Panserjeger

115th mech.brigade. Those guys, battalion of which after first wounded conducted "council" with own company comamnders and decided to abandon positions on Siverodonetsk outskirts - as a result Russians seized "Myr" hotel and old airport area and entered to the city, which before this successfully was repelling all atatcks. Then they were confused with 115th TD brigade (who gives the same numbers to different military units! We already have 45th arty brigade and 45th air-assault, 46th sep. rifle battalion and 46th air-assult brigade, etc)
Command ordered them to turn back and dig in, but battalion rejected because "we are former civilians and havn't combat experience, so we just will die there".  In twitter then wrote, almost all battalion was arrested in Bakhmut. But soldiers and comamnders of this unit claimed they are not deserters, but just "saved personnel from 100 % death from Russian artillery strikes and helicopter atatcks". Fighters of volunteer unit "Legion of Svoboda", which fiercly fought without heavy weapon in Rubizhe and Siverodonetsk were very angry on this unit. Because they also were under heavy shellings and without artillery and tanks, and many of them - the same civilians, who have taken a weapon on 24th Feb. Though they also criticized the Command, which instead move unexperienced soldiers to old combat units, just created a brigade, composed mostly of unexperienced conscripts and officer-reservists, which turned out psychically not ready to fight, though they got at least three weeks training. So, I don't know whar a situation in this brigade now and what their combat capabilities and motivation now. 

Since US only now included 1000 of guided artillery ammunition in next aid batch, I still doubt we have something like this. In our twitters also many opinions, that holes on the bridge more match to artillery shells, than missiles. And this could do Caesars, for example. Or PzH2000. But locals told about missiles. Alas, no videos of impacts. 

Very nice summarise. However, just to clarify (not nitpicking) from pre-modern perspective not all close order infantry units devoid soldiers of agency; very nature of close combat in pre-gunpowder era made impossible to turn warrior into automaton, regardless how strict was discipline (the only exception seem to be Macedonian phalanx- but not necessarly its Greek counterpart). This is one of the breaktroughts in our understanding of pre-modern close combat that was put forward in lats 30-40 years thanks to works Keegan, V.D. Hanson or Goldsworthy. Btw. we just lately started to "unchant" our understanding of ancient Greek/Roman warfare from "mechanical" and "disciplinarian" Prussian school- it's mindblowing how these guys still influence our understanding of how Ancients foughts. That is, among others, why I always hate when somebody writes about "fighting machines" when describing any military structure before XIX cent.
If we get back to Antiquity, actually first "mission command" idea came with Romans. Their manipules were much more flexible and elastic than phalanxes, and we have plenty of specific instances when even lower commanders (centurions or younger officers) acted on their own bringing victory against more static/dispersed enemies. So there is nothing new under the sun here- it was expicitly stated by Polibios and in several other works.
Concept of soldier as "background to his musket" started to appear late in XVI/XVII cent. after which then developed into classical codified linear drill maybe around 1700+. Only by this time size of  "killing zone" was usually enough for soldiers to stand down in line, concentrate on loading his musket and praying the other one side will broke down first, even despite human debris of his comrades being splashed around. Even M.Foucault-hardly a military historian- had some very interesting concepts that this automatization of presence came together only because change in power structures/military technology during Enlightment. Before that battlefields were still full of "free-roaming" gentlemen with halbards and swords that were rather only roughly formed.
If I remember works on history of Enlightment Military concepts (would need to search for titles) they claimed that at least in British and French Empires lesson from frontier, colonial warfare were collectively forgot every time or deemed unsutaible for european battlefields. Only French-Prussian war and Boer wars changed attitude somehow, when it was simply impossible to keep long and dense firing line as basic formation. But could be wrong here.
Yeah, words marked. Not that they are especially wise, since you clearly are biased and have no idea what the issue is about. Early in war there were apparently behind-door talks when Germany stated it will be able to replace at least part of our tank fleet if we gave our tanks to Ukrainians in reasonable time, but as it came out it was just another example of scholzing. Sorry, but everybody would prefer 100 dusty US marines Abramses in 3 years than one Leo2 every month in a decade. And regardles of your opinion, all NATO higher officers seem to agree frontier state needs sizeable mechanized force if it borders with Russia/Belarus. Independence of Baltic states also hangs on Suwałki gap, so I wouldn't be so arrogant when describing those concerns.

Russians are moving further to the rear their large ammunition dumps out of HIMARS/Tochka-U ranges. Also they now trying to disperse own command centers, creating false and reserve command points, also new field command centers they will be dig in deeply. 
Of course, redeploying of ammunition dumps in the deep rear will demand more trucks, more fuel for continuous supply of BTGs  
Here the assesment of DefMon how will increase the time of supply on different directions

Interview of UKR military journalist Yuriy Butusov with senior sergeant Yuriy Petroshchuk - sergeant-mayor of 1st mech.battalion of 24th mech.brigade abouth their breakthrough from encirclement in Zolote and Hirske
Alas, w/o English subtitles, so I will write briefly main things of his story 
- Before the war began, 24th mech.brigade already 9 months was at frontline. Further 4 months more of intensive warfare without rotation.
- 1st mech.battalion defended the line Orikhove - Hirske - Zolote (this is about 9 km) 
- intensive warfare began since 6th of March
- LPR and Russians used against UKR forces almost all types of weapon, artillery and air strikes can't be counted. Russians poured so much amonuts of artillery and MLRS shells on their positions each day, so he can say it could be possible one military train of ammunition daily. But despite this UKR troops held hard, so "UKR infantry is toughest infantry in the world"
- Main secret of this stedfast defense - trained young officers with strong leadership. Sergeants played significant role in this too - they shared own experience and confidense. Battalion commander with call-sign "Irys" is exellent professional, which had time both to comamnd and be present in hotest points, so soldiers and officers always have seen him nearby and this raised trust and cohesion betwwen all chains in battalion. "Irys" personally sat as driver in BMP and evacuated 9 wounded soldiers under fire. For the all time he evacuated more than 30 wounded. He also could "fly" with drone if he wanted to learn more about situation personnally. So he is "universal soldier" and this personal example inspired soldiers, even those, who came later after mobilization and had less combat experience or didn't have it. 
- One company strongpoint was captured by the enemy (probably this about Orikhove area), company commander was killed. "Irys" personally led counter-attack on this strongpoint.
- After enemy pushed off right neighbours of 1st battalion from Toshkivka area on 19th June, the trap began to close. "Irys" and Petroshchuk tried to recon the passage and evacuate 8 wounded, but their jeeps were shelled and destroyed, though they could avoid the death and saved all wounded. 
- On 20th of June enemy cut off last road. The command gave the order to break through with small groups. "Irys" personally developed routes. Breakthrough began on 22nd of June. Petroshchuk was in group in 70 men. All vehiciles and heavy weapon, which can't move was destroyed. Total number of soldiers, which remained in battalion and went for a breakthough - more than 400 men. Some Territorial Defense units (I think, no more than company level) were together with them.  
- Despite on enemy shellings, their battaliosn succussfuly infiltrated through enemy lines with all reamained vehicles and heavy weapon. Petroshchuk told he know only about three missed and several wounded during this breakthrough (though LPR showed about four dozens on captured UKR soldiers in Hirske)
- After breakthrough, on next day, battalion participated in defense of Vovchoyarivka.
- Main features, on Petroshchuk's opinion, which must have good soldiers (and good climate in the unit) - psychical readiness to fight and give own life if need, desire to learn and adopt experience, respect to each other between soldiers and commanders 

There is literally NO reason except laziness and stupidity not to get off fossil fuels as quickly as humanly possible. It would cause all of our enemies except China to go broke. It would keep the planet from cooking itself. And as not insignificant bonus you get a large improvement in public health due to less air pollution. The anti nuclear folks just need to be canceled and governments just need to get behind this thing and PUSH!

It is ridiculous that anyone would prioritize a PC wargame over the events we are seeing unfold on the ground in Ukraine.  These events have global impact - we have seen this already, and it is just the start, and merit staying informed about as much as possible.  Why?  Because if you live in a democracy in the western world, at some point you will be asked to use the phenomenal power of your vote to influence this war and it is your responsibility to understand what that means...or at least it should be.
The lack of sacrifice I am referring to is on anyone who is not willing to put aside hobbies and free time and actually devote that time to staying informed about this war as much as they are able.  Everyone on this thread is willing to put that work in, and yes, sacrifice time, in many cases money, and it at least one case volunteer for military service. These are very small sacrifices compared to what the average Ukrainian is going through (Haiduk's dedication and ability to keep us informed while his country is being torn apart is frankly humbling) but everyone here is at least willing to do that much, along with personal donations etc.  
Based on your posts, you are not even willing to sacrifice a distraction from a wargaming hobby.  Now, I do not know your personal circumstances - perhaps you are a humanitarian aid worker who has to deal with the cost of this war on a daily basis, and just want to come here to get away from it all.  I get that, but for the rest of us here this is where we go to put the time in and do our small part.
I appreciate the shout out for CMCW, we had a lot of fun doing that title and have future plans - trust me.  However, right now I would prefer you respect what is going on here as something more than a bunch of "war-porn voyeurism"; it is a communities' efforts to understand what is going on and support each other while it happens.  We did the same after 9/11, and Iraq '03, and Afghanistan, and the Crimea...and now the Russo Ukrainian War.  CM will be there after this war is over, it has survived a lot in the last 20 years, but for now this is bigger than my hobby.  If it is not based on your personal circumstances, hey we get that, however, there is no need to come here and make trouble for those that are just trying to sort through the mountains of information (good, bad, and ugly) and make sense of it.

Permit me a bit of COMPLETE speculation. No one in the Western world has fought a war anything like this since 1945. And in a lot of ways even the worst of WW2 wasn't this intense of the U.S.. The Colonel is watching people he trained a month ago die in significant numbers, he is training more units that he nows knows with brutal certainty will be committed to the same kind of combat. As outstanding as his military education and prior service has been, it just didn't prepare him for this.
No one east of the Rhine has faced anything like this 1918, it has to be a terrible burden to be doing all he can and yet be unable to keep all the people he is training alive. he is more than allowed to have a bad attitude. He knows in his bones the price the Ukrainians are paying to boil the frog slowly. The Ukrainians keep going because the Russians have made it utterly clear that they can die in battle, or after the Russians have destroyed everything they hold dear and made them watch.
The Colonel deserves our absolute respect for showing up and doing everything he can. He is more than forgiven for feeling less than cheerful about it. The Ukrainians deserve essentially unlimited and unconditional support for taking on this fight, and MAYBE, just MAYBE keeping the 21st century from going off the rails as badly as the 20th did. The very least the rest of us can do is annoy the BLEEP out of or elected representatives to send everything that can be sent as fast as the logistics channels can move it. Voting Scholz right out of the building would be an excellent place to start. Remember NATO can end this end in three days if it is willing to call the Russians bluff about starting WW3. My opinion is that it clearly IS a bluff. The Russians haven't doubled down and started shooting at Polish supply points after at least sixty thousand casualties and perhaps twice that, it isn't even clear that they know how many. Since most of the wars in history have started over one hundredth that level of provocation, it is pretty clear to me they don't want to start one. 
One guys opinion, thanks for reading it if you made it this far. WRITE YOUR CONGRESSPERSON/MP.

On the sea new threats await too:
 

There are 35 Yugoslaviam made BVP M80A's on their way to Ukraine from Slovenia. These were Yugoslavian knockoffs from Soviet BMP -1's. In exchange US gave Slovenia founds to buy military material from them. Good bussiness for both countries (dependance on spare parts).
Up to 50 Yugoslavian made and upgraded T-84 tanks are in the pipeline to be sent too. Not sure how thise would compare to Oplots. 
Slovenia already sent lots of kalashnikovs, helmets, bullet proof vests and other military equipment to Ukraine but I am now really happy we upped the ante. 
I personally delivered lots of medical equipment to Ukrainian embassy here. Now I am at peace.
 
 

We have already a criticism of this from our military expert Konstantin Mashovets:
 
The methodology chosen by our government to convince the Western public of the need to build up military-technical assistance to Ukraine by reciting "real needs" and "terrible losses" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine  DOES NOT WORK. Because, it does not impress anyone in the West, from the word "absolutely". It is not at this "point" that you need to hit. They need to explain what the BENEFITS are for them from such cooperation. And also, tirelessly explain that it will be BETTER for them if you help Ukraine than not help. Moreover, it is desirable VISUALLY, with figures, maps, diagrams, etc. The mentality of the "transverse" Western citizen is arranged in this way...

Yes, exactly. It's not some border dispute or dispute over some political ideas or decisions. If Ukraine stops fighting - they will kill us all, or at least will try hard to do it like they did many many times before. Millions dead and with no place to live for whoever survives is a much worse outcome than hundreds of daily casualties - even though it's horrific either way.

This is a lie. You know the level of knowledge about Ukraine present here.  Can’t believe you would try and trot this out in front of this crowd. Since everything else is just Fox News talking points also, I doubt there is any reason to address this in detail, but broadly:
-Biden worked to end corruption in Ukraine, carrying out the policy of the US and our European partners, including putting pressure on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who WAS NOT actively pursuing an investigation of Burisma (which concerned issues predating Hunter Biden’s term on the Burisma, and so COULD NOT have been an investigation of H. Biden).
-Trump tried to extort a fake investigation of H. Biden by Ukraine for purely domestic US political purposes by threatening to withhold military aid, in direct contravention of US foreign policy.
If you don’t think the latter display of complete contempt for Ukraine on the part of the US didn’t play into Russia’s plans in Ukraine (which did not start out of the blue in Nov 2020), then I don’t know what to say.

Well said. Nothing to add. Personally I hope this will be the beginning of a more united EU, in which all countries start to think more as Europeans, instead of Dutch, Poles, Germans, Greeks, French and so on. Another positive factor is that Europe and the US showed more unity in the past few months than has been seen in a long time. 

Of what costs are you talking about precisely? 
The economic cost of sanctions imposed of Russia? This is ours to bear because of decades of spineless politics aimed at short time economic gains, and unwillingness to stand up for European Values we are so proud of. 
Cost of rebuilding UA after the war? At that poin it equals to a few hundred billion Euro - it is a lot, but hardly unbearable for EU as a whole. Significant part of it will come back in form of contracts for European companies doing the work. And there's the ethical side of it of course... 
Cost of integrating UA into EU? It will take years before the will be able to join, and even then enlargin EU is in general mutually beneficial to everyone, new markets open, new workforce,etc. it isn't a zero sum game. 
Yeah, wars suck and are expensive, but it really could've been worse. And quite possibly all this money spend buys Europe a much better future for decades to come. 

So there is: what happened, what is happening and what will happen.  Everyone is interested in the last one and never spend enough time on the first two.  In reality good analysis should focus primarily on the first two and they are incredibly hard enough to get right. 
Resolution gets exponentially worse as you move left to right on this components - this is why right now we can only really make lo-resolution predictions.  We can say "Normalization between Russia and the West will likely take a generation after this war" with a level of confidence but we cannot say exactly when the RA is going to collapse.
The problem with a war, particularly one like this is that all analysts have are assumptions at the beginning of it.  These assumptions become the foundational what happened that they build their entire framework upon.  Then they tend to ignore counter-factuals as outliers and select information that supports their framework - I lost count how many times in Mar I heard "Ukrainians are putting up a spirited defence but this war is still going to end in Russian victory".  That is human nature, but one has to be aware it is happening.
The other problem I have seen in this war's analysis is a serious lack of expertise in those holding the microphones.  I have seen the gambit of western GOs, some with pretty impressive resumes, on mainstream news and then the slick haired "combat bros" who served in the SEALs/Green Berets/Marine Recon/Rangers pushing their "analysis" via social media.  The reality is that as legitimate as these people are, or are not, none of them have a clue about what they are talking about - none of us really do.  Why?  Because the people who actually would recognize this type of war, and they would even find some aspects very odd, are in their 80s-90s.  Even those are mostly in-the-trenches-soldiers because all of the more senior leadership from WW2 and Korea died years ago.  I don't care if you were a 4 star general at the tip of the spear in Iraq, or a Navy SEAL who shot OBL in the forehead - none of us have ever been in a war of this level of peer-intensity.  The last European industrial war was really Yugoslavia and it never got to this level of intensity - in fact I am stretching to find an outlier war of this intensity and duration in a standup peer-on-peer fight since Korea.
Finally, analysts are a social group whether they want to admit it or not.  As such, a lot of normalization and peer-pressure occurs that naturally suppresses outliers.  Steve would have been laughed out of the room of "serious military analysts" in early Feb, written off as some amateur enthusiast who clearly did not understand the deeper nuances of modern warfare.  The mainstream analysts are trapped in the same box as those they analyze for and outliers get filtered out all the time.  This creates a self-reinforcing loop of agreement as everyone references each other as the "collective expertise".  This forms an incredibly powerful collective "norm" where advising power as on outlier is very risky because the first hand raised is going to say "well that is not what I heard from {insert pundit rock-star of the day}".
 

The meta data says Bryansk but that appears to have been user defined because the ground at the grid plot looks nothing like what we're seeing in the video and seems to be the default setting for anything tagged Bryansk.  The imagery, according to the metadata, was captured on 13 June so it is definitely recent.

Ukrainian society will curse and even overthrow anybody, who will agree to trade our lands for peace.  
There is no matter about relatively big part of Russia-TV zombified unloyal population, which wanted of Russia coming. Most of them will never rise a weapon by own will, because their passive soviet mentality.
Westerners always have rational point of view, which mixed with modern pacifism of many intellectuals. So, from here all this  messages to our government and president - "we support you, of course, but Russia is stronger and bigger anyway, your desperate resistance only caused new and new deaths and destructions. You have to save a lives first of all and stop the war. Rest can be resolved by negotiations ... Somewhere. And we want to trade with Russia - huge market, but your foolish resistance is just spoiling our idyll"
But for us, slavs, the question of "land of our fathers" will be always irrationally sacred. We can lost lands only after military defeat or betrayal of our leaders, but even in this case we will fight back early or later. 
All, who  incline our country to peace with concessions just don't understand, that this only  approve Russia in it neo-imperial ambitions. And through several years they again will come to "liberate" other Ukrainian territories. And not only Ukrainian. I bet if Russia invade to Baltic states, there will be discussions around "5th article" and many continental European countries will be search ways to avoid direct involvement. 
So, now the West has a chance to finish off with rashism, neo-imperialism and revanchism by our hands and our blood. We have 600-year experience of wars with Moskovia, so nobody can do it better. So, just give more weapon and ammunition and we will drive aspen  stake in the heart of neoSoviet walking dead, risen from own grave. All other hints about peace, "not humilitate Russia" summon question is really western world based on own claimed values, or this is just beautiful hypocritical words, which cover ugly face of rationalism, real politic and business as usual

I've just passed to this page and read THIS. Guys, I though this was just a joke, but now my heart is melted down and I can't reject this gift. Though, I feel myself awkward... and also huge gratitude to all of you and Kinophile personally for idea     

You are only telling half the story to match your narrative.  The UNSC passed 3 resolutions to get Serbia to stop killing people (a fourth after the bombings)  and then passed 1244 which authorized a direct ground intervention by NATO (KFOR).  Further, NATO nations tried to get a resolution but were blocked by China and Russia as you note above...why?  Because Serbians were ethnic cleansing again which everyone still remembered from 1995.  This followed the precedent set in 1995 of NATO airstrikes to protect UNPROFOR, which led to UNSCR 1031 and the NATO ground intervention of IFOR.
Making a link back to US politics and "expansion" in Kosovo makes zero sense - just as it does for Libya frankly.  For Libya, UNSCR 1973 was put forward by France, Lebanon and the UK...what in the hell does this have to do with "Congressional approval"?  1973 was a classic Chapter VII, and again, Russia and China were on the SC and let it go.  Kosovo and Libya were interventions to try and stop repeat humanitarian offenders and dictators from doing worse - not some Rub Goldberg attempt by NATO to rule the world as a puppet of the US.
France intervening without the US - you have heard about Mali (Op Serval)?  In fact there were more: https://www.okayafrica.com/french-military-in-africa/
I can say NATO is a defensive alliance - the history of the Alliance has been defensive from the beginning.  NATO has done interventions on behalf of the UN and failing that, with the support from the international community.  To  make all this some self-centered US political issue is frankly insulting to all the nations and its military members who participated on those missions.
Finally, we know NATO is not a US puppet because it stayed out of Iraq in '03 (which did not have UN cover) and only went into Afghanistan when it did.  This is not the behaviour of a "puppet alliance doing the bidding of a US president who can't rule the planet based on domestic political landscape".  Russia is paranoid...because they are Russia, and no one likes/trust them because of history.  And Putin just took out a big red marker and underlined that dislike/trust for the next 50 years by unilaterally invading a neighbor.  And attempts to play "pick-and-chose" history to create a justification for Russian behaviour is just wrong.   
 

Oh this is gonna be good.  Let's get Mongolia involved....

Incredible.
Haiduk's in for a hell of a surprise when he gets back on his pc...
FUNDED!

$1500 to get him a new laptop. Amazing. Thank you, everyone who donated.
 

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 

This one is absolutely worth the time to watch, Dobrev have some very good examples on how corruption and greed have undermined the combat effectiveness of the Russian army prior to the invasion.