ALERT RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread

[jward]

Igor Sushko
@igorsushko
6h

Massive fires in occupied Crimea. Might be Russian munitions stockpiles given the scale. Fires began 6 hours ago.
Russian MoD claims to have shot down 4 ATACMS missiles this night. Recently the US government stated that not a single ATACMS missile has been shot down by Russia.

 

[jward]

 

[jward]

@AlertChannel
BREAKING: Russia has placed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a "wanted list," reportedly offering a dead or alive status. This dramatic move marks a significant escalation in tensions between the two nations, indicating a potential new phase in the ongoing conflict.

 

[Tom McDowell]

RUSI Report Quietly Validates Russia's Strategic Superiority: A Breakdown​

Simplicius
May 04, 2024
∙ Paid


This is the latest in my roughly bimonthly paid article series. It’s one you do not want to miss as the findings in this report even blew me away for reasons you’ll discover by the end of the piece.
It covers the latest RUSI release about how modern wars should be fought and won, and why the West is light years behind Russia—though the latter point is ever-implicitly made.
It’s another doorstopper in size, at nearly ~6800 words, and I’ve made about the first ~1900 free to the public.

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It’s not often that I vaingloriously feather my own cap, but this occasion will count among the rare ones that necessarily must highlight the many accuracies of our previous reporting, whose validation is only now coming to light by the laggardly verifications of Western military pundits.

The following will be a breakdown of one of the latest RUSI reports on lessons learned from the Ukrainian war:


The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine

As reminder, RUSI is the Royal United Services Institute, and claims to be “the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank.” And not to be confused with a prominent Russian politician of the same name serving in the Duma, the article’s author Alex Vershinin’s credentials are listed as follows:

Lt Col (Retd) Alex Vershinin has 10 years of frontline experience in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. For the last decade before his retirement, he worked as a modelling and simulations officer in concept development and experimentation for NATO and the US Army.

end snip
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RUSI Report Quietly Validates Russia's Strategic Superiority: A Breakdown

This is the latest in my roughly bimonthly paid article series. It’s one you do not want to miss as the findings in this report even blew me away for reasons you’ll discover by the end of the piece. It covers the latest RUSI release about how modern wars should be fought and won, and why the...

simplicius76.substack.com

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[raven]

Yes - this new narrative has been getting push out the last few weeks - plus we also have women who can serve - add a few million more to the pool.

This is being tossed out to counter the clear reporting across Western media - and even Ukrainian reports on the extreme shortage of troops. How without massive (500k more or less) replacements the army can not survive. BUT NOT TO WORRY there are still MILLIONS waiting to step up (with a bit of help).

Problem is ALL the Ukrainians who were willing to fight and die for "Z" are gone.
What is remaining are not lining up at the requirement centers but doing ALL they can to avoid a draft notice.
Most of the "legal" loopholes are getting closed up or men are running out of money to buy their way out. Ukraine is reported to be increasing by a factor of 4X the number of border guards - TO KEEP PEOPLE IN ! Pressure on the EU to send men back to Ukraine. So while YES on paper there appears to be plenty - but for a range of reasons they can not be pulled into the military. Then you have the training problem - you can't send them to EU nations they take off. Last stats on this was up to 30% disappeared from training bases. Currently none are being sent out for EU training for this reason.

Like EVERY other objective fact on the problems Ukraine is having - the same narrative - action is being taken to correct it - give us a few months and all will be good.

Ukraine women are better fighters . . . they will beat the mangalores.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSi7h_A-Jrc


light Aziz . . .

 

[wait-n-see]

And this is being released by a western MSM source.

@@@

The US spent so much time fighting insurgents that it forgot 'what it means to actually fight a war,' a US vet in Ukraine says

Sinéad Baker May 2, 2024, 6:45 AM CDT

• An American veteran who fought in Ukraine said the US "kind of forgot what it means to actually fight a war."
• He said US training has long been heavily focused on fighting insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
• He said his own training wouldn't have prepared him for a war like Ukraine.

An American veteran who fought in Ukraine said the US military spent so long focused on fighting insurgents that it forgot "what it means to actually fight a war."

"We have neglected a lot of the training" on "how to fight and survive in a peer-on-peer adversary war," the veteran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Business Insider.

He said that "in the US military, we mostly have been focusing on a guerilla war" and battling insurgents, with places with Iraq and Afghanistan in mind. The US military invested decades, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives into fights in these places.

The former soldier spoke about how his training with the US military a number of years ago compared to what he saw in Ukraine, where he started fighting when Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022 and left last December.

He said he fought in Iraq as a contractor after leaving the US military, and in Ukraine, he fought in hotspots like Kharkiv and Bakhmut. He served as his unit's combat medic, treating comrades when they were injured in the fight.

An aerial view of the city of Bakhmut totally destroyed from heavy battles in September 2023. Libkos/Getty Images

"We've gotten so used to the idea of just fighting guerilla wars and ****ing fighting terrorists and everything else that we kind of forgot what it means to actually fight a war," he said.

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were real wars that came at a severe cost in human lives, but the war in Ukraine is industrial warfare at levels of destruction like the world has not seen in a long time.

With the focus on the wars in the Middle East during much of this century, the US and some of its NATO allies in Europe allowed the skills needed for this kind of conflict to atrophy.

The veteran said that when he went through training, he never got any real training for peer-on-peer conflict. "A little bit of talking about it and just a little bit of training, but nothing to the point that would have prepared me for the war in Ukraine," he recalled.

He said that he has seen a lot of Western soldiers struggle in Ukraine as "they already have a set idea about how things should be and everything, and it's just not that way out in Ukraine."

He said that US soldiers are used to fighting at an equipment and manpower advantage, but against Russia in Ukraine, "a lot of time I've fought at a disadvantage compared to the enemy."

In the US military, he explained, "I believe that a lot of the training that we have is tailored more to fighting in a guerilla warfare nowadays than it is to actually fighting a near-peer adversary like it would be with Russia or China." He said that it is an issue that many NATO members face.

Another American veteran in Ukraine told BI this month that he had similar concerns. He said that his friends still in the US Army ask him for tips on how to fight with drones or in trenches, as they aren't getting training that fully reflects what is happening in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a trench at a position near the frontline town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, in May 2023. REUTERS/Yevhenii Zavhorodnii

Questions about Western training​

Multiple NATO countries have trained Ukrainian soldiers, but the veteran said that some of the Ukrainians he fights with described some of that training as irrelevant or inadequate.

The veteran said that some Ukrainian soldiers who were trained in the UK told him that when they asked how to get through Russia's vast minefields, they were told to just go around them.

But the problem is that Ukraine says that some of Russia's minefields stretch for miles, making such a strategy all but impossible. Furthermore, open areas that are not mined may already be targeted by artillery or other battlefield threats.

He described some of the training that Ukrainians have gotten as making sense on paper, but it "doesn't work [in Ukraine] because it's not the same type of warfare."

A sapper of the State Emergency Service carries an anti-tank mine as he inspects an area for mines and unexploded shells in Ukraine's Kharkiv region in March 2023. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has repeatedly led to questions about Western training. Some Ukrainian soldiers trained abroad said the training they received was not suited to the kind of fighting needed for this war.

A Ukrainian commander who was trained by US, British, and Polish soldiers said last year that if he had followed those countries' advice exactly, he would have been killed.

Many Ukrainian units used NATO training and tactics when Ukraine launched its counteroffensive last summer, but some of the approaches, such as an overemphasis on maneuver warfare without air support in the face of dense minefields and other daunting barriers, ultimately failed. The Ukrainians then changed their tactics after experiencing serious losses in a switch praised by some war analysts, but it wasn't enough.

Another US Army veteran who has been fighting and training soldiers in Ukraine told BI last year that Ukraine's forces would have been worse off if they had followed US battlefield doctrine.

He said the Ukrainians were actually better at understanding some aspects of modern fighting than the US, though they have also made costly mistakes at times in their execution, but such can be the nature of any war.

A different type of war​

The veteran said that a lot of foreign fighters have come to Ukraine expecting the same advantages they have had in previous conflicts and that many have been killed as a result of having the "wrong mindset."

Other US veterans who have fought in Ukraine said they found the fighting there far worse than in Afghanistan and Iraq, describing Ukraine as being at a disadvantage the US never was and recalling ceaseless attacks by Russia.

One previously told Business Insider that the relentless fighting in Ukraine often means that, unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no break or chance to relax. It's a kind of fighting that takes a severe toll, both mentally and physically, on a soldier.

He said that in many places where he fought in Ukraine, "there is nowhere that is safe," while when he was in Afghanistan and Iraq, if you were half a mile behind the front line, "you could stand outside and have a barbecue, a sandwich, and drink."

Ukraine is fighting in conditions very different from what the US and its NATO allies have fought through in recent decades. And while there is renewed interest in readying for a near-peer or even peer-level fight against an adversary like China or Russia, rebuilding the skills for great power conflict isn't something that happens overnight.

Lessons from the Cold War and World Wars have to be relearned, and some modern developments demand learning new ways of war from scratch.

Ukrainian soldiers fire a M101 howitzer towards Russian positions at the frontline, near Avdiivka, in Ukraine's Donetsk region in March 2024 AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

The war has often devolved into a grinding fight that features trench warfare and both sides relying on decades-old equipment.

Many soldiers have described the war in Ukraine as resembling World War I and II more than any modern conflict, though there are also modern elements like drones and missiles.

It's a comparison the veteran made, too. He said that fighting to clear Russian trenches made him feel like he was "fighting World War I." The overwhelming role of artillery speaks to that as well.

Ukraine has largely been praised for its ability to fight back against Russia, which has a much larger military, and many experts say Ukraine has a lot it can teach the West about fighting Russia.

The veteran said that "I believe that the Ukrainians could teach some things to the Western militaries, to NATO, just because we haven't fought a conventional war in ****ing forever."

 

[Tom McDowell]

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine

If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre.

rusi.org

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine​

Alex Vershinin
18 March 2024 Long Read
Share

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If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre.

Attritional wars require their own ‘Art of War’ and are fought with a ‘force-centric’ approach, unlike wars of manoeuvre which are ‘terrain-focused’. They are rooted in massive industrial capacity to enable the replacement of losses, geographical depth to absorb a series of defeats, and technological conditions that prevent rapid ground movement. In attritional wars, military operations are shaped by a state’s ability to replace losses and generate new formations, not tactical and operational manoeuvres. The side that accepts the attritional nature of war and focuses on destroying enemy forces rather than gaining terrain is most likely to win.

The West is not prepared for this kind of war. To most Western experts, attritional strategy is counterintuitive. Historically, the West preferred the short ‘winner takes all’ clash of professional armies. Recent war games such as CSIS’s war over Taiwan covered one month of fighting. The possibility that the war would go on never entered the discussion. This is a reflection of a common Western attitude. Wars of attrition are treated as exceptions, something to be avoided at all costs and generally products of leaders’ ineptitude. Unfortunately, wars between near-peer powers are likely to be attritional, thanks to a large pool of resources available to replace initial losses. The attritional nature of combat, including the erosion of professionalism due to casualties, levels the battlefield no matter which army started with better trained forces. As conflict drags on, the war is won by economies, not armies. States that grasp this and fight such a war via an attritional strategy aimed at exhausting enemy resources while preserving their own are more likely to win. The fastest way to lose a war of attrition is to focus on manoeuvre, expending valuable resources on near-term territorial objectives. Recognising that wars of attrition have their own art is vital to winning them without sustaining crippling losses.

The Economic Dimension​

Wars of attrition are won by economies enabling mass mobilisation of militaries via their industrial sectors. Armies expand rapidly during such a conflict, requiring massive quantities of armoured vehicles, drones, electronic products, and other combat equipment. Because high-end weaponry is very complex to manufacture and consumes vast resources, a high-low mixture of forces and weapons is imperative in order to win.

High-end weapons have exceptional performance but are difficult to manufacture, especially when needed to arm a rapidly mobilised army subjected to a high rate of attrition. For example, during the Second World War German Panzers were superb tanks, but using approximately the same production resources, the Soviets rolled out eight T-34s for every German Panzer. The difference in performance did not justify the numerical disparity in production. High-end weapons also require high-end troops. These take significant time to train – time which is unavailable in a war with high attrition rates.

It is easier and faster to produce large numbers of cheap weapons and munitions, especially if their subcomponents are interchangeable with civilian goods, ensuring mass quantity without the expansion of production lines. New recruits also absorb simpler weapons faster, allowing rapid generation of new formations or the reconstitution of existing ones.

Achieving mass is difficult for higher-end Western economies. To achieve hyper-efficiency, they shed excess capacity and struggle to rapidly expand, especially since lower-tier industries have been transferred abroad for economic reasons. During war, global supply chains are disrupted and subcomponents can no longer be secured. Added to this conundrum is the lack of a skilled workforce with experience in a particular industry. These skills are acquired over decades, and once an industry is shuttered it takes decades to rebuild. The 2018 US government interagency report on US industrial capacity highlighted these problems. The bottom line is that the West must take a hard look at ensuring peacetime excess capacity in its military industrial complex, or risk losing the next war.

Force Generation​

Industrial output exists so it can be channelled into replacing losses and generating new formations. This requires appropriate doctrine and command and control structures. There are two main models; NATO (most Western armies) and the old Soviet model, with most states fielding something in between.

NATO armies are highly professional, backed by a strong non-commissioned officer (NCO) Corps, with extensive peacetime military education and experience. They build upon this professionalism for their military doctrine (fundamentals, tactics and techniques) to stress individual initiative, delegating a great deal of leeway to junior officers and NCOs. NATO formations enjoy tremendous agility and flexibility to exploit opportunities on a dynamic battlefield.
In attritional war, this method has a downside. The officers and NCOs required to execute this doctrine require extensive training and, above all, experience. A US Army NCO takes years to develop. A squad leader generally has at least three years in service and a platoon sergeant has at least seven. In an attritional war characterised by heavy casualties, there simply isn’t time to replace lost NCOs or generate them for new units. The idea that civilians can be given three-month training courses, sergeant’s chevrons and then expected to perform in the same manner as a seven-year veteran is a recipe for disaster. Only time can generate leaders capable of executing NATO doctrine, and time is one thing that the massive demands of attritional war do not give.

The Soviet Union built its army for large-scale conflict with NATO. It was intended to be able to rapidly expand by calling up massed reserves. Every male in the Soviet Union underwent two years of basic training right out of high school. The constant turnover of enlisted personnel precluded creation of a Western-style NCO corps but generated a massive pool of semi-trained reserves available in times of war. The absence of reliable NCOs created an officer-centric command model, less flexible than NATO’s but more adaptable to the large-scale expansion required by attritional warfare.

However, as a war progresses past a one-year mark, front-line units will gain experience and an improved NCO corps is likely to emerge, giving the Soviet model greater flexibility. By 1943, the Red Army had developed a robust NCO corps, which then disappeared after the Second World War as combat formations were demobilised. A key difference between the models is that NATO doctrine cannot function without high-performing NCOs. The Soviet doctrine was enhanced by experienced NCOs but did not require them.

Instead of a decisive battle achieved through rapid manoeuvre, attritional war focuses on destroying enemy forces and their ability to regenerate combat power, while preserving one’s own

The most effective model is a mixture of the two, in which a state maintains a medium-sized professional army, together with a mass of draftees available for mobilisation. This leads directly to a high/low mixture. Professional pre-war forces form the high end of this army, becoming fire brigades – moving from sector to sector in battle to stabilise the situation and conduct decisive attacks. Low-end formations hold the line and gain experience slowly, increasing their quality until they gain the capability to conduct offensive operations. Victory is attained by creating the highest quality low-end formations possible.

Forging new units into combat-capable soldiers instead of civilian mobs is done through training and combat experience. A new formation should train for at least six months, and only if manned by reservists with previous individual training. Conscripts take longer. These units should also have professional soldiers and NCOs brought in from the pre-war army to add professionalism. Once initial training is complete, they should only be fed into the battle in secondary sectors. No formation should be allowed to fall below 70% strength. Withdrawing formations early allows experience to proliferate among the new replacements as veterans pass on their skills. Otherwise, valuable experience is lost, causing the process to start all over. Another implication is that resources should prioritise replacements over new formations, preserving combat edge in both the pre-war army (high) and newly raised (low) formations. It’s advisable to disband several pre-war (high-end) formations to spread professional soldiers among newly created low-end formations in order to raise initial quality.

The Military Dimension​

Military operations in an attritional conflict are very distinct from those in a war of manoeuvre. Instead of a decisive battle achieved through rapid manoeuvre, attritional war focuses on destroying enemy forces and their ability to regenerate combat power, while preserving one’s own. In this context, a successful strategy accepts that the war will last at least two years and be broken into two distinct phases. The first phase ranges from initiation of hostilities to the point where sufficient combat power has been mobilised to allow decisive action. It will see little positional shifting on the ground, focusing on favourable exchange of losses and building up combat power in the rear. The dominant form of combat is fires rather than manoeuvre, complemented by extensive fortifications and camouflage. The peacetime army starts the war and conducts holding actions, providing time to mobilise resources and train the new army.

The second phase can commence after one side has met the following conditions.

• Newly mobilised forces have completed their training and gained sufficient experience to make them combat-effective formations, capable of rapidly integrating all their assets in a cohesive manner.
• The enemy’s strategic reserve is exhausted, leaving it unable to reinforce the threatened sector.
• Fires and reconnaissance superiority are achieved, allowing the attacker to effectively mass fires on a key sector while denying the enemy the same.
• The enemy’s industrial sector is degraded to the point where it is unable to replace battlefield losses. In the case of fighting against a coalition of countries, their industrial resources must also be exhausted or at least accounted for.

Only after meeting these criteria should offensive operations commence. They should be launched across a broad front, seeking to overwhelm the enemy at multiple points with shallow attacks. The intent is to remain inside a layered bubble of friendly protective systems, while stretching depleted enemy reserves until the front collapses. Only then should the offensive extend towards objectives deeper in the enemy rear. Concentration of forces on one main effort should be avoided as this gives an indication of the offensive’s location and an opportunity for the enemy to concentrate their reserves against this key point. The Brusilov Offensive of 1916, which resulted in the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army, is a good example of a successful attritional offensive at the tactical and operational level. By attacking along a broad front, the Russian army prevented the Austro-Hungarians from concentrating their reserves, resulting in a collapse all along the front. At the strategic level, however, the Brusilov Offensive is an example of failure. Russian forces failed to set conditions against the whole enemy coalition, focusing only on the Austro-Hungarian Empire and neglecting German capacity. The Russians expended crucial resources which they could not replace, without defeating the strongest coalition member. To reemphasise the key point, an offensive will only succeed once key criteria are met. Attempting to launch an offensive earlier will result in losses without any strategic gains, playing directly into enemy hands.
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[Tom McDowell]

Page 2 of 2

Modern War​

The modern battlefield is an integrated system of systems which includes various types of electronic warfare (EW), three basic types of air defences, four different types of artillery, countless aircraft types, strike and reconnaissance drones, construction and sapper engineers, traditional infantry, armour formations and, above all, logistics. Artillery has become more dangerous thanks to increased ranges and advanced targeting, stretching the depth of the battlefield.

In practice, this means it is easier to mass fires than forces. Deep manoeuvre, which requires the massing of combat power, is no longer possible because any massed force will be destroyed by indirect fires before it can achieve success in depth. Instead, a ground offensive requires a tight protective bubble to ward off enemy strike systems. This bubble is generated through layering friendly counter-fire, air defence and EW assets. Moving numerous interdependent systems is highly complicated and unlikely to be successful. Shallow attacks along the forward line of troops are most likely to be successful at an acceptable cost ratio; attempts at deep penetration will be exposed to massed fires the moment they exit the protection of the defensive bubble.

Integration of these overlapping assets requires centralised planning and exceptionally well-trained staff officers, capable of integrating multiple capabilities on the fly. It takes years to train such officers, and even combat experience does not generate such skills in a short time. Checklists and mandatory procedures can alleviate these deficiencies, but only on a less-complicated, static front. Dynamic offensive operations require fast reaction times, which semi-trained officers are incapable of performing.

An example of this complexity is an attack by a platoon of 30 soldiers. This would require EW systems to jam enemy drones; another EW system to jam enemy communications preventing adjustment of enemy fires; and a third EW system to jam space navigation systems denying use of precision guided munitions. In addition, fires require counterbattery radars to defeat enemy artillery. Further complicating planning is the fact that enemy EW will locate and destroy any friendly radar or EW emitter that is emitting for too long. Engineers will have to clear paths through minefields, while friendly drones provide time-sensitive ISR and fire support if needed. (This task requires a great deal of training with the supporting units to avoid dropping munitions on friendly attacking troops.) Finally, artillery needs to provide support both on the objective and enemy rear, targeting reserves and suppressing artillery. All these systems need to work as an integrated team just to support 30 men in several vehicles attacking another 30 men or less. A lack of coordination between these assets will result in failed attacks and horrific losses without ever seeing the enemy. As the size of formation conducting operations increases, so do the number and complexity of assets that need to be integrated.

Implications for Combat Operations​

Deep fires – further than 100–150 km (the average range of tactical rockets) behind the front line – target an enemy’s ability to generate combat power. This includes production facilities, munitions dumps, repair depots, and energy and transportation infrastructure. Of particular importance are targets that require significant production capabilities and that are difficult to replace/repair, as their destruction will inflict long term damage. As with all aspects of attritional war, such strikes will take significant time to have an effect, with timelines running into years. The low global production volumes of long-range precision-guided munitions, effective deception and concealment actions, large stockpiles of anti-aircraft missiles and the sheer repair capacities of strong, determined states all combine to prolong conflicts. Effective layering of air defences must include high-end systems at all altitudes coupled with cheaper systems to counter the enemy’s massed low-end attack platforms. Combined with mass-scale manufacturing and effective EW, this is the only way to defeat enemy deep fires.

Victory in an attritional war is assured by careful planning, industrial base development and development of mobilisation infrastructure in times of peace, and even more careful management of resources in wartime

Successful attritional war focuses on the preservation of one’s own combat power. This usually translates into a relatively static front interrupted by limited local attacks to improve positions, using artillery for most of the fighting. Fortification and concealment of all forces including logistics is the key to minimising losses. The long time required to construct fortifications prevents significant ground movement. An attacking force which cannot rapidly entrench will suffer significant losses from enemy artillery fires.

Defensive operations buy time to develop low-end combat formations, allowing newly mobilised troops to gain combat experience without suffering heavy losses in large-scale attacks. Building up experienced low-tier combat formations generates the capability for future offensive operations.

The early stages of attritional war range from initiation of hostilities to the point where mobilised resources are available in large numbers and are ready for combat operations. In the case of a surprise attack, a rapid offensive by one side may be possible until the defender can form a solid front. After that, combat solidifies. This period lasts at least a year-and-a-half to two years. During this period, major offensive operations should be avoided. Even if large attacks are successful, they will result in significant casualties, often for meaningless territorial gains. An army should never accept a battle on unfavourable terms. In attritional war, any terrain that does not have a vital industrial centre is irrelevant. It is always better to retreat and preserve forces, regardless of the political consequences. Fighting on disadvantageous terrain burns up units, losing experienced soldiers who are key to victory. The German obsession with Stalingrad in 1942 is a prime example of fighting on unfavourable terrain for political reasons. Germany burned up vital units that it could not afford to lose, simply to capture a city bearing Stalin’s name. It is also wise to push the enemy into fighting on disadvantageous terrain through information operations, exploiting politically sensitive enemy objectives. The goal is to force the enemy to expend vital material and strategic reserves on strategically meaningless operations. A key pitfall to avoid is being dragged into the very same trap that has been set for the enemy. In the First World War, Germans did just that at Verdun, where it planned to use surprise to capture key, politically sensitive terrain, provoking costly French counterattacks. Unfortunately for the Germans, they fell into their own trap. They failed to gain key, defendable terrain early on, and the battle devolved instead into a series of costly infantry assaults by both sides, with artillery fires devastating attacking infantry.

When the second phase begins, the offensive should be launched across a broad front, seeking to overwhelm the enemy at multiple points using shallow attacks. The intent is to remain inside the layered bubble of friendly protective systems, while stretching depleted enemy reserves until the front collapses. There is a cascading effect in which a crisis in one sector forces the defenders to shift reserves from a second sector, only to generate a crisis there in turn. As forces start falling back and leaving prepared fortifications, morale plummets, with the obvious question: ‘If we can’t hold the mega-fortress, how can we hold these new trenches?’ Retreat then turns into rout. Only then should the offensive extend towards objectives deeper in the enemy rear. The Allies’ Offensive in 1918 is an example. The Allies attacked along a broad front, while the Germans lacked sufficient resources to defend the entire line. Once the German Army began to retreat it proved impossible to stop.

The attritional strategy, centred on defence, is counterintuitive to most Western military officers. Western military thought views the offensive as the only means of achieving the decisive strategic goal of forcing the enemy to come to the negotiating table on unfavourable terms. The strategic patience required to set the conditions for an offensive runs against their combat experience acquired in overseas counterinsurgency operations.

Conclusion​

The conduct of attritional wars is vastly different from wars of manoeuvre. They last longer and end up testing a country’s industrial capacity. Victory is assured by careful planning, industrial base development and development of mobilisation infrastructure in times of peace, and even more careful management of resources in wartime.

Victory is attainable by carefully analysing one’s own and the enemy’s political objectives. The key is recognising the strengths and weaknesses of competing economic models and identifying the economic strategies that are most likely to generate maximum resources. These resources can then be utilised to build a massive army using the high/low force and weapons mixture. The military conduct of war is driven by overall political strategic objectives, military realities and economic limitations. Combat operations are shallow and focus on destroying enemy resources, not on gaining terrain. Propaganda is used to support military operations, not the other way around. With patience and careful planning, a war can be won.

Unfortunately, many in the West have a very cavalier attitude that future conflicts will be short and decisive. This is not true for the very reasons outlined above. Even middling global powers have both the geography and the population and industrial resources needed to conduct an attritional war. The thought that any major power would back down in the case of an initial military defeat is wishful thinking at its best. Any conflict between great powers would be viewed by adversary elites as existential and pursued with the full resources available to the state. The resulting war will become attritional and will favour the state which has the economy, doctrine and military structure that is better suited towards this form of conflict.

If the West is serious about a possible great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its industrial capacity, mobilisation doctrine and means of waging a protracted war, rather than conducting wargames covering a single month of conflict and hoping that the war will end afterwards. As the Iraq War taught us, hope is not a method.

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine

If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre.

rusi.org

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[Abert]

Yet more advances by Russian troops. Another Abrams (wonder-weapon) lost (11 min)

The Russians Captured Arkhanhelse | The UK Demands Urgent Evacuation​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoo0EnON_oo

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use......

Ukraine is running out of battlefield options

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrilo Budanov warned that from mid-May onwards, the country will face a battlefield situation that is “difficult” but “not catastrophic”. As Russian troops exploit February’s costly victory in Avdiivka by pushing westwards with...

unherd.com

Ukraine is running out of battlefield options​

BY ARIS ROUSSINOS​

MAY 1, 2024 - 7:00AM​

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Earlier this month, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrilo Budanov warned that from mid-May onwards, the country will face a battlefield situation that is “difficult” but “not catastrophic”. As Russian troops exploit February’s costly victory in Avdiivka by pushing westwards with increasing speed and success, Ukraine’s best hope is that he is correct.

While the Russian push to take the strategically important and topographically useful town of Chasiv Yar, west of Avdiivka, is developing slowly, Vladimir Putin’s troops have made a rare breakthrough around the town of Ocheretyne, pushing through longstanding defensive lines and rolling up Ukrainian defences from the flanks. Beyond Chasiv Yar, the Russian goals for this operation are likely to be the towns of Kostyantynivka, a vital regional stronghold for Ukrainian forces since 2014, and the sizeable rear base and logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

As the Polish analyst Konrad Muzyka — a reliable commentator in a war dominated by grifters and propagandists — has observed, “the situation looks very bad and is not expected to improve in the coming weeks,” adding that “we have reached the point where the situation on the front is the worst since March 2022. The numerical advantage of the Russians is constantly growing, as is the number of attacks. Ukraine did not survive the darkest hour. It’s just about to start.”

While Ukrainians rightly blame the ebbing supply of munitions from the West for much of their current predicament, by allowing Russian artillery to outcompete the Ukrainian weight of fire fivefold, this crisis also has causes much closer to home. Against American advice, Ukraine frittered away much of its materiel and precious manpower in the doomed defence of both Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and then persisted with its ill-judged summer southern offensive long after it was clear the operation would end in failure.

Having failed to mobilise enough new troops from its increasingly unwilling population to make up losses, Ukraine’s strategy of battlefield attrition, though costly for Russia, is primarily attriting own army. Elite units such as the 47th Mechanised Brigade — raised then trained in the West as the planned spearhead of the southern offensive — are exhausted and undermanned, losing combat effectiveness as they are rushed from one Russian assault to another in an effort to plug the gaps. While the West can, over the course of years, produce enough munitions to stabilise the front, it cannot produce more Ukrainians.

Worse, it is not yet clear if the ongoing Russian push in the Donbas is the main effort, or if a larger offensive, perhaps in the northeast, is yet to come this summer with the Russians apparently maintaining a fresh operational reserve of two army corps and hinting — perhaps for disinformation purposes — at a looming battle for Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv. While sprawling Kharkiv would be a major challenge for a Russian army that has so far found urban operations slow and costly, the threat alone forces Ukraine to deploy troops sorely needed elsewhere to man the lines. The situation has been worsened by Ukraine’s baffling failure to construct fortifications equivalent to Russia’s dense and deadly Surovikin Line.

The “best case” scenario offered for Ukraine by sympathetic analysts, of denting Russia’s advance while simultaneously building up new forces for an offensive push next year, already looks improbable. Ukraine direly needs whatever men and materiel it can scrape together at the front, right now. While a total Ukrainian collapse does not yet look imminent, the choices available to Kyiv are narrowing every day: recapturing Russian-held territory, still the West’s stated strategy, is a non-starter, while the defence of what Ukraine still holds is increasingly challenging. Unless Ukraine’s battered forces can blunt Russia’s offensive soon, the calls for direct Western intervention will only grow louder.

---

Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter.
arisroussinos

 

[tanstaafl]

This illustrates another problem with this war - recognizing the scale of operations.

10 yards X 365 days X 2.25 years is a little over 4.5 miles.​

It is much, much further than 4.5 miles to Berlin.

Either you're kidding or utterly missed the analogy of war as a sports game. You might note that it wasn't my analogy to begin with, I was just responding in kind. It's not good sportsmanship to bring actual machine guns to a little kids' T-ball game to use on the other team. That is, don't be so literal ... either dismiss the analogy as unsuitable to the subject at hand or stay within the analogy. Using the same sports analogy, regardless of the Putin groupies' take on things, in my opinion Russia has so far acted like a community college team playing against a high school JV team.

Before Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, no one was ranking the Ukraine's military anywhere near the top of the world listing. But Russia often was, and you have to consider their accomplishments (and many failures) in that light. I've said it before in this thread and I'll say it again (even though some on the forum clearly disagree): it may not still be true now but early in the war foreign volunteers, teamed with Ukrainian military units and using NATO tactics designed to fight against Soviet-style tactics, more often than not handed the Russians their asses and even penetrated behind Russia's front lines. But the Ukrainian military leadership apparently can't or just flat won't accept foreign advice on tactics and couldn't or wouldn't exploit the breakthroughs when they came. The Ukrainians happily take the West's weapons systems but refuse to use the western tactics behind the weapons systems.

In my opinion Russia is not an unstoppable juggernaut of a military machine. If the war wasn't basically a civil war between cousins using pretty much the same mentality it would probably be over by now.

 

[Knoxville's Joker]

Either you're kidding or utterly missed the analogy of war as a sports game. You might note that it wasn't my analogy to begin with, I was just responding in kind. It's not good sportsmanship to bring actual machine guns to a little kids' T-ball game to use on the other team. That is, don't be so literal ... either dismiss the analogy as unsuitable to the subject at hand or stay within the analogy. Using the same sports analogy, regardless of the Putin groupies' take on things, in my opinion Russia has so far acted like a community college team playing against a high school JV team.

Before Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, no one was ranking the Ukraine's military anywhere near the top of the world listing. But Russia often was, and you have to consider their accomplishments (and many failures) in that light. I've said it before in this thread and I'll say it again (even though some on the forum clearly disagree): it may not still be true now but early in the war foreign volunteers, teamed with Ukrainian military units and using NATO tactics designed to fight against Soviet-style tactics, more often than not handed the Russians their asses and even penetrated behind Russia's front lines. But the Ukrainian military leadership apparently can't or just flat won't accept foreign advice on tactics and couldn't or wouldn't exploit the breakthroughs when they came. The Ukrainians happily take the West's weapons systems but refuse to use the western tactics behind the weapons systems.

In my opinion Russia is not an unstoppable juggernaut of a military machine. If the war wasn't basically a civil war between cousins using pretty much the same mentality it would probably be over by now.

That it would be over.

But I also think that there is so much corruption going on the ukraine side that leadership refuses to put things on a level to effectively end the conflict.

 

[tanstaafl]

That it would be over.

But I also think that there is so much corruption going on the ukraine side that leadership refuses to put things on a level to effectively end the conflict.

Maybe they're so comfortable with the way things are they're afraid that any change of any detail will topple their individual empires, even in the face of an actual brutal shooting war not all that far down the road. If that's the case they better have a good exit plan. I'd hate to be lounging beside the pool being fed grapes by naked women when battle weary soldiers (from either side) really, REALLY pissed off at me come through the door.

 

[wait-n-see]

Borrell, I don't want war to end. Biden ends Ukraine talk. Cameron ditches Macron. Joe-bi Wan Kenobi​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzdq3ohA5LA

Run time - 29:09
May 4, 2024

 

[raven]

Either you're kidding or utterly missed the analogy of war as a sports game. You might note that it wasn't my analogy to begin with, I was just responding in kind. It's not good sportsmanship to bring actual machine guns to a little kids' T-ball game to use on the other team. That is, don't be so literal ... either dismiss the analogy as unsuitable to the subject at hand or stay within the analogy. Using the same sports analogy, regardless of the Putin groupies' take on things, in my opinion Russia has so far acted like a community college team playing against a high school JV team.

Before Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, no one was ranking the Ukraine's military anywhere near the top of the world listing. But Russia often was, and you have to consider their accomplishments (and many failures) in that light. I've said it before in this thread and I'll say it again (even though some on the forum clearly disagree): it may not still be true now but early in the war foreign volunteers, teamed with Ukrainian military units and using NATO tactics designed to fight against Soviet-style tactics, more often than not handed the Russians their asses and even penetrated behind Russia's front lines. But the Ukrainian military leadership apparently can't or just flat won't accept foreign advice on tactics and couldn't or wouldn't exploit the breakthroughs when they came. The Ukrainians happily take the West's weapons systems but refuse to use the western tactics behind the weapons systems.

In my opinion Russia is not an unstoppable juggernaut of a military machine. If the war wasn't basically a civil war between cousins using pretty much the same mentality it would probably be over by now.

You are the one that took it literal by saying they would be in Berlin. All I did was measure the distance to Berlin.

It is self evident that warfare is not a high school sporting competition. I did not play either sport. I did play war.
I pointed out was that the operational style used was significantly different on each side.

I never said anything about the rank of either army. That is you arguing with you.

Your illustration demonstrates the huge differences the mil operations of both sides. Call it baseball/football, apples/oranges, cowboys/indians.

I never said the Russians are a juggernaut - once again that is you winning an argument with yourself.

 

[tanstaafl]

You are the one that took it literal by saying they would be in Berlin. All I did was measure the distance to Berlin.

It is self evident that warfare is not a high school sporting competition. I did not play either sport. I did play war.
I pointed out was that the operational style used was significantly different on each side.

I never said anything about the rank of either army. That is you arguing with you.

Your illustration demonstrates the huge differences the mil operations of both sides. Call it baseball/football, apples/oranges, cowboys/indians.

I never said the Russians are a juggernaut - once again that is you winning an argument with yourself.

Okay, never mind. It's really not worth any more bandwidth.

 

[raven]

The United States instigated a revolution in Ukraine in 2013.
Between 2014 and 2022, The US and NATO threw billions of dollars into that black hole, recruited an army, trained it, paid it, supplied it with uniforms and weapons. Billions. We had and have officers and technicians embedded in it. We had bases and biolabs and CIA stations and brothels and everything. Remember that freaking bunker in Mariupol?

And the experts advised that the Russian men and equipment are substandard. Orcs.
Cavemen really. Who fight in wave attacks with shovels.
Genetically incompetent even.

But here we are and no one has a good explanation why we (and it is we) are losing.
(hint: you never, ever admit you are losing. especially when you can't change the trajectory)

It is embarrassing.

 

[Abert]

Surprise F-16 Update Issued by Ukraine​

Surprise F-16 update issued by Ukraine

Ukraine has spent long months waiting for Lockheed Martin-made F-16 jets to take to the skies.

www.newsweek.com

Ukraine will start operating F-16s after Orthodox Easter on May 5, Kyiv has said, as the country contends with devastating Russian bombardment and the long wait for the Western-made fighter jets.

"We are waiting," Ukrainian air force spokesperson Ilya Yevlash said, adding the jets will be taking to the skies over the war-torn country "after Easter," according to remarks reported by Ukrainian media on Wednesday.

Naturally no specifics as to HOW LONG AFTER May 5th.

Now We Wait

 

[Cedar Lake]

Surprise F-16 Update Issued by Ukraine​

Surprise F-16 update issued by Ukraine

Ukraine has spent long months waiting for Lockheed Martin-made F-16 jets to take to the skies.

www.newsweek.com

Ukraine will start operating F-16s after Orthodox Easter on May 5, Kyiv has said, as the country contends with devastating Russian bombardment and the long wait for the Western-made fighter jets.

"We are waiting," Ukrainian air force spokesperson Ilya Yevlash said, adding the jets will be taking to the skies over the war-torn country "after Easter," according to remarks reported by Ukrainian media on Wednesday.

Naturally no specifics as to HOW LONG AFTER May 5th.

Now We Wait

Flown by NATO/USA pilots?
Supported by Ukraine's "NATO trained 1 year student pilots''?

 

[raven]

Flown by NATO/USA pilots?
Supported by Ukraine's "NATO trained 1 year student pilots''?

It was already said early on that they take a military member into a briefing, sign his discharge papers, and then sign his civilian contract papers . . . they have been doing this a long time for wars in numerous countries . . . of course they will be NATO pilots. (its silly to think anything else - even sillier to think they are fooling the Russians - maybe they are trying to fool you, I don't know)

 

[naegling62]

Well Hal Turner is saying France has deployed French Foreign Legion troops to Ukraine. Hal Turner for what it’s worth, we’ll see.

 

[Abert]

Well Hal Turner is saying France has deployed French Foreign Legion troops to Ukraine. Hal Turner for what it’s worth, we’ll see.

Yes this was posted 2 days ago in an article by Stephen Bryen - some knowledge of these things (not a kid in the basement) - he served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

He likely has good contacts - still waiting on others to confirm. Still we do know that "contract" French troops have been active. He reports 150 currently with it going up to 1500 - all Legion troops likely needing new work having lost their last job in Africa

France sends combat troops to Ukraine battlefront - Asia Times

France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine. They have been deployed in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in

asiatimes.com

France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine. They have been deployed in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in Slavyansk. The French soldiers are drawn from France’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is one of the main elements of France’s Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère).

 

[jward]

NEXTA
@nexta_tv
·
NATO has warned Germany of an intensified Russian spy network

In particular, Russian agents are expected to prepare for sabotage, violent attacks, and cyberattacks. The letter notes that the allies are "extremely concerned" about Russia's activity on NATO territory.

 

[Abert]

Ukraine - 2nd Act - Georgia
Not getting a lot of press but the US / EU is spinning up another mess on Russia's border with the Nation of Georgia.

Likely the best and extensive article on what is going on and the history by Scott Ritter - YES WELL HATED by some - but facts are facts

Dancing the Khorumi on Rustaveli Avenue

How a dance meant to celebrate Georgian life has been turned into a ballet of national doom

scottritter.substack.com

The current Georgian government has attempted to maintain good ties with both the EU and Russia. This has worked out well for the average citizen with Georgia (as opposed to the EU)

As a prospective NATO and EU member, Georgia was expected to fall fully in line with the strategic goals and objectives of its western masters. But the Georgia Dream Party, ever cognizant of the need to serve the needs of the Georgian people first and foremost, balked at joining in with the sanctioning of the Russian economy. This decision turned out to be extremely beneficial to the Georgian economy and, by extension, the Georgian people—at a time when the economy of Europe was contracting because of the blowback brought on by the sanctions imposed on Russia, the Georgian economy enjoyed two consecutive years of 10% growth.

As the US/NATO/EU master plan for the strategic defeat of Russia faltered on both the global economic stage and on the battlefields of Ukraine, Georgia was placed under increasing pressure to join in on both fronts, sanctioning Russia while opening up a second front against Russia in order to divert Russian military resources away from the Ukraine front. The Georgia Dream Party resisted both, desiring instead to maintain continued economic growth while avoiding a suicidal conflict with Russia that could only end in the physical ruination of the Georgian nation.

To save Georgia from becoming a wasteland like Ukraine, Georgia Dream sought to level the political playing field inside Georgia by requiring organizations which are deemed to be pursuing the interests of a foreign power to register as such for the purpose of providing full transparency as to the motives and loyalties of such to the Georgian people. For the purposes of setting the bar regarding what constituted “pursuing the interests of a foreign power,” the law being pushed by Georgia Dream set as the benchmark the standard of 20% of the total income received by a given organization over the course of a calendar year as being derived from foreign sources. The proposed law did not in any way restrict the activities of any organization so designated—the purpose of the law was to provide full transparency for the Georgian people so they could be cognizant of the fact that issues and programs being pursued by so-called “Georgian” NGO’s and SMO’s were in reality reflective of foreign designs that may not coincide with the policies of the Georgian government.

The big question right now with the extensive protest (Western NGO funded) is what the military may do.

Fortunately for the Georgian nation, the leadership of the Georgian armed forces is well-versed in the concepts of civil-military relations and will not allow the military to be drawn into a domestic political dispute. The problem, however, resides with the junior officers and junior enlisted soldiers, who are more susceptible to the allure of western promises and money. If the ongoing protests against the transparency law escalate into the kind of violence that was witnessed at the Maidan in Kiev in February 2014, the temptation to break ranks and join the insurrectionists might be too strong.

And then Georgia will be once again confronted with the horrific reality of a civil war.

This is, of course, the master plan of the Georgian opposition and their western overlords.

 

[raven]

NEXTA
@nexta_tv
·
NATO has warned Germany of an intensified Russian spy network

In particular, Russian agents are expected to prepare for sabotage, violent attacks, and cyberattacks. The letter notes that the allies are "extremely concerned" about Russia's activity on NATO territory.

They could blow another gas pipeline . . . You know

 

[jward]

They could blow another gas pipeline . . . You know

Did u catch that while u were gone a few voices in the wilderness actually got around to accusing us o' doin' the deed.
..not that anyone seemed to mind, o course. Last I heard they decided to call the investigation :: rolls eyes ::

 

[wait-n-see]

Russian Forces Heading Towards Operational Victory in Donbas​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYaK4dB4zK8

Run time - 25:24
May 5, 2024

The Russian breakthrough in Ocheretyne continues.

 

[wait-n-see]

Flown by NATO/USA pilots?
Supported by Ukraine's "NATO trained 1 year student pilots''?

It was already said early on that they take a military member into a briefing, sign his discharge papers, and then sign his civilian contract papers . . . they have been doing this a long time for wars in numerous countries . . . of course they will be NATO pilots. (its silly to think anything else - even sillier to think they are fooling the Russians - maybe they are trying to fool you, I don't know)

Yep, "Flying Tigers" will not help this time, even if the F16 was actually a "vonderveapon". (which it ain't - it just one tool in a toolkit)

 

[Abert]

The Russians Captured Keramik | The Ukrainians Are Digging In In Krynki.​

More info on the Russian advancement (16 min)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmIvnMGCn30

 

[raven]

Did u catch that while u were gone a few voices in the wilderness actually got around to accusing us o' doin' the deed.
..not that anyone seemed to mind, o course. Last I heard they decided to call the investigation :: rolls eyes ::

Nothing for anyone to “mind”. They know who did the deed. No one cares.
They urgently need a serious excuse to bring the NATO flag. Probably the very graphic demise of someone well known. (I wonder how they get those guys/gals/zers to volunteer for exit)

 

[mecoastie]

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine

If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre.

rusi.org

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine​

Alex Vershinin
18 March 2024 Long Read
Share


View attachment 473276

---

If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre.

Attritional wars require their own ‘Art of War’ and are fought with a ‘force-centric’ approach, unlike wars of manoeuvre which are ‘terrain-focused’. They are rooted in massive industrial capacity to enable the replacement of losses, geographical depth to absorb a series of defeats, and technological conditions that prevent rapid ground movement. In attritional wars, military operations are shaped by a state’s ability to replace losses and generate new formations, not tactical and operational manoeuvres. The side that accepts the attritional nature of war and focuses on destroying enemy forces rather than gaining terrain is most likely to win.

The West is not prepared for this kind of war. To most Western experts, attritional strategy is counterintuitive. Historically, the West preferred the short ‘winner takes all’ clash of professional armies. Recent war games such as CSIS’s war over Taiwan covered one month of fighting. The possibility that the war would go on never entered the discussion. This is a reflection of a common Western attitude. Wars of attrition are treated as exceptions, something to be avoided at all costs and generally products of leaders’ ineptitude. Unfortunately, wars between near-peer powers are likely to be attritional, thanks to a large pool of resources available to replace initial losses. The attritional nature of combat, including the erosion of professionalism due to casualties, levels the battlefield no matter which army started with better trained forces. As conflict drags on, the war is won by economies, not armies. States that grasp this and fight such a war via an attritional strategy aimed at exhausting enemy resources while preserving their own are more likely to win. The fastest way to lose a war of attrition is to focus on manoeuvre, expending valuable resources on near-term territorial objectives. Recognising that wars of attrition have their own art is vital to winning them without sustaining crippling losses.

The Economic Dimension​

Wars of attrition are won by economies enabling mass mobilisation of militaries via their industrial sectors. Armies expand rapidly during such a conflict, requiring massive quantities of armoured vehicles, drones, electronic products, and other combat equipment. Because high-end weaponry is very complex to manufacture and consumes vast resources, a high-low mixture of forces and weapons is imperative in order to win.

High-end weapons have exceptional performance but are difficult to manufacture, especially when needed to arm a rapidly mobilised army subjected to a high rate of attrition. For example, during the Second World War German Panzers were superb tanks, but using approximately the same production resources, the Soviets rolled out eight T-34s for every German Panzer. The difference in performance did not justify the numerical disparity in production. High-end weapons also require high-end troops. These take significant time to train – time which is unavailable in a war with high attrition rates.

It is easier and faster to produce large numbers of cheap weapons and munitions, especially if their subcomponents are interchangeable with civilian goods, ensuring mass quantity without the expansion of production lines. New recruits also absorb simpler weapons faster, allowing rapid generation of new formations or the reconstitution of existing ones.

Achieving mass is difficult for higher-end Western economies. To achieve hyper-efficiency, they shed excess capacity and struggle to rapidly expand, especially since lower-tier industries have been transferred abroad for economic reasons. During war, global supply chains are disrupted and subcomponents can no longer be secured. Added to this conundrum is the lack of a skilled workforce with experience in a particular industry. These skills are acquired over decades, and once an industry is shuttered it takes decades to rebuild. The 2018 US government interagency report on US industrial capacity highlighted these problems. The bottom line is that the West must take a hard look at ensuring peacetime excess capacity in its military industrial complex, or risk losing the next war.

Force Generation​

Industrial output exists so it can be channelled into replacing losses and generating new formations. This requires appropriate doctrine and command and control structures. There are two main models; NATO (most Western armies) and the old Soviet model, with most states fielding something in between.

NATO armies are highly professional, backed by a strong non-commissioned officer (NCO) Corps, with extensive peacetime military education and experience. They build upon this professionalism for their military doctrine (fundamentals, tactics and techniques) to stress individual initiative, delegating a great deal of leeway to junior officers and NCOs. NATO formations enjoy tremendous agility and flexibility to exploit opportunities on a dynamic battlefield.
In attritional war, this method has a downside. The officers and NCOs required to execute this doctrine require extensive training and, above all, experience. A US Army NCO takes years to develop. A squad leader generally has at least three years in service and a platoon sergeant has at least seven. In an attritional war characterised by heavy casualties, there simply isn’t time to replace lost NCOs or generate them for new units. The idea that civilians can be given three-month training courses, sergeant’s chevrons and then expected to perform in the same manner as a seven-year veteran is a recipe for disaster. Only time can generate leaders capable of executing NATO doctrine, and time is one thing that the massive demands of attritional war do not give.

The Soviet Union built its army for large-scale conflict with NATO. It was intended to be able to rapidly expand by calling up massed reserves. Every male in the Soviet Union underwent two years of basic training right out of high school. The constant turnover of enlisted personnel precluded creation of a Western-style NCO corps but generated a massive pool of semi-trained reserves available in times of war. The absence of reliable NCOs created an officer-centric command model, less flexible than NATO’s but more adaptable to the large-scale expansion required by attritional warfare.

However, as a war progresses past a one-year mark, front-line units will gain experience and an improved NCO corps is likely to emerge, giving the Soviet model greater flexibility. By 1943, the Red Army had developed a robust NCO corps, which then disappeared after the Second World War as combat formations were demobilised. A key difference between the models is that NATO doctrine cannot function without high-performing NCOs. The Soviet doctrine was enhanced by experienced NCOs but did not require them.



The most effective model is a mixture of the two, in which a state maintains a medium-sized professional army, together with a mass of draftees available for mobilisation. This leads directly to a high/low mixture. Professional pre-war forces form the high end of this army, becoming fire brigades – moving from sector to sector in battle to stabilise the situation and conduct decisive attacks. Low-end formations hold the line and gain experience slowly, increasing their quality until they gain the capability to conduct offensive operations. Victory is attained by creating the highest quality low-end formations possible.

Forging new units into combat-capable soldiers instead of civilian mobs is done through training and combat experience. A new formation should train for at least six months, and only if manned by reservists with previous individual training. Conscripts take longer. These units should also have professional soldiers and NCOs brought in from the pre-war army to add professionalism. Once initial training is complete, they should only be fed into the battle in secondary sectors. No formation should be allowed to fall below 70% strength. Withdrawing formations early allows experience to proliferate among the new replacements as veterans pass on their skills. Otherwise, valuable experience is lost, causing the process to start all over. Another implication is that resources should prioritise replacements over new formations, preserving combat edge in both the pre-war army (high) and newly raised (low) formations. It’s advisable to disband several pre-war (high-end) formations to spread professional soldiers among newly created low-end formations in order to raise initial quality.

The Military Dimension​

Military operations in an attritional conflict are very distinct from those in a war of manoeuvre. Instead of a decisive battle achieved through rapid manoeuvre, attritional war focuses on destroying enemy forces and their ability to regenerate combat power, while preserving one’s own. In this context, a successful strategy accepts that the war will last at least two years and be broken into two distinct phases. The first phase ranges from initiation of hostilities to the point where sufficient combat power has been mobilised to allow decisive action. It will see little positional shifting on the ground, focusing on favourable exchange of losses and building up combat power in the rear. The dominant form of combat is fires rather than manoeuvre, complemented by extensive fortifications and camouflage. The peacetime army starts the war and conducts holding actions, providing time to mobilise resources and train the new army.

The second phase can commence after one side has met the following conditions.

• Newly mobilised forces have completed their training and gained sufficient experience to make them combat-effective formations, capable of rapidly integrating all their assets in a cohesive manner.
• The enemy’s strategic reserve is exhausted, leaving it unable to reinforce the threatened sector.
• Fires and reconnaissance superiority are achieved, allowing the attacker to effectively mass fires on a key sector while denying the enemy the same.
• The enemy’s industrial sector is degraded to the point where it is unable to replace battlefield losses. In the case of fighting against a coalition of countries, their industrial resources must also be exhausted or at least accounted for.

Only after meeting these criteria should offensive operations commence. They should be launched across a broad front, seeking to overwhelm the enemy at multiple points with shallow attacks. The intent is to remain inside a layered bubble of friendly protective systems, while stretching depleted enemy reserves until the front collapses. Only then should the offensive extend towards objectives deeper in the enemy rear. Concentration of forces on one main effort should be avoided as this gives an indication of the offensive’s location and an opportunity for the enemy to concentrate their reserves against this key point. The Brusilov Offensive of 1916, which resulted in the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army, is a good example of a successful attritional offensive at the tactical and operational level. By attacking along a broad front, the Russian army prevented the Austro-Hungarians from concentrating their reserves, resulting in a collapse all along the front. At the strategic level, however, the Brusilov Offensive is an example of failure. Russian forces failed to set conditions against the whole enemy coalition, focusing only on the Austro-Hungarian Empire and neglecting German capacity. The Russians expended crucial resources which they could not replace, without defeating the strongest coalition member. To reemphasise the key point, an offensive will only succeed once key criteria are met. Attempting to launch an offensive earlier will result in losses without any strategic gains, playing directly into enemy hands.
====
page 1 of 2

===
.

That M101 is probably 70 years old.

 

[wait-n-see]

Ukraine’s Donbass Lines Collapsing - Russia’s Strategy of Attrition Comes Full Circle​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPlxiD0G4o

Run time - 47:11
May 5, 2024

Update on the conflict in Ukraine for May 5, 2024…

- Despite US arms package (along with packages from several European nations) Ukrainian defenses continue to crumble and Russian forces continue to gain ground;

- US-provided Ground Launched Small-Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) were meant to extend the range of HIMARS launched guided rockets from 70km to 150km, however, like GMLRS, GLSDBs have been rendered ineffective by Russian missile defenses and electronic warfare jamming;

- NATO and Ukrainian obsession with targeting Crimea and specifically the Crimean Bridge continues despite the strategic irrelevance of doing so;

- Ukrainian brigades continue to disintegrate, calls for building “additional brigades” which would take years are detached from reality;

- Meanwhile, Russia continues expanding military industrial production, increasing the gap between it and Ukraine’s Western backers compounding Ukraine’s strategic crisis;

- Western policy toward Ukraine at best reflects profound ignorance of how modern warfare and military industrial production actually work, at worst is cynically feeding all of Ukraine into a proxy war to maximize the cost of victory for Russia;

References:

BBC - Situation on frontline has worsened, Ukraine army chief says (April 28, 2024): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe...

The Guardian - Russia makes more gains around Avdiivka as Ukraine awaits US aid (April 28, 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...

Defense One - Another US precision-guided weapon falls prey to Russian electronic warfare, US says (April 28, 2024): https://www.defenseone.com/threats/20...

Newsweek - Crimea Rocked by Explosions as Bridge Shut: Reports (April 30, 2024): https://www.newsweek.com/crimea-explo...

Forbes - The War-Weary 47th Mechanized Is Ukraine’s ‘Emergency Brigade.’ The Pentagon Is Rushing Replacement Vehicles To Keep The Exhausted Unit In The Fight. (April 30, 2024): https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe...

Foreign Affairs - American Aid Alone Won’t Save Ukraine (May 2, 2024): https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukrain...

Al Jazeera - Russia ramps up weapons production for Ukraine war (May 1, 2024): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5...

Foreign Policy - How Kyiv Plans to Use American Aid (May 1, 2024): https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/01/...

Independent - The US will give $61bn to Ukraine. What does it mean for the war? (April 25, 2024): https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...

 

[Abert]

Must be running out of Tanks - it was reported a few weeks ago these were all to be pulled back off the line -
JUST FOR THIS REASON

DD Geopolitics

Fwd from @infomil_live Strike on an M1A1 Abrams tank using the Lancet kamikaze drone in the Avdiivka direction. This is at least the seventh Abrams that has been hit in this sector. Informant Original msg

t.me

Strike on an M1A1 Abrams tank using the Lancet kamikaze drone in the Avdiivka direction. This is at least the seventh Abrams that has been hit in this sector.

 

[Abert]

The critical factor for Ukraine is - troops - not money or arms or F-16's.
A good overview of the problem. NOTE: From Western / UK press - not RT

‘I love my country, but I can’t kill’​

Ukrainian men evading conscription​

‘I love my country, but I can’t kill’: Ukrainian men evading conscription

As the war stretches on indefinitely, there are few eager recruits and Kyiv’s armed forces are short of soldiers

www.theguardian.com

People who have money and remain in Ukraine hide or flee to avoid the draft.

 

[Abert]

It is becoming clearer - to any objective viewer - that NATO (US) totally miscalculated how this war was going to go.
NATO (US) weapons and tactics developed over decades fighting goat herders in 3rd world nations did not prepare them for a conflict with a nation that not only had weapons as advanced or better than the West but could also outproduce them.

Good overview on this subject by Larry Johnson based on an excellent article The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine

War of Attrition vs War of Manoeuvre

sonar21.com

Colonel Alex Vershinin, writing for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), is out with a stunner of a piece that confirms Russia is light years ahead of NATO’s military establishment.

"Attritional wars require their own ‘Art of War’ and are fought with a ‘force-centric’ approach, unlike wars of manoeuvre which are ‘terrain-focused’. They are rooted in massive industrial capacity to enable the replacement of losses, geographical depth to absorb a series of defeats, and technological conditions that prevent rapid ground movement. In attritional wars, military operations are shaped by a state’s ability to replace losses and generate new formations, not tactical and operational manoeuvres. The side that accepts the attritional nature of war and focuses on destroying enemy forces rather than gaining terrain is most likely to win."

"The West is not prepared for this kind of war. To most Western experts, attritional strategy is counterintuitive. Historically, the West preferred the short ‘winner takes all’ clash of professional armies. Recent war games such as CSIS’s war over Taiwan covered one month of fighting. The possibility that the war would go on never entered the discussion. This is a reflection of a common Western attitude."

"As conflict drags on, the war is won by economies, not armies. States that grasp this and fight such a war via an attritional strategy aimed at exhausting enemy resources while preserving their own are more likely to win. The fastest way to lose a war of attrition is to focus on manoeuvre, expending valuable resources on near-term territorial objectives. Recognising that wars of attrition have their own art is vital to winning them without sustaining crippling losses."

The bottomline is simple — the United States and NATO are not equipped, organized or trained to fight a peer force like Russia or China in a war of attrition. One of the biggest short-comings are the costly, fragile weapons that account for NATO’s supposedly premier means for pursuing a war.

I encourage you to dig into the RUSI report. It makes it very clear why Russia is poised to defeat, not only the Ukrainian military, but NATO as well.

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine

If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre.

rusi.org

 

[Johnny Twoguns]

Looks like it is getting down to it. Fireworks from here till June, July, August.

 

[CaryC]

Must be running out of Tanks - it was reported a few weeks ago these were all to be pulled back off the line -
JUST FOR THIS REASON

DD Geopolitics

Fwd from @infomil_live Strike on an M1A1 Abrams tank using the Lancet kamikaze drone in the Avdiivka direction. This is at least the seventh Abrams that has been hit in this sector. Informant Original msg

t.me

Strike on an M1A1 Abrams tank using the Lancet kamikaze drone in the Avdiivka direction. This is at least the seventh Abrams that has been hit in this sector.

If you want to see one, there is one sitting outside the War Museum in Moscow. Just saying.

 

[danielboon]

Russia Says Preparing Non-Strategic Nuclear Strike Drills​

​

Updated: 4 hours ago

A row of air bombs.Grigory Sysoyev / TASS
Updated with Peskov’s remarks.
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Monday that its forces were preparing to conduct tactical nuclear weapons exercises in response to Western “threats and provocations.”
“At the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, in order to increase the readiness of non-strategic nuclear forces to perform combat missions, the General Staff has begun preparations for conducting exercises in the near future,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
It added that the exercises would involve missile units of Russia’s Southern Military District, which is headquartered in the city of Rostov-on-Don, as well as aviation and naval forces.
“During the exercise, a set of measures will be carried out to practice the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the statement read.
NEWS

Kremlin Slams 'Dangerous' Remarks by Macron About Troop Deployment in Ukraine​

READ MORE
According to the Defense Ministry, the exercises seek to maintain the readiness of personnel and equipment amid “provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials against the Russian Federation.” It did not say when the nuclear weapons exercises were scheduled to take place.
President Vladimir Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert days after ordering Russian troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later on Monday linked the drills with what he described as Western announcements to send troops to Ukraine.
In an interview with The Economist last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said the question of sending Western troops to Ukraine would "legitimately" arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian front lines and Kyiv made such a request.https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/05/06/russia-says-preparing-non-strategic-nuclear-strike-drills-a85042

 

[danielboon]

Ukraine war: Russia’s Putin orders tactical nuclear weapon exercise to deter West, as Moscow captures 2 more villages​

Putin orders nuclear drills to deter West, as Russia captures Ukrainian villages

Russia says the drills are in response to ‘provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials’.

www.scmp.com

 

[danielboon]