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1  War & Conflicts Discussions / Russian-Ukrainian War - Strategy and Tactics Discussions / Arty: How Russia has adapted to become more effective (AUG 2023) on: 11 August 2023, 09:44:54
Artillery has been central to Russian operations in Ukraine, artillery has been central to its ability to hold Ukrainian forces at bay.. In this terrific report, @Sam_Cranny examines how the Russian armed forces have adapted traditional artillery practices to overcome challenges and achieve greater efficacy.

Artillery is central to the Russian way of war, so it is beholden upon Western forces to properly understand how it has been applied in Ukraine. Russia’s artillery war is best analysed through two mechanisms: artillery doctrine – which provides the foundation for how artillery use has changed – and what artillery practitioners refer to as the gunnery problem.

Resume:
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This brief analysis of Russian artillery practice in Ukraine indicates that while it has demonstrated variable levels of efficacy, on the whole it is a formidable component of the Russian military, with occasionally best-in-breed targeting cycles and a doctrine that allows for artillery to overcome the deficiencies of Russian combined arms forces. It has built a significant ability to find and strike targets over a wide area, and likely retains the ability to mass fires against targets of opportunity.

Indirect fire support operates on mathematical principles of certainty. Approaches to this differ: Western forces, for instance, seek an economy of effort and resources in the application of fires. They tend to pay close attention to all aspects of the gunnery problem to ensure that their fires achieve effect with optimal ammunition consumption. The evidence from Ukraine suggests that Russian forces have combined both approaches: the use of UAVs, radar and precision munitions indicates that accuracy is essential for certain tasks, but attaining the weight of fires remains critical.


Full article: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-artillery-war-ukraine-challenges-and-innovations
2  War & Conflicts Discussions / Russian-Ukrainian War - Strategy and Tactics Discussions / A thwiiter Thread on Bridge Busting (JUL 2023) on: 11 August 2023, 09:43:22
Bridge busting is hard and needs to be refined, great interesting thread about it:

https://twitter.com/FRHoffmann1/status/1688220888301182976?s=20

3  War & Conflicts Discussions / Russian-Ukrainian War - Strategy and Tactics Discussions / Time.com JUL 2023 article on the UKR Counteroffensive on: 11 August 2023, 09:40:57
An interesting article (JUL 2023) whose contents I second.

I have voiced my doubts of an upcoming UKR counter offensive since October 2022 (focusing on the difficulty of integrating Western arms of a grand variety into a holistic concept of combined arms, w/o experienced sub officials), I feel my doubts were proven reasonable since, but I still have a lot of optimism about the UKR counter offensive(s), for various reasons (mainly logistics).

Yesterday ran into a (adequately long) article that expresses everything I feel from my analysis much more capable and in detail, recommended read:

https://time.com/6300772/ukraine-counteroffensive-can-still-succeed/

Takeaways:

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The situation in Ukraine still favors Kyiv despite the limited progress made in the counteroffensive so far. Ukrainian forces attempted a limited mechanized penetration of prepared Russian defenses in the south in early to mid-June, but failed to break through the Russian lines. They then switched to slower and more careful operations while disrupting Russian rear areas with long-range precision strikes. Ukraine began the next, reportedly main, phase of its counteroffensive on July 26 with a determined drive to penetrate Russian lines in western Zaporizhia Oblast. It’s far too soon to evaluate the outcome of that effort, which is underway as of the time of this writing, but it is vital to manage expectations. Ukrainian forces are fighting now to break through the first line of long-prepared Russian defenses. Several lines lie behind it, stretching for many miles. Ukrainian progress will very likely alternate periods of notable tactical advances with periods, possibly long periods, of pause and some setbacks.


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The Ukrainian counteroffensive can succeed in any of several ways. First, the current Ukrainian mechanized breakthrough could succeed, and the Ukrainians could exploit it deeply enough to unhinge part or all of the Russian lines. Second, Russian forces, already suffering serious morale and other systemic problems, could break under the pressure and begin to withdraw in a controlled or uncontrolled fashion. Third, a steady pressure and interdiction campaign supported by major efforts such as the one now underway can generate gaps in the Russian lines that Ukrainian forces can exploit at first locally, but then for deeper penetrations.


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Russia’s Problems

Reasons for confidence in the possibility of significant Ukrainian successes are closely tied to a number of fundamental challenges inherent to the Russian position in Ukraine and the Russian military. These cannot be resolved in 2023, so the opportunities they offer Ukraine are not fleeting. At the strategic level, the geometry of the theater favors Ukraine. At the strategic and operational levels, the lack of Russian reserves forces difficult and complex choices on the Russian military command in the face of Ukrainian counteroffensives. And at the tactical level the way the Russians are conducting defensive operations puts much greater pressure on Russian combat units than the lack of regular or large-scale movements on the map would suggest. All these problems are exacerbated by fundamental flaws in the Russian military itself.


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Theater Geometry

The defining characteristic of this phase of the war is that the Russians must defend a ground line of communication (GLOC) consisting of a road and a rail line that runs from Rostov-on-Don at the northeastern edge of the Sea of Azov to Crimea.  The Russians are dependent on this GLOC to supply their troops in southern Ukraine, as Putin had ordered Russian forces not to rely on the Kerch bridge for their logistics after the last major attack on the bridge. The break in that road bridge deprives the Russians of any fallback if the Ukrainians can threaten or cut the Rostov-to-Crimea GLOC.

This state of affairs favors Ukraine in an important way. If the Ukrainians can reach the Sea of Azov anywhere and hold their positions, they will have cut the GLOC. The Russians, thus, have to hold the entire thing. Put another way, the Ukrainians only have to win and hold in one sector to render virtually all the Russian-held territory west of their advance untenable. The Russians have to win everywhere all the time.


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Reserves

The Russians suffer from an additional challenge in that they lack operational or strategic reserves.

A military without significant reserves has to require its troops on the frontlines to stay there indefinitely and can temporarily generate the effects of reserves only by pulling forces from one sector of the line to another to deal with unexpected opportunities or reverses.

Lateral transfers of forces from one part of an active line to another are undesirable. They can disrupt offensive or defensive operations in the sectors from which they are drawn and put great pressure on soldiers who must withdraw from combat in one area, move rapidly to another, and immediately launch into new fighting without time to rest men and repair or replace equipment. The fact that the Russian command has generated reinforcements for threatened sectors in this fashion rather than by sending uncommitted reserves, together with the widespread complaints about the lack of rotations of frontline units, strongly suggests that the Russians simply do not have uncommitted operational or strategic reserves.

4  War & Conflicts Discussions / Russia - Ukrainian War 2022- / Re: Russian-Ukrainiuan War: Daily SITREP from ISW (Institute for Study of War) on: 11 August 2023, 07:32:59
Closing this topic:

I have moved the daily sitreps to a new subforum http://www.warandtactics.com/smf/daily-sitrep-by-isw-(institute-for-study-of-war)/, for various reasons:

- the sitreps now are topics instead of posts, so you can comment on each sitrep seperately

- as topics they have the sitrep date in the title and are easier to locate if you look for a specific sitrep

I will proceed to do the same with other topics here which will become sub-forums
5  War & Conflicts Discussions / Daily SITREP by ISW (Institute for Study of War) / ISW SITREP - JUL 1 2023 on: 11 August 2023, 06:57:19
RUS-UKR war SITREP JUL1 2023 - Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 1, 2023

Key Takeaways:

    Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four sectors of the frontline on July 1.
    US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley acknowledged that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations will take longer than some Western observers had expected.
    Russian officials and sources celebrated claims that Russian forces defeated small-scale Ukrainian landings in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast on July 1 as if they had won a major victory.
    The exaggerated Russian praise for defeating a small Ukrainian landing suggests either that the Russian military command sincerely fears a Ukrainian attack on east bank Kherson Oblast or that it is desperate for an informational victory following the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion or both.
    Russian forces are likely responding to Ukrainian operations around Bakhmut by pulling forces from elsewhere in Ukraine.
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the Russians might initiate an intentional radioactive leak at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) as part of a potential Russian strategy to freeze the war.
    Russian propagandists are likely conducting an information campaign to destroy the Wagner Group’s reputation as a uniquely effective fighting force in support of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD) effort to dismantle the Wagner Group and integrate former Wagner fighters into MoD structures.
    Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
    Ukrainian forces continued to conduct ground attacks around Bakhmut.
    Russian forces continued to conduct limited ground attacks in and transfer airborne (VDV) elements to the Bakhmut area.
    Russian forces continued to conduct limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
    Russian forces continued to counterattack recently-liberated Ukrainian positions on the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts.
    Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
    Russian security procedures on the Kerch Strait bridge are likely slowing down Russian logistics from Russia to occupied Crimea.
    Iran may be sending materiel and personnel to Russia to help construct a factory in the Republic of Tatarstan that will reportedly make Iranian combat drones.
    Ukrainian and Western sources continue to report on the abductions of Ukrainian children and adults in the occupied territories.

Details, Maps and Sources: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-1-2023
6  War & Conflicts Discussions / Daily SITREP by ISW (Institute for Study of War) / ISW SITREP - JUN30 2023 on: 11 August 2023, 06:55:34
SITREP JUN30 2023 - Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 30, 2023

Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Kateryna Stepanenko, Angelica Evans, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

June 30, 2023, 8:30pm ET

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-30-2023
7  War & Conflicts Discussions / Russia - Ukrainian War 2022- / Russian-Ukrainian War: OOBs on: 4 August 2023, 22:21:26
Anything about set-ups, material and organization from either side goes here
8  War & Conflicts Discussions / Wars & Conflicts: General Discussion Area / A Sword of Damocles: The Role of History in the Life and Career of Moltke on: 6 December 2020, 09:54:43
...nice article, in .pdf format for download: https://www.academia.edu/14308909/A_Sword_of_Damocles_The_Role_of_History_in_the_Life_and_Career_of_Helmuth_von_Moltke
9  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: Donators on: 11 November 2013, 00:07:24
Quote
Well, I paid the domain warandtactics.com today (18,15 Euros), but the server (106 Euros) I cannot take on me (simply don´t have them). If nobody pays the hosting fee it the server will be shut down, payment was due 26.10. and I then had negotiated a prolongation for both domain and server til NOV 7th with the hosting guys (and informed Koen).

Just FYI,

Rattler


I asked the hosting guys again for a prolongation of the hosting plan to be paid until end of NOV 12th, not received a response yet but I think we will get this time of grace.

After this, quite probably the site will be shut down in the current form. I am taking steps to revive it later, in a different form, but I cannot guarantee this will work (50/50 chance).

FYI,

TA
10  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: TechAdmin back on the job: News on: 24 October 2013, 23:18:06
And more things seem to have stopped working: Anybody notes the headers are not rotating anymore? Or is it just on my machine (I keep seeing the Hind).

Feedback welcome,

TA
11  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: TechAdmin back on the job: News on: 24 October 2013, 17:44:12
Quote
- Some people cannot upload Avatars (like Rattler, e.g). Anybody got the same problem so I get more data to investigate the cause (my own avatar here works just fine)


FIXED


The Avatars settings had changed, now everybody should be able to use Avatars (not more than 120 px width !! ) again.

TA
12  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: TechAdmin back on the job: News on: 24 October 2013, 16:52:19
Reply to self, more things eem to be broken (its about time we set up the new software):

- Some people cannot upload Avatars (like Rattler, e.g). Anybody got the same problem so I get more data to investigate the cause (my own avatar here works just fine)

- Sitemap does not produce an XML file anymore, no update for Google at the moment, I am afraid. Still clueless what causes it, but investigating.

And so it goes on...

TA
13  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / Rally Point - Welcoming Center / Kidon, Welcome! on: 24 October 2013, 16:20:52
Hi and welcome here from the tech department.

If you have problems to work the forum software, our "HELP" button up there within the tabs should usually get you going.

For special questions you might want to check the Wat Tech Section in the forums (http://www.warandtactics.com/smf/wat-tech-info/), many more questions are answered there.

Should all this not be enough do not hesitate to post a question there or pester me any time with a PM.

TA
14  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / TechAdmin back on the job: News on: 24 October 2013, 15:54:26
Okies, after some time of prolonged absence I am back in the seat (more or less, will take some time to get to 100%, but at least I will check in every day again), here what is on my plate, let me know if you need anything else done.

Known Problems


- Regular members could not see whether their PMs sent to other persons were read by them (FIXED)

- Registration Puzzles (that should keep away spammers) unwantedly keep away everybody, as they are not audible and dont allow input. This is a bugger, did not find a quick fix today, will attack it next week (I have to delve into the change log archives to uninstall the stuff). In the meantime, if you need to register and cannot then please send an email to rattler (at) ohlmer (dot) es, I will then proceed to register you manually.

- Summertime ends on Sunday 0200J and rquires reset of our mil clock. I will adress it early Sunday morning.

- Forum software is way outdated version wise and has security holes, I will address this (and try to update to latest version) not earlier than end of next week.

- Forum software is completely obsolete (and not supported anymore): We need to rebuild the forum from scratch on the newer 2.x platform of SMF, this will lead to big changes both for the positive as for the negative. This is a major project and will be started parrallel to this forum to facilitate a later switch. Layout and functionality will change sometimes dramatically, content will be preserved.

Thats it for now,

TA
15  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / Rally Point - Welcoming Center / Re: Glad to be here! on: 13 December 2012, 12:22:20
Welcome on board, any questions about how to move here check out the "Help" tab or the Technical Section with Q+As. Should doubts remain, feel free to pester me... Smiley

TA
16  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: members on: 10 October 2012, 21:46:21
well, Eva Peiler and Rob Henderson are (probably now not anymore) actually friends of mine and come here just to read (our conversations take place in other mil forums), but had to register to exchange PMs with me. Both are young and no dinosaurs like ourselves, i.e. never look at their email, but daily at FB and twitter.

Stoffel, as they are also on FB (visible as friends of mine as well as you and Koen), maybe a good idea to check FB for names before deleting members, especially if it is for unavailability rather than for breaking rules with spamming etc.

Inactivity is no crime from my POV, sometimes ppl need to register to contact one of our active members.

TA
17  War & Conflicts Discussions / Vietnam War / Re: Vietnam war pictures: random selections on: 19 June 2012, 05:44:16
great stuff, thanks for finding!

TA
18  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: WaT hacked and defaced on: 6 March 2012, 21:35:46
Good job.

By our host, we staff (myself, especially) failed big time, hasd not brought SMF up to speed fast enough and had not pressured *good* PWs enough...

I would guess that if they went after any password they could crack them. Of course the more convoluted the password the safer it is.

While right with the latter, I think we stil suck (and I  mean *suck*, capitally) with the first: You cannot, as average hacker - not talking FBI, NSA or affiliates - crack a good PW "just like that".

Problem is that even I can crack 50% of the passwords on our site without much effort, want to  know how many members have "password" as password? 3 of 200..., says it all. I also tripped in my tests over 31 (of 260 overall tested) PWs that use their user name in reverse as PW, how not to find out in 0.1 sec for a hacker? (First try: "username"/"password" in all combinations, 2nd try all usernames visible with "password" as PW in all combinations, third try visible usernames with "reverse username" as PW, takes less than a seccond to try out with 200 members...)

OTOH, hacking them simple members is not the prob, hacking a member with admin rights, is, and truly so: With admin rights you have access to the database, i.e. all emails of all members (and it seems this table has been dl-ed on other sites by the same hacker, though our logs dont show anything in this respect, assuming for the moment that we were saved by the inherent sec features we have been building up over the years). Problem is that there is almost always a user with the username "admin" on forums, as that is the standard first UN handed out, and hence also the first target try for hackers, 99% success rate...

In any case the security we have for the site seems to have done exactly what we wanted it to.


It did, but it was not *our* security but *the hosts* ones.

Again (I know I am repeating myself for the umptieht time and tiring everybody, talking to a wall here, but these thing *are* important and will be *more important as we advance in time), while we ppl here try our best, this time the praise is only and all owed to our host (hostsuar.com), we staff ppl missed the attack and any responses completely, had they not alerted us we wouldnt even know about the hack. *They* caught it, and *they* fixed it, myself I was only aware of the attack 10 days later (as you all know I am not around here as often anymore). My personal belief is that only less than 1% of hosts available on the net will do that.

Thanks for everything you guys do to keep the site safe.

Good Hunting.

MR


We try (e.g. by finding an excellent host), but also every pecuniary contribution should help, these guys cost (not much, less for what especially *they* are doing for us, but in the end it has to be paid somehow, talking some 200+ Euros a year here), any contributions welcome: See "Support  WaT" on the front page.

Personally, I think all money we spent so far has proved to be the right investment (I know that ppl here feel that we should have an English speaking host, but the way they treat us I have never seen with any host before, whatever language, and they understand enough English to be of more help than any US firm I know).

As far as the pure tech data goes, PMs are on the way, we have the whole thing deciphered by now.

Kwaad So are we safe again?
Didi the one responsible changed his pasword?


No, and No, PMs on the way to deal with the Lessons Learned.

Kind regards,

TA
19  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / Re: WaT hacked and defaced on: 5 March 2012, 21:17:04
addendum:

The hacker/defacer is well known, here a few links so you guys can see what trouble hostsuar (our host) saved us from:

He himself notified about his hack on 20/2/12 here:

http://www.zone-h.org/archive/notifier=SouTHRaNDA/page=7

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=464098.0

There is a video of a band "A$G" (you cannot google them because of the "$" character, I will get around this when I find the time) who has a song called "SouthRanda", maybe a hint:

The message the hacker left (which I had assumed to be a code) is most probably the same language the band sings in (Rumanian?) or derived from it:

A.$.G - South Randa


TA
20  Welcome To The War & Tactics Forum / About The WaT Forum: Rules, Updates, News / WaT hacked and defaced on: 5 March 2012, 21:04:34
On FEB 19th, WaT was hacked (the details are not clear yet but it looks the PW of user "admin" got cracked) and defaced, for some (short) time everybody coming here saw this instead of what you all know:



Thanks to our great host nobody ever realized, not even me (as I only tody connected to my email since 3 weeks), as they restored the original forum straight from their last backup which was only 4 hours old.

Again, hats off to those guys, where would we be without them!  hatsoff

The hack itself is not clear yet (I am waiting for their log details) but I assume it was done by data base injection after cracking the PW of user "admin" (this user name actually, I have said it before, is a NO-NO as it is the first name any hacker will try out), no action required atm by anybody until I have confrimation on what happened exactly.

Will keep you updated,

TA

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