13:39 – Johan No.1
This IS a strange position the Biden administration has taken in this war because –
-they are aggressive towards China.
-they actively support I..el.
-Libya was erased from the map for trying to sell oil as they wanted.
-two towers gave war in Iraq, Afghanistan.
-ISIS thanks the USA for all the equipment they received at the start of that war.
It is not American to be this passive as they have been now, when it really mattered.
Because all the wars above were of less geopolitical significance than this war.
14:24 – MatsExtrude
Thanks! 👍
The howitzers you mention and link to are 2S1 Gvozdika, they use the 122 mm caliber. This aligns with what I posted earlier with a link to a tweet showing that the Russians are losing fewer and fewer 155mm and more and more 122mm.
I see it as a clear sign that things are going downhill when they have to switch to weaker ammunition with shorter range. Possibly North Korea can supply 155mm, but it is not certain that the switch to 122mm is due to ammunition shortage; it could be units and perhaps mainly barrels that are running out.
We will see if it is possible to neutralize Russia, the whole world would benefit from that, but the first step will probably be to ensure they are forced to leave Ukraine. Unfortunately, I fear it will end with “business as usual,” but I hope I am wrong.
14:30 – MatsExtrude
Could it be so bad that they don’t gain any major economic or political advantages by helping Ukraine to win?
Admittedly, most Americans support aid, but I guess Israel has significantly stronger “representation” in the USA than Ukraine.
Ukraine is also not a major player when it comes to oil and gas; the USA itself has plenty of grain, so there is nothing the USA is directly dependent on.
14:33 – MatsExtrude
Could it be so bad that they don’t gain any major economic or political advantages by helping Ukraine to win?
Admittedly, most Americans support aid, but I guess Is*ael has significantly stronger “representation” in the USA than Ukraine.
Ukraine is also not a major player when it comes to oil and gas; the USA itself has plenty of grain, so there is nothing the USA is directly dependent on.
09:12 – Johan No.1
Then a low point should coincide with the end of an offensive and then X months later they have replenished.
We have previously seen changed operational patterns for tanks and greater interest in recovering stationary tanks that remain.
Instead of sending the tank company first, they have 3-4 tanks supporting the mechanized infantry company.
Most recently, we saw another changed pattern – no armored infantry vehicles at all and several attacks only with tanks and mounted infantry.
And then we have seen them replenish with T62, T55, T54-55, so older tanks.
And then we have seen older unmodified tanks, i.e., not from the larger modification program of T62 that we know of.
11:49 – Johan No.1
Midsummer became special not only because Dengamle blew me off about being unblocked by Budanov on Whatsapp 😐 but there were also many new faces in the thread and lots of new commentators since then. After my infamous troll-hunting evening I have a new strategy to not embarrass myself in the thread which has worked for a few days now, quite satisfied with it. I really enjoy reading when someone writes their thoughts and we have been sitting for 2.5 years wildly guessing so nothing can be more wrong than that. The heart of the thread is there and the more who write the more fun it becomes.
The ongoing discussion about the poorly trained and shot-shy Ukrainian soldiers versus Ukraine having the world’s best infantry as someone in the thread, who is always completely right, usually writes
Let us present the daring coffee break in the middle of the firefight and how it sizzles at the edge of the trench. Yes, it was probably a bit of a show but he is definitely not shot-shy and also quite satisfied with the film, and having survived.
Over the years we have posted countless videos of similar completely stress-free soldiers in combat so nothing new. I remember a soldier in a fortification whom a BTR-80 fired all its ammunition at and he was busy with a bit of everything like making coffee and weapon maintenance.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kvmduabyfv26
Brigades, companies, platoons, and squads have a completely different perspective than we do. Sometimes we think it seems easy to throw out the Russians there, attack there, etc. but the perspective at ground level is completely different and above all very frightening.
Imagine seeing comrades every week having legs blown off, stomachs ripped open, eyes shot out, stepping on mines, private parts blown off and blood everywhere.
And at the same time having an absolute contempt for falling as in the film above.
Then you have an advance, a fortification, a firing range, your battle buddy, rest, food, rain, and the risk of being shot – you solve the task in front of you without the bird’s-eye view.
Already at the beginning of the war we saw a difference – the Russians emptied their weapons in the direction of Ukraine and Ukrainian soldiers stood in the most impossible positions but it was hits on target that mattered. A decisive difference that makes a Ukrainian soldier enormously more effective than his Russian counterpart in terms of lethality.
Over time this capability gap has widened, Russian soldiers are getting worse and UA better.
And it is hits on target that count in the end, the silver medal is awarded posthumously.
You surely remember the videos where a UA soldier took out 11 advancing Russians in a two-minute sequence or the trench god who gave an adrenaline rush just by watching.
And this is the baseline for the army brigades.
Then dishonest debaters try to make big things out of anecdotes in the Home Guard.
You do know that the Home Guard’s (territorial) brigades have their own SOF and reconnaissance units?
And are partly mechanized today.
This war is not won by the USA, EU, Western arms deliveries or us at Cornucopia (even though one might think so). It is won by the Ukrainian shooters in the fortifications who do the heavy lifting every day risking their lives. Without that shooting, the war would already have been lost.
On the subject of artillery running out – yes it is, because now they have filmed trains with the very oldest tracked howitzers, the bottom of the tracked howitzer stockpile has been reached.
https://x.com/secretsqrl123/status/1804925329372287310?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
It seems that another strategic reserve has arrived at the northern front, 69th MRD which is newly formed around a previous brigade. Strength unknown so rang the bell a bit early.
At the northern front it is Armageddon right now and UA is dropping JDAMS at the southern front – USA and France have delivered JDAMS and the French send 50 newly produced each month. Considering UA target selection, that is 50 high-value targets per month going up in smoke.
JDAM at the southern front.
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1804586478691037194?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Staff for an MRD was destroyed at the northern front.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1804759277430534295?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
If it is true that RU gathered 100,000 at the northern front it must have been an absolute bloodbath up there. We know that Ukraine unleashed everything they had, own and Western weapons, overnight.
They knocked out columns during the advance, bases, billets, ammunition depots, fuel depots, staging areas and many other targets.
Short-range ATACMS were probably used in this mix due to the US’s geographical limitations
Storm Shadow was also used.
Then Neptun, Toshka U, own long-range weapons, drones and glide bombs of various kinds delivered, I forgot the name of the smaller one which is supposed to be very good.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1804564558356312157?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
The Russians had not protected themselves at all in their belief that Putin’s deal with the West still applied so Ukraine had probably logged stationary targets and entered them into an Excel sheet for destruction one can guess and when permission was given they started working through the list as fast as they could?
And the pre-attack continues uninterrupted – targets are knocked out every day.
A large number of brigades have also been lost in combat through the invasion over the northern front.
At Vuhledar the half-life was about a week or two and now RU has conducted a first larger rotation but I think it is the second round they have rotated and by Russian standards units are in appalling condition when they are rotated out.
Losses were 1:8 in favor of UA according to Zelensky.
Unfortunately, the US’s extended 100km radius has been chosen so that the Russian airfields lie just outside it, I am getting tired of the Biden administration because Russian FAB bombs are weapons of mass destruction and they are allowed to continue by Biden’s administration. Otherwise, they would have drawn the line just north of the airfields, right, and then Ukraine in one big hit with ATACMS could probably have eliminated the FAB bomb droppers in one blow. But it shall not go that well for Ukraine.
(free fantasies? no, that’s exactly what happened with the airbases in occupied areas when long-range ATACMS arrived).
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kvmdnjvo3s23
At the southern front it is one reinforced bunker at a time that goes down from all the JDAMS dropped and according to earlier reports Ukraine has complete drone superiority down there with own EW and then own drones capable of operating.
This does enormous damage to the Russians –
-up at the northern front they were largely unprotected and easy targets.
-at the southern front they have dug in but bunker busters trump reinforced fortifications and the trench Russians are buried alive – when it is UA JDAMS it is an excellent weapon 👍
What do we take away from the war –
Indirect fire accounted for +70% of UA losses and snipers 12% or thereabouts. If you can increase accuracy with indirect fire it is thus a winner also in the next war presumably.
FAB and JDAMS have proven to be a terrible weapon delivered by air – difficult to do anything about without own air force and if I understand correctly – the bombs are difficult to shoot down?
Strategic bombing has proven even harder to take out with its missiles, which in this war have targeted civilian targets but can also target military ones; however, the missiles can be taken out as much as the air defense excels at it.
But the right type of missiles can take out air defense, so it’s a lively whack-a-mole game.
Short reaction time from detection to effect on the target is a very important capability. Surveillance over the entire area 24/7 – important and requires enormous amounts of drones.
Huge stockpiles of missiles in all their forms and JDAMs launched from ground or air should thus be something future wars will learn from. This is not new, of course, Tomahawks and the Gulf War, but I think that type of weapon has proven to work well.
Then surveillance both conventional, satellite, and drone.
Good hit pattern is probably next; with Archer, it was possible to get a good hit pattern with dumb ammunition, everyone will have that in the next war.
Cluster munitions too, the West should also have thermobaric weapons, but we probably won’t get that far.
Weapons not jammed by EW and an expanded EW, but the problem with those stations is that they become easy targets.
And not least the drones that buzz into small horizontal openings – there will be attempts to make these FPV drones autonomous.
And then come the anti-drone drones keeping pace.
I was completely laughed at in the thread when I wrote that drones would start dropping 155mm shells, but now we have them.
The tank has a future as a 4km sniper and will be equipped with enormous amounts of close protection.
Movement and camouflage are everything – thus a high level of training and motivation. Artillery, airbases, staffs, infantry, and mechanized units must all constantly regroup and never stay in the same place too long. We thought correctly during the Cold War. After having the firing position revealed, one must retreat and then, when the indirect fire is over, immediately return to the firing position.
The fortifications one builds must reasonably reflect this. In the military service, there was probably an alternative firing position Xm to the right or left, but now one must take into account that it is a FAB bomb up to 3 tons hitting you in the head, so the distances need to increase because the radius of effect is larger.
Movement and camouflage are then the future, and both require a high level of training and motivation, so no Russian or Chinese soldiers will be able to excel in this.
The mines have worked, but I’m quite sure that mine clearance will reach new heights, presenting mine detection in 2024
https://x.com/euromaidanpress/status/1803925892722233630?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Of course, there will come dirt-cheap drones that either drop grenades or dive-bomb individual mines and are as cheap as the mines, and with the right quantity, one can clear an entire minefield.
It’s moving through minefields that is dangerous, so taking clearance above ground is a natural next step, it seems. A small thermite grenade maybe or white phosphorus?
Yesterday it was lively in Dagestan, possibly ISIS terrorists, we will see if it picks up.
Before that, there were explosions in Kaliningrad and before that, a fire at one of Belarus’s two refineries. I see this as an escalation and it is sabotage on site reasonably. It doesn’t have to be Ukraine but could be local talents.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kuunrajy3d22
I have long awaited the Russian liberation fronts to get going seriously. We know they carry out sabotage because the rail network is under constant pressure with burning switches and derailed trains.
And during the winter, they participated in the “turn off the lights” operation.
But popular uprisings have completely failed to materialize except for the 2-3 we have seen, and I wonder what is holding back the obvious candidates.
An ISIS attack on Christians is perhaps not an obvious popular revolution to wildly extrapolate yet.
For Ukraine, it is the highest priority to get Russia to turn inward, and they are in contact with all Russian “liberation fronts,” but in 2.5 years they have not gotten them going.
The West must not judge, and I hope the West does not dangle EU membership with lots of yellow cards in front of Budanov.
I think it is important to understand that our willingness to help in the West always affects third parties. The UN has collapsed, we know that, and looking at the members of the Human Rights Council and other bodies, they are states where citizens are just a notch above slavery.
Most recently, Afghanistan demanded a women-free conference on some issue, and the UN agreed.
https://x.com/imtiazmadmood/status/1804842500009435548?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
When I worked in Angola, I saw how Swedish aid went straight into the pockets of the elite, countless examples, but how the aid workers were fanatically convinced they were doing good. Then they also got a decent life out of it with many exciting (close) relationships and a bit of an upper-class life where they hung out at good restaurants and clubs. We who worked didn’t have time for that because we worked, ate dinner, and slept.
Iran is such a good example that one doesn’t understand how it can’t be intervened in, the image when our government stands with a scarf wrapped around the head while the women live as below. This story is directly frightening to read, it makes you feel bad.
https://x.com/imtiazmadmood/status/1801359970765623675?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And then it is a bit extra hard to explain that the chief mullahs’ own daughters run around in the West in clothes that would get them arrested in Iran, the hypocrisy is absolutely total – no one lives as they preach.
We give these countries legitimacy, and then they continue.
Russia has been there too – in the drawing rooms while waging the Chechen war, the Georgia war, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Syria, and Ukraine since 2014.
It took them completely throwing away the script for the West to start making demands.
The West welcomed Putin while he planned the West’s fall, and we have financed his military rebuilding. Leaders in the West let themselves be corrupted/duped/did not understand better beyond all reason, and we shut down our electricity production and made ourselves dependent on Russian gas.
It is really only France that has run its own race here – “we manufacture our own weapons with our own parts and we only run nuclear power.”
Germany completely lost its way in everything – shut down electricity production, dependent on Russian gas, a downsized defense force, and constant meetings with Putin. At the start of the war, they fooled Zelensky that there would be no war and then wanted him to give up land for peace in our time.
I sat and looked at who sits in various UN bodies, and it is largely from developing countries. Where I have worked in developing countries, corruption is part of the system. Over time, I have learned to recognize when you accidentally step into the corrupt circle of the client and when it is time to back off because there will be great aversion if you destroy someone’s side business. However, we as the consultant under contract must keep ourselves clean, or we won’t last long.
-Russia and China have bribed their way to loyalty from all these organizations, and BRIICS is a collection of rogue states.
-Russia and China’s multipolar world is just a world where the strong can jump on the weak.
-Russia’s “fear” of NATO is a bit like a gang in a suburb getting a local police station – everyone likes it except the gang that can’t commit crimes.
-It is ABSOLUTELY time to encase Russia behind a magic line of NATO.
-And it is absolutely time to speak plainly in the EU when it comes to Slovakia and Hungary, which are blocking everything.
But do you remember what the EU did? They tried to force Poland to take in migrants, and today we know from a few years back that it was active Russian attempts at destabilization and that Poland held the border – the EU was actually doing Putin’s bidding there even though the purpose may have been different.
It is still my guess that China will stay out, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some rules for them to start following and above all, bring manufacturing back to the EU, robotize, and expand electricity production. Putting all production in China was a bad idea.
And take hold of Africa – don’t let China and Russia recolonize the continent even though all the decolonization movements are completely silent.
Everything has its time, and right now it is the Ukraine war, but the West has a unique ability to drop the ball as soon as it is no longer urgent. If we do that with Russia, another country will face the same war within 10 years.
Our magic line should run from northern Finland to eastern Ukraine, and the rest of the EU should have financing so the countries in the buffer zone don’t have to over-arm themselves.
Then we have our intervention brigades that train annually on site.
Then the plan was for Georgia to approach the EU as well, but now it seems to be hanging in the balance if you believe PerraG55’s descriptions from the area – unfortunate.
Then the West has probably tried to bring Kazakhstan under our umbrella, but China is likely very active there.
After that, Russia can only start a war against China if they want to become an empire again.
We are quite close to reaching the point where the Russia problem can be permanently solved, provided the West does not open up again, which is likely.
We have already reached the point where the EU will not become a future war zone, and that is a big deal for us actually, but it probably doesn’t make Asia, South America, MENA, and Africa much happier.