The_MonkeyKing

Indeed: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-accelerates-ukraine-support-ahead-of-anniversary-of-putins-war A statement from 10 Downing Street says: “UK defence and security officials believe a window has opened up where Russia is on the backfoot due to resupply issues and plummeting morale. The Prime Minister is therefore encouraging allies to deploy their planned support for 2023 as soon as possible to have maximum impact.”

False to compare western training times to what it would take for Ukraine. Example Patriot is going to take 6months it seems. To convert Hind pilot to Apache is not going to take years, but a couple of months.

Britain also stepping up with the AS90: And rumor from Mirror tabloid of AH-64 Apache. I guess these would be nice Hellfire platforms to be used with care. https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1614402422167699456?s=20&t=UOU7lHao19P73WpMDGw19Q

This is a good one. Greece, Hungary, Turkey, Swiss, Austria will not give any. Also Finland has max give of only a couple (I disagree with that decision) That leaves significant amounts only GER, POL, Spain and Sweden. And Germany is very unclear will they give any of their own. Best case seems to be 1-3 main donators with others swapping older hardware and money for them and helping with the "life time support".

Amount of ammo dumps flying in the air has decreased. And in the data I cannot see any jumps one way or the other correlating with HIMARS introduction: https://github.com/leedrake5/Russia-Ukraine hard to say conclusively one way or the other. 100km is still too close, especially when you have to fly high altitude to have that range. Also ground based long range weapons exist and those might not be given UKR even if planes area. As I understand it UKR never had any meaningful amount of ammo for the Smerch or even Uragan. But yes, HIMARS is very good replacement for those in any case.

Interesting new podcast episode with a Ukrainian colonel. Probably the most interesting single point was that Invading Crimea has historically never really been that hard after the mainland UKR was taken under control.

Clearly HIMARS is not a magic bullet. New systems always have the most impact when first introduced. As did HIMARS. Now RUS has adapted and the efficiency of HIMARS has taken a hit. Also it is passively effecting RUS all the time, they have to operate more carefully, at least requiring more skill to get the same results as before. HIMARS could be replaced by other capabilities. Example RUS has systems like the Smerch, it uses more of dump rockets to achieve same capability. Most importantly is UKR was lacking this category of capability almost entirely. No way how hitting targets within this range with any sort of ammo stockpile that would last.

Longer range and heavier precision missiles is the easiest magic. Example ATACMS I cannot really think of other "magic bullet" class ones. Not even western air frames. I actually think western air frames would not be such a big deal at least in the short and medium term. UKR is not going to be able to compete with RUS air force. The airspace is going to stay contested and practically denied for both. Western air frames would raise the UKR anti air capacity even further and reduce the need for ground based AA systems. But you can achieve "close enough" results by just providing overwhelming amounts of ground based AA. (this might just not be as cost efficient) Also planes would impose more cost and attrition to RUS air force, more so than just being denied to operate. The best UKR could aim to do with the air frames would be same as Finnish air force. Finland would use its air force as the other half of its air defence network. The other half is ground based AA. The other mission in Finnish air force has is doing long range precision strikes, JASSM and the likes. Even if UKR gets air frames it doesn't mean they are getting example JASSM as well. And there are ground based long range precision fires as well.

Great BMP hunting vid: longish format GoPro, international forces Includes BMP-2M taking NLAW to the face with only a mobility kill. Also spot the wild DP-28 between the M4s with ACOGs

https://warontherocks.com/episode/therussiacontingency/28081/where-russias-war-in-ukraine-is-going-part-1/ paywall podcast bulletpoints: - transitional period and it is unclear where exactly it is heading - not clear at all if RUS can restore offensive potential. What he sees in Bakhmut is not impressive at all from RUS - UKR has only made modest incremental gains recently but this doesn't mean the next operational attack would not be successful - RUS transitioned to defensive - biggest question what is going to be done with the rest of the mobilized force - RUS in autumn downsized the front and probably doubled the force available. Now the have reserves, multiple lines.. - belarus based force is unknown in terms of combat readiness. Probably very much not ready - western military district performance was historical underperformance compared to expectations. - southern and eastern military districts performed better. - RUS military system was designed to mobilize before or at the start of the war. Mobilized were to buff up the professional units. Now it mobilized 8 months into the war, when force and equipment that was supposed to be buffed up was mostly out of action. - regional volunteer battalions were a flop. They just ate up the resources from the actual mobilization in piece meal. - now mobilized do not really have equipment or structures where to integrate to - mobilization system was also the place where RUS has cut the most over the years. They themselves have stated in the past large scale land war is not something they are planning for. - mobilization system was also probably most guilty of "readiness padding" - about half of the initial mobilization force was used to stabilize the collapsing fronts - Kharkiv operation was a great success thanks to too little RUS force and good UKR planning - Kherson was difficult fight for both and RUS did succeed in the pullout. Everyway very different from Kharkiv. - In Kherson RUS retreat was well planned and executed and also UKR force was probably worn and exhausted. - Kofman thinks Gerasimov&Shoigu are "an absolute joke in the Russian military" - after Kharkiv Putin might have also realized the above point. And so Surovikin - Surovikin had the idea to create more coherent military effort. It was clearly promised that Donbass would have been taken enabled by the Kherson retreat. - Talk about internal power plays between Prigozhin + Kadyrov vs. Shoigu. Putin might also play these against each other. - Arguments in media and analyst recently have brought up points: significant mobilization force buildup, new attack from Belarus, RUS regaining offensive potential. Mike and Dara are very sceptical of all of these. These arguments need concrete evidence, where is the material and human capital coming from for these? - Will there be another mobilization? They suspect more of a dispeched and rolling approach in future. - RUS are now thinking in terms of years. This is already a long war, even by historical scale. Also unclear will this war end or just have a pause and again a continuation war (that this war also sort of is for 2014). Plenty of historical examples. - The RUS army is not anymore the same army as it was in 2021. So it is unfamiliar animal to all of us. - RUS military is now living from its soviet legacy that it will never get back. They cannot rebuild the equipment or ammo they have inherited from the USSR. - They are using up the military inheritance of the USSR. Inheritance of another power that will never come back. - RUS military will become more of an european military after this war than not. Interims of potential. - RUS can rebuild limited offensive potential but will be limited by ammunition and force quality. - RUS military is fires and manpower driven military. Now it has gone from having fires and lacking manpower to lacking fires but having manpower.

DPICM already send for UKR in December by NATO allies:

Balance of power in artillery is shifting. also confirmations of huge casualties from the Pentagon for mainly Wagner:

Might even solve the maintainance headaches. If USA commits to supply the Stryker as main APC of the UKR military. Then the "zoo" of other APC:s would do to territorial units ext. where they hopefully have enough time for headaches

I say sounds good but pretty cost inefficient. Finnish XA-185 cost about 0.5million and Stryker costs about 4.5million. Is it 10x more effective? Better would be to get single type more cost efficient vehigle. But maybe there is none avaivable and USA feels like spending it, is all good.

Recently retired generals talking big numbers. Up to 79 Challenge 2

Leopard 2 version "tree": source: There is going to have to be a wide deal with internal swapping between countries I am sure. To get only 1-2 types to UKR

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-considering-supplying-ukraine-with-challenger-2-tanks-to-fight-russian-forces-12783107 Level of emotional support GER is needing in this desision is amazing

Same goes for UKR. Everything depends on reconstitution and recovery of the two sides. This is mostly unknown to us.

idk, UKR is forming new units on the scale of couple of divisions and already showed in the fall that they can conduct two simultaneous strategic level offensive operations. And meaniwhile RUS never stopped banging its head in Dombass.

an interesting graph of proportional RUS tank losses by type: source: https://twitter.com/MMaenpaa1/status/1612116950527746048?s=20&t=H-9j5Px7Zev4CtM00ehUwA I was under impression RUS already lost most of its top end equipment. Indeed seems they are still holding significant portion of their best stuff in reserve.

Wether is telling that any winter offensives(if any) will start within weeks: and history:

source: https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1611089317962866691

Koffman has talked about it for while. I think this is uncontroversial. Let's then word it another way. The strike campaing is the least stupid thing RUS has done in a while. Ammo and what to defend dilemmas did force UKR to start migrating to western AA systems ASAP. And the strikes are effecting UKR state capacity. He did state that morale is not a problem and exact effects are impossible to know from open source. Koffman thinks that the previous use its of these long range fires was close to totally useless. Couple of cruise missile per airbase or against tactical targets here or there. The latest campaign has been an immense improvement to that. Thankfully RUS already had exhausted most of their long range Ammo.

in bullet points: - airborne moved to mobile reserve or QRF role - Bakhmut has culminated after the UKR rotation and counterattacks. for now... - Wagner has lost lots of its internal power with the failure of Bakmut - Internal power shifting back towards the RU MoD - tactics moving towards using more bodies than vehicles or ammo -> Recon by light high casualty infantry assaults to expose UKR positions for artillery and future assaults. - at the start of the war, RUS was sort of manpower but had ammo and equipment. Now the situation has reversed with the mobilization. 180 turn here in tactics. - Ukraine still generating new units and even corps - Ukraine failed to achieve the best outcome in operations after Kherson. This prevented RUS from reconstituting its forces and "chasing them out". Instead, Russia has managed to drag UKR into a grinding long fight in Bakhmut, Luhansk area. - Russia has managed to stabilize the fronts with the mobilization efforts. - UKR is building toward a major new offensive. The question is again the state of the UKR forces. - Current phase is transitional and we are waiting for the next major UKR offensive operation. Michael is quessing it is going to look a lot more like Kherson than what we saw at Harkiv. This time RUS is not going to be on the wrong side of a river. - This has been an attrition war. Even the Harkiv movement was enabled by attrition. - RUS strategic strike infrastructure campaign is one of the most effective and dangerous things RUS has done. The situation is similar to spring 2022 when UKR had to transition to western artillery systems but now it is air defense systems. - Strike campaign imposes a dilemma of AA on the front or in the rear. Also, it is to wear down UKR state capacity as a whole. - US strategic strike infrastructure campaign is staring to get limited more and more by ammo, meaning the strikes are going to get spaced out more over time - How much AA ammo does UKR have? How bad is the UKR grid situation? How fast can west supply AA systems? - UKR taking RUS mobilization way more seriously than the west - RUS is clearly now seriously trying to take Dombass. (maybe the deal was to allow Kherson to retreat to take Dombass) - Russia has defensive capacity but only limited localized offensive ability - Belarus attack does not seem likely at all atm (maybe a localized attack for example on Rivne nuclear power plant but the operation would have a long noticeable lead time with build-up) - RUS system really seems to embrace loyalty, not competence - Major leaders have messed up badly but have stayed loyal - No major heads have fallen on the RUS leadership - If the RUS higher-ups would start worrying about whose head falls next might lead to disaster. Fractures and defections. - about "people fall out of windows". Lots of people die in Russia and not everything is connected to politics. Also, not every fire in Russia is sabotage. There needs to be actual evidence to make a case here. - Analysts and Russians themselves were surprised by how strong support Russians have managed to build for this war internally.