Livdoc44

Really courageous one by the way ! He is a medic if I remember rigth.

At this point I think NATO armies have more to learn from UKR veterans than they can teach them. 
I don't think there are officers in NATO ranks that have fought an actual peer to peer war. 
 

This is interesting comparision in itself, but it has its limits- of course modern Russia lacks balancing issues that were present in medieval times like influential, autonomic Church and heavily localized, basically independent elites (also a feature of late Romaioi).
Now, as far as I udnerstand chevauchees/rizza/reizy were highly destructive endevours, laying terrible waste to countryside. I more envisaged Wagner march to Moscow (note, it was usually called "March for Justice" or similar in Russian net) as something more resembling a strike or petition of disgruntled lower officials than true mutiny- such things happen, when there is no normal communciation between the top and people actually doing dirty work on the ground. A manifestation, to put the steam out of this boiling kettle. It may even have multiple beneficial effects in the end, of course looking from Kremlin perspective.
Yup, during night of Wagner march we instantly picked up an odd fact they have top AA, heavy assets with them. What is more interesting, there are rumours in the Russian net it were these soldiers (muscovite regulars joined with mercs) that didn't hesitate to shoot down the plane and possibly one of destroyed helicopters. This could put this "unlucky acident" in slithly different light than if some shadowy group of daredevil mercenaries did this. Kremlin tries to hush these rumours, as generally anything other connected to these events.  Very awkward situation.
 
Oh, you remember the Ukrainian soldier that was terrribly maimed whe jumped on mine? Reportedly he is doing ok and better:
 

I think blackmail in this context would have weak traction and I think the answers are both simpler and more complex than that. Putin still controls most messaging in Russia and can deal with mundane corruption claims. What Prigozhin has simply is the support of enough of the power structure in Russia that Putin is forced to deal with him. But it's complicated because that backing is often tacit or simply about holding back support for Putin if push comes to shove. What Putin learned, probably to his great surprise, is that a large portion of his regime is indifferent or hostile to him and needs only coalesce around a sufficiently effective locus of force to overthrow him. So at this point, everyone is trying to find out where the balance is...and if it can be tipped over.

Disgusting, absolutely appalling. Civilians used as forced labor in active war zones, used as human shields, touture, executions, it's just insane, and it's policy, as Putin has signed laws expanding detention centers in both Ukraine and Russia and the ability to deport people from Ukraine into Russia.
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-prisons-civilians-torture-detainees-88b4abf2efbf383272eed9378be13c72
 

So I made up the whole love story thing but it is starting to make more and more sense.  I mean what the hell else does Prig have on Putin?  The guy blew aircraft out of the air and marched on Moscow.  Who is on whose leash?!  That or maybe Prig has a sudden heart attack soon but he would have to be phenomenally dumb not to see it coming.  Seriously who is running Russia right now?

Oh, cool. The old stabbed-in-the-back/we-wuz-robbed mythology. That always works out well in the end.
Edit: which kind of raises an interesting thought experiment. He Who Shall Not Be Named(tm) arose out of abject anonymity to controlling (albeit briefly) most of Europe barely two decades later. I wonder if there's some corporal currently dodging cluster munitions in Luhansk that's destined to be running Russia by the end of the decade.

I actually suspect it was for one of them: Russia.  Russia’s reasons for starting this war are opaque but we do know they did not need any of Ukraine’s resources, the line of conspiracies (bio labs, or whatever John Kettler was going on about may he rest in peace) has dried up and if it was to shore up the Putin regime this is one helluva way to go about that.
I suspect this war had a large portion attributable to Russian need to push back on the West and western “encroachment”.  Along with basically declaring the global system of order no longer valid because if you are a revisionist state…you revise.  So for one party the root interest for this war does kinda seem to be centred on the West, Ukraine got caught in the middle in a lot of ways.  All war is communication and in many ways Ukraine was (and is) the medium, not the message itself.

Do not get me wrong - the discussion on this forum has been positively scholarly and gentile compared to other corners of the internet right now.  I think we have some leanings among the group, some stronger than others.  I do tend to want to ensure that any discussion around stuff like this be given the broadest treatment possible.  So for example if we are going to start doing maths, let's do all the maths.  If we are going to argue for human security issues, lets call spades, 'spades' and underline the inconsistencies.  You will remember that I was just as hard on the whole warcrimes discussions that hijacked us last year.
The "firmly against DPICM" has not occurred here, it occurred places like my own government.  I am just not a fan of it taking root here without being challenged anymore than the even more distasteful topics we have had to cover.  I am firmly in JonS's camp on "why dumb DPICM, when we have HE PGM?"  Further, I am also in the "PGM DPICM with a 100% (or at least comparable to dumb HE) dud rates" camp.  The issue is that context appears to have changed and we should change with it.  When I start to hear "DPICM bad no matter what because it makes baby Jesus (or certain Canadian political parties) cry", that would be when I start to push back and call out hypocrisy when I see it.  There are weapons that should (and are) universally outlawed - chemical, biological and nuclear/radiation are at the top of that list.  
Finally my own biases are showing when I hear from preachy political parties that basically did nothing to deter Russia from this war, even after 2014, beyond harsh language and finger waving.  "But now that Ukraine is using cluster munitions well we had better speak up!"  How about we worry less about which munitions are being employed in a war and work harder on stopping the wars before they start in the first place?  Perhaps that is my preachy windmill on a hill of sand to tilt at.

That’s what closed loop control systems look like right up until the moment they fail catastrophically, particularly if maintaining the control loop depends on an expendable resource, like fuel or mobiks.  Everything looks like it’s going to be ok, then the control propellant runs out and you pancake in the desert.
As has been pointed out many times both here and elsewhere, Ukraine has only committed a small fraction of their newly raised forces and have been steadily corroding the C2 and artillery resources of RU from a distance.  As Russia runs low on reserves, holes will develop and Russia will have to either let Ukraine break through or shuffle troops around, making new holes to exploit.

translation : Russia is clusterfk'd

and second best in Russia right?  

When I was in the Army DPICM was *just* being fielded in any significant numbers. The original idea for usage was to fire it at a target of opportunity - a mass of armor forming up to attack in front of you, but more likely a mass of armor/vehicles in the second echelon that was forming up to exploit or continue the advance, in order to halt that advance through lack of support. We didn't have unlimited supplies so it was planned to be used when it could be most effective, usually in a Time on Target, Battalion FFE.
Since we expected in Europe to be completely on the defensive as the Soviet Army advanced into West Germany, unexploded munitions were not really seen as an issue, since they would be the Soviet's problem, behind their lines. (of course the pie-in-the-sky projection was that all civilians would have evacuated west in advance of the Soviet Army, and we know that wouldn't be the case - not everyone anyway.)
In Ukraine with a more static, back and forth front line, this is much more of a concern, for obvious reasons.
Just a little background from the olden days 🙂
Dave

Not really. Those of us unwilling to log in to the Twitter can't read threads or view author feeds. We just see the first tweet.

Do you know what the biggest threat to Ukrainian civilians is? . . . Russians.

Interesting story, how near Kyiv during unexploded bomb removing and checking the ground around were found remains of eight Hawker "Hurricanes", which probably were deliberately scrapped by USSR after the war in order not to pay for Lend-Lease requirements for equipment, which remained intact. From the planes were removed all valuable equipmment and just its frames were towed to the ravine and burried by bulldozers. 
Now National Aviation Museum tries to excavate all remains for reassembling and putting to exposition at least one fighter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65955365?fbclid=IwAR3dbUNjkOAfpuFc2RploevCWTRtInA2Sc_ZT2FNqBd6OK0xMFq0Se0Rl-0
 

Yes! It’s happening!
 

The awesome thing is I got to talk to the devs on the discord latenight one night and almost noone was there.  I mean most of this is known anyways but I confirmed some stuff
Crew will be modelled, not interiors.  The T80 will appear. ERA is iffy, prolly not, Other theaters are planned.  Infantry is definite, the level is unsure.  Air support is obviously planned.  They wouldnt divulge anything about when my beloved (the t64) let alone the hammerhead, leo 1 and bmp2 (thats gonna be a big deal) will arrive.   Same story with when soviet and german voices will come, the voice acting for the US is *amazing* so Im pumped
The campaign is going to blow your mind.  They got BIGGG Plans, logistics, lots of maps, battle types like now PACT attacks use nato formations numbers wise. If you play 'silver dart' you see a more realistic scenario - 2 m1s vs like 16 t72s and a couple atgms.   in the futre PACT attacks will reflect the different doctrine and numbers.
smoke dischargers are 100% gonna be in game
you know you can play the t34 right? you gotta (and u can win) take losses as e germany but dont lose. take A LOT of losses but dont lose. the campaign u can lose battlles.  theres a CHANCE if yourun low enuff on vehicles that you will be issued T34s.  ive seen proof but hasnt happened yet
if you olay the original training range (without preview vehicles) and make sure to shoot every target on thr range theres an easter egg
Uh what else.... MP is gonna be mind blowing.  I mean I paid for the steam version but I was playing this for 6 months for 5 bucks man. The team, their live streams their demeanor, they got the right vibe.  TBH they didnt have streams and **** in 1999, IDK what steve and co sound like, but I really get the BFC back in 1999 vibe from these guys.
Like Id put 50 bucks on this game becoming an instant classic when its released.
BTW can you believe that these clowns online were arguing to me (on tankograd) that 3bm15 was superior to m833?
Oh and apparently GHPC is  NATO propaganda. I said look its extremely EA. your literally judging a book by reading half of chapter 3 and thats it.  I also pointed out the Soviets arent even in yet. Anyways idk if theyre tankies or what but after I worked a goddamn 9 hour shift came home, saw I accidentally didnt leave the discord and some Brit fellow said 'i dont think hes here anymore' then the rest of the server dogpiled that and basically said  I was lurking and I was there and all this weird insulting ****.  Like my god, dude if u guys think Im lurking on discord bc Im mad like what kind of lives are these ppl living? who has the time for that ****?

Some words about survivability of modern western armor. 
Other words of soldier of 47th mech.brigade: "If we didn't have it [western armor], our brigade would no longer exist"
47th brigade has most unpleasant and hard work - to gnaw through most dense defense lines, attracting the enemy on itself. Yes, they lost destroyed and damaged already many vehicles, but this brigade moves steady tree-liine for tree-line through totally mined fields and enemy artillery fire. Any other brigade on Soviet BMPs or even on M113 already would be lost own offensive capabilities. 
 

While I generally agree, the nature of this fight is existential. A lot of things have to be put to the side unfortunately.  Reality trumps what may have been desired. I am sure the UA would prefer not to mine their own country, but considering how many Russia is dumping, that earlier figure of them clearing 10x as many as they laid is likely going to be a low ball for the reality facing Ukraine. 

The soldier, who dug up his comrade says him at the end: "Now you will have callsign "Mole" %)

As pressure-type AP mines Russians widely uses PFM "petal" mines, which set remotely and can have time of life before self-destruction in 1-40 hours (PFM-1S) or w/o self-destruction (PFM-1). This mine has 40 g of HE with pressure reaction in 5-25 kg. Explosion of this mine usually caused hevay inguries of the feet, often with tearimg off whole feet or it part. 

But that what we could see on video it were likely PMN types (PMN-1/2/3/4). Unlike PFMs, which lays on surface, PMN can be set manually under surface. It has plastic case, so usual metal detector is useless. 
PMN-1 has 200 g of HE and 8-25 kg of reaction, PMN-2 - 100 g and 15-25 kg (increasing resilience against explosive demining), PMN -3 is later modification of PMN-2 with self-destruction up to 8 days and electronic detonator, which makes this mine much more stable to explosive demaining. Newest PMN-4 has 50 g of HE.
PMN-2 mine

PMN4 mine

PMN mines, especially PMN-1 causes tearing off the leg or both legs up to knees, what we could see on video.
PMN mines also have a name "black widow" and black humor PMN abbriveation decoding "Bring My Legs"

The idea of dropping munitions from planes to clear minefields was always a nonstarter in the past, for a number of reasons. As a new combat engineer private in the US army I remember watching a video (VHS I think) of Iraqi positions before deploying and the DoD wanted recommendations on how to breach them. Afterward I told the lieutenant we should just do a B-52 strike to clear a path. He didn't respond. The airstrikes were always too inaccurate and the ground could be impassible to vehicles.
There are two different ideas here that should be clarified: breaching a minefield and clearing a minefield. Frankly both are scary.
The explosives in mines is very stable, and the fuse is the key to setting it off. (when fatigued and stupid we would toss explosives around in really unsafe ways, but here I still am) So to actually clear a mine explosive needs to be placed directly on/next to it or it needs to be physically removed. Both of these require the mine to have been discovered by the persons doing the clearing. And then you have to be in the minefield doing stuff like, pop and drops, ring mains and line mains.
To breach the minefield the mines simply need to be moved out of the way. This is where MICLICs and bangalore torpedoes come in, vehicles with plows, and maybe airstrikes if they can be precise and not destroy the ground rendering movement impossible. They are expected to blow the mines out of the way, and if they detonate them that's good. But not expected. So napalm could work if it was hot enough to ignite the fuses. Otherwise it would be very poor as it would not push the mines out of the way.
I appreciate these discussions about the more modern state of mines and mine clearing, especially drones. My heart breaks to see the density of the minefields that are being laid. This will takes many years to clear and the cost to the locals will likely be extraordinary. Perhaps more and better automated mine clearing is the key, I feel like we have neglected this like many things as we thought these wars were a thing of the past.

Not that anyone had any doubts, but it is good to hear that russia spoke it out in front of the world. Wagner is the state terror organization of russia. So all atrocities of Wagner are atrocities committed by the russian state.
 
 

Even weirder?
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66023631
 
I took some time to look better at the available footage of the "mutiny" to check if I really saw what I thought I saw.
Compared to every other uprising, coup, mutiny and/or civil unrest I read about, saw pictures or camera-footage of, or heard witnesses/participants talk about, the Wagner-advance seemed to show a remarkable lack of stress, chaos and apprehension.
To me this whole thing looked more like an ADHDfilled teenager-schooltrip, than an "everyone's future and lives are very much at stake" high-stress occurence.
Prigozjin is looking remarkable relaxed throughout, which is quite a change from his earlier recent appearances. He is laying his life on the line, not only because of the "failure means death"-probabilty, but if there would be any resistance against this mutiny, he would be the prime target. But he, and his entourage, are all the time behaving like it is a walk in the park.
And look at the way most of the troops behave. Do they act like they expect enemy fire? Are they using every bit of cover while advancing? Are they nervously looking out for snipers or armor? Does it look like they expect any resistance at all? No, they go for coffee and food, sit very relaxed on parkbenches and cafe-terraces, stroll as if they know there will be no resistance. Very strange, especially when you realise that a lot of those soldiers recently were in combat at heavily contested frontlines, which tends to make anyone pretty anxious and alert in an urban situation where enemy fire can be expected any minute.
 
Every other coup or mutiny (etc) had camera-footage and reports that show chaos, excitement and confusion. People being very nervous/agitated. Adjutants, security-guys, messengers and officers, all running around and looking around and gesticulating and a lot of yelling and shouting going on. A continuous reporting and updating of enemy positions, resistance-levels, progression of advancing friendly units, news from the rest of the country, and so on.
I did not see that on a level that I would expect in a "mutiny" that was so sudden, so big and so powerful as this one. Not at all. While the possible, or likely, enemy force could be enormous.
Even when things were unfolding it almost looked to me as if, at least a big part of, the mutineers knew, or at least suspected, that there would be no real resistance.
Maybe they had perfect intel? Maybe it was Wagner self-confidence? Trusting in being lucky? Or, very possible, is my comparison with other mutinies and uprisings wrong?
I don't know what happend, but the fact that even 'Steve" and "TheCAPT" were uniquely shocked, proofs to me that this was one of the weirdest mutinies, and mutiny-endings, EVER.