressed me most about the Ukrainian military. In 2014 I gather they were pretty much still in the Soviet era Red Army mode, much like the Russians still are. To turned around the whole institutional culture  in just 8 years is an incredible achievement. 

I guess having the incentive of knowing they were almost certainly be going to fighting the Russians again at some point  was a great motivator - they knew that sticking with the old way was suicidal - but even when you're motivated, wholesale institutional change like that is very, very hard, and to do it competently as well is even more impressive.

[Vet 0369]

1 hour ago, BletchleyGeek said:

That video was one of the most interesting coming up the last 24 hours. Those drones are the Piper Scout of the 2020's

 

Might look like a Piper to the uninitiated, but it isn’t. That is a Stintson. They were piloted by a pilot in the front seat, while the Piper was piloted from the rear seat. Also, the Piper doesn’t have anywhere the amount of window area.

[John Kettler]

1 hour ago, BletchleyGeek said:

That video was one of the most interesting coming up the last 24 hours. Those drones are the Piper Scout of the 2020's

 

If the UA artillery did the the damage we saw, given the precision and rapidity of the fire, should we credit this particular Russian debacle to KItolov? What I saw fits perfectly with a tactic the Russians used of firing a string of shells with time intervals great enough to permit sequential target designations to do such things as attack a row of buildings by walking the impact points down the line. Here, it would be trivial because the walk is more like a baby step.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kinophile]

6 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

I think that is what has impressed me most about the Ukrainian military. In 2014 I gather they were pretty much still in the Soviet era Red Army mode, much like the Russians still are. To turned around the whole institutional culture  in just 8 years is an incredible achievement. 

I guess having the incentive of knowing they were almost certainly be going to fighting the Russians again at some point  was a great motivator - they knew that sticking with the old way was suicidal - but even when you're motivated, wholesale institutional change like that is very, very hard, and to do it competently as well is even more impressive.

I thi k that it's also critical that officers and NCIS who fought in 2014 have moved up in ranks since then, getting trained along the way.

I don't know what the promotion rate is - but I'm guessing a UKR Capt in 2014, losing his mind at the stupidity of Division command, is now one of those Division/BTG commanders, and has an entirely different mindset and ability to react.

@Haiduk does this make sense? Are there a high proportion of 2014 vets in the middle/upper ranks now?

[BornGinger]

1 hour ago, Armorgunner said:

becouse of reasons.

There are reasons for everything. So you just "forget about it", as they say in US maffia films.

Edited March 10, 2022 by BornGinger

[BeondTheGrave]

Just broke Page 200 btw. Congrats on the double century. 

[BornGinger]

Where is @Battlefront.comSteven? He is usually active in this thread by this time of the day but hasn't been active the last 4 or 5 hours.

Did his wife force him to go with her to buy some new stuff to the living room or kitchen? I bet he's sitting and waiting for her to decide which plates or chairs to buy so he can catch up with reading what's been going on in this thread.

Edited March 10, 2022 by BornGinger

[Vet 0369]

1 hour ago, Boche said:

To be honest IMO I dont think there is such a thing as light infantry anymore. There hasnt been for a long time.

U.S. Marines have been considered “heavy infantry” for a long time. Primarily because of the sizes of the units, rather than the weapons that they use. For example, here are the unit comparisons of a Marine Rifle Platoon to an Army Rifle Platoon; a Marine squad is three four man fireteams and a Squad Leader/Army squad is two four man teams and a Squad Leader. Both Marine and Army Rifle Platoons have three squads, a Platoon Sgt., Platoon Leader, and, I think still, a Radioman. That means that a Marine Platoon has 42 Marines, and an Army Platoon has 30 soldiers. Each Rifle Company has three Rifle Platoons, so effectively, the Marine Rifle Company has four Rifle Platoons(minus one Platoon Leader, one Platoon Sgt., and one Radioman). Weapons wise, Each Army Squad has an AT team, while all Marine MG, 60mm mortars and LIGHT antitank assault weapons are Company level. Marine AT weapons such as Javs are Battalion level, so Army Rifle Platoons have the edge in heavy weapons, but Marine Platoons effectively have an extra squad of infantry.

[Battlefront.com]

Here's some thoughts about the "Putin was misinformed" reporting.

Last week Bellingcat posted some information from one of their FSB sources.  While it is never a sure thing that a Russian security official is telling the truth, Bellingcat is totally reliable and them vouching for the source means a lot.  So, with that disclaimer out of the way...

The source stated that they were shut out of the decision making process.  They were only brought into the loop after Putin had made the decision to go forward with the invasion.  This has basically been corroborated in various ways, so this rings true.

However, the FSB was involved in putting together reports before the decision was made.  The source stated that when they completed a report and sent it up the chain, it was sent back down the chain to them stating that it was "wrong" and to try again so the information would be "correct".  This probably happened several times before the cycle ended with the decision to go to war.

Now, anybody who has researched autocratic governments and how they function would be SHOCKED if this sort of thing wasn't going on within Putin's regime.  Not just about the war with Ukraine but all sorts of things.  Therefore, this all rings true.

 

 

Commentary from me wearing my historical studies hat.

All organizations all over the world have similar decision making processes.  There's someone at the top, there's advisors, there's "stakeholders", and then there's the "customers".  In a healthy organization people are appointed to advisor positions based on competency first and foremost.  Stakeholders in a health organization are motivated to be involved in order to help the organization shine brightly.  Customers want things that make them happy (food being a big one!).  And the person at the top takes all of these groups into consideration when making decisions, especially tough ones.

Autocracies, be they governmental or corporate, do not function like the ideal.  Most usually the guy at the top is there for his own benefit, the advisors are picked for loyalty first and competency second (if at all), the stakeholders are not interested in the betterment of the organization over their own selfish interests, and the customers are prevented from influencing the decision making.

This describes Putin's regime more and more every year.

By now Putin's advisors and stakeholders are simply there to keep their self interests protected.  They are not there for any other reason.  So if Putin says "I want to invade Ukraine" then the advisors figure out how to give Putin a pleasing answer.  AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT... if advisors and/or stakeholders are likely to try and spoil Putin's dreams, then their influence is deliberately undermined by others seeking to gain advantage for themselves.

To summarize... over the decades Putin has surrounded himself with toadies who are some combination of unqualified, stupid, or otherwise actively disinterested in telling Putin the truth.  Surrounding himself with sycophants and liars who are "only in it for the money" is most likely why we have this war.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, BornGinger said:

Where is @Battlefront.comSteven? He is usually active in this thread by this time of the day but hasn't been active the last 4 or 5 hours.

Did his wife force him to go with her to buy some new stuff to the living room or kitchen? I bet he's sitting and waiting for her to decide which plates or chairs to buy so he can catch up with reading what's been going on in this thread.

HAH!  I was typing up a post.

Yes, busy day with lots of things going on that needed my attention.  Now dinner, so back later.

Steve

[dan/california]

Steve mentioned twenty or thirty pages back that in addition to murdering women and children wholesale, that Putin's timing was very poor in relation to his personal life. It is reason 19,123 to encourage comrade Tokarev to get it in gear.

[sburke]

Credit Suisse was caught trying to shred evidence of Russian loans backed by yachts. They just revealed they’ve given $1.7 billion to the country’s borrowers. (msn.com)

[akd]

Russia asks for UN meeting on Ukrainian 'biological activities' -BBC

I suggest Ukraine come prepared with videos of their citizens taking a crap on Russian tanks.

Edited March 11, 2022 by akd

[Vet 0369]

47 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

I think that is what has impressed me most about the Ukrainian military. In 2014 I gather they were pretty much still in the Soviet era Red Army mode, much like the Russians still are. To turned around the whole institutional culture  in just 8 years is an incredible achievement. 

I guess having the incentive of knowing they were almost certainly be going to fighting the Russians again at some point  was a great motivator - they knew that sticking with the old way was suicidal - but even when you're motivated, wholesale institutional change like that is very, very hard, and to do it competently as well is even more impressive.

Ukraine had, and continues to have, their dedication to a National Identity. Plus, More Ukraines have probably died due to Soviet control then died from the NAZIs in WWII. They have motivation to make Putin pay in blood for each square inch (or whatever SI equivalent) of Ukraine he takes and continues to hold.

[akd]

18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

However, the FSB was involved in putting together reports before the decision was made.  The source stated that when they completed a report and sent it up the chain, it was sent back down the chain to them stating that it was "wrong" and to try again so the information would be "correct".  This probably happened several times before the cycle ended with the decision to go to war.

It was a bit more nuanced than that.  The FSB source said that because this sort of pushback was typical, they would only do the work to defend negative assessments if it was judged a plausible scenario that might lead to use of the intelligence in a reasonable timeframe.  The author used the example of being asked to prepare an assessment of how Russia would be able to respond to a major meteor impact on the country.  Why not simply assess that the state would be fine rather than deal with pushback on predicted failures since the scenario was both so low probability and so difficult to accurately assess anyways? The author indicated that the FSB considered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the same category.

Edited March 11, 2022 by akd

[John Kettler]

Meant to mention an important OSINT item the other day but got distracted by a sea of other OSINT items and forgot. The gist of it was that in a named Russian village very close to the Russia-Ukraine border, the Russian had brought in MRLS (believe they were BM-30s), but instead of being set up and pointed at Ukraine, they were pointed back into Russia. This immediately sent up false flag warnings in my brain, because this is exactly the sort of thing Putin has done in the past. See, for example the bombing of an apartment building and blaming it on the Chechens. With Putin's back to the wall more and more every day and his already resorting to vicious attacks on high political charge people (mothers and babies, for example), hospitals and infrastructure to create terror, misery and anger toward their own government to pressure it to yield to Putin's demands, seems to me that this would be the perfect time for Putin to attack Russia and blame it on Ukrainian nazis gleefully slaughtering peaceful Russian citizens and violating the sanctity of the Rodina, etc. In turn, this would provide a major distraction through being shotgunned across the State controlled media both broadcast and online, not to mention globally, as well as creating "justification" and huge public outcry for sterner measures to defeat these human scum and so on. Has anyone seen anything on these BM-30s I described? Am unsure whether this info was derived from drone, shared intel from US recon sats or HUMINT.

Regards,

John Kettler

[DesertFox]

Piss poor tactics...

 

 

[Ultradave]

40 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So if Putin says "I want to invade Ukraine" then the advisors figure out how to give Putin a pleasing answer.

One of my favorite Officer Evaluation Reports I received when I was in the Army stated that "CPT Anderson can always be relied upon to provide his frank and honest opinion"

It was meant as a complement, but I could see it being taken two ways (could also be "this guy is trouble"). The Major who wrote it genuinely appreciated that I told gave him honest advice, even (or especially) if it disagreed with his. He liked to hash things out and depended on having a devil's advocate to do that with.

But then we(I) come from a culture (meaning Army) culture, that mostly appreciates that. And we would know that if we disagreed with something strongly we'd better damn well have a better alternative to propose.

Dave

[Phantom Captain]

6 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Piss poor tactics...

 

 

Unreal.  Hey!  Let's bunch the whole company up together and walk down this wide open road!  We should be safe that way, right?

Edited March 11, 2022 by Phantom Captain

[Vet 0369]

27 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here's some thoughts about the "Putin was misinformed" reporting.

Last week Bellingcat posted some information from one of their FSB sources.  While it is never a sure thing that a Russian security official is telling the truth, Bellingcat is totally reliable and them vouching for the source means a lot.  So, with that disclaimer out of the way...

The source stated that they were shut out of the decision making process.  They were only brought into the loop after Putin had made the decision to go forward with the invasion.  This has basically been corroborated in various ways, so this rings true.

However, the FSB was involved in putting together reports before the decision was made.  The source stated that when they completed a report and sent it up the chain, it was sent back down the chain to them stating that it was "wrong" and to try again so the information would be "correct".  This probably happened several times before the cycle ended with the decision to go to war.

Now, anybody who has researched autocratic governments and how they function would be SHOCKED if this sort of thing wasn't going on within Putin's regime.  Not just about the war with Ukraine but all sorts of things.  Therefore, this all rings true.

 

 

Commentary from me wearing my historical studies hat.

All organizations all over the world have similar decision making processes.  There's someone at the top, there's advisors, there's "stakeholders", and then there's the "customers".  In a healthy organization people are appointed to advisor positions based on competency first and foremost.  Stakeholders in a health organization are motivated to be involved in order to help the organization shine brightly.  Customers want things that make them happy (food being a big one!).  And the person at the top takes all of these groups into consideration when making decisions, especially tough ones.

Autocracies, be they governmental or corporate, do not function like the ideal.  Most usually the guy at the top is there for his own benefit, the advisors are picked for loyalty first and competency second (if at all), the stakeholders are not interested in the betterment of the organization over their own selfish interests, and the customers are prevented from influencing the decision making.

This describes Putin's regime more and more every year.

By now Putin's advisors and stakeholders are simply there to keep their self interests protected.  They are not there for any other reason.  So if Putin says "I want to invade Ukraine" then the advisors figure out how to give Putin a pleasing answer.  AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT... if advisors and/or stakeholders are likely to try and spoil Putin's dreams, then their influence is deliberately undermined by others seeking to gain advantage for themselves.

To summarize... over the decades Putin has surrounded himself with toadies who are some combination of unqualified, stupid, or otherwise actively disinterested in telling Putin the truth.  Surrounding himself with sycophants and liars who are "only in it for the money" is most likely why we have this war.

Steve

 

Steve, I don’t disagree with your assessments, but feel they’re a bit too Utopian. Here in the U.S., we also suffer some of the same “Toadies.” I worked for 20 years for a Federal Agency that is charged with safety. I watched as a Director removed a manager who refused to certify a product his test group said wasn’t ready for certification, and replaced him with a manager he knew would follow his order to certify the product. That the Director had promised the Applicant (take note of that term), that the product would be certified by a certain date. The Director always referred to the Applicant as the “Customer.” Fortunately, the removed manager (it’s very difficult to fire someone for doing their job) resigned and contacted a Senate Oversight Committee. What resulted from the investigation and Oversight Committee was the Director’s boss, an Associate Administrator, a co-responsible Director of our sister organization both “retired,” and our Director was removed from his position of responsibility. Additionally, Congress also forbid using the term “Customer” to be used for  an “Applicant.” It was a case of the “lower-level” employees standing up to them at the risk of their own careers and pay. We were very happy to see that Congress listened to us for once instead of the Lobbies It doesn’t’ always work that way.

[Doc844]

14 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Piss poor tactics...

 

 

That's an offense to the word tactics.  That would more be termed as week 1 recruits gangf***ing down a road.  Followed by screaming from the training NCO.