Russo-Ukrainian War: What NATO needs to learn! 

Justin should really be just a regular guest on the channel. Really good discussion again

*PSA Dated 14 July '22* RU-vid is experiencing (another) influx of spam/impersonation accounts in comment sections that the automatic bot doesn't flag (yet). I doubt it has to be said but just to be clear, *do not follow* any comments that go around advertising alternative currencies or any of that nonsense. If you see an account doing this, report it to RU-vid. If that account is impersonating me (avatar+name), you'll know that it is not me because a) I don't advertise that kind of stuff and b) by clicking on the account which then sends you to a random YT account that is not me.

No bias. no spin. No dramatization. No romanticizing. Just straight facts and analysis. Thank you.

Acknowledging the limitations of open-source intelligence, this is excellent work. Well done to all.

I am amazed at the quality of information that is available to anyone who's a bit curious. Thank you for helping us get a grip on the current events.

Justin Bronx provided valuable insights into the modern battlefield. Based on how effectively drones were used by the Azeris against the Armenians in 2020, it seemed as though future wars would see drones flying over the battlefield, owning everything, like the hunter seekers in the Terminator movies. But as it turns out, even drones have limitations. A show well done.

Bis, I wanted to comment on a recent video in hopes you catch this - I think your channel is one of the greats and I love your attention towards historical integrity. I’m working my way through your WWII and prior history lessons and have learned so much from your research, which in turn has re-inspired me to do my own. Thanks again for what you do, and as soon as I’m able I will be a regular contributor to the channel.

what a great discussion, thanks for bringing this interview, good to see that justin is not ideologically driven but factually driven. Great analysis.

It is great that we can see Justin in this channel. He is one of the best analyst around and surely the questions and answers were also amazing.. Great job.. really apreciate your work..

This is a very informative interview; it's incredibly refreshing to see someone talking about this topic that isn't giving out heavily propagandized information

Thanks for getting Justin back on again.

Another really excellent video and interview, this guest in particular is amazing at making these complex topics seem much more understandable. When possible, it would be great to see more! I'd read the report before, and it was really excellent so would definitely support his recommendation

Some really interesting insights from Justin. My impression has always been the NATO is generally better at the integrated combined arms warfare with the use of fixed wing aircraft, because it's kind of the NATO MO but the discussion about the required flying hours and practice/readiness levels is very interesting.

Always great to hear Justin’s insights on the air war. His ability to provide the proper situational context results in some really excellent analysis.

Its been kind of strange at least from the coverage of this conflict with a bunch of footage of aircraft and helicopters early on to just snippets here and there. I'm wondering if Opsec has anything to do with the lack or more footage recently?

So refreshing to hear someone who really knows what he’s talking about. Nice job. Please address logistics and training as a crucial link in air doctrine. From the outside it appears that the Russians have intrinsic limitations in supporting the number of flight hours essential to maintaining an effective unified air arm

I think this shows the importance of highly mobile, well protected, ground based air defenses of various types. MEADS for example should be acquired and replace Patriot for the US. Not just because of the better radar and control but also because of truck based systems that have decent protection and can pick up, move, and set up quickly. Ground and air based optical air defense networks may also be necessary to cover gaps in radar coverage and counter electronic warfare.

Outstanding. I've been retired for a long time now but from my peripheral involvement during the Cold War with some of the systems in use at the time - yes - it costs an absolute fortune to run, maintain and train with that stuff. You very much need major exercises so that all the different elements can be combined in giving the personnel some real experience with doing these things. The other thing is - as we are seeing today - you don't _really_ know how these things are _really_ going to work - until they are being used against each other for real. Also - what you are seeing here today - is how these things are working in the specific context of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Care should be taken to not extrapolate things we are seeing - _or think we are seeing_ - in this conflict to speculation on another conflict or potential conflict. One of the things the USAF put a lot of emphasis on at one time (I just don't know about today) was Proficiency. Pilots were *_REQUIRED_* to put in a certain amount of time within a given time - doing what they were supposed to know how to do - to maintain their Proficiency. This means that not only did they know what they were doing - but - they could do it with speed and efficiency - without thinking. It was as much Muscle Memory as anything else. They did things so much that their minds could control the actions of their bodies - instantly. They didn't have to stop and think about what they were going to do - they just did it without thinking. Their minds could spend all their time on thinking about what they _wanted_ to do - rather than _how_ to do it. Their performance was instinctive - automatic - the intent to do something - WAS - doing it. And ... _If You Don't Use It - You Lose It_ . If they didn't spend enough time continually doing what they were supposed to be able to do - their Proficiency would fall off. All THAT - costs an absolute fortune. Military equipment costs a fortune to operate - and in order to operate it - you have to maintain it. The Fuel, the spare parts, the time personnel spend on what they are doing - are all horrendous. In the last year or so we have seen the cost of Civilian Organizations trying to operate Historic Equipment that was designed to be owned by a Nations Armed Forces - and the lives that were lost because it just wasn't being maintained the way it needed to be. Even during WWII - there were any number of losses because of improper maintenance. "One a day in Tampa Bay" - was really not because of the B-26's - but because they were being maintained by newly trained personnel - which was causing them to lose engines on take off ... which is never a good thing for any aircraft. In my experience both in service and in support - I saw the incredible efforts that were being made by the kids we had out there operating that equipment. I also participated in the Post Cold War Draw Down ... All I'll say about THAT is that I once told someone who was objecting to what was happening: "The Mistake you are making is thinking that things being all fucked up - is an unacceptable state of affairs." The Bean Counters take over and all the money they save will be paid for with blood in the future - but - the Bean Counters don't care. .

Great video Chris. Thank you!

Thanks for your careful efforts making this vid. It is exactly what has been missing from the discussion.

As an ex military staff officer with 22 yrs served, I can tell that Justin Bronk is a man to pay attention to. He knows his onions. Read the linked report in the description.

That report he recommended at the end was 10/10. Id suggest anyone read it as well, it's super quick and informative considering how much info it goes through. I don't typically get into the technical details of the war so it's a decent overview.

Great piece mate, thanks.

Great interview! Thank you

A small point about the losses in the force which went into Hostomel. I appreciate that Justin is talking about the EW effect on the larger anti-air systems so is actually referring to those systems not making kills however it is worth pointing out that the ingress to Hostomel was not without shoot-downs in transit. Footage and images confirm at least 3 Mi8's from the 31st Air Assault Guards Division shot down before landing as well as at least 1 KA52 and at least 1 MI28. At least one of those Mi8 shoot downs appears to be by a direct fire unguided weapon (perhaps a BMP1 73mm main gun or SPG-9) whilst preparing to land over the airfield. Also worth noting that the KA52 was brought down over the airfield by the weight and preponderance of small arms fire over time rather than any particular weapon system. While Justin's point regarding the larger AA system absoluetly stands I just felt it was worth pointing out .

Man, being an Sa-8 SAM and seeing an Iskandr missile coming out of the heavens like God's middle finger and landing RIGHT on your head - there aren't many worse days a guy can have than that

These are always fantastic.

Fantastic discussion, excellent questions. Thank you!

Would love to hear Justin's thoughts about the effectiveness of the Su25, it seems to really heavily utilised by both sides, is that just because it has lower maintenance requirements and is a more affordable loss? If Russia has only been using the 85 modernised ones then the airframes much be averaging very high readiness and sortie rates. It seems to me that, relatively speaking, the Su25 has been more effective and versatile than the Su34, despite being a generation older. I do realise that on the UKR side it's pretty much all they've got for fixed wing ground attacks.

Justin's comments on UCAV being a misnomer reminds me about the F-117, which was touted in the press as some sort of game-changing weapons system but was in fact used for very specific, extensively planned out missions at the strategic level and was not really survivable in a fluid combat environment at all, given the actual limitations of its stealth.

Insightful. Thank you!

Outstanding video and presentation

This war has thrown a lot of theory out of the window

Just one thing I think about the Oryx blog, is that it's much easier to get photographic evidence of let's say destroyed tanks, than it is of planes that have been shot down and fallen down somewhere hard to reach. So personally I think that the loss of planes is underrepresented the most because of lack of evidence.

I came here from Millennium 7* and I really appreciate this kind of insider knowledge. The advanced analysis and open discussion in this video is really interesting, and I think has been very informative towards my beliefs about our world.

Very interesting , thank you for organising that,

Drones were always going to be vulnerable to surface to air weapons. What we need are smaller SAMs which are cheaper to deal wirh drones.

Its so fucking hard to find an analyst that isnt an outright Ukraine shill and just looks at facts and reasoning from both sides. Refreshing guest appearance.

Absolutely fantastic video! Excellent information. PLEASE do more of these. Solid information on the Ukrainian conflict is hard to come by.

great conversation

Largely overlooked in the "comments" section here, is Justin's assessment of the Russians' use of electronic suppression of Ukrainian air defenses, especially its SAMs. This leads me to conclude that most of Russia's losses of tactical aircraft, both fixed and rotary wing, has been to passive systems like MANPADs and traditional, visually-aimed antiaircraft artillery. This is especially true of the Russian fleet of SU-25 attack jets' and Hind attack helicopters' losses to ground fire. In footage I've seen of MANPADs being fired at SU-25s, the defensive use of IR flares seemed quite effective against the Stingers and similar shoulder launched weapons. Without chaff and flares, the Russian losses would presumably be much higher. I'm agnostic about Justin's overall claim that drones have been ineffective, or at least not decisive in the war for possession of the Donbass. I suspect that UCAVs may have been up to more mischief in that theater than we in the public domain are privy to. Justin's point about the somewhat surprisingly low intensity role of air combat in the Ukraine War is well taken. I agree with him that this is partly due to Russia's national command authority's buy-in to the idea that this war would be a 48 to 72 hour cakewalk. There seem to have been no lessons learned from the very effective massive air campaigns utilized by the coalition forces in both Gulf Wars to spearhead the highly successful ground campaign against Sadam Hussein's regime in Baghdad. Clearly, Putin's generals totally underestimated the Ukrainian population's resolve to aggressively fight back to defend its independent soveDonna's. The deciding factor in this war may very well come down to what the US learned in Vietnam. A determined indigenous guerrilla war campaign, materially supported by outside actors, can defeat a massively superior military force, itself compelled by domestic political factors to fight with both arms handcuffed behind its back. If the Ukraunian people and their government have the stomach to fight an insurgent guerrilla campaign, for years if necessary, they will slowly bleed the Russian military and regime to an unacceptable level. As in Vietnam, the Russians, like America, will accept a negotiated peace that gives them Crimea and Donbass. Then the Ukrainians will suffer the foreign domination of their occupied territory for a couple of years before they resume their covert and open resistance. Russia, exhausted by a war their own people think is not worth the further effusion and treasure will find a face-saving means of withdrawing, at least from Donbass.

This guy (Justin Bronk), and Stanimir Dobrev who was interviewed a few times on Military History not Visualized, are HANDS DOWN the most interesting people to listen to regarding the war in Ukraine. Fascinating every time.

Outstanding, interesting insights on the limitations of (current) drones!

An Excellent Overview ! Thank You 👍🏻

More great analysis, really important lessons being learned. Top video, thank you.

Just want to make a small correction: it’s not true that the Russians lost no helicopters on the way in to Hostomel. Two escorting helicopters were shot down over the Kyiv Reservoir, one Mi-24P and one Mi-35M.

Great job I really appreciate collaboration it's definitely a multiplier

very high quality. Enjoyed it

I thank your guest for his inputs. It’s especially interesting to understand how these big drones are not combat survivable. Space and low level specialized satellites? I doubt seriously that over the next even 5 years that the USA will invest or be able to invest in overwhelming numbers. Manpower is another issue. Investing in a much higher manpower level makes the most sense. United States should be training at least half a million troops a year. A full 10% need to be foreign nationals so we have friends to work with around the world.

Just the lack of high quality footage is what upsets me. But I Think after the war a lot of stuff will be released or declassified. Kinda like those Videos of U.S pilot dodging SAMs

Quality information right here. Amazing 👏

The lack of guided munitions really bites them because they are reliant on low level attacks to achieve a reasonable level of precision. The Idea would be to have a SEAD as well as Electronic Warfare aircraft always with the strike fleet of Aircraft to take out long and medium threats and to fly high enough to a point where stingers are basically useless

So to sum up the lessons from the war in two simple points. 1) A modern air force is outrageously expensive and is simply unaffordable for all but the US and China. It is not even affordable for the #3 power, Russia. 2) Guerrilla warfare is still alive and well even in this age of integrated air defenses and modern air forces.

Another superb video! You and Bronk make a good team!

Thank you! Brilliant!

Excellent video. I think the point at the end about training hours and affordability is spot on. The other things that are harder to calculate accurately the individual motivation and discipline which can make a big difference. One thing in particular in this conflict and I may be wrong on this but I do get the feeling that Russia has not fully committed to this war. They have tried to use smaller forces in smaller manoeuvres rather than an all out full commitment of their military might. I think that's one of the reasons why they seem to be struggling.

Trying too hard to be balanced is also wrong sometimes. Training and maintaining a manned airforce is a lot more expensive than maintaining a UAV force. Pilots need constant training and there is a general pilot shortage across the globe. Training+aircraft is a huge cost when lost. Unfortunately, this expert is fighting the previous war. One can look at Mq 25 program as how the future is going to look like.

Fantastic content.

Excellent content.

Please put Justin’s name in the title so I can prioritize my daily clip selection ;) Great content and guest!

The focus of Electronic Attack aircraft should be looked more into. The USN/USMC should expand the EA-18G fleet the USAF should acquire EA capable aircraft and France Germany should also have at least four squadrons of EA aircraft since they have the largest air forces in the continent. I know the French will never buy American but at least Germany should really look into buying the Growler.

This was super interesting, thanks for sharing, learned a lot.

Very happy to see this

I would love a podcast of Justin, military aviation, Perun, the chieftain and military history visualised! Please set this up.

It's really weird that they don't focus on SEAD. Even strategic bombers would be really helpful in leveling some key Areas to the ground.

I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Looking very summery there Chris, hope you're managing to enjoy this weather and not spending all day in the library :)

"couple" of months - 141 day - 6 Months starting February.

Thanks for this video Chris! I was waiting for your view on the effectiveness of Bayraktar drones in this conflict. Very balanced view, and exactly what I expected. Quite the opposite to the media hype that surrounded these drones at the time of their limited successes.

Very interesting !!

God damn that was good! 22yr USAF guy here and very much appreciated the insights.

Very informative - though I think your guest underestimates the way drones are changing things. They seem to be cost effective, and readily adaptable into a number of roles. We will likely see more of them, and possibly specialist role drones, like anti-air defense.

Can anyone discuss impact of US supplying targeting data for Ukrainian SAM systems collected by US assets in the area?

Great information on the UAVs

I can't get enough of Justin Bronk

I would also posit that the Russians were a bit loss averse with their fixed wing aircraft early on and didn't think they could survive in proximity to advanced Soviet air defense systems.

at least the next COD game won't be about Russia invading anywhere

I've watched this several times; this is a data dense show. The implications are frightening. Thank you very much, well done.

Awesome!

Great guest! I wish he would remind more often which side he is talking about. It's hard to keep track when it's ukranians and when it's russians. So let's say that as an example say "ukranians ran out of manpads quickly" instead of leaving out the country.

I'm annoyed that he replied to the Bayraktar but didn't talk about the Switchblade or loitering munitions in general. The switchblade is absolutely a great counter to artillery, SAMs, and for EWAR in general if you make it radiation seeking. Top 5 things that need to be supplied to Ukraine supplies imho is: 1) Plenty of MLRS like the HIMARS 2) More standard howitzers/mortars. 3) Plenty of loitering munitions, with extra empathis on radiation seeking munitions. 4) Plenty of visually targeted martlet or starstreak missiles to take out Russian drones and break their artillery kill chain, and keep denying access to manned aircraft. 5) Provide adequate replacement guns that use NATO caliber ammunition so that Ukraine can keep fighting when their soviet era ammo stockpiles run out. Those are all critical to breaking the Russian artillery advantage. This also assumes that the west keeps supplying modern ATGMs like the NLAW, and communication equipment like Starlink that is unaffected by Russian ewar attempts.

Thank you for your amazing and unbiased analysis (which is hard to find nowadays)

Very interesting, insightful and sober discussion. Excellent video ... 🇬🇧

Can you make a video about the SU25 ? I see videos of Russians using this aircraft the most. I see them shooting rockets up in the air can they hit their ground targets that way?

Wikipedia page on UCAV literally shows MQ-9 Reaper and TB-2 Bayraktar first. Also if you think of the definition, MQ-9 or TB-2 are Unmanned - check, Combat - check (short-range missile is still a missile), Aerial - check, Vehicle - no ch... just kidding, check. So how are they not UCAVs then? Remotely piloted, yes, but how come that doesn't mean combat?

I wonder why he managed to leave out the Ghost of Kiev. We all now know that in the first few weeks, this previously dead pilot came from the shadows of death, and single handedly changed the tide of the air battle. They may have killed him a second time, since his plane has not been seen in a while, but he will probably come back again like he did the first time he was killed.

Excellent Video.

So things to learn… Stealth matters, SEAD matters. Drones are great for artillery spotting, but not as massive of a game changer that everyone claimed. Oh and training matters. So wait, you’re telling me all the Facebook Air Marshalls don’t know what they’re talking about?! Lmao

Good video. Your guest was very informative! Historically speaking, giving the Russians time is always a mistake and that's what is happening.

Most interesting and well informed.

great video

US shows their military capabilities in fighting with rebels and insurgencies in middle East but Russia is fighting with former Soviet satilite state who have their own defence industries along with US, collective Europe and NATOs support. That's why we don't see the kinds of war we show previously.

No one in their right mind would expect TB2 or any other single weapon system to win the war for Ukrainians.. But declaring them not useful or "no replacement for aircraft" is just stupid on this context. 60 confirmed kills out of 4000+ russian vehicles may seem small (and it is), but how many vehicles did Ukrainian *manned* aircraft manage to destroy? If we are comparing visually confirmed kills its exactly 0.. This shining example of manned aviation isn't a good example to prove your point..Strategically, by playing a part in forcing Russian armor to withdraw, regroup and organise their air defenses, TB2 helped buying Ukrainians valuable days if not weeks at the start of the war, so they could organise and fight back, it also contributed to sinking of moskva as a spotter and bait and countless times it harrassed (or helped other assets) snake island, contributing to Ukrainian victory there.. I'd HIGHLY doubt Ukrainians would have done better if they had 12-ish additional MiG-29s or Su-24s in their place of their TB2s. All in all probability, Moskva would have handled all dozen of these aircraft with ease, Buk and Tor-M2 launchers on Snake island would have easier time shooting these aircraft down had they attemted to do bombing runs. So again, the very evidence you provide proves you are wrong. Sure its a teeny tiny UCAV, obviously its never intended to challenge enemy's air superiority, nor its even intended to go againist Russian airforce with literally nothing to back it up... On its intended use case with TuAF, fullfilling CAS duties in a favourable EW environment while backed F-16s providing aircover and SEAD, I'd say TB2 is exponentially more dangerous than its percieved to be in Ukraine or Azerbaijan.

@military aviation history : thx for the objective technical approach to the Ukraine conflict! Keep it up!

Great content

Uhm, the war has been going on for a lot longer than “a couple of months” smh

I think too many people are expecting NATO-type warfighting to easily defeat enemy air defenses based on recent wars. Gulf War was 31 years ago, since then Western forces haven't fought a heavy air defense. This is, quite probably, similar to the kinds of combat NATO might face against Russians or Chinese. We have a tendency to both overestimate and underestimate our opponents - clearly the Russians weren't as capable as we originally imagined they would be, but they continue to adapt and improve how they use their assets, especially air defense.

Very informative video

Absolutely top class commentary here

He didn't mention the use of drones for spotting, directing and correcting ground based artillery in real time. Inexpensive recreational drones with good optics that ae able to generate accurate positional information to gunners on the ground would be worth more than a squadron of close attack aircraft.