How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

I don't need translations to know that these guys are getting worn down by trench warfare.  This is the 30th Mech Brigade in and around Horlivka.  Quite a different demeanor from the Ukrainian units that are on the move.  Not surprising... positional warfare sucks.

 

[MikeyD]

1 hour ago, keas66 said:

...about difficulties  manufacturing additional stingers...

I recall TOW had the same problem. There was literally nobody left in the US who could manufacture the necessary thin copper wire spool for the guidance wires. That's the primary reason why they switched to radio control.

[Taranis]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't need translations to know that these guys are getting worn down by trench warfare.  This is the 30th Mech Brigade in and around Horlivka.  Quite a different demeanor from the Ukrainian units that are on the move.  Not surprising... positional warfare sucks.

 

I'm curious why there are no pallet wood type trench upgrades on the ground to improve comfort and reduce wading through mud or reinforcements on the sides of the trench with sandbags or other . The sector should probably not move too much and one of the mistakes of the French during WW1 was to say to themselves that they were not going to stay long when the Germans had set up their trench well. This made the wait even more difficult for the allies mired in their mud swamps.

I don't think this is a recently implemented position since the front is quite static in this area

Edited April 26, 2022 by Taranis

[sross112]

66886-aleksandr_burkov_vyrazil_soboleznovanija_seThere I was thinking that I was ahead of the game when in fact I was too steps behind!!

 

AKD already posted.

Edited April 26, 2022 by sross112

[Combatintman]

3 hours ago, Holien said:

Karma is paying back years of crap from Russia let’s hope it's a game changer. 

As for our British Defence minister I do wish he would keep his gob shut on stuff like that, he didn't need to say it, even if I or most folk have no problem with how Ukraine uses the weapons to win the war.

I wish our politicians would take some lessons from the Baltic countries or others keeping what they are upto closer to their chests. No need for propaganda own goals. 

I don't disagree but Heappey is the Minister for the Armed Forces not the Minister of Defence so pretty small beer in the grand scheme of things ...

Here are two less inflammatory reports on his remarks about targeting Russia ...

Ukraine war: 'Entirely legitimate' for Kyiv to hit military targets in Russia using Western weapons, minister says | World News | Sky News

Minister backs Ukraine carrying out Russia strikes with British weapons | Defence policy | The Guardian

 

[Probus]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

A note to all you... do not believe a damned thing that zerohedge says.  They are an alt-right wing site with extremely strong ties to Russian disinformation campaigns.  It is often part of conspiracy theory echo chambers.  It is unknown how deep the ties go with Russia, but it gets its money from somewhere so there is that.

Steve

Good to know. Not one of my regular haunts. Thanks Steve!

[sburke]

18 minutes ago, sross112 said:

Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Evseev from the 281st Artillery Brigade was killed in Ukraine. https://ngs55.ru/text/world/2022/04/25/71284565/… https://om1.ru/news/society/266886-aleksandr_burkov_vyrazil_soboleznovanija_semjam_eshhjo_pjati_pogibshikh_omichejj_na_ukraine/… https://12-kanal.ru/news/131800/ https://vk.com/wall-138393358

 

Dd_6134Didn't see this unit or casualty on Kinophile's spreadsheet.

AKD posted earlier today. Gotta move fast around here

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, Taranis said:

I'm curious why there are no pallet wood type trench upgrades on the ground to improve comfort and reduce wading through mud or reinforcements on the sides of the trench with sandbags or other . The sector should probably not move too much and one of the mistakes of the French during WW1 was to say to themselves that they were not going to stay long when the Germans had set up their trench well. This made the wait even more difficult for the allies mired in their mud swamps.

I don't think this is a recently implemented position since the front is quite static in this area

There has been intense fighting in this area.  Those positions look fairly fresh, so I'm guessing they got pushed out of their 8 year trench dachas and are making do with what they can now.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Here's a good report on what's going on with Transnistria.  The short of it, the suspicions are that it's FSB agents trying to stir up trouble to cause distraction/heartburn:

https://www.kyivpost.com/eastern-europe/flare-up-in-the-west-explosions-war-warnings-in-sleepy-transnistria.html

Steve

[Probus]

The German move to supply Ukraine with only weapons that are not useful to the Ukrainians (Gephardt) may just come back and bite them.

First the Gephardt may be obsolete but Russian aircraft were getting shot down at an alarming rate. Helicopters aren't gonna fair to well either.

Second, in WWII, when AAA wasn't shooting down aircraft, it was often used to lay down murderous fire on the enemy infantry.  I, for one, use AAA in SF2 and CMBS as direct fire on stubborn infantry targets. And if CM is to be believed, which I think it should, it's just as effective as it was in WWII. Even more so. Just keep it at range and keyhole as best you can.

Only certain Germans are up to no good really. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Probus

[Battlefront.com]

OK, time to pull up to the 30,000 ft level and figure out where things are at and might be headed with the so-called "Easter Offensive" by the Russians.

I think it's pretty clear that my call last week that they scrapped a large scale offensive was spot on, if even a little late (they maybe never planned a big offensive).  Since then what we've seen is more of the same that was going on in the prior week.  Specifically, forces pressing down from Izyum in an attempt to clip roads and make life problematic for the Ukrainians arrayed further eastward along the remains of the old Donbas frontline.  It is not a deep envelopment, but rather a steady push while the Russian forces to the east are continuing to pursue a costly frontal assault strategy.

My thinking here is that Russia decided a big enveloping attack, even from just the north, was beyond their ability to support.  Ukraine has simply shown itself to be too good at laying advancing Russian forces' LOCs to waste, so the actions we're seeing now are explicitly designed to not give Ukraine that sort of opportunity.

In short, it's very clear Putin needs Russian forces taking and holding Luhansk and Donetsk territory.  Destroying large amounts of Ukrainian forces would be nice if possible, but not inherently necessary.  I think Russia determined a bloody frontal assault had more chance of success than maneuver warfare.  Since I was vocal about Russia getting its arse handed to it in small pieces if it tried a bold maneuver or two, to me the Russian plan makes sense.

Steve

[CHEqTRO]

So, it seems that the russians are going to go ahead with their threats and cut the gas flow both to Poland and Bulgaria. Funnily enough, that would make the Hungarian line the only one still supplying gas to Europe, which crosses through Ukraine, and is still operating, despite the war.

 

This coincides with the germans saying that they are ready to embargo russian oil, but not gas, mind you:

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[dan/california]

So it becomes an almost purely attritional  contest. How long can the Russians lose a battlegroup a day plus?

[BeondTheGrave]

I think weve seen this hinted at in other releases, but AFAIK this is the most direct confirmation that US intel has played a direct role in the UA's tactical success. 

Poland may have just gotten cut off from RU gas. 

And, literally as I was refreshing the feed, Bulgaria it seems. 

IDK how the EU can keep pushing off the oil embargo if its members are being cut off. Wonder what Germany will say now?

edit: @CHEqTRO faster on the draw lol

Edited April 26, 2022 by BeondTheGrave

[BeondTheGrave]

2 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

This coincides with the germans saying that they are ready to embarga russian oil, but not gas, mind you:

We live in a really weird timeline where a Gruene minister is standing up in a room and trying to weasel Germany out of having to give up fossil fuel imports. Just from the 30k ft perspective, the whole think would have been totally unthinkable a year ago. 

Wonder what this will do to the popularity of Gruene in the future. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

IDK how the EU can keep pushing off the oil embargo if its members are being cut off. Wonder what Germany will say now?

 

This will significantly hasten the energy sanctions. Russia broke the "taboo".

Even though it is morally wrong, the Germans are right, was Energy cut off will hurt EU more than the Russian. Couple months more of energy money (that cannot spend on anything) doesn't matter for the Russians. But energy cut of without time to adjust matters to the EU.

[Markus86]

8 minutes ago, dan/california said:

So it becomes an almost purely attritional  contest. How long can the Russians lose a battlegroup a day plus?

Don't you have to ask the question for both countries? Combat these days seems to be totally different than in the beginning, with these huge russian losses. Lots of artillery, stationary positions, probes. Ukraine is for sure suffering too. 

[Battlefront.com]

Here's another thought to throw out there.

Some experts, including Kofman, have blamed Russia's terrible battlefield performance on the unworkable planning for the campaign (aka "special operation").  The premise is that if they had limited their attacks to a few places at one time, with other phases to kick in later if needed, they would have been able to concentrate fire and manpower to an extent that Ukraine couldn't have countered.

In other words, the Russian forces were mishandled rather than being poorly suited for large scale warfare.

I completely disagree with this notion.  First, there's the laundry list of problems the Russians have that are completely unrelated to any one specific plan.  Poor quality soldiers, poor discipline, and poor morale for starters.  Poorly maintained equipment and shortages of the best equipment, especially communications gear, has also played a significant role in Russia's failures.  Obvious and long standing deficiencies in combined arms warfare aren't overcome by better higher level orders, in particular for coordinating with ground forces. The Russian mentality of marching to a timetable rather than conditions led to many tactical disasters that for sure would be present no matter what the overall plan was.  Although a narrower war plan would have decreased the gap between available forces and needed forces, without mobilization the forces available would still be too inadequate.  Then there's things like bad weather, reliance upon rail lines, aid from the West, and sanctions that would be the same no matter what the invasion plan was.  As would be the world ire about the warcrimes of Russian forces.

In short, the plan wasn't the problem as much as the forces available are.  We've seen plenty of evidence of this since the "Easter Offensive" started... bumbling frontal assaults that get hammered and withdraw, isolated assaults that are more easily neutralized, and Ukrainian forces that are still able to defend themselves day after day.  So it seems clear to me that even with a more focused initial plan, the results wouldn't have been much better because even now, after 2 months of lessons to learn, the Russians don't seem to have changed much of anything.  Which indicates this is the only way they can fight.

Now, if Putin could have been satisfied with taking the rest of Luhansk and Donetsk and the south between Donetsk and the Dnepr then there's a chance he could have pulled it off with a more deliberate, limited, focused war plan.  However, that isn't what Putin wanted and therefore an overstretched, unrealistic war plan was as inevitable as Russia's inability to carry it out.

Steve

[Kinophile]

@The_MonkeyKing It must matter, otherwise they'd have done it earlier, I suspect? The last thing a crunching Russian economy needs is yet another source of income drying up. But Putin's ego must be salved, I guess. The RCB must be in connuptions...

Edited April 26, 2022 by Kinophile

[The_Capt]

43 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, time to pull up to the 30,000 ft level and figure out where things are at and might be headed with the so-called "Easter Offensive" by the Russians.

I think it's pretty clear that my call last week that they scrapped a large scale offensive was spot on, if even a little late (they maybe never planned a big offensive).  Since then what we've seen is more of the same that was going on in the prior week.  Specifically, forces pressing down from Izyum in an attempt to clip roads and make life problematic for the Ukrainians arrayed further eastward along the remains of the old Donbas frontline.  It is not a deep envelopment, but rather a steady push while the Russian forces to the east are continuing to pursue a costly frontal assault strategy.

My thinking here is that Russia decided a big enveloping attack, even from just the north, was beyond their ability to support.  Ukraine has simply shown itself to be too good at laying advancing Russian forces' LOCs to waste, so the actions we're seeing now are explicitly designed to not give Ukraine that sort of opportunity.

In short, it's very clear Putin needs Russian forces taking and holding Luhansk and Donetsk territory.  Destroying large amounts of Ukrainian forces would be nice if possible, but not inherently necessary.  I think Russia determined a bloody frontal assault had more chance of success than maneuver warfare.  Since I was vocal about Russia getting its arse handed to it in small pieces if it tried a bold maneuver or two, to me the Russian plan makes sense.

Steve

This "Easter Offensive" is like watching an old dog eat soup right now.  Slurping and slopping, gum smacking and messy as hell but not much else. 

I do not think the Russian executed a recon-phase so this is "probe-as-you-go" and it is costing them dearly as the probing is being done by the same units that are supposed to be attacking.  Russia has not fundamentally fixed their problem of operational pre-conditions - information superiority being a big one, nor have they demonstrated any level of sophistication in this attack that would suggest some sort of overall operational design beyond "go forward and try and take some ground".  This is tactical piecemeal and largely unsynchronized.

The Russian's reportedly do have indirect fire advantage and have employed mass fires in some cases but it is again unsynchronized beyond some tactical pulses.  I am still waiting for some sort of shoe to drop (at this point a freakin sock would be a major surprise) but this is the slowest and most fumbling "mass operational offensive" I think the world has seen since the Austro-Hungarian Empire tried to invade Serbia in 1914. 

I guess the question is "is Russia just waiting for its moment, or is this it?"  The longer this takes the less likely there is a bold stroke under the hood here as it is costing the better part of a BTG daily burn rate just to do this "leg-humping" exercise.  Now we have deep strikes of some sort into Russia and some weird signals coming out of the Transnistria, while Russia continues symbolic lobbing of a diminishing stock of cruise missiles into Ukraine. 

I honestly expect Russia to announce that this entire thing was a "spoiling operation" to allow them to dig in for the defence of LNR/DNR.

All the while a western arsenal of epic proportions is being pushed into Ukraine, which at this rate will be a greater military power than Russia by the end of May.

Edited April 26, 2022 by The_Capt

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, Huba said:

My impression is that in general Ukrainian strategic lines of communications are really very secure,

there are hardly any cases of attacks against railway/ road infrastructure like bridges, save for some random cruise missile here and there. Manned sorties outside of frontline area are rather unheard of.

[...], my impression is that to a large degree railways operate on a peace footing ,with scheduled passenger trains etc. Given that military traffic should have priority, is it really that big compared to usual civilian one? Counting 1000 tons per day per brigade (probably an overestimation?) It does not sound like a lot, as least as far as just moving it West to East it is concerned. Actually managing the what to send where and when being another matter, same as transporting it from the railhead to the units.

Glad to discuss (and be refuted).

My primary mini-thesis is that just because RUS have been wasting missiles on non-mil targets (like the apt. building in Odessa) doesn't mean the LOCs are secure.

They cannot be described as such, if RUS is able to hit staging areas on the Polish border, on Lviv, the Dniper bridges and various railway stations.

I dislike referencing WW2 in this war, but the Redball Express is a useful analogy - it came into existence and thrived because of Allied total air superiority. Long convoys of trucks were rarely attacked from the air.

Just because the RuAF seems to have no real strategic air campaign plan, doesn't mean the LOCs are safe - just that they haven't been hit yet, in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Kinophile

[dan/california]

13 minutes ago, Markus86 said:

Don't you have to ask the question for both countries? Combat these days seems to be totally different than in the beginning, with these huge russian losses. Lots of artillery, stationary positions, probes. Ukraine is for sure suffering too. 

It does, but since the Russians have made it ABSOLUTELY clear, that their plan is to shoot every man of vaguely military age, rape any woman or child the they feel like, and then turn the whole country into something worse than a gulag, the Ukrainians are pretty much going to fight to the last twelve year old. The Russians can quit and go home any time, they just need proper encouragement. Watching their #^%^%##hole buddies die in burning AFVs is an EXCELLENT encouragement. ALL of them dying in burning AFVs is ok, too.

[dan/california]

19 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

@The_MonkeyKing It must matter, otherwise they'd have done it earlier, I suspect? The last thing a crunching Russian economy needs is yet another source of income drying up. But Putin's ego must be salved, I guess. The RCB must be in connuptions...

And every day deeper into spring it hurts less in the short term. The Russians have no plan except venting PUTIN'S conniptions. Great word by the way...

[Haiduk]

UKR soldier tells about how changed the war, what matches with Dvorikov's conception

Translation:

Heavy fights is continuing. Occupants is jamming comms constatntly. Exactly because of this there are no videos [means form his axis] with killed or captured Russians and even more - the situation is canged in waging of war. 

Taking huge losses, occupants moved on what they do the best - the typical Soviet f...ing matter. F...ing alot of preliminary bombardments (and 100% they have advantage in artillery and this is a fact) and after this crawling advance - the village by village. Now we will have more losses, and some more of our captured.

Because having continuous front, somewhere we retreat, somewhere we beat up them. But now in whole the objective of AFU is to hold itself about two months. Because during this time many heavy wepons will come to us. And our light motorized infantry brigades will turn out to mech.brigades.

You get the gist. Bad news will  be, it will be mixed with good. In addition, it plays a role, that we can't  conduct rotations, alas, it is so. One roatation = one months of battleworthy, fresh and extremaly motivated unit. The situation in such, that guys can't be rotated so far from the autumn. They have to be rotated in March, but by fact they are on positions to this time. 

About stupidity of Russians. Yes, they stupid, in strategic layer they fight worse, but on tactical layer we have almost parity. A partity, because we fight for our families, our land, our country, our freedom. I'l clarify, because of morale of our troops we are in winning position. Not to mention that to defend on own land always easier, than advancing. But that doesn't mean that is's too easy for our lads.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Haiduk

[sross112]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, time to pull up to the 30,000 ft level and figure out where things are at and might be headed with the so-called "Easter Offensive" by the Russians.

I think it's pretty clear that my call last week that they scrapped a large scale offensive was spot on, if even a little late (they maybe never planned a big offensive).  Since then what we've seen is more of the same that was going on in the prior week.  Specifically, forces pressing down from Izyum in an attempt to clip roads and make life problematic for the Ukrainians arrayed further eastward along the remains of the old Donbas frontline.  It is not a deep envelopment, but rather a steady push while the Russian forces to the east are continuing to pursue a costly frontal assault strategy.

My thinking here is that Russia decided a big enveloping attack, even from just the north, was beyond their ability to support.  Ukraine has simply shown itself to be too good at laying advancing Russian forces' LOCs to waste, so the actions we're seeing now are explicitly designed to not give Ukraine that sort of opportunity.

In short, it's very clear Putin needs Russian forces taking and holding Luhansk and Donetsk territory.  Destroying large amounts of Ukrainian forces would be nice if possible, but not inherently necessary.  I think Russia determined a bloody frontal assault had more chance of success than maneuver warfare.  Since I was vocal about Russia getting its arse handed to it in small pieces if it tried a bold maneuver or two, to me the Russian plan makes sense.

Steve

I'm only at about 10,000 ft and my rate of climb is really slow so bear with me.  

I'm seeing a repeat of their master plan minus Kyiv and Kharkov. Instead of concentrating for the single big attack they have several small ones going: south from Izyum, southwest from Rubizhne and west at Popasna for the Izyum region. They also have started pushing north near Volyka Novosilka with units formerly in Mariupol and lots of arty prep along the front to the west for an axis of attack on Zaporizhzhia. Fresh attacks northwest from Kherson up the M-18 highway towards Mykolaiv. Build up and now starting the attack north from Vysokopillia towards Kryvyi Rih. The ones in the north have been going for a few days and the ones in the south within the last 24 hours or so. 

So my take is they are repeating their mistakes of having too many axis competing for limited resources again. Basically a lot of fingers instead of an armored fist (maybe I'll send Dvornikov a copy of Guderian's book when this is over). At the same time if the ground conditions have relegated them to staying on hardened roads then they are doing what they can.

I guess my surprise is that they haven't tried to be more vigorous in their prosecution. They don't seem to be pushing very hard in any one place. Kind of like The Capt said above reference the old dog. It is somewhat comical to watch at first but then it just leaves you feeling sad. I think we expect an offensive action to consist of a string of hammer blows. Good thorough recon followed up with massed fires and a hard charging aggressive series of actions leading to a breached line followed up with exploitation forces pouring through and tearing up the rear as they are headed for their targets. But, well, maybe this is the best the RA can do?  

It does look like they have learned some lessons though. That video posted yesterday (I think) of the Stugna crew getting 4 consecutive kills was geolocated on the west side of the thrust south out of Izyum. So they are trying to guard their LOC's, they just apparently conduct their route security with the same dash and élan as their assaults.

  

Edited April 26, 2022 by sross112