How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

45 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:

This is a bad take my friend.  I don't really want to go 'there', but the simple fact is that the open US border is a feature not a bug and the Senate version of border security had several poison pills in it that would make things worse.  The issue I have is that House demands for border security is an exercise in tilting at windmills.  It doesn't matter how many 'extra' border patrol agents you have if all you are doing is catching and releasing people into the US after they swim over the Rio Grande.  It doesn't matter how many laws are on the books if the enforcement agency chooses to look the other way.

Oh, but why would the current administration want an open border you might ask?  That's tinfoil hat wingnut stuff right there.  ASL is gong completely off the rails.  Let's just count the reasons.

1. The number of seats in the House is determined by population.  Guess what?  It's not determined by population of US citizens because citizenship is not determined by the census.  Therefore if someone from China crosses the border between California and Mexico that Chinese citizen counts towards the population of California in terms of Congressional apportionment.  As of the 2020 census, there are 761,169 people per congressional district.  If you let 10 million 'migrants' into the US that's approximately 13 seats in congress.  Guess where the 'migrants' tend to go?  Sanctuary cities.  Guess where the sanctuary cities are?  Democratic strongholds.

2. Why just stop at counting non citizens in the census?  Why not just let them vote even if they aren't citizens?  In California non citizens are issued driver's licenses.  Various local Democratic strongholds have passed laws allowing non citizens to vote.  The example in the video from DC below is just one example, but there are others.  Oh, but those are just for local elections - yeah, and guess what else is on the ballot when the local elections are being held.  One would think that the citizens of Washington DC wouldn't want the Russian ambassador voting who becomes the mayor, but here we are.

3. If you can't pass a law allowing non citizens to vote though - how about just making it difficult to sort out who is a citizen and who isn't a citizen?  Use voter registration laws that don't require full social security numbers (some states only require the last four digits or they decide not to verify a social security number) and use the US attorney general's office to sue states trying to pass voter ID laws.  Who is the least likely person to have an ID in the United States?  A non citizen of course.

4. If you are someone who is of a mind to swim the Rio Grande and you know which political party is handing you cash then who are you going to vote for in the next election (even though you shouldn't be able to vote, but if you are a non citizen and you want to vote in an election where the democratic party is in control - well we should be welcoming to our 'migrant' friends).  New York City is giving every 'migrant' a government debit card with a 1000 bucks a month on it, along with other benefits totaling somewhere around 2400 bucks a month I think - I'm going from memory here.

5. I'm posting against my better judgement because I know how this forum tilts.  How someone reacts to this post will probably be determined by whether or not you like Republicans.  However, if a political party in your country - wherever you may be from - is willing to try and cement a permanent hold on political power through the use of non citizens I think most would object to that if you were on the receiving end of that political strategy.  Even traditional Democrat voting blocks are starting to shift.

 

Sheesh, if you want to have an enforced vacation from this thread there are far easier ways to do it than to write up a bunch of totally off topic BS culture war crap.

Quote

I'm posting against my better judgement because I know how this forum tilts. 

Yes, towards a fair and balanced analysis that is on topic to the war in Ukraine (even if it's stretched sometimes).  And by "fair and balanced" I don't mean where you get your talking points from.  So if you actually have a sense of better judgement, instead of claiming you have, then you should be well aware that dragging your well known ideological baggage into this thread is not appropriate.   You've been around long enough to know that I don't make empty promises when I am forced into this position, so if you decide to make another post against your "better judgement" then you'll find yourself with a 2 week vacation.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

For the rest of you, don't take the bait and stay away from the US internal political debate that has ZERO to do with the war in Ukraine.  When something is so blatantly off topic and deliberately inflammatory, I'm not favorably disposed to people feeding the fire.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

36 minutes ago, OldSarge said:

Finally found a breakdown of the Ukraine aid package. The article is from February of this year, so should be pretty close.

$60.2 Billion overall, broken down:

1.  $20 Billion for replenishment of equipment and munitions sent by DOD to Ukraine.
2. $14 Billion for Ukraine to purchase weapons and equipment from U.S. firms.
3. $15 Billion for U.S. support including military training, intelligence sharing, increased presence in Eastern Europe, and other activities.
4.  $8 Billion direct budget support for Ukraine.
5. $3.2 Billion )1.6 Billion for economic development, $1.6 Billion to bolster air and maritime defenses in and around Ukraine)

https://www.rferl.org/a/us-ukraine-aid-breakdown-timeline/32822804.html

What further irritates me about the "no aid to Ukraine" minority, and Johnson listening to them, is that 1/3rd of this money is to replenish the US military's own stocks of weaponry.  Another big chunk is directly going to US companies to produce new stuff for Ukraine.  Which means, more than half of all the funding in this package is staying here in the US.  That means jobs and to strengthen our direct national defense capabilities. If you listened to the likes of MTG it was to ensure Ukraine could stop Transcarpathians from speaking their own language in Ukrainian schools.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

Here’s a question: Of the truck-based artillery, which is better, Caesar or Archer? Archer sounds great from the whole shoot and scoot perspective and automation (and thus less injuries carrying stuff and TBI), but Caesar appears to cheaper and lighter.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Haiduk said:

M903 Patriot launcher with minor damages delivered for repair works

 

I'm not casting doubt on this being battle damage (it is the most likely scenario), but that sort of damage looks like it could have come from a malfunction with the power module.

Either way, I'm surprised that they would have to move the entire trailer unit back to the US for repairs.  This looks like the sort of thing that could be done inside of Ukraine.  If not, then someone in the Pentagon should be rethinking modularity requirements for future weapons systems.  The time and logistics to move this whole thing instead of a component and some engineers is a head scratcher to me.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Here’s a question: Of the truck-based artillery, which is better, Caesar or Archer? Archer sounds great from the whole shoot and scoot perspective and automation (and thus less injuries carrying stuff and TBI), but Caesar appears to cheaper and lighter.

Good question.  And to this I'm also curious about how CRAB and similar systems compare in terms of performance and cost.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Either way, I'm surprised that they would have to move the entire trailer unit back to the US for repairs.  This looks like the sort of thing that could be done inside of Ukraine.  If not, then someone in the Pentagon should be rethinking modularity requirements for future weapons systems.  The time and logistics to move this whole thing instead of a component and some engineers is a head scratcher to me.

Traditional laws of logistics do not apply to America! But yes, modularity would be good in general, unless it makes the whole system 10x more expensive.

As an aside, it’s gonna be interesting if we adopt suborbital rockets as rapid logistics; one wonders how the weapons systems will have to be adapted to handle Musk’s rather interesting landing profile.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Russians gradually have been learing of Ukrainian experience of artillery fire control. If in 2022  - mid 23 we have seen typical Soviet style of whole batteries and even battalions of side-by-side standing guns simultainous work, that now Russians are more and more shifting to dispersing of artillery and work by single guns of a battery with individaual targeting for each.

Here is google-translated post about changes since 2022. "The work was carried out in areas with a low coeeficient of UAV use" - means "ineffective area fire with low UAV usage", though for summer 2022 it's not always could be true, or soldiers then reported about dozen Orlans and Zala, ajusting fire. Probably ajusting was inefefctive or come on too long command chain, which made it ineffective.

 

And addition to this post by other Russian artillerist with my translation:

I'l throw my 5 cents:

Regimental artillery tied on artillery chief (of regiment). He, sitting on command post (let's call it in such way) together with chief of recon, watch streams from UAVs (and intercepted streams of the enemy). Spotting the target chief of artillery transmits it to battery commander or senior battery officer  [he is commander of 1st artillery platoon also] and they transmit this data to the gun. 2-7 minutes for targeting of the gun, the bird [drone] in the sky. First shoot - the fire ajustment from artilelry chief directly to the gun. Or artillery chief opens the map, come into communication with gun commandr through the radio and gives the targeting (angle, azimuth, lines). The gun crew lives on position 2-5 days, further a rotation is coming. Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakrep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 

We don't work with mortars since new year. This is no longer relevant becaus of crews life preservation purposes. Drones already fly on 10 km in the rear, so they clicks them at once  

And here Russian feedback about CAESERs

Lots of interesting stuff in this post, thanks!  To summarize:

1.  Drones and effective Ukrainian counter battery fire has made traditional Soviet/Russian massed and prolonged use of artillery impractical.  If Russian gunners stay bunched up, firing up to 50 shells from the same position, they will get hit. This has forced the Russians (after a lot of hard lessons) to change how they operate artillery...

2.  It seems Russian efforts to decentralize artillery usage is making noticeable progress.  While we have seen some instances of quick local response times, it seems they were limited to static situations where the Russians anticipated future Ukrainian activity.  Basically, pre-planned ambushes.  Now they seem to be learning how to be less reliant upon pre-planning, which is the traditional weakness of Soviet/Russian artillery doctrine.

3.  They've finally gotten serious about discipline at the lowest levels by enforcing sobriety and defined shifts for its artillery crews.  Seems pretty basic to us, but we have seen countless first hand accounts of this being problematic within the Russian military as a whole and specifically with the artillery branch.  Which is part of the reason why so many empty Ukrainian fields look like the surface of the moon.

4.  There's generally no good way to counter battery fire Caesars.  They are too far outside of the range of their own artillery and the speed of setting up and displacing is too fast for getting FPV drones onto target (not mentioned in the above, but we've discussed the practical limitation of loitering munitions regarding time and space).

 

OK... so all of this is from Russian sources which, traditionally, have to be considered unreliable until corroborated by other sources.  Therefore, the question I have is... how widespread and optimized are the things being discussed above?  For example, is this more prevalent for some units than others?  Maybe more by military district?  We know that Russia traditionally has an uneven and imperfect implementation of "best practices", so what's the story with artillery these days?

Steve

[kimbosbread]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Therefore, the question I have is... how widespread and optimized are the things being discussed above?  For example, is this more prevalent for some units than others?  Maybe more by military district?  We know that Russia traditionally has an uneven and imperfect implementation of "best practices", so what's the story with artillery these days?

One possibility is that enough Russian artillery officers have been killed that they just can’t coordinate as before, even if they wanted to.

More questions in the same vein: What proportion of pre-war artillery crews has Russia lost? What is the training of current crews? What kind of range/accuracy/reliability do the current gun/ammo combos offer?

[Haiduk]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

so what's the story with artillery these days?

As I could understand, long google-translated post reflects common trends in current artillery usage. That part, which was translated by me, reflects a situation in particular regiment.

What I can add, Russians mostly still work with batteries in 4-6 pieces, but they now try to disperse guns by platoons or singke guns. Albeit, not always. Several days ago "Magyar" issued a video how UKR FPVs took out four 2A65 howitzers on one firing position

[Haiduk]

3 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

One possibility is that enough Russian artillery officers have been killed that they just can’t coordinate as before, even if they wanted to.

More questions in the same vein: What proportion of pre-war artillery crews has Russia lost? What is the training of current crews? What kind of range/accuracy/reliability do the current gun/ammo combos offer?

Soviet Union/Russia always had strong artilery school, so they hadn't enough problems with new young officers graduatins and new personnel trainig. Implementing of differnt UAVs and PDAs (though Russians to this time coldn't create something similar by functionality like UKR Kropyva or Delta info systems) in more wide scale than in 2022 allows Russian artillery in theory to increase own capabilities. In real Russians still to take by advantage of barrels. Russians complained on terrible quality of N.Korea ammunition for guns and mortars - their charges have weights, which may significantly differ each of other, so rang of fire can variate and you don't know where along the range this shell will impact. Russian gunners now forced manally unpack charges and equalize powder weight in delivered batch of shells. But even after this due to bad quality of producing these shells often hit out of estimated disperse ellips. 

The same issues, but in much less scale are about Russian-made ammunition. Iranian in somne cases even better that Russian. 

The range of Russian systems didn't change, though there were spotted some modern Chineese 122 mm shells with incresed on 2 km range. So, most of their counter battrey activity are Lancets, Tornado-S/Smerch or even Iskander-M in case of HIMARS/CAESAR/Archer.

[Haiduk]

Several days ago Russians in counter to new UKR landings in Krynky decided to land on the islands oppose to Kozachi Lahery village. Their operation failed, few nubmer of those who managed to reach the island were eliminated. This is not about any large landing. More likely 1-2 squad size operation maximum

TG screen is a story of mother or wife of Russian soldier about this operation. She says many soldiers drowned, one boat could rushed in. Then one more rubber boat sailed to the island to take back survived soldiers, but it was damaged and after 1 km of way at last was bombed and had been sunken by "Baba Yaga" drone. Only one of her famiiliar soldiers survived from four - they jumpen on the bank, bur were killed

  

 

Edited April 21 by Haiduk

[Vet 0369]

On 4/13/2024 at 9:22 PM, MSBoxer said:

Not to nitpick, but the Union burned the Merrimack to keep it from falling into the hands of the confederacy.

LOL, you’re absolutely correct! A couple of minutes after I posted it, I said to myself “who actually burned the Merrimack?” This highlights the danger of a cranky old man hurrying to post before forgetting to hit “Submit Reply!”

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

As I could understand, long google-translated post reflects common trends in current artillery usage. That part, which was translated by me, reflects a situation in particular regiment.

What I can add, Russians mostly still work with batteries in 4-6 pieces, but they now try to disperse guns by platoons or singke guns. Albeit, not always. Several days ago "Magyar" issued a video how UKR FPVs took out four 2A65 howitzers on one firing position

Thanks for the perspective.  Yes, I remember the Magyar gun hit and that's one reason I was wondering how far Russian reforms have gone.

Another interesting note from one of the Russian sources you posted is that they aren't using mortars any more.  My interpretation is he said they are too vulnerable and are redundant with FPV and artillery, so there is no point in trying to maintain that capability.

Steve

[Carolus]

 

Some possibility of why Johnson changed his blockade stance.

 

[pintere]

29 minutes ago, Carolus said:

 

Some possibility of why Johnson changed his blockade stance.

 

So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Nobody drink on position, it's taboo, else they go to "zakryep" [probably those who have to hold the ground after assault] - and this is more scary than to stormers. 

How it looks "zakryep" - video from Russian side. Three Russian soldiers sit in the remains of position or in the pit covered by fallen tree barrels and branches. The tree-plant, where they sit had been moved down by artillery fire. The guy says they sits here in the dirty pit already the second day and can do nothing - UKR FPVs and DPCIM block any movement. They three times tried to reach positions of their company together with major (likely he is in te put too, because the guy says respectively "with comrade major"), but DPCIM forces them to retreat. He says during they advance to hold the ground, their BMP was hit - ammo, food, water, everything burnt. Bodies of their comrades littered the tree-plant. When situation allows, they leave their shelter and search deads for some food and water. No supply and weak support - just two mortar units rarely fire on Ukrainians.

 

Edited April 21 by Haiduk

[Vet 0369]

On 4/10/2024 at 11:31 AM, Battlefront.com said:

Oh man, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that ever saw that movie.  IIRC I saw it in the theater!

Steve

Makes you feel old eh! My regular CM opponent was three or four years old when that movie came out.  He’s over 40 now!

[Haiduk]

Some time ago this was biosphere reservation "Sribnianskyi forest" (Kreminna area). Complete devastation. Filmed by "Azov" brigade on retaken positions.

CM should have this type of trees after period of intensive shellings - just a standing or falling down barrels without branches and leaves. 

 

 

Edited April 21 by Haiduk

[Vet 0369]

On 4/11/2024 at 5:15 PM, Sgt Joch said:

Since the topic of countering drones came up, the U.S.Navy is confronting the problem head on dealing with Houthi drones and coming up quickly with stopgap solutions.

 

Oh, wow! I guess I’m really out of touch with the power sources of the drones. I had the impression that they were primarily electric propulsion. That would be an extremely weak heat source for the infrared tracker of a sidewinder.

[Vet 0369]

On 4/12/2024 at 8:00 AM, Beleg85 said:

Example of caltrps dropped on road from drone near Krynki:

 

Amazing! Just think of it, still using a defensive weapon that was first developed thousands of years ago. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another interesting note from one of the Russian sources you posted is that they aren't using mortars any more.  My interpretation is he said they are too vulnerable and are redundant with FPV and artillery, so there is no point in trying to maintain that capability.

Yeah that’s fascinating. I guess the tradeoff for an 80mm mortar (M252) goes something like this:

• Mortar
  • Mortar itself weights 40kg
  • Bombs weigh 4.5kg
  • Max range is 6km
  • Crew of 5
  • Big boom on firing
• FPV drone
  • Juicy version has 1kg HE (plus LIPO juicyness); other version has a couple of AGL grenades or whatnot.
  • ~4kg total weight
  • 10+km range
  • Crew of 1-2
  • Very precise
  • No noise on launch
  • EM signature

Seems pretty clear cut. I wonder how the equation changes for a mortar hauled around by an UGV. Does that make the extra weight worth it? Presumably precision mortar bombs cost more than an FPV too.

EDIT: This is without relays and/or some form of autonomy. With those, range goes up and signature goes down.

17 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Oh, wow! I guess I’m really out of touch with the power sources of the drones. I had the impression that they were primarily electric propulsion. That would be an extremely weak heat source for the infrared tracker of a sidewinder.

You gotta also differentiate between propulsion: Propellor, turboprop, turbojet, turbofan, solid-fuel rocket etc, and/or combo with glide phase. Each of those are pretty different in terms of how to detect them.

On the power source you also have fuel cells, which sound very cool, but are less practical than batteries IMO.

Edited April 21 by kimbosbread

[hcrof]

9 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah that’s fascinating. I guess the tradeoff for an 80mm mortar (M252) goes something like this:

• Mortar
  • Mortar itself weights 40kg
  • Bombs weigh 4.5kg
  • Max range is 6km
  • Crew of 5
  • Big boom on firing
• FPV drone
  • Juicy version has 1kg HE (plus LIPO juicyness); other version has a couple of AGL grenades or whatnot.
  • ~4kg total weight
  • 10+km range
  • Crew of 1-2
  • Very precise
  • No noise on launch
  • EM signature

Seems pretty clear cut. I wonder how the equation changes for a mortar hauled around by an UGV. Does that make the extra weight worth it? Presumably precision mortar bombs cost more than an FPV too.

EDIT: This is without relays and/or some form of autonomy. With those, range goes up and signature goes down.

You gotta also differentiate between propulsion: Propellor, turboprop, turbojet, turbofan, solid-fuel rocket etc, and/or combo with glide phase. Each of those are pretty different in terms of how to detect them.

On the power source you also have fuel cells, which sound very cool, but are less practical than batteries IMO.

The big advantage of a mortar is the rate of fire, so a small number of mortars can potentially do a lot of damage. But the rest of your points are valid.

There are some interesting videos of the British army mortar teams being very creative with camouflage. For example hiding it in a dumpster or inside a wrecked building, so when the drones come hunting they can't find it. Whether that works in practice remains to be seen. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, hcrof said:

The big advantage of a mortar is the rate of fire, so a small number of mortars can potentially do a lot of damage. But the rest of your points are valid.

Right, but one of the reasons for the high RoF is because the chances of any one shell having the desired effect is rather low.  Again, mass vs. precision.

One of the things we've always hammered into our CM customers for the past 25 years is that mortars and MGs are there for suppressive effects first, killing effects second.  The idea is you hit an attacking company with a bunch of mortar rounds or MG fire and you disrupt their attack, perhaps to the point of forcing it to retreat.  We've seen that one or two FPVs have the same effect and possibly even the same, maybe even better, killing effect.

It's like snipers in the real world.  Shoot a single bullet and hit a single man in a 9 man squad and you have an impact on that squad's performance disproportional to the one man shot.  Perhaps even more impact than a couple of mortar rounds dropping by or a spray of MG splash on their position.

Steve

[hcrof]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Right, but one of the reasons for the high RoF is because the chances of any one shell having the desired effect is rather low.  Again, mass vs. precision.

One of the things we've always hammered into our CM customers for the past 25 years is that mortars and MGs are there for suppressive effects first, killing effects second.  The idea is you hit an attacking company with a bunch of mortar rounds or MG fire and you disrupt their attack, perhaps to the point of forcing it to retreat.  We've seen that one or two FPVs have the same effect and possibly even the same, maybe even better, killing effect.

It's like snipers in the real world.  Shoot a single bullet and hit a single man in a 9 man squad and you have an impact on that squad's performance disproportional to the one man shot.  Perhaps even more impact than a couple of mortar rounds dropping by or a spray of MG splash on their position.

Steve

I agree, but snipers don't make machine guns obsolete! Sometimes you have an "oh crap" moment where you need a lot of fire very quickly, and mortars do that very well. I think there is space for both, although in the modern battlefield the mortar may need to be attached to a vehicle of some kind so it can displace quickly. It doesn't all have to be an 8x8 either (although those are great), there are lighter versions like scorpion.

My vote though, would be a ugv version, to make it even smaller and easier to hide. Like a pair of universal carrier sized vehicles: one with a mortar on the back and the other with the crew and extra ammo.