How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[paxromana]

23 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Edit: didn't hit anything important, it seems

A Russian missile not hitting anything important ... Shock! Horror! Stop the Presses!

[FancyCat]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Surprise, surprise... according to ISW, Ukraine stated the two high ranking Prosecutor deaths in Luhansk were, as speculated, due to infighting between criminal groups:

Steve

Just cause Ukraine says it didn’t kill them, does not mean it’s true that Ukraine didn’t kill them. All information about the infighting at least from what I make of ISW’s wording is purely from Ukrainian officials. 

[BletchleyGeek]

12 minutes ago, paxromana said:

A Russian missile not hitting anything important ... Shock! Horror! Stop the Presses!

A chimpanzee with an AR-15 in a crowded train station will also miss a lot of shots, but I wouldn't like to be there to have a laugh at its lack of prowess

[Anon052]

21 minutes ago, paxromana said:

A Russian missile not hitting anything important ... Shock! Horror! Stop the Presses!

They tried to hit a nuclear power plant. I do not find this funny. We just can be glad they hit nothing important. This is a new level of escalation. I just hope the criminals will get everything they deserve.

[womble]

8 hours ago, Offshoot said:

An interview with a Russian tank driver POW who is now allowed to help out with trophy vehicles.

It's low level stuff, but he talks about how little training he received to drive a tank, the poor state of Russian equipment, and how his tank crew were the only people he really knew in his unit.

 

Another thing he mentioned (not a direct quote) : people are hanging on to patriotism rather than fighting for their squadmates. A much more brittle motivation to remain "in the fight".

[FancyCat]

 

 

 

[kraze]

"They won't invade, will they" - russians about the imminent possible liberation of Belgorod People's Republic. 2022.

Times we live in.

[Huba]

I think the first video ever that shows how ERA absorbs a hit, allowing the tank to withdraw. Another projectile missed the vehicle. Talk about luck.
Also, a great example why crappy reverse gear in T-types is a disadvantage:

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Huba

[Taranis]

8 minutes ago, Huba said:

I think the first video ever that shows how ERA absorbs a hit, allowing the tank to withdraw. Another projectile missed the vehicle. Talk about luck.
Also, a great example why crappy reverse gear in T-types is a disatvantage:

 

A new video from red effet, and he also talk about the infamous slow reverse gear.
 

 

[Calamine Waffles]

RedEffect focuses too much on the tank top trumps game, so he has a very narrow perspective on what makes a good tank or not and what is valuable or not in modern armoured warfare.

[Butschi]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

It's almost like Russia is trying to lose Luhansk.  It's impossible to see how Putin can sell that to Russians, but logically losing it is the best thing for Russia to do.  It has been a resource sink for it over the past 8 years.  It hasn't gained any of the political benefits he expected from it, but has gained pain from it.  Financial and political.  So maybe the best thing to do is let Ukraine take it and be saddled with a gutted, dysfunctional chunk of land?

An alternative is that Putin wants to use Ukraine entering Luhansk as justification for general mobilization.  On the surface this makes sense, however I don't think so.  Putin has got to know by now that all of his fears about going with general mobilization before the war started are valid and stronger now than ever before.  I'd be shocked if he's reversed his thinking.

Maybe there is really no sense in all of this, the Russian army leadership is in total chaos and it is just our brains that want to see patterns where there are none.

On the other hand it could make sense from Putins point of view. Spin it like: Our brave soldiers fought and bled to liberate the people of Luhansk (Whom we think inferior anyway). But they were weak cowards and let Russians do all the fighting. Well if they can't even be bothered to defend their own lands we'll now defend their braver brethren in Donetsk and our own people in Crimea from evil Nazis and their NATO masters.

Maybe he also hopes that there is enough hatred between Ukraine and Luhansk after all these years that during fighting there the world will see Ukrainian war crimes - maybe with some help from FSB - which could make the west abandon Ukraine.

 

[Cederic]

4 hours ago, JonS said:

Soldiers don't make for a heavy load. For one thing, their density is so low they float in water, and on the other hand they just will not stop complaining if the packing ratio gets too high.

I look forward to the next CM manual describing squads as low density cargo.

[Cederic]

21 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

RedEffect focuses too much on the tank top trumps game, so he has a very narrow perspective on what makes a good tank or not and what is valuable or not in modern armoured warfare.

This thread has taught me an awful lot about why Tank Top Trumps is entirely pointless. In related news, I've suddenly got rather better at playing CM.

[kevinkin]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-biden-warns-putin-on-nuke-use

Some items to start the week off with in this one. Notably:

"Politico: Ukraine continues quiet negotiations to receive high-end US weapons.

Kyiv and Washington are discussing possibilities of sending – Patriot air defense systems, F-16 fighter jets, and Gray Eagle drones – as long-term financing deals, Politico reported citing sources."

[TheVulture]

Pro-Russian officials in Donetsk are claiming to have repelled a Ukrainian attack on Kremina:

Quote

️The attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Kremennaya was repelled, the enemy tried to break into the city - the head of the DPR Pushilin

https://t.me/bbbreaking/135627

Looking at the map, to get there UKR would have to go through, or around, Lyman and Zarichne, so I have my doubts that this was actually an attack. So hyping up a brief contact with a recon or special forces patrol?

[FancyCat]

 

 

[Huba]

A nice thread explaining some details of RU rail logistics in Ukraine. As we discussed previously, if UA manages to push a bit deeper into Luhansk oblast, Russians will have to re-route all their rail traffic through Volgograd, adding a 1000km or so to their GLOCs.

 

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

 

 

Every time I see this I am struck by the high angle of fire from the BRDM.  Unless they are shooting at a 6+ story building way down that street, they are shooting for show.

Steve

[Cederic]

Multiple reports (including in the Independent, so not just Ukrainian press) that 200 Russians were killed in an explosion in Svatove.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/09/18/ukrainian-forces-destroyed-russian-base-in-luhansk-oblast-governor/ doesn't give the 200 figure itself but gives more info than the sources that do.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

On the other hand it could make sense from Putins point of view. Spin it like: Our brave soldiers fought and bled to liberate the people of Luhansk (Whom we think inferior anyway). But they were weak cowards and let Russians do all the fighting. Well if they can't even be bothered to defend their own lands we'll now defend their braver brethren in Donetsk and our own people in Crimea from evil Nazis and their NATO masters.

This is the possible explanation I was thinking of too.  The thing I don't like about it is this only works if Putin decides he's going to publicly lay the blame for the failures on the Army's shoulders.  That's extremely risky because he's the head of the government that makes the military and has been telling everybody how great they are for the last 20+ years (not to mention the last 6 months).  He could try and cash in on the Russian tradition of never holding the Tzar responsible for the things he is in fact responsible for, but that's an shaky theory these days.

Yet what else can explain what seems to be doing very little to hold the new frontage while at the same time continuing to fight in Donetsk?  I don't believe gross incompetence or confusion is at play by this point.  Even the lethargic and counter productive general staff has shown, repeatedly, that it isn't that out of touch with reality when things become bad.

There has to be an explanation for the behavior and right now the most likely one is that Putin has decided to let Luhansk "sink or swim" pretty much on its own.

Steve

[Offshoot]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Every time I see this I am struck by the high angle of fire from the BRDM.  Unless they are shooting at a 6+ story building way down that street, they are shooting for show.

Kherson cat did a thread on it. They were definitely shooting at a building or two. Also, in the first video in that thread at the 1 sec mark you can see an incoming round bounce off the road into the vehicle. Is it easier for the Russians to say it was staged than that they started shooting at each other?

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Offshoot

[Peregrine]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

From our favorite Hromadske reporter, her entrance into Izyum to talk with fighters and civilians about the liberation.  I kinda lost it a bit at the end.  If you watch it I'm sure you'll know when and why:

 

Steve

At one level it is propaganda to a degree but how many Russian soldiers do you think you would have to interview to get the same natural disbelief at the situation they are in but at the same time the quiet determination that their reality is that they will be a soldier until they get the country back.

[FancyCat]

28 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

There has to be an explanation for the behavior and right now the most likely one is that Putin has decided to let Luhansk "sink or swim" pretty much on its own.

Steve

Ugh, how long before we get the Russian military bloggers saying it's all a feint to draw in Ukraine so Russia can smash the approaching forces towards Lugansk from the north.

That said, the utter anger of the RU nats if they watch the cities recently taken fall again to Ukraine will be something to behold. Not to mention how the LPR leadership or civilians will react. I am deeply unsure how it would work out. Abandoning the liberation of the two republics for the south is just completely going to destroy the narrative built up for Russia.

It's just insanity yet I see how it's a card worth playing, Christ.

[Butschi]

38 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The thing I don't like about it is this only works if Putin decides he's going to publicly lay the blame for the failures on the Army's shoulders.

Not necessarily. He could spin it like the defeat of the 6th Army at Stalingrad: The Wehrmacht actually made good progress in Stalingrad but it were Romanians who didn't hold the flanks (weak, unreliable, you name it). I've heard that version rather often. Same could work here. The Russian army itself would have held but... And now the army is forced to consolidate the front which is ok because it Luhansk's fault anyway.

[Butschi]

8 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Abandoning the liberation of the two republics for the south is just completely going to destroy the narrative built up for Russia.

True, but might be an exit strategy. And maybe Putin & cronies finally realized they need one. You just have to lay the blame on on LDPR and not on the Russian army.

Come to think of it: If they manage to hold onto Kherson for a while longer, they could retreat from Donetsk and Luhansk, offer peace negotiations in which they offer to give back Kherson and the south (as a show of good intentions or something) but keep Crimea (that is a red line that can't be crossed, I think). That way they could even say, the Russion army itself wasn't even really defeated in battle, it were those cowardly LDPR forces who lost in the east.