Maciej Zwolinski

That assessment assumes that the Russian's one BTR was actually trying to assault Berdychi and needed to cross the entire length of the Sadowa street to Centralna street (BTW Polish names on the map are very helpful) to debus on top of Ukrainian positions. I on the other hand assume that the single BTR was recce'ing (bcause it was single) and the Russians would actually do a better job at that infiltrating on foot e.g. along the trees of Sadowa or even going just through the fields, getting some MGs to unmask as per your example, and calling artillery on their positions.

On the Ukrainian side, they were not necessary. Bradley was shooting up the BTR first, then the soldiers hiding behind it. Even the bombing by the drone was superfluous - in a couple of minutes the Brad would have chewed up the Russians anyway

Why did they even attempt this death ride in a BTR of all things? Particularly In the absence of UKR artillery they would be better off scouting on foot

They are not emaciated, and they should not be. Poland was willing to transfer a very significant part of our military equipment, accept a huge number of refugees, pay for Starlink terminals, act as one of the most active diplomatic supporters of the Ukraine, etc. We even took an Ukrainian SAM which killed 2 Poles and desperately tried to pretend it was Russian missile until we could not pretend anymore. But why gut a significant part of agricultural industry? That is unnecessary and a step too far. Especially since - as far as we know - in the Ukraine the grain export is a business of equally not emaciated and well nutritioned oligarchs and multinationals, who would like to make a better margin through cutting transportation costs and dumping the goods immediately after crossing the border. That is not a very appealing cause.

Isn't it rather an indication that the Ukrainian claims have been significantly overstated? I can't imagine Russians going on as if nothing happened if they lost 13 SU-34/35 per week. That is ca. 10% of their entire fleet of those aircraft. I am inclined to think that the Russians only lost those 2 planes whose crash has been confirmed by photos.

Rusi report talks about a 10-day plan for invasion https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-conventional-warfighting-russias-invasion-ukraine-february-july-2022

Seems accurate. Translating dolboyebism is a complex task. You need to include several steps First, Dolboyebism - the suffix "-ism" suggests that this is a word denoting things related to another word, in this context it would probably mean "something that a dolbayeb would do" (a hypothesis confirmed by meaningful conclusion of step 2). Second, "dolbayeb" is a compound word, where two parts may be distinguished: "do lba" (to the head) and "yeb". Given that we are dealing with a swear word, it may be safely assumed that "yeb" pertains to "yebat", to have sex (rude). Thus we arrive at "dolbayeb" - man, with whose head someone had sex (presumably damaging it in the process) - and "dolbayebism" - "a thing so stupid, that it could be done by a man, with whose head someone had sex, damaging it in the process". On the Internet I found someone's translation of "dolbayeb" as "****head", which I like as it is both correct as to the meaning and the closest ethymologically. Dolboyebism thus could be translated as "****headery" or "****headism".

It sounds like another regurgitation of the well publicised story of the withdrawal from the Zenit position, where a company of 110th Bde retreated in some chaos, incurred casualties and had to leave 6 wounded, whom Russian subsequently shot after surrendering

That is assumed. F-16's radar is not particularly impressive. It is a fairly robust assumption they will not get either. AIM 120D is the newest one in US use, IIRC. The US have never released their latest stuff to the Ukraine. Meteor is AFAIK not integrated with F-16 at all. At least I have never seen it fly with one. Yes, but you have to do it prior to bomb release - at some point between the AMRAAM max range and 50km release point. The question is what is AMRAAM's practical max range when it is fired in such position,

Mr Murz, he dead

I think you discount the completely mistaken posture of Russian army during the first days of the invasion. They tried to conquer Ukraine in columns of march allowing themselves to be encircled and attacked from all sides. That way they debilitated their force to the extent completely nullifying their nominal force superiority.By March 2022, their northern pincer almost got annihilated West and North-East of Kiev. They were at their weakest in March 2022 and from that date, the Russians gradually improve. I do not think that Ukrainian air superiority is ever going to happen. The countries supplying UKR with F-16 are not even trying to suggest that. They won't have the numbers, and the F-16 AFAIK are intended to replace the current fleet of Mig-29 and Su-25 in their defensive and limited close air support tasks, as the former Soviet aircraft have reached and exceeded the end of their technical usability.

Apparently Murz and his friends do not share the view there are only weak fortifications behind Avdieyevka. In Polish military twitter this has been a common opinion, that there are and that ZSU should have started making field fortifications all across the front at the latest in the late summer of 2023 and are now behind the curve.

Tissues are bourgeois inventions, comrade. Since the last 5-year plan all tissue and toilet paper factories have been retooled to make sandpaper. And better make a good stock of it while it lasts, comrade. Next year they are all switching to coarser grain. PS. True story from actual experience of living under "real socialism". Two things they could never produce in sufficient numbers was toilet paper and rope for baling hay.

Come on, he posted an interesting quote which happened to be said by George Patton and not celebration of George Patton. Is Patton now cancelled to the effect that all his quotes are thoughtcrime? I did not get the latest memo from the Ministry of Truth, apologies.

You spelt Constantinople wrong:) I do not think that there has yet been the opportunity for Istanbul to fall, the name is in official use for less than 100 yrs.

That is very bad news.

It is a very good comparison, in that it shows that there may be different wargoals for different participants. To crudely simplify that very complex topic: UK and France wargoals included lengthy mobilisation and then defeating III Reich via a combination of blockade, strategic bombardment and positional warfare. They assumed that Poland can well be defeated in the meantime, and intended to fulfill the alliance by reinstating Poland after the final Anglo-French victory. Poles were not officially told that, though. Some Polish officers and politicians understood that just from their own analysis of the situation. But most people waited for the French to start their relief offensive after the first week of the war, and the actual expectation was that we will hold the Germans at worst at the Vistula before the French destroy the Wehrmacht from behind . Official position of the Ukraine being full return to legitimate borders, my hunch is that their minimum win condition is to reinstate the pre-2022 border in the south while retaining freedom to join Nato and EU. An armistice line in Donetsk and Lugansk changed in Russian's favour could probably be accepted after much wringing of hands. Now it is a moonscape anyway. On the other hand, some nations supporting Ukraine can have entirely different perspective on what constitutes a win. No nuclear exchange and Ukraine avoiding total subjugation, possibly.

This time the aircraft seems to be hit much to the south of Avdieyevka, so either the attack is unrelated to the battle, or the Ukrainians managed to find an approach route from Avdieyevka to e.g. one of the Crimean airports and set the ambush somewhere further on the way. I hope the reports on the Ukrainian SAM ambush on consecutive days mean that they finally dedicated one of the Patriot units as a roving battery and we will be hearing about it more often. This will sound callous, but their military utility when guarding civilians in Kiev or Odessa was limited, whereas trying to make glide bombing risky for Russians is extremely important at this moment. Even in light of the huge risk the Patriots would be located and attacked.

Alas, to late to help the defenders of Avdieyevka

That is likely. Precision artillery rounds are more resistant to countermeasures so they may still be needed for specialist purposes against particularly hard or valuable targets. But they can be purchased in lower number.

Costs down, weight of explosive material up. Tube artillery in this war resembles a forge with thousands of very myopic but very strong smiths constantly hammering away all around them. It is best used on the offence to batter down fortifications and buildings, and on the defence, to set up fire concentrations on the attacking units and barrages in front of them so that they cannot go forward. You need to be able to deliver via drones the HE equivalent of, say, 5000 155mm rounds per day without bankrupting yourself to think about replacing tube artillery in this war.

I am hoping for that as well, but I am not sure how this could happen. Russian glide bombs are tossed from the distance of 50 km to front line on the Russian side. AFAIK Su 34 (and as of late also Su 24 unfortunately) approach high and fast from a direction roughly perpendicular to the frontline and at the furthest possible distance, they make the toss - pull up and release the bomb. Then they immediately reverse direction and head for home. Apart from the height and distance being higher, the technique is roughly similar to Russian helicopters tossing unguided rockets. This means, that in order to counter those attacks Ukrainian aircraft would have to be able to reliably shoot down Su 34 and Su 24 on their approach flight to the bomb release point (say 70 km behind the front on the Russian side?). Assuming the Ukrainian aircraft are F-16 with AIM 120 C they theoretically could do it, the missiles having a 100 km. range. However, F-16 would be fighting from big positional disadvantage. In order to hide from RUS SAMs and air-to-air patrols, the F-16s would probably be approaching very low. Therefore, once they release the missiles they would be firing from low up, at targets first fast approaching and then fast egressing, close to the far end of AMRAAM maximum range, from the frontal aspect of the target and then in a stern chase. Would this scenario still yield a significant enough probability of kill? I do not know, but there are a lot of factors decreasing it compared to the theoretical optimum. While doing this, Russian air to air patrols are a non-trivial risk factor, even now from time to time they account for Ukrainian aircraft with the R 37s. Also, while trying to hit Russians 70 km on the other side of the front, the Ukrainian F16 would have to pop up in Russian SAM envelope. In light of those risks, I do not think Ukrainians would be willing to risk their few precious F-16 if the probability of killing the glide bomb carriers is low. So I am afraid that your scenario might not happen in real life. But maybe I am wrong somewhere in this reasoning, or the Ukrainians surprise me with something. Hopefully they will.

Do you refer to any existing APS or write in an abstract way (that it would be good if someone developed an APS with such capability in the future?)? Also, does the Ukraine actually use any APS now?

That is quite a typical dynamic. Since WWI the tactic of vacating the first line in case of heavy bombardement has been used (although more often in connection with artillery bombardment than air). And the classic attacker's response to this is infiltration.

Re. inhumanity of that strategy - note it bears a strong resemblance to how Wagner would advance its convict units and everybody thought this was only possible because nobody cared about the convicts. Now ordinary Russian military units are using the same strategy, with the same insane risks to the individual infantrymen.