How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[A Canadian Cat]

On 7/17/2023 at 11:37 AM, The_Capt said:

The biggest reason to not push any of these buttons yet (and yes, this would be a form of diplomatic escalation that we do indeed control) is that we are not sure who is actually in charge in Russia right now. 

I would say this ^ is the second reason. The first reason is the UA offence is still building. This time next year we might be just using the old Ukrainian borders from 2007 or so.

[A Canadian Cat]

On 7/17/2023 at 10:34 AM, The_MonkeyKing said:

That thing has a 240 kg payload. 

Last year bridge explosion had around 22 tons of explosives (this figure is from Russians)

Even if we go with the Russian numbers a truck bomb exploding in the open above the road deck is way less effective than one that gets up close and personal with a support pillar and goes of in a confined space under the road deck.

Comparing raw explosive yield is utterly pointless between the two contexts.

[A Canadian Cat]

20 hours ago, dan/california said:

Not worth the PR hit, and what Ukraine really wants is the people in Crimea who are from Russia, or have the closest attachment to the Russian government, to leave.

100 percent.

a) the Ukrainian government wants those ****ers to leave. GTFO and stay out.

b) the Ukrainian government does not want to go near the "both sides are just as bad BS" they need to stay on the high road even if their anger is justified.

The moment I have to explain to friends and family that some Russian civilians dying is not as bad as the number of Ukrainian civilians dying I'm going to be really worried about international support. So, far it has never come up.

[The_MonkeyKing]

5 minutes ago, IanL said:

Even if we go with the Russian numbers a truck bomb exploding in the open above the road deck is way less effective than one that gets up close and personal with a support pillar and goes of in a confined space under the road deck.

Comparing raw explosive yield is utterly pointless between the two contexts.

Not "pointless" when you compare the aftermath of the latest strike. No matter the placing, it is going to take multiple tons of explosives to get those results.

It would be a different story if there were just pillars blowing up ext

 

 

[MSBoxer]

2 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Not "pointless" when you compare the aftermath of the latest strike. No matter the placing, it is going to take multiple tons of explosives to get those results.

It would be a different story if there were just pillars blowing up ext

 

 

I find the scorching on the surface to be interesting.  Considering the speculation that the detonation was below the bridge, in my mind we have two options.

1 - the fireball wrapped around and back over the bridge to scorch the surface.  Seems implausible to me as energy tends to travel in straight lines.  The heat would blast out the sides then up with some minor wrap around, but not over the width of the span so uniformly.

2 - The blast was of such intensity that its heat discolored the surface from below implying extremely high temperature.  If this is the case, I would question the strength of the rebar within the pre-stressed concrete spans and the supporting column.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

3 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Not "pointless" when you compare the aftermath of the latest strike. No matter the placing, it is going to take multiple tons of explosives to get those results.

Nope, pointless comparison.

The truck bomb explosion can be huge but how much would be directed at the bridge? Beats me but a lot less than the full ride because the explosion has so many places to go that are not hurting the bridge.

This time nearly every Kg of explosive was going to hurt that bridge either directly at the point of impact or on the under side of the road deck.

I'm no military explosive expert but the effects of a confined explosion are significantly more powerful than an unconfined explosion. Spill a bunch of hydro carbons onto the ground and watch it go boom - it will suck to near by. Confine that inside a building or a rail car and watch it go boom and the range where your life will suck is so so much larger.

[TheVulture]

4 minutes ago, MSBoxer said:

I find the scorching on the surface to be interesting.  Considering the speculation that the detonation was below the bridge, in my mind we have two options.

1 - the fireball wrapped around and back over the bridge to scorch the surface.  Seems implausible to me as energy tends to travel in straight lines.  The heat would blast out the sides then up with some minor wrap around, but not over the width of the span so uniformly.

2 - The blast was of such intensity that its heat discolored the surface from below implying extremely high temperature.  If this is the case, I would question the strength of the rebar within the pre-stressed concrete spans and the supporting column.
 

There was presumably at least one vehicle near the explosion: a married couple were killed and their daughter injured IIRC. So it is possible that there was a burning vehicle at the explosion site which could be responsible for the blackening on the road sections.

But that's just a wild *** guess with no actual evidence. 

[kevinkin]

Maybe the cook could get some cyanide from a gold mine and slip it into Vlad's rhino burger. 

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66238766

[MSBoxer]

12 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

There was presumably at least one vehicle near the explosion: a married couple were killed and their daughter injured IIRC. So it is possible that there was a burning vehicle at the explosion site which could be responsible for the blackening on the road sections.

But that's just a wild *** guess with no actual evidence. 

That would make sense for one span, but I don't think it would be so uniform on both spans.

I also note that it is fairly consistent on both sides of the support columns.  I am no expert, but I am curious.

[The_MonkeyKing]

15 minutes ago, IanL said:

Nope, pointless comparison.

The truck bomb explosion can be huge but how much would be directed at the bridge? Beats me but a lot less than the full ride because the explosion has so many places to go that are not hurting the bridge.

This time nearly every Kg of explosive was going to hurt that bridge either directly at the point of impact or on the under side of the road deck.

I'm no military explosive expert but the effects of a confined explosion are significantly more powerful than an unconfined explosion. Spill a bunch of hydro carbons onto the ground and watch it go boom - it will suck to near by. Confine that inside a building or a rail car and watch it go boom and the range where your life will suck is so so much larger.

240kg payload (that British drone) is around three GMLRS rockets worth. Remember GMLRS effects on Kherson bridge? Or effect of three Malka 203mm rounds on something concrete.

With the latest Crimea bridge strike we are in a whole different ballpark than 240kg.

Very well might be 10x less than the truck bomb öast year but also has to be 10x larger than that British drone with 240kg payload.

[A Canadian Cat]

13 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

With the latest Crimea bridge strike we are in a whole different ballpark than 240kg.

That is my point though. I don't think we are. The size of the explosive is only one variable. The shape of the change matters, the point of impact matters and (I think the most important here) the confined or openness of the space matters.

I used to study rail accidents. The same amount of material spilled on the ground and set a lite is spectacular and dangerous. The same amount or, worse, less confined inside a rail car is way way more dangerous and can cause fatal effects much further away. Not just because parts of the rail car can fly multi hundred meters away (record I found was 3000m) but because the explosive effect itself is even bigger. A large energy release in the open is nasty, the same energy release in a confined space is devastating.

The only caveat is I don't have good understanding of the other variables because I'm not an explosive expert but the confined space under that span will have a multiplicative modifier on the effects of the explosion. My guess is that was why that section of the bridge was targeted with this type of munition.

[cesmonkey]

Comments from General Milley at today's Ramstein press conference on how well Ukraine's counter-offensive is going:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3462659/secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-and-joint-chiefs-of-staff-chairman-gene/
 

Quote

It started about five or six weeks ago. And the various wargames that were done ahead of time have predicted certain levels of advance. And that has slowed down. Why? Because that's the difference between war on paper and real war. These are real people in real machines that are out there really clearing real minefields and they're really dying.

So, when that happens units tend to slow down and that's rightly so, in order to survive, in order to get through these minefields. So, they're working their way through it. It is far from a failure, in my view. I think that it's way too early to make that kind of call. I think there's a lot of fighting left to go.

And I'll stay with the what we've said before, this is going to be long, it's going to be hard, it's going to be bloody. And at the end of the day, we'll see where the Ukrainians end up, vis-a-vis the Russians.

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

I would say this ^ is the second reason. The first reason is the UA offence is still building. This time next year we might be just using the old Ukrainian borders from 2007 or so.

Very solid point.  In the biz we call it “culmination” and the UA is not even close yet.  It would be premature to start thinking about a sideways exit until the UA offensive has fully developed.  If they achieve their operational objectives, double down and keep going to next phase.  If it fails…well then the harder conversations will happen.

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, MSBoxer said:

I find the scorching on the surface to be interesting.  Considering the speculation that the detonation was below the bridge, in my mind we have two options.

1 - the fireball wrapped around and back over the bridge to scorch the surface.  Seems implausible to me as energy tends to travel in straight lines.  The heat would blast out the sides then up with some minor wrap around, but not over the width of the span so uniformly.

2 - The blast was of such intensity that its heat discolored the surface from below implying extremely high temperature.  If this is the case, I would question the strength of the rebar within the pre-stressed concrete spans and the supporting column.

 

Or the explosion warped the deck from below so the light scatters off it differently compared to the other unwarped part.

Need more closer up pics without watermarks all over.

Edited July 18, 2023 by chrisl
I hate autocorrect

[MSBoxer]

Just now, chrisl said:

Or the explosion warped the deck from below so the light scatters off it differently compared to the other unwrapped part.

Need more closer up pics without watermarks all over.

Good thinking.  Definitely a possiblity.

[cesmonkey]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-announce-13-bln-military-aid-ukraine-sources-2023-07-18/

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

That is my point though. I don't think we are. The size of the explosive is only one variable. The shape of the change matters, the point of impact matters and (I think the most important here) the confined or openness of the space matters.

I used to study rail accidents. The same amount of material spilled on the ground and set a lite is spectacular and dangerous. The same amount or, worse, less confined inside a rail car is way way more dangerous and can cause fatal effects much further away. Not just because parts of the rail car can fly multi hundred meters away (record I found was 3000m) but because the explosive effect itself is even bigger. A large energy release in the open is nasty, the same energy release in a confined space is devastating.

The only caveat is I don't have good understanding of the other variables because I'm not an explosive expert but the confined space under that span will have a multiplicative modifier on the effects of the explosion. My guess is that was why that section of the bridge was targeted with this type of munition.

I pointed to that open-air aspect of the previous explosion to highlight that for all its size a lot of the blast essentially blew out into nothing. 

With this attack, "confined space"  is a specific limited description. On one level It's relatively more confined than the top of the road surface but there is also a lot of very open sides to the blast area.

However we could also define "confining" as the immediate space in and around the war head -  the concrete surface, water and bridge above. This gives us three sides to define to the explosive "box",  with the blast effect held,  however momentarily by water, within those sides. 

The use of unitary warhead directed against a single point,  rather than a big-*** fire ball on top of a hard, reflective surface would give the warhead far better concentrated punch. Concrete does not like point attacks. 

Also,  the previous attack showed that the spans can be bounced or sheared off their pins. 

With this attack,  I suggest that those pins are actually very weak in specific directions,  use gravity more than any mechanical means to hold the spans and are very vulnerable to shock vibration. 

[kevinkin]

I am almost getting tired reading about this:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/18/politics/ukraine-critical-ammo-shortage-us-nato-grapple/index.html

But:

Wallace said that NATO is realizing the importance of not allowing certain crucial supply chains to fall dormant.

“All of us have had to struggle stimulating our supply chains, some of which went to sleep,” he told CNN. He added that “as an alliance, we can’t just take for granted” the idea that another country will step in to fill the gap, like the US did with cluster munitions.

“What is clear is that we don’t have in our inventories at the moment the necessary munitions to shut down airfields and break through lines, like we might have done in the old days,” Wallace said. “If you can’t use cluster munitions, because we’ve all quite rightly signed this treaty [banning them], you need to innovate and come up with something else.”

Come on now. Where did the inventories go? Live fire exercises? Or where they put down for old age? 

 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Not "pointless" when you compare the aftermath of the latest strike. No matter the placing, it is going to take multiple tons of explosives to get those results.

It would be a different story if there were just pillars blowing up ext

 

 

Look at the scorching again (I don't think it is a trick of the light).  It seems to form a cone shape starting from the left and going to the right INCLUDING the rail bridge.  It is centered on the pier.

Here's a thought.  As mentioned already, Ukraine got a lot of valuable structural insight when it conducted the first attack.  The most valuable of which is that the spans were designed with an assumption that gravity would do most of the work of keeping the spans in place.  The first attack, basically, produced a gravity defying bubble around the affected area.  The spans were never designed to "bounce", which points to an obvious structural weakness to exploit.

What would produce this sort of "anti-gravity" effect?  A fuel air bomb would definitely do it.  It would also make a very large fire event, perhaps shaped by the velocity of the fuel's dispersal from an impact point.

Another possibility is something along the lines of IanL's example of a large container with a relatively small amount of explosive chemicals and the rest air.  As he noted, the worst thing you can have happen to your car is have the gas/petrol tank be nearly empty when it heats up.  Large explosion compared to hot fire.

So... my theory is that whatever blew up the brdige was not a conventional shaped HE charge like one would use against a ship or hardened target.  I think it was something explicitly designed to produce a massive pressure change, thus creating an "anti-gravity" effect.

Steve

[cesmonkey]

Some Ukrainian progress south of Bakhmut, retaking the heights overlooking Klishchiivka:

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

Some Ukrainian progress south of Bakhmut, retaking the heights overlooking Klishchiivka:

 

This reports follows the well established pattern of "our glorious forces fought valiantly and with great determination, but the enemy wore us down and took ground.  We mourn the loss of territory, but celebrate that our defense cost the enemy piles of dead for only marginal gain".

One major bit of evidence that these reports of high Ukrainian losses is BS is that the 3rd Assault Brigade has been on the counter attack for almost 2 months now.  If it was taking the sorts of losses Russia claims, it would have been spent by now.  Instead, they continue to retake ground every couple of days that took Russia weeks with confirmed high losses.

Still, Rybar is a decent source for knowing where the frontline is, even if the tall tails of how it came to be that way are transparent to the educated eye.

Steve

[danfrodo]

I am still of the opinion that RU making a move toward Kharkiv is a great thing.  UKR can counter this with economy of force & giving ground prudently, like they've done before, while RU bleeds resources.  RU will not have the reserves it needs if UKR can break through in the south.  Putin clearly seems to think the south can hold -- maybe he's right.  but if not he's gonna have yet another really stupid defeat on his hands.

I bet UKR is countering RU northern moves w TD & other non-elite units for the most part. 

[Vet 0369]

On 7/17/2023 at 4:56 PM, RandomCommenter said:

It's what we're all praying for. A line that looks solid, that has held for months only because commanders refuse to allow forward troops to retreat at all, even if they should, that deploys blocking squads to shoot people who do retreat. Such a line can look like it is holding until it suddenly collapses. Think back even to the American stand on Bunker Hill where the first two British attacks held and then suddenly there was nothing to repel the third attack.

Just a bit of clarity on the “Battle of Bunker Hill” (actually a misnomer because the hill where the battle occurred was actually Breed’s Hill). First, the Rebels fortified the hill against orders. Second, the Rebels outnumbered Howe’s Regulars by a ratio of 2 to 1. Yes, Howe carried the win, but it was a Pyrrhic victory since he was unable to strike out of Boston at all because he suffered such extreme losses. This was actually a good thing for the Rebels because after the battle, because the Rebels only had enough powder and shot to last three minutes in a fight with the Regulars. That equates to nine rounds for each militiaman. Even after Washington took command of the Militia after the battle, they didn’t get any more powder and shot until the Continental Marines took New Providence Island in the Caribbean. If Howe had known that, he could have cleared out the whole bunch.

[cesmonkey]

 

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Look at the scorching again (I don't think it is a trick of the light).  It seems to form a cone shape starting from the left and going to the right INCLUDING the rail bridge.  It is centered on the pier.

Here's a thought.  As mentioned already, Ukraine got a lot of valuable structural insight when it conducted the first attack.  The most valuable of which is that the spans were designed with an assumption that gravity would do most of the work of keeping the spans in place.  The first attack, basically, produced a gravity defying bubble around the affected area.  The spans were never designed to "bounce", which points to an obvious structural weakness to exploit.

What would produce this sort of "anti-gravity" effect?  A fuel air bomb would definitely do it.  It would also make a very large fire event, perhaps shaped by the velocity of the fuel's dispersal from an impact point.

Another possibility is something along the lines of IanL's example of a large container with a relatively small amount of explosive chemicals and the rest air.  As he noted, the worst thing you can have happen to your car is have the gas/petrol tank be nearly empty when it heats up.  Large explosion compared to hot fire.

So... my theory is that whatever blew up the brdige was not a conventional shaped HE charge like one would use against a ship or hardened target.  I think it was something explicitly designed to produce a massive pressure change, thus creating an "anti-gravity" effect.

Steve

I thought I saw that on the rail bridge, too, but decided it was my imagination finding patterns and discounted it.  I'll reconsider it as being real since you see it, too.