"Lessons from Ukraine’s Failed 2023 Counteroffensive" Topic

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RUSI has written a very good report about why the offensive failed. The RUSI report is written by British and Ukrainian personell.

Some keypoint was that the Ukrainian troops were not trained enough. Many had also trained on one type of (eg) tank but sent into action in a slightly different variant. For example trained in a German Leopard II tank but issued an Spanish Leopard II tank with slightly different controls and radio systems.

One main failure was that Russia knew exactly where the offensive was going to take place. Information had leaked from the US organizations to Russia intelligence units.

So Russias own information gathering combined with the information from USA made any chance of success nil.

The offensive was doomed from the beginning.Ukrainans attacked into a well planned and defended areas because Russia knew exactly where the attack would come.It never had a chance…

Interesting evaluation. I don't know if I would call the Ukrainian offensive a total failure. It did tie up and attrite Russian troops. And did take some Russian territory.

The same with the overall war at this point. Ukraine did stop Russia from overrunning and occupying their entire country. With the Russians having few gains with massive losses. Many more than the Russians …

These may be considered minor or tactical victories for Ukraine. The same could be said for the Russians. Which as we see appears to be a stalemate.

Yes, I think the failure is based on the stated objective, which was to cut off occupied Crimea from Russia proper.

I thought the interesting things were the takeaways for future warfare. For example, the idea that total defensive shield is needed from UAS and artillery attack in order to be able to amass troops for a push, and that in the future the first wave will need to be unmanned systems to breach WW1-level defenses and shield the main body.

"Companies and troops should lead with metal on metal—with ground unmanned ground systems including robotic breaching assets. These platforms will shape ground objectives through direct fire and will likely absorb enemy direct and indirect responses. Ground maneuver will then quickly aggregate to conduct breaching operations and ground seizure. Formations will continue to contribute to the brigade common operational picture and be prepared to respond to emergent conditions, conduct resupply, and consolidate."

Many, many lessons learned or confirmed by this very modern 21st century conventional war. The US became used to fight radicalized insurgents. Not so long ago the US started to train again for modern combined arms warfare. This conflict added a lot to that knowledge.