Invasion of Ukraine, October 2023 SITREP (#285)
Today, October 3, 2023, is D+585 in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. This is the 38th in my series on blog posts on the war — see all the war in Ukraine blog posts here. This is the last blog post I am doing on the War in Ukraine since the Oryx Website announced that they would no longer be crowd sourcing the Battle Damage of Russian and Ukrainian equipment on October 1, 2023. Without a reliable crowd sourced battle damage assessment, I am unwilling to continue to comment on the war.
Yesterday, the Oryx Website reported that Russia has lost 2,329 tanks (55 since the last blog post) since the war began.
Strategic Update
Robert Rose, a Major in the US Army, published a great article in War on the Rocks entitled “Biting Off What It Can Chew: Ukraine Understands Its Attritional Context” which provided some valuable insight into the war. You can read the whole article here. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, here are three take aways from the article:
Ossify — In conflict, there are two different approaches at the operational level: maneuver and attrition, both of which have a role. Attrition aims to wear down the enemy through efficient combat power utilization, emphasizing favorable loss ratios and the eventual cumulative destruction of the enemy while offering operational simplicity and predictability. However, maneuver involves exploiting open flanks and gaps. Soviet theorist Georgii Isserson, argued that if one side avoids defeat during the maneuver phase of a conflict, conflicts tend to stagnate as both sides mobilize enough forces to establish a continuous front. The front then ossifies as both sides fight an attritional approach. Think World War I, the Korean conflict, or now Ukraine in 2014-2016 and 2022-Present.
You could take that theory a step further and even argue that Iraq in 2003 was the war of maneuver, but the conflict transitioned into a war of attrition when the war transitioned to insurgency/counter-insurgency.
Three Axes — Critics have argued that Ukraine has not effectively mastered large-scale combined arms warfare, citing its approach of launching dispersed attacks along three axes instead of a single, concentrated breakthrough. However, this strategy aligns with what the Allies did in World War II in western Europe — rather than attack along one axis like General Bernard Montgomery argued, General Dwight D. Eisenhower utilized a multi-axis attack. In the war today, Ukraine's approach has focused on three axes due to the threat of Russian drones, which enable concentrated artillery fires against massed Ukrainian forces.
Exhaustion Strategy — Ultimately, Ukraine is pursuing a strategy of exhaustion, which seeks to gradually wear down an enemy across military, political, and economic fronts until continuing a war was no longer worthwhile. Ukraine, with the support of NATO and other nations, should continue its attritional approach at the operational level as part of a broader strategy of exhaustion. Remember the operational level of war is “the level of warfare at which campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted, and sustained to achieve strategic objectives within theaters or other operational areas.” While the strategic level of war is “the level of warfare at which a nation, determines national strategic security objectives and then develops and uses national resources to achieve those objectives.”
Some might fear that this theory of victory (i.e. strategy) plays into Russia’s hand, but there is no perfect alternative. Prematurely pursuing maneuver will only allow Russia to attrit Ukrainian forces. Ukraine will need to destroy Russian artillery and inflict casualties that thin Russian reserves at a favorable rate that outstrips Russia’s ability to replace those losses. As it has been for 16 out of 18 months of the war, it is slow, grinding, and with constant adaptation. It may not produce spectacular victories which play great on YouTube. But, as Winston Churchill said of defeating the German U-boats’ campaign of exhaustion in the North Atlantic: “It did not take the form of flaring battles and glittering achievements, it manifested itself through statistics, diagrams, and curves unknown to the nation, incomprehensible to the public.”
That being said, it is tough to tell how well or poorly the war is going. The only reliable data has been the open source destroyed and damaged vehicles provided by Oryx which is summarized below. But with that drying up in October, the war will be even more opaque. On October 1st, @WarMapper stated that Ukraine recaptured 35 km2 of territory in September, the same amount it seized in August. However, Russia continues to occupy 17.48% of Ukraine — approximately 105,000 km2 of pre-war Ukraine (603,550 km2). To contextualize this for my American readers, pre-war Ukraine was slightly smaller than the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Russia occupies Ukrainian territory about the size of the state of Kentucky.
Russian Tank Losses By Type
In 2022, the Military Balance stated that there were 3,417 tanks in service in the Russian Army the previous year — 2,420 T-72s, 580 T-80s, and 417 T-90s. The T-72, T-80, and T-90 are all main battle tanks developed by the Soviet Union/Russia. The T-72 was introduced in the early 1970s and was widely used by the Soviet Army and its allies. The T-72 was the second Russian tank (T-64 was first) to use an autoloader for the main gun. The autoloader helped the tank keep a smaller profile. The T-80 was introduced in the late 1970s and was the first Soviet tank to use a gas turbine engine, which provided higher mobility and power. The T-90 is a more modern tank introduced in the 1990s and features a more powerful engine, improved armor, and advanced fire control systems. According to the Oryx website, over the conflict he Russian Army had 2,329 tanks destroyed, damaged, or captured — they lost 65% of their 2021 active tank fleet in just over 18 months in combat. The losses have come out of the T-80 fleet (estimated 108% destroyed) and the T-72 fleet (estimated 49% destroyed).
Total Russian BDA (As of October 2, 2023 at 1500 EDT) From the Oryx Website (Captures total losses from February 24, 2022 onwards)
Key vehicles lost include:
2,329x T-62/72/80/90s Tanks Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (55 ⬆️ )
Average of 4.1x tanks damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day since the invasion started
3,412x BMPs/BTRs/BMDs (Armored Personnel Carriers) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (120 ⬆️ )
345x Engineer Vehicles Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (5 ⬆️ )
1,126x Indirect Fire Systems (Mortars, Howitzers, and Multiple Rocket Launcher Systems) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (69 ⬆️ )
211x Air Defense Weapon Systems Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (18 ⬆️ )
732x MT-LBs (Command and Control) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (37 ⬆️)
Ukrainian BDA (As of October 2, 2023 at 1500 EDT From the Oryx Website)
So far, Ukrainian forces have lost:
656x T-64/72/80 Tanks Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (⬆️ 25)
Average of 1.1x tanks damaged, destroyed, abandoned and captured per day since the invasion started
1214x BMP/BTR/BMD (Armored Personnel Carriers) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (⬆️ 56)
432x Indirect Fire Systems (Howitzers and MRLS) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (⬆️ 14)
95x MT-LB ACRV (Command and Control) Destroyed, Captured, or Abandoned (⬆️ 7)
For More Information on the Conflict:
Ukraine SITREP, September 2023
BTGs, OoB, and Crowd Sourced BDA in Ukraine, D+11
Conclusion
Thanks for following TFCG’s blog on the War in Ukraine for the past 18 months.
Want even more? Reach out to me me here for a virtual talk to your group or company on the Invasion of Ukraine and its tactical and strategic implications. In the meantime, use your deeper awareness of the invasion of Ukraine to go on the offensive and follow the conflict with better insight.