dan/california

Weather is the big complication, it has already started raining in at least the Northern half of Ukraine. They might want to get to good defensive positions and camp on the far of the Oskil and dig in for winter. The big question on risk is do they want to make one more move in the south. Do they rely on Mud to definitely shut down operations on the border with Belarus and around Kharkiv and make a push for Melitipol? Be a lot better for the whole planet to wrap this thing up by Christmas if we can do it without mushroom clouds. And I am, as ever, advocating for a maximum push for a revolution in Belarus while Putin couldn't round up two platoons of Rosgardia to help.

Ukrainian communication strategy has been FLAWLESS, near as makes no matter. It is easier have a good communication strategy when your opponents are are unique combination evil and incompetent, but flawless execution none the less. Unrelated, it is apparently raining heavily across the Northern 1/2 of Ukraine. Could a portion of the forces facing Belarus possibly be pulled south for one last hard push before the weather closes in there, too? It is my understanding that most of the border with Belarus is a marsh anyway, I doubt it gets easier to maneuver thru in the fall rainy season.

This has been an idiotic red herring since late march. It only becomes more so as the Russian army dissolves before our eyes. According to all the available information their navy and air force were make believe from the beginning. The whole mess needs to be put out of its misery asap. This would be exhibit A. Unless it rains hard and soon the AFU is going to spend winter encamped in Luhansk's outer suburbs.

There has been a great deal of discussion of the Ukrainian missile program. It is ~750 km from Kharkiv to Moscow. Moscow is literally the only city in Russia that matters at ALL. If I was an engineer in the Ukrainian missile program I would go sleep thinking about that number, and wake up thinking about that number, so I could drink coffee and think about that number some more. However cold it gets in Ukraine, it gets a lot colder in Moscow. I invite you to draw your own conclusions. Edit: taking out Putin's summer palace in Sochi might make a nice demonstration that Russia has entered the find out phase.

Except going nuclear makes the money worthless, and the more senior people n the Ministry of Defense know it. The best way I have heard it put is that almost the entire Russian elite is currently trying not to deicide. Credit to The Capn for the terminology. Going nuclear makes all those people push their fortunes and their families lives into pot, It is the mother of all decisions. The Russian hand for achieving anything besides state failure, or the end of the world is about a pair of fours. The end of the world includes state failure, just to be clear. The calculus about the risk of trying to do something about Putin instead gets very different, very quickly.

The revelation of another batch mass graves that are even worse than the awful expectations is grinding away some of the diplomatic niceties. Not ENOUGH of them, or several hundred Abrams, Bradleys, and ATACAMS would be lining up as we speak to shove the Russians into the Sea of Azov, free Mariupol, and reveal the REAL extent of Russias crimes. But it is progress none the less.

Peace to his family Glory to Ukraine Napalm to the Russian B&%$$$DS This, run a task force through there to flank the position and then deny the bleep out of it. Give the Russians a taste of their own medicine when it comes to trying have a conversation when the other side just lies and denies. I am copyrighting this phrase. "LIE AND DENY" is the new name for Russias communication strategy, you heard it here first.

I have been saying for literally months that UAVs have to thought of and procured like ammunition. Post Ukraine UAV mission planning will include things like sending them out in sets of three just so one on them lives long enough to relay targeting on what is killing them. The ISR bubbles of two competent opponents will engage almost like clashing grinding wheels. At the end one side has a ruined tool, and the other has just enough left to wreck everything in sight.

I would like this, if i had any likes, but I don't so !

So how how much Lugansk province do you think Putin is prepared to give up after the big production he made about taking all of it six weeks ago? My question about what terrain features would make a decent defensive line north of Lugansk City? Or is Putin prepared to cut the whole oblast and its miserable little pseudo state free? He has to keep a fair bit of Donestk just. to maintain the land bridge. This works with the developing theory that Putin has decided Lugansk is a luxury he cannot afford. He is willing to kill major figures in the "government" there to cow the rest. It also make sense with something else I read today. Apparently some of L/DPR units are being broken up and fed into the Russian replacement system. They said it was because of accumulated battle damage, but it might be to break up their units and make it harder for separatist units to rebel. Some of them seem to believe their own propaganda about the L/DPR being actual countries.It will be a very good clue if whatever portion of their governments administration that hasn't absconded to Rostov on Don and points east does so with alacrity.

I made this speculation back when the air base strike first happened, but it is worth repeating. Within a week, two at the outside ,of the outbreak of hostilities, this entire production line was set up in Poland. It aligns perfectly with the needs of both countries and their ever tightening alliance. There will be more deep booms when the next batch is ready. It will be apparent soon enough if I am right. I will add one additional speculation, if I was in charge of a Ukrainian ballistic missile program there is one number that would never leave my mind. It is 750 km from Kharkiv to Moscow. No evidence of any of this except the booms at Saki, and the article above. But the Ukrainians aren't stupid, and the Poles hate the Russians with a burning passion, and would LOVE their own missile system, or half interest in one as it were.

https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1570896114114793473/photo/1

Seems like the Russians are failing to hold the Oskil river line in several places. Anybody have any idea what the next terrain feature they could anchor too is?

The real tell will be the first film of Rosguardia LOSING a fight to a bunch of Wagnerites, then it is katy bar the door.

I think we brought up ten or so pages ago. The loss of faith in the army is near total, and warlordism might be right around the corner. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks.

For instance the Russians have absolutely nobody to stop the Ukrainians from doing this...and then maybe doing it some more. Still not clear where the Russians are going to be able to hold north of Lugansk. It would be a bit embarrassing if Ukraine can spend the winter pinking with Excalibur rounds at anything in downtown Lugansk.

Committing so many of their best troop to fight in a position with such large and unfixable logistics issues was a grave strategic mistake though.

The entire game is the northern half of the Kherson pocket is 155 range of Nova Khahovka. When a steady rain of air burst starts on the portion of the bridge built on the dam everything north of the Inhulets is DONE. In rare moment of clarity the Russians seem to actually realize this and are 100% committed to hold it off as long as possible.

No parallels there with 1917, not at all...

Anybody who reads this thread knows orders of magnitude more about this war than the general public. Add another order of magnitude because you probably already knew the difference between a a tank, an IFV, and a self propelled gun. The stuff in the mainline newspapers is not written for this audience.

Russia moved a LOT of its remaining decent troops to Kherson, this has obviously made the fighting much harder than where those troops were removed from. But the logistics of the Kherson pocket are physically impossible, when the VDV are short enough on ammo and everything else they WILL give up or get out. That point is probably getting much closer. And there is a huge non linearity as the AFU can range the river crossings with standard 155. That is when the Russian situation goes from very bad to just over.

The Ukrainians are trying to deal with their worst collaborator problems now, in wartime conditions, instead of having them clogging up the legal system for a decade. They want the bad actors face down in a ditch or living in a hovel on the outskirts of Rostov on Don when the shooting stops, either one is just vastly easier. Capt we don't deserve you, but my God do we appreciate you!

I HATE watching Ukrainians lose a round. The ride on top thing seems to be a combination of how awful Soviet/Russian IFVs are to ride inside, and the risk of land mines thought to be as high or higher than small arms fire. You are of course correct about everything else, and you can learn all of those things playing this game. Smoke use seems to be a small fraction of what doctrine calls for on both sides? Are they just out of smoke grenades? Where not enough smoke grenades built/bought in the first place? Do Russian/Soviet smoke grenades/shells deteriorate in storage faster than actual explosives? I assume Nato stores of Soviet/Russian smoke munitions are low to non existent. Just to reiterate the amount of smoke shells/grenades used in all the video out there seems like a small fraction of what it should be, thoughts? Edit: I really do think a copy of combat mission professional, and all if Bil's excellent writings on how to play, should be issued to every new lieutenant and senior NCO. It is not without flaws and it won't teach the nuts and bolts of HOW to get a platoon do things right. But it is shockingly good at teaching you what NOT to do, and let you get a bunch bad mistakes worked out with pixel truppen instead of the kind where you have to write letters to their family. Harder to do in an emergency mobilization with a war on, but I stand by the concept.

The more I think about Prigozhin, the more I agree with you. He will be the last gasp of the existing power structure before the wheels come completely off the bus and Russia starts getting smaller, quickly. the pre Lenin Kerensky government in 1917 failed most of all because it wanted to continue the war, and the army's rank and file wanted to end it at any cost. I can easily see Progozhin presiding over a similar scenario, well briefly anyway.

Meme of the day