Huba

This is the kind of answer I hoped for. So the bottom line is that's unlikely for Russians to mix things up to a degree that would confuse the Ukrainian defense at this point, given apparent Ukrainian intelligence advantage. Even more so in a spirit of reversed Kursk.

Hope that knowledge never comes in handy for anybody, but just in case...

Baltic will soon be a NATO lake, and it looks like the Black Sea will follow, to a degree determined by the outcome of this war. No friendly shores for Russian ships on both those seas, apart from their own.

Here's my take on the impact those AShMs will make, first a question though: do we know for sure that the missiles that will be delivered are indeed Harpoons? I heard many conflicting news, mentioning basically any missile at UKs disposal, starting with sea versions of Brimstone, up to Harpoons. I don't recall any confirmation being made. Anyway, assuming those are heavy missiles able to take out major surface combatants, not only patrol boats, and are delivered in large enough quantity( like 72 mentioned here), I thing that's what gonna happen: - the potential landing around Odessa or in Budjak is out of the question, nobody's going to even think of risking that. Not that it was a viable option earlier anyway. What changes is that Ukraine can now reassign some of the anti invasion forces to different tasks, likely operations around Kherson. - those missiles are too short ranged unfortunately to be a threat to Russian base in Sevastopol, you'd need at least 300 km range for that. Russian fleet still rules the high (black) seas and can launch remaining Kalibrs with impunity, no big impact here. - now for the first interesting possibility. IF at some points Ukrainians are able to fight their way back to Sea of Azov shores, it means that it as a whole is denied to Russians more or less. No more supplying it's forces by the sea. On top of this, the whole Volga- Black Sea inland route would be closed to merchant traffic. This is really huge, makes you understand a bit why Russians are so insisting on the land bridge to Crimea. The Kerch bridghe won't be at risk though in my opinion. Even it was in range, Harpoons are way too small of a weapon to damage it sufficiently. - the biggest potential for interesting things to happen lies however in fact that with Harpoons guarding the coast, Russians won't be able to do a close blockade of Odessa and whole Ukrainian Black Sea coast. We can discuss how many Harpoons would it take to hit Slava or Krivak etc, but I don't think that Black Sea Fleet would even risk their ships at all loitering in range of those missiles all the time. They will no longer be able to stop and board ships going from Romanian to Ukrainian territorial waters. If they want to keep the blockade up, they would have to outright attack those ships with AShMs from their fleet or from airplanes. Or by submarines. They can do it technically, but this approach has strong vibes of "Unlimited Underwater Warfare" of WW2, and is horrible from PR perspective. This is the matter of greatest importance to Ukraine, as right now their economy is strangled by inability to export it's goods. A week ago there was supposed to be 25000 train cars waiting along the UE border, full of export goods. I see them trying to run the blockade. We might soon see some actual naval warfare. Edit: There's still the question of sea mines floating around. Ukraine might have tough time trying to sweep those already emplaced, and Russians can continue mining operations from aircraft/ submarines.

Makes sense if you think of it this way, maybe it's better to introduce this equipment sooner then later. We should see soon enough. If this trends sets in, soon we'll see the Cold Ware era equipment from both sides finally going at each other, 30 years after we assumed it will never happen. Strange times indeed.

HIMARS/ GMLRS combination would seem the most logical. Gives a hell of a lot of capability with small logistical footprint compared to traditional MLRS. I'm not sure if tube arty makes sense at this point given the problems with ammunition supply that would ensue. Those rail transports of M109s might indicate otherwise though.

Cześć! It is refreshing after spending time in the "Russia is restraining itself that's whay they didn't win already" bubble.

Busted! Seriously though: I have no military background, but I was always interested in history, especially of the military kind, even studied it at the Uni. After two decades of reading one can be tempted to think that he understands some basic principles. This kind of mental exercise is a way to put it to the test. I of course say this with all the humility of a layman.

In light of the discussion above it looks like it's hardly possible to hide your forces, but I'd think that until those start moving, you can't fully predict how are they going to be used and plan accordingly, you have to make some assumptions. What I was wondering is if it is possible to achieve some surprise on this level. Let's say that the Russian northern group of forces around Izyum doesn't push south at all, instead going west trying to encircle Kharkiv (not saying that this particular scenario is realistic, just an example, probably on a lesser scale too). Does this kind of thinking make sense at all ?

I'm aware of those Maxar images, they keep popping up quite often. I'd think that at least during the force build-up phase you could hide from/ obscure optical reconnaissance from the satellites, given their known trajectories and overfly times, clouds etc. IIR is not a thing on the satellite level afaik? But this SAR really looks like a game changer. I recall Soviet naval radar satellites from the old times, but those were very low orbit and quite limited - it is logical though that this technology would improve after a few decades. It's nice to learn about something new One can imagine what the capabilities of military constellations might be. Given that Ukrainians are fed data from those satellites in the real time, the only missing piece of the puzzle seems to be weapon systems able to capitalize on this.

Do we know for sure that it comes from NATO asset outside of Ukraine airspace? Was it satellite or something like E8? Either way, holy crap that's impressive.

Sure it is. The Russian forces composition and their dislocation will be probably known in advance, buy I'd think how precisely will they be employed should be a bit surprising, that should be the aim at least I'd think. Or do you think they'll just run straight at the defenses hoping that firepower, numbers(?) and (to quote a classic) " total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see them through" ?

The very same, hi @Der Zeitgeist! So, as this community takes pride in it's ability to predict the course of action in this war, I'd like to ask of your opinions/ ideas on a subject. There seems to be more or less a consensus that in the upcoming days of weeks we'll observe Zitadelle redux in Donbas - everyone is expecting that, and both sides seem to be preparing for it. I'd think that if Russians hope to achieve some kind of success there, they'd like to achieve at least a degree of surprise when the operation finally starts. I'm thinking about some feign attack, maybe unexpected use of airforce, anything that would disrupt Ukrainian defensive plan really. How do you think they could achieve this, if this is at all possible?

It isn't, just highly improbable. What is impossible is that this commission would prove it, even if it was right. They didn't even have access to the wreckage, all they did was reinterpretation of evidence produced by first commission mixed with clinical tinfoilhattery . They even accused the leader of first commission of lying, lost the defamation case and had to apologize. It was a circus.

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015. After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much. Also, as this is my first post on this forum: Hello everyone This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive.