How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kevinkin]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

There's some pretty hilarious videos of such people being asked to define what they are screaming and it doesn't end well for them

Person in the street interviews are an often used combination of humor and politics. Maybe the technique has replaced the old fashion pollical cartoon. 

[Tenses]

What impact ATACMS will actually make currently? It just seems way too late to fix any major problems Ukraine is facing. Recently it seems that the counter-battery work is enjoing the harvest season so problem nr 1 in artillery is now only a mere shadow from a year back when HIMARS first appeared. The next issue on the list are helicopters in my book. These are mobile enough to provide support wherever a mechanized push is ongoing and coupled with minefields it is extremely painful. ATACMS will not change anything in regard to this issue and even more so with fixed wing threat, which is also deadly although not that much as gunships.

What is now needed is mobile, long range air defense(F-15/16 anyone?). This will give enough time to slowly rip through the minefields with only major threat left being LOS based ATGMS and armor, which can be handled much better by mechanized units, even without fancy CMBS stuff. 

Apart from targeting strategic infrastructure with it, I don't see any major change with ATACMS(definitly not like HIMARS was last year).

[kevinkin]

Hot off the presses War Zone interview with Budanov:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/russia-plotting-to-assassinate-prigozhin-ukraines-spy-boss-tells-us

One exchange:

TWZ: Back in November, you told me that you didn’t think Putin would survive the war. Has this situation changed your thinking at all? Does he survive?

KB: Had Mr. Prigozhin fulfilled his initial plan, Russia would have been divided into at least two parts by now but as he didn't, we're still about to see. Because had Prigozhin entered an empty Kremlin that day, he would would have shown to the public that the Kremlin is empty. There are no ministers. There are no real high-ranking officials there. They all have escaped, and he would demonstrate that there's no authority in power currently in Russia. But on the other hand, some officials from St. Petersburg or elsewhere would start claiming that they're the legitimate power which makes a situation of two powers in the country, which immediately would be split.

Budanov is often guarded which is understandable. 

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Tenses said:

What impact ATACMS will actually make currently? It just seems way too late to fix any major problems Ukraine is facing. Recently it seems that the counter-battery work is enjoing the harvest season so problem nr 1 in artillery is now only a mere shadow from a year back when HIMARS first appeared. The next issue on the list are helicopters in my book. These are mobile enough to provide support wherever a mechanized push is ongoing and coupled with minefields it is extremely painful. ATACMS will not change anything in regard to this issue and even more so with fixed wing threat, which is also deadly although not that much as gunships.

What is now needed is mobile, long range air defense(F-15/16 anyone?). This will give enough time to slowly rip through the minefields with only major threat left being LOS based ATGMS and armor, which can be handled much better by mechanized units, even without fancy CMBS stuff. 

Apart from targeting strategic infrastructure with it, I don't see any major change with ATACMS(definitly not like HIMARS was last year).

The bases of those helicopters are flying from come immediately to mind. And then we have to see if the ATACMS come with permission to shoot them at the Kerch bridge. I suspect a combined attack on the bridge by ATACMS and Storm Shadow would be more than Russian air defense can handle, assuming it could handle either one.

There is also the simple issue of maintaining the pressure Storm Shadow is applying now. Russian rail junctions have become very unhealthy places. 

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Person in the street interviews are an often used combination of humor and politics. Maybe the technique has replaced the old fashion pollical cartoon. 

I was more or less thinking about political personalities being asked questions like this in traditional media interviews, but the person on the street stuff is definitely easier to obtain because the worst offenders in office (or seeking it) tend to keep away from people who push them on what they are talking about.  Person on the street is usually not bright enough to know how stupid they look/sound, which is a big part of why it's funny.

Steve

[Heirloom_Tomato]

13 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Person in the street interviews are an often used combination of humor and politics. Maybe the technique has replaced the old fashion pollical cartoon. 

Or you get fun ones like this.

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/must-see-reporter-unknowingly-interviews-blackhawks-gm-davidson-in-nashville~2717093

[cesmonkey]

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

The bases of those helicopters are flying from come immediately to mind. And then we have to see if the ATACMS come with permission to shoot them at the Kerch bridge. I suspect a combined attack on the bridge by ATACMS and Storm Shadow would be more than Russian air defense can handle, assuming it could handle either one.

There is also the simple issue of maintaining the pressure Storm Shadow is applying now. Russian rail junctions have become very unhealthy places. 

Bases are notoriously hard to degrade, especially the ones that have been hardened to account for PGMs.  However, real time ISR could help with the timing and location of an attack when the aircraft is necessarily vulnerable.  There's always a window of time between getting out of the bunker and into the air.  Obviously the further away the more difficult it is to hit that window, but I expect at first the window will be sufficient.  Russia will learn from early disasters, no doubt, and make it difficult to repeat.

Steve

[_Morpheus_]

Feedback for the Bradley from the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade 'Magura'.
In short - only positive feelings  

 

[dan/california]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/world/europe/prigozhin-shoigu-gerasimov-surovikin-russia-military.html

 

Quote

 

Prigozhin May Be Gone, but Not the Failings He Ranted About

The Russian military still suffers from poor communication, coordination and leadership, but most of all, analysts say, from a morale-sapping lack of accountability.

 

 

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Tenses said:

What impact ATACMS will actually make currently? It just seems way too late to fix any major problems Ukraine is facing. Recently it seems that the counter-battery work is enjoing the harvest season so problem nr 1 in artillery is now only a mere shadow from a year back when HIMARS first appeared. The next issue on the list are helicopters in my book. These are mobile enough to provide support wherever a mechanized push is ongoing and coupled with minefields it is extremely painful. ATACMS will not change anything in regard to this issue and even more so with fixed wing threat, which is also deadly although not that much as gunships.

What is now needed is mobile, long range air defense(F-15/16 anyone?). This will give enough time to slowly rip through the minefields with only major threat left being LOS based ATGMS and armor, which can be handled much better by mechanized units, even without fancy CMBS stuff. 

Apart from targeting strategic infrastructure with it, I don't see any major change with ATACMS(definitly not like HIMARS was last year).

No single weapon system is going to end this war suddenly.  The more complicated the system the longer the lead time to get it into battle and the greater the risk of mistakes being made on unfamiliar equipment.  People were howling for tanks and as we have seen western tanks are not magic, they are operating under the same limitations as Russian based stuff. HIMARs did change the game as they became a substitute for AirPower especially when plugged in as the last mile of the entire C4ISR architecture.  However, while HIMARs had a significant impact they were not going to win the war on their own.

ATACMs will give extra range; however, the RA will pull support infra into Russia proper.  This is not small as it will force lengthening of support lines etc.  However, this will put us on a slippery slope for conducting missile strikes into Russia proper, which is very likely what the hesitance on ATACMs was in the first place.  Storm Shadow seems to have gone well and been restrained in it employment so I think the ground work has been laid.  

Short of serious escalation or spiral risks, we are kinda stuck with a slow grinding affair until something gives.  I would also prioritize AD, the sustainment of air denial is pretty critical.

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, keas66 said:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/lend-lease   The past would seem to  offer up different approaches  to this . President Roosevelt did not know whether Britain was going to last - but he certainly decided to support them as much as he could  ahead of  the US actually entering the War . The Calculus used by the West with regards  Ukraine would seem to be much weaker than this kind of response before February 2022 .

Come on now, lads. Imagine trying to do Lend Lease with a nuclear armed opponent. 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I see this at the local level and could rant at length about it.  The "deep state" mindset is inherently paranoid and disinterested, or even incapable, of understanding how the world really works.  The reason their idiotic, unconstitutional, and frankly fascist mentality is rejected by our local government isn't because there's a "deep state" thwarting them.  Nope, it's real people trying to do their jobs as best they can under the crushing constraints of rule of law, free market economics, and constant change.  Oddly enough, the "deep state" towns are the ones where they're ilk managed to get put in charge.  No surprise to anybody who understands the mentality of the people who subscribe to "deep state" identity politics.

A country such as Russia, on the other hand, is very much a different matter.  The agencies within a democracy are there to enforce the law, the agencies within Russia are there to enforce the regime.  Democracies may have bad laws and bad enforcement sometimes, but they are inherently designed to conform to the rule of law.  Russia is designed explicitly so that rule of law is optional and generally only followed when it is in the interests of maintaining the regime.  Anybody who thinks the US or any other democracy, including ones teetering towards fascism, are even remotely similar to autocracies really don't know what they are talking about.

Steve

 

The term of art is that democracies enjoy rule of law whereas Russia has what they call "rule by law". Meaning that everyone is violating the law and can be slapped down at will by the selective enforcement it. If Putin is unable to do that to Prigozhin, we'll learn much.

[kluge]

58 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

How much armor is sufficient to shield a soldier from AP mines?

The good news is that it doesn't take much more than specialized footwear, at least in theory. The bad news is that this footwear cannot prevent injury from a mine- it can only mitigate it.

What you want is a boot with a thick sole (increasing the distance between the foot and the ground) and made out of a material that can cushion/absorb the force of a blast.

Powered armor won't change that equation- a steel boot would attenuate and transfer the force of a blast directly to a wearer, and if anything, could make injuries even worse.

The downside is that it is harder to move around while wearing platform boots. Perhaps that tradeoff is worth it when facing minefields that are as dense as the ones in Ukraine.

[mosuri]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Bases are notoriously hard to degrade, especially the ones that have been hardened to account for PGMs.  However, real time ISR could help with the timing and location of an attack when the aircraft is necessarily vulnerable.  There's always a window of time between getting out of the bunker and into the air.  Obviously the further away the more difficult it is to hit that window, but I expect at first the window will be sufficient.  Russia will learn from early disasters, no doubt, and make it difficult to repeat.

Steve

What's the VKS SOP with pilots and base personnel when bases are under attack? Would Ukrainians know or find out locations of bunkers or other shelters, and HIMARS/Storm Shadow those into oblivion?

Or alternatively, since it seems so easy to infiltrate into Belogorod oblast, put a SOF team to visit whatever hole in the wall the pilots use for their daily drink, if there are any bases in that area...

If it was that easy they would have done it already, I know. But just saying that you don't need to hit the actual equipment to stop helicopter attacks.

[Jr Buck Private]

Definitely not an expert on long range weapons but I kinda thought ATACMS weren't needed as much since the Brits started supplying Storm Shadows.   Aren't they both going after the same kind of targets?  Or is one better suited to certain targets vs the other?   Either way, I'm glad we're supplying them.

[sburke]

Blow the god damn bridge. Make supply truly difficult. Not even the whole bridge, just that RR line. 

[TheVulture]

6 minutes ago, Jr Buck Private said:

Definitely not an expert on long range weapons but I kinda thought ATACMS weren't needed as much since the Brits started supplying Storm Shadows.   Aren't they both going after the same kind of targets?  Or is one better suited to certain targets vs the other?   Either way, I'm glad we're supplying them.

The main difference is that the US has a lot more ATACMS that it can afford to deliver to Ukraine than the UK can deliver Storm Shadows.

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

The main difference is that the US has a lot more ATACMS that it can afford to deliver to Ukraine than the UK can deliver Storm Shadows.

It's even better than that   HIMARS systems are ground based and are therefore not as constrained as the air delivered Storm Shadow.  It is far easier, faster, and more assured that you can get a HIMARS system into position than an aircraft.  You can also be more assured of getting it activated to take advantage of an unexpected time sensitive need.

With the combo of more ATACMS available to send to Ukraine and the larger scale/easier use of them, we should expect to see a lot more of Russia's strategic assets/positions being struck effectively.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

22 minutes ago, mosuri said:

What's the VKS SOP with pilots and base personnel when bases are under attack? Would Ukrainians know or find out locations of bunkers or other shelters, and HIMARS/Storm Shadow those into oblivion?

Good question!  I have no idea, but if Ukraine does then they could use that to their advantage for sure.

Crude example... in the really bad days of Iraq's insurgency the bad guys figured out how difficult it was to crack the armor of something like a Bradley.  What they did realize was that SOP was to exit the vehicle when it was hit hard.  So what the insurgents did, at lest in a few instances, was to have a secondary AP orientated IED placed roughly where they expected the US soldiers to disembark.  First IED disabled the Brad and caused the dismounts to exit, second idea was then triggered to get at the real prize... American soldiers.

There's obviously tons of examples of this sort of thing throughout the history of warfare, but this one comes to mind.

Steve

[womble]

16 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

The main difference is that the US has a lot more ATACMS that it can afford to deliver to Ukraine than the UK can deliver Storm Shadows.

Storm Shadow's tandem HEAT/HE warhead probably works better against hardened targets than ATACMS's "Penetrating hight explosive blast fragmentation warhead". They also have, AIUI, different flight profiles, so will challenge AD in different ways. It's another long ranged tool in Ukraine's box.

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/14ma03g/ukrainian_strela10_of_the_93rd_brigade_shoots/

A pretty darn clear view of Strela-10 shooting down drones. I am not 100% certain this isn't part CGI

Is it possible CM got this wrong? It seems these short-range missile AA systems can shoot down pretty darn small drones.

[A Canadian Cat]

2 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Let's not get tied up in semantics.

Agreed lets not. To be clear the FSB is an organization that actually exists. It has leaders and followers. They have goals. They so stuff. They act together. While the "deep state" does not actually exist. It doesn't matter if some people think it does, it doesn't matter if the authors of the linked article don't understand that. There is no organization that calls itself the deep state, there is no leadership, there is no goal, it's a fake thing that people who are upset about not getting their way invoke to justify that their incompetence, illegal acts or general misunderstandings of how the world works.

They are not the same. There is no similarity. So there is no issue with semantics because it is clear.

[The_MonkeyKing]

18 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

The main difference is that the US has a lot more ATACMS that it can afford to deliver to Ukraine than the UK can deliver Storm Shadows.

Europe contains multiple thousands of Strom Shadows with no other meaning for existence than fighting Russia. I believe the US has less than 1000 ATACMS and they have lots of "prior commitments" with the US being global military power and all.

[Jr Buck Private]

I have to give credit to the Brits for supplying the Storm Shadows.   Those could be used to attack inside Russia but they weren't afraid of escalation.   Seems like they made it easier for the USA to supply ATACMS.   I'm a bit of a hot head of course, but if Ukraine uses ATACMS to fire at targets inside Russia, then so what.  It seems fair to me.