Combatintman

I'll pitch in on this debate but I'll be light on gunnery because we have some well-qualified people who should rightly be deferred to. What prompted me to look was @TheVulture's remark about 'clutter' and I thought it was worth seeing if I could unpick it ... in short I couldn't. However, what I have not seen in the debate are the observations below ... Going back to 'clutter' there is possibly at least one other vehicle in the rough area of my 'moving vehicle' annotation. To pitch in on the HQ piece ... if I had to set a brigade HQ up in that area ... I would put it about 1km away.

Thanks Steve ... in my trade threat = capability vs intent. As we have both pointed out once or twice ... there is one half of that sum that is absent.

Nonetheless, it it a possible indicator. All I can say about Lyman from the Russian perspective is "good luck with that." That is at least a four to five BTG job if contested. On current tempo we are looking at something rocking up there in two days' time.

Two BTGs in play pushing east and south if UAWarData is correct and looking at the size of both places they will culminate if the Ukrainians are still up there and defending them. Note I have ignored the BTG IVO Pasika because the report you quote makes no mention of Sosnove which is on any axis that would be used to come into Oleksandrivka from the south. Bottom line any attempt to bridge at Sviatorhirsk, like most other possible operations in this part of Ukraine, is not within the capabilities of the forces available to the Russians if the Ukrainians choose to contest the ground. I appreciate that this is a statement I make frequently so for context if we apply the three attackers to one defender ratio that most wargamers are familiar with when they are trying to maximise their chances of victory in a QB, it is blatantly obvious that a company each in Krymky and Oleksandrivka will render those two BTGs combat ineffective. When you look at what's elsewhere on the graphic above and consider that Sviatohirsk, again defended by a company, will require at least two BTGs to cross then you can see what I mean. If we look at Sosnove, which is an important node en route to Sviatohirsk - it is more of a rail junction than anything else but is certainly not great manoeuvre terrain and again a Ukrainian company-sized unit could easily defeat/delay in the area.

The bridge near the monastery, according to your other quoted graphic, remains intact and is a Class 60 plus bridge. The Twitter image is confusing to the untrained eye because of the angle at which it is taken so the "I don't think it its intended for driving" comment is what I would politely call 'questionable.' The confusion is due to the road deck of the bridge being obscured by the foreground bridge railing. Personally I think you're trying to take the Lord of the Rings thing (Orcs and caves) too far with this one. It is a difficult river crossing in a place the Russians don't have to assault if the target is Slovyansk because there are already BTGs that can get there from positions west of that crossing. Sure they could drive at it with the intent of trapping units that might be rattling around the Oleksandrivka area but there was some reporting a few days back that suggested that Ukraine's 57 Motorised Brigade, which had been previously consistently reported there, had already withdrawn.

Now if you turn on the BTGs in the Izyum salient area - you arrive at 16, which is a figure I recall assessing as a top end number of BTGs in the area quite a few days back. The question now being (well its always been the question) is it enough? The assessment remains pretty much the same as my initial assessment - getting to Barvinkove is going to consume 2-3 BTGs and the fight for Barvinkove should consume about the same number. If, as I assess, the intent is to hook east to flank Slovyansk, then there are enough towns/villages along that route to consume at least another 4-5 BTGs. Going down the direct axis to Slovyansk will also likely consume 2-3 BTGs and taking Slovyansk at least 4-5 and I'm being generous to the Russians here. From what I'm tracking, at least two and possibly three of those BTGs are probably incapable of offensive operations having suffered attrition during their recent push. Recent actions prove that every small town/village that is contested by the Ukrainians consumes one BTG and takes 2-3 days to clear. There then seems to be a pause of 2-3 days before the ahem ... juggernaut resumes offensive operations. As I've said earlier, blitzkrieg this ain't and 'Slovyansk by May 09' is not an achievable timeline assuming of course that the Ukrainians contest in the manner expected. This is more bite, hold, reset, bite hold, reset. In the reset periods, the Russian Air Force comes into play and watching what they're hitting seems to be a reasonable indicator of which town/village is next for 'de-nazification.'

Not sure I understand the question but the original map said that the intact bridges were the green shaded area which is slightly south of the actual bridges where there is a a mobility corridor marking in blue in the correct place for the bridges. Hopefully this answers the question ...

Its why the games are without par.

Way ahead of you ... Had to reorient the map to get the roads to sit better.

The intact bridge is actually two and possibly three crossings. Nonetheless, that is a nasty fight if the Ukrainians choose to make it so. Location: Intact Bridges.kmz Satellite View: Oblique view looking SW-NE

The likes of Steve, @The_Captand I have been saying same for weeks - he's just nicking our stuff Doctors eh ... what do they know

Christ on a bike ... that is truly shocking. If they'd bothered with cam nets they'd all fit under the same one.

I disagree, I think it was more to provide obscuration for an extraction to cover. The trouble was that it was a poor throw and landed too close to both the door and casualty. Having been in close proximity to a smoke grenade in similarish (training) circumstances and throwing my guts up for about three minutes almost instantly, I'm not surprised that nobody ventured out or the guy outside the building moved towards the casualty.

Points to note - consistent with what the likes of me, @LukeFFand other veterans have been saying for a while on the long list of buddy aid threads, the extraction attempt was epic, no weapons or ammunition were harvested and nobody tried to give buddy aid from the prone position.

I was a month out on my assessment of the fall of Kabul - my first assessment in late May had the house of cards collapsing on September 14. Hence me getting shipped out on July 02 and covering the final days remotely from my home office, rather than scrambling to get on a plane. Not everyone in the intelligence community was wrong - just the ones the media/beltway chooses to blame. It was apparent in 2015 (and before then for anyone who'd had any dealings with them) that the ANDSF weren't going to cut it.

There was some talk of another 3-5 rocking up near Izyum a few days back. Of course we have batted the figures around a bit and I said then that it was not clear what the oft batted around number of '22 x BTGs in the Izyum area' actually meant. The salient extending south from Izyum I seem to recall I assessed at 16 max. The ponderous advance south has undoubtedly chewed through at least 3-4 of whatever number is up there. If the push in the general direction of Barvinkove, with the intent of hooking east towards Slovyansk once across the river is the ME then at the rate they're going that is at least a fortnight away before they get there and more combat power than they've got, assuming that every town/village is going to be contested en route. Taking Dovhenke as the example ... its hardly Stalingrad and if memory serves, it took 2-3 days (and probably at least one BTG) to break in there.

I wouldn't sweat it mate ... you're adding more value to this thread than I am.

Or between 3 and 4 if this diagram is close to the money ...

No don't start with Taiwan ... go and look at the geography and think about why Battlefront hasn't touched it. I say again there's plenty of stuff to mine in the current conflict in Ukraine.

I'm sure there was a similar discussion about the .50 cals on the turret rear of some sort of US Tank Destroyer in either the Normandy or Final Blitzkrieg boards. I can't recall the outcome but, if it does fire it seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. Maybe the same under the hood factors are in play here.

That withdrawal is timely, maybe they read my post about 57 Motorised Brigade at risk of being cut off ... Bridge in more detail here: Dropped Bridge.kmz More of a nuisance to the Russians than anything else because it can be bypassed but certainly a taste of more to come if they want to push into the woods on the Rte T0514 axis.

79 Bde is plausible, UAWar has it slightly further west but Jomini of the West has it at Zolotarivka. The latter source places 128 Mtn Bde closer to Zampil though - if that is correct then the PWs should be from that formation.

Of course the other thing that drops out of the activity in Yampil and Zarichne is that the Ukrainian 57 Bde is in danger of being pocketed if it is still sat where UAWar is plotting it ...

Here is something I posted elsewhere on Saturday (so this is definitely no lightning war) ... which remains relevant in the light of the activity just reported in Zarichne and Yampil. Zarichne is just north of Torske in the schematic below and Zampil is two boxes down from Torske and one to the right. Here's what I wrote then ... Activity in the area of Torske is quite interesting. Should it be captured, it offers a lot of possibilities for the Russians with a series of bridges over the Siverskyi Donets River. Even if the bridges are dropped, there are also a number of areas that could be bridged with tactical bridging with river widths in some places just shy of 40m (although the average is approaching 90m) which is bridgeable by a TMM set (40m) (Bde/Regt asset). The banks in many areas also look from the imagery to be suitable to launch tactical bridging and subsequently ferry sites or larger pontoon bridging. Once south of the river, the ground offers at least a couple of BTG/battalion-sized avenues of approach to hook west towards Slovyansk. These are shown as red arrows on the schematic below with the black boxed areas as fairly coarse grained NAIs designed to find, track and confirm likely COAs. Crossing in this area is certainly a better option than trying to grind through Lyman, then the wooded feature beyond before attempting a river crossing in the area of grid square 37U DQ 08 19.

I don't disagree but Heappey is the Minister for the Armed Forces not the Minister of Defence so pretty small beer in the grand scheme of things ... Here are two less inflammatory reports on his remarks about targeting Russia ... Ukraine war: 'Entirely legitimate' for Kyiv to hit military targets in Russia using Western weapons, minister says | World News | Sky News Minister backs Ukraine carrying out Russia strikes with British weapons | Defence policy | The Guardian