How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[acrashb]

9 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

About the central nervous system hit, I think read somewhere that a centre body hit by a high power rifle will tend to knock the person out instantaneously because a shockwave propagates through the arteries and delivers a knockout punch the brain from inside?

The shockwave theory comes in different forms - some say velocity (hence the 5.56 SS109 was supposed to be immediately lethal), some say momentum / mass (hence 30-06 or larger "high power" is supposed to be immediately lethal).

The reality is that blood vessels are quite elastic and "shock waves" don't happen.

I have viewed a video where a suspect, in a van, was nailed directly through the heart by a 12g slug, completely destroying his heart - if you've ever field-dressed a deer during shotgun season, you've seen the large permanent wound channel.  He continued to take volitional action - to try and kill FBI agents - for about 14 seconds.  So much for the shock wave.

I don't have a view on the veracity of the video that got this started.  Could be faked, although I would be unsurprised if it was real.

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Which is the criticism of the “intermediary” rounds used by AKs and NATO standard rifles.  “Stopping power” is generally what this referred to as.  These smaller rounds do not have the kinetic power (I forget the correct term) that the larger rounds still used by MGs has.

Also, let’s not forget body armor.  The whole point of it is to shrug off hits.

Steve

"stopping power" is largely a myth.  Shot placement is the primary issue.  Shoot a guy in the center of the head with a .22lr and he'll die instantly.  Shoot the same guy in the leg with a .50BMG and, depending on the placement, he'll lose a leg eventually, bleed out in a few minutes, or just have a limp or scar later in life, but he'll be able to keep fighting if he wants to.

Stopping a threat immediately / quickly is a matter of crushing or tearing central nervous system / major circulatory system tissue.  That's done through the permanent (not temporary, most human tissue is quite elastic and bounces back) wound channel, which needs to be deep enough to reach the tissue and wide enough so as not to require pinpoint accuracy.

Have a google for "permanent wound channel SS109 ballistic gel" (or M855 if you prefer that).  When the 5.56, at short enough ranges (depends on the cartridge variant and barrel length), turns sideways and splits at the cannelure, the resulting permanent wound channel, in width and depth is very effective in the human torso.  You'd almost think it was designed for that purpose.

The US' move to the 6.8x51mm (civilian name, ".277 Fury", a remarkable cartridge) is stated to be for defeating current and future body armour.  Current 5.56 variants will not go through plates, although they will leave a remarkable bruise and/or crack bones in the impact area.

5 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Amazon has been experimenting with drone delivers. What a way to confuse the RA. Is it hostile or a bottle? 

Could be both.  Spike the bottle with the wrong kind of alcohol!

Edited June 12, 2023 by acrashb

[JonS]

5 hours ago, sburke said:

Public Radio Journalist Busted Adding Secret Pro-Putin Propaganda to Stories (yahoo.com)

The head of New Zealand’s public radio station apologized on Monday after it was found that a journalist had been inserting “pro-Kremlin garbage” into news stories about Russia and Ukraine which were published on the broadcaster’s website.

Paul Thompson, the chief executive of the publicly-funded Radio New Zealand (RNZ), said around 250 stories had already been forensically checked for Russian propaganda since they became aware of the issue on Friday and that 16 had been found that required corrections and editor’s notes. The digital reporter allegedly responsible for the embarrassing incident has been placed on leave, and Thompson said thousands more articles would need to be reviewed for problems.

 

yeah, that's causing a bit of a ****storm, as you might imagine. There are several things to note

1) NZ is a pretty high-trust society. https://ourworldindata.org/trust
People are generally told what to do then left to get on with it without constant oversight (with obvious exceptions for safety critical functions, like construction). This nutsack had a job and he was trusted to do it. That trust was - as it turns out - misplaced in this case. It'll be interesting to see what RNZ do here - adding layers of oversight probably wouldn't be helpful overall (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?), and there's only so much you can do in terms of background checking - it would make zero sense for this role to require a security classification, for example.

2) Comments threads in various stories where this has been reported have a disappointing number of 'whatabouts', but the general sentiment is WTF?!

3) Somewhat annoyingly, it seems the first example of these shenanigans was reported by a member of the public to RNZ back in October last year, but doesn't appear to have been taken seriously at that time.

4) like PBS in the States, RNZ has been under sustained attack from right wing clowns for a while now. This feels of a piece with that.

5) the world dude moved in is a very small pond, where everyone knows each other. I hope he (let's face it; this was most likely a white middle aged male) was either paid very very well or has other skills to fall back on, 'cos this door is pretty well closed to him now.

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Could be both.  Spike the bottle with the wrong kind of alcohol!

Send Budlight!  Putin will freak out if all his troops turn gay! 

Edited June 12, 2023 by sburke

[Offshoot]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

When a falling down from BMP saving your life %) 

 

I wouldn't cheer for him yet. There's an unnecessary cut at the 12-13 second mark, so did the part where they picked him up get removed?

[Harmon Rabb]

Not much context but still an interesting short clip.

[akd]

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

When a falling down from BMP saving your life %) 

 

Same incident as this:

12 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Very interesting, it must be one of older counterattacks several days old:

 

 

[sburke]

Kadyrov mercenaries sign contract that Prigozhin refused to sign with Russian Defence Ministry on camera (yahoo.com)

[Offshoot]

Russian Volunteer Corps allows recruiting fighters from Wagner PMC. This sounds like a good and bad idea.  The article features a video but I wonder if it has been staged. Surely if you have arranged an exchange with a certain number of prisoners you can't just start pulling them off the bus - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russian-volunteer-corps-allows-recruiting-fighters-from-wagner-pmc/

 

Discord is used in the command posts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/discord-is-used-in-the-command-posts-of-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Offshoot

[Battlefront.com]

Not to get us too off on a tangent, but...

53 minutes ago, acrashb said:

"stopping power" is largely a myth.  Shot placement is the primary issue.  Shoot a guy in the center of the head with a .22lr and he'll die instantly.

Absolutely.  A BB from a Daisy Air Rifle can kill someone if everything goes perfectly, but that's not the point of "stopping power".  The concept is that under most circumstances shot placement is going to be center mass due to a variety of practical issues.  Center mass has a lot of places for things to enter and exit without causing an immediate change in the target's behavior (that story you shared about the 12 gauge slug and the heart is a total fluke IMHO).  Center mass covered with ballistic plates make it even worse.  Plates don't shrug off 7.62 hits, not to mention .50cal.  Hence the new 6.8 round becoming standard for militaries.

Now, this whole discussion came up because someone here was attempting to interpret what was happening in a grainy drone video.  The point I was making is that guys don't necessarily drop when they are hit if they are wearing body armor and are getting shot by 5.45 AK rounds.  The guys might have been hit several times and kept on coming.  Even if they got hit in an unprotected area, like under the arm or below the vest.  So we don't really know what happened in that video except it is PROBABLE that a Russian blocking unit shot and killed retreating Russian soldiers.  Warnings, shouting, etc. are all not knowable from that video.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

Kadyrov's troops in Belgorod followed up by Wagner seems like the absolute best-case scenario for the RVC/BPR. I can't imagine them not shooting each other.

[cesmonkey]

https://t.me/wargonzo/13213

Quote

️Urgently️The situation on Velika Novoselovka at 23:30 Moscow time️

We are forced to state that all victorious statements on Makarovka are premature. The settlement is still the site of fierce fighting.
...

https://t.me/vrogov/10252
 

Quote

In the north of Makarovka, from which the enemy has already been knocked out as a result of a quick and effective counterattack by the 127th division, fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the 35th brigade (the so-called "dacha dwellers") are holding the line at several quickly prepared positions and firing points.

https://t.me/voenacher/46550
 

Quote

On the ledge.
Part of the positions actually managed to return under their control.
Judging by the real situation and interceptions from the enemy, their losses are terrible.

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by cesmonkey

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

OK, folks, time to put your money on the table.  I don't gamble for money but we can pretend.

1.  Is UKR southern offensive a shaping operation intended to divert RU resources from a bigger attack toward Svatove-Starobilsk? 

I'd bet heavily against this.  However, I do expect a significant Ukrainian counter offensive to happen in Luhansk as a secondary action.

Note that I'm also a guy that still does not believe Kherson was the side show to Kharkiv.  Kherson was the main act which made Kharkiv possible in the first place.  The outcome of each is important in its own way, but I'd say that from a military standpoint Kherson was the more important of the two.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Plates don't shrug off 7.62 hits, not to mention .50cal.  Hence the new 6.8 round becoming standard for militaries.

I'm gonna on record and say 6.8x51mm is fine for dmr, but is a bad idea and won't happen for your standard infantry rifle or squad mg for a bunch of reasons:

• Barrel life is going to suck, horribly. SIG claims 12k rounds; that's overly optimistic, 2k is more likely
• The round is heavier, so less ammunition carried per soldier
• The round suppresses less well, which makes it unsuitable for general purpose combat, which includes CQB and shooting from vehicles
• Recoil is higher

I think a more promising direction for small arms is going further in the direction of smart munitions- heat seeking grenade/drones, 40mm grenades that can be guided by drone, miniature missiles/drones where a soldier can carry a bunch of these, and they can seek out enemies behind cover at distances of 5m to 5km.

[Beleg85]

40 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

ussian Volunteer Corps allows recruiting fighters from Wagner PMC. This sounds like a good and bad idea.  The article features a video but I wonder if it has been staged. Surely if you have arranged an exchange with a certain number of prisoners you can't just start pulling them off the bus - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russian-volunteer-corps-allows-recruiting-fighters-from-wagner-pmc/

It was very clearly staged perormance (and not best played, too), volunteer from Wagner was captured last year and changed sides probably long ago. RVC is trying to jump to fame, and challenging Prig is very good way to do so. Psychological profiles of followers of both organizations overlap to large extent. While RVC is very controversial, basically neo-nazi unit, it has benefit of attracting similar minded people in Russia. Thus its influence may potentially  pose a problem to Kremlin's controll over far right. Not very significant, but still an issue.

You know: Sven has many sharp axes and victorious, Bjorn has less and shamed by old people. All warriors now like Sven.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Beleg85

[sross112]

28 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

I'm gonna on record and say 6.8x51mm is fine for dmr, but is a bad idea and won't happen for your standard infantry rifle or squad mg for a bunch of reasons:

• Barrel life is going to suck, horribly. SIG claims 12k rounds; that's overly optimistic, 2k is more likely
• The round is heavier, so less ammunition carried per soldier
• The round suppresses less well, which makes it unsuitable for general purpose combat, which includes CQB and shooting from vehicles
• Recoil is higher

I think a more promising direction for small arms is going further in the direction of smart munitions- heat seeking grenade/drones, 40mm grenades that can be guided by drone, miniature missiles/drones where a soldier can carry a bunch of these, and they can seek out enemies behind cover at distances of 5m to 5km.

I read an article on the new weapons that was pretty good back when it was first announced. The pressures of the new round are insane, so I would agree that it would be surprising to get 12,000 round barrel life. 

The two main reasons that it sounded like a good change is for the body armor penetration and the paired optics. The article advised that Vortex was supplying the optics which are ballistically calibrated and are supposed to give the average rifleman the ability to consistently hit targets out to 800 meters. That is a significant advantage over most possible adversaries.

The other downsides that you point out are valid and going back on the reasons for the earlier change from .30 to .223. It is a heavy weapon and bulky. Guess we will have to see how it does in large scale field ops.

[cesmonkey]

 

[Simcoe]

49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'd bet heavily against this.  However, I do expect a significant Ukrainian counter offensive to happen in Luhansk as a secondary action.

Note that I'm also a guy that still does not believe Kherson was the side show to Kharkiv.  Kherson was the main act which made Kharkiv possible in the first place.  The outcome of each is important in its own way, but I'd say that from a military standpoint Kherson was the more important of the two.

Steve

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/06/11/the-ukrainian-army-has-already-lost-half-of-its-unique-leopard-2r-breaching-vehicles/?sh=681dbad786fe

Agreed. It seems like AFU has already lost a good deal of specialized equipment already. Unless they have way more than we know about my guess is they will use the remainder to continue pushing on the main axis rather than spread them thinly.

[Fenris]

Leo 2! spotted (note with tank riders for the CM vehicle expansion when it comes)

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Fenris

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

"stopping power" is largely a myth.

I remember reading the US rifles (I think early M1 Garands) had ammo that tumbled at a certain range and were the first type of hallow point type bullet. Stopping power is real. Ask a police officer. Given the confusion inherent in combat, premise shots often can't be achieved. Weapons systems and tactics have to work in harmony. Sometimes a sniper rifle is best; somethings a shotgun. 

[kevinkin]

4 hours ago, danfrodo said:

OK, folks, time to put your money on the table.  I don't gamble for money but we can pretend.

Not to beat a dead horse, I think we are seeing several shaping operation and the UA will expand into any weakness created or presents itself no matter where on the front it takes place. Other than Crimea or perhaps the nuke power plant, there really is no territorial beacon that is so important that it would direct UA operations. Ukraine wants to show significant progress toward the goal of liberation. Where that occurs is not that important. Most the occupied infrastructure has been or will be destroyed by the Red force. Imagine if it came out that Ukraine was maneuvering to capture coal reserves? Half of DC would drop their martinis and support for such a venture. 

[pintere]

2 hours ago, Simcoe said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/06/11/the-ukrainian-army-has-already-lost-half-of-its-unique-leopard-2r-breaching-vehicles/?sh=681dbad786fe

Agreed. It seems like AFU has already lost a good deal of specialized equipment already. Unless they have way more than we know about my guess is they will use the remainder to continue pushing on the main axis rather than spread them thinly.

Didn’t Ukraine get like 40 Wisent 1 mineclearing tanks from Germany? They may not be as capable as mineclearing Leos, but they should surely be up for the task in most situations.

[danfrodo]

57 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Not to beat a dead horse, I think we are seeing several shaping operation and the UA will expand into any weakness created or presents itself no matter where on the front it takes place. Other than Crimea or perhaps the nuke power plant, there really is no territorial beacon that is so important that it would direct UA operations. Ukraine wants to show significant progress toward the goal of liberation. Where that occurs is not that important. Most the occupied infrastructure has been or will be destroyed by the Red force. Imagine if it came out that Ukraine was maneuvering to capture coal reserves? Half of DC would drop their martinis and support for such a venture. 

Good point on UA goals vs territory.   I think my vote is that UKR will attack in the north with sufficient forces to push through at least first line then will do whatever opportunity allows.  But I agree w posters above that the south is still the main goal.

[kevinkin]

16 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

But I agree w posters above that the south is still the main goal.

Yes, that could be. And threatening the land link to Crimea is a beacon to consider. But the geometry of the opposing forces lines points south as well. Defending that land link might be a RA weakness because its of political value, not so much military. Threaten to pop the balloon in the south; but explode it in the north. I don't think the RA has the means to defend against alternation. Something will have to give. Lucy on the chocolate line:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el2jPLlnnl8

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by kevinkin

[cesmonkey]

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate:

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

I'm gonna on record and say 6.8x51mm is fine for dmr, but is a bad idea and won't happen for your standard infantry rifle or squad mg for a bunch of reasons:

Yup, this is where the theory of the 6.8 and the reality don't play nice together.  All the trialed 6.8 rifles were heavier than the 5.56 rifles by quite a bit.  Then there's the number of rounds the average grunt can carry plus the reduced magazine capacity.  Lastly, now there's 3 ammo types (plus variants) to keep track of.

It's almost like the Army completely forgot why they moved from 7.62 to 5.56 in the first place.

That said, the 6.8 could wind up replacing the 7.62 weapons.

Steve