Military Update: Ukraine

I won’t attempt an actual Sitrep. However, for those following the progress of Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, you’ll be aware that the last few days have seen conflicting statements from Zelensky (“we need to negotiate—no, wait, we just need more heavy weapons, no, wait …!”) that suggest disarray at the top levels of government. There are also frequent reports of EU/NATO nations increasingly demanding a negotiated end—most notably from Germany and Italy. In addition, there are widespread reports of accelerating breakthroughs and advances by Russian forces and reports of increasing surrenders of Ukrainian troops—largely poorly trained, lightly armed, reservists rushed to the front lines as cannon fodder. Many of these unfortunates had been told they’d be in the third echelon, but instead were sent to the front lines and subjected to massive Russian bombardment.

Taken together, all of the current reporting strongly suggests that the handwriting is on the wall, and that both the Ukrainians and EU nations are well aware of it. Even the Zhou regime is starting to get wobbly.

Our first selection—and, of course, this was videoed under Russian supervision—simply tells the story of one group of Ukrainian troops. After suffering through massive bombardment, they were ordered to withdraw before the advancing Russian troops. Instead, they chose to stay in place and surrender. The point is that this simple story reflects more in depth reporting of the current situation for average Ukrainian troops, pushed to the front with minimal preparation to replace the heavily degraded front line forces (degraded with regard to personnel, equipment, and fortifications). This accounts for some of the Russian breakthroughs:

The Ukrainian soldier said that his group had made a decision in advance to surrender during the offensive of the Russian troops.

“People didn’t want to fight... we were sitting in the basement, there was heavy shelling... we made a decision for ourselves not to leave, but simply to surrender, because it’s very scary. When we arrived at the rear (Armed Forces of the Russian Federation), the guys immediately untied us, gave us water, gave us food, gave us hot buckwheat [kasha, porridge], this has not happened for a long time ... Good, cool guys.

“They have a good commander, you look at him and understand that if he said that everything will be fine, then everything will be fine.”

Victor, vicktop55The Ukrainian soldier said that his group had made a decision in advance to surrender during the offensive of the Russian troops “People didn’t want to fight... we were sitting in the basement, there…https://t.me/vicktop55/4151

The second, longer selection deals in some depth with the projected provision of heavy weapons to Ukraine by the US. It focuses on rocket artillery and debunks the idea that the Ukrainians will be receiving (theoretically) advanced Western weaponry that they will be able to quickly deploy. The actual fact is that Ukraine was well provided with relatively effective late Soviet era artillery, but that their capabilities were degraded over time by advanced Russia weapon systems and air superiority. I’ve removed some of the photos from the original to fit it in:

Alright team, news came out today that the US is looking at giving Ukraine MLRS systems. BrOSINT is of course saying this is a game-changer and will turn the tide of battle.

It's going to be a bust like every other "game changer" weapon thus far. Let's look at why.

First of all it's important to understand what the Ukrainians already have as far as artillery rocket systems. And they have quite a lot. They operate the full set of late-Soviet rocket systems - the BM-21 Grad, BM-27 Uragan, BM-30 Smerch, and SS-21 Scarab/Tochka.

The BM-21 "Grad" is a 122mm 40-tube rocket launcher, with a maximum range of 15-40 kilometers depending on ammunition type.

You notice that despite having relatively small rockets it fires an awful lot of them, and it has been used to great effect by both sides in this war.

The BM-27 "Uragan" is a 220mm 16-tube rocket launcher, with a maximum range of 35 kilometers - although I understand there are some developmental rounds in production that can push that out to 70.

The BM-30 "Smerch" is a 300mm 12-tube rocket launcher, which is approaching more of a multiple-launch tactical ballistic missile system. It has a maximum range of 70-90 kilometers depending on ammunition.

Ukraine has also apparently produced a domestic upgrade, the "Vilkha."

Finally, the SS-21 "Scarab"/"Tochka-U" is a tactical ballistic missile system, with a range up to 185 km for the most modern missiles - which dispense a large amount of antipersonnel submunitions immediately before impact. CEP is reportedly about 70m.

Granted, all of these systems have suffered heavy attrition thus far in the war - MLRS systems are the epitome of a high-priority target on the battlefield and the Russians have fired Iskander TBMs at individual launchers.

So how does the US M270 MLRS/M142 HIMARS system stack up against this pile of Soviet steel and communist rocket fuel?

Well, the M270 is a tracked, 12-tube 227mm rocket launcher. The M142 HIMARS is a wheeled version of the system with half the rocket capacity at 6 tubes.

This system also pulls double duty as a TBM launcher. MLRS rockets normally come in six-rocket pods, but you can also get a pod with one large MGM-140 ATACMS missile instead of the usual six rockets.

(I'm making this sound like it's something you can just get randomly lol)

As far as the rockets go, the basic unguided rockets are the M26, with a 32km range, and the M26A1 extended-range model with a range listed as "more than 45 kilometers." Both of these have cluster warheads.

M30 (cluster)/M31 (unitary) GPS-guided missiles can reach out to 70 k

Block I ATACMS missiles have a listed maximum range of 128km, and Block IA extended-range versions have a range of 165km with about a quarter (!) the submunition payload.

The newer MGM-168 missile (with a unitary 500lb warhead) has a 300km range.

Consulting Lockheed Martin's brochure, only the new M270A1 (and presumably the even-newer HIMARS) has GPS navigation and a fire control system that, "Processes large blocks of data from new precision munitions within tactical timelines."

web.archive.org/web/2015071922…

And the US doesn't have a lot of M270A1s or HIMARs launchers to send. According to Wiki most of the launchers in existence are base M270s dating from the Reagan era, and the upgraded stuff is all likely in active use with the US military.

The US Marines, in particular, are vastly expanding their rocket artillery fleet right now - and will presumably be sucking all the air out of the room for M142 HIMARS transfers to anyone for the foreseeable future because that's the only launcher they use.

Which means that, consistent with US aid thus far, Ukraine is likely to get stuff from the bottom of the stockpile - unupgraded M270 launchers and probably the oldest, rustiest M26 rockets we can drag out of the bunkers. These are sealed rounds and probably expired by now!

With this combination Ukraine will get a system which is optimisically on par with the BM-27 Uragan - a mid-tier weapon which has by no means tipped the military balance and which they operated in considerable numbers prewar.

As such this would really amount to only a partial reconstitution of the depleted Ukrainian MLRS force rather than some dramatic new capability.

Furthermore according to Wiki US ATACMS missile production apparently stopped (!) in 2007 - fifteen years ago! With that in mind there is little chance any of these missiles will be transferred to Ukraine, as we will not want to burn through our very finite war stock. /end

Addendum: You may have noticed by now there is a trend of Western artillery systems showing up in Ukraine as hyped-up game changers, turning out to be mediocre, and being forgotten for the next big thing.

Yeah there's a reason for that. The Soviets made some incredible systems.

Addendum 2: And I didn't even go into training time, MLRS systems aren't exactly "glass and steel" cannons an artillery crew can just fall in on with minimal transition training.