How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

52 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Have to say...the biggest indication to me that this is not on the up and up is the 70 year old guy doing isolated recon in Eastern Ukraine hearing for the first time of the balloon who suddenly has more knowledge of Chinese balloon capabilities and a likely reaction to an overflight than almost any professional natsec expert I know would have had 10 days ago.

Strains credibility and looks exactly like post facto commentary.  

 

Haven't we been here before with the Canadian in Ukraine guy?  There is a possibility that the "guy" is a fictional character but the "observations" are being pulled from actual sources on the ground.  The character construct is simply to get everyone to "like and subscribe" because the idea of a 70 year old "frisky and spry" American jumping from trench to trench kinda resonates with the target audience. 

[The_Capt]

52 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

Technically balloon can quickly provide a critical information no other planform can offer. It can measure variations in gravity field, make ICBM more accurate (although the precise mapping of gravity field around the target area can only provide a very small amount of improvement on the accuracy overall.)  

 

 

 

 

Ok, ok.  Hey look the Balloon Week was a lot of laughs, and frankly I think we should all be very proud that not a single 'boobs joke' was fired off.  But I think the issue is kinda moved on.  I suspect we will hear something more on this once the SSE is done and the US can make political/diplomatic hay over this thing and China has to wipe egg off its face.

FWIW, I have been hearing about gravitational variation since the 90s.  Some guys were trying to figure out how to find boomers (the subs, not my mother) in the Pacific using this.  Not saying it is not a thing, and maybe we will have to scramble to fill the strategic "Balloon Gap" ( @sburke don't you dare!), but personally I am not going to lose sleep over whatever this was until we get more information.

Edited February 7, 2023 by The_Capt

[chrisl]

48 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

Technically balloon can quickly provide a critical information no other planform can offer. It can measure variations in gravity field, make ICBM more accurate (although the precise mapping of gravity field around the target area can only provide a very small amount of improvement on the accuracy overall.)  

 

 

 

 

Those kind of measurements are *really* hard to do from a balloon with any fidelity because there are a lot of outside forces acting on the balloon and it's hard to maintain an inertial environment somewhere inside.  Local gravity measurements are tricky to do in a stable lab subbasement with good isolation.  

[pintere]

 

[Kinophile]

29 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Haven't we been here before with the Canadian in Ukraine guy?  There is a possibility that the "guy" is a fictional character but the "observations" are being pulled from actual sources on the ground.  The character construct is simply to get everyone to "like and subscribe" because the idea of a 70 year old "frisky and spry" American jumping from trench to trench kinda resonates with the target audience. 

Maybe. The blogger isn't pushing anything,  barely mentions subscribing and doesn't push on any other platforms (that I can find). "he"  could also be a skillful composite of two people. 

His op descriptions are consistent, in themselves don't seem to have drawn disbelief from other Mil and seem regularly appropriate to the unit he describes -  special forces battlefield recon and surveillance. His ops also track and echo local events without (obvious) plagiarism or inspiration. There's no vain glorious bs,  he's pretty straightforward. He notes his limitations and is in a unit that matches his supposed experience and physicality, a relatively slow moving recon unit,  with short bursts of intense activity, not an urban assault group. 

Another note for me is that my own father has been hillwalking, mountain walking,  farming and sailing all his life. He's strong as an ox, has a very strong heart,  breezed through bowel cancer (caught it very early)  and is 73. He could walk the legs off me and I'm no slouch. He's sharp as a tack, watches his weight and eats healthily. The only issue is his hearing, damaged from daily exposure to loud milking machines as a dairy farmer. I doubt he's the only 70+ who's this active. An ex mill guy, watching his body since early 20s,  could easily match my Da. 

Finally,  there's a recent video interview on Twitter with a 70 UKR grandad,  mortar op but also fought in the trenches. 

Essentially,  it's possible and probable,  for me,  from a physical aspect,  that a 70  yr life long soldier could do what he describes, if he takes care of himself,  paces himself and matches an appropriate unit. 

The real test will be if he can be located to that Peshmerga unit he's mentioned before. If that proves out then man,  he's a winner. 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Kinophile

[billbindc]

12 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Maybe. The blogger isn't pushing anything,  barely mentions subscribing and doesn't push on any other platforms (that I can find). "he"  could also be a skillful composite of two people. 

His op descriptions are consistent, in themselves don't seem to have drawn disbelief from other Mil and seem regularly appropriate to the unit he describes -  special forces battlefield recon and surveillance. His ops also track and echo local events without (obvious) plagiarism or inspiration. There's no vain glorious bs,  he's pretty straightforward. He notes his limitations and is in a unit that matches his supposed experience and physicality, a relatively slow moving recon unit,  with short bursts of intense activity, not an urban assault group. 

Another note for me is that my own father has been hillwalking, mountain walking,  farming and sailing all his life. He's strong as an ox, has a very strong heart,  breezed through bowel cancer (caught it very early)  and is 73. He could walk the legs off me and I'm no slouch. He's sharp as a tack, watches his weight and eats healthily. The only issue is his hearing, damaged from daily exposure to loud milking machines as a dairy farmer. I doubt he's the only 70+ who's this active. An ex mill guy, watching his body since early 20s,  could easily match my Da. 

Finally,  there's a recent video interview on Twitter with a 70 UKR grandad,  mortar op but also fought in the trenches. 

Essentially,  it's possible and probable,  for me,  from a physical aspect,  that a 70  yr life long soldier could do what he describes, if he takes care of himself,  paces himself and matches an appropriate unit. 

The real test will be if he can be located to that Peshmerga unit he's mentioned before. If that proves out then man,  he's a winner. 

If we ever are able to confirm it, my bet's on fabrication or at best an amalgamation. There are too many things that are conveniently topical and/or suggest a wider experience than one man could have. Maybe it turns out to be true. If so, that would make it pretty unique.

[TheVulture]

28 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Those kind of measurements are *really* hard to do from a balloon with any fidelity because there are a lot of outside forces acting on the balloon and it's hard to maintain an inertial environment somewhere inside.  Local gravity measurements are tricky to do in a stable lab subbasement with good isolation. 

I'd have thought that either publicly available data or satellite orbital anomalies would give you much better precision than a balloon. And more importantly, much better precision than is needed for any practical military application -the effect of gravitational variation on projectiles is going to be dwarfed by the day to day variations in atmospheric drag due to changing weather conditions.

[Kinophile]

53 minutes ago, Rokko said:

So I skimmed through a few more entries and my alarm bells just kept ringing even harder.

There are zero specifics except for a few names of vague localities in Vietnam and Ukraine, except for a bunch of random weapon statistics. There isn't even a single picture in the entire blog I've seen. Not that selfies in airsoft gear like with that other goofball would make it believable, but even a random picture of a burning tank you can't find through reverse image search would make me drastically more inclined to believe any of this.

Also, guy is not only a 70-year old Vietnam vet still involved in active combat with SOF, he also fought in Syria with the SDF. A Thrice divorced, Russian speaking, steak loving badass, shooting Russians and ISIS guys at close range with his AK, call sign "lone wolf", it all reads like very cliché Call of Duty fan fiction.

Sure, but that's still just opinion  (not dissing you,  just noting). 

Just be clear,  I'm not "defending"  the guy as such. I'm just more convinced that yourself in the balance of my read of his posts. There's a lot if sensible reasons for various things,  details that match externalities and no internal inconsistencies. There's also none of the common failing of liars for attention,  in that they cannot help themselves from increasing the drama and "interest"  of what they're supposedly doing. Lies beget lies,  they stack up and become ridiculous, especially if the liars feel they're (1) getting noticed or (2) not getting noticed. They can't help themselves. So either the guy is an incredibly disciplined attention-whore... or he's not lying. 

This guys accounts shows none of that trend, and he's been up for almost a year. The stuff is very dry and analytical. 

Ref photos I believe he (I'm just assuming a singular make for ease) is very conscious of digital opsec, very wary of meta data leakage and while he does take photos won't post them for that reason. IIRC at the start of the blog(which is posted by someone else)  he would write out his notes,  photo them,  strip meta data and then post. Now he dektes his FB messages immediately. 

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, we all know that I'm in the Russia Sucks At War™ camp and we've long since discussed that I put myself in there more-or-less before this war started.  I'm not a founding member, but I'm not one of the Johnny Come Lately types either.  I say this because what I'm about to posit might sound like it's coming from the heart and not from the head, but I do assure you I've put at least some thought into this!

What if Russia just did a Khafji at Vuhledar?  You know, an attack that the defender thought was a recon in force when it was, in fact, a main assault.  It would explain a few a few things we were wondering about earlier, wouldn't it?

Of course this could have been a probe or a recon in force, but it doesn't feel like it to me.  It seems like the probes happened in the previous few days and the larger attack yesterday was intended to gain some ground.  Which, of course, it didn't.  Either way, the losses have likely screwed up whatever Russia's plans are for this sector of front.  Perhaps for others as well if it was designed to be a test run.

Also, I presume that the Russians are still coordinating actions based on schedules instead of observable conditions.  If that's true, and the attack in Vuhledar was the first part of a larger multipart plan... logically their slaughter will throw off the entire operation.  The question is if senior command has the flexibility to adjust the plan, to the point of cancelling it, or are their minds and/or hands tied and they'll go forward with the rest of it anyway?  Earlier in the war I would say DEFINITELY they would keep to their time tables because that's what we saw done so many times.  Now?  Well, this might be one area that Russian senior command has improved over the last year and take corrective action instead of proceeding as if nothing happened.

Steve

And I am in the "Russia is Sucking at this War because They Showed Up Dressed for Another One (tm)" camp.  Or more to the point "War has Fundamentally Shifted and Russia has Adapted Much More Poorly Than The UA(tm)" camp - they have tents right next to each other.  We do have campfire sessions with the "Russia Sucks at War(tm)" camp because I think we agree on a lot more than we disagree on...and then they pull out the smores.

Anyway, at the beginning of this war we saw a lot of "macro-masking" in mainstream analysis of what was going on.  This is essentially applying macro frameworks built on a lot of assumptions that tell you one thing, when the realities at the micro level are showing something entirely different.  This very often creates a false macro picture built on a foundation of bad sand, and when the bottom falls out a lot of finger pointing goes on.

We, here on the good ol BFC forum, went the other way.  We took a lot of micro-observations and upscaled them to arrive at our macro conclusions, which as is turns out were more accurate than the mainstream assessments.  2.5 million views later and here we are.  The trick to micro-upscaling is to use enough samples to avoid the anecdotal-trap (where one small story becomes the entire story), and of course try and filter out confirmation biases as best we can.

We also have to be very careful about mis/dis information.  But with that in mind we have been seeing a lot on the RA performance Feb-Jul,  as I have posted several times we actually have an operational level AAR out of RUSI on this part of the war.  We all have been watching social media carefully and seeing all sort of war-porn as Russians get cut to pieces etc and stories of Ukrainian force generation (tank week was a blast).  All of this is data has been pointing to a growing sense, in my mind at least, that the RA is continuing to devolve as a fighting force.  This does not mean "fall apart", it means that they have rolled back their doctrinal approaches to match the fighting forces that they are able to employ.  This post and article (again if confirmed) provides a lot of hints:

We suspected the RA had devolved at Severodonetsk as it shifted from manoeuvre to firepower based attacks.  This anecdote is from last late-summer, early fall near Kherson.  This speaks to a military force that is adapting or being forced to adapt by largely going back in time to earlier forms of warfare in order to marshal and project mass.

To my mind the RA is in a serious dilemma.  In order for it to make offensives work employing a WW2 style of mass, they need that WW2 mass.  And they do not have it.  If they concentrate enough mass to create it at any point, they have to rob the front line pretty harshly.  So the trick for the RA right now is to rapidly concentrate mass before the UA can react, conduct a rapid breakin, break through and break out battle with enough momentum to "pincer" of whatever, and actually inflict annihilation (not attrition) on the UA at an operational level.

This is an very tall order.  And based on what we have seen from the RA, maybe an impossible one.  The level of formation level coordination to do this when your opponent has a massive ISR advantage is very hard (i.e. the UA can see the RA massing before a major push, and just as importantly they can see where the RA is not, because they have had to rob from other sections of the front.)  The level of deception plans required to make this work are intense.   Further the Russian plan of attack will need to by dynamic and nearly non-linear.  This will require a lot of recon and very flexible C2 and seriously wired communications.  From what we have seen these are significant RA weaknesses, not strengths.

So what?  Well when the attack comes - given that like last summer, we may be seeing "the Attack" already - unless we see RA breakthrough and some exploitation, that does not lead to massive casualties, then the RA advance is doomed to stall - and we have not even talked about logistical issues.  This report matches a lot of reports that have come in on how the RA is the side that is suffering visible attrition (the VDV moving from BMD-4Ms to BMD-2s and understrength).  So the RA will need to somehow not only fill in those gaps, it will need to do it competitively.

So I honestly expect a lot of boom, boom.  Cratered fields and all.  We will see a lot of noisy attacks, and there will be UA casualties but until we see some sort of actual operational level manoeuvre the RA is stuck in the same box it created for itself last spring. 

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

Even the beeb has picked up on the buildup: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64551937

MMM

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, billbindc said:

If we ever are able to confirm it, my bet's on fabrication or at best an amalgamation. There are too many things that are conveniently topical and/or suggest a wider experience than one man could have. Maybe it turns out to be true. If so, that would make it pretty unique.

it is George Santos.  

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, Rokko said:

Is this guy even legit? The 70-year old Vietnam vet jogging around Eastern Ukraine writing a blog in his spare time bit just raises every red flag there is for me.

 

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Yes, as someone who called BS on the Devils Guard series from the moment I read it at age 16, that was my initial response too.

But if you want to persuade us this is fake, could you please (request, not an instruction)) skim the entire series of posts, starting from about April (it's about an hour of interesting reading), and then give us your sense as to why you conclude this is all an elaborate fabrication, and why.

No, really, skepticism is OK and I am genuinely open to being persuaded this is a highly sophisticated fake.

But my own (biased, flawed) gut is telling me that this Tennessee Academy dipdunk war whore is quite real, and while I suspect he won't survive this war given the brutal calculus in the SoF actions he is describing, I would love to shake his hand if he does.

 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

This article (as always…”if legit”) is loaded with hints and signals, and is based on pretty recent action by what we’re supposed to be the best troops the RA had left.  Main takeaway on a first pass:

Heavy attrition is having an effect on the RA - see BMDs

The RA is clearly not employing Mission Command - which is not a deal breaker IF you have a C4ISR architecture where one is set up for Detailed Command.

The RA’s C4ISR is largely obsolete for this war, and is rendering their mass disjointed and uncoordinated.

The combined arms being employed are straight out of Soviet doctrine, complete with echelons but nowhere near the mass require.

As suspected air power is absent and disconnected.

Artillery doctrine is straight out of WW2 - and I mean literally.  Rigid timetables and indiscriminate rigid fire plans.

So what?  Well based on this small vignette combined with a lot of corroborating observations the RA is a military trapped between two times.  It is built for modern warfare on paper, but is connected for 20th century warfare.  It does not have the levels of mass of the 20th century, nor does it have the C4ISR needed to make lower mass effective.

Their opponent is built almost the exact opposite.  The UA has far better alignment between mass, C4ISR and fires.

 

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

Have to say...the biggest indication to me that this is not on the up and up is the 70 year old guy doing isolated recon in Eastern Ukraine hearing for the first time of the balloon who suddenly has more knowledge of Chinese balloon capabilities and a likely reaction to an overflight than almost any professional natsec expert I know would have had 10 days ago.

Strains credibility and looks exactly like post facto commentary.  

 

 

43 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Haven't we been here before with the Canadian in Ukraine guy?  There is a possibility that the "guy" is a fictional character but the "observations" are being pulled from actual sources on the ground.  The character construct is simply to get everyone to "like and subscribe" because the idea of a 70 year old "frisky and spry" American jumping from trench to trench kinda resonates with the target audience. 

One of three things is going to happen, this will discovered to be a fake. He will get killed, or "killed" if they are trying to wind it down quietly. Or this will be one the three biggest book deals to come out of this war. We will find out eventually.

[sburke]

Russian state bank VTB blames all of 2022 losses on sanctions -CEO (yahoo.com)

MOSCOW, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Andrei Kostin, CEO of Russia' No. 2 bank VTB on Tuesday blamed sanctions for the lender's entire 2022 losses, a rare acknowledgement that Western efforts to punish Moscow over the Ukraine conflict have crippled parts of Russia's financial sector.

The West blocked several major Russian banks' access to the international SWIFT payments system soon after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, with dominant lenders Sberbank and VTB forced to shutter operations across much of Europe.

The sanctions hammer fell for VTB sooner than most domestic rivals and, being heavily exposed to international markets and with more than 20% of its loan portfolio in foreign currency, the bank was one of more than 100 loss-making lenders as the sector's profits slumped around 90% in 2022.

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

Have to say...the biggest indication to me that this is not on the up and up is the 70 year old guy doing isolated recon in Eastern Ukraine hearing for the first time of the balloon who suddenly has more knowledge of Chinese balloon capabilities and a likely reaction to an overflight than almost any professional natsec expert I know would have had 10 days ago.

Strains credibility and looks exactly like post facto commentary.  

OK, fair enough. I google searched the guy who publishes his stuff, one Kyle Mizokami, and let's say that while he would be a blast to drink with, I wouldn't take his stock tips.

Like @Kinophile I am inclined to believe this guy is real, as I simply can't figure out why anyone would deliberately fabricate somebody like this. But I can't offer solid proof. So, season to taste and caveat emptor, like many of the other sources cited here.

Edited February 7, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Kinophile]

6 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

OK, fair enough. I google searched the guy who publishes his stuff, one Kyle Mizokami, and let's say that while he would be a blast to drink with, I wouldn't take his stock tips.

Like @Kinophile I am inclined to believe this guy is real, as I simply can't figure out why anyone would deliberately fabricate somebody like this. But I can't offer solid proof. So, season to taste and caveat emptor, like many of the other sources cited here.

Yah, Mizokami is a pretty run of the mill defense mouth, but the accounts here don't match his style. Weight of evidence and all that. I do hope it's true,  but I wont lose any sleep if it's not. 

[dan/california]

 

 

Quote

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/opinion/russia-ukraine-us-tanks.html

The articles headline.

Quote

Russia and Ukraine Have Incentives to Negotiate. The U.S. Has Other Plans.

Contrary to what this article says Russia is losing on the battlefield, rather badly. But the fact the article exists, and was published in the NYT represents a disturbing trend. Russia has gotten its bleep together on the information warfare front to some extent.

I do hope Naftali Bennet got payed for pushing the Russian line here. Maybe he was always getting paid by them, it would explain a great deal. 

The semi consistent line these stooges are pushing is that Russia has been punished enough, and that it will cost too much to kick them out of Ukraine. They just ignore the whole thing with the concentration camps. A couple of hundred ATACMS with the clearance to hit any military target they can reach would be an outstanding response to this ^%^#  *%%%&. The endless dirge that the front lines are frozen and there is nothing to be done would shut right up.

Edited February 7, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

As a follow up question to the Russia Sucks at War theory I am wondering what is the reason for Russia being able to push Ukrainians back in the Soledar/south of Bachmut direction despite ample evidence of their sucking at war  elsewhere. Superior number of men? Superior number of artillery? Better RUS equipment? Innovative Russian tactics? Greater tolerance for losses (effectvely, morale)? VDV finally remembering their training? Command mistakes on the Ukrainian side? Etc?

My guess would be that the Russians once again concentrated significantly more artillery than the UKR and stockpiled enough munitions to achieve fire dominance. In other words, I think they are repeating the same formula, which gave them the slow advances in Summer 2022. And for a time, Wagner's unorthodox tactics also worked (until they run out of slave soldiers). But they are just guesses, so far I have seen no theory of Russian (underwhelming so far, but still) victory. 

It is interesting to note the differences in performance of various forces in different circumstances and wondering what explains it.  I think it all boils down to one thing...

Strategic level chaos

Russia has systemic, institutional deficiencies across the board from top to bottom.  Decades of corruption and criminal mentality ensured that Russia would not have the tools it needed to fight this war or, I'd argue, any war where the enemy chooses to fight in any significant way.

I am sure Russia is trying to straighten all these problems out, but think of the magnitude of changes that are necessary to make real improvements.  It's massive and it isn't going to happen any time soon, especially because the criminal mentality just doesn't go away because it's inconvenient.

The result of all of this is a lack of centralized standards being applied equally to all units all the time.  Some units get decently trained replacements, others get mobiks who don't know how to hold a gun, others get prisoners.  The quality of the individual soldier ranges from the physically fit to drug addicts scooped up off of the park benches.  Unit A gets T-90s, Unit B gets T-62s.  Artillery in one spot is commanded by gunners who have somehow managed to survive for months, in others by crews that were trained yesterday how to shove a shell into the breech and pull the lanyard.  So on and so forth.

Take all of this and add to this casualties.

For a unit to learn from its mistakes it must first survive long enough to accumulate enough to be of use.  Then the survivors have to be in positions to implement those lessons learned.  Personnel turnover for all causes, including ending service contracts, is likely running around 200%.  How many soldiers and officers at the front today have much combat experience beyond a couple of weeks or maybe months?  How many of them are in positions to influence what happens to their units?  How many units have commanders who are using the art of war to make decisions vs. disconnected orders coming from above?

This is what I mean by chaos.  There's really no standards on the Russian side.  Sometimes a VDV unit fights like a well disciplined professional unit, sometimes it gets slaughtered doing really dumb stuff.  Sometimes a volunteer battalion manages to conduct itself with skill, other times it runs away after suffering heavy losses.  So on and so forth.

Fighting conditions, of course, have a massive influence on everything.  Russia's ability to conduct a good defense of Kherson contrasted with conditions that set it up for massive failure in Kharkiv being the two best contrasting examples of the war so far.

The Ukrainians are not night and day different, BTW, but their basics seem to be better across the board.  They also seem to have retained more fighting force over longer periods of time AND not an insignificant amount have gone through NATO standard training.  And since they are fighting for something they universally believe in, to their very core, they have the sort of "in it to win it" mentality totally lacking on the Russian side.

Steve

[DesertFox]

5 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

and even more Leo1 from Germany (adding to the original 88 number so 187 in total from Germany):
Rheinmetall will transfer 88 vehicles, and another 99 will come from FFG

Add to this 20 from Denmark and 40ish from Belgium company total gets close to 250. There are even more available in the western countries.

in CMSF in very scientific experiments Leo1A5 vs T90 seem to be on bar with each other.
Both one-shot each others most of the time. T-90 has better survivability gets less shots off because worse spotting. Balances out.

 

Also even more M113 incoming from the Spain and UK.

Finally! The Chancellor refused this with scholzing around since 04/2022.

[danfrodo]

There's been discussion last few days about RU getting chips & maybe RU defense industries are actually overcoming sanctions, etc.  But if this is true, where are the missiles?  RU did a large number of missile attacks on UKR infrastructure (and civilian centers) for a month or so.  Now those attacks are getting less intense and less frequent to the point that we nearly forget about them.  If Putler's defense industries are so good, where are the missiles?  For Putler this would be priority #1 I would think since he thinks it can break UKR will, yet we see nothing.  

Of course, there will be probably be a missile attacks starting tomorrow for a full week to prove me wrong.  

Meanwhile, we have the ongoing question:  is UKR quiet because they are weak or because they are waiting?  I think they are building up and training and stockpiling for when they can really hit hard.  They basically have to pull off an 'invasion' of a well defended small country.  Bakhmut does seem to be done w an economy of forces by UKR, presumably to save resources for something else -- option B is that UKR is actually too weak to stop these attacks.

For RU, I still think Putler is castigating at his generals to break UKR army in Donbas, burning up men & material that will be sorely missed when the ground solidifies.  Like Stalin in summer of 41 continuously forcing counterattacks immediately w/o coordination or enough force, allowing germans to defeat them piecemeal.  If those attacks in 1941 hadn't been micro-mismanaged by Stalin the German schwerpunkts might've really been in trouble.

[danfrodo]

A lot of confirmation bias for me in this, as usual.  But worth looking at.  In particular, the video at the bottom is very clever and fun with a bit about leopards hunting.   Speaking of which, I suppose we won't really see any western MBTs until mid or late summer?  Leo1s seem like they'd be very good for infantry support.  I bet the platoons holding the lines under fire right now would be quite happy to have a platoon of  leo1s on call.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/7/2151546/-Ukraine-update-Is-Russia-s-big-winter-offensive-already-fizzling-out

 

[dan/california]

Great vid

The lower one gets the hardcore dude of the day award.

 

[cesmonkey]

Confirmation of the Leopard 1's

https://www.bmvg.de/de/presse/ausfuhrgenehmigung-leopard-1-a5-panzer-5579916

Google translation:

 

Quote

The Federal Government supports the Ukraine in the European network and in close coordination with international partners by supplying Leopard 1 A5 main battle tanks for legitimate self-defense against the Russian war of aggression, which violates international law.

The federal government had already announced the political approval of this delivery last week. This was followed by the necessary formal approval steps.

The Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), as the formally responsible licensing authority, has issued export licenses to German armaments companies for up to 178 Leopard 1 A5 main battle tanks for the Ukraine. How many Leopard 1 A5 main battle tanks will actually be delivered to Ukraine depends on the repair work required. 

The financing and repair of the tanks as well as the training of the Ukrainian armed forces is carried out in close coordination with the European partner countries of the Federal Republic of Germany.

 

[Bulletpoint]

7 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Great vid

The lower one gets the hardcore dude of the day award.

 

Well, hopefully he was achieving something with those RPGs and not just firing them off in the general direction of Russia.

[Haiduk]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:36 PM, Pete Wenman said:

@Haiduk - can you add anything to this

"Seems the 241st Brigade has recovered Blahodatne, yesterday. 

 

 This was unconfirmed rumors. Since weekend Russians multiplied own efforts to cut off Bakhmut from main supply routes Sloviansk - Bakhmut on the north and Kostintynivka - Bakhmut on the south. Except Wagners convicts, they also attacked with Wagner "core" and with VDV troops, so they could advance significanly along canal from Klishchiivka to Ivanivske and now are heavyly assault approaches to the Kostainntynivka - Bakhmut road. 

Today's twitters are reporting about endless heavy arty and MLRS barraages from both sides in that area. Unlike in previous days, reportedly UKR arty is working continuosly and hard. Either ammunition was delivered in time, or now they use "emergency strore" due to lack of ammo. Mass usage of bomblet-copters in Bakhmut is not of good life - but because of critical lack of artillery. One guy wrote in twitter - their battery has a long queue from units, which requested Excalibur strike or even "several shots at mother...ckers".

93rd mech.brigade was returned to Bakhmut week ago or some more - their time of R&R was shortened, because situation became worse. Their drone recon unit "Seneca" returned there so far through a 7-10 days, after the brigade was moved out - troops critically needed eyes in the sky. Many eyes. Despite on Bakhmut direction there are many drone teams are operating (except drones inside frontline units), their number anyway insufficient to cover all enemy movements on so wide front.   

Edited February 7, 2023 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

 This was unconfirmed rumors. Since weekend Russians multiplied own efforts to cut off Bakhmut from main supply routes Sloviansk - Bakhmut on the north and Kostintynivka - Bakhmut on the south. Except Wagners convicts, they also attacked with Wagner "core" and with VDV troops, so they could advance significanly along canal from Klishchiivka to Ivanivske and now are heavyly assault approaches to the Kostainntynivka - Bakhmut road. 

Today's twitters are reporting about endless heavy arty and MLRS barraages from both sides in that area. Unlike in previous days, reportedly UKR arty is working continuosly and hard. Either ammunition was delivered in time, or now they use "emergency strore" due to lack of ammo. Mass usage of bomblet-copters in Bakhmut is not of good life - but because of critical lack of artillery. One gut wrote in twitter - their battery has a long queue from units, which requested Excalibur strike or even "several shots at mother...ckers".

93rd mech.brigade was returned to Bakhmut week ago or some more - their time of R&R was shortened, because situation became worse. Their drone recon unit "Seneca" returned there so far through a 7-10 days, after the brigade was moved out - troops critically needed eyes in the sky. Many eyes. Despite on Bakhmut direction there are many frone teams are operating (except drones inside frontline units), their number anyway insufficient to cover all enemy movements on so wide front.   

Hurray, Haiduk has checked in!