Russian / Ukranian Combat Tactics

[vinod]

Thermobaric TOS A1 is being used extensively.
There was a fantastic footage of thermobaric TOS A1 being used at the azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

[Igorr]

On tank losses, of the 263 Russian tanks lost (open source info), 71 were built in the Soviet era (over 30 years old).
Only 73 Tanks lost were T-80, the remaining 190 were T-72.

So far documented

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... t.html?m=1

16 T-90A, 62 T-72 Obr. 2016 which are newer than T-90s, 74 T-80s, 31 T-72 B obr 1989 and B3, 54 T-72 (older variants) and 6 T-64.

So contrary to popular belief quite a lot of newer tanks but now we are starting to see older T-72As pop up indicating reserves are being tapped.

Zero T-64 tanks are on Russian service now, so all T-64s in the list belong to Ukraine. T-80BV, T-72A, T-72AV, T-72B are on the Ukraine mil service too. from them those, which lacks the Russian tactical signs V, Z or O, belong to Ukraine. After all onlee few of the tanks in the list confirmly belong to Russian forces.

[Shameek]

Mass launch of P800 Oniks and Kalibr cruise missiles.

[John]

Zero T-64 tanks are on Russian service now, so all T-64s in the list belong to Ukraine. T-80BV, T-72A, T-72AV, T-72B are on the Ukraine mil service too. from them those, which lacks the Russian tactical signs V, Z or O, belong to Ukraine. After all onlee few of the tanks in the list confirmly belong to Russian forces.

Those T-64 are captured ones being operated by Rebels supposedly. You can see Z identification in them. Some have been recaptured back by Ukrainian Army so it adds to the confusion.

Oryx has done pretty good job with identification there may be some miscounting but overall I don’t doubt his work, I know I was critical of his work during Arm-Azb conflict in 2020 but he turned out to be quite right.

https://postimg.cc/9zjK5HTT

[Deans]

Zero T-64 tanks are on Russian service now, so all T-64s in the list belong to Ukraine. T-80BV, T-72A, T-72AV, T-72B are on the Ukraine mil service too. from them those, which lacks the Russian tactical signs V, Z or O, belong to Ukraine. After all onlee few of the tanks in the list confirmly belong to Russian forces.

Those T-64 are captured ones being operated by Rebels supposedly. You can see Z identification in them. Some have been recaptured back by Ukrainian Army so it adds to the confusion.

On the tactical signs - Z, V and O
My understanding is that all vehicles of the Southern Military district: 8th Army in Crimea, 58 & 49th Armies in Donbass have the Z symbol
Vehicles captured by the Donbass rebels will have the Z sign, as they come under Southern Military district.

The Western Military district vehicles have the V sign. 1st Guards Tank Army. 6th Army and 20th Army.
The Central Military district vehicles- 41st Army, have the O sign.

[Cyrano]

Only letter A is missing

[Atulya P]

I was more thinking in terms of how the current conflict has played out and the use of older T72s. Why?

On tank losses, of the 263 Russian tanks lost (open source info), 71 were built in the Soviet era (over 30 years old).
Only 73 Tanks lost were T-80, the remaining 190 were T-72.

Of the 248 infantry fighting vehicles lost, 163 were Soviet era. They even include 28 BMP-1 which was obsolete and discontinued in India,
Only 31 losses were the newer BMP-3.

They are saving the core capability and their best equipment for war with NATO, whenever it comes. They know the mud would take a high toll by stalling vehicles so its logical to use expendable ones.

[GShankar]

It is also possible all this is a trap for anyone to think the bear is weak. Shock and Awe is reserved for bigger foes.

However, the cost of war in terms of human life (also referred in some posts as "disregard for soldiers") is higher. Is ruthless the right word here to describe this if at all this is a strategy?

[ks_sachin]

On tank losses, of the 263 Russian tanks lost (open source info), 71 were built in the Soviet era (over 30 years old).
Only 73 Tanks lost were T-80, the remaining 190 were T-72.

Of the 248 infantry fighting vehicles lost, 163 were Soviet era. They even include 28 BMP-1 which was obsolete and discontinued in India,
Only 31 losses were the newer BMP-3.

They are saving the core capability and their best equipment for war with NATO, whenever it comes. They know the mud would take a high toll by stalling vehicles so its logical to use expendable ones.

WoW sir you take the cake!!!
Think through what you have stated.
If you are expending older tanks you r also expending men yes?
If the losses in men and material are correct then they have deeper problems.

[ks_sachin]

It is also possible all this is a trap for anyone to think the bear is weak. Shock and Awe is reserved for bigger foes.

However, the cost of war in terms of human life (also referred in some posts as "disregard for soldiers") is higher. Is ruthless the right word here to describe this if at all this is a strategy?

Yes all that is fine as a theory.
However if a average grunt realises that he is cannon fodder what of morale and will to fight.
No professional army with decent leadership will put its soldiers in harms way unless absolutely required. In this case the strategic aim I understand but the tactical means to achieve those objectives in my view have shown the Russian military leadership to be somewhat suspect.
The Russian military leadership does not appear to have been prepared and I think this is a consequence of Putins leadership. I am not sure pure merit is a criteria for promotion. Plus since the 2nd WW the Russian army has not really faced a war to test them!

[Anoop]

Plus since the 2nd WW the Russian army has not really faced a war to test them!

What was the 10 year war in Afghanistan? What were the 2 wars in Chechnya?

[Igorr]

Analisis of the situation from Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin

About the beginning of the war.

The array of captured military documents of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the materials of interrogations of prisoners, which is available today at the disposal of our command, allow us to draw the main conclusion - by starting a special operation, the Russian army was able to forestall the Ukrainian army for a period of five to ten days. At the moment of the first strike, most of the Ukrainian troops were in the process of moving to the areas of concentration or were already deployed there. Therefore, there is no need to talk about any strategic surprise of the special operation, but tactical surprise was achieved by us. The Ukrainian army did not have time to complete its deployment according to wartime plans, and was not brought to full combat readiness. The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was sure to the last that the Russian leadership, under political pressure from the United States and the West, would not dare to start large-scale hostilities before the real reason for them to start from the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and that Ukraine's allies controlled Russia and would warn Kyiv in time about the start of the 'Russian invasion '.

Important! All two months, since the publication of Russia's requirements to ensure its security, the countries of the West (Germany, France, Great Britain) and the United States acted according to a single plan, which did not provide for any real negotiations and discussion of Russian proposals, but had only one goal - to maximize drag out these negotiations in order to give Ukraine time to prepare for war, to transfer large shipments of modern weapons to it. And in this regard, the continuous chain of visits to Moscow by Western leaders, with a difference of five to seven days, was only a cynical imitation of the treaty process, which provides Ukraine with the months necessary to complete the preparations for war.

In preparation for it, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine strengthened its ground groups to the maximum, fully staffing them with personnel, bringing the total number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, taking into account the “territorial-batalions” and the “National Guard”, to 300 thousand people, which was more than twice the size of the Russian grouping along the borders. The latest anti-tank weapons and MANPADS, received as part of Western assistance, were transferred to the east, field depots of ammunition and logistics were created, and air defense systems were deployed and camouflaged. Most of the serviceable air fleet is dispersed over alternate airfields and sheltered in various airfield buildings. The command staff was transferred to field and protected command posts.

All these measures made it possible to significantly reduce losses from the first 'disarming' Russian strike and almost immediately begin active hostilities against Russian troops.
Nevertheless, tactical surprise from the first hours began to affect the course of hostilities and by the end of the first day broke the Ukrainian defense plan, which had been created and worked out for several years with the help of American and British military advisers. The plan was based on the American concept of the 70s of 'active defense' with the maximum use of the 'security zone' - the area in the path of a probable enemy strike. According to the plan of the American strategists, with the start of active hostilities in the Donbass (namely, there, as Kyiv believed, the first large-scale clashes with the Russians would begin), the APU in the Kiev, Kharkov and Kherson direction, the groups deployed here were to immediately engage in battle, throwing meet the enemy with their mobile units. The task of this 'cavalry' is to stop, to tie up the advancing Russian units, to force them to turn into battle formations, on which artillery and air strikes would be delivered. And the mobile units themselves, without waiting for retaliatory strikes, had to retreat to new lines. Such an active defense, according to the plan of the Ukrainian command, was to wear down the enemy in two weeks, force him to stop the offensive, and go on the defensive, after which counterattacks were to be launched against him, which would completely exhaust the Russian groups, and would make further military operations meaningless.

In the Donetsk direction, the “eastern shield” of the most powerful military group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Mariupol to Starobelsk was supposed to restrain all attempts by the LPR and DPR corps to break through to Mariupol and Kramatorsk.
Information suppression played a special role in this regard. The United States and its allies prepared an information and propaganda offensive of such magnitude and power that it was supposed to completely capture the domestic Russian discourse and become the dominant factor in Russian public consciousness. There is every reason to believe that the main strategic goal of this military operation should have been not so much the military defeat of Russia, due to the impossibility of achieving victory by military means, but rather a political crisis, mass demonstrations and the overthrow of the incumbent president with the support of oligarchic groups, which the Americans carefully “nightmare” all the last months, in fact, setting them on Putin.

The answer to this Ukrainian-American plan was our plan for a strategic breakthrough, which was ensured by the tactical surprise of the start of hostilities. Without waiting for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to finish deploying and preparing for war, the Russian army launched swift strikes in all strategic directions. At the same time, instead of the powerful armored breakthrough fists that the Armed Forces were preparing to meet, “light” ground brigades and airborne units were thrown forward, the task of which was, without engaging in battle, bypassing cities, breaking through and occupying strategic nodes, creating threats to key political, economic and military-strategic centers of Ukraine - Kiev, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Kherson. Such a sudden breakthrough to the rear forced the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to abandon plans for 'active defense' and, in order to eliminate the sudden threats, throw their most combat-ready units against Russian combat groups. Over the next five days of continuous fighting, these brigades suffered serious losses in people and equipment in the conditions of air superiority of the Russian Aerospace Forces and were forced to retreat to the cities under the protection of the civilian population.

This significantly reduced losses, but deprived them of the opportunity to conduct active hostilities, turning them into fortress garrisons. At the same time, the defeat of the southern Ukrainian grouping at the Kherson-Novaya Kakhovka line forced its remnants to retreat to Nikolaev and Odessa and go on the defensive, opening the way for Russian troops to the rear of the Donetsk grouping, to encircle Mariupol and the vast territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye.

It was at this first stage that we suffered our biggest losses. In fact, we broke through the battle formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at speed, using the element of surprise. But very soon the Ukrainians came to their senses - and fierce battles began. Not all commanders were able to quickly and adequately get involved in the course of the 'special operation', for which they had to pay with the lives of our soldiers and lost equipment. And the video of several of our burnt columns is still the main weapon of Ukrainian propagandists, who post them again and again. Ukrainian networks are crammed with these fakes.

Today, our army and the armies of the Donbass republics are fully involved in the operation, they have gained combat experience, they have formed a single whole and are confidently crushing the enemy. The only area where the plan of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has worked is the “Vostochny Val” ('Eastern shaft' ) in the Donbass. Here, the Ukrainian group fought fiercely and skillfully from the first day. The positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine here simply had to be “gnawed through” with the help of massive artillery and air strikes, gradually “winding up” the Ukrainian defense from the north and breaking through it in the Mariupol direction, where, after the meeting of the Donetsk corps with the advancing Russian units of Mariupol, the enemy was completely surrounded, and then a slow 'reeling' the 'Eastern shaft' from the south.

Today

What do we have today? In the strategic perspective Ukraine is 'in the waters'. Keeping still numerical superiority in humans, in three weeks the battle of the Armed Forces almost completely lost the ability to lead active fighting. Most of the armored vehicles are lost, the main mechanized parts or crushed, or there are so much that they can only defend. The Armed Forces themselves are "torn" into several parts: groupings in Kyiv, Kharkov, Donetsk and Nikolayev - Odessa. There are no connection between them, the transfer of troops is impossible by virtue of complete domination in the air of Russian ACF. The Air Force of Ukraine is almost destroyed and cannot provide any support for their land forces. The air defense of the U-Army is pointing and increasingly shrunk to the level of "Stingers'. All Ukrainian groupings are drawn into battles and carry permanent losses. For the 21 day of the battle, the command of the U-Army could not organize a single counterdard of the operational level, and all attempts to attack by individual BTGs (batalion tactical groups) were dismissed with huge losses for the Ukrainians.

The elite military grouping of nationalist parts in Mariupol gradually loses combat capability, is crowded by storming troops and is doomed to destruction. Eastern Fortress in the Triangle Kramatorsk - Avdeevka - Severodonetsk is under continuous firing effect and slowly collapsed - without the prospects of organized retreat.

Its defeat and the fall of Mariupol will make further resistance of Ukraine meaningless. The donbass and the Russian Federation released after their fall will most likely be thrown into the Nikolaev and Odessa direction with the prospect of complete loss the road to the seas for Ukraine . Hope for reinforcements from Western regions is little. The promised formation of the new army turned out to be bluff. The local male population evade the call and runs abroad. And already designed are not enough even for one case staffing . Even more problems with the weapons. the problem can not be solved only with rifle armaments and anti-tank measures supplied from the West, because there is no heavy equipment and artillery. In addition, this heavy equipment should still be somehow transfer to the area of ​​the battle, that is extremely difficult to do without large losses providing Russian air dominance. And the "close sky", which all these weeks were dreaming in Kyiv, the West refused to establish.

While Kiev is able to hold the internal stability of the population using horse doses of propaganda tranquilizers like those about the "monstrous losses" of the Russian army, soon depletion of the Russian reserves of shells and missiles, some unprecedented successes of the Ukrainian military , "powerful offensive", NATO entry into war and so on. But as soon as Mariupol falls and the grouping of the Armed Forces under Donetsk will be defeated, the Ukrainian people will hardly continue to be convinced in a successful course of the war. And this is the case of the next week, I think ...

[ks_sachin]

Plus since the 2nd WW the Russian army has not really faced a war to test them!

What was the 10 year war in Afghanistan? What were the 2 wars in Chechnya?

They did not really test large scale combined arms ops and logistics like this one. This from chats with IA offrs.

[Cyrano]

Igorr ji,
Very interesting to get the Russian perspective...

And in this regard, the continuous chain of visits to Moscow by Western leaders, with a difference of five to seven days, was only a cynical imitation of the treaty process, which provides Ukraine with the months necessary to complete the preparations for war.

This could explain Immydimmy's uninvited precipitous trip to Moscow, presumably to curry favour from the US, to get a few extra days for Ukraine to get ready for the invasion they knew was imminent. Putin played along while at the same time greenlighting the start of the invasion and must have been smiling under his non-existent moustache at Immydimmy's squirming realising he's been exposed followed by panic bowel movements thinking that he'll be held hostage and dumped in a gulag for his jurrat against Padushah Putin. This is better stuff than any Ludlum novel

[Atulya P]

Think through what you have stated.
If you are expending older tanks you r also expending men yes?

No, not necessarily.

[ks_sachin]

Think through what you have stated.
If you are expending older tanks you r also expending men yes?

No, not necessarily.

Then we should have kept the Vijayantas and T55s!!

[Atulya P]

No, not necessarily.

Then we should have kept the Vijayantas and T55s!!

I am sure you are saying this just to stick to your point. Please think about what you are saying, unless you push using your very best equipment you are treating your soldiers as cannon fodder. IOW, why keep T72s if you aren't going to use them. You want them to come up with a National Scrappage Policy for armour? You may have your cake back sir, I didn't like the taste of it.

[ks_sachin]

Then we should have kept the Vijayantas and T55s!!

I am sure you are saying this just to stick to your point. Please think about what you are saying, unless you push using your very best equipment you are treating your soldiers as cannon fodder. IOW, why keep T72s if you aren't going to use them. You want them to come up with a National Scrappage Policy for armour? You may have your cake back sir, I didn't like the taste of it.

You win mate. I eat humble pie so Don’t get your knickers in a twist mate.
It’s true the Russians are keeping the T90 in reserve for more important battles potentially with NATO forces.

[Yagnasri]

If anything, this war by Russia may be an example for war to achieve clear political and strategic objectives to conserve and use the available weapon systems and tactics systematically. An example to the quote," War is politics by other means".

Whether they win or lose is another matter.

[k prasad]

The use of 'older' equipment was possibly to hold back the newer equipment as strategic reserves for any significant NATO counterattack, or for the second wave after softening up using the first wave. For all the western propaganda about Russian superiority in numbers, the Russian military isn't THAT strong, especially if they are trying to anticipate having to defend against a coordinated NATO ground and air assault.

All of this seems to have been predicated on an assumption of surprise causing Ukrainian resistance to crumble under the first wave, and a further assumption that any resistance they'd face would be relatively light. The Russians probably calculated that the older units would be enough to throw against the Ukrainians. Which didn't happen.

The best defence for armoured and mechanized units is not armour. It's speed (aka momentum). When tanks get bogged down, slowed, and dispersed, they become sitting ducks. The moment the Ukrainian defenses were able to slow the Russian advance to a near-standstill along certain axes, you start seeing increased losses.

To be fair, Russians have still made fair advances along a number of thrust axes, and at a speed higher than German advances during the Blitzkreig. Unless things change significantly, Russia still has reserves to push against the softened Ukrainian positions. Of course, if they don't actually have the numbers (i.e., are the Russians overstating their modernization levels?) or logistical tail available to support such an advance, then this is all academic, and they're stuck badly. This is also a situation where time is of the essence. The Pripyat marshes are softening up, and very soon, large areas will become too marshy for successful mechanized pushes.

P.S... Another point. Again, despite Western propaganda, initial Russian operations, at least during the first 10 days seem to have been highly restrained in their ROEs... Looking at the civilian casualty numbers released by the Ukrainian government, the numbers were typically <100-200. If you truly think about it, this is incredibly low when considering the scale of the invasion, and very likely was detrimental to the security of Russian tactical positions on the ground. Now that this is devolving into semi-urban and urban combat, and with indications that Ukrainian forces are operating from civilian areas specifically to draw the Russian forces into urban combat, I think the gloves will truly come off.

[Deans]

I'm trying to make some sense of the Russian & Ukrainian armor losses, as reported by
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html

52% of Russian Armored fighting vehicles are shown as Captured or Abandoned.
On the Ukrainian side its 61%

So its not as if the high proportion of Captured or Abandoned vehicles are due to Russian logistics /maintenance problems. Both sides have a
very large % of captured / abandoned. Its natural that the % for Ukraine will be higher, since retreating sides are able to recover fewer damaged vehicles.

I looked at the photos of the captured tanks. Many appear to be damaged and would need repairs at a tank factory to be usable. I would classify these as `damaged beyond use', rather than captured (its unlikely the other side will immediately use the captured tank).

While Russia has 280 verified Tank losses, 164 of these were in the first 14 days and 116 in the next 15. (some of these 116, would have happened earlier and reported later).

[Jay]

If anything, this war by Russia may be an example for war to achieve clear political and strategic objectives to conserve and use the available weapon systems and tactics systematically.

I sincerely hope Pakis are reading what you are saying and internalize it as a lesson. May Allah bless them just enough to come to the same conclusion.

[Shameek]

Russian landing ship explosion and other ships getting out of the way.

[John]

What was the 10 year war in Afghanistan? What were the 2 wars in Chechnya?

They did not really test large scale combined arms ops and logistics like this one. This from chats with IA offrs.

This conflict is about the same intensity level as Chechnya but happening in such a large scale across so many fronts. I noted the same in the start and people weren’t too happy when I said that,

Russian army hasn’t really evolved since Chechnya sure they have some new gear but strategy/tactics are driven down from the top allowing very little room for units on the ground to adapt. Not to mention this also exposes their senior leadership as they need to be closer to the troops.

[ManuJ]

I will repeat what I said earlier - Russia is a 2nd rate power that's trying to act as a superpower, lost in nostalgia for the good old days. This conflict has exposed the reality.

Its military expenditure is roughly 1/10th of USA and less than India's.
On top of that, it has the world's largest nuclear arsenal which exacts a heavy cost in upkeep.

Its economy is less than 1/12th of USA, and about half of India's.
An economy that depends overwhelmingly on oil, gas, and minerals.

Now that its conventional military weakness has been exposed, I expect it to fall back on nuclear & biochemical blackmail in a desperate bid to demand first-rate power treatment.

[John]

^ Any military spending compared to USA or even China looks miniscule. But compared to us you can make a case Russia should be spending more on defense while not visible on paper why?

Lot of Russian arms exports feeds directly back into the gov and ultimately (big assumption) it should flow back into the military because it would allow Russian Arms Bureaus to sell similar arms at a lower price to Russian military. Also less $$ from Russian Def budget has to be spend on R&D since arms exports could pay for that. Couple that with poor pay and benefits for its conscripts and overall lower pay for its soldiers and contracted soldiers compared to rest of western countries should give Russia the ability to spend more on modernization.

But it looks like lot of money didn't flow into military and instead just went to leadership's pockets.

[brar_w]

Russia spends about 4% of its GDP on defense compared to just about 3.5% for USA, and about 2% for some of the higher spending European powers like France, UK etc. Problem is that absolute $$ begins to matter during modernization as you can't really adjust a 5th gen fighter, or a next generation MBT, or advanced AESA radar cost for PPP. On top of that there is a need to invest in the base infrastructure required to develop, test, and produce these things in quantity and given the nature of these systems, and the technologies involved you can't really rely on infrastructure built during FSU days. That's why you see the Su-57, Armata, and a bunch of other modernization programs in apparent suspended animation.In contrast, the US is producing something like 200 tactical fighters a year with >2/3 of them being 5th generation. The cost of these and similar high end systems isn't much different depending on where they're developed or produced and in fact may even be better at scale in highly automated and efficient systems. Corruption is probably a major headache and barrier in achieving ROI on prior investments but we don't really have a great way to tell its impact.

[Deans]

I have been following Russian TV channels and a couple of Russian youtube analysts (3.5 million subscribers between them). Unlike in the West,
Russian reporters embedded with units, are generally ex Army and they don't focus on human interest stories. No pregnant women/grandmothers getting hit. Its dry reporting like: `150th Motor rifle division advanced 4km in the direction of X'.

Of course there is a lot of propaganda in the reporting, but it gives me an insight into the Russian side. Some points I'd like to mention:

- Drones are being used a lot by Russia, mostly for Artillery spotting. Lot of footage of drone spotting a target, followed by artillery fire.
- Plenty of Ukrainian POW's shown, including a large group surrendering with their CO, today, outside Kiev.
- Ukrainian air force still conducting sporadic sorties - wreckage of a 1 Ukrainian fighter shown, another was shown taking a hit.
Russia claims 35 of the 36 Bakhtiyar drones have been downed.
- RuAF is now targeting Arms storage, armaments factories and oil storage facilities.
- Heavy house to house fighting, for the last bits of Mariupol.
- On the Russian side, Chechen fighters feature in a lot of the fighting in the Donbass.
- Comments section remains very supportive of Russia.

[John]

Russia claims 35 of the 36 Bakhtiyar drones have been downed.

I wouldn't take any claims from both sides seriously just like Il-76 claims or Russia claiming it has shotdown more Flankers than UAF ever had they are out there in absurdity. So far we seen wreckage from only one and given that we even seen wreckage for smaller drones I find it hard to believe a possibility of even 10 being shot down with that many wreckage's not discovered.

It's possible Tb-2s were hit in bombings but it seems like they are using TB-2s for artillery recon and by not carrying any payload they greatly increase their range.

[Mort Walker]

I will repeat what I said earlier - Russia is a 2nd rate power that's trying to act as a superpower, lost in nostalgia for the good old days. This conflict has exposed the reality.

Its military expenditure is roughly 1/10th of USA and less than India's.
On top of that, it has the world's largest nuclear arsenal which exacts a heavy cost in upkeep.

Its economy is less than 1/12th of USA, and about half of India's.
An economy that depends overwhelmingly on oil, gas, and minerals.

Now that its conventional military weakness has been exposed, I expect it to fall back on nuclear & biochemical blackmail in a desperate bid to demand first-rate power treatment.

It's baffling why Russia would launch such a wide-scale offensive. Really it should have been getting control of Donbas region, control of Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea and using standoff weapons against Ukrainian military assets. At the most, controlling everything east of the Dnieper river made sense. A costly armored offensive means Russian leadership is delusional like the Pakis of 1965 in Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam.

[brar_w]

Stand off munitions are great against fixed targets. Once you quickly run out of those, or if your enemy adapts (decoys, moves, relocates etc) you need real time AMTI and GMTI capability or long range munitions or strike systems capable of hitting moving targets. That is not an easy thing to execute at scaleThis is why ISR trumps everything else when the shooting actually starts. Ukraine is able to receive tremendous amounts of weapons and other gear via Poland and possibly Romania. A key priority for GMTI systems and networked targeting would be to go after those but it does not appear that weapon supplies have faced any serious issues.

[Mort Walker]

Fixed targets such as munitions depots, fuel storage, training centers and aircraft hangers are ideal for stand off munitions. Ru has a good number of Kalibr missiles and they have employed just a few Kinzhal. Ru has also employed drones for GMTI capability. Using many more of these instead of sacrificing nearly 1,400 men, tanks and BMPs would have been a better option knowing that Ukr forces are getting real-time intel from NATO assets.

[brar_w]

Those sites would have been hit already given they've used more than 1,000 long range missiles already (though for some reason the Ukrainians are able to get put least some fast jet and drone sorties up even a month into the conflict). Ukraine likely has adapted its supply and weapon storage/movement tactics so that required some very large number of coordinated strikes in small amount of time before they were able so disperse their forces and supply (akin to 300+ TLAMS launched in one night during OIF). It is possible for them to take weapons directly to the front line given the pipeline of western ATGM's and other munitions with those taps unlikely to run dry any time soon. Persistent long range ISR isn't possible with the type of tactical drones they are using which would be great for supporting short ranged strike or guiding tactical artillery strikes but not very effective at scale given discrimination and other precise targeting against moving targets particularly in the western part of the country. For things like Kalibr and other such SO systems, you are looking at hours of mission planning and deconfliction so they aren't the solution to rapid relocatable or moving target strike. A month into the conflict your opponent is either foolish to give you those long lead time targets, or you haven't been able to neutralize them and are just getting to them now. Given the ISR capability they have, artillery and short ranged strike options are probably the only effective means to go after this fast dynamically altering situation.

[Mort Walker]

Those sites would have been hit already given they've used more than 1,000 long range missiles already (though for some reason the Ukrainians are able to get put least some fast jet and drone sorties up even a month into the conflict). Ukraine likely has adapted its supply and weapon storage/movement tactics so that required some very large number of coordinated strikes in small amount of time before they were able so disperse their forces and supply (akin to 300+ TLAMS launched in one night during OIF). It is possible for them to take weapons directly to the front line given the pipeline of western ATGM's and other munitions with those taps unlikely to run dry any time soon. Persistent long range ISR isn't possible with the type of tactical drones they are using which would be great for supporting short ranged strike or guiding tactical artillery strikes but not very effective at scale given discrimination and other precise targeting against moving targets particularly in the western part of the country. For things like Kalibr and other such SO systems, you are looking at hours of mission planning and deconfliction so they aren't the solution to rapid relocatable or moving target strike. A month into the conflict your opponent is either foolish to give you those long lead time targets, or you haven't been able to neutralize them and are just getting to them now. Given the ISR capability they have, artillery and short ranged strike options are probably the only effective means to go after this fast dynamically altering situation.

Ukr weapon storage has been in civilian areas. One area where artillery was being stored was in a shopping mall in Kyiv that Ru forces hit. Most likely there are 100s of civilian locations where weapons and heavy firing is occurring from like schools, hospitals, shopping centers, and theaters - essentially any large civilian building. The Ukr is probably violating the Geneva Convention. Movement, resupply and attacking by Ukr forces is being done with NATO JISR. It is a direct proxy war. It appears long range ISR by Ru is being corroborated with tactical drones and HUMINT/SIGINT, which is why systems like the Kalibr and Kinzhal use are limited. Nevertheless, the situation at the start of the conflict was different than now.

[brar_w]

Are there pictures/evidence of the weapon storage site in the shopping mall or artillery storage in hospitals, schools etc? I haven't seen it but I haven't scrolled through this thread.

[ks_sachin]

I will repeat what I said earlier - Russia is a 2nd rate power that's trying to act as a superpower, lost in nostalgia for the good old days. This conflict has exposed the reality.

Its military expenditure is roughly 1/10th of USA and less than India's.
On top of that, it has the world's largest nuclear arsenal which exacts a heavy cost in upkeep.

Its economy is less than 1/12th of USA, and about half of India's.
An economy that depends overwhelmingly on oil, gas, and minerals.

Now that its conventional military weakness has been exposed, I expect it to fall back on nuclear & biochemical blackmail in a desperate bid to demand first-rate power treatment.

It's baffling why Russia would launch such a wide-scale offensive. Really it should have been getting control of Donbas region, control of Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea and using standoff weapons against Ukrainian military assets. At the most, controlling everything east of the Dnieper river made sense. A costly armored offensive means Russian leadership is delusional like the Pakis of 1965 in Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam.

It’s according to a grand plan according to some including keeping your best assets back for a land confrontation with NATO!!!

[John]

Are there pictures/evidence of the weapon storage site in the shopping mall or artillery storage in hospitals, schools etc? I haven't seen it but I haven't scrolled through this thread.

Yes someone posted in social media and russia used that to hit that mall.

https://twitter.com/conflicts/status/15 ... -zVjcWqHBw

Nevertheless Russia is wasting expensive Kalibr missile to take out equipment rather than bombs which indicates threat still posed by SAMs.

[Mort Walker]

Shopping center that had rockets or artillery.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ ... e-rockets/

[ManuJ]

Some interesting observations from a ex US Marine fighting in Ukraine:

The past month of fighting had demonstrated that the balance of lethality had shifted away from armor, and toward anti-armor weapons. Even the most advanced armor systems, such as the Russian T-90 series main battle tank, had proved vulnerable, their charred husks littering Ukrainian roadways.

When I mentioned to Jed that I’d fought in Fallujah in 2004, he said that the tactics the Marine Corps used to take that city would never work today in Ukraine. In Fallujah, our infantry worked in close coordination with our premier tank, the M1A2 Abrams. On several occasions, I watched our tanks take direct hits from rocket-propelled grenades (typically older-generation RPG-7s) without so much as a stutter in their forward progress. Today, a Ukrainian defending Kyiv or any other city, armed with a Javelin or an NLAW, would destroy a similarly capable tank.

This brought Jed to the second subject he wanted to discuss: Russian tactics and doctrine. He said he had spent much of the past few weeks in the trenches northwest of Kyiv. “The Russians have no imagination” he said. “They would shell our positions, attack in large formations, and when their assaults failed, do it all over again. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians would raid the Russian lines in small groups night after night, wearing them down.”

Russian doctrine relies on centralized command and control, while mission-style command and control—as the name suggests—relies on the individual initiative of every soldier, from the private to the general, not only to understand the mission but then to use their initiative to adapt to the exigencies of a chaotic and ever-changing battlefield in order to accomplish that mission. Although the Russian military has modernized under Vladimir Putin, it has never embraced the decentralized mission-style command-and-control structure that is the hallmark of NATO militaries, and that the Ukrainians have since adopted.

“The Russians don’t empower their soldiers,” Zagorodnyuk explained. “They tell their soldiers to go from Point A to Point B, and only when they get to Point B will they be told where to go next, and junior soldiers are rarely told the reason they are performing any task. This centralized command and control can work, but only when events go according to plan. When the plan doesn’t hold together, their centralized method collapses.

When I told him I’d heard the Ukrainians didn’t have many sets of night-vision goggles, he said that was true, and that they did need more. “But we’ve got Javelins. Everyone’s talking about the Javelins as an anti-tank weapon, but people forget that the Javelins also have a CLU.”

The CLU, or command launch unit, is a highly capable thermal optic that can operate independent of the missile system.

Napoleon, who fought many battles in this part of the world, observed that “the moral is to the physical as three is to one.” I was thinking of this maxim as Jed and I finished our tea.

In Ukraine—at least in this first chapter of the war—Napoleon’s words have held true, proving in many ways decisive. In my earlier conversation with Zagorodnyuk, as he and I went through the many reforms and technologies that had given the Ukrainian military its edge, he was quick to point out the one variable he believed trumped all others. “Our motivation—it is the most important factor, more important than anything. We’re fighting for the lives of our families, for our people, and for our homes. The Russians don’t have any of that, and there’s nowhere they can go to get it.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ar/627604/

[Igorr]

I'm trying to make some sense of the Russian & Ukrainian armor losses, as reported by
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/a ... pment.html

This site passes off Ukrainian tanks as Russian. This is unfair. This is military propaganda.

In fact, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the losses of the parties for the month are as follows:
Russia:
Killed - 1 351
Wounded - 3,825

Ukraine:
Total losses for the month of operation. About 14,000 killed and about 16,000 wounded.
Of the 2,416 tanks and AFVs combat-ready as of February 24, 1,587 were destroyed in a month.
112 out of 152 military aircraft were destroyed,
75 out of 149 helicopters,
35 out of 36 Bayraktar TB2 drones.

The official statement is that:

1. The offensive of the Russian troops disrupted the plans of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the DPR and LPR using artillery, missile systems and aviation.

2. On January 22, Russian intelligence intercepted the order of General Balan about the need to complete preparations for offensive operations by February 28, so that in March the Armed Forces of Ukraine could go on the offensive.

3. The operation is progressing according to plan.
The main tasks of the first stage of the operation have already been completed.

4. The main priority remains the preservation of the lives of the civilian population. Hence the tactics of high-precision strikes against the military infrastructure and armed forces of the enemy.

5. The blockade of large cities ensures the fettering of the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and prevents the Ukrainian command from transferring reinforcements to the Donbass. The main operation at the moment is in the Donbass. In the DPR and LPR, 276 settlements have already been liberated.

6. Air supremacy was won by the Russian Aerospace Forces in the first two days of the operation. The organized air defense system, the Ukrainian Air Force and the Ukrainian Navy actually ceased to exist.

7. Destroyed up to 70% of all military stocks of Ukraine as a result of systematic attacks on warehouses. Destroyed 30 key objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine. 68% of the enterprises where military equipment was repaired have already been destroyed. At the same time, since the beginning of the NMD, the Ukrainian army has already destroyed 127 bridges.

8. All organized reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already been put into action, there are no new ones. Hence the stake on the mobilization of an untrained contingent. In Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 6595 foreign mercenaries are fighting.

According to the RF MoD, at least 10 Ukrainian naval mines are now drifting uncontrollably in the Black Sea, posing a threat to shipping.

The Russian Defense Ministry will promptly respond to any attempts to close Ukrainian airspace for the Russian Aerospace Forces.

The Russian Defense Ministry transferred captured weapons to the DPR and LPR. Among other things, 113 tanks and 138 Jevelin ATGMs were handed over.

More than 23,000 applications have been received from citizens of 37 states wishing to fight for the DNR and LNR. There are also a lot of such applications from Russian citizens.

More than 7,000 account the enemy forces in Mariupol.

The operation will continue until the full implementation of all goals.