How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Vet 0369]

5 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Incredible.

Haiduk's in for a hell of a surprise when he gets back on his pc...

FUNDED!

$1500 to get him a new laptop. Amazing. Thank you, everyone who donated.

 

You did a really great job with a fabulous idea. I think it would be even better if you delivered it to him in person! That way, it would also prevent it from being stolen along the way.

[Huba]

30 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

And yet those same European countries supply your country with arms deliveries worth hundreds of millions, risk their economies and help millions of Ukrainian refugees. I truly hope Zelensky will show more gratitude and will find a better tone to speak to and about Europe than you do. Personally I'm rather tired of your insults. We don't owe you anything, so just be a little more grateful.

Hard not to agree with that. I think Scholz and Macron deserve a jab now and then, but apart from timely deliveries of heavy weapons,their countries really do a lot - German/ Dutch Patriot unit in Slovakia can be an example. There are also multiple European units deployed in the Baltics, Poland and Romania at the moment. US and UK are leading this effort in general, but what the rest of Europe committed is really not too shabby.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Huba

[dan/california]

Looks like the Ukrainians are making a real push for Kherson while the Russians are bleeding themselves white in the Donbas!

[Beleg85]

Something seems to be brewing up in Kherson area. Very interesting. For now it seems like more "village hopping" but perhaps will turn into larger offensive. It seems Girkin was again a murderous profet

Also, DPR spokesmen revealed more info about their losses:

Of course probably severly downgraded. But actual casualty ratio of 1:4 seems sensible.

[cesmonkey]

2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/10/were-almost-out-of-ammunition-and-relying-on-western-arms-says-ukraine?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

That's 150,000-180,000 rounds per month. I wonder how many 155mm shells NATO has and can spare?

Saw this yesterday:

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-to-receive-additional-military-assistance-from-finland/
Ukraine to receive additional military assistance from Finland

According to Wikipedia, Finland has quite a number of former Soviet artillery pieces:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Finnish_Army#Field_artillery

Hopefully, they can spare some rounds to give to Ukraine.

 

[dan/california]

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russian-underperforming-military-standish-interview/31891133.html

This one of the guys from ISW, so it can't be much more authoritative unless someone in either the Ukr or U.S. military wants to actually talk. Short version is send more hardware, the heavier and longer range the better. Ukr does not currently have the weight of metal for a real counter offensive. I guess we are testing that around Kherson as we speak. Maybe the Poles gave them a whole new something on the quiet.

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Saw this yesterday:

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-to-receive-additional-military-assistance-from-finland/
Ukraine to receive additional military assistance from Finland

According to Wikipedia, Finland has quite a number of former Soviet artillery pieces:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Finnish_Army#Field_artillery

Hopefully, they can spare some rounds to give to Ukraine.

 

regarding this ongoing commentary about rounds expended, Ukraine has the entirety of NATO coughing up weapons and ammo with an industrial base to crank out more.  Russia has... lots of decrepit ammo stocks in questionable state in storage..  so who do we think is gonna run out first?

[dan/california]

13 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Saw this yesterday:

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-to-receive-additional-military-assistance-from-finland/
Ukraine to receive additional military assistance from Finland

According to Wikipedia, Finland has quite a number of former Soviet artillery pieces:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Finnish_Army#Field_artillery

Hopefully, they can spare some rounds to give to Ukraine.

 

Nato just needs new production lines for artillery shells, and actual artillery pieces, GMLRS too. We don't want to lose this war or the next one because skipped on the simple stuff. Hard to be more interested in the fancy bits than I am, but there is a real chance that in an even fight all the fancy stuff gets neutralized on both sides. All the countries yelling about maintaining a war reserve need to look around. If you aren't shipping it to Taiwan TODAY, you should be shipping it to Ukraine TODAY, because the chances of a truly serious fight elsewhere just doesn't seem that high. If the Russian army finishes killing itself in Ukraine there really isn't a second country threatening a general European war. And yes I include the U.S. in that.

[dan/california]

11 minutes ago, sburke said:

regarding this ongoing commentary about rounds expended, Ukraine has the entirety of NATO coughing up weapons and ammo with an industrial base to crank out more.  Russia has... lots of decrepit ammo stocks in questionable state in storage..  so who do we think is gonna run out first?

Do we have ANY figures on how many shells per month the Russians have? Had? Can build?

[Huba]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

regarding this ongoing commentary about rounds expended, Ukraine has the entirety of NATO coughing up weapons and ammo with an industrial base to crank out more.  Russia has... lots of decrepit ammo stocks in questionable state in storage..  so who do we think is gonna run out first?

It was already observed that equipment from storage in Belarus was being moved to Russia few days ago. But apart from Potato Fuhrer there isn't anybody willing to support them with materiel at the moment. For sure China isn't. I bet ammunition factories in RU are working 24/7 now, but so are ones in Ukraine and at least some NATO countries.

And let's keep in mind that RU ammunition expenditure isn't, and can't be on the same level as UA, it has to be significantly larger.

One area where RU has to have an advantage now is MLRS, but that's about to change quite soon. I wonder though if in the future US support will have to be extended to M26 family of rockets, as UA will run out of anything having comparable area effect to what heavy RU MLRS provide.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Do we have ANY figures on how many shells per month the Russians have? Had? Can build?

I'd like to know that too, unfortunately no data is available. As a hint, Cobasna ammo depot in Transnistia, deemed to be the largest in Europe holds 20K tons of ammunition according to Wikipedia. That is maybe 300K 152mm rounds, if it was the only type stored there. No idea how many such depots Russia has.

In his last rant, Girin said that Western Military District is already running out of 122mm rounds, and DLRP units that counted on this supply are hastily re-training on 152mm guns. That would meant that this type of ammunition is still plentiful.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Huba

[paxromana]

As I pointed out a while ago, ramping up artillery ammunition from peacetime to wartime levels is a real and ongoing historical problem -- WW1 it took a year, WW2 it meant Hitler went with blitzkrieg because he was told that to build up the shell supply needed for a WW1 scale war (even with late WW1 stormtroop tactics) would require too long and take up resources simply not available even with Germany's bankrupting level of pre-war military spending.

Then there's the problem of explosive precursors ... it was a real problem for the Germans in WW1 & WW2 and Russians in WW2 and could well be again, for the Russians ... the Germans had a choice between producing fertiliser or explosives. In WW1 it led to famine in WW2 they stripped occupied Europe of food to avoid that at home, yet still had to resort to remanufacturing the xplosives from obsolete ordnance (Nipolit).

I know the Russians export nitrate fertilisers ... so they may have the reserve capacity for explosive production, but even so that would mean a long war would strip them of the sales revenue for fertiliser AND make the world food situation even worse.

Not that Herr Putler cares, of course.

Edited June 10, 2022 by paxromana
spelling

[chuckdyke]

Here is a good explanation why sending the Leo-2 to the Ukraine is possibly not a good idea. Leopard-1 outdated would better deal with the infrastructure. 

 

[Huba]

Solovyov and his lackeys comment on Putin's "Peter the Great Speech". Unusually disgusting even by their standards:

 

[sburke]

28 minutes ago, Huba said:

Solovyov and his lackeys comment on Putin's "Peter the Great Speech". Unusually disgusting even by their standards:

"We are the natural heirs of the Golden Horde"

Well yeah I'd say they got that about right.

[G.I. Joe]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

"We are the natural heirs of the Golden Horde"

Well yeah I'd say they got that about right.

+1

Exactly. A comment like that is really hard to take any other way than "we know we're the bad guys, and we're happy to lean into it."

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, sross112 said:

On another note, Ukraine is LIT UP on FIRMS today:

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@36.3,48.2,8z

 

Yup, after 1.5 months of gnawing at the outer crust and floundering in the fields south of Izium, it appears the RA 'north pincer' is at last reaching the nortern approaches to the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk logistical hub. They are putting some weight into it, although Girkin made no mention.

If those cities fall, Donbas definitely becomes untenable. But there's still a long way for them to go.

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Seminole]

On 6/9/2022 at 12:16 PM, Battlefront.com said:

Oh, for sure I've seen plenty of pro-Russian statements about why NATO is a threat.  Easily found.  What I said I was looking for was a "properly constructed argument".  I've never seen one and I certainly have been looking for one. 

The rational argument of the threat from NATO for Russia is that NATO has shown a willingness to engage in wars that are not the result of attacks on members.

President Clinton's decision to ignore the stipulations of the War Powers Resolution and bomb Serbia into an ethnic partition is when NATO stopped being merely a defensive alliance, and became a way for the U.S. to present the veneer of an international imprimatur for aggressive military foreign policy.

Not even the lack of Congressional authorization is going to stop a U.S. President from using NATO to enact regime change where it seems viable, and in our 'national interest' (we can debate the 'human interest' in what Libya has endured a decade since Hillary cackled about a dictator's death - the Brits did a nice report on the lies and poor assumptions).  Our Nobel Peace Prize winning President went along with the neocons in his cabinet and we got to see open air slave camps on CNN.

Which brings us to the idea of how NATO can be perceived as a threat to Russia.  Russia who watched largely helpless while NATO carried out months of bombing on a historical/cultural ally.  The ethnic partition and formation of Kosovo driven by NATO (read: the U.S.) isn't even recognized today by all NATO members (nor all of the EU members).

Imagine it's 2035, and NATO has welcomed Ukraine to the fold.  Further imagine Erdogan is still pursuing his pan-Turkic and after dreams and is stirring Islamic separatists in the Russian backwaters against Moscow (surely these things don't only happen in Syria, or Libya, do they?).  Moscow, as it has in the past, taps their inner General Sherman and starts stomping mudholes in the civilized patches of their backwaters. 

Is it crazy to imagine NATO (read: the American President who could use a distraction, or just really likes the storytelling of the neocons who manage to festoon every cabinet) rides to the rescue of the media's ratings?  We're clearly witnessing the relative weakness of Russia in a conventional war with the West.  Would it make sense for them to leave themselves only hope that NATO wouldn't risk that nuclear threats aren't bluff.  That they would trade the possibility of smoking craters in place of Moscow and St. Petersburg over some Kazakh border regions?

Factoring the demonstrated willingness of NATO to intervene in civil wars, and the history the U.S. has in fomenting civil wars for policy ends, I would think having NATO on your border makes you more susceptible to an intervention by NATO.

I can understand why Russia would rather see Ukraine under some kind of guaranteed neutrality like Austria was in the Cold War rather than in NATO.

[keas66]

18 minutes ago, Seminole said:

The rational argument of the threat from NATO for Russia is that NATO has shown a willingness to engage in wars that are not the result of attacks on members.

President Clinton's decision to ignore the stipulations of the War Powers Resolution and bomb Serbia into an ethnic partition is when NATO stopped being merely a defensive alliance, and became a way for the U.S. to present the veneer of an international imprimatur for aggressive military foreign policy.

Not even the lack of Congressional authorization is going to stop a U.S. President from using NATO to enact regime change where it seems viable, and in our 'national interest' (we can debate the 'human interest' in what Libya has endured a decade since Hillary cackled about a dictator's death - the Brits did a nice report on the lies and poor assumptions).  Our Nobel Peace Prize winning President went along with the neocons in his cabinet and we got to see open air slave camps on CNN.

Which brings us to the idea of how NATO can be perceived as a threat to Russia.  Russia who watched largely helpless while NATO carried out months of bombing on a historical/cultural ally.  The ethnic partition and formation of Kosovo driven by NATO (read: the U.S.) isn't even recognized today by all NATO members (nor all of the EU members).

Imagine it's 2035, and NATO has welcomed Ukraine to the fold.  Further imagine Erdogan is still pursuing his pan-Turkic and after dreams and is stirring Islamic separatists in the Russian backwaters against Moscow (surely these things don't only happen in Syria, or Libya, do they?).  Moscow, as it has in the past, taps their inner General Sherman and starts stomping mudholes in the civilized patches of their backwaters. 

Is it crazy to imagine NATO (read: the American President who could use a distraction, or just really likes the storytelling of the neocons who manage to festoon every cabinet) rides to the rescue of the media's ratings?  We're clearly witnessing the relative weakness of Russia in a conventional war with the West.  Would it make sense for them to leave themselves only hope that NATO wouldn't risk that nuclear threats aren't bluff.  That they would trade the possibility of smoking craters in place of Moscow and St. Petersburg over some Kazakh border regions?

Factoring the demonstrated willingness of NATO to intervene in civil wars, and the history the U.S. has in fomenting civil wars for policy ends, I would think having NATO on your border makes you more susceptible to an intervention by NATO.

I can understand why Russia would rather see Ukraine under some kind of guaranteed neutrality like Austria was in the Cold War rather than in NATO.

Well maybe the Lesson Russia should be taking from NATO's past interventions is don't start an unasked for genocidal intervention in a Neighboring State ? . Sharper minds than mine will likely reply to your post point by point .

[The_Capt]

12 hours ago, Seminole said:

The rational argument of the threat from NATO for Russia is that NATO has shown a willingness to engage in wars that are not the result of attacks on members.

President Clinton's decision to ignore the stipulations of the War Powers Resolution and bomb Serbia into an ethnic partition is when NATO stopped being merely a defensive alliance, and became a way for the U.S. to present the veneer of an international imprimatur for aggressive military foreign policy.

Not even the lack of Congressional authorization is going to stop a U.S. President from using NATO to enact regime change where it seems viable, and in our 'national interest' (we can debate the 'human interest' in what Libya has endured a decade since Hillary cackled about a dictator's death - the Brits did a nice report on the lies and poor assumptions).  Our Nobel Peace Prize winning President went along with the neocons in his cabinet and we got to see open air slave camps on CNN.

Which brings us to the idea of how NATO can be perceived as a threat to Russia.  Russia who watched largely helpless while NATO carried out months of bombing on a historical/cultural ally.  The ethnic partition and formation of Kosovo driven by NATO (read: the U.S.) isn't even recognized today by all NATO members (nor all of the EU members).

Imagine it's 2035, and NATO has welcomed Ukraine to the fold.  Further imagine Erdogan is still pursuing his pan-Turkic and after dreams and is stirring Islamic separatists in the Russian backwaters against Moscow (surely these things don't only happen in Syria, or Libya, do they?).  Moscow, as it has in the past, taps their inner General Sherman and starts stomping mudholes in the civilized patches of their backwaters. 

Is it crazy to imagine NATO (read: the American President who could use a distraction, or just really likes the storytelling of the neocons who manage to festoon every cabinet) rides to the rescue of the media's ratings?  We're clearly witnessing the relative weakness of Russia in a conventional war with the West.  Would it make sense for them to leave themselves only hope that NATO wouldn't risk that nuclear threats aren't bluff.  That they would trade the possibility of smoking craters in place of Moscow and St. Petersburg over some Kazakh border regions?

Factoring the demonstrated willingness of NATO to intervene in civil wars, and the history the U.S. has in fomenting civil wars for policy ends, I would think having NATO on your border makes you more susceptible to an intervention by NATO.

I can understand why Russia would rather see Ukraine under some kind of guaranteed neutrality like Austria was in the Cold War rather than in NATO.

So Kosovo and Libya have been brought up a couple times now as examples of “NATO aggression” and some weird theories on the US somehow “using NATO” to do its bidding.  This is not how things worked, nor how things work.  Both Kosovo and Libya were conducted under UNSC resolutions as Chapter VII missions, not by an edict from the White House. In fact every NATO intervention over the last 30 years has had the backing of the UN Security Council, of which both Russia and China are permanent members.  (the only exception may be immediately after 9/11 when the US invoked article 5).  

In fact NATO as an alliance is not supporting the Ukraine (technically) it’s member states are bilaterally.

NATO is a massive military alliance, trying to make it to do anything is very hard and the idea that the US can “order NATO” is laughable.  NATO having a history of unilaterally invading nations and so Russia is somehow justifiably pushing back is nonsense.  As to NATO expansion, it has been 1) bureaucratic and 2) driven by Russian aggressiveness to its neighbours.  Narratives to the contrary are misinformed at best.

Edited June 11, 2022 by The_Capt

[MikeyD]

Claiming NATO is the 'bad guy' is like claiming the rescuer of a rape victim is the bad guy. Putin stated just yesterday outright that he's 100% back in the empire business and that's what the Ukraine war is about. NATO to him is an impediment to his expansionist fantasies.

[fireship4]

5 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

We don't owe you anything, so just be a little more grateful.

They do I think, if they believe in anything at all.  And you don't ask someone to be grateful if you save their life, you do it or you don't do it.

[sburke]

The interesting thing is lately there have been a number of lurkers who have decided to join the conversation and every one has commented they'd been a lurker and some history on how long they've been playing combat mission etc.  So I'm just wee bit curious at a brand new joiner that has a completely different approach and a decidedly Russian apologetic bent.  Oh and yeah I'm skeptical too.

[chrisl]

5 hours ago, dan/california said:

A related question is do we want to put all of this stuff, and mental bandwidth required to operate it, on the heads of every tank crew. It might make a lot more sense to bite the bullet and make one tank out of four a countermeasures platform. My spitball on that would be a SERIOUS phased array radar, laser system, ~20-35 mm rotary cannon with smart shells, and a couple of whatever comes after the stinger. The goal would be for this unit to deal with threats as far out as possible. Lase drones the the second they clear the tree line, and or horizon, shoot down ATGMs when they are hundreds of meters out, blast out various kinds of ECM that will fry an egg a mile away, and let the rest of the unit do their already hard jobs. Just to be clear I think this needs to be on a survivable tracked chassis, Maybe even a modified Abrams hull. I am assuming you can hook that turbine up to one heck of a generator if you set your mind to it. For triple points you could let the ECM unit control RWS on other vehicles when there were high priority threats incoming.

If the bad guys are not playing at the same level, well a rotary cannon is never a bad thing to have.

That just has "Target" painted all over it, and for a technically advanced opponent, the lasers and radar are a screaming beacon saying "Yo, here I am!!!". The sensor system needs to be more distributed, which is at least plausible now with the speed and size of modern computing.  Basically everything on the field needs to be feeding data to a system that integrates it all to create Borg spotting.  Because it is, but without quite doing the implants.

Counter UAV will be provided by a distributed system that has multiple sensor types and multiple response systems, so there won't be a single "anti-UAV vehicle" that can be taken out to make the rest easy targets.  Counter drone would be "managed" from behind the lines using data gathered from everybody.   Counter UAV fire can be a mix of lasers, projectiles, RF interference, and mechanical (e.g. net dragged into the props), depending on the UAV and who's around.  Lasers are nice, but the kind of high energy lasers needed to take out UAVs at long range probably aren't going to be small for a while, will probably be fairly fragile, and are potentially big beacons.

 

4 hours ago, Huba said:

Edit: oh, and it again touches the subject of automation. With a fusion of radar/ IIR / acoustic sensor, I imagine RWS on a tank engaging enemy infantry in the moment they appear in the line of sight in the automatic mode - quite possible technically, yet scary as hell. IFF transponder for every grunt?

Every soldier and vehicle should eventually have at least one drone that's coupled to their VR goggles.  The VR goggles will mix a straight through view of the world with the Borg spotting above, combined with eye tracking, so that when the soldier looks somewhere they get a fusion of direct view, a personal drone view, and the overlay from the fusion system telling them what's behind any obstacle in the direct view.  And they'll be able to target things that are out of direct LOS because the integrated system will be like Longbow on steroids - they'll target the tank before it ever knows they're there.  At least if the counter UAV systems worked.

 

2 hours ago, Huba said:

Solovyov and his lackeys comment on Putin's "Peter the Great Speech". Unusually disgusting even by their standards:

More like Nicolas II...

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

You did a really great job with a fabulous idea. I think it would be even better if you delivered it to him in person! That way, it would also prevent it from being stolen along the way.

I am getting a vision of Kinophile mis-adventuring his way all the clear to trench in a "quiet" section of the front, right before it becomes NOT quiet. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by dan/california