How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

24 minutes ago, Fenris said:

More weird equipment - UKR is getting Bradleys and Strikers, RU is getting these

 

Looking at these again begs the question... how well armored does anybody think these turrets are?  They were pulled right off of ancient ships, right?  So we're probably talking fairly thin cold rolled steel.  Maybe enough to take a hit from some light shrapnel, nothing more.

Not that I think these have any hope of being useful even if they had thicker armor

22 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Ingenious design, you can get LOS when you shoot over the fence.

Which reminds us that we have three possibilities for these vehicles:

1. Russia is running out of BMP/BTR and this is a stopgap solution
2. They were created explicitly to give someone an opportunity for personal profit
3.  The design is intended to address a tactical need

Obviously #1 is on our minds, but the other two can not be ruled out.

As for #3, for all we know someone thought taking on Ukrainian trenches would be easier if they had a weapon system with some height to it.  For sure we have seen how difficult it is for BMP/BTR to direct fire into trenches, so it is possible someone thought having the weapon system higher up could address that problem.

Personally, I think it is #1 with a possibility of #2.  Maybe #3 was used by #2 to land the contract, but I don't think it's likely #3 alone is the reason for these ugly buggers.

Steve

[Fenris]

Looks like a tense situation, hope they're ok.

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

36 minutes ago, Fenris said:

More weird equipment - UKR is getting Bradleys and Strikers, RU is getting these

Typical work of Ork Mekboyz

[Battlefront.com]

14 hours ago, Grigb said:

Agent Murz today published 7 posts (yes, 7).

I will translate the most interesting part (adjusted for readability)

Thank you for that!  We've all missed your reports from Agent Murz.

Although this is from the LPR standpoint (he's Luhansk, not Donetsk... right?) things have been getting worse.  The state of communications equipment and UAVs has been a constant source of complaint from him since the war started with no indications it's getting better (understatement).

Now add to this that the artillery situation has become critical.  Not just shortage of shells as was complained about earlier in the war, but shortage of guns and crews to use them.  Seems that "shot out" guns are still in use instead of being sent out of theater to be refurbished.  Not surprising at all.

Vehicles... well, seems that has already gone to critical.  We've certainly seen ample evidence of unsupported infantry attacks on a massive scale, so it checks out for sure.

Training is also something that is not a surprise to hear about.  Interestingly he states that threats of execution for failing to follow orders is not widespread yet, but he seems to think it will become exactly that.  We absolutely know, for sure, that there is problems with soldiers refusing to fight (Grigb quoted the story of Regiment 1439, but there's been plenty others).

The question about Agent Murz's reporting is we do not know how much of it is applicable to regular Russian units as the LDPR forces have always been their own thing and are politically less powerful in fights over resources.  It could be that we're seeing a "canary in the coalmine" situation here, where we're seeing something that will eventually be standard for the rest of the Russian forces.

13 hours ago, Grigb said:

Couple of interesting bits:

According to estimates by RU opposition journalists, the RU MOD mobilized 520 thousand men (not 300 thousand as RU MOD claims). This could be the reason there is no second wave yet - it has already happened. 

First time I've heard someone put a number on the "covert mobilization".  I assumed it was larger than 100,000, but I'm not surprised that it might be larger than 200,000.

13 hours ago, Grigb said:

According to other RU opposition journalists, while Putin pretends to be an ascetic fanatic married on Russia, he unsurprisingly lives in very luxury Armitage like Valdai residence with Kabaeva and small children. The point being that he is not an unhinged zealot with nuclear WW3 in mind but just another dictator who is not keen on premature dying For Za Russia.

Yup.  This is a major difference between Putin and Hitler.  Putin is a materialist first and foremost, Hitler was a fanatic.  This is instructive.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

but I don't think it's likely #3 alone is the reason for these ugly buggers.

Could also double up as a snorkel for riverbed crossings. I was only joking; they need more room for this KV2 solution.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'd go a step further.  If 100% of Russia's nuclear arsenal were duds, and either blew up in their silos or smashed into the ground without exploding, the global environmental impact of all that nuclear material would be horrendous.  Plus, the other nuclear powers wouldn't know that they were all duds and would respond with their own strikes which, no doubt, would be far more likely to hit and detonate, thus causing all kinds of horrible results.

Which means Russia's nuclear arsenal is a threat to the world simply because it exists.  Whether it can get off the ground or even get close to its targets is irrelevant.

Steve

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think some of this is getting lost as the thread is currently in yet another nuclear rabbit hole

If we look at the RU Nats' rantings, there seems to be some awareness on the Russian side that its military forces are not well equipped to fight a defensive war.  However, for this to change the top level has to a) acknowledge reality, b) design a better alternative, and c) implement it.  In an autocratic system acknowledging reality is risky, so leadership tends to dance around it.  Since the systems (not just military) are deliberately designed to shield the top echelons from accountability, the people that are most needed to implement change are the ones least motivated to do so.  They are also often the least capable of doing so because ruthless political maneuvering is usually what got them into those positions, not competency.

Accountability at the top levels is generally achieved by replacement or worse (windows, heart attacks, suicide, etc) by someone higher up.  The problem is the new guy in charge faces the same exact circumstances as the guy that was just replaced.  The system is so rotten that meaningful change is unlikely. 

Each successive replacement at the senior level hopes that he can smoke & mirror his way out of the immediate crisis.  This can work pretty effectively in most situations in peacetime, but for extreme events such as war or a financial crisis, probably not.  Which means the replacement is probably going to fail and then find himself replaced or worse.  The next guy coming in faces the same situation.  So on and so forth until the situation fundamentally changes.  In this case, the hope seems to be that Ukraine and/or the West tires of the war and agrees to a ceasefire on Russia's terms.

Steve

Last post on the nuke thing until April, I promise. But you just gave detailed description of how Russia's nuclear systems could get completely bleeped. Somebody says boss we need more tritium, it has a half life, leaks, and so on. He says what it actually cost plus the usual bit for him. Then the tritium production system has a bad month. He already spent his extra, and some of money he planed to actually use for tritium on blow and worse ideas. Now he ether has to report this to a higher up who is dyspeptic on his best day, or bribe the next guy down to keep very quiet. If he does get caught, and goes out the window the next guy is going to have the same incentives. Even the new guy gets a handle on the tritium problem he goes through the same cycle on any of dozens of other vey finicky, very expensive processes. And, and, and... You describe the cycle perfectly.

Edited March 5, 2023 by dan/california

[JonS]

29 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

 3. The design is intended to address a tactical need

Without knowing anything about these turrets other than what I can see in the photo (ie, it appears to be about a 40mm auto cannon) - would these be useful in an anti-UAV role?

And, yes: I am making the heroic assumption that these lashups are an honest attempt to make something useful, rather than a potemkin BMP. After all, the Russians do know how to make weapons, and from time to time make some rather good ones.

Edit: hmm, the lack of any obvious aiming or guidance system seems to argue against an anti-UAV role. UAVs are bloody hard just to spot, let alone figure out their spatial location in 3D well enough to develop a firing solution simply by eye.

[chuckdyke]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is a major difference between Putin and Hitler.  Putin is a materialist first and foremost, Hitler was a fanatic. 

Everybody loathes the man but Hitler was not a shirker he got decorated with an Iron Cross as a runner in WW1. Putin as the head of disinformation of the KGB. Now he portrays himself as Orthodox Christian master of disinformation all right. Hitler employed Goebbels for that job.

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, JonS said:

Without knowing anything about these turrets other than what I can see in the photo (ie, it appears to be about a 40mm auto cannon) - would these be useful in an anti-UAV role?

And, yes: I am making the heroic assumption that these lashups are an honest attempt to make something useful, rather than a potemkin BMP. After all, the Russians do know how to make weapons, and from time to time make some rather good ones.

Edit: hmm, the lack of any obvious aiming or guidance system seems to argue against an anti-UAV role. UAVs are bloody hard just to spot, let alone figure out their spatial location in 3D well enough to develop a firing solution simply by eye.

Earlier conclusions/speculations were they had probably replaced a 25mm auto cannon with a completely obsolete/unavailable ammunition with 14.5 mm heavy machine guns. So no timed, proximity, or other fancy fuses to help in the counter UAV role. 

[FancyCat]

Soldiers interviewed. Snippets taken out and quoted. Certainly not a great picture of the defense of Bakhmut. Ammo shortages, insufficient training, lack of heavy equipment and ammo, insufficient ISR.

Quote

They say that Russian artillery, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers are often allowed to strike Ukrainian positions for hours or days without being shut down by Ukrainian heavy weapons.   Mortarmen spoke of extreme ammunition scarcity and having to use weapons dating back to World War II. Drones that are supposed to provide critical reconnaissance information are also scarce and are being lost at very high rates in some parts of the battlefield. 

All this leads to terrifying casualties of both dead and wounded. "The battalion came in in the middle of December… between all the different platoons, there were 500 of us," says Borys, a combat medic from Odesa Oblast fighting around Bakhmut. "A month ago, there were literally 150 of us."

There’s Wagner and there’s two brigades of airborne assault,” says Oleksandr, an infantryman from Sumy, who is part of a Ukrainian assault battalion in Bakhmut. The older Serhiy says that the enemy likes to send a team of three or four expendable foot soldiers to attack and make the Ukrainians expose themselves by shooting at them. At that point, the more elite forces zero in on the defenders’ position.   Once they begin exchanging fire, the Ukrainians are struck with heavier weapons like Russian mortars and rockets from Grad multiple launch rocket systems or BMP infantry fighting vehicles and BTR armored personnel carriers with machine guns.   “They get the positions where we are, establish the coordinates, then they hit us from seven to nine kilometers out with mortars,” as well as from closer by with grenade launchers, says the older Serhiy. “They wait for the house to fall so we have to jump out. The building catches fire and then they try to finish us off.”  “Their birds come out and they chase us with fire,” adds the younger Serhiy, referring to Russian UAVs, like quadcopters and Orlan-10 fixed wing drones that spot distant heavy weapons. “They hit accurately.” As Russians destroy more and more buildings, Ukrainians keep losing more places where they can reliably take cover. Borys the medic says people have been lost when their entrenched positions collapsed from heavy Russian fire, suffocating them.

Russian shelling and attacks with vehicle-mounted weapons are abundant. When Ukrainian forces do get mortar support, the mortars often miss by a wide margin, some soldiers claim.

The two Serhiys questioned why they were seeing Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicles in the rear lines, while on the front they barely see them at all.

Illia, a mortarman with the 3017th unit of Ukraine’s National Guard offers a simple explanation for the lack of indirect support fire.   "When we get ammo, we get 10 shells per day, 120 millimeter shells," Illia says. "That's enough for one minute of work." The mortars themselves date back to the years 1938-1943 his unit now gets NATO mortar shells, even though their tubes are still from World War II.

Mortar shells were more abundant when Ukraine defended the town of Soledar but since the battle moved to Bakhmut itself, there were shortages, he says.

Callsign Lawyer, an aerial reconnaissance specialist based in Kostyantinivka who goes on missions closer to the front with a drone team, says drones are in fewer numbers in Bakhmut than they are outside it and attrition rates are higher there. Russians have many directional electronic weapons that can force close-flying drones to land.

Multiple soldiers say Bakhmut troops are barely given enough time to learn to shoot a rifle – sometimes their training is just 2 weeks, before they’re dropped into the hottest parts of the most intense current battle of the war.

“This is why positions are abandoned, people are there for the first time,” says the younger Serhiy. “I went to a position three times and was given six people who hadn’t fought at all before.

https://kyivindependent.com/national/ukrainian-soldiers-in-bakhmut-our-troops-are-not-being-protected

 

[JonS]

6 minutes ago, dan/california said:

replaced a 25mm auto cannon with a completely obsolete/unavailable ammunition with 14.5 mm heavy machine guns. So no timed, proximity, or other fancy fuses to help in the counter UAV role. 

no, but higher ROF and deeper magazines would offset that somewhat - a single hit from a 14.5mm would mess up pretty much any UAV likely to be operating below about 1500m

Edited March 5, 2023 by JonS

[chuckdyke]

Robot or a survivor of an artillery strike?

 

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, JonS said:

Without knowing anything about these turrets other than what I can see in the photo (ie, it appears to be about a 40mm auto cannon) - would these be useful in an anti-UAV role?

25mm and it very well might be an attempt to combat UAS.  Their answer to the Gepard

8 minutes ago, JonS said:

And, yes: I am making the heroic assumption that these lashups are an honest attempt to make something useful, rather than a potemkin BMP. After all, the Russians do know how to make weapons, and from time to time make some rather good ones.

Edit: hmm, the lack of any obvious aiming or guidance system seems to argue against an anti-UAV role. UAVs are bloody hard just to spot, let alone figure out their spatial location in 3D well enough to develop a firing solution simply by eye.

 

For sure this was a quick and dirty slap together of something they had sitting around gathering rust.  AKD posted this a million posts ago (i.e. yesterday):

On 3/4/2023 at 2:10 PM, akd said:

Pretty sad when you have to go to Navweaps to figure out Russia’s latest AFV design:

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_25mm-79_2m-3.php

The turret is the 2M-3M, which was probably developed in the 1960s or early 1970s.  Without any ammo it adds a whopping 3,340 lbs. (1,515 kg) to the rear of the vehicle.  Ouch.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Robot or a survivor of an artillery strike?

 

OMG.  I mean, wow.  Just wow!  Reminds me of some of the crazy V-Weapons of the Third Reich.  No chance at all of going into production, but it made for good PR!

Steve

[JonS]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

it adds a whopping 3,340 lbs. (1,515 kg) to the rear of the vehicle.

Yeah, I wonder/guess/hope there is a good reason that turret wasn't mounted centrally. Putting it there is making my engineer brain wince.

Edited March 5, 2023 by JonS

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

OMG.  I mean, wow.  Just wow!  Reminds me of some of the crazy V-Weapons of the Third Reich.  No chance at all of going into production, but it made for good PR!

I am old enough to remember the 6 million dollar man. A million is not anymore what it used to be. But it is becoming reality now.

[Battlefront.com]

13 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Soldiers interviewed. Snippets taken out and quoted. Certainly not a great picture of the defense of Bakhmut. Ammo shortages, insufficient training, lack of heavy equipment and ammo, insufficient ISR.

https://kyivindependent.com/national/ukrainian-soldiers-in-bakhmut-our-troops-are-not-being-protected

 

I take some of what the soldiers say with a grain of salt (I always do), but it would seem that there's a deliberate decision to not invest too heavily in the defense of Bakhmut so that future offensive plans aren't disrupted.  However, I think we're seeing that this dual strategy is starting to fail as friendly casualties are simply too large for it to be sustainable.

I can understand keeping vehicles out of the fight.  They're more likely to get destroyed than help the situation.  I can understand the difficulties of keeping drones in the air given Russia's ability to concentrate EW in such a narrow section of front.  What I can't understand is not figuring out a way to keep the mortars supplied with adequate quantities of shells.

As with all perspectives from the trenches, they are probably not seeing a lot of what's going on with artillery.  From what we can tell Russian forces are getting hammered by higher level assets (155s in particular) which the interviewer wasn't privy to.  We also have the reports of massive disparities in casualties between Ukraine and Russia.  Whether it is 1:3 or the big 1:7 we saw, Ukraine is killing a lot of Russians somehow.

Steve

[Seminole]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Because he is taking part in a genocidal war of aggression?

 

The trials at the end of WW2 established that "just following orders" is not an adequate defense when the accused knew what he was doing was wrong.  I am perfectly fine with that standard and I do think it should be universally applied to all conflicts by all nations.  The Russian pilot should be held accountable just as much for his actions as a civilian who put C4 on a radio tower.

Steve

I can’t put bombing the radio station on the same plane as carpet bombing cities or throwing people in gas chambers.  It strikes me as a normal and natural target in war.  Not genocidal.  
 

If the illegal nature of the war make everything that happens in its course a war crime you just indicted hundreds of thousands, (millions?) of Americans.
It’s absurd.  

[FancyCat]

9 minutes ago, Seminole said:

I can’t put bombing the radio station on the same plane as carpet bombing cities or throwing people in gas chambers.  It strikes me as a normal and natural target in war.  Not genocidal.  
 

If the illegal nature of the war make everything that happens in its course a war crime you just indicted hundreds of thousands, (millions?) of Americans.
It’s absurd.  

A more clear example of the power of communications in crafting genocide is Radio RTLM, in Rwanda, prior and during the genocide it broadcast propaganda, coordinated actions of militia and painted targets on the heads of opposition and ethnic leaders.

After the genocide, the UN established court eventually convicted several announcers and leaders of the radio station for inciting genocide.

It is important to note war has rules, and Russia has since the start of the invasion, has appeared less and less willing to confront Ukrainian claims of violations of war crimes with due process and good faith. As noted, prior history already indicates prior Russian lack of willingness to work in accordance with international law and NGOs to stand by these rules. Since the invasion, lots of pretense has been dropped further.

The establishment of war crimes tribunals, punishment and investigation by Ukraine, with Western NGO and institutional support will be key in a future broader base for establishing allegations against the Russian government as a whole.

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

In the absence the War in Ukraine, it could fail slowly for fifty years. But that is not the current reality. The Ukrainians are, by virtually all accounts  about to to take a VERY hard swing at breaking the land bridge. If they really break through they are going to exploit to the the absolute limit of their resources. The Russians have withstood ~20,000 kia/seriously wounded per month. Can they they withstand a 100,000 month? Russian military cadets are already singing songs that glorify their impending certain death in Ukraine. When will the mobiks who serve under them just stop following orders? 

Your math is suspect my friend.... January was about 2000 dead,  6-8k wounded,  I believe. 

100,000 is WW2 scale and equivalent to 1/3 of their current force...in a month. 

[sburke]

26 minutes ago, Seminole said:

I can’t put bombing the radio station on the same plane as carpet bombing cities or throwing people in gas chambers.  It strikes me as a normal and natural target in war.  Not genocidal.  
 

If the illegal nature of the war make everything that happens in its course a war crime you just indicted hundreds of thousands, (millions?) of Americans.
It’s absurd.  

it isn't up to you.  The war is in Ukraine.  Russia launched an unprovoked war and has deliberately targeted civilians.  The Ukrainians apparently don't consider attacking a non-military target as a normal act of war.  Maybe you should take it up with them. 

By his own admission

Russian military pilot who knowingly bombed Kharkiv civilian targets sentenced to 12 years (khpg.org)

Quote

Kryshtop  was one of three Russians who appeared at a press conference on 11 March 2022.  He stated that he was carrying out his third bombing flight when he was shot down on 6 March, catapulted and was taken prisoner.  He had understood, he said, that his targets were not military sites, but residential homes, yet continued obeying orders.  He asserted, however, that two of his bombing ‘missions’ had hit Ukrainian servicemen or military equipment.  When asked by a journalist whether he could have refused to obey the order to carry out such attacks, he said that he could have, but had lacked the courage.  He added that he understood that he had committed terrible crimes and asked for ‘forgiveness’.

Whatever the US or anyone else has done prior, it is Ukraine's right to take legal action against this unprovoked assault.

[paxromana]

8 hours ago, billbindc said:

And to repeat...the experts who are talking are all saying that the Russian nuclear forces are up to date.

Similar 'Experts' to those who believed Russian conventional forces were a steel steamroller?

(An Aside: Even if the Russian Nukes have an extremely low serviceability rate ... even 10% of them working, heck, even 1% working, would be disastrous for the West ... but Russia would cease to exist as a functional state in the Western retaliatiory strikes as I rather expect Western nukes would have a much higher serviceability, though not 100% if one believes some of the rumblings that have emanated over the years)

[Kinophile]

Once you break the seal... 

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/the-united-kingdom-will-double-the-number-of-challenger-2-tanks-transferred-to-ukraine/

[billbindc]

21 minutes ago, paxromana said:

Similar 'Experts' to those who believed Russian conventional forces were a steel steamroller?

(An Aside: Even if the Russian Nukes have an extremely low serviceability rate ... even 10% of them working, heck, even 1% working, would be disastrous for the West ... but Russia would cease to exist as a functional state in the Western retaliatiory strikes as I rather expect Western nukes would have a much higher serviceability, though not 100% if one believes some of the rumblings that have emanated over the years)

It is deeply weird that we going around and around on this. We all agree that even a semi-functional Russian nuclear weapons program effectively is a world ender in a strategic exchange. In other words, it does what it says on the package. No amount of speculation about expert opinion or creative framing changes that at all. 

Enough Russian nukes will work even in a best case scenario such that fantasies of rolling Ivan back to Moscow are going to remain safely just that. Finis.

Edited March 6, 2023 by billbindc

[Battlefront.com]

Just now, billbindc said:

It is deeply weird that we going around and around on this. We all agree that even a semi-functional Russian nuclear weapons program effectively is a world ender in a strategic exchange. In other words, it does what it says it's says on the package. No amount of speculation about expert opinion or creative framing changes that at all. 

Enough Russian nukes will work even in a best case scenario such that fantasies of rolling Ivan back to Moscow are going to remain safely just that. Finis.

Yup.  This is arguing about how many angles can fit on the head of a pin.  It doesn't matter.  So let's drop it and move on.

Steve