How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

23 minutes ago, Kraft said:

The same could be said about the Su-25, yet it still flies on both sides daily combat missions a year+ into the war...

I've never bought the permissive environment argument. It's always felt like peace time thinking, where the cost of the platform,  the training and the pilot loss is prioritized. Thus is fine, in peace. 

In war, if that target must be hit, and if you lose one of two A10s to get it, the fact remains -  the target must be destroyed. If it's only an A10 can do it,  then in go the warthogs. You help the survivability odds with supporting ops,  but the idea of needing a permissive environment before doing anything is a fallacy. The target must be hit. Get those planes up. You can create a temporary permissive environment through using your platforms.  You won't create squat if you hold back. 

Losses are inevitable in war  and if a commander is scared of losses to the point of only allowing a platform to operate in optimal conditions then 1) those won't occur and 2) that commander should be reassigned. 

CMBS taught me to be far more aggressive Tactically and to always push, somewhere, and if you need the target destroyed,  use the platform that can do it, even if you only have one. Get it done. 

The A10 feels uniquely appropriate to the Ukrainian mindset. It's a flying hammer and holy moly would they smite with alacrity. 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Kinophile

[Huba]

11 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I've never bought the permissive environment argument. It's always felt like peace time thinking, where the cost of the platform,  the training and the pilot loss is prioritized. Thus is fine, in peace. 

In war, if that target must be hit, and if you lose one of two A10s to get it, the fact remains -  the target must be destroyed. If it's only an A10 can do it,  then in go the warthogs. You help the survivability odds with supporting ops,  but the idea of needing a permissive environment before doing anything is a fallacy. The target must be hit. Get those planes up. You can create a temporary permissive environment through using your platforms.  You won't create squat if you hold back. 

Losses are inevitable in war  and if a commander is scared if losses to the point of only allowing a platform to operate in optimal conditions then 1) those won't occur and 2) that commander should be reassigned. 

CMBS taught me to be far more aggressive Tactically and to always push, somewhere, and if you need the target destroyed,  use the platform that can do it, even if you only have one. Get it done. 

The A10 feels uniquely appropriate to the Ukrainian mindset. It's a flying hammer and holy moly would they smite with alacrity. 

The problem with A10 is not that it could not be useful to the UA. It is that introducing another unique type of aircraft, with its unique engines, avionics, pilot training, all that stuff is a huge cost and effort. In return UA would get another glorified flying Grad launcher, which the Su-25 was basically reduced to. It wouldn't fare an iota better in overflying enemy positions type of missions, gun runs etc. which no side is attempting due to them being suicidal.
All other types of missions that it could be used to perform can be done much better by an F-16.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Huba

[Bulletpoint]

15 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I've never bought the permissive environment argument. It's always felt like peace time thinking, where the cost of the platform,  the training and the pilot loss is prioritized. Thus is fine, in peace. 

In war, if that target must be hit, and if you lose one of two A10s to get it, the fact remains -  the target must be destroyed. If it's only an A10 can do it,  then in go the warthogs. You help the survivability odds with supporting ops,  but the idea of needing a permissive environment before doing anything is a fallacy. The target must be hit. Get those planes up. You can create a temporary permissive environment through using your platforms.  You won't create squat if you hold back. 

Losses are inevitable in war  and if a commander is scared of losses to the point of only allowing a platform to operate in optimal conditions then 1) those won't occur and 2) that commander should be reassigned. 

CMBS taught me to be far more aggressive Tactically and to always push, somewhere, and if you need the target destroyed,  use the platform that can do it, even if you only have one. Get it done. 

The A10 feels uniquely appropriate to the Ukrainian mindset. It's a flying hammer and holy moly would they smite with alacrity. 

I don't think anyone argues that the A-10 would be useless in Ukraine, just that it would not be the almighty war-winning hammer of the gods that many people in the Youtube comment section seem to think it would be.

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Huba said:

The problem with A10 is not that it could not be useful to the UA. It is that introducing another unique type of aircraft, with its unique engines, avionics, pilot training, all that stuff is a huge cost and effort. In return UA would get another glorified flying Grad launcher, which the Su-25 was basically reduced to. It wouldn't fare an iota better in overflying enemy positions type of missions, gun runs etc. which no side is attempting due to them being suicidal.
All other types of missions that it could be used to perform can be done much better by an F-16.

I agree.  There's other ways for Ukraine to hit the sorts of targets that A-10s are designed to strike.  Giving Ukraine more artillery and PGMs is more practical and probably as effective.  Plus, at this rate by the time A-10s could be deployed Russia won't have any targets left for the A-10s to hit

Steve

[riptides]

I am sure the Ukrainian pilots, support staff (psychologists) and war managers have assessed what they want and need.

Seems the F-16's are the talk of the hour, not the A-10's.

I added the psychologist as I am sure the fear factor of an A-10 in the environment carries a lot of weight. 

[Battlefront.com]

57 minutes ago, Eddy said:

Apparently it is this:

 

Yeah, it was pretty clear from that video that the smoke was being generated.

The thing about smoke is that it can be effective when done properly to obscure a specific action at a specific time for a specific duration.  It is just about useless otherwise.  For a massive bridge that can be struck and/or observed at any time, day or night, smoke is pointless.  It just isn't practical to keep the smoke going 24/7 for the duration of the war, yet there's unlikely to be a way to "pop smoke" intelligently just as a strike is happening.  The size of the target area is just way too large, wind conditions there are HORRIBLE for effective smoke employment, and it's not even clear it would have any effect anyway.  It is a bridge that has been documented and studied in great detail.  Even someone with Google Earth can figure out all that is needed, including GPS coordinated, to launch a successful attack.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 minutes ago, riptides said:

Seems the F-16's are the talk of the hour, not the A-10's.

At least a part of the argument in favour of F-16 is that it can do air defence roles. If SA-10 stocks finally start running low, UKR could still festoon F-16s with Sidewinders and send them X-101/102 hunting.

[riptides]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

...  For a massive bridge that can be struck and/or observed at any time, day or night, smoke is pointless.  ...

 

For the average defender, seeing smoke offers comfort in the fact that someone is trying to do somefink.

[sross112]

Article on AP, seems Prig is sticking his neck out with official comments that contradict the party line.  Prig openly saying more than 20,000 casualties in Bahkmut alone. Wonder how long he can keep this up before an accident happens?

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the Russian private army Wagner says his force lost more than 20,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, with about 20% of the 50,000 Russian convicts he recruited to fight in the 15-month war dying in the eastern Ukrainian city.

The figure was in stark contrast with widely disputed claims from Moscow that it lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979-89. Ukraine hasn’t said how many of its soldiers have died since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

 

Full article here:

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-border-raid-4f63ade7fb3899b6fa903b562ada0e2c

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by sross112

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Multiple expliosions reportedly on Kursk airfield - homebase of 14th fighter aviation regiment (Su-30SM)

Flashes and sounds aren't impressive enough to be large munitions.  Maybe outgoing flak of some sort?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

List of Russian partisan activity this past month.  The big ones have been discussed here, but not covered in detail are all the attacks on switches and other critical components of rail infrastructure.  I've seen a number of the videos this report is based on.  Relative to the size of the Russian rail system this might seem insignificant, but the thorough destruction of a single switching station is very disruptive during the time consuming and expensive to replacement process.  At some point if these attacks keep up there could be strategic disruptions.

 

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

General Waldemar Skrzypczak's opinion vis-à-vis Poland and Lukashenko's opponents on Belarus.

Seeing as Lukashenko was attempting to weaponize the migrant crisis since 2021 to destabilize Poland and the rest of the EU, after the anti-Lukashenko protests in Belarus in 2020. I think Poland would be more than happy to turn the tables and use "hybrid warfare" against Belarus.

If memory serves it was @dan/california who said when Lukashenko falls from power Putin will come next.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Battlefront.com]

Nice accounting of the Belgorod incursion (scroll up to top to start at beginning):

It would appear that  the Russians put up a decent fight after all.  Except it was pointed out that most of the vehicles appear to have been placed by Russians to give the appearance of losses.  Vehicles used exclusively by Ukrainian forces were selected to "prove" their case.  If they had selected destroyed ex-Soviet equipment it might look like Russian losses!  There's quite a bit of observable evidence to support that this is indeed the case, some of which the commentators didn't even mention (like RDK would likely have UA camo markings).

The RDK apparently posted a video showing that they didn't use Humvees:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/13qfy5g/rvc_and_regarding_the_dozens_of_maxxpro/

Hehe... now we have TowTruck Grogs weighing into this war:

Steve

[billbindc]

19 minutes ago, sross112 said:

Article on AP, seems Prig is sticking his neck out with official comments that contradict the party line.  Prig openly saying more than 20,000 casualties in Bahkmut alone. Wonder how long he can keep this up before an accident happens?

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the Russian private army Wagner says his force lost more than 20,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, with about 20% of the 50,000 Russian convicts he recruited to fight in the 15-month war dying in the eastern Ukrainian city.

The figure was in stark contrast with widely disputed claims from Moscow that it lost just over 6,000 troops in the war, and is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979-89. Ukraine hasn’t said how many of its soldiers have died since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

 

Full article here:

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-border-raid-4f63ade7fb3899b6fa903b562ada0e2c

 

I have to concur with this. Prigozhin is starting to get beyond comments that benefit Putin. The tool is starting to cut the hand that wields it. Putin will have a lot of factors obscure to us to consider if he wants to put Prigozhin out of his misery and timing will matter. Doing it while Wagner is “reconstituting” would make sense except that he may really need Wagner to hold the line somewhere if Ukraine scores a major breakthrough in the next few months. Interesting times. 

[DesertFox]

Chally 2 won the competition. Interesting gear to see here:

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

Russians recovering their dead.  OK, not exactly, just a watch.  I'm sure they are planning on sending it back to the guy's family.

 

[Battlefront.com]

HAHA!  Even better... it seems Russia was invaded by ISIS:

Steve

[Centurian52]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:43 AM, Beleg85 said:

Yes, we did discuss this, and as I udnerstand your position I think you wrong here mate- it's not issue of Russian feelings (who cares what they think) nor Ukrainians' traditions of "mockery" (if indeed it is mockery, and not hidden far-right activism like in case of Azov movement), but public opinion of the West at stake here. Which directly translates how much money, eqiupment, training and crucially political support you get from us. Remind you- Ukraine is basically crowdfunding its war at this stage.

If we tell you there is taboo on nationalism/nazism symbolic and ideas, it is for a reason- we are serious about it. Ukrainians are harming their own war effort and people that way. *

* I personally know a person who get very involved in helping UA initially, collecting thousands of zloty for drones, bandages, tactical vests etc for your guys....until it visited frontlines herself and was perplexed by amount of nazi/nationalistic s...t going there. She gave up on helping almost entirely, except limited humanitarian one. This equipment could save lives of your folks at frontlines, but no- jokes are more important... Btw. send regards to 28th Brigade and Odessa ultras.

This is worth emphasizing. Nazi symbolism is extremely taboo in the west. I've been happy to see that, so far, my anxieties about waning western support have been for nothing. But these kind of symbols are exactly the sort of thing that could turn those anxieties into a reality. 

[sross112]

Newest version of air to air combat. Still waiting to see drones with kinetic weapons fighting each other at some point. 

[Kinophile]

Harbinger.... 

 

[kimbosbread]

Are there any numbers on how many surrenders there are per day? I cant imagine if Russia had a similar number of soldiers surrendering every day to killed that this would help the moral side of their effort. How much surrendering can an army suffer before it collapses in the field, historically speaking?

[Jiggathebauce]

34 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

This is worth emphasizing. Nazi symbolism is extremely taboo in the west. I've been happy to see that, so far, my anxieties about waning western support have been for nothing. But these kind of symbols are exactly the sort of thing that could turn those anxieties into a reality. 

To add on to your point, it's worth noting that commentators including Vlad Vexler and the NCD subreddit are pointing out that many of the better known individuals participating in that raid have far right nationalist affiliations.

To echo the thoughts of some commentators on NCD, far right anti putinists fighting the far right Putin government equals dead fascists, no matter who catches a bullet. That said, not a good optics move when so much of the Ukrainian optics war has been fought masterfully.

Here is Vexler's video on the subject 

https://youtu.be/2W4TYVNVvjM

Edited May 24, 2023 by Jiggathebauce
Links not embedding well

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

List of Russian partisan activity this past month.  The big ones have been discussed here, but not covered in detail are all the attacks on switches and other critical components of rail infrastructure.  I've seen a number of the videos this report is based on.  Relative to the size of the Russian rail system this might seem insignificant, but the thorough destruction of a single switching station is very disruptive during the time consuming and expensive to replacement process.  At some point if these attacks keep up there could be strategic disruptions.

 

Steve

During the march East in 1941, the most time consuming part of railway construction was switches and bridges. Moving or fixing rails was the easy part.

Also we saw smoke employed on the Kherson bridge, that worked out great. 

[sburke]

49 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

This is worth emphasizing. Nazi symbolism is extremely taboo in the west. I've been happy to see that, so far, my anxieties about waning western support have been for nothing. But these kind of symbols are exactly the sort of thing that could turn those anxieties into a reality. 

why are we holding Ukraine to a different standard than ourselves?  The US military and police forces are riddled with white supremacists.  Hell our congress has more than a few.  And now those in congress are complaining the pentagon is too "woke" in trying to reduce the presence of white supremacists.

I would prefer these political forces be gone, but the sad reality is there is still a lot of it in this world.  That some of them would show up in this war isn't the least surprising, but it is not representative of the UA and I feel this is a lot about nothin.

Funny thing is the US politicians who are most opposed to the US funding this war are the ones who'd be least offended by fascist symbols.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Eddy said:

Apparently it is this:

 

Hmm, now why would the RA be conducting water xing drills way back there in the Crimea?