LongLeftFlank

Stand up now, Novgorod, Volkhov and 'Hansagrad' (ex Kaliningrad) Republic! Not to get too far over my snowshoes, but imagine postwar, a fourth 'Baltic state', Russian-speaking but westward looking and NATO-aligned (Pskov homes a VDV division*), filled with tech factories, draining youth and talent away from crumbling, stagnant Moscow. If Belarusians can do it (they can), so can these people. * Remember, the VDV and Naval Infantry formations are exceptions to the general rule that Putin has spared the 'Great Russians', using non-Slavs and separs as cannon fodder. They have been gutted, and for what? There are going to be a lot of VERY bitter veterans and families in garrison towns like Pskov, Ryazan and Novorossisyk after the defeat. ....And in places like these forest regions and the Kuban, they won't necessarily flock to the NatFudge banner of Strelkov et al. Many will rediscover self-rule and like it. Imperial vision has shot its bolt for the moment.

...more scenario design source imagery here. because we are no more in the 70's, it is absolutely useless to have such line of "defense" right now, with all direct intel, you should move every day of your position and change patterns of modification and ratio of véhicules & troops around etc. Because now... it's going to be a "ball trap" party! Ukr hide quite well the fact that they could suddenly unleash all that support on such "defensive" groups (or line of defense in trees) but all you got to have nowadays in order for an M777 (or equivalent) to strike half of this in couple hours is.some accurate GPS loc data and some M982 Excalibur artillery type of projectile. and actually ukr have their own production of such ammunition so for 70grand you can smoke a T-72 for example. "Ball trap party". That's a keeper....

Nice short profile of Illia Ponomarenko. https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/wielding-the-pen-fighting-on-the-twitter-front-in-ukraine-a-c2056bc2-24a1-4c36-9709-123d94d909fb Putin's troops have destroyed Volnovakha, the town where he grew up, and the city of Mariupol, where he went to university.

So about that gas Putin lately shut off to Europe.... But that's ok, I hear the Russians are great at laying imaginary pipelines....

EDIT: Ninjaed by @Grigb ....Gentle reminder from DefMon3 why Kupiansk matters...

1. Another video for the future scenario and mapmaking files. Hostomel. 2. Pimp my ride, Varangian edition. 3. Reaching out and touching someone.... 4. A tank vs tank kinetic kill? Pretty rare in this war, at least captured on drone camera...

Ew. Fair enough. He is definitely not a healthy human being, but otoh the creep does not seem to be known for throwing this kind of histrionics.... The Führer "suddenly got up, and becoming very nervous, walked up and down... suddenly he stopped in the middle of the room and stood there staring. His voice was blurred, and his behavior that of a completely abnormal person. He spoke in staccato phrases: 'If there should be war, then I shall build U-boats, build U-boats, U-boats, U-boats, U-boats'...then he pulled himself together, raised his voice as though addressing a large audience and shrieked: 'I shall build airplanes, build airplanes, airplanes, airplanes, and I shall annihilate my enemies!' He seemed more like a phantom than a real person. I stared in amazement and turne to see how Goring was reacting but he did not turn a hair." Anyone who hears differently of course, please do speak up. Civilisation could depend on it. P.S. And yes, Putin does in fact give speeches. But they aren't exactly ones that whip mobs into a frenzy... https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/vladimirputin7theasterneconomicforum.htm

Yes, but that intervention would quite likely occur before any nukes were even launched. And possibly with Russian connivance. Make of that what you will. ***** ....Escalation is a deep rabbit hole and my appetite for such what-ifs is pretty limited. But here is my own view, worth everything you paid for it: 1. I see no signs that the actual men in actual charge in actual Russia today are up for nuclear war, collectively or individually. The evil is banal, not mad. 2. Intellectually, Putin is a product of the Soviet technocracy (their 'PMC'). He has amassed supreme power by coldly and systematically pulling its levers for the benefit of his clique. Those levers include using the legacy Soviet military machine in his own backyard, with its adventurism fueled by cyclical resource windfalls. Why not, it's sitting there idle and rusting? Like most such apparatchiks (not just Russians btw), he has no actual notion of how to create capital, only how to scheme to control and expend existing capital. 3. Philosophically, while Putin is clearly in earnest about '(re)gathering the Russian lands' (a standard Russian view, not something he invented), and also believes the Motherland is by default menaced by the rest of humanity, there is nothing at all in his emotional makeup or observed personal behaviour to suggest a Hitler monomania or messianism, Russian flavoured or otherwise. The man doesn't especially enjoy speechifying, kissing babies, or the sound of his own voice in small crowds, or the company of others. He does get a smug satisfaction from triggering others, but it's a catlike kind of emotion, carefully bounded. He's INTJ, a calculating introvert. 4. Putin knows now he miscalculated terribly when Ukraine didn't fold on Day 3. His Martingale double dow bets with the war machine had worked up to then, and finally they didn't. Since then, he has been scrambling to salvage whatever he can by using up the rest of what blood and treasure he started with, bluff and divide his enemies wherever he can, and hoping he can outlast ________________. 5. Putin is 70 and ailing. I suspect he is resigned to dying in a couple of years, and like most of us old folks does not especially fear it. Again, there is nothing in the man's visible persona to suggest he wants a legacy that includes triggering doomsday -- or more likely failing foolishly if he tried -- even if he had nothing else to lose. He is not the Mad King. FWIW

Tactical nukes ain't magic either, against an army that's already learned not to clump in one place too long. Would it hurt? Yes, in volume. And the moment Russia's leadership uncorks that bottle, they become an urgent problem for the rest of humanity (including a lot of Russian officials and officers) to solve. Even Great Helmsman Xi lines up firmly against Armageddon. Hyperbole aside, there is no serious constituency or value case for flipping over the chessboard of human civilisation. (Mother Nature is already moving some pieces around, sure, but that's OT) ...I just don't see it, any more than I see Strelkov's 'five additional VDV divisions descending from heaven with the angels' (I think that line is from like, April, so he already knew they were hosed)

"I destroyed the Austrians by simply marching" - some Corsican or other ....so the tiny Russia-boosters echo chamber in the West (and it isn't just rightists) has been confidently declaiming all along that mighty Russia is fighting the SMO only with one fist in order to minimize disruption at home. Guns and butter, etc. Well now would be the time for them to bring that other meaty fist from behind their back. It's right across their border, short(er) interior lines. What's it gonna be? Yes or no. [I can wait all night]....

I dunno, these are not the faces of men preparing for Armageddon.... But as I looked at this video I was hoping for Jason Isaacs to show up in his Zhukov role....

On to Shevchenkove!

These new attacks threatening the RU supply lines to Izium are welcome, but to me the main chance to defeat a Russian army remains Kherson. 1. Pro-RU social media is circulating grim jokes that the UA has successfully occupied all the morgues from Odesa to Dnipro. That may contain some truth, sadly. But I hope UA forces there haven't been shocked by their losses into easing up the pressure. I am keenly looking for signs that the broad push is continuing, and that the Ivans are running short of infantry (and materiel) to push back with.... At a certain point, they need to quit 'shaping' and land some heavy punches. To repurpose this meme: 2. Cool overhead video of 'Gorbach' gun runs:

....in extreme case, to pull back to the Dnieper and strike the enemy's major cities with nuclear tactical bombs. In a more democratic version, use heavy bombers, Caliber missiles, [at] all those targets that I listed above Hmm, to borrow from Douglas Adams, this seems to be some strange *new* definition of the word 'sober' of which I was previously unaware.

1. Great 'CM Level 5' overview of hasty Russian field fortifications (Snihurivka). No bang bangs, just recce, good quality video, few jump cuts. Scenario design material. 2. Also, great source material for a future CMBS 'squalor' mod. If only I had the time, sigh.... 3. In occupied Ukraine, mine step on YOU! 4. And at the far opposite end of situational awareness: a Level Zero (Russian) grunt's eye view -- the awful isolation of the battlefield, can't see the enemy, only your squadmates dead and dying....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/world/article-russia-war-ukraine-millionaires/ (quotes pasted above)

Great synthesis, @Kinophile, in addition to the engineering points. It seems Ukrainian losses have indeed been heavy, albeit no evidence of a breaking point. Transcarpathia declared a day of mourning for 7 KIA. There may be a great deal in the earlier discussion about UA 'middle management' still being a work in progress. ....Perhaps commands remain a little too slow at battalion and brigade level to 'flow into' openings their tactical light units create opportunistically. ....Or else they go by the (pre-Feb) book, get stalled or merely snarled, and then the Russians call in their (still) heavy guns on the idled mass that has obligingly formed? (I am speculating here, based on the bits and pieces above. Squinting at the flames dancing on the wall of the OPSEC cave) **** And yes, historical analogies predict precisely nothing, but hey guess what? this is a wargaming board.... This 'feels' a bit like the July 1944 bocage push above St. Lo. Simply put, after a month of near deadlock, 352 Division, which is already a Frankenstein made up of other bled out German units, simply runs out of landser to counterattack US penetrations, even though their mortars and mediums are still raining a drizzle of hell to the end. Yes, a lot of progress was made tactically by the GIs (Rhinos, rifle+bazooka+MMG teams etc.), and that mattered, sure. But the key thing for the attacking divisions writ large was to stay in the ring, keep up the pressure, and keep killing the enemy. ...And so from 12 - 15 July, it went from '3 hedgerows per day' agonising slogs to a broad German withdrawal (albeit still orderly, no rout). They vacated Pont Hebert and their key OPs, and couldn't even contest the ruins of St. Lo at any scale.

Meanwhile, in the topsy turvy world of Russia's Western fanbase: Ukraine military command opposed this disastrous offensive of diving deep into flat open land and allowing themselves to be cut off The estimated force was 12,000 per Colonel MacGregor, “three brigades.” Ukraine government is throwing untrained men into a meat grinder Ukrainian casualties are huge. Reports speak of thousands of wounded. Many more have died. Russian MoD claimed 3000 “destroyed” over first 2 days, 1200 day 1. 1700 the second Hundreds of Ukrainian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles were destroyed or captured The 128th mountain brigade from Transcarpatia region got destroyed, 50% casualties. They were the last unused professional troops in the Ukrainian army Kraken and similar units are shooting men who try to desert. Since the start of the war, young men have been fleeing, mainly to Poland, to escape conscription "The words of this wizard stand on their heads!" - Gimli

Wondering if halal buffet boy is looking nervously at the Chechens who are actually fighting P.S. been seeing the Byzantine 'Chi Rho' cross on a lot of imagery lately (superimposed on the arty vid above). All your Third Rome are belong to us! P.P.S. Full mobilisation....

Nope, the Android device I use only offers a very few formatting icons. And nothing additional appears when I highlight text.

Nice on the ground reporting, though dated 18 August, from the battered Black Sea city of Mikolaiev and the nearby Kherson front. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n16/james-meek/blast-effects (I have no idea how to insert a quote box unless it's a quote from another post)

Yeah, Twitter has turned the screws again: first they disabled the icon to shut the 'Sign Up Now' popups but you could still get around them by clicking through and then hitting Back. Not any more. https://nitter.net/ seems to be the next best option, although it can be slow.

Agreed. Here's the meme I would have mobilised personally, although I don't Tweet.... https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0715/15/little-orphan-annie-poster-tribune_1_3e99246f2adc43390d0038fb1227187f.jpg