How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Haiduk said:

No. Our arty played big role in defneding of Kyiv, Brovary, Hostomel, Kharkiv, Chernihiv. Even in Kherson during the battle for the bridge. Maybe this imagination formed with numerous videos of light infantry ambushes on columns and AT-team works, but actually our artillery met the enemy with first hours of invasion.  Brigade's artillery moved behind own mech.infantry, artillery brigades hit concentrations of enemy and conducted couter-battery fire

Thanks for the feedback.  Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but it seems to me in the first few days of the war there was not much Ukrainian artillery activity (outside of established Donbas front) even in the north.  Instead, it started kicking in after Russians got established around Kyiv and Charnihiv.  Yes, I know that Ukrainian artillery was not 100% absent in those areas, but it seemed to me that most of the artillery was held back so it wasn't overrun.  Then once the front firmed up it slammed hard into Russian forces, especially in places like Hostomel, Bucha, Brovary, Kharkiv, etc.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Huba said:

The bolded part is one that I don't completely agree with, at least as far as future prospects go. While NATO artillery is increasingly important, and will be doing most of the heavy lifting, the soviet types are there to stay, and I expect their mean usage to increase in the future from the low point we're seeing now.

What I mean is that ammo production in the former Warsaw Pact countries is being restarted, and there will be steady stream of ammunition available. There was talk about production lines being restarted in Bulgaria and Romania not long ago. Mesko, main Polish arty ammo manufacturer (whose offer includes basically everything UA uses save for heavy MLRS and Giatsint/ Msta ammo) signed a contract with UA on Eurosatory. Details are unknown but rumors have it they are working at full capacity lately. And I'm sure the same goes for Czech and Slovak manufacturers too. And then there's Finland...

As for tube availability, at least in SPG department there's a lot of equipment available in WarPac countries. Nothing was delivered lately cause of the lack of ammo, but if the tubes themselves were to become the limiting factor, it can be alleviated easily.

 

The ramping up of Soviet caliber ammo is likely, in part at least, to replace the stocks of ammo sent to Ukraine.  From the little information we've seen it seems like there isn't much remaining even for NATO countries to use for their own legacy systems.

I do expect Ukraine to use Soviet caliber weaponry for quite a while, especially SPGs.  However, it seems temporary.  Why spend the time refurbishing Soviet era guns when you can, theoretically at least, upgrade to NATO equipment?

Long term I think Ukraine will want to continue using 122mm and 152mm SPGs, 203mm Piron's, and mortars.  Towed Soviet era pieces will likely be retired or relegated to reserve status.

Steve

[Butschi]

50 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Sorry but why do the Russian speaking members of this forum have to be held up to a higher standard than anyone else? They are not obliged to provide anything, although I am very grateful they do. 

Can we just keep it civil please? Disagreement is ok, and being disrespectful to people who you disagree with is not a good way of encouraging a free conversation. 

Edit: just to be clear this is not aimed at only you, it's just I don't want this thread turning into a self-reinforcing echo chamber and I want to hear the "russian" narrative as long as it is expressed respectfully 

Indeed. If anything, we (the non-russian speaking members) should hold ourselfs to higher standards. Let's keep it civil.

[Beleg85]

https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3521954-do-ukraini-privezli-kopiu-lista-karla-hii-pro-viznanna-nezaleznosti-zaporizkoi-sici.html

Interesting- Zelensky gave Swedish PM a copy of Charles XII's letter recognizing the independence of Zaporizhzhya Sich from 1711.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Company-sized Russian tactical group wrecked with artillery:

 

Amazing that we're 4 months into this war and Russians still don't know how to respond to being hit with artillery.  The crews should have mounted up and driven in different directions out of the impact area.  Sure, some would not make it, but by staying put the pretty much let Ukraine decide how many would make it.

Looks like they lost the equivalent of 2x Tank Platoon and 1x Mech Inf (BMP-2) with some misc vehicles (BTRs, truck, etc).  At least one T-72 looks like it was knocked out in a previous strike.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Indeed. If anything, we (the non-russian speaking members) should hold ourselfs to higher standards. Let's keep it civil.

I ask that we all keep it civil, regardless of original language.  If someone is here to cause mischief, let them demonstrate that is their purpose.  Banning is the answer to that, not degrading the quality of discussion.

Steve

[Huba]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The ramping up of Soviet caliber ammo is likely, in part at least, to replace the stocks of ammo sent to Ukraine.  From the little information we've seen it seems like there isn't much remaining even for NATO countries to use for their own legacy systems.

I do expect Ukraine to use Soviet caliber weaponry for quite a while, especially SPGs.  However, it seems temporary.  Why spend the time refurbishing Soviet era guns when you can, theoretically at least, upgrade to NATO equipment?

Long term I think Ukraine will want to continue using 122mm and 152mm SPGs, 203mm Piron's, and mortars.  Towed Soviet era pieces will likely be retired or relegated to reserve status.

Steve

I don't expect any significant increases in number of Soviet pieces either, maybe single pieces will be moved there to replace losses in existing units. It's worth noting though that 2S1s from Poland are modernized with contemporary, NATO compatible BMS and comms (same as on Krabs), AFAIK Slovakian Danas are the same. Putting some effort in retaining those in particular might be worth it. Towed pieces will go to TD, and then be retired, that's for sure.

Regarding the calibers, I did a bit of research and unfortunately it looks like 203mm ammunition was never produced outside of Soviet Union. Shame really, Ukraine has a lot of 2S7s and those are rather useful in the positional battles. I guess reverse-engineering Russian shell and setting up production from scratch would't be viable, and 8inchers will soon disappear from the field.

And of course we didn't mention the ubiquitous Grads. BM-21 is not going anywhere, it soon will be the only true area saturation weapon in UA disposal (unless some M26 rockets can be found?). At least Poland produces quite modern 40km+ ranged rockets for it (including DPCIM and AT mines) and so does Czechia and Slovakia.  We plan on keeping the caliber even after HIMARS is bought in numbers, and many other countries do too, at this point it become almost a NATO standard.

[akd]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Amazing that we're 4 months into this war and Russians still don't know how to respond to being hit with artillery.  The crews should have mounted up and driven in different directions out of the impact area.  Sure, some would not make it, but by staying put the pretty much let Ukraine decide how many would make it.

Looks like they lost the equivalent of 2x Tank Platoon and 1x Mech Inf (BMP-2) with some misc vehicles (BTRs, truck, etc).  At least one T-72 looks like it was knocked out in a previous strike.

Steve

They showed the end at the beginning before returning to it again at the end.

[paxromana]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This requires longer trips by truck or a lot more trucks.  If it is to increase the truck capacity it is going to have to take that away from somewhere else as they don't seem to have extra to spare.

I remember reading that Soviet Divisions (at least the Category II/III ones, but possibly those Categor I ones not in the GSFG and the like) simply didn't have all the trucks they were supposed to have according to their TO&E ... they relied, more and more heavily, as you went down from Cat I-II-III, on civilian trucks 'taken up from industry*' (and presumably relying on a 'short victorious war')

Whether this still applies to the Battlegroup system or not of course, I don't know, but it seems likely that, given the complete fantasy that Russian TO&E's have been even in critical equipment, that it may be.

The other interesting thing is that, during Soviet times, local authorities were known to squirrel away their best gear in case of practise call-ups ... so the army got the worst clapped out vehicles. You gotta guess that, if the Battlegroup TO&E's are 'truck lite' that the Government will have attempted to do the same ... and would still be getting clapped out vehicles.

Gotta have an effect.

* Gaz-69s and the like sold to civilians had to have canvas rather than hard tops as the military expected to commandeer them on mobilisation. It was only quite late (post 1989?) that this requirement was removed.

[Battlefront.com]

As expected, Putin's meeting with Shoigu resulted in a declaration of victory in Luhansk:

https://thehill.com/homenews/wire/3545851-putin-declares-victory-in-eastern-ukraine-region-of-luhansk/

And something from the above article that I had missed from a few days ago.  Bulgarian kicked out 70 Russian embassy personnel all in one go.  There's also information here about the undiplomatic behavior of Russia's ambassador to Bulgaria:

https://www.rferl.org/a/31923458.html

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, akd said:

They showed the end at the beginning before returning to it again at the end.

For sure not the one I think is likely knocked out.  Look at the first video at the 6 second mark.  Looks like a knocked out T-72 with still some burning building next to it.  Note that in one continuous shot it pans over to Russian crews leisurely interacting with their vehicles out in the open.  These are the vehicles that seem to be the subject of subsequent footage of shell impacts.

Steve

[Machor]

9 hours ago, Huba said:

Meanwhile, first daylight video of UA HIMARSes himarsing Russians:

I believe the slogan on the launcher says "Believe in the AFU, and all will become Ukraine!" (?) @Haiduk

Reposting the video for convenience:

And a new video of night firing:

 

[Machor]

akd already posted this, but reposting for folks who can't read Russian: That bridge is now protected with decoys against radar-guided missiles:

@Kinophile

[Machor]

The first crowdfunded TB2 for Ukraine by Lithuania - which was later donated by Bayraktar - is about to be delivered, and it came with a special paintjob:

 

[Machor]

Interesting tidbits in this article:

Ukraine prepares a counter-offensive to retake Kherson province

https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/03/ukraine-prepares-a-counter-offensive-to-retake-kherson-province

Quote

 

Where the Ukrainians are pushing, the Russians are fighting back hard. Serhiy, a Ukrainian territorial-defence soldier working behind Russian lines in Vysokopillya, just across from Zelenodolsk, says the enemy has built reinforced bunkers under the ground. When they try to push the Russians out, they return in greater numbers. “Their ten becomes a hundred,” he says. One village base has four air-defence units defending it. Ukraine’s task has been hindered, the soldier complains, by locals who did not flee the occupation and are being used by Russian troops as human shields: “We can’t shoot at our own people.”

A handful of locals are collaborating with the enemy, he says. Girls as young as 15 have been recruited by the Russians. In early June, Serhiy’s company discovered a 40-year-old artillery spotter during a random search. The man’s near-clean mobile phone gave him away. The phone had just one computer-game app installed. Closer inspection revealed the game was, in fact, a tool to record co-ordinates and receive cryptocurrency payments. “The bastard had mapped out our hardware movements over the last month,” he says.

The exposed lowlands of Kherson mean that any Ukrainian advance there feels the full force of Russian artillery. There is already talk of serious losses in the areas immediately south of Zelenodolsk. An attempt to cross the Inhulets river at the village of Davydiv Brid in May—essential for a second-prong attack on Kakhovka—was particularly costly. “They were baited into the line of fire,” says Victoria, a farmer who lived in Davydiv Brid until it became impossible in mid-May. “A lot of our men lost their lives.”

...

Lucky to be alive, Victoria has not moved far from danger. She is again living near the front line in Zelenodolsk, housed there by local volunteers. Like many of Kherson’s mostly poor refugees, she has no money for anything else. She left everything behind in the village: her house, her cows, her chickens.

But she insists that not all the Russian soldiers were villains, and she even felt sorry for the youngest ones. Some were fellow Ukrainians, conscripted “after going out to buy bread” in occupied Luhansk, in the east. Those boys paid for everything they took from the village shop, she says—first in hryvnia, later in roubles—and even said “thank you” in Ukrainian. But when Russian positions came under serious attack, the Luhansk units were fortified with angrier colleagues from Russia itself.

The shifting attitudes in Davydiv Brid offer a warning of what may happen in Kherson if Ukraine’s counter-offensive gathers pace. “Anton”, the pseudonym of a former official who fled to Krivyi Rih in late May after being asked to head a collaborationist authority, says Russia has generally tried not to upset locals too much. This was a conscious decision to co-opt the population, he said. But if that changes and the occupiers are forced out of Kherson, there is little to hold them back. Things will turn nasty, and quickly. “The Russians will be angry as hell, and lash out, but the partisan resistance will be just as fierce,” he said. “The locals will simply tear the Russians apart.”

 

 

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I ask that we all keep it civil, regardless of original language.  If someone is here to cause mischief, let them demonstrate that is their purpose.  Banning is the answer to that, not degrading the quality of discussion.

Steve

Thanks, Steve, my comment was meant in that spirit. It shouldn't be a matter of language. I understand @hcrofs post to mean that russian speaking members shouldn't be suspicious just because of their language and meant to say that we Westerners (and therefore probably not originally russian speakers) should hold ourselves to even higher standards given that we frequently take the moral high ground. Hope my comment wasn't received in a wrong way.

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Is the death of the infantryman as a role going to be discussed in future wars involving these drones like the death of the tank was during this war? 

Imo both the tank and the infantryman are not going anywhere for a while. It will be interesting to see engineers come up with ways to counter drone technology.

Interestingly infantry have had a resurgence in this war.  For awhile they were looking to be relegated to constabulary in lower intensity conflict and local protection for larger weapon systems in conventional war.  Infantry, particularly light infantry have done a lot of the heavy lifting in this war and appear to be one of the few dependable capabilities that can still manoeuvre on the battlefield.

Unmanned technology will continue to increase, however, spotting a dog face soldier in a tree line will still be very hard when compared to armor or mechanized forces with their logistics train.

Starship troopers here we come.

[dan/california]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Let's take a step back and summarize what we're seeing with the artillery fight in Ukraine.  This sound about right to you guys?

 

Russian Artillery

At the beginning of the war Russia totally dominated Ukraine with its artillery, however it wasn't used all that often.  Most likely a result of Russia's general lack of preparedness for fighting a real war.

When it became clear that Ukraine was going to fight, Russia switched to destroying civilian infrastructure in an attempt to terrorize Ukraine into surrender.  Artillery was used primarily for this purpose.

Starting with the Easter offensive in the Donbas, Russia once again switched its strategy and reverted to traditional Soviet massed fire to eliminate or otherwise tie down defenders.  In critical sectors it was massed and employed to wipe out Ukrainian defenders prior to ground assaults.  In non-critical sectors of front it seems the tactic was to mostly keep the Ukrainian defenders from being able to mount counter attacks.  We are still in this phase.

 

Ukrainian Artillery

In the very beginning of the invasion Ukrainian artillery seems to have been mostly absent except in the established Donbas front.  The theory is that Ukraine deliberately kept them out of the expected path of Russian forces so that they weren't overrun.  Given we later see as much artillery as one would expect from prewar accounting, it seems safe to assume that for whatever reason they weren't in the vulnerable areas.

Once Russia's forces had stalled out, Ukraine moved in its artillery and laid into both concentrated "tip of spear" ground forces as well as LOCs.  The slaughter of Russian forces around Kyiv and Kharkiv were repeated over and over again, indicating very deliberate strategy on Ukraine's part.

After the target rich environment of the early part of the war subsided, Ukraine had to choose how to employ its limited and inadequate number of artillery pieces to cover the entire front.  For the most part it decided to spread the artillery thin and have them operate as "snipers", reserving heavy concentrations for select sectors of front.  This worked very well in part due to long standing experience with decentralized targeting and fire control.

Ukraine's primary problem was not loss of artillery due to combat, but loss due to wearing out barrels and exhausting ammo (including shipments from former Warsaw Pact countries).  This required Ukraine to further restrict it's use of massed fire and rely upon sniping to attrit Russian forces.  This is the same time we saw concentrated effort by Ukraine to acquire NATO standard systems.

Now the strategy has changed yet again.  Ukraine has significant NATO artillery and ammo on hand, but it's still a fraction of what it needs to maintain it's prewar tube count.  These systems are being employed in more operational and even strategic uses, such as the recent strikes on Russian ammo dumps.  Remaining long range rocket stocks are also being used for this purpose.  Some Soviet legacy systems appear to still be in use, though it is unlikely they have enough tubes or ammo to do much more than snipe.

 

Does this seem to capture what we've seen in the war thus far?

Steve

I have seen a quote from in an article from with good sourcing that said artillery was very important around Kyiv from the very beginning. The Russians, shockingly, didn't have their units stacked in the right order in that traffic jam, and it meant they had a hard time bringing their artillery into the fight. This gave the Ukrainians an opportunity to hammer the heads of the columns with a lot les counter-battery to worry about than you would have expected.

38 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Interestingly infantry have had a resurgence in this war.  For awhile they were looking to be relegated to constabulary in lower intensity conflict and local protection for larger weapon systems in conventional war.  Infantry, particularly light infantry have done a lot of the heavy lifting in this war and appear to be one of the few dependable capabilities that can still manoeuvre on the battlefield.

Unmanned technology will continue to increase, however, spotting a dog face soldier in a tree line will still be very hard when compared to armor or mechanized forces with their logistics train.

Starship troopers here we come.

REALLY high tech ghillie suits are going to be a thing. They might be THE thing. It is pretty clear that if they are fighting an armor heavy opponent that light infantry needs to carry as many AT weapons as it physically can. There is an interesting question about the best weapons mix though for fighting a similar light infantry force. Do you optimize for short range or long? Is it better to expose the infantry, or an indirect fire asset to deal with an enemy squad at fifteen hundred or two thousand meters. When are we getting that new digital sand box again? I can see a considerable scope for modules that explore different options.

Edited July 5, 2022 by dan/california

[Harmon Rabb]

35 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Interestingly infantry have had a resurgence in this war.  For awhile they were looking to be relegated to constabulary in lower intensity conflict and local protection for larger weapon systems in conventional war.  Infantry, particularly light infantry have done a lot of the heavy lifting in this war and appear to be one of the few dependable capabilities that can still manoeuvre on the battlefield.

Unmanned technology will continue to increase, however, spotting a dog face soldier in a tree line will still be very hard when compared to armor or mechanized forces with their logistics train.

Starship troopers here we come.

For sure. Ukraine's use of infantry has been very effective during this war.

I just want to clarify that when I said " both the tank and the infantryman are not going anywhere for a while" I meant they would be useful for some time to come. I reread my comment and thought some people would think I meant the opposite.

[Battlefront.com]

49 minutes ago, dan/california said:

I have seen a quote from in an article from with good sourcing that said artillery was very important around Kyiv from the very beginning. The Russians, shockingly, didn't have their units stacked in the right order in that traffic jam, and it meant they had a hard time bringing their artillery into the fight. This gave the Ukrainians an opportunity to hammer the heads of the columns with a lot les counter-battery to worry about than you would have expected.

For sure.  Within the first week of fighting there was quite a lot of artillery activity to the west of Kyiv.  The Russians got hammered.  Plenty of evidence of this in the form of smashed columns.  These attacks, IMHO, are what won the battle on the western side of Kyiv.  Even before the Russians decided to pull back it was pretty clear that Ukrainian counter attacks, supported by artillery, were highly effective against the long extended flank of the "V" force.  The longer the Russians stayed there, the worse it got.  It was absolutely a part of Russia;s decision to retreat.

My comment about Ukraine keeping it's artillery back from the initial fight was about the first few days.  From what I can tell the bulk of Ukraine's artillery (again, not along the Donbas front) was not within 5-10km of the frontlines.  If it had been it would have been overrun.  Instead, it was pulled well back and started to be used when it was pretty clear what Russian intentions were.  Which could have been aided by Western intel as well as simple observations.

Also, let's keep in mind that this war is on a vast scale.  One can only talk in generalities as exceptions are not going to be hard to find.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

It seems crew run away. Wise choice.

Also, this time from Russian side- rather detailed bombing Ukrianian trenches to show how it may look like (not embedded, just link). Overall traditional Russian mix of close shots and missess withour confirmation of direct hits. 

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1544046057037914113

 

Yeah, another hack job video.  Looks like three entirely different locations cutting between them, sometimes back and forth.  They show Ukrainians lying down in trenches, probably presuming the viewer will think they are casualties.  But to me it looks like guys doing what guys do in trenches when they are under fire.  The one guy that was running wasn't shot at at all.  For the most part the artillery fire looked good, but ineffective.  There were hardly any Ukrainians in the trenches to hit.  In the end there was a good hit on what was a non-fortified surface structure probably used for relaxing when there wasn't threat of attack.  Probably wasn't occupied.

Of course videos like this are not intended for the eyes of people who pick apart these sorts of things, so we're the wrong audience for this crap

Steve

[panzermartin]

Flag waving from space. Strange, these were apparently the same people that were dressed in Ukrainian yellow back in February. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/04/russian-cosmonauts-display-flag-of-occupied-luhansk-region-on-iss-ukraine

Edited July 5, 2022 by panzermartin

[Grigb]

12 hours ago, hcrof said:

What does sequestered mean in this case? Reduced?

Yes.

[Huba]

Backtracking from the maximalist objectives continues. I bet at this point the "neutral status" is up for negotiations too, what is needed is some land to proclaim victory, maybe even LPR would do:

And something much more positive:

 

Edited July 5, 2022 by Huba

[Grigb]

10 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Flag waving from space. Strange, these were apparently the same people that were dressed in Ukrainian yellow back in February. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/04/russian-cosmonauts-display-flag-of-occupied-luhansk-region-on-iss-ukraine

It is not strange. On the personal level it is convenient for them to demonstrate support of UKR. But they also have orders from their space supervisors to do a bit of propaganda. And that's what they do.

Yes, it is sort of hypocrisy but this is how things work in RU. You can get simultaneously mass patriotic frenzy with mass unpatriotic Draft evasion. Because this way you get patriotic respect and do not get yourself killed.