Ukraine 15 - Si vis pacem, para bellum

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

A snapshot of some of the broader problems facing the Russians.  
 

 

[Werthead]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Could the Ukrainians bypass and encircle Kherson?  It isn’t as though the population of Kherson is friendly to occupying Russian forces.  Or does the Dienper splitting the city make such a prospect dicey?

That's not really viable. The bridge kind of goes through the city (or one side of the city), so securing the bridge requires securing the city. You can try to take the bridge without taking the city (just securing a route through the NE side of the city), but that's what the Russians did during their initial attack and it cost them badly from counter-attacks.

The Ukrainians also want to retake Kherson because it remains the only major city that's been captured by Russian forces, as opposed to flattened like Mariupol. Losing it leaves Russian's gains from the war being reduced to various burned-out ruins, one nuclear reactor they seem to have real trouble keeping online, a ton of small villages, one or two medium-sized towns like Melitopol (where partisans have been heavily active for the last few days) and a large chunk of countryside. Looks good on a map but doesn't really give you much in return for the heavy costs you paid to get it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

That's not really viable. The bridge kind of goes through the city (or one side of the city), so securing the bridge requires securing the city. You can try to take the bridge without taking the city (just securing a route through the NE side of the city), but that's what the Russians did during their initial attack and it cost them badly from counter-attacks.

The Ukrainians also want to retake Kherson because it remains the only major city that's been captured by Russian forces, as opposed to flattened like Mariupol.

Just saw this:

 

[broken one]

They have to regain control over the whole land north of Dnipro, looks like they are trying to do it. It seems easier than taking Kherson by storm and should be done first, there are bridges near Nova Kachovka and the river is to wide for floating bridges.

Getting to the river would shorten frontline a lot and release some Ukrainian soldiers who now have to look after Russians lurking there.

[Werthead]

A Kh-22N cruise missile was shot down over Odesa a couple of days back. An odd choice because the 22N is the naval variant and is not meant to acquire land-based targets. Either a mistake or another sign that Russia's PGM stockpile is becoming thinner on the ground.

The newly-appointed leader of South Ossetia has cancelled the referendum on joining Russia that had been scheduled for 17 July. Some indications that his predecessor had acted against orders from Moscow, or Moscow had changed its mind based on the dangers of risking opening a second front in Georgia whilst Ukraine was still not going to plan.

[broken one]

58 minutes ago, Werthead said:

A Kh-22N cruise missile was shot down over Odesa a couple of days back. An odd choice because the 22N is the naval variant and is not meant to acquire land-based targets. Either a mistake or another sign that Russia's PGM stockpile is becoming thinner on the ground.

 

I've read that Russians used several Kh-22, Kh-23 and some other anti-ship missles against cities. The Kh-22 are ancient garbage, fired against a target which is not a naval unit it has terribly low accuracy, like ~5km, but since urban areas (civilians) are the target, it makes no big problem. Seems Russians just want to save Iskanders and other decent missles for better occassions.  

[Maithanet]

Updates from the front (via Twitter)

 - The US is indeed delivering MLR systems to Ukraine.  The messaging on this has been all over the map, leaving people confused and frustrated.  It appears the final decision is that the US is going to give Ukraine MLRs, along with medium range rockets to go with them.  The medium rockets have a range of ~45 miles, rather than the long range rockets which can go 300 miles.  The US govt was worried that Ukraine might use them to bomb targets well inside of Russia and get blamed.  Regardless, this seems like a fairly small concession, as 45 miles is still a very long way for artillery.

 - Fierce fighting inside the city of Sieverodonetsk.  The Russians have captured the northern and eastern portions of the city.  Mixed reports that the Ukrainians may be considering/beginning a withdrawal, but it is not yet clear.  The city is not surrounded, so if the Ukrainians choose to retreat back to Lysychansk, they should be able to do so.  The fighting is apparently brutal and Russia is committing a lot of forces to pushing the Ukrainians out.  How long the Russians can keep up this intensity of fighting is unclear, but this type of urban assault almost always has much higher casualties for the attacker. 

 - The Ukrainian counteroffensive east of Kherson is continuing.  They have captured some small towns and breached the Russian defensive lines.  Still looks more like a attack of opportunity than a big planned offensive, so unclear if the Ukrainians have the forces to really exploit the hole they've punched.  The dream would be to get all the way to the Dnipro, which would cut the Russians in half and make moving troops from the southern front (Kherson) to the eastern fronts (Donbas area) much more difficult.  But that is a pretty optimistic scenario at the moment - they are only maybe 1/4th of the way there, and the Russian air presence in these areas is quite disruptive (they can launch attacks from Crimea). 

[Werthead]

25 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Updates from the front (via Twitter)

 - The US is indeed delivering MLR systems to Ukraine.  The messaging on this has been all over the map, leaving people confused and frustrated.  It appears the final decision is that the US is going to give Ukraine MLRs, along with medium range rockets to go with them.  The medium rockets have a range of ~45 miles, rather than the long range rockets which can go 300 miles.  The US govt was worried that Ukraine might use them to bomb targets well inside of Russia and get blamed.  Regardless, this seems like a fairly small concession, as 45 miles is still a very long way for artillery.

Bizarre interview this morning where Medvedev said this was a sensible move and congratulated the US on not escalating the conflict, where he didn't seem to quite catch on that the artillery that is being sent is still extremely capable and far better than most Russian artillery (particularly its lethal "sniper artillery" levels of accuracy), it's not just the ultra-long ranged stuff. Arguably Ukraine doesn't need that, beyond the added safety cushion of being able to hit targets in Donbas from further away, out of Russian range.

I believe the maximum range of MLRS is 300 kilometres, not miles, but that's still a formidable distance and would put multiple large Russian and Belarusian cities within range. The Ukrainians might be sensible enough to not do that, but if you don't give them the capability, the issue does not arise.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Bizarre interview this morning where Medvedev said this was a sensible move and congratulated the US on not escalating the conflict, where he didn't seem to quite catch on that the artillery that is being sent is still extremely capable and far better than most Russian artillery (particularly its lethal "sniper artillery" levels of accuracy), it's not just the ultra-long ranged stuff. Arguably Ukraine doesn't need that, beyond the added safety cushion of being able to hit targets in Donbas from further away, out of Russian range.

Yes, presumably the MLRs could be further away and thus safer from Russian missiles and air strikes.  But 45 miles is still outside almost any Russian artillery, and the Russians have not had a great track record with precision strikes using missiles/aerial bombing.  The Ukrainians ought to be able to keep those operational for a while even if they are priority targets.  I hope those can be delivered soon and the Ukrainians get the necessary training quickly. 

Quote

I believe the maximum range of MLRS is 300 kilometres, not miles, but that's still a formidable distance and would put multiple large Russian and Belarusian cities within range. The Ukrainians might be sensible enough to not do that, but if you don't give them the capability, the issue does not arise.

The source I read said 300 miles/450 km, but I think they were mistaken.  The reported range of MGM-140 ATACMS is "just" 190 miles.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

@Werthead

You might find this interesting it is a podcast with a post-mortum with intelligence generalists and specialists about what they got right and what they got wrong about the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Their comparison between Ukraine for Russia and the US in Grenada is particularly interesting:

https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/what-the-experts-got-wrong-and-right-about-russian-military-power/

[Maithanet]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

@Werthead

You might find this interesting it is a podcast with a post-mortum with intelligence generalists and specialists about what they got right and what they got wrong about the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In general this group was cautious about dismissing Russian military capabilities, because the Russian military was built to defend against NATO, not to attack Ukraine.  The challenges are just totally different, and there are definitely reasons to think the Russians would make a better account of themselves in a war with NATO.

The part I found interesting was that they all agreed that the plan the Russians undertook in February was just bafflingly bad.  They had no overall commander, too many axes of advance, no prioritization of objectives, and very few reserves to deploy once things went wrong.  The plan was basically so bad that it would only work if the Ukrainians were barely fighting back.  Michael Kofman said that he had wargamed a Russia-NATO clash many times, and if the Russian leader had proposed a plan like this he would have been replaced immediately.  

It is really only since mid-April that the Russians have started adopting reasonable forces to achieve reasonable objectives.  More than half of the Russian invasion force is in the Donbas area, including the lion's share of their best equipment.  It's no surprise that the war seems to be going better for Russia since they made that change. 

 

[Werthead]

23 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

In general this group was cautious about dismissing Russian military capabilities, because the Russian military was built to defend against NATO, not to attack Ukraine.  The challenges are just totally different, and there are definitely reasons to think the Russians would make a better account of themselves in a war with NATO.

In a defensive war against NATO, yes. But since NATO would never just invade Russia for the sheer hell of it, I don't think that's a major concern.

In an offensive war against NATO, that depends where and under what circumstances. Most NATO wargames suggest Russia taking the Baltic States but not being able to hold them, and not being able to take Poland or Finland at all (all assuming such a conflict remains conventional-only, of course). 

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

In a defensive war against NATO, yes. But since NATO would never just invade Russia for the sheer hell of it, I don't think that's a major concern.

In an offensive war against NATO, that depends where and under what circumstances. Most NATO wargames suggest Russia taking the Baltic States but not being able to hold them, and not being able to take Poland or Finland at all (all assuming such a conflict remains conventional-only, of course). 

The lesson they were emphasizing was we should not assume that the terrible performance we've seen from Russia is indicative of their inability to perform better in different, future wars.  It would be foolish to take the Russians lightly. 

Of course, these are defense experts, so that is the answer you'd expect. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The expert who pointed out US Military planners in the 1930’s claiming that Japanese were “racially incapable” of creating an effective naval task force is absolutely right.  If we are going to err… err on the side of “weighing the enemy more mighty than he seems”.

The Russian assumption that the Ukrainians would just roll over and play dead was one of their worst mistakes.

[Kalbear]

44 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The expert who pointed out US Military planners in the 1930’s claiming that Japanese were “racially incapable” of creating an effective naval task force is absolutely right.  If we are going to err… err on the side of “weighing the enemy more mighty than he seems”.

The Russian assumption that the Ukrainians would just roll over and play dead was one of their worst mistakes.

To be fair, that was the assumption from virtually every major and minor country involved, with only the baltics indicating heavily that Ukraine was going to survive for a while.

And the war that's happening now is more like what most expected - the Russians absolutely grinding down defenses with massive fires and relatively unopposed air superiority in the area. It didn't work for Kyiv for a number of reasons, but it absolutely appears to be working, albeit slowly, against Ukraine - and porbably would have worked a lot better if they had done it sooner with fresher troops against a less-equipped Ukraine in February. 

[Maithanet]

15 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

And the war that's happening now is more like what most expected - the Russians absolutely grinding down defenses with massive fires and relatively unopposed air superiority in the area. It didn't work for Kyiv for a number of reasons, but it absolutely appears to be working, albeit slowly, against Ukraine - and porbably would have worked a lot better if they had done it sooner with fresher troops against a less-equipped Ukraine in February. 

Sort of.  Supplying the artillery and ground forces around Kyiv was massively more difficult than supplying it in the Donbas.  If they had just invaded on the northern axis and nowhere else, then maybe they could have defended their supply lines well enough to take that approach.  But then Ukraine could have similarly massed their forces, so who knows. 

[Kalbear]

Russia never showed the willingness to do massive fires to Kyiv that they are showing in Donbas. They tried to do that lightning decapitation strategy and that was their entire plan there. 

That was obviously very stupid and risky, and supply lines were a concern for various reasons too - but the actual damage they could have caused, still, was not as much as they did. They showed restraint there that they are not showing now. 

[Gorn]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

The lesson they were emphasizing was we should not assume that the terrible performance we've seen from Russia is indicative of their inability to perform better in different, future wars.  It would be foolish to take the Russians lightly. 

Of course, these are defense experts, so that is the answer you'd expect. 

Lost hardware plays a major role in this. A lot of Russia's military equipment was inherited from the USSR, and a lot of that stuff that was accumulated over many decades was destroyed over the last three months. Most of it can be replaced, but considering the cost of modern weaponry and the size of Russia's military budget, it could take over a decade. More, considering the effect on the sanctions on the electronics.

For example, Russia is no longer capable of building a cruiser like the sunk Moskva.

[Werthead]

The main problem with Kyiv was the supply route. They couldn't bring in the massive supplies needed to attack or encircle Kyiv by rail, hence the 40-mile convoy. When the convoy was disrupted and then destroyed, the Russians had no ability to attack Kyiv and had to withdraw.

The Donbas offensive is being more successful because they've been able to take and secure railheads during their advance and gradually grind forwards. The south had similar early successes but for some reason (maybe the way the rail network is laid out) they've had trouble extending their railhead supply lines any further than Kherson.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Lost hardware plays a major role in this. A lot of Russia's military equipment was inherited from the USSR, and a lot of that stuff that was accumulated over many decades was destroyed over the last three months. Most of it can be replaced, but considering the cost of modern weaponry and the size of Russia's military budget, it could take over a decade. More, considering the effect on the sanctions on the electronics.

Yes, although the Soviet equipment are waning resources.  There's a reason the Russians gave/sold for very cheap a bunch of t-62s to Syria (and some other countries I can't remember).  It's because even the newest T-62s were built in the mid seventies, and there's only so much you can do even if you are willing to upgrade things like optics and comms.  Tanks are not built to sit in storage for 50 years and then get thrown onto the battlefield. 

For the Russians the loss of a bunch of T72s and T80s is actually fairly minor, many of them would be scrapped fairly soon anyway.  If they were a democracy then the crew losses would be significant, but Russia doesn't really seem to care about that either.