steinrokkan posted:

Not another CoLoR rEvOlUtIoN

Comstar posted:

Is that because the Russian tanks are pretty much stationary?

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1633239944633229313

Cicero posted:

I know the city took a beating but I'm still somewhat surprised it took this long, since Russia retreated months back.

Roblo posted:

Brave bastard. His name is going to get remembered.

Deadly Ham Sandwich posted:

Brits wish they had squirrel. Now they're so broke they are eating fish 'n chips without the fish. Just the chips. And no that's not hyperbole. Brexit really hosed over fishing hard.

HonorableTB posted:

do we have any poles in here? I stopped by the beer store and wanted to try some new beer so I got a couple pint bottles of Okocim based solely on their slogan "O.K. Beer", it's p good IMO. Kurwa!

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1633187365299662848
A thread detailing what appears to be the utter collapse of Russian military logistics. Not even Good Soldier Svejk could have anticipated a performance this pathetic, apparently many poor mobiks are being labeled deserters because they can hardly find the units they're being appointed to.

some plague rats posted:

Cool. what is it

Icochet posted:

Go home idiots

Alan Smithee posted:

Oscar Wilde Bunch posted:

For all the Nordstream chat, if they wanted to keep using it, couldn’t they just, like, repair it?

Oscar Wilde Bunch posted:

For all the Nordstream chat, if they wanted to keep using it, couldn’t they just, like, repair it?

quote:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/24/politics/ukraine-shift-tactics-bakhmut/index.html

The US and its allies want Ukraine to change its battlefield tactics in the spring
By Natasha Bertrand, Alex Marquardt and Katie Bo Lillis, CNN
Updated 8:18 AM EST, Tue January 24, 2023

Now, ahead of what is widely expected to be a brutal spring of fighting, there is a tactical opening, US and Western officials say. In recent weeks they have begun suggesting that Ukrainian forces cut their losses in Bakhmut, which they argue has little strategic significance for Ukraine, and focus instead on planning an offensive in the south.

quote:

https://time.com/6253515/bakhmut-battle-ukraine-russia/

Why Russia Is So Determined To Capture Bakhmut
BY YASMEEN SERHAN AND TARA LAW
FEBRUARY 7, 2023 1:03 PM EST

Yehor Cherniev, a Ukrainian lawmaker and head of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO parliamentary assembly, tells TIME that although Bakhmut “is not of strategic importance” to Kyiv, they will nonetheless “try to hold it as long as possible.”

quote:

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-defense-chief-says-ukraine-s-bakhmut-has-more-symbolic-than-strategic-value/6991380.html

US Defense Chief: Ukraine's Bakhmut Is Symbolic Rather Than Strategic
March 06, 2023 6:06 AM
UPDATE March 06, 2023 12:54 PM

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday if Russian troops manage to seize control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, that would not represent a decisive shift in the conflict.

"I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value," Austin told reporters during a visit to Jordan.

quote:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ukraine-vows-to-hold-bakhmut-as-russia-continues-fight-to-capture-the-city
Updated on Mar 6, 2023 12:50 PM EST
Published on Mar 6, 2023 9:32 AM EST

Ukraine vows to hold Bakhmut as Russia continues fight to capture the city

Russian forces that invaded Ukraine just over a year ago have been unable to deliver a knockout blow that would allow them to seize Bakhmut. Analysts say it does not have major strategic value and that its capture would be unlikely to serve as a turning point in the conflict.

quote:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/03/bakhmut-battle-ukraine-russia/
By Claire Parker
Updated March 7, 2023 at 1:57 p.m. EST
Published March 3, 2023 at 11:33 a.m. EST

Before the war, Bakhmut was mostly known as a center of the salt industry. But the relentless, intensifying fight for control of the city — which analysts say holds little strategic importance — has made it a rallying cry and political battleground for both sides.

quote:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-war-bakhmut-significance/32307329.html

If Bakhmut Falls: What The Battle For A City Of Little Military Significance Means For The Ukraine War
By Mike Eckel
March 07, 2023 17:47 GMT

For military experts and close watchers of the Ukrainian battlefields, Bakhmut's symbolic importance far outweighs its strategic importance. Straddling the Bakhmutka River, just 20 kilometers west of the Luhansk region administrative border, the city, with a prewar population of around 70,000, used to be known mostly for its sparkling wines and salt mines.

quote:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64864496

Ukraine war: Bakhmut defenders double down - Zelensky
7 March 2023

Analysts say Bakhmut has little strategic value, but has become a focal point for Russian commanders who have struggled to deliver any positive news to the Kremlin.

quote:

https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/07/ukraine-to-continue-fight-for-bakhmut-as-russian-troops-struggle-to-make-gains

Ukraine to continue fight for Bakhmut as Russian troops struggle to make gains
By Oleksandra Vakulina
Updated: 07/03/2023 - 18:00

However, the Institute for the Study of War said that Bakhmut is not intrinsically significant - operationally or strategically.

quote:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/07/europe/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-cnn-interview-bakhmut-intl/index.html

Exclusive: Zelensky warns of ‘open road’ through Ukraine’s east if Russia captures Bakhmut, as he resists calls to retreat
By Rob Picheta, CNN
Updated 5:19 PM EST, Tue March 7, 2023

Russian troops will have “open road” to capture key cities in eastern Ukraine if they seize control of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in an interview with CNN, as he defended his decision to keep Ukrainian forces in the besieged city.

“This is tactical for us,” Zelensky said, insisting that Kyiv’s military brass is united in prolonging its defense of the city after weeks of Russian attacks left it on the cusp of falling to Moscow’s troops.

“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview from Kyiv. “That’s why our guys are standing there.”

HonorableTB posted:

I'm not sure what you're suggesting fizzy, do you think something holds a static strategic value which doesn't change based on shifting factors?

fizzy posted:

I'm suggesting that pundits, think-tanks and "analysts" and/or the papers that report their views, are not always reliable or dependable.

Do you think that the strategic value can change within the span of 1 week or 1 day from "little strategic importance" / "not intrinsically significant" to "Russian troops will have “open road” to capture key cities in eastern Ukraine if they seize control of Bakhmut"? The articles I quoted are not from pre-war or last year, they are from this year up to yesterday.

HonorableTB posted:

Yes, I absolutely think that strategic value can change within the span of 1 week or 1 day. History, especially military history, is absolutely filled with examples of shifting strategic priorities based on conditions that arose on short or no notice

zone posted:

https://twitter.com/mr_gh0stly/status/1633185095237480449

fizzy posted:

That may be true, but in this case, the strategic value of Bakhmut (as elucidated by Zelensky) lies in its proximity and road connections to other cities in eastern Ukraine. That geographical location and those roads were not created or changed within the span of a week or a day.

fizzy posted:

That may be true, but in this case, the strategic value of Bakhmut (as elucidated by Zelensky) lies in its proximity and road connections to other cities in eastern Ukraine. That geographical location and those roads were not created or changed within the span of a week or a day.

tiaz posted:

I think Zelensky might have motivations to make statements that, say, would keep Russia slamming its dick in the car door regardless of whether he felt them to be literally true.

fizzy posted:

That's an uncomfortable line of thinking, though, since it implies that other official statements about the state of the war may also be exaggerated or downplayed to lure or motivate Russia into taking sub-optimal actions. Inflate enemy casualty figures and downplay own-side casualty figures to demoralise the opponent and incentivise Ukraine's allies to keep up their arms supplies, exaggerate battlefield successes for the same purposes, and so on. Unfortunate implications all around. It's much more plausible that Zelensky is spitting straight facts and that pundits are generally just pulling words out of their rear end to fill article inches and get TV appearance invitations.

fizzy posted:

That's an uncomfortable line of thinking, though, since it implies that other official statements about the state of the war may also be exaggerated or downplayed to lure or motivate Russia into taking sub-optimal actions.

Andrey Morozov posted:

For 100+ years now, defense, when it exists and works, has been based on three things - experienced mid-level personnel, working communications that allow them to lead troops, that is, first of all, on communications personnel, on signalmen, and on artillery, that is, again, on experienced skilled gunners.

"What do I need sights, son!" (With)

In turn, an offensive operation consists of, conditionally, an "investment phase", when you incur losses, breaking through the enemy's defenses, if you, of course, break through it. Other things being equal, you incur losses, as a rule, much larger than the defending enemy, and the "phases of making a profit", when front breakthroughs are realized in rapidly collapsing boilers, in which the very frames remain, on which the enemy built everything that you broke through with such difficulty. Their death or captivity in the boiler - this is the main "income" of the operation. If the enemy has time to escape, to pull the troops out of the “cauldron”, even if he abandons heavy equipment, the results of the operation become doubtful, because you laid down your hard-to-renew resource in the form of people, and the enemy, having gutted your advancing units properly, dumped.

Who remembers, at the final stage of the capture of Lisichansk, I wrote in LiveJournal about this. "Valuable military experts of the enemy" will flee from there - the front will then stabilize for a long time in the Seversk region, because ours, exhausted by the battles for Severodonetsk, Lisichansk and other captured settlements, will collide with the enemy, who will have something to "sit down" to defend not only in terms of some then fortifications, but also in terms of communications and artillery.

What will the capture of Artyomovsk mean now? What the enemy considers the area's defensive potential to be exhausted. The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not satisfied with the ratio of losses between attackers and defenders, and it is quite possible that it is already withdrawing the most valuable units, valuable personnel from the city, replacing them with mobs and "terodefense". The task of which surrogates is to let those who will continue to gut the next "stormers" leave, put themselves in order and take up new positions of new defensive lines.

II.

And then the Armed Forces of Ukraine will begin to use the reserves that they accumulated all the time while we spent our reserves, poorly trained and managed, in "assaults" on the front from Vugledar to Kremennaya.

All the time while the RF Armed Forces fought last summer, autumn and winter in a patchwork of RF Armed Forces, “leopards”, “Akhmats” and various PMCs, the Armed Forces of Ukraine learned to fully fight with “large battalions”, brigades, and then the corps that they are now creating in the rear and run in for the time that the defense of Artemovsk bought them.

The Russian Armed Forces broke their sharpest "tank wedges" at the very beginning of the war and during the "de-escalation", then diligently finished them off in smaller, but no less schizoid mass events. Already in the summer, the old T-72s were massively pulled from storage to the front, the reactivation of antique T-62s began, the "bald" early T-72s and T-80s, which came as replenishment to the tank units of the Republics, became commonplace. Of course, combat losses corresponded to the level of protection of the vehicles ...

However, it is not only the tanks that matter, and not in them in the first place, not in the hardware. The personnel on our side, who could still become a motorized rifle "shoulder" of these "tank wedges", were lost, worn down. Experienced scouts and sappers were lost on "assaults".

In general, the word "storm" has become an indulgence for any *slur edited*. The lack of normal reconnaissance, training, training of personnel, for any losses, including the loss of equipment. The continuation of "meat assaults" on the enemy's positions on a huge front by poorly trained troops in a situation of an acute shortage of artillery ammo for the sake of capturing Artyomovsk is a crime, the consequences of which we will soon face.

We will face when the Armed Forces of Ukraine introduce their trained units into battle, capable of working at a completely different level of speed and quality of decisions than ours. Fresh reserves capable of quickly breaking through the defenses and moving further into the breakthrough, bypassing and covering our units. Doing it quickly, maintaining secure, closed communications, and adequate real-time control.

quote:

Some Soviet weapons were largely inferior (perhaps at 2/3rds of the effectiveness of western weapons), in particular at long range. Their method of counter acting this was aiming to keep the advance moving in column until hit by effective enemy fire (e.g. first tank is blown up), then spend a minute forming into line abreast, followed by a charge.

If a company was engaged at the range of a mile, then it would aim to be on the enemy position in three minutes if it was in column (i.e. not expecting to be hit by effective fire) or 2 minutes if already formed for an advance to contact. Russian units do not fire and manoeuvre at below company level (at least while in a mechanised battle). The second company would aim to be on the enemy position as soon as the tactical situation permitted e.g. 2-3 minute after the first company has reached the enemy position. On the battlefield it meant that defending enemy anti-tank guided missile launchers would get perhaps 2 missiles off, and hand held anti-tank weapons perhaps 1 or 2 before the battle was fought at point blank range.

On the wargaming table, the rapid ‘close to contact’ minimises the NATO advantage in weaponry. Advantages, such as superior NATO weapon sights, matter little if tanks and AFVs are firing at targets at less than 200 metres.

quote:

The scene was set in a WWII aircraft hanger used by BAE Systems limited for some experiments on situational awareness on the modern battlefield. The game was played over a 1/300 scale model, representing a portion of West Germany near the ‘Hof Gap’, that was large enough to be walked on.

The scenario had been played 80 times before, as repetition was necessary to produce valid data. I was on the attacking team against staff who had knew the rules, terrain and the scenario inside out (and back to front). What the staff did not realise was that all of the attacking team had commanded ‘Orange forces’ at various levels during NATO exercises. We were Russians and we intended to act like them.

The terrain analysis was simple. A stream ran across our front, overlooked by high ground on the other side. There was a town to the left as we faced our axis of advance and in the far distance (15k) was a larger river, with a few crossing points dominated by a few hills. There were an appropriate number of woods, farms, roads and tracks.

Our plan was simple, we would advance on three axis, with a reserve behind. Which ever axis broke through first would become the main axis of advance and all support would be shifted to that axis. We took approximately 10 minutes to make our plan, which caused much amusement to the other side. They expected us to spend 2 hours discussing phased lines of advance, artillery targets, giving detailed orders etc…

The battle started with an artillery/ rocket/ mortar barrage reminiscent of the Somme. While NATO armies might carefully recce enemy positions or rely of calling in supporting fire as targets were required, we were a Russian army and we had little confidence in getting the necessary support quickly. We simply identified any likely positions overlooking the stream and hit them hard with a pre-prepared fire plan.

There could have been minefields to our front, but Russian doctrine was to advance as if they were not there. So the NATO defenders were a little surprised as there was no tentative recce, no checking for minefields but mechanised companies advancing at maximum speed on three axis. This ruined their plan of taking time to identify our main thrust and counter-attacking it.

As we entered the town on our left, it became obvious that the town was well defended. So, in line with Russian doctrine (Towns should be bypassed), infantry were debussed to engage in FIBUA, while the main column identified a gap in the defences, one street wide, and the battalion went straight through the town and out the other side… the defenders were shocked at being bypassed and their commander had what can only be described as ‘command paralysis’.

The NATO counter-attack hit our centre axis of advance. Our centre axis ground to a halt. rather than reinforce failure, the reserves switched to follow another axis. The divisional artillery support also switched to the other two successful axis.

Our advance was difficult to halt, as every time a main road was blocked, the advance switched to the next adjacent road. Russian policy was any road heading west would do (as they come from a country of poor roads).

At every possible opportunity, the Russian advance switched back to column formation for maximum speed. The speed reduced NATO support, as their mortar/ artillery positions had to move as they felt threatened by the speed of our advance.

The other side started to panic as the situation was changing too quickly and we seemed to be playing by different rules to what they were used to. I knew we were winning when an umpire tried to warn me about potential ambushes and why my column should slow down (just in case).

The game ended with the right hand Russian axis occupying the high ground overlooking the crossing points the enemy needed to retreat over. It had a full division’s worth of artillery to supplement its tank guns and anti-tank missiles. The scattered NATO forces had been bypassed and were out of supply and their retreat route was covered by direct enemy fire and artillery.