danfrodo

I just checked weather for melitopol & kharkiv. Above freezing every day for a week. I think this is the only thing saving RU from getting severe defeats and local/sector collapse. dammit.

Can't stand that feller, but if he were standing here right now I'd shake his hand and thank him for doing the right thing.

All the more reason for us to do everything possible to help Ukraine win ASAP. A bloody slog does no one any good. RU military collapse leading to at least recovery of Feb22 borders could provide basis for war to end. be even better if UKR got crimea and some/all of Donbas, but Feb22 seems the minimum that would allow this war to end. Then UKR starts building an army RU won't ever be able to mess with again.

That is so utterly F-ed up. "I'll go kill innocent Ukrainians so grandpa can buy sausage". One might ask "why is russia so messed up that this old guy is so poor?". Of course the answer is that ukrainians caused all russia's problems.

Murz: Yes, the russian interim military goals of losing Kharkiv & Kherson were certainly met, along w getting thousands of mobiks killed for nothing around Bakhmut. And the cost? Setting your nation's economic growth back a generation and needing another generation at least to bring it up to modernity? -- a small price to pay. THis guy is really making some sense.

That's a great phrase for getting my thoughts together. A cascade of damage that leads to ineffective combat response leading to local collapse then broader collapse. This is my great hope. And w a gazillion sherman tanks that were mostly stuck doing nothing due to terrain, why not?

Playing single scenario Rakow. 3 hours time limit, huge map, lots of movement w lots of units, so takes a while. I am just under the 2 hour mark and making progress. George MC is very proud of his evil schemes to thwart my progress but I am making gains. Here's a couple shots: Pz4 smoke shells screen advancing hannomags and their infantry passengers. Bottleneck and subsequent traffic jam over a bridge. Always a scary situation when there's russian artillery in play. Fortunately he's managed to miss his opportunities as I've cleared the congested areas before the slow russian response can hit me. Recon by death. Ordered halftrack w just driver to see what happened when moving into the open. Russian gunners used it for target practice. But I still can't see the offender. Trying to get eyes on the RU AT asset that hit the halftrack. Where the hell is this devil?? Currently working to keep all my strung out units moving forward, safely. Meanwhile moving up more infantry to try to locate russian AT guns that are keeping my point units from advancing further (could be tanks? but I think I'd see the tanks, being harder to hide).

This is all very damning for RU capabilities but doesn't even include the elephant in the room: IT'S WINTER. Some RU troops have proper clothing, shelter, etc. But lots don't. And when the ground freezes we're back to sectors where all the above issues are at play plus sick, weakened, demoralized rabble expected to hold ground under attack by angry, motivated, well armed, real soldiers. That's the thing about a front. If it's weak some places, it's weak in all places unless the enemy is heavily channeled due to terrain, like right now w mud.

NYTimes reports that UKR officials clarifying their belief on RU winter offensive. It makes more sense now that they are saying it will be massed infantry attacks. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/18/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-winter.html Which gets back to a point I made yesterday that Putin would've think twice about killing millions of russians if it meant he could get some kind of victory out of this disaster. Hopefully at some point russian powerbrokers or the russian population will rise up against this kind of butchery of their own. But we've all been hoping that for 10 long months, sadly.

Hey Girkin, Ya might start w ending the pointless and bankrupting war ya f-ing idiot. Restructuring the government won't magically turn the steaming manure pile into gold. There is nothing that is now being fought over that will yield 0.1% in profit relative to the cost of this war of choice. All these people think that the only problem is how the war is being conducted, not the fact that the war itself is the problem.

I guess carrying around all that money makes one prone to falls. So sad. But one has to wonder why Putin ordered this (yes, I am assuming he did). Was this guy talking to other tycoons about needing to end Putin's reign of stupid?

Summary from Mark Sumner (dailykos) today. Nothing ground breaking, but does report continued small gains for UKR on Svatove-kremmina front. As most of you know, the road net is mostly north-south in this area, and w mud it's tough to move east for UKR. Also he provides more summary of the NYTimes article mentioned in above posts, for those stuck by paywall. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/17/2142397/-Ukraine-update-Putin-s-war-may-be-destroying-Ukrainian-cities-but-it-s-killing-the-Russian-nation

I have no doubt that if it meant saving his own skin there's no amount of other dead people that would faze Putin. And if it meant getting some kind of a win out of this war, I am sure he'd not blink at sacrificing several million russians, provided his own skin was also saved. Hitler in the bunker didn't kill himself to save Germany more suffering. He had simply run out of options. If sacrificing another million germans to save his own skin for another year would've worked he would've chosen that without a second thought.

That's my feeling also: Yes, Putin, please mass you troops and push them out of their trenches toward UKR defenses & artillery, it will make ending this war so much easier. I really wonder whether morale is holding up. Maybe it hasn't been sufficiently tested lately because of the mud. And in some places 'morale' just means the unit is more fearful of being gunned down by RU blocking units than by UKR forces.

This whole RU offensive on Kyiv thing has been totally confusing for me w a UKR official saying it. It seems utterly absurd given what we see every day, week after week, month after month. Yeah, maybe they've got 200k new mobiks or a new draft cohort, but what about equipment, training, logistics, etc? All these troops could reasonably do is sit in defense or be shredded in more insane cannon fodder attacks. Even the element of surprise is impossible w all the ISR available. If they massed 200k near Kyiv we'd all know it and UKR would start hitting the ammo dumps. And for an offensive they'd need ammo dumps near the start line, they couldn't just leave everything way back where they couldn't move it fast enough to keep up w their lightning-blitzkrieg advances. Which gets back to how many dead RU men will it take for the population to start to turn on Putin in a meaningful way? I am guessing a lot of the deaths are simply hidden from the families for as long as possible to avoid backlash and to avoid paying off death benefits.

My concern is that the stockpiles could be depleted very quickly. So I was trying to think of more of a just-in-time system but with some amount of ready ammo. Can we really build & store enough for a 1 year high intensity war? But you are all correct, w suppliers, etc, it might not be feasible.

Maybe what NATO countries should invest in is the infrastructure for rapidly increasing shell production. Have reasonable stockpiles and then the ability to ramp quickly. This would mean expensive manufacturing lines not doing much, but cheaper than making + storing then decomissioning outdated shells. So you build manufacturing line that can do X shells per month but only run it at 0.05X shells per month in normal times, or whatever the number is. In normal times maybe the line runs a couple days a week, one shift per day. Hopefully could get new workers trained in a month and have round the clock, maximum production out of that same line. But the contractor would need to be paid enough to make cover the ongoing maintenence & capital costs req'd for this.

Holy moly, turns out there's actually a war going on! Update below reports progress by UKR in some areas, though slow. Slowly surrounding Kremmina. Some good tidbits. Ru still pounding its head at Bakhmut -- but allegedly have lost ground last day or two. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/16/2142198/-Ukraine-update-Russian-forces-around-Bakhmut-forced-to-surrender-ground-as-assault-falters Weather not cooperating: looks like warm & wet today but ~cold front moving into Kharkiv area though not the kind of cold we want for solidly freezing the ground. lows a little below freezing, highs a little above. Melitopol a little warmer, basically same temperatures as right now in Oregon. And my ground is not frozen.

I gotta be careful not to post any spoilers. But where the hell is that armor sound contact going???? I think he bypassed my ambush. Dang it. He was supposed to stupidly trundle down the street and get hit at 90 degrees by my waiting Pz4s.

you are a devil! You are laughing at my suffering! I hear you on the village not being the prize, I am definitely not trying to clear it. RIght now I am trying to decide whether to bypass the town via right turn after the bridge or go thru town. My hannomag recce did not go well, w two machine gunners down but no heavy weapons hit me yet. There's noise contact other side of town that sounds like armor -- actually I hope he attacks me at close range w his T34s since I'm outgunned at longer range. I've got an ambush set up and am hoping he'll walk into it -- if he's coming at all. But you are a sneaky one so I will probably get some kind of nasty surprise where I don't expect it. Anyway, thanks much, this is great fun!

Yeah but you gotta give credit for the funny line, at least: "The irony is that cutting off the supply of Big Macs and KFC is doing them a favor."

Great to hear from someone w actual hands-on experience, thanks much for sharing that. What do you think of Leo2 vs T72? -- I mean relative lethality, mobility, survivability

Kind of hard to believe RU has 200k 'battleworthy' troops -- that implies motivation, training, equipment and supply. I suspect that if they do have 200k troops they'd be thrown in the fight ASAP in the ongoing, desperate hope to freeze the conflict on current lines.

Ukraine is in a fight for its survival. If some western leaders are offended by the urgency in UKR requests, F THEM. I had a dream last night where russians invaded and took half of my town. I was a civilian stuck behind RU lines but knew I was on borrowed time and had to get to friendly lines. I figured there was one sector I might be able to sneak through but knew if spotted I'd be shot on sight. It was flippin' terrifying. And Zeleban et al are living it for real.

Yeah, this doesn't have to be an all or nothing game. Could start small cadre to get going w new equipment, like marders and leo2s (leo1s), nothing that would disrupt the war. Start working out the maintenence and logistical stuff, start putting some things in place. Then get one unit of some level, company or battalion, trained up. This is one of those issues where both sides are right: right now need to keep feeding immediately usable gear into the pipeline. And also need to start build a force based on better gear. Not mutually exclusive, though the immediate needs would cause the future needs to be resourced at relatively low levels, causing longer lead time (since all the tankers are actually rather busy right now).