How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[poesel]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

offer them a free copy of Black Sea with only one scenario -  that thing you mentioned about having an infantry force with a crapload of javelins.

You could market this as EDU version

[Kinophile]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't think anybody has called attention to the significance of Ukrainian infantry being trained, in large numbers, in the UK (and possibly other places):

It costs a lot more to train Ukrainian soldiers in the UK than it does in Ukraine.  It seems the Russian attacks on Ukrainian training centers are significant enough that relocation was deemed necessary.

Steve

Have you listened to Perun's latest on Ukraine?

He suggests its not just that the Ivan was hitting training centres, but that the UKR infrastructure (and critically, the trainers) was not available for the sheer amount of people mobilized. So its more about the Demand<->Supply fight than just avoiding getting missiled in bed.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Kinophile

[Kinophile]

Also re the VDV use of CM - well of course its CM 1.0 engine.

Any competent military would have gone CM2.

Of course, no competent military would invade 40,000,000 people with less than 200,000 men but hey, Putler remains a master strategist...

[DesertFox]

54 minutes ago, dan/california said:

That isn't a wildfire, It is Putin's Peter the Great fantasy burning down, with sound effects.

It is burning nicely

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by DesertFox

[Battlefront.com]

For some reason I stopped following Jomini's updates.  That was a mistake   Looking back to his early July reporting it seems that sometime in June Ukraine moved the 5th Tank Brigade to Kryyvi Rih.  In theory this unit could attack southward into the northern part of the Kherson pocket, maneuver fairly quickly to attack Kherson pocket in the middle, go further south to hit Kherson directly (4+ hours) *or* move over to the eastern bank and attack somewhere in the Zaporizhzhia area (2+ hours). 

I think 5th Tank Brigade is likely to be used against the northern portion of the pocket.  If it can achieve a breakthrough T04-03 and threaten to cut off about 1/2 of the pocket from it's only good road to Kherson.

Steve

[kraze]

2 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Also re the VDV use of CM - well of course its CM 1.0 engine.

Any competent military would have gone CM2.

Of course, no competent military would invade 40,000,000 people with less than 200,000 men but hey, Putler remains a master strategist...

CMx2 has DRM I'm afraid.

[kraze]

18 minutes ago, poesel said:

You could market this as EDU version

Now, now, they will run out of their elite troops in 2 minutes and will complain it doesn't have spawn cannon fodder button

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Have you listened to Perun's latest on Ukraine?

He suggests its not just that the Ivan was hitting training centres, but that the UKR infrastructure (and critically, the trainers) was not available for the sheer amount of people mobilized. So its more about the Demand<->Supply fight than just avoiding getting missiled in bed.

 

Haven't had time to catch up on Perun, so thanks for that.

Yes, this is something I should have mentioned.  There's only a couple of places in Ukraine that are set up for this volume of training, therefore it was relatively easy for Russia to cause problems for them.  So a combo of not having enough facilities and the threat of disruption (not to mention casualties) caused the change.  Obviously specialists were already being trained in the West because Ukraine doesn't have the infrastructure in place to train for things such as HIMARS and PzH 2000.

Steve

[akd]

Air defense active at Kerch.  Explosions at Belbek airfield on other side of Crimea. Busy night.

[DesertFox]

3 minutes ago, akd said:

Air defense active at Kerch.  Explosions at Belbek airfield on other side of Crimea. Busy night.

And something is up at Nova Kakhovka. Indeed busy night, which just has begun.

 

 

[Beleg85]

53 minutes ago, sburke said:

doubtful they are planning anything like that if they intend to tie it into their power grid.

One can observe today's meeting between Erdogan, Zhelensky and Gutierrez about grain deal and nuclear PP. None of them looked happy in the press meeting after it,; frankly, they looked terribly. I would read Putin's nuclear blackmail as an effort to pressure Ukraine to do something, perhaps even about their new new fire campaign (be it SF or strikes). Russians are clearly unable to stop it traditional way, so they resort to blackmail.

Ofc. it may also be long-planned smearing and provocation campaign to simply cut off power grid. Executed with typical Russian blindness to any changing conditions in this war.

54 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't think anybody has called attention to the significance of Ukrainian infantry being trained, in large numbers, in the UK (and possibly other places):

Btw. question to veterans here: does this basic infantry training differs between usual Ukrainian practices and NATO procedures in any meaningful way? I mean- when they go back, will it be compatible?

Edited August 18, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Cederic said:

Ok, either they're planning something or they really do think Ukraine are.

Sometimes Russia tosses this stuff out there to see what sort of reaction it gets and/or to get people all upset over nothing.  This isn't the first time they've made a bunch of noise about the plant, but they sure have been making more of it in the past couple of weeks.

I don't think they are going to do anything (deliberately) that causes a radioactive event.  I think (hope) that the Kremlin realizes this has no upside for them, but does have with it a LOT of potential downsides.  Winds can shift suddenly, for example.  It also means they have to abandon a pretty good section of terrain they already hold as it will become radioactive even if winds are predominantly NW.  Much worse if the winds shift.

Surely they know by now that the West doesn't believe anything that the Russians say.  The massacre of Azov prisoners for sure demonstrated that.  So they should understand there will be a reaction from the West against Russia, not Ukraine.  I don't know what the reaction would be, but it would be more than zero.  Russia needs pressure to be lessened, not increased.

Then... what is Russia going to do if they set off a chain reaction?  They have experience with Chernobyl and should not want to repeat that experience.

I also don't see this helping domestic Russian needs as the population is well under control and largely supportive of the war.  I don't think it would help justify full mobilization, though I suppose that could be a possible use for it.

What I can imagine Russia doing is blowing up some sort of non-essential outbuilding, near enough to the plant to label it an attack but far enough away so that it doesn't disrupt plant safety.  It is stupid, reckless, and won't help them at all.  Therefore, we can't rule it out since that's Russia's usual checklist for trying something new.

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Btw. question to veterans here: does this basic infantry training differs between usual Ukrainian practices and NATO procedures in any meaningful way? I mean- when they go back, will it be compatible?

Speaking as someone who has read about prior trainings, stretching back to 2014, the answer is "yes".  The NATO training program has evolved to give Ukraine practical skills which can be readily used when they get to the battlefield instead of needing higher level changes to be applicable.

How successful this is I can't say.  For sure the Ukrainian soldiers who have participated in such trainings have said they gained from it.

Steve

[Kinophile]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Btw. question to veterans here: does this basic infantry training differs between usual Ukrainian practices and NATO procedures in any meaningful way? I mean- when they go back, will it be compatible?

Not a veteran, but as UK is NATO I assume it's training is NATO standard, but informed by UKR Army experience and needs. 

Imprint NATO early in the training process and you have a good chance of those principles and approaches staying with the recruits for a very long time. This will be critical in NATO-ing up the UKR army over the next few years.

The process is two way also, as the RL experience of the UKR trainers and staff will also mirror onto the UK army (either institutionally or just through interpersonal conversations between UKR/UK trainers) and filter through into NATO in some form. I'd expect to see the next UK batches of British Army recruits to be "experimented" on, using the UKR experience to update and RL their process.

British Army is getting a good deal - a ton of proxy realistic knowledge about a dangerous peer opponent operating in modern conditions. Ok, operating badly, but still, its major mechanised, technologically advanced war.

[FancyCat]

Reports of air defense active in Sevastopol. unconfirmed of course. 

Am i the only one who didn't expect any UKR moves in Crimea till much later? Like, this is a insane amount of activity, for something that should have been a fortress, persisting over days, and seemingly gaining in intensity and amount of attacks. 

[DesertFox]

Hypersonic cigarette butting Stary Oskol airfield also:

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by DesertFox

[FancyCat]

I can only think that Ukraine is doing this as a sort of last warning to Putin, stop your false flag at the nuclear plant or Russia will have tons of burning infrastructure within her borders and it won't stop. 

Admittedly, causing a nuclear accident is major bull****, so, I'm all for it. 

[Beleg85]

Ok, thanks for answers. It seems bulk of those recruits will not be trained into superhigh standards in several weeks.

4 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

The process is two way also, as the RL experience of the UKR trainers and staff will also mirror onto the UK army (either institutionally or just through interpersonal conversations between UKR/UK trainers) and filter through into NATO in some form. I'd expect to see the next UK batches of British Army recruits to be "experimented" on, using the UKR experience to update and RL their process.

British Army is getting a good deal - a ton of proxy realistic knowledge about a dangerous peer opponent operating in modern conditions. Ok, operating badly, but still, its major mechanised, technologically advanced war

Yup two-ways learning is very interesting topic for future, especially regarding specialists who saw combat at Ukraine, like tankers, ATGM operators, pilots etc. There are apparantly at least several decorated "panzer Aces" in ZSU with 10+ kills; I recall interview with one such guy by Mateusz Lachowski. 1.60 m high, rather shy tanker of maybe 20 years old who reportedly decimated entire Russian BTG near Mikolaiev. Now such guy has probably more armoured combat experience  than 95% of living NATO tank veterans of any conflict after Gulf War. Discussions about tactics and tricks may be very interesting for them.

[Haiduk]

51 minutes ago, akd said:

Air defense active at Kerch.  Explosions at Belbek airfield on other side of Crimea. Busy night.

Kerch

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

6 hours ago, FancyCat said:

bushfire probably. 

 

 

There is also version this local transport depot was set on fire. There wasn't military objects here, but maybe Russians used this civilan object for military purposes

[DesertFox]

I guess Intel Hub might have a point here:

 

 

[FancyCat]

Another set of strikes in Nova Kakhovka per Kherson Cat. 

They won't blow the bridge tonight, probably a probing recon. Why? They gotta give time for the Sevastopol occupiers to leave. 

 

 

[FancyCat]

 

 

 

[Beleg85]

Ok, today's night harvest so far:

Stary Oskol airfield, Belgorod- ammo depot or something more.

Timonovo depot, Belgorod- exploded.

AA working around Kerch (for first time?), reportedly drone shot down. Possible Ukrainains are probing defences.

Unconfirmed Balbek airfield explosions.

Further Nova Kakhovka strikes

Something exploding close to Enerhodar (Russian provocations?)

 

A busy night. Ukrianians social media accounts seem to have a festival.

[danfrodo]

I saw a projection of the nuclear plume that would come from the nuke plant, going N/NE and into Poland.  I hope Poland is warning Putin that he will be facing the Polish military in Ukraine if he decides to poison them. 

Putin is desperate already and will become increasingly so as he tries to find his way out of the mess he made.  So we could be in for a wild ride.  Hopefully he is being warned that escalation on his end will bring escalation from those affected.  And he will only escalate if he thinks it can help, so knowing it will make things worse will hopefully work.