How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

30 minutes ago, dan/california said:

And sadly I found this immediately after I wrote my last post. Brave men are dying to put Push Putin back.

 

and this today too

Willy Joseph Cancel: American killed fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in Ukraine (msn.com)

 

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, chrisl said:

How many of the bridges in Izyum are still intact?  It looks like there are/were only three to start, and a small bridge to the southeast at Yaremivka that RA may control at their edge.  Is UA drawing a bunch of RA forces across the river and then able to cut off their supply lines at the bridges, either by dropping the bridges or by denying them with drone-directed arty?  They could potentially render a bunch of the reformed and apparently reinforced BTGs ineffective pretty quickly if they trap them south of the river.  That would reduce the forces available to defend Donbas when it's time for a UA offensive.

Dunno, interesting question.

Feel free to dig up and post a map.... 

HINT: One good sifting method I've found is to search "Twitter + name of nearby village" then look at images to find (recent) maps.

[FancyCat]

maybe just a effort at showing off Russian hacking prowess. that the list isn't real is irrelevant, if meant for domestic consumption in Russia. 

[LongLeftFlank]

59 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The level of destruction never fails to awe me.  So much waste for absolutely no meaningful reason.

Steve

Yes, and a tragically life altering event for the inhabitants.

But on the positive side, there's a huge opportunity to rebuild and renew this (historically underdeveloped) area of rural Ukraine postwar.

Some of these villages were legacy of the Sovkhozes, and questionable as sustainable economic concerns; there as elsewhere, many young people want to get off the farms.

So the economy there -- and here I include a fully reclaimed Donbass, with frontiers back at the Don -- was overdue for a reinvention anyway, with private capital and better governance (fewer corrupt officials taking rakes).

...One might reorganize/retrain some of these same TA combat units as engineering and construction companies postwar, bringing their families to resettle these areas (keeping his & her NLAWs in the attic, Swiss army style lol).

These cheery resourceful Ukrainian Vikings seem like they would go toe to toe with the Aussies or any 'construction/roughneck culture' in the world.

...And with less corruption (simply not tolerated by the vets with guns) plus line of sight to EU integration, Ukraine could become entirely cost competitive with Southeast Asia (and Turkey) as a manufacturing destination.

(Yes, there are lots of things that could go wrong too, but to this grizzled infra specialist, the basic thesis is sound)

[The_MonkeyKing]

6 hours ago, DesertFox said:

More of the good stuff and I hope a very good supply of Excalibur too.

 

 

I am sure there are artillery men here.

How much of an additional training, system, system integration and such the Excalibur shells require? Differences between Excalibur variants?

This would tell are the Excalibur's going in strait away or later as "upgrades" or at all.

[Taranis]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I am sure there are artillery men here.

How much of an additional training, system, system integration and such the Excalibur shells require? Differences between Excalibur variants?

This would tell are the Excalibur's going in strait away or later as "upgrades" or at all.

I don't really know the Excalibur shell but the BONUS shell which must be quite similar does not really need training.

You have a programming computer on the CAESAR. The platoon/battery HQ gives you the parameters and you initialize the electronic fuze with a cap. You fire it like a normal shell and it, depending on the parameters (altitude or flight time), splits up, then the "sub-munitions" look for hot spots on their own (engines, etc.) and drop their shaped charge there. For laser ammunition I think the principle is about the same but with a FOO which must keep a laser on the target (like a SACLOS missile). Therefore, for me it's no harder than firing an airburst shell.

EDIT: according to wikipedia the GPS coordinates of the target (for one of the Excalibur modes) are initialized directly into the fuze when setting it up

Edited April 29, 2022 by Taranis

[Huba]

According to Polish state radio, Poland sent over 200 T-72s to Ukraine, as well as "several tens (dozens? no english term for it I think)" of BMP-1s. Apparently T-72s sent are mostly the unmodrnized ones, so basic M1s. If we are to give more, there still should be about 100 T-72M1Rs with thermals, and then 230 PT-91s, but we'd need some Abramses as replacements.

https://polskieradio24.pl/5/1223/Artykul/2948125,Polska-przekazala-Ukrainie-ponad-200-czolgow-To-niejedyne-wsparcie

[The_MonkeyKing]

1 hour ago, Taranis said:

I don't really know the Excalibur shell but the BONUS shell which must be quite similar does not really need training.

You have a programming computer on the CAESAR. The platoon/battery HQ gives you the parameters and you initialize the electronic fuze with a cap. You fire it like a normal shell and it, depending on the parameters (altitude or flight time), splits up, then the "sub-munitions" look for hot spots on their own (engines, etc.) and drop their shaped charge there. For laser ammunition I think the principle is about the same but with a FOO which must keep a laser on the target (like a SACLOS missile). Therefore, for me it's no harder than firing an airburst shell.

EDIT: according to wikipedia the GPS coordinates of the target (for one of the Excalibur modes) are initialized directly into the fuze when setting it up

Thanks for the informative answer.

Then the only question remaining is how much it requires to get that GPS targeting data in the right format to the fuse setting device from the fire controllers on the front lines.

For example this might require new equipment for the fire controllers and the artillery HQ(s) receiving that data.

[The_MonkeyKing]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

According to Polish state radio, Poland sent over 200 T-72s to Ukraine, as well as "several tens (dozens? no english term for it I think)" of BMP-1s. Apparently T-72s sent are mostly the unmodrnized ones, so basic M1s. If we are to give more, there still should be about 100 T-72M1Rs with thermals, and then 230 PT-91s, but we'd need some Abramses as replacements.

https://polskieradio24.pl/5/1223/Artykul/2948125,Polska-przekazala-Ukrainie-ponad-200-czolgow-To-niejedyne-wsparcie

What a convenient time for the lend-lease act to be passed as well.

I am certain the PT-91 fleet will also be heading to Ukraine. Questing is when. Maybe in a month or two.

[LongLeftFlank]

Strelkov's got some company in the openly pessimistic Russki pundit category....

"The West has the most excellent intelligence system."

Thanks, Bill and Ted, but that's the same Most Excellent system that heloed off the rooftops in Kabul in a panic because none of its 'specialists' could be arsed to learn Pashto/Farsi and learn what was really going on in the ANA. [Or had the ears to hear those who actually did know....]

Not about to bet the future of human civ on our MBA Chekists either....

Oh, and even if USN can 'listen to' and neutralise all the Russian boomers, there's the small matter of 'securing' the ICBM silos.

Paging @General Jack Ripper!

Toe to toe with the Rooskies in nuclear combat!

Edited April 29, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Huba]

3 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

What a convenient time for the lend-lease act to be passed as well.

I am certain the PT-91 fleet will also be heading to Ukraine. Questing is when. Maybe in a month or two.

I wonder how ballsy the MoD will be about that. If we got a concrete promise about how many Abramses and when we'll get, maybe they could go with the transfer now and swallow the few months hiatus in capability.

Edit: The 250s Abramses we got were meant to replace the T-72s in service (more or less), for the PT-91s we'd need additional machines.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Huba

[Combatintman]

13 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Strelkov's got some company in the openly pessimistic Russki pundit category....

 

"The West has the most excellent intelligence system."

Thanks, Bill and Ted, but that's the same Most Excellent system that heloed off the rooftops in Kabul because none of its 'specialists' could be arsed to learn Pashto/Farsi and learn what was really going on in the ANA. [Or had the ears to hear those who actually did know....]

Not about to bet the future of human civ on our MBA Chekists either....

I was a month out on my assessment of the fall of Kabul - my first assessment in late May had the house of cards collapsing on September 14.  Hence me getting shipped out on July 02 and covering the final days remotely from my home office, rather than scrambling to get on a plane.  Not everyone in the intelligence community was wrong - just the ones the media/beltway chooses to blame.  It was apparent in 2015 (and before then for anyone who'd had any dealings with them) that the ANDSF weren't going to cut it.

[LongLeftFlank]

4 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

I was a month out on my assessment of the fall of Kabul - my first assessment in late May had the house of cards collapsing on September 14.  Hence me getting shipped out on July 02 and covering the final days remotely from my home office, rather than scrambling to get on a plane.  Not everyone in the intelligence community was wrong - just the ones the media/beltway chooses to blame.  It was apparent in 2015 (and before then for anyone who'd had any dealings with them) that the ANDSF weren't going to cut it.

Yes, and I meant no disrespect to the 'first responders' in the field, of course. But as they say in workplace IT services...

PEBKAC = Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair

(aka Lost In Translation. Deliberately)

Edited April 29, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Taranis]

43 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Thanks for the informative answer.

Then the only question remaining is how much it requires to get that GPS targeting data in the right format to the fuse setting device from the fire controllers on the front lines.

For example this might require new equipment for the fire controllers and the artillery HQ(s) receiving that data.

Yes, it may require new equipment but I think it's really something minor. From the moment we have an intelligent fuze, we necessarily need a device to program it. It's still a little extra equipment but it doesn't require a complete reorganization of HQ, a brand new specific vehicle or a different methodology. It is also not something more complicated than what the gunners already do because they already know how to place the objective physically on a map and transmit a lot of data between the HQs, FOOs and guns (weather, wind speed , humidity, temperature, altitude etc).

In Afghanistan, my fellow FOO who were also JTAC, used GPS for having their own coordinate so they also could easily had the target coordinate (telemeter etc)

I hope I understood your question correctly and that my answer will suit you

Edited April 29, 2022 by Taranis

[Maquisard manqué]

12 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Wife and I discovered it early. I'm Irish, we met at home some she's familiar with the comedy. God have we laughed at that show. Incredibly funny. We first saw Mat Berry on The IT Crowd.

Anyhow burble burble back on thread

Sir, I raise you Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

[chuckdyke]

 

 

[c3k]

6 hours ago, chrisl said:

Getting lists of names and birthdates has got to be pretty easy, given the huge numbers of hacks of PII that happen.  China has all that plus background check information (including TS/SCI investigations) with copies of fingerprints for anyone who applied for a job or clearance in the US gov't from when it went online up to about 2015 (except for a few agencies that don't use the common system).  A few minutes with a hacked PII list and your favorite scripting language and you can randomly pull people with birthdates in a reasonable range to be ex-mil and still young enough to fight.  So it's unlikely that it took a lot of effort if Russia is still managing to pay any of their hackers enough to spend an hour on it.  

But you're right that there's no obvious purpose behind it, and it's almost as easy for people who would need to know to be able to check that it's nonsense.

Publishing a list of NATO military members fighting in Ukraine (nom de guerre or not) is for Putin's internal use. This will bolster his claims that Russia is fighting NATO.

He will add this to the scales when he declares war on May 9th. It'll be a holy crusade to cleanse Ukraine of the infection from the West, etc., etc.

To us, publishing this list is non-sensical. To the propaganda organs of the Soviet Russian state, it makes perfect sense.

Edited April 29, 2022 by c3k

[c3k]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

 

 

 

Previous mentions of Russians ignoring their wounded and leaving them behind are obviously not evident here.

The squad (hell, with the casualties they've had, that could a be full company assault), stops to retrieve their guy. Last man (the one who was behind him) tries, but fails, to drag him to cover. 3rd to last guy comes out and also fails.

Someone holds the squad in the doorway (they may or may not have fired back down the street: they definitely took some incoming), and orders (and gets) smoke tossed out.

The smoke was insufficient (maybe they just had the one smoke grenade?), and then they call and get a BTR.

For chaotic, hot, battlefield CASEVEC, not the worst.

 

[billbindc]

3 hours ago, Combatintman said:

I was a month out on my assessment of the fall of Kabul - my first assessment in late May had the house of cards collapsing on September 14.  Hence me getting shipped out on July 02 and covering the final days remotely from my home office, rather than scrambling to get on a plane.  Not everyone in the intelligence community was wrong - just the ones the media/beltway chooses to blame.  It was apparent in 2015 (and before then for anyone who'd had any dealings with them) that the ANDSF weren't going to cut it.

As a Marine of my acquaintance with lots of command experience in that theater once put it to me "Anyone who was part of the surge in 2009 knew is was hopeless even then and if they tell you different they are bull****ting themselves or you."

[chuckdyke]

29 minutes ago, c3k said:

The smoke was insufficient (maybe they just had the one smoke grenade?),

It is not how I cross street in Combat Mission, but I am an old pensioner playing a game. 

[akd]

Russian armor (tanks? Or SPGs?) getting wrecked by Ukrainian artillery.  Multiple catastrophic ammo detonations.

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by akd

[Huba]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

Russian armor (tanks? Or SPG?) getting wrecked by Ukrainian artillery.  Multiple catastrophic ammo detonations.

 

I remember reading that reverse gear in various T-somethings is really crappy and does not allow for high speed movement. It's painful to watch this one tank sloooowly reversing while shells fall down around.

[Combatintman]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

 

 

Points to note - consistent with what the likes of me, @LukeFFand other veterans have been saying for a while on the long list of buddy aid threads, the extraction attempt was epic, no weapons or ammunition were harvested and nobody tried to give buddy aid from the prone position. 

[riptides]

59 minutes ago, c3k said:

 

......

The smoke was insufficient (maybe they just had the one smoke grenade?), and then they call and get a BTR.

 

 

I think the smoke was more for in distress/casualty spotting on behalf of the men under fire.

[DesertFox]