How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Combatintman]

15 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Here's another Ukrainian artillery shell with writing mentioning the Katyn massacre of Polish officers.

This would be better ... with the inscription on the 'munition' on the outboard pylon image foreground - 'work out how to use it.'

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by Combatintman

[dan/california]

32 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Wraak voor MH17. From Amsterdam to Moscow with love...

 

25 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Here's another Ukrainian artillery shell with writing mentioning the Katyn massacre of Polish officers.

Russia is experiencing geo-political bankruptcy, and all its bills are coming due at once. I think there is no way the Russian army last until August. Even in an information system as closed as Russia's it has to be getting around that the only thing you are leaving Ukraine with is a missing limb or two. once that sinks in it is a simple choice between mass desertion, and mass surrender.

[kraze]

boom

[akd]

Larger version:

 

Last one right through open hatch.

Edited May 15, 2022 by akd

[MOS:96B2P]

19 hours ago, JonS said:

To be fair, that's not really the role of generalist media. Their job is to deliver the first draft of history in broad strokes. Specialist media, like RUSI or Janes, is for the details and analysis.

This sounds very reasonable and in theory maybe this is how it should be or once was. 

However, I have to agree with @keas66.  He was referring to the MSM (Main Stream Media) which you called "generalist media".   I think your talking about CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc. when you say "generalist"? 

The MSM often went into great detail and analyst about the war, especially in the beginning.  It was almost non-stop details and analysist that was often wrong.  Kyiv was about to fall, Zelenskyy needs to leave the capital, Poland might be invaded, nukes are possible, Putin needs an off ramp etc.  They had generals and colonels standing in front of map boards giving detailed analysis.  Lots of photos of IFVs / APCs generically called tanks.  Many experts and analysts giving their detailed input.  At the bottom of the screen the talking head often had expert, analyst, general, colonel, SF operator etc. in their title.  

But we knew they were wrong because we had this forum topic.  I couldn't (still can't really) get enough of it.  So I switched back and forth between six or seven MSM channels plus u-tube, twitter, internet, etc.  It was (is) all very interesting.  But one thing that became obvious was that the MSM was often wrong.  Even when they were right they were a week or more behind actual events on the ground.   

If the MSM was delivering a broad stroke first draft of the situation they were selling it as detailed expert analysis which was often wrong and out dated.  In an AAR of this historical event I think it is fair / appropriate to point this out.    

[Aragorn2002]

39 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

Russia is experiencing geo-political bankruptcy, and all its bills are coming due at once. I think there is no way the Russian army last until August. Even in an information system as closed as Russia's it has to be getting around that the only thing you are leaving Ukraine with is a missing limb or two. once that sinks in it is a simple choice between mass desertion, and mass surrender.

This is going to be an interesting summer.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[sburke]

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

Tho Politics is invading the Eurovision again? It doesn't surprise me as it has happened before. And Ukraine won on sympathy points from the other countries, or did they actually choose the "best" song this time?

who cares, if it pisses off Russia, score another one for the good guys!

[Battlefront.com]

Some interesting videos on different topics:

More video footage of M777 in action:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/uq96gh/ukrainian_forces_shelling_russian_positions_using/

Javelin hit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/uq9uy6/javelin_again/

Hacker victory video over the recent destruction of Russia's YouTube knockoff:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/upnd4y/more_info_on_the_cyber_attack_on_rutube_russians/

Sounds like a Russian VDV artilleryman and his mother having an argument.  There's also some interesting footage of what appears to be a boneyard for recovered destroyed Russian vehicles.

 

[FancyCat]

Part of longer thread, but it’s astounding that their fear of general mobilization is forcing them down a even worse path. Their propaganda media justifications must be brittle if after all this time, and they can’t find it cheaper to declare general mobilization and have a chance at freezing the conflict vs this undercover mobilization producing useless conscripts that be grinder into dust by Ukraine. They are burning their reservists and willing personnel piecemeal.

 

 

[Cederic]

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

Tho Politics is invading the Eurovision again? It doesn't surprise me as it has happened before. And Ukraine won on sympathy points from the other countries, or did they actually choose the "best" song this time?

"Again"? The competition voting's never been anything else.

They didn't choose the "best" song, or any of the stronger entries. The (still political) jury votes had Ukraine well down, it was the public sympathy votes that won it for them - 439 out of a maximum 480 points, where the winner would normally get well under 300.

What that does do though is send a very strong message of support for Ukraine. Governments across Europe now know that the people in their country (that are stupid enough to vote in Eurovision) will support further measures to help Ukraine. It also gives the media a happy 'united Europe' message which keeps the conflict in the news.

 

[Aragorn2002]

9 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Part of longer thread, but it’s astounding that their fear of general mobilization is forcing them down a even worse path. Their propaganda media justifications must be brittle if after all this time, and they can’t find it cheaper to declare general mobilization and have a chance at freezing the conflict vs this undercover mobilization producing useless conscripts that be grinder into dust by Ukraine. They are burning their reservists and willing personnel piecemeal.

 

 

I must say I was expecting this. It fits perfectly in their 'special operation' approach.

[FancyCat]

2 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I must say I was expecting this. It fits perfectly in their 'special operation' approach.

Assuming the takes given in this thread are correct, if a pile of wargamers can see the writing on the wall, surely Russian strategists can see that losing Crimea and Donbas is worse than general mobilization? The longer they take to pull mobilization trigger, the more time Ukraine has to assemble and begin a offensive Russia can’t stop. surely general mobilization won’t cause Russia to collapse immediately. That they seem allergic to war is just mind numbing. 

[Battlefront.com]

I couldn't find this particular interview on YouTube, so Reddit will have to do.  Grr

This is an interview with a Russian POW taken prisoner near Kharkiv.  No exact sense of when he was captured, but I'd guess about a month ago minimum.  Some of this sounds familiar so I might have seen it before.  He talks about the complete breakdown of discipline within his unit.  Some of the things mentioned:

• soldiers deliberately getting frostbite and wounds to get out of
• wounded were brought back to the front if they could "hold a rifle"
• medical staff was afraid to get too close to the fighting.  The doctors could very well be civilians not there by choice
• medical care suffered as a result, bodies of dead were neglected
• commanders routinely threatened their soldiers with bodily harm and, in one case, even tossed a grenade next to a soldier disobeying orders to shoot civilians
• his commander was paranoid about getting fragged, so he stayed with the medical staff and kept their scouts as personal bodyguards.  He said this deprived them of their ability to recon

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/uoo6rb/russian_soldiers_are_committing_suicide_rather/

 

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, FancyCat said:

Assuming the takes given in this thread are correct, if a pile of wargamers can see the writing on the wall, surely Russian strategists can see that losing Crimea and Donbas is worse than general mobilization? The longer they take to pull mobilization trigger, the more time Ukraine has to assemble and begin a offensive Russia can’t stop. surely general mobilization won’t cause Russia to collapse immediately. That they seem allergic to war is just mind numbing. 

They clearly don't think they can handle the backlash, there just isn't any other explanation. So they are hunkering down and hoping for some sort of demonic miracle. The other, small, possibility is that Putin either is terminally ill, or has convinced most of the regime that he is. And the entire system is frozen in a state of behind the scenes conflict to see who gets the job next. The FSB may think it improves its odds if the army is almost completely destroyed in Ukraine. If the various factions think the top job really is in play, the larger national interest isn't even a consideration. 

[akd]

Seldom-seen 2S23 Nona-SVKs getting schwacked:

 

[MOS:96B2P]

20 hours ago, JonS said:

Is that really true, or did the Soviet military always have - in retrospect - a kind of Potemkin vibe about it?  Did the Soviets conduct any major operations after WWII?

For me the friction, incompetence, and brutal behavior of the Russians has been one of the great surprises in this war.    

Apparently the best, most capable, most experienced and to be feared Soviet / Russian unit are those belonging to the 60th Motorized Rifle Division (MRD).  Composed of the 125th Guards Tank Regiment and the 32nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (MRR).  These are the units that compose the OPFOR at the National Training Center (NTC) at Ft. Irwin California. 

Looking back I now suspect the real Soviets / Russians were never close to being as good as the OPFOR. 

       

 

18 hours ago, SeinfeldRules said:

Even by American doctrinal standards we have several minutes to process fire missions with fully digital observers and howitzers, and it's very rare to meet that standard due to a wide range of circumstances. 

stated it took 20 minutes to deliver artillery fires, which is about on par with my own experience.

we have seen very little in OSINT that can accurately characterize how Russians control fires on a technical or tactical level, for better or worse. 

digital distribution of fires is nothing revolutionary or unique; articles like this just give the public the opposite impression.

Thanks for your input and service.   Pretty cool to have an NTC Observer/Controller/Trainer on the forum.  

8 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

We have been saying for a long time that the Russian army that Russia is trying promote in various training videos does not exist. It is a horde of people with weapons. That's all they've got.

Mic drop

Which has been a real eye opener.  I had thought the Russia army was a modern, professional force that would attempt to follow basic human values and respect (as much as possible) civilians and private property.  I was stupid wrong.  

On 5/13/2022 at 3:39 PM, SeinfeldRules said:

From what I’ve seen, often one of the best ways to use a UAV is to have another intelligence asset cue them on and have the UAV complete the kill chain with accurate targeting data. 

Another under appreciated aspect of UAVs is the support required to operate, analyze and integrate their collection into a a coherent intelligence picture for units - command posts are already bloated with personnel and have survivability issues, 

+1.  Back in the late 1980s I worked in the Division TOC as a member of the 82nd Airborne.  The footprint of the TOC and all the other HQ units was large and noisy with field generators running 24/7.   

An 11B friend of mine told a story of his platoon training in the woods of Ft. Bragg.   They came across the Division HQ, also setup in the woods training.  He was amazed by all the equipment, activity and com wire running into the area.  He jokingly said they thought they stumbled onto a small city out in the woods.  

[Battlefront.com]

56 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

This sounds very reasonable and in theory maybe this is how it should be or once was. 

However, I have to agree with @keas66.  He was referring to the MSM (Main Stream Media) which you called "generalist media".   I think your talking about CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc. when you say "generalist"? 

The MSM often went into great detail and analyst about the war, especially in the beginning.  It was almost non-stop details and analysist that was often wrong.  Kyiv was about to fall, Zelenskyy needs to leave the capital, Poland might be invaded, nukes are possible, Putin needs an off ramp etc.  They had generals and colonels standing in front of map boards giving detailed analysis.  Lots of photos of IFVs / APCs generically called tanks.  Many experts and analysts giving their detailed input.  At the bottom of the screen the talking head often had expert, analyst, general, colonel, SF operator etc. in their title.  

But we knew they were wrong because we had this forum topic.  I couldn't (still can't really) get enough of it.  So I switched back and forth between six or seven MSM channels plus u-tube, twitter, internet, etc.  It was (is) all very interesting.  But one thing that became obvious was that the MSM was often wrong.  Even when they were right they were a week or more behind actual events on the ground.   

If the MSM was delivering a broad stroke first draft of the situation they were selling it as detailed expert analysis which was often wrong and out dated.  In an AAR of this historical event I think it is fair / appropriate to point this out.    

I think we need to further divide up the MSM into "responsible MSM" and "Rating Whore MSM"   The cable news and traditional news channels covering the war from their desks are pretty universally crap.  Not at all helped by the fact that so many "experts" were utterly wrong.  In some cases the "experts" weren't really credible to begin with (darlings of either far right or far left because of partisan beliefs, not because they really know what they're talking about), others were simply products of their environment.  The most high profile experts were also on Twitter and non-MSM telling everybody the wrong things.  This type of MSM is looking for ratings and usually fails to properly cover complex topics, no matter what they are.  They are at least they are consistent

However, quite a lot of really good reporting is done by MSM.  Not by the talking heads, but by journalists on the ground that are more-or-less reporting on what they see rather than what someone at a university or retired military officer is saying from their home office.  The reporting by NY Times, Washington Post, Times of London, The Guardian, BBC, etc. have been doing some really excellent reporting.  Hell, even The Sun and The Daily Mirror have had some very good reporting.

My general rule of thumb is if the person is sitting behind a desk or standing in front of a media wall, ignore 'em.  If the person is in a helmet and vest reporting in Ukraine, then it's at least worth watching/reading/listening.

Steve

[poesel]

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

And Ukraine won on sympathy points from the other countries, or did they actually choose the "best" song this time?

You must be new to the show. It has been always about politics. Who likes whom in Europe. That is the point of it. The music is just to pass the time.

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Which has been a real eye opener.  I had thought the Russia army was a modern, professional force that would attempt to follow basic human values and respect (as much as possible) civilians and private property.  I was stupid wrong.  

This is certainly what Putin wanted everybody to believe.  The relatively "clean" takeover of Crimea seemed to demonstrate this was fact, as the soldiers in that operation were well disciplined and did not go around looting/murdering/raping.  However, the whole operation was unopposed and therefore the Russian narrative to its soldiers ("we are liberating Russians for Russia!") was helped by the fact that a large % of Crimean Ukrainians really did welcome Russia as liberators, therefore Russian soldiers were not really put to the test.  Russian FSB, however, did the usual disappearances, arrests, and suppression that Russia is well known for.

The key thing with Crimea is that it was fairly small scale and employed Russia's best trained and equipped forces.  These same forces, however, completely fell apart in this war because it was a real war against a hostile population.  Which shows how shallow Russian military reforms really were.

Steve

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, poesel said:

You must be new to the show. It has been always about politics. Who likes whom in Europe. That is the point of it. The music is just to pass the time.

It would have saved everyone time and hearing damage if the Ukrainians had put up the angelic 7 year old girl whose song video went viral from a Kyiv bomb shelter early in the war. The result was foreordained regardless.

[Vanir Ausf B]

19 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

For me the friction, incompetence, and brutal behavior of the Russians has been one of the great surprises in this war.    

Apparently the best, most capable, most experienced and to be feared Soviet / Russian unit are those belonging to the 60th Motorized Rifle Division (MRD).  Composed of the 125th Guards Tank Regiment and the 32nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (MRR).  These are the units that compose the OPFOR at the National Training Center (NTC) at Ft. Irwin California. 

Looking back I now suspect the real Soviets / Russians were never close to being as good as the OPFOR.

One seldom mentioned aspect of this is that, broadly speaking, the Southern Military District units have significantly out-performed those from the Western MD. The "elite" formations, such as the 4th GTD, have been the worst performers.

[Aragorn2002]

13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is certainly what Putin wanted everybody to believe.  The relatively "clean" takeover of Crimea seemed to demonstrate this was fact, as the soldiers in that operation were well disciplined and did not go around looting/murdering/raping.  However, the whole operation was unopposed and therefore the Russian narrative to its soldiers ("we are liberating Russians for Russia!") was helped by the fact that a large % of Crimean Ukrainians really did welcome Russia as liberators, therefore Russian soldiers were not really put to the test.  Russian FSB, however, did the usual disappearances, arrests, and suppression that Russia is well known for.

The key thing with Crimea is that it was fairly small scale and employed Russia's best trained and equipped forces.  These same forces, however, completely fell apart in this war because it was a real war against a hostile population.  Which shows how shallow Russian military reforms really were.

Steve

It probably also explains why Putin believed he could pull the same stunt again on a bigger scale.  Funny actually. 

[MOS:96B2P]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

My general rule of thumb is if the person is sitting behind a desk or standing in front of a media wall, ignore 'em.  If the person is in a helmet and vest reporting in Ukraine, then it's at least worth watching/reading/listening. 

This is a good SOP and, for me, one of the Lessons Learned from this war. 

[Battlefront.com]

Another example of where drones are headed.  Up until now the homemade "bombers" have 1-4 grenades to drop.  Very useful for a wide array of tactical missions, but still limited.  Well, a Dutch company has figured out a way to make relatively inexpensive drones into a far more potent platform.  A couple of these used in together could be as effective as a battery of artillery firing dozens of rounds (this article is in Romanian):

https://evz.ro/jucaria-mortala-care-ingrozeste-trupele-rusesti-conceputa-sa-livreze-bere-la-petreceri-lanseaza-grenade-peste-inamici-video.html

Make sure you look at the video of the carousel in action. 

Looks like it has a capacity of 8 bombs and can be lifted by an octocopter.  This specific example might not be entirely practical (I don't know either way), but it shows where this is headed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

One seldom mentioned aspect of this is that, broadly speaking, the Southern Military District units have significantly out-performed those from the Western MD. The "elite" formations, such as the 4th GTD, have been the worst performers.

Difficult to say why, though.  The north was where Ukraine concentrated it's major defenses and the terrain was horrible from an attacker standpoint.  Rough, swampy, densely urban, and plenty of places for getting ambushed.

The south, by contrast, was almost completely open for the taking.  Apparently Ukraine's defense plan hinged on holding up Russian advances at the neck of Crimea.  That utterly failed and there were many serious consequences that came from that.

It's interesting to think how much better the south might have gone for Russia if it had concentrated it's best units down there instead of up around Kyiv.  Not that Russia had the logistics capacity to have so many forces based out of Crimea, so it's a theoretical question only.

Steve