Vanir Ausf B

So the the three things referenced above, and every video of trench clearing we have seen in this war have led me to a conclusion. Small arms just barely matter, and when they do matter what counts is sustainable volume of fire. The follow on to that is that is that infantry weapons should use the smallest, lightest round possible. As much carrying capacity as humanely possible should be devoted to ISR on the defensive, and short to medium range explosives on the offensive.
The sniper in the Kyiv post article makes it extremely clear that his only real goal is to see and not be seen. He only shoots at something when either he or the enemy has screwed up atrociously.  I think regular infantry operate the same way to the extent to which their mission allows it
The RUSI article reiterates in great detail the fact that thousands, tens of thousands of rounds are fired for every one that hits the enemy. The role of small arms is to cause suppression, and foreclose the option of a mass banzai charge, and pretty much any modern rifle does both just fine.
The Urban warfare podcast, and the whole thing is worth a listen, extensively details how in an urban battle engagement ranges are stupid close , well inside danger close for almost all supporting fires. The primary arbiter of success is the amount of explosives a unit can project. From 40mm grenades, to LAW/Matador/Carl Gustav class weapons. Units also desperately need integral short range drones. Again every gram of rifle ammo takes away from the stuff that matters more. 
We have all seen many videos of trench clearing, grenades are so important that when a unit runs out of them they simply stop advancing, or even retreat. 
I freely admit that this is a change of opinion on my part, and it might be less true for a  counter insurgency situation. But I think it is a primary lesson from Ukraine for the next high intensity war. The smallest possible rifle round frees up carrying capacity for things that matter more
P.S. There was long discussion about the RUSI article in 2018, many of you may remember it.
 

So much stuff blows up at once here I can't even figure out what is going on...

I still think that this is a flawed comparison. The main difference being that NATO was already in West Germany when West Germany joined NATO. The border was already the front line of the Cold War. Had that gone hot the battlefield would have been Germany even without West Germany being in NATO. Maybe even more to the point: West Germany wasn't allowed to join NATO in order to help West Germany defend itself but to help NATO defend NATO. The Netherlands, surprisingly, were the main supporters who were very much afraid because even flooding half the country NATO thought they couldn't defend the Netherlands. An additional 10 West German divisions made them feel much safer.

It's going to be #2, obviously.

Antenna post of Russian EW asset "Pole-21" hit with FPV drone.
Main purpose of "Pole-21" is interferences for precision ammunition, using satellite navigation. Each complex has control vehicle based on R-340 communication vehcile (on the photo) and three antenna posts. Each can cover about 25 km, operating in sector 125 degrees by azimuth and 25 degres by angle.

 

Potentially memes source photo )

Look, we can argue about actual information!
 

"Eventually" being the operative word. Of course there is no reason Ukraine can't operate more than one type of fighter. They do that already. But transitioning to two different types simultaneously seems like a bad idea unless it cannot be avoided, e.g. there are too few fighters of each type available.
For what it's  worth, I came across an article from June in which Sweden called Ukrainian pilot training an "operational evaluation":
"The armed forces are tasked with orientation training for Ukrainian pilots and associated aeronautical personnel on the JAS-39 [Gripen]," a machine translation of the release says. "The Ukrainian armed forces have expressed requests to be able to operationally evaluate the JAS-39 as one of the most urgent measures is to strengthen the Ukrainian air defense with a modern combat aircraft system."
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-fighter-pilots-will-get-training-on-swedens-jas-39-gripen

"Eventually" being the operative word. Of course there is no reason Ukraine can't operate more than one type of fighter. They do that already. But transitioning to two different types simultaneously seems like a bad idea unless it cannot be avoided, e.g. there are too few fighters of each type available.
For what it's  worth, I came across an article from June in which Sweden called Ukrainian pilot training an "operational evaluation":
"The armed forces are tasked with orientation training for Ukrainian pilots and associated aeronautical personnel on the JAS-39 [Gripen]," a machine translation of the release says. "The Ukrainian armed forces have expressed requests to be able to operationally evaluate the JAS-39 as one of the most urgent measures is to strengthen the Ukrainian air defense with a modern combat aircraft system."
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-fighter-pilots-will-get-training-on-swedens-jas-39-gripen

The Czech Gripens are leased (as are the Hungarian) and the UK only has one of them, so it's probably Sweden or nothing.
I suspect Haiduk is correct that this is Plan B in case Plan A (F-16s) doesn't happen. I don't think we will see both F-16s and Gripens in Ukraine.

It's going to be #2, obviously.

NATO standard 😉
 

AF Command reported this night 15 of 17 Shakheds were shot down. Looks like these two could cuse this sh...t. 
Edited. Looks like detonation took place - local administrations reported about 400 private houses and some administrative buildings and schools in two territorial communities of Khmelnytskyi oblast were damaged (mostly broken windows). I doubt such anout of damages was caused by dozen of Shakheds shooting down over the villages, but who knows. 
 

Russians struck the center of Chernihiv city with Iskander-M ballistic missile. Reportedly 7 citizens were killed (anong them 6 y.o girl), 90 wounded (among them 12 children, one girl is critical). Among wounded 25 are hospitalized, other got light injuries. 
In this day in this buiding of city drama theater was announced "Angry birds" exhibition, were developers of drones have to represent own designs and air-recons shared with own experience. There are many kids and parents were on the square near the theater in this weekend, because of big church holiday in Ukriane on 19th of August and a church was nearby.
Organizers of exhibition claimed the place of "open-day" was announced only for 4 hours before beginning and only to virified persons. The building was given by local city administration. The event started at 10:00 and in 11:30 there was a strike. Obviously somebody gave information to Russians. Luckyly when air raid alarm was claimed most of guests went away to first floor and to the underground floor, but some people went to outside and were hit by fragments. The missile hit the roof and almost completely destroyed second floor from inside. Tough overlap between floors saved the people on first floor. The theater was buit in 1959 and in thar time all public and administrative buidings in USSR had been designing with big margin of safety for case of war, so despite ballistic missile hit the theater looks not enough damaged from outside, 
BTW I wonder, what idiot at all came up with exhibition idea in the city close to the border, wealky protected by AD (Chernihiv since spring of 2022 was relatively calm place, so wasn't need to keep there too much AD assets). Especially afetr UKR drone hit exhibition center in Moscow, where Russian military exhibition tool place.
The moment of strike:
Aftermath:
 

I just ran a better test than the one I did a few years back, since that one was at 150 meters. This one is a more typical 800 meters. T-72A vs M60A1 RISE+. It unsurprisingly shows a larger difference in spotting, although  not massively. The biggest difference was in the number and magnitude of outliers produced. A quirk of the CM spotting system is that it can produce huge outliers from time to time, which probably account for most of the "my tank is totally blind!" anecdotes. For example, the median spotting time for T-72 was 36.5 seconds but the single longest time recorded was 270 seconds. Because of that the average changes a lot depending on if you include outliers or exclude them, although the median doesn't change much.
n=50
Outliers excluded median
M60: 27.5 seconds T-72: 34 seconds Outliers excluded average
M60: 26.9 seconds T-72: 39 seconds Outliers included median
M60: 29 seconds T-72: 36.5 seconds Outliers included average
M60: 29.8 seconds T-72: 53.7 seconds  
What does this tell us? Nothing we didn't already know, frankly. But #1, and perhaps most importantly, CM spotting is highly variable and the result of any given encounter is usually a function of the situation combined with sheer dumb luck rather than the vehicle characteristics. For example, the fastest spot time for the T-72 was 8 seconds and the longest spot time for the M60 was 101 seconds. Second, while the difference in spotting ability in identical situations is around 21-23% most of the time the M60 is more consistent and therefore less likely to throw out an extreme result.

So, which is it: Russia sux therefore Ukraine doesn't need much help to kick the rotten door in, or Russia has a competent and professional military force which will require the entire civilised world fighting in a giant coalition to overcome.
Because it can't be both, and you can't take one preposition but apply the other deduction to it.

Amusing.
Last year people in this thread were saying exactly the same thing "lol, silly Russians. The Ukrainians will blow past that in a day." And yet, 11 months later, here we are.
I assume that even the Russians are professional enough to recognise that ditches across open paddocks aren't the only element of a defence line they are going to need. The funny thing about ditches under tree cover is that they're not very photogenic.
The tricky aspect of photographic analysis is interpreting what you can't see from the things you can. The Luftwaffe radar installation at Bruneval, for instance, was first identified because of long grass of all things. The Germans had ringed the site with barbed wire because they were worried about a ground attack or raid, or randos wandered up and having a butchers. The problem with barbed wire is that it's really hard to mow the grass in and around it, so over the course of six months or so a distinctive ring of tall grass sprouted up in the middle of an otherwise nondescript paddock in front of the manor house. "Now why would that happen" the British photo interpreters asked themselves, and working from there - and combining their suspicions with other intelligence threads - realised that they'd found a Würzburg , which led to Op BITING.
IIRC, a similar process was used to delimit the boundaries a number of the minefields in Normandy before D-Day.
Interpreting what you can't see based on what you can is also one of the reasons so much effort is put into studying enemy doctrine.
So, putting all that together, and relating it to 2023: we can see ditches. Great, in themselves they're no great shakes. But based on doctrine and experience over the last 6-12 months, what else should the Ukrainians expect on and around these new positions.
Ditches which are in the middle of open paddocks and perpendicular to the expected axis of advance are probably pretty dumb. The only thing dumber than that would be to assume that ditches in the middle of open paddocks perpendicular to the expected axis of advance are the only things the Russians are building.

The moment of yesterday Ka-52 shooting down and falling (lower video). It's confirmed now, it was shot down by Sweden RBS-70 MANPAD
Russian helicopter fell down between Robotyne and Novoprokopivka villages, so some OSINTers assum UKR troops already can control most part of Robotyne 
 

There's a lot we don't know, but satellite data suggests that the line of fortifications around Robotyne is the first of three "belts" (broadly speaking) between Ukraine's starting positions and Melitopol, and they are building more all the time.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rRKs40IEbGRsV0Fhky25l5OkPJ_vUvQ
 
 
 

There's a lot we don't know, but satellite data suggests that the line of fortifications around Robotyne is the first of three "belts" (broadly speaking) between Ukraine's starting positions and Melitopol, and they are building more all the time.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rRKs40IEbGRsV0Fhky25l5OkPJ_vUvQ
 
 
 

There's a lot we don't know, but satellite data suggests that the line of fortifications around Robotyne is the first of three "belts" (broadly speaking) between Ukraine's starting positions and Melitopol, and they are building more all the time.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rRKs40IEbGRsV0Fhky25l5OkPJ_vUvQ
 
 
 

Russian counter-battery radar Zoopark-M1 was hit by HIMARS as claimed, but as for me it's more similar to Excaliburs. Target was tracked by UKR "Shark" drone, having very cool zoom. Location - Novopetrykivka village, Donetsk oblast. About 15 km SE from Urozhaine. 
 

Russian position, taken some on southern front. It's claimed Russians were eliminated by DPCIM. You can see at least 8 bodies, while UKR soldier walks about several dozen meters
 https://twitter.com/herooftheday10/status/1691805607391592741
Russians write in TG they suffered heavy losses of DPICM, especially many wounded and this caused additional load on medical evacuation and hospitals. One milblogger in angry wrote RU MoD told they also have DPICM, but as turned out most of these artillery shells already in bad conditions and didn't work properly. In conditions of almost full absence of effective counter-battery fire, UKR artilelry cause big problems and allegedly retreat from Urozhaine was caused also because of UKR artillery unpunished work. 
Though from UKR side feedback about DPICM is not so unambigous. I have seen posts, where told DPICM initially were set to air explosion on too high altitude, so the shell created too wide circle of subminition explosions and the center of this circle had was almost "safe zone". You could see such explosions several weeks ago on numerous videos. Now altitude is sets some lower and efefctiveness  became higher, but not always.