Jonny_Rondos_Disco_pants
Well-known member
The 31 Abrams tanks and crew have made Ukraine.
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
Yes, and first real use of GLSDBs. 1 ATACM with cluster warhead. 10 x GLSDBs.
So Frontline updates.
"Frontlines
A general malaise seem to have set in on the Russian side, it seems even they are stunned by the insane losses that they took. There's open arguing now about retaking command from the "politicos" in Moscow, and someone seems to even have gotten through to Putin about it.
A few deep bridges was hit (by GLSDBSs), but not a lot yet since we need a couple of days to be completely ready to start chugging down the long list of targets that need attention in the deep rear of Russia.
Avdivka
Still though the attacks are continying around Avdivka.
The Deep State Map and the ISW maps are not correct to put it mildly, around Avdivka.
Russia is still trying to push forward, and sometimes they take a field or two in one direction, and are then hammered back.
What is new is that they are now trying to storm the first concrete defence line from the Southeast, this is even more nutty than what they did previously.
I guess they thought that they where unmaned or something, it did not end well for them.
Berdyansk and Luhansk Airports
Both of these was hit, and in both cases with our new little toys.
Russia was most impressed with the state of pain that they are now in.
Both of these are helicopter airports used for their helicopter attacks, and the targets was the helicopters themselves.
We are still waiting for sat pictures of the results due to inclement weather.
Tokmak Axis
Here's where we noticed the biggest difference in the frontlines after the Avdivka killing fields.
After a few succeses again around Kopani Oleksandr noticed that things was slacking down towards Verbove on the Russian side.
So, first he hit due East to widen the salient by taking a couple of fields to create room to manouvre.
After that they performed an offensive from west of Verbove to take a couple of important heights.
The push was only about 300 by 800 meters respectively in two directions, but with those being heights the are important.
It is here noteworthy to point out that until this point Ukraine has fough an uphill battle, but these hills are part of a high ridge that runs along the entire line, and that from those theres downhill to Tokmak.
Ukraine now control more than half of that hill line, with two more near Kopani, one between Novoprokopivka and Verbove, and one SE of Verbove (the highest) remaining to be taken.
Incidentally this line of heights is exactly halfway to Tokmak, so sort of symbolic to take it beyond the military importance.
These pushes also made Novoprokopivka more open for further attacks, remember that the Southern part of the village is on that high ridge, something that the Russians have used to their advantage so far, but the advantage is diminishing now."
Russia also cut the comms link between Sweden and Estonia today.
Expect some "opinionated" sneaky reprisals.
"Frontlines
A general malaise seem to have set in on the Russian side, it seems even they are stunned by the insane losses that they took. There's open arguing now about retaking command from the "politicos" in Moscow, and someone seems to even have gotten through to Putin about it.
A few deep bridges was hit (by GLSDBSs), but not a lot yet since we need a couple of days to be completely ready to start chugging down the long list of targets that need attention in the deep rear of Russia.
Avdivka
Still though the attacks are continying around Avdivka.
The Deep State Map and the ISW maps are not correct to put it mildly, around Avdivka.
Russia is still trying to push forward, and sometimes they take a field or two in one direction, and are then hammered back.
What is new is that they are now trying to storm the first concrete defence line from the Southeast, this is even more nutty than what they did previously.
I guess they thought that they where unmaned or something, it did not end well for them.
Berdyansk and Luhansk Airports
Both of these was hit, and in both cases with our new little toys.
Russia was most impressed with the state of pain that they are now in.
Both of these are helicopter airports used for their helicopter attacks, and the targets was the helicopters themselves.
We are still waiting for sat pictures of the results due to inclement weather.
Tokmak Axis
Here's where we noticed the biggest difference in the frontlines after the Avdivka killing fields.
After a few succeses again around Kopani Oleksandr noticed that things was slacking down towards Verbove on the Russian side.
So, first he hit due East to widen the salient by taking a couple of fields to create room to manouvre.
After that they performed an offensive from west of Verbove to take a couple of important heights.
The push was only about 300 by 800 meters respectively in two directions, but with those being heights the are important.
It is here noteworthy to point out that until this point Ukraine has fough an uphill battle, but these hills are part of a high ridge that runs along the entire line, and that from those theres downhill to Tokmak.
Ukraine now control more than half of that hill line, with two more near Kopani, one between Novoprokopivka and Verbove, and one SE of Verbove (the highest) remaining to be taken.
Incidentally this line of heights is exactly halfway to Tokmak, so sort of symbolic to take it beyond the military importance.
These pushes also made Novoprokopivka more open for further attacks, remember that the Southern part of the village is on that high ridge, something that the Russians have used to their advantage so far, but the advantage is diminishing now."
Russia also cut the comms link between Sweden and Estonia today.
Expect some "opinionated" sneaky reprisals.
Morning shorty
"Just a short little morning thingy about Kherson.
The 36th Marine Brigade started to cross the river East of Antonivka Bridge during the early evening right as darkness fell.
The attack started from Prydniprov'ske in Northern Kherson, and they went across the Dnipro, and up the waterway that goes between Dnipro and the Konka River between the two islands that Ukraine are holding.
This meant that the attack came pretty much out of the blue for the Russians since Ukraine over the last few weeks have picked apart the Russian observation posts along this section of the river with artillery.
They then followed the railroad track up to the road where they split up with one group going for the small railroad hub at Poima, and another group went to Pischanivka.
Currently the 36th is storming the two villages, but unlike in other parts resistance is reportedly light (for being in Ukraine that is).
At the same time Ukrainians at the Antonivka Bridgehead at Dachi started to move towards Oleshky under heavy artillery cover.
Is this the expected big offensive in Kherson?
I can't tell that for obvious reasons.
But, if it is you should expect more attacks in other places along the river to create more bridgeheads to pump in more troops faster."
"Just a short little morning thingy about Kherson.
The 36th Marine Brigade started to cross the river East of Antonivka Bridge during the early evening right as darkness fell.
The attack started from Prydniprov'ske in Northern Kherson, and they went across the Dnipro, and up the waterway that goes between Dnipro and the Konka River between the two islands that Ukraine are holding.
This meant that the attack came pretty much out of the blue for the Russians since Ukraine over the last few weeks have picked apart the Russian observation posts along this section of the river with artillery.
They then followed the railroad track up to the road where they split up with one group going for the small railroad hub at Poima, and another group went to Pischanivka.
Currently the 36th is storming the two villages, but unlike in other parts resistance is reportedly light (for being in Ukraine that is).
At the same time Ukrainians at the Antonivka Bridgehead at Dachi started to move towards Oleshky under heavy artillery cover.
Is this the expected big offensive in Kherson?
I can't tell that for obvious reasons.
But, if it is you should expect more attacks in other places along the river to create more bridgeheads to pump in more troops faster."
Hap
Well-known member
I hate it when you call me that...
Kursk
"One of Russias largest Field Camps/Training & Equipping Centers for Mobiks was near Kursk Airfield at Postoyalye Dvory.
At any given time it contained 3 000 Mobiks in various stages of training and equipping.
It also contained large amounts of equipment and ammunition.
As a part of the demilitarisation of the border oblasts we hit it continuously for 4 hours last night using drones, special forces and missiles.
We are still awaiting visual confirmation of the damages, but judging from initial Sad Russia Noises they were impressed.
The attack has also now been confirmed by the SBU.
This was made possible by the "not Russia"-policy having been altered.
Ukraine is now permitted to use Western provided weapons against clear military targets.
This means that Ukraine now can clear out any Russian depots, bridges, and other military targets for up to 150km from it's borders/frontlines.
On the back of this stance the Free Russia Brigade has now been tasked with removing all feasible Russian border control posts and defences in Bilhorod to achieve "options".
War has come to roost in Russia.
Winter is Coming!"
"One of Russias largest Field Camps/Training & Equipping Centers for Mobiks was near Kursk Airfield at Postoyalye Dvory.
At any given time it contained 3 000 Mobiks in various stages of training and equipping.
It also contained large amounts of equipment and ammunition.
As a part of the demilitarisation of the border oblasts we hit it continuously for 4 hours last night using drones, special forces and missiles.
We are still awaiting visual confirmation of the damages, but judging from initial Sad Russia Noises they were impressed.
The attack has also now been confirmed by the SBU.
This was made possible by the "not Russia"-policy having been altered.
Ukraine is now permitted to use Western provided weapons against clear military targets.
This means that Ukraine now can clear out any Russian depots, bridges, and other military targets for up to 150km from it's borders/frontlines.
On the back of this stance the Free Russia Brigade has now been tasked with removing all feasible Russian border control posts and defences in Bilhorod to achieve "options".
War has come to roost in Russia.
Winter is Coming!"
Angry Russian ladies
Updates
"Let us start with Berdyansk.
We now have satelite images showing that for Mi-8 and 5 Ka-52s are totalled, we suspect that at least 2 more Ka-52s and 1 Mi-8 more is damaged, but we can't prove that.
Several Russian sources claim that 150 Russians was killed in the attack, many of them pilots.
Furthermore the Russians claim that this was the most painfull attack so far in the war.
It was not...
In the Kursk training camp about 500 Mobiks and 80 pieces of equipment of varying types was killed, destroyed, or damaged.
Russia has several of these training camps for Mobiks within strike range, and the general idea is forcing Russia to move these ones back since they also function as large depots.
And a Russian killed in the rear is a Russian that is not waving it's d*ck inside of Ukraine.
Bilhorod People's Republic
The border between Ukraine and the budding Bilhorod People's Republic is now dismantled by several kilometres per day.
All border guards are driven away, taken captive or killed, depending on how much they resist.
All border control infrastructure on the Russian side is being removed with explosives, trenches are filled in and mines removed.
Citizens in both Bilhorod and Kursk is kindly being suggested that being somewhere else is a good idea and that they are welcome to evacuate to the nearest border to Ukraine, or go further into Russia.
Several border villages have just hauled up the Blue/White flag of Free Russia before their liberators arrive, and Shebekians have started to drive into Ukraine to do their daily shopping.
Avdivka
Russia is still of the opinion that if it does not work sending columns of armour and 500 soldiers at a time, that it was a good idea to send 500 infantry at a time, and when that did not work they are sending 150 men at a time less frequently.
Now they are down to 4 anemic attacks a day on the Southern side and 1-2 on the Northern side.
There was a familly remaining inside of Avdivka, in reality a very old couple and 3 relatives remaining to help them.
This forced Ukraine to keep resources around constantly to protect them as well as possible.
Now Russia has started to level what remains of the City with artillery, and they had to be moved out.
But, being stubborn they refused.
So, in the end Tank Girl had to break a cardinal rule and drive there to sweet talk them out.
They flat out refused to go if not the responsible general came and talked to them.
So, I had to plan a way to get her ass in and out intact.
I had to divert 8 Archer's and 2 Himars, enough counter-battery radars to cover the Universe, and a full battalion of CV90s and infantry for 8 hours.
On top of that we had to hold a constant artillery barrage, 500 155mm shells in total.
Her only comment was, "We are Ukrainians, we do these things."
Let us say that I had "opinions"...
But, it speaks volumes about how hard the Ukrainians work to take the high road in this war.
Kherson
While we performed our Operation Stubborn Retired, the new commander of Kherson, also named Oleksandr to increase my headache pushed onwards.
Yes you read right, 3 out of 4 frontline commanders are named Oleksandr, I suggested that Tank Girl should change her name to not look strange in the reports.
The landing I reported yesterday was successfull so far.
Both villages are now in the process of being ground down by artillery and forces are building up in sufficient numbers to storm them.
For now they are being covered by drones dropping Russian mines on their heads.
This means that both the Dnipro Road and the railroad is cut for the Russians.
This strangles the E97 and the T2206 roads since both of them now are under line of sight firecontroll by Ukraine.
In turn that means that Russia has to make a huge detour to keep the forces in Oleshky supplied.
Ukraine is at the same time pushing forward again from the bridgehead (literally and figuratively a bridgehead) at Antonivka Bridge towards Oleshky.
This diverts available Russian resources further.
Now it is a race between Russia and Ukraine about who can get enough resources into play, and who of them have freely available units to push into the fight at a given time.
Currently there are two marine Brigades being shipped over from across Antonivka Bridge and the old railbridge respectively, and Ukraine has more brigades waiting behind those, so for the moment Ukraine has the upper hand on this.
Russia on the other hand suffers from a lack of strong brigades in Kherson, and they have a problem deploying more due to them being tied down over at the Tokmak Axis.
Against Ukraine is that they have a choke point so far in bringing over heavy resources and that there is a manpower delivery restriction across the river.
The Russians do not have that restriction, but they have to bring any forces down to the Eastern landbridge to Crimea, and then send them around the long way.
On top of that, this is at the ****-end of Russian logistics, they have a clear problem already with supplying their troops over here as is.
Currently this offensive is hanging in the balance.
Ukraine need to get access to a good trans-shipment point and a harbour of sorts to be able to sustain a longterm offensive.
If they get that Russia is well and truly fooked, since Ukraine has far larger manpower resources lined up compared to the Russians.
Also, Ukraine potentially has far more equipment resources to bring into the fight, but that requires securing that port structure.
This is all that I can write for now, remember that I am hanging back in what I am writing by 24ish hours, and that I know what is planed.
Not that plans survive for long in war...
Update:
Just as I was about to post this I saw that some details I was holding back are now out in the open.
Ukraine has pushed further east and inland than what I stated above, this was done to encircle Pishchanivka.
Ukrainian forces have now driven a wedge between Pishchanivka and Pidstepne.
In that area an advance unit found a Russian GRAD lolling about, unable to secure it they blew it up.
Crimea
A lot of places in Crimea was hit by a combination of drones and missiles, especially Sevastopol
The Russian air defence is now truly a thing of the past, at best it can be described as anemic.
Sevastopol was mainly to keep on chasing the Russians onwards as they are moving out to Novorossiysk.
The rest was mostly supply dumps and troop concentrations.
A bit about the Kersh Bridge.
It is open for car traffic travelling slowly, speed is cut to between 30-50km/h and is only open for 6 hours per day.
No trucks are allowed on the bridge, and obviously no other heavy equipment.
The railbridge is still out of commission.
According to the Russians the bridge is fully repaired and fully functional, apparently that is what Russians mean with slow moving cars spaced far apart and travelling slowly for a few hours each day.
Only residents are allowed back into Crimea, but anyone can leave.
This is why we are not in any great hurry to hit the bridge again.
Obviously we are consulting with some of the best bridge engineers on the planet on this, and they have "opinions" about the Russian statement.
They say that instead the bridge is barely standing up now due to accumulated damage that has been badly repaired, and that the bridge can't sustain heavy loads.
The 18 hour a day down time apparently corresponds to the necessary time to do safety inspections of the bridge repairs.
That the Russians are only allowing a single car per bridge span section points towards the construction being able to withstand a couple of tons, and that is so little that a storm or piled up snow could make it fail catastrophically on its own.
They do not think it is possible to repair the bridge enough to carry big trucks or other heavy equipment without taking down two sections of the span, and switch out one bridge pillar that is severely cracked.
That pillar is now being held together with wide metal straps.
We are more worried about the repairs being done on the rail bridge, if they get that back up and running we will have to hit it again.
Airplanes
Russia has now lost 5 attack airplanes in a week.
Two of them was downed by air defence systems, the other was downed by longrange standoff air-to-air missiles of strangely western configuration.
Hugfest
Swede's are truly aloof and emotionally stunted, and we have the largest "personal space need" of all people on the planet.
If anyone is closed than 1.5 meters from us we get uncomfortable.
We are obviously the ones being odd in this regard, since the rest of the world do not suffer in any way from the invasion of private space, at least on our scale.
On top of that we can't take any display of affection towards us without feeling queezy, and heaven forfend if anyone touches us.
Let us say that Ukrainians do not suffer of any compunctions like this, and that they feel that I need to be hugged at every moment they can before I go.
And these are not any short quick things, no they are long bearhugs.
I will either die of discomfort, or become cured from my acute "swedishness", I just hope it will not soon include being kissed on top of things."
"Let us start with Berdyansk.
We now have satelite images showing that for Mi-8 and 5 Ka-52s are totalled, we suspect that at least 2 more Ka-52s and 1 Mi-8 more is damaged, but we can't prove that.
Several Russian sources claim that 150 Russians was killed in the attack, many of them pilots.
Furthermore the Russians claim that this was the most painfull attack so far in the war.
It was not...
In the Kursk training camp about 500 Mobiks and 80 pieces of equipment of varying types was killed, destroyed, or damaged.
Russia has several of these training camps for Mobiks within strike range, and the general idea is forcing Russia to move these ones back since they also function as large depots.
And a Russian killed in the rear is a Russian that is not waving it's d*ck inside of Ukraine.
Bilhorod People's Republic
The border between Ukraine and the budding Bilhorod People's Republic is now dismantled by several kilometres per day.
All border guards are driven away, taken captive or killed, depending on how much they resist.
All border control infrastructure on the Russian side is being removed with explosives, trenches are filled in and mines removed.
Citizens in both Bilhorod and Kursk is kindly being suggested that being somewhere else is a good idea and that they are welcome to evacuate to the nearest border to Ukraine, or go further into Russia.
Several border villages have just hauled up the Blue/White flag of Free Russia before their liberators arrive, and Shebekians have started to drive into Ukraine to do their daily shopping.
Avdivka
Russia is still of the opinion that if it does not work sending columns of armour and 500 soldiers at a time, that it was a good idea to send 500 infantry at a time, and when that did not work they are sending 150 men at a time less frequently.
Now they are down to 4 anemic attacks a day on the Southern side and 1-2 on the Northern side.
There was a familly remaining inside of Avdivka, in reality a very old couple and 3 relatives remaining to help them.
This forced Ukraine to keep resources around constantly to protect them as well as possible.
Now Russia has started to level what remains of the City with artillery, and they had to be moved out.
But, being stubborn they refused.
So, in the end Tank Girl had to break a cardinal rule and drive there to sweet talk them out.
They flat out refused to go if not the responsible general came and talked to them.
So, I had to plan a way to get her ass in and out intact.
I had to divert 8 Archer's and 2 Himars, enough counter-battery radars to cover the Universe, and a full battalion of CV90s and infantry for 8 hours.
On top of that we had to hold a constant artillery barrage, 500 155mm shells in total.
Her only comment was, "We are Ukrainians, we do these things."
Let us say that I had "opinions"...
But, it speaks volumes about how hard the Ukrainians work to take the high road in this war.
Kherson
While we performed our Operation Stubborn Retired, the new commander of Kherson, also named Oleksandr to increase my headache pushed onwards.
Yes you read right, 3 out of 4 frontline commanders are named Oleksandr, I suggested that Tank Girl should change her name to not look strange in the reports.
The landing I reported yesterday was successfull so far.
Both villages are now in the process of being ground down by artillery and forces are building up in sufficient numbers to storm them.
For now they are being covered by drones dropping Russian mines on their heads.
This means that both the Dnipro Road and the railroad is cut for the Russians.
This strangles the E97 and the T2206 roads since both of them now are under line of sight firecontroll by Ukraine.
In turn that means that Russia has to make a huge detour to keep the forces in Oleshky supplied.
Ukraine is at the same time pushing forward again from the bridgehead (literally and figuratively a bridgehead) at Antonivka Bridge towards Oleshky.
This diverts available Russian resources further.
Now it is a race between Russia and Ukraine about who can get enough resources into play, and who of them have freely available units to push into the fight at a given time.
Currently there are two marine Brigades being shipped over from across Antonivka Bridge and the old railbridge respectively, and Ukraine has more brigades waiting behind those, so for the moment Ukraine has the upper hand on this.
Russia on the other hand suffers from a lack of strong brigades in Kherson, and they have a problem deploying more due to them being tied down over at the Tokmak Axis.
Against Ukraine is that they have a choke point so far in bringing over heavy resources and that there is a manpower delivery restriction across the river.
The Russians do not have that restriction, but they have to bring any forces down to the Eastern landbridge to Crimea, and then send them around the long way.
On top of that, this is at the ****-end of Russian logistics, they have a clear problem already with supplying their troops over here as is.
Currently this offensive is hanging in the balance.
Ukraine need to get access to a good trans-shipment point and a harbour of sorts to be able to sustain a longterm offensive.
If they get that Russia is well and truly fooked, since Ukraine has far larger manpower resources lined up compared to the Russians.
Also, Ukraine potentially has far more equipment resources to bring into the fight, but that requires securing that port structure.
This is all that I can write for now, remember that I am hanging back in what I am writing by 24ish hours, and that I know what is planed.
Not that plans survive for long in war...
Update:
Just as I was about to post this I saw that some details I was holding back are now out in the open.
Ukraine has pushed further east and inland than what I stated above, this was done to encircle Pishchanivka.
Ukrainian forces have now driven a wedge between Pishchanivka and Pidstepne.
In that area an advance unit found a Russian GRAD lolling about, unable to secure it they blew it up.
Crimea
A lot of places in Crimea was hit by a combination of drones and missiles, especially Sevastopol
The Russian air defence is now truly a thing of the past, at best it can be described as anemic.
Sevastopol was mainly to keep on chasing the Russians onwards as they are moving out to Novorossiysk.
The rest was mostly supply dumps and troop concentrations.
A bit about the Kersh Bridge.
It is open for car traffic travelling slowly, speed is cut to between 30-50km/h and is only open for 6 hours per day.
No trucks are allowed on the bridge, and obviously no other heavy equipment.
The railbridge is still out of commission.
According to the Russians the bridge is fully repaired and fully functional, apparently that is what Russians mean with slow moving cars spaced far apart and travelling slowly for a few hours each day.
Only residents are allowed back into Crimea, but anyone can leave.
This is why we are not in any great hurry to hit the bridge again.
Obviously we are consulting with some of the best bridge engineers on the planet on this, and they have "opinions" about the Russian statement.
They say that instead the bridge is barely standing up now due to accumulated damage that has been badly repaired, and that the bridge can't sustain heavy loads.
The 18 hour a day down time apparently corresponds to the necessary time to do safety inspections of the bridge repairs.
That the Russians are only allowing a single car per bridge span section points towards the construction being able to withstand a couple of tons, and that is so little that a storm or piled up snow could make it fail catastrophically on its own.
They do not think it is possible to repair the bridge enough to carry big trucks or other heavy equipment without taking down two sections of the span, and switch out one bridge pillar that is severely cracked.
That pillar is now being held together with wide metal straps.
We are more worried about the repairs being done on the rail bridge, if they get that back up and running we will have to hit it again.
Airplanes
Russia has now lost 5 attack airplanes in a week.
Two of them was downed by air defence systems, the other was downed by longrange standoff air-to-air missiles of strangely western configuration.
Hugfest
Swede's are truly aloof and emotionally stunted, and we have the largest "personal space need" of all people on the planet.
If anyone is closed than 1.5 meters from us we get uncomfortable.
We are obviously the ones being odd in this regard, since the rest of the world do not suffer in any way from the invasion of private space, at least on our scale.
On top of that we can't take any display of affection towards us without feeling queezy, and heaven forfend if anyone touches us.
Let us say that Ukrainians do not suffer of any compunctions like this, and that they feel that I need to be hugged at every moment they can before I go.
And these are not any short quick things, no they are long bearhugs.
I will either die of discomfort, or become cured from my acute "swedishness", I just hope it will not soon include being kissed on top of things."
Things changing rapidly
"Well, that aged well even if I made an update on the previous one.
Things are going so well that the Ukrainian MOD decided to make public some very good news.
Late in the evening yesterday both Poima and Pishchanivka was taken by Ukrainian Marines.
This means that Ukraine is now holding the railroad junction AND the E97/T2206.
Obviously this makes it into a very large nipple, bordering on a boob.
At the same time Ukrainian forces pushed from the Antonivka Bridgehead up to Oleshky and started preparatory contact attacks on the border of Oleshky from this direction.
As the Ukrainians had taken the road they rapidly moved towards Oleshky from the East and are now in fire-contact over at Oleshky.
The success makes it possible for Ukraine to increase the rate of transfering troops across the Dnipro, and also possible to barge over light and medium equipment.
If they can take Oleshky they will have two port facilities to barge in heavy equipment, one at the Antonivka Bridgehead, and another inside Oleshky.
Neither is very big, but at least a few heavy infantry vehicles together with a couple of tanks and a couple of self-propelled heavy artillery pieces per day would be possible.
As of "now" we do not see any Russian troop movements into the area being started from any direction.
This is normal, it often take at least 48 hours for Russia to react to surprises.
I do suspect they will try to send troops when that time period has passed and they get the go ahead to move troops from upon high.
But, with the long way that they have to travel and due to Ukraine now holding the road it is expected to take at least 24 hours before any new brigade arrive, and then they will need at least another 24 hours to get ready for a counter-offensive.
This is the big difference between them and us.
We can normally make a decission within a couple of hours, and we are on the move within 4 hours after the decission, and we sure ash heck do not need any time from arriving to start fighting.
Something we proved in Avdivka, they speed we arrived with and the ferocity of our counter-attack completely took the Russians with their pants down.
This speed of manouvre is probably my only real legacy in Ukraine, and the only thing they needed to learn.
I have spanked in "speed, speed and above all else more speed" into first Tank Girl and her boys, and then into the entire 1st CAA, then into Oleksandr, and now even Zyrskyi is performing constant movement drills after having his **** saved by SPEED in Avdivka and seeing the light.
Even in Sweden I was seen as odd demanding such a manouvre and readiness speed, and Swedes have worshipped manouvre speed since back in the day of Gustavus Adolphus when he took half of Europe in the first blitzkrieg..
But, I learned this lesson the hard way in Congo, and when I once learn something I never forget.
The effect is that now Ukraine can be in 5 places with the same force compared to the stodgy and slow Russians.
I think you all can grasp the significance of that ability...
I will sit back and ponder how long time it is untill I have to write the next update."
"Well, that aged well even if I made an update on the previous one.
Things are going so well that the Ukrainian MOD decided to make public some very good news.
Late in the evening yesterday both Poima and Pishchanivka was taken by Ukrainian Marines.
This means that Ukraine is now holding the railroad junction AND the E97/T2206.
Obviously this makes it into a very large nipple, bordering on a boob.
At the same time Ukrainian forces pushed from the Antonivka Bridgehead up to Oleshky and started preparatory contact attacks on the border of Oleshky from this direction.
As the Ukrainians had taken the road they rapidly moved towards Oleshky from the East and are now in fire-contact over at Oleshky.
The success makes it possible for Ukraine to increase the rate of transfering troops across the Dnipro, and also possible to barge over light and medium equipment.
If they can take Oleshky they will have two port facilities to barge in heavy equipment, one at the Antonivka Bridgehead, and another inside Oleshky.
Neither is very big, but at least a few heavy infantry vehicles together with a couple of tanks and a couple of self-propelled heavy artillery pieces per day would be possible.
As of "now" we do not see any Russian troop movements into the area being started from any direction.
This is normal, it often take at least 48 hours for Russia to react to surprises.
I do suspect they will try to send troops when that time period has passed and they get the go ahead to move troops from upon high.
But, with the long way that they have to travel and due to Ukraine now holding the road it is expected to take at least 24 hours before any new brigade arrive, and then they will need at least another 24 hours to get ready for a counter-offensive.
This is the big difference between them and us.
We can normally make a decission within a couple of hours, and we are on the move within 4 hours after the decission, and we sure ash heck do not need any time from arriving to start fighting.
Something we proved in Avdivka, they speed we arrived with and the ferocity of our counter-attack completely took the Russians with their pants down.
This speed of manouvre is probably my only real legacy in Ukraine, and the only thing they needed to learn.
I have spanked in "speed, speed and above all else more speed" into first Tank Girl and her boys, and then into the entire 1st CAA, then into Oleksandr, and now even Zyrskyi is performing constant movement drills after having his **** saved by SPEED in Avdivka and seeing the light.
Even in Sweden I was seen as odd demanding such a manouvre and readiness speed, and Swedes have worshipped manouvre speed since back in the day of Gustavus Adolphus when he took half of Europe in the first blitzkrieg..
But, I learned this lesson the hard way in Congo, and when I once learn something I never forget.
The effect is that now Ukraine can be in 5 places with the same force compared to the stodgy and slow Russians.
I think you all can grasp the significance of that ability...
I will sit back and ponder how long time it is untill I have to write the next update."
Scrote
Well-known member
Druss_The_Legend
Well-known member
I think I may be Swedish, or at least have Swedish ancestry
5(ish) foot is A perfectly reasonable social distance. In fact 6 foot is better unless it's one of my kids or my Mrs! That was the one positive from the COVID pandemic people kept a reasonable distance.
OK, a couple of lengthy posts.
The first an update from this morning
"Lot's of good news today.
But first...
"The Goal of the Russian army is to get rid of the Russian army"
This is now the combined opinion of the Ukrainian High Command.
We just can't understand what they are doing in any other way.
And it makes our brains hurt.
An officer is whipped into always assuming that your opponent is smarter than you, more well informed than you, stronger than you, have more gear than you, and never makes mistakes.
This is not defaitism, it is a mindset that will make you to plan better, get better info, use your strengths, use your gear to your advantage, and make fewer mistakes yourselves.
Instead we have an enemy who most definitly is not using their brains (if they exist), is badly informed and disregards information, weaker than us, uses their gear in the worst ways possible, and always seem to go for the worst option possible to make mistakes.
The Russian army seems hellbent on demilitarising itself, and getting rid of every single soldier that it has.
Airfields
We now have the figures from Berdyansk and Luhansk Airfields.
In Berdyansk 12 Helicopters was destroyed, and 14 was damaged.
No helicopters are air worthy, and at least half of the 14 are beyond repair.
That is all of those that were there.
Luhansk, 2 Ka-52 destroyed and 3 damaged, 2 Mi-8 with 3 damaged.
That is all of those that were there.
Previously the worst day for Helicopters was in the Vietnam War, but that was nothing compared to this.
17 Ka-52s and 19 Mi-8s in a single day is just... out there.
It would take Russia 3.5 years to replace those at peak production rate, but due to war restrictions they can't really be replaced.
This will definitely have an impact of the duration of the war.
On top of that there was an attack on Belbek Airfield in Sevastopol, we are waiting for the result of that one.
It used S-200s and Drones, so it will probably be less effective.
Bilhorod
Ukraine is now in the unique situation of having two border control lines in their possession for about 1/3rd of the length of the border to Bilhorod.
Having their camera-towers and control posts means that they now are completely blind here, except for satelite data.
So, on a cloudy day you could drive an entire army across and nobody would know until it said peekaboo on the doorstep of Bilhorod City, or someplace else.
And since there are no forces there to defend Russia that army could go far, oh so very far, if it wished too.
See my opening remark, let me now rephrase it...
"The goal of the Russian army is to set the conditions for Ukraine to invade Russia"
I am no longer reporting on all the drone and artillery strikes in Kursk and Bilhorod, there's just to many.
Unless something really juicy comes up, just assume that things are rhythmically going "boom" there.
Russian losses
Russia had the worst day in the war in the last 24 hour counting period.
And let reiterate, these are all visually confirmed by eyeball, drone, or satelite.
No guesswork involved, just meticulous counting.
Yes, sometimes something might be counted twice by mistake, but it is as accurate as can be.
We rely and survive on that data, so we make damn sure that it is as correct as possible.
Note, the "killed" part are those that we can see and count, those that die in hospitals or during transport is not in the number.
1380 KIA
55 Tanks of different models
120 BMP/BRT, etcetera
29 Artillery systems
The artillery number is low in comparison to how much was "boomed", it is due to a general lack of artillery to fire on right now. We will see if Russia can bring in more like they have done so far, if not... happy days ahead.
Luhansk
Due to the Russian nipples being fairly anemic and sad affairs by now Zyrskiy is taking the time to remove the village he is offending to nothing, and Russia is sending in a constant stream of reinforcements there to be slaughtered.
He is killing a lot of Russians in the village and in those nipples.
Avdivka
So far Russia has self-immolated 10.5 Brigades in Avdivka in 10 days, and 350 pieces of heavy equipment.
Please, reread the previous sentence.
In the last 3 days Russia has pretty much not used artillery, and still the meatwaves are coming.
Without artillery protection.
Self-immolation.
The Russians never stood a chance here, but it was hectic taking out that many in such a short timespan and small area.
Tokmak Axis
Oleksandr took a chunk of territory North of Verbove and widened the salient towards the East with about 300 meters.
But, the most important part is that the general lack of Russian reinforcements have caused a weakness on that defence third line near Verbove in the 1st of 2 Surovikin Lines.
The second Surovikin Line is down by Tokmak itself and runs along the railroad and supply roads.
Ocheretuvate is a separate fortress right North of the Second Surovikin Line, and is an important lock in the line.
Yesterday demining charges and cluster shells was used to demine infront of the Dragons Teeth and beyond.
The trenchnetwork was also hit repeatedly with artillery to soften up the troops holding the line.
It would be a good idea to expect storming operations soon.
After this line there is a whole lot of nothing down to Ocheretuvate and the second Surovikin.
There not even a heck of a lot of mines in between, just along the roads, but those are easy to clear.
When this line is penetrated Oleksandr have two options, continue to meticulously pick apart that line too, or do a short thunder run and then widen the gap behind him.
Knowing him he will probably make that decission on the fly depending to the situation on the specific moment he breaks through.
Kherson
Ukraine is still relying on the Marine Brigade here.
There are more and more marines going over each night to increase their hold near Poima.
A third bridgehead has now been created near Krynky, 28km East of Poima.
This has the main goal of cutting the coast road and the T2206 further East to delay any large deployments of Russian forces from that direction, and to make it impossible for the Russians to sneak up with a smaller force.
The secondary goal is to create a second inroad for heavy equipment down towards Crimea across the large sand desert just to the SSW from there.
"Options".
I had "opinions" again.
I worry that the transfer of troops is to slow, yes Ukraine is cautious, but this time all the factors are in place and it is not likely that they will get a better opportunity to start a larger campaign in Kherson.
Right now there is a risk that they will be kicked out in the end, or even get trapped on the wrong side.
For now all it would take are a half-descent brigade and they are zonkered.
I urged them to start moving over regular forces and "heavier" equipment as soon as possible.
Holding 3 bridgeheads, roads, railroad and with the largest area being 5x5km it is not going to get better.
Dawdling infront of an opportunity does not Great Generals make...
We will see...
Conclusion
We are starting to truly see the horrendous effects of Avdivka on the Russians.
There is now weaknesses and holes sprouting forth along the entire frontline with the only exception being in Luhansk (so far).
Kherson has been weak for a long time, but we are now seeing the effects even on the Tokmak Axis, a place that Russia so far have been reinforcing almost like clockwork.
We are noticing this at Pavlivka, The Ramparts and Marinka.
No new troops are arriving in either spot, and in The Ramparts and Marinka the counter-attacks have stopped for now due to the lack of troops.
The message was sent out to be "defensively frugal" in all directions but one where we will be "offensively frugal".
So, we have fun with using GLSDBs to make certain that those Russian bodies does not arrive on the frontline, that saves a lot of Ukrainian lives, both in soldiers and civilians.
Personal note
I am slowly acruing gifts and leaving gifts behind.
Tank Girl now have a very high-tech assault rifle and I have somehow gotten a very nice AK-47 from her.
And one of the snipers got my 460 Steyr.
The most surprising gift was from Zyrskiy, a nickel-plated Makarov that originally was given to Zhukov in 1951 as the model was introduced, he somehow had both of the set.
My jaw dropped...
So, he got my CZ P-75 with ivory handle and the Royal House Shield on it.
His jaw dropped..."
The first an update from this morning
"Lot's of good news today.
But first...
"The Goal of the Russian army is to get rid of the Russian army"
This is now the combined opinion of the Ukrainian High Command.
We just can't understand what they are doing in any other way.
And it makes our brains hurt.
An officer is whipped into always assuming that your opponent is smarter than you, more well informed than you, stronger than you, have more gear than you, and never makes mistakes.
This is not defaitism, it is a mindset that will make you to plan better, get better info, use your strengths, use your gear to your advantage, and make fewer mistakes yourselves.
Instead we have an enemy who most definitly is not using their brains (if they exist), is badly informed and disregards information, weaker than us, uses their gear in the worst ways possible, and always seem to go for the worst option possible to make mistakes.
The Russian army seems hellbent on demilitarising itself, and getting rid of every single soldier that it has.
Airfields
We now have the figures from Berdyansk and Luhansk Airfields.
In Berdyansk 12 Helicopters was destroyed, and 14 was damaged.
No helicopters are air worthy, and at least half of the 14 are beyond repair.
That is all of those that were there.
Luhansk, 2 Ka-52 destroyed and 3 damaged, 2 Mi-8 with 3 damaged.
That is all of those that were there.
Previously the worst day for Helicopters was in the Vietnam War, but that was nothing compared to this.
17 Ka-52s and 19 Mi-8s in a single day is just... out there.
It would take Russia 3.5 years to replace those at peak production rate, but due to war restrictions they can't really be replaced.
This will definitely have an impact of the duration of the war.
On top of that there was an attack on Belbek Airfield in Sevastopol, we are waiting for the result of that one.
It used S-200s and Drones, so it will probably be less effective.
Bilhorod
Ukraine is now in the unique situation of having two border control lines in their possession for about 1/3rd of the length of the border to Bilhorod.
Having their camera-towers and control posts means that they now are completely blind here, except for satelite data.
So, on a cloudy day you could drive an entire army across and nobody would know until it said peekaboo on the doorstep of Bilhorod City, or someplace else.
And since there are no forces there to defend Russia that army could go far, oh so very far, if it wished too.
See my opening remark, let me now rephrase it...
"The goal of the Russian army is to set the conditions for Ukraine to invade Russia"
I am no longer reporting on all the drone and artillery strikes in Kursk and Bilhorod, there's just to many.
Unless something really juicy comes up, just assume that things are rhythmically going "boom" there.
Russian losses
Russia had the worst day in the war in the last 24 hour counting period.
And let reiterate, these are all visually confirmed by eyeball, drone, or satelite.
No guesswork involved, just meticulous counting.
Yes, sometimes something might be counted twice by mistake, but it is as accurate as can be.
We rely and survive on that data, so we make damn sure that it is as correct as possible.
Note, the "killed" part are those that we can see and count, those that die in hospitals or during transport is not in the number.
1380 KIA
55 Tanks of different models
120 BMP/BRT, etcetera
29 Artillery systems
The artillery number is low in comparison to how much was "boomed", it is due to a general lack of artillery to fire on right now. We will see if Russia can bring in more like they have done so far, if not... happy days ahead.
Luhansk
Due to the Russian nipples being fairly anemic and sad affairs by now Zyrskiy is taking the time to remove the village he is offending to nothing, and Russia is sending in a constant stream of reinforcements there to be slaughtered.
He is killing a lot of Russians in the village and in those nipples.
Avdivka
So far Russia has self-immolated 10.5 Brigades in Avdivka in 10 days, and 350 pieces of heavy equipment.
Please, reread the previous sentence.
In the last 3 days Russia has pretty much not used artillery, and still the meatwaves are coming.
Without artillery protection.
Self-immolation.
The Russians never stood a chance here, but it was hectic taking out that many in such a short timespan and small area.
Tokmak Axis
Oleksandr took a chunk of territory North of Verbove and widened the salient towards the East with about 300 meters.
But, the most important part is that the general lack of Russian reinforcements have caused a weakness on that defence third line near Verbove in the 1st of 2 Surovikin Lines.
The second Surovikin Line is down by Tokmak itself and runs along the railroad and supply roads.
Ocheretuvate is a separate fortress right North of the Second Surovikin Line, and is an important lock in the line.
Yesterday demining charges and cluster shells was used to demine infront of the Dragons Teeth and beyond.
The trenchnetwork was also hit repeatedly with artillery to soften up the troops holding the line.
It would be a good idea to expect storming operations soon.
After this line there is a whole lot of nothing down to Ocheretuvate and the second Surovikin.
There not even a heck of a lot of mines in between, just along the roads, but those are easy to clear.
When this line is penetrated Oleksandr have two options, continue to meticulously pick apart that line too, or do a short thunder run and then widen the gap behind him.
Knowing him he will probably make that decission on the fly depending to the situation on the specific moment he breaks through.
Kherson
Ukraine is still relying on the Marine Brigade here.
There are more and more marines going over each night to increase their hold near Poima.
A third bridgehead has now been created near Krynky, 28km East of Poima.
This has the main goal of cutting the coast road and the T2206 further East to delay any large deployments of Russian forces from that direction, and to make it impossible for the Russians to sneak up with a smaller force.
The secondary goal is to create a second inroad for heavy equipment down towards Crimea across the large sand desert just to the SSW from there.
"Options".
I had "opinions" again.
I worry that the transfer of troops is to slow, yes Ukraine is cautious, but this time all the factors are in place and it is not likely that they will get a better opportunity to start a larger campaign in Kherson.
Right now there is a risk that they will be kicked out in the end, or even get trapped on the wrong side.
For now all it would take are a half-descent brigade and they are zonkered.
I urged them to start moving over regular forces and "heavier" equipment as soon as possible.
Holding 3 bridgeheads, roads, railroad and with the largest area being 5x5km it is not going to get better.
Dawdling infront of an opportunity does not Great Generals make...
We will see...
Conclusion
We are starting to truly see the horrendous effects of Avdivka on the Russians.
There is now weaknesses and holes sprouting forth along the entire frontline with the only exception being in Luhansk (so far).
Kherson has been weak for a long time, but we are now seeing the effects even on the Tokmak Axis, a place that Russia so far have been reinforcing almost like clockwork.
We are noticing this at Pavlivka, The Ramparts and Marinka.
No new troops are arriving in either spot, and in The Ramparts and Marinka the counter-attacks have stopped for now due to the lack of troops.
The message was sent out to be "defensively frugal" in all directions but one where we will be "offensively frugal".
So, we have fun with using GLSDBs to make certain that those Russian bodies does not arrive on the frontline, that saves a lot of Ukrainian lives, both in soldiers and civilians.
Personal note
I am slowly acruing gifts and leaving gifts behind.
Tank Girl now have a very high-tech assault rifle and I have somehow gotten a very nice AK-47 from her.
And one of the snipers got my 460 Steyr.
The most surprising gift was from Zyrskiy, a nickel-plated Makarov that originally was given to Zhukov in 1951 as the model was introduced, he somehow had both of the set.
My jaw dropped...
So, he got my CZ P-75 with ivory handle and the Royal House Shield on it.
His jaw dropped..."
Now a post that some of you will no doubt think is wildly optimistic.
"Let us start with another guest musing by Vlad P.
My comments in ( )
"If Russia has lost the war, why do the USA supply ATACMS? (Russia has lost the war?)
Biden can take a seat and eat blinis and visit us for a cup of tea. (threat)
Firstly, of course this causes harm and creastes and additional threat. (For whom?)
Secondly, we will of course be able to repel these attacks. (Chin stroke)
War is war." (Duh)
(Translation by Tank Girl ... a native Russian speaker)
No less than 3 different natural born Russian speakers have assured me that the first line is said in Russian in a manner that implies that Russia has indeed lost the war.
If so, this goes in line with other comments he made in the last few days that did not sound that chirpy in good translations from Russian.
Apparently he is now aware of all the Tea-memes, "Window or Tea?" and is joking about it, and making it into a threat that he will poison Biden if he ever see him.
Judging from the first and fourth and fifth sentence I would say that the third sentence means that they are a threat to Russia and him.
Having 36 choppers taken out in a day seems to have reached his ears.
I wonder if he has started to check western news outlets, or somehow else is now getting real news?
Something to ponder.
A chin stroke is an obviousl tell from Putin, he either touches his face or pulls on his sleeve when lying and he knows that he is lying.
Russia can't repel those attacks since they are running out of Air Defence, and it is highly dubious if said air defence could take one out...
"War is war"... It is coming out the sentence, "War is war, and hell is hell".
Here is the full quote.
War isn’t Hell.
War is war, and Hell is Hell.
And of the two, war is a lot worse.
There are no innocent bystanders in Hell.
War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies.
In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
I did not know that Putin was a fan of Hawkeye in M.A.S.H.
It is also one of my favourite quotes, it is the best series ever made about war.
There is a huge change now in the rhetoric out of Putin.
Victory is in the Air
This part is not in any way shape or form influenced by the ramblings of the lunatic scrotum beaver known as Putin.
No, this is an observation that I and Tank Girl talked about today while we got pampered, and it is based on the metrics of the war.
In the last 10 days Russia has lost 35 000 soldiers.
And not any soldiers, the lost are among the last real soldiers that Russia had in Ukraine.
Out of the 350 000 Russian soldiers that Russia have in Ukraine from all branches, these 35 000 are half of all the trained soldiers.
These are the lucky few that have survived or not gotten handicapped for life, these are the few units that Russia has been training up to standard over the war.
These are the soldiers that could potentially win a battle.
They where not mobiks, prisoners, general idiots.
These were 35 000 out of the 70 000 real soldiers.
In other words, Russia lost in 10 days 10 percent of their entire armed forces in Ukraine.
Russia lost 50 percent of their trained soldiers able to perform a battle in 10 days.
Also, in 10 days Russia lost 10 percent of their remaining inventory of heavy equipment, and 50 percent of their good stuff.
Yes, Russia is still trying to continue the offensives in Avdivka and Luhansk, but they are by now so feeble that Russia is pushed back in a manner more akin of hearding piglets into a penn.
There is now a change in how we talk to each other in High Command.
Today we all talked about what we would do after the war.
Zyrskiy will resign and run for a seat in Verkovna Hrada (parliament), Zaluzhnyy will also resign and run for office (he did not say which), Oleksandr will resign and become a Professor in Literature (he is a poet), Budanov want to be at home with his future children, and Tank Girl is moving to Sweden.
I showed her a picture of Nick's house in Sweden, and she fell in love with the style and want one like that.
Point is, we have never talked about after, not a single word.
Same with the Brigade commanders, they are also talking about the end of the war.
Yes, everyone know that it will take a year or so to drive out the Russians, and that Peace is not assured even by that.
But, the end of the war is now a light shining in the tunnel, and no it is not an iron ore train coming to run us over like at the beginning of the war, no it is the bright sun that comes after a long cold winters night.
Perhaps the most telling sign came from Tank Girl today.
As she say down to have the sides of her shaved she said, "I wonder how many more times I have to do this before my time as Hetman is over?"
She is according to tradition supposed to shave her head completely, but that will never happen...
It is also a feeling on the streets, people are laughing a bit more, and seem to have more "civilian" purpose with many new places and companies opening up.
There is Victory in the Air and Peace will come.
Now it is movie time, someone has filled half the bed with snacks and want to watch a western movie (she is into the classics).
So, it will be "How the West was won"... "
"Let us start with another guest musing by Vlad P.
My comments in ( )
"If Russia has lost the war, why do the USA supply ATACMS? (Russia has lost the war?)
Biden can take a seat and eat blinis and visit us for a cup of tea. (threat)
Firstly, of course this causes harm and creastes and additional threat. (For whom?)
Secondly, we will of course be able to repel these attacks. (Chin stroke)
War is war." (Duh)
(Translation by Tank Girl ... a native Russian speaker)
No less than 3 different natural born Russian speakers have assured me that the first line is said in Russian in a manner that implies that Russia has indeed lost the war.
If so, this goes in line with other comments he made in the last few days that did not sound that chirpy in good translations from Russian.
Apparently he is now aware of all the Tea-memes, "Window or Tea?" and is joking about it, and making it into a threat that he will poison Biden if he ever see him.
Judging from the first and fourth and fifth sentence I would say that the third sentence means that they are a threat to Russia and him.
Having 36 choppers taken out in a day seems to have reached his ears.
I wonder if he has started to check western news outlets, or somehow else is now getting real news?
Something to ponder.
A chin stroke is an obviousl tell from Putin, he either touches his face or pulls on his sleeve when lying and he knows that he is lying.
Russia can't repel those attacks since they are running out of Air Defence, and it is highly dubious if said air defence could take one out...
"War is war"... It is coming out the sentence, "War is war, and hell is hell".
Here is the full quote.
War isn’t Hell.
War is war, and Hell is Hell.
And of the two, war is a lot worse.
There are no innocent bystanders in Hell.
War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies.
In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
I did not know that Putin was a fan of Hawkeye in M.A.S.H.
It is also one of my favourite quotes, it is the best series ever made about war.
There is a huge change now in the rhetoric out of Putin.
Victory is in the Air
This part is not in any way shape or form influenced by the ramblings of the lunatic scrotum beaver known as Putin.
No, this is an observation that I and Tank Girl talked about today while we got pampered, and it is based on the metrics of the war.
In the last 10 days Russia has lost 35 000 soldiers.
And not any soldiers, the lost are among the last real soldiers that Russia had in Ukraine.
Out of the 350 000 Russian soldiers that Russia have in Ukraine from all branches, these 35 000 are half of all the trained soldiers.
These are the lucky few that have survived or not gotten handicapped for life, these are the few units that Russia has been training up to standard over the war.
These are the soldiers that could potentially win a battle.
They where not mobiks, prisoners, general idiots.
These were 35 000 out of the 70 000 real soldiers.
In other words, Russia lost in 10 days 10 percent of their entire armed forces in Ukraine.
Russia lost 50 percent of their trained soldiers able to perform a battle in 10 days.
Also, in 10 days Russia lost 10 percent of their remaining inventory of heavy equipment, and 50 percent of their good stuff.
Yes, Russia is still trying to continue the offensives in Avdivka and Luhansk, but they are by now so feeble that Russia is pushed back in a manner more akin of hearding piglets into a penn.
There is now a change in how we talk to each other in High Command.
Today we all talked about what we would do after the war.
Zyrskiy will resign and run for a seat in Verkovna Hrada (parliament), Zaluzhnyy will also resign and run for office (he did not say which), Oleksandr will resign and become a Professor in Literature (he is a poet), Budanov want to be at home with his future children, and Tank Girl is moving to Sweden.
I showed her a picture of Nick's house in Sweden, and she fell in love with the style and want one like that.
Point is, we have never talked about after, not a single word.
Same with the Brigade commanders, they are also talking about the end of the war.
Yes, everyone know that it will take a year or so to drive out the Russians, and that Peace is not assured even by that.
But, the end of the war is now a light shining in the tunnel, and no it is not an iron ore train coming to run us over like at the beginning of the war, no it is the bright sun that comes after a long cold winters night.
Perhaps the most telling sign came from Tank Girl today.
As she say down to have the sides of her shaved she said, "I wonder how many more times I have to do this before my time as Hetman is over?"
She is according to tradition supposed to shave her head completely, but that will never happen...
It is also a feeling on the streets, people are laughing a bit more, and seem to have more "civilian" purpose with many new places and companies opening up.
There is Victory in the Air and Peace will come.
Now it is movie time, someone has filled half the bed with snacks and want to watch a western movie (she is into the classics).
So, it will be "How the West was won"... "
I just have to say, hats off to him for "lunatic scrotum beaver". I write for a living. I would have been proud of that one. He did that in a foreign language.
Once more to the beach dear friends
"I will get around to the frontline update later.
But I wanted to start out with attrition.
Attrition
We have now officially reached the halfway point in the war in regards of attrition of Russian equipment.
This does not equate halway point in time though, this due to the timeline of the destruction of Russian equipment not being linear.
As Ukraine has acquired new capabilities this rate has slowly increased over time.
This means that Ukraine is now destroying more equipment, with fewer losses per piece of equipment.
Ie., it has become far easier to whack things for Ukraine.
So, what I am trying to say is that the time to destroy the second half should be shorter than the first part.
On top of that an army is like a house built of separate blocks put on top of each other forming the house.
If you remove a few blocks things will start to fall down on their own.
It is easy to stare yourself blind on tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, artillery and so on.
But, without a heck of a lot of support systems these become very easy to take out.
Without counter-battery radars your artillery is defenceless, without air defence everything is defenceless, etcetera.
We know that Russian air defence is now down below the 25 percent remaining level in ALL of Russia.
Our estimate is that about 10 percent of the missiles in these systems remain in inventory.
This is based on observable data and firing patterns.
Unless it is an insanely valuable target Russia will not use what little that remain.
Two days ago Sevastopol and the Balbek airfied was targeted by drones and missiles, it is a high value target.
Russia did not fire a single AD missile.
Same went for Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields, and that caused an insane price.
For these two it might have been due to the radars not even picking up what was incoming, but over at Balbek Ukraine used drones and S-200 missiles that are visible.
This probably means that only Kremlin itself, Putins residences, and the Kersh Bridge are still being protected by AD.
The rest of Moscow is not protected, we know this since the AD is not firing on drones going to other places in Moscow.
This means that to all points and purposes Russia has lost this capability.
But, this was not what I was aiming at writing about from my spot on the beach.
It was their airforce.
Ka-52
I wanted to specificially talk about their loss of attack helicopter capacity.
But first, let us look at the losses over the last 11 days.
18 Ka-52, 12 total loss and 6 damaged.
5 SU-25 Attack Aircraft, all destroyed in air.
Russia started the war officially owning 133 Ka-52 helicopters.
Of those 65 were airworthy at the start of the war, the rest were used as donours of spareparts.
It is not so shocking, this is a helicopter mainly built in the 80s, things do break, and money for spare parts and upkeap has mainly been used on superyachts in Russia.
Out of those 65 the attrition have been horrendous, 58 have been downed, blow up on the tarmac, or stopped flying for various reasons.
No new or refurbished Ka-52s have been seen in the wild.
Having 7 Ka-52s is not that impressive.
Do they have any alternative?
Well, yes... they do have the 60s constructed and 70s built Mi-24 Hind and its sub-variants.
These were built in stupendous numbers and exported everywhere, stupendous being 2 600 of them.
The Soviet Union had 1600 of them, but lost 600 in Afghanistan (Ouch), and as the Soviet Union broke apart 500 of them ended up in Russia.
Of those 328 was in the official registry as of January 2022.
In reality about 80 of those have been seen flying since the war started (and yes we keep track of these things), meaning that the rest most likely are donour machines.
Not so weird since production of spare parts have stopped in favour of the Ka-52.
Problem is that the Mi-24 can't be used in the same way as the Ka-52, yes officially it is an attack-helicopter, but it is more built to support special ops since it carries 8 soldiers and functions as support for them.
It is far larger and more cumbersome than the Ka-52.
A conservative estimate is that Russia now has 30 of them remaining in anything resembling a working condition.
And, if one would fly into the battlefields on the frontline it is unable to perform the necessary manouvres to avoid being shot down by a stinger, something that was amply proven in Afghanistan.
What I am trying to say is that Russia for all points and purposes have lost this capability beyond doing attacks just for show, it is no longer having an impact on the war.
Airforce & ATACMs
Since more has been divulged from somewhat official sources in the US I can talk a bit more openly about ATACMS.
Ukraine will get all of them, of all types.
Yeah, party... no?
There's a caveat though, and that is in regards of delivery rate.
Ukraine get 1 for each PrSM replacement missile that the US is getting.
And Lockheed Martin is producing 20 of these per month, this might increase up to 30 over the next year as production is fine-tuned.
It is though not expected to increase beyond that.
This means that for the foreseeable future these will be used only on extreme value targets like airfields (there is no more high value than that really, well... there is Kersh).
The ATACMS come in 2 basic flavours that are usable (there are a couple of sub-types though), and Ukraine is receiving all types.
1. M39 Block 1, 1000 bomblets and 165km range. Perfect for F***ing up an airfield. There's roughly 1000 of these buggers.
2. M39 A1, 300 bomblets enabling larger fuel tanks giving a range of 300km. Problem is that these does not exist, they where converted into Unitary Bombs to bust bunkers, the Ukrainians might attempt to retool them to bomblets again.
3. M-48 to M57E1. About 800 of these 300km unitary bomb payload beasts. 220 of these are airburst able and can be used against distant airfields beyond the 165km marker. The remaining 600ish are perfect to crush bunkers, bridges, and other harder targets.
But, one exploding 10 meters under a runway would be... impressive.
This means that having any form of planes or helicopters parked on a base 165kms from any front is a definite nogo.
It also rather quickly means that parking any planes or helicopters within the 300km marker is not a good idea if you wish to keep your airplanes and pilots healthy.
This makes it more or less impossible for Russia to use helicopters in Ukraine, and that raids with planes is far trickier since it would by necessity involve using aerial fueling procedures, something Russia is not that good at, so it would limit the number of planes possible to use at the same time.
So, where are Ukraine allowed to use them?
Against airfield they can use the M-39 Block 1 any place they jolly wish to, there are no limitations on this.
Airburst modded can be used on airfields beyond that.
This means that the Russian airforce can be hit in Russia with them.
But, it was strongly suggested to use them sparingly and only take out an airfield now and then to slowly push them out, at least to begin with.
The unitary bunker busters are for now restricted to Ukraine's 1991 borders and territorial waters.
For any other use special permission need to be given.
This is not though as important since the GLSDB is free to use.
The important part is to remove the threat from airframes since these can pop up fast and surprisingly and are a longrange weapon of significant power.
Bunkers rarely come and jump you unexpectedly...
Here it is a good idea to note that 3 nautical miles of the Kersh Bridge is within Ukrainian territorial waters.
That is lot of real estate to bonk.
Caveat: Ukraine is receiving them in the order of oldest to youngest.
So, they get about 18 M39 Block 1s and 2 M-48s per month for now.
It is also good to remember that the ATACMS have a somewhat unimpressive SEP of 9 meters.
This means that only 50 percent wil land within 9 meters out from the target point, GMLRS is 1.5m and GLSDB is 0.5.
This means that about 1 out of two is likely to miss any bridge-formed object...
Fonts
In Luhansk the general denippling of Russia continues at a satisfying rate causing many Russians to stop functioning, and costing quite a bit of Russian equipment.
Lyman Pershyi is slowly being taken regardless of Russia fighting claw and tooth to keep it in their grasp.
If they lose that all Russian hope of advances towards Kupyansk are gone.
It is taken in a somewhat unimaginitative and plodding way, but it is effective I must admit.
Bakhmut
Due to the general lack of moving Russians Ukraine moved NE toward Bakhmut and Opytne by about 300 meters as they took a large field in that direction. It is now confirmed green.
It is expected that more of this will come with time due to no new reinforcements arriving here.
Avdivka
Yesterday Russia lost 500 infantry men in the direction of Terrakon, and same goes for today.
It makes a warped sort of sense that they are attacking it, but sending 500 infantry at a time will not solve the problem ever.
It would take weeks of pounding that pile of slag with artillery, and then two attack-vectors of 1000 men each to even have a chance of taking it.
It is a very large thing, and to take it you have to climb a 25 to 80 meter high wall, and 25 meter part is pointed towards the Ukrainians, and the 80 meter part towards you.
From the Terrakon you have a very good view overlooking all of Avdivka, and it is completely impossible to approach it without being seen unless there is fog or heavy rain.
Tank Girl commanded the place for a short while as one of her first independent commands.
She justs giggle evily when I ask about if it can be taken by the Russians, I can imagine why.
In Avdivka there is not a single spot where it does not loom.
It has the same black brooding ominious look as Mordor does.
Russians are a particular kind of stupid, so I guess that they will try to meatwave mordor for a couple of more weeks.
Otherwise the area is slowing down still, and our forces are slowly pushing away the last couple of nipples.
But, there will for now not be any counteroffensive here for shelly reasons.
Tokmak Axis
Here it seems like the grinding away at the last defence line in the first Surovikin line is going slowly but good.
For now Oleksandr is keeping the options open in regards of doing a slow grind or a thunder run.
He is bringing forward reserves that can cover both options.
Kherson
I am starting to have even more opinions about what is happening here.
Russia handed Ukraine a free pass to make a substantial amphibeous campaign, and they did not take it.
It is slowly ongoing, but at the going rate this will come to nothing in the end.
I was highly "opinioned" when I said as much yesterday.
I hope that it will have an effect, otherwise Zaluzhnyy and the HQ is handing Russia 3 more months of war.
Advantage of being me is that I can have as many "opinions" as I wish since I am not ****-bothered with any military career.
I have now achieved my goal of having "opinioned" every single army general in Ukraine, loudly.
And, yes that does include Tank Girl back at Kreminna.
It was when I found her on the frontline playing battalion commander, I screamed like a banshee for 30 minutes on taking risks as a field commander...
At the same time I also promised to personally kill her guards if they allowed her to do it again, or let her be killed, they believed me.
Took two weeks before she even talked to me.
But, the message was received.
Beach
It is 28C, I am on my fourth cherry bomb drink.
I wish the beach was not half consisting of "boys of various types", but they are at least in civilian clothes.
But, a bunch of cossacks wandering around with assault rifles kind of stick out a tad, even in Ukraine.
Seriously, it is a very weird feeling trying to relax and feel "normal" when you have guards surrounding you, and two armoured vehicles with autocannons idling nearby, and snipers on the roof of a house and an air defence unit on another roof...
It is sort of a ballance of staying safe, and not going insane due to being cooped up in one ******** of a factory after another.
Time for another cherry bomb."
"I will get around to the frontline update later.
But I wanted to start out with attrition.
Attrition
We have now officially reached the halfway point in the war in regards of attrition of Russian equipment.
This does not equate halway point in time though, this due to the timeline of the destruction of Russian equipment not being linear.
As Ukraine has acquired new capabilities this rate has slowly increased over time.
This means that Ukraine is now destroying more equipment, with fewer losses per piece of equipment.
Ie., it has become far easier to whack things for Ukraine.
So, what I am trying to say is that the time to destroy the second half should be shorter than the first part.
On top of that an army is like a house built of separate blocks put on top of each other forming the house.
If you remove a few blocks things will start to fall down on their own.
It is easy to stare yourself blind on tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, artillery and so on.
But, without a heck of a lot of support systems these become very easy to take out.
Without counter-battery radars your artillery is defenceless, without air defence everything is defenceless, etcetera.
We know that Russian air defence is now down below the 25 percent remaining level in ALL of Russia.
Our estimate is that about 10 percent of the missiles in these systems remain in inventory.
This is based on observable data and firing patterns.
Unless it is an insanely valuable target Russia will not use what little that remain.
Two days ago Sevastopol and the Balbek airfied was targeted by drones and missiles, it is a high value target.
Russia did not fire a single AD missile.
Same went for Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields, and that caused an insane price.
For these two it might have been due to the radars not even picking up what was incoming, but over at Balbek Ukraine used drones and S-200 missiles that are visible.
This probably means that only Kremlin itself, Putins residences, and the Kersh Bridge are still being protected by AD.
The rest of Moscow is not protected, we know this since the AD is not firing on drones going to other places in Moscow.
This means that to all points and purposes Russia has lost this capability.
But, this was not what I was aiming at writing about from my spot on the beach.
It was their airforce.
Ka-52
I wanted to specificially talk about their loss of attack helicopter capacity.
But first, let us look at the losses over the last 11 days.
18 Ka-52, 12 total loss and 6 damaged.
5 SU-25 Attack Aircraft, all destroyed in air.
Russia started the war officially owning 133 Ka-52 helicopters.
Of those 65 were airworthy at the start of the war, the rest were used as donours of spareparts.
It is not so shocking, this is a helicopter mainly built in the 80s, things do break, and money for spare parts and upkeap has mainly been used on superyachts in Russia.
Out of those 65 the attrition have been horrendous, 58 have been downed, blow up on the tarmac, or stopped flying for various reasons.
No new or refurbished Ka-52s have been seen in the wild.
Having 7 Ka-52s is not that impressive.
Do they have any alternative?
Well, yes... they do have the 60s constructed and 70s built Mi-24 Hind and its sub-variants.
These were built in stupendous numbers and exported everywhere, stupendous being 2 600 of them.
The Soviet Union had 1600 of them, but lost 600 in Afghanistan (Ouch), and as the Soviet Union broke apart 500 of them ended up in Russia.
Of those 328 was in the official registry as of January 2022.
In reality about 80 of those have been seen flying since the war started (and yes we keep track of these things), meaning that the rest most likely are donour machines.
Not so weird since production of spare parts have stopped in favour of the Ka-52.
Problem is that the Mi-24 can't be used in the same way as the Ka-52, yes officially it is an attack-helicopter, but it is more built to support special ops since it carries 8 soldiers and functions as support for them.
It is far larger and more cumbersome than the Ka-52.
A conservative estimate is that Russia now has 30 of them remaining in anything resembling a working condition.
And, if one would fly into the battlefields on the frontline it is unable to perform the necessary manouvres to avoid being shot down by a stinger, something that was amply proven in Afghanistan.
What I am trying to say is that Russia for all points and purposes have lost this capability beyond doing attacks just for show, it is no longer having an impact on the war.
Airforce & ATACMs
Since more has been divulged from somewhat official sources in the US I can talk a bit more openly about ATACMS.
Ukraine will get all of them, of all types.
Yeah, party... no?
There's a caveat though, and that is in regards of delivery rate.
Ukraine get 1 for each PrSM replacement missile that the US is getting.
And Lockheed Martin is producing 20 of these per month, this might increase up to 30 over the next year as production is fine-tuned.
It is though not expected to increase beyond that.
This means that for the foreseeable future these will be used only on extreme value targets like airfields (there is no more high value than that really, well... there is Kersh).
The ATACMS come in 2 basic flavours that are usable (there are a couple of sub-types though), and Ukraine is receiving all types.
1. M39 Block 1, 1000 bomblets and 165km range. Perfect for F***ing up an airfield. There's roughly 1000 of these buggers.
2. M39 A1, 300 bomblets enabling larger fuel tanks giving a range of 300km. Problem is that these does not exist, they where converted into Unitary Bombs to bust bunkers, the Ukrainians might attempt to retool them to bomblets again.
3. M-48 to M57E1. About 800 of these 300km unitary bomb payload beasts. 220 of these are airburst able and can be used against distant airfields beyond the 165km marker. The remaining 600ish are perfect to crush bunkers, bridges, and other harder targets.
But, one exploding 10 meters under a runway would be... impressive.
This means that having any form of planes or helicopters parked on a base 165kms from any front is a definite nogo.
It also rather quickly means that parking any planes or helicopters within the 300km marker is not a good idea if you wish to keep your airplanes and pilots healthy.
This makes it more or less impossible for Russia to use helicopters in Ukraine, and that raids with planes is far trickier since it would by necessity involve using aerial fueling procedures, something Russia is not that good at, so it would limit the number of planes possible to use at the same time.
So, where are Ukraine allowed to use them?
Against airfield they can use the M-39 Block 1 any place they jolly wish to, there are no limitations on this.
Airburst modded can be used on airfields beyond that.
This means that the Russian airforce can be hit in Russia with them.
But, it was strongly suggested to use them sparingly and only take out an airfield now and then to slowly push them out, at least to begin with.
The unitary bunker busters are for now restricted to Ukraine's 1991 borders and territorial waters.
For any other use special permission need to be given.
This is not though as important since the GLSDB is free to use.
The important part is to remove the threat from airframes since these can pop up fast and surprisingly and are a longrange weapon of significant power.
Bunkers rarely come and jump you unexpectedly...
Here it is a good idea to note that 3 nautical miles of the Kersh Bridge is within Ukrainian territorial waters.
That is lot of real estate to bonk.
Caveat: Ukraine is receiving them in the order of oldest to youngest.
So, they get about 18 M39 Block 1s and 2 M-48s per month for now.
It is also good to remember that the ATACMS have a somewhat unimpressive SEP of 9 meters.
This means that only 50 percent wil land within 9 meters out from the target point, GMLRS is 1.5m and GLSDB is 0.5.
This means that about 1 out of two is likely to miss any bridge-formed object...
Fonts
In Luhansk the general denippling of Russia continues at a satisfying rate causing many Russians to stop functioning, and costing quite a bit of Russian equipment.
Lyman Pershyi is slowly being taken regardless of Russia fighting claw and tooth to keep it in their grasp.
If they lose that all Russian hope of advances towards Kupyansk are gone.
It is taken in a somewhat unimaginitative and plodding way, but it is effective I must admit.
Bakhmut
Due to the general lack of moving Russians Ukraine moved NE toward Bakhmut and Opytne by about 300 meters as they took a large field in that direction. It is now confirmed green.
It is expected that more of this will come with time due to no new reinforcements arriving here.
Avdivka
Yesterday Russia lost 500 infantry men in the direction of Terrakon, and same goes for today.
It makes a warped sort of sense that they are attacking it, but sending 500 infantry at a time will not solve the problem ever.
It would take weeks of pounding that pile of slag with artillery, and then two attack-vectors of 1000 men each to even have a chance of taking it.
It is a very large thing, and to take it you have to climb a 25 to 80 meter high wall, and 25 meter part is pointed towards the Ukrainians, and the 80 meter part towards you.
From the Terrakon you have a very good view overlooking all of Avdivka, and it is completely impossible to approach it without being seen unless there is fog or heavy rain.
Tank Girl commanded the place for a short while as one of her first independent commands.
She justs giggle evily when I ask about if it can be taken by the Russians, I can imagine why.
In Avdivka there is not a single spot where it does not loom.
It has the same black brooding ominious look as Mordor does.
Russians are a particular kind of stupid, so I guess that they will try to meatwave mordor for a couple of more weeks.
Otherwise the area is slowing down still, and our forces are slowly pushing away the last couple of nipples.
But, there will for now not be any counteroffensive here for shelly reasons.
Tokmak Axis
Here it seems like the grinding away at the last defence line in the first Surovikin line is going slowly but good.
For now Oleksandr is keeping the options open in regards of doing a slow grind or a thunder run.
He is bringing forward reserves that can cover both options.
Kherson
I am starting to have even more opinions about what is happening here.
Russia handed Ukraine a free pass to make a substantial amphibeous campaign, and they did not take it.
It is slowly ongoing, but at the going rate this will come to nothing in the end.
I was highly "opinioned" when I said as much yesterday.
I hope that it will have an effect, otherwise Zaluzhnyy and the HQ is handing Russia 3 more months of war.
Advantage of being me is that I can have as many "opinions" as I wish since I am not ****-bothered with any military career.
I have now achieved my goal of having "opinioned" every single army general in Ukraine, loudly.
And, yes that does include Tank Girl back at Kreminna.
It was when I found her on the frontline playing battalion commander, I screamed like a banshee for 30 minutes on taking risks as a field commander...
At the same time I also promised to personally kill her guards if they allowed her to do it again, or let her be killed, they believed me.
Took two weeks before she even talked to me.
But, the message was received.
Beach
It is 28C, I am on my fourth cherry bomb drink.
I wish the beach was not half consisting of "boys of various types", but they are at least in civilian clothes.
But, a bunch of cossacks wandering around with assault rifles kind of stick out a tad, even in Ukraine.
Seriously, it is a very weird feeling trying to relax and feel "normal" when you have guards surrounding you, and two armoured vehicles with autocannons idling nearby, and snipers on the roof of a house and an air defence unit on another roof...
It is sort of a ballance of staying safe, and not going insane due to being cooped up in one ******** of a factory after another.
Time for another cherry bomb."
On counting dicks and other such stuff
"It was a nice and calm weekend.
We mostly ate, had a few beach drinks, and watched movies, and naps in between.
And, over the next few days I might be a bit grumpy.
I am sad about leaving, and sad me is often grumpy me.
I sort of wish that I should stay, but I know that my time is up.
I also know that even if I would have stayed that I would have needed a vacation.
So, if I seem a bit grumpy you know why...
Kherson
Now for a bit of a warranted grumpification.
The Kherson offensive is pretty much fecked right now.
Ukraine waited way to long with sending reinforcements, and now the moment is lost in time, exactly like the two previous (Kosachki Laheri and Oleshky).
The one at Kinburn Spit was to early in the war and Russia had to much resources still, and the other were never serious attempts.
Problem is that each of them wastes resources and manpower.
So, if you get a serious nipple, you pour in more resources and build a boob, and from the boob you can then move out and produce a torso, if you are quick enough and hellbent on doing it.
Oleshky attack and Kozachki Laheri was a bit too early, Russia still had forces to move in, but this time the conditions was almost perfect.
The forces in Crimea has been sent to reinforce in the Tokmak Axis.
The Tokmak Axis itself was holding a heck of a lot of forces that could not be sent.
The forces in Kherson was few and far apart and not able to chase away a serious attack.
We tie down a lot of forces in Southern Donetsk, The Ramparts and Pavlivka, so no help from there.
Avdivka killed a lot of forces and are tying down what remains there.
Bakhmut is holding a lot of resources.
Luhansk is where they had some forces to spare, at least a brigade or two, but those would take days to arrive in Kherson.
Ukraine had ample resources backed up for reinforcing the invasion of Kherson, with two infantry brigades ready to go across, one of them a light mechanized unit.
And behind in the rear waited more brigades.
They have the necessary barges and ferries ready.
And they control both sides of the river.
It was truly the golden opportunity.
And now it is squandered, Russia won back the initiative.
Giving Russia 5 days to figure out what is happening, decide to do something about it, and time to start moving a Brigade from Luhansk, into Russia, down to the road into Mariupol from Rostov Oblast, and move past Mariupol...
Obviously we are not 100 percent sure that it is going to Kherson, Russia could save us by making yet another mistake here and use it in Tokmakish, but having to hope for a mistake instead of using the golden opportunity...
Nah, that is not good manouvre warfare.
And nothing is more manouvre warfare than an amphibeous invasion of enemy held territory.
Landing a couple of brigades, and reinforcing with artillery and air defence, would have broken the camels back.
Russia would have needed to send in at least 5 heavy mechanised brigades to oust that, something that they do not have.
And with a couple of more brigades they could have done a thunder run down to Crimea, the place is perfect for it, and there are almost no mines anywhere, and no Surovikin lines.
Ukraine would have had a stunning victory by Christmas.
But no...
Instead we got timidity and dawdling.
Meh...
It is the first time that Zaluzhnyy have fecked up.
Ukraine can't afford another, so I hope he learn fast from his mistake.
Because if that Brigade does show up in Kherson, and it is a heavy brigade, any attempt in the next 3-6 months will fail before those are ground down again by artillery.
This is a heavy mech brigade with battle experience, they can push Ukraine back across the river, and plug any new attempt.
And that means that lives have been spilled without any good effect, and I hate waste.
So, what should have been done?
When the Marine Brigade got that nipple, the rest of them should have gone through the next day, half of them to reinforce at Oleshky, and half to Pishchanivka to drive home the attack on it and Poima.
That should have been done in the first 48 hours.
The Oleshky half to pin down the troops there, and the other half to secure the Bridgehead from other resources.
From that the light infantry should have crossed over to Pishchinivka Poima Bridgehead, that would take 2 days, and by then there would be a boob.
And right now the light mechanised brigade should be moving over with artillery and air defence, in time to take out that Brigade coming in from the south.
With that bridgehead secured they should have brought over heavy equipment to over time defeat the heavy Russian Brigade and you got the proverbial torso in your hands.
Speed... it is almost everything in war.
Everyone forget it at all the time.
Does this probable failure have any huge impact on the war, or even the duration of the war?
Probably not, at most a month was squandered, but I am having opinions about wasting lives for no gain.
On the Eastern Front all is ****
At least if you are a Russian, if you are a Ukrainian it is Christmas Eve with Gravy on top.
Yes, we wish we had more shells to fire, yes we wish we had more airforce, yes we wish we had...
But, we know we will get presents tomorrow from Santa Clause.
For the Russians on the other hand everything is turning into ****.
Even small gains turn into poison pills that kill them as Ukrainian artillery rapidly flatten out any gains made.
The entire time artillery is hitting your positions and strongpoints.
Your rear is hammered with missiles and other painful buttpl... you catch my drift.
Your life is filled with pain, death and ****, and your santa is named Kim Jong-un, and his gifts often blows you up, because your santa is sending his oldest and least working **** to you.
And even if you are not sent to die in pointless meatwave attacks, you can rest assured that shortly a bunch of madly laughing Ukrainians will come to you to do unspeakable things to you.
And there is no longer anything you can do about it, your politicians and HQ in Moscow has made certain of that by self-immolating the Russian army against an impossible fortress to take.
You have entered into the long dark night filled with pain, **** and death, and there is not a lot you can do about it.
Well, except giving up, becoming a refusenik and get shot, or try to sneak away home and go to prison.
All of those alternatives are better than the reality that you will die alone, screaming, with your leg blown off, after yet another pointless meatwave attack.
Mobifikation
Now the majority of ethnic Russians called up pick the prison alternative.
Ending up with the majority of Russias youngsters in Prison is not an alternative, and not even Russia has enough Gulags to house them even.
So, they are concentrating on non-ethnic Russian citizens, but even they have started to realise that almost nobody who is called up come back, and the few that do come back without body parts and are telling true horror stories to anyone listening.
So, the Buryats etcetera, have started to opt for the prison alternative, and those Gulags are starting to fill up at an alarming rate.
So, Russia has started to go after the immigrants.
The Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgis, Kazakhs & Turkmens, that hold dual citizenship and that are working inside of Russia.
Before the war this was a good option for them, go and work a few years, get a citizenship, work some more, and when you retire go back home with a Russian retirement pay and the money you saved up.
Previously Russia tried to get them to sign up voluntarily by giving them good contracts with good pay as regular army soldiers, they trained them first (okay, somewhat) and gave them the same terms as the professional Russian soldiers.
Now that is gone, instead Russia is just rounding them up, and they are given the alternative of signing a contract or be deported and lose their citizenship in Russia.
If they sign up, they go directly to the front without training, and on s***y contracts.
And from the front you no longer return.
Kazakhstan early on forbade any Kazakh from signing a contract with the Russian army, and declared that they would lose their Kazakh citizenship if they did so, and that upon returning they would go to prison there.
Almost no Kazakhs did sign up previously, and if they are rounded up, almost all pick the "back to Kazakhstan" option.
So, Russia just stopped trying with them, especially since President Jomart is the second strongest post-soviet leader and is not giving a **** about Putin right now, he has both China and EU as friends and know that he can afford to say no to Putin.
The others? Well their leaders are busy sticking their tongue up the wazoo of Putin, so they go... at least for now.
Let us though say that they are not highly motivated and leave it at that.
My Point
What I am going after is that the Russian mobilisation and conscription is going at a snails pace.
And, it will not go faster anytime soon.
Long term this war has already spelled the death of Russia as we know it.
3.5 million Russian men between 18 and 44 has now left Russia, most will never return.
1.2 million are either dead or disabled.
That is more than half of the prewar 8.2 million Russian men in child-popping age.
And due to various reasons the Russian male average life expectancy is low, between 56 and 64 years depending on where you live, so there's not even enough older men around to make babies on a scale that is high enough, the Russian population is about to drop significantly in the coming years, just from this reason alone.
And, then we have the problem that people make less babies in bad times on top of that, and those bad times will just get worse now.
Misoginy
Tank Girl yesterday pointed out something blooming obvious, but that nobody has looked into.
She is at the best of times rather mischivious, and having the head in a giant watermelon filled with booze did not make things better.
"You guys only count penises, but when women have no dicks around, they go searching for dicks. You need vaginas to make Russian babies. Where did the Russian women go to find dicks?"
It is a brilliant question that nobody has looked into.
Love is after all the strongest primal urges that we humans have after breathing, eating and pooping.
And honestly, we can do without two of those for a time if we are desperate enough...
Anyway, after recognising that I and everyone else has a penis-fetish I started to ponder Russian uteruses and their whereabouts.
Let us assume that half of those 3.5 million men that left had girlfriends and wives it is probably safe that most of those women have moved with, or after, them.
Or at least will do so with time, with them they will then bring a percentage of children.
This is highly true for Konstantin for instance, if you remember him.
He alone will stand for 5 Russian children moving out of Russia.
So, let us say that for the 3.5 million dicks that moved out 1.75 million uteruses will move and about 1 million children.
Ouch...
Then we come with the Russian single women that will not find a guy, over time that will suck majorly and they will try to solve the problem by going to where there is available dudes.
With most of the world closed to them they initially tried China, but Xi banned mail-order brides and that was that.
And, with most Russians being more than a bit racist only a few will go for the middle eastern countries.
One should also remember that most Russian women are deeply orthodox christians.
Anyway, so far about half a million have through various means clawed their way into Europe and the US, and it is a good bet that those ones will not produce any Russian babies that will return to mother Russia after getting used to functioning indoor toilets.
Obviously about 10 percent of the Russian female population will not have any problems with the lack of Russian dicks since they do not play for that team.
I find it hilarious that by doing a war that is partially motivated by homophobia Russia doubled the average percentage of lesbian women in Russia.
Let us say that half of the women leave, and that some men return, but there will still be a heck of a lot of spinsters inside of Russia, and many of those will move out in the end.
Obviously this will make the demographics curve of Russia far worse than if you only count the proverbial dicks of Russia.
Over the next 6 decades it is more than likely that Russian population will more than halve, especially if we assume that the current birthrate of 1.5 child per woman.
Humanity
We have changed, more than we think.
The time is gone where you could make up for loss of lives in a war by birthrate alone.
We value things differently now, personal space, education, careers.
Comfort and love is more important for many in a relationship compared to having children, and many are also aware of over-population and reticent about bringing children into the world.
Russia is not alone in this...
1.55 children per woman in the Netherlands
1.56 children per woman in the UK
1.64 children per woman in the US
1.66 children per woman in Sweden
All the time more and more countries drop below the number 2 that indicate a stable population over time.
Obviously this is a good thing for human survival, we are way to many, if anything we need to get down to about 1.2 children per woman (or penis!).
For some reason politicians do not see it as an advantage, they just see less voters being born.
So, in Russia they are trying to formulate a law that will make the number grow to 3 children per woman.
How on Earth now that would happen.
Here in Sweden the politicians are seriously debating allocating large amounts of money into developing artificial uterii, believing that women are scared of having children somehow (yes a few are).
I bet that there are similar dingbats ideas being proposed by politicans in the Netherlands, UK and US.
Only thing I am certain of is that these numbers will continue to drop as we see more natural disasters, wars and starvation set in across the globe.
With a birthrate of 1.2 we would land at about 2 billion people voluntarily at the turn of the century, a figure that is longterm sustainable.
If we do not do it voluntarily nature will do it for us in its usual rather coldhearted way.
At 2 billion we would enter a new golden age that is sustainable for pretty much eternity, or at least until our sun makes Earth inhabitable or a large stellar object whacks us.
Tangent
Oh my, I really took off on a whale of a tangent here that I had not planed for.
But, since the conclusion is that Russia is more fooked than most, I will leave it.
If you only knew how many "ramblings" I have removed over the last year...
I am a bit sad that I will live, statistically speaking, through 3 decades more of increased natural disasters, wars and famines.
But, I am at the same time happy about knowing that at the end of the "contraction tunnel" a new golden age will be born. I do though not envy the generation after mine that will have to live through the birth-pangs.
I do though wish I could walk through the gleaming cities of The Second Golden Age of Humanity.
Yes, I am such a disgusting optimist that I am optimistic in the middle of the downfall of the Human Empire, like if Hari Seldon would rejoice in the middle of the fall of the Galactic Empire, fully knowing that there will be a Second Galactic Empire that will be even more spectacular.
I have become Hari Seldon in my middle age.
Frontlines
Russia has been squished on all of them, but very little ground was taken by Ukraine in the last 24 hours.
So, I will skip the frontlines for now."
"It was a nice and calm weekend.
We mostly ate, had a few beach drinks, and watched movies, and naps in between.
And, over the next few days I might be a bit grumpy.
I am sad about leaving, and sad me is often grumpy me.
I sort of wish that I should stay, but I know that my time is up.
I also know that even if I would have stayed that I would have needed a vacation.
So, if I seem a bit grumpy you know why...
Kherson
Now for a bit of a warranted grumpification.
The Kherson offensive is pretty much fecked right now.
Ukraine waited way to long with sending reinforcements, and now the moment is lost in time, exactly like the two previous (Kosachki Laheri and Oleshky).
The one at Kinburn Spit was to early in the war and Russia had to much resources still, and the other were never serious attempts.
Problem is that each of them wastes resources and manpower.
So, if you get a serious nipple, you pour in more resources and build a boob, and from the boob you can then move out and produce a torso, if you are quick enough and hellbent on doing it.
Oleshky attack and Kozachki Laheri was a bit too early, Russia still had forces to move in, but this time the conditions was almost perfect.
The forces in Crimea has been sent to reinforce in the Tokmak Axis.
The Tokmak Axis itself was holding a heck of a lot of forces that could not be sent.
The forces in Kherson was few and far apart and not able to chase away a serious attack.
We tie down a lot of forces in Southern Donetsk, The Ramparts and Pavlivka, so no help from there.
Avdivka killed a lot of forces and are tying down what remains there.
Bakhmut is holding a lot of resources.
Luhansk is where they had some forces to spare, at least a brigade or two, but those would take days to arrive in Kherson.
Ukraine had ample resources backed up for reinforcing the invasion of Kherson, with two infantry brigades ready to go across, one of them a light mechanized unit.
And behind in the rear waited more brigades.
They have the necessary barges and ferries ready.
And they control both sides of the river.
It was truly the golden opportunity.
And now it is squandered, Russia won back the initiative.
Giving Russia 5 days to figure out what is happening, decide to do something about it, and time to start moving a Brigade from Luhansk, into Russia, down to the road into Mariupol from Rostov Oblast, and move past Mariupol...
Obviously we are not 100 percent sure that it is going to Kherson, Russia could save us by making yet another mistake here and use it in Tokmakish, but having to hope for a mistake instead of using the golden opportunity...
Nah, that is not good manouvre warfare.
And nothing is more manouvre warfare than an amphibeous invasion of enemy held territory.
Landing a couple of brigades, and reinforcing with artillery and air defence, would have broken the camels back.
Russia would have needed to send in at least 5 heavy mechanised brigades to oust that, something that they do not have.
And with a couple of more brigades they could have done a thunder run down to Crimea, the place is perfect for it, and there are almost no mines anywhere, and no Surovikin lines.
Ukraine would have had a stunning victory by Christmas.
But no...
Instead we got timidity and dawdling.
Meh...
It is the first time that Zaluzhnyy have fecked up.
Ukraine can't afford another, so I hope he learn fast from his mistake.
Because if that Brigade does show up in Kherson, and it is a heavy brigade, any attempt in the next 3-6 months will fail before those are ground down again by artillery.
This is a heavy mech brigade with battle experience, they can push Ukraine back across the river, and plug any new attempt.
And that means that lives have been spilled without any good effect, and I hate waste.
So, what should have been done?
When the Marine Brigade got that nipple, the rest of them should have gone through the next day, half of them to reinforce at Oleshky, and half to Pishchanivka to drive home the attack on it and Poima.
That should have been done in the first 48 hours.
The Oleshky half to pin down the troops there, and the other half to secure the Bridgehead from other resources.
From that the light infantry should have crossed over to Pishchinivka Poima Bridgehead, that would take 2 days, and by then there would be a boob.
And right now the light mechanised brigade should be moving over with artillery and air defence, in time to take out that Brigade coming in from the south.
With that bridgehead secured they should have brought over heavy equipment to over time defeat the heavy Russian Brigade and you got the proverbial torso in your hands.
Speed... it is almost everything in war.
Everyone forget it at all the time.
Does this probable failure have any huge impact on the war, or even the duration of the war?
Probably not, at most a month was squandered, but I am having opinions about wasting lives for no gain.
On the Eastern Front all is ****
At least if you are a Russian, if you are a Ukrainian it is Christmas Eve with Gravy on top.
Yes, we wish we had more shells to fire, yes we wish we had more airforce, yes we wish we had...
But, we know we will get presents tomorrow from Santa Clause.
For the Russians on the other hand everything is turning into ****.
Even small gains turn into poison pills that kill them as Ukrainian artillery rapidly flatten out any gains made.
The entire time artillery is hitting your positions and strongpoints.
Your rear is hammered with missiles and other painful buttpl... you catch my drift.
Your life is filled with pain, death and ****, and your santa is named Kim Jong-un, and his gifts often blows you up, because your santa is sending his oldest and least working **** to you.
And even if you are not sent to die in pointless meatwave attacks, you can rest assured that shortly a bunch of madly laughing Ukrainians will come to you to do unspeakable things to you.
And there is no longer anything you can do about it, your politicians and HQ in Moscow has made certain of that by self-immolating the Russian army against an impossible fortress to take.
You have entered into the long dark night filled with pain, **** and death, and there is not a lot you can do about it.
Well, except giving up, becoming a refusenik and get shot, or try to sneak away home and go to prison.
All of those alternatives are better than the reality that you will die alone, screaming, with your leg blown off, after yet another pointless meatwave attack.
Mobifikation
Now the majority of ethnic Russians called up pick the prison alternative.
Ending up with the majority of Russias youngsters in Prison is not an alternative, and not even Russia has enough Gulags to house them even.
So, they are concentrating on non-ethnic Russian citizens, but even they have started to realise that almost nobody who is called up come back, and the few that do come back without body parts and are telling true horror stories to anyone listening.
So, the Buryats etcetera, have started to opt for the prison alternative, and those Gulags are starting to fill up at an alarming rate.
So, Russia has started to go after the immigrants.
The Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgis, Kazakhs & Turkmens, that hold dual citizenship and that are working inside of Russia.
Before the war this was a good option for them, go and work a few years, get a citizenship, work some more, and when you retire go back home with a Russian retirement pay and the money you saved up.
Previously Russia tried to get them to sign up voluntarily by giving them good contracts with good pay as regular army soldiers, they trained them first (okay, somewhat) and gave them the same terms as the professional Russian soldiers.
Now that is gone, instead Russia is just rounding them up, and they are given the alternative of signing a contract or be deported and lose their citizenship in Russia.
If they sign up, they go directly to the front without training, and on s***y contracts.
And from the front you no longer return.
Kazakhstan early on forbade any Kazakh from signing a contract with the Russian army, and declared that they would lose their Kazakh citizenship if they did so, and that upon returning they would go to prison there.
Almost no Kazakhs did sign up previously, and if they are rounded up, almost all pick the "back to Kazakhstan" option.
So, Russia just stopped trying with them, especially since President Jomart is the second strongest post-soviet leader and is not giving a **** about Putin right now, he has both China and EU as friends and know that he can afford to say no to Putin.
The others? Well their leaders are busy sticking their tongue up the wazoo of Putin, so they go... at least for now.
Let us though say that they are not highly motivated and leave it at that.
My Point
What I am going after is that the Russian mobilisation and conscription is going at a snails pace.
And, it will not go faster anytime soon.
Long term this war has already spelled the death of Russia as we know it.
3.5 million Russian men between 18 and 44 has now left Russia, most will never return.
1.2 million are either dead or disabled.
That is more than half of the prewar 8.2 million Russian men in child-popping age.
And due to various reasons the Russian male average life expectancy is low, between 56 and 64 years depending on where you live, so there's not even enough older men around to make babies on a scale that is high enough, the Russian population is about to drop significantly in the coming years, just from this reason alone.
And, then we have the problem that people make less babies in bad times on top of that, and those bad times will just get worse now.
Misoginy
Tank Girl yesterday pointed out something blooming obvious, but that nobody has looked into.
She is at the best of times rather mischivious, and having the head in a giant watermelon filled with booze did not make things better.
"You guys only count penises, but when women have no dicks around, they go searching for dicks. You need vaginas to make Russian babies. Where did the Russian women go to find dicks?"
It is a brilliant question that nobody has looked into.
Love is after all the strongest primal urges that we humans have after breathing, eating and pooping.
And honestly, we can do without two of those for a time if we are desperate enough...
Anyway, after recognising that I and everyone else has a penis-fetish I started to ponder Russian uteruses and their whereabouts.
Let us assume that half of those 3.5 million men that left had girlfriends and wives it is probably safe that most of those women have moved with, or after, them.
Or at least will do so with time, with them they will then bring a percentage of children.
This is highly true for Konstantin for instance, if you remember him.
He alone will stand for 5 Russian children moving out of Russia.
So, let us say that for the 3.5 million dicks that moved out 1.75 million uteruses will move and about 1 million children.
Ouch...
Then we come with the Russian single women that will not find a guy, over time that will suck majorly and they will try to solve the problem by going to where there is available dudes.
With most of the world closed to them they initially tried China, but Xi banned mail-order brides and that was that.
And, with most Russians being more than a bit racist only a few will go for the middle eastern countries.
One should also remember that most Russian women are deeply orthodox christians.
Anyway, so far about half a million have through various means clawed their way into Europe and the US, and it is a good bet that those ones will not produce any Russian babies that will return to mother Russia after getting used to functioning indoor toilets.
Obviously about 10 percent of the Russian female population will not have any problems with the lack of Russian dicks since they do not play for that team.
I find it hilarious that by doing a war that is partially motivated by homophobia Russia doubled the average percentage of lesbian women in Russia.
Let us say that half of the women leave, and that some men return, but there will still be a heck of a lot of spinsters inside of Russia, and many of those will move out in the end.
Obviously this will make the demographics curve of Russia far worse than if you only count the proverbial dicks of Russia.
Over the next 6 decades it is more than likely that Russian population will more than halve, especially if we assume that the current birthrate of 1.5 child per woman.
Humanity
We have changed, more than we think.
The time is gone where you could make up for loss of lives in a war by birthrate alone.
We value things differently now, personal space, education, careers.
Comfort and love is more important for many in a relationship compared to having children, and many are also aware of over-population and reticent about bringing children into the world.
Russia is not alone in this...
1.55 children per woman in the Netherlands
1.56 children per woman in the UK
1.64 children per woman in the US
1.66 children per woman in Sweden
All the time more and more countries drop below the number 2 that indicate a stable population over time.
Obviously this is a good thing for human survival, we are way to many, if anything we need to get down to about 1.2 children per woman (or penis!).
For some reason politicians do not see it as an advantage, they just see less voters being born.
So, in Russia they are trying to formulate a law that will make the number grow to 3 children per woman.
How on Earth now that would happen.
Here in Sweden the politicians are seriously debating allocating large amounts of money into developing artificial uterii, believing that women are scared of having children somehow (yes a few are).
I bet that there are similar dingbats ideas being proposed by politicans in the Netherlands, UK and US.
Only thing I am certain of is that these numbers will continue to drop as we see more natural disasters, wars and starvation set in across the globe.
With a birthrate of 1.2 we would land at about 2 billion people voluntarily at the turn of the century, a figure that is longterm sustainable.
If we do not do it voluntarily nature will do it for us in its usual rather coldhearted way.
At 2 billion we would enter a new golden age that is sustainable for pretty much eternity, or at least until our sun makes Earth inhabitable or a large stellar object whacks us.
Tangent
Oh my, I really took off on a whale of a tangent here that I had not planed for.
But, since the conclusion is that Russia is more fooked than most, I will leave it.
If you only knew how many "ramblings" I have removed over the last year...
I am a bit sad that I will live, statistically speaking, through 3 decades more of increased natural disasters, wars and famines.
But, I am at the same time happy about knowing that at the end of the "contraction tunnel" a new golden age will be born. I do though not envy the generation after mine that will have to live through the birth-pangs.
I do though wish I could walk through the gleaming cities of The Second Golden Age of Humanity.
Yes, I am such a disgusting optimist that I am optimistic in the middle of the downfall of the Human Empire, like if Hari Seldon would rejoice in the middle of the fall of the Galactic Empire, fully knowing that there will be a Second Galactic Empire that will be even more spectacular.
I have become Hari Seldon in my middle age.
Frontlines
Russia has been squished on all of them, but very little ground was taken by Ukraine in the last 24 hours.
So, I will skip the frontlines for now."
Okay. more military stuff...
"Yesterday was a bit of testing out the GLSDBs longrange capacity.
We used to that we fired from near to Marinka towards a munitions depot in Rostov-na-Donu, and a small little bridge that we basically picked randomly.
Due to the distance flown and there big a few radars in between, the air defence for once made an appearance.
I guess it is there since the Command HQ South is located there, and it is from where the control the war.
They got of two air defence missiles, but neither hit the two incoming flying bombs.
Good to know that they are as sneaky as promised.
Zyrskiy pushed it a bit further and hit the military airport in Voronezh 140km away.
Russia claims to have shot that one down, but we know it hit dead center, so I guess they shot it down using the control tower as a tennis racket.
Obviously this will open up a whole other world of rear pain for Russia.
There's a whole lot of targets inside Russia that we could previously not hit, and that are big and juicy.
Avdivka
The meatwaves are still coming here, but on a smaller and more infrequent scale.
When previovously there was 500 men and 10 tanks and 10 BMP/BRTs per wave, and about 4 per day, they are now down to 150 and 2 tanks plus 3 BMP/BRTs and only twice a day per attack vector.
Obviously it is pretty much like swatting flies compared to before, and we do not see a lot of incoming reinforcements.
So, it is winding down slowly.
Yes, they commited a heck of a lot of resources on this, but how they thought they would win is just beyond me, that would have required 5 times as many soldiers and 5 times as much equipment, if that even would have made a difference.
I will return to this in a section below...
Tokmakish
No big win here today, but the Russians are squeeling like little oinkies about the constant pressure, the almost total lack of supporting artillery fire, and lack of equipment.
They are especially complaining about Ukraine seemingly lacking nothing in this department, good of them to note.
So, unless that heavy mech brigade is coming to help them out and continues to Kherson, then they are likely to start cracking again.
I will return to that mech brigade later.
Kherson
The good thing with dropping a lead ball on someones bare foot, metaphorically, is that by pointing out a problem you get people to ponder how to mitigate said mistake, or avoid making it again.
Something that Russia never learned, and we generally have a pretty high roof on comments.
So, a plan was harsed out trying to stop the heavy mech brigade dead on its tracks, and then vaporise as much of it as possible.
This is made possible by using GLSDBs, a friggen' lot of them.
We started by absolutely hammering the 3 main river bridges between Mariupol and Berdyansk, then we hammeded smaller bridges, and at every location we could see stuck vehicles we fired upon them too.
Then we went after side roads that they tried to use doing the same.
It has turned into a nice little game of whackamole with half of them trying to find a functioning road, and half are stuck in Mariupol.
We still do not know really where they are going to, it would either be Tokmak, the Novoprokopivka front, or Kherson.
So, Oleksandr mused that he could try to force them to divert his direction, and doubled his daily artillery fire missions to make it look like he is about to perform a larger offensive push again.
Something that might work since there is so much whining already before this that it might work, heck he might even do that push regardless due to said Sad Russian Noises.
My suggestions was to just assume that we could delay and degrade that Mech Brigade enough to just go ahead and cross the river, but "the timids" won out that discussion.
3 voted for (me, TG and Zyrskiy of all people), against Zaluzhnyy, new-Oleksandr and the Odesa Commander, and with Oleksandr sitting on the fence Zaluzhnyy sort of got the chairmans vote.
Yes, we vote on things...
So, instead the full Marine Brigade have now gone over and taken control of Krynky and Pishchanivka (that they recently left) and are pushing into Poima (again), and have moved further inland with spotting forces for the artillery.
This made it possible to hit several pieces of Russian heavy equipment being moved in on the road that is starting to look like the famous Highway to Hell in Iraq during the first Iraq War, or the road to Kyiv in the beginning of this war.
At the same time new-Oleksandr, his last name is just beyond my poor Swedish language brain to decipher into something I can write, increased the shelling by a factor of five to enlarge the area. I have not seen it in English writing since I have just heard it spoken and seen it in kyrillic.
If we can somehow stop or divert that brigade, Zaluzhnyy and new-Oleskandr (yes, I will ask TG later how to spell it, but she is a "tad" busy right now blowing up that Mech Brigade) have moved up everything.
And I literally mean everything, that they have there.
10 full brigades worth of artillery, mechanised brigades, infantry, motorised... the works.
I think the word "timid" got under his skin a bit, or that lead ball on his foot.
This in turn made it into a sport for me, TG and Poet-Oleksandr to stop that blooming brigade from ever reaching anything.
We are having way to much fun making that crossing happen so that Albert will be happy.
This is the difference between a top down system like Russia have where everyone is kissing **** upwards and falsifying reports to look good, and a somewhat democratic system where errors are discussed, parsed, and then we learn from it and make a new plan.
Heck, everyone eff's up, it was just his turn I guess.
KIA Ratio
The numbers are now crunched for the first 10 days from when the Avdivka campaign started fully.
And yes, the numbers are from visual observation by drones.
We have an entire branch of dronists working on documenting enemy losses across the entire frontline.
Those videos are than compared with the ones for the last day, and bodies, vehicles, etcetera are counted.
This is why I say that the Ukrainian figures are as correct as can be.
If anything they are conservative since they obviously do not get visual confirmation on everything destroyed at a distance, or those that are to chomped up to be truly visible.
What was interesting was that they had done a comparison between Russian KIA and Ukrainian KIA for the entire frontline.
That had never been done before during the war.
Previously we have just said that it is 1:5 or 1:10, and no that was not even close.
The figure was 1:29.
If I did not know how hard those guys and girls work at counting dead Russians, note dead Russians laying on the field.
Not Russians carted off or died in hospital, those we can't count.
Dead Russians visible on a field.
That was compared to the known figure of all dead Ukrainian soldiers regardless of where they died.
Okay, this was during two of the most insane offensives in human history, the Nipplings in Luhansk are not much more sane than the Avdivka insanity, but still.
It is mind-boggling.
It is figures never achieved in any war in human history.
I asked them if they could do the same ten days, but only counting where we pushed.
In Marinka and the Ramparts our estimate was 1:10, and Poet-Oleksandr is guessing about the same.
That is also very high, sort of world history record for an advancing army against prepared defences.
Yes, we do comparatively few and minor mistakes, that we correct.
Yes, we have better equipment and we do have more things that go boom to hurl.
Yes, we have a much higher hit probability than the Russians.
Yes, we have better equipment and better trained soldiers.
No, we do not have Putin and a bunch of civilians micro-managing ****.
No, we do not do meatwaves.
And foremost: Our goal is not to use our army to annihilate our army like the Russians seem to have.
But still...
1:29 should be 1:5, or counting all above 1:10 for the total number.
And on Offence we should at best hit 1:1... would still be a good number.
There is an obvious conclusion here.
There's just not enough Russians to win this war.
It would take between 10 to 29 million russian lives to take out the current Ukrainian army.
And, the size of the army can be kept topped up almost indefinitely on the Ukrainian side.
I have never before seen a figure that is stating that a country can't win a war that is this definitive.
And, as Russian equipment numbers continue to drop, that number will increase over time.
Final Thing
A Russian IL-76 was taking off with a batch of North Korean weapons.
Right after takoff it exploded in the air, and we suspect it blew up due to some malfunction in said North Korean weaponry.
At least Ukraine was not involved in it, nor Ukrainian controlled Russians.
It might though have been "uncontrolled" Russians blowing it up, but if it was due to a weapons malfunction it says a lot.
There have also been a few videos popping up of hilarious misfires as Russians are firing various NK weaponry.
It seems that their stuff is as bad, or even worse than the Russian stuff.
I now ponder if the chinese stuff is equally bad?"
"Yesterday was a bit of testing out the GLSDBs longrange capacity.
We used to that we fired from near to Marinka towards a munitions depot in Rostov-na-Donu, and a small little bridge that we basically picked randomly.
Due to the distance flown and there big a few radars in between, the air defence for once made an appearance.
I guess it is there since the Command HQ South is located there, and it is from where the control the war.
They got of two air defence missiles, but neither hit the two incoming flying bombs.
Good to know that they are as sneaky as promised.
Zyrskiy pushed it a bit further and hit the military airport in Voronezh 140km away.
Russia claims to have shot that one down, but we know it hit dead center, so I guess they shot it down using the control tower as a tennis racket.
Obviously this will open up a whole other world of rear pain for Russia.
There's a whole lot of targets inside Russia that we could previously not hit, and that are big and juicy.
Avdivka
The meatwaves are still coming here, but on a smaller and more infrequent scale.
When previovously there was 500 men and 10 tanks and 10 BMP/BRTs per wave, and about 4 per day, they are now down to 150 and 2 tanks plus 3 BMP/BRTs and only twice a day per attack vector.
Obviously it is pretty much like swatting flies compared to before, and we do not see a lot of incoming reinforcements.
So, it is winding down slowly.
Yes, they commited a heck of a lot of resources on this, but how they thought they would win is just beyond me, that would have required 5 times as many soldiers and 5 times as much equipment, if that even would have made a difference.
I will return to this in a section below...
Tokmakish
No big win here today, but the Russians are squeeling like little oinkies about the constant pressure, the almost total lack of supporting artillery fire, and lack of equipment.
They are especially complaining about Ukraine seemingly lacking nothing in this department, good of them to note.
So, unless that heavy mech brigade is coming to help them out and continues to Kherson, then they are likely to start cracking again.
I will return to that mech brigade later.
Kherson
The good thing with dropping a lead ball on someones bare foot, metaphorically, is that by pointing out a problem you get people to ponder how to mitigate said mistake, or avoid making it again.
Something that Russia never learned, and we generally have a pretty high roof on comments.
So, a plan was harsed out trying to stop the heavy mech brigade dead on its tracks, and then vaporise as much of it as possible.
This is made possible by using GLSDBs, a friggen' lot of them.
We started by absolutely hammering the 3 main river bridges between Mariupol and Berdyansk, then we hammeded smaller bridges, and at every location we could see stuck vehicles we fired upon them too.
Then we went after side roads that they tried to use doing the same.
It has turned into a nice little game of whackamole with half of them trying to find a functioning road, and half are stuck in Mariupol.
We still do not know really where they are going to, it would either be Tokmak, the Novoprokopivka front, or Kherson.
So, Oleksandr mused that he could try to force them to divert his direction, and doubled his daily artillery fire missions to make it look like he is about to perform a larger offensive push again.
Something that might work since there is so much whining already before this that it might work, heck he might even do that push regardless due to said Sad Russian Noises.
My suggestions was to just assume that we could delay and degrade that Mech Brigade enough to just go ahead and cross the river, but "the timids" won out that discussion.
3 voted for (me, TG and Zyrskiy of all people), against Zaluzhnyy, new-Oleksandr and the Odesa Commander, and with Oleksandr sitting on the fence Zaluzhnyy sort of got the chairmans vote.
Yes, we vote on things...
So, instead the full Marine Brigade have now gone over and taken control of Krynky and Pishchanivka (that they recently left) and are pushing into Poima (again), and have moved further inland with spotting forces for the artillery.
This made it possible to hit several pieces of Russian heavy equipment being moved in on the road that is starting to look like the famous Highway to Hell in Iraq during the first Iraq War, or the road to Kyiv in the beginning of this war.
At the same time new-Oleksandr, his last name is just beyond my poor Swedish language brain to decipher into something I can write, increased the shelling by a factor of five to enlarge the area. I have not seen it in English writing since I have just heard it spoken and seen it in kyrillic.
If we can somehow stop or divert that brigade, Zaluzhnyy and new-Oleskandr (yes, I will ask TG later how to spell it, but she is a "tad" busy right now blowing up that Mech Brigade) have moved up everything.
And I literally mean everything, that they have there.
10 full brigades worth of artillery, mechanised brigades, infantry, motorised... the works.
I think the word "timid" got under his skin a bit, or that lead ball on his foot.
This in turn made it into a sport for me, TG and Poet-Oleksandr to stop that blooming brigade from ever reaching anything.
We are having way to much fun making that crossing happen so that Albert will be happy.
This is the difference between a top down system like Russia have where everyone is kissing **** upwards and falsifying reports to look good, and a somewhat democratic system where errors are discussed, parsed, and then we learn from it and make a new plan.
Heck, everyone eff's up, it was just his turn I guess.
KIA Ratio
The numbers are now crunched for the first 10 days from when the Avdivka campaign started fully.
And yes, the numbers are from visual observation by drones.
We have an entire branch of dronists working on documenting enemy losses across the entire frontline.
Those videos are than compared with the ones for the last day, and bodies, vehicles, etcetera are counted.
This is why I say that the Ukrainian figures are as correct as can be.
If anything they are conservative since they obviously do not get visual confirmation on everything destroyed at a distance, or those that are to chomped up to be truly visible.
What was interesting was that they had done a comparison between Russian KIA and Ukrainian KIA for the entire frontline.
That had never been done before during the war.
Previously we have just said that it is 1:5 or 1:10, and no that was not even close.
The figure was 1:29.
If I did not know how hard those guys and girls work at counting dead Russians, note dead Russians laying on the field.
Not Russians carted off or died in hospital, those we can't count.
Dead Russians visible on a field.
That was compared to the known figure of all dead Ukrainian soldiers regardless of where they died.
Okay, this was during two of the most insane offensives in human history, the Nipplings in Luhansk are not much more sane than the Avdivka insanity, but still.
It is mind-boggling.
It is figures never achieved in any war in human history.
I asked them if they could do the same ten days, but only counting where we pushed.
In Marinka and the Ramparts our estimate was 1:10, and Poet-Oleksandr is guessing about the same.
That is also very high, sort of world history record for an advancing army against prepared defences.
Yes, we do comparatively few and minor mistakes, that we correct.
Yes, we have better equipment and we do have more things that go boom to hurl.
Yes, we have a much higher hit probability than the Russians.
Yes, we have better equipment and better trained soldiers.
No, we do not have Putin and a bunch of civilians micro-managing ****.
No, we do not do meatwaves.
And foremost: Our goal is not to use our army to annihilate our army like the Russians seem to have.
But still...
1:29 should be 1:5, or counting all above 1:10 for the total number.
And on Offence we should at best hit 1:1... would still be a good number.
There is an obvious conclusion here.
There's just not enough Russians to win this war.
It would take between 10 to 29 million russian lives to take out the current Ukrainian army.
And, the size of the army can be kept topped up almost indefinitely on the Ukrainian side.
I have never before seen a figure that is stating that a country can't win a war that is this definitive.
And, as Russian equipment numbers continue to drop, that number will increase over time.
Final Thing
A Russian IL-76 was taking off with a batch of North Korean weapons.
Right after takoff it exploded in the air, and we suspect it blew up due to some malfunction in said North Korean weaponry.
At least Ukraine was not involved in it, nor Ukrainian controlled Russians.
It might though have been "uncontrolled" Russians blowing it up, but if it was due to a weapons malfunction it says a lot.
There have also been a few videos popping up of hilarious misfires as Russians are firing various NK weaponry.
It seems that their stuff is as bad, or even worse than the Russian stuff.
I now ponder if the chinese stuff is equally bad?"
For those still reading this thread, something you definitely won't get through msm channels.
"We intercepted a Russian generals conference call with the Chief of Staff.
In it the generals in the field and the sector commander south blatantly told Gerasimov and Shoigu that the Russian army is spent, and that it is time to perform drastic withdrawals, or to give up.
It became very loud at times, with the generals screamed "stop lying" to Shoigu at every other turn.
It was interesting for many reasons, here are the main giveaways.
Surovikin is indeed commanding the Southern Frontline, we suspected this due to the changes in how the war is performed here.
Avdivka and Luhansk have emptied out the reserves and the viable offensive forces, and they can't be replaced, at least the offensive forces.
Extreme lack of equipment and consumables, credited to now be below standards needed for defence, and far below what is needed for offensive operations.
What consumables they receive are of such poor standard that half is unusable, and the rate of barrel explosions have skyrocketed due to "non-standard shells and propellant charges".
I take that to be the North Korean stuff that is non-standard.
They do not believe that they can stop the invasion of Southern Kherson with current troop numbers in the area, and without reinforcements due to low reserves.
Sidenote: this seemed to imply that the mech brigade is heading to Tokmak as regular reinforcement there, but it was not mentioned at all.
There will be no new mobilisation until April, and the concription is going very bad, with 1 in 4 turning up after receiving the call-up notice.
The rest have either fled, or take the prison option.
Various generals tried to get permission to either withdraw from the East or the South.
Shoigu flat out refused that.
At that point Surovikin stated the following:
"We must give up and pull out while Russia still have an army left, soon we will have no army left"
At that point Gerasimov and Shoigu just started to scream and soon the conf call ended.
Interpretation
When generals call their highest military commanders and ask to withdraw, and ask where to stay to try and hold on, like this you are an idiot if you do not listen.
Obviously Shoigu has no power to give up half of what is taken, and it is doubtful that Putin would permit it.
Surovikin obviously know that if they try to hold it all, they will lose it all.
That is what we believe he meant that they had to give up and withdraw, unless they make a huge tactical withdrawal, they will not have an army.
But, it could also mean that he stated that it is time to totally call it quits now.
Regardless, he is right.
Russia has now entered the long dark walk into the night.
It will not get better, their army will not survive, there are no hail mary's coming around the corner, and not even a fullblown Trump victory with his people controlling both the House and the Senate will come in time to save them.
Oleksandr pointed out that it was also a threat.
Either give us the leeway to do what is needed, or we will call it quits and go home on our own.
Obviously the generals know that Russia is done, they have known this for at least 3 months.
But the losses in the last few weeks have shown them that they have become a meowling kitten fighting a Neapolitan Mastiff in a cage match.
It may scratch, but as soon as the maws of the mastiff chomps down it is over.
Being a general of an army that has been turned into a punching bag, is not a happy general.
If they go home now they will still have an army sufficiently big to stop any neighbour except China to think thrice before attacking, and with a couple of decades to spare they could probably rebuild somewhat of a decent army.
If they continue any neighbour could beat them since they would have nothing.
It was eerie hearing the voices of the generals on the other side giving the same talking points that I have been giving in my musings.
I have never heard there voices, just read the transcriptions of the calls that have been intercepted.
Never before we have heard it in realtime.
Someone clearly wanted us to listen in.
Question is who, and question is why.
Whatever the answer, everything said was verifiably true.
It was legit information.
My personal guess is that the army want to talk, and let us now that they are ready regardless of what Moscow is ready to do, or not.
Of one thing I am though certain, Putin will never hear of this conversation.
Shoigu can't tell him, because he would be "windowed" for not having "windowed" the generals.
I think the next couple of months could become interesting."
"We intercepted a Russian generals conference call with the Chief of Staff.
In it the generals in the field and the sector commander south blatantly told Gerasimov and Shoigu that the Russian army is spent, and that it is time to perform drastic withdrawals, or to give up.
It became very loud at times, with the generals screamed "stop lying" to Shoigu at every other turn.
It was interesting for many reasons, here are the main giveaways.
Surovikin is indeed commanding the Southern Frontline, we suspected this due to the changes in how the war is performed here.
Avdivka and Luhansk have emptied out the reserves and the viable offensive forces, and they can't be replaced, at least the offensive forces.
Extreme lack of equipment and consumables, credited to now be below standards needed for defence, and far below what is needed for offensive operations.
What consumables they receive are of such poor standard that half is unusable, and the rate of barrel explosions have skyrocketed due to "non-standard shells and propellant charges".
I take that to be the North Korean stuff that is non-standard.
They do not believe that they can stop the invasion of Southern Kherson with current troop numbers in the area, and without reinforcements due to low reserves.
Sidenote: this seemed to imply that the mech brigade is heading to Tokmak as regular reinforcement there, but it was not mentioned at all.
There will be no new mobilisation until April, and the concription is going very bad, with 1 in 4 turning up after receiving the call-up notice.
The rest have either fled, or take the prison option.
Various generals tried to get permission to either withdraw from the East or the South.
Shoigu flat out refused that.
At that point Surovikin stated the following:
"We must give up and pull out while Russia still have an army left, soon we will have no army left"
At that point Gerasimov and Shoigu just started to scream and soon the conf call ended.
Interpretation
When generals call their highest military commanders and ask to withdraw, and ask where to stay to try and hold on, like this you are an idiot if you do not listen.
Obviously Shoigu has no power to give up half of what is taken, and it is doubtful that Putin would permit it.
Surovikin obviously know that if they try to hold it all, they will lose it all.
That is what we believe he meant that they had to give up and withdraw, unless they make a huge tactical withdrawal, they will not have an army.
But, it could also mean that he stated that it is time to totally call it quits now.
Regardless, he is right.
Russia has now entered the long dark walk into the night.
It will not get better, their army will not survive, there are no hail mary's coming around the corner, and not even a fullblown Trump victory with his people controlling both the House and the Senate will come in time to save them.
Oleksandr pointed out that it was also a threat.
Either give us the leeway to do what is needed, or we will call it quits and go home on our own.
Obviously the generals know that Russia is done, they have known this for at least 3 months.
But the losses in the last few weeks have shown them that they have become a meowling kitten fighting a Neapolitan Mastiff in a cage match.
It may scratch, but as soon as the maws of the mastiff chomps down it is over.
Being a general of an army that has been turned into a punching bag, is not a happy general.
If they go home now they will still have an army sufficiently big to stop any neighbour except China to think thrice before attacking, and with a couple of decades to spare they could probably rebuild somewhat of a decent army.
If they continue any neighbour could beat them since they would have nothing.
It was eerie hearing the voices of the generals on the other side giving the same talking points that I have been giving in my musings.
I have never heard there voices, just read the transcriptions of the calls that have been intercepted.
Never before we have heard it in realtime.
Someone clearly wanted us to listen in.
Question is who, and question is why.
Whatever the answer, everything said was verifiably true.
It was legit information.
My personal guess is that the army want to talk, and let us now that they are ready regardless of what Moscow is ready to do, or not.
Of one thing I am though certain, Putin will never hear of this conversation.
Shoigu can't tell him, because he would be "windowed" for not having "windowed" the generals.
I think the next couple of months could become interesting."