How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[panzermartin]

Posted mainly for the second video. How on earth did that SU-25 return to base?

Edited March 14, 2022 by panzermartin

[Haiduk]

From the morning I heard terrible artillery sounds from Brovary direction. It's 13 km from my house. More than two hours of heavy guns salvos. Now mostly quiet, but sometime single or double artillery shots heard. On the horizon in Zalissia area something burning. 

At the eraly morning Russians hit residential building in Obolon' - northern district of Kyiv. Artillery shell. Two killed, 3 wounded, 9 traumatized.

 

Also there was either missile or artilery strike at Antonov aviation plant in the western part of the city - 2 killed, 7 wounded

AD reportedly hit two targets over Kyiv and Kyiv oblast. One of them as if a missile. 

Upd. Results of missile interception. It fragments fell on the road and 5-storey building. Trolley is destroyed (fortunately it hadn't the passengers). Alas, one dead, five injured

The moment of missile fragments falling

  

Edited March 14, 2022 by Haiduk

[Bulletpoint]

It seems to me that Ukraine is now waging total war, in that the whole of the country and all its resources are now directed towards the fight for survival, while Russia is still fighting this as a limited military excursion.

Without an actual invasion of Russia, I don't see how they could mobilise much more than currently. Would it be politically and practically possible for Putin to begin a conscription of millions of Russians and mass production of weapons?

[Baneman]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

.... Would it be politically and practically possible for Putin to begin a conscription of millions of Russians and mass production of weapons?

Can't speak to politically, but practically I can't see it happening in the necessary timeframe - by the time any of that was ready for frontline service, the Russian army will either have nominally "won" and be fighting the ant-occupation forces, or have been kicked back to the Russian border.

[DesertFox]

Not sure if we already saw one of these being abandoned?

 

 

[panzermartin]

10 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

It seems to me that Ukraine is now waging total war, in that the whole of the country and all its resources are now directed towards the fight for survival, while Russia is still fighting this as a limited military excursion.

Without an actual invasion of Russia, I don't see how they could mobilise much more than currently. Would it be politically and practically possible for Putin to begin a conscription of millions of Russians and mass production of weapons?

If NATO intervenes, he will have the excuse and adress to his people that this is a war of survival for Russia and they will go full scale war with millions and mass war production ala WW2. I hope this does not happen.

[kraze]

15 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

It seems to me that Ukraine is now waging total war, in that the whole of the country and all its resources are now directed towards the fight for survival, while Russia is still fighting this as a limited military excursion.

Without an actual invasion of Russia, I don't see how they could mobilise much more than currently. Would it be politically and practically possible for Putin to begin a conscription of millions of Russians and mass production of weapons?

Considering how Russia and its army ended up being after 30 years of non-stop fascist propaganda about them being so exceptional and undefeatable, how they should prepare for a big war, while mass-fed by trillions of western dollars - utterly corrupt, highly vertical, not motivated, without competent people and absolutely dependent on imported goods - full mobilization will only lead to quick collapse because all that they will get is zero motivation green conscripts that will die in far greater numbers, while getting arms made using outdated soviet hardware with an odd and very expensive western contraband from Asia on a rare occasion.

Remember - their absolutely best forces are already in Ukraine, everything they send in now is of gradually lower quality.

[kraze]

16 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

If NATO intervenes, he will have the excuse and adress to his people that this is a war of survival for Russia and they will go full scale war with millions and mass war production ala WW2. I hope this does not happen.

Nah, russians are afraid of a single cop with a baton - they won't suddenly grow to be highly motivated against a far superior enemy on a foreign soil.

Don't forget that the only reason USSR wasn't obliterated by Germany during WW2 was because of a massive western help.

All logistic vehicles, hundreds of combat planes, half of the bullets fired were western.

And modern wars aren't won by human waves either. So even if Russia sends 5 million green zero-motivation conscripts against highly motivated, well trained, heavily horizontal, adaptive and high tech western force - their only hope will be NATO running out of bullets before russians run out of bodies.

They will however do quite a number of warcrimes and destruction before getting wiped in shared border countries. Which is why NATO isn't getting in on it.

Edited March 14, 2022 by kraze

[Haiduk]

John Deer brigade in action again ) Grad is cought

Georgian volunteers captured Russian BMD-4 NW from Kyiv

Not confirmed on 100%, but there is a photo as if our troops re-captured our 36D6 radar, probably Kyiv oblast too

Edited March 14, 2022 by Haiduk

[panzermartin]

1 minute ago, kraze said:

Nah, russians are afraid of a single cop with a baton - they won't suddenly grow to be highly motivated against a far superior enemy on a foreign soil.

Don't forget that the only reason USSR wasn't obliterated by Germany during WW2 was because of a massive western help.

All logistic vehicles, hundreds of combat planes, half of the bullets fired were western.

 Lend lease was important but nowhere as near as that. And I dont remember winning a single CMBB or CMRT battle with lowly shermans  

[Haiduk]

Artillery strike on Russian VDV positions in small forest in 3,5 km east from Hostomel airfield during the battle for Moshchun village 12th of March, but maybe a day later. Looks like ammunition depot hit.

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Haiduk

[BeondTheGrave]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

T-14 is also an unproven system.  Tell me, dear readers out there in virtual land, what brand new Russian or Soviet system has ever been fielded without there being significant problems that diverge the produced vehicle from the technical specifications? Plus what Russian or Soviet system has ever performed as well as the government says it will?

Seriously though, T-14 was supposed to be fielded in large numbers by now.  It hasn't been, so that should tell you something right there.

Steve

I wont be satisfied until I see a T-14 burning. Or being towed away by a Ukrainian tractor. Either one really. 

[Haiduk]

Zmiinyi (eng. Snake) island yesterday. Russian large landing ship nearby. Some buildings damaged after artillery shelling.

Reportedly, but not confirmed, all garrison alive, but captured. They repelled two attempts of Russians to land on the island, but wasted all ammunition. 

"Russian military ship, f...k you!" This answer of Zmiinyi garrison on Russian demands to surrender, became a slogan of Ukrainain resistance.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Haiduk

[kraze]

2 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

I wont be satisfied until I see a T-14 burning. Or being towed away by a Ukrainian tractor. Either one really. 

Problem is that there is no T-14 that can be sent to the frontline.

[panzermartin]

About the T 14, even if they had a hundred of them I'm not sure they will be sending these. I think they were meant to face NATOs up to date tanks, not guerilla warfare in cities. And I'm guessing they will be as easy pray to the javelins as the T-72, unless they have some vey sophisticated specific defense against top attack missiles.  

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Homo_Ferricus said:

Can we stop bringing up the "shot down" transport aircraft loaded with VDV until at least THE FIRST piece of evidence that this actually happened is turned over? Seriously I'm all for being proven wrong--show me the evidence--but I resolutely believe in observing some simple standards about this sort of parroting. Haven't seen any video/pics, remains, flight radar data to support it, obituaries, corroborating witnesses... anything, except for a claim by the group(s) that would stand to gain the most from such a morale victory, particularly in the opening hours of war. Would love to get to the bottom of this "big if true" claim.

I personally accounted for them as all the dead VDV on the ground that have been confirmed.  Even if none were shot out of the sky, the VDV has probably lost upwards of around 300 personnel on the ground in the various failed airborne assaults.

There's some pretty graphic videos out there of Hostomel area.

In any case, this is a rounding error in terms of the manpower discussion.

Steve

[BeondTheGrave]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Would it be politically and practically possible for Putin to begin a conscription of millions of Russians and mass production of weapons?

Steve made this point with the T-14, but I will reinforce it. You cannot mass produce modern weapons. This is one of the biggest differences from WWII to today. In WWII every side was able to convert factories over from making civilian goods like cars, trains, etc. into making tanks, planes, engines, and rifles. Today you could do that, but the bottleneck isn't how quickly plants can do the work to produce a new weapon. Limitations are more fundamental and are driven by the exotic and unusual components needed to go into you cool hightech toy. Modern fighters wont fly without sophisticated silicone avionics, they cant fight without radars, and then you need to build the missiles which need a similar tech package, but of course have no parts in common. A T-72/T-90 has a sophisticated fire control computer, the APS, and ERA blocks which are wonders of physics and also very delicate to produce. And the tungsten rods needed for the ammo, its not like thats an easy or common material to mine and manufacture. And the armor what with its ceramic inserts and exotic materials. In WWII all this was easy to scale and civilian manufacturing helped provide a foundation which military production could leapfrog off of. But during the Cold War that relationship was broken, you dont really need many steel plates to make an Abrams and you cant go up to Detroit and just ask GM to double its production of Chobham car bodies. 

The same is true of drafted soldiers too, btw. Part of the systemic failure were seeing with the Russian Army today IMO is the use of conscript manpower rather than a more modern long-term enlistment approach. In the same way you really cant just go buy an SU-27 off the shelf, you also cant just go get a pilot for it either. Someone with the experience of the Ghost of Kyiv or other UAF pilots would just eat them alive. This was the experience of USAF pilots in Desert Storm, the USAF had trained so hard in programs like REDFLAG that their pilots knew the capabilities of the enemy planes better than the enemy pilots did. The same is true of tank teams who need constant practice to work their stations, AD operators to use and maintain their sophisticated hardware, and even infantry who have to commit their maneuvers and habits to muscle memory. This training can take a year to make a quality recruit at the short end, 2-3 more typically, and a decade or more in the case of a fighter pilot. 

You see on certain forums (Reddit/Twitter) this fear that the US or EU or Russia will reinstate the draft. That the next war will be WWIII, which coincidentally looks a lot like WWII. It wont. Every nation is now in a situation where they either win the war with what they have on hand, or they wont win at all. Russia, IMO, is more likely to escalate to WMDs than to try and mass produce T-72s like they did the T-34. IMO this is also the biggest reason why we havn't seen conscription or manpower mobilization. Where would these guys go and what would they do? You wouldn't just toss them into the meat grinder, but that means training them for months to get up to speed on any given job. And probably that would produce a worse soldier than even the conscript soldiers who went in on day 1 with at least a year training and a big exercise behind them. The UA, btw, is a bit different because theyre freedom fighters. You dont need as much training to throw a molotov to defend your home. 

This subject has always been a pet peeve of mine. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Baneman said:

Can't speak to politically, but practically I can't see it happening in the necessary timeframe - by the time any of that was ready for frontline service, the Russian army will either have nominally "won" and be fighting the ant-occupation forces, or have been kicked back to the Russian border.

Yup.

Military experts have been saying for decades that a conventional conflict means both sides go to war with whatever they have in hand.  The experts have been focused on the hardware, but it really can be said about the manpower as well.  The exception being that Ukraine is tapping into existing stocks of a dozen nation's arsenals.  As for Ukrainian manpower, we'll see if the new forces are actually needed at the front.  It might be that by the time they are properly formed up the war will be over.

Steve

[The_Capt]

9 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Never used to be - in the Soviet era - tank laid bridges were regimental assets so I would see it as a brigade asset these days.

Oh I love a "technically" fight, especially with int types.  My western bias is no doubt showing but in the west where a bridge is parked does not reflect ownership.  Bridges are operationally (and in some cases strategically) controlled assets, the Brigade or lower have them attached in a command relationship for employment but that can be pulled at any time.  There are exceptions such as an independent Brigade Group but even then strategic gets really touchy around bridging assets.  The "so what" here is that these are near the top of the Joint Target List-like so much abandoned Russian kit on display, often above other Brigade level assets because there are so few of them (1 per MRR and 3 per TR in the old Soviet layout, no idea as to current Russian TO&E) and targeted as Div or higher level assets.  

Now the Russians may be going in another direction and might have parking lots full of these things [aside: the pontoon bridges we saw earlier are parked and owned at a Div level in the old Soviet parlance] and allocate them as a Bde Comd's personal toys but either way this is a high-level asset that was abandoned...and we are back to "WTF?!"

Edited March 14, 2022 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

46 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

Steve made this point with the T-14, but I will reinforce it. You cannot mass produce modern weapons. This is one of the biggest differences from WWII to today. In WWII every side was able to convert factories over from making civilian goods like cars, trains, etc. into making tanks, planes, engines, and rifles. Today you could do that, but the bottleneck isn't how quickly plants can do the work to produce a new weapon. Limitations are more fundamental and are driven by the exotic and unusual components needed to go into you cool hightech toy. Modern fighters wont fly without sophisticated silicone avionics, they cant fight without radars, and then you need to build the missiles which need a similar tech package, but of course have no parts in common. A T-72/T-90 has a sophisticated fire control computer, the APS, and ERA blocks which are wonders of physics and also very delicate to produce. And the tungsten rods needed for the ammo, its not like thats an easy or common material to mine and manufacture. And the armor what with its ceramic inserts and exotic materials. In WWII all this was easy to scale and civilian manufacturing helped provide a foundation which military production could leapfrog off of. But during the Cold War that relationship was broken, you dont really need many steel plates to make an Abrams and you cant go up to Detroit and just ask GM to double its production of Chobham car bodies. 

The same is true of drafted soldiers too, btw. Part of the systemic failure were seeing with the Russian Army today IMO is the use of conscript manpower rather than a more modern long-term enlistment approach. In the same way you really cant just go buy an SU-27 off the shelf, you also cant just go get a pilot for it either. Someone with the experience of the Ghost of Kyiv or other UAF pilots would just eat them alive. This was the experience of USAF pilots in Desert Storm, the USAF had trained so hard in programs like REDFLAG that their pilots knew the capabilities of the enemy planes better than the enemy pilots did. The same is true of tank teams who need constant practice to work their stations, AD operators to use and maintain their sophisticated hardware, and even infantry who have to commit their maneuvers and habits to muscle memory. This training can take a year to make a quality recruit at the short end, 2-3 more typically, and a decade or more in the case of a fighter pilot. 

You see on certain forums (Reddit/Twitter) this fear that the US or EU or Russia will reinstate the draft. That the next war will be WWIII, which coincidentally looks a lot like WWII. It wont. Every nation is now in a situation where they either win the war with what they have on hand, or they wont win at all. Russia, IMO, is more likely to escalate to WMDs than to try and mass produce T-72s like they did the T-34. IMO this is also the biggest reason why we havn't seen conscription or manpower mobilization. Where would these guys go and what would they do? You wouldn't just toss them into the meat grinder, but that means training them for months to get up to speed on any given job. And probably that would produce a worse soldier than even the conscript soldiers who went in on day 1 with at least a year training and a big exercise behind them. The UA, btw, is a bit different because theyre freedom fighters. You dont need as much training to throw a molotov to defend your home. 

This subject has always been a pet peeve of mine. 

This is absolutely spot on.  It also outlines a major flaw in mobilization "myths" that extend to this day and across western nations.  A lot of politicians with zero military experience took a history class or two at whatever elite college they went to and in that class they were told about mobilization during WWI and WW2, and how Johnny Lunchpail went from upstanding citizen to infantryman slogging through France in 6 months, and then came home to become their grandpa.  So when they get in the upper chairs - as clearly god intended - they think, "well we don't need to spend all that money on a standing military when there is no war on, if one comes we will just do what I learned at school between drinking binges.  Much easier and cheaper.  Of course we have to keep some people happy on the whole Defence thing, so let's spend as little as possible and look like we are doing something."

That entire theory of defence is broken for all of the quoted reasons.  Further, as also being aptly demonstrated by Russia, you cannot suddenly become expert at operational/strategic levels of warfare overnight either.  WW1 and WW2 are monuments to amateurish early form of higher level C2 and planning.  It takes years to get enough staff experience to understand how to coherently put large military actions in motion [aside: likely why the Germans did so well in the Early War comparatively, as they spent years pulling together operational level planning and coordination for the war they wanted to fight].

So Russia cannot simply come out of the phonebooth with Divisions and throw them at this problem.  Ukraine already was invaded/split back in 2014 and had been training and planning for this years in advance - and still there were failures (e.g. bridge demolition).  They have mass produced local defence/resistance but they also are not going to be able to create trained conventional forces before this war is over.  

Edited March 14, 2022 by The_Capt

[Haiduk]

Regarding yesterday news about artillery strike on 200-vehicles column in Melitopol area. Looks like this can be true. Today was claimed that ESTIMATED losses of enemy is about 50 vehicles.

Also here SIGINT interception of Russian soldier, which calls to own familiar in Russia and tells how their column was hit by artillery. He tells other column of his unit, which was deployed and started movement from Zelenchuk village (20 km west from Melitopol) was destroyed and only 3 man left. He tells HQ of 58th Army hurries them "go, go, go, move forward faster!", but there is lack of supply and there no any recon, so they suffered from UKR artillery - so they scatetred on small groups to hide in the steppe and fields. Their senior commanders abandoned them and they don't know what to do. They also tells, 205th motor-rifle brigade, where he served recently lost about half of personnel. There is unknown what data of this interception

  

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Haiduk

[billbindc]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

There's significant numbers of Ukrainian forces tied up manning the border with Belarus already.  Unless Belarus collapses into civil war I expect Ukraine can't remove any forces from the border.  However, I also don't think they need to do much to reinforce them.  If so, this means that the new units (at least the majority) can pretty much all go to fight the Russians in the east.

Steve

Ach...I realized I wasn't clear. How much of those 100,000 that Ukraine is putting together will actually get to the battlefield and when. Thanks. 

[Kraft]

Incredible combat footage from inside a BTR-4. Close range street fighting against T-72 ? and BMP-1 + dismounts in Mariupol with autocannon.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Kraft

[DesertFox]

5 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Incredible combat footage from inside a BTR-4. Close range street fighting against T-72 ? and BMP-1 + dismounts in Mariupol with autocannon.

Very good. Also shows how important TI imaging is.

[Taranis]

18 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Incredible combat footage from inside a BTR-4. Close range street fighting against T-72 ? and BMP-1 + dismounts in Mariupol with autocannon.

Note the infantry disembarking or "being protected" behind the BMP-1