The War in the Ukraine

I was listening yesterday to what Shilao (he called in for the Tuesday podcast, he's still not back in the office) and Xi Yazhou thought of the situation in Ukraine, their points are:

Shilao:

• the fighting around Soledar and Bakhmut are small scale and do not have great influence on the outcome of the war
• western countries are/will be relucent to send their current in service MBT to Ukraine, because on the Ukraine battlefield the way they will be used, to spearhead attacks will leave plenty destroyed by artillery/ATGM/etc, which will come as a great blow in morale for NATO and the myth around the invincibility of their tanks
• the most likely MBT to end up in Ukraine is actually Challenger 2. UK is looking to upgrade some of them to Challenger 3 but there will be about 100 that is not required, and Challenger 2 isn't exactly looking for future export

Xi Yazhou:

• Russian attacks around Soledar and Bakhmut has had the effect of stopping all Ukrainian offensive operation at decent scale for the past 2 month or so as it sucks in all available Ukranian troops
• Ukraine is actually near the limit of what can be mobilised, further large mobilisation may not be possible
• Xi Yazhou seems to think Russians has regained the initiative and might be looking at more success later on in the year

I think the "Russians have regained the initiative" and stopping Ukranian offensive operation by their own offense is on point. I don't think we have a good feel of exact scale of the fighting around Soledar and Bakhmut but to be able to fix so much attention in such a small area says to me the amount of man and material involved from both side are non-trivial, to the point that I think you could make a pretty good argument that these attritional warfare around these two towns IS the winter offensive. Even those armchair generals on credibledefense are now saying Ukraine needs to make good use of those new IFVs to renew an offensive and make it count by regaining the initiative or it's looking pretty bad for Ukraine.

A T-72B1 was spotted in UVZ among the many T-90M being assembled, this one having the ERA in the turret cheeks being upgraded to K-5 or possibly the ERA used by the B3M(which seems to be the case given it also sports the large ERA plates on the side but it also has an extra MG.

Bow guns making a come back?

sheogorath said:

A T-72B1 was spotted in UVZ among the many T-90M being assembled, this one having the ERA in the turret cheeks being upgraded to K-5 or possibly the ERA used by the B3M(which seems to be the case given it also sports the large ERA plates on the side but it also has an extra MG.

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The beefed up armor on the turret is a fine addition. But the other changes seem like a bad idea to me. Kontakt-1 ERA on the gun is a crap idea. They should just add a turret mantlet like on the T-90M. The machine gun co-axial to the tank hull is also pointless. They tried that in WW2, lots of tanks in the early war had them, but all of them were removed near the end of the war. There is just no use case for it.

They must have found a use case if they are bringing it back. Most likely to hit enemy soldiers up front without having to disengage the turret from whatever target is focusing on just to fire the coaxial.

sheogorath said:

A T-72B1 was spotted in UVZ among the many T-90M being assembled, this one having the ERA in the turret cheeks being upgraded to K-5 or possibly the ERA used by the B3M(which seems to be the case given it also sports the large ERA plates on the side but it also has an extra MG.

Bow guns making a come back?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1612843268215013377

View attachment 104777

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The driver would control that gun ??? That's kinda weird,maybe they got many sighting of enemy troops crossing roads in front of the tank in urban warfare ??? It's a grenade launcher ?

Interview with Anatoly Karlin:

Interesting
So bow machine guns are back huh

Yesterday, before Wagner's victory, CNN published an interview with a Ukrainian soldier in Soledar.

Situation in the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar is "critical," soldier tells CNN

A Ukrainian soldier fighting in the eastern town of Soledar told CNN that the situation is “critical” and the death toll is now so high that “no one counts the dead”.

The soldier is from the 46th air mobile brigade, which is leading Ukraine’s fight to hold onto Soledar in the face of a massive assault from Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries.

“The situation is critical. Difficult. We are holding on to the last,” said the soldier said.

He described a dynamic battlefield where buildings change hands daily and units can’t keep track of the escalating death toll. “No one will tell you how many dead and wounded there are. Because no one knows for sure. Not a single person,” he said. “Not at the headquarters. Not anywhere. Positions are being taken and re-taken constantly. What was our house today, becomes Wagner's the next day.”

“In Soledar, no one counts the dead,” he added.

The soldier said it was unclear as of Tuesday night how much of the town was held by the Russians: “No one can definitely say who moved where and who holds what, because no one knows for sure. There is a huge grey area in the city that everyone claims to control, [but] it’s just any empty hype.”

The Ukrainians have lost many troops in Soledar but the ranks are being replenished as the fight for the mining town continues, he said: “The personnel of our units have been renewed by almost half, more or less. We do not even have time to memorize each other’s call signs [when new personnel arrive].”

The soldier said that he believed Ukraine’s military leaders would eventually abandon the fight for Soledar and questioned why they hadn’t done this yet. “Everyone understands that the city will be abandoned. Everyone understands this,” he said. “I just want to understand what the point [in fighting house to house] is. Why die, if we are going to leave it anyway today or tomorrow?”

The 46th air mobile brigade said on its Telegram channel on Tuesday that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult, but manageable."

In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the soldiers of the brigade “for their bravery and steadfastness in defending Soledar.”

kokole said:

No one will tell you how many dead and wounded there are. Because no one knows for sure. Not a single person,” he said. “Not at the headquarters. Not anywhere.

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And i love seeing people in twitterland or elsewhere arguing who have bigger loss when the soldier in the field itself dont know.

Zichan said:

According to M. Koffman, Russia’s greatest problem at the moment is supplying its army with sufficient artillery munitions, after it spent extravagant amounts during the summer offensive in Luhansk.

At the same time, even a country like the US is finding it difficult to produce much more than 15,000 155mm shells per month.

In WW1 Germany and Austria produced 680 million artillery shells between 1914-1918. The Allies produced even more.

How come modern economies, despite being an order of magnitude larger, struggle to produce but a small fraction of those numbers?

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The calibre different.

By number they produced lot, but the overal mass of those wasn't near like today.

Example, a small 60 mm calibre round weight 6kg finished, the 155mm 40+ kg.

MEans it require diferent size of machine, slower handling and so on.
The size of the power hammers example drastically different.

And of course the raw material heavier than the finished round.