How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

The west has been very diligent with not allowing their weapons to be used on Russian soil despite it being quite fair, despite Russia responding with terror attacks on Ukraine, but I dunno, attempting to assassinate the CEO of one Germany's largest arms manufacturers, uh...Germany itself is one of the cautious members of NATO, are they just that arrogant to think Germany would be cowed?

[The_Capt]

Just now, FancyCat said:

The west has been very diligent with not allowing their weapons to be used on Russian soil despite it being quite fair, despite Russia responding with terror attacks on Ukraine, but I dunno, attempting to assassinate the CEO of one Germany's largest arms manufacturers, uh...Germany itself is one of the cautious members of NATO, are they just that arrogant to think Germany would be cowed?

This is really a big part of the problem here...some people think that war is fair.  This has to be a young person thing.  A product of 30 years of Great Peace.  War is never "fair".  "Fair" f#cks off once a real war starts. One could call the entire exercise of warfare as the Great and Horrible Symphony of the Unfair.

Should war be fair and equitable...absolutely.  Has it ever been...nope.  Will it ever be...nope.

 

[FancyCat]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This is really a big part of the problem here...some people think that war is fair.  This has to be a young person thing.  A product of 30 years of Great Peace.  War is never "fair".  "Fair" f#cks off once a real war starts. One could call the entire exercise of warfare as the Great and Horrible Symphony of the Unfair.

Should war be fair and equitable...absolutely.  Has it ever been...nope.  Will it ever be...nope.

 

Maybe fair was wrong word, how does attempting to kill the CEO of one of Europe's most important arms manufacturers benefit Russia?

The attempted assassination was foiled by U.S intelligence sharing the the info to Germany. Incidentally....

Quote

Trump considering cutting back intel sharing with Europe, officials warn

 

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Maybe fair was wrong word, how does attempting to kill the CEO of one of Europe's most important arms manufacturers benefit Russia?

The attempted assassination was foiled by U.S intelligence sharing the the info to Germany. Incidentally....

Makes about as much sense as hitting a children's hospital.  One thing Russia has been consistent on is a complete lack of self awareness. They really only see the world from their own bizarre little bubble. This is more like NK in many ways. Who knows, maybe this German COE was on a personal hit list and Putin needed to show his power.

Russia is like someone who strips naked on main street and starts bathing in a mud puddle and then cannot figure out what all the fuss is about.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Well, that's one way to shunt what was initially an very good first impression to why the hell did I even bother taking the time of day to respond to this person in the first place. Truly Disappointing.

Have you taken into consideration that others have invested their time in a good faith effort to debate you and have given up because they have concluded you are less interested in learning than you are maintaining the point of view you arrived with?  Because for 25 years I have had debates with hundreds of individuals, perhaps thousands, specific to the various topics of warfare and that is the conclusion I have arrived at.

This thread has nearly 6 million page views and nearly 90,000 posts.  I have read 98% of them, probably.  How many have you read since starting to participate here?  Not many, if any, based on what I can tell.  Which is OK provided you recognize that we have been following this war extremely closely from a wide array of perspectives and that likely means, collectively, we have more to teach you than you to teach us.

3 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

A true cherry on top being that I must have an agenda rather than daring to have my own opinions on a subject.

I for one just think you are set in your ways and are disinterested, or at least reluctant, to reexamine your tightly held beliefs in the face of challenges by people who have long ago established their credibility here through thousands of posts that you have not so much as skimmed (as best I can tell).

In short, if you are here to learn that is great.  You can start by presuming that you're not as well informed as you believe yourself to be and so you should deffer more than you do.  Perhaps then you will be in a better frame of mind to question, within yourself, the bias you have so clearly put on display thus far.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

It is really hard to find hard data on this.  Do an internet search and you get a lot of Raphael ads and industry spin doctoring.  "Thousands of lives" and "hundreds of times" comes up.  We can say that the system has not been tested in the environment of Ukraine nor in a war of this intensity and threat levels.

Beyond that, sure it is an APS system that has worked in Israel and probably worked well.  How well and against what threats is vague.

What has baffled me is why Hamas isn't using COTS drones in large numbers.  I haven't been following the Gaza war much at all (I don't have the time or mental bandwidth), but I can only recall one instance where a grenade was dropped by drone on a bunch of IDF tankers that were out in the open sitting around eating or socializing.

Given how cheap and effective drones are, I'm scratching my head as to why they seemingly aren't in widespread use.  I presume the urban nature of the battlefield does no favors to maintaining signal, but I don't think it would be serious enough to preclude large scale adoption.

Steve

[Kraft]

21 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Maybe fair was wrong word, how does attempting to kill the CEO of one of Europe's most important arms manufacturers benefit Russia?

I'd assume this would go the same way the cartel keeps people in line. The west can't protect every CEO out there (or they don't want to be 24/7 protected), so the businessmen will self-censor themselfs to not be a target?

Besides the obvious issues an unplanned leadership vacancy causes, which might also be valuable time delay, if there are things his underlings couldn't sign off on until a new one is found.

[Kraft]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Given how cheap and effective drones are, I'm scratching my head as to why they seemingly aren't in widespread use.  I presume the urban nature of the battlefield does no favors to maintaining signal, but I don't think it would be serious enough to preclude large scale adoption.

I don't know much about Gaza but isnt the whole areas border under lockdown, so it would have to be smuggled into a warzone? Even if its just materials, production would be spotter fast in such a small zone and EW has an easy time creating a no fly zone for unmodified drones given how small the area and probably how vast IDF resources are

Edited July 11 by Kraft

[Vanir Ausf B]

8 minutes ago, Kraft said:

I don't know much about Gaza but isnt the whole areas border under lockdown, so it would have to be smuggled into a warzone?

Hasn't stopped them getting ATGMs, and drones can be repurposed civilian models.

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Kraft said:

I don't know much about Gaza but isnt the whole areas border under lockdown, so it would have to be smuggled into a warzone? Even if its just materials, production would be spotter fast in such a small zone and EW has an easy time creating a no fly zone for unmodified drones given how small the area and probably how vast IDF resources are

That is no doubt a contributing factor now, but Ukraine had already shown how effective drones could be a year before they launched their attacks in October.  I'm just surprised they didn't stockpile more before they launched their attack. 

My guess is they were so focused on traditional means of causing pain, and keeping Israel ignorant of their plans, they didn't take drones into their pre-war planning and now it's difficult to do at scale.  Instead, they are probably prioritizing keeping their traditional capabilities going (bullets, RPGs, etc.) instead of branching into something new.

Steve

[sburke]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Seriously, how much proof do you need? This is beyond critical thinking, this is sticking a head in the sand and living in denial. 

hmm .... are you sure that is sand?

[sburke]

35 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What has baffled me is why Hamas isn't using COTS drones in large numbers.  I haven't been following the Gaza war much at all (I don't have the time or mental bandwidth), but I can only recall one instance where a grenade was dropped by drone on a bunch of IDF tankers that were out in the open sitting around eating or socializing.

Given how cheap and effective drones are, I'm scratching my head as to why they seemingly aren't in widespread use.  I presume the urban nature of the battlefield does no favors to maintaining signal, but I don't think it would be serious enough to preclude large scale adoption.

Steve

could simply be a matter of getting them.  They don't have much space to produce either.

[holoween]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I challenge this without further data. Looking it online the operational history notes perhaps two dozen cases over about ten years.  Even if we assume it is twice that, that is pretty sporadic.  And then there has really been not been much on the details of the threat.  How many of these were advanced ATGM systems, and how many were older? The fact that the RA is using 30 year old tanks keeps getting brought up as rational, how old are those Hamas and Hez AT systems?

The one area the IDF does have the high ground on is urban terrain, I would concede that.

My problem with Trophy and all APS is that trying to prove a defensive system works because "we want it to" is really dangerous. If APS were being used as much as FPVs in this war we would have a much better dataset to pull from.  And a contemporary environment around them. To extrapolate from IDF small war/COIN operations to peer high intensity long duration combat is introducing too many error points.

I would argue that the exact same issues surround APS - "pinning down precisely how effective and finding out in which situations they aren't as effective to inform how to possibly counter them."  However, some have leapt past this and made some dangerous assumptions.

Let me underline something here - FPV/UAS dominance is not a good thing. When military theories break stuff like the Fall of France '40 happen. The only way to make it worse is to start wishing away these impacts and hiding in the sand. Grabbing IDF employment of APS and dragging it into this war simply makes no sense.  APS might work, we are going to see more of them because that is all we have right now. But wrapping ourselves in some warm blanket of "it will all be ok" is a bad idea.

The IDF introduced trophy on a single btl. Evaluated it including active combat. rolled it out to an entire brigade and fought some more. Then rolled it out for every MBT and heavy APC.

We have germany and the us independently evaluate it aswell and decide to buy it with britain still evaluating.

It can currently deal with rpgs and atgms that are direct attack or overflying but not diving so currently no javelin interception. It also gives the origin of the detected projectile so a good chance that if you shoot at a such equipped vehicle youre going to catch return fire unless you ko it.

Defending against diving atgm should be quite possible with simply adding another radar panel + interceptor facing up but with those being so far only in use with western armies and maybe china there hasnt been any incentive to cover that angle.

It should in principle also be possible to get it to shoot down FPVs by adjusting its code. Now I wouldnt rely on it alone as the debris from intercepted drones can still damage the radars so if youre getting attacked 10 times you might intercept the first 5 but then youre probably done. But as a layer in the defense it can do quite a bit.

 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

So we need to stop cherry picking our data here and look at it all.  Right now we know EW works...to a point, but it is not enough to stop hundreds of strikes per week. Cope cages and barns don't really work. Guns shooting into the air do not work. APS has not been seen on this battlefield by either side really. ATGMs still work. Artillery definitely works. FPVs/drones are definitely working. ISR is working. Manoeuvre is not working. Air works but is stand-off.  Cyber is out there but has not been decisive in any measurable way. Infantry still work, but they are stressed and their vehicles do not survive long.  Tanks do not work as intended.  They are lobbing shells and coming forward to snipe but in their main role as the steel tip of manoeuvre they do not work. Logistics works but I suspect it has made some major shifts.

This battlefield has not gone static because the Russians or Ukrainians have forgotten how to employ combined arms.  it has gone static because the way we used to do combined arms does not work there. So what do they do now?

Yea i dont fundamentally disagree with this assessment. The question is what exactly needs to change in technology and doctrine.

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

What has baffled me is why Hamas isn't using COTS drones in large numbers.  I haven't been following the Gaza war much at all (I don't have the time or mental bandwidth), but I can only recall one instance where a grenade was dropped by drone on a bunch of IDF tankers that were out in the open sitting around eating or socializing.

Given how cheap and effective drones are, I'm scratching my head as to why they seemingly aren't in widespread use.  I presume the urban nature of the battlefield does no favors to maintaining signal, but I don't think it would be serious enough to preclude large scale adoption.

IDF supposedly have a greater jamming ability, though its obvious the drone count is simply not as plentiful and largely limited to grenade drops. IDF did equip a brigade with dedicated anti drone kit so they did at least recognise the threat, though no idea how effective said unit worked in practise. 

[Jiggathebauce]

Allow me to weigh on with a napkin paper idea - instead of putting APS on just the tank, what if you had dedicated unmanned platforms spread out in a battalion that carry multiple units of APS launchers on the top? Get enough of those spread out and you could have protection against at least several waves, enough to at least cover the unit if it needs to pull back 

[sburke]

11 minutes ago, holoween said:

The IDF introduced trophy on a single btl. Evaluated it including active combat. rolled it out to an entire brigade and fought some more. Then rolled it out for every MBT and heavy APC.

what combat was it evaluated against?  Curious as actual combat situations for the IDF have not been that widespread on a scale for real testing in combat situations.  The last major conflict before Gaza was 2006 in Lebanon.

Some interesting comments on Wiki

Quote

 

According to an informational 'flyer' distributed by Hamas, the system can be defeated by firing an RPG-7 from within 50m, or using a weapon with a projectile that exceeds the speed of sound, such as the SPG-9 recoilless gun. Firing multiple rounds in quick succession is also a tactic for overwhelming this system.[17]

In October 2023, Hezbollah used AT-14 Kornet missiles during engagements with Israeli forces after the onset of the 2023 Israel-Hamas War. The missiles were used from the Tharallah Twin ATGM system,[18] which is a quadripod equipped with two Kornets fired in rapid succession. This arrangement is designed to overwhelm the Trophy APS of Merkava tanks by having a second missile available before the APS can react after the first intercept (reloading requires at least 1.5 seconds). Hezbollah reportedly acquired the Tharallah ATGM system in 2015.[19]

As active defense becomes the norm in armored vehicle designs, it adds to inherent maintenance complexity. Areas such as the radar sensors are fundamentally exposed and vulnerable and this is a design concern.[20]

 

 

I googled some on the IDF and 21st century warfare.  Interestingly I found little mention of APS etc, it was mostly on using augmented reality for an informational overlay of various threats - in short ISR as opposed to actual counter measures.  Then again most of the stuff that pooped up was from around 2015.  Not reflective or current reality.

[ArmouredTopHat]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Have you taken into consideration that others have invested their time in a good faith effort to debate you and have given up because they have concluded you are less interested in learning than you are maintaining the point of view you arrived with?  Because for 25 years I have had debates with hundreds of individuals, perhaps thousands, specific to the various topics of warfare and that is the conclusion I have arrived at.

This thread has nearly 6 million page views and nearly 90,000 posts.  I have read 98% of them, probably.  How many have you read since starting to participate here?  Not many, if any, based on what I can tell.  Which is OK provided you recognize that we have been following this war extremely closely from a wide array of perspectives and that likely means, collectively, we have more to teach you than you to teach us.

I do not disagree with this, but that does not mean my opinion gets to be discarded so callously and an insinuation made that I am doing this as part of an 'agenda'. The whole affair reeked of intellectual gatekeeping and its just not very nice. 

I am just a guy who happened to study military history at university and have a great interest in the subject. I dont work for a military company or government, I have literally no stake in this. I was just interested in a forum from a series game I like to play that seemed to be on the ball (and did not tolerate Russian disinformation). Yet Capt decided to make a wild assumption and announce it publicly to that affect in a way that is frankly quite childish. It was simply unnecessary.

Its just more than a little bit insulting when people who I have been following react so caustically to my opinion while also misreading my points and proceed to do the intellectual equivalent of flipping the table despite me saying multiple times I agree on a lot of points and find their notions insightful. I put a lot of time in replying in detail as much as I could to people, so forgive me if I am a little jaded when someone decides to pull a stunt like that. It was not what I expected from this forum to put it simply. 
 

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I for one just think you are set in your ways and are disinterested, or at least reluctant, to reexamine your tightly held beliefs in the face of challenges by people who have long ago established their credibility here through thousands of posts that you have not so much as skimmed (as best I can tell).

In short, if you are here to learn that is great.  You can start by presuming that you're not as well informed as you believe yourself to be and so you should deffer more than you do.  Perhaps then you will be in a better frame of mind to question, within yourself, the bias you have so clearly put on display thus far.

I dont know how many times I have said how open I am to being convinced otherwise, hell I have acknowledged to that effect that partially due to this forum that my views have changed over the course of two years on a lot of things. Yet I get labelled as a 'conservative' all the same for simply thinking that perhaps some conclusions might be premature or that there could be other options? Its like me calling you a drone fanatic or something odd. 

I have literally deferred my opinion several times on subjects. I have asked questions knowing that people have better answers than I do. That does not mean I cant form my own opinions, or look at evidence scattered around that makes similar notions that I do. Certainly doesn't mean certain people here get to discard opinions because they dont agree on them. 

This could of all been avoided with an agree to disagree notion, which I also put forward. 

Edited July 11 by ArmouredTopHat

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-10-2024

Putin's articulated theory of a slow, grinding victory in Ukraine is notably premised on accepting continuously high casualty rates, as exemplified by reported Russian losses accrued during two recent offensive efforts. In his July 9 article, Havrylyuk claimed that Russian forces suffered 5,000 casualties for just one district of Chasiv Yar, likely referring to Kanal Microraion (the only neighborhood of easternmost Chasiv Yar that Russian forces currently control).[22] Kanal Microraion is around three blocks wide and three blocks long, and the loss of 5,000 personnel for such a small piece of territory is indicative of the highly attritional way in which Russian forces are conducting their offensive operations.

 

Just to look at a different aspect of the war for a moment, these Russian casualty figures are beyond nuts. Can Putin really keep feeding the meat grinder at this insane rate? Or does the Russian Army have a breaking point? I mean we are talking over a thousand casualties per square kilometer here.

[Tux]

Some interesting thoughts about why drones haven’t proliferated in Gaza, thanks.

Can we flip that question onto one of drones’ proposed counters: if Trophy has worked reasonably well for the IDF over the last decade (plus) why are we only seeing a few other countries carrying out ‘independent assessments’ and neither Ukraine or Russia seeming to show any real interest?

Is it actually very difficult to adapt APS to counter UAVs (they’ve had more than a year to be trying) or do they not think it’s worthwhile for some other reason?

[ArmouredTopHat]

8 minutes ago, sburke said:

what combat was it evaluated against?  Curious as actual combat situations for the IDF have not been that widespread on a scale for real testing in combat situations.  The last major conflict before Gaza was 2006 in Lebanon.

https://defense-update.com/20181010_ironfist_light.html

The 2006 experienced was the instigator for the investment into APS to begin with due to the issues the IDF had with operated their armour close to urban areas.

40+ combat interceptions were recorded by 2018 according to that article, the number has presumably ballooned as Gaza kicked off. Tested was pretty extensive before hand, including by the USA which mounted it on Stryker to test pretty early on and seemed impressed. Over 1 million operating hours and 5,400 field tests according to the developer. 

https://www.defensedaily.com/successful-u-s-evaluation-for-rafaels-active-protection-system/uncategorized/

The system has evolved and matured a lot in that time to include software updates and lighter systems designed for use on a wide variety of vehicles. A decade of development is pretty extensive. 

 

10 minutes ago, sburke said:

I googled some on the IDF and 21st century warfare.  Interestingly I found little mention of APS etc, it was mostly on using augmented reality for an informational overlay of various threats - in short ISR as opposed to actual counter measures.  Then again most of the stuff that pooped up was from around 2015.  Not reflective or current reality.

I think the rollout and continued investment of APS in the IDF should be telling us something in that it has some degree of effectiveness, especially as other countries pick it up. Its expensive kit and even more expensive to develop (since they are pretty much the pioneer of the system) Yet they have developed a lighter system for soft vehicles and seem intent on putting it on a lot of stuff. Clearly to the IDF its worth something, they would not be bothering otherwise.

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/09/trophy-protection-system-to-be-used-on-new-leopard-2-tanks-in-norway-germany-rafael/
 

[ArmouredTopHat]

16 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

Just to look at a different aspect of the war for a moment, these Russian casualty figures are beyond nuts. Can Putin really keep feeding the meat grinder at this insane rate? Or does the Russian Army have a breaking point? I mean we are talking over a thousand casualties per square kilometer here.

Armies, a bit like the economies of states can just keep on trucking...until they dont. The breaking points can be quite sudden and spectacular, at least from history. I suspect the equipment attrition rates are going to bite before the manpower ones first. 

[Beleg85]

5 hours ago, Carolus said:

That was announced a few days ago. Joint exercises near the Polish border.

It got the BRICS crowd very excited.

Belarus is considered by Beijing as more important player than it seems judging by geography alone- ChPR diplomacy is also quite alive there. There were various theories as to why exactly, but it probably is a mix of Lukashenka's ambitions to create just a little bit more space for himself, burps after "golden era" of New Silk Road project among Chinese establishment and fact Belarus is indeed transit country for some goods (originally it was supposed to be a major hub in Chinese plans). So something like Djibuti but in Europe. Chinese also want to be viewed as protector of "developing nations" (aka dictatorships) alternative to NATO but they probably overshot with last exercises. We will needd to wait, reportedly their contingent there is quite small for now.

Curiosuly, Putin is reportedly very alergic to every Chinese presence there, even if it supports his official narrations of new rising anti-western block.

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

https://defense-update.com/20181010_ironfist_light.html

The 2006 experienced was the instigator for the investment into APS to begin with due to the issues the IDF had with operated their armour close to urban areas.

40+ combat interceptions were recorded by 2018 according to that article, the number has presumably ballooned as Gaza kicked off. Tested was pretty extensive before hand, including by the USA which mounted it on Stryker to test pretty early on and seemed impressed. Over 1 million operating hours and 5,400 field tests according to the developer. 

https://www.defensedaily.com/successful-u-s-evaluation-for-rafaels-active-protection-system/uncategorized/

The system has evolved and matured a lot in that time to include software updates and lighter systems designed for use on a wide variety of vehicles. A decade of development is pretty extensive. 

 

I think the rollout and continued investment of APS in the IDF should be telling us something in that it has some degree of effectiveness, especially as other countries pick it up. Its expensive kit and even more expensive to develop (since they are pretty much the pioneer of the system) Yet they have developed a lighter system for soft vehicles and seem intent on putting it on a lot of stuff. Clearly to the IDF its worth something, they would not be bothering otherwise.

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/09/trophy-protection-system-to-be-used-on-new-leopard-2-tanks-in-norway-germany-rafael/
 

If the pro armor/APS crowd is so convinced that current APS is effective then all it has to do to prove the point is ship a couple of brigades worth of equipped vehicles to Ukraine. While not cheap, this actually makes sense from a real world testing standpoint, before we bet the future of NATO land forces on the concept. If the vehicles so equipped wash the Russian blood off of their tracks in the Sea of Azov, well we have an answer, now don't we? Or at least some real data.

Edited July 11 by dan/california

[ArmouredTopHat]

Just now, dan/california said:

If the pro armorAPS crowd is so convinced that current APS is effective then all it has to do to prove the point is ship a couple of brigades worth of equipped vehicles to Ukraine. While not cheap, this actually makes sense from a real world testing standpoint, before we bet the future of NATO land forces on the concept. If the vehicles so equipped wash the Russian blood off of their tracks in the Sea of Azov, well we have an answer, now don't we? Or at least some real data.

I agree, though it seems NATO countries are more concerned with getting these systems into service on their own new platforms first. 

I dont think they need the point proven when they have access to the testing sites and data that we dont that has probably convinced them of the need to invest into it on their next generation of vehicles. I expect it would not be a miracle maker either given the problems of mines and the like. 

I suspect for Ukraine that APS is a luxury (If increasingly necessary imo) they cannot afford when they need the actual vehicles first.

[ArmouredTopHat]