Pete Wenman

Way ahead of you ...

Had to reorient the map to get the roads to sit better.

Points to note - consistent with what the likes of me, @LukeFFand other veterans have been saying for a while on the long list of buddy aid threads, the extraction attempt was epic, no weapons or ammunition were harvested and nobody tried to give buddy aid from the prone position. 

that was easy - famous last words

46.82000, 32.25183 or thereabouts

that was easy - famous last words

46.82000, 32.25183 or thereabouts

that was easy - famous last words

46.82000, 32.25183 or thereabouts

Question to all - but what is the thinking behind this being used in this way. Is it just being used in a quasi mortar role, as it does not seem to be taking advantage of the actual line clearance, nor being placed down a linear feature ?
thanks 
P

Buron Environs MM is a 3.2 km x 3.3 km map that includes all of Buron and Gruchy and parts of Galmanche, St. Contest, Cussy, Authie, Cairon le Vieux and Les Buissons.  For Buron village I have reused the layout from my Bloody Buron Total Overhaul which was loosely based on Yurievich's original Bloody Buron. The current map is great tank country and reflects the situation as of D-Day, that is to say that the German prepared defences at that time consisted only of the two anti-tank ditches. A minor correction to Buron is the addition of the large rectangular pond in the appropriately named Place de la Mere.

President Zelenskyi is Supreme Command-in-Chief. He assumes only political decisions and can agree or reject proposals of militaries for some actions and operations, of course, after discussions and recommendations of National Security Council.

The Secreter of National Security Council Olexiy Danilov. He considers as man of party of "hawks" in president entourage. All main decisions about startegy, military politic, relations with allies etc for president final approval. 

Minister of defense Olexiy Reznikov - in terms of war his role went on background, now his main duty is a questions of military supoprt of allies, funding of army, supply etc. 

Directly in development of military operations involve three main persons in the army (indeed more, but I meant only main) 
General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi is Command-in-Chief of Armed Forces. He participates in development of startegy of defense and military operations and also can aree or reject proposals before to propose own decisions to President. Now he is mega-popular in Ukraine.

Lieutenant general Serhiy Nayev - commander of the Defense Forces (in peace time - Joint Forces Comamnder). As I understand, he more responsible for coordination. Former JFO commander.

Chief of General Staff - lieutenant general Serhyi Shaptala. Development of operations. During battle for Debaltsevo in 2015 was the commander of 128th mountain infantry brigade, which was a backbone of UKR troops there.

 On lower layer HQs of Operative Comamnds West, North, East, South exist.
They have one more lower layer - OUV (ukr. "operatyvne uhrupuvannia viys'k"="operative grouping of troops"). For example, OUV "Sloboda"  on Izium axis consists of as minimum of three BTGs of 92nd and 93rd mech. and 95th air-assault.

It is being used as a 'terror' weapon (quasi mortar).  It's accuracy as a 'mortar' sucks, especially in urban terrain.  The cable to command the detonation is going to drop on top of building, utility/power/phone lines, etc, dragging the main charge back some ways (you can see the rocking forward of the launch vehicle in the video of that very thing happening.
In short, it works fine as a 'terror' weapon since accuracy doesn't matter at all.  You just want something to do a big boom somewhere where you think people (and not your own troops) are...

Pete,
  Looks like some sort of HE demo gun config.  One theory is that they are lobbing high angle so the line charge "plomps" into a pile and then just becomes a big bomb, that does match the video.  Or they are trying for a linear breach and wound up with a partial detonation, either way this is not what this kit was designed for but they have an alleged history of doing this in Syria (not fully on with the source).
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/assads-new-brutal-mine-clearing-tank-spotted-on-the-front-line-893967d17710  

Summary about last two days  of most hot place - Izium area.
Many of Russian BTGs, concentrated on spearhead are BTG, based on tank battalions. But instead one "big steam roller push", Russians each day are attacking with several "small steam rollers" in different directions, trying to penetrate our defense. Sometime our troops conduct own counter-attacks, so as told in twitter one soldier, terrain in many places covered with knoked out and abandoned vehicles of both sides. Russians also, understanding hazard of UKR mobile AT-teams, inolved more SOF and recon forces for hunting on them. Especially Russians actively conduct own search in night time. 
Most fierce fights were on eastern bank of Oskil river. Three days ago Russians captured Lozove village and attacked our troops in neighbour villages Rubtsi and Yatskivka. Russians use own standart tactic of "burned earth". They just hammered villages with artillery and MLRS, then tanks attack and shot out remained houses, if they encountered strong resistance, they withdraw and artillery strike the village again. So, the same procedure Russians used on latter two villages. As result they could push off our troops from ruines of Rubtsi, Yatskivka also burns, but situation there still unclear.
Also Russian conducted attacks on Dovhen'ke village - the key to Izium - Sloviansk road, but without success
Ukrainian civil volunteer Roman Donik, which supply 92ns and 93rd brigades wrote about clashes in area south from Izium. He pointed Russian aviation increased quantity of sorties, though for yesterday this also increased their losses. Donik claimed many shot down manned aerial targets, but visually confirmed only two-seats jet. Also he described two clashes - first was probably 2-3 days ago in unpointed place. Russians atatcked with company tactical group of 6 tanks and 10 BMPs after three hours of fight they withdrew having losses 3 tanks and 1 BMP. Today he described Russian attack of presumably 64th motor-rifle brigade on positions of 93rd brigade near Virnopillia village with the same force - comany tactical groop - 10 light armor and tanks. Result - enemy repelled, 3 tanks hit/abandoned, 3 light armor destroyed (I think, 1 BTR and 2 trucks more correctly if his photos corresponded to this episode) - akd alredy posted these photos
Also some of OSINT source issued photos of Russian losses in Brazhivka next to east from Virmopillia - about dozen of armor for small village. But our says Russians are throw new and new tanks in the battle instead burned, so UKR troops forced to withdraw from village to willage after 1-2 days of fight, despite Russians pay high price for own achievments
  
 

Mike? Mike Sparks? Is that you buddy? Where have you been!?

A good guide to the potential UKA counterattack against what can now probably be called the Izyum salient 
 
and an interesting comparison with the Battle of Britain
 
P
 
 

A good guide to the potential UKA counterattack against what can now probably be called the Izyum salient 
 
and an interesting comparison with the Battle of Britain
 
P
 
 

I'll see your Flight Simulator and raise you map army ...
MilitaryMap - Plan your Mission
I've been noodling around this one as well and am miles off finishing but I've done enough to work out in terms of ground alone that a Russian attack is going to be a big ask.

The images above are different map/imagery sets of the same area with the red line being the approximate FEBA as of a few days ago.  The area shown is basically Izyum-Slovyansk-Kramatorsk.
The broad COAs for Russian are basically:
COA1 - Deep Envelopment. COA2 - Medium Envelopment. COA3 - Shallow Envelopment.
Of the three COAs - COA1 offers the best opportunity for manoeuvre and is the preferred COA.  COAs 2 and 3 both involve moving through severely restricted terrain and a battle for Slovyansk.  As a guesstimate, moving through the woods to Slovyansk will swallow up a minimum of three BTGs if the Ukrainians choose to disrupt the advance on the approaches to Slovyansk.  Slovyansk cannot be bypassed which means that if it is going to be defended, it will require a minimum of 4-5 BTGs to subdue.  A number of 22 x BTGs has been banded around for the force assembling in Izyum meaning that COAs 2 and 3 will expend nearly a third of the available combat power in Izyum covering the first 35km.  That is assuming that Russia can knock Slovyansk over easily for which there is little evidence to suggest that it is capable of doing so should it be defended.  It will also probably take at least a week to clear out the defenders which means that COAs 2 and 3 stand little chance of achieving a face saving "victory" by 09 May.  In fact COA 2 will definitely fail to deliver on that timeline.
Map Army Files are below if anybody wants to rummage around the detail bearing in mind this is WIP.
BAE.milxlyzRussian FLOT 10 Apr.milxlyz
 

Romanivka was not captured by Russian troops. Throughout the battle for Kyiv, a humanitarian corridor was organized there, which allowed the evacuation of civilians from Irpin Bucha and Gostomel. I myself evacuated along this route on 03/05/22, when the Russians entered Irpin and street fighting began. This route was under heavy artillery fire for about 3 weeks.

Hi all, I have a new video AAR out today. Since the battle plan kind of flows from the doctrine of the time one on one, it's a bit lighter on the "explaining my plan, showing how that works out, what goes wrong and how to I improvised" content than my last videos. But I hope it's a fun report of this very enjoyable scenario non the less.
 

Because it (almost inevitably) appeared elsewhere:

found the location on Google maps, where this youtube vid was filmed by drone (appears to show Russian troops evacuating a wounded soldier on the back of that IFV)*
*the first 22 seconds of video is filmed at an unknown location. The remaining video overlooks an area that you can see on google maps

50.6126261409432, 30.295619319789765

Youtube vid, drone view
 

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

the FSB got their hands on plans that the AU used to crush the Russian army, they are actively looking for their author....
I have an idea but I won't say anything !!!😉
You will excuse a little humor in this thread,
It's just to say thank you to the speakers, I think that in a few years this could be used for a historical study to analyze how the new media have modified the perception of a war