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2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

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  • I work for a defense contractor, which one I'd rather keep private. We had a corporate bigshot over my division come to our site recently and effectively for defense they consider the upcoming budget the most challenging in recent memory. The Air Force Secretary per bigshot said something along the lines of "we have started more development programs than we can finish and it might be time to put a bullet in some of them". One contributing problem is the nuclear missile triad system upgrades that are due are massively overbudget.
    Last edited by rj1; 23 Jul 24,, 04:39.

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    • Originally posted by S2 View Post
      "Ukraine's ability to pursue its own peace process is contingent on its ability to liberate operationally-significant territory. Ukraine cannot undertake successful counteroffensive efforts in support of this aim without Western military support in the near- and medium-terms." (EDIT-failed to acknowledge quote ISW July 6, 2024)

      Peace on any basis besides capitulation by Ukraine entails the re-capture of "operationally-significant territory". Anything less will not reverse Putin's present perspective. He believes he's winning ugly. Gains are modest, tactical, barely affordable in lives expended but inexorable all the same. Projected indefinitely, Russia will hold more tomorrow than they shall today...and so on until final victory or Putin's deposal/death.

      Or so Putin believes. Consequently there is NO basis for negotiations on either side. So...how to reverse Ukraine's operational miasma? No offensive operation of significance will succeed in the present battlefield without sufficient air-superiority to return freedom to operationally mass and maneuver effectively. To do so, Ukraine will not only have to actively assist ground offensive operations kinetically from the air but also diminish Russia's drone reconnaissance while defeating the stand-off threat posed by massive glide bombs.

      Aside from more brigade forces equipped and trained to fight aggressive offensive operations (almost impossible to get really, really good before commitment). Seems there's a problem with equipment...again. No money issues, mind you, just the usual slothness to which we've become accustomed. Now...nice and shiny those brigades might be, but if you wish operational success with amateurs, you'd better find all the force multipliers possible. E.W. good and in abundance. Anti-air from strategic defense of key infrastructure through brigade tactical air defense to facilitate maneuver despite FPV/Attack helicopters/Su-25. An expanded air umbrella provided by larger ani-air systems like PATRIOT and, dare I say, F-16s twenty nine months and counting after the war started.

      Finally this-both forces have evolved. The greatest qualitative disparity, IMV, existed in Ukraine's favor in the fall of 2022. Both the Ukrainian qualitative edge and the battlefield fluidity BEGGED for further exploitation. Ukraine literally had troops in Kremmina and just outside of Svatove. Both were predicted to fall anyday.

      It didn't happen. Ukraine culminated...or so they convinced themselves. In truth, though, much of the success in the north owed to Russian operational malpractice which Ukraine identified and skillfully exploited in grand series of tactical battles which carried them to Kremmina's doorstep. I don''t believe, however, they were psychologically prepared to reinforce success logistically and with follow-on forces. I've a sense they were as surprised as everybody else and were somewhat self-congratulatory and pleased to have done as well as they did.

      Russia didn't stop. WAGNER instituted the genesis of what we see today by throwing themselves against Bakhmut. Now Avdiivka and, soon, Chasiv Yar and Toretsk. This will work to Putin's general satisfaction and ultimate victory as currently projected unless something good changes for Ukraine. I'm increasingly pessimistic that Ukraine can be properly equipped to conduct operationally significant operations. I'm further unconvinced they'd possess the nuanced finesse/acumen and skill at the battalion/brigade level to successfully execute such operations.

      I feel very bleak.
      When is the last time Ukraine gained back sizable territory, Kherson late 2022?

      This is my grand problem with this war really ever since Avdiivka fell. Ukraine's goal that is stated publicly is complete removal of Russia from their pre-2014 territory. That requires not just stopping the Russians' little attacks but also coordinated counterattack offensives from Ukraine that push the Russians back. How far away are the Ukrainian military from a large offensive operstion to take back Avdiivka? What Ukrainian political leadership is saying and what the Ukrainian military are actually doing do not match up at all. They're fighting like a military that is resigned to they have permanently lost all land they've lost and they're just trying to minimize Russian gains, because the Russians have been gradually gaining - at least in 2024 - and since the start of the war Russians now control a little more than a sixth of pre-2014 Ukrainian territory, roughly equal in size to Hungary. That's how much land the Ukrainians state they are taking back, which leads to the great HOW question.
      Last edited by rj1; 23 Jul 24,, 04:58.

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      • Based on the arty shell consumption rates we're seeing in Ukraine? Stockpile levels have been grossly underestimated. And when in any major war did the USAF and 'death from above' obliviate the need for artillery on the battlefield?
        Last edited by Monash; 23 Jul 24,, 05:08.
        If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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        • Originally posted by Monash View Post
          Based on the arty shell consumption rates we're seeing in Ukraine? Stockpile levels have been grossly underestimated.
          The Russo-Ukraine War is NOT how we envisioned to fight a war.

          Originally posted by Monash View Post
          And when in any major war did the USAF and 'death from above' eliminate the need for artillery on the battlefield in large numbers?
          You're joking, right? Kuwait War, Kosovo War, Iraq War. There was no artillery bombardment lasting weeks as we are currently seeing in the UKR.
          Chimo

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          • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
            The Russo-Ukraine War is NOT how we envisioned to fight a war.

            You're joking, right? Kuwait War, Kosovo War, Iraq War. There was no artillery bombardment lasting weeks as we are currently seeing in the UKR.
            As per previous posts I was referring to major wars against near peer adversaries not wannabes.
            If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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            • Originally posted by Monash View Post
              As per previous posts I was referring to major wars against near peer adversaries not wannabes.
              Per your definitions then, both Russia and China are wannabes. The Russians have not done a division level fight yet in this entire war while we've executed corps level ops during the Iraq War. The Chinese? They can't get their doctrines straight, trying to figure out where does air and sea fit into a land power equation.

              Chimo

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              • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                I disagree with the articles. We fought 4 wars (Kuwait, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq) where 155 munitions were never the issue. That's because we massed the necessary airpower to negate enemy fire.The Kuwait War, the Iraqis managed to mass as much artillery as the Russians currently do and it still did squat all against us. There's no way the Russians can answer the air artillery we can muster and it's not our fault that we never taken the Ukraine scenario into our equations. We would have carpet bombed Russian formations from day 1.
                Sir, we shot a crap tone of 155mm in OIF 1-3. While we had fewer firing units the M109A6s were much more capable than the M109A5s we used in the Gulf War. We fired more rounds in OIF 1 with fewer tubes than we did in all allies in the Gulf War...combined. I remember reading the outcomes in an Artillery Journal back in late 2003 and was floored. But having worked with the FA guys when they worked on AFATDS through the 1990s it was a much more efficient system and got firing orders in much quicker. And we kept firing them in OIF for several years. The CAF may not have but the US Army...and Marines...did as well. We mothballed a hell of a lot of capacity in the 1990s. I have seen with my own eyes the impacts since I moved into the ammo world a decade ago. We were drawing down our stocks and not replenishing them. Plus a crap ton reached shelf life had to be demilled because deemed no longer safe to fire. I attended a conference at Joint Munitions Command at Rock Island Arsenal, IL, in FEB 2017 to address the issues. The press was to up the production of the Excalibur PGM 155mms which we did but at the cost of producing conventional 155mm shells. Plus as the article lays out there have been bottlenecks in both explosive & propellant production. Tariffs have impacts on us as well as we import.
                “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                Mark Twain

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                • Originally posted by Monash View Post
                  No-one can really be blamed failing to predict the Russian invasion of Ukraine far enough in advance to ramp up munitions production in any meaningful way. However they CAN be blamed for not replacing expended munitions used in post cold war conflicts to levels somewhere near what they were prior to the end of the cold war. The armed forces are supposed to plan for major conflicts not assume everything from now on will be all 'peace, love and moonbeams' till the end of history.
                  The plans were there. The funding was not. A LOT of programs paid the bills for OIF & OEF. We, in point of fact, ate a lot of our seed corn. We planned out the wazoo but if there was no funding to place on contracts you can't produce the items. And the way we operate is if the artillery community needs X, they go to the Acquisition Community to buy & produce X. The AC get the funding in budgets and then pays another Army organization, Army Materiel Command (which owns the production sites), to produce. That is how AMC pays their utility bills, labor and raw materiel costs.
                  “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                  Mark Twain

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Monash View Post

                    Including the USAF. Obviously the ability of smart weapons to detect and hit targets with pinpoint accuracy (on paper) these days is a vast force magnifier of the USAF. But I did stress the idea of being prepared to fight a major war i.e. one fought against one or more near peer adversaries. And the west has had what? Two decades or so to monitor the rise of both Putin and China. It did what?
                    Concentrated on tax cuts and paying for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.

                    To be sure our defense budgets have grown over that time. But the majority of the funding went to costs of the war and major new systems (Fords, F-35s, new attack subs, new ICBMs, etc, etc). What funding that has come in for ground forces went to M1 & M2 modernization, deployment costs to Iraq/Astan, small arms ammo, SOF systems, and crap ton of commercial off the shelf sustainment items (fork lifts, modular palletizing systems, shipping costs) and pay and benefits for Soldiers & Marines...people ain't cheap. As a Marine aviator told me in 2015 we haven't dropped an unguided weapon in CENTCOM since around 2010. So, yeah, big ammo procurement has come for PGMs. And every service has sunk a crap ton of money into useless systems (LCS for Navy, new tanker for the USAF, FCS for Army, etc.) that all got cancelled. Conventional munitions have always fallen below the cut line because there was no vision that US forces...I stress US forces...were not expected to fight in a near peer fight with Russia and/or China.
                    Last edited by Albany Rifles; 23 Jul 24,, 14:45.
                    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                    Mark Twain

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                    • https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/w...-of-ammunition

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                      • To start with, I want to be sure to set something straight from within the first couple of paragraphs. The statement " The Pentagon doesn’t bother tracking the guts of defense contracting, which is who owns the mighty firms that build weaponry." is not true. Not sure where the study got those "facts" but we have been tracking since before the wall came down. You may remember yesterday I mentioned the term Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS). This is an area within acquisition which has hit home for years. As a metric it has grown out of the very downsizing, offshoring and consolidation of the defense industrial base. I was a defense Acquisition Logistician for 35 years...served on 6 different systems starting with the Bradley and completing with the Army's ammo system. We have seen the issue in not only selection for new contracts (which always sees LockMart, NG, Raytheon and/or BAE as subcontractors or partners with small corporations....what we in the business refer to as companies named Earl's Bait & Aerospace...) but in a shortage and drying up of sources for repair parts. This last has really hammered aviation programs...see availability problems with F-15s/18s/22s/35s. In many cases the company which is building new models are also pulling from the same source as for repair parts.

                        What has also impacted us is the shrinking of the industrial base. There just aren't as many CONUS based manufacturers for components. Look at the F-35...how many different countries make components for it? Part of that was to spread cost and risk out. But it also reflects we couldn't build the entire fleet here in a timely manner. And those parts which are made here are spread out over hundreds of Congressional districts. Because pork barrel politics is evil...but jobs in my Congressional district are good!

                        Another hit has been the drive by Congress to have DOD cease contracting for military specific items and go with as much commercial off the shelf (COTS) as possible...literally DOD should have to go buy software from Microsoft, Crowdstrike (oops!), Gateway, Oracle, etc, etc. And for office automation that is fine. Also lowest price is great until it isn't. Because sometimes paying more is better value because you end up with a more reliable product as well as a better life cycle support (which is why Dell won out over Gateway & Panasonic for office automation and nonsecure tactical computer systems).

                        SO...yes, we have seen the consolidation and downsizing. Maybe not every nook and cranny but we have seen...and had to deal with...getting systems out that meet the parameters of what the Warfighter needed and meet the cost, schedule, performance & sustainable IAW acquisition law have seen a myriad of challenges. It has also driven us to the same old partners. And as for the downsizing...just what role was DOD supposed to play in preventing that from happening? Yeah, I am sensitive to these type of sensational articles because they don't know or ignore the entire story. Trust me, there have been a bunch of us working in "the deep state" who have been fed up playing Sisyphus. But it isn't like we had much of a choice.
                        “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                        Mark Twain

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                        • [QUOTE=Albany Rifles;n1607688]

                          And as for the downsizing...just what role was DOD supposed to play in preventing that from happening? Yeah, I am sensitive to these type of sensational articles because they don't know or ignore the entire story. Trust me, there have been a bunch of us working in "the deep state" who have been fed up playing Sisyphus. But it isn't like we had much of a choice.
                          I'm trying to get new parts for something designed 15 years ago that's one-off, no maintenance. Not fun.

                          I'm hard pressed to think if the Defense Department said a merger would negatively impact our national security it'd go through. It could and people would definitely fight it but you'd require them to argue from that viewpoint to start with of defending it won't. The Biden administration did block Lockheed from buying Aerojet Rocketdyne. The reason it hasn't really happened in the post-Cold War past much is they never say that for essentially reasons of state capture, no different than what happens with Russian defense contractors. I think the god worship of Musk was out of touch even before Democrats started to hate him, but he exposed the game pretty well when comparing SpaceX bids for stuff compared to what ULA was charging. Then you look at Boeing and how this year has been a complete disaster for them on multiple fronts.
                          Last edited by rj1; 23 Jul 24,, 23:05.

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                          • I'm going to say, as fucked up as we were and we were fucked up, the Russians and the Chinese were worst, especially the Russians. Both the Russians and the Chinese were following our lead, WITHOUT UNDERSTASNDING OUR REASONING. Both the Chinese Brigadization and the Russian Battalion Combat Group were a COPY of the BCT/Brigade Group and the Battle Group/Task Force formations. At no point in our doctrines was Brigade Group/BCT was a replacement for Division, nor BTC/TF a replacement for regt/bde. At best, a battle group was subordinate to a brigade group.

                            That's how fucked up both the Russians and the Chinese are! They've made mistakes that made them WORST than the Kuwait War Iraqis!

                            In all honesty, NATO would have made mince meat out of the entire force that attacked Kiev and that's with the force already in place!
                            Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 24 Jul 24,, 02:45.
                            Chimo

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                              I'm going to say, as fucked up as we were and we were fucked up, the Russians and the Chinese were worst, especially the Russians. Both the Russians and the Chinese were following our lead, WITHOUT UNDERSTASNDING OUR REASONING. Both the Chinese Brigadization and the Russian Battalion Combat Group were a COPY of the BCT/Brigade Group and the Battle Group/Task Force formations. At no point in our doctrines was Brigade Group/BCT was a replacement for Division, nor BTC/TF a replacement for regt/bde. At best, a battle group was subordinate to a brigade group.

                              That's how fucked up both the Russians and the Chinese are! They've made mistakes that made them WORST than the Kuwait War Iraqis!

                              In all honesty, NATO would have made mince meat out of the entire force that attacked Kiev!
                              From what little I've been able to read about the Russian BCG? It was a hollow threat. Basically no more than a numbers game designed to create numerous formations that on paper would look threatening to the rest of the world but which in reality? Were (for the most part) reliant on a national call up of reservists to fill out the many blank spots in their TOE. I suspect they represented a political solution to a numbers problem. Putin's Generals couldn't man and equip enough Western style brigade formations to create the kind of 'threat' their great leader wanted to project to the West. So what do they do? They invent the new improved, low calorie BCG. They certainly didn't seem to take to heart the reasons why western combat brigades are structured and manned the way they are. Or if they did? They ignored those reasons.

                              It's also apparent they didn't put any serious effort into road testing the BCG concept before rolling it out nation wide. If they had conducted rigorous tests against 'red' forces organized along more conventional lines they would have detected key deficiencies like insufficient infantry power. Now thanks to practical experience in Ukraine? BCGs as a concept? Are going to end up like the LCS program i.e. something that no-one from their respective armed services ever wants to talk about in public.
                              If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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                              • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post

                                The plans were there. The funding was not. A LOT of programs paid the bills for OIF & OEF. We, in point of fact, ate a lot of our seed corn. We planned out the wazoo but if there was no funding to place on contracts you can't produce the items. And the way we operate is if the artillery community needs X, they go to the Acquisition Community to buy & produce X. The AC get the funding in budgets and then pays another Army organization, Army Materiel Command (which owns the production sites), to produce. That is how AMC pays their utility bills, labor and raw materiel costs.
                                Sorry but I would still regard a failure to properly fund your 'plan' as a major failure in planning. Because those plans for fighting any major war? Wouldn't be worth the paper they were written on? I would have thought the top military leadership should have been aware this.
                                If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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