How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, keas66 said:

I have seen some comments  which discuss whether this is simply another propaganda exercise - Yes our new recruits are training with the best equipment etc , etc . But in reality the T90's stay on the Training field and the recruits get shipped off to the front to field whatever is left on the front

I believe it is true, even if it is also being used for propaganda purposes.

As I noted a couple of pages ago, there has been a lot of head scratching about the T-90s and BMP-3s being largely absent from the first couple of months of war.  As the war has ground on they have been seen here and there, but there's still supposedly way more that have been made than are apparently on the battlefield.  Now., quite suddenly, we're seeing T-90s quite frequently.

This seems to indicate that earlier theories that Russia was reluctant to lose it's top end stuff in Ukraine seem to be true.  But now they have little choice.  They've burned through all their medium quality stuff and even low quality.  Now they are obligated to bring out the better stuff.

We certainly saw this with the 3rd Army Corps.  They seem to have received a variety of stuff, but it did include T-90s and BMP-3s even though they received hardly any training on them.  Since Russia's primary and overriding goal is to get SOMETHING to the front, sticking a bunch of Mobiks into whatever they have left makes sense.  From all other perspectives it doesn't.

Steve

[kevinkin]

And we know the dangers with sending new weapon systems into battle piecemeal. Even with no options, Putin and his henchmen would not make into The Complete Idiot's Guide to ... (fill in the blank).

[JonS]

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

unprofessionalism of the Russian military.

True, except that aiui the burst barrel was on a UKR Krab?

Edited October 3, 2022 by JonS

[dan/california]

20 minutes ago, JonS said:

True, except that aiui the burst barrel was on a UKR Krab?

Clearly they are pushing their better artillery to the max. Past it in this case. I dare say the problem would disappear if we sent them anther 300 tubes. We should do that thing. Hopefully it is the barrel, and not the ammo. The ammo lot chase down sounds awful. It can't be completely ruled out that the barrel was damaged by either accident or enemy fire.

[Ithikial_AU]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This seems to indicate that earlier theories that Russia was reluctant to lose it's top end stuff in Ukraine seem to be true.  But now they have little choice.  They've burned through all their medium quality stuff and even low quality.  Now they are obligated to bring out the better stuff.

This sounds like how I play some other strategy games like Stellaris where I have weaker units on the table but want my fleet cap back so will throw them at the enemy to make some form of dent building and throwing the better units at the same target.  Probably not a good strategy for a real life ground war...

Yeah you probably don't want me as your 'Benevolent' Space Emperor.

[Battlefront.com]

57 minutes ago, JonS said:

True, except that aiui the burst barrel was on a UKR Krab?

I was projecting over to the other side's barrel blow ups   Meaning, when the Russians have the same situation as this Krab (and we have seen certainly have such problems) I doubt they pull the battery offline and investigate.  Instead they just go about lobbing shells at schools, civilian refugees, and other "targets" like nothing happened.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

ISW's Oct 2 report is extremely interesting!  The first section is a detailed dive into the noticeable negative change in tone from the RU Nat bloggers and even some TV propagandists.  They make an interesting point about Putin not having clamped down on internet access, which means people are able to share criticism in ways that aren't good for his regime.  The analysis ended with this rather interesting observation:

Quote

Putin may be experiencing an odd variant of the problems Mikhail Gorbachev encountered resulting from his glasnost’ (openness) policy. Gorbachev partially opened the Soviet information space in the mid-1980s in the hopes that Soviet citizens would give him insight into the causes of bureaucratic dysfunction within the Soviet state that he could not identify from above. But Soviet citizens did not stop where Gorbachev wanted or expected them to and instead began attacking the entire Soviet system. The reforms (perestroika) he initiated after a period of glasnost’ ended up destroying the Soviet Union rather than strengthening it.

Putin is no doubt fully aware of this pattern and surely has no intention of repeating it.  He has never established Soviet-level degrees of control over the Russian information space even as he has steadily narrowed it to only platforms he tolerates. He has absolved the milbloggers of having to adhere to Kremlin-approved narratives while keeping open the platform on which they present to a core constituency on which he relies, and he is now mainstreaming them further.  It remains to be seen how much Putin will tolerate and what will happen if and when he attempts to shut down the milbloggers and their critiques, increasingly of his own decisions, that he has allowed for the moment to circulate in Russia.

 

[Canada Guy]

This loss of the 1.5 mil winter uniforms reminds me of another blunder on the Eastern front where these were not needed as the war would be over by autumn. 

This could be a real disaster as the weather cools and Russian forces are forced to huddle under tents they had to bring themselves. if they really have no winter uniforms, I cannot see this going much past Dec. The West should just start shipping winter gear to Ukr. Winter could be more decisive than another HIMAR.

[BletchleyGeek]

That part also caught my eye, it is a very strong historical parallelism.

It was also interesting that there was no write up today about the situation along the theatre.

[Zeleban]

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Man, in CMBS that UKR would be a goner. Ive found going H2H with RUS IFVs is a fools game, and a free kill to Ivan. Guess not here, lucky for them.

Incidentally, @Haiduk,  @Grigb or @akd is there much use of captured BTR-82As by the UA?  Surely they must have enough for a company at this point? Oryx has about 100 as captured. Is there any UA opinions on it?  I've always felt that just a bit better thermals and optics would make it a serious danger on the field...

 

about the thermal imager on the BTR - 82a should upset you. There is no thermal imaging sight on this type of armored vehicle. A TKN-4GA-01 sight is installed here. This is a combined "day-night" device, a little better than those installed on Soviet armored vehicles.

[Taranis]

10 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Looks like there was heavy fight for Kurylivka, Kharkiv oblast on 24-25th Sep and some later. In addition to 3-4 abanoded T-90A we have now this. French cameraman

 

 

He doesn't say anything interesting. "Many Russian vehicles are abandoned", "There are still some around here", "Some will be rehabilitated".

[Zeleban]

 

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Canada Guy said:

This loss of the 1.5 mil winter uniforms reminds me of another blunder on the Eastern front where these were not needed as the war would be over by autumn. 

This could be a real disaster as the weather cools and Russian forces are forced to huddle under tents they had to bring themselves. if they really have no winter uniforms, I cannot see this going much past Dec. The West should just start shipping winter gear to Ukr. Winter could be more decisive than another HIMAR.

These guys dont even have boots, and theyre supposed to keep their feet warm all winter? Lol wtf? I think we will hear some crazy stories over the winter concerning being underprepared and underequipped. 

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, Canada Guy said:

This loss of the 1.5 mil winter uniforms reminds me of another blunder on the Eastern front where these were not needed as the war would be over by autumn. 

This could be a real disaster as the weather cools and Russian forces are forced to huddle under tents they had to bring themselves. if they really have no winter uniforms, I cannot see this going much past Dec. The West should just start shipping winter gear to Ukr. Winter could be more decisive than another HIMAR.

Especially if the winter follows a mud season where the UA can prevent RU from supplying by rail. Trains are relatively immune to rain and mud unless there’s a slide onto or out from under the tracks.  So if Ukraine can keep taking rail hubs like Lyman and also keep hitting rail routes, they can make supply much harder for RU.  Russian truck based supply still seems really deficient, and if they have to drive through mud it will get much worse.

[Taranis]

"Ukrainian soldiers, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, October 2, 2022 INNA VARENYTSIA / AP"

[Taranis]

Quote

Retired US General David Petraeus – prosecuted and convicted for leaking secret documents to his biographer and mistress – is making headlines again. In the program “This Week” on ABC, the former boss of the CIA considered that Vladimir Putin was at an impasse: “The reality of the battlefield he faces is irreversible. No disorderly mobilization - that's the only way to describe it - no annexation, no nuclear threat, even veiled, can get it out of this situation. »

The former general predicted that the United States, along with NATO allies, "will eliminate [Russian conventional forces] [that they can] see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea , as well as all ships in the Black Sea” if Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to use nuclear weapons in his war against neighboring Ukraine.

Mr Petraeus recalled National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan's recent remarks that US officials warned Moscow of "catastrophic consequences" if the Kremlin deployed nuclear weapons. Radiation from a nuclear attack in Ukraine would likely reach neighboring NATO countries, making it an attack on the alliance.

Source Le Monde

 

[Aragorn2002]

3 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Source Le Monde

 

That's how you talk to Russians!

[Calamine Waffles]

Nice to see a T-64BM2 Bulat and T-72B3M working together. Interesting to see a BM2 in Kherson, my understanding is they were all based in Kharkiv (with 92 OMBr).
 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[FancyCat]

Well, some of it is true.

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

In Kherson even a kilometer a day and Russians are in the river next month.

[Taranis]

"Ukrainian soldiers at the recently retaken railway station in Kupiansk Vuzlovyi, in the Kharkiv region, on October 2, 2022. YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP"

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, let’s play semantics then.  The treaty says:

“Mine means munition designed to be placed under, on or near the ground or other surface area and to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person or vehicle”

http://www.icbl.org/media/604037/treatyenglish.pdf

IEDs are allowed because they fall outside the definition of “munition” then so are boobytraps.  A boobytrap is essentially an improvised explosive or non-explosive device, which has Geneva convention regulations but does not fall under the Ottawa treaty.  Further, non-explosive booby traps are also outside the scope of the treaty.
 

Now each nation is free to interpret these finer points as they wish. However, I am pretty sure a good public affairs spin could get the UA off the hook if they employed boobytraps or IEDs in defence of their nation.  Now if they employ a few million AP land mines…

Finally what is actually a matter of international law:

https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?chapter=26&clang=_en&mtdsg_no=XXVI-2-b&src=TREATY

 

IEDs do not fall outside the definition of "munitions", and that is not semantics, but pretty important, because it means they are indeed prohibited by the Ottawa Treaty - if they are victim activated. And this is also what we call (explosive) booby-traps.

This text goes into a lot more detail:

https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2019/09/17/ieds-mine-ban-convention/

 

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

1 hour ago, Taranis said:

Source Le Monde

 

I so hope Ruskies make a demo use of nukes for example on Snake Island.

So we could get this **** finished with minimal time and costs.

[Bulletpoint]

9 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I so hope Ruskies make a demo use of nukes for example on Snake Island.

So we could get this **** finished with minimal time and costs.

I wonder what Petraeus - a former commander of US Central Command - thinks the Russians will do in response to the US launching a massive attack to completely destroy their army and airforce.

[Holien]

16 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I wonder what Petraeus - a former commander of US Central Command - thinks the Russians will do in response to the US launching a massive attack to completely destroy their army and airforce.

I guess I hope we never find out...

At some stage you just have to call their bluff because if it works this time they will use it again.

Do you have a better proposal on a measure to take when (if) Russia uses a Nuke in Ukraine?

Interested to hear what you would do?