Russia's War Against Ukraine

[GDS_Starfury]

Makiivka and Bakhmut: The Impact of Russian Casualties

https://samf.substack.com/p/makiiva-and-bakhmut-the-impact-of

[GDS_Starfury]

why the Ukraine is winning.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1613551247184773123

[Tripoli]

Storm clouds on the horizon: "'Decision To Arm Ourselves Or Arm Ukraine': Navy Secretary Admits Crisis In US Defense Stockpiles"  https://www.zerohedge.com/military/decision-arm-ourselves-or-arm-ukraine-navy-secretary-admits-crisis-us-defense-stockpiles

IMHO, this may be part of the reason for the sending of IFVs and possibly tanks the Ukraine.  Absent a collapse of the Russian army, in order for this war to end the Ukrainians need to go on the offensive and take a lot of ground  If they don't, they may lose simply because the west can't give them the missiles and artillery it needs for a prolonged defensive war. Hence, the sending of offensive gear to wind this war up.

[MengJiao]

Storm clouds on the horizon: "'Decision To Arm Ourselves Or Arm Ukraine': Navy Secretary Admits Crisis In US Defense Stockpiles"  https://www.zerohedge.com/military/decision-arm-ourselves-or-arm-ukraine-navy-secretary-admits-crisis-us-defense-stockpiles

IMHO, this may be part of the reason for the sending of IFVs and possibly tanks the Ukraine.  Absent a collapse of the Russian army, in order for this war to end the Ukrainians need to go on the offensive and take a lot of ground  If they don't, they may lose simply because the west can't give them the missiles and artillery it needs for a prolonged defensive war. Hence, the sending of offensive gear to wind this war up.

  Another aspect of sending some offensive gear is that it is now pretty clear that this war could just on on for years, so there is plenty of time to train the Ukrainians and plenty of reason to send gear to sustain them even for possible offensives or counterattacks.

[Gusington]

Again that Ukrainian-attributed quote comes in handy: 'we are lucky the Russians are so stupid.'

[FarAway Sooner]

Storm clouds on the horizon: "'Decision To Arm Ourselves Or Arm Ukraine': Navy Secretary Admits Crisis In US Defense Stockpiles"  https://www.zerohedge.com/military/decision-arm-ourselves-or-arm-ukraine-navy-secretary-admits-crisis-us-defense-stockpiles

IMHO, this may be part of the reason for the sending of IFVs and possibly tanks the Ukraine.  Absent a collapse of the Russian army, in order for this war to end the Ukrainians need to go on the offensive and take a lot of ground  If they don't, they may lose simply because the west can't give them the missiles and artillery it needs for a prolonged defensive war. Hence, the sending of offensive gear to wind this war up.

The article raises a very legit point, but I suspect that the headline might be a little exaggerated to draw clicks.  Reading the quotes of the Navy commander, it sounds like he was asked a leading question, indicated that it wasn't wholly incorrect, and the article jumped on top of this quote without presenting any research or even numerical facts to back this up. 

I'm also a little intrigued that a Navy commander is more worried about this than an Army or Air Force commander.  It's my understanding that about all the Navy is sending over are land-based anti-ship missiles, but there is probably more crossover than I realize.

The logistical demands of this war have surpassed all expectations.  We clearly have a lesson to learn about how quickly stockpiles get burned through in a high-intensity conflict.  This suggests that the US might need to recalibrate our force mix of "high quality/high cost" and "expendable/low cost" hardware to fight a high-intensity conflict. 

A $20M Predator drone might be an ideal platform for Afghanistan, where the ability to loiter safely over target areas for 6-8 hours is useful.  But if the average drone is shot out of the sky within a half-dozen missions by more sophisticated air defenses in a place like Ukraine, we might be better off by buying 100 throw-away spotter drones for $20K.

I worry about logistical challenges in Ukraine.  Without seeing more actual data on the topic, I'm skeptical that the entire West (with an economy roughly 30-50 times the size of Russia's) will run out of ammunition to supply to Ukraine before Russia's allies do.

[MengJiao]

I worry about logistical challenges in Ukraine.  Without seeing more actual data on the topic, I'm skeptical that the entire West (with an economy roughly 30-50 times the size of Russia's) will run out of ammunition to supply to Ukraine before Russia's allies do.

  On the other hand, the Ukrainians probably have pointed out that all this firepower is killing a lot of people and it might be better for everyone not to rely on having the Russians run out of ammo (which could take quite a while)...it might be better to heavily arm the Ukrainians (to reduce their losses by ending the war by driving the Russians out of all Ukrainian territory).  After all, all this Russian ammo expenditure is killing a lot of Ukrainians, so it might not be the sort of calculus the Ukrainians want to follow to the bitter end.

[W8taminute]

In this day and age, weapons and their ammunition have become so prohibitively expensive that how can any nation on earth be able to produce what it needs over a long period of time.  So in order to beat someone in this day and age all you have to do is make them fight in some sideshow and waste all their stuff.  Then when the main event takes place they have an empty load in which to fight with.

Back in WW2 weapons and ammo wasn't that expensive was it?  I mean relatively speaking governments could get the cash they needed to make M4A3E8's all day long forever and not run out of money.  Which means you could fight a war all day long forever and ever without worrying about the money to pay for the war.

Can we do that today? 

[FarAway Sooner]

In WW2, quantity had a quality all its own.  Quality certainly mattered--ask any pilot who survived being shot at in a B-17 or a P-47--but quantity was important too.

Procurement in the US military for the last 50 years has seemed premised on the assumption that winning the first battle means you also win the war.  It's a little unclear if that's our actual warfighting doctrine, or the unintentional result of Congressional budget allocations because they don't generally understand the primacy of logistics, or the intentional result of Congressional budget allocations because they're more interested in channeling pork defense contracts back to their home districts.

To be clear, high-tech weaponry like long-range strike capabilities, PGMs, and EW matter more than they ever have.  There's just a balancing act between the expensive stuff and the throw-away stuff.  Stuff like dumb artillery shells should be cheap and plentiful.

I think the challenge in securing adequate supplies lies as much in our procurement methods as it does in the way we design new weapons.

[Tripoli]

...

To be clear, high-tech weaponry like long-range strike capabilities, PGMs, and EW matter more than they ever have.  There's just a balancing act between the expensive stuff and the throw-away stuff.  Stuff like dumb artillery shells should be cheap and plentiful.

I think the challenge in securing adequate supplies lies as much in our procurement methods as it does in the way we design new weapons.

One of the benefits of the PGMs is that it improves your logistics in that you need to ship fewer of them to the front-line units.  Russia is discovering now that its heavy dependence on unguided artillery munitions is straining its ability to move the stuff to the artillery units.  It also requires ammo dumps that need to be protected, and (ideally) far away from, say, billeted troops.  All of this strains the logistics, requires additional trucks and fuel, etc.  Smart munitions ease the logistics situation, at least in getting the munitions to the end user. (now getting the raw materials to make the PGMs is a different logistics headache....)

[bobarossa]

Anyone know what percentage of our munitions stocks we used during the first Gulf War?  We spent a considerable time softening up the Iraqi's (weeks) and expended lots of ordinance. 

[GDS_Starfury]

most things left over from Vietnam.

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah, PGMs are useful.  As long as you have good targeting info.  If you don't (because, for example, you've run out of spotter drones locally), you turn back to throwing lots of shells at your suspected targets.

I'm not suggesting that the expensive weapons aren't useful.  I'm just suggesting that this war seems to be highlighting some really interesting trade-offs to be made as you try to balance whether you want to use an Italian sports car or a beat-up mountain bike for a particular mission.

[JasonPratt]

Where in Russia's case the Italian sports car is a Chinese knockoff version put together and maintained by grudging slave labor, or metaphors to that effect. ;)

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, the Enforcer drops a 10 minute summary of why the US is (and should be) supporting Ukraine (aside from the human tragedy factor) -- which happens to be also a rationale for why Moscow is (and from their position should be) conquering Ukraine.