How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

The word "seems" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Both of your statements are enormous generalisations and probably need to be expanded considerably to have any meaning at all I'm afraid. 

I agree. It's just an article after all. Is this site trustworthy? 

[hcrof]

33 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I agree. It's just an article after all. Is this site trustworthy? 

If you want my opinion the article is correct, but only locally. Russia has developed a system that works for them in the east. They can advance at a steady (slow) rate with "acceptable" casualties by sending forward tiny groups of cannon fodder and then shelling anyone that shoots at them until the position is destroyed. I think that Ukraine believes that more men in the trenches will just result in higher casualties so have accepted that they will have to lose ground in the short term. The Kursk operation was/is an attempt to change the equation but on that front it didn't work out that well. 

Eventually the russian offensive will culminate and we will have a pause. But while Ukraine is is in no danger of losing the war any time soon it does need to accelerate russian war exhaustion to try and push them towards internal instability in order to win it. Meanwhile Russia seems to be trying a mix of attrition (one more push!) and targeting of civilian infrastructure to exhaust Ukraine. 

Edited 1 hour ago by hcrof

[Eug85]

29 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I was pushing back against your statement that all of the Ukrainian commanders are incompetent and incapable of learning while all of the russian commanders are improving. Blanket statements like that are unhelpful. 

How about "some Ukrainian commanders appear to be poor, even after more than two years of war. Why are they being put into the areas of heavy fighting?" And "Russians appear to be distributing lessons learned, resulting in increased effectiveness along parts of the front" 

I could show dozens of examples of daring and competent Ukrainian commanders and bumbling and incompetent russian commanders to contradict blanket statements like your original one. 

I did not claim that all Ukrainian officers are incompetent and all Russian officers are competent. It is just that the Russians systematize their war experience much better. This includes more effective fortification work and assault tactics of small groups. I recently watched a video from the Kursk region, where the Ukrainian military was very surprised by the high level of fortification of the captured Russian fortifications. In addition to high-quality shelters for personnel and equipment, there was even video surveillance. Ukraine had enough time to prepare fortifications behind Avdiivka, but nothing like that was done.

And where do you think the Russians are unsuccessful now? As far as I can see, the Russians are gradually advancing on all sections of the front from Kursk to Donbas. Even in the Kharkov region, they captured a small area in the Liptsy area today. As for the use of incompetent officers, I think the answer is obvious. This is due to the fact that there are no competent officers.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Joe982 said:

"Anticipated" is different to "know". In table tennis I anticipate my opponents shots.

In table tennis you get a soft white ball sent at you. In war it is a bunch of guys who want to kill you…bit of a difference.

”In mid-June, there was a more specific warning of Ukrainian plans “in the direction Yunakivka-Sudzha, with the goal of taking Sudzha under control”, which did indeed happen in August. There was also a prediction that Ukraine would attempt to destroy a bridge over the Seym River to disrupt Russian supply lines in the region, which also later happened. The June document complained that Russian units stationed at the front “are filled only 60-70% on average, and primarily made up of reserves with weak training”.

“When the Ukrainian attack came on 6 August, many Russian soldiers abandoned their positions, and within a week Ukraine had taken full control of Sudzha. “They ran away, without even evacuating or destroying their documents,” said a member of the special operations team who seized the files.”

This seems a little more specific than “anticipate”. Also provides insight as to the fabled operational breach and “intense combat.”

[The_Capt]

12 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

And where do you think the Russians are unsuccessful now?

So where do you want to start? Politically, diplomatically, strategically, operationally or tactically? 

[ArmouredTopHat]

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

On a related note, I am wondering if the relative unpopularity of Abrams and hints that it is particularly vulnerable to drone attacks have something to do with its vaunted ammunition blow-out panels. I assume that in order to work as intended, the top of the panels must be thin, much more so than the top armour elsewhere. And the panels on Abrams are particularly large and prominent, basically taking up the entire rear of the turret. This suggests that a drone operator only needs to hit pretty much anywhere on the top rear of the turret with pretty much any kind of HEAT warhead, even smallish, to achieve a very likely penetration and ammo cook off, resulting in the tank abandoned and unable to fight. In comparison, the blow out panels on Leo 2 are much smaller and harder to target with a FPV drone (just on the left side of turret rear top) whereas AFAIK Chally 2 has no blow out panels at all.

If I am thinking correctly, this would make the Abrams a kind of anti-Strv 122, a tank with a particularly bad armour configuration for the modern drone battlefield.

I did actually have a think about this and I think you are right. AFU comments do hint about there being such a weakness (Hence all the improvised protection around those areas of the turret) Obviously blowout panels are very good for survivability of the crew but this is less of an advantage when a relatively cheap munition is at the very least mission killing your expensive tank by taking advantage of it.



 

 

 

They are pretty obvious targets to hit as well, which would explain why we saw a number of losses (though mostly to ATGM I recall) before there was a considerable pause on deployment. Pretty sure there is Russian FPV footage of them specifically going for that spot as well. 

When we saw a resumption of M1s operating, most of them looked like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1f0tkpv/ukrainian_m1_abrams_tank_fire_on_russians_seeking/

Certainly a very sobering reflection that you can have an excellent MBT that's designed for a cold war battlefield be far less potent than expect in a modern conflict with drones. Improvised protection helps but in reality a redesign is needed. I wonder if this might be taken into account for M1E3

 

Edited 1 hour ago by ArmouredTopHat

[hcrof]

23 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

I did not claim that all Ukrainian officers are incompetent and all Russian officers are competent. It is just that the Russians systematize their war experience much better. This includes more effective fortification work and assault tactics of small groups. I recently watched a video from the Kursk region, where the Ukrainian military was very surprised by the high level of fortification of the captured Russian fortifications. In addition to high-quality shelters for personnel and equipment, there was even video surveillance. Ukraine had enough time to prepare fortifications behind Avdiivka, but nothing like that was done.

And where do you think the Russians are unsuccessful now? As far as I can see, the Russians are gradually advancing on all sections of the front from Kursk to Donbas. Even in the Kharkov region, they captured a small area in the Liptsy area today. As for the use of incompetent officers, I think the answer is obvious. This is due to the fact that there are no competent officers.

If we really want to make a comparison between the quality of commanders you have to take into account that russian commanders have considerably more resources than Ukrainian ones. They can afford to make mistakes and be wasteful in a way that Ukrainian commanders can't. 

Ukraine also has a habit of concentrating it's best troops and commanders into special brigades that do it's spectacular offensive operations, or fight fires. The majority of the defensive fighting is done by second class units. The Russians are now in a "low energy state" where their best formations are destroyed, and while some of their forces are now very experienced they are not very imaginative since they can only do what they have done before (they never were trained to do anything else) and have also become extremely risk adverse (they are "survivors" in a corrupt, authoritarian command structure). 

It would be better to compare systems and the two seem pretty equal at the moment. The elite Ukrainians can run rings around the worst russians but they don't have the resources to take advantage of that, and the rest of the fighting is an attritional slugging match between poor quality forces dominated by trenches, drones and artillery.

 

Edited 53 minutes ago by hcrof

[Eug85]

7 minutes ago, hcrof said:

If we really want to make a comparison between the quality of commanders you have to take into account that russian commanders have considerably more resources than Ukrainian ones. They can afford to make mistakes and be wasteful in a way that Ukrainian commanders can't. 

Ukraine also has a habit of concentrating it's best troops and commanders into special brigades that do it's spectacular offensive operations, or fight fires. The majority of the defensive fighting is done by second class units. The Russians are now in a "low energy state" where their best formations are destroyed, and while some of their forces are now very experienced they are not very imaginative since they can only do what they have done before (they never were trained to do anything else) and have also become extremely risk adverse (they are "survivors" in a corrupt, authoritarian command structure). 

It would be better to compare systems and the two seem pretty equal at the moment. The elite Ukrainians can run rings around the worst russians but they don't have the resources to take advantage of that, and the rest of the fighting is an attritional slugging match between poor quality forces dominated by trenches, drones and artillery.

 

I suppose by elite you mean the 47th Brigade, which was unable to stop the Russian advance in Ocheretino. Its combat capability seems to be highly questionable at the moment.

[Eug85]

18 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So where do you want to start? Politically, diplomatically, strategically, operationally or tactically? 

To be honest, at any level, Ukraine's situation is getting worse, while Russia's situation is improving.

[The_Capt]

Just now, Eug85 said:

To be honest, at any level, Ukraine's situation is getting worse, while Russia's situation is improving.

Damn, that one is sig worthy…in an extremely ironic way of course. Wow, your level of confidence is truly breathtaking. So why don’t you unpack this multi-dimensional improving situation for Russia in all this? Start at the top and work your way down. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

12 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

I suppose by elite you mean the 47th Brigade, which was unable to stop the Russian advance in Ocheretino. Its combat capability seems to be highly questionable at the moment.

47th have been on the line for a considerably long period of time and have honestly punched well above their weight during that time considering they were an entirely new unit formed during the war. There are also even more proficient brigades such as 3rd Assault. (That have literal queues for people to join and remain largely volunteer based if I recall) 

I'm not sure how you think the Russians are 'improving' their situation either, not with the growing constraints on some very essential systems such as artillery and barrels that are the reason they can sustain these wasteful attacks. 2025 is going to be a very rough year for the Russians if they insist on maintaining this tempo. 

Edited 33 minutes ago by ArmouredTopHat

[hcrof]

8 minutes ago, Eug85 said:

I suppose by elite you mean the 47th Brigade, which was unable to stop the Russian advance in Ocheretino. Its combat capability seems to be highly questionable at the moment.

What about kharkiv or Kursk? And before you say it was only because those areas were undefended - why does that keep happening?? 

Russia has not demonstrated any ability to do anything other than grind since the beginning of the war. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Meanwhile in Kadyrov land...

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Meanwhile in Kadyrov land...

I hope Ukraine can capture some of them and then use them against Russia in meme attacks. 

[The_Capt]

And speaking of “improving Russian situation”

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-19-2024

“Mobilization in Russia remains unlikely in the near to medium term due to Putin’s personal fear that mobilization is a direct threat to his regime’s stability. ISW observed reports speculating about the possibility of Russia declaring another mobilization wave prior to Putin’s inauguration and following the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024, but Putin has not yet authorized such mobilization.[4] Russian opposition outlet Meduza reported that sources close to the Russian government claimed that the Kremlin entertained the idea of mobilization immediately after Ukraine's incursion, but that the Russian Cabinet of Ministers and Kremlin-affiliated businessmen opposed these considerations.[5] Putin has also been consistently signaling throughout the incursion his commitment to recruiting volunteers by boasting about the number of volunteers interested in fighting in Ukraine and meeting with Russian volunteers in response to the incursion.[6] Putin notably did not seize on the incursion as an opportunity to condition Russian society for mobilization in the immediate to medium term, instead choosing to form new irregular formations and expand Russian volunteer recruitment efforts.[7] The Kremlin and the Russian MoD notably shocked Russian society with the declaration of partial mobilization in late September 2022, and Putin likely seeks to avoid societal backlash in response to a new mobilization wave at this time.[8]”

 To my poor simple retired military officer eyes…this is compressed strategic options spaces, not expanding ones.

[Eug85]

17 minutes ago, hcrof said:

What about kharkiv or Kursk? And before you say it was only because those areas were undefended - why does that keep happening?? 

Russia has not demonstrated any ability to do anything other than grind since the beginning of the war. 

How good, you answer your own question. I can also add that we do not know the criteria for assessing the success of the Kursk operation, because we do not know its goals. If it was carried out in order to stop the advance of the Russians in the Donbas by pulling reserves to another direction, then this is definitely a failure.

As for grind, this is how they won wars, for example, this is how they defeated Germany in World War II. We see the same thing now: no brilliant strategic operations, but superiority over the enemy in manpower, technology and means of production

Edited 11 minutes ago by Eug85

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I hope Ukraine can capture some of them and then use them against Russia in meme attacks. 

And on this note…the world has officially gone insane:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/chechen-warlord-accuses-elon-musk-of-remotely-disabling-his-cybertruck-1.7045841

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Offshoot said:

Revealed: Russia anticipated Kursk incursion months in advance, seized papers show
 

 

Good info!

This is no surprise to probably anybody here.  The thought that Russia could not have known AT ALL that this was coming is about zero.  Not knowing exactly where and when... questionable, but at least plausible.

We talked about this probability when the operation first launched.  The assumption some of us (myself included) made was the complex web of incompetency that typifies Russia's planning was very much on display here.  But the other factor was that they didn't have the manpower and resources to reinforce the border area AND keep the Donbas offensive going.  Which lead to the highest levels making a calculation that they could do both and then screwed everything up from there.

Steve