There has been a lot of discussion around the effects of winter on operations. I thought I’d outline a couple of aspects of winter fighting that are both critical and often under appreciated. BLUF: Winter will likely favour the Ukrainian military. 1/17
A lot of discussion has revolved around the question of mud and tanks. We’ll circle back to this but fundamentally it is not significant. The real impact of winter is on infantry, secondly on logistics, and the impact on logistics has a secondary effect on military vehicles. 2/17
To begin with infantry. Winter sees the loss of a lot of cover as trees lack foliage. That means you have to keep low. Unfortunately low also means wet and muddy. Wet means cold. There is a limited period you can be wet and cold and remain alive. 3/17
Being able to dry yourself and warm up in this environment takes a lot of personal discipline. It means keeping your wet and dry kit separate. It requires you to meticulously manage your ability to transition from one to the other in field conditions. 4/17
If your dry kit gets wet you are on a fairly short timeline to becoming combat ineffective and need to get somewhere that has heat to dry yourself and your equipment. That probably means power or fire. Both of these things are scarce under field conditions. 5/17
The endurance and capacity of a force to operate in the field away from shelters is therefore closely tied to their personal discipline and survival skills. It is vital that junior leaders keep a close eye on their people and when someone gets cold and wet, withdraw them. 6/17
Now, the Ukrainians spent years defending the JFO through winter. Lots of the mobilised soldiers have experienced living in these conditions for months. The Ukrainian military also has reasonable junior leadership and people look out for one another. 7/17
If you look at Ukrainian fighting positions they tend to be well kept. People tend to have warm clothing and defensive lines often have areas that are kept clean, dry, and warm. Company commanders build these close to fighting positions. 8/17
Russian junior leadership has been heavily attrited. The newly mobilised personnel do not have the experience or skills to operate for extended periods in the field. They have not been issued with winter clothing for the most part. Their fighting positions are often a mess. 9/17
That will in itself see the Russians take casualties from exposure. It will also reduce the pace at which they can manoeuvre and make them more dependent upon centralised nodes for soldiers to recover. These nodes can be targeted. 10/17
For the Ukrainian military therefore they can inflict a lot of casualties just by skirmishing to keep the Russians in their fighting positions and timing attacks to prevent unit rotation. The result will be a high rate of death through hypothermia and disease. 11/17
Shifting to logistics, most military support vehicles are wheeled and both sides are heavily dependent upon commandeered civilian transport for resupply. People exaggerate how big a problem mud is for tanks. But it is a huge problem for wheeled logistics vehicles. 12/17
This means that logistics in winter is much more road-bound and this makes logistics vulnerable. It also narrows the number of axes along which resupply can move. A slow pace of resupply necessarily reduces the pace of operations 13/17
The impact on tanks and IFVs therefore is not that they can’t manoeuvre but that it takes longer to resupply them, repair them, and recover them if they get in trouble. That reduces the ability to exploit breaches made in a line and so makes offensive action more costly. 14/17
For the Ukrainian military, trying to rebuild combat power after its recent offensives, the aim this winter should be to use artillery, skirmishing and constant pressure to keep the Russians outdoors. The result will be bad for Russian morale, discipline and combat power. 15/17
Inflicting the maximum number of casualties through exposure also creates a need for the Russians to replace losses and this will see mobilised personnel pushed in with limited training, rather than being held as new units. That should help Ukraine keep the initiative. 16/17
So, the winter may see a reduction in large scale offensive action unless there is a collapse somewhere. That does not mean a reduction in fighting, or the levels of ammunition consumption. 17/17
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