danfrodo

oh Boy! Thanks GeorgeMC, can't wait to watch! I'm currently early in Panzergrenadiers in Hampkampfeld. Looks great so far. But you are a sneaky fella so probably will be getting smacked around pretty soon. Started new job a couple months ago and it put quite a crimp in my CM time, but should have more time going forward.

ex seal team squad six leader? Yeah, whatever. I just met a guy who's telling people he's ex navy seal. But it seems he's also army? And the army "won't let him go" meaning they call him out of the blue to leave his day job and go on 'missions'. Oh, and he says he killed one of the 'playing card' villians in Iraq w his sharpshooting prowess. Dude is ~40 yrs old, beer belly the size of a witch's cauldron, couldn't run a 100m w a bear on his tail. The only 'mission' he can perform is carrying 12 pack out of the store to his truck. Yet everyone seems to believe him. I do not. Not one bit.

was is los??? I will wait for confirmation over today & tomorrow, but hopefully this is true. RU went heavy in trying to hold every meter of land. Hopefully RU getting what it deserves for that clever strategy. There's lots of hopeful signs. RU with bad water, poor food, ammo being expended & unreplenished due to dumps being hit, heavy loss of arty. Using T55/62s as arty wouldn't happen if one has plenty of real arty available before this offensive even started. Some pages ago there was link to person saying it was unrealistic that RU front would collapse. Indeed, we all know this. but UKR doesn't need the front to collapse. It just needs some sectors to collapse, unhinging neighboring sectors. A platoon that runs away or surrenders could mean UKR advance onto a critical road or junction, leaving neighbors cut off from supply, the problem cascades until RU move up some reserves and stops the advance after some kms. The key is that RU can only afford this so many times in so many places before there's a serious breakthrough. The map above looks rather optimistic and I very much want to believe it. But it seems to good to be true at this point.

Video of trench firefight, followed by UKR troops gathering booty & such. One thing I've been noticing in videos is how nice it is for UKR forces to be constantly resupplied as they advance. One video showed a bounty of mortar shells. This one a grenade launcher, lots of very nice looking rifles.

Even this is not necessarily the point. If UKR expected to be farther by now that could be based on RU making rational decisions about delaying vs holding + counterattacks. Normandy's a good example. The allies expected to move much faster but were stuck for nearly two months. However, during that time the allies were inflicting crippling casualties on the germans which led to allies breaking out into huge areas that were basically empty of the enemy. And then the allies found themselves back on schedule after the thunder run to the Seine. Hopefully RU is expending lots of men & material to hold those first ~10-20km and when UKR breaks thru it will be thunder run time.

I saw above someone said UKR tried a pontoon across Dnieper but was shelled by RU, according to RU blogger. Interesting. Maybe UKR simply wants the threat of crossing to fix at least some RU troops & arty along the river. Good idea as long as cost of feint is much less than RU has to spend.

I can picture the excellent marketing bullet points given to potential investors. "Invest in Russia! Why invest here? Because we're like N Korea but with lots of oil! How can you resist? Also, we have no real rule of law! And we might kidnap you if you visit or just kill you where you live. And your family! Or maybe just blackmail you based on what you did here during your visit. Or we blackmail you on something we just made up. That's why you should invest here!"

Idiot w camera nearly shot two of his comrades in back of the head. Hopefully there's more like him in RU army, will save UKR a lot of effort.

That's my point. You did NOT have to reply to everything. That is called dropping it. watch how it's done. You will, invariably, reply to this. I will be silent. No matter what you say. You have wasted a damn bunch of my time and I don't appreciate it. I read (nearly) every post out of respect to this forum and this stream was just page after page of clutter.

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So getting even more RUMINT that UKR adding more power to the 'novo' attack. I guess first major goal would be Rozivka. A breakthrough here, in the least defended part of the line, would nice outflank a whole lot of RU trenches. And to stop the advance RU would have to come more or less out into the open or into villages.

These soldiers are going to be in huge trouble. They didn't send a cut of their loot to the battalion & regimental commanders.

I just read that UKR putting more of it's elite units onto the 'novo' offensive area. This one leads toward Mariupol. Here on the forum it was generally thought that an offensive like this leaves two exposed flanks while moving along the Dnieper only leaves one. But Mariupol direction does have the advantage, if successful, of cutting off the entire land bridge at once from eastern supply lines. This line of advance is less well defended, though RU reinforcements would be on interior lines from both sides. Not saying this push is going to happen, but it is on the table of options. If I were one of those billionaire guys I would give UKR $100M just to sit in the general staff planning meetings, even if it meant I couldn't have any contact w outside world for a month or two.

@Taranis above says UKR took the very important heights overlooking Bakhmut. Gonna be hell to pay for anyone down below. This is excellent news. What if the first RU collapse was actually in Bakhmut sector? Wouldn't lead to anything strategically significant but would get back everything RU fought at great cost for many months to get. At least it would be great for UKR morale and terrible for RU morale.

What an interesting few days it's been. UKR is attacking, but actually seems to be more interested in drawing the rats out of their holes. RU forces (mostly allegedly) moving up to stop UKR and getting punched hard for it. RU banging away w arty right into what looks like very well planned, precise CB ambushes up & down the front. The fervency with which RU is trying to hold the first line makes me wonder how strong the next lines of defense are. Maybe they spent all their mines up at the very front of their front? I am particularly interested in the far west, the attacks toward Vasylivka. There's rumors that UKR is fighting near Verknihia, to the W/SW of Lohove. Is RU gonna crack and force wholesale commitment of their southern front reserves? Or maybe UKR is gonna get stuck because attacking w economy of force (we think)? I guess we wait, another day we wait, as the fighting gets hotter & hotter. edit: in video above, I really hope they were hitting RU mines. That would make my day.

Good point on UA goals vs territory. I think my vote is that UKR will attack in the north with sufficient forces to push through at least first line then will do whatever opportunity allows. But I agree w posters above that the south is still the main goal.

OK, folks, time to put your money on the table. I don't gamble for money but we can pretend. 1. Is UKR southern offensive a shaping operation intended to divert RU resources from a bigger attack toward Svatove-Starobilsk? Given that it's only June 12, UKR would have still have plenty of time to take the landbridge if northern attack goes well. If northern attack goes poorly, then still can stop there and put resources to the south. RU is tied down in Bakhmut & southern front, so this could be interesting. And I hope that somewhere along the Dnieper UKR can still manage to put across some raiding parties. Especially now since RU probably has nearly nothing there.

I've been trying to keep reminding myself this is going to be a very, very hard slog for UKR. Trying not to get into wishful thinking and confirmation bias. But what if RU is a brittle as TheCapt thinks? What if Putin thinks he's got all these huge defensive that are actually just ditches? What if the corrosion has weakened RU more than Putin knows? Would the generals be lying to Putin to keep their nice jobs? Would Shoigu be lying? This is the story of the war so far, where decisions are made thinking RU actually has a competent army when the opposite is now known to be true.

So absurd. RU needs to attack the Baltics & Finland simultaneously. This is obvious to any RU patriot.

UKR has more gear promised, so it can probably replace losses except for the mine clearing vehicles. Interesting how obsessed everyone has been w this. What matters is the bigger picture: what are RU reserves doing? How much engaged, how much left? UKR making it clear that thinning the line anywhere is dangerous. There's also lots of worry about defensive lines. But we don't know what's actually in those trenches. I suspect they are mostly well defended, but we won't know until UKR gets there. It's a very, very long line and only has to fail in a couple areas for the whole thing to be unhinged.

There's 24 1-hour episodes just released by the World War Two in Realtime youtube channel. Indy Neidell and Spartacus Olsen do a great job. I've been watching their week-by-week WW2 videos religiously for a couple years now, even went back and watched all the ones I'd missed. The maps are great, they cover the whole world including war in China. Anyway, I am just getting started on these videos but excellent so far.

I think capturing the east-west rail line is probably one of the main objectives of this first phase. THe line that runs through Tokmak. Gonna be hard to sustain the RU defense for the whole campaign season w/o that line. Plus what Huba said -- the entire RU logistical backfield could be in HIMARS range soon.

If you think that's funny, you would've found Rush Limbaugh hilarious On the war: Lots of video of UKR troops having to dig out suicidal idiots out of holes, sometimes w losses. It's like Iwo Jima or Okinawa. At least these idiots won't be around in the next line of defense. But dangerous, slow, and tedious work for UKR. On the plus side, UKR troops are often seen re-arming with spoils from overrun trenches, meaning they can afford to spray tons of bullets without worrying about running out. I hope partisans and missiles can keep cutting the rail lines. And like someone mentioned, it would be great to target the repair crews -- we know their location once a line is cut.

The plot thickens noticeably today..... We'll see if this info holds up. Gains on the sourthern front. Kreminna possible next attack vector. Very very interesting.

I was wondering about this a while ago. Hit one end of line to draw RU forces there. Then bigger attack happens at other end of line, w RU forced to move reserves hundreds of kms. Except those reserves already engaged N of tokmak. And w Bakhmut under pressure, can't really take forces from there. Putin's head will really be spinning if Kharkiv attack is real. Bummer that RU could move forces away from Dnieper after the flood. Hopefully that's a very short term gain for a very long term loss.