Blyatskrieg

[TopBadger]

Well yeah, hence my poorly posed post intending to ask "has it been verified" other than just being a Russian claim... because it's a claim I'm highly skeptical of.

[EACLucifer]

Well yeah, hence my poorly posed post intending to ask "has it been verified" other than just being a Russian claim... because it's a claim I'm highly skeptical of.

Yeah. There's no reason to assume that SDBs can't be shot down, but there's also no confirmation they are in service yet, either.

The Russians recently put out a video that purported to show Ukrainians threatening a family for speaking Russian at a vehicle stop, the problems being that a) it was meant to be dashcam footage, and dashcams have been banned in Ukraine since the full scale invasion for security reasons, so they'd be hassled over that and probably fined instead, and b) it was geolocated deep within occupied territory east of Donetsk.

Speaking of GL-SDBs and other long range munitions, something was hitting Melitopol airport, where the Russians have a base, pretty heavily last night, but it's just about in M30/M31 GMLRS range and definitely in Vilkha-M range, so no reason to presume GL-SDBs in use.

[EACLucifer]

Explosions reported in Hvardiis'ke, occupied Crimea. Airfield there, also almost 200km from Ukrainian positions, so no obvious candidates other than long range loitering munitions.

[bjn]

Or possibly sabotage.

[EACLucifer]

Or possibly sabotage.

Or even possibly something between the two - short range loitering munitions used by SOF/partisans, as we saw with the attack on the A-50 in Belarus.

[EACLucifer]

Having talked about the Russians culminating in Bakhmut if they didn't throw in reserves, they've done just that, per various reports. They are still advancing, but at a rate measured in metres per day. The main issue at this point is attrition, more than territory.

[Woodchopper]

The ammunition that has pounded parts of Ukraine daily for more than a year has become a precious resource in the artillery war with Russia — and which side conserves shells and rearms faster could turn the tide on the battlefield.

[…]

Even amid a shortage, Ukraine is firing some 7,700 shells per day, or roughly one every six seconds, according to a Ukrainian military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Russia, which may also be running low, is firing more — by some estimates triple that amount.

[…]

To keep up with their adversary and still conserve ammunition, the Ukrainian military is now pickier in selecting targets, often prioritizing equipment over small groups of infantry. Precision is key because misses mean wasted shells. And in underground workshops across eastern Ukraine, soldiers are using 3D printers and recycling unexploded ordinances to create alternative munitions.

Artillery rounds for Ukraine’s Soviet-era guns, which make up the majority of their arsenal, have long been in short supply. That has forced a reliance on the artillery provided by Kyiv’s Western allies because they use 155mm caliber shells, which Ukraine has more of for now but for far fewer guns.
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At the pace Ukraine is firing, those stocks could soon run out, too, as Western countries struggle to ramp up production. In February, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that the “current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production.”

[…]

Occasionally, a third country friendly to Ukraine will purchase the ammunition — sometimes through a broker — and then supply it to Ukraine in secret to avoid any political fallout for the seller. Often, the result is that one artillery piece on the battlefield may have shells produced in several countries, which soldiers say may not fire the same, affecting accuracy.
“The main issue of concern is sustainability,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “Former Warsaw Pact countries, they dismantled their production lines of Soviet-caliber ammunition since they became members of NATO. Now, we badly need this Soviet-caliber ammunition, so the question is how to restore production lines.”

Bulgaria has already agreed, as has Poland and Slovakia, according to Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Yuriy Sak. But it’s unclear how long it will take for the needed shells to be produced and reach the battlefield.

[…]

In the meantime, the hunt for shells is occasionally perilous. In areas where Russian forces retreated, soldiers wade through mined fields and forest to look for abandoned ammunition. One such group, which was ferrying any shells to the 59th brigade, recently hit unexploded ordnance.

[…]

The United States has searched worldwide to round up stockpiles of Soviet artillery rounds, but deliveries can take months. On Tuesday, as part of a larger security assistance package, the Pentagon said it would provide an unspecified number of artillery shells, including 122mm caliber rounds it does not produce itself. A workhorse Ukrainian artillery piece, the D-30, uses such rounds.

“We’re incredibly transparent with the Ukrainians, so they have a really good understanding of what ammunition we are planning to provide, when we are planning to provide it,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. “So that enables them to be able to plan their operations and understand where they need to flow equipment.”

The Ukrainians could be holding back some ammunition for a planned spring counteroffensive. Soldiers in the field said what they have now is just enough to repel daily assaults but not to counterattack.

Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that he suspects the United States and other Western backers have increased ammunition deliveries ahead of the spring offensive, but shipments could slow in fall and winter.

That raises the stakes for Ukraine to retake a lot of territory soon because a long war would likely favor Russia. U.S. officials have said that China is considering sending Russia 122mm and 152mm shells. Lee said that if that did happen, it “could significantly change the course of the war.”

[…]

Russia is still firing more than Ukraine every day, but Ukrainian officials said they have noticed their enemy become increasingly conservative, a sign they may also be facing a shortage. In social media posts, Russian military bloggers and soldiers have complained about a lack of ammunition.

[…]

Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s ground forces commander, said that Russian forces continue to fire heavily at priority locations on the front, but “where they are not attacking, they have restrictions on the use of artillery.”
“Due to this, they use tank fire from closed positions,” Syrsky said in February. “Tanks are actually used as substitutes for artillery systems.”

[…]

The Ukrainians have also explored creative conservation tactics. In some cases, crews bring unexploded ordinances originally fired by the Russians to secret labs in eastern Ukraine, and the elements are carefully stripped away to create a new munition.

Volunteers and soldiers work with 3D printers to fashion small, relatively inexpensive munitions that can be dropped from drones. Bullets are deconstructed. The ball bearings from a Claymore mine are removed and then used in a different anti-personnel or antitank mine. At one of these sites, there are shrapnel holes in the ceiling — the result of an explosion that occurred during the refashioning process. Two people died.

[…]

“Where infantry can work without artillery, only infantry works,” said an artillery chief in the room, whose call sign is Shaman. “If there is a small group of the enemy, it all depends on how small it is. If there are two-three people, we don’t fire on them, but if there are 10-15, we work. If they move to our positions, it will be an assault action. So then we also have to work — like now, for example.”

[…]

“At the beginning of the war, we were working to contain the enemy,” Shaman said. “Those were the toughest months, we were stopping them and our Soviet cannons wouldn’t shut up. We exhausted everything we had, but we stopped the enemy. Now, to go on the offensive, contain the enemy … we need more ammunition.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... ls-ration/

[Woodchopper]

Russian technicians, who were present at the Slovak air base in Sliač until last year, may have deliberately damaged Slovak MiG-29 jet fighters that Bratislava recently supplied to Ukraine.

“They were able to fly, but that doesn’t mean they were also capable of combat,” Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said after opposition leader Robert Fico criticized the transfer of the jets.

"The defects appeared only in those parts accessed by Russians,” Nad said.

https://kyivindependent.com/slovak-defe ... ound-migs/

More at the link

[Woodchopper]

Alexander Khodakovsky -commander of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion- hints towards a total shortage/absence of ammunition. The Russian command stopped issueing new ammunition to area's where no hostilities occur to save it for the upcoming Ukrainian offensive.

https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/ ... 1zY-PW4R9w

[EACLucifer]

Large explosions reported near the port at occupied Feodosia, in south east Crimea, more than 200km from the frontlines. Fragments of a missile were reported by the Russians, but appear to be from an S-300 - ie their own air defences.

[Woodchopper]

Updated estimate of Russian tanks in storage: https://twitter.com/rebel44cz/status/16 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

Of course we don’t know their condition.

[Woodchopper]

Updated estimate of Russian tanks in storage: https://twitter.com/rebel44cz/status/16 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

Of course we don’t know their condition.

IMO, the likely explanation why Russia has been pulling T-55/62s from storage while still having T-72/80s is likely a mix of wanting to upgrade as many T-72/80s as possible before sending them into combat and many remaining ones being in a worse state - requiring a lot more work.

https://twitter.com/rebel44cz/status/16 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

[Woodchopper]

Russian fortifications https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/164 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

[dyqik]

Russian fortifications https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/164 ... 1zY-PW4R9w

There's been a lot of effort put into building fortifications on Russia's original border with Ukraine in the north.

[Woodchopper]

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi of Egypt, one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East and a major recipient of U.S. aid, recently ordered subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets to be covertly shipped to Russia, according to a leaked U.S. intelligence document.

A portion of a top secret document, dated Feb. 17, summarizes purported conversations between Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials and also references plans to supply Russia with artillery rounds and gunpowder. In the document, Sisi instructs the officials to keep the production and shipment of the rockets secret “to avoid problems with the West.”

The Washington Post obtained the document from a trove of images of classified files posted in February and March on Discord, a chat app popular with gamers. The document has not been previously reported.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... ns-russia/

Given the billions of military aid Egypt gets from the US, this does appear to be epic levels of ingratitude.

Also highlights the extent to which countries don’t want Russia to lose.

Though one issue with the source is that we don’t know the reliability of the information.

[Woodchopper]

US had a ‘bleak’ assessment of Ukrainian prospects for an offensive: https://twitter.com/adegrandpre/status/ ... 1zY-PW4R9w

[EACLucifer]

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi of Egypt, one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East and a major recipient of U.S. aid, recently ordered subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets to be covertly shipped to Russia, according to a leaked U.S. intelligence document.

A portion of a top secret document, dated Feb. 17, summarizes purported conversations between Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials and also references plans to supply Russia with artillery rounds and gunpowder. In the document, Sisi instructs the officials to keep the production and shipment of the rockets secret “to avoid problems with the West.”

The Washington Post obtained the document from a trove of images of classified files posted in February and March on Discord, a chat app popular with gamers. The document has not been previously reported.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... ns-russia/

Given the billions of military aid Egypt gets from the US, this does appear to be epic levels of ingratitude.

Also highlights the extent to which countries don’t want Russia to lose.

Though one issue with the source is that we don’t know the reliability of the information.

It's ingratitude, for sure, but there's more to it than that. The biggest threat to the Arab nations at the moment is Iran, who have imperialistic ambitions, a well developed nuclear program and a willingness to use proxies to achieve their ends. The USA has done a spectacularly bad job of containing Iran's ambitions, and seems unwilling to even particularly try. Obama more or less gave up on any attempts to oppose Iranian involvement in Syria or the appalling human rights abuses of the Iranian-backed Syrian regime as a sweetener for a largely worthless nuclear deal. Trump then pulled out of that deal unilaterally, which further worsened the situation as sanctions needed broad support to be effective - instead we had EU countries working out how best to help Iran to bypass them. Biden has shown no desire to fix the situation either.

So while I can understand not wanting to ally with nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the USA shouldn't be shocked that countries don't act like allies when they do not treat them like allies and utterly disregard strategic threats to them. Instead of a broad coalition against the Russia/Iran axis, we've got nations trying to get out of their sights by making concessions. It's a massive strategic failure and it might be too late at this point to fix it, though there was probably still an opportunity for something last year.

[dyqik]

US had a ‘bleak’ assessment of Ukrainian prospects for an offensive: https://twitter.com/adegrandpre/status/ ... 1zY-PW4R9w

The US (and others) defense department has been issuing bleak assessments of Ukrainian prospects since the invasion.

[EACLucifer]

US had a ‘bleak’ assessment of Ukrainian prospects for an offensive: https://twitter.com/adegrandpre/status/ ... 1zY-PW4R9w

The US (and others) defense department has been issuing bleak assessments of Ukrainian prospects since the invasion.

Bleak assessments for retaking land, especially by speed and manoeuvre, were pretty common around the start of the Ukrainian Kherson offensive. Quite a lot of people were taken by surprise by the Kharkiv offensive, which is particularly notable as the earlier, smaller Kharkiv offensive by the Kraken group used similar techniques.

Ukraine doesn't have the kind of overmatch we saw with things like Operation Storm. They aren't going to take back all the territory in one go, but they might well liberate quite a lot, and change the strategic shape on the ground. Remember, the Russians have been bleeding themselves white over the winter while Ukraine's been holding forces back. The Russians collapsed in Kharkiv oblast because they couldn't bring to bear troops that were able to stand and fight fast enough to keep up with the Ukrainians, that could quite happen again if the attack is targetted correctly.

One of the less discussed areas of military aid are the vehicles required to breach obstacles fast - mine plows, armoured bridgelayers to cross smaller rivers and anti-tank ditches - both have been provided - and also those that provide strategic mobility for tanks. The new Ukrainian brigades might not have a lot of tanks, but they have good tanks - including Leopards and Challengers which were designed to achieve a qualitative overmatch to allow them to fight outnumbered. If the Ukrainians find a weak spot, those heavy trucks that can pull tank trailers will allow the tanks to be moved anywhere along the frontline in a day or two. I'd be surprised if we saw the main attack first, instead we'll likely get probing of the line and misdirection, as we saw with Kherson prior to the Kharkiv offensive.

The other thing that would help, of course, is long range strikes against Russian logistics to weaken them prior to an offensive, but the US appears to be utterly set against providing Ukraine with the weapons they need, either because the USA, with eleven aircraft carriers and the most advanced fighters and bombers in service in the world, is scared of Russia, or because those in charge of making the decisions had previously concluded Ukraine would fail, and aren't willing to admit that they were wrong.

[dyqik]

The other thing that would help, of course, is long range strikes against Russian logistics to weaken them prior to an offensive, but the US appears to be utterly set against providing Ukraine with the weapons they need, either because the USA, with eleven aircraft carriers and the most advanced fighters and bombers in service in the world, is scared of Russia, or because those in charge of making the decisions had previously concluded Ukraine would fail, and aren't willing to admit that they were wrong.

Of course, if the Ukrainians succeed with their resources from an invaded country in prosecuting an offensive land war with Russia, the US defense budget is going to look significantly oversized...

[Woodchopper]

The other thing that would help, of course, is long range strikes against Russian logistics to weaken them prior to an offensive, but the US appears to be utterly set against providing Ukraine with the weapons they need, either because the USA, with eleven aircraft carriers and the most advanced fighters and bombers in service in the world, is scared of Russia, or because those in charge of making the decisions had previously concluded Ukraine would fail, and aren't willing to admit that they were wrong.

The unprecedented quantity of US military aid would seem to rule out the latter explanation. The dollar value of US aid in 2022 was circa $US 67 billion. That's far higher than what was supplied to Afghanistan in a single year (in February 2022 dollars Afghanistan got a total of $US 79.7 billion over all of 20 years). I just looked up the numbers for South Vietnam during the Cold War, the highest yearly transfer of military aid was $US 3.3494 billion in 1973, adjusted for inflation that is 22.8 billion in 2022 dollars. The flows of military aid to Ukraine in 2022 were significantly higher than anything I can think of since the Second World War. Delighted if you can provide a counter example.

The US government appears to be concerned with:

- Escalation by Russia - especially use of nuclear weapons, but also unconventional attacks.
- Intervention by China - including supplying ammunition and arms to Russia. This is probably the most difficult balance.
- Needing the weapons elsewhere - especially preparing for a war involving China.
- Domestic opposition - from Republicans, mainly worrying about costs.

[EACLucifer]

The other thing that would help, of course, is long range strikes against Russian logistics to weaken them prior to an offensive, but the US appears to be utterly set against providing Ukraine with the weapons they need, either because the USA, with eleven aircraft carriers and the most advanced fighters and bombers in service in the world, is scared of Russia, or because those in charge of making the decisions had previously concluded Ukraine would fail, and aren't willing to admit that they were wrong.

The unprecedented quantity of US military aid would seem to rule out the latter explanation. The dollar value of US aid in 2022 was circa $US 67 billion. That's far higher than what was supplied to Afghanistan in a single year (in February 2022 dollars Afghanistan got a total of $US 79.7 billion over all of 20 years). I just looked up the numbers for South Vietnam during the Cold War, the highest yearly transfer of military aid was $US 3.3494 billion in 1973, adjusted for inflation that is 22.8 billion in 2022 dollars. The flows of military aid to Ukraine in 2022 were significantly higher than anything I can think of since the Second World War. Delighted if you can provide a counter example.

The US government appears to be concerned with:

- Escalation by Russia - especially use of nuclear weapons, but also unconventional attacks.
- Intervention by China - including supplying ammunition and arms to Russia. This is probably the most difficult balance.
- Needing the weapons elsewhere - especially preparing for a war involving China.
- Domestic opposition - from Republicans, mainly worrying about costs.

Try comparing it to a) the resources committed to repel the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and b) the costs that would be incurred as a consequence of a Russian victory.

[EACLucifer]

I'd also add something regarding saving munitions for later.

If Russia is defeated, a far smaller stock of munitions is required in case Russia tries anything.

If Russia is defeated, it may deter China, though Xi Xinping's recent comments are very concerning.

If an invasion of Taiwan is assessed to be imminent, then there is no point maintaining weapons in US arsenals - one of the first things that China will seek to do is to cut off resupply to Taiwan.

If an invasion of Taiwan is not assessed to be imminent, then munitions can be sent to Ukraine and backfilled from the mobilisation of industry that is beginning to occur.

And many of the systems Ukraine is asking for are irrelevant to Taiwan. Taiwan does not use the Abrams, is upgrading their existing tanks instead of seeking the Abrams, and would be a poor environment for a heavy tank like the Abrams. Abrams that aren't in US active service but are in storage are achieving nothing. If not sent to Ukraine, they will not help Taiwan.

The debate has been artificially restricted to only a few systems. If the USA is concerned about ATACMS stocks for Taiwan, then send JASSM, which is far more available and more effective anyway.

The bl..dy and ongoing debacle in Syria shows their are costs to inaction. The growing power of Iran shows their are costs to inaction. The cost of not sending what Ukraine needs will be far greater than the costs of sending what they need. The USA committed enormous resources to retake Kuwait, including their own troops, which they did because the impact of the Iraqi invasion on their access to oil would be more disruptive to American interests than the costs of intervention. How do they think it will go if one of the world's most important food exporters is taken over by fascists that are/are aligned with their strategic adversaries? Do they think the Russia/Iran axis will stop, or will they be emboldened in Syria and the Gulf, as well as Central Asia and Central/Eastern Europe? How do they think their economy will cope if Iran subverts or invades more major oil producers?

Aiding Ukraine - properly aiding Ukraine - is morally the right thing to do. It is also cheaper than not doing so.

[EACLucifer]

Russian milblogger talking about running out of infantry - "No longer "good infantry", but simply infantry in general"

[EACLucifer]

There's a lot of footage popping up right now of large Ukrainian forces working with significant heavy equipment, including western military aid. It's very likely this is training to integrate the different elements of the new formations that have been training on their specialities in Ukraine, the UK, Germany etc and getting them working well together before they are deployed.