How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

At first I thought "all this WW1 talk is off topic for Ukraine war".  But then I realized, as most of you already had, that WW1 is probably a pretty good analogy in many ways to this war.  It sure looks like this will grind on for a while with an aggressor power controlling a big chunk of other power's territory, and no way to push them off.  Like the germans in france/belgium/etc and no one could expel them by force, month after month, year after year.  

The aggressor can't just go home because the Dear Leader will lose face.  Just like now.  

[sburke]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Nonsense.  Classic both-siderism nonsense.

Fox, newsmax et al are lie machines for people that can't handle the truth.  PBS/CNN, etc, are flawed and have biases -- like every other human enterprise.  They are not specifically designed brainwashing machines.  

At the moment I would make a distinction between Fox news and the Fox talk show commentators.  As an example look at the discussion on FEMA.  The News shows are actually rebutting the conspiracy arguments about FEMA and immigrants etc.  Then the commentators come on and spread those exact conspiracy theories. I don't think Fox got a big enough fine to make them want to rein in the high rating whackos that spread the conspiracy nonsense.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraine-the-latest/id1612424182?i=1000672529607

This interview with the ambassador is outstanding. Although it is grim listening if you think Putin is open to a settlement.

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

At the moment I would make a distinction between Fox news and the Fox talk show commentators.  As an example look at the discussion on FEMA.  The News shows are actually rebutting the conspiracy arguments about FEMA and immigrants etc.  Then the commentators come on and spread those exact conspiracy theories. I don't think Fox got a big enough fine to make them want to rein in the high rating whackos that spread the conspiracy nonsense.

So sometimes they aren't outright lying means a good source for info?  Normally I am aghast at even the concept of disagreeing with SBurke, but I must take exception with this.  A big part of the 'good' part of fox news is not reporting important news, or under reporting it, when they are not outright lying.

Let's not applaud a fish for swimming. And let's not applaud a business built on lying for only lying part of the time.  Fox news viewers tend to be much less informed, or misinformed, than non-fox watchers.

Edited October 11 by danfrodo

[sburke]

13 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

If the Ukrainians can come up with (or demonstrate, if they've already come up with it) an effective offensive system then they should be able to exploit Russian exhaustion to push them over into full collapse, just as the Entente did to the Germans in 1918. Exactly what that collapse looks like will probably depend on what system Ukraine comes up with.

Edit: To get my prediction on-record, I think we're looking at Russian defeat in 2026 or perhaps 2027 if they manage to draw things out.

I think the rub for Russia is Ukraine has already demonstrated an intense offensive capability.  Not necessarily on the ground, but all those ammo dumps etc going up isn't just more lax Russian behavior in nonsmoking areas.  Russia can ratchet down its meat assaults and reduce the expense in money and human resources, but then they face the political loss of face as the UA keeps grinding the Russian military/industrial complex.  Meanwhile the sanctions sit in place.

Doing nothing under those circumstances will just encourage criticism of the Russian state by the ultra nationalists.

[The_Capt]

14 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

If the Ukrainians can come up with (or demonstrate, if they've already come up with it) an effective offensive system then they should be able to exploit Russian exhaustion to push them over into full collapse, just as the Entente did to the Germans in 1918. Exactly what that collapse looks like will probably depend on what system Ukraine comes up with.

Ah and now we land on it. Ukraine needs to solve for 21st century Corrosive Warfare, fast. In fact given the looming US election, they may be too late. But assuming everything does not fall to pot, they need an Entente 1918 advancement of Corrosive Warfare - a warfare designed to erode an entire system to accelerate strategic failure.

Problem is, and remains…how do they do it? Do they upscale unmanned systems to overwhelm? Do they somehow sanitize for breakout. Or can they simply increase the pace of precision killing? This right here is the central military problem for this war. How can Ukraine create and employ a new form of Corrosive Warfare…and how can we support that? We can put pressure on Russian and keep this thing in a box, but ultimately Ukraine needs to accelerate that attritional collapse. 

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

So sometimes they aren't outright lying means a good source for info?  Normally I am aghast at even the concept of disagreeing with SBurke, but I must take exception with this.  A big part of the 'good' part of fox news is not reporting important news, or under reporting it, when they are not outright lying.

Let's not applaud a fish for swimming. And let's not applaud a business built on lying for only lying part of the time.  Fox news viewers tend to be much less informed, or misinformed, than non-fox watchers.

I wasn't applauding them, just noting how Fox functions these days having paid a pretty large chunk of money for being too blatant in the lie dept.

BTW my wife has no problem disagreeing with me.  She would likely look at the above statement and think WTF, are you all that messed up?  

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

At first I thought "all this WW1 talk is off topic for Ukraine war".  But then I realized, as most of you already had, that WW1 is probably a pretty good analogy in many ways to this war.  It sure looks like this will grind on for a while with an aggressor power controlling a big chunk of other power's territory, and no way to push them off.  Like the germans in france/belgium/etc and no one could expel them by force, month after month, year after year.  

The aggressor can't just go home because the Dear Leader will lose face.  Just like now.  

All this “WW1 talk” was about Ukraine. It always was…

[billbindc]

13 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ah and now we land on it. Ukraine needs to solve for 21st century Corrosive Warfare, fast. In fact given the looming US election, they may be too late. But assuming everything does not fall to pot, they need an Entente 1918 advancement of Corrosive Warfare - a warfare designed to erode an entire system to accelerate strategic failure.

Problem is, and remains…how do they do it? Do they upscale unmanned systems to overwhelm? Do they somehow sanitize for breakout. Or can they simply increase the pace of precision killing? This right here is the central military problem for this war. How can Ukraine create and employ a new form of Corrosive Warfare…and how can we support that? We can put pressure on Russian and keep this thing in a box, but ultimately Ukraine needs to accelerate that attritional collapse. 

That's the nub. Russia has attempted to counter precision with mass (in this case, piles of bodies) and Ukraine doesn't have enough massed precision. 

[The_Capt]

Just now, billbindc said:

That's the nub. Russia has attempted to counter precision with mass (in this case, piles of bodies) and Ukraine doesn't have enough massed precision. 

So maybe, rather than more steel piles…we get into the massed precision game. And enable that?

”Mass precision beats everything”…time to change my sig line.

[billbindc]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So maybe, rather than more steel piles…we get into the massed precision game. And enable that?

”Mass precision beats everything”…time to change my sig line.

I suspect it won't be that easy in a big peer war. Massed precision will then be up against mass ECM and denial reaching up into space. Autonomous will come into play quickly but countermeasures will iterate very quickly from the simple (i.e. profile alteration) to the complicated (artillery delivered mass dummy targets).

If I had to guess, I think things get far more complicated (i.e. attacks on civilian populations with hunter/killer autonomous drones) before offensive solutions become visible. 

Hell of a world we have coming. 

And on that note...I'm going to have a drink.

Edited October 11 by billbindc

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

I think if you shattered the last defensible line an opponent has setup between you and their homeland, and are actively overrunning their heavy artillery and railheads....then you might be on the road towards the ultimate end. Especially after removing a million of them from the equation.

Sure, but what came before that?  The Kaiserschlacht offensive where the Germans cut through Entente positions, dealt more casualties than it took, and then petered out because it was exhausted.  That was it.  Germany used up what little reserves it had and was, effectively, spent.

From what I remember of my uni class on WW1, and touched up by our friend Wikipedia, is that the Germans saw the writing on the wall back in 1917.  They knew that the superior numbers and industrial output of the Entente would eventually win.  So they did what so many countries at war have done... they pushed all their chips onto the table and bet the house.  It didn't work then nor did it work in 1944 when Germany launched the Wacht am Rhein offensive.  Too little, too late.

So yes, I am saying that by the time the Allies made their final push the Germans were done already and they knew it.

An interesting journey into alternative history would be to see what might have happened if Germany had offered an armistice in 1917 before it "shot its bolt".  Just like it would be interesting to see what this war would have looked like if Russia had dialed back it's expectations back in 2022 instead of bleeding itself towards dry trying to achieve something that clearly isn't going to happen (i.e. the total and utter surrender of Ukraine).

28 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

There was little if anything the Germans could do at that point. Even if they did cobble together a line the Entente wold of smashed it with their superiority of force that was so very evident in 1918. They even had active plans for the war going into 1919, though I doubt the war would of lasted more than a few months longer given just how quickly the frontline was falling before the armistice.

If the US had not entered the war with millions of fresh troops in 1917 and 1918, as well as war material, I don't know that the Entente could have continued the war through 1918 not to mention 1919.

I'm not pulling this out of my arse either.  Pretty easy to find sources to back this up.  Like this short article by an accredited military historian:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/how-the-allies-won-the-war-in-1918-strategic-alignment-or-complete-u-turn

Which reminded me... the French Army suffered a series of revolts (mutinies) in 1917.  Was that all part of the brilliance of the Entente's military prowess?  Maybe it was a brilliant move to falsely build up the German's hopes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_French_Army_mutinies

Anyway... I got sucked into this yet again because I think it underscores the difficulty in discussing the war in front of us because we can't even agree on the wars already fought.

Steve

[JonS]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ah, the “too cool for school” kid has shown up. Gonna go smoke up in the girls room next?

Don't you have a drone to go and fondle behind the bike shed - what happened, did they all say "ew, no thanks. We're more into combined arms orgies, rather than this weird monogamy kink that seems to get you off"?

Edited October 11 by JonS

[NamEndedAllen]

26 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

So sometimes they aren't outright lying means a good source for info?  Normally I am aghast at even the concept of disagreeing with SBurke, but I must take exception with this.  A big part of the 'good' part of fox news is not reporting important news, or under reporting it, when they are not outright lying.

But sburke is precisely correct about the distinction between the Fox *news* division that has news slots during the daytime, and the wildly and bizarrely popular pro Russia anti USA fundamentals of democracy Yakety Yak Talk Show division. The much less popular news part is staffed with real live journalists, reporters who have found employment where they are able - swamping by the internet has cost thousands of reporter and editing jobs each of the past several years. They don’t control editorial decisions, but that entire group is separate from the big Yakety Yak talking head shows.

[ArmouredTopHat]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So yes, I am saying that by the time the Allies made their final push the Germans were done already and they knew it.

This ignores the fact that the Germans would have never extended an armistice before the 100 days offensive, regardless of the performance of the Ludendorff offensive. The German high commanded needed to be shocked by being so utterly defeated at something they were usually good at (defence in depth) with no end in sight. Amiens provided that and made it clear there was nothing the Germans could do anymore when fighting back against well planned Entente offensives. 

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If the US had not entered the war with millions of fresh troops in 1917 and 1918, as well as war material, I don't know that the Entente could have continued the war through 1918 not to mention 1919.

American representation was important, but what mattered most was that the French and British had perfected their doctrines and were now able to execute these large offensives with favourable manpower trades. American soldiers sealed the deal and helped make the Germans cave sooner. Their impact overall was that of morale for both the Entente and Central powers. 
 

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Which reminded me... the French Army suffered a series of revolts (mutinies) in 1917.  Was that all part of the brilliance of the Entente's military prowess? 

French mutinies are far overhyped in what actually happened. The mutinies were specifically over things like terrible trench conditions (French trenches were until that point the worst out of the three powers) and at no point of the line did French soldiers refuse to fight. They wanted changes after the poor Neville offensive (despite its tactical gains) as well as a proper system of leave and rotation that the British and Germans were already emulating and the french lacked at that point. French doctrine subsequently became probably the best on the Western front going into 1917 and 1918 when it came to the attack. 

The munity is actually a good example of a target country doing a fair bit to address the concerns and wants of its soldiers, which is impressive given the French bore the brunt of the war. 

Edited October 11 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

AFU Leopard 1 with a mix of Kontakt-1 and Nizh ERA applied....rather liberally. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

So did we put to bed the whole 'The Republicans could still help Ukraine' thing yet?

[ArmouredTopHat]

Seems the Ukrainians are now corroborating the information about NK soldiers training in Russia. 

[Fernando]

People seems to forget that  Germany lost the war not on the Western Front, but mainly on the other fronts. In September 1918 the Macedonian Front collapsed after the Allies got a sound Breakthrought. 

From wikipedia:

[...]On Sept. 29th Bulgaria asked for an armistice. That meant that the whole South Front was open. German Emperor Wilhelm II in a telegram to Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I described the situation thus: "Disgraceful! 62,000 Serbs decided the war!". On the same day, the German Supreme Army Command informed Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Imperial Chancellor Count Georg von Hertling, that the military situation facing Germany was hopeless.

On 24 October, the Italians began a push that rapidly recovered territory lost after the Battle of Caporetto. This culminated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, marking the end of the Austro-Hungarian Army as an effective fighting force. The offensive also triggered the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the last week of October, declarations of independence were made in Budapest, Prague, and Zagreb. On 29 October, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice, but the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine, and Trieste. On 3 November, Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce and accepted the Armistice of Villa Giusti, arranged with the Allied Authorities in Paris. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy. In the following days, the Italian Army occupied Innsbruck and all Tyrol, with over 20,000 soldiers.[207]

On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated, and signed the Armistice of Mudros [...]

After the collapse of all their allies, Germany was forced to surrended, no matter what  the situation on the West Front was. Hard pressed on the Western Front, Germany had no forces to spare in order to cover the whole Italian and South Front after The Bulgarian, A-H and Turkey collapsed.

Edited October 11 by Fernando

[dan/california]

19 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Their impact overall was that of morale for both the Entente and Central powers. 

The upcoming election is going to have a very similar effect, one way or the other.

[danfrodo]

5 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Seems the Ukrainians are now corroborating the information about NK soldiers training in Russia. 

I bet Putin is paying good money, directly to Dear Leader, for these NK bodies to throw into the maelstrom.  Imagine that, a leader who sells his own people to certain death.

 

[JonS]

57 minutes ago, billbindc said:

If I had to guess, I think things get far more complicated (i.e. attacks on civilian populations with hunter/killer autonomous drones) before offensive solutions become visible. 

That's an interesting observation. The last time we had (or thought we had) defensive primacy, massed attacks on the civilian economy and - first implicitly then explicitly - the civilian population was part of the solution package.

[chris talpas]

17 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I bet Putin is paying good money, directly to Dear Leader, for these NK bodies to throw into the maelstrom.  Imagine that, a leader who sells his own people to certain death.

 

Not forgetting the other axis member Iran where Putin is visiting boasting of their close relationship.  Perhaps might influence Israel to offer more assistance in Ukraine’s direction.

Do people grasp how consequential to world order this election is.

[The_Capt]

55 minutes ago, JonS said:

Don't you have a drone to go and fondle behind the bike shed - what happened, did they all say "ew, no thanks. We're more into combined arms orgies, rather than this weird monogamy kink that seems to get you off"?

Strange sexual angle you are taking here. Making it weird. Of course if you want to have a real combined arms discussion, just let me know.

[JonS]

59 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Sure, but what came before that?  The Kaiserschlacht offensive where the Germans cut through Entente positions, dealt more casualties than it took, and then petered out because it was exhausted.  That was it.  Germany used up what little reserves it had and was, effectively, spent.

From what I remember of my uni class on WW1, and touched up by our friend Wikipedia, is that the Germans saw the writing on the wall back in 1917.  They knew that the superior numbers and industrial output of the Entente would eventually win. 

So, ok. Aside from the point that we all presumably know that materiel output alone isn't sufficient to determine the outcome of a war (see: pretty much any war, ever) the above begs the question of how it was the Germans were exhausted and knew it in 1917?

Perhaps, and bear with me here, it may have had more to do with all those 'pointless' and 'wasteful' and 'ineffective' British and French offensives than it had to do with the Germans simply being such good sports and throwing in the towel?