Saturday, June 17, 2023

"Ukraine's offensive hits a steel wall" - US Senator Dick Black

 

Thanks to Duke 7 for the link!
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K3 MBT Concept

Thanks to Gessler for the link!

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They're lowering expectations for Ukraine's counter offensive

 via CNBC

Ukraine has a lot to prove with this latest counteroffensive, having to show its international partners that the continued supply of NATO weaponry is worth it, used effectively and can be decisive in the outcome of the war.


U.S. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday that the White House would not comment on “twists and turns of the counteroffensive or battlefield updates on what is obviously a very active and ongoing situation. We’ll leave that to the Ukrainian military to speak to.”


RUSI’s Reynolds said that Western-donated weaponry wouldn’t radically change Ukraine’s performance on the battlefield, however.


“I think a lot of the capabilities they’ve been gifted have been useful but the Ukrainian military is still working to absorb a lot of the equipment it’s been given, a lot of it’s been provided piecemeal,” he said, noting that, as such “we certainly shouldn’t have expected any radically different performance based on sort of Western equipment.”

I stated that they launched this assault too soon.  That they should have waited.  Additionally I surmised that it wasn't a call by military leadership to do this now, but by their political masters.  More from the article.

 Analysts say there is a concern that Ukraine is under too much pressure to perform for its international partners who are, ultimately, sustaining its military efforts to repel Russia over the longer-term.


“The importance of Ukraine’s counteroffensive is high, and so are the expectations,” Teneo’s Tursa noted, adding that, in this respect, “Ukraine has partially become a victim of its successful counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions last year.”


“The long wait for Ukraine’s latest offensive and the arrival of advanced Western weapons have further raised expectations and optimism, which might prove counterproductive for Kyiv in the long run,” he noted.


RUSI’s Reynolds agreed, noting that “I think expectations were set very, very high ... and I think they were too high.”

Here 

Everyone wants to declare Zelensky a great statesman, a wartime leader and damn near a Saint.

The reality?  He's an actor and a showman.

He likes to "move the crowd".

So when it comes to this counter offensive he's done the showman thing and let his arrogance wag his tongue.  Instead of being moderate, informing the international audience and his countrymen that this would be hard.  Casualties would be high and that they should steel themselves to a hard fought campaign, he instead insisted on certain types of weaponry which lends to the mindset that if we have this we can end the war tomorrow.

Back on task.

The placement of this article in a business rag is telling.  For better or worse, our business community is able to push Congress to act in certain that the general public can't.

I kinda read this as a message that they're gonna comeback for even MORE money to aid Ukraine.  

The politics of this are getting untenable.

Our cities are sewer fires.  Our infrastructure is trash.  The American people will not tolerate the sending of treasure to Ukraine for much longer when they're dealing with increased taxes, crime, open borders and other non-sense that has to be dealt with here at home.

The Ukrainians boxed themselves in.  Maybe it was foreign leaders.  I don't know.  What I do know is that even if successful the lines will move only a bit and it will take tremendous propaganda to spin this into a win.

My opinion?

This counter offensive now was a Hail Mary shot to end the war this year OR to set conditions favorable to Ukraine to make peace talks possible on their terms.

The sad thing?

I truly believe the military leadership of both Ukraine and Russia want to turn this off.  Any human should want to turn this off. 

If you're a cheerleader for this war then be advised.  They have a foreign legion and they're taking men from 18 to 65.  Even if you're at the edges of that range I'm sure they'll accept your service.  Put your words into action.  FIGHT FOR UKRAINE is here (under construction) but they'll put you in contact with people that will instruct you on how to get into the fight.  Put up or shut up. But stop barking at the moon.

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Friday, June 16, 2023

Zelensky talking or is it his masters in Washington and London?

Pretty damn arrogant to question their travel to Moscow. Down right insulting to reject peace talks. He wears military gear but ain't living in the mud/dust risking his life. Guess its easy to be bold when you're in the rear.
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Open Comment Post. Ukraine War. 16 June 23

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Open Comment Post. 16 June 23

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Micron will invest over 4.3 billion yuan ($603 million) in its packaging and testing plant in China...says this shows it unswerving commitment

US based but Chinese biased. Sanctions aren't the answer. Tariffs are. Dump all the products you want on our shores but you're gonna pay a price. Free trade is dead. Fair trade is essential and within the continental US should be based on OUR needs not the needs of other countries.
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Ukraine War Could Last a Decade, Top Ukrainian Official Says

 

This would be worst case scenario but one I expect. A lingering low grade war in the heart of Europe. The sad thing? The longer this drags on the harder it will be to turn it off and the more destructive it will be for all involved (not just the countries fighting but also those supplying gear).
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War in Ukraine so far favors the defense

 via Japan Times

Nearly a week after the Ukrainian counteroffensive began in earnest, the Russian defenses are largely holding, and it’s clear that the Ukrainian military cannot count on another rapid, sweeping success akin to last fall’s Kharkiv region offensive, which saw up to 12,000 square kilometers of territory liberated.


This doesn’t mean the counteroffensive is failing or even faltering. Ukrainians have made clear tactical gains on at least one of the attack axes, and they may be helped in the future by the collapse of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant’s dam as the Dnipro becomes shallower and easier to cross upstream from the flood zone. The lack of unity among Russian commanders is another potential success factor.


But now is still a good time to recall the assertion of some military theorists that modern technology has shifted the offense-defense balance in favor of defense. This school of thought provides a ready explanation for Ukraine’s surprising success at repelling the Russian invasion, but also suggests that the much-ridiculed Russian troops may have a natural advantage as they face the current Ukrainian onslaught.


As Seth Jones, Alexander Palmer and Joseph Bermudez point out in a recent brief for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, technological developments that increased mobility historically favored the attacker and those that boosted firepower helped the defender.


If the introduction of the stirrup in the 8th century didn’t quite bring about feudalism in Europe, as U.S. historian Lynn Townsend White suggested in the 1960s, it did enable crushing cavalry charges that subsequently won many a battle. The tank enabled the most spectacular offensives of World War II. By contrast, the machine gun, the anti-aircraft gun and infantry anti-tank weapons all made it easier to repel attacks.


Most recently, defensive technology has arguably made the greater advances. U.S. military theorist Amos Fox has argued convincingly that maneuver is dead as a military strategy because modern war is increasingly fought in cities and the modern battlefield is saturated with surveillance technology that reduces mobility and the element of surprise. With drones hovering everywhere, it’s hard to move in open terrain without quickly attracting artillery fire.


These factors have contributed to Ukraine’s successful defensive campaign. So did the abundance of infantry antitank devices such as the U.S.-made Javelin and the U.K.-produced NLAW, as well as the use of long-range artillery (especially U.S.-made HIMARS with guided missiles) and relatively strong air defenses. Some of these components of success have been relatively cheap: A tank, even a Soviet-made one, costs much more than a Javelin or an entire swarm of commercially available drones.


The relative Russian helplessness in the face of modern defensive technology robbed the invading army of its expected freedom of maneuver, made it appear ponderous where speed was of the essence and thus enabled the Kharkiv breakthrough. Confused and demoralized by the formidable resistance it met, the Russian military had failed to pay proper attention to its own defenses.


Frank Hoffman of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University has called on the U.S. and NATO to adapt their strategies to these changing technological conditions:


The massive employment of guided weapons, including rocket and missile artillery, in Ukraine is instructive. The combination of pervasive surveillance and deeper strike systems afford a defensive but operationally relevant advantage that NATO should base its defensive strategy around.


As a direct consequence of the Ukrainian success at defense, however, Russia itself has been put on the defensive as it tries to hold on to captured territory. Now, the advantages afforded by surveillance technology and long-range artillery play into its hands. Russian troops in the field often have been as inventive as their Ukrainian adversaries in putting to use makeshift drone technology and the Russian artillery is at least no weaker than the opposing side’s. Gen, Sergei Surovikin, who, in his brief time as the Russian military operation’s supreme commander, surrendered the city of Kherson because he correctly assessed it as indefensible, proceeded to spend months planning and constructing several lines of defense, sometimes scaring Russian soldiers by how far into the rear the fortifications were being erected.


A defending Russian army also brings to bear air defenses that have adapted to Ukraine’s use of Western-made guided missiles and a formidable electronic warfare capability. According to a recent report from the U.K. Royal United Services Institute,


Russian electronic warfare remains potent, with an approximate distribution of at least one major system covering each 10 km of front. These systems are heavily weighted towards the defeat of UAVs and tend not to try and deconflict their effects. Ukrainian UAV losses remain at approximately 10,000 per month. Russian EW is also apparently achieving real time interception and decryption of Ukrainian Motorola 256-bit encrypted tactical communications systems, which are widely employed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.


In a way, both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries are more in their element when defending rather than attacking. The first week of the long-delayed Ukrainian assault has shown that the Ukrainian military failed to exploit an element of surprise anywhere it tried to apply pressure. And while Russian soldiers were apprehensive about the new Western tanks and other armored vehicles newly supplied to Ukraine, the first losses of German-made Leopards and U.S.-made Bradleys have shown these are hardly indestructible.


Demoralized or not, the regular Russian military didn’t run at the sight of the advancing Ukrainians, who had trouble breaking through even the first defensive line. The one significant exception so far is the erstwhile Vremivka Salient that jutted out into Ukrainian-held territory in the southwest of the Donetsk region. According to official Ukrainians reports backed up by Russian Telegram feeds, it has been all but erased as Ukrainians retook several villages, pushing the invaders to their second line of defense. Ukrainian forces also have advanced slightly in the vicinity of the town of Bakhmut, only recently claimed by the Russian forces.


The Ukrainian military’s only hope of acquiring an element of surprise lies in the rapid terrain changes following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. The Russian defensive plans do not appear to have incorporated such a scenario.



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Ukrainian Bukovel electronic warfare equipment destroyed by Lancet.

Ukrainian Bukovel electronic warfare equipment destroyed by Lancet. The electronic warfare equipment specs say it can detect UAVs at a range of 80-100km and suppress them at a range of 15-20km.

I remain convinced that electronic warfare is the way to keep loitering UAVs at bay.  

Don't understand how they're being used though.

Any grouping of vehicles makes them vulnerable to artillery strikes but single vehicles are vulnerable.  Crews have to do maintenance, rest/sleep, etc...

Being distributed apparently helps.  Being too greatly distributed seems to make individual units/soldiers easy pickings too. 

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