How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Seedorf81]

2 hours ago, Huba said:

So it begins:

 

Sciencefiction turned into reality.. Amazing footage.

[Seedorf81]

1 hour ago, Taranis said:

"Ukrainian soldiers move their position, on a front line near Toretsk, on October 12, 2022. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP"
* For the first guy with two boxes : bulletproof vest  CIRAS ? MSA parcalete RMV ? Paul Boyé 'Tigre' (looks like the same we had (French '11-'12) in Afghanistan)

Guy on the left is obviously tyred..

Edited October 13, 2022 by Seedorf81

[Huba]

2 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

Sciencefiction turned into reality.. Amazing footage.

As was discussed here, some net or ropes that a drone could drag to ensnare the propeller on the enemy are the logical improvement for the air-to-air role. But I'd love to see somebody mount a shotgun on one of these things

 

[Beleg85]

Perhaps a trace that Ruussians are indeed short on missiles. Unless they specifically tailored the newest missile they could get to kill Very Important Target like sightseeing bridge in Kyiv, it may point to the fact they are running out of stocks.

Also, for those who have Twitter (majority of folks here probably) it is worth to read this short thread by Radchenko about strategic options for Ukraine: https://twitter.com/DrRadchenko/status/1580441805539094528  and comments, some of them from some of the best experts in the field like de Waal. And compare those stances to what was discussed on this board many times. Oh, and ignore muscovite trolls.

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Beleg85

[acrashb]

41 minutes ago, Huba said:

As was discussed here, some net or ropes that a drone could drag to ensnare the propeller on the enemy are the logical improvement for the air-to-air role. But I'd love to see somebody mount a shotgun on one of these things

Drone evolution has an analogue in WWI aircraft - at first for observation, then dropping - by hand - bombs, then air-to-air fighting.  Where this will diverge is the need for the WWI aircraft to return home with their crew.

Regarding shotguns, too much recoil.  Besides, why not kill it with fire?

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, Kinophile said:

I've been looking for AutoCAD dwgs of the bridge for days, to no avail. Usually with a large infrastructure project like this you'll find studies and sometimes even the actual construction drawings. 

With the Kerch - nothing. Nada.

 

 

Fill yer галоши, mate!

Specs (in Russian) are at front, drawings at the back.

(I'm not a research genius -- well actually I am not bad, I just hit my event horizon of caring about the Bridge whodunnit a while ago. Anyhoo, it was embedded in some tweet or other)

Edited October 13, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[DesertFox]

1 hour ago, Seedorf81 said:

Sciencefiction turned into reality.. Amazing footage.

Skynet will take over soon...Hasta la vista, baby...

[Taranis]

To summarize and according to him, at present, the USA has a weak point between the interception at low and high altitude of the hyper-sonic missiles. From a general point of view, no country in the world would currently have the capacity to intercept these missiles effectively.

For History : (6 first months sumup)

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Taranis

[kevinkin]

"I expect that Ukraine will continue to do everything it can throughout the winter to -- to regain its -- its territory and to -- and to be effective on the battlefield. And we're going to do everything we can to make sure that they have what -- what's required to be effective."

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3186611/secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-sta/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-questions-are-swirling-about-who-will-buy-more-than-31-trillion-of-u-s-debt-and-at-what-price-11665507637

Money ain't cheap and not getting cheaper. Ukraine needs to keep this in mind. While a low probability that Zelinsky's credit card will be canceled, it's just another factor in this mess and why time matters at each level of warfare. They can't let Putin run out the clock while testing the world's resolve. The current tempo appears to be set to prevent this. But the human toll on Ukraine is immeasurable. 

[dan/california]

8 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

Ouch

Cleaning Russian intelligence services out the internet is going to take a decade, If we REALLY work at it.

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Yes, the “Russians suck” bandwagon has become about as much groupthink as “The Russians are giants” narratives were at the beginning of this thing.  The Russians are in bad shape and are experiencing multiple systemic failures at just about every level of warfare; however, that obstacle belt looks professionally sighted and constructed for purpose to me.  Now wether it will be part of a much larger effective defensive, is another question.

I would highlight, again, the Russians are fighting by the same playbook we use. The UA is playing by a new set of rules they have had to evolve to by necessity.  A real risk of “Russians suck” is the implied “Ya but in a real war we would do the same but correctly, because we do not suck”.  This is pretty much the exact same narratives coming out of European militaries before the First World War.

I am still pretty strongly of the opinion that extremely high tech ghillies suits are going to be the new gold standard. Especially as the Ukraine war motivates people to apply themselves to the smart, mobile, self laying minefields you have mentioned previously. I have this vision of them crawling out of the truck and emplacing/hiding themselves.

4 hours ago, IanL said:

I fail to see how finding truck parts on a damaged bridge section where trucks were traveling when the explosion happened, favours the explosion being caused by a truck bomb over a missile strike.

You missed my sarcastic intent. I found the truck parts in those pictures profoundly unconvincing. I am 100% on team missile.

Edited October 13, 2022 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Mattias said:

In the very long podcast I mentioned earlier Theiner, @noclador on twitter, tackles the ATACMS vs. Hrim-2 issue. He rules in favour of the former because, as I understood it, of the two only ATACMS (being a non ballistic missile) has the attack profile that would allow it to 1. seemingly completely ignore air defences and 2. cause the pattern of damage seen on the bridge. He hypothesis that the US might have given Ua access to the ATACMS guidance system, to mount on a Hrim-2 (3?), but ultimately discards that idea as being too improbable. 

Yup, that's the same theory we came up with for the Saki attack, which is a hybrid of Ukrainian missile tech with US guidance system.  From the specs the missile itself has the flight characteristics to be guided very accurately even with Ukraine's own guidance system.  Putting a better "brain" into the mix, therefore, is viable.  Unlike, say, putting it into a Tocha-U rocket.

Steve

[Taranis]

Testimonies of men who can be mobilized in Russia

Quote

 

• Mikhail works for the IT department of a Russian airline in a major city in the country. Despite the sanctions that have complicated the life of the company, the planes continue to fly. Its employment in the information technology sector is therefore essential, but the company has not succeeded in exempting its personnel from mobilization. He has no desire to go to war.

• As his function allows him to work remotely, he left his family and his comfortable apartment to take refuge in the countryside, in the dacha of friends. “I live in a small house of 30 square meters with a banya [Russian hot steam bath] in which I bathe and do my laundry,” says Mikhail. The toilets are outside. “From autumn, the water will be cut off and I will have to fetch it from the well. »

• Mikhaïl actually hopes that the military commissar will not find him in his country corner. He still decided to deal with this eventuality and installed a wireless surveillance camera on the only road that leads to his dacha. He can thus observe the few passing cars. If he should see a suspicious vehicle, he would have time to hide in the nearby forest.

 

 

Quote

While the Kremlin organizes the mobilization, a good part of the country tries to avoid it. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled abroad, others are using every conceivable stratagem to avoid being sent to the front lines.

Thus Alexei (the names have been changed), originally from Oufa, capital of the Republic of Bashkiria, in central Russia. In 2007, the young man had a romantic relationship with Yekaterina, from Tourinsk, in the Urals. Six months later, the young woman is pregnant. The fiancé had not planned to become a father. He suddenly disappears and gives no more news.

Also Read: War in Ukraine Live: EU Foreign Minister Says 'Russian Army Will Be Wiped Out' in the Event of a Nuclear Attack on Ukraine
Fifteen years later, Vladimir Putin's war brings him back into Yekaterina's life, through a message received on social networks. "I never thought of writing to you, but unfortunately I have to," writes Alexei. I know that next to you grows a boy that I should be the father of. You should know that times are tough and I'm still missing a birth certificate. Men with four children are exempt from mobilization. You can send me for a ride, I would understand. Do I even have a chance? »

Yekaterina discovers that Alexey already has three legitimate children from two different women. "Why should I give him a chance?" Yekaterina asks. He is a stranger to me. She replied, "Which child do you mean if you don't know his name or date of birth?" He was raised by a completely different man, my husband. »

 

[keas66]

52 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

"I expect that Ukraine will continue to do everything it can throughout the winter to -- to regain its -- its territory and to -- and to be effective on the battlefield. And we're going to do everything we can to make sure that they have what -- what's required to be effective."

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3186611/secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-sta/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-questions-are-swirling-about-who-will-buy-more-than-31-trillion-of-u-s-debt-and-at-what-price-11665507637

Money ain't cheap and not getting cheaper. Ukraine needs to keep this in mind. While a low probability that Zelinsky's credit card will be canceled, it's just another factor in this mess and why time matters at each level of warfare. They can't let Putin run out the clock while testing the world's resolve. The current tempo appears to be set to prevent this. But the human toll on Ukraine is immeasurable. 

To me - this strikes me as an opportunity of the century - literally - to remove Russia from the Big Boys  table once and for all and put them into a position where they need to start trading  off nuclear material again  to  be  a part of the  Modern Global economy . The US should be using this opportunity to reduce the capabilities of Russia Permanently .

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Yes, the “Russians suck” bandwagon has become about as much groupthink as “The Russians are giants” narratives were at the beginning of this thing.  The Russians are in bad shape and are experiencing multiple systemic failures at just about every level of warfare; however, that obstacle belt looks professionally sighted and constructed for purpose to me.  Now wether it will be part of a much larger effective defensive, is another question.

I have to constantly remind myself that Russia doesn't always suck as bad as we would like them to.  Case in point is the fairly competent defense under stressful circumstances we see in Kherson.  It's been tougher for Ukraine to roll up the defenses than any of us would have liked to see, that's for sure.  Which means the "one swift kick" theory I and others had didn't really pan out.  As with Russia's covert mobilization, they have more tricks up their sleeve than would appear at first glance.

Having said that, what Russia is employing are tricks.  Tricks generally work only for the short term and very often come at the expense of long term goals.  Covert mobilization chewed through pretty much all of their manpower, including trainers and non-frontline specialists.  It consumed hardened criminals.  It used up the easiest to bribe citizenry.  Yet it did not solve their manpower shortages, it just prevented a systemic front wide collapse.  What it did do was give Ukraine the Kharkiv offensive.

I see these new defenses, if implemented on a larger scale, the same sort of thinking.  It's not going to work because there's bigger issues at play here other than "Russia sucks".  The one you mentioned many times is "Ukraine doesn't suck".  The other one is Russia's manpower shortage hasn't been fixed by the partial mobilization any more than with the covert mobilization.  Worse, in fact, because of how incompetently handled partial mobilization has been and the pool to draw from wasn't very good to start from.  It's ammo is running out and that's it's primary go-to way to operate.  The equipment it needs to fight is also approaching critical loss levels.  Specialized equipment and/or the people to use them competently is also on a steep decline.  Morale is in the crapper and unlikely to improve.  etc.

Therefore, examining things in detail doesn't give me any degree of confidence that Russia can pull off a meaningful static defense.

The best Russia can reasonably hope for is to slow down Ukraine's ability to retake its terrain in some places at some points in time.  But it can not stop Ukraine from bypassing or selecting more vulnerable targets to focus on, perhaps even on a different front.  All the while Russia's attrition problem continues to get worse while Ukraine's doesn't.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Some more bridge thoughts came to my mind as I was looking at pictures last night.

Does anybody have footage from someone driving over the bridge before the strike?  I saw at least one lamp post that appears to have a CCTV camera on it, which got me thinking... I bet they have other cameras that could see this section of the bridge at the time of the explosion.  For example, did they have NO cameras aimed from the Crimean towards Russian side?  The two we have seen are both from Russian towards Crimea.  That doesn't sound right to me, even considering Russia's half ass execution of whatever is deemed the correct thing to do.

I'm wondering if other footage shows things Russia doesn't want us to see.

Steve

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Fill yer галоши, mate!

Specs (in Russian) are at front, drawings at the back.

(I'm not a research genius -- well actually I am not bad, I just hit my event horizon of caring about the Bridge whodunnit a while ago. Anyhoo, it was embedded in some tweet or other)

Amazing! 

[dan/california]

35 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Some more bridge thoughts came to my mind as I was looking at pictures last night.

Does anybody have footage from someone driving over the bridge before the strike?  I saw at least one lamp post that appears to have a CCTV camera on it, which got me thinking... I bet they have other cameras that could see this section of the bridge at the time of the explosion.  For example, did they have NO cameras aimed from the Crimean towards Russian side?  The two we have seen are both from Russian towards Crimea.  That doesn't sound right to me, even considering Russia's half *** execution of whatever is deemed the correct thing to do.

I'm wondering if other footage shows things Russia doesn't want us to see.

Steve

The first level of analysis is to assume whatever Russia says is a lie. They lie about stuff they don't even need to lie about. They lie about absolutely everything, apparently as a matter of policy to damage the very idea of the truth. So it is 100% they are lying about this.

[The_MonkeyKing]

Ukraine is getting the Hawk anti-air system.

source:
https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1eaKbrMPAQaKX
"Announcement by Spain that they will provide four Hawk launchers to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses"-Stoltenberg (2:09-2:17)

It is **** but not as **** as you might first think:
Spain has the HAWK Phase III, overhauled in the 80-90s and missiles are from the 90s. So surely comparable to likes of  BUK-M1 for example. Useful for static back lines protection like Kiev city center.
https://www.armyrecognition.com/united_states_american_missile_system_vehicle_uk/hawk_mim-23_low_medium_altitude_ground_to_air_missile_technical_data_sheet_specifications_pictures.html

[kevinkin]

46 minutes ago, keas66 said:

The US should be using this opportunity to reduce the capabilities of Russia Permanently .

Yes, I agree. However, the world has been known to take their eyes off the ball. Nations will have friends and enemies that come and go.  But their self interests will always be around. And those interests are not always aligned with what is good long term. For example, the generational change required to excise Russia of all its problems is beyond the horizon of the every day news cycle and this afternoon's soccer match. 

[Tenses]

Seems like more and more official statements suggest that NATO will personally kill everything russian in Ukraine, if nuke will be used. Hope they won't have to.

[dan/california]

7 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Amazing! 

Haven't had time to find it with my nonexistent Russian, but I want to compare the rebar details for the top of a column with that cracked one in the damage pics. It would be significant to find evidence that there is less rebar than the drawing calls for.

[FancyCat]

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

In looking at the parallel road video again, I'm coming around to the chemical truck bomb theory a bit more.  Watching it again and again and again I'm getting the sense that the explosion was very inefficient or there were secondary materials that caught fire due.

The issue I see is that the water to the "right" of the bridge appears to be on fire for a brief second, producing a big ball of flame and smoke which is then blown back onto the bridge along with the "sparks".  Since water doesn't do this on its own, something had to be on the water separate from the primary blast.  Three options:

1. unspent chemicals from a truck bomb
2. diesel fuel from right side saddle tank of the truck cab.  The likely quantity is somewhere in the 100 gallon/380 liter range for one tank partially consumed by driving.  Double that if the left tank also contributed.
3. something the truck was carrying was itself highly flammable and easily dispersed (i.e. chemical)

The most straight forward is, obviously, unspent chemicals from the bomb.  But the volume of fuel potentially carried by the truck is substantial enough to produce such an effect if the tank was ruptured before the fuel ignited.  As for what was carried in the truck, that's anybody's guess.  If it had been carrying something flammable there could have been tons of material that would be dispersed before igniting.

Occam's Razor theory says this favors the truck bomb theory.  However, it isn't conclusive as there are reasonable alternatives that support the secondary effects coming from a normal truck with a routine cargo.

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

Have you guys kept looking at the totals on this page? Creeping up pretty darn high
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html

here are some of the largest

• Tanks (~320)

• Infantry Fighting Vehicles (~210)

• Engineering Equipment (25)

• Armoured Personnel Carriers (~700)

• Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles (~600)

• Infantry Mobility Vehicles (520+)

• Towed Artillery (~250)

• Self-Propelled Artillery (~180 with another 180+ on order)

• Multiple Rocket Launchers (~90)

• Radars (~85)

[Battlefront.com]

10 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The first level of analysis is to assume whatever Russia says is a lie. They lie about stuff they don't even need to lie about. They lie about absolutely everything, apparently as a matter of policy to damage the very idea of the truth. So it is 100% they are lying about this.

Yup, it's just that there's so many different ways and reasons to lie that it's difficult to say what the lie actually is.  Which is Russian maskirovka's primary goal.  Therefore, with absolute certainty we know that Russia is lying.

Wow, what a really wonderful national characteristic to be proud of, eh?

Steve