danfrodo

So you have heard the news items from the US Air Force Academy, I presume? It's been smacked a gazillion times for officers forcing christianity on subordinates. Turns out the US constitution has items other than 'guns' -- who knew? Meanwhile we are seeing the first signs of Putler pivoting to the defensive. I've been wondering whether he'd have time to redeploy & reorganize before the ground dries. Looks like he might be trying that. But who knows whether what is reported to him and what is real on the ground match up. And for us another month of watching soil get soaked, over & over again. The Texiera kid stole and disseminated classified documents that have damaged US interests. He must be punished. He's young and stupid and racist. He's in that stage of young enough to be really unwise but old enough to be held accountable for it. He's being called a truth-teller and whistleblower by Tucker & MTGreene -- I still wish I knew how much Putin pays them. Edit: forgot to add that I think his youth should be taken into account in sentencing. I throw the book at someone doing this after ~25-30 yrs old. I'd punish this kid but less so.

DesertFox posits that it would be great if the UKR counteroffensive happens May 8/9 -- I agree that would be funny to see Putin doing his Victory Speech while all the world's news orgs are cutting over to discuss UKR breakthroughs. But I wonder what things will really be like in the counteroffensive. I don't think it will be one big thing, at least not for a while. I think it'll be increased corrosive activity in many sectors w raids and capturing of various forward RU defensive positions, plus increased destruction of RU logistics/HQ. Then more corrosion and more and more..... then somewhere we find out UKR has pushed ~10km here and there. But will that be 'the counteroffensive'? I suspect UKR will keep Putin guessing as to where the real attack will be and I think this will go one for weeks, not days, before we say "oh look here's the counteroffensive". Putin's brain will be like a rat shaken by a rat terrier after a few weeks of this.

Summary today + some videos. First, the good times continue to roll in Bakhmut. RU making life hell for the UKR fighters there via lots of artillery & infantry -- but that's a lot of shells that won't be around later. Plus a couple Kanal13 quick videos, trench fight and some abandoned RU armor. Not amazing videos but worth the short investment. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/15/2164012/-Ukraine-Update-Bakhmut-has-held-Russia-back-for-eight-months-but-is-that-enough

I am wondering now how the intel leak will play out. Some loss, yes, but I bet my bottom dollar the clever TheCapt-type folks are thinking how they can turn this into a win. RU has info but the attack is not imminent, especially considering how much rain has been coming down recently. So UKR has time to change things, while also maybe making RU think it didn't change things. Or didn't change things and makes it look like they did. I bet those smart psyops/intel folks are gonna use this to actually confuse Putin more, to give him a tyranny of choice problem even worse than what he had before the leak.

I actually love that tank Big, bristling w guns. Lacks asthetic qualities, I admit -- unlike cast sherman with those gorgeous curves.

My vote on this? (Worthless, of course). UKR will not try to take Melitopol if it is a fight. It would destroy the city & eat up forces that could be doing more damaging activities elsewhere. If UKR is all the way to Melitopol then they would be well into the rear of RU defenses. yes, maybe RU could pull back and set up defenses in that area, but the continuous line would be even longer than the current one, giving UKR more opportunities to cut RU logistics. I think UKR will try to unhinge RU forces whenever possible. (EDIT: dang it, ninja'd by Steve) I hope the 2X increase in RU soldiers surrendering is real and would be expected given the awful conditions and lack of care for RU soldiers' welfare & lives. The video showed nothing interesting, sadly. Denys Davydov spoke about this in his Saturday video. Said ~600 UKR personnel involved. Said hey were engaged w heavier than expected resistance and retreated back across the river w losses. And RU retreating from the N & S salients around Bakhmut?? Good news if true but needs a lot more confirmation. But too bad UKR couldn't cut them off and bag them all. Reports show the mud is horrific right now.

Really well reasoned, I like it. I am definitely on the side of unhinging RU forces. If UKR did start making progress as you suggest, I bet Putin would panic and send every vehicle, gun, and man possible that direction, knowing what a disaster was possible. Hopefully this would dramatically weaken other areas. So UKR does thrust that does not encompass Melitopol/sea of Azov, but Putin reacts as if that's the target, shifts forces, then gets hit in Luhansk or maybe some of the Donetsk salients get cut off. Could be an interesting game of UKR punching the face then hitting the belly when the face is immediately covered up.

Next time I think I should feel sorry for some RU schmuck dying in a trench, I'll remember this article. Sorry for paywall. UKR mothers take ~3000 mile journey to get their kids out of RU-occupied regions. They go through Poland-Belarus-Russia-occupied region, get kid, then similar trip back though seems able to cross directly Belaus-UKR. The sooner they are all dead (or surrendered) the better. The child kidnapping part of this war makes my blood absolutely boil. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/world/europe/ukrainian-children-mothers-russia.html

Wow, y'all are on a roll. Great posts. I teared up a little at the U2-background training 'warning' to Putin. And then laughed out loud at the 'leak' video. The discussion of the southern front offensive was the really excellent bit. All of these are interesting and possible. So much of what UKR does, I think, depends on what they see as the opportunity areas. If RU heavily reinforces the line Vasylivka-tokmak, maybe UKR makes its move further east (with the cost of have both flanks hostile) and trying to unhinge that line. I still want to get RU betting heavily on one end of the line or the other, meaning convince them the attack is coming south or coming to Luhansk. The second best option is where they try to defend everything and spread out their strength (hopefully close to front line), which is what I think is most likely. The more planning that Putin himself can do the better of course, as he's taken the Hitler course on defensive operations. Putin was fooled once and made ridiculously amateur decision to double down in Kherson which led to double disaster, so it'll be interesting to see if or how that influences his thinking going forward. Perhaps we can think of Bakhmut & entire winter offensive as Putin's Kursk? Burning up mountains of valuable men, resources & time while in the end only leaving him open to exploitation of his weakened sectors.

I am thinking same as you, Grossman. The southern front attack would be best as far east as possible for purpose of cutting off maximum RU forces. The other side of that would be that an attack farther west would be farther from help from the RU forces in Donetsk. That front is ~200km long which is a lot of land to cover w depleted forces. Once Kerch and or Crimea bridges are cut those RU forces are doomed.

That looks really bad. That one stretch of road must be under close observation, I wonder if UKR can clear that spot. Unless RU just using drones and well timed, accurate artillery, which seems unlikely. Hopefully UKR has cleared out the trouble makers that got so close to the supply line. Very disheartening.

Good point, I didn't look closely at what had been shared until after I posted. But going forward if you, Beleg, TheCapt & others could please restrict your comments to things that I want to hear instead of things that make sense it would be greatly appreciated.

That's what I was thinking also. Whether this is an actual leak, meaning stolen intel, or a feint, it can still be used to confuse Herr Putler about the Pas de Calais attack if you get my meaning. I mentioned a recently that by the time UKR attacks there will be so much information that RU will be confused even though it actually has the correct info because it won't know what is real & what is fake. In a situation where leaks could be devastating, maybe the best thing to do is to pre-empt w lots of true & false data. Either way, I think UKR will have multiple plans which can be triggered based on what bait RU bites.

Really good summary here today w some stuff I haven't seen here. Reports of three train attacks by UKR partisans (?) around Melitopol. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/6/2162416/-Ukraine-Update-Melitopol-turns-out-to-be-a-very-bad-place-for-Russia-to-park-a-train

deleted, not worth the vacation

Summary here for today. Discusses artillery ammo usage rates & current & projected production rates. But also points out that there's a lot of RU shells that get destroyed behind the lines that are much harder to count. We've all heard front line soldiers complain of lack of artillery. Either UKR is short or it's hoarding, hopefully the latter. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/5/2162186/-Ukraine-Update-What-happens-next-in-Russia-s-invasion-of-Ukraine-may-be-down-to-a-single-word-Ammo

The huge #1 hit song for over a year now. Covered, recorded & released by a huge number of forum singers. Yet still seems some folks haven't heard it. Beleg85: thanks for the Hugh Laurie song, brilliant. A quick comedy skit is often worth 10,000 words of rational discussion. Could y'all slow down? New job keeping me busy and takes me an hour every night to catch up! I heard rumor (Denys Davydov today) that UKR attacking northern Andiivka salient. I hope this turns out to be true, hopefully this rumor will turn out to be true over next couple days w some success. THere's no way the new RU salients could have solid defenses w such worn out forces in those new territories when every warm body is attacking, not digging defense in depth.

I am sure Graham Hancock has a book in the works saying that romans settled in Australia, where they would of course have somehow changed the course of Australian history. Back to the war: some excellent posts folks, thx. Good take on the critical big picture, where RU has expended it's resources while UKR (we believe) has husbanded theirs. When the ground dries the entire front must be covered, much of it with very poor quality forces, could be quite a wild ride for old Putler. Summary today from this fella really good. Some footage I hadn't seen. And a great cartoon at the bottom. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/4/2161994/-Ukraine-Update-In-Bakhmut-an-unusual-weapon-put-to-use-with-devastating-results 105mm shells.... didn't we send some 105mm artillery? I seem to recall that.

I am never ever going to F w you great post, very funny -- though frightening

Yeah, I may yet end up in a disaster here. But at least I'm goin' down fightin'. The dang fog really hurts! As was certainly intended. I am guessing there was fog during the actual battle?

And our tigers regain the upper hand. How you like me now GeorgeMC-ovich? The Boss is not gonna be happy when you tell him how many of his namesake tanks just got smoked. He'll say "GeorgeMC-ovich, if I knew you were going to mishandle these tanks so badly I would've named them Beria tanks, or maybe after that bald punk, Krushchev. It does not look good to have a bunch of 'Josef Stalin' tanks burning, now does it? Do not fail me again, GeorgeMC-ovich." Two of the smoke columns are mine, sadly. But the rest were JS2s that were supposed to be an attack that turned into a very nasty meeting engagement in the fog when my attack blundered into soviet attack. Two more JS2s destroyed. Also found & flanked the last one that was hiding in the trees. My two remaining tigers just loaded up infantry are will be heading into the soviet flank now with a trail of some more infantry. I have taken the distant objective first. Despite losses, I hope to have enough combat power in this group to flank the near objective while engaging from the front. Sounds good on paper, but so did invading Russia in the first place and that didn't turn out so well. I know there's big concentration of soviet infantry still on the map, and who knows what else. Hopefully I can use dead ground to sneak up on the objective from behind w/o being exposed.

It's all about how we frame this event. I would say "pro Russian drag queens attack Ukrainian soldier in a church!". (they do all kinda dress like drag queens, btw, and the higher up they go the more elaborate the gowns. I grew up catholic, same thing there). Anyway, this kind of framing would very much confuse RU nats on how to react to this event.

Some interesting bits here today. I don't think I've seen the video of T80BV getting blasted here before. Some speculation on whether RU military or other Prigozhin haters are purposefully working to make sure his outfit gets smashed at Bakhmut. Also it sounds like the new head of the UN Sec Council is classic bats--t crazy RU official. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161636/-Ukraine-Update-Is-the-Russian-military-using-Bakhmut-to-destroy-Wagner-mercenaries

sorry for forum distraction, but this is such a hoot. Joining Idaho at least makes some sense. Making their own state means they would have basically zero state resources, because tiny, poor population. They'd be proclaiming how they are free and independent and self reliant and be begging the feds for handouts via other people's tax dollars-- Using their two senators, of course, in our deeply undemocratic system.

I am having a very bad time at Ogledow, unlike Dlw's original post here. I decided to go on the offensive right away w 5 tigers and infantry support. One tiger picked sniped by something but I kept going. Ran into a buzz saw of JS2 tanks. Was all in my favor at first then things started going very, very badly. Stupid fog putting RU tanks into point blank range. Tigers leave town on a hunting mission. Well, the ones that actually work left town. https://imgur.com/anQO2Jq Everything OK so far, had a quick fight w RU forces in copse of trees but only one casualty on my side. https://imgur.com/PHsHw And now we've got a fight: JS2 shows up. and dies, HA take that GeorgeMC-ovich! Burn, baby, burn. I was feeling pretty good at this point. Three JS2 down, no loss on my side. Victory for my tigers, though the close range is terrifying. A few minutes later..... and I've lost three of my 5 tigers. At least they died w sword in hand and will go to tank valhalla, unlike all the ones that simply broke down. And the fight goes on. I do not think tiger2s were made for this kind of close up fighting. All my advantages are gone due to fog, but won this duel at 50m. Is this all the JS2s?? Are there more? There was one on my left in some trees earlier but I hit him though not a kill. Is his gun damaged? So I have managed to wreck a bunch of tigers, lose some infantry, and still don't have the objective. This aint good. What else is hiding back there in the fog??? https://imgur.com/anQO2J