Vanir Ausf B

This guy is platoon commander of L119 in 46th air-assault brigade
https://twitter.com/denintern
I remember he complained about 105 mm shortage, but long time ago. His last posts havn't nothing about this

- Russia controls Bakhmut
- Russia got rid of its prison population, net societal gain. Nobody misses them and will march through the streets in protest.
- In return, UA had some of the better units exhausted, among them 93rd if Im correct and tens of thousands of some of the best people dead and many more wounded, crippled.
- Keeping supply line was very costly, watch drone footage of the road of life, its littered with UA vehicles that were taken out there, trying to evac and resupply the city with the frontline hundreds/sometimes just dozens of meters away. Loss rates were not nearly as in favor as in other areas, with street fighting leveling the playing field a lot.
 
Operationally, I dont think it matters but if you count it, small Russian win. Strategically -> politically, they won.
In a raw balance of what was used up, Russia also comes out ahead far better than in any other engagement in this war, with the exception of the current counter offensive.
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The fact that the Russian army can throw away hordes of tanks and infantry and level the frontline with massed artillery, as if it was 2022 tells me that they do not suffer "shortages" as much as people would like them. Major use of airpower, both fixed wing and rotary, yet the only confirmed downed aircraft are friendly fire in a completely different place - funny but also tells a story about the state of UA frontline AD.
It seems to me that there are enough resources to hold the line in the south for a quite a while longer.

Dmitri is on it today.

AP is reporting the same:
The White House said on Friday that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia for its ongoing war in Ukraine.
The White House released images that it said show the containers were loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship before being moved via train to southwestern Russia. The containers were shipped between Sept. 7 and Oct. 1 between Najin, North Korea, and Dunay, Russia
https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-russia-us-munitions-ukraine-war-7091eaba254b680888a9b1ec8a68135f

Russians moved to front even old experimental armor, which wasn't in service of Russian army. Near Avdiivka was spotted BTR-90 "Rostok". This is developing of 1994 year armed with 30 mm gun in the turret similar to BMP-2. Despite MoD adopted this APC in 2008, it was never ordered. Later in 2011 MoD finally rejected BTR-90 for the sake of developing of newest platform "Boomerang". Later BTR-82/82A was choosen as wheeled APC
Probably only several BTR-90 exists. 

 

Well yes and no.  The problem with green lighting deep/strategic strike is gauging what you want it to do.  If you want to harass or disrupt something specific, we could be talking a workable solution.
If we are talking broad scale strategic corrosive warfare, well that is essentially a systematic campaign at things like Russian industry, energy and transportation infrastructure.  Go down that road and I suspect things would spiral out of control quickly.  The working theory is that Putin only has so much support for this thing - we were just talking about this.  Start hammering every railyard, airfield, power generation and military factory in western Russia and he may very well get green lit for some really crazy responses.  In many ways it could play into his hands.
So from a US perspective it is risk vs gain.  What are a few longer range systems really going to do?  Ukraine would need a lot of systems to break Russia through strategic corrosion.  Not as much as say WW2, but still a lot higher than anyone is comfortable to go with right now.
So we are back to military operational victories in Ukraine strung together.  Closest we came to strategic disruption of Russia was back when Priggy made his thunder run.  But the poor dumb bastard fumbled to ball and balked, and we all know how that ended.

I can't understand why SBU issued this unverified info. Even though there were some attacks, they likely didn't reach own goals. No evidences that any ship was damaged. 
Here is today's "damaged" ship, after incident, passed as missile corvette "Buyan" - indeed patrol ship pr.22160 "Vasiliy Bykov"-class

And here is "blown by mine" two days ago patrol ship of the same pr.22160 "Pavel Derzhavin", reportedly yesterday photo. No damages are visible.

 

The key evidence will be whether the frontline starts to move in either direction.

The offensive isn't over so it's too early to judge. Having said that, the most fair bar to measure against is the one the Ukrainians are holding themselves to:
The general (Tarnavsky) conceded that for the counteroffensive to be a success, Ukrainian forces need to at least reach the city of Tokmak.
“Tokmak is the minimum goal,” he said. “The overall objective is to get to our state borders.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/europe/ukraine-biggest-counteroffensive-to-come-intl-hnk/index.html

It's all pretty vague, as you would expect.
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These key Iranian officials did not know the attack was coming, according to the intelligence. The United States, Israel and key regional allies have not found evidence that Iran directly helped plan the attack, according to the U.S. officials and another official in the Middle East.
While they would not identify the Iranian officials who expressed surprise at the attack, the U.S. officials said they were people who typically would be aware of operations involving the Quds Force, Iran's paramilitary arm that supports and works with proxy forces.
U.S. officials said the intelligence investigation was continuing and could turn up evidence that Iran or other states were directly involved in the Hamas operation. Senior officials said they were keeping an open mind, reviewing old intelligence reports and looking for new information.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/us/politics/iran-israel-gaza-hamas-us-intelligence.html
Early Intelligence Shows Hamas Attack Surprised Iranian Leaders, U.S. Says
That is interesting. That kind of goes against "Iran is behind it all" people seem to be taking for granted.

The offensive isn't over so it's too early to judge. Having said that, the most fair bar to measure against is the one the Ukrainians are holding themselves to:
The general (Tarnavsky) conceded that for the counteroffensive to be a success, Ukrainian forces need to at least reach the city of Tokmak.
“Tokmak is the minimum goal,” he said. “The overall objective is to get to our state borders.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/europe/ukraine-biggest-counteroffensive-to-come-intl-hnk/index.html

The offensive isn't over so it's too early to judge. Having said that, the most fair bar to measure against is the one the Ukrainians are holding themselves to:
The general (Tarnavsky) conceded that for the counteroffensive to be a success, Ukrainian forces need to at least reach the city of Tokmak.
“Tokmak is the minimum goal,” he said. “The overall objective is to get to our state borders.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/europe/ukraine-biggest-counteroffensive-to-come-intl-hnk/index.html

The offensive isn't over so it's too early to judge. Having said that, the most fair bar to measure against is the one the Ukrainians are holding themselves to:
The general (Tarnavsky) conceded that for the counteroffensive to be a success, Ukrainian forces need to at least reach the city of Tokmak.
“Tokmak is the minimum goal,” he said. “The overall objective is to get to our state borders.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/europe/ukraine-biggest-counteroffensive-to-come-intl-hnk/index.html

The offensive isn't over so it's too early to judge. Having said that, the most fair bar to measure against is the one the Ukrainians are holding themselves to:
The general (Tarnavsky) conceded that for the counteroffensive to be a success, Ukrainian forces need to at least reach the city of Tokmak.
“Tokmak is the minimum goal,” he said. “The overall objective is to get to our state borders.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/europe/ukraine-biggest-counteroffensive-to-come-intl-hnk/index.html

Avdiivka after next strike. Reportedly the city in fire and smoke, Russians try to hit all mulistorey buildings in the city
Both UKR and RUS point out unprecedented level of artillery and MLRS strikes, a wall of fire, not seen since summer 2022. Russian milblogegrs with triumph shouting "Here where all our shells! Likely they were gathered here from all front sectors!" 
UKR soldiers told about just enormous number of Russian infantry, that's imagimation allegedly almost  all reservers were thrown here. I even think maybe Russian offensive on Kupiansk and Lyman direction are bogus actions and real heavy strike Russians made on Avdiivka direction
UKR sources refuted Russian claims that they captured Berdychi village and claimed we repelled five heavy attcks. Reportedly only for this day Russians lost 10 tanks. About hour ago was a claim about Russian jet was shot down, but no confirmation. Russian aviation today acted with completely impunity - alas, it's usual thing for Avdiivka direction.  
Backbone of Avdiivka defense is 110th mech.brigade and 129th TDF brigade of Kryvyi Rih city  - they are on northern flank and the city itself; and 53rd mech.brigade on southern flank. Also one separate rifle battalion, 501st marines battalion of 36th marines brigade and mobile groups of "Omega" National Gurd special force brigade and groups of 3rd SOF regiment. Against them - multiple number of mobiks motor-rifle regiments and DPR units. 

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/10/09/uncertain-fate-for-active-protection-on-armys-combat-vehicles/
The interesting part is halfway down, WRT Iron Fist:
 

A good rundown on changes the US Army is making because of lessons learned in Ukraine.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/change-plans-us-army-embraces-110000928.html
Upgraded artillery. Willing to buy from outside the US. A lighter Abrams tank with a smaller logistical footprint. Top attack protection must be increased. Tactical operations centers must get smaller, both in size and in electromagnetic signature. Remote logistics (tech support, really). Lots of SHORAD  

Rail lines are easily and quickly repaired. It's an inefficient use of finite resources to hit an empty line just to put it out of order for a few hours.
The stuff traveling on those rail lines absolutely should be hit as often as possible, but we're talking about targets that are not static and are tens of kilometers behind enemy lines. ISR is spotty at best at those distances.

Tokmak probably isn't really closed for Russian logistics. If it were that simple it would have been done months ago, as you alluded to. One of the most pervasive myths in this war is that you can "close" a supply route with indirect fires. That's not how it works. Russian and Ukrainian forces are separated by only a few kilometers in most places yet those forces are resupplied. There is attrition, yes, but plenty gets through.

A good rundown on changes the US Army is making because of lessons learned in Ukraine.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/change-plans-us-army-embraces-110000928.html
Upgraded artillery. Willing to buy from outside the US. A lighter Abrams tank with a smaller logistical footprint. Top attack protection must be increased. Tactical operations centers must get smaller, both in size and in electromagnetic signature. Remote logistics (tech support, really). Lots of SHORAD  

Tokmak probably isn't really closed for Russian logistics. If it were that simple it would have been done months ago, as you alluded to. One of the most pervasive myths in this war is that you can "close" a supply route with indirect fires. That's not how it works. Russian and Ukrainian forces are separated by only a few kilometers in most places yet those forces are resupplied. There is attrition, yes, but plenty gets through.

Tokmak probably isn't really closed for Russian logistics. If it were that simple it would have been done months ago, as you alluded to. One of the most pervasive myths in this war is that you can "close" a supply route with indirect fires. That's not how it works. Russian and Ukrainian forces are separated by only a few kilometers in most places yet those forces are resupplied. There is attrition, yes, but plenty gets through.

Tokmak probably isn't really closed for Russian logistics. If it were that simple it would have been done months ago, as you alluded to. One of the most pervasive myths in this war is that you can "close" a supply route with indirect fires. That's not how it works. Russian and Ukrainian forces are separated by only a few kilometers in most places yet those forces are resupplied. There is attrition, yes, but plenty gets through.