How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kimbosbread]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

After this war, for at least ten years, the Russian Army (we have noted Navy and AF) will be weaker but smarter...and more unpredictable. So landing on the point, the RA will be weaker physically, but a stronger threat cognitively and conatively.

Russia is completely hosed, demographically. I think they’ll have to go back to their hybrid warfare shenanigans after this. Smarter makes hybrid warfare way more dangerous!

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So we need to be cheaper per unit...but we are very likely going to need more units. Why? To fight more like the UA. Distributed, dispersed, highly connected and capable of projecting enormous losses on opponent asymmetrically until they collapse....and then exploit. Those few lines there are enough to send the MIC and military traditionalist into apoplectic fits. For the MIC it basically means all they have tooled up for since about 1949 is now becoming obsolete. For military traditionalist, it also means obsolescence of not only capability but doctrines and strategies. And, as I am sure you know from history, there is not much militaries of the day will resist more than challenges to their established doctrines and strategies, as they are directly tied to their political value propositions.  

MIC would benefit tremendously from playing competitive Starcraft. If technology makes Zergling rushes economically viable (and that’s what has happened) then things need to change. Stop thinking let’s make a few magical Nazi stealth wunderwaffen and start thinking PC Gaming, to paraphrase one of my favorite ****ty movies.

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

And this has at least as many implications for the Navy as it does the land forces. We are rapidly approaching a moment where nothing bigger than a row boat can come within 750 kilometers of a defended shore line. 

Yeah, we need a radical rethink of how our navy works. I was only half joking with Space Battleship “Reasonable Financial Decisions” (or 100 of them) and orbital bombardment and the budgeting and stealth and logistical advantages thereof.

I honestly can’t think of a way to have a serious expeditionary blue water navy in this environment. You need legs which means nukes or lots of fuel, which means 100ft long ships minimum. You need stealth, so that means either subs or magical stealth coatings, or maybe just going semi-submersible (all of which are expensive). You need huge volumes of missiles and drones, which requires sufficient cargo area. Given infinite money and instantaneous production and crew training, sure, maybe… but when Space Force has a contractor that can build you a fleet of skyscraper sized spaceships for a tenth or less of the price of a single LCS or Constellation-Class Frigate, and can stick tungesten rods in orbit for the price of a cruise missile, it does make you wonder.

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

We are under buying the munitions by a factor of ten, AT LEAST. And while kinetic options should be pursued with all possible speed, I have not seen anything that gives an engagement range of more than few kilometers. At that point, even with very short engagement times per target, there is a grave risk of there being more targets than you have time.

We have to make cheaper munitions. If for the price of a Tomahawk we could build 100 cheaper but half as good cruise missiles, clearly we should be doing that. But what are we launching them from?

[dan/california]

25 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

We have to make cheaper munitions. If for the price of a Tomahawk we could build 100 cheaper but half as good cruise missiles, clearly we should be doing that. But what are we launching them from?

I was just looking at the "right now" problem. I basically agree with you that blue water surface ships are going to be obsolete in the near future, at least for peer to peer conflicts. Their is an argument for building MUCH cheaper ships for anti piracy/anti insurgency/unsophisticated opponent situations. The very nasty barb in that argument is that it means China could quite possibly starve Taiwan into submission by blockade. And that is true even if Taiwan can sink anything that comes within 200km of it shoreline.

Hey Steve, since you have something resembling an actual game studio, it is time to get going on that South China Sea air and naval sim. Please include a bunch of ways to dial various kinds of tech up and down so we can experiment with how that changes the balance of forces. 

 

[kimbosbread]

10 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The very nasty barb in that argument is that it means China could quite possibly starve Taiwan into submission by blockade. And that is true even if Taiwan can sink anything that comes within 200km of it shoreline.

The blockade strategy to take Taiwan is really interesting. Taiwan should be able to sink a few thousand Red Chinese ships really easily, and China can presumably sink any ship approaching Taiwan easily.

That means if China chooses this strategy, they are basically gonna play a giant game of chicken. Lower stakes chicken is using the Chinese coast guard, but then if US or Japan or ROK exercise right of navigation and escort cargo ships, then that makes the stakes bigger. And if China starts shooting missiles, that gives the US the excuse to shut down all Chinese shipping.

And then none of this gets China closer to boots on the ground in Taiwan. They won’t be able to sneak troops across, and they definitely won’t have any element of surprise. With no commerical shipping at all, loitering munitions that sink any ship they see will be widespread.

Here’s my prediction: China will nibble off the small islands held by Taiwan closest to them. The US simply isn’t willing to get involved for something like that, and the bet is Taiwan would not use nukes in this scenario. The main island will have to wait, unfortunately for Winnie the Flu.

Edited Thursday at 08:07 PM by kimbosbread

[LongLeftFlank]

8 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

MIC would benefit tremendously from playing competitive Starcraft. If technology makes Zergling rushes economically viable (and that’s what has happened) then things need to change. 

Kekekekekekekekekekekekeke!!!!

Starcraft was the de facto national sport of South Korean millenials from 1998 - c.2005.

And you just know their now middle-aged MIC fantasizes about fielding something like the Protoss carrier (a robot mother ship launching nonstop drone swarms).

....Robots especially since the ROK birth rate has fallen to near zero, in part cuz Starcraft [/tongue in cheek, but not completely]

[Kinophile]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

8 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Here’s my prediction: China will nibble off the small islands held by Taiwan closest to them. The US simply isn’t willing to get involved for something like that, and the bet is Taiwan would not use nukes in this scenario. The main island will have to wait, unfortunately for Winnie the Flu.

Exactly on point on the islands, especially Penghu, possession of  which would give China an unsinkable EW/ISR platform within 50kms of Kaohsiung and the most viable landing beaches. Of course, the Taiwanese have dug in there in quite some force, so taking it isn't notably easier than a mainland invasion....

However, I'm sure you'll agree that when you have an economy that is still largely export driven, getting in a naval war with your biggest customers outside your home ports, so that they 'quarantine' your shipments to pretty much everyone for a couple of years might not be the most brilliant strategy.

...Unless you bet the farm on a  Trumpidiocracy suing for peace instantly, terrified of the Magabase missing its Walmart tat.

But doubtless that's all provided for in that  thousand year Chinese Hari Seldon plan that we barbarians are all too dumb to comprehend.

[Carolus]

 

Quick, everyone make a surprised face!

 

[Carolus]

This is a few days old, but I found it significant: 200 Ukrainian pilots trained!

This is just basic training, so they are not qualified for any specific jet yet. But it is important to get the next generation of pilots ready. 

 

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defense-one-radio/id1256043663?i=1000674361400

Alright what is this persons forum handle? They literally rehash the last week of the thread, observers in Ukraine, how the army is or is not taking on lessons FROM Ukraine. The Microsoft heads up display for individual soldiers(It has issues). And the state of the army' long range cannon program(sadly it ALSO has issues).

 

50 minutes ago, Carolus said:

 

Quick, everyone make a surprised face!

 

The guy who owns the most important space/defense company in the U.S. is a Russian sympathizer, and Putin's pal. I don't see how that could possibly be a problem.

[Carolus]

I saw someone mention how it is interesting that we see North Korean troops being "rented out" to Russia before we see Belarussian troops. 

Lukashenko continues to be the most gymnastic ballet dancer on the European political floor.

[panzermartin]

 

While he makes some sense, it's funny because this guy I think made his fortune from "how to make dollars from thin air" 

[omae2]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Exactly on point on the islands, especially Penghu, possession of  which would give China an unsinkable EW/ISR platform within 50kms of Kaohsiung and the most viable landing beaches. Of course, the Taiwanese have dug in there in quite some force, so taking it isn't notably easier than a mainland invasion....

However, I'm sure you'll agree that when you have an economy that is still largely export driven, getting in a naval war with your biggest customers outside your home ports, so that they 'quarantine' your shipments to pretty much everyone for a couple of years might not be the most brilliant strategy.

...Unless you bet the farm on a  Trumpidiocracy suing for peace instantly, terrified of the Magabase missing its Walmart tat.

But doubtless that's all provided for in that  thousand year Chinese Hari Seldon plan that we barbarians are all too dumb to comprehend.

China's silk road  is a possible solution for this problem.  It will make it possible to export into the middle east and Europe or even using their ports to ship goods all over the world. They are hell bend getting railway connection all over the Balkans. In Serbia they finished the works in Hungary their was a hold up because technical issues but the way Hungarian railroad corporation is deteriorating withing five years the Chinese will be able to simply buy it then use the tens of thousands of Chinese migrant in my country to reshape it to their needs. Just so you understand what is that technical issue, they literally bringing their own safety device so the newly build railroads or the existing railroad that gonna be reconstructed will be using Chinese technology and tools.

[Vanir Ausf B]

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

Alright what is this persons forum handle? They literally rehash the last week of the thread, observers in Ukraine, how the army is or is not taking on lessons FROM Ukraine. The Microsoft heads up display for individual soldiers(It has issues). And the state of the army' long range cannon program(sadly it ALSO has issues).

I'll check it out. Thanks!

I'll raise you two more.

https://geopolitics-decanted.simplecast.com/episodes/inside-the-drone-war-arms-race-in-ukraine

Fairly technical discussion on (mostly) drones. An interesting comment about HARM missiles towards the end.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-do-you-adapt-under-fire/id1589548143?i=1000674315703

General Mick Ryan as guest.

 

Edited Friday at 09:30 AM by Vanir Ausf B

[ArmouredTopHat]

Interesting to say the least. 

[LongLeftFlank]

49 minutes ago, omae2 said:

China's silk road  is a possible solution for this problem.  It will make it possible to export into the middle east and Europe or even using their ports to ship goods all over the world. They are hell bend getting railway connection all over the Balkans. In Serbia they finished the works in Hungary their was a hold up because technical issues but the way Hungarian railroad corporation is deteriorating withing five years the Chinese will be able to simply buy it then use the tens of thousands of Chinese migrant in my country to reshape it to their needs. Just so you understand what is that technical issue, they literally bringing their own safety device so the newly build railroads or the existing railroad that gonna be reconstructed will be using Chinese technology and tools.

We're quite a bit OT here, so the following comments are dumbed down for brevity. I've always been skeptical of OBOR for a few reasons:

1. Rail freight is generally no match economically for modern containerised shipping across long distances. China's play to become monopolist workshop of the world depends on gigantic scales and massively undercutting on costs to channel stuff, well, everything.

2. While China Inc. is on a build-anything-anywhere-for-whatever-price binge right now, a rail line across the Himalayas and passing through multiple unstable nations that they can't deploy Chinese marines to (yet) is a massively expensive gray infra project with a very uncertain payback period.

3. In the event of a global embargo on Chinese goods due to a Straits crisis, as discussed, that rail line will be pretty easy to cut, again and again.

4. By that point, if not well before then, the intended European destination markets will have figured out that they need to make their own goods again, in nearby places like, well, Ukraine. While Middle Eastern industrialised nations like Turkey (and Iran) have no intention of letting a flood of Chinese crap put them all out of work either. So who's doing all the buying at the end of this Silk Route? Africans?

....Finally that Yellow Peril / Fifth Column thing isn't really a serious threat. In general the moment Chinese get outside the Middle Kingdom they start doing things in their own enterprising way. I'd take them as immigrants in a heartbeat, over pretty much any other group. There will always be spies, but racist immigration policies won't do a thing about that.

[MSBoxer]

Regarding the reports on Putin/Musk love fest -

Unsourced reports in the last days of an election deserve a healthy dose of salt in my experience.  Just as the Steele Dossier, reports of Russian collusion and illegal servers all turned out to be sensationalized or disproven in the past. 

Edited Friday at 11:37 AM by MSBoxer

[Lieutenant Ash]

17 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I kinda strain my eye muscles rolling them when I read about the “Houthis = Blue Water Navy is a’ok!”

First off the strategic impacts of the Houthi actions are not small and a lot of shipping has been redirected:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sea_crisis

In fact it is down by about half of pre-fuss. As to blue water navies, well the Houthis are more like an insurgency than a nation state, and their operations match. While they have managed to lob a few dozen drones at carrier groups, they are doing so sporadically. A few dozen is like maybe 40. As we have seen in Ukraine forces are adding a couple zeros to that number…per day.

Further, the Houthis have not fielded surface (or God help us, sub-surface) unmanned vehicles, or hybrids. The UA has and the effect on the Russian Black Sea Fleet has been pretty dramatic. So while we all enjoy a nice day with heads in sand and sun on our bums, I think our maritime forces are going to have a Come to Jesus moment all their own in the near future.

https://interestingengineering.com/military/houthi-submarine-drone-red-sea

Houthi undersea drones are already a thing.

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, Lieutenant Ash said:

https://interestingengineering.com/military/houthi-submarine-drone-red-sea

Houthi undersea drones are already a thing.

I stand corrected. Damn, this whole unmanned thing is hard to keep up with.

What we are probably looking at in the maritime domain is a complex denial swarm combination of air, surface and subsurface systems. And then there are hybrids (sea to air) which we know the Chinese are already working on. Once an opponent can produce that with both density and sustain it, our maritime power is going to be challenged. We have watched the UA push the Black Sea fleet into port - and then promptly blew them up in port, with less than this.

[MikeyD]

Sounds like someone's bending over backwards to defend Musk. This isn't new news to anyone whose been paying attention. Also, Steele Dossier dismissed by some Rupert Murdoch owned media outlet doesn't make it any less factual.

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, Carolus said:

 

Quick, everyone make a surprised face!

 

So here's a question.  The Russia is using someone without them knowing they are being used, but said person is a bonafide genius, does this make him a "Useful Idiot Genius"?

Space X's shareholders should be concerned about this, though with Musk owning 54% there's no simple answer to the problem.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I stand corrected. Damn, this whole unmanned thing is hard to keep up with.

What we are probably looking at in the maritime domain is a complex denial swarm combination of air, surface and subsurface systems. And then there are hybrids (sea to air) which we know the Chinese are already working on. Once an opponent can produce that with both density and sustain it, our maritime power is going to be challenged. We have watched the UA push the Black Sea fleet into port - and then promptly blew them up in port, with less than this.

The costs of effectively shutting down a seaway is likely beyond most non-state actors, perhaps even if a capable state provides the hardware.  The open environment around a ship provides lots and lots of opportunities for detection and defense at a distance.  Countermeasures are also long, long established and proven effective.  Kinda the exact opposite of the land warfare.

This is not to say that individual attacks against individual ships couldn't be effective.  Even with proper military escorts it will be challenging, just like it was with the Somali pirates.  But just like with the Somali pirates, it complicates shipping instead of shutting it down.

Steve

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So here's a question.  The Russia is using someone without them knowing they are being used, but said person is a bonafide genius, does this make him a "Useful Idiot Genius"?

Space X's shareholders should be concerned about this, though with Musk owning 54% there's no simple answer to the problem.

Steve

There's intelligence and then there is wisdom. Musk is clearly intelligent but he's as leadable as a lamb by anyone with resources who bothers to try. 

[MSBoxer]

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

Sounds like someone's bending over backwards to defend Musk. This isn't new news to anyone whose been paying attention. Also, Steele Dossier dismissed by some Rupert Murdoch owned media outlet doesn't make it any less factual.

I am not bending over at all, nor am I defending Musk.  I am simply pointing out that it is wise to question any and all unsourced revelations close to an election.

FYI - I was unaware that Murdoch controls the Associated Press, The BBC and the NY Times.

Now, let's return to the topic of the conflict in Ukraine

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So here's a question.  The Russia is using someone without them knowing they are being used, but said person is a bonafide genius, does this make him a "Useful Idiot Genius"?

Space X's shareholders should be concerned about this, though with Musk owning 54% there's no simple answer to the problem.

Steve

The U.S. Government needs to give him a choice between a truly enormous, literally maybe the biggest ever written, check, and a great deal of unpleasantness. Of course if Trump wins Trump, Putin, and Elon, and can have a morning zoom call with coffee, and civilization is just bleeped.

[ArmouredTopHat]

28 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The costs of effectively shutting down a seaway is likely beyond most non-state actors, perhaps even if a capable state provides the hardware.  The open environment around a ship provides lots and lots of opportunities for detection and defense at a distance.  Countermeasures are also long, long established and proven effective.  Kinda the exact opposite of the land warfare.

We have even seen the Russians somewhat mitigate the USV drone attacks just by bothering to put helicopters up in the air with machine guns. Outside of the couple of jury rigged sam launchers there is not a whole lot the drones can do if they are caught. Unlike an FPV, the USVs are not exactly worth $500 either so they take some time to build and mass. 

I doubt undersea options would fare too well either, given the plethora of ASW warfare available to any competent sea power in both detection and destruction. Sea mines and massed ASM remain the biggest issue for fleets going forward more than drone attacks I think, the former being disturbingly stealthy without much in the way of counters besides specialised means, the latter being used to simply overwhelm PD networks at considerable range. 

 

Edited Friday at 03:22 PM by ArmouredTopHat