The War in Ukraine

[brihard]

Now the cynic in my will note the Russians are using North Koreans in Kursk, and so the lawyers are probably pointing out that isn’t Ukraine.

Exactly what jumped out at me.

 

[Skysix]

Some horrifying footage from the receiving end of a FPV attack. Survivors are going to have extensive PTS issues. And more on the effect rapidly evolving EW has on one if the wests advantages, GPS guided precision weapons

And the Col. is dead on regarding our deadly slow adoption and implementation of current Russo-Ukrainian war TTP's and TOE. Once this is over with all the Russified believers and pissed off survivors (and their decendants) with a justifiable grudge against the west) of the newly reconstituted Rusdian federal state of Ukraine holding significant LSCO experience and technologically/
economically advanced systems will not have much trouble continuing the reconstitution of USSR 2.0 westward.

 

[Kirkhill]

Some horrifying footage from the receiving end of a FPV attack. Survivors are going to have extensive PTS issues. And more on the effect rapidly evolving EW has on one if the wests advantages, GPS guided precision weapons

And the Col. is dead on regarding our deadly slow adoption and implementation of current Russo-Ukrainian war TTP's and TOE. Once this is over with all the Russified believers and pissed off survivors (and their decendants) with a justifiable grudge against the west) of the newly reconstituted Rusdian federal state of Ukraine holding significant LSCO experience and technologically/
economically advanced systems will not have much trouble continuing the reconstitution of USSR 2.0 westward.

Elsewhere I used the biological term mutation event to describe the current situation. Mutations are not planned. Mutations are random events that result from external stimulus. The environment and Darwin decide which mutations will survive and which will fail. After the event is over, and only then, is it possible to determine what the surviving structure looks like. The Ukrainians, in particular, are acting so rapidly at such a low level that their programme of constant modification is, in my view, virtually indistinguishable from random mutation.

The mutations in Ukraine are occurring daily. It is still unclear what the final structure of forces on either side will look like.

We could try and match the drunkard's walk that is going on. But that will be expensive and probably fruitless. There is merit to hanging back and watching developments.

But...

We have to be cognizant that the world we were planning for in February 2022 will look nothing like the world we are likely to encounter at the end of this conflict.

Our two biggest problems are:

We don't know what we will have to build.
We don't know how fast we can build it.

How rapidly can we adapt?

 

[Kirkhill]

One other comment the Colonel made, about the return of wire guided systems.

Perhaps that plays into the recent announcement of orders for new TOW missiles. It also suggests to me the likely importance of the SPIKE/EXACTOR family of missiles.

Resurrect the EFOGM programme?

Multi-purpose missile system FOGM (EFOGM) | Missilery.info

The EFOGM (Enhanced Fiber Optic Guided Missile) missile system is primarily designed to fight tanks, as well as to defeat air targets (helicopters) flying at extremely low and low altitudes using

en.missilery.info

 

[KevinB]

Go look at what Israel just did in Iran.


Now think about what NATO F-35’s with USAF F-22’s would do. Their whole AD network is a sham that we could vaporize in a few hours.

We don’t need to adopt to the RuAF weapons being used in Ukraine, because we could wipe them out in a few days.

The more disgusting aspect is solely that we aren’t supplying the Ukrainians with enough weapons and ammunition, as well as removing stupid limits on their use.

We hang on to enormous amounts of military kit that was solely developed and manufactured to defeat Russia, so we should let Ukraine use enough of it to do exactly that.

 

[Maxman1]

I'm a bit surprised Raytheon and LockMart aren't lobbying for the restrictions to be lifted and more material sent over, since the more that gets sent, the more has to be bought to replace it.

 

[Cloud Cover]

I'm a bit surprised Raytheon and LockMart aren't lobbying for the restrictions to be lifted and more material sent over, since the more that gets sent, the more has to be bought to replace it.

I think a big part of that has been the skittishness of the US due to the possibility Trump will get elected and skewer those orders and cause massive waste of money, time, planning, effort.
And if he wins, the first thing Ukraine will lose is Starlink and then they will have just 8 weeks to build a few dozen nuclear warheads.

 

[Maxman1]

Now the cynic in my will note the Russians are using North Koreans in Kursk, and so the lawyers are probably pointing out that isn’t Ukraine.

Soldiers and officers from North Korea already deployed in Ukraine - Zelenskyy

Read more

newsukraine.rbc.ua

 

[Skysix]

I think a big part of that has been the skittishness of the US due to the possibility Trump will get elected and skewer those orders and cause massive waste of money, time, planning, effort.
And if he wins, the first thing Ukraine will lose is Starlink and then they will have just 8 weeks to build a few dozen nuclear warheads.

You assume the work has not already started. My assumption is that once it became a publicly discussed option by the UAF and Ukrainian politicians, the prep work at the very least had already been started. While they may prefer Article 5/6 'protection' - although why I do not understand, the EU treaty is far more robust and less subject to derailing by USSR 2.0 sympathisers or apologists - they would be negligent not to take out anti-Trump/Putin insurance.

Anders Puck Nielsen is a military analyst and Naval Captain at the Royal Danish Defence Military College. (Also a PhD candidate at the Technical University of Denmark researching/studying the implications of social media on warfare.)

 

[Kirkhill]

Some horrifying footage from the receiving end of a FPV attack. Survivors are going to have extensive PTS issues. And more on the effect rapidly evolving EW has on one if the wests advantages, GPS guided precision weapons

And the Col. is dead on regarding our deadly slow adoption and implementation of current Russo-Ukrainian war TTP's and TOE. Once this is over with all the Russified believers and pissed off survivors (and their decendants) with a justifiable grudge against the west) of the newly reconstituted Rusdian federal state of Ukraine holding significant LSCO experience and technologically/
economically advanced systems will not have much trouble continuing the reconstitution of USSR 2.0 westward.

It came to me last night. An FPV attack is like being chased by your own personal Stuka

 

[Kirkhill]

The more disgusting aspect is solely that we aren’t supplying the Ukrainians with enough weapons and ammunition, as well as removing stupid limits on their use.

We hang on to enormous amounts of military kit that was solely developed and manufactured to defeat Russia, so we should let Ukraine use enough of it to do exactly that.

Here we are agreeing entirely. Time for hounds and havoc.

Go look at what Israel just did in Iran.

Impressive but no less than what I would expect from Israel.

Now think about what NATO F-35’s with USAF F-22’s would do. Their whole AD network is a sham that we could vaporize in a few hours.

On that, I agree that their AD network isn't what we have led to believe it might be. It suited Iran, Russia, the Pentagon, the USAF and the US defence industries to sell that story. You don't need new wunderwaffen unless the enemy has new wunderwaffen.

We don’t need to adopt to the RuAF weapons being used in Ukraine, because we could wipe them out in a few days.

Our enemies have already adapted to our plans by outflanking and enveloping our allies through hybrid and assymetric means. They are getting into our rear and threatening our command and control structure and our lines of communication.

Vlad has burnt through 50 years of war stocks built up by the Soviets and whatever he managed to produce since he started to emulate Potemkin and create an image of a modern army after his Chechen and Georgian troubles.

He doesn't have anymore Studebakers coming in via Murmansk and Petropavlovsk. And he doesn't seem to be able to build new knock-offs fast enough. Now he is going to noted manufacturing powerhouses like North Korea, Iran and the UAE to buy new stuff. Presumably Iran and UAE aren' t buying oil so what is he selling them? Uranium? Or gold?

...

I don't think we can afford to be complacent. My two concerns are:

In 5 years the target set for our weapons will have changed radically;
We have lots of launch platforms, even with the diminished numbers in inventory, but we lack things to launch - both smart and dumb.

Meanwhile Moore's laws are catching up to us. Things are getting smarter, smaller and cheaper.

A bunch of years ago an SAS man wrote a tell all which he summarized by noting that the SAS of the Iranian Embassy was becoming obsolete. The future of the SAS was a well dressed woman with a credit card flying in on commercial air during peace time. These days she doesn't even need to make her own semtex, she can probably buy it on the open market, along with a swarm of DJI drones.

While we are preparing to fight tank on tank the enemy may no longer have any tanks for us to fight. In the mean time life may be being made difficult by obnoxious teenagers with Radio Shack toys.

And foreigners investing in our resources.

 

[NavyShooter]

When the Russians run out of tanks, what will they fight with?

Whatever is at hand.


(Not that they're running out of tanks...or are they...?)

 

[daftandbarmy]

When the Russians run out of tanks, what will they fight with?

Whatever is at hand.


(Not that they're running out of tanks...or are they...?)

Assault motorbikes seem to be the flavour of the month...

 

[childs56]

I am pretty sure the hesitation of allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory using western Missiles is as simple as Russia's use of Nukes. If they see incoming missiles towards Moscow from Ukraine they will declare self defense and retaliate using their Strategic Nuclear force. Claim they could not tell the difference between nukes or conventional and enact their right to self defence their nation.

 

[KevinB]

I am pretty sure the hesitation of allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory using western Missiles is as simple as Russia's use of Nukes. If they see incoming missiles towards Moscow from Ukraine they will declare self defense and retaliate using their Strategic Nuclear force. Claim they could not tell the difference between nukes or conventional and enact their right to self defence their nation.

Nothing we have provided at this point carries a nuclear warhead.

Putin won’t risk a nuclear exchange, for he’s seen how our missiles work on minor things that we don’t spend as money one, and given his record, I don’t think he’d want o bet enough of his work.

 

[Skysix]

Our enemies have already adapted to our plans by outflanking and enveloping our allies through hybrid and asymmetric means. They are getting into our rear and threatening our command and control structure and our lines of communication.

I don't think we can afford to be complacent. My two concerns are:

In 5 years the target set for our weapons will have changed radically. We have lots of launch platforms, even with the diminished numbers in inventory, but we lack things to launch - both smart and dumb.

Meanwhile Moore's laws are catching up to us. Things are getting smarter, smaller and cheaper.

While we are preparing to fight tank on tank the enemy may no longer have any tanks for us to fight. In the mean time life may be being made difficult by obnoxious teenagers with Radio Shack toys.

And foreigners investing in our resources.

100%

 

[Skysix]

Assault motorbikes seem to be the flavour of the month...

Another WW2 tactic. Lots of fast moving expendable's working as a swarm to probe and find weaknesses in the line to exploit. Only now dualsports or dirt bikes instead of 2wd Ural (BMW knockoff) sidecars.

 

[KevinB]

Our enemies have already adapted to our plans by outflanking and enveloping our allies through hybrid and assymetric means. They are getting into our rear and threatening our command and control structure and our lines of communication.

They have been for years, and some have been screaming that the building is on fire, but a lot of people want to pretend everything is fine and go on with life at the mall.

Vlad has burnt through 50 years of war stocks built up by the Soviets and whatever he managed to produce since he started to emulate Potemkin and create an image of a modern army after his Chechen and Georgian troubles.

He doesn't have anymore Studebakers coming in via Murmansk and Petropavlovsk. And he doesn't seem to be able to build new knock-offs fast enough. Now he is going to noted manufacturing powerhouses like North Korea, Iran and the UAE to buy new stuff. Presumably Iran and UAE aren' t buying oil so what is he selling them? Uranium? Or gold?

Not sure where you are grabbing UAE from.
But for North Korean it is pretty clearly ICBM and Warhead technology - unsure if Vld would sell enriched uranium and plutonium at this point, I think XI may have some issues with that.

...

I don't think we can afford to be complacent. My two concerns are:

In 5 years the target set for our weapons will have changed radically;
We have lots of launch platforms, even with the diminished numbers in inventory, but we lack things to launch - both smart and dumb.

We really aren't lacking in things to launch (at least in America), we have a less than ideal number of some thing, but a fair surplus of others.

Meanwhile Moore's laws are catching up to us. Things are getting smarter, smaller and cheaper.

A bunch of years ago an SAS man wrote a tell all which he summarized by noting that the SAS of the Iranian Embassy was becoming obsolete. The future of the SAS was a well dressed woman with a credit card flying in on commercial air during peace time. These days she doesn't even need to make her own semtex, she can probably buy it on the open market, along with a swarm of DJI drones.

Honestly the DJI drones don't concern me, as they can be dealt with easily enough. But your conflating the issue between LSCO and insurgency above.

While we are preparing to fight tank on tank the enemy may no longer have any tanks for us to fight. In the mean time life may be being made difficult by obnoxious teenagers with Radio Shack toys.

If you don't have tanks it's hard to roll forward - when you look at the Navy, the CIWS and RAM (etc) are a good example of what can be done when there is a will to protect against attacks like that -- stuff like the old M163 Vulcan SPAA and the German Geopard are good example of systems that are exceptional for that type of defensive work against UAS and the like.

And foreigners investing in our resources.

True

 

[GR66]

When the Russians run out of tanks, what will they fight with?

Whatever is at hand.


(Not that they're running out of tanks...or are they...?)

Well they are starting to use WW2 era tanks (T-34's, IS-2's and ISU-52's) as training vehicles...or maybe they're just LARPing for the next World of Tanks anniversary?

WWII-era tanks spotted at Russian training facility

A recent video has surfaced showing Soviet-era tanks and artillery, including T-34s, IS-2 heavy tanks, and ISU-152 self-propelled howitzers, at a Russian military training ground in Khabarovsk. These iconic World War II vehicles were reportedly filmed at Russia’s 392nd Training Center. The...

defence-blog.com

 

[GR66]

Not sure where you are grabbing UAE from.

Not support direct from the UAE government, but new equipment is showing up in Russia from Streit Group from the UAE. Wouldn't be the first time that a government turned a blind eye to the questionable sales of a national champion corporation...

Russia gets armored vehicles from UAE manufacturer

Recent video footage circulating on Russian social media appears to confirm a new shipment of Streit Group-manufactured armored vehicles delivered to Russian forces. One prominent Russian military blogger, going by the name Voennyi Osvedomitel, said: "Presumably, a batch of various armored...

defence-blog.com