fireship4

Great thread.  I thought I would post some of the sources I have been using to stay up to date with the war:
First of all, the Reddit live thread is a good general starting point, and much of the following sources will pop up there every so often.  I have also dipped my toes back into the water of an old community of mine, United Operations, and check into their teamspeak every so often - you always get some choice tidbits when talking directly to people with a good amount of military knowledge (if someone wants an invite I can perhaps make that happen).  I advocate for an audio discussion room for this subject on the battlefront discord if there isn't one already.  People are clearly interested and we have not a few people with insight.
https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs/
Live Maps:
https://liveuamap.com/
https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/091194
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#m:tsd;d:today;@32.0,48.8,7z
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#/media/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg
Websites:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone
https://www.understandingwar.org/
Twitter (via nitter.com):
https://nitter.net/Osinttechnical
https://nitter.net/christogrozev
https://nitter.net/Militarylandnet
https://nitter.net/Caucasuswar
https://nitter.net/Justin_Br0nk
https://nitter.net/DanLamothe
https://nitter.net/Blue_Sauron
https://nitter.net/billroggio
https://nitter.net/Nrg8000
https://nitter.net/SotisValkan
https://nitter.net/AaronMehta
https://nitter.net/kamilkazani
https://nitter.net/JimmySecUK
https://nitter.net/RALee85
https://nitter.net/polijunkie_aus
https://nitter.net/ELINTNews
https://nitter.net/Eastern_Border
 

Well the first thing to remember when looking at UKR forces is that there are layers here.  Unlike the Russian forces who, for the most part, try to control where they are with LOCs back to Belarus or Russia, these are horizontal forces and relationships.
The Ukrainians have vertical forces and relationships in addition to horizontal ones.  So take any map of the conflict:

This one from wikipedia - So the interplay of red and yellow with tac signs is horizontal.  And from this it does look like the Russians are trying to do some operational pinching which would normally point to some trouble for the UA.  The reality is though that the map is really three dimensional.  Vertically there is a foundation of local and regional support and combat power in the form of an ever growing resistance (I hear a lot of western experts say "insurgency", I think I even used the term early once and this is inaccurate, a resistance is really something else from a lot of directions).  Further, for every day that the Russians bog down, that vertical resistance gets better armed, better organized and better prepared. 
So what?  Well from a Russian viewpoint that vertical layer underneath means two very bad things: support and friction.  Ukrainian force will be able to draw support from that layer in the form of manpower and logistics.  This means the Russians are now force to make those "pinches" air tight, which is extremely labour intensive.  For example, locals can push fuel and ammo into a pocket, through all the backroads and farmers fields, which they know very well, and continue to supply fighting power to seemingly cut off troops.  The level of control required for that is extreme, as the US learned in Vietnam.
Second is friction.  Having even low tech resistance everywhere is exhausting in terms of constant attrition and morale.  Every move you make is watched and reported on, every road move is like the freakin Memphis Bell mission over Germany - someone is going to get killed and we are all hoping it isn't us.  Logistical lines need to be iron-cladded.  And this will inevitably lead to over use of force on civilians which does nothing for the information war.   
So in this sense it is really hard to judge where the Ukrainians stand by using the pins on the mapboard.  They have already gone hybrid.  For example, how many major tank battles have we heard about?  There have no doubt been clashes but the Ukrainians are already fighting like Comanches with drones right now offensively and it is working for them.  Defensively, again layers, they can dig in and be very difficult to dig out, and even if you do, you still have a deeper resistance to deal with in the civilian population.
My assessment matches what we have been seeing all over mainstream.  The Russians have stalled...bad.  This was not a consolidation or re-org or clever trap, it was a significant stalling an a systemic level going all the way back through those LOCs.  The Ukrainians have created so much friction on the Russian advance that the war machine looks like it broke.  They are now staging local c-attacks and very visible attrition actions from what I can see. 
The question the remains is "can the Russians re-org/re-boot and somehow regain the operational offensive?" This, particularly around Kyiv.  Or are we going to see what I call "zombie muscle twitches" as formation commanders try and look busy to get the heat off them that is coming from Moscow?  These can even seem dramatic but they do not translate into any real operational gains.  Don't know, a lot of opinions out there for either side.
Few things I do notice:
- Russians are not even talking about Western Ukraine anymore.  If the aim was to take the whole perogy, Kyiv is more symbolic.  In order to do that "entire Ukraine" thing, one has to cut off support from the West.   Which really means that all this prom-night groping in the East - so sweaty but not really going nowhere - is missing the point entirely once we accept that Ukrainians will very likely keep on fighting both conventionally and unconventionally even after Kyiv falls.    Why there was not a very sharp attack from Western Belarus at what it the real strategic Center of Gravity in all this, Lviv, to seal up the western end of Ukraine, including the Carpathians, was the first sign that the Russians did not think this through.
- Operationally, the Russians have still not established pre-conditions and we are over two weeks in.  Air, info, electronic, cognitive/decision and logistical superiority have all been a hard fail.  For example, Russian Air Forces should be hitting logistical resupply from the west 24/7 - an air campaign for the history books- and they are largely tepid and absent.  They need to work on that or this grind is going to be much longer, to the point they very may well not be able to sustain.
- Operationally, the Ukrainians are not showing signs of buckling in all those pre-conditions areas. There is no doubt erosion but they still can find, fix and finish Russians and even do local offensive actions. All the while they coordinate and communicate effectively and are still able to push support in from the West as they get better and better prepared. 
So in summary, keep an eye on that vertical Ukrainian dimension because it is decisive and something needs to demonstrate the Russians are even able to set what should have been initial conditions and I may start to buy in on the "Russian Grind" strategy.  Until then we are at Balkan-No-Step, everyone digs in and tries to influence the negotiation table, or Death March to Moscow as the Russian military simply quits.  I mean the Russians do have the numbers for the Russian Grind but that is on paper and looking at the horizontal dimension only.  This is unfolding like a European version of that anecdote from Afghanistan, "Russians have all the fancy watches but the Ukrainians have all the time".      

Great thread.  I thought I would post some of the sources I have been using to stay up to date with the war:
First of all, the Reddit live thread is a good general starting point, and much of the following sources will pop up there every so often.  I have also dipped my toes back into the water of an old community of mine, United Operations, and check into their teamspeak every so often - you always get some choice tidbits when talking directly to people with a good amount of military knowledge (if someone wants an invite I can perhaps make that happen).  I advocate for an audio discussion room for this subject on the battlefront discord if there isn't one already.  People are clearly interested and we have not a few people with insight.
https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs/
Live Maps:
https://liveuamap.com/
https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/091194
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#m:tsd;d:today;@32.0,48.8,7z
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#/media/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg
Websites:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone
https://www.understandingwar.org/
Twitter (via nitter.com):
https://nitter.net/Osinttechnical
https://nitter.net/christogrozev
https://nitter.net/Militarylandnet
https://nitter.net/Caucasuswar
https://nitter.net/Justin_Br0nk
https://nitter.net/DanLamothe
https://nitter.net/Blue_Sauron
https://nitter.net/billroggio
https://nitter.net/Nrg8000
https://nitter.net/SotisValkan
https://nitter.net/AaronMehta
https://nitter.net/kamilkazani
https://nitter.net/JimmySecUK
https://nitter.net/RALee85
https://nitter.net/polijunkie_aus
https://nitter.net/ELINTNews
https://nitter.net/Eastern_Border
 

Lost for words, John, but thank you for yours. As always I wish you all the best.
Twain's War Prayer humbles and calms me. Very impressive.

Aragorn2002,

Appreciate your kind response. We're good. There's so much going on, so much at stake, so many interests, some competing, some complementary, that it's frighteningly easy to get swept up. On my end, because of my TBI and Aspbergers, which was exacerbated by the TBI, at times I find it so overwhelming I have to break off. Was similarly fried by CNN's 24/7 Desert Storm coverage, but I didn't have to process it with a TBI thrown in, either. Also, there's a $40 word attached to people with Aspbergers. It's perseveration and basically refers to getting rolling on a topic and just keeping on going, whether in conversation or, in my case, posting! The more stress I'm under and the less sleep I've had, the more I tend to perseverate.

Thus, I find myself in a multi-dimensional tightrope walking exercise in which I seek to take in rapidly breaking intel items, assess them as best I can, when I can and comment on them where possible, while also staying current with the by now hundreds of other posts, which must also be screened for useful info, whether other nuggets from current or near current other SM posts, say, or things like the article on Russian logistics. And as long ago (late June of 1989 when I left) as my Soviet Threat Analyst days were, much of what I knew then still applies now, allowing me to provide perspectives on things when theoretically my knowledge base is largely obsolete. But how obsolete is it when T-64s, T-72s and T-80s, however upgraded, are still the standard tanks, when the MI-24, MI-29 and Ka-50 series (the last already in flight test when I left) roam the skies and dispense death, along with the Su-25? Much the same situation obtains ref artillery, with the 2S1, 2S3, 2S7, BM-21, BM-27, etc. still in service. And today's much higher tech and far smaller manpower Red Army is the result of massive reforms initiated by Marshal Ogarkov while I was still in military aerospace. Likewise, what the Soviets used to call reconnaissance-strike complexes are now fully operational, as evidenced by bad things resulting from UA soldiers using their cell phones! Despite all its high tech, today's Red Army is still heavily driven by concepts and principles antedating the GPW in some cases, but now the means finally exist to execute at least some of them. But as we all know, today's modern battlefield is both vastly more complex and vastly more dangerous, often with no safe rear, either. 

And have to do all of the above while not going off the rails, somehow getting sleep and not getting so caught up in things I post or say something inappropriate. And all of the above while juggling my endless fascination with weapons and warfare against the all too real havoc and destruction and the knowledge that we CMers have our own people in, or potentially in, the combat zone. This is altogether together too close to having brother George in his M3 CFV right across the border from East Germany and a SECRET level Army study in my safe showing a 50% casualty rate for units like his fighting the Covering Force Battle--and then war breaks out.

Finally, this is ever in my mind. Has been n since I first read it and was poleaxed by it.

https://warprayer.org

Regards,

John Kettler

My backup has moved here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fdgcyjxwy99csp5/AAB2HVemThOm9vyqdj2lj_I8a?dl=0
I created a thread announcing such on this forum, it's currently half way down the front page: https://community.battlefront.com/topic/139975-mods-by-bil-hardenberger-btr-kieme-vein-zveroboy1-new-backup-location/.
 

My backup has moved here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fdgcyjxwy99csp5/AAB2HVemThOm9vyqdj2lj_I8a?dl=0
I created a thread announcing such on this forum, it's currently half way down the front page: https://community.battlefront.com/topic/139975-mods-by-bil-hardenberger-btr-kieme-vein-zveroboy1-new-backup-location/.
 

I am moving my backups of some Black Sea mods to a new location.  If any of the included authors with me to desist, please PM me and I shall do so.
I took the liberty of renaming some seemingly mis-named normal map files in one of Kieme's files, and note there seem to be some missing in at least two others (though this in particular may be intentional if the changes are small).
 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fdgcyjxwy99csp5/AAB2HVemThOm9vyqdj2lj_I8a?dl=0
 

My backup has moved here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fdgcyjxwy99csp5/AAB2HVemThOm9vyqdj2lj_I8a?dl=0
I created a thread announcing such on this forum, it's currently half way down the front page: https://community.battlefront.com/topic/139975-mods-by-bil-hardenberger-btr-kieme-vein-zveroboy1-new-backup-location/.
 

Maybe chuckdyke should be watching this video:
 

True mortars are a different category. I listen to the guys who do this for a living. Mortars don't use the Fire Direction Centre. We have as model the US, Russia or China doesn't share much information on You Tube. 
 

I have uploaded 69 of Kieme's mods to Google Drive, as well as a few others by Vein, BTR and Bil Hardenberger.  Files will be taken down at request of author(s).  Files were made JSGME ready (they were placed inside z, inside data, inside a folder with the same name) and then zipped.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L_vto8k7s-AnIKR4VfAY1k0o3tGRTxox
 

Well, a sudden diversion over eastern Ukraine of a Russian civilian airliner during a time of extreme tension... it looked like they were trying to get shot down.  The fact that the plane was in two places at once suggests the possibility it was not the plane it claimed to be.
Or it was just some kind of mistake, by the airlines or with flightradar24, perhaps a mixing of data due to the duplicated registration number.  A bad time for such a thing to happen.
EDIT: to be clear, the registration of a plane is unique to that plane.  The flight (or whatever) is like a bus route, and seems to be assigned to a plane when it is assigned to a route.

I think Flightradar indicates when it is predicting a position as opposed to where it has ADS-B, MLAT, etc.  For instance the flight I was looking at had a dashed black line pointing to its destination after it stopped updating.  Did you see this track: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vp-bmo#2acda4dc If that is a mistake by flightradar (not Russia) then it is quite a dangerous one.
EDIT: You can see better info if you use the normal map and select 'playback' at the bottom, using the times I mentioned in my previous posts.  The above flight changes name above Voronesh when it starts to head for Ukraine.

If you look under fruit in the dictionary you may find a picture of a banana.

Although I have a few Steam games, I hate being Steam "dependent".  I have very strong feelings about wanting any of my games to be totally free standing on my own computer and not dependent on an outside agency to be able to play them on an on-going basis.

It is best not to bog down this thread with our disagreement.  You made two statements that are incorrect (to be clear, the first is too narrow a definition, the second is simply wrong), and later justified the former (perhaps assuming I was saying that military did not include your examples, when I was instead refuting them as a definition of such) with a link to an online dictionary, which is a tool and not the source of meaning of the words in the English language.  You finally posted a picture of a uniform I assume you found when searching for the word military, again perhaps presuming I think the word military does not cover uniformed personnel.  The fruit example was illustrative of the latter statement.
If you wish to continue this discussion perhaps we can do so over PM, with the understanding that I would rather die of gangrene.

If you look under fruit in the dictionary you may find a picture of a banana.

[Edit: Thanks for the article.]
I have seen Germany criticised for the pipeline - giving Russia leverage over Europe.  I always wondered if it was more about trying to stabilise the Russo-European relationship by making them reliant on each other.  Am I wrong?  Is it more to do with just needing the gas, not wanting nuclear power or what?
[Edit 2: I also heard it might just be corruption on the German side... with a guy who works for Gazprom.  Surely if that's true though it couldn't be the only factor.]
[Edit 3: Part 1: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Strategic-Misdirection-An-Alternate-Framework-for-Understanding-Russia’s-Play-in-Ukraine.pdf?x91208  Part three is yet to be released I believe.

It is best not to bog down this thread with our disagreement.  You made two statements that are incorrect (to be clear, the first is too narrow a definition, the second is simply wrong), and later justified the former (perhaps assuming I was saying that military did not include your examples, when I was instead refuting them as a definition of such) with a link to an online dictionary, which is a tool and not the source of meaning of the words in the English language.  You finally posted a picture of a uniform I assume you found when searching for the word military, again perhaps presuming I think the word military does not cover uniformed personnel.  The fruit example was illustrative of the latter statement.
If you wish to continue this discussion perhaps we can do so over PM, with the understanding that I would rather die of gangrene.

I think whether or not he is a rational actor acting on good intel is relevant, but I have nothing more to say on the matter anyway so everybody wins

Source was: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/06/the-seduction-of-george-w-bush/

Here's a short video of Challenger 2s in the field with no extraneous sounds, just the tank sounds alone.  Though of no use now, it will be when we finally get the British.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

Here's my personal all-in-one pack that also includes fixed Kieme's buildings. In his mod Kieme saved window textures with an incorrect transparency layer and as a result they all appear as an invisible square hole in the closest LOD - then immediately jump to fully opaque as you move the camera away. This download has that issue fixed.
Also it includes the optional mod that replaces "dubok" soviet-style ukrainian camo with a modern digital one, that army realistically used universally in 2017. That digital one is present as an option in the mission editor / quick battle - but this one allows you to play as digicam UAF in a campaign and original missions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ffSzeWSXm4wWCnynvm1vd3XwZzOz4-Ll/view?usp=sharing