Livdoc44

"I reconstructed and geolocated the route and losses of one of the two columns of the 47th mechanized brigade. Of course, I also used the work of other OSINT people, but many of the given locations were inaccurate and the place of the destruction of M2 and L2A6 was wrong. Freeze frames from movies added to the orientation of what was where.
This column had a difficult fate: it was surrounded by drone-corrected artillery 3x, it defeated 2 groups of mines, and finally, while overcoming the second one, it fell under the fire of Ka-52's Wihr ATGMs and ATGMs as well as artillery. Really KUDOS to the soldiers of this battalion because they went through hell that day.
P.S. location and slides from the second (west) column will be uploaded later. This is the one whose end was supposedly photoshopped."



Going 7 kilometers under drone-corrected artillery through two minefields and then getting waked by Ka-52s
source: https://twitter.com/wolski_jaros/status/1668251143552606214
 
 

Ok, well things are getting clearer.  Retreating Bradley’s are extracting.  One flies by, second one clearly hit a land mine.  Troops de-bus, no panic the take cover while the gun camera Bradley provides covering fire (ballsy not to simply bail).  Everyone starts popping smoke and troops jump on Bradley to get out of there.
First point shows why it is a bad idea to try to drive back out.  Always push, if you get hit at least you have cleared as far as you got. But I suspect things had gone so wrong they abandoned the mission.  Second troops were controlled and did the right thing post mine strike. Third, no RA artillery. Now I am sure they were very concerned it was going to start dropping but that minefield is not being effectively covered.  Those two videos are four minutes, RA mortars should at least be hammering them - and we are glad they weren’t but that is poor cover of an obstacle.
Lastly, no idea what they were shooting at but obviously in treeline in direction of gun and popped smoke.  So best guess, a recon in force got hit by ATGM from a treeline.  Likely lost breaching vehicles.   At least two Bradleys tried to drive back out (bad) other may have been hit coming or going.  Hit more mines because they were in a Devils OODA loop but that gun Bradley looks like it kept it head and got those troops out because we don’t see a lot of bodies in the Russian videos.  
So bad day in a minefield, looks like most of the troops out alive, so they live to fight again and have proven recon is a dangerous job.  RA still have tank hunting teams and their arty support is questionable (at least in this area).  Hardly a disaster, some AAR points but no need to start calling the Kremlin to discuss terms yet.

LOL the Russians should be masters of this science!

I once read a government paper on US vehicle damage from mines/IEDs in Iraq. The number of damaged vehicles, including Bradleys and Abrams, was HUGE. Some vehicles went back for repairs/rebuilds five times over. That's just the nature of modern warfare. And that was why MRAP was invented. The assumption was you will eventually run over a mine. Might as well make a vehicle that the passengers will survive the blast and the sheered-off suspension pieces can be swapped out.

10 out of 109 M2 Bradley's, according to Oryx. Still a decent chunk. I definitely think we should have sent more.
I don't like seeing these tactical level losses. But I'm pleased with the amount of ground the Ukrainians appear to be buying with those losses so far. It's early days still, and obviously there has been no dramatic breakthrough yet. But I'm feeling optimistic about the offensive.
Besides, as my recent battles in CMBS have reminded me, even when you are grinding out the enemy at a rate of 2:1 in your favor it still feels like you are taking very heavy losses. And those losses are never evenly distributed across time and space either. You get periods of smooth sailing intermixed with isolated disasters. A stretch of time with no casualties brought to a sudden end with the catastrophic loss of an entire platoon mounted in their IFVs, for example (happened to me recently, but I still won with a favorable loss ratio). For all we know the Ukrainians are still inflicting disproportionate casualties on the Russians.

If I translate the recent Ukrainian losses to my CM Black Sea-experiences:
I am a below-average skilled player. But even if I had to play let's say Bill Hardenberger (undoubtedly one of the best, methodical and clever players I saw during AAR's), than I still would be able to kill a number of his Bradleys and Abrams.
Every army, even the most victorious, takes losses.
There is way too much focus on this initial Ukraine-"attack mishap", because - and yes that is very cruel - it is relatively insignificant in the big overall scheme.

The losses are concerning, but a lot of this Ukraine counter-attack force is green and they are still learning, mistakes are going to be made. I would only start to really get concerned if this trend continues.. but I have faith that they are smart enough to make the adjustments required in order to succeed.
This is a very small part of the entire force in action and is in a very concentrated area... I would suggest standing by and letting things play out; I suspect a lot of good news is going to come our way very soon.

Already repaired. Crewman says on second video "I've changed rolls, it's not BMW of course, but... it's fu..g fine"
 

Well that is what a minefield breaching operation going very wrong looks like.  
Before everyone freaks out the vehicles that kept pushing are supposed to do that.  Backing out is just asking to die and impossible to do in column, he saw the RA prove this over and over again.  If your breaching vehicle takes a hit - and that appears to be the Leo, you keep pushing even if it means taking casualties.  We would do the exact same thing.  I mean what are the options?  Stop, wait for help or talk things over while the enemy kills you inside a minefield?  Back out along the one cleared path…while the enemy kills you in a minefield?  Nope you push.  Difference between the UA and the RA is that the Leo has a mine plow on the front (which is odd, that is the deep end of clearance, they should be sticking with rollers).  The RA was just straight pushing.
What is interesting is again the lack of any real RA artillery.  No big craters or impact marks.  Vehicles look like they took mobility hits (except that one) and the crews bailed and ran.  When we do these ops each Combat Team would do two breaches and accept that one is going to die.  This is the video from the failed one.
We said this from the start - western kit does not come with magic wizard shields that allow them to float above the ground and drive their enemies before them.  They blow up just the same as Russian kit.  We were always going to see this, and we will likely see more.  Russian info sphere is going to push out any and all of these that it can.  So buckle in and put your helmets on.

Don't mistake what Simonyan is doing. She is as plugged in as it is possible to be with Putin's circle and clearly that circle has decided that with the offensive that's starting and the resources Russia has to stop it a status quo result would be a pretty good outcome for Russia. Her job is to make that outcome seem reasonable in the domestic Russian propaganda space. Thus, the trial balloon.

No Kontakt

Well, one thing I was going to expand on was my comment about RBMK reactor designs being as they were partly (or maybe mostly) to be used not only for power but for weapons material. I started to but then stopped.
RBMKs have low U enrichment, easy access to swap out fuel, and therefore fuel is removed for reprocessing after short burn-up time. All of these things are necessary for Pu weapons fuel, and RBMKs have it all.
Pu-239 is created in fission, as a decay product from neutron absorption, and so is Pu-240 (absorbs another neutron from Pu-239). Pu-240 is not suitable for weapons warheads - too much spontaneous fission. So you want (ideally) pure Pu-239. This is not possible, because Pu, unlike U, cannot be enriched. It's physically impossible. It can't be chemically separated because it's all Pu. So your only choice is to NOT create much Pu-240. Short burn-up times accomplish this.
All of this is the reason that "normal" light water power reactors are not proliferation concerns. There was a lot of talk about Iran's Bushehr reactor in regards to proliferation. It's a LWR, with fuel provided by Russia and spent fuel given back to Russia. Even if Iran somehow reneged and kept the spent fuel, it would do no good. 1) they have no Pu reprocessing capability - it's a complex process and few countries have it, and 2) too much Pu-240 to make it useful and weapons material. Iran's Arak reactor was reconfigured to no longer be a possible source of Pu as part of the JCPOA.
Oh, wait. We stupidly withdrew from that agreement freeing Iran to do what they want. (I guess I'm diverging from my diverging here)
The US has and has in the past, specialized reactors run by the DOE for weapons production. No civilian power plant is involved in that in any way.
So there - geek out all you want. 
I love physics and especially nuclear physics. It's the way the universe works, and it's kind of cool that we can observe and determine it all not because we can see the particles and waves, but because we can detect the effects they have and determine the characteristics from that. Some of it is really mind-bending.  Like pair production in gamma radiation - direct conversion of waves into matter and back again. My favorite phenomena. Just hard to wrap your head around.
Dave
 

Sure I remember. That was the RBMK reactors like at Chernobyl. They had a "positive temperature coefficient"  or  "positive reactivity coefficient" (those mean the same thing) meaning that as temperatures in the coolant increase, the nuclear reaction rate increases, which increases temperature, which increases nuclear reaction rate.....  you can see where that leads. HOWEVER, this is not the design of these reactors. These are more "typical" reactors that have a "negative temperature coefficient".  Reaction rate decreases as water temperature increases. Should be obvious that that is beneficial and is how most reactors are designed. I believe RBMK reactors were the way they were for weapons materials production, for one thing. They also had no containment, which the Russians justified by their strict operating procedures preventing accidents. Ironically, Chernobyl's root cause was a) the violation of multiple operating procedures and parameters, b) running an unapproved test procedure, c) lack of understanding by the operators of the physics of the plant and the indications they were receiving (those are related). 
It's nothing to do with steam by the way. (probably the translation or lack of accurate knowledge by the original writer). It's water. Steam is transparent to neutrons so really has no effect on reaction rate, other than if you've got steam in the core you've got NO cooling, which is of course, very bad. Steam flow is an incredibly poor heat transfer mechanism. Steam is the RESULT of efficient heat transfer.
In my qualification training (18 months) to be licensed for start up testing of US Navy reactor plants one things was drilled into us (well, many things, but) That was "Believe your indications and act on them".  If you have an indication of something going wrong and you take all the steps to shutdown and "put the plant is a safe condition" (that's the key words), you can't go wrong. You may waste time if it turns out to be faulty indicators, but you won't break the plant or kill someone. Our motto in the shipyard nuclear test organization - "When in doubt, shut it down"   An operating sub doesn't necessarily have that option, but many times they do, and that's the reason why we build and test them so well, so that it doesn't come up.
I have had to argue that point a few times with my upper management. "I was there. I had the watch. My decision."    I mean, it's the entire reason they spend 18 months and who knows how many $$ to license us!
Dave
 

The head of the IAEA said that the cooling water in the separate pond/lake, which is pumped from the reservoir, is sufficient for many months at least, since all the reactors are in cold shutdown. They have the ability to pump more water from the river until the river level gets TO ~12.7m. That's much more than dropping 2m.
The media can stop their breathless reporting of imminent nuclear disaster, another Fukushima, etc. Might have been a good idea for the various media to actually ask some experts first, specifically the IAEA which has been keeping a very close eye on the power plant status since the beginning of the conflict.
Not sure how many people know the intricate workings of a nuclear plant but that pond water does not go in and out of the reactor. In 2 sentences, it's used for the secondary side of heat exchangers that cool the water that is in a closed circuit circulating through the core. It's "clean" water, and not exposed to radioactive contamination.

Dave
[edited] I listened to his statement and thought he said 2.7m. The written statement says 12.7m. In any case, that refers to directly pumping water for cooling, and the cooling pond is still there and good for months of cooling.

Quick TLDR:

Inundation is an ancient defensive measure- if the Russians are worried about Ukrainians crossing the Dnieper in the south then it makes sense to make improve the river as an obstacle. This obviously works below the damn because of rising levels, but also above in the Khakovka reservoir because as the water level drops it's going to make it potentially less navigable (ie. anyone crossing now has to worry about running into silt beds, rocks, wrecks etc that are now closer to the surface).

If the lack of water for the nuclear power plant makes a melt down more likely then, well, bonus. The risk might encourage Ukraine to be more cautious around the plant and an actual (if particualrly catastrophic) melt down might make the area a real no-go zone and secure the Dnieper flank even more.

What's really interesting is that Russia has only now blown up a major dam. It could be that dams are such chunky hardened structures (and that Russian stand-off precision weapons are not precise enough) that sneaking in overnight and packing the interior of the dam with explosives is the only way to blow one up.

The Dnieper has plenty of dams with an awful lot of water behind them all the way up to Kyiv. If the Kyiv reservoir is opened up, the mass of water might (big might, I don't know how the dams are rated) be enough to overwhelm the dams downstream, resulting in sequential dam failures all the way to Black Sea. That would not only obviously be an atrocious ecological and human disaster, but cut the country in half and sever Ukrainian logistics. Oh, and if that's not bad enough there are layers of radioactive sediment in the bottom of especially the northern reservoirs that could get churned up and added into the mix to make things even worse.

So I assume the Russians haven't done that because they can't... and hopefully it wonudl never work because all the dams along the Dnieper are massively overengineered Sovet megaprojects.

Greetings everyone. Long-time lurker who has been reading this thread since 23rd Feb of 2022 and now wants to step out of the shadows to thank everyone who has contributed. It has been a fascinating and informative experience to read through it all day by day, despite the tragedy which has brought everyone in this thread together.
I will likely spend the vast majority of my time continuing to lurk, since I do not have the military knowledge to give valuable commentary on most relevant things, but in this first post, I wanted to provide a short summary of an article from the Berlin branch office of a Swiss newspaper which is about planned changes to NATO structure. While it is not directly about the situation of Ukraine, the planned changes described therein seem to be a direct result of the (renewed) invasion of '22 and thus I think it still fits to the topic.
Google translate has not worked for me on this website, maybe it does for someone else who wants to read it in its entirely:
https://www.nzz.ch/international/neue-nato-struktur-deutschland-macht-wieder-grosse-ankuendigungen-ld.1740692 
Here is the summary:
General Christopher Cavoli and a small team has been working on a plans to reorganize the structure of NATO for about a year and these plans will be presented at the next meeting of NATO head of states in Vilnius on 11th and 12th of July Newspaper claims as sources 1) a team member who is involved in the planning and 2) a high-ranking ex officer who claimed to be familiar with the work Germany will have to prepapre to become a more important administrative and logistical hub for NATO NATO is aware of how the Russian attack on Ukraine has turned the world upside down, and in Brussels and Mons, Cold War terminolgy and plans are being pulled out of dusty folders  Below the Mons HQ and the 3 regional operative HQs of Brunssum, Napoli and Norfolk, two new army staff commands will be created, called "Army North" and "Army South". Army North will be located at the American base in Wiesbaden, Army South in Izmir. Both Army North and Army South will be responsible to coordinate NATO troops organised as corps, divisions, brigades and battalions the reorgnisation and expansion of staff is the result of both the Russian invasion and of newly acquired members in Eastern Europe which have to be more integrated (and also pay heed to the fact that e.g. Poland has now 4 full army divisions and thus is a larger contributor than e.g. Germany) new defensive plans for the three regional HQs Brunssum, Napoli and Norfolk  Americans want the new Army North and Army south command staff to become operable as soon as possible, which is one reason why they will be staffed to a large part by American officers from their Europe and Africa commands, since no other member state has the same number of available trained staff officers. This is also why an alternative suggestion to build up and place the two command HQs in Poland and Romania was rejected Cavoli's plans indicate that there will be 9 to 12 new army corps in Europe which will be fully staffed - a lot of the existing army corps from the Cold War still exist but only on paper, without any bodies so far it is planned a corps will contain 2 to 3 divisions with a strength of ca. 20.000 each the total numerical strength is not yet decided, but the number of quickly available troops will be increased from currently 40.000 to 300.000 ("New Force Model") NATO "Joint Support and Enabling Command" in Ulm, Germany will receive a significant increase in staff and will be responsible for overseeing the supply via ports, railway and air transport which will be routed mostly through Germany  the plans expect that half of the "New Force Model" troops will come from North America, the other half from European member states Europe is woefully behind in terms of ground-based air defense, especially against ballistic missiles and drones, and a new program is supposed to increase the number of European AD  German government continues to promise that it will provide 17.000 troops forthe  "Allied Reaction Force" which is supposed to form a strategic reserve with enough ammo for 30 days of operation, but German MoD will have to be honest in Vilnius if they can actually keep this promise.  Germany also promised to provide at least 30.000 troops which can be quickly relocated, but it is not yet decided which readiness level the troops will have - either 10 days, 30 days or 100 days German troops require improved communication equipment to integrate with NATO, and new digital radio are supposed to arrive until end of 2024 - another topic German MoD is expected to provide an honest outlook about at Vilnius If anyone sees any error, please inform. I find these kinds of planned changed to NATO very interesting due to the wider implications for the Ukraine conflict but also the global security order. If this article toook me for a fool and none of this is realistic, I apologise. As I said, I lack modern military knowledge. 
 

Younger officers are more open to Western military–style leadership, while older officers have clung to Soviet doctrine. 
Alas, this is by-effect of mass mobilization and establishing of dozens new brigades, expanding of Operative Commands HQs, etc. All this required alot of command staff, but where to get it? There are many retired officers, who finished their service before 2014 and even earlier. Mobilization age for retired high-ranked officers in Ukriane is 65 years. Negative effects have been becaming to develop since 2016, when large number of "old schooll" officers were mobilized (and not only major+, but of lower ranks and former NCOs). Now their number has increased much more. Most of these officers have a strong Soviet army upbringing with tough centralization of decisions making, formalism, thoughtlessly following to paper instructions even they are obsolete and don't match anymore with real situation, most of them are "bureacrats-servicemen", but not "warriors" "I'm a chief - you are a fool", "initiative is punishable". Many of new formed brigades have very avarage results due these commanders and because of the same old staff now moved also in trainig centers, where sodiers still be train by Soviet time program, just slightly upgraded diring ATO, but in current war it mostly useless. Alternative training centers for infantrymen and sqaud leadrs, where their new training program proves own high effectiveness, can't embrace enough of personnel and even these efforts continously encounter resistance of differnt HQs, where oak-headed colonels consider these trainings didn't match to current instructions, thus are illegal and unproper. Alas, all attempts of Zaluzhnyi and other top commanders to promote these innovations into official training program still stuck in bureaucracy swamp, which more similar to sabotage. Just "old staff" can't rebuild themeselves to new reality, they are just so accustomed to do and don't want to change anything, they also resist to cancling lot of paper works for officers, because then a presence of most of them will lose any sence as "journal checkers". So, as said one our soldier at the begining of war, and who's words became a meme "Russians are losing not because we are so strong, but because they are much more stupid then we are"   

The thing you won’t hear much in the analysis of the Biden administration is how unlike previous administrations this one is on Russia. For starters, they figured out that Putin was going to invade Ukraine, decided that the US was going to support Kyiv and began relentlessly pushing European allies *in April* of 2021. Why different? It’s not just the level of pre-planning, it’s also that Biden uniquely among recent American presidents had absolutely zero misconceptions about VVP, the strategic understanding of what a fallen Ukraine would mean and what a policy guy I know calls “**** it” old man energy. He’s a 78 year old guy who isn’t trying to set up some post Presidential foundation or get rich or whatever. He is just doing Ukraine right with all the tools at his disposal. 
He’s certainly an older guy but if this is what old guys who trip on sandbags are like, I’ll take it.

Oh I don't know. He has been good enough on his feet to arrange the destruction of the Russian military with only 4% of the US military budget, thoroughly pantsed the GOP on the debt limit fight and Americans 25 to 54 are working at their highest rate since 2001.
If that's not fit, I'll take more unfitness please.

Have you seen the other guy? Person Woman Man Camera TV.

Does anyone in the world give a rat's **** for the 'poor' Saudis?
I mean, Crimea a River ...

This is residental building in Kyiv, being struck by Shakhed this night. 1 killed woman (she came to balcony to look how AD work and in this monent the drone hit the house) and 22 injured settlers. 

The city was attacked yesterday three times throughout of 24 hours (Shakeds + Kh-101, then Iskanders, then Shakheds again). Most dangerous attack Russians conducted at 11:00 of morning, when many people already were on streets on foot, in cars or in public transport. 11 ballistic missiles and cruise missiles Iskander-M/ Iskander-K where launched. My "aerophobia" of Feb2022 turned back, when I heard multiple missile sounds over my house. Well, then I read theses were Patriots... They intercepted all missiles again, but their upper stages have been falling on streets, full of people. In was a God's lucky and protection - that only one citizen was wounded with these parts
Here is how vere lucky, those, who drove along the road, when part of Petriot fell
So, let Moscow burn. No mercy. 

Good guess.
I was thinking we should see if we can concocted a scenario that combines as many of the tropes as we can:
I think he will meet Putin for poison tea on the 10th floor of a hospital. As he is leaving he will loose his balance after shooting himself in the head twice and the chest six times and then fall down four flights of stairs and through a window on the 8th floor.

I said, "Look after him," not "Look after him!"

omfg  a parking garage grog... I should have expected that on this forum.