10:32 – Johan No.1
I believe that.
I also believe that it is enough to project a threat from Dnepr to achieve the goal of getting RU to abandon that area.
You can do that with infantry occupying suitable communities under their own artillery umbrella.
SOF can surely wreak havoc on small boats in the flooded area now, why not?
If you go by the map that was posted, a fairly large part of the Russians’ defense at Dnepr went up in the flood.
10:33 – Johan No.1
The amount of units down there suggests a bridgehead and IF the Russians are forced to withdraw then a bridgehead is very suitable I think?
11:06 – MatsExtrude
Thanks again for a good summary!
Like that you mention Kherson because just as you write it took time. They started there by pressing at 3-4 places with small successes that were then slowed down. That was already before the Kupiansk sprint.
Then it went fast though even if it did not become quite the “rubber duck” that one wanted to see (they managed to slip away those rascals).
Admittedly a different situation then, they put the Russians in a pinch by destroying the bridges and thus the logistics and it became untenable. On the other hand, they have completely different possibilities to strike deep now.. The logistics is in bad shape this time as well.
I have absolutely not forgotten Bakhmut. It stung badly I thought, when they had to leave the last of the central parts (even if of course it was right to do so).
I am just waiting for the revenge but am confident it will come sooner or later. Then it will not be just one Obolon but at least two to celebrate (and if it is grill weather that day maybe it will be filet mignon, I have not had the privilege to eat myself tired of that)!
Khakovka proves that they are more nervous now than then. They know the clock is ticking and that time is running out!
11:07 – Johan No.1
Hello thread – Tendar is reliable and he has the same thoughts as us about front-near pre-engagement.
A battery 777 knocks out a battalion tactical group in defense in one morning if they skip the coffee break we joked about?
https://twitter.com/tendar/status/1666724116815048704?s=46&t=nQt1L9QgNAjiH_K2YGpbeQ
11:18 – Johan No.1
Sitting and looking at Militaryland and now he has added all newly formed brigades – army, territorial and NG have over 100 brigades.
To that comes a veritable forest of battalion-sized units.
This is a huge sledgehammer.
11:25 – Johan No.1
David D was right earlier and my 70 brigades were low counted.
But then he also has a map on the wall where he places the units, old style rules.
11:36 – MatsExtrude
+1 But that about staying calm is hard.. 🙂
11:52 – Johan No.1
There will probably be increased intensity at the southern front now together with Bakhmut and then in a few days the next very large raid into Belgorod.
The reason I joke a bit is that I think people lock themselves to a definition and then a lot happens that must be dismissed as “recon fights” endlessly until they have seen a Bradley and a Leo2 on film and then they exclaim that now the offensive has started.
11:53 – Johan No.1
The clock is ticking five to twelve ✊
12:13 – MatsExtrude
I am completely with you there!
It is moving in the right direction all the time, and almost everywhere, but the audience is not satisfied until they see a heavy attack with western armor when what we see happening now may be the most important phase in the offensive.
Also wondering what the next “Belgorod” will be.. If they go to roughly the same place, come up with some new direction, and how heavy it will be.. ?
12:29 – Johan No.1
MXT, I was thinking whether they might strike with bigger and heavier forces but in another location that RU hasn’t reinforced?
12:36 – Johan No.1
The number of capable units up there suggests something like that.
12:58 – Johan No.1
Seems like the Leo2 has been in combat according to Neil Hauer?
https://twitter.com/neilphauer/status/1666758635874144256?s=46&t=nQt1L9QgNAjiH_K2YGpbeQ
13:12 – MatsExtrude
Then maybe everyone can agree that the offensive has started!? 🙂
13:18 – Johan No.1
It seems so, to me it looks like all criteria are met now?
It was yesterday according to Neil Hauer so the date for the start of the major offensive would then be June 7, 2023?
That conflicts a bit with the UA representatives who say we will notice when it starts, Gregg who said 48 hours and the Russians who thought 72 hours.
13:33 – Johan No.1
You remember the story about when Dengamle invented the cavalry and the red pennant on the lance that lasted well into the 1800s with the lancers?
There is another exciting story about when Dengamle accidentally invented the Viking raids.
A rickety ship engaged in trade drifted up the Thames and the crew member Dengamle (a bit less old then) reached out from the boat to steal a bunch of grapes from some riverside garden. The deck was slippery and Dengamle, of course, fell straight into the water to the great delight of the landowners.
Now the crew was absolutely hungover after a hard night of mead and lots of rowing and did not take pointing and loud laughter very well. The helmsman made a 90-degree turn with the boat straight into the garden fence and the crew taught the laughing Englishmen a lesson until they stopped laughing and stole all the grapes as revenge.
When the story was eventually retold by Dengamle back on the longship after a few liters of mead, they had landed near a village, defeated the local police station and plundered a lot of gold. The gold was later thrown into the water in a terrible storm on the way home but there was a lot of it.
Dengamle had also personally knocked down at least five policemen and when asked slyly how he could manage that, he answered deliberately cryptically that a red mushroom made him as strong as five men – the idea took root, red mushrooms were found and the rest is our Viking history.
13:33 – MatsExtrude
To get maximum effect it would probably be best to change location. Good if they manage to get in a bit and take some villages before anyone reacts!
13:46 – MatsExtrude
🤣🤣🤣
Could have guessed it was DENGAMLE behind the berserkers!
13:57 – MatsExtrude
By the way, here we see DENGAMLE in the form of a sculpture, as a tribute to him as “The first berserker”.
It is very similar, they have even managed to capture the feeling of the hangover he carried at the time (even though everyone thought it was about mushrooms).
https://grundskoleboken.se/vikingatid/kapitel/vad_var_en_barsark/berserk.jpg
17:15 – Johan No.1
Can’t comment on authenticity but the governor of Belgorod asks Prigozhin for help to throw out the rebels.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1666825356295249921?s=46&t=142BgvKBJ8NleNcLb-CVKw
07:48 – Johan No.1
Large weapons package from the USA on the way
https://twitter.com/golub/status/1667034889160478722?s=46&t=BjB-APE8ebEIVFlo6RXCRw
08:00 – MatsExtrude
+1
10:22 – Johan No.1
Today I planned to start with the definition of the offensive but then a lot of interesting things happened that took over.
For me, the consequence of Khakovka is becoming clear – it hit the left bank the hardest and dead bodies and dead animals are floating in the water. The Russian side has done nothing for the civilian population, there has been a huge oil spill, they have flooded (as already written) cemeteries and farms with buried dead animals. South of Khakovka a deluge and north of Khakovka the river decreased by 60m.
It is a humanitarian and ecological disaster among the crowd of all other Russian-created disasters like Mariupol, torture centers, desecrated, tortured and murdered small five-year-old children and the obliteration of entire cities.
The only time in world history Russia hopefully will “face the music” and pay the full price. Well deserved.
What is popularly referred to as “reconnaissance battles” is, to me, an old rope trick used since Normandy – you advance to contact, pull back and pour on artillery, then forward again and roll over the remains.
My interpretation of the southern front is that there are offensive operations at all three attack vectors now.
I also think the Russian fortifications seem to be substandard – so far we have had attacks with 1-2 companies of infantry in IFVs supported by tanks and they are now breaking through at focal points on the southern front in a day.
Even Johan No.1 understands that it is local and one line at a time but it takes a day or a few days.
The Russian team has been hammering the same UA defense system for 6 months without getting anywhere, Avdiivka has held the entire war 😀
When you have broken through that distance then you have also broken through a couple of minefields – that IS significant.
Following the legendary Lifeguard’s post late last night and then from David D who, as someone without early hair loss, posted in yesterday’s thread this morning, mostly from Russian sources.
8-10 reserve brigades have been smashed after 4 days of fighting and a third of the available reserves are now engaged in combat – Russian sources.
According to Defmon there are about 50 different units of highly varying degrees in the area so what is written is not unreasonable.
I believe that deepstate and militaryland show the units that are fighting.
Then we know that unit maps are notoriously unreliable because every time we get a name or number of a regiment and can place it, it does not match the maps.
What is interesting, however, is that UA’s tactic to seek contact and then smash them with indirect fire and try to pick off task forces during buildup and reserves in billets seems to give very good results.
Ukraine is thus also attacking on the southern front in numerical inferiority and uses its palette of capabilities at wizard level presumably just as they have done up at Bakhmut – legendary level almost, I think?
Ukraine is still holding back what we call “the offensive reserve” although we have probably seen some of them in combat now.
The next big news is that UA has conducted night fighting – we have discussed this in detail and we know they have night fighting capability, tens of thousands of image intensifiers and all the vehicles that have arrived, including Eastern armor from the West, have night fighting equipment. The Russian team is sitting and trying to hit with close combat under illumination and it’s not the easiest. If one guesses, the night fighting capability contributes to the rapid breakthroughs here, my guess?
The third is another rumor that “the Dnipro group is preparing to retreat to prepared defenses above Crimea and around Melitopol (the map doesn’t make it look entirely logical).
We reasoned about this yesterday that the blowing up of Khakovka might have been to cover a retreat but it is too early to say. There have been small hints about this now with artillery being regrouped for example.
Then I wonder how well the “Dnipro group” is really doing after standing for a few days up to their necks in water?
One could suspect a certain Russian logic here – “we blew up Khakovka so no one crosses the Dnipro, now we reinforce the southern front with the Dnipro group because it is starting to falter.”
What is happening right now is enormously significant – Khakovka was blown up, UA has gotten “local” breakthroughs through mine lines in a day or so and (highly speculative) rumors that the Dnipro group is on the move. It went fast!
I had a rewarding discussion with the legend MXT yesterday about the offensive and left as a better person. I also understood that seven months of filet mignon and video games might not have been a complete shipwreck and I have to back down on that.
The “major offensive” that everyone is waiting for is, if I understand this correctly, defined as localized to the southern front (Zaporizhzhia front) and to be carried out by “the new” brigades with Western armor – Leo2, Bradley, Challenger and CV90?
All other offensive operations have been relegated to “reconnaissance battles” so also an invasion of the country Russia and the recapture of the settlements in Bakhmut which is in full swing.
Before when Bakhmut was defense it was the news everyone wanted to talk about every day. But when UA retakes it, it is no big news?
Expectations are high to say the least 😀
In the past years we used to rejoice at less than this – the good old Kupiansk sprint, when 1st Guards was wiped out at Izyum, the crossing of Oskil and all the other humiliating losses the Russians got shoved in their faces with a few months apart.
Now they have left Belgorod raid 2.0 but those who fought have Western personal weapons and the Belgians have complained that their weapons are being used. The Russians have about 5 regiments (old worn units) in the area but they did not manage to push the liberation fighters back over the border.
I think I know why – behind are units with very hard bites that contribute with their capability where needed. The area is presumably swarming with SOF and that is why the Russians’ “SOF” were sent there.
At Bakhmut the 80th Air Assault brigade is attacking which has the Challenger company and the 3rd and 5th Assault brigades which are newly formed brigades with Western personal weapons in part, M113 and IFVs as well as Soviet tanks. The 80th is one of UA’s absolute elite units that managed to make the Russians go and drown up at Siversky Donets. RU drove lots of T72s in a row straight into the watercourse.
At Bakhmut there is also the 17th tank brigade and 4th tank brigade as well as some of the most talked about mechanized brigades and NG rapid response brigade.
It is only a matter of time before RU falls back in an unorganized manner to the Svitlodarsk-Popasna line and then they will open up for an uppercut northwards and Lysychansk will fall.
Now we all know that breakthroughs don’t come without diligent work and that it is offensive operations several weeks back that finally break the back of the tired Russian in a hole. At Kherson they worked for months but then UA was weaker and RU fought with a somewhat intact VDV.
There are thoughts flying around about D-Day in the media and also Desert Storm and both were an attack on one (1) front.
For it to count as a “major offensive” it must be the southern front?
-We can limit ourselves to that but then I wonder which brigades we have to see in combat for it to count as the major offensive?
-Two of the mechanized brigades on the southern front have Leo2 and Bradley, I have figured that out.
-Are those the ones that must fight or is it “the Swedish brigade”?
-Does Marder have to be involved?
Then I have to remind that the western heavy vehicles (Bradley, CV90, Marder, Challenger, Leo2) we are thinking of are not very many and that UA is currently performing miracles with Soviet armor and western ATGMs that they have received a couple of thousand of, they also have countless M113s.
I will probably have to eat these words immediately when they stand at Azov tomorrow but I think we will see more of the same also at the southern front – they attack line after line in area after area until something breaks somewhere.
That is exactly what they are doing up at Bakhmut and over time they get a breakthrough since RU defense is finite.
The breakthrough will come when the defense folds and at the southern front a not insignificant part of the defense will sprint down to Crimea because it is the shortest way and a perceived relative safety.
For me, an advance of kilometers in a day or two is a very big success and the Ukrainian infantry probably feels the same. After such an exercise in the military service as seen in the videos, one was quite exhausted and then they have real combat on top of that.
Since UA has indirect fire, drone weapons, HIMARS, JDAMS and lots of Storm Shadow, they can retreat, fight the defense with indirect fire and then attack them again, saving lives.
Then you want to be part of the gang so I keep patting on the back for the big offensive that is coming any day now even though I think that an invasion of Russia is a bit cool, that the recapture of Bakhmut is a biggie and now that offensive operations at the southern front have started that are exceeding expectations.
I would be very surprised if the intensity drops again without a major breakthrough being achieved. Bakhmut is just a matter of time and at the southern front also a matter of time. Went through all the places we have received names of and they are at current front lines so no deep breakthroughs that we don’t know about it seems?
So far in this war it has gone like this – UA puts pressure and maneuvers out RU until they are forced to conduct a Russian-tactical-retreat (leave all heavy vehicles, jump on a truck with the washing machine and drive towards Russia). At Bakhmut it is quite close that they fall back to the Svitlodarsk-Popasna line I guess.
It is loose Twitter rumors and highly speculative that they would leave Dnepr but sometime they will, right?
A wedge down to Azov from any of the three attack vectors, and then you don’t have to stand at Azov but kilometers from it (you learned in the military service that to control a crossroads you don’t have to stand on it, you need to have it under fire) means that all RU units west of the breakthrough will retreat down to Crimea.
A lot is happening right now and has been since early May, it is moving all the time and with the glimpses we get the condition of the Russian wreck is infinitely worse than anyone dared hope for but nevertheless one does not believe it is true – because it can’t possibly be true.
That UA can move around as they want in Belgorod Oblast for several weeks is absolutely sensational.
That Khakovka is being blown up now but not when they retreated from Kherson says something too but what is brewing down there is perhaps a bit too early to speculate about.