How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

Some rail infrastructure in DNR got HIMARSed. UA freed up a lot of resources that were being used to keep the Dnipro crossings down, and destroying all the smaller bridges and overpasses in range sounds like a great way to uilize them

 

[Bulletpoint]

8 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Video of Dirlewagnerites being shelled, I think there were earlier clips from the same spot several days ago.

I have to admit I wish the people adding tasteless music to these clips would get drafted and sent to play a role in their own MTV videos.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Yup, seems legit. Curiously why this daredevil decided to came out to fight into obviously doomed situation. Am I right that, judging by appearance these may be guys from Caucasus? Dagestani, Ingushe etc. are often incorrectly taken for kadyrovtsy.

Shows some mistakes made by the Ukrainians.  They should be set up in such a way as to concentrate fire on vertical targets.  At that range a PKM on the ground like that pretty much assured that if it lit up that guys on the ground would be hit as well.

It's an understandably horrible situation and I don't blame the Ukrainian soldiers for what happened.  Just saying that it appears they were correctly prepared for a surprise attack, but not optimally arranged for minimizing casualties amongst the surrendered.

The more important questions are what happened after.  If any of the Russians were "finished off", that would be a war crime.

3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Could also be instinctive reaction of post-Soviet institutional mentallity to deny everything on the spot. Nobody is specifically to blame, just perhaps they collectively rushed into conclusions on their own. However I doubt it, Kuleba at least seems professional and cold-headed; for this he was very liked here. I don't know enough about internal UA politics unfortunatelly to answer this. We should also keep in mind that largest rocket attack was taking place on their soil. Still, it doesn't absolve their behaviour if it was indeed their rockets.

But need to admitt there are several odd things from NATO side about this incident that raise eyebrows as well.

It's rather humorous, in a way, to see Russia saying NATO is fudging the information to justify attacking Russia and some in the West are saying NATO is fudging the information to weasel out of attacking Russia.

I'm staying neutral on this for now.  I stand by my criticism of Ukraine for not considering the optics of denying what might turn out to be true, but I do think we lack the information needed to know exactly what happened.  Other than someone or something went wrong and 2 Polish civilians are dead.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

Russian demonstrates the aftermath of a HIMARS rocket explosion with tungsten balls. The whole machine is literally riddled including the frame and engine. The commentator is sure that the car cannot be restored

This is a rear area maintenance yard.  The guy swearing is a mechanic charged with "restoring" the truck to service and he's saying, rather colorfully, that there's nothing salvageable on this vehicle.  Even the leaf springs are useless.

I have to say that I've never thought about this sort of HIMARS damage.  Normally if a vehicle is not totally burnt/blown up there are at least spare parts that can be salvaged if the vehicle itself can't be restored.  But with the M30A1 warhead that isn't the case.  Anything within the area is probably going to be completely useless like this truck.

Steve

[Beleg85]

50 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I have to admit I wish the people adding tasteless music to these clips would get drafted and sent to play a role in their own MTV videos.

+1. War is getting population desanitized at alarmingly fast rate. Year ago it would unthinkable to show barely blurred bodies of people lying around in main TV channel before 10 p.m., now it's the norm and people eat pizza while cheering it up. Another gift of Putin to humanity.

47 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm staying neutral on this for now.  I stand by my criticism of Ukraine for not considering the optics of denying what might turn out to be true, but I do think we lack the information needed to know exactly what happened.  Other than someone or something went wrong and 2 Polish civilians are dead.

Steve

Yup, definitelly that' correct stance; I don't want to be tinfoiling, but for my taste there are also several things that are fishy or odd about current US/PL version. Just like about Ukrainian officials, this may simply be effect of institutional inertia, misunderstandings and informational lag. That is why I hope they will resolve issue quickly, not in months or years. Press conference, several experts behind the table, a telebim with presentation of basic events and preliminary evidences would suffice to cut speculations for now.

Instead we have waves of quarrels rolling through social media between Ukrainians and Poles. Which is exactly effect Russians would like to achieve.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Russian tent:
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1593564758267019266?s=20&t=kEBOortGfMgiOsdxfdeYJw

 

 

Close enough?:

 

Cripes, that last one is made out of "plastic stretch wrap".  It's what is used to wrap pallets so the contents don't fall off during shipping.  The ONLY thing it can do for these guys is reduce the effects of wind and keep out snow.  But in typical Russian half arsed fashion, it's only covering a portion of the side so it's not going to do either.

Steve

[dan/california]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Cripes, that last one is made out of "plastic stretch wrap".  It's what is used to wrap pallets so the contents don't fall off during shipping.  The ONLY thing it can do for these guys is reduce the effects of wind and keep out snow.  But in typical Russian half arsed fashion, it's only covering a portion of the side so it's not going to do either.

Steve

The Russians being being Miserable ENOUGH is what ends this. The batch in that tent is going to be pretty cold.. I also see some scope for suffocation if they actually managed to tape it up tight...

[Blazing 88's]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

I have to admit I wish the people adding tasteless music to these clips would get drafted and sent to play a role in their own MTV videos.

Image link:
lol.... and that would be a no!

I can't figure why images won't work properly. Even tried reducing the size to the 1.48 kB limit. I had been meaning to post that a long time ago.

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Blazing 88's

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, Blazing 88's said:

Image link:
lol.... and that would be a no!

I can't figure why images won't work properly. Even tried reducing the size to the 1.48 kB limit. I had been meaning to post that a long time ago.

 

So you are insinuating that I am a crying woman because I think this is tasteless?

[Blazing 88's]

Just now, Bulletpoint said:

So you are insinuating that I am a crying woman because I think this is tasteless?

Good grief no.... Sorry?

[Huba]

UA drone offensive in the Black Sea continues! 

 

[dan/california]

31 minutes ago, Blazing 88's said:

Good grief no.... Sorry?

I watch all of it with the volume off. The one in fifty that has narration in in Ukrainian, sadly I don't speak it so....

[Beleg85]

Surprisingly little coverage of this incident, so perhaps people are not sure if it is true? :

Next target: Putin's palace. It is just slightly down the coast.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Surprisingly little coverage of this incident, so perhaps people are not sure if it is true? :

Next target: Putin's palace. It is just slightly down the coast.

Obvious next steps in the evolution of these drones is ability to lay sea mines and to launch kamikaze UAVs. 

[Beleg85]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

Obvious next steps in the evolution of these drones is ability to lay sea mines and to launch kamikaze UAVs. 

I am sceptical for now these UA drones could sail so far, it's 600+ kms. If story happens to be true however, Russian BS Fleet is in deeper trouble than previously thought. Ports, palaces, even submarine bases on the coast could be endangered now...there is no Russian sub on the Oryx list. Yet.

 

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

6 minutes ago, Huba said:

Obvious next steps in the evolution of these drones is ability to lay sea mines and to launch kamikaze UAVs. 

I think torpedoes would actually be most useful. Once the weapon goes underwater, the rules of the game change completely. ASW is so much more difficult than shooting down flying objects. And once torpedo is in the water the usual defence is to try to evade it/run away from it - good luck doing that at anchor.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

6 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

I am sceptical for now these UA drones could sail so far, it's 600+ kms. If story happens to be true however, Russian BS Fleet is in deeper trouble than previously thought. Ports, palaces, even submarine bases on the coast could be endangered now...there is no Russian sub on the Oryx list. Yet.

 

 

They must have had some carrier. But theoretically it could have been another drone, just bigger and more seaworthy.  

[Haiduk]

16 hours ago, chris talpas said:

Why the reluctance on Zelensky’s part to admit it was an accident and move on?

No one is blaming Ukraine, but continuing to say it isn’t theirs is doing them no favours.

Zelenskiy wants UKR militaries to take part in investigations. In Ukriane now very big suspicion, that there was also Russian missile, being chased by Ukrainian, but because finding remains of Russian missile would be put NATO in front of inconvenient developments (art.4 at lest = "escalation"), that USA hasted to make a statement only about UKR missile to hush up the question, hinting also to Poland they should make a statement also about UKR missile.

I think this can be true - I don't believe in accident launch. Russian missile have to be somewhere on UKR on on Poland territory. 

By the way, yesterday Russians repeated this trick - they launched several Kalibrs from Black Sea, which passed through Odesa oblast very close along Moldova border and hit something in Khmelnitskiy oblast.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[Huba]

14 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

I am sceptical for now these UA drones could sail so far, it's 600+ kms. If story happens to be true however, Russian BS Fleet is in deeper trouble than previously thought. Ports, palaces, even submarine bases on the coast could be endangered now...there is no Russian sub on the Oryx list. Yet.

 

 

Marketed range of these is 800km, so... 

9 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I think torpedoes would actually be most useful. Once the weapon goes underwater, the rules of the game change completely. ASW is so much more difficult than shooting down flying objects. And once torpedo is in the water the usual defence is to try to evade it/run away from it - good luck doing that at anchor.

I'd say that the size of usual 533mm torpedo would be an issue here, as these are way bigger than the UA drones. I wonder though if UA has some larger "mothership" type in service, probably a submersible. Sounds rather logical. 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Huba

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

Marketed range of these is 800km, so... 

I'd say that the size of usual 533mm size would be an issue here, as these are way bigger than the UA drones. I wonder though if UA has some larger "mothership" type in service, probably a submersible. Sounds rather logical. 

I will bet my house that a bunch of countries are trying to figure out a carrier for a standard torpedo using this tech. Maybe hang the torpedo 5ft  deep in the water. have a slightly bigger version of this drone to haul it into range. 

[Beleg85]

4 minutes ago, Huba said:

Marketed range of these is 800km, so... 

Yeah, just checked you are right, at least that is theory (I am curious how they manage bad weather at deep sea and what's with signal range). Ok, so Russians are in deep kaka indeed. I hope their sinking ships will not damage Ancient wrecks at the bottom. They are pricelles.

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Yeah, just checked you are right, at least that is theory (I am curious how they manage bad weather at deep sea and what's with signal range). Ok, so Russians are in deep kaka indeed. I hope their sinking ships will not damage Ancient wrecks at the bottom. They are pricelles.

Just scaring them bleepless and sleepless seems reasonably effective...

[Huba]

27 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Yeah, just checked you are right, at least that is theory (I am curious how they manage bad weather at deep sea and what's with signal range). Ok, so Russians are in deep kaka indeed. I hope their sinking ships will not damage Ancient wrecks at the bottom. They are pricelles.

Starlink This is a true game changer for seaborne drones in recent times, something we are just starting to embrace. I'm sure that for smaller basins like Black or Baltic seas, small unmanned micro-subs are the future. 

And for bad weather, with contemporary forecasts and very high speeds, you can avoid the storms altogether, though it's a bit limiting. A submersible mothership would solve that completely. 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Huba

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Am I right that, judging by appearance these may be guys from Caucasus? Dagestani, Ingushe etc. are often incorrectly taken for kadyrovtsy.

No, they were ususal "chmobiks". Just too dirty. This probably happened in Makiivka village of Luhansk oblast - Svatove direction. Some hints about this was on Lostarmour. As if unit of mobilized Russians got order to move in Makiivka and seiz some houses. I don't know how it happened, but Makiivla already was under UKR control. Maybe this was some outskirt houses - on Russian forum also many people asked how they turned out in UKR-controled village. So, on next morning UKR troopers encountered with this group. What happened nexy you can see on the video. Russian shooter violated article 37 of Geneva Convention and made all other own comrades legitimate targets.   

According to Russian forum talks, command of 20th CAA treats to mobilized like to the livestock. They are throwing them in sensless counter attacks and "chmobiks" have huge losses. I can't find this video now, but I've seen it in some twitter account - widows of killed Russian mobilized soldiers appeal to anybody for assistance in evacuation of about 80 bodies from Kolomyichykha village area (Svatove direction) 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[kraze]

17 hours ago, chris talpas said:

Why the reluctance on Zelensky’s part to admit it was an accident and move on?

No one is blaming Ukraine, but continuing to say it isn’t theirs is doing them no favours.

Because it suddenly went from 2 missiles striking Poland to one and 100% malfunctioned Ukrainian S300 missile before the investigation is even remotely over.

Because there's a huge opposition among certain NATO countries to "escalating", which we can also clearly see in a very neutral verdict by the court in Hague, which doesn't even remotely try to put the blame on Russia, but just 3 guys instead who may or may not have acted all alone using Buk they may or may not have had in their garage. You know, every random russian soldier has one rusting next to the bear cage.

After 8 years.

As opposed to literally everybody saying "ah it was Ukrainian S300" just a few hours after the thing - before investigators even started working.

So the real truth will be at the end of investigation. As much as I don't like Zelenskyy for a HUGE myriad of reasons not seen in his carefully recorded videos - pretty sure he would agree to whatever outcome of the investigation. If there was one missile and it was indeed a malfunctioned Ukrainian one - no problem. There will be a great video apology made, like y'all desire it to be. But if Russia is way more to blame than it already is - then why keep enabling them?

Edited November 18, 2022 by kraze