How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Machor]

 

Sooo... about the 'Death of the Tank':

The Army Just Selected Its First Light Tank In Decades

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-army-just-selected-its-first-light-tank-in-decades

"For the first time since the Cold War, the U.S. Army is set to acquire and field a new light tank. The service announced today that General Dynamics Land Systems has won its Mobile Protected Firepower program competition and has been awarded a contract worth up to $1.14 billion.

The initial Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) contract award will cover an initial low-rate production order of 96 vehicles. The Army expects to take delivery of the first examples, from an initial lot of 26 MPFs, in December 2023 and have its first unit fully equipped with them by 2025. The service presently plans to buy a total of 504 new light tanks, with most of them arriving by the end of 2035."

"The GDLS MPF design, which is set to public receive a formal name this fall at the Association of the U.S. Army's main annual convention in Washington, D.C, is based on the company's Griffin II. Its main armament is a 105mm gun – unlike the 120mm type found on the original Griffin demonstrator – mounted in a turret derived from the one on the M1 Abrams tank. It uses a version of the fire control system used in the M1A2 System Enhanced Package Version 3 (SEPv3) variant"

"Griffin II was itself derived from the Austrian-Spanish ASCOD armored vehicle series, which also formed the basis of the much-troubled Ajax infantry fighting vehicle for the British Army. GDLS has also put forward another version of the Griffin, known as the Griffin III, as a contender for the Army's Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program, which is focused primarily on finding a replacement for the service's Bradley fighting vehicles."

"The MPF program began in 2015 and the Army down-selected to designs from GDLS and BAE Systems in 2018. BAE Systems' entry was based on the M8 Buford Armored Gun System (AGS) light tank, which was developed for the Army in the 1980s under a separate program that was then canceled in 1996.

The M8 had been slated to replace the service's last light tank, the M551A1 Sheridan, a Vietnam War-era design that had an overly complex 152mm gun/missile launcher as its primary armament. The last M551A1s were retired from active duty service in 1997. A small number of Sheridans remained in inventory for use as mock enemy vehicles during large-scale training exercises until 2003."

"Under the Army's current plans, the majority of the new MPFs will be spread across four battalions. These units will provide additional armored firepower for the service's dismounted Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs), which currently only have light tactical vehicles – Humvees that are now in the process of being replaced by Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) – armed with .50 caliber M2 machine guns, 40mm Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers, and TOW anti-tank missiles, for organic mobile fire support

“The answer is in the name," Army Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, told reporters when asked what the primary mission of these vehicles would be earlier today, according to Breaking Defense. "It’ll give the light infantry units a mobile, protected firepower that … can remove impediments on the battlefield [like light armored vehicles and fortifications] to ensure our infantry women and men make it to the objective."

Exactly how these vehicles will be deployed and employed would seem to remain to be seen. Light is relative in the case of the MPF design, which is is said to be around 38 tons. This is only around two tons lighter than the Army's new M2A4 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, but is 20 tons heavier than the M551A1. It is of course substantially lighter than the Army's latest versions of the M1 tank, which are over 70 tons.

The Army had originally described MPF more in terms of a spiritual successor to the Sheridan, which was not only air-transportable, but also air-droppable. The requirement for the new MPF to be parachutable onto the battlefield was subsequently dropped. A single Air Force C-17A Globemaster III cargo aircraft is expected to be able to carry two of them at a time when flying them to forward airstrips.

It's unclear whether any of the Army's airborne formations will now receive these new light tanks. However, a picture, seen below, from the previous test that the service released today shows an MPF flying an 82nd Airborne Division flag.

The Army's selection of a winning MPF design also comes amid a renewed debate about the future of tanks and other heavier armored vehicles based on observations from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The MPF program itself had first emerged as part of a broader shift in focus within the Army, and the U.S. military as a whole, toward being better prepared for more conventional conflicts in light of Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and its subsequent support for separatists in that country's eastern Donbas region.

Regardless, a quarter of a century after the retirement of the M551A1 from combat duty with no direct replacement in the wings, the Army is now set to begin buying a new fleet of light tanks."

[Machor]

Ukraine received 50 Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones since Russian invasion

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/russia-ukraine-war-tb2-bayraktar-drones-fifty-received

"Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov revealed on Tuesday that Ukraine has received 50 armed drones from Turkish arms company Baykar since Russia's 24 February invasion.

In a Facebook post Reznikov thanked Ukrainians and Baykar for the donation of three Bayraktar TB2 armed drones following a social media fundraising campaign that collected $20m to buy three of the aircraft.

Baykar on Monday said it refused to take the money and would instead donate the drones to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people."

"Reznikov said Ukraine and Turkey are continuing work to build a joint Baykar plant in Ukraine to locally build drones, an agreement that was signed before the war.

“Ukraine's plans to buy Bayraktar are also large-scale,” he said. “Since 24 February only, the Ministry of Defence has armed our military with up to half a hundred 'airplanes'".

Reznikov added that Ukraine has already signed a memorandum of understanding for more drones, which were expected to be delivered in July.

“We have also received a new request from the command of the armed forces of Ukraine and thus, in the near future, almost all capacity of the Baykar Makina plant [in Turkey] will be focused on meeting the needs of the armed forces. It's about ordering dozens more drones,” he added. 

Ukraine and Turkey have close defence industry cooperation, a relationship that has flourished in recent years. 

Ukrainian companies also produce the Baykar’s engines, and Turkey was known to have sold more than 20 Bayraktars to Kyiv over the course of the past two years. Reznikov’s information significantly increased that number. 

Frequent flights between Turkey and Poland over the last two months indicate that Turkey has continued to deliver TB2s and its MAM-L ammunition to Kyiv.

In January, Al-Monitor reported that Ukraine got a 30 percent discount for the TB2 drones, paying approximately $7m for each."

[MikeyD]

Looking at MPF those dimensions look familiar. I recall years (decades?) ago General Dynamics offered the Abrams turret inner shell without the heavy chobham armor package as a light turret package. And that looks like the Abrams inner turret. Maybe it isn't but it sure looks close.

[Huba]

40km+ 155mm fires in the Donbas. With Ukraine now posesing a lot of L52 guns and HIMARS, I expect it will be really hard for RU to again amass the artillery against one point the same way they did around Severodonetsk. Moving hundreds of guns and supporting vehicles to new positions while in range of CB fire will really suck... 

 

[Machor]

On 6/28/2022 at 5:02 PM, Beleg85 said:

The details viewed from Turkish side:

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1541853998138986497

Theoretically it is quite a lot, the question is if Erdogan really got something extra under the table and what will be execution of those agreements. I hope Kurds are not sold out again.

@acrashb @The_MonkeyKing @Aragorn2002 @Lethaface

There's nothing in the MOU that changes the status quo:

- The PKK is a designated terrorist organization in the EU [And with very good reason; see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pınarcık_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yavi_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Market_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2016_Dürümlü_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Freedom_Hawks#Attacks ], so Finland and Sweden are already bound by that.

- Finland and Sweden did not recognize the YPG, the PKK's Syrian arm, as a terrorist organization.

- Whatever arms embargoes Finland and Sweden may have imposed on Turkey, Turkey wasn't trying to buy arms from them.

Solid gains for Turkey would have been Germany and France lifting restrictions on arms exports, and the US agreeing to sell the F-16V upgrade kits. It is not clear if Turkish diplomats seriously thought that they could get these, since the objection to Finland and Sweden joining NATO was raised by Erdoğan as an afterthought. These two tweets are the most realistic assessment:

@Huba @Battlefront.com @billbindc @dan/california

The Biden administration was already supporting the sale of the F-16V upgrade kits to Turkey before Erdoğan's objection to Finland and Sweden, and according to Aaron Stein, the administration's support is genuine: It will be awkward for them to be selling F-35 to Greece - which already has Rafale, F-16V & Patriot - while Congress refuses to sell Turkey Viper upgrade kits for old airframes. Bob Menendez (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Menendez#Awards_and_honors ) may potentially do damage that extends into the promised post-Erdoğan era, as there are already voices in the opposition arguing for a partnership with China.

For now, Plan B seems to be going for Typhoon, and the UK is very encouraging, but getting greenlights from Germany and France would be a challenge.

[dan/california]

50 minutes ago, Machor said:

 

Sooo... about the 'Death of the Tank':

The Army Just Selected Its First Light Tank In Decades

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-army-just-selected-its-first-light-tank-in-decades

"For the first time since the Cold War, the U.S. Army is set to acquire and field a new light tank. The service announced today that General Dynamics Land Systems has won its Mobile Protected Firepower program competition and has been awarded a contract worth up to $1.14 billion.

The initial Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) contract award will cover an initial low-rate production order of 96 vehicles. The Army expects to take delivery of the first examples, from an initial lot of 26 MPFs, in December 2023 and have its first unit fully equipped with them by 2025. The service presently plans to buy a total of 504 new light tanks, with most of them arriving by the end of 2035."

"The GDLS MPF design, which is set to public receive a formal name this fall at the Association of the U.S. Army's main annual convention in Washington, D.C, is based on the company's Griffin II. Its main armament is a 105mm gun – unlike the 120mm type found on the original Griffin demonstrator – mounted in a turret derived from the one on the M1 Abrams tank. It uses a version of the fire control system used in the M1A2 System Enhanced Package Version 3 (SEPv3) variant"

"Griffin II was itself derived from the Austrian-Spanish ASCOD armored vehicle series, which also formed the basis of the much-troubled Ajax infantry fighting vehicle for the British Army. GDLS has also put forward another version of the Griffin, known as the Griffin III, as a contender for the Army's Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) program, which is focused primarily on finding a replacement for the service's Bradley fighting vehicles."

"The MPF program began in 2015 and the Army down-selected to designs from GDLS and BAE Systems in 2018. BAE Systems' entry was based on the M8 Buford Armored Gun System (AGS) light tank, which was developed for the Army in the 1980s under a separate program that was then canceled in 1996.

The M8 had been slated to replace the service's last light tank, the M551A1 Sheridan, a Vietnam War-era design that had an overly complex 152mm gun/missile launcher as its primary armament. The last M551A1s were retired from active duty service in 1997. A small number of Sheridans remained in inventory for use as mock enemy vehicles during large-scale training exercises until 2003."

"Under the Army's current plans, the majority of the new MPFs will be spread across four battalions. These units will provide additional armored firepower for the service's dismounted Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs), which currently only have light tactical vehicles – Humvees that are now in the process of being replaced by Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) – armed with .50 caliber M2 machine guns, 40mm Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers, and TOW anti-tank missiles, for organic mobile fire support

“The answer is in the name," Army Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, told reporters when asked what the primary mission of these vehicles would be earlier today, according to Breaking Defense. "It’ll give the light infantry units a mobile, protected firepower that … can remove impediments on the battlefield [like light armored vehicles and fortifications] to ensure our infantry women and men make it to the objective."

Exactly how these vehicles will be deployed and employed would seem to remain to be seen. Light is relative in the case of the MPF design, which is is said to be around 38 tons. This is only around two tons lighter than the Army's new M2A4 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, but is 20 tons heavier than the M551A1. It is of course substantially lighter than the Army's latest versions of the M1 tank, which are over 70 tons.

The Army had originally described MPF more in terms of a spiritual successor to the Sheridan, which was not only air-transportable, but also air-droppable. The requirement for the new MPF to be parachutable onto the battlefield was subsequently dropped. A single Air Force C-17A Globemaster III cargo aircraft is expected to be able to carry two of them at a time when flying them to forward airstrips.

It's unclear whether any of the Army's airborne formations will now receive these new light tanks. However, a picture, seen below, from the previous test that the service released today shows an MPF flying an 82nd Airborne Division flag.

The Army's selection of a winning MPF design also comes amid a renewed debate about the future of tanks and other heavier armored vehicles based on observations from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The MPF program itself had first emerged as part of a broader shift in focus within the Army, and the U.S. military as a whole, toward being better prepared for more conventional conflicts in light of Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and its subsequent support for separatists in that country's eastern Donbas region.

Regardless, a quarter of a century after the retirement of the M551A1 from combat duty with no direct replacement in the wings, the Army is now set to begin buying a new fleet of light tanks."

The idea of a 105mm high velocity gun just won't die. A 120mm breach loading mortar with a couple  new "common launch rails"  make a thousand times more sense. And even that assumes any sort of direct fire vehicles are still a thing. I assume this comes standard with the successor to the Trophy APS?

[Machor]

4 hours ago, poesel said:

Also lost were Qingdao

And one reason Tsingtao is such good beer is because the brewery was founded by Germans. 

[Machor]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Battery of Russian 2S3 SP-howitzers being destroyed by artillery of 81st airmobile brigade

 

What are the 'axes' referred to in the tweet?

[Calamine Waffles]

Gur Khan on replacing Russian tanks:

http://gurkhan.blogspot.com/2022/06/blog-post_29.html#more

Quote

Replenishment of the tank group of the RF Armed Forces is carried out by removing old models of vehicles from long-term storage. According to representatives of Uralvagonzavod, the order for the production of tanks received after the start of the special operation, which, according to our data, is expressed in several hundred units (much less than half a thousand), will be fulfilled through 2024 inclusive.

For reference, on Oryx's site the number of lost Russian tanks is at ~800.
 

Quote

According to the testimonies of Russian tankers, published incl. and in our blog, the protection of Russian tanks of the latest modernization withstands well the strikes of Soviet-Russian generation weapons, and in the event of a strike by Western anti-tank weapons, they can only hope for luck. The Russian army does not have modern high-quality systems for tactical communications, aerial reconnaissance, combat control and interaction.

The main reason for what is happening is the lack of qualifications of managers in the ordering departments of the RF Ministry of Defense, as well as the element base and components as a result of the destruction of their production facilities by Putin's managers and oligarchs. Cadres decide, if not everything, then a lot.

However, the “negative selection” of managerial specialists characteristic of dictatorial regimes has led Russia to the impossibility of waging quick victorious wars, which we can personally observe today in the example of companies in Syria and Ukraine. At the same time, neither the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry nor the top political leadership wants to accept any criticism of the use of the armed forces and defense construction, preferring to silence independent experts with repressive methods.

 

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Machor said:

- Finland and Sweden did not recognize the YPG, the PKK's Syrian arm, as a terrorist organization.

That was the thing people were most afraid of as it may have open a way for Erdogan to pour into Northern Syria. Overal you are probably right, Ankara does not seem to get much- some military deals and photo with Biden for Sultan. I hope Erdogan will not flick again during ratification process. Do you think he can do that?

Also not to whitewash PKK past terrorist acts, but TAK are already separate group and terribly fishy one at that...they usually go berserk when it fits Erdogan; I wouldn't be surprised if they start to bomb again just before next elections.

 

Also for forum viewers who have twitter- it is worth to follow this account, he is Polish journalist that often is on or behind the frontline in Ukraine, keeping very good vibes with people there, providing interesting view on human side of conflict. Lately he uncovered that one TV crew (French or Belgian if I remember) shockingly did not bother to blur maps and videos which resulted in death of Ukrainian soldier. Pretty messy situation.

https://twitter.com/LachowskiMateus

Btw. I don't remember a war in which social media would be used as a weapon to such extent. Lack of opsec probably killed already hundreds of people on both sides. This should be an issue for future military theory not less important than about drones, tactics etc.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Beleg85

[paxromana]

How long would it take Russia to mobilise ?

Well, they could do what they did in WW2 and hand some random guys rounded up by the NKVD Rifles and give them minimal training and lead them to the front where their dead bodies fail to be roadblocks to the advancing Germand (early stages of Barbarossa) ... or they could give them minimal training (3 months) and most would perform poorly and still get killed in large numbers (by 1944 they were conscripting 17 year olds, and in 1945 they began to conscript 16 year olds ... because their losses were so great they couldn't replace them with the expected intake of 18 year olds).

The US took around a year to 18 months to create a new unit from either scratch or a cadre from a unit which had just finished training ... and , while successful most of the time, the few Divisions fielded right at the end of this process didn'tr get the full time allotment and performed poorly (the 116th? Dvision that did relatively poorly in the Bulge, for example)_.

From personal experience in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF, now the Army Reserve) here in Oz in 1974-75 I know we were supposed to be ready for deployment overseas within 90 days of activation ... which was an absolute joke ... we might have been suitable for limited home defence duties, but it would have taken more like a year for us to be worth spit. I guess US National Guard and UK TAVR would have been similar back in the day.

I'd suspect that, even if they had the necessary equipment (which they don't seem to be rolling in), it would take the Russians at least 9-12 months to be able to field units that would be more than cannon fodder - especially given the demostrable military and societal incompetence they have shown in actually preparing an army ready for war so far.

However, there was a note a while ago that the Russians have committed their Third Battalions to Ukraine - the thing is, these are (were) the units which actually trained their Conscripts. This is like what the Germans did in late 44-early 45 when they commited the Lehr (training) units from all their Wehrkreise (military districts) as combat units ... it meant, for them, that their would be no more effective combat units coming online ever. Except Volksturm guys given an armbanmd and a Rifle or Panzerfaust.

How many 3rd Battalions has Russia committed? The more they have the less able they will be to train conscripts in a reasonable time frame.

[CAZmaj]

On 5/6/2022 at 1:07 PM, BlackMoria said:

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.

I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.

Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....

So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.

After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.

Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.

I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   

Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.

Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....

The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.

Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  

I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   

 

 

Good points you made.

BTW FYI:

https://www.icty.org/en/content/statement-guilt-biljana-plavšić

[Grigb]

3 hours ago, Machor said:

What are the 'axes' referred to in the tweet?

It is nickname for 777.

[Battlefront.com]

For the past few pages there's been a revival of the discussion and debate about Russia's ability to fight a "long war".  We had a fairly similar discussion many hundreds of pages ago sometime towards the beginning of the war.  Maybe as early as March.  The definite winning side of the debate was Russia is unable to fight a long war even if it dedicates itself to that purpose (e.g. full mobilization of all national resources). 

Prior to the invasion I theorized that Russia did not have the ability to fight a long war even if it tried to.  Built into my assumptions was a vastly better military performance by Russia and a far weaker response from the West.  Since Russia fought so miserably and the West vastly exceeded my expectations, Russia's need for a long war is even greater and its chances of doing it even worse.  Which, under my theory, means Russia's chances of winning a long war are even worse than zero.  Hard to imagine what worse than zero is, but if anybody can figure a way of pulling that feat off it's Russia

The key element of a long war is the will to fight.  If a nation has it, then a long war can be won if the means of fighting that war exist.  If the nation lacks a strong commitment to a long war, and all the hardships that come with it, then it isn't possible to win even if it is otherwise able to keep fighting.  A perfect example of this is the US in Afghanistan.  Economically and militarily it could have continued fighting in Afghanistan for another 20 years, but the will to do that simply wasn't there.  The Taliban, on the other hand, had the will and the means to go another 20.

The simple fact is that the majority of Ukrainians believe that there is no choice but to fight.  This belief is deeply rooted in hundreds of years of persecution by Russia.  There is ample evidence to show that this belief is real.  The present war has removed all doubt from not only the minds of Ukrainians but the minds of a huge chunk of the West's population. 

Russians, on the other hand, have no such clarity of vision about what this war is about.  For sure the Putin regime has created a convoluted and wildly inconsistent, counter factual case that Ukraine poses a threat to Russia's existence.  It's so laughably out of touch with reality it isn't worth discussing.  Which is why it is unlikely most Russians truly believe in their souls that their lives are at stake like Ukrainians do.  Especially for the parts of Russia that are not all that happy with Moscow's rule over their daily lives either.  Even the hardcore ultra-nationalists are split on this, some believing the flawed logic and some believing that Russia has some sort of divine right to subjugate others for the benefit of Russia (i.e. they don't bother with false justification). 

Putin, the chief architect of the war and the lies to support it, knows damned well that the Russian population is not willing to fight a long war.  This is why he attempted to seize Ukraine with a completely inadequately sized force and is why he's been using every trick he can think of to replace losses without a straight forward mobilization.  It's why this is still a "Special Military Operation" instead of a "War".  Putin fears mobilization more than anything else as far as I can tell.

Even if Putin did a full mobilization tomorrow, and survived the fallout from it, Russia faces a huge practical (i.e. not political) problem outfitting, staffing, and training the number of soldiers Russia needs to at least keep what they've so far taken.  The problem is vastly worse if the number to be raised is adequately sized to secure the original military objectives of destroying Ukraine's armed forces and seizing most, if not all, of Ukraine and occupying it with an even larger force for probably decades.

This isn't about how many weeks or months it will take to train up a few hundred thousand new recruits.  It's not about where Russia is going to find all the equipment for them, from uniforms to tanks, to be effective fighters.  It's not about having enough food, ammo, fuel, and other consumables needed to support such a force.  It's not about figuring out how to fight and win against Western equipped Ukrainian forces.  It's not about keeping the domestic economy going in order to have the means of keeping the country functioning.  It's not about Russian demographics and society being able to handle thet casualties it is likely to suffer over decades.  It's not about any of these things specifically, but the totality of them AND being able to do it for years.

The only way Russia can keep what it has taken so far is to fight a long war or to crush Ukraine's will AND ability to keep this war going.  So far it looks pretty certain that Ukraine has the will AND ability to continue this war, Russia does not.  In fact, it appears the most likely result of a real attempt by Russia to set conditions for a long war will result in regime failure and very possibly civil war.  Which is exactly why Putin isn't attempting to properly resource a long war despite that being necessary for even a hope of victory in Ukraine.

How can Russia win a long war if it isn't even able or willing to fight one?

Steve

[Vergeltungswaffe]

The end may still be quite some time away, but at some point either the russian military or the russian economy will slide past the point of no return and things will degenerate rapidly.

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Vergeltungswaffe

[Battlefront.com]

Radio Free Europe did some short interviews with Ukrainian tankers of the 3rd Tank Brigade.  This is a reserve unit that has recently seen quite a lot of fighting near Izyum:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tank-battle-russia-war/31919628.html

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Here's what a nation willing to fight a long war looks like:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kyiv-cleanup-before-after/31916000.html

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61990479

Edited June 30, 2022 by The_MonkeyKing

[holoween]

3 hours ago, paxromana said:

 

How many 3rd Battalions has Russia committed? The more they have the less able they will be to train conscripts in a reasonable time frame.

Given their performance so far their training units might simply be quite bad so not much is lost in training quality if they leave. It might even be a better idea for russia to take personell from the better working units at the front and create new training units from them.

[Battlefront.com]

An example of some Russians learning how to better hide their presence, but thanks to drones it still isn't effective:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/vneg7a/our_artillerists_with_the_help_of_m777/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Another sign of Russian weakness is something I've not seen noted here so far.  Yesterday Ukraine and Russia exchanged 144 prisoners from each side.  Back in 2014./2015 the exchanges were horribly lopsided numerically in Russia's favor.  All the exchanges I can remember since this war started has been equal.

Steve

[Machor]

Since there was some discussion on the UK training that Ukrainian troops are now receiving, I am curious to hear if the pros can comment on what they're seeing in this BBC coverage - and for @JonS, Kiwi gunners are involved as well:

Ukrainian troops being trained in the UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-61973635

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

An example of some Russians learning how to better hide their presence, but thanks to drones it still isn't effective:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/vneg7a/our_artillerists_with_the_help_of_m777/

Steve

Is it just me or does the fuse selection seem suboptimal here.

[The_MonkeyKing]

Nice change after seeing so much footage of Ukraine hitting similar targets and only being able to blow up a truck here or there.

[paxromana]

2 hours ago, holoween said:

Given their performance so far their training units might simply be quite bad so not much is lost in training quality if they leave. It might even be a better idea for russia to take personell from the better working units at the front and create new training units from them.

Consider the old saw ... 'You can't stiffen a bucket of spit with a handful of buckshot ...'

Given the displayed level of lying and incompetence displayed by the Russian Officer corp(ses) just consider the likelihood of them sending off their best soldiers, junior officers and NCOs rather than the screwups ...

Edited June 30, 2022 by paxromana