12:05 – Johan No.1
This one should have been included, I have the impression that my explanations are reinforced if I find others who say the same thing, which of course is completely wrong. But I thought this one was interesting because he reasons about where the T55 might end up.
We already know that part of the pre-attack is to knock out all armor in defense and T62/T55 are presumably even easier than knocking out newer tanks with drone-dropped grenades.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1640901824499572736?s=46&t=mLsEbeo0NT49fSWlVaveUw
12:21 – MatsExtrude
Ouff, I feel a bit hit here, am I risking my place on the boat?
The critical articles I shared turned out to possibly have a political connection which I didn’t know but if you want to get a realistic picture of both sides in the war you have to try to understand both the negative and positive from both sides.
Just because there may be shortcomings doesn’t mean you dismiss the entire Ukrainian defense.
I am convinced that Ukraine is the stronger party and that they will throw out the Russians.
I see it a bit more like you have a favorite team in, for example, hockey.
In the team there is a forward who you think insists on long shots even though he rarely succeeds and a defenseman who is slow and reads the game poorly. That doesn’t mean you stop cheering for your team or don’t believe they can win the match.
I think criticism is totally OK because we know that everything obviously can’t be perfect.
(What I absolutely do not think is OK is to give up and leave the arena because your team is down 4-0.)
But maybe I’m wrong?
Maybe we should see ourselves as part of the pro-Ukrainian propaganda and just try to convey what we believe benefits Ukraine the most?
12:27 – MatsExtrude
Yes, they have worse armor so that is probably true!
12:28 – Johan No.1
Absolutely not, there is a seat and a name tag there already 😀
I know there have been some strange posts lately but I’m venting a bit on what I’ve been thinking about because soon we’ll be busy with the spring offensive.
It’s really the pro-Ukrainian bloggers/tweeters who have also dug themselves into UA’s lack of competence along with their desire that Bakhmut should be abandoned that I’m a bit critical of. They have large platforms and sky-high reputations.
There will always be anecdotes but the overall picture is quite solid and absolutely that should also be posted as you did and reasoned about, so not directed at you in any way 👍
12:40 – Johan No.1
Ceiling hits were probably not even considered then, I guess?
12:41 – MatsExtrude
Good to hear, I was afraid I’d have to look for a life jacket!
Now this blog probably has quite a large audience anyway, I regret not knowing that it was a political opponent behind what I posted (good that it was pointed out). It significantly affects credibility.
I agree with you about the big Twitter accounts. They have enormous reach and when it maybe turns out they are wrong they should at least dare to admit it (or at least admit that there are other ways to see things). I’m mainly thinking about that thing about abandoning Bakhmut or not.
It’s even worse that they spread negativity about training and competence both among soldiers and officers.
There are quite a few soldiers active on Twitter so it can really lead to division and growing dissatisfaction where it can do the most damage besides contributing to the narrative that Ukraine can never win.
12:48 – Johan No.1
The southern front will probably become a Russian version of a retreat – a flight where they leave everything that can’t be taken quickly but bring all the washing machines. UA should reasonably cross the Dnieper and then strike with the wedge down towards Azov and then that whole front is in free fall.
Crimea will be completely emptied on its own when UA threatens to blow up the bridge (again).
For northern Luhansk I find it hard to see that kind of panic retreat provided the Russians are not forced to choose what they want to defend and must abandon northern Luhansk – if there is something they are good at it is fleeing, they have excelled at that throughout the war.
They are different divisions/armies and they have different equipment. There are definitely T80 and T90 but not in the quantities there should be.
They have stolen T90S that were to be exported for example and broken someone’s contract, why then if they had 600-900 fully serviced T90s and 3000 T80s?
They had 1800 tanks for the winter offensive according to those who know and that felt like the total left. Of those, probably 30% are in the rear and I calculated a few weeks ago that with the current burn rate it’s down to zero already in July – it’s that bad.
12:53 – Johan No.1
Now T55 and T62 are added to this but they are probably most deadly for their own crews.
12:57 – MatsExtrude
You’re right, those came much later. That could be good, maybe more donations to drones!
13:22 – MatsExtrude
+1 Forgot that in my “defense speech” 🙂
19:34 – Johan No.1
Poor condition of DNR units according to Neil Hauer 👍
The positives never end today.
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1641117737647849474?s=20
21:34 – Johan No.1
Has this been up?
Drone crashed in a suburb of Moscow.
https://twitter.com/Rinegati/status/1640734901275181057?s=20
08:33 – Johan No.1
Has this been up, another mech that looks prepared and ready to start
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1641318541830901760?s=46&t=hAw9I9B9VQAOerb8BjL81g
08:38 – MatsExtrude
Nice, even more equipment! Haven’t seen that one before!
11:34 – Johan No.1
On the bubbling list that’s boiling, Russian soldiers refusing the war ranks quite high. I think we are hearing more and more about individual units refusing to advance now.
At Vuhledar they had to send in the Rosgvardia and rotate the units, and now there is whining about the Russians up near Avdiivka.
We don’t know the condition of the DPR and LPR but according to the Muntz milblogger it’s miserable.
A whole winter with poor accommodations Russian style, little food, general anxiety and ammunition shortage surely takes its toll.
Something has definitely happened up in northern Luhansk because the winter offensive up there is this war’s big mystery – 130,000 soldiers and 1,000 tanks that never got out of the starting blocks.
And Ukraine has a thin picket line to oppose them.
My thought was that as soon as they became stationary, which they were almost all the time, they became hunted prey by Ukrainian SOF with night combat equipment rather than the shining Russian imperialist army.
I have the impression that GUR/SBU are up there and in addition there are independent reconnaissance battalions and the maneuver brigades’ infiltrating capacity on top of that and a number of those volunteer units that have become elite units and have competence for almost everything – there is a lot of infiltrating and free warfare capability in northern Luhansk.
There is definitely a difference between attacking when you know you have already failed 10 times or defending yourself, and reasonably you are a bit more alert when defending.
But demoralized soldiers are easier to break through than motivated soldiers.
Yesterday we got a little preview of what’s to come when UA got a full breakthrough at Bilohorivka of 3.8 km before it stopped.
The Russians had two units in the area and UA about the same, so it was quite spectacular one must admit.
Gregg’s description matches the unit maps (maybe he gets it from there of course…).
According to my earlier “offensive post” the area between Soledar-Siversk is quite poorly defended by the Russian side and I think we got some evidence of that at Bilohorivka.
As much as I like to ridicule the Russians’ absolute incompetence, I usually get equally sharp when criticism is directed at the Ukrainian soldiers’ competence.
It went so far that the Finnish embassy removed me from the invitation list to the annual rice sauna in vodka fumes and ice bath after the discussion about the Finnish officer.
I was sitting and thinking the other day about why the world’s best rice sauna is now over and the answer is probably how would you have handled the situation yourself if you were flooded with artillery fire in your trench system and then wave after wave of Russians came that you barely managed to cut down before the next staggered forward. And it had gone on like that for a whole year without leave and the kids had only seen you on WhatsApp once a month. Always wet, always hungry, always on the edge of being cut down.
(yes I understand they don’t stay in the same trench for a year).
Probably not nearly as good as the Ukrainians fight and definitely not as good as “predator”’s display in 9 minutes of fire and movement because my multitasking is not even close to what he accomplished – here the food burns if you have more than one pot on the stove or leave the kitchen even once.
He ran a 180-degree defense with 5-6 different weapons and managed to talk on the phone – whackamole half a morning with two armored vehicles and two groups that really wanted to kill him and where a single mistake would have been the end.
Praising is fine and ridiculing the Russians is fine but knocking down Ukraine’s ability, results, will etc. just doesn’t feel right after what we have seen.
Sometimes it gets a bit tricky when the criticism comes from one’s own unit but as one used to complain in the military about the smallest little thing I see the amount of complaints as vanishingly small.
The Ukrainian leadership has good control over the country so far, it holds together.
Of course, that can change quickly and situations can spin out of control very fast. The West could suddenly be left holding the whole chaos if we’re not careful.
We can be completely sure that as soon as the war is over Klitschko will try to become president, Sersky wants to be defense minister and all the usual quarrels will start again.
Right now they need to get the ball in the goal and they probably do that best through consensus and a mix of carrot and stick until it’s done.
Predator is just one among an entire army of multitaskers who kill unbelievable amounts of Russians every day and are very good at it.
Maybe times are different now but there was something called total defense duty in case of war and that means you yourself would have to stand in a hole waiting for the Russians whether you wanted to or not and maybe it was a long time ago but desertion could get you a court-martial?
Don’t know how it looks in Ukraine but the Ukrainians seem to have done the smart thing and try to become the best soldiers they can to solve the task in the best way and that applies to a large part of the army. I personally don’t think they deserve to be talked down about especially not after everything we’ve seen – in broad strokes they have almost defeated the Russian army fundamentally and the small strokes like predator’s nine minutes of whackamole will be shown at command schools that you get far with fire and movement.