How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Grossman]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Scratch a Russian Mi-8

Scratch another TOS-1 (I don't think we've seen this one before):

And a good summary of the slag heap battle which Russian bloggers initially claimed they took, then backed off those claims.  This guy does pretty good summaries so it's likely his take on the battle is more-or-less accurate:

Steve

Steve.  Slightly off topic, but Russia has re-imposed capital controls and other measures. 

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/economy/russia-ruble-surge-export-controls/index.html#

[Haiduk]

Avdiivka.

Despite claims of some Russian bloggers, assaults didn't stop. Some milbloggers consider now command will pass from huge armored assaults tactic to Bakhmut-style grindering and slow adavance, but looks like Russian command will try again. Reportedly Russian regroup own forces on norhern flank to further attacks. Today are continous rains in Avdiivka, so intensity of attacks and shelling reduced, but Russians anyway conducted several attempts on both flanks. Both sides have a problems with civil quadcopters and mostly fixed-wing drones usage in this weather, so small number of "eyes in the sky" reduced number of artillery fire. Though, Russian fighter complains in own TG, UKR arty anyway periodicllay shells them with DPICMs. 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

Four man SSO team whacks a RU truck behind enemy lines. Location undetermined. Nice long drone shots of (night) tactical movement.

Edited October 16, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[masc]

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/179ci4x/russian_ifv_driver_films_a_ukrainian_atgm_barely/

 

A perspective you don't usually see.

[dan/california]

38 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

The vatniks are seriously assaulting across open, mined terrain mounted in softskinned trucks? (first :30)

Wot he said.... 

... although Tatarigami_UA notes that some of these wrecks are from earlier attacks. 

There is piece of the video that shows a drone dropping a grenade. The operator has been at it long enough that he effortlessly leads a walking Russian perfectly. I don't think you get that right on your first try.

[Haiduk]

7 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Four man SSO team whacks a RU truck behind enemy lines. Location undetermined. Nice long drone shots of (night) tactical movement.

Kherson oblast, left bank.

[Battlefront.com]

57 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Four man SSO team whacks a RU truck behind enemy lines. Location undetermined. Nice long drone shots of (night) tactical movement.

Reminds me of the Feb/March 2022 timeframe where hit and run opportunities were common.  Looks like these SSO guys knew what they were looking for.

Steve

[Lethaface]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Just reading the description caused me to think this very same thing.  That's a pretty expensive way to take out a drone operator, regardless of how easily replaced it is.  Ukraine isn't known for wasting its ammo, especially not special forces, so my assumption is that this is no ordinary asset they knocked out.  I'm also curious about it being in a civilian type mobile office.  Is this an attempt to disguise it or is it a sign that Russia ran out of purpose built command centers?  Either way, it also stuck out like a sore thumb due to it being white and stuck in the middle of an unlikely environment for such a thing.

To my eyes this didn't look like an HIMARS strike, I mean it was a small shack probably not too sturdy and it was still standing with a a hole of a few m wide blown in it. There were many smaller 'shrapnel' impacts around it though, so could be the tungsten ball HIMARS round? 
 

[Lethaface]

3 hours ago, Twisk said:

Did we not just watch a video where the "so what" was the drone crew being tracked and killed?

Like you might have some points but you are talking about it as if you we didn't just watch the UAV recovery guy and whoever else was in that structure turned to mince meat.

The question imho is whether they wouldn't have been spotted and tracked if the top side of the drone would have been painted. And if so, how often does that exact feat occur and is painting every drones topside worth that offset?

I don't know, it sure sticks out on this video but wouldn't it have stuck out anyway? It's a rather large moving object. Usually drones are up in the sky flying around, you'd have to be observing their launch/retrieval area anyway to notice it; which is usually quite far from the front I presume and it's rather lazy of them to launch them directly from their command post, if that is what it was.

[akd]

Not sure what to say about this one. Tis the season for dark comedy I guess.

 

[dan/california]

 

[kimbosbread]

16 minutes ago, akd said:

Not sure what to say about this one. Tis the season for dark comedy I guess.

Ooof, that’s what I’m talking about. The future autonomous drones could be playful with their prey, I guess?

[akd]

4 hours ago, JonS said:

Are we sure they aren't just sun shielding? The Aussies have had similar things on their tanks for years just to try and keep the crews going in the sun.

From 2005;

https://www.defencetalk.com/military/photos/a-rare-pic-of-an-australian-as1-leopard-tank-with-its-barracuda-quot.7113/

Appears to be metal “grill” structure:

[dan/california]

22 minutes ago, akd said:

Not sure what to say about this one. Tis the season for dark comedy I guess.

 

He died tired. Given the complete absence of other people in the shot could he possibly have surrendered? I am not an any way saying he tried, just curious if was even an option?

[Beleg85]

33 minutes ago, akd said:

Not sure what to say about this one. Tis the season for dark comedy I guess.

 

Bloody Black Mirror. Btw. may be wrong, but it seems small kamikaze quadrocopters hunting singular soldiers seem much more common now than barely year ago.

[dan/california]

12 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Bloody Black Mirror. Btw. may be wrong, but it seems small kamikaze quadrocopters hunting singular soldiers seem much more common now than barely year ago.

 Once the battery gets really low, any target is better than no target, well except for the target. If they are sending more of them up, it would inevitably lead to more of these videos. It may also be factor that someone noticed they get traffic on Russian Telegram channels. Can't think a better way to discourage volunteering than "Go to Ukraine, become a chew toy for an evil robot, die tired."

[dan/california]

Hopefully they have waited to long to have this revelation, and it is about to really cost them.

 

[akd]

Longer cut of a textbook UKR assault on Russian trenches by a small tank-IFV team (complete with smokescreens):

 

[Battlefront.com]

59 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Hopefully they have waited to long to have this revelation, and it is about to really cost them.

 

This is a great example of how pro-Russians just don't have the ability to reason with reality.  What Sladkov is saying is that Russia needs to have 5x or 10x strength to win a war with a weaker neighbor.  One that they were told would be defeated within days.  And it gets better than that. 

We've seen the Russian excuses for why they suck so badly and many of them are listed by Sladkov.  Yet Sladkov is not only saying they have to address all the excuses, but they STILL need to be 5-10x bigger to win.

Holy crap, talk about being run over by the logic train instead of following it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Not sure what to say about this one. Tis the season for dark comedy I guess.

 

Yikes.  Like I really needed another reminder why I do not like where this drone stuff is headed.

1 hour ago, akd said:

Appears to be metal “grill” structure:

"Cope Cages" started out explicitly to defeat Javelins.  They were correctly ridiculed for that.  However, coincidentally there is merit to having them to thwart drone bombers.  Reminds me of the mesh hatches on German 4x4 and 8x8 armored cars in WW2 (though those were to defeat grenades).  I don't think the IDF, or the Russians for that matter, are dumb for using them.

Steve

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, akd said:

Not sure what to say about this one. Tis the season for dark comedy I guess.

 

That was nuts.  Like something out of science fiction.

[acrashb]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yikes.  Like I really needed another reminder why I do not like where this drone stuff is headed.

Seems like a good time to repost this six-year-old short film:

 

[acrashb]

19 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

That was nuts.  Like something out of science fiction.

You could do this autonomously now, or very, very soon.  The Skydio 2+ can follow an individual, like a mountain biker or skier, while autonomously avoiding obstacles - this is used for filming, but has other obvious applications.  A bit more smarts in the chassis, and you have a hunter-killer.

https://www.skydio.com/skydio-2-plus-enterprise

[Battlefront.com]

It looks like the fog of war is clearing about what the Russians have committed to Avdiivka and, just as importantly, where they came from.  This is from Haiduk from yesterday:

On 10/15/2023 at 2:16 PM, Haiduk said:

Here is Russian forces involved in this operation (by Mashovets). I notice, that Avdiivka operation is not only near the town itself - this is zone from Pisky/Pervomaiske on NW to Krasnohorivka/Novokalynove and N-20 road on the north 

Main forces - 1st Army Corps of DPR of 8th CAA of Southern military district

Additional forces: elements of 150th and 20th MRDs of 8th CAA, 21st motor-rifle brigade of 2nd CAA, Central military district, couple of Territorial Troops regiments 

Total:

Separate motor-rifle brigades - 8

Motor-rifle and tank regiments - 15

Separate rifle regimenys - 11

Separate tank battalion - 1

Separate motor-rifle battalion - 1

Separate rifle battalions - 22

BARS and Shtorm Z units of about battalion size - 3

Reserves:

Separate motor-rifle brigade - 1 (21st motor-rifle, already entered to the battlle north from Krasnohorivka)

motor-rifle regiments - 3

rifle reserve batatlions - 7

BARS - 1

But all this armada has uneven level of personnel and vehicles staffing

And this from today's ISW report, primarily from Butusov, that focuses specifically on the forces active against Avdiivka itself:

Quote

Russia likely deployed elements of at least two Central Military District (CMD) brigades to reinforce offensive operations by Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) forces on the Avdiivka front. A Ukrainian military observer reported on October 16 that three Russian brigades — the DNR’s 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade (MRB) and the CMD’s 15th and 21st MRBs (both of the 2nd Combined Arms Army [2nd CAA]) — have been involved in recent attacks on Avdiivka alongside various scattered DNR elements, while Russian forces are holding the CMD’s 30th MRB in tactical reserve.[1] Elements of the CMD, particularly of the 2nd CAA, have been active along the Svatove-Kreminna line until recently, and the newly formed 25th CAA likely relieved them along the Svatove-Kreminna line.[2] 2nd CAA elements have primarily conducted defensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line for the last several months and have therefore likely had more time to rest and reconstitute before deploying to a more challenging sector of the frontline, which accounts in part for recent Russian advances in the previously stagnant Avdiivka sector of the front.

Distilling this information, I think we can draw some pretty logical conclusions about how this offensive was made possible.

The Luhansk sector has been fairly quiet since the abject failure of the Kupyansk-Kreminna operations.  During this time the 2nd CCA (in the southern part of that sector) has been rebuilding its strength.  The partially formed 25 CCA took up the positions of 2 brigades of the 2nd CCA (15th and 21st MRBs), which were then deployed to back up the various DPR and volunteer units already deployed in and around Avdiivka.

Two things stand out in my mind:

1. Russian MoD apparently concluded there was no place on the front where an attack could be conducted with existing forces only.  Instead, it had to remove forces from the line and redeploy them to Avdiivka.  This indicates that Russia's operational and strategic reserves were not sufficient numerically and/or quality wise to conduct offensive operations.
2. the only way Russia could free up resources for Avdiivka was by prematurely committing the bulk (all?) of the 25th CCA not already deployed even earlier to the south.  The 25th CCA was a strategic reserve and, as a reminder, wasn't even fully operational.  This reserve should have been used this winter to rotate, plug holes, or conduct offensive activities.

Combine this and I think we have yet more evidence that the Avdiivka operation is a desperate gamble.  Russia has little left in the way of operational or strategic reserves, yet they invested them ahead of the winter on an attack that they must have known would be costly even if ultimately successful.  Now that the ill advised attack has been smashed up Russia is apparently going to keep it going because, so far, it hasn't either taken Avdiivka or caused Ukraine to shift significant forces away from Bakhmut or the south.  Typical Russian short term thinking that might very well force them into another rushed mobilization.

Steve

P.S.  I measured the path of 2nd CCA's redeployment.  Roughly 200km to Avdiivka, 400km to the south via the land bridge, 1000km to the south via Crimea, and a bit less via Berdyansk.  I think distance/time was a factor in where 2nd CCA wound up.

[Battlefront.com]

38 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Seems like a good time to repost this six-year-old short film:

 

I really didn't need to see that again just before going to bed.  You are a bad man.

Steve