How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[John Kettler]

17 minutes ago, Machor said:

FWIW There's a good chance the TB2s are still operating from within Ukraine. Ukraine bought these with mobile ground control stations, pictured below:

The mobile GCS can control TB2s at a range of up to 300 km. While I couldn't find hard data on the TB2's take-off and landing distances, the video below shows take-off is very short, thus presumably landing as well:

All of which goes to say that Ukraine can easily operate these from the country's road network.

Machor and Haiduk,

Unless things have changed, Ukraine operates the TB2s from joint base Hmelnitski, Ukrsaine.  The base has fixed and rotary wing aircraft, plus TB2s.

https://themedialine.org/by-region/turkey-military-industry-looks-to-benefit-from-drones-success-in-ukraine-war/

The limiting factor for Ukraine is not so much the drones themselves, but the relative handful of DCS (Drone Control Stations) supplied. A complete TB2 system is 6 x TB2 and 2 x DCS, plus support equipment. Ukraine may be operating as many as 48 TB2, making for 16 x DCS to handle all those drones. 

https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-ukraine-using-drones-against-russia

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, sburke said:

dunno but being a petro state doesn't seem to have much impact on aviation fuel.  I went to Nigeria a few years back and they were having a crisis.  International flights had to land with enough fuel to proceed to their next destination.  Nigerian air was grounded.

Yeah, that is what I was wondering about.  Refineries for the different grades of aviation fuel are specialized AFAIK.  It's not like a refinery that produces diesel fuel can suddenly flip a switch and churn out jet fuel.

As I understand it the exploration and refinery technologies are what the Western companies (like Shell and BP) brought to their partnerships with Russian companies.  Now that they're out, I'm wondering how this will impact 100% Russian controlled fuel production capacity.

Steve

[John Kettler]

On 3/7/2022 at 5:15 AM, Haiduk said:

Stugna-P ATGM hit the tank

 

 

Haiduk,

Thanks for this, and it's good to see Ukraine's own ATGMs in action.

All,

Noticed in imagery of a BTR-82 being hauled off by a tractor that there is now applique armor wrapped around the front half of the turret, something I'd never seen before.

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited March 9, 2022 by John Kettler

[db_zero]

Watched a retired general state that a 40km column on a narrow road like we’re seeing would be next to impossible to turn around without becoming a massive tangled mess if Putin ordered it to return to Russia.

Called it a huge tangled mess and a massive traffic control nightmare.

Then there are the stories of cheap Chinese made tires that are basically coming apart in the difficult Ukraine terrain, not to mention attacks by small Ukrainian groups, poor morale and stories of deliberate sabotage.

Putins is angry and frustrated as hell. Probably saying to himself where’s the NKVD when you need them.

In some way this slow moving 40 km column is reminiscent of the situation during Operation Market Garden where a large column was confined to a single narrow road with bad terrain surrounding it a lack of knowledge of side routes.

Eventually it seems the there will be a linkup between the Northern and Southern force and by sheer numbers and firepower the Russians may prevail.

I’ve heard estimates that Kyiv could hold out for a month as well as someone estimate 6-9 months. Who knows?

I think we’re going to see sanctions work faster than we’re used to and perhaps the collapse of the Russian economy behind this war force some sort of end.

Edited March 9, 2022 by db_zero

[sburke]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, that is what I was wondering about.  Refineries for the different grades of aviation fuel are specialized AFAIK.  It's not like a refinery that produces diesel fuel can suddenly flip a switch and churn out jet fuel.

As I understand it the exploration and refinery technologies are what the Western companies (like Shell and BP) brought to their partnerships with Russian companies.  Now that they're out, I'm wondering how this will impact 100% Russian controlled fuel production capacity.

Steve

I find it hard to believe that this would happen this quick especially with foreign air travel shut down you'd think there would be plenty of fuel there for flights they had expected to be coming.  Wondering if Russia is just shutting down access to allow for long term needs projections as this drags out and for potential military requirements.  I haven't yet found an article on the airport completely shutting down.  Anybody have a link for that?

[sburke]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

 

Hmm. 

 

that is just begging for a stinger...

[John Kettler]

On 3/7/2022 at 4:35 PM, Fenris said:

Speaking of Rasputitsa, this one got posted recently

 

Fenris,

Note origin marking is O from Belarus, not Z from Russia. Knew about Typhoon_K, but Typhoon-L is new to me.

All,

Ref failed hub seals on captured Pantsir, it's important to note that any vehicle with those funky looking hubs has centrally controlled tire pressure (enabling operations in all sort of conditions fixed pressure tires can't) and that failure of the system affects ALL the tires. Instead of a flat, everything goes flat if the central control system fails.

Regards,

John Kettler

[dan/california]

33 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I guess I am a little sceptical that a 40+ km convoy that hasn’t moved for 5 days and is in the open on the road behinds bare to the sky in an air parity situation, is really a coiled steel spring.  I mean if they were organized they would be in hides and assembly areas with cam nets up and all around security.

Russian may be trying to grip their logistics problems but everyday they don’t the worse it gets.  Vehicles will start to break without maintenance support, fuel tanks run dry from running in the cold and troops run out of food, there is ample evidence of this happening.  I guess I am not seeing the same FOBs (a concept that really doesn’t work here) or a logistics hub system yet.

The Russians have lost 15 BTGs worth of tanks and a CAA’s worth of logistics vehicles if the open source stuff is accurate.  That is a bit more than a SNAFU and starting to approach operational damage it is hard to recover from.

 I am not calling the Russians done yet but they can see it from where they are, they need to re-start serious offensive action, achieve the preconditions they should have two weeks ago and get on with it before Ukrainian forces chew up their logistics system while they are setting it up.

And it isn't just that the Ukrainians are wrecking the Russians' supply lines. The Russians haven't broken the Kyiv's supply lines, every day large quantities of supplies are flowing in and all manner of preparations are being made. More civilians get out so noncombatant mouths won't be eating those supplies. A day's pause isn't in the Russians favor, a week's pause isn't in the Russians favor. And it could REALLY rain at any moment, and off road movement becomes the rest of the way impossible. If the have the the ability to do it the Russians should be attacking now, with everything that still runs.

Edited March 9, 2022 by dan/california
spelling

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, sburke said:

I find it hard to believe that this would happen this quick especially with foreign air travel shut down you'd think there would be plenty of fuel there for flights they had expected to be coming.  Wondering if Russia is just shutting down access to allow for long term needs projections as this drags out and for potential military requirements.  I haven't yet found an article on the airport completely shutting down.  Anybody have a link for that?

Oh, I don't think there's any effect yet.  Any shortages here or there might be the result of chaotic management of easily available resources.  But I'm wondering how long ready supplies will last before they need to be replenished and does Russia have that sort of domestic capacity?

Maybe not coincidentally, this from today:

Could be refineries were on his mind more than McDonald's and Pepsi.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

New numbers to plug into various equations for determining Russia's existing combat effectiveness:

Quote

Speaking of prisoners, the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry put out new estimates of POWs. As of March 7, according to the Ukrainians, they have captured two thousand RF soldiers.

...

According to the Defense Ministry from 24 February through 7 March UAF units killed more than 12,000 men - meaning that, by conservative estimate, another 24-30,000 were hospitalized.

Wow.  Combined that amounts to about 25% losses thus far.  We've done math games with this before, and doesn't paint a good picture of Russia's combat effectiveness.

First official number of POWs I've seen in about a week.  Big number, likely to get much bigger.  The Mayor of Mykolaiv said he's asked for 50 buses to get ready to transport POWs.  Obviously a propaganda quip, but it does speak to the confidence levels of the Ukrainians.

ISW report for the 8th of March made the first statement I've seen of a Russian unit withdrawing out of Ukraine due to losses:

Quote

Ukraine’s General Staff stated on March 8 that elements of Russia’s 25th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 6th CAA withdrew from Kharkiv and returned to Belgorod to restore its combat capability.

This is likely the result of the highly successful counter attack two days ago that resulted in 3 BTGs getting the snot beaten out of them and also losing a general in the process.

Steve

[sburke]

restore its combat capability with what?  It will be interesting to see if stuff pops up from Russian social media if these guys start talking about why they got the snot kicked out of them.  Hard to call it UKR propaganda when these boys come back with the stories they will have.

[Kinophile]

13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

the result of the highly successful counter attack two days ago that resulted in 3 BTGs getting the snot beaten out of them and also losing a general in the process.

Ive heard vague rumours of this, is there a more detailed account?

[John Kettler]

On 3/7/2022 at 10:14 PM, Battlefront.com said:

I hope as well.

OK, back to some pontificating.

The estimated losses of 10k KIA and 30k WIA sound very plausible, but let's even say it's off by a factor of 2 and we have 5k and 15k respectively for a total of 20k out of a force of about 180k.  That's 11% reduction in forces.

Somewhere in and around the first couple of days of the war I pointed out that what units suffer the losses matters more than the numbers themselves.  For example...

Losing an entire tank company with 100% crews dead results in 30 KIA.  So let's see what 30 KIA difference can make in a BTG:

• 10 Tanks + crews
• 3 AFV/IFV + crews + dismounts
• 15 logistics trucks + crews

Now let's look at how that relates to relative contribution to the fighting capacity of BTG:

• 100% of tanks
• 10% of rifle strength
• 70% of logistics (worse, it could be 100% of fuel as there's only about 5 tankers in total)

Not all 30 KIAs are equal, are they?  Nope!  So the casualty figures don't tell us the full story about how the total number affects total combat effectiveness.  But we can guess based on the smashed trucks that logistics have been hit harder proportional to everything else. 

A single MBT has a big projection of power on whatever tactical situation it is in, but a single fuel truck can determine if an entire company's worth of tanks have any power at all.  If I'm a tactical commander worried about one battle I'd rather lose a fuel truck than a MBT.  But if I'm an operational commander, I'd be pretty nervous about losing too many fuel trucks because the loss of each one has a multiplying effect that goes way beyond any one particular battle.

Which brings me back to my point I made when this whole mess started.  At what point does Ukraine need to get to before, statistically, the operational freedom of action of the Russian force is degraded to the point that it can not carry out its mission any more than the Germans could take Antwerp in The Battle of the Bulge?  Nobody knows in part because what is taken out of action is almost as important as how much. 

I'd say taking 20% of the invasion force out of action is probably the tipping point from a technical standpoint.  If we take Ukraine's casualty figures at face value, they hit that number yesterday.  If we halve the number they could see it sometime this week (remember, attacker casualties tend to increase when mobility decreases).

Low morale, poor communications, lack of confidence in leadership, incentives from Ukraine to surrender, etc. can take whatever the technical tipping point is and lower it significantly.  With that in mind, if 11% is the casualty count now, Ukraine might not need to rack up another 9% to hit the tipping point.  Might already have hit it.

Steve

 

Steve,

These are excellent points and remind me of how shockingly few casualties it took to make whole divisions ineffective during WW II because the small percentage of front line infantry got chewed up but most of the division was fine. The situation is far worse now, because there's even less infantry now, for any given size formation, than there was before, lots more fuel hungry AFVs, SPA, AD and MT, and, at least in Russia's case, very little in both basic logistic capability and even less in terms of redundancy,  especially, as you noted, at the BTG level. In terms of combat effort needed, it's relatively easy to gut a BTG and do it cheaply, too. On a related note, how easy is it to spot the BTG Co's track?

Something I've noted in the TB2 strike footage on convoys I've seen, is that the Ukrainians apparently have a read on what the ammo trucks look like and are targeting them explicitly. In every such apparent incident, there have been enormous secondary explosions clearly indicating that's exactly what was struck.

Can't help but wonder what the current military situation would be if the Russians weren't having to fight the rasputitsa and the Ukrainians simultaneously? I suspect the Ukrainians would be in bad shape.

Regards,

John Kettler



 

[Combatintman]

4 hours ago, billbindc said:

Sorry...weird double post. Just an fyi, those Polish MiG's are very likely not going to Ukraine. The thorniest issue is that they'd be flying from a non-combatant NATO country into contested airspace and Defense and the intelligence community clearly think they are escalatory. In addition, it doesn't seem like the most militarily efficient idea to take the Ukrainian air force from down 10 to 1  to only down 8 to 1. There are less destabilizing and far more useful arms transfers that work on Russia's weaknesses instead of Russia's (at least potential) strengths. 

This was a hot potato that nobody wanted. The Poles just tossed it into our lap.

Been done before - I'm sure there's a meme/quote about studying history and learning from it ...

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, Combatintman said:

Been done before - I'm sure there's a meme/quote about studying history and learning from it ...

Well aware of that history. But that was dragging bombers into a non-combat theater. Very different.

[BletchleyGeek]

11 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

I'm sure there's a meme/quote about studying history and learning from it ...

I guess that's why the Russian armed forces are using armored trains to run supply to Melitopol. Somebody read a history book and a light bulb went blink!

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by BletchleyGeek

[Battlefront.com]

For those who wondered if the racks over a turret do anything to defend against Javelin.  Well, I guess 7 weeks ago the Ukrainians decided to answer that question.  Maybe they had seen some of the contraptions on the Russian tanks and decided to satisfy their curiosity:

https://www.facebook.com/pressjfo.news/videos/474004010805910/

The answer is as we expected it would be... the extra bits of metal don't even annoy the Javelin.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Some of you may recall a before and after photo set from a TB2 strike on a Russian armored column. If the caption on this one is right, the after was the result, not of a TB2 strike, but Ukrainian artillery. This shows that same after, but from farther away, and both pics have the same highly distinctive guardrail (if that's what it is). Ref the after, have seen comments the destroyed vehicles weren't armor, but trucks. Ragardless, the original photo set does NOT show the before and after from the same TB2 strike.

2132,48813KConversation Ukraine Weapons Tracker@UAWeapons#Ukraine: A Russian convoy with fuel trucks was totally annihilated near #Kyiv as a result of Ukrainian artillery shelling.



Will end this post with a bit of drollery from the same thread.

 

Felix S

 

@__fst

·

Mar 7

 

Replying to

@UAWeapons

First hit their fuel trucks, then send your tractors to pick up the tanks.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Ref Azov unit, am unsure what to believe as to its proper unit size designation. Have seen it described as a battalion or a regiment, and it doesn't help that there's so much slop in the head count for various size units from nation to nation. Could one of our Ukrainian colleagues please tell us what the typical strength numbers are for a Ukrainian infantry battalion and infantry regiment? My current view is that if Azov is a battalion, it's a fat one, as in a battalion (+) headed toward two battalions. Al-Jazeera lists Azov as being 900 men and a regiment, not a battalion.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
 

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

Been done before - I'm sure there's a meme/quote about studying history and learning from it ...

Combatintman,

You made my night with that piece you posted. If you haven't read them yet, may I suggest you look up Major Jordan's Diary and read it?  He was the liaison officer to the Soviets picking up Lend-Lease aircraft and reported some absolutely hair-raising Soviet espionage-collected plans and materiel sent back to SU in the planes we supplied.

Regards,

John Kettler

[dan/california]

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/

Some it you have seen if you have been looking, some it was new to me, and if they say it is graphic, they are NOT joking.

[kraze]

8 hours ago, Vic4 said:

@kraze& @Haiduk et al

Could you please elaborate (in an unbiased manner) what drives the ethnic/racial animus between Russia and Ukraine? If I understand correctly, you refer to “ethnic cleansing” as being a prominent motivating factor for the typical Russian soldier, regardless of the overarching geopolitical dynamics between Russia and “the West”. In short, from your perspective, what is the origin of all this hatred and to what end does it serve?

Lastly you speak of the disintegration of Russia as being necessary. What does that look like in terms of re-divided nation states; governments etc.? ...Disclaimer…I don’t want to derail the thread or inflame emotions so if a dry, calculated answer is not possible then please refrain. Thanks

Russia is an empire. Like any other empire in history - it consists of dozens of different ethnicities. And to keep that all together and not infighting permanently - an empire has to erase ethnicity's culture, language, identity - naturally nobody would agree to any of that peacefully - so an empire has to genocide its way through all the resistance to forced change until people are turned into a grey mass with no past and no roots.

It's been like that since ancient Egypt and Rome and it's no different now.

Furthermore an empire has to expand to exist, because empires are extremely conservative and improving living conditions among other things isn't the priority because of that - so stagnation is death of an empire. Proven by the USSR and British Empire in 20th century.

With Ukraine, however, it's amplified by the ever falsified russian history, where they want their roots to start in Kyivan Rus and not in Golden Horde, khans of which created Muscovy, because for a supposed empire to have its roots among barbarians is degrading or something.

So they just have to have Kyiv or their history makes no sense even to them.

This thing with ethnic cleansings here isn't something recent - it's been going on for 300 years. Russia first captured most of Ukrainian territories only in 18th century and since then they did continuous genocides with millions of victims, down to literally forbidding us from speaking our native language - in fact it was forbidden as recently as 1991.

Hence why you see putin spewing insanity about "Lenin inventing Ukraine" and other fascist nonsense about "borderlands" (Kyiv being a "borderland" of 'Kyivan' Rus was always funny to us).

As for us - seriously we didn't hate russians up until 2014, we would've happily never cared about them at all. I mean I personally wasn't even interested in what's going on in their country and even happily ignored their trashy behavior towards us up until 2014.

Edited March 9, 2022 by kraze

[panzermartin]

I really thought this was some kind of conspiracy theory from the anti jab crowd. But makes me wonder:

1. Why from all the places in the world did US had many biological labs in Ukraine. 

2. Why is it so important to not  fall in russian hands.

3.Why they were denying as false russian propaganda the existence of such labs some days ago. 

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by panzermartin

[John Kettler]

14 hours ago, akd said:

T-72B3M now in Ukrainian service:

akd,

Let's hope they checked those NERA bags on the sides to make sure they have the required components, such as the explosives! In fact, maybe they should check the ERA boxes as well.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Doc844]

I find this whole Mig 29 situation with Poland quite baffling.  Why have they announced their intention to the whole world without seemingly running the idea past the Americans, who have now publicly baulked at the idea of shuttling fighter jets from a Nato base to a war theatre, thus antagonising Putin.  Seems like a major cock up to me ?