Ukraine Conflict - conflict continues

[Mamoulian War]

On 8/6/2023 at 9:21 PM, Malcador said:

Heh, but as I mentioned before I keep seeing comments here and there that lay the blame for any Ukrainian misstep with the West.  Not even sure the video really has that much to bitch about, remarks about the offensive being slower than desired or expected were about but I don't see them around much.   Also is  bit much to be snarky to nations that give them the things they are being ****y with as well (Javelin, HIMARS,  Storm Shadow, Patriot, Bradley.)

Just very naive to expect ATACMS, Abrams and F-16s in their hundreds as well, when you consider the situation. 

At any rate, not very productive to engage in anyway as this officer points out (he seems credible, although bitches about Ukrainian generals alot)

 

 

Well, the goal of the satire was always to stir up a little bit of controversy to engage people in discussion. Which this guy achieves with his cartoon .

The last two weeks like 80% of all news about Ukraine, was about some guy in western newspaper complaining, that the offensive is going to slow. A lot of people have talked about it on this boards as well. For a comparison, just look at the operation Overlord... Allies landed 2,052,299 men in Northern France, and it still took them almost three months to liberate Normandy and Brittany, a land area similar to occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. And they had air support UA has probably less than 200-300k men around the whole frontline, and scarce air support

[Malcador]

On 8/6/2023 at 5:30 PM, Zoraptor said:

Don't think Ukraine can be blamed (much) for the military failures, but they can be blamed for setting expectations far too high. And yeah, announcing the offensive was stupid both for doing it at all and for setting ludicrous expectations on a completely ridiculous timetable (Crimea by spring!.. in their hearts). In that at least Western Official was a lot more circumspect, in general, they just tended to be drowned out by by expectation inflation from people competing for clicks, Unnamed Western Official and Retired NATO Officer writing column. It also sets the stage for recriminations when things don't go to plan or schedule and recriminations can get out of hand.

Militarily... well NATO hasn't fought a 'proper' war ever and you have to go back to Korea 70 years ago to find an equivalent fight. No doubt their tactics look great in a simulator and when wargamed, but those always work on the basis of assumptions and the assumption is never that your army has to fight a way you don't want them to. So you get a self reinforcing impression of your own competence. Sitting back and asking why they aren't fighting as the simulations suggest they should is paternalistic bollocks at best and has often been accompanied by extremely obvious inconsistencies. It would be interesting to see how they'd perform when their lead vehicle hits a mine, everyone has to stop, and a helicopter picks your convoy off from 10km away (or artillery from even further). Just drive around the minefield (lol), deploy infantry screens (unsupported, because your armour is stuck trying to get through the mines), don't move in convoys (but keep launching those 1000 man attacks!), keep moving (but stay on the cleared lanes!); very easy to say not so easy to actually do. The one thing they might be blamed for is going for obvious PR targets over military importance, and that's mainly wasting energy and resources attacking Bakhmut not because it's important strategically but because losing it was embarrassing.

OTOH, whining about 'only' getting 60 odd billion dollars worth of military aid from your allies (and about as much again non military) is not a great look either.

I would say the blame for military failures is Ukraine's, at least specific ones. Ukraine soldiers on social media were complaining of some ****ups, for example.  Also giving Western kit to new formations rather than veteran ones may be one. 

On Bakhmut it's funny to read some analysis that...poltical considerations may have trumped military ones! The horror.

  

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

The last two weeks like 80% of all news about Ukraine, was about some guy in western newspaper complaining, that the offensive is going to slow. A lot of people have talked about it on this boards as well. For a comparison, just look at the operation Overlord... Allies landed 2,052,299 men in Northern France, and it still took them almost three months to liberate Normandy and Brittany, a land area similar to occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. And they had air support UA has probably less than 200-300k men around the whole frontline, and scarce air support

Not really the case here, sort of funny we just get a brief note on some missile strike by either side, or just the usual "it's hard going, they don't have air supremacy" type stuff.  Ukraine themselves have said it's going slower than desired  - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/07/24/7412731/  -  Chris Roberts should borrow that line though

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

 

 

Not really the case here, sort of funny we just get a brief note on some missile strike by either side, or just the usual "it's hard going, they don't have air supremacy" type stuff.  Ukraine themselves have said it's going slower than desired  - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/07/24/7412731/  -  Chris Roberts should borrow that line though

 

Of course they said it. As it is true. They had to accommodate to the situation with minefields guarded by artillery, which they probably underestimated. Most likely culprit was probably overconfidence in Western gear and training. But reading all the stuff thrown around lately in some newspaper was pretty derogatory and looked a lot like Russian propaganda and not like describing the real issues on the front

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, Malcador said:

I would say the blame for military failures is Ukraine's, at least specific ones. Ukraine soldiers on social media were complaining of some ****ups, for example.  Also giving Western kit to new formations rather than veteran ones may be one.

Giving their kit to new formations was at western insistence, the idea being that they would not have learnt any 'bad habits' and of course that meant that the troops were completely green when it came to combat realities and hadn't learnt any good habits either. I don't think it's been unequivocally stated but the inference is certainly that Ukraine wanted to send people with combat experience on the basis that they'd learn and ultimately perform better but NATO wanted them running on their doctrine from ground up.

The social media complaints are mostly about the sort of things that always happen in military campaigns. The main exceptions firstly being complaints about announcing the 'counter'offensive and its marketing campaign. Which was certainly moronic and looked so at the time, and had zero military justification since reddit upvotes and breathless news reporting don't count there. The other is anything corruption related. But a bit of disorganisation and occasional supply issues etc are par for the course, and the complaints about tactics are things that always happen to greater or lesser extents, especially as the scale of things decreases. And fundamentally if you have a big convoy run into mines and get shot up miles behind the front lines the grunts are always going to blame their immediate commanders, not the ones who told them that was how to conduct manoevre warfare and the Russians would panic and run in their classroom in Wiltshire.

A thought experiment about what they could have done better on the larger scale doesn't come up with much obvious they could have. Or at least, not much they could have that doesn't rely on handwaving. Maybe they shouldn't have tried at all, in retrospect, but you do have to take some political aspects into account.

[Gorth]

Announcing your intent on the front months in advance is quite counter productive. It may help boost domestic morale, but it will in the end get more of your own people killed (needlessly). A situation where secrecy and the element of surprise would have worked wonders. But that is in an ideal world (of course, in an ideal world there wouldn't have been a war in the first place), in the real world, you have to work with what you have and that is being the fall guy for 15 western countries waging a proxy war against Russia (the latter only having themselves to thank for it). The west gets to feed its starving media and tabloids, Ukraine gets to do the dying.

 

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Giving their kit to new formations was at western insistence, the idea being that they would not have learnt any 'bad habits' and of course that meant that the troops were completely green when it came to combat realities and hadn't learnt any good habits either. I don't think it's been unequivocally stated but the inference is certainly that Ukraine wanted to send people with combat experience on the basis that they'd learn and ultimately perform better but NATO wanted them running on their doctrine from ground up.

The social media complaints are mostly about the sort of things that always happen in military campaigns. The main exceptions firstly being complaints about announcing the 'counter'offensive and its marketing campaign. Which was certainly moronic and looked so at the time, and had zero military justification since reddit upvotes and breathless news reporting don't count there. The other is anything corruption related. But a bit of disorganisation and occasional supply issues etc are par for the course, and the complaints about tactics are things that always happen to greater or lesser extents, especially as the scale of things decreases. And fundamentally if you have a big convoy run into mines and get shot up miles behind the front lines the grunts are always going to blame their immediate commanders, not the ones who told them that was how to conduct manoevre warfare and the Russians would panic and run in their classroom in Wiltshire.

A thought experiment about what they could have done better on the larger scale doesn't come up with much obvious they could have. Or at least, not much they could have that doesn't rely on handwaving. Maybe they shouldn't have tried at all, in retrospect, but you do have to take some political aspects into account.

 The incidents I saw people talking about were about specific things - things like just poor planning meaning artillery wasn't ready, poor unit composition etc., and dumbo officers isn't really that unexpected (well unless you consumed only NA media since Feb 2022...). That stuff does happen - US had the screw up of Package Q and the Karbala attack, but is hardly NATO's fault. 

But yes, I suppose enough to go around, but I guess if it does falter (big if there I feel), there'll be some bitterness, heh.

Western Diplomat chimes in

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/politics/ukraine-counteroffensive-us-briefings/index.html

 

 

[Zoraptor]

A lot of those complaints are inevitable though when things are contested- and they aren't necessarily out and out mistakes.

Fair enough complaining about artillery not being ready when it's you having to cope with making an assault with no support; but there are circumstances where that is going to happen and it happening is not a mistake. An artillery piece isn't going to do anyone any good if it's blown up and there will be situations where limbering up those m777s or driving a Krab off is going to save it from counter battery fire or a lancet, and where doing so is 100% the correct call even if it leaves an attack in the lurch. It's not NATO's fault that that happens since it's inevitable, but... if the offensive had worked we'd definitely have had wall to wall praise for NATO tactics, so it's only fair that they cop criticism when it doesn't. Plus, of course, you didn't tend to get nuanced takes when it was Russia doing the same thing at Vugledar. Most of the complaints also ignore that there are two sides fighting, it's perfectly possible that the Russians are fighting well and not allowing Ukraine to perform.

At this point the offensive is definitely faltered. Might always restart, but you'd think their best chance has gone now that they've committed almost all their best/ western trained brigades- and haven't even reached the main defensive line yet.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

Was wrong actually, the bits I read were in a NYT piece and with second hand sourcing - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/us/politics/ukraine-troops-counteroffensive-training.html  / https://archive.is/UB0wI

"But the Western-trained brigades received only four to six weeks of combined arms training, and units made several mistakes at the start of the counteroffensive in early June that set them back, according to U.S. officials and analysts who recently visited the front lines and spoke to Ukrainian troops and commanders.
Some units failed to follow cleared paths and ran into mines. When a unit delayed a nighttime attack, an accompanying artillery bombardment to cover its advance went ahead as scheduled, tipping off the Russians."

41 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Plus, of course, you didn't tend to get nuanced takes when it was Russia doing the same thing at Vugledar. Most of the complaints also ignore that there are two sides fighting, it's perfectly possible that the Russians are fighting well and not allowing Ukraine to perform.

As Bernard would say, it's like one of those irregular verbs - I struggle against the odds, you're a complete muppet, as war goes.   One of the more tedious things with the news and this war though.

 

[pmp10]

13 hours ago, Malcador said:

I would say the blame for military failures is Ukraine's, at least specific ones.

By now it safe to say that objectives were hopelessly unrealistic, but it's impossible to say if that is on military or political leadership.
There is also the chance that both though that this is doable, unfortunate consequence of believing your own propaganda. 

[Mamoulian War]

Here is take on why it takes so long compared to his predictions, by Lt. Gen. Hodges in an interview with Times Radio. He speaks about what mistakes he’s done when predicting the Crimea situation improving for Ukraine in Summer, about peace talks in Jeddah and relations between Russia and China. Aboit Wagner Mutiny, situation in Niger and Belarus, how Russia is weaponizing hunger and plans to weaponize refugees by destabilizing Western Africa again. And that the West still does not have a clear goal in Ukraine, and does not provide everything, that UA needs to achieve victory by liberation of Crimea, which is the main reason behing slow offensive. He also compares what is going on with Operation Overlord, and mentions, that the Allies units were trained for two years for this specific operation, and there was still a two months long stalemate, before the Allies made a decisive breakthrough after they achieved air superiority.  

 

[BruceVC]

46 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Here is take on why it takes so long compared to his predictions, by Lt. Gen. Hodges in an interview with Times Radio. He speaks about what mistakes he’s done when predicting the Crimea situation improving for Ukraine in Summer, about peace talks in Jeddah and relations between Russia and China. Aboit Wagner Mutiny, situation in Niger and Belarus, how Russia is weaponizing hunger and plans to weaponize refugees by destabilizing Western Africa again. And that the West still does not have a clear goal in Ukraine, and does not provide everything, that UA needs to achieve victory by liberation of Crimea, which is the main reason behing slow offensive. He also compares what is going on with Operation Overlord, and mentions, that the Allies units were trained for two years for this specific operation, and there was still a two months long stalemate, before the Allies made a decisive breakthrough after they achieved air superiority.  

 

I think the West has provided lots of military aid to Ukraine but end of the day this is an  offensive where the Russians have had months to prepare defenses like using landmines and progress will be slow to reduce casualties 

I have heard the view that there wasn't adequate training on  some military equipment but Im not sure how that would change a reality of a field with hundreds of landmines? And airpower plays a part as well 

But the offensive is ongoing and if its slow then its slow. Only Ukraine can make the call to change its strategy if its not working

 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

One of the big problems is they don't actually need months to prepare mines. The Russians are using MLRS to mine areas on the fly. That was something the Ukrainians did extensively around Vugledar too. Don't think they can double stack the mines that way (that takes out mine clearance vehicles) but they will handily take out standard armour which is driving in areas they think has been swept.

Which is the reason you get a lot of combat footage of Ukrainian vehicles seemingly just sitting around in columns waiting to be destroyed- lead vehicle has hit a mine and the rest can't drive around it without hitting others.

[BruceVC]

45 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

One of the big problems is they don't actually need months to prepare mines. The Russians are using MLRS to mine areas on the fly. That was something the Ukrainians did extensively around Vugledar too. Don't think they can double stack the mines that way (that takes out mine clearance vehicles) but they will handily take out standard armour which is driving in areas they think has been swept.

Which is the reason you get a lot of combat footage of Ukrainian vehicles seemingly just sitting around in columns waiting to be destroyed- lead vehicle has hit a mine and the rest can't drive around it without hitting others.

Interesting, what is the most effective and quickest way to remove landmines from a field?

[Gfted1]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Interesting, what is the most effective and quickest way to remove landmines from a field?

A barrage of thermobaric rockets would probably do the trick by setting the mines off. Otherwise, some poor bastard poking at the ground with a fiberglass stick.  

[Malcador]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Interesting, what is the most effective and quickest way to remove landmines from a field?

Mine clearing charges,but that isn't going to be easy with gunships and ATGMs everywhere.  Well or maybe a lot of artillery.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Malcador

[HoonDing]

I'm sure Ukraine will reach Crimea by 2254.

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

I'm sure Ukraine will reach Crimea by 2254.

Russia will run out shovels soon.

[Zoraptor]

Weird that so many of the hottest takes have come from the British MoD. It's like they've employed an article writer from The Sun.

12 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Interesting, what is the most effective and quickest way to remove landmines from a field?

Mine Clearing Line Charges (specialised launcher that, uh, fires explosives attached to a line to set mines off), specialised tanks (eg Leopard 2R) with rollers or reinforced dozer attached. Ukraine lost half their Finnish 2Rs in the first two days though, and they can't cope with mines stacked two or more on top of each other. As Malcador mentioned, the MCLCs are highly vulnerable too in contested areas though I cannot recall seeing any actually destroyed. Then again, may not be much left if they did get hit since a single line charge is 750kg of high explosive.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Mamoulian War]

15 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Interesting, what is the most effective and quickest way to remove landmines from a field?

Why do you think, that one of the very few items, that have been missing on the Lend Lease list provided to Stalin during the WW2, was demining equipment? Because Soviets found the quickest way how remove landmines: “Nas Mnogo!”

 

Oh, if you have ever wondered, why Russia already destroyed 400% of HIMARS and “hundreds” of Bradleys. Wonder no more. Russian officer has shared on his Telegram some insights, how things work.

 

 

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Why do you think, that one of the very few items, that have been missing on the Lend Lease list provided to Stalin during the WW2, was demining equipment? Because Soviets found the quickest way how remove landmines: “Nas Mnogo!”

 

Oh, if you have ever wondered, why Russia already destroyed 400% of HIMARS and “hundreds” of Bradleys. Wonder no more. Russian officer has shared on his Telegram some insights, how things work.

 

 

No doubt there is exaggeration  and fake news about the amount of destroyed equipment, thats a given because its Russia 

But there is a  reality about what factors are slowing down the offensive that include minefields. Personally I was never assuming a quick offensive considering the months of preparation the Ruskies had and the reality of an offensive

Lets see how things progress, I generally  wait for official updates from Ukraine on its progress or changes in strategy

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by BruceVC

[kanisatha]

19 hours ago, HoonDing said:

I'm sure Ukraine will reach Crimea by 2254.

Russia won't exist in 2254.

[Malcador]

14 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Why do you think, that one of the very few items, that have been missing on the Lend Lease list provided to Stalin during the WW2, was demining equipment? Because Soviets found the quickest way how remove landmines: “Nas Mnogo!”

 

Oh, if you have ever wondered, why Russia already destroyed 400% of HIMARS and “hundreds” of Bradleys. Wonder no more. Russian officer has shared on his Telegram some insights, how things work.

 

 

Wartranslated just does translations and stuff but that Telegram seems pretty dodgy. 

I'm still waiting for Ja Rule's analysis.

[Zoraptor]

The multiple angles thing has definitely happened a decent amount. We got probably a dozen or so angles on the two big pile ups in June and got a new angle/ in progress video on the Big Bradley Burn Up only a few days ago. Clearly labelled as such though. And there's an occasional video that has clearly been manipulated (most recently a lancet hit where the explosion was on the opposite side from where the lancet hit) plus a lot of Ka-52 footage is so degraded you'd be forgiven for thinking they were shooting aliens from Space Invaders.

OTOH, plenty of reasons to hit abandoned stuff again, and you don't get people complaining about Ukrainian drones dropping grenades into already abandoned BMPs; that's just sensible military tactics. And it's always funny how simultaneously Russia is down to its last 50 lancets or whatever yet still has enough to stage pointless PR stunts...

[pmp10]

Biden is about to request more funds from congress to support Ukraine.
This is the first time since election so should be a good indicator of support for Ukraine.

[Malcador]

On 8/9/2023 at 7:10 PM, Mamoulian War said:

Why do you think, that one of the very few items, that have been missing on the Lend Lease list provided to Stalin during the WW2, was demining equipment? Because Soviets found the quickest way how remove landmines: “Nas Mnogo!”

Should always doubt stuff like that, but apparently a big source of this is Eisenhower ?

"Highly illuminating to me was his description of the Russian method of attacking through mine fields. The German mine fields, covered by defensive fire, were tactical obstacles that caused us many casualties and delays. It was always a laborious business to break through them, even though our technicians invented every conceivable kind of mechanical appliance to destroy mines safely. Marshal Zhukov gave me a matter-of-fact statement of his practice, which was, roughly, «There are two kinds of mines; one is the personnel mine and the other is the vehicular mine. When we come to a mine field our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with mine fields."

A Russian historian Isayev does have this

"There's a very famous story, allegedly coming from Eisenhower, about how if Soviet infantry encountered a minefield, it would advance as though there was no minefield there. This is a retelling over a broken telephone. In reality, Zhukov insisted that regular ordinary infantry should undergo sapper training, because simple mine disarmament, removal of simple minefields, can be performed by a person who has certain combat experience, and the implementation of this in ordinary rifle units, so they would not be stalled in front of minefields waiting for sappers and deal with minefields that they could handle by themselves, moving forward, and not remain in place, vulnerable to artillery attack."

Is impressive the amount of comments I found looking this up, albeit casually, on how Slavs or Russians are like some alien beings, not valuing life.

Back to the war, Germany may be giving Ukraine the Taurus missile - https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundesregierung-prueft-lieferung-von-taurus-marschflugkoerpern-a-5412d838-4434-4706-86a3-292006f7912d