Holien

Russian TG claims, during retreating of Russian troops from Opytne toward Donetsk airport, Russian artillery mistakingly hit them, because spotters thought this is Ukrainian forces advance. As claimed 27 killed, 34 wounded, several vehicles destroyed.  
Repeating of 2014 situation, when battalion "Vostok" eliminated almost whole detachment of Russian volunteers "Iskra", retreating from Donetsk airport, passing them as Ukrianian troops, which brokethrough to the city
 

There is far too little attention paid to the interplay between Chinese actions and US aid to Ukraine. In this particular case, I suspect that the shoe that dropped was North Korean aid to Russia. Kim quite literally exists at the courtesy of China. He can't do his banking or feed his country without the acquiescence of Beijing. In the last week it has become clear that Xi has agreed to let him send arms to Russia. The US was holding back ATACMS in order to have a card to play to stop that sort of thing from happening. Now that China has decided to allow it, the US is letting them go.

Or some background threshold in which Russia was told if you do X we will do Y has been breached.
Could be plenty of reasons for the release that doesn't fit your statement...
 

Or some background threshold in which Russia was told if you do X we will do Y has been breached.
Could be plenty of reasons for the release that doesn't fit your statement...
 

Ukrainian General Staff in first time officially confirmed UKR forces are present on left bank of Dnipro and hold bidgehead
On Kherson direction our defensers continue to hold seized positions on left bank of Dnipro, conduct counter-battery fire, eliminate ammo dumps and sucessfully strike enemy rears

Russians moved to Kozachi Laheri some new unit - 28th motor-rifle (?) regiment. I couldn't find anything about it, presumably it can belong to X motor-rifle division of new-formed 18th CAA of Southern military district. 
This Russian regiment have been deploying month ago, but can't do anything with UKR bridhead west from village. 
Here they write: 28th regiment RF in Kozachi Laheri area was fu...g butt kicked. As they tried to assault our positions from their two companies only 26 orcs remained. This regiment was formed recently and have been conducting combat running-in. At this pace it will be soon necessary to form again. 
And Russian text below the photo:
Sodiers of 28th regiment have been seeking from commanders at least one EW system a month so far, but all to not avail. As a result - "Baba Yaga" [Russian name of UKR R18 night bomber octocopters] has flew and destroyed single KAMAZ, which supplied with food, water, ammunition and helped our artillerymen. 
 

On the training post: a lot of what is in that story rings true.  The issue, which we have pointed out here before, is that western troops have no frame of reference for this war.  The more I hear descriptions of company operations in this war, the more they sound like a SOF action as far as C4ISR goes.  A GF Comd does pretty much what they are describing as a Company Comds role in this war - pulls back and manages the engagement from a pan C4ISR node.  Conventional military experience does not do this.  Tactical commanders get more feeds but pretty much fill the same roles as they did 30-40 years ago.  The Battalion TOC has changed a lot but the mass use of UAS for ISR is still not at the forefront.
The offensive focus also rings true.  I got into an argument a long while back on modern war and the offensive doctrine of most western militaries.  A lot of doctrine was built during the Cold War and then adapted to the insurgency wars we fought over the last 30 years.  The few times we went conventional, the opponent was so overmatched that we kind of confirmed a false positive - offensive primacy.  This war is showing the holes in that theory.  This is a war of Denial - drones and artillery.  That takes a fundamentally different training approach.
We all “yay’ed” when western troops began training support, and we still add a lot of value in some skill areas.  However, we may very well be teaching  bad lessons.  For example, that well documented and broadcasted failed minefield breach back in Jun. To my eyes it was a textbook western mechanized breach.  It looks like it got stopped by enemy UAS, a couple helicopters, a few ATGM teams and some pretty tepid artillery.  Our minefield breaching doctrine has not been refreshed since the Cold War and it ran headlong into 2023 reality.  Our impulse is to declare “well the UA is doing it wrong,”. Of course this assumes we actually know how to do it right in the first place.
I can only hope the AAR process is firmly in place and is capturing these observations.  However, in most cases the AAR guys are cut from the same corporate cloth as the training delivery guys so there are going to be biases to overcome.  We likely need to adapt the training significantly.  SOF may need to take over infantry tactics training because the reality is closer to their environment than our conventional experience.  However, SOF are pretty low density.  Conventional can focus on equipment (eg “night driving”), it still does this better than anyone else.
I have brought up the point on this war being as much about competitive learning as much as about actual warfare before.  The UA learns very fast, Russians slower…but they do learn.  The question is, “how fast are western militaries learning?”  They are part of this war too, they make up a significant portion of the Ukrainian force generation stream.  As such they should be in a direct feedback loop from the front line. We need to be learning at a better pace than the Russians - “EOD is taboo” (likely because we have framed them as exclusively a COIN thing).  This will mean breaking out of our own boxes, which is a damned hard thing to do at the best of times.  In reality we should be getting then UA to train us on how to train them.

https://masto.ai/@ragnarbjartur/111023006687873004
Highest losses of artillery reported by Ukraine sofar. 215 in the last 7 days. 
I would love to know the composition of those losses. But D30 close to the front line will get shredded much faster than self propelled artilleries. Since the dailykos article another 1400 artillery pieces are declared as destroyed. 
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/6/2179504/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-doe
 
Reported artillery losses remain incredible high since the start of the Ukrainian offensive. 
https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/dfbcec47-7b01-400e-ab21-de8eb98c8f3a/page/p_puy9yu3a6c?s=iQsXRj4QRj0

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Ukraine will get Scimitars from the UK. I think that's a new one.
 

Hover over the user's name or picture for a second for the profile menu to come up.  Ignore is at the bottom right.

I am now looking for ignore button.
Please gents can we keep focus on Ukraine and stop the rabbit holes.
BTW There are others that I am close to pressing the ignore button on (when I can find it....)

Yeah, wouldn't be very wise to say something else.
For someone who "lives and breaths these issues", you have a pretty uncompromising attitude.
All the persons I met in my life that I know to be considerate and/or compassionate, and who have a reasonable amount of empathy, are usually not belligerent at all. They are full of doubts, do not want to hurt other people, refrain from aggression and sometimes even from assertiveness. They think and learn, wonder and discuss. And doubt again.
I like those people. We need those people. They are the ones that can bring us better times. Not the spitefull or aggressive ones, not the ones with the big ego's or the oh so confident ones.
To me, you do not seem to be a doubter. And where I totally understand the rage, anger and bloodlust from the Ukrainians, I have a bit more difficulty with your "assertive" way of posting. You are, according to your profile, in the USA, so not directly involved in the war, but your posts sometimes give the impression that you are on the frontlines.
In more than 12 years on the Battlefront-forums I only used my ignore button once, because I think people should be able to say what they want. But even after Battlefront-Steve asked you very polite to be just a little bit more agreeable, I do not see a nicer KevinK.
I don't like myself for it, but your posts seem to keep on triggering some sort of annoyance with me, so I am gonna use the ignore-button for now.
 
 
 

Speaking as a retired artillery officer....three other reasons to explain this:
1. They have insufficient radios and field phones to communicate with the battery command post.  
2.  The clearing in the trees is too small for proper dispersion of the guns.  Knowing that drones are sweeping treelines for targets, the russians may have chanced putting these guns into a small clearing in the middle of a forest with a trail going into the clearing for the tow vehicles.
3. They lack fire control calculators/computers to calculate fire patterns like converge, linear, etc.   The spacing looks about right for just doing a common bearing and range shoot to all guns and the spacing of the guns is about right for overlapping lethal burst patterns.

I am just going to walk past without getting involved in this but, should I drop any thing over my shoulder as I go maybe it can go towards drawing a line under this whole sub-thread?
...
Whoops!
Clumsy me!

It’s Chernobyl - no one is going to deliver bad news to the boss, who just blew a plane load of opponents out of the sky, so they try to ignore it.  The human mind is fantastic at rationalization and that is what we are likely seeing here.  There was no mass panic last Fall (correct me if I am wrong), it was written off as an “operational adjustment” of the lines.  There wasn’t even a panic the previous spring when the entire Northern front collapsed.  This is not likely stolid Russian steel will, it is simply denial.
My sense is Russian forces could be dog paddling in the Azov Sea and Russian senior military and political leadership would frame it as a “reverse amphibious assault” to draw the UA into a trap.  This is not good news in reality because it is signalling that Russia is not negotiating with its own defeat.  There appears to simply be no outcome in their reality where they do not win.  This really means there will likely need to be a complete collapse of the current political power system for this war to end - of course many were saying this already.  The tricky part is quickly inserting a new political system into place to replace the old one before things unravel.  It has happened before in the 90s, although was pretty dicey at times.  

Last one as this is turning into spamming of thread but very good point about the structure of the Russian defensive lines. Long post well worth reading in full but two extracted points;
“It started Velyka Novosilka which was culminating in the devastating Russian defeat and costly withdrawal in Urozhaine. Far more dangerous, however, for the Russian war effort are the Ukrainian operations south of Orikhiv. Russians have specifically fortified this area. Especially, Robotyne was vital for the Russian defense sector. It also explains also why Russians continue to counter attack this area, knowing their weakness in the hinterlands.
But this is not even the worst for the Russians. Far worse is that this whole battle has evolved in an open tug-of-war. Both sides know more less the strengths and weaknesses of each other. The open terrain makes sneak attacks and counterattacks virtually impossible. This is only emphasized by the usage of drones. Some might argue that this point might be favorable for Russians but even that Russians squandered long ago. The biggest thinking error many, especially Russians, are making is to make this about trench networks. The trenches are delaying the advance, there is no doubt about that. But the most crucial aspect of this battle is logistics, as always. And here Russians made absolutely decisive mistakes, by not targeting Ukrainians logistic lines in the same way than the other way around.
All and all Russians have completely lost the initiative and only hope that Ukrainians stop their assault. The frantic call of Pro-Russian minions such as Hungary's Orban are a very good sign how much in distress Russia has come. They desperately need and hope that the Ukrainian attack stops, and if they don't then we are not far away from a complete Russian collapse along the southern front.”
Add to the above this analysis in great post from “RO37” of accelerating development that gathered little attention. Seen few posts last couples of days on X about some of it, but great comprehensive summary of what going on.
Domestic and international systems coming online with S400 air defense in Crimea going up in smoke as prominent result.
Well worth reading in full although long post.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/2/2190270/-Ukraine-Update-Ukraine-is-getting-stronger

Almost each who lives in village can do this ) In Ukraine each rural homested has own small or large market garden, even families, who are farmers except own fields carry on own market garden or even several. In late USSR homesteads could have from 0,15 to 0,6 ha (0,37 - 1,48 acres) of land. This was enough to supply usual family at least with own vegetables (most popular on our market gadens are potato, tomatoes, cucumbers and onion). Also homesteads, having bigger allotments often have own chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs, sometime a cow. Many those, who live in cities have own old parents in villages, and help them to grow vegetables, which then they can  eat and these own vegetables are 100 % eco-natural. Also many citizens buy dachas, which also have small piece of land (0.05-0.07 ha), but often some free space all the same are diverted under beds of vegetables. 
Yes, this is survival experience of two wars and especailly Holodomor, which hands over from generation to generation. In last years many young people become to forgot from where they get food, thinking it appears in magical way in supermarkets, many people told "its enough to work hard for this potato, when we can buy it in any time in any place". But Russian invasion again showed that own market garden and "house in the village" is always actual thing. 
During siege of Kyiv in March, there was too few vegetables in city supermarkets, but villagers and farmers were coming to Kyiv on own cars on single free road and traded own vegetables to citizens. Of course, their food costed in 1.5 and sometine in 2 times more, than in supermarkets, but we could buy almost everything ecxept exotic %) 

He says about this, literally "It's unlike our tanks with HE shells for infantry, no, these [Challengers] tanks were designed to fight Soviet tanks, not infantry, against infantry there are other infantry and artillery"
I think, maybe HE/HESH ammo for UKR Challengers are limited, so they use to hunt armor.

First evidences of Challenger 2 in action. But from what tanker told it becomes clear, why these tank were in the shadow. 
This guy (he served on T-64, T-72, T-80) says, Challenger has very accurate gun and targeting system, which allows to hit enemy targets from very big ranges. This is tracked "sniper rifle", So, Challengers don't use like other tanks for "сarousel" and infantry support with HE shells. Challengers have a task to hit enemy armor from big distance in shoot&scoot way. Tanker also praises easy of service and repair works in comparison with Soviet tanks as well as these tanks give more chanses to survive after hit or even several hits. 
Tanker also told about tanks increadibly raise infantry morale and if these are western tanks, morale increasing more high, so infantry then is ready to follow them and just kick off the enemy from the trenches with a legs. 
 

Kyrylo Budanov, chief of GUR told drones, attacked Pskov airfield were launched from territory of Russia. 
Recently Russian Volunteer Corps claimed they, acting in coordination with SBU counter-intelligence, have sneaked on Russian territory to launch a batch of "cardboard drones" on Kursk airfield, causing damages of five aircraft and several AD assets.
In one of previous interviews, Budanov told Ukraine operates with satellite information, having one hour of delay. In 2022 there was information Russian satellite recon, can maintain situation information with 24 hours delay

Scenario for a movie.
Recently Russians claimed their jets have sank four UKR RIBs near Tarkhankut. Unknown it was a fake or some grian of salt took place, but one Ukrainian soldier turned out in the sea. Our RIBs tried to resque him, but Russian jets have been flying over one by one and shooting with a guns, forcing our boats to maneuver and withdraw. When boats couldn't reach a soldier, TB2 Bayraktar was sent to find him. It has found lost in the sea by his thermal trail. When UAV found him, operators locked on the man and tracked him until next attempt of boats was successfull. The soldier was resqued after 12 hours in the sea
 

President Zelenskiy made a statement today, that new UKR misisile succesfully hit target on 700 km range. 
Oleksiy Danilov, Secrter of National Security Council has issued a video with, as claimed, the launch of this missile
Maybe the strike on Pskov could be combined - this missile + drones. Except burned and damaged planes, were hits in airfield fuel depot and also into weapon storage of 2nd Spetsnaz brigade base, deployed in Pskov along with 76th air-assault division
 

Contextually I think it points out Russia's continued imperial existence as opposed to the U.S.'s federal one. In the U.S. someone from Florida and Washington are equal and the civilian population has internalized that. You couldn't run a war by only drafting Florida men. Politically it would be a non starter.

However, in Russia you can go outside of the core and draft men and send them off to die. They aren't Russian although they are under Russian rule.