How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

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.

Holy crap, so two months is the timeline, which means the assessment is they have the depth to do it.  And they are holding off the RA with "light motorized infantry"?!  Almost parity?!  This should be entirely lopsided in favour of the RA if one just looks at the quantitative matchup.  

I mean I get this is a hard slog but how are light motorized infantry able to do the heavy lifting here? Especially if the Russian's have actually started to do EW and making areas go dark.

[BeondTheGrave]

I wonder how long it takes to actually cross train an arty crew from, say, a 152mm towed howitzer to a 155mm towed howitzer. I mean surely the ballistics are very different but I thought most of the range and bearing calculations were done by computer or chart anyway. And I mean if you know the math, you know the math. How tightly integrated are American systems and displays into the operation of a towed arty battalion? Is maintenance that different? 

Im sure there are a million thinks I'm not thinking of. I genuinely dont know. I understand training a crew up from nothing takes a while, but to cross train experienced artillerists who have lost their tube?

[danfrodo]

36 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

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

The problem w the Russian forces was that they were never expected to actually fight a war in Ukraine.  The multi-pronged attack was supposed to cut the head off the national and oblast governments leading to collapse of Ukrainian resistance.  Putin had assassination squads, paid-off traitors, airborne attack, seaborne attack, and the big armored columns.  It all failed.  It's like asking why Hitler didn't have enough resources to take both Stalingrad and the caucasus oil fields -- because he never thought he'd actually have to fight for those things -- the red army in the south was supposed to be defeated in envelopments and the army group would just drive to it's objectives and set a hard shoulder on the northern flank. 

Everything since day #3 or so of this war has been improvisation of Putin trying to salvage something from an epic, historical disaster.  -- Like Steve said the other day, there was plan 1 - failed.  Plan2 - failed.  Now we're in plan 3. 

[Huba]

14 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

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.

That is heartbreaking to read really. But there is hope. Help is on the way, I really hope there's more going on that we are allowed to see at the moment. You guys will get the new capabilities and then beat the **** out of the orcs. Sun will shine again.

[dan/california]

On very well fertilized sunflowers...

[Huba]

1 minute ago, BeondTheGrave said:

I wonder how long it takes to actually cross train an arty crew from, say, a 152mm towed howitzer to a 155mm towed howitzer. I mean surely the ballistics are very different but I thought most of the range and bearing calculations were done by computer or chart anyway. And I mean if you know the math, you know the math. How tightly integrated are American systems and displays into the operation of a towed arty battalion? Is maintenance that different? 

Im sure there are a million thinks I'm not thinking of. I genuinely dont know. I understand training a crew up from nothing takes a while, but to cross train experienced artillerists who have lost their tube?

@Taranis who has first hand experience assessed (reluctantly, after pulling the guesstimation out of him) that for most purposes, experienced artillerists could retrain to CAESARs in a week or so. I don't imagine towed pieces being more difficult then that, especially super digitalized M777s.

[dan/california]

Steve mentioned trenches not being lined with wood in an ideal way, this might be part of the reason.

[MSBoxer]

4 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

The problem w the Russian forces was that they were never expected to actually fight a war in Ukraine.  The multi-pronged attack was supposed to cut the head off the national and oblast governments leading to collapse of Ukrainian resistance.  Putin had assassination squads, paid-off traitors, airborne attack, seaborne attack, and the big armored columns.  It all failed.  It's like asking why Hitler didn't have enough resources to take both Stalingrad and the caucasus oil fields -- because he never thought he'd actually have to fight for those things -- the red army in the south was supposed to be defeated in envelopments and the army group would just drive to it's objectives and set a hard shoulder on the northern flank. 

Everything since day #3 or so of this war has been improvisation of Putin trying to salvage something from an epic, historical disaster.  -- Like Steve said the other day, there was plan 1 - failed.  Plan2 - failed.  Now we're in plan 3. 

Based upon the miniscule change log between plans, I think it is it more like
Plan 1.0
Plan 1.2
Plan 1.25

[sross112]

24 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

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.

 

The UA LOC's aren't invulnerable or immune from attack but about the only weapon Russia has to use on them are the cruise missiles. I don't recall seeing an airstrike much past the front line in weeks unless you count cruise missiles from bombers.

Without the air threat I think the LOC's could be classified as safe or at least acceptable. The UA AD has to have good coverage and be a real threat as the RuAF isn't dropping bombs and doing strafing runs down the highways left and right. You know if they could they would. Everything bigger than a Mini Cooper would be engaged in a heartbeat if they could.

I did see video of an air engagement today that was supposedly a UAF fighter taking out a RuAF plane but it didn't say when or where. From the ground conditions it looked recent but I'm not certain. With the statements a couple days back about we will be seeing more UAF planes in the sky and then that video coming out maybe their will be a renewed fight for the air? 

[dan/california]

The minimum loss rate of a battle group a day is holding up.

 

[LukeFF]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

And that would be why we built this little chapel in the middle of all this, to try and navigate as true as course as we can.  So far I gotta say our record is not bad...once we got past the whole Ukrainian Bio Black Sites/the CIA can hear me through my fillings, unpleasantness. 

 Sweet Moon of Alabama 

[Huba]

9 minutes ago, sross112 said:

The UA LOC's aren't invulnerable or immune from attack but about the only weapon Russia has to use on them are the cruise missiles. I don't recall seeing an airstrike much past the front line in weeks unless you count cruise missiles from bombers.

Without the air threat I think the LOC's could be classified as safe or at least acceptable. The UA AD has to have good coverage and be a real threat as the RuAF isn't dropping bombs and doing strafing runs down the highways left and right. You know if they could they would. Everything bigger than a Mini Cooper would be engaged in a heartbeat if they could.

I did see video of an air engagement today that was supposedly a UAF fighter taking out a RuAF plane but it didn't say when or where. From the ground conditions it looked recent but I'm not certain. With the statements a couple days back about we will be seeing more UAF planes in the sky and then that video coming out maybe their will be a renewed fight for the air? 

Yeah, that's my take also more or less. I don't imagine UAF taking the fight to the Russians in any way too TBH, their AD network is probably much better than UAs. What should be satisfactory though is UAFs ability to contest the control of the air in part of the front area where possible counteroffensive is taking place.

Another gamechanger might be arrival of long range weapons able to target RuAF airfields, forcing them to operate from bases further from the front. I really hope that NATO won't be too reluctant on sending ATACMs and such, UK MoD comments from today point to it.

As for UAs logistics, at the moment I have no doubt that they are able to move materiel across the country at will, as even the electrified lines are still very operational. This doesn't mean though that they don't have problems with distributing the materiel to the units, or with the supply itself. But moving stuff from Poland to whatever destination by rail I'm sure is not a problem.

Edit: just to paint an image, given that every UA brigade requires a trainload of things a day it's what, 50 trains? For comparison, UA rolling stock includes 2500 locomotives, including 500 diesel ones not dependent on electrical infrastructure, and 10s of thousands of various traincars.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Huba

[Haiduk]

36 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Holy crap, so two months is the timeline, which means the assessment is they have the depth to do it.  And they are holding off the RA with "light motorized infantry"?!  Almost parity?!  This should be entirely lopsided in favour of the RA if one just looks at the quantitative matchup.  

I mean I get this is a hard slog but how are light motorized infantry able to do the heavy lifting here? Especially if the Russian's have actually started to do EW and making areas go dark.

He is just soldier or sergeant or junior officer - I don't know. And this is just a "view from the trench". About motorized infantry it obviously was a figure of speech, but not far from the truth. The number of motorized infantry battalions armed with BRDM-2 or trucks and territorial defense battalions (trucks), air-assault batalions (BTR-80/70, armored cars/MRAPs and relatively less number of BTR-3/BMD with 30 mm guns) is much higher than mech.infantry battalions armed with BMP-1/2/BTR-4. And even mechs now in defense warfare mostly fight in the trenches or in ambushes, or hit and run actions, where they use own IFVs mostly like transport and fire supoprt, but not as asset to direct fight with hordes of Russian armor. According to ORIX we already lost 96 IFVs (he counts as IFV all stuff, armed with 30 mm gun). And this is only visible loses. This is 3 full mech. battalions wiped out.

So, if we want to liberate our territories after Russians will be grinded and moved to defense, we will need new artillery - Soviet systems will burn in the flame of war - even if they will not be destroyed, they just will shot out own barrels and we will not get such outstanding accuracy. We need in new armor for infantry carring. Let it be even old BMP-1, M113 and Marders. Because it anyway better that pick-ups and legs.    

Edited April 26, 2022 by Haiduk

[sross112]

These are the videos of the dogfight that I referenced earlier. They were put up a few hours ago on Twitter. From the foliage they look to be recent. Can anyone identify the Ukrainian plane?

[Haiduk]

5 minutes ago, sross112 said:

These are the videos of the dogfight that I referenced earlier. They were put up a few hours ago on Twitter. From the foliage they look to be recent. Can anyone identify the Ukrainian plane?

I read this is a video as if our Su-25 shot down Russian Su-25 with R-60 (AA-8) missile, who knows... 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Haiduk

[Machor]

 

Surest sign that Transnistria is about to get hot: They've canceled the May 9th parade:

The skies above Moldova are now empty of civilian traffic:

Both sides in Moldova are on alert:

 

[Kraft]

8 minutes ago, sross112 said:

These are the videos of the dogfight that I referenced earlier. They were put up a few hours ago on Twitter. From the foliage they look to be recent. Can anyone identify the Ukrainian plane?

Su-25 and I kind of doubt its ukrainian, is possible but unlikely.

Both are throwing flares, afraid of IR missiles, which over ukrainian soil the Ukr jet doesnt have to worry about if it were on the tail of the rus plane. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Kraft

[Machor]

More US Marines have sailed in the Mediterranean:

Russians captured previously unknown German aid to Ukraine: PARM DM22 HEAT off-route anti-tank mine:

 

[TheVulture]

29 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

I wonder how long it takes to actually cross train an arty crew from, say, a 152mm towed howitzer to a 155mm towed howitzer. I mean surely the ballistics are very different but I thought most of the range and bearing calculations were done by computer or chart anyway. And I mean if you know the math, you know the math. How tightly integrated are American systems and displays into the operation of a towed arty battalion? Is maintenance that different? 

Im sure there are a million thinks I'm not thinking of. I genuinely dont know. I understand training a crew up from nothing takes a while, but to cross train experienced artillerists who have lost their tube?

I'm not familiar with any of this stuff, but I'd imagine the "happy path" is quite easy to learn - when all the systems function properly, learning to input a target and fire, and then reload the system is probably pretty simple. Possibly it is the 'troubleshooting' when something goes wrong that is what takes more time.

Any complex software has bugs, and a modern artillery system might well have some weird quirks  like uncommon sequences of actions that can freeze up the computer, so you have to know not to do that, and how to reset the system if it does happen.

And you need to train enough to have muscle memory when working under high pressure so you do the right thing.

I know in aviation at least one accident was deduced as being caused by something trivial. A plane in poor visibility (so you can't see the horizon and have to rely on instruments) suffered an engine failure shortly after take-off, and had something else go wrong at the same time which masked the initial problem. Bit of a panic situation, but something the pilot should have been able to handle well enough to get back to the runway to land again. Instead he banked steeply and essentially fell out of the sky. The investigation concluded that one of the contributing factors was because the pilot had thousands of hours of flying experience on Russian / Soviet Tupolev aircraft, and in those aircraft the artificial horizon that shows the tilt of the plane behaves differently to those in western aircraft. I'm sure that sitting in an exam room, or in normal operating conditions, the pilot would have no trouble with the western display (or else he wouldn't have been qualified to fly the plane), but under pressure with multiple things going wrong, it's possible to take a quick glance at the artificial horizon and draw the wrong conclusion about which way the plane is banking if the wrong automatic 'muscle memory' kicks in. (https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/51791/how-is-a-confusion-possible-between-western-and-russian-attitude-indicators)

You don't want your guys, under life or death pressure, to fall back on automatic sequences of behaviour from the wrong system. They have to train enough on the new system that everything becomes unconsciously automatic.

[akd]

27 minutes ago, sross112 said:

These are the videos of the dogfight that I referenced earlier. They were put up a few hours ago on Twitter. From the foliage they look to be recent. Can anyone identify the Ukrainian plane?

That does not look like a dogfight.  Looks like Su-25s “lofting” unguided rockets from behind friendly lines.   You can tell the first jet has already delivered its attack when the video starts (smoke from both rockets and flares is hanging in the air) and it is followed by second doing the same attack maneuver (pull nose up, lob rockets and then dump flares while getting back down low as quick as possible).  Maybe what is causing confusion is how smoky these older Soviet jet engines are when they go full throttle to bug out?  Almost looks like one is on fire.

If Russian Su-25s, then this shows that even their tactical jets are afraid to cross over front lines to deliver attacks (Russian helicopters have been using such “flying MLRS” tactics extensively since war moved to the East).

Edited April 26, 2022 by akd

[Haiduk]

Reportedly Russians today conducted an attempt to take Orikhove settlement in Zaporizhzhia oblast. All previous day they shelled the town and our positions with artillery and MLRS, but today probably our forces move some artillery resereves here and they struck grouping of enemy vehicles, ready to attack. After this Russian close artililery of brigade/regiment level was supressed and kept silence. Russian advance was foiled again.

On this  video the part of consequences of our artillery responns. It says this is work of 110th territorial defese brigade artillery. I know taht before a war there were plans to arm in future TDBde with D-20 howitzers, but maybe some brigades already got some barrels. Because before it there was only 120 mm mortar battery on TD brigade level.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Haiduk

[TheVulture]

 

 

[Haiduk]

UKR hit large ammunition storage in Irmino, Luhansk oblast, occupied since 2014. Locals say not only ammunitions was there, but SP-howitzers too.

Explosions is continuing to this time, when the night came. 

 

[Machor]

7 hours ago, kraze said:

Bayraktar needs some kind of an airfield to launch from.

My first post in this thread was a speculation that the TB2 should be able to operate from the road network - this was tweeted, and later deleted, early in the war by Arda Mevlütoğlu. I followed this up with two posts later: The first was Russian troops discovering a cache of MAM-L missiles in a building that clearly did not look like an airbase. The second was a TB2 mobile control station driving around in Odesa. I think it is more likely than not that the TB2s are indeed operating from the road network.

Some additions to The_Capt's reply:

- The 4000 km range is for an endurance flight, so the operational range is shorter.

- Turkey fields the TB2S ('S is for Steve'  ) with a satellite antenna that can be controlled through satellites - not sure if the vanilla TB2 can be rigged for this. Even if not, the 300 km range of the mobile station would be enough to strike Bryansk.

[danfrodo]

29 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

UKR hit large ammunition storage in Irmino, Luhansk oblast, occupied since 2014. Locals say not only ammunitions was there, but SP-howitzers too.

Explosions is continuing to this time, when the night came. 

 

Haiduk, I am very very very much hoping there were lots of artillery shells and rockets and delivery systems in this.  I hope this helps your brave comrades at the front.