beardiebloke

Entrance to Lyman...
 
How long did it take for RU to take it???

Entrance to Lyman...
 
How long did it take for RU to take it???

Entrance to Lyman...
 
How long did it take for RU to take it???

Before attack soldier (maybe chapelan) reads Psalm 90
 

I could watch Zelenskyy handing out medals without getting emotionally involved. When you've lived in communities where the Commanding Officer is tracked from every single kitchen window as he walks through the estate waiting to see which door he'll knock on, you end up a bit inured.
This though got me.
 

Nice 360 drone shot from the Lyman only escape road: https://goo.gl/maps/6ZhFtVfGascHJurz8

 
drone shot location on the map:

 

It's buried a dozen pages back now, but I posted some stuff and maps about how limited the approaches are to Kreminna, and how it might be better to go around the north (south is the Sivierski Donets). But obviously, the guys on the ground might prove me entirely wrong!
P.S.  If Steve or @BFCElvis gives me a holiday for the (buried link) above, it will be worth it.  I regret nothing. Make it loud!
And for our map guru @Grigb , this one's for you!
 

Maybe we can start a different thread, something like "all the bad things US is doing & has done".  That's fine, I'm US and we've done some despicable things.  And we've done a huge amount of good.  Go ahead and criticize all day -- in that thread.   Heck, let's start w Nicaraugua, 1926.  
And maybe start another thread "let's bitch about Stolz & Germany".  Lots of valid point to be made there.
If we could do these two threads it would really clean up this thread which has been the go-to for many people on what is happening in the war.  I want to be diligent in this forum and not post w/o having read everyone's earlier posts.  But this thread is getting polluted w endless speculation and bitching about things over which we have no control.  

20 minute report from the Kherson front. Again with hromadske they show the human experience of the Ukrainian soldier. Lost of interviews.
Subtitled. 

Auto-translate is working now.  I think Youtube takes a while to do it's thing.  Works very well for this video probably because the guy's German is very formal.
On the subject of Youtube, thank you whoever here recommended this youtube channel Hromadske:
https://www.youtube.com/c/HromadskeTvUkraine
It has a just-let-people-talk kind of journalism that I really like but sadly auto-translate struggles at times.

WTF?
 ...during a visit to Kyiv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had conveyed Joe Biden’s message about the need to start negotiations with Putin.
MoD Reznikov:
Kyiv is not accepting Western partners’ recommendations to start "peace" talks with the Russian Federation and demands a complete end to the occupation of Donbas and Crimea.
The options ‘as of 24 February’ no longer exist. It must be as of 1 December 1991 [Ukraine’s internationally recognised state borders]. Go out," concluded Reznikov [Reznikov used English when saying the words "Go out" - ed.].
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/09/10/7366954/
 

Wasn't somebody working on a game to explore some of these questions?🤔

Can we get unlimited likes, just for this week?

"This video may confuse you"

Also interesting they mention using an 82-mm M-37 battalion mortar. Yet another WW2 relic lives on...

Lemme clarify a bit here as it looks like we are at the point of the concept being tested.  First off @LongLeftFlank has said he is a Canadian expat; however, it is clear he does not hail from Atlantic Canada or he would know the term by heart - "fog eats the snow"  (in fact I get a whole central-Canada urban vibe off him, for which I may be totally off as we are a country of a rich and diverse cultural tapestry which we get very good at hiding - I, for example, hail from the far North originally but I have buried the hints of my somewhat 'wildling' roots quite well, I even use cutlery on occasion)
So what is this fog-snow thingy?  Not quite as JonS outlines but I kinda like the imagery.  So this idea was one we came up with way back as a possible method for offensive operations given the context of the overall conflict - peer forces, no air superiority, defensive-centric thanks to ubiquitous ISR and smart weapon systems.  It was an attempt to answer the question of: "how the hell is anyone supposed to attack in this environment when the other side can see you form up from space?"
In reality as far as I can tell fog-snow is the third step in an operational approach, which I am sure someone will (or has) turned into a flowchart and checklist:
1.  Establish pre-conditions.  Gain ISR/cognitive superiority - know better and faster than your opponent.  Neutralize enemy air superiority - this whole party is over if they can own the sky.  Logistics - build a system that can be put in place without getting hammered before you can even get into place, here lighter is better than iron mountains.  I am sure there is more here with respect to force generation, psychology and a bunch of higher level stuff but you get the idea.  I think it is fair to say that the UA spent the summer getting these in place over the Kherson area while holding off whatever that leg-humping the RA was doing in the Donbas..."just eating snow" maybe.
2.  Project friction.  This was where the RA completely failed in the Donbas.  They slammed fields and fields with HE -  careless in their affairs and focused on causing stress but not really projecting friction.  "What do you mean by that The_Capt?" - well friction is a Clausewitzian concept (I am pretty sure the Chinese masters also speak to it) that "war is a very large human organizational problem, and once you collect us in a group larger than about four we become horny cats to organization.  So friction is the "badness" that got in the way of order and formation.  Here Uncle C and myself diverge a bit as I do not see friction as the product of order rubbing up against order - an unfortunate byproduct.  I see it as an actual force on the battlefield that can be applied as projected uncertainty, or chaos; those deep strikes into the Crimea are a classic example. 
Regardless, the next operational phase is to project that friction upon your opponents operational system, and here the UA has done a breathtakingly good job over the last two months - on par with what they did during Phase 1 of this war.  They have hit Russian logistics, infrastructure as well as the morale and conative centers of the Russian military thru strikes on leadership and C2.  We have talked a lot about indicators and a big one has been the fact that the RA was never able to get out of that "operational pause" back in Jul.  My theory is this was because the UA hit them so well and created so much friction that the RA was only able to do disconnected symbolic pushes and never really got their operational feet back under themselves.  Hitting the bridges is an example of just how much they stressed the RA system, and now that system is theoretically fragile, or at least not anti-fragile. 
So once the UA had those first two where they needed them - and that is a sign of a military that knows what it is doing btw - they moved onto to step 3.
3.   Add Pressure - "Fog Eating Snow".  A square kilometer of fluffy cloud weighs about a half a million kilograms (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-does-cloud-weigh) which is not a bad analogue for fog.  It is not weightless by any stretch, it is how that weight is distributed and holds/exchanges its energy that makes it different, same goes for warfare...again, theoretically.  Once you have done steps 1 & 2, your opponents system is vulnerable but you have not changed the context enough for traditional manoeuvre warfare, this approach may work.  We saw hints of it on the UA defence at the battle of Kyiv.  Essentially the idea states that one employs highly distributed mass to:
Infiltrate your opponents defensive lines - you have already mapped out where the enemy is in detail as part of Step 1.  Further here it is best that your opponent is employing traditional conventional mass defence, which the Russians appear to be obliging.  ("Fog on fog" is a really interesting concept and could be the future of peer-to-peer warfare but lets leave that one.)  You use your ISR advantage to infiltrate in and around your opponents conventional mass concentrations, essentially filling in the 'gaps and seams'.  We know the RA has lots of these because they simply do not have the force density to create a uniform defensive line.  So UA has made a multi-prong set of advances along broad areas, which are looking "infiltration-y" - fog is not in one place, it is everywhere and gets into everything.
Isolate tactical "bites" - A few maps done by Grigb are showing what suspiciously like tactical isolation of some forward pockets of RA strongpoints.  Isolation means the removal of mutual support between positions.  If you can do that, particularly by eroding artillery support, you are in business.  Further this obviously has a significant psychological effects along with logistical implications. Once the enemies tactical positions are fully isolated....
Finish.  Pretty self explanatory but you want to quickly remove these tactical positions from the field either by surrender or annihilation, preferably by precision weapons systems as they are faster.  Rinse and repeat - Fog eating Snow. 
The whole "Adding Pressure" step is cyclical and the idea is that by repeating this process enough times, fast enough, the entire enemy operational system will collapse - this is the essence of attrition-to-manoeuvre, which is the opposite of what our doctrine says.  Key here is tempo.  This is weird as one is now employing attritional tempo instead of positional, but the rule still applies, one has to Finish faster than an opponents operational system can recover - which is why you did Steps 1 & 2.
And here we come to more questions than answers:
- Will it work on the offensive?
- Can you Finish fast enough, and how does one rationalize the fact that as you advance deeper this gets harder?
- When can traditional manoeuvre/annihilation take over?
- Have you gauged the enemies system correctly?  If it is more resilient than you thought you can bog down very quickly.
- Do you exploit success and go for a spearpoint, or do you keep doing broad system pressure?
I have no idea, these we can only observe and watch for indicators. The UA does look like they are trying a version of the idea, which explains all the "this won't look like a 'normal' offensive" and why we have suspected that the offence actually started back when we saw clear evidence of Step 2 over a month ago.  I suspect if this works that it won't look like much, and even bogging down...until it does.  If they have done this correctly, or if it will even work at all, the RA operational system north of the Dnipro will likely collapse suddenly after continuous pressure - think jiujitsu not boxing.  So I would not get too excited if the UA is not in Sevastopol by the weekend, that is not how this kind of warfare works.  We are way too biased by our western experiences on this one - this is system based warfare and the metrics are different. 
Anyway, sit back and keep eyes and ears open.  If this works like I can envision it, it may break modern military doctrine as we know it.  If it fails, the UA may not get too many more chances and this may turn into frozen conflict because the Left Hand of Mars (Defence) is back in charge...we shall see.
    

Some footage of pontoon construction and ferry close alongside the Antonovsky Bridge:
Not exactly new stuff, but a closer look than I think we've seen before. No clue on the date. Might be some indication of damage (ie. things sticking out) at about 0:24 looking along the bridge, but the angles seem tightly controlled to avoid showing anything particulalry interesting.

Does give a good idea of how much bridging equipment is necessary for this though- given that these are higher level assets you have to wonder how much this construction is reducing Russian river crossing options elsewhere.

Thanks for maps, Mashovets is writing too much and I just have no time now to translate his observations. Though there are some suspicios, he and DefMon takes info from one another and not always 100 % verified, but indeed nobody can do better (except General Staff, of course  )
I need to add from his older materials, which I couldn't post here. Russians moved to southern front BTGs of 35th CAA and placed them initially in Energodar area - in the "dead end". Also units of 5th CAA were placed also on left bank of the Dnieper between Oleshki and Nova Kahovka. They also moved here about 6 BTGs of PMC from Bakmut area and placed them on Vasylivka and some eastern together with about 2 BTGs of 46th Rosgvardia operative brigade from Chechnya. Russian VDV forces, moved from Bakhmut and Izium directions also mostly were placed on the left bank (execpt one BTG of 76th air-assault division) close to Dnieper. 
This created some "uncertainity" - where Russians will attack? Mykolaiv? Zaporizhzhia? Kryvyi Rih? By opinion of Mashovets we should to track the 35th CAA movements - by strange coincidence, exactly this army was on the spearhead of offensives on Kyiv and later on Izium direction. And exactly command of this army better assessed situation and make war more agressive, having success (especially on Izium axis). So, looks like Russian SVO Command considered 35th army (and troops of Eastren Military District in whole) as more capable to complete tasks. 
So, in last days first BTG of 64th MRB (Bucha murderers) of 35th Army crossed the Dnieper and was threw in the battle near Snihurivka. Today some Russian TG channels claimed Russian troops launched offensive with objectives to take Mykolaiv and even Ochakiv (!) 
PS. On your map Blahodatne village should be marked by red color. Russians assaulted it  already three times during a week or maybe two, and likely after 35th CAA elements appearing, they managed gradually to take the village. Two days ago was a report about their "partial success" on southern part of village. Yestarday - the same. Today - "UKR troops destroiyed enemy ammo dump in Blahodatne" (though there are two other Blahodatne in this area). Blahodatne defended elements of 63rd mech.brigade of Reserve Corps.

Now I would like to catch up with some military staff. 
Previously I was asked if AFV-tanks are valuable/can be used in current UKR-RU Arty ping pong. I sniffed around and the answer is they are used more as long-range direct fire support and less as shock force. They are used as mobile protected long range direct fire support.
Mobile - they can be held in a safe place and pop up in unexpected places then get away before retaliation. RU especially is having difficulty with hitting in timely manner unexpected tanks in unexpected positions  Protected  - blind arty fire cannot stop tanks (unlike jeeps with ATGMs) Long Range - tanks survive staying as far away from target as possible. Actually, it applies to every fire support weapon. Keep in mind that the majority of commercial drones have limited range and endurance. We are talking about 2 km from the frontline. So, if you find position let say 3 km from front line then you have up to 2.5 minutes (given 20 mps speed) before drone arrives on top of your head. With 10 rounds in carousel (see below) and 10 seconds per shot you will be long gone before drone will be able to bring pain. Direct fire - unlike arty tank can hit moving target or respond immediately to fleeting target So, here is my impression on the entire process:
Tanks are kept in a safe place a few km back from the front line. Preferably in urban areas (one of the reasons current fights gravitate toward urban areas) - they park directly behind tall buildings, like this:

Obviously, NATO NLOS ATGM gunners must be trained to deal with these targets as per image above.
Next, based on intel and appreciation, tank commanders select several possible firing positions, preferably as far away from targets as possible (keyhole positions are the best). 
In case of defense, when enemy reaches desired kill zone tanks move to a required position. They quickly pin moving attackers so attackers lose momentum and the drone adjusted arty can crush them. Keep in mind that once attack momentum is lost drone adjusted arty will either annihilate attackers or attackers will run back to cover.
In case of attack tanks wait for assault groups to reach a specific point (often beaten zone of a strongpoint) then they move to the required position overwatching the strongpoint and either hit it or (if it was already hit sufficiently with arty) watch for any sudden enemy appearances, allowing assault group to move safely through the danger zone. 
To minimize the danger of fire tanks load as minimum ammo as possible. So, around 20 round carousel becomes 10 round carousel but it does not matter much as tanks spend little time on the frontline. On other hand once you have done a fire mission then even if enemy hit you, it is unlikely to cause catastrophic fire and loss of tank.
Keep in mind this is not a universal tactic. You can find RU regulars who are still using classical shock tactics (AFAIK they still trying it at Kharkiv direction). But I believe eventually they will adopt it just like they adopted commercial drones for arty.  

LOL! Genius!
 
 
 
 
 

"A boy walks in a vegetable garden in front of the remains of a Russian battle tank, destroyed in the battles this spring, in the village of Velyka Dymerka, northeast of kyiv, on July 21, 2022. SERGEI CHUZAVKOV / AFP"
*T-72A

In the olden days you might have to fly something over to take a grainy picture to see if you hit and what the damage was.  Now you just wait for the enemy to take a detailed video and upload it to social media.

Indeed, can you imagine if they did this and then the government falls?  Reminds me of a tweet I saw this morning along the lines of "don't believe anything until the Kremlin denies it".

Ok, let's try this one on.  I am guessing the "pretty smart" folks you are talking to all went to some graduate strategic studies schools where Colin Gray is their god...maybe with some SAMS folks tossed in for flavor.  Well "I ain't no senators son" so I will give it a "best-shot".
I don't think escalation dominance exists as a viable or workable strategic military concept, or strategy - at least not in the modern era.  It is a "pipe dream" a unicorn with a 38 inch bust....weird, slightly erotic and pure fantasy.
So if I recall the term basically describes overmatch.  My own thoughts on those metrics: 
Parity - all things being equal, decision spaces are symmetrical and outcomes determined by chance as much as anything else.
Asymmetry - Your opponent is in a state of dilemma with respect to decision space and are forced to pick the "best bad".
Overmatch - You opponents decision space is irrelevant because all outcomes are the same.
That is a scale/spectrum with lots of sliding distance but to my mind lays out the strategic states with respect to conflict.  In my own terms, if warfare is vision/certainty, communication, negotiation and sacrifice - you basically take the opponents voice away by leave zero negotiation space and driving sacrifice to infinity.
So in this case we would be talking about the Russians being able to create a condition of strategic overmatch on the Ukraine...and this is simply not attainable.  Why?  Well:
- Russian strategic escalation is bounded and restricted externally by the West.  If the West/US had stayed neutral, or did not exist, Russia would have likely escalated already.  They talk a good game but they know that escalation against the West is a dead-hand game of chicken that no one wins and it is directly connected to the current war in the Ukraine.  The only way Russia achieves dominance in this area is if we fail to act.
- Conventional escalation in the form of a formal declaration of war and full mobilization is restricted internally and externally.  Internally, there is domestic pressure - and it is real, as Russia is tying itself in knots to not mobilize while pulling on every other resource it can...so bounded.  Then there is the possible Western reaction to full Russian mobilization..."Ok, Vlad, you want to raise a million man army...how about we give Ukraine 400 HIMARs?"  That is an external bounding; this war is not happening in an isolated bubble.
- Unconventional escalation.  Here the gun is pointing the other direction.  Ukraine could escalate unconventional warfare and the West could as well. This has all sorts of options from leveraging power brokers in the back field, to sabotage, to subversive warfare, to cyber/information.  These things are likely already happening but the escalation ladder is not in Russia's favour in this space, why?  Because they did the one thing they absolutely should not have done in thru this war - unify people against them while dividing their own.  Unconventional war relies a lot on internal divisions and this war has narrowed them in the West while widening them in the Russian sphere.
Finally, as to the term in the modern era...impossible. Why? Because tangled and relative rationality.  The USA has the largest military in the history of humanity - more destructive power than Ghengis or Alexander even taking into account population differences.  And the US has never been able to achieve "escalation dominance" in the modern age.  Terrorism and terrorist groups demonstrated this in spades.  In a modern entangled world completely stopping asymmetric escalation in other dimensions is impossible - it is the superpower dilemma of the 21st century; the only way to preserve the world is to destroy it.  
During GWOT it was AQ/ISIL that "escalated" and threatened to escalate all the way up to WMDs, if they could.  All the US hard power was completely dislocated by a tiny group that was using an idea, the internet and a shoe string budget to make attacks on the US homeland.  After a lot of effort we regained parity and even asymmetry against terror groups but we never achieved escalation dominance and it was dangerous to even think we could deter them through this strategy.'
My problem with Gray (and Clausewitz for that matter) is that these strategies always assume a rational actor and we know that in war those are hard to find.  Rationality becomes relative very quickly.  So the idea of - shooting each other when we have already jumped off the building together ("I will die but you first!") - makes perfect sense locally even though it looks insane to an outside observer.  Escalation dominance does not work on a suicide bomber, never will; they are already at the sacrifice infinity point.  Not saying Ukraine is suicidal; however, if driven to it, Ukraine will fight and escalate well past an outside rationality point - even if it means massive losses...because "it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees" short-circuits the foundational logic of escalation dominance as a strategic theory...and it is in play.
So what?  Well we have an escalation system in parity by my eyes.  Russia is bounded as I described but Ukraine is as well.  The west will only tolerate so much - for example Ukrainian terror groups active in Russia killing civilians is not going to fly with us.  Nor would giving Ukraine nuclear weapons as we fear if things get desperate enough for them to use them.  Ukraine has no mobilization escalation bounding, they are already there.  Conventionally we are slowly negotiating what strikes into Russia look like, but it is not zero.
Finally, I suspect what we are really talking about is comparative strategic options spaces.  And here Ukraine does not need to escalate, they need only sustain theirs, while Russia is doing a glorious job of collapsing their own.  There will come a point when Russia starts to think about irrational escalation as those options spaces collapse, even in the face of Western power...the trick is knowing where that point is and ensuring we get off this ride first.  I suspect it is the Russian land border...Crimea is a question mark.  But one second to midnight at a time....

Been thinking this myself for a while now in the context of Ukraine and how it reminds me of Covid.  At first hundreds of deaths were a big deal, then thousands, tens of thousands, 100k+ etc. ... now people accept to tens of thousands indefinitely.  That acceptance may be right or wrong, just not something I really believed was possible without seeing it first hand.

I don't think this has been posted here already but here's an arty hit on an "AFV"; not sure if it's edited or what but it looks very precise or lucky for arty.
 
 
And here some counter battery arty:
This is way more accurate than when I play CM, that's for sure.