(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Russia hit Kharkiv again overnight:
Tonight Russia attacked Kharkiv with Iranian kamikaze drones from Belgorod. At least four hit densely populated areas. Luckily, the buildings were empty. pic.twitter.com/pTIhbAQ1jb
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) August 1, 2023
And Ukraine had another go at Moscow:
This IQ tower in Moscow City is kind of unlucky. Drone hit it again. pic.twitter.com/ytMsevbfa9
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) August 1, 2023
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
The occupiers will strongly feel the consequences of our work – address by the President of Ukraine
1 August 2023 – 21:52
I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!
This day began with very informative reports from representatives of the defense and security forces of our country.
Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Malyuk and Minister of Internal Affairs Klymenko on the liquidation of the consequences of Russian terrorists’ attacks on our cities: Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Kherson, and our other cities.
General Zaluzhny reported on the general situation in the defense. Generals Syrsky and Tarnavsky reported on the front and specific directions. Commander of the Air Force Oleshchuk reported on the results of the use of air defense. “We are constantly working with our partners on a daily basis to bolster our sky shield, step by step we are adding protection.
There was also a separate detailed report by Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate Budanov – the occupiers will definitely feel the consequences of our work. They will feel it strongly.
We are preparing a number of international events – this week will be very important for Ukraine and our foreign policy.
A month remains before the start of the new political season in our partner countries. And we will do everything possible to make this season as conducive as possible to our movement forward, to victory, to our desire to restore peace for the whole of Ukraine – without exception. More political support for Ukraine. More weapons for our warriors. Full responsibility of the terrorist state for everything it has done against Ukraine, against our cities, villages, and people.
And today I would like to honor our warriors from the areas in Donbas and the south of our country more specifically, by name. Warriors whose bravery and courage are special. The story of each of them is a true heroism!
Soldier Andriy Kalkutin, the 56th separate motorized infantry brigade of Mariupol. Soldier Pavlo Karasiov, the 28th separate mechanized brigade. Soldier Viktor Konstantiuk, the 30th separate mechanized brigade. Soldier Roman Sydorchuk, the 33rd separate mechanized brigade.
Senior Soldier Andriy Hora, the 5th separate assault brigade. Senior Soldier Dmytro Humeniuk, the 214th separate special battalion. Senior Soldier Mykola Zaruchevskyi, the 55th separate artillery brigade. Senior Soldier Yaroslav Ilkiv, the 24th separate mechanized brigade.
Junior Sergeant Taras Vozniuk, the 3rd separate assault brigade. Junior Sergeant Serhiy Savchuk, the 36th separate marine brigade. Well done, guys!
Junior Sergeants Mykola Paytsan and Mykhailo Shcherban, Sergeant Ihor Apolitov – all three are from the 65th separate mechanized brigade. Junior Sergeant Ruslan Kryvalets, the 110th separate mechanized brigade.
Sergeant Serhiy Datskiv, the 25th Sicheslav separate airborne brigade. Sergeant Oleksandr Pshenychuk, the 47th separate mechanized brigade. Senior Sergeant Andriy Samohalskyi, the 22nd separate mechanized brigade. Lieutenant Ihor Lytvyn, the 57th separate motorized infantry brigade. Major Yaroslav Volianskyi, the 44th separate artillery brigade.
I thank you, guys, for the enemies you destroyed and for the brothers you saved! I am proud of your results! You are our pride, you are the pride of Ukraine.
Glory to all our warriors!
Glory to everyone who is fighting for Ukraine, who is helping us bring our victory closer!
Glory to Ukraine!
The cost:
Eleonora Maltseva was killed in the line of duty. She has been defending Ukraine since the beginning of russian aggression nine years ago. Eleonora used to play for "Bilychanka" sports club, a 10-time national futsal champion, and was a member of the national futsal team.
She… pic.twitter.com/jobnUEMakf— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 1, 2023
Eleonora Maltseva was killed in the line of duty. She has been defending Ukraine since the beginning of russian aggression nine years ago. Eleonora used to play for “Bilychanka” sports club, a 10-time national futsal champion, and was a member of the national futsal team.
She gave her life so that her 14-year-old son and all Ukrainian children could live in a free country. We will prevail. That is our promise.
Russian Occupied Sevastopol:
Explosions/strike in Crimea, Sevastopol area. pic.twitter.com/TLFlg5zZV3
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 1, 2023
Kherson Region:
/2. Map for better understanding of the location.
+ correct source linkhttps://t.co/rw7fHBt8kW pic.twitter.com/VXDi2Ah8vW— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 1, 2023
Poland:
Oopsie!
/2. Nice thread with geolocation of Belorussian helicopters over the Polish/NATO territory https://t.co/KJMDj6vRF3
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 1, 2023
Here’s the full text of the first tweet:
The Ministry of Defense of Poland reported that today, 1 August 2023, two Belorussian helicopters violated the Polish state border.
“The border crossing took place in the Bialowieza area at a very low altitude, making it difficult to detect by radar systems… The Belarusian side had previously informed the Polish side about the trainings… NATO was informed of the incident…” – Polish Ministry of Defence.
Full- https://gov.pl/web/obrona-narodowa/komunikat-mon-granicaEarlier today, Polish media published photos or Belorussian Mi-8 and Mi-24 near Bialowieza area. When the photos were published there were no official confirmation that the polish border was violated by Belorussian helicopters yet.
https://wiadomosci.wp.pl/bialoruskie-smiglowce-niedaleko-bialowiezy-generalowie-komentuja-6925857320102528a?amp=1
The Financial Times is reporting trouble with the US’s ability to ramp up production of 155mm shells.
The Biden administration is seeking to increase stretched supplies of crucial munitions for Ukraine to support the counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces.
The weapons effort is focused on delivering more 155mm calibre shells used in the howitzers Ukraine is deploying along the front line, officials said, and includes supplies from international allies in the short term and plans to ramp up US production in the next two years.
“I personally sit in my office every morning and spend 30 minutes on 155[mm] ammunition,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month at the Aspen Security Forum.
Officials said the Biden administration had been aware for months that Ukraine’s high burn-rate of munitions would begin to stretch supplies and had stepped up efforts to get the shells to the front line as the war entered a crucial phase. European supplies have also become stretched, and the Financial Times reported last week that Ukraine had begun firing rockets made in North Korea.
“We are actively working as rapidly as possible to build out the production lines for 155,” Sullivan said. “We do not want to lose a day and there is not a tool, authority or dollar that we’re going to set on the sidelines to not being able to do that.”
The US has already struck deals with Bulgaria and South Korea to supply the shells to Ukraine and is in talks with Japan to do the same, officials said.
But a US Army effort to increase monthly output of the crucial munitions to 90,000 will take until 2025, highlighting the challenge of ramping up such production quickly, particularly when the US had not previously been focused on it.
“Prior to the Ukraine spin-up, most of the army’s focus was on building out new tank munitions,” said Retired Brig. Gen. Guy Walsh, executive vice-president at the National Defense Industrial Association.
The Pentagon has asked to buy only about 790,000 155mm rounds over the past 10 years, mostly for use in training exercises. That suggests the US has already given Ukraine more than the quantity it procured in 155mm purchases over the past decade, according to a report by the Center for a New American Security think-tank in Washington.
Compounding the effort to ramp up production was a US decision to downsize its defence industrial base after the cold war.
“We did not anticipate or prepare for a long war and the industrial base was constrained for efficiency,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies
The munitions effort by the US and its allies comes as Ukraine intensifies its weeks-old counteroffensive in the south and east of the country. On Thursday and Friday, Kyiv said it had recaptured Staromaiorske, a village in south-eastern Donetsk region that had been under Russian occupation since early in the full-scale invasion.
Artillery warfare has dominated much of the fighting on the front line, with both sides firing thousands of shells each day.
The dearth of US supplies of 155mn shells to support the current push was an important driver behind President Joe Biden’s controversial decision last month to authorise shipments of cluster munitions to Ukraine.
The decision “helped ensure that Ukraine has the ammunition it needs and that they would not run out”, one US official said.
“We’re at the point where they’re supplying Ukraine at the level they can, and they’ve given them as much as they can, while keeping the reserves that they think are important to have in case there were an unforeseen crisis,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the Defence Program at CNAS.
More at the link!
Ukrayinska Pravda is reporting that the US has signed a deal with Bulgaria and South Korea to supply Ukraine with 155mm shells.
Details: Officials cited by the newspaper say the United States has already signed agreements with Bulgaria and South Korea to supply shells to Ukraine and is negotiating with Japan on the same.
The Financial Times says that the Biden administration has been aware of Ukraine’s depleted ammunition stockpile for several months and has stepped up efforts to deliver the shells to Kyiv.
Commenter YY_Sima Qian asked for my take on this tweet by Ukrainian Army officer Tatarigami:
While minefields and insufficient supplies from the West undoubtedly contribute to drawbacks, it is essential to recognize that failures in planning and coordination at the commanding stage above the brigade level lead to far more significant drawbacks. In any war or military…
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 28, 2023
Here’s the full text of the tweet:
While minefields and insufficient supplies from the West undoubtedly contribute to drawbacks, it is essential to recognize that failures in planning and coordination at the commanding stage above the brigade level lead to far more significant drawbacks. In any war or military operation, there are both competent and ineffective commanders.
However, the main question is whether we will draw conclusions based on the performance of certain generals or simply lay blame on the West and minefields. Whether the assault concludes in Crimea or elsewhere in the South, it’s vital to acknowledge both victories and failures and hold individuals accountable for serious shortcomings.
No amount of NATO training for NCOs and privates can compensate for the absence of similar training and the right mindset among certain senior officers.
To conclude, I would like to share a brief radio interception between Russian service members that I heard almost a month ago:
– How is it going for you guys? Are you holding?
– Yeah.
– What about Ukrainians? What do you think?
– I have a feeling that their assault was planned by Gerasimov and executed by Muradov.
There are a couple of follow ons:
Accountability is necessary because poor decision-making leads to avoidable casualties, and overlooking mistakes encourages impunity. While the Russians are getting seriously destroyed and have losses in equipment, personnel, and command, we still need to address our mistakes
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 29, 2023
No, in fact there are a lot of good news. But victories won through the bravery and motivation of soldiers and junior officers must not overshadow serious mistakes made by their superiors. Accountability remains essential at all levels.
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 29, 2023
– We are a year and a half into this war, and we still do not have the correct number of senior officers training abroad
– We do not properly or fully involve advisers and retired specialists from allied countries, especially from the US who can assist us
– Still no divisions
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 29, 2023
There’s a lot to unpack here. First off, a good chunk of this is not new for or from Tatarigami. We’ve seen the interviews with the Ukrainian military’s senior leaders where they have all been very candid about having to work hard on themselves to remove the indoctrination into the Soviet way of war that they grew up with as officers. And we know that most if not all of the more junior officers, NCOs, and enlisted have basically been creating their own Ukrainian way of war since the initial Russian invasion in 2014. Where the issue seems to be is in the middle. And it takes a long time for that to work its way out. Some of you may remember that the late GEN Odierno once got himself in a lot of trouble over not wanting to do any of the counterinsurgency stuff. He didn’t see the need. Because at the time that doing so became the theater strategy he was at a point in his career where he had been educated and trained as an officer that the US was not going to do that stuff again. He got rhetorically smacked around a bit and some of the generals senior to him, as well as some of his peers, more quietly explained to him why he was wrong and he eventually came around. By the time he was Chief of Staff of the Army he was unabashedly demanding more of the type of things I provide in my professional work. He had an entire slide with little word clouds that had culture on them in bold font all over the place. Unfortunately, including for my career, the Army decided it could outlast him. Because the US Army is NOT a learning organization. GEN Odierno was not the only US general or even colonel or lieutenant colonel that didn’t embrace the change. Some came around, some were a real problem. It is this type of dynamic that Ukraine is facing.
We’ve covered the training the US and its NATO allies are providing the Ukrainians several times over the past few months, largely because of the concerns the actual Ukrainian Soldiers have regarding the training they are getting. Here the Ukrainian’s needs have run hard into the American way of military training, especially for non-peer foreign allies and partners. So this is definitely a deficit that needs addressing, but it is really only something the US and its NATO allies can fix in regard to Ukrainian criticism.
As for properly bringing over advisors, my understanding is that it is hit or miss. Some of these folks are great. Some of them are trying to create personal national security brands by going to Ukraine to do whatever it is they’re doing. We’ve also seen this with some of the American volunteers for the International Legion.
Finally, the issue about echelons above brigade seems legit. Especially as the Ukrainian military transitions from the legacy Soviet model to the NATO one. From the distance and safety of my home in the US, I think that echelons above brigade as organizing and coordinating headquarters would be very useful. But only if the commanders and staffs have been able to break themselves away from the legacy Soviet military model they grew up in as officers. Even more important is that subordinate commanders have to be empowered to make decisions when they do not have time to seek approval from higher.
Last night Anonymous at Work asked:
What’s the disruption going to be for the lack of rail on the Russian southern and western fronts? Artie’s getting chewed good, I imagine that regular ammo isn’t available in quantity, but what’s the food/water situation like? Without rail and the roads not in great shape, what gives?
The Russians move things forward as far as possible by rail and then by truck. So any disruption is going to have an impact. If the Ukrainians can continue to attrit the railways and bridges, as well as ammo dumps and other supply and logistics facilities, then the Russians are going to have a hard time.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
Look what I have😍 I named this demining machine “Donatella”. She came to the Chernihiv region for a while, to help us demine our territory. But I dream that one day I will have my own Donatella, DOK-ING MV-4 (this is her real name☺️). pic.twitter.com/FDX6DVo57k
— Patron (@PatronDsns) August 1, 2023
After the Victory — for sure ☺️❤️
— Patron (@PatronDsns) August 1, 2023
Open thread!
Alison Rose
That photo of Patron ought to be the cover of a 2024 Patron calendar.
The article about US shell production is so frustrating. It seems like russia is able to pump out about half a million a damn day. I wonder if they’re using convict labor there, too. I just wish it were them having production snarls and not the good people.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Elizabelle
Thank you, Adam. We are a tad celebratory in the thread before, and some of us are imbibing.
Patron on Donatella. Darling dog.
Anonymous At Work
Not sure either of us can be distracted from the bigger, brighter, potentially happier news but wanted to get it in there:
Is UA going to undertake a “river[bed]” crossing or is that misinformation? They seem to want ZNPP back, Melitopol, bottle of Crimea, etc. Good idea and using the drained Dniepro to launch an assault is even better, but that takes time, logistics, and extra troops and equipment.
trollhattan
Guessing the opportunity cost of having senior officers away for training during an active war looms large as an impediment. Now if you could just send off the ineffective ones….
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: Yes, it is the same reason for the time it took for the introduction of some western weapons. The soldiers you want to train were fighting at the front.
TKH
On one of the latest “War on the rocks” podcasts Michael Kofman, just returned from Ukraine, stated that the effort to make Ukrainians fight like the Western countries looks like being a failure. He advocates to let the Ukrainians fight the way they know how to fight and focus on supplying that effort, rather than trying to engineer a change in doctrine on the fly.
With regard to 155 mm ammunition, when I was serving in a Central European army in the mid-70s of the last century, the shortage of ammo beyond a couple of days/weeks was a known problem. And I am sure it was true not just in that country.
To boot, doctrine was not artillery-heavy as it is/was in the Eastern block. So if you suddenly find yourself being the major supplier for a warring partner who is fighting by using a fundamentally different approach, it’s not too surprising that everybody finds out when tide goes out that you’ve been swimming naked.
100,000 shells per month, just for a round number (probably low-ball), means 2.5 M kg (25,000 tons) of high explosive at 25 kg/shell. That kind of capacity is not sitting around idly, “ just in case”, however strongly the members of the 42nd armchair brigade may feel otherwise.
Anonymous At Work
@Alison Rose: Our shells hit what they are aimed at, explode when they need to explode and don’t explode for no reason.
MomSense
On this indictmas I’m so glad TFG didn’t succeed in his coup attempt. I cannot even imagine what would have happened to Ukraine with TFG in power.
I don’t know if the conference in Saudi Arabia has been discussed in the threads. Curious what jackals think about it.
Adam L Silverman
@Anonymous At Work: I don’t know.
Just another boomer
Back in the Cold War, the U.S. Army’s “Echelon Above Corps,” EAC, was sometimes described as “Echelon above competence.”
The reason usually accepted was each echelon below them had someone above who was willing to supervise their training and make the hard judgments on whether people were up for their jobs. But there was no one who could carry out that function for EAC.
With apparently no division-level commands and the plethora of brigade organizations, command and control of these offensives is really a tough assignment. And, as the various critics point out, hard judgments may need to be rendered, but it’s not clear the UAF has a pool of candidates to replace those found wanting.
Jay
@trollhattan:
The more Senior Officers are for the most part, people who can be advised and trained on the spot by Advisors. They are in the rear, devising operations, logistics, strategy, not tactics.
Anonymous At Work
@Adam L Silverman: Figured.
I want ZNPP back in Ukrainian hands and I can imagine that UA is trying to turn Crimea into the “North Bank of Dniepro, 2023 version” as a strategy.
Not a lot that can be done from my armchair about either, though.
Roger Moore
@Alison Rose:
The perception the Russians have an unlimited supply of shells and are making more incredibly fast is almost certainly false. They started the war with enormous stockpiles because using truly huge amounts of artillery was always part of their way of making war. Despite that, they have been buying from anyone who will sell to them because they’re having trouble keeping up with consumption.
They’ve also been hauling older equipment out of storage. That’s not just because their newer guns have been destroyed. A lot of it is because they’re running low on ammunition for their newer guns but they still have stocks for the older ones in different calibers. It’s pretty thin consolation for the Ukrainians when they’re having even bigger problems with supplies, but the Russians are getting pretty low. That’s a big reason it’s so important to hit Russian ammunition dumps; the supplies destroyed there can’t be easily replaced.
Ken B
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, nobody in their right mind is going to buy ammunition from North Korea if they have a decent supply of their own.
YY_Sima Qian
Thanks Adam for the informative reply!
What is surprising to me is that the old Soviet Army doctrine certainly had detailed prescriptions as to how things should work above the regiment/brigade level, to divisions, armies/group armies, and fronts/groups of forces levels. Had the Ukrainian Army let the middle/upper echelon (higher than brigades) atrophy since the the end of the Cold War? All of the skirmishes in Donbass since ‘14 had been sub-brigade in size, & I think all of the Ukrainian actions in the current invasion (in defense or counterattack) have involved no more than 2 – 3 maneuver brigades at most. It would be one thing if Tartarigami_UA said that some Ukrainian commanders are stuck in the Soviet Army mind set & that is costing lives, but he seems to be saying that some commanders are too incompetent to execute operations to any doctrine & that is costing lives. I think the dig at Gerasimov & Muradov is not that they can competently plan & execute to Soviet doctrine which does not have much concern for lives lost, but that they are incompetent to plan & execute even the brute force Soviet doctrine & that is throwing lives away. Odierno might have resisted the shift in mindset toward COIN, but he was competent in the way of war he knew & was trained for. Not sure that is the tension that concerns Tartarigami_UA
Alternatively, we know that NATO countries have been training Ukrainian brigades (although they are trained by different countries, & not together as corps), but I have not read any reports of Ukrainian officers in the middle/upper echelon being trained/advised on multi-brigade operations. Maybe this is a gap.
Furthermore, it seems to me that NATO armies have themselves have deemphasized multi-brigade operations since the ‘03 invasion of Iraq. The U.S. & British Army organized & fought as divisions in that war. Since then, I think the U.S. Army had hallowed out the divisions into administrative entities, & scattered the division echelon assets & staff to the component brigades. What was in vogue was modularization that made brigades/battalion/company elements “plug & play”, so that task forces can be quickly thrown together to go on expeditions, to respond to far off contingencies that might involve low to medium intensity conflict. That kind of light, nimble expeditionary oriented structure is not adequate for the massive peer level high intensity land conflict we see in Ukraine. I know the U.S. Army is looking to reconstitute divisions (3 maneuver brigades each) as an operational echelon again, rebuilding divisional staff & assets, but perhaps NATO itself is not a good teacher at this level?
Every army in the world followed the U.S. lead in brigadization in the 21st Century. For all of the legions of Russian Army’s problems, it did keep group armies w/ associated staff & support assets. At 2 – 3 maneuver brigades (which I think are smaller than US Army brigades) each, Russian group armies are essentially divisions. The PLA also kept group armies, w/ full staff. PLA group armies have 6 maneuver brigades each, plus brigades for army aviation, artillery, air defense, engineering, support/logistics & SpOps, that can be employed centrally or divvied up to bolster the maneuver brigades. PLA brigades are slightly larger than their US Army counterparts. Clearly the Russian & Chinese armies did not conceive themselves as expeditionary forces fighting medium intensity wars.
YY_Sima Qian
@Ken B: I think NK will only sell their expiring stock to Russia. They are pretty paranoid about war happening at any time on the Korean Peninsula.
The Pale Scot
@Alison Rose:
It’s not the labor, it’s the manufacturing equipment. There is only one plant in the USA that makes 155 ammo. That said making new equipment should have begun a year ago. There are specialty toolmakers that can do it fast, but they cost. It’s stupid because obviously will need our own production just to support our allies. The ruskies never throw anything away.
VOR
@TKH: If you read histories of World War 1, many leaders demanded more and more artillery. The amount of shells fired was staggering with multi-day bombardments at battles like the Somme. In 1915 there was the “Shell Shortage“. One of the histories I read talked about the Brusilov Offensive by the Russian Army. They were low on shells so they innovated on tactics and saw considerable success. Then supplies came in and they reverted back to the artillery-heavy model.
jackmac
Are there any credible numbers on how many Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine? And do ordinary Russians even have a clue? And, if so, do they care?
A figure released in early July by two so-called “independent” Russian media outlets and reported via the Associated Press suggested there have been 50,000 killed. If accurate, that’s nearly 100 a day through 524 days of conflict. Those should be the kind of numbers that you’d think might spark internal protests and pressures to end the conflict (and did in the United States during the Vietnam era). Perhaps that’s assuming too much given how locked down Russian society seems to us outsiders.
Adam, as always many thanks for all you do on a nightly basis as well as the intelligent and insightful commentary by BJ respondents.
zhena gogolia
@jackmac: During the Vietnam war you didn’t get 10 years in prison for protesting.
Anoniminous
@Anonymous At Work: Looking at the road map there’s only two major crossing. One is the Antonivka Bridge for the M-14 and M-17 highways. The other is the P-47 bridge at Nova Kahovka where the nuke plant is. Neither is Operationally brilliant since neither hooks into a lateral road net. Have to go down to the M-14 running from a crossroads south of the Antonivka Bridge to Metlitopol to get lateral supply lines. In modern war trying to supply your fighting force from one supply axis is just nuts as Operation Market-Garden and the Russian Great Kyiv Adventure tells us.
And trying to supply fighting forces without a major road is just plain & fancy No.
YY_Sima Qian
@jackmac: The casualties have been disproportionally from the ethnic minority regions of the Caucasus, Siberia & the Russian Far East. So, the Moscovites & Saint Petersburgers that hold power in Russia, & whose sentiments Putin might care about a little, haven’t felt the weight of the massive casualties.
Jay
@jackmac:
The only protests the Ruzzia “Opposition” in Russia or in exile have organized, have been against NAFO shark memes.
Why would an Orc protest the death of a son, when he had already sent home a stolen toilet and washing machine, ( there is that little running water problem), and now that they are confirmed dead, they get a brand new 1972 Lada and a bag of carrots?
Sebastian
Thank you for the update, Adam. Hard to keep track today with all the indictment goodness.
I find it interesting that they hit the same tower twice in two days. I wonder if it will be a target on August 24th.
Anoniminous
Off Topic:
Really happy Command and Combat Use of Combined Arms: German Field Service Regulations September 1st 1921 is now available. And in English! (hot patooties!!!!) I couldn’t even find a copy in German the last time I looked. This was the first attempt of the German Army to learn and apply the lessons of WW 1. There regulations became the foundation for German tactics through WW 2 and, in fact, why the German Army was so effective at inflicting casualties and pain up to the end of the war. During Jan – May of 1945 the Red Army took a low-ball 861,351 total losses* inflicted by a bunch of unsupplied old men, boys, and the Odds and Sods remnants of Ostfront units.
* actual losses were higher IMHO. How much higher? ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Anoniminous
@YY_Sima Qian:
“Massive casualties” is a relative number at best and is meaningless at worst. At the Second Battle of Kharkov in 1942 the Red Army lost 277,190 men in 16 days. During the whole year they lost ~7.8 million. To a Russian commander losing 200,000 or so over a year and a half is meh
YY_Sima Qian
@Anoniminous: Russia does not have the human resources that the USSR did during WW II.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Alison Rose: Part of the problem with shell production is that the Pentagon, as part of the restructuring and cost-cutting programs in the last 30 years, has shut down many of the federal aresenals where ammunition was manufactured and stored.
For example, in 2005 the arsenal in Kansas and the Lone Star Arsenal in Texas closed and much of their production was shifted to the Milan Arsenal in Tennessee. In 2009, most of the production there (including the 155-mm shells) was shifted to the arsenal in Iowa, and the process of shutting down Milan as a manufacturing and storage site was started. The last stuff left Milan in 2019, and if the property hasn’t been disposed of they’re working on it. So that’s three sites where 155-mm shells were made that are just not there any longer. We can’t exactly reopen & restart production, because there’s nothing there to work with.
Now, it seemed like a valid set of choices at the end of the Cold War, and if the military don’t expect to use artillery ammunition you can’t exactly repurpose it for, say, deer hunting. But it’s part of the problem now.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian:
I cannot speak to PLA doctrine, but I believe that this statement is incorrect insofar as it applies to the Russian army. In fact the problem that Russia faced as it planned for a 4-front invasion of Ukraine was precisely that the force design of it’s army was predicated on its employment against severely overmatched adversaries in neo-colonial/neo-imperial border wars. In training, the Russians never really practiced the employment of units above batallion level in the years leading up to to the invasion, preferring to stage individual BTGs through Syria for live-fire training to serious brigade or above training. The resulting coordination failure was one of the factors responsible for the sad-trombone failure of their initial assault, which would have required at least two or three functioning Corps headquarters (in WWII reckoning) to manage competently.
Carlo Graziani
@Anoniminous: One of the reasons for the difference in outlook of the German general staff from those of the Western allies following WWI is that the Germans actually did fight a successful war of maneuver on the Eastern Front, bagging large formations of Russian troops in vast encirclements, whereas Great Britain and France only ever saw the frightful misery of trench-bound, artillery-driven positional warfare. The respective staffs drew conclusions commensurate to their very different experiences of the Great War.
Carlo Graziani
@Anoniminous: Incidentally, and only tangetially related: I experienced a bibliophilic joy similar to yours in 2019, at the Los Alamos History Museum, where I was able to secure a reprint of Bob Serber’s The Los Alamos Primer. This was the technical document describing the rudiments of nuclear weapons, as the subject was understood in 1943, and which was handed to all technical staff upon their arrival at Los Alamos. It is a jewel, describing the known physics, uncertainties, and necessary technical tasks with superb concision and precision.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: It might be semantics, but I think the Russian Army was/is still organized for large peer level high intensity conflicts, albeit w/ brigadization & the lowest maneuver echelon pushed to BTGs that would afford some flexibility also for scenarios of medium to low intensity warfare on Russia’s periphery (such as Georgia ’08 & Donbass pre-’22) or smaller expeditions farther afield (Syria).
Russia’s planning failure was assuming the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick cakewalk, a la neo-colonial/neo-imperial punitive expedition to topple “uppity” tribal kingdoms, & planned under those assumptions. Donbass was always going to be tough because that’s where the most experienced Ukrainian forces were positioned, & the region had been very strongly fortified after 8 years of low to medium intensity skirmishes. The Russian Army made more significant gains in the south, capture of Kherson so quickly w/ the bridge intact was a nasty surprise, but the Southern grouping did not have enough mass to sustain the momentum. The Kyiv axis was a sh*tshow in every dimension, rushing headlong forward, outrunning the logistical supply line (through a single highway), failing to secure the rear. Perhaps the Russian military’s ability to plan & execute peer level high intensity conflict had also atrophied since the end of the Cold War, higher echelon staff had not trained & practiced adequately or regularly in table top exercises, logistics had not been stress tested, just as the maneuver formations had not been training to realistic conditions,
OTOH, the offensive at Siverodonetsk/Lychychansk & the fighting withdrawal at Kherson were coordinated at the regional command &/or group army level, not loose collections of brigades.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: It is amazing how military staffs continue to plan to optimize for the last war.
It was no accident that the Soviet Army was also one of the early pioneers in maneuver warfare w/ massed armored/mechanized/motorized formations, on par w/ the Germans. That is, until Stalin’s purges.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
And Deep Battle, which was purged.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: Just to add another point, I suspect the Russian invasion plan was modeled after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in ’56 & Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in ’68 – simultaneous advance in a multitude of axes across all compass directions, w/ overwhelming numbers, to psychologically paralyze the opponent & quickly overwhelm any opposition & seize the country.
However, Russia in ’22 did not enjoy the overwhelming advantages in mass that the Warsaw Pact did, especially as the the Russian Army could only utilize contract soldiers for the “SMO”, which further hollowed out the infantry component of the BTGs. Large Soviet Army formations were already stationed in Hungary, not the case w/ the Russian Army in Ukrainian held territories. Ukraine is a much larger country than Hungary or Czechoslovakia, & thus can have defense in depth & trade territory for time. Hungary & Czechoslovakia were not prepared for the invasions, as they were ostensibly allies of the USSR; in contrast, Ukraine had been fighting a low to medium intensity war against Russia & its proxies in Donbass for 8 years, & had already suffered the humiliation of the loss of Crimea.
Prescott Cactus
Slightly off topic.
Patron’s Donatella, DOK-ING MV-4 is from the Howard G Buffett Foundation (per placard next to flag). He’s the son of Warren Buffett, Oracle of Omaha and boss of Berkshire Hathaway.
Thank you for all your work Adam !
Anoniminous
@YY_Sima Qian:
Soviet Union population in 1940 is estimated at 195.4 million. Today Russia’s population is 147,182,123. The difference is more-or-less the population of Ukraine: 41,130,432. So they do, in a way, have the same manpower and they don’t in another way.
Leading to ….
One of my unresolved questions regarding WW 2 is what would have happened if the Fascists had managed to prevent the Red Army from recovering Ukraine in 1943. By that time the Red Army’s incompetent butchery of their own forces had led to a serious shortage of cannon fodder. Without being able to scoop up recruits 1944 would have been far different as infantry “divisions” (sice) had as few as 1,500 rifles.
Chetan Murthy
@Anoniminous: i seem to remember that part of the difference is also the back then the population pyramid was much more skewed towards the young that it is today. A lot of families with four and six and eight children. Fodder for the Tsar’s armies.
Anoniminous
@Carlo Graziani:
That and the experience of the Kaiserschlacht (spring 1918) which taught them it was possible to breakthrough the trench line and get maneuver elements into rear areas but it wasn’t possible to maintain offensive momentum as the Entente powers were able to railroad just enough troops and supplies to form enough of a barrier to prevent a break-out. Thus their eventual development and deployment of highly mobile combined arms divisions: Panzer, Mechanized, Motorized.
Anoniminous
@Chetan Murthy:
I have the same impression.
Well, except for Ukraine due to the millions Stalin starved to death in the Holodomor. I have no idea how that affected the population demographics.
notjonathon
Japan’s peace constitution forbids the export of weaponry. The Japanese government under the LDP has already stretched interpretation of this about as far as they can, but exporting ammunition to another country wouldn’t pass muster even with a virtually tame Supreme Court.
The LDP is, however, trying an end run around this ban, by developing a new fighter jet in partnership with France and Italy, and former war materials producers like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are salivating. But this project is for the future, not the present.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anoniminous: To my surprise, the USSR in 1940 had ~ 52.3M males between 16 – 59, while the Russian Federation in 2022 had 42.2M male in the same cohort, not as much of a drop as I had assumed given Russia’s smaller size & decades long demographic decline. However, the USSR had a much larger percentage in the 16 – 30 cohort (or “prime fighting age”) than Russia. Currently in the Russian population, the size of the 16 – 30 cohort is ~ 1/3rd smaller than the 30 – 45 cohort.
Also, the USSR would have had a much easier time mobilizing & equipping its male population that Russia can now.
YY_Sima Qian
A short Twitter thread by Tartarigami_UA on the presence of Russian helicopters at Berdyansk, challenges in targeting the heliport despite the impact Russian attack helicopters are having on stemming Ukrainian attacks, & the best weapon (GLSBD) for placing them under threat.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: A comparison between the armed forces of the USSR and those of modern Russia based only on manpower is quite misleading, in my view. The reason is that unlike Russia, the USSR ran its entire economy on a war mobilization footing for nearly its entire existence. Military industry had first priority on all resources at all times, and civilian industry was basically beggared, including through the Perestroika years. As a consequence, the USSR had essentially unlimited war materiel throughout most of its history (although the Lend-Lease supply line in WWII made critical contributions, of course). Modern Russia has never operated its economy on that basis, and cannot hope to match the materiel abundance of even thr WWII-era USSR, to say nothing of the Cold War USSR.
In addition to which, of course, the USSR had UMT conscription with a term of service of 2 years, and standing armed forces that dwarfed those of modern Russia in every service.
The bottom line is that Russia cannot hope to match the truly terrifying combat power that the USSR could evoke. The two armed forces are simply in no way comparable.
Ryan
“I personally sit in my office every morning and spend 30 minutes on 155[mm] ammunition,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month at the Aspen Security Forum.”
What is hard about this when you have a guaranteed buyer. Tell us, we’ll listen.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: I don’t disagree. The Russian economy was not a war economy before Feb. ’22. However, it is functioning at least partially as a war economy now. OTOH, Russian manpower management is not yet entirely war focused in the war the USSR’s was leading up to the Germany invasion.