How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia's healthcare system wasn't good before this war, imagine what it is like now that it has many thousands of wounded coming into the system every month. 

Due to info from LostArmor, Russian military medicine not so bad and the rate of resqued lives and personnel, who return themselve to units after average and even heavy wounds is enough high. Main problem for Russians was first aid on battlefield and evacuation. At the beginning of war they had obsolete personal medical kits, but now situation with this became some better. Their volunteers like and Ukrainan also buying TacMed kits on the West and train personnel how to use it,.

But Russians have other problem, which probably began to undermine their morale. Evacuation from battlefield. Not only wounded, but also bodies. Not a secret, that for Russian family from deep province, 7 millions RU for death is fantastic money. But this money they can get only if the body exists. So now we can see such posts in TG:

 

... People don't want go to combat, because know, that likely their bodies will not evacuated, so their families will not get compensation (we can give X and Y places were about 30 men lay already three months, and their families are without money, because their men are MIA). 

And:

... Some commanders of midlle level were "missed in attacks" (you can understand this as you want) during combat as "accident" or "enemy fire". And only thanking to this, soldiers didn't go [to combat] and didn't acomplish "disposable task"

In Ukrainian army the family, who has a MIA soldier continue to receive his salary for frontline service - 100 000 UAH per month (2500 $ - this is very good money for Ukraine) until the fact of death confirmed. In that case the family receives 15 millions UAH (375 000$) 

[Battlefront.com]

52 minutes ago, Sekai said:

People like this frequently falter when asked what they would do if Russia launched another attack after annexing some territory.

I've seen quite a few from the pacifists:

1. I don't care, it isn't my problem
2. It was Russian territory anyway, so let them have it
3. It's horrible, but Russia's going to win it anyway so let's deal with this later
4. It's horrible, but the risks of opposing Russia are worse
5. The UN should step in and get both sides to start talking and stop shooting

Some of these are also arguments put out by fascists, isolationists, or people who just do not understand the world they live in.  Which is why it's sometimes hard to tell where someone's heart is when you hear a bunch of drivel.  Let them speak long enough and it usually becomes clear.

Steve

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

This years Darwin's awards voting should put Oscars and Golden Globes to shame.So many worthy competitors.

Thanks for clarification Haiduk, excellent analysis. Judging by Russian telegrams, they give a lot importance to "liberating" the coalmine east of the town. You are right some of mechanized columns were massacred while probably trying to reach it.

Just the whole situation seems like strategic oddity. I get Vuhledar has a value, but whole southern front has something like 120km+ of largely open spaces, and Moskals are assaulting and losing heaps of their elite soldiers for this very one cluster of blocks.

Also judging by your map Ukrainians are still holding northern outskirts of Pavlivka, or just northern banks of Kashlahach river? Kudos to those brave folks.

Here is extended to the west map of artilelry shellings. So now we can obviously say, Russians made attempt to bypass Vuhledar from west, but their movement to the north from Shevchenko, small village in 5,5 km SW from Pavlivka was heavy shelled by arty and stopped, though Russians claimed in first two days their forces seized some ground between Prechystivka and Vuhledar. So we have direct clashes area 15 x 8 km 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

Outstanding work putting that map together!

 

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Since 1st Corps of DPR and 2nd Corps of LPR became in January officially a part of Russian Armed Forces, they have been receiving personnel replenishment from Russia, because probably mobilization resourse of Donbas already exhausted. But locals, particlarly DPR, consider Russian mobiks as "supplies", saving own fighters. So, there are many conflict situations on this background. Only several other, which became knowingly only on last week:

- Tuvian mobiks were beaten and threaten by weapon from the side of DPR unit command, where they were atatched. DPRs claims Tuvians just drink vodka, make a mess and reject to subordinate. Tuvians claim DPR fighter humilitated them and wanted to throw them to one-way atatck.

- Mobiks of 640th separate artillery battalion after  three months of training were moved to Donbas and attached to 1st DPR Corps. They awaited arriving of howitzes, but instead of this they were atatched to 9th "naval infantry regiment" like "assault infantry". Regiment just took away all their drones and command said now they will usual infantry

- 1479th mobik regiment of Irkutsk oblast - they complain thier unit was moved to Donbas and attached to DPR Corps. THey should to serve in the rear, but instead they now are sharing among DPR units like assault infantry. They say in their battalions many men over 45-50 years, with weak health (you can see that even 35+ from Russian deep outbacks look like 60 years oldmen) and a lack of proper training

Those of us who predicted Russia would not do well in this war did so, in part, because of the lack of faith in its ability to manage the elements necessary for victory.  Russia's armed forces are run more like a criminal organization than a military. The same thing is true for Russia's political establishment.  When people have argued that Russia can "learn" and "fix" its problems, this is exactly why they are wrong.  As the old saying goes, "you can't fix stupid".

The latest examples of this are noted above by Haiduk.  What is the unifying issue behind all of this?  The Russian government has almost no control over its military forces and its military forces have almost no control over its component pieces.

Russia's frontlines are populated by formations that operate primarily out of selfish interests.  Even the MoD units operate this way as they are regionally based and therefore influenced by things which are contrary to Kremlin's interests.  Even when they "follow orders" issued from Moscow, it is filtered through their own self interests first.  And even within these forces there's selfishness to a degree unimaginable to a Westerner.  You also have other Russian forces, like Rosgvardia and BARS, that are essentially independent.  Add to the forces of Kadyrov, Wagner, Luhansk, and Donetsk which are inherently independent. 

Do these these control problems matter?  Hell yes.  Are they fixable in any realistic way?  Hell no.  Putin would have to impose a massive, well disciplined purge of existing leadership backed up by NKVD like terror.  It's too late for that even if he had the means to conduct it, which he doesn't because anybody he would turn to for such an action couldn't be trusted to not turn on Putin himself.

Steve

[dan/california]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

Ah yes...the dreaded "this thing is bad because other things" analysis has reared it's ugly head.

<eye roll>

This article doesn't even rise to the level tankie drivel on twitter.

15 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Here is extended to the west map of artilelry shellings. So now we can obviously say, Russians made attempt to bypass Vuhledar from west, but their movement to the north from Shevchenko, small village in 5,5 km SW from Pavlivka was heavy shelled by arty and stopped, though Russians claimed in first two days their forces seized some ground between Prechystivka and Vuhledar. So we have direct clashes area 15 x 8 km 

It also give some tiny hint of an idea what level of ISR Ukrainian Staff officers are working with. They probably get 10X or better resolution from U.S. Satellites every few hours. With overlays from the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

[Beleg85]

52 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

I have been wondering about this side of the war for a while now. Is it too hard on the heart to cover? A few MBTs here, a few there. That gets covered. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are cast all over Europe. Some in horrible shape from wounds. The refugees last March obtained a lot of coverage off the bat. Is the media covering this side of the war adequately now? 

Large numbers of wounded were transported into Belarussian hospitals/Russian military hospitals in Belarus, and probably still are. Putin wants to hide scale of casualties.

18 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Here is extended to the west map of artilelry shellings. So now we can obviously say, Russians made attempt to bypass Vuhledar from west, but their movement to the north from Shevchenko, small village in 5,5 km SW from Pavlivka was heavy shelled by arty and stopped, though Russians claimed in first two days their forces seized some ground between Prechystivka and Vuhledar. So we have direct clashes area 15 x 8 km 

Great maps; most of craters along those roads seem to be made by Ukrainian artillery then, while these scattered blobs around the city are work of Russians. Am I wrong, or we have direct evidence of more precise fires by AFU we talked before ?

[Kinophile]

Just to highlight some positive provision by the German government, there's now 34 Gepard in Ukraine. 

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/germany-transferred-two-more-gepard-anti-aircraft-guns-to-ukraine/

Plus Grid help :

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-society/3668934-restoring-energy-infrastructure-germany-has-already-sent-334-tonnes-of-equipment-to-ukraine.html

And also some practical Swiss help, even if it's just denying access to reserves:

https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/17-6-milliarden-franken-russen-gelder-793972606992

and, Wot Armata Doin'? 

https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/10/armata-the-story-is-over/

Sweet F-all,  it seems. No real surprise there. 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Kinophile

[dan/california]

Speaking of maps, the NASA forest fire satellite was the closet thing to ground truth for most of last summer. Does it just inherently not reveal as much useful information when the ground is cold wet, and not going to burn? Or have I just lost track of that feed?

 

[Vet 0369]

10 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Has anyone come across an article on how the UA is evacuating and caring for its most serious wounded? For example, is the environment such that helicopters can be used to transport soldiers to well staffed field hospitals having the resources to complete major surgery? I wonder if NATO can provide assistance in this? Perhaps the medical facilities are staged close to the fighting and long range transport is rarely needed. I ask because I don't know. And given how brutal this war is, this would seem to be a big part of its history. Many unnamed heroes behind the lines. It's hard to imagine the stress on the medical system this war must be. We so often discuss weapons procurement, but where are the IV bags, antibiotics, pain killers coming from? I might be able to answer if this were a nice tidy post cold war conflict. But sadly we are in new/old territory now. 

I get the feeling that there is a public misperception of how combat casualties are treated and when. Disclaimer, it’s been almost 50 years since I was in the USMC infantry, but unless things have changed, what you see in the movies (mainly for visual dramatic support) and in the mass media, of IV bags, bandages, and other first aid debris, are the “aftermath” of the fight. “Standard Operating Procedure” in the USMC was that during an assault, no one stopped to give aid to the wounded! You assaulted through the enemy position, consolidated the captured position and reformed your lines to repel a counterattack, and redistributed ammunition and if necessary, weapons. Only after that would you send volunteers back to recover the fallen. If you were lucky enough to have a Corpsman or two with your platoon, they would begin stabilizing the fallen during the consolidation phase.

For what it’s worth, the “typical” structure for a Marine Platoon assault would be in threes, an assault element, (typically a squad of 12 Riflemen and the Squad leader),  a base of fire that would hopefully include support weapons such as an M2 60mm mortar section (three tubes with four man teams, one team for each tube), an M-60 machine gun squad (two gun teams of four Marines each), and one squad of Riflemen in reserve. The Platoon Commander and Corpsman would “typically” be with the Reserve or the base of fire with the Platoon Sgt. Leading the assault.

That was the SOP from 40 plus years ago, and I doubt if it has changed significantly. As I said previously, that was the “typical assault formation.”

[Vanir Ausf B]

Not sure if this was posted before,  but Ukraine needs more ammo:

“What is of ultimate urgency is . . . the ammunition and the artillery that we need immediately to make sure that we can operate with the new military equipment we received,” Stefanishyna said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We do not have this amount of ammunition that we need.”

Ukraine is estimated to be firing more than 5,000 artillery rounds every day — equal to a smaller European country’s orders in an entire year in peacetime.

https://www.ft.com/content/817b7e61-9f09-494c-8f96-934810033b62

Also...

[The_MonkeyKing]

given:

lost:

Seems M777 is being lost in quite the numbers. Actually, it is the most destroyed UKR towed artillery piece. Nearly 4x more losses than the second place holder.

interesting indeed. I guess we can only speculate on why this is so. Might be the most used one so the most losses, towed is vulnerable, lazy repositioning, high priority target...

[The_MonkeyKing]

18 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Not sure if this was posted before,  but Ukraine needs more ammo:

“What is of ultimate urgency is . . . the ammunition and the artillery that we need immediately to make sure that we can operate with the new military equipment we received,” Stefanishyna said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We do not have this amount of ammunition that we need.”

Ukraine is estimated to be firing more than 5,000 artillery rounds every day — equal to a smaller European country’s orders in an entire year in peacetime.

https://www.ft.com/content/817b7e61-9f09-494c-8f96-934810033b62

Also...

I wonder what it would take for UKR to say they have enough ammo.

[TheVulture]

1 minute ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I wonder what it would take for UKR to say they have enough ammo.

About 6 months after the war ends they might feel okay about shell levels

[Kraft]

M777 with anti-lancet netting, I wonder if that is all that effective (not against lancets, they get caught good) but once a gun position is found it shouldnt take too long to get artillery on it and finish it despite the netting - atleast in theory.

[Haiduk]

Almost unbelievabe story, but there are some proofs on video at least with captured. 

Yesterday general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi told to Mark Milli, that UKR troops have conducted some actions to stabilization of frontline on Donbas and retaken several recently lost positions. 

This guy tells on of this action in Bakhmut area. Recon squad of Luhansk Border Guard Service spotted that large group of Wanners and "regulars" (later turned out these were attached mobiks) came to position and prepares to assault actions. Commander of recons evaluated the situation and all risks what will be if Wagners  advance and made decision to attack them first in the night, having only five men, including commander himself. Afer Wagners relaxed and many of them probably go to sleep, the group attacked them, using NV sight and silencers on rifles. As result they eliminted 20 enemy soldiers, 19 were injured and 3 captured. 

This is a thread with this story

And short videos of operation and interrofation of two captured + photo of third captured

The man with yellow tape on eyes is Wagners convict, he sat in jail for drugs, so, lol, he was a medic-rifleman in own unit %) Though, his words slightly differs from the story in twitter. He told their detachment had 151 men, but on this section of front they had 60 men. And in trench they had 15 (not 42 like in twitter thread). 

Second POW is mobik from some motor-rifle unit from Kazan', Tatarstan Republic.  He names number of his unit m/u 61225, but Google doesn't show such unit. In Tatarstsn was established three "mobiks" motor-rifle regiments.

There is interesting thing - Russian TG opposed to Prigozhyn, contest his claims, that in radius 50 km from Bakhmut only Wagner is operating, no MoD units. But this TG claims that in assault of Soledar participated units of 51st VDV regiment of 106th VDV division. And more, this source claims that "mobiks" of this regiment were attached to Wagner units for evacuating of wounded and were threaten by Wagners they will shot if they can't evacuate wounded Wagners in time and they will die. Wagners also take away humanitarian aid appointed to 51st regiment. So, when these mobiks get vacations, they often break own arms and legs to themselves in order don't go back to Wagners command again.

So, looks like Wagners got own "slaves" - mobiks of VDV and Tatarstan motor-rifle units %)

[RockinHarry]

50 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Just to highlight some positive provision by the German government, there's now 34 Gepard in Ukraine. 

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/germany-transferred-two-more-gepard-anti-aircraft-guns-to-ukraine/

Plus Grid help :

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-society/3668934-restoring-energy-infrastructure-germany-has-already-sent-334-tonnes-of-equipment-to-ukraine.html

And also some practical Swiss help, even if it's just denying access to reserves:

https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/17-6-milliarden-franken-russen-gelder-793972606992

and, Wot Armata Doin'? 

https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/10/armata-the-story-is-over/

Sweet F-all,  it seems. No real surprise there. 

 

Also considering western Maskirovka. It´s surely all just information that western supporters want Russia let "know". Figures can be less, but maybe much more instead. Free press in times like these can be real PITA in western democracies.

After the war it´ll be really interesting to know about Gepard and PZh2000 success rates. Same for other supplied western weapon systems and oncoming Challenger, Leopard and Abrams tanks.

[Haiduk]

15 minutes ago, Kraft said:

M777 with anti-lancet netting, I wonder if that is all that effective (not against lancets, they get caught good) but once a gun position is found it shouldnt take too long to get artillery on it and finish it despite the netting - atleast in theory.

Usually main enemy of M777 and other western howitzers are Lancets and sometime cluster MLRS. Russian artillery often can't reach them in counter-battery fire. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Haiduk

[sross112]

9 minutes ago, Kraft said:

M777 with anti-lancet netting, I wonder if that is all that effective (not against lancets, they get caught good) but once a gun position is found it shouldnt take too long to get artillery on it and finish it despite the netting - atleast in theory.

I've been wondering about this as well. It just doesn't seem like either side is all that concerned about counter battery fire. There was a video on here a couple weeks ago that showed a 105 that looked like it had shot a 1000 rounds from the one position. You know they are fairly close to the front due to their limited range and yet they had obviously been static for an extended period. Several other videos and pics like the one you posted seem to indicate fixed positions are pretty common.

I'm surprised at this as there was so much talk earlier on about counter battery and the radars used to locate firing positions. I had thought that if it didn't move in a couple minutes the gun crews could realistically expect to receive fire. 

For the arty guys or others in the know, is the counter battery game not as lethal as a lot of us thought? Is it done more optically with C4ISR? Why are we seeing the fixed positions and not constant movement?

Thanks for any insight.

[Haiduk]

2 minutes ago, sross112 said:

I'm surprised at this as there was so much talk earlier on about counter battery and the radars used to locate firing positions. I had thought that if it didn't move in a couple minutes the gun crews could realistically expect to receive fire. 

Russians have a problens with a quantity of modern counter-battery radars, so main task for spotting UKR artillery carry UAVs (Orlan. ZALA), of course if they available in this section of frontline. Priority target for Russian Lancets is exactly M777, Krabs, Caesars and PzH2000 and in some less priority Soviet type long-range artillery like 2S7, Giatsynt, Msta

105 mm arty is in low priority, because it can be reached by usual guns and mortars. 

You can see sometine also Russian/LDNR arty, which stands knee-deep in the cartridges day by day. But this is just because probably Ukrainian troops have a lack of arty and counter-batteryu radars on this section or all available artillery heavy busy by infantry support. 

Though yesterday thge video was issued how UKR counter-battery fire wiped out Russian 2S19 battery - 3 or even 4 howitzers were destroyed by precision strikes.

   

 

[JonS]

CB can be systematically lethal, but getting to that level takes a LOT of very specialised organisation and equipment. Maybe either side simply doesn't have the resources? As @The_Capt noted recently, the Russians have lost a ton of specialised higher echelon equipment, and it's not unreasonable to assume there was a fair bit of CB kit amongst that. Also, CB is kind of a slow payoff long attentional game. Given the casualties they've been having it wouldn't surprise me if they were 'robbing' CB HQs for warm bodies to push to the front ... I mean, they took that poor bastard out of his arctic meteorology role and handed him a rifle.

Finally, we know that Russian shell consumption is way down, and assume that their artillery equipment must be showing signs of overuse, and that across the board Russian ISR isn't that great.

Maybe the Ukrainians are simply winning the CB battle?

[Haiduk]

Somewhere near Avdiivka. The drone of 110th artillery recon and fire control brigade dropped 82 mm mortar bomb on DPR assult group. Assault obviosly was foiled %)

 

[JonS]

15 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

105 mm arty is in low priority, because it can be reached by usual guns and mortars. 

This is an important point. Small guns are at the bottom of the priority list.

[Zeleban]

58 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

given:

lost:

Seems M777 is being lost in quite the numbers. Actually, it is the most destroyed UKR towed artillery piece. Nearly 4x more losses than the second place holder.

interesting indeed. I guess we can only speculate on why this is so. Might be the most used one so the most losses, towed is vulnerable, lazy repositioning, high priority target...

The destruction of modern NATO weapons is a higher priority than the destruction of the old Soviet systems. In addition, the demonstration of destroyed NATO equipment has a much greater psychological effect.

[Zeleban]