LongLeftFlank
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Posts
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Days Won
15
Posts posted by LongLeftFlank
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2 hours ago, Haiduk said:
6 of these missiles have fell in 2-3 km from my home. I heard very loud explosions and seen bright spashes in darkness through the curtain.
Take care, brother Haiduk!
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Interesting RU side assessment, though not yet sure what the drone revolution thinks of 'commanding heights'.
... there is nothing 'sensitive' but text.
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PR might be the least of UA command's worries right now, but fair enough. Don't see Zelenskyy smiling much these days; he clearly gets it.
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7 hours ago, Zeleban said:
"The bridgehead now rests solely on mines. The air assault division began to drive directly into positions from the forest in an infantry fighting vehicle and land troops. There was a day when everyone thought that the bridgehead would be pushed into the water. And we were all urgently involved in mining in the rain. We flew in the rain because we had no choice. And the mines had been completed several weeks before, so a high percentage of explosions were required immediately.
All assaults stop at mines. They have been attacking continuously for four days, but we have stabilized the situation a little and they are not reaching our positions. In fact, it's hell here right now. In a week and a half, the Rashians lost up to 10 armored personnel carriers, up to 10 tanks and 20-25 infantry fighting vehicles. The forest and Krynki are littered with iron. But the meat storms continue. Today is the first day when the assault was limited to the 2nd armored personnel carrier. Unfortunately, our progress (meaning on the left bank) has been stopped..."
Solid report, many thanks.
Twitterverse isn't yielding much insight on the frontline situation over the last few days.
....There is this;
WARNING
this is (recent) drone bombing clips from Bakhmut area, and EXTREMELY graphic and awful, but filmed in some of the highest resolution I've seen, as in modder resource quality textures of snowy/muddy ground, trees, kit, explosions, etc. That's the only reason I am posting it here, for those who have the stomach.
One observation: these troops seem more professionally and uniformly equipped than many others we have been seeing, also fitter. So this could be an elite VDV unit being horribly dismembered here. Teplinski doesn't have an infinite number of those, and like a wolf-dog at some point they could turn....
Less graphic but also modder-interesting, a slideshow of still shots, many good quality (though some repeat) of what Brigadier Hackett once described as the 'indescribable mess of war'.
Tik Tok time from Teddy Bear...
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I want to play CM on a pregnancy test. Can @Battlefront Charles get right on that please?
(found via this blog post) https://taylor.town/pardon-2023
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1 hour ago, Tux said:
If you lose that [drone] race (or even fall behind) the consequences will be painful. My point is that we/Ukraine should therefore be simultaneously trying to win that arms race and making plans for if they (even temporarily) lose it.
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.
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Deepening the 'denied zone' beyond, of all places, the 'shallow' Ukrainian infantry bridgehead at Krynki.
Don't forget the mines
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27 Nov OpEd by a defence tech CEO, fwiw. Nothing too surprising, since we are already watching his key points unfold in real time....
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....
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10 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:
Russian drone-operators (outside of former LDPR, who were better in this field) were more acting like sniper teams subjected centrally to Brigade or even higher-level commands, working on specific orders. But it seems this difference also flattened with time.
... But if you are right, then it seems chief diadvantage of Russia is still outdated tactical doctrines and squareheads in military and defensive (or rather: offensive) industry. They can unfortunatelly overcome that in time.
Anecdote on poor drone coordination from RU side, via Dmitri.
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1 hour ago, The_Capt said:
Well yes. We are basically talking Defensive supremacy at its full expression. If the RA can marshal and project hundreds of strike tac UAS capable of penetrations of 10s of km. And the UA is doing the same...well this thing is essentially frozen no matter how much hardware we throw at the problem.
Ukrainian president and CHOD have admitted that we are at stalemate/positional warfare but no one has really articulated "why?" With that density of UAS, no force on earth could break this right now. I am not even sure the US could handle this if someone introduces full autonomy into the equation, even if it was for the last 1000ms.
Short of strikes at Russian supply chains, there isn't much room to manoeuvre here.
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?'
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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.
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2 hours ago, The_Capt said:
That is particularly disconcerting. One thing the Russian military knows is firepower. Not sophisticated or precise, just massed firepower. If they can translate that doctrine into sustained massive waves of tac UAS, then we have a far more serious problem. I also suspect the RA will be pushing hard for fully autonomous systems. Current EW technology does little for that.
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
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1 hour ago, Yet said:
How long until we find Somali pirates in the trenches?
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).
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26 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
That is because nothing is really happening! Slow grinding misery on both sides.
Beyond Ukrainian Doom-Gloom, we are in a pretty static situation with respect to operational-tactical situation on the ground.
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?)
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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.
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Russian tank raid, Avdiivka coke plant (today?). Tanks doing what tanks do, running stuff over.
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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)
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39 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
Already now one can observe the gradual abandonment of positions by the Ukrainian military near Bakhmut, near Liman and near Avdiivka.
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.
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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
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There's a whole thread over here gents
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12 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
An interesting article about the consequences for the United States of the defeat of Ukraine in the war with Russia
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.
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On 12/1/2023 at 6:31 PM, LongLeftFlank said:
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.
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.
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1 minute ago, Letter from Prague said:
European army is a impossible idea unless EU turns into USA.
The raison d'être for French armed forces is to manage post-colonies in Africa, in Balkans the point is being ready if **** starts again, in Greece it's defence from Turkey, in the east it's about defence from Russia and its puppets, and elsewhere it is some mix of jobs program, subsidy for domestic weapon manufacturers and "it's tradition I guess" / "we need to have have at least something useful since we're in alliance".
You can't bring those completely distinct objectives into a coherent force. Poland is not going want its soldiers chasing coups in West Africa, while France has no interest in KFOR and Ostalgic Germany unlikely to explicitly arm up to fight Russia. And I'm not even going to talk of Hungary and Austria and Slovakia.
Ain't gonna work from a command angle, because we can't even align on what the mission would be.
What could work - and this is Perun's idea, I'm not that smart - is to at least create shared procurement and research and some other strategic capability alignment, since that is currently quite a mess.
Interesting, and I don't disagree.
Where do Czechs seem to be leaning these days?
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4 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Sorry, I can't think of Eggs without thinking of one of the 10 all time best war film sequences (epic B25 takeoff included)
*****
Drone bros in their hide. Note the 'US ARMY' patches on their parkas although I suspect these are made in Bangladesh....