dan/california

The man brings reciepts!

This seems REALLY risky, but the Ukr General staff has been right so many times you have to assume they know whats up. Maybe they are going to try a counter attack at the exact moment the Russians run out of steam? The post could be intentional disinformation, too. To help cover a withdrawal.....

Lukashenko is in a tightening vise. His own people hate him, and want NOTHING to do with this war, but Putin all but owns him. Putin wants Belarus in the war. This is just not a stable situation with rebellion on one side, and Polonium tea on the other. I am sort of a broken record on this, but if NATO really could kick off a rebellion/revolution/collapse in Belarus it really is the biggest blow we could deal Putin short of getting in the war.

This, exactly this! The countries that have not gotten in have refused to comply with the rules to get in. I REALLY don't think Ukraine is going to argue about those sorts of details. The preexisting power centers with interests to protect have just been obliterated by the war. Azovstal is actually an excellent, though very sad, example, it was the crown jewel of a powerful oligarch, who really didn't have to take orders from Kyiv he didn't like. Its just gone....

The Poles really have been outstanding in this whole thing from literally hour #2. That , and it pains me say this, Boris Johnson's NLAWS, bought Ukraine enough time for the "rest of the West" to realize Ukraine wasn't folding, and get involved.

You raise a great many issues I don't think any one has definitive answers to. But there is one CLEAR indicator of whether Ukraines supporting countries are in it to win it, or not. If there are HIMARs MLRS systems a the front in the Donbas in three weeks or less from right now, then NATO is in this thing to win it. If not, they are screwing around looking for. a settlement, or a miracle. HIMARS and better SAMs and the Russians will be lucky to keep Crimea. Just for reference my definition of winning is 2/24 borders, and NATO and EU membership. I don't think the DPR/LPR, and Crimea are worth paying the butchers bill to acquire a fundamentally unhappy population.

The Ultra rightist types are ever less happy with the way Putin is Running this war... Also, perhaps Ukraine could make these poor fools an offer, not hard to outbid the Russians when the Russian idea for their employment is suicidal minefield clearance.

Two questions about the T-62s, although only one is actually relevant unfortunately. 1) How resistant are they to whatever AP ammo the Ukrainians are currently using in the 30mm on their BMPs? 2) How many of them can the latest Abrams APDSFS depleted uranium round go through before it slows down in an unfortunate BMP-1?

There also seem to be claims that that one company of Terminators has moved the needle. Is there any actual evidence of this?

What concerns me is that the Russians are making gains at the same time their losses seem to gave declined.

The Russian government is such a faction ridden mess that some faction might try a coup as self defense. Quiet retirements don't seem to be on offer. One group or another might decide it makes as much sense to take a swing as does to strike out looking when the penalty is this drastic either way. Ukraine of course trying every which way to help this along.

Anyone have an opinion if the DPR guys are actually attempting something closer to home? Or they just don't want the Russians to use them for recon by death? Apologies for making this two posts...

Russias complete mismanagement of the whole DPR/ LPR thing isn't getting better, might in fact be getting worse.....

A nice thorough Ukrainian "field test" of the MLRS would advance the conversation, a lot.

The Russians seem to have switched from the most kamikaze blitzkrieg approach you could come up with, to an extremely slow and conservative grinding attack. It does seem to have reduced their casualties a little, maybe

I agree with everything you just said, but I think your emphasis is slightly off. The drones are not an afterthought. The contest to keep your drones up and shoot the other guys down is now very close to the highest priority on the battlefield, at least in any fight that has a chance at being a contest. Nothing was going to let Georgia beat Russia in 2008, the force ratio was just too tilted. But in a remotely even contest winning the drone battle leads to winning the long range fires battle, which leads to winning the BATTLE. I am assuming that comms and doctrine are sorted well enough that both side can act on the information. This is certainly true for the Ukrainians in this war, and seems to be a maybe, sometimes, thing for the Russians. NATO/The West cannot assume its current drone doctrine is good enough, it cannot assume its current drone fleet is survivable against a competent opponent. The efforts already underway to put real air defense systems back into our ground forces must be pushed as hard as the bureaucracy will stand and then some. I also think it is unwise to count on the current configuration of the air force to solve this problem. Chasing geese sized drones down at one or two thousand meters is NOT the problem they have been working on, Much less the ones at one or two HUNDRED meters. For one little extra thought, what you are shooting the drones down with can't cost 30X what the drone does.

The Kurds always seem to get the short end. But one war at a time is an excellent rule, and the one with Russia has to have priority. Bleep I feel bad about that, but Syria is epically unfixable, and Ukraine actually might not be. I do find it more than ironic that Turkey complains bitterly about the way Israel oppresses the Palestinians, and then does something ten or a hundred times worse to the Kurds. Steve feel free to delete this if you think it will knock the thread off track.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/world/europe/us-ukraine-howitzers.html The times coverage is totally bifurcated between excellent reporting from Ukraine, and idiots writing in New York.

Both sides do this with both fixed and rotary wing aircraft, I really question if it a worth the logistics and and airframe wear. I mean the CEP has to be AT least a thousand meters doesn't it? And I realize it actually a long skinny oval, but you get my point

The higher rate of fire really matters, too. If you need to suppress a couple of football field worth of bad guys, more shells in less time goes a long way. The aren't nearly as good at counter battery but that isn't the only job. Faster to emplace and displace too. The best illustration of this is 60mm vs 81mm vs 120 mm mortars in game. There are few formations that have off board 60mm and they are just a rain of death against infantry and truly light vehicles.

Every word of this is dead on, but someone smarter than me had better be thinking about it, because the Chinese sure as bleep are. There are two things they aren't short on, bodies and mid grade manufacturing capacity. FWIW I have my doubts manned aircraft will be a thing all that much longer. Missiles and literal laser beams are improving faster than human G tolerances and reaction times. And one manned fighter cost about as much as 200 quarter of a million dollar drones.

The detailed updates are appreciated!

The greatest operational potential of the Kharkiv offensive was to turn due west and cut, or at least pressure the GLOCs that feed the Russians in the Izyum salient, and to a fair extent the whole Northern Donbas. These run through Vochansk, and Kupiasnk They attempted this and achieved at least some success. There is a major river obstacle that kept them from achieving more. They may have some ability to bring longer range artillery fire on Vovchansk from their current positions. But just the risk may be part of the reason the Russians shifted their major push to the southern Donbas. Unfortunately they found a weak spot there. This yet another reason the need HIMARS desperately. The could hammer the Russian staging area at Kupiansk from their current positions if they had it.

Finally, now just get some better AA systems in there!

There are two basic possibilities here, one of them is that the Ukrainians are just running out of effective formations, and this is about to get much less pleasant. The other is the Ukrainian General staff has a plan. They have done too well for too long for any of us to accuse them of not being able to read a map, and they have certainly retreated before when they need too. So sadly this is going to be another very stressful week while we wait to see which one it is. At least the Russians threw away several BTGs on those river crossings that would have really mattered if they were available to reinforce their successes in Popsana. The U.S. need to get those HIMARS systems in there YESTERDAY to help knock back the Russian artillery.