Also note that the UK (shout to you blokes) had already supplied the storm shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. Effective range is 300km. . Puts all of occupied Ukraine into range (Kerch bridge). Big warheads, enough to damage a bridge.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
I bet he hopes the war ends soon so he is not traded for a Ukrainian prisoner of war:
Family ‘horrified’ by video of sledgehammer killing of Wagner Group defector
Kremlin-linked private military group posted video of apparent execution in Russia of Yevgeny Nuzhin
www.theguardian.com
petit_bateau
Active Member
It is a good modern Ango-French missile in current service, i.e. not obsolete. The warhead can tackle a variety of target types. Should be able to do serious damage to a bridge as the fusing can be adjusted. Apart from the range I'm not sure if there is any limiting in the export version.
My delicate bruised ego feeling better, off by a day.
FYI first reports of movements in north. Remember that Ukraine has received less than 100 nato tanks so temper expectations. Over the summer they should get another 160 or so.
Also the counter attack on flanks of bahkmut involved Bradley IFV. I think these could be quite deadly given the ground situation. Even better would be the Swedish IFV. Come on @SwedishAdvocate -roust your country. get the archers and IFV over to ukraine
FYI first reports of movements in north. Remember that Ukraine has received less than 100 nato tanks so temper expectations. Over the summer they should get another 160 or so.
Also the counter attack on flanks of bahkmut involved Bradley IFV. I think these could be quite deadly given the ground situation. Even better would be the Swedish IFV. Come on @SwedishAdvocate -roust your country. get the archers and IFV over to ukraine
So reading backwards on the tea leaves here Ukraine waited til Wagner was depleted and Russia committed VDV (paratroopers and airborne) to the fight for Bahkmut thus committing the same exact mistake they made before under the same exact general. Ukraine got russia to overextend and leave mobik on flanks then slowly ramped up pressure and are now threatening to envelop. Russia stripped the vdv from kremlinia and Soledar to reinforce a non strategic city that is Just amazing. Of course it is not all credit to Ukraine- the Russian leadership gets much of the credit for fostering divisions and placing loyalty over competence .
I would have thought the Russians would have had even more stashed in Swiss francs. Only $8 Billion.
Over $8Bln of Russian Central Bank Assets Held in Switzerland – Bern
Over $8Bln of Russian Central Bank Assets Held in Switzerland – Bern
A year ago I thought Ukraine could come out of this war as the next Taiwan or South Korea. They have a well educated population and low wages. That has led to a lot of emigration, but if Europe decides to have Ukraine make their stuff instead of China, Ukraine would be on the first rung of the development ladder. They could be one of the most powerful economies in Europe within a couple of decades.
I bet he hopes the war ends soon so he is not traded for a Ukrainian prisoner of war:
Family ‘horrified’ by video of sledgehammer killing of Wagner Group defector
Kremlin-linked private military group posted video of apparent execution in Russia of Yevgeny Nuzhin
The Ukrainians only send back Russians who ask to be sent back. About half don't want to be exchanged.
For this kind of war, tanks are over rated. Tanks are not the best tool for taking out other tanks. Each Bradley has a pair of TOW missiles which will take out any Russian tank. Infantry carried ATGMs are also very effective and there are other vehicles with ATGM launchers in the Ukraine OOB now.
Russia's tank fleet has been badly degraded by a year of fighting. A lot of the first line tanks were lost and more importantly, most of their pre-war tank crews were lost. The bulk of their current tank crews are still trying to figure out how to drive their tanks.
This is the same thing that happened to the Japanese and German air forces during WW II. Neither set up the training regimes the US and Commonwealth set up that rotated experienced pilots and crews back home where they trained the next generation. Short term it led to shortages of pilots and air crews early on, but paid huge dividends by 1944. As the war went on the green pilots coming out of training for the western Allies had much better skills than their counterparts earlier in the war. At the same time the green pilots in Germany and Japan could barely fly their planes when they were sent to the front.
As a result both Germany and Japan took staggering losses to Allied fighters who knew what they were doing.
Russia is in the same situation with tank crews.
Ukraine needs armored vehicles with a gun sufficient to take out fortifications. They need to be able to absorb machine gun fire and grenades and hopefully stand a chance against an ATGM from the front. That doesn't require Leopard 2s or Abrams. A T-72 with ERA is just fine. I saw some pictures of one of the assault brigades training. They are equipped with Bradleys and M-55s. The M-55 is a heavily upgraded T-55.
The various wheeled armored vehicles that US had dumped in Ukraine as well as vehicles from other countries should be fine for most of the tasks in the offensive. IFVs serve most of the support roles tanks used to serve. They don't have the armor of a tank, but they can do a lot of damage to just about everything on the battlefield.
A lot of vehicles have the M242 Bushmaster which is a 25mm autocannon. Among the ammunition available for the gun is a round that can penetrate 16 inches of reinforced concrete and cause casualties inside. The Bushmaster can also defeat the armor of most lightly armored vehicles. A Bradley with the M242 was seen to take out a few BMPs the other day.
M242 25mm Automatic Gun
While people have been focused on the bling weapons like tanks, the west has been giving Ukraine a large number of more humble weapons that can do the jobs needed for this offensive.
Russia started off this war with too much mechanization and too few infantry. The VDV and Marines were used heavily in the early fighting because they were the only units with a lot of infantry. Post mobilization Russia is now infantry heavy with a lot fewer vehicles. The Russian army has largely de-mechanized over the last year. Both from vehicle losses and losses in crews to drive them.
Intercepted phone calls mobiks are talking about their entire unit only has a handful of BMPs and maybe one tank that is in marginal condition for 500 men. That's a light infantry unit.
Infantry can dig in, and Russia has built a lot of fortifications. All Ukraine needs are a lot of weapons that can penetrate the fortifications they find. It doesn't need to be tanks.
For the occasional strong point that is too much for a Bradley or other vehicle with an autocannon, rolling up a T-72 will likely do the job just fine.
Ukraine has a good force now to pull off the offensive.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
This was exactly my thoughts. For some stupefying reason, RU is fixated with taking Bakhmut, which is now effectively worthless. So Ukraine is baiting them and fixing them, and I expect to see reinforcements brought from elsewhere. Once an opening is found, it will be exploited, and hard.
I assume there is a reason the Ukrainian army asked for twice as many tanks as were promised or 5x as many as delivered. On the apc/ifv side they are pretty much where they wanted to be. I am also a believer in the better nato/Swedish IFV but the Ukrainians wanted tamks. They could well wait til summer when 160 or so arrive or the tanks could be assigned to Exploit opportunities or to be saved for crimea.
As sun zsu says- secrecy and foreknowledge, shape your opponent, win without fighting, attack weakness. Hard to know much here just as it should be.
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Explains why so many old tanks are showing up, russia uses them for mobile artillery. This had been a capability brought up in this thread and with the artillery losses recently this makes more sense, these guns are limited in range so they have to bring them up within a few miles of the front. Easy drone range. The good news is they are old tanks with short ranges, the bad is russia has thousands in storage, thousands.
There are a few reasons why they would ask for so many. They usually get less than they ask for of major weapons, so ask for more than they need and they might get enough. Another factor is the old Soviet tanks are death traps, western tanks are designed for survivability. Get enough western tanks and they can retire the old T-72s. Finally when Ukraine was asking, they didn't know how many quality Russian tanks would be left by the time they went over onto the offensive. Russian tank stocks are more depleted than anyone thought.
Most armies have used tanks for artillery in an emergency. Ukraine was using them last summer before the M777s and HIMARS showed up. But using tanks as artillery is a desperation move that shows a weakness somewhere: lack of guns or a lack of artillery ammunition.
Russia probably has lots of ammunition for the T-55s and T-62s in their stockpile, so using those tanks as artillery allows them to use up those shells when shells for their regular artillery is in short supply.
But tanks do not make good artillery pieces. Tank guns are usually mounted to traverse up and down from about -5 degrees to about 20-30 degrees. SP artillery can usually get to around 80 degrees up. You get maximum range firing at 45 degrees. Tank guns are also higher pressure guns than artillery. Because of this they have a shorter barrel life than artillery guns. Tanks also are designed for the direct fire role, they don't have the targeting equipment to use in the indirect fire role. The sights and such to use in direct fire are useless in indirect fire.
When the Ukrainians were using their tanks for artillery they ran them up on some object to get the barrel up more. The Russians may be doing that, but their accuracy is going to be worse and so will their range.
Moving the artillery closer to the front also makes them more vulnerable during a breakthrough. The Ukrainians will encounter the tank artillery shortly after breakthrough.
Here's a suggestion to strike fear into the Russians, or confuse the heck out of them:
Thread by @emilkastehelmi on Thread Reader App
@emilkastehelmi: Ukraine has begun a series of local counterattacks in the Bakhmut area. First they pushed Russians to the canal in the south, and now they're attacking Russian positions near Bohdanivka and Khromove...…
threadreaderapp.com
Michael Kofman and mark hertling think shaping operations will be many weeks.
@wdolson if they would put the google eyes
on the rear of tanks it would certainly work
