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How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?


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2 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Smaller numbers of the computer-controlled, self-propelled Caesar guns from France will also help, Mr. Zhirokhov said, but learning to use them takes months. “Even the French think they are too complicated,” he said.

Last paragraph, you skim-reader, you! :P

 

 

Thanks. I admit I read (too) quickly 😂. I have never heard in my unit that it is too complex a weapon (by NCO or even officer). The 155mm TRF-1 for example is more complex for me with its deployment system (setup with the help of a scooter or car motor). But like everything, everything is relative, and a matter of perspective. As some have noted however, the M777 was not deployed with all of its components so this may be a sign that it was deemed too complicated. I do not really know 😐

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7 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Thanks. I admit I read (too) quickly 😂. I have never heard in my unit that it is too complex a weapon (by NCO or even officer). The 155mm TRF-1 for example is more complex for me with its deployment system (setup with the help of a scooter or car motor). But like everything, everything is relative, and a matter of perspective. As some have noted however, the M777 was not deployed with all of its components so this may be a sign that it was deemed too complicated. I do not really know 😐

I suspect the M777s deployed to Ukraine had the US digital comms gear removed because it's not compatible with current Ukrainian gear.

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Despite the nice simple maps for us civvies, that Times article on the Donbass betrayed its own author's lack of understanding of the logistics, military process and operational flows of this war:

Quote

With troops and equipment dwindling, the battle for the Donbas is likely to be the last major offensive of the war.

Ehh, last RUSSIAN offensive, probably of this year. 

Not mentioning Ukraine in that paragraph displays a lack of knowledge of the rebuilt and steadily increasing capacity of the UKR forces, especially considering that Kharkhiv was a direct Ukrainian attack and not a follow-up op like Kiev. It gives the impression that Ukraine has no hand in its fate.

This article suggests the authors' bias of Ukraine as still a supine victim, that Russia could freeze the conflict, that Russia stil holds the trump cards. It isn't, Ukraine wont let it and it doesn't.

 

Edited by Kinophile
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14 minutes ago, Splinty said:

I suspect the M777s deployed to Ukraine had the US digital comms gear removed because it's not compatible with current Ukrainian gear.

That's been my assumption all along.  Tight integration of proprietary systems is a very good, and highly desirable, thing for the US generally.  However, increasing dependencies upon proprietary hardware/software all connected together and working together does have some downsides.  In this case providing only a part of the entire digital battlefield ecosystem might run into practical problems.  SeinfeldRules can maybe talk a bit more about that without having to kill us after ;)

My impression is that there probably is some functionality with the M777 digital systems even without all the supporting systems, but that might not be enough to risk it falling into Russian hands.

Back to the point about "too complicated" systems being withheld from Ukraine, I think we've seen a shift in logic over the past month.  At first it was to get Ukraine things it could use nearly immediately because that's what Ukraine needed the most at the time AND it wasn't clear how long the hot part of the war was going to last.  Two things have changed since the early days:

  1. Ukraine proved to the world that it was capable of keeping the "hot" part of the war very hot indeed.  This assured weapons suppliers that sending longer term systems (i.e. ones that need months of training and logistics support) right now had a purpose vs. waiting for things to settle down and doing a less rushed effort.
  2. The vast expenditure of Soviet caliber ammo meant that Ukraine would likely run out of things that go boom long before it ran out of the other things needed to keep the war "hot".  Since there is a limited capacity to supply Ukraine with Soviet calibers, getting them on NATO standard equipment ASAP has to be a priority.

Couple this with the overall geopolitical situation where Western populations are demanding Ukraine be helped at the same time Russian threats of retaliation are no longer as much of a concern (and lack credibility fort he most part) and it's pretty clear that the political landscape has changed for most countries.  Even Germany, BTW.  While it is true that Sholtz is dragging his heels, he's doing so with unsustainable procedural and back office methods gimmicks instead of sustainable  policy positions like "Germany must remain neutral".  This is a major geopolitical shift for Germany, whether Sholtz supports it or not.

Steve

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Our M777 needs a specific American system to be able to pass data for fire missions, but is still able to operate its self laying and self locating systems independently of any outside systems. I imagine there must be some classification issues with the inertial navigation system for those functions that resulted in us having to strip it out. 

There is certainly still a significant amount of benefit to having that self locating ability even if you can’t receive fire mission data. 
 

Edited by SeinfeldRules
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19 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Despite the nice simple maps for us civvies, that Times article on the Donbass betrayed its own author's lack of understanding of the logistics, military process and operational flows of this war:

Ehh, last RUSSIAN offensive, probably of this year. 

Not mentioning Ukraine in that paragraph displays a lack of knowledge of the rebuilt and steadily increasing capacity of the UKR forces, especially considering that Kharkhiv was a direct Ukrainian attack and not a follow-up op like Kiev. It gives the impression that Ukraine has no hand in its fate.

This article suggests the authors' bias of Ukraine as still a supine victim, that Russia could freeze the conflict, that Russia stil holds the trump cards. It isn't, Ukraine wont let it and it doesn't.

 

No, it is more simple than that.  War is a specialized field that requires specialized training and experience in order to develop meaningful coverage.  Every war is different, but some are more different than others.  This is one of the "more different" types.  Generalized journalists require insights from specialists within a field to help shape their narrative and to indicate areas that need further exploration.  A good journalist knows how to knit all this stuff together in a way that the general population can understand, which is something a specialist generally can't do effectively.

The problem we're seeing here is that a HUGE chunk of the specialists (i.e. war experts) don't have a good grasp of what is going on in the field nor what it means in terms of the larger picture.  It is akin to asking the best military experts of 1939 for their opinion on Germany's chances for victory against France.  The journalists would be asking the right people the right questions, but they would be getting the wrong answers because that is what their sources provided to them.

Think of the arc of this thread here.  A thread populated by people with a particular interest in warfare and, in many cases, the same exact hardware and terrain relevant to this war.  We don't have career arses to cover and invite a wide array of people to participate in our discussions.  Even off-the-wall ideas are examined and discussed.  Heck, even ardent pro-Russian views were debated until the original authors figured out there was no traction to be had and withdrew from further conversation.

Yet it took more than a month to get our feet under ourselves, even though there were voices right from the start saying that Russia had already lost the war.

This is a complex war with so many moving parts that I can forgive the journalists for not getting the details right.  What I have a harder time with is the experts who aren't doing their homework or revising their thinking based on the facts of this war.  Fortunately, I think fewer of the Chicken Little and traditionalist experts are being listened to now compared to 3 months ago. 

Steve

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15 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

Our M777 needs a specific American system to be able to pass data for fire missions, but is still able to operate its self laying and self locating systems independently of any outside systems. I imagine there must be some classification issues with the inertial navigation system for those functions that resulted in us having to strip it out. 

There is certainly still a significant amount of benefit to having that self locating ability even if you can’t receive fire mission data. 
 

Thanks for that!  This is what I gathered from your previous comments, so I'm glad I didn't have it screwed up in my head :D

To summarize, in this instance there seems to be a combination of reasons why the systems were stripped.  My gut says that someone in the Pentagon put it this way...

"Our integrated digital artillery systems are a critical component of the US' warfighting capability.  Our adversaries don't likely have their hands on any of this and we need to keep it that way.  We need to consider that much of the functionality of the M777's digital components are moot without the rest of the stuff we definitely aren't providing to Ukraine.  So is the residual benefit of the self locating/laying features on its own valuable enough to America's short term war aims to justify putting a critical system at long term risk?"

My point is the question probably wasn't "does the self laying/locating system have value to Ukraine without all the other stuff" but rather "is the US' strategic goal of taking Russia down a few pegs through proxy more valuable than guarding a critical capability for a direct conflict with Russia and China?"

Honestly, I don't have enough info to know what the right call is.  Certainly the Pentagon made the more conservative call to keep cards close to its chest.  I suspect that was the correct call.

Steve

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8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

My point is the question probably wasn't "does the self laying/locating system have value to Ukraine without all the other stuff" but rather "is the US' strategic goal of taking Russia down a few pegs through proxy more valuable than guarding a critical capability for a direct conflict with Russia and China?"

Military told the pentagon that the "M777 is xx% less effective without the electronics"

pentagon answered "Then we will give the Ukrainians xx% more of the systems and ammo"

solved

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9 hours ago, c3k said:

The dominance of ranged fires is interesting. Whether it's artillery or precision guided missiles, observation and weight of fire are the key.

Have I mentioned the need for the US to produce a good 8" gun lately?  ;)

Whichever side can bring it's artillery to bear against the enemy's, will be the side that dominates the fight and wins. Counter-battery fires are critical. Curtail the enemy's artillery, enable your artillery to pummel the enemy positions, and then move forward with infantry and armor, then shove your artillery forward to push your "bubble" further...seems to be the solution.

All of which pivots on the ability to observe your ranged fires.

The days of the stubby howitzer are over. Today, the battle goes to the guns with range. (155L39 doesn't cut it anymore: 155L52 or 155L59 are the key, followed soon by the 203L59. Oh, and every gun section gets a geolocating drone or two.)

I agree with everything you just said, but I think your emphasis is slightly off. The drones are not an afterthought. The contest to keep your drones up and shoot the other guys down is now very close to the highest priority on the battlefield, at least in any fight that has a chance at being a contest. Nothing was going to let Georgia beat Russia in 2008, the force ratio was just too tilted. But in a remotely even contest winning the drone battle leads to winning the long range fires battle, which leads to winning the BATTLE. I am assuming that comms and doctrine are sorted well enough that both side can act on the information. This is certainly true for the Ukrainians in this war, and seems to be a maybe, sometimes, thing for the Russians.

NATO/The West cannot assume its current drone doctrine is good enough, it cannot assume its current drone fleet is survivable against a competent opponent. The efforts already underway to put real air defense systems back into our ground forces must be pushed as hard as the bureaucracy will stand and then some. I also think it is unwise to count on the current configuration of the air force to solve this problem. Chasing geese sized drones down at one or two thousand meters is NOT the problem they have been working on, Much less the ones at one or two HUNDRED meters. For one little extra thought, what you are shooting the drones down with can't cost 30X what the drone does.

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24 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Too bad he got lost in time. It is a different world these past few decades and old Henry relies on a world view that is no longer applicable. Ukraine needs our support, certainly not the advice he shared.

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21 hours ago, dan/california said:

Finally, now just get some better AA systems in there!

The Beeb just caught up on this one. Interesting point in their "timeline story":

"Several other countries were willing to send Harpoons to Ukraine, US officials and congressional sources have said, adding that no nation had wanted to be the first or only nation to send Harpoons, fearing reprisals from Russia if a ship is sunk with a Harpoon from their stockpile."

Does anyone know whether the ammunition for the Danish land-based launchers are different from the ship-launched ones that everyone else will be able to offer? I'm hoping not, so the missiles from other powers will be useable by the shore-defense batteries.

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7 minutes ago, womble said:

The Beeb just caught up on this one. Interesting point in their "timeline story":

"Several other countries were willing to send Harpoons to Ukraine, US officials and congressional sources have said, adding that no nation had wanted to be the first or only nation to send Harpoons, fearing reprisals from Russia if a ship is sunk with a Harpoon from their stockpile."

Does anyone know whether the ammunition for the Danish land-based launchers are different from the ship-launched ones that everyone else will be able to offer? I'm hoping not, so the missiles from other powers will be useable by the shore-defense batteries.

I'd risk  assuming that launch containers are the same as in shipborne versions, both being hot-launch, launched and an angle etc. If Argentinians managed to hook land-based Exocets to Super Etendards in a matter of weeks, substituting ship-launched Harpoons in land-based launchers couldn't be that hard, right?

What would be really great is if those Harpoons are followed by NSMs, hopefully Poland could part with 1 or 2 of our 4 batteries if asked very nicely. 

Edited by Huba
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2 hours ago, akd said:

I guess he was flying as a mercenary?

 

Just read a synopsis from someone who read all of the Russian flying forums and it seems he was flying for Wagner and crashed somewhere in the Popasna area.  Which is consistent.

Russian airforces have been quite skittish around Ukrainian frontlines as there are so many MANPADs available.  Since Russia is apparently back to dumb bombs they big exposure to getting downed if attacking troop concentrations.  It wouldn't surprise me if Wagner thought they could do better.  Nope.

Steve

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As economic conditions tighten and country headed towards an induced recession (yes that’s the track the Fed is on to kill inflation), the support for continued unlimited support will probably trend lower, but highly unlikely to evaporate completely.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-economy-inflation-467db62b671b1057ab867cf9a1335c93

I don’t know what any sort of end to conflict will look like and it seems like we’re nowhere near any sort of agreement. Neither side want to budge. 

I can’t picture what victory would look like for either side (Russia or Ukraine) -continued stalemate that continues for years? 
 

Maybe Putin will eventually be replaced but what comes after? Is a completely destabilized and dysfunctional Russia in anyones interest?

Looking back at our involvement in Iraqi we had a stunning victory in 1991, years of an undeclared air war, then invaded in 2003, declared victory (mission accomplished) and spent years stabilizing the situation and I can’t say if Iraq is better off or not-like many other things it just dropped off everyone’s radar…
 

There is a lot of reporting and speculation on the tactical, operational and military strategic level, but the geopolitical end game and implications are very muddy.

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2 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

From the article, Kissinger is quoted as saying:

Quote

"Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante. Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself."

Yesh, talk about not understanding Russia.  Any negotiated deal with Russia would not ensure freedom of Ukraine without also having something like NATO forces stationed along the Russian border.  Since Russia will never agree to that, then there is no possibility of freedom for Ukraine unless Russia is defeated.  And that is a war "against Russia itself" by Russia's own choosing.

Steve

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We surmised that, at a certain point, Russia would try to 'freeze' the war to its advantage. The fighting of the last two weeks was about Russia trying to get to a place where they could then call on their proxies and stooges to start calling for a cease fire in place. All the 'usual suspects' have now started calling for a cease fire.

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