How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[akd]

And yet another video of failed Oct. 10 Avdiivka assault.  Looks like direct gun fire HEAT at the beginning against solitary mine plough thank, and maybe also some of the other shots against vehicles in the attack column.  Also looks like WP dropped on the wrecks / retreating troops at the end.

 

[Zeleban]

I also remember a case when our military also presented an anti-tank grenade launcher to a Polish general, also with a tragic result. It would still be good if the West suspended military aid to Ukraine. Perhaps this will force our military to change their attitude and begin to value these supplies. Perhaps then there will be more competent and responsible military personnel in the Ukrainian army.

We are very fond of scolding the West for insufficient military assistance. But personally, I believe that the main reason for military failures at the front is the incompetence of the military at ALL official levels. Starting from the rank and file and ending with senior management (this case with Zaluzhny’s assistant demonstrates this well). The total incompetence of Ukrainians is a real scourge of our society. It manifests itself in everything: how we pass laws, how we fight crime, how we build houses and roads, how we teach our children, how we produce household items, and how we drive vehicles in the end.

Ukrainians have many advantages and, unfortunately, responsibility and competence are not one of these advantages

[Haiduk]

Russian column in Maryinka area didn't live too much time...

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[FancyCat]

I mean mistakes occur all the time, hardly isolated to the West or Ukraine. 

Besides, I heard your trains run amazingly well right now. 

[Haiduk]

Bradley of 47th brigade shells Russians in tree-plant west from railroad near Stepove village. In recent days Russian troops could push back our troops here and seize tree-plant behind railways. 

 

[Zeleban]

9 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

I mean mistakes occur all the time, hardly isolated to the West or Ukraine. 

Besides, I heard your trains run amazingly well right now. 

Oh, be glad that you didn’t have to travel on Ukrainian trains! In most of ours, these are “reserved reserved seat” type cars inherited from the USSR, model 1953, with the eternal smell of sweaty socks

David Bowie won't let me lie

https://zagge.ru/devid-boui-puteshestvoval-iz-vladivostoka-v-moskvu-v-1973/

[Haiduk]

Russian troops have some gains on Kupiansk sector on Pershotravneve - Pertropavlivske direction, but pay the high price - on eof their armored columnes was defeated by UKR 14th mech.brigade

 

[poesel]

I have a question regarding mine clearing with rollers: why do mine clearing vehicles have to be tanks?

The survivability of mine clearing tanks in this conflict seems to be abysmal. So why bother with armor, and instead use mass.
Attach a barrel to a civilian vehicle (4WD or small truck), fill the barrel with water, relieve valve and make that vehicle remote controlled (nothing fancy, just forward, left, right) - you have your el-cheapo mine roller.
Works only in light terrain, and doesn't survive any decent shelling. But you can have a lot of them as they are very cheap.

This must be a stupid idea because nobody is doing it, but why?

[Battlefront.com]

59 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

I mean mistakes occur all the time, hardly isolated to the West or Ukraine.

Yeah, and let's see a show of hands of those in US military service past or present who were ordered to go to a live fire exercise in order to expend all of the remaining ammunition for the year so that they won't get a reduction in ammo for next year?  A friend of mine in the Navy had to do that and he said while it started out being fun it quickly became very, very, very tiring.  Like when I used a WW2 napalm flamethrower.  I paid for 60 seconds of fuel and after about 15 seconds I didn't want to play with it any more

Also for you old(er) timers.  Remember the US military CUCV?  These were stopgap light duty trucks that came before Humvees.  They were pretty much straight civilian vehicles.  An old(er) timer once said the thing motorpool guys loved about them the most was all of the military parts fit their personal vehicles out in the parkinglot

In any case, I am not saying that Ukraine doesn't have some old Communist mindset baggage to get rid of (it certainly does), but it is good to remember that the Gold Standard is really just a gold plated standard.  It scratches easy when handled!

Steve

[Mm1ut1]

I can vouch that the navy burned up excess ammo. That was the only time we got to fire full auto (Our M16s were old enough to have that option. I never was issued a rifle with three round burst. Had the old style rear sights, too).

[The_Capt]

20 minutes ago, poesel said:

I have a question regarding mine clearing with rollers: why do mine clearing vehicles have to be tanks?

The survivability of mine clearing tanks in this conflict seems to be abysmal. So why bother with armor, and instead use mass.
Attach a barrel to a civilian vehicle (4WD or small truck), fill the barrel with water, relieve valve and make that vehicle remote controlled (nothing fancy, just forward, left, right) - you have your el-cheapo mine roller.
Works only in light terrain, and doesn't survive any decent shelling. But you can have a lot of them as they are very cheap.

This must be a stupid idea because nobody is doing it, but why?

First problem is power.  Mine breaching rollers weigh a lot and need a powerful prime mover to push them cross country.  Second is likely survivability.  If an MBT is taking punches, how long is a truck with a water barrel going to last?  Third is exploit. Tank has nice big ol gun which can provide cover to bridgehead force.  Truck with barrel has an AM radio, which troops can dance too but doesn’t do much in the way of hurling explosives at counter-attacking forces.

There are other solutions but they are not designed for this war:

Example.  That is for AP mines and maybe IEDs.  It might be able to take a single AT mine strike which is no good for a high density minefield.  Biggest problem is all the money and energy went into IED and route clearing.  Our conventional mine breaching has not changed much in 30 years (kinda like engineering in CM).

 

[chrisl]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

First problem is power.  Mine breaching rollers weigh a lot and need a powerful prime mover to push them cross country.  Second is likely survivability.  If an MBT is taking punches, how long is a truck with a water barrel going to last?  Third is exploit. Tank has nice big ol gun which can provide cover to bridgehead force.  Truck with barrel has an AM radio, which troops can dance too but doesn’t do much in the way of hurling explosives at counter-attacking forces.

There are other solutions but they are not designed for this war:

Example.  That is for AP mines and maybe IEDs.  It might be able to take a single AT mine strike which is no good for a high density minefield.  Biggest problem is all the money and energy went into IED and route clearing.  Our conventional mine breaching has not changed much in 30 years (kinda like engineering in CM).

 

Reading that inspired me to think of an alternative.

Giant rolling drum full of water with rockets on the ends oriented to make it spin on its own and roll a path through the minefield.  Dump a bunch of them off the back of a dumptruck, like depth charges from a rack, and let them roll a bunch of paths.

It could also be powered from an internal motor, but it wouldn't be as dramatic and would cost more.

[Twisk]

39 minutes ago, poesel said:

The survivability of mine clearing tanks in this conflict seems to be abysmal. So why bother with armor, and instead use mass.
Attach a barrel to a civilian vehicle (4WD or small truck), fill the barrel with water, relieve valve and make that vehicle remote controlled (nothing fancy, just forward, left, right) - you have your el-cheapo mine roller.

Mine rollers themselves can only take so many hits. A mine plow is what you would want to use and like Cap said you need a lot of power to drive those. But the obvious issue is that if you are trying to clear a lane and lose the easily killed vehicle you've now blocked your lane and need to extend it. Done often enough and any "cleared lanes" are actually just a series of wrecked vehicles blocking your way.

Extending your thought though it may be useful to design autonomous or remote controlled mine plow vehicles that sit fairly low to the ground and are specifically designed to just clear mines. Removing the need for crew is safer for people obviously but you would also be able to reduce its size and optimize it for survivability in  a way a tank can't be. Since a tank's design is inherently one of a combat vehicle.

 

 

Edit: I think the discussion of water filled rums and other examples are being too imaginative.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Twisk

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Reading that inspired me to think of an alternative.

Giant rolling drum full of water with rockets on the ends oriented to make it spin on its own and roll a path through the minefield.  Dump a bunch of them off the back of a dumptruck, like depth charges from a rack, and let them roll a bunch of paths.

It could also be powered from an internal motor, but it wouldn't be as dramatic and would cost more.

Heading in Hobarts Funnies here.  How do you keep these guys in a straight line?  First strike and they are pretty much done so you would need to follow up with more in a breaching lane.  And then there is the terrain problem.  The divots from artillery and just plain old rocks will knock these off course.  I think you would wind up with lanes all over the place that follow on troops would have to try and follow.  This would likely see them slaloming through the minefield, which is bad.

My personal favorite would be UGVs with GPR that have a bunch of small little spider buggers with shaped charges to find and then lay down over top the mines.  Detonate all in sequence and then you have a safe lane...right up until the enemies little spider bastards crawl back into the safe lane or they just drop more FASCAM n the safe lane.

Best way to avoid minefields is to kill an opponent before they can lay them to be honest.

[Battlefront.com]

On 11/4/2023 at 9:15 AM, akd said:

Another Terra unit vid on FPV drone ops, showing that is much more difficult work than all the short clips we see would suggest:

 

I just made time to watch this.  Everybody who is even remotely interested in drone warfare should watch this.  As I was watching it I noticed that nobody stayed near the drones when they were taking off, then I saw that it was because when it launches a "pin" is pulled making the munition live, and finally we saw that it doesn't always go as planned.  Hence why nobody stands around the drone when it launches

I take it their joking at the end about losing a window in their truck was the result of the suboptimal launch incident

Steve

[JonS]

28 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Reading that inspired me to think of an alternative.

Giant rolling drum full of water with rockets on the ends oriented to make it spin on its own and roll a path through the minefield.  Dump a bunch of them off the back of a dumptruck, like depth charges from a rack, and let them roll a bunch of paths.

It could also be powered from an internal motor, but it wouldn't be as dramatic and would cost more.

That didn't work too well last time it was trialled

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum

 

[poesel]

Thanks for the answers to the mine roller. I guess some obstacles mentioned could be overcome, but in total that design it is just not useful and reliable enough.

I guess we will see specialized UGS which are not much more than a combo of tracks, motor, plow & a remote control (maybe some armor). Low profile and comparably inexpensive.

Hmm, if you make the profile low enough and add a ramp, a following vehicle could just drive over it if the plow is disabled.

[Kraft]

There will need to be a cheap and feasable mass solution to clearing kilometers of minefields at driving pace, because by next year every inch will be mined and there is nothing anyone can do about it now.

Only option then left would be to screw Western guidelines and drive into the less fortified russian countryside.

Instead of 6 Leopards with rollers there need to be 100 vehicles like this across the offensive line simultaneously, then I am fairly certain breakthroughs can be achieved - but I know that is a complete pipedream. There will probably not even be enough to replace this autumns losses.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Kraft

[JonS]

2 hours ago, akd said:

There are CCTV cameras everywhere in Russia. Even possible this one was hacked to obtain footage rather than leaked.

Fair.

I'm not a video forensics guy, but that didn't seem like CCTV to me.

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

I also remember a case when our military also presented an anti-tank grenade launcher to a Polish general, also with a tragic result. It would still be good if the West suspended military aid to Ukraine. Perhaps this will force our military to change their attitude and begin to value these supplies. Perhaps then there will be more competent and responsible military personnel in the Ukrainian army.

I assure you, sire, our officials are more stupid. I won't take any "no" for answer here. He was a  police general not military, btw., so shouldn't take bloody granade launcher as a gift anyway. Plush handcuffs, retired trained police dog, maybe 9 mm casings with "Best cop in the world" would be more appropriate.

 

But on serious note, circulation of various less-than'legal "stuff" from this war will likely be a problem in the future also within EU. And likely used in Russian propaganda against Ukraine.

[Probus]

As far as mine clearing, can a mine clearing vehicle not have detectors on the front? It can then:

1. detect a mine

2. drop a small C4 charge

3. back up several meters

4. set off the C4

5. move on to the next mine

Would this be too time consuming in an assault?  It would be a mini M1150.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Probus

[Harmon Rabb]

9 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

But on serious note, circulation of various less-than'legal "stuff" from this war will likely be a problem in the future also within EU. And likely used in Russian propaganda against Ukraine.

Yeah European law enforcement should get ready for it. I hear to this day Europe has an issue with illegal firearms related to the various wars in the Balkans back in the 1990s.

Balkan arms find buyers in Western Europe (DW)

And I think folks on this forum know my views well enough that I am not saying Ukraine should not be armed right now, just that we should be prepared anyway.

[The_Capt]

14 minutes ago, Probus said:

As far as mine clearing, can a mine clearing vehicle not have detectors on the front? It can then:

1. detect a mine

2. drop a small C4 charge

3. back up several meters

4. set off the C4

5. move on to the next mine

Would this be too time consuming in an assault?  It would be a mini M1150.

Way too slow.  This is actually basically how sappers do silent breaches but switch out vehicle with 8 guys at night.  Problem with people is that they show up on thermals.

The vehicle will draw fire as soon as it enters the minefield.  If somehow it manages to stay quiet it sure as hell will draw fire after the first charge goes off.

[Kraft]

Quote

A new practice of using fpv drones by the enemy during assaults on the example of the Priyutny district

Katsaps, unfortunately, do not stand still and continue to improve the practice of using fpv drones. On our part, this should cause increased work in the means of combating this instrument of defeat. Consider a rather unpleasant episode that happened last week between Staromayorsky and Priyutny.

The situation is as follows - 3 of our positions in total with at least 13 fighters and 4 enemy attack aircraft.

🖼 The photo shows still images of the main lesions in our positions.

1-3 hits fly into the first trench. They hit our machine gunner and another soldier who was trying to restrain 4 attack aircraft. Result: all 4 of our guys died.

4-6 hits fly into the second trench. Suppress the defenders, inflicting wounds. 3 fighters die, 2 escape.

Frame 7 - the enemy is coming from the second trench in the dugout. In the latter there were 4 fighters who were able to save themselves, but due to the work of the AGS (unknown whose) they could not hold on.

 

As a result. We lost 7 men killed, the enemy - none. Along the Katsapa curve, almost 1 km of forest strip was occupied. We will not specify how much the 8 fpv drones that produced this result cost the enemy. It is impossible to say that our guys were wrong. They kept their weapons and to the last fire did not allow the stormtroopers to approach.

Such are the realities of war. And the smallest changes on the map are always sweat and blood. For volunteers, this should be a call not only to collect on fpv drones, but also to look for ways to fight them. And for the society as a whole - not to give up and remember that the fighters give their lives so that the occupation does not spread to the whole country. Because people are the main resource, without them Leopard or F-16 are just iron.

Let's not forget the price of every day of war.

 

[The_Capt]

29 minutes ago, Kraft said:

There will need to be a cheap and feasable mass solution to clearing kilometers of minefields at driving pace, because by next year every inch will be mined and there is nothing anyone can do about it now.

Only option then left would be to screw Western guidelines and drive into the less fortified russian countryside.

Instead of 6 Leopards with rollers there need to be 100 vehicles like this across the offensive line simultaneously, then I am fairly certain breakthroughs can be achieved - but I know that is a complete pipedream. There will probably not even be enough to replace this autumns losses.

A medium density mixed minefield 400 deep will disable or kill about 70 percent of a hard ball bull-rush.  That is the mines alone.  Once you add in arty and ATGMs - all supported by ISR it is a suicide mission.  Kinda like what we have been watching the RA do.  I am pretty sure emulating them is a bad strategy.  Now imagine if the West gave Ukraine 500 tanks and they lost 70 percent of them in an afternoon.  Because we are talking kms deep minefield belts here one would not have enough to sustain a breakthrough based on those losses.