CHEqTRO
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Posts posted by CHEqTRO
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So, it seems that maybe tonights attack against Bryansk was not carried by Tochka-U missiles, but rather by TB2 drones. I find the Tochka attack more credible, but it seems that actually a TB2 was shoot down in the Kursk area, supposedly coming back from the attack, so
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10 minutes ago, Huba said:
It may also be an argument in discussion about viability of Leo 1, which greatest shortcoming is supposedly inadequacy in tank on tank situations.
The whole argument about Leo 1 not being good enough was always stupid in my opinion. Those leopards 1 would have been as good, if not better, than those polish T72M, and yet the Ukranians still ask for them. Both the T72 and the Leo1 will give the Ukranian forces mass, mobility, and breakthrougt capability, just as any other "modern" tank, without considering their anti-tank capabilities. Also, that shortcoming would depend from which type of ammo the leopards would come with. For example, the DM63 APFSDS-T ammunition should be able to penetrate frontal T72 armor.
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https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/ukraine-non-standard-ammunition
A report by the DCSA has been uploaded with what the Ukranian army has asked to buy from the americans. There is a long list of material, but something that caught my eye is that they specifically asked for 125 mm *HE* ammo for their tanks, but there is no mention of AP ammo.
So, either this is just the writers of the report forgetting about the AP ammo (or rather in the package both types of ammunition are included, but they just refer to both of them as HE, because reasons ), there was a pre-war imbalance in the quantities of HE ammo in comparition to AP ammo, in such a way that, although usage of both types of ammunition is similar, they are running low in HE ammo; or rather that the past or expected future usage of AP ammo has been neglible compared to HE.
That would show that tank on tank warfare has been limited or neglible, and that despite that, they still want to keep their tanks operational for use against soft targets. Some food for thought for the "tank is dead" argument.
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First T90AM spotted out in the wild it seems.
No idea what those wood planks are for, thought.
Edit: Video for context:
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A very interesting thread of what could have actually happened to the Moskva and why It didnt shoot down those Neptune missiles, while, in theory, It should have been able to; using the program Harpoon 5. Its all speculation of course, but I found It interesting and plausible.
Its in spanish thought, althought for this is why we have the translator function on Twitter
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13 minutes ago, Hapless said:
Especially if they're denying Ukraine the Black Sea right now anyway. Why bother trying to grind all the wall to Moldova when you can play sea-denial?
Mine up the ports, station some subs, supplement with anti-ship missiles and aircraft from Crimea... job's a good'un (with the caveat that the Black Sea Fleet should be able to pull that off). Hence, they could drop the goal of a land corridor to Moldova in negotiations and still retain important long term effects.
What's interesting about this batch of Russian aims is that they pretty much reflect the situation as it is right now, with the notable exception of the Donbass. So, the idea that this is endgame (or at least ceasefire) posturing or a sign of the Russians recognising their limited means seems pretty on the ball to me.Well, that is now that they are in wartime. In an hypotethical negotiated peace the Russians will have to eventually allow free movement for the merchants, otherwise they would be enacting a blockade, so an act of war. If those territories are controlled by Rusia when the dust settles then Ukraine would lose a long term economic asset, which they hope would bring (rather force) Ukraine closer to Russia (or atleast cripple it for when Round 2 cames along), without having to mantain such blockade. Also, it will allow them to start meddling into Moldava.
Nevertheless, I still think that the plan is to take Ukraine in its entirety eventually, and from there keep on putting pressure into eastern europe (remember all those ultimatums against NATO back in January). This declarations are most likely just meant as internal propaganda, as Odessa is considered by Russians as theirs, and supposedly one of the main cities that had to be liberated. Like I said early, wether they go now against Ukraine or they decide to bite the bullet and wait for another time will most likely be known as Russia mobilizes this May or doesnt. I would be surprised if they intend to keep the war going for longer, but they atleast dont partially mobilize.
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15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
This is a question I've been asking myself and here for weeks now. And I think we might finally be closer to seeing an answer.
If my guess is correct that the offensive has been called off, then I think the primary reason is that he finally saw that pushing ahead was a) going to fail and b) going to collapse his military 1917 style with the addition of YouTube/TicTok/Telegram. If that happened the defeat would be certain and total. Cancelling the offensive at least gives him a chance of finding another path to keeping his regime in power.
He had this clear choice in front of him and I think he's finally realized there isn't another option. If he's called off the offensive then he made the best choice of two bad options.
I still don't see any way he's going to be able to end the war. I still don't see any reason to think Ukraine won't launch successful operationally significant counter attacks soon. Say, within a month maximum. I don't think Russia can last more than a month or two into them before collapse becomes a reality.
So he might have bought himself a couple of months. It will be interesting to see what he does with that time other than the obvious preparing for the inevitable Ukrainian counter attacks. Because to win this he needs to do a lot more than that.
Steve
Agree. One thing to remember is that even if the Russians want peace, the Ukranians do not have to accept it. They may be able to take the Donbass, but would they be able to defend against a fully mobilized and western supported Ukraine three months down the line? No way. Thats why he needs to either get a negotiated exit (not happening, because I doubt the Ukranians are going to give an inch of their pre-Febraury territory) or push for victory, either by destroying the Ukranian army, or by overruning enough Ukranian territory thats its economy its no longer functional. These are more reasons why the "propaganda" victory is not enough for them.
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3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
The flaw here is that any outcome in Donbas will somehow translate to a better strategic situation. Externally we already know that it is a frim "no". A long war is in Ukarine's favor, not Russia's. The West's attention stays on Ukraine and the money keep flowing, while Russia's economy and military keeps bleeding; in the long war, Russia is more likely to break than Ukraine. No matter what happens in the next weeks, the west is not going to go "oh sorry about that" and stop support, pull back and reject Finland/Sweden into NATO, defund NATO and/or re-normalize with Russia economically. Ukraine will be westward facing for a century no matter what happens as well. Nothing in this whole Donbas dance is going to change the external strategic position.
So internally, what is the magic flag waving moment (that they cannot manufacture) that makes it better for an internal audience? What are they doing this for if they can manufacture giant lies for their own people?
Don´t get me wrong, I agree that taking the Donbass would not suffice to improve the general strategic situation (althought they definitively need it in order to properly spin this whole ordeal as a victory, so there is that). However, I do not agree that the shift of the russian army to the southeast of the country has been done because of just political motives. The russian army was overly streched, so they just shorthened the line into their most consolidated position of the front. From there, they will (well, they will try at least) eventually keep on pushing deep onto Ukraine. I do not think that Putin has abandoned its maximalist goals against Ukraine, if anything, I would argue that they have probably expanded.
Thats why I say that it depends wether they decide to cut their losses and wait for the next one, or if they want or are forced into keep pushing. You have described the reasons why(NATO expansion and support, Ukraine westward outlook etc..) they cannot left it as it is, unless they are ready to accept total defeat and accomodate to that situation.
I would wait until the end of May and see wether Putin has or not enacted partial mobilization. That would definitively be a signal to their intentions.
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2 minutes ago, Huba said:
Strelkov is not happy with the progress. What caught my attention is the notion of UA having lost almost all of their heavy equipment. We hardly see photo evidence of that, I wonder how true it is:
He is refering to ukranian heavy equipment in Mariupol, not in general. Considering that they have been forced to the interior of the Azovstal factory, one could imagine that all heavy equipment would have been either destroyed or abandoned beforehand.
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1 hour ago, The_Capt said:
I know we are in early days here but this whole thing has a half-hearted feel to it. I am left wondering why Russia is going through all this theatre when it can simply draw new lines on the ground, shift the goal-post and come up with whatever fabricated "victory" it wants, just like Putin did in Mariupol.
Re-draw the lines on the map and declare the DNR/LNR as "free", point to this strategic land bridge as a major victory and come up with some BS narrative that "this was the plan all along". I also suspect that the Russian higher-ups already know this hence the somewhat tepid start to this whole thing.
I don't think Putin is in a corner on this, he is just trying to figure out where to paint the arbitrary line of "victory". This has been a failing on the western analysis side from Day 1, we continue to see this war through our own lens. What this operation should look like in western frameworks must be what Russia is doing - big sweeps, dramatic deep operations. What victory looks like, again in western terms, and projecting it on the Russians.
I am getting the sinking sense that all Putin needed to do was get into Ukraine and shoot up the place, and he could spin it as the greatest victory since the Great Patriotic War.
I think you all give too much importance to whatever opinion the people of Russian can get about the result of this war and wether the Kremlin could sell it as a victory.
At the end of the day, if the war ends now, with the current frontline and the current balance of forces, this would have been a huge strategic defeat for Putin. Yeah, his propagandist home and abroad would spin it as a victory, as the Russian army "always" just had the intention of "freeing" the Donbass and the land corridor, and probably Putin would survive the political fallout. But he knows, and all of the Russian high command, that this "little" adventure of them has been a complete disaster. They have lost too much and won too little. Russian strategic situation not only has not improved (probably the situation pre war was bad enough that they decided to go ahead with the war), but they are now even in a worse position (NATO has actually gotten stronger, Ukraine still remains a functional country, and so does his army, the land they have taken is esentially worthless in the big picture, his army has taken a gigantic hit wich it will not recover in some time, his economy has taken a hit, etc..) than before.
The question is not wether they think that they can spin this as a victory, is rather if they think that is better to (or they are able to just) cut their losses, and lick their wounds for the next round; or if they they think that the stratetig situation is too poor to be left as it is, and whatever cost a prolonged war might cause would be worth it in order to reverse (or atleast aliviate) their poor situation.
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Lets see where this goes
EDIT: So, the "attack" was just a polish soldier taking the piss out of the Belarussians it seems. There is a supposed video of the incident and it just a soldier throwing rocks at the border with a slingshot. Hardly casus belli I would say.
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So, according to this article, the (in)famous BMPT-72 has been seen heading towards Ukraine. If they actually end up fighting in Ukraine; it will be interesting to see their performance, not so much from a tactical perspective (its esentially an BMP2M with the armor of a T72) , but from a doctrinal one. There has been a lot of discussion, also in this thread, about the end of the MBT, with the usual conclusion beinbg that while they will not disappear, they must evolve, as well as all the doctrine surrounding them. Considering that this vehicle is esentially halfway between an MBT and an IFV, some lessons (that will depend of how the Russians end up using them of course), could be drawn about the future of armor.
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53 minutes ago, The Steppenwulf said:
Incredible stuff, I'd like to know whereabouts this footage has been shot?
Those infantry just running down the road behind the BTRs - no screening or scouting out on the flanks
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Well, the original publication cames from this telegram account: https://t.me/s/karpatsich
If you scroll up, they have a post talking about enemy movements around Slobozhanske near Kharkiv, so I guess they must be deployed around that area.
Edit: So looking at the map just posted by @Taranis, we can guess that those russian units belonged to either the 254 Motor Rifle regiment or to the 59 Tank regiment.
EDIT: Disregard all this, the engagement area has been geocalized and its around Chernihiv, not Kharkiv
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Some people were asking where were the Ukranian armored units. Well, some incredible battle footage of a single ukranian tank engaging a whole column of russian BTR80A/82A and some tanks has recently surfaced:
Impressive stuff. Seems like situational awareness and proper spacing is an alien concept to russian commanders.
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16 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Chernihiv area, Kharkiv, Trostianets, Husarivka, Volnovakha, Izium. This all regular mechanized, motorized and air-assault forces. And again. Too few footage form this units. I read about two dozen of twitters of sevicemen of "regular" forces. And only several of them post short videos or at least photos. Other just write. I think, this just more tough censorship and it full absence in TD and volunteer units
Here is a recent example of Ukranian armored units recorded in combat.
Althought the tweet is from today, the video was first released on the 27 of March, mind you
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1 hour ago, Sarjen said:
According to a phone call between Putin and Scholz there will be no change for the european industries. They pay Gazprom bank in Euro and the not sanctioned Gazprom bank is converting them to rubel.
That was what was said yesterday indeed, nevertheless the law proposal made by Putin seems to contradict that. The article from RIA seems to indicate that European buyers would need to open accounts in Russian banks and make their transactions in rubles. Also, the germans had this to say today:
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Wow. They are actually going to go ahead with this it seems. This is a worrying move, honestly.
Either Germany humilliates itself in such an unprecedented way, and esentially tears NATO and the EU apart, or the Russians are going to lose a lot of their GDP in a matter of days.
If they are doing this, I cannot avoid to think that they are preparing , either in the short or mid-term, for war against Europe, as the Russian economy would not survive in the long term (hell, not even in the short term) without gas money, so a new geopolitical balance in Europe would have to be created so the loss of this income is made irrelevant (or somewhat so), and the only way of achieving this is via military means. A new explanation as of why those VDV units are being retired out of north Ukraine?
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20 minutes ago, DesertFox said:
His army was the one deployed from Sumy all the way to the part of the Ukranian border that bends towards the West/Belarus (Around Stara Huta). That region has been the one with the most logistical problems as far as we know, so is not that strange that he got removed.
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That is indeed the Russian Embassy at Warsaw, wether that smoke is actually coming from documents being burned, I guess is debatable
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Hello! Been a while since I last posted, as I have been busy with college, nevertheless I saw this and I thought that you guys might find it interesting:
It seems that a map from a Russian officer was captured by Ukranian forces in the Kherson area. It is somewhat dated but it seems to be authentic. Here you have a translation of the ORBAT of the russian forces as detailed by the map:
Also, some days ago, a journalist revealed that the russians had prepared medals celebrating the fall of cities like Kyiv, Odessa and Lviv. What I found interesting about this medals, in case that they are actually real, and not a fabrication, is that they indeed had the intention of eventually taking Lviv as well. There was, specially the days previous to the war, and some days after their start, some discussion about how much territory the Russians were going to take, and some people concluded that most likely the Russians had no intention of gettin into western Ukraine. (I will put a tweet from the day the war started from an analyst detailing what he thought will be the potential limit of the Russian advance):
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Tokayev about to pay its debt that he owns Putin from the protest/coup in Kazakhstan two months ago? (Man, doesnt that look like an eternety ago now). Uncorfirmed as of now of course. Nevertheless, the general rethoric coming from Russia has been more and more belicist:
By the way, tomorrow there is going to be a meeting between Finish president and Biden, presumably to talk about NATO inclusion:
Also, Moldava is going to apply for EU membership as well:
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted · Edited by CHEqTRO
Yeah, hopefully those poor MIT guys that the CIA has trapped on their basements developing new weapons for Ukraine, like those Phoenix Ghost drones, have still more surprises for us.