How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

2 hours ago, poesel said:

This is why they are buying or building harbours at the Indian ocean, the Med & inbetween.

how does that change the need to ship to China?  It would seem to just create additional transit points.  Taiwan needs to get a few diesel subs..

or as JonS said!  

Edited May 10, 2022 by sburke

[Chibot Mk IX]

10 hours ago, Canada Guy said:

Everyone here seems to be stating that the Russians have already launched their offensive. With so little movement, are we sure? When I think of offensives, I think of Bagration. These seem like pinpricks at best - company or company+. 

Nah, no Bagration v2.0

Before Bagration , Soviets spent at least two months on rest & refit, training , stockpile the ammunition, POL and other supplies. How long did RA spend on these? Less than 10 days.

 

Many people believe RA offensive has already reached its climax. As many other members on this forum and UKR MOD’s AAR indicated, RA conducted lots of probe, slowly grinding forward along 4 axis. That’s the best they can do.

 

RA’s artillery looks formidable but how to use them effectively is a different story. Situation awareness is always the lowest board in RA.

Russian Army lacks reconnaissance assets. At Army level they have one reconnaissance brigade in which only has one Bn to commit into the frontline. And it looks like the RA Recon. Brigade were kept as elite infantry units to counter ATGM threat, committed into the battle only after the main UKR defense line has been identified.   

The infantry has neither the training nor the moral to take on the recon job.

Drones are in their arsenal, but numbers are limited.

The only assets that can stand ground long enough and mark targets for their Artillery are the AFVs.

So what we have seen last twenty days is, 1, pre-planned artillery, 2, BTG probe UKR’s defense line (and many time its just a company size team move forward) , 3, BTG took some ATGM, sometime they lost couple AFV, sometime lost dozens then fall back, 4, UKR defense line has been identified then artillery can be called upon. The next day they just repeat this procedure

It is a slowly grinding forward. A WW 1 style warfare in 21 century. Can this tactic causing the collapse at some area of UKR defense and later develop into a pursue at operational level? It is possible but very hard to achieve, I guess.  RA’s BTG can probe here and there but overall, their OODA is very long, situation awareness is poor. There could be some hole on UKR’s defense but it will take some time for RA to notice that. By the time they noticed that UKR side may have already take action to plug the hole.

[Battlefront.com]

56 minutes ago, akd said:

Russian dead piling up in dumping grounds:

I'm not surprised, so I'll take this intercept as real.  Though to an untrained eye "hundreds" could equal "thousands" so I take that with a pinch of salt.  Still, there are three points to note in this exchange:

1. Russians do not care for their dead
2. Hiding the dead is likely a Russian governmental decision to keep funerals and death benefit payments to a minimum.
3. There is nothing in Russia that is exempt from graft, including profiting off the suffering of grieving family members.

Steve

[Kinophile]

38 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

What data are you seeing?  I am not sure what "artillery supremacy" means to be honest, never really heard it before.  I am guessing it means "our arty all the time, and none of theirs" but that does not seem reasonable.  Hell, the TB had indirect fire.

I think of this more along lines of capability trajectories.  Russian artillery seems to be getting dumber and employing more mass (or trying to), while the UA seems to be getting better, faster and more precise.

This whole thing is wrapped around "deep strike", which would include c-btty, logistics - back to SLOC nodes, apparently and reserves, and in that battle Ukraine seems to be able to Find, Fix and Finish much better than whatever system the Russians are using.

IIRC, Line infantry accounts from Donbass/Easter offensive have mentioned their impression of far more Russian artillery than UKR.

One example was of "15 Russian shells for 1 Ukrainian".  I'm guessing there are multiple aspects:

• RUS focus on that particular locale - increased # of tubes and RoF = UKR infantry impression of weak UKR arty.
• UKR does, factually, have less guns than RUS
• or UKR does not want to get in this particular pissing match, feel that the ground defenses can hold despite the Rus arty and that the limited UKR tubes are better employed and massed somewhere else, e.g. Kharkiv
• UKR are less fixated on ground-pounding the advancing BTGs and more on "deeper" (hidden to the infantry) targets - c&c, ISR, etc.
• UKR "letting" RUS burn through its tubes, ammo stocks and crews.

 

[Haiduk]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

From what I've been able to gather, at least some of these quadcopters have a GPS tracker on them.

GPS tracker has each drone with a class more than a toy ) But COTS drones is mostly mortar battery levlel or small tactical units. Artillery mostly uses Furia winged drones, which can determintate targets geographical coordinates and translate it into square coordinates with transmition to operator. 

[chrisl]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Good!  You're still here   When I wrote about my "deep dive" into WW2 artillery I instantly thought of your insights into the nuances between American and Commonwealth approaches.  Ah... simpler times!

From what I've been able to gather, at least some of these quadcopters have a GPS tracker on them.  They also have laser range finders attached.  Meaning, they aren't pure COTS systems.  While I would certainly make a right mess of this, the Ukrainians have been doing this sort of stuff since 2014.  They have a lot of practice using COTS for directing artillery. 

More evidence of this is the fact that Ukraine has relatively few drones that are of the type NATO artillery have access to.  Yet Ukraine is having no problem directing artillery onto mobile targets with great frequency across the whole front with seemingly very good accuracy and precision.

I think this might be a case of underestimating what can be achieved with these cheaper/available platforms.  However, I am sure there are some major limitations in what Ukraine is able to do vs. what NATO can do.

From where I sit it seems that Ukraine has adapted to their particular situation quite well in part, perhaps a large part, because it is not all that dissimilar to what they've been doing for the past 8 years (i.e. using artillery for sniping).  Good thing Russia isn't fighting the way it should be.  If there was a mass onrush of fully staffed BTGs they probably would find themselves overwhelmed before being overrun.

In short... I think it is probable that Ukraine has adopted a specialized artillery doctrine that, luckily, is a good match for the terrain and Russia's insistence of fighting a poorly run and sourced high intensity conflict.  If Russia were fighting this war "properly", I don't think I'd be sitting around singing the praises of quadcopters.

Steve

I suspect it's a bunch of things, and Telenko may be thinking in the right direction but for the wrong reasons.  

The RA seems to be bad at using their defensive radars - there were a bunch of reports early that their SAM systems were being destroyed while sitting around inactive, and then that enabled further destruction by TB2s.  Moskva reportedly had its radar essentially spoofed by giving it targets in the wrong direction and exploiting its limited simultaneous view/tracking ability that was known to Ukrainians because of the shared soviet history.  Ships have far fewer mass, volume, and power constraints than trucks, so a shipborne radar should be far more capable of tracking incoming stuff than truck borne.  And Russia has very limited microelectronics capability compared ot the west, so while they might be able to make a perfectly fine RF generator and detector set, they likely don't have the capability to track hundreds, dozens, or maybe even tens of individual incoming targets and discriminate them.  There are actually different algorithms you can use that are much less computationally expensive for getting the shared trajectory of a set of unresolved objects than you would use for tracking 20 individually identified rounds.  And while Russia has limited semiconductor capability, they historically have excellent algorithm development dating way back to Soviet days.  So it's entirely plausible that their CB capability is very limited because of a combination of poor training and limited technical capability.

Re using drones for precision spotting - if you have really good maps you can use cheap drones and sort out the angles on the ground.  It would help to have software that overlays your drone view with your Google earth - I haven't seen such a thing, but it's certainly possible.  The capability is shown relatively crudely every day by the community of people who are geolocating every barrage, and even geolocation of individual rounds shown many pages earlier here.  

And precision maps don't even matter much if you have IR guided rounds like KVITNYK.  If the video below is actually artillery (and I suspect it is, because there are a few big misses) rather than an ATGM platoon, then it's probably being IR guided by drones with IR cameras that are also viewing through the smoke.  The timing between rounds is consistent with "I have 10 vehicles in this area at this speed, give me 10 KVITNYKs on 10 second intervals," and then the drone operator just moves from target to target waiting for the rounds to come in. If you had NATO kind of money you'd be able to program the drone to track 10 vehicles and it would rapidly bop from vehicle to vehicle with the laser, displaying a different code on each one, and they'd all explode at the same time.

 

 

[sburke]

19 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

A colonel and two majors in recent posts.  The amount of lost RU officers is getting pretty staggering.  And this is just the KIAs, the WIAs who are out of action is probably several times higher. 

Upcoming, I see a mix of unwilling, angry, terrified conscripts plus underqualified ad hoc leadership plus very heavy pressure from above for results at all cost.  Exactly what is needed for some mutinous behavior, which hopefully could spread. 

This guy now has it at

Lt Gen 1
Mjr Gen 7
Col 20
Lt Col 36
Maj 52
Cpt 94
Sr Lt 96
Lt 75

KIA/WIA/MIA Officer list - Google Drive

I think we may be short a General or two (and a load of non General officers) as I don't think we ever got confirmation about that Command center strike.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So back to my original question - how can the Russians freeze this conflict?  Particularly when the tactical and operational conditions do not point to an easy answer?  Next question, what happens if the Russians cannot freeze this conflict?

Yup, and this is the exact same question I was exploring with my friend in Kyiv since late 2021.  We could not conceive of a way it would work even when we were thinking that Russia would have a much better result from the initial invasion.  Now?  No, I don't think they can.

As you pointed out they can neaten up their lines and make them more defensible.  It is pretty apparent that is what they are doing in the Donbas now.  All offensive activity seems to be directed at clearing out Ukrainian positions on the east side of rivers (primarily Seversky Donets).  This helps a lot, but it still leaves whatever forces they position there subject to costly artillery and partisan activities.

As I said on the very first post I made to this thread (or maybe 2nd?), the problem for Russia is that it has to do a wide range of very difficult things.  It has to control territory, control populations, control friendly casualties, control domestic messaging, control economic fallout, etc.  All Ukraine has to do is ensure that it is able to kill Russians.  Sure, that involves a bunch of things, however the West is helping out in significant ways while Russia has nobody to help it.

Long term I don't think Russia has any chance of keeping what it has stolen.  I just don't think they have the resources or even will to fight a long war, not to mention fight it successfully.  The experience in Afghanistan (1980s and 2000s) clearly shows that you can only do so much with buying time strategies if the fundamentals don't change.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Here's something to ponder.

If Russia annexes the fake republics, DLPR + Kherson, then guess what happens?  More flexibility for the use of conscripts, that's what happens.

I think the evidence that Putin needs to tread very lightly with conscripts still exists, but could conscripts be put into places such as depots and occupation duties?  Maybe even drive trucks to/from frontline positions?  Yes, they can.  That would free up contractors to man front line positions.

Direct annexation could be a critical part of maintaining a frozen conflict.  I don't think it will ultimately work, but it would certainly be an improvement over not having conscripts at all.

Steve

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

IIRC, Line infantry accounts from Donbass/Easter offensive have mentioned their impression of far more Russian artillery than UKR.

One example was of "15 Russian shells for 1 Ukrainian".  I'm guessing there are multiple aspects:

• RUS focus on that particular locale - increased # of tubes and RoF = UKR infantry impression of weak UKR arty.
• UKR does, factually, have less guns than RUS
• or UKR does not want to get in this particular pissing match, feel that the ground defenses can hold despite the Rus arty and that the limited UKR tubes are better employed and massed somewhere else, e.g. Kharkiv
• UKR are less fixated on ground-pounding the advancing BTGs and more on "deeper" (hidden to the infantry) targets - c&c, ISR, etc.
• UKR "letting" RUS burn through its tubes, ammo stocks and crews.

 

Ya, that all tracks.  I mean I get the sense that the RA is going with what they know and trained for, massed fires.  Not a lot of nuance, just dropping the sky - advance-repeat.

I was referring specifically to how it compares to UA artillery usage, which appears more precise and, as you note, directed at disrupting in depth.  Do we have any idea what the c-arty fight looks like?  Is the UA bagging more RA artillery than it is losing?  Are the RA guns starting to go silent due to gun losses and logistics attrition?  Are RA lost crews being replaced with trained crews or just guys lobbing shells?

I sense that the ability to "hit deep" has been a definitive success for the UA in Phase I, and I suspect they are building on that in Phase 2, but what data do we have?  

[Haiduk]

4 minutes ago, chrisl said:

If the video below is actually artillery

120 mm mortars. At least a half of explosions. I posted the same video above, but from Youtube page of K-2 UAV group

[SeinfeldRules]

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

What data are you seeing?  I am not sure what "artillery supremacy" means to be honest, never really heard it before.  I am guessing it means "our arty all the time, and none of theirs" but that does not seem reasonable.  Hell, the TB had indirect fire.

I think of this more along lines of capability trajectories.  Russian artillery seems to be getting dumber and employing more mass (or trying to), while the UA seems to be getting better, faster and more precise.

This whole thing is wrapped around "deep strike", which would include c-btty, logistics - back to SLOC nodes, apparently and reserves, and in that battle Ukraine seems to be able to Find, Fix and Finish much better than whatever system the Russians are using.

“Artillery supremacy” isn’t a doctrinal term in this case like air supremacy vs superiority. I use it highlight the picture that Trent is trying to paint, that the Ukrainians have a system that vastly outpaces the Russians or even Western nations. My argument is that the data he uses to reach that conclusion isn’t well sourced or understood by him. 
 

The data I see, is Ukrainians artillery primarily operating in traditional formations, utilizing optical fire control equipment, shooting standard ammunition and achieving normal distribution and sheaf patterns. I can certainly believe that Ukrainians are operating with “roving guns” - it’s a great tactic for executing harassment fires - but it doesn’t seem to be typical and they are certainly not fully utilizing digital linkages as depicted in Trent’s post.

Russians getting dumber - there is certainly nothing wrong with more mass, and is in-fact one of the main issues we see US units struggle with when it comes to employing artillery in training - 20 years of COIN has made units hesitant to mass their battalions. It’s a teaching point every exercise. Mass is a critical principle of Fire Support and incredibly effective, wouldn’t say the Russians are dumber for massing. 

Ukrainians being better, faster and more precise - again, I don’t see the data to back that up. Artillery utilizing standard optical fire control equipment can easily achieve effects within 25m of a target using adjustments. It is very rare to find artillery footage this isn’t edited with quick cuts between volleys. Can be quite easy to paint the picture of laser accurate artillery, when the reality could be that it took multiple rounds of adjustments to achieve that effect. I’m not saying that it’s not happening - I’m saying what we are seeing isn’t proof of it either. 

[sburke]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I forgot you were tracking below Major:

 

I wasn't but that spreadsheet kind of kicked it into gear.  What we are tracking is not just the rank, but organization which is pretty interesting to see who has taken losses that we can see.

Also saw this come up today @Haidukany idea what unit he might have been with?

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by sburke

[sburke]

3 hours ago, DesertFox said:

What can you expect from a society which takes washing machines into battle???

 

 

cleanliness is close to godliness and hopefully a few more of RFA troops are now closer to God.

[sburke]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here's something to ponder.

If Russia annexes the fake republics, DLPR + Kherson, then guess what happens?  More flexibility for the use of conscripts, that's what happens.

I think the evidence that Putin needs to tread very lightly with conscripts still exists, but could conscripts be put into places such as depots and occupation duties?  Maybe even drive trucks to/from frontline positions?  Yes, they can.  That would free up contractors to man front line positions.

Direct annexation could be a critical part of maintaining a frozen conflict.  I don't think it will ultimately work, but it would certainly be an improvement over not having conscripts at all.

Steve

It also might be a bad button to push.  Right now those conscripts are figuring they are safe from getting shot at.  Add in to that watching how Russian families are being denied compensation because "Moskva was an accident" and Putin might want to rethink the political temp. before doing that.. but then this is Putin...

[Kinophile]

As has been mentioned before (ref a stalemate) it takes two to tango - both must need/want the stalemate for whatever reasons specific to them (replenishment, loss of political will, etc etc). If one wants it but the other doesn't, or doesn't need it, then its not going to happen and very likely a rout is just around the corner.

Ukraine will never accept a static frozen conflict - they've been suffering down that road for the last 8 years. They know full well a frozen conflict serves only Russia's ends and will inevitably (as is now happening) result in another RUS attack. Why do this again, when Russia could well be stronger and smarter?

So, much as RUS needs/wants a stalemate, UKR has both the political will, manpower, technology, support and strategic necessity to ignore that pressure. UKR must win, otherwise they pass on this war to their children, grand children.

Dvornikov is only capable of imagining a "win" from achieving a defensible line based on geographic features and urban strongpoints. Fine, if you're thinking 1980s/90s level of tech and organization, in lines and not zones, off 2D maps and not 3D-4D whole-of-battle approaches.

A static defense with local/operational RRFs (which as @Battlefront.com has noted Rus seems incapable of running properly) will just become a string of fortified islands, crunched by UKR precision arty, infiltrated and incapacitated by SOF/Light infantry and eventually UKR ground forces will achieve the Border, nominally trapping all those forces behind, to wither on the vine.  Rus cannot maintain a line this long, this varied and defending with artillery that is fast becoming technically outdated and locally outgunned wherever the UKR want. 

[riptides]

33 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

....

The only assets that can stand ground long enough and mark targets for their Artillery are the AFVs.

......

How does Russian arty find their targets? They look at the smoke from their burning AFV's and plot forward.

Chuckle....

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

My argument is that the data he uses to reach that conclusion isn’t well sourced or understood by him. 

Yeah, I think Trent's credibility is low.  This is now the second time he's spouted off about something as if he knows what's going on and we've had no difficulty showing that he doesn't.  I don't even remember what the last one was it was so quickly cast aside.

4 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

The data I see, is Ukrainians artillery primarily operating in traditional formations, utilizing optical fire control equipment, shooting standard ammunition and achieving normal distribution and sheaf patterns. I can certainly believe that Ukrainians are operating with “roving guns” -

Obviously it's difficult to tell what's going on just by looking at videos, however it does seem that Ukraine is often using only batteries and not battalions.  This might be a function of limited ammo, limited guns, and/or deliberately keeping artillery spread out (i.e. battalion fire no longer practical).

4 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

Russians getting dumber - there is certainly nothing wrong with more mass, and is in-fact one of the main issues we see US units struggle with when it comes to employing artillery in training - 20 years of COIN has made units hesitant to mass their battalions. It’s a teaching point every exercise. Mass is a critical principle of Fire Support and incredibly effective, wouldn’t say the Russians are dumber for massing. 

I wouldn't either, though there's plenty of videos (including recently postage montage) that show vast quantities of shell craters over a space that shows no signs of either force being present at the time.  Since it's unlikely that Ukraine has this sort of ammo and concentrated artillery, it's a pretty safe bet that the results are from Russia artillery.  Which makes one wonder about the care they take with their missions.

Then there's the whole thing about using significant amounts of artillery to do nothing more than terrorize the populace.  If they instead concentrated all that activity on probable Ukrainian ground force locations they might achieve something other than a list of charges to be read off at The Hague.

4 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

Ukrainians being better, faster and more precise - again, I don’t see the data to back that up. Artillery utilizing standard optical fire control equipment can easily achieve effects within 25m of a target using adjustments. It is very rare to find artillery footage this isn’t edited with quick cuts between volleys. Can be quite easy to paint the picture of laser accurate artillery, when the reality could be that it took multiple rounds of adjustments to achieve that effect. I’m not saying that it’s not happening - I’m saying what we are seeing isn’t proof of it either. 

True, though I've seen plenty of videos where the visual evidence of misses is small compared to the hits.  There are also plenty of videos that clearly show that only 1-4 tubes are in action at one time, yet results are being achieved.  In such cases I think much of the editing is to cut out the flight time of the individual rounds vs. cutting out misses.  One thing I've been doing is examining the crater patterns inbetween cuts to see how many craters "grew" from one to the other.  Sometimes there is no visual evidence of misses being cut, other times clearly they are editing out misses.

Sooooo... I guess I'm saying I don't know much about how common/uncommon any of this is.  What I do feel confident on is the range of things we're seeing play out in these videos.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, sburke said:

I wasn't but that spreadsheet kind of kicked it into gear.

Note that I edited out my post with that Captain and replaced it with different content.  I thought I didn't need to show the Captain and thought I zapped it quick enough that nobody would have seen it.  You proved me wrong

Steve

[danfrodo]

What will Ukraine do now?  I grabbed this off dailykos, not sure where they picked it up.  Purple rail lines all converging at Kupiansk.  Would completely unhinge the whole sector.  But would also expose UKR forces to counterattacks w/o being dug in.  Maybe this is what UKR wants to do though.  They don't want to slug it out, they want to unhinge, which they were very successful at in the Kyiv-NW & Brovary RU thrusts.  They are already in position for unhinging the izyum salient.  It'd be nice to cut off those forces so they can't come to the aid of Kupiansk.

Or the smaller solution of gaining position to threaten Vovchansk, which greatly complicates RU supply but does not unhinge the front. 

 

On another note, there's a lot of talk about why Putler didn't do this or that w respect to military readiness.  I think we need to understand this as a coup that was backed up by military force.  It was, IMO, not a military operation w a coup sprinkled in for insurance.   When looked at in this sense, everything falls more into place. 

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

10 minutes ago, sburke said:

It also might be a bad button to push.  Right now those conscripts are figuring they are safe from getting shot at.  Add in to that watching how Russian families are being denied compensation because "Moskva was an accident" and Putin might want to rethink the political temp. before doing that.. but then this is Putin...

For sure Putin is under apparently great pressure to not get conscripts killed.  However, the situation I outlined allows him to operate in a gray space.  This is something he likes doing.  Plus, he's going to have to do something to beef up the manpower at some point.  As I keep saying, the huge losses they've suffered means they are going into this frozen conflict at a huge disadvantage.  So much so that it's quite likely impossible to pull off even with reinforcements.  But no reinforcements?  It's likely going to collapse sooner rather than later.

As The_Capt pointed out, what Putin needs right now is to buy time for something Russia can leverage to get out of this mess.  This is standard Putin thinking.  The difference with this war is he went into it without any of those ducks lined up before hand.  Therefore, he needs to get some ducks pretty fast otherwise he's going to be stuck with what he has now, which is an unsustainable effort.

Steve

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

“Artillery supremacy” isn’t a doctrinal term in this case like air supremacy vs superiority. I use it highlight the picture that Trent is trying to paint, that the Ukrainians have a system that vastly outpaces the Russians or even Western nations. My argument is that the data he uses to reach that conclusion isn’t well sourced or understood by him. 
 

The data I see, is Ukrainians artillery primarily operating in traditional formations, utilizing optical fire control equipment, shooting standard ammunition and achieving normal distribution and sheaf patterns. I can certainly believe that Ukrainians are operating with “roving guns” - it’s a great tactic for executing harassment fires - but it doesn’t seem to be typical and they are certainly not fully utilizing digital linkages as depicted in Trent’s post.

Russians getting dumber - there is certainly nothing wrong with more mass, and is in-fact one of the main issues we see US units struggle with when it comes to employing artillery in training - 20 years of COIN has made units hesitant to mass their battalions. It’s a teaching point every exercise. Mass is a critical principle of Fire Support and incredibly effective, wouldn’t say the Russians are dumber for massing. 

Ukrainians being better, faster and more precise - again, I don’t see the data to back that up. Artillery utilizing standard optical fire control equipment can easily achieve effects within 25m of a target using adjustments. It is very rare to find artillery footage this isn’t edited with quick cuts between volleys. Can be quite easy to paint the picture of laser accurate artillery, when the reality could be that it took multiple rounds of adjustments to achieve that effect. I’m not saying that it’s not happening - I’m saying what we are seeing isn’t proof of it either. 

Well one more thing about this war that does not add up.  The Russians have lost at least 242 indirect fire systems, that we can count but these are from many sources, many look to be abandoned(https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html). UA numbers are less but that picture is much blurrier.

As to comparisons between the two side artillery capabilities, well I will defer to an expert (guns are not my field).  I guess we will need to see more proof on that one as western equipment and training makes its way into theatre. 

As to mass, this war almost looks like it has broken it.  The Russians have all the mass, even now with their losses but it appears to be "dumb" mass, and likely blind.  They have not been able to bring that mass to bear or advantage and no one has definitively been able to explain "why?"  There have been a lot of theories, many center on "Russians Suck", but that is too simplistic to my mind.  Massed fires are useless if your opponent is not there, and has no intention of being "there".  Worse they strain the logistics system, which is also being hammered all the way back to the SLOC, and they make for great big targets.  I do not get the sense that Russian artillery is very light on its feet, but there we could see some more proof too. 

I for one, am thinking that the old concepts of mass need a serious rethink.  Take the guns, it is enormously inefficient and wasteful to employ mass, we do it because hitting/suppressing a target at 20kms is damned hard but that does not make it desirable. It strains the logistics system and weight too much, and let's not start on collateral.  Precision over mass should be what we are looking for, problem has been "easier said than done".  

 

[Haiduk]

45 minutes ago, sburke said:

I wasn't but that spreadsheet kind of kicked it into gear.  What we are tracking is not just the rank, but organization which is pretty interesting to see who has taken losses that we can see.

Also saw this come up today @Haidukany idea what unit he might have been with?

 

About first photo... hm... this guy has signs of VDV on lapels, but the cap of aviation officer. VDV hadn't own aviation, though in 2019 Russian MoD planned to establish one army aviation brigade under VDV Command. Maybe they managed to establish it in 2021, but I've seen only one mention about in October 2021

Second guy - alas, I can't see his signs on the shoulder strips.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Haiduk

[billbindc]

50 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here's something to ponder.

If Russia annexes the fake republics, DLPR + Kherson, then guess what happens?  More flexibility for the use of conscripts, that's what happens.

I think the evidence that Putin needs to tread very lightly with conscripts still exists, but could conscripts be put into places such as depots and occupation duties?  Maybe even drive trucks to/from frontline positions?  Yes, they can.  That would free up contractors to man front line positions.

Direct annexation could be a critical part of maintaining a frozen conflict.  I don't think it will ultimately work, but it would certainly be an improvement over not having conscripts at all.

Steve

The issue isn't really the legality of using the conscripts since the law in Russia merely exists to serve the immediate interests of the state and which average Russians know quite well. The issue is going to be that those conscripts...whose families expected to be gone roughing it for just a year...are going to be coming home in boxes or disappearing entirely into the maw of Ukraine and the Russian bureaucracy trying to hide what's happening to soldiers in it. Clearly, Putin sees this issue as one of the few really dangerous threats to his regime so declaration or not, I doubt now that we'll be seeing any large influx of fresh meat into the grinder.

Edited May 10, 2022 by billbindc

[Haiduk]

26 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

however it does seem that Ukraine is often using only batteries and not battalions. 

Batteries are too vulnerable, on the videos you can see mostly platoons or even 1-2 guns