Vanir Ausf B

Fresh and shiny, straight from the factory
 
Rostov on Don
https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1671569835971559424?s=20
 

FT article (paywalled) talks a little about it.
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“I personally saw how, during our assault, the enemy [fighter jet] aircraft immediately fired on our advancing troops using laser guided bombs from a far distance,” said Stas, a soldier with an elite drone surveillance unit helping infantry regain lost territory in the south of the country. It was not an isolated incident, he said.
Russia’s use of helicopters to attack armour was a “very powerful technique” to which Ukraine had no parity, said Stas, pleading for the west to provide Ukraine with US Apache attack choppers, in addition to F-16 fighter jets.
“Manpads are not very effective at night,” said a Ukrainian air force pilot. “We need systems with detection and guidance — radar or optical-electronic systems,” the pilot added.
The Alligator is also highly vulnerable to surface to air missiles when in range. Russia has lost at least 35 of them since February last year, according to Oryx, which documents equipment losses in the war. Colonel Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, claimed four had been shot down in the last week.
Ignat played down the threat from Russian attack helicopters during the counteroffensive.
“The Ka-52 is absolutely not a helicopter that establishes air superiority,” Ignat said, nor did it deliver “the kind of firepower that is decisive on the battlefield”.
The greater aviation threat to Ukraine’s forces came from Russian fighter jets which had more powerful radars and longer-range missiles than Ukraine’s older Soviet-built aircraft, Ignat said.
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https://www.ft.com/content/d8fe8941-3703-433d-ac7a-dab9ba500481

That is not necessarily going to be possible with F-16, which notoriously needs a well-prepared runway. On the other hand, UKR Air Force could use F-16 to relieve some of its MiG 29 of their current duties and use them for helicopter hunting from forward bases. 

"Zaporizhzhia counter-offensive equipment loss numbers as of 19 June 2023."


source:https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/1670944547373711361?s=20

As a Wargamer, one of the greatest joy we have is using various tools (even if they are amateur and used for entertainment purposes) to check if our crazy ideas are feasible. Here, we have a set of tools called CMO. I have created a few scenarios in the editor. Overall, I agree with your perspective that using an F-16 fighter jet to attack a low-flying Ka-52 helicopter within Russian-controlled territory is not an efficient approach.
 
In the scenario, I assumed that Ukraine is using the F-16A MLU donated by the Netherlands, while the Russian military has a Ka-52 helicopter hovering at a low altitude 10 kilometers behind their first defensive line. The F-16's radar can generally detect the Ka-52 at a range of 16nm. If the F-16 is at high altitude, there is only one opportunity for an attack because the Ka-52 will quickly enter the radar's blind zone. If the F-16 decides to dive into low altitude or initiates the attack from low altitude, it must consider the threat from short-range air defenses. However, considering the threat posed by the Russian S-300 system, a low-level penetration might be a more viable option.
 
Subsequently, I added more elements to the scenario, including A-50 and a full suite of short-range and long-range SAM systems for the Russian. The Ukrainian F-16 takes off near Vinnytsia, flies at high altitude over Zaporizhzhia, transitions to low altitude, and turns southeast towards Orikhiv. This brings an additional issue: after flying over 200 nm, the low-flying F-16 only has around 20 minutes of fuel remaining before Bingo Fuel, meaning it can only perform one attack before disengaging.
 
Similar to before, the F-16's radar detects the Ka-52 at 16 nm, but both aircraft are in low altitude, significantly reducing the effective range of the AIM-120B missile due to air resistance (and yes, max range =/= effective range). The F-16 must close in to approximately 7 nm for the Ka-52 to be within the missile's Dynamic Launch Zone (DLZ). However, before reaching this distance, the F-16 pilot receives multiple SAM radar warning alerts.
 
In summary, after conducting a single AMRAAM attack, the F-16 must turn and disengage. The success rate is not high, with a small probability of the F-16 being shot down by SAMs, and the chance of the AIM-120B hitting the Ka-52 at the extreme edge of its effective range is also low. According to the PoH calculation formula in CMO, this probability is only 29%.
 
Please note that this simulation only considers the Russian ground-based SAM systems, and if a group of Su-35s are added to provide CAP, the F-16's chances of a successful attack would be extremely low.
 
The conclusion drawn from this simulation is that the Ukrainian F-16 should focus on its main tasks, such as gaining air superiority and conducting SEAD, plus attacking Russian airfields and ground support. The mission of hunting down the airborne Ka-52 within Russian-controlled territory should be assigned to other weapons and equipment.

Almost makes you want to puke:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/world/europe/ukraine-weapons-howitzers-contracts.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap
If the west is selling that Ukraine is the pillar of hope for all freedom loving people, the status quo way of doing business has to stop. There is a lot SNAFU in war and waste of time and money and lives. 
As much of 30 percent of Kyiv’s arsenal is under repair at any given time — a high rate, defense experts said, for a military that needs every weapon it can get for its developing counteroffensive.
“If I was the head of an army that has gifted kit to Ukraine, I’d be professionally very embarrassed if I turned stuff around in bad order,” said Ben Barry, a land warfare expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Ok, in the scheme of things these episodes may not matter. But they are sad nevertheless. High profile systems will do fine. F-16s won't fall out of the skies. HIMARs will work. Storm Shadows will be accurate. However, the guts of the day to day systems have to be numerous and high quality too. The west has to stop patting itself on the back and start breaking its back, and Russia's neck. 

This is Alex Kots, infamous RU reporter-propagandist. Here he is talking with Putin. 

This post is RU propaganda narrative they all are spewing now.
 
It is a unit of ammo allocated to a person or vehicle. But often (like in this case) it is just synonym for ammo. 

Appropriate for the day, I think.

That was really lucky, I guess. The crew can celebrate a 2nd birthday party.
 

That's well-within Storm Shadow range. Not sure why it hasn't been hit.
 

Different article in the NYT talking about the evolution of Russian tactics (paywalled, I assume).
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American officials acknowledge that Russian tactics have improved. But those officials believe, based on battlefield intelligence reports, that the success in Bakhmut was largely because of Wagner’s willingness to throw prisoners into the fight, no matter the cost in lives.
But the soldiers on the ground saw something else happening.
Soldiers fighting for Ukraine in Bakhmut described a fight that ended much differently from how it began. Prisoners were not as prevalent. Instead, they said, Wagner’s professional fighters coordinated ground and artillery fire on Ukrainian positions, then quickly outflanked them using small teams.
As Ukrainian territory shrunk to a final few blocks, for example, Russian forces saturated a Ukrainian-held building with artillery. Moments after they retreated, Russian troops were inside.
“The Ukrainians just couldn’t keep up,” said one foreign legion soldier. To counter Russia’s strategy, Ukrainian forces wired buildings to explode, detonating them as they retreated.
The March mission report shared with The Times alluded to this type of enemy: “Assumed to be Wagner group,” the report read. “Evidence of being well-trained.”
“Used effective fire and maneuver,” it continued, describing “the best equipped Russian soldiers.”
But prowess in one area or during one mission has not yet translated widely. And American officials say that while Russia has adapted its tactics, its troops overall are not growing more sophisticated.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/17/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-tactics.html

I would guess it is not worth it to hit those helicopters with the current munitions available. 
Those helicopter bases must be anti-air hardpoints and the helos are dispersed(in the satellites) 100m apart so it would be 1 storm shadow = one destroyed helo + what it takes to penetrate AA.
The target lists must have lots of higher priority targets for these low-availability high-demand deep strike assets.
Now GLSDB that would be nice. But still, the copter will just move 50km further back when these arrive to the theater. 

Different article in the NYT talking about the evolution of Russian tactics (paywalled, I assume).
___________
American officials acknowledge that Russian tactics have improved. But those officials believe, based on battlefield intelligence reports, that the success in Bakhmut was largely because of Wagner’s willingness to throw prisoners into the fight, no matter the cost in lives.
But the soldiers on the ground saw something else happening.
Soldiers fighting for Ukraine in Bakhmut described a fight that ended much differently from how it began. Prisoners were not as prevalent. Instead, they said, Wagner’s professional fighters coordinated ground and artillery fire on Ukrainian positions, then quickly outflanked them using small teams.
As Ukrainian territory shrunk to a final few blocks, for example, Russian forces saturated a Ukrainian-held building with artillery. Moments after they retreated, Russian troops were inside.
“The Ukrainians just couldn’t keep up,” said one foreign legion soldier. To counter Russia’s strategy, Ukrainian forces wired buildings to explode, detonating them as they retreated.
The March mission report shared with The Times alluded to this type of enemy: “Assumed to be Wagner group,” the report read. “Evidence of being well-trained.”
“Used effective fire and maneuver,” it continued, describing “the best equipped Russian soldiers.”
But prowess in one area or during one mission has not yet translated widely. And American officials say that while Russia has adapted its tactics, its troops overall are not growing more sophisticated.
________
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/17/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-tactics.html

Paywalled article about two Leopard 2A6 crews:
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/ukraine-krieg-die-maenner-die-mit-dem-leopard-2-in-die-schlacht-ziehen-a-a570e5db-e1fc-4ec6-9624-f6f0865a2d68
Some interesting points:
it's his third tank for the gunner his first tank was destroyed near Melitopol in '22. He walked 1.5 kilometers, found an abandoned tank and drove it home! They haven't met Russian tanks, yet mainly infantry support 3 Leos hit mines in the first day at Zaporizhia: one lost, one could drive back on itself and one is immobilized and could not be recovered because it is blocked by a destroyed Bradley (that seems to be the one from that incident) Apart from Kalashnikovs there is hardly any non-western equipment at Zaporizhia They have high losses (compared to the time before) 2 tanks may have been captured by the Russians

Gonna have to put on my historical nitpicker hat here. The European powers closely examined the US Civil War (I have a whole book somewhere on tactical development in the British army as a result of the US Civil War (there certainly was a lot of "America Sux" at the beginning of the war, which petered out as the war progressed)). They also had multiple, far more relevant, conflicts to examine between the US Civil War and WW1. There was the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian war, the two Boar wars, the Russo-Japanese war, and many others that I skipped for brevity. The devastation of WW1 had nothing to do with failing to pay attention to recent wars.
In fact much of the devastation can be chalked up to overlearning the wrong lessons from some of those wars, rather than failing to learn any lessons. One of the French lessons from the Franco-Prussian war was to re-emphasize shock, as opposed to firepower (there was a feeling that the previous emphasis on firepower and entrenchment made units hesitant to attack), leading to masses of French infantry being cut down in 1914. Among the lessons that many armies took from the Russo-Japanese war was that a high degree of tenacity and casualty tolerance was necessary to overcome modern firepower. Which resulted in masses of unnecessary casualties in battles that were pressed long after they should have been abandoned in 1915 and 1916.
And often the correct lessons were learned, but with spotty implementation. Most people had figured out that it was better to abandon the old close order formations in favor of fighting in a single rank in extended order (basically, make the skirmish line the default battle formation), although there were ongoing arguments about that right up until the early battles of 1914, with some units being brutally punished for going into battle in close order formations (I believe the French in particular had a fondness for close order formations, which they quickly abandoned after a few battles). The British had figured out that cavalry would mostly be acting as mounted infantry from here on out, and there were fierce debates about whether the cavalry should even retain their sabers at all (the Russians apparently had the opposite viewpoint, and tried to use their cavalry primarily for traditional charges, while most armies fell somewhere in between the British and the Russian viewpoint on cavalry (as it turned out, British cavalry were probably the most effective cavalry of any army in 1914)).
I'd say that most of the obvious lessons had been learned reasonably well by 1914. What remained to be learned from 1914-1918 were the smaller and far less obvious details. Things such as how much artillery ammunition is needed in modern war, how to maintain command and control on a highly dispersed battlefield before the invention of man-portable radios, how to improve coordination between the infantry and the artillery, how best to employ artillery against dug in positions, etc...
My takeaway from studying tactical development in the late 19th century and early 20th century was not that officers of the time weren't paying attention. It was that deriving correct lessons from ongoing developments, and then applying those lessons to sound changes in doctrine and force structure, is exceptionally difficult.

This is the problem of where we were as western militaries; we never thought this sort of war would happen again.  We have been fighting dust wars against VEOs and insurgents for nearly 20 years, before that were interventions against opponents that had all the capability and operational art of a tethered goat with learning disabilities.  So here we are neck deep into a peer-on-peer proxy war of extremely high intensity sustained combat....who would have thunk it?
So defence industry and militaries have a complex relationship.  Those on the left would have us believe it is all the corporations "being corporationy", and there is some truth to this but in reality defence industry takes signals from defence itself and invests and develops in these highlighted areas.   We highlighted "demining" and AP threats and promptly forgot all about major combat breaching operations because ISIL does not build mine belts km long.  So now we are pushing what we have into Ukraine but a lot of it is last gen and sub-optimized because we are sub-optimized for this sort of war.  The big question after this war will be where to completely re-tool and where to be more conservative.  If history is any indication, we will talk ourselves into "well it is an eastern European anomaly", "Russia Sux" and "We would do it right", so we really do not need to do major overhauls.  The European powers did the exact same thing after observing the US Civil War (except it was "America Sux") which led to that little whoopsie we call WWI.
Here is hoping we go in other directions. 

Has some quotes from a soldier with the call sign of LumberJack
 

Guy designs tanks, I would rather trust him in this respect. One could check frame after frame, for a second turret looks roughly like characteristic Bradley shape. But yeah, quality is not perfect.

T-80BWM reportedly shoting and hiting Ukrainian Bradley. One of first recorded encounters between donated heavy Western and Russian equipment. Could be finishing off abandoned vehicle, though.
 

That's... a whole different discussion. Suffice to say the US relationship with Israel has become entangled with US domestic politics to the extent that the Administration has limited room to maneuver. It also doesn't help that Netanyahu and Biden despise each other.

As scary as selfmoving mines sound they really arent a competition to normal mines.
A basic at mine takes a plastic casing, 3-5kg of explosives and a pressure plate to disable or destroy any vehicle that drives over it.
it costs practically nothing to produce, can be produced by the billions, easily laid mechanically, are practically undetectable and will last until something detonates it.
A selfmoving at mine needs the same basics but has to add a way to move, sensors to find its targets, a guiding system, energy storage and radios if it wants to selforganize with other mines. 
All those things are fairly expensive and relatively difficult to build. They will also be quite large and cannot be hidden in the ground. their batteries will run dry and if they communicate you can find the entire minefield with an ew vehicle.

UKR HMMWV blowing up by mine. Reportedly several of crew were wounded, by other info 1 KIA. 
 

Some our "armchair generals" already plan such things - to attack on the section Dniprorudne - Vasylivka, when the water will go further and the bottom will dry. 
But historically this wasn't flat place. This was a so-called "Great Meadow" - homeland of Zaporozhian Cossaks. The region of southands small rivers, creecks, tiny lakes - it in more modern times called "Dnipro plavni" - the meadows, which flooded after snow melting. 
Locals already are finding old artefacts on the bottom of reservoir. After the war it will be holiday for "dark archeologists" 
Old pistole or sawn-off rifle

Likely WWII German graves washed out by water
Wrecked vessel

The place of old bridge, I can't understand where it can be... There wasn't bridge between Nikopol and Kamyanka, only a ferry. Germans tried to build, but hadn't a time, only several concrete pierces were seen from water. 

And here is a fragment of German map for 1942 how looked this place, when water reservoir doesn't exist