10:45
NORDKOSTER, I have thought like this – they have had 6 months and in that time a Swedish conscript can manage a similar vehicle. These are experienced drivers and gunners who have to learn a new tank. I think it takes a few months.
Then you have the whole maintenance/mech side but we can ignore that to start with, first they have to kill Russians then we’ll take care of that.
However, these are common arguments for why we should not send them to Ukraine, bad excuses if you ask me to avoid it.
The mechanics can be Swedish for example but in combat units there can be some issues with sending your own defense employees. Probably however Americans around HIMARS who are in the rear so you can have “observers” coming with Archer for example.
The air force is a different matter, probably takes longer but early this spring we heard that Ukrainian pilots are training on F16.
10:49
Yes, you are right and the Polish vehicles still have all their reactive armor intact, no one has sold them for booze.
I’m exaggerating a bit to make my point and the Ukrainian crew is also competent and uses the vehicles in the best way, so it’s not the same turret-throwing party as on the Russian side.
Yes, I’ve also thought that everyone is waiting for someone to start here, the artillery was a bit like that and Poland took the lead as long as they could but now they have nothing more to send here, a Western country needs to send something fun.
17:50
Mothman, everything actually works together and if you think – well infantry isn’t needed now that we have armor, suddenly you have a deadly weakness. Perhaps the most important of all is a motivated infantryman with anti-tank capability, then you get very far. Then preferably shrapnel protection and tanks on top of that as well as mobile artillery that Ukraine has now received.
Drones are the new black and we’ve probably already had this discussion because I made a Mothman two months ago and got heavily criticized 🙂
Clouds of seeker drones, loitering ammunition, etc. My thought then was that drones are too easy targets but the opposing argument was that we have only seen the beginning. Sure, drones will develop but the tank is here to stay, just look at any picture of an explosion or a missile from a few kilometers away and you understand why.
18:46
One thought here is that the Russians can’t/can’t manage to save ammunition, they are flooring it straight into the wall.
That maintenance is cut doesn’t make them change their minds (I think) and they will run out of ammunition much faster than everyone thinks. Partly glowing barrels all the time and then blown-up depots.
No ammunition also gives a legitimate excuse to surrender 🙂
19:09
14:21, what did you take with you from the trench?
It’s a position in a small forest grove with a field of fire over a large field – a dominating position and at least platoon-sized I thought, he went through a long stretch.
The trenches were shallow, much shallower than the Ukrainian ones we have seen on film and the BMP wasn’t even dug in.
They left a car, 2 motorcycles and a BMP, what did they flee on (probably the other 2 BMPs).
A big pile of empty machine gun casings so there was fighting and felled trees as well as abandoned ammo belts, they probably slipped away pretty quickly here.
A position like this is probably best fought with indirect fire and direct fire from tanks, not something you rush straight at. Seems to have been abandoned before it got too hot.
19:39
It’s incredible how much people want Ukraine to achieve something decisive this autumn and Russia to collapse and be neutralized.
That sh*thole country has spread so much bad atmosphere since the 1700s and now that people are starting to like Ukrainians as a people, you really don’t want them to get stuck in a forever war that traumatizes the whole country. A neat win and then into the EU and hero status is what they deserve, so they can feel it was worth the sacrifice in some way.
20:10
Now we have to figure out if it means 370,000 more incompetents or if that’s total, a quick read wasn’t entirely clear.
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/intelligence-russian-federation-may-use-up-to-350-000-more-troops-in-the-war-against-ukraine/
Then it seems that at least Ukraine expects Leo2 and Abrams.
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-expects-to-receive-abrams-and-leopard-2-tanks/
20:18
Wonder if you can get a job as a war-forensic expert and stand analyzing old trenches for an astronomically high salary.
20:24
This is how you get supplies and reinforcements into Kherson, they are just 155mm away from starting to swim.
Apparently also an air bridge with helicopter to Chornobaivka.
And this is supposed to supply 30 BTGs in active combat.
https://twitter.com/ArtisanalAPT/status/1565827158223757314?s=20&t=PlleBKyEDXLLbjZmj1qseg
08:30
This must be taken as confirmation that it’s all-out war along most active front lines?
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3564045-fierce-fighting-ongoing-in-many-areas-of-front-line-zelensky.html
09:57
Sometime next week the energy will probably be down to zero among the Russian units assigned as fire brigade forces and who have now tried to plug the holes the Ukrainian offensive has opened up near Kherson. It costs to roll up on the road and rush to the combat area when CAS and artillery have eyes and range everywhere along the entire front, ask the Germans towards the end of WW2. Then the old favorites – footage of accurate artillery hitting Russians-in-the-trench – start coming back, fun.
They have had three directions to defend and “inside” the Inhulets river it is probably the most intense as they partly have to try to reach the presumably encircled units at Visykopilia and then slow down the fan out from Davyidiv Brid.
Over by Kherson there are probably more BTGs in a smaller area and then maybe they have invested in a defense of the city of Kherson in a way they cannot by the Inhulets so they probably hold out longer there.
The conclusion is that the plug will come out for the units “inside” the Inhulets first, which we have always thought.
According to earlier reports, the Russians cannot reinforce or supply units west of the Dnepr (I still don’t understand “right bank of Dnepr”…) so their downward curve becomes increasingly sad.
Ukraine can both supply and reinforce unhindered and gains an ever stronger advantage in CAS and artillery as they knock out the Russians’ equivalents or in the case of the air force – traumatize them so they stay away.
It IS only a matter of time but Ukraine should proceed cautiously as they have done so far, Erik14 compared it to a wardrobe which was a very good analogy, they are going nowhere.
Everything is going according to plan at Kherson thus 👍
Apparently Tomyna Balka is back to its rightful owner now according to pro-Russian sites cited by the Twitter gods and Ukraine’s air force is accelerating with everything they have.
It also seems to be all-out fighting of Russians in the trench with everything Ukraine has access to, a Stuka effect is absolutely not excluded. There is apparently a queue down to the ferry camp on the western side of the river but that could also be maintenance transports legitimately returning to the eastern side so no conclusions should be drawn from that even if one wants to paint it in happy colors 🙂
Regarding Russian reinforcements, much more has arrived than has been reported. I got worried about the BTR90, T80 and Pion transports before I understood it was the 3rd Army corps and could google them.
Now it has turned out that the 3rd Army corps was an epic failure, they held back their best equipment for 15,000 – 60,000 men and have managed to mobilize +10,000 men of third-rate quality according to a unanimous panel of analysts.
The thousand-kronor question is whether this is the Russians’ last big push with reinforcements or not?
There are rumors about some kind of mobilization but of what, homeless people posted something yesterday?
If the rumors are true, the Russians have sent training battalions and this year’s conscripts to Ukraine which makes effective training impossible going forward. If mobilization continues, recruits will be sent to front-line units for training there by traumatized soldiers and then since it’s the Russians, they will have to plug some hole and be thrown into combat already the first week.
3rd Army corps is thus perhaps the last unit with some combat value that can be mustered and even then they are a nursing home on wheels.
I tried to sum up the number of BTGs in Ukraine and it seems to be around 130. Now that is not a good measure as there are cadres, conscripts and then a couple of capable BTGs but up from 95 which was the number before the April offensive. I think the 1st Army should be included in the number and at least Wagner but Rosgvardia, FSB, Chechens and the like are probably not included.
We have also seen T62s in offensive operations near Kherson now and a figure that there are 1500 tanks left in combat units, with losses it is quite precisely the consensus on how many tanks the Russians could get running from depots, 3500.
If you lose +10 tanks/day that is 150 days or 5 months until the number is zero – now that is not a measure at all but just to clarify that infinite numbers are not a factor here. One is easily led to believe that the Russians can continue for several years by the media but they absolutely cannot.
Ukraine on its side is getting equipment but not as much as we want. This offensive is with Polish T72s and worse from the fleet of vehicles with splinter protection which I am extremely disappointed with (nothing positive at all just very disappointed). Many Ukrainian soldiers are dying now and if they had Leo2, Abrams, CV90, F16 etc. far fewer would die.
I can’t decide if they are conducting infantry combat with armored support or if they are pure mechanized units they are deploying near Kherson. However, the armored brigades have probably been committed to the fight this time in some form. But T72s are just as bad on the Ukrainian side as on the Russian when hit and Western vehicles protect both the crew and last longer.
Indirect fire and CAS are important pieces but to win the war you need infantry and armor and the latter is taking longer than is decent here. They have really hoped they would already be in the country but if they had been used near Kherson we would have seen footage of them, no chance Ukrainians could keep that secret after the first deployment, partly because it would be too hard for them not to brag about it and then a big piece of information for the Russian side.
Simply put, the West lets Ukraine take heavy losses by not sending heavy offensive weapons and I really don’t understand the reason for this – hasn’t Russia already shown all its cards and it is clear to everyone that there is no golden middle way here?
If the free West wanted, there would be 1500 Western tanks and double the number of capable IFVs in Ukraine within a month. The only ones who wouldn’t have fun are the heavy transport drivers.
Don’t we now have proof that Ukraine will go on the offensive and that more armor does more damage, what are we waiting for?