danfrodo

Geeez, slow down y'all. I had three+ pages to get caught up with. I just finished 5 day hell drive across most of the US (taking daughter to med school in Indiana from Oregon). Lost two full days due to snow in Wyoming, finally backtracked hundreds of miles w first hundred miles in near white out. Whew, glad that's over. Just a few hours earlier and we would've beat the storm. I know UKR needs some frozen ground but I don't think they'd want snow with continuous winds of 50kph for multiple days. Anyway, been trying to keep up with all the posts and this week has been quite a bit of good stuff IMO. LLF post above mentions that RU troops could be quite effective in defense in the landbridge, and I think this could certainly be true. But I also think that if the ground allows mobility that UKR will find the weak (mobik) sections of the front and be able to bypass the solid areas. At least that is my hope. Amx10 looks like a great addition for UKR. Officials from BFC greatly oppose this weapon transfer because it will delay their upcoming CM release as they have to add yet another new vehicle. The rest of us are happy about the amx10 I suspect. That 105mm gun could come in pretty handy in infantry support and for blasting BMP & other RU AFVs. And looks like bradleys are for real? Yay america, way to go. Plus, when we talk about collapse, I think we are not necessarily talking about Russia collapsing as a whole, though that's one possibility w various regions going independent. I am thinking more of collapse of Putin's regime w a new regime coming in that actually wants out of the war and wants to get the country out of sanctions. Thanks for all the great info, everyone.

ah, perfect. I was just trying to find something to watch while on exercise machine today. Right now it looks like RU has much worse arty issues. Each side having shortage should not be surprising but it's more a question of which side is suffering most from 'shell hunger'. I still think UKR is suffering mostly from mud, else there'd be some real gains happening.

I believe the correct term for this is 'chutzpah'.

4-5 months to prepare for May/June offensives to end this war. I wonder if the training & infrastructure & logistics for some bradley/Leo2 battalions could be in place? And can this happen while UKR is concurrently working its winter operations?? I understand that's it's a big task and many folks here are skeptical (for good reasons it seems), but sooner or later this probably needs to happen. And if we never start we never get there. How could Poland/US/other help by operating repair facilities in Poland? And is that just too far away? What about contracted maintenence and repair folks that are operating somewhere in UKR?

Interesting bits of news from the last day or so that I am seeing here: UKR shooting down ~75% of incoming missiles. So Putin has to send 100 to get 25 hits, and he doesn't know which of the ones will actually hit so he has choice of flooding one area or spreading it out but only hitting a few of those many targets. Meanwhile this causes him to burn through these missiles at a prodigious rate. Hopefully the burn rate will make these attacks much less frequent. Another declining asset for Putler. Bakhmut seems like it's in no danger of falling, in fact seems the attacks are getting weaker and weaker. And Kremmina on the brink. Meanwhile, the Finns are pushing for NATO to start working w UKR to build up leo2 capabilities. HECK YES! Might not matter until next June or July but even if war over those would be quite a good deterent to future agression. Good news.

Another thing that too many folks seem to miss: if Putin & friends think someone is good..... then they are clearly not good.

That cannot be real...... please tell that lunatic Musk did not actually like this.

Someone swiped at you for a battlepack that has massive amount of excellent battles for just $10?? F them. Your work on this was excellent. That does not mean that I have changed my opinion of how evil you are for wrecking so much of my beautiful kampfgruppe at Rakow.

Merry Christmas to all and I hope you all enjoyed your hamster dinners (callback to early post on RU propaganda post on this thread). We put on dinner for 19 (was 8 planned by others had flights cancelled and came back home yesterday to no groceries). Fortunately we found enough hamsters for everyone While most of US is in deep freeze the pacific NW went from terrible ice storm friday to 60F(14C) today, it was bizarre. Sadly, Ukraine weather still above freezing each day for coming week it looks like. So Putin remains saved by the mud.

Great video, AKD, thanks. These are some very very lucky Russian soldiers, though they might not realize it as they are captured. While these guys are properly fed and housed and out of danger, a whole bunch of their comrades are gonna be sick, freezing, malnourished and in very close proximity to death.

I had to run to Portland and back, didn't realize Eagles lost til now. I'm gonna go hide under my bed. Elvis is gonna be looking to put a whuppin' on somebody. Eagles did have back up QB in but they gave up 40? Oh my. He's gonna be really mad. Be a good time to goad someone you don't like though in the hopes he'd throw the personal foul flag on the retaliation while missing the instigation. Risky though.

In hand? They only thing I have in hand are a bunch of wrecked vehicles! You cruelly mock the victims of your perfidy, you devil! Laugh while you can, I've still got a whole bunch of combat power. You are gonna pay! Everyone is over the first bridge. You'll be meeting all my friends soon. And they are angry. Damn what a great fight! This scenario is a good demonstration of what we see in the history books for this period. Attacking is hard and dangerous. Combat power bleeds badly and quickly when going up against a competent foe. Oh, and a very Merry Christmas to you over there in Scotland.

by the way, how'd you do there in Iowa during the great storm of Dec 2022? Looks like very cold there and still there's ~40mph winds? I hope you have not lost power. Kind of a blessing and curse in UKR to have mild temps since all the polar air seems to be in N America. Makes the front a quaqmire but also keeps folks from literally freezing to death.

Enough of this use blather LLF. It's time for you to put your money on the table: what do you see happening in Ukraine over the next month or so? You seem to do a good job of looking at multiple sources, what do you think is coming? (I only use dailykos summaries because they are pretty good aggregation of info and I can get a good daily update in one place) My take: I think that the bad soldiers + bad logistics + bad command will lead to some sectors being very weak and they'll collapse under pressure, as sick/untrained/hungry/demoralized/unmotivated conscripts run away. Maybe this is happening now along Svatove front. The only thing saving RU is the mud. RU defense lines will be very strong in some areas but if the flanks collapse it's just worthless. Germans saw this in WW2, where they just couldn't man a proper front. They'd have some areas that withstood all comers, but then other sectors would collapse leading to crisis. I think RU is going to be losing badly between now & February.

Svatove news: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/24/2143606/-Ukraine-update-The-battle-for-Svatove-approaches-as-Ukraine-reportedly-liberates-four-more-villages Meanwhile Denys Davydov reports that UKR counterattacking around Bakhmut.

Hah! Take that Comrade GeorgeMC! I knocked out the three guns that had my drive completely stalled. So let's run a couple halftracks full speed down the road I already know is clear because I've already sent a little infantry that way. What could go wrong? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO there's more guns! Two more at least! and I have no eyes on them. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Curse you GeorgeMC! Yer killin me! Not showing more because I don't want to spoil the scenario by giving much info. I ran one hannomag forward and it got hit. I thought it was from one of the known guns and I just figured I hadn't fully knocked it out. So blastered that position w more mortars, for sure it had to be gone. Ran second hannomag and it got knocked out also, which was when I realized the shot came from a couple hundred meters from the known gun. Also found another gun in another location that could cause me trouble as I move toward the second bridge, but again no eyes on it. Now I gotta get command units w binoculars and radios into position to find these devils and then get some mortars or arty on them. This will take a lot of time. In the meantime I think I'll push small infantry units through the kill zone. Maybe the second bridge will can be taken by infantry only? We'll find out.

So it looks like UKR is now counterattacking on the Bakhmut front. Seems getting all one's soldiers chewed up and expending all your arty ammo on pointless attacks w heavy losses might leave one open to a counter thrust. Go figure.

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(don't say anything about Carlson & his viewers, don't do it, don't do it, let it go.......). Whew, that was close. And back on the war: I was thinking today about what Xmas will be like for people in Ukraine. Then I wondered if Putin would launch a big missile attack that day and I am thinking that sounds just like something he would do. Hopefully instead some folks will choose that day to hang a new decoration off a lamppost in red square. Ok, one Carlson statement: criticizing Carlson's words is not partisan. It's basic morality and humanity and reality.

While there's a rather popular thread here about how evil Putin is wrecking the world, I think we also need to recognize another evil force in our world: GeorgeMC, maker of devious, nasty, wehrmacht-wrecking CMRT battles. I'm fighting away on Rakow scenario, big battle. I am determined to win -- this time it's personal! "None shall pass" says evil GeorgeMC! I had slipped 4 or 5 halftracks thru this spot. It's under enemy gun observation from ~1700m but it's a tiny kill zone window between buildings and trees. So there's no way he could hit my tank as it sprints through here to get to better position. Right? What could go wrong? Yet......dammit another long range first shot kill by Annie Oakleyovich on that damn gun! But at least the guns are finally spotted. And once spotted can be killed w mortars or artillery, though takes forever. This guy thinks he's going to be telling his grandchildren about all the german tanks he knocked out. Just a matter of time, Ivan. You're not gonna see tomorrow. And just in case the mortars don't do the trick, I've got an infantry/halftrack attack from ~300m that will coincide w the mortar rounds. And so we wait in the (thankfully unobserved) parking lot until I can silence all these guns. And best of all, my units are finally all over the bridge, many of which had to run an artillery gauntlet on the way. I've got 1.5 hours left. My infantry scouts are reporting that at least half way to the second bridge looks to be open once the AT guns are gone. But what about a counterattack? I've lost a lot of Pz4s and these troops don't have a lot of panzerfausts so I might end up being overrun by T34s in the end. I will set some Pz4 ambush areas up to hopefully hold on to my bridges. My first priority is getting that second bridge.

Somehow I missed these when posted last week. Absolutely epic. I am hoping those smoke columns are from the other guys?

Great video AKD, thanks for sharing. Really shows life on the front lines in cold, wet weather.

Ah, this clarifies my thinking greatly, DanCA. Putin is unintentionally running an experiment to see just how far he can push russian society until it breaks (meaning, breaks Putin). There's been previous experiments but the conditions were very different so they don't tell us as much as one would think. The number of casualties considered 'acceptable' in WW1 was certainly higher while communication, education, etc were much lower and the economy and people's expectations were vastly different. As Steve has said, all the conditions for a tipping point are there but we won't know we've reached it until it actually tips. And much thanks to Harmon Rabb for the Xmas tree pick and his thoughts. We had heavy freezing rain here last night so can't leave the house w/o falling, dog can't even do it. But the electricity is on and it will all be melted by dawn tomorrow. In Urkraine it's bad weather plus no electricity and it won't all be gone by tomorrow. Meanwhile, some news from the front in the summary below. Seems the grinding progress on Svatove-Kremmina front continues to grind forward, slowly. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/23/2143459/-Ukraine-update-Russia-sends-all-forces-in-Svatove-to-the-front-lines-as-Ukraine-presses-closer

dammit dammit dammit. Now I gotta shake hands, smile warmly and say thank you to both McConnell and Grassley? WTF is going on??? Ohhhhhh, this how our gov't is supposed to work, been so long I forgot -- Folks working together across party lines to do the obvious right thing, both morally and for US/world interests. This is great news that two very powerful GOPers are putting their weight behind supporting Ukraine.