The War in the Ukraine

gadgetcool5 said:

The Ukrainians have reportedly crossed to the east of the Severy Donets on the Kharkov front, according to Southfront. Southfront is admitting that this Vovchansk is already within artillery range and UFA are getting closer every day. The RF are barely fighting, just running away. Once Vovchansk has been blown to smithereens, the RF grouping at Izyum will he cut off, and the entire Donbass Russian attack collapses.

IMO this is a pretty good sign Putin is throwing in the towel soon. He has realized the whole thing was a huge mistake and his only chance depends on crawling back to the West to beg for mercy/forgiveness.

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In what planet do you think this is even remotely close to happening. Ours and yours wishful thinking can't substitute sober and realistic appraisal of the situation with respect to this current conflict, let alone the thinking of one of the most scrutinized leader in the world and that is Vladimir Putin of Russia. But if you insist that an upcoming groveling will be forthcoming from him then he might as well commit seppuku as a more honorable action for him to make since he'll be good as dead if your fantasy fantastically becomes a reality.

SampanViking said:

Very clearly there has been a major battle (or a series of clashes over time) which has created wrecks. Some look far from new.
Quite a lot of the vehicles look to be undamaged and we only have the posters word for it that they are abandoned.
Many of them look neatly parked to my eyes.
Neither does the site look corpse strewn, which you would expect in the aftermath of the type of massacre that the poster is selling.

So who controls the site?
The fact that the Ukraine is posting aerial drone shots and have no troops on the ground, rather suggests that it is still in Russian hands.

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Sorry to say but you are coping so hard.

Neatly parked you say? What pictures are you looking at? I only see burned out, turret-popped vehicles left right and center and some even huddled up like a dying bunch of rats half drowning in the river.

Not to mention the arty-holed pontoon-bridges themselves...

The face of the hero that made it all happen:



Bravo sir! Absolutely well done!

Personally, I'd like to see Chinese AH4 and American M777 duke it out in Ukraine. It is possible but not likely. Chinese are still quite timid about flexing its soft power on the world stage.

gelgoog said:

I would be surprised if when Ukrainian troops went into joint training missions with NATO they never used the M777.
But I doubt they will have a lot of troops trained with that.
Sounds like they might have achieved localized results. But turning those into something with more widespread significance should be a lot harder. And no I wouldn't call learning how to use artillery easy.

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I wonder how many are deployed. I still don't suspect it's too many. I think if they had a full battery operating, they would show more. The Ukrainian Army has no problems with showing off all the weapons they are getting. Why not? It is stroking the Western ego and getting them to send more and more.

Gloire_bb said:

No, training artillerymen is anything but simple, and anything but short.
But there is a very obvious way around. They didn't have to be trained from the ground up. Physics&mathematics are the same, and guns are more or less the same, too. No need to repeat obvious parts, esp. to those who probably saw more artillery action than most of their instructors.

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This is my assumption, they are basically doing conversion training. So you don't need to know all the basics of bearings, centre of arc, elevation, types of fire missions, aiming points, etc. etc. Basically you are just learning to put in the bearing and elevation (which is digital on the M777), you don't even need to turn the gears (also automatic), just check the sight and fire. I'm assuming they are also learning the bare minimum maintenance procedures.

BlackWindMnt said:

Maybe they sneaked some NATO operators with those M777 back into Ukraine and the front. We have seen more then enough footage of NATO soldiers/mercs fighting along side the ukrainian armed forces.

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I thought about that, but even if they do, it'd be minimal. Maybe an NCO here or there for troubleshooting. The actual gunline crew is 7, most of these guys are loading once the gun is put into action. Plus, assuming they are sending trained artillerymen, then these guys already know most of what they are doing. Command Post maybe, since there is no way they can integrate the NATO software on such a short basis, and I highly doubt that NATO/USA is handing over their data on Excalibur and Copperhead to some random Ukrainian programmer to build new (or integrate) firing solution software (as described earlier in the thread)

Here, more proof of that failed rivercrossing:




You can see the holes the arty caused on the decks of the pontoon bridges:

The Ukrainian side does have a track record for "exaggeration" in its claims as have been proven on numerous occasions.

Yes lots of wrecks in the pictures, but also plenty that seem perfectly intact.
I am not saying its one way or the other, just that a few snap shots do not a complete picture make

Today is very chaotic. There are movements and offensives all over the eastern front, even around Marinka way in the south. Many reports are coming out about Russian advances, but it's still hard to say exactly what's going on because it's all so fluid. It does look like the Russian crossing attempt at Bilohorivka was defeated with heavy losses, but it's a minor tactical setback in the grand scheme of things. I also think it's a completely unnecessary risk for the Russians, who should just be reinforcing the LPR push north of Popasna, which is now gaining steam and turning out to be a total shitshow for the Ukrainians. LPR units seem to be entering Kamyshuvakha as we speak. The Russians don't really need to cross the Donets River to threaten Lysychansk. There were reports that they successfully crossed the Donets near Lyman, for what I can only assume is bridgehead preparation in anticipation of an attack on Slavyansk. Anyway, don't know how true or reliable those stories are. We wait and see gentleman.

Ukrainians received 200 T-72M from Poland. However, these are some of the most vulnerable tanks from the late 70s and are basically steel coffins in modern warfare.


Russian saboteurs targeting railway to hamper Ukrainian supply lines.

The Russians did what was needed but they got discovered by a superieur foe and got wiped out. Not everyday we see almost 2 battalions worth of merchandised equipment destroyed in one go.

Modern warfare is scary. We are lucky they didn't have smartphones and social media during desert storm...

sequ said:

The Russians did what was needed but they got discovered by a superieur foe and got wiped out. Not everyday we see almost 2 battalions worth of merchandised equipment destroyed in one go.

Modern warfare is scary. We are lucky they didn't have smartphones and social media during desert storm...

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Otherwise the myth of "precision guided weapons" as the sole arbiter of that war would have been shattered, and no this is not my idiotic assertion but the actual facts on the ground based upon US military's own Gulf War Study.

Let's not drink pop the NATO champagne too prematurely and declare mission accomplished ala George W Bush once made on an air craft carrier. The facts on the ground are subject to anyone's interpretation based on which side one is cheering or supporting for whatever reason.

The outcome of this conflict and the eventual "winner" if we can at all even make such a declaration would be the country with the most to lose and for me that's Russia and NATO. NATO is UKRAINE and UKRAINE is NATO they are all one and the same to ignore this reality is just not acknowledging what's obvious to everyone.