Great Power contentions

[spmetla]

Anyway, out of interest, it's worth looking at some maps of the Velyka Novosilka axis in case this does become the area of the main effort. Despite appearances, and the underdevelopment of the fortifications compared to the Tokmak and Polohy axes, and allegations of shoddy work on individual objects, the Russian planners have in fact apparently put a lot of thought and doctrinal attention into the layout of defenses here. Furthermore, some of the downstream operational considerations apply equally to any form of southern campaign.

First, I don't know where this vision of a Ukrainian offensive came from, but it is pretty ridiculous, reflecting a conception of UFOR akin to the image of the US Armed Forces.

Yup, the Russian defenses are well laid out and make excellent use of local topography, their obstacles are tied into natural obstacles to great effect.

Also agree on the concept being a bit ridiculous. That timeline is impossible without air superiority. We're seeing much more brigade-division sized actions which are limited in scope and culminate rather quickly as breaching obstacles is extremely difficult, especially when you've only got finite amount of artillery to achieve the suppress and obscure portions of SOSRA.

I straight-up assess that if this is indeed the strategy, it will fail both in seriously degrading RuFOR or in reclaiming strategically-significant territory, by the end of the year.

Separately, it has long been doubtful to me that the military-political leadership of Ukraine would hype themselves up domestically so much on intent to reclaim territory and just not follow through, since there will be a price to pay. Political pressure does always influence military decision-making.

The goal of reclaiming significant peices of territory does look like it will fail. The offensive potential of the Ukraine just cannot sustain this attritional approach. Looking at Orynx it's easy to see how much western supplied equipment has been destroyed or at least severly damaged, especially in artillery.
Change in topic but this is why I'm fully supportive of the US Army seeking to regain significant long range fires capabilities over its adversaries. In contested airspace one cannot rely on airpower to strike deep in the enemy, especially if its in a short time window that the 96hour air force targeting cycle can't hit fast enough.

And beyond that, the proliferation of Russian Lancet drones basically remains devastating to Ukrainian artillery and special equipment. Be it as it may that their control and accuracy characteristics are mediocre, there's plenty of them, they're easily and quickly dispatched at whatever Russian UAVs uncover, and most importantly, Ukraine still has no answer to them. Jamming is of some use, as it is against any drone either side fields, but the Ukrainians are at a similar disadvantage here as they are in SAMs.

The lancet drones is more why I'm surprised the gepards are more forward deployed, not against attack helicopters. The very small pockets of NATOs SHORAD capabilities have certainly come to light. The threat from enemy helicopters though is where and why the F-16s can be such an important asset. It's not about dogfighting Russians but to contest the airspace enough so those attack helicopters fly low and cannot engage at max range. Certainly shows how every military needs a good mix of high and low tech capability across multiple service branches to truly do air defense.

There definitely seems to be a flaw in the skills or training of the commander and/or soldiers of the brigade (47th Mech) that saw most of the action on the Tokmak axis. Sending small units in a single column into unreconnoitered breaching actions with no or minimal artillery support, gutting companies and losing precious engineering vehicles, even repeating the error multiple times in the same general area in a few days, is already approaching the level of systematic blunder. Two months' training just isn't enough time to master the maneuver of such a formation, even if the Western vehicles are marginally more survivable - though to be precise this does seem most like a problem with the leadership.

The big flaw that I saw was it looked like they were clearing a single breaching lane instead of multiple lanes. Perhaps do to lack of engineer and breaching vehicles. If that's the case then there are only a few (in this case one!) lane down which you can attack which is just madness. The bunching up that we saw though kind of makes sense. Once those first vehicles in the lanes hit a mine or take contact everything behind tends to stop. The spacing between vehicles though is what really gets me though, US doctrine we'd be much farther apart with the only exception being vehicles moving up to provide local direct fire support for those in contact so that recovery vehicles can get the personnel or vehicles back from where they were disabled.
It takes a lot of training and competence to learn not to bunch up. Human psychology likes having a vehicle or person close by to support you but outside of trench clearing and urban combat that's not the right answer.
The western vehicles are certainly more survivable, the amount of Leo2s in which we then see the hatches open post-combat are good indicators that the crew was able to evacuate successfully. This brigade however seemed to have bought in the 'wunderwaffe' problem and used them in a stupid manner. I imagine that brigade commander is probably fired or on very short notice.

The major lesson learned out of all this that I see for the US is that we don't deal with minefields too well and have limited resources to deal with that. The gulf war was the last major breaching action but that was with total air superiority in relatively open desert against a foe that didn't have the morale, training, or equipment to seriously contest the coalition against them.
As the US doesn't use anti-personnel mines anymore (apart from M18 claymores) it means when we make training plans we typically don't have minefields in our way. Simple minefields take away all speed and momentum, we saw it in WWII on the Russian Front and we see it now.

[Shaka_Khan]

I wouldn't be surprised if this civil war in Russia turns out to be true. It reminds me of Russia during WWI.
It could also be deception. I remember a video of the leader of the Wagner Group (Yevgeny Prigozhin) complaining about the lack of supplies. It doesn't seem to be the case now.

[Montmorency]

The goal of reclaiming significant peices of territory does look like it will fail. The offensive potential of the Ukraine just cannot sustain this attritional approach. Looking at Orynx it's easy to see how much western supplied equipment has been destroyed or at least severly damaged, especially in artillery.
Change in topic but this is why I'm fully supportive of the US Army seeking to regain significant long range fires capabilities over its adversaries. In contested airspace one cannot rely on airpower to strike deep in the enemy, especially if its in a short time window that the 96hour air force targeting cycle can't hit fast enough.

Why tanks are still needed, including with the capacity to counter the latest counterpart tanks where encountered.

The lancet drones is more why I'm surprised the gepards are more forward deployed, not against attack helicopters. The very small pockets of NATOs SHORAD capabilities have certainly come to light. The threat from enemy helicopters though is where and why the F-16s can be such an important asset. It's not about dogfighting Russians but to contest the airspace enough so those attack helicopters fly low and cannot engage at max range. Certainly shows how every military needs a good mix of high and low tech capability across multiple service branches to truly do air defense.

The thing is, the Gepards are literally irreplaceable for the time being, and we did indeed see one struck by a Lancet while redeploying back in the spring! In other words, there will be dear Gepard losses whenever they are brought up for extended periods, and out of the three dozen in Ukraine, even if the civil air defense were stripped of them all there is no way they can cover all the enablers even in the south alone.



I guess it would be theoretically possible to succeed so well in counterbattery that RuFOR artillery is silenced, giving an opportunity to cluster entire brigades of own arty, EW, logistics, etc. while covering them with just a platoon or two of Gepards, but then that presents a great target for Russian UPMK and other air-dropped bombs, which Ukraine definitely doesn't have the long-range AD to deter reliably in this circumstance. Heck, at that point even tactical cruise missiles are a great bet. Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock...

The big flaw that I saw was it looked like they were clearing a single breaching lane instead of multiple lanes. Perhaps do to lack of engineer and breaching vehicles. If that's the case then there are only a few (in this case one!) lane down which you can attack which is just madness. The bunching up that we saw though kind of makes sense. Once those first vehicles in the lanes hit a mine or take contact everything behind tends to stop. The spacing between vehicles though is what really gets me though, US doctrine we'd be much farther apart with the only exception being vehicles moving up to provide local direct fire support for those in contact so that recovery vehicles can get the personnel or vehicles back from where they were disabled.
It takes a lot of training and competence to learn not to bunch up. Human psychology likes having a vehicle or person close by to support you but outside of trench clearing and urban combat that's not the right answer.
The western vehicles are certainly more survivable, the amount of Leo2s in which we then see the hatches open post-combat are good indicators that the crew was able to evacuate successfully. This brigade however seemed to have bought in the 'wunderwaffe' problem and used them in a stupid manner. I imagine that brigade commander is probably fired or on very short notice.

The major lesson learned out of all this that I see for the US is that we don't deal with minefields too well and have limited resources to deal with that. The gulf war was the last major breaching action but that was with total air superiority in relatively open desert against a foe that didn't have the morale, training, or equipment to seriously contest the coalition against them.
As the US doesn't use anti-personnel mines anymore (apart from M18 claymores) it means when we make training plans we typically don't have minefields in our way. Simple minefields take away all speed and momentum, we saw it in WWII on the Russian Front and we see it now.

In Military Aviation History's review of that battle, a German Leopard 2 crewman was quoted that the vehicles should be spaced apart by 100m according to Bundeswehr doctrine.

Inability to field multiple attacking columns or groups at the same time has been a tactical plague on both sides almost since the beginning of the war. You don't have to be well-versed in military affairs to rcognize the concepts of mass and momentum delivered in a short time frame. But the absolute modal tactic of the war is sending up a platoon or company in a column until it either retreats or secures the objective and if the former, rinse and repeat. Though of course in more positional battles a success doesn't always mean occupying former enemy positions; turning it into a gray zone is also a common mission.

Many explanations besides insanity have been proposed, though how they combine in reality is unclear: Units have too little skill in combined arms, officers can't figure out the tactical coordination of larger formations, battlefield commanders have their hands tied somehow, there is a pound-foolish lack of loss tolerance in conducting attacks as opposed to initiating them, the perceived risk of preparing larger attacks is too high (concentrations or gathering points in the close rear are frequently targeted by artillery) , or command just have no intention of trying to exploit local breakthroughs but want to see action nevertheless...

Resolving this challenge is evidently still beyond UFOR.

But the bottom line is, without Desert Storm-style air supremacy or North Africa/Kharkiv levels of density, in order to conduct ground maneuver one has to be prepared to push forward mass and absorb high initial casualties. Even against helicopters at standoff range, by being spread out in multiple robust columns while deploying smoke and moving quickly - that's another thing, in this war vehicles are usually driving at school zone speeds it seems - it is possible to make progress despite the threat.

(Re: mines, recall my discussion a few months ago of how potent even sparse minefields are against single-column attacks with low loss tolerance. In WW2, greater loss tolerance and mass plus a broader distribution of tactical maneuver made mines less of a strategic barrier.)



If you look at the large control map from my previous post, you'll see - I might have pointed this out in the past - the very rural triangle between Polohy/Huliaipole, Bilmak, and Velyka Novosilka. Russia put some of the scarcest effort in fortifying that area, likely because it is tens of miles of mostly cross-country driving and they knew it would be difficult for UFOR in its current form to push a large force in there and keep it supplied and on the move.

Is my impression correct that the US Army in this situation, under similar constraints as Ukraine is experiencing, would do their best to try to pierce this part of the front? It is almost guaranteed to be a 'free ride' away from minefields between major outposts, and once you're at Bilmak, you're in the deep rear.

I wouldn't be surprised if this civil war in Russia turns out to be true. It reminds me of Russia during WWI.
It could also be deception. I remember a video of the leader of the Wagner Group (Yevgeny Prigozhin) complaining about the lack of supplies. It doesn't seem to be the case now.

Definitely one for waiting and seeing.

[Montmorency]

Well, this definitely seems like the real McCoy.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I've seen significant resistance, which indicates a reaction, but far too little to influence the progress of events, which indicates a loss of grip on the security apparatus.

[Montmorency]

Well, that allowed for a great variety of explanatory accounts.

EDiT: In better news, Germany has made a very large commitment of Gepards to Ukraine.

[spmetla]

In Military Aviation History's review of that battle, a German Leopard 2 crewman was quoted that the vehicles should be spaced apart by 100m according to Bundeswehr doctrine.

Yeah, that was a good interview he did.

The thing is, the Gepards are literally irreplaceable for the time being, and we did indeed see one struck by a Lancet while redeploying back in the spring! In other words, there will be dear Gepard losses whenever they are brought up for extended periods, and out of the three dozen in Ukraine, even if the civil air defense were stripped of them all there is no way they can cover all the enablers even in the south alone.

You're right that they are irreplaceable. Just goes to show how there needs to be a good SHORAD mix that is currently not fielded in the west. I think those 'skyranger' systems look the most suitable thing to be added to the mix but there's no existing stock of spares to give to Ukraine beyond the few that went there for testing. Hope that it goes to line production soon though industry is undoubtedly waiting to see if there're significant orders. This seems a system that should be produced in the hundreds so it can be present throughout the battlefield but that's not looking to be the case for actual orders.

But the bottom line is, without Desert Storm-style air supremacy or North Africa/Kharkiv levels of density, in order to conduct ground maneuver one has to be prepared to push forward mass and absorb high initial casualties. Even against helicopters at standoff range, by being spread out in multiple robust columns while deploying smoke and moving quickly - that's another thing, in this war vehicles are usually driving at school zone speeds it seems - it is possible to make progress despite the threat.

That's one of the problems in this contested environment, the usual way to deploy smoke is with artillery and to keep up a screen of smoke for even 15 minutes involves a lot of tubes that become very vulnerable to counter battery attacks. The distances are too great for mortar based systems to provide smoke and the threat is too dangerous for ground based smoke pots to assist.

Yup, the progress is slow and against such well prepared defenses tedious. Still they're making gains and undoubtedly taxing the ability of the Russians to use their reserves.

Interesting the Wagner group fallout. I'm curious how many will be relocated to Belarus, if that's all 4k that were involved in the march north that's a brigade of potential combat power taken off the board. Curious to see if there end up being loyalty tests and purges throughout the Army ranks in the following weeks as we did see videos of Russian troops supposedly putting out pro-Wagner videos in the early hours of their taking Rostov.
Those aviation assets and aircrews lost as well as just the fact they had to apply combat power against their own forces behind their own lines is quite the toll. Having to strike your own fuel reserves to deny their use to mutineers is certainly not a high point of military power.

[Montmorency]

The Bradley brigade (47th) just keeps getting torn up. There's one long video in particular of a Bradley and its dismounts getting shit on by mines and arty. If it weren't for the Russians launching typical half-hearted counteroffensives up and down the front in an attempt to spoil the offensive, June '23 might easily be Ukraine's worst month of the war for comparative equipment losses.

[Montmorency]

You're right that they are irreplaceable. Just goes to show how there needs to be a good SHORAD mix that is currently not fielded in the west. I think those 'skyranger' systems look the most suitable thing to be added to the mix but there's no existing stock of spares to give to Ukraine beyond the few that went there for testing. Hope that it goes to line production soon though industry is undoubtedly waiting to see if there're significant orders. This seems a system that should be produced in the hundreds so it can be present throughout the battlefield but that's not looking to be the case for actual orders.

There is no doubt that such solutions as this will increasingly be doctrinalized in major militaries.

[Shaka_Khan]

If this war drags on without either side looking to win soon then there could be peace talks coming up. NATO would be involved.