Maquisard manqué

You forgot the massive eyeroll!
Dave

My overall impression is of a disciplined and competent unit. Everyone was clean^, and actions were carried out deliberately and without stress or haste. Everyone appeared calm and relaxed (except that one guy), and they were all comfortable with each other – some banter, but a lot of pretty frank comments about how they’re feeling. The new guys seemed a little stiff, but that’s probably to be expected.
The fact they had some new guys was interesting in itself. Why are the new guys needed - casualties? Promotion? Courses? Relief for leave periods? Siphoning off some experience to raise a new battery?
A lot of the guys seemed pretty old, and kind of chubby? I guess that’s to be expected with mass mobilisation.
Overall this was a very tidy gun position with no trash or dunnage to be seen which is a sign of good discipline, and also an fairly comfortable looking position which is a sign of good morale.
They are carrying personal weapons at all times, which struck me as odd. Could be for the cameras, or could be because of the local ground threat.
I think they’re using encrypted radios? The blerp at the start of each transmission is a bit of a give-away. That’s not super surprising, other than that encrypted radios are not available COTS.

From a specifically gunnery perspective, they were firing at a very low trajectory, and with a time of flight of 29 seconds, which implies they were firing at around 10km (29 seconds time of flight, firing Charge 1 so probably around 300 m/s). But that’s a hearty guess since I don’t know the specifics of the gun/round/charge combos for the D-30. Low trajectory is good practice since it makes it harder for the enemy to sense any outgoing rounds.
The battery was set up in a woodland, which was unusual since it severely restricts your traverse - you can’t just bang a round away in any direction since it’ll probably slam into a tree a few 10s of metres away and really ruin your day. Given a static front that kind of makes sense – “all our targets are in a narrow arc in that direction” - but it does mean that this battery can’t really support any units to the flanks of the one it’s been assigned to.
It looked like they were using time fuses, although again I’m not really familiar with Russian ammunition. There was a shot where a guy was fiddling with a tool on the nose of the round at around 6:39, and the tool he’s using appears to have calibration marks on it. On Western ammo that’s the kind of thing you’d use to set the time fuze length^^, whereas switching between PD and Delay is a simple screwdriver turn between two positions and would be a completely different fuse (you can turn a time fuze into a PD fuse by zeroing the timer, but they usually don’t also have a Delay setting. Also, time fuzes are relatively rare, so you’d only use them when air burst was called for.)
It seems they are concerned about counter battery (CB) fire, since they moved into a shelter immediately after the mission, but not THAT concerned since they’ve been in the same positions for several months. There also didn’t appear to be much ground churn (from incoming rounds) but that could be due to fresh recent snow covering any wounds to the ground since there also didn’t appear to be many random tracks about the place. Mind you, that – the lack of tracks - could alternately be due to really good discipline and morale, and the guys really sticking to the track plan. Or discipline + fresh snow.
I didn’t see any evidence of vehicles – either trucks dug in or hiding under cam nets, or vehicle tracks anywhere. That implies the battery isn’t moving anytime soon, and also that the guys are having to hump ammo in from some distance away. It also implies that they – or rather their higher command – are confident that the Russians will not be breaking in or through anywhere nearby anytime soon. Raids; yes – they specifically talk about that. But no movement of the FEBA.
Given they’ve been there for a couple of months, I would expect that they have a very long list of pre-registered targets, which greatly reduces (effectively eliminates) the need to adjust before going to fire for effect (FFE).
Although only one gun was show I would expect that there was a whole battery (probably 4 guns) hidden in the trees thereabouts, although probably very dispersed. I think that because the battery commander was there, and the command post (CP) looked fairly substantial for something that was only controlling a single gun. I am assuming here that the film crew walked between the gun they filmed at, and the underground battery CP and the underground CB shelter. If, on the other hand, they drove between CP and the gun then all bets are off, but I think driving is unlikely given the radios being used – those small handhelds don’t have great ranges, especially in trees.
All the round detonations you hear are of single rounds. That suggests that this gun could indeed be a pistol gun off on it’s lonesome away from the rest of the battery, OR that they are engaging a very small or point target like an isolated building, OR in response to a very local probe. But given the weather – bright sun, middle of the day – I’d be a bit surprised if the Russians were up and moving about with small numbers of light infantry, so my guess would either be a destruction mission on a building or the like, or they’re doing a technical shoot to figure out exactly what the weather conditions are doing to the flight of the rounds right now. Those technical shoots are important since it means that engaging any targets off the pre-registered list can go to FFE immediately, which decreases the response time from ~5-10 mins to ~1min including time of flight. That would also explain the generally unhurried and relaxed attitude of the guys – when a battery is firing in support of friendly forces in contact there is a certain ... tenseness, which is absent here.
Jon

^ that could also be because they tidied up the house, washed and had haircuts before visitors came over. But I don’t think it’s just that – you can tell a soldier to go have a wash, but that wouldn’t explain the calmness.
^^ although the fuzes I’m used to have the time setting marks on the fuze itself, rather than the adjusting tool, so … ?

Exactly.  Let's be brutally honest with ourselves here.  Western warfare theory and doctrine is highly elegant and has demonstrated superiority in some contexts.  However, it is also very fragile.  Books have been written about why this is and how we got here - to be honest I am leaning towards the "let's sell war as political 'fast-food' - cheap, fast and goes down easy" linked to a bloated military industrial complex (War Incorporated) as the primary reason.  Regardless our entire military doctrine is based on a highly interlinked and dependent system that we have labelled many things over the years - combined, joint, JIMP, multi-domain, all domain. 
It is a brilliant theory but it is not robust.  You pull out one critical component and the whole thing falls apart.  And of course being us, we have highly incentivized finding ways to pull out critical components for our adversaries.  Saddam H was a monument on "How not to fight the western world" and everyone who might be "agin us" took a lot of notes - and modern asymmetric warfare doctrines were born.  A2AD, grey zone, subversive, hybrid, NavWar, swarms, cyber and a bunch of stuff which we probably have not even thought of yet all got a lot of heat and light because they could be weaponized to help the western way of war fall apart. 
Say what you will about the Russian way of war but it is damned robust.  What is happening is a final exam on whether dumb resilience can still stand up in the modern era - my guess is "no".  However, our system is very vulnerable.  Take away air power and AirLand Battle falls apart.  Take away armor and combined arms falls apart.  Take away C4ISR and the whole damned thing falls apart.  The best generals right now train by taking things away because that is what our opponents are going to do.
So to clarify my point.  Given the same forces that the UA has, I do not think western commanders would have done better and in fact may have very well done worse.  Manoeuvre warfare clearly needs some rethinking in this environment and we already saw what happens when it is blindly applied, by the RA.  The RA are the ones who started this war fighting in a manner very similar to our own, not the UA - they did something else entirely.  Now at some point, good old fashion western manoeuvre (aka dirty tank-love) is going to work, but likely after a long campaign of corrosive warfare.  And right now the experts at managing that corrosive warfare campaign are in the UA, not back in NATO.
 

Of course this makes the somewhat biased assumption that NATO commanders know how to fight this war any better.  In fact in many ways fighting this war employing NATO doctrine would be worse and likely lead to operational cul de sacs.  I am not sure mission command is always appropriate or effective in this sort of environment. 

Very interesting thread about small unit tactics:
 

Strange nobody posted this:
She knew it 40 years ago!

This whole discussion thread is an echo from this summer. Remember when everyone was anxious (including me) about could the UA actually push the RA off of territory? Remember all the doom and gloom that this was going to become a frozen conflict? Remember? If I recall correctly @The_Capt was patiently explaining that things take time and we should hold on to our hats a little longer. Remember what happened? I do, two successful offensive operations and two successes by the UA at pushing back.
Just because the weather has messed up any plans at a winter push doesn't mean suddenly the UA can't pull off more. In fact we should feel better than last summer because we have seen that the UA can push back and launch a successful offensive. Ukraine is in a better place now than the were then. The RA is in a worse place now than it was then.
 
I predict a nothing burger. Oh they'll try to take a town or two and the might even success but that's hardly an offensive. I mean look a the propaganda the RA generated from their disastrous push in Bakhmut.

Now I will be interested to see if the UA holds as it has done in the Donbas, or if they give ground and let the RA string itself out and then go to work on them as they did earlier in the war.  Considering that the UA would be able to see the preparations of a major RA offensive from space, there will be no surprise.
Any rumours of civilians being evacuated?  

Ok, let's really get into this because I am seeing the fundamental flaw coming out of the "everything is just fine" camp.  The argument, largely coming out of professional military armored circles or those who really love tanks, is pretty much the same.  It posits that:
- Both sides in Ukraine are "doing it wrong".
- "Russia sux"
- "If they all fought like we do, it would all be over by now."   Meaning the conventional combined arms doctrine in context of some form of manoeuvre warfare and AirlLand battle.
- "APS will save us!"
Then, like here we get some cherry picked anecdotes and some really weird twisted logic to somehow defend heavy systems.  They downplay the realities of risk and technological development in this war, which is part of an ongoing trend that had been unfolding for at least a decade.  And never really address the fundamental shifts within the key components of ground warfare which have shifted, not in their communities favour.
So lets unpack some pushback points head on:
Sure for some systems - NLOS and stand-offs such as the Stugna P get around that, and I am pretty sure there will be heavy investment in these systems in the near future.  Some shooters have to step out/up for a few seconds at range with the current systems.  But we are talking about spotting and engaging a small team effectively in seconds at rages out to 2500m.  It has never been and never will be easier to spot a single man with a man portable system at 2500 than that individual can spot a 60t vehicle.  Shorter ranges are not that better either. Sure they have thermals, but those thermals have to pointed in the right spot and in seconds.  And a dismounted man is nowhere near as hot as a 60t vehicle burning gas.
And here is the thing...so freakin what?  A team of ATGM gets knocked out, hurrah!  Right up to the point that there are twenty more out there.  At a min manoeuvre has slowed to a crawl.
So that is a small recon team moving out for close recon in broad daylight with no ISR support as far as we can tell.  Well first it is pretty anecdotal.  We have seen dozens of videos of tank strikes by hidden teams, we have also seen infantry spotted and killed by artillery.  There is a risk of being spotted, definitely.  Modern recon have ground radars designed to detect motion, lot of EM flying everywhere.  But in order to bypass the asymmetric disadvantage posed by these systems you have to observe and control every inch of an enormous area.  Further, operational and strategic ISR can pick up vehicle formations from space - so those small teams can be prepositioned well ahead of an advance.
    So I have seen a lot of these videos as well - "look at how accurate these new systems are".  "IF" you can spot the target at range is a huge "IF"  The evidence from this war is showing that it is the small teams of infantry that are spotting first.  And again the entire cost equation is totally upside down.  A nation can replace light infantry at a much higher rate than it can replace tanks/AFVs - so even if you do use laser precision 90% of the time, that 10% is going to whittle an armored force to pieces over time.  You still have not solved for the fundamentals of visibility and range.  Your vehicle now has to scan an enormous arc to hopefully see a guy expose himself for a few seconds, and then you are dead if you are slower than he is.
If NLOS are "easy to intercept" then why are UAS everywhere on the modern battlefield?  They are not "easy" to intercept when used in large numbers.  We are talking systems that are going to skim treelines and hills until they lock and hit.  They will only need a shot/kill ratios of around 50% - at $210k a pop, to overwhelm the costs of the armored systems they are hitting.  And there are rumours in this war of Javelin coming in at 80-90%...which is nuts.  As to walking mines, the lack of imagination I find baffling.  So if someone plants a set of UGV mines that can move and get under a tank to kill it from below.  They can be hidden everywhere so until they move you likely will not detect them.  Then they wait until the armour/AFVs are nice and close, and suddenly you have got explosive cockroaches all scuttling at you.  We have no counter to that.  This is like the Battle of Yonkers in WWZ, all those fancy guns that can shave a peach at 1500m are going to be useless.
Now to the underlined part - how can I not know where you are?  This is the biggest take away of this entire war.  A modern armored Battlegroup is about 5-10kms long on the march, when one takes into account F/A1/A2 and B echelons.  Given the ISR environment shaping up, I will know exactly where you are and very likely where you are going to be, because I can also see the terrain and shape the space.  So 1 million dumb mines are a complete waste of resources when a few thousand can be prepositioned, re-position if they need to.  Best case is you spot them before they swarm you, at which point your move is completely stalled until you can figure out a counter.
So this was your response to "AFVs are vulnerable to artillery".  Well I would point to the steady stream of evidence coming out of this war and the simple fact that artillery is doing 80-90% of the killing.  Beyond that, this argument is symptomatic of what I have seen coming out of the "community", it basically buries the head in the sand.
Just going to jump to the end here.  So this is sticking to old metrics.  Light infantry move faster operationally but lack punching power of heavy.  Well guess what? They found their punching power.
So out of all of that we have bad assumptions, underplaying risks and over-playing capability.  This is pretty consistent with what has been coming out of the "heavy community" mainstream since last spring.  So instead of having an actual analysis and assessment of where heavy is going, we are instead being told that this entire war is an anomaly.  The UA, who have demonstrated an amazing ability to learn on this battlefield and in many way are ahead of any western doctrine are "doing it wrong."  I propose that they are doing it exactly right for wherever warfare is heading and the fact that they are winning is clear evidence. 
The analysis you provide is directly in line with what mainstream assessments came up with at the beginning of this war.  Based on the rules as we understood them, Russia should have won this war.  It had massive advantages in mass.  Oh that is right "they suck" and the UA just got lucky. 
Or, and everyone say it with me now, the fundamental components of warfare are shifting.  And this is driving an evolution on how wars will be fought.  Historically those that get with the program quickly have advantage for the next war.  Or we can cling to "tradition" and get our asses handed to us.

Quite. One of the factors driving the Challenger 3 upgrade is not having a producton line for 120mm rifled ammo any more. Given the rate at which ammunition is being expended in Ukraine the Challenger 2s would be a time-limited asset at best. My feeling is that the importance of the Challenger offer is that the UK is trying and push the Western nations over the MBT threshold rather than any sensible practical, sustainable capability.

Might even solve the maintainance headaches. If USA commits to supply the Stryker as main APC of the UKR military. Then the "zoo" of other APC:s would do to territorial units ext. where they hopefully have enough time for headaches

But the US has the Strikers in stock and wants to get rid of them… perfect opportunity. Another maintenance headache for Ukraine though, unless the vehicle platform has any commonality with anything else given already.

Yup, except there is way too much of this stuff to be just a trolling. Also Ukrainians, especially in their situation, should acknowledge the fact that such nazi jokes may not be considered jokes by anyone around, especially Germans. A lot of unpleasant things can be said about behaviour of our western neighbours, but they did really good job on getiing to the root of the problem with their own past, compared to other actors, and are deadly serious about the subject. There was a reason why Myelnik became informal persona non grata in Berlin.
With all due respect Haiduk, I completelly disagree. Not only I have no reason not to criticize others' past (or my own, so to speak), but as historian I would say it is my job, if based on right methodology and facts. Chmielnicki lived in XVII cent., so it is long forgotten past barely anybody relate to- I doubt there is anyone who lost relatives in his massacres...
While people who were personally touched by UPA made genocide  at Wołyń/East Małopolska are still living, or their direct children. Just several days ago passed away gen. Mirosław Hermaszewski, only guy from here ever flying space, who as 2-year boy barely managed  to survive Wołyń genocide. There are more such people. So sorry, it has nothing to do with Chmielnicki.
I am not fan of Piłsudski personally (he supressed nascent Polish democracy and blocked reforms of the military in 30's), but whatever you can blame on pre-WWII Polish state - and there is a lot, it was by no means perfect place to live for many people-it all pales in comparision to what ethnonationalistic butchers from OUN/UPA complex did by a absolutelly wide margin, and is gross misunderstanding of Ukrainian past. And Polish one too. Or basically any kind regional history, in which entire Ukrainian nationalistic movement stands out as particulary, almost inhumanly brutal one. Perhaps only Jasenovec camp on Balkans in WWII can be compared to UPA's "work" in sheer scale of cruel barbarity.
https://nawolyniu.pl/english.htm
Crucial problem is that young Ukrainians do not learn about this at schools and universities, and if so, at most somewhere in the footnotes. So large swaths of population on Westen Ukraine still think that OUN/UPA were some kind of edgy proto-patriots that  fought the Soviets, not genocidal ethnonationalistic movement on the level of Croatian Ustashe or Hungarian Arrowcrossers. Ofc. raging antisemitism and collaboration with Nazi Germany goes without saying (Melnyk faction specifically, UPA much less; however Shuhevycz himself was member of Nachtigal batalion).
The problem is, it is also Polish history, as well as Jewish, Hungarian, German and Russian. Should Croatians and Bosniaks tolerate their neighbours freely venerating Milosevic, Mladić or Karadzić, because "it is not their history"? Or Israelis be silent about rising neo-nazi movements in Europe? And Jugoslavian wars murderers were almost gentle teddybears compared to folks like Bandera, Schuchevycz or Klaczkivsky, both in scale and "qulity" of their work. Quote you several sources from victims of Wołyń massacres or share personal stories about "brave Ukrainian patriots" specifically targeting minors and children by thousands? Almost all their "honest job" (direct quote) was made by axe, scythe or falx, to spare the ammo.
If I would be young Ukrainian cautious of my own past, I would not like to touch OUN/UPA symbolic even with a stick. Level of self-induced ignorance to one's own genocidal past among some Ukrainians (by no means all, of course)  is sickening, frankly speaking- there is really a lot of work to be done in order to OUN/UPA become taboo as similar movements in other civilized countries are.
Because from all I hear from your leaders, you are aspiring to become part of civilized, democratic Western world, right? If so, then a lot of unpleasant truths about own history awaits you folks.
OK, sorry for offtopic.

If somebody presents you with an illegal training grenade launcher:
a) don't accept this gift, it might backfire. Remember that "training" DOES NOT equal "inert"
b) if you accepted, don't tinker with it if you don't know how it works.
c) if decided to tinker with it anyway, don't do it in your office.
d) especially if you are the chief of Police of the entire ****ing country.
e) cause if something happens, the ruling party will have a huge problem spinning it as another victory, and you might be asked to resign from office. Also, you might hurt yourself.
If you think that's funny, well, you are damn right -  Darwin award level of stupidity was involved here, and from somebody you'd expect to know better.
Also, as you can imagine, the meme brigade is having a field day.


 

Given where all this started, it's mindboggling to me that these guys are still up there contesting and winning control of the space. Just amazing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63746304
 
I can’t imagine how hard it is to live under the bombs with the cold and winter starting. I hope the Eu and US resolve remains strong and support is provided for the civilian population as much as the Ukrainian army.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63746304
 
I can’t imagine how hard it is to live under the bombs with the cold and winter starting. I hope the Eu and US resolve remains strong and support is provided for the civilian population as much as the Ukrainian army.

In Irpen, the situation is easier. Yesterday there was no electricity for about 5 hours, after which there was electricity all night (I worked all night). Today the electricity was only two hours, and now after 21.00 again appeared. Fortunately, I have autonomous heating and I am independent from city boiler houses.

Despite AD shot down 51 missiles yesterday, Russians could hit some critical objects, which caused emergency halt of all nuclear power plants, except Chornobyl as well as most of thermal and hydro plants. Almost whole country in a darkness. Very tough situation in Kyiv. Since 15-00 yesterday 80 % in the city hadn't electricity, water, somewhere even gas, no heating, cell phone internet was almost dead. 
Today electricity turned on from 5-00 to 9-30 of morning and then gone again. Water apperared after 14-00. Still no heating. Internet much better, but this forum loaded only now. Very interesting quest how to heat a can of soup with dry spiritus tablet ))) -we have electric stove and it's now "out of action"
Reportedly nuclear plants have been launching to work this evening, but they can get own normal output only to next day of more. Now power grid has 50% defficite of energy

Thing is, it doesn't (help the cause). Smart comms would have been to defer judgement and 'fess up if it was, indeed, UKR munitions that caused the explosion. Just asserting "it must've been Russians" when they didn't know for sure one way or the other makes them look unfortunately like Russians. Sure, in just this one case, and it's not going to break anything, but their approach was suboptimal. 
Unless they have clear tracking data to show it was a Russian bird, though why the rest of NATO would cover that up, I don't know; concrete excuses to extend an AD umbrella across the border would be gleefully welcomed, I'd've thought. 

With all due respect kraze, this one thing is not about Ukraine, and taking this position only harms your cause at the moment. What happened, happened, nobody will hold it against you, but avoiding responsibility and hiding behind a conspiracy is 100% counterproductive, and can quickly lead to a diplomatic crisis with far going consequences.

So if anyone wants to take a break from this entire Poland missile thing - 
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/war-not-an-excuse-ukraine-rail-boss-keeps-trains-running-1.6155075
So this is the kind of thing that I look for with respect to metrics.  If you are in the process of invading a nation it is normally a really good idea to directly attack and degrade its ability to defend itself.  Russia has clearly demonstrated the intent and capability, what it appears to lack is expertise, or perhaps the ability to unify that expertise - but my big question since this started is "why"?  The general answer has been a lot of eye-rolling "well Russia is just dumb" but how they are "dumb" is important to my mind - what is their epistemological failure-engine being driven by?
In this war Russia has expended a LOT of high priced long range missile hardware - https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/october/lessons-russian-missile-performance-ukraine.  It is noted that they are likely having very high failure rates; however, this is further compounded by shortfalls in Russian ISR that allows for precise targeting even assuming all the missiles work.  
But there is more.  We have been bouncing a hypothesis around this forum on how a lot of this war is about Russian identity and its place in the world - that internal political dimension definitely plays a role, at least in Putin's calculus.  Further it is about Russian identity relative to Ukraine - this would be akin to the US invading Canada and losing (again, *ahem 1813*), the collective identity impacts would be severe.  However, we have also suspected that those "identity biased assumptions" have been driving the progress of this war - from the wildly overambitious opening moves, to the re-set of objectives and responses.  In fact it was demonstrated that poor strategic assumptions were a factor for Russia, even back in 2014.
So what?  Well the complete failure to effectively degrade Ukrainian rail is another potential peice of evidence that support that central hypothesis.  Russia has focused its limited long range fires capability on terror strikes, and now it finally appears to be focusing on civilian power infrastructure to keep the heat and lights out.  The central Russian premise appears to be that Ukrainian collective will is vulnerable and all they need to do is keep hitting it towards failure.  Somehow just one more hard push and the Ukrainian resolve will falter - this is nuts at this point in the war.  I have brought up relative rationality before and Russia clearly is suffering from it.  To the point that it is driving their military targeting enterprise.  Russia should theoretically be able to cripple the Ukrainian rail infrastructure.  Railways do not move, their supporting infrastructure is impossible to hide - one can see it from Google Earth.  If Russia had done that, the ability of Ukraine to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives separated by over 400 kms would have been severely challenged. Ukraine having a rail system able to sustain an "85% success rate" (something I know the UK would find impossible to do right now in peacetime, having just suffered their rail system) should not be possible at this point in a war this large - especially when their opponent has the ability to hit the full range of their nation. 
So, so what?  This is less about Russian targeting "sucking" - although their missile failure rates definitely point to that, this is about Russian decision making being 1) rigid well past the point of general rationality, and 2) built on flawed assumptions more about them than the reality on the ground.  For those who have been following this thread throughout the war I understand that this is not really news, but it does lead to a series of indicators and warnings we should be watching out for in case Russia actually figures out that its assumptions are completely broken.  However, I also suspect that they are well past the point of return regardless - too many losses and failures along with the continued corrosion of the RA means that even if they did figure it out now, it is likely already too late to change the trajectory of this war. 
I already have a book title in mind - "A warm, dark, smelly, but safe place - How Russia went to War with Its Head Up its Own Bum."

I think this forum has a good handle on technical, tactical, and strategical discussion of events in the battlespace. But these discussions of NATO, Article 5, no fly zones, world politics, nuclear weapons, and so are usually weak and come to people just making gut feelings or wishes of events.

I think it would be good to step back from edge and think with a more sedate mindset about what might happen now. Or better to keep larger focus on this groups strengths

If I were the sort of army that had been planning a push south from Zaporizhizhia, husbanding my resources while corroding the Russians West of the Dnieper, it would be entirely in keeping with that strategy to force Russia to take defending the entire line of the river seriously. 
Personally, I'm not that sort of army. But you may know of one.

That's for anti-tank work. Toothpicks are for hand-to-hand.