LongLeftFlank

This x1000% Which is why I feel the Ukes need to be 'pre-mining', mapping (for drone purposes) and burying hardened OPs (+EW jammers?) -- today -- to create an uninhabitable death zone c.50km deep, along more or less their entire current front, from Sumy to the Dnpr bend. Shortening that front (that is, ceding territory, however painful) if needed. And yes, that will be an enormous effort; one I believe Russia is already undertaking below Donetsk.

Deepening the 'denied zone' beyond, of all places, the 'shallow' Ukrainian infantry bridgehead at Krynki. https://nitter.net/foosint Don't forget the mines

27 Nov OpEd by a defence tech CEO, fwiw. Nothing too surprising, since we are already watching his key points unfold in real time.... https://www.forbes.com/sites/amirhusain/2023/11/27/hyperwar-ascendant-the-global-race-for-autonomous-military-supremacy/ Today, Hyperwar seems to be the operative paradigm accepted by militaries the world over as a de facto reality. Indeed, the observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop is collapsing. Greater autonomy is being imbued in all manner of weapon systems and sensors.... We are in a new global competitive dynamic where US military efforts are immediately matched by China, whose growing domestic technological capabilities and decades-old mastery of scale production make it a potent competitor.... The U.S. efforts to develop unmanned systems are - unsurprisingly, given the history of US defense projects - facing challenges regarding cost.... As a nation, we need to figure out how to produce affordable, yet advanced, products.... This global proliferation points to a new reality; middle powers, if they focus on their production capacity, can develop potent, accurate force projection capabilities on large scales. Gone are the days when the aircraft carrier was the only way to “pay a visit” to a belligerent nation not contiguously connected with one's borders....

Anecdote on poor drone coordination from RU side, via Dmitri.

All this (sorry, I mean my questions) of course begs the question of what constitutes a 'front line' in this war? for some decades, IIUC, it's been at core an infantry screen for OPs that exert fire control forward (I'm sure you have a vastly better definition) A very twisted version of the already ironic Juvenal epigram: 'who watches the watchers themselves?' *** A little anecdata. NoelReports is doing the best job overall of covering the tactical situation imho. I assume they've been cannibalising these improvised cover materials from local structures. but it shows the Ivans out here aren't yet at the end of the rope logistically. PS. No gore here.

Yup. If things are indeed moving in this direction, shouldn't a deep (dozens of kms?*) no-mans-land or 'denuded front' already be forming on both sides? within which anything, moving or stationary, that presents a human sized or bigger heat signature is strictly living on borrowed time. (Heavily mined/trapped too, to further hinder the enemy from moving in long enough to build drone-resistant fortifications**). ....whether 'denuded' by unit COs throwing their manuals away and adapting their tactics/deployments, or because they very quickly run out of live bodies to put in holes up front. * whatever depth is sufficient that enemy FPV drone operators would need to enter the death zone to control their own devices. Of course if small simple drones can loiter, spot and strike single man-sized targets out to dozens of kms already, then this concept could already be moot. ** Well looky here. OK, Trent can be hit or miss but... Thread: https://nitter.net/TrentTelenko/status/1733646004417700317#m

Try Norks. You think Russians have a 'cursed capacity for suffering', fuggedaboudit. The Kim Dynasty has been renting young men out to do logging and mining jobs in harsh conditions in Kamchatka/Yakutia for Mother Russia ever since the Gulag ran short of zeks in the 1960s. It's one of the DPRK's biggest revenue earners; also keeps 'busy' surplus young Korean males who might otherwise prove refractory. They're tough, tiny, obedient, used to short rations, and know how to field strip an AKM. And nobody will miss them (or ask where they went). https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/04/asia-pacific/north-koreans-trapped-slavery-russia/ It's far better to staff offices and factories in the DPRK with 'Excellent Horse-Like Ladies'. ...Who can later be married off mail-order to Chinese, or as domestic servants (same job duties, without the marital tie).

I understand your response, many thanks, and it was probably more polite than my post deserved. ...But, you don't have a queasy feeling that the 'shelf life' of a Ukrainian infantryman has substantially shortened since summer (a la 1915), mainly cuz Ivan is closing the 'drone gap' (or C4ISR gap?), and there's no credible counter in sight yet, and that word of that awful reality is spreading, and so nobody is in a hurry to step up and stick their own scrota in the meatgrinder, possibly for a period of years? (can I possibly beg this question any harder?)

Wow, this thread has really derailed lately into a generalised college dorm bull session on world affairs. A lot of opinionating and emoting by the same 15 regulars. Only @Harmon Rabb is trying to post anything remotely factual any more. ...Actually, the Twittersphere in general seems much the same. A lot of scolding and 'on message' broken record slogans, and What Now Must We Do emoting. Fragments of anecdata only, and analysis (body counts, wreck counts) seem stale and repetitive. Just marching in place, yet things are changing. 1. What the hell *is* happening in Poland? I'd love to hear from our Polish comrades who seem strangely silent of late: @Maciej Zwolinski, @Beleg85? What's the beef with the truckers? Are they just looking for a payoff, or do they actually want to hobble Ukraine's war effort? Why? 2. @Haiduk, how are things in Kyiv? Are Zeleban's views on fatigue and disillusionment on point? (I for one don't doubt his sincerity or his goodwill, nor do I believe he's parroting Russian troll farms) @kraze what are people saying in your corner of the Austro-Hungarian empire? Angry denunciations of betrayals and foot-dragging by the West aside -- real or imagined -- what are you guys seeing or hearing about going downhill there? I'm going to suspend posting for a bit myself, since I have far more questions than answers on the macro situation, and no one here seems much interested in the battlefield itself these days.

Russian tank raid, Avdiivka coke plant (today?). Tanks doing what tanks do, running stuff over.

Infrared drone footage of a UA night 'tank raid' in Lyman area. Nothing gory. Mariinka. Symbolism aside, it doesn't seem imprudent to let the Ivans be the ones to cross those open fields, rather than trying to resupply a slim foothold in the ruins. Kill All The Chinese Go-Karts! (no gore)

The g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ Twittersphere sighed / as the lines on the map / moved from side to side Abandonment to Russian occupation? or the forced deepening (by both sides) of no-mans-land, within which even squad level tactical movement by either side attracts the lethal attention of UAVs? Or even the physical presence of more than 3 heat signatures in a hole. ***** https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-a Avdiivka now is 22 km of a constantly shelled road. There are sections where enemy UAVs are actively working, so, as we say, we need to "skip" quickly. We entered without headlights, quickly, with open windows in the car to hear enemy UAVs. After the morning, the Russians fly with Orlans (recon UAV); they observe, and determine where there are groups of people (3 or more), from which building smoke is coming from a home stove, and KABs target it. I spoke with servicemen from the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, who have been firmly defending this direction since March 2022. The primary need is for combat equipment! There is also a shortage of personnel. Additionally, there is a constant need for drones: daytime, nighttime, strike, and FPV drones for installing surveillance cameras on various objects.

Johnny "Gurkha" packed it in cuz he didn't get paid (or get food)? Perhaps he'll switch sides. More discussion around origins of South Asian mercs (hint: NOT Gurkhas): https://nitter.net/infussambas/status/1669666768909131776#m

There's a whole thread over here gents

I'm probably Kamil's biggest fan on this board, but I doubt Point 1 is factually accurate. So the rest of his conclusions become moot. Nobody disagrees with his central leitmotiv, that the EU needs to stomp HARD on cynical Mittelstand companies that continue to supply and support machine tools to Russia. But he's a one note trumpet at this point. I did like this one though.... Ahem, *Kissinger*, cough. And entirely consistent with my 60 odd years of (curious) lived human experience.

The more imagery I see from the Kherson bridgehead, the more I think this zone is a total no-win death trap for the Russians. They just can't mine their way out of this one. Those sandbars may as well be bodies of water from a logistical and manoeuvre standpoint.

Interesting, and I don't disagree. Where do Czechs seem to be leaning these days?

Big if true, but aware that I am citing just one (aggregator) source here, will try to find corroboration elsewhere. But Teplinski is a paratrooper, and VDV is his go to, as they have been since the start of the war. ...And maybe you heard it here first, but if pushed to extremis, VDV might also become the next Wagner! They've never been totally in the Stavka chain of command -- that's by design from Khrushchev's day -- and they control the Tula-Ryazan and Ivanovo logistical hubs either side of Moscow. Plus Pskov, which sits in the Novgorod lakes region, adjacent to both the Baltics and Petersburg. At what point do Teplinski and the sailor shirt lads (Spetsnaz, PMCs, GRU) start wondering why they have been shedding buckets of blood to shore up Putin's aging KGB alumni association and the Petersburg mafiyas, plus the bloody heathen Chechens? They've got their own mafiyas, btw. There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your Deep Battle doctrine.

Ex-USSF TTG who now runs Turcopolier following the passing of Col. Lang had this quite interesting comment on the sabotage campaign. As I hope most grogs here know, the Special Forces core mission is less to be Rambo superman commandos than 'Jesuits of Democracy', providing training, liaison and, when required, shadow leadership for allied fighters, conventional or uncon. Support for the Ukrainian 'Forest Brothers' and other anticommunist movements in Iron Curtain Europe was one of their earliest projects, though generally unsuccessful and still mainly classified. https://turcopolier.com/russias-main-link-to-china-paralyzed-after-tunnel-sabotage/ I’m fairly confident this is the work of SBU or SBU led partisan sabotage. Since early in the war, things all across Russia have been catching fire and blowing up. I doubt it’s all due to industrial accidents. This concentration of UW activities across both the occupied territories and Russia is a product of Ukraine’s total national defense doctrine and, I’d like to think, many years of MTTs from 10th SFG(A). This was our reason for being ever since the group’s activation in 1952.

I don't post gore pr0n or drone kill shots that have no tactical insight or relevance, but I made an exception for this grim walkthrough (second video). The vids aren't related AFAIK There are at least 20 bodies in this area, with a hodgepodge of kit. Nothing too obviously dismembered so I assume it wasn't heavy HE that did it, but it's still on the ground shots of dead human beings. You have been warned.

Drones and EW still evolving... https://armyinform.com.ua/2023/12/01/zahyst-vid-bpla-u-minoborony-dopustyly-do-ekspluatacziyi-novi-zrazky-okopnoyi-reb/ (per NoelReports) In the conditions of modern war, the high intensity of use of enemy UAVs, aviation, missile weapons, the role of EW specialists is difficult to overestimate. Our soldiers in advanced positions desperately need reliable protection from swarms of Russian drones. We are talking about modern developments of the so-called trench EW complexes. As the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Lieutenant-General Ivan Havrylyuk, informed ArmiyaInform, the Ministry of Defense, together with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, completed the testing of tactical means of radio interference to barrage ammunition and FPV drones, developed by domestic enterprises, which confirmed their tactical and technical characteristics in conditions of use close to to combat Currently, these tools are recommended for codification and registration as standard items of supply for the purpose of further supply to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, it is planned to test a number of tactical means of radio-electronic combat against UAVs and UAV detection means in the near future. Among the systems that were recently put into operation by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is a radio-electronic warfare complex, which is used to combat all types of enemy UAVs, capable of suppressing control signals, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou satellite navigation data transmissions, as well as creating a variety of false signals The complex has a passive system of detection and direction finding of drones. Currently, two more samples of domestic "trench EW" systems are undergoing codification in the Ministry of Defense. We are talking about a complex that will counter Russian Lancets and a complex that will protect against enemy FPV drones.

There seems to be a series of strikes going on targeting Russian air defence assets in and above Crimea, possibly following on the damage done by the freak storm. I've observed before here (and I am far from the only one) that retaking both banks of the Dnpr river mouth, preferably as far in as Oleshki Sands prior to a ceasefire seems quite strategically important to Ukraine, as it not only puts Kherson out of tube artillery range but somewhat lessens Russian ability to interdict shipping out of Odessa and Nikolaiv. This terrain is infantry country; marshy (is it true the Ukes can also reflood a lot of this area if they want to?) and road poor. It also lies at the exposed far left end of the Russian front, and is hideously difficult to resupply and support. As we see.... Any RU defence would need to rely heavily on air power. Sytematically degrading their AD network seems like a nice first step, especially if Ukraine fields F16s this coming spring.

1. Strykers in action! (I think - this may be training footage, say the comments) Are those antimissile flares they're firing? 2. Financing?????? WTAF!!!! How does one make a fortification in a war zone a 'bankable' infra asset? Separately, they talked about attracting resources, financing the construction of fortifications, and formats of cooperation with private business. I mean, Lt. Minderbinder had a revenue-generating solution, but that's fiction. Perhaps Zelenskyy really has taken a few too many hits off the neoliberal privatisation bong.... 3. Russian-side drone footage from early Nov, grainy but some tolerably long takes. 4. Up close and personal on the Krynki bridgehead. Nothing 'sensitive' in this footage, just X being X.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!