(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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Hope for the best but prepare for a long hard slog to get through the defence lines unless Putins troops collapse.  
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Aug 29, 2023 11:30
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While I believe that Russia fires more artillery rounds a day there have been reports of Ukraine being more accurate with counter battery fire and destroying more guns. It's part of the reason they have had a break through in robotyne.
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Aug 29, 2023 14:59
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https://www.ft.com/content/0b8bb638-fdda-4459-8b59-3b8bafebeac7 Hurray, someone finally got busted (in Germany) for supplying components to Russian military industry. This sounds like a pretty blatant case of specifically trying to bypass sanction rather than the likely more common cases of lack of diligence with third parties.
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Aug 29, 2023 16:18
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I want Ukraine to succeed, this seems like deeply wishful thinking. The task outlined in that video is not remotely on the same level as what you're comparing it to. It's like comparing clearing a house to securing a city. It's a single mined wire obstacle defended by what looks like a single mechanized company, being assaulted by a mechanized infantry brigade with heavy engineer support. It's the sort of easy-mode ideal scenario that's only relevant to training so you can learn how things are supposed to go.
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Aug 29, 2023 17:47
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Chalks posted:This is a terminology issue, but the majority of sources I've seen reference 3 defensive lines with Ukraine now positioned against the second. It's hard to claim the first line is a "buffer zone" when Russia has expended huge amounts of equipment and personnel defending it. If that's not something indicative of a defensive line I don't know what is. Russia has 2 main lines of defense, with auxiliary lines guarding important routes and strategic positions. Robotyne had an auxiliary line in front of it due to its position on a major road route; Ukraine breached the forward line and is now up against the first main line, so "Ukraine has breached the first line of defense" and "Ukraine has only just reached the first line of defense" are both true statements depending on your perspective, depending on whether you're talking locally or the big picture across the front.
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Aug 29, 2023 17:55
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Jarmak posted:The task outlined in that video is not remotely on the same level as what you're comparing it to. It's like comparing clearing a house to securing a city. Hmm, so do I understand correctly that you are saying that the video outlines the easy scenario, and Ukraine is under-resourced for the _easy_ scenario, let alone the harder one that they currently face? Given the losses they have taken already this does not look good for Ukraine, almost hopeless 
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Aug 29, 2023 18:39
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:Hmm, so do I understand correctly that you are saying that the video outlines the easy scenario, and Ukraine is under-resourced for the _easy_ scenario, let alone the harder one that they currently face? Given the losses they have taken already this does not look good for Ukraine, almost hopeless You do not understand correctly, the scenario is easy because it's just training. It's not real. It teaches important stuff, but that's also true about some video games. What you should take away from this is that a NATO-army trying this easy-mode poo poo against a real enemy would need total air superiority to not instantly be shredded.
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Aug 29, 2023 18:45
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The video shows the shock and awe way of just bulldozing through it. Mobility and speed are doctrinally important in that army. Ukraine is fighting a much more soviet war and their approach is necessarily much slower. They've been using superior night fighting and small units a lot more to probe, and they've been targeting Russian artillery specifically. From the accounts I've read they seem to be blowing up a ton of Russian artillery and severely degraded Russian CB ability. Ukraine isn't breaching like NATO would, because it's an army that is built differently (and given the materiel they and Russia have, that's arguably the right approach)
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Aug 29, 2023 18:50
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Any talk of NATO battle doctrine being applied in Ukraine is a fruitless endeavour without the enabling elements that make NATO doctrine work in the first place. If you don't have witheringly oppressive CAS (kept safe by fierce CAP/SEAD sorties) glassing the enemy artillery, C&C, logistics, EWAR, armor, AT emplacements, and well timed cruise missile strikes coordinating with a large scale mechanized advance and a huge amount of heavy engineering assets to maintain your mobility, (and probably doing the hardest part at night with the entire force utilizing night/thermal optics) it's just simply not going to work. It's even dumber to criticize the Ukrainian military for not engaging in a suicide push into the Surovikin line when they're still firing a handful of cruise missiles off macgyver'ed SU-24's, they're at least 6-12 months out from fielding maybe 2 squadrons of F-16's, they don't have near enough mine clearing engineering assets, they're still dealing with huge gaps in medium-long range precision fires (get these motherfuckers tomahawks and ATACMS stat ffs), and they still don't have the quantities of artillery systems and ammunition to really use them to full effect. e: Although the criticism of Ukraine not using smoke enough does seem to be a fair one, has the West provided them with a huge number of smoke shells for artillery and mortars? Mederlock fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 19:05
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Germany has sent them some 155mm smoke shells, but it's not like Germany has large quantities, not being very fires based. But Ukraine should have tons of soviet smoke stuff, shouldn't it? It's not like old soviet gear is lacking the smoke department.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:18
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:Hmm, so do I understand correctly that you are saying that the video outlines the easy scenario, and Ukraine is under-resourced for the _easy_ scenario, let alone the harder one that they currently face? Given the losses they have taken already this does not look good for Ukraine, almost hopeless No you do not understand correctly, Ukraine is not facing the easy scenario, or even a scenario of remotely similar scale. It's the easy scenario because it's simple and straightforward, the defending forces are overmatched by the doctrinally appropriate amount, all necessary resources are readily available and easily coordinated, and most importantly: the enemy force is sitting there letting you execute a plan designed specifically to counter them without taking any steps to adjust and counter you. It's also, and I can't stress this enough, not remotely of similar scale of operation. The Russian lines consist of multiple interlocking networks of those sorts of fortifications over tens of kilometres. A single line of tank ditch+mines+triple strand supported by dug in fighting positions is something a couple companies can put together in days, the Russians have been digging in multiple divisions for months.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:18
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:Hmm, so do I understand correctly that you are saying that the video outlines the easy scenario, and Ukraine is under-resourced for the _easy_ scenario, let alone the harder one that they currently face? Given the losses they have taken already this does not look good for Ukraine, almost hopeless The issue with the comparison you're trying to make is that you're attempt to compare oranges vs apples, and then complaining that the orange did not perform just like the apple. To put it bluntly, that's a training exercise where the force that is training has a situation that they are absolutely perfectly suited for and already have supremacy over the battlefield, and also is just training. Ukraine is not in that sort of situation, so comparing the two are worthless. EDIT: To put it most simply, you're criticizing Ukraine for not winning as quickly in a real war as the US did in a training exercise, while ignoring that Ukraine is facing defensive lines much bigger and deeper and more heavily fortified while under actual fire and with lesser equipment. The fact that Ukraine is making progress this quickly is actually kinda shocking. Kchama fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 19:18
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That mechanized breach video has been circulated in U.S. Army training schools for years. It is the ideal breach conditions and works under a lot of assumptions ("everything" superiority). Like someone else said, it's easy mode. The biggest weakness of U.S. training, as noted by Ukrainian soldiers going through that training, is scale. That brigade running the exercise was the absolute largest formation that the national training centers can support at once. So, one ABCT, a hand waved 100-200 meter deep mine field and a company to battalion sized OPFOR. Ukraine and Russia are now the leading experts in the world at actual formation-on-formation warfare. My point is, I don't think we can use any equivalent from the last 40 years to compare with what's happening on the ground now. Especially considering the addition of newer technology like drones.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:19
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Kchama posted:The issue with the comparison you're trying to make is that you're attempt to compare oranges vs apples, and then complaining that the orange did not perform just like the apple. Also lets be very clear, that's not even training, it's an animation of how the training should go if executed perfectly. Actual real life training doesn't even go that well. An infantry brigade can't execute lunch in a half hour. Jarmak fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 19:27
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I saw a tweet the other day that said there was a Russian missile strike on a warehouse in Khmelnytskyi a few weeks ago that had a lot of secondary explosions. There were suspicions at the time that it was a main storage area for Storm Shadow missiles. This seems to have been correct as the amount of deep stikes from Ukraine as dropped off to zero. It's also the reason why Germany said they were looking thinking about sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine a few weeks ago.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:31
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Speaking of air superiority is it something realistically achievable even on a brief local basis in a conflict of this level? It seems like defenses are strong enough on both sides that putting anything in the area beyond drones is suicidal.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:38
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Mr. Apollo posted:I saw a tweet the other day that said there was a Russian missile strike on a warehouse in Khmelnytskyi a few weeks ago that had a lot of secondary explosions. There were suspicions at the time that it was a main storage area for Storm Shadow missiles. This seems to have been correct as the amount of deep stikes from Ukraine as dropped off to zero. It's also the reason why Germany said they were looking thinking about sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine a few weeks ago. I almost wonder why we haven't transferred stock of old AGM84E SLAMs. Ukraine was given ground-based launch platforms for Harpoons and SLAMs are essentially the same missile. I doubt it's plug and play but launching an AGM84E from an AGM84D launcher has got to be easier than dropping JDAMs from MIG29s.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:44
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What are the accounts/reports/articles people in here are citing about Ukraine destroying Russian artillery at a rate high enough to give them an artillery advantage?
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Aug 29, 2023 19:52
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Kammat posted:Speaking of air superiority is it something realistically achievable even on a brief local basis in a conflict of this level? It seems like defenses are strong enough on both sides that putting anything in the area beyond drones is suicidal. It’s hard to say, but this sort of issue is precisely why the US Air Force has been trying to retire non-stealth aircraft like the A-10 even if it upsets Republicans.
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Aug 29, 2023 19:53
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While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? When was the last time in history that an army successfully performed a full frontal assault against multiple layers of prepared defences (without air superiority) and won? Has this ever happened? Who can they learn from? Without proper historical parallels to inspire us, it just seems to me that they are burning precious Ukrainian lives throwing them into the Russian lines for seemingly nothing in a strategy that has never been proven to work. It’s deeply depressing.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:13
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None of us "understand the strategy" because none of us are experienced military leaders.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:18
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? Very carefully. You have to understand that there's more ways to it than the NATO way. It takes more time, and by extension, casualties. It's also causing more casualties on Russians, though, so it's more like a battle of attrition until Russian artillery and defensive positions are weakened enough that movement becomes easier. The tactics on both sides also evolve as the battle goes. quote:Without proper historical parallels to inspire us, it just seems to me that they are burning precious Ukrainian lives throwing them into the Russian lines for seemingly nothing in a strategy that has never been proven to work. It’s deeply depressing. That's because you're fixated on your preconceptions. This is nothing compared to the meat grinders of WW2, let alone WW1.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:21
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? Okay, could you maybe try learning and understanding before you go straight to assuming the sky is falling? Like "when was the last time?" -- motherfucker this is the biggest armed conflict in Europe for 80 loving years. Yes, it's bad and scary but freaking out isn't helpful.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:21
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive The Germans retreated to the Hindenburg Line, but the Allies broke through the line with a series of victories, starting with the Battle of St Quentin Canal on 29 September. The offensive, together with a revolution breaking out in Germany, led to the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended the war with an Allied victory. The term "Hundred Days Offensive" does not refer to a battle or strategy, but rather the rapid series of Allied victories.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:22
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The Hundred Days Offensive relied on wider factors than just the tactics used by the Allies, namely: * The Germans being utterly exhausted after 4 years or war and enduring a long, starvation inducing economic blockade; * German morale collapsing after their last roll of the dice on the Western Front (Spring Offensive) failed; * Parallel collapses in other theatres as their various allies dropped out of the war (meaning more allied troops would be freed up); * Inevitable long-term defeat through attrition as large numbers of fresh American troops began to arrive in theatre, bolstering the Allies, plus US industry providing war materials, etc; They'd lost and their troops knew it, and saw no point in dying needlessly to prolong the inevitable. The takeaway is it required a total implosion of the German military and domestic political situation for those tactics to work. We're a long way off Russia experiencing that kind of complete collapse, or facing that kind of disparity in numbers (bar elements of NATO entering the war and it somehow not going nuclear).
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Aug 29, 2023 20:38
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The UAF have been hopelessly outmatched and days from falling since day 1 of this fight. And here we are a year and a half later as they launch an offensive to take back territory. Breathless chicken little takes got old after the first month, and they're incredibly irritating
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Aug 29, 2023 20:40
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? You do what Ukraine seems to be doing and grind it out with *reported* superior CB fire and slow methodical advances and you see which side really has the will to see it through to the bitter end.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:46
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? quote:When was the last time in history that an army successfully performed a full frontal assault against multiple layers of prepared defences (without air superiority) and won? Has this ever happened? Who can they learn from? quote:Without proper historical parallels to inspire us, it just seems to me that they are burning precious Ukrainian lives throwing them into the Russian lines for seemingly nothing in a strategy that has never been proven to work. It’s deeply depressing. It would have been nice to see the Ukraine do a NATO style full press maneuver offensive, but the West isn't willing to open the floodgates of support to the extent needed for that. The Ukrainian military is smart enough (after one smallish attempt) to recognize that and is instead trying (somewhat successfully) to use the stuff they do have as effectively as possible. That the results aren't that spectacular on a map is your problem, not theirs.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:46
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? It's a new paradigm in warfare that has no true analogous historical examples, and even if it did it wouldn't matter much. Every conflict is unique, and trying to adhere to the lessons of the past to inform the present too strictly is a fool's errand. Did the lesson's of the Korean war play out in Vietnam? This conflict is very unique, with very large conscript forces supporting a professional volunteer core on both sides, huge amounts of precision fires available on both sides, a dearth of drones for observation and attack, a lack of airpower playing a decisive role, and the capabilities gaps between RUS/UA, such as access to night/thermal optics and extremely accurate artillery on UA's side compared to Russia's access to long range cruise missiles and EWAR(amongst many other such differences). We won't know what strategies and equipment were essential to victory in this conflict until well after it's over. It seems like UA is betting on laying a heavy blanket across the whole frontline to strain RU logistics across the board, while they use their most precise and advanced capabilities to commit a death by a thousand cuts approach to all of the most important targets in their southern offensive. Being able to neuter Russia's artillery advantage in the zone of their main assaults, and being able to have their assault forces perform attacks at night with superior access to thermal and night vision optics while their precision guided munitions hit supply concentrations and C&C centers might turn out to be highly effective at softening that front for a big final push before the mud season and winter slows things down. Or perhaps RU will have another successful wave of mobilization, procure the munitions and supplies they need from North Korea and other similar actors, and keep putting out layers of aBlyative sacrificial mobiks like a never ending onion and exhaust Ukraine's offensive potential. Who knows?
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Aug 29, 2023 20:47
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Tigey posted:
I mean if that's the strategy that's available and Ukraine is pursuing that strategy knowingly then good luck to them. It's just the flipside of Putin's "wait for Republicans to get reelected" strategy.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:55
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tatankatonk posted:What are the accounts/reports/articles people in here are citing about Ukraine destroying Russian artillery at a rate high enough to give them an artillery advantage? FIRMS data has been slowly shifting for quite a while now. That's the hardest evidence we have. Iirc Kofman has been talking about Ukraine specifically targeting Russian artillery. And anecdotal accounts of Ukrainian artillery teams not displacing for longer and longer posted to, uh, places. Also, the war on the rocks podcast mentioned that it was a deliberate strategy of Ukraine to degrade Russian CB. There isn't one big smoking gun, because very little hard information is coming out.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:56
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HolHorsejob posted:The UAF have been hopelessly outmatched and days from falling since day 1 of this fight. And here we are a year and a half later as they launch an offensive to take back territory. Yeah, this too. I mean, they're winning, just slowly. It's not like anyone in Ukraine is planning on stopping any time soon.
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Aug 29, 2023 20:57
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Mr SuperAwesome posted:While I still want Ukraine to win, I just don’t understand the strategy. If it would be hard for a NATO army to perform a full frontal assault - with air superiority that the Ukrainians lack - against multiple layers of prepared defences (anti tank ditches and minefields), then how can the Ukrainians possibly succeed in this scenario when they lack air support? ukraine's military strategy is not to frontally assault russian forces and achieve victory via total immediate conquest, currently their goal is more to fight an attritional fight and moving the front line around matters because it puts russian supply lines within range of Ukrainian artillery, thus enabling them to significantly increase the rate of attrition and logistical pressure that russian forces face. like ukraine would no doubt love a total russian defensive collapse, but no one is banking on that in related news, US apparently recently approved sending Ukraine cluster rockets for himars/m270 in addition to the 155mm rounds they approved a bit over a month ago. those will be impactful in their attritional fight. also if anyone has seen anything especially recent about the daily shell use of each side, I'd love to see it. Most of the estimates going around on that date back to the first half of this year and even those range all over the place and additionally predate several subsequent phases of the artillery war. from what we've heard, as well, the state of the artillery war varies heavily depending on what exact part of the front you're on, so it's particularly hard to get an accurate, widespread view of that dynamic of the war. spankmeister posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive yeah the closest you could get to Ukraine hoping for a dramatic roll back of Russian positions is something of a kherson-esque repeat of a bunch of logistically unsustainable forces that have been heavily attrited over a month or two of heavy, constant fighting being withdrawn back to positions that can still be reliably supplied. as far as anyone can tell, their pushes against russian positions are oriented around that aim rather than some wild idea that they're going to completely roll over the totality of russian defenses. it's comparatively a lot easier (albeit still a massive undertaking) to make positions untenable than it is to forcefully remove every single russian position Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 20:57
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Frankly I rather reject the paradigm being presented by these "anonymous military / intelligence official critiques" articles, which is that Ukraine is ignoring critical NATO advice in favor of out-dated Soviet tactics. Charging headlong into battle through minefields and artillery bombardment regardless of outcome is absolutely not the "American way", and there's zero chance that a NATO offensive would simply pour troops into a single well-monitored kill zone. The handful of officials who have been able to go on record - like Milley, Radakin, or Petraeus - have generally lauded the Ukrainians for their adaptability in dealing with a very difficult scenario that NATO would also struggle with. In particular, they've described the Ukrainian strategy as "stretch, starve, and strike", consider it to be a workable one, and remain cautiously optimistic about this offensive and the overall war.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 20:57
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DTurtle posted:The Ukraine is fighting much slower, at a much lower intensity in comparison to the US, NATO, WW2 or WW1. No this isn’t true at all. All modern wars are much much higher intensity than either of the world wars. In the pacific in the real poo poo in WWII a marine would see like 40 days in actual combat over four years. In Vietnam the average infantry man saw 240 days of combat in a year. I don’t know what the intensity is in Ukraine, but I do know it’s definitely higher than WWII or WWI.
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Aug 29, 2023 21:07
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Kaal posted:Frankly I rather reject the paradigm being presented by these "anonymous military / intelligence official critiques" articles, which is that Ukraine is ignoring critical NATO advice in favor of out-dated Soviet tactics. Charging headlong into battle through minefields and artillery bombardment regardless of outcome is absolutely not the "American way", and there's zero chance that a NATO offensive would simply pour troops into a single well-monitored kill zone. The handful of officials who have been able to go on record - like Milley, Radakin, or Petraeus - have generally lauded the Ukrainians for their adaptability in dealing with a very difficult scenario that NATO would also struggle with. In particular, they've described the Ukrainian strategy as "stretch, starve, and strike", consider it to be a workable one, and remain cautiously optimistic about this offensive and the overall war. I've seen a few actual experts complaining about that as well. Their theory is that many news organizations are asking some E-2 MP guarding the parking garage what he thinks and then citing it as a "source at the Pentagon."
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Aug 29, 2023 21:12
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Tigey posted:The Hundred Days Offensive relied on wider factors than just the tactics used by the Allies, namely: None of that matter.s He asked for an example where this has even once happened in history. This is one.
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Aug 29, 2023 21:15
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HolHorsejob posted:The UAF have been hopelessly outmatched and days from falling since day 1 of this fight. And here we are a year and a half later as they launch an offensive to take back territory. That really is the heart of it tho, Ukraine has lost about 1/5th of their total territory to Russia and the offensive has not made significant gains.
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Aug 29, 2023 21:17
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https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1696576782881714615DefMon posted:I'm posting this because it might be interesting and create more discussions. I have no opinion on how much of it is true or how close it is to reality yet. This has been translated by google translate. quote:The 108th Airborne Regiment of the RF Armed Forces lost from a third to a half of its personnel in two weeks of fighting in the Rabotino area
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Aug 29, 2023 21:22
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 12:44 |
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Herstory Begins Now posted:ukraine's military strategy is not to frontally assault russian forces and achieve victory via total immediate conquest, currently their goal is more to fight an attritional fight and moving the front line around matters because it puts russian supply lines within range of Ukrainian artillery, thus enabling them to significantly increase the rate of attrition and logistical pressure that russian forces face. How is this supposed to work, though? The Russian population is many times bigger than the Ukrainian population, so they have more manpower. If the Ukrainians fight a war of attrition then they will lose: they are simply shooting themselves in the foot. They need to use cunning, guile, and elan - not attrition! This is not a smart strategy! The same goes for military production: Russia has a native arms industry, Ukraine does not, and is relying on sporadic - and I think we can all agree - insufficient shipments of arms and materiel from the west. Ukraine is suffering extensive losses in materiel (which is to be expected for an attacker) with uncertain prospects of replenishing them. This is the worst possible time to fight a war of attrition! People criticized Marshal Haig, men led by donkeys etc, but on the face of it the current Ukrainian strategy is worse than the Somme, it’s arguably worse than men marching into machine gun fire.
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Aug 29, 2023 21:25
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