Hello everybody! Ever more of Russians are complaining that the Western media is ‘controlled’. Ironically, can only agree. Yes, it’s controlled – foremost by commercial interests, and then by private preferences. Think, I’ll address this topic separately, though: don’t want to bore you with it right now.
Just some hairsplitting: Israel did expand the IDF in similar fashion after the October 1973 War.
Result was a massive loss of quality. Even as of 1976-1980 period, the mass of the IDF was too incompetent for any other kind of operations but 'advance by firepower'.
As far as I can say, the IDF has never recovered its earlier quality.
Not so true, if at the same rank and have to choose between a younger or an older person, definitely choose an older one who has enough maturity and life experience.
Older person might have less maturity. Older person might have less life experience. And life experience has zero value if it does not transition into lessons learned. And the majority of humans have a hard time learning any lessons.
After the destruction of Kakhovka Dam, Kamianske, Krynytsa, Vasylivka and other points that used to be abutted by the reservoir, presently appear to be pretty far from the water: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65963403. Is the bottom of the former reservoir still impassable for vehicles and infantry?
Definitely not the river – it’s never frozen solid below or above the former reservoir. The rest will probably be indistinguishable from other land in Southern Ukraine, comes winter – frozen during cold snaps, otherwise sea of mud. But now most of the land is dry, unless after a good rain, while the former reservoir might still be marshy: how much time it would take to dry – that’s the question.
Hello Tom, thank you for your work. I read all your articles as fast as I can after you publish them. Really make me motivated even with bad news (usually your bad news are followed by really great news for some reasons).
I want to make some comment on last part of your post. As a part of UAF I want to share what I see here. We really have problems not only with officers but also with soldiers and sergeants. But let me calm you down. All units in which I served and all I heard about never use this principles you provide. Everywhere commanders will rather put young and motivated sergeant (and even soldier) with command experience on command role than keep old, unmotivated, alcoholic-officer that have zero experience and got some touch to military in soviet era. We made it much easier to promote to officers. There some requirements like: is in an officer position and successfully perform tasks for 3 (or less - I don’t remember) months, have a higher education (very common in our country), not have penalties and possibly a few more and sergeant (or even soldier) can be quickly promoted to junior lieutenant. But it is just formal requirements. Main requirement is to be motivated and effective so your command will want to promote you. And this junior lieutenants are wide spread not only on "field" position like platoon, company commanders but can be found on high level of command (I personally know such junior lieutenant on captains and mayors positions effectively and selflessly performing tasks in newly formed brigades. If we are speaking about squads it is really fast to de facto change of squad leaders to decent ones. I know a lot of old soviet-made sergeants serving on simple soldiers’ roles and some of them even being happy about that.
Yes, this approach significantly changes the army, I served in a unit composed of 99% of the mobilized and high ranks who came to us "for inspection" were sometimes simply shocked that the unit resembled a partisan detachment, but we effectively carried out the tasks assigned, given the limited resources and firepower of the enemy. There were some scandals, but that's another story.
And yes, an important point. The fact that this is not publicized in the media does not mean that commanders are not responsible for failures. I personally know several colonels and lieutenant colonels who were quickly removed from their posts and investigated for serious mistakes.
Good to hear your description then.... sigh... what I've got to hear from veterans of the 66th Rifle Battalion and then the 118th Mech Brigade, the last few days... sigh... that was a 'far cry' from your experiences.
Guess, things are getting better with the time, too.
Probably because of their construction: the majority of railway bridges have that metal skeleton construction. Even guided weapons tend to fly 'through' them.
That said, two days ago the PSU did strike and knock out the Chongar Railway Bridge. This was made easier by the fact that this has a solid concrete core.
Also, to truly restrict/disrupt road movement, you must hit a true "choke point" like a bridge, to restrict movement. There is good reason not to hit rail bridges (other than one like Kerch): you can restrict rail movement hitting it almost anywhere (especially say, one junction/yard back) and, they are hard to repair if you anticipate needing them in the near future. Whenever employing obstacles (or dropping a bridge), people often make the mistake of only thinking of doing so to restrict/stop/shape the other guys movement... if one plans on ever counterattacking, one must also consider how said obstacles will restrict THEIR OWN movement in the future. At this point in the war, in most cases, it makes zero sense for the Ukrainians to drop rail bridges unless they are 100+ km in the rear.
Thanks for the honest reporting Tom, as usual. I guess we have this instinctive bias to presume expert authority from the older and more experienced, and military performance being incredibly complex and multi-factored to be measured, it's just easier and quicker to default to unscientific, hardwired, and evolutionary biases.
Today one would expect that, with the rise of big data, UA leadership would be quicker to identify the most talented officers and put them in charge, but the most likely is that inner group politics and corporatism is still the most determinant factor.
It also seems that the more we learn about the Southern offensive, the more it feels that the higher quality of Western equipment was assumed to outweigh the lack of experience of the new units, but giving them the hardest task at hand eventually has exposed this strategy, experienced combat-proven units always tend to perform better with worse equipment. I agree with what you say about old habits being hard to unlearn in the context of officers, and for that same reason I would understand why the new equipment was given to new units, but then tasking them with breaking the hardest section of the front was probably not the best idea, at least in the short term.
An off-topic question, are you able to confirm that night combat operations is still not playing a notable role in this war (beyond SOF)? Despite the Western equipment provided with NVDs, we hear nothing about night ops, so either ZSU is still not trained in them, don't have enough capabilities, or they consider they don't have an edge over VSRF, or the minefields and the slow attrition nature of the current front make it useless?
I hardly believe that the Ukranians are able to document all their efforts and actions so they can use it as "big data"... but I do hope that competent officers/officials are able to scout the talent that will occur in situations like this war... and are able/allowed to exploit these talents.
Such a great explanation Tom, thank you! Ukrainian command problems remind me a bit of the travails of the British 8th Army in North Africa before they stopped fighting only as individual brigades. They also had to learn the hard way, but not without sacking of the officers involved, including at the top theater command.
In ZSU's case, unfortunately, on top of that it seems a number of formations would first need to learn to fight at least as brigades. If you look at all the successful battalion-level actions from ZSU in this war, there should be a number of majors and lieutenant-colonels that could successfully make the jump to brigade level command. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case already, but the expansion of ZSU was just too big to advance only good and competent cadres, or you anyway end up with crap lower level officers under them.
Which also begs the question of the way those oversized ZSU brigades are set up. Aren't they just too big and unwieldy to command in the attack if the full brigade is deployed on an axis? Or is a brigade actually deployed at any time like that at all? Someone who's successfully commanding those 5-6-7 maneuver battalions shouldn't have too much problems jumping to a division-level command. Yet, GenStab aren't forming divisions and probably have some good reason for that.
Could it be a part of the problem is filling staff positions? Who knows if current brigade staffs in a lot of formations are even of sufficient size to run an oversized brigade, let alone a divison. ZSU obviously understands they need some operational level command, since they formed 9th and 10th Corps for this offensive in the South. But, could be that was a sort of shortcut to not needing enough staff officers for 4+ divisions, but only for 2 higher-level organizations.
All in all, it starts to look like they are at best only half way through the process of getting their formations and officers molded into a war-winning organization. Some excellent tactical officers, some great minds in GenStab, but missing some crucial links to finally start to end this war. Good thing the Russians seem to not have the ability to exploit this on the operational level, with the way VSRF degenerated during the war.
But it's a terrible tragedy they'll still be standing in too much occupied Ukrainian land and the war will continue for far too long. I agree, if NATO could help in any way with this then it's probably with training officers, especially for staff work.
It was a great video, thanks! Regarding MPRI I wonder if some sort of institutional knowledge was kept in HV after all those years regarding the experience with MPRI. What worked, what didn't, on what to concentrate for best and quickest results. Especially since they had similar dynamic to ZSU with the ex-JNA and new guys in the same force at the same time. If some knowledge about that was saved then it could probably help if similar training programs are to be implemented for Ukraine.
Still, probably shouldn't expect miracles either way. If I remember correctily MPRI training certainly helped, and they implemented some common sense stuff, but for example HV NCO Academy still trained people on the old doctrine. And only after the war did HV decide to have one brigade with NATO style NCO corps before it was widely implemented.
Late on this thread, but yesterday I came across this quote from Kyiv Independent on the situation in Kreminna:
"Vasyl, a 29-year-old infantryman from Lviv, said it's extremely difficult because Russia often jams the radio connecting the front-line positions to the headquarters during assault operations.
Even if the Russians don't completely shut off the radio network, missing a few words of the command can be detrimental, he said.
"Some information comes in, some doesn't come at all. Every word from the radio is important information," Vasyl said.
If a "don't go" reads as a "go", you have real problems.
There are news that the Russians are laying wires between the Russian territory and the front line. Maybe it's time for the Ukrainian army to think of the old communication methods.
One of my older brothers served in the 8th Air Force in WWII as the navigator of a B-17, at the ripe old age of 20. He was a second lieutenant. His pilot, age 25, held the rank of captain. The youngest colonel in the USAAF was 23. Of course, those aren't typical ages in peacetime...
Thanks Tom once again an excellent article, I liked the good news and of course there was some bad lets hope the UAF can work it out, your points about officer training abilities are spot on from my perspective. I see this in the US Army during my time in Vietnam the officer corp was not good at that time early 60's
You write everything correctly, but there are a few additions:
New units and formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine chronically suffer from personnel shortages due to:
1.1 "Old brigades" transferring ineffective commanders and sergeants to newly formed brigades. They send good officers under no circumstances, even with the request taking 4-5 months if officer transfer is considered daily.
1.2 Mobilized soldiers, sergeants, and officers strive to be transferred to "experienced units" rather than newly formed ones (just returned from the Chernihiv region due to this issue).
Proper functioning of combat units requires equipment (communication, optics, drones, vehicles, medical supplies, etc.), and the new military units struggle to acquire/receive them from volunteers or as war trophies.
Many newly formed brigades lack well-coordinated drone teams.
If you analyze the reasons for the Russian Federation's advance near Kupiansk, one of the reasons is the rotation of old units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine into new ones. I don't think it's a secret anymore.
We read your posts, thank you for advocating for ammunition supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine; it's crucial
Thanks Tom. A splash of cold water, but a truthful splash. It also seems the Russians aren't fools either.
At this rate, it may well turn into a battle of materiel. Whether Europe and the US are willing to support that is a real question. Sadly, I suspect whatever we do, the Ukrainians will keep fighting.
Спасибо, Том
Very interesting conclusions. Unfortunately, no politician will read or understand this again.
Thank you Tom. You are right. My friends over there explained it the same way - civilians became officers and struggle.
No one have been in this sort of situation - expanding army 6 times while in war - since WW2. Except for Israel, maybe...
Just some hairsplitting: Israel did expand the IDF in similar fashion after the October 1973 War.
Result was a massive loss of quality. Even as of 1976-1980 period, the mass of the IDF was too incompetent for any other kind of operations but 'advance by firepower'.
As far as I can say, the IDF has never recovered its earlier quality.
That would prove the point - no one can expand army and maintain high quality.
So those horrible losses are inevitable...
Not so true, if at the same rank and have to choose between a younger or an older person, definitely choose an older one who has enough maturity and life experience.
Older person might have less maturity. Older person might have less life experience. And life experience has zero value if it does not transition into lessons learned. And the majority of humans have a hard time learning any lessons.
For emphasis: '....appointing people JUST because....'
Emphasis is on 'JUST because'.
Nobody should be appointed a higher rank/command (or whatever) 'just because' - but because of merits.
After the destruction of Kakhovka Dam, Kamianske, Krynytsa, Vasylivka and other points that used to be abutted by the reservoir, presently appear to be pretty far from the water: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65963403. Is the bottom of the former reservoir still impassable for vehicles and infantry?
Will the river Dnipro and the former reservoir freeze enough for heavy vehicles to pass over them during winter ?
Definitely not the river – it’s never frozen solid below or above the former reservoir. The rest will probably be indistinguishable from other land in Southern Ukraine, comes winter – frozen during cold snaps, otherwise sea of mud. But now most of the land is dry, unless after a good rain, while the former reservoir might still be marshy: how much time it would take to dry – that’s the question.
Maybe, the way to expand is to take 10 best brigades and expand them to divisions.
Something, they are doing with Azov.
It used to be 1 battalion 9 years ago.
Now its a huge brigade ( 3rd ), Azov brigade, Kraken regiment ( or already a brigade? ).
Enough to establish an Azov division now.
Next step - corp level.
The 3rd Assault is as big because it's got good commanders. Good commanders = less casualties = more volunteers.
The Azov Brigade (of the National Guard, and thus the unit you're talking about) just made a 'return' to the battlefield, during this offensive.
"It takes 15.000 casualties to train a major general." Foch. Seems there is still truth in that.
Hello Tom, thank you for your work. I read all your articles as fast as I can after you publish them. Really make me motivated even with bad news (usually your bad news are followed by really great news for some reasons).
I want to make some comment on last part of your post. As a part of UAF I want to share what I see here. We really have problems not only with officers but also with soldiers and sergeants. But let me calm you down. All units in which I served and all I heard about never use this principles you provide. Everywhere commanders will rather put young and motivated sergeant (and even soldier) with command experience on command role than keep old, unmotivated, alcoholic-officer that have zero experience and got some touch to military in soviet era. We made it much easier to promote to officers. There some requirements like: is in an officer position and successfully perform tasks for 3 (or less - I don’t remember) months, have a higher education (very common in our country), not have penalties and possibly a few more and sergeant (or even soldier) can be quickly promoted to junior lieutenant. But it is just formal requirements. Main requirement is to be motivated and effective so your command will want to promote you. And this junior lieutenants are wide spread not only on "field" position like platoon, company commanders but can be found on high level of command (I personally know such junior lieutenant on captains and mayors positions effectively and selflessly performing tasks in newly formed brigades. If we are speaking about squads it is really fast to de facto change of squad leaders to decent ones. I know a lot of old soviet-made sergeants serving on simple soldiers’ roles and some of them even being happy about that.
Yes, this approach significantly changes the army, I served in a unit composed of 99% of the mobilized and high ranks who came to us "for inspection" were sometimes simply shocked that the unit resembled a partisan detachment, but we effectively carried out the tasks assigned, given the limited resources and firepower of the enemy. There were some scandals, but that's another story.
And yes, an important point. The fact that this is not publicized in the media does not mean that commanders are not responsible for failures. I personally know several colonels and lieutenant colonels who were quickly removed from their posts and investigated for serious mistakes.
Thx Dont!
Good to hear your description then.... sigh... what I've got to hear from veterans of the 66th Rifle Battalion and then the 118th Mech Brigade, the last few days... sigh... that was a 'far cry' from your experiences.
Guess, things are getting better with the time, too.
Probably because of their construction: the majority of railway bridges have that metal skeleton construction. Even guided weapons tend to fly 'through' them.
That said, two days ago the PSU did strike and knock out the Chongar Railway Bridge. This was made easier by the fact that this has a solid concrete core.
Also, to truly restrict/disrupt road movement, you must hit a true "choke point" like a bridge, to restrict movement. There is good reason not to hit rail bridges (other than one like Kerch): you can restrict rail movement hitting it almost anywhere (especially say, one junction/yard back) and, they are hard to repair if you anticipate needing them in the near future. Whenever employing obstacles (or dropping a bridge), people often make the mistake of only thinking of doing so to restrict/stop/shape the other guys movement... if one plans on ever counterattacking, one must also consider how said obstacles will restrict THEIR OWN movement in the future. At this point in the war, in most cases, it makes zero sense for the Ukrainians to drop rail bridges unless they are 100+ km in the rear.
Well, the things look right now, the ZSU decided it does not need them and all three were 'dropped', the last few days.
Thanks for the honest reporting Tom, as usual. I guess we have this instinctive bias to presume expert authority from the older and more experienced, and military performance being incredibly complex and multi-factored to be measured, it's just easier and quicker to default to unscientific, hardwired, and evolutionary biases.
Today one would expect that, with the rise of big data, UA leadership would be quicker to identify the most talented officers and put them in charge, but the most likely is that inner group politics and corporatism is still the most determinant factor.
It also seems that the more we learn about the Southern offensive, the more it feels that the higher quality of Western equipment was assumed to outweigh the lack of experience of the new units, but giving them the hardest task at hand eventually has exposed this strategy, experienced combat-proven units always tend to perform better with worse equipment. I agree with what you say about old habits being hard to unlearn in the context of officers, and for that same reason I would understand why the new equipment was given to new units, but then tasking them with breaking the hardest section of the front was probably not the best idea, at least in the short term.
An off-topic question, are you able to confirm that night combat operations is still not playing a notable role in this war (beyond SOF)? Despite the Western equipment provided with NVDs, we hear nothing about night ops, so either ZSU is still not trained in them, don't have enough capabilities, or they consider they don't have an edge over VSRF, or the minefields and the slow attrition nature of the current front make it useless?
I hardly believe that the Ukranians are able to document all their efforts and actions so they can use it as "big data"... but I do hope that competent officers/officials are able to scout the talent that will occur in situations like this war... and are able/allowed to exploit these talents.
Such a great explanation Tom, thank you! Ukrainian command problems remind me a bit of the travails of the British 8th Army in North Africa before they stopped fighting only as individual brigades. They also had to learn the hard way, but not without sacking of the officers involved, including at the top theater command.
In ZSU's case, unfortunately, on top of that it seems a number of formations would first need to learn to fight at least as brigades. If you look at all the successful battalion-level actions from ZSU in this war, there should be a number of majors and lieutenant-colonels that could successfully make the jump to brigade level command. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case already, but the expansion of ZSU was just too big to advance only good and competent cadres, or you anyway end up with crap lower level officers under them.
Which also begs the question of the way those oversized ZSU brigades are set up. Aren't they just too big and unwieldy to command in the attack if the full brigade is deployed on an axis? Or is a brigade actually deployed at any time like that at all? Someone who's successfully commanding those 5-6-7 maneuver battalions shouldn't have too much problems jumping to a division-level command. Yet, GenStab aren't forming divisions and probably have some good reason for that.
Could it be a part of the problem is filling staff positions? Who knows if current brigade staffs in a lot of formations are even of sufficient size to run an oversized brigade, let alone a divison. ZSU obviously understands they need some operational level command, since they formed 9th and 10th Corps for this offensive in the South. But, could be that was a sort of shortcut to not needing enough staff officers for 4+ divisions, but only for 2 higher-level organizations.
All in all, it starts to look like they are at best only half way through the process of getting their formations and officers molded into a war-winning organization. Some excellent tactical officers, some great minds in GenStab, but missing some crucial links to finally start to end this war. Good thing the Russians seem to not have the ability to exploit this on the operational level, with the way VSRF degenerated during the war.
But it's a terrible tragedy they'll still be standing in too much occupied Ukrainian land and the war will continue for far too long. I agree, if NATO could help in any way with this then it's probably with training officers, especially for staff work.
It was a great video, thanks! Regarding MPRI I wonder if some sort of institutional knowledge was kept in HV after all those years regarding the experience with MPRI. What worked, what didn't, on what to concentrate for best and quickest results. Especially since they had similar dynamic to ZSU with the ex-JNA and new guys in the same force at the same time. If some knowledge about that was saved then it could probably help if similar training programs are to be implemented for Ukraine.
Still, probably shouldn't expect miracles either way. If I remember correctily MPRI training certainly helped, and they implemented some common sense stuff, but for example HV NCO Academy still trained people on the old doctrine. And only after the war did HV decide to have one brigade with NATO style NCO corps before it was widely implemented.
"the flag of the 25th Mech" - Airborne :)
25th is Airborne, 25th is Airborne, 25th is Airborne (training myself for the future.... ;-) )
Was Russian muting/hacking communications involved in the Southern operational failure?
There was no failure. Operation was successful but with high (unnecessary) loses. And Tom didn’t mention any RU input into those loses.
There is a report that the Russians found a way to suppress Starlink https://dron.media/rossiiskiie-voiennyie-nauchilis-ghlushit-starlink-aerorazviedchik/
Late on this thread, but yesterday I came across this quote from Kyiv Independent on the situation in Kreminna:
"Vasyl, a 29-year-old infantryman from Lviv, said it's extremely difficult because Russia often jams the radio connecting the front-line positions to the headquarters during assault operations.
Even if the Russians don't completely shut off the radio network, missing a few words of the command can be detrimental, he said.
"Some information comes in, some doesn't come at all. Every word from the radio is important information," Vasyl said.
If a "don't go" reads as a "go", you have real problems.
There are news that the Russians are laying wires between the Russian territory and the front line. Maybe it's time for the Ukrainian army to think of the old communication methods.
One of my older brothers served in the 8th Air Force in WWII as the navigator of a B-17, at the ripe old age of 20. He was a second lieutenant. His pilot, age 25, held the rank of captain. The youngest colonel in the USAAF was 23. Of course, those aren't typical ages in peacetime...
Thanks Tom once again an excellent article, I liked the good news and of course there was some bad lets hope the UAF can work it out, your points about officer training abilities are spot on from my perspective. I see this in the US Army during my time in Vietnam the officer corp was not good at that time early 60's
Thank you, Tom.
I Haven't written comments in a while.
You write everything correctly, but there are a few additions:
New units and formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine chronically suffer from personnel shortages due to:
1.1 "Old brigades" transferring ineffective commanders and sergeants to newly formed brigades. They send good officers under no circumstances, even with the request taking 4-5 months if officer transfer is considered daily.
1.2 Mobilized soldiers, sergeants, and officers strive to be transferred to "experienced units" rather than newly formed ones (just returned from the Chernihiv region due to this issue).
Proper functioning of combat units requires equipment (communication, optics, drones, vehicles, medical supplies, etc.), and the new military units struggle to acquire/receive them from volunteers or as war trophies.
Many newly formed brigades lack well-coordinated drone teams.
If you analyze the reasons for the Russian Federation's advance near Kupiansk, one of the reasons is the rotation of old units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine into new ones. I don't think it's a secret anymore.
We read your posts, thank you for advocating for ammunition supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine; it's crucial
Thanks Tom. A splash of cold water, but a truthful splash. It also seems the Russians aren't fools either.
At this rate, it may well turn into a battle of materiel. Whether Europe and the US are willing to support that is a real question. Sadly, I suspect whatever we do, the Ukrainians will keep fighting.
As the Israelis used to say: "no alternative."