The War in the Ukraine

tankphobia said:

That's a fair call, actual destroyed vehicles have been previously abandoned more often then not. Its quite the opposite however for artillery platforms, which when destroyed pretty much guarantees crew wipe.

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how many artillery platform you can confirm hit in 1.5 years?. artillery or rockets can succeed occasionally but this not the norm.
this RT arabic recent Ka-52 and Mi-28 . basically all of them are now using ATGMs. now these choppers extensive use shows they are near to battlefield protected by air defense. This whole conflict is about effectiveness of airpower and air defense.

Temstar said:

Both Rybar and Suriyak now concur, Russians carried out successful counterattack around Klishchiivka and managed to drive off AFU and retake the high grounds. AFU in recent week seems to have stopped using massed armour to advance after loss of all that Leopard and Bradley and switched to infantry infiltration, but looks like that's also not working.

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It loses a lot fewer tanks though.

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Russians have good reasons to celebrate their successful defense so far, but the bulk of Ukrainian forces have not been committed. Which makes sense, several large assaults have been effectively repelled, and the most favorable avenue of advance is at Velikaya Novoselka, an area that's probably the most heavily defended now and inflicted lots of Ukrainian casualties. Holding back and re-assessing makes sense. In fact, I would not be surprised if the entire offensive is being redone right now.

We might see a bit more action this week (as some people hypothesize), but to me it makes sense to wait until after the Vilnius Summit where NATO partners will reaffirm their support for Ukraine, promise more weapons, and basically gives a green light to Ukraine taking a pause to plan a new offensive.

Neither side took heavy casualties in the last two months or so, but Ukraine still has offensive capability. Russia will probably continue to try and exert pressure in North along the Svatove-Kreminna axis, which I hypothesize will be vulnerable to an Ukrainian counter-attack. I think that's where we might see the next clash.

Tam said:

There was an aerial aspect to that. The Russians threw every aircraft and drone at them and it became so bad the Ukrainians have to bring their AD closer to the front.
Which is why this AN/MPQ-64 radar used for NASAMs and Avengers got into Russian artillery range in Klishchiivka.

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This is one of the issues of using a derivative of an air to air missile as a SAM. NASAMs does not have that much range. Only 30 km with AMRAAM. Which is less than latest Russian Pantsir-SM. A short range SAM but with 40 km range.
NASAMS 3 does use the longer reach AMRAAM-ER missile, but since that variant is specific to only this system, it is available in minuscule numbers. Even then at 50 km range it is way worse than modern medium range SAM systems the Russians have like Buk-M3 "Viking" (130 km) and S-350 (120 km).

If you want to use NASAMS to cover the front then the systems will basically be in range of weapon systems like Lancet-3. Lancet-3 also seems to have a really low IR signature. Which means IR guided IRIS-T SL variants of NASAMS as used in Ukraine likely won't be able to defend themselves against it.

HighGround said:

Holding back and re-assessing makes sense. In fact, I would not be surprised if the entire offensive is being redone right now.

We might see a bit more action this week (as some people hypothesize), but to me it makes sense to wait until after the Vilnius Summit where NATO partners will reaffirm their support for Ukraine, promise more weapons, and basically gives a green light to Ukraine taking a pause to plan a new offensive.

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And the Russians will just twiddle their thumbs in the meantime? I doubt it. There are enough rumors to suggest the Russians will reshuffle their military leadership again. That will likely be the prelude of yet another offensive. The Russians have massively expanded their weapons production over the last year.

The last report was that UVZ switched entirely to tank production (new tank production, not production of civilian products, nor refurbishment of tanks). I doubt they will just be sitting down.

Attempts to counter this by delivering cluster munitions to Ukraine, like NATO seems to be going to do, will only have the flipside effect. Given that Russia is in fact the world's largest owner of cluster munitions and the Ukrainian army is much more dependent on infantry than the Russian one.

gelgoog said:

And the Russians will just twiddle their thumbs in the meantime? I doubt it. There are enough rumors to suggest the Russians will reshuffle their military leadership again. That will likely be the prelude of yet another offensive. The Russians have massively expanded their weapons production. I doubt they will just be sitting down.

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I don't know why you think that's not a serious possibility.

There are plenty of reasons to sit back and slowly grind for territory near Svatove-Kreminna. Russian strike capabilities are getting better every week and it would not surprise me if Russian leadership believes that time is working in their favor, especially in the medium-term as Russia learns more and more and brings additional capabilities to the front-line.

We also don't know what's going on in Ukrainian home-front. A significant chunk of their electric grid has been hit, supply lines, depots, and other critical nodes of their war-fighting system are being degraded pretty much daily for the last few weeks via strategic aviation and strategic forces.

Russia likely still has some sources of intelligence in Ukraine's institutions. For all we know, they may have strong evidence that the cumulative result of Russian strike efforts are bringing Ukraine's war effort to its knees. We also never got firm confirmation on what actually happened with Zaluzhny or Budanov. Maybe they were unharmed all along, but their prolonged and sudden disappearance is indicative of something, I don't know what, but I do believe that something must have happened.

I find it likely, perhaps even intelligent, that Russia will want to sit back, continue its operations in Svatove-Kreminna, and steadily destroy Ukraine's ability to fight from a distance.

I am also skeptical of analyst claims (like Kofman) that Russia undertook a "Winter Offensive" over the last year. I believe that a future major Russian offensive will have significant preparations and considerable manpower dedicated to it. To the extent that there will be visible signs and warnings before it begins.

Some happenings in the front.

M777 taken out by Lancet once again.


And another one.


T-64 hit by Lancet.


Tank was hit by two Lancets previously, one at the rear.


Ukrainians assaulted this trench. Once the troops occupied the trench, the trench turns out to be bobby trapped with explosives and was remotely detonated.


Destroyed Bradley in Orekhov.


In the Kupyan direction, an AN/TPQ-49 gets knocked out by a Lancet.


Tank destroyed by Krasnopol. Work done by the Osman special unit and the 291st Regiment.


Not shown. A Ukrainian unit literally ended up filming their final moments as they attacked a Russian position in Kremennaya. The smartphone was recovered from the deceased. Bothers me why people would do this. I think the soldier wanted to document his assault to put on TikTok and it backfired badly. This isn't a game, folks.

Tam said:

Not shown. A Ukrainian unit literally ended up filming their final moments as they attacked a Russian position in Kremennaya. The smartphone was recovered from the deceased. Bothers me why people would do this. I think the soldier wanted to document his assault to put on TikTok and it backfired badly. This isn't a game, folks.

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I just saw the video, that squad was completely surprised by the ambush. The guy who's gopro was filming didn't even know which way the bullets were coming from until he hid behind a tree and looked around it, and by that time someone else already took a burst for him. Ended up dying after getting shot in the chest and getting his lung punctured (distinctive whizzing sound in video) and then Russians walked up to him and finished him off with a bullet to the head that sent the helmet and go-pro flying.

Probably squad size infiltration that was picked up Russian drones and then ambushed.

We already had usage of drones in previous conflicts like the ones in Yemen, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh. Or even Iraq and Afghanistan. But this level of variety and lethality in drone usage is altogether new I think. And this is still with a lot of cobbled up together systems with poor integration. Using in some cases civilian grade technology.

gelgoog said:

We already had usage of drones in previous conflicts like the ones in Yemen, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh. Or even Iraq and Afghanistan. But this level of variety and lethality in drone usage is altogether new I think. And this is still with a lot of cobbled up together systems with poor integration. Using in some cases civilian grade technology.

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Agreed. Never before has drones been used in large numbers at the squad level. This is the first war where thousands of drones are used. DJI making big bucks in this war that's for sure.

ShaoLaoDragon said:

Agreed. Never before has drones been used in large numbers at the squad level. This is the first war where thousands of drones are used. DJI making big bucks in this war that's for sure.

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I thought DJI have suspended all sales. I assume what we're seeing is footage from just old stock drones purchased before the suspension of drone sales. Or, have DJI lifted the ban?

Temstar said:

I just saw the video, that squad was completely surprised by the ambush. The guy who's gopro was filming didn't even know which way the bullets were coming from until he hid behind a tree and looked around it, and by that time someone else already took a burst for him. Ended up dying after getting shot in the chest and getting his lung punctured (distinctive whizzing sound in video) and then Russians walked up to him and finished him off with a bullet to the head that sent the helmet and go-pro flying.

Probably squad size infiltration that was picked up Russian drones and then a

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Delete

Temstar said:

mbushe

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