13:09
A huge milestone was when we went from RU artillery superiority “30:1” to parity and where UA has the advantage in counter-battery fire. Parity is only maintained because RU supplies large amounts of artillery to balance what is knocked out every day.
Statistics don’t lie and if you look at calibers in destroyed equipment it is very telling what has happened, the same as with all the T54-55s that have now been deployed.
https://twitter.com/herrdr8/status/1707873115366105426?s=46&t=8Ovkjl-W_OUeooTDiGYDsQ
This is downright embarrassing, artillery from 1940 now at the front and destroyed. Same with the tanks, if they only had Uragan they would have fought with only Uragan.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1706977509793779979?s=46&t=AvFfCTwPPZs09ozwdAhPng
It is enough to look at the Kupiansk sprint, the Kharkiv offensive (which I completely missed) and Kherson to understand that when it finally breaks at the southern front it will go fast – you don’t really need to speculate wildly about it, the reasonable assumption is that this is how it will play out.
The situation is very bad for RU at the southern front, they have now almost used up the offensive reserve and UA is advancing and RU artillery at the southern front is heavily decimated. Right now they are solving it with FAB500 after all helicopters were knocked out but UA is naturally looking for countermeasures.
UA on the other hand has not consumed anywhere near its offensive reserve either at Robotyne, Staromaiorske, or Bakhmut, and they are not the least bit weak up in northern Luhansk as the media stubbornly claims they are.
In fact, Ukraine is very strong around Staromaiorske, Bakhmut, and Kreminna and not weak at any other point.
The signs are endlessly many that this is going terribly for Putin, that the country without a navy could break a Russian naval blockade and that the country almost without an air force can deny the Russians air superiority in Ukraine are two.
DavidD (who has very high status as he has a wall map and moves units on it) reasons about RU losses in the war according to the information that came out and concludes that his own figures on RU total number of soldiers in the war are not unreasonable – I agree.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1704456269451452743?s=46&t=0t96bzNBrI7VR_82bcLl-g
I personally think pieces start to fall into place if you take these losses and then David D’s compilation of the total and that there were what, 420,000 left in UA in the army?
https://youtu.be/M3YUKthQ1h8?si=b92FeotaP3UcLUpN
Apparently there are 52,000 at the Bakhmut front. The number of brigades suggests enormously more than that, should reasonably mean decimated units or they only mean around Bakhmut itself?
https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1703326738200064484?s=46&t=faFbUwqoYia6oxlK3KF37A
Consider here that the Russian police needed 400,000 police officers to be able to control the four new provinces – they announced that themselves.
I don’t remember the total numbers but we know that in the Belgorod raids or Prigozhin’s coup there was no border defense by the FSB or anything else, not Rosgvardia either.
FSB should be about 100,000 and Rosgvardia 300,000 (on paper?) – David D has assumed that a large part of these are in Ukraine.
Somewhat simplified, RU has dedicated 1.7 million men to this war and losses are now up to around 900,000.
If you subtract LPR, DPR, and all internal units you end up with a figure for the army that is not unreasonable.
The interesting thing about this exercise is to show that RU indeed has taken astronomical losses, which is also supported by the documents for the deceased that have been issued (was it?) but also the manpower they have dedicated to the war.
If you add those who fled mobilization and compare it with the total manpower pool you understand why they raised the age to be considered if you have the right background to 70 years.
A Russian 70-year-old is probably like a Swedish 90-year-old in palliative care so certainly some measure of desperation can be sensed behind that decision.
The Russian psyops try to downplay this but I think the numbers match quite well.
Then there is another angle on this that we haven’t discussed for a while – the lack of key personnel which means that the capability of remaining units apart from the endangered offensive reserve is terrible.
For example – if you lose 35 artillery pieces per day you have lost 35 gun crews that also need to be replaced.
It takes a man to fire a couple of shots and regroup, not just fire but also movement. It is reasonable to assume that movement has been negatively affected and that it contributes to the extreme losses.
UA can quickly locate the platforms and knock them out.
To fight effectively with a battalion you need a battalion commander, company commanders, platoon leaders, squad leaders, drivers, gunners, and riflemen.
You can probably get a mobilized Russian to lie in a hole and shoot in the direction of Ukraine but to fight effectively in platoon, company, or battalion requires a skill that Russian units do not have today.
But Ukraine does and they are getting better at it, outclassing.
ISW shares the same opinion as the thread that slowness from the West caused Ukraine to miss the low point in September 2022. Now Ukraine has not missed this low point at all but they could have accomplished infinitely more if the West had gone all-in with Western weapons instead of “the bare minimum”.
https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1707425115632263408?s=46&t=RoOCh-Gx7TmK6qlAnRsQLQ
13:05
Do you remember the discussion about when “the offensive had not started” during May, June, and also during July, probably because it was not yet the “major offensive” and the undersigned asked every few weeks what the definition of the major offensive was – was it Western tanks in combat, was it some specific type of attack, and so on.
As is well known (to me), the major offensive started on May 4th because then the intensity was high enough, +/- a week. The question was asked and the date was decided in a cloud of whisky after Defmon wrote something about Indians – completely unscientific thus.
I was also of the opinion that since this is the real world, front commanders down to brigade commanders had a window to relate to rather than a fixed date – there is quite a lot that needs to be put in order. Different fronts then followed the major campaign plan and started in sequence.
First Bakhmut and then at the southern front + Dnipro and beyond, the spring offensive has not progressed today but those of you who have studied the text know what comes next.
As soon as we saw how they fought in Bakhmut, the thread proclaimed as an organism “number game,” I think it was MickeU who rhetorically asked if this was how the entire offensive would play out.
In the broader discussion (media, debaters, etc.) there was probably a rare few who thought the offensive had started and then a united group of analysts and Western media who claimed that the “major offensive” had not started.
Then that discussion died out on its own when there never was a major offensive according to the criteria set by the side claiming the offensive had never started as a requirement to declare the offensive started.
I believe the entire playing field today agrees that UA is conducting “major offensive” operations even though they are not division attacks through minefields according to NATO doctrine.
Western debaters even managed to sound disappointed during the summer that UA had formally had to go out many times and affirm that the offensive is ongoing – the war is not lost because division attacks across the fields did not occur.
There is some risk here that UA has been influenced by this lament and disappointment from the West and demanded too much from its soldiers to be able to show success – we will probably find out when history is written. Undeniably, it went very badly when they tried to fight according to NATO doctrine the first week at the southern front.
Those of us reading the thread understood immediately in May that it was a “number game” (or war of attrition might be a better word) and that it was a very cunning and brilliant plan.
Fortifications are only a threat if they are manned, a hole without a Russian in it is just a hole.
We have also previously discussed that when RU is thrown out, UA must have a large number of brigades left to defend its enormous land border – going to zero and managing to throw out RU would be a Pyrrhic victory with risk of future loss.
At Bakhmut and the southern front, RU’s last offensive reserve is now being ground down to zero, which I guessed was +50,000 at the start of the spring offensive (there is quite a bit of calculation behind that number if you remember the discussions between the turn of the year – May).
How many remain today is highly unclear but one can guess very few because these RU counterattacks all summer have cost incredibly much and now all reconnaissance, VDV, naval infantry, and Spetsnaz are in the trenches trying to fend off Ukrainian mechanized attacks.
What remains beyond this last endangered offensive reserve are mobilized soldiers with various levels of training since autumn 2022 in some cases, northern Luhansk, so they are probably like a Swedish conscript unit at final exercise at best. In quite a few cases, they have received terrible training over ten months according to their own statements, which is somewhat of a national record in incompetence.
Against them is the world’s best infantry who have reached legendary level in clearing fortification systems, which at least I thought was the hardest possible during conscription, and who have modified NATO doctrine to work in today’s dynamic 3D combat environment.
We joked earlier about UA’s ability for 3D warfare where all capabilities are used effectively and I think they continue to do so but RU has also adopted mine weapons, drone weapons, electronic warfare, FAB500 and so on.
Right now, and it is not good for blood pressure, RU air force can drop FAB500 quite unhindered over UA advances at the southern front – where the hell are F16, Gripen or more Air Force?
FAB500 can be dropped at a distance and I guess that might be outside the range of small handheld MANPADS and to get at them you need long-range Air Force or specialized aircraft?
If you remember the 20-30 attack helicopters they brought forward at the start of the offensive at the southern front, they went to zero over a few weeks partly with MANPADS but also knocked out at bases – very neat.
I guess the specialized aircraft do not operate so close to the front and drop FAB500 at greater distances – situation adapted.
Budanov has said it himself – they are best knocked out at the bases. Guess why they want Taurus and ATACMS and why the West obstructs like a sulky teenager is still completely incomprehensible.
At some point during the spring we learned that RU had 300-400 specialized aircraft at airbases in Russia near the northern border. Now UA has made some spectacular drone attacks that probably knocked out about thirty but a cloud of ATACMS or other missiles could have decimated them very hard.
Not to mention the 12 military bases with vehicles in long rows just on the Russian side of the border – built for a tungsten rain…