How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Lethaface]

2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

What are the paths expected if Belarus does attack?  how does that terrain look?  I am hoping UKR can slow/stop any advances via ambushes & blown bridges & the like.  It would be great to see the Belarus army march in, get smacked hard, then mutiny and go back home.  What I worry about is that even a bad belaurus army has to be countered, and UKR already quite stretched.  On the plus side, it could lead to coup in belarus, and yet another country turning away from Putin.

Paths all leading to doom (at least that's what I expect for Belarus army maneuvers if they materialilze). 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Lethaface

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Whom would they be trying to fool with that? Anyone with even half a brain cell would realise Ukraine has zero interest in attacking Belarus while fighting to defend against Russia. Even Belarusian soldiers must realise that.

They already have experience with Russian false flags.  This was less than a year ago so unlikely anyone has forgotten.

On 29 July, 33 alleged mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, were arrested in a sanatorium near Minsk.^[93] Lukashenko accused Russia of lying about the arrested "mercenaries", saying "So far there is no open warfare, no shooting, the trigger has not yet been pulled, but an attempt to organize a massacre in the center of Minsk is already obvious."^[104] Belarusian authorities claimed that Tikhanovsky was working with Russians to destabilize Belarus.^[104] All but one of the mercenaries, who is a Belarusian national and remains in custody, were deported to Russia on 14 August despite a request from Ukraine for their extradition.^[105]

Edited March 11, 2022 by sburke

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

One of my favorite Monty Python episodes of all time!  Right up there with joke warfare.

Steve

[akd]

Right back atchya Russia:

 

[Sgt Joch]

12 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

But imo this economic war 'special operation' isn't decided on the front of who can freeze more, theoretical, assets belonging to the 'other party'. For sure the world economic system is sustaining a shock as there is much uncertainty. All the risk avoiding organizations/institutions are now at a loss what to do. The commodity market has been interesting as well lol.

well if you read the debate which admittedly was spread out over several pages at the speed this thread is going, it was about what Russia would get if it went forward with the seizure of foreign assets, it is more than empty stores/MacDonald's, but includes substantial financial assets. It won't prevent the economic shocks which are coming, but will partly compensate for the Russian cash which has been seized by US/EU.

[Hapless]

22 minutes ago, sburke said:

On 29 July, 33 alleged mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, were arrested in a sanatorium near Minsk.

Somewhat off topic, but Bellingcat reckon it was a Ukrainian sting operation. Less kinetic than current events, but fascinating stuff. Says a lot about the Belarus-Russia relationship that they assumed they were there for a coup attempt.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2021/11/17/inside-wagnergate-ukraines-brazen-sting-operation-to-snare-russian-mercenaries/

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Hapless

[kraze]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

So 'pacifying' Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol, in order to hold the 'land bridge to Crimea' once the cease fire is called 

Who exactly is going to call that cease fire?

Oh no no. You probably don't yet understand what russians did. This is out of politicians' hands now.

This won't end until Russia ends.

 

[kraze]

45 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Whom would they be trying to fool with that? Anyone with even half a brain cell would realise Ukraine has zero interest in attacking Belarus while fighting to defend against Russia. Even Belarusian soldiers must realise that.

Problem is - Russia has attacked Belarus - and belarusians themselves are doing nothing about it.

Rest is unimportant.

[danfrodo]

yes, l'm w Kraze here. Let's not waste forum space discussing the pretext Belarus stupidity.  Like the bio-lab bulls-t.  None of this matters because none of this is the reason for invading Ukraine.  All that actually matters is that there's a war of conquest by a totalitarian dictatorship nation against a free, sovereign nation.  And if Putin does somehow 'win' it will be a slaughter for Ukrainians + a new economic & civil liberty dark age.

[riptides]

I think with Belarus joining the fray militarily, this opens the door for other nations to pick sides and go at it.

NATO and the Russian Federation, not withstanding.

[Battlefront.com]

Another example of how rampant corruption within the Russian Armed Forces comes into play in wartime:

 

[sburke]

10 minutes ago, riptides said:

I think with Belarus joining the fray militarily, this opens the door for other nations to pick sides and go at it.

NATO and the Russian Federation, not withstanding.

no reports of any activity so maybe they realized it would be really stupid to continue the operation if it was already compromised.

 

This is as close as I have come and interesting they have noted this as a concern.

Lukashenko says Belarus army must prevent any attack on Russia from the rear (yahoo.com)

[Battlefront.com]

Additional evidence of Panzerfaust 3 being deployed within Ukraine:

Look at the picture in the lower right.  For you American folks of a certain age, you'll probably get this:

Hey Mykhail! He likes it!

Steve

[DesertFox]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Another example of how rampant corruption within the Russian Armed Forces comes into play in wartime:

Yep I already wondered 2 weeks ago why on earth they feed them with rations which expired 2015.

 

[akd]

Apparently the FSB letter previously posted is just one in a series (this could, of course, be someone’s creative writing project, but the recent arrests in the FSB suggest perhaps not):

I will say that the 4th letter gives me some pause that this is authentic.

Edited March 11, 2022 by akd

[womble]

11 minutes ago, riptides said:

I think with Belarus joining the fray militarily, this opens the door for other nations to pick sides and go at it.

NATO and the Russian Federation, not withstanding.

Didn't Belarus already join? Allowing BM strikes from your territory is pretty much "joining the fray". Sending your own tanks is barely an escalation. And I thought they did that (or tried to, at least) last week...

Nevertheless, I don't think Belarus changes any calculations. Putin is entirely prepared to treat Belarus as Russia, for his own purposes, so if you're not prepared to do "a thing" against Russia, because of power-crazed reactions, you probably don't want to do it against Belarus either.

And they're pretty much irrelevant anyway. If Russia's even moderately modernised forces have been stopped cold by Ukraine, any Belarusian formation, less well-equipped, led, supplied and motivated, trying to open a front and push towards Lviv, is just going to be fodder for the local defense brigades that haven't yet been engaged, but have been prepping their areas of responsibility for a fortnight. The difference will be that none of their heavy equipment will be worth bringing into service with UA units. And if they're just extra warm bodies being sent to "besiege Kyiv" they'll fare even worse, while being additional drag on Russian supply routes.

[DesertFox]

 

 

[db_zero]

We may be approaching an inflection point where the main objectives are in play.

IMO the Russians are probably going to go the siege route. The gritty and costly nature of urban combat will be too risky. Putin has already authorized the payment of huge sums of rubles for families of soldiers killed or wounded and even tyrants have limits placed on the number of young men they can send to the meat grinder.

I would guess If the decision is made to assault urban centers it will be after a long siege and those foreign fighters from Syria and other places, however many their true number is, will be sent in first to wear down defenders and make the defenders use ammo and other supplies before Russian forces are used...

I was surprised when it was mentioned the US Army doesn't have any guide to urban warfare. That may have changed. A while back though I did see a write up about how the Pentagon was allocating money to train in subterranean warfare so that may be changing.

For those interested in the nuts and bolts of what may face the Russians should they decide to take urban areas by direct assault here are some interesting links.

https://mwi.usma.edu/the-eight-rules-of-urban-warfare-and-why-we-must-work-to-change-them/

https://mwi.usma.edu/urban-warfare-project/

https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/MCWP 3-35.3.pdf

https://www.army.mod.uk/umbraco/Surface/Download/Get/11772

https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2022/03/08/russia-doesnt-train-troops-urban-warfare-its-about-learn-consequences-ukraine.html

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/urban-warfare-ukraine-russia

A couple of good books on the subject:

Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq

Blood and Concrete: 21st Century Conflict in Urban Centers and Megacities

I've yet to find a good sim that models urban warfare in great detail. Its probably a very difficult thing to do anyway.

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by db_zero

[billbindc]

What's the over/under on the actual percentage of running stock in the Byelorussian tank crops? 

[DesertFox]

 

 

[Commanderski]

9 minutes ago, akd said:

Apparently the FSB letter previously posted is just one in a series:

Very interesting and revealing as to what's going on. Especially the last part of the first letter that says "Our conditional deadline is June. Conditional because in June there will be no economy left in Russia – there will be nothing left."

Not to mention on what they think the amount of Russians KIA are:  "But even at our command no one knows. But probably closer to 10,000 Russian soldiers killed. And we are not counting losses at DNR & LNR."

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Yep I already wondered 2 weeks ago why on earth they feed them with rations which expired 2015.

 

This is a PERFECT example of why military readiness is so expensive.  When you produce something with a shelf life, like food, it is either consumed and replaced or it needs to be thrown out and replaced.  Either way, it needs to be replaced.

Picture a situation where the Russian Army, through corruption or just bad planning, purchased VASTLY more MREs than it needed.  They sat on a shelf somewhere and either the Army decided to not spend the money to replace them or the money for the replacements went into people's pockets.  Either way, the shelves looked stocked and ready for war when in fact they were not.

Steve

[Haiduk]

Bayraktar hit a vehicle of Russian command center, Kyiv oblast

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Haiduk

[sburke]

12 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

 

 

damn nice ambush.  Interesting to see the Russian tactical response.  Run like hell!  The suppressive fire they put down was pretty quick but mostly seems to have been blind.  They really didn't know where the shot came from and mostly seemed to miss the area where in fact it was launched from.  Was that two AT rockets.  The first looks like in may have missed. (looking at dirt kicked up to right of the target tank) or was that a top attack with missile continuing flight?

no flank security whatsoever.  Nice.

[db_zero]

RE:expired Russian MRE's.  While not a good look, in general packaged food is usually good past its expiration date-at least that's what Ive gathered in food stuff produced in the western world. I have some MRE's, canned goods and survival food that are way past expiration date and I occasionally open one and eat and its fine to me.

I've seen figures of 5-10 or even more years past the expiration date where food is still good. Depends on what the product is too. Spam will probably last past your lifetime...

Russian products may not have the same level of quality control and with corruption being so widespread and rampant in Russia those MREs with an expiration date of 2015 could be a batch made far earlier and repackaged and just stamped with 2015.

Who knows. Maybe someone can gather some up and send them to one of the youtuber who eat them and compare them and give one of these expired MREs a taste test.