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engelsbergideas.com/essays/russian-fortifications-present-an-old-problem-for-ukraine/
It's not a bad article, but I disagree because it omits three important things;
- the failure of the Iraqi field fortifications in 1991
- that NATO would not have given Russia the time to create a layered 1,000 km uninterrupted field fortification system
- that Ukrainian forces are very different from what NATO would field, particularly in regard to air power
The lesson may rather be that Ukrainians cannot overcome layered Russian field fortifications (time will tell), that would have political consequences, for the conflict would then be frozen along the approx. frontline of today.
I looked at many overhead photos of Russian field fortifications. Some of them may have been sloppy decoy positions, but I didn't see a single field fortification with a good layout. They looked mostly frontally-oriented, the trenches didn't have enough turns, there were no parapets, no overhead concealment, no camouflage and I saw but once a fighting position with overhead cover. Most overhead cover seemed to consist of mere sleeping holes dug into the side of trenches. I didn't see proper 360° defence layouts and I didn't see proper interlocking fires.
/2009/12/field-fortifications-angle-bastion.html
The obstacles are anti-tank trenches (easily overcome with at most two minutes delay using WWI-style fascine bundles or post WW2-style assault bridgelayers), some farcical dragon's teeth that didn't even stop the SUV-mobile incursions at Belgorod (and can easily be blown away by tank gun, autocannon, heavy machineguns and hand-emplaced demolition charges a well as pushed away with AFV dozer blades) and finally anti-tank mines.
The anti-tank mines are WW2-style pressure-activated models and a presumably tiny quantity of very modern jumping mines (though certainly not enough to reliably prevent mineclearing by flail-type mineclearing tanks).
I do respect this seemingly gap-less anti-tank mine belt (that also appear to have multiple layers) as an obstacle, but the other man-made Russian obstacles are crap. Germany was never good at clearing minefields, and our only mineclearing AFVs couldn't even resist 1960's anti-tank guided missiles for lack of ERA (the Ukrainians would fix that real quick with Kontakt-1 if we were to donate the Keiler AFVs).
Minefields (and mine belts) didn't receive terribly much attention in the past couple decades, and in my opinion what little progress was made was about the needs of NGOs who demine areas post-War. I am not aware of progress in forcing a path through a defended minefield in 1992-2021. Recently it became apparent that at least some AT mines could be found with overhead imagery (visual and infrared spectra), which raises the possibility that the key to pierce AT mine belts may be a timely detection and thorough reconnaissance. I want to be explicit here; I'm not talking about dismounted sappers crawling forward. This would only work in wet high grass/bush areas. It would be suicidal in face of thermal sight-equipped snipers and machinegunners everywhere else.
Moreover, the Western modern system strives to overcome resistance and obstacles with combined arms efforts and then to exploit successes by moving quickly with so much protection and firepower that the encountered further resistance would not stand a chance, likely not even offer much of a fight. The culminating point of this might be logistical (after 2-4 days depending on whether supply convoys arrive), but it might also be after four days of manoeuvre due to sleep deprivation.
Betz appears to suggest that we would fail at the breakthrough (overcoming resistance initially), which simply doesn't seem plausible to me. Mines are messy, but can be overcome even without specialised gear if you accept some losses (which is a requirement for being able to fight in a war). We would not wait till there's a triple layer 1,000 km AT mine belt anyway. We could focus air power within hours at any 10 km breakthrough sector along a 1,000 km frontline. Imagine the effect of a thousand quite precise 500 lbs bombs on a 10,000 km wide sector. NATO could deliver this this amount of precise bombs several times on a single breakthrough day. Would the Russian army really be able to counter-concentrate its reserves at breakthrough areas in time? Would the Russian army have the morale to offer a good fight at all? They had millions of artillery munitions in stock, but they would have needed months to expend that on us, whereas we could have finished their unimpressive less than 300,000 army troops within weeks, I suppose.
Western force structures, force management and procurement sucks, but I don't see it being the paper to Russia's scissors (layered field fortification belts). We would break through. There's always room for improvement, but anti-tank mines as we know them haven't stopped offensives in WW2 and won't in the future.
S O
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It seems that Ukrainians don't have deep diggers (2 meters deep) ,nor remote controls sacrificial vechicles
ReplyDeleteRomanians used sheeps herds to demine areas.
DeleteLesson from Ukraine should not focus on how to win the war Ukraine is fighting, but instead on how to avoid fighting that war. Because tbh we cant afford it economically or demographically. So lets hope that we find a way to make maneuver warfare work.
ReplyDeleteOr keep the air force sufficiently superior and capable. Or create a crushing artillery and missile superiority. Ukraine shows that the latter would work with nigh certainty against russia - whether western air power or maneuvre forces would work well is unproven.
DeleteNo one could ever "afford" to fight a war economically or demographically; that didn't stop them from happening. If you want to prevent war, there are fundamentally two possibilities: immediate surrender, or military power so far above your opponent that the mere idea to even fight you becomes ludicrous.
DeleteThe first will have you destroyed without fanfare and the second, as everything in between, requires capability to win a war. "Si vis pacem para bellum" is no less true for its age.
Some countries make do without a relevant military. Good diplomacy and avoiding avoidable conflict suffices in some cases.
DeleteAlso look at Africa, where we have seen very little inter-state conflict for decades.
Most, if not all, of these countries are protected either directly or indirectly by large military powers who provide the above mentioned deterrence however. A great example being the cod wars; if it hadn't been for the US forcing the UK to back down, Iceland would have had no choice but to bow to the UK's military power. Of course good diplomacy is also important, but that too relies on being able to back it up.
DeleteAs for Africa, there have indeed been relatively few inter state wars recently, but that only really proves the point; most African states are similar enough to each other in terms of military power, it's just that the over all level is generally quite low. (Which conversely also means that in civil wars, which DO happen a lot, the rebels might as well be another state in terms of military power).
so is right about conflict preventin, some conflicts between states are ouright innecessary. The other poster doesnt know much about africa, and is spewing his faulty assumptins not proven facts.
Delete"Imagine the effect of a thousand quite precise 500 lbs bombs on a 10,000 km wide sector. "
ReplyDeleteI assume it should be "on a 10,000 meters/ 10 km wide sector"
Ulenspiegel
yes
DeleteI currently believe it is likely that the defenses were built in this "insufficient" manner intentionally.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting with some assumptions which may prove incorrect.
It seems to me that Russians have little to gain and a lot to lose by going on the offensive and seizing more territory of dubious utility (perhaps excepting Odesa). I feel the primary objective of the current operations is primarily to destroy the ability of the Ukraine to wage war, rather than seizing and occupying western Ukraine, which is an obvious fool's errand, and I dont think the decision-makers in Moscow are reckless enough to think it would be viable long-term. I believe the current strategy is designed to goad the Ukraininas into attacking Russian positions, which absent some black-swan event or info to which I am not privvy (which is a lot) represents a huge boon for Russian strategy, which logically and evidently seems to be an economy-of-force mission. Ukrainians flinging their personnel, hardware and munitions at dug-in, multi layered positions through narrow and predictable avenues (and within more effective range of Russian artillery and PGM's) seems to be a dream-come-true for what I am assuming are the Russian tactics and strategy.
If the defenses were too impregnable, it is likely that the "offensive" would have been mothballed, and the fight would have continued to be primarily standoff fires, which is not a good outcome for the Russians as it tactically evens the odds and loss-ratios from where they have been. It further prolongs the conflict, allowing more western standoff, artillery and deep-strike munitions to be constructed and delivered, harms all countries greatly (in the long run) and increases the likelyhood of other players from the west joining the conflict or even putting boots on the ground.
So it seems apparent to me that Surovikin's meat-grinder is functioning exactly as intended- feigning just enough weakness that the Ukrainins could be convinced to attack these layered defenses, at a time and place largely of the Russian's choosing, with the elastic tactic stretching as intended to allow the Ukrainins to capture incremental patches of strategically irrelevant land at a heinous cost to their lives and ability to continue the conflict.
Absent swaths of game-changing Wunder-waffe, or a secret stash of large, exquisitely trained and equipped manuever forces in reserve with well integrated air defenses and CRAM capabilities, the Ukrainians don't appear to have any plausible means for usefully exploiting any breakthroughs they might acheive, and they are now effectively out of time (and sadly, military-age men). It appears that the Ukrainians have been lured into a continually deepening cauldron, analogous to the apparent folly of the Bakhmut defense.
I don't know what the actual casualty figures are for either side, as the fog of propaganda prevents this from being accurately ascertained, but even best case for Ukrainian forces is shockingly sad and may represent the beginning of the end of Ukraine's ability to wage war in any meaningful capacity. I don't believe that any portions of the flattened remains of strategically negligable ex-towns and villages ukraine has clawed back was remotely worth the expenditure in blood and treasure, but rather paradoxically helped Russia achieve their over-arching goal of eliminating any threat from the Ukrainian military.
Over-building the defenses would be a strategic flub by the Russians if my intuition about their tactics are close to the mark.
Again, I could be absolutely full of crap on this and apologize if I am promoting any propoganda or other flasehoods.
Sincerely,
Notabot
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI think Occam's Razor rejects this.
DeleteIt may be that the primitive field fortifications were the ones that could be seen (and were built by civilian worker teams), though.
My previous terrain analysis post already pointed out that the natural positions would be in the tree lines.