rocketman

Russians have drown Tu-95 on planes parking on Engels airfield. They need a course of 3D-drawing %)
 

Ukrainian forces conducted some actions on Russian territory:
- SBU hit with a drone Russian modern surviellance 3-coordinate radar 39N6 Kasta 2E2, capable to detect targets on extreme low altitudes. The strike was conducted near Giryi village (Kursk oblast, 11 km from UKR border) 


- Also SBU unit dropped the bombs from a drone on power substation in Kursk oblast, setting on fire a transformer. Five villages were cutt off electricity.
- Units of "Freedom for Russia Legion" conducted two diversion raids in Bryansk oblast, objectives unknown, there were clashes with Russian border guards. 

 

Just a work of Su-25 over the head
 

Ohohoho it was inevitable. This type of weapon could be very very useful against the the BSF,  Esp the subs. I bet UKR are looking hard at this.. 

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/09/t-600-drone-deploys-sting-ray-lightweight-torpedo/
 

Good riddance. 🙃

A thousand lulz:
 

Lavrov talking about stalemate and being "ready for talks." Makes me think there's something to the breakthrough rumors.

Wrt to Taurus & ATACMS:

That's an interesting opinion on what's going on.  Except that we're spending nearly 800 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR on our military.  OMG we're going broke because we used ~5% of our already spent money to actually try to do something, militarily, that will help the world be a better place.   What cumulative effect on our country??  This is just utter horses-t.  If we had just stood by & let Putin win in UKR would he then decide to not try to poison all the world's democracies?  Would he not use fossil fuels to extort europe every time he wanted to?  This is tankie nonsense.
We have mountains of gear gathering dust and that's a huge portion of what we've sent.
And just because I am on a rant on this:  How about we turn this around by saying "those that want to freeze the conflict haven't given any thought to the cumulative effect on the world of pulling Putin's *** out of the fire".  Gawd this makes my blood boil.  

Sadly, as a tank aficionado, a lifelong tank cultist, this is probably true.  I just don't see much to refute it.  
And once again, having said that, it means we need more proper CM warfare where armor matters, as god intended before the moral and spiritual degradations of the modern age.  

I find it interesting that the same folks who think an attack by thousands of crazed zealots on the US capital was some trivial thing, now think the lack of dress code is the end of the world.

BSF HQ from other point of view.
For citizens of Sevastopol, who known with own boast and snobbery that they are live in the place of Russian glory and legendary BSF, who from the cradle know the city anthem "Legendary Sevastopol impregnable for foes", for them this HQ building is almost sacral center. So, the strike on it is almost the same if White House in Washington would be hit

 

This would be Ukraine's clue to target Russian oil refineries with every drone it has. Cause a real fuel shortage, followed by a real financial hole when Russia has to import refined POL, and Putin's negotiating position will display sudden flexibility.

Result of Storm Shadow strikes on 744th Comm Center of Black Sea Fleet Command on 19th of September
Photo of 22nd of August

Photo of 21nd of September

I guess some of us hoped that the war will help Poland to wake up and become something else than Hungary-aligned force always doing the wrong thing and always trying their best to destroy EU from within. To shake off PiS and become something more. It is obvious now it was too good to be true.
When crisis comes, people don't change for the better, they become more of what the were before.

Exellent 3D projection of southern Bakhmut flank from Poulet Volant. Obviously seen next objectives of UKR forces - to seize ridges and reach the road. After this lowlands will be on direct LOS. 

In present time Russians are conducting desperate "meat attacks" on "useless ruines". Obviously "big HQ bosses" were very angry by lost of two villages and new mobs of mobiks and Shtorm Z were directed to die. Though, they reportedly achieved some local successes yesterday. Their manpower advantage forced UKR troops to abandon two positions south from Andriivka and one in Kurdiumivka area. All attacks on Klishchiivka were repelled. 
One Russian TG complains that reaction of Russian command on the loss of villages is "hysterical" and this caused next waves of unprepared "meat assaults" with bad coordination, with poor artillery support, which again will grind reserves, so through some time a moment will come, when nobody will left to defend the road and this can cause crash of the front.
 

Sevastopol local chats report about loud explosions on Fiolent cape, where located 475th ELINT center of Black Sea Fleet and air defense unit, armed with S-400 (by other info S-300) SAM. Locals say explosion was so powerful, that windows were broken in some houses close to the cape. After explosion part of Sevastopol was coverd in acrid smoke. Reportedly many ambulances drive toward Fiolent.
City authorities claims AD shot down two Ukrainian drones and smoke is special aerosol for masking of harbor, but in chats locals say with angry, that they heard obvious impacts, not shooting down of drones and distrust words about "masking aerosol"
GUR made a statement they conducts next operation in cooperation with Naval Forces.
On the photo probable places of attack on Fiolent cape

According to most strict Orthodoxal behavior rules, women, especially married, strongly recommended to wear a scarf not only in church, but also out of the home in the street. Also not recommended to wear jeans or other trousers and not allowed to be present in this closes in the church. So, most religious Orthodoxal women in former USSR really similar to Muslim women in Sharia countries - they wear long dresses or skirts, closing legs almost to ankles. Also these dresses or jackets should cover whole arm or at least a half. And of course a scarf, covering hair
One more of "Russian world" and "orthodoxal sharia" example. This banner with a citation of influent  Russian orthodoxal priest Aleksiy Chaplin
Main problem of modern Orthodoxia and as a matter of fact Russia - this is that we have forgotten to be slaves. Christianity is a religious of conscious and freewill slavery 

His full sentense is next:
All modern society worships to the idol of rights and freedom, and only Russian Orthodox Church still stubbornly asserts that a human is a disenfranchised slave... Only Orthodoxal slaves are capable to great feat of self-sacrifice in time of war and peace. Even USSR could restore itself in limits of Russian Empire due to slavery psychology, keeping on subconscious level of Russian nation. For a slave a prestige of his master is his prestige. To commprehend the Truth we must stop "to turn on brain" and strat indeed to consider ourselves as nothing and to call ourselves as nobody. In a word, we must grow a slave inside ourselves. The way to God slavery lies through the slaveship for human: children for parents, wife for husband, christian to church hierarchy, citizen to state with all officials and "siloviki" ("force structures"), including President. So, how dare you can name yourself "slave of God" if you didn't learn how to be a slave for a human? Only by nurturing a slave inside ourdelves we can revive that Russia, which we didn't keep, but also come to Kingdom of God, where doors are closed for all "free", who not in Christ.  
Despite this is enough radical speech, but it mostly reflects Russian Orthodox Church doctrine as well as psychology of many Russians. So, if somebody on West to this time try to appeal to some ratio in Russian authorities - it's useless. And this is a reason why Ukrainian authorities at last started to push out Russian Church from Ukraine. And this is not about faith freedom, because Russian Church (or it branch in face of Ukrainian Orthodox Cherch of Moscow Patriarchy) is turning into some sort of "Russian ISIS", brainwashing a people to be a slaves and live in fear and humility in front of power of srongest.  
   

This really makes no sense.  If a “tank” is simply the most lethal vehicle then right now an infantryman with an ATGM or artillery with PGM are “tanks”.
A tank provides a combination of three things: survivability, lethality and mobility.  They are all uniquely high but come at a high cost to produce and sustain in the field.  The core issue is that Survivability is pretty much in tatters in this war.  Tanks are highly visible and are being hunted into extinction.  Too many things can see and kill them or their support system to easily.  Mobility - see 1) minefields and 2) denial of the tank by long range systems that can see them and kill the at greater ranges than the tank can respond.  Lack of tank freedom of mobility is a freakin hallmark of this war.  Lethality - maybe the only thing the old girl has left but it is being replaced by precision artillery, missiles and UAS.
Dress is up however one likes.  Apologize for no air superiority all day long. Blame the Ukrainians and Russians for “not being combined armsie enough.” That equation up there is not going to suddenly swing back in favour of heavy expensive metal moving forward.  We may even see a major armour breakout in this war but that won’t validate their existence, it will be a swan song.
Finally from a strategic perspective other factors come into play but the biggest one is that tanks are just too damn heavy…blame gravity.  They are hard to move and mount.  They are very costly to support.  Problem now is that an opponent can move and mount the denial system for the tank much faster than we can mount and move heavy forces.  So What?  Every time we deploy the armoured fist somewhere, cheap and many lethal systems to counter it will have been there for weeks.  And the technology behind those system is going to be an extremely high priority because they can deny what is the core of our current western military ground force …they watched the Gulf War and Iraq 03 on tv same way we did.
So add it all up. Tactical, Operational and Strategic - the whole thing does not look good for the entire heavy system.  Lighter, faster, cheaper, deadlier and unmanned is a wave of change that no one is going to be able to stand in front of.  In my opinion we are watching the re-definition of “combined arms” unfold in front of us daily in Ukraine.  The re-design of what combat power means and warfare itself is going to be fundamentally changed.

Various tidbits I can point out:
- There was a "flying wing" drone that fell within the city limits during the recent attack near Yevpatoriya. It looked undamaged (downed by EW?) and fell right next to the main office of RNCB bank (biggest bank in Crimea that uses old Privatbank infrastructure). The drone fell less than 1.5km away from where I was at the time.
- The morons cannot scale their production of propaganda BS school books. They've issues orders/laws that cannot be implemented, yet again. It is said that it will take years to print thier new "unitary" schoolbooks. Imagine them trying to switch their economy to the "war footing" as some want ;D That would be even funnier.
- There's a special, dedicated NDA they force upon people (first responders?) after missile/drone strikes that starts with words "becasue of the current geopolitical situation" that prevents them from talking about anything.
- The fuel prices continue to rise locally, and people are really noticing. There's quite a lot of rambling about it, and even some organized (and, strangely, authorised) street protests. Did not see much details yet about the latter.

Thanks @Haiduk
That pic of the village is very good example of where CMBS fails in depictions of defence. In any game,  once I've flattened a village to this extent,  everyone is dead because they're functionally out in the open. Reinforcements have nowhere to go to - House Rubble gives very little protection in game and basements are simply not modeled.  This makes CMBS urban games very "unrealistic",  in that a defence cannot be tenacious if everyone dies in minutes from airbursts.
  We're not going be gaming Bakhmut or Kiev anytime soon.
 
 

Why UA is not massing?  Well it may also be for the same reason the RA has avoided it, mass is dangerous.  The few times last year the RA tried massing they got severely damaged doing so.  We saw the UA go through the same thing earlier this summer.  The reason is that massing dramatically increases ISR signatures and opens one up to counters.  There has been a drive towards higher distribution of forces this entire war and I do not think it is a question of coordination or ability as much as it is that concentration of forces is a good way to lose them.
The UA’s current “small bites” is not that different from the RA’s over the winter, albeit delivered via different tactical capability.  I suspect they are small-biting until the RA are eroded to a point that UA massing cannot be countered, then we may see a larger concentrated break out.  For now I am not even sure traditional air superiority would do it as ISR is everywhere and unmanned/PGM cannot be countered by conventional air systems.
I have heard this “well why are they not just doing X?” from western military experts and the answer is likely “because they tried that and it does not work”.  I also am starting to believe that “not working” is not due to UA shortfalls in C2 or training after 18 months of western support and lessons learned from this war.  Instead it is likely due to shifts in warfare itself.

If i could throw in one more specific thing. CM needs a vastly better simulation of mines, mine clearing, and relatede combat engineering. Can the cost of that be justified in absence of a nice military contract, I have no idea, but the third phase of this war has been mines and what to do about them, while each sides artillery did every thing it could to make the minefields even less pleasant. Yes that is an oversimplification, but it is a pretty good one.

What air defenses? ;D
Apperently, there's less and less of them. BBC was pretty quick to report the local (my hometown) events, so you may wanna check that out.
No air raid warnings, no nothing. Nothing is happening, as always. Just bavovna and smoke. Even the announcer at the train station skips the usual "be observant and careful, careful and observant" this morning. How come, I wonder?
 
ps: I'm okay, and the windows are fine, for now.