How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, JonS said:

War. Nature's way of teaching Americans geography.

 

 

 

 

^Also includes war games.

Without the game Risk I wouldn't know where you live or that you're part of Australia

Steve

[JonS]

It's true.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the quickest way to get from Sydney to the Auckland CBD.

[Battlefront.com]

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So on Bakhmut, we are hearing an entire spectrum from "it is a deathtrap for the UA!!  It will collapse at any moment, run away!", to "It sucks because we are not supported and untrained, arty is running out of ammo", to "It is ok and we are making it work", to "It is an RA graveyard, and we are crushing them, we have a lot of arty ammo".

This tracks with these sorts of situations in the past.  The truth is likely down the middle and the extreme POVs are happening but are somewhat on extreme ends of the experience (maybe).

Yup.  That's been my take on the "doom" stories coming out from the Ukraine side.  As others have said, we saw the same sort of commentary pretty much throughout the war.  So far, anyway, it seems the truth is coming from limited areas.  Perspective is everything.

A case in point, I remember seeing a video early in the war of a literal pile (12+?) of dead Ukrainian soldiers in some woods after losing badly to Russian forces.  Russians filming it were pretty pleased with themselves.  I think if someone had interviewed the Ukrainian parent unit (probably TD) at the time they would have said how horrible the war was going.  In this case you'd have both the Russians and the local unit agreeing that things were going very badly for Ukraine.

Yet we know what happened since those early weeks, don't we?

Another part of this anecdote is to remind us that the Russians aren't agreeing with the Ukrainian "doom" types like they were back when Lysychansk fell to their forces.  Aside from grumblings about how hard the fight was, back then RU Nats were predicting a big rolling offensive to the west.  That didn't happen.  You don't see that sort of optimism coming from the RU Nats about Bakhmut.  In fact, you see exactly the opposite.  They think the battle is going poorly for them and they are concerned about Ukraine going on the offensive soon.

Again, I fully believe Ukraine is taking significant losses in Bakhmut compared to probably anything else other than Mariupol.  I just don't think it's what we should be using to gauge what's going to happen next.

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

What I am looking for in particular is culminating points. The RA might actually be past theirs, which would have been last summer and this entire thing is a zombie operation for domestic audience consumption - there is a whole lotta "righteous sacrifice" narratives floating around the RA info sphere right now.  The UA has not hit theirs yet, that point going to be key for how this war ends. 

Agree that Russia has long since hit the end of their offensive capabilities in a way that matters.  Germany engaged in some pretty fierce and determined counter attacks in 1945, but as far as I can tell none of them won them the war

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

 

Likely culminating point scenarios for the UA:

- This spring in the event of an operational offensive that fails.  Based on Bakhmut, I would say the ability to "freeze" this conflict is in Ukraine's hands right now and this would be on the table if this is as far as the UA can go for this war.

- This summer with a successful operational offensive but no tank left in the gas for finishing off Crimea or Donbas

- This fall, or next spring after retaking a pre-2014 region - my money is on Crimea because it makes the most military sense.

- The whole perogy, likely as a result of a total RA/Russian state collapse and then we got a whole new set of regional security problems to deal with. 

Once culmination happens (and we are talking strategic here), this war could drag on but it will be more likely more in line with the 2014-2022 period of a nasty open sore while both sides try to reconstitute for another round in a few years.  The question of how that reconstitution race would pan out is interesting.

I've been thinking along similar lines for a couple of weeks now.  If Ukraine's Spring/Summer offensive doesn't knock Russia out of the war, it might have to be frozen.  Not because Russia wants it to be, but because Ukraine might decide they need to.  I hope it doesn't play out that way, but if it does I still consider Russia soundly defeated.

Steve

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

War. Nature's way of teaching Americans geography.

 

 

 

 

^Also includes war games.

It is their world, we just live in it.

[Battlefront.com]

Ya know, I'd appreciate a more nuanced rating system for "graphic video" warnings on some of the social media platforms.  Sometimes it's the mere fact that a tank blew up, other times it's a close up of half of a guy's head missing.  I have a professional interest in the former, I have no interest of any sort seeing the latter as there is no purpose for it.  "Graphic" and "Gorey" would surely be helpful.

No need to wonder why I just posted this.

Steve

[Ithikial_AU]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

It's true.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the quickest way to get from Sydney to the Auckland CBD.

Come via Perth if you want get around those ridiculous toll roads. Will only add on another five minutes to the trip, give or take about 6 to 10 hours.  

[MikeyD]

I'm trying to recall, before Ukraine retook Kherson and staged their offensive in the north weren't there a lot of doom-and-gloom predictions swirling around claiming Ukraine not having the resources to pull off an offensive? At this point I don't know if the recent 'doom' stories are genuine or if they're a Ukrainian psy-ops campaign before they strike a blow.

[Peregrine]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

War. Nature's way of teaching Americans geography.

 

 

 

 

^Also includes war games.

And if there is a change of administration with the policy of "no more stupid foreign wars" they will be able to concentrate their trillion dollar military budget purely on domestic ones saving money on education budgets even further. Still a little bit of geography but its a color coded red/blue that most already have some familiarity with.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Peregrine
Typo

[Letter from Prague]

Sailing out to get wreckage of NATO drone and getting killed by Anti-Ship Missiles would be the most Russian thing ever, wouldn't it.

[chrisl]

37 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Sailing out to get wreckage of NATO drone and getting killed by Anti-Ship Missiles would be the most Russian thing ever, wouldn't it.

It's the modern version of how the La Brea Tar Pits filled up with animals.

[_Morpheus_]

Couple days ago soldiers of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade "Kholodnyi Yar" shoot down SU-24. 
At that time journalists were on positions with the AA soldiers. 
PS: sorry, no english subtitles

 

[Bulletpoint]

The men have been fighting for more than a year now, and they say the Russians are evolving.

"They are learning, they are getting cleverer, and it really freaks me out," says Dwarf. "They send out a group - five morons taken from prison. They are shot, but the enemy sees where you are, walks around, and you are surrounded from behind."

Holm chimes in that Russia is now using drones armed with grenades more effectively. "We used to drop them and freak them out," he says. "Now they're dropping drone grenades on our positions."

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64955537

[DesertFox]

 

 

[poesel]

7 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Hmm, the 'Grownups in the Room' (ROFL) seem to think the global powers are playing the ancient Chinese game of.... Risk.

 

 

Just for the record: that is a fake (and a year old, btw)

[Yet]

10 minutes ago, poesel said:

Just for the record: that is a fake (and a year old, btw)

Thanks LLF, we wouldnt want the yankees to think that this is really the map of Europe.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Yet

[Haiduk]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well -1 now apparently.  So does Wagner have airfields and infrastructure too?

@JonS

Wagners have at least one squadron, equipped with flights of Su-25 and Su-24M. There were plans to equip them aslo with MiG-29SMT, but this didn't happen. Su-24M were transferred to Wagner from 11th mixed aviation regiment (Su-24M/MR) of 4th mixed aviation division, 4th AF/AD Army. Wagners also have own helicopters handed over from Belarus. 

Includung yesterday Su-25 (not Su-24 as clained 93rd brigade), Wagners lost 4 Su-25 and 1 Su-24M. One Su-24M was damaged by MANPAD, but the crew could land own aircraft. Also at least one Mi-8 was shot down. 

Wagner has own pilot and engineer personnel, which they hired in Russia and Belarus from retired servicemen. One of their lost pilots was retired 63 y.o. major-general. Their aviation is deployed on Millerovo airbase in Rostov oblast

Ukrainian aircrafts are painted now in blue-yellow colors, especially from the bottom, because they fly mostly on extreme low altitudes. Also MANPAD teams likely got warning that our birds will be in the sky. But anyway, alas, we had enough cases of friendly fire. Most tragical one happened in Day 1, when our AD shot down over Kyiv Su-27, piloted by colonel Oleksandr Oksanchenko - best instructor-pilot of UKR AF, who often demonstrated own skills for NATO pilots.    

Edited March 16, 2023 by Haiduk

[Offshoot]

Whatever the loss ratio might be, it may have paid dividends given the ISW's latest report on the substantial reduction of Russian offensive operations over the past few days. Now this thread can debate how many soldiers Russia has for defense and how many Ukraine has for any upcoming counter-attack - https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-15-2023

Quote

The overall pace of Russian operations in Ukraine appears to have decreased compared to previous weeks. A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Joint Press Center of the Tavriisk Defense Forces, Colonel Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, stated on March 15 that Russian offensive actions have decreased significantly over the last week and noted that daily Russian ground attacks have decreased from 90 to 100 attacks per day to 20 to 29 per day.

The overall Wagner Group offensive on Bakhmut additionally appears to be nearing culmination. Ukrainian military sources have noted a markedly decreased number of attacks in and around Bakhmut, particularly over the last few days.

 

[Haiduk]

11 hours ago, Fenris said:

Haven't seen one of these for a while.  Is UKR still able to produce Stuga's?

 

Yes. Probably production was moved to other country, but the factory in Kyiv likely still working too, despite several strikes. 

We also launced production of own 125 mm HE tank shells, 82/120 mm mortar bombs and some types of 152 mm artillery shells 

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

and it then cuts to something being hit,

This "something being hit" already was confirmed by Fighterbomber TG - Wagner's Su-25. Pilot survived.  

[DesertFox]

The Black Sea Reaper incident. Looks to me they were exactly knowing what they were doing.

 

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by DesertFox

[Bulletpoint]

25 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

The Black Sea Reaper incident. Looks to me they were exactly knowing what they were doing.

 

 

Hmmm once again, a very strange "malfunctioning camera" graphical effect that seems to start before the actual collision and then the camera starts working again later and we see the bent propeller. Looks like they wanted to simply censor out part of the footage.

But yes, the footage does seem to show a deliberate attack on the drone.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[Tux]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

Hmmm once again, a very strange "malfunctioning camera" graphical effect that seems to start before the actual collision and then the camera starts working again later and we see the bent propeller. Looks like they wanted to simply censor out part of the footage.

But yes, the footage does seem to show a deliberate attack on the drone.

That effect looks more like a partial loss of a digital signal than a camera malfunction to me but I am not in any way an expert on such matters. 
 

For me the outstanding aspect of this footage is the way the SU-27 approaches. We’ve all been assuming it would have been analogous to ‘tipping’ V-1s in 1944 (a dangerous enough manoeuvre in itself) but, if authentic, this footage shows it was nowhere near as controlled as that. The speed at which and aspect from which the SU-27 approaches both on the ‘fuel dump’ run and leading up to the apparent collision can only be described as extremely dangerous and reckless.

[hcrof]

14 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Hmmm once again, a very strange "malfunctioning camera" graphical effect that seems to start before the actual collision and then the camera starts working again later and we see the bent propeller. Looks like they wanted to simply censor out part of the footage.

But yes, the footage does seem to show a deliberate attack on the drone.

Maybe there is a lag in the signal of a few frames so that the "hit" happens before the signal is actually sent? 

[Holien]

32 minutes ago, Tux said:

That effect looks more like a partial loss of a digital signal than a camera malfunction to me but I am not in any way an expert on such matters. 
 

For me the outstanding aspect of this footage is the way the SU-27 approaches. We’ve all been assuming it would have been analogous to ‘tipping’ V-1s in 1944 (a dangerous enough manoeuvre in itself) but, if authentic, this footage shows it was nowhere near as controlled as that. The speed at which and aspect from which the SU-27 approaches both on the ‘fuel dump’ run and leading up to the apparent collision can only be described as extremely dangerous and reckless.

And Deliberate....  (But we knew that already didn't we...)

I would hope America is having a private chat with a NATO Ally nearby to try and recover it, unless they can send in a non military recovery ship to enter the area?

[kevinkin]

"Nature abhors a vacuum"
- Aristotle

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/with-russia-visit-xi-pursues-effort-to-upend-us-led-global-order/ar-AA18H4M6

But what is that between Xi and Putin's ears?