How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Canada Guy]

Journalists,  not knowing their elbow from their other elbow, have confused me to no end. I have heard two different versions - Are the Germans sending Leo 1A5s as well as Gephards as some seem to be saying or are the Gephards being confused with Leo1s as they have the same chassis and Journalists are calling the Gephards MBTs? 

As well, I have seen a report where Canada is sending Excalibur shells but cannot find confirmation.  Any truth to that? Is it part of the M777 traunch?

Edited April 28, 2022 by Canada Guy

[dan/california]

Honestly, the Russians just should not even attempt, that is an army breaker. Never mind if even a little of the new 155 comes up with guided rounds. Let a company get across into the kill zone, kill the pontoon bridge with guided rounds, and repeat until they are all dead, or go away. I mean I hope they try it but....

[Fenris]

Another item for the scratch your head list

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Fenris

[dan/california]

Whatever they took in the Donbas today cost them well over a battle group. I don't think they have enough of them to pay this rate for very long.

[dan/california]

27 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Another item for the scratch your head list

 

Victory has thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan. true for AT LEAST three thousand years. And further proof Putin is losing this war, the fence sitters have decided which way to jump.

[Battlefront.com]

Video uploaded recently showing Rubizhne.  This is the same guy that did the rather humorous look at the burned up KA-52 last week (see his other videos).  There's quite a lot of interesting footage at the beginning, then it goes into a formal (slick) interview style with a Javelin gunner.

Note at about 1:50 is what looks to be one of the PKT captured and put onto an improvised infantry mount.  In the early days of the war there was a car mechanic knocking these out in Kyiv.

 

[dan/california]

 This will get the arms supply the rest of the way to wide bleeping open.

[The_MonkeyKing]

On 4/19/2022 at 7:07 PM, Battlefront.com said:

Even if the M109s aren't going over any time soon, Command Posts or other non-fighting M113 variants are what will be sent.  The US doesn't maintain M113s as IFVs so there are none to be sent.

Steve

seems National Guard is "lucky" enough to have them.

[Taranis]

Russian army attempting to advance at Nova Dmytrivka and Velyka Komyshuvakha near Izyum

https://t.me/suspilnekharkiv/11854

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Victory has thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan. true for AT LEAST three thousand years. And further proof Putin is losing this war, the fence sitters have decided which way to jump.

Yeah, I know some Bulgarians and they admit to a reflexive historical fondness for Russia, which helped them eject the Ottoman Turks in 1871. They resisted German pressure to declare war on Russia in WW2, although they are also not fondly remembered by Greeks or Serbs. That's in spite of decades of Warsaw Pact rule, and in spite of the fact that they got 'off the fence' once they joined NATO (although that hasn't stopped the Turks from going offside either).

... Interestingly, as much of the total Bulgar/Pecheneg gene pool may live in Russia and Ukraine today as in Bulgaria, although the former have lost their language (Stalin deported those who hadn't) and intermarried. That's how it went with the various steppe conquerors, who each made the mistake of settling in and then got rolled over in turn by the next horde.

I believe it's much the same with the Finno-Ugaritic peoples. As much 'Finnish blood' lives outside Finland/Estonia as inside.

Edited April 28, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Battlefront.com]

48 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

seems National Guard is "lucky" enough to have them.

WTF?  You mean I've been paying to have 50-60 year old vehicles sitting around under cover and, presumably, undergoing routine sustainment maintenance?  I am going to write my Senator

I wonder how many NG units still have these things sitting around? (Googles...).  Yup, there's more of the little buggers tucked away for sure:

 

Egads.  Sending Command Post versions made sense to me.  This?  Definitely not.  These things are not survivable on today's battlefield, they are old, parts are going to quickly be a problem, and Ukraine has zero experience with them.  There is no future benefit as this things will be melted down for beer cans as soon as something better comes up.

Anybody that was arguing that Marders were dumb to send over need to put that thought in perspective.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Now is as good a time as any to remind you all of my expertly drawn up flowchart I made a few weeks ago...

[LongLeftFlank]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

WTF?  You mean I've been paying to have 50-60 year old vehicles sitting around under cover and, presumably, undergoing routine sustainment maintenance?  I am going to write my Senator

I wonder how many NG units still have these things sitting around? (Googles...).  Yup, there's more of the little buggers tucked away for sure:

 

Egads.  Sending Command Post versions made sense to me.  This?  Definitely not.  These things are not survivable on today's battlefield, they are old, parts are going to quickly be a problem, and Ukraine has zero experience with them.

Anybody that was arguing that Marders were dumb to send over need to put that thought in perspective.

Steve

Yeah, that was my thought; the moment you get in artillery range, you unload and laager the Purple Heart boxes as far away as possible from anything you actually care about. Put up radio masts and camo. Let the Russians waste ammo shelling the crap out of your dummy 'HQs' and post videos, then roll your eyes going 'oh, ya got me'.

...As a UA squaddie I'd personally take my chances in a pair of Hilux 4x4s with good tires, thanks very much.

P.S. It's mid-afternoon here in the P.I. -- exactly opposite US EST. You're quite the nightowl these days, Steve.

Edited April 28, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[LongLeftFlank]

On 4/27/2022 at 4:03 PM, LongLeftFlank said:

1. @The_Capt scans the terrain for the Izyum axis (page 532)

5. @Combatintman revises the axes in light of the actual Russian advances (p557)

 

 

 

1.  In contrast to the Sloviansk 'shallow pincer' operation, which seems to have reduced the 57 Bde. salient east of Izium but hasn't pocketed anything, it's much more of an open country fight here southwest of Izyum.

But it's not at all clear the Russian armour is landing a glove on the UA. While Ivan still hasn't solved for this....

2.  This was the 'wider' pincer axis  @Combatintman and @The_Capt pinned out 10 days back (AA1). But without a follow on echelon (and a corresponding drive from the south), it looks like just another road to  nowhere.

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I am reading an awful lot of vicious slander against the glorious wunderwaffe that is the Gavin.

But tell me, is there any other IFV  that if it gets holed by gunfire or shrapnel you can restore, nay, improve its armouring by duck-taping a flattened soda can over the hole? No, there isn't! The end of tanks IS neigh, our prophet has foretold it!

 

Anyway, I hope the Ukrainians weren't counting on the Dutch PzH2000s.

The Dutch army's (or rather, the various associations that surround it) response to the offer was: "You are going to do what now?". The feeling is that the Dutch defence has been cut to the bone and that what is needed is not for us to send the warehoused PzHs to Ukraine but to fund the re-activation of those things by the Dutch army itself. A fair point, sadly. Our artillery assets are currently pitiful.

And apparently there was no plan to send the support vehicles for comms and planning fire missions. So the Ukrainians would've just gotten the tubes, not the fancy abilities of the whole platform.

 

And to really top it off, the whole thing is still in a preliminary planning phase. Knowing the Dutch MoD, they are going to come to a definite decision any year now. And it'll probably be the wrong decision that does no-one any good, here or in Ukraine.

I think the one good outcome so far is that it was one of the first offers of modern heavy material and got others to commit their stuff. But **** me, what a shambles.

 

 

[panzermartin]

12 hours ago, womble said:

I don't think they've been prepping for war against NATO, which is why they got so pissy when the people they were preparing for war against joined that organisation. And is probably a contributory reason for the timing of their misadventure in Ukraine: since '14, Ukrainian popular support for application for NATO and EU membership has been growing, for entirely understandable (if you're not a Russian) reasons, I gather.

I also don't think they planned for a prolonged war at any point. They assumed that the EU (and hence NATO) wouldn't get involved for risk of losing their gas supply. So maybe the adventure in '14 was the first mistake, since it woke at least some people up to the possibility that RUS might not be the best people to be dependent on for anything, and some progress, at least, had been made in some quarters to provide contingency plans for the disappearance of Russian supplies, which has made the rest of the EU less petrified that they'll freeze without Russian gas.

Yes probably in Ukraine they didn't expect the full scale of reactions... But in the long run, If they weren't preparing for a NATO clash at some point, I wonder why they had been developing more and more advanced ICBMs. 

I don't remember a country getting into a World War by mistake. They must have thought all the possible outcomes when they invaded Ukraine even if their first phase was miscalculated and botched. Imagine the generals informing Putin that they can't hit more targets in Ukraine because they have run out of microchips and they should call it a draw. Maybe we are overestimating this, and they do have surplus of this stuff but even isolated Iran with far less resources is building an arsenal of advanced missiles and other systems. 

But then again, they might be serious about the nuclear thing and that was always the only backup plan in case of an initial shock invasion didn't work and they had to go to prolonged warfare.  

[panzermartin]

FT claims companies In Germany, Austria, Italy and Hungary have decided to go ahead an pay russian gas in rubles. 

It's behind pay wall and not sure how accurate this is. 

[altipueri]

From FT today 11:00 am:

Some of Europe’s largest energy companies are preparing to use a new payment system for Russian gas demanded by the Kremlin, which critics say will undercut EU sanctions, threaten the bloc’s unity and deliver billions in cash to Russia’s economy.

Gas distributors in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia are planning to open rouble accounts at Gazprombank in Switzerland in order to satisfy a Russian requirement for payments in its own currency, according to people with knowledge of the preparations.

The groups include two of the single largest importers of Russian gas: Düsseldorf-based Uniper and Vienna-based OMV.

[benpark]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Video uploaded recently showing Rubizhne

I was just reading an account of what was happening in Rubizhne from the Russian perspective. The comments about the fatigue related to manpower drain are of particular interest. The ability of the Ukrainian forces to utilize the local terrain with expertise when the enemy can't coordinate attacks effectively is nicely illustrated here:

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by benpark

[The_MonkeyKing]

34 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

FT claims companies In Germany, Austria, Italy and Hungary have decided to go ahead an pay russian gas in rubles. 

It's behind pay wall and not sure how accurate this is. 

Source was from inside Gazprom. Multiple EU countries have denied this and referred to united response and line in this matter.

[Taranis]

Dolphins used to protect the Sevastopol base
According to the Washington Post, citing the US Naval Institute, a think tank close to the US Navy, satellite photos suggest the Russian Navy is using dolphins to protect its ships anchored in Sevastopol. The images provided by Maxar Technologies show two enclosures that were set up in February, explains the daily.

According to H.I. Sutton, a naval forces analyst, "these dolphins could be used to counter Ukrainian divers who would try to enter the port to sabotage Russian warships", the port of Sevastopol being beyond the range of Ukrainian missiles.

In 2019, a fearless beluga wearing a harness surfaced in Norway. Local fishermen claimed the animal came from the Russian naval base in Murmansk.

The US Navy has also trained dolphins and sea lions to protect its naval installations in San Diego, recalls the Washington Post.
 

 

[womble]

18 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Source was from inside Gazprom. Multiple EU countries have denied this and referred to united response and line in this matter.

Interesting. Wonder whether Swiss banking laws (recently reformed, IIRC) will quickly allow the truth of this claim to be assessed? Could just be Russian stirring. Could just be the Russians attempting to explain why they haven't cut the Germans et al off from supply yet.

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I wonder how many NG units still have these things sitting around? (Googles...).  Yup, there's more of the little buggers tucked away for sure:

Ohio and West Virginia too  https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/west_virginia_and_ohio_provide_m113_apcs_in_military_aid_to_ukraine-2666.html

I heard about 200 M113 only from West Virginia. 

This is no problems with M113 more, than HMMWV M998 and Saxons AT-105. Our technical specialits create miracles ) 

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Haiduk

[c3k]

1 hour ago, benpark said:

I was just reading an account of what was happening in Rubizhne from the Russian perspective. The comments about the fatigue related to manpower drain are of particular interest. The ability of the Ukrainian forces to utilize the local terrain with expertise when the enemy can't coordinate attacks effectively is nicely illustrated here:

 

From the translation, 200's and 300's: It seems 200 is internal language for KIA/Dead. 300 would be WIA?

[Haiduk]

1 minute ago, c3k said:

300 would be WIA?

Yes