Artillery are far less of a concern now than chemical weapons. Russia is laying the groundwork to say that Ukraine is using chemical weapons on its own people, which means that in actuality Russia will be using them and blaming Ukraine of a false flag attack:
Indiscriminate bombardment of cities does very little to achieve any military objectives, especially when a substantial part of the country 'under siege' is actually entirely untouched by enemy troops. In purely military terms, doing that would be almost the same as just having all that artillery sit around and do nothing while the Ukrainians execute major counter-offenses.
>Indiscriminate bombardment of cities does very little to achieve any military objectives, especially when a substantial part of the country 'under siege' is actually entirely untouched by enemy troops.
> So all the allied bombings in ww2 were pointless?
More bombs were dropped in Vietnam. Pointless was your word but to address the GP, how effective was that militarily? Stationed artillery is not an occupation.
Vietnam probably was pointless because they couldn't bomb where all the weapons were coming from. Bombing Germany in WWII was less pointless because bombs could have an effect on German war material production - and Germany had to defend it like it did. At the end of the day North Vietnam was getting the means to fight it's war from abroad and bombing it back to the proverbial stone age wouldn't stop those weapons from coming in country.
Many experts do think they were of little military value. Remember that WWII was the first time humans could attack cities far behind enemy lines. Bombers were revolutionary, but nobody knew how to use them effectively.
They could destroy enemy factories and infrastucture, though unguided dumb munitions were so innacurate that you needed 500+ to destroy one building (IIRC). Modern precision guided munitions work much better, but the Russians apparently are using dumb ones, at least sometimes. But both the Nazis and possibly the Allies thought that they could break the enemy's will to fight by bombing civilians - throughout history, protected from the ravages of war until the armies reached them - into submission. That doesn't work - bombing London didn't drive Britain toward surrender, and bombing Dresden didn't cause Germany to surrender. Bombing/shelling Ukraine won't do much more, unless they just try to kill everyone in the city (unlikely, even for Putin).
IIRC Air force leaders in WWII claimed that they could defeat the enemy through air power pretty much alone, and that land forces were becoming obsolete. It didn't work but they've claimed that ever since - including even for the Afghanistan invasion in 2001.
As we have seen, all the airpower in the world wouldn't stop the Taliban. Bombers are especially ineffective against insurgencies: The insurgents don't present targets, especially ones that linger in the open like a tank division or a weapons factory. And even if you could target a few insurgents, that is a very expensive use of a bomber, its fuel, bombs, etc.
> They could destroy enemy factories and infrastucture, though unguided dumb munitions were so innacurate that you needed 500+ to destroy one building (IIRC).
And when you account for all of those bombs, and the bombers that carried them, and the fighter escorts for those bombers, and the ammunition for the fighters and turret gunners, and the aircraft losses to enemy fire, and the loss of manpower in air crews, and all of the logistics to maintain these bombing campaigns, you are paying very heavy costs for the damage you’re ultimately inflicting.
Not all. Many of those had the explicit goal of at machine factories and industrial centers (sometimes the whole town) for airplanes, ball bearings, etc, (at least in 1943/1944) although there were carpet bombings and there were a fair share of generals in favor of the “indiscriminate” aspect
Did you not read the "indiscriminate" part? Bombing production facilities and supply lines/depots is one thing. Bombing apartment buildings and hospitals is quite another. Unfortunately, Putin has quite a record of doing the latter.
Not really. Artillery needs to be constantly resupplied. UA has been pretty great at disrupting those lines, and there are pretty good indicators that the Russian military is simply not logistically prepared to execute on such a long term operation.
Someone clued me in to the magnitude of the problem recently -- a former fire control sergeant in the Israeli army. He told me that a whole flatbed truck can only resupply one or two MLRSes. And apparently logistics is the big weakness of the Russian military, so this is apparently a big problem for them.
It’s not only logistics it’s also maintenance and medical assistance. While rudimentary maintenance can be done in the field providing medical assistance is a lot harder especially in a -20 Celsius cold snap and if you can’t supply it the moral of your fighting force goes even lower because they know what’s coming for them.
It's the horrible thought we don't want to think but it's a possibility.
Question for military analysts: what is the counter to siege / artillery barrage?
Guesses:
1. dig deep bunkers to survive the weeks/months of artillery,
2. organise ambushes on the artillery (taking out a few pieces per day will add up over months), or
3. use flying forces (e.g. Bayraktar TB2).
Would these counters work; are they likely to occur?
Another idea is taking out the transports that resupply artillery ammo, but if they're coming from the North that probably won't work, since it's close and well protected.
Think the biggest issue with the more offensive actions they could take is that it’s very difficult to make troop movements or position your personnel when they are pinned down with artillery.
From my view, their best options right now are to
1) minimize the number of directions/locations which they have to defend,
2) shelter and minimize losses during air raids/artillery strikes,
3) blow every single strike they make out of proportion to gain sympathy of Western partners and even Russian citizens. I’d even go so far as to start staging fabricated atrocities - the world has a short attention span and international pressure helps their cause).
4) employ unconventional warfare, including coordinated psychological operations directed towards Russian citizens and military members/their families (e.g., their mothers).
These are all things I’m pretty sure they’re doing right now and is part of their strategy. Authoritarian governments have some positives, but central decision making is also a glaringly vulnerability.
The same person who can decide to start a war, is the same person who can be the target of an entire war effort to try and persuade them to stop the war.
Let’s just say, we probably don’t even hear about/know half of what is going on behind the scenes/clandestinely to sabotage Russia’s potential for success right now.
If you have your own artillery and the right radar/targeting equipment, counterbattery fire. The counter to counterbattery fire is to use self-propelled artillery and “shoot and scoot”, but the muddy conditions in Ukraine might complicate the scooting aspect.
Russian doctrine dubs artillery the “god of war” and they have more artillery than Ukraine, but Western radar and targeting might make Ukraine’s artillery more precise. Hard to tell. Would have been nice to set Ukraine up with that stuff before the invasion.
Ignore them, as much as possible. They are mostly ineffective against insurgencies (unless you kill everyone, which the Russians probably won't do). The only option to defeat insurgencies is with ground forces.
> Another idea is taking out the transports that resupply artillery ammo
Definitely part of insurgent warfare - attack the weak spots. I don't have it in front of me, but one military expert said the soft underbelly of a seige is the outer ring - the outside of the siege.
To what effect? So that Ukraine can join Vietnam and Afghanistan and form a "Do Not Do This" triefecta for military history?
If this were the only concern, should we just tacitly support Ukraine until Russia implodes? There are nuclear weapons rattling around in there. Politics is all about managing uncertainties. I should think a calmer, less dictatorial outcome would be everyone's interests.
Or is it? Because Ukraine/Russia, while tragic for those involved, is hors d'oeuvres for the real discussion: Taiwan. Anyone paying much attention these last years knows what's going down as soon as the Ukraine situation is escalated to a full-on regional conflict.
May Fortune lay peace and wisdom upon the heads of all the leaders involved.
If anything, this has made me doubt that Taiwan's eventual takeover will be via a hot war. The country is smaller, but its military is actually slightly larger than Ukraine's was, and they have better technology than the Ukrainians did. And the Chinese would need to cross 180km of water to get there. And the only point of taking over Taiwan is for what's already there -- the people, the technology. Shelling it would be counterproductive to say the least.
I would imagine some sort of interdiction/economic approach would be much more efficient for China. Or just wait until an amenable political group takes power on the island and reintegrate at that point.
Everyone fights the last war. An attack on Taiwan would be nothing like Ukraine, and if it happens, everyone will readjust their expectations for the next war - and be surprised again.
Excuse my candor but isn’t the status of Taiwan way more contentious than Ukraine? Honestly I’m not the sure the claim is illegitimate enough to stop China (at least that’s what I get after just reading Wikipedia), so while unfortunate for Taiwan at least I hope public opinion in other countries might not want a war, given it’s not even recognized by a lot of countries. The strategic importance it has for the US (and Europe?) is problematic obviously though.
There's always the more modern and enlightened way of doing thing of having something like a Chinese Union like the European Union with free trade and the like but separate governments. I'm hoping the mess in Ukraine encourages the Chinese to look to more peaceful options.
How long before some of those artillery pieces are captured and turned on their erstwhile comrades? The Ukrainians have already been quite successful capturing Russian equipment, and the more they seize the easier it becomes to seize more. Putting more equipment into the theater without adequate personnel and logistical support (which the Russians don't seem to have) won't help at all militarily, and indiscriminate bombardment will only worsen their diplomatic/economic situation. That's why Putin has refrained so far - not some imaginary respect for human life or humanitarian norms that he simply doesn't have.
You would hope that the Russians, more than anyone, would realize how much resistance a city under siege can put up given that their most lauded military accomplishment is being on the opposite end of that equation in Stalingrad.
Even if millions of civilians flee or die, Putin still has to maintain an expensive occupation force (with its stretched supply lines) while the Ukrainians fight on as an insurgency amidst the rubble of their cities.
The question is, once the war becomes too expensive for Putin, will Ukraine be in a position to take back Crimea and Donbas, and will the EU send peace-keepers to help protect Ukraine's borders like it has in Bosnia:
Putin is a bully and needs to be treated as such. We should have established that no fly zone long ago. Russia only understands strength. We should make it clear that we are stronger, don’t even consider his point and he will back down.
This is hacker news. You have all dealt with bullies. Have they ever backed down, except after being physically hit?
https://www.economist.com/news/2022/03/11/could-russia-use-c...