How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Grigb said:

HIMARS strikes are serious political pain for RU. RU military power myth is based on RU Air Defence weapons myth. RU is the second military power after US, but RU does not need to be afraid of US because of wonder AD will protect RU from powerful US AF.

However, it looks like wonder AD cannot protect itself from HIMARS. That is really bad news for RU because there seems to be no protection against US! That is politically unacceptable. Let's see what they will come up with in response to HIMARS.

I've been waiting for something like this to happen.  The Russian propaganda surrounding their military capabilities vs. NATO have been laughable since the days of the Soviet Union.  It seemed to me that most everybody believed it.  And if a current NATO weapon looked really deadly, they would point to weapons not even out of development and say "once X is issued, we'll be the ones with the best Y".  This is why Armata was so very important to Russian military propaganda.

Beliefs are used to make decisions, flawed beliefs create flawed decisions.  Having Russians believe they can successfully fight NATO decreases deterrence and increases the chance of conflict.  We've seen what happened with Russia's erroneous belief that they could defeat Ukraine.

When this war started I figured Javelin and NLAW would have created more of a fuss in Russian circles than it did, but maybe the mil bloggers had already come to understand nothing can defeat those weapons and so didn't get too upset when turrets started flying to the stars.  The general military incompetency of Russia is also not really sinking into these mil bloggers' heads either.  This isn't about a couple of bad generals, it's everything.  But now that all their ammo is going "cotton", they're finally getting a clue.  Good.

Steve

[Calamine Waffles]

If there is one thing that the history of warfare since World War II has shown, it is that "impenetrable" air defences are anything but.

[paxromana]

20 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

If there is one thing that the history of warfare since World War II has shown, it is that "impenetrable" air defences are anything but.

"The Bomber will always get through' ... Douhet

Of course, losses in doing so with manned aircraft may be horrible ... and politically problematic. But HIMARS rockets don't have the same frisson for pollies.

[Harmon Rabb]

 Visegrád 24 is now reporting that General Nasbulin was KIA near Kherson. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, akd said:

This is probably just part of their scattershot media cope.  They’ve already claimed Ukraine attacked saltpeter warehouse, humanitarian aid and the dam / hydroplant. Anything but munitions.

Well, that was likely a divisional level saltpeter warehouse that got cottoned.  To me that looked way beyond what a brigade would have in one place at one time.

That's what's been impressing me the most about the attacks over the last week.  They aren't hitting the "feeder" dumps that top off frontline units.  Attacks like the one that took out Nova Kahovka appear to be the downstream ones that keep the feeder dumps full.  Taking out one of these likely means several large groupings (BTG equivalents) are now have to ration their ammo usage or risk facing a Ukrainian counter attack without anything left to hit back with.

Knowing the Russians, some idiot commander will have a unit run dry and hopefully a Ukrainian commander will put one and one together to determine now would be an excellent time to attack.

Steve

[paxromana]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-12/russia-ukraine-putins-revised-theory-of-victory/101227820

Interesting article by Maj Gen (Ret) Mick Ryan (Australian Army) on the (Australian) ABC website which considers what Putin will regard as 'victory' and his chances of achieving it ...

Ryan is close to the only Australian commentator who seems to have a clue which, given his service, is not surprising.

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

 Visegrád 24 is now reporting that General Nasbulin was KIA near Kherson. 

The tally of Russian generals is inconsistent from one source to another.  Sburke... what does this bring us up to by your count?

Some context of this strike from today's ISW report:

Quote

Ukrainian forces continued to strike Russian ammunition depots and command points in Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblast on July 11. Advisor to Kherson Oblast Military Administration Head Serhiy Khlan reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian command center and equipment concentration in Tavriisk (approximately 62km east of Kherson City). Khlan stated that Russian forces moved a military equipment unloading site from Oleskhy (5km southeast of Kherson City) to Radensk (25km southeast of Kherson City), likely in response to increased Ukrainian strikes on Russian military infrastructure in and around Kherson City. Khlan also stated that Russian forces are preparing for urban warfare in case a Ukrainian counteroffensive does reach Kherson City and have strengthened security and filtration measures around the city. Ukrainian Strategic Communications Center noted that Ukrainian forces also struck a Russian ammunition depot in Tokmak, approximately 50km northeast of Melitopol on July 11

Note that this account states that the Russians are doing the sensible thing and pulling their exposed logistics points further back to the rear.  An unloading point (as mentioned above) is relatively easy to move compared to storage facilities.  The problem is that the further back it is the longer and more costly it is to to move stuff to the front.  Big difference between 5km and 25km from a logistics standpoint.  However, it is not much safer at 25km than it was at 5km, so to me this shows the constraints on relocation.  It is likely that further back puts it too far away.  Either that or they couldn't find a suitable location further from the front and still viable from a logistics standpoint.

Whatever the case may be, this is the first report I've seen that shows Russia trying to keep stuff from going boom.

Steve

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Lt. Col. (or possibly now Col.) Aleksey Avramchenko (a Crimean defector), as of 2021 political officer for the 136th MRB, but not sure of current position (he is not listed in the linked roster for the Brigade):

http://dagpravda.ru/obshestvo/zampolit-rossijskoj-armii/

Wouldn’t be surprised if he last held a staff position in the 22nd Army Corps HQ.

Edited July 12, 2022 by akd

[FancyCat]

 

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The tally of Russian generals is inconsistent from one source to another.  Sburke... what does this bring us up to by your count?

Some context of this strike from today's ISW report:

Note that this account states that the Russians are doing the sensible thing and pulling their exposed logistics points further back to the rear.  An unloading point (as mentioned above) is relatively easy to move compared to storage facilities.  The problem is that the further back it is the longer and more costly it is to to move stuff to the front.  Big difference between 5km and 25km from a logistics standpoint.  However, it is not much safer at 25km than it was at 5km, so to me this shows the constraints on relocation.  It is likely that further back puts it too far away.  Either that or they couldn't find a suitable location further from the front and still viable from a logistics standpoint.

Whatever the case may be, this is the first report I've seen that shows Russia trying to keep stuff from going boom.

Steve

I think this is still accurate but there was some issue with folks who turned out to not be quite dead yet.

MG Andrey Kolesnikov, Russia’s 29th Combined Arms Army commander
Andrei Sukhovetsky, Deputy Commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army
Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, First Deputy Commander Of The 41st Army
Major-general Oleg Mitiayev, commander of 150th motor-rifle division
General-Lieutenant Andrey Mordvichev commander 8th CAA 
Major-General Tushaev (Chechen)
LTG Yakov Rezantsev, Russia’s 49th CAA commander, in Chornobaivka near Kherson.
MG Vladimir Frolov, deputy commander of 8th Guard CAA, Southern military district
Major General Simonov Deputy chief of Electronic Warfare Troops of Armed Forces of Russian Federation
LTG Kutuzov. He was shadow commander of DPR "army" (1st Army Corps of DPR People's miltia)
Lieutenant General Roman Berdnikov Commander of the Russian Federation’s 29th Army
Major-General Nasbulin, Chief of Staff of Russia’s 22nd Army Corps

Edited July 12, 2022 by sburke

[chris talpas]

Anyone else having problems with loading page 1019?  Other pages load fine but this one either hangs loading or gives a getpage error.

A shame since judging by the following pages that is where the big kaboom is initially reported

 

[Battlefront.com]

From FancyCat's post above:

Er, no.  What Russia needed was to take preventative steps to make a military that could fight worth a damned.  The archaic comms and centralized C2 is just one symptom of a larger problem, which is the Russian military was part WW2 Soviet and part La Cosa Nostra.

Seriously though, this is like assessing a plane crash and saying the best way to have avoided the crash was for the pilot to be better trained what to do when an engine falls off instead of addressing the many issues that might lead to the engine falling off in the first place.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, chris talpas said:

Anyone else having problems with loading page 1019?  Other pages load fine but this one either hangs loading or gives a getpage error.

A shame since judging by the following pages that is where the big kaboom is initially reported

 

All good from where I sit.

This video should give you a good idea about how bit of an explosion it was:

 

[danfrodo]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

All good from where I sit.

This video should give you a good idea about how bit of an explosion it was:

 

Did you hear that noise in the video?  That's sound of many, many Ukrainian soldiers not dying this month.  So UKR hits this right when they start (alleged) big push to take the Kherson region back.  RU now has to rush more of it's limited resources across the bridge or face the offensive undergunned.  Yeah, that's making me happy.  I wonder how much ammo went up in this?  I guess we'll never know.

I suppose RU will try to use arty from the south side of the river, dang it.

[chris talpas]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

All good from where I sit.

This video should give you a good idea about how bit of an explosion it was:

Thanks for checking Steve and sharing the video.  Much appreciated.  Will see tomorrow if the problem is with my iPad when I retry with PC.

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, Grigb said:

About RU Nats obsession with mobilization - watching them discussing it i am coming to conclusion that it is just wishful thinking. They basically believe that when Martial law is declared they will be able quickly overcome corruption and reform the state with mass purges + using executions to motivate people to fight.

This is what we call "grasping at straws".  It is the equivalent of the Germans looking for V Weapons to turn the tide of the war.  They might make some difference, but not enough to change the outcome that is already too far along to change.  The mil bloggers do not have the intellectual curiosity (or motivation) to dig into mobilization to understand the likely outcomes.  Which shows you how desperate they are, because they are otherwise willing to examine reality more or less rationally.

The primary aspect they are not examining is time.

Let's assume that Russia can get a new 200,000 soldiers into service (this is a bit more than their normal biannual induction), has enough personal equipment immediately available to them, and there's the proper training staff to deal with them.  I'd say assume adequate facilities, food, and other things at the ready, but Russia has shown it doesn't really care too much about that stuff even under normal circumstances, so they'll be stuck in abandoned buildings or schools if it comes to it.

OK, so Russia has this big mass of men to help fight its war in Ukraine.  Then what?  Russia has three choices:

• Rush Strategy -> take all 200,000 and rush them to the front as either 3rd Battalions or as individual replacements.
• Cautious Strategy -> spend several months (3 minimum) to properly train them in basic military matters, set aside some portion for further specialized training.
• Compromise Strategy -> Some combination of rushing them and training them.

Obviously rushing them into the front ASAP will produce results the quickest, so it's the most tempting given how poorly the war is going.  However, I don't see it producing a net positive result.  It seems Putin is also of this opinion since if it was a net positive he'd likely have done it months ago. 
 

First, protests by civil society for that many people to be sent to the front at all, not to mention without training, is a certainty.  200,000 draftees probably have somewhere around 4,000,000 people directly concerned about their well being.  That's a big number to get riled up.  Especially because those 4,000,000 have their own connections to people who might sense that their loved one may be next, and so the number of Russians that are likely to be VERY upset by the rush strategy is unknowingly larger.  Could be 20,000,000.  Worse for Russia, this number is not going to be evenly distributed around the country as the people most likely to get scooped up and thrown into uniform are from specific areas.  This could result in some regions having more than 50% of its population being pissed off while other reasons might be 25%.  Revolutions need mass and this would likely provide it in some places.

Second, even if Putin's government somehow manages to survive the initial push back for the Rush Strategy, it's unclear if the logistics and support services at the front are capable of taking in a big influx of new personnel in any form.  Even as replacements, because it's likely that Russia's rear services are scaled to what they have in the field now and not what they might have had 5 months ago.  Therefore, rushing everybody to the front may interfere with current operations in a significant way, necessitating (probably) weeks of straightening out the mess it creates.  And during that time I think we can all count on Ukraine making it far worse while Russia, in turn, can't do much about it.

Third, it's unlikely to be smooth sailing for the draftees going to the front.  There's going to be large scale disobedience before they are even moved to Ukraine, then more after.  Shooting a bunch to make examples out of them will further enrage the population.  Even arresting them will.  Regardless, of the 200,000 mobilized some significant portion will not make it to the front for one or more reasons.

Fourth, let's just assume for a second that somehow Putin survives the previous three side effects of the Rush Strategy, perhaps by successfully and ruthlessly clamping down on civilian areas that are making too much trouble.  What is the fighting quality of the soldiers newly arriving at the front?  No military skills worth noting and motivation lower than the troops already there.  At least those guys, mostly, signed up for fighting while the mobilized are the ones that got caught by FSB goons and couldn't buy their way out. 

Fifth, no matter what Putin does, even if he successfully gets the Rush Strategy draftees to the front there will no doubt be large scale mutinies after they arrive.  It will spread to units already there as many want out and there's safety in numbers.  Likely there will be some Russians shooting at Russians, which will make it spiral out of control even quicker.  Hell, it's entirely likely deals will be cut with Ukrainian units to get involved by sending them intel on troublesome refusniks or the units trying to get them to fight.  This is another 1917 situation with the same end for Putin.

Sixth, even if I'm wrong about all of this and Putin somehow manages to pull 5 rabbits out of his hat, where is the Russian industrial base to support a doubling of the ground forces in active combat against a foe that is gaining strength and capabilities every day?  It isn't there now and won't be there within months or even years.  It is simply not possible.  And there's already lots of signs that stockpiles are running out or have already run out, so that's not a substitute either.

 

 

OK, so let's say that Putin and his minions realize that the Rush Strategy isn't going to work out so well.  What about the Cautious Strategy?  The flaw in this one is Russia doesn't likely have 3 months to get the sort of result it wants without reinforcements.  Therefore, the Cautious Strategy effectively signals defeat.  Add to this there's the lack of industrial capacity to do this sort of increase quickly given Russia's economic weakness and technical manufacturing problems.

 

The last option is a Compromise Strategy where some draftees are rushed forward, most are not.  As with most compromises in the face of extreme conditions, it's not likely to work.  Logically Russia would realize this and likely opt to implement the Rush Strategy right from the start or soon thereafter with the same effects as noted above.

 

Well, there you have it.  Mobilization is not going to work even with a lot of favorable assumptions being made.  The basic elements of this are simply too resistant to manipulation for it to work.

Which is why Putin and I seem to be in agreement with one another... mobilization ends both the war and Putin's regime.

Steve

[Grey_Fox]

On 7/8/2022 at 3:41 AM, keas66 said:

Fall out of the wrong side of the bed buddy ?  Also  ... your YT channel is kind of illuminating .... Greetings Comrade !

Yeah pre-war meme titles. I stopped livestreaming the BS Crossing the Dnieper campaign as the escalation of the frozen conflict became more likely.

The meme titles are for a couple of reasons:

1. Some of the absolute worst CM gameplay videos are from big streamers like DiplexHeated who have absurd titles and large view counts. I decided to do similarly-titled videos to see what would happen, with the caveat that I hope my gameplay isn't shockingly awful.
2. There are a lot of posts on this forum about how terrible Russia is or how overpowered the US is in Black Sea, so I just thought it was funny to post clips from ongoing PBEMs which show that they can be competitive versus the US in the right circumstances.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[Der Zeitgeist]

Looks like Reznikov was right.

 

[Grigb]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

From FancyCat's post above:

Er, no.  What Russia needed was to take preventative steps to make a military that could fight worth a damned.  The archaic comms and centralized C2 is just one symptom of a larger problem, which is the Russian military was part WW2 Soviet and part La Cosa Nostra.

Seriously though, this is like assessing a plane crash and saying the best way to have avoided the crash was for the pilot to be better trained what to do when an engine falls off instead of addressing the many issues that might lead to the engine falling off in the first place.

Steve

I looked at the post and it is well worth reading in full.

Quote

The fight against such systems as HIMARS should have been conducted even before the start of any hostilities.

It is simply impossible to "disperse" the headquarters with an over-centralized command system with archaic communication. The dispersal of warehouses is possible, but for this it is necessary to simplify and automate the loading, unloading and delivery of ammunition as much as possible, but as we have already wrote, the whole process is still built on manual labor and ordinary wooden boxes.

Thus, in order to fight [HIMARS], it was necessary to carry out a whole range of preparatory measures in advance, in the current conditions it will take years, at best months, which is already too late.

The physical destruction of such missile systems requires a developed reconnaissance system, primarily aviation, as well as control of the battlefield at least a couple of dozen kilometers deep, which is impossible without a lot of light AWACS aircraft, which we do not have, that allows only 4-8 installations to maneuver freely from Kharkov to Kherson and have a successful fire impact.

It is really possible to write [about it] for a long time, but in the current situation we do not see a universal and quick solution to the problem that has arisen.

 

[Huba]

Some pictures taken today in Nova Kakhovka, the scale of destruction is appaling. No news on collateral damage yet.

With almost 2M Ukrainians living permanently in Russian Federation, stuff like this is bound to happen:

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Huba

[Taranis]

42 minutes ago, Huba said:

Some pictures taken today in Nova Kakhovka, the scale of destruction is appaling. No news on collateral damage yet.

With almost 2M Ukrainians living permanently in Russian Federation, stuff like this is bound to happen:

 

According to russians :
source Le Monde

 

Quote

Kherson: Ukrainian bombardment kills seven, says Russia
Russian occupying forces in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine said seven people were killed and around 60 others injured in the Ukrainian shelling that hit the town of Nova Kakhovka in the night from Monday to Tuesday, declared on Telegram, Vladimir Leontiev, the head of the military-civilian administration installed in this locality by the Russian forces.

Ukraine, meanwhile, said it carried out a strike on military targets in Nova Kakhovka, adding that 52 Russian servicemen were killed and an ammunition warehouse destroyed.

In a video broadcast by Russian media, a huge ball of fire and wreaths are thrown into the sky in the middle of the night, while powerful detonations sound and a thick column of white smoke rises.

On other images taken in the morning and released by the occupation authorities, we see several destroyed buildings. “Dozens of houses were affected (…). We get people out of the rubble,” Leontiev said. “It is a terrible tragedy (…). The number [of victims] will increase, because the extent of the damage is enormous,” he added, denouncing an “act of terrorism.”

Bordering the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, the Kherson region is largely occupied by Russian forces engaged since February 24 in the invasion of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian army has been leading a counter-offensive on the Kherson front for several weeks, while the bulk of Russian troops are deployed in Donbass, in the east of the country. kyiv has managed to regain ground and get closer to Kherson, a city of 290,000 inhabitants, but has so far failed to break through the Russian defenses in depth.

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

1 minute ago, Taranis said:

According to russians :
source Le Monde

That casualty count might be accurate and seems to match with the pictures and videos from the scene around the explosion (some collapsed buildings, lots of broken glass in the apartment blocks). There were probably a lot of people injured who were watching from their windows and then hit by the blast wave.

[FancyCat]

I want to bring up from my prior post the assessment by the U.S on Russian logistics. Is this a Russian logistical failing or a Soviet failing, the reference of a lack of doctrine on munitions and safe storage has me quite perplexed that the "2nd most advanced" military in the world stores ammo like this.

[Huba]

Here's another hit from today. What is interesting is that it is a relatively insignificant target - 3 BTRs and 1-2 other vehicles which I can't identify. Perhaps a battalion level command post? It looks like it took a single rocket, two at most too. It means that Ukrainian are not sticking to firing full salvos at all, but can be economical with the ammunition expenditure, and missiles still get through. It also means the missiles are plentiful enough to be fired at such targets. 

Not a good time to be an orc...

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

1 minute ago, FancyCat said:

I want to bring up from my prior post the assessment by the U.S on Russian logistics. Is this a Russian logistical failing or a Soviet failing, the reference of a lack of doctrine on munitions and safe storage has me quite perplexed that the "2nd most advanced" military in the world stores ammo like this.

There were some interesting discussions about this on Twitter. A big factor seems to be the complete lack of mechanization and containerization in their logistics. They don't even use pallets most of the time, so everything gets carried around by hand. Also, they're highly dependent on rail trainsport. Taken together, this all leads to these huge centralised depot locations.