The War in the Ukraine

SolarWarden said:

I thought this was an english forum? Can you post a translation.

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Telegram has translator option, anyways most Twitter accounts basically just Copy-translate-Paste ...

First Post:
A Lancet kamikaze drone hit a 5P85S launcher of the Ukrainian S-300PS SAM system, surrounded by masts with a net "Cope Net".

It hit exactly at the container with the missile preparation and launch equipment, which is guaranteed to disable not only this launcher, but also other 5P85D launchers connected to this container.
Second Post:
A Lancet drone attack by an Airborne Forces unit on the second launcher of a Ukrainian S-300PS SAM system.

Remarkably, the enemy evacuated the first damaged launcher, but left the second one standing in the same place, which was hit. Geniuses.


(Seems like the cope net might have worked in the launcher, but the 5P85S clearly has smoke coming out of the electronics section)

Good thread that shows that giving F16s to UKR aren't that easy.

sheogorath said:

Reads more like an Biden puff-piece than a serious analysis sprinkled with a lot of hopium instead of copium. Defines the whole Bakhmut campaign as "minor" the goes of with this gem

"As the war goes on, Ukraine’s equipment gets better and more of its soldiers complete Western training. There is an essentially unlimited pool of quality IFVs and APCs available — the US alone has 4,000 Strykers I haven’t mentioned yet — and there are 2,000 Leopard 2s floating around Europe that it’s been stingy with so far. To be fair, it’s not just stinginess. NATO’s supply of modern armor is virtually infinite; the bottlenecks are in logistics and training."

This is a reddit-level of analysis.

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No kidding. You just have to read about the saga of the Leopard 2PL program to know how BS that statement is. Sure there were a lot of Leopard 2 tanks produced. But how many of those are in working order, and how easy is it to put the remaining tanks in working order?

He also succumbs to the fallacy of "Western training". "Western training" or any specific type of training aren’t panacea's for winning wars.

Quote from Twitter:

"Nice friends and allies Ukraine has there: One of the participants in the raid of the "Russian Volunteer Corps" in the Belgorod Region, who appeared on the video (on the left with a beard) is 38-year-old Alexei Levkin.

This is a very well-known personality among the ultra-right in the post-Soviet space.

Levkin is the leader of the Russian neo-Nazi black metal band M8L8TH (stands for "Hitler's Hammer"). As reported by Bellingcat, Levkin was part of a neo-Nazi group that was involved in the vandalization of Jewish and Muslim graves, several attacks, and at least four murders.

Since 2014, Levkin has been in Ukraine. He fought in the Donbass as part of Azov. In 2016, he co-founded the neo-Nazi structure Wotanjugend, which was described as a network “mini-university for supporters of right-wing ideology”, proclaiming “heroes” of such ultra-right terrorists as Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik.

The Wotanjugend profess such undisguised neo-Nazism, including open glorification of Hitler, that even their leader admits that this group is too “tough” for public space,” Levkina described the organization to Bellingcat. According to the Zaborona publication, in 2020 Levkin's group M8L8TH gave a concert in Kyiv. "The o's in the title are changed to 8's to create the neo-Nazi code number 88, which stands for 'Heil Hitler'." At the end of each song of Hitler’s Hammer, people in the hall zigue and shout “Sieg heil!”, Zaborona wrote."

gelgoog said:

No kidding. You just have to read about the saga of the Leopard 2PL program to know how BS that statement is. Sure there were a lot of Leopard 2 tanks produced. But how many of those are in working order, and how easy is it to put the remaining tanks in working order?

He also succumbs to the fallacy of "Western training". "Western training" or any specific type of training aren’t panacea's for winning wars.

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There is a point to be made about western training regardless of whether you think it's better or not. Western planes need western thinking, from pilots to ground crew. It's not something that can be transplanted easily as say a tank

As someone who's grown up with imperial units, switching to a country where metric units predominate is not easy. And that's on the ground sitting comfortably. It must be tough making split decisions in a system you're not familiar with. As I mentioned earlier, a number of eastern European air forces have had crashes due to the units issue when transitioning from eastern bloc to western fighters.

Anyway it looks like Biden half walked back on Ukrainians getting F-16s. I can't find the transcript of what he said in his public appearance, but it doesn't look like they will be getting any soon.

I think they are observing the Ukrainian pilots in the training programmes and seeing how they perform on the F-16s. If they fly them like they drive German tanks I wouldn't be surprised if the F-16 offer keeps getting pushed back. It explains why they wanted to run the programmes themselves rather than letting what they consider the inferior Europeans do it.

Can you imagine the embarrassment that comes once the first F-16 gets shot down? It'll be like the F-117 all over again.

tankphobia said:

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This is a pretty good article on the current state of fortifications that Russia has built over the entire front, with interlocking fields on fire and fallback defensive lines. While they are well built and logically constructed, the question is whether they are sufficiently manned to be used to their full effect.

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one of those rare gems that bbc puts out, amongst a sea of garbage it typically produces. i would imagine that if russia has invested so much time into building the lines that they are sufficiently mined, though i could be underestimating the incompetence of some of its officers.

just looking at the general layout it seem that russia's game plan in case of a landing across the dnipro could be just trading time for space. let the attacking ukrainian forces fight through the defensive positions along main supply routes until a mobile force can be deployed to face them. the main defensive line is clearly going to be zaporozhia.

i am thinking now if ukraine is doing more incursions into russia, perhaps they can contemplate an attack northward from khakov into russia, possiblt occupying belgorod. surely they will have no problem breaking through the lines there. and with the bulk of russian forces down south they would be able to occupy a lot of russian land before meeting any kind of resistance. the widely expected course of action to attack in zaporozhia just seems too difficult, would be very bloody if they try it.

Abominable said:

Can you imagine the embarrassment that comes once the first F-16 gets shot down?

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Well F-16 did got shot down tho. although "the masses" would say "Hey that doesnt count as it's not air to air".
After all it's fighter aircraft tho. Good that it can survive the day but the risk of getting shot down is always there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/13lwq84
Has anyone read this yet? Seems to be a fairly credible summary so far.
Any serious military would be making major adjustments from observation right now, but I get a feeling that almost nobody is.

In the face of revelations, the most common response of militaries is to cope and do the bare minimum due to institutional inertia. Russia lacks the capability to produce PGM enmasse and tries to cope with dumb bombs and bombsights, we are seeing the anemic effect of its close air support today. This is why exercises of PLA planes firing rocket pods pisses me off, who tf are those idiots trying to impress?

Important part of any future offensive is about to arrive in Ukraine

This picture cropped up in a few places. Any info of where it might have been taken? A training ground perhaps? Or...an opsec leak?

As for the yolo into Belgorod, all that matters is how long it takes the Russian military to expel them. That will be the benchmark for how things are going in a big way.

And, why are you guys going on about the Su-57 here. There's a separate thread for that. smh.