How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

okay so that just cut off supply through Crimea for the southern front.....  So what is the RU plan now?

[Jace11]

Just speculating but the photos don’t show much evidence of a missile strike, I’d expect rubble and stuff on the spans that are still standing and holes or craters or completely shattered spans in the water, but they look like they just fell in. I think I have to go with a massive fuel explosion and shockwave.

 

also the train may burn for many hours with more explosions possible, with the road bridge damaged emergency services are going to struggle a bit. Wow. What a disaster for Russia and their logistics. Still infrastructure targets are part of their hybrid war and we had Nord Stream blown up last week.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Jace11

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

okay so that just cut off supply through Crimea for the southern front.....  So what is the RU plan now?

Same one they had before. Run, die, or surrender, but the schedule has now been moved up A LOT!

Edited October 8, 2022 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Canada Guy said:

There was a terrible oil rail car explosion in Canada a few years ago. The blast radius was 1km and was devastating incl destroying 30 buildings.

Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster

I cannot see this getting better for Russia.

Yeah.  Huge tragedy.  Lots of firefighting and first responders crossed the border from the US into Canada to help put out the fire.  It was a horror show.  I know the line very well and every time I see these fuel cars (CP now owns the line) go by I think of what can happen when things go very wrong.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Jace11 said:

Just speculating but the photos don’t show much evidence of a missile strike, I’d expect rubble and stuff on the spans that are still standing and holes or craters or completely shattered spans in the water, but they look like they just fell in. I think I have to go with a massive fuel explosion and shockwave.

We've also not seen anybody talking about missile impacts.  We know from the Dnepr bridges that it would take a lot of direct hits to cause such a catastrophic event instead of just punching holes through it.  I think we can safely rule out missiles.

Reminder to readers... I was one of the guys insisting the airbase strikes were missiles when lots of people were saying they couldn't have been.

Steve

[FancyCat]

 

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, sburke said:

okay so that just cut off supply through Crimea for the southern front.....  So what is the RU plan now?

They'll do what they always do... try and make the best of a bad situation by brute force workarounds.  The ferries are obvious tools for them to use and, unlike with the Dnepr, are unlikely to be directly attacked due to the range.  Barges/sipping is also a given.  Rerouting stuff through Mariupol i also a given.  Other options, like laying down a pipeline, aren't practical in the short term.

This is going to be a huge problem for Russia going into the winter.  With all those forces in need of supply... yeah, it isn't going to be pretty at all.

Steve

[chrisl]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't think this is what we're seeing.  If there had been a blast in the circled area, we'd also see something on the collapsed section.  Yet it appears clean.

Steve

That looks like maybe some guardrail blown out by the train blast, but I'm sticking with the lateral displacement from the car going up. Given that there's a second segment in the water with a still in-place segment in between the downed ones,  there were probably at least two explosions - maybe one initial charge back where the first segment is down, then after the train rolled a little farther the second one that displaced the segment that's nearest us.

[LongLeftFlank]

15 minutes ago, sburke said:

okay so that just cut off supply through Crimea for the southern front.....  So what is the RU plan now?

Route all supplies, tenuously, by rail past Donetsk and into Mariupol.... whoopsie! that very line got whacked hard by artillery in at least one spot (Ilovaisk) earlier tonight.

No wonder the Ivans keep flinging themselves in waves against the Bakhmut front; they have *GOT* to push the UA back out of artillery range of their rail lines.  I'm sure someone will come up with a map soon.

Otherwise, they'll need to supply Crimea and the 'land bridge' army by ship and barge from Rostov and Novorossiysk.

Keep in mind this is an army that, on top of all its other defects, has not figured out how to palletise cargo. So every offload/reload, from rail to ship and ship to road, adds effort, increases wastage, and presents ever more bottlenecks and single points of failure.

Fish in an effing barrel.

Edited October 8, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[chrisl]

13 minutes ago, sburke said:

okay so that just cut off supply through Crimea for the southern front.....  So what is the RU plan now?

Swimming lessons

[Der Zeitgeist]

On 4/14/2022 at 11:43 PM, Der Zeitgeist said:

You bribe an underpaid railway worker to put a package in a certain railcar when the next train with artillery munitions is scheduled to go across the bridge.

[chrisl]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

They'll do what they always do... try and make the best of a bad situation by brute force workarounds.  The ferries are obvious tools for them to use and, unlike with the Dnepr, are unlikely to be directly attacked due to the range.  Barges/sipping is also a given.  Rerouting stuff through Mariupol i also a given.  Other options, like laying down a pipeline, aren't practical in the short term.

This is going to be a huge problem for Russia going into the winter.  With all those forces in need of supply... yeah, it isn't going to be pretty at all.

Steve

Anybody who can slip a bomb onto a rail car can slip a bomb into a truck or crate that's going onto a ferry or barge.

Watch for an attack into the land bridge to take enough distance to at least keep any rail traffic along the land bridge under fire. (edit: or maybe it's already in range according to LLF's post above)

Edited October 8, 2022 by chrisl

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Route all supplies, tenuously, by rail past Donetsk and into Mariupol.... whoopsie! that very line got whacked hard by artillery in at least one spot (Ilovaisk) earlier tonight.

Thanks for bringing this up.  I also don't think that the strike on Ilovaisk was a coincidence.  Ukraine LOVES to time things and they could have blown that section of rail at any time.  If there were Mobiks in the station sleeping in railcars, then count that as a bonus.

To me, it looks like Ukraine intended to choke off the rail resupply to Kherson in one smash, but instead wound up with the road bridge getting dropped as a bonus.  Though I wouldn't put it past the Ukrainians to have analyzed the bridge's weakness and tailored their attack to potentially drop the road bridge.  Think of this as the equivalent of an exhaust port on the Death Star

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for bringing this up.  I also don't think that the strike on Ilovaisk was a coincidence.  Ukraine LOVES to time things and they could have blown that section of rail at any time.  If there were Mobiks in the station sleeping in railcars, then count that as a bonus.

To me, it looks like Ukraine intended to choke off the rail resupply to Kherson in one smash, but instead wound up with the road bridge getting dropped as a bonus.  Though I wouldn't put it past the Ukrainians to have analyzed the bridge's weakness and tailored their attack to potentially drop the road bridge.  Think of this as the equivalent of an exhaust port on the Death Star

Steve

The nuns of Bayeux have woven swiftly....

 

 

[sross112]

There should be some spectacular footage when the rest of those oil cars start cooking off. I'm betting they lose at least one support in addition to some spans on that rail line by the end of this. If that is a military train those boxcars behind the tankers could make things interesting as well.

[Jace11]

A brilliant operation. Like the Moskva, and Saki airfield. There is going to be some serious blowback though. Putin doesn’t like losing. He could use this to justify a series of new infrastructure attacks.

 

On one of the discord OSINT, they are posting pics of big queues already starting to form at gas stations in crimea.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Jace11

[NamEndedAllen]

25 minutes ago, sburke said:

okay so that just cut off supply through Crimea for the southern front.....  So what is the RU plan now?

“Knock knock knocking on Heaven’s door…’  

https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/knockin-heavens-door/
 

[LongLeftFlank]

19 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Anybody who can slip a bomb onto a rail car can slip a bomb into a truck or crate that's going onto a ferry or barge.

Watch for an attack into the land bridge to take enough distance to at least keep any rail traffic along the land bridge under fire. (edit: or maybe it's already in range according to LLF's post above)

I've been digging for a map, but there is a line running west from Rostov along the Azov coast (hint: lots of bridges and embankments crossing marshlands) to Mariupol that isn't in gun range. 

Retaking Volnovakha, which was a 2014 UA redoubt that fell back in March would seem ideal, but I don't know how strongly the Russians have refortified it since. They could be expected to put up quite a fight though, knowing that it shields their last lifeline.

EDIT: I'll leave it to the experts.

 

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[chrisl]

8 minutes ago, Jace11 said:

A brilliant operation. Like the Moskva, and Saki airfield. There is going to be some serious blowback though. Putin doesn’t like losing. He could use this to justify a series of new infrastructure attacks.

Is there any reporting on the timing of the Kharkiv missile strikes relative to the time of the bridge going?

[Sojourner]

Interactive railway map...

https://openrailwaymap.org/

[chrisl]

4 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I've been digging for a map, but there is a line running west from Rostov along the Azov coast (hint: lots of bridges and embankments crossing marshlands) to Mariupol that isn't in gun range. 

Retaking Volnovakha, which was a 2014 UA redoubt that fell back in March would seem ideal, but I don't know how strongly the Russians have refortified it since. They could be expected to put up quite a fight though, knowing that it shields their last lifeline.

You might have to DIY from satellite pics - the resolution is good enough to pick out individual tire marks on fields.  I do that kind of thing regularly for unmapped hiking trails that are visible on satellite pics.

[chrisl]

Dashcam video.  (edit: probably fake?)

The replies have key frames pulled out as stills

Edited October 8, 2022 by chrisl

[FancyCat]

 

It's likely fake. The attack happened at night.

1 minute ago, chrisl said:

Dashcam video.  

The replies have key frames pulled out as stills

 

[Jace11]

Yeah clearly before dawn 

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/08/powerful-explosion-at-kerch-bridge-connecting-occupied-crimea-with-russia-media/

has some pics from different angles including one that shows two fires some distance apart. Says Kerch telegram channels reported explosion at 6:29 local time. 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Jace11

[chrisl]

Looking at the side view, the span that's dropped that's separated by an "intact" span may just had the far end pulled off it's pier as the two spans near the train went.  It looks like it's still aligned straight and didn't get pushed sideways.