The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
Muttley
Well-known member
Druss_The_Legend
Well-known member
'It’s suicide at the moment': On the frontline with a British fighter, as a big offensive looms
'If Ukraine falls, it’s not going to stop,' says James Dee, 30, who was a welder before he decided to take up arms
inews.co.uk
Dunno on China. Have asked.
If this isn't the real Putin, he's dead and this is one of his doubles, who writing the scripts and what do they expect to now achieve? Or have they simply gone too far down the rabbit hole and can't/won't go back due to macho pride and perceived loss of face?
And thousands more will die for absolutely no reason
One of the doubles according to our man (the one that hunches, grips tables and has a slightly lop sided look). And the script a proto-soviet line most likely coming from Patrushev and Peskov. The old, anti west USSR dreamers.
Lefty
Well-known member
I doubt anyone knows why Xi wants to go to China or what he would say, other than Xi.
If China have carried through on their earlier secret commitments on munitions etc to Ukraine then it would seem less likely China would move closer to Russia and even aid them.
I wonder if this is Xi's response to the public embarrassment by the Biden administration over the spy balloons, to say 'well, we'd made a move towards you, but we can easily move back towards Russia and help them prolong this costly war that is sucking NATO in. How do you like them apples?'
I'm not sure what the point was for Biden to make the spy balloons downing public. I'm sure there was one, perhaps domestic politics was the target and how it played out. If it was then it was stupid geopolitically. So let's hope it was a geopolitical move and well thought out, perhaps even arranged as part of an overall strategy to build up both Xi and Biden, but ultimately to end this war and restore Ukraine.
Putin Schmutin.
"Over the last few weeks the Transnistrian front have come back into focus.
Moldova has openly been reticent to attack Transnistria, but behind the scenes it has been quite different.
At the same time it has been missed by most western pundits that Moldova has been a battleground for political subversion by the Russians.
Historically Moldova was one of the closest knit vassal states of Russia, and has after the fall of the Soviet Union been heavily under influence of Russia, and has a fairly large pro-Russian grouping.
To say that the country is cloven between the east and the west is to put it mildly.
And on top of that you have the last SSR in existance, the Transnistrian SSR, that is openly aided by military from Russia.
After the war started in Ukraine, Moldova has shifted quite sharply towards the West and is now both a candidate country of the EU and NATO.
Problem for Moldova is that the country can enter neither organisation without first solving its Transnistrian problem.
Obviously Russia do not want any of that, so they are stubbornly staying where Jeltsin put them way back when.
After all, the general idea of grabbing parts of other countries was not a Putin original idea, it was in fact Jeltsin who started that trend.
Moldova
Openly EU and NATO has stated that Transnistria is Moldovas problem to solve prior to any acceptance, but behind the scenes both parties have sent aid, military equipment, "military advisors" and volunteers, to train and build up the rather feeble Moldovan army.
So much so that it is today double the strength, and far better equiped.
In soldiers we are talking about 10 000 men, and they are facing 5 000 Transnistrian militia plus 1 500 Russian soldiers.
Previously the Russians was air borne elite unites, but they were rotated out for lower quality units prior to the war began.
Regardless of how you count it, this is highly touch and go as military offensives are counted.
At the same time Ukraine has held 10 000 troops towards Transnistria for months, and behind the scenes offered Moldova to hit Transnistria from the other side.
For political reasons this is not entirely palatable for the Moldovans since they fear that Ukraine will simply grab back what was once their territory.
The Price
In Transnistria there is 20 million tons of weapons and ammunition.
How much remains is debatable, Transnistria was for a while a fairly large arms dealer, but let us say half of it.
This would obviously be fairly yummy for Ukraine to get their hands on.
On top of that, with Transnistria and the Russians gone, Ukraine can redirect troops away to frontline duty.
With the 10 000 on the border there are a further 10 000 behind the lines, with a totally friendly border all of that could be moved out.
The Current Situation
A week ago Moldova started a carefully orchestrated campaign by changing government to a more pro-war and anti-Transnistria one.
At the same time Zelenskyy warned about an upcoming coup in Moldova, and sent heavy brigades to the Transnistrian border.
These concist of some of the most experienced heavy mechanized brigades in Ukraine, troops badly needed at other places.
Behind the scenes things have changed, now Moldova is ready for a confrontation, and some sort of deal and assurances between Moldova and Ukraine has been reached.
Daily we are now seeing ever more warlike statements out of Moldova.
I am now convinced that Russia will have a second and very brief war on their hands, a war they can't deal with."
"Over the last few weeks the Transnistrian front have come back into focus.
Moldova has openly been reticent to attack Transnistria, but behind the scenes it has been quite different.
At the same time it has been missed by most western pundits that Moldova has been a battleground for political subversion by the Russians.
Historically Moldova was one of the closest knit vassal states of Russia, and has after the fall of the Soviet Union been heavily under influence of Russia, and has a fairly large pro-Russian grouping.
To say that the country is cloven between the east and the west is to put it mildly.
And on top of that you have the last SSR in existance, the Transnistrian SSR, that is openly aided by military from Russia.
After the war started in Ukraine, Moldova has shifted quite sharply towards the West and is now both a candidate country of the EU and NATO.
Problem for Moldova is that the country can enter neither organisation without first solving its Transnistrian problem.
Obviously Russia do not want any of that, so they are stubbornly staying where Jeltsin put them way back when.
After all, the general idea of grabbing parts of other countries was not a Putin original idea, it was in fact Jeltsin who started that trend.
Moldova
Openly EU and NATO has stated that Transnistria is Moldovas problem to solve prior to any acceptance, but behind the scenes both parties have sent aid, military equipment, "military advisors" and volunteers, to train and build up the rather feeble Moldovan army.
So much so that it is today double the strength, and far better equiped.
In soldiers we are talking about 10 000 men, and they are facing 5 000 Transnistrian militia plus 1 500 Russian soldiers.
Previously the Russians was air borne elite unites, but they were rotated out for lower quality units prior to the war began.
Regardless of how you count it, this is highly touch and go as military offensives are counted.
At the same time Ukraine has held 10 000 troops towards Transnistria for months, and behind the scenes offered Moldova to hit Transnistria from the other side.
For political reasons this is not entirely palatable for the Moldovans since they fear that Ukraine will simply grab back what was once their territory.
The Price
In Transnistria there is 20 million tons of weapons and ammunition.
How much remains is debatable, Transnistria was for a while a fairly large arms dealer, but let us say half of it.
This would obviously be fairly yummy for Ukraine to get their hands on.
On top of that, with Transnistria and the Russians gone, Ukraine can redirect troops away to frontline duty.
With the 10 000 on the border there are a further 10 000 behind the lines, with a totally friendly border all of that could be moved out.
The Current Situation
A week ago Moldova started a carefully orchestrated campaign by changing government to a more pro-war and anti-Transnistria one.
At the same time Zelenskyy warned about an upcoming coup in Moldova, and sent heavy brigades to the Transnistrian border.
These concist of some of the most experienced heavy mechanized brigades in Ukraine, troops badly needed at other places.
Behind the scenes things have changed, now Moldova is ready for a confrontation, and some sort of deal and assurances between Moldova and Ukraine has been reached.
Daily we are now seeing ever more warlike statements out of Moldova.
I am now convinced that Russia will have a second and very brief war on their hands, a war they can't deal with."
Lefty
Well-known member
Yes. They could and should do it quickly. Putin might have ended Russia as an empire state.
That’s ironic as I keep wondering why Putin made this drastic step to full invasion when he did. Prior to it he more or less had things how he wanted. He had crimea, Ukraine was divided between favouring the West and Russia and distracted with Donbas, NATO was off balance, reticent to get involved and conflicted between the moral response to Crimea and Donbas and their own interests with Russian energy and money.
Putin we know had this dream of recreating the Soviet empire, but the only reason I can see him jumping the gun like he did is because he felt he was running out of time personally to be the glorious leader who delivered it. Whether that was covid that petrified him so much, whether he had anus cancer (from poisoning or not) I don’t know, but alongside catastrophic misinformation from the FSB, his yes men aides and the petrified army commanders, I can’t think of another reason he would be so dismissive of the west, even taking into account the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Or, as we would learn in English Lit classes, the fatal flaw: hubris.
Randy
Well-known member
Chinese have a vested interest in what happens with Russia.
New 'Silk Road' is currently under construction.
Also seen on twitter tonight, not the BBC or CNN so believe it or don't believe it.
https://twitter.com/AsharqNewsBrk/status/1628139443608555571?t=9j7iy7Ub_WxlGTbcY0HhIQ&s=19
New 'Silk Road' is currently under construction.
Also seen on twitter tonight, not the BBC or CNN so believe it or don't believe it.
https://twitter.com/AsharqNewsBrk/status/1628139443608555571?t=9j7iy7Ub_WxlGTbcY0HhIQ&s=19
That comes from a report by Russian controlled media TASS on a statement made by a Chinese politician in typically flowery and vague language. The Russians are spinning it how they want but it’s anybody’s guess if it goes anywhere near that far… afterall the Russians aren’t equal partners in that relationship.
Hap
Well-known member
Asharq News is a Saudi Government backed information platform. It's not the most reliable and peddles out pretty much what the government in Saudi instruct it to, I think. They're Pro-Trump, Pro-Authoritarian, and fairly right wing, from what I can see. So bias towards a Russian narrative wouldn't be a stretch at all.
HolgateCorner
Well-known member
Also the dehumanising of soldiers and the general population in that part of the world goes on.
Randy
Well-known member
Yes I'd seen that too. It's why I linked the silk road video too.
We tend to view our political leaders through a sort of vote-maximising lens, subject to at least some moral or ethical constraint. Bill Browder argues that this is inappropriate for Putin; He's a mafia don. He can't show any sign of weakness or he's finished. When in difficulties he reaches for the dictator's playbook - create or amplify an external enemy and go to war.
Warning: the linked article is excellent but I'm afraid it appears in the Mail
@Mwelolo Just go back and look what things were actually like a year ago. A huge build up of forces. A Russian military in good shape, seemingly. Cruise missiles raining down on Kyiv. The threat of the huge armoured columns heading for the capital. Home made tank barricades in Kyiv and citizens preparing molotov cocktails. It looked as though Russia would sweep aside any resistance.
The situation now is massively different. Russia is clinging on because the likes of Patrushev, Peskov and Lavrov (did you see them all bored to sleep during the speech?) face The Hague. They're struggling to muster small advances and, even if the launch a major offensive, it is likely to meet very stiff resistance.
I agree about de-sensitisation to a degree, although I can't watch much of the video material that I am directed towards at times because seeing Russian conscripts slaughtered is grim in the extreme.
Anyway, here is an update on the logistical woes that they face. And, as our man has said a few times ... his dark humour/glib delivery is actually part of his own defence and way of dealing with traumatic stuff. Remember, these missives are shared with just a few close friends (and you lot).
"While we are waiting for a very brief interlude in Transnistria it is fun to read the Telegram channels of the Russian soldiers inside of Transnistria.
They are not enjoying the view of Ukrainian heavy mechanized brigades sitting directly on their border, and with directly we are talking about meters away from the border.
The Russians are begging for reinforcements and artillery to be sent.
Moos-Cow is not answering to their pleading for obvious reasons.
The Transnistrian Communist Party is none to happy either, but they are more pragmatic, underhand they are trying to ask for at least to remain as an autonomous region of Moldova with their own government intact.
It will most likely remain as an autonomous state, it is probably the only way to deal with a region of Moldova where 87 percent of the population wants to remain a communist dictatorship according to a EU ordered gallup done in October 2022.
It is if nothing else sort of cute, and it will probably make one heck of Ostalgia tourist trap for blazé westerners.
GLSDBs
Two days ago the first batch of 100 GLSDBs was delivered. This was roughly a week ahead of schedule due to the new factory having fewer teething problems than what could be realistically expected.
What is a GLSDB?
It is an old Small Diameter Bomb that has been mated with an old surplus rocket.
The US has millions of the bombs in storage, and about 20 000 of the old rockets in storage.
The bombs and the rockets used to be produced by General Dynamics (bomb) and Boeing (rocket).
What is new is coupling between rocket and bomb, the guidance system, and the glide wing package (SAAB).
Problem with this is that the old rockets are in limited supply, and they all need to be x-rayed prior to usage to check that they are still safe.
This turned out to be a bottleneck in the production since Boeing could not x-ray more than 50 of them per month initially with a start in two months.
This is why they were scheduled to arrive initially during the second half of 2023.
The big advantage is though that they will be a cheap solution for mass-bombarding Russian logistics into the stoneage. Prices as low as 40 000USD per unit has been mentioned.
SAAB and Boeing has been cooperating closely for about a decade now on various programs, among them the new training jet for the US Air Force, so they solved the problem of deliveries among them.
In the short time SAAB will newbuild the old Boeing rockets. Technically it is a hybride between an existing SAAB rocket and the old Boeing one. It raises the cost per unit to around 80K, but increases rate of delivery with quite a bit until the old refurbished Boeing rockets come online.
In the medium time it will be old rockets, let us say from August and onwards, and in the long run the tooling is ready to revert yet again to SAAB newbuilds.
The bombs will never be a problem.
I will here digress a bit and say that it is sort of interesting that the US is more and more turning to SAAB for new and innovative solutions.
And, as Boeings civilian part struggles more and more I see a distinct possibility that the arms division of Boeing will be merged up into SAAB who can definitely afford to do so.
The Wallenbergs have by now hoovered up most of the European arms manufacturing after taking controlling interests in ThyssenKrupp (2014), Thales (2017), BAE Systems (2018), Husqvarna Artillery Systems (2020), Rheinmetall AG (2023), KraussMaffeiWegmann (2023) and Nexter (2023).
Taking control of Boeings arms division would be the logical next step really.
GLSDB and Logistics
So, during the night the GLSDB was used in anger for the first time in Donetsk as Ukraine unleashed death upon deep command bases and ammunition storage facilites beyond the 86km mark of the Himars.
21 targets was hit with them, and as far as known none of them was shot down by the Russian air defence.
10 targets was spread out towards the Russian land border of Donetsk, and 11 hit targets in Mariupol.
Admittedly the Russian AD was taken by surprise, but they did activate and did try to take them out, with no known effect.
The lack of success is good news!
Even if the Russians adapt, it is unlikely that they will be able to take down more than 20-25 percent of them, and due to the cheap price Ukraine can just double-tap everything to circumvent any such problem. 20-25 percent is probably a very high estimate, more likely would be around 10 percent since "What is Air Defence doing?" is the Russian norm.
As the Himars and their GMLRS rockets came online in Ukraine the Russian logistics was strained to the breaking point. This in turn made it possible for Ukraine to do the massive counter-offensives taking back Kharkiv Oblast, parts of Luhansk, and part of Kherson.
Russia famously has the ability to do 90km of logistics outside of the railway network, this was a theory that turned out to be very accurate in this war.
In the end Russia solved the Himars problem partially in two ways.
The first was to distribute their ammunition dumps, instead of having a few large ones, the put in place hundreds of smaller ones within the 80km zone. As each of these was hit or emptied out, they created a new one at a new location rarely using the same spot twice.
These are then supplied from larger master depots beyond the 90km mark.
Even so, Ukraine are still hitting quite a lot of these sub-depots straining the Russian logistics unto the point where Russia can't move forward more than just a tiny amount.
The Second thing was the moving of the big railway connected master-depots.
Obviously Ukraine has been intermittently hitting these by using other means like longrange drones and homebuilt cruise missiles, but not at a rate that had any huge effect on the Russians.
The sum of this was that Russia could somewhat extend the logistics chain by 30-40km to 120-140km, but with added complexity and lowered flowrate.
All of this is basically why the vaunted Russian spring offensive partially fizzled out.
If you already are at the breaking point, increasing the straing further by increased distance is just impossible.
Russia has tried to do the offensive by pooling together their resources in specific areas and for specific units.
This is largely the reason for the Wagner all of a sudden being without ammo.
With GLSDBs entering the fray Russia once more will have to push their logistics backward beyond the 150km mark from the frontline.
Theoretically they can place the sub-depots 80km from the frontline, and then feed in from master depots a further 80-90km beyond that, but that would come at an increased cost in more trucks or lost capacity, and it will take a couple of months to set up given the usual slow speed of change in Russia.
But, this is theoretically.
In the real world there are bridges, and unlike the GMLRS the GLSDB is a real bomb with a much bigger explosives part. After all, the small diameter bomb was produced to mass bomb bridges in countries like Korea and Vietnam, all that has been made is to make them far more accurate.
This means that increasingly Russia will have to divert trucks and trains creating longer delivery routes that extend things so much that most of the time a 3-step logistics chain will have to be used.
Master-depot (at trains-station), trucks to a redistribution center, redistribution to the sub-depots, and then trucks towards the front.
Trucks
Let us say that Russia has 10 trucks to use just as an example.
At the beginning of the war these trucks would pick up directly at a master-depot and run to the front directly. One of them would constantly be in the garage for service giving a grand total theoretical efficiency of up to 90 percent. This was something the Russians could work with, and a 90 percent efficiency gave up towards 40 000 shells to fire per day at the peak during the slaughter of Mariupol.
As Himars entered the fray they Russians had to divide up those 10 trucks into two groups, one running from the master-depot to the sub-depot, and one from the sub-depot to the frontline. This in turn increased the strain on the trucks, so each group had one in the garage at any given time. This dropped the theoretical maximum flowrate into 40 percent. We saw this quickly taking effect as the Russian maximum shell output dropped initially to below 20 000 shells that dropped further due to other Russian problems not related to the problem at hand.
Let us pause here, at this point Russia had lost any real ability to move forward in anything but a slow grind. A few hundred meters per day at best. But, they still remained a formidable opponent to push backwards, note that the Ukrainians had to stop their advances as Russia adapted into the two-stage delivery operations (there was also the mud season).
Now, with a 3-stage delivery chain? Well, 3 trucks will be in the garage, leaving 7 trucks to do the 3 stages.
The efficiency (theoretical) is now down to 23 percent flowrate...
This number in real world is far lower. We have not taken into account trucks being blown up, nor the fuel logistics needed to drive this lunacy. Nor have we looked at the effects of fuel on mechanised Russian unit, and food, and so on and on...
Future
The advantage of the GMLRS and the GLSDB is that these systems exist in abundance, and are mass-produced.
This means that up to 150km depth the Russians will really suffer now.
But, beyond that there are happy Russians feeding things into the logistics chain.
What would then be the effect if the Russians would be forced to move their master-depots even further back?
UK has promised to send Storm Shadows with a range of 250km, and there are a few Gungnirs (300km) trickling in each month to Ukraine. The latter are held back for ultra-targets like the next strike against the Kersh Bridge.
But, storm shadows and perhaps ATACMs, and Russia will have to later on perform the feat of moving all of their master-depots back beyond the 250km range and relying on a 4-stage relay chain of depots.
At this point there will be almost nothing reaching the frontlines.
Manpower
What I have written up above also goes for manpower.
Russia is using a similar setup for feeding in troops to the frontlines, the effect is less than for the goods, but it is still there.
I suspect that this was a major part of the lack of the new mobilisation, having your troop blown up in rear-barracks is not a good thing when feeding them towards the front, and by pushing those barracks backwards you get a similar logistics problem.
Conclusion
This night the war entered a new stage, now Ukraine just has to wait while the GLSDBs take effect on the Russian logistics chain, and then they can rock like 2022 on the offensive.
It will take them around 30 days to set the stage, so expect the big offensive to start in late march or early april, for some reason this also coincides with the deliveries of the new armoured equipment.
It is almost as if all of this was planned quite a while ago.
Ahem.
Obviously Russia knows all of this, that was probably why "Hunchback Putin" held such a sad speech, and why everyone looked so tired and sad.
The Long Night is falling over Russia, and their leaders are now asleep dreaming about better times while their dead leader drones on into the night."
The situation now is massively different. Russia is clinging on because the likes of Patrushev, Peskov and Lavrov (did you see them all bored to sleep during the speech?) face The Hague. They're struggling to muster small advances and, even if the launch a major offensive, it is likely to meet very stiff resistance.
I agree about de-sensitisation to a degree, although I can't watch much of the video material that I am directed towards at times because seeing Russian conscripts slaughtered is grim in the extreme.
Anyway, here is an update on the logistical woes that they face. And, as our man has said a few times ... his dark humour/glib delivery is actually part of his own defence and way of dealing with traumatic stuff. Remember, these missives are shared with just a few close friends (and you lot).
"While we are waiting for a very brief interlude in Transnistria it is fun to read the Telegram channels of the Russian soldiers inside of Transnistria.
They are not enjoying the view of Ukrainian heavy mechanized brigades sitting directly on their border, and with directly we are talking about meters away from the border.
The Russians are begging for reinforcements and artillery to be sent.
Moos-Cow is not answering to their pleading for obvious reasons.
The Transnistrian Communist Party is none to happy either, but they are more pragmatic, underhand they are trying to ask for at least to remain as an autonomous region of Moldova with their own government intact.
It will most likely remain as an autonomous state, it is probably the only way to deal with a region of Moldova where 87 percent of the population wants to remain a communist dictatorship according to a EU ordered gallup done in October 2022.
It is if nothing else sort of cute, and it will probably make one heck of Ostalgia tourist trap for blazé westerners.
GLSDBs
Two days ago the first batch of 100 GLSDBs was delivered. This was roughly a week ahead of schedule due to the new factory having fewer teething problems than what could be realistically expected.
What is a GLSDB?
It is an old Small Diameter Bomb that has been mated with an old surplus rocket.
The US has millions of the bombs in storage, and about 20 000 of the old rockets in storage.
The bombs and the rockets used to be produced by General Dynamics (bomb) and Boeing (rocket).
What is new is coupling between rocket and bomb, the guidance system, and the glide wing package (SAAB).
Problem with this is that the old rockets are in limited supply, and they all need to be x-rayed prior to usage to check that they are still safe.
This turned out to be a bottleneck in the production since Boeing could not x-ray more than 50 of them per month initially with a start in two months.
This is why they were scheduled to arrive initially during the second half of 2023.
The big advantage is though that they will be a cheap solution for mass-bombarding Russian logistics into the stoneage. Prices as low as 40 000USD per unit has been mentioned.
SAAB and Boeing has been cooperating closely for about a decade now on various programs, among them the new training jet for the US Air Force, so they solved the problem of deliveries among them.
In the short time SAAB will newbuild the old Boeing rockets. Technically it is a hybride between an existing SAAB rocket and the old Boeing one. It raises the cost per unit to around 80K, but increases rate of delivery with quite a bit until the old refurbished Boeing rockets come online.
In the medium time it will be old rockets, let us say from August and onwards, and in the long run the tooling is ready to revert yet again to SAAB newbuilds.
The bombs will never be a problem.
I will here digress a bit and say that it is sort of interesting that the US is more and more turning to SAAB for new and innovative solutions.
And, as Boeings civilian part struggles more and more I see a distinct possibility that the arms division of Boeing will be merged up into SAAB who can definitely afford to do so.
The Wallenbergs have by now hoovered up most of the European arms manufacturing after taking controlling interests in ThyssenKrupp (2014), Thales (2017), BAE Systems (2018), Husqvarna Artillery Systems (2020), Rheinmetall AG (2023), KraussMaffeiWegmann (2023) and Nexter (2023).
Taking control of Boeings arms division would be the logical next step really.
GLSDB and Logistics
So, during the night the GLSDB was used in anger for the first time in Donetsk as Ukraine unleashed death upon deep command bases and ammunition storage facilites beyond the 86km mark of the Himars.
21 targets was hit with them, and as far as known none of them was shot down by the Russian air defence.
10 targets was spread out towards the Russian land border of Donetsk, and 11 hit targets in Mariupol.
Admittedly the Russian AD was taken by surprise, but they did activate and did try to take them out, with no known effect.
The lack of success is good news!
Even if the Russians adapt, it is unlikely that they will be able to take down more than 20-25 percent of them, and due to the cheap price Ukraine can just double-tap everything to circumvent any such problem. 20-25 percent is probably a very high estimate, more likely would be around 10 percent since "What is Air Defence doing?" is the Russian norm.
As the Himars and their GMLRS rockets came online in Ukraine the Russian logistics was strained to the breaking point. This in turn made it possible for Ukraine to do the massive counter-offensives taking back Kharkiv Oblast, parts of Luhansk, and part of Kherson.
Russia famously has the ability to do 90km of logistics outside of the railway network, this was a theory that turned out to be very accurate in this war.
In the end Russia solved the Himars problem partially in two ways.
The first was to distribute their ammunition dumps, instead of having a few large ones, the put in place hundreds of smaller ones within the 80km zone. As each of these was hit or emptied out, they created a new one at a new location rarely using the same spot twice.
These are then supplied from larger master depots beyond the 90km mark.
Even so, Ukraine are still hitting quite a lot of these sub-depots straining the Russian logistics unto the point where Russia can't move forward more than just a tiny amount.
The Second thing was the moving of the big railway connected master-depots.
Obviously Ukraine has been intermittently hitting these by using other means like longrange drones and homebuilt cruise missiles, but not at a rate that had any huge effect on the Russians.
The sum of this was that Russia could somewhat extend the logistics chain by 30-40km to 120-140km, but with added complexity and lowered flowrate.
All of this is basically why the vaunted Russian spring offensive partially fizzled out.
If you already are at the breaking point, increasing the straing further by increased distance is just impossible.
Russia has tried to do the offensive by pooling together their resources in specific areas and for specific units.
This is largely the reason for the Wagner all of a sudden being without ammo.
With GLSDBs entering the fray Russia once more will have to push their logistics backward beyond the 150km mark from the frontline.
Theoretically they can place the sub-depots 80km from the frontline, and then feed in from master depots a further 80-90km beyond that, but that would come at an increased cost in more trucks or lost capacity, and it will take a couple of months to set up given the usual slow speed of change in Russia.
But, this is theoretically.
In the real world there are bridges, and unlike the GMLRS the GLSDB is a real bomb with a much bigger explosives part. After all, the small diameter bomb was produced to mass bomb bridges in countries like Korea and Vietnam, all that has been made is to make them far more accurate.
This means that increasingly Russia will have to divert trucks and trains creating longer delivery routes that extend things so much that most of the time a 3-step logistics chain will have to be used.
Master-depot (at trains-station), trucks to a redistribution center, redistribution to the sub-depots, and then trucks towards the front.
Trucks
Let us say that Russia has 10 trucks to use just as an example.
At the beginning of the war these trucks would pick up directly at a master-depot and run to the front directly. One of them would constantly be in the garage for service giving a grand total theoretical efficiency of up to 90 percent. This was something the Russians could work with, and a 90 percent efficiency gave up towards 40 000 shells to fire per day at the peak during the slaughter of Mariupol.
As Himars entered the fray they Russians had to divide up those 10 trucks into two groups, one running from the master-depot to the sub-depot, and one from the sub-depot to the frontline. This in turn increased the strain on the trucks, so each group had one in the garage at any given time. This dropped the theoretical maximum flowrate into 40 percent. We saw this quickly taking effect as the Russian maximum shell output dropped initially to below 20 000 shells that dropped further due to other Russian problems not related to the problem at hand.
Let us pause here, at this point Russia had lost any real ability to move forward in anything but a slow grind. A few hundred meters per day at best. But, they still remained a formidable opponent to push backwards, note that the Ukrainians had to stop their advances as Russia adapted into the two-stage delivery operations (there was also the mud season).
Now, with a 3-stage delivery chain? Well, 3 trucks will be in the garage, leaving 7 trucks to do the 3 stages.
The efficiency (theoretical) is now down to 23 percent flowrate...
This number in real world is far lower. We have not taken into account trucks being blown up, nor the fuel logistics needed to drive this lunacy. Nor have we looked at the effects of fuel on mechanised Russian unit, and food, and so on and on...
Future
The advantage of the GMLRS and the GLSDB is that these systems exist in abundance, and are mass-produced.
This means that up to 150km depth the Russians will really suffer now.
But, beyond that there are happy Russians feeding things into the logistics chain.
What would then be the effect if the Russians would be forced to move their master-depots even further back?
UK has promised to send Storm Shadows with a range of 250km, and there are a few Gungnirs (300km) trickling in each month to Ukraine. The latter are held back for ultra-targets like the next strike against the Kersh Bridge.
But, storm shadows and perhaps ATACMs, and Russia will have to later on perform the feat of moving all of their master-depots back beyond the 250km range and relying on a 4-stage relay chain of depots.
At this point there will be almost nothing reaching the frontlines.
Manpower
What I have written up above also goes for manpower.
Russia is using a similar setup for feeding in troops to the frontlines, the effect is less than for the goods, but it is still there.
I suspect that this was a major part of the lack of the new mobilisation, having your troop blown up in rear-barracks is not a good thing when feeding them towards the front, and by pushing those barracks backwards you get a similar logistics problem.
Conclusion
This night the war entered a new stage, now Ukraine just has to wait while the GLSDBs take effect on the Russian logistics chain, and then they can rock like 2022 on the offensive.
It will take them around 30 days to set the stage, so expect the big offensive to start in late march or early april, for some reason this also coincides with the deliveries of the new armoured equipment.
It is almost as if all of this was planned quite a while ago.
Ahem.
Obviously Russia knows all of this, that was probably why "Hunchback Putin" held such a sad speech, and why everyone looked so tired and sad.
The Long Night is falling over Russia, and their leaders are now asleep dreaming about better times while their dead leader drones on into the night."
It became clear fairly quickly that Russia’s army wasn’t up to much and couldn’t sweep aside any resistance.
I think it was entirely predictable that they would do that, which is what made it obvious to me that it would not all be quickly over and done with.
Bristolboro
Well-known member
I wouldn't assume that this war will end as long as Putin is in power. He needs a perpetual (Orwellian) war scenario to consolidate his power, give him purpose and strengthen his ego. You could see from his speech that he was in total control and in his element. He doesn't need peace. The carnage he creates doesn't really matter as long as the audience are clapping and he remains in power. Even the religious leaders are clapping.