danfrodo

Mine or just thrown track, I wonder? And drones hitting Moscow. Joy joy joy. One way to stop this might be for the russian army to just go home, but that would be crazy, right? That land Putin is still holding in UKR is definitely worth ~250k casualties, a wrecked economy, war crimes indictments, and getting your capital city attacked night after night. Totally worth it.

I would bet a whole lot of money that a lobbying group that is backdoor funded by russia is backing this guy, and a lot of other folks like him. No one outside RU can come up with this level of b--s--t without being paid to do it.

I think one cannot simply lay mines all over ones own territory, which must be crossed by all sorts of people & vehicles. It would mean no logistics or commerce at all. It would mean their own people stepping on mines all over the place. I think RU is mining new frontal areas, which change as UKR advances, but they can't pre-mine their own backfield to that extent, not until that backfield becomes front line. Maybe someone can correct me but that's what I'm thinking.

I am getting a little tired of people calling every damn RU ditch a 'defense line'. Many of these trenches are completely in the open. They are also often perpendicular to the axis of advance, which would be normal. But what we see from UKR side is that the problem is clearing the trenchworks built parallel to axis of advance in tree lines. I am not worried one damn bit about these perpendicular ditches dug out in the open.

Right now none of us know which possibility will play out. UKR might break through and find a very weak RU backfield. UKR might be forced to grind for every meter -- and not get anywhere. We just don't know. There's lots of indicators that RU is getting weaker & weaker. And minefields covered by drone/arty, as TheCapt said, are difficult. But RU's artillery is being continually degraded. Maybe UKR is running out of soldiers. Maybe not. RU right now for sure is weakening.

Hey Splinty, I agree w your take. I am only thinking of using these in situations where they were gonna do something probably more dangerous -- like noisy rubber boats! I would only consider using them in areas that were relatively safe, never into a hot drop zone -- you're right, that's suicide! Just like you wouldn't assault a strongly held beach in rubber boats.

for sure an operation could go that way, except these can turn around and maneuver and they can fly back out of trouble. They can come in at low altitude using trees to screen. A heckuva lot better than helos, rubber boats, and of course parachutes. As I always said about para operations " you can parachute in but you can't parachute out". So I am only looking at operations that would currently be a worse idea w/o these.

I'd say not fanciful at all. and great for resupply. very very very interesting. Would be great for raids over the Dnieper. Probably a lot less dangerous than rubber boats.

This looks like a successful attack by RU, which is sad to say. As mentioned above, not sure is any troops dropped off. I thought there was high ground overlooking this area but I guess no one w an ATGM or javelin had observation. I suspect if RU tries this again it will get a nasty surprise, but probably will do same thing in some other area. The only positive here is that RU showed that there's a path through that field that's unmined.

Holy Moly! 10-12 miles of advance? Now we're talking. I know corrosion has been the strategy but sooner or later gotta kick the murderers out. Now we wait to see if this leads to a bigger breakthrough. RU will probably throw everything available to stop it, hopefully stealing from other sectors and UKR can start to advance elsewhere if this is stopped. edit: oh, read it more closely now. 10-12 miles since June.

this is interesting. I have been hoping UKR can increase the raids across the Dnieper to cause RU response. Of course, once RU commits enough forces there won't be any more raids But those are all troops that will be out of position relative to any UKR breakthrough in the three attack sectors on the southern front.

I agree that what you say is likely. I was thinking about these schmucks having to be dug out of every dang trench & dugout for mile after mile, where the skill set can be low but they are still warm bodies w rifles. In a battle involving any skill they'd be worthless, but they can cause trouble in the close range trenches + woods fighting we've been seeing.

On another subject, there's some action upstream from Kherson today, looks like a raid. I've been wondering what the terrain actually looks like now, after dam removal and at the river's annual lowest couple months. I wonder what's possible? Could the raids be scaled up? Or is there just no way to get across without being unacceptably vulnerable for anything except little raiding parties? Meanwhile, the big question is whether UKR can ever move forward. And whether there's anyone in all those trenches. Seems the trenches lying along a horizontal aren't nearly as bad as the tree line trenches and dugouts. And looks like big RU mobilization coming -- that could really be a disaster for UKR, so would force them to try to punch through more quickly & w more casualties than they'd otherwise like. Hopefully a big mobilization would cause serious protests & civil disobedience -- but yes, that is just wishful thinking as nothing ever seems to quell the russian spirit for violent conquest and control.

Interesting little article about the actual war being fought. In particular talks about UKR marines -- elite light mech infantry working to fight through the RU defenses and open things up for the big boys. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/8/2185860/-Ukraine-Update-Ukrainian-Marine-Corps-are-on-a-mission-to-lead-right-through-the-Russian-defense

Please lord, give JonS the strength to not respond lest we descend into yet another......

Yeah, he was great w me also, as I needed some new activiation keys.

I just went through this process also. Install base game from your original purchase download -- go to BFC-my account-my orders. Then go to the patches page and install the latest. Activation order doesn't matter to my knowledge. My big dumb mistake was I thought the latest file on patch page had everything. So install the stuff from your original order, then the latest patch. Then activate. And you'll be losing battles in no time! -- perhaps that part is just me. I had a rather nasty SF2-USMC battle yesterday that I would like to forget. At least the fight before that one I did really well. Win some, get smashed some.

Good, thorough look at the war of attrition. yes, confirmation bias for those of us who believe UKR will prevail. Though sooner is better for UKR (and the world) since all kinds of non-linear events could change the dynamic (RU extortion via energy, food, etc). But for now, this feller's math says RU is being heavily degraded while UKR is receiving replacing its loses, at least in vehicle losses. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/5/2184924/-Ukraine-Update-Ukraine-s-war-of-attrition-can-break-Russia-and-it-won-t-take-years

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absolutely amazing pics, PhantomCapt! Thanks much for making the effort to share. I have a new PC coming in a few days and can't wait to dial up all the graphics to 'best', hopefully will look like your stuff.

Reminds me of seeing quotes from true believers in Germany in late 1944: "Don't worry, Hitler has a plan for victory!". yes, your cities are in rubble and you have thousands of casualties per month and the front is getting closer & closer to Germany, including collapse on RU front that was only slowed due to overextended RU supply lines. Allied planes fill the sky day & night. But don't worry, he's got a plan. The cost of this war to Russia is horrific and will have consequences for a generation.

So awful. No one is a statistic. Good lord, please let there be a major breakthrough and a cascading collapse of the RU army in UKR, featuring mutinies spreading like a zombie plague, leading to king of the zombies in moscow swinging from a lamp post. And the captured MAX10 & CV90 are nice show pieces for the murderers but hopefully folks (outside this forum) won't do the usual OMG-pants wetting over this. There's lots more of those IFVs that are fully effective and ready to go. I just hope the crews were OK. Some posts today & recently reminded us that a lost vehicle isn't the whole story -- was the crew OK? Was the mission completed? These two vehicles probably mean mission not completed but what if UKR got enough intel during the loss such that the next attack is a big success?

I couldn't agree more, boiling the frog should've ended a long time ago. While time is on UKR's side in most ways, a longer war does open up the possibility of URK's war going sideways somehow. What if more Orban's get elected, for example?

Yeah, especially if I am at the helm

good point, well said