Blyatskrieg

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by TopBadger » Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:57 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:42 pm

M30A1/M30A2 rockets would be good too. Though they don't have any greater range than the M31s already in use, they do have a very effective warhead. They are, essentially, a re-introduction of shrapnel to frontline service after about eighty years of blast-frag and cluster munitions dominating. As the rocket comes in at several times the speed of sound, an explosive bursts it open to release more than a hundred and eighty thousand tungsten pellets, which gain their effectiveness from the carrier rocket's velocity. These allow it to cover a wide area without the UXO concerns of cluster warheads. Once Ukraine has run out of ammo depots to destroy, a few pods of M30A1 would make it very difficult for Russian troops to concentrate for the attack.
So they're essentially a massive supersonic air delivered claymore mine... scary sh.t. How big an area to they usually cover?
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by jimbob » Tue Jul 12, 2022 4:10 pm

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/euro ... =operanews

Nice article on Russia's options and the potential impact on the military in Russia.
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jul 13, 2022 12:54 am


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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by jimbob » Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:32 am

Nice that Russian channels are reporting these. I'm not sure if I was a conscript* that I'd relish the opportunity to work in a munitions dump.


*I guess that if Russia declares Donetsk part of Russia, the conscripts could be sent there with no paperwork hurdles.
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:23 am

jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:32 am
Nice that Russian channels are reporting these. I'm not sure if I was a conscript* that I'd relish the opportunity to work in a munitions dump.


*I guess that if Russia declares Donetsk part of Russia, the conscripts could be sent there with no paperwork hurdles.
Occupation spokesman complained about them hitting an air defence unit, so could well be SAMs cooking off rather than MLRS. Potentially opens up options for deeper strikes with Tochka's or improvised Tu-143 based cruise missiles.

It's been pointed out that the American manual on asymmetric warfare calls Russian ammunition depots one of the most dangerous places to be in warfare, as they have minimal, if any, safety precautions. Western ones would probably be smaller and less centralised, but would also used things like Hesco barriers to divide the ammunition up, and minimise the risk of runaway explosions. Many western forces, including Britain, also insist on insensitive munitions, that at worst burn but don't explode unless deliberately detonated.
TopBadger wrote:
Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:57 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:42 pm

M30A1/M30A2 rockets would be good too. Though they don't have any greater range than the M31s already in use, they do have a very effective warhead. They are, essentially, a re-introduction of shrapnel to frontline service after about eighty years of blast-frag and cluster munitions dominating. As the rocket comes in at several times the speed of sound, an explosive bursts it open to release more than a hundred and eighty thousand tungsten pellets, which gain their effectiveness from the carrier rocket's velocity. These allow it to cover a wide area without the UXO concerns of cluster warheads. Once Ukraine has run out of ammo depots to destroy, a few pods of M30A1 would make it very difficult for Russian troops to concentrate for the attack.
So they're essentially a massive supersonic air delivered claymore mine... scary sh.t. How big an area to they usually cover?
I don't know, I'm afraid. Stats on effectiveness of GMLRS are actually quite hard to come by. For example US sources talked about 70km range and British ones 80km, but some of the strikes we've seen which were almost certainly HIMARs were more like 85km, and some analysts think 90+ could be the case.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Gfamily » Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:44 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:23 am
jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:32 am
So they're essentially a massive supersonic air delivered claymore mine... scary sh.t. How big an area to they usually cover?
I don't know, I'm afraid. Stats on effectiveness of GMLRS are actually quite hard to come by. For example US sources talked about 70km range and British ones 80km, but some of the strikes we've seen which were almost certainly HIMARs were more like 85km, and some analysts think 90+ could be the case.
I'm not sure, but I think Jimbob was asking what area on the ground would be lethal to exposed people.
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:52 am

Gfamily wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:44 am
EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:23 am
jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:32 am
So they're essentially a massive supersonic air delivered claymore mine... scary sh.t. How big an area to they usually cover?
I don't know, I'm afraid. Stats on effectiveness of GMLRS are actually quite hard to come by. For example US sources talked about 70km range and British ones 80km, but some of the strikes we've seen which were almost certainly HIMARs were more like 85km, and some analysts think 90+ could be the case.
I'm not sure, but I think Jimbob was asking what area on the ground would be lethal to exposed people.
It was TopBadger asking that, and I know what he was asking, I was just giving an example of the specs of these being unclear. I did some looking and I couldn't find much detail on the effective area of the M30 rocket's alternative warhead, other than it was designed to have a larger area of effect than the M31's unitary warhead, which is approx 90kg total, of which a bit less than a third is PBX bursting charge and the rest is preformed fragments.

To give a very rough idea, though, we can compare it to Shrapnel shells used historically. A minute's fire from four French Model 1897s would cover about 100x400m, using about seventeen thousand shrapnel bullets to ensure coverage. The M30 rocket's alternative warhead carries a hundred and eighty two thousand sub-projectiles, which are, in effect, shrapnel bullets.

So I don't know the precise effective area, but it is going to be pretty large. In addition, this warhead was designed to replace a dual purpose cluster warhead, so it is likely to have been designed to damage lightly armoured and soft-skin vehicles as well as injure personnel.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Grumble » Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:00 am

Ninjaed
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:12 am

As a general observation, just look how effective HIMARS has been.

Now consider what would have happened if HIMARS had been available to knock out the Russian ammunition depot and supply system before they used massed artillery to crush their way through Severodonetsk and Lysychans'k.

HIMARS isn't a silver bullet, it is one system that needs to work with others. To attack, Ukraine needs to neutralise Russia's artillery advantage, but they still need the other capabilities too.

So send the tanks. Send the IFVs. Send the jets. The longer this war goes on, the more people suffer, both in Ukraine, and across the world as hunger hits. Get it done sooner rather than later, and the suffering is less.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by jimbob » Wed Jul 13, 2022 11:25 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 10:12 am
As a general observation, just look how effective HIMARS has been.

Now consider what would have happened if HIMARS had been available to knock out the Russian ammunition depot and supply system before they used massed artillery to crush their way through Severodonetsk and Lysychans'k.

HIMARS isn't a silver bullet, it is one system that needs to work with others. To attack, Ukraine needs to neutralise Russia's artillery advantage, but they still need the other capabilities too.

So send the tanks. Send the IFVs. Send the jets. The longer this war goes on, the more people suffer, both in Ukraine, and across the world as hunger hits. Get it done sooner rather than later, and the suffering is less.
Exactly, and the main risk of escalation is from encouraging Putin
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:07 pm


Ukrainian commanders are cock-a-hoop. They say himars is tilting the war back in their favour after the recent loss of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, cities in Luhansk. A colonel in charge of its deployment says that the weapon is proving effective against a range of targets, from command posts to barracks, while remaining almost immune from return fire thanks to its ability to “shoot and scoot” quickly. Ukraine appears to be using Soviet-era rockets to confuse and overwhelm Russian air-defence systems, before launching the new gps-guided rounds.

The colonel says that dozens more launchers would be needed to enable a serious counter-offensive. He also acknowledges that himars may grow less effective as Russia adapts, for instance by disguising key targets. But the fact that Russia’s army did not take such precautions despite weeks of notice that himars was coming points to a structural problem.

America’s army tends to disperse and conceal its ammunition dumps across a number of smaller sites. Russia’s army, which relies heavily on trains to move munitions and human muscle to load them onto trucks, has instead created big depots close to railheads—often by taking over civilian industrial distribution centres. That was fine until himars turned up. Dispersing those depots would require a huge amount of new equipment or manpower. Moving them farther away from the front lines would also strain the army’s limited fleet of trucks: doubling the distance more than doubles the number of trucks required, or more than halves throughput.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/0 ... ssias-army

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:01 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:07 pm

Ukrainian commanders are cock-a-hoop. They say himars is tilting the war back in their favour after the recent loss of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, cities in Luhansk. A colonel in charge of its deployment says that the weapon is proving effective against a range of targets, from command posts to barracks, while remaining almost immune from return fire thanks to its ability to “shoot and scoot” quickly. Ukraine appears to be using Soviet-era rockets to confuse and overwhelm Russian air-defence systems, before launching the new gps-guided rounds.

The colonel says that dozens more launchers would be needed to enable a serious counter-offensive. He also acknowledges that himars may grow less effective as Russia adapts, for instance by disguising key targets. But the fact that Russia’s army did not take such precautions despite weeks of notice that himars was coming points to a structural problem.

America’s army tends to disperse and conceal its ammunition dumps across a number of smaller sites. Russia’s army, which relies heavily on trains to move munitions and human muscle to load them onto trucks, has instead created big depots close to railheads—often by taking over civilian industrial distribution centres. That was fine until himars turned up. Dispersing those depots would require a huge amount of new equipment or manpower. Moving them farther away from the front lines would also strain the army’s limited fleet of trucks: doubling the distance more than doubles the number of trucks required, or more than halves throughput.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/0 ... ssias-army
The obvious thing to note is this; Russia knew HIMARS was coming, as it was widely publicised. They didn't move their depots. They watched their first depots go up in colossal explosions. They did not move their remaining depots.

Moving their depots, or breaking them up into smaller ones, would require a significant logistics effort to achieve. Having them moved or broken up and distributed would increase the strain on Russia's very limited truck transport capability.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by TopBadger » Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:12 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:01 am

The obvious thing to note is this; Russia knew HIMARS was coming, as it was widely publicised. They didn't move their depots. They watched their first depots go up in colossal explosions. They did not move their remaining depots.

Moving their depots, or breaking them up into smaller ones, would require a significant logistics effort to achieve. Having them moved or broken up and distributed would increase the strain on Russia's very limited truck transport capability.
Quite.

Saw some piece yesterday (can't find the link) where apparently a Russian Anchor / TV person said that if Ukraine were supplied with 300km missiles then that would force Russia to invade Poland...

Obvious nonsense - invading Poland and triggering a full NATO response is the last thing Russia can handle. But it shows that they're nervous of the continual supply of better weapons to Ukraine and actively trying to discourage this with more sabre rattling.
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by Martin Y » Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:36 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:07 pm
... Ukraine appears to be using Soviet-era rockets to confuse and overwhelm Russian air-defence systems, before launching the new gps-guided rounds.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/0 ... ssias-army
Now that's clever. I wonder if the Russians anticipated being able to intercept HIMARS and didn't consider they'd have to play guessing games about which ones were decoys.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:07 pm

The Russians hit a concert hall in Vinnytsya, a city nowhere near the front line, killing a number of civilians, including a mother pushing a pram with a child in it, who was also killed. There's comments on Russian social media praising the attack. This is their response to accurate attacks on unquestionable military depots they placed on the soil of a country they invaded.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:13 pm

TopBadger wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:12 am
EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:01 am

The obvious thing to note is this; Russia knew HIMARS was coming, as it was widely publicised. They didn't move their depots. They watched their first depots go up in colossal explosions. They did not move their remaining depots.

Moving their depots, or breaking them up into smaller ones, would require a significant logistics effort to achieve. Having them moved or broken up and distributed would increase the strain on Russia's very limited truck transport capability.
Quite.

Saw some piece yesterday (can't find the link) where apparently a Russian Anchor / TV person said that if Ukraine were supplied with 300km missiles then that would force Russia to invade Poland...

Obvious nonsense - invading Poland and triggering a full NATO response is the last thing Russia can handle. But it shows that they're nervous of the continual supply of better weapons to Ukraine and actively trying to discourage this with more sabre rattling.
They said the same thing about sending HIMARS in the first place. Then, once it was sent, suddenly it was no more significant than backfilling losses in Smerch and Uragan systems*. They are like a dog that stands at the gate and barks at passers by, yet cringes away when the gate is opened.

They bluster and threaten, but they know they couldn't take on NATO. If they have this much trouble with the deep strike capabilities of a single figure number of HIMARS, how would they cope with the deep strike capabilities of NATO's air forces and cruise missiles?

But their impotent sabre-rattling does serve one function - it tells us what they fear. They have every reason to fear ATACMS, not least, as their bases in occupied Crimea, both naval and aviation, would suddenly become very dangerous places to be. I hope America realises this and sends ATACMS, but I hope the first we hear of it is exploding ships in Sevastopol, exploding planes and helicopters across Crimea, or the Kerch Straits Bridge tumbling into the Kerch Straits.


*This, of course, isn't true. Smerch and Uragan feature similar calibre rockets and long range, but they aren't remotely accurate.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by TopBadger » Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:51 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:13 pm
I hope the first we hear of it is exploding ships in Sevastopol, exploding planes and helicopters across Crimea, or the Kerch Straits Bridge tumbling into the Kerch Straits.
Agreed... then for the lolz it would be fun if the US denied sending them...
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by jimbob » Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:01 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:36 am
Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 9:07 pm
... Ukraine appears to be using Soviet-era rockets to confuse and overwhelm Russian air-defence systems, before launching the new gps-guided rounds.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/0 ... ssias-army
Now that's clever. I wonder if the Russians anticipated being able to intercept HIMARS and didn't consider they'd have to play guessing games about which ones were decoys.
Not decoys, exactly, but far less capable
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by TopBadger » Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:02 pm

TopBadger wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:51 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:13 pm
I hope the first we hear of it is exploding ships in Sevastopol, exploding planes and helicopters across Crimea, or the Kerch Straits Bridge tumbling into the Kerch Straits.
Agreed... then for the lolz it would be fun if the US denied sending them...
Followed by "Well, as they've used them pretty well and they've already blown your sh.t up - so we may as well send them a few more now"
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:46 am

While HIMARS strikes on ammo depots create the most spectacular footage, Ukraine's been using their M142s against command posts as well. They reported taking out most of the 106th VDV Airborne Divisions deputy commanders in one such strike, and it appears they bagged at least three colonels. I guess ultramasculine kitch recruitment ads really aren't an effective counter to two hundred pound blast-frag warheads.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Fri Jul 15, 2022 10:53 am

Have a listen to this.

Every little crackle in that fire is at least one Russian shell going up. The rockets spiralling out of the inferno are MLRS rockets, the cloud of brilliant white lights a thermite cluster warhead. None of this ammunition will be used now, not against Ukrainian civilians and cities, nor against Ukraine's defenders.

That's why it mattered so much to send GMLRS. That's why it was so awful to hold it back. That's why it's so important to send the longer range stuff, so no Russian depot is safe.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by shpalman » Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:40 am

having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sat Jul 16, 2022 3:11 pm

Reportedly Russia now trying to cut out depots entirely and take stuff straight to frontline units from the railheads.

There's a reason armies generally don't do this. It requires extraordinary levels of organisation, and tracking of cargoes. Russia is not set up to do this, and still generally loads and unloads cargoes manually, meaning automatic tracking of what's going where is difficult. Unless done perfectly, units will run low on shells. In addition, artillery doesn't just need to be concentrated in space to work well, it needs to be concentrated in time. A system of moving shells straight from the railheads to the batteries is unlikely to meet the requirements of a battery firing rapidly, which means they will either suffer substantial losses in effectiveness, or they will need to pre-stage ammunition with the batteries. That recreates the problems with the depots, and while more smaller depots means each hit consumes a smaller proportion of the overall ammunition, most Russian artillery is shorter ranged than the artillery Ukraine has received from the west. Avoiding the loss of big depots to HIMARS by moving the ammunition into the range of gun artillery is not the cleverest idea.

The problem Russia faces is that any effective way to supply their batteries with enormous amounts of shells is either very vulnerable to HIMARS and M270, or requires vastly better logistics organisation and truck capacity than they have.

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Re: Blyatskrieg

Post by EACLucifer » Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:10 pm

DefMon3 produced a map showing just how far the Russian military will have to move their depots to get out of range of the M31A1 guided rockets fired from M142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS. Note that I think he's used 70km for the range, but one observed shot against a target in Melitopol was 82km, and some estimates place range at 90km or even more, though it will depend on conditions.

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