Teufel

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! From details provided they pretty much describe massive Molotov cocktail. Hexane is 6-carbon distillate from refining crude, add two carbons and we have octane. Hexane is easier to combust than octane, does however not yield same level of thermal energy, e.g. temperature of combustion. Going back to discussion about blast waves approx. month ago the lower thermal energy has benefits over octane. Hexane evaporates at lower temp., burns at lower temp. and thus burns faster in bigger “cloud” when set off by sudden increase in temp. Depending on amount hexane:explosives the solvent was either used to amplify blast wave or secondary use. It has very different odor compared to smell of gasoline that is octane. Untrained noses as in people not spending much time working with chemicals and recognizing octane will probably not recognize the sweet but pungent odor of hexane. If sniffer dogs had been used the smell of hexane would easily obstruct the smell of submerged explosives. Fooling canine and human sniffers alike.

Speaking of lacking confidence… In other events elsewhere we have violation of in Crimea… …and across the strait in Krasnodar kraj, Russian Federation. One of the most important, if not the most important Russian port in the Black Sea. Edit: Bonus entry from Ben Hodges. Sovjet being Sovjet, it maybe reflects all of the above and all at once?

As previously reported about advances southwest from positions east of Robotyne while back. Here is some more on that claim. Also there is this one of unknown reliability but nevertheless can wait for confirmation elsewhere. And finally some more stuff coming from Sweden with the most interesting being the air-to-air missiles.

Have not seen such information about FPV before, curious if signal range or payload/battery is the limiting factor here.

Sounds about right, the Storm-Z troops running away under fire from Urozhaine in videos that Hapless posted. They got punished and forced to return back to take back what they lost. Sorry, what they ran away from. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire”. I actually hope they went back to be surrounded and killed at will, just as they were for the past two weeks. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are that lucky, thus Urozhaine remains Ukrainian.

On the defensive efforts of Russia as per previous statements of counterattacks. Rather than concede this defensive alignment centered on Staromaiorske and Urozhaine once the defense line had been breached, Russia instead launched a furious series of counterattacks in early August, running straight uphill against newly established Ukrainian defensive positions on the high ground within the town. After several days of counterattacks, the Russians gave up, having accomplished nothing. For all of Russia’s “fight for every inch” philosophy, I didn’t think Russia would be so boneheaded as to refuse to retreat from Urozhaine after giving up on retaking Staromaiorske. It’s hard to express just how impossible a position Urozhaine became after Staromaiorske fell firmly into Ukrainian control. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/12/2186469/-Ukraine-Update-Russian-folly-at-Urozhaine-and-Ukraine-s-long-game-across-the-Dnipro

Can’t seem to create Telegram link for some reason, so take for what it is, jungle telegraph until confirmed anyways. Russians are bringing in troops to counterattack in front of the main Russian defensive line under heavy rain. Settlements that are surrounded on 2 sides for Robotyne and 3 sides for Urozhaine... basically burning through their meager reserves in senseless attacks. Reportedly, the same thing is happening around Klishchiivka / Bakhmut and we have seen videos of the destruction of 4 tanks yesterday in that area. The main result of all those counterattack is the loss of armor by Russia. Found some additional info on the matter here.

To actually post something useful, here is some more footage on the same incident. Add to those above the following and we got ourselves something of a ballgame.

Strong claims including quantitative data, could you please offer sources of such information? Yes, HRW is source you say but which report or publication? Not trying to be an as*hole here, we can have our opinions all we want but we can’t have our own facts.

Now I am spamming thread with nonsense but must add. Without excessive militarization during peacetime in response to such elsewhere - for example in USSR, Nazi-Germany, etc., there would be no free World. Can think I am exaggerating, but ask yourself what type of language tyrannies speak? That of mutual peacefulness or force?

We are good! As I said as stubborn as mule, it’s good if we don’t agree, then we can discuss. Never point of convincing someone else their point is wrong, or passing judgments based on their opinions. Then we are going on path of indoctrination, which Russia happily exports and let’s us use on each other. As someone already mentioned, Finland has much higher “willingness to fight” or whatever we call it than most neighboring countries. They been there, not once but twice and not that long ago. People forget the Finns fought the Sovjets twice during WW II and lost both times. The Sovjet Union did however not occupy the territories of Finland any of those times. This was the point I was trying to make with saying “win or lose, you fight”. Edit: Sorry, I keep missing the intended target. From my perspective, borders or administrative units is the same as freedom. As in governed by administrative authority that you elected and can remove from power peacefully, this is freedom. Different if someone forcefully comes to the same administrative office and says, under new management. You are not allowed to leave, and now you will do this, this, this and this. Been there, seen that, worse part was - put this uniform on and go fight against your own kin. Nobody asking if you want to or not. They’ll torture or beat you if you refuse, and if you survive they then force you to go. Your family held under same administrative borders, new system. We fought and we lost, but those that survived live in freedom elsewhere.

You mentioned several times in various replies reasons in the form of indoctrination or populism. Emperor’s thirst for power, more modern emperors, let’s just call them Third Reich, Bush administration, well think you get where this is going. It seems to me you stand firmly on wars being fought for expansion of power through the indoctrination of citizens. My point was that - yes, you are correct in those aspects. Russia is fight for exactly all the reasons that you mentioned, e.g., more power, more wealth, spreading their tyranny beyond own borders or own citizens. You exemplify and offer reasons others than existential crisis as reason for war. Running away and not defending lines on maps is the same as seeking what you lost elsewhere. Then question comes when will you fight if not first time around. Heard it countless times from those that never fired single round in their life. Less so with flesh and blood as target, they will fight for the right reasons. My point was, you don’t chose if you are on the receiving end, win or lose, you fight. That was where my understanding of your position of argument came from. Edit: Didn’t see your last reply while writing this post. So allow me to add, no ideology ever including freedom of choice has ever attacked another nation built on freedom of choice unprovoked. Proving your own point. At the same time, even the countries of tyrannical regimes fighting in defense after whatever provocation of war, have done so for existential reasons. Now we can claim Nazi-Germany or fascist Italy were created by free choice. Let’s agree it was so, when war came around were they still countries built on freedom of choice?

I’ve already weighed on this topic further back at length so will not repeat again. Agree with you on the principles of territorial sovereignty and integrity, but must also add two things. Firstly, escaping most would prefer in the choice of fight or flight. Not every situation allows that, fighting is not always by choice. Forget the respect of civilian lives or rules of war, the ICC was formed for a reason. Thus, if only thing standing between your and families of your fellow citizens is you with gun in hand. Then you fight, like it or not. Secondly, from experience, Haiduk is right on offensive warfare due to ideology not being the same as defensive due to existential threat. The war in Ukraine is existential, not lines on maps as it be perceived. Forcing Russia out is breaking the back and crippling their Sovjet system of tyranny, not only for existence of Ukraine as sovereign nation, but for you and me further to the west across some of those lines on maps.

Think this one is self-explanatory, as the post suggests. Reminder to those that think Russians understanding anything but force.

Come on now guys, give engineers a break now. Kicking someone already down is not the way to go, pick on somebody your own size. Architects or IT strategists, or whatever it is that Steve does! With great powers come great responsibilities. Be nice! On topic - activities are continuing on the Tokmak direction. Vicinity of Verbove according to this one. And northwest of Kreminna. Energoatom on Telegram, ZNPP has lost connection to high voltage transmission grid. Meaning that no electricity to and from substations is available at this point in time. Very short message not stating more than that. Freely translated “Such a regime is difficult for the reactor plant, its duration is limited by the project and can lead to failure of the main equipment of the power unit” Reuters goes as far as claiming - Energoatom announced that Europe's largest nuclear power plant is on the verge of collapse, as the backup line has less than half the power of the main transmission line. Little alarmist considering that this has happened before, steam leak in the power unit that is in hot shutdown. Got several more units they can transfer steam production to supply the plant internally if needed. Trust that the Russians know how to fix this, Ukrainians at Energoatom just the messengers in this case.

This is great example of what William Spaniel covered in this video about Bakhmut, see particularly chapter 3 at 8:30 and forward. Same principles of gambling apply this time around with the full scale mobilization. In short, Putin is betting the house on red as he knows anything outside of betting the house and winning results in him being a dead man. Bets and loses - he is dead man. Doesn’t bet - can’t win and is thus a dead man. The outcome betting and losing is the same as not betting and not losing (not winning actually). May sound confusing but he got nothing left to lose. Even if betting in all on one last roll of the dice. One (un)lucky man with the odds stacked against him. It’s not roulette this time around. Hell, even Russian roulette probably give him better chances of surviving…

This is not intended as sarcastic smart *** one liner, but doesn’t the saying go “offense is the best type of defense”? From previous rants of Russian disinformation and propaganda; Russians are pushing now, as in timing, to relieve pressure further south. Think they are in reality full of smelly hot gases. Thus lack actual capabilities to overrun Ukrainians and make significant push towards capturing Lyman/Izium. So they do what they do best, show their Sovjet inherent incompetence of conducting effective offensive operations. And you said it yourself, resorting to “shelling the sh*t out of it”. Edit: We discussed the Sovjet doctrine of attritional defensive strategies before. Hold, retreat, artillery cover on previous positions and counterattack, on and on and on. Only problem for Russians now is that Ukrainians are doing the same thing. When Russians attack, they retreat, Russians set in artillery fire, revealing positions, and Ukrainians answer with actually accurate counter artillery. Elmar nailed it on the previous page; “The Russian strategic reserves of stupidity are not at any risk of running out, it seems.” Edit 2: Speaking of Russian propaganda, this guy is legendary; “The necessary reports are required from you in the universe of military leadership, and if reality does not correspond to it, these are problems of reality.”

In the not-so-famous words of Chris Voss - “You’re right!”. Hold on, where was I going with this one again?! Sorry, I forgot… PS! Sheesh, this guy must been hammered out if his mind. Can’t put three words together into a coherent sentence.

To offer serious consideration, it’s about collecting and sharing information about the ongoing events in Ukraine. With some dark humor included for good measure, the first is usually just tragic rather than tragicomic so the latter helps. Occasionally we share opinions, experiences, ideas and stories of our own related to information from various sources. If you ask me, there is no right or wrong perspective on what’s going on. Whoever claims to know anything with certainty at this point is either delusional or a bloody liar. We have very little information that we can say is independent and accurate. As such, we are all observers and for me that’s what this is all about. Collectively trying to make sense of the madness that is human conflict. There are so many people from different disciplines and walks of life here, and I am very happy to see that. Numbers of readers probably far outweigh the number of writers and that’s equally important to remember. These people are also observers trying to make sense of what is going on. We may or may not agree with each other and that’s the most important part. There is no process of indoctrinating each other into some type of group think where diverging opinions are not accepted. Poking fun of ideas, bringing up new ones, offering suggestions, experiences etc. is all part of it. It usually helps to keep things pragmatic as in answering posts with same effort as the writer did. If we don’t agree, which I hope is the case, then I’d like to include why that’s the case and not point to assumptions and say - you are wrong. Remembering post from little more than year ago I went looking for it and found it. Will add as concluding answer to your question. The_Capt wrote in April of 2022 and I quote; “This is why we need new folks, they keep us on point by (re)asking the central questions. So what happens next? No idea. I have ideas, opinions and what my instincts are saying but I really do not know. In my thinking the main effort here is to create a mental framework that allows us to understand what we are seeing, when it happens.” Helping each other understand what’s going on, right or wrong, is what this is all about. With that being said, we can’t ignore outrageous ideas or discussions that don’t fit said framework. What if we are wrong? Because they didn’t fit the discourse at the time? Edit: if your question was about Ben Hodges being right or wrong, I don’t know. Would like to know in what context did he say that? Maybe the quote was taken out of context and going back, well maybe it makes sense. I don’t know. Wasn’t dissing your argument, just the timing was kind of funny so I thought it be fun to poke around with it.

Source is not the most credible but interesting nevertheless to proactively listen. We are looking at figures of recorded explosions in the past 10 years (top) and number of victims (bottom). In summary, during 2022 there were 83 explosions recorded in which 55 people died and 10,647 were injured. Last year, according to the Russian ministry’s numbers, residential buildings and warehouses exploded, and the explosion on the Crimean bridge was also included in the statistics. The most common cause of explosions in 2022 is an explosive object (bomb, rocket, mine, grenade) - 55 out of 83. The increase in the number of explosions in 2022 is directly related to hostilities in Ukraine. In the last ten years in Russia, despite the fact that there were terrorist attacks and that residential buildings were destroyed due to gas leaks, the number of explosions per year did not exceed 20, and the number of victims amounted to hundreds, not thousands. So it seems if anybody in Russia has failed to connect the SMO with explosions occurring in Russia. Well, then this might help to connect such dots, the SMO is coming home.

Sorry for the lousy graphic design, as evident engineers suck at such complex tasks. PS! Sorry buddy, couldn’t help it when you set it up like that. Say it with brotherly love.

Take this as deeply insulting good Sir! Much more so than dissing by ignoring, engineers are people too! Ok, maybe you are right! Garbagemen are probably more successful than most engineers on Tinder. Particularly with this type of profile content, engineering humor. Ha! Ha! Funny! Ok, nobody likes a smart ***! I get that… Anyhow, interesting read for anyone who might care for some smart *** opinions. Edit: Damn it! Can’t even post relevant info, Danfrodo already beat me to the punch. Will see myself out! Edit 2: On the way out, some interesting updates about command posts familiarizing themselves with work of fellow A&D engineers. https://babel.ua/en/news/97178-the-defense-forces-hit-the-command-post-of-the-russian-army-in-nova-kakhovka

Great! If such is the equipment of packages pleaded and in fact sent then we must keep calm and carry on. Don’t take the lack of effective deployment and progress on formation and equipment. Lists did contain engineering equipment, just nobody got excited about it. Hold on, one more question - in relation to number of tanks, shells, etc. how much was lots of engineering stuff? Edit - wasn’t suggesting total lack off. My point was rather “is there enough boring equipment in relation to cool stuff for the situation that could be foreseen?”. Could anyone end of last year/beginning of this year have expected the Russians to dig in and mine every hole they could dig? If so, the Russians are digging in you say? Let’s see, send some engineering equipment and more tanks. Total surprise how much they dug in, should really sent more tanks. Hindsight is 20/20 and not fair to point fingers with results at hand. But it is fair to ask before we keep going down same path that didn’t work as expected, how about - lots more boring standard stuff?

Experts of the Battlefront community, have at it. The bitching is about to start, get the popcorn. There are some puzzling stuff about the new brigades that not seen much about at all here nor elsewhere. So much discussion and expectations about the potential of the newly formed Ukrainian brigades, but has anyone checked the engine under the hood. There is point of observation that everyone staring blindly on shiny toys that lend inspiration for cool memes, such as Leopards, Abrams and F-16s. Where are the not so sexy toys of engineering and air defense equipment to boot. Quite frankly we don’t know the the problems of the Ukrainians, neither can or should we, due to lack of comprehensive and available data. Just for example, how many pledged and sent packages list engineering equipment? Anyone? No? Ukrainians are in fact not equipped with necessary and needed military equipment and weapons. From point of view that they can use all that firepower of their tanks. Really become effective operational units without limiting them to spread out mechanized forces. Out of the total number of new brigades, there are how many mechanized brigades formed - well 17. In terms of formation, let’s take off western glasses again and look from the other side. By Sovjet-Russia standard, this would be in the form of 17 tank battalions and 50 mechanized battalions. Grey wrinkled Sovjet mathematician says 500+ tanks and 1500+ APV, numbers are kosher. Let’s keep screaming on top of lungs about tanks, tanks and tanks, and soon planes too. Each of those brigades should have one engineering battalion, battalion/division of air defense, etc. How many do they have? Current standard in the Ukrainian mechanized brigades, sorry old Sovjet, each of these brigades should have 4 artillery battalions/divisions. Yes, no, maybe, who cares anyway. What’s the point of all this? Frankly, we should care more than we do about not so sexy aspects as we maybe are missing the obvious. The mechanized brigade, from formation point of view has 13 tactical units and another 4-5 lower tactical units. Huge military unit of a higher tactical level, basically in terms of the number of units it has in its composition it resembles a mini-division. When each of these units are equipped with more than just tanks, tanks, tanks but also not so sexy standard weapons and military equipment. Then they would really reach their full potential with all that great firepower. The newly formed brigades have no problems deploying trained soldiers. Trained on provided equipment and weapons. Problems are with equipping its units with appropriate unsexy weapons and military equipment. This is just one of the reasons why Ukrainians cannot use its newly formed brigades to the full extent. Which corresponds to the very structure and equipment received to form these. A number of tactical units, which are in the composition of the brigades. Tanks, tanks, tanks, and soon planes too. Why doesn’t it work? Let’s throw more tanks at the problem, yeah that should do it! Armchair General has spoken. Not patronizing, but please can we get some exciting nerdy stuff also?

Various tids and bits in addition to what Haiduk already posted. Fighting in area of Robotyne is reported in the form of Russian counterattacks from Verbove direction, e.g. east south east direction. Artillery battles ongoing with more active Ukrainian than Russian. More importantly several trenches are claimed captured in direction of Novoprokopivka, directly south of Robotyne. Appears the fighting is continuing in south western direction from previous Ukrainian positions east of Robotyne. Cutting road between the two settlements rather than direct assault on their respective communities. In yet other news And as always the all important Tom Cooper on Staromaiorske-Staromlynivka area. https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-8-august-2023-staromlynivka?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2