Also has resemblances to strategies used to elect supposedly “left of centre” people with specific hot-button issues about how awful the others are. Approach is basically to reduce people’s confidence that they can change anything and sow discord among those who want to try.
Key difference between the fascist regimes and others is that the fascists back it up with open violence against anybody not convinced whereas others try harder to convince people, which includes making life more tolerable than it is under fascists.
That’s why it’s necessary to unite to militarily smash fascists whatever one thinks of the various different but somewhat similar careerists of democratic politics.
The trenches aren’t cleared and this is a dangerous thing to do without infantry.
Combined arms is the only way to go.
But we are being provided a view from a drone.
That strikes me as a “combined arms” operation that would have a better appreciation of whether or not infantry support is needed for that particular trench than the tank operators alone would have.
Add 4 Bradley’s to that footage, each with 8 troops.
The tank and Bradleys advance towards the trench, laying down suppressing fire while moving. They stop 100m out and release the infantry, all while laying down heavy fire.
The infantry circle around from the side and call the suppressing fire to shift as they clear each trench. The infantry are reasonably safe because the four chainguns are keeping the enemy’s heads down. The infantry can call in targets as they move forward, the tank can throw some high explosive shells at anything ugly.
Once the trenches are clear, the tank and Bradleys push up to the infantry and defend the position just taken.
Doing it without the volume of eyeballs means the tank is at very high risk of getting hit from the side, even with the drone.
True enough, though both Ukraine and Russia emerged from the totally corrupt USSR collapse with basically the same corrupt nomenklatura seizure of nominally state assets to form a class of oligarchs initially (and still) more compatible with Western forms of capitalist ownership than the silovaki (security or “force”) sections of the nomenklatura.
But the transition from corrupt oligarchic rule is not led by EU. There is an ongoing deep democratic revolution in Ukraine. The initial trigger for “Euro Maidan” was the pro-Russian oligarch leader’s attempt to attack Ukraine economically to Russia instead of the EU. But it went on to defeat the pro-EU oligarchs too.
Certainly the EU and NATO support is critical for defeating the fascist invasion. EU regulations against corruption are helpful, but Ukrainian democratic revolution is what is leading the social change from just another post-Soviet mess to something modern.
What I described above can be done with soviet BMPs, maybe not as well. But that dynamic requires significant training to do well. Stop the suppressing fire too early and the enemy pops out and hits you. Stop it too late and you hit your own infantry.
Sometimes they are even using tanks for indirect fire artillery when that’s what happens to be available.
More often tanks are unavailable and infantry without adequate armour is having to fight.
Ukraine is sustaining a lot more casualties than they would be if they had all the equipment they need.
But they have an enemy that is neither trained nor motivated, so sometimes a tactic that looks too risky may not be - it depends on local information that twitter commentaries just don’t have.
Ukraine’s overall orientation seems to me to be to avoid “heroic offensives” and preserve forces while wearing down the enemy.
I would not be competent to judge the tactics of a tank attack even if fully informed. But there are a lot of enemy trenches in Ukraine and they do not have a great supply of tanks. So I would not assume that the tank operators are making an obvious mistake without knowing what information they have, including from the drone about the actual situation.
I hesitate to proclaim anything as “the only way” as this seems to have been successful.
No, a drone in the vicinity does not make it combined. There’s no evidence of arty support (HE, smoke), infantry, etc.) infantry is 90% always needed, specially in brush, forests, and build up areas - the only time it may not have been 100% necessary, was in the example posted about the Iraq war - but they still needed infantry to look at the positions as the tanks moved forwards.
However, when you lack something or $hit is hitting the fan, often the best thing to employ is ‘speed and violence’
Article of 21 September on the site of the Centre for European Policy Studies puts forward estimates of Russian military strength and sources/conscription methods.
We’ve seen a huge number of Russian tanks do similar things and get destroyed because of it. We judge the Russians harshly when they make these mistakes, only fair to hold Ukraine to the same standards.
Just because you got away with something dumb doesn’t make it not dumb.
My understanding is that infantry is needed to screen tanks because they keep enemy infantry away from getting close enough to the tanks to use RPGs etc.
Suppressing fire would be used if they were getting too close.
There is no suppressing fire and nobody keeping enemy infantry from getting too close.
But I still don’t see how the tank operator would not be better aware of the relative risks and rewards with ALL the drone footage available of the situation in and near that trench, than twitter observers looking at just the more “interesting” bit showing the tank attacking the trench.
What term should I use instead of “combined arms” to describe a situation wherever a separate Drone Force is providing forward observer support to
armour
infantry
artillery
Would it become “combined arms” if at least two of those 3 are actually engaged.
Or is is still “combined arms” when, as a result of the combination with that Drone Force, an engagement that would normally require at least two of the ground forces can be carried out using only one of them?
Would it count as “Combined Arms” if the Drone Force was actually engaged by artillery adjustment or laser designation or direct air to ground attack instead of simply as forward observers?
Would it help if in this role they were called “airborne infantry screen”?
Not a good result for Ukr on the House floor in the US today I imagine, the concessions than McCarthy needed to get the speaker role will probably heavily limit spending
