Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Josquius]

Its still a successful war of conquest.
Not a 100% war aims win, but 20% take a province or two for sure.

Yeah that was the biggest country on earth's problem that needed to be solved in blood: more land.

Meanwhile dozens of Russian cities rot into dust due to neglect.

I never said the war was a good idea for Russia.
Merely that things ending with the borders as they are now would be a victory for them.
Countless examples in history of nations winning wars they'd have been better off just not fighting. WW1 for instance.
Nonetheless when you're in the war and you've already caused a lot of damage to your country it is best to win. Especially when you're a nationalist dictator who doesn't much care about the well being of your people beyond the necessary to stay in power

There is nothing particularly fancy about these shells right? They are basically the same sort of ordinance we have been manufacturing since WW1 right? How expensive could they be to make?

I suppose that's a big part of the problem in itself though. They're not particularly fancy high value add things to make. They're simple raw industrial production.
Western economies in general, including the arms industry, are very heavily slanted towards fiddly complex stuff whilst necessary raw manufacturing using century old technology is outsourced to China (bar in arms of course) . Which is a problem when we need this heavy industry and can't just look to China, as in war scale munitions manufacturing.

The big thing I'm seeing here is that we clearly haven't learned from covid. At least not yet.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

There is nothing particularly fancy about these shells right? They are basically the same sort of ordinance we have been manufacturing since WW1 right? How expensive could they be to make?

Apparently Rheinmetall sold Ukraine 10,000 shells for €33MM, so about €3,300 per shell.

Of course, if you believe this bullshit it's more like $400,000. 

[Sheilbh]

There was an article linked a while back about Ukraine's failure to employ combined arms fire and maneuver and substitute massive artillery shelling , and a more recent one about Ukraine's failure to draft/enlist more fighting age men.  Do you think your argument refutes those as well?

There's been criticism esepcially in the American press, from adminsistration sources, about Ukraine's failure to employ combined arms fire and maneuver. I think it does need to be acknowledged that Ukraine was trying to do something the US (or any other Western power) has ever done which is to employ those tactics without air supremacy.

It was also something new for their forces. As they weren't likely to get air supremacy any time soon, they moved back to artillery shelling which is also the tactics they've traditionally used/been trained in.

I think that defence does work on that point. I think Ukrainians on the ground probably knew better than people in the Pentagon or MoD about how Ukrainian forces can fight - and I think they also know more about combined arms without air supremacy because it's not something we've done. Worth a try but I think the reasons they've reverted to their traditional tactics seem very defensible.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I return to my old point that the Ukrainians might be firing off too many fucking shells.

The Ukrainians fire about 9k shells a day (iirc), which is barely double than what they could do at the start of '22. They've also only now reached parity (even surpassed by a litte) the russians on the amount of fires. But that's mainly because the Russians reduced their amount from a peak of about 25k.

So 'too much' I wouldn't call what they're doing. Barely sufficient, but luckily quite efficient.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I think that defence does work on that point. I think Ukrainians on the ground probably knew better than people in the Pentagon or MoD about how Ukrainian forces can fight - and I think they also know more about combined arms without air supremacy because it's not something we've done. Worth a try but I think the reasons they've reverted to their traditional tactics seem very defensible.

It's more of a mix though. The units doing the actual fighting have much more freedom on how to achieve the goals set out by their superiors. And those are methods they got by training on western doctrine after 2014. Doesn't mean all of the army fights like that, but they're definately not fighting using pure Russian/Soviet doctrine either.

At least that what I've been reading / hearing over the last year.

[Josquius]

I've been reading a lot of this stuff.
Ukrainians complaining a lot of western training is pretty useless and folks saying they're the ones who can teach us instead as this modern 21st century drone warfare business is just not covered in our training, it's totally new, et al.

It's less they've reverted to Soviet tactics and more they've found out the western text book just doesn't work in the real world. Perhaps arguably because they lack air superiority. But there are hints there's more to it than that.

[Zoupa]

That defense works against any criticism of the way Ukraine is fighting, doesn't it?

There was an article linked a while back about Ukraine's failure to employ combined arms fire and maneuver and substitute massive artillery shelling , and a more recent one about Ukraine's failure to draft/enlist more fighting age men.  Do you think your argument refutes those as well?

Here's modern combined arms US doctrine. Take a guess what's missing for Ukraine to implement it (hint: almost everything).

In 2000, the US Army began developing a new set of doctrines intended to use information superiority to wage warfare. Six pieces of equipment were crucial for this: AWACS (for Airborne early warning and control), JSTARS (for Airborne ground surveillance), GPS, VHF SINCGARS (for ground and airborne communications), and ruggedized computers. The mix is supplemented by satellite photos and passive reception of enemy radio emissions, forward observers with digital target designation, specialized scouting aircraft, anti-artillery radars and gun-laying software for artillery.

Based on this doctrine, many US ground vehicles moved across the landscape alone. If they encountered an enemy troop or vehicle concentration, they would assume a defensive posture, lay down as much covering fire as they could, designate the targets for requested air and artillery assets. Within a few minutes, on station aircraft would direct their missions to cover the ground vehicle. Within a half-hour heavy attack forces would concentrate to relieve the isolated vehicle. In an hour and a half the relieved vehicle would be resupplied.

[Sheilbh]

It's more of a mix though. The units doing the actual fighting have much more freedom on how to achieve the goals set out by their superiors. And those are methods they got by training on western doctrine after 2014. Doesn't mean all of the army fights like that, but they're definately not fighting using pure Russian/Soviet doctrine either.

At least that what I've been reading / hearing over the last year.

I agree - I've heard. But I'm not sure if I'm using the right words on doctrine or tactics. I don't think they're reverting to old Soviet style centralised command - I think everything I've read is Ukrainian forces are more reactive and empowered. But they found that without air support Western tactics didn't work for them against an entrenched, well-armed enemy and have reverted to more attritional artillery.

Ukrainians complaining a lot of western training is pretty useless and folks saying they're the ones who can teach us instead as this modern 21st century drone warfare business is just not covered in our training, it's totally new, et al.

This is a very good point. We've seen in Ukraine and Armenia (and I'd argue Israel) the impact of drones - I still don't think it's been fully realised. I don't think the fog of war exists anymore or it's been profoundly changed. I think it's possibly as big as the arrival of airplanes in WW1 - we can see how much they'll change things but I don't think we actually know yet.

In addition no Western power has fought an equivalent great power in decades, or even many inter-state wars (all of which have been overwhelmingly one-sided). I think it is as possible that there's a lot we need to be learning from Ukrainian equivalents and experience as much as the other way round.

[crazy canuck]

I don't understand how a long war of attrition is a Russian defeat.  Ukraine is the one who only survives because the West is prepared to fund the war. 

Russia was in miserable shape before this war. Let's just ignore the whole disintegrating countryside due to corruption and misdirection of resources. Look at the Demographic situation alone. Russia just got thousands of their young people killed and drove a million more into exile. Now look at what this does to their diplomatic situation and trade.

It just boggles the mind that any of you look at this situations and think it is good. Would you want Canada run this way? Granted it would certainly reduce the housing prices.

I don't recall seeing anybody saying it's good. I am challenging the premise that it is a victory for Ukraine. Doesn't appear to be a victory for anybody, and Russia certainly has the ability to withstand a war of attrition better than Ukraine if the west stops funding the war. I'm not sure what is controversial about that point.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I agree - I've heard. But I'm not sure if I'm using the right words on doctrine or tactics. I don't think they're reverting to old Soviet style centralised command - I think everything I've read is Ukrainian forces are more reactive and empowered. But they found that without air support Western tactics didn't work for them against an entrenched, well-armed enemy and have reverted to more attritional artillery.

yeah, then we're meaning the same.

[Admiral Yi]

Here's modern combined arms US doctrine. Take a guess what's missing for Ukraine to implement it (hint: almost everything).

Why not lead with the grown up response and skip the sarcasm? 

[Zoupa]

I mean, you started by complaining that Ukraine used too many shells without doing a minimum of research.

[Legbiter]

Excellent interview with Valery Zahluzhny on the frontline in Ukraine. Offers a pretty bleak assessment.

An army of Ukraine's standard ought to have been able to move at a speed of 30km a day as it breached Russian defensive lines. "If you look at nato's text books and at the maths which we did [in planning the counter-offensive], four months should have been enough time for us to have reached Crimea, to have fought in Crimea, to return from Crimea and to have gone back in and out again," General Zaluzhny says sardonically. Instead he watched his troops and equipment get stuck in minefields on the approaches to Bakhmut in the east, his Western-supplied equipment getting pummelled by Russian artillery and drones. The same story unfolded on the offensive's main thrust, in the south, where newly formed and inexperienced brigades, despite being equipped with modern Western kit, immediately ran into trouble.

"First I thought there was something wrong with our commanders, so I changed some of them. Then I thought maybe our soldiers are not fit for purpose, so I moved soldiers in some brigades," says General Zaluzhny. When those changes failed to make a difference, the commander told his staff to dig out a book he once saw as a student in a military academy in Ukraine. Its title was "Breaching Fortified Defence Lines". It was published in 1941 by a Soviet major-general, P. S. Smirnov, who analysed the battles of the first world war. "And before I got even halfway through it, I realised that is exactly where we are because just like then, the level of our technological development today has put both us and our enemies in a stupor."

That thesis, he says, was borne out as he went to the front line in Avdiivka, also in the east, where Russia has recently advanced by a few hundred metres over several weeks by throwing in two of its armies. "On our monitor screens the day I was there we saw 140 Russian machines ablaze—destroyed within four hours of coming within firing range of our artillery." Those fleeing were chased by "first-person-view" drones, remote-controlled and carrying explosive charges that their operators simply crash into the enemy. The same picture unfolds when Ukrainian troops try to advance. General Zaluzhny describes a battlefield in which modern sensors can identify any concentration of forces, and modern precision weapons can destroy it. "The simple fact is that we see everything the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing. In order for us to break this deadlock we need something new, like the gunpowder which the Chinese invented and which we are still using to kill each other," he says.

Whole article is good.

https://archive.vn/tKztl#selection-1007.0-1007.1001

[Admiral Yi]

I mean, you started by complaining that Ukraine used too many shells without doing a minimum of research.

I read a linked article about them using too many shells.  I watched clips about factories running triple shifts to keep up with the usage.  I watched umpteen clips about Ukrainians exulting that it only took 20 rounds to get a direct hit on a single BMP.  How about you budget your sarcasm a little more wisely.

[Jacob]

How about you budget your sarcasm a little more wisely.

If you have a massive supply of something, you don't really need to budget it. Sort of like the situation the Ukrainians wish they were in re: artillery shells.