Combatintman

With 36 years' employment in the field I can reassure you that any such biography in 20 years time will be a work of fiction from someone bigging themselves up. The US, having recently and with popular assent somewhat untidily extricated itself from one conflict last year is in no rush to become involved in another one directly. Enablers such as providing situational awareness, intelligence sharing plus lethal and non-lethal aid are of course being provided. The old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" will certainly be uppermost in the calculus of the US and its NATO allies which again makes direct intervention or other capers like officially sanctioned 'American Legions' highly unlikely. History proves that 'deniable ops' simply aren't and that is particularly so in the current information environment. 'Almost perfect situational awareness' resulting in stuff mysteriously blowing up is also in the realm of 'doesn't happen.' People are quick to tell me that "the int was rubbish" - "we weren't warned" etc, which is frequently an excuse to hide their own failings (not reading the intelligence or ignoring it (Mr Putin refers) being fairly common) or their misperception about the art of the achievable by the intelligence cell, unit or agency. The factors for Ukrainian success are well-documented, roadbound columns, little or no attempt to enforce tactical spacings, little or no attempt at camouflage and concealment and the use of insecure communications on the part of the Russians. On the part of the Ukrainians, once the limited axes of advance have been identified a combination of mark one eyeball, UAVs and tactical SIGINT provide sufficient means to develop a tactical picture of sufficient granularity to strike. That they have been able to do so is because they have developed a command and control architecture which has allowed this information to be shared and acted upon quickly. Some of it is very unsophisticated as explained on some of the videos we have seen: UAV team goes out, launches from a wood near one of the identified road, flies the UAV until a target is seen and passes the target grid over VHF direct to a mortar unit. BDA sent over same means, rinse and repeat as necessary. Combat or tactical intelligence isn't particularly hard if you have a tactically incompetent and undisciplined opponent moving along easily identified axes of advance.

The inconvenient problem with this plan is that under current practice (eg not the Korean anomaly) a deployment of peacekeepers requires UNSC sign off and the agreement of both warring parties. If Ukraine says no then it won't happen and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the UNSC members decide to be awkward out of sheer badness. Norway, possibly the French and more likely the UK and US could simply veto the draft resolution to deploy said peacekeeping force. The UK and US have plenty of motives to stick it to Russia in this manner thus keeping it in a conflict that drains its blood and treasure and sends the wider message that armed tomfoolery by rogue regimes is frowned upon.

2S19s by the look of it.

Good to see the media focusing on the core issues. Jesus wept etc ...

2S19 battery group - seems that eight guns is the norm these days, up from six in the Cold War. I've seen other footage of D-30s in groups of eight which leads to the eight vs six assessment.

That drew me into watching the clip ... and then I discovered this epic Ukrainian-themed jacket, shirt and tie combo wardrobe fail by the tinfoil hat wearing guy ... Their info ops are, like most other things we've seen, mediocre beyond belief.

Irritatingly QB maps in the editor are still a black art. Each of those maps under the different battle types could potentially have different AI plans and objectives even if the underlying map is the same. How do I know .... I went through the whole first cut of the QBs for Cold War to check they had AI plans and setup zones for both sides and objective locations. The takeaway in relation to you fixing the building bugs is that fixing buildings on the probe version of the map and then saving it as an assault map may have unintended consequences. My advice would be to crack open the AI plans and objectives for each of the battle types first and see whether they are different or not. Clearly if they are all the same then all you need to do is fix the building glitches on one map and then save them under the different assault, probe etc naming conventions. Conversely, if they are different then you will have to fix the buildings in every iteration of the map.

Taking a wild assed guess here but @domfluff's your man ...

So we're back to the doubt thing - a word I used in my first post in this discourse. I will concede the possibility of some of the contents of that facility being ring-fenced for military use but this does not stretch to the strike targeting "invasion fuel" that was asserted to be "sure" to bring whatever major Russian formation is drawing supplies from the Belgorod vicinity to a grinding halt.

Most of @George MC's stuff is large-scale with bags of armour and all of his stuff is top drawer. I'm sure he'll drop in and give you his recommendations from his impressive catalogue of scenarios.

Yes that's the badger.

Hopefully they won't try and ship them through the Dardanelles, that ended badly the last time I seem to recall.

You're missing my point which has been nicely demonstrated already by the citizens of Belgorod turning fuel stations into carparks following the strike desperate to get fuel - this wouldn't have happened had the attack hit a military fuel depot. It has also been demonstrated in part by the response of the Russian authorities as they have publicly admitted it has taken place. The net result is that there is a section of the population that now knows that the 'mighty' Russian armed forces cannot protect them, that this war is by no means over and for those living in Belgorod it has triggered panic buying. It may trigger some of them to evacuate which means that the message propagates more widely. A small additional bonus effect maybe, but this will also cause some traffic disruption thus hampering military movement down the highways in the area. Now let's' say that those helicopters zapped some Russian logistical node in a remote area/"Nowheregrad". The attack can be denied by the Russians and this has less effect in the information operations domain and its a rinse a repeat of other military logistical vehicles getting whacked which we have seen ad nauseum now. Such attacks of course have an effect but it is more physical than cognitive, and it is very localized say to XX Motor Rifle Brigade's ability to manoeuvre. By attacking something in a city we have had a reaction and the Russian military now needs to consider ringing its border cities with SAM systems and/or committing aircraft to CAP coverage of the borders - all of which divert resources from the front. Or it ignores the problem and risks a repeat attack and more civilian dismay. There's been a lot of talk here about what 'new warfare' looks like and I think this is an example of it. Small forces exploiting gaps in a dispersed battlespace attacking carefully selected and weakly defended centres of gravity/targets to achieve operational effects.

So to summarize, you still don't know then. Here's a bonus question for you - which facility is it?

No I can't or I wouldn't have said so ... do you know the facility, do you know what is in those storage tanks? Do you know whether it is possible to cross-deck fuel (if indeed that is what is stored there) into military fuel tankers from that storage facility. Are the contents of that storage facility compatible with Russian military vehicles. Do you know the supply levels within those storage tanks at the time of the strike? Have you seen military vehicles at the facility recently or ever? If the answers to the above are mostly negative then nobody can be sure and as I've already stated, I'm leaning to the assessment that it is not "invasion fuel" burning.

I doubt that whatever was in those storage tanks would have anything to do with supplying any Russian military operations. To me it is more about sending a message that Ukraine is willing and capable of reaching out and touching Russia which has the fringe benefits of forcing Russia to commit more ground based air defence and CAP assets in its border regions and a whole bunch of fuel tanks on fire is not something that can be readily hidden from the good (or otherwise) citizens of Belgorod.

My read on British advances in tank invisibility are that they are called defence cuts.

Meanwhile, Putin's Special Representative for Afghanistan rolled into Kabul yesterday hot on the heels of the Chinese Foreign Minister. Promising all sorts of economic cooperation which followed an announcement earlier in the week that Russia would resume LPG/LNG (media isn't sure which) supplies to Afghanistan which it had previously suspended because there wasn't enough money in it. Then today, this made me laugh ... (auto-translation from Pashto) Made me wonder if this was a delivery that was over 40 years late and a metaphor for the cr@ppy management of logistics we're seeing in Ukraine. The other angle is that if I was in charge I would be sending my military medical supplies to somewhere there is a war involving Russian troops rather than somewhere there isn't a war. Actually saw this one come in as well, the aircraft flew over our roof at about 1,000 feet around late morning/lunchtime today.

No that first bullet is a gash assessment because it is not supported by the available data. I would have failed a trainee who gave that assessment when I was an instructor.

Land corridor to Kaliningrad has the strong whiff of something similar in 1939 on that same coastline which ended in tears. Of course they are talking out of their @rses when they say it would be 'even easier than what's happened in Ukraine.' Personally this is where I would like to see Poland focus its efforts rather than banging on about no-fly zones, peacemaking/peacekeeping forces and transferring Migs. I doubt the Kaliningrad Oblast is self-sufficient so 'interruptions' to power plus anything else in transit would cause enough grief there for starters. Then I would just saturate the place with messaging. Stick huge screens up on the border and play footage of Russian casualties etc.

As usual MSM way behind this thread ...

Its a science, if you forgive the pun, in itself. Blood agent, nerve agent, choking agent, incapacitating agent, persistent agent, non-persistent agent are just a few variables for starters. Generally you need mass, so MBRLs in battalion handfuls should be the preferred method of delivery. Then of course there is the weather factor - wind direction, wind speed, temperature and humidity. In terms of effect, it is going to depend on whether the folks on the receiving end have equipment to protect themselves against it and, where applicable, have taken drugs to ameliorate the effects of certain agents, and have the means to decontaminate. They generally work on the basis of being a terror weapon so there is potentially a huge psychological effect but also as just a means of causing casualties that the medical chain has to deal with. Combine that with AFVs operating closed down and just the rigid PITA of performing basic tasks with a bulky suit on, your view of the world being restricted to two pieces of glass, your ears covered by the suit hood and wearing two pairs of gloves. Shooting, which I learned was a vaguely important soldiering skill during my time in two armies, in NBC kit is an art in itself. Now try and write on a log sheet, type on a computer, twiddle the dial on your radio or even speak, listen and be understood/understand on the radio with those gloves and that mask on.

There seems to be some plunging in the projectile's trajectory. The projectile can be seen first at the 4 second mark which is the first red circle on the image. Follow it from there ... The range is very approximate - I used the BTR as my reference measurement. If you look at the second to last circle before impact and follow the projectile from there, that is where the plunging is most obvious. Not saying it is a Javelin, just something that has plunged.

That is a T variant, the clue's in the number of seats - this is a Hawker Hunter F6

For those interested in the information operations space - ExTrac is worth a look: I haven't got the bandwidth to delve into the detail of this stuff to establish its veracity; however, I can tell you for a fact that their analysis of the Afghan media space that I read today is absolutely bang on the money so on that basis I highly recommend it for those that are interested in this aspect of the conflict.