12:52 – Johan No.1
In the great praise of Ukraine’s runaway capability and the mocking of the Russians’ nosediving equivalent, we must not forget their platform for a real-time picture of the battlefield – Delta.
Now Matsextrude was quick as a rattlesnake yesterday but I’m starting to get used to coming last in everything, a bit like in my life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_(situational_awareness_system)
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1678758652667400192?s=46&t=L89zGwqw3MllvohGh6Zv4g
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1678753038666694657?s=46&t=L89zGwqw3MllvohGh6Zv4g
If I may guess, the input is automated but on some level one must manually weigh the information and if it is reasonable it is let through?
The Russian side doesn’t have anything close to this, when UA attacked on the southern front they apparently managed to hide their advance and surprise the trench-Russians.
Then we have Ukraine’s “Uber for artillery” where everything is automated. Totally crazy – units for indirect fire mark themselves as “available” on the platform and what type of indirect fire they can provide.
The customers enter what they want to take out – “kill a couple of trench-Russians for me at these coordinates please” and then the system chooses the nearest available fire unit that offers this type of death and they get the booking – somewhat more violent than taxi-Uber and automated.
These two systems combined are a significant force multiplier.
And on the Russian side no one answers the field phone on the other end when you want suppressive fire on previously registered coordinates (targets) and when someone finally answers it is already too late.
Or the time between calling in the target coordinates until fire on the target is so long that Ukraine has driven past.
I remember during conscription that it started to be talked about that you had a monitor with your own and enemy vehicles to look at and that it would change the battlefield but that the Russians would jam it 100% and then you were stuck. The other thing was that the Russians would mark their vehicles as Swedish to confuse us and then kill us. Every time we would get beaten because they were technologically superior and very cunning so best to trust the field corporal and what you see in the sights.
Jamming our vehicles’ radio systems seemed easy because it happened every other exercise. Then the range was poor and not infrequently you stood talking to yourself until some orderly showed up with a day-old obsolete order because he hadn’t found us since we acted tactically.
It feels like Ukraine has shaved off a lot of what made them not fight well – time to fire on target, knowing where the enemy is and their numbers, and having control over own surrounding units.
And obviously not easy to jam and also satellite so you don’t go outside the system’s range and sleep through the rest of the offensive because you didn’t get an order.
12:53 – Johan No.1
The other thing we know they do is have a drone that coordinates retaking trench systems which is a hell of a job (at least I thought so during conscription). They provide real-time intelligence but my god how difficult it must be – right, left and straight ahead for the drone operator is not the same as for the soldier in the trench system and this feels like something you practice to become skilled at.
We have seen videos of when the Russians tried and it just becomes chaos – a bit like when you yourself at the start commanded “driver left” intending to take the road to the left a bit ahead and the driver pulled hard on the left control stick and you drove into what was in the way.
After a while it became – “where the road splits 100m ahead take the road to the left” or something similar.
But my god to have to do that in combat when you also don’t see the same view.
I guess the drone operator must first be clear about which soldier he is communicating with, however they do that, and then he can only speak in terms of the soldier’s straight ahead, right and left and then “clock 2”, “clock 9” etc.
East, west, north and south work terribly when you have taken a few turns in a trench.
Then we have totally locked ourselves into guided munitions being best but Archer can drop 6 shells simultaneously within a 2m diameter circle (or similar…) with “dumb” ammunition.
You actually don’t need guided munitions if you have Archer but autonomous seeking ammunition or drones is probably not so bad, STRIX was the new black when I did conscription.
If you called in a fire burst with STRIX you got 100% success from the exercise leader.
Something ancient that has proven to work well is probably mines still and mine clearance should probably be further developed.
Barracuda camouflage I think is sensationally good and then all anti-drone weapons AND drones that are immune to anti-drone weapons – everything seems Ukraine deploy or find countermeasures against faster than the Russians.
Something I take with me for the defense of Sweden is that if you give every amphibious platoon coastal missiles the Russian invasion force probably won’t get very far?
Then Magnus usually writes about coastal missile batteries on trucks. I am a bit fond of the splinter-protected dumper trucks and would like to see those but instead of investing in surface vessels or aircraft FOR JUST THAT CAPABILITY – put the money into cheap weapon carriers but very many and missiles with 250-300km range. That is more than enough and with constant relocation they will never be able to be knocked out.
The same for the air defense capability but there we probably have Patriot now maybe.
Large platforms like aircraft and ships are also big targets and if a ship is knocked out you have lost a lot of capacity.
A bit off topic, back to the Ukraine war.
Yesterday we wrote that there would be screaming bayonet counterattacks at Bakhmut to try to break the encirclement and yesterday they came towards Berkhivka.
https://twitter.com/FriaUkraina/status/1678882475097858049?t=2ChnTBLdKqphwub6IJdgaQ&s=19
There was nothing from them as usual except Russian losses they cannot afford. The question is how long they will continue with this; they will probably try to retake Klishchiivka as well?
A recurring theme since May 4 is that the Russian counterattacks fail completely, so UA has clearly learned to quickly establish a sufficiently good defense when they have captured an area.
According to rumors, Gerasimov fired the commander of the 58 CAA because he wanted to rotate his units and he was “sent to the front.”
The sensational thing here is actually that the 58 CAA is so thin that they cannot rotate units and that the leadership solved the whole problem by firing the person who pointed it out.
Thus, the Russians are running out of reserves behind the southern front…
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1678761664488042496?s=46&t=fWEPN2jPepd8jGjg_Upslg
This video appeared yesterday and it is the 37th Marine Brigade that presumably captures a fortification system?
The first thing you see is that the defenders call in a salvo of Grad rockets and then it’s over.
Then they move on each side parallel to the fortification system and pour in death; they do not unload any infantry that rolls up the fortification system.
I haven’t quite managed to process this yet, it definitely worked and maybe the goal was the fortifications further along the route and they laid suppressive fire to get there?
Or were the fortifications shallow enough that the defense could be knocked out this way?
Anyway, the entire battle group (1 tank platoon and 2 M113 platoons?) did very well and achieved the combat objectives, so they must have acted correctly?
12:54 – Johan No.1
In the great praise of Ukraine’s skyrocketing capability and the mocking of the Russians’ plummeting one, we must not forget their platform for a real-time picture of the battlefield – Delta.
Now Matsextrude was quick as a rattlesnake yesterday but I’m starting to get used to coming last in everything, a bit like in my life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_(situational_awareness_system)
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1678758652667400192?s=46&t=L89zGwqw3MllvohGh6Zv4g
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1678753038666694657?s=46&t=L89zGwqw3MllvohGh6Zv4g
If I may guess, the input is automated but on some level they must manually weigh the information and if it is reasonable, it is allowed through?
The Russian side doesn’t even come close to this; when UA attacked at the southern front, they apparently managed to hide their advance and surprise the trench Russians.
Then we have Ukraine’s “Uber for artillery” where everything is automated. Totally crazy – units for indirect fire mark themselves as “available” on the platform and what type of indirect fire they can provide.
Customers enter what they want to strike – “kill a couple of trench Russians for me at these coordinates please” – and then the system chooses the nearest available fire unit that provides this type of death and they get the booking – somewhat more violent than taxi Uber and automated.
These two systems combined are significantly force-multiplying.
And on the Russian side, no one answers the field phone on the other end when you want suppressive fire on previously registered coordinates (targets), and when someone finally answers, it’s already too late.
Or the time between calling in the target coordinates until fire on the target is so long that Ukraine has moved past.
I remember during conscription that it started to be talked about having a monitor with your own and enemy vehicles to look at and that it would change the battlefield but that the Russians would jam it 100%, and then you were left there. The other thing was that the Russians would mark their vehicles as Swedish to confuse us and then kill us. Every time we would get beaten because they were technologically heavier and very cunning, so best to trust the field ape and what you see in the sights.
Jamming our vehicle radio systems seemed easy because it happened at almost every exercise. Then the range was poor and not infrequently you stood talking to yourself until some orderly showed up with a day-old obsolete order because he couldn’t find us as we acted tactically.
It feels like Ukraine has shaved off a lot of what made them fight poorly – time to fire on target, knowing where the enemy is and their numbers, and keeping track of own surrounding units.
And obviously not easy to jam plus satellite so you don’t go out of the system’s range and sleep through the rest of the offensive because you didn’t get an order.
13:00 – Johan No.1
This might be an off-topic post and I apologize if so.
There is much discussion about NATO but one must remember that it is a difficult tightrope to balance on and that there is something called the real world to relate to.
Not everyone thinks like a Swede, we have probably started to learn that little by little?
Remember the Cold War when all of Europe was subversive activity and the Soviet Union extended as far west as Berlin (western Czechoslovakia was perhaps even further west though…).
The world avoided a third world war with the Soviet Union through sanctions, diplomatic steps, rearmament, and realpolitik. Those of us who have followed submarine violations in our archipelago have guessed that a large dose of realpolitik was involved. We nearly had a war in our archipelago when it was peace and we were neutral.
Since Russia started in 2014, the West has had time to form up and prepare for this and thanks to Ukraine managing to hold out, the West has now managed to unite around support and how Russia should be dealt with.
Nothing wrong with the Russian plan: blow up UA ammunition depots, dismantle the army, divide with subversive activity, and at the start of war bribe your way to a smashing victory.
In hindsight, Putin should have attacked many years earlier but he probably thought Trump would help him take over Ukraine with a Russia-friendly government or something – I don’t really know why it took so long.
Everything went wrong for Putin and most things have gone right for Ukraine and today we stand where we stand.
The problem with democracies is that they are slow to escalate the use of violence, which is good, and that they stay within the framework of democracy – otherwise you become a dictatorship.
Countries like Russia exploit this shamelessly and have gotten away with anything for a very long time, China as well.
But in the end, it goes as it always does – the dictatorship’s war economy has an expiration date and the West just steps on the gas until they win.
We saw that in 1918, 1945, during the Cold War, and now again.
However, it wouldn’t hurt to “to be tolerant you must be intolerant of the intolerant,” some clear boundaries and consequences for Russia, for example?
The country Russia almost needs to be broken up because they have been responsible for a lot of the bad things for hundreds of years here – then they become a smaller future threat because they will be a threat.
You must not forget that the Soviet Union was Hitler Germany’s ally until Hitler attacked them and that they received enormous support from the West to be able to win their side of the war.
A big reason for that is that the real opposition that exists in Russia is almost as bad as Putin, Navalny is imperialistic and here you have a liberal.
https://twitter.com/tatarigami_ua/status/1678187518993354755?s=46&t=UjcAJokNbjQv8VzUM2EvfA
Now that is not the West’s task but the West does not need to make an effort to keep Russia together to be nice but can let them do what they do best – fight among themselves within the country.
Which will probably happen – Belarus definitely West-friendly in five years and Kaliningrad at least demilitarized without a chance for the Russians to militarize it again secretly.
Different areas, whatever status they now have, will break free.
NATO (or JEF) will hold the eastern border by force for the next 50 years – a war like this is not forgotten quickly.
Somewhat quietly, more countries want to join BRIICS and China has no intention of lying down here, they will not intervene militarily and support Russia because they are far from ready for that (they never will be) but they have an increasing national and expansionist trend in the country.
The free West will eventually have to figure out how to handle Russia, because they need to be handled, but also China and BRIICS.
If you want to be a bit “serves them right” you could just let them have their own currency and watch everything crash.
That “multipolar” world that Russia and China want is just so they can jump on weak neighbors and nothing else.
Russia is not afraid of NATO, they are angry that NATO does not allow them to carry out conquest wars.
What the West really should do immediately is three things – bring manufacturing back from China and robotize, go big with renewable energy and nuclear power, and tie Africa to us with very fair trade terms and development of the continent in the “right way,” that is, not deals with dictators and sucking out raw materials.
Then BRIICS can keep buying oil and other things from each other with their useless currencies as much as they want.
The West cannot go in and force BRIICS or China away but we can stop being super nice to them and constantly getting fooled.
Then there are good countries in South America and Asia too that we should tie to us one by one.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the BRIICS gang eventually discovered the hard way that the path to a prosperous country and wealth is good relations with the free West?
Having worked a lot in Africa, I have long pondered how to lift that continent in a fair way.
Completely unrelated and sorry off topic, everything is also infinitely more difficult than it sounds and countries can go from pro-West to anti-West overnight so you never know which horse you are betting on but if we are going to do something it feels like trying to lift Africa would be something that is a win-win for everyone.
13:10 – MatsExtrude
+1
I’ve also thought about that thing with drones and how communication works. Not just how to convey the information but also how it works technically. Often you have seen that they use handheld communication equipment but if you are going to take a position you probably want to have your hands free, and then of course you have to be able to choose the channel to the right soldier. The question is if everyone has gotten modern gear to fix that.
Regardless, those 1000 Black Hornet from Norway must be invaluable when it comes to taking positions or in urban environments.
13:15 – MatsExtrude
It must be an enormous advantage if the technology is in place and everyone is trained on how it works.
Then there is the question of how easily it can be jammed.
There have been good figures regarding
Special equipment and many FPV videos that knock out Russian communication and jamming equipment and maybe that is because they might work reasonably well after all.
14:44 – Johan No.1
It is infinitely easy to get fooled, you have to be street smart and you have to choose carefully who you tie to yourself.
We ran a transport company on a small scale because you got incredibly good pay for driving goods. I thought a driver would make sure to steal 25% so he has work over a long time.
Drivers don’t really think like that – since he assumes he will get fired he steals everything or steals the truck.
Then the vehicles wear out incredibly much faster than in Europe due to poor handling and that cost is not taken into account either.
We made a small profit and we also concluded that everything we control ourselves we make a profit on but as soon as it grows and you bring someone into management the profit goes towards zero in what he controls.
The right way is not aid or social projects where you inject money – that is not business.
The raw materials industry is probably quite well developed by now so processing would not be a bad place to start – it benefits the country.
Port operators are on the way in many countries and that is good for import-export and benefits the country.
Agriculture needs to get going a bit everywhere too and processing there as well.
I know Angola inside and out.
Countries like Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia are okay countries.
North Africa is probably just about participating in the expansion of solar parks and renewable energy that they run by cable to Europe?
You should stay away from Congo, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, CAR and a few more – they still need aid and social help.
I’ve heard that Sierra Leone, Senegal and a few others have recovered enormously from the wars.
Hydropower is not developed in many countries in Africa – there you can do a lot.
Solar power as well.
Housing programs, infrastructure, hospitals and so on but then we are in the area of social projects except for housing which can be run commercially.
14:46 – Johan No.1
I’ve read some criticism that Ukraine “wants too much”.
Having to read that after 1.5 years is sad. They could have capitulated and fled to Europe and become our new mafia instead and then sit and watch when Russia expanded westward.
We should give them everything they point at until they win.
23:22 – Johan No.1
UA never gives up
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1677749875922944006?s=46&t=4ng6Iuyo6Ll-lXIZVXpoCw
23:51 – MatsExtrude
It almost should have been a pollen warning on that one, but it was good!
12:50 – Johan No.1
In the great praise of Ukraine’s runaway capability and the mocking of the Russians’ plummeting one, we must not forget their platform for a real-time picture of the battlefield – Delta.
Now Matsextrude was quick as a rattlesnake yesterday but I’m starting to get used to coming last in everything, a bit like in my life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_(situational_awareness_system)
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1678758652667400192?s=46&t=L89zGwqw3MllvohGh6Zv4g
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1678753038666694657?s=46&t=L89zGwqw3MllvohGh6Zv4g
If I may guess, the input is automated but on some level one must manually weigh the information and if it is reasonable it is allowed through?
The Russian side doesn’t even come close to this, when UA attacked on the southern front they apparently managed to hide their advance and surprise the trench-Russians.
Then we have Ukraine’s “Uber for artillery” where everything is automated. Totally crazy – units for indirect fire mark themselves as “available” on the platform and what type of indirect fire they can provide.
https://www.newamerica.org/future-frontlines/blogs/how-ukraines-uber-for-artillery-is-leading-the-software-war-against-russia/
Customers enter what they want to take out – “kill a couple of trench-Russians for me at these coordinates please” and then the system selects the nearest available fire unit that offers this type of death and they get the booking – somewhat more violent than taxi-Uber and automated.
These two systems combined are a significant force multiplier.
And on the Russian side, no one answers the field phone on the other end when you want suppressive fire on previously registered coordinates (targets) and when finally someone answers it is already too late.
Or the time between calling in the target coordinates until fire on the target is so long that Ukraine has moved past.
I remember during conscription that it started being talked about that they had a monitor with own and enemy vehicles to look at and that it would change the battlefield but that the Russians would jam it 100% and then you were stuck. The other was that the Russians would mark their vehicles as Swedish to confuse us and then kill us. Every time we would get beaten because they were technologically superior and very cunning so best to trust the field soldier and what you see in the sight.
Jamming our vehicles’ radio systems seemed easy because it happened in every other exercise. Then the range was poor and not infrequently you stood talking to yourself until some orderly showed up with a day-old obsolete order because he hadn’t found us as we acted tactically.
It feels like Ukraine has shaved off a lot of what made fighting ineffective – time to fire on target, knowing where the enemy is and their numbers, and keeping track of own surrounding units.
And obviously not easy to jam both communication and satellite so you don’t go out of the system’s range and sleep through the rest of the offensive because you didn’t get an order.
The other thing we know they do is have a drone that coordinates retaking of fortification systems which is a nightmare (at least I thought so in the military). They provide real-time intelligence but my god how difficult it must be – right, left and straight ahead for the drone operator is not the same as for the soldier in the fortification system and this feels like something you practice to become skilled at.
We have seen videos of when the Russians tried and it just becomes chaos – a bit like when you yourself at first commanded “driver left” intending to take the road to the left a bit ahead and the driver pulled hard on the left control stick and you drove into whatever was in the way.
After a while it became – “where the road splits 100m ahead take the road to the left” or similar.
But my god to have to do that in combat when you also don’t have the same view.
I guess the drone operator must first be clear about which soldier he is communicating with, however they do that, and then he can only speak in terms of the soldier’s straight ahead, right and left and then “clock 2”, “clock 9” etc.
East, west, north and south work terribly when you have taken a few turns in a trench.
Then we are totally locked into thinking guided ammunition is best but Archer can fire 6 shells simultaneously within a 2m diameter circle (or similar…) with “dumb” ammunition.
You actually don’t need guided ammunition if you have Archer but autonomous seeking ammunition or drones is probably not bad, STRIX was the new black when I did conscription.
If you called in a salvo with STRIX you got 100% knocked out by the exercise leader.
Something ancient that has proven to work well is probably still mines and mine clearing should probably be further developed.
I think Barracuda camouflage is sensationally good and then all anti-drone weapons AND drones that are immune to anti-drone weapons – everything seems Ukraine deploy or find countermeasures to faster than the Russians.
Something I take with me for the defense of Sweden is that if you give every amphibious platoon a coastal missile, the Russian invasion force probably won’t get very far?
Then Magnus usually writes about coastal missile batteries on trucks. I’m a bit fond of the fragmentation-protected dumper trucks and would like to see those but instead of investing in surface ships or aircraft FOR THAT CAPABILITY – put the money into cheap weapon carriers but very many and missiles with 250-300km range. That is more than enough and with constant movement they will never be able to be knocked out.
The same for the air defense capability but there we probably have Patriot now maybe.
Large platforms like aircraft and ships are also big targets and if a ship is knocked out you have lost a lot of capacity.
A bit off topic, back to the Ukraine war.
Yesterday we wrote that there would be screaming bayonet counterattacks at Bakhmut to try to break the encirclement and yesterday they came against Berkhivka.
https://twitter.com/FriaUkraina/status/1678882475097858049?t=2ChnTBLdKqphwub6IJdgaQ&s=19
There was none of that as usual except Russian losses they can’t afford. The question is how long they will keep doing this, they will probably try to retake Klischiivka as well?
A recurring theme since May 4 is that the Russian counterattacks fail completely so UA has clearly learned to go into a sufficiently good defense very quickly when they have captured an area.
According to rumor, Gerasimov fired the commander of the 58 CAA because he wanted to rotate his units and he was “sent to the front”.
The sensational thing there is actually that 58 CAA is so thin that they cannot rotate units and that the leadership solved the whole problem by firing the person who pointed out the problem.
So it’s starting to run out of reserves for the Russians behind the southern front…
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1678761664488042496?s=46&t=fWEPN2jPepd8jGjg_Upslg
This video came up yesterday and it is the 37th Marine brigade that apparently conquers a trench system?
The first thing you see is that the defenders have a salvo of Grad rockets to call in and then it’s over.
Then they drive on each side parallel to the trench system and pour in death, they do not unload any infantry that rolls up the trench system.
I haven’t quite managed to process this yet, it definitely worked and maybe the goal was the trench systems further along the direction of advance and they fired suppressive fire to get there?
Or were the trenches shallow enough that it was possible to knock out the defense this way?
Anyway, the entire battle group (1 tank platoon and 2 M113 platoons?) did very well and achieved the combat objectives so they must have acted correctly?