Armorgunner

That's up to the scenario builders. I can only assume that anyone making a scenario based on this war will turn down the quality of Russian troops quite a bit.

At this point, I want to ask for a moment of silence (looking at you, Eurosquabblers!) for the heroic defenders of Dovehnke.
And yet another kudos to our own @Combatintman who flagged this innocuous looking (to we lesser mortals) bit of ground as a key barrier to the RA advance from their hard won Izyum bridgehead to Sloviansk.
....On that same note, I'd like to revisit another astute post of CIMan in mid April, where he ID'ed various attack axes for the Russian 'pincer, and then predicted the Russians would end up getting forced onto the hardest, bloodiest paths.

Nailed it, mate.
1.  AA1 promptly bogged down in the open country, and that sector now seems increasingly dominated by UA artillery. No blitzkrieg for you, Popov!
2. AA3 worked ok at first, up until it hit Lyman and then it took 3-4 further weeks of costly fighting to clear that town and the forests behind it, and secure the S-D River line.
3. AA2 hit a dead stop at Dovhenke, as noted and has had to take the hard way around.
4.  AA4? has basically stopped on the start line at Sieverodonetsk.  Ivan is beating his head against a stone wall and getting counterpunched.

Subtle reminder: Turkey is and has been a valued and important member of NATO.  Militarily and strategically located.
Erdogan--not so much. 
But Turkey will be around a LOT longer than Erdogan.  Let's think long term.

No it´s not 6:30 am! It´s 3:40 pm  And sorry for me who continued with off topic!

NATO won't allow that. The bastard just want to show he's a mighty Ottoman and is trying to get some petty cash out of it. Believe me when I say he will pay a high price for his behavior when all of this is over. NATO will find a way around his veto. Sweden and Finland are already NATO countries and there's nothing the great sultan can do about that.

NATO wants you in. If necessary the rules for membership will be changed. And officially in or out NATO will defend Swedish and Finnish territory.
Another discussion is whether Turkey should remain a NATO member after the war in Ukraine. Personally I think not. On the other hand, Erdogan days could very well be counted, so let's not panic.

wake up to 3 more pages on this thread almost all of which I could ignore as it is all irrelevant.  All caught up and it is only 6:30 am!  @LongLeftFlankthanks for bringing this back to topic. 😎

First 3 months of the war, in 1,5 minute. Frontlines moving, and 2100 cruise missile strikes.
 
 

Someone needs to build this out in CM.

Good thread by Chris Dougherty:
I was reviewing #ukraine maps by@TheStudyofWar, @JominiW, et al yesterday to prepare for this radio interview with @TheWorld and I wondered why the war in eastern Ukraine is an attritional slugfest and not a battle of sweeping maneuver? Many folks thought that the war would feature more armored maneuver as operations shifted east to Donetsk & Luhansk, (& as the weather changed). This makes sense, as it's more open terrain. As @gianpgentile noted in the @WarOnTheRocks podcast below, the area around eastern Ukraine was the sight of some of the largest battles in history, incl. Manstein's "backhand blow" & a bit north in Russia, the massive battle of Kursk. From 1941-43, forces in this area pushed front lines 100s of miles in a battle. As noted by @RitaKonaev
below, today's fight looks more like WWI's Western Front, Mosul 2016-17, or late-stage Korean War: heavy casualties w/o much gained or lost. 3 factors account for this change. 1) the size & makeup of Ukr. & Rus. forces can't support large-scale maneuver. The German 6th Army that fought heavily in Ukraine & Stalingrad was roughly the same size as today's Russian army, & it was 1 of many armies in the Wehrmacht. Red Army forces were even larger. Both sides had hordes of armored vehicles & infantry needed to cover huge distances while securing flanks & supply lines. Such large forces could suffer horrendous losses & keep moving. Today's forces aren't big enough or designed for large-scale combined-arms maneuver. As @KofmanMichael & @RALee85 note in this superb @WarOnTheRocks
piece on Russian force design. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are designed for territorial defense. The 2nd factor is the amount of ISR in the theater. Western intel support, along w/ Bayraktars & other drones, gives Ukraine a great picture of Russian forces. Per @DanMichaelsWSJ, this makes maneuvers like river crossings even more dangerous. W/o surprise, maneuver requires overwhelming w/mass, fires, or both. But neither side has the mass to create & exploit a breakthrough. So we get massed fires (w/o much maneuver) instead The 3rd factor is changes in terrain since 1943. I haven't done a terrain walk in Ukraine, but it's a safe bet that it's more urbanized than it was 80 years ago. Russian forces have been road/rail-bound, & the roads, rails, & bridges run through cities like Severodonetsk. These factors mean we likely won't see major breakthroughs on either side. Terrain may change hands--the Severodonetsk salient worries me--but neither side has the mass to exploit minor gains. The war now likely becomes a test of endurance.  
 

Friedman's comments on Dougherty's analysis. This is right up @The_Capts alley:
This is a good thread, but I'm going to highlight the same dynamic not in terms of attrition versus maneuver, but in terms of mass, maneuver, firepower, and tempo. These are the four physical tactical tenets from On Tactics, which isn't built on an attrition versus maneuver dichotomy. It's absolutely true that neither side has the mass to facilitate maneuver like the Wehrmacht and the Red Army did in WW2. Moreover, massing forces in space and time today under pervasive ISR is dangerous. But maneuver is still happening, it's just facilitating firepower. As so. This is contributing to the highly "attritional" fighting. This is a major trend in tactics since World War 2. Instead of mass facilitating maneuver which is supported by firepower, maneuver needs to facilitate firepower. Both sides are figuring this out, and Russian doctrine is designed for this (although they missed something.) What they missed is a new role for mass. That's what@C_M_Dougherty highlighted. Mass now needs to exploit the effects of firepower. The pattern is no longer mass to maneuver to firepower, but maneuver to firepower to mass (for exploitation). So what about tempo? Because Russia lacks the mass to exploit firepower, Ukraine doesn't have to outright defeat Russian maneuver. They just have to slow it down because the effects of firepower are always temporary. Plus they're on the defense and time favors the defense. The Ukrainians have taken advantage of tempo since day one, always slowing and bogging down Russian actions until they collapse on their own. Mass could compensate for that but the Russians just don't have it. These tactical trends (pervasive ISR, maneuvering to facilitate modern firepower, massing for exploitation) aren't unique to the conflict in Ukraine. The technology will drive everyone in this direction. The other issue here (connected with tempo) is the initiative. Ukraine is on the defense but they have the initiative. Russia has to attack and they have to do so in places with logistical infrastructure. Their choices are constrained. This is a problem for US forces because doctrine and structure is designed for 1) a world of mass facilitating maneuver, not maneuver facilitating firepower, 2) faster is always better, and 3) the offense has the initiative. Which is not to say that these 3 assumptions will never be true. Merely that they may not be. But forces built around their universal application will struggle. Transitions to a force design that matches the modern tactical dynamic will be contentious. Which is what we're seeing with the USMC force design debate. FD2030 is creating forces designed more for using maneuver to facilitate firepower and it's blowing some minds.  
 

First 3 months of the war, in 1,5 minute. Frontlines moving, and 2100 cruise missile strikes.
 
 

Thanks ) Just became some more of work, my wife turned back and often occupies PC because her work, also it's hard to live three months 24/7 as war news translator, so I took small vacations 

Close hit, to a Russian APC. Several wounded, or dead.
 
 

Ukrainian SOF, destroys BMP 2. First person view, from the SOF firing. Then drone film, of the result.
 
 
 
 

Is it time to talk now?
 

Truth....speaking as a smoothie drinking leftist ( :P) in the US it's really the extreme left and right that are vocally outspoken against the US support.  The right wing types are just trying to score points against the president.  The extreme leftys are just as stupid...as always.  It is one of the few things that me and most of my Navy buddies agree about in American politics.  We are all in favor of more weapons to defeat Russian.  

Same in the US. It's only the very furthest left and a more sizable part of the right that's against our Ukraine policy. It's the one area of real consensus in American politics at the moment.

I don't have a translation, but meaning seems clear enuff 🇺🇦
 
 

@sburke @Kinophile
Major Alexey Moskovchenko, unit unknown
 

Hopefully the shape of things to come. 😁

Z nami Bog?   I have doubts about that red line....   Below is Yarova, beyond that steep massif above, where the RU flag  is on the map. Took them a week+ to take it.  

Just Kidding! We are all very happy that the war did not go as you thought, at the time. And about gambling? I´m not in to it either 😄

Next interview with US ex-serviceman James Vasquez.  The 'take no prisoners' comment from the last interview is the first thing they discuss.  From some of the comments it sounds a bit like his unit was working autonomously without being an integrated part of the UKR forces, buying all there own gear, getting and acting on their own intel, maybe there's just not enough details to make that assumption.  Not a channel I'd normally watch, the interviewer is a bit too much of something for me, interesting to hear the first hand account tied to pics I've been seeing over the past couple months on his twitter.  There's a bit where he's at that BRDM(?) monument that got shot up by passing BTRs early on in the invasion too.
 

Well said!