Thomas Theiner on What is Happening in Ukraine's Offensive

Russian artillery piece destroyed by Ukrainian fire

Thomas Theiner is a retired NATO artilleryman who has been one of the most reliable guides to what is happening militarily in the Ukraine war. On the other hand he is viciously anti-Russian and his heart is clearly with Ukraine to a degree that might cloud judgment, so consider that in evaluating his take on Ukraine's summer offensive so far:

In Germany @derspiegel, @welt, @ntvde and in Austria @derStandardat write that "the Ukrainian Offensive has failed." That is wild nonsense.

This nonsense happens because all of them interviewed the same expert, who doesn't understand Ukraine's Offensive phases, of which there are at least 5, and we're barely in the middle of Phase 1 - Attrition & Interdiction.

The reason people don't consider Ukraine's Phase 1 a success comes from people being used to US/NATO wars, in which Phase 1 is purely air power. Phase 1 is meant to attrition enemy forces and interdict/disrupt their lines of communication. The West uses fighters, bombers and cruise missiles for that.

During the 1991 Gulf War 1,700+ coalition combat aircraft needed 37 (!) days and 100,000+ sorties to attrition the Iraqi forces enough to trigger the ground campaign. And 288 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at Iraqi targets.

During the 2003 Invasion of Iraq coalition combat aircraft flew 41,000 sorties and fired 802 Tomahawks at Iraqi targets. . . .

Ukraine doesn't have any of this air power; and so Ukraine is forced to replace fighters and bombers with GMLRS, Excalibur, Storm Shadow and drones.

So far, I am with Theiner; a comparison to Desert Storm/Desert Saber is unfair because of the enormous scope of the coalition air campaign, which nobody but the US can do. Since Ukraine hardly has an air force at all, they have to use different methods. Theiner describes their approach like this:

Whereas in US and NATO operations the sky is continuously swarming with fighters and bombers looking for enemy positions and vehicles to annihilate, all Ukraine has in the air are drones, which look for russian equipment, ammo points, command centers, logistic points, etc. but the drones can't bomb these objects.

Once a drone spots a target, the drone operator has to request mensuration, the results of which are then transmitted to either a M142 HIMARS or M270A1 MLRS launcher, which will enter the target's coordinates into a GMLRS rocket; or transmitted to a M777, PzH 2000, M109A6 or Archer howitzer, which will enter the target's coordinates into an Excalibur projectile; or the data is transmitted to the Ukrainian Air Force's 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade, which will enter the target's coordinates into a Storm Shadow...

Did you notice that all of these take time? Ukraine can only hit russian equipment that is static. Unlike Western fighters, which can hit the passenger seat of a driving car, Ukraine can only hit russian vehicles and objects that are static. A massive drawback.

Even worse: a US fighter jet can fly deep into enemy territory, and hit a dozen targets 500km behind the front, while Ukraine's range is limited to:

• Excalibur range: 40 km
• GMLRS range: 84 km
• Storm Shadow range: 500+ km, but only in limited numbers

Ukraine is massively handicapped by the time it takes to hit a russian target and by the range of its systems. (GLSDB will improve HIMARS range but the production line is not yet running...)

Now if you're russia, all you have to do it to park your heavy equipment outside of GMLRS range and Ukraine can't hit it.

Still Ukraine must attrition russia's heavy equipment before it can begin Phase 2 of the offensive... and the only way to do it is to bait russian forces into GMLRS and Excalibur range.

And Ukraine is doing this right now by attacking the russian lines with four of the ten brigades that have been readied for this Phase:

• 23rd Mechanized Brigade
• 31st Mechanized Brigade
• 37th Marine Brigade
• 47th Mechanized Brigade

All other brigades (i.e. 35th Marine, 68th Jaeger, etc.) are merely supporting these four brigades.

A further six brigades can be deployed for this phase. Now the Russians are in a dilemma: either bring their heavy equipment forward and risk losing it to GMLRS and Excalibur or leave their heavy equipment out of range and allow Ukraine an unexpected early breakthrough... well, the Russians decided to bring their equipment forward and Ukraine is hitting it relentlessly.

Still it is a far, far slower process than air power... and unlike in an air campaign Ukraine is losing troops and vehicles... and this has led to some analysts declaring the Ukrainian Offensive a "failure"... it is NOT. These "analysts" and "experts" just fail to understand the Ukrainian plan.

I find that this explains some otherwise puzzling actions that Ukraine is taking, for example their attacks north and souht of Bakhmut and seizing a small lodgement across the Dnipro by the Antonovsky Bridge at Kherson. According to Theiner those attacks don't have to go anywhere, they just have to scare the Russians enough to get them to bring artillery and tanks within range of Ukrainian weapons. If so, they are succeeding; the count of destroyed Russian artillery in particular has been rising rapidly lately.

Also, Theiner emphasizes that most of Ukraine's ground force is not engaged:

And they fail to understand that Ukraine gets stronger every day: Ukraine readied 35 (!) brigades for the offensive, by raising new units, splitting existing units, pulling units out of the front and refreshing them... and just 4 of 35 are in the fight now.

All the others are at the training grounds - training every day to improve their skills; AND incorporating the lessons learned in the offensive so far.

And every day troops return from training in NATO countries and Sweden; and new equipment arrives - the Offensive Guard brigades started out as light infantry... and are now getting tanks from Germany and Denmark, turning them into mechanized formations.

So many troops return from training in Europe that Ukraine recently formed three new brigades; and as the russians have stopped attacks in the South and along the Donetsk front, Ukraine recently pulled two elite brigades out of the front to freshen them up for the offensive. How can an offensive have "failed" if more than 90% of forces are still training for the offensive? . . .

Ukraine's Offensive has barely begun. And due to the lack of air power Phase 1 will take far longer than people are used to... but journalists need to come up every day with a fresh new drama. . . . Ukrain's victory if inevitable. We just need a bit of patience.

Could this work? I have no idea. It seems to me that part of Desert Storm's success was the psychological impact of the relentless bombing, the way anything that moved near the front lines was in danger of being blown to pieces within minutes. Would a grinding attack by artillery and rockets have the same kind of impact? The example of WW I seems to say not, and so far Russian troops have mostly been defending pretty well. 

Plus there is the fact that while Ukraine is destroying Russian artillery and tanks, Russia is also destroying Ukrainian artillery and tanks. The visually confirmed numbers actually show greater losses for Ukraine in Zaporizhia, which I think is the main battleground. So a lot may depend on how quickly NATO can replace Ukrainian losses, and whether they can supply enough shells, especially guided shells and GMLRS missiles, to keep the pressure on.

I mentioned here before that several military commentators have compared Ukraine's attack to the Second Battle of el Alamein, when the British fought their way through a heavily fortified German line. But so far Ukraine's approach has been little like Montgomery's. Montgomery threw everything he had at a narrow part of the line until they punched through, the lead brigades losing 80 percent of their tanks; it was reported that Montgomery was willing to take 100% losses in his lead brigades to get through. Maybe the Ukrainian high command's approach is more sensible, and maybe, as some people have said lately, the amount of deadly firepower on a modern battlefield makes a tank-led charge at prepared positions all but impossible. But I remain unconvinced that Ukraine's military has either the means or the daring to decisively defeat Russian forces in the south.