Barrel wear = artillerists using the same barrel to fire 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 shells, instead the prescribed 5,000.
Results: constantly decreasing precision; eventually, the gun blows up.
....not really something that's easy to provide evidence for (except when the gun blows up, which I've also shown in several cases). But, if they could seriously care about barrel wear, the Russians would certainly hit the ZSU much harder.
I disagree. The lack of precision reduces the effectiveness of the artillery, no matter how much ammo they use. Using more ammo to achieve a result means they have less ammo to use elsewhere. Using more ammo also contributes to barrel wear.
Also, barrel wear lessens the range because the gas leaks out the sides of the round. Shorter ranges means they can't conduct counter battery as far behind Ukrainian lines, and it means they have to move closer to the front lines to conduct their fire missions. The closer they are to the front lines, the easier it is to detect them and the easier it is for the Ukrainians to conduct counter battery fire with both artillery and drones.
On top of that, their production of barrels is already much lower than the number of barrels they lose when an artillery piece is destroyed or a barrel blows up. (Poor quality ammo from North Korea is also contributing to barrel burst). A lot of the barrels they're producing are refurbished from storage. Once the stored barrels are gone, their production will be even lower.
With fewer artillery pieces firing, they will need to fire more often, contributing to barrel wear, and it will be easier to detect and attack them.
The game changer the Russians need but are incapable of developing is better command and control. The world will end before the Russians figure this out.
The Russian army is still a third rate player incapable of any serious learning. It's why they're still mainly engaged in trench warfare and can't eject the Ukrainians out of Kursk.
I supposed that whatever was visible was a target for drones. Why did not they send a dozen of drones towards the machine gun instead of assaulting it on their feet?
They also didn't have any indirect fire support at a time when they were expending a lot (by their standards) of artillery ammo. I wondered the same thing and don't have an answer. They did have the reconnaissance drone in support.
Maybe it was because of the Russian trench EW - in which case the Ukrainian side is already FUBAR by the Russian fiber optic drones - which were laughed at half a year ago.
I thought of that. The attack took place in August 2023, so trench EW was certainly possible. The Ukrainians had one such device. It didn't effect the recon drone but that could have been outside of the range of a trench device.
This group is also fairly aggressive, so they might have weighed the risks and accepted them. One example: They had limited number of armored HMMWVs but you can only fit about three people in the back and it's not the easiest thing to load and unload in equipment. Their solution was to remove the overhead cover in the back, allowing them to squeeze in an extra 1-2 people. (I think they had 14 people in three vehicles). The Ukrainians thought they were crazy, especially since they planned to drive past Russian firing positions.
By contrast, the supporting Ukrainian team had six dismounts transported in two vehicles and were dropped off hundreds of meters short of the objective.
It boils down to an analysis of the situation, taking into account the threat of small arms fire and RPGs that may or may not be countered by surprise and confusion in the enemy ranks. (It certainly wasn't countered with overwhelming suppressive fire). It's a question of how much risk you are willing to accept and what advantages you believe taking that risk will give you. You will either be correct in your assessment, lucky that it worked, or regretting a large amount of casualties if your assessment was wrong.
Recon drones are communicating @ 2.4Ghz (sometimes 5.8Ghz as well). Attack drones (FPVs) are controlled at ~900Mhz (especially back in 2023, there are more ranges currently). Pretty much all portable trench EW are exclusively targetting the FPV frequencies. (Well, "anti-drone rifles" are usually 2.4 and 5.8 combo, but those aren't widespread.) Stationary "trench EW" usually try to cover all of the above and then some.
My point is, their EW probably wasn't even supposed to interfere w/ Mavics.
Regarding the fiber optic cables...people laughed at the cope cages, too. The cope cages can be defeated but they do offer another level of protection.
There are limiting factors to cables on drones. Range is one of them, and however long the cable is, you want to fly short of that because if you break the cable then you lose the drone. The same is true if the cable breaks for any other reason, such as a vehicle running over it. It's also dangerous to make sharp moves when flying because that might snap the cable. And then weight of the cable means you'll have a smaller payload, which is less of an issue for reconnaissance drones.
On the other hand, jamming doesn't effect them, which is huge. I'd be interested to know how many fiber optic cables failed for whatever reason. My guess is that the figure would be fairly low, certainly lower than the number of drones lost to jamming.
I think fiber optic cable is a good interim solution for jamming but I think both sides will eventually resort to AI. Ukraine is already testing it against Russian targets.
Amazing how much time these little raids take in terms of planning and even execution.
Also are there actually any capable Russian soldiers or are they all incompetent? Mind you this is WWII as well - Russians were mainly tactically incompetent but their high level generals (eg Rokossovsky, Zhukov, Konev etc) were excellent which offset the incompetence of the troops and junior leaders in the Red Army.
And the massive encirclement defeats of the first two years could probably have been prevented if not for the army purges, and the fact that Stalin liquidated returning officers from the Spanish Civil War didn't help either.
And there's the rub - in spite of purges, massive political interference (including commissars), a disastrous war in Finland, the Soviet Army managed to turn around and win a war.
The Russian one on the other hand seems to be stuck with its head in the sand.
Would it be fair to summarise this lively 4-part report as ‘the Russians aren’t having it all their own way’?
Yes. That's true for both sides. Russia has its own long list of tactical issues and its strategic problems are becoming more intense over the months.
Which worsening strategic problems do you see?
Tom used to write about barrel wear, old tires and airplanes falling apart - but none of that has had much, if any, impact on the battlefield.
Barrel wear = artillerists using the same barrel to fire 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 shells, instead the prescribed 5,000.
Results: constantly decreasing precision; eventually, the gun blows up.
....not really something that's easy to provide evidence for (except when the gun blows up, which I've also shown in several cases). But, if they could seriously care about barrel wear, the Russians would certainly hit the ZSU much harder.
Still not a game-changer. They've got enough ammo to compensate for imprecision.
I disagree. The lack of precision reduces the effectiveness of the artillery, no matter how much ammo they use. Using more ammo to achieve a result means they have less ammo to use elsewhere. Using more ammo also contributes to barrel wear.
Also, barrel wear lessens the range because the gas leaks out the sides of the round. Shorter ranges means they can't conduct counter battery as far behind Ukrainian lines, and it means they have to move closer to the front lines to conduct their fire missions. The closer they are to the front lines, the easier it is to detect them and the easier it is for the Ukrainians to conduct counter battery fire with both artillery and drones.
On top of that, their production of barrels is already much lower than the number of barrels they lose when an artillery piece is destroyed or a barrel blows up. (Poor quality ammo from North Korea is also contributing to barrel burst). A lot of the barrels they're producing are refurbished from storage. Once the stored barrels are gone, their production will be even lower.
With fewer artillery pieces firing, they will need to fire more often, contributing to barrel wear, and it will be easier to detect and attack them.
Tom Cooper hello!
Is posible for the russians change to rokect artillery? Less wear and more easy to produce?
The game changer the Russians need but are incapable of developing is better command and control. The world will end before the Russians figure this out.
The Russian army is still a third rate player incapable of any serious learning. It's why they're still mainly engaged in trench warfare and can't eject the Ukrainians out of Kursk.
I supposed that whatever was visible was a target for drones. Why did not they send a dozen of drones towards the machine gun instead of assaulting it on their feet?
They also didn't have any indirect fire support at a time when they were expending a lot (by their standards) of artillery ammo. I wondered the same thing and don't have an answer. They did have the reconnaissance drone in support.
Maybe it was because of the Russian trench EW - in which case the Ukrainian side is already FUBAR by the Russian fiber optic drones - which were laughed at half a year ago.
I thought of that. The attack took place in August 2023, so trench EW was certainly possible. The Ukrainians had one such device. It didn't effect the recon drone but that could have been outside of the range of a trench device.
This group is also fairly aggressive, so they might have weighed the risks and accepted them. One example: They had limited number of armored HMMWVs but you can only fit about three people in the back and it's not the easiest thing to load and unload in equipment. Their solution was to remove the overhead cover in the back, allowing them to squeeze in an extra 1-2 people. (I think they had 14 people in three vehicles). The Ukrainians thought they were crazy, especially since they planned to drive past Russian firing positions.
By contrast, the supporting Ukrainian team had six dismounts transported in two vehicles and were dropped off hundreds of meters short of the objective.
It boils down to an analysis of the situation, taking into account the threat of small arms fire and RPGs that may or may not be countered by surprise and confusion in the enemy ranks. (It certainly wasn't countered with overwhelming suppressive fire). It's a question of how much risk you are willing to accept and what advantages you believe taking that risk will give you. You will either be correct in your assessment, lucky that it worked, or regretting a large amount of casualties if your assessment was wrong.
Recon drones are communicating @ 2.4Ghz (sometimes 5.8Ghz as well). Attack drones (FPVs) are controlled at ~900Mhz (especially back in 2023, there are more ranges currently). Pretty much all portable trench EW are exclusively targetting the FPV frequencies. (Well, "anti-drone rifles" are usually 2.4 and 5.8 combo, but those aren't widespread.) Stationary "trench EW" usually try to cover all of the above and then some.
My point is, their EW probably wasn't even supposed to interfere w/ Mavics.
Regarding the fiber optic cables...people laughed at the cope cages, too. The cope cages can be defeated but they do offer another level of protection.
There are limiting factors to cables on drones. Range is one of them, and however long the cable is, you want to fly short of that because if you break the cable then you lose the drone. The same is true if the cable breaks for any other reason, such as a vehicle running over it. It's also dangerous to make sharp moves when flying because that might snap the cable. And then weight of the cable means you'll have a smaller payload, which is less of an issue for reconnaissance drones.
On the other hand, jamming doesn't effect them, which is huge. I'd be interested to know how many fiber optic cables failed for whatever reason. My guess is that the figure would be fairly low, certainly lower than the number of drones lost to jamming.
I think fiber optic cable is a good interim solution for jamming but I think both sides will eventually resort to AI. Ukraine is already testing it against Russian targets.
AI (anything more than tracking a target which is input by the operator) is expensive (probably up to a $1K per drone) and may be quite unreliable.
That wasn't the impression I was getting from statements by the Wild Hornets group, but I guess we'll see.
That's one hell of a story. Thanks !!
Thanks Don for these 4 very informative reports
Excellent write up and extremely fascinating.
Amazing how much time these little raids take in terms of planning and even execution.
Also are there actually any capable Russian soldiers or are they all incompetent? Mind you this is WWII as well - Russians were mainly tactically incompetent but their high level generals (eg Rokossovsky, Zhukov, Konev etc) were excellent which offset the incompetence of the troops and junior leaders in the Red Army.
And the massive encirclement defeats of the first two years could probably have been prevented if not for the army purges, and the fact that Stalin liquidated returning officers from the Spanish Civil War didn't help either.
And there's the rub - in spite of purges, massive political interference (including commissars), a disastrous war in Finland, the Soviet Army managed to turn around and win a war.
The Russian one on the other hand seems to be stuck with its head in the sand.
I'm always surprised Russian contract troops resist surrendering when there's no other option.
Thank you very much.