The War in the Ukraine

taxiya said:

That is an astonishing explanation. Has NATO never wanted their tanks to drive into USSR? Did they expect the retreating red army to leave bridges intact for NATO tanks to give a chase?

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For most of the cold war, they actually did not.

It was estimated that the USSR ground forces were way more powerful, to the point where NATO would fall back to threats of MAD if they were losing. Hence the proliferation of tactical nukes. NATO tanks played into this doctrine. They were designed to fight on the retreat and in chokepoints. Similar to how China also approached its tank design in the face of overwhelming USSR and American threat.

During the cold war, US had the economy advantage, they didn't need to think too much about a retreating red army. If the Soviets went for an invasion and were driven into retreat at all, it would be a victory in itself. They just needed to hold the lines.

Notice all the Ukraine AD getting hit by Lancet drones of late? That isn’t just happening by chance, basically all the targeting of infrastructure is allowing Russia to do DEAD on the cheap and with zero risk to high end aircraft and crews.

The send a wave of cheap Iranian drones, monitor where the SAMs are launching from, and send Orlans to check those areas out, and if they find anything of worth, they cue up a Lancet.

If they are clever, they will already have Orlans in the air along the flight path of their suicide drones and cruise missiles ready and waiting to cut the kill chain down as much as possible. Anything launches against the incoming munitions will immediately attract the attention of a nearby Orlan, which will then confirm the target so Lancets can be sent.

plawolf said:

Notice all the Ukraine AD getting hit by Lancet drones of late? That isn’t just happening by chance, basically all the targeting of infrastructure is allowing Russia to do DEAD on the cheap and with zero risk to high end aircraft and crews.

The send a wave of cheap Iranian drones, monitor where the SAMs are launching from, and send Orlans to check those areas out, and if they find anything of worth, they cue up a Lancet.

If they are clever, they will already have Orlans in the air along the flight path of their suicide drones and cruise missiles ready and waiting to cut the kill chain down as much as possible. Anything launches against the incoming munitions will immediately attract the attention of a nearby Orlan, which will then confirm the target so Lancets can be sent.

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I wonder if they attach luneburg lens to some of these Iranian drones to trigger the radar.

optionsss said:

To hit a primary station Russia need to destroy the boiler or turbines inside concrete buildings, but that's hard to do with cheap drones and even cruise missiles. You need the payload to have a large penetrating warhead and very accurate. The substation on the other hand is exposed and much easier to destroy. It is more cost effective.

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Is it a concrete building or cheap sheet metal and plywood building?

Here's a photo of a western gas fired power station. It's mostly in the open and covered by cheap thin sheet metal (gray and beige). Control room made of plywood (white) in foreground.

I think the focus on destroying transformers and distribution infrastructure simply represents the most efficient and cost effective way to disable an enemy's electricity supply. They are the most exposed and vulnerable part of the energy system, can be destroyed or rendered inoperable with relatively smaller munitions, and is the most difficult and costly to part of the system replace.

taxiya said:

That is an astonishing explanation. Has NATO never wanted their tanks to drive into USSR? Did they expect the retreating red army to leave bridges intact for NATO tanks to give a chase?

Bridge and road limitations are only meant for domestic road for strategic mobility in peace time or just before the war, never meant to be the limitation on the designed targeting battle field.

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The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that it is quite difficult to conduct broad maneuvers outside paved roads. The Russian expression "tanks don't fear mud" was proven wrong.

The ground never quite froze last year for any meaningful duration and it’s looking like it won’t this year either. If the heavy NATO tanks are unable to cross bridges, then they would be of limited utility even for constrained offensives along roads.

I remember reading a long time ago that the USSR intentionally designed their bridges not to be able to support the weight of heavy tanks. I don’t know to what extent that’s true.

Biscuits said:

For most of the cold war, they actually did not.

It was estimated that the USSR ground forces were way more powerful, to the point where NATO would fall back to threats of MAD if they were losing. Hence the proliferation of tactical nukes. NATO tanks played into this doctrine. They were designed to fight on the retreat and in chokepoints. Similar to how China also approached its tank design in the face of overwhelming USSR and American threat.

During the cold war, US had the economy advantage, they didn't need to think too much about a retreating red army. If the Soviets went for an invasion and were driven into retreat at all, it would be a victory in itself. They just needed to hold the lines.

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Well, that doctrine does explain the weight limit thing, but it is even more astonishing on a higher level. But it is another subject that I should not continue.

reservior dogs said:

I wonder if they attach luneburg lens to some of these Iranian drones to trigger the radar.

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I doubt it as that would give the game away. They are not trying to fool Ukrainian radars but NATO ones.

Basically the problem Russia faced was that Ukraine AD was in essence ‘cheating’ by relying on NATO AWACS and ISR for early warning and tracking and only used their own radars to lock and take a shot, and then pack up and scoot.

That made SEAD essentially impossible unless you are prepared to shoot down NATO ISR assets, which the Russians were not. That was why the VKS were sidelined for much of the war and limited to stand off attack, CAP and CAS with Su25s and attack helicopters. Don’t get me wrong, they still could penetrate deep into Ukrainian held territory almost at will, but every time they do, they take a big risk that an Ukrainian SAM will be in the right place at the right time to shoot them down. I think after loosing too many Su30s and Su34s that way, the Russians just decided to stop risking and wasting their high end aircraft like that.

Cheap, expendable and slow Iranian suicide drones have now changed that equation. Russia is using the cheap Iranian drones to bait the Ukrainians into committing their AD to defend against the attacks, thereby briefly giving away their position for DEAD attack. The reason Shaheds work for this purpose so much better than cruise missiles are twofold (totally ignoring the cost and availability issues).

Firstly, these drones are easy to detect, that is a benefit when the goal is to get the enemy to shoot at you. Cruise missiles generally fly lower, faster, having smaller RCS and do terrain following etc all to minimise detection and reaction time.

The second reason is that they are slow, making it possible for Orlans to keep better tab of when something takes a pot shot. The slower speed also helps to ensure more AD units can spin up and have a pop.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Ukraine to wise up and develop a counter. If they can’t do that soon, the VKS might decide enough SAM launchers and missiles have been taken out to be worth deployment manned jets deep into Ukrainian held territory again. Indeed, this may all be groundwork to allow them to unleash the VKS for their next major offensive.

Putting aside

sheogorath said:

Confirmation of what's being sent to Ukraine by the brits including AS90 SPG's which are shittier Krab

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1615023057944596480

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Is there a clear strategy to what equipment is being sent and a clear path to victory as a result?

Some posters here and the news is talking about how the hope is these Challengers "inspire" Europe and Canada to give 100's of Leopard 2s to Ukraine.

If Ukraine receives 100's of Tanks, do they have the support and coordination to utilize them to maximum effectiveness?

We already know what happens to Tanks when they are not properly supported (Turkish Leopard in Syria and Iraqi M1 vs. ISIS). They are just meat for ATGM grinders. Not to mention, Russia is also operating Attack Helicopters and numerous heavy artillery.

One other big issue is logistics. They likely won't have any forward depots to do any field repairs, so there would have to be a means to transport tanks 100's of Kms back to Poland. It's one reason why we don't really see much PzH-2000.

For NATO, they have full support of Air Forces that can clear the skies of helicopters. Cruise missile strikes to destroy hard targets. Finally the ground forces basically mop up and are further supported by drones, helicopters, and other assets as needed.

Let's try to put the political standings aside.

Zichan said:

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that it is quite difficult to conduct broad maneuvers outside paved roads. The Russian expression "tanks don't fear mud" was proven wrong.

The ground never quite froze last year for any meaningful duration and it’s looking like it won’t this year either. If the heavy NATO tanks are unable to cross bridges, then they would be of limited utility even for constrained offensives along roads.

I remember reading a long time ago that the USSR intentionally designed their bridges not to be able to support the weight of heavy tanks. I don’t know to what extent that’s true.

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I don't think USSR intentionally designed bridges to not support heavy tanks. By their time standard, the T-64 and T-72 were heavier than anything else. If you consider person per weight, they're still heavy even by today's standards.

Most likely the Soviets did not expect heavier tanks than the T-72 to be viable. So they only needed bridges that were good enough to support their own heaviest tanks.

The Soviet doctrine was to priortize lowered profile and reduced crew on the tank. They estimated that they will be the attackers and pushing into the enemy. One side effect of this is that the early T-72 types have awful reverse speed. They were designed to rush down the enemy while being impervious to contemporary Western tank guns from the front and ostentibly able to wipe out any western tank from the front with a single shot. Low profile would protect them from detection.

Of course, then the west also created counters by up arming to 120mm which could penetrate the T-72 at reasonable ranges. They made tanks with similar levels of protection, and due to having a loader, often higher rate of fire, giving them an advantage when fighting while reversing.

Soviets did not expect to fight in their own territory, and in the long term, likely did not have tanks that were heavier than 60 tons planned.