Oke, deze kreeg ik gisteren niet meer rond. Het is een tweespraak (voor zover dat via twitter kan) tussen Mick Ryan en Mark Hertling. Beide twitter threads zijn op 17 Augustus gepost. De thread van Mick is al gepost geweest in
Emryte in "Dagelijkse ontwikkelingen in de oorlog in Oekraïne 2022-M8".
Op 17 Augustus verkende Mick Ryan mooi een strategie voor Oekraïne in het zuiden. Nu heeft Mark Hertling op diezelfde dag gereageerd op de thread van Mick. Voor de samenhang herhaal ik hieronder de body tekst uit de tweets van Mick met daaronder de reactie van Mark. Al met al een lap tekst. Omwille van de compactheid zo min mogelijk plaatjes om het verband uit de tekst niet teveel te verliezen. Ook ben ik zo vrij geweest om de posts van Mick in een iets andere volgorde te plaatsen voor een beter loop van de tekst. De tekst van Mark is met hoofdstukken iets meer structuur gegeven.
Mick Ryan -17-08-2022
Personal
First, a little history. In 2002-3 I attended the @USMC School of Advanced Warfighting. Its focus was campaigning and campaign design. We used history to foster these skills, including designing a campaign to successfully invade Russia in 1812 with Napoleon! @MarineCorpsU
So campaign design is something that I really enjoy studying, and I have done a bit of it for real overseas as well. Why does this matter? Well, I use my experience, my schooling and my studies over two decades when I look at the Russian and Ukrainian campaigns in this war. It helps me get into the minds of campaign planners and commanders. I don’t pretend I can predict outcomes. So, let’s discuss the southern campaign by starting at the beginning – it is important context.
Southern campaign
Russia has made many errors in this war. It commenced with a bad strategy, underpinned by flawed assumptions. It nearly 6 months since the Russian invasion of #Ukraine began. Today, I explore Ukraine’s potential counteroffensive in the south, and the considerations for planning and conducting such a large-scale campaign. From this has flowed multiple military shortfalls. Russia’s poor tactics & logistics meant it wasted large amounts of manpower and weapons in unsuccessful advances on #Kyiv and #Kharkiv. This & its troubled reinforcement system has constrained its offensive capacity since. Therefore, to make some progress somewhere, the Russians had to concentrate a large proportion of their offensive capacity (not all their forces) in the east to meet Putin’s declared outcomes for the Donbas. This left the Russians vulnerable elsewhere.
Against the odds?
And since the start of the invasion, #Ukraine has played its inferior hand well. It is a country that is smaller in size, population, economy & military forces than Russia. As I have written previously, in this war Russia got the mass, but Ukraine got the brains and the heart.
While for a time the Ukrainians were drawn into an attritional fight in the Donbas, the introduction of #HIMARS allowed them to ‘break contact’ in some respects and return to targeting Russian operational vulnerabilities in the east and south.And while the Ukrainians still face a difficult defensive campaign in the east, they have been able to conduct operations to take back territory in the south, which is probably the most important and decisive theatre in the war.
The Sidney Morning Herald - Pockets of resistance: Why the southern Ukraine front matters
So, we are at a point where many are waiting on a large Ukrainian offensive in the south. Over the past two months, the Ukrainians have been shaping the environment for this, including deep strikes. What might be some of the important considerations in such an offensive?
Politics.
The Ukrainian government probably feels pressure to undertake an offensive before the northern winter to sustain western support. The Ukrainian President will be seeking a balance of reclaiming Ukrainian territory and retaining Western support.
This objective exists in tension with military capacity (this is normal in war). Remember, war is about achieving political objectives. And as @MassDara notes, Ukraine can’t afford static front lines to be normalised. Russian annexation is pending.
Foreign Affairs - Russia’s Repeat Failures - Moscow’s New Strategy in Ukraine Is Just as Bad as the Old One
Operational Design.
Operational design is an important component of military professionalism. Through good operational design, commanders and their staffs’ sequence and orchestrate tactical goals and actions to meet strategic and political objectives.
For Ukraine, their design will be to achieve an operational outcome in the south. It might an enemy-centric objective such as ‘destruction of all Russian forces west of the Dnipro’. Alternately it might be their isolation to force their withdrawal.
Or it could be a geographic objective, centred on ground re-captured or cities retaken. But either objective will also include the degradation of Russian morale. And it will aim to impact on the confidence of the Russians (and their people) to continue this war.
A vital aspect of a Ukrainian campaign design will be prioritization for allocation of forces, logistics, intelligence, transport, and inter-service collaboration. This demands a design that considers how many offensives at once, and how each advance is sequenced.
Timing.
In war, the clock is always ticking. The ability to exploit time is one of the most important considerations in the planning and execution of military campaigns. Colin Gray writes that “every military plan at every level of war is ruled by the clock.”
The Ukrainians will be wargaming the best time to conduct an offensive. This is a more significant activity than most appreciate. It will require excellent intelligence on Russian reserves, combat potential & logistics, particularly in light of recent Russian reinforcements.
There will be a political dimension to timing. Even if the military are not fully ready for an offensive (there could be multiple reasons for this), political imperatives might force the timing. Importantly, timing will be influenced by Ukrainian ability to concentrate & coord forces required for close combat, engineer support, artillery, air support, communications, logistics, psyops, EW, etc. This is really hard!
Strategic support
Finally, strategic support will also be necessary. Ukrainian industry, and western aid donors, will be required to provide weapons, ammunition, intelligence, and other support for an offensive. Offensive ops are enormously expensive in military material and munitions. Offensive operations are expensive in recon assets (to find, fix and kill the enemy), artillery, long range strike, armour and mobility support (engineers. Multitudes of each, combined in Brigades and Divisions, will be needed. It is all underpinned by training & rehearsals.
Mark Hertling response 17-08-2022
This 25 tweet 🧵by my Australian friend MG (ret) Mick Ryan @WarintheFuture is succinct, descriptive of campaign planning & operational art, and a phenomenal discussion of Ukraine's potential plans in the south.
Personal
Hope Mick doesn't mind, but I'll add a few additional comments. Like Mick, I also attended a campaign course, @us_sams. Affectionately called the "book a day club," as we were required to read (& apply) history, military art, doctrine, theory.
Best military course, ever....
In doing this thread, I came across this clip from early 2012, with me describing our new Campaign Plan for US Army, Europe...
Campaign planner considerations
MG Ryan describes what campaign planners consider.
- Political guidance & strategy
- Friendly & Enemy Capabilities
- Constraints & restraints
- Will
- Tactics & Operational Design (sequencing battles to achieve strategic endstates)
Modern Wat Institute - At west Point - Developing a Combatant Command Campaign Plan: Lessons Learned at US Central Command
Ability to adapt
Mick also perfectly describes how both sides must *adapt* - something critical to campaigns & fighting.
Russia- reducing operational goals, due to tactical defeats
- pulling back in some areas, reducing # of attack axes; attempting to regenerate their force, consolidate gains
At the same time, Ukraine also adapted- Coordinating w/ allies for support; generating more will in Ukraine.
- Changed tactics (active defense, hasty attacks, counter-fire ops, etc)
- Incorporated resistance, special ops, territorial forces; generating new forces
Culminating point
Believe it or not, an old dead theorist - Carl von Clausewitz - described all this in detail in "On War." In several places...especially in his chapter "The Culminating Point of Victory." Anyone reading this can predict what may happen after watching Ukraine and Russia over 6 months. Mick & I both have described "culmination."
On the offense, it's defined as "the time when the attacking force can no longer continue its advance, because of supply problems, the opposing force, competing missions, or the need for rest.
Institute for the Study of War - Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 28
We've all seen Russia’s "supply problems:" (
Washington Post - Why the Russian military is bogged down by logistics in Ukraine)
- dysfunctional logistics supply chains
- extended lines of supplies
- poor logistical leadership
- effects of sanctions
- poor regeneration of the force
We've seen the increasing capability of Ukraine's Army (the "opposing force" to the Russian attackers).
We've seen Russia repeated execute what they define as operational pauses (that's Clausewitz's "need for rest"). (
Behind Russia’s ‘pause’ are signs of a troubled effort to regroup.)
Competing mission
But what's this "competing mission" thing? As President Zelenskyy tasked his force to "shift to Kherson" (as he built the force to do it), it creates *competing missions* for both sides...but it places greater stress on Russia's forces than Ukraine's.
Why?
The Times - Ukraine has one million ready for fightback to recapture south
Russia poured dozens of Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG) into Donbas. After months, Russia gained very little ground in very tough fighting. At the same time, Russia attempted to "secure" cities in the south with a too-small force. Ukrainians resisted.
Those are competing missions.
When Ukraine "reinforced" Kherson - threatening Russia supply lines & forces in Crimea - Russia was placed on the defense in another mission they were not prepared to conduct. The "attacker" - Ukraine - now has the advantage of choosing where they want to attack & Russia must defend more places.
@WarintheFuture brilliantly describes the factors of politics, political objectives, military capacity, campaign objectives (the enemy force or geography), & especially timing (tempo is another key component of timing...a commander needs to know when to go fast or go slow). All of these factors - & more - are in the realm of the campaign planner. Mick gets everything right...
Timing again
I'll only disagree with one thing: I believe the southern campaign has already started. Ukrainians know it, and so do Russians. Specifically, Ukraines successful attacks on"tactical" targets (Saki,Maisk, Gvardeyskoe) in Crimea, as well as the repeated attacks against Russia command posts (like this morning in Melitopal) send a signal: "You (Russia) are not safe; we'll attack where we want."
CNN - Ukraine admits it was behind three explosions in Crimea. Here's what we know
Russia will find it difficult to hold (large) cities, establish governance with a population that is countering their actions, fight Ukraine territorials, defend their bases, resupply southern forces while keeping supply lines open.
How do I know this? Experience in an insurgency. Ukraine's army may appear to be moving slowly, but I'd suggest - even know - they are "preparing the battlefield." That sometimes takes a long time, and as Mick said, time is sometimes the most important factor.
Russia is trying to do a couple things to counter this, so we should be watching in these areas:
- Generation of alliance support (especially Belarus)
- Generation of great amount of combat aircraft to counter UA precision fires capabilities
- Generation of a naval force.
Ukraine must continue to:
- Target & strike tactical targets of opportunity affecting RU's ability to fight.
- Build (with allies help) combined arms maneuver units
- Continue special operations
- Advance war crime investigations
- Maintain focus on Ukraine's economy
Thanks to @WarintheFuture for inspiring me to take time to write this.
Thanks also to all the Ukrainian fighters who I met in my past life who continue to fight for their sovereignty. You are in my thoughts daily!
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Maar de expert die hierboven aangehaald zegt, is dat men WW2-strategieën gebruikt om de raketten uit de lucht te schieten, namelijk door de luchtafweer op een gezette tijd in de lucht te laten ontploffen. Dus het direct targetten van de raketten, dat lukt ze niet. Kortom, detecteren lukt wel, maar gericht afschieten, dat gaat dus niet lukken.
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