The War in the Ukraine

Botnet said:

I've seen 40+ RuAF vehicles destroyed in that area over the past few weeks. That was a couple days ago.

The goals of Russia in these attacks is to secure Vuhledar. The reasons are threefold:

• Push Ukraine back so their supply routes are no longer in Ukrainian artillery firing range
• Secure a railway for better logistics
• Gain a good position to defend against an Ukrainian offensive as Vuhledar is on the high ground while their previous positions were on the low ground

The problem is, the terrain is open and flat like Kherson, making advances costly. To make matters worse, the Ukrainians have mined much of the fields, restricting the Russians to the main roads. Their columns are therefore easy targets for artillery fire, and the poor reverse speed on the Russian tanks do them no favors. The Russians are unable to conduct counterbattery missions, and their air force is essentially nonexistent, allowing the Ukrainian artillery to rain down accurate fire. With the addition of additional Ukrainian reinforcements, taking Vuhledar will prove to be a daunting task that I'm not sure they'll be able to achieve.

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shaolinlao said:

The whole world is heating up this year. Here in Ontario it's so warm the Ottawa Rideau Canal never opened for skating. That never happened since 1970 when it started.

Personally, I think muddy ground is advantage for Russians. Most of self propelled arti and light tanks the West sent to Ukraine, such as HIMARS, Archer, Caesar, AMX-10 RC are wheel based which are not suitable for muddy ground.

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The winter in North America so far this year is unusually mild... This happens every once in a while...

HighGround said:

Looking at Vuhledar, it really does make me question whether Russian forces can plan and execute even a basic operation. At the minimum, an entire company of vehicles has been lost. I've read the assessment of that disaster on both Rybar, Grey Zone, and Ukrainian sources (Such as

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and various Telegram sources), and none of them give a complete picture. One thing that's obvious however, is that there are more losses than just the unlucky 155th Naval Infantry Brigade.

Of course, the radio silence from Western and Ukrainian sources on the topic of every other major front is not lost on me. I'm well aware that Russian efforts in Bakhmut, Liman, Marianka, and else where are bearing fruit. Albeit limited fruit. However, again, these assaults look like localized offensives and opportune attacks by local commanders. These are not combined arms assaults and certainly do not demonstrate Russia's capability for operational planning, if there is any. A successful Vuhledar offensive could've been a first demonstration of decent op planning, but we've all seen the catastrophic results.

It seems to me, that Russia has learned very little, or the wrong lessons from this war.

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Why would you look at a single battlefield clash with losses of a dozen vehicles as indicative of the whole army's fighting strength when even by your own admission there are other fronts?

Seems like an assessment more founded on hope rather than facts.

There have been many incidents of vast losses in single clashes for Ukraine, yet it would be stupid to declare that just because battles where casualties in the thousands were taken, the fighting power and ability to execute plans were broken for Ukraine.

Are losses in Vuhledar so great that Russia must redeploy troops to keep the line intact? Doesn't seem that way.

Russian commanders are proven theory slackers until one puts a fire under their ass to do something. They're like the Turkish commanders in Syria. Turkey have executed many offensives that let do the loss of dozens of vehicles, which is bad in terms of morale, but they're still hanging on to the operational areas and making advances.

Tam said:

Right now every military should be freaking out from China to the US, because our classic doctrines and tactics are no longer valid in this age of drone assisted warfare.


Unrelated, just saving on posts.

Lancet from the Kaskad battalion. The map in the initial part of the video looks to me towards Kupyansk, and so it looks like this drone trooper battalion has been relocated there.

Thermobaric being "TOS" at Ukrainian positions in Ugledar. Russian Plan B for the town seems to be to level it to the ground.

Russian drone finds Ukrainian pickup and company hiding in the forests, and calls for artillery strike.

Russian marines clearing forest lines at the outskirts of Ugledar.

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Going to correct that. Kaskad battalion is now at Ugledar, so the Lancet strike is at that area. This battalion is known for it's drone use and artillery.

In a previous post long ago, someone asked where the Chechen Akhmat brigade is, and a recent video shows them in some forest, which I believe at the north of Bakhmut and between Seversk. That puts their position near some Wagner.

I mean, its pretty well known that once the defender has had time to dig in and place a complete line of defences, it is extremely difficult for the attacker to displace it unless they bring a x times multiple troops + equipment + firepower than what the defenders have

Thats why I don't pay that much attention to news about these smallish localised offensives by Russia. They might capture a settlement here and there, but if they don't have really powerful and numerous back-up forces to exploit these openings the moment they happen, they are useless.

Russians capture a settlement, Ukrainian defenders retreat. Because Russia doesn't have a lot of rear forces to quickly move in, Ukraine has the time to build another defensive line and reinforce it while Russia is still trying to marshal some troops.

I will personally wait for the much-hyped big offensive coming up to see if Russia is really serious about this. Not an idiotic offensive across the whole front, bur gathering forces to a couple of directions so that they could quickly exploit Ukraine's gaps in defences and capture large swathes of land before Ukraine has time to respond

Biscuits said:

Why would you look at a single battlefield clash with losses of a dozen vehicles as indicative of the whole army's fighting strength when even by your own admission there are other fronts?

Seems like an assessment more founded on hope rather than facts.

There have been many incidents of vast losses in single clashes for Ukraine, yet it would be stupid to declare that just because battles where casualties in the thousands were taken, the fighting power and ability to execute plans were broken for Ukraine.

Are losses in Vuhledar so great that Russia must redeploy troops to keep the line intact? Doesn't seem that way.

Russian commanders are proven theory slackers until one puts a fire under their ass to do something. They're like the Turkish commanders in Syria. Turkey have executed many offensives that let do the loss of dozens of vehicles, which is bad in terms of morale, but they're still hanging on to the operational areas and making advances.

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There are longer versions of the footage of the failed attack, especially the aftermath, where many of the Russian armour previously labelled as destroyed have simply drove away themselves.

Seems like when it became clear that the column was trapped in a mine field with enemy artillery zeroing in, most of the crews simply bailed on foot rather than continue trying to drive around in an antitank mine field, which was pretty sensible.

It also looks like the Ukrainians didn’t saturate the area with artillery for whatever reason (lack of tubes/rounds in range; worried about Russian counter battery; wanting to try to capture/salvage the abandoned Russian armour themselves etc), so the actual amount of armour lost wasn’t as massive as initially portrayed, and the Russians were able to recover most of the abandoned stuff later. Based on the fact that the Russians managed to pull their trapped armour back out, I am leaning on it being more likely the Ukrainian artillery hitting that column got suppressed/destroyed by Russian aviation and/or artillery, which then allowed the Russians to clear a path through the minefield and recover all the salvageable armour.

This would be a good case study on why it’s important to take even photos and videos with a grain of salt, as you might only be seeing a very selective part of the whole picture.

Der Spiegel claims that Ukranian soldiers have begun training in Leopard 2 tanks and should be back in Ukraine by the end of March. This would put the training time between 6 to 8 weeks which seems short considering how different they are to soviet tanks


Kadyrov comments Kharkiv and Odessa should be annexed as well

sheogorath said:

Der Spiegel claims that Ukranian soldiers have begun training in Leopard 2 tanks and should be back in Ukraine by the end of March. This would put the training time between 6 to 8 weeks which seems short considering how different they are to soviet tanks

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Kadyrov comments Kharkiv and Odessa should be annexed as well

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1625069859901001728

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Are they really that different to operate though?

One would guess that the difference between a modernized soviet tank and old T55 is bigger than between a modernized soviet tank and a modernized German tank.

Leopard 2 should be more ergonomic and easy to use than a T55, if Ukrainian tankers can use the latter they can use the former.

Biscuits said:

Are they really that different to operate though?

One would guess that the difference between a modernized soviet tank and old T55 is bigger than between a modernized soviet tank and a modernized German tank.

Leopard 2 should be more ergonomic and easy to use than a T55, if Ukrainian tankers can use the latter they can use the former.

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There are probably nuances with handling and maintenance You won't be getting in 8 weeks of training. If anything, it could cause the crew to bail if they can't properly troubleshoot an otherwise simple issue while under fire. Then we don't know if the people being sent are tankers in the first place.


Stoltenberg says the current rate of ammo expenditure in Ukraine is higher than what NATO can produce.

Ukraine's Kremennaya offensive has failed, and now subject to a large counter attack. Ukraine sent a number of it's elite brigades and Kremennaya is trapped in a salient, with large forests around the salient. The Ukrainians are known to do forest warfare well. Forests should have hide the attacking forces, making it difficult for air strikes and artillery, neutralizing the Russian advantage. It should have been a piece of cake.

Drone assisted warfare made the forests look like there were no forests at all, turning the assault into a turkey shoot for artillery.

Westerners are in for an unexpected and sour surprise when they see Leopard 2s just as easily tossing their turrets into the air as T series tanks.

The only western MBT that has a high degree of crew survivability and repairability post ammo explosion, is the Abrams.