danfrodo

Summary today, describes how he makes his maps. Plus has nice snippet from a PBS story from Aug 2022 basically showing how little RU has gained since it's still fighting over the starting points for getting to any real objectives. So now the starting points are the objectives. Kinda like Bastogne -- necessary for German advance but otherwise doesn't really change anything on its own. Also says there's reports that UKR now thinking about attacking Wagner more forcefully because maybe this is actually a weak area to be exploited considering how exhausted and overextended Wagner is. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/23/2159739/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-only-has-one-army-Bakhmut-may-be-the-place-where-they-lose-it

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Thirty?? Now that's a number I like seeing when it comes to fighter jets! I hope UKR can clear out RU AD so these beasts can have maximum impact.

From your keyboard to Odins's ears

jeebus, tearing up over that bottom video. Those soldiers are fighting in the most dangerous place on earth and The President visits them. I wonder where this was filmed? How close to the fighting lines? Though I'd feel better if he didn't stand out like a sore thumb w that black shirt.

Summary from my usual UKR news aggregator below. T55s, as we know, that's fun. RU attacks ome more apartment buildings, Zelensky visits somewhere near (in?) Bakhmut. So, the T55s: either RU is running a really good psyops campaign to make us think they are running out of everything..... or they are running out of everything. The bad news is that anything w a gun and some armor is a danger to infantry & light armored vehicles, but certainly better to face one of these than a T72 covered in ERA. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/22/2159616/-Ukraine-Update-Welcome-to-1946-Russia-is-sending-in-tanks-designed-for-World-War-II

I think you just had bad timing as a certain person really irritated The Boss (and many of us) by posting a long-debunked trope and then continually doubling down on it. We don't know who did the pipeline thing, we all have our suspects. But what Hersh wrote was basically the equivalent of something he heard from a drunk in a bar, it was completely irresponsible.

I want Phantom Captain's life, he's getting a lot more CM time than I am . Great pics, Dude!

Before we call this a trend we need to see a week's worth. If we plotted this the trend would still be downward, that 120 is just one day. Let's see over more days. And attack is a binary number, on or off, without any weighting for the size of the attacks.

Looking at that and then remembering the earlier post about the drone w claymore attached. Bunching up in trenches is a baaaaaad idea.

By the way, new Perun video excellent so far, I watched first half on lunch break today while riding my trusty steed (nordic track). The best bit was when he showed the map of owned territory at Dec 1st vs now. When shown at the scale of all of Ukraine you can't even tell where RU gained territory unless you have a magnifying glass and know exactly where to look. Good for keeping perspective about the last 3 months of fighting.

Talking about 'russia's concerns' is not the same thing as saying these are 'russia's righteous justifications' for invading other countries, or even for RU telling other countries what they can and can't do. Russia has concerns that the US & EU exist outside of a global Russian empire. That don't mean we gotta kneel to them. Where's that block button? I haven't used it in a while but am feeling the need.

We don't pay you to banter w the likes of Seminole. Now get back to work!

Exactly and this has been discussed 100x here, I am surprised to see someone still suggest "it's NATO's fault". The only difference w/o NATO expansion would be that Putin would've invaded and conquered the baltic states before launching his attack on Ukraine. As Steve and others have said (paraphrase), NATO expansion angers Putin because it permanently and completely takes territory off Putin's list of lands-to-be-conquered.

ha! What a great feeling that is, every time. What was the target? It's too far away for me to see clearly. I think it's a T34, though could be a sherman, hard to tell.

FlammerWerferX: did you hit????

So that's where Alex Jones learned his trade.....

Dang, JonS knows things

I think there's a translation issue here. It should say "Russian Nat Guard General Wins Medal for Taking Large Bribes". Since when is corruption a negative thing under Putin?

Professional humor, Yet. Well done

I do love that feeling when you know you've got 'em. Then watching the shell arc beautifully toward its one true love. (assuming this is a veteran gunner)

Good summary here today as it details what seems to have happened at Bakhmut, w counterattack in SW to push RU from the good road. Shows some videos we've seen before, plus one of a bunch of HUMMVs & MRAPS (I think) on side of road allegedly toward Bakhmut. The writer is concerned this might mean UKR is pulling forces away from later counterattack to help Bakhmut, though I am less concerned. We're still in March and if this unit doesn't get chewed up then it could still be available. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/19/2159163/-Ukraine-Update-Ukraine-retakes-some-ground-around-Bakhmut-but-end-goal-is-unclear With Wagner having weakened itself and advanced into new terrain, Bakhmut might be a good place to run some small counteroffensives for killing baddies and easing Bakhmut situation while getting some really good on the job offensive experience for forces and command systems. Horses and zebras from JonS, I think I'm gonna pilfer that one, it's good. Like when a satellite fell out of the sky in the 90s over the NW USA and my idiot oldest brother called to see if I had witnessed the UFO event. "couldn't possibly be a satellite!". Of course, space aliens is such a more likely explanation, especially considering the fact it was announced beforehand. He was Qanon before there was a Qanon, a real innovator. Of course hoofbeats are zebras! -- they just want you to believe it's horses because they don't want to start a panic!

thanks, I didn't want to be the first to go there, though it was kinda obvious

I wonder what those are up to? And what they would be paired with in an attack? There's been a lot of back & forth here about UKR capabilities, losses, etc, and I've been trying to step back from each and every report. Guy does a driveby of front lines and says losses 10:1. Another guy does same thing in different location and says 1:1. Small UKR force, like platoon, gets hit on southern front, and we wonder whether UKR can actually do offensive operation -- seems like a small sample size from which to conclude much. Maybe UKR can't do offensive, but really we have no idea. Maybe UKR loss ratio is not good, we don't know. But if we think about the whole front the preponderance of evidence says loss ratios are greatly in UKR favor -- we know RU has been throwing men & machines into the grinder in attack, which leads to higher losses unless defenders are overrun, for which we have very little evidence. Also RU attacks are lessening in number and strength across the front, and they can't seem to close the last few kilometers to cut off off Bakhmut. If the losses were 1:1 wouldn't we expect RU to be more successful considering they have massed so much at Bakmut? As far as offensives go, UKR hasn't even really tried as far as we can tell unless they actually have and we couldn't tell because they have no strength. I think TheCapt is right, that there will be a lot of corrosion before UKR makes any big move, and why would they do this while RU can focus defenses on just the roads due to mud? Another point that came up was overall strength b/w the sides. But it's not the overall that matters so much. If UKR can defend w economy of force across the front while achieving significant local superiority, that's what matters. Meanwhile, RU has a much greater fear UKR breakthrough because it's much more vulnerable -- only ~70-100km from sourthern front to the coast, and don't need to even go that far to cut off everything west of a deep salient on that front. There were times on the WW2 russian front where there was relative parity in numbers while RU was able to build significant local superiority. Part of this was because they weren't concerned w German attacks across most of the front -- infantry dominant areas weren't going to do anything offensively that would really matter, so RU could hold w minimum force. So sadly I can say I don't really know much right now. I have my wishful thinking/bias, which is at least based on some evidence, but certainly I could be wrong and UKR is weaker than I think.

Great posts folks, I am finally caught up after a day of travel yesterday. It's fascinating to me how folks are looking at a local situation, like shell shortage/troop quality in Bakhmut, and are extrapolating that to the entire UKR army. Maybe it's true in the entire army. But the preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that UKR is using economy of force.