https://archive.is/HG3JV

Article summary

• Some observers have argued surprise attacks are nearly impossible due to wide surveillance.

• Ukraine's Kursk invasion caught Russia by surprise and followed time-honored tactics.

• The question for Ukraine is whether Kursk will fare better than Germany's Battle of the Bulge.

When Ukraine unleashed its Kursk offensive in August, it wasn't just the Russians who were surprised.

That's right, pretty much anyone with an Orthodox understanding of Military Strategy would've been surprised because it's essentially an operation that leaves your actively besieged defensive line with a skeleton crew while throwing a hail mary offensive and hoping for the best.

Much like the initial kick-off to the war, everyone saw the build-up but was more or less thinking "no way they'd actually do that right?

Some experts had argued that large-scale attacks were no longer possible in modern warfare. Any attempt to mass forces for a penetration would be quickly detected by drones, spyplanes or satellites, the thinking went, enabling the defender to reinforce his defenses.

I wouldn't say impossible, just really fucking costly that - barring special circumstances - its use would yield insignificant gains in contrast to the enormous resources exhausted to conduct such offensive.

"The proliferation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the Ukraine-Russia war has created a transparent battlefield marked by near-persistent surveillance, making operational surprise difficult to achieve," according to a blog by the US Army's Training and Doctrine Command.

One could draw the allusion that we're seeing a rhythm of history to that of the widespread usage of aircraft in ww1 changing the dynamics of war.

But despite hordes of Russian drones keeping an eagle eye for Ukrainian movements, Ukraine managed to concentrate its best brigades for an attack that stunned the Kremlin and seized 500 square miles at the height of the offensive.

Other than "muh ruzzian hooiorrds", everyone knew there was a build-up, everyone literally thought "no way they'd actually do that right? That'd be like letting the tiger bite your ass so you can yank a handful of hair off its paw."

How did Ukraine do it? By using the same time-honored techniques that Germany employed in its surprise attack at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

Nazi Germany*. And how did that go for them? I dunno, if I remember correctly G.I Joe kicked their asses.

First came careful preparation by identifying weak spots in Russian defenses. By massing forces for offensives in eastern Ukraine, this thinned out the rest of the 600-mile front line, including the Kursk region. Open-source intelligence "indicates that up to 75 percent of Russia's ground forces, airborne units, and naval infantry are deployed in or near eastern Ukraine," TRADOC noted. And because Russian drones and other ISR — intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — systems were concentrated in areas where Russia was on the attack, this meant lighter coverage of Kursk.

I want to read this document TRADOC put out, because I get a feeling all the allegories to nazi Germany's actually the author of this articles inclusions and the actual u.s army TRADOC is more objective in its observations of the maneuvers seen in the kursk offensive. Because there's no fucking way the war mongers looked at this and thought "yeah that's a good operational plan"

Similarly, in late 1944 — even as Germany was reeling from massive defeats in Normandy and by an advancing Russia on the Eastern Front— Hitler and his top advisers identified the Ardennes region of Belgium as a weak spot in the center of the Allied lines. While American and British forces were concentrated to the north and south for a final offensive into Germany, the Allies considered the hilly, wooded terrain of the Ardennes a quiet sector safe to defend with a few depleted or inexperienced divisions. The heavy forests could serve as cover for the German infantry and Panzer armored forces as they advanced.

Seriously does the author not see the irony of comparing fascist Ukraine to nazi Germany in its last dying days?

Before its August assault, the Ukrainian high command also took care to keep words of the operation to as few people as possible. "Once intelligence was collected and analyzed, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, led the planning with only a few senior officers in attendance," TRADOC said. "The planning sessions were likely conducted face-to-face to prevent the risk of Russian cyber actors or signals intelligence from discovering the plan. Press interviews with Ukrainian soldiers indicate that the incursion forces were not notified until hours before the operation."

Seriously I hate all this bullshit glossing that ignores the fact that even if they did everything they could to keep it all hush-hush, it doesn't stop the fact that surveillance had already detected the build-up on the kursk borders and the relocation of forces on the defensive lines from the Lugansk-Donetsk front. The fact that we're seeing that front is changing as the Russians are conducting their own offensive operations there allows us to extrapolate that they knew the kursk bullshit may or may not occur.

To conceal its preparations, Ukraine also resorted to disinformation, such as spreading the word that the Ukrainian army wouldn't be capable of launching an offensive before spring 2025. Ukrainian troops were unwitting parts of the deception. For example, "Ukraine's military announced the 61st Mechanized Brigade would be moving to Vovchansk, a city in the northern sector of the fighting in eastern Ukraine," said TRADOC. "Even after the 61st was told they would go into Russia, senior officers in the unit thought it was a bluff."

What do you mean "resorted to disinformation"? Motherfucker they've been doing disinformation since 2014. If you want to be technical and specify this conflict only, motherfucker they've been doing disinformation the very moment the Russian Army kicked the fucking door in.

Also their own officers thought this was a stupid fucking idea. Good for them.

Likewise, knowledge of the Ardennes offensive — codenamed Operation Wacht am Rhein — was confined to a small circle of officers sworn to secrecy upon pain of death. Allied cryptographers had broken high-level German radio codes (the "Ultra" program), but German forces employed radio silence, and orders were conveyed by courier and telephone. Even the name Wacht am Rhein ("Watch on the Rhine") was meant to convince Allied intelligence that it was a defensive plan to stop an Allied crossing of the Rhine River into Germany.

You wonder what ww2 would've been like if they had today's modern equipment, minus the nukes of course.

Ukraine prepped its offensive by blinding Russian ISR with strikes on Russian airfields, as well as using Ukrainian drones to destroy Russian UAVs. To delay a Russian response, Ukraine used rockets, drones and artillery-delivered mines against airbases and command and control centers, as well as interdicting Russian reinforcements.

That's just general war shit. There's nothing extraordinary here, just fluff.

This too echoed Nazi Germany's final offensive. It had timed the Ardennes operation to coincide with a long spell of bad weather, which grounded Allied reconnaissance planes. On the misty dawn of Dec. 16, 1944, a massive German artillery barrage disrupted American communications, while German commandos — dressed in American uniforms — infiltrated US lines to spread confusion and panic.

I guess it is a comparable case of "no way they'd actually fucking do that right?"

The question for Ukraine is whether its Kursk operation will fare better than the Bulge. Instead of a breakthrough that changed the tide of World War II, the German offensive eventually bogged down because of poor terrain, lack of fuel and fierce American resistance.

In recent news, the Ukrainian offensive has bogged down because of poor terrain, lack of fuel and fierce Russian resistance and is being pushed back while the Russian Army is pushing them from the East.

While seizing some Russian territory and creating dismay in Moscow, Ukraine's offensive has failed to divert Russian forces from eastern Ukraine, and Russian counterattacks are shrinking the Ukrainian salient.

WHO WOULDA FUCKING GUESSED. Also lol they're Russian disinformation bots for spreading the truth.

Nonetheless, Ukraine has shown that surprise attacks are possible even in the Drone Age. "The Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region demonstrated that operational surprise is still possible in the Ukraine conflict by avoiding and degrading ISR — a lesson that could broadly be applied to future large-scale combat operations in other theaters as well," TRADOC concluded.

No shit it's possible. If you're looking to flail around and hope to cause extra damage while getting your ass beat, anything is possible.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ.

Michael peck is a jackass whose work has appeared in the garbage pit known as Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and any other publications looking to drag their legitimacy through a shitpit. He holds a MA in the field of American exceptionalist brainwashing known as political "science" from Rutgers University.