DOI :: Tom Cooper: "I am concerned about the situation in the Avdiivka area"

 

Tom Cooper

tyzhden.ua

March 22, 2023

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Greetings to all!

Let's start from the strategic level. Many have asked me what I think about the Russian downing situation… well, the inexplicable incident involving the US Air Force MQ-9 drone over the Black Sea.

What to say here?

To be clear, we are dealing with people who are proud of the downing of a Boeing 737 of Korean Airlines in September 1983 by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor in cold blood, killing 297 passengers and crew members. But what if, in that situation, they would have done the same again - as they did in several other cases, described in detail in a recent book . We are talking about people who are proud of the collision of their Su-27 with a Norwegian Lockheed P-3B Orion in September 1987...

...and therefore I will cautiously say that I do not know anything for sure. But since I have been studying such "coincidences" for more than 35 years, and I also watched a video from the Pentagon, and I (as usual) had a rolling pin stuck in my little finger, I thought that the Russian pilot was still to blame, and he a little I missed because I was not used to intercepting such small objects as that drone. Pilots of the Russian Air Force do not learn to engage in "unequal air combat": they mainly train to confront Su or MiG-29 aircraft on Su planes, that is, ships of approximately the same size, which behave approximately the same in the air. And therefore, pilots do not "feel" the size of other objects in the air nearby. In addition, the Su-27 is a powerful, but large and heavy aircraft with significant inertia, which can be seen in the American video. Pay attention to the "fat ass" of the Russian Su,

Honestly, this could have happened to anyone in a similar situation. The question is how to interpret this incident. The reaction will depend on who takes up the matter.

They are rejoicing in Moscow. Of course, the first instinctive reaction was: did this happen in international waters? Oops! Ah, well, then the Russians are of no use here, and, therefore, they will not bear any responsibility... But if we are already talking about it: how gallant and noble he is - that knight who stood up against the NATO Nazis was shot down by that nasty American spy plane — and without firing a single shot. We showed those Anglo-Saxons: rasyeushka — silushka! Give that pilot an order! And two is better... Honestly, everything is as usual, nothing original.

Has America reacted too sluggishly? Well, what was Washington supposed to do — drop bombs on Russia for some unfortunate MQ-9? In general, such things are sent to dangerous places precisely because when they are shot down, no one will be hurt (except, potentially, an inexperienced Su-27 pilot). This was demonstrated back in June 2019, when a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Defense Forces, acting on his own discretion, blew up a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk/Triton, a much larger and more expensive UAV.

Read also: Ukrainian counteroffensive may begin in late April or early May, - The Washington Post

Fact: drones fly without pilots (no, I don't mean that the flight attendants themselves are sitting in them). The bottom line is that when such an aircraft is shot down, no one will complain much. Shit happens; taxpayers will be happy to finance the construction of the new apparatus, and everyone will be happy. No one's heart beats faster. Moreover, no one will start the third world war, I beg you.

By the way, there have been cases in the past when Soviet and then Russian aircraft, as well as their allies, did this to MANNED reconnaissance aircraft - American and allied. For example, Boeing RC-135s, many of which had 20+ crew members on board. This happened even with the Boeing B-52 strategic bombers with nuclear weapons. Most of the time there were no collisions… until the Chinese had nothing better to do than to sob over their own testosterone-fueled Shenyang F-8 pilots who were killed when they nearly crashed into a US Air Force Lockheed EP-3B over the South China Sea in April 2001...

Did someone nuke China then?...

In a word, there is nothing interesting in that incident, keep scrolling.

CLARITY… THE LAST FRONTIER…

Let's move on... Yesterday I criticized some Ukrainian journalists and Western military correspondents who, with their big mouths, proclaimed the approach of — and in fact demanded — a Ukrainian counteroffensive. And the reasons, among others, are given as follows: "It is not worth keeping Bakhmut", "elections in the USA are coming soon"... Today I cannot help but continue in the spirit of yesterday, and "the people are asking". This time, another intelligent person advises the Armed Forces of Ukraine to "dramatically" reduce the number of (their) casualties on the front line...

Ahoy! This great truth "don't die for your country, let your enemies do it" is, you know, something so new in the whole history of wars! Bright!

... well, the author of the statements I have in mind, apparently, never thought about whether it is really the fault of those "steep generals" who do not want to equip their armed forces better. But in the end, this (unfortunate) pinch in my little finger tells me that there is a remote possibility that the better armed the Ukrainian army is and the more ammunition it has, the fewer casualties there will be. And the hook tells me that it is not at all Ukrainian generals who send to the front such worn-out junk as M-113 and/or YP-765 armored personnel carriers, and then babble in front of the microphones of the obscure media "but we did something there"... and these are not Ukrainian the generals constantly forget to send enough ammunition, heavy infantry weapons, night vision equipment and all that other stuff to Ukraine. And so for... 9 years, well, or 13 months - it's how you count.

Read also: "It's difficult when several dozen fighters are advancing at once." Doctors talk about the evacuation of the wounded in the Bakhmut direction

The same author went on to complain about the lack of a clear geographical demarcation of areas of responsibility (within the Armed Forces) [ this is the principle according to which a certain unit is responsible only for a clearly defined territory — transl .].

Wow, this can be answered with so many different examples from the recent history of wars... no, I can't resist a little digression: take, say, the French generals - they are simply "classics of the genre". Based on the experience of the First World War, they very, very precisely - geographically - distributed the zones of responsibility, and then (I read it a long time ago, I could be wrong, but I seem to remember) in May 1940, something went wrong. This is because several infantry and nine tank divisions were forcing one river and all of them did not care about the boundaries of responsibilities - they simply began to iron all the French bunkers in a row from the flanks and rear... What blasphemy! [Apparently, Tom Cooper is referring to the forcing of the Meuse River by Guderian's tank formations, as a result of which the German army occupied the north of France, surrounding and pressing to the sea about three dozen French, British and Belgian divisions - trans. ]

...and then there were vague rumors that those French generals had worthy successors who proved themselves forty years later, demonstrating to everyone who was ready to listen that those clear demarcations were useless... and so it was in Chad, and in Iran-Iraq wars in the 1980s, in Rwanda and in the Congo in the 1990s, and eventually gave rise to the "raid tactics" of the US army in Iraq in 2003 ... what else can you say. Except that since, apart from the last example, none of these wars were fought by the glorious armies of the West, their experience is completely irrelevant here. Point.

There will be no greater gift to the Russians today than to make it easier to navigate by establishing clear geographic boundaries for commanders at all levels. Because generals insist that they need "clarity" - just like Westerners - because it is easier for them to fight when the fight against the enemy is organized within clear geographical boundaries (mainly because they also try to attack only on their " area"). Actually, I can't help but imagine two generals shouting: "Your troops killed 2 Russians in my area of ​​responsibility. You're crazy! Stole 2 good Russians from me!..."

… and in other cases, the generals insist that there must be some clarity so that someone in particular can be blamed for the failure when it's all over. Because the people who manage the armed forces are no better than your colleagues at work, my dear readers: to be successful, 90% of the working time should be spent on conspiracies and intrigues. That is, they are also at war - is there any difference?

Read also: Weekdays of a soldier at the front. Tactics

And if they're busy with something else, it's certainly not practicing flexibility or delegating initiative to lower ranks as soon as they have an opportunity to act where it's needed...right? Just imagine what will happen when they succeed - and you were just trying to keep them from thinking with their heads...

At least that author's example of a relatively unsuccessful attempt at such clarity was halfway good. That's right, it is often reported that sometime from December, someone in that group - either Syrsky, or Cherevaty - pulled a bunch of various battalions from different brigades to Bakhmut and did not organize normal communication and coordination between commanders on the ground in advance. Clearly according to the slogan: I command, you execute.

However… ugh, this dash gives me goosebumps - it seems that this approach does not involve clearly defining the geographical boundaries of the work of the various departments. And it can also be related to what people call "management culture", or to the fact that someone is very nervous, losing control. For example, if a brigade is responsible for a certain area, then what other idiot sends some "separate" battalion from a completely different structure to reinforce that brigade in the same area - and without notifying the brigade commander first?

But yes, it's about clear geographical boundaries, not a lack of culture and order in command... Oh, well... "Clarity... the final frontier... which no one has yet reached..." but at least the rest of the article was much, much better. [ Cooper does not indicate anywhere what he means by the article — ed. ].

BATTLE FOR DONBAS

So what are the really important things that make you read all my ramblings?

If you happen to be not a soldier on the front lines, then there is not much news for you at the moment.

Bakhmut: Basically, the same lines of contact as a few days ago remain.

That is: the Russians advanced a little along the M03 road, 10 km northwest of Bakhmut, but all their attacks in the direction of roads 0504 and 0506 were immediately stopped. Yesterday, the Armed Forces reported the destruction of an entire assault group of the "Wagner" PMK. This was the biggest news in about 2-3 days.

I am concerned about the situation in the Avdiyivka region — and here I will give another example of how social networks distort our impressions of the war.

In recent days, the Ukrainians have released several videos showing the destruction by artillery of various Russian ground-based air defense systems (in the West they are abbreviated as "GBAD").

People in the comments, it would seem, rejoice with every right, because it is always "nice" to see how some Tor/SA-15 or S-300/SA-10/12 air defense system is blown up.

Read also: Defense of Bakhmut through the eyes of a soldier

But so far I haven't seen a single post/poster on social media discussing the significance of this situation. What is the point of the Russians moving their anti-aircraft defenses so close to the front line that they come under fire from Ukrainian artillery?

The answer is silence.

No one does this.

Now let me "reuse" two frames from a video published on March 1st showing the results of one of the Russian airstrikes on Avdiivka from a distance of about 2000 meters (or more). It was claimed that this was the use of a 1500 kg guided bomb.

I am always skeptical of Russian reports about the use of some kind of "super-turbo-accurate" weapon: "Putin's system", which also includes generals from the command of the Russian Air Force, has managed to pocket so many billions to finance the development or purchase of "intelligent" weapons" for the Air Force there was almost no money left.

Still, to me, it means being on the lookout. Especially since Russian sources confirm the bombing of the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Avdiyivka area not only with high-precision munitions (or PGM from English) of the "Thunder" or UPAB-1500 type from distances beyond the reach of Ukrainian air defense, but also with Tu-22M-3 medium bombers with free-falling (and 70-year-old) FAB-3000M-54 bombs of 3000 kg caliber. And sometimes with the help of the Su-34 with "lighter", about 500-kilogram bombs. It was the same with Mariupol a year ago.

If this is true, then it means that the VKS - at least temporarily, but again and again - is able to block the work of Ukrainian heavy air defense (see: Buk / SA-17 and the like) with electronic warfare. And in this way, they force air defense vehicles to move away or even destroy them.

Read also: Her work is expensive. The story of a girl who saves Ukrainian soldiers

….there is another reason: during the flight at supersonic speed, the crews of the Tu-22M-3 bomber are not very willing to drop bombs of the FAB-3000 type, because this can easily cause damage to the door mechanism. Therefore, they are going to use such munitions during flights at relatively "slow" high subsonic speeds. However, the Russians will probably drop bombs from a height of 12,000-15,000 meters, "throwing" the FAB in the direction of the target from a distance of 15-20 km. Under such conditions, the hit will not be very accurate, but, do not doubt, a 3000-kilogram bomb does not need great accuracy.

This means that the VKS considers the airspace over Avdiivka "safe enough" for bombing with its Tu-22M-3s from a high altitude. During such attacks, the Russians are 1000% sure that there is no Ukrainian air defense nearby that can destroy their slow Tu-22M-3s.

In my opinion, this is not a good sign.

…and the fact that the VKS are “particularly active” over this area was confirmed at least yesterday, when the Ukrainian air defense (perhaps reinforced in response to the events described above?) turned one of its pilots into a paratrooper…

Most importantly — and it is not surprising, given that such reports have been circulating for more than a week — the Russians seem to have not only strengthened their control over Krasnohorivka, but also — two days ago — broke through the Ukrainian front line to the west of it and attacked in the direction of the village. Steppe, while crossing the track of the local railway.

I am not saying that there is a reason for panic, but all this clearly creates a dangerous situation for the garrison of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Avdiivka. It is more than obvious that if the Ukrainians cannot at least stop the further advance of the Russians in the western direction, or, even better, push the Russian forces back to the eastern side of the village. Krasnohorivka — the situation for Ukrainian forces south of this village (that is, inside Avdiivka) will be critical. Much more critical than the garrison of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut.

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Published on March 21 at 11:15 Kyiv time Translation: Yaroslav Klyashtorny, Rostyslav Semkiv, Anton Shigimaga, Antonina Yashchuk Editor: Rostyslav Semkiv Original

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