Scrutable

sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 12:05 am (FWIW, I've seen American sources that compare Kyiv in size to Chicago.)

headshot wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:37 am

sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 12:05 am (FWIW, I've seen American sources that compare Kyiv in size to Chicago.)

Birmingham is twinned with Chicago.

sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 12:05 am

Allo V Psycho wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 11:47 am I thought it might be informative to choose a UK city a bit like Kiev, and have a look at what it might look like under the same attack from the North. Birmingham seemed the best match. Current map (25th May) from https://www.understandingwar.org/backgr ... t-march-25 Ukrainian counter offensives around Market Harborough, I think, and Church Stretton and Bridgnorth, according to the original map.

Birmingham (my former home town) can't get a break, it seems. In the 1980s book "The Third World War: The Untold Story", Birmingham gets destroyed in a nuclear strike and NATO takes out Minsk in retaliation. I hope it's not going to become the new "Area the size of Wales". (FWIW, I've seen American sources that compare Kyiv in size to Chicago.)

That said, it increasingly looks like Putin has massively misjudged the situation. It’s clear he misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people. He underestimated the strength of the coalition his actions would galvanise. He under-played the economic consequences of the sanctions regime. He over-estimated the abilities of his military to secure a rapid victory. We’ve seen Russian soldiers – short of weapons and morale - refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.

And even though we believe Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth, what’s going on and the extent of these misjudgements must be crystal clear to the regime.

Russia wrote the hybrid warfare book. State media, on-line media and agents of influence are all used to obfuscate motivations and justify military action. We’ve seen them use this playbook in Syria and many other theatres. Their aim is to promulgate disinformation. To sow mistrust in the evidence and to amplify false narratives. It’s also to make sure that the real picture of what’s going on doesn’t get exposed inside Russia.

And that’s where the most dangerous disinformation war is being waged. We know Putin’s campaign is beset by problems – low morale, logistical failures and high Russian casualty numbers. Their command and control is in chaos. We’ve seen Putin lie to his own people in an attempt to hide military incompetence.

shpalman wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:58 am

headshot wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:37 am

sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 12:05 am (FWIW, I've seen American sources that compare Kyiv in size to Chicago.)

Birmingham is twinned with Chicago.

... and Milan.

EACLucifer wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 7:18 pm Footage of significant amounts of Russian vehicles moving east through Belarus, apparently heading for the Russian border are doing the rounds in OSINT spaces. It looks like they are pulling back, regrouping and redeploying.

sTeamTraen wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 9:58 pm

EACLucifer wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 7:18 pm Footage of significant amounts of Russian vehicles moving east through Belarus, apparently heading for the Russian border are doing the rounds in OSINT spaces. It looks like they are pulling back, regrouping and redeploying.

Genuine question: Where do you get your info? I am in awe of the amount of intel that you have. Are you ex-military, well-connected, or just very curious about this whole subject area?

(Please don't tell me anything that would result in you then having to kill me, obvs.)

dyqik wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 1:19 am With tonight's claims of the Russian military lying to Putin (and an extrapolation that that's going on at lower levels), and these "withdrawals", how much do you think the higher echelons are overestimating the effect of redeploying these units to the east of Ukraine?

EACLucifer wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:40 am
And the loss of generals effectively means some units lose their colonels, as generals are generally made out of colonels

jimbob wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 10:12 am https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/ ... 5469847574

Consistent with the earlier reports of the Russian troops behaviour of driving through and digging in in the so-called Red Forest, with the Ukrainian staff finding out that the Russian troops had no idea what Chernobyl was, just that it was "strategic infrastructure".

I do half expect these troops to be used by Russia as evidence that Ukraine was using radiological weapons. As opposed to the Russian regime showing the care for its own troops that their Soviet predecessor did in 1986 for the workers.

Let me tell you a story about a military that was supposedly one of the best in the world. This military had some of the best equipment: the heaviest and most modern tanks, next-generation aircraft, and advanced naval vessels. It had invested in modernization, and made what were considered some of Europe’s most sophisticated plans for conflict. Moreover, it had planned and trained specifically for a war it was about to fight, a war it seemed extremely well prepared for and that many, perhaps most, people believed it would win.

All of these descriptions could apply to the Russian army that invaded Ukraine last month. But I’m talking about the French army of the 1930s. That French force was considered one of the finest on the planet. Winston Churchill believed that it represented the world’s best hope for keeping Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany at bay. As he said famously in 1933, and repeated a number of times afterward, “Thank God for the French army.”

Of course, when this French army was actually tested in battle, it was found wanting. Germany conquered France in less than two months in 1940. All of the French military’s supposed excellence in equipment and doctrine was useless. A range of problems, including poor logistics, terrible communications, and low morale, beset an army in which soldiers and junior officers complained of inflexible, top-down leadership. In 1940, the French had the “best” tank, the Char B-1. With its 75-mm gun, the Char B-1 was better armed than any German tank, and it outclassed the Germans in terms of armor protection as well. But when the Battle of France started, the Char B-1 exhibited a number of major handicaps, such as a gas-guzzling engine and mechanical unreliability.

Having good equipment and good doctrine reveals little about how an army will perform in a war. To predict that, you must analyze not only its equipment and doctrine but also its ability to undertake complex operations, its unglamorous but crucial logistical needs and structure, and the commitment of its soldiers to fight and die in the specific war being waged. Most important, you have to think about how it will perform when a competent enemy fires back. As Mike Tyson so eloquently put it, “Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the mouth.”

What we are seeing today in Ukraine is the result of a purportedly great military being punched in the mouth. The resilience of Ukrainian resistance is embarrassing for a Western think-tank and military community that had confidently predicted that the Russians would conquer Ukraine in a matter of days. For years, Western “experts” prattled on about the Russian military’s expensive, high-tech “modernization.” The Russians, we were told, had the better tanks and aircraft, including cutting-edge SU-34 fighter bombers and T-90 tanks, with some of the finest technical specifications in the world. The Russians had also ostensibly reorganized their army into a more professional, mostly voluntary force. They had rethought their offensive doctrine and created battalion tactical groups, flexible, heavily armored formations that were meant to be key to overwhelming the Ukrainians. Basically, many people had relied on the glamour of war, a sort of war p.rnography, to predict the outcome of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

Those predictions, based on alluring but fundamentally flawed criteria, have now proved false. Western analysts took basic metrics (such as numbers and types of tanks and aircraft), imagined those measured forces executing Russian military doctrine, then concluded that the Ukrainians had no chance. But counting tanks and planes and rhapsodizing over their technical specifications is not a useful way to analyze modern militaries. As The Atlantic’s Eliot Cohen has argued, the systems that the West used to evaluate the Russian military have failed nearly as comprehensively as that military has.

Though analysts and historians will spend years arguing about exactly why prewar assessments of the Russian military proved so flawed, two reasons are immediately apparent. First, Western analysts misunderstood the Russian military’s ability to undertake the most complex operations and the robustness of its logistical capabilities. And second, prognosticators paid too little attention to the basic motivations and morale of the soldiers who would be asked to use the Russian military’s allegedly excellent doctrine and equipment.

Russia’s problems executing complex operations became obvious almost immediately after its army crossed the border into Ukraine. For instance, many observers believed that the large, advanced Russian air force would quickly gain air dominance over Ukraine, providing the Russian land forces with support while severely limiting the Ukrainians’ movement. Instead, the Ukrainians have put in place a far more sophisticated than expected air-defense system that stymied Russian air efforts from the start. By challenging the Russians in the air, the Ukrainians have shown that Russia’s army cannot efficiently conduct the complex air operations needed to seize air supremacy from a much smaller enemy. Russia’s logistical system has been, if anything, even worse. Russian trucks are poorly maintained, poorly led, and too few in number. Once the Russian forces advanced, they found that bringing up the supplies needed to keep them moving forward became more and more difficult. Many advances, most famously the 40-mile column of vehicles stretching down to Kyiv from Belarus, simply stopped.

At the same time, the supposedly professional volunteer Russian soldiers were confused as to what they were doing, totally unprepared to meet stiff Ukrainian resistance, and, from photo evidence, surprisingly willing to abandon even the most advanced Russian equipment almost untouched. As the war has gone on, and Russian casualties have mounted, Russian soldiers have fallen victim to frostbite, refused to follow orders, and, in at least one episode, tried to kill their superior officers.

More of the Western experts who study Russia’s armed forces could and should have anticipated these problems. The Russian military has not been asked to undertake complex technological or logistical operations for at least three decades. Its more recent military actions, such as the bombing of Syria, were quite straightforward operations, in which aircraft could be used to terrorize an enemy that could not efficiently fire back.

To truly understand a military’s effectiveness, analysts must investigate not only how it looks on a spreadsheet but also how it may function in the chaos and pressure of a battlefield. War is an extremely difficult and complex business. Western strategists cannot go back in time and alter their earlier assessments. Any system with a widespread consensus that an excellent and modernized Russian military would conquer Ukraine in a matter of days is a system in crisis. We can, and must, try to do better next time. If world leaders have a better understanding of the potential difficulties of any war in East Asia, for example, perhaps they will realize how hard the outcome of such a confrontation is to predict. If the Chinese tried an amphibious landing on Taiwan, for instance, they would be undertaking maybe the most complex wartime operation, and one that their military has never attempted before. I can’t tell you what would happen, but I know it would not go according to plan. War never does.

Russia’s Shock and Awe
Moscow’s Use of Overwhelming Force Against Ukraine

By Michael Kofman and Jeffrey Edmonds
February 22, 2022

Russia appears to be on the verge of launching a major military operation against Ukraine.

...if Russia invades, it would not constrain itself. It would use the bulk of its military resources—ground forces, airpower, attack helicopters, powerful missiles, and its navy—in a violent, open conflict. It would roll across large parts of Ukraine, not just the east, and try to seize the capital with the goal of installing a pro-Russian government. Such ambitions would require an extensive initial operation, followed by the entry of additional forces that could hold territory and secure supply lines.

A war between Russia and Ukraine could prove to be incredibly destructive. Even if the initial phase were quick and decisive, the conflict could morph into a dragged-out insurgency featuring a great number of refugees and civilian casualties—especially if the war reached urban areas. The scale and potential for escalation of such a conflict are difficult to predict, but they would likely produce levels of violence unseen in Europe since the 1990s, when Yugoslavia tore itself apart.

... The Russian military would likely open its campaign with airstrikes targeting command-and-control systems, logistical centers, airports, air defenses, and other critical infrastructure. To carry them out, Moscow could use hundreds of bombers as well as ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles. The Russian military has also deployed near Ukraine high-powered artillery and long-range rocket systems to support its ground forces with overwhelming firepower.

Airstrikes would not go entirely uncontested. Russia’s air force lacks experience in suppressing or destroying enemy air defenses, and it rarely uses missiles that are designed to destroy radar. As a result, Ukraine’s meager air defenses could still pose a challenge. But Ukrainian air defenses are in short supply, and they would be unlikely to provide effective cover for most of the country’s ground troops. They would be quickly overwhelmed.

The opening air campaign would probably be short. Unlike Western militaries, which concentrate firepower in their air forces, Russia puts the bulk of its firepower in its ground forces, so it would quickly proceed to a ground campaign. It would start by using helicopters to drop troops into Ukraine. Russia might also strategically drop paratroopers and airlift troops and armored vehicles well behind the frontline to seize bridges or other infrastructure. The main effort of Russia’s ground campaign would be to create a pincer movement from the north that encircled Kyiv and enveloped the bulk of Ukraine’s ground forces in the eastern part of the country. Russian formations would then cut off Ukrainian supply lines and fragment the Ukrainian military into isolated pockets surrounded by Russian troops. Drones and combat helicopters would offer Russian ground forces reconnaissance and cover.

The Russian navy would play a supporting role. Moscow has worked hard to modernize its Black Sea Fleet, which now has platforms—from advanced conventional submarines to corvettes—that can launch precision-guided cruise missiles. With a range longer than 1,000 miles, these missiles can strike any part of Ukraine. Russia has also reinforced the Black Sea Fleet with landing ships from other fleets. It can now conduct a significant amphibious operation, using 1,000 to 2,000 troops, to help Russian forces attack across the narrow isthmus separating Crimea from Ukraine.

In addition to relying on traditional firepower, a Russian operation would be supported by electronic warfare. The Russian military has a panoply of digital capabilities that it can use to disrupt the Ukrainian forces’ navigation and communication systems. Ukrainian commanders could suddenly find it impossible to use established channels to coordinate their response to Russia’s invasion, forcing them to use less secure means of communication.

Achieving information dominance during a conflict is a cornerstone of Russian military strategy, and Moscow would also use its cyber-capabilities to engage in psychological warfare. Hoping to confuse and convince Ukraine’s citizens, leaders, and military personnel, it would spread disinformation online, deny access to online services, and impede communication. Cyberattacks could temporarily disable key infrastructure, such as electricity, but Ukraine is resilient and has withstood cyberattacks in the past. Traditional military strikes are likely to be far more effective at destroying critical nodes than are specialized cyber-operations.

UKRAINE’S PARRY

The Ukrainian military has substantially improved since 2014, thanks to Western assistance, and it has gained combat experience from the war in the Donbas. But the experience is largely limited to trench warfare and artillery skirmishes. Kyiv is still ill prepared for a renewed Russian invasion of this scale. Ukraine’s military is generally understaffed and has limited familiarity with warfare designed to surprise and disrupt enemies. Its ground forces are composed of thousands of conscripts with limited experience. Russian battalion tactical groups, by contrast, are filled with more skilled, contract servicemen. Ukraine’s air force is dated and stands no chance against its Russian counterpart. The Ukrainian navy is essentially a “mosquito navy” of small, armored gunboats. Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, Ukraine’s ground forces might field 50 to 60 battalions against the more than 120 currently mustered by the Russian army, and these battalions do not have the same levels of combat effectiveness. Russia has far more—and far better—artillery, reconnaissance, and logistical capabilities than Ukraine does. The Russian military would have the advantage along every axis of attack.

Ukraine is vast, which makes it impractical for the country’s inferior force to mount an effective defense against an invasion. The most logical strategy for the Ukrainian military would therefore be to fight an organized retreat, imposing as high a cost as it can on any Russian advance. Falling back to more defensible terrain, such as the Dnieper River, which runs through the middle of Ukraine, could help deplete Russian forces. But Ukrainian forces would fall victim to Russian air attacks as they retreated, and Russian ground forces would move quickly to try to surround Ukrainian formations. The Russian military would also move in from Belarus in the north, allowing many troops to avoid crossing the Dnieper River. They could then attack from both west and east of Kyiv and cut off the city from most of the Ukrainian army. The fight outside Kyiv might then entail a handful of Ukrainian brigades battling far more and far more powerful Russian forces, which would be supported by airborne units. This is a fight that Ukraine would almost certainly lose.

If it quickly found itself overwhelmed, Ukraine’s military could embrace guerrilla warfare, breaking itself into smaller tactical formations with maximum autonomy. That would entail abandoning most of its heavy armor and artillery and focusing instead on infantry armed with shoulder-fired missiles to hit tanks or aircraft. But such a shift is easier in theory than in practice. The Ukrainian army is trained to operate in larger units with armor and artillery; it cannot easily turn to partisan warfare. Moreover, these tactics would be less effective than in previous wars, thanks to the rise of new technologies, such as drones using thermal cameras and cheap, high-resolution satellite imaging. Today, small groups of fighters may struggle to hide and to win on the battlefield.

The Ukrainian military could retreat to cities as a last resort, forcing Russian units into urban terrain. Cities consume armies. Russia’s force may look big, but it would quickly prove paltry given the demands of urban warfare. Yet Ukraine would not make this choice lightly. Urban warfare is a bl..dy business, and battles over Ukraine’s main cities would likely kill substantial numbers of civilians, destroy entire neighborhoods, and do untold damage to the economy.

Russia’s leadership likely hopes that it could avoid protracted urban combat by cutting deals with regional elites who would flip control over cities to pro-Russian politicians. Moscow is undoubtedly planning to marry political schemes with its military operation in other ways, as well. If it succeeds in its political maneuvers, Russia could indeed attain a decisive initial victory. But that is a perilous assumption. Few things go as planned in war, and it is hard to predict what will happen after the opening shots are fired.

In the case of Ukraine, a war would have a host of potential long-term consequences. Ukrainian resistance might live on as an insurgency, although, paradoxically, it would be most successful in the one part of the country Russia is unlikely to invade—its west. But an insurgency, especially if externally sponsored, might still bleed Russian forces and resources over the years. A prolonged war that ravaged Europe’s largest country could radiate instability into the continent’s eastern and central regions. It could also prove to be the beginning of a series of crises between NATO and Russia. For the first time in decades, European security stands on the precipice.

lpm wrote: Thu Feb 24, 2022 10:53 pm It feels odd that the Russian attack wasn't utter devastation on day 1.

Maybe that's because we're used to western airforces and cruise missiles destroying defences, then land troops charging with massive overwhelming strength? The west can't afford too many casualties because of popular opinion back home so only attack when there's total domination.

Russia had all these forces on the border but doesn't seem to have blitzkrieged.

The Hostomel airport has been recaptured by Ukrainian counter attack, according to reports, with the Russian airborne force scattered. That just never happens in an attack by the west on Iraq or wherever - any potential counter attacking threat is long since destroyed.

headshot wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 7:54 am Maybe it’s to do with motivation. There are reports coming out that Russian troops are arriving in Ukraine and realising they are there to kill ordinary Ukrainians upon arrival. It wasn’t briefed to them. There are also photos coming out of captured Russian troops who are really, really young. These are ranked soldiers, and they look to be about 16-18.

Ukraine’s army is highly motivated to defend…perhaps Russia’s forces aren’t as highly motivated to kill, or be killed, on a mission they don’t really understand. Especially as Ukrainians are so similar to them.

Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova said Thursday that a platoon of Russian soldiers surrendered to the Ukrainian military, saying they "didn't know that they were brought to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians."

At a press briefing, Markarova said, "Just before I came here, we got information from our chief commander that one of the platoons of the 74th motorized brigade from Kemerovo Oblast surrendered."

"They didn't know that they were brought to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians. They thought they were doing something else there," she added.

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... -ukrainian

lpm wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 4:04 pm Within 24 hours we, and plenty of people on twitter etc, already had the feeling that it wasn't going to plan and Russia was f.cking up. We also sensed that the southern Crimea force was doing much more than the northern Kyiv/Kharkiv forces.

If complete amateurs could sense it, presumably Russian generals knew for sure? And Putin must have known within 24 hours he was a dead man walking. I don't really buy the "he's getting lied to" angle, because he can read a map the same as us and could see the red zones were stuck.

TopBadger wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 9:54 pm A lot has been made of Russia's superior numbers but in military tactics its assumed the attackers need 3x the numbers of defenders to win a battle, and maybe more in urban warfare. I don't think the Russians finding this as easy as Putin hoped they would...

Woodchopper wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:18 am I’ve seen a few videos of Russian armoured vehicles stuck at the roadside apparently out of fuel. If it’s a widespread problem it suggests that Russian logistics aren’t organized enough to keep up. In addition, the Ukrainians may have let some armoured units advance through the countryside while the Ukrainians waited to attack the more vulnerable supply convoys.

bjn wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:07 pm Various other idle speculations I've seen around the place seem to indicate that the Russian logistics are just total pants. They can't get fuel and food to the soldiers. Various videos of russian AFVs parked on the side of roads out of fuel, with clueless Russian soldiers not knowing what is going on. This could be why the bulk of the troops are still stuck over the border. Stories of corruption leading to ghost troops, supplies and equipment are part of that.

Furthermore, they've been splintering their Battalion Tactical Groups during the advance, so as to stop crowding on the available roads to enable their mad rush to Kyiv and other cities. This means that the Ukrainians have been able to take on the smaller formations who may not have the troops/equipment to needed to deal with the opposition to their advance. It also means overstretched supply lines and no troops left to hold the ground, after the tanks have gone though the following soft skinned vehicles are vulnerable.

Basically the Russians are fluffing it badly. My hope is that they have fluffed it badly enough that it erodes their will to fight in front of stiff Ukrainian opposition. The momentum stops, it turns into a grind and Putin has humiliated Russian in front of the world and has overreached himself. Grieving Russian mothers are out for blood, frustrated oligarchs don't get to spend their stolen money and the knives come out. Someone less tainted gets to take over, Putin is blamed for everything and it's all swept under the carpet.

Here's hoping anyway.

EACLucifer wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 7:21 pm Agreed. Russia's struggling because they've made some truly imbecilic mistakes, but we can't rely on them continuing to make them.

On the other hand, if one of the problems is, as a lot of people suspect, that their Battalion Task Groups are a fundamentally bad way to organise soldiers, they won't be able to fix it easily.

Woodchopper wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 2:48 pm IMHO the bias that I was also guilty of was to look at the visible modern equipment and doctrine and assume that what couldn't be seen was also up to similar standard (eg logistics and ability to coordinate). I think that assumption wasn't unreasonable as spending billions on new equipment but not investing in the training and logistics needed to use it is profoundly irrational, and isn't what most armed forces in developed countries do. But that was to project our own experience onto Russia and to assume that their decisions would be similar to those that I'm most familiar with. Which was a bad idea.