Much of the Ukrainian conflict has its closest comparison in the Normandy campaign of World War 2, just after the famed D-Day landings. The Normandy region is known as ‘hedgerow country’, populated with an endless sprawl of fields and pastures called
Every single tank will go fireball if you put HE(high explosive) shells inside
Thing is why Abrams dont do fireball sometimes - cause there is no HE shells.(real HE not some trash hybrid)
For russian army, tank without HE isnt a tank really. Cause your primary goal is to suppress enemy lines trenches houses and barricades with HE fire. If you dont have HE your tank is simply useless. unless you fight other tanks. which isnt happening often at all. 90% of tank work is to fight enemy lines trenches buildings etc. not enemy tanks.
My father has been tank commander in the old M47 (yes, '60 era) and seeing the modern tanks going this way was frightening... Imagine about 10 years ago I was thinking to buy an old demilled one to gift him a youth gift... :) but he told me I was crazy to even think to waste such money... but anyway his eyes sparkled at the idea...
I just felt you might benefit from knowing that "past historical dates" is redundant. Why? Because, unless you've life-hacked the space-time continuum, "historical dates" are usually in the past. No need to feel embarrassed, as this is a common mistake for those whose first language is not English.
Perhaps you should read the Big Serge writeups on Normandy.
In particular, that the initial footholds were stalled because the armor and transport heavy US forces were facing the hedged fields while the British were facing the more open terrain - exactly the reverse of what competent planning should have positioned them as.
Also of note was that the breakthrough that occurred was ultimately because of 1000 artillery and 1500 heavy bombers, blowing the crap out of a 6000 yard line and the box behind it.
Years ago I had the great honor to speak to an American infantryman who was in the breakout operation from Normandy and saw the effects of the bombing/artillery preparation.
He was thankful for the bombers, but he was also not in the unit hit by friendly fires during that operation.
Heavy bombers in close proximity of friendlies was not selected after Normandy. Modern navigation and positional awareness may make it safer, if all systems work!
BigSerge's writeup on the Normandy breakout does highlight at least 2 different incidents of friendly fire.
Even today - with the attack/counterattack fluidity of combat, friendly fire is going to happen even if somehow mistakes aren't made (coordinate transmission/fusing/targeting errors, misidentification, etc etc).
BFT and no-fire zones in fires systems are supposed to help with this. Generally, we shouldn't be dropping fires or targeting friendlies anymore, but shit happens.
That said, using heavy bombers on Normandy was a stupid idea. It was a reversion to WWI barrage thinking. You can argue with the whole strategic bombing premise, and I do, but using them in a tactical space is worse than useless. Note that the strategic bombing leadership - Harris, Arnold, etc, were dead against this. Ultimately Eisenhower takes the blame for that.
The heavy bombing campaign targeting German cities is nothing to be proud of. Lindemann's advise to Churchill to bomb working class areas in order to kill more people illustrates just how morally repugnant TPTB are
Technology limited what bombers could/could not do. Think of all the AA assets (especially as AT) and other supporting units the Germans could have used if they weren't being bombed.
It was an attritional campaign. The Allies were always going to win one of those (sound familiar?) They misjudged the impact of bocage. The British initially landed a much more armor heavy force, so it made sense to land them in front of Caen. The Germans just turned out to be pretty good at defending, though at high cost in men and equipment they could not replace. So they had to increasingly divert reinforcements to the Caen sector, not the US area of operations. Once the US build up was done, and 3d Army was activated, the writing was on the wall for the Germans. Oh, and not having any sort of way to contest allied airpower didn't help the Germans, either.
As for Soviet accounts...I wish I spoke Russian because i'm told the material is much better there. That said, Chris Bellamy does, and he tried his best i'm sure.
Thanks you very much for suggesting these books! Didn’t know any of them. Already got all of them. It’s a real pleasure to read, not only Simplicius excellent analysis, though as someone mentioned before, his visions of the other war now aren’t remotely as good or objective, but the commentaries here. You give me back hope in the Western World. Not everything is lost while people like you are still around.
You may like or dislike individual books but you'll have an opinion by the end :-)
If you want an example of German "we didn't know about the crimes against humanity" apologia, try Mellenthin's Panzer Battles. It's a nifty book if you take all the denials of knowing about the bad stuff with a grain of salt, and the comments about Russians being some wild horde from the East.
Greats like Thomas McGlynn are not only immortal but own a Tardis so time and library space are not a constraint. He's read them all, even the books not yet published.
It’s funny how the new hires march right on and put the foot right in the mouth...ProTip: dont try this in real life as you will be swiftly kicked in the arse, actually and painfully ... best of luck shit-stirring !
Deliberate grammar issues, spelling and punctuation errors are the hallmark of provocative comments. Not necessarily a paid agitator but perhaps someoone with an axe to grind, anger issues and/or personality disorder. Appeals to human kindness, lavishing unearned praise and a healthy dose of hillbilly humor and colloquialisms are effective counters in my experience. Advanced sarcasm? Anger just feeds the ogre algorithm.
Its quite remarkable just how effective modern ATGM's are. I remember when I first heard about them was in 2006 when Hezbollah was destroying supposedly indestructible Merkavas, and then when IS started taking out Leo-2's in Turkey (although the Leo doesn't have the same "indestructible" reputation)
For a long time, the armor-myth of tanks like the Abrams and Challenger reigned supreme, to the point that tankers more or less thought themselves as impervious to harm. Yes, they could throw a track or have their optics knocked out, but nothing life threatening
Contrast that to now, where what appears to be a very small amount of ordnance - a few kg in a missile, or drone - is able to have an outsized effect on neutralizing armor. So now, modern militaries either have to come up with a way to really defend against them, or treat armor as semi-disposable.
Looking at Avdeevka, in retrospect its impressive the RuAF is attacking the way it is. I tried to imagine what NATO would do in the same scenario and I can't imagine they would even think about making an advance like this before a full year of round the clock aerial bombardment. The losses in this case are expected.
"Its quite remarkable just how effective modern ATGM's are"
There is nothing remarkable about this. The Egyptian army fought the Israeli army to a standstill in 1973 using Soviet ATGM's. The Hezbollah defeated the Israelis in 2006 with Russian ATGM's
The only remarkable thing is that the Russians don't follow the news or study previous conflicts. They are ramping up tank production when everyone knows that these tanks can be taken out by ATGM's or swarms of cheap drones. The idiocy is institutional. It is even worse in the West.
Tanks were introduced to make breakthroughs so that the infantry could follow them. These days, the tanks are kept back while the infantry clears the way. Does not anyone see the irony?
Sure. Battle ships and aircraft carriers improved with each iteration.
However, rocketry and electronics improved at a far faster pace.
I repeat. For the price of a modern tank, 100+ of the most advanced drones can be produced in a fraction of the time. To train a tank crew takes years. To train a drone operator takes weeks. Do your sums!
No, he's not wrong. The power of area denial weapons is higher than the power of the armor itself. A properly equipped opposing force will demonstrate the point. To the extent the SMO hasn't, you can see the AFVs knocked out constantly same as I can.
Ditto aircraft carriers. Too many much cheaper missiles hunting for them.
Anyone who serves in either (armor, aircraft carriers) has my respect and sympathy.
Read my piece about land drones. They can replace tanks for the purposes you mentioned.
It is important to understand that in the modern battle field, it is virtually impossible to hide tanks and APC's. IMHO, soldiers are better off on motor bikes or go karts. Suitably dispersed of course.
I still see videos of columns of soldiers. That is ridiculous. They should be each at least 20M apart.
Ok i disagree about drones replacing armor for hitting fortifications. I agree with most of the rest, though APCs have their purpose too. Shrapnel, mines, grenades and machine guns still exist.
Tanks are a "tool in the box". Since their inception that has been so. Maybe not as tactically important for the SMO, but that remains to be seen. As the Bandera army degrades, it will be less capable of refuting heavy armor.
Lolololl you are really the stupidest person here. The armata? You really picking that as your arguement? Hows that armata going bro? Suppose to have what 1,000 of them by now? Can't even field one
Lolololoolol just fine? The 6 major storage bases have been emptied, minimum 2,400 tanks destroyed by Oryx, 5,000 by UA count, literally using T55s. Show me one video of the "armata" in the SMO? If there doing so good how come russias done nothing but lose since last july?
1. "The 6 major storage bases have been emptied" - no and it has been debunked already;
2. "minimum 2,400 tanks destroyed by Oryx, 5,000 by UA count, literally using T55s" - no person who thinks themselves even relatively objective is using Oryx and especially UA claims as credible source. It has been proven many times of highly inflated numbers that Oryx/UA provde. Nothing wrong about using T-55/T-62 in the rear areas as stationary turrets acting as fire support. It is much better than to use lighter platforms for that role;
3. "Show me one video of the "armata" in the SMO" - why should anyone show trials videos of the tank that's not officialy in the army yet?
4. "If there doing so good how come russias done nothing but lose since last july?" - that's not even funny to hear. What is your definition of "good"? Russia is doing what have been long time ago spoken by Russian goverment - demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, so it no longer poses a threat. They are doing that successfully.
Adding pieces like "Lolololoolol" makes your credibility even lower.
Have you not been paying any attention? Have you not seen the hundreds of videos of TANKS leading the way into the tree/trench lines using their massive firepower to suppress, disrupt, disperse, and kill the enemy in order to give the following infantry carriers time to disgorge their occupants who then occupy the trenches the TANKS just blasted? There are literally several videos of this just in this article alone. Also, have you not seen the literally hundreds of videos of TANKS, by themselves, doing the "tank carousel" to raid and reign destruction upon the enemy whilst they are trying to displace or rotate troops?
The idiocy is institutional, just not in the place you think it is.
No shit, bro. Combined arms is, and always has been, a thing. You're still astoundingly stupid in regards to the actual continuing value of the tank. Infantry and arty are both vulnerable to ATGM and drones... so what, we send battleships in to capture trenches? What is your point?
OK, bro. Deign not to watch all the vids from of Russian tanks LEADING THE WAY into combat. LEADING the other arms into combat. Clearly nobody has gotten your memo.
And in your OP you literally insulted the entire Russian and American military establishment. Literally hundreds of thousands of people. What level is your intellect at? I merely insulted one single moron.
Frequency hopping assumes that the enemy cannot just jam all the tunnels with a massive ECM spike or that frequency scanning is actually not that difficult, since all that is needed is to detect a non-static noise.
Equally, "inertial navigation" accumulates error progressively such that it becomes increasingly useless, the greater the distance traveled. That's why we have GPS systems even though a lot of the world is mapped - because inertial navigation systems are far closer to Magellan era navigation by dead reckoning than it is any form of precise navigation.
But then again, you have already demonstrated, repeatedly, that you have zero real world experience with anything you talk about, nor have you spent even a few minutes to think about why salespeople lies about <insert topic here> may or may not be true, or even research to learn more about the subjects you pretend to know something about.
The 2 gulf wars were a counter argument. But then again the Iraqi army never showed up, or was never there in the first place
There is no "solution" to attacking a strongly defended position. Mg's will shred infantry and light vehicles. ATGM's will disable armor. Mines counter everything. MANPADS make CAS dangerous. Drones of all types now are threats to literally everything on the ground.
Armor is not as effective as maybe its perceived to be. However, its not like you can just decide to ditch it. The alternative is 100x worse, unarmored infantry are literally cannon fodder.
I wrote about Saigon. Dien Bien Phu was much earlier. Anyway, the French bunkers were so primitive that Vietnamese sappers were able to get through the barbed wire perimeter and blow themselves up inside the French command posts.
Please check your history. The Vietnamese did do what I have suggested above.
Saigon didn't fall to the VietCong. Vietnam lost to the North Vietnamese army.
And the French surrendered not because they were under small arms fire, but because there were masses of artillery firing on them. From Wiki:
"two batteries each of 105 mm howitzers, 120 mm mortars, and 75 mm mountain guns (plus seventeen 57 mm recoilless rifles and numerous 60 mm and 81/82 mm mortars)"
One battery is 8 to 10 tubes, so that's 48 to 60 heavy guns plus recoilless and tactical mortars. There were furthermore 62 aircraft lost - not all shelled on the runway.
Once again, you demonstrate zero knowledge about reality as opposed to nonsense.
My grandfather was a miner. My father and his two brothers also mined. We owned mines.
Too many people seem to have little idea where the "stuff" they own comes from. They believe in electric cars, PV and wind mills. In the hydrogen economy and other fantasies.
I think that officers should get at least one year of engineering training before going to military college.
True, and if you'd think I would be happy running through a German mine field being hosed down by MG34's so that an awful Matilda or Crusader tank could waddle safely behind me...No thanks!
I read a story (Barrie Pitt?) about after the fall of Tobruk that he was in a bar with some Australians when some south African troops came in and everything went quiet. The Biggest Oz got up and offered a SA his chair, somewhat to the South African's surprise. The Australian told him that he thought his legs must be tired after running all the way to Cairo from Tobruk. Pitt? said that he fell about laughing but the South Africans didn't and the bar got demolished in the fight. He thought he was lucky to get out of it with a broken tooth and a cracked rib.
Infantry had to clear the way for tanks by 1943 at the latest. It looks again like the technology of armour penetration is ahead of armour protection but since there are so many targets on a battlefield that can't resist tanks I think that news of their demise is premature.
Oh and the tanks of the RTC worked well with infantry. The Matilda and its derivative the Valentine had the same reputation early in the war as the Tiger did later on. Note also that the Valentine was the best tank of the war, with or without the uberstylish side-mounted drop tank. ;O)
Quite correct. Many years ago, I told my father that all the Egyptian army needed was swarms of soldiers equipped with ATGM's - some with sniper rifles - and all terrain motorcycles to be able to prevent Israeli tanks and infantry to advance across the deserts. My father got quite angry with me as he could not think of a way of proving me wrong. 🤣
yep the irony is there but that doesn' t necessarily mean anything in particular. a tank is, at the least, a mobile gun platform fairly well protected and I guess there'll always be a need for them. And who knows, next week there could be a completely new anti-ATGM tank mountable weapon and then we're off to the races again..
I can't find the thread. Too many posts and the software doesn't have the option. (or I can't find it). But perhaps it was where I opined that a tank is at the least a mobile armoured gun and therefore always useful, desirable?
If so then, yep, a mobile pillbox it is if you like. A bit expensive perhaps but yep.
Wonder how long before we have remote controlled or AI "drone" armor. Wonder if it's possible to engineer skids or skis for the front of armor to conteract mud. Imagine such fast moving, rapid firing tanks in vanguard positions in both bocages and urban assaults.
The concept of the shaped charge warhead is not new, obviously. I mean the start was putting armor plating on a vehicle, then the AT rifle, then greater armor, then the AT gun, sabots to penetrate the greater armor that was heaped on, then sloped armor, then the shaped charge, then reactive armor to disrupt said shaped charges from forming their jet of molten metal...the battle between offense and defense keeps on going, though generally lost by the defense.
The advantage of the ATGM is that you can fire it and guide it from a greater distance than you could say, a RPG. That's pretty much it. The technology really hasn't changed much except in guidance systems. Some are fire and forget like the Javelin (and yes, this means EW applies), some are beam-riders like the Kornet (which means you need to keep locked onto the target and could be IR jammed), some are wire-guided like the Milan, which means you have to guide it in yourself. The way the penetrators work is pretty much how they have worked for the last 50 years, aside from tweaks to make it work against reactive armor. Absent some new defensive system, I don't expect things to get better for armor anytime soon.
seems to me they're not even really trying to protect them. just like the screen above the top some sort of cage all round presumably would take much of the sting out of the armour piercing but I don't see ANY tanks with any such as yet. Their reactive armour is all. And that, it seems, don't work well enough.
The way the cope cages work is that they set off the first charge (assuming a tandem charge). Then the second charge goes off but it is too far from the actual armor to penetrate. The liquid copper "dart" loses its penetrator very quickly
An APFSDS like you're describing works in a different way, there is no explosive
One question: Is the guy of the "Military Summary" youtube channel, his name is Dima, one of those Wagner fan boys that overly criticizes / puts down the Russian military?
Honestly I'm not 100% sure. I don't watch too much youtube, though I'm familiar with the channel you're talking about as I've seen a few of his reports before I can't recall if he's a "fan boy" or "doomer" or anything of that sort. He seems to be well regarded by most but I'd have to take a deeper look to evaluate. Mostly I don't give much credence to anyone on Youtube because I consider that a much more "for-profit" platform so I've typically discounted most of the content there as it's generated by people merely seeking to generate revenue $$$. At least many analysts on Telegram are doing it for the serious analysis and have no real means of generating $$$ from their analysis which gives it more credence.
That's not to disparage everyone on Youtube, I'm sure there's some good stuff but I'm just speaking in generalities.
Also Youtube greatly censors and deplatforms any pro-Russian content so as a rule I expect almost everything there to be heavily skewed toward pro-establishment propaganda, in terms of contemporary stuff.
Thank you. I like the way he covers the war, very detailed and fair, but recently I've seen some comments from him that seem to reflect a personal agenda against the Russian military. Such comments seem to only come out here and there, not often, but it did raise my antennas.
He is scrupulous in reporting the releases from the two DoD's and correlating in order to come up with a truthful depiction of the current front line.
And he is acute with his appraisals of the videos he gets his hands on, geolocating and time locating, too and even more. He's very good at that.
I don't think much of his military analysis though. One penetration is a successful attack opening the way to a multitude of possible advances that he sees and tells us about and another apparently identical penetration is simply an imminent 'cauldron'. The look like off-the-cuff inexpert assessments and generally I think work out that way, too.
He was much taken aback last year when his prognostications for Siversk and Bakhmut didn't work out. He just about had the whole of Ukraine falling to the Russian massive assault at that time.
But don't hold that against him. He is what he is and he's enthusiastic is all, playing war analyst or something.
Take him for what he surely is: a scrupulous and honest recorder of facts regarding unit movement and front line movements.
He lives in Belarus, not Russia. When I watched his channel in the past, he was too optimistic in my opinion, predicting a successful offensive by the Russian army with "big arrows".
My sense is that he has pretty extreme mood swings and gets a bit too obsessed with minutiae. His descriptions of what's going on in different places seem pretty good, but you need to look up a lot of other info to place them in context--especially when he gets moody one way or the other.
From recall, I think he is Brazilian married to a Ukrainian woman and living in Ukraine. hence, his 'leaning' toward Ukraine. That said, generally speaking, I think he tries to be legit and fair.
I think they *are* doing that and have been. But presumably as with Azovstal, AFU is burrowed deep in subterranean layers there as well. That's not to say dropping those bombs is completely ineffective, as it was very effective even on Azovstal. But just saying that dropping them won't completely evict the occupiers on its own.
You know i thought the same thing, and i recall seeing a few strings of bombs ripping across Azovstal during the siege ...
I suppose one might argue that saving some of the plant is a good idea, but given that a large portion of the country is going to have to be rebuilt, may as well flatten it rather than sacrifice your men,
I'm curious what the Ukrainian line looks like north west of the slag heap. The northern pincer is the most exposed line of attack for RF. The farther west it goes the more vulnerable it becomes to a southeastern push from UK towards the slag.
It's hard to know for certain. All we can do is extrapolate from how utterly heavy their bombardment was on those Russian armored advances toward Stepove. Judging by the sheer magnitude it seems that the AFU contingents in that quadrant must be fairly serious and dense.
There's plenty of supply lines/routes there, plenty of settlements for them to conceal armor and equipment, etc., so they should have no problems bringing heavy forces to bear there.
Thanks for the response. My guess is in addition to the maneuver you suggest in the article Russia will also need to continue pushing north along the rail line or at least heavily fortify it. A hard pitched battle pushing south into the coke plant while having your northern flank pummeled is a difficult situation.
Oct 22, 2023·edited Oct 22, 2023Liked by Simplicius
The US would just drop Agent Orange to defoliate the shrubbery. But Russia is a moral nation and won't do that. If only Putin was as evil as Biden, this war would already be over. It continues to amaze me that the Ukrainians don't realize they are fighting a US Proxy war to the last drop of Ukrainian blood - and the US doesn't care how many die. It's all a geopolitical game to Washington, which is now calling the war a "good investment." How ugly.
I suppose it is a testament to the power of social engineering, cultural warfare and propaganda. It’s pretty clear from where I am comfortably sitting that the Ukraine is an expendable battering ram in the decades old quest to partition and loot Russia...I’m sure the Russians know this, so it’s a bit perplexing that some in Ukraine remain oblivious. But heck, what do i really know? Not much.
It's a grind for sure, only way out of this is for the Russkies to think "out of the box"
I thought the tunneling (mines) was ingenious and harks back to WW1 tactics again. Except they were packed with hi-explosive and detonated. Both sides were terrified of tunneling.
Davaj, davaj ,Vozhak Z. slowly but surely grind toward victory . That idea of digging tunnels is just brilliant . Hard work is good for the soldiers , relieve tendencies toward depression , plus getting colder keeps the body warm . They will sleep better , and they can pop out on unexpected places for less costly attacks . Never mind the ISR. it is all about the spirit , that will decide .
I have been one of the soldiers forty years ago , we have to dig foxholes in the frozen ground . Many times the heavy duty shovel broke off before we could finish the digging . Activities like that is not for geeks I testify to that.
"reports from Ukrainian channels that Russian forces are now “digging tunnels” toward Ukrainian positions on Avdeevka so as to bypass certain heavily fortified zones and “pop out” in surprise."
For many months, I have been posting on this website and others the fact that there is a subterranean world that is being neglected. The Vietcong, Hezbollah , Iran and Hamas have been using it for decades. Where do you think Iran hides its huge rockets?
The Donbas is littered with abandoned mine workings. Hundreds of kilometres of underground highways to those who are familiar with them. They have a population that has been mining in this region since the 19th century. All they need is an improvement in their technologies. Digging tunnels today is far easier than was the case only 20 years ago. Now, there are remote-controlled mining machines that operate in smaller confines.
In WW1, in a few months, Welsh miners dug a series of tunnels under German fortifications. They were simultaneously blown up. The Germans lost 10,000 soldiers in a few minutes. The fortifications at Avdiivka are vulnerable to this sort of attack.
Another technique is horizontal drilling. These drilling rigs are much simpler than the rigs used for drilling for oil and gas at depth. They are compact and can be placed down a mine shaft. They can bore a hole 50+ km in length. They are designed so that their location can be fixed to less than one meter. They are designed to be able to place instruments or special tools at the end of the hole.
I am constantly shocked by how primitive both sides are in this war. Flying drones have existed for decades. But it is only in the past year that design and production has been ramped up.
How about land drones? No one seems to have developed such things. Why not? A simple petrol-engined 4WD 250CC "go kart" can carry a bomb weighing 50kg and travel cross-country at 40km/hr. An overhead drone can relay its signals. It can wait in ambush with the engine turned off. When a suitable target is discovered, it can be restarted and aimed at the target. No tank can survive such an explosion under its hull. These things can operate in swarms and cross mine fields. If a few get blown up, so what? They cost $1000 each. I read that each Russian shell costs "only" $600. Western shells cost 10 times more.
Sorry for this rant. I am just so fed up with the incompetence.
These things are very different from oil rigs. They are horizontal. They can easily fit far underground. They can make a hole for over 10km - around/blow obstacles.
I was Maintenance Manager for a fleet of drillings rigs. I know what they look like. I also know that downhole assemblies for long distance directional drilling need to be made up on the surface using a drilling rig. There's a hell of a difference between the local utilities infrastructure installation from 30' to 85' in your video, and directionally drilling something 10 km away. And the latter requires a rig that will be visible for miles.
Al these problems are surmountable. They are engineering problems. These are not insoluble problems.
Personally, I would much prefer to dig a hole for one of these things and put a roof over it than to go on foot across minefields and under and an artillery barrage to try to dislodge and an entrenched enemy. But then we all have our preferences. 😊
Lots of underground workings will be waterlogged and useless, others will be blocked by cave-ins. Putting the US-Ukronazis to the trouble of guarding them, just in case, is a good tactic.
You are correct. But mining is often under the water table. Water is often pumped out. Unless there is a fissure to a river or something like that, it is no big deal.
These are all very good points and I have been thinking along similar lines.
But like most good ideas it has been done before, military mining, undermining and counter mining have all be done since ancient times. Of course, there is a lot of new technology around today. last year I watched some work crews slant drilling around my neighborhood, they were threading power cables under roads and around pipes for maybe a hundred meters using only a few square meters of open ground on either end and I guess they would have an accuracy of only a few centimeters. There are also the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) which are basically subterranean robots that can dig a tunnel and line it with a reinforced shell as they go. But Simplicius' point is still valid, how do you do this in battlefield conditions in real time? However, balanced against the unlikelihood of battlefield combat tunneling is that this area has been at or near the frontline for literally years and the area is coal mining country, so who knows what has been dug already?
As for battleground combat robots, again it's not a new idea. Here are some videos of the Russian Uran-9 battlefield robot.
When we see things like this, that have been developed and tested but not deployed in large numbers, I think it shows unexpected problems have arisen, cost, complexity or some sort of other vulnerability.
There is nothing new about tunneling under castle walls to undermine them. That and powerful mortars is why castles went out of fashion.
All I am trying to explain is that with EXISTING tools and technology, Avdiivka can be undermined by a handful of skilled personnel at a far lower cost and greater certainty. Sending infantry and tanks into minefields and artillery barrages will seem quite quaint in the near future.
Drilling rigs operate through tiny holes filled with mud.
Tunneling in order to bring people or vehicles through is a completely different process. The types of machines used to dig the Shanghai underground rail system, for example, are enormous, expensive and noisy.
How do you combat something 50m underground that is approaching you at the rate of 100m per day?
Do you leave your fortification and try to dig down to it?
It is clear that you are just trying to bug me because you are no engineer. You have no practical skills and no imagination. Everything must come from the "combined arms" manual.
What did you study? political science? gardening? You obviously did not study history.
You explode a large shaped charge explosive pointed at it.
The shaped charge won't change the soil much but it will collapse the approaching tunnel and kills everyone in it, as well as buries the equipment being used.
You are stupid and don't even know history as you think you do.
In the Civil War - there was a large tunneled explosive used to create a hole in the opposing enemy lines. The result was a debacle for the attacker - the attackers got trapped in the crater and slaughtered by the remaining defenders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crater
Yet the latest example of your incompetence and Dunning Kruger syndrome.
I like it. I think along the same lines. The are apparently factors in play that we don't know about. Whether it be incompetence at the highest level, oligarchical 'misdirection', incompetence through the ranks, ineptitude in the clerical department.... scarcities careful hidden.. secret political deals.... Could be anything. We clearly do not know all or anything like it.
It is like with the poisonous vaccines. Inertia. There is a massive amount of information out there about their toxicity. And yet people keep on going to their lying doctor for "advice"
Yep and the bit about that which worries me most is the lying doctors. Or not even 'lying' but just, as you say, 'inertial' doctors: i.e. those who simply comply the edicts out of sheer inertia and lack of energy/desire to actually do anything. Who would have/could have believed it? Our whole western medical system crumpled overnight and became nothing more than a mumbo jumbo priesthood presiding over a bunch of witch doctors. Overnight. Without a murmur of protest. From anyone. anywhere.
I know. I was married to a doctor/GP for 18 years. I am glad we divorced before this debacle. I am sure she just followed the guidelines. She boasted of how much money she made by handling 50+ patients per day. That was in Australia. The prison colony.
Yep. I talked with two doctors. 'my' doctors, you know. They were both foreigners to Australia as more and more doctors are now, I don't know why and it might not even be true (because I'm in country Aus and it's possible they make the foreigner work country Aus for some years before they can work city ). But they were.
And I expected some frank observation from them of some kind. Perhaps astonishment? Perhaps confusion? Perhaps disappointment? Perhaps just anecdotes about 'how it is in my home country' ? Perhaps earnest explanations: 'read this, read that' ?
Nothing.
I sat with them in the privacy of their rooms, their individual 'consulting room' or whatever the hell you call them and I looked at them with their masks on and I told them I would much rather they took them off, told them I would not wear one, told them I have a website with a thousand links telling the scientific truth..... blah, blah, blah...
You are correct. You live in an "Area of Need". They send imported doctors there for some years (5 I think) before they can head for the cities.
We were lucky. In 2009, my ex got a job at Point Cook and we lived in Altona/Williamstown. Point Cook is no longer an Area of Need.
The problem is that politicians got control of the medical sector. If people paid to see their doctor, it would not have been so easy for them to control.
When a doctor has a huge mortgage and an income over A$200,000 per year, he has little choice. They are really slaves.
Naive question but where do all the supplies come in to Avdeevka. Can't they simply bomb the supply terminals using aviation (Rail, Road MSR) and repeat after repair.
I'm sure they are interdicting logistical support (supply) as they can. Interdiction is rarely 100% effective. Also, it takes time to make its impact felt.
Can a vehicle make it to Avdeevka? That is a more poignant question.
I hope your read is right - it's plausible. Frankly I doubt Gerasimov would put Avdeevka at the top of the list of targets. It's heavily fortified and the biggest obvious advantage would be to get AFU guns out of range of Donetsk - no small thing. But ideally I'd guess the Russian command would rather be working on the north or trying to eliminate the Ukrainian salient gained in their "offensive" in the south - that would not look good in Kiev or Washington. That said, it does look as though Ukraine is making Avdeekva a very valuable target. Zelensky has gone to cheer up the troops - so has Zaluzhny. If Ukraine makes this a test of wills it becomes a very good area to "grind down" the AFU - they're not very good at retreating. If the casualty ratio is in favor of RF forces, we should start to see more prisoners - and that would be very good. Russia may have a real opportunity here.
I've studied military history for a living for a very long time. There aren't many generalizations to make - but I'd say 500 years of European warfare has shown that even if you win, fighting Russia will get you maimed. And sometimes it gets you obliterated. There's a corollary here - Eastern Europeans are all a little crazy - the Poles are crazy, the Russians are crazy and the Ukrainians are crazy. We must not forget that Russians are fighting Ukrainians and Ukrainians are very tough and will take some real convincing to quit. My guess is that the Russian leaders know this better than anyone and that if they could somehow shake Ukrainian will, Moscow would be willing to "cut a deal" - and a pretty generous one as long as neutrality is included. I hope so - this war remains very dangerous and the world doesn't need more danger.
Avdiivka has been targeted because it is used to shell Donetsk city.
The recovery of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts have been an objective from the very start of the SMO.
As for "cut a deal": Russia did get to a deal in the early part of the SMO; this deal was broken by Boris Johnson. Any deal now will be tempered both by Russia having the upper hand and by the fact of past "agreement incapability".
Furthermore, Russia has clear benefits from the present situation alongside the detriments: Ukraine and now Israel/Gaza are demilitarizing the entire West along with inflicting massive economic losses on Europe and Japan, as well as significant economic problems for the US. Even beyond the outright cash spend on Ukraine subsidies, the cumulative losses in the West from inflation are easily in the trillions, far greater than any suffered by Russia including the supposedly $600B CBR theft which turns out to only be $280B of which 1/4 is Russian private citizen theft.
The Ukraine situation has also crystallized pretty much the entire rest of the world as being "Not With Them (the West)", and this dichotomy is being further reinforced by Israel/Gaza.
The danger is from the West's - primarily the US' - inability to assimilate its loss of hegemony, and it is not clear how Russia making a bad deal in Ukraine lessens this danger.
He won't, C1ue. However, he knows that he is faced with dangerously unbalanced neocons who talk as if they would happily initiate WW3 if it served their interests. If he has learnt anything in the last 20 years it is that the only language these people listen to is that of maximum deterrence and the promise that if they unleash the Big One, they too will die.
You are contradicting yourself. If the neocons truly believe nuclear war is survivable - deterrence won't stop them.
My view is very different: Putin has demonstrated repeatedly that there are plenty of ways to attrit American capability and reputation without going head to head. So has China. Put the two together along with most of the rest of the world - to me, that's how the situation gets resolved.
Not quite sure how I'm contradicting myself here, C1ue. Who says Putin is going "head to head" with the US if he is showing them his new air defense capabilities? That's more like deterrence than outward aggression. As you rightly say, there are many ways of attriting US capability. One way is to show the world that you are one step ahead of them technologically and that you have the ability to negate their best weapons systems.
June 6th 1944..or it's what I learned sir
Maybe a typo?
If I may.. I saw a video of one leopard going really fireball... Is that normal or what got it?
Thanks
Secondaries on an armor hit are the ammunition going up. It happens.
Thanks sir
Every single tank will go fireball if you put HE(high explosive) shells inside
Thing is why Abrams dont do fireball sometimes - cause there is no HE shells.(real HE not some trash hybrid)
For russian army, tank without HE isnt a tank really. Cause your primary goal is to suppress enemy lines trenches houses and barricades with HE fire. If you dont have HE your tank is simply useless. unless you fight other tanks. which isnt happening often at all. 90% of tank work is to fight enemy lines trenches buildings etc. not enemy tanks.
Thank You Sir.
My father has been tank commander in the old M47 (yes, '60 era) and seeing the modern tanks going this way was frightening... Imagine about 10 years ago I was thinking to buy an old demilled one to gift him a youth gift... :) but he told me I was crazy to even think to waste such money... but anyway his eyes sparkled at the idea...
If you can’t get past historical dates correct. What does that say about your current forecasts
If you can't get past one tiny typo, what does that say about your ability to analyze data?
Yeah, let's discredit an entire article with 8000+ words, data, images, sources because of one typo. What a great counter-argument!
I just felt you might benefit from knowing that "past historical dates" is redundant. Why? Because, unless you've life-hacked the space-time continuum, "historical dates" are usually in the past. No need to feel embarrassed, as this is a common mistake for those whose first language is not English.
As long as we are being A-retentive perfectionists where is your question mark?
Yea, and the two statements should be linked with a comma instead of being separate sentences.
McGlynn lambasts Simplicius for a typo, whereas McGlynn demonstrated lower school level grammatical errors.
The irony.
Dont let the hatch clonk you on the noggin on the way out champster!!
If I wanted to nitpick people, I could spend my whole day doing so. Is this not about transmitting ideas, rather than data you already knew anyway?
There's a way to disagree about things without being a dick.
If you can't use proper punctuation, why bother typing?
We understood what he meant, in this case. Lighten up.
Once the allies landed on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 4, 1944, their next task was to slowly expand the beachhead
Do you know something that all the history books don’t
What is the point of your post?
Interesting that this is your ONLY comment ever on this blog. Provocateur spotted, you're officially on "the list".
I don't know why you'd bother. "You made a typo, you suck" says more about the poster than about your work.
Leave him be. McGlum promises future entertainment value.
Perhaps you should read the Big Serge writeups on Normandy.
In particular, that the initial footholds were stalled because the armor and transport heavy US forces were facing the hedged fields while the British were facing the more open terrain - exactly the reverse of what competent planning should have positioned them as.
Also of note was that the breakthrough that occurred was ultimately because of 1000 artillery and 1500 heavy bombers, blowing the crap out of a 6000 yard line and the box behind it.
Years ago I had the great honor to speak to an American infantryman who was in the breakout operation from Normandy and saw the effects of the bombing/artillery preparation.
He was thankful for the bombers, but he was also not in the unit hit by friendly fires during that operation.
Heavy bombers in close proximity of friendlies was not selected after Normandy. Modern navigation and positional awareness may make it safer, if all systems work!
BigSerge's writeup on the Normandy breakout does highlight at least 2 different incidents of friendly fire.
Even today - with the attack/counterattack fluidity of combat, friendly fire is going to happen even if somehow mistakes aren't made (coordinate transmission/fusing/targeting errors, misidentification, etc etc).
BFT and no-fire zones in fires systems are supposed to help with this. Generally, we shouldn't be dropping fires or targeting friendlies anymore, but shit happens.
That said, using heavy bombers on Normandy was a stupid idea. It was a reversion to WWI barrage thinking. You can argue with the whole strategic bombing premise, and I do, but using them in a tactical space is worse than useless. Note that the strategic bombing leadership - Harris, Arnold, etc, were dead against this. Ultimately Eisenhower takes the blame for that.
The heavy bombing campaign targeting German cities is nothing to be proud of. Lindemann's advise to Churchill to bomb working class areas in order to kill more people illustrates just how morally repugnant TPTB are
I suspect you misread what I said. I maybe unclearly criticized it.
Technology limited what bombers could/could not do. Think of all the AA assets (especially as AT) and other supporting units the Germans could have used if they weren't being bombed.
It was an attritional campaign. The Allies were always going to win one of those (sound familiar?) They misjudged the impact of bocage. The British initially landed a much more armor heavy force, so it made sense to land them in front of Caen. The Germans just turned out to be pretty good at defending, though at high cost in men and equipment they could not replace. So they had to increasingly divert reinforcements to the Caen sector, not the US area of operations. Once the US build up was done, and 3d Army was activated, the writing was on the wall for the Germans. Oh, and not having any sort of way to contest allied airpower didn't help the Germans, either.
You read "all" the history books and still have time to surf the internet, impressive.
Reading every book on WWII would take several lifetimes for the fastest reader, and you'd be reading a lot of shit along the way.
Best one-volume understanding of the war, by far:
https://www.amazon.com/World-Arms-Global-History-War-ebook/dp/B0892QB6XQ?ref_=ast_author_mpb
Read the Richard Evans trilogy if you want to know more about Nazi Germany.
Want to know about Japan?
https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Sun-Decline-Japanese-1936-1945-ebook/dp/B00P5557QM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1698017378&sr=1-1
As for Soviet accounts...I wish I spoke Russian because i'm told the material is much better there. That said, Chris Bellamy does, and he tried his best i'm sure.
https://www.amazon.com/Absolute-War-Soviet-Russia-Second-ebook/dp/B001M5JVIE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1698017617&sr=1-1
Lastly, the most interesting book on the war I ever read:
https://www.amazon.com/Blossoms-Wind-Human-Legacies-Kamikaze-ebook/dp/B0B3HMQGWQ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1698017710&sr=1-1
There, that should save someone a lifetime or two.
Thanks you very much for suggesting these books! Didn’t know any of them. Already got all of them. It’s a real pleasure to read, not only Simplicius excellent analysis, though as someone mentioned before, his visions of the other war now aren’t remotely as good or objective, but the commentaries here. You give me back hope in the Western World. Not everything is lost while people like you are still around.
You may like or dislike individual books but you'll have an opinion by the end :-)
If you want an example of German "we didn't know about the crimes against humanity" apologia, try Mellenthin's Panzer Battles. It's a nifty book if you take all the denials of knowing about the bad stuff with a grain of salt, and the comments about Russians being some wild horde from the East.
Greats like Thomas McGlynn are not only immortal but own a Tardis so time and library space are not a constraint. He's read them all, even the books not yet published.
Of course I know this, but I find it a superior option to try to be helpful in passing rather than to criticize. Others usually benefit.
Thank you. Got 'em. Looking forward to enjoying my saved lifetime. :)
It’s funny how the new hires march right on and put the foot right in the mouth...ProTip: dont try this in real life as you will be swiftly kicked in the arse, actually and painfully ... best of luck shit-stirring !
Deliberate grammar issues, spelling and punctuation errors are the hallmark of provocative comments. Not necessarily a paid agitator but perhaps someoone with an axe to grind, anger issues and/or personality disorder. Appeals to human kindness, lavishing unearned praise and a healthy dose of hillbilly humor and colloquialisms are effective counters in my experience. Advanced sarcasm? Anger just feeds the ogre algorithm.
Its quite remarkable just how effective modern ATGM's are. I remember when I first heard about them was in 2006 when Hezbollah was destroying supposedly indestructible Merkavas, and then when IS started taking out Leo-2's in Turkey (although the Leo doesn't have the same "indestructible" reputation)
For a long time, the armor-myth of tanks like the Abrams and Challenger reigned supreme, to the point that tankers more or less thought themselves as impervious to harm. Yes, they could throw a track or have their optics knocked out, but nothing life threatening
Contrast that to now, where what appears to be a very small amount of ordnance - a few kg in a missile, or drone - is able to have an outsized effect on neutralizing armor. So now, modern militaries either have to come up with a way to really defend against them, or treat armor as semi-disposable.
Looking at Avdeevka, in retrospect its impressive the RuAF is attacking the way it is. I tried to imagine what NATO would do in the same scenario and I can't imagine they would even think about making an advance like this before a full year of round the clock aerial bombardment. The losses in this case are expected.
"Its quite remarkable just how effective modern ATGM's are"
There is nothing remarkable about this. The Egyptian army fought the Israeli army to a standstill in 1973 using Soviet ATGM's. The Hezbollah defeated the Israelis in 2006 with Russian ATGM's
The only remarkable thing is that the Russians don't follow the news or study previous conflicts. They are ramping up tank production when everyone knows that these tanks can be taken out by ATGM's or swarms of cheap drones. The idiocy is institutional. It is even worse in the West.
Tanks were introduced to make breakthroughs so that the infantry could follow them. These days, the tanks are kept back while the infantry clears the way. Does not anyone see the irony?
Tanks still have their uses. And the modern, evolving tech makes them better in each generation. Take a gander at the Amarta.
Sure. Battle ships and aircraft carriers improved with each iteration.
However, rocketry and electronics improved at a far faster pace.
I repeat. For the price of a modern tank, 100+ of the most advanced drones can be produced in a fraction of the time. To train a tank crew takes years. To train a drone operator takes weeks. Do your sums!
Drones have their uses, but drones aren't magic bullets.
Even with the large numbers of drones being used by Russia - the Ukrainians are still able to use artillery, move in supplies, etc etc.
Your arguments are nonsense.
No, he's not wrong. The power of area denial weapons is higher than the power of the armor itself. A properly equipped opposing force will demonstrate the point. To the extent the SMO hasn't, you can see the AFVs knocked out constantly same as I can.
Ditto aircraft carriers. Too many much cheaper missiles hunting for them.
Anyone who serves in either (armor, aircraft carriers) has my respect and sympathy.
Totally agree, as someone who spent his young adult years around armor and tactics the idea of doing it in today's world is intimidating.
Tanks still serve as personnel carriers and are able to destroy concrete fortifications that drones can't. They still have their uses.
Read my piece about land drones. They can replace tanks for the purposes you mentioned.
It is important to understand that in the modern battle field, it is virtually impossible to hide tanks and APC's. IMHO, soldiers are better off on motor bikes or go karts. Suitably dispersed of course.
I still see videos of columns of soldiers. That is ridiculous. They should be each at least 20M apart.
Ok i disagree about drones replacing armor for hitting fortifications. I agree with most of the rest, though APCs have their purpose too. Shrapnel, mines, grenades and machine guns still exist.
"soldiers are better off on motor bikes or go karts"
Go Karts? LOL.
Armor has been effectively relegated to a mobile pill box. Sure it still has uses, but I suspect they have a very short future.
In the end, ground forces need to occupy land.
Tanks are a "tool in the box". Since their inception that has been so. Maybe not as tactically important for the SMO, but that remains to be seen. As the Bandera army degrades, it will be less capable of refuting heavy armor.
Quite correct. I think they should be looked at as mobile pillboxes. They don't need that huge cannon. In urban warfare, there are better options.
Lolololl you are really the stupidest person here. The armata? You really picking that as your arguement? Hows that armata going bro? Suppose to have what 1,000 of them by now? Can't even field one
It's already on trials in SMO. And modern tanks like T-90M, T-80BVM and T72B3M are doing just fine.
Lolololoolol just fine? The 6 major storage bases have been emptied, minimum 2,400 tanks destroyed by Oryx, 5,000 by UA count, literally using T55s. Show me one video of the "armata" in the SMO? If there doing so good how come russias done nothing but lose since last july?
1. "The 6 major storage bases have been emptied" - no and it has been debunked already;
2. "minimum 2,400 tanks destroyed by Oryx, 5,000 by UA count, literally using T55s" - no person who thinks themselves even relatively objective is using Oryx and especially UA claims as credible source. It has been proven many times of highly inflated numbers that Oryx/UA provde. Nothing wrong about using T-55/T-62 in the rear areas as stationary turrets acting as fire support. It is much better than to use lighter platforms for that role;
3. "Show me one video of the "armata" in the SMO" - why should anyone show trials videos of the tank that's not officialy in the army yet?
4. "If there doing so good how come russias done nothing but lose since last july?" - that's not even funny to hear. What is your definition of "good"? Russia is doing what have been long time ago spoken by Russian goverment - demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, so it no longer poses a threat. They are doing that successfully.
Adding pieces like "Lolololoolol" makes your credibility even lower.
Have you not been paying any attention? Have you not seen the hundreds of videos of TANKS leading the way into the tree/trench lines using their massive firepower to suppress, disrupt, disperse, and kill the enemy in order to give the following infantry carriers time to disgorge their occupants who then occupy the trenches the TANKS just blasted? There are literally several videos of this just in this article alone. Also, have you not seen the literally hundreds of videos of TANKS, by themselves, doing the "tank carousel" to raid and reign destruction upon the enemy whilst they are trying to displace or rotate troops?
The idiocy is institutional, just not in the place you think it is.
The tanks only move in once those in the trenches and their ATGM's have been largely destroyed by artillery - hundreds of shells per tree line.
Try doing the "carousel" when there are Lancets in the neighbourhood. Their crew would be well advised to get out of the tanks ASAP.
No shit, bro. Combined arms is, and always has been, a thing. You're still astoundingly stupid in regards to the actual continuing value of the tank. Infantry and arty are both vulnerable to ATGM and drones... so what, we send battleships in to capture trenches? What is your point?
Insulting people shows the level of your intellect.
Let's watch the Israelis use "combined arms" in Gaza.
You are so ignorant that I deign not to reply to you.
OK, bro. Deign not to watch all the vids from of Russian tanks LEADING THE WAY into combat. LEADING the other arms into combat. Clearly nobody has gotten your memo.
And in your OP you literally insulted the entire Russian and American military establishment. Literally hundreds of thousands of people. What level is your intellect at? I merely insulted one single moron.
LOL especially given that only Russia has Lancets.
But even presuming that the West eventually deploys these systems, the reality is that Russia also has serious electronic counter warfare systems.
And the latter is why your "drone uber alles" is nonsense. Clearly an ivory tower type with no grounding in the realities of peer warfare.
I guess you have never heard of frequency hopping or inertial navigation.
Frequency hopping assumes that the enemy cannot just jam all the tunnels with a massive ECM spike or that frequency scanning is actually not that difficult, since all that is needed is to detect a non-static noise.
Equally, "inertial navigation" accumulates error progressively such that it becomes increasingly useless, the greater the distance traveled. That's why we have GPS systems even though a lot of the world is mapped - because inertial navigation systems are far closer to Magellan era navigation by dead reckoning than it is any form of precise navigation.
But then again, you have already demonstrated, repeatedly, that you have zero real world experience with anything you talk about, nor have you spent even a few minutes to think about why salespeople lies about <insert topic here> may or may not be true, or even research to learn more about the subjects you pretend to know something about.
I seem to remember Hezbollah figuring out a counter for FH radios back in the early 2000s.
The 2 gulf wars were a counter argument. But then again the Iraqi army never showed up, or was never there in the first place
There is no "solution" to attacking a strongly defended position. Mg's will shred infantry and light vehicles. ATGM's will disable armor. Mines counter everything. MANPADS make CAS dangerous. Drones of all types now are threats to literally everything on the ground.
Armor is not as effective as maybe its perceived to be. However, its not like you can just decide to ditch it. The alternative is 100x worse, unarmored infantry are literally cannon fodder.
"There is no "solution" to attacking a strongly defended position"
Please read my post about tunneling. The battle can be carried out underground. Learn from the Vietcong, the Iranians, the Hezbollah and Hamas.
More idiocy: comparing 3 guerilla forces and a presumed Iraq/Iran combat with modern peer warfare.
The North Vietnamese didn't win at Dien Bien Phu with AK47s - they deployed artillery and armor.
I wrote about Saigon. Dien Bien Phu was much earlier. Anyway, the French bunkers were so primitive that Vietnamese sappers were able to get through the barbed wire perimeter and blow themselves up inside the French command posts.
Please check your history. The Vietnamese did do what I have suggested above.
𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘌𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱'𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦, 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘨𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘝𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘩 𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘥 45 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘸 𝘶𝘱 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴. 𝘕𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 10 𝘔24 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 "𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵" 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 (𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 20 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴) 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘩. 𝘍𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘹 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘯 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Dien-Bien-Phu-battlefield-under-siege-again
Saigon didn't fall to the VietCong. Vietnam lost to the North Vietnamese army.
And the French surrendered not because they were under small arms fire, but because there were masses of artillery firing on them. From Wiki:
"two batteries each of 105 mm howitzers, 120 mm mortars, and 75 mm mountain guns (plus seventeen 57 mm recoilless rifles and numerous 60 mm and 81/82 mm mortars)"
One battery is 8 to 10 tubes, so that's 48 to 60 heavy guns plus recoilless and tactical mortars. There were furthermore 62 aircraft lost - not all shelled on the runway.
Once again, you demonstrate zero knowledge about reality as opposed to nonsense.
You do make some good points. I just don't agree that armor is done for.
They need to call Elon Musk and buy a few of his smaller tunnelers!
Tunneling and 'mining enemy' structures has been aound since the day miners shored up tunnels.....
My grandfather was a miner. My father and his two brothers also mined. We owned mines.
Too many people seem to have little idea where the "stuff" they own comes from. They believe in electric cars, PV and wind mills. In the hydrogen economy and other fantasies.
I think that officers should get at least one year of engineering training before going to military college.
West Point started as an "engineer only" school.
Maybe not, a famous WW2 poster entitled "The downfall of the dictators is assured" states the following. (I have the poster in my man cave)
"Britain develops new tactics"
"Tough well trained infantry clear the way for tanks in North Africa"
I am being facetious obviously :-)
The Aussies revolted and took control of Cairo for 3 days. They beat up British officers. My two uncles watched this at a famous Cairo cafe.
Their complaint was that they were being misused by the British. People who wrote that poster of yours.
The British changed officers and the Aussies went back to war.
You won't find this in the lying history books.
True, and if you'd think I would be happy running through a German mine field being hosed down by MG34's so that an awful Matilda or Crusader tank could waddle safely behind me...No thanks!
I read a story (Barrie Pitt?) about after the fall of Tobruk that he was in a bar with some Australians when some south African troops came in and everything went quiet. The Biggest Oz got up and offered a SA his chair, somewhat to the South African's surprise. The Australian told him that he thought his legs must be tired after running all the way to Cairo from Tobruk. Pitt? said that he fell about laughing but the South Africans didn't and the bar got demolished in the fight. He thought he was lucky to get out of it with a broken tooth and a cracked rib.
Infantry had to clear the way for tanks by 1943 at the latest. It looks again like the technology of armour penetration is ahead of armour protection but since there are so many targets on a battlefield that can't resist tanks I think that news of their demise is premature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_tank
Oh and the tanks of the RTC worked well with infantry. The Matilda and its derivative the Valentine had the same reputation early in the war as the Tiger did later on. Note also that the Valentine was the best tank of the war, with or without the uberstylish side-mounted drop tank. ;O)
Every weapons system can be destroyed by something. Your argument is idiotic.
It further shows ignorance of combined arms - direct fire by an armored source being part of it.
Keep digging. 😊
I'm not the one pushing tunnels, yo
Fought Israel to a standstill huh????? Then how come the lost every war, land, treaty and people wize
Egypt regained Sinai. I call that a victory. Kissinger told Israel to return Sinai or they would be eventually destroyed.
Please look at the facts and don't get your data from the lying MSM.
Yup everything is a zionist conspiracy.
Egypt regained the Sinai huh?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Abirey-Halev
Please look at a map.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_Peninsula
Tanks have been 'dead' since the invention of portable rocket launchers.
Quite correct. Many years ago, I told my father that all the Egyptian army needed was swarms of soldiers equipped with ATGM's - some with sniper rifles - and all terrain motorcycles to be able to prevent Israeli tanks and infantry to advance across the deserts. My father got quite angry with me as he could not think of a way of proving me wrong. 🤣
Tanks as currently used are for overwatch and fire support. They can still be used for added punch in offense, too.
@Alfred Nassim
Ask not what you can do to the tank, ask rather what the tank can do to you.
https://youtu.be/lI7T650RTT8?si=HLQr5W12NkuY8OtG
yep the irony is there but that doesn' t necessarily mean anything in particular. a tank is, at the least, a mobile gun platform fairly well protected and I guess there'll always be a need for them. And who knows, next week there could be a completely new anti-ATGM tank mountable weapon and then we're off to the races again..
A mobile pill box?
I can't find the thread. Too many posts and the software doesn't have the option. (or I can't find it). But perhaps it was where I opined that a tank is at the least a mobile armoured gun and therefore always useful, desirable?
If so then, yep, a mobile pillbox it is if you like. A bit expensive perhaps but yep.
:)
Wonder how long before we have remote controlled or AI "drone" armor. Wonder if it's possible to engineer skids or skis for the front of armor to conteract mud. Imagine such fast moving, rapid firing tanks in vanguard positions in both bocages and urban assaults.
Interesting points. One thing is for sure, the current battle field is ripe for innovative countermeasures....
Not to mention all of the nano-tech that can be developed and deployed.
That conjures, terrifying and awful images from several science fiction novels I read in the past
I am sure Raytheon is working on such currently. Will only cost $100 million each and will be undefeatable until its first contact with an RPG-7.
Perhaps, as in the movie : "The Pentagon Wars" the tank crew are protected by "psychological armour".
The concept of the shaped charge warhead is not new, obviously. I mean the start was putting armor plating on a vehicle, then the AT rifle, then greater armor, then the AT gun, sabots to penetrate the greater armor that was heaped on, then sloped armor, then the shaped charge, then reactive armor to disrupt said shaped charges from forming their jet of molten metal...the battle between offense and defense keeps on going, though generally lost by the defense.
The advantage of the ATGM is that you can fire it and guide it from a greater distance than you could say, a RPG. That's pretty much it. The technology really hasn't changed much except in guidance systems. Some are fire and forget like the Javelin (and yes, this means EW applies), some are beam-riders like the Kornet (which means you need to keep locked onto the target and could be IR jammed), some are wire-guided like the Milan, which means you have to guide it in yourself. The way the penetrators work is pretty much how they have worked for the last 50 years, aside from tweaks to make it work against reactive armor. Absent some new defensive system, I don't expect things to get better for armor anytime soon.
seems to me they're not even really trying to protect them. just like the screen above the top some sort of cage all round presumably would take much of the sting out of the armour piercing but I don't see ANY tanks with any such as yet. Their reactive armour is all. And that, it seems, don't work well enough.
The way the cope cages work is that they set off the first charge (assuming a tandem charge). Then the second charge goes off but it is too far from the actual armor to penetrate. The liquid copper "dart" loses its penetrator very quickly
An APFSDS like you're describing works in a different way, there is no explosive
Great report, thank you.
One question: Is the guy of the "Military Summary" youtube channel, his name is Dima, one of those Wagner fan boys that overly criticizes / puts down the Russian military?
Honestly I'm not 100% sure. I don't watch too much youtube, though I'm familiar with the channel you're talking about as I've seen a few of his reports before I can't recall if he's a "fan boy" or "doomer" or anything of that sort. He seems to be well regarded by most but I'd have to take a deeper look to evaluate. Mostly I don't give much credence to anyone on Youtube because I consider that a much more "for-profit" platform so I've typically discounted most of the content there as it's generated by people merely seeking to generate revenue $$$. At least many analysts on Telegram are doing it for the serious analysis and have no real means of generating $$$ from their analysis which gives it more credence.
That's not to disparage everyone on Youtube, I'm sure there's some good stuff but I'm just speaking in generalities.
Also Youtube greatly censors and deplatforms any pro-Russian content so as a rule I expect almost everything there to be heavily skewed toward pro-establishment propaganda, in terms of contemporary stuff.
Thank you. I like the way he covers the war, very detailed and fair, but recently I've seen some comments from him that seem to reflect a personal agenda against the Russian military. Such comments seem to only come out here and there, not often, but it did raise my antennas.
I look at Dima and Weeb which seem OK for reportage but have a tendency to resort to speculation about the future which I ignore.
Alex on History Legends is quite good. He also has a sense of humor and is far more enjoyable to watch.
Dima is alright.
He is scrupulous in reporting the releases from the two DoD's and correlating in order to come up with a truthful depiction of the current front line.
And he is acute with his appraisals of the videos he gets his hands on, geolocating and time locating, too and even more. He's very good at that.
I don't think much of his military analysis though. One penetration is a successful attack opening the way to a multitude of possible advances that he sees and tells us about and another apparently identical penetration is simply an imminent 'cauldron'. The look like off-the-cuff inexpert assessments and generally I think work out that way, too.
He was much taken aback last year when his prognostications for Siversk and Bakhmut didn't work out. He just about had the whole of Ukraine falling to the Russian massive assault at that time.
But don't hold that against him. He is what he is and he's enthusiastic is all, playing war analyst or something.
Take him for what he surely is: a scrupulous and honest recorder of facts regarding unit movement and front line movements.
Most war porn yootoobers are on TG, too.
He lives in Belarus, not Russia. When I watched his channel in the past, he was too optimistic in my opinion, predicting a successful offensive by the Russian army with "big arrows".
My sense is that he has pretty extreme mood swings and gets a bit too obsessed with minutiae. His descriptions of what's going on in different places seem pretty good, but you need to look up a lot of other info to place them in context--especially when he gets moody one way or the other.
From recall, I think he is Brazilian married to a Ukrainian woman and living in Ukraine. hence, his 'leaning' toward Ukraine. That said, generally speaking, I think he tries to be legit and fair.
No. He doesn't analyze, comment or predict much. Just recites the developments.
Considering there are no civilians in the coke plant why wouldn't dropping FABs be an option?
I think they *are* doing that and have been. But presumably as with Azovstal, AFU is burrowed deep in subterranean layers there as well. That's not to say dropping those bombs is completely ineffective, as it was very effective even on Azovstal. But just saying that dropping them won't completely evict the occupiers on its own.
You know i thought the same thing, and i recall seeing a few strings of bombs ripping across Azovstal during the siege ...
I suppose one might argue that saving some of the plant is a good idea, but given that a large portion of the country is going to have to be rebuilt, may as well flatten it rather than sacrifice your men,
If firepower was the cure for defense, WWI would have been over a lot faster.
The problem with heavy urban bombardment is it creates natural defenses for the Bandera army and barriers for the RU. The Soviets built stuff to last.
Yeah, good point. Sometimes I forget that the infrastructure there is Soviet and not the flimsy shit we have in the 'west'.
I'm curious what the Ukrainian line looks like north west of the slag heap. The northern pincer is the most exposed line of attack for RF. The farther west it goes the more vulnerable it becomes to a southeastern push from UK towards the slag.
It's hard to know for certain. All we can do is extrapolate from how utterly heavy their bombardment was on those Russian armored advances toward Stepove. Judging by the sheer magnitude it seems that the AFU contingents in that quadrant must be fairly serious and dense.
There's plenty of supply lines/routes there, plenty of settlements for them to conceal armor and equipment, etc., so they should have no problems bringing heavy forces to bear there.
The Berdichi region reportedly has the 116th Territorial Defense forces in that region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/116th_Territorial_Defense_Brigade_(Ukraine)
which reportedly has serious Bakhmut experience.
Thanks for the response. My guess is in addition to the maneuver you suggest in the article Russia will also need to continue pushing north along the rail line or at least heavily fortify it. A hard pitched battle pushing south into the coke plant while having your northern flank pummeled is a difficult situation.
The US would just drop Agent Orange to defoliate the shrubbery. But Russia is a moral nation and won't do that. If only Putin was as evil as Biden, this war would already be over. It continues to amaze me that the Ukrainians don't realize they are fighting a US Proxy war to the last drop of Ukrainian blood - and the US doesn't care how many die. It's all a geopolitical game to Washington, which is now calling the war a "good investment." How ugly.
Well it's all going to defoliate soon in winter anyway so that will definitely clear things up for Russian artillery and strike forces.
I suppose it is a testament to the power of social engineering, cultural warfare and propaganda. It’s pretty clear from where I am comfortably sitting that the Ukraine is an expendable battering ram in the decades old quest to partition and loot Russia...I’m sure the Russians know this, so it’s a bit perplexing that some in Ukraine remain oblivious. But heck, what do i really know? Not much.
excellent. And educational for me.
It's a grind for sure, only way out of this is for the Russkies to think "out of the box"
I thought the tunneling (mines) was ingenious and harks back to WW1 tactics again. Except they were packed with hi-explosive and detonated. Both sides were terrified of tunneling.
The Messines ridge was permanently altered!
The western lower slopes were but the mines had been there for a year. It could not be repeated elsewhere.
Davaj, davaj ,Vozhak Z. slowly but surely grind toward victory . That idea of digging tunnels is just brilliant . Hard work is good for the soldiers , relieve tendencies toward depression , plus getting colder keeps the body warm . They will sleep better , and they can pop out on unexpected places for less costly attacks . Never mind the ISR. it is all about the spirit , that will decide .
If it's an industrial area, the chances are that there are lots of underground workings anyway. Find them and use them.
True, but when you've been one of the soldiers, it sucks!
I have been one of the soldiers forty years ago , we have to dig foxholes in the frozen ground . Many times the heavy duty shovel broke off before we could finish the digging . Activities like that is not for geeks I testify to that.
with you
Ukraine's desperate optics/propaganda will probably get worse now that Bibi has moved to the top of the queue.
Yes, but who will spread it? That's the point, Elensky has lost his megaphone.
"reports from Ukrainian channels that Russian forces are now “digging tunnels” toward Ukrainian positions on Avdeevka so as to bypass certain heavily fortified zones and “pop out” in surprise."
For many months, I have been posting on this website and others the fact that there is a subterranean world that is being neglected. The Vietcong, Hezbollah , Iran and Hamas have been using it for decades. Where do you think Iran hides its huge rockets?
The Donbas is littered with abandoned mine workings. Hundreds of kilometres of underground highways to those who are familiar with them. They have a population that has been mining in this region since the 19th century. All they need is an improvement in their technologies. Digging tunnels today is far easier than was the case only 20 years ago. Now, there are remote-controlled mining machines that operate in smaller confines.
In WW1, in a few months, Welsh miners dug a series of tunnels under German fortifications. They were simultaneously blown up. The Germans lost 10,000 soldiers in a few minutes. The fortifications at Avdiivka are vulnerable to this sort of attack.
Another technique is horizontal drilling. These drilling rigs are much simpler than the rigs used for drilling for oil and gas at depth. They are compact and can be placed down a mine shaft. They can bore a hole 50+ km in length. They are designed so that their location can be fixed to less than one meter. They are designed to be able to place instruments or special tools at the end of the hole.
I am constantly shocked by how primitive both sides are in this war. Flying drones have existed for decades. But it is only in the past year that design and production has been ramped up.
How about land drones? No one seems to have developed such things. Why not? A simple petrol-engined 4WD 250CC "go kart" can carry a bomb weighing 50kg and travel cross-country at 40km/hr. An overhead drone can relay its signals. It can wait in ambush with the engine turned off. When a suitable target is discovered, it can be restarted and aimed at the target. No tank can survive such an explosion under its hull. These things can operate in swarms and cross mine fields. If a few get blown up, so what? They cost $1000 each. I read that each Russian shell costs "only" $600. Western shells cost 10 times more.
Sorry for this rant. I am just so fed up with the incompetence.
How long do you think a drilling rig and it's crew would last before being hit?
The drill can be 100m underground in an abandoned mine shaft. No big deal.
https://drillers.com/directional-drilling-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know/
https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/oilfield-review/ex-drilling
The drilling rig however is a giant eyesore that no one can miss.
These things are very different from oil rigs. They are horizontal. They can easily fit far underground. They can make a hole for over 10km - around/blow obstacles.
https://cortekpower.com/blogs/blog/how-far-can-directional-drilling-go
I was Maintenance Manager for a fleet of drillings rigs. I know what they look like. I also know that downhole assemblies for long distance directional drilling need to be made up on the surface using a drilling rig. There's a hell of a difference between the local utilities infrastructure installation from 30' to 85' in your video, and directionally drilling something 10 km away. And the latter requires a rig that will be visible for miles.
Al these problems are surmountable. They are engineering problems. These are not insoluble problems.
Personally, I would much prefer to dig a hole for one of these things and put a roof over it than to go on foot across minefields and under and an artillery barrage to try to dislodge and an entrenched enemy. But then we all have our preferences. 😊
Lots of underground workings will be waterlogged and useless, others will be blocked by cave-ins. Putting the US-Ukronazis to the trouble of guarding them, just in case, is a good tactic.
You are correct. But mining is often under the water table. Water is often pumped out. Unless there is a fissure to a river or something like that, it is no big deal.
These are all very good points and I have been thinking along similar lines.
But like most good ideas it has been done before, military mining, undermining and counter mining have all be done since ancient times. Of course, there is a lot of new technology around today. last year I watched some work crews slant drilling around my neighborhood, they were threading power cables under roads and around pipes for maybe a hundred meters using only a few square meters of open ground on either end and I guess they would have an accuracy of only a few centimeters. There are also the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) which are basically subterranean robots that can dig a tunnel and line it with a reinforced shell as they go. But Simplicius' point is still valid, how do you do this in battlefield conditions in real time? However, balanced against the unlikelihood of battlefield combat tunneling is that this area has been at or near the frontline for literally years and the area is coal mining country, so who knows what has been dug already?
As for battleground combat robots, again it's not a new idea. Here are some videos of the Russian Uran-9 battlefield robot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MiiUOjmqLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBC9BM4-3Ek
and going back further here is the Bovington Tank museum presentation of the "Goliath" German remote-control demolition "tank" of WWII.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBC9BM4-3Ek
When we see things like this, that have been developed and tested but not deployed in large numbers, I think it shows unexpected problems have arisen, cost, complexity or some sort of other vulnerability.
Thank you. I agree.
There is nothing new about tunneling under castle walls to undermine them. That and powerful mortars is why castles went out of fashion.
All I am trying to explain is that with EXISTING tools and technology, Avdiivka can be undermined by a handful of skilled personnel at a far lower cost and greater certainty. Sending infantry and tanks into minefields and artillery barrages will seem quite quaint in the near future.
From the videos and images coming out of northern Syria, ISIS et al certainly benefitted from state of the art tunnelling machines....
The tunnel system in ISIS (NATO) held Syrian areas were dug before Russian intervention. SAA was too weak to counter them.
Lefarge supplied 6 million tons of concrete.
Try that in combat conditions against Russian military and see what happens.
You still continue to exhibit idiocy.
Drilling rigs operate through tiny holes filled with mud.
Tunneling in order to bring people or vehicles through is a completely different process. The types of machines used to dig the Shanghai underground rail system, for example, are enormous, expensive and noisy.
I never said that people should be sent under the fortifications. I repeatedly said that explosives should be placed there - remotely. No big deal.
Yes, with the magical tunneling that can't be detected or combated by defenders.
And the subsequent crater is easily traversed by troops and equipment for breakouts - because taking a specific spot is all that matters /sarc
How do you combat something 50m underground that is approaching you at the rate of 100m per day?
Do you leave your fortification and try to dig down to it?
It is clear that you are just trying to bug me because you are no engineer. You have no practical skills and no imagination. Everything must come from the "combined arms" manual.
What did you study? political science? gardening? You obviously did not study history.
You explode a large shaped charge explosive pointed at it.
The shaped charge won't change the soil much but it will collapse the approaching tunnel and kills everyone in it, as well as buries the equipment being used.
You are stupid and don't even know history as you think you do.
In the Civil War - there was a large tunneled explosive used to create a hole in the opposing enemy lines. The result was a debacle for the attacker - the attackers got trapped in the crater and slaughtered by the remaining defenders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crater
Yet the latest example of your incompetence and Dunning Kruger syndrome.
50m down not enough?
No problem. How about 100m down. There are mines in the Donbas that are over 1000m deep. Your idiocy is on display for all to see.
I like it. I think along the same lines. The are apparently factors in play that we don't know about. Whether it be incompetence at the highest level, oligarchical 'misdirection', incompetence through the ranks, ineptitude in the clerical department.... scarcities careful hidden.. secret political deals.... Could be anything. We clearly do not know all or anything like it.
It is like with the poisonous vaccines. Inertia. There is a massive amount of information out there about their toxicity. And yet people keep on going to their lying doctor for "advice"
https://t.me/MatrixRedPillTruth/7841
I never thought that people could be so stupid. They know that their politicians lie about everything - and yet they do as they are told.
Yep and the bit about that which worries me most is the lying doctors. Or not even 'lying' but just, as you say, 'inertial' doctors: i.e. those who simply comply the edicts out of sheer inertia and lack of energy/desire to actually do anything. Who would have/could have believed it? Our whole western medical system crumpled overnight and became nothing more than a mumbo jumbo priesthood presiding over a bunch of witch doctors. Overnight. Without a murmur of protest. From anyone. anywhere.
I know. I was married to a doctor/GP for 18 years. I am glad we divorced before this debacle. I am sure she just followed the guidelines. She boasted of how much money she made by handling 50+ patients per day. That was in Australia. The prison colony.
Yep. I talked with two doctors. 'my' doctors, you know. They were both foreigners to Australia as more and more doctors are now, I don't know why and it might not even be true (because I'm in country Aus and it's possible they make the foreigner work country Aus for some years before they can work city ). But they were.
And I expected some frank observation from them of some kind. Perhaps astonishment? Perhaps confusion? Perhaps disappointment? Perhaps just anecdotes about 'how it is in my home country' ? Perhaps earnest explanations: 'read this, read that' ?
Nothing.
I sat with them in the privacy of their rooms, their individual 'consulting room' or whatever the hell you call them and I looked at them with their masks on and I told them I would much rather they took them off, told them I would not wear one, told them I have a website with a thousand links telling the scientific truth..... blah, blah, blah...
They said 'we must obey...'
And that was that.
The proud profession of medicine. Poof. Gone.
You are correct. You live in an "Area of Need". They send imported doctors there for some years (5 I think) before they can head for the cities.
We were lucky. In 2009, my ex got a job at Point Cook and we lived in Altona/Williamstown. Point Cook is no longer an Area of Need.
The problem is that politicians got control of the medical sector. If people paid to see their doctor, it would not have been so easy for them to control.
When a doctor has a huge mortgage and an income over A$200,000 per year, he has little choice. They are really slaves.
Naive question but where do all the supplies come in to Avdeevka. Can't they simply bomb the supply terminals using aviation (Rail, Road MSR) and repeat after repair.
I'm sure they are interdicting logistical support (supply) as they can. Interdiction is rarely 100% effective. Also, it takes time to make its impact felt.
Can a vehicle make it to Avdeevka? That is a more poignant question.
Good question. But what does that say about your ability when notified, to properly correct a typo.
Wow! Mr Picky. Even the MSM makes typos, and they have had 150 years to practice perfection.
Personally I prefer typos to lies.
The MSN now are product of the woke education. Don’t expect high level from them.
Still here being pesky I see...
Forget the typos please. We’re all humans and make mistakes. However, I truly appreciate your rigour with proper grammar. We need more of this.
I hope your read is right - it's plausible. Frankly I doubt Gerasimov would put Avdeevka at the top of the list of targets. It's heavily fortified and the biggest obvious advantage would be to get AFU guns out of range of Donetsk - no small thing. But ideally I'd guess the Russian command would rather be working on the north or trying to eliminate the Ukrainian salient gained in their "offensive" in the south - that would not look good in Kiev or Washington. That said, it does look as though Ukraine is making Avdeekva a very valuable target. Zelensky has gone to cheer up the troops - so has Zaluzhny. If Ukraine makes this a test of wills it becomes a very good area to "grind down" the AFU - they're not very good at retreating. If the casualty ratio is in favor of RF forces, we should start to see more prisoners - and that would be very good. Russia may have a real opportunity here.
I've studied military history for a living for a very long time. There aren't many generalizations to make - but I'd say 500 years of European warfare has shown that even if you win, fighting Russia will get you maimed. And sometimes it gets you obliterated. There's a corollary here - Eastern Europeans are all a little crazy - the Poles are crazy, the Russians are crazy and the Ukrainians are crazy. We must not forget that Russians are fighting Ukrainians and Ukrainians are very tough and will take some real convincing to quit. My guess is that the Russian leaders know this better than anyone and that if they could somehow shake Ukrainian will, Moscow would be willing to "cut a deal" - and a pretty generous one as long as neutrality is included. I hope so - this war remains very dangerous and the world doesn't need more danger.
Russia is way beyond offering a generous deal. They will dictate the terms.
Avdiivka has been targeted because it is used to shell Donetsk city.
The recovery of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts have been an objective from the very start of the SMO.
As for "cut a deal": Russia did get to a deal in the early part of the SMO; this deal was broken by Boris Johnson. Any deal now will be tempered both by Russia having the upper hand and by the fact of past "agreement incapability".
Furthermore, Russia has clear benefits from the present situation alongside the detriments: Ukraine and now Israel/Gaza are demilitarizing the entire West along with inflicting massive economic losses on Europe and Japan, as well as significant economic problems for the US. Even beyond the outright cash spend on Ukraine subsidies, the cumulative losses in the West from inflation are easily in the trillions, far greater than any suffered by Russia including the supposedly $600B CBR theft which turns out to only be $280B of which 1/4 is Russian private citizen theft.
The Ukraine situation has also crystallized pretty much the entire rest of the world as being "Not With Them (the West)", and this dichotomy is being further reinforced by Israel/Gaza.
The danger is from the West's - primarily the US' - inability to assimilate its loss of hegemony, and it is not clear how Russia making a bad deal in Ukraine lessens this danger.
Russia will negotiate hypersonically. However, by the time things have calmed down enough for any talking to begin, I doubt there will be a West left.
I doubt Putin is stupid enough to initiate a conflict with the US.
There are not going to be winners out of that since WW3 is the almost certain outcome.
He won't, C1ue. However, he knows that he is faced with dangerously unbalanced neocons who talk as if they would happily initiate WW3 if it served their interests. If he has learnt anything in the last 20 years it is that the only language these people listen to is that of maximum deterrence and the promise that if they unleash the Big One, they too will die.
You are contradicting yourself. If the neocons truly believe nuclear war is survivable - deterrence won't stop them.
My view is very different: Putin has demonstrated repeatedly that there are plenty of ways to attrit American capability and reputation without going head to head. So has China. Put the two together along with most of the rest of the world - to me, that's how the situation gets resolved.
Not quite sure how I'm contradicting myself here, C1ue. Who says Putin is going "head to head" with the US if he is showing them his new air defense capabilities? That's more like deterrence than outward aggression. As you rightly say, there are many ways of attriting US capability. One way is to show the world that you are one step ahead of them technologically and that you have the ability to negate their best weapons systems.