panzermartin
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Posts posted by panzermartin
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7 hours ago, chrisl said:
The best info I've been able to find is that Russia launched their last film-drop satellite in 2015. They currently have only two electro-optical satellites in orbit, both past their design lifetime, and which may or may not still be functioning. They're literally 40 years behind - the US launched its first electro-optical satellite in 1976. They also have no history of launching synthetic aperture radars, which would let them see through clouds. When you see how few ISR assets they have in space, it's much more obvious why they did the anti-satellite "test" last fall that made a big mess of debris: they may have had nothing at all at risk if their two optical satellites aren't very effective. And given that they don't seem to be able to make optical array sensors for their own UAVs, they probably aren't making them for their satellites and may have very marginal sensors on them.
The Russian space industry is good at making big things out of lots of metal and with lots of propellant - the Soyuz is one of the most reliable launch vehicles in history - but they've got nothing when it comes to electronics fab, and that's what enables the mass ISR capability.
Thanks, that's some very interesting info. If the Russians were indeed in trajectory to clash with NATO all these years they should have invested more in this department. This is a deadly disadvantage if accurate.
From the state of their army to the sat thing, I have come to the conclusion that there was no actual desire to challenge US/EU hegemony and the Ukrainian coup caught them unprepared. Even this war caught them unprepared and they were clearly forced to conduct with a heavy heart.
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12 hours ago, The_Capt said:
It is an incoherent video with a bunch of weirdly disconnected shots from 21 Mar - about the time the entire Northern Russian front collapsed. That was a BM-21 as far as I can tell and that last hit on the shopping mall was a ballistic missile of some sort. The ability of Russian missile to strike targets they can pull from Google Earth is not a clear indicator of superiority in anything. Yes, they have a lot of long range missiles that can hit static target the size of the building...so what? How does that lend to leap in logic that the Russians and Ukraine have deep strike parity somehow?
Type in "Russian Ammo Dump explosion" into You Tube and see what comes up. Type it into Google and you get this:
I could post this and reference stuff posted on this thread all day long.
So let's talk "grounded in reality". We have reports of over 30 operational high value targets being hit in Russian depth over the last couple weeks. The Russians are being forced to react. Their offensive operations are slow and small gains, and very costly - to the point they had to invoke a week+ long operational pause after taking a few acres in the Donbas. UA c-btty seems to be working. The Russian offensive has the hallmarks of stalling, just like it did in phase 1, and now we are hearing speculation on a UA Kherson offensive - after they hammered that bridge with PGM, to the point the Russians have to restrict traffic.
We have debated Russian morale and are looking for indicators one way or the other as to where it is pointing. None of it is pointing to "good news" for the Russian system. In fact it appears kinda sick, if these trends in desertion keep going. The RA can still attack so they are not out of it yet but getting a weird vibe.
Look, you want to be "the counter-thinker", cool we definitely need them. However, come with facts. We have been pulling assessments in from everywhere and adding our own, if you indeed have one then lay it out. Right now I am seeing a lot of opinion and one grainy video that is running counter to about the last 200 pages. Some questions to consider:
- How has Russian deep strike affected the UA operational system?
- How has that erosion supported the achievement of Russian operational and strategic goals.
- How has Russian deep strike affected Centers of Gravity as different levels?
- Have the Russians achieved any operational level superiority beyond massed artillery fires? Have they eroded UA superiority.
- How has Russian deep strike opened up strategic options spaces? (it sure as hell has for the UA).
- How has deep strike affected each sides Will?
Now if you can answer those, with some facts or even a credible professional assessment then lets hear em.
Look, I find your posts interesting and well thought most of the time and I appreciate your contribution here. But a lot of times you all get carried away. As Haiduk noted its not a grainy video that proves nothing, they were actually multiple MLRS launchers hiding there and were destroyed. (there was also a tiktok video that revealed that before the strike iirc) This is somewhat insulting to the counter argument that some don't even accept a filmed and proven fact. What is left for us who want to challenge the dominant narrative line here?
I 80% rely on this thread to get my info about the war. I'm not so prone to russian propaganda as @Grigb says . Yes I sometimes visit some pro russian forums as well , but guess what, I challenge them the same way and get bashed "don't listen to UKR Nazi propaganda" . They are much worse than here to be honest
On your points I can't answer in a professional way as I'm not a military pro, as many people here.
UA has definitely hurt RU logistics with newly acquired hardware no doubt. And it's much easier to do that when your opponent is on the offensive and in a hurry with predicted routes and command hubs. RU has demonstrated the ability to hit long range targets but I never claimed their effectiveness is on par with western standards. They have caused some serious damage though, the Mikolayev and Lviv barrack attacks comes to mind among others.
But it's true Ukraine is still in the fight despite monthly everyday raids. AA is still up, Artillery is very much active, even UAF is active and this is a loud failure of RU. Lot of this has to do that UA has the huge advantage of having a big supermarket of NATO weaponry that can freely roam and pick what they want most of the times. RU can't compete on this but who can?
But the actual degree RU has degraded UKR ability to fight is not clearly evident yet Imo. What we know is that most Soviet era stuff has been put out of action or is already expended. Some of it has to do with RU hitting targets deeply in UKR territory for those months.
The moment of truth of whether the RU has inflicted a serious blow to UA ability to conduct major operations will soon come. Some are overly confident that they will inevitably degrade and push back the occupiers but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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4 minutes ago, sross112 said:
It will probably never be possible, but the only way to know for sure about the RA "superior accuracy" would be to have their target list and compare it to the damage assessment. If they actually have this ability to hit what they are aiming at then they are the worst terrorist state in recent times. The list of civilian targets that have been hit is very very long. That leads most of us to conclude that there is no sense in hitting the stuff they have since there are perfectly legitimate targets all over the place that would increase their likelihood of military success. That makes us figure that either their ISR is horrible and they are rolling the dice on google earth targets or they are aiming at one thing and hitting another.
Yes there are a handful of successful strikes like the one above, the hit on the training center early on, umm, well, I'm sure someone could find 3 or 4 more in the last 5 months. You can say that it is all being covered up by UKR, but we know in this day and age it is very hard to cover up anything. Beyond that, if it was true that the RA had good ISR and was shellacking targets they would definitely be showing everybody the results. After all, if they have good enough ISR to find and fix targets they should have good enough ISR to provide BDA.
I'm not saying they have superior accuracy or ISR, cause they don't. But forum members here claim that RU doesn't even posess the ability to strike with decent accuracy, while there are filmed events that prove them wrong. I can bet my money that there are lot of undocumented or covered accurate strikes besides the few known ones you mention.
No Ukraine is not on par (yet) with the long range capabilities of RA despite the HIMARS panic.
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12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
How can we possibly know that? We can guess at the Russian target list but so far we have seen a lot of apartment buildings and shopping malls hit
So what is this from the early days , a lucky shot? Aaa yes, another shopping mall hit by inaccurate dumb russian missile that some corrupt official looted the guidance system.
There is a certain wishful thinking here and the effects of the echo chamber are not doing justice to otherwise very interesting and informative thread. Haiduk has all the reasons to be a wishful thinker here but his posts are mostly grounded to reality, good or bad.
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1 hour ago, Calamine Waffles said:
Your evidence of this is...?
No concrete proof and I wouldn't trust the numerous Russian claims . The only one who could reveal concrete evidence (Ukraine) will never do so. But Russians must be hitting something these months apart from schools and supermarkets.
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1 hour ago, Grigb said:
According to Russian media reports, the Cobalt-M satellite with a mass of 6.6 tons and a period of active existence in orbit for 120 days drops the captured films to Earth in small containers that land in the Orenburg region. Special groups are engaged in the search for containers on the ground. The footage is then sent to the space intelligence center.
OK I laughed at this. I still find it hard to believe a country with so much investment in space technology, military satellites etc doesn't have less primitive Intel gathering.
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
Nope, no truth
Oh, but it absolutely was a game changer for three reasons:
1. Ukraine was running out of 152mm shells, so the addition of 155s means it can keep up its artillery usage instead of it declining to nothing. That right there is a "game changer".
2. The quality of the new systems means that tactically Ukraine can engage targets at further ranges with more safety than with the legacy systems. This might not be a "game changer", but it certainly is making a noticeable improvement.
3. The systems can fire PGMs which their old 152mm systems could not. This absolutely is a "game changer" because important targets that previously couldn't be reliably hit are now being struck.
Posts already made to show you what the difference is, so I won't repeat that stuff in detail. Suffice to say there's a qualitative difference between Russia's ability to strike stuff and what HIMARS can do. Russia tries to strike something and they generally hit something else, like a school or a shopping mall. Ukraine doesn't have the same problems with HIMARS. If they aim at something they hit it, almost guaranteed. Plus, Ukraine only needs to fire one or a couple of HIMARS to destroy something, Russia has to saturate the target for even a hope of hitting.
And like the 152mm ammo, Ukraine has been running low on their own stocks of long range rockets so this is a substitute. A vastly superior substitute.
Think about it this way. In a couple of weeks Ukraine knocked out a dozen ammo supply dumps and a couple of HQs. It did this with HIMARS and 155 weapons. Don't you think it would have done this with it's previous weaponry if it could have? That tells us that the new capabilities allowed them to do strategic level things which their previous weapons could not.
Steve
Yes I understand the change that brought and the unseen before capabilities they bring to the Ukrainians. Russians really felt it no doubt. But I was thinking that so far it's still like the German wunderwaffe equivalent. Me 262, V2 were unmatched but not in sufficient numbers to alter the actual strategic balance. In my opinion Ukraine faces a gigantic challenge of training and shifting its army in a few months from Soviet to NATO, while constantly under russian harassment and manpower bleed. I think this hasn't happened before in history? But you could probably prove me wrong.
Russia is still firmly occupying a large part of Ukraine, its still destroying UA assets and infrastructure each passing day, and every new territory gained is hard to take back with no proper combined arms units. Important :The only side that has demonstrated ability to conduct a successful (albeit a costly one) combined arms offensive and grab land is Russia. The Himars are great but they feel like partisan actions and the tactical plan on which they are presumably connected (Kherson offensive) is not yet in sight. Russia will find some workarounds with the storage ultimately unless they utter competent and living in a different planet, the one that noone has long range missiles to hit them back. I guess they were living in that planet for some months now.
I disagree though that every russian strike so far is spray and pray. They have fired thousands of Kalibrs, Iskanders, airborne missiles etc with (not US/NATO standard) but very decent accuracy . Apart from the dumb mass arty they love so much for its simplicity, they still do have a superior ability to accurately reach long range targets compared to Ukraine with a variety of air, ground and naval platforms.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
What is special about HIMARS is that they are linked into a western backed ISR/TA architecture. The UA can see with very high resolution, we know the US has been feeding them intel, likely spaced-based, pretty much from day one. The Russians, as was noted a few pages back, do not have anything near that level of resolution, likely why they are hitting large buildings they can see from G-earth. While UA is hitting ammo dumps and logistical nodes faster than the RA can build them.
Western artillery had a similar effect - we actually do not know how well c-btty did at Severodonetsk - however their ranges were more modest. UA has information superiority right now, and it has been decisive. The RA cannot conduct operational manoeuvre as a result and has been forced into very high concentrations of mass to take very little real estate, very slowly- all at a burn rate it cannot likely sustain.
Finding beats flanking.
So, yeah, practically without the superior intel US provides the difference wouldn't be that big. I'm not sure RU sat are that primitive though, they have been tracking weapon delivery from Poland to Ukraine and hitting them with Kalibr for months now. Unless they more rely on spies for up to date info. Its a mystery though if all those thousand of strikes did anything, as Ukraine never reveals anything of storaged destroyed equipment. If hypothetcally it was Ukraine hitting for months with all these weapons aided by US intel, Russia would have no army left.
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11 minutes ago, Grigb said:
Looks like RU propagandists got secret memo to joke about NATO weapons including HIMARS. It even caused a split of one infamous RU Nat TG channel. One of the authors did not agree with removing the sober post about HIMARS.
It looks like this
- Javelin and NLAW did not help and UKR are abandoned them because RPG is more convenient!
- 155mm somewhat dangerous but we have SO MUCH MORE GUNS!
- That Multiple rocket launcher is not more practical than Smerch or Tornado!
- We had not even begun yet!
Isn't a little truth in there. 155 aren't the game changers that was hoped in those numbers provided to Ukraine. And I was wondering there are also Soviet guided MLRS that can hit warehouses and command posts already in extreme long ranges , what is so much special about Himars.
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This techinque of damaging the bridge but not taking it down ahead of an offensive reminds of gamey tactics players are using in Company of Heroes bringing the bridge health bar to a minimum and waiting the right moment to blow it up (Usually when enemy tanks are rolling over it.) Shame on gamey Ukrainians.
And I just came to realize that wargames are way too serious and actual war is more gamey. (I mean dropping grenade from a commercial drone in a T-72 driver's hatch or blowing up an S-300 with an AK?)
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15 minutes ago, Machor said:
Anything that Erdoğan does or doesn't do from now on leads back to this:
He can no longer win an election without going full Lukashenko. If he loses, he goes to jail.
He is really running out of options indeed. Its going to be a long year for our neighborhood too.
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I wonder Iran facing the danger of war with Israel and US, would be really reluctant to provide these. Although it seems its producing them in big numbers.
The visit seems bigger than just drones, otherwise he wouldnt go in person I think. Turkey is also involved and this is a bit worrying.
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There are speculations that final destination could be Ukraine. Serbia is also selling arms to UA but secretly as it is a long Russia ally. First they said it was heading to Jordan, then Bangladesh. But why an Ukrainian plane with 8 Ukrainian crew members would be busy in times of war, transporting soviet compatible ammo to Bangladesh.
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I was thinking Putin being a child of the Soviet Union, raised in the ruins of Leningrad, and getting older, maybe thought this was his chance to relive the glory of the Red Army and all the epic stories he was raised with. He wanted to relive Bagration or operation Uranus. He had all the wealth a child coming from a poor family could ever wish for, so decided to gamble for the last trophy and not withdraw as the Tsar who completely lost control of Ukraine and handed it over to the West.
I think there was a lot of emotion in this decision. Despite not going as planned in the first place, whenever he appears he looks strangely happy and fulfilled like this war was his destiny and he is enjoying the historical moments.
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RU airpower is underachieving for months but it will be a difficult problem to solve when UKR will attempt to go on the offensive.
Even gunships can safely hover in ambush positions, waiting for advancing troops to get in the kill box, while their AA assets are still lagging behind.
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Apparently this is from Kherson area , arty responding to UKR attempted advances there.
It looks they are at least able to harass the treelines accurately, and reproduce this CM like linear barrage pattern with what looks like rocket artillery.
Note: Turn the sound off
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11 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Some narratives about Russian artillery
Roman Donik (civil volunteer, assist to 93rd/92nd brigades)
This is became a system when the enemy simply wiped off the face of the earth what could probably and quite tentatively be used by our military. From abandoned buildings to small tree-plants, which were also plowed by MLRS. Everything that can be used as observation points, or positions, is simply blown to pieces. Everything that could in any way interfere with the advance of their troops is simply erased into dust.
When a tank methodically "takes apart" a building. Just putting it together. Room by room, wall by wall. Simply making it impossible for people to occupie and use it. What's more, regardless of how much ammunition was spent there.
Everything that is on the heights, and everything that sticks out above the horizon line - is erased by arty. "Fire shaft", in the Russian performance, are beautiful words and terminology, which is beautiful in theory and cinema, but does not work in reality. Completely. In fact - just a massive and stupid destruction of everything on their path. Because in theory and in words, artillery fire begins to hit forward positions, then gradually moves 10-50 meters deep and goes further, all the way to command posts and close rears. And close to this fire shaft, the infantry should go under the cover of armored vehicles. And the movement of fire occurs every few minutes, during which the infantry must pass from one intermediate line to another. But the Russians are not able to implement this in practice, even at the stage of the transfer of strikes to the depth. Either worn barrels or obsolete ammunition whether it is unproper training of crews. Or maybe just using this method in Russian. With the condition of the barbaric mentality of the destroyers. Because there is no gradual transfer of fire into the depth, no infantry and armored vehicles that should follow closely behind the "fire shaft" in practice. There are simply hundreds, thousands of tons of iron falling from the sky on grids, erasing everything it hits. Then, when everything is dusted, armored vehicles approach, which are concentrated somewhere nearby. And then, from somewhere, our infantry climbs out and, with the support of artillery, f...s and burns that armored vehicle. And everything starts again. Thousands of tons of shells and mines. And so until there is nowhere to hide from shelling in anticipation of an attack.
Serviceman of SOF
As practice shows, the enemy's advantage in artillery and heavy assets of destruction is very demoralizing. So that you understand, they did not stop the shelling in principle. They just constantly shell as f...ck. From Lysychansk, when there was literally only one road left, this motherf...s didn't spare anything. F..ck out whole package of Grad at two guys with drone? And maybe even four packages? Or to shot 40 artillery shells for some pick-up? That's how they work.
F...K
Its insane the ammount of ammo they are throwing away. But who can stay sane under such barrage?
I'm wondering, apart from mass dumb artillery, dont the Russians have more special "sniper" arty units , that use Krasnopol rounds for instance. Or their doctrine relies only on GPS missiles for accuracy.
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19 minutes ago, Grigb said:
I remember some time ago there was a discussion whether RU is ready for confrontation with West. Well...
But I would like to note something else - RU is so successful that Moscow officials started to look for bomb shelters.
Not only the RU side though. The timing is mutual, maybe some suspect where this is going anyway
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-york-city-nuclear-attack-b2120790.html
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Talking about guns is cool but the real trouble for most of us in EU has only began https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/jul/12/euro-dollar-parity-russia-gas-ftse-stock-markets-recession-strikes-business-live
Slightly off topic, seems what Turkey hopes to achieve by letting Finland and Sweden in is still far away, the F16 deal will probably get blocked for a start. Even Jewish organizations join the fight now.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/newsbulletin247.com/politics/132364.html%3famp=1
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Yes I'm seeing some same results lately. I had almost 25 APCs/MBT and Abrams were picking them one by one, like an invisible ghost. Open hatches, 500m distance didnt really matter. They couldnt spot a 70 ton tall monster. This is seriously funny.
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15 hours ago, Haiduk said:
Of course! Despite some training and tactical issues, those guys who have been serving in artillery long time have very good opinion about 777 and other western 155 mm (SP)howitzers. First of all - due to much better technologies of barrels prodicing and more precice powder charges weight and shells weight, western guns have less dispersion, so they can be used as "sniper rifles of arty" in comparison with Russians, which just showering our positions grid-by-grid with tons of steel.
Though there is one significant issue - barrels exhaust in two times faster, than Soviet - about 2000 shots against 5000 in average. After 2000 accuracy is graduially reducing to Soviet guns level, but since Canada supply us with barrels, this problem can be solved by maintainance units.
15 hours ago, Grigb said:While @Haiduk is busy, I will offer what I got with limited UKR language understanding + what RU says (it is similar to UKR opinion). M777 is a good solid workhorse. Good range, good accuracy, good shell. They are dealing with issues by rotating guns between frontlines and workshops. So, there are fewer on frontline than we expect, and the effect is not as war winning as everybody initially thought but they are fighting, and RU feels it.
Take it with the grain of salt as I might confuse something.
Thank you for the replies. I was suspecting the maintencance issue has also to do with the more pressure UKR has to put on less guns to cope with RU arty. M777 fairs better with a steady slow RPM (2 per minute if wiki is correct)
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4 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
777 destroyed positions of Russian Nona-K platoon and probably local ammunition dump in border village Hoptivka, Kharkiv oblast (22 m north from Kahrkiv). Huge fireball at the end.
Are Ukrainians happy with the 777 so far? I've read conflicting reports that a lot of are out of action at the moment due to wear, maintenance, or enemy fire. The latter its hard to confirm as there are non existent visual clues and the russian videos are of bad quality.
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1 hour ago, billbindc said:
I own a parking garage company and here’s the thing with parking garages: they are built to a pretty defined standard globally and in Europe in particular, they are built on the lower end of that standard in terms of dimensions. So….they are *terrible* places to store things. They are not warehouses. First, they have low roof space. You can’t stack up a ton of ammo when the height limit is 9 feet (which is a generous estimate for older built garages) and trucks simply won’t fit inside most of them. Second, they are typically broken up by pillars/buttresses/etc to carry the weight of vehicles. It’s very hard to efficiently stack in them. Third, few have an actual loading dock attached so ingress/egress of supplies have to go via the normal vehicle entrance and then be lifted from the ground to the level of the truck bed. Fourth, it’s quite easy in an older garage to over stress them with weight. Artillery shells in bulk would be a nightmare…especially in some slapdash Soviet era Trabbie hutch.
Finally, a single big shell at the egress point shuts them down entirely. They are specifically built to stop vehicle traffic from anywhere else. So…it would be just like the Russians to do it but it would be quite stupid to use parking garages.
Yes I thought garages could pose some practical problems in general. But if everything goes boom might be a desperate measure.
Now I think I'm going to google the way Vietkong built all those underground facilities that were immune to arty and air attacks.
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4 minutes ago, Huba said:
To quote Globalsecurity, about the M31 Unitary round:
It won't be effective against purpose-build bomb shelters or other reinforced structures. Those are really quite numerous in older buildings from Warsaw Pact times. But what's to keep in mind is that modern shopping malls in particular are commercial buildings, built to the lowest standard allowed by law, to keep the costs in check. In Poland there was some discussion recently about changing the legal requirements to make this type of structures dual purpose. The ones built up to this point are not up to the task, not by a long shot.
Yes, it's prime strength is not penetration it seems. it would be interesting to see if the Russians can come out with a solution on this or they don't have a clue.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Forced because Ukraine was slipping away from them each passing day and was cleary not possible to reverse the situation with political intervention. NATO presence in Ukraine would be a direct threat to the existance of the current status quo in Russia. And ironically, its NATO aid and intel thats killing most russians right now.
With a heavy heart, because they mistakenly hoped Ukraine will collaspe by a sudden show of force. I dont think anyone wished for a prolonged bloody war , one that would cost them thousands of losses. They still call this a "special operation" and are reluctant to mass mobilize. Apart from the extremists, I don't think the army had much will to do this. The first days with massed abandoned equipment were a clear indication.
Unprepared because they could never match the aid of a coalition of the most advanced western military powers in the long term.