How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Hard to dig zig zag with a mechanical digger.

The other lesson from this video is that the quality of your grenade toss is a life and death issues in trench warfare. The Ukrainian soldier had one or two good throws, and one truly great one. The Russians throwing was uniformly horrible, and... well, they are good zeds now.

I have seen a few of the six shot grenade launchers in videos from Ukraine, it seems to me like we ought to send a couple of thousand more.

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The other lesson from this video is that the quality of your grenade toss is a life and death issues in trench warfare. The Ukrainian soldier had one or two good throws, and one truly great one. The Russians throwing was uniformly horrible, and... well, they are good zeds now.

I have seen a few of the six shot grenade launchers in videos from Ukraine, it seems to me like we ought to send a couple of thousand more.

Wonder or he was a cricket player. Seen some incredible fielding from 50 yards straight at the stumps. But do they play cricket in the Ukraine or Baseball?

[Fenris]

7 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Muscovite video with YPR-765 hit by Russian fire. Fortunatelly, everyone seem to bail out.

 

Any more details on this?  It's more than one vehicle, looks like 2 maybe 3 burning YPR's.

Brave of that last one to stop and pick up wounded next to the first one hit.

[CAZmaj]

17 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Wonder or he was a cricket player. Seen some incredible fielding from 50 yards straight at the stumps. But do they play cricket in the Ukraine or Baseball?

No. Ukrainians mostly play football (called soccer in USA) and team handball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handball).

Edited May 7, 2023 by CAZmaj

[akd]

Three-dimensional fight in Bakhmut:

Russian BMP eats an ATGM that flies right down its own line of fire:

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by akd

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

You need some skilled people for that. This fresh straight trench may tell us something.

It looked too clean to be hand dug, and yeah not enough zigs or zags.

[kevinkin]

27 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

and team handball

I have a distant cousin in Germany who plays pro handball. Interesting game that I wish I tried in my youth. I remember when indoor soccer was all the rage in the 90's for middle aged men. They were hockey fans that could not skate. Then they all starting blowing their knees out. Not pretty. Sort of like riding a motorcycle in NJ. It's not IF you fall, it's WHEN. 

[kevinkin]

2 minutes ago, Artkin said:

hand dug

That's something you reminded me to ask: all the Russian trenches that can be observed from space - they were dug by hand or machine? Either way, how could the UA disrupt the effort? 

[chuckdyke]

4 minutes ago, Artkin said:

It looked too clean to be hand dug, and yeah not enough zigs or zags.

Backhoe training takes a minimum of a month. After he or she will do a basic job like this. Here employers are screaming for licensed people let alone in a warzone area. Come to OZ for $50/hr.

[chuckdyke]

43 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

No. Ukrainians mostly play football (called soccer in USA) and team handball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handball).

I realize that but the way he delivered that grenade reminded me of my mate Ted an A Class cricket player. He was in our social team lol.

[Artkin]

6 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

That's something you reminded me to ask: all the Russian trenches that can be observed from space - they were dug by hand or machine? Either way, how could the UA disrupt the effort? 

Well I know that Russian motor rifle brigades have a few diggers. 

For the brigades they have 2x MDK-3 engineering vehicles and 2x BTM-4M. Both of these variants appear to dig trenches. 

There are also 2x BAT-2, I'm not sure if they can dig trenches but it looks like they have a digger on the back end. 

All of these are found in the brigades engineer battalion -> Engineer technical company -> Engineer position management platoon.

[kevinkin]

46 minutes ago, Artkin said:

have a few diggers.

Grave diggers for sure. But I wonder if the Russian TO&E ever considered trench warfare a possibility in 2023-2022?  Wouldn't backhoes be prime and easy targets for drones? Maneuver warfare would say yes. Unless the UA wanted the RA to dig in and enter into attrition over the past winter. Without those trenches, where would the RA be now? Short answer - not in Ukraine. They say a determined enemy can dig in anywhere at anytime. Is the Russian troop that determined to slog the mud perhaps wishing to find a dishwasher from 1975? All under the threat instant drone sniper attacks. This indicates the trenches were prepared outside drone range. Which means longer ranged arty was need to be in place last year. Or give us a few flights USAF bombers. No one in the west has poked this little bully Putin in the eye. Called his nuclear bluff. And because of that 10's of thousands have died since he attacked a newly forming country. 

[Beleg85]

3 hours ago, Fenris said:

Any more details on this?  It's more than one vehicle, looks like 2 maybe 3 burning YPR's.

Brave of that last one to stop and pick up wounded next to the first one hit.

Wolski took it from some Russian telegram. Russians in the background are surprised everybody managed to bail out.

Ok, video is from March 15 from local UA counterattack in Zaporozhe, so pretty old story.

 

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Backhoe training takes a minimum of a month. After he or she will do a basic job like this. Here employers are screaming for licensed people let alone in a warzone area. Come to OZ for $50/hr.

You can learn enough to operate a small excavator enough to dig a trench in about 5 minutes of "training" and with about an hour of practice.  Ask me how I know.  

If you're driving backward leaving the trench behind you it would be pretty straightforward (or zigbackward?) to make a zigzag trench.

edit: and when we rented a dingo (basically a walk-behind bobcat) with a brushwolf and I was going at the giant blackberry vines with the cutter as vertical as I could go and sweeping down (like you'd do for zombies) it reminded me of a designer note that was either in the old SL notes or in The General or something "I want to use my flail tank to overrun the infantry with the flails!"

Edited May 8, 2023 by chrisl

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

You can learn enough to operate a small excavator enough to dig a trench in about 5 minutes of "training" and with about an hour of practice.  Ask me how I know.  

Try it under fire with an enemy wanting to cut you up. The Russians must have understood the range of available UA firepower so as to make their entrenching ops manageable and out of range. 

[chrisl]

8 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Try it under fire with an enemy wanting to cut you up. The Russians must have understood the range of available UA firepower so as to make their entrenching ops manageable and out of range. 

No thanks. It's bad enough in the rain.

But a lot of those trenches were dug when they were far enough behind lines that they weren't getting bombed by drones, let alone under fire.

[Battlefront.com]

13 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Muscovite video with YPR-765 hit by Russian fire. Fortunatelly, everyone seem to bail out.

 

Looks like two different engagements.  [edit - I missed Beleg85's post above which shows overview and it's different videos from different parts of the Ukrainian counter attack].  The first engagement is the YPR getting hit, the second one is of multiple burning vehicles (presumably Ukrainian), then back to the first one with a M113 evacuating casualties.  Some seriously wounded, including one guy with his head on fire in the first hit shown.  M113 made a risky recovery just as the YPR was apparently hit a second time.

A reminder that just because Russia is short on ATGMs, drones, and tanks doesn't mean it has none.  Kinda like how the Western Allies had to be cautious entering Germany right up until the war ended.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

You can learn enough to operate a small excavator enough to dig a trench in about 5 minutes of "training" and with about an hour of practice.  Ask me how I know.  

If you're driving backward leaving the trench behind you it would be pretty straightforward (or zigbackward?) to make a zigzag trench.

edit: and when we rented a dingo (basically a walk-behind bobcat) with a brushwolf and I was going at the giant blackberry vines with the cutter as vertical as I could go and sweeping down (like you'd do for zombies) it reminded me of a designer note that was either in the old SL notes or in The General or something "I want to use my flail tank to overrun the infantry with the flails!"

Yup, this.  And after you are done asking chrisl how he knows, you can ask me how I know   It really isn't that difficult to do.  What takes more time is to become skilled at it enough to operate in a tight urban environment safely.  I think of this every time I drive by one working on a section of highway bridge.  One wrong move by an operator and someone dies.

A while ago we saw a couple of drone bomber videos of attacks on excavators (that is what we call the bigger ones in the US) digging ditches for the Russians.  As Chris said, it's incredibly easy to make zig-zags, but it takes probably three times as long to do as a straight trench.  Digging straight trenches doesn't require pivoting.

Steve

[kevinkin]

But that asks the question: why? Outside of the Bomb, Russia has nothing other than attrition warfare. Maneuver warfare would never allowed them to dig in anywhere. The west took their eyes off the ball by not giving the UA the mean to strike the Russian groundhogs setting up positions. But I am open to the theory that Russia was allowed to create an irrelevant MAGINOT LINE to be defeated at a letter date. But the cost in Ukrainian lives does not merit that strategy.

It's not about how easy it is ... is about taking out the capability to do so. 

[Vanir Ausf B]

Reznikov said that Ukraine’s “first assault formation” is more than 90 percent prepared to begin but that some designated troops are still finishing training programs abroad.

...

Russian forces in Kherson knew that Ukraine lacked long-distance strike capabilities, so “they withdrew all their command posts, fuel depots, ammunition depots, more than 120 kilometers away,” Reznikov said.

“That’s why we need something interesting with a range capability of 150 kilometers,” he said. “It’s become more difficult for them logistically. But we need to push them deeper and deeper.”

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, kevinkin said:

But that asks the question: why? Outside of the Bomb, Russia has nothing other than attrition warfare. Maneuver warfare would never allowed them to dig in anywhere. The west took their eyes off the ball by not giving the UA the mean to strike the Russian groundhogs setting up positions. But I am open to the theory that Russia was allowed to create an irrelevant MAGINOT LINE to be defeated at a letter date. But the cost in Ukrainian lives does not merit that strategy.

It's not about how easy it is ... is about taking out the capability to do so. 

There is no practical way to stop someone from digging in to this degree, especially as many positions are well behind the lines.  WAY too many targets to hit on a daily basis for that to be possible. The drone bomber video I mentioned had the excavator out in a field all on its own.  Not going to waste an ATACAM on that.

Simply put... it's too easy to create dispersed positions like this because it simply is impractical to find, fix, and destroy them while in progress.  Especially the ones that are 100s of KMs behind the lines, such as the ones in Crimea.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Reznikov said that Ukraine’s “first assault formation” is more than 90 percent prepared to begin but that some designated troops are still finishing training programs abroad.

...

Russian forces in Kherson knew that Ukraine lacked long-distance strike capabilities, so “they withdrew all their command posts, fuel depots, ammunition depots, more than 120 kilometers away,” Reznikov said.

“That’s why we need something interesting with a range capability of 150 kilometers,” he said. “It’s become more difficult for them logistically. But we need to push them deeper and deeper.”

 

 

It's about time that Ukraine started reshaping expectations more forcefully.  Could be a brilliant messaging strategy to build it up into a massive juggernaut well ahead of the start date, freak out the Russians and get the West to hurry up with deliveries, and then humble the message right before the attack.  Or it could be that the projection of confidence got away from them and now they realize everybody expects Ukraine to host the next Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Steve

[chrisl]

And aren't infantry basically like gophers?  You set them on the ground and they start digging?  Everything I've seen in the videos makes Ukraine look like lots of nice diggable dirt, too. Not like my yard that's decomposed granite and bigass rocks.

 

[kevinkin]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Simply put... it's too easy to create dispersed positions like this because it simply is impractical to find, fix, and destroy them while in progress.  Especially the ones that are 100s of KMs behind the lines, such as the ones in Crimea.

You agree that that positions were built out of range of UA capabilities and the west screwed up. Those positions should have been destroyed or overrun months ago. They are easily found and fixed. I thought the UA had an ISR advantage? If they do, destruction is simple. unless the Bomb gets in the way ... oh that freaking problem rises again. 

[Battlefront.com]

ISW's May 7th report is one people should look at. The entire top section discusses the recent infighting between the various combat factions fighting for Russia.  The overall gist of their assessment is Gerasimov decided to deprioritize Bakhmut so as to prepare for the coming Ukrainian counter offensive.  This meant depriving Prig of the large volume of resources (artillery and flanking VDV forces) it has received in recent months.  Prig decided to "blackmail" Gerasimov into reversing that decision and wasn't entirely successful.  Kadyrov, who needed a boost in his standing, joined Prig in the blackmail by threatening to pull already committed Chechen forces out of their positions elsewhere along the front (up north in particular, IIRC), leaving Gerasimov holes to plug. 

There's a lot of subtlety to the theory, which is why I recommend reading the full thing, but it boils down to the MoD's chain of command's traditional problems with cohesion becoming much worse right as it's about to face the Ukrainian counter offensive.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-7-2023

There's some other good stuff in this report, including Russian MoD confirming that Ukraine holds islands in the Dnepr and claiming the total defeat of a massive drone strike on Crimea.  No proof provided, apparently.

Steve