How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

30 minutes ago, Butschi said:

I wasn't able to follow this as closely as I should have, so excuse me for repeating what everyone else has probably already said.

This incursion into Russian territory, as great and surprising as it is, how meaningful is it from a purely military point of view? I mean, we are talking about a salient of what? 1000 km2? To make yet another flawed WW2 comparison (we really didn't have enough of those of late), that is a fraction of the size of the bulge in the Battle of Bulge, if I'm not mistaken. Yet people sound like the Wehrnacht was already threatening Antwerpes and the allies close to retreating back to the UK.

As my ancestors, like many before them, discovered, taking a few thousand square kilometers of Russian territory means nothing by itself. (Things are different if, of course, if LOCs are severed, important  infrastructure seized/deatroyed, etc.)

So, the point of this - as Steve calls it - raid, is it really for military gains directly? In the long run, the units comitted there are missing elsewhere (just like for Russia) and I simply don't believe this time really, really, the Russian army is on the verge of collapse. Or is it more like signalling that a) Ukraine is still in the game, an important message, both for a domestic audience and for Western supporters and b) Russia is vulnerable, for the same reasons as a) plus embarrassing Putin? c) regaining the initiative, I guess?

The short of it is we don't know yet.  What we do know is the shock/PR value of the attack was a stunning victory for Ukraine.  Militarily it's not significant on its own in terms of the war as a whole, unless it leads to something bigger to follow (e.g. regime collapse, army collapse, Putin willing to do real negotiations, etc.)  However, relative to the other gains both sides have made in the past 2 years, this counts as one of the larger ones and certainly one of the quickest to achieve.  So, raid or not, this is a very successful operation.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

51 minutes ago, Butschi said:

I wasn't able to follow this as closely as I should have, so excuse me for repeating what everyone else has probably already said.

This incursion into Russian territory, as great and surprising as it is, how meaningful is it from a purely military point of view? I mean, we are talking about a salient of what? 1000 km2? To make yet another flawed WW2 comparison (we really didn't have enough of those of late), that is a fraction of the size of the bulge in the Battle of Bulge, if I'm not mistaken. Yet people sound like the Wehrnacht was already threatening Antwerpes and the allies close to retreating back to the UK.

As my ancestors, like many before them, discovered, taking a few thousand square kilometers of Russian territory means nothing by itself. (Things are different if, of course, if LOCs are severed, important  infrastructure seized/deatroyed, etc.)

So, the point of this - as Steve calls it - raid, is it really for military gains directly? In the long run, the units comitted there are missing elsewhere (just like for Russia) and I simply don't believe this time really, really, the Russian army is on the verge of collapse. Or is it more like signalling that a) Ukraine is still in the game, an important message, both for a domestic audience and for Western supporters and b) Russia is vulnerable, for the same reasons as a) plus embarrassing Putin? c) regaining the initiative, I guess?

I dont think anyone was expecting this to be an operation with grandiose expectations such the Ardennes offensive. 

I actually agree with Steve in that this operation, at least when initially planned out was very much a raid, though its clear that perhaps its become something more due to its success, or it was meant to develop as such in the event of success. 

There are certainly some new techniques being tried out which seemed to have worked well. In terms of meaningful military value, there are several points to consider that will perhaps become more clear in time. 

Firstly: Taking good ground to hold later is in itself a good thing, and some topographical maps of the area show there is a lot of highground that Ukraine has seized in the region. This should ideal to defend, especially when Ukraine does not need to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground like they must elsewhere. Said ground also has value in the event of negotiation if or when it eventually happens. We cannot understate the value in the Ukrainians holding Russian land when it comes to any settlement. 

Secondly: Russia has now been widely understood to of deployed reserves to the area, including some potentially from Ukraine itself. This might have been the primary goal of the operation in general: Attack the line where its weak and force the Russians to defend areas that were otherwise thinly manned. Getting the Russians to rethink their border defence will in theory mean less troops attacking in Ukraine.

Thirdly: Though the area in general was weakly held, it -was- held to some degree. The large haul of prisoners (claims of up to a thousand now) did not materialise from thin air. Poorly coordinated and isolated units are fantastic to hit due to that net gain of prisoners that can be exchanged. Plus the Russians have had to endure the humiliation of having young conscript soldiers being taken prisoner on their own territory. 

Fourthly, I would argue the use of well equipped Ukrainian brigades in this sort of role is a far more efficient use of them than simply throwing them into the grinder in the Donbas. Ukraine can and should be seeking to fight this war on their most favourable terms, and these sorts of operations really do seem to throw a wrench in the works for the Russians, who time and time again are shown to be slow acting in response to sudden, quick strikes. Allowing the Russians to constantly attack in the Donbas on their terms, where their top down command structure works best is not ideal, even with the grievous losses they suffer. 

Kursk has shown that the Russians can be caught and utterly discombobulated and this bodes well potentially for the future if the methods displayed are applicable on a wider scale. 

Edited August 13 by ArmouredTopHat

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Which brings us to this:
"Someone in Ukraine knew what they were doing and exploited a weak seam in Russian C2" - which is credible.  This board has been discussing ISR, but the scrambling, uncoordinated response suggest weak points in C4 as well.

 

This is a good segue into what I was about to post about!  So thanks for that.

I see The_Capt and Grigb doing battle of ISR as if their views are mutually exclusive.  I don't see it that way.  What I see is that they are both correct.  I will explain why.

Since this war has started we've watched as ISR has gone from a significant "pillar" of a good conventional force to becoming almost godlike in what it can do.  But ISR is a massive hydra with so many heads moving around fast that it's difficult to really wrap our brains around how complex it all is in terms of its impact on the battlefield.

The most important thing is to not conflate results with causes.  We can pretty safely conclude that the Russian forces on the ground were not PREPARED for the Ukrainian attack.  What we do not know is how AWARE they were it was coming.  This dynamic goes up the command chain right to MoD and Putin.  Definitely not prepared, but we do not know the degree of awareness.

The_Capt's argument is that even Russia's fairly simplistic ISR capabilities (compared to the US) likely did not miss noticing the buildup of Ukrainian forces.  Yet they appear to have done nothing to prepare for it.  After the attack started lots of factors contributed to Russia's inability to effectively counter Ukraine's advances, including systemic issues with C2, politics, and corruption that go back to the early Soviet days.

In short, Russia Sux™ is a significant part of what is going on now.

Grigb is focused on the lower level stuff and his sources seem to corroborate that one reason Russia has been having such a hard time responding is that Ukraine has effectively blinded their tactical ISR.  Russia doesn't have a good sense of where UA forces are, which is on top of Russia's traditional difficulties dealing with complex situations.

So there you have it... both are correct in their own ways.  Russia's strategic view of the battlefield via ISR is likely reasonably good, but their ability to leverage it is hampered by decades of poor military practices.  On the other hand, Russia's reasonably good tactical and operational ISR is falling flat because it's ad hoc and highly disrupted, both of which are the result of very clever and well executed UA actions.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Firstly: Taking good ground to hold later is in itself a good thing, and some topographical maps of the area show there is a lot of highground that Ukraine has seized in the region. This should ideal to defend, especially when Ukraine does not need to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground like they must elsewhere. Said ground also has value in the event of negotiation if or when it eventually happens. We cannot understate the value in the Ukrainians holding Russian land when it comes to any settlement.

The logical attitude for Ukraine to have is "if Russia wants it, they can have it.  Otherwise, we'll keep it".  As you said, Ukraine needs to find better ways to use its forces than to allow Russia to grind them down.  When (possibly if) Russia moves enough forces in to cause Ukraine Bakhmut/Avdiivka attrition, then it should get out.  However, not a minute earlier.

14 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Kursk has shown that the Russians can be caught and utterly discombobulated and this bodes well potentially for the future if the methods displayed are applicable on a wider scale. 

I really hope so, but I don't think what they did is as easy to replicate elsewhere as it was at Kursk.  Even less so now that Russia knows what to look for.

However, if Russia insists on wasteful offensive actions without shoring up their manpower and equipment resources, then all bets are off.  We could see another Kharkiv 2022 situation develop.

Steve

[dan/california]

41 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Which brings us to this:
"Someone in Ukraine knew what they were doing and exploited a weak seam in Russian C2" - which is credible.  This board has been discussing ISR, but the scrambling, uncoordinated response suggest weak points in C4 as well.

 

I just heard Massicot on NPRs morning news feed. Despite the positive comment above, she continues to be a nattering nebob of negativism about Ukraines situation as a whole. To the best of my knowledge she always has been. You would think after two and a half years of Russia not winning, she would acknowledge that Russia might uhm not be winning?

[Lethaface]

6 hours ago, hcrof said:

Interesting read and well argued, although I disagree with some of their conclusions. 

I agree that offensives should be smaller and the current success in Kursk is a good example of that. But I don't see how their suggestion of relying on counter attacks is a good idea for 2 reasons:

1 it is highly contingent on what your opponent is doing and you end up reacting to them. And if they know that is how you fight they will not give you an opportunity.

2 I don't think the authors go far enough with the idea that traditional mass stops being more effective above a certain threshold but supporting elements can still be massed just fine. You need a minimum amount of combat power in your maneuver elements but more than that results in higher casualties and slower movement rather than increased effect on the enemy. The key is supporting elements such as ISR, drones and artillery - that is where you need mass! If you are counter attacking into your enemies offensive their front line troops are likely to be weak but their supporting elements will be less degraded - why attack where your enemy is strong? 

Interesting post. Regarding the counter attack, I think it's from a specific POV. Your points are clear plus German's example of dogmatic counter attacks in WW2 also didn't always work for them.

However, if you have the option to counter attack in general that beats just getting pounded and dealing with the enemy according to his schedule. If you can actively throw wrenches in the attack and look to counter attack / spoiling attacks, forcing him to react to you and introducing disruption/chaos into his plans and org: that seems good in my ears.

In CM I've more then once successfully counter pushed an enemy attack, even with numerical much inferior troops, but because the opponent didn't expect it I could shape an engagement unfavorable to the opponent so he had to change / abandon his plans, buying me time and tipping the 'will to fight' balance toward my side.

Edited August 13 by Lethaface

[ArmouredTopHat]

One can only imagine the utter carnage being wrought right now in the Kursk areas from these ambushes. I expect they will become very characteristic in the next few weeks. 

[Astrophel]

Since my last post a few hours ago the BBC tell that Ukraine has declared they do NOT intend to hold this land.  Probably the withdrawal will be done to deliver maximum embarrassment. and realignment of russian troops.  Russia will have several new puzzles to work on in the coming months, not least where the real counter attack will be coming.  Was it a dress rehearsal or a shaping operation: likely both, and it succeeded.

My conviction is that this is a battle in the heads at the end of the day as you know.  I wonder how the russians in occupied territory reacted.  While they did not wave flags and line the streets to welcome the liberators, neither did they turn into partisans.  The ultimate achievement would be regime change and so understanding this aspect is vital.  So far I have no inputs.

[kimbosbread]

If Ukraine could force Russia into general mobilization, now that would be interesting. That could collapse Russia as a state.

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

That was my thinking too but there are three issues - China, India and commercial.  I have zero proof or evidence that China is feeding Russia any ISR but if there was a nation state with the capability and demonstrated "intent to sell" it would be China.

I could see them getting data from China, India and Commercial, but I imagine China and India really don’t want each other to know what their relative capabilities are.

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Could Western intelligence agencies potentially subvert the commercial feeds, at least for. day or two, and show the Russians an altered picture?

All that needs to be done is delaying the data.

Large-scale subversion is doable soon though with AI. Of course, the lower the resolution, the easier to mess with. There is an awesome machine learning technique called “in-painting” IIRC that is airbrushing out Stalin’s buddies on steroids. A buddy of mine was able to implement it for some photo software he was working on in a few weeks, so I imagine a nation state could do amazing things with this at scale and completely hide all traces of military movement on a massive scale at relatively low computational cost.

[Probus]

13 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Also, there is the possibility that it was intended to be a raid and it went so much better than expected that a decision was made to change to keep what was taken.

I betcha this is what happened.  No real way to know right now, but I'll bet this is how it is going down.  We'll know when Ukraine is pulling out (if they do) when they start to seed the areas of approach with mines.

6 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Russia at some point must be running out of competent generals.

Arguably they didn't during WWII and that was under Stalin and after a big Stalin purge.  Sooner or later the competent generals will rise to the top or is that not the way it works in Russia?

5 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I still think that the maneuver is more dead than alive and Kursk attack does not disprove the hypothesis.

Maneuver is kinda on a tenuous hold maybe?  Everyone is trying to figure out the new paradigm. So risking your forces for maneuver right now is really risky unless you know where the enemy isn't like folks have been saying.  I'm sure that right after WWI the opinion was that maneuver was dead on the battlefield.

EDIT: Dang I get so behind reading this thread!

Edited August 13 by Probus

[Yet]

41 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

applicable on a wider scale. 

I really hope so, but I don't think what they did is as easy to replicate elsewhere as it was at Kursk.  Even less so now that Russia knows what to look for.

Really? i took from this post of yours that it would be very likely to succeed again, because of Russian mindset/perspective. (especially with a few of Sburkes fake buildups in between)

19 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I suspect the same thing.  Let's walk through this with a Russian mindset.

Some low level ISR detects Ukrainian buildup and passes up the chain of command.  The first bunch of times it probably goes nowhere, because passing along bad news is not appreciated and so the commanders would either have to be a) brave or b) very certain that there's something real happening.  Oh, and they would have to care.  That's a bunch of things that Russian commanders have lacked.

So I think we can presume that the information stayed at a fairly low level for a while because each layer it got up to would be just as reluctant to pass it along.

Now, let's think about what each level could do with that information.  Because the border area was starved for resources, at a minimum it would have to go up to the equivalent of a Military District level to even hope of getting some resources moved around.  That's high up.  But really, it would need to go right up to the very top because even the Military Districts are fully committed.

We are now talking about the information having to successfully, and accurately, get to the MoD level.  Once there, it would have to be treated seriously and have realistic (sober) assessments about the risks it posed to that sector of front.  Anybody here want to point to a time and place in this war where the Russian MoD has made good, solid, timely decisions?  I can't think of any.

OK, now let's just give the Russian MoD some benefit of the doubt that the recognized, with time to spare, the threat this buildup posed.  Then what?  It's obvious they have no spare reserves of any value to commit, which means they would have to disengage units PROACTIVELY from within Ukraine and put them into Kursk.  Those actions would definitely harm operations in Ukraine even if the buildup was just a bluff.

Go with more benefit of the doubt and say that the MoD not only recognized the threat, but drew up a proposal to neuter Donbas ops in order to proactively deal with the situation.  Guess what happens next?  Putin has to sign off on it.  Anybody thinking Putin would be onboard with that?  Can anybody think of even one instance where Putin has fully and totally done something to improve the military situation proactively on pure speculation?  I can't think of anything.  Evacuating the north and abandoning Kherson were done only after it was obvious that it should already have happened.

 

In conclusion... I'm sure the Russians knew and I'm sure they decided to roll the dice because anything else would have certainly cost them offensive initiative in the Donbas.

Steve

 

Edited August 13 by Yet

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I still think that the maneuver is more dead than alive and Kursk attack does not disprove the hypothesis. Basically, the Kursk attack is made in a secondary, weakly defended direction. If you can maneuvre only in a secondary direction, which the enemy did not choose to defend, then  the maneuver cannot be decisive. 

I agree (although only skimmed first page of the article), one thing we mustn't forget is that the context for Ukraine isn't necessarily valid for other conflicts. I am primarily thinking about the extensive mine belts / defensive lines here, but not exclusively. In a war against Russia it isn't unthinkable NATO would lose ground, but I think the main question should be how to not lose important ground in the first place; or at least not in such a way that the enemy can relax behind their lines and build up fortifications and mine belts because they won't need to utilize that terrain in the future. If we don't let them run deep into NATO territory and allow them to create a maginot line on terrain we need to get back from m, we don't need to deal with no maginot line.

That is the situation in UKR. Massive minefields with some limited OPs and strongpoints in between supported by good ISR, drone directed/corrected artillery and other long range interdiction (ATGM systems, KA-52 with Vhikr, etc), EW and air cover are simply a biatch to deal with and there ain't no golden arrow to deal with those (while running through mines) unless you can eliminate all the defenses and or ISR before dealing with the minefields, or can somehow make the minefields go away.

This is a long way of saying that fighting over KMs deep minefields isn't always a necessary part of warfare. There is a reason why Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world. I hope the next war to be fought by a side I support doesn't have to go against a new record breaking minefield, or one that approaches the current record. Now there's more to the maneuver problem then minefields, but in Ukraine that's a large part of it imo.

Edited August 13 by Lethaface

[ArmouredTopHat]

This might be something that really shakes faith in the Putin within Russia more than anything. When their Tsar has promised help and evacuation but nothing of the sort turns up and law and order utterly collapses without even a Ukrainian presence. Faith in the system cant exactly be high right now. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Speaking of chaos. Were back to the good old days of the VKS shooting up there own forces again. (And the Russians quickly trying to cover it up)

Russian command and control really is a sh*t show when they get caught on the wrong foot. I suspect Ukraine are going to attempt this a lot more given how hilariously bad it gets for the Russians. 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, Fernando said:

AFAIK Blitkrieg is based in attacking where the enemy is weak, bypass and isolate all strongpoints, and move as fast as you can creating chaos in the enemy rearguard, so the enemy never gets the whole picture of what's happening then it always reacts too late.

That's part of the point. In order to "Move as fast as you can creating chaos in the enemy rearguard"  you must be close enough  to the enemy's rearguard, implied: rearguard of something significant.

"Close" and "weak" are relative terms, Sedan in 1940 was defended weakly enough for Guderian to punch through while close enough (relative to Germans' speed of advance) to the lines of communication of the Allied forces in Belgium to cut them. The Ukrainians in Kursk 2024 had to look for their "weak" far enough from the main fighting, that their offensive has consisted so far of overrunning some outposts and they are unlikely to take any significant Russian force in the rear or flank. Maybe they could if they moved 80 km per day, but they are not. Their successes after the initial push seem to be caused by Russians bungling up their counterattacks more than anything else.

From maneuverist perspective, maneuver is supposed to place the friendly force in a position of advantage over the enemy. The only advantage of such kind which the Ukrainains have obtained in Kursk is that they identified a weakly held area and concentrated a stronger force against it. Creating a "many on few" advantage through a temporary massing of friendlies is a recognised kind of maneouver, of course. In this case it is just unlikely to lead to any further positional advantage, being too far away from the rest of enemy force to take an undefended flank or rear.

The Ukrainians may still obtain significant successes by bleeding Russian counterattacks (and I hope they do), this is smart fighting based on good understanding of the enemy, but not proof of maneuver coming back on the menu. The Russian errors are not forced by Ukrainian positional advantage but their own political constraints, and cannot be decisive - if theoretically Russians faced the risk of losing so many soldiers in Sudzha that they could lose the war, they would come to their senses and stop attacking Sudzha. 

 

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, Astrophel said:

Since my last post a few hours ago the BBC tell that Ukraine has declared they do NOT intend to hold this land.  Probably the withdrawal will be done to deliver maximum embarrassment. and realignment of russian troops.  

Are you referring to this from the BBC? Big difference in a raid with withdrawal soon enough, vs occupation of Russian territory until peace with Russia. The BBC blurb indicates the latter.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm2n77mvrz4t

Quote

Ukraine 'not interested in taking Russian territory' – foreign ministrypublished at 13:44

13:44

Ukraine is not interested in "taking territory" in the Kursk region, its foreign affairs ministry says, adding that its offensive there will stop when Russia agrees to peace.

"The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace, the sooner Ukrainian raids on Russian territory will stop. As long as Putin continues the war, he will receive such responses from Ukraine," a spokesman tells a briefing in Kyiv.

Ukrainian operations in the region are helping the frontline, he adds, as it prevents Russia from moving additional units to the Donetsk, a Ukrainian region under Russian control.

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

49 minutes ago, Probus said:

I'm sure that right after WWI the opinion was that maneuver was dead on the battlefield.

Surprisingly enough, mostly in France. Not really in the UK with its tank visionaries (Fuller, Hobart, Liddel Hart), not in Germany where significant part of the WWI experience was viewed through the lenses of the Easterners (and the small size of the Reichswehr made it more relevant), and not in the Soviet Union, which just fought two extremely maneuverist wars on top of the already pretty maneuverist WWI in the East.

[Lethaface]

Coming back to the 'Maneuverists' ideology. In a sense I feel that they are similar in concept to 'Cavalrists' around WW1, although maneuver is a broader concept. Maneuver is a tool in various ways. Usually if you want to win a war you have to maneuver to occupy the places/terrain required to win that war. Both from an offensive and a defensive POV.
But ideally in a war no real maneuver is required; if the politician responsible of/for the war endeavors could press some buttons causing missiles to fly out and deal the required damage for the enemy to agree with whatever it is the politician needs the enemy agreeing to (as in, the reason to (not) be at war), the only maneuver required to win wars  is the finger movement of the politician pressing the button.

While the utilization of horses in war didn't end in WW1, a lesson was learned in Belgium when a HMG battalion got in contact with a Cavalry Corps across a channel. Many dead horsies. Maneuver didn't die that day, nor did the conceptual role of 'cavalry'. But a lesson was able to be learned for those that were interested in one. Until and during WW2 not everyone was open minded enough to learn that free lesson.
There is a similar lesson to be learned in our times, although we are still discovering what exactly that lesson is.

Apart from that lesson maneuver is and will remain a concept and a tool, it will always be there as a concept but not always a real option as a tool with the means available in a given context.

 

 

Edited August 13 by Lethaface

[FancyCat]

Personally, i don't think Ukraine will launch something somewhere else, my thinking is Ukraine has the ability to engage with Russia on a battlefield that isn't marked with heavy defense lines, and should continue to push even when facing determined Russian opposition. I want Russia to panic, if Ukraine can threaten Kursk the city, and/or Belgorod, we have not really seen Russia take away forces from elsewhere, I think the major PR fallout from the fall of a Oblast capital might actually result in movement from elsewhere to Kursk. 

If Russia remains confident in allowing Ukraine to take Kursk, even better, but the diversion in forces is well worth it. If they don't divert, i hope we see a repeat in Russia throwing in their conscripted forces, which will cause a repeat of the domestic upheaval we saw previously. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Yet said:

Really? i took from this post of yours that it would be very likely to succeed again, because of Russian mindset/perspective. (especially with a few of Sburkes fake buildups in between)

 

Too many other important factors were needed for this to be a success elsewhere.  See my list above.

Without those other conditions the surprise doesn't really matter because getting through the defenses would be costly and slow, giving the Russians what they need most to react... time.  This was a big lesson learned from the 2023 summer offensive.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

18 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Are you referring to this from the BBC? Big difference in a raid with withdrawal soon enough, vs occupation of Russian territory until peace with Russia. The BBC blurb indicates the latter.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cm2n77mvrz4t

 

I am sure as well.  Ukraine is not going to announce they are withdrawing while actually fighting.  That's not good PsyOps.  Better PsyOps is to say "we intend on withdrawing our forces eventually.  Kursk isn't a city we have an interest in rebuilding".

Steve

[Lethaface]

And to make matters more interesting, who knows if Ukraine had a Cavalry Corps or three on hand right now instead of their mechanized brigades (but with all the support), they could have taken the whole of Kursk by now.

100K horse riding troops with big shiny sabres against a couple of conscripts and some FPVs?

All hail and bow down your new overlords! 

It might be the heat overhere making me mad, or the refreshing drinks. I'll go back to lurking for a bit.

[Lethaface]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I will follow up on the ISW piece with an example:

This is on page 49 on "Penetrating an Enemy Tactical Recon Strike Complex".  At first blush this makes perfect sense - establish a big EW bubble, drop enemy tac ISR from the sky, suppress in depth and breach/exploit. But here is the problem:

- This cannot solve for standoff enemy ISR. Even RA drones have hi resolution LOS of 10-15kms so that is one large EW bubble to begin with.  Higher altitude larger drones and manned AC can stand off tens, even hundreds of kms and provide high resolution ISR (RA less so but not zero).

- Stand off ISR means effective and precise enemy strike.  In the diagram above they have essentially written that off with that lone box that says "Blue suppress Red's TRSC components in the rear."  Given that the "rear" for a HIMARs or Glide Bomb system can be up to several hundred kms that is one helluva rear area suppression requirement for a tactical breach. 

- Standoff ISR and even tactical ISR pre-breach can see 10s of km behind our own lines.  So that nice neat blue force build up in that pic can take hours to marshal, stage and get across the start line.  Once moving it is also a big signature.  So that means the enemy has time to reposition.  Here deception, decoys and whatever we can do to blind and spoof become central.  For example, EW does nothing for manned ATGM teams capable of precision strikes at 3-5kms via LOS.  Those teams need to be queued by all that ISR, once they are all the EW in the world will not protect that breach attempt.

- This is not about EW superiority, it is about fires superiority.  That system above will work if the Blue side has a complex that can basically spot and eliminate anything that even whiffs Red Team going back kms.

- None of this solves for good old fashion stuff like HUMINT.  People with cellphones can blow this entire operation.

- Finally, let's say you breach the mine belt and achieve breakthrough...now what?  As you advance the enemy is going to reestablish the TRSC on your own LOC as you advance.  Or you need to have a secure LOC corridor 10s of kms wide...that is not sustainable.

So while this will (debatably) offer a tactical manoeuvre option, it does not solve the operational problem.  Evidence of this is happening in Kursk right now.  The UA does not appear interested in deep thunder runs.  Likely because the risk is too high for being eventually cut off.

As I read deeper into this report I can say that it is one of the best articulations of the problem we have seen.  The solutions, however, do not entirely follow through to my mind.  And as we see fully autonomous systems on the horizon, pinning this whole thing on EW is dangerous.

Not to take sides in your discussion with Grigb ;-), but if I go over successful Russian long range strikes vs unsuccessful ones that I have seen, the successful ones against actual military targets (which is a niche for Russia's ordnance expenditure) have mostly/always? been drone directed?

I recall plenty of inaccurate strikes against UKR airbases / AA sites, which were probably based of high level / not-realtime ISR. All known successful strikes against UA high prio targets are mostly/exclusively documented from drone footage, but that could be partly explained due to UKR OPSEC. 
Anyway hard proof isn't available but so far it seems that Russia's macro level ISR might be a couple of OODA loops behind the one UKR has access to. So coming from there, drone ISR will be extra important and given the fact UKR has knocked quite out a couple of A-50s and the like it's not impossible RU relies on drone ISR for a large part (edit: for accurate target acquisition), especially in dormant sectors.

Edited August 13 by Lethaface

[The_Capt]

10 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Not to take sides in your discussion with Grigb ;-), but if I go over successful Russian long range strikes vs unsuccessful ones that I have seen, the successful ones against actual military targets (which is a niche for Russia's ordnance expenditure) have mostly/always? been drone directed?

I recall plenty of inaccurate strikes against UKR airbases / AA sites, which were probably based of high level / not-realtime ISR. All known successful strikes against UA high prio targets are mostly/exclusively documented from drone footage, but that could be partly explained due to UKR OPSEC. 
Anyway hard proof isn't available but so far it seems that Russia's macro level ISR might be a couple of OODA loops behind the one UKR has access to. So coming from there, drone ISR will be extra important and given the fact UKR has knocked quite out a couple of A-50s and the like it's not impossible RU relies on drone ISR for a large part (edit: for accurate target acquisition), especially in dormant sectors.

Both sides have definitely fallen back on drones.  Here again drones really mess things up.  What is a tactical drone versus operational one when even the tactical ones have up to 20km ranges?  Based on the really sporadic deep strike capabilities of the RA, I suspect their ISR complex is 1) behind what the UA has access to, and 2) straining.  We can recall that brief campaign winter before last when it looked like the RA was targeting power generation.  They never really let off and even made a decent job of it for awhile.  But over time the accuracy of this campaign appears to have dropped off - we see more crappy terror strikes that they are likely doing off Google Earth.  Russian operational strike has always been poorly integrated.

But ISR for strike is different than ISR for intelligence - seeing a herd of buffalo 1000 meters out is a different problem than trying to hit one. The driver is sensor-shooter integration.  So the RA likely has awareness but translating that into precision strike is a bridge too far.  For example, say they are buying ISR satellite data from some Indian private company.  It is high resolution (we have seen examples in this thread) but say 24 hours old.  Well 24 hours old data is useless for precision strike on a single target, or even a unit. But formations take a long time to move around - it is another problem with heavy steel, it leaves a signature window that is really long lead.  A brigade may take a day to marshal, get shaken out and on the move with all the support in place, a Div is even longer.  So even crappy Indian satellite data 24 hours old is going to queue a formation movement.  It will likely even give a solid idea for units.

Ukraine with the HIMARs have demonstrated the opposite.  They are hitting logistical nodes and HVTs with frankly stunning accuracy, at very long ranges.  We have seen a lot of EW suites, radars, command posts and logistics getting hit.  That takes serious fast refresh rates and a very responsive sensor-shooter hook up.  I am willing to buy that RA may have been blind at Kursk...easy to do when you have only one weepy eye in the sector.  But I also know who was seeing that sector like a hawk from the border to way in depth...the UA.