How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Fenris]

ISW today does a lot of hedging it's bets on how things are going.  Quite a bit of evidence given of a deteriorating defensive situation around the salient but no definitive statement yet.

Worth a read.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-24-2023

[chuckdyke]

I think the first reports start to filter in. What I understand is that gun elevation rules. They can engage in excess of 4 km hit probability at over 90%. All this at night thanks to the thermals. Crew also has an excellent chance to survive when hit. The finer details will remain classified. 

Why the Leopard 2 Is Such a Badass Tank: History, Specs, and More (popularmechanics.com)

[hcrof]

3 hours ago, Offshoot said:

In a similar vein, this is not a development of drones but of flying skills. These pilots are using FPV drones to put explosives through vertically oriented gaps without losing the drone - https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/16qyb3g/new_technique_by_the_kamikaze_drone_operators/

 

I wonder why we have not seen computer assisted targeting yet like how fighter pilots cab see where the bomb will fall or those new rifle sights that shoot automatically when you are pointing in the right direction? Maybe the control software is proprietary and needs to be rewritten? 

Because right now a fpv has a 15-30% pHit but it could be so much more with some software tweaks. (I know EW is also a thing but that is a harder problem to solve for the moment)

[dan/california]

 

16 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I wonder why we have not seen computer assisted targeting yet like how fighter pilots cab see where the bomb will fall or those new rifle sights that shoot automatically when you are pointing in the right direction? Maybe the control software is proprietary and needs to be rewritten? 

Because right now a fpv has a 15-30% pHit but it could be so much more with some software tweaks. (I know EW is also a thing but that is a harder problem to solve for the moment)

Because these are fundamentally cheap civilian drones. They last three or four missions if they are lucky. Their is a little video out there of a fixed wing drone bomber that seems remarkably accurate. Their are certainly  many military models in the works, but nobody its rolling those out by the thousands per week that would be required, yet. 

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

 Otherwise it can be going at 160kmh while maneuvering, if fpv racing drones are anything to go by.

A tank shell goes about 3,000 kmh. Not comparable weapons. 

[Kinophile]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

Ah, just like battleships

 

Cmon. I'm specifically not saying, implying or inferring that. And you have to give a reason for why a heavy effect,  direct fire platform will have no use other than BECAUSE DRONES. 

[hcrof]

1 minute ago, Kinophile said:

A tank shell goes about 3,000 kmh. Not comparable weapons. 

While there is obviously a benefit for a 3000kph projectile, one that goes around corners does not need to catch a fleeting target. It will just hunt it down. The target can go turret down or try to run but the guided projectile can always catch it. 

And a tank moves at 40kph. It is only the last part that goes really fast.

[MikeyD]

It was just a few weeks ago we saw a video of a Ukrainian drone trying and failing to catch a Russian attack helicopter. 5-6 months ago there were multiple videos of drones going janky when ECM interfered with their steering ability. So apparently drones aren't quite yet the great warfighting panacea. As to more capable military drones, they can get pretty pricey. The smallest Switchblade drone runs about $600, I think, for basically a flying 40mm grenade.  The RQ-170 brought down by Iran in 2011 cost about $6 million. In 2018 Iran shot down a US RQ-4 Global Hawk that cost us a cool $150 million!

[chrisl]

49 minutes ago, hcrof said:

While there is obviously a benefit for a 3000kph projectile, one that goes around corners does not need to catch a fleeting target. It will just hunt it down. The target can go turret down or try to run but the guided projectile can always catch it. 

And a tank moves at 40kph. It is only the last part that goes really fast.

The 45 m/s drone that can go around corners gives defensive systems a lot of time to see it and eliminate it before it can go around those corners. We're only at the very beginning of the drone wars, and Russia seems particularly weak in coming up with defensive systems to deal with them, so slow commercial units are very effective.  A somewhat more advanced opponent will be able to deploy a variety of anti drone systems. And you really are going to want weapons with a variety of speeds - as MikeyD notes, there are targets you can't chase down with a 45 m/s drone.  And there will be targets that get into cover that that slow drone can't penetrate, or whole targets that the slow drone can't carry enough HE for.  There will be times when you want the drones to be the eyes for the high velocity gun.

 

47 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

It was just a few weeks ago we saw a video of a Ukrainian drone trying and failing to catch a Russian attack helicopter. 5-6 months ago there were multiple videos of drones going janky when ECM interfered with their steering ability. So apparently drones aren't quite yet the great warfighting panacea. As to more capable military drones, they can get pretty pricey. The smallest Switchblade drone runs about $600, I think, for basically a flying 40mm grenade.  The RQ-170 brought down by Iran in 2011 cost about $6 million. In 2018 Iran shot down a US RQ-4 Global Hawk that cost us a cool $150 million!

You're missing one or two zeros off the switchblade 300 cost, depending on details of how it's configured.  But being able to deliver a 40 mm grenate 10 km away without risking yourself is a kind of valuable capability.  What's not clear is if it's more effective to make a drone that only leaves the grenade behind, and brings the RC airplane home - in a lot of cases it very likely is, even if you're only getting 3-4 missions out of it before it's destroyed.

Edited September 25, 2023 by chrisl

[Fernando]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I could make a better argument that the pro-tank people sound like the horse cavalry guys right before WW1 and then before WW2.

The tank is dead not because there's some new and untried theory that says we don't need them any more.  No, the tank is dead because there's an extensive array of things which can do the job of a tank better and magnitudes cheaper with vastly greater versatility.  Which gets to this point:

 

I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if I might not be defending the horse Cavalry before World War I, but I still don't see what will replace the tank. I see everything as still very unripe and I doubt it will end up coming to fruition in the near future.

Cavalry and infantry used to wear cuirasses, helmets and other armor in the past, until firearms made them unnecessary, but there continued to be cavalry and infantry (and the cavalry left their horses and evolved into armored forces). New weapons may make the heavy armor of tanks unnecessary, but tanks as such will continue to exist, at least for the foreseeable future, because you will always need units that functionally act as cavalry has always acted. To do so they need the means adequate to achieve it, and I don't see anything better than AFV.

The MBT may evolve into lighter vehicles with diverse functions, or a combination of light and heavy tanks, but there has always been a marked tendency for tanks to be increasingly heavily armed and armored because it has always been the request of their crews. .

Let us remember that before World War II, many light tanks were built by all the nations that could manufacture them, Germany included, and one of the main reasons is that after the crisis of '29 they were cheaper to manufacture and you could deploy more of them for the same price, which is the same thing that some are advocating now.

From a crewman's point of view, if you could use a Sherman, T-34 or PzKpfw IV with an L/48 gun, well, much better than a Stuart, or a T70, but it was better if you could use a Panther, and much better if you could use an IS-2, a Pershing, a Tiger I or a Königstiger.

In peacetime it is logical that modern armies have been equipped with the modern equivalent of a Pershing, IS-2 or Tiger, that is, heavily armored and armed tanks, although with more mobility than their predecessors, than cheaper tanks, but worse armed and armored than a MBT. We will see what happens with the new MPF, if it is a step back (introducing a Stuart or Sherman, when you already have Pershings or IS-2) or a step forward.

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Fernando

[hcrof]

I am not arguing that guns are dead, drones are king. I am arguing that I struggle to see the relevance of a 120mm high velocity gun when there are a lot of other systems that will do the same thing at reduced weight, cost and risk to the operators. Smart mortars for the big bang, javelin or spike (and their replacements) for dedicated anti tank, brimstone for long range bang and fpv drones (and their ai guided replacements) for being a persistent threat everywhere. 

[hcrof]

53 minutes ago, Fernando said:

I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if I might not be defending the Cavalry before World War I, but I still don't see what will replace the tank. I see everything as still very unripe and I doubt it will end up coming to fruition in the near future.

Cavalry and infantry used to wear cuirasses, helmets and other armor in the past, until firearms made them unnecessary, but there continued to be cavalry and infantry (and the cavalry left their horses and evolved into armored forces). New weapons may make the heavy armor of tanks unnecessary, but tanks as such will continue to exist, at least for the foreseeable future, because you will always need units that functionally act as cavalry has always acted. To do so they need the means adequate to achieve it, and I don't see anything better than AFV.

The MBT may evolve into lighter vehicles with diverse functions, or a combination of light and heavy tanks, but there has always been a marked tendency for tanks to be increasingly heavily armed and armored because it has always been the request of their crews. .

Let us remember that before World War II, many light tanks were built by all the nations that could manufacture them, Germany included, and one of the main reasons is that after the crisis of '29 they were cheaper to manufacture and you could deploy more of them the same price, which is the same thing that some are advocating now.

From a crewman's point of view, if you could use a Sherman, T-34 or PzKpfw IV with an L/48 gun, well, much better than a Stuart, or a T70, but it was better if you could use a Panther, and much better if you could use an IS-2, a Pershing, a Tiger I or a Königstiger.

In peacetime it is logical that modern armies have been equipped with the modern equivalent of a Pershing, IS-2 or Tiger, that is, heavily armored and armed tanks, although with more mobility than their predecessors, than cheaper tanks, but worse armed and armored than a MBT. We will see what happens with the new MPF, if it is a step back (introducing a Stuart or Sherman, when you already have Pershings or IS-2) or a step forward.

 

My feeling right now (and I am not settled on this) is that an ifv like cv90/40 gives you "enough" firepower as well as infantry carrying capability to act in a breakthrough role. 

Why? I don't think that any breakthrough will happen until after all the heavy enemy platforms have been attrited or pushed away by drones, artillery, brimstone etc. A 40mm airburst has the range and firepower to have a chance to take out atgm teams (or even the missiles - the same guns are used on ships as ciws). The infantry in the back of the cv90 can have fpv goggles on and help spot for the vehicles with dedicated drones on a secure datalink. 

BuT wHaT iF iT is aTtacked By A TaNk??? Assuming a tank got missed by the preceding fires a few 40mm airburst rounds will wreck all its sensors and the supporting smart mortar or brimstone fire will finish the job. The huge 70t tank will be seen first by your drones so it shouldnt get a shot off anyway (your 40mm will help clear the sky of enemy drones). 

Happy to hear any constructive criticism of that idea though!

Edit: you would of course use APS, ERA and other fancy tech to protect your vehicle, but the drone screen will work pretty well against heavy threats. Note that the drone screen can be controlled via laser link not Radio since they are kept close to the vehicle. No need to emit radiation and be vulnerable to EW! 

Edited September 25, 2023 by hcrof
Detail

[Beleg85]

Russian missile (?) hitting Ukrainian military train. Reportedly region of Avdiivka but far away from frontline, ca.50kms ; date unknown. If it was indeed larger missile (unlikely Tornado or FAB), it means muscovites improved their target aquisition and overal killchain, at least in this region. Of course it is also possible that train stayed there simply too long.

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Beleg85

[hcrof]

 

Some really interesting statistics here. Drones are wrecking enemy equipment but less good at taking out infantry and crew served weapons. I would hesitate to say every strike above is a total loss for Russia but it supports my thesis that anything within 5-10km of the FLOT has got to be sneaky or it will be attacked these days. 

 

[zinz]

37 minutes ago, hcrof said:

 

Some really interesting statistics here. Drones are wrecking enemy equipment but less good at taking out infantry and crew served weapons. I would hesitate to say every strike above is a total loss for Russia but it supports my thesis that anything within 5-10km of the FLOT has got to be sneaky or it will be attacked these days. 

 

Don't get the wrong conclusions from this statistics. There is no reason to believe drones are not effectively destroying infantry. What you mostly see is what systems can be successfully engaged and how many are in striking range. 

Do you remember in the first months when HIMARS was introduced? They were not targeting single artilleries. So you would conclude that HIMARS is not effective against artillery? 

Those statistics show a combination of target availability, target selection priority and effectiveness of the system. 

And yes tanks are dead. On this battlefield the need for heavy direct fire systems is gone. Tanks where meant to fight other tanks. But now they are mostly fighting to survive like the battleships. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

Because these are fundamentally cheap civilian drones. They last three or four missions if they are lucky.

Ehm, it depends. A suicide drone which lasts three or four missions has been markedly unlucky

[Maciej Zwolinski]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Russian missile (?) hitting Ukrainian military train. Reportedly region of Avdiivka but far away from frontline, ca.50kms ; date unknown.

Most reports point to a large gliding bomb. 50 km is the range usually quoted for those.

[The_MonkeyKing]

 

well, ISW is "calling it".

 

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by The_MonkeyKing

[hcrof]

17 minutes ago, zinz said:

Don't get the wrong conclusions from this statistics. There is no reason to believe drones are not effectively destroying infantry. What you mostly see is what systems can be successfully engaged and how many are in striking range. 

Do you remember in the first months when HIMARS was introduced? They were not targeting single artilleries. So you would conclude that HIMARS is not effective against artillery? 

Those statistics show a combination of target availability, target selection priority and effectiveness of the system. 

And yes tanks are dead. On this battlefield the need for heavy direct fire systems is gone. Tanks where meant to fight other tanks. But now they are mostly fighting to survive like the battleships. 

I think you are right, but a single drone can either take out 1 or maybe 2 soldiers with a successful hit, or 1 vehicle. Vehicles are also bigger targets so easier to hit. 

This makes vehicles a very attractive target which is sort of what I was saying. Vehicles are an attractive and easy to spot target even behind the line so have to be sneaky to survive. 

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Fernando said:

I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if I might not be defending the horse Cavalry before World War I, but I still don't see what will replace the tank. I see everything as still very unripe and I doubt it will end up coming to fruition in the near future.

Short answer seems to be a combination of ISR, PGM and Unmanned systems.  The actual job of a tank is to take a big gun, move it around the battlefield, point it at the enemy and hurl a slug/shell at them.  They carry a lot of armour and other system to allow them to survive.  Ok, so let’s just break it down:

- Mobility.  Small unmanned systems have already demonstrated extremely high mobility on the battlefield.  Even with the counters and their vulnerabilities the sheer volume of those systems combined with their small size and manoeuvrability basically positions them everywhere.  A tank has mobility but it is limited in comparison.  They can roll across the battlefield at 60-80 kph, but never really do for obvious reasons.

- Survivability.  Big heavy armour no longer equals Survivability.  Distributed, redundant  cheap systems equal survival.  A force can lose 10 drones a day and still sustain that entire system, tanks cannot.  Being small and many essentially means that entire unmannned system, plus ISR is more survivable than that of armour.

- Lethality.  That big old gun projected energy like no one else’s business…whammie.  Nothing else can put a slug down range at an opponent at over 2kms per second.  Thing is that big guns performance is not the only measure of lethality.  As far as Range is concerned, PGM have far out ranged the tank gun, in some cases by an order of magnitude.  As to actual energy transfer, well chemical energy on the target at point of impact is extremely portable and distributable.  In the past the only thing keeping chemical energy in place was accuracy.  A tank gun is extremely accurate and things like artillery were not - they were considered area weapons.  This war has demonstrated in spades what PGM can do - massed precision beats everything.

So basically we are seeing a distributed systems of chemical energy-based weapons able to move and survive -as a system- and kill with better precision and range than a tank gun, at a fraction of the cost.  How many times have we noted that it looks like the UA is maneuvering via Deep Strike?  We have seen massive trends of Denial based on the combination of ISR, PGM and unmanned.  

The tank has not been replaced by a single platform, it has been replaced by a swarm…at least for right now.  If we need to move death rapidly around the battlefield that can precisely kill, well we are seeing it. If technology shows up that can sweep unmanned systems for the sky or defeat PGM well then we are back to a new-old ballgame.

The proof of this has been building in this entire war.  How many time have we seen either side try to mass mech/armour and fail?  Tanks are noted right now as fire support.  They are either being pulled forward in 1 and 2s for sniping.  Or standing off 10kms and lobbing in shells.  Why do you suppose both the UA and RA are doing this?  Is it because both sides suddenly forgot how to put 16 tanks into a squadron and smash them at an opponent? (Btw, that is the working theory for some).  Or is it because they already tried that, multiple times, and it failed to deliver?

What PGM, ISR and unmanned has not been able to deliver is breakthrough in 2023…yet.  That suite of systems is not able to provide rapid break in, through and out of an opponents defensive.  But neither can the tank, which was its primary job.  So we seem stuck in a mutual Denial situation.  What I do not know is where it goes from here.  Are we looking at Denial/Defensive primacy in warfare? - we have been here before.  Or is this a blip until PGM, ISR and unmanned fully mature?  Can we actually build the counter-systems rapidly enough to regain a level of symmetry?

We do not know.  This entire back and forth about a single ground platform is in fact silly, but not a bad way to pass a weekend.  The reality is that land warfare, maybe all warfare is likely fundamentally shifting. This is an earthquake in military affairs.  We do not know if AirPower works the same.  We do not know if Offence works the same.  We do not know if combine arms as we knew it works anymore.  Manoeuvre Warfare, Mission Command, how we force develop and generate…they are all looking like they may be in the wind.  Hell based on the last week, I am not sure Naval Warfare as we knew it is going to survive.  Trying to figure out what still works, what does not and what will work is going to be the central challenge moving forward.  Unless we fall back on “Russia Sux” and “Poor UA just don’t get it”, which we will of course.  It won’t be until some NATO force gets crushed in some 3rd party nation that the lights will go off…or maybe we will buck the trend and get out in front of the change…we have managed it before.

Edited September 25, 2023 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

19 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

 

well, ISW is "calling it".

 

 

We want the one above “breakthrough”.  Ignore “encircled”.  Breakout, is regaining freedom of movement and therefore tempo, therefore creating decision superiority and expanding options spaces.  Last Fall we saw UA breakout battle, we want that.  Enough of these tactical breakthroughs adding up as the RA system erodes might just do it yet.

[FancyCat]

 

Quote

After the attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, 34 officers died, among them the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Victor Sokolov. Another 105 were injured. - according to the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine t.me/ukr_sof/760

 

[FancyCat]

Quote

1/ According to Russian military bloggers, the Ukrainian drone strike on the Khalino air base near Kursk today killed a number of Russian personnel.

2/ According to Ukrainian media and confirmed by well placed Russian sources a Ukrainian UAV was downed by either air defence/EW.   When a number of Russians gathered to inspect the drone, it exploded.  "When inspecting a drone/attempting to clear mines, the warhead is detonated."

3/ The same source confirms there were fatalities from the strike.   "Something needs to be written about Khalino. It's difficult to write anything here. My condolences, brothers..."

 

[FancyCat]

Quote

More information about yesterday’s Khalino military airfield incident. As per Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine: At the airfield "Khalino" in the Kursk region, a Ukrainian drone was landed by Russian electronic warfare systems on the runway. When the leadership of the aviation regiment and FSB officers arrived for closer inspection drone exploded. As claimed, the following were killed or injured during the explosion: → commander of the 14th aviation regiment; → one of his deputies; → a group of aviator officers; → a representative of the FSB military counterintelligence; → airport employees. More details: https://news.liga.net/ua/politics/news/na-rossiyskom-aerodrome-halino-ukrainskiy-dron-udaril-po-rukovodstvu-aviapolka-gur

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

35 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

We want the one above “breakthrough”.  Ignore “encircled”.  Breakout, is regaining freedom of movement and therefore tempo, therefore creating decision superiority and expanding options spaces.  Last Fall we saw UA breakout battle, we want that.  Enough of these tactical breakthroughs adding up as the RA system erodes might just do it yet.

Yeah, now the first "magic word" has been achieved, that being breakthrough. The word has been in the news for the whole summer prematurely.

Now "Breakout" might not even be something Ukraine is going to try. If they see it as too risky and choose to keep endlessly pushing the Russians back as they have seen best so far.