16:15
I have joked a bit in my worst exaggerations that a few 777s could take out a buried Russian BTG in one morning with guided ammunition if they don’t take the 9 o’clock coffee break.
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We know that the Russians lack guided ammunition for their artillery and there has been talk about ground barrages, I understand that it is a bias when you see pictures of the lunar landscapes and how badly they aim because pro-Russian forums are full of videos with direct hits. However, they also have videos of 2 minutes of misses so it can be quite hard to get material to post of what looks really good. It has been completely red on the blue team’s half of the field at times because Russian artillery self-ignites everything in communities and forests (now I write self-ignited but when it comes to hits on the Russian side it is something that ignites, grilled BTG, you should never be consistent).
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In the Ukrainian arsenal, over time they have gotten artillery that can fire guided ammunition, both BONUS and EXCALIBUR have been mentioned as delivered, or if it is one type, if I have understood this correctly, and there it is a direct hit, where Bonus is also a loitering munition (I think that last word). Accuracy is generally good on the Ukrainian side and air barrages or ground barrages can be called in quite well too. Air barrages are a big capability boost. Add to that my newly acquired knowledge that HIMARS has ammunition that releases 180,000 glowing tungsten balls over an area (how big, heck if I know) and they have used them against the fixed bases they have taken out. These nice fires in a row behind the front at Davyidiv Brid I think are such, it was artillery lined up or some maintenance and they got a shower of those over them. We have never seen that before and HIMARS has just arrived in Kherson
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Even Johan understands that it is a bit tricky to hit an advancing tank with artillery and that it is when they stand still that the artillery blooms in its full glory and paints FIRMS red. The very best is a defensive line where you have logged the fixed positions.
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What I am trying to get at is what is behind the Christmas tree on FIRMS at Kherson, Davyidiv Brid and maybe the southern front?
It has previously burned exactly where Ukraine’s offensives are, Kherson, over in the northeast south of Kryvyi Rih and now it is really lively south of Davyidiv Brid. We know that Ukraine has gotten a lot of artillery so it is not Russian artillery pounding Ukraine, at least balance-wise and at most Ukraine has much better hit patterns and gets to paint more lines on the barrel (I think so).
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The reason nothing is happening is not that there is a competent static defense that the Ukrainian steamroller has gotten stuck in. We have received at least three reports at different times that the Russians are bringing in reserves as much as they can. First it was all branches of the military that can hold a weapon from Crimea + 120 T62s (of which 30 stayed at the southern front). The latest was “Russians have been rolling through Mariupol for four days heading west,” which one has to interpret as much more than a tired BTG low on armor that is sluggish and hungry. Now Gregg means that in panic they are sending part of the tired locust swarm to Kherson and that is forced mobilization in Crimea. My clear interpretation of this is that the Russians have managed to maintain a status quo at the Kherson front by bringing in enormous amounts of reserves. They get decimated on the roads and in defense and counterattacks but by pushing in new ones they have managed to plug the holes.
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At some point the scales must tip, the Ukrainian BTGs we have in the area seem to match the Twitter generals’ maps, which maybe all get info from the same source who knows but that’s all we have. For the Russian side it is wildly scattered, I probably go by Uawardata but all Twitter generals have different deployments here. Then I think some units don’t even show in the statistics because they are some kind of composite units placed in defense. Going by Uawardata there are 18 BTGs, condition completely unknown, at the Kherson front assuming there aren’t five on the eastern side of the Dnipro down by Khakovka. Now I am quite sure it is underreported since some don’t show as I said but it might possibly be balanced by the condition of said BTGs, who knows.
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My second guess is that the IFV losses are partly gone at Davyidiv Brid since it is reconnaissance, VDV and marine infantry that are low on armor standing around the forest area west of the town. During the storming of Lysychansk the tanks moved off significantly and it was armored BTGs leading there.
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I also guess that Ukraine is hammering the defense in Kherson now and really along the whole line and that those losses don’t show up in any lottery lines. Charnobovaika is probably a sad place to be a Russian now. The southern front has also lit up quite a bit in line with where the Russian defense lies I think, the Vasylivka line a few days ago.
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The air force is quite strange, they seem to be reporting periodically because for a few weeks we got updates every other day and now it is completely silent – if you guess they are also stepping on the gas as much as the fuel lasts.
The guy below, Colonel Cassad, has woven in the mid-term elections and that Ukraine must have achieved something of value before then or else the Democrats will be criticized for not doing enough, the first time I hear this spin I think?
https://wartranslated.com/russian-blogger-colonel-cassad-weighs-in-on-potential-ukrainian-summer-offensive/
16:49
Have also taken a look at Volnovakha and why Ukraine is pushing towards that place. In my opinion, Mariupol is too far away, so it’s probably more likely that they are cutting transport in that city.
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Then it might be that they are moving the war eastward for the Russians, and the third thing is that north of Volnovakha there is a large forest area and then a defensive line up to Volodmyrylivka which turns westward to Mykilske and up to Vuhledar. Quite a bit of this war seems to be about holding advantageous terrain on a smaller scale rather than the big strokes. Offensives end a bit strangely or focus on something you don’t quite understand until you sail around on Earth and find small rivers, valleys, forests, and communities with interesting buildings. Since Ukraine is a flat potato field, that’s probably how the war has to be fought and the front lines become like a viper with stomach ache.
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In my opinion, Ukraine has used a pretty clever tactic where they take a place they know the Russians want when it’s easy and then go on defense and let the Russians pay for the place with grilled BTGs. This very well could be such a trick.
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If not, then there is a very small revolving door to get back to the fortifications at the ceasefire line, but I don’t really know where the heck that went down there.
16:57
I don’t believe for a second that HIMARS are knocked out. However, I saw a video of the HIMARS battery where both platforms stood close together with the loading vehicles behind. It was yesterday and there were pictures of them firing, so they must have been in the battle line. How they can do that is beyond my understanding; these two should never be in the same geographic area.
17:04
According to Warmonitor, “Russian forces have transferred two BTGs from Zaporizhzhia front to reinforce north east of Kherson.” That could be either the Kryvyi Rih direction or Davydiv Brid; if I had to guess, it’s the latter.
You don’t reinforce if things are going well and it’s calm, right?
17:19
It’s those 15,000 + 4,000 soldiers up there. I’ve thought that they are there in defense and to tie down Ukrainian units and possibly also maybe to make a Russian version of Kherson.
If they have moved them down, that would of course further explain the persistent locust swarm, how they manage to throw themselves over the Siversk – Bakhmut line after having died and been grilled at Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.
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By the way, it seems like the Russians want the Siversk – Bakhmut line, and it’s always fun when you build a defense that someone else wants to break through.
18:14
Yes, you have to paint with what you have 🙂
I’ve actually been working on a book about the years in an African country that had just come out of a devastating civil war when I went there, but it’s harder than you think. The idea was probably to self-publish and then manage to force my wife to buy a copy with my card so I could put on my CV that I’m a bestselling novelist.. China teamed up with the local freedom fighter and at the same time total kleptocrat president and plundered the country completely. The elite’s children lived like absolute gods and the people starved, nothing in between, lobster or half a bowl of rice. We moved at a pretty high level and I pieced together China’s game which probably still isn’t fully understood, or maybe it is now.
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Something happened every day, an older foreman had been sent to the hospital with burns on both arms but they forgot about him and had only prepaid for a week. He was kicked out and the Chinese were not popular in that country but he had like a 10th dan in Kung Fu. According to his own account, he fought his way through community after community until he came back to the project. That might be true because he showed up on foot three days after the hospital threw him out with torn clothes, badly bruised and with both arms bandaged from the burns. There was a long train of pissed-off locals behind him but they kept a respectful distance and as soon as he turned around they stopped, you don’t see that often. It was a very small project manager who received him in his office.
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Another time my driver managed to hit the side mirror of a taxi in a poorer area. Taxi drivers never drive sober and the driver got pissed and gathered the whole local community to avenge this enormous injustice. My driver pointed at me, said that any complaints should be taken up with me, gave the taxi the car key and disappeared into the crowd. He still had a higher salary for doubling as a security guard too. That time it was really close to lynching with accompanying tire around the neck, the mob was seriously hyped and it went from zero to a hundred faster than I could handle 🙂
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Sorry for the OT, will improve soon.
00:30
I have almost had an allergic reaction to – Russia is emptying its country of border defense because THEY KNOW that NO ONE threatens them at all, NATO or anyone else. The whole spin that NATO is a threat is a bluff to somehow justify punishing Ukraine.
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The thesis is supported by the fact that the Bunker Dwarf has let it be known that Finland and SE are welcome to join NATO. The NATO border was basically doubled by that decision and Putin glances over his shoulder and goes back into the stable.
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I take with me two points, first to ignore everything Russia/Putin says (LW has said this for a few years now so five points on that ball) and that NATO is such a defensive organization that not even the Russians demonstrably feel threatened, those in Sweden who call NATO an offensive something, parties which (I don’t actually know)?
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I probably would have come to some conclusion here in three steps but I have prepared a presentation for a dispute in Nauru and was served too many sangrias by the better half so I can’t connect the threads above at all. The post was prompted by Pguiser writing a post that I really strongly agree with and just start writing before realizing that the best thing would have been to google Russian fails for half an hour and then go to bed after a liter of water.
00:44
I have thought, Harvest, that some here have a commission from BA systems and others are Social Democrats writing in the heat of the moment.
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If I may (BA systems) have an opinion on the matter, it’s the CV90 that’s needed. Artillery already exists and more is coming. The whole Archer discussion is smoke. Send 200 of our stored CV90s and train them preferably yesterday.
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They will make a difference. If politicians in all camps except MP and V want to sleep well (because they never sleep, they are vampires) then it’s sending CV90s down to Ukraine by heavy transport before August that counts. The Ukrainians will figure out what the different buttons mean and friendly fire will disappear in the noise.
09:07
Now I have to admit that I googled Kazakhstan a month ago, but once you’ve done that you understand that they are suitable as a NATO partner together with Georgia and Azerbaijan, because then Russia is completely encapsulated. Then the clearing out against everyone is over -stans and the only border they have left is against China’s sphere of interest.
Could there be an approach from the USA behind this, that they are welcome into the Western sphere if they behave but distance themselves from Russia?
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They have really shaken the cage now starting with the St Petersburg conference (or whatever it was). You don’t go against Putin unpunished, thousands of Russians have committed suicide all the way up to the top of the oligarch pyramid and -stans usually get a punitive expedition for less.
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The thread has probably guessed very early on that work is being done quietly to increase pressure elsewhere and this looks exactly like that, that Kazakhstan has got a better buddy than Putin and turns its back on Putin. These dictators are survivors by nature, they have to balance a constantly fluctuating whack-a-mole internally and then with Russia externally to survive and every move is calculated. If they choose to go against Putin on prime time it means they have a better alternative, probably the USA.