pintere
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Posts posted by pintere
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26 minutes ago, ZellZeka said:
But why does Putin want to make peace? He has only just begun to succeed in fighting, and you invite him to stop at the most pleasant moment for him. Agree that it is stupid to stop half a step before the top
That’s why Putin has to be stopped on the battlefield first. Ukraine needs to figure out where it will make a stand, and then turn that place into a charnel house for the Russians. Make it so that the Russians shake in their boots at the mere suggestion of going within 5 km of the main battle line.
But if the goal remains to reclaim all its territory (one clearly unachievable by now) then both Allies and the Ukrainian people themselves will be demoralized by essentially being in an unwinnable situation. By making the goal realistic, but also desirable, there is an incentive to achieve something that will bring an end to the carnage in the most favourable way that can be realistically achieved.
Furthermore, it will be a lot easier to convince western publics to support aid to Ukraine if there’s a clear end state in sight that is within the capability of the Ukrainian state to bring about.
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1 hour ago, FancyCat said:
Part of this is on Ukraine in failing to mobilize, part of this is definitely on the West for failing to supply Ukraine, for wasting months and lives to engage in useless partisanship and concerns about paying non-Western countries for shells. No wonder France and the Baltics are rumbling about increasing escalation with deploying western forces to Ukraine, the idea of Russia collapsing as a result of this war is as far fetched as ever and increasingly the scenario of Ukrainian collapse and further territorial loss increases and rest assure, that image is a Western loss, no ifs or buts, if the West cannot pursue at least a stalemate (and why would Putin agree? He’s advancing) how horrid it would look globally and with regard to the Pacific in particular.
Indeed. Smarter people than me probably know why this hasn’t already been done, but Ukraine and the west need to stop saying their goal is the expulsion of Russians from all Ukrainian territory. Unless the US enters the war on Ukraine’s side that is not going to happen.
The stated goal should be to secure a peace that minimizes loss of Ukrainian territory while providing maximum security for Ukraine post-war. In other words, Ukraine needs to end the war similar to how Finland ended the Winter War back in 1941.
Of course, the flip side is that they’ll also need those fortifications and ongoing powerful western support to give Russia an incentive to actually stop.
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From a Ukrainian Telegram, quoting mostly from a NYT article:
“I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves” - Budanov in an interview by the New York Times
“The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation moves toward critical.”
His bleak assessment echoed those of other Ukrainian officers in recent days, that the country’s military prospects were dimming. In addition to being outnumbered, the Ukrainians face critical shortages of weapons, especially artillery ammunition, and $60.8 billion worth of arms from the United States — approved three weeks ago after months of congressional gridlock — has barely begun to arrive.
Like most Ukrainian officials and military experts, General Budanov said he believes the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere.
That is exactly what is happening now, he acknowledged. He said the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast, but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.
“All of our forces are either here or in Chasiv Yar,” he said, referring to a Ukrainian stronghold about 120 miles farther south that Russian troops have assaulted in recent weeks. “I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.”
General Budanov assessed that Ukrainian forces would be able to shore up their lines and stabilize the front within the next few days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack further north of Kharkiv, in the Sumy region.
Full article here (without Paywall)
- Note: After this article was published, Budanov has stated that the expected russian attack in Sumy has not taken place as the enemy had originally planned, due to "problems" that they have experienced in Kharkiv.
You would think that admitting you have no more reserves left is something you don’t want to announce to the world, but I suppose they reckon Russia more or less knows anyways.
That aside, it’s not looking great. By all accounts it seems that Ukraine has committed most or all of its reserve troops, while Russia can still throw quite a bit more into the fight.
We talk in this thread about war exhaustion, and unless something dramatically changes it‘s looking increasingly likely that Ukraine and not Russia will run up short first. For all of Russia‘s internal problems, it seems their government‘s crude but persistent ruthlessness is working. They may lose scores of tanks each week and their men may die like dogs, but they keep finding more.
In Ukraine there is lacking a similar kind of ruthlessness. Zaluzhny said last year he needed 500k men, by the looks of things on the frontline right now he was probably right. But it seems like the Ukrainian government and military leadership are either unwilling to accept the realities on the ground, or aren’t prepared to do something that could potentially push the country’s internal situation to potentially unstable levels.
Is there a solution to all this? Honestly it’s hard to say. The Ukrainians I know seem to be mistrustful of their government and pessimistic of the overall situation. And unless they get a lot more men, or the tactical situation swings greatly in their favour, then I’m not sure if they can ever stop the Russians from steadily munching away at their territory so long as the fighting continues.
Regardless of the outcome, it’s times like these where I’m sure every NATO country is breathing a sigh of relief to have the collective support of many other powerful countries at their back to deal with the Russian menace. Because if the war in Ukraine is proving anything, it’s that there may be not a single European country that can indefinitely hold back the Russian tide with its own reserves of manpower.
But I maintain that if every NATO country got involved in a conflict with Russia, offensive or defensive, that the latter would be wrecked as devastatingly as they deserve…
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Much as I hate to be "that guy", word from the Kharkiv front is not good. It seems there is not much in the way of minefields, fortifications and men to defend at all. The attached BBC article interviews a Ukrainian soldier who stated that the Russians had just "walked in".
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72p0xx410xo
A Ukrainian telegram channel (which included a video of Russians marching in column) had this to say:
"Ukrainian defence is apparently not so robust in Kharkiv region after all. Ruzzian infantry is just marching. Our drone operators are also commenting about the poor defence.
I say like it is…
Vovchansk will be occupied very soon
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The impression I get is that, just as the Russians were complacent in Fall 2022 on this front, so too have the Ukrainians been complacent in preparing for the possibility of a serious attack in this area. I hope to be proven wrong, time will tell.
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A few Russian vehicles were destroyed southwest of the village of Pylna. Which means at least some Russians made it 3 km past the border.
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Russians have begun offensive activity in Kharkiv oblast, specifically near Liptsy and Vovchansk. Apparently they’re trying to create a 10km buffer zone along the border according to one Ukrainian source. Here’s the most detailed preliminary summary I found:
From the Deep State Military map source (automatic translation):
Activation by the enemy has begun in the Kharkiv region
The activation began with dense shelling by various means of fire damage to the border settlements of Kharkiv Oblast. Currently, shelling continues, in particular, in the area of the city of Vovchansk. EW and UAV systems are also actively used.
The enemy is trying to enter and gain a foothold in a number of settlements along the border, in particular, in the villages of Strelecha-Krasne-Pylna-Borysivka. Attempts are also being made to attack the enemy in the settlements of Gatishche-Pletenivka. The main Katsap forces for the event are currently infantry with the support of a small amount of equipment. They do not dare to move beyond the above-mentioned settlements, perhaps the use of major forces is expected.
️ The available resources used by the enemy at the moment will not be enough for a deep advance. Currently, the situation is such that the enemy is destabilizing the border areas. But it is not known how many main forces he is ready to use for this maneuver.
Separately, I would like to mention the shade of Sagittarius-Red-Pilna-Borysivka. In advance, the enemy made attempts to saturate the personnel in the villages, in particular, in the village of Pylna, about which we will write in more detail separately. You can claim to repel all attacks, distort information, but the responsible persons who were supposed to react to it from the first bells are now thinking about what to do with it.
In the information field, similar actions from the enemy were expected. Even more, units of the Defense Forces, which directly hold positions along the border, were waiting for them. Now everything is in their hands, and they are making maximum efforts to repulse the next offensive actions of the Muscovites. The task of the entire society is not to panic, but to help our fighters on the front lines. The civilian population in the border areas should not be fooled, but should listen to calls from local authorities, in particular, regarding evacuation.
The map has been updated!
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2 hours ago, FancyCat said:
The driver says it would be effective in tank battles but that isn't the environment they are fighting in.
The same could probably be said of most MBTs used in this war. If tanks are going to continue as a viable weapon system at all then they’re going to have to evolve.
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From a Ukrainian Telegram. Can’t confirm, though interesting if true. We may see more of western troops being introduced gradually into ever more direct roles.
"France secretly sent its military to Ukraine - ex-Pentagon official Stephen Bryan
According to him, about 100 Foreign Legion soldiers from the 3rd French Infantry Regiment were stationed in Slavyansk to support the 54th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They do artillery and surveillance. In total, it is planned to send about 1,500 legionnaires to Ukraine.
It is not possible to confirm that information…"
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21 hours ago, The_Capt said:
“Only 20k”?! Let’s not be hypoboblic either. 10% of a field force is no small measure. The point of my original post is that there are young Ukrainian men running away from the fight while (only) 20 thousand foreigners are there doing the dying. That ain’t right.
It should be noted that the 20k number is very early, and doesn’t at all reflect the situation now. From what I’ve gathered, many of those volunteers either quit soon after arriving or have made their way back home by now in any case.
The Ukraine foreign legion has three battalions currently active, with one extra used for training. A handful of other foreign volunteers are scattered throughout the regular Ukrainian units, but these are few and far between.
Based on this I estimate that there’s probably in the ballpark of 5k foreigners in the Ukrainian military right now. Certainly no more than 10k. But perhaps our Ukrainian regulars can give a more informed estimate than this.
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6 hours ago, Haiduk said:
On Avdiivka sector after UKR successfull conter-attack 2-3 days ago, allowed to recapture lost positions in eastern part ot the Ocheretyne town, yesterday unnamed UKR unit in front of the face of next Russian attack along railways just abandoned positions and Russians again seized part of Ocheretyne, but in this time in south-eastern part. UKR command was forced to throw in the battle elements of 47th mech.brigade, which was partially moved to second line for short rest.
Russians have choosen Ocheretyne as priority objective now and use here the same tactic like in Chasiv Yar. Unlike Wagner during the battles for Soledar and Bakhmut with a tactic of multiple small group attacks, with continous changing of these attack directions, Russians now use strong flanks pressure - this doesn't lead to decisive results without concentration of forces on one direction, but in conditions of personnel and aartillery support lack of UKR forces, this method hampers our reserve manuevers.
Is it not possible for the Ukrainians to counterattack the flanks of the corridor at Ocheretyne? Standard military logic would suggest that the corridor there is just begging to be cut off.
Of course, this war is very different from previous wars…
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It's too bad that the Begleit-Grenadier squad found in the Sturmartillerie brigades is as rare as it is. It's basically the perfect German infantry squad as far as CM is concerned, with three elements totaling 7 StG 44, 3 Gewehr 43 + 1 LMG & rifleman, for 12 soldiers total. It's size and loadout mean that it can effectively engage infantry at any range whether on offense or defense, and like most other German infantry squads of this time there's also a couple Panzerfausts per squad.
Probably the best choice to go with for frustrated German players when playing either quick battles or PBEM.
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29 minutes ago, Carolus said:
Some possibility of why Johnson changed his blockade stance.
So for once the Russians would be right if they said it was all the CIA‘s doing
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From yesterday:
"At a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, Volodymyr Zelenskyy named 5 urgent defense needs of Ukraine: 7 Patriot air defense systems or similar, one million artillery shells, long-range weapons, aviation and speed in the supply of these weapons."
I suppose we’ll know soon enough what exactly the US will be sending and when. My hope is that the very first things they send will be more Patriot batteries and SHELLS. Lots and lots. Crate after crate of 155mm. Assuming the Ukrainians are ready on their end too, in as soon as a couple weeks we may finally see the Russian assault teams once again disappear under rains of fire. And then even the new blyat tanks will have no refuge on the battlefield.
Next in line will hopefully be a few F-16 squadrons (to take care of those infernal glide-bombers) as well as a few hundred Bradleys. Based on what we’ve seen at the front, as well as the Ukrainians‘ own statements, I think sending more of these would be of much greater practical value compared to more Abrams. Besides, if Bradleys are indeed able to defeat T90s on the current battlefield then Abrams are probably not even necessary anyways
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Speed will of course be vital too, especially if Ukraine is to be ready to meet Russia’s own summer offensive. With luck though, Ukraine will ultimately be ready in time to return the favour the Russians inflicted on them last summer.
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8 hours ago, dan/california said:
Verstka reported that employees of the military recruitment center in Moscow indicated that the pace of Russian voluntary recruitment “dropped sharply” starting in October 2023 with the number of visitors to the Unified Contract Hiring Center in Moscow decreasing from 500-600 per day to 20-30 per day.
This is just a theory, but I wonder if the various persons in Russia are a lot more willing to go to Ukraine on the assumption that they’ll be employed in defensive rather than offensive operations?
I know I’d way rather sit in a trench on same quiet patch of frontline as opposed to being crushed by the treads of my own armoured vehicles in the open…
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19 hours ago, Grigb said:
AFAIR, it was so called Z military reporter aka field propagandist. That's why he was without weapons. During the firefight he got confused and ran toward Legionnaires as he thought they are RU (they were not shooting at him). He realized his mistake when Legionnaires shouted to him to surrender (you can see exact moment on video), so he ran back. I do not remember what happened to him after that.
Hmm I’ll keep that in mind next time my Pixeltruppen in CM flee TOWARDS the enemy when they clearly should’ve just stayed put.
You know, this war has been a great showcase of how really stupid things can happen in modern warfare. And every time this is the case it becomes easier to forgive the mechanics of Combat Mission when it results in outcomes that seem either unrealistic/unfair.
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4 hours ago, Kraft said:
Incredible footage of the international Legion working with 59th MechBrigade storming a russian trench
Did that one Russian at the end (he had no weapon) really just run into the Legionnaires‘ trench and surrender? I didn’t see what happened to him after he hopped in.
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35 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
Thank you! Do you perhaps have the statistics for the 3rd phase, final surrender included ? I am wondering if the relationship between losses from 2nd phase was completely reversed
Unfortunately Forczyk‘s third book does not tell us this…
But the Germans did definitely suffer far greater losses than the Soviets in this phase, as not only the combat units but also all the support units would’ve been entirely lost.
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Just now, Maciej Zwolinski said:
But at some point in time all Germans left in the kessel surrendered and were shipped to Siberia. According to Polish Wikipedia there was 100,000 of them. That brings the total losses including POWs to approximately 1:1, right?
Or does Forczyk distinguish the Stalingrad city fight (i.e. the part with Germans as the attackers) from Uranus +kesselschlacht (obviously, Russians as the attackers)? Actually it may be necessary as without such split it would be difficult to use Stalingrad for any attacker vs defender statistics due to the change of roles midway through the fight.
You are correct, these numbers are for the city fight before Uranus only.
And for good reason, as the overwhelming majority of German casualties during the Stalingrad battle were from the third phase, the natural consequence of an encircled force being destroyed completely.
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3 hours ago, Mr.X said:
It cannot be emphasized enough. If the briefings of the many missions are reasonable, then that is solely @pintere´s credit
He corrected all (!!) the briefings and repeatedly had to deal with my terrible English.
And I would do it again! Quality missions deserve quality briefings.
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3 hours ago, Mik093 said:
You are missing campaigns. I have 24 for Red Thunder XD
5 by Battlefront, 5 by Franck and 14 others created by members of the community.
I started the game in December with BfN, FI and FB. I'm very far from finished XDOf course
. It should be noted that I’m also very picky with the campaigns I keep for a long time. Ones that don’t make the cut include campaigns with insufficiently accurate uniforms/TOE (this excludes DragonWynn‘s Totenkopf and Finnish campaigns), requirements for mods that don’t come with mod tags (eg DragonWynn‘s Stalingrad campaign) or are duplicates of battles already portrayed in a higher quality campaign (such as the fanmade breakthrough to AG North campaign).
Thankfully Frank‘s campaigns have none of these issues!
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6 hours ago, The_Capt said:
Ok, so what were the urban combat loss ratios then? Also, on German losses…so it was what? A draw? German losses were not significant?
I might be a little late to the party, but I’d point you in the direction of Robert Forczyk‘s excellent 3 part series on the battle.
At the end of book 2 (the one covering the city fighting), he reports that the Germans suffered 20,300 casualties within the city itself (including 4,600 dead/missing) in the time period 1 September — 20 November.
Soviet losses are a lot harder to pin down. From September—November the Stalingrad Front suffered about 400,000 casualties, around half of which were dead/missing. Forczyk estimates that about a quarter of these losses were sustained in the city itself.
So for the actual urban combat in Stalingrad from September to October, we have 20,300 German losses against ~100,000 Soviet losses. An approximate loss ratio of 5:1 in favour of the attacker, or 10:1 if only dead/missing are counted.
I‘m beginning to get the impression that the actual city fight for Stalingrad was indeed a bloodbath, but clearly not a German one… At the very least it clearly shows that urban combat doesn’t necessarily produce higher losses for the attacking side.
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Thanks to Frank I now have 16 campaigns to play on my version of Red Thunder. 5 by Battlefront, 5 by Frank, and 6 other fanmade campaigns.
We are lucky there are so many good fanmade campaigns for Red Thunder. In fact, there may even be more for this game now than BN! Someone should do a count…
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3 hours ago, Zeleban said:
https://ria.ru/20240209/simonyan-1926316813.html
Not only Gerashchenko. Margarita Simonyan, one of the main Russian propagandists, complains that Tucker Carlson did not start a conversation with Putin about conservative values (after all, this is the main idea of Carlson’s viewers). Thus, even loyal Putin propagandists criticize this interview.
Be that as it may, even Carlson himself said that he was not yet ready to comment on this interview. Which indicates his negative impression.
In this sense we can call this a positive development. The idea of the interview was probably to garner sympathy from US citizens to the Russian POV after all. This is just a theory, but I like to think that your average curious individual in the US would’ve started to watch this interview and then gotten so bored by Putin‘s history lesson that they stopped watching before the half hour mark.
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Found a transcript for the Putin-Tucker interview:
Among the contents was this juicy nugget:
Putin - "Before World War II, Poland collaborated with Hitler, and although it did not yield to Hitler's demands, it still participated in the petitioning of Czechoslovakia together with Hitler, as the Poles had not given the Danzig corridor to Germany and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom war started on first September, 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland."
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Good article. What it proposes makes the most sense, and I really hope the Ukrainian leadership pivots to something like it soon.