How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sross112]

3 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

So could be propaganda faked to reassure scared RU folks?  I would love to see stampede of folks out of Crimea back to RU.  Will make the demographic issue less difficult if UKR retakes that area.

Let's say it's truck bomb.  And let's assume the perpetrators are still in the area, just waiting for another chance to put a bomb on another vehicle or train, and they pull off another one of these.  This could get to be really fun as every single shipment has to be checked top to bottom.  Heck, that's nearly as good as knocking out the bridge. 

If the SBU could do the same with a ship and a cargo plane just to totally throw every logistical angle into disarray. Think of the manpower needed just to do physical security searches on every single thing needed to support Crimea and the RA. When your logistics are already subpar this sort of stuff is going to put a major hurt on speed and volume.

[MSBoxer]

38 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

The bridge has gravel below the tracks. It's easy to compare with older images. 

The images I found must have been from before they installed the gravel

[FancyCat]

What a symbol.

 

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

What a symbol.

 

"Surovikin was that officer who without hesitation got in his tank and went forward to save his country.”

here is a thought.  How about he gets back in his tank and heads for Lyman.

[sross112]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here's my take on analyzing the possibilities:

1. SOF placed charges
2. water borne attack
3. missile strike
4. truck bomb
5. some coordinated combination of the above

#1 is just silly due to how much explosives and how long it would have taken to pull off.  I think we can easily rule that one out.

#2 seems unlikely simple because the one thing I have some confidence on Russia defending against is a waterborne attack.  Even a submarine would have difficulty getting through.  Even if we assume something got through, it would have been highly prone to failure for a number of reasons.  Ukraine has no history of wild gambles on targets like this.  Instead, they wait until they have a near sure thing and this certainly wouldn't be that.  Plus, I don't think the explosion is consistent with something coming from under the bridge and it would almost certainly not have damaged the train because the bridge would have blocked the after effects.  I think we should rule this one out too.

#3 a missile strike would only be possible by either Hrim-2 or ATACMS.  I think we should rule out ATACMS for now simply because there's no evidence that the US made some sort of exception to its reluctance to let Ukraine have any.  Though it is probable this is how we'd find out.  Still, I think Ukraine would have used more than one as they aren't all that powerful per missile.  Hrim-2, on the other hand, is massively powerful.  I am going to deal with this one after the end.

#4 truck bomb seems more likely, but... I don't know.  The details seem to be pretty difficult.  First, there is the problem of getting that much explosives into a truck in the first place.  How would Ukraine source all of those explosives without serious risk of being caught?  What degree of confidence would they have that they'd get it through the detection infrastructure?  Throw all the explanations you want at it and it still comes out being extremely risky and extremely unlikely to have worked.  Again, Ukraine doesn't have a history of wild-arsed-attempts that are highly prone to failure.  I'd rule out the truck bomb possibility almost because of that alone.

The next reason to doubt the truck bomb theory is there would have to be some sort of significant fragmentation element to have set off even one railcar, not to mention multiple ones.  I do not think this is plausible, therefore the train would have to have come from a SECOND source (see #5).  Further, if Ukraine wanted to blow up the bridge in this manner it would have been vastly easier to sabotage a railcar in all ways.  It also would have been more desirable to damage the railbridge, therefore focusing on it instead of the far less certain road bridge effect.

Lastly, the Russians were quick to point their finger at a truck bomb.  Russians tend to point their finger at something convenient instead of the real cause.  An official Russian explanation is more often than not wrong.  So if Russia is saying it's a truck bomb, it's almost akin to saying it wasn't a truck bomb.
 

#5 should be ruled out.  Too many points of failure with any one thing, so combining two or more together is almost certainly not going to work.  Again, high risk of failure is not Ukraine's style.

Sooo.....

I'm leaning towards my old favorite... Hrim-2.  Now I've got to type up why!  New post coming.

Steve

A couple more theories to add to your list:

And of course, the British:

[chrisl]

This picture shows what looks like some deformation of the remaining road bridge deck:

 

[Zeleban]

31 minutes ago, sross112 said:

And of course, the British:

 

Not British but Anglo-Saxons. It is important

[sburke]

Just now, Zeleban said:

 

Not British but Anglo-Saxons. It is important

Or Normans... see it IS the French!

[Beleg85]

Just now, Zeleban said:

Not British but Anglo-Saxons. It is important

Rogue banderovite dolphins are still in the game.

But all of it is now finished. Putin made special decree about protection of the bridge and now even fly will not go unnoticed. When you are emperor, you need to do everything by yourself, apparently.

 

[sburke]

Conscripted Russians Keep Mysteriously Dying Before Reaching Battlefield (msn.com)

[dan/california]

Well said! Liver capacity is important to ration as well.

[Pete Wenman]

Looks like the rail bridge is also down to one track - certainly its width seems reduced 

 

P

 

[Haiduk]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

My leading theory... a single Hrim-2 strike. 

Hrim-2 is ballistic missile, it have to attack from the top, but here we've seen something exploded slightly aside and under the bridge, like cruise missile. Also one woman from the village near Kerch, wrote she drunk a coffee at 6:00 and as if seen two missiles, which flew on very low altitude. If this is not a fib, that this could be cruise missles atatck and... what air defense doing? 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Haiduk

[akd]

Top-scorched.

Bottom not so much:

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by akd

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Meanwhile, attacks on warehouses and railway stations continue. Apparently the AFU is preparing for a large-scale offensive. This is the Karan railway station near Mariupol

On LostArmour write missiles hit grain elevator, where ammunition dump was established. Red dot on the map is a place of strike - railway station Karan' in Andriivka settlment 17 km SE from Volnovakha

[chrisl]

22 minutes ago, akd said:

Top-scorched.

Bottom not so much:

 

Plus the pan on the remaining roadway is dented downward adjacent to the center of the explosion - it happened on top of the bridge.

That longitudinal steel beam seems to explain the "crease" next to the dent in the remaining roadway about a foot in from the white line - the thin pan was slammed against the stiff beam.

I'd still ride a bicycle across the remaining pavement, and drive inside the lane from the crease in a passenger car, but heavy trucks might accelerate the expansion of some hidden damage and make things interesting.

[sburke]

 

[Haiduk]

 

@sburke

Major Valeriy Golubev, unit and data of death unknown. His schoolmate writes he was in HQ, during developing of "strategic offensive operation" and enemy missile has struck the building, causing his death and all 20 of personnel, who were in HQ in this moment

Lt.colonel Aleksey Kondrashov, artillery battalion commander, unit and data of death unknown.

Lt.colonel Oleg Tashmatov, battlion commander (by other info - deputy of brigade commander) of 83rd air-assault brigade, Eastern military district. Got killed on 24th September in Kherson oblast from missile strike. 

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Haiduk

[Kinophile]

 

Useful

[FancyCat]

constant drumbeating of respect for IHL continuing. 

 

 

[Artkin]

2 hours ago, sross112 said:

A couple more theories to add to your list:

Sick movie, even better game. 

[Doc844]

Wow, that took some effort to catch up and what a time to do it, just as the kerch bridge gets smacked.  However although I'm liking all the theories of what did it, everyone has overlooked the main reason for all major russian mishaps in this war.

The extremely dangerous and explody act of smoking.  The smokers done it again, dropped his fag in the truck, rolled under the seat, set fire to highly flammable cheap chinese foam padding which then caused 152mm ammo to explode and blew up the bridge.  Case solved, call me Sherlock not Shirley.

[Haiduk]

UKR troops liberated Stelmakhivka and likely Andriivka villages, Luhansk oblast in 18 km W/NW from Svatove

UKR troops near village council building in Stelmakhivka

I can't do English version of map right now, so here Ukrainan - in violet squares Stelmakhivka upper and Andriivka lower, Svatove (Сватове) in low right corner

[Haiduk]

UKR Su-24M despite losses still in action

 

[TOG]

Hi, 

Another guy from Poland, have on forum for years, usually only Reading, been following the thread since around March, usually few pages behind. 

Best place to get current info, reasonable opinions, experts on details etc. 

Helped me calm down in stressful beginning of this war and pass hope to some friends. 

First time I managed to find something of interest, some of you may have seen it but I think it was not posted. 

 

The second video shows explosion in slow motion.