How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

The engineer says they had one bridge, when the Ukrainians destroyed it, after failing to fix it, they tried another.

 

[akd]

1500 RU dead is a bonkers claim, however.  150, maybe, but probably less given the number of vehicles.

[Offshoot]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

And just noticed that the overhead pic in the Twitter thread from Maxim only shows the bridge that has the mud tracks on it, and maybe fewer burned vehicles on the far side.  The "clean" second boat ramp was a later attempt.

Looking at the two pictures, I am not convinced it is the same river crossing.

Edit: Actually, I changed my mind, but the picture on the twitter thread appears to be some time before the Russians tried to put the 2nd bridge up.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Offshoot

[chrisl]

12 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

Looking at the two pictures, I am not convinced it is the same river crossing.

Edit: Actually, I changed my mind, but the picture on the twitter thread appears to be some time before the Russians tried to put the 2nd bridge up.

I get about 43 vehicles destroyed within a stone's throw of the riverbank in the four picture set from Oryx.  Most of them catastrophically, so there won't even be signs of whoever was inside, but that could be 150 right there.  If there were more vehicles that got away from the crossing - the 50 to 80 that got caught on the wrong side after the bridge was gone - that could double or more by the time they're all casualties.  So not 1500, but 300+ is plausible, and at least one, if not two BTGs rendered useless.  From the RA POV it's probably better to lose all of one than half each of two, so they don't have to deal with the friction that comes with merging the remnants.

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Couldn't you pull it straight with half inch wire rope, and truck-bed's worth of rigging equipment? I mean that is not exactly the Mississippi they are trying to cross there. If you were moderately creative with the rigging you could even have the pulling vehicle on the starting side. It looks like their are plenty of trees to anchor off of.

I dunno, trees at riverside are not reliable. Their roots are weaker and the trunk itself is just not as strong. The ground under the bank is waterlogged and unless youre crossing in say a gorge or other hewn Rock type channel then theres not much to anchor to. If one tree goes they can easily take more with them. The only really secure way would be using several T72s further up the bank., as the drag from that current would be massive.

Then when the bridge is hit you could easily rip the tracks off your bolstering tanks when the structure hits into the water and is shoved downstream.   (EDIT rip the tanks off the tracks and watch them toboggan downslope).

Ive shot on a platform out in the middle of a medium river. Holding the platform (a barge, essentially), loaded with cast, lights, crew etc steady in the middle of the current was brutal. Heavy Stanchions on the banks plus a river boat up stream. We also tied off to our telehandlers that were positioning lights. This was all extremely dependent on weather and River conditions, not just at our location but 50 kms upstream. A heavy shower up north cut out night short. We were all glad. 

We were a Tier 1 film making crew, highly professional with tons of money and prep days. Used local river men with deep knowledge of the river. Not a lot of meetings but very detailed, lengthy and technical tech scouts, walking the river, sitting out in the river boat in the current, examining the banks, etc. We had an engineer, cranes, divers, ambulance, and coast guard.

People laugh about shooting with kids and animals, but water is easily the hardest, most awkward, slowest process and greatest potential for injury and death than anything else.

You dont **** with water, water ****s you.

Or Ukrainian 152s. Either/or >:D

Edited May 12, 2022 by Kinophile

[Offshoot]

A side by side comparison of the two pontoon pictures. The Russians must really have wanted to get across there. You can't see any newly destroyed vehicles on the Ukrainian side (I assume top) in the second picture, so I wonder what happened to the forlorn tanks in the first picture? The holes in the pontoon bridges are new in the second picture, however.

https://ibb.co/rcBtbS3

Edited May 12, 2022 by Offshoot

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, SeinfeldRules said:

What an amazing insight into this particular combat operation. Nothing said strikes me as out of the realm of possibility so I completely believe it.

He also joined Twitter in 2019 and posts way before this are consistent with him being an engineer with bridge experience.

The thing that struck me about his description the most was anticipating that the Russians would need to use motorized boats to get the sections in place.  As long as there is no wind these things can be heard from quite a distance.  If alert for the sounds (which they were) and guessing where they'd be bridging, well... screwing up the bridging operation is elementary at that point.

I don't believe the 1500 manpower figure though.  That would be the equivalent of 2-3 entire BTGs based on Russian strength in the area.  I think the reports I've seen of a company sized force (150) is far more likely.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I have a theory about the double bridge attempt.  It's a simple one... they didn't have another viable crossing point within their AO.  So they instead opted to double up on the one they had identified.  Unfortunately for them, it was just as obvious to the Ukrainians.

OK, so this isn't much of an interesting theory.  So let me spice it up!

I think this is another example of someone higher up making an operational plan that is unrealistic given the situation but the guy above him doesn't want to hear "excuses" because the guy above him doesn't want "excuses" either.  And the guy above him might be Putin, and he definitely doesn't want to hear "excuses".  Which means a plan had to be produced and then executed regardless of its chance of success.  If there's only one viable place to cross and you have to get 2 BTGs over by the afternoon, well... there you have it.

In a NATO force you'd see a commander refusing to obey an order this stupid.  "Take my commission and shove it up your arse!" might very well be the response.  No NATO officer worth 1/2 his salt would allow some nitwit to condemn his forces to near certain death by breaking all doctrine and common sense.  At least that's what I would hope would happen.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Supposedly Ukraine whacked yet another command post with lots of brass getting scattered.  Not verified, nor necessarily tied to the video that was uploaded.  But it's at least another example of Russians not understanding that they need to learn from their mistakes if they are to stop making them over and over again:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/unly7l/the_russian_forward_base_near_izyum_was_shelled/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Extended M777A2 video with much better look at what we sent them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/uninzi/american_made_ukrainian_m777_howitzer_in_the_field/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

On Reddit today I've seen a lot of examples of new weaponry getting into the front.  M777, Mk19, Polish 5.56 rifles, and a couple of days ago an M2 .50cal.

Good to know this stuff is getting to the front so quickly.

Steve

[FancyCat]

It's lovely to see Russians helping Ukrainians getting out of the country.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/underground-networks-russians-helping-ukrainian-refugees-2022-05-11/

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, Hapless said:

On this note, back on Day One over the CM Discord we watched the Russians rolling up to the bridge at Nova Khakova on live Ukrainian traffic cams. I recorded some footage the morning after and at one point there was at least a couple of VDV companies stacked up on the road in a traffic jam. One air/arty strike and they would have a seriously bad day.

[Edit: And here it is:]

(Then some Russians climbed up the poles and started knocking the cameras out. Which was also fun, because you could chart the progress of this one truck camera disabling team going down the road.)

The sheer volume of OSINT at the start of the war was crazy, the tricky part as always is how to deal with the information overload and exploit it in a timely fashion (if possible).

I know the video is old, but it is still very interesting to look at.  I can't be absolutely sure because the video doesn't have all its original frames (sped up), but it looks like quite a number of BDMs and at least one truck are being towed.  This jibes with lots and lots of first hand reports of broken vehicles going into combat pretty much straight from Russia.

Steve

[Kraft]

15 hours ago, akd said:

What it’s like being a Chinese reporter covering the sports competition in Ukraine:

 

Less fireball, more height  

But maybe disqualified, as only a part of the turret was launched. The judges will have to decide.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Kraft

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Oh, look who did the war crimes in front of a camera then hung around to drink vodka and show their faces:

Kudos to MI6 and the Ukrainians because that looked to be real footage of a warcrime.  However, you can tell it isn't real because the reporter is from CNN and we all know they are Fake News funded by George Soros.  So yet again, Russia's glorious image as liberators remains untouched!

Steve

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Kudos to MI6 and the Ukrainians because that looked to be real footage of a warcrime.  However, you can tell it isn't real because the reporter is from CNN and we all know they are Fake News funded by George Soros.  So yet again, Russia's glorious image as liberators remains untouched!

Steve

dang Steve is gonna get a timeout

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

dang Steve is gonna get a timeout

Believe it or not, that sarcasm is modeled on what Russians might say.  The St. Petersburg trolls say that MI6 and the CIA are behind all this faked footage and all Western media is "Fake News" (they use that term profusely from what I can tell).  George Soros has been their bogeyman for a long time, especially since 2011 when Putin got upset that NGOs (some funded by Soros) pointed out that he faked the elections.  They also claim Soros is behind the 2014 Ukraine "coup", again because he funds pro-democracy NGO activities.  And in Russian minds, pro-democracy = anti-Russian.

Steve

[danfrodo]

Overall, it sure looks like a very very very bad couple of days for Putler.  1-2 BTG lost/combat ineffective at the Great Patriotic River Crossing Offensive.  Multiple turret tosses, one in a very behind the lines location.

And Ukraine moving into position to threaten in multiple directions:

1.  move across Russian border to cut Belgorod rail line via artillery

2.  OR move toward Vovchansk and cut Belgorod rail line via artillery

3.  And, independently, take advantage of RU losses & withdrawals to cut off the increasingly weakening Izyum salient. 

This is shaping up as a major fiasco.  Things are really stacking up for potential collapses.  If rail line is cut, then already stressed and inadequate logistics are further degraded.  Lots of artillery shells need to be arriving to keep UKR forces at bay, and that stuff takes up a lot of train cars and trucks that will have to take the long way around from Belgorod if that rail line is cut.

Once again, UKR bleeds the spearheads while working to unhinge Russian fronts via interdiction of logistics, avoiding costly offensive slugfests.  It's amazing to watch.

Remember the Korsun pocket?  "we gotta pull back, this whole salient is in danger!"  "NO!  I need this salient for future offensive operations!"  ooopsy.

Edited May 12, 2022 by danfrodo
typo

[SeinfeldRules]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

He also joined Twitter in 2019 and posts way before this are consistent with him being an engineer with bridge experience.

The thing that struck me about his description the most was anticipating that the Russians would need to use motorized boats to get the sections in place.  As long as there is no wind these things can be heard from quite a distance.  If alert for the sounds (which they were) and guessing where they'd be bridging, well... screwing up the bridging operation is elementary at that point.

I don't believe the 1500 manpower figure though.  That would be the equivalent of 2-3 entire BTGs based on Russian strength in the area.  I think the reports I've seen of a company sized force (150) is far more likely.

Steve

There's a lot of interesting "behind the scenes" stuff that's described too, that isn't captured in a photo or video on Twitter. It's really easy to assume a drone caught them in the open and rained down fire on them, but in reality it was a combination of IPB, ground reconnaissance, and good direction to allow units to cue in on what they needed to. The difficulty they had in actually seeing them was also interesting to me, it seems the Russians made a concerted effort to actually conceal the operation, with their burning of the forest and utilization of smoke. An obvious tactic, but again, not captured in a series of photos on Twitter. They might have actually gotten really close to securing a foothold, if they had troops across and 7/8ths of the bridge complete. Could have been a near run thing. One other thing I found interesting, notice the dates he lists - it seems the majority of combat took over a day to play out, starting with the artillery barrage the morning of the 8th and the Russians culminating the morning of the 9th, with the final destruction of the bridge on the 10th. Hard to understand that timeline without his little vignette. I definitely got the impression all that stuff was wiped out in one massive barrage. Fascinating stuff!

Edited May 12, 2022 by SeinfeldRules

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Supposedly Ukraine whacked yet another command post with lots of brass getting scattered.  Not verified, nor necessarily tied to the video that was uploaded.  But it's at least another example of Russians not understanding that they need to learn from their mistakes if they are to stop making them over and over again:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/unly7l/the_russian_forward_base_near_izyum_was_shelled/

Steve

The video is the same location as the attempted Gerasimov hit about a week ago, and looks like it's from the same attack that got posted on the 8th.  So there's hopefully a different attack and someone is just linking old video with it.

[CivE]

14 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I think one has to attack that light infantry system along its length as well.  Cutting off supplies of relatively cheap ATGMs, and MANPADS, along with ISR (I have no doubt Russia would love to cut those western ISR feeds if they could), or all data for that matter, is a very important step.  This would push the ranges and lethality of that infantry back to "harassment" levels. 

The CoG for this sort of defence also appears to be "integration and synchronization".  Light infantry in ones and twos are a nuisance even with this weaponry.  It is when they are linked and can get out in front of an attacker, due in large part to info superiority, that they become something else.  If you can make that "two-guys in a treeline...in isolation" then I think we would be onto something.

I'm about ten pages behind the thread by now, but one question about terminology. Does this really count as "light" infantry? ATGMs and MANPADS are solidly in the territory of heavy weapons. The ISR capabilities are only cheap and light because the civilian communication infrastructure is intact, but in more austere or contested environments similar capabilities would require truckloads of pricey gear. Sometimes light infantry denotes units with high mobility on foot, or easy to transport, but it looks like the Ukrainian infantry is succeeding more by being everywhere ahead of time rather than dashing to where they are needed. Sometimes "light" means a smaller number of soldiers per small unit, and that fits with the two-guys in a treeline idea. So what do you mean by light infantry, and do you think it is an important distinction?

[chrisl]

32 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Overall, it sure looks like a very very very bad couple of days for Putler.  1-2 BTG lost/combat ineffective at the Great Patriotic River Crossing Offensive.  Multiple turret tosses, one in a very behind the lines location.

And Ukraine moving into position to threaten in multiple directions:

1.  move across Russian border to cut Belgorod rail line via artillery

2.  OR move toward Vovchansk and cut Belgorod rail line via artillery

3.  And, independently, take advantage of RU losses & withdrawals to cut off the increasingly weakening Izyum salient. 

This is shaping up as a major fiasco.  Things are really stacking up for potential collapses.  If rail line is cut, then already stressed and inadequate logistics are further degraded.  Lots of artillery shells need to be arriving to keep UKR forces at bay, and that stuff takes up a lot of train cars and trucks that will have to take the long way around from Belgorod if that rail line is cut.

Once again, UKR bleeds the spearheads while working to unhinge Russian fronts via interdiction of logistics, avoiding costly offensive slugfests.  It's amazing to watch.

Remember the Korsun pocket?  "we gotta pull back, this whole salient is in danger!"  "NO!  I need this salient for future offensive operations!"  ooopsy.

So if Ukraine doesn't cross into Russia, is having forces, especially artillery, on the border enough of a threat to make Russia pull forces from the east to block the route toward Belgorod?  From the Ukraine perspective, there are a lot of good reasons not to send troops across the border, even if they're willing to rain shells on military targets.  But from the Russia perspective, how confident can Russia be that the UA won't start driving all those captured tanks toward Moscow?

[FancyCat]

19 minutes ago, chrisl said:

So if Ukraine doesn't cross into Russia, is having forces, especially artillery, on the border enough of a threat to make Russia pull forces from the east to block the route toward Belgorod?  From the Ukraine perspective, there are a lot of good reasons not to send troops across the border, even if they're willing to rain shells on military targets.  But from the Russia perspective, how confident can Russia be that the UA won't start driving all those captured tanks toward Moscow?

I reckon it would be easier to reconquer a smaller town along the way to Belograd than Belograd itself. Plus, it causes a bigger Frontline than merely pushing on Belograd.

[FancyCat]

This posted yet? Estonian analyst. Belgorod may have nothing, and rear of Russian lines may be very weak. It was really smart of the Ukrainians to push on relieving Kharkov, admittedly I was worried the JFO was gonna break but certainly if they were close but looks like it succeeded.

 

[Battlefront.com]

  

20 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

There's a lot of interesting "behind the scenes" stuff that's described too, that isn't captured in a photo or video on Twitter. It's really easy to assume a drone caught them in the open and rained down fire on them, but in reality it was a combination of IPB, ground reconnaissance, and good direction to allow units to cue in on what they needed to. The difficulty they had in actually seeing them was also interesting to me, it seems the Russians made a concerted effort to actually conceal the operation, with their burning of the forest and utilization of smoke. An obvious tactic, but again, not captured in a series of photos on Twitter. They might have actually gotten really close to securing a foothold, if they had troops across and 7/8ths of the bridge complete. Could have been a near run thing. One other thing I found interesting, notice the dates he lists - it seems the majority of combat took over a day to play out, starting with the artillery barrage the morning of the 8th and the Russians culminating the morning of the 9th, with the final destruction of the bridge on the 10th. Hard to understand that timeline without his little vignette. I definitely got the impression all that stuff was wiped out in one massive barrage. Fascinating stuff!

Indeed!  And it gets more fascinating, I think, with this drone footage:

https://t.me/operativnoZSU/23775

This footage was taken when there was only ONE BRIDGE!  The one in the video is the "downstream" one in the pictures.  You can tell because of the partially submerged section.

Looking at things more closely, there were THREE bridge crossings.  See my mockup...

You can clearly see the position of YELLOW, including the remains of a bridge section where the concentration of burnt up vehicles is.

BLUE seems to not have been used as there's no signs of exiting on the opposite bank as there is with the other two.

RED did get over the river and you can even see a sunken piece on the far bank next to the other knocked out vehicles.  My red covers it exactly, which shows the surviving section did not shift one bit.  Where it is now is where it was.  Most likely it is anchored against the current because there's at least one sunken section still attached (a meter or so is still above the surface).

Here's my take on what happened...

First Crossing

YELLOW was the original bridge.  You can see it is inline with the approach road and saw significant vehicle traffic.  At least three AFVs were destroyed on the far bank when the bridge was destroyed.

At the same time they swam vehicles from where BLUE is situated.  These landed around the area that RED crossed to.  You can see three AFVs that were destroyed there.

First Attack

While YELLOW and the swim areas were in use they got plastered by artillery.  This resulted in the destruction of YELLOW bridge and at least 3 AFVs on the far bank.  At least one section of bridge was sunk on the far bank.  It is unclear if the missing sections of YELLOW went down stream or were reused for the Second Crossing (I think reuse is likely).

Second Crossing

With the mess on the far shore they couldn't reuse the original YELLOW crossing (too much debris including sunken bridge section), so it was abandoned.  They wanted to maintain a swimming location as well as a new bridge, so they hastily hacked a path to the river for RED bridge.  It crossed over as close to YELLOW's termination point as possible as it was deemed a good position.  It also allowed for swimming to continue, though uncomfortably close to RED.  RED bridge was likely partially built with sections from YELLOW.

Second Attack

Artillery smashed into RED and destroyed it, sinking part of it and probably sending some sections downstream.  As with YELLOW, at least one section on the far bank was sunk.  It is probable that 3 AFVs were lost due to artillery at the far bank portion of the bridge and up to 3 AFV swimmers.

Third Crossing

Because Russians love to repeat themselves, they decided to try again!  RED and YELLOW sites were no longer viable and it seems bank conditions meant swimmers no longer had a viable landing point.  Since swimming was no longer an option, and the other spots a complete mess, they set up BLUE in the former swimming spot.  They probably used some damaged sections from previous two bridging attempts.  The section with the shell hole suggests this and they likely would have patched it *IF* they had finnished the operation.  However, it seems they didn't finish the bridging as there is no signs they managed to exit any vehicles in the target area.  My guess is they didn't have anymore bridge sections and the remaining RED sections were too damaged to use.  The one section floating between BLUE and RED might have been a work in progress when the decision was made to give up.

So there you go.  Comments welcome

Steve