Livdoc44

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

I just wanted to take a moment to back up to the Challenger 2 discussion from Saturday, since there were a couple points I wanted to make.
The rifled gun does not make it more accurate. Modern tank rounds are fin stabilized, so they don't need to be spin stabilized. In fact, for wonky physics reasons that I don't fully understand, spinning apparently has a destabilizing effect on long rod projectiles (well, some spin still helps to stabilize it, but more than a tiny amount of spin will start destabilizing it again), which is why APFDSD rounds fired from rifled guns are actually designed to counteract the spinning. So the Challenger 2 isn't more accurate than any other modern western tank (in fact I believe it's actually less accurate than other western MBTs, though with a modern digital fire control system it's still pin-point accurate by Cold War standards). But it's easy enough to believe that it's more accurate than the T-64BVs, T-72Ms, and T-80BVs that most Ukrainian tankers would have had experience with before it arrived. The rifling also reduces the performance of kinetic energy rounds in penetrating armor relative to a smoothbore gun of the same size, though the Challenger 2 can still probably punch hard enough to deal with most Russian tanks easily enough.
The real advantage of the rifled gun is that it makes it possible to fire HESH effectively. Which is why it's puzzling that the Ukrainians apparently aren't receiving HESH ammunition. A Challenger 2 without HESH seems to be missing the point. Retaining a rifled gun into the modern day was a serious design compromise that the British army made specifically because they believed HESH was worth it. HESH (while not effective against modern MBTs) is a fantastic anti-personnel, anti-bunker, and anti-light vehicle round.

He says about this, literally "It's unlike our tanks with HE shells for infantry, no, these [Challengers] tanks were designed to fight Soviet tanks, not infantry, against infantry there are other infantry and artillery"
I think, maybe HE/HESH ammo for UKR Challengers are limited, so they use to hunt armor.

M-ATV  Oshkosh has protected crew from 12,7 mm bullets and fragments of 152 mm shell. Armored car will go to repair. Khorn group, 116th mech.brigade.
 

One possible explanation is that is the only "safe" way citizens can get out their frustrations with the war. Yelling at one solider who is now a civilian is a lot safer than joining a protest march.
 
Yeah, thankfully more people seem to have learned that the political decisions about going to and conducting the war are not being made by the people who fight them. I'm glad we have done better at that recently.

Let's not forget the stories of how Russian soldiers coming home from Ukraine are treated. From what I've read it's worse than how US vets were treated during the Viet Nam era. On the other hand US vets returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan were judging from my own experience, were treated very well, regardless of people's opinions on the wars themselves.

Damn, next aviation crash. Two Mi-8 helicopters of 18th army avaiation brigade have fallen down by unknown reason near Kramatorsk, Donetsk oblast. Six men - two crews, are lost. Investgation is opened. It could be collision, diversion or using of extreme long-range (300 km) R-37M missiles, having 300 km of range  - there were several incidents, when our jets and helicopters were shot down with this missiles from Russian territory. R-37M can be launched from MiG-31BM and Su-35

Might as well start trying to assess their performance right now. The post-war information space is still going to be very muddy, just for different reasons. You still have well informed people disagreeing about how this or that platform performed in WW2. History is a complicated and difficult business, and it never gets easier. We get better informed about historical events as time passes because historians have been putting in the hard work of figuring out what happened for longer, not because the sources became more reliable. There's no harm in starting that hard work now.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, while on a visit in France, told a story, how small group of 31 fighters maintained success in Robotyne, after weeks of unsuccessful assaults

...One Ukrainian unit had been conducting continuous assaults in this area of the front, and due to exhaustion and losses, at some point, this unit lost the ability to continue the offensive. And then "radical decisions" were made: the unit's leadership was changed.
New commander asked to assemble soldiers who were motivated and ready to perform combat missions. A combined group of 31 soldiers was created, a third of whom had no combat experience, but all of whom had the knowledge and will to win.
Thanks to the leadership of the commanders and sergeants, this group established "horizontal links" with neighbouring units and started working on the contact line. For 18 hours, they crawled literally on their stomachs through kilometres of minefields, where the Russians had placed six mines per square metre.
Finally, the unit reached a strip of trees dividing farmers' fields. Everyone in Ukraine knows this word - "posadka" ("tree-plant, tree-line"). It’s in these plantations, invisible on maps, that the greatest tragedies and heroism of the war take place. So, our unit drove the Russians out of there and held the position for two days until reinforcements arrived. Subsequently, this group walked another 10 kilometres with backpacks weighing 35-40 kilograms through minefields. They only had time to catch their breath briefly and immediately stormed the fortified Russian positions, drove the enemy out and held out until the main forces arrived.
In total, this unit conducted six assaults and two reconnaissance missions in 40 days. A group of 31 men did the work of an entire battalion, which should have consisted of about 400 men. The losses amounted to seven wounded, including only one seriously injured after stepping on a mine.
In fact, the work of this group made it possible for an entire brigade to attack Robotyne and liberate it after weeks of assaults.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/08/30/7417687/

A testament to the quality of this thread:
it took 2814 pages before the subject of racism popped up. That must be a worldrecord for any thread on any forum these days.

Video of interception of Russian Orlan UAV by MiG-29 with AA missile. The pilot of this jet was Andriy Pil'shchikov ("Juice"). He was buried today. He had a rank of captain and had been flying on MiG-29 since 2016. Since Feb 24 he had about 500 hours of combat flights. 
 

One thing I could add to this. That 10% may (or will) force the leadership to propose a vote to cease aid to Ukraine, but it will not pass either the House or Senate, based on current feelings among Representatives and Senators. There currently are more than enough to support aid to Ukraine, with supporters coming from both parties. That could also lead the 10% to force a leadership battle, even though they did what the 10% wanted, but it failed (the reasoning being the leadership cannot lead).
Democracy can be very messy 🙂
Dave 

Well at least not yet.  The key advantage of remote unmanned is the lack of danger for the operator.  Doing stuff up close and personal turns every German tank into a Tiger and every 20 bad guys into a Division.  You definitely need to get up close and personal to take prisoners, take physical intel/SSE and get the human sense of what is going on at ground level. However, as we have seen in this war, everyone is leading with unmanned to give an objective birds eye and then sends in close recon - hopefully after arty has killed a bunch of enemy caught by UAS.
Finally, UAS are just one component of a massive ISR architecture at play in Ukraine right now.  From boots and eyeballs in the dirt to space.  Focusing on a single capability as the "reason" for anything is the hallmark of someone who really does not understand the business.  Like you say could very well be taken out of context.

UKR army is now acomplishing tasks and overcoming such obstacles and resistance level, which no army in the world have been encoutering since WWII or Korea. But even during these wars Allies had at least parity in air and in that times there were no drones, long-range guided weapons, EW and other stuff which make these tasks more complicated. But we hadn't variants except to gnau their defense tree-line for tree-line.
A videocollage about fighting for Robotyne
 

This is where the “it will be fine camp” are sucking and blowing at the same time.  “All the bad people will leave back to Russia, the locals will do nothing but we will need to hunt down collaborators before they try to get us killed again”.
I do not disagree with you or Haiduk in the least.  The stakes here are very high.  Collaborators can become the skeleton of an insurgency and they will try and kill you.  The problem is finding them without alienating or pushing larger groups of the population into a situation where they see violence as the only way out.  It takes precision. These situations always go badly. Neighbours snitch before they can be snitched on.  People get mis-identified.  People take the law into their own hands. All of that can turn very ugly very quickly.  
This will take a masterful steady hand and an intelligence architecture for the ages.  It may take outside the box thinking like amnesty for low low level offenders to catch the big fish.  Or accepting a few big fish to get the rest.
 

You realize that a few pages back people here were calling for your deportation in the event of a liberation?  This is the mess.  You clearly are not a pro-Russian sympathizer but in the wrong circumstances unless you can prove Ukrainian citizenship and loyalty you could be on a boat out based on some of the rhetoric being thrown around here. The cause emerges out of situations just like this.
Anyway as I said before let’s honestly hope it does not come to this.  Hopefully people will be integrated smoothly and embrace peace.  It is when the honeymoon period ends that things may get weird.  For the record I am talking insurgency here, not partisan resistance during the war.  That I strongly suspect is off the table.  I am talking 6 months to a year after the war and something does not go right and Russia is still able to make trouble…because they will if they can.
And in all sincerity, take care of yourself.

Re: possible insurgency
1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
 
Re: how am I doing?
My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.

Air Forces Commander told two L-39 trainer jets have collided. Three pilots have lost. 
Here first time photo of "Juice" with full-open face. His name was Andriy Pil'shchikov.
 

I agree with Haiduk and Steve that there won't be any pro-russian insurgency in Crimea in case of UKR troops going in hot. But, yes, it is going to be hard to govern, for sure. Something good to look forward to anyway. 
It is quite hard to predict how the events will unfold exactly from now on. That raid was definitely fun though, even if only symbolical.

Not so fast. Our TGs write UKR command of advancing brigades concerned with such rapid withdrawal of Russians - this can be a trap with flank strikes and artillery hammering of narrow front from all sides, so UKR troops should to expand own flanks enough in order to not to be cut off and encirlced. I notice, in Novoprokopivka in front of our troops already not Territorial troops mobiks and tired units of 42nd MRD, but fresh VDV units - 108th regimemt and two battalions of 56th regiment of 7th air-assault division. This is serious opponent. 
Western partners say to us "Go, go, go! Winter is coming". I wish to our generals big patience and don't command to our troops in own turn "go, go, go!" like in June...

That's Part 3 up and live.

Also Chekalov, chief of Wagner "counterintelligence". Too many eggs in one basket; if they all travelled together, Prig must have been very sure of himself and his guarantees. Curious if his recent presence at conference with Africans wasn't designed specifically to lure him into more confidence.

Plus sight of this landscape never cease to amaze when viewed from the top.

Ukrainian manpower has been at “a breaking point” for about 18 months now.  Do we have any actual evidence of the state of Ukraine force generation, or are we seeing doom and gloom?
The obstacle dynamic is interesting.  Minefields are supposed to be useless unless “covered”.  What appears to have changed is what it takes to “cover” a given obstacle.  It used to be dug in troop organizations, now it is UAS and ATGMs linked to artillery.  So the bill for effective coverage has gone down significantly.
This is all starting to add up to the blindingly obvious - this is not a shift to Defence Primacy, it is a shift to Denial Primacy.  We have been seeing denial in the air and on land (now projected onto the sea).  Denial effectively raises the cost of action to a level that is unsustainable.  One does not “hold ground” one simply makes the cost per foot too high.  We appear to be entering into an age of denial.  Closely linked to corrosive warfare concepts as Denial essentially is very expensive friction, the question remains whether or not the UA can overcome and project its own level of friction back onto the RA at a rate higher than the RA can sustain.
It has been a summer of slow grinding and not many signs of success but remember the metrics are not territory as much as they are systemic erosion.  Which side is eroding faster?  I do not know if the UA can reach a tipping point that leads to major advances.  We have until about Nov and then the whole thing will peeter out, if last Fall is an indication.  If the UA cannot achieve a major breakout by then, well there will have to be some difficult conversations I expect.

Russian sources wrote, this morning "after intensive artilery strikes UKR troops launched next mass offensive on Rabotino"... ehmm... with FOUR Strikers (yes, really mass). But attack was repelled and "our helicopters now hunting on enemy, lurking in trees"
As a result of this hunting - 47th brigade shot down Ka-52 with MANPAD (I've seen claims it was Robot 70, but it's can be verified). Russian Fighterbomber TG confirmed this loss simultainously with issuing of photo by 47th brigade, but he rejected that Ukraine troops shot down second Ka-52 on Bakhmut direction also this morning as claimed UKR General Staff. Pilot of sowned Ka-52 ejected, the navigator has died. 

Moment of Ka-52 hit
UKR TG tells about fight in Robotyne:
The battle is continuing in Robotyne. The meat grinder not easier than in Klishchiivka. Most of Russian units, that are sent in assaults have been loosing up to 40 % of personnel for a battle, so Russians have been throwing each time new "not local" infantry. 
We also have hard situation. "Pidors" have strongpoint behind the village from whic they perfectly can look over terrain  [the location between Robotyne and Novoprokopivka village next to south is highest point],  so the they have good opportunity for ATGMing of our vehicles
From both sides all the time heavy artilery and aviation have been working. Russians drop bombs on Orikhiv 
Some videos from RIbotyne area:
Next UKR Bradley after direct hit of Russian tank (as claimed cameraman). ERA blocks looks like saved vehicle and it can be repaired
 
Bradley delivered wounded soldiers after next attack