The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

Morgo

Well-Known Member
Well, I was responding to @OPSSG repeated trumpet blowing of how great is Singapore's defence planning. We can agree that democracies and non democracies can screw up defence planning, which means that political systems are hardly a good measure.

UK is shitshow as far as defence planning is concerned. Successive SDSR have basically decimated their capabilities. And if Germany is any measure to go by...

While I agree that inconsistent Defence planning is not ideal, I think this is more than offset - by an order of magnitude in my view - by the financial resources, productive capacity and willingness to fight of your average citizen in a market based democracy. This is a war winning combination.

Autocracies have shown time and time again that they are excellent at mobilising otherwise unused resources, but stagnate in the middle income trap due to lack of rewards for entrepreneurship, lack of property rights so that you can keep those rewards and endemic corruption working against efficiency and productivity. The USSR (growth from the 1930s to 1960s, stagnation thereafter) and the PRC (growth 1980s to 2020s, looking to be slipping into stagnation) are both textbook cases.

Singapore is, in my view, the exception rather than the rule a in that:

1) Unlike most autocracies it is underpinned by English institutions, most notably the common law.

2) It’s small. I don’t think you can repeat its model at scale.

3) It benefits tremendously from its geographical position.

4) It benefits tremendously from its status as a tax haven.

5) Lee Kuan Yew was, frankly, a genius and the closest thing to a true benevolent dictator. Good luck finding another one of those to set up your country.

Long story short, and bringing it back on topic, there’s a very good reason why liberal democracies are able to wipe the floor with any autocratic opponent in a conventional war if the sufficiently unified and motivated. Look at what’s happening to a supposed super power who is having a proxy tangle with the West. This isn’t a coincidence.
 

vonnoobie

Well-Known Member
According to Forbes Russia, 700,000 Russians have left Russia since mobilization was announced September 21; 200,000 went to Kazakhstan. Россию после 21 сентября покинули около 700 000 граждан

If confirmed, this is much more than what I expected. If true, it's odd that Russian authorities have not been more effective in halting the exodus. Perhaps bribes at the border could partly explain this? In any case, such a mass exodus is clearly not helpful to the Russian economy, and Russian society.
Just under 1% of the workforce, Might not seem a lot but their jobs could lead to various cascading effects across the Russian economy... Could very well be Putins mobilization has more negative impact on the Russian economy then the sanctions imposed by the West and others.
 

Dex

Member
There are a lot of reports from early in the war that I want to determine whether they have been confirmed in the months after.

Has there been any updates on the alleged strike on the Wagner HQ in the Donbas from like a month ago that allegedly killed 50 Wagners and their leader? Has there been any confirmation since on that strike?

What about the Lt. Col or General (?) that was captured by Ukraine. Did we find out his rank?
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
According to Forbes Russia, 700,000 Russians have left Russia since mobilization was announced September 21; 200,000 went to Kazakhstan. Россию после 21 сентября покинули около 700 000 граждан

If confirmed, this is much more than what I expected. If true, it's odd that Russian authorities have not been more effective in halting the exodus. Perhaps bribes at the border could partly explain this? In any case, such a mass exodus is clearly not helpful to the Russian economy, and Russian society.
Are they doing anything to halt the exodus? They've set up mobilization points at border checkpoints for people who are on the list to be called up. But everyone else is free to leave, and Russian authorities have specifically stated that they're not restricting freedom of travel at this time.

There are a lot of reports from early in the war that I want to determine whether they have been confirmed in the months after.

Has there been any updates on the alleged strike on the Wagner HQ in the Donbas from like a month ago that allegedly killed 50 Wagners and their leader? Has there been any confirmation since on that strike?

What about the Lt. Col or General (?) that was captured by Ukraine. Did we find out his rank?
I don't believe either turned out to be true. No captured general (unless they're keeping it under wraps) and no dead Prigozhin. I believe (I'm going off memory here) that the captured ranking officer was a Lt. Colonel, and was exchanged.
 

STURM

Well-Known Member
For me the obvious question is why didn't they deny travel eligible for mobilisation? Surely the government would have known that a lot of people would leave to avoid being mobilised.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
For me the obvious question is why didn't they deny travel eligible for mobilisation? Surely the government would have known that a lot of people would leave to avoid being mobilised.
We are talking about the same government that thought citizens would welcome the great adventure to rid Ukraine of Nazis. I guess looting might have been an enticement.
 

seaspear

Well-Known Member
I'm curious as to how this large amount of people will be supported will they have been able to bring their savings,will governments provide services etc.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Post 3 of 5: Learn from each other, please

I can address most points later, but I will say something simply:

I never claimed that these were the first instances of this technology occurring, I was trying to convey this is the first instance of their incorporation in a near peer to peer conflict.
10. In the latest ISW update, they said that Ukrainian troops likely consolidated positions and regrouped in northern Kherson Oblast after making major gains in the last 48 hours.

11. I suspect it is not very useful for @TScott to think about war in Ukraine in the manner he has done. Maybe it’s a problem with his framing of it as a ‘peer’ conflict — perhaps better to call it high intensity warfare vs low intensity warfare. The Gulf War I (a war played out on CNN) is an example of a high intensity war.
(a) The use and the utility of drones for SEAD was demonstrated way back in 1982. Operation Mole Cricket 19 was the first time in history that a Western-air force destroyed a Soviet SAM network. It also became one of the bigger AWAC controlled air battles — demonstrating the superiority of Western CONOPS for air battle, compared to Soviet style ground control intercept.​
(b) Mines. One of the biggest remover of limbs during war & for years after. Troops on this vehicle hit a mine & did an immediate action drill — as you would assume that the enemy is watching the mine field. It makes sense they were riding on top due to fear of mines.​
(c) Other examples of high intensity warfare include the Yom Kippur War, and the Falklands War. Examples of low intensity warfare include the war against the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, ISAF in Afghanistan, or the Battle of Malawi in the Philippines. I will expand on these examples below.​

Comparing a Ukraine force supplied by the major western powers in direct conflict with one of the historically largest military powers of the last 150 years to that of conflicts in Yemen and Syria, the differences are surely obvious?
12. The examples @TScott cite are not very useful as contrasts and miss key pivot points in military history that affected weapons design, war-fighting tactics or doctrine.

13. The Falklands War as high intensity warfare, affected anti-air warfare training for Naval officers and part of the lessons learnt is the seriousness to which US Navy and other navies have taken towards damage control. This is a key pivot points in military history.
(a) The sinking of the Moskva is not just a reflection of Russian inability to learn from 1982 but also other prior naval warfare actions. The Soviets changed naval warfare in pioneering the use of anti-ship missiles. On 21 Oct 1967, INS Eilat was sunk in the Mediterranean in international waters off Port Said by Soviet-made missiles launched by Egyptian missile boats. INS Eilat became the first vessel to be sunk by a missile boat in wartime. It was an important milestone in naval surface warfare.​
(b) At one level, the USS Cole bombing was a failure in intelligence and force protection. At another level, it was successful damage control. This was a reflection of the crew’s training and preparedness. Lessons learnt on damage control in 1982, continues to inform modern navies.​

14. Yemen as low intensity warfare, is a side-show compared to some of the better historical examples, like the war against the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka that I cited as an example. The Tamil Tigers use of suicide bombers affected the way modern armies think about force protection and they also conducted air and naval attacks that inspired other terrorist groups. But the Tamil Tigers were not the ‘modern’ inventors of this form of suicide warfare. It was the Japanese kamikaze in World War II — both of which were neutralised by CONOPS adjustments.

15. War not going well? It seems that there is a power struggle going on within the Russian Govt/elite, centered on Sergei Shoigu, the Minister of Defence & Yevgeny Prigozhin (of the Wagner Group).
 
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Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Well, I was responding to @OPSSG repeated trumpet blowing of how great is Singapore's defence planning. We can agree that democracies and non democracies can screw up defence planning, which means that political systems are hardly a good measure.

UK is shitshow as far as defence planning is concerned. Successive SDSR have basically decimated their capabilities. And if Germany is any measure to go by...
@OPSSG and that is how democracy works, you leave it to incompetent politicians, blocs and interest groups and hope that the stars are aligned so that at least during one or two terms, you have enough sensible politicians to undo the damage.

I see no point in comparing how Singapore works versus other countries, since Singapore is run by largely "sensible" politicians with long governance runways, affording them the luxury work with professional public servants to concieve well thought out plans without answering to interest groups, lobbyists and the opposition.

Please refrain from personal attacks on other posters, especially moderators, and please keep this discussion focused on the thread topic and away from politics.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Post 4 of 5: Learn from each other, please

The tank and airplane saw action in WWI and subsequent conflicts, but it doesn't mean it's use in WW2 completely changed ongoing military doctrine to this very day.
16. I believe that @Big_Zucchini was trying to share with you that the reality of modern warfare in Ukraine over the last few months was anything but unforeseeable.

Now, let's switch back to tanks.

Q2: Can you identify one vulnerability tanks have that was observed for the first time in Ukraine and which doesn't already have a solution deployed?
17. Let me add to your post with regard to 9M14 Malyutka usage (as an example in 1973) that seemed to indicate to laymen back then that the tank was outdated — it was not.

18. Probably the most significant lesson of the Oct 1973 Yom Kippur War was that of the continuing need for military and political vigilance to ensure readiness and prevent tactical surprise. Israeli military intelligence detected and reported the extent of Arab preparations but failed to understand it.

(a) @TScott needs to learn the right lessons and not just any uniformed crap found on the internet. Likewise in 2022, Russian intelligence failed and the Russian Army proved to Ukraine that they are just crap at tank warfare basics. It’s not just the T-72 or the T-90 tank design that is the problem. The biggest problem is the crap training of Russian tank crews and their supporting infantry in their BMP-2 / BMP-3 IFVs, or BTR-70s / BTR-80s wheeled APCs. They don’t seem fight in a combined arms manner.​
(b) The high intensity warfare of Yom Kippur War affected all Western tank design that came after — which set the stage for the one-sided battle of 73 Easting during Gulf War I. American tank crews at the battle of 73 Easting had superior 120mm guns, superior M829A1 rounds, thicker composite armour, better training and leadership for the violence of action that enabled these tank M1A1 crews to achieve operational surprise against Iraqi T-72s.​
(c) Learn from him and my examples given, rather than just arguing pointlessly. Modern APS systems can protect armoured vehicles from a range of threats, including RPGs and ATGMs — these APS have been tested, developed, or operationalised in multiple countries.​

19. The Battle of Marawi in the Philippines is a well studied urban warfare case study of low intensity warfare that demonstrated the importance of training infantry with appropriate TTPs for urban warfare but also the need for armour. Australian and the American military advisors were on the ground to give advice to commanders in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

20. The AFP had a will to fight despite having crappy equipment and all sorts of short falls. Despite all that I have said on the Philippines in other threads, there is no doubt that there is political will to fight a common enemy — ISIS in this 2017 case.

(a) In this urban warfare case study, elements of AFP-JSOG were tasked to conduct crash courses in Close Quarter Battle (CQB) for newly arrived AFP units in order to improve their capability in urban combat before they were sent into fight at Marawi City — it was a 5 month CQB that damaged or destroyed every building in that city.​
(b) While the insurgents used drones in their defence, these drones were quickly neutralised using very simple methods. The AFP also used quadcopter drones to observe the mortar fire in targeting terrorist strongholds. To clear terrorist occupied buildings, the AFP used 81 mm mortars, crew-served weapons, armored vehicles & even man-handled a 105 mm howitzer in a direct fire mode to soften their targets prior to CQB.​
 
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STURM

Well-Known Member
Not to get too off topic given that this a thread on the Ukrainian war but it's interesting to point out that in Marawi both the PA and the Maute Group used DJI Phantoms. According to what I was told by someone who was there a U.S. Green Beret detachment which was there in an advisory role also had DJI UASs. UASs; locally produced ones; were employed as far back as 2012 by the PA during the Zamboanga siege.

A conflict which saw the first widespread and extensive use of military grade armed UASs in a tactical/operational role was Libya. Way before Nargano Karabakh and the Ukraine; the TB2 gained a reputation in Libya [was instrumental in blunting the LNA advance and destroyed a number of IL-76s and Su-22s; in addition to armoured vehicles and Pantsirs]. It may also have been the first conflict in which both sides had military grade UASs; the LNA had Wing Loongs provided by the UAE. Turkish EW also reportedly had some measure of success against Wing Loongs. In short Libya was great testing ground for armed UASs and it demonstrated the potential of armed UASs in the tactical/operational level; as did the Russian experience in the Donbas in 2015.

If someone has anything to add please do. Unless I'm mistaken the first recorded use of a commercial UAS in the armed role was in Iraq in 2016; IS rigged a UAS with grenades. Way back in the 1980's Iran experimented with rigging RPG-7 rounds to a Mohajer but it's unknown if it was ever used.
 
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seaspear

Well-Known Member
I believe the WW2 missiles under development and even deployment by Nazi Germany were fortunately not deployed in sufficient numbers ,but largely provided some framework to the development of missiles used currently and even development of counter measures
The Sinking of the Battleship Roma and the Dawn of the Age of Precision Guided Munitions | Defense Media Network
About World War 2: The Sinking of the Rohna - Owlcation
List of German guided weapons of World War II | Military Wiki | Fandom
 

STURM

Well-Known Member
We know that technology used on the V2 was incorporated by the Soviets to produce what later became Frog and Scud. Quite a few German scientists and engineers were brought back to the Soviet Union after the war. Then we have Operation Paperclip which saw Werner Braun and a large number of other people brought to the U.S.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Post 5 of 5: Learn from each other, please

21. The biggest problem for Russia is their troop’s will to fight. It may be popular to think that precision strikes and drones that puts critical Russian fuel and weapons storage areas, at risk, in the war in Ukraine is novel and will give victory. That is far from true. The will to fight is more important.

22. This idea to hit the depth of the enemy, to corrode enemy capability, is not new (in most moderately capable militaries, they plan to do so) — and there are multiple examples of the productive use of drones, air assets and munitions in military ops to strike deep to corrode enemy capability.

23. Russia is not trying to establish a defensive line in the Kherson area that stretches between Bruskynske town on the west and Mylove on the east. These are delay lines — to buy more time to dig at Nova Kakhovka dam — there are going to be many dead before the fight is over.

24. The Russian sense and strike capabilities are really limited, due to their inability to achieve air superiority.

25. The media makes so much noise about a few Iranian made suicide drones used in Ukraine but they are not the top manufacturer of this class of munitions, when compared to IAI, Elbit, or UVision.

(a) The Israeli manufacturers call this class of weapons, loitering munitions. Loitering munitions are in a category of their own. It is misleading to simply label them as drones. They are more akin to a smart missile.​
(b) Above is an example of debunking of a Russian lie. The US has also supplied AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munitions to Ukraine but their CONOPS for use is very different from Russian use (of theirs as a terror weapon).​
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Post 5 of 5: Learn from each other, please

21. The biggest problem for Russia is their troop’s will to fight. It may be popular to think that precision strikes and drones that puts critical Russian fuel and weapons storage areas, at risk, in the war in Ukraine is novel and will give victory. That is far from true. The will to fight is more important.

22. This idea to hit the depth of the enemy, to corrode enemy capability, is not new (in most moderately capable militaries, they plan to do so) — and there are multiple examples of the productive use of drones, air assets and munitions in military ops to strike deep to corrode enemy capability.

23. Russia is not trying to establish a defensive line in the Kherson area that stretches between Bruskynske town on the west and Mylove on the east. These are delay lines — to buy more time to dig at Nova Kakhovka dam — there are going to be many dead before the fight is over.
If thousands of Russian troops are surrendering via this hotline, let's see the giant columns of POWs... we know Russia has several thousand Ukrainian POWs to the point where Ukraine can't reasonably arrange exchanges for all because it doesn't have enough to trade with. I find this claim to be silly. Of course if you read carefully it doesn't say that they actually surrender, merely that they call. If I was a Russian soldier I might be tempted to call, and say a few choice words, contributing to the call count statistic but of course with no real value to the purpose of the program. But if they really just mean calls, not surrenders, then this is a highly misleading statement. If they're trying to be honest about Russian soldiers surrendering by arrangement, let's get a number and some supporting evidence.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
I believe the WW2 missiles under development and even deployment by Nazi Germany were fortunately not deployed in sufficient numbers ,but largely provided some framework to the development of missiles used currently and even development of counter measures
The Sinking of the Battleship Roma and the Dawn of the Age of Precision Guided Munitions | Defense Media Network
About World War 2: The Sinking of the Rohna - Owlcation
List of German guided weapons of World War II | Military Wiki | Fandom
Nothing to do with the war in Ukraina, but it's just too interesting to not to talk about it,
Nazi Germany decided to build four giant bombproof bunkers to assemble, service and launch V2 rockets in the North of France. Watten and Wizernes were set up in Pas-de-Calais, Sottevast and Brécourt on the Cherbourg peninsula in Normandy.

The bunker at Watten, built by Nazi Germany under the codename Kraftwerk Nord West (Powerplant Northwest) between March 1943 and July 1944, was originally intended to be a launching facility for the V-2 (A-4) ballistic missile. It was designed to accommodate over 100 missiles at a time and to launch up to 36 daily.

La Coupole, also known as the Coupole d'Helfaut-Wizernes and originally codenamed Bauvorhaben 21 or Schotterwerk Nordwest was in an advanced stage of construction and almost finished. The protecting dome was 5 meters thick and almost indestructible. It was really a missile factory and launch complex in one.


We know that technology used on the V2 was incorporated by the Soviets to produce what later became Frog and Scud. Quite a few German scientists and engineers were brought back to the Soviet Union after the war. Then we have Operation Paperclip which saw Werner Braun and a large number of other people brought to the U.S.
Yes, the Americans and Soviets have learned (stolen) a lot from Germany.
 
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OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
If 2,000 troops are calling a hotline, it might be a slight morale problem — I think Ukraine is clear, the measurement is number of calls not surrenders — I am only citing this source in response to @Feanor.

If thousands of Russian troops are surrendering via this hotline, let's see the giant columns of POWs... we know Russia has several thousand Ukrainian POWs to the point where Ukraine can't reasonably arrange exchanges for all because it doesn't have enough to trade with. I find this claim to be silly.
But that is not what I said. In fact, in my prior post 5 of 5, I deliberately avoided citing a number and source because it can’t be verified.

21. The biggest problem for Russia is their troop’s will to fight. It may be popular to think that precision strikes and drones that puts critical Russian fuel and weapons storage areas, at risk, in the war in Ukraine is novel and will give victory. That is far from true. The will to fight is more important.
I don’t care what Ukraine says. I think you are responding to Ukrainian claims not mine.
 
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