How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Kadyrov will not allow his little army be attrited. He will pull them long before that. Informally I believe he answers only to Putin and can leave the party whenever he wants. 

It doesn't actually matter whether they are dead or just go home.

[Huba]

6 minutes ago, Grigb said:

DNR Minister of the Interior about current plans:

So,

1. LDNR reorganize troops for further offensive
2. The goal of the new offensive will be buffer zone 120 km from LDNR region  
3. They hope to start it within the week

Due to way he is speaking about other regions I got the feeling they are back to previous plan with big pincers to cut the whole east region.  But we will see.

You forgot to mention most important take, which is that special military operation is going according to plan 

Seriously though, I wonder if this means they will drop the idea of capturing Severodonetsk, or does he assume they will get it in one week from now? Or will they continue fighting there AND go on to create the buffer zone around Donetsk, while reinforcing Kherson and Zaporizhya directions simultaneously? It is hard not to be sarcastic reading this...

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Huba said:

You forgot to mention most important take, which is that special military operation is going according to plan 

Seriously though, I wonder if this means they will drop the idea of capturing Severodonetsk, or does he assume they will get it in one week from now? Or will they continue fighting there AND go on to create the buffer zone around Donetsk, while reinforcing Kherson and Zaporizhya directions simultaneously? It is hard not to be sarcastic reading this...

It has a real Berlin 1945 feel, when Hitler started to give orders to armies that only existed in his imagination. 

[DesertFox]

Found this site quite usefull to keep track what has been delivered and promised:

Western Heavy Materiel Support To Ukraine: What Has, And What Hasn't, Arrived... (substack.com)

 

 

[Grigb]

10 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Given that they have been breaking their teeth in in Severodonetsk for a month, and still don't have it seems a wee bit optimistic to declare that there will be huge new push even as our entire logistics infrastructure goes up in flames.

 

Talk big without any connections to reality is cornerstone of RU culture.  

[Grigb]

13 minutes ago, Huba said:

Seriously though, I wonder if this means they will drop the idea of capturing Severodonetsk, or does he assume they will get it in one week from now? Or will they continue fighting there AND go on to create the buffer zone around Donetsk, while reinforcing Kherson and Zaporizhya directions simultaneously? It is hard not to be sarcastic reading this...

They will continue to fight at SD at least not to give UKR chance to move forces. But the intensity will be lower. I do not think they want to reinforce Kherson and Zaporizhya. Probably they try to do SD, Kherson and Zaporizhya with LDNR troops but will start new one offensive with Ru regulars - you remember Girkin said sometime ago that RU are forming new reserves.

But we will see.

[Grigb]

24 minutes ago, dan/california said:

It doesn't actually matter whether they are dead or just go home.

True. It is interesting indicator - when Kadyrov pull his troops then we will know the war end is in sight.

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Major Yuri Borisov, Deputy Battalion Commander (for Armament), naval infantry battalion, 155th Guards Separate Naval Infantry Brigade:

An odd anecdote about fighting along Irpin River in piece on his death:

Quote

- When the Marine Corps Company was pressed against the Irpin River with enemy fire, there were many wounded in their hands, - writes Alexei Sukonkin. - His artillery ran out of shells, and the nationalists sat down. Major Borisov came to the rescue. On BREMka and two BMP-3s, he broke through to his surrounded colleagues. So that people could cross the river, he drove one of the IFVs into the water - it became a "bridge" for the surrounded Marines - moved under enemy fire. Everyone went out, took out the wounded. Sailors and officers simply idolized Yura Borisov for this salvation.

 

[Combatintman]

21 hours ago, Cederic said:

Sounds hellishly expensive. Sidewinder missiles at three for a million make sense against a $400m manned aircraft but cost as much as the drone you're shooting down. Drop to options a third of the price, even Starstreak at $100k/missile still gets painful fast, because you can flood the battlefield with cheap disposable attack drones.

Drop to another third of the price, around a tenth of a Sidewinder, and strap on several stingers. $38k a shot is almost affordable. But your opponent has those too, the skies'll be raining shrapnel and UAVs for the first few hours of a shooting war.

At which point air attacks become as simple as they are now. CAS looks like it's now a drone game, but circle around the lines, go deep, take out ammunition dumps, fuel stores, HQs, rail yards, oil refineries.. air power has range and precision, and those just aren't going out of fashion.

Even now Ukraine has too many miles of front to defend. Quite why Russia can't or haven't found the gaps in air defences at the borders and front lines and used those as channels to hit strategic targets is confusing.

I think a NATO combined air assault on armed forces equipped/fighting as the two countries in Ukraine are would still succeed, and without supplies the artillery is just a heavy trailer.

Talking of military ineptitude ... the Saudis have been using AMRAAMs to knock down Houthi 'suicide' UAVs in the Yemen conflict for quite a while now.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Kadyrov will not allow his little army be attrited. He will pull them long before that. Informally I believe he answers only to Putin and can leave the party whenever he wants. 

Yes, that is the case. The whole idea of keeping majority of them outside political system is to use them as blocking force on soldiers, murtineers, rebel generals and civilians. Not unlike Ivan IV did with his oprychniki - who were similarly ****ty as frontline soldiers.

 

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Now the Chechens are probably being committed to some the ugliest urban combat of the whole war, at the exact moment that better western artillery has arrived and the Russian artillery advantage is is starting to diminish.

Some of them were already in combat at Mariupol and Chechen detachments were badly mauled at Kyiv- the "Akhmat-Sila" battalion (what a bloody name...) is probably a irregular ad hoc unit of this kind. There are also numerous eports from Journalists at Caucasus that many young males (especially those that are poor, outside of families allied with Kadyrov clan and lacks backing by powerful elders) are forcefully conscripted into Kadyrov army. He may purposefully use Ukrainian meatgrinder to get rid of some of his adversaris, or conversly but their loyalty by keeping their kids out of combat.

He may look like casual sympathetic Dangeons & Dragons nerd, but is in fact cold blooded murderer.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Beleg85

[The_Capt]

21 hours ago, Cederic said:

Sounds hellishly expensive. Sidewinder missiles at three for a million make sense against a $400m manned aircraft but cost as much as the drone you're shooting down. Drop to options a third of the price, even Starstreak at $100k/missile still gets painful fast, because you can flood the battlefield with cheap disposable attack drones.

Drop to another third of the price, around a tenth of a Sidewinder, and strap on several stingers. $38k a shot is almost affordable. But your opponent has those too, the skies'll be raining shrapnel and UAVs for the first few hours of a shooting war.

At which point air attacks become as simple as they are now. CAS looks like it's now a drone game, but circle around the lines, go deep, take out ammunition dumps, fuel stores, HQs, rail yards, oil refineries.. air power has range and precision, and those just aren't going out of fashion.

Even now Ukraine has too many miles of front to defend. Quite why Russia can't or haven't found the gaps in air defences at the borders and front lines and used those as channels to hit strategic targets is confusing.

I think a NATO combined air assault on armed forces equipped/fighting as the two countries in Ukraine are would still succeed, and without supplies the artillery is just a heavy trailer.

Wanted to come back to this one as well.  I think we are muddling some issues here:

- Cost.  A strategic issue that many countries are wrestling with but a UAV with a Stinger was what I was talking about to deny manned aircraft and here the cost is upside down for the traditional manned aircraft.  Counter-drone, or drone-v-drone warfare needs a new set of cheaper weapons, which they will be because they don't need the same HE payloads to bring down...finding and hitting them is the primary issue.

- Unmanned warfare.  We are coming up to 120 days of this war and drones are not going anywhere.  In some areas it looks like Russian EW is cooking the sky enough to cause problems for everyone - I would love to see how many EW emitters have been hit.  A shooting drone-v-drone war is going to last a lot longer than a "couple of hours". Why?  Because if you run out of drones in a couple of hours and your opponent has not, you are basically screwed, this war has demonstrated that trend.  Unmanned systems will not be a niche layer we rub on the old one, that once "shot away" allows us to go back to the "good old fashion", there is too much competitive advantage in these systems.  So rapid production and deployment of unmanned systems (of all types), integrated across the depth of the battlefield is going to be a primary driver.

- Good 'ol CAS.  It brings payload and range, I will give it that.  However, it is big and visible - stealth may help but I do not think modern Stealth is built for the ISR environment we have found ourselves within.  So even if you manage to destroy an opponents UAV AD layer, which will not be an easy ask, you still have ground based systems in depth which is what the Russians are facing right now.  Those MANPADs are only going to get smarter, more lethal and able to hit higher.  This is likely why the Russians haven't found "air gaps" on such a large frontage, MANPADs everywhere means there is really no gaps unless you make a major push, which could get very expensive very quickly.  Back to cost, time is a resource as well and one can produce cheap lethal unmanned systems much faster than modern manned military aircraft.  I argue that it will go the other way...manned CAS/Strike/Air Superiority will rain down for the first couple hours - or basically get left sitting out - and then everyone will be relying on unmanned systems.

I keep getting the sense that the big powerful predators of the battlefield are in trouble.  And it is integrated small cheap nasty bite-y little things that are hurting them.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Putting to bed the question as to whether T-62s were the only usable tanks the Russians have in storage...

 

[Harmon Rabb]

Russia acknowledging the attack on Snake Island but claiming it was intercepted.

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Russia acknowledging the attack on Snake Island but claiming it was intercepted.

note incoming artillery rounds were intercepted by the ground and successfully "destroyed".  

[JonS]

No, the equipment successfully intercepted the rounds before they could hit the ground

[Vanir Ausf B]

"Yesterday our soldiers successfully used their bodies to intercept thousands of bullets."

[sburke]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Wanted to come back to this one as well.  I think we are muddling some issues here:

- Cost.  A strategic issue that many countries are wrestling with but a UAV with a Stinger was what I was talking about to deny manned aircraft and here the cost is upside down for the traditional manned aircraft.  Counter-drone, or drone-v-drone warfare needs a new set of cheaper weapons, which they will be because they don't need the same HE payloads to bring down...finding and hitting them is the primary issue.

- Unmanned warfare.  We are coming up to 120 days of this war and drones are not going anywhere.  In some areas it looks like Russian EW is cooking the sky enough to cause problems for everyone - I would love to see how many EW emitters have been hit.  A shooting drone-v-drone war is going to last a lot longer than a "couple of hours". Why?  Because if you run out of drones in a couple of hours and your opponent has not, you are basically screwed, this war has demonstrated that trend.  Unmanned systems will not be a niche layer we rub on the old one, that once "shot away" allows us to go back to the "good old fashion", there is too much competitive advantage in these systems.  So rapid production and deployment of unmanned systems (of all types), integrated across the depth of the battlefield is going to be a primary driver.

- Good 'ol CAS.  It brings payload and range, I will give it that.  However, it is big and visible - stealth may help but I do not think modern Stealth is built for the ISR environment we have found ourselves within.  So even if you manage to destroy an opponents UAV AD layer, which will not be an easy ask, you still have ground based systems in depth which is what the Russians are facing right now.  Those MANPADs are only going to get smarter, more lethal and able to hit higher.  This is likely why the Russians haven't found "air gaps" on such a large frontage, MANPADs everywhere means there is really no gaps unless you make a major push, which could get very expensive very quickly.  Back to cost, time is a resource as well and one can produce cheap lethal unmanned systems much faster than modern manned military aircraft.  I argue that it will go the other way...manned CAS/Strike/Air Superiority will rain down for the first couple hours - or basically get left sitting out - and then everyone will be relying on unmanned systems.

I keep getting the sense that the big powerful predators of the battlefield are in trouble.  And it is integrated small cheap nasty bite-y little things that are hurting them.

There are some other trends that will also influence this like increased urbanization and 3 D printing.

Both are moving us towards a battlefield that is more small unit/infantry centric, will allow for some level of self sufficiency in certain capabilities- like printing small drones as needed and make ISR difficult for an attacking force.  With the increased capability and lethality of anti-air and anti-armor the shift doesn't bode well for a world where resources like water are going to cause an increase in political stress and conflict.

 

[Grigb]

Rumors started to circulate about RU Black Fleet big raid toward Odessa. Says RU finally decided to get rid of UKR fleet remnants and that already multiple targets hit with missile targets at several UKR regions.

I ignored them initially (i mean against what they are planning to fight? What remnants of the fleet?) but more and more RU started to pick them up. Saying that it might be cover for RU reinforcement of Island defenses against incoming UKR attack.

@Haiduk any comments?

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Grigb

[Harmon Rabb]

Kind of frighting how openly they are talking about using starvation to their advantage in this war.

[dan/california]

Russia has decided to make the units on Snake Island hostage to how unhappy NATO is with Putin. Then Putin decided to see how much more unhappy he can make NATO. My guess is that their all expenses paid Black Sea vacation ends rather badly for those Russian SAM crews.

Edited June 20, 2022 by dan/california

[dan/california]

 

2 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Kind of frighting how openly they are talking about using starvation to their advantage in this war.

Not too late to start selling Ukraine cruise missiles for a dollar each as they cross the Polish border. 

[Grigb]

4 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Kind of frighting how openly they are talking about using starvation to their advantage in this war.

Big propaganda mistake - In Russia famine as a tool is strongly associated with Nazis due to Leningrad siege legacy. Margo publicly admitted that RU uses famine as a tool just like German Nazis. Good Job, Beaver head!

If I would be InfoOps guy I would hammer RU regime supporters mercilessly with this tacit admission of RU Nazism. They can run but they will not be able to hide from Nazi label from now on.  

 

[Beleg85]

34 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Big propaganda mistake - In Russia famine as a tool is strongly associated with Nazis due to Leningrad siege legacy. Margo publicly admitted that RU uses famine as a tool just like German Nazis. Good Job, Beaver head!

If I would be InfoOps guy I would hammer RU regime supporters mercilessly with this tacit admission of RU Nazism. They can run but they will not be able to hide from Nazi label from now on.  

But is there enough people in Russia to understand that/care?

I read that as non-very subtle reference to Holodomor or something like "You Nazis do not like to submit. Well then, we will do as you did [I know, crazy] in 1940's".

Bastards.

 

Interesting thread from weiss sources (they were generally right till now):

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Beleg85

[sburke]

36 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Big propaganda mistake - In Russia famine as a tool is strongly associated with Nazis due to Leningrad siege legacy. Margo publicly admitted that RU uses famine as a tool just like German Nazis. Good Job, Beaver head!

If I would be InfoOps guy I would hammer RU regime supporters mercilessly with this tacit admission of RU Nazism. They can run but they will not be able to hide from Nazi label from now on.  

 

yeah just one more reason to divorce ourselves from Russia as much as possible.  Pariah state

[Grigb]

13 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

But is there enough people in Russia to understand that/care?

All of them understand that. The Leningrad siege features prominently in RU grievances about ww2. They will avoid thinking about it though without external hammering. 

But my thinking was more toward UKR Russian speaking collaborators in RU controlled territories. That will effectively destroy RU reputation. RU currently exploit image as the defenders from Nazis and that current war is war against Nazis. Public admission that they are Nazis themselves makes collaboration with them morally unsustainable.