11:37
Very important because Russian armor does not do well transporting over long distances and to get to Kherson they now have to roll quite far on roads. There is another route via Crimea but one can hope someone removes a rail track at a suitable place and props it up with some beam.
That means lots of old tanks standing by the roadside with mechanical failures and since the imperialistic Russian army is thieving magpies as we have learned, they will be a steel skeleton within a week.
12:06
I also thought that was a high number for IFVs, since I am an optimist I always assume that when it’s not a Russian offensive they take losses on the roads in Kherson 🙂
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Then back to the constant lottery numbers ticking along with +/-50 dead and similar for armor while 7000 dead in Severodonetsk/Lysychansk is discussed and it never matches the different reports from various fronts. I have thought that there is a tired admin guy adjusting a bit randomly so it doesn’t show that he spends all his time on cool videos on Telegram. But that is what we have to relate to.
12:07
Hasn’t anyone written yet that all countries have signed off on Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO application.
The media’s ugly attempt to write on front pages that we would never extradite a terrorist ever weighed lightly when there were F-16s on the other side of the scale.
12:18
The thread made a serious attempt to guess how long the Russians’ ammunition would last, 80% reduction in artillery before New Year was one of the answers.
That was before HIMARS arrived so they could reach all ammunition depots in the rear, before that they had shot up smaller depots just behind the fronts when 777 came – unclear if that was factored in or if it was before tour-de-777?
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As far as I know, no attempt has been made to count how many depots actually exist but the explosions we have seen recently are enormous so very large amounts of ammunition are being used. That is probably the main depot supplying an entire front section? The one in Luhansk was said by the blogger to be the depot for all LNR/LPR (I never learn) artillery in Popasna and Severodonetsk and that it would “silence the barrels” for a while going forward. I lost count at 10, there have surely been at least thirty more.
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The only thing the Russians can do then is to move more supplies by train and suddenly we are already seeing derailed trains and sabotaged rails. Can one guess that after fixed ammo depots and military bases (which was a nice touch…) they go after the train junctions? A railway track cannot be guarded point by point and if the rail is removed at a single place and propped up, it means a derailment and a self-igniting train. There is no way to protect against that.
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The last are probably ammo depots deep inside Russia and then the factories. It must be an incredibly tense atmosphere in the command right now when every day a little lieutenant comes in who hasn’t been able to sleep because of anxiety over the morning briefing where he has to report which ammunition depots were taken out during the day.
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They don’t have trucks either 🙂
Now one thought FIRMS would become less red but it is completely bright red on the Russian side now over several fronts which is fun.
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When they finally have diligently set up new depots out of HIMARS range, then Tochka-U and the air force come and take them out too, this will never end.
12:26
Oh that would be exciting because it is one of the main airfields for the defense of Kherson and the southern front.
According to Deepstatemap there is one more but the rest after that are down on Crimea and have long flight times – good warning and shorter response time. Now the Russians ignored that in Kherson and kept setting up new targets all the time but I think they have learned and group behind the air force after something like this.
It is unconfirmed Twitter generals as usual.
13:56
Bitvargen, one should be clear that Lysychansk was abandoned due to Russian material superiority, after the thread nagged about it for a while Ukraine actually confirmed this officially themselves
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What is delivered is not top shelf at all and it should be exactly what Ukraine gets. These Renault vehicles are really idiotic, high profile and 12.7mm armament. M113s as well, it is directly sad to see Ukrainians happy to die in old surplus equipment.
I keep nagging about CV90 and Archer and others do it about JAS. Then the counterargument is that it takes too long to train.
-And we are four months into the war.
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For me it is very clear that if Western deliveries of MBTs, IFVs, LV, and aircraft do not arrive, Russia risks gaining material superiority on several fronts and will slowly push Ukraine back. It’s all about the right equipment and how many you have.
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There is enough in Russia to gain superiority against nothing, there is not enough in Russia to match a Western mobilization of Ukraine.
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I know many in the thread are quite okay with it being a long game but every day Ukrainians die because the West does not deliver heavy weapons. If the 5th Tank Brigade had 100 Leopard 2s or Abrams and a hundred CV90s they would cut straight through the Russian defense. If Ukraine had aircraft for all their pilots the Russians would be denied Ukrainian airspace, etc. etc. Sure HIMARS is doing cool things right now but there needs to be a capability increase in all branches.
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The only thing not needed is motivated soldiers, Ukraine has plenty of those.
14:57
I am quite convinced that when we eventually get the total losses and what is happening at Kherson and the southern front clear to us, it will be a – well done Ukraine. It is completely bright red on FIRMS.
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Completely share your view that in the beginning it was Russian incompetence. If the Russians had done from the start what they are doing now, they would at least have stood along the entire Dnieper on the eastern bank. They came far anyway but got beaten because they behaved like Russians.
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Even offensive operations are clearly something Ukraine can manage now and the cooperation between branches of the military works well. Four months is a long time and you learn a lot. Then we have the whole issue that good equipment is needed and it is needed – you can’t sugarcoat it in any way.
15:00
Paul, isn’t the important thing where this “village” is located and where this “city” is located?
You rarely see, for example, me jumping up and down over Kharkiv precisely because it is unimportant.
In the same way Severodonetsk was unimportant but Lysychansk was unnecessary.
There is a whole scale here and if they steal Mariupol I will learn to cartwheel, same if the bridges over the Dnieper are closed. If Siversk falls – Bakhmut it will be sour for a while, that would not be unimportant.
15:04
moralist, I think you raise an important point (at the risk of contradicting myself during a post) that Russia’s military technology will not become more modern than it is today, the models will be the same throughout. For Ukraine it is the opposite, they get better gear (yes, soon…).
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Same with soldier equipment, reverse Darwinism for the Russians, the best are used up and in Ukraine’s case they can top up the brigades and have intact maneuver brigades with chains of command and knowledge. The reserves for Ukraine are also significantly better, combat experienced, 100% motivated and more than can be pushed into fighting units. For the Russians it is the bottom scrap (they can be good soldiers for that, though, but there is no real crowd at the recruitment offices).
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Over time this obviously pays off but the decisive factor is that the West contributes competent weapon systems and not surplus equipment that barely runs. Eastern Europe has done what they can.
19:41
A little thought about equipment. Partly there is always some key equipment or capability that if you either don’t have it or have it gives an advantage/disadvantage. Armenia is an excellent example of how quickly you can fall into the hole if you bet wrong. Dien Bien Phu is another classic, blitzkrieg a third, etc. (Poland had more tanks than the Germans if I remember correctly so it was competent leadership and tactics)
Then this is a constantly shifting sea, you get more of something, less of something else, the opponent tops up with X and suddenly he has the advantage and then you stand there with a hell of a lot of air defense and the infantry runs out of hand grenades and retreats until the air defense is overrun.
Looking at previous wars there are a few things that recur; air superiority, ability to supply / having supply lines cut, artillery – armor, individual soldier, numbers, information/reconnaissance and competent leadership. Whoever has the right mix wins.
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Ukraine/USA are looking down on Ukraine and Russian areas bordering Ukraine roughly like God looking into a big sandbox at how people move like little ants. That they took out all command posts just as generals had staff meetings says all we need to know, the staff posts were moved daily. Now bases and depots are going down faster than we can count, the Excel sheet with coordinates is far away in Lviv.
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Ukraine has denied the Russians air superiority west of the Dnieper and it is approaching some balance in the east (maybe not yet but better than before), they solved that with air defense and partly repairing but also sneaking in new aircraft, thanks Poland.
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The navy has been pushed back a bit and eventually they will get to grips with the long-range weapons but the Russians will not win the war with them even though they are troublesome (more than that of course but they are not critical).
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They are working on stopping the artillery by hitting all depots and at Kherson they probably have artillery superiority or at least balance. For defense it was necessary to get artillery in and to be able to strike deep it was HIMARS that mattered. Here they are probably a little bit, if not at the goal, at least over the critical hump. For offense you need smart ammunition and long-range guns to punch holes in the defense, which should now be delivered.
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The infantry is Ukraine’s absolute strength and in defense they have completely dominated. There are probably many countries casting envious glances at the queues to their recruitment offices because many wars have been lost due to soldier equipment. Here you probably can’t do much to improve other than give them PV capability and training.
They are nothing less than superheroes who are both capable soldiers and partly ready to die for their country, which they also do. That the Russians have not broken through in more places more often is solely due to the Ukrainian soldier in the trench, not because they have HIMARS or Harpoons.
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Then we had the whole discussion about the tank being obsolete, I belonged to those who believed that if used correctly it is hard to replace 3 km range with explosives or arrows, it is a potent weapon.
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Drones have also proven not to be the wunderwaffe many probably thought, myself included. They are after all slow targets up in the air if you just learn how to combat them and I think both sides have done that now.
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For Putin not to be able to freeze the conflict or make it so long that China et al start smelling morning air, it is important to come to some kind of conclusion at least before the turn of the year or early next year in my opinion, longer than that and you risk escalation. Putin WANTS escalation, he wants some from the BRIICS against the hated West, he wants to split the West.
Ukraine simply needs to take back all its land by force, there is no alternative. The Russians are doing the only thing they can do, they increase the intensity and do more of the same. They will never stop until they have achieved their combat goals.
Ukraine now needs to go on the offensive and to do that, as the stacks look today, they need to equip their mech and armor brigades with qualified MBTs and IFVs. I know this is a constant discussion in the thread and that I nag but I stand firm here that they need the best, give them Bradley, Abrams, Leo2, CV90 as many as they ask for and top up with a hundred more. Cage armor on wheels, glorified milk cartons and Renault cars were the first delivery, now it is time to step up.
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All else equal, and I am quite sure the Russians have no more aces in the bunker dwarf’s short sleeve, Ukraine will win the war in the foreseeable future if they just get decent armor in sufficient quantity. In the Iraq war Abrams were completely superior to Eastern bloc armor and Bradley or CV90 would cut through the Russians directly (slight exaggeration but well, I am Swedish). 1000 tanks and 2000 IFVs was it or am I remembering wrong? If you can keep it to 3-4 models per weapon type max, the maintenance chains probably work.
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Peace in our time will not come through negotiating with Putin, it will come through Ukraine getting armor and running our time’s Nagasaki with the Russians, a total damn humiliating crushing defeat in Ukraine. When that is done the world’s rogue states will keep in line and the free West will get 100 good years more. Then you encapsulate Russia so their ability for a re-run is non-existent and when they hand over their +30,000 war criminals to The Hague (i.e. all oligarchs, politicians, officers) then discussions about normalization can begin with a start meeting a year later.
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Then of course you have to keep an eye on the stacks all the time because if you stop delivering air defense and the Russians get air superiority again, then the armor is exposed. I have hoped Slovakia would buy used CV90s with a month’s delivery time but apparently new ones are to be manufactured.
23:31
FIRMS now suggests that the Ukrainian counteroffensive NE south of Kryvyi Rih is starting to enter a combat pause.
It also suggests that it is armageddon for the red team at Davydiv Brid and that there is now an attempt down towards Khakovka, which we guessed in the thread a few days ago. I am still really curious about what the red team has deployed east of the Dnipro. On the Ukrainian side, when you get the Twitter generals’ maps, I think the brigades match reasonably well with what we have on uawarmap etc., so we have a fairly good overview. The Russians are all over the place.
23:44
Now more ammunition depots have exploded as we go through the evening harvest. As I said, we have no number on how many depots the Russians might roughly have in Ukraine, the larger central ones and the smaller ones closer to the front, but enough have now exploded that it must impact the artillery’s capability here. It’s an incredible amount of ammunition that has gone up in smoke in a week or two. Of course, the batteries probably also have smaller stocks directly at the front that last a while, but pretty soon there should be trouble over shells.
23:48
I think you can see signs of fighting at Davydiv Brid if you look at those Sentinel satellites Nathan Ruser gave us earlier.
00:02
One last thing – I think I have figured out where this locust swarm is coming from now. The border defense that Russia has had around its fixed bases is now being emptied. That is, what is real defense against external threats. It’s almost cheating that Russia should feel so secure in not being threatened that they can leave the country undefended. Then there were this year’s conscripts and training battalions. That would explain why they have had more than reported; they have emptied Russia of troops.
11:32
I can’t evaluate Gregg as a source, he clearly has first-hand information from the front but the bigger strokes he is the first with here and if they are accurate it is very interesting. A couple of days ago the thread guessed that the Russians would not attack the new line from the east but try to flank from the north with “fresh” brigades but then it became a full frontal assault which prompted yesterday’s post. Looking at Deepstatemap, it seems to me that the Russians have probably gone on the defensive along the Luhansk provincial border.
If so, there will probably be attempts to flank south and north of the defensive line because it still acts as a barrier to taking Donetsk Oblast and we have not seen any peace seekers after Luhansk Oblast was conquered by the locust swarm.
-What can probably be established is that the line seems intended for defense and will hold but that Russian focus may now shift.
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It is precisely his points about shifting focus to Kherson that are of interest for three reasons: partly the Russians are reinforcing there but in their attempts to do so they have to transport ancient armor over long distances and then cross three known points over the Dnieper which Ukraine is watching. Considering Ukraine’s active air force, army aviation, and artillery, they should be able to cause quite a bit of damage here because there are eyes in the sky everywhere at the Kherson front and also eyes on the ground. Then it is probably much livelier down there than we are led to believe or alternatively the Russians have now gotten total hubris and will try to create a corridor to Transnistria.