Destroying their own pipelines is dodgy, but it's pretty much their property. If they take out a pipeline owned by Norway, that could trigger Article 5.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Destroying their own pipelines is dodgy, but it's pretty much their property. If they take out a pipeline owned by Norway, that could trigger Article 5.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Half of mobilised men in Russian region sent home, commissar fired - governor | Reuters (updated 30 min ago)
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/IPJRKC6ISVLKRDAA55GQEYJN2M.jpg)
www.reuters.com
Volgograd Oblast - Wikipedia <- 90% ethnic Russians (go figure).
Half of mobilised men in Russian region sent home, commissar fired, governor says
The military commissar of Russia's Khabarovsk region was removed from his post after half of the newly mobilised personnel were sent home as they did not meet the draft criteria, the region's governor said early on Monday.
www.reuters.com
Volgograd Oblast - Wikipedia <- 90% ethnic Russians (go figure).
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Military metaphor. It means its harder to bite through the crust, but once you make it into the gooey center it's much easier going.
Cheers!
petit_bateau
Active Member
If this is true, then it is wowsers. I've seen Dudchany mentioned so far as an objective to move towards, but now there is a report it is being bypassed towards Mylove. I really don't know if there is enough evidence. But it is true this would be classic manoeuvre warfare once through pie crust style trenches-in-depth. Is anyone else seeing corroboration ?
^^^^^^
I'm sorry, it is very difficult to always write with the wide range of understanding of the people on this thread in mind. Plus it was late and I was heading to bed so I was very brief.
Setting aside technology/etc aspects for a moment, in all warfare the mathematics of an engagement exhibit similar characteristics that we loosely term Lanchesters Laws. These describe the way in which the amount of force available to the two sides at any given point generally determine the outcome of an engagement. Crucially they are non-linear. Consider a playground fight : if there are just two of you and you are both equally matched in this 1:1 engagement, then you slug it out and both get bloody noses and then even bloodier noses and neither side really wins the slugfest until the teacher separates you. But if there are two of them and one of you then in a 2:1 engagement you end up in the dirt badly hurt very quickly and they have barely a scratch on them - crucially it turns out that the advantage is non-linear. This means that it is very attractive for an attacker to concentrate forces to break through a defence, and to act in such a way that the defender cannot manouevre his forces to respond.
The technical response to this is for the defender to make his forces more effective in defence, i.e. put armour on them, place them behind castle walls, or in trenches; and to give them weapons that suit such a situation - for example boiling oil, or machine guns and anti-tank missiles. So that at any one point in the line 1 defender becomes worth 2 or more attackers. In this way the attacker cannot bring enough force to bear to break through the hardened pie crust of the line.
The other response is tactical in nature - instead of solidifying his defences and spreading his forces equally along the line, the defender can choose to not create a line at all, but to meet manouevre warfare with an equal and opposite manouevre warfare in response. Whether this be tribes of chimps chasing each other around the forests, or cavalry chasing each other around grasslands, or tank battalions in the desert, it is a valid way of responding.
(I'm setting aside aviation, naval, and space domains for the time being; but one sees very similar issues in those as well because much the same underlying principles apply).
Most warfare in human history is a blend of these two approaches, going back to the earliest evidence of human societies engaging in conflict. Each society selects the blend depending on its particular circumstances at the time, for example are there convenient defensive barriers such as rivers, lakes, mountains, high ground or whatever. Since the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 what has been observed is that once any given advance has been fought to a standstill, then both sides have dug in very deeply, literally, along rivers, high ground, and around urban centres. Highway lines and railway lines have also been key to setting up these barrier defences. Their trench lines and fortification complexes have - naturally - reflected those of WW1 in nature with multiple rows of fighting trenches, communications trenches, observation posts, deep multi-level bunkers, ammunition stores, etc. In this way both sides have sought to minimise the risk that an armoured assault with a combination of artillery, infantry, and tanks could break through to reach the very lightly defended civilian populations and logistics networks behind. The 2014 fighting was largely confined to the Luhansk and Donetsk areas (the Donbass) areas. The further 2022 invasion initially outflanked the Donbass with the thrust in the south taking Kherson & Zhaporizia, and the ones in the north heading towards Kiev and Kharkiv. Those northern thrusts were repulsed before the Russians could achieve their objectives and/or dig in.
But in the south the Russians have dug in with the reports being that the Kherson and Zhaporizia defences now being triple-layer trench systems around all the key pieces of front line. Indeed a strategic decision by Ukraine was to encourage Russia to send its best troops & equipment to the south where - naturally - they would engage in just this activity; and indeed the Russians did just this for the last two months. This in turn meant that the Russians did not have the manpower & equipment in the north to either further dig in along an arc from Lyman to Stary Saltiv etc, nor sufficient forces to effectively defend it when Ukraine punched a hole in the pie crust of the line, then thrust quickly through in classic manoeuvre warfare to retake a swathe from Izium to Kupiansk. It is notable that Ukraine was able to both sustain the initial 5-day thrust; then consolidate its gains; then reset its logistics networks by relocating everything forwards by about 45-km and establishing new/lengthened resupply routes. Then Ukraine has done it again and is now in the middle of another thrust-cycle with the taking of Lyman, the advance past Torske, and an attempt to break out beyond Kupiansk. Notably on each occasion the Russians have been unable to respond effectively in the Kharkiv front - the defences are insufficient; they cannot bring reserves forwards in time (or at all); they cannot bring airpower to bear to salvage the situation; and they do not have good fallback positions prepared. It is also very clear that the Ukraine command team are being disciplined - they are pausing at suitable objectives to reset their forces ready for the next cycle and to not overstretch and overexpose them, and they are preparing the battlefield in advance most notably with long range artillery strikes on key rear echelon Russian sites such as ammunition dumps, command centres.
The way the Ukraine is working the south around Kherson; and the dog that is not barking - Zhaporizia; and the dogs that are always barking - Bakhmut; is subtly different. In these areas the Russian forces are now fully engaged and 'pinned' in place. If they withdraw forces from there to try to reinforce the Kharkiv front then they risk weakening the south too much. So essentially the Russians are now operating without a reserve. And now that they are pinned in place the Ukraine is working over the weakest areas where the Russians have the worst logistics routes and the least ability for local manoeuvre. So on the west (right) bank of the Dniper river there are now 10-20,000 Russian troops pinned in place with a solid pie crust of fortifications they have been desperately building for a good few months, but with almost no way out in a hurry.
The reports coming in late yesterday are very interesting because they suggest that the Ukraine may have breached the Russian defences in the most northern part of the Kherson area, near Petrivka, heading towards Dudchany. This would be a minimum 10km advance, perhaps 30km or even 45km. That is why I was describing those reports as being wowsers, if true. This morning's reports are more circumspect than the full-on reports of a massive breakthrough, but nonetheless it is clear that something significant is going on with for sure advances of 10-15km or so. In this area there are very limited options for the Russians to fall back in a controlled manner.
It is worth bearing in mind that at the mid-level of the Russian team they clearly know what to do and how to do it. They are obviously being let down from below by some pretty poorly trained troops and related issues. They are obviously being let down from above by some nutcase senior leadership and a rotten system. But one must understand that they too are very brave committed professional combat-hardened military and they are fighting a very tough fight.
I hope this explanation helps.
The most cautious report:
militaryland.net
Intermediate caution:
Most positive, and still within bounds of believable:
BACKGROUND READING
^^^^^^
I'm sorry, it is very difficult to always write with the wide range of understanding of the people on this thread in mind. Plus it was late and I was heading to bed so I was very brief.
Setting aside technology/etc aspects for a moment, in all warfare the mathematics of an engagement exhibit similar characteristics that we loosely term Lanchesters Laws. These describe the way in which the amount of force available to the two sides at any given point generally determine the outcome of an engagement. Crucially they are non-linear. Consider a playground fight : if there are just two of you and you are both equally matched in this 1:1 engagement, then you slug it out and both get bloody noses and then even bloodier noses and neither side really wins the slugfest until the teacher separates you. But if there are two of them and one of you then in a 2:1 engagement you end up in the dirt badly hurt very quickly and they have barely a scratch on them - crucially it turns out that the advantage is non-linear. This means that it is very attractive for an attacker to concentrate forces to break through a defence, and to act in such a way that the defender cannot manouevre his forces to respond.
The technical response to this is for the defender to make his forces more effective in defence, i.e. put armour on them, place them behind castle walls, or in trenches; and to give them weapons that suit such a situation - for example boiling oil, or machine guns and anti-tank missiles. So that at any one point in the line 1 defender becomes worth 2 or more attackers. In this way the attacker cannot bring enough force to bear to break through the hardened pie crust of the line.
The other response is tactical in nature - instead of solidifying his defences and spreading his forces equally along the line, the defender can choose to not create a line at all, but to meet manouevre warfare with an equal and opposite manouevre warfare in response. Whether this be tribes of chimps chasing each other around the forests, or cavalry chasing each other around grasslands, or tank battalions in the desert, it is a valid way of responding.
(I'm setting aside aviation, naval, and space domains for the time being; but one sees very similar issues in those as well because much the same underlying principles apply).
Most warfare in human history is a blend of these two approaches, going back to the earliest evidence of human societies engaging in conflict. Each society selects the blend depending on its particular circumstances at the time, for example are there convenient defensive barriers such as rivers, lakes, mountains, high ground or whatever. Since the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 what has been observed is that once any given advance has been fought to a standstill, then both sides have dug in very deeply, literally, along rivers, high ground, and around urban centres. Highway lines and railway lines have also been key to setting up these barrier defences. Their trench lines and fortification complexes have - naturally - reflected those of WW1 in nature with multiple rows of fighting trenches, communications trenches, observation posts, deep multi-level bunkers, ammunition stores, etc. In this way both sides have sought to minimise the risk that an armoured assault with a combination of artillery, infantry, and tanks could break through to reach the very lightly defended civilian populations and logistics networks behind. The 2014 fighting was largely confined to the Luhansk and Donetsk areas (the Donbass) areas. The further 2022 invasion initially outflanked the Donbass with the thrust in the south taking Kherson & Zhaporizia, and the ones in the north heading towards Kiev and Kharkiv. Those northern thrusts were repulsed before the Russians could achieve their objectives and/or dig in.
But in the south the Russians have dug in with the reports being that the Kherson and Zhaporizia defences now being triple-layer trench systems around all the key pieces of front line. Indeed a strategic decision by Ukraine was to encourage Russia to send its best troops & equipment to the south where - naturally - they would engage in just this activity; and indeed the Russians did just this for the last two months. This in turn meant that the Russians did not have the manpower & equipment in the north to either further dig in along an arc from Lyman to Stary Saltiv etc, nor sufficient forces to effectively defend it when Ukraine punched a hole in the pie crust of the line, then thrust quickly through in classic manoeuvre warfare to retake a swathe from Izium to Kupiansk. It is notable that Ukraine was able to both sustain the initial 5-day thrust; then consolidate its gains; then reset its logistics networks by relocating everything forwards by about 45-km and establishing new/lengthened resupply routes. Then Ukraine has done it again and is now in the middle of another thrust-cycle with the taking of Lyman, the advance past Torske, and an attempt to break out beyond Kupiansk. Notably on each occasion the Russians have been unable to respond effectively in the Kharkiv front - the defences are insufficient; they cannot bring reserves forwards in time (or at all); they cannot bring airpower to bear to salvage the situation; and they do not have good fallback positions prepared. It is also very clear that the Ukraine command team are being disciplined - they are pausing at suitable objectives to reset their forces ready for the next cycle and to not overstretch and overexpose them, and they are preparing the battlefield in advance most notably with long range artillery strikes on key rear echelon Russian sites such as ammunition dumps, command centres.
The way the Ukraine is working the south around Kherson; and the dog that is not barking - Zhaporizia; and the dogs that are always barking - Bakhmut; is subtly different. In these areas the Russian forces are now fully engaged and 'pinned' in place. If they withdraw forces from there to try to reinforce the Kharkiv front then they risk weakening the south too much. So essentially the Russians are now operating without a reserve. And now that they are pinned in place the Ukraine is working over the weakest areas where the Russians have the worst logistics routes and the least ability for local manoeuvre. So on the west (right) bank of the Dniper river there are now 10-20,000 Russian troops pinned in place with a solid pie crust of fortifications they have been desperately building for a good few months, but with almost no way out in a hurry.
The reports coming in late yesterday are very interesting because they suggest that the Ukraine may have breached the Russian defences in the most northern part of the Kherson area, near Petrivka, heading towards Dudchany. This would be a minimum 10km advance, perhaps 30km or even 45km. That is why I was describing those reports as being wowsers, if true. This morning's reports are more circumspect than the full-on reports of a massive breakthrough, but nonetheless it is clear that something significant is going on with for sure advances of 10-15km or so. In this area there are very limited options for the Russians to fall back in a controlled manner.
It is worth bearing in mind that at the mid-level of the Russian team they clearly know what to do and how to do it. They are obviously being let down from below by some pretty poorly trained troops and related issues. They are obviously being let down from above by some nutcase senior leadership and a rotten system. But one must understand that they too are very brave committed professional combat-hardened military and they are fighting a very tough fight.
I hope this explanation helps.
The most cautious report:
Invasion Day 220 – Summary – MilitaryLand.net
The summary of the 220th day of Russian invasion to Ukraine, as of 22:00 – 1st October 2022 (Kyiv time). Day summary: Ukrainian Army liberated the key town of Lyman in the northern part of Donetsk…
militaryland.net
Intermediate caution:
Most positive, and still within bounds of believable:
BACKGROUND READING
If this is true, then it is wowsers. I've seen Dudchany mentioned so far as an objective to move towards, but now there is a report it is being bypassed towards Mylove. I really don't know if there is enough evidence. But it is true this would be classic manoeuvre warfare once through pie crust style trenches-in-depth. Is anyone else seeing corroboration ?
^^^^^^
I'm sorry, it is very difficult to always write with the wide range of understanding of the people on this thread in mind. Plus it was late and I was heading to bed so I was very brief.
Setting aside technology/etc aspects for a moment, in all warfare the mathematics of an engagement exhibit similar characteristics that we loosely term Lanchesters Laws. These describe the way in which the amount of force available to the two sides at any given point generally determine the outcome of an engagement. Crucially they are non-linear. Consider a playground fight : if there are just two of you and you are both equally matched in this 1:1 engagement, then you slug it out and both get bloody noses and then even bloodier noses and neither side really wins the slugfest until the teacher separates you. But if there are two of them and one of you then in a 2:1 engagement you end up in the dirt badly hurt very quickly and they have barely a scratch on them - crucially it turns out that the advantage is non-linear. This means that it is very attractive for an attacker to concentrate forces to break through a defence, and to act in such a way that the defender cannot manouevre his forces to respond.
The technical response to this is for the defender to make his forces more effective in defence, i.e. put armour on them, place them behind castle walls, or in trenches; and to give them weapons that suit such a situation - for example boiling oil, or machine guns and anti-tank missiles. So that at any one point in the line 1 defender becomes worth 2 or more attackers. In this way the attacker cannot bring enough force to bear to break through the hardened pie crust of the line.
The other response is tactical in nature - instead of solidifying his defences and spreading his forces equally along the line, the defender can choose to not create a line at all, but to meet manouevre warfare with an equal and opposite manouevre warfare in response. Whether this be tribes of chimps chasing each other around the forests, or cavalry chasing each other around grasslands, or tank battalions in the desert, it is a valid way of responding.
(I'm setting aside aviation, naval, and space domains for the time being; but one sees very similar issues in those as well because much the same underlying principles apply).
Most warfare in human history is a blend of these two approaches, going back to the earliest evidence of human societies engaging in conflict. Each society selects the blend depending on its particular circumstances at the time, for example are there convenient defensive barriers such as rivers, lakes, mountains, high ground or whatever. Since the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 what has been observed is that once any given advance has been fought to a standstill, then both sides have dug in very deeply, literally, along rivers, high ground, and around urban centres. Highway lines and railway lines have also been key to setting up these barrier defences. Their trench lines and fortification complexes have - naturally - reflected those of WW1 in nature with multiple rows of fighting trenches, communications trenches, observation posts, deep multi-level bunkers, ammunition stores, etc. In this way both sides have sought to minimise the risk that an armoured assault with a combination of artillery, infantry, and tanks could break through to reach the very lightly defended civilian populations and logistics networks behind. The 2014 fighting was largely confined to the Luhansk and Donetsk areas (the Donbass) areas. The further 2022 invasion initially outflanked the Donbass with the thrust in the south taking Kherson & Zhaporizia, and the ones in the north heading towards Kiev and Kharkiv. Those northern thrusts were repulsed before the Russians could achieve their objectives and/or dig in.
But in the south the Russians have dug in with the reports being that the Kherson and Zhaporizia defences now being triple-layer trench systems around all the key pieces of front line. Indeed a strategic decision by Ukraine was to encourage Russia to send its best troops & equipment to the south where - naturally - they would engage in just this activity; and indeed the Russians did just this for the last two months. This in turn meant that the Russians did not have the manpower & equipment in the north to either further dig in along an arc from Lyman to Stary Saltiv etc, nor sufficient forces to effectively defend it when Ukraine punched a hole in the pie crust of the line, then thrust quickly through in classic manoeuvre warfare to retake a swathe from Izium to Kupiansk. It is notable that Ukraine was able to both sustain the initial 5-day thrust; then consolidate its gains; then reset its logistics networks by relocating everything forwards by about 45-km and establishing new/lengthened resupply routes. Then Ukraine has done it again and is now in the middle of another thrust-cycle with the taking of Lyman, the advance past Torske, and an attempt to break out beyond Kupiansk. Notably on each occasion the Russians have been unable to respond effectively in the Kharkiv front - the defences are insufficient; they cannot bring reserves forwards in time (or at all); they cannot bring airpower to bear to salvage the situation; and they do not have good fallback positions prepared. It is also very clear that the Ukraine command team are being disciplined - they are pausing at suitable objectives to reset their forces ready for the next cycle and to not overstretch and overexpose them, and they are preparing the battlefield in advance most notably with long range artillery strikes on key rear echelon Russian sites such as ammunition dumps, command centres.
The way the Ukraine is working the south around Kherson; and the dog that is not barking - Zhaporizia; and the dogs that are always barking - Bakhmut; is subtly different. In these areas the Russian forces are now fully engaged and 'pinned' in place. If they withdraw forces from there to try to reinforce the Kharkiv front then they risk weakening the south too much. So essentially the Russians are now operating without a reserve. And now that they are pinned in place the Ukraine is working over the weakest areas where the Russians have the worst logistics routes and the least ability for local manoeuvre. So on the west (right) bank of the Dniper river there are now 10-20,000 Russian troops pinned in place with a solid pie crust of fortifications they have been desperately building for a good few months, but with almost no way out in a hurry.
The reports coming in late yesterday are very interesting because they suggest that the Ukraine may have breached the Russian defences in the most northern part of the Kherson area, near Petrivka, heading towards Dudchany. This would be a minimum 10km advance, perhaps 30km or even 45km. That is why I was describing those reports as being wowsers, if true. This morning's reports are more circumspect than the full-on reports of a massive breakthrough, but nonetheless it is clear that something significant is going on with for sure advances of 10-15km or so. In this area there are very limited options for the Russians to fall back in a controlled manner.
It is worth bearing in mind that at the mid-level of the Russian team they clearly know what to do and how to do it. They are obviously being let down from below by some pretty poorly trained troops and related issues. They are obviously being let down from above by some nutcase senior leadership and a rotten system. But one must understand that they too are very brave committed professional combat-hardened military and they are fighting a very tough fight.
I hope this explanation helps.
View attachment 859471
The most cautious report:
Invasion Day 220 – Summary – MilitaryLand.net
The summary of the 220th day of Russian invasion to Ukraine, as of 22:00 – 1st October 2022 (Kyiv time). Day summary: Ukrainian Army liberated the key town of Lyman in the northern part of Donetsk…
Intermediate caution:
Most positive, and still within bounds of believable:
BACKGROUND READING
Excellent description. I'd like to add that many layers of defense can become useless if the enemy can break through in one spot and fully exploit it. That's what happened to France in 1940. The Maginot Line was a line of prepared defenses on the France/Germany border manned with a lot of troops. The Germans did an end run through the Ardennes forest into Belgium and then across the lightly defended frontier between Belgium and France.
The spearhead unit was the 7th Panzer Division commanded by Erwin Rommel. He took risks and advanced without defending his flanks. When doing a breakthrough, the force making the breakthrough is advancing along a fairly narrow corridor and cutting off enemy units. If the enemy gets its act together and counter attacks, it can trap the advancing force by cutting off their tail cutting in through the side of their corridor. Rommel got away with his gamble because the French army fell into disarray and getting the necessary troops moving in the right direction never happened (actually there were some small counter attacks, but they were too weak).
In France the large force manning the Maginot Line ended up with a few skirmishes against a feint force that was tasked with keeping the Maginot Line force in place. To a large degree the Maginot Force was very under utilized.
The Ukrainians let the Russians invest a lot of effort into building up their fortress, then did an end run. Now a highly mobile force is in their under defended rear which has no fortifications. If the Russians pull troops out of their fortifications to try and stem the breakthrough, they risk allowing a second breakthrough in an area where the defenses are under manned.
The Ukrainians have been doing shaping operations for months. In a shaping operation, you nudge the enemy to make ever increasingly bad decisions until they are left with a Kobyashi Maru scenario (Star Trek reference) which is a situation where all the choices are bad.
I've read that the Russians had mobile reserves when the Kharkhiv offensive started and they threw them at the Ukrainians, but the Ukrainians chewed them up and spit them out. Probably because the units were depleted past the point of combat effectiveness and because field commanders are lying about everything the higher command didn't realize their reserves were hollow.
I agree at this point Russia has virtually nothing left for reserves. They have the shells of units forced out of Kharkhiv, but those are essentially useless for anything except static defense in a dire emergency and the Russians may be paranoid about Ukrainians crossing into Russia now. Those units would also take weeks to relocate to Kherson, if the Ukrainians let them cross the river.
As part of the shaping, the Ukrainians allowed Russian units to cross into Kherson, but they took out a lot of the supply. Fuel and ammunition are in very short supply for the troops in that oblast. That means the Russians have limited mobility to counter the Ukrainians now in their rear, even if they wanted to pull units out of the trench lines. So the Russians have lots of troops, all requiring supplies, in the oblast, but not enough of anything to go around.
Another difference between western and Russian vehicles. Western vehicles have auxiliary power units (APUs) so the vehicle can operate the weapons systems and electronics with the main engine shut off. Most Russian vehicles don't have that and must run the main engine to turn the turret or aim the gun. A tank can burn a lot of fuel idling, so the Russians are probably keeping a lot of their vehicles shut down and not ready for rapid response.
I saw a video yesterday on War Translated made by a DPR soldier in Kherson. He was complaining that he was tasked with holding a position against Ukrainian vehicles and all he had was one AK with 4 clips of ammunition. He said among the rounds in his clips, only one could piece Ukrainian body armor. He seemed to indicate that his unit was stretched very thin and nobody had anything more than he had. The DPR troops are more poorly equipped than the Russian army, but it sounds like their resources are spread pretty thin.
petit_bateau
Active Member
There is clearly something going on in northern Kherson. Not all of this is circular reporting combined with big hand / small map syndrome.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
petit,If this is true, then it is wowsers. I've seen Dudchany mentioned so far as an objective to move towards, but now there is a report it is being bypassed towards Mylove. I really don't know if there is enough evidence. But it is true this would be classic manoeuvre warfare once through pie crust style trenches-in-depth. Is anyone else seeing corroboration ?
^^^^^^
I'm sorry, it is very difficult to always write with the wide range of understanding of the people on this thread in mind. Plus it was late and I was heading to bed so I was very brief.
Setting aside technology/etc aspects for a moment, in all warfare the mathematics of an engagement exhibit similar characteristics that we loosely term Lanchesters Laws. These describe the way in which the amount of force available to the two sides at any given point generally determine the outcome of an engagement. Crucially they are non-linear. Consider a playground fight : if there are just two of you and you are both equally matched in this 1:1 engagement, then you slug it out and both get bloody noses and then even bloodier noses and neither side really wins the slugfest until the teacher separates you. But if there are two of them and one of you then in a 2:1 engagement you end up in the dirt badly hurt very quickly and they have barely a scratch on them - crucially it turns out that the advantage is non-linear. This means that it is very attractive for an attacker to concentrate forces to break through a defence, and to act in such a way that the defender cannot manouevre his forces to respond.
The technical response to this is for the defender to make his forces more effective in defence, i.e. put armour on them, place them behind castle walls, or in trenches; and to give them weapons that suit such a situation - for example boiling oil, or machine guns and anti-tank missiles. So that at any one point in the line 1 defender becomes worth 2 or more attackers. In this way the attacker cannot bring enough force to bear to break through the hardened pie crust of the line.
The other response is tactical in nature - instead of solidifying his defences and spreading his forces equally along the line, the defender can choose to not create a line at all, but to meet manouevre warfare with an equal and opposite manouevre warfare in response. Whether this be tribes of chimps chasing each other around the forests, or cavalry chasing each other around grasslands, or tank battalions in the desert, it is a valid way of responding.
(I'm setting aside aviation, naval, and space domains for the time being; but one sees very similar issues in those as well because much the same underlying principles apply).
Most warfare in human history is a blend of these two approaches, going back to the earliest evidence of human societies engaging in conflict. Each society selects the blend depending on its particular circumstances at the time, for example are there convenient defensive barriers such as rivers, lakes, mountains, high ground or whatever. Since the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 what has been observed is that once any given advance has been fought to a standstill, then both sides have dug in very deeply, literally, along rivers, high ground, and around urban centres. Highway lines and railway lines have also been key to setting up these barrier defences. Their trench lines and fortification complexes have - naturally - reflected those of WW1 in nature with multiple rows of fighting trenches, communications trenches, observation posts, deep multi-level bunkers, ammunition stores, etc. In this way both sides have sought to minimise the risk that an armoured assault with a combination of artillery, infantry, and tanks could break through to reach the very lightly defended civilian populations and logistics networks behind. The 2014 fighting was largely confined to the Luhansk and Donetsk areas (the Donbass) areas. The further 2022 invasion initially outflanked the Donbass with the thrust in the south taking Kherson & Zhaporizia, and the ones in the north heading towards Kiev and Kharkiv. Those northern thrusts were repulsed before the Russians could achieve their objectives and/or dig in.
But in the south the Russians have dug in with the reports being that the Kherson and Zhaporizia defences now being triple-layer trench systems around all the key pieces of front line. Indeed a strategic decision by Ukraine was to encourage Russia to send its best troops & equipment to the south where - naturally - they would engage in just this activity; and indeed the Russians did just this for the last two months. This in turn meant that the Russians did not have the manpower & equipment in the north to either further dig in along an arc from Lyman to Stary Saltiv etc, nor sufficient forces to effectively defend it when Ukraine punched a hole in the pie crust of the line, then thrust quickly through in classic manoeuvre warfare to retake a swathe from Izium to Kupiansk. It is notable that Ukraine was able to both sustain the initial 5-day thrust; then consolidate its gains; then reset its logistics networks by relocating everything forwards by about 45-km and establishing new/lengthened resupply routes. Then Ukraine has done it again and is now in the middle of another thrust-cycle with the taking of Lyman, the advance past Torske, and an attempt to break out beyond Kupiansk. Notably on each occasion the Russians have been unable to respond effectively in the Kharkiv front - the defences are insufficient; they cannot bring reserves forwards in time (or at all); they cannot bring airpower to bear to salvage the situation; and they do not have good fallback positions prepared. It is also very clear that the Ukraine command team are being disciplined - they are pausing at suitable objectives to reset their forces ready for the next cycle and to not overstretch and overexpose them, and they are preparing the battlefield in advance most notably with long range artillery strikes on key rear echelon Russian sites such as ammunition dumps, command centres.
The way the Ukraine is working the south around Kherson; and the dog that is not barking - Zhaporizia; and the dogs that are always barking - Bakhmut; is subtly different. In these areas the Russian forces are now fully engaged and 'pinned' in place. If they withdraw forces from there to try to reinforce the Kharkiv front then they risk weakening the south too much. So essentially the Russians are now operating without a reserve. And now that they are pinned in place the Ukraine is working over the weakest areas where the Russians have the worst logistics routes and the least ability for local manoeuvre. So on the west (right) bank of the Dniper river there are now 10-20,000 Russian troops pinned in place with a solid pie crust of fortifications they have been desperately building for a good few months, but with almost no way out in a hurry.
The reports coming in late yesterday are very interesting because they suggest that the Ukraine may have breached the Russian defences in the most northern part of the Kherson area, near Petrivka, heading towards Dudchany. This would be a minimum 10km advance, perhaps 30km or even 45km. That is why I was describing those reports as being wowsers, if true. This morning's reports are more circumspect than the full-on reports of a massive breakthrough, but nonetheless it is clear that something significant is going on with for sure advances of 10-15km or so. In this area there are very limited options for the Russians to fall back in a controlled manner.
It is worth bearing in mind that at the mid-level of the Russian team they clearly know what to do and how to do it. They are obviously being let down from below by some pretty poorly trained troops and related issues. They are obviously being let down from above by some nutcase senior leadership and a rotten system. But one must understand that they too are very brave committed professional combat-hardened military and they are fighting a very tough fight.
I hope this explanation helps.
View attachment 859471
The most cautious report:
Invasion Day 220 – Summary – MilitaryLand.net
The summary of the 220th day of Russian invasion to Ukraine, as of 22:00 – 1st October 2022 (Kyiv time). Day summary: Ukrainian Army liberated the key town of Lyman in the northern part of Donetsk…
Intermediate caution:
Most positive, and still within bounds of believable:
BACKGROUND READING
Thank you!
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Monday Headlines from REUTERS:
- Two Putin allies ridicule Russia's war machine in public
- Lithuania declares top Russian diplomat persona non grata
- Kremlin: Russia to consult before delimiting Ukraine regions it claims
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Nordstream I was jointly owned by german and french utilities that had 49%, held by a JV based in switzerland
petit_bateau
Active Member
Getting chilly on balconies in Moscow
www.railfreight.com
Russian Railways staff found dead on his balcony
Pavel Pchelnikov, the head of communications at Russian Railways subsidiary Digital Logistics, has passed away. He was found dead on his balcony in Moscow on Wednesday morning 28 September. The reported cause of death is suicide, although there are other media contesting this. The 52-year old...
www.railfreight.com
Thread by @WarintheFuture on Thread Reader App
@WarintheFuture: Lots of reports currently about Ukrainian advances in #Kherson and #Luhansk. Few have been officially confirmed. However, we can draw a couple of things from these ongoing campaigns. 1/17 🧵 2/ First...…
threadreaderapp.com
Good summary thread outlining the basic situation today highlighting the vastly superior UKR military strategy.
I'll take a min here to point out that as UKR penetrates further into Luhansk I believe that the russian defense could stiffen. The def responsibility shrinks, the supply is shortened, more local intelligence, etc. The principal points of the maneuver have long been understood and have taken time to be adapted to changes in technology (horseback, compound bows, true fortress citadels, sail, cannon, rifles, steel, armored mechanized units, flight, etc etc). The UKR forces are doing a brilliant job deploying in a world of new military innovations. Those will matter less and less as they push into the heart of the contested areas with less room to maneuver . The downside to the defense (from Luhansk pov) is that russia stripped off the best local fighting units and sent them to die in Kherson and holding Izium and Lyman. If those units were holding friendly territory it would have been struggle. Instead the defense may be recently mobilized units that are completely incompetent.
This just landed on my desk.
I donated some spare BTC to Ukraine near the start of the invasion but recently discovered this cool site and sent some more to them.
I get a piece of this:
In return, Ukraine gets another drone they can use to hasten their victory.
If anyone here wants to do the same, it's legit and although I was a little concerned after donating but not getting any acknowledgment back for a few days, they did eventually reply and my package arrived via DHL 2 weeks later.
Slava Ukraini!
Here's the FT on the topic @Artful Dodger just posted from Reuters:
www.ft.com
Subscribe to read | Financial Times
News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication
www.ft.com
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
In the event, it won't matter how fortifided the Russian positions are near Kherson. Generals demonstrated how to out-flank the Maginot Line back in 1940. This will be no different. The Left Hook is coming on the West side of the river, and it's sole objective is to cut lines of communication. Specifically, get HIMARS within range of the roads and rail lines, while being out of range of Russian counter-battery fire. Then Russian defenders can freeze in the dark of Winter while their supplies burn on the road.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Absolutely nuts tweet by Elon. Wrong on history of Crimea. Crazy idea to hold 'elections' after Russia has ethnically cleansed areas even though Ukraine would probably still win. Russia has spent the last six months killing all men in those areas, taking children into Russia and making it impossible to live there for people who don't agree with them. So Russia steals an area and Ukraine MUST supply water to it from it's own resources? WTF?
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petit_bateau
Active Member
I did point out to Reuters several months ago that they were now in the position of not properly covering some of the most important stories in the world, and they needed to try to catch up with the open source movement if they were to remain relevant. That message did not even get acknowledged politely. However it seems it was received at least by some parts of the organisation. Other parts, less so.
(I think Western mil OSINT are putting a 24h time delay in the most important stuff as a self-imposed OpSec feature.)
Repugnant, but not surprising given his embrace of, and immersion in, the right-wing media ecosystem where this crap is spouted non-stop. It's just pure Russian propaganda.
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