The_MonkeyKing

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.

@Huba need your POL insight! What is with the Leo2 stuff? is this related to last:

Confirmed ukr getting M2A2 Bradley and M109A6 Paladin. Going to be trained with this equipment on battalion scale. Maybe the Leo2 will also show up as armored element for these formations. Exact variant sources: https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1611447761966362624?s=20&t=uNG0t1RjLhdXzo-exQt-JA https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1611454946586812418?s=20&t=uNG0t1RjLhdXzo-exQt-JA

I wonder what type are the 25mm APFSDS-T ammo. Does US even have non-uranium options in any quantity?

Germans are getting fast.

I guess something was agreed last year in the backrooms of NATO that things are going to change if the war still exists in 2023. So much going on again...

Great update on the war: https://warontherocks.com/2023/01/a-disquieting-winter-at-war-in-ukraine/

It is a party day!

I don't think thye have walked back any of these types of specific promises? Yes, timetables have changed but not drastically. and Germans have catched up pretty darn well. Also, their information strategy has been terrible. I think in general they have been well meaning fools and have learned a lot and are still learning.

Marder-Scholz compilation:

Well, this leaving a pretty short list of stuff Ukraine has not gotten yet: western MBT, western airframes, large long range missiles. Awesome to see this happenening. White house source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/05/joint-press-statement-following-a-call-between-the-president-joe-biden-and-the-chancellor-of-the-federal-republic-of-germany-olaf-scholz/ Meanwhile Putin trying oneway ceasefire and getting some mad burns from Biden:

Oryx wants "tank" to mean MBT. It doesn't. some relevant words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_fighting_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_battle_tank Leopard 2 is a tank, AFV and an MBT AMX-10 is a tank, AFV but not an MBT AMX-10 can be a light tank, cavarly tank, tank destroyer or a scout tank. Leopard 2 is an MBT

and more importantly average european politician cannot tell or explaint the diffence. I want to see Olaf Scholz trying to explaing in a press breafing why exatly this is diffent than sending leopards haha

It is broken. No one can deny AMX-10 is not a tank. It is not an MBT but it is a light/scout/cavalry/TD tank. And it is 100% western design. You can call it a armored fighting vehicle but you can also call MBT that.

https://warontherocks.com/2020/10/maximum-pressure-brought-down-the-soviet-union-and-other-lies-we-tell-ourselves/ This is a good article on how the western story of soviet unions collapse is mostly false. It was not ever determined and could have easily gone the other way. They also have a podcast series ongoing about the subject (paywall): https://warontherocks.com/episode/therussiacontingency/28031/the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-part-1/ I am thinking that the common meme thinking about "collapse" is mostly just that, a meme. Everything is always collapsing, China, USA, EU economy, Iran .... When we look back in history collapses are quite rare.

TIL: Ukraine Poised to Become First Operator of 150-Kilometer Precision Bomb: https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/11/29/ukraine-first-operator-precision-bomb/ So the same idea as NASAMS meaning adapting the plentiful and hightech airlaunched munitions to groundlaunch. This time it is just precision guided bombs.

Haha, I was going to make the same post with the same text. Finally indeed

It is coming out of the members of The Finnish Defence Committee (Finnish govermental organisation). Not to go in detail here but it has the blessing of the Defence Committee and by extension also the blessing of the Finnish foreing policy leaders. It is a softer aproach like often countries use "less important" officials or govermental organisations to "feel the ground" with new ideas.

Finland driving Europe wide initiative to get Leopard 2s to Ukraine. Idea is if everyone gives even 5-10% of their leo2 to Ukraine it would add up to hundreds. With some swapping you could also narrow it to only 1-2 variants of leo2.

Downside seems to be that the terminal guidence requires laser designation. (drone for example)

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-prankster-impersonating-macron-spoke-polands-duda-after-blast-2022-11-22/ The recording: https://rutube.ru/video/1c3c0277eb2efdb63bc444382a42e6a8/