Lethaface

Kadyrov troops, for example. Here they approaching to Rostov. Grigb posted this already in own thread, but let it be separately
Good luck to both sides. Alas, I don't like popcorn %) 
 

It's the Horus Heresy all over again...

Well the Mosculs definitely bombed the oil depot at the Voronezh airport. And they seem to be organising a defence line at the Oka river.
Beyond that, situation not entirely clear.

Obviously the most important question is how will the DLC for CM:BS in a few years handle Wagner as a Red vs Blue and a Red vs Red force?
Privately bought personal equipment mixed with Russian Army vehicles and captured Westenr stuff.
 
 

So all the discussion about blowing up/repairing the Kerch Bridge was a waste of time if RU can't even get there anymore?!?!

Relevant (if blatant) self-promotion, but if anyone wants 4 hours of my take on where modern warfare came from: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYvL90uFbwhO_2-ULfOsTR8EIz7VxbA27
Obviously this is a big topic and there's a lot to unpick, but it's always worth bearing in mind that the militaries of the time were big chunky organisations with plenty of variation in thought. The Cult of the Offensive was absolutely not a myth... but that doesn't mean that there were no officers or factions in the mix pushing for armies to adapt to (supposed) lessons of the Boer War, Russo-Japanese War and Balkan Wars. 'Tactical fashion' ebbed and flowed over time, with attempts to adapt waxing in the aftermath of certain conflicts and waning as naturally conservative military establishments reasserted themselves. If WW1 had kicked off in 1917 and the lessons of the Balkan Wars had had more time to bed in, the opening phase could have been very different.
It's also worth noting that the historical record is not exactly crystal clear: the British might have struggled at first in 1899, but once they deployed a more 'continental' level of force they crushed the Boers. Grant beat Lee because he was the first Union General to go up against him and just keep coming, no matter how many casualties he suffered from battle to battle. The French lost the Franco-Prussian War because the Prussians went faster and harder. And there are, of course, massive game changing technological developments in firepower over the same period that may- or may not- be changing the dynamics... but the victors in all those wars arguably won because they were able to sustain heavy losses.

Not to mention the obvious fact that no-one ever won a war without attacking.

RE: Close order massacres/ the offensive-defensive balance... Bussaco and Waterloo anyone? Column vs Line? If we really want to pull the thread we could maybe argue for Crecy and Agincourt, all the way back to the Thebans getting pelted with roof tiles in the streets of Plataea. I think the issue isn't simply one of firepower vs mass, but the ease with which one side can create the tactical conditions necessary for the other's failure.

Wellington was famously a master of exploiting reverse slopes- using the terrain to mask his force, manoeuvre to block incoming French columns and then break them with the shock action of massed firepower at close range. Fast forward a century and while those factors are still important, all it takes is one machinegun team in the right place at the right time to achieve the same thing.

Another century later and... we're looking at WW1 pumped up on steroids stood around wondering whether it's still relevant while a 100km deep, satellite, EW and drone enabled corrosive warfare campaign rages on overhead.

Debunked by who?  The decisive press of infantry attack was central to European military thinking in lead up and in the opening of WW1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_offensive#:~:text=The cult of the offensive,and therefore choose to attack.
Now do not take wikis word for it, note the refs.  Azar Gat is one of the leading historians on military theory evolution over the last 200 years.  I have his works and we use them as textbooks at war colleges.  Snyder and Taylor are now slouches either.
Your example of a single RUSI article actually supports my (and their point), militaries do not waste ink on hard doctrinal “knows”.  If European observers had seen the character of warfare shifting there would have been all sorts of articles published, because stuff like that gets attention.  They were not publishing because everyone already knew what they knew.  The same phenomenon can be seen in recent history - we get thousands of articles on cyber but no one has revisited combined arms doctrine since the 90s (recent Ukraine war generated thought excepted).
I suspect that militaries were all hoping that rapid offensives would prevent an opponent from being able to dig in and establish hard defensive positions - so double down on offensive…because that was all they were built for.  If they knew trench warfare was coming, then why did innovations like flamethrowers, creeping artillery and tunnelling/cratering take time to develop? Why were they not ready on Day 1?
 I am not sure where this WW1 revisionist history is coming from but “observed well beforehand” and “1500 dead per day” - on a normal day, does not compute.  If someone can point to actual historical research that back this up I would really like to see it.  I suspect that the senior leadership suspected that something was up, hard to miss really, but the preparations and planning do not match hard doctrinal conclusions.  “We saw it coming but had no ideas.  So we sent them over the top anyway.” actually makes things worse, not better.
 
 

Maybe too early, but it looks a lot like UKR is starting to isolate the battlefield. All hints go to Melitopol.
 
 
 
 

Or the value of gutting Russia's military capability.   It's the bargain of the century.  I've seen the USA send arms over the years to people who just wouldn't fight the way you hoped.  Not so with the Ukrainians.   You give them a hunting rifle, they go hunting ...  

Exactly. This suggests that Ukrainians think that the pendulum has swung towards ascendance of the defence, like in WW I and their armoured brigades will have a role more similar to the cavalry of WWI rather than tanks of that time - i.e. they have to have the breaktrough made for them by artillery and infantry.
 

Yes, have the same feeling. 
 
I have some time, so let's discuss Prig and Girkin's inability to adhere to non-bad news policy.
Prig is from the FSB clan, while the no-bad-news policy is more or less RU MOD policy. But what is key is the Prig overall strategy to blame everything on the RU MOD (for the sake of the FSB) in order to undermine the RU MOD's power over the army. He kept silent for two weeks to see how the situation would develop, but as it became evident that the situation was dire for RU MOD, he decided to use it for his own advantage. Backlash is unavoidable, and he intends to ride on it.
Girkin, on the other hand, complies not because he was intimidated, but because his ego and determination to do everything it takes to save the Motherland are widely known. It is commonly known that if he feels it would rescue Motherland, you can persuade him into doing anything. So he was most likely told that the situation is disastrous and that Motherland does not want him to aggravate it.
He is not, however, foolish, and his obedience is not blind. He determines what truly harms and benefits Motherland. He appears to be willing to cooperate in specifics but not in evaluating the broader situation. Also we should not forget that he also want to ride on the wave of backlash.
 

Perhaps I'm being excessively cynical, but 3 days ago youtube channel War Archive did a video on the opening of the battle for Kyiv (linked a few pages back, and I'll link it again below), which included a lot of information on the Ukrainian air force actions in the opening days,  most of which I'd never seen before (and certainly not gathered in one place). Sounds to me like someone watched the video,  took notes and called that "research" for their article,  when War Archive was the one who put in the hours of the actual research .
 
 
 

Somebody mistakingly posted about car and rail bridges were struck, but it's not. Both bridges near Chonhar are car bridges, but one is old and wasn't in use. Railway bridge is SW from Chongar. This is line Kerch - Dzhankoj - Syvash - Chonhar - Melitopol'

There are some good news coming from the ammunition department today:
Apparently there's a way to feed 2S7s with US 203mm ammunition:
US is ramping up its 155mm production, Rheinmetall is reportedly even further ahead in this regard. In the thread following the tweet below there's a quote from Reznikov about UA using 110K shells per month, and asking for 250K/ month. It is more than official number for RU production, which Shoigu himself said is 200K per month, and in reality probably a fraction of that. Arsenal(s) of democracy are really starting to work, and IMO going froward UA will be in better and better position ammunition wise.

Sorry for regurgitating yesterday again, but thought this was an interesting post and my thread pace is lacking.
Shooting up the defenses before trying to occupy objectives sounds a bit like the lessons I've learned from CM over the years. What is the time limit for this 'scenario'? :-). If they have a couple of months left before the muds put an end to this phase, while they still have a good number of fresh reserves/reinforcements available for insertion, why would they need to rush moving forward unless it is clear that a position is basically smashed?
Of course sometimes one needs to do a bit of risky pushing to assert whether it is 'safe' to move forward, but other than that I don't see why they would go for a determined move into strong defenses (and or into counter attacking mobile reserves) / unfavorable terrain unless there is a need to take stuff at any cost before a certain cut off. 

Sorry for regurgitating yesterday again, but thought this was an interesting post and my thread pace is lacking.
Shooting up the defenses before trying to occupy objectives sounds a bit like the lessons I've learned from CM over the years. What is the time limit for this 'scenario'? :-). If they have a couple of months left before the muds put an end to this phase, while they still have a good number of fresh reserves/reinforcements available for insertion, why would they need to rush moving forward unless it is clear that a position is basically smashed?
Of course sometimes one needs to do a bit of risky pushing to assert whether it is 'safe' to move forward, but other than that I don't see why they would go for a determined move into strong defenses (and or into counter attacking mobile reserves) / unfavorable terrain unless there is a need to take stuff at any cost before a certain cut off. 

Dmitiry already translated Prig comments about real situation. Here is confirmation that situation for RU is very difficult - from "agent" Thirteen (infamous RU soldier in Kherson-Zaporozhye area)
[EDIT] For those who do not want to spend time listening to Prig here are main points:
Pyatikhatka is under AFU control [is not new for us] The northern section of Robotne is under AFU control [is new for us] Urozhaine is under AFU control [is not new for us] Prig concludes that the UKR controls huge areas of land AFU unit (50-10) is located near Tormak in the Sadove village [is new for us] RU MOD has no control over anything [is not new for us] Total shortage of weaponry and ammunition (including anti-tank weapons) [is not new for us] AFU advances [implying successfully] toward Molochny Lyman [village on the Azov seashore south of Melitopol - if AFU reaches it, the RU grouping will be split in half]. [is new for us] AFU begins crossing the Dniepr - there were recon parties at Hola Prystan [a town south-west of Kherson] and now the main troops begin to arrive [is new for us] RU suffers casualties but no reinforcement [is not new for us] RU units are understaffed by 50-60% [is not new for us] Everything up there has been hidden from everybody. The Russian military command is fooling Putin and the Russian people [is not new for us] Disparaging Shoigy and the RU MOD,  concludes the Russian army is being destroyed [is not new for us] The UKR counter-offensive causes significant losses for RU, which is not being acknowledged [is not new for us] Bla-Bla-Bla [is not new for us]

Pentagon accounting is infamous for absurd error and no significant accountability. That this issue was corrected is entirely down to the fact that appropriations for Ukraine are going to get tougher so the White House is looking carefully at any place where funding can be made more efficient.

It requires intensive micro but yes I do enjoy MOUT. Sight/fire lines, suppression, smoke, flanking, breaching; proper application makes all the difference. .50 is king, at very close range the 7.62x39 AK cartridge does better in house2house fighting than the 5.56.
Bringing AFVs inside also brings new dynamics; autocannon or 120/125mm HE does a good job of house clearing, but become extra vulnerable to handheld AT weapons. 

All in all, I like it but yes it can be 'tedious' or feel like 'work'.

'Creative bookkeeping' for the political reasons you stated earlier I guess.
Although I agree from an accounting pov that the value of things send should be calculated using the actual value those things where in the books; not for the value the 'replacements' (which might be not 'same') are being ordered. 
If you donate a car to charity and then deduct the replacement value off your yearly taxes, the tax service won't agree. 

A wee something I put together.
This video showcases content from the Combat Mission Red Thunder Battlepack 1 released by Battlefront.com.
It's a brief overview of each scenario, what it's about and the main intent; it also covers the campaigns (including a brief summary of the main campaign branches).
There are NO spoilers in the video chapters.
https://youtu.be/wyrRX4bP2mM
 

Bénouville et Ranville Master Map is now finished. Size: 3248 m x 2128 m. Condition: Pristine, no German or British fortifications or modifications. Fully populated with flavor objecsts. Looks best when used with all available building, wall, flavor object, foliage and terrain tile mods. German fortifications and terrain modifications will be included in subsequent scenarios. Map will be posted without deployment zones or opposing forces so that it can be used for your own Quick Battles.

Russians tried to push off UKR troops from Pyatykhatky, throwing whole tank company in attack, but as one our account writes "now the road from Zherebynka to Pyatukahtky" turned out equivalent of Chornobaivka, because of "Stugna-P" teams and artilelry of 128th mountain-assault brigade destroyed most of enemy armor 
On the video you can see Russian armor, moving from the south, from village Hrozove, passing through long hangars to the road fork. Tanks, which were hit were on the way to Pyatykatky

Stugna-P team at work near Pyatykatky
Video from the same location, with "hell rider" - burning Russian armor on full speed drives along the road from Hrozove and turns west deeper to Zherebyanky 
Russian milbloggers about situation:
In total. No any Piatikahtki was returned. Moreover, the enemy advaned further and already assaults Zherebyanki. All messages that Piatikhatki are turned back, turned out a fake.
Where these Osetian "yeblans" [I can't translate this obscent word adequately :) ], who said they recaptured Piatilhatki?
 

I'd say there is a fourth issue, not identified in the article but contributing significantly to the amount of equipment that's been red-lined:
4. Ukraine thrashing kit in ways it's not intended for. The Caesar is an obvious example; a lovely bit of kit, but fragile and not really intended to be used at high rates of fire for extended periods.