How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[ASL Veteran]

16 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

This is an addendum to my last reply. Source: “http/national archives.gov.uk” 

“Meanwhile the Light Brigade, commanded by Major General the Earl of Cardigan, was awaiting orders.the Brigade consisted of the 13th DRAGOONS, the 4th DRAGOONS. The 17th Lancers, 8th Hussars and 11th Hussars.” The all caps are mine. The Lancers and Hussars were considered Calvary , but the Dragoons were definitely mounted infantry.

Mr Picky would also say that Calvary is where Jesus was crucified or something like that 

[Bulletpoint]

7 minutes ago, Commanderski said:

Now would be a good time for China to take back some of it's disputed territory. Vladivostok used to be Qing dynasty's Manchurian homeland named Haishenwai but was annexed by Russia in 1860 after China's second opium war defeat. 

Even if they have written Putin off as a future ally, they'd still probably prefer good relations with whomever succeeds him. More valuable than a bit of land where people nowadays speak Russian.

[kraze]

22 minutes ago, sburke said:

It is hard not to be if you are at all rational.  Facts

1 The whole invasion is a load of crap

2 The Russian army has performed miserably

3 The Ukrainian army has performed beyond anyone's expectations even when those expectations were high

4 Putin said 3 days to give himself a buffer.  it has been 18 days now and for the past week Russia doesn't seem to have moved the lines enough to matter and in some cases has lost ground

I don't know what a non anti Russian echo chamber would sound like but it would either sound a lot like us (if it were working off real facts) or be totally fictional.

There have been postings of Ukrainians losses, Steve was pretty critical of the lack of a good defense line to prevent the Russian offensive from Crimea.  Beyond that there simply aren't that many Russian victories to tally and they are coming at an awful price.

Even in the south, where they supposedly were "winning" - their advance came to a grinding halt and they aren't moving anywhere for 7 days now. Because pyrrhic victories, when they add up, lead to losing.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

"The US has told allies that China signalled its willingness to provide military assistance to Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine, according to officials familiar with American diplomatic cables on the exchange. ... The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Russia had made the request for assistance at some point after the start of the now three-week invasion. The Russian offer and Chinese response have sounded alarm bells in the White House. US officials believe China is trying to help Russia while its top officials publicly call for a diplomatic solution to the war."

“If China does choose to materially support Russia in this war, there will likely be consequences for China,” the defence official said. The official added: “We have seen China basically give tacit approval to what Russia is doing by refusing to join sanctions, by blaming the west and the United States for assistance that we’re giving Ukraine [and] by claiming they wanted to see a peaceful outcome but essentially doing nothing to achieve it.” Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser...  isaid he would warn the Chinese not to attempt to “bail out” Russia, including helping it survive the tough sanctions from the west. “We will ensure that neither China, nor anyone else, can compensate Russia for these losses,” Sullivan told NBC television on Sunday."

"...Chinese media and diplomats have offered support for Russia’s justification for the invasion and blamed the US and Nato for the conflict. Chinese media have also repeated unsubstantiated Russian claims that the US helped Ukraine build biological weapons labs. ... Last month, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement in Beijing that described their increasingly close partnership as having “no limits”. 

I just heard the EU Ambassador to the US talk about this very thing!  He said that there are lots of reasons to be concerned about a closer Russo-Chinese relationship, but not for the reasons most people think.

Short term there's not much China can do to help out Russia.  The sorts of technologies that Russia needs for its weaponry are not available from Chinese factories, so there's that. Second, China trades in hard currencies like the USD and Euro, not Rubles.  If China accepts any had currency payments from Russia then it is in violation of sanctions and therefore risking financial penalties from their majority economic partners.  Third, whatever deals Russia makes with China will be from a position of extreme weakness.  Who here thinks the Chinese won't take advantage of that?  As the Ambassador put it, Putin is going to quickly find out that dealing with a 1000 pound gorilla doesn't work out so well when you're only a 100 pound gorilla.

Which gets us back to the same problem Russia's faced for a very long time.  It is a country with an outsized concept of its own importance in the world.  Russia needs trade with others far more than the reverse.

Steve

[The_Capt]

35 minutes ago, Probus said:

Yes.  We are definitely in an anti-Russian echo chamber here, but I believe much less of one than most places you can go on the internet.  I would encourage posting of both Ukrainian and Russian losses and victories here so that we can see both sides of the coin (unless this really upsets our Ukrainian friends @Haiduk @kraze and @Kraft. If they can stand it then go right ahead and post them). 

The only thing I don't want to happen is political arguing or anything that will derail the thread.  Technical arguing, strategic arguing, for sure, but we have to leave the politics out and try to figure out what exactly is happening on the ground to the best of our amateur armchair general abilities.  Some much less amateur than others.

If I misspoke or forgot something, please chime in @Battlefront.com and @BFCElvis.

I think the major problem is trying to find objective observations.  The Ukrainians are going to be skewed but I also give the steady stream of "broken Russians" on social as more valid because it is in their best interest to push out real untainted data right now.  Any mis/dis information coming from Ukraine is counter-productive and erodes the high ground they hold in the information war.  That, and to try and invent or doctor that many videos and photos, and not get caught out is a massive undertaking.  In short, the Ukrainians don't want to lie, nor does it look like they have to at this point.

Russia on the other had has been lying continuously both to its own people and the world, so trying to find valid data from that end is very hard.  Russia's best play is also the one they cannot exercise because of the box they have built - the truth.  If Russia came out and said, "yep Oryx is correct we have been taking it in the teeth but here is our honest Ukrainian data, undistorted evidence of large Ukrainian losses" then one could start to balance the picture.  However, Russia is not going to do that because it has already been lying to its own people.  

In the middle we have some open source sites that are trying to report on only what they see.  I can only go on what we know for sure:

- Russian lines have not really moved in almost 2 weeks, a few thin advances are not success.

- Open source evidence of Russian losses and the nature of those losses signal 1) the Russians are in the hurt and 2) the Ukrainians are putting on that hurt.

- Russian negotiation position has started to slide.  It went from "Steel Russian Bear will eat you and poop you out into better Ukraine/mini-Russia" to "Hey guys, let us keep Crimea and Donbas and stay out of NATO we will call it even".  By next week it will be "Ok, how about we just keep pre-conflict lines/status quo and you stay out of NATO, maybe "in a few more weeks it will be "Ok, just let us walk out without killing us all".

- As predicted, Russia calling out to China for help.  I mean seriously, we all saw it coming but this is crazy based on their history.

Beyond that, I guess all we can do is be aware of our own biases and be ready to be wrong.

[womble]

A couple of nights ago, the Russians fired a bunch of cruise missiles at a military training ground. I gather they were air-launched cruise missiles, fired from Russian strategic bombers remaining in Russian airspace. I understand the desirability of using standoff weapons, and it might even be that those munitions might've been nearing the end of their shelf life (I remember the US, mostly, firing off a lot of conventional warhead Tomahawks that would otherwise have been decommissioned, in the Gulf). Is there a place, though, in the Russian playbook, for simple gravity carpet-bombing? Do they have the air frames to engage in such activity? Is it even possible to do in the AD environment over, say Kyiv? Would it be an effective use of the assets if they could safely engage in it? In other words, is it an escalation we should worry about, or which might provoke NATO involvement?

Edit: and if it is something they "should" be doing, why might they not be? Or are they?

Edited March 14, 2022 by womble

[John Kettler]

Worse than watered gremlins here! Got some sleep went to the grocery store, put things away, at lunch and now discover I'm 183 posts behind.  But now I know at least that a Tor has six roadwheels and the Tor M1 seven. Progress! Who knows? Maybe I'll become fluent in GRAU.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[kraze]

9 minutes ago, womble said:

A couple of nights ago, the Russians fired a bunch of cruise missiles at a military training ground. I gather they were air-launched cruise missiles, fired from Russian strategic bombers remaining in Russian airspace. I understand the desirability of using standoff weapons, and it might even be that those munitions might've been nearing the end of their shelf life (I remember the US, mostly, firing off a lot of conventional warhead Tomahawks that would otherwise have been decommissioned, in the Gulf). Is there a place, though, in the Russian playbook, for simple gravity carpet-bombing? Do they have the air frames to engage in such activity? Is it even possible to do in the AD environment over, say Kyiv? Would it be an effective use of the assets if they could safely engage in it? In other words, is it an escalation we should worry about, or which might provoke NATO involvement?

Edit: and if it is something they "should" be doing, why might they not be? Or are they?

Russians using strategic bombers is not escalation. They ran out of ground and naval launched Iskander/Kalibr missiles.

It's more like a full on panic mode "let's throw all the **** at Ukraine, my god, make them stop resisting SOMEHOW"

Edited March 14, 2022 by kraze

[Battlefront.com]

About the anti-Russian echo chamber concept and how it might apply to this discussion.

An objective person could look back on this thread and see that it started out with a great deal of uncertainty.  There were voices, mine included, that made some good calls early on and the Russians have done the rest since.  Our discussions have been well reasoned and factually based.  And Russia has been doing absolutely nothing but reinforcing the point of view.

Ya know, anybody who thinks this group here is unreasonably biased should think of a sports analogy.  It's 15 minutes into a Football game (either type!) and the favored team is already down by a huge amount of points.  At this point it is not biased to think that the supposed underdog might win and that favored team is humiliated.  What's the point in calling out the people who are clearly paying attention for being an "echo chamber"?  Further, what is the point of calling the people who predicted this outcome well ahead of time as biased when they are, in fact, being proven correct?  I think there's more justification for calling critics of such an "echo chamber" as being disillusion than the other way around.

Steve

[DesertFox]

Also the super rare stuff...

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

Aside from Russia's obvious credibility problem in terms of accurate information, there is also the curious fact that the country best known for disinformation and propaganda hasn't done much to try and spin a story that Ukraine is losing and that Russia will soon be triumphant.  Now why might that be?  Because the war is going to badly that even the Kremlin spinmasters are having trouble working with what they have?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Also the super rare stuff...

 

 

Another mystery O vehicle!

Steve

[BlackMoria]

It looks in good shape.   Put it through the truck wash a few time, some de-ruster and a fresh coat of paint and call it good. 

 

[womble]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

About the anti-Russian echo chamber concept and how it might apply to this discussion.

An objective person could look back on this thread and see that it started out with a great deal of uncertainty.  There were voices, mine included, that made some good calls early on and the Russians have done the rest since.  Our discussions have been well reasoned and factually based.  And Russia has been doing absolutely nothing but reinforcing the point of view.

Ya know, anybody who thinks this group here is unreasonably biased should think of a sports analogy.  It's 15 minutes into a Football game (either type!) and the favored team is already down by a huge amount of points.  At this point it is not biased to think that the supposed underdog might win and that favored team is humiliated.  What's the point in calling out the people who are clearly paying attention for being an "echo chamber"?  Further, what is the point of calling the people who predicted this outcome well ahead of time as biased when they are, in fact, being proven correct?  I think there's more justification for calling critics of such an "echo chamber" as being disillusion than the other way around.

Steve

I think the only danger we have of being misled in an echo chamber style is if the data that the thread is receiving is inaccurate because it's one-sided. I'm fairly sure that most of the "misattributed" imagery is being filtered out before it hits the thread, or flagged shortly thereafter. I don't think I'm alone in being keen to see the facts from both sides, and being disappointed that Russia is so blatantly publishing only lies. But it is something to be careful of, going forward. We don't want to accidentally drink any Kool Aid...

[kraze]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Aside from Russia's obvious credibility problem in terms of accurate information, there is also the curious fact that the country best known for disinformation and propaganda hasn't done much to try and spin a story that Ukraine is losing and that Russia will soon be triumphant.  Now why might that be?  Because the war is going to badly that even the Kremlin spinmasters are having trouble working with what they have?

Steve

Their propaganda right now is all "we haven't taken any big city yet because we don't want civilian casualties and thus carefully use precision munitions to pick neonazis one by one - that's why it's taking so long".

Compare that to Feb24-25 when after VDV drop in Hostomel their media was all "Kyiv falls by the morning".

Don't need to actually look for any seeds of truth in their propaganda - just at how propaganda changes.

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, womble said:

I think the only danger we have of being misled in an echo chamber style is if the data that the thread is receiving is inaccurate because it's one-sided. I'm fairly sure that most of the "misattributed" imagery is being filtered out before it hits the thread, or flagged shortly thereafter. I don't think I'm alone in being keen to see the facts from both sides, and being disappointed that Russia is so blatantly publishing only lies. But it is something to be careful of, going forward. We don't want to accidentally drink any Kool Aid...

okay so maybe they didn't shoot down 2 IL 76s.  I can still wish it were true...   Either way they didn't land at their destinations and that is what really mattered.  

[Probus]

Wow! About to cross the 6000 post mark. That's a lot of messages to catch up on if you've been gone for a couple weeks!

[womble]

16 minutes ago, kraze said:

Russians using strategic bombers is not escalation. They ran out of ground and naval launched Iskander/Kalibr missiles.

You can drop more HE in iron bombs out of a Bear than you can launch as standoff weapons. It's even less discriminate. It'd be an escalation of scale at least.

[kraze]

Just now, womble said:

You can drop more HE in iron bombs out of a Bear than you can launch as standoff weapons. It's even less discriminate. It'd be an escalation of scale at least.

For that they need Ukraine to have no AD. But about 2/3 of Ukraine is still a big no go zone for planes.

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, womble said:

I think the only danger we have of being misled in an echo chamber style is if the data that the thread is receiving is inaccurate because it's one-sided. I'm fairly sure that most of the "misattributed" imagery is being filtered out before it hits the thread, or flagged shortly thereafter. I don't think I'm alone in being keen to see the facts from both sides, and being disappointed that Russia is so blatantly publishing only lies. But it is something to be careful of, going forward. We don't want to accidentally drink any Kool Aid...

Absolutely.  We must always be on the lookout for "confirmation bias" and falling for disinformaiton or misinformation (not the same things).  Unfortunately, Russia had no information credibility before this war and now it has none at all.  So we are being deliberately robbed of the other side of the story.  However, Western media is interested in the other side and so they are attempting to get it as best they can.  With Russia's nearly complete crackdown on non-State journalists this is getting even harder to do.

3 minutes ago, kraze said:

Don't need to actually look for any seeds of truth in their propaganda - just at how propaganda changes

For sure you are correct, however Russian propaganda is most effective when there is at least a seed of truth.  The chaos and military defeats of Ukraine in Spring 2014 are a good example.  Russian trolls and media, plus those on their payroll in the West, were loud and had lots and lots of video to show.  I was bombarded by it all the time.  But it's not happening this time.  I think a big part is because Russian propaganda has been fairly effectively "deplatformed", however I think the clarity of this war is another part of it.  It is much easier to spin something untrue with there is doubt.  Much harder to spin likes when the facts are much clearer.

Steve

[Bulletpoint]

Any ideas about why Russia would spend so many cruise missiles to attack that training base close to Lviv? They caused casualties, but also spent around 30 missiles.. that's a lot for what exactly? Some barracks blown up?

Edited March 14, 2022 by Bulletpoint

[John Kettler]

22 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Short film about battle for Moshchun village of 12th of March  - this is with English subtitles. SOF participates - they use 60 mm mortar, also DJI Mavic 2.

 

Haiduk,

Have two questions for you ref UA armaments. The first concerns 60 mm mortars. Based on something I read about Polish arms deliveries to Ukraine, I saw something indicating only your SO guys had such weapons, but that the Poles had their own 60 mm mortar and were going to send lots of them to equip the whole force. Have such mortars arrived and on what scale? Ballpark is fine. The second concerns a weapon you've mentioned hardly at all, and that's Bar, which I believe was still in development in 2014 or so. What happened to it? MY recollection was that it was a heavy ATGM, a la TOW.

Regards,

John Kettler

[sburke]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Absolutely.  We must always be on the lookout for "confirmation bias" and falling for disinformaiton or misinformation (not the same things).  Unfortunately, Russia had no information credibility before this war and now it has none at all.  So we are being deliberately robbed of the other side of the story.  However, Western media is interested in the other side and so they are attempting to get it as best they can.  With Russia's nearly complete crackdown on non-State journalists this is getting even harder to do.

 

Steve

I think there are sources though we aren't getting to hear them unless someone decides for various reasons to leak it

Cases in point

That FSB guy reporting on the death of a general

The recent conversation after that convoy got hit near Melitopol.

Stuff straight from the horses..(bear's?) mouth as it were.  Estonia and Ukraine are both apparently spam calling Russians with info.  They should play those recordings a few times as well.

[Probus]

5 minutes ago, womble said:

You can drop more HE in iron bombs out of a Bear than you can launch as standoff weapons. It's even less discriminate. It'd be an escalation of scale at least.

TU-95 doesn't fly high enough to get out of the range of Stingers and Starstreaks, as I understand it.  Prolly the higher it flies, the less of a bombload it can carry.  Plus Russian arty should be able to rain down that kind of destruction, if they haven't run out of rockets in Syria.

[kraze]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Any ideas about why Russia would spend so many cruise missiles to attack that training base close to Lviv? They caused casualties, but also spent around 30 missiles.. that's a lot for what exactly? Some barracks blown up?

Because butthurt panic mode.

And strong belief that if their missiles can hit the "rear" - it will somehow demoralize Ukrainians.

Problem is - this is Lviv.

They just made another 1000 men join the queue in a queue to join the queue in an army enlistment queue