How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

47 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

I maintain very fiercely that one cannot use math to describe human behavior, which is illogical and anarchic in even regimented institutions.

You have heard of urban planning for traffic, of course?  Yes, you can use math to describe human behaviour, or grocery stores would have too much or too little produce, buses would have no idea what routes to run and how often and the multi-trillion dollar industry if marketing would be in serious trouble.

"Oh but these aren't war", I hear those of you who are climbing on Clausewitz's grave to die upon.

You have heard of military logistics?  They do all sorts of math based on "human behaviour" in warfare, lots of margins and "spoilage".  If humanity was an impossible puzzle that only artistic genius could figure out, we could never keep them gassed up, fed and bombed up.  Hell we have developed some pretty simple methods to transform those mysterious humans into whatever we want...we call it Basic Training.  And this is without even looking at the hard physics frames around humanity, like we all need sleep, O2, food and water, a hug now and again, and we can't breath underwater for very long and cannot fly unassisted. 

So what?  Oh we are a complex, bordering on chaotic system at times but most people are NPC in this game of life, going around their individual loops day in and day out.  What about "crisis", they can plot fire escape planning based on how fast we will cram an exit, so there is that.

So what to war?  Not sure to be honest.  I don't know how far more complex modeling of human system in warfare will take us.  We applied some pretty simple ones here and were proven more right than wrong and we even used "simple math" like how many tanks Russian's had abandoned.  We basically had a data stream showing all this and the calculus that the Russians were screwed was not that hard to come up with.  

I think it is important to understand that math will likely remain indicative and not definitive, like weather forecasting.  We can say with high accuracy what a series of observed phenomenon are telling us, and shockingly we will us math. However, the context and human-meaning of those phenomenon likely will need human interpretation for some time.  I do not believe we will have models that say definitively "and by Tues you will have won the war", this is like saying "on Tues, at 10:03 am, the wind on your deck will be 12 kph, from this exact direction". 

What I do want to some math behind those indicators.  So you know that when the Afghans all start doing something, not normal, we can pick it up and have a good idea why.  Quantitative assessment that links back to qualitative.

It is the 21st century, I do not buy this "war is all art...let me listen for god's voice and we will know what to do".  Humans are very predictable in many ways and their behaviour follows patterns.  We would do better understanding them and using that to inform us in warfare, as opposed to this weird "finger painting towards victory".  The use of modeling has been part of war since the beginning, the question is how much we trust machines to do and how much we leave to the human minds, the answer is likely somewhere in the middle, at least for now. 

So as to math, one can oversimplify, and one can under-value, which we have seen both on this thread alone.

Edited May 9, 2022 by The_Capt

[DesertFox]

Some nice captured T-80s under new management.

 

 

[DesertFox]

 

 

[Markus86]

I just read this on the german "Zeit" news ticker (https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2022-05/ukraine-russland-krieg-news-liveblog#event_id=ekQ7HPyGcDZHtkAVM88r

Quote

Russia is said to have fended off a Ukrainian attempt to land on Snake Island

The Russian military said it prevented a major landing by Ukrainian troops on Snake Island in the Black Sea. "Over the weekend," Ukrainian airborne units and marines landed on the island, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry said in Moscow.

"The Ukrainian provocation was thwarted by the skilful actions of the Russian units on the island," said Igor Konashenkov. Accordingly, four Ukrainian fighter jets, three attack helicopters with paratroopers on board and 30 drones were destroyed in the fighting and three armored landing craft were sunk. 50 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, Ukraine has not yet confirmed the information.

Previously, consistent reports from both sides suggested heavy fighting around the island 35 kilometers off the southwestern Ukrainian coast. It was taken by Russia at the beginning of the war.

Has anyone read something about a ukrainian attempt to land on snake island? And these casualties numbers, 30 drones??? 

[FancyCat]

 

 

[TheVulture]

7 minutes ago, Markus86 said:

I just read this on the german "Zeit" news ticker (https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2022-05/ukraine-russland-krieg-news-liveblog#event_id=ekQ7HPyGcDZHtkAVM88r

Has anyone read something about a ukrainian attempt to land on snake island? And these casualties numbers, 30 drones??? 

Pretty sure it's rubbish. There were several Ukrainian drone / aircraft attacks on the Russians on snake island,  the videos of which were in this thread.  But a Ukrainian attempt to actually land forces to recapture the island, aside from making absolutely no sense given Russian air and naval superiority (there's no way they expect to hold the island) - there's no evidence that such an attack was attempted. Nothing from the Ukrainian side about it.  No video or anything else from the Russians. And competely implausible claims of numbers from the Russian side. 

Unless Russia manage to come up with some actual evidence, I'd ignore it as "total b$*%@ocks"

[Aragorn2002]

2 hours ago, riptides said:

"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war"

- General Stanley McChrystal

 

That certainly explains a couple of things.

[sross112]

13 minutes ago, Markus86 said:

I just read this on the german "Zeit" news ticker (https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2022-05/ukraine-russland-krieg-news-liveblog#event_id=ekQ7HPyGcDZHtkAVM88r

Has anyone read something about a ukrainian attempt to land on snake island? And these casualties numbers, 30 drones??? 

I think the key part of that article is that it refers to the Russian MOD as the source, so I'm betting it is twisted and has a scale of unbelievability to it.

What does match up is the sinking of a couple patrol craft, air strike on island structures, a landing craft and SPAA destroyed and zapping of a helicopter while unloading troops. All these things were done to the Russians and not by the Russians so they may be trying to spin the defeat. @Haiduk advised that the Ukr Navy only has a single landing craft so it is hard to lose 3, but Russian MOD has killed the entire Ukr Air Force twice now so that matches.

With that being said, there was a lot of attention being paid to Snake Island by the UA forces a couple days ago. Then rumor of one of the aircraft involved in the bombing went down and a release advising of a very senior UkrAF helicopter pilot being killed on a combat mission. So the story probably has some validity in that Ukraine's forces likely did take some losses on operations in that area, but I think the scale is out of whack.

As for an attempt to retake the island it doesn't make a lot of sense. We had a little discussion on it yesterday and it would be symbolic but not a sustainable position. I could see where the TB2 strikes and air strikes were setting the stage for an assault and I could see the UA clearing the island, planting a large flag of Ukraine on it and then leaving, but not trying to reoccupy it at this point. So it is possible they were going to attempt to land some forces by helicopter and took losses but you'd think if they had an invasion force wiped out there would be pictures or videos all over Russian media. 

So possible but not probable and most likely exaggerated losses.

[akd]

This motor rifle company of the 34th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade had at most 32 men at the start of the war in February?

 

[kraze]

12 minutes ago, sross112 said:

but Russian MOD has killed the entire Ukr Air Force twice now so that matches.

Three times.

[Ts4EVER]

Nazi zombies.

[sross112]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I think it is important to understand that math will likely remain indicative and not definitive, like weather forecasting.  We can say with high accuracy what a series of observed phenomenon are telling us, and shockingly we will us math. However, the context and human-meaning of those phenomenon likely will need human interpretation for some time.  I do not believe we will have models that say definitively "and by Tues you will have won the war", this is like saying "on Tues, at 10:03 am, the wind on your deck will be 12 kph, from this exact direction". 

I think the hardest part about modeling for human behavior is accounting for the outliers. To predict an average for a "normal" reaction to a given problem is not very hard, but the variation in perceptions and reactions in human behavior and decision making is pretty huge. False positives and false negatives are fairly common when trying to create algorithms to model human decision making so you are right in seeing them as indicative and not definitive. I think too many people either have it backwards or believe that somehow they can make definitive predictions when the input variables are truly very very hard to quantify.

As for meteorology, I've long said that meteorologist and politician are two perfect jobs. They are the only places you can be consistently wrong and not get fired.  

[kraze]

Hahaha oh wow.

Well I mean those guys were forcibly taking stuff belonging to somebody else, so why not celebrate them

[Vergeltungswaffe]

7 minutes ago, akd said:

This motor rifle company of the 34th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade had at most 32 men at the start of the war in February?

 

If that's correct, that's certainly another sign the Russian's wildly underestimated what was going to happen when they rolled across the border.

[Markus86]

Two pictures from an attempted river crossing. 

Quote

Brief description of the photo: Rashists continue to try to cross the Seversky Donets. But once again, unsuccessfully. The tank was hit first. The crew was wounded, tried to swim back, but most likely drowned. Then a tank or infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed, which had just begun to drive onto the pontoon. He got hit, went off the pontoon and rolled over on his side. The crew drowned, the corpse of one of the crew members floats nearby. The BMK-MT tugboat was destroyed next. The rest of the equipment began to turn around and retreat from the crossing. Ukrainian artillery began to work on it. After some time, the Russians tried to drag the first wrecked tank, but lost the BREM-1. A shell lay nearby and one of the sections of the pontoon bridge, having received a hole under the weight of the BREM-1, went under water with it.

 

[Markus86]

1 minute ago, kraze said:

Hahaha oh wow.

Well I mean those guys were forcibly taking stuff belonging to somebody else, so why not celebrate them

I couldn't believe that this really is a picture of Bonnie and Clyde. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_and_Clyde ... 

[Suleyman]

If I was in a T-72/64/80/90 I would only load AP rounds and few at those like 6-8 of them. The coax MG and .50 cal on top is good enough for most engagement supporting infantry. I'd be too scared my turret and I will be launched into orbit in the heavy AT environment. 

I saw a video of a T-72B3 taken multiple AT hits on the side towards the rear, and the outlier tank made it back to the FOB running. I also am lead to believe that both sides take armor losses because crews abandon them for various reasons. Any idea on how the T-90M got destroyed? I like studying the tank side of things in war.

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, Markus86 said:

I couldn't believe that this really is a picture of Bonnie and Clyde. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_and_Clyde ... 

I did a lot of LSD at dead shows, but even my wildest couldn't come up with this insanity.  WTF?!

[Huba]

15 minutes ago, Suleyman said:

If I was in a T-72/64/80/90 I would only load AP rounds and few at those like 6-8 of them. The coax MG and .50 cal on top is good enough for most engagement supporting infantry. I'd be too scared my turret and I will be launched into orbit in the heavy AT environment. 

I saw a video of a T-72B3 taken multiple AT hits on the side towards the rear, and the outlier tank made it back to the FOB running. I also am lead to believe that both sides take armor losses because crews abandon them for various reasons. Any idea on how the T-90M got destroyed? I like studying the tank side of things in war.

Wouldn't save you I'm afraid - what we see in all those "flying turret" situations is ignition of propellant charges, not HE rounds. Also HE is by far the most used tank gun in this conflict, afair Ukrainians only wanted HE rounds delivered for 125mm guns.

[Kraft]

2 hours ago, BeondTheGrave said:

I maintain very fiercely that one cannot use math to describe human behavior, which is illogical and anarchic in even regimented institutions.

It is important to distinguish between math and statistics. A perfect model will yield unusable results with the slightest change but probability can and does every day work in estimating exactly that. Predicting what 1 human will do is close to impossible. Predicting what 10 million will do is just a matter of data.

But when it comes to frontline performance,.. numbers help but will not replace experience, as is the fact in most professions, including those working in applied math fields

Edited May 9, 2022 by Kraft

[TheVulture]

More progress by the Ukrainian counterattack announced today - north of Staryi Saltiv towards Starytsia and the important logistical routes through Vovchansk.

https://t.me/truexanewsua/46028

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, Markus86 said:

I just read this on the german "Zeit" news ticker (https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2022-05/ukraine-russland-krieg-news-liveblog#event_id=ekQ7HPyGcDZHtkAVM88r

Has anyone read something about a ukrainian attempt to land on snake island? And these casualties numbers, 30 drones??? 

Our landing on this bare piece of rocky land has no sense.

This is typical "smoke curtain", when you defeated. As if, "well, we withdrew, but the enemy lost many times more, than we are". Or "it was a plan". Also add Russian propaganda feature to turn all upside down. If they launched a missile in railway station, they say "this was Ukrainans", so here the same case "Ukrianians filmed desroying of own helicopter and pass it off as our". As well as "Ukrainans lost landing boat "Stanislav", but indeed it turned out next Russian Raptor (our Kentavr-class landing boats distantly similar to Raptors, but its can not be confused)  

 

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Our landing on this bare piece of rocky land has no sense.

This is typical "smoke curtain", when you defeated. As if, "well, we withdrew, but the enemy lost many times more, than we are". Or "it was a plan". Also add Russian propaganda feature to turn all upside down. If they launched a missile in railway station, they say "this was Ukrainans", so here the same case "Ukrianians filmed desroying of own helicopter and pass it off as our". As well as "Ukrainans lost landing boat "Stanislav", but indeed it turned out next Russian Raptor (our Kentavr-class landing boats distantly similar to Raptors, but its can not be confused)  

 

Man Haiduk, it must have sucked for Ukraine when you lost that Missile Cruiser.  

[Haiduk]

52 minutes ago, sburke said:

I did a lot of LSD at dead shows, but even my wildest couldn't come up with this insanity.  WTF?!

This was a part of holiday concert, Russian singer Zara sang a song "If there was no war" and behind her the photos of "marrieds, separated by war" should have appeared. I think, either usual stupidity of editors, which take random photos from the Google Images, or deliberate mockery of this "dances on the bones"

Edited May 9, 2022 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Does it now?  I would love to hear what those x and y's are, and I am sure glad someone has got them all figured out.  Before my present gig, I got pretty deep into COIN - was kinda a thing back in the day - and no such metric exist.  Why...and we are back to non-linear.  For example, we had no idea what the general insurrection point in Afghanistan was but the Soviets had already proven that too many "x's" and "the women come out to cut up your remains", too few and the TB has all sorts of freedom.  So what?  It is not about troop ratios or "boots on sand" it is about local buy-in.  But hey I like your plan better, lets do simple math and feel better.  

As to this war, no I am sorry but the math is not simple.  I think we will be unpacking those numbers for the next 20 years trying to figure out what happened 

It was not in any way my my intention to offend, and i sincerely apologize. You are a twenty plus year professional at this and I am not.

 

I was basically referring to the ratios discussed in this article

https://www.army.mil/article/36324/a_historical_basis_for_force_requirements_in_counterinsurgency

Which I think is still a pretty good distillation of the conventional wisdom. Of course you can immediately descend into the weeds over how much lower lower quality indigenous forces that are nominally on your side are accounted for, and very great deal else. Until you arrive at the chart discussed above. My broader point is the we never resourced Afghanistan like we wanted to win. This was always a decision made at the political level, and almost always made rather badly. 

Allow me state AGAIN that was I not directing my previous comment at you. It has been a great privilege to follow your analysis of the current war, and I am grateful for the opportunity.

Edited May 9, 2022 by dan/california
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