Billy Ringo

I admire this man.

I’m  sorry, what exactly are we basing this claim on? What are production rates? What actual technology standards are included? Considering they are fielding t 54s not so sure any of this is valid. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/runners-deliver-flag-bakhmut-nato-095722378.html

While I generally agree, the nature of this fight is existential. A lot of things have to be put to the side unfortunately.  Reality trumps what may have been desired. I am sure the UA would prefer not to mine their own country, but considering how many Russia is dumping, that earlier figure of them clearing 10x as many as they laid is likely going to be a low ball for the reality facing Ukraine. 

Except they aren't requesting the same from Russia.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/mike-pence-volodymr-zelenskyy-surprise-trip-ukraine-rcna91763
"I believe America’s the leader of the free world," Pence told NBC News. "But coming here just as a private citizen — being able to really see firsthand the heroism of the Ukrainian soldiers holding the line in those woods, see the heroism of the people here in Irpin that held back the Russian army, to see families whose homes were literally shelled in the midst of an unconscionable and unprovoked Russian invasion — just steels my resolve to do my part, to continue to call for strong American support for our Ukrainian friends and allies."

If only the partisans could carry out a hit making it look like the shooting turf war had started. 

Right now without paywall. Worth reading.
 
 

There is absolutely no sense of self-awareness as to how insane this is, and it seems to be pervasive within the Russian culture.    "Narcissim:  selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type."   Narcissist are simply unable to understand or conceptualize that their behavior is abnormal or unacceptable to others.  Thus--they lack the introspective ability to learn from their mistakes and correct their behavior.    From everything I've seen over the past 18 months--this is Russia which makes it extremely difficult to engage in reasonable and productive discourse to try to put an end to their madness.          

The idea of dropping munitions from planes to clear minefields was always a nonstarter in the past, for a number of reasons. As a new combat engineer private in the US army I remember watching a video (VHS I think) of Iraqi positions before deploying and the DoD wanted recommendations on how to breach them. Afterward I told the lieutenant we should just do a B-52 strike to clear a path. He didn't respond. The airstrikes were always too inaccurate and the ground could be impassible to vehicles.
There are two different ideas here that should be clarified: breaching a minefield and clearing a minefield. Frankly both are scary.
The explosives in mines is very stable, and the fuse is the key to setting it off. (when fatigued and stupid we would toss explosives around in really unsafe ways, but here I still am) So to actually clear a mine explosive needs to be placed directly on/next to it or it needs to be physically removed. Both of these require the mine to have been discovered by the persons doing the clearing. And then you have to be in the minefield doing stuff like, pop and drops, ring mains and line mains.
To breach the minefield the mines simply need to be moved out of the way. This is where MICLICs and bangalore torpedoes come in, vehicles with plows, and maybe airstrikes if they can be precise and not destroy the ground rendering movement impossible. They are expected to blow the mines out of the way, and if they detonate them that's good. But not expected. So napalm could work if it was hot enough to ignite the fuses. Otherwise it would be very poor as it would not push the mines out of the way.
I appreciate these discussions about the more modern state of mines and mine clearing, especially drones. My heart breaks to see the density of the minefields that are being laid. This will takes many years to clear and the cost to the locals will likely be extraordinary. Perhaps more and better automated mine clearing is the key, I feel like we have neglected this like many things as we thought these wars were a thing of the past.

As always when I post these opinion polls I don't vouch for their accuracy.
Good news it true, Big jump in support in a short period of time. I'm curious if the attack on Kakhovka Dam had to do with the sudden increase in support.

There is absolutely no sense of self-awareness as to how insane this is, and it seems to be pervasive within the Russian culture.    "Narcissim:  selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type."   Narcissist are simply unable to understand or conceptualize that their behavior is abnormal or unacceptable to others.  Thus--they lack the introspective ability to learn from their mistakes and correct their behavior.    From everything I've seen over the past 18 months--this is Russia which makes it extremely difficult to engage in reasonable and productive discourse to try to put an end to their madness.          

Important milestone for Ukraine.  They have taken land in and around Krasnohorivka.   According to the BBC that's the first time they have retaken land that was stolen back in 2014.
Seems like the offensive has picked up a little steam lately.
 

A look at the weekend's events from Tim Snyder, who wrote the piece last year envisioning a similar scenario
https://snyder.substack.com/p/prigozhins-march-on-moscow

I feel soiled.

it is the same video. Here are main points
Evkurov and Alekseyv are old farts who decide nothings Prig - they shoot at us, we down them and will down everybody you would send because you are hitting civilians. You just destroyed a bus with civilians. you have no conscience [looks like they talk about RU helicopter attacks. Everybody is calm, MOD guys are calm and curious] Evkurov [a bit confused] - it is first time i hear it and [inaudible - some thing like let us..interupted as Prig turns toward Alekseyev] Alekseyev [in hilariously theatrical way] - I am not going to talk to you! Prig [slightly confused and humiliated old man turn to Evkurov] We were talking using You [plural - respectable form] why we started using You [singular - not respectable form]. Why do you talk to me using You [singular]?  Evkurov [confused] Nobody talk [to you] like that. I say do not generalize. Do you talk [to me] using You [plural] Prig - Yes, I talk to you using You [plural] Evkurov - so if we say [inaudible] Prig nodes. Evkurov - Let's think what we should do Prig - One more time, we came here to get [saying a bit theatrical] a chief of general staff and Shoigu. While they are not here...  Alekseyev [theatrically joking] take/grab them [like saying they, people of RU MOD, do not need these two, so Prig is free to take them]  Prig - While they are not here, we stay here and [continue to] block Rostov Evkurov [absolutely calmly, softly and politely but bit confused]- then I would like to ask you to get your troops out [inaudible] Prig - No! No way. Guys will stay here.  Evkurov - We also from this point of view... Prig - We do interrupt you from controlling the troops [in the field] Evkurov - Yes, certainly you should not interrupt anybody from controlling the troops [inaudible] Prig [calmly] Guys are dying because you are pushing them to be meat  Evkurov pickups ringing phone while saying to Prig - This is a question... Prig - This is not rhetorical question, because you are pushing them to be meet... no ammo, no thinking, without any plans   Evkurov to phone - hallo, yes [listens a bit, then looks confused and cancels the call - looks like some jornos called him] Alekseyev [calmly] - the biggest thing that upsets me most [inaudible something like you give Kiev something to celebrate with champaign] Prig - Nothing to worry about Evkurov [calmly drinks hot tea as if they are at old farts gathering] Prig - party at Kiev with champaign happens when you abandon Izum, Lyman and everything else. That's when party at Kiev happens for a whole week. And we are not running away from anywhere [Says man who ran away from Bakhmut]. Tha't why we came here to stop the shame of the country we live in. This is first [I  wanted to say] Evkurov [a bit ashamed] - [iaudible] are you were at [or ours something] Prig - Certainly, Yes, for this we Evkurov - [iaudible] why questions [could be to us] Prig [getting agitated] - listen one more time, if we would talk in normal tone, we would not come here on tanks Somebody behind camera - [iaudible something about shells - you promised us shells] Evkurov - [iaudible something like - you think Shoigy and Gerasimov to blame?] Prig [satisfied] - Yes, absolutely right. We save Russia The whole performance remind me old farts from last coupe (GKCHP) in 1991. The old farts pretending they know what they are doing and serving as cover for Yetsin rise. 
 

Friends,
First and foremost, shout out to all of you jarheads that actively keep such an interesting thread going for the past year and half! Been reading it almost daily since last summer and very impressed by your level of knowledge and understanding for modern (and historic) warfare. Not that would always agree with rationale behind some things but that’s the beauty of debate if allowed in pragmatic fashion.
Finally, figured I’d join the fray and possibly offer some perspectives of my own to some discussions. Let us not dwell on introductions but just chalk my background to “Red Cross volunteer”. When and where is irrelevant at this point so let’s keep it at that. Nickname is not chosen to be offensive, former callsign given by brothers in arms.
There is one thing that’s crossed my mind several times for the past weeks of precision strikes on several high value targets. Such as several high ranking HQ, large force’s concentrations, ammunition dumps, and the long list of many other such by Ukraine. Might be wrong, and got no proof of the following but in my mind the sudden losses of high level Russian commanders and soldiers is no coincidence. Neither is the timing of such. And it has nothing to do with the counter offensive itself. Nor is it my opinion a surge of highly improved partizan intel. And frankly, I do not believe that all of sudden Ukrainians agents are able provide real-time updates of whereabouts of high level Russian commanders. 
Firstly, the nature of Russian C&C operations would make such intel difficult by lower level officers. Secondly, even if such information does reach Ukrainian from embedded Russian sources, they must somehow verify it before striking. Thirdly, the strikes obviously need to be timely not only in terms of exact target but also in terms of well, time. Don’t want our packages to be delivered too late, nor do we want to send them to the wrong address do we?
Knowing beforehand that target A is going to be at point B with short notice doesn’t really help. You only get one chance to target B - when A is present. Making it less than trivial task to execute, unless the source of the intel is undeniably credible to the Ukrainians.
To make long story short and skip to my point - Russian MoD has crossed a line with Prigozjin and this is is his elegantly executed pay-back. Can list plenty of reasons and examples of factors supporting my rationale. But just few quick ones, Adam Delimkhanov was very vocal against Progozjin - to the point of ridicule. The latter seemed to ignore the threatening and aggressive messages from the vocal Chechen, and said nothing in reply. What happened to Adam one week later?
Major General Sergei Goryachev, allegedly dies in missile strike within days after. Just few days after several other HQ with high ranking officers being hit in Bakhmut directions. Add all the other precision strikes on similar targets occurring in short period of time. Anybody can say that Ukrainians waited for the offensive to start rolling before striking. Hard pressed to believe they would wait if they knew intelligence was solid before that. Which is also an aspect of why Prigozjin is all over this, let’s not bring up the MoD ultimatum of signing any and all PMC fighters end of this month.
Wrote this post two weeks ago but didn’t come around to post it. In the meantime Prigozjin went silent all of a sudden with zero videos for about 7-10 days. Other than few short voice messages. The man reappears in video sitting down on table in front of Wagner flag trashing the MoD. Even goes as far as to accuse “the President of the Federation” swimming in blood/being knee deep in blood. 
All these chains of events may very well me random events and two weeks ago I was hesitant to post this as unsure of my rationale. I am less so today. 
Prigozjin has friends in high places within the MoD, themselves disgruntled. Surovikin being the best example, promoted to, and demoted for, the mission impossible in Kherson. Man with colorful past of illegal arms trading, human rights violations in Syria and Chechnya. It’s not far-fetched to assume there are yet others that like Surovikin are unhappy with their MoD colleagues. Driven by perhaps nothing else than patriotic sentiment, ref Dmitri Polyakov whose is quoted with the sole motivation being “loyalty to the Russian people and not the system I served under”.
Can elaborate further on this as there are several more details not included in this post. Before I BS anybody by talking out of my behind, let’s see if these HQ strikes continue in the next following weeks [written two weeks ago]. Wouldn’t be surprised if that actually happens and Prigozjin keeps very low profile about the same. For all he knows, the Russian MoD is useless in all aspects of their C&C. It be a miracle would they all of sudden successfully protect intel of high level commanders and their whereabouts?
Just like Prigozjin ignored the whole calamity about Adam Delimkhanov, restrains himself from replying to aggressive comments from the Chechens. Instead, the man gets Storm Shadow missile served to him on a platter. Again, got no proof and sheer speculation so might be completely off target here. But despite lack of solid evidence of above speculation give me a pass on “negative law of evidence”. Meaning - if can’t prove that Prigozjin has nothing to do with this, then there the possibility that he is involved(?). 
As the saying goes, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the World he doesn’t exist. In plain English, how could the loudest of all Russian patriots possibly want to hurt Russia? And how could he do such damage by providing Ukraine with intelligence from the very top of the MoD?
Maybe because his sole motivation is the loyalty to the Russian people, and his own personal gains. One doesn’t need to contradict the other.
Too long post but bear with me! Happy to hear you input friends and your informed thoughts on this.
Teufel

In the direction of Tokmak, the RU counterattack to stop the AFU assault of Robotne failed. Robotne's situation continues to deteriorate (for RU command). Interestingly, Mashovets believes that AFU may substantially increase the speed of advance, catching RU off guard and causing it to fail to deploy final reserves in time to face it.

There, maybe that will help.  

Dmitiry already translated Prig comments about real situation. Here is confirmation that situation for RU is very difficult - from "agent" Thirteen (infamous RU soldier in Kherson-Zaporozhye area)
[EDIT] For those who do not want to spend time listening to Prig here are main points:
Pyatikhatka is under AFU control [is not new for us] The northern section of Robotne is under AFU control [is new for us] Urozhaine is under AFU control [is not new for us] Prig concludes that the UKR controls huge areas of land AFU unit (50-10) is located near Tormak in the Sadove village [is new for us] RU MOD has no control over anything [is not new for us] Total shortage of weaponry and ammunition (including anti-tank weapons) [is not new for us] AFU advances [implying successfully] toward Molochny Lyman [village on the Azov seashore south of Melitopol - if AFU reaches it, the RU grouping will be split in half]. [is new for us] AFU begins crossing the Dniepr - there were recon parties at Hola Prystan [a town south-west of Kherson] and now the main troops begin to arrive [is new for us] RU suffers casualties but no reinforcement [is not new for us] RU units are understaffed by 50-60% [is not new for us] Everything up there has been hidden from everybody. The Russian military command is fooling Putin and the Russian people [is not new for us] Disparaging Shoigy and the RU MOD,  concludes the Russian army is being destroyed [is not new for us] The UKR counter-offensive causes significant losses for RU, which is not being acknowledged [is not new for us] Bla-Bla-Bla [is not new for us]

Supply chains:  If the US military and military industrial base leverages supply chain expertise from the US public sector, (ie. retail, wholesale, logistics/FedEx/UPS, etc.), it would have a significant edge over other economies.   What major retailers and niche specific retail optimization firms are doing in the US is pretty far ahead of the rest of the World.  (The Nordics are very good also but, last I checked, they aggregate a lot of their resources/braintrust in the US.)  And, the US is still the preferred destination point for the brightest engineers in this niche.  (The single smartest/highest IQ person I've ever known works for Wal-Mart if that gives you any indication, they lured him away from a teaching spot at MIT.)
The covid/supply chain disruptions of 2021/2022 threw a big wrench in the systems but wholesalers and retailers pretty quickly figured out how to adapt and work around the challenges.
But the first word in my comment is "If", I have no experience or visibility as to whether the US military and military industrial supply chains are equal to the public sector or if they spend much time trying to learn from the public sector. 

The Storm Shadow is specifically designed to take out stuff like bridges, unlike a truck.  The system is going to come in horizontally and likely strike perks, which weakens the entire structure.  It ability to penetrate and then blast is really bad for load bearing concrete structures.  The weight of the structure under these circumstances just makes it worse.  So I would not worry about that bridge too much and the RA should not count on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BROACH_warhead

If and when Russia becomes a non-aggressive and democratic state I will start discouraging people from undermining Russia. I'm not gonna hold my breath though.

Are we sure we observe the same genocidal, simple war of conquest? If you are so afraid of "undermining" Russia, here is you adress of complains and source of all of the fuss : http://www.en.kremlin.ru/contacts
You are not rightfully criticizning, you get whacked by arguments and are now doing another virtue signalling, while clearly parroting Putin propaganda matrix you saw on some Russian forum. And you don't even get that- that's btw. how propaganda of this type works. Its victims are always people who think of themselves as freethinkers, outside constraints of mainstream media, but who are in fact mentally not equipped to properly build their own worldview that would be anchored in both political realism and some basic ethics. Ukrainians and "American overlords" guilty of Larissa rail accident, USA building bases to "force" others to watch Micky Mouse, poor bombed Nazis in WWII etc. These are the same, unmistakeable symptoms of reducing everything toward symetristic bull*hit.
I am more and more inclined to believe that if world in 1939 would have internet and contrarian keyboard warriors, whole Europe would be foocked royally, divided between Brown and Red totalitarian empires up to this day, doing whatever they want.
Ok, I have enough of this, so where was this mute button...

Let's talk about Maryinka and that video from 79th Brigade
I prepared a draft transcript of the first ten minutes, which covered one battle. But, in order for you to understand what is going on, I created a map and a brief summary. Obviously, despite my best efforts, I could easily misunderstand something.

UKR appears to have discovered an enemy force moving from Donetsk via road using a drone equipped with infrared imaging. There were four vehicles: one or two tanks and two or three BMPs. It's unknown where the infantry force came from; they might have dismounted from the BMPs. It appears to be an Assault group, which is usually approximately squad size, but this varies. It may begin with a strengthened squad of up to 15 soldiers, but by the time it reaches the target, there may only be 5-6 men left.
The defending UKR troops waited among the ruins. According to radio traffic, there were two to three fire teams stretched out in front. The UKR HQ directed fire teams at RU AFVs. The fire teams used RPGs to disable at least two AFVs; the remainder fled; however one fire team was hit (at least one killed, one injured). Meanwhile, an RU assault group assaulted the corner. One fire team used small arms in an attempt to pin them down, while a second fire team guided by HQ moved to assist the first and showered RU soldiers with GP-25s. After that, the UKR arty finished the job, and the lone RU survivor fled.
There are mostly three guys at HQ -  skinny bearded guy [at 00:57]. I suspect he is CO. Bulkier bearded guy [at 02:11] I suspect he is XO. He is guiding fire teams. And cleanly shaved guy [06:42] I suspect he is FIST guy.
Some observations:
Unlike the RU army, the UKR HQ does not appear to command and control fire squads. It's more like they guide and advise fire teams, although there is some degree of micromanagement - at one point, XO explicitly tells one fire team to grab AK and made aim shots like we do in CM with target order at something a unit hasn't seen yet. Both sides do not function in the traditional military configuration of platoon-company (I believe this is company headquarters). There are distributed attack teams/groups with radio links to HQ, and that's all there is to it. There is no reserve or another echelon nearby to continue the fight. This, I suppose, is due to the enormous threat of drone-adjusted arty. So, all help is a few kilometers away, and no one can come fast to help except a nearby team. Now the transcript. Please keep in mind the footage is not strictly chronological: