How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

The idea of partisans rising up and lack thereof is disappointing is a ridiculous notion, their value is in intelligence gathering. End of the day, satellites, and monitoring can only do so much, and much that is controlled by foreign powers, (and those foreign powers are terrified at "excessiveness") Ukraine of course will have their methods of intelligence gathering, and getting them killed when we have HIMARS firing at rear areas is silly as hell.

[billbindc]

14 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Very good remarks, however I woudn't shove away their opinion either, given NATO have now much more influence (and kowledge) over how Ukrainian brigades are now equpped, trained and prepared. Plus we don't know what were Pentagon internal assessments regarding Kherson/Khariv, perhaps they were 100 % up to the point (as opposed to public statements).

Yes, "homework for later" by some tired DoD official seems quite plausible in this case. The amount of info on those charts is outstanding, one may analyze them for hours- I would be at least tempted to have them conveniently put on the phone, even against rules. Other option is some disgruntled worker from previous administration who did not agree on Ukrainian policies. Or even accidental hack of one's phone.

 

I take their opinion quite seriously but it's just important to take into account how their perspective changes what they look for and how they interpret it. Also, there's a yawning gap in our knowledge too...we don't have any idea how the US, Ukraine or our allies have worked to address the issues identified. Starting with...you can believe that El-Sisi got knocked off of his chair by the US reply to that proposal. 

[Beleg85]

58 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Everything depends on the task administration has task given to Pentagon in the Ukraine war. What is the desired end state?

This article would mean that the task is not to help Ukraine to clear military victory. Because if such risks exist then something would be done to mitigate them on the US side.

I wouldn't read those documents in that spirit- US must balance help provided (likely sharper strategy vouched by DoD) with more global needs to contain Russia and its atomic arsenal (my very limited understanding of division as to strategy re UA points to Department of State as "doves").

58 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Also, the continuing huge Polish investments in UKR capabilities tell a lot. Why are we still seeing Polish equipment going in and not more Bradley/Stryker? I think that Polish and US political goals must differ significantly.

A lot issues here- already known  capabilities, faster delivery, aaccessibility of trained personnel on Soviet stuff etc. Strykers did started to appear on Ukrainian soil, while I did not see Bradleys yet.

Yes, Central Europe (minus Hungary) naturally has simple view of this conflict- kick Muscovites into the stomach as much as possible. But truth to be told, no state here has traditions of for example nuclear deterrence and thousands of caveats attached to it, and very few understand what it means to play a conflict on a globe, not on map, with keeping global economy running, trade circulation unobstructed, global balance of forces etc. So in a way we undestand more due to closeness to Russia, but on the other- less than US.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Beleg85

[Tux]

Does anyone know whether there’s a reliable, up-to-date indication available somewhere of the contributions made to Ukraine by various nations (numbers, $value, etc.)?  I seem to remember a couple of useful graphs earlier in the thread which gave us some interesting titbits (France and Germany doing more than they get the credit for being the ones I remember most).

[The_MonkeyKing]

7 minutes ago, Tux said:

Does anyone know whether there’s a reliable, up-to-date indication available somewhere of the contributions made to Ukraine by various nations (numbers, $value, etc.)?  I seem to remember a couple of useful graphs earlier in the thread which gave us some interesting titbits (France and Germany doing more than they get the credit for being the ones I remember most).

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

 

[Beleg85]

Pretty nice gesture from British hosts, given a lot of those soldiers may become casualties within several months. As always, musical background does not fit the mood:

 

[Yskonyn]

On 4/7/2023 at 10:31 PM, Battlefront.com said:

I had to remind myself what it actually stands for.  Found one definition "persons approximately".  Military types can tell us if it is a common US term at this level of documentation, as it seems it has its roots in Europe.

Steve

Perhaps its already mentioned; i have not yet read the whole thread.

But ‘pax’ is jargon for passengers in civil aviation . More accurately its used in tourism to indicate a ‘package per person’. Booking if you like.

In my daily job it just stands for a passenger either on board or missing.

I believe it originates from the typical early digital system used in tourism where *lots* of simple codes were used to operate the system.

Remember, this is in a time where bandwidth was at a premium and computer screens displayed in green, amber or white only.

The framework of a system like Galileo (not the GNSS) still uses this old fundament. Just look at a gate agent’s workspace next time you’re at an airport.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Yskonyn

[AlsatianFelix]

New meaning to the phrase "death spiral"

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, FancyCat said:

The idea of partisans rising up and lack thereof is disappointing is a ridiculous notion, their value is in intelligence gathering. End of the day, satellites, and monitoring can only do so much, and much that is controlled by foreign powers, (and those foreign powers are terrified at "excessiveness") Ukraine of course will have their methods of intelligence gathering, and getting them killed when we have HIMARS firing at rear areas is silly as hell.

Oh. for sure I am not undervaluing what the partisans have contributed to this war.  It's huge.  But it isn't the sort of activity that is likely going to help take a city like Melitopol, so it is not sensible to think it would be so.  The great thing about reasonable expectations is not being disappointed later on

Since I think I was the one to use the term "disappointed" in connection to Kherson, the reason for that is that I apparently didn't have reasonable expectations for what they were capable of doing.  The Russians were largely able to operate freely within the greater Kherson City area without the sort of headaches that most of the major WW2 partisan movements would have attempted to do.  Maybe after the war we'll learn they did more than it seems, but the end result was the same... Russia got out most of its men and equipment despite both HIMARS and partisans.

Steve

[Haiduk]

7 hours ago, panzermartin said:

The majority seemed to be Soviet made also. 

100 % old Soviet stocks. We hadn't own SA-missiles production. There were some projects like a missile, based on R-27 AA, but it wasn't realized to serial production. So, we can only to extend resourse of existimg SA misiles.  

[Haiduk]

PzH2000 of 43rd high-power artillery brigade (PzH2000 + 2S7) has destroyed with huge fireball two Russian T-80BVM near Dibrova (Kreminna direction). Recently some sources claimed it was HIMARS strike in several other places, but this guy from 43rd says this was their work.

 

[Haiduk]

Rare episode when the armor crossed the water obstacle on own wheels

 

 

[Vacillator]

22 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Rare episode when the armor crossed the water obstacle on own wheels

Skill, luck, use of a big stick beforehand?  A combination of all three perhaps?  Whatever works...

[Beleg85]

Video emerged of reportedly Dirlewagnerites cutting off head of alive prisoner. So yup, we are basically here.

I don't know how these barbarians want to come back to civilized world. Every month this war is sinking Russia deeper into very dark mud.

[Haiduk]

Well, new vehicle of "CMCW module" for CMBS %) - Romanian TAB-71 already in our service. Judging on a manner of tactical number writing, they belong to National Guard. 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by Haiduk

[kluge]

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Everything depends on the task administration has task given to Pentagon in the Ukraine war. What is the desired end state?

A negotiated end to the conflict, ideally one where Ukraine can dictate the terms from a position of strength.

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

This article would mean that the task is not to help Ukraine to clear military victory.

It never was. The objectives of the US and NATO are not completely aligned with those of Ukraine's. But that's a mostly unspoken truth since politicians keep putting their feet in their mouths whenever they attempt to say as much.

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Also, the continuing huge Polish investments in UKR capabilities tell a lot. Why are we still seeing Polish equipment going in and not more Bradley/Stryker? I think that Polish and US political goals must differ significantly.

Poland and the US have similar goals but different roles to play.

The US wishes to send military aid to Ukraine without compromising its current capabilities (most of which are allocated to allied nations, and Ukraine is not a treaty ally). It does however have the industrial and economic capacity to eventually replace the hardware being sent to Ukraine, just not immediately. Poland also wishes to send military aid to Ukraine but unlike the US it can afford to temporarily compromise its current capabilities (most of which is allocated to deterring Russian aggression, which clearly will not happen while Russia is tied up in Ukraine).

Thus, Poland and other NATO nations are sending their existing hardware to Ukraine while simultaneously making purchase orders for future deliveries of US equipment.

[Haiduk]

Some messages about Bakhmut

On current stage of confrontation, fighters point out significant reinforcement of enemy troops with some special forces, probably of Wagners, moved here from Syria [Russian TGs wrote about month ago about transferring of part of Wagners "African Corps" to Ukriane]. The enemy combine combat tactics and its are different barely in each street. They are assaulting with small groups, or flying on the armor directly to a porch, flattening buildings to zero with aviation. Fighters reported about big losses not only from enemy side, but from our too. Yesterday one of National Guard detachment got into pincers because of friendly detachment of Armed Forces abandoned own positions. There are captured, killed and wounded. 

On the road Chasiv Yar - Bakhmut  two days ago our guys slightly pushed enemy off for more stable defensive work. Today the enemy tried to breakthrough to old positions, but without result.

Report of "Da Vinci Wolfs/Honor" company of 67th mech. brigade:

  

"Da Vinci Wolfs" have retaken and could hold tree-plant of 500 m, which maintains last road to Bakhmut [propbably he meant Khromove, but maybe and Chasiv Yar - Bakhmut], With one battalion. And our neighbours held the tranches too. Beuties from 3rd battalion of 92nd mech.brigade!

"Honor" carried out absolutely all skirmishes. We were outnumbered, but were killing motherf...rs, having number advantage with our rifles without losses [from small-arms fire]. There were days, when we were repelling per five assaults. All our losses from artillery. We are losing the best... White spot is a shot grouping of enemy arty work at our positions [in previous four days, including today "Honor" lost 10 KIA, five of them in one day] 

[Harmon Rabb]

Russian propagandists are going to have a field day with this. Considering their obsession with the sneaky "Anglo-Protestants" and all things British in general.

[Anon052]

A warning. At the moment there is a video circulating social media  that show the gruesome beheading of an ukrainian prisoner of war with a knife. I have seen a lot but  this is one of the most traumatizing videos I have ever seen. DO NOT WATCH.

I have no idea how anyone can do such things to another living being. I wouldn't even do it  to my worst enemy. The culture that breeds such behavior is deeply sick. I really wish nato would do a lot more to end this bloodshed as quickly as possible. Not doing it hurts us a lot more than most are realising.

Worse, ordinary russians are celebrating this video.....

Edited April 11, 2023 by Anon052

[Beleg85]

12 minutes ago, Anon052 said:

A warning. At the moment there is a video circulating social media  that show the gruesome beheading of an ukrainian prisoner of war with a knife. I have seen a lot but  this is one of the most traumatizing videos I have ever seen. DO NOT WATCH.

I have no idea how anyone can do such things to another living being. I wouldn't even do it  to my worst enemy. The culture that breeds such behavior is deeply sick. I really wish nato would do a lot more to end this bloodshed as quickly as possible. Not doing it hurts us a lot more than most are realising.

Video reortedly seems to be taken last year (didn't see it, enough sick things around). Pro-wagnerite Z channels seem pretty openly distributing it...odd. Lately another video with beheaded bodies (perhaps postmortem) lying around transporter leaked, as well as another with skull on some tree. May be purpose terror tactics.

[Anon052]

Just now, Beleg85 said:

Video reortedly seems to be taken last year (didn't see it, enough sick things around). Pro-wagnerite Z channels seem pretty openly distributing it...odd. Lately another video with beheaded bodies (perhaps postmortem) lying around transporter leaked, as well as another with skull on some tree. May be purpose terror tactics.

Yeah I saw this too. Not only were  the heads cut of but hands were too. Comments were suggesting that they were international legion und they cut of hands and heads  to make identification impossible.

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, FancyCat said:

The idea of partisans rising up and lack thereof is disappointing is a ridiculous notion, their value is in intelligence gathering. End of the day, satellites, and monitoring can only do so much, and much that is controlled by foreign powers, (and those foreign powers are terrified at "excessiveness") Ukraine of course will have their methods of intelligence gathering, and getting them killed when we have HIMARS firing at rear areas is silly as hell.

Not entirely how it works.  Resistance/partisans are a bit of a lost art in western warfare.  We were pretty good at it in WW2 with the SOE and OSS, and during the Cold War we held onto skill sets but it got pretty messy.  In the post-Cold War we got all righteous and uppity “we don’t negotiate with X” which is often very much resistance space.  The term being thrown around is “support to resistance” which is really unconventional warfare (itself a subset of irregular warfare).

In conventional conflicts partisans do two things really well - 1) intelligence as has been noted and 2) creating uncertainty.  They along with SOF are the great “undeciders”.  This is a main effort in just about all unconventional warfare campaigns as it can act as a strategic force multiplier for conventional comparing (see Lawrence of Arabia etc).  So with respect to the occupied areas in the south, partisans are really good at intel and then symbolic compartmentalized actions that drive Russians crazy in rear areas, to the point that a “rear area” ceases to exist.  Every now and again partisans get tagged with some sort of strategic strike, normally when no other options are left.

No they can be activated en mass and integrated into a broader conventional campaign a la Normandy and France, but this is extremely tricky.  More often than not they risk both sides shooting at them thinking they are enemy hybrid elements.  That said, we really do not know what 21st century irregular warfare looks like - could be a version of crowd-sourced warfare we saw back in Phase I.  I would not get too excited about it though, at least until it happens.  A lot of points of failure in this sort of work, but if the UA can make it work it could be glorious particularly as this is their own country.

The reality is that we probably won’t know the full UA irregular warfare details until this thing is over.  Just one more thing to unpack after the war.

[Los]

It shouldn't come as the slightest surprise that there would be something akin to a significant SF presence in Ukraine. One of the core published missions of most SF are Foreign Internal defense and unconventional Warfare in the service of Host nation assistance. (Basically training and advising) in particular in high risk environments. Likewise general support of the intel and diplomatic personnel in the country. These are mundane but vital tasks.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Los

[NamEndedAllen]

Warzone reports movement on the F-16 front. Maybe. Some time. If USA ever gives approval:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-denmark-to-decide-by-summer-on-f-16s-for-kyiv

“Denmark has said that, together with its allies, it will decide “before the summer” as to whether they will provide Ukraine with the fighter jets the country has long been campaigning for. During a visit today to Ukraine, Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s acting defense minister, confirmed that the matter was under discussion but that the process was taking a long time due to the requirement for different countries to cooperate on any such transfer of aircraft.”

“it would appear beyond doubt that an increasing number of European NATO nations are now seriously considering how they could work together to expedite the delivery of (most likely F-16) fighter jets to Ukraine. Other fighter jets have been suggested as possible candidates too, including French Mirage 2000s and Finnish F/A-18 Hornets.”

“At the same time, any such collaborative program involving American-made jets would still require final approval from the U.S. government, which has so far proven resistant to such a scheme, including due to the potentially escalatory nature of such a move.

“Denmark will not do it alone,” Poulsen said”

[quakerparrot67]

2 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Russian propagandists are going to have a field day with this. Considering their obsession with the sneaky "Anglo-Protestants" and all things British in general.

i believe the phrase is 'perfidious albion', but not completely sure where it comes from.

cheers,

rob

c