How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

You have answered your own question.  RU does send it's wounded back, it just needs meat to throw at UKR defenders.  And once in the system it's easy to just finish grinding them up.  We know an RU tactic is to send some 'lesser' soldiers forward to get UKR to open fire, thereby helping the following groups while the 1st group is generally slaughtered.

I'd take a limping veteran over someone who is physically fit but only has 1-2 months of training.

We should note that I've seen some seriously wounded Ukrainians go back to active duty as well.  However, when I have they are doing so voluntarily and (hopefully) getting a job that they are able to physically do.

Steve

[Fenris]

Was waiting for this one, posted up thread by Haiduk, now with english sub-titles

 

[The_Capt]

Is it just me or does the RA seem a little more ragged lately?  We have been here before but there seems to be a steady stream of some weird signals again.  I am starting to wonder if they burned themselves out over the Winter-Spring trying to show everyone that they are not burned out.

[Offshoot]

6 hours ago, dan/california said:

I have several questions/suppositions. Was the control signal from those drones being relayed thru the same recon drone doing the spotting? Was every one of those hits done by the same drone pilot? So his crew had a dozen drones line up for hm to use as fast as he could switch the frequencies? Was there an orbit of drones ready to use,or did they all have fly from the Ukrainian lines after the convoy was spotted?

There are several chevrons on a lot of the sequences in the video and as per the post "Joint work of the 53rd Brigade of Ukraine, ‘Malibu’ unit and ‘Kryla Do Pekla’ unit of the 103rd TD Brigade of Ukraine". Given the coordination needed, my guess is this was preplanned rather than an attack of opportunity. It's possible the Russians had sent convoys along this route for a while without trouble but had then been spotted by Ukrainian recon.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/opinion/mexico-new-president-violence.html

In a village in the hills of Guerrero State, residents ran from their homes as drones flew overhead, dropping makeshift bombs. For months, drug cartel operatives had been deploying the commercial devices to drop explosives packed into metal casings, setting homes ablaze, tearing holes in walls and....

 

The article is about Mexico, but the first paragraph makes it extremely clear that the lessons from Ukraine are being learned far and wide, not just by the good guys either. 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/us/politics/deepfake-us-official-russia.html

A day after U.S. officials said Ukraine could use American weapons in limited strikes inside Russia, a deepfake video of a U.S. spokesman discussing the policy appeared online.

The fabricated video, which is drawn from actual footage, shows the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, seeming to suggest that the Russian city of Belgorod, just 25 miles north of Ukraine’s border with Russia, was a legitimate target for such strikes.

 

Since the regular spokesperson gets up and talks in front of cameras multiple times per week their is an approximate infinity of data to work with, unfortunately.

[Harmon Rabb]

Guess Scott won't be able to see grown men trying to break tennis balls this year.

 

Edited June 4 by Harmon Rabb

[LuckyDog]

A counterpoint to Russia Sux - I'll assert (I have no facts to back this up) that they are using the right strategy for their armour given:
1. Drones are become more ubiquitous.
2. APS is prohibitively expensive for their vehicle fleet.
3. EW is not as effective as needed, even when combined with an outer barn.
4. Jamming as much as possible into a small battle space gives the best chance of success as it could possibly overwhelm the defenses.

The conclusion is that the utility of a Russian tank is dropping continually, and it's better to get something now and piss the entire stock away than nothing later. Moreover, they won't be saddled with an expensive, aging fleet that ties thinking down and drains cash (not that they will have any). 

Another assertion is that it would seem easier to maintain command and control over groups with radios (tanks and riders) than separated individuals with low to no training. The latter worked to a degree for Wagner (with a shell shortage and fewer drones).

Both would seem logical given the constraints and probable future environment.
 

[FancyCat]

Reminder, rolling nationwide blackouts are occurring across Ukraine due to sustained Russian missile and drone attacks. 

 

[The_Capt]

24 minutes ago, LuckyDog said:

A counterpoint to Russia Sux - I'll assert (I have no facts to back this up) that they are using the right strategy for their armour given:
1. Drones are become more ubiquitous.
2. APS is prohibitively expensive for their vehicle fleet.
3. EW is not as effective as needed, even when combined with an outer barn.
4. Jamming as much as possible into a small battle space gives the best chance of success as it could possibly overwhelm the defenses.

The conclusion is that the utility of a Russian tank is dropping continually, and it's better to get something now and piss the entire stock away than nothing later. Moreover, they won't be saddled with an expensive, aging fleet that ties thinking down and drains cash (not that they will have any). 

Another assertion is that it would seem easier to maintain command and control over groups with radios (tanks and riders) than separated individuals with low to no training. The latter worked to a degree for Wagner (with a shell shortage and fewer drones).

Both would seem logical given the constraints and probable future environment.
 

I am inclined to agree with a lot of this.  Further we are seeing the same behaviours on both sides.  The UA holds armor back only releasing them for short sharp missions. They were down to small company sized actions last summer too. I have to believe that a military that had a combined arms doctrine and training before this war just spontaneously drops it in favour of a grinding attritional approach…just because.

Add to this the whole air situation - mutual denial for conventional tac avn and fast air, Wild West for UAS. The excuse that both sides in this war have somehow forgotten combined arms and manoeuvre really stretches credibility, particularly on a 800km+ frontage. Russia is clearly moved to straight up attritional/positional warfare. My personal hypothesis is that they did so because they had to given the realities of the environment and their own constraints.  Ukraine has done a version of the same. High concentrations of forces do not work in this war.  Every time we see them build up, they are interdicted for either side.  So Ukraine has gone on defence, likely for force preservation.  While Russia is trying to burn through by pure brute force.

There is no more room for fancy footwork, this is a straight up game of smash face.

[danfrodo]

45 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I am inclined to agree with a lot of this.  Further we are seeing the same behaviours on both sides.  The UA holds armor back only releasing them for short sharp missions. They were down to small company sized actions last summer too. I have to believe that a military that had a combined arms doctrine and training before this war just spontaneously drops it in favour of a grinding attritional approach…just because.

Add to this the whole air situation - mutual denial for conventional tac avn and fast air, Wild West for UAS. The excuse that both sides in this war have somehow forgotten combined arms and manoeuvre really stretches credibility, particularly on a 800km+ frontage. Russia is clearly moved to straight up attritional/positional warfare. My personal hypothesis is that they did so because they had to given the realities of the environment and their own constraints.  Ukraine has done a version of the same. High concentrations of forces do not work in this war.  Every time we see them build up, they are interdicted for either side.  So Ukraine has gone on defence, likely for force preservation.  While Russia is trying to burn through by pure brute force.

There is no more room for fancy footwork, this is a straight up game of smash face.

Amazing.  All this technology leading us back to..... men with sticks and stones (meaning infantry with grenades).

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I am inclined to agree with a lot of this.  Further we are seeing the same behaviours on both sides.  The UA holds armor back only releasing them for short sharp missions. They were down to small company sized actions last summer too. I have to believe that a military that had a combined arms doctrine and training before this war just spontaneously drops it in favour of a grinding attritional approach…just because.

Add to this the whole air situation - mutual denial for conventional tac avn and fast air, Wild West for UAS. The excuse that both sides in this war have somehow forgotten combined arms and manoeuvre really stretches credibility, particularly on a 800km+ frontage. Russia is clearly moved to straight up attritional/positional warfare. My personal hypothesis is that they did so because they had to given the realities of the environment and their own constraints.  Ukraine has done a version of the same. High concentrations of forces do not work in this war.  Every time we see them build up, they are interdicted for either side.  So Ukraine has gone on defence, likely for force preservation.  While Russia is trying to burn through by pure brute force.

There is no more room for fancy footwork, this is a straight up game of smash face.

Quote

During the late afternoon of June 18th, 1815, as Napoleon's intense artillery bombardment tore into the Allied centre at the Battle of Waterloo and all around 'men were going down like ninepins', the Duke of Wellington observed: 'Hard pounding this, gentlemen, but we will see who can pound the longest.

not the first time this quote has been brought up, but it really does seem appropriate.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I am inclined to agree with a lot of this.  Further we are seeing the same behaviours on both sides.  The UA holds armor back only releasing them for short sharp missions. They were down to small company sized actions last summer too. I have to believe that a military that had a combined arms doctrine and training before this war just spontaneously drops it in favour of a grinding attritional approach…just because.

Add to this the whole air situation - mutual denial for conventional tac avn and fast air, Wild West for UAS. The excuse that both sides in this war have somehow forgotten combined arms and manoeuvre really stretches credibility, particularly on a 800km+ frontage. Russia is clearly moved to straight up attritional/positional warfare. My personal hypothesis is that they did so because they had to given the realities of the environment and their own constraints.  Ukraine has done a version of the same. High concentrations of forces do not work in this war.  Every time we see them build up, they are interdicted for either side.  So Ukraine has gone on defence, likely for force preservation.  While Russia is trying to burn through by pure brute force.

There is no more room for fancy footwork, this is a straight up game of smash face.

We're still left with the vexing question we've had since this war started... how much of this is specific to Ukraine and Russia in this time and place?

In terms of air forces, Russia went into this war with a defensive airforce to start with and that allowed Ukraine's very small (comparatively) airforce to survive.  Again, as a defensive force.

On top of all that, Russia has only been able to sustain operations in Ukraine by dedicating a fair portion of its total force there.  We've seen plenty of reports and intuitive guesswork that indicates it's had to reduce air defenses and likely flying resources to keep a very narrow air front operational.

What would happen to Russia's defensive airforce when hit from bases all along it's entire European border by numerically equal or superior airforces using superior tech?  I expect Russia's ability to defensively concentrate in any one sector would be impractical within a very short period of time (days?  Weeks?).  Because air defenses and aircraft are small in number, it wouldn't take too much before there simply wasn't anything to backstop the front with.  Then we'd likely see the remaining forces systematically wiped out.  Akin to what we saw in Normandy, perhaps.

The next thing to ask is how does this change the ground equation?  We saw that Russian helicopters were able to cause quite a mess of Ukraine's Western style attacks because Ukraine didn't have much to challenge them with.  The West wouldn't likely have that sort of problem, so it would rob the Russians of an equalizing capability.

So what then?  My hope would be that the combination of air dominance, if not superiority, plus superior artillery, plentiful armored vehicles, good quality units, etc. would basically cause the Russians to lose cohesion.  The West would certainly pay heavily for any mistakes and shortcomings, but perhaps even more so in reverse for the Russians.

Every time I think of a near term conflict between the West and Russia I conclude it would be far bloodier than the West would like, but it would win and do so fairly quickly (assuming sensible military goals, that is).

A war with China, on the other hand, doesn't fill me with as much confidence.

Steve

[FancyCat]

Kinda wish this is propaganda....

Quote

A new report from @planca describes how Russia’s military abducts conscientious objectors called up for mobilization (or ordered back into combat) and is now sending them into the trenches with hands literally bound to join assault brigades. At gunpoint

 

[cesmonkey]

Another busy day:

 

[cesmonkey]

Quote

“We were keeping a close watch on what’s happening in Ukraine to make sure that we had those requirements right,” he added.

While he didn’t go into specifics about each team’s proposal, he said the vehicles are being designed to withstand blasts from below and the top, once again with the specific loitering munition and FPV drone threat in mind. The designs also provide crewmembers with a “slightly larger” physical envelope, and include a hard-kill active protection system.

Rheinmetall and GDLS are proposing countermeasure packages that can shoot down threats, jam communications and “potentially hide the vehicle and prevent it from being seen in the first place,” Norman said.

“All of those things are in consideration and the vendors are figuring out which of those capabilities they should offer to the government in their proposals,” the one-star general added. “So we haven’t changed the requirements but we are very much in conversation with both vendors going through design reviews.”

The industry source said the two competitors are closely monitoring emerging threats as they finalize designs, asking for insights on Army combat vehicle formation changes and leaning on the modular open systems architecture (MOSA) for flexibility.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

12 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

That's a good read.  One of the ways Russia is keeping up its manpower is barely patching up the wounded and sending them back to the front.  WW2 style.

 

Galeev mentioned once (I have no other confirmation) that in the late 1940s there was a mass euthanisation of heavily disabled Red Army veterans who'd somehow made it home.... expensive to keep and bad for morale for the next war's recruits to look at.

[LongLeftFlank]

51 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

 

"Ow long to do a parrot job on the terrier?"

[paxromana]

36 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Galeev mentioned once (I have no other confirmation) that in the late 1940s there was a mass euthanisation of heavily disabled Red Army veterans who'd somehow made it home.... expensive to keep and bad for morale for the next war's recruits to look at.

Seems to be an Urban Myth ...

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Soviet-soldiers-that-had-been-disabled-due-to-fighting-in-WW2-were-systematically-wiped-out-by-the-Russian-authorities-as-crippled-veterans-on-the-streets-wasn-t-the-image-that-the-new-Soviet-Union

... though treatment was not great, they weren't actually euthanised.

Edited June 4 by paxromana

[paxromana]

I'd guess the posts about Conshies and barely healed wounded being rounded up and sent off to die at the Front answers my question about POWs returned from Ukraine ... Penal Battalions for Meat Assaults, at a guess.

[Carolus]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Rheinmetall recently promised to present a new anti-drone turret at the next mil trade fair, both as a remote weapon platform for existing vehicles and independent on a smaller UGV chassis or a transportable stationary platform

It will consist of twin gatling guns in 7,62mm with guidance electronics for the turret to either automatically engage threats or to lock on and wait for a human input to fire.

Still, this all seems like the "putting more expensive stuff on existing expensive stuff to maybe shoot down an FPV drone once, if it gets spotted by sensors, until they send two from different sides" approach.

The main question will be whether  a) militaries will solve the problem of comm channels, which currently prevent using more than one drone within a certain radius with Ukraine's commercial / modified commercial models. 

b) how dynamic a programmed / autonomous swarm can fly

Edited June 4 by Carolus

[Carolus]

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/06/03/nato-to-unveil-ukraine-security-package-as-bridge-to-membership/

 

Quote

[...]Part of it will be an institutionalization of some of the bilateral support that’s currently being provided [to] Ukraine, and tucking it under NATO command.

[...]

Some defense companies from the NATO bloc have expressed interest in co-producing certain military capabilities like unmanned systems

[...]

We have to make sure that we keep pushing and get every member of the alliance to lay out a plan to get to the 2% within the next few years,” Smith said. “And I think 99% of the allies have a plan in place.

I wonder if some of the bilateral support involves C4ISR.

Learning how to build drones from Ukraine sounds like definitely the right path.

And as for the last part, I know Germany does not have such a plan, at least none that was publicly announced and seems financially stable.

Edited June 4 by Carolus

[Fenris]

48 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Rheinmetall recently promised to present a new anti-drone turret at the next mil trade fair, both as a remote weapon platform for existing vehicles and independent on a smaller UGV chassis or a transportable stationary platform

It will consist of twin gatling guns in 7,62mm with guidance electronics for the turret to either automatically engage threats or to lock on and wait for a human input to fire.

Still, this all seems like the "putting more expensive stuff on existing expensive stuff to maybe shoot down an FPV drone once, if it gets spotted by sensors, until they send two from different sides" approach.

 

Tend to agree.  Arms manufacturers will come up with something very complex, very expensive that under ideal conditions works flawlessly....  Then someone will velcro an explosive to something and it'll be useless as we've seen.  Without the pressure of actually being in the fight I'm pessimistic about what comes out in the short term.  I'd be more inclined to look at what solutions the Ukrainians are coming up with themselves for things that are practical.  But then I don't have any Rheinmetall shares in my portfolio

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

We're still left with the vexing question we've had since this war started... how much of this is specific to Ukraine and Russia in this time and place?

That is the question of this war.  I would add: and how much of this is applicable to all wars fought in the future?  My sense is that any future peer on peer war will have elements we are seeing in this one.  I suspect symmetry will re-exert itself but it will not look like the symmetries we had before this war. But it is very hard to predict - To my mind this is WW1, and as we know everyone thought WW2 would be the same but it was very much different, even though many of the same elements from WW1 were present.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

 

“We will build a better tank/IFV.  It will basically be the same one we had before but now wrapped in layers of protection (that will not solve the main issues) that will drive the costs of the vehicle by 2-3x”

The answer is a counter-system, not a more expensive platform.