sross112

On the 72nd Mechanized Brigade facebook page is a video they posted a couple hours ago. In it about the 1:40 mark they are showing F-16's. I hadn't heard anything about them being given to Ukraine but maybe so? https://www.facebook.com/72.brigade.best/ Edit: the subtitles were all in Ukrainian so I'm not sure what it says, but the way it was portrayed was like they were getting them.

It was discussed awhile back in this thread how part of the thought as to why Putin actually invaded was a dwindling window of opportunity for Russia. He jumped the gun and gambled on a lot of false assumptions that led us to where we are now. I don't think China is in that same position. China is patient and plans generationally. If anyone, China included, thought they were ready to win a shooting war with the west this conflict has probably watered down that assessment a bit. They also don't have a need to gamble with an action like this right now. There is a bit of military flexing and power posturing in their area of influence but I don't think there is a true imminent threat anytime soon of China attacking anyone. Taiwan is compared to Ukraine but I'd say the big difference is that China actually cares what condition Taiwan is in when it is over. They don't want to have Taipei looking like Mariupol. The big win for China is to take Taiwan as undamaged as possible so it is an economic plus and not a wasteland. There may come a time when they say screw it and don't care about the consequences but I highly doubt they will be at that point for a long time. They would be much happier to eventually assimilate it by political means and I think they are willing to take a lot of time trying to do just that. Probably the biggest change for China that comes out of this war is that now they know they are pretty much on their own. The once menacing Russia will long be relegated to a 3rd tier military/economic/political power and doesn't help them balance or tip the scales in their favor on the world stage any more.

I get what you are saying but I think the analogy of brothers doesn't really fit. Russia is more like the psychotic ex-girlfriend who decides "If I can't have him than no one can!" and "If I can just get him chained up in the basement I could make him love me again."

Very interesting insight. I hadn't thought of China being an economic proxy for Russia, but it does make a lot of sense for them. They could come out of this profiting very nicely. Everyone has talked about Russia being a gas station for China but this makes more sense. Logistically it doesn't work for China to be fueled by Russian gas and oil as there aren't the pipelines and such in place for shipping and building thousands of miles of that is very expensive and takes a lot of time. But the infrastructure is already there for Europe and I'm sure the market will be there for some time. Germany can just buy it from China instead of Russia and circumvent the sanctions. No idea what the profit margins for Russia were but China can gobble those up and leave just enough for Russia to make a profit but nothing close to what they are getting now. No idea on the actual numbers but if Russia was selling gas to Germany for $3 a gallon and their cost for extraction and shipping was $1 a gallon China can step in and buy it in the ground for $1 and pay $.50 for shipping. China pockets 75% of the profit. Russia still makes money from it's gas and oil but nowhere near what it did before. Big winner is China, big loser is Russia either way. Same thing could be done with the other mineral wealth that Russia has. The other possibility would be Chinese firms buying out the Russian firms like Gazprom, but I would think they would be pretty hesitant after watching the nationalization of foreign companies the last couple months.

Driving down the Dnepr for Kherson? Looks like they might be at the first bridge. Might get interesting down south.

Silly propaganda? Ha! Here is irrefutable evidence!! This picture shows the UA conducting pre-flight inspections on their tac-bomber model. The soldier is from the 93rd Brigade so that explains their recent advances north of Kharkiv. The birds! The birds are pushing the RA back!!

True. I'm eagerly awaiting Switchblade results on counter arty missions. If those live up to expectations they could be a real game changer in that arena.

These nations aren't the ones backing Ukraine now, so why would they be relevant later on? The UN? They aren't able to stop Russia from mass murder and destruction of someone else's homeland, so why would the UN be able to stop someone from defending their own homeland? Now, if India and China were actively assisting Ukraine now, but might not later, then you'd have a point to consider. As it is the only countries Ukraine needs to back them are the Western ones. Not even all of them... US and Poland would probably do just fine on their own. I'm sure that the longer it goes on the less attention the war will get in the news and in political circles, but I'm with Steve that I don't think the US will stop support for a long time. The old eastern bloc nations will also continue support for however long they have to along with Sweden and Finland. I'm sure Canada and Australia will do what they can as well, but just the eastern bloc nations and the US can keep the UA equipped and going on their own for a long time. Now hear me out. There is the noble goal of sovereign integrity, the humanitarian goal of helping the people and then there is a lot of money to be made by the US MIC. The people will support the first two and the politicians will continue support due to the third part. The US taxpayers will subsidize this war for many years. That is the dark reality of the situation. Personally they can take every cent of my taxes and send them to Ukraine in the form of beans, bullets and band aids. At least then they would be spent on a good cause that I believe in instead of gender studies in Pakistan. Just saying. As for time being on either side I think that is a mix. The longer it goes on the harder up the RA will become due to sanctions, etc that we've laid out here. The flip side is the longer it goes on the deeper the RA can settle in and thus take more effort and blood to dislodge. So yep, if they have the forces for a counter stroke the UA has the best opportunity to create the most losses while taking the least sooner rather than later. Unless it is a lot later. If over the next year or two the UA was to be totally trained and equipped by western nations with top tier gear that would change the dynamic of a later offensive, but no one is going to wait that long so you do have a diminishing window for good successes at minimal costs and then it begins to rise for a long time. The western equipment is great but 100 towed howitzers and some Gavins isn't exactly going to manifest a dynamic encircling offensive operation. That takes the faster moving armored stuff and not nearly enough of that is heading their way yet. That means the UA will have to conduct an offensive with parity of equipment in tanks, artillery, etc. Yes they have the C4ISR advantage but they will take a lot of casualties trying to drive on a dug in RA. Not to mention how the Russian air force could play into that. They haven't been very effective on offense but they could change that on defense.

Agree with a lot that you say here especially about the land bridge being the most important target. Which axis to take I think depends on the amount and composition of UA forces available for an offensive. If they can pull off an attack on the west side to either Melitopol or Mariupol not only do they sever the land bridge and relieve a besieged city or liberate one actively resisting, they also force the RA to respond. If nothing else the RA has to divert troops from the Kherson and Zaporizhe area to contain the western flank of the UA drive. Then move on Kherson. Could create some good successive pockets of RA or cause a full scale route for the Crimea. Blocking the land bridge to the east creates the conditions for the retreat/route. Kharkiv/Izyum area is an option if there isn't the forces available for a big southern push. The terrain up north is much rougher and can be conducive to a static offensive like Steve advocates. Steady light infantry push and small bites along the front. The UA has done some of this, especially in front of Kharkiv against the DNR conscripts. I believe any kind of dynamic offensives with eyes on pocketing large numbers of RA in this area is not very probable. Rougher and more built up terrain, lots more RA to defend, closer to Russia for supplies and support and it isn't a big part of the political goal for Russia. Makes much more sense to go south imho.

Oryx has posted the 600th tank loss for the RA today. That makes it 50% of the general assumption of tanks for the 120 BTG's thought to have taken part in the invasion. Only losing half their tanks in a little over 2 months is apparently acceptable losses as everything is going as planned. Tanks (600, of which destroyed: 312, damaged: 17, abandoned: 49, captured: 222)

As for May 9th, I'm betting there won't be a declaration of war. Definitely not against NATO. A lot of sabre rattling and other verbal vomit but nothing above that. We all know what happens if he declares on NATO and I can't imagine he and his cronies don't have a pretty good idea after watching his special operation unfold. I doubt he'll declare war on Ukraine as others pointed out that gives a green light to anything inside Russia that Ukraine wants to hit. With the gradual ramping up of western weapons systems the Kremlin has to realize that wouldn't be a good choice. What I think we will see is the declaration of acceptance to the separatists states. They will try to say those are now part of Russia and hang on to what they have. Probably Transnistria too. By doing that it legally allows the usage of conscripts to defend it as it is now part of Russia and no longer an expeditionary campaign. Then they can expand the conscription to whatever number they think they need and fill their billets that way. This is the way they can get around having to declare war to call up the reserves. Declaring any type of war doesn't solve any problems and only adds more to the ones they already have. They absolutely have to call up reserves or use conscripts. The peace time RA wasn't fully manned by contract soldiers so they had a problem recruiting before they were being sent to their deaths. Once the whole special operation kicked off they still didn't have lines out the doors of recruiting stations to serve the mother land. Now after over 2 months it is only worse. The young Russians know what is going on. They are seeing the same internet we are and they don't want any part of it. Those that did already joined and are probably wishing they hadn't. With that in mind even the conscription could get crazy with draft dodgers hiding out or running for the border. How many do you think will show up knowing they are destined to die in Ukraine?

I believe someone linked the news article to it earlier today. The way he explained it was to give a good red line and give the option for response, not a required response. I think it is a good signal to Putin on WMD usage.

Definitely an unsecured load. Another example of either shoddy training (never taught to secure load) or a lack of professionalism (knowing and not securing).

Live UA Map is saying as of 2 hours ago Kherson has been in a near total internet blackout. Wonder what the RA doesn't want everyone to see?

Same problem the Germans had, too much front and not enough troops. Use your better more reliable ones for the attack and cover the flanks with whatever you can. Probably have better results if they mixed them instead of giving them their own piece of the front though. Personally I am surprised they haven't pulled 99% of the troops from the Sumy borders and used them. Not like the UA is going to drive on Moscow, yet anyway.

Over 30 rounds in less than 20 seconds so it is probably an MLRS strike. The initial explosion doesn't look that much different in size to make me think it is anything other than one of the rockets. At first glance it looks a little different but that is due to it striking the building and not the ground. So I'd say it is good luck and the rest is to be expected with rocket artillery. To get a guided munition and an MRLS salvo to hit within a second of each other would be pretty amazing. Unless the same MLRS could launch a guided and unguided in the same salvo?

That is probably their best choice to extend the conflict. It's either A: keep grinding your own army to death until it collapses or B: go over to the defensive and try to hold. Neither one of them gets them a win though. They need to keep attacking and win, maybe not the whole that they initially wanted but they have nothing to trade for peace at this point. If there is nothing they are willing to give up, and I don't think they are willing to give up the LNR, DNR, land bridge or Crimea. Everything they have right now is the essence of their political goals and they can't give any of it up. If they pull back and dig in they suffer from two things. First is their front is way too long for them to adequately defend it. Yet the only shortening they can do is pull out of the Kharkov and Izyum areas. That buys them a little but they are still trying to defend too much. So they really don't get to withhold the troops out of the fight to use as a cadre as they have to stay in the line. If they don't the line just gets more porous. If they do we are back to option A of grinding them down, just at a slower rate. Then you throw in some HIMARS and whatever other stuff keeps showing up and maybe the loss rate in static positions becomes higher than when you were trying to attack. Plus if they aren't attacking that lets the UA re-deploy their heavies. The UA can use Steve's tactics against the northern line and isolate and destroy the low hanging fruit, rinse and repeat. That gives the UA the ability to counter stroke. Their objective should be in the south. Isolate Kherson and as much as they can bag there. Block the Crimea and turn east to clear the land bridge. Once that is done they can decide if they want to pay the price for the LNR DNR, but taking the land bridge really kicks the chair out from under Putin. That is probably the most sensitive part of this invasion now. So, if they want to "win" the RA is going to have to come up with something offensive. Somehow blow a big hole in the southern line north of Mariupol and charge north looks like the only option they have now. Of course we are speculating without all the facts but I don't see how viable that plan would be with the forces they have left. Maybe? Maybe if they had enough there to create enough of a crisis to pull enough troops away from Izyum to create an opportunity for the pincers to get moving? Just seems like a lot of wishful thinking, but again, maybe. Any given Sunday. They'd surprise a lot of us if they managed to pull something like that off but something like that bagging a bunch of troops and area is the only way they have anything to try to get Ukraine back to the table and agree to peace.

And also, do they even have the weapons to hand them? Do they have a couple million AK's laying around in warehouses or were all of those sold over the last 30 years? Not to mention any heavier weapons. Plus all other kit. We saw the WW2 stuff being handed out to the separatist forces, was that because they were low priority or was it because that is all they had to give them? Maybe someone has some source knowledge of what they actually have for that sort of equipment and how many troops they could actually fully equip?

Today's ISW report is up. Not much ground taken in the Izyum salient and reports of several attacks repulsed by the UA. General staff said using more mobile defense in lieu of positional defense to counter RA attacks. Down south: Russian forces continued to redeploy from Mariupol on April 29 to participate in offensive operations northward to support Russia’s main effort to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff stated on April 29 that certain units from Mariupol are deploying to participate in offensive operations toward Kurakhiv (western Donetsk Oblast, about 50 km west of Donetsk City), and an anonymous senior Pentagon official reported that a “significant” number of Russian units have redeployed toward Zaporizhia Oblast since April 20 I'm not sure how much actual combat power they can pull out of Mariupol. I'd think the units in there would be pretty chewed up like the ones from around Kyiv or worse. Throwing them right back into an offensive to the north probably won't end well. On the other hand the line north of Mariupol has been considered a weak spot for awhile now and believed to be mostly manned by TD so maybe they have a chance of pushing.

There have been references to the Russian Naval Infantry in the video being well trained and good infantry. Personally I wouldn't elevate it to that level. Better is more applicable. Still not really up to par by western standards, but much better than the conscripts in other videos. Whole column moving in single file from one point of cover to the next across an uncontrolled avenue. No spacing to speak of. No troops moved into position for covering fire or support. Once their man was hit they tried to throw some smoke but again, no serious suppressive fire towards enemy positions is seen or heard when trying to move the wounded. Didn't look like they had any good idea of how to move a casualty especially when there were two of them trying. As others pointed out, no sign of buddy aid attempts. Compared to the UA units they are in opposition to in Mariupol it is a very stark contrast. So better than what we usually see but still not very good all in all. Several videos out of there of the UA soldiers doing a much more professional job in their fire and movement. On a side note, I think the thing I find the most amazing about the defenders of Mariupol is that we are still seeing videos of them hunting the bad guys. They still maintain enough freedom of movement to actually go after the invaders and are not just sitting there in the Azovstal facility completely on defense. That right there is a stark contrast in morale and fighting spirit compared to what we hear about the RA units around the front. Seems to be the norm for the UA forces but is more impressive given their situation and the constant hell of urban warfare for over 2 months. The Ukrainian soldiers are seriously amazing. If I ever needed my flank covered by another nation's troops they would be near the top of the list. The people of Ukraine have shown the world what greatness is.

I think the M113 and Leo1 options are very similar. You can't use a 1A5 like a 2A6 and you can't use a M113 like a M3. Neither are useless, they just need to be used wisely. A question for the artillery authorities. How best to employ the arriving arty? Should X number of brigades be refitted completely? Keeps the guns together, allows for concentration of fire and easier logistics. Spread them around in batteries for special applications? No concentration of fire but good capabilities over a very wide area, harder logistics. Or maybe form independent arty BN's to be assigned to regional support?

Yep and a few others including Steve have referenced it.

In reference to the not knowing they were going to war and thinking they were only on training ops etc, unless there is a huge difference (which is possible) I'd call bull***t. The only time we were issued live ammo, especially a full combat load is if you were expecting to go into harm's way. I doubt there is a "training" exercise anywhere involving 200,000 troops that are running around with real bullets. Range time, yep. CQB, yep. Field maneuvers, nope. We always knew real bullets meant real world. The 100% indicator that you are going in is when the morphine gets issued. So unless the RA just wanders around all the time with full combat loads for all their vehicles and people I'd say they had to know. There was never a doubt in our minds when things were training vs real.

Yes they do and apparently they work well!! But there was a lot of speculation when we were discussing them that they didn't have more than a handful. So maybe the Russian Navy thinks or knows that and if the AShM from UK isn't in place yet they might think they have a window of opportunity if they mass their fleet. Some very good points there Huba. I've never been to that region and was just looking at it on the UAWarmap not google earth. And I definitely wouldn't order it as I said, it makes no sense to me. Just gaming to see what their options are and what they might be up to. True, but several have been pulled out of the fight and not committed again yet. I'm sure they are shells of their former selves and not really combat effective but I don't see how that would stop Putin from sending them back into the grinder. I agree that their perception is very distorted compared to ours on their capability. Just provoking some thoughts. Right, I probably didn't articulate it properly (I ain't no good with english and grammar). I was referring to the area to the southwest of Odessa, not Odessa herself. I agree that would be even more foolish. They just started pushing towards Mykolaiv again out of Kherson so maybe this would be to divert forces from there to try to establish their land bridge?

Kyiv - I have to disagree. The only way that Kyiv could have been taken with the forces deployed is if it was a repeat of Kherson where the governor failed to train and arm the TD forces, made sure the regular forces were out of position on training maneuvers and opened the doors to the RA. The citizens of Kyiv were training for weeks ahead of time in the streets with small arms and making their own molotov cocktails. Several brigades would have fell back into the city as well to bolster the defenses. It is a huge city with lots of large stone and concrete buildings perfect for defense whether they are standing or in rubble. Mariupol is a small town compared to Kyiv and they still haven't managed to take all of it. I just don't think they had enough people even if that was the only place they attacked and brought everyone they had to the fight. Air superiority - The Capt had a good post awhile back about the difficulties of SEAD and DEAD. I'm not an air expert so I would hash it up if I tried to give a technical explanation, but basically it is a lot harder than it looks. Yes the US did this in it's campaigns but that is because they are the only ones that are truly efficient at it. They have whole squadrons of EW and SEAD as their primary missions and train for it constantly. I think The Capt said something to the effect of "Strapping an EW pod on one wing and a anti-radar missile on the other does not make a SEAD campaign happen". So the counter is that they don't have air superiority anywhere because they aren't capable of it. If they were they would have been grinding away for the past almost 8 weeks and they would be doing deeper strikes at logistics and such. But they aren't because they can't. Railroads and supply - I couldn't find hard numbers of how much per per soldier per day in modern mechanized formations is required, but let's say they need 100 lbs a day each on average. Have to figure fuel weight and ammo weight for the big guns drives the number up. Of course a light infantryman won't need that much but a cannon cocker will need more, so we can just use that for an average. The UA has approximately 200,000 troops. That's 20,000,000 lbs a day or 10,000 tons a day. Each rail car can haul 50-100 tons but we will go with 50. So that is 200 cars a day. That's 4 average trains a day, but we'll say they will need to go to multiple locations so we'll say 20 a day with varying number of cars depending on the units they are supplying and consumption rates, etc. 20 a day should be reasonably easy for them to manage. Destroying enough locomotives to where they can't find 20 a day to supply the forces defending the existence of their nation will be the hard part. Especially without air superiority, see above.