How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[DesertFox]

9 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Le Monde talk about Gepard. I don't know if it's a confusion with Leopard or if it's add to the Leopard

No it is specifically about Gepard AA tanks. The question if Rheinmetall is allowed to deliver Leo1A5s and Marder IVFs is still undecided by german govt.

[Der Zeitgeist]

Re: German delivering Gepard SPAAG to Ukraine:

Stupid decision, IMO.

First, the German government spent the last few weeks explaining how Ukrainians are too stupid to use Marder or Leopard 1, now they want to send the most complex weapons systems of the German Army, which takes months of training, possibly to ensure it can not be used in the current fighting.

It's insane.

[JonS]

16 hours ago, BlackMoria said:

By happenstance, I was playing a mission last night (Rollin' On The River), in which my 3 x Stryker MGS were hull down behind a railway berm when 10 x T90AM emerged from a treeline in column formation at 1675 metres range.  End result - 10 dead T90s, no losses to the Stryker MGS. 

Funnily enough, the US is apparently retiring the MGS this year. Why not send Ukraine those instead of the Leo1? A duck is a duck, right?

[DesertFox]

2 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

It's insane.

Completely agree. Also AFAIK Ukraine never asked for AA-Tanks.

During my active duty times as a tank officer Leo2A4 in the early 90s I had the pleasure to see the Gepard system working and also got some insights about how target aquisition and internal procedures run. Id say it takes at least 6 months to train the crew to get along with that system.

[Huba]

33 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Re: German delivering Gepard SPAAG to Ukraine:

Stupid decision, IMO.

First, the German government spent the last few weeks explaining how Ukrainians are too stupid to use Marder or Leopard 1, now they want to send the most complex weapons systems of the German Army, which takes months of training, possibly to ensure it can not be used in the current fighting.

It's insane.

 I'd imagine that even for Shilka crew, retraining for Gepard will take insane amount of time.

Regarding Leo1s, I read that actually only about 20 + is ready now, the rest can be prepared at the end of the year or something along those lines. So really no impact at all, maybe some initial skills can be trained now, but that's it.

I don't know about the Marders though, maybe the Bundeswehr ones could be moved now and replaced with ones from storage as those are being repaired.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Huba

[CHEqTRO]

41 minutes ago, Huba said:

Transnistria update:

Regarding that, there is supposedly an exodus of civilians, however, no proof or source was given, so 

Nevertheless, it is clear, that something is going to happen there in the following weeks if not days.

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, CHEqTRO said:

Regarding that, there is supposedly an exodus of civilians, however, no proof or source was given, so 

Nevertheless, it is clear, that something is going to happen there in the following weeks if not days.

I saw some alleged pictures in different tweet about it. Yeah something is brewing, and I'd wager  it is not good for Russian side.

[CHEqTRO]

Also, it seems that the transmiters that were blown up were actually the largest AM transmitters in Europe, and they covered all of Ukraine. From those, Russia was broadcasting their propaganda into Ukraine. With that information, we can mostly confirm that indeed they were likely blown by the ukranians or moldovans (I suppose that propaganda was also used against them), rather than this being a false flag event.

 

[DesertFox]

nvm CHEqTRO was faster

Edited April 26, 2022 by DesertFox

[Huba]

Plot thickens:

 

[CHEqTRO]

29 minutes ago, Huba said:

Plot thickens:

 

Hmm they have been asking for recognition for some time, so I guess that would not be it. So, what other decisions can they make that would be meaningful in any way? They are already occupied by Russian troops, and its not like they are going to get joined by more any time soon. Are they going to ask for annexation? An ultimatum that Moldava recognizes them or it means war againts them? A declaration of War against Ukraine? All of these options seem preposterous to think about, but I do not see any other decisions that would have any real impact.

I mean, thinking about it, maybe they are indeed going to formally apply for recognition, but this time the russians do have the intention of recognizing them, so they are going to do some theatrics like they did with the DLPRs. We will have to wait.

Edit: Well, maybe there is some merit to the possibility of they starting hostilities against Ukraine. If the Russians are still fixated in taking Odessa, once the supposed ofensive start from Kherson towards Mykolaiv/Odessa, those Transnistrian units in the rear would be a headache for the Ukranians. But for that, the russians need to assemble a sufficient force to strike towards Odessa in Kherson, and we are not seeing that as of now, so  (Maybe we are getting Maskyrovked with all the attention given to the Donbass, who knows)

Edited April 26, 2022 by CHEqTRO

[kraze]

Maybe they will ask Russia to send in the troops?

LOL

[Huba]

Or try to take Odessa  Honestly there isn't much that they could do really, maybe make a bit of unrest in Moldova. If I was to bet, I'd say it's the other way around and Russians are about to leave soon.

[BornGinger]

1 hour ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

now they want to send the most complex weapons systems of the German Army, which takes months of training, possibly to ensure...

... they get used in a conflict to see how they perform without German soldiers getting killed

Edited April 26, 2022 by BornGinger

[kraze]

 

23 minutes ago, Huba said:

Or try to take Odessa  Honestly there isn't much that they could do really, maybe make a bit of unrest in Moldova. If I was to bet, I'd say it's the other way around and Russians are about to leave soon.

Judging by their location there they will leave either as POW or in caskets. Or maybe russian "aerospace" forces will finally decide to live up to their name and evacuate them into space.

Edited April 26, 2022 by kraze

[Rokko]

1 hour ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Re: German delivering Gepard SPAAG to Ukraine:

Stupid decision, IMO.

First, the German government spent the last few weeks explaining how Ukrainians are too stupid to use Marder or Leopard 1, now they want to send the most complex weapons systems of the German Army, which takes months of training, possibly to ensure it can not be used in the current fighting.

It's insane.

A few weeks ago the official line was that sending Gepards is no good because the ammunition is no longer produced in Europe and would have to be imported from Brazil or something. Probably just some more German weaseling, now that everyone and their grandmother is sending 155mm SPGs and the previous line of "we only send what our allies send" no longer works. What a disgusting country... (that I happen to live in).

Oh well, maybe we they can at least send another company's worth of MG3s...

[Haiduk]

12 hours ago, Kinophile said:

That's very interesting. So a UKR BDE could be considered the resourcing pool to equip it's BTG for whatever task?

Why are UKR Bdes so small, in comparison to RUS? Wide front to defend with limited forces? Focussing on Quality over RUS's quantity?

Have you seen the war forcing any changes in structure?

UKR brigade in whole comparable to Russian. Russian brigade has recon battalion, when UKR only a company, but this is because recon platoons of Russian tank/motor- battalions where withdrawn from these battalions and went to recon battalion. 

I think, one BTG per brigade in 2014 could be a reflection of coception of brigade usage. Developments of 2014-2015, when battalions of brigade operated in different places, showed brigade have to be able to maintain each battalion for autonomous work (i.e. establish BTG on the base of each mech.battalion)

Quote

I'm very curious why a UKR Tank brigade would have no inf organic to it. Even if they're operating in close relation with a MI brigade, it seems unstable to not have an infantry screening/security capability.

Each tank brigade has own mech.battalion and motorized infantry battalion + recon company. Though tank brigades of Reserve Corps may not have motorized infantry battalion, only mech and recons, I don't know

Edited April 26, 2022 by Haiduk

[Huba]

Video of queue on a way from Transnistria to Moldova. Meantime both Moldovan and Transnistrian security councils have gathered, some announcements will follow for sure.

 

[Haiduk]

10 hours ago, sross112 said:

There is some deviation from brigade to brigade but it is mostly in the motorized infantry complement. For example the 24th Brigade has no motorized inf battalion and the 54th shows 2.

The tank brigades show 3 tank bn and no inf. The airborne and air assault brigades show three infantry bn and no tanks.

Probably wron data of English wiki

Each mech.brigade has motorized infantry battalion in own structure. 24th mech. has 3rd separate motorized infantry battalion

Artillery brigades also have per one motorized infantry battalions, but they has a name security battalions, but have the same structure.

Tank brigades, as I noted above have own mech.battalion and motorized infantry battalion (though Reserve Corps brigades may not have it) + recon company 

[DesertFox]

 

 

[kraze]

[Probus]

Regarding Moldova's neutrality, any country who declares itself neutral yet is anywhere near Russia is just asking to be invaded by Russia.  They had better hop on board of NATO ASAP or be prepared for the consequences.  About the only country over there that can truly stay neutral is Switzerland and that's just because its surrounded by strong NATO countries.  I swear, if Russia was capable, it would air drop troops in neutral Switzerland as a purely 'defensive measure'.

Google Thesaurus -> Russian to English

NEUTRAL

  adjective

1. AVAILABLE; UNCLAIMED;
2. (awaiting invasion); (first come, first serve);

    

[Probus]

I believe this was posted earlier.  Can someone confirm the number of anti-tank weapons the USA is sending to Ukraine?  Was Ward just summing up the AT weapons or are these in addition to the ones he listed (such as LAWs, Karl Gustov, etc...):

 

[chuckdyke]

A Panzer grenadier cocking his MG3 somewhere in the Donbass. All what putin can say life is back to normal. 

[Huba]

So regarding the Gepards, I wonder i it would make sense to use those as CIWS for protecting very high value targets (like Dnipro bridges or such) against cruise missile strikes? I'd assume that it would be a much simpler mission, not requiring the doctrinal integration in a way comparable to Gepards protecting the armored formations. That way those could be put to use much faster I think, though it would mean wasting a huge part of their potential of course.