How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[ASL Veteran]

Warning - disturbing video

 

[ASL Veteran]

Hawkeye Self-Propelled 105mm Howitzer

The Army announced it has sent the prototype 105 mm Hawkeye Mobile Howitzer System to Ukraine for testing and evaluation. This move is the first of its kind and raises the unanswered questions of whether military or contractor personnel are with the equipment and, if not, how reliable the evaluation is.

“We recently put a 105 mm system into Ukraine. We shipped it in April and trained for two weeks,” Evans stated. “That system is destined to be one of the first soft recoil systems in combat. It’s going into combat to test on live targets.”

The Hawkeye Mobile Howitzer is known for its high mobility and versatility. It can be transported by various means, including transport aircraft, helicopters, and can even be air-dropped. The platform’s stability is ensured by four hydraulic stabilizers, allowing for horizontal aiming of 180 degrees and vertical aiming from -5 to +72 degrees. The system is designed for a crew of four, but can be operated by just two if necessary.

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

@ArmouredTopHat  is doing an exemplary job of how to disagree while staying engaged in a positive way (I obviously lack this skill).  TheCapt smacks him down, again and again, and he gets right back up and picks up right where he left off and makes another reasonable argument.  This Dude might not be winning the debate, but he's making everyone check their own positions, which is great.

To make it clear, I do broadly agree with most of TheCapt's points, especially when it comes to complacency and procurement issues within western MICs and how drones / ISR with range emphasis are going to be a primary focus for future military planning. I guess we have a different in degree of action required I suppose. 

Really I just think he's being a little bit harsh on our forbearers who did not have the benefit of hindsight to immediately adopt things that seem so obvious to us now, or the fact that our governments are primarily a civilian entity and not military with very different priorities at times. There are complexities involved that explain why humans are not always going to instantly innovate even if its logical, and its not always a military bureaucracy getting in the way. This is why I prefer practical approaches. 

Its been an enjoyable debate for sure that's certainly made me think a lot on some things. 

Edited Saturday at 02:14 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[ASL Veteran]

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

47 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

And I think he's on to something re 1991. Air power dominated and overmatched or not, Desert Storm was the 'prime time' test of AirLand Battle, which while designed for Fulda Gap, took very useful note of the learnings from the Arab-Israeli wars (and to a limited extent the Iran-Iraq war) and refined it for years in the NTC.

I also view the Gulf war as a clear case of Western doctrine working vs a country that at least tried to work with soviet doctrine, not to mention the intricacies of western approaches like a strong NCO system and Mission command tactical approaches that give NATO armies such flexibility and 'soft power' in the field. These I feel remain especially relevant if not more so in conflict given the fast acting status of warfare, and we see that as Ukraine steadily tries to shift from its soviet doctrine to one more western aligned with regards to such concepts. I view top down military systems increasingly obsolete for this very reason.

Certainly we hear a lot how the younger Ukrainian leaders frequently clash with the older figures who are more soviet approach focussed. The Soviet system is simply too rigid for even this relatively static warfare due to command decisions requiring speedy responses. We saw this quickly with how sluggish the Russian ability to direct artillery or airstrikes onto valuable targets, something that's taken them literal years to fix and even then its still only caught a handful of valuable Ukrainian assets. The fact it two two years for Russia to actually visually destroy a single HIMARs system for instance spoke a lot about the inflexibility of such doctrine and how damaging it was in the field. 

[ASL Veteran]

 

Quote

This is a Ukrainian assault team clearing a Russian position somewhere in the Kharkiv area. What is notable is that the ground forces seem to be guided by someone monitoring the situation by drone. While this does give an increased level of situational awareness, there is a downside. It is much easier to take risks when you don't have skin in the game.

 

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

A drone based regiment is very much fascinating to see. 

[dan/california]

32 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:

 

 

 

You have to love how the mobiks huddle in a nice tight group to make things easier for for the drone/mortar that is surely on the way.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, dan/california said:

This is the point about the Military industrial complex some of us are trying to make. There is better stuff coming out of Ukrainian garages.

Yeah, that short bit of text summed up a few hundred pages of observations here quite nicely

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, that short bit of text summed up a few hundred pages of observations here quite nicely

Plenty of important stuff Ukraine is desperate to get from the West as well though that they cannot produce, its not quite that one sided. 

Edited Saturday at 03:30 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Really I just think he's being a little bit harsh on our forbearers who did not have the benefit of hindsight to immediately adopt things that seem so obvious to us now, or the fact that our governments are primarily a civilian entity and not military with very different priorities at times.

Right, which is why I keep repeatedly pointing out that the mentality that The_Capt is railing against is more about Human nature than the military and it's industrial counterpart.  Look at any government, any business, any organization of any sort and you will see there is a group of people in leadership positions that believes the status quo will remain in place forever.  Or at least until they retire.  Why should the military be treated with kid gloves?  Especially when their track record of disastrous decisions have entire libraries written about them.

I also call "BS" on blaming the civilian side of the military for being short sighted and off the mark.  Ultimately the military is in charge, not civilians.  If a bunch of generals can be easily bought off to do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons for the wrong people then I'd say that very much is a failure of the military, wouldn't you?

I'll also call "BS" on the hindsight defense before The_Capt does.  I am a civilian with no professional military experience and I understood that Russia was going to get its ARSE handed to it if it invaded Ukraine.  But the military didn't think that would be the case and so they didn't plan appropriately nor did they properly advise their civilian governments who rely upon them for advice.  Since I formed my opinions years before this war started either I had a very lucky guess or the professionals shaping policy weren't paying attention.

One person's "hindsight" is another person's "screamingly obvious reality".

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Plenty of important stuff Ukraine is desperate to get from the West as well though that they cannot produce, its not quite that one sided. 

Of course it isn't one sided.  The point of that quote is that the Western militaries are woefully behind the UAS curve and, therefore, can not provide Ukraine what it needs because they DO NOT HAVE IT to provide.

The West also isn't able to provide it with the artillery, air defenses, and munitions Ukraine needs because the West doesn't have enough available and production timelines are ridiculously long.

Everything needs to be taken in context, but it's not useful to use context to dilute or dismiss significant failures.

Steve

[danfrodo]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I come to praise the TopHat, for avoidance of doubt.

I had no doubt, I was piling on w praise, for real

 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Plenty of important stuff Ukraine is desperate to get from the West as well though that they cannot produce, its not quite that one sided. 

Bradleys, 155 guns and shells, GMLRS, And Javelins to name a few of these very important things, Oh and Patriot,

IRIS-T, and NASSAMS. All of them have been absolutely vital, and worked as well, or in some cases BETTER, than advertised.

With the exception of NASSAMS and IRIS-T, is there anything on that list that isn't twenty five years old, or in some cases MUCH older? And NASSMS is a nice system, but it fires legacy missiles. And whatever we have been doing for the last 25 years it wasn't making ENOUGH of any of the above.

[ArmouredTopHat]

32 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Bradleys, 155 guns and shells, GMLRS, And Javelins to name a few of these very important things, Oh and Patriot,

IRIS-T, and NASSAMS. All of them have been absolutely vital, and worked as well, or in some cases BETTER, than advertised.

With the exception of NASSAMS and IRIS-T, is there anything on that list that isn't twenty five years old, or in some cases MUCH older? And NASSMS is a nice system, but it fires legacy missiles. And whatever we have been doing for the last 25 years it wasn't making ENOUGH of any of the above.

Part of that is because outside of some select systems, we are very much not sending our latest and best in several areas. Much of the kit is as you say several decades old. The reasoning is pretty understandable (we need the stuff too!)
 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The West also isn't able to provide it with the artillery, air defenses, and munitions Ukraine needs because the West doesn't have enough available and production timelines are ridiculously long.

Here I fully agree entirely with, the war has demonstrated that you dont just need good kit but you need stocks / reserves to make up shortfalls. Ammunition for artillery systems being a key example. 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Of course it isn't one sided.  The point of that quote is that the Western militaries are woefully behind the UAS curve and, therefore, can not provide Ukraine what it needs because they DO NOT HAVE IT to provide.

That's not quite true, we do at the very least ensure Ukraine has access to the components it needs to build its FPVs:

https://www.twz.com/news-features/competition-to-supply-ukraine-with-fpv-drones-gets-underway#:~:text=A multi-national effort to,quantities FPV drones to Ukraine.

 

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I also call "BS" on blaming the civilian side of the military for being short sighted and off the mark.  Ultimately the military is in charge, not civilians.  If a bunch of generals can be easily bought off to do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons for the wrong people then I'd say that very much is a failure of the military, wouldn't you?

Western militaries are ultimately subject to the whims and wills of a civilian government who decide its budget and to a degree what the military in question is geared towards achieving. I'm not blaming anyone here, just pointing out how these things tend to operate and that we cant just blame one particular set of people. Just look at the UK Mod for instance with its recent funding woes. 
 

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'll also call "BS" on the hindsight defense before The_Capt does.  I am a civilian with no professional military experience and I understood that Russia was going to get its ARSE handed to it if it invaded Ukraine.  But the military didn't think that would be the case and so they didn't plan appropriately nor did they properly advise their civilian governments who rely upon them for advice.  Since I formed my opinions years before this war started either I had a very lucky guess or the professionals shaping policy weren't paying attention.

There were some reasonable reasons to believe the Russians could have done better than they actually did prior to 2022. Everything from the Ukrainian response to actual Russian capability was misjudged to be sure though. I would argue its better to overestimate a foes capabilities than underestimate them however. The latter is far more dangerous. 

I largely think it was the Ukrainian response to fight well and hard that probably caught most analysts out. Some Analysts did raise doubts about Russian capability but figured the sheer difference in firepower, vehicles, manpower, air power ect against a weaker foe would overcome any deficiencies. The most prevailing attitude I saw pre 2022 was that Russia would occupy a big chunk of Ukraine and lose the subsequent insurgency if it stuck around: Ie still eventually lose. Civilians and politicians seemed convinced the whole notion of invading was suicidally stupid and therefore 4d chess master Putin would not attempt it. 

The fact of the matter is that most civilian and military analysts and experts misjudged the situation, though I think that is due to said analysts being more concerned with the consequences of such an invasion to their own security concerns. I also think its reasonable to assume most analysts figured the Russians would at least plan such an invasion a little more effectively, rather than the utterly half arsed and rushed botch job it turned out to be. We got a glimpse of a more properly prepared invasion regarding infiltration of UA assets in the south which is probably what most figured would happen on a wider scale. 

https://www.voanews.com/a/three-reasons-most-analysts-were-wrong-on-war-in-ukraine/6974782.html

 

Edited Saturday at 05:43 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[FancyCat]

why wouldn’t the gulf war count as validation of the western way of war?

[Ts4EVER]

6 hours ago, ASL Veteran said:

Warning - disturbing video

 

Probably had damage to the genitals.

[Thomm]

Police car stunt goes wrong. Allegedly in Russia.

 

https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1806748771868635601?s=61&t=oyphg6MO_-qm3cuTMwte5g

[Fenris]

Long article detailing a RU disinformation op using facebook, run out of Nigeria, targeting older, white UK males with anti-immigration, anti-Ukraine, anti-establishment messaging.  I've long thought these kind of things are having a significant impact in the west and wish more was written and done about them.

Quote

Ahead of the UK elections, the ABC has been monitoring five coordinated Facebook pages which have been spreading Kremlin talking points, with some posting in support of Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK party — a key challenger to the Conservatives in the July 4 poll.

The five pages identified by ABC Investigations as being part of a coordinated network appear to have little in common. One page presents itself as a pro-refugee left-wing group, while others reference white supremacist conspiracy theories and use AI-generated images of asylum seekers to stoke anti-immigration fears.

The ABC has been able to link these seemingly disparate pages by examining the location data attached to the pages' administrators, tracking paid ads, and by analysing the pages' similar or shared content.

The ABC shared its findings with disinformation experts, who said the network's activity had the hallmarks of a Russian influence operation.

"For me, it's Russian," said AI Forensics head of research Salvatore Romano.

AI Forensics is a European non-profit research organisation that published research in April about a covert influence operation called "Doppelganger", and found that Facebook ads with pro-Russian messages were targeting EU voters. These ads, which reached more than 38 million users, were linked to EU-sanctioned Russian businessmen.

...

The "Common Sense Britain" page shared screenshots of anti-immigrant headlines from Russia Today (RT), a Kremlin-controlled media outlet. 

"Patriotic UK" shared conspiracy theories about an unfounded claim that the Jihadist terrorist attack in Moscow's Crocus City Hall in March was orchestrated by the West; around the same time the left-wing page "BritBlend" claimed Ukranian citizens had celebrated the mass murder.

The "British Patriots" page has shared a fake headline from a pro-Russian website about Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy being asked by the CIA to not embezzle money. The "BritBlend" page in a post also copy-and-pasted a video caption from "British Patriots" criticising a British parliamentarian, without sharing the video or any further context.

"BritBlend" and "BeyondBorders UK" have also criticised Ukraine, painting it as a bloodthirsty state, with the former posting "there's only one side that celebrates the death of civilians and that is Ukraine". Both pages have argued that the UK's support of Ukraine was a waste of money.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-29/uk-election-pro-russian-facebook-pages-coordinating/104038246

 

 

[The_Capt]

15 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Gulf War and Iraq war seem basic examples to highlight that Western way of warfare worked at a scale at least approaching the level of combat scale seen in Ukraine, if only briefly. The Gulf war seems especially apt because of the assumption of how bloody the war would be and the preparation that went into it. 

First off the Gulf War was over 30 years ago, so there is that.  Second, it is nowhere near close to this war in terms of intensity or parity. Saddam’s forces were poor by Soviet standards and were completely dominated in terms of air power and C4ISR.  So, yes, AirLand Battle worked, but it worked in essentially optimal conditions.  This is akin to having a boxing style and stepping into the ring with a blind old man, punching him to death and declaring “my style works!”  Worse, it is declaring that our style works forever!

Gulf War (and 03’ was even more skewed), was missing the levels of local denial modern technology affords, and an intense ATGM environment that we knew we would get in Europe against the Soviets.  Iraq did not have the Recon Fires, nor air power of the Soviets, nor the echelon depth,

So, while yes, the western way of warfare did work, it was in many way a false positive that fed our own biases.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/01/pentagon-has-been-learning-wrong-lessons-three-decades/393765/#:~:text=We must unlearn the lessons,and not top-down architecture.

The Gulf War lacked the intensity and duration of this war.  It lacked the levels of tactical friction modern technology avails.  It became a poster-child for defence spending over the next three decades as we kept putting conventional capabilities into insurgencies, and we all know how that went.  As to Syria - those are almost entirely all SOF operations.  So, yes, SOF has adapted - it is kinda their thing, but conventional forces appear to be doubling down on protecting what they have

As to the rest, the Russians are abandoning the BTG concept, now.  They started this war with it, and used it in 2014. It looks like they have returned to a Div concept but it is hard to tell exactly where they are at because they have largely abandoned large scale mech manoeuvres.

Russia’s formation adaptations actually support my point - slow and steady reform works right up until the point it does not.  Technology never develops in linear increments, it accelerates until it plateaus.  We have been in an acceleration curve since the 70s.  Yet military reform has been incremental and largely linear - same basic platforms, same basic units and same basic doctrine.  Over 30 years those reforms do add up - I seriously hardest recognize some elements anymore.  But it has not kept up with the pace of technology…not even close.  Nations that are doing radical reforms are the ones in the breach right now. The UA has stood up an entire Unmanned Service:

https://kyivindependent.com/we-set-a-precedent-ukraine-officially-presents-unmanned-systems-forces/

Russia has abandoned its pre-war formations and doctrine. They are reforming at incredible rates because the environment is forcing them to.  Meanwhile the western modern militaries are sitting back, shaking their heads and largely declaring “you are doing it wrong”.  And then when it comes time to discuss our own situations we get excuses, weird rationality and “slow and steady reform”.

FFS, Ukraine was down to FPVs this winter because the US was paralyzed. We just watched them hold off continued RA assaults with C4ISR, infantry and FPVs.  And the assessment is “well, that is because the Russians are doing it wrong”? That was a weak excuse to start with but it simply does not wash.

In the end the environment, driven by technology, social and political shifts, does not care how “hard” it may be for a military to change. The environment only cares about what will work.  We have no real evidence our mechanized system works in this environment.  Assumptions rule the thinking as we stick more turrets on everything, more APS, more weight and a lot more money. That is the wrong way to go.

The environment has accelerated past modern militaries, history is full of examples of this happening before.  We will need to adapt faster than future opponents, who are not going to stick to “slow and steady reform” and are already in many ways pulling out ahead while we try and figure out how to stick more guns on things.  Rationalizations of observation will no longer work - evidence will and we have yet to see any real evidence that our current approaches still work.  We had few to none before this war and now watching things unfold in Ukraine, I have less confidence in our current military systems.

The good news is that you will not be alone in conservatism. The military is rife with cultural protectionism. And MIC back them up largely due to sunk investment costs.  Governments hate major shifts because it costs a lot of money and accepts a lot of inefficiency risks. History is on my side on this point.  In the end we are in for some harsh lessons because once again we will ignore environmental changes for as long as we can…until we can’t.

Edited Saturday at 01:56 PM by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Yeah, the comment was tongue in cheek. I come to praise the TopHat, for avoidance of doubt.

If someone can avoid doubt watching this war unfold, then I fear their head is in the sand. The power of human rationalization is truly a spectacle to behold.

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, FancyCat said:

why wouldn’t the gulf war count as validation of the western way of war?

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1296horner/

https://national interest.org/blog/reboot/history-problem-america-learned-wrong-lesson-desert-storm-179147

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB873230659719233000

https://mida.org.il/2015/08/06/the-bad-lessons-of-desert-storm/

https://www.ausa.org/articles/winners-and-losers-first-gulf-war

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA356630.pdf

For those interested the US military has been leaning forward conceptually:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA454-1.html

https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/17855.pdf

https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-82/jfq-82_6-15_Walton.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_strategy#:~:text=The Defense Department's Third Offset,enough capability to deter one.

The Third Offset was pivotal in pushing thinking about 6 years ago, but it kinda faded.  Further is was largely focused on “how do we sustain dominance in an A2/AD environment with what we have”.  There have been rumbling in the West on more radical reforms for years but conversely there is a lot of counter pressures due to risk and costs.

And frankly, we kind of went all scope eye on Grey Zone for awhile - it was supposed to be the primary theatre of conflict…right up until Ukraine happened.

https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF

This is why this war is so jarring and important, it was not supposed to happen. Russia was to continue to rely on subversive warfare to erode and undermine eventually leading to overt options.  They were not supposed to say “f#ck it!”  And to charging in with guns blazing.  We were definitely not supposed to be in a massive proxy war of intensity not seen since WW2. Yet again another example of us getting it wrong and scrambling to react, but this one was truly bizarre in many ways.  

Militaries are not even close as the only element of national power able to embrace denial and rationalizations.  Diplomacy is in shock right now.  War as a primary means of diplomacy between great powers was not supposed to happen anymore. The fact that hard military power is an option for discourse between the powers is melting international relations minds all over the place right now.  So while we are arguing over tanks, they are watching 30 years of diplomatic theory fall apart.

Definitely a good time to retire.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 12:14 PM by The_Capt

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

they are watching 30 years of diplomatic theory fall apart.

This is the important part. All the assumptions underlying the stated assumptions that strategy and force structure are based on are out the window. There are a lot of things that need to be rethought starting with a clean sheet of paper. Some of the answers that come out of that will be excruciatingly expensive. But the only that cost more than being ready is losing.

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Here I fully agree entirely with, the war has demonstrated that you dont just need good kit but you need stocks / reserves to make up shortfalls. Ammunition for artillery systems being a key example.

The reason we don't have this is because the military, along with its military industrial partners, convinced the civilian leadership (see below) that extremely expensive, high tech wonder weapons didn't require large stocks. 

Part of this was being convinced that long wars were never going to happen again.  The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan gave the West 20+ years of warning that this was not true. 

As The_Capt has hammered on about for this entire thread, with me chiming in alongside him, any criticism of the super expensive Western militaries was excused by the usual things which, unfortunately, you are also using as excuses:

1.  well, nobody could have seen this coming despite all the evidence that a long and costly war was coming and there was zero planning for it.

2.  this war is an anomaly, so we shouldn't be putting our eggs in this basket but instead keep them in the basket they are already in.

3.  there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with our approach to defense, we just didn't spend enough money on it to do it better.

4.  there is no weakness in our approach to warfare that can't be fixed by throwing more money at it.

etc.

8 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

That's not quite true, we do at the very least ensure Ukraine has access to the components it needs to build its FPVs:

This is more of the above.  The quote was someone on the front saying the expensive Gucci stuff they're getting from the West doesn't work very well and is too small quantities to fight the war they are in.  That is what is being discussed.  You pointed out that the West is doing things to help Ukraine (true), but that doesn't address the issue.  I called you out on that and you came back with "but they're sending spare parts, so that's not quite true". 

The failure to have what this war needs IN HAND is true.  Having spent tons of money on the WRONG things IS TRUE.  There is no mitigating that and I really wish you wouldn't try to do so.

In any case, sending a bunch of spare parts so Ukraine can have IN HAND the RIGHT thing is also true, but it isn't relevant to the point being made.

8 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Western militaries are ultimately subject to the whims and wills of a civilian government who decide its budget and to a degree what the military in question is geared towards achieving. I'm not blaming anyone here, just pointing out how these things tend to operate and that we cant just blame one particular set of people. Just look at the UK Mod for instance with its recent funding woes.
 

First of all you SHOULD be blaming someone.  The West has collectively spent trillions of Dollars on its defense since the end of the Cold War and it has repeatedly come up short when it is called upon to use it.  Even against adversaries that are dirt poor and armed with the modern equivalent of pointy sticks.

Second, the military is in charge of planning, the civilian governments are in charge of assessing the plans, deciding upon strategy, and funding it.

I am sure you have heard the old saying "garbage in, garbage out", yes?  Much of what we've seen in Western procurement is the military being a partner with their civilian governments and the industrial base to produce the wrong weapons for the wrong reasons to fight the wrong wars.  Since the military are the "subject experts" the blame goes to them first and foremost.

I'll prove this to you.  How many 4 star generals and admirals can you count that have publicly resigned because the civilian government they work for spent billions on the wrong stuff?  I would hazard a guess to say 0.  How many 4 star generals and admirals have you heard stand up and say "we could have a more effective force if we spent less money, but spent it on the right things?". 

What we do hear from the 4 stars is complaints when they don't have their expensive requests fulfilled.  Even if they quibble about this or that program being too costly and a failure, I don't recall any saying that the procurement strategy itself is broken.

8 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

There were some reasonable reasons to believe the Russians could have done better than they actually did prior to 2022.

I call "BS" on this again as I already did.  I had the information in front of me to know that Russia was going to f' this up to no end.  If I had that information and the smarts to come to this conclusion, but the people who are paid to figure this stuff out did not, then my point is proven.  I should not have been the outlier in this war.

8 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

There were some reasonable reasons to believe the Russians could have done better than they actually did prior to 2022. Everything from the Ukrainian response to actual Russian capability was misjudged to be sure though. I would argue its better to overestimate a foes capabilities than underestimate them however. The latter is far more dangerous.
 

The latter has been the excuse of the military for decades.  I used to buy into it, but this war showed me very clearly that it is wrong.  The more dangerous thing is to bleed a nation's finances white to fight a war that won't ever likely happen and then find out that you don't have what you need to fight the war that you do have.  That is a double dip into disaster.

8 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

The fact of the matter is that most civilian and military analysts and experts misjudged the situation, though I think that is due to said analysts being more concerned with the consequences of such an invasion to their own security concerns. I also think its reasonable to assume most analysts figured the Russians would at least plan such an invasion a little more effectively, rather than the utterly half arsed and rushed botch job it turned out to be. We got a glimpse of a more properly prepared invasion regarding infiltration of UA assets in the south which is probably what most figured would happen on a wider scale.

Wrong.  The portion of the south went extremely poorly overall and we have just recently discussed this.  All successes were in the first few days and even those are mostly attributed to Ukraine having made some bad decisions (including some accusations of collusion with the Russians).

We've discussed AT LENGTH how and why this war was horribly planned and even more horribly executed.  Analysts that came up short have tried to excuse or mitigate their failures to see both things coming. 

What it boils down to is that Putin asked the military to do something it was not capable of doing.  The war planning was their one long shot way to achieve Putin's goals, much like someone putting water into a can of paint to cover the entire side of a building.  It won't likely work, but what else can one do?

The failure of the professionals was they didn't really understand how bad the Russian military was.  Yet somehow I did.  That should not have been the case.

Steve

[ASL Veteran]