Welcome to my Post-Fall of Kherson JOPG
momentum is a terrible thing to waste
Usually things flow from here to twitter, but now and then I pop something off that - knowing that not everyone who reads CDRSalamander is on twitter - deserves to flow the other way.
As a Navy guy who spent almost half a decade doing an Army guy's job as an operational planner, a few ideas popped in to my head this AM about "what next" in Ukraine.
Generally I'm not a fan of winter offensives, but when they work - they work. I am even more not a fan of wasting momentum when your larger enemy is on the back foot.
So, three Courses of Action for you to consider ... with absolutely no Commander's Intent or Higher Direction and Guidance ... but when has that ever stopped a core Joint Operational Planning Group's Core Planning Team from sketching some ideas out?
We all need plans to deviate from:
I'd say COA-A but kick it off with a convincing try at taking the dam at Nova Kakhovka, with plans for pushing reinforcements across that dam crossing to heading east and cause trouble if it falls easily and intact Remagen-style.
I've been thinking for a while that the eastern end of the reservoir SE of Zaporizhzhia (so many z's!) would make a nice starting point for a push down through Vasylivka and partisan country along M-18 to Melitopol and then onward to the seaside to cut all those rail lines supplying Crimea. Adding another supporting thrust down to mind ones left flank along H-30 to Berdiansk might also be attractive depending on what forces are available - one can only push so much down one road, and spreading out and putting some skeer on behind the lines worked up north.
Of course the Rooskies can read a map too - I note recent OSINT sat images showing the digging of defensive trench works (!) north of Melitopol, from which it seems Russian trench doctrine does not go in for communication trenches.
But that Zaporizhzhia Oblast front has been awfully quiet for a long time as far as Ukrainian activity goes. Maybe some lulling action going on there?
And any of these make more sense that the media's idea of what happens next - I'm just not sure why the Ukrainians would decide to stick their... hand... into the woodchipper down at Kherson when that's clearly what the Russians really, really want them to do.
Winter offensives work. The Battles of Trenton 1&2 and Princeton (Dec 1776-Jan 1777)
COA-D Converging columns/axes at a single objective, either Azov, Armianski or Mauripol