Hapless

Going to be really interesting to see more of these kinds of videos. I keep talking about competing snowdomes- this is what I think it should look like: The Russian Air Defence layer starts getting holes blasted in it by HARMs (or is redeployed to save the bridges/ uses it's ammo up trying to hit HIMARs rockets or ground targets/ or is logistically neutered/ etc). This allows Ukrainian airpower/dronepower to penetrate the AD layer and start poking holes in the artillery layer... ... which means that Russian ground units start to lose the protection of their artillery (no support) and become more exposed to Ukrainian artillery (reduced counterbattery capability)... ... which means they become increasingly vulnerable to Ukrainian ground forces. Nothing revolutionary, but like Huba says, we haven't seen drone videos like that since Phase 1, and we all know how that ended. A pretty solid indicator that the Russians on the west bank are getting closer to collapse... providing Ukraine can keep the pressure up.

Bit more on the same bridge strike at the end of this twitter column that looks like it shows more. I count 8 big hits on the bridge- plus something hitting the river near the start and something smaller that might be a cook-off towards the end. Also a windy day down in Kherson, so maybe the guy reporting on the pontoon and ferry linked earlier missed a rendezvous with destiny.

The advantage the pontoon has over the bridge is that it's modular- so if one section is damaged, you just cut it loose, it floats off and you slot a new one in. I'd guess all the sections are compartmentalised too, so if one springs a leak and fills up with water, the pontoon as a whole has enough bouyancy to stay afloat long enough for the engineers to try and fix it. I'm sure there are people on here who know more than me about pontoon bridges etc. though. The issue for the Russians is probably more along the lines of having a finite amount of those chunky, really-big-river-capable pontoon sections (and having to transport them to the bridge and/or stockpile them nearby without getting them blown up) and trying to keep their specialist engineers alive when trying to fix stuff.

Some footage of pontoon construction and ferry close alongside the Antonovsky Bridge: Not exactly new stuff, but a closer look than I think we've seen before. No clue on the date. Might be some indication of damage (ie. things sticking out) at about 0:24 looking along the bridge, but the angles seem tightly controlled to avoid showing anything particulalry interesting. Does give a good idea of how much bridging equipment is necessary for this though- given that these are higher level assets you have to wonder how much this construction is reducing Russian river crossing options elsewhere.

Sultan Command Vehicle or Samaritan Ambulance. British CVRT variant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_Reconnaissance_(Tracked)

Gonna climb up on a hill, dig in and say we've been watching the offensive for the last few weeks or so. It's just getting hard to draw a line between traditional pre-offensive shaping operations and the potential for the long-range precision deep battle to be decisive in and of itself.

Ninja'd Looking forward to more of this account though. I don't think any of it is surprising at this stage, but it does highlight a background issue. For want of a better description, there is a kind of 'zombie' aspect to the Russian army, where they don't really conform to Western expectations. Perhaps for the troops north of Kherson the fact that they're existing with their logistics practically severed, abandoned by their commanders, scavenging for food, living in unsanitary conditions and slowly succumbing to disease isn't the kind of military disaster that we would envisage... it's just like being back in barracks.

I'm firmly on the side of some kind of missile... ... but I'm not sure where all this SOF stuff is coming from. We're talking about a society where a destroyer captain sold the propeller off his ship (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-navy-captain-stole-ships-13-tonne-propellers-m5vxkhvb3). No point SOF-ing around when you can just give Sergei a bag of rubles in exchange for a night-time wander about the flight line.

Krulak Centre's Brutecast tackles it, exploring some possible options:

I feel like the Russian's biggest concern right now is cutting the internet connection to Crimea and getting a barrage battalion to the Kerch bridge to stop all those tourists disappearing into the Motherland with footage.

Looks like 8 trails. Can't think of anything else that fires 8 at once off the top of my head. @The_CaptRe Mission Command/ Manoeuvre Warfare: "It's complicated" seems like a good bet. Going back to some of the Nagarno-Karabakh analysis, we could be looking at deeply planned controlled, pulsed bite and hold offensives around the edge of enemy snowdomes attempting to provoke, reveal, locate and destroy Arty/SAM/EW/logistics assets until enough have been knocked out to precipitate that snowdome to collapse, at which point a more fluid Mission Command-Manoeuvre Warfare exploitation/mopping up phase kicks in. I mean, that sounds like every war ever in some fancy word dressing, but I think there's a dynamic between Mission Command and more Control focused methods where they cycle depending on the situation. They both have advantages and disadvantages and operate at different levels and scales with different impacts for different units. So... hybrid command styles?

I had a much longer rambling post, but gave up on it, so TLDR: How many tactical decisions does a junior officer make in a year? Not a lot. Exercises are expensive and time consuming, training objectives must be met, freeplay is rare, scripting is prevalent. vs How many tactical decisions do you make in an average CM game? How many do you make in an average CM turn? All that micromanagement from battalion to fire team level? Endless tactical decision making. Naturally, decision-making and execution are very, very different. And CM is by no means 100% realistic. But it's probably realistic enough, especially integrated into a full on professional military syllabus. If nothing else, it's a lot safer and cheaper to 'fail forward' in CM than it is on exercise or- God forbit- the real deal.

Another short video about drones from French TV: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/vlmgk0/a_french_television_channel_report_on_the_uaf/ Shows what's going on back in the CP, which I don't think we've seen before. It's not clear if they're watching the drone feed live or playing it back for the reporter- (probably clearer to someone who understands French!). Maps are visible and unblurred, which apparently resulted in casualties and at least one death. OPSEC matters.

Another friendly reminder that 99% of the internet is not a reliable source and anyone can write a caption. In the words of Sergeant Hamlet from the CM Discord, this is Shroedinger's Hind. Never seen two blatantly contradictingly titled clips of the same footage pop up next to each other in the feed before.

Javelin team gets a missile off, then comes under fire. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/v8qoiq/the_fgm148_javelin_operator_hits_an_enemy_target/ Few things I thought were interesting: They get spotted real fast- looks like the missile might have a bit of a vapour trail (don't think Javelin usually has one, so could be the local conditions?) There are at least two Javelin teams. Hard to tell, but they don't look like they're bugging out as soon as the missile is fired. In theory they should be able to due to the fire and forget capability- so maybe they think it's safe enough to hang around, maybe they need to keep the AT capability up or maybe it's really hard to *not* watch your missile hit the target.

And from the strategic to the tactical- if anyone wanted to see how drones can supplement basic soldiering skills: Apparently Russian SF vs a Ukrainian patrol. Short sharp ambush, followed by snatching a wounded prisoner. Footage is here- NSFW. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/v6yjpr/pov_of_russian_sso_ambush_against_ukrainian/ Obviously it's interesting to see a small scale tactical action from this perspective, but I think it's important to see that the impact of the drone here isn't revolutionary. It certainly might make certain elements easier (we don't know how long they've been waiting there- it could be a snap ambush thrown on at a moment's notice because they spotted the incoming patrol via the drone) but the drone isn't doing the basics for them, it's complementing existing skills. This is sort of drones writ large: they don't exactly bring any new capabilities to the table as a whole (drones aren't doing any missions that didn't get done in WW1 by biplanes (except any EW stuff)), but they do extend existing capabilities- more people at the table get the ability to carry out and benefit from those missions. For example, aerial reconaissance is a thing- but there's a world of difference between trying to get an aircraft to fly over, take some photos and then somehow get them to a rifle platoon in a timely manner vs the platoon drone operator chucking a Raven in the air and getting a live feed a couple of seconds later. How to operate in an environment where everyone has airpower at their fingertips is the hard part.

Cheap and cheerful rocket artillery? How hard would it be to have 'mobilisation MRLS kits' to turn peacetime civilian pickups into an MLRS mosquito swarm?

Not sure if this has popped up here yet: everybody's favourite river crossing.

Another picture of the BMPTs (hopefully Reddit can manage just a picture): Do we think that's a tactical clump or a photoshoot clump?

I'm going to go with: saving them for winter. If the current situation maintains itself up to the Autumn muddy season then the Russians are going to have been seriously ground down. Exacerbate that once the rain hits with deep artillery/drones/SF hitting logistics, then start conducting major operations once the ground is hard enough. This would give the Ukrainians time to prepare/train/blood their non-committed units, assimilate new weapons and equipment, maybe even do some small scale trial runs (think the Western Allies pre-Normandy). Obviously the Russians get a say too, but given the last few months maybe they wouldn't get much of one.

Attack drones are nice and all, but how much are drones going to change forward logistics? If we're looking at a very wide, porous battle zone populated by ATGM, MANPAD, drone enabled recce-arty complex wielding low signature light infantry, is it going to be easier to resupply them with drone deliveries of ammo cans, missiles, rations and jerry cans of fuel and water than it is to push vehicles in there?

Another CM relevant one: About halfway through, the tanks start to experience familiar pathfinding issues. Also, someone has dumped a lot of artillery on that area and- took me a minute staring at the pixels- at least one of the tanks starts off with tank riders aboard.

Huh. Delayed double post I guess.

So... lots of BMP-1s? I can kinda get seeing a few MTLBs because they're semi-ubiquitous utility vehicles, but not so many BMP-1s. I mean, could be DPR/LPR vehicles, but committing the second-rate cannon fodder to an important operation is probably a sign of something worse. Also: there's a chunk of BMP stuck in a tree!

Quick recap in ISW maps: Really striking how fast the area NW of Kyiv changed once the Russians hit the tipping point.