Chinese Farm

(I wrote this a month ago, but I am only posting it now, after sharing it with a few people)

All this time, the West has been saying, "No shooting at Russian territory". If you do that, we'll cut off aid. We won't get into a shooting war with Russia. Etc, etc. This mantra has been said so often that it has become a "truth". But this is war, when truth becomes lies, and believing truths can get you in trouble. 

 

This is a war for the very survival of Ukraine. Russian forces are arrayed forward to the front lines, and the Russian high command knows (or assumes) that Russian territory will not be attacked meaningfully. The war is being fought and will be fought on Ukrainian territory (or "Russian territory" currently under the control of Ukraine).  

 

The assumption is that the coming offensive will be to retake Ukrainian territory, probably pushing south to the Sea of Azov and Crimea, busting through Russian well-prepared defences, line after line. Each one is a potential Somme waiting to happen. And for what, a few kilometres of advance while further eroding limited resources?  

 

The invasion has been halted, the Russian winter offensive has failed, and the positions are well established. Logistical lines favour Ukraine with shorter lines to any point on the front, while Russian logistics are stretched. The distance from Kviv to the farthest front line is around 500 kilometres. Realistically, however, forward positioning of materials will put the front lines no more than 150 – 200 kilometres at any point. Contrast this with the Russians' need to be able to deliver forces to any point along a 900+ kilometre front line.  

 

Will Ukraine repeat the Somme, or will they do something completely different? There are enough historical examples to follow, or that provide potential parallels to the current situation. And that has led me to think about what Ukraine may do. This is my "prediction".

If we want to see the future, we need only look at the past: the Battle for Chinese Farm and the two weeks following. I'll not review it in detail, you can look it up on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Chinese_Farm). 

 

What matters here is that the Russian military is exhausted, or they would continue their offensive operations. They've tried to take their own version of the Gidi Pass and Mitla Pass, and failed. Ukraine is contemplating how and where they will use the new Western armour and APCs, and how they will use their limited artillery resources. Western doctrine calls for the establishment of air superiority before engaging in ground operations, and the inability of either side to accomplish this has been a major talking point throughout.

In 1967, Israel had complete air superiority. In 1973 they were willing (or forced to) accept interdiction of all airspace by both sides, at a high cost. If neither side has air superiority, then the "air" just needs to move higher - space and satellite superiority, and Ukraine has that in spades through Western eyes.

 

They have eyes in the sky, and a massive amount of intel from the West, at strategic and detailed operational levels. They probably know the names of every commander on the Russian side, and probably know where each of them is to within a few hundred meters. They know how much fuel the Russians have, at a unit level. They know where the Russians are, how many they are, and probably what they will eat for breakfast tomorrow. How can I say this with confidence? Because this is the war that NATO has been planning for 70 years. The fall of the Soviet Union did not halt the continued development of Western electronic intelligence-gathering capabilities. 

 

I suspect Ukraine has been looking for the perfect "Chinese Farm" for the past three months or more, but one that will not result in the same desperate battle fought 50 years ago. And when they decide to attack, the objective will not be the Sea of Azov; the objective will be to push tens or even fifty or more kilometres into Russia before turning south and or north. They hope to puncture the front, and, using Israeli (and Soviet) tactics, run amok in the Russian rear, separating the front line and even reserve forces from their logistical bases in Russia, forcing Russian forces to look behind themselves as well as protecting their front.  

 

The frontline Russian forces will not even know that they are being surrounded until it is already underway. It is natural for commanders to limit the amount of information provided to front-line troops to avoid speculating about every piece of gossip or rumour. But this means that rumours will spread, will be denied, and will continue to spread.  

 

I'm going to go way out on a limb here, and suggest that anyone living west of the Russian M4 motorway (which is closer to Bakhmut than Bakhmut is to Kharkiv) may find themselves on the front lines or within the cauldron, with Ukrainian forces using that as the point at which they turn north and or south, aiming to cut off Russian forces from their rear positions and resources.  

 

From there, Ukraine can wait. Certainly, there will be intense fighting continuing all along the front, but that will be holding fighting for Ukraine, and breakout fighting on the part of Russian forces. The war will be over, and Moscow will face some very scary choices. But once Russian troops realise that their supply lines have been cut off, I do not expect morale to hold up for long. Those troops will be bombarded with propaganda more than shells. Breakouts will be attempted and will be stopped. The Russian air force will need to commit all that it can, and will lose the air. 

 

This will leave Moscow with few choices. Escalate to nuclear weapons or find a way to negotiate an end to the war that keeps Putin alive. China, Russia's only meaningful friend, has told Putin that nuclear weapons are off the table.  

 

We will know soon. 

(Since writing this, I've read that Russia is building defensive fortifications well back in Russian territory.)

 

Fortitude West & Fortitude South?

What offensive? Think Fortitude. One day soon, Ukrainian troops will advance out of their lagers and into Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia. It will be the biggest test of the Western European military doctrine developed over decades to counter the Soviet military. That there will be a Ukrainian offensive in the coming weeks is accepted. Only a small cadre of individuals may know what the offensive will look like, its direction, depth, and objectives. The rest of us can only speculate. History tells us that surprise and the ability to mislead the enemy play a critical role in success. History also provides some excellent examples of the type of deception that is underway at this moment. Leading up to D-Day and the invasion of the European continent during the Second World War, a massive programme was created, with two notable (intentionally) false operational plans named Fortitude North and Fortitude South. Fortitude South, the main deception, included the First United States Army Group (FUSAG), an utterly mythical army with Patton as the commanding general. FUSAG was to attack at the Pas de Calais, the narrowest part of the English Channel and the logical place to land to seize the channel ports and advance into Germany.

But the Allies landed in Normandy, not at the Pas de Calais as expected. For too long, Hitler refused to believe that Normandy was the main effort, tying up troops that could have hampered or even thrown the Allies back into the English Channel.

What is Ukraine doing? There are three possible axes for the coming Ukrainian offensive; Western crossing the Dnipro near Kherson, south through Zaporizhzhia Oblast to the sea, or another eastern axis to the East, that I've discussed elsewhere.

I think the best operational names for the Dnipro crossing and a Zaporishshia south axis are Fortitude West and Fortitude South. I'll skip any discussion of Fortitude East for now, though it is my (uneducated) guess that this will be the "real" offensive.

Fortitude West? Ukraine is on the East bank of the Dnipro River around Kherson, but that is meaningless. At most, it is a feint to distract and get the Russians to comment forces and attention to their western flank. It will be virtually impossible for Ukraine to transport adequate forces across that river, under artillery fire, with only pontoon bridges and rivercraft to support them. The Russians must know this. Which makes it all the more “real”. Double bluff. Attempt to distract where a distraction is only that, a distraction. Yet use that distraction, like Operation Overlord, as the real push, regardless of the perils and logistical difficulties. Bluff. Double bluff. Distraction before the 'real’ push. What is it, and for how long can Moscow ignore Ukrainian advances and footholds on the left bank of the Dnipro? And when they do take it seriously and assign forces, and begin to move them, will the ‘real’ Ukrainian push start somewhere else? Rivercraft can transport squad, not Challenger tanks. And landing craft that can transport Challengers are visible from satellites and drones, and can be targeted. And drones are flying up and down the Dnipro, both sides sending them up every day, and probably every night. The nights are becoming shorter, reducing the amount of time to bring armour to the embarkation points, and to get them across, unloaded and into cover. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see reports of Leopards and Bradleys on the east side of the Dnipro, in big “oops” moments. Just big enough to grab Moscow's attention. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The ground is firming. The artillery coordinates of defensive constructions are being mapped. Minefields are surveyed, and stockpiles are moved, again under cover of night to reduce drone and satellite observation. If this is the axis of the offensive, they will drive south directly to Crimea, aiming to liberate Crimea and panicking Russian forces and commanders across the rest of the front. The extraction of units to redeploy to the defence of Crimea could strip the front lines in the east, giving Ukraine the opportunity to advance and liberate the rest of Ukrainian territory. Bold, if it works. Fortitude South meets the Maginot Line? And over at the Pas de Calais (the Zaporizhzhia Oblast frontline), forces gather and prepare for the Ukrainian offensive to push through and south to Melitopol. That’s what we've been conditioned to expect, and if we have been conditioned to expect this, then so has Moscow. So the Pas de Calais is where Russian forces will sit, ready for the British tanks to “come ashore”. Enough Ukrainian (and Western military and politicians) have talked about the Southern Offensive and the importance of taking Melitopol and pushing south to the Azov Sea, then turning left (Mariopol) or right (Crimea). This will cut the land bridge to Crimea, forcing all reinforcement and general supplies for military and civilian populations to travel over the bridge, making it a, if not the prime target for, Ukrainian drone and or rocket forces.

And so, Russia is building defensive lines throughout southern occupied Ukraine, lines that are being surveyed daily. The Russians prepared almost 120 km of defensive lines, including multi-layered defence, with anti-tank ditches, lines of "dragons teeth" and then a primary trench line. Reuters also has a fascinating graphic and discussion about the defensive infrastructure in terms of the trenches and defence in depth with multiple lines of trenches. The graphics could be a modernised version of pictures I came across in a book written in the early 1920s, in the Pentagon library. The descriptions and drawings of trenches are, basically, an updated version of that book. While caltrops are no longer mentioned, they have been replaced with "hedgehogs", the modern equivalent designed to slow down or stop a tank instead of a horse. All in anticipation of the offensive. And that will draw more Russian forces and capabilities away from any actual frontline. The bridge is long (the longest in Europe at 19 km) and vulnerable at any point along its length. Defending that bridge is not a matter of positioning forces at either end. They will need maritime resources to be tied up, anti-aircraft and anti-missile forces, all of which detract from what is available for defensive operations to the north. GLOCs (Ground Lines of Communication) are critical for logistical support. Cutting these, when they are actually "ground" lines, is not easy and requires the ability to control or interdict not only the road itself, but enough on either side to make manoeuvre around a damaged section of road equally difficult. The ability to reroute around a damaged piece of road calls for engineers to keep the road open or to bypass the damage. Not so with a bridge. And certainly not so with the Kersh Bridge.

Will the opening action of the offensive be an attack on the bridge? Very probably.

If Russian forces face a southbound offensive, they must concentrate their capability in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and protect the bridge. Russian planners must be looking at the map and their order of battle, trying to determine which units will be able to provide the right defence, and the real force levels of depleted units. The defensive lines they have built may have a distinct advantage in terms of the number of defenders needed to maintain the line (depending on the effectiveness of the attacker, of course), but larger numbers of soldiers are still needed. And each of these will need to be willing to stand their ground in front of advancing tanks, APCs and dismounted infantry. If the defending troops are the survivors of depleted units (as we are told), their morale and capabilities will already be severely degraded. Summary No matter what happens, it probably will not be what we expect. If it is an offensive straight south, then there will be a lot of hard fighting. If it is south across the Dnipro at Kherson, it may include a drive directly toward Crimea, in which case it will run right up against the defensive positions constructed at the narrow entrance to Crimea, and there will be much hard fighting. Expect large-scale use of precision munitions targeting individual defensive positions. But both of these options may be Fortitude West and Fortitude South. The blow may come somewhere else entirely. And so, as each of these potential lines of assault unfolds, the Russian command is going to be asking themselves where the real offensive is taking place. The speed at which they are able to assess and respond to the true line of offence will determine the outcome.

Probably the most important thing to remember right now is that Ukraine has options, and will be doing everything in their power to obfuscate and mask their real intentions. The real axis of the offensive will probably not become clear for some days after it starts. We wait. We all wait.