Pete Wenman

You must be new around here 😉 
P

I think analysis such as these miss the much bigger points and possible implications of this war.  The easy answer seems to be to blame the BTG concept - “bad BTGs”, “silly BTGs!”.  So go look up the BTG structure and then compare it to the TF or BG structures in the west - we are not talking about a massive difference.  From what I have seen the BTG kinda slides in between the Battlegroup and Combat team.  There is no fundamental flaw nor does “designed for small wars”” track, if, Russia could upscale BTGs into working formation structures.
The issues at play are far larger than “those darn BTGs”:
- ubiquitous and persistent very high resolution ISR - particularly on the UA side.  The RA could optimize BTG all week, or even adopt identical structures as the US and they would still be in trouble because 1) they still need a lot of gas, and 2) the UA can see those supply lines from space via western ISR. “Finding beats flanking”.
- long range precision strike.  The UA can not only see the RA, they can hit them at ranges traditionally the purview of AirPower.  The UA has employed a fraction of the indirect fires compared to the RA and done a lot more damage to the RA operational system proportionally.  “Mass beats isolation, precision beats mass, massed precision beats everything.”
- unmanned systems.  We are seeing the dawn of the impact of mass use of unmannned systems on the battlefield which appear to be right on the seam of ISR and strike.  “Swarming beats surging”
- smart long range, man portable.  The impact of next gen ATGMs and MANPADs on the RA has been enormous.  It has dramatically changed the role of light dispersed infantry and their corrosive effects on an opponent.   “Small cheap distributed many, beats few expensive concentrations of large”.
In short, I am becoming more and more convinced that US/western formations may have faired better strategically and even operationally but we would be learning the same lessons tactically that the RA are is we faced a similar scenario.  So, not all about the BTGs.
 

Well guys, at last I got this!  Symbolically in the day of Kherson liberation ) 
Thank you @Kinophile for this initiative and enough "family diplomacy" in resolving of sudden obstacle on "last mile" 😀
Thank you @Battlefront.com - Steve, your "bribe" ) will be worked out ))))
Thank you all, who donated anonymously
Thank you, all other, who just have been reading and support our country - first two months were some nervous and psychologically hard, so this my 24/7 "marathone" here was giving me some emotional relief. 
 

Useful thread on what RU has being doing to cross the Dnipro at Kherson
 
 

Useful thread on what RU has being doing to cross the Dnipro at Kherson
 
 

The mystery has been solved ☺️
 
 

This is a unique video for me. At 10.21 minutes of the video, I see people with whom I took refuge in the basement of the clinic after my apartment was left without windows. Later, I corresponded with a guy who is standing with a child in his arms, he said that they were evacuated on March 08. I offered them to go out with me on March 05, When the hospital staff decided it was time to evacuate but they refused and spent three days in the basement without electricity and water.
The video shows moments a few days after the start of active fighting for Irpin. By that time, evacuation corridors had already been organized. People knew in advance when and from what place the evacuation would be organized. I left Irpen on the fifth of February. Then there was no organized evacuation, no one understood exactly where the enemy was, where the safe route was. Everyone went to the bridge in the way that he considered correct. And some paid for their mistake with their lives. I went to the bridge alone on foot and I think I was lucky.
War brings people together. In the face of danger, everyone strives to do something to help others. Pharmacies distributed medicines to everyone for free, shops distributed food, a lot of volunteers appeared ready to help others. From the second day of the war, I was constantly in the local clinic. We unloaded humanitarian aid and food, carried the wounded (a point was set up at the polyclinic to stabilize the wounded before sending them to a military hospital). The victims, whom the doctors could not save, had to be buried right in the courtyard of the clinic, as the road to the cemetery was shot through.
 
Most of the wounded were civilians. I remember two cases in particular. In one, a man and a woman brought a dead child of 5 years old with a gunshot wound to the hospital. They tried to leave Bucha to the west, their car was fired upon by Russian soldiers. In the second case, a pregnant girl with a damaged spine was brought to the hospital. She and her husband were in their apartment when the shell hit their home. The husband died on the spot. she got a spinal injury. Unfortunately, as a result of this injury, her child also died. She lost her most loved people in one day.
 

I feel like we have switched sides in this debate - from the “It isn’t all about Russia sucking” side I think your analogy is missing some key elements that lead me to delusion, not plan.
In your analogy the missing facts are 1) you don’t own a dump truck, you have three guys and wheelbarrow, and 2) that is not your driveway.  So in this case you would be building a plan, a flawed rigid one even under your own delusion, that is detached from reality.  
To carry over to the war, Putin made (at least) three major strategic assumptions;
- Ukraine would fall quickly and resistance would be short, light and unorganized.  His force to time, space and objectives clearly points to that.  He tried to blitz conquer a nation larger than France with a population of 44 million with 300k troops and a laser light show.
- Any resistance would be quickly eaten by Russian bear and be pooped out as a happily subservient puppet satellite state.  Given the history of Ukraine, even recent history, the idea that he could control this country once he achieved victory through brutal oppression was, let’s say ‘flawed’ from the get go.
- The weak willed and dithering West would not be able to react and happily keep buying Russian gas and drop any sanctions through boredom before the war chest ran out, as Ukraine was violated and then dominated. 
From the loins of these brilliant assessments sprung a 5-6 operational axis assault with ridiculous LOCs and zero establishment of operational pre-conditions to disrupt, dislocate and isolate Ukraine - that is a fail on any operational planning staff exercise, I assure you.  The fact that the insane plan was rigid and built on a tactically messed up military was just the ice cream on this doomed poopy cake.
This was not red teamed nor acid washed, nor did it have a Plan B should any of those ridiculous assumptions prove to be false…this was and is the “hold my beer” military operation of the century…and given the history of the last 20 years that is saying something.  This makes shock and awe, and “they will greet us with joy in the streets of Baghdad” Iraq 2003 look like pure political and military genius in comparison.  Why?  Facts, not assumptions.
- The scale and scope of this military operation was risked by its very own ambition.  The levels of friction of a WW2 scale invasion with a fraction of the forces are immense.  Ukraine would not need to resist much for it to come under enormous strain. Russia has a large and expensive intelligence service that should have been working for years in this, the idea that it did not know the UA was set up for a hybrid resistance and being fed US ISR is laughable.  No, the political level did not want to hear facts on the ground, it was a delusion.
- the most likely Ukraine COA was to resist unconventionally while the political mechanism retreated to a safe country.  This means at a minimum Russia was going to have an organized insurgency and very loud external political opposition, while trying to control a conquered nation with 300k troops - aside: Ukraine is roughly 600k sq kms, that is 2 sq kms per Russian soldier in multi-dimensional conflict space.  And how long were they going to stay there getting IED’d and committing high profile warcrimes? Did Russia have a stabilization plan or post-war reconstruction plan?  W.T.F?!
- Russian and Putin completely failed to understand that this whole thing was not about them and Ukraine, it was about the global order (or maybe based on that annexation speech Putin did, and that makes it worse).  The West cannot remain “the West” if Russia is allowed to do this war.  In short, Putin did the one thing he absolutely should have avoided in the prosecution of this war…we backed us into a corner. That cut through the divisions and entitled ennui very quickly.  We had no other choice as the entire global drug deal of the western order hinges on P5/UNSC big powers behaving themselves.  Even US exceptionalism took a major hit in Iraq in 2003 as it found itself isolated and the global order fractured…and it went nowhere near as rogue as this clown show.  Russian exceptionalism is not a thing anywhere accept in Moscow, they did not have the global power or idiosyncratic points to pull off something that humbled the worlds last superpower.
And this is just me on a Thursday. Russia should have had roomfuls of political and military staff, armed with real time intel data.  Guys whose entire professional lives is understanding UA field kitchens, sitting next to a guy who could map the twitter feeds of Smalltown Ukraine down to the mayor’s dog walkies schedule - you are about to take on the single largest dice role of a global power since WW2 FFS, taking that on with iron clad assumptions of one 70 year old and a bunch of yes men is not planning it is a suicide cult.
Finally, as to Lviv.  I have no doubt it had point of failure and one tough bill. But compared to what Russia tried in reality it looks positively pedestrian.  A quick scan of the map shows two possible corridors of advance and about 270 kms to try and do a cut off.  A tough ask but frankly a much better place to get airborne and airmobile killed.  If you take Lviv and then up to the Carpathian Mts, Ukrainian resistance, which will come regardless, is going to supported by a trickle not the freakin flood they have on their hands now.
You are probably correct in that Russia thought it too risky but only because of their bizarro world view of reality.  Clearly resistance was almost universal and any intelligent organization that missed that was broken, or the political level who ignored them was…delusional.  In fact the whole Hard Power option was insane and we are living with the result.
So this was a “solid plan” like me becoming a super model is a “solid plan”…I need only drop a few pounds and de-age by 30 years and my dream will come.  And anyone who disagrees with me gets tossed out a window.

Ok let’s get some knowledge on this whole Wagner Line thing.  I will caveat that 1) I am not even sure a complex obstacle belt will work against how the UA has been fighting this war and 2) I have no idea how long this Wagner line is, or whether it ties into natural obstacles nor what the fire plans are around it.
That said, be very wary of the internet.  I see a lot of people talking about stuff they have no idea about, particularly in the “Russia sux camp”.  I do not go into my professional background too much for many reasons but I will say that one of my military incarcerations over a 34 year career is a military engineer, so take that into account if you like.
First, I doubt the veracity of the styrofoam claim very much.  Why?  Because it would take more time and resources to make a fake dragons tooth than to simply pour some concrete over steel bars.  I have heard nothing about Russia suffering a concrete shortage and this whole styrofoam theory sound like complete BS.
Second, efficacy of the Wagner line dragons teeth.  Dragons teeth need not be fixed or footed, particularly not the pyramidal ones I am seeing in this pictures.  They are designed to roll and catch the ground on their points as they do.  In doing so they can either belly up a tracked vehicle or de-track it.  Either way they act as caltrops for tracked IFVs and armor, looking for mobility kills but these are just the appetizer.
Third, these are clearly part of a complex obstacle.  The sorts of obstacles are designed to pull combat engineering and key armoured resources forward and expose them the fires.  If you can kill them then bull-rushing such a complex obstacle will likely yield in and around 70-80% casualties.  It isn’t how large the dragons teeth are, or how much they weigh, it is their placement.  I have heard a lot of “well we can just go in and tow them out” or “bring in a dozer and simply push them”.  Sure, but you are doing that in the middle of a 400m deep minefield while having ATGMs and artillery dropped on your head.  In fact the dragons teeth I have seen in that double row are likely the horizontal safelane markers as well.  As you would expect dismounting in the middle of a minefield with crowbars and chains is a good way to turn trained sappers into names on a memorial.
Finally, stuff like dragons teeth are hell on mine plows and rollers.  The get in between them and mess up the tank.  So this means engineers have to bring up technical vehicles like dozer tanks..which are very rare on the battlefield.  I have seen pics of these dragons teeth next to railways and embankments, which is really smart as that makes the mechanical clearing job that much harder.  About the only expedient way for this is explosive clearing - which I am not sure the UA even have - dragons teeth then should be fixed to avoid being blown aside.  But when combined with an AT ditch and some decent sighting that can even stump an explosive breach.
So no, there is nothing wrong with those Dragons Teeth as is at least as far as I can see from a picture, maybe not the most awesome I have ever seen but as part of a larger complex obstacle they will do exactly what they were designed to so long as that obstacle is covered by fire and observation.  The Russians are going to need about 100kms of these in a triple belt with KZs pre-sighted to get the effect I think they are looking for, which I do not think they can do and shame on the UA if they give them time and space to do this.
Remember that diagram I did up a while back, look both left towards effect and right towards capability when seeing stuff like this and always keep in mind the entire picture.  And avoid groups who are just seeing what they want to see at this point.