How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

8 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

I was a bit surprised to read Poland is buying a large number (96) of AH-64Es. What did we used to call them; "flying tanks"? While technically not heavy systems, they have become very vulnerable to MANPADs and emerging tactical air defense systems. Their employment in the gulf wars produced mixed results when organized into battalion sized formations. I suppose the terrain in western Europe is better suited for hide and seek tactics by pairs of choppers and their speed might ensure some level of protection. But given what we are witnessing in Ukraine, who, what and where are those Apaches going to fight? Maybe they will replace aging tanks producing a more balanced force for the next decade or so. Also, the Apache is being fielded/tested with maritime capabilities which might interest Poland. 

Well, keep in mind that Apaches were almost never used in their intended primary role - quickly killing swarms of attacking armor. With the radars and fire-and-forget missiles I'm pretty sure they could still do a great job, staying outside of MANPADS (and even Osa/ Tunguska) range.

Poland is buying Brimstones for ground based tank destroyers, and these probably will be integrated with our Kruk (Crow - attack heli programm codename). Advanced versions of these can lock-on after launch, and have impressive range. I can bet that sooner than later Apaches will be integrated with some recon drones (2 man crews making it so much easier), creating a mean recon-strike platform that could operate without LOS of the target, perhaps from 10 or more kilometers.

Oh, and the 96 is only what's in the Letter of Request, realistically I'll be surprised if we get more than 32, unless Uncle Sam will present us some more.

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Huba

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, Letter from Prague said:

As far as I know, Russia might have 6000 warheads but it for sure does not have 6000 ICBMs - most of the nuclear bombs are actual bombs to be loaded to planes and dropped. A lot of them are warheads compatible with iskanders, etc, but need to be installed.

And then there are the tac nukes:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169
 

About 2000 of them, some can be delivered by artillery ffs.

[Battlefront.com]

25 minutes ago, poesel said:

That is not tit for tat - that is called escalation

Well... Ukraine still has a lot to make up for before it can be called even

Steve

[Haiduk]

UKR tanks and M113 (or YPR-765) in action. Likely known episode from Kherson oblast, but from other operator

 

[Battlefront.com]

Just now, The_Capt said:

And then there are the tac nukes:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169
 

About 2000 of them, some can be delivered by artillery ffs.

Dirty bombs... that's the thing we all need to be worried about, not who can use a ICBM.  Even without a proper detonator or a way to create one, the field of nutjobs is wide open for making the center of an urban area unlivable for a couple hundred years.

Steve

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, akd said:

Crazy helmetcam footage from Ukrainian infantry assaulting a fortified Russian position:

 

Pretty grim footage, you can see him gunning down several muscovites. At the end he speaks they lost several people as well. Somebody said it could be somewhere in Donbass.

[Haiduk]

Belarusian volunteer unit "Terror" is crossing Inhulets and fighting somewhewre on bridghead

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

UKR tanks and M113 (or YPR-765) in action. Likely known episode from Kherson oblast, but from other operator

 

I like the infantry dispersion!  It's not the usual Soviet style of line up right behind the IFV and march forward.  Wonder where they learned this new tactic?

Steve

[asurob]

https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1569041954679177218?s=20&t=sFi377KZVlsru_2PKAXxJw

 

Raw story so who knows if there is any truth to it. 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

Russia could manage to pull off some of a Dunkirk if it was dedicated to doing this and all chains of command understood their role in making it happen.  Russian decision making, however, seems to be all about putting off something for as long as possible.  That's not what is needed in this case.

The other problem is the composition of the forces.  There's some really crap ones and some good ones in the mix.  A well functioning military the best units would form the rearguard while the more vulnerable (type or quality) would be evacuated first.  But this is Russia we're talking about!

A very realistic scenario is that the best units (VDV and Spetsnaz) decide they are more valuable than halfbreed Ukies or Mobliks, or perhaps even regular Russian Army.  They might decide they should get evacuated first.  This wouldn't please the others who are, let's not forget, armed.  Toss in some vodka, a few wildly inaccurate rumors, and I think we could have ourselves a shootout.  That would be quite disorderly

Best case for Russia is they get most of their guys over the river without equipment.  This isn't ideal for Ukraine, but I'm not sure how quickly they can be rearmed and reorganized.  Russia seems to be scraping the bottom of the equipment barrel.  I suspect that's why some of the 3rd Army Corps is still sitting in Russia (as per last report I saw a few days ago).  That could put these guys out of the fight for some time.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, asurob said:

https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1569041954679177218?s=20&t=sFi377KZVlsru_2PKAXxJw

 

Raw story so who knows if there is any truth to it. 

 

 

It's quoting an open letter from a legislative district in Moscow.  I'd say it's highly likely true.

More tea leaves.

As with military frontline situation, Putin's political situation at home is precariously thin.  Collapse can come suddenly and decisively there as well as in Ukraine.  We won't likely know for sure what's going on until after it has already happened..

Steve

[Beleg85]

24 minutes ago, asurob said:

Raw story so who knows if there is any truth to it. 

Even headline of this story is false, the rest is known for several days.

And that is one of the ways Kremlin can bring back his authority among this segment of population that at least partially care about the war. Russians are already starting to rationalize defeat in Kharkiv:

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

Something I meant to add about The Capt's question about how heavy forces are to defend themselves.  Long range PGMs means there is no longer a safe rear for heavy forces to conduct the various things they need to do for the heavy force to stay functional.  Resupply and maintenance being the obvious big ones.  Normally this is done as close to the forward positions as possible so as to keep things rolling.  The Russians showed what this looks like when the enemy has the ability to hit anything they want 10s of KMs behind the front.  It's just not feasible to move those systems to the rear and still keep the heavy force functional.

A bit of an obvious point, but an important one.  Here's the other obvious point... heavy forces do not move every minute of every day of an operation.  They have to stay still for significant periods of time, especially if they are not actively advancing as part of an offensive.  Even within an active environment, there's tactical pauses in fighting all the time.  Every hour that goes by gives the enemy an opportunity to spot and destroy.  The old days of tactical intel cycles being longer than the opportunity are behind us.

To expand on an oft used military axiom:

If it's sitting around we'll eventually see it, and if we can see it we can kill it. 

Steve

[akd]

Dmitri added some subtitles:

 

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

To expand on an oft used military axiom:

If it's sitting around we'll eventually see it, and if we can see it we can kill it. 

Steve

If it's bigger than a bicycle and it's sitting around for an hour (maybe less), it will be seen by an opponent with SAR and EO space capability.

[poesel]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

That is one massive assumption.

So those warheads can come off, right? 

...

I have to admit that I assumed that not sooo many people would know how to rig up a nuke because these are not simple machines. But then they were developed for the use in the military, so they likely can be used by more people than I thought.

Then let's hope that Russia doesn't go down Mad Max style and the nukes all stay accounted for.

[MSBoxer]

Have been expecting this for awhile.
 

 

[Beleg85]

A thread from Theiner of what Ukrainians can do now (only link):

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1569056211676299269

It rougly corresponds to what more competent Ukrainian analysts are saying. There is very much probability they will resuply and push toward Aidar river line.On other side, security of especially left (northern) flank cannot be ignored. Here Reznikov expecting that Russians may indeed form to counterattack extended lines:

https://www.ft.com/content/84ff2893-9b20-40c8-b503-f8fd10c99eca?shareType=nongift

[Haiduk]

43 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It's not the usual Soviet style of line up right behind the IFV

Usual Soviet style is "skirmish line" aside IFV ) 

[Haiduk]

Bushmasters of 80th air-assault brigade in Oskil river area

 

[Letter from Prague]

21 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

 

Perfectly reasonable reactions to a terrorist attack, yes. 

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

A thread from Theiner of what Ukrainians can do now (only link):

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1569056211676299269

It rougly corresponds to what more competent Ukrainian analysts are saying. There is very much probability they will resuply and push toward Aidar river line.On other side, security of especially left (northern) flank cannot be ignored. Here Reznikov expecting that Russians may indeed form to counterattack extended lines:

https://www.ft.com/content/84ff2893-9b20-40c8-b503-f8fd10c99eca?shareType=nongift

In one of the comments somebody posted a link to this magnicifent little thing: https://openrailwaymap.org/ 
So Theiner seems to be right - with routes through Kupyansk and Starobilsk out of the way, the only railway links between Donbas and Russia are located south of Lugansk city and around Rostov. Russian logistics indeed took an extremely heavy blow.

[Beleg85]

16 minutes ago, Huba said:

In one of the comments somebody posted a link to this magnicifent little thing: https://openrailwaymap.org/ 
So Theiner seems to be right - with routes through Kupyansk and Starobilsk out of the way, the only railway links between Donbas and Russia are located south of Lugansk city and around Rostov. Russian logistics indeed took an extremely heavy blow.

Nice, though some other users several days ago noted the website may not contain actual infor from the war period when comes to Russian side.

@Huba since you are into technics, perhaps you could sum up this thread: https://twitter.com/PEmeryt/status/1569032174103416834  for other members of this forum? It's good source and may be interesting, but there are a lot of specific terms regarding EW, AA etc. that are hard to read for guys from outside jargon.

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Beleg85

[chrisl]

28 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

A thread from Theiner of what Ukrainians can do now (only link):

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1569056211676299269

It rougly corresponds to what more competent Ukrainian analysts are saying. There is very much probability they will resuply and push toward Aidar river line.On other side, security of especially left (northern) flank cannot be ignored. Here Reznikov expecting that Russians may indeed form to counterattack extended lines:

https://www.ft.com/content/84ff2893-9b20-40c8-b503-f8fd10c99eca?shareType=nongift

So if the UA indeed has a third full division that it's holding back, can/will they take advantage of current Russian disorganization and start a drive towards Melitopol/Mariupol to cut the "land bridge"?  Or do they have to go through the mythical 3rd Army Corps to do that?

[danfrodo]

I think now it's more important for UKR to collapse the Kherson Kessel than to advance more in the east.  Bringing Putin down would be the best thing for UKR, and a second, even more massive disaster is the best chance of achieving this. 

So if it comes down to one or the other, I vote for Kherson.  If they've got resources to secure the newly liberated land and continue eastern offensive and collapse Kherson, that's great, go for it.  But if not they need to consolidate the east and eliminate Kherson as soon as possible. 

I understand that Putin might not fall no matter what, but increasing the probability of that is UKR's best bet.