How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Of course there was some awareness.  There were plenty of people who were aware Russia was going to get it's arse kicked if it did a full invasion of Ukraine.  But those people were not the ones calling the shots and so the decisions made (by all sides) were based on faulty information.

Well, anything I can come up with today is based on 100 years worth of hindsight, so this isn't an easy thing to ask.

Maybe I would have done two things:

1.  diverted all horse cavalry resources into procuring trucks

2.  had an established doctrine to recognize situations where offensive strategies were no longer workable and go on the defensive in those areas or just defensive for the whole front.  Pointless waves of death would not be in my doctrine

3.  retooled infantry into smaller and more adaptable concepts that allowed for smaller scale operations

Now, I'm not saying any of this would have worked because I think we're seeing the same thing in today's war and I see no ready solution for it either.  What I am saying is that it seems the Great Powers went into WW1 without a good understanding that their dreams of grandeur might not be practical no matter how many millions of your own people you killed and wounded trying to achieve them.

Steve

FFS, I just posted the UK manual from 1914…do we see a lot of attempts at adjustment there?

What they should have done? What your paper was about and basically what they had planned for 1939. If France had adopted a defensive doctrine a la Maginot, in 1912, because they recognized the lessons from previous wars. WW1 would have turned out differently. In fact, it might not have happened at all in 1914. Germany would have attacked and gotten slaughtered in the West with much less cost to France, which in 1914 may have taken the wind out of their sails. Attritional risks were too high. If not France would have started out much stronger at least. 

The problem was the militaries of the day got it exactly backwards. They tried to fight WW1 on principles they should have applied to WW2 and vice versa. This was because they were behind the curve the entire time. Why were they behind the curve? It was not because it was unknowable…it was because it was largely ignored. They could have know better, they should have known better. Mine is a harsh profession, there is no participant award for “trying hard.” You win or lose, and the consequences of both of those are very high stakes.

We of course have hindsight…but we also have foresight. It is bloody obvious that land warfare has fundamentally changed but there are many who still cry “anomaly” and advocate we stay the course.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

This is kinda the sad thing and we see a microcosm right here on this thread. There were professionals that saw what was coming. We had switched from Offensive to Defensive primacy during the era of sieges. And then back again with the invention of modern fires power. Some did note this and tried to move the needle. Fire and manoeuvre needed a re-think as the fundamentals had shifted. They saw it at Gettysburg, Richmond and Paris. 

But the problem was that militaries were largely personality based. There were no institutional force development, doctrine development was pretty much based more on culture than a real AAR process. Those generals, many from the aristocracy, had little vested interest in suddenly trying to break “the way things were”. Further, as constitutional monarchies took hold, they now had to argue with the money. So making arguments to pay for all this became harder. And suddenly turning around and going “well we are screwed so we need to spend a lot more money” was really not a great start point. I am reading Dreadnought by Massie and the navies of the world had already been through all this. Unlike armies, a navy was very much come as you are. So far more FD effort and focus was put upon them. Also the technology of the Industrial Revolution had larger impacts on naval warfare, or at least more visible.

Land warfare got short shifted to a greater or lesser extent. And “wild modern” ideas held little value and could bring political ire. There was back-pressure coming from several angles….just like today.

We can see it here. The idea of a new combined arms core is considered “radical”. Even though we can see the evidence daily that shifts towards that have already happened. And for many of the same reasons. I checked the French and German manuals as well…same thing the UK was doing. Press of the bayonet and offensive firepower and manoeuvre. No one was proposing attrition warfare or Defensive Primacy beyond a few “radicals” that were marginalized.

And here we are in 2024, with people clinging to old structures and capabilities. “We can solve for UAS with EW and sky guns. We have APS. Look, tanks were used at Kursk.” And any one who proposes anything else is ignorant, misinformed, jumping to conclusions or just dumb. I have zero doubt the same debate is happening inside the tent right now - in fact a I know so because it was when I left. I hope we are smarter and ready to take more risks, but I have my doubts.

A theory I have been developing over the course of this thread, cue fainting spell from JonS, is that all the pre war planning thought the war would look much more like the Eastern front than the Western one. The force density in the east was such that maneuver was possible, at least some of the time. The Germans did a great job of it in some of the early battles against the Russians. Now that might have diverted forces that could have given them victory in France if they had been willing to let the Russians advance further into Prussia, but that is a different discussion. The Russians did a credible job of it against the Austro Hungarians at least once. 

What happened in the West as technology pushed towards defensive primacy is that both side were able to man and defend a continuous front from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Virtually nobody thought that was possible in 1913. There was no flank to turn, there was no weak spot to exploit brilliantly. There was just an endless slugging match. That slugging match got more competent over time in some ways, even as the competent depletion of pre war professional soldiers made it notably less confident in others. An almost exactly analogous process has happened in Ukraine. 

Something I think JonS said many hundreds of pages ago was that the higher level staffs at least got better at working with  them soldiers they had, and planning and so on became much more realistic. He might have been talking about WW2 but I think it applies here as well.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

That article I linked to many pages ago where the US military is actively doing nothing was a depressing read.  The mentality of "wasn't invented here" has doomed many throughout history.

Steve

The Old Crows podcast I linked to just a few pages back quoted. guy in a position to know as saying that the U.S. was producing 20,000 drones this year. I would argue that that number is at least two orders of magnitude short, and that implies we are at great risk of what Steve is referring to above. 

Edited October 10 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

1. Trucks were extremely temperamental machines at this time (ask the Americans their experience during the first world war: It directly contributes to the very tight American quality control that you see in WW2) They were also entirely unsuited to operation on the line of contact. They were  used all the same in logistics. French road of life springs to mind at Verdun. Same reason armoured cars were a thing in 1914 yet were only sparingly used due to the increasingly hostile terrain conditions. Tracks were required. 

2. Going on the defensive yielded the same level of casualties overall. The Germans got mauled just as badly at the Somme as the British. (And this was a offensive largely seen as having gone rather poorly)

 

3. They literally did this. Any cursory look of development of infantry sections in trenches for the British will tell you that. (Lewis guns, grenade bombers ect) The British had already done this to a degree pre WW1  after the Boer war with the tactical employment of infantry. They still got pasted by artillery all the same. 

The main issue is that none of these would of changed the reality of the war and its heavy casualties. Cavalry had already been widely recognised as pretty much useless outside of potential exploitation. There were other reasons to at least keep them to hand (they had their uses in other theatres at least) The war was going to be a bloodbath no matter what based on the technology at hand. 

It should be viewed that the western front armies and officers put in truly herculean attempts to transform their armies and doctrines to better fight despite the veritable tidal wave of technological changes that continued to shake up the foundations of war. That they did so in just a few short years is truly commendable.

Haig presided over a force that went from something best suited to overseas colonial warfare to a titanic force able to pick sustained fights with Imperial Germany. Such an explosion of personnel is a massive change, let alone the additions of technological and the growing sophistication of operations, tanks, airforces ect. Modern historiography has been working hard to clear him of the backwards butcher title that he was portrayed as decades ago, when in fact he was easily one of the more innovative commanders of the time. He reminds me a lot of Grant in that respect. 

'Pointless waves of death' is something that simply didn't happen and seems something out of 60's historiography. Generals were not attacking for the sake of it without any point. Such a viewpoint is probably due to the 'slaughter of the innocents' incident at Ypres that is partially fact and partially fiction. (And an outlier in general)

This is pointless.  According to you WW1 went perfectly well and according to plans made long before the war.  Just like this war, eh?

I'll address one point:

Quote

The war was going to be a bloodbath no matter what based on the technology at hand. 

I don't see anything to support that the decision makers, the ones that matter, believed this.  In fact, it seems they believed the opposite.  It seems unlikely that the politicians got their delusions from tin air.  More likely is they got them from their military leaders.

This bickering about a war fought 100+ years ago is a distraction from the point that originally got it brought forward.  And that is institutions are reluctant to change, despite the fact there are always people within them who see things correctly (or reasonably so).  Doesn't matter if it's private sector or public, military or science.  This is a truth of Humanity going back as far as history can bring us.  To suggest that this isn't the case, or that current Western militaries, are exceptions is an interesting theory that evidence already suggests is wrong.

One way to think of it is the institution that "wins" is the one that resisted change a little less than the competition, was a bit luckier, or had advantages that covered up for shortcomings.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

We of course have hindsight…but we also have foresight. It is bloody obvious that land warfare has fundamentally changed but there are many who still cry “anomaly” and advocate we stay the course.

The West fought in Afghanistan for 20 years and lost.  As far as I can tell, the lesson learned from that conflict is "don't do that again".  If I've missed the US military (in particular) publishing way to win a war like Afghanistan, I'd be more than happy to have someone post a link so I can read it.

Steve

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

The West fought in Afghanistan for 20 years and lost.  As far as I can tell, the lesson learned from that conflict is "don't do that again".  If I've missed the US military (in particular) publishing way to win a war like Afghanistan, I'd be more than happy to have someone post a link so I can read it.

Steve

Many, perhaps a great many, years ago you had a throw away line about only picking fights you can win. It remains excellent advice.

Of course the next step is correct predictions about the first...

[The_Capt]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The West fought in Afghanistan for 20 years and lost.  As far as I can tell, the lesson learned from that conflict is "don't do that again".  If I've missed the US military (in particular) publishing way to win a war like Afghanistan, I'd be more than happy to have someone post a link so I can read it.

Steve

You would not believe how quickly we institutionally put that whole thing in the rear view mirror. There is almost no study of that war going on right now. SOF is still paying attention as it is linked to CT/CVEO but the funding for that is bleeding out. Big ticket, splashy kit is the order of the day as western militaries are in the mood to spend. Cha-Ching for defence industry, and they are going to exploit the hell out of it.

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Many, perhaps a great many, years ago you had a throw away line about only picking fights you can win. It remains excellent advice.

Of course the next step is correct predictions about the first...

That is, and has always been, my impression of why WW1 started.  Everybody believed they could come out on top otherwise things might have turned out differently.  I can't recall seeing anything from any of the primary nations that indicated they had serious doubts.  As I said above, the political leaders probably didn't arrive at those conclusions all on their own.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Just now, The_Capt said:

You would not believe how quickly we institutionally put that whole thing in the rear view mirror. There is almost no study of that war going on right now. SOF is still paying attention as it is linked to CT/CVEO but the funding for that is bleeding out. Big ticket, splashy kit is the order of the day as western militaries are in the mood to spend. Cha-Ching for defence industry, and they are going to exploit the hell out of it.

Oh, I can believe it.  That trend of "putting it behind us" started years before the official departure from Afghanistan.  The Korean War was known as "the forgotten war".  Afghanistan could might be better called "the war that didn't happen". 

I've seen the excuse that the military didn't win Afghanistan because it was nation building done wrong.  I agree with that.  What I don't agree with is that the military made it clear to the politicians that they couldn't win it no matter how long they stayed or how much treasure was poured into the conflict.  I mean... the surge was the military's idea and they had to strongarm convince the politicians into it.  So there's that.

But we're digressing too much here.  The important (and relevant) part of all this is that there are pretty strong historical reasons to doubt that the Western militaries are going to learn the right things from this war AND have them implemented in time for the next war.  Instead, history teaches us that we'll likely go into the next war, fail, and learn on the job how to do better and hope that is good enough to come out with a decent end result.  Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan all failed outright, and it can be argued that both Gulf Wars failed too (though not as clearly).

Damn, you guys have NO idea how much I hate being pessimistic.  But that's what happens when a person who is a realist to his very core sees no reason to be optimistic.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is pointless.  According to you WW1 went perfectly well and according to plans made long before the war.  Just like this war, eh?

I'll address one point:

Never argued this. I am just pointing out that its pretty much a myth that generals fighting that wear had no interest in innovation or were incapable of doing so. I am not even talking about things politically, or how the war was pointless in that sense. 

Attrition was the answer long term, but the generals on the western front really did try everything else first.

Happy to move on though.

Edited October 10 by ArmouredTopHat

[dan/california]

24 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You would not believe how quickly we institutionally put that whole thing in the rear view mirror. There is almost no study of that war going on right now. SOF is still paying attention as it is linked to CT/CVEO but the funding for that is bleeding out. Big ticket, splashy kit is the order of the day as western militaries are in the mood to spend. Cha-Ching for defence industry, and they are going to exploit the hell out of it.

Time for my monthly reminder about that book you need to write, well one of them anyway,

[acrashb]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The important (and relevant) part of all this is that there are pretty strong historical reasons to doubt that the Western militaries are going to learn the right things from this war AND have them implemented in time for the next war. 

So, the big question is, who's going to step up? Can the Chinese Communist Party and its forces adapt quickly enough? This theatre is the next phase for global deterrence and warfare. Obama had the right idea with his Pivot to Asia - although, as we've seen, just because we're shifting focus from the Middle East doesn't mean it's done with us.

Will Russia even learn?  Or will it regress to heavy iron and the corruption that goes with it (in Russia)?

Edited October 10 by acrashb

[Centurian52]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan all failed outright, and it can be argued that both Gulf Wars failed too (though not as clearly).

This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. Vietnam and Afghanistan were outright failures, sure. But the Gulf War (the first one, the second one I normally call 'The Iraq War')) was definitely an outright victory. It didn't topple Saddam, but that was never a war aim. The only war aim that wasn't completely achieved was the destruction of the Republican Guard. The primary war aim, the liberation of Kuwait (and making sure that Iraq didn't re-invade) was completely achieved.

Korea was more of a mixed bag. It clearly wasn't an outright victory (as evidenced by the continued existence of North Korea). But it was also very clearly not an outright defeat (as evidenced by the continued existence of South Korea).

I'm not really sure whether or not Iraq was a failure, because I'm not really sure what the goal was. There were no WMDs to find, so the initial objective failed on arrival. From then on the goal, as far as I could tell, was to prevent the new Iraqi government from collapsing. And so far the Iraqi government hasn't collapsed. I'd call that another mixed bag.

[The_Capt]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oh, I can believe it.  That trend of "putting it behind us" started years before the official departure from Afghanistan.  The Korean War was known as "the forgotten war".  Afghanistan could might be better called "the war that didn't happen". 

I've seen the excuse that the military didn't win Afghanistan because it was nation building done wrong.  I agree with that.  What I don't agree with is that the military made it clear to the politicians that they couldn't win it no matter how long they stayed or how much treasure was poured into the conflict.  I mean... the surge was the military's idea and they had to strongarm convince the politicians into it.  So there's that.

But we're digressing too much here.  The important (and relevant) part of all this is that there are pretty strong historical reasons to doubt that the Western militaries are going to learn the right things from this war AND have them implemented in time for the next war.  Instead, history teaches us that we'll likely go into the next war, fail, and learn on the job how to do better and hope that is good enough to come out with a decent end result.  Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan all failed outright, and it can be argued that both Gulf Wars failed too (though not as clearly).

Damn, you guys have NO idea how much I hate being pessimistic.  But that's what happens when a person who is a realist to his very core sees no reason to be optimistic.

Steve

Optimism. Ok, well first off technology is advancing at a much faster rate than WW1 or WW2 eras. So fast that even the blindest and most conservative pundit will have to play catchup. So the longer we go without a major conflagration, our chances go up as the impact of technology become clear. 

Next, we have had WW1 and 2, those experiences inform the next war. Pre-WW1, they did not have WW1 to pull from. They had 1812. We also can communicate in very different ways then back then. We see phenomenon daily from the front line. Denial is a powerful thing but the arguments of that denial is getting weaker and weaker.

We have a high tech industrial base, so does China but at least we are competitive. And we have money, a lot of money. What we are short on is will but maybe that will change.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Back on topic, seems a curious move by the Russians given they use it so much. 

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1844095103608160318

 

 

Edited October 10 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

Rotations continue to be a sore spot for the Ukrainians, specifically failure to do so properly is being taken advantage of by the Russians. Seems to be the chief principle complaint from a lot of AFU TG sources at the moment.  

[ArmouredTopHat]

Does anyone have further information on this? Tensions seem at odds at this point. 

[dan/california]

18 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Back on topic, seems a curious move by the Russians given they use it so much. 

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1844095103608160318

 

 

I suspect they fear it is compromised. I mean if it isn't, it should be....

Edit: But fighting with compromised comms may be better than fighting with none, given the average training level of the Russian Army.

 

Edited October 10 by dan/california

[The_Capt]

33 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. Vietnam and Afghanistan were outright failures, sure. But the Gulf War (the first one, the second one I normally call 'The Iraq War')) was definitely an outright victory. It didn't topple Saddam, but that was never a war aim. The only war aim that wasn't completely achieved was the destruction of the Republican Guard. The primary war aim, the liberation of Kuwait (and making sure that Iraq didn't re-invade) was completely achieved.

Korea was more of a mixed bag. It clearly wasn't an outright victory (as evidenced by the continued existence of North Korea). But it was also very clearly not an outright defeat (as evidenced by the continued existence of South Korea).

I'm not really sure whether or not Iraq was a failure, because I'm not really sure what the goal was. There were no WMDs to find, so the initial objective failed on arrival. From then on the goal, as far as I could tell, was to prevent the new Iraqi government from collapsing. And so far the Iraqi government hasn't collapsed. I'd call that another mixed bag.

Iraq ‘03…I am pretty sure getting dragged back in after the Iraqi government came within a hair of toppling wasn’t a metric of success. But I think we have a series of incompletes. Gulf War’s stated aim was liberation of Kuwait (Republican Guard was more an operational objective) it was supposed to be part of a larger campaign to topple Saddam, which did fail (the whole Kurds thing).

So what? Victory and defeat are a spectrum; you can “lose” and still “win”, you can “win” and still “lose”. Partials, stop gaps and a rainbow in between.

What Steve wrote makes a lot more sense than “WW1 = went ok. So we should keep pointing at modern western militaries buying tanks as a sign of continued “rightness”.” Which is what that was really about.

But I think we are moving on…

[Centurian52]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

What Steve wrote makes a lot more sense than “WW1 = went ok. So we should keep pointing at modern western militaries buying tanks as a sign of continued “rightness”.” Which is what that was really about.

But I think we are moving on…

I only joined the discussion a few posts ago, so I missed the part where that was related to procurement strategy. I had no idea this was part of the long-running tank debate.

Edit: Come to that, are we really still having that debate? I've written it off at this point since it seems that neither the "the tank is dead" nor the "the tank isn't dead" crowds seem to have much hope of convincing each other.

Edited October 10 by Centurian52

[danfrodo]

8 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I only joined the discussion a few posts ago, so I missed the part where that was related to procurement strategy. I had no idea this was part of the long-running tank debate.

Edit: Come to that, are we really still having that debate? I've written it off at this point since it seems that neither the "the tank is dead" nor the "the tank isn't dead" crowds seem to have much hope of convincing each other.

indeed, but at least we can all agree that tanks are very, very cool and lovely to look at.

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I only joined the discussion a few posts ago, so I missed the part where that was related to procurement strategy. I had no idea this was part of the long-running tank debate.

Edit: Come to that, are we really still having that debate? I've written it off at this point since it seems that neither the "the tank is dead" nor the "the tank isn't dead" crowds seem to have much hope of convincing each other.

It is like malaria, hides in the liver and comes back around every now and again. It passes the time until something happens.
 

[JonS]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

That is, and has always been, my impression of why WW1 started.  Everybody believed they could come out on top otherwise things might have turned out differently.  I can't recall seeing anything from any of the primary nations that indicated they had serious doubts.  As I said above, the political leaders probably didn't arrive at those conclusions all on their own.

Steve

But isn't that true of *every* war?

The Germans thought they'd come out on top in WWII, and so did the French, Italians, British, Japanese, Americans, Hungarians, Russians, and Finns.

The Argentinians thought they'd win the Falklands, and so did the British.

Mao thought he'd win the Chinese Civil War, and so did Chiang Kai-shek.

Etc. For every war.

It doesnt seem like a very deep insight to note that folks dont go into a war expecting to lose it?

 

[Battlefront.com]

53 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

I only joined the discussion a few posts ago, so I missed the part where that was related to procurement strategy. I had no idea this was part of the long-running tank debate.

Edit: Come to that, are we really still having that debate? I've written it off at this point since it seems that neither the "the tank is dead" nor the "the tank isn't dead" crowds seem to have much hope of convincing each other.

Nah, this came up from a different angle, specifically militaries not being particularly good at proactive change.  The tank just gets drawn into the discussion because it is an example of what it looks like to try and adapt when the situation calls for evolving.

As for my examples, I do not view GW1 as a success because it was deliberately stopped because the military realized it would be too difficult to continue.  The goal of liberating Kuwait was definitely secured, but certain groups believe the job wasn't finished and so we got GW2 as a result.  And the success/failure of GW2 is still yet to be determined.  Certainly I wouldn't rank it a "success" yet, especially because leaving things as the West did contributed to ISIS.

Korea is something I've always viewed as a "tie".  The original objectives of keeping North Korea out of South Korea was successful, but keeping South Korea free from the threat of North Korea was obviously not achieved (see above comment about GW1).

These failures, or at least substandard victories, can be traced to military and political structures being poorly calibrated for the successes they set out to achieve.  I see the same mistakes happening with this war.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, JonS said:

But isn't that true of *every* war?

The Germans thought they'd come out on top in WWII, and so did the French, Italians, British, Japanese, Americans, Hungarians, Russians, and Finns.

The Argentinians thought they'd win the Falklands, and so did the British.

Mao thought he'd win the Chinese Civil War, and so did Chiang Kai-shek.

Etc. For every war.

It doesnt seem like a very deep insight to note that folks dont go into a war expecting to lose it?

 

That's not the point I was making.  ATH was stating that the nations going into WW1 knew a) that war was going to be extremely costly and b) they didn't have any concept of how to win such a war.  My response to that is it's at odds with how the nations behaved.  They all seemed to have believed that the war would be short because they had some magic solution to win it.

Put another way, ATH is saying they went to war expecting they wouldn't lose despite not knowing how to win.

I don't buy it.

Steve

[JonS]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Put another way, ATH is saying they went to war expecting they wouldn't lose despite not knowing how to win.

I'm pretty sure that is a gross misrepresentation of what he's saying.

AIUI: The various nations all went into WWI thinking they knew how to win, even though all recognised it would be bloody because they'd been paying attention. They were all wrong (except for the Royal Navy; they were on the money with the blockade) so they innovated the **** out of it to come up with new ways to win. Some innovations worked better than others, some armies and some commanders were more innovative than others, but nobody was fighting in 1918 like they had been in 1914. (Except the US - starting later left them consistently behind the curve compared to their peers.)

Edited October 10 by JonS