Lessons Learned from the Rus - Ukr war

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

On the arty issue for Ukraine, they do now or will shortly have modern counter battery/detection systems this also for now includes short range UAV's and let's not forget in many cases real time satellite data from the West. Refer to armyrecognition.com during Jan. (End of.)/Feb. (2-3 articles.) and this month I thought I saw one. Don't have access to my "rig" now so you're on your own, Happy Hunting!! If you know me, you know where I'm at this time of year!?! This is our 17th year in a row! It's "been verry verry good to" us as well.

Regards,
Pat

[Aeraaa]

Reading this makes me feel like we're returning to WW1 style warfare again (at least concerning equal "tier" opponents...)

[Suhiir]

There are still a lot of Springfield 03's and Mauser 98's around, not to mention a few air forces still use P-51's as their main fighter.

[Paulus_PAK]

Referring to the incident at Zyelenpilye, apparently ukrainian units cought there were battalion sized battlegroup from 79th Airborne Brigade and a battalion detached from the 24th Mechanized Brigade. Both units were reportedly cought in the open by the Grad barrage, losing (in 3 minutes!) 35 dead, 93 wounded, 30 combat vehicles including tanks, ifv's and apc's.
Word of warning about question of units size during ukraninian conflict - official designations should be treated as rather misleading. Usually units operated not fully completed, understrenght both in terms of manpower and equipment.
Generally lessons from war in Ukraina can be boiled down to few things:
1 Artillery, augmented with uav's recon (Russians/separatists reportedly had used more than 10 types of uav's) IS THE KING of battlefield. Especially rocket artillery using thermobaric and cluster ammunition. Static defenses were useless against concentrated barrages, APC's and older IFV's (BMP1/2) were not protected enough against submunitions and even shrapnels, even tanks were vulnerable. Units cought under barrages were suffering loses causing the combat-incapable.
I can find some precise data, but reaction times of russian regular rocket artillery units were apparently shocking to american observers.
2 Tank are practically impervious to infantry light AT weaponry. Even DC warheads don't guarantee an effective attack. Top-attack is the way to go, but with proliferation of active defense systems, it will be rendered ineffective too. The best way to destroy a tank is to use an another tank. But when Russian used their T-72B3's and T-90's (the latter in a very limited way) they proved superior to ukrainian T-64/T-64BM Bulats. From reports it looks that russian passive defense systems on tanks rendered all ukrainian ATGM arsenal ineffective.
3 UAV's (especially smaller ones) are surprisingly resistant to the AA fire. Ukrainians usually were engaging russian uav's using 14,5mm, 23mm and 30mm autocannons with very little success. MANPADS and SAM's are also not very effective due to uav's low radar and ir signature. On the other side, Russians very effectively used electronic warfare (GPS spoofing or jamming and other means) against few ukrainian uav's being used (sometimes these were simple commercial uav's fitted with cameras).

[Suhiir]

Artillery has been the bane of infantry in the open since the invention of the airburst. But as has been seen time and again it's fairly useless vs well entrenched ones.

Might be the Russians weren't so dumb after all keeping anti-tank guns!

Yeah, the ability of WinSPMBT to blow UAVs out of the air has long been something of an issue for me. I really think size 0 observation aircraft units shouldn't draw MANPADs. But at least the code was changed so they no longer get blasted by Area SAMs.

[Aeraaa]

Another thing that I find impressive is the effectiveness of large caliber artillery in knocking out armored vehicles, even modern MBTs, using HE rounds. That is something almost impossible to do in the game though.

[Mobhack]

Strange, as one of my standard anti-tank tactics is to dump arty on any irritating tigers (ww2) and on through modern times. Even 25 pounders do fine as long as you remember that artillery is best used concentrated.

So if a target is worth attacking, you direct fire-blows onto one target at a time with all (or most) of your field and heavy batteries. That includes 4.2in/120mm mortars.

"One target" means directed into one spot - with a spread of maybe 3-4 hexes max from the centre point.

It may only "blow their socks off" - but any de-tracked AFV stuck in the wrong place are likely to be irrelevant to the game, and can be finished off with tank-hunter parties in the mop-up phase if necessary. Or they may simply get demoralised and the crew bail, so all you then need do is park a little scout car in the same hex for a turn to ensure it burns = full VP for it, and possibly a kill marker for the little scout car if it spots the debussed crew returning and brasses them up as it does this. And tin-can APC have always suffered when subjected to concentrated artillery fires.

Therefore - nothing in the article is really surprising. UK artillery has after all been in the swift concentrations of fire business since c. 1942 (Uncle, Mike, Yoke etc. fire orders - concentrations of fire from regiment all the way up to Army Group Artillery level).

As for UAVs in the game - these are really just spotter plane replacements. Your "Player God" level of battlefield knowledge of the enemy gives you "UAV level" spotting, even in 1930...

[Aeraaa]

I know what you mean and I also use arty this way (if anything the fact that it separates enemy tanks from their supporting infantry, the suppression and the potential mobility kill all worth it). I mean arty used the way the author of the article says ie 122mm SPGs knocking the turret off T64s in direct fire (in game terms that would mean that the target is destroyed I guess, no?). I have never ever knocked out that kind of target with a frontal turret hit firing in direct mode.

I do agree with what you say about the UAVs, the player already has TOO much of battlefield awareness as it is.

[Suhiir]

The upcoming reduction in smoke given off by unspotted artillery/mortars will help this a bit.

[Imp]

I dont see anything unexpected in this at all, Russian units are now more flexible but still tend to stick to the plan. Decent Russian equipment is just that we should stop underestimating it like we have done for the last 40 years or so, ERA works ATGM counter measures work.
They have ECM capabilities & there battlefield awareness is getting there.
The Russians have known what artillery is capable of since forever basically & now using the TOS system with thermobaric warheads being dug in is far less helpful to survival. If the heat doesn't get you the lack of air to breath probably will.
Seems to me everything they were bad at they now do better, sometimes with the Wests help. We cant compete on the TI front so lets buy the stuff & no doubt reverse engineer it to see where we are going wrong.
Luckily your probably looking at only a percentage of their forces being well trained & equipped, that's a big pool to pull your best guys from & give the good stuff to.
So going back to WW1 & the disregard for human life the rest are cannon fodder to deplete stores.
If they ever went up against the USA I would send the canon fodder in first & let them use all the expensive ATGMs etc against them then send in the good guys not the other way round due to their overkill approach.