The War in the Ukraine

Atomicfrog · Sep 12, 2022

escobar said:
The % of subsonic cruise missiles being shot down is pretty remarkable and has a lot of implications for a lot of folks. Maybe this is why CN seems to prefer supersonic/hypersonic over subsonic

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569355418891337731

After a while getting shot at, you got way better to detect and track them. Using all your standoff weapons types mixed up, you give the chance for the ennemy to learn how to defeat most of them. When the ennemy is accustomed to most system that you throw at them, the response time is way faster and you are starting to lack some trump cards.

Clearly Russia need to up the game and decide what are the prime targets if not it's a mudfight for a long time. I cannot see why civilians are still arround the front line with it changing left and right. Getting the hell away need to be their priority before winter.

Mohsin77 · Sep 12, 2022

tphuang said:
What seems to have happened is that:
1) Ukraine launched an enormous offensive at Kherson and the Russians were ready for it. Ukrainians really suffered
2) Ukraine then turned around and attacked Kharkiv, the Russians were not ready for it. They didn't want to lose combat strength, so they retreated to a place.
3) It didn't sound like there were any major Russian forces that were captured, because they were fleeing so quickly.
4) It is also quite obvious that the online twitter crowd has often overstated the number of Russian casualty and equipment losses. They are in capable of being partial and just analyze things from military point of view.
5) It's not clear to me how much casualties Russians can actually suffer from fleeing quickly and abandoning their equipments.

So, since this is a military forum, can we please just get past the hyperventilation and the over the top reactions and just look at what we can know?
- what has Russians actually lost in terms of combat strength?
- even if they lost 100 trucks, how hard is that to regain?
- are there any natural defensive value to the positions that Russia just lost? Keep in mind that Mariupol was a big deal because Ukrainians had fortified the area for years. Are there any such structure along Kharkiv that Russia lost?
- What is the capability of Russia to back up its forces and re-engage?
- What is the ability of Ukrainians to continue offensive? How much Ukrainian forces are available.

Let me transfer this post here, because that other thread is a lost cause.

These are good questions; however, I'd like to add a couple of questions to your list:

A) What was UKR's threshold for attrition when they launched these maneuvers?
B) Has that threshold been breached?

If UKR is under that threshold, that means that Russia's reliance on attrition is not working.

sheogorath · Sep 12, 2022

Sheleah said:
The gains in Kherson are proportional to the time and the resistance that it has had... Calls "minimal" to the actions of a week, which made more advances than the Russians in several months, in addition to the fact that the Russians took the areas in Kherson in February, they have been creating fortifications since then, and even more so with the announcements of offensive by the Ukrainians in previous months, time that the Russians have had to carry reserves.... If the fortifications in Donets make the Russians make millimeter advances, I don't see how you now associate the Ukrainian offensives in Kherson with a failure, when they have made more progress than advertised by the Russian troops

They are minimal compared to the bombastic annoucement that preceded it or are you going to pretend they haven't been saying since April that Crimea would be free by the end of August?.

They are a failure compared to the stated(and very loudly so) to the stated objectives and the captured towns are relatively minor but you talk as if they have taken Kherson already. On the other hand insist on comparing them to Russians when they haven't done an offensive in a while and whatever ground they have taken, have done so with minimal personel and losses since they switched tactics after their failure in the first three months of the war.

Sheleah said:
It must be very sad that some simple conscripts can push back the 2nd best army in the world... Although I don't see any surprise in it, in Ukraine there is a general war effort since the beginning of the invasion...

Last time I checked, the ukrainians were pushing mostly DPR/LPR, Wagners and Rosgvardia around Kharkov, with the ukranians moving in to execute their families.

Sheleah said:
or you that the Russians have to mobilize manpower inexperienced in manning armored vehicles, and send them desperately to the front with poor training, is a symptom that there are many casualties on the Russian side, I suppose

You do know the Russian Navy does have tanks, IFV and APC's, right?. If they needed to pull out someone to man a tank, they wouldn't have pulled a sailor with no experience.

And even if that were the case, there is a single guy in a single video, possibly under threat of either execution or being denied healthcare out of what, 150.000?.

I do can flood this reply of videos of Ukranians soldiers being poorly trained, equipped and deserting en masse if you want to go there and pretend 6-7 months of warfare hasn't taken its toll on the Ukranians.

Sheleah said:
Oh ok, you mean to tell me that you masturbate with what for you is the end of American white supremacism, and you sell yourself to the invasions carried out by the Russian White

That's the thing, I don't "masturbate" to any of that but look at things as the expected consequences of western foreing policy and I do celebrate the possibility of Western hegemony coming to an end.

And they might be "white", but they aren't white enough for the west and has been the case since white supremacism is a thing. Just like Italians and the Irish weren't considered white until fairly recently, nor the european jews, which we know what the west did with them in the 40's.

Or are you going to pretend there aren't euro and american politican talking about the russian population at large with terms like "asiatic hordes" not unlike Hitler, asking for them to be mass deported or genocided from the rest of the world?

Sheleah said:
who also have many supremacists in their ranks.... I'm surprised by your morality and your logic,

They probably do, no one is denying that, but at least it is illegal in Russia. Western Ukranians and the Baltics on the other hand celebrate their involvement with nazism and the Holocaust.

On the other hand, information has come out that some Russian units near Kherson are negotiating conditions to surrender

Will they surrender before or after she shows the remains of the 4 Il-76 they shot down in Hostomel or pull up the wreck of the Admiral Essen from bottom of the Black Sea?.

That's how reliable they are.

baykalov · Sep 12, 2022

escobar said:
The % of subsonic cruise missiles being shot down is pretty remarkable and has a lot of implications for a lot of folks. Maybe this is why CN seems to prefer supersonic/hypersonic over subsonic

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569355418891337731

I'm skeptical of those numbers given the damage. Yesterday, even Ukrainian propaganda spread the fake that the Donetsk airport is also under their control.

You have no idea what kind of propaganda and disinformation has been going on in European social networks in recent days. The real Ukrainian successes are accompanied by a bunch of fake news.

sheogorath · Sep 12, 2022

Atomicfrog said:
Clearly Russia need to up the game and decide what are the prime targets if not it's a mudfight for a long time. I cannot see why civilians are still arround the front line with it changing left and right. Getting the hell away need to be their priority before winter.

The claims aren't new, though. At the start of the war they were saying that 70% of all the missiles fired by Russia failed without reaching the target, without that much of an evidence behind it and eveything else was shot down or missed completely.

What is evident is that they are using the success around Kharkiv to propel a lot of bs claims in social networks in order to further up their standing and ask for more weapons and money.

The S-300PT is one of the earliest versions of the S-300 system and it had issues tracking targets below 500m. Kalibrs fly waaaaaay below that.

plawolf · Sep 12, 2022

Atomicfrog said:
After a while getting shot at, you got way better to detect and track them. Using all your standoff weapons types mixed up, you give the chance for the ennemy to learn how to defeat most of them. When the ennemy is accustomed to most system that you throw at them, the response time is way faster and you are starting to lack some trump cards.

Clearly Russia need to up the game and decide what are the prime targets if not it's a mudfight for a long time. I cannot see why civilians are still arround the front line with it changing left and right. Getting the hell away need to be their priority before winter.

Or you could, you know, just lie your arse off.

4 power plants where hit, but the Ukrainians shot down 9 out of 12 Russian missiles fired, so if you believe them that means they blew up the 4th power station themselves then.

anzha · Sep 12, 2022

I'm not sure I really want to stick my head into this thread again, but I was curious to see what people here have been thinking in light of recent events. To say this has been amusing is an understatement. I really ought to go back to when I left and read all the way forward. I am sure people's predictions are going to be wildly accurate. Right?

However, as usual, there is a good comment worth replying to from a member (@tphuang in this case) who makes an effort to elevate the discourse.

tphuang said:
What seems to have happened is that:
1) Ukraine launched an enormous offensive at Kherson and the Russians were ready for it. Ukrainians really suffered

I wanted to reply to this point. Indeed, the Ukrainians are only slowly grinding forward in Kherson. However, I think you left out a really, really crucial point about the offensive in Kherson. The Ukrainians said, yelled, shouted from the roof tops, that they were going to launch an offensive in Kherson. The Ukrainians made a big show of preparing for the offensive. The Ukrainians took their time, but kept making noise they were coming.

The Russians shifted forces to protect Kherson and the left side of the Dniepr. Some say 10 BTG. Some say 30 BTG. It is hard to tell.

After the shift took place and the bridges were borked, the Ukrainians launched the Kherson offensive. The Ukrainians then announced they wanted OpSec on the operation. Yet a fair number of images leaking even so. Progress. Noise. Fighting. It made the offensive look big and serious. It is/was serious enough to make the Russians unable to really disengage and appearances are the Russians have enough force to at least make the offensive expensive, but not enough to simply defeat the Ukrainian attacks.

And then...the Kharkov offensive began. A full force combined arms attack struck against the Russian forces in Kharkov. The offensive in Kharkov worked wonderfully. Probably even better than expected.

The point I want to make is for the Ukrainians to keep advertising they were going on the offensive in Kherson made little to no sense. Why tell the Russians you are coming in force? Why allow the Russians to have time to reinforce and potentially defeat your attack? Yelling 'here I come' is beyond stupid.

Unless...

The Ukrainians want the Russians to concentrate their forces on the Kherson front.

It's been pretty obvious the Russians are struggling already: their offensives in the Donbas are moving forward extremely slowly. When I left this thread, the Russians were working to take Soledar. I do believe they are still working to take Soledar and Bakmut or have barely moved past those objectives. If the Russians have to move troops around to stop an offensive, the effort is going to be a zero sum game: moving troops from one front weakens another.

A loudly advertised offensive draws the Russians in and the Kherson front attack pins the Russian units in place: if the Russians shift forces from Kherson, Kherson falls.

Off goes the 'real' offensive where the Russians are weak and will damage them even more than Kherson: Kharkov cutting rail lines running south and those rail lines are precious to Russian logistics.

The crucial piece here is the Russian intelligence failure. They failed to detect Kherson was a pinning operation: they legit believed the Ukrainians were advertising their primary effort as being Kherson. A second, additional crucial failure was the Russians didn't detect the Kharkov buildup. The Ukrainians ran at least a division sized formation - if not probably more - into occupied Kharkov - Lightly defended occupied Kharkov - and there was zilch to stop them until they got to the river, and if reports are true (take with large grains of salt) there may be Ukrainian troops over that, too.

Strelkov and others are reporting the Ukrainians are preparing for an offensive to Mauripol. Are the Ukrainians doing so? Or are they planting information so the Russians move troops to the wrong place again? Or...? What happened in Kharkov and Kherson will make the Russians doubt even more and potentially be overcautious.

Russian intelligence failures are one of the primary themes of the war. They drank a little too much of their own kvas (to localize an American idiom) and still haven't quite sobered up from whatever the kvas was spiked with.

As for what is going to happen next? I really think people need to take a step back from their biases though: pro Ukrainian or pro Russian. We will have to wait and see.

At any rate, hi folks. May be back. May not. Depends on whether or not posters are still advocating for war crimes or not.

This post is worth as much as you paid for it and, even then, you paid too much.

tphuang · Sep 12, 2022

anzha said:
I'm not sure I really want to stick my head into this thread again, but I was curious to see what people here have been thinking in light of recent events. To say this has been amusing is an understatement. I really ought to go back to when I left and read all the way forward. I am sure people's predictions are going to be wildly accurate. Right?

However, as usual, there is a good comment worth replying to from a member (@tphuang in this case) who makes an effort to elevate the discourse.

I wanted to reply to this point. Indeed, the Ukrainians are only slowly grinding forward in Kherson. However, I think you left out a really, really crucial point about the offensive in Kherson. The Ukrainians said, yelled, shouted from the roof tops, that they were going to launch an offensive in Kherson. The Ukrainians made a big show of preparing for the offensive. The Ukrainians took their time, but kept making noise they were coming.

The Russians shifted forces to protect Kherson and the left side of the Dniepr. Some say 10 BTG. Some say 30 BTG. It is hard to tell.

After the shift took place and the bridges were borked, the Ukrainians launched the Kherson offensive. The Ukrainians then announced they wanted OpSec on the operation. Yet a fair number of images leaking even so. Progress. Noise. Fighting. It made the offensive look big and serious. It is/was serious enough to make the Russians unable to really disengage and appearances are the Russians have enough force to at least make the offensive expensive, but not enough to simply defeat the Ukrainian attacks.

And then...the Kharkov offensive began. A full force combined arms attack struck against the Russian forces in Kharkov. The offensive in Kharkov worked wonderfully. Probably even better than expected.

The point I want to make is for the Ukrainians to keep advertising they were going on the offensive in Kherson made little to no sense. Why tell the Russians you are coming in force? Why allow the Russians to have time to reinforce and potentially defeat your attack? Yelling 'here I come' is beyond stupid.

Unless...

The Ukrainians want the Russians to concentrate their forces on the Kherson front.

It's been pretty obvious the Russians are struggling already: their offensives in the Donbas are moving forward extremely slowly. When I left this thread, the Russians were working to take Soledar. I do believe they are still working to take Soledar and Bakmut or have barely moved past those objectives. If the Russians have to move troops around to stop an offensive, the effort is going to be a zero sum game: moving troops from one front weakens another.

A loudly advertised offensive draws the Russians in and the Kherson front attack pins the Russian units in place: if the Russians shift forces from Kherson, Kherson falls.

Off goes the 'real' offensive where the Russians are weak and will damage them even more than Kherson: Kharkov cutting rail lines running south and those rail lines are precious to Russian logistics.

The crucial piece here is the Russian intelligence failure. They failed to detect Kherson was a pinning operation: they legit believed the Ukrainians were advertising their primary effort as being Kherson. A second, additional crucial failure was the Russians didn't detect the Kharkov buildup. The Ukrainians ran at least a division sized formation - if not probably more - into occupied Kharkov - Lightly defended occupied Kharkov - and there was zilch to stop them until they got to the river, and if reports are true (take with large grains of salt) there may be Ukrainian troops over that, too.

Strelkov and others are reporting the Ukrainians are preparing for an offensive to Mauripol. Are the Ukrainians doing so? Or are they planting information so the Russians move troops to the wrong place again? Or...? What happened in Kharkov and Kherson will make the Russians doubt even more and potentially be overcautious.

Russian intelligence failures are one of the primary themes of the war. They drank a little too much of their own kvas (to localize an American idiom) and still haven't quite sobered up from whatever the kvas was spiked with.

As for what is going to happen next? I really think people need to take a step back from their biases though: pro Ukrainian or pro Russian. We will have to wait and see.

At any rate, hi folks. May be back. May not. Depends on whether or not posters are still advocating for war crimes or not.

This post is worth as much as you paid for it and, even then, you paid too much.

I would say that Russians made the mistake of not taking thing seriously. There is no reason to hold these major war games with SCO countries while a real war is going on. It's kind of ridiculous that Putin wants to put up this show of nothing out of ordinary is going on at home when there is obviously a war going. It would be similarly ridiculous to just call what happened in Kherson a feign. A lot of Ukrainians casualties for a feign.

Now, if we want to argue that Ukrainians gathered enough forces to attack 2 fronts while Russia only had enough forces to defend 1 part of the captured territory, I would agree with that. But it's entirely disrespectful to all the dead and injured soldiers in southern Ukraine to act like that attack didn't happen, because it doesn't fit in with the narrative that "Ukraine is going to win".

The point I wanted to make is how does this actually impact things? A lot of Ukrainian casualties in Kherson will seriously affect their ability to sustain war effort. From what I can, the Russians fled too quickly for their to be a real degradation in their force structure. So, it seems to me that this win for Ukraine is more about the PR and morale boosting than anything else. It makes Putin look bad at home. It makes Ukraine look good in West, so they will continue to get more support.

supersnoop · Sep 12, 2022

Leaving the politics out, can we summarize as the following?
1. Ukrainian victory in Kharkov
2. Russian defensive positions hold in Kherson for the most part

If we look back to 2014, it is not too different from the initial separatist pushes all the way into Mariupol and other cities before being beaten back. AFU momentum pushing forward before being beaten back.

Discussed to death, but as deployed, it doesn't seem Russia has enough forces deployed (or effectively deployed) to really go much further. Ukraine hasn't had the manpower to take back the separatist territories.

Painful, really sounds like WWI stuff.

baykalov · Sep 12, 2022

According to pro-Russian Telegram channels Kyiv is preparing a big offensive in the area of the Zaporozhye NPP. Ukraine is transferring missile weapons and artillery, manpower.

This is reported by the authorities of the region.

The War in the Ukraine

Atomicfrog

Major

Mohsin77

Senior Member

sheogorath

Major

baykalov

Senior Member

sheogorath

Major

plawolf

Lieutenant General

anzha

Senior Member

tphuang

Lieutenant General

supersnoop

Major

baykalov

Senior Member