How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Machor]

Russia claims first operational use of Su-57 in Ukraine [Russian site!]:

The fifth element: Su-57 fighters have started operating in Ukraine

https://vpk.name/en/610546_the-fifth-element-su-57-fighters-have-started-operating-in-ukraine.html

"The fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft are involved in a special military operation. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov announced the use of the latest fighter jet on June 18. The new planes made not only single, but also group sorties. On the same day, the armed formations of Ukraine continued intensive shelling of the DPR and LPR. Donetsk was hit by MLRS and heavy artillery for several hours."

"Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said on June 18 that Russian troops used fifth-generation Su-57 fighters during a special military operation in Ukraine. According to him, these planes have been used repeatedly.

— Both single sorties and several aircraft in coordination, in information interaction, used aviation weapons of destruction, very effectively, — said Yuri Borisov."

"The Su-57 is a fifth—generation multifunctional vehicle. First of all, it is a fighter, said military expert Vladislav Shurygin.

— Based on the results of these sorties, conclusions will be drawn, it is possible that a decision will be made to improve certain parameters of the machines, documents on its use will be finalized, the expert added."

The rest of the article is a propaganda blurb; here's a tasting: 

"In Mykolaiv, Ukrainian special services are filming stories about private houses allegedly destroyed by the Russian army and civilians left homeless. More than 40 actors are involved in the staged video filming, all participants were paid a monetary reward of $ 25, Mikhail Mizintsev noted."

Edited June 24, 2022 by Machor
Added title

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

A major list of Majors for you.

Major Nikolai Bugay (or Buhai as @Haiduk writes below), Mi-35 pilot:

Major Alexander Shevstov, helicopter unit:

Major Vladimir Efremov:

Major Roman Kuznetsov, battalion commander, 39th Motor Rifle Brigade:

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by akd

[Haiduk]

@sburke @Kinophile

Mayor Nikolay Buhai, pilot of Mi-35.,got lost 24th of Feb during raid on Hostomel airfield - probably his helicopter with two bodies inside was recovered from Kyiv water reservoir. In social media pointed he served on Far East, so probably 319th or 112th separate helicopter regiments, though Wiki says both havn't Mi-35 on armament.

Interesting detail. He was born and raised in Ukraine - in Cherkasy oblast, the heartland of Ukraine. He has exclusive Ukrainan surname - Buhai (eng. means "bittern"). But since he entered to Syzran' high military aviation scholl and served in Soviet army, his mentality was completely changed even from Soviet Ukrainain to Soviet man and further Russian. And now he came with war on own motherland. Who knows, maybe his parents still live in Ukraine? We already had some captured Russian pilots, more younger, which were born and Ukraine and had parents here. 

@akd

We posted this simultrainously  I just told some more about this piot. Also its questinable how correctly to translit his surname ) Bugay is maybe more correctly for Russian transliteration, but I think it will sound in English like [bugei], when more correctly will be [buhai] as in Ukrainian or [bugai] on Russian manner . It's just an excursion in slavic pronunciation  

Edited June 24, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

In Russian publics are concerned about development of UKR advance in Vuhlehirsk (Uglegorsk on Russian maps) area, south of Donetsk oblast. I've posted yesterday information that UKR troops liberated Pavlivka village, today local pro-Russian sources calimed UKR forces seized northern outskirts of Novomayorske village and entered to Mykilske, but unknown, the village is our or still contested. 

My yesterday map according to LiveUAmap lines turned out wrong - villages eastern of Pavlivka also occupied, so DeepState map on this section of front is more correct.

 

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Haiduk

[A Canadian Cat]

4 hours ago, hcrof said:

Those are some big numbers almost 1000 artillery pieces a month is probably more losses then the whole Soviet Union took in WW2!

Those losses claimed are for a single day not a month. A likely story /s

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Letter from Prague said:

I think that's the fuel, not secondaries. It looks like it went towards the camera and hit a field, not the launcher.

I thought I originally wrote that but maybe not. That's my thought. It hit the launcher (which was now empty) and destroyed it.

[Taranis]

↑ 12 minutes video about russian reshifting of forces in Donbas, russian artillery concentration and morale objective of this area

 

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

When they could fly more than 20 km with ammunition. R18 range is only 4 km. Bayraktars can be shot with Pantsyr or Osa, so it has less opportunity to break through echeloned AD, when Pantsyrs guard S-300 around.

Polish Warmate loitering munitins has 10 km of range, but I don't see videos of its succesfull usage, and at least three were shot down with small-arms, because its ceiling is just 500 m.

But Switchblade 600 has a 40 km range and is large enough to destroy a vehicle. I can't see this tech being too difficult to replicate and produce. Airplane wing design is based on all sorts of pre-made configurations. And gliders have been a strictly civilian thing too. Drones clearly take design features from gliders like the large aspect ratio wings.

Being unable to penetrate the AD barrier is something else, but if you can waste a drone on an AA missile that seems like a victory to me. The drones can't be too complicated to produce. And in a wartime economy you can produce these things on the cheap, so long as you aren't importing pcb from China.

 

@dan/california@Letter from PragueLooks like it actually struck two support trucks.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Artkin

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Machor said:

Russia claims first operational use of Su-57 in Ukraine [Russian site!]:

In contrast I saw something saying Ukrainian pilots are starting to get trained on F-15 and F-16. I find the former a little hard to believe but the latter, sure.

 

Edit: also from that article

"— In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 206 aircraft, 132 helicopters, 1,241 unmanned aerial vehicles, 343 anti—aircraft missile systems, 3,613 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 547 multiple rocket launcher combat vehicles, 2,032 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 3,687 units of special military vehicles have been destroyed, - Igor listed Konashenkov"

 

3,613 tanks. Poor Ukraine. they've lost all their tanks, Poland's, England's France's, even Germany's. And now they're dipping into our stocks.

Also The Military Balance 2020 says Ukraine had 348 MRLS.

Military Balance 2021 says 354.

Neither mentioned anything about reserves, which they normally will.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Artkin

[rocketman]

2 hours ago, Probus said:

I just wish it was for a happier subject Bill. 

The announcement of CMx3 with state of the art graphics will get roughly the same amount of views. And a far more happier subject.

Edited June 24, 2022 by rocketman

[Battlefront.com]

Here's an interesting shot.  It is of VDV vehicles being transported through Mariupol.  Where to?  Where from?  I don't know, but the markings show that this was one of the units that came down from Belarus east of Kyiv.  Even after all these months they still have the old O markings (a couple of Vs too).

I can never remember which VDV fought on the east side.  76th Guards Air Assault Div?

 

[JonS]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Non-professional?!  Bil,..ouch.  Unpaid maybe.  There is a lot of professionals from a lot of fields here, it is what makes this whole thing work in my opinion.  That and "the professionals" really haven't done much better as far as I can tell...and I am being kind in some examples.

There is a nice quote from MacDonald Fraser's 'Quartered safe out here', where he reflects on the effectiveness of the conscript platoon he was in...

"Professionals? No, we weren't professionals. We were experts!"

Edited June 24, 2022 by JonS

[Huba]

 

[Beleg85]

Like flies to honey...

Kadyrovites arrived for master shots. Convoy with shocking number of two Ukrainian prisoners just passed by when their commander was giving an interview...

Btw. the number of prisoners in the Zolotoye cauldron varies greatly from source to source, from ~30 confirmed by video to several hundreds in RUS sources. I just hope they did not executed POWs.

[FancyCat]

Good article, aside from the ammunition depot explosions in 2014, more explosions, attacks on executives of weapon manufacturers in Eastern Europe also occurred from 2014 to present that hindered Ukraine's ability to source weapons and ammo from the rest of former Soviet era users. In hindsight, Russia's extensive intelligence, sabotage, and insidious messaging programs across Europe and the West, constituted serious, rising threat thresholds that our failure to respond as tiers of escalation led to Putin thinking this invasion was gonna work out much better for him than it did in reality.

Luckily, finally, we seem to be waking up to the fact Russia has been undertaking serious acts of damage against the West, economically, politically, socially, and we finally seem to be responding in a manner matching his escalations.

I am not worried about any statements from western leaders that are overly aggressive, it is clear now that Putin has been acting without fear and unchecked, and proper de-escalation requires matching rhetoric and actions to emphasize the prior ignorance of Russian aggression in the past will not be ignored now.

I remain hopeful the goal of NATO in supplying armaments to Ukraine is slow boiling of the frog. I do note HIMARS, which the Twitter thread linked below describes it as a new capability for the Ukrainian military, is now in operation and while in the beginning Russian concerns were loud, and repeated in western news, it's become more muted domestically and ignored in western news. Anti-ship missiles, MLRS, slowly but surely Ukraine is attaining more and more upgraded capability and for once, Russia seems unable to stop it from occurring.

I remember seeing people worried about Russian warships getting sunk with Harpoons and now nada, the Black Sea Fleet stays well away from Odessa.

 

[Letter from Prague]

16 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Good article, aside from the ammunition depot explosions in 2014, more explosions, attacks on executives of weapon manufacturers in Eastern Europe also occurred from 2014 to present that hindered Ukraine's ability to source weapons and ammo from the rest of former Soviet era users. In hindsight, Russia's extensive intelligence, sabotage, and insidious messaging programs across Europe and the West, constituted serious, rising threat thresholds that our failure to respond as tiers of escalation led to Putin thinking this invasion was gonna work out much better for him than it did in reality.

Luckily, finally, we seem to be waking up to the fact Russia has been undertaking serious acts of damage against the West, economically, politically, socially, and we finally seem to be responding in a manner matching his escalations.

Yes. It is incredible what the Russians have gotten away with until now. No more.

16 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

One thing I was thinking is that HIMARS would be a very good choice to deal with Russian air defense. Every blown up piece of air defense opens up new posiblities. I think the missiles are too small to be intercepted by air defense, but could ATACAMS be? It doesn't look that much smaller than Tochka.

Also, my friend was claiming that even though the US gave Ukraine only the short range missiles for now, they can be turned into the longer range ones by "putting in more fuel". I assume that is nonsense, not only are the missiles too smart and would have to be recalibrated, etc, I would also expect them to use solid fuel. But I'd be glad for professional (or non-professional but expert, heh) opinion.

[akd]

19 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Also, my friend was claiming that even though the US gave Ukraine only the short range missiles for now, they can be turned into the longer range ones by "putting in more fuel". I assume that is nonsense, not only are the missiles too smart and would have to be recalibrated, etc, I would also expect them to use solid fuel. But I'd be glad for professional (or non-professional but expert, heh) opinion.

It is rumored the 70km official range for GMLRS is very conservative.

Edited June 24, 2022 by akd

[kraze]

3 hours ago, Machor said:

— Based on the results of these sorties, conclusions will be drawn, it is possible that a decision will be made to improve certain parameters of the machines, documents on its use will be finalized, the expert added.

Wow, so it means those planes got effed up badly, didn't they? With russian euphemisms a la "hard landing as a result of slightly touching the ground" meaning Il76 got smashed to bits.

[SeinfeldRules]

46 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Also, my friend was claiming that even though the US gave Ukraine only the short range missiles for now, they can be turned into the longer range ones by "putting in more fuel". I assume that is nonsense, not only are the missiles too smart and would have to be recalibrated, etc, I would also expect them to use solid fuel. But I'd be glad for professional (or non-professional but expert, heh) opinion.

This is absolutely incorrect, you can do no such thing.

26 minutes ago, akd said:

It is rumored the 70km official range for GMLRS is very conservative.

That rumor started because the official range is actually more like 84km. https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2016/armament/Turner.pdf

See slide 9.

Edited June 24, 2022 by SeinfeldRules

[Vet 0369]

On 6/23/2022 at 6:35 PM, Huba said:

Fully agreed, EU has to redefine itself in next years if it is to accept new members. Parting with unanimity is needed - Poland should be OK with this I hope, if our history teaches us something, it is that liberum veto can easily destroy a democracy.

 

 

Would that be a reference to “Exploding the Diet?”

[potato4212]

so my question to you professionals is, how many men can Ukraine realistically mobilize and how will they be equipped?  

[paxromana]

22 minutes ago, potato4212 said:

so my question to you professionals is, how many men can Ukraine realistically mobilize and how will they be equipped?  

From memory, 5% of the population is generally regarded as the maximum you can manage without trashing your economy ... 10% is possible for short periods (eg Israel in 1956, 1967, 1973) ... this can be modified a bit to a lot if you are receiving outside support for your War Effort (such as Lend Lease to the Soviets in WW2 which allowed them to comb out 'excess' Factory and Farm workers to expend in poorly planned an executed campaigns).

I know in WW2 that Australia (pop 6.9 million in 1939) had as many as 14 Division equivalents (mostly Militia, not for service outside Australia, perhaps 180,000 men in the army, dunno about RAAF or RAN manpower) at the height of mobilisation, but that had to be cut back significantly (in mid-late 1943 IIRC) because manpower was needed in factories and on farms (i.e. mobilisation had taken up too many).

Ukraine, with 44 million, could theoretically field 2.2 million, perhaps more if the EU, NATO and other democratic states basically underwrote their war effort and civilian economic needs.

Edited June 25, 2022 by paxromana

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, potato4212 said:

so my question to you professionals is, how many men can Ukraine realistically mobilize and how will they be equipped?  

It's an unknown, really.  It also depends on if you mean what % of the population can go to war within a short period of time (say 1-2 years) vs. how many can be sustained under arms at any one time.

Paxromana came up with a number of 2+ million and that's one I've seen bandied about as the maximum % of the population that can be employed for direct military duties in total over a couple of years without wrecking the economy and society.  The big question we don't know right now is how many Ukraine can handle concurrently.

There's been several hundred thousand mobilized since the war started.  These were added to the roughly 250,000 that were under arms before the war.  I'm not sure there is an official number of how many are fighting in total, including volunteer units.  Some figures put the total at about 900,000 and some lower.

Whatever that number is, Ukraine is struggling to get them all trained, armed, and supplied for war.  Which isn't a surprise.  Doubling or tripling a military force in 3-4 months is not easy nor is it common since WW2.

The thing is, Ukraine is no doubt already getting better at mobilization.  Russia hasn't even attempted it and will run into even worse problems if it tries.  Russia won't have someone supplying body armor, small arms, ammunition, uniforms, etc. in the hundreds of thousands like Ukraine is getting from its allies.

Steve

[paxromana]

47 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Whatever that number is, Ukraine is struggling to get them all trained, armed, and supplied for war.  Which isn't a surprise.  Doubling or tripling a military force in 3-4 months is not easy nor is it common since WW2.

It took the US from the OHIO Plan in 1940 to, what, late 1943 to expand from a Peacetime Army to 90 Divisions plus supporting combat elements that were the equivalent in size and manpower ... and they did this by splitting newly trained divisions in two (? it's a while since I read up on this, maybe it was into four?) and then using them as cadre to traiun up replacements in the existing unit while the other segments became the basis for a new division.

This seemed to work well for the most part - with the caveat that the last Division(s) to complete the process were not as successful as the others, from memory one of the Divisions that performed (relatively) poorly in the early days of the Battle of the Bulge (the 116th? again, it's been a while since I read this) was one of those last trained units.

From the limited information that I've seen on this newsgroup it seems as if the Ukrainians are training their men well for the most part  - or, at the very least, deploying them in ways which enhance their strengths while minimising any weaknesses while the Russians are, as is their historical wont, simply rushing poorly trained cannon-fodder to the front to die for the motherland.

It remains to be seen what tempo of training and deployment the Ukrainians can manage ... the US effort in WW2 was pretty exceptional in historical terms.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

9 hours ago, Machor said:

Russia claims first operational use of Su-57 in Ukraine [Russian site!]:

The fifth element: Su-57 fighters have started operating in Ukraine

https://vpk.name/en/610546_the-fifth-element-su-57-fighters-have-started-operating-in-ukraine.html

"The fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft are involved in a special military operation. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov announced the use of the latest fighter jet on June 18. The new planes made not only single, but also group sorties. On the same day, the armed formations of Ukraine continued intensive shelling of the DPR and LPR. Donetsk was hit by MLRS and heavy artillery for several hours."

"Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said on June 18 that Russian troops used fifth-generation Su-57 fighters during a special military operation in Ukraine. According to him, these planes have been used repeatedly.

— Both single sorties and several aircraft in coordination, in information interaction, used aviation weapons of destruction, very effectively, — said Yuri Borisov."

"The Su-57 is a fifth—generation multifunctional vehicle. First of all, it is a fighter, said military expert Vladislav Shurygin.

— Based on the results of these sorties, conclusions will be drawn, it is possible that a decision will be made to improve certain parameters of the machines, documents on its use will be finalized, the expert added."

The rest of the article is a propaganda blurb; here's a tasting: 

"In Mykolaiv, Ukrainian special services are filming stories about private houses allegedly destroyed by the Russian army and civilians left homeless. More than 40 actors are involved in the staged video filming, all participants were paid a monetary reward of $ 25, Mikhail Mizintsev noted."

There are hardly any of them and the program has been riddled with problems.

I find this to be highly dubious.