"Ukraine 2014: Type of Actions?" Topic

Was curious if someone with more knowledge than I could characterize the type of military actions being seen so far?

Are these full-on combats, or something less?

Small to medium task force type actions. Don't envision huge formations of armored vehicles moving across the countryside. Very much MOUT.

That last Russian incursion had at least a tank battalion in support. So low skirmishing up to brigade actions.

Ukraine has been claiming a Russian tank division has been involved in the fighting. No idea if that's correct. However, something has tilted the playing field recently.

The Russians no longer field many divisions. I think there's only 1 in Siberia and that's an artillery division. There are also no corps.

Just like in the Western the basic combined arms maneouvre unit is the brigade.

The brigades report directly to a numbered army. Most brigades are motorised ones. These still have a combination of armour, infantry, artillery etc.

Here's a relatively recent Orbat for a Russian brigade:

russiandefpolicy.wordpress.com/tag/brigades

from that article:

n terms of equipment, battalions remain battalions — 40 tanks or armored vehicles per. The SP howitzers are 152mm 2S19 Msta-S or 2S3M Akatsiya and/or 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika. MRLs are the venerable BM-21 Grad, in a battalion of three batteries with six launchers per. Antitank artillery is towed and ATGMs are Konkurs (AT-5 / Spandrel) and Shturm-S (AT-6A / Spiral). Air defense isn't particularly modern consisting of batteries of 2S6 Tunguska (SA-19 / Grison), Strela-10 (SA-13 / Gopher), and Osa (SA-8B / Gecko).

With regards to comment regarding air defence, it should be noted the situation isn't that great in most NATO/Western militaries either. In many instances brigade air defence is limited to MANPADS. E.g. Australia has a total of 36 RBS70 SHORAD/MANPADS for the entire Army (3 brigades strong) and these are assigned to an independent unit and doled out as needed. Canada retired it's ADATS without replacement in 2012 so no real air defence either.

The assumption is Western military has air superiority. That's not necessarily the case in a major war.

However, something has tilted the playing field recently.

Well, there was a mysterious 200 strong aid convoy that went in (and came out) practically unexpected. We are mysteriously missing seeing the 2000 tons of aid, but we do suddenly have a significant counter attack.

Given the border is porous you don't need to disguise movement as aid and judging by the footage, the Russians haven't exactly been masking their movements.

Depends what it was you were moving, and where to/from. Lughansk had a factory that made parts for MRLs…

Sorry, I should add that although the border around Izvaryne may be pretty porous, the convoy was (allegedly) headed to Lughansk. At that time it would have cross an area under Government control before entering into Lughansk.

There is no sign of the aid, no reports of it actually arriving in Lughansk or crossing any government checkpoints. The IRC (present near Lughansk and who have received, checked and distributed a similar convoy sent from within Ukraine) have not reported receiving or distributing it, as far as I can see.

Yes, BN TF and/or Bde Battle Grp ops, in mixed terrain with urban, wooded, crops/fields, roads, trails and frequent streams and rivers with occasional bridges. Much like you'd see in Germany … I'd think …

An interesting but brief article here:
link
And the realities of the Ukrainian army's difficulties:
link
Rod Robertson

Before each game, roll 1D6:

1: Vehicles broken down. Proceed on foot
2: Remove 1D4 men from each squad due to disease
3: Out of ammo. Each squad loses its anti tank weapons on a roll of 5+
4: Rain and no shelter. Due to weariness from spending days in terrible conditions, downgrade all units morale by one step.
5: Need boots. Reduce movement rate of a random unit by 20%
6: Separatists get 2D6 extra men who say they took the wrong left turn back in Siberia.

Is that so?

Is which so?

Weasel, not sure about disease (would probably just go for 'demoralised and snuck off') but I quite like that. Would make an interesting random factor to the start of each game/game day to have to check each unit (on both sides) by that sort of table

Yeah, desertion might be a better fit.

My upcoming Moderns rules will have a :blunders: table though it's a bit longer than this one.

I always figured WW2 games could use one too.

Yea, perhaps a mutiny since the daily vodka rations have run out……

From a wargaming perspective, I would think a variant of Peter Pig's AK47 Republic would be ideal. The actions seem to be about the right sort of size, the variety and ad-hocness appropriate, and all sorts of fun could be had with the political flow charts.

Here's a primary source on the tactics used, by the commander of the LNR's Pritzak Brigade. The tactics they developed are similar to those of the Chechen wars:

"Even though we have grown in numbers, I refuse to send men into the open. We prefer to work in saboteur-reconnaissance groups ("SRG"): they went, they saw, they worked, and they returned. That's all. We work on their communications; we work on their distributions and their ammunition warehouses. If they don't have ammo, they don't have the ability to fire.

"Only yesterday I was informed about the destruction of a column of 10 Urals trucks that were delivering the missiles for the Grads, which were headed toward Donetsk. What can be more effective? Even if they have the launchers, without the shells those are simply piles of scrap metal, ballast. We hit them with RPGs and "Shmels" grenade launchers."

Full Article:
slavyangrad.org/2014/08/29/alexei-mozgovoi-freedom-and-conscience-this-will-be-novorossia