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The intel sharing arrangements (I wonder who's actually calling the shots—literally—for fire control purposes... every link in the chain slows things down, and they seem to be working very effectively, which implies few links indeed) seem to me to be clearly the most interesting and effective facet of this war. Pity we may never get the story of what's actually going on, because it seems to be a really remarkable effort.

The impression I get is that the US feeds them satellite info on the general disposition of Russian forces, but the individual targeting seems to be done by drones, some of which are consumer-grade. They seem incredibly accurate.

It seems unlikely that there is direct US involvement - the US doesn't want that and it would slow the Ukranians down.

They seem to have their own networked fire control: https://en.defence-ua.com/events/digitization_of_ukrainian_a... , and have said that Starlink was critical, after the Russian cyberattack bricked a lot of satellite terminals.

They even have a local drone startup: https://interestingengineering.com/ukraines-combat-drone-the...

>the individual targeting seems to be done by drones, some of which are consumer-grade. They seem incredibly accurate.

a very impressive example https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tttrzs/ukrai...

Wrt. original article - Moskva's air-defenses weren't upgraded during last modernization (completed 2020) due to budget. They upgraded its cruise missiles which got land attack capabilities though - that tells about Russian priorities. The old air-defenses - S-300 and OSA - had issues against such a low flying missiles like Neptunes (i.e. 2-4 meters) though AK-630 CIWS could have potentially shot down those missile if activated on time by the info from the main radar. There are also unconfirmed reports that a Bayraktar was hanging around and took away a lot of attention and probably took down the main S-300 radar antenna of the Moskva right before the attack. The Bayraktar also was doing the mid-course guidance of the missiles thus allowing to not use the main radar of the Neptune battery thus avoiding the battery position detection by Russia.

The irony is that as warfare increasingly goes in the direction of technological signals and controls, the meaning of "direct involvement" diffuses such that belligerents cannot be pinned down on the nature or degree of their involvement. If the US provided people that deployed in Ukraine to do reconnaissance, that would be "direct". But if it's satellite data or drones, they're shielded from blame; and yet, the generals would in almost every case prefer more technology over more troops, because it automates away a slew of logistical and operational issues and gives them more options moment-to-moment, even if it creates a larger dependency on having the best tech.

If the trend towards use of technology continues in this way, future wars between nations will be stopped before they go kinetic by reframing the entire coordination problem that causes them into something addressed through information warfare instead. At worst, you might see low-level stochastic violence.

> At worst, you might see low-level stochastic violence

Perhaps worth looking at all the stochastic violence in the US (and occasionally exported) to see where that's driven from.

And not 16 hours later:

https://text.npr.org/1101037902

Not just satellites. The US and other NATO allies are also feeding Ukraine intelligence from a variety of reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft operating just outside the border.

>This is unlike, say, any major US campaign of the past 30 years

because the US did not face a formidable adversary in the past 75 years

in a war somewhat comparable with this one in terms of manpower and tech - the Korean War, the US had suffered heavy casualties and had only narrowly escaped a complete defeat

What do you mean by "comparable with this one in terms of manpower and tech"?

South Korea and allied powers were significantly outmanned during the Korean War, and the idea that the US had any kind of decisive technology advantage in theatre is belied by the accounts of lack of US preparedness post WWII.

yes, that's exactly why it's comparable

I guess I just have no idea what you're calling comparable. In this analogy, is the US Ukraine? Is North Korea Russia? What is the point you're trying to make?

a numerically inferior force (the US / Russia) up against an adversary (North Korea + China / Ukraine) funded, armed with modern tech by a powerful entity (USSR / NATO)

and the point I'm trying to make is that it is laughable to compare fighting a modern military to Iraq and Afghanistan

Russia is the numerically inferior force vs. Ukraine in this example? Uhm OK.

I understand where did you get the impression that Russia is waging a total war, but they only have 200K or so troops deployed in Ukraine

The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was launched with 160,000 troops on the ground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/18/sprj.irq.deploymen...

Russian forces in the 1st & 2nd Chechen wars (1994--6 and 1999--2009, respectively) were in the 70k -- 80k range.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War

A force of 200,000 is a very considerable invasion force.

> A force of 200,000 is a very considerable invasion force.

Yes, but Ukraine has 900k reservists and a reason to activate them all.

Russia, thus far, has hoped to avoid having to do a big manpower increase.

According to Zelensky, Ukraine has now 700 000 on active duty.

This includes all the security apparatus. Police (quite numerous), prison guards, military cadets, security services and, of course, National Guard and Armed Forces. But from those many are guarding bases and other important objects, training, staying in reserve, etc. The fighting force is much smaller than those 700 thousand.

They're still not totally comparable. US was having to force project across an ocean while Russia seems to be having issues just past its boarders, despite being geared towards land wars, judging by their lack of progress and signs of logistical desperation in abandoned camps.

Much of Ukraine's equipment is Soviet era just like Russia's is. USSR was a direct belligerent in the Korean War, not just a supporter like NATO is.

Prior to the start of this conflict Russia had superior numbers and pounced before Ukraine mobilized.

Russia also has the massive advantage of being able to strike from their own and neighboring territories without retaliation.

Constant nuclear-whining is preventing NATO from performing air interventions like the USSR saw fit to do during the Korean and Vietnam war.

Too many differences in variables. Russia's incompetence alone does not make this comparable.

I still don't understand how it's comparable. US had the handicap of fighting along side South Korea while a full ocean away when the North had direct assistance from 2 massive neighboring land joined countries. China alone had nearly 2 million forces committed, and still couldn't take the entire south.

That's not what your original comment said.

Is the Korean war comparable, or a non-significant adversary of the past 75 years?

(The Korean war began 72 years ago, and ended with an armistice 69 years ago.)

There are of course two ways of looking at this.

One would be that the US chooses its engagements. Even given that, Korea (1950--53, within your 75 year window), Vietnam, and the Yugoslav war (in which the US was not a major participant but did contribute to the no-fly zone) were reasonably significant, involving Chinese and Russian forces and arms. The Iraq conflicts were not highly symmetric, but did involve threats to US forces, which the US mitigated. On balance, the US seems to treat even highly asymmetric opponents with respect as concerns their ability to inflict harm and damage, and seeks to minimise that.

Another is that even where it faces a highly asymmetric adversary, there are:

- A long and formidible force build-up.

- A preliminary air-superiority campaign in which any possible defences are neutralised.

- A concerted effort to maintain superiority.

I'd say it's a bit from A, a bit from B. But the clear lessons are that the U.S. values, and achieves, total air superiority. In the present conflict in Ukraine, Russia did not, and has not.

Technology has also clearly moved on. The major development of the aughts was in IEDs and remote attacks. To an extent, the US applied countermeasures here again via air and intelligence superiority, with reconnaissance which both detected in advance and replayed after successful attacks the placement and entities engaged in IED emplacements.

I've had discussions elsewhere over the characteristics of Switchblade drones, in particular their one-way "kamikazi" modes. I see two principle advantages:

- A one-way mission should nearly double range, and increase defended area by the square of the range.

- A returning low-speed munition would tend to invite return-fire on the launch point.

Since Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost drones are carried into the field by individual troops, increased mass, decreased range, and greater vulnerability of the deploying troops would all be strongly negative characteristics. My counterypart in that discussion was not convinced, though I find the rationale fairly strong.

>My counterypart in that discussion was not convinced, though I find the rationale fairly strong.

I also see drones primarily (and incredibly) useful for recon, but not for combat - we already have cruise missiles and guided artillery for that, and under wartime economy, they could be mass produced much cheaper than they are now

Clearly both.

But the combat results do appear impressive, both on the video-watching public and on Russian invading forces and their leadership, for whom plans appear to have significantly changed.

Don't forget the United States and a succession of puppet regimes in South Vietnam/Cambodia lost to the North Vietnamese/Vietnamese despite managing to inflict losses of approximately 100x enemy and civilians and other countries residents (the favorite accounting method of measuring success at the time) by 1980.

Maybe the Vietnamese/Chinese intelligence was better than the US intelligence.

That was a political decision, not a military defeat. Politicians never allowed the military to attack the north. Instead, the military was given a purely defensive mission, which they performed successfully, until politicians ordered them to leave.

It's no less a military defeat than Russia's in Ukraine.

When the military is bogged down and draining the nations treasury and making the gov't look bad, the political decision is inevitable.

The difference is that Russia tried to invade Kiev, but America never tried to invade North Vietnam.

As for "draining the nations treasury", US military spending actually increased after the end of the Vietnam War.

The US was bombing Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, etc. all the way up to Hanoi [https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2eae918ca40a4bd7a55390b...]

It may not have been tanks on the ground, but that is small consolation for those blown to bits - even still today due to unexploded ordnance.

It also led to outsized inflation (which contributed to the out of control inflation in the early 80's, along with the increase in other military spending to 'fight the cold war') and cost an inflation adjusted $1 trln dollars.

The US wasn't broke, but it contributed to the giant inflation spike that then had to be tamped down with sky high fed fund rates. It wasn't without impact.

> cost an inflation adjusted $1 trln dollars

Over nine years, whereas the US spends nearly $1 trln dollars every year on the military now.

Something to be said for not being run by a kleptocrat I guess?

They never attacked north Vietnam by land. They bombed it into the dust, but China rebuilt it all.

Politically there was no will to occupy North Vietnam and end up facing China directly.

Thanks for bringing that up. It gives me an opportunity to introduce this statement from the relevant Wikipedia page, which I think sums up the situation pithily:

> The limited goals entailed in American foreign policy and the military's goal of total victory were simply not reconcilable. The great conundrum had then become how to defeat North Vietnam without defeating North Vietnam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder

Did China help Vietnam rebuild before or after China declared war on Vietnam? Relationship was already tense during the US-Vietnam war between China and Vietnam, it only took 4 years after the US-Vietnam war for China to declare war, and from what I understand it was the Soviet Union that helped rebuild after that point. China's support of Vietnam during the US-Vietnam war was mainly to try and reduce US influence. China literally looted and burned parts of Northern Vietnam on their way out.

Interestingly it has some analogs to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine https://time.com/100417/china-vietnam-sino-vietnamese-war-so...

China believed it would be a quick and easy conflict where they would blitz Hanoi. Instead they fought with outdated and ineffective tactics, failed to use their air forces properly, and could not make it that deep into north Vietnam before being stonewalled by the more experienced Vietnamese. In response China began brutalizing the countryside out of spite, burning crops, killing civilians on sight, booby-trapping civilian structures, demolishing factories, killing livestock.

    because the US did not face a formidable 
    adversary in the past 75 years

Clearly not a peer to the US nor close to it, but Iraq's military in the Persian Gulf war was more formidable than many give it credit for.

Those were not green troops. They had fought Iran for close to a decade, were well-equipped, and were fighting on their home terrain against a US force that had little to no modern desert warfare experience.

I don't think the US-led coalition's brilliant strategy and execution should be confused with a total lack of fighting prowess on Iraq's part.

I have done much study of the Iran-Iraq War. Although the Iraqis were not green troops, they had extremely poor tactical leadership. They were completely inept at maneuver and combined arms combat. When you consider also the vast superiority in precision and range of Coalition weapons, the Iraqis really stood no chance. The Russian army, bad as it is, it capable of much better tactical performance. Their intelligence capability is also much superior to Iraq's.

A very good reason Russia won't touch satellite assets is that most of the early warning systems are based on those: if your early warning system goes down, then you're exceptionally vulnerable to a first strike.

Even worse: with the loss of early-warning satellite assets, you have to decide how to use (or not!) nuclear weapons with extremely noisy information.

Just a few weeks ago there was a US aircraft carrier in northern Aegean, just a few miles off the port of Alexandroupolis where there is a US naval base. It seemed odd that for such a low significance base the US would bring an aircraft carrier in the area, but my guess is that it was involved in some kind of operations in the Black Sea region.

The US moves carriers into trouble areas as a show of force. It’s like having having a bouncer’s attention at a bar. There’s a world of hurt waiting if you step out of line.

It's not merely display.

A CTG affords considerable intelligence, logistical, and rapid-response capabilities.

They've been in the Med for a while: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_191063.htm

What I have wondered: let's say the US gives some predator drones to Ukraine, and then "trains" their military to use them. What is to stop the US from actually piloting these drones from Tampa or whatever, perhaps through a cable from Ukraine to Poland? Would be very hard to prove who were actually piloting them at any given time.

The issue is that predator drones will be shot down almost immediately which makes it a non-starter. It flies high and slow which makes it extremely easy to attack. Even fighters on both sides have been flying extremely low due to both sides having an abundance of anti-air.

Are they any easier to shoot down than the Bayraktars?

They are significantly larger and made of materials that are much easier to spot compared to Bayraktars. Predators were made with complete air superiority in mind.

    What is to stop the US from actually piloting these drones

Technically, probably nothing.

Diplomatically? The risk of nuclear escalation or various WWIII-esque scenarios, because at that point you have the US military directly killing Russians.

Assuming that the US (gulp) does not actually want WWIII, I can't see them flying the drones themselves unless they could somehow have 100% plausible deniability. Keep in mind that Ukranian facilities and perhaps the whole country itself could fall to Russia, and all secrets might then be revealed to the Russians. Or a single base could be captured. Or Russia may be able to spy/intercept/deduce this information.

>The risk of nuclear escalation or various WWIII-esque scenarios, because at that point you have the US military directly killing Russians.

Just as Soviet pilots have been killing Americans in Korea and Vietnam, despite not technically part of the war.

There is no "simple legal trick" to start a war.

My point is who knows who “pilots” a drone if it is all remote? There could even be an Ukrainian in the middle for show.

An intelligence leak.

> to drop munitions on or through tank hatches

I don't think this is down to intelligence, it is just how the NATO anti-tank missiles are designed to work.

Drops are usually made through consumer-grade drones.

Those drones have limited range, and need to be proximate to, and be able to rapidly find, targets.

Which requires intel.

At this point ... I lack specific information on where or how that intel is aquired. Some may be from surveillance-drone flights or getting lucky sending out individual drone-attack missions. I suspect more, however.

Are there figures available on how many Russian tanks have been destroyed by drones and how many by Javelin and NLAW?

Totally unreliable personal take of public tank busting videos: Stugna-P is the most common, then various drones dropping AT grenades. These two lead by a large margin, followed by Javelin and NLAW, and finally a scattering of others like Panzerfaust.

I'm sure the reality could be something quite different.

Considering I didn't find a single successful Switchblade drone video in 3 months (1 which missed quite a bit), I would say this output is heavily moderated and for good reasons.

Ukrainians want to prop their technology for sales/morale (Stugna), US probably doesn't want to show off their latest technology marvel.

The other option is, Switchblade drones are completely useless and thus unused by Ukraine. I don't believe that even if it may not be some wonder weapon to solve it all.

There may be secrecy too, but Stugna and drone hits are also the easiest to document so makes sense we have video material for those. Probably also at least one order of magnitude more widespread among the troops than the Switchblades.

Switchblades do seem curiously missing-in-action.

From past and current online research: Switchblades seem to have only recently been announced for shipping to Ukraine. I've found one video claiming to be a strike (against a machine-gun nest), though that seems more probably to be mortar rounds.

There is also a report of Switchblade remains reported by Russians, though again, only in poorly-sourced video.

My read is that the munitions haven't entered active use at large scale. The Switchblade 300 is largely an antipersonnel / nonarmoured vehicle weapon, and may not be as telegenic as tank-busting Javelins and NLAWs.

There is now circulating a video of a claimed successful Switchblade attack: https://v.redd.it/7gu7hlbxod191

Switchblades have appeared:

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/watch-the-seamless-launc...

I don't know offhand, though among the more reliable open sources groups seems to be Oryx.

They've been reporting on verified losses, but not means of loss so far as I'm aware.

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...

USA flaunting its intelligence from before the invasion to now has got to be the biggest flex of the past 30+ years on the world stage.

> This is unlike, say, any major US campaign of the past 30 years

This seems exactly like both Iraq wars, except that Sadam's troops might have had working encrypted radios.

In the first war, massively undergunned (in terms of number of rounds of ammunition) US tanks would enter a battle, and 66% of them would immediately get stuck in a boot loop, or otherwise break down.

The remaining ones would rapidly fire a dozen rounds or so a few miles in a dozen different directions, anihilating enemy equipment well before it had any hope of striking back.

Then, logistics people would go out and fix the stranded tanks.

It's pretty obvious that the targeting systems and supply lines were what held everything together during those campaigns.

Ukraine has been dominating in those two dimensions as well (using US equipment and intelligence, in many cases).

Source on the tank boot-loop issues?

First I've ever heard of that.

Yes because it's freshly invented by the OP.

Just junk.

Responded in sibling comment.

Not according to a report to the Government Accountability Office about the Abrams and Bradley vehicles. However, the report does say the support and recover vehicles caused slowdowns.

>During the war, the Abrams tank exhibited good reliability, lethality, sur- vivability, and mobility, but limited range, according to the observations of commanders, crews, maintenance personnel, and Army after action reports. Reported Army readiness rates for the Abrams were 90 percent or higher during the ground war-indicating a high availability to move, shoot, and communicate during combat.[1]

[1]https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-92-94.pdf

I heard it word of mouth from people that were there, operating or maintaining the tanks, and it was widely reported.

The GAO report you linked is conspicuously missing failure rates, and doesn't contradict anything I said above. In fact, it supports my claims.

Turning on 90% of the time immediately after being repaired doesn't mean its running at the end of the day, or even an hour later!

From the GAO report you linked, they ran out of most types (60%) of spare parts and started cannibalizing tanks after only 4 days of operations. They had major computer issues ("communication issues" according to the report), and had to fall back on old fashioned radios and obsolete targeting.

In addition to the availability issues, these problems caused the US to accidentally or intentionally destroy 1% of its own tanks during the 4 day operation (the breakdown from the report is below).

The report also talks about how the recovery vehicles were unreliable and had major problems reaching broken down tanks. It makes it clear parts shortages were due to the tanks burning through a large stockpile of parts that had been shipped there before the operation began, not due to poor planning.

There's no way those tanks would have survived an operation that dragged on for months like Ukraine has.

However, the operation was a success despite this.

I think this supports my conclusion that superior targeting and logistics won that war, not reliable, robust hardware platforms.

The rest is pasted from the GAO report (I didn't correct their OCR errors):

Abrams crews indicated that its range was limited because it frequently had to stop to (1) refuel to compensate for high fuel consumption and faulty fuel pumps and (2) clean air filters due to extremely sandy conditions.

Bradley and Abrams crews reported problems obtaining repair parts, and many had exhausted their limited supply of some parts by the end of the loo-hour ground war. Because of these problems, according to some Army logistics personnel, sustainability could have become a major problem had the war lasted longer. Crews also experienced problems in posit,ively identifying enemy targets and in having to use outdated and unreliable radios.

...

For example, logistics personnel from the 1st Cavalry Division told us that about 60 percent of the parts they were authorized had zero balances by the end of the war. To compensate for the inability of the established system to provide needed parts, combat units had to search logistics bases for needed parts, to trade with other combat units, or to take parts from other vehicles. According to some Army personnel, the inability to replenish parts reserves could have impeded sustained combat operations in a longer war.

...

23 Abrams were destroyed or damaged in the Persian Gulf area. Of the nine Abrams destroyed, seven were due to friendly fire, and two were intentionally destroyed to prevent capture after they became disabled. Similarly, of the 28 Bradleys destroyed or damaged, 20 were due to friendly fire. Moreover, weapon system capabilities were not optimized because the weapons’ ranges were greater than the sights’ ranges. Crews also noted problems with ineffective radios and suggested that a navigation system be installed in every Bradley and Abram% Army officials recognized the need for improvements in these areas (see app. III).

Thanks.

You'd have done very much better to have included at least the fact that this was personal communication (a valid citation, if difficult to verify), and responded earlier to questions regarding your source.

The additional detail is helpful, but wouldn't have necessarily been required in your first comment. (It would have been useful on a request for more information.)

I'm still dubious, as this being a widespread occurrence of systems being in a boot-loop occurred in both wars, as a major engagement and two or three decades of soldiers' tales, congressional hearings, press accounts, documentaries, etc., would have tended to reveal this.

The cited sections from your GAO report don't refer to software or electronics re-cycling / re-booting issues specifically. Fuel, air filters, failed parts (unspecified), friendly fire, limited weapons systems ranges, dodgey radios, and missing navigation systems ... are still not "boot-loops".

So: you've provided a citation. It fails to support your claims.

This is 180' different from any of the scholarly well researched information about GW1 and 2 that is out there.

You sir, you need to provide some references.

Responded in sibling comment, since the other commenter provided a reference from the US GAO.

I love when I find new source material for /r/NCD in the wild.