How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Viko]

3 minutes ago, sburke said:

hmm one post to defend a russian shill.....  Usually we give a shout out to new folks and their first post... this one... nah.

Let me guess, you only welcome people here who say things you like?

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 minute ago, Viko said:

Let me guess, you only welcome people here who say things you like?

You are shocked when someone turns up spouting utter nonsense and gets the appropriate treatment for doing so? 

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, sburke said:

hmm one post to defend a russian shill.....  Usually we give a shout out to new folks and their first post... this one... nah.

Let me be clear with everybody that I do not believe ZellZeka is a Russian shill.  What I see is a Ukrainian who is genuinely dismayed at the levels of death and destruction, correctly holding the belief that it is all unnecessary (i.e. this is a senseless war of aggression), and then incorrectly concluding there is an easy way out of this mess.  Surrender is always a temptation for those who do not see a clear way to end suffering.

I am not Ukrainian.  I do not live in Ukraine.  My life is not upside down because of it.  I will not judge ZellZeka for his view of this war, no matter how naive and wishful his thinking might be.  However, I will not allow his defeatist point of view to distract us from a more objective view.  And yes, not being directly affected by the war does give us the ability to be more objective.

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

See my previous comments.

To be objective, we've only ever had 2 Ukrainians posting here on a regular basis.  One of which was banned for the same behavior I just banned ZellZeka for.  Which is one reason why I suspect they are the same person.

Steve

If it was Zeleban (I don't know for sure) it is truly upsetting how committed he has become to defeatism, I still wish him all the best. 

I really liked that guy and his content and agreed with a lot of what he said until some of his later posts. If you are reading this Zeleban, stay safe man. I hope you will get through this terrible war.

Edited May 27 by Harmon Rabb

[Viko]

Just now, ArmouredTopHat said:

You are shocked when someone turns up spouting utter nonsense and gets the appropriate treatment for doing so? 

 

I just don’t like being in a propaganda bubble. I like to listen to different opinions

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, Viko said:

Let me guess, you only welcome people here who say things you like?

ZellZeka was banned for violating Forum rules against trolling and, I suspect, returning to the Forum after already being  banned.  Do not blame long time contributors here for recognizing the situation for what it was and advocating in favor of doing what needed to be done.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

Just now, Viko said:

I just don’t like being in a propaganda bubble. I like to listen to different opinions

There is a difference between differing opinions and outright lies that are straight from an Imperialist governments mouth. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Viko said:

I just don’t like being in a propaganda bubble. I like to listen to different opinions

Neither do I, however trolls are never a good thing.

Someone posted something from Alex Jones.  This is a guy that also claims to be combating propaganda, but in fact he is pushing it.  Don't be fooled by what people claim they are trying to do.  Look at what they say and how they say it before drawing conclusions.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Let me be clear with everybody that I do not believe ZellZeka is a Russian shill.  What I see is a Ukrainian who is genuinely dismayed at the levels of death and destruction, correctly holding the belief that it is all unnecessary (i.e. this is a senseless war of aggression), and then incorrectly concluding there is an easy way out of this mess. 

Was he Ukrainian though? Some of things he wrote did not seem like things a disgruntled Ukrainian would write, more like an active Russian supporter. One way or another, those comments were also pure troll and fully justified a ban regardless of where he hailed from.

[Viko]

2 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Was he Ukrainian though? Some of things he wrote did not seem like things a disgruntled Ukrainian would write, more like an active Russian supporter. One way or another, those comments were also pure troll and fully justified a ban regardless of where he hailed from.

and what do you think a dissatisfied Ukrainian should have written?

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Viko said:

and what do you think a dissatisfied Ukrainian should have written?

Enough.  I am the only person that decides if someone is allowed to post here.  I told you why he was banned and that is the only thing that matters.  His posts caused enough distraction from meaningful conversation, do you really want to keep it going?  Because I sure don't want you to.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Was he Ukrainian though? Some of things he wrote did not seem like things a disgruntled Ukrainian would write, more like an active Russian supporter. One way or another, those comments were also pure troll and fully justified a ban regardless of where he hailed from.

For sure he is in Ukraine.  I think we should presume he is Ukrainian.  I suspect he is Zeleban who we saw go down this Russian propaganda defeatism route before.  It's why he got banned.

Steve

[Tux]

4 minutes ago, Viko said:

and what do you think a dissatisfied Ukrainian should have written?

It did seem a little odd for a Ukrainian (however satisfied they may be) to refer to Ukrainians generally as “they”…

1 hour ago, ZellZeka said:

 

Are these guys still alive? Or wait a minute, they must be completely safe away from the front now. This is the whole point of the Ukrainians - a lot of noise and show-off, but when it comes to a real fight, they retreat.

As for this:

14 minutes ago, Viko said:

I just don’t like being in a propaganda bubble. I like to listen to different opinions

You are welcome here, as are your opinions, but nobody’s opinion gets a positive response on this thread unless it is supported and contributes to the collective effort to better understand this war.  That’s because opinions in isolation are useless; everyone has one, everyone has a right to one, yadda yadda yadda. It’s not opinions but the supporting evidence people provide which results in discussion and other people becoming convinced.

[FancyCat]

maybe we should move on,

Quote

For the first time, French military instructors will train Ukrainian personnel in Ukraine under a new program, per commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi. The first French instructors will reportedly arrive in Ukraine soon.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, FancyCat said:

maybe we should move on,

 

 

I would very much like to move along, yes please!

This is an interesting development.  On the one hand it isn't a massive change in policy because other NATO countries have trained Ukrainian troops on Ukrainian soil since well before the 2014 invasion.  The change is that everybody pulled their trainers out when the 2022 invasion happened in order to avoid the potential for sustaining NATO casualties.  Putting forces back in reintroduces that possibility and that is very significant.

Steve

[Viko]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Enough.  I am the only person that decides if someone is allowed to post here.  I told you why he was banned and that is the only thing that matters.  His posts caused enough distraction from meaningful conversation, do you really want to keep it going?  Because I sure don't want you to.

Steve

If you've already turned on tyrant mode, then don't stop. To be honest, over time this forum became less and less informative for me. This is just some kind of sandbox for Steve and his minions, so I won't lose much from this ban

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For sure he is in Ukraine.  I think we should presume he is Ukrainian.  I suspect he is Zeleban who we saw go down this Russian propaganda defeatism route before.  It's why he got banned.

Steve

I am assuming you guys did some IP sleuthing…careful with them VPNs though.  Zeleban makes sense, the guy was banned in Jan and this new guys account pops up right around the same time.  If it was Zeleban his narrative has deepened.  I was willing to buy into fatigue but claiming Bucha wasn’t criminal or somehow the Ukrainian government’s fault is crossing a line.

[FancyCat]

lots of EU related defense news, one thing that is satisfying to see is the leadership of smaller EU countries is quite nice to see. 

Quote

Spain is set to announce a new massive 1.13 billion Euro ($1.23 billion) military aid package for Ukraine. The package will include roughly 12 additional PATRIOT interceptors, 19 Leopard 2A4s, and a large number of additional systems procured from the Spanish defense industry.

Major items from the El Pais article: Most of the funding will go to Spanish companies to procure new equipment for Ukraine The Spanish weapons will include 155mm shells, anti drone systems, vehicles, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment, self propelled mortars, and more

Quote

Tomorrow, several EU countries will hold a major summit on speeding up ammunition procurement for Ukraine in Prague. Danish PM Frederiksen, Czech PM Fiala, Polish president Duda, Latvian PM Siliņa, and Dutch PM Rutte will attend.

The group will talk on the Czech munitions initiative, the air defense of Ukraine, and defense-industrial cooperation in Europe.

 

[The_Capt]

Just now, Viko said:

If you've already turned on tyrant mode, then don't stop. To be honest, over time this forum became less and less informative for me. This is just some kind of sandbox for Steve and his minions, so I won't lose much from this ban

Ah, I know this tactic.  Try to show the admin is banning any dissenting opinions and that we are nothing more than a cult.  Nice try but BFC Admins have been very generous on this thread…to a fault at times.  

[hcrof]

I have been thinking some more about the lessons of Ukraine for future warfare, as well as the conversations on this forum, and have been trying to develop a coherent concept on how to fight in the transparent battlefield of the present/future. I will try to keep this post as short as possible but this is a complex subject!

Throughout I will be referring to the concepts in this thread:

How to attack: I have talked about this before a bit, I think you need to mass drones and long range indirect fires to blow a hole in the enemies line. You cannot mass forces in the traditional sense because they will be identified and destroyed so you need to send a swarm of vehicles together in roughly platoon sized elements into this breach in order to exploit it. These need to be extremely mobile because artillery can hit slow or static vehicles at extreme range and also because you should expect the enemy to use mobile assets like drones, fast moving artillery (Caesar) and mobile reserves to fill the breach. 

Large armoured vehicles are very hard to hide so enemy resistance in the local area will not likely consist of tanks or other mobile elements, since they will be largely destroyed in the initial strikes. Local resistance will consist of relatively isolated, but well hidden, infantry. However even a single enemy squad with lots of ATGMs and a radio threatens to slow the advance, especially since the attackers are lightly armoured and dispersed. The attackers must accept attrition of the leading elements (recon by boom) and have large quantities of organic fires to reduce these strongpoints quickly. Mobile mortars, 105mm guns and drone carriers have the range for the swarm to offer mutually supporting and responsive fires even when dispersed.  

The vehicle swarm needs to protect itself from incoming artillery and drones. The key points if the "survivorability onion" are: speed to avoid being hit by indirect fires, extensive drone surveillance to destroy direct fires before they are a threat, a combination of simple radar with autocannons and "goalkeeper" drones for self defence (see the other thread for the maths) and mechanical redundancy to keep vehicles moving even after taking damage. 

So what does the swarm look like? The leading edge is a picket line of (ideally) unmanned car-sized tankettes armed with autocannons and a few AT/AA missiles that aggressively recon by fire, covered by a lot of surveillance drones. Should the enemy fire on them then the source of fire is very quickly identified and eliminated. Following this are simple APCs carrying infantry and command vehicles acting as sensor fusion and drone control platforms (they look exactly like APCs) as well as air defence. Then you have specialist elements such as the mobile guns, drone carriers, engineering, heavier tanks(!) etc. interspersed with the APCs. Finally you have small car-sized unmanned logistics carriers pushing supplies forward, as well as a stream of new tankettes to replace losses (an advantage of unmanned platforms is that they are 100% replaceable even in combat).  A bubble of surveillance and defensive drones surround the swarm at all times and this bubble is the key to identifying and eliminating the majority of threats before they enter line of sight. This may all be visible on enemy radar but it will be difficult to identify patterns and to distinguish important fighting elements from random (and expendable) logistics carriers or even quadbikes with radar reflectors - the protective drone/AD bubble prevents enemy drones from clearly identifying what is going on. 

Operationally the force never masses in one point. The prepositioned leading edge of the attack is mostly tankettes and some APCs that have been dispersed: either concealed (easy with a car-sized vehicle in a village) or moving to look like random logistics vehicles on radar. A previously stockpiled FPV drone swarm largely destroys the enemy and the prepositioned elements begin the attack as the leading echelon. The main echelon are organised and fuelled across a zone potentially of hundreds of km in radius. They deploy "from the march" with wheeled APCs self-driving and tracked tankettes being carried by civilian grade trucks (maybe 3 per truck) and unloaded a few tens of km back from the front lines. By the time the enemy knows the main direction of the attack, the second echelon is already beginning to arrive. Eventually (before the drone/AD bubble is exhausted) the infantry will dig in and the tankettes and other supporting elements will withdraw to prepare for a new attack. 

The key here is not to gold-plate things, especially the tankettes and logistics carriers, which need to be cheap and replaceable. But humans are spared the worst of the attrition since their job is to sit in APCs and get delivered to key points rather than be subject to enemy fire. Also I have not covered minefield breaches, but that is for a different post...

Edited May 27 by hcrof

[FancyCat]

Quote

Russian-occupied Luhansk. Good god, this is a massive hit now.

Rumors have it that a Russian airfield was hit.

 

[The_Capt]

22 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I have been thinking some more about the lessons of Ukraine for future warfare, as well as the conversations on this forum, and have been trying to develop a coherent concept on how to fight in the transparent battlefield of the present/future. I will try to keep this post as short as possible but this is a complex subject!

Throughout I will be referring to the concepts in this thread:

How to attack: I have talked about this before a bit, I think you need to mass drones and long range indirect fires to blow a hole in the enemies line. You cannot mass forces in the traditional sense because they will be identified and destroyed so you need to send a swarm of vehicles together in roughly platoon sized elements into this breach in order to exploit it. These need to be extremely mobile because artillery can hit slow or static vehicles at extreme range and also because you should expect the enemy to use mobile assets like drones, fast moving artillery (Caesar) and mobile reserves to fill the breach. 

Armoured vehicles are very hard to hide so enemy resistance in the local area will not likely consist of tanks or other mobile elements, since they will be largely destroyed in the initial strikes. Local resistance will consist of relatively isolated, but well hidden, infantry. However even a single enemy squad with lots of ATGMs and a radio threatens to slow the advance, especially since the attackers are lightly armoured and dispersed. The attackers must accept attrition of the leading elements (recon by boom) and have large quantities of organic fires to reduce these strongpoints quickly. Mobile mortars, 105mm guns and drone carriers have the range for the swarm to offer mutually supporting and responsive fires even when dispersed.  

The vehicle swarm needs to protect itself from incoming artillery and drones. The key points if the "survivorability onion" are: speed to avoid being hit by indirect fires, extensive drone surveillance to destroy direct fires before they are a threat, a combination of simple radar with autocannons and "goalkeeper" drones for self defence (see the other thread for the maths) and mechanical redundancy to keep vehicles moving even after taking damage. 

So what does the swarm look like? The leading edge is a picket line of (ideally) unmanned car-sized tankettes armed with autocannons and a few AT/AA missiles that aggressively recon by fire, covered by a lot of surveillance drones. Should the enemy fire on them then the source of fire is very quickly identified and eliminated. Following this are simple APCs carrying infantry and command vehicles acting as sensor fusion and drone control platforms (they look exactly like APCs) as well as air defence. Then you have specialist elements such as the mobile guns, drone carriers, engineering, heavier tanks(!) etc. interspersed with the APCs. Finally you have small car-sized unmanned logistics carriers pushing supplies forward, as well as a stream of new tankettes to replace losses (an advantage of unmanned platforms is that they are 100% replaceable even in combat).  A bubble of surveillance and defensive drones surround the swarm at all times and this bubble is the key to identifying and eliminating the majority of threats before they enter line of sight. This may all be visible on enemy radar but it will be difficult to identify patterns and to distinguish important fighting elements from random (and expendable) logistics carriers or even quadbikes with radar reflectors - the protective drone/AD bubble prevents enemy drones from clearly identifying what is going on. 

Operationally the force never masses in one point. The prepositioned leading edge of the attack is mostly tankettes and some APCs that have been dispersed: either concealed (easy with a car-sized vehicle in a village) or moving to look like random logistics vehicles on radar. A previously stockpiled FPV drone swarm largely destroys the enemy and the prepositioned elements begin the attack as the leading echelon. The main echelon are organised and fuelled across a zone potentially of hundreds of km in radius. They deploy "from the march" with wheeled APCs self-driving and tracked tankettes being carried by civilian grade trucks (maybe 3 per truck) and unloaded a few tens of km back from the front lines. By the time the enemy knows the main direction of the attack, the second echelon is already beginning to arrive. Eventually (before the drone/AD bubble is exhausted) the infantry will dig in and the tankettes and other supporting elements will withdraw to prepare for a new attack. 

The key here is not to gold-plate things, especially the tankettes and logistics carriers, which need to be cheap and replaceable. But humans are spared the worst of the attrition since their job is to sit in APCs and get delivered to key points rather than be subject to enemy fire. Also I have not covered minefield breaches, but that is for a different post...

I really like where this is going.  I think the future is light, fast and dispersed as far as human crewed platforms are concerned.  I think we may see deeper human-machine pairing with a future platoon as 70-80% unmanned systems.  I am still not entirely sold on direct fires but the counter-point is that these organizations may come into close contact, so some DF will be a requirement.

To this we need to add a new form of Air Assault. Instead of lobbing light human units, air assault needs to become an air projectable version of what you have here.  Air Assault allows for rapid projection of bubbles in depth.  

I think that if heavy survives it is going to become a niche capability for specific problems - like urban warfare.  Here we will likely see more demolition SPG as opposed to tanks.  Keeping in mind one is going to have to isolate and then encapsulate an enemy hard point before you can bring heavy to bear.

The most important piece of this entire thing is C4ISR.  What we will also need is a c-C4ISR concept.  This may be a combination of cyber, EW and precision strike.  It will be critical to sustain C4ISR superiority.

One thing I am still not sure of is that if one’s offensive bubble manages to break an opponents, what is the use of “bringing up mass to dig in”. It might just be better to keep pushing the bubble or echeloning bubbles in a next-gen form of manoeuvre warfare.

Regardless, this is the genesis of a pretty interesting wargame.

Edited May 27 by The_Capt

[ArmouredTopHat]

More images of improvised protection on the M1s in UA service. Curious that we are seeing more of these now. Possibly the result of experience of frontline action?
 

 

[hcrof]

23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I really like where this is going.  I think the future is light, fast and dispersed as far as human crewed platforms are concerned.  I think we may see deeper human-machine pairing with a future platoon as 70-80% unmanned systems.  I am still not entirely sold on direct fires but the counter-point is that these organizations may come into close contact, so some DF will be a requirement.

To this we need to add a new form of Air Assault. Instead of lobbing light human units, air assault needs to become an air projectable version of what you have here.  Air Assault allows for rapid projection of bubbles in depth.  

I think that if heavy survives it is going to become a niche capability for specific problems - like urban warfare.  Here we will likely see more demolition SPG as opposed to tanks.  Keeping in mind one is going to have to isolate and then encapsulate an enemy hard point before you can bring heavy to bear.

The most important piece of this entire thing is C4ISR.  What we will also need is a c-C4ISR concept.  This may be a combination of cyber, EW and precision strike.  It will be critical to sustain C4ISR superiority.

One thing I am still not sure of is that if one’s offensive bubble manages to break an opponents, what is the use of “bringing up mass to dig in”. It might just be better to keep pushing the bubble or echeloning bubbles in a next-gen form of manoeuvre warfare.

Regardless, this is the genesis of a pretty interesting wargame.

I like the idea of projecting a bubble via air assault, I will have to think about how that works. I am thinking about using heavy lift drones as part of an air assault package but ran into the bubble problem...

Urban is its own thing - my 105mm tank would do well there as a high elevation HE chucker, especially if a swarm of black hornets could be used to flush the enemy out of hidden places first. 

On C4ISR I will leave that to the experts - I am far enough out of my lane as it is...

In terms of “bringing up mass to dig in” it is a mix of protecting the flanks/rear from infiltrating/stay behind enemy infantry, stubborn trench/bunker clearance and generally just having a plan for when the offensive culminates. I don't have an very good feel for the details of a large manoeuvre though so I would welcome feedback on what they should/shouldn't be doing. 

[Haiduk]

8 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

probably the first victims were the Ugric tribes in the North

They showed no mercy even to the same Slavic people. Execpt Finno-Ugric nations first Slavic victim of genocidicval "lands gathering" was Novgorod - north Rus' nobility republic, crashed by Moscow in late 15th century, because it remained single rival of Moscow hegemony in northern part of Rus' lands. Many Novgorodians were massacred or moved to other lands. If Novgorodod won, history of Russia could by completely other. But Moscowian asian-despotia type of ruling completely won over traditional Rus' form of ruling in triada "duke + nobility parties + citizens council", when Moscow gradually was subordinating during almost 300 years other smaller principalities like Tver', Ryazan', Rostov, Pskov and tried to contest Great Principality of Lithuanina for the legacy of south-western Rus' lands (modern Ukraine and Belarus).    

Edited May 27 by Haiduk