How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[panzermartin]

No tanks and no BMPs either. Even the T-14s are in the front? 

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, panzermartin said:

No tanks and no BMPs either. Even the T-14s are in the front? 

A T34/85 is a tank. It is that old a Javelin or an NLAW possibly won't lock on.

[DesertFox]

[Maciej Zwolinski]

26 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

No tanks and no BMPs either. Even the T-14s are in the front? 

More likely, the risk of a T-14 breaking down on the Red Square again was too much for Putin to bear

[Fenris]

Well that's encouraging.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

6 hours ago, dan/california said:

The tree lines are going to be no go areas for a hundred years, unless someone can train up a bazillion of those mine detecting African rats. 

I am sure the local Ukrainians will find ways to make money out of those mines. Sell the casings for scrap and use the explosive as fertilizer, or something. They are extremely enterprising people.

[Der Zeitgeist]

I don't get why they didn't cancel the vehicular parade completely.

The narrative of "Russia, only without tanks" will be so damaging in the long run it will be hard to repair.

[chuckdyke]

 

Ther

There was one more.

[DesertFox]

4 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I don't get why they didn't cancel the vehicular parade completely.

The narrative of "Russia, only without tanks" will be so damaging in the long run it will be hard to repair.

They want to lull the Ukraine to safety, because that very night they will line up with three T-14 Armata shock armies and break through to Lisbon and the Atlantic...

[Maciej Zwolinski]

6 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

There was one more.

Note it is armed with the most terrible of Russian weapons, the entrenching tool.

[The_Capt]

Before everyone goes all "LOLZ Russia" there are a few things worth noting:

- To go light and wheeled was likely a conscious decision.  Even in our wildest fantasies Russia is not out of enough tanks or IFVs to make a decent parade - we have seen trainloads of these.  They could have polished up and gotten a couple thousand up and running if they really wanted to.  They likely would not have been combat ready but rolling and fresh paint etc.  So why did Russia make that conscious decision?  Same goes for length of vehicle parade.  Plenty of troops marching by, might have wanted to stress software and not the hardware.

- T34 is obviously a WW2 throwback and feeds into this bizarre "we are refighting WW2" narrative Putin has been selling.

- They definitely sent a strategic message with the missiles.  Again those could have just as easily been filled with Styrofoam but the nuclear power message is pretty clear. 

- And as discussed a few pages back, Putin not only showed up and did the speech, he did the walk.  So within a week of a "Ukrainian drone attack on his life", Putin now looks fearless and strong - hence my point that it was either an inside job or a mishandled outside one.

- Lotta shots of foreign military partners and allies.  Political ones as well.

To my eyes this thing looks more careful and nuanced, and to billindc's point - it is about the internal audience.  In the middle of a war = don't spend an hour driving a bunch of hardware on a parade that should be in Bakhmut - it could turn off the home front.  I also think there is a strong note that Russian power is not in its hardware, but in its people, which is definitely going to resonate internally. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by The_Capt

[Maciej Zwolinski]

46 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

- And as discussed a few pages back, Putin not only showed up and did the speech, he did the walk.  So within a week of a "Ukrainian drone attack on his life", Putin now looks fearless and strong - hence my point that it was either an inside job or a mishandled outside one.

That might have been the point of the attack if it was false flag - to strengthen the image of Putin as a courageous man who is not afraid of personal danger, as opposed to the image of "bunkrovyj died" - "the old man in the bunker"

[Kinophile]

8 hours ago, sburke said:

Too bad James Gandolfini passed away.  He'd be the prime guy to play Prig.  Wallace Shawn from "the Princess bride" could play the master strategist Putin.

 

Inconceivable! 

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

To my eyes this thing looks more careful and nuanced, and to billindc's point - it is about the internal audience.  In the middle of a war = don't spend an hour driving a bunch of hardware on a parade that should be in Bakhmut - it could turn off the home front.  I also think there is a strong note that Russian power is not in its hardware, but in its people, which is definitely going to resonate internally. 

Whole parade thing was doomed to be played out by "malcontents" anyway. There are tanks- why they are not at the front? There are no tanks- we can't even spare few tanks? Etc etc. Parade in itself is of little importance unless somebody bomb Putin himself, its milestone dates that matter in Kremlin mythology as time of summary of achievements/failures. Note how he prudently sorrounded himself very closely, at arms length with foreign leaders from Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and several others. It's a pitty to see Pashynian being dragged to be part of this show.

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I am sure the local Ukrainians will find ways to make money out of those mines. Sell the casings for scrap and use the explosive as fertilizer, or something. They are extremely enterprising people.

I guess they'll be getting more buck(wheat) for their bang?... 

 

Damn you @sburke, you've infected me! 

[billbindc]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Before everyone goes all "LOLZ Russia" there are a few things worth noting:

- To go light and wheeled was likely a conscious decision.  Even in our wildest fantasies Russia is not out of enough tanks or IFVs to make a decent parade - we have seen trainloads of these.  They could have polished up and gotten a couple thousand up and running if they really wanted to.  They likely would not have been combat ready but rolling and fresh paint etc.  So why did Russia make that conscious decision?  Same goes for length of vehicle parade.  Plenty of troops marching by, might have wanted to stress software and not the hardware.

- T34 is obviously a WW2 throwback and feeds into this bizarre "we are refighting WW2" narrative Putin has been selling.

- They definitely sent a strategic message with the missiles.  Again those could have just as easily been filled with Styrofoam but the nuclear power message is pretty clear. 

- And as discussed a few pages back, Putin not only showed up and did the speech, he did the walk.  So within a week of a "Ukrainian drone attack on his life", Putin now looks fearless and strong - hence my point that it was either an inside job or a mishandled outside one.

- Lotta shots of foreign military partners and allies.  Political ones as well.

To my eyes this thing looks more careful and nuanced, and to billindc's point - it is about the internal audience.  In the middle of a war = don't spend an hour driving a bunch of hardware on a parade that should be in Bakhmut - it could turn off the home front.  I also think there is a strong note that Russian power is not in its hardware, but in its people, which is definitely going to resonate internally. 

Just so. And by bringing in the Central Asian, Armenian and Byelorussian leaders, Putin's team in effect protected him. To be honest, this is exactly the sort of parade I would have done and noted so above. Where they failed was by not leaning into the WWII and day of prayer themes enough.

[Eddy]

At long last a comment from publicity shy Prigozhin!

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Eddy said:

At long last a comment from publicity shy Prigozhin!

Gawd, I remember when this war for Russia used to about the Ukrainians.  This is starting to look like preparations for that time honored core staff principle of war "selection and maintenance of the blame".

[Eddy]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This is starting to look like preparations for that time honored core staff principle of war "selection and maintenance of the blame".

Or the world's worst soap opera.

I find it astonishing that he is allowed to get away with these security breaches - shell shortages, units abandoning their positions etc - this is all valuable info for the Ukrainians. Surely even his elite backers would be telling him to shut up.

It's almost like to those in power that the palace politics is what's important and the war is some minor distraction. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

very interesting video including but not limited to the "rock paper scissors" nature of different offensive and defensive approaches:

Julian Spencer-Churchill (PhD Columbia 2001) is an associate professor in political science at Concordia University, Montreal. 

  "truth table" of attack/defense strategies:

 

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Before everyone goes all "LOLZ Russia" there are a few things worth noting:

- To go light and wheeled was likely a conscious decision.  Even in our wildest fantasies Russia is not out of enough tanks or IFVs to make a decent parade - we have seen trainloads of these.  They could have polished up and gotten a couple thousand up and running if they really wanted to.  They likely would not have been combat ready but rolling and fresh paint etc.  So why did Russia make that conscious decision?  Same goes for length of vehicle parade.  Plenty of troops marching by, might have wanted to stress software and not the hardware.

- T34 is obviously a WW2 throwback and feeds into this bizarre "we are refighting WW2" narrative Putin has been selling.

- They definitely sent a strategic message with the missiles.  Again those could have just as easily been filled with Styrofoam but the nuclear power message is pretty clear. 

- And as discussed a few pages back, Putin not only showed up and did the speech, he did the walk.  So within a week of a "Ukrainian drone attack on his life", Putin now looks fearless and strong - hence my point that it was either an inside job or a mishandled outside one.

- Lotta shots of foreign military partners and allies.  Political ones as well.

To my eyes this thing looks more careful and nuanced, and to billindc's point - it is about the internal audience.  In the middle of a war = don't spend an hour driving a bunch of hardware on a parade that should be in Bakhmut - it could turn off the home front.  I also think there is a strong note that Russian power is not in its hardware, but in its people, which is definitely going to resonate internally. 

 

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

Just so. And by bringing in the Central Asian, Armenian and Byelorussian leaders, Putin's team in effect protected him. To be honest, this is exactly the sort of parade I would have done and noted so above. Where they failed was by not leaning into the WWII and day of prayer themes enough.

So the Kremlin is not too fractured to more or less competently make the best of a bad situation? i think this flows back to Putin being all tactics, all the time, without a strategy to actually win.

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by dan/california

[Centurian52]

15 hours ago, keas66 said:

I mean the  Ukrainians would not be so silly as to head directly into the thickest nest of Russians they could find when they kick off the offensive surely  . What does it look like at the top end of the Kharkhiv Front ? - We were previously getting excited during the last Ukrainian offensive that they could  just carry onto towards the North of Luhansk and down towards Rostov on the Don - cutting off all of the Russians  to the West .

Rostov itself is in Russian territory, and therefore out of bounds. But something like that, sweeping clockwise from Luhansk Oblast to Mariupol, would trap the maximum number of Russians. It's a bit too ambitious though, and it would tie down more Ukrainians on the Russian border. Something similar could be accomplished just by pushing in Zaporizhia Oblast to the Azov sea. The tricky thing is that, in order to cut off Russian forces to the west, they need to reach the Azov sea somewhere that gets their longest range munitions within range of the Kerch bridge. It the best they can do is 150km then that means they need to reach Berdiansk, Prymosrk, or Kyrylivka. If they get something (like ATACMS) that can reach out to 300km then Mariupol will be in play.

[Centurian52]

15 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Yes. Obviously. But as you pointed out, those 9 brigades won't be everywhere at once. That's why it's going to be a contest of ISR and logistics.

The rest of the Ukrainian army will be everywhere at once. If they weaken any part of the front too much, the preexisting Ukrainian units in the area may be able to collapse that part of the front.

[Centurian52]

6 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

A T34/85 is a tank. It is that old a Javelin or an NLAW possibly won't lock on.

Of course a Javelin would lock on. A T-34 still produces heat. It's not like the Javelin only locks on to some super specialized signature that only modern tanks produce. And it's been a while since I heard anyone describe how the NLAW works, so I don't remember the details, but IIRC it doesn't actually "lock on" to anything.

[Billy Ringo]

The grand 2023 May Victory Day Parade has come and gone.  Didn't take Kiev.  Didn't even take Bakhmut after so much bluster, effort, war materials and lives lost.  One single town of what used to be 73,000 people---and no victory. 

Nothing to celebrate on this glorious Russian day.  No grand rallying cry.  Just frustration, finger pointing and excuses. 

At some point, common sense would say the citizens, the military or someone would say enough is enough.