How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[akd]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

Here it is (or at least a part of it). It looks like multiple additional hits would be needed to really make the span collapse - OTOH, few more hits like that, and you wouldn't convince me to drive a tank on it...

 

They must have had reason to believe there was something valuable sheltering under the bridge there.  What else would be the point of a strike with GMLRS in that location?

[Der Zeitgeist]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

They must have had reason to believe there was something valuable sheltering under the bridge there.  What else would be the point of a strike with GMLRS in that location?

It's a message.

[Huba]

Just now, akd said:

They must have had reason to believe there was something valuable sheltering under the bridge there.  What else would be the point of a strike with GMLRS in that location?

In some other tweet I read that they shot at AD unit placed there - that would make sense. One hit looks like it was  using with super-quick point detonation fuze, while another clearly went through and exploded on the ground below. Clearly the attack was not aimed at the bridge itself, but UA has no problem with damaging it too - it is clear message to the RU, if they want to run, now is the time.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

On holidays so no time to watch the video, but it is my understanding that after the lost battle of Jena the Prussian army performed an analysis of what went wrong. Conclusion was that traditional planning and control were simply not realistic as high command was basically trying to manage a war based on info that was already outdated before it reached them. The battlefield was chaos and trying to control it in detail from higher up didn't make stuff any better or probably rather worse.

Later on von Moltke developed the concept (and afaik coined the phrase 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy') mainly as a better way to deal with the chaos and other challenves large scale modern war brought.

Yes, that was the case. However both authors here claim that the "concept" was not a concept actually and was never consciously singled out nor  introduced into military systems as modern works on for example Wehrmacht suggests. Also autonomy of command in linear warfare of XIX cent. was directed for generals/colonels, not lower officers or NCO's like today (one guy with a musket/rifle was unimportant up to ca. 1916 and advent of modern small unit tactics). Not sure they are right, but discussion is very interesting to military historians and worth hearing.

 

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

War is war. When your brothers-in-arms are dying you feel compelled to ignore safety rules. 

There were already many questions in publicized movies how crews handle inside Krabs that were, let's say, not entirely procedural. Interesting thing is that crew did not keep powder charges in their boxes to shorten up firing, which is very unwise (all remember Jutland, right?). On the other hand, probably no NATO crew were ever under counterbattery threat so safety procedures may be impractical when seconds matter.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Beleg85

[Grigb]

9 minutes ago, Huba said:

Holy cow this guy is nuts. He's fun to read as long as he's analyzing the situation on the ground, but that is just pure madness. There would be revolution and/or civil war in a week since anybody started with this crap.

Well, I would like everybody to be on the same page regarding this guy. 

Because politically both FSB and Military clans are losing influence due to their corruption and incompetence. So, people will turn to an outsider. But due to the way RU culture works the outsider must still be in hierarchy of RU Power. Putin eliminated all other such outsiders except two men. Navalny and Girkin.

The issue is Navalny is not a fighter. He is top manager who tries to avoid physical confrontation. Girkin is a ruthless fighter. He will kill a lot of people to get to the top.  

[kraze]

17 hours ago, Grigb said:

Civilian "Girkin" (Nesmyan) counted fresh local graves

 

adding reported 7k-8k unretrieved dead bodies in morgues here - it adds up to the reported number of 35k dead quite well.

[Billy Ringo]

13 hours ago, Machor said:

Given the country’s acute polarisation, it is perhaps no surprise that Republicans should be sceptical of a proxy war conducted by a Democratic administration. Fewer Americans overall are prepared to pay an economic price for supporting Ukraine than were at the onset of war in March. But a recent poll for the University of Maryland finds that the gap between Democrats and Republicans is widening, too. Among Democrats, 78% would accept costlier fuel and 72% would bear more inflation to help Ukraine; among Republicans only 44% and 39% respectively would do so.

A lot depends on how the question was asked.  In my opinion--most Republicans associate the ridiculous gas prices with Biden's closing the Keystone pipeline and playing games with US fuel assets, not the Ukrainian war.  Thus, any Republican response to questions related to the tolerance of high gas prices is going to come back negative.  And the Republicans are going to try and hammer Biden and the Dems on inflation and gas prices this Fall.  I realize this is only a tiny sample, but my conservative friends unanimously support US efforts in Ukraine.

LIke others, I'm surprised that Putin is flying to Iran.  Surprised that Assad is sending a representative and not going himself.  And...will be shocked if Erdogan aligns himself and Turkey more closely with Putin and Russia.   Talk about joining a losing battle with an extremely isolated and failing partner who's military hardware has been shown to be of little value and who's economy offers virtually nothing.  I don't see any "win" for Erdogan.

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Does he understand that it will immediately ignite Civil War? I think yes - he is not stupid. But he (and majority of RU Nats) believe they will be able to murder enough people to force RU population into total submission.

RU population is in total submission. And they are enjoying it.

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/logistics-collapse-945984f5d48e

record amount of completely opposite but plausible analysis coming out of all tubes.

I guess smart ones just say "it is contingent", like Koffman...

[Harmon Rabb]

Anyone else get the feeling whoever made this video watched Full Metal Jacket too many times?

Seriously what is this guy even aiming at?

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[rocketman]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, the left is more about being anti-war than isolationist, the right is more isolationist than anti-war.  Both sides want to stay out of conflicts with nations that they feel some sort of ideological kinship with.  The list of Republicans who voted against that measure are on the record as being sympathetic towards (if not outright supportive of) Russia generally and Putin specifically.  Their vote on this particular bill is largely consistent with votes on other bills to hold Putin accountable.  The Hill article cited above touches on some of them.

This is not an attempt to bash the Republican Party but to explain to non-US political watchers what is going on.  These individuals are not influential when it comes to US national security matters.  Their votes should not be seen as relevant to gauging the US' support of Ukraine.

Steve

I will have a look at the Hill article. I worry that Erdogan will use any dissent among members as fodder for his own agenda of obstructing Sweden’s bid.

[acrashb]

2 minutes ago, rocketman said:

I will have a look at the Hill article. I worry that Erdogan will use any dissent among members as fodder for his own agenda of obstructing Sweden’s bid.

The US system is designed to be fractious, and it is; party discipline is completely different, for example, than in Westminster-based systems.  The 18 'no' votes don't constitute meaningful dissent nor can they be spun that way - it's business as usual.

[sross112]

44 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Anyone else get the feeling whoever made this video watched Full Metal Jacket too many times?

Seriously what is this guy even aiming at?

 

Kadryovites must have got their first helicopter?

36 minutes ago, acrashb said:

The US system is designed to be fractious, and it is; party discipline is completely different, for example, than in Westminster-based systems.  The 18 'no' votes don't constitute meaningful dissent nor can they be spun that way - it's business as usual.

Also as others have pointed out the media needs a story. 18 is less than 5% of the House of Representatives. So instead of a headline reading "95% of lawmakers vote in support of Ukraine!!" they can attack the less than 5% dissenting as negative headlines get more reaction than positive nowadays. 

Edit: Also, this should be taken as a huge positive for Ukraine. This type of bilateral support on an issue from both sides of the aisle in the US Congress has been absolutely unheard of for a long time. It should show almost unanimous support for Ukraine to Russia and the world. Actually a big deal and a good sign if looked at from this perspective and not the media focus on the negative.

Edited July 19, 2022 by sross112

[Huba]

40 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Anyone else get the feeling whoever made this video watched Full Metal Jacket too many times?

Seriously what is this guy even aiming at?

 

False. There's no such thing as watching FMJ too many times. 

And now for some gossip - details about the " circular exchange" proposed by DE for Polish T-72s were made public. No attempt at bashing anybody here, I'm sure that was an honest offer in the sense that more couldn't be produced realisticaly in the given timeframe. Still, with a prospect like this, it's no wonder Poland went for Abrams and K2, with plan to retire Leo2 fleet alrogether when only enough K2s will be available to replace them. 

 

[Harmon Rabb]

None of this kind of extremist language should surprise us anymore at this point. It should just help remind us that arming Ukraine is the right thing to do.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[Letter from Prague]

27 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

None of this kind of extremist language should surprise us anymore at this point. It should just help remind us that arming Ukraine is the right thing to do.

 

It seems that Russian pundits are reading this thread as well, and are doing everything in their power to prove Kraze right.

I feel the 500 HIMARS that Poland wanted to buy should be properly tested in field conditions before delivery ... in Ukraine, for example.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, Huba said:

Here it is (or at least a part of it). It looks like multiple additional hits would be needed to really make the span collapse - OTOH, few more hits like that, and you wouldn't convince me to drive a tank on it...

 

It was nice of the camera man to provide such a thorough bomb damage assessment. AFU can now calculate how many GMLRS it will take to drop the bridge with zero waste.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Zeleban said:

it seems that in the Ukrainian General Staff they read our forum. The Antonovsky Bridge has just been struck. Unfortunately, the video is too big and cannot be attached to the message. The bridge appears to have received minor damage.

Heh... well, that's funny timing   We've talked about hitting the bridge before and scratched our heads wondering why it hadn't been hit with anything.  I'm guessing that there wasn't anything accurate enough to take it out from the closest range Ukraine could muster.

The hits are solid.  They can be repaired, of course, but it demonstrates that Ukraine can take the bridge out if it concentrates on doing so.  Could be this was a warning to try and get Russia to withdraw.  Would be better to bag them as prisoners or add to the piles of dead in refrigerated container cars, but having them leave on their own is a good result as well.  And that gives me an idea (next post).

Steve

[Huba]

Here's even better one:

 

[FancyCat]

 

 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

False. There's no such thing as watching FMJ too many times. 

And now for some gossip - details about the " circular exchange" proposed by DE for Polish T-72s were made public. No attempt at bashing anybody here, I'm sure that was an honest offer in the sense that more couldn't be produced realisticaly in the given timeframe. Still, with a prospect like this, it's no wonder Poland went for Abrams and K2, with plan to retire Leo2 fleet alrogether when only enough K2s will be available to replace them. 

 

https://twitter.com/MM33842521/status/1549384358187999235?s=20&t=MScIzr-BBnbzRgYxy0JeXA

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Heh... well, that's funny timing   We've talked about hitting the bridge before and scratched our heads wondering why it hadn't been hit with anything.  I'm guessing that there wasn't anything accurate enough to take it out from the closest range Ukraine could muster.

The hits are solid.  They can be repaired, of course, but it demonstrates that Ukraine can take the bridge out if it concentrates on doing so.  Could be this was a warning to try and get Russia to withdraw.  Would be better to bag them as prisoners or add to the piles of dead in refrigerated container cars, but having them leave on their own is a good result as well.  And that gives me an idea (next post).

Steve

I am picturing discussions going on right now w UKR staff -- do we blow the bridge now?  Do we let them know we can blow the bridge so they leave (demonstrated today)?  Do we entice them to reinforce then blow the bridge?

I am for enticing them to reinforce then blowing the bridge, but if they aren't reinforcing I'd go ahead an destroy it.  Hopefully Putin will do the usual dictator thing and order 'not one step back' and send lots of nice hardware into Kherson, along w some high ranking officers.  It will be hard to reconcile "everything going according to plan" with "Kherson is lost w hundreds captured along w all their equipment and supplies".   Assuming the public ever actually finds out.

 

[sburke]

oops

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/russia-s-crude-deliveries-to-china-and-india-have-plunged-30-from-their-wartime-peak-as-concerns-mount-that-asia-can-t-fully-absorb-moscow-s-shrinking-oil-market/ar-AAZIhLn?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=ab8ebf8428a144deb740fee980a3cb48

 

Russia's crude shipments to China and India have fallen nearly 30% since they peaked after the war in Ukraine began, a Bloomberg report found, signaling that Asia may not be equipped to fully absorb Russian barrels once European sanctions fully set in.

So far, expensive crude prices have bolstered Russia's export-duty revenues and helped mitigate the influence of a shrinking market. Soaring oil prices have allowed the Kremlin to continue funding its war efforts even amid tightening sanctions.  

Since the war began, India went from importing nearly zero barrels a day of Russian crude to almost 1 million barrels a day last month, according to Vortexa data.

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

https://twitter.com/MM33842521/status/1549384358187999235?s=20&t=MScIzr-BBnbzRgYxy0JeXA

Either those fellers can't spell or they are talking funny.  

who is it and what did they say?  

[Battlefront.com]

Here's one theory about what is going on around Kherson:

Ukraine tried to retake Kherson the conventional way... bring up forces, assault, take terrain, make life increasingly difficult for the occupiers, repeat until Russians are gone.  This initially worked pretty well.  Ukraine regained quite a lot of terrain and basically nixed Russia's ideas of expanding on that side of the river.

Russia was obligated to put in significant reinforcements to continue holding what they had.  They tried some counter attacks and they failed, but they did arrest Ukraine's counter attack.

Ukraine tried again when it took Davydiv Brid.  This unnerved the Russians and they flooded more stuff in as well as getting very serious about reinforced static positions.  Ukraine got itself beat up pretty badly in the end.

Things remained like this since then, with Ukraine nibbling at the edges but not able to do much more than that.

The artillery Ukraine had throughout this time was not sufficient to take out the bridge with a surgical strike.  The only systems that could reach would not likely destroy the bridge, yet would expose a lot of systems to air strikes or counter battery fire.

This changed with Western precision systems becoming available.  I don't know what hit the bridge, but it was almost certainly guided.  The equation has now changed.

Clearly Ukraine didn't think this one strike would take out the bridge.  It's too little HE to make that happen.  This means they did the strike for one of two, perhaps both, reasons:

1. to test their capabilities so that they know they can bring the bridge down when the timing is optimal
2. send a message to Russia that they should think about retreating

The devious part of my brain says it's both.  The optimal military situation for Ukraine is to have Russia start to withdraw its forces and catch them out in the open.  Unlike the retreats around Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine knows where every single Russian soldier is headed for a withdrawal.  It only needs to do a Bilohorivka focused artillery operation with focused artillery fire at the right time.  Get panic going big time and hopefully the rest of the Russian forces will surrender instead of fight.  Or, as I said in my previous post, surrender sufficient positions that make the remaining ones untenable.

And the ace up Ukraine's sleeve is it is probably very certain that it can bring down the bridge within minutes of deciding it's the right time to do it.

I'm really liking where this is headed.

Steve