How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I remember  from Mariupol a BTR4 shooting under a bmp to hit the infantry sheltering/disembarking behind it. 

So probably Kevlar mats? 

Ouch, I remember that video very clearly now that you mention it!

Thanks Haiduk for explaining what these mats are.  For some reason I don't think I've seen them before.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

46 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

The issue with all the “conflicts” (not wars, as only Congress is authorized to declare war) was not the fault of the military Commanders, Units, and Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen,

I don't take issue with the US military, we had during the Vietnam War an extremely left-wing Jim Cairns (Deputy to the Prime Minister) who went on a goodwill visit to North Vietnam while Australian soldiers were on patrol in South Vietnam. 

[chuckdyke]

8 hours ago, Seedorf81 said:

Is the orangutan Ukrainian and the possum Russian??

An analogy so it is yes.

[Kinophile]

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/09/11/australian-armed-robot-ukraine/

Edited September 12, 2023 by Kinophile

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Even Prussian regulations in force at the beginning of WW I proscribed keeping soldiers in close order as long as possible and judiciously releasing them to create and feed the skirmish line, so that they remain under the direct supervision of officers for as long as possible.

Not just Prussian (German by this point) regulations. This is how every army worked pre-WW1. And it's mainly about maintaining command and control. There are no radios or modern NCO corps yet, and no one can shout loud enough for orders to be heard along the entire length of a company or even platoon that has deployed into skirmish line (squads exist at this point in time, but they aren't independent maneuver elements yet). And it isn't really considered possible to change direction while in skirmish line (you can try to make a company sized skirmish line turn, but it's gonna be ugly (just imagine 200 men in an extended order line trying to conduct a 90 (or 45, or any number) degree turn, especially when no one on the flanks as even heard the order)). So you march to your start line for the attack in close order, get faced in the right direction, and then deploy into skirmish line to conduct the attack.

Once a unit has deployed into skirmish line they can only move forward. Once they have made contact with the enemy they are now the "firing line" and the higher level commander has effectively lost all command and control over that unit until it has finished its attack. So the only further influence the commander has over the battle is in committing reserves to the firing line. Those reserves may be held back behind the next terrain feature in close order, or following a few hundred meters behind (in close order if it is considered safe enough, or in extended order if enough fire is still reaching them). It is considered preferable to commit the reserves to the flank of the existing firing line, making it longer and preventing units from getting mixed up. But the limited frontages available for the attack usually meant that it was more practical to merge the reserves into the existing firing line from behind. The downside to merging the reserves in behind the existing firing line is that there is no way to prevent the units from getting mixed up.

After the attack is completed everyone needs to be called back into close order so they can be reorganized and reoriented for their next orders. I conceptualize it as being pretty similar to how we use mechanized infantry (can the order get any closer than being crowded into the back of an armored vehicle?). Only "move mounted and fight dismounted" becomes "move in close order and fight in extended order". But, while in theory you should always fight in extended order, in practice a unit moving in close order may get surprised, or a commander trying to keep his unit controllable "just that little bit longer" may misjudge how far it is safe to stay in close order. 

Everyone with any sense (and not everyone had any sense) has figured out by this point in time that units are extremely vulnerable to fire while they are in close order, so should always be shaken out into extended order before making contact. But no one has figured out a system of command and control that can entirely dispense with close order formations just yet. I think the problem was that existing maneuver elements were just too big to be controllable or maneuverable while in extended order. Light machineguns will give squads enough firepower to be a useful maneuver element (10 men with bolt action rifles can't really generate enough firepower on their own to be useful), and the forging of a modern NCO corps gives armies a high enough density of leaders to make squads useable maneuver elements. Once the squad has become a useable maneuver element you finally have a formation that is small enough to easily change direction and hear the shouted commands of its leader while in extended order.

But I digress. There is a whole other thread for this.

[Centurian52]

45 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Bigger problem: Generally, how do humans do at 0.4g?

We won't know for certain until we send some test subjects* for some long duration experiments. But my feeling is that a mix of bioforming and clever habitat design may be necessary.

*colloquially known as "astronauts".

[Centurian52]

My own feeling on the soldier/warrior discussion is that I always felt that "soldier" felt more professional. Both warriors and soldiers do more or less the same thing. But a "soldier" is a member of a formalized organization, called an army. Political units which don't have formal armies fight their wars with warriors, not soldiers.

This is not to say that a soldier is necessarily better than a warrior (you could conceivably frame it as meaning either that a soldier is more professional than a warrior, or as meaning that a warrior is freer than a soldier). I mean nothing further than:

Soldier: Member of a formal organization

Warrior: Not a member of a formal organization

Edited September 12, 2023 by Centurian52

[dan/california]

8 hours ago, Holien said:

Sir Anthony also made a big point about the Soviet brutality and how this really has not changed from WW2 to modern times. He talked about the feral starving Russian kids that were tempted by Germans for crusts of bread to go and fill their water canteens at the river. The Russian snipers were ordered to kill the Russian kids….

And this tradition of absolute brutality, and it goes back a LOT further than Stalin is why the Russians need to be beaten utterly and in locked in a box to the extent humanly possible. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by dan/california

[MOS:96B2P]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

It's differentiated between those who went to Airborne School and got their wings, which is certainly an accomplishment and something to be proud of, to those of us who served on "jump status" in a paratrooper unit. We have members male and female from the 82d, 101st, and 11th Abn Divisions and a couple of the independent brigades, plus Green Berets, plus even a couple Marine Force Recon guys. All paratroopers. Oh, and one USAF Close Combat Team guy (I think that's what they used to call it - the guys who jump in first and set up the drop zone for us - you want to talk about guys with big you know whats). Can't find what they call it now. 

Was it Pathfinders?

[dan/california]

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Thanks, I am writing and will likely publish in the next 12-18 months but it will be the last thing people expect.  I will get back to warfare and theory but am going to take a break to do other things.

As to your experience.  Again, we have not defined the term.  It is not about combat or how close on gets to the bullets.  It is an idea, an identity.  A drone operator that is willing to sacrifice themselves in the service of a righteous cause is just as much a warrior in the modern sense as a door kicker.  We all want bragging rights but at the end of the day, I do not care if one sits in a cubicle back at HQ for the entire war, the ethos is universal.  Some organizations get it, the Marines are a good example.  Everyone is a Marine first.  Well I want everyone to be a Warrior first, but again we need to define a universal definition of what that really is.  

 

3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Extremely lucid post.

However, I'd disagree a little with this point. Historically it is correct, but up to a point- it could argued that development of nations in late XVIII cent gave rise to new, massive conscipted armies fully representing their societies...and these tend to fight much more bloody and stubborn wars than professional mercs or feudal elites. Yet, the term soldier won and developed, while warrior was abandoned, as warfare was more and more sophisticated and redistributed among large segments of new nation-states, . Sticking to beformentioned definitions, we should call guys in the trenches of WWI or those in WWII warriors. They fight (especially in the latter) existential war involving whole, mass societies on every level.

I think that nowadays, in popular perception difference between warrior/soldier as group  identity seem to more break on lines of dualism between nature vs. culture rather than purpose vs. contract. Warrior in popular imagination (I know it is simplification, but subcultures dwell on them anyway) is a guy stalking his enemies in some jungle or mountains, crushing skull of his enemies, fighting close and dangerously, sorrounded by similar-minded group of males. He generally is accustomed with mud, blood, bones and all that gritty stuff of waging war.

So can artillelryman, logistician or pilot can call himself warrior? Perhaps less so, because even despite the fact they often do most of the actual killing, they lack this direct animalistic (and often mistyfied) contact with the enemy. There is a reason why this military hipsterdoom we often see is chiefly domain of special forces and paratroopers, and we constantly prefer to watch movies about guys fighting against overhwelming odds in some failes SpecOps or shooting in tank battles than about mechanics repairing their vehicles or logisticians making it all possible. Because the latter are not viewed as real warriors in most carnal sense, even if they are 100% soldiers.

There is of course another factor in this breakdown, and actually for example historians of ancient Rome developed quite interesting discussions about it. Namely warriors tend to be unruly and rather flexible in their way of fighting; they lack discipline, sophisticad organization and obedience to superiors. This is why Roman authors often used this distinction between bellatores and milites. Even later term milites (which in medieval times meaned broadly knights) bore much distinction from the crowd of other armed guys.

So yeah, a fascinating topic, but partly also belonging to anthropology of communciation and mass culture as much as to history and military organization. For example, are these soldiers or warriors?".

I would say functionally, they are soldiers. Symbolically however, phenomena of very bad boys living outside of societal constrains seem to be too sexy for some segments of it to not view tham as genuine warriors. Because you know, "Wagner fights".

One thing I would throw into the the discussion of "soldier" vs "warrior" is that a lot of it simply the evolution of a marketing strategy by organizations that have to recruit volunteers. As a related example look at the evolution of U.S. Army head gear over the last ~fifty years. The whole Green Beret hype train has slowly crept though entire army as various colored berets have become standard parts of various branches uniforms. This is even as the the same army has spent a very large amount of money on effective and expensive helmets to actually fight in.

The Marines got their brand marketing strategy right over a hundred years ago. It still works, and if it isn't broken...

An unpleasant parallel is that Wagner has to recruit volunteers, too. It is just that their recruiting pitch and contract is more like the one Hernando Cortez had with his conquistadores than anything recognizably modern.

[Splinty]

2 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

One thing I would throw into the the discussion of "soldier" vs "warrior" is that a lot of it simply the evolution of a marketing strategy by organizations that have to recruit volunteers. As a related example look at the evolution of U.S. Army head gear over the last ~fifty years. The whole Green Beret hype train has slowly crept though entire army as various colored berets have become standard parts of various branches uniforms. This is even as the the same army has spent a very large amount of money on effective and expensive helmets to actually fight in.

The Marines got their brand marketing strategy right over a hundred years ago. It still works, and if it isn't broken...

An unpleasant parallel is that Wagner has to recruit volunteers, too. It is just that their recruiting pitch and contract is more like the one Hernando Cortez had with his conquistadores than anything recognizably modern.

The only units that currently wear berets are the same ones that had them all along. Special Forces, Rangers, and Airborne. Shinseki's failed experiment with Black berets for all troops is done.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/09/11/australian-armed-robot-ukraine/

Unless that rocket is a PGM, and they increase the size of those wheels, I don't see this thing being of much practical use.

But hey, we are definitely in the early stages of "bainstorming" designs.  Some of these things won't be obviously good or bad until someone has put one together and given it a try.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Splinty said:

The only units that currently wear berets are the same ones that had them all along. Special Forces, Rangers, and Airborne. Shinseki's failed experiment with Black berets for all troops is done.

I'm just glad to see peaked caps back in service.  They should never have been tossed into the dustbin.  Many nations maintain multiple headgear for their forces without a problem, so I don't know what "smart guy" thought the US had to make a choice.

Steve

[dan/california]

18 minutes ago, Splinty said:

The only units that currently wear berets are the same ones that had them all along. Special Forces, Rangers, and Airborne. Shinseki's failed experiment with Black berets for all troops is done.

I was somewhat thrown by this very recent picture. These guys are paratroopers, and artillerymen, but the huge sign they standing in front of says field artillery. 

The post is also a case study in the marketing issue, as selling cadets on joining the artillery is literally what they are doing. I suspect artillery's primacy in the current war has been more effective, regardless of how well turned out these guys are.

Edited September 12, 2023 by dan/california

[dan/california]

Congradulations, your coffee klatch has been judged worthy of a PGM.

[dan/california]

 

[Vet 0369]

9 hours ago, Bearstronaut said:

I always look forward to reading a post by The_Capt. If you ever decided to write a book I would buy it in an instant. In regards to the whole "warrior" discussion, despite nearly a decade of service on active duty in the US Army I was never comfortable calling myself a warrior. I was an intel nerd and despite my knowing full well that my job was to facilitate the death of other people and that tactical SIGINT is quite dangerous to me warriors were the maneuver guys going around kicking in doors and shooting people in the face or blowing stuff up with tanks. I think this stems from my formative experience as a soldier in basic training. I went through POG basic at Fort Jackson, SC with a company full of intel, logistics, and maintenance trainees. My three platoon drill sergeants were all infantry NCOs with combat tours in Iraq or Afghanistan and they derisively referred to us as "warrior" throughout my three months in basic. That stuck with me and anytime someone since then has called me "warrior" I've kind of snickered in my head. Perhaps that would be different if I had ever seen combat but the closest I got to any real danger was two tours holding the line in South Korea.

Being much, much older, during my time in the military during both conscription and volunteer timeframes, the only “major” designations were Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman, and Coastguardsman. In the Marine Corps, we then sub classified by combat arm as Grunt (all Infantry and Artillery), Tankie (all Armor), and Winger (Air Wing). We never felt the need break it down any further because we were all Marines and every Marine, from the lowest Pvt and newest 2nd Lt are trained initially as Infantry.

Every year, every one of us was required to pass tests on Combat andInfantry knowledge. If you failed the tests, you didn’t qualify for promotions. I don’t know if it is still used, but every Sgt. and above was evaluated on a “Fitness Report,” which is the same one used to evaluate Officers. The most important question was “How willing would you be to serve with this Marine in combat?”

Humans like to sub-classify others into groups so they can feel superior to those not in their sub group. Marines don’t need to do that because we’re ALL MARINES FIRST AND FOREMOST!

Edited September 13, 2023 by Vet 0369
Addition

[dan/california]

The VDV doesn't much like being on the receiving end. Hopefully the ones getting an introduction to JDAMS and 155 DPICM on the southern front right now comprise the end of Russia's competent reserves. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by dan/california

[paxromana]

A sign of things to come?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66785897

'Definitely not due to spares shortages ... nothing to see here folks!'

Edited September 13, 2023 by paxromana

[Fenris]

6 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The VDV doesn't much like being on the receiving end. Hopefully the ones getting an introduction to JDAMS and 155 DPICM on the southern front right now comprise the end of Russia's competent reserves. 

 

I saw this posted but am unsure which side is being bombed - seeing as it was posted on two pro-UKR we can probably assume it's the russians copping it.  Post also doesn't specify that these are air strikes but they look like it to me.

 

[dan/california]

Drones have changed everything.

[danfrodo]

4 hours ago, Splinty said:

I totally agree. If we keep to this planet only we will die off. 

I wasn't saying we should never go to mars.  I am saying we shouldn't be 'colonizing' it anytime soon or even sending humans.  we need better technology before we do that.  And it would cost an insane amount of money to send even a research team there & back.  At a time when we use drones to do lots of dangerous dirty work why would be send humans to mars for research right now?  I am all for sending 'drones' until we get better propulsion & survival tech.  Mars is a radiation soaked hell hole w low gravity and very little air, why would we 'colonize' that in near term?  It's a death sentence and would cost a trillion dollars.   And why would we try to send people to mars on 7-9 month trip, each way, when we don't even have a base on the moon, 2-3 days away.  (note, I do think we should put a station on moon and use that to learn). 

[danfrodo]

4 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

One thing is certain. It is always going to be harder to make another planet's environment livable than to fix this planet's environment. Colonizing other objects is about expanding our total amount of available real estate, not about escaping our current world's problems (one of many reasons why there is no point in rushing colonization (it would probably take centuries for a colony to grow to self sufficiency anyway, so it would do absolutely nothing to save us from anything that might destroy us this century or next)). Unfortunately that does rather ruin the plot of Interstellar.

well said, seems we are on same page

[kimbosbread]

3 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

And why would we try to send people to mars on 7-9 month trip, each way, when we don't even have a base on the moon, 2-3 days away.

Because it takes a lot more energy to land on the moon (no aerobraking), and it is much less interesting long term.

Speaking of more videogames people should play… Kerbal Space Program, the best and cheapest way to develop an intuitive understanding of orbital mechanics and navigation.

[chuckdyke]

Antartica is Club Med if you compare it with Mars, How many colonies are there on Antartica? Even Australia to work in the arid regions you need a good AC 24/7 and top notch facilities for recreation.