How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

These numbers that Ukraine is putting out over the last few days are vague to an extreme.  They also are obviously being orchestrated as before we got near nothing and now we're getting multiple sources providing us with similar vague numbers.

 

We have already a criticism of this from our military expert Konstantin Mashovets:
 

The methodology chosen by our government to convince the Western public of the need to build up military-technical assistance to Ukraine by reciting "real needs" and "terrible losses" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine  DOES NOT WORK. Because, it does not impress anyone in the West, from the word "absolutely". It is not at this "point" that you need to hit. They need to explain what the BENEFITS are for them from such cooperation. And also, tirelessly explain that it will be BETTER for them if you help Ukraine than not help. Moreover, it is desirable VISUALLY, with figures, maps, diagrams, etc. The mentality of the "transverse" Western citizen is arranged in this way...

Edited June 17, 2022 by Haiduk

[Butschi]

13 minutes ago, poesel said:

A question: how does the mainstream media report about the war in your country?

Here in Germany its always 'the Russians are attacking', 'the Russians are progressing', 'heavy shelling of UA cities', 'heavy losse for the UA army' and so on. Add to that that they mostly shy away from 'internet' video which cannot be verified and instead take picture from Russian news. To be fair, the Russian video are also accompanied with 'we cannot verify this'. They have only just noticed that there is an UA offensive around Cherson.
That leads many of my fellow countrymen to the feeling that this war will be lost or at least that the UA is currently loosing.

Yeah, that totally drives me crazy. I am usually relative happy with the quality of news in our public broadcasts. But since the war started I'm frequently yelling at my TV from frustration. For weeks and weeks it was always "The Russians have, again, increased their attacks." And I was thinking: "Don't you realize that this makes no sense? If you were correct the Russian would now be at the Rhine." Yesterday alone I saw to talkshows where the guests (not stupid for the most part) were saying that Russia is too strong and Ukraine has no chance to win. They somehow seem to analyze a different war than I do.

Then again, German public TV really has no tradition about reporting wars. It seems like it is still a bit... infamous to have expertise in that and so everything that is not reporting how civilians fare in this war is platitude at best.

[Battlefront.com]

I agree that if Ukraine thinks this is a way to influence the West positively, it's a risky move.

There are factions of each Western country that have been arguing, against the facts, that Ukraine can't win this war.  Providing dire statistics about Ukrainian losses could reinforce their beliefs that Ukraine is a "bad investment".

A better approach would be to put loss statistics in context as Konstantin Mashovets suggests.  Show the Russian losses in comparison to emphasize that Ukraine is capable of "punching above its weight".  Make the argument that more Western aid means less Russian military for the West to worry about, but withholding aid jeopardizes this.

Steve

[Butschi]

9 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

We have already a criticism of this from our military expert Konstantin Mashovets:
 

The methodology chosen by our government to convince the Western public of the need to build up military-technical assistance to Ukraine by reciting "real needs" and "terrible losses" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine  DOES NOT WORK. Because, it does not impress anyone in the West, from the word "absolutely". It is not at this "point" that you need to hit. They need to explain what the BENEFITS are for them from such cooperation. And also, tirelessly explain that it will be BETTER for them if you help Ukraine than not help. Moreover, it is desirable VISUALLY, with figures, maps, diagrams, etc. The mentality of the "transverse" Western citizen is arranged in this way...

It is hard to do it right, I guess. Too much drama and people find it implausible, not enough drama and you don't gain their attention. I for one react rather allergic to being targeted by narratives and framing but for others it seems to work.

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Yeah, that totally drives me crazy. I am usually relative happy with the quality of news in our public broadcasts. But since the war started I'm frequently yelling at my TV from frustration. For weeks and weeks it was always "The Russians have, again, increased their attacks." And I was thinking: "Don't you realize that this makes no sense? If you were correct the Russian would now be at the Rhine." Yesterday alone I saw to talkshows where the guests (not stupid for the most part) were saying that Russia is too strong and Ukraine has no chance to win. They somehow seem to analyze a different war than I do.

Then again, German public TV really has no tradition about reporting wars. It seems like it is still a bit... infamous to have expertise in that and so everything that is not reporting how civilians fare in this war is platitude at best.

From my perspective it's very similar here in the US.  The mainstream media talks about Russian "attacks" and "advances" similar to what you guys are saying about the German media.  Earlier they were talking about the Russians "regrouping for new attacks" and "bringing in reserves" and all kinds of things that gave the impression that Russia was still in control of things.

I don't think I've ever heard mainstream media refer to a particular Russian offensive action as being "desperation" or "nearly exhausted" or "ineffective", but they should

Steve

[Calamine Waffles]

Interesting appendix to a paper from RAND about the Russian military and military industrial complex:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1086706

Highlights the state of several important Russian arms manufacturers. Just three of them here:

Kolomna BM (maker of the Iskander-M) (p. 124)

Quote

KBM is reputed to be very well run by the standards of the Russian defense-industrial
complex. It received an award from the Military-Industrial Commission in 2015 for its suc-
cess fulfilling its part of the State Defense Order. 47 The year before that, KBM was selected
“the research institution of the military-industrial complex with the highest social-economic
effectiveness” out of over 450 considered. 48 In 2013, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
named KBM as “one defense enterprise with which we have no problems whatsoever.”

Novator (maker of the Kalibr) (p. 129)

Quote

Novator’s troubles extend to its manufacturing operations, which apparently proceed
despite seriously outdated facilities and equipment. These problems attracted criticism in the
Russian-language blogosphere in 2015 when a Russian nationalist located a document on a
Russian government website about plans to modernize Novator at state expense. Noting that
the plant’s buildings all dated to the mid-1970s, that more than half of its production equip-
ment dated to the Soviet period, and that less than 10 percent of it was under five years old, he
lamented that the modernization “should’ve been started much earlier.”

Novator probably employs less than 0.5 percent of the working population of Yekaterin-
burg and likely has limited influence on local and regional politics. A city of nearly 1.5 million
people, Yekaterinburg has a well-diversified and fairly prosperous economy by Russian stan-
dards. It is headquarters to a number of major Russian corporations.

Motovilikhinskie Zavody (maker of the BM-27 Uragan) (p. 108)

Quote

In 2012 the average pay was 27,000 rubles/month.59 Anonymous
comments about conditions at the plant posted on a Russian website by Motovilikhinskie
Zavody employees indicate a high degree of disaffection among its staff. One complained in
March 2015 that “it all began with the arrival of Klochkov. They got rid of the skilled workers’
bonuses and then tried to economize on production . . . now they’re delaying our paychecks
and paying us in installments!”60 Another expressed incredulity that television reporting had
claimed the average salary at the factory was 35,000 rubles/month. “The specialists are simply
fleeing the factory,” he or she noted, as “an engineer-technologist makes 14,000 rubles here—
that’s a janitor’s salary!”

 

[Butschi]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

A better approach would be to put loss statistics in context as Konstantin Mashovets suggests.  Show the Russian losses in comparison to emphasize that Ukraine is capable of "punching above its weight".  Make the argument that more Western aid means less Russian military for the West to worry about, but withholding aid jeopardizes this.

Good point. There is a lot of talk in German media about the high Ukrainian losses but they are never compared to Russian losses.

[Beleg85]

34 minutes ago, poesel said:

A question: how does the mainstream media report about the war in your country?

Here in Germany its always 'the Russians are attacking', 'the Russians are progressing', 'heavy shelling of UA cities', 'heavy losse for the UA army' and so on. Add to that that they mostly shy away from 'internet' video which cannot be verified and instead take picture from Russian news. To be fair, the Russian video are also accompanied with 'we cannot verify this'. They have only just noticed that there is an UA offensive around Cherson.
That leads many of my fellow countrymen to the feeling that this war will be lost or at least that the UA is currently loosing.

This is actually good question, our short attention span is probably one of main Putin cards.

In Poland it's predictably one of main topics, but media already starting their petty political fighs and talks about inflation, musical contests etc. Usually however there is an expert or reporter who do some more serious talking. There is quite a lot of documentaries or interviews with people who for example escaped Mariupo, and it is also cool they now actually put on a lot Polish-speaking Ukrainians as hosts of programs to explain their country attitude.

What I lack is serious, long ,deep military analysis with maps. They have some staff, but apparently prefer 5-mins takes to scope on sentimental stories about adopting stray Ukrainian dogs or muscovites atrocities. They are not bad of course, but I would prefer more real info.

They are mainstream, one cannot expect too much, right? At least none here is siding with Russians.

 

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Beleg85

[Letter from Prague]

1 hour ago, Calamine Waffles said:

 

Given reliability of Russian warships, tugs are probably even more important to Russian navy than any other navy.

But my question is ... are the Russians really that dumb. This is the like sixth time they got hit hard and lost important materiel and people (one of those they don't care about) messing around the Snake island - possibly starting with Moska, then the TBd ships, then the airstrike, then more TBing of helicopters ... and now this.

How many times can you fail horribly without realizing something is not going to work out? It seems the Russians are pretty bad at taking a hint. Must be fun dating scene.

...

As for Western artillery turning things around. I was hoping it would have, especially because it is supposed to outrange the Russian one. That would both allow to strike deeper (making logistics worse), strike from further and thus be safer or some combination of both.

Any ideas why that has not happened? 

[Billy Ringo]

When it comes to both Ukrainian military and public relations policy/strategies I have simply assumed they are leaning heavily on Western brain trusts.  Especially those pouring in the most funding, deepest military pockets  and have the most public relations/marketing, real-life battle and war-gaming experience.  If the US and UK are pouring in billions in resources I think they would want some say in the use of those resources.  And, seemingly, it would be advantageous for Ukraine to lean on those brain trusts to maximize their effectiveness on the battlefield AND in influencing public opinion.

So, why mention all this?

I have a strong suspicion that the Ukrainians, Americans and Brits all have very good estimates as to the losses from both sides of the battle.  They know WTF is really going on.  The rest of what we see in videos, battlefield losses, press, TV, etc. has been carefully crafted with specific intent to influence the West, Russia, China, and the rest of the World.    

Thus--what we see may be total BS.

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Billy Ringo

[Grigb]

May I suggest that UKR exaggerates losses not for West but for RU to lure them to continue fruitless assaults? Keep going Ivan, you are doing great, hitting that wall with your head, ignore your head wound the wall is about to collapse... 

[Calamine Waffles]

10 minutes ago, Letter_from_Prague said:

As for Western artillery turning things around. I was hoping it would have, especially because it is supposed to outrange the Russian one. That would both allow to strike deeper (making logistics worse), strike from further and thus be safer or some combination of both.

Any ideas why that has not happened? 

There are a few things:

1) There just aren't that many of the Western systems there. You're talking about maybe 200-300 or so altogether of M777s, FH-70s, M109s, Krabs, etc. at most in Ukraine right now.

2) Ukraine cannot mass their forces to launch big counteroffensives until they are reasonably sure the Russian indirect fire capability has been reasonably degraded. Even then, they still have to worry about potential Russian air strikes, and Ukrainians don't have that many modern mobile SPAA, while MANPADS don't have the range.

3) They were not given the really good stuff (the M777 in particular did not come with Excalibur, contrary to what news media outlets reported earlier).

4) It outranges most of the Russian standard howitzers (Msta-B, Msta-S, D-20, D-30), but not the dedicated Russian counterbattery stuff (Giatsint-B, Giatsint-S, 2S7) and the rocket artillery (BM-27 and BM-30).

5) Most of the Russian logistics stuff is located pretty deep in the rear, so if you want to hit those you have to bring up the artillery to nearer the FEBA, which in turn puts you more in range of the Russian standard artillery.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, Grigb said:

May I suggest that UKR exaggerates losses not for West but for RU to lure them to continue fruitless assaults? Keep going Ivan, you are doing great, hitting that wall with your head, ignore your head wound the wall is about to collapse... 

yeah, that's a good point.  If RU thinks UKR is on the ropes, they'll keep pushing at way too high a cost.  

And we are all here thinking RU is on the ropes 

The one thing we do know: neither side is currently demonstrating any ability for game-changing offensive actions.  If RU gets severodonetsk, it means very little strategically, nothing really changes.  Then they move forces to izyum & popasne fronts and try to swallow the rest of the UKR salient.  Which even if successful doesn't really change the war.

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Evgeny “Bullet” Andreev, battalion commander, 1st AK, DNR (as of 2017 he was a company commander in the 2nd Motor Rifle Battalion of the 11th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment, but don’t know if he rose to command same battalion):

 

[slysniper]

6 hours ago, c3k said:

In civil engineering (no I'm not one), there are margins applied. They are usually on the order of 100%. (In some cases, up to 500%.)  

In the West, a 40 ton bridge could certainly hold more. Would I send a 50 ton tank over a 40 ton bridge? Hell, yeah. I'd drive it.  But, I'd only allow one at a time.  That'd slow down a 50+ tank battalion at every bridge. 

Now, given the corruption and standards of quality shown under the Soviet era, I can certainly see the problems with 50 ton tanks driving over Soviet-built 40 ton bridges. 

Time for some bridge grogs to step in. 

Ok, bridge design and weights.

Here in the US, bridges are designed to handle the load of the heavest item that generally is going over it. That is a 18 Wheeler, a standard truck loaded is 40 Tons. but keep in mind, that is over the full lenght of the truck with so much weight on each axil. Also, part of the design is that you have to design it for bumber to bumper traffic, So when someone says a 50 ton bridge. it is a simple term used to reflect that if you are driving something 50 tons in weight, the bridge is designed for it in the worst case situation. Like bumper to bumper trucks all weighing in at 50 tons.

Plus engineering design has built in safety factors also included. Plus some engineers pad their design numbers even more.

So what I am saying to the non-engineer. If you drive a 60 Ton tank over a 40 ton bridge. And you did it one at a time, its likely no problem at all, even with Russians making the bridge poorly.

The fun part of it is, if the bridge is long, the numbers jump to it not being a issue at all. The only bridges likely to collapse is real short small ones since you would be getting close to maxing out the load of all the traffic it was designed for.

Another reason a tank is a chalenge is all that load is in a small area, somewhat of a point load, that is where the bridge might lack the design for it.  

But I know of truckers running loads off the books up to 80 Tons and managing to get from point A to B and crossing many of a bridge.

So yes, a bridge can take way more load than a posted  call out that is there for traffic.

 

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by slysniper

[Grigb]

5 minutes ago, Letter_from_Prague said:

How many times can you fail horribly without realizing something is not going to work out? It seems the Russians are pretty bad at taking a hint. Must be fun dating scene.

It seems somebody somewhere reported that the island under firm RU control and cannot backpedal now. 

5 minutes ago, Letter_from_Prague said:

As for Western artillery turning things around. I was hoping it would have, especially because it is supposed to outrange the Russian one. That would both allow to strike deeper (making logistics worse), strike from further and thus be safer or some combination of both.

Any ideas why that has not happened? 

It looks like it is happening now in Donetsk area. Important RU targets are being hammered there now and RU looks like cannot do anything about. 

 

[Haiduk]

@sburke @Kinophile

Lt.colonel (retired) Dmitriy Savchenko. Veteran of SOBR special police, participated in wars in Chechnya and Dagestan. Last place of the service before retirement - UFSNK (Directorate of Federal Service of drugs control).

Likely was a member of volunteer unit.

 

[Haiduk]

17 minutes ago, Grigb said:

 

It looks like it is happening now in Donetsk area. Important RU targets are being hammered there now and RU looks like cannot do anything about. 

 

Indeed our 152 mm artillery all 8 years could reach theese targets. Just wasn't political will. Also almost all DPR and Russian artillery moved to Popasna and Siverodonetsk directions. Minimum of counter-battery fire, so our artillery can operate more free. 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Haiduk

[Grigb]

2 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Indeed our 152 mm artillery all 8 years could reach theese tergets. Just wasn't political will. Also almost all DPR and Russian artillery moved to Popasna and Siverodonetsk directions. Minimum of counter-battery fire, so our artillery can operate more free. 

Girkin claims French guns are doing most of the job there. Do not know why.

[Haiduk]

3 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Girkin claims French guns are doing most of the job there. Do not know why.

Donetsk administration claimed most of shelling were with 152 mm caliber. French howitzers as I know on other direction. Donetsk area is relatively calm place now, so no sense concentrate there 155 mm artilelry in large quantity.

[Beleg85]

Ukrainians still seem to be pushing hard West and South of Izium, if map is accurate.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

We have already a criticism of this from our military expert Konstantin Mashovets:
 

The methodology chosen by our government to convince the Western public of the need to build up military-technical assistance to Ukraine by reciting "real needs" and "terrible losses" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine  DOES NOT WORK. Because, it does not impress anyone in the West, from the word "absolutely". It is not at this "point" that you need to hit. They need to explain what the BENEFITS are for them from such cooperation. And also, tirelessly explain that it will be BETTER for them if you help Ukraine than not help. Moreover, it is desirable VISUALLY, with figures, maps, diagrams, etc. The mentality of the "transverse" Western citizen is arranged in this way...

Yeah , he needs to be put in charge of the english language coms department soonest!

[danfrodo]

39 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Girkin claims French guns are doing most of the job there. Do not know why.

Maybe I missed it, but it must have announced, either by Putin or Lavrov -- when is the Russian invasion of France set to occur?  They are already committed to attacking Poland, the baltic states, Finland, Sweden, but according to TV pundits Russia has enough forces to add France to this.  Girkin probably just trying to get the hype up for the Russian re-conquest of France.

And Russia has every right to invade France based on historical precedent since France occupied Paris in 1814.  Or was it 1815?  

 

[danfrodo]

25 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Ukrainians still seem to be pushing hard West and South of Izium, if map is accurate.

I wonder why not NW of Izyum instead?  Probably some terrain issues?  I don't want to fight in the city, no way.  I just want to unhinge RU forces via cutting supply lines.

[Grigb]

1 minute ago, danfrodo said:

And Russia has every right to invade France based on historical precedent since France occupied Paris in 1814.  Or was it 1815?  

France has not yet paid fully for Moscow burned out by Russians in 1812!