How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Ultradave]

12 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Maybe crowdsourcing would work. GoFundNuke. People already crowdsourced Ukraine some TB2s, after all.

We've done it before. (not crowdsourced of course, government funded) Look up "Megatons to Megawatts" for some interesting reading. It's a little known fact that for 20 years, HALF of all US electricity production from nuclear energy (So about 10% of total) used to be Soviet/Russian nuclear warheads decommissioned due to arms control treaties. The project was a solution to the maintenance of security over thousands of nuclear warheads to prevent diversion of the SMN (special nuclear material). Through various processes it was downblended into harmless (from a "go boom" standpoint) useable fuel for regular nuclear power plants in the US. Thousands of warheads. What better way to make use of old warheads than keeping the heat and lights on. Beats burying them somewhere.

Dave

[Bannon]

5 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Really hoping this is true. I know @Haiduk mentioned that Ukrainian servicemen have good opinions of M113s and with the way they have been fighting UKR should have no problem using M2s effectively.

I also think that more western made vehicles would help increase morale among Ukrainian servicemen as it would remind them that the west really does have their back in this war.

Do we have enough M2 and M3's in inventory to spare?

[Grigb]

Mashkovets reports that last major RU stronghold - Dvorichna (North of Kupyansk) is liberated today. He has no doubt Kharkiv region will be liberated today [Most probably he talks about Northern part]

Edited September 11, 2022 by Grigb

[Grigb]

The pain is so strong that RU Nats started questioning whether magic power of RU soldier exists at all.

[Ts4EVER]

 

That seems like a bad move, to be honest.

[Grigb]

New alternative opinion regarding RU Izum reatreat appeared - RU just run away on foot without direction from Command. To make it looks like organized reatreat some units were thrown in to battle [looks like it was that LPR and BARS units I reported earlier]

 

[Haiduk]

11 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I keep thinking about the video posted yesterday of the Humvee leading an assault on a village, .50 cal blazing and AT4s popping off. This is exactly what tanks were designed for. Have the Ukrainians discovered that light vehicles are just as good or are they making do with what they have because tanks can't be everywhere?

This is attack on Ternovi Pody - small village of half-hunderd houses in Mykolaiv oblast. This is obviously "surpise raid" action, not prepared attack (means with preliminary arty strike, armor advance etc). I think, our recons had info about small garrison, so such cavalry raid on HMMWVs on the dawn had more sense - the armor moves with extra noise, so Russians could have time to wake up an prepare to fight.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Haiduk

[Der Zeitgeist]

12 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

 

That seems like a bad move, to be honest.

But did he even say that? We need a better source than this account, which often posts outright disinformation.

[Grigb]

UKR liberated Hoptivka - settlement at border.

[pavel.k]

45 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

 

That seems like a bad move, to be honest.

Could be a bluff to reposition forces? How many forces are protecting Kursk, Orel, Bryansk direction?

It would take about 3 hours in columns? Depend on a local traffic i guess. Just another military column, nothing special. Would Russians bomb their own towns then? Leave our country and we leave yours...

I know I am getting crazy again.

Edited September 11, 2022 by pavel.k
Map

[Battlefront.com]

Here's an interesting bit of interesting speculation.  Remember when we discussed the reports that the US helped Ukraine with its plans for an offensive and the US talked Ukraine out of doing something larger than Kherson?  We thought that was a little odd to get out there in the open.  Well, it's not so odd if it was part of a deliberate disinformation campaign:

Steve

[Haiduk]

8 hours ago, Grigb said:

From what I heard they are good and they are being used in current offensive. May be there is ban on publishing info about them? 

@Aragorn2002

There was a video in twitter where single Pz2000 fires from the road in Kharkiv oblast.

[Huba]

Belgorod oil reservoir is burning:

 

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, chrisl said:

I suspect the 50K is accurate, and the number that's being overestimated is the WIA:KIA ratio.  Russia has demonstrated absolutely crap logistics for the past 6 months.  Do you believe that they somehow have managed to maintain high levels of battlefield medical support?

I think this is the only way to explain a real number of 50k KIA.  Vanir and I went through the numbers logically enough to show that either the WIA ratio is far lower than usual or their casualty rate is vastly higher with a slightly lower WIA rate.  I'm guessing the truth is that pretty much all of our assumptions are off by some amount:

• total KIA is somewhat lower than 50k
• ratio of KIA:WIA is closer to 1:1 than it is 1:3
• Russian efforts to find cannon fodder over the last 6 months has been greater than we'd have guessed, creating a larger pool of potential casualties

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

56 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Do we have enough M2 and M3's in inventory to spare?

definitely, especially mothballed ones that would have to be "oiled up". Or send the new ones to Ukraine and start upgrading mothballed ones for the US forces. That would leave only a small capability gap for the US and fast delivery for UKR.

Even if US didn't have any "spare" ones it would still be easily justified. Some capabilities of US are "earmarked" for land war in Europe and against Russia. What would these donated capabilities be doing in Ukraine? -> taking care of that thread they exist in the first place for. This means US can let some of its capabilities decline by giving the to Ukraine cause that action decreases the threat that justified those capabilities in the first place.

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

I suppose its semantics, but you can hope your active planning (instead of watching the world goes by) produces positive results for you and your allies. Sometimes its just trying to imagine what a positive endgame would look like. In chess, players imagine the board 5 or 10 moves ahead and hope their opponent does not throw in an unexpected move. But just moving your king back and forth accomplishes nothing. In chess and geopolitics there are certain patterns that tend to work in your favor even when all possible information is unavailable nor variables accounted for. It may make no sense hoping for a political change in the short term. Too many unknowns. But effective military planning using top notch weapons is more tangible and might put an end to the hot war quicker than waiting for the Russian people to rise up. There are articles that worry about losing a generation of Ukrainians to endless conflict. 

Heh, that is probably the hardest thing for any military person top learn once they hit the strategic/political level - doing nothing.  It grates against the grain but sometime you just have to wait for Y and Z to emerge, no forcing it.

Of course ending this war quickly is the plan - weapons planning and all that, we are seeing brilliant demonstration from Ukraine right now.  I was speaking about "what to do about that rascal Russia" once this war is over.  This war:

- Needs to end with a hard unambiguous Ukrainian win, which by extension the West will also win.

- Be followed up by a Marshal Plan level of reconstruction in Ukraine.

- Result in a functional Russian state that 1) we can deal with like a sane-ish person (we have managed crazy), and 2) Gets back in line.  Obviously neither of those two include poor old Vlad but he bought the ticket, he and his cronies take the ride.

1 hour ago, poesel said:

Good ole capitalism to the rescue: 'we' will buy them - not to own, but to destroy. Payment may be actual money or a nice treaty or whatever a post-war Russia needs (hint: a lot, very desperately)

And our God Money will save us!  Here is the problem with that particular spin - there are people out there that hate us more than they love money.  Trust me, I have met them.  And 6000 loose nukes is very bad...as in very very bad.  Because even if only a few squeak out of our "nuke for bucks" plan the entire game changes.  Best case is that people of the former Russia use them on each other, then we only have to deal with the fallout.  Worst case, someone uses them to trigger an article 5 against another nuclear power and then we can all save our mighty dollars for toilet paper.  In the middle are a whole bunch of revenge scenarios against places like Kyviv, Western Europe and North America if whoever gets them has legs.

Nope. nope. nope. If it does start to happen we might actually see western intervention into Russia to try and grab them.  

[Bil Hardenberger]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here's an interesting bit of interesting speculation.  Remember when we discussed the reports that the US helped Ukraine with its plans for an offensive and the US talked Ukraine out of doing something larger than Kherson?  We thought that was a little odd to get out there in the open.  Well, it's not so odd if it was part of a deliberate disinformation campaign:

Steve

I had the same thoughts... I thought it was weird that information like this would get leaked during the op.. but if it was disinformation and I believe it had to be, then it was brilliant.  I think the Ukrainian information war has a lot to teach the rest of the world.

Bil

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Is that totally true tho? I recall reading that Ukraine after the fact placed a high emphasis on the use of their artillery, some of which was pulled off of training grounds to defend Kiev. 

For sure around Kyiv and Kharkiv this was true, but a significant amount of the slaughter and loss of momentum was out of artillery range.  Sumy and Chernihiv were never taken by Russia, despite the Ukrainian light forces being cut off and vastly outnumbered and outgunned.  The ground north and east of Kyiv were active killing fields even without artillery.

Even where artillery was used en mas, it was light infantry that held the lines and were starting to actively counter attack west of Kyiv when Russia decided to pull back.

9 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Mind you, a big part of Russian tank losses is due to lack of infantry. Case in point, link goes to a Russian tank column attempting to enter the NE suburb of Kiev, Brovary, wiki states a combo of artillery and infantry AT fire got them to fall back.  

Yes, and this is why we should be very careful about what conclusions we draw from this war.  Russia's execution of the war has been influenced by an epic amount of extreme incompetence and lack of preparation for the sort of war the forces were ordered to conduct.  That, more than anything else, is the root of Russia's failure in Ukraine.

I think the biggest lesson we can definitely draw from this war is that mass can not compensate for gross incompetence when the defender possesses well equipped light infantry that are motivated to fight.  Mass can only do so much and Russia relied upon it far more than it should have.

Steve

[Bannon]

11 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

definitely, especially mothballed ones that would have to be "oiled up". Or send the new ones to Ukraine and start upgrading mothballed ones for the US forces. That would leave only a small capability gap for the US and fast delivery for UKR.

Even if US didn't have any "spare" ones it would still be easily justified. Some capabilities of US are "earmarked" for land war in Europe and against Russia. What would these donated capabilities be doing in Ukraine? -> taking care of that thread they exist in the first place for. This means US can let some of its capabilities decline by giving the to Ukraine cause that action decreases the threat that justified those capabilities in the first place.

 

Good points. Thanks!

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, Grigb said:

Mashkovets made three posts. They are big and requires map. So, unfortunately I will post them later.

Anyway, main points of the posts:

1. Loss of Kupynsk west part and UKR breakthrough to Oskil river was not critical for RU

2. RU thought UKR main objective Izum. They planned to hold Izum and front line by Oskil river and Lyman. Then counter-attack UKR grouping that was trying to assault Izum.

3. But UKR crossed Oskil in unnamed place [probably Senkove], blocked supply route there and made situation worse. Then disaster (for RU) happened.

4. UKR command realising RU plans shifted main effort to North and North East Directions (toward reservoir and Burluk). And UKR hit there hard.

5. This is were RU front collapsed not at Izum. 

6. Facing disaster at North RU command realized that throwing RU reserves in this area wil not dramatically change  difficult situation at Izum any more. So, they decided to play safe and ordered reatreat at Izum, and at long term seems to decide to redeploy from there completely.

This is as I expected.  Ukraine has the mentality and the capability to keep plans flexible and to change according to circumstances.  Russia, for many reasons (the previous post about "fear of failure" causing over centralization) is more reactive and less flexible.  So when the north of their front collapsed, they had pretty much no option other than lose forces in Izyum or withdraw them and figure out something later.

Russia's thin defenses and lack of mobile reserves have been a problem for months now.  All Ukraine needed to do was attack in force and the whole rotten structure would fall apart.  Wisely, Ukraine waited until it was truly ready for the battles to come.  Contrast this with the Russian Easter Offensive and the so-called "operational pause" that came a bit later.

Another example of expectations...

8 hours ago, Grigb said:

UKR claim they took Dorojnyanka settlement in Zaporozhye (Between UKR Hyliapole and RU Polohi)

Nice!

This is the sort of thing that I predicted Ukraine would do and I think we're going to see even more of it.   Even in relatively quite sectors where Ukrainian forces are not concentrated there are for sure opportunities for small scale operations to kick Russia out of weak spots.  With Russia losing vast amounts of territory and forces on the extreme ends of the front, the middle is going to be largely on its own to defend itself.  With Russia's forces stretched thin and/or exhausted everywhere, local successes here and there are to be expected.  They could possibly cause local or even operational collapse without Ukraine having the resources to fully exploit the situation.

Steve

[MikeyD]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

Good ole capitalism to the rescue: 'we' will buy them - not to own, but to destroy.

I read somewhere (heck, probably this thread months ago) that 1/3rd of power from US civil nuclear reactors is reprocessed Russian nuke uranium.

[Haiduk]

WTF?

 ...during a visit to Kyiv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had conveyed Joe Biden’s message about the need to start negotiations with Putin.

MoD Reznikov:

Kyiv is not accepting Western partners’ recommendations to start "peace" talks with the Russian Federation and demands a complete end to the occupation of Donbas and Crimea.

The options ‘as of 24 February’ no longer exist. It must be as of 1 December 1991 [Ukraine’s internationally recognised state borders]. Go out," concluded Reznikov [Reznikov used English when saying the words "Go out" - ed.].

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/09/10/7366954/

 

[pavel.k]

22 minutes ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

I had the same thoughts... I thought it was weird that information like this would get leaked during the op.. but if it was disinformation and I believe it had to be, then it was brilliant.  I think the Ukrainian information war has a lot to teach the rest of the world.

Bil

Wasn't there a little nuance? I think it was said like that Ukrainians should not start offensives on all fronts at once.  So they even did not lie.

[cesmonkey]

Someone want to do a break-down of the recent video WarGonzo posted of a failed Ukrainian attack near Pinski?  Two tanks and 2 APCs moved advanced an came under artillery fire overseen by a drone, apparently.  One tank was knocked out so the rest retreated.
 

[rocketman]

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Heh, that is probably the hardest thing for any military person top learn once they hit the strategic/political level - doing nothing.  It grates against the grain but sometime you just have to wait for Y and Z to emerge, no forcing it.

Of course ending this war quickly is the plan - weapons planning and all that, we are seeing brilliant demonstration from Ukraine right now.  I was speaking about "what to do about that rascal Russia" once this war is over.  This war:

- Needs to end with a hard unambiguous Ukrainian win, which by extension the West will also win.

- Be followed up by a Marshal Plan level of reconstruction in Ukraine.

- Result in a functional Russian state that 1) we can deal with like a sane-ish person (we have managed crazy), and 2) Gets back in line.  Obviously neither of those two include poor old Vlad but he bought the ticket, he and his cronies take the ride.

And our God Money will save us!  Here is the problem with that particular spin - there are people out there that hate us more than they love money.  Trust me, I have met them.  And 6000 loose nukes is very bad...as in very very bad.  Because even if only a few squeak out of our "nuke for bucks" plan the entire game changes.  Best case is that people of the former Russia use them on each other, then we only have to deal with the fallout.  Worst case, someone uses them to trigger an article 5 against another nuclear power and then we can all save our mighty dollars for toilet paper.  In the middle are a whole bunch of revenge scenarios against places like Kyviv, Western Europe and North America if whoever gets them has legs.

Nope. nope. nope. If it does start to happen we might actually see western intervention into Russia to try and grab them.  

Putting on my rosy tinted glasses here; if the Russian Federation shows signs of crumbling, could we make lifting of sanctions contingent on mutual control over the nukes and start a new round of deescalation? The Russian nukes are controlled and successively decomissioned (maybe not fully to be realistic) and the West follows suit to some extent.

Edited September 11, 2022 by rocketman