I’m not sure trenches fare well against modern weaponry.
Menzo
21488
Especially if they’re visible via satellites. Easy to target with a GPS guided weapon.
Houngan
21489
Or a simple drone dropping a mortar. I don’t see how trenches are anything except anti-tank defense at this stage.
They already demonstrated some dishonorable and devious behavior like saying they’re attacking in the south and actually attacking on the north. I would not put it past them to say they’re going to attack and force Russian to concentrate their forces for a defensive operation only to see that Ukrainians are not actually attacking.
Trenches are nice for holding the goop in place after a HIMARS shotgun hits a section packed with soldiers.
abrandt
21492
I wouldn’t call it dishonorable behavior, but yes, I’m willing to believe there is some amount of false information being planted by the Ukrainians with this stuff. But I also don’t think the Ukrainians are okay with not making a push for such a long time. An extended stalemate probably causes growing support for negotiations within Ukraine and it’s pretty clear leadership doesn’t want that. I’d think it more likely they go for more misdirection on where the winter attacks are going to take place vs misdirection on whether or not there will be any offensives in the coming months.
MikeJ
21493
Think of it as what a satire of a Russian media personality would say. “Those dishonourable scum, deceiving us in war! We will teach them honor by bombing some more apartment buildings.”
Yes, @alekseivolchok frequently parodies the Russian talking heads in this thread. Just make sure to calibrate your /s detector.
abrandt
21495
Weird, normally his sarcasm is very apparent to me.
Grifman
21497
Fortifications are still effective, sure a mere trench may not be all that but a multi-layered position with trenches, strong points with gun emplacements, anti-tank ditches/traps, backed by artillery and tanks is not going to be easy, not withstanding drones and GPS - and the defense has those also.
Sorry, all the memes about these offensives still live in my head.
antlers
21499
Ukrainians depend on trenches for defense in the east. Donbas has been trench warfare for 8 years, I think. With tanks rendered less effective with ATGM, MAN PADS making air support difficult and artillery dominating the battlefield, it is really WWI all over again.
Timex
21500
I suspect that the Russians are making the mistake of thinking that because they smashed their forces impotently against Ukrainian defenses, that if they entrench themselves into a static defensive position, Ukraine is going to encounter the same problems Russia did.
Russia is not good at this whole “military” thing.
KevinC
21501
I’m not sure how well equipped Ukraine is when it comes to attacking fortified lines. HIMARS is great for taking out a command post, supply depot, or other high-value targets but I’m not sure if it’s going to be great at digging out Russian infantry from the trenches? The videos I saw of Ukrainian advances in Kherson were often taken from Humvees which isn’t ideal.
Not to discount what Ukraine has accomplished this year, I just think they might very well have difficulties going up against fortified lines. Hopefully they can continue putting enough pressure on supply and force Russia to withdraw from untenable positions so they can retake territory without turning the whole war into Bakhmut.
Houngan
21502
I think the point is that they won’t and don’t need to. Far better to cut supply lines to those trenches and let the winter take its toll. Sabotage fuel, feint around the trenches, blow up trucks. If they can soften up the Russians enough to really threaten Crimea, that’s a win.
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KevinC
21503
Yeah, I sure hope that’s the case! The strategy has worked quite well for them thus far and I hope it continues to be successful.
Logic would dictate that if the Russians are looking to consolidate over winter, you keep piling on the pressure.
If the Ukrainians tried to “trick them” by not doing that, they wouldn’t exactly be helping themselves.
If they don’t do it, it will probably be because they lack the capability.
What I have noticed is that a lot of Western analysts are talking about a coming offensive around Mariupol, which is how they set the Russians up last time. Could be another feint, could be a double fake.
If they know that we know, that they know that we know, then…
“Be sure to take Tucker”.
(Should be a gifted article, assuming I did it right.)
World War One called and wanted to know WTF the Russian army thinks it’s doing.
Digging trenches in straight lines is a rookie mistake; allow one small section to be captured and the entire trench line is indefensible for <insert range of machine gun> yards in either direction. Two lines of trenches is better than one, but still pretty minimal compared to WW1 trench systems. I also saw no sign of communication trenches on that picture; that means that reinforcing the first-line when threatened, or retreating to the second line in good enough order to continue the defence both become very hard under heavy fire. With low morale / cohesion, quite probably impossible.
Operationally, a single fortified line is like a river line. It can slow the attacker down by quite a lot, but once they’ve massed enough firepower to break through at one point, the whole line is permanently compromised. At that point the defender either has to have enough mobile reserves to counter-attack and defeat the breakthrough (and I’m no longer convinced the Russian army can even do that at any kind of tempo) or risk seeing the whole line be rolled up.
I’m not saying they’ll have no effect. Breaking through that line will be slower and more expensive than before it was there. But by the end of WW1 the problem of breaking through trench-lines had been solved by both sides, and they didn’t have the luxury of drones or artillery that was accurate within 4m.
