acrashb

Now you understand why Girkin and Murz have been raving mad for several weeks. But you forget three main ingredients that make all problems go away. Cocaine, stripers, and RU TV channel.

There were lots of discussion on logistics in first 500 pages, when the war was still in the "maneuver" phase. 
I highly recommend below article as a quick start reading on this topic
" FEEDING THE BEAR: A CLOSER LOOK AT RUSSIAN ARMY LOGISTICS AND THE FAIT ACCOMPLI"
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/
This is an estimation based on idea situation. Russian Army , after the 2008 Serdyukov reform, has changed from Soviets' style deep battle to an army that will limit it's operation to no more than 50km. The relatively low number of trucks under the Army HQ should not be a big issue in a low intense - high tech warfare. But in this  "WW I style bombardment" war,  it has already become an issue. Part of the reason Russian crawling from Rubizhne, Popasna into Severodonetsk-Lysychans'k is, usually they running low on artillery shell after 3 days operation, so next offensive to push another 10km into UA defense line needs a week to buildup.   Now , with ammunition dump move to a place >100km to the front line troops, the issue could become a disaster. Back in March when Russian tanks were 150km-200km away from the railhead they can barely keep 1/3rd of the force operational.  
 
 
 
And I would like to add one more thought here. This is not about Russian army or US army, this is more about the human nature (and many big corporations are likely to make the same mistake) . If a congestion happens and that reduces the frontline troops' received supplies significantly, the decision maker is very likely to push more trucks with supplies down the road, which in turn causes more congestions and reduce the received supplies further.

Yeah, it really depends on the echelon the dump supports - bde, div, corps, army. Below bde (bn or bty) the stocks 'should' all be on wheels.
The following pseudo-calcs are based on very not-Russian doctrine, and instruction to the level of "enough to know what the blanket-folders care about" rather than "enough to do the blanket-folder's job", so the principles should be about right, although the particular numbers will vary.
Generally, stocks are held in dumps based on days-of-supply (or some equivalent term) which is - as you can probably guess - the expected consumption per day in units of fire, rather than a specific number of rounds. For a ~150mm calibre gun (152, or 155) 1 unit would be 80-100 rounds^ at standard rates of fire. This is equivalent to the 'basic load' or 'first line' of 5.56mm that riflemen carry, or the standard loadout of a tank of IFV. You might double or triple it for high expected intensity, or halve it for quiet times, but 1 unit is as good a place as any to start. Then, 'all' you have to do is count up the number of guns in the echelon, multiply by the number of rounds in the basic load, and multiply all that by the number of days the dump is to support. For a bde you'd expect the dump to be able to support 2-3 days, a div 3-7 days, a corps something like a week to a fortnight, and an army ... well, whatever.
So, for a bde, you're looking at something like 18 guns x 90 rounds x 2 days = ~3200 rounds, or a bit over 400 pallets.
For a div, it'd be something like 4-10 times that amount, or 12,000 - 30,000rnds. (54 guns x 90 rounds x 5 days = ~24,000 rounds/3,000 pallets)
A corps would be about 4-10 times that (50,000-300,000rnds), although presumably split into multiple dispersed div- or bde-sized dumps.
If you then apply some level of safety thinking, and split the dump into multiple separated 'blobs' so you don't lose the whole lot to a single accident or enemy strike, well, a properly organised and run dump takes up a LOT of real estate. Each dump would expect to receive a flow of rounds arriving each day from the next higher dump, and in turn push rounds down to the next lower dump or have rounds pulled out out by the firing units. The dump therefore acts as a buffer so that local variations in the amount received or the amount consumed aren't felt by the firing units or their supported arms. If the amount received is less than the amount consumed ... the dump gets smaller. If the amount received exceeds the amount consumed then the dump swells. In either case the guns should experience no disruption in supply.
The pic below shows an 8-round pallet.
 
^ itself made up of a pre-determined mix of HE, illum, smoke, etc projectiles and a pre-determined mix of fuze types - PD, prox, time, etc

And, of course, that's only gun ammo. There's also mortar ammo, fighting vehicle ammo, small arms ammo, ATGMs and MANPADS, fuel, mines, engineering stores, personal consumables, medical supplies, bridging equipment, spare parts, batteries, ... the wonder is not that armies move so slowly, but that they move at all.

Not one Murz. Several Russian propagandists in social media started "to push in masses" narratives that victory is impossible without heavy strikes on civilaian infrastructure, big losses among civilians - because this can cause unrest and pressure on Zelenskyi to accept Russian terms for the sake of deaths and destructions stopping. This is first "throw in", next I, think, "heavy artilery" on TV will start to pump this opinion among wide masses of population. Among this message "we have to kill civilians" propagandists push another - "Russia can't loss the war, because prestige of country and army at stake, so we must acieve the victory with any methods and any cost"
So, I think, in nearest time we should be ready to "missile terror". Today, for example, Russians deployed Grads on the territory of nuclear plant in Energodar and shelled Nikopol' city through the Kakhovka reservoir on Dnieper (9 km). 13 houses were damaged, 2 civilians killed, 1 wounded. Also was shelled town Chuhuiv in Kharkiv oblast - 3 killed, in the town Kostiantynivla, Donetsk oblast two ballistic missiles ruined two dozen rural houses, 2 killed. 
Not only propagandists sound this message. Here the audio from the meeting of colonel Oleg Korotkevich, acting commander of 41st CAA with parents of servicemen of 35th MRB  (which lost own BTG during Siverskyi Donets crossing)
I translate some of his sentences:
- Can our president say tomorrow on TV: "Yes, I made a decision to stop special military operation" ? Yes, he can. But what then happens? All that is done, is all in vain? This is first. And all this nationalism, which will remain unfinished, will come here through the year. And it will be here, in Aleysk, Novoisibirsk, Tomsk, Tyumen', Moscow, anywhere... Only just because our state, like a beaten dog will have to leave from there, do you understand? We canno't afford it to ourselves, no matter how hard it is.
Also he told that after heavy losses, 261 servicemen of brigade rejected to fight and they already dismissed, they will not receive own money and they will not get status of combat participators, which allow to have some privilege. Also, Korotkevich blamed paretnts and familiars of servicemen, issuing of information in internet about brigade losses - because of this they can't to form new battalion, because many people, who want to sign a contract, go to other brigade in Yurga (74th MRB)

That Rusi piece is really good, reading into it now:
“The reliance on railheads and civilian vehicles, which are largely restricted to road movement, makes key bottlenecks in Russian artillery highly predictable. Moreover, the ammunitions dumps at the divisional and brigade level are large, distinct, hard to conceal or defend, and slow to relocate. Given Ukraine’s limited capacity to strike at the Russian military’s rear echelons and fight a deep battle, this is a weakness that is yet to be widely capitalised upon. Isolated strikes on ammunition dumps show what is possible but given the disparity in guns and the shortage of Russian precision fires, the fastest way to level the playing field is to enable Ukraine to strike Russian artillery logistics. The critical factor in this is precision, range and payload. Ukraine needs strike systems with a sufficiently powerful warhead to ignite stored ammunition or damage key logistical infrastructure, accurate enough to hit these targets precisely, and with the range to do so from beyond Russian howitzer fire. The best system for this is MLRS, although with a more powerful munition than the UK’s reduced lethality unitary warhead GMLRS. These capabilities need to be provided at scale.”
So this was published on Jul 4, and written likely before the HIMARs arrived.  It explains the exploding ammo depots over the last couple weeks quite well.  The UA can see the entire RA logistics chain, it is big and cumbersome, but could not hit it…they can now - last puzzle piece.

That's always part of it.  The other part, at least for me, is the strategic element of the Russo-Ukrainian war, as it touches on the economic element that underpins all extended wars.
https://mises.org/library/economics-war
"If a tailor and baker go to war with each other, it is significant that the baker can wait longer for a new suit than the tailor can go without bread. "
I say Ukraine, backed by the West, is the baker.

That's always part of it.  The other part, at least for me, is the strategic element of the Russo-Ukrainian war, as it touches on the economic element that underpins all extended wars.
https://mises.org/library/economics-war
"If a tailor and baker go to war with each other, it is significant that the baker can wait longer for a new suit than the tailor can go without bread. "
I say Ukraine, backed by the West, is the baker.

That's always part of it.  The other part, at least for me, is the strategic element of the Russo-Ukrainian war, as it touches on the economic element that underpins all extended wars.
https://mises.org/library/economics-war
"If a tailor and baker go to war with each other, it is significant that the baker can wait longer for a new suit than the tailor can go without bread. "
I say Ukraine, backed by the West, is the baker.

That's always part of it.  The other part, at least for me, is the strategic element of the Russo-Ukrainian war, as it touches on the economic element that underpins all extended wars.
https://mises.org/library/economics-war
"If a tailor and baker go to war with each other, it is significant that the baker can wait longer for a new suit than the tailor can go without bread. "
I say Ukraine, backed by the West, is the baker.

we are lemmings

Big big news: US law (and $100M budget) to train UA pilots on F-16s and F-15 passed the first level of legislatory process. As I understand, it has to be approved by Senate and POTUS now. I'm not that familiar with the way it works in US, but given previous cases, their support for that is probably a sure thing? 
What remains to be seen is if that would start from the scratch, or if the process is already well ongoing. I'm sure some loophole to make it legal is easily found, especially with help of allies who operate F-16s ?
https://www.airforcemag.com/as-ukrainian-pilot-training-passes-house-ndaa-legislators-work-to-overcome-roadblocks/

They don’t.

News from Estonia, but please lets not get sidetracked and talk about firearm laws in the United States again. 😃

Parking garages a bad place to put an ammo dump you say? Well, the Russian Army has a solution!

The interesting thing about Russia in the war is the ideological vacuum.  There are not great ideas here.  They definitely have nationalism and a weak tea “I will protect you from NATO” but lacks the power that communism or monarchy had back in 1917 by a wide margin.  Putin has worked hard for over 20 years to build a personal cult but he in nowhere near the level of the Kim King’s of NK.  Nor does Putin have a religion to hold everything together because it is the “will of God” such as they have in theocracies such as Iran.  Nor does Russia have democracy or an idea of liberal freedom.
So what ideology does Russia have beyond paranoia and a general zeitgeist of revelling in misery?  Maybe that will be enough but I think it is weak glue in the absence of an existential crisis.  Putin has, and will continue to make the argument that this is an existential crisis but it is a weak argument.  As the social lattice in Russia comes under increasing stress I have to wonder how long the social contract will hold.  Russians have proven they can take a lot, under the right circumstances; however, without a crystalline idea to hold them together outside the bonds of their intimate communities and micro-social spaces, I think they are in fact more vulnerable than many think.

Yup. In words of Captain Blackadder: " War hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High Chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside".
 

Not sure where you’ve been the last 5 months but no we aren’t speculating. To us it seems ridiculous they would make that assumption. However all the facts on the ground support that reality. Russia fell for its own twisted delusions. The one item they weren’t delusional about was not being able to afford a lengthy war. Unfortunately they rolled snake eyes. 

War has four main components: a certainty, communication, negotiation, and sacrifice.  This is what happens when sacrifice hits the wall of "Gen Me".
 

Ho man, that is the God of War’s red right hand.  Not sure about the CDA but given the amount of civilian damage in Ukraine right now I am betting they have widened the meaning of “acceptable” somewhat.

I have been expecting this. Not confirmed yet.

An excellent reason to quit smoking . 😁

A serious problem for Russians.

 

I own a parking garage company and here’s the thing with parking garages: they are built to a pretty defined standard globally and in Europe in particular, they are built on the lower end of that standard in terms of dimensions. So….they are *terrible* places to store things. They are not warehouses. First, they have low roof space. You can’t stack up a ton of ammo when the height limit is 9 feet (which is a generous estimate for older built garages) and trucks simply won’t fit inside most of them. Second, they are typically broken up by pillars/buttresses/etc to carry the weight of vehicles. It’s very hard to efficiently stack in them. Third, few have an actual loading dock attached so ingress/egress of supplies have to go via the normal vehicle entrance and then be lifted from the ground to the level of the truck bed. Fourth, it’s quite easy in an older garage to over stress them with weight. Artillery shells in bulk would be a nightmare…especially in some slapdash Soviet era Trabbie hutch. 
Finally, a single big shell at the egress point shuts them down entirely. They are specifically built to stop vehicle traffic from anywhere else. So…it would be just like the Russians to do it but it would be quite stupid to use parking garages.
 

It is not all wrong, it is missing some context.  Russians are slowly taking the Donbas, however, they are doing it too slowly to break through and threaten deeper centres of gravity.  As such Donbas is neither operationally nor military strategically decisive (in any sense beside possible negative decision impact in the Wests resolve).
Sanctions can be skirted but 1) doing so exposes Russia to exploitation as the weaker trading partner and 2) no where near enough to stop the damage (I believe Perun did a pretty good analysis of this on YouTube).
US President - we have covered here before, US president is impactful but he/she does not rule the planet.  It is highly doubtful that Trump himself or someone like him would withdraw all support at this point, the Lend Lease is an act that has already been passed.  And then Europe with roughly $18T GDP may have to step up harder but we are not talking wholesale US withdrawal.  Same with NATO, too much to lose in influence and arms sales at this point.  The next US president will dance to the same war drums, but may have a slightly different beat.  But this is a wildcard, so ok put that one in the “unknown” column.
Ukraine in NATO, at this point I don’t think it really matters. The UA is better armed and trained with western weapons than some NATO founding states (Canada, anyone?).  Further we are pumping so much ISR support into Ukraine, they may as well be freakin 5EYES.
I think Putin and his cronies are definitely in for the long haul.  And I think that a healthy slice of Russia may also be “all in” but how long and how firm is that support as the casualties stack up?  Russia has not mobilized for a reason, in fact they have basically tied themselves in knots to sustain forces and avoid mobilization…why?  Likely because a large slice of Russia is not “all in”.  Russia is running out of time but we won’t know when, or if, until we see Russia no longer able to conduct offensive operations.
We can and have gone on at length at the issues with the RA and whether or not they are going to have a systemic collapse, again.  Steve definitely has some informed strong opinion that they will.  I think they are very brittle right now and have devolved in the type of operational warfare being conducted as a result of qualitative erosion.  This is a symptom of a war machine in trouble and still unable to establish anything near operational superiority.  We spoke on how HIMARs are the last puzzle piece of a system that is currently delivering significant effects without any Russian counter-part.  The trend of UA deep strike is definitely going upward, which may force the RA to devolve further.
But hey, keep asking questions and validate, validate and validate all sources…even this one. 
 

This could mean bye-bye for most Russian military airfields, black sea fleet in harbor and Kerch Strait bridge.