How to Defeat Russia's Defenses? - Modern Breaching Operations in Ukraine Explained - 3D DOCUMENTARY 

In this episode we avoid trying to read the tea leaves of the ongoing conflict and instead focus on general principles of modern breaching operations using both past, historical examples and contemporary ones in Ukraine. I hope this proves educational without straying into the realm of opinion. If you like this content consider making your next desk purchase through our sponsor FlexiSpot as the channel gets a portion of the sales. Check out their FlexiSpot E7 standing desk: (bit.ly/3R6FdvY - US link) (bit.ly/3RiCsI9 - CANADA link) and use my code ''Invicta'' to get 30% off on orders over $500.

After almost 6 months of ukraine counteroffensive the frontline didn't change much and Zaluzhny named war as the stalemate. So russian defenses completed their task?

lol guess the Ukes didn't bother watching your video

24:45 "At the time of this video's production, Ukraine has started to pull back the soft, outer lines of Russia's defences [...]" "Soft", ay? I have no idea what's your conception of "soft", but I gather it is very different from any normal, reasonable person's definition of it

Everything looks so easy behind a desk. Ukrainian soldiers have, probably, more experience fighting a modern army than any other country in the world (besides Russia, for obvious reasons).

Great video along with the 1st part. I think you guys managed to nail the balance you wanted and needed so much - giving an overall strategic overview and not dismissing the fog of war

Short answer: "You don't"

Great video as always!

Great video! Love the effort you guys put in them.

Ukraine has already attempted these tactics. The problem is, they don't have air supperiority. As a result, Ukraine gets spotted from the air and hammered via artillery and air strikes whenever they attempt to manuever large numbers of troops into position. Furthernore, Russia has been effectively using defense in depth tactics. Ukraine has been bogged down by picket lines and smaller, mobile defenses hidden among trees and small trenches, which have delayed them for 3 months with heavy losses tp the point that they're just now reaching the main line. They've also lost a lot of their best troops and vehicles while clearing out these less important outer layers.

easier said by drawing lines than done . stick to video games

Seeing your PC at the ad in the beginning of the video made me remember you used to be a total war channel at one point. Man that feels long ago...

Anyone else immediately thought: "why do both sides have an equal numbers of gamepieces in this game theory setting?"

It's wild to me that the most comparable battles fought were fought >80 years ago

You absolutely sold me on the standing desk!

Love the use of Risk cards.

This comment section is irradiated lol

Communication and initiative is so important, even at lower levels without any additional support. I'm fortunate enough to never have been to a war zone, but this is visible even in airsoft. Playing with old, fat, but trained conscripts is far easier than trying herd around young saplings scared shitless by even plastic pellets. Basic maneuvering is impossible, and acting on opportunities is a dream.

Ive been following your content for a few years now. Its always been amazing

well that attempted offensive aged like milk

reportedly yet to be committed? i thought everyone knows the 82nd was supposed to be the reserve and it had been committed weeks ago thats why there are challenger2 destroyed on the field as they are the only unit that field them. yes, ukraine has other forces available but those were not the forces allocated for this counter offensive. a lot of people knew back in june this would end in failure, including myself, many said ukraine should call off the attack back then. honestly i dont understand why its worth discussing how to breach the russian line, ukraine has exhausted their troops, and advancing power, they spent nearly 4 months just to see the first russian line, and the russians kept fortifying all these time. russians been holding these lines and positions with mostly second tier troops and made ukraine work for every single village, VILLAGE. most of their superior troops are positioned just behind the main lines. its likely that the russians may start an offensive in winter, or early next year. ukraine simply ran out all their offensive potential. when urkaine retook kharkiv, the russians were under man, they didn't build a line or lines, but since then, they learnt from their mistakes and mobilized, according to them, 300K men, and built the line that stopped the ukrainian army. lets see what will happen.

Hello , this isn't just look easy on table , this looks easy on table because of hard work from team who made this video,visual concepts and knowledge. 🙂 Thanks for video.

Great vid mate! Well done indeed. Thanks You! (New Subscriber a/o today) Keep it up, by all means. I’ll be going thru your library in the next several days. I look forward to it. Thanks again. 😎👍

I would love a video on Desert Storm

Seeing the hopeful comments by people hoping that Ukrainians will break through the Russian defences, all I can say to that is end that hope strategy (Yes that is a term seeing the entire Ukraine offensive was basically that) as real experts put it. This video gives a good general idea on how Ukraine can theoretically breakthrough but it lacks actual substance. What do i mean by the hope strategy? The experts from guys like New Atlas, Andrei Matrynov, Douglas Mcgregor, Scott Ritter and along a few others have consistently stated that Ukraine and its NATO sponsors operated on the assumption of a few things (too many assumptions by AFU and NATO i've been following them since the start of the SMO ill just state the general gist so u guys can understand ): They thought the Russians will simply melt away as they thought they will during their kharkov counter offensive (Didn't add Kherson since the Russians voluntarily withdrew to the other side of the bank as they rightly proved when Ukraine blew the dam with himars). What those Ukrainian and NATO officers forget is that the Russian army during their Kharkov offensive on that sector was basically so few that only dpr and lpr forces was apparently stationed there a couple thoudand only against tens of thousands of AFU. Naturally the Russians retreated fast and didn't bother trying to defend such an undermanned area with almost no defenses considering the Russian army at that time basically consisted of only around 60k plus active frontline troops out of 250 to 300k. And of those 30k men were apparently on Kherson area. Naturally the Ukrainians won with high morale though they paid a stepped price. They lost tens of of thousands of men on both kharkov and Kherson front. If your wondering how the AFU lost so much it's because they rushed out in the open where artillery and drones picked them off non stop until they met a solid defence where their offensive stopped. This costly victory will have a consequence as this lead the AFU and NATO to get really high and kept saying we will have vacation on the crimea right after they attack towards Melitopol. They forgot that Russia finally mobilized and got on some war footing exceptionally well that it doesn't even hurt their civilian industry (A western report stated that). This mobilization, rapid building of arms and the fact the Russia has been actively building defences even way before the AFU launched their kharkov and kherson attack, meant this time there will be no staged retreat as they have the men to actually be in the frontline to actively contest every single AFU advances.

damn, man made his sponsorship segment a full review of the product.

Great visual work.

Well made video and good effort explaining tactics. However game theory is akin to a book how to drive a car in traffic, Theory is sound, you know the rest.

the problem with PC and standing desk is the HDMI cables from PC to monitors, they will restrict movement up from some height

good video thank you

I'm confused - the video says $30 off, but the description says 30% and when I tried applying the code it says "This coupon code cannot be used" either way. Annoying.

Great video! On the point of complexity and fog of war. It was actually stated that both Ukraine and Russia have a amazing idea of how the battlefields are going and looks due to constant drone surveillance (This still doesn't mean perfect like a video game might). But it has opened up new problems for both side. That being tanks can't advance nearly as close any more because it can be spotted by drones and an artillery firing solution can be calculated and the tank destroyed before becoming a threat. This and so many other aspects has lead to effectively a stalemate. Because something that is forgotten a lot is that Russia has air superiority. Ukraine has great anti-air assets which in turn create another stalemate. This is the theater on which modern warfare is changing once again. Previous strategies are reduced in their effectiveness and new strategy and tactics have to be implemented and even technology has to adapt. This war is one that unfortunately is going to be slow and bloody, with a cost that measured in miles once more.

1.5m subs yet this video has less than 100k views... mind blowing the algorithms

At El Alamein the Britts had more than 2000 pieces of artillery, but yeah, the concept is what count.

great video

*in Jeremy Clarkson's voice* which went well

Came for the F16s, stayed for the fancy desk!

Well-Done, Generral ;)

11:12 lol what? When did you produce this video then, in June?

Oh my. Another video that won't age too well...

These videos are incredible. Thank you ❤

Interesting topic. However, the issue is the “Mass”. You did not give any valuable advise how to concentrate assaulting resources without risk of bing revealed and destroyed far ahead reaching the battle field.

Great video, what about a future video exploring the challenges of conquering and defending Taiwan?

Excellent video and analysis... Congratulations.

Wow! Love the historical content, but I HAD to watch this one! Great topic! Especially breaching.

thanks bro for tutorial

Did any of that work?

So sad that you did not credit MilitaryLand who's Ukraine deployment map you used in this video.

Although, explosives can solve every problem here. Which is why I love my artillery batteries.

got blue and red team in reverse, usually red is the offender and blue the defender (more applicable to infosec but still...)

15:24 hey Invicta, why do you have flakpanzer Coelians at the battle of El Alamein?

You guys really need to watch the video before writing comments

Pipe dream

What about bradley, was it a good vehicle with bad tactic

A much needed update that is needed

17:54 Both sides have remote deployed mines, using artillery or special missiles. The Russians are going complete ham with the automated dispensers that look like an MLRS but like with everything they aren't very efficient so you get those example pictures of mines just piling up in random places. There are still dudes hand placing of course but the big fields can be laid remotely and in bulk fairly quickly. There is all the talk about the first and second line and doing a breakthrough and such but my bet is on a slog with mines all the way.

9:45 Ukraine's disruptive capabilities? Hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha

How good is modern tunneling technology? Can they try to tunnel into the Russian defenses the way allies did occasionally in WW1 ?

Breaching defenses by the use of heavy armor and covered under heavy pressure by MLRS/artillery then setting up a logistics pathway to supply and exploit the breach!

How to defeat them? You don't, as we see in March 2024...

Great content, as always. One correction: cluster munitions cannot be used as de-mining tools. The duds they leave behind effectively re-mine the area. This has been discussed and proven far and wide over the past 2 months.

Wow

About 10,000 mine sweepers

"What Will It Take? " - a miracle

So far three months into the offensive, it seems like a repeat of Kursk, minimal gains, with massive losses in troops and equipment.

When you are able to win, you must seem unable to win

Seeing how effective drones have been against troops, IFV, tanks, artillery and ships the next war will be a massively increased drone presence controlled by AI.

Please credit MilitaryLand for the map.

That's the neat part - you don't.

Atta be, room for the pup, you know whats up.

Someone needs to invent a beam weapon that detonates mines.

And где прорыв то

The video gails to capture: 1) there is practically no fog of war, due to 2-4 drones doing intelligence gathering 2) Russia has coordinates for thier trenches, so once they are breached, russians quickly retreat and shell thier positin. 3) Any big Ukraines force gathering is hit with cheap guided bombs due to air superiority 4) Requirements for UA to show progress or they will meet a support cut, thus suicidal attack for little to no gain 5) Remote mine field creation was utterly skipped in the video, which provides constant pain for armored assualts. 6) UA being unable to use mine clearing viehcles, because they simply get hit first, so they stopped using them. 7) Russians allowing the disembarked troops to leave thier carriers befor destorying the vehicle and effectively living them to die trapped/surrender, because they will be shelled. Honestly, with the lack of AA support, almost non-existent air support and Requirements from "their allies" to achieve progress....I don't know how they can win.

Apologies for my first comment. Was not intended for this video. In my distraction, I forgot i had moved on from my previous video and paused before watching this one

What do you mean part 1? Pause...

It would be better if Invicta keeps to topics as Ancient Rome where there is more place for fantasies and incompetence.

I'm not a big fan of Games Theory. Once removed from the simulation environment, it so far needs an additional 18 theories to hold it up in the real world. It still has a few flaws in it created by the assumption that both players want to win. What if a player only wants to play for a draw? The battle of Verdun in WW1 is a historical example of this. The German plan was to keep the battle to bleed the French white. Winning the battle for the Germans was not in their interest. Rather, they needed to keep the battle going to create French casualties going. The Germans failed in implementation as they took nearly as many casualties. The meat grinder needs to be one-sided to work. Game theory does not consider that one player wishes to lose a battle. The counterattack would certainly consider the loss of the first battle. It is to start creating casualties and resource consumption in the attacker. Battle is lost, and the defender withdraws. The attacker must keep contact, ensuring the defender does not create a new defence line. The defender is actually funnelling the attacker into a battle of annihilation that the counterattack is aiming for. This is similar to the game of chess, where a piece is sacrificed to create an advantage that is greater than the loss. Politics, religion, and culture must also be heavily considered as well. Many people are happy to die for politics and religion. With this war, it must be remembered the Soviet culture ingrained into both Ukraine and Russia. Historically Soviet culture is prepared to endure crippling casualties to win. This brings us to the final flaw in games theory in that it expects the losing player to accept their loss. In WW2, both Germany and Japan refused to accept that they had lost. This just extended the misery for up to 6 months. While in WW1, the Germans could see that they had lost and requested an armistice, saving thousands of lives. On the other hand, game theory impeded into a simulation is a great way to teach the fundamentals. You did a great job here, especially getting the basics across with historical examples to help digest them. I look forward to your next instalment.

war is hard

why don't you show them?

The first part would be "not announce where and when you will attack the enemy next". That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen a regime at war do, they made a Hollywood-style trailer, took up dozens of interviews saying their objective and set expectation along with a timetable.

This is why the internet was invented! I've been waiting so long for a real military analysis of the conflict (any phase!) from a war planner's perspective... thank you so much for this great work. I'd love a 20h hour piece but ofc...!

video doesn't really start until 12 minutes in

No chance

Ukraine is winning on BBC, CNN and MSNBC! that is the most important thing!

Neat video. Can we have one on how Russia can take Kiev and deal with crossing the Dneiper?

Invicta knows better than NATO 🤣. The audacity

They need a d-day level push, but the media might not be able to handle it.

I was wondering why Ukrainian didn't success in their most strongest counter-offensive ? Was Russian were that strong or Ukrainian were just too weak!?😂😂😂

The main thing this war should be teaching everyone is that the side that dominates in drone defense and drone attacks will likely do better over the long haul. I think long term as drones get better it will become much harder to keep the logistics close to the front. That is going to be the big thing going forward. If the Ukrainians want to win this war probably the best thing they can do is to attack any and all russian trucks anywhere near the front. Devise a way to have anti truck drones that can loiter on the the ground waiting well off the road. Trucks are detected, drones go into flight and connect to a drone operator who guides it into a target. No trucks. No supplies at the front. Imagine them as being mines that actively seek out vehicles rather than just mines that sit on the ground waiting for a vehicle to encounter them. When that becomes a reality vehicles will either stop making it anywhere near the front or they will have to drive along a route that is hardened against drones. Folks in Ukraine need to develop the following: 1. Drones that can be deployed well behind the enemy lines by piggy backing on another drone. 2. Those drones need to be able to go into a power saving mode on the ground or in a tree etc. while still listening for targets 3. Drones need to quickly connect to an operator when their sensors detect a possible target. 4. These drones just need to be good enough to obliterate a tire, gas tank, or radiator on a vehicle. When they can make that work then focus on making it cheaper and more prolific. When the enemy is losing multiple trucks a day in an area the troops in that area arent getting fed, arent getting ammo, arent getting evaced, and they know it so their morale will tank. Then you can attack. Sure they might still be able to call in artillery support but that just means more trucks driving around for you attack. Sure the artillery might delay things, but pretty quickly those hungry troops will cave. Now imagine that once that becomes the norm of war how in the hell do you keep a tank fueled up or how do you keep plenty of artillery shells available for the artillery piece if the logistics have to pass through the area where the drones are interdicting the trucks. You simply dont. That means artillery has to be further away and tanks are struggling to be effective break out weapons. Sure they might punch through a point of resistance, but then what? They cant go far or they will be out of fuel before they can get back to a safe refueling location. All it takes is a small drone with a small amount of explosive combined with a few minor features that can be worked out.

Couch RU-vidr tries to look like walmart Napoleon

You don't, and you will not.

Why are these Ukraine videos always the same? Seems dubious. All the other battles are treated neutrally but not contemporary ones?

Hm

These legs are fine, t. woodworker (mostly tables and chairs) PS >Warplanners >Shows civvies with no relevant strategic education Kekw

Rule of thumb in war is the attacker must outnumber the defender by an absolute minimum of 3 to 1 over perfectly flat, open, unprepared ground. Across a river or rough terrain the minimum goes up to a minimum of 6 to 1, against cities and mountains 10 to 1. Force multipliers like tanks, artillery, air support, naval support and drones can shift the odds to a degree, but those odds are the minimums. The Ukraine population has fallen to 18 million in country vs 145 million Russians, attacking against a defender that outnumbers you by a minimum of 3 to 1 is suicide. In order for Ukraine to successfully attack Russia, they have to do so in a completely out of the box, novel manner with either a totally new type of weapon system or a less commonly used weapon system available in enormous numbers but employed in an unconventional way. It has to be done employing the element of surprise, with sufficient speed that the Russian defenses are unable to react in time. If I was in charge of the Ukraine military, and I had just received 33 Billion dollars over 1 year ago, I would have placed an order to be filled in 1 year for 5000 AT-802U Sky Wardens. They can take off and land from a hastily prepared roughly flat dirt runway of only 400 meters length, there should be plenty of land that meets that description just outside the Russian exclusion zone but within striking distance of their air defenses, with the qualifier they have concealment sufficient for 1 crop duster. Sky Wardens come in kits, can be disassembled, smuggled into position one piece at a time and reassembled in a day, along with fuel and ordinance. They can carry 60% the loadout of a A-10. During the year they're being built, train the aircrews on simulators and crop dusters across the planet, even with firefighting crews as cover, because that's how their used in a civilian role. When the time for the attack comes, all 5000 launch at the same time in a low level assault to destroy the Russian air defenses in and around Ukraine, then go on to crater the Russian airfields. Losses would be huge, but once Russian air defenses and air power are suppressed for at least a week or two, there's plenty of time for the survivors to degrade Russian artillery, armor, drone and missile batteries, logistics. It would be more in keeping with the Japanese kamikaze attacks on the U.S. Pacific fleet during WW2. Notice the ground defenses, the minefields, artillery kill zones, entrenchments and bunkers are dead last in order of priority, completely bypassed. When their supporting elements in the rear are defeated they are no more useful than the Maginot line in 1940.

Maybe don't announce your offensive like it's the trailer to a Big Holywoke blockbuster next time and put actual value in the lives of your citizens?

For any offensive to work you must have , more arty, more air cover, better info, more soldiers, more tanks, neither of those ukraine had, you can now clearly see. Btw, what UKR offensive???

Crimea in never I guess lmao

Meat grinder for Ukraine infantry

My Granddad and his WW1 buddies would have been shaking their heads and saying the same thing about Ukrainian offensive: Too Light!