Author Michel Goya Image A Ukrainian soldier lies on the ground while a tank fires at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday June 17, 2023. © AP Photo/Libkos Date July 2 2023 add article added download pdf share
The first part of this study on the Ukrainian counter-offensive can be found here.
As for the distribution of forces, the Ukrainian organization is not entirely clear. If we know the brigades, the cornerstone of this army, and if we manage to identify them at the front, we don’t know exactly how they are commanded. Thus there are 14 brigades from the Dnieper to Hulyapol, with Oirkhiv as the main focus, and 17 from Hulyapol to Wuhledar, mostly with a focus on Velika Novosilka. In total, a quarter of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in the territory of the Zapo-Donetsk operation. That’s both a lot, because it means weakening elsewhere, and little against an opponent of about the same strength who is on the defensive.
This distribution of brigades suggests two distinct operational areas, commanded by two Army Corps headquarters, which in turn report to a specific command for the operation, directly from the Central Staff in Kiev or, more likely, from the Regional Command West. In addition to these two army corps, this operations command must also control a certain amount of strike power at depth – put simply: anything that can strike more than 40 kilometers from the line of contact.
Experience shows that commanding more than five units of the same rank at the same time is difficult, and all military ranks are organized with this in mind. It is assumed – at least hoped for the Ukrainian organization – that the two army corps themselves fall back on a functionally and/or geographically organized intermediate level at divisional level.
One can therefore imagine that in the Western Army Corps there are three divisions, or at least three small staffs, of this level, even if they do not bear that title: an artillery division, consisting heavily of the 44th Artillery Brigade and the 19th Missile Brigade, which is an order of magnitude of must correspond to 120 long-range guns; a Dnieper Division with four maneuver brigades (128th Mountain, 15th Assault, 65th and 117th Meka Brigades), a National Guard Brigade and an Intelligence Squadron with a Reconnaissance Battalion and the Marine Special Forces Group; an Orikhiv Division with five maneuver brigades (118th, 47th, 33rd and 116th Mecha 3rd Assault, to be confirmed), two Territorial/National Guard brigades and a special forces regiment.
It should be noted that while the Dnieper Division is more of a “forward point” – one brigade in the first echelon, the others in the second echelon – the Orikhiv Division is very heavily forward concentrated, showing that Ukrainian efforts were obviously directed towards this in this region, hoping to achieve quicker results there than elsewhere.
While the Dnieper Division is more of a “forward point” – one brigade in the first echelon, the others in the second echelon – the Orichiv Division is very much front-line concentrated, testifying that Ukrainian efforts in this region are evident focused on hope of getting results faster there than anywhere else.
Michael Goya
The eastern army corps is probably similarly organized, with its artillery divisions (45th and 55th brigades, the last equipped by Caesar, i.e. about 120 to 140 guns), and three maneuver divisions, the contours of which are more difficult to define. We will dare to distinguish a Huliaipole division, a Valika Novosilka division and a Vuhledar division. The first could be strong with five maneuver brigades (23rd Meca and 36th Marines on the 1st level, 67th Meca, 82nd Air Assault and 3rd Armored Brigade on the second level) plus a territorial brigade and a reconnaissance battalion. The second is even more powerful with the 31st Meca, the 68th Chasseurs, the 35th and 37th Marines on the first level, the 1st and 4th Armored Brigades on the second level with two territorial brigades. Finally, the third is the weakest with only the 72nd Meca and a Territorial Brigade.
We remember the extreme heterogeneity of all these entities, none of which is equipped like its neighbor down to the company/battery level and a vertical organization in which everyone does not know what the neighbor is doing – and in particular where he is, which sparks many fratricidal fires – partly to understand the slowness of Ukraine’s maneuvers, because of the “transaction costs” of coordination, or simply to get supplies.
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How does that fit together? By combining fire and shock. If you have surprise and a very favorable operational balance of power, you can do without this combination to attack, drill and exploit without prior modeling. This was the case with the Ukrainians in the Kharkiv province in September 2022, but it is a very isolated case, almost an anomaly in this war. In all other cases it is the artillery that makes the advance possible. More specifically, it is the superiority of fire that makes maneuvering possible.
It is the superiority of fire that makes maneuvering possible.
Michael Goya
Trench warfare is therefore primarily a fight in the third dimension. First, there are deep fires on direct orders from the Einsatzkommando or the Central Command. The principle is simple, regardless of the vector – aircraft or long-range artillery – as long as you send projectiles (missiles, shadow assault missiles, GLSDB flying bombs, guided bombs, etc.) at fixed or semi-fixed targets (repositories). detailed. We can add on-site sabotage actions. There are then dozens of projectiles, a few hundred and more, but these, if based on a good target network, contribute to hampering operational or logistical movements in the rear and the functioning of the command. It is a Ukrainian “operational superiority factor”, clearly a comparative advantage but undoubtedly lacking the mass to be decisive. The Russians are disabled and take a beating, but are not paralyzed. We regret for the Ukrainians that the United States has been slow in deploying ATACMS, these HIMARS-launched missiles with a range of 300 kilometers.
The second stage is the counter battery. What is preventing the Ukrainian maneuvering forces from advancing is primarily the Russian artillery – coupled with obstacles and bases – which strike just minutes after they appear in the countryside. Therefore, if we want to advance, we must first at least neutralize and, if possible, destroy the Russian artillery. This is the first work of the two artillery divisions described above and their 204-260 guns with their environment of drones and counter-battery radars. The 20 artillery battalions of the maneuver brigades, a total of around 400 guns, can also join this campaign from time to time if the targets are within their range.
The figures from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense should be treated with great caution in view of the published balance sheets, but do indicate a significantly higher activity of the Ukrainian artillery from mid-May, namely a tripling of the shots compared to the average since January 1st. This is theater-wide and mission-wide activity, but these numbers clearly indicate the beginning of the preparatory phase of the Zapo-Donetsk offensive after months of shell holding and shell saving. We also note slightly higher activity by the Ukrainian Air Force, in the order of 13-14 sorties per day versus 10, which remains marginal.
The figures from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense should be treated with great caution in view of the published balance sheets, but do indicate a significantly higher activity of the Ukrainian artillery from mid-May, namely a tripling of the shots compared to the average since January 1st.
Michael Goya
Is this all effective? Between May 8 and July 1, a hundred Russian artillery pieces were counted at the Oryx site, clearly identified as destroyed or damaged across the theater of operations, of which perhaps an actual order of magnitude of 150, most of which – possibly – are a hundred Zapo-Donetsk region. To be fair, the artillery battle is two-sided and Oryx also counts a good thirty Ukrainian guns lost, so actually around fifty. It is worth remembering that even the artillery of all camps suffer invisible losses due to their ease of operation. A gun must therefore change barrels every 2,000 shells, as it is very wide, otherwise it risks firing into the corners or, worse, bursting. In both cases, therefore, there are several dozen tubes that have to be changed every day. What skills do you have in this area? We don’t know much about it.
In summary, the Russian artillery — 3,500 guns of all kinds as of early 2023 in Ukraine, including maybe a thousand in Army Group Zapo-Donetsk — is suffering but far from being shot down, and that’s probably why The Ukrainian Offensive falters. Its main problem is perhaps above all the lack of shells (the “omega point”) with hidden production and imports (Belarus, North Korea, Iran, maybe China) that no longer allow consumption as in the spring of 2022. However, the shortage is partially overcome better engineering – the Russian artillery suffered fewer casualties than the maneuvering units could use from their experience – and the contribution of remote-controlled munitions, particularly the Lancet.
All in all, the Russian artillery associated with the Airborne Forces – aircraft and especially attack helicopters – which is much more capable of action in the defensive zone (they can fire practically from afar from the main defense zone) than in the Ukrainian zone, still remains an excellent obstacle for attacks. We don’t see how, at this rate, it could be any different for a few more months. Now, counter-battery speed can be increased with Western help, but the Russians still have adaptive capabilities.
Russian artillery, connected to the airborne forces, still remains an excellent obstacle to attack. We don’t see how, at this rate, it could be any different for several more months.
Michael Goya
The two Ukrainian army corps then have the task of using battle group attacks to reach the two probable large effects Tokmak and Bilmak on the T0803 road. Currently, their lead is very modest, limited to two pockets in first position, or cover position, Russian. The average advance is about 8 km2 per day on a combat area of about 6,000 km2 from the line of contact to the Mykhailivka-Tokmak-Bilmik-Wolnovakha line. This is obviously well below the standard desirable for Ukrainians to achieve the two main effects within three months. And yet for the moment it’s all about the zone of coverage held by a diverse group of regular battalions supplemented by auxiliaries, battalions of BARS volunteers, DNR militiamen and battalions of Storm-Z prisoners. The battle for the main defense zone, about ten kilometers behind the line of contact, will no doubt be even more difficult.
The fault lies, first, in the lack of clear artillery superiority, which, after neutralizing Russian artillery, would be able to smash enemy bases under shells, in the absence of bubbles with strong protection against aircraft and drones in particular, and probably also numerical Weakness in the technical equipment required for breakthrough. Undoubtedly it would have been better to reduce the scale of the action to the extent of available support – engineers, artillery, drones, electronic jammers, mobile air defenses – by concentrating it in a single army corps and forming special forces, equipped and trained for the single one task of breaking through. Instead, funds are scattered, may be underutilized, and most importantly, depleted once the line of cover is captured while the hardest part has yet to be done.
If you don’t succeed in conquering land, you can first try to wear down the enemy so that you can then conquer the country more easily. Let’s go back to the numbers of Oryx. Oryx counts about 200 main Russian combat vehicles (tanks + AFV + IFV + APC according to the terminology of the site) destroyed or damaged in the entire theater of operations in a month. At the same time, it counts 150 Ukrainian EPCs. This is unprecedented: the loss ratio has so far been more in the order of 1 to 3 or 4 in favor of the Ukrainians. I then concluded that the Russian losses were underestimated by about 50% (by adding up the unseen machines destroyed or damaged) and that for 1 EPC lost one had to count 60 losses. With 250 EPCs lost, this translates to 15,000 losses for the month of June, or an average of 500 losses per day, which seems believable. But doubling Ukrainian materiel losses as usual and counting 160 casualties per EPC would actually lose 300 pieces of equipment and at 120 casualties per EPC that would be 36,000 casualties or 1200 per day, which is obviously very exaggerated. The bottom line is that Ukrainian and Russian losses actually appear to be leveling out, which is by no means good news for the Ukrainians on offense. The attacker is not doomed to incur greater casualties than the defender. If he’s inevitably at a disadvantage, it’s the differences in tactical quality and heavy firepower that make the difference in losses.
Indeed, Ukrainian and Russian casualties appear to be evenly balanced, which is by no means good news for the Ukrainians on the offensive. The attacker is not doomed to incur greater casualties than the defender.
Michael Goya
In summary, the Ukrainian potential spent on the Zapo-Donetsk offensive, although it is only just being deployed, what has been started has not allowed to achieve convincing results. The Ukrainians can continue along this path in the hope of finally cracking the enemy’s artillery and their forces in line and reserve. That may indeed happen, but still no sign seems to support such a hope at the moment. They can also stop a badly started operation and reorganize their device, concentrating absolutely all available support resources in the attack zone, and even on a single part of this zone, even if it means ignoring the defenses of cities, for example, the Shahed 136- Drones absorbing very valuable anti-aircraft and direct support assets.
Western aid urgently needs to flow into these support assets, sappers, machine guns, etc., of course with 155mm grenades and long-range ammunition. Perhaps we should also consider other methods, such as breaking through battalions and infiltration infantry, to develop in a dangerous space, but ultimately not very dense in human terms – with ten times fewer men than in 1918 on one of the same fronts Dimension.
Finally, let us recall that the front has hardly moved in one direction or the other for seven months now and the capture of Bakhmout cannot be considered a large movement. If one no longer achieves results with the same means and methods, one must either abandon one’s goal or significantly increase the same means or change the methods.