Holien

Murz posted that he had a difficult talk with his military superior (brigade commander) and removed the post under direct order/threat. Next, he wrote something that may be considered a suicide note. But he did post something that looked like soldier's report. Looking into it.

The depth and breadth of what you have zero idea upon but insist on running commentary is quite astonishing.  This little “blip” just allowed a small nation to stop the second largest military (now third) on the planet cold.  This little “blip” is much more than “drones” in need of “anti-drone gear” it is a level of artificial processing power that is 1) illuminating the battle space, 2) connecting X’s to shooters faster than we can really keep up with, 2) creating precision effects so inexpensively that denial is dominating.
But that, you reduce down to “well just wait until we get more ‘anti-drone’ gear to shoot all them thar annoying toys down” and “then we will have all the drones and them none”?  Ignoring the fact that drone costs are likely to plummet as everyone start making more and more of them.  “Shooting them down”, gee now why didn’t we think of that?  After two years of warfare in Ukraine neither side - with access to the entire Western sphere of technology and equipment on one, and Chinese technology on the other - has been able to solve for hundreds of bird sized UAS able to spot kms out.  As these systems become more autonomous EW won’t work.  Lasers will not work beyond static installations and maybe ships (but they have a whole other problem).  And the big one - we can’t be invisible, the ISR value of these systems alone is warfare breaking.
Why am I not surprised that one of your openly declared ilk would find a driving shift in warfare the likes we have not seen since the invention of the machine gun as “an easy fix, but we will be just fine because…’first world’?  But in your expert opinion “we will show them Middle Easters a thing or two once we get all them drones”.  Missing the point that other opposing powers are in fact leading on a lot of this technology, not us, and are more than willing to arm asymmetric opponents (see: Houthis).
The gulf in effective firepower has shrunk dramatically.  And it has done so by denial.  Because our opponents are not stupid or lazy and spent 30 years developing counters to our military power.

Please don't feed the troll...

Please don't feed the troll...

Those UKR jet drones are UK supplied (if you weren't already aware). I assume each one carries a micro-clone of Boris Johnson. They don't do anything, but fun to watch them cackling across the sky, like floppy haired gremlins. 
https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/ukraine_utilizes_british_qinetiq_banshee_jet_80_uavs_as_long_range_kamikaze_drones-9571.html

 

https://t.me/censor_net/45708
 
 

From my limited observation 60-100 kmh helps to decrease the chance of hit There are unverified RU claims that with 100-120 kmh you can drive away from FPV  The second video  shows Avenger escaping from Lancet Keep in mind that piloting FPV is not easy - you need to compensate for example for the wind etc. Even tanks can benefit from speed, but I mostly see wheeled vehicles escaping attack. Here is quadracycle at full speed escapes the attack and we also can compare it with successful attack. RU claims that the current typical suicide FPV that operates at frontline has just 25 minutes (at longer range UKR use different noticeably slower drones). It does not mean that speed is 100% protection, but it does mean that speed helps.  [EDIT] Another good video of RU drone that was too slow.

Back to war assessment.
Let's have a look at battle damage of RDK M113 from Avdiivka. The M113 got hit by 1-2 RU FPV drones.
00:50-00:56 damage to fuel tank from fragments 01:00-01:10 damage to engine compartment from fragments 01:10-01:20 damage to heater from fragments There are a lot of floor shots to show blood from the wounded they were transporting 01:20 other vehicle (again damage from fragments) M113 was able to return to base Interesting, but the damage comes from fragments, not HEAT. It's possible that HEAT warheads aren't often used at that location or that the FPV drone trajectory isn't always optimal for HEAT, or it missed due to pure luck.
Conclusion
FPV damage is primarily caused by fragmentation and HEAT from 40mm grenades and RPG-7 type-rounds (in hindsight it is kind of obvious). The damage is moderate and may be considerably reduced by standard methods such as bar and ERA armor, as well as spall liners.
The most significant distinction between FPV and conventional rounds is that FPV may hit anywhere on the vehicle, whereas current militaries are primarily concerned with up armoring vehicles against standard Grenade and RPG trajectories.
Reasons for extreme effectiveness of UKR drones
If we look at RU AFVs there are three distinct groups:
Highly flammable tanks and BMPs Low flammability yet weakly armored MT-LB Completely unarmored wheeled vehicles The exceptional success of UKR drones is due to the inherent vulnerability of RU vehicles and the RU's virtually total lack of a mass uparmouring program.
Let's see agent Murz opinion
Other reason for FPV effectiveness
Unlike in low-intensity combat, once a vehicle is disabled, it is effectively gone due to arty fire. So, FPV drones just need to disable the vehicle, not to inflict major damage.
And the FPV drone does not even need to disable the vehicle; instead, it may damage the sights, external electronics, and unmanned turret. In low-intensity conflict, such damage is not critical; in this war, it is effective mission kill because there are many other weapons systems around.
What is the point of your top-of-the-line unmanned turret if drone with the cost of 400 bucks can destroy it quickly. 
New paradigm of AFV up armoring
Apart from other things (APS, AD, Drone EW) we need to change the paradigm of uparmouring.
As much of the vehicle's surface as feasible should be armored to survive a 40mm grenade Engine must be protected even better than other compartments (withstand RPG-7) External components, such as electronics, turrets, and weapons, should be resistant against 40mm grenades or have the ability to be moved inside the vehicle quickly. Spall liners is a must. Crew members may benefit from a full-body flak suit. Previously, there was a possibility of receiving few RPG strikes during missions. Now you may be struck by dozens of FPVs. Each of them may do small damage, but fragments could eventually strike, for example, the driver leg, making the vehicle temporally immobilized and vulnerable to arty fire. Wheeled light vehicles
Let's look at RU recommendation for wheeled and unarmored vehicles 
So, the speed of the vehicle increases survivability. That means steps must be taken to ensure that logistics and unarmored wheeled vehicles can travel at the highest possible speed. Roads need to be improved and fixed. Drivers need to be trained. Vehicles need to have better accident protection (due to obvious decrease of safety).

It was obviously RU operation. They blew up old pipes leaving new one undamaged and ready to work to force Germans to switch to the new pipe. 

In other news
Nesmyan (RU civilian Girkin) comment
War is going according to the plan. Western sanctions do not work.

This time the aircraft seems to be hit much to the south of Avdieyevka, so either the attack is unrelated to the battle, or the Ukrainians managed to find an approach route from Avdieyevka to e.g. one of the Crimean airports and set the ambush somewhere further on the way.
I hope the reports on the Ukrainian SAM ambush on consecutive days mean that they finally dedicated one of the Patriot units as a roving battery and we will be hearing about it more often. This will sound callous, but their military utility when guarding civilians in Kiev or Odessa was limited, whereas trying to make glide bombing risky for Russians is extremely important at this moment. Even in light of the huge risk the Patriots would be located and attacked.

5 "claimed"
But yeah, someting is up. Ukraine surging air defence after Russia has started surgeing its air power.

I am hoping for that as well, but I am not sure how this could happen.
Russian glide bombs are tossed from the distance of 50 km to front line on the Russian side. AFAIK Su 34 (and as of late also Su 24 unfortunately) approach high and fast from a direction roughly perpendicular to the frontline and at the furthest possible distance, they make the toss - pull up and release the bomb. Then they immediately reverse direction and head for home. Apart from the height and distance being higher, the technique is roughly similar to Russian helicopters tossing unguided rockets. 
This means, that in order to counter those attacks Ukrainian aircraft would have to be able to reliably shoot down Su 34 and Su 24 on their approach flight to the bomb release point (say 70 km behind the front on the Russian side?). Assuming the Ukrainian aircraft are F-16 with AIM 120 C they theoretically could do it, the missiles having a 100 km. range. However, F-16 would be fighting from big positional disadvantage. In order to hide from RUS SAMs and air-to-air patrols, the F-16s would probably be approaching very low. Therefore, once they release the missiles they would be firing from low up, at targets first fast approaching and then fast egressing, close to the far end of AMRAAM maximum range, from the frontal aspect of the target and then in a stern chase.  Would this scenario still yield a significant enough probability of kill? I do not know, but there are a lot of factors decreasing it compared to the theoretical optimum.
While doing this, Russian air to air patrols are a non-trivial risk factor, even now from time to time they account for Ukrainian aircraft with the R 37s. Also, while trying to hit Russians 70 km on the other side of the front, the Ukrainian F16 would have to pop up in Russian SAM envelope. In light of those risks, I do not think Ukrainians would be willing to risk their few precious F-16 if the probability of killing the glide bomb carriers is low. So I am afraid that your scenario might not happen in real life. But maybe I am wrong somewhere in this reasoning, or the Ukrainians surprise me with something. Hopefully they will. 

@Grigb A post from Panzer Martin a year ago after Bakhmut.
He has form...
Just FYI
😉
Hey maybe he will be right one day...

So, how did you get to the conclusion that UKR are incurring big losses? 
 
And you came to that conclusion how? You just admitted you do not have any data to support your conclusions.
 
Let's be frank, you have no idea what damage these things inflicted on UKR. 
We already saw that the biggest RU effort in using gliding bombs, drones etc at Avdiivka resulted in at most 2:1 losses in favor of UKR. RU forums where you get your information wildly exaggerate the effectives of RU weapons. 
 
Neither Bakhmut nor Avdiivka resulted in cauldron. And in the UKR forces did not got hammered until very last minute withdrawal. 
Agent Mur.z about Bakhmut
Previously posted Murz quote about Avdiivka
You basically have no idea what's going on in reality. 
 
Or you simply do not know what is going on. Military wise, RU was intended to call a second wave in the summer/early fall. Putin is personally delaying it (the RU MOD expected Putin to issue an order by the end of the summer or early fall). Which is understandable considering the potential consequences.
 
Oh, FFS - because unlike RU UKR army tries to take care of UKR military personnel by organizing regular rotations. UKR army need manpower to rotate previously mobilized troops. RU army told to mobilized - F*ck you. 
 
Try not to use RU propaganda talking points on me. It is stupid.
During North Africa campaign British Army lost vast amount of territory twice (pink is map of Ukraine). 

In war you fight your enemy and not just trying to capture as much land as you can. 
So, in reality, every day UKR are inflicting disproportional casualties on RU in exchange for a little bit of land which is war winning strategy. RU strategy of suffering disproportional casualties for a little bit of land is not a war winning strategy. 
 
In war you fight your enemy and not just trying to capture as much land as you can. 
Have a look at UKR reports on RU non manpower losses (yes, my paint skills are not high but you can clearly see the relevant dates) 
RU trucks

RU special vehicles

RU tanks

All graphs show that before the UKR offensive, RU successfully reduced vehicle losses. This would certainly allow RU to win the war of attrition. However, as you can clearly see - as soon as UKR offensive started the trend was reversed.
The main gain for Ukraine during its summer offensive was not land, but rather an effective reaction on Russia's defensive strategy with a complete reversal of the attrition trend.
 
You have no idea what you are talking about. If you look at the graphs above, you will notice that the attritional trend did not reverse back after UKR stopped their offensive. RU rejected the previous effective defensive strategy in favor of the offensive strategy keeping attritional trend exactly as UKR like.
So, two things. First, UKR does not need to go on the offensive since the RU attrition trend is precisely where UKR wants it to be. Second, the UKR offensive was substantially more effective than most people realize - it terrified RU so much that they abandoned their originally successful defensive strategy in favor of an offensive approach that would be fatal for them for them in the long run (but would allow them to keep UKR on the defensive in the short term).
 

RU is not winning this part. You read BS about Great Patriotic War.
 
RU has no war economy. Western sanctions inflicted critical damage on RU economy ensuring slow death of RU state as we know it.
 
You do know that RU morale is so low that Putin is afraid to call mobilization, don't you? 
 
What drones are you talking about? RU Nat fighter from Avdiivka reported on February 9
 
Do you talk about Shaheds? Last time I checked, 40 out of 45 were taken down.
 
RU military production reached it's peak at the end of December. It cannot increase anymore due to lack of western heavy machinery.
 
UKR NATO 155mm arty needs less shells as it is more effective than RU arty
 
Last time Trump was president he b*tcslapped RU so hard that I laughed whole week reading RU Nat hysterics. 
 
Interesting question. Given that it took RU several months of relentless meat assaults to move front just couple km west and given that there are 560 km to Kiev, RU can be expected to threaten Kiev in 233 years. EU shells will arrive long before that. 
 
Nope, Agent Murz reports how RU learns lessons IRL
 
Except from infamous Tolkonuk letter to Stalin about how Red Army generals learned lessons of war by the winter 43-44 
Remove reference to Germans and it reads like description of Avdiivka battle.
 
I dont like RU propagand but there it is.
 

This is a gross miscalculation since other crucial aspects, such as RU political and economic issues, are excluded.
The so-called "partial mobilization" had severe political and economic implications. Russian government managed to temporally stabilize the situation by pledging that there would be no more mobilization. Any more mobilization efforts would be equivalent to playing Russian roulette. It could work for a while, but eventually it will inevitably blow your face off. Or it might blow your face right away.  
Simply put, the Russian government has a considerably smaller pool of people it can mobilize than Western experts believe. 

Simple assertions like "1:3 losses are acceptable for attacker" are BS. We must first examine other aspects. However, the figures are sufficient to demonstrate that assertions regarding massive UKR losses are the delusions of naive people deceived by RU propaganda. 

This should be considered as the conservative estimate. Most likely, the data is from a local report given to the chain of command. Such reports, however, feature distorted figures. A considerable number of KIA/Dead MIA will remain on the balance of units and be reported gradually over days, weeks, and months to smooth out the peak on the unit loss graph.

Hope they get out, if true. 
 

UKR Air Command issued the data of Cospas - SarSat - international satellite system for search&resque, where can be seen four radiobeacons in the allegedle palces of pilots ejecting in that day. The more western mark obviously belonged to Su-35 - Russians recognized it was lost near Shakhtarsk. Pilot was resqued. 
Other two marks are in Diakove (UKR) and south from Millerovo (RUS). Looks like damaged Su-34 tried to make emergence landing on Millerovo airfield, but fell down and only one pilot could eject. 

Second Su-34 with mark near Diakove was allegedly filmed falling down in flame by the settlers of Diakove. Interesting - women, who are filming, speak Ukrainian or mixed RUS-UKR (so-called "surzhyk"). They say the jet feel down directly on the village street.
 

Nope and they won't have to with the right support (ammo, equipment, ISR and airsupport) and training, but alas this year will not be the year when all the stars will be aligned.
Ukraine needs to survive this turbulent year and if the American situation improves then maybe next year.
The continued damage to Russian control of Crimea and their rear areas (manufacturing, petrol, gas) production will cause Russia serious issues that might bring down the house of cards...

Nope and they won't have to with the right support (ammo, equipment, ISR and airsupport) and training, but alas this year will not be the year when all the stars will be aligned.
Ukraine needs to survive this turbulent year and if the American situation improves then maybe next year.
The continued damage to Russian control of Crimea and their rear areas (manufacturing, petrol, gas) production will cause Russia serious issues that might bring down the house of cards...

Nope and they won't have to with the right support (ammo, equipment, ISR and airsupport) and training, but alas this year will not be the year when all the stars will be aligned.
Ukraine needs to survive this turbulent year and if the American situation improves then maybe next year.
The continued damage to Russian control of Crimea and their rear areas (manufacturing, petrol, gas) production will cause Russia serious issues that might bring down the house of cards...

Nope and they won't have to with the right support (ammo, equipment, ISR and airsupport) and training, but alas this year will not be the year when all the stars will be aligned.
Ukraine needs to survive this turbulent year and if the American situation improves then maybe next year.
The continued damage to Russian control of Crimea and their rear areas (manufacturing, petrol, gas) production will cause Russia serious issues that might bring down the house of cards...