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Quick Explainer: Why Ukraine can Punch Through a Defense Line, but Russia Couldn't [1]
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Date: 2023-06-14
There were unconfirmed Russian reports of more probing attacks north of Tokmak and also north of Polohy/south of Hulyaipole, but there’s no comparison. The biggest clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces are occurring south of Velyka Novosilka.
My map remains unchanged in this region in the past 24 hours. There are unconfirmed reports that Novomaiorsk is in Ukrainian hands (far east of the map) as well as Rivnopil (which is partially covered by the name Makarivka), but I haven’t seen enough to make any changes to my map.
The big news in this area was that a major Russian counterattack on Makarivka failed. To make matters worse for the Russians, they appear to have lost five Msta-S self-propelled artillery to counter-battery fire from HIMARS geolocated to the south of this position.
x Russia lost 5 Msta-S all in basically the same farm field.
47.66349, 36.94737
47.66219, 36.94366
47.66105, 36.93501
47.64909, 36.94339
47.64911, 36.94264 pic.twitter.com/fW0v0nlNea — Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) June 14, 2023
Developed in the 1980s, 2S19 Msta-S is a 152mm self-propelled howitzer that is a mainstay of Russian artillery firepower. A battery of six Msta-S howitzers typically was attached to a Russian battalion pre-war, or about 800-1000 soldiers at full strength. You could say losing five is like losing artillery fire support for a thousand soldiers worth of Russian troops (Russian battalions also had other rocket artillery batteries for fire support so that’s slightly misleading).
Regarding the ambiguity regarding “who controls Rivnopil,” I’ve seen some suggestions on Twitter that Rivnopil is so tiny that it “doesn’t matter” but I strongly disagree with this stance. Rivnopil is, indeed, a very small village with a reported population of around 500 in 2015. It’s almost certainly less today, sitting near the front lines of the Russo-Ukrainian War since around March 2022.
But it sits at a tactically significant position. Let us take a closer look at the Russian left flank.
This is very zoomed in, so to orient yourself vis-à-vis the map above, Makarivka is the blue-boxed city above the red line of Russian resistance to the top right of the map. Staromaiorske and Urozhaine (unmarked) are right below it.
Rivnopil is towards the top of the map in the center. I added the smaller side roads that don’t show up at this level of zoom for google maps.
There hasn’t been much information on where the main line of Russian resistance is right now to the Russian left, and a lot of ambiguity surrounds the status of Rivnopil. There are rumors that Russia withdrew, but no strong confirming information.
This area is very flat farmland and Ukraine seems to have little trouble traversing areas without roads. Russian forces being driven back from the area around Rivnopil or Pryyutne may open a route for Ukrainian forces to flank Russian positions around Staromaiorske from the west.
Capturing Pryyutne is important as well because Ukraine can push south along that road to flank Staromlynivka.
In the medium term, Ukraine’s first major operational goal is likely to be the capture of Staromlynivka, only 10km or so behind the current line of Russian resistance.
You can see from Brady Africk’s fortification map that the main Russian defense line in this area lies south of Staromlynivka, and securing the city will give Ukraine control of the only highway leading south for miles.
All of which is to say, all of this matters right now. The tiny village of Rivnopil protects the Russian left flank of its main line of resistance. Pryyutne blocks Ukraine’s thrust to encircle Staromlynivka.
The significance of these locations isn’t the tiny villages of themselves, but their tactical importance in Russia’s ability to field a coherent defense.
The million-dollar question (or perhaps I should call it a multi-billion-dollar question) is what happens once Ukraine reaches the Russian main defense line in this sector.
I’ve pointed out several times that the defenses in this area are dramatically less formidable than the multilayered defenses north of Tokmak.
If this is Ukraine’s main thrust and it chooses to advance and punch through Russia’s defense line right here, we’ll likely see some rotation of brigades before the main assault. For example, the 3rd Tank Brigade that’s reportedly in reserve will likely move forwards to replace one of the three light infantry Marine and Jaeger brigades that are better suited for fighting in open terrain.
By the time they concentrate to strike the defense line, we might see the 25th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades (Challenger 2 tanks, Stryker and Marder IFVs), 1st Tank Brigade (Leopard 2s), or the yet-to-be-identified Swedish trained brigade with CR90 IFVs and Stridsvagn 122 Tanks (essentially Leopard 2A5s).
These heavy armored brigades, where the infantry ride into battle on armored infantry fighting vehicles with rapidly firing autocannons, are better suited for breaching a heavily fortified line than a light infantry brigade, where infantry move around on armored personnel carriers but fight predominantly on foot.
It’s likely that if Ukraine wants to breach the Russian defense line, Ukraine will concentrate 3-4 brigades into an armored fist, to punch through the Russian defense line at multiple spots. Each armored brigade has 200-250 armored vehicles, so you would be focusing over 600 armored vehicles into a fairly tight area.
The challenge in this circumstance will be an issue I explored in greater depth in a past article: force density.
In short, I discussed how firepower has increased dramatically since around 1900, and the battlefield of today is far more dangerous than during WW2 or Vietnam. Fast-firing IFV autocannons, guided artillery munitions and missiles, ATGMs (antitank guided missiles), and advanced digital targeting makes high concentrations of military assets far more vulnerable.
This problem is particularly acute for dismounted infantry.
In 1945, you could send a wave of a hundred infantry charging across a field, and some of them were bound to reach the other side. Today, there is considerably less certainty.
x M30A1 GMLRS missiles delivered by HIMARS together with its 182 000 tungsten balls.
The tungsten balls pierce every type of armor.
Russian troops are obliterated every time there is a Ukrainian HIMARS strike.
pic.twitter.com/bj4uNcb51I — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 20, 2022
The concept of “force density” holds that there is a maximum number of infantrymen that can effectively participate in an attack for a given area. The maximum force density goes down, that is fewer infantrymen can participate effectively, the greater the firepower.
Exceed that maximum, and more troops will be killed by every shell, every missile. Your logistical burden will be greater, but the benefits of that additional soldier will be negligible. Your costs go up, your benefits don’t change.
This helps to explain why Russia’s mobilizations have failed to produce much by way of offensive results. Since Russia can only squeeze so many infantrymen into an assault, simply having more of them gives them the ability to repeat assaults, but not to make a more powerful one.
So a question that people may have is, why doesn’t this apply to Ukraine?
The answer is—it does, to Ukrainian dismounted infantry. No less than Russia, Ukraine cannot simply amass more dismounted infantry into a given area to achieve more powerful force concentration.
This is why Ukraine’s light infantry brigades will likely trade places with the heavy armored brigades for an assault on Russian fortification lines.
A dismounted infantryman can be killed from long distances with any number of weapons. They are vulnerable to shrapnel from artillery, which can strike broad areas, making clumped groups of infantry highly vulnerable.
If infantry are advancing in armored infantry fighting vehicles, the types of weapons that can do them harm go down dramatically. This allows a high concentration of mounted infantry to move together far more safely, allowing them to be delivered to a safe position at or within the enemy fortification line to begin the assault. The infantry fighting vehicles themselves provide supporting firepower from their rapidly firing autocannons.
This isn’t to say that dismounted infantry is worthless. Infantry Fighting Vehicles are large and obvious. They can be taken out with antitank weapons and enemy tanks. Dismounted infantry can approach an enemy target more covertly, moving from cover to cover, especially in darkness.
But in the ability to concentrate a high degree of combat power into a tight space, such as when you need to punch through a fortified enemy line of defense, heavy armored brigades are what you need to address the issue of force density.
Units can use the sheer speed of mechanization to rapidly assemble and concentrate for the fight, push through the enemy line of defense, then rapidly disperse on the other side.
Armor protects the unit, mobility reduces the amount of time the enemy can go to “work” on the vulnerable concentration.
Russians can try to hit the concentration with artillery, but Ukraine can counter with artillery radar (that spots where artillery rounds are being shot) and HIMARS (that hits the enemy battery from beyond their combat range).
The Russians can try to counter with fixed-wing air power, but Ukraine’s SAM (surface-to-air missile) batteries can restrict their effectiveness. Russians less frequently try to bomb Ukrainian positions using conventional bombs that require the Russian planes to fly right up to the front lines, making them very vulnerable. Instead, the Russian Air Force relies more on glide bombs.
Russian glide bombs, similar in concept to the US-manufactured JDAM, are bombs with attached winglets and GPS guidance that allows a fighter bomber to release the munition around 30km away from the target, then turn around. The bomb isn’t a rocket—it doesn’t have propulsion—but the momentum and altitude of the bomb on release carry it to its target.
Russian glide bombs have presented a grave threat to Ukrainian forward fixed positions (like trenches or supply bases), as well as to any artillery or SAM units that fail to adhere to principles of “shoot and scoot,” that is to shoot and reposition frequently.
But they are very limited in their ability to strike any moving target.
Glide bombs are pre-sighted. The target GPS coordinates are programmed on the ground, and there’s no ability to change the target once the fighter bomber is in the air.
Russian fighter bombers lack targeting pods like the American Sniper ATP, a digital camera that identifies targets and friendlies on the ground. Thus, flying at Mach or near-Mach speeds, Russian pilots cannot identify their own targets, dropping munitions on pre-set coordinates rather than those identified live.
Russian glide bombs have limited accuracy, making them well suited to hit large fixed targets, but of limited effectiveness at hitting something as small as a tank.
I emphasize this is NOT to say that Russian air power is irrelevant or impotent. As a primarily GPS coordinate guided weapon, HIMARS is also not particularly well suited to hit moving targets at long distances. It is a matter of a square peg/round hole.
So how is Russia causing so much difficulty to Ukraine in the attacks north of Tokmak?
Three weapons appear to be causing the bulk of the damage: mines, artillery, and helicopters.
Densely laid minefields require Ukraine to bunch into tight slow-moving columns, and can themselves cause numerous Ukrainian losses.
Pre-sighted artillery batteries (that is, artillery that beforehand fired and identified the angle of fire necessary to hit certain spots) can lay down devastating barrages on Ukrainian columns.
Lastly, Russia is making use of extremely low-altitude flying attack helicopters to hit high-leverage targets, namely Ukrainian engineering vehicles.
The attack helicopters are very vulnerable to Ukrainian SAM batteries, but Ukraine is loathed to risk its highly valuable anti-air assets too close to the front lest they get hit by Russian artillery. By skimming the ground at treetop or lower levels, Russian helicopters can approach targets undetected by radar, launch a rocket or missile attack at a slow-moving column in a minefield, and retreat.
You can see a Ukrainian helicopter making use of such a tactic in this video here.
x Ukrainian helicopter flying very low over a highway near the frontlines in order to avoid Russian radar systems.
These pilots have nerves of steel. pic.twitter.com/z2kBKGo9Tc — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 22, 2022
The helicopters often choose to fly over roads or highways, because they don’t need to worry about hitting a random tall tree.
When Ukraine is ready to make its massed assault, it may need to accept losses of anti-air assets and position some Buk missile batteries right near the front lines.
The Buk SAM system would be particularly well suited for this role for a few reasons. First, the Buk system is Ukraine’s most numerous system, owning around 72 launchers as of Feb. 2023 according to the Pentagon leak.
Ukraine ran out of Buk Soviet-era anti-air missiles earlier this year, but very fortunately, Polish defense firm Wojskowe Zakłady Uzbrojenia (WZU) worked out modification to the Buk family of missile systems that allow them to fire US-made Sea Sparrow anti-air missiles in 2008.
Ukraine began receiving Sea Sparrow missiles in January 2023.
The Sea Sparrow will be perfectly suited to intercept low-flying Russian attack helicopters, provided the Buk launcher is close enough to detect it. The Sea Sparrow is used by the U.S. as predominantly a short-range navally fired missile. Its primary role is to defend U.S. ships against missile attacks, particularly the ability to hit “sea-skimming” extreme low-altitude missiles.
The Sea Sparrow is virtually designed to hit low-altitude targets like a ground-skimming Mi-28 Havoc Attack Helicopter.
Likely, Ukraine has not taken this step, because the main assault has not started. With Ukraine hurting for anti-air assets, it likely cannot put them at risk except in the most high-leverage situations where the risk is worth it.
That moment will probably be when Ukraine begins its main assault.
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