2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

[Monash]

Layman's question! Could an outside source; North Korea f.ex,, have supplied some of the reported armor?

Only the most basic. Most of NKs armored forces a literally antiques and there's a good question as to how many of them are even serviceable now. And of course if Russia wants to push old/outdated systems into front line use? Well it has it's own large stockpile of junk to draw from. It's much more likely though that NK could and would provide artillery pieces as well as artillery ammunition to Russia. They have lots of artillery and all or most of it will be the right caliber. Beyond that towed artillery is way more easy to maintain than tanks and other armored vehicles because its mechanically simpler. As long as it hasn't had too many rounds fired through it and been kept greased, oiled and dry? All you need to do is whack on a new set of tires and your basically good to go.

And Russia desperate needs new barrels. There are already reports of artilley piece shortages because Russia is apparently wearing out barrels faster than it can replace them.

[Officer of Engineers]

Only the most basic. Most of NKs armored forces a literally antiques and there's a good question as to how many of them are even serviceable now.

They're T-55 variants. Change the oil, gas it up and they're good to go. That's why they're so abundant in the North Korean and Chinese arsenals.

And of course if Russia wants to push old/outdated systems into front line use? Well it has it's own large stockpile of junk to draw from.

Here's the point. It takes just as much effort and munitions to kill a T-55 as a T-72.

IAnd Russia desperate needs new barrels. There are already reports of artilley piece shortages because Russia is apparently wearing out barrels faster than it can replace them.

Not desperate anymore.

[Officer of Engineers]

They can replace the tanks, sure. Can they replace the crews so easily?

Yes, they have thus far. It's attrition and the Russians are winning!

[Monash]

They're T-55 variants. Change the oil, gas it up and they're good to go. That's why they're so abundant in the North Korean and Chinese arsenals.

Here's the point. It takes just as much effort and munitions to kill a T-55 as a T-72.

Not desperate anymore.

They still need radios and if possible low/vision/night fighting gear. And crews. Who are going to be vulnerable to even light, one shot man portable AT weapons like AT4s. The tank will actually be easier to replace than the the crews will! And as for desperate? I'm still reading reports of artillery piece shortages on the Russian front lines now. Barrel ware seems to be the issue.

[Officer of Engineers]

They still need radios and if possible low/vision/night fighting gear. And crews. Who are going to be vulnerable to even light, one shot man portable AT weapons like AT4s. The tank will actually be easier to replace than the the crews will!

That's the point, within context, this is not a Ukrainian LEO 2 rushing out to meet a Russian T-72 ala Kursk, it's still a Ukrainian AT team waiting in ambush to kill a Russian tank be it a T-85 or T-55.

And as for desperate? I'm still reading reports of artillery piece shortages on the Russian front lines now. Barrel ware seems to be the issue.

The Krokhmal’ne Line was breached by 10,000 rounds per day (Putin thanking KJU). It is at least a sign that the Russians can concentrate artillery where they want.

[Monash]

That's the point, within context, this is not a Ukrainian LEO 2 rushing out to meet a Russian T-72 ala Kursk, it's still a Ukrainian AT team waiting in ambush to kill a Russian tank be it a T-85 or T-55.

The Krokhmal’ne Line was breached by 10,000 rounds per day (Putin thanking KJU). It is at least a sign that the Russians can concentrate artillery where they want.

No argument with the analysis of the consequences. My questions would instead relate to how long this approach is sustainable. Russia's ability to produce artillery shells is more or less fixed. NK on the other hand only has stockpiles it can draw on. Shell production isn't a factor in the short to medium term. So that means there's a finite amount of ammunition they can sell to Russia before they reach the point where they hit the minimum amount of shells they need to realistically have a chance of defending themselves. And have no doubt, the NKs will be watching the impact of 'dumb' towed artillery on the battlefield in Ukraine much more closely than almost anyone else on the planet. They'll see both the impact it's having and the rate of expenditure required to achieve that impact. So I think its a safe bet the amount of shells they're willing to sell to Putin will be much less than what it would have been before this war started.

IMO? (as a lay person). The above imposes severe limits on how long Russia can expend artillery shells at the rate they're doing currently. It's going to be a close run thing. Russia has only a couple of years before they can no longer sustain the effort they're currently putting into this war, in terms of both munitions output and armored vehicles. And even if Trump wins in 2024 it's going to be more than 12 months from now before whatever policies he imposes start to have an impact. Whatever happens? I don't see Putin conquering Ukraine as per his original intentions. Carving some chucks out of it? Yes. Winning this war hands down on the scale he originally imagined? No.

[Albany Rifles]

They still need radios and if possible low/vision/night fighting gear. And crews. Who are going to be vulnerable to even light, one shot man portable AT weapons like AT4s. The tank will actually be easier to replace than the the crews will! And as for desperate? I'm still reading reports of artillery piece shortages on the Russian front lines now. Barrel ware seems to be the issue.

Also, they take 4 mancrews because of no autoloader. It takes some time to train a loader to acceptable levels...not even a good one. So that impacts combat capability.

Also...the T-55s are a lot more easy to kill than T-72s. 25mm & 30mm autocannon APDS-T will eat up a T-55 beyond the range of the T-55s' 100mm. The T-72s have much better organic FCS & optics. They are not a one for one trade off.

[Albany Rifles]

No argument with the analysis of the consequences. My questions would instead relate to how long this approach is sustainable. Russia's ability to produce artillery shells is more or less fixed. NK on the other hand only has stockpiles it can draw on. Shell production isn't a factor. So that means there's a finite amount of ammunition they can sell to Russia before they reach the point where they hit the minimum amount of shells they need to realistically have a chance of defending themselves. And have no doubt, the NKs will be watching the impact of 'dumb' towed artillery on the battlefield in Ukraine much more closely than almost anyone else on the planet. They'll see both the impact it's having and the rate of expenditure required to achieve that impact. So I think its a safe bet the amount of shells they're willing to sell to Putin will be much less than what it would have been before this war started.

IMO? (as a lay person). The above imposes severe limits on how long Russia can expend artillery shells at the rate they're doing currently. It's going to be a close run thing. Russia has only a couple of years before they can no longer sustain the effort they're currently putting into this war, in terms of both munitions output and armored vehicles. And even if Trump wins in 2024 it's going to be more than 12 months from now before whatever policies he imposes start to have an impact. Whatever happens? I don't see Putin conquering Ukraine as per his original intentions. Carving some chucks out of it? Yes. Winning this war hands down on the scale he originally imagined? No.

And so no incorrect conclusions will be drawn, towed artillery is brutally exposed to an army with effective counterbattery systems. The NORKs may have a lot of towed but the US & ROKs have a ton of MLRS systems tied into integrated counter mortar/artillery radars networks. In a true war scenario MLRS rockets are on the way towards the firing battery before their first rounds hit the ground. We were doing this in 1991 in the Gulf. 4 decades on our methods and systems are so much better.

To be clear, the UAF does not have this capability widespread yet. But if they come out the other side they will get tied into a NATO force structure with this capability.

[Albany Rifles]

From this morning's Washington Post. A good overall evaluation on how the Russian-Ukraine War has changed the face of land combat in the 21st Century. I am happy to report these type of tactics and procedures have already been embraced by the US military.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ogy-stalemate/

Opinion

What a Russian and Ukrainian general agree on: This battlespace is different



As top Russian and Ukrainian generals assess the battlefield after nearly two brutal years of stalemated “positional” warfare, they draw the same lessons: Tanks, manned aircraft and traditional maneuver forces are sitting ducks, while advanced drones and digital battle-management systems can have a decisive impact.

Russia has come to realize what Ukraine recognized more than a year ago: This is an “algorithm war,” one where digital intelligence and targeting systems have rewritten the rules of conflict. The “fog of war” experienced by commanders for centuries has cleared. In the newly transparent battlespace, movements by large units are instantly visible and vulnerable.

This look into Russian and Ukrainian military assessments is possible thanks to commentaries published in the past two weeks by two veteran commanders, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, a former chief of the Russian general staff, and Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, head of the Ukrainian military. They appeared, respectively, in Army Standard, a Russian publication, and on the website of the Ukrainian defense ministry.


The commentaries were flagged to me by Kevin Ryan, a retired Army brigadier general who served as U.S. defense attaché in Moscow and then taught at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. He translated the articles and circulated them this week among Russia specialists. Zaluzhny made similar comments about the importance of drones in an interview published in November in the Economist, but the Russian analysis is new and startling.


“These two adversaries see many of the same lessons,” Ryan writes in an email summarizing the commentaries. The generals recognize that in the Ukraine battlespace, “no concentration of troops, large or small, can escape the ever-present reconnaissance by unmanned aerial systems and satellites,” he notes.

The tactical revolution underway in Ukraine underlines why a congressional failure to approve continued U.S. military support for Kyiv would be so devastating. As Russia gains increasing mastery of digital warfare, Zaluzhny worries that Ukraine is hobbled by “exhaustion of our partners’ stocks of missiles and ammunition” and “the difficulty of our allies in determining the priorities of support.”


Baluyevsky’s comments read like a wake-up call to his fellow Russian officers. He argues that the so-called special military operation in Ukraine has been “an unprecedented test of literally all components of military affairs and military construction.” His analysis came in the foreword for an anthology of essays about the war, which was then summarized in Army Standard by Russian journalist Sergey Valchenko.

Baluyevsky echoes many Western commentators who have argued that defense has trumped offense in Ukraine. “Air defense has won an unexpected triumph over military aviation,” which has “lost the ability to operate en masse over enemy territory” and even must fly “with caution over its own territory.”

The tank “has become one of the main casualties of the combat experience of the last two years,” he explains, since it was “an easily detected and easily hit target” and “turned out to be very vulnerable to mines.” Similarly, “the impossibility of concentrating troops … forces us to conduct combat operations with small units and separate combat vehicles.”


Baluyevsky has some scathing comments about the performance of Russian weapons. “The qualitative superiority of NATO artillery is evident,” he contends. Ukraine “has revealed a significant lag in Russian artillery and missile systems and requires their priority radical rearmament in the next few years.”

OPINIONS ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Next


Opinion What a Russian and Ukrainian general agree on: This battlespace is different...

The winners in this war are drones. “Unmanned aircraft have rapidly and unconditionally conquered the airspace,” Baluyevsky argues. Zaluzhny agrees that “unmanned systems, along with other new types of weapons, are almost the only tool for getting out of” the stalemate of trench warfare.

Zaluzhny bemoans Russia’s manpower advantage and Ukraine’s “inability … to improve the state of staffing of the Defense Forces without the use of unpopular measures,” such as a nationwide draft. His disagreement with President Volodymyr Zelensky about the need for such an all-out mobilization is one reason for recent tension between the two men — and Zelensky’s reported readiness to sack his commander.


Ukraine, as I wrote after visiting Kyiv in October, is exhausted by war and slowly bleeding out. Zaluzhny implicitly recognizes this war fatigue in arguing for increased use of unmanned systems to “reduce the level of losses … reduce the degree of participation of traditional means of destruction … [and] limited involvement of heavy equipment.”

The lesson for the United States, beyond the simple but urgent need to continue military assistance for Ukraine, is to focus that support on the high-tech weapons that matter. The weapons that have generated endless debate, such as tanks and F-16 fighters, are less important than drones, antiaircraft systems and electronic-warfare jammers.

The best weapons today, agree the Russian and Ukrainian generals, might be small, cheap systems such as “first-person view,” or FPV drones that fly into targets like tiny suicide bombers and can be almost impossible to stop. The chilling fact is that these silent killers can be bought and used by almost any combatant, anywhere on Earth. It is, as the generals agree, a new day in warfare.

[S2]

A terrorist militia (HAMAS?), well-armed and well-versed in the use of drones, can achieve out-sized battlefield results because of this sea-change in military affairs. As a matter of concern, Ukraine sources indicate recent Russian success on the northern approaches to Avdivvka has largely stemmed from Ukrainian inability to deploy drones because of inclement weather.

Ummm...yeah, there's this really cool new toy that's dramatically changed the battlefield but if reliance upon it becomes the sole source of intel and observation then some very bad habits are embedding themselves in local commanders and intelligence/targeting officers.

[Albany Rifles]

A terrorist militia (HAMAS?), well-armed and well-versed in the use of drones, can achieve out-sized battlefield results because of this sea-change in military affairs. As a matter of concern, Ukraine sources indicate recent Russian success on the northern approaches to Avdivvka has largely stemmed from Ukrainian inability to deploy drones because of inclement weather.

Ummm...yeah, there's this really cool new toy that's dramatically changed the battlefield but if reliance upon it becomes the sole source of intel and observation then some very bad habits are embedding themselves in local commanders and intelligence/targeting officers.

Not seeing where anyone has said it was an all or nothing. It is an integration of capabilities into operations that improve situation awareness. It gives a cavalry squad longer reach while remaining in cover. It allows for more artillery forward observers to see further. It allows all obstacles to be covered by observation and fires.

[Ironduke]

It's official now, Zelenskyy has sacked Zaluzhnyi.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68244813

[Albany Rifles]

A good analysis by LTG(R) Mark Hertling in the change of leadership.



https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...oogle_vignette

MarkHertling

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Many US media outlets proclaiming "Zelenskyy sacks Zaluzhnyi" or "Zaluzhnyi fired!"

I don't see it that way.

Allow me to provide some context. A

1/

GEN Zaluzhnyi is 51 y.o., extremely young for a Commander of any nation's Armed Forces. Most 4-star generals are in their 60's with much more experience.

Since Feb '22 he's been the tactical, opn'l & strategic leader of the toughest fight we've seen in the 21st century. 2/

Here's what I mean by "tactical, opn'l, strategic" commander:

1. He commands the 2000+ mile tactical front
2. He coordinates each battles into an operational campaign plan
3. He "plays" in the strategic arena with his nation's leaders & over 50 supporting nations. 3/
But that's not all:

1. He started this war without a fully modernized army, as part of a defensive fight...and incorporated hundreds of new pieces of equipment as the UAF modernized
2. He had to ensure the logistics support of all that new "stuff."
4/
He's had to find ways to train his forces - from privates to generals - into the kind of modern fight he has been facing, while simultaneously determining how he could fight effectively with a bevy of modern weapon systems. 5/
He's dealt with various personalities and unique nationalities as NATO and the US came together to help him, some offering things he needed, some holding back on things he desperately wanted. 6/

Truthfully, he came into this invasion as an inexperienced and untrained senior level commander, and he carried himself as a leader of a great army and an emerging nation.

But - and there's always a but - he likely is physically, emotionally, and intellectually exhausted. 7/
Commanders of forces get a few hours sleep each night, and continuously face problems with no solutions.

But he has been masterful in his performance over the last 2+ years, and he'll be studied as a great military leader who excelled during a time of crisis. 8/
God bless you, General.

It's time for a new commander to take the reins. It's a good call to get some new blood into this next phase of the campaign. 9/

[S2]

"Not seeing where anyone has said it was an all or nothing..."

I don't monitor twitter but Denys Davydov said the recent advances along the northern end of Avdiivka were successful because inclement weather prevented aerial observation via drones of that approach.

Of course it should not be all or nothing. Never. Ever.

You know better than I SOP for establishing OP/LP forward of your positions. Use of any available ground sensors and integration to artillery OPs. My sense, however, suggests that observed calls for fire from OP locations IS fading into the past. If so, a very bad habit born from reliance on newer and SAFER means of target detection. Given my reading today of a infantry battalion with 40 effectives and companies routinely operating at 35% strength, one can easily see how bad tactical behavior creeps into your manpower reality.

ALWAYS with a cost.

[Ironduke]

From the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/u...t-missile.html

U.S. officials say Ukraine should continue to develop innovative ways to strike at Russian forces as the war approaches its third year. But Ukraine’s use of a Patriot missile to take down a plane last month is an example of how novel battlefield tactics can be fraught with peril as well as promise.

Unbeknown to Ukraine’s military, the Russian aircraft it targeted may have been carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, according to U.S. officials.

The Patriot is a defensive system, usually used to protect a location and not to shoot down planes. A European partner provided the Patriot interceptor that hit the Russian Ilyushin-76 cargo plane on Jan. 24, according to American officials briefed on the incident.

Russian officials immediately claimed the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were to be exchanged for Russian service members.

Publicly, American officials will not comment on what brought down the plane, though officials who spoke privately on the condition of anonymity said the reports of a Patriot missile being used were accurate.

The question of who was on the plane is less clear. American officials have not confirmed the identities of the passengers, but they said it appeared probable that at least some of them were Ukrainian prisoners. U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia may have overstated the number of deaths.