The end?

Vlad will launch the spring offensive first, make some ground quickly, overstretch supply lines and exhaust troops because they can’t rotate them. Then they’ll meet Mr Leopard and uncle Himars. Throw into the mix a few other shiny bits plus Patriot and rumoured F16 and it’s hammer time. Then Vlad will close the iron curtain behind him and tell tell his boss eyed populace they won huzzah!
 
Are you sitting comfortably?

"While we are waiting for the Ukrainian offensive that is currently in staging mode, I will bring out my inner nerd and discuss weapons systems.

Today the weapons we use is one of the five pillars in a Defence Force, let me go through the other first.
-First you have tactics and strategy. This must always be based on the following.
-Information, the more you know the better, and the less the enemy knows the better. What you know influences tactics and strategy, and the less the enemy knows the bigger risks you can take.
-Training, you train after your tactics, and your strategy is based on the level of training.
-Logistics, both your strategy and tactics must be based on the reality of your logistics capability over time.
-Weapons Systems, either your are forced to pick the tactics and strategy based on your weapons systems, or you can pick weapons according to your tactics and strategy. There is a huge difference between the two, at the extreme ends you have currently the US and Russia. US weapon systems are baught based on what they can do to expand the tactical and strategic scope.

One does not need to be a military genius to see how these 5 pillars have influenced the war as time progressed.
At the onset of war Ukraine was leading in Tactics/Strategy, Training & Information.
Russia was leading in Logistics and Weapon Systems.
Now, I would go so far as to say that Ukraine is leading in all of them.

Delivered Weapons Systems
Handheld relaible anti-tank weapons distributed at squad level made a huge impact early on in the war.
It partially negated Russias armour advantage and produced quite a few of the tank kills.
The effect was though a bit over-rated in media.
The tank-salami was killed more by artillery than NLAWS with friends.

Artillery, western provided 155mm artillery is the unsung hero of this war.
Even in the limited numbers delivered (About 500 barrels) as both pulled and self-propelled it made a giant arsed difference.
Each barreled had a longer reach, and a higher precission than the Russian artillery when using standard grenades.
And all of them being computerised made counter battery fire much easier for Ukraine.
Basically Ukraine all of a sudden had almost untouchable artillery that could only be hit with long range missiles and air force.
The God of War was from that moment on the Ukrainian side.
Why only 500 barrels? Well, if we had delivered more Ukraine would have bleed our stores dry by now...
The West has now learned an important lesson, we need much bigger stores of 155mm ammo.
At the beginning of the war we had about 15 million shells, but we have barrels enough to require 150 million shells in storage, and we need a standby production rate of 10 million per year or more.
Artillery is truly back with a Bang! (Pun intended)

Vehicles of all sorts, armoured, protected, trucks, you name it.
This influx gave the Ukrainians a mobility that rapidly became a world class thing.
Being able to rapidly move troops and supplies around and into battle is also an unsung hero.
Now Ukraine can use the same troops in rapid succession at many frontlines, limiting the need for a huge amount of other equipment.
And, it enables the Manouvre Warfare Tactics that Ukrainian Strategy relies so much on.

Medium range missile/artillery systems, especially the Himars, have made a huge impact and has pushed back the Russian logistics centers beyond the 80km line. Himars was also helped enormously by the long range artillery shells provided with a range of upwards of 50-60km.
If anything this is what is currently stopping Russians from large scale offensive operations, they now lack the ability to push large amounts of supplies to the frontline to support such an offensive.

Air Defence Systems have also made a huge difference.
Both as a protector of civilian lives, and as a denial of service for the Russian air force.
It is heralded as a huge benefit for the civilian population (it is), but it has been far less talked about in regards of frontline effects.
It forced Russia out of using the air force in ground attack roles early on, and now that Gerasimov is using combined arms tactics we see Russia suffering frankly appaling loss rates of planes and helicopters.

Pledged Systems
Obviously Ukraine will receive more of the same.
Of special importance here are the Archers and the SAMP/T & Patriot Air Defence Systems. These are very important since they can take out Ballistic missiles.
Arcerhs are a very important force multiplier, I will get back to this.

Tanks
People have an overrated opinion about tanks, some say they are obsolete, and some say they are the end all of everything in war.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. The role of the tank has shrunk over the last 80 years, with other vehicles taking over many of the classic roles of a tank.
This is an entire subject of its own, and I would be happy to write about it if anyone is interested.
Suffice to say that the remaining very important role is to punch through tank infested parts of a frontline and to create momentum in an offensive in contested space.
The fun part is that Ukraine used it first as a decider of battles, and not Russia.
Russia mainly used tanks in their old role as a massed weapon system to crush any opposition, problem was just that other weapon systems had evolved together with new tactics that limited the usefulness of tanks.
Ukraine uses them in a far more limited role as deciders of a battle.
Vuhledar was a picture perfect example.
Ukraine had hid a company of tanks behind a hill on an open field (talk about Russian intelligence blunder), as the Russians attacked Vuhledar Ukraine at a pivotal point released the tanks and they barged in and crushed the pinned down Russians, and then withdrew before Russian artillery had time to adapt. Brilliant tank tactics really.
What I am trying to say is that the importance of tanks have diminished, but deployed correctly they win battles.

The West has now pledged 300+ tanks for 2023, and that number will go up. For the spring offensive there will be between 50 and 100 new tanks, with about 100 arriving for each new offensive.
This does not sound like much, but getting a new brigade for each offensive, a brigade that each has a force multiplier factor of 5, is quite a maker of difference on the battle field.
I can see why everyone is feeling that the big clunkers are all important.

CVs
Bradleys and CV90s and others are the true game changers in regards of new offensive capabilities.
People look at them and think, "light useless tanks".
This is as far from the truth as can be, they are the multipurpose tool for modern offensive warfare.
So much so that they have taken over most of the classic tank roles.
They can take out tanks through TOW-missiles (and other varieties), fight infantry, take out armoured vehicles, suppress and break through defence lines, carry infantry units, act as air defence and artillery, the list just goes on and on.
True, in a direct tank on tank battle the tank would win almost all the time, but a CV that is hidden would take out the tank.
And in a direct punch through a contested space or front line, the tank is better.

The CVs was in yon olden days the support vehicle of a tank army, today it is totally and utterly reversed.
And Ukraine is getting insane amounts of them. In 2023 alone Ukraine will get 1000 of them, and there is nothing in the Russian arsenal that is even close to being equal, the BMPs are pure garbage compared to them.

GLSDBs
They will make a very big difference. They are cheaper than even the GMLRS, they are being produced in large numbers, and they reach out to 150km.
Yes, they are slightly easier to take out than a GMLRS, but with large numbers this matters less.
Russia famously has a problem sustaining logistics beyond 90km, and is already struggling with the 80km denial of service produced by the GMLRS missiles, 150km is therefore disastrous for them.
Russia will end up having to chose between high losses, or low logistics. Move the supply depots 150km behind their lines, or having them blown up all the time.
This is a real oucher, and will make "Borstjing" even more interesting to follow.

Upcoming weapons systems
What Ukraine needs are good Attack aircraft, fighter jets not as much.
Yes they need a bit of fighter capability, but being able to perform frontline ground attacks is more important.
This is why I am not that happy with the F-16 talk.
It has limited ground attack capability, but not as much as is needed.
FA-18s, A10s, and JAS-39s are far better options.
Or why not even dedicated bombers?
Anyway, regardless of what Ukraine receives, it will make for a big difference.
Even a fairly small amount would chase of Russia from Ukrainian air space.

Longer range missiles
ATACMs, Storm Shadows, Gungnirs, Tomahawks, Ukrainian Mystery Missiles...
Ukraine has received a very very limited amount of Storm Shadows and Gungnirs. We are talking about a couple of dozens of them. They are both cruise missiles, one is old and one is hell class.
The limited availability has hampered Ukraine a lot, but given a couple of very spectacular hits.
But, more is needed.
Just 100 of these systems would give Ukraine the ability to take out a lot of bases and infrastructure in Crimea, chiefly hitting the Kersh bridge again and this time keep on hitting it.
200 and they can hurt Russian bases inside Russia while crushing Crimea.
This will probably come in the 24th of February Ramstein meeting in Brussels, together with airplanes.
There is a reason Biden is going.

Deep future
If all of this is not enough, we are talking about boots on the ground.
Scholz of all people mispoke, perhaps on purpose.
He stated that both airplanes and German soldiers in Ukraine was absolute Red Lines for him.
Well, he has used exactly those words about Patriots and tanks...
And we know Germany is looking at what airplanes they can provide.

This leads me to the part of getting tired of the war.
Russia thinks that The West will grow tired and stop helping Ukraine over time.
Instead The West is far more likely to grow tired and deciding to end the war with any means needed.
I do know that the UK, Poland and Baltonordics (new word I think) are proponents of just having it over with through a hard attack. With the Netherlands, France, Czechs, Slovaks, and the US on the fenceline for now.
I suspect that they will move into our view in a not to distant future.
Obviously it would be a very limited police action inside Ukraine, and no big deal involving taking parts of Russia.
I am almost certain that this has been conveyed to Russia already that this will happen in the end.

The reason why it will happen is due to the increased attacks in The West.
There is still very little written about it, but we now see an increase in suspected attacks on both installations and people from Russian fringe movements. It is just a question of time before we strike back, hard.

70km Doctrine
Let me go back to the beginning.
In Sweden we have a tactical doctrine based on combat manouvre warfare.
All systems are procured to be able to do a common manouvre speed.
On the road this is 70km, and offroad 35km.
Everything we have must be able to perform manouvre offensives at these speeds and conditions.
Even the blooming ships can keep up.

There is even a minimum manouvre distance of 350km before refueling, and the refueling vehicles and ammo supply vehicles are also systems that can keep up with this.
This means that the minimum distance of offense is 350km in one go, but we train for 700km long offensives, Sweden is after all a very drawn out country with huge distances, same as Ukraine.

First comes a wave of information gathering technology, airplanes, drones, satellites, etcetera.
At the same time comes radar seeking missiles to take out air defence installations.
Air Force to keep air dominance and performing missile ground attacks.
Then comes the swarm of CV90s carrying infantry with tanks a few hundred meters behind.
And they in turn are followed by Archers able to perform fire missions as requested from the frontline and from intelligence.
Behind are lighter mop up units, and the logistics units.

Now, compare this tactical and strategic doctrine with the Russian tank salami...
Fun part is that it is based on Zhukovs plans for the battle of Khalkhin Gol.
A capability Russia has lost over the decades, and that we have gained.

This is why we are giving Ukraine CV90s, Archers and Leo 2SE tanks.
50CV90s, 12 tanks, 12 Archers per Mechanized Brigade, carrying infantry with them.
In total there will be 4 brigades. One roughly each 4-6 months.

Each of these brigades will be supported by an infantry Brigade that is mechanized, Air Defence units, logistics brigade...
Welcome to the Nordic Battle Group concept.
This is what we trained "our" Ukrainians in.
Now imagine what an extremely talented field commander like our favourite colonel can do on the Ukrainian steppe in either Zhaporizhzhia or Southern Kherson with a Nordic Battle Group?

Obviously we are far from the only western country that has come up with these monstrosities.
I just used ours as an example since it is the one I am familiar with.
Different countries have different speeds of manouvre, and different "flair" to them, but the general concept is the same.
This is why different gift packages will form different battle groups or armies.
They will not be combined, since they utilise different speeds and equipment.
This simplifies logistics, training and servicing for the Ukrainians, and negates the drawback of them getting a zoo of equipment.
Ukraine is about to have 4-6 different armies, using slightly different tactics and strategies.
For the Ukrainian high command it means that they will have an entire Smorgasbord of options to use if they master the differences.
And for Russia it means that they have a nightmare on their hands as they are swamped by rapidly moving battle groups utilizing different methodologies to galumph over them.

All of this is enabled by the Weapons Systems.

Caveat:
I cherry picked the systems so not to have to write a book, and I favoured systems I know and have worked with.
The idea here was more to use examples to convey concepts and ideas from the standpoint of the Weapons Systems deployed.
A kind of backdrop to what has happened, is happening, and will happen.
I wanted it to be a story of war told from the standpoint of the weapons themselves.
You be the judge about if I succeeded."

And shortly afterwards, there was this

"There is one thing that Military Planners do when they are in private and have a roll of toilet paper at hand.
And that is to dream very hot and spicy dreams of impervious air defence against missiles and planes.
This is not so strange, military in the West are there to protect their countries and civilians, and not to start wars or attack neighbours.
So, having wet fantasies about saving entire populations is rather wholesome as sexual fantasies go.

Sadly we have always realised that at best our politicians will give us a quarter of what is needed, and it will mainly be used to save the arses of said politicians.

As I looked at the daily news I saw that France and Italy have ordered 700 missiles for the SAMP/T Air Defence System to be sent to Ukraine at a value of 2 billion Euros.
This is a defence system against airplanes, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, it is pure Hell Class. Informally it is able to take out hypersonic missiles and longrange ballistic missiles.
700 missiles means 12 launchers, or 3 complete systems.

Now pair that with 6 Patriot Systems to be delivered, and 4 more IRIS/T systems (2 delivered).
That is a staggering 19 complete systems. Together with other mischelaneous systems that is enough to slam the door shut completely.
Within the next 6 months Ukraine will achieve the holy grail, an almost 100 percent effective air defence shield covering the entirety of the country.

How good are these systems?
Well, let us just say that nuking Ukraine is about to become a really hard thing to achieve.
In reality it would mean that Russia can only perform BMP-attacks with their nukes and still hope to affect anything.
War as we know it changed forever.

No toilet paper was harmed in writing this."
 
borolad259 said:
Are you sitting comfortably?

"While we are waiting for the Ukrainian offensive that is currently in staging mode, I will bring out my inner nerd and discuss weapons systems.

Today the weapons we use is one of the five pillars in a Defence Force, let me go through the other first.
-First you have tactics and strategy. This must always be based on the following.
-Information, the more you know the better, and the less the enemy knows the better. What you know influences tactics and strategy, and the less the enemy knows the bigger risks you can take.
-Training, you train after your tactics, and your strategy is based on the level of training.
-Logistics, both your strategy and tactics must be based on the reality of your logistics capability over time.
-Weapons Systems, either your are forced to pick the tactics and strategy based on your weapons systems, or you can pick weapons according to your tactics and strategy. There is a huge difference between the two, at the extreme ends you have currently the US and Russia. US weapon systems are baught based on what they can do to expand the tactical and strategic scope.

One does not need to be a military genius to see how these 5 pillars have influenced the war as time progressed.
At the onset of war Ukraine was leading in Tactics/Strategy, Training & Information.
Russia was leading in Logistics and Weapon Systems.
Now, I would go so far as to say that Ukraine is leading in all of them.

Delivered Weapons Systems
Handheld relaible anti-tank weapons distributed at squad level made a huge impact early on in the war.
It partially negated Russias armour advantage and produced quite a few of the tank kills.
The effect was though a bit over-rated in media.
The tank-salami was killed more by artillery than NLAWS with friends.

Artillery, western provided 155mm artillery is the unsung hero of this war.
Even in the limited numbers delivered (About 500 barrels) as both pulled and self-propelled it made a giant arsed difference.
Each barreled had a longer reach, and a higher precission than the Russian artillery when using standard grenades.
And all of them being computerised made counter battery fire much easier for Ukraine.
Basically Ukraine all of a sudden had almost untouchable artillery that could only be hit with long range missiles and air force.
The God of War was from that moment on the Ukrainian side.
Why only 500 barrels? Well, if we had delivered more Ukraine would have bleed our stores dry by now...
The West has now learned an important lesson, we need much bigger stores of 155mm ammo.
At the beginning of the war we had about 15 million shells, but we have barrels enough to require 150 million shells in storage, and we need a standby production rate of 10 million per year or more.
Artillery is truly back with a Bang! (Pun intended)

Vehicles of all sorts, armoured, protected, trucks, you name it.
This influx gave the Ukrainians a mobility that rapidly became a world class thing.
Being able to rapidly move troops and supplies around and into battle is also an unsung hero.
Now Ukraine can use the same troops in rapid succession at many frontlines, limiting the need for a huge amount of other equipment.
And, it enables the Manouvre Warfare Tactics that Ukrainian Strategy relies so much on.

Medium range missile/artillery systems, especially the Himars, have made a huge impact and has pushed back the Russian logistics centers beyond the 80km line. Himars was also helped enormously by the long range artillery shells provided with a range of upwards of 50-60km.
If anything this is what is currently stopping Russians from large scale offensive operations, they now lack the ability to push large amounts of supplies to the frontline to support such an offensive.

Air Defence Systems have also made a huge difference.
Both as a protector of civilian lives, and as a denial of service for the Russian air force.
It is heralded as a huge benefit for the civilian population (it is), but it has been far less talked about in regards of frontline effects.
It forced Russia out of using the air force in ground attack roles early on, and now that Gerasimov is using combined arms tactics we see Russia suffering frankly appaling loss rates of planes and helicopters.

Pledged Systems
Obviously Ukraine will receive more of the same.
Of special importance here are the Archers and the SAMP/T & Patriot Air Defence Systems. These are very important since they can take out Ballistic missiles.
Arcerhs are a very important force multiplier, I will get back to this.

Tanks
People have an overrated opinion about tanks, some say they are obsolete, and some say they are the end all of everything in war.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. The role of the tank has shrunk over the last 80 years, with other vehicles taking over many of the classic roles of a tank.
This is an entire subject of its own, and I would be happy to write about it if anyone is interested.
Suffice to say that the remaining very important role is to punch through tank infested parts of a frontline and to create momentum in an offensive in contested space.
The fun part is that Ukraine used it first as a decider of battles, and not Russia.
Russia mainly used tanks in their old role as a massed weapon system to crush any opposition, problem was just that other weapon systems had evolved together with new tactics that limited the usefulness of tanks.
Ukraine uses them in a far more limited role as deciders of a battle.
Vuhledar was a picture perfect example.
Ukraine had hid a company of tanks behind a hill on an open field (talk about Russian intelligence blunder), as the Russians attacked Vuhledar Ukraine at a pivotal point released the tanks and they barged in and crushed the pinned down Russians, and then withdrew before Russian artillery had time to adapt. Brilliant tank tactics really.
What I am trying to say is that the importance of tanks have diminished, but deployed correctly they win battles.

The West has now pledged 300+ tanks for 2023, and that number will go up. For the spring offensive there will be between 50 and 100 new tanks, with about 100 arriving for each new offensive.
This does not sound like much, but getting a new brigade for each offensive, a brigade that each has a force multiplier factor of 5, is quite a maker of difference on the battle field.
I can see why everyone is feeling that the big clunkers are all important.

CVs
Bradleys and CV90s and others are the true game changers in regards of new offensive capabilities.
People look at them and think, "light useless tanks".
This is as far from the truth as can be, they are the multipurpose tool for modern offensive warfare.
So much so that they have taken over most of the classic tank roles.
They can take out tanks through TOW-missiles (and other varieties), fight infantry, take out armoured vehicles, suppress and break through defence lines, carry infantry units, act as air defence and artillery, the list just goes on and on.
True, in a direct tank on tank battle the tank would win almost all the time, but a CV that is hidden would take out the tank.
And in a direct punch through a contested space or front line, the tank is better.

The CVs was in yon olden days the support vehicle of a tank army, today it is totally and utterly reversed.
And Ukraine is getting insane amounts of them. In 2023 alone Ukraine will get 1000 of them, and there is nothing in the Russian arsenal that is even close to being equal, the BMPs are pure garbage compared to them.

GLSDBs
They will make a very big difference. They are cheaper than even the GMLRS, they are being produced in large numbers, and they reach out to 150km.
Yes, they are slightly easier to take out than a GMLRS, but with large numbers this matters less.
Russia famously has a problem sustaining logistics beyond 90km, and is already struggling with the 80km denial of service produced by the GMLRS missiles, 150km is therefore disastrous for them.
Russia will end up having to chose between high losses, or low logistics. Move the supply depots 150km behind their lines, or having them blown up all the time.
This is a real oucher, and will make "Borstjing" even more interesting to follow.

Upcoming weapons systems
What Ukraine needs are good Attack aircraft, fighter jets not as much.
Yes they need a bit of fighter capability, but being able to perform frontline ground attacks is more important.
This is why I am not that happy with the F-16 talk.
It has limited ground attack capability, but not as much as is needed.
FA-18s, A10s, and JAS-39s are far better options.
Or why not even dedicated bombers?
Anyway, regardless of what Ukraine receives, it will make for a big difference.
Even a fairly small amount would chase of Russia from Ukrainian air space.

Longer range missiles
ATACMs, Storm Shadows, Gungnirs, Tomahawks, Ukrainian Mystery Missiles...
Ukraine has received a very very limited amount of Storm Shadows and Gungnirs. We are talking about a couple of dozens of them. They are both cruise missiles, one is old and one is hell class.
The limited availability has hampered Ukraine a lot, but given a couple of very spectacular hits.
But, more is needed.
Just 100 of these systems would give Ukraine the ability to take out a lot of bases and infrastructure in Crimea, chiefly hitting the Kersh bridge again and this time keep on hitting it.
200 and they can hurt Russian bases inside Russia while crushing Crimea.
This will probably come in the 24th of February Ramstein meeting in Brussels, together with airplanes.
There is a reason Biden is going.

Deep future
If all of this is not enough, we are talking about boots on the ground.
Scholz of all people mispoke, perhaps on purpose.
He stated that both airplanes and German soldiers in Ukraine was absolute Red Lines for him.
Well, he has used exactly those words about Patriots and tanks...
And we know Germany is looking at what airplanes they can provide.

This leads me to the part of getting tired of the war.
Russia thinks that The West will grow tired and stop helping Ukraine over time.
Instead The West is far more likely to grow tired and deciding to end the war with any means needed.
I do know that the UK, Poland and Baltonordics (new word I think) are proponents of just having it over with through a hard attack. With the Netherlands, France, Czechs, Slovaks, and the US on the fenceline for now.
I suspect that they will move into our view in a not to distant future.
Obviously it would be a very limited police action inside Ukraine, and no big deal involving taking parts of Russia.
I am almost certain that this has been conveyed to Russia already that this will happen in the end.

The reason why it will happen is due to the increased attacks in The West.
There is still very little written about it, but we now see an increase in suspected attacks on both installations and people from Russian fringe movements. It is just a question of time before we strike back, hard.

70km Doctrine
Let me go back to the beginning.
In Sweden we have a tactical doctrine based on combat manouvre warfare.
All systems are procured to be able to do a common manouvre speed.
On the road this is 70km, and offroad 35km.
Everything we have must be able to perform manouvre offensives at these speeds and conditions.
Even the blooming ships can keep up.

There is even a minimum manouvre distance of 350km before refueling, and the refueling vehicles and ammo supply vehicles are also systems that can keep up with this.
This means that the minimum distance of offense is 350km in one go, but we train for 700km long offensives, Sweden is after all a very drawn out country with huge distances, same as Ukraine.

First comes a wave of information gathering technology, airplanes, drones, satellites, etcetera.
At the same time comes radar seeking missiles to take out air defence installations.
Air Force to keep air dominance and performing missile ground attacks.
Then comes the swarm of CV90s carrying infantry with tanks a few hundred meters behind.
And they in turn are followed by Archers able to perform fire missions as requested from the frontline and from intelligence.
Behind are lighter mop up units, and the logistics units.

Now, compare this tactical and strategic doctrine with the Russian tank salami...
Fun part is that it is based on Zhukovs plans for the battle of Khalkhin Gol.
A capability Russia has lost over the decades, and that we have gained.

This is why we are giving Ukraine CV90s, Archers and Leo 2SE tanks.
50CV90s, 12 tanks, 12 Archers per Mechanized Brigade, carrying infantry with them.
In total there will be 4 brigades. One roughly each 4-6 months.

Each of these brigades will be supported by an infantry Brigade that is mechanized, Air Defence units, logistics brigade...
Welcome to the Nordic Battle Group concept.
This is what we trained "our" Ukrainians in.
Now imagine what an extremely talented field commander like our favourite colonel can do on the Ukrainian steppe in either Zhaporizhzhia or Southern Kherson with a Nordic Battle Group?

Obviously we are far from the only western country that has come up with these monstrosities.
I just used ours as an example since it is the one I am familiar with.
Different countries have different speeds of manouvre, and different "flair" to them, but the general concept is the same.
This is why different gift packages will form different battle groups or armies.
They will not be combined, since they utilise different speeds and equipment.
This simplifies logistics, training and servicing for the Ukrainians, and negates the drawback of them getting a zoo of equipment.
Ukraine is about to have 4-6 different armies, using slightly different tactics and strategies.
For the Ukrainian high command it means that they will have an entire Smorgasbord of options to use if they master the differences.
And for Russia it means that they have a nightmare on their hands as they are swamped by rapidly moving battle groups utilizing different methodologies to galumph over them.

All of this is enabled by the Weapons Systems.

Caveat:
I cherry picked the systems so not to have to write a book, and I favoured systems I know and have worked with.
The idea here was more to use examples to convey concepts and ideas from the standpoint of the Weapons Systems deployed.
A kind of backdrop to what has happened, is happening, and will happen.
I wanted it to be a story of war told from the standpoint of the weapons themselves.
You be the judge about if I succeeded."

And shortly afterwards, there was this

"There is one thing that Military Planners do when they are in private and have a roll of toilet paper at hand.
And that is to dream very hot and spicy dreams of impervious air defence against missiles and planes.
This is not so strange, military in the West are there to protect their countries and civilians, and not to start wars or attack neighbours.
So, having wet fantasies about saving entire populations is rather wholesome as sexual fantasies go.

Sadly we have always realised that at best our politicians will give us a quarter of what is needed, and it will mainly be used to save the arses of said politicians.

As I looked at the daily news I saw that France and Italy have ordered 700 missiles for the SAMP/T Air Defence System to be sent to Ukraine at a value of 2 billion Euros.
This is a defence system against airplanes, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, it is pure Hell Class. Informally it is able to take out hypersonic missiles and longrange ballistic missiles.
700 missiles means 12 launchers, or 3 complete systems.

Now pair that with 6 Patriot Systems to be delivered, and 4 more IRIS/T systems (2 delivered).
That is a staggering 19 complete systems. Together with other mischelaneous systems that is enough to slam the door shut completely.
Within the next 6 months Ukraine will achieve the holy grail, an almost 100 percent effective air defence shield covering the entirety of the country.

How good are these systems?
Well, let us just say that nuking Ukraine is about to become a really hard thing to achieve.
In reality it would mean that Russia can only perform BMP-attacks with their nukes and still hope to affect anything.
War as we know it changed forever.

No toilet paper was harmed in writing this."
Click to expand...

Excellent.

'People have an overrated opinion about tanks, some say they are obsolete, and some say they are the end all of everything in war.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. The role of the tank has shrunk over the last 80 years, with other vehicles taking over many of the classic roles of a tank.
This is an entire subject of its own, and I would be happy to write about it if anyone is interested.'

I would be, very much. I'd be interested to compare his thoughts to those of, say, the Chieftain on You Tube.

'The West has now learned an important lesson, we need much bigger stores of 155mm ammo.
At the beginning of the war we had about 15 million shells, but we have barrels enough to require 150 million shells in storage, and we need a standby production rate of 10 million per year or more.
Artillery is truly back with a Bang! (Pun intended)'

Isn't this a lesson we re-learn every prolonged war?
 
A widening of the conflict. Just what the world needs. This was written a bit earlier. There may be more clarity now. Pentagon says "It wasn't me". Turkey stays Schtumm. Some tweets saying Israel claiming. Whatever, pretty seismic stuff (literally) ... with tension rising between Syria and Iran, Iran having massive social unrest (as well as an earthquake to deal with) and Erdogan
harbouring the same kind of "turn the clock back" imperialist ambitions that Putin had. I think I might eff off to Lapland for a bit.

"
I have previously written about the Fog of War, never has it been as apt as in regards of Mystery X and their war on Iran.
Also, due to Iran basically being a third world country with digital censorship we are not getting a heck of a lot of credible videos and images.
But we are getting some videos and images, most of it of what is getting hit.
Other things we can see on satelite data and other tools of the trade.

All taken together we know quite a bit that makes it possible to pinpoint whoever is doing it.
But first, who are the likely culprits, well we have everyones favourite Iran, then we have Turkey, The US, Iran itself...
So, let us go through what we know about the targets, and what we know about the weapons used, and what weapons platforms that implies.
As I said, we know more than we think! Alas, there is hope.

The targets have been varied:
-A large underground munitions depot that is believed to be the largest in Iran.
-The Shaheed factory, plus at least 4 parts suppliers.
-One underground missile factory
-Two large compounds belonging to the revolutionary guard, one in the Kurdish part of Iran and one just outside Teheran.
-A bunch of smaller targets of varying types.
-People being taken out with precission munition in Teheran, most likely strikes on leadership and weapons producers
-Street fighting

So, what do we know of the types of weapons used?
-Bunker buster bomb, from airplane
-Precission bombs dropped from airplanes
-Cruise missiles
-UCAVs, remote controlled missile launching drones
-Precission suicide drones
-Possibly special operations forces (or different parties inside of Iran fighting each other in the confusion)

Now, let us look at our 4 favourite suspects, and let us for the sake of it chuck in a country with a hell of a lot of technical means to do nasty ****, but that obviously did not do it (Sweden), just for comparison.

Sweden
Special operations forces, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, we actually have four of those that are experimental, they are AI controled and not remote controlled. Regardles, check
Cruise missiles, check
Precission bombs from airplanes, check
Bunker buster, Nope
Sweden is out on the last one, we do not have one since we do not have anything that can carry one.

Israel
Definitely a high tech country that has well documented capacity to make casserole of Iran in daring raids.
Special ops, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, nope
Cruise missiles, nope
Precission guided bombs, Check
Bunker buster, nope for the same reason as Sweden.
On technical reasons even Sweden is more likely...

Turkey
Special ops, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, under development at working prototype stage, check
Cruise missile, nope
Precission guided bombs, check
Bunker buster, nope for the usual reason
Slightly less likely than Sweden... b***r it, did we do it?

Iran
Spec ops, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, nope
Cruise missile, nope, but they do have ballistic missiles that could be used. They are reworked copies of Chinese silkworms.
Precission guided bombs, nope
Bunker buster, nope

USA
Check on it all.

Now, let me get back to the bunker busters.
Building a Seismic Bomb is within the grast of all 5 countries.
We have a backup plan using Hercules airframes to drop Very Large Bombs, and other countries have done it previously. It is kind of the cheapskate version, and the precission drops.

Anyway, of all the countries only the US has the airframes needed to drop a bunker buster. The US has no less than 3 different Seismic Bombs, and 3 different airframes for it, B1B Lancer, B2, and the venerable B-52 Stratofortress.

Psychology & Sneakiness
Sweden, we would definitely do an attack like this in as sneaky fashion as possible. We would have done a pinpoint attack cutting the ability, and then gone back home and giggled. Ie, we would have stomped the Shaheed factory and nothing else.

Israel, historically Israel has hit nuclear targets and gone home to giggle. I would say that they would do the same, hit the missile plants and missile production. Maybe hitting the revolutionary guard for good measure, but then giggle fest would start.

Turkey, not much is known on how they would act. Erdögan is big on hitting hard not caring who he hits, he is also known to hit hard for very small things.
Remember when he shot down a Russian airplane for just crossing the border to Turkey? We would have to gun down an airplane a few times a year if we were that prickly. And not even Russia does that to Western air frames...
Thing is that Erdögan does not take easy to slights, so he would go over the top in his rage.
And he most definitely has the motive to do it after a Shaheed sunk his ship.
On top of that he has imperial ambitions of his own, and Iran used to belong to the Ottoman Empire. For Erdögan seizing Iran would be his crowning achievement as a crackpot dictator.
The level of attacks, and the continuation points towards Turkey as a main suspect, and if tanks start to roll in a few days we will know.

The US
Definitely something that is within the scope and range of the US. But, I do think that the US would go even bigger if it was them.
According to doctrine we would have seen a couple of hundred Tomahawks, a few hundred HAARMs, and then B1Bs and B2s bombing the living daylights out of Iran.
That being said, the US could go for deniability, but being the US most things are sooner or later leaked to the press so...

Conclusion
The above is based on reliable imagery out from Iran, and on satelite data.
But, no flight data is available.

I still feel that we as the third day dawns have enough data to at least rank our 5 culprits, let us do them from the bottom up.
  1. Sweden, for geographical reasons it is obviously not us. Technically we could do it if we stretch it, especially a pinpoint strike or five, but on this scale is a nogo due to distance. But, we are occupied fully with Russia and Turkey, bitch-slapping Iran is not on the maps.
  2. Iran, they lack the means, and they lack the reasoning. Even a coup attempt would not hit their own weapons industry. The attacks on the revolutionary guard could be part of a coup, same with the street fights in Teheran. It is possible that one country has good contacts with some internal movement or leader with the means to attempt a coup during the confusion of them being attacked. But, I would say it is a very low probability. And having Shaheeds used inside Iran would be just daft.
  3. I have both the US and Israel on shared third place. I do not think the US can shut up. And Israel does not have the technical means for parts of the attack. There is though the slight possibility that Israel is doing parts of the operation, and the US delivered the big boomey bomb and a few UCAVs.
  4. Turkey: Means, motive, timing, targeting, temperament, dictatorial moustache, empire building...

Why do I not bother with other countries?
Well, because they lack the means, and if caught Iran could flatten them without breaking out into a sweat. They have a big, well-funder, well-trained army. So much so that they are basically winning a proxy war in Yemen against a coalition of 5 arabic countries, and that without even really trying.
Even Pakistan would be hardpressed by Iran, Afghanistan would fall quickly, and the others would be swatted within days.

Anyway, it is one of Israel, The US and Turkey.
Russia is busy, England and France would need to set up a big cumbersome operation to get there. Same goes for China.
We would have seen it coming for weeks.
Israel and Turkey is within easy strike reach, and the US has assets close by and true global strike range.

So, unless Biden holds a speach in a few days, or an Israeli plane is downed, we can safely wait for the Turkish tanks moving across the border to happily kill every kurd in Iran.
The longer it goes on, the more sure I will become."
 
I’ve not heard much more than the rumours doing the rounds so an interesting update.

Although I’ll be a tad pedantic (I can’t help myself 😂) and offer a historical correction that whilst the Ottoman and Persian Empires fought each other, Iran/Persia never fell to, or was part of, the Ottoman Empire.
 
borolad259 said:
A widening of the conflict. Just what the world needs. This was written a bit earlier. There may be more clarity now. Pentagon says "It wasn't me". Turkey stays Schtumm. Some tweets saying Israel claiming. Whatever, pretty seismic stuff (literally) ... with tension rising between Syria and Iran, Iran having massive social unrest (as well as an earthquake to deal with) and Erdogan
harbouring the same kind of "turn the clock back" imperialist ambitions that Putin had. I think I might eff off to Lapland for a bit.

"
I have previously written about the Fog of War, never has it been as apt as in regards of Mystery X and their war on Iran.
Also, due to Iran basically being a third world country with digital censorship we are not getting a heck of a lot of credible videos and images.
But we are getting some videos and images, most of it of what is getting hit.
Other things we can see on satelite data and other tools of the trade.

All taken together we know quite a bit that makes it possible to pinpoint whoever is doing it.
But first, who are the likely culprits, well we have everyones favourite Iran, then we have Turkey, The US, Iran itself...
So, let us go through what we know about the targets, and what we know about the weapons used, and what weapons platforms that implies.
As I said, we know more than we think! Alas, there is hope.

The targets have been varied:
-A large underground munitions depot that is believed to be the largest in Iran.
-The Shaheed factory, plus at least 4 parts suppliers.
-One underground missile factory
-Two large compounds belonging to the revolutionary guard, one in the Kurdish part of Iran and one just outside Teheran.
-A bunch of smaller targets of varying types.
-People being taken out with precission munition in Teheran, most likely strikes on leadership and weapons producers
-Street fighting

So, what do we know of the types of weapons used?
-Bunker buster bomb, from airplane
-Precission bombs dropped from airplanes
-Cruise missiles
-UCAVs, remote controlled missile launching drones
-Precission suicide drones
-Possibly special operations forces (or different parties inside of Iran fighting each other in the confusion)

Now, let us look at our 4 favourite suspects, and let us for the sake of it chuck in a country with a hell of a lot of technical means to do nasty ****, but that obviously did not do it (Sweden), just for comparison.

Sweden
Special operations forces, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, we actually have four of those that are experimental, they are AI controled and not remote controlled. Regardles, check
Cruise missiles, check
Precission bombs from airplanes, check
Bunker buster, Nope
Sweden is out on the last one, we do not have one since we do not have anything that can carry one.

Israel
Definitely a high tech country that has well documented capacity to make casserole of Iran in daring raids.
Special ops, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, nope
Cruise missiles, nope
Precission guided bombs, Check
Bunker buster, nope for the same reason as Sweden.
On technical reasons even Sweden is more likely...

Turkey
Special ops, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, under development at working prototype stage, check
Cruise missile, nope
Precission guided bombs, check
Bunker buster, nope for the usual reason
Slightly less likely than Sweden... b***r it, did we do it?

Iran
Spec ops, check
Precission suicide drone, check
UCAV, nope
Cruise missile, nope, but they do have ballistic missiles that could be used. They are reworked copies of Chinese silkworms.
Precission guided bombs, nope
Bunker buster, nope

USA
Check on it all.

Now, let me get back to the bunker busters.
Building a Seismic Bomb is within the grast of all 5 countries.
We have a backup plan using Hercules airframes to drop Very Large Bombs, and other countries have done it previously. It is kind of the cheapskate version, and the precission drops.

Anyway, of all the countries only the US has the airframes needed to drop a bunker buster. The US has no less than 3 different Seismic Bombs, and 3 different airframes for it, B1B Lancer, B2, and the venerable B-52 Stratofortress.

Psychology & Sneakiness
Sweden, we would definitely do an attack like this in as sneaky fashion as possible. We would have done a pinpoint attack cutting the ability, and then gone back home and giggled. Ie, we would have stomped the Shaheed factory and nothing else.

Israel, historically Israel has hit nuclear targets and gone home to giggle. I would say that they would do the same, hit the missile plants and missile production. Maybe hitting the revolutionary guard for good measure, but then giggle fest would start.

Turkey, not much is known on how they would act. Erdögan is big on hitting hard not caring who he hits, he is also known to hit hard for very small things.
Remember when he shot down a Russian airplane for just crossing the border to Turkey? We would have to gun down an airplane a few times a year if we were that prickly. And not even Russia does that to Western air frames...
Thing is that Erdögan does not take easy to slights, so he would go over the top in his rage.
And he most definitely has the motive to do it after a Shaheed sunk his ship.
On top of that he has imperial ambitions of his own, and Iran used to belong to the Ottoman Empire. For Erdögan seizing Iran would be his crowning achievement as a crackpot dictator.
The level of attacks, and the continuation points towards Turkey as a main suspect, and if tanks start to roll in a few days we will know.

The US
Definitely something that is within the scope and range of the US. But, I do think that the US would go even bigger if it was them.
According to doctrine we would have seen a couple of hundred Tomahawks, a few hundred HAARMs, and then B1Bs and B2s bombing the living daylights out of Iran.
That being said, the US could go for deniability, but being the US most things are sooner or later leaked to the press so...

Conclusion
The above is based on reliable imagery out from Iran, and on satelite data.
But, no flight data is available.

I still feel that we as the third day dawns have enough data to at least rank our 5 culprits, let us do them from the bottom up.
  1. Sweden, for geographical reasons it is obviously not us. Technically we could do it if we stretch it, especially a pinpoint strike or five, but on this scale is a nogo due to distance. But, we are occupied fully with Russia and Turkey, bitch-slapping Iran is not on the maps.
  2. Iran, they lack the means, and they lack the reasoning. Even a coup attempt would not hit their own weapons industry. The attacks on the revolutionary guard could be part of a coup, same with the street fights in Teheran. It is possible that one country has good contacts with some internal movement or leader with the means to attempt a coup during the confusion of them being attacked. But, I would say it is a very low probability. And having Shaheeds used inside Iran would be just daft.
  3. I have both the US and Israel on shared third place. I do not think the US can shut up. And Israel does not have the technical means for parts of the attack. There is though the slight possibility that Israel is doing parts of the operation, and the US delivered the big boomey bomb and a few UCAVs.
  4. Turkey: Means, motive, timing, targeting, temperament, dictatorial moustache, empire building...

Why do I not bother with other countries?
Well, because they lack the means, and if caught Iran could flatten them without breaking out into a sweat. They have a big, well-funder, well-trained army. So much so that they are basically winning a proxy war in Yemen against a coalition of 5 arabic countries, and that without even really trying.
Even Pakistan would be hardpressed by Iran, Afghanistan would fall quickly, and the others would be swatted within days.

Anyway, it is one of Israel, The US and Turkey.
Russia is busy, England and France would need to set up a big cumbersome operation to get there. Same goes for China.
We would have seen it coming for weeks.
Israel and Turkey is within easy strike reach, and the US has assets close by and true global strike range.

So, unless Biden holds a speach in a few days, or an Israeli plane is downed, we can safely wait for the Turkish tanks moving across the border to happily kill every kurd in Iran.
The longer it goes on, the more sure I will become."
Click to expand...
1 would go with number 3.
 
But first, who are the likely culprits, well we have everyones favourite Iran, then we have Turkey, The US, Iran itself...

Probably needs an edit?
 
BandH said:
But first, who are the likely culprits, well we have everyones favourite Iran, then we have Turkey, The US, Iran itself...

Probably needs an edit?
Click to expand...

Probably, maybe Israel. I tend not to edit other than to remove certain sensitive stuff.
I don't want to "editorialise" inadvertently.
 
borolad259 said:
Probably, maybe Israel. I tend not to edit other than to remove certain sensitive stuff.
I don't want to "editorialise" inadvertently.
Click to expand...
I thought was Israel but as also mentioned wasn't sure if was a possibility of it being Iraq. Cheers for updates, really interesting reading which gives some brilliant insights.
 
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