[the broken]

Casualty rates are pretty much inherently unreliable, we won't get the accurate numbers until the war is over.


Also, the casualty estimates for those other wars become much higher once you include Afghans and South Vietnamese, those wars are less one sided than they look.


Biggest immediate effect is that Ukraine knows that data shared with the US isn't safe.

Quote

I don't think the US would ever drop them selves into a boots on the ground situation where they weren't confident of superiority. And not deluded Russian version of assumed superiority.

Problem is, you tend not to know which is which until after the fact.

[Werthead]

 Cause, on 10 April 2023 - 03:24 PM, said:

Agreed that’s what they would like but if that’s true, and if that’s other countries perception of the USS as well, what happens when it comes down to bluff or die over things like North Korea or Taiwan.

I don’t think anyone really wants a full blown conflict over Taiwan no matter what China says, they would lose as much but how would the US react to a destroyer or even an aircraft carrier actually being sunk with all hands? 1000 dead in 1 day?

Then again these things are effected by the situation at the time. I doubt many Ukrainians realized how far they were willing to go until the choice was forced on them.

Countries will do what they must when the situation warrants it, as will the United States. The US put up with half a million dead in WWII after it was directly attacked and I think it would be prepared to do that again in the event of a first strike on American forces, bases etc. If China mounts a rapid blockade of Taiwan and then effectively dares the US to attack their blockading forces, that might be a different matter, the US government might have a tough time selling that (especially given American reluctance to recognise Taiwan, allowing China to sell the dispute much more convincingly as an internal affair that outsiders should not meddle in, an argument that seems to have worked with Macron).

The one thing I would say is that history has taught us that the Ukrainians are an extremely hardy people. They've already been fighting an effective war against Russia since 2014, and had two revolutions that successfully (well, one quasi-successfully and then another one to ram home the point) rejected Russian interference in Ukraine. They also put up with Chernobyl, losing 6 million dead in WWII, 4 million dead in the Holodomor and at least 1.5 million dead in WW1 and the first independence movement. Ukraine putting up a stiff fight was always going to happen, I just don't think anyone expected how effective Ukrainian military tactics would be and how utterly awful the Russians would be.

[Tiste Simeon]

Is this the same leak that has seemingly showed that there are a number of foreign special forces operatives on the ground in Ukraine? I mean, I think everyone knew this but we didn't *know* this.

Russia will no doubt be happy with this information as it serves a purpose in their propaganda efforts...

[Werthead]

 Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2023 - 10:01 PM, said:

Is this the same leak that has seemingly showed that there are a number of foreign special forces operatives on the ground in Ukraine? I mean, I think everyone knew this but we didn't *know* this.

Russia will no doubt be happy with this information as it serves a purpose in their propaganda efforts...

Apparently there's disinformation mixed in with the real information in the files.

I'm not sure what the hell good a couple of dozen special forces are actually going to do in Ukraine, versus the considerable propaganda risk if any of them are captured.

That said, obviously people are going to be doing it. Russia sent special forces on operations on British, Slovakian and Czech soil in the last few years, so they can't moan too much about other forces operating in Ukraine (not even on Russian soil).

[Tiste Simeon]

I see Russia has accidentally bombed itself...

BBC News - Ukraine war: Russian warplane accidentally bombs own city
https://www.bbc.co.u...europe-65344370

[Werthead]

Russians accidentally infect themselves with anthrax.

The sort of headline that feels much less of a surprise now than it did 18 months ago.

[Mentalist]

Loads of things been exploding lately. Mostly fuel-related, all along the perimeter.

Head of Wagner putting on quite a show claiming he's losing hundreds of men due to ammo shortage, and ammo is pulling out of Bakhmut on the 10th

Since tonight they've lit up a bunch of city blocks with mass incendiary ordnance, feels doubtful. Could obviously just be a plane rotation, and he's being a drama queen to score PR points. It's an exceptionally poor look for the Z-heads, though, so I'm not sure.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Ukraine says it used a US-made Patriot system to shot down a Russian hypersonic missile for the first time [...] using the US-donated Patriot air-defense system.

[...] Kremlin has long touted its hypersonic weapons as being impossible to defend against, but defense experts have questioned whether they are as impressive as is claimed.

[...] Russia was bombarding [Kyiv ...] All of the Russian weapons "were destroyed in Kyiv airspace by our air defense forces," [...]

[...] " [...] No-one knew whether the Patriot could operate against ballistic missiles. Well yes, it can."

"It's good that we have such weapon. Unfortunately there's not much of it," [...]

While the Kinzhal can travel at hypersonic speeds, a "hypersonic weapon" would also have to be capable of traveling at speeds in excess of Mach 5 [...] during terminal maneuvers, which this weapon is not capable of doing

Ukraine Used US-Made Patriot System to Down Russian Hypersonic Missile

Just one missile so far---not clear from the articles I've seen if previous attempts at shooting them down with the Patriot system had failed, or whether this provides substantial evidence of the system's general effectiveness against the Kinzhal.

Quote

Ukraine's embattled city of Bakhmut was turned into an inferno [...] with incendiary munitions shortly after the Wagner Group announced it would be pulling out. Drone footage [...] showed what looked like hell on earth: the city ablaze and engulfed in what was thought to be white phosphorus, a highly toxic chemical that can incinerate all in its path and is banned from use near civilians.

Bakhmut Bombed to Hell With Incendiary Munitions After Wagner Announcement

Guess Putin gave up on trying to take the city largely intact and decided to try to destroy it?... Wonder whether he'll try to apply the same to most of the rest of Ukraine and if so how much of a difference the missile defense systems will ultimately make....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 May 2023 - 02:36 PM

[Mentalist]

 Azath Vitr (D, on 06 May 2023 - 02:35 PM, said:

Quote

Ukraine says it used a US-made Patriot system to shot down a Russian hypersonic missile for the first time [...] using the US-donated Patriot air-defense system.

[...] Kremlin has long touted its hypersonic weapons as being impossible to defend against, but defense experts have questioned whether they are as impressive as is claimed.

[...] Russia was bombarding [Kyiv ...] All of the Russian weapons "were destroyed in Kyiv airspace by our air defense forces," [...]

[...] " [...] No-one knew whether the Patriot could operate against ballistic missiles. Well yes, it can."

"It's good that we have such weapon. Unfortunately there's not much of it," [...]

While the Kinzhal can travel at hypersonic speeds, a "hypersonic weapon" would also have to be capable of traveling at speeds in excess of Mach 5 [...] during terminal maneuvers, which this weapon is not capable of doing

Ukraine Used US-Made Patriot System to Down Russian Hypersonic Missile

Just one missile so far---not clear from the articles I've seen if previous attempts at shooting them down with the Patriot system had failed, or whether this provides substantial evidence of the system's general effectiveness against the Kinzhal.

Quote

Ukraine's embattled city of Bakhmut was turned into an inferno [...] with incendiary munitions shortly after the Wagner Group announced it would be pulling out. Drone footage [...] showed what looked like hell on earth: the city ablaze and engulfed in what was thought to be white phosphorus, a highly toxic chemical that can incinerate all in its path and is banned from use near civilians.

Bakhmut Bombed to Hell With Incendiary Munitions After Wagner Announcement

Guess Putin gave up on trying to take the city largely intact and decided to try to destroy it?... Wonder whether he'll try to apply the same to most of the rest of Ukraine and if so how much of a difference the missile defense systems will ultimately make....

1) they have less than 2 dozen Kinzhals (despite the fact they're just Iskanders modified to be launched from Mig -31s). This is the 3rd or 4th they shot at UA, and the 1st one since we got a Patriot battery.

2) Bakhmut, similar to Mar'yinka, Popasna, Rubizhne, Volnovakha, Mariupol, etc is being taken by levelling any significant structures block by block. That's the nature of street fighting.

Bakhmut's been hit by incendiaries many times before. This particular salvo yesterday just happened to be very impressive-looking, so it's getting traction.


Today the head of Wagner announced that they're pulling out, since "they've achieved their main objectives and dislodging the UAF from the remaining 2.5 sqkm isn't tactically significant".

We'll see how that pans out.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 07 May 2023 - 02:24 AM

[Werthead]

Reports of a big Ukrainian counter-push at Bakhmut. Unclear of the scale but it does appear to have been successful, with Russian units apparently retreating from the front along several kilometres. Prigozhin also moaning about a Russian regular army unit fleeing the front lines, leaving a 2km-gap that Wagner had to try to plug without sufficient forces.

[Werthead]

The UK sending Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, which have a range of over 150km, outranging HIMARS, and are air-launched, making them much easier to shoot and scoot.

Apparently the UK warned Russia in December that if they continued to hit Ukrainian civilian targets, longer-range weaponry would be delivered to Ukraine. Some indications that the US made similar warnings, with ATACMS on the table. This does have the air of the UK doing a small thing first and then if Russia tries to escalate, America does the bigger thing. 

[Mentalist]

Voenkors are in full panic mode across all frontlines. The most attention is obviously being given to Bakhmut, where the UAF is poking through to take back some of the positions in the outskirts, threatening to eventually cut the supply lines to those trying to chew through the city defenses.


I'm more interested about the sporadically mentioned reports that UAF crossed the Shaytanka river near Novodonets'ke. That's just SW of Vuhledar, trying to make a wedge, aiming towards the river Mokri Yaly, which runs parallel to the border b/w Donets'k and Zaporizhzhya oblast's.

This would make a good bridgehead in the push towards the Azov Sea roughly in the direction Berdyans'k-Mariupol'. Or to swing E towards Volnovakaha to envelop those forces staging to assault Vuhledar yet again.

Lets wait and see how this pans out in the next few days.

[Werthead]

Something weird happening in Bryansk, which is well inside Russian territory. An Su-34, Su-35 and two Russian helicopters all shot down in a matter of minutes. Some claims that the Russian AA system fired on its own aircraft.

Rampant and unconfirmed speculation that Ukrainian special forces may have infiltrated with Stingers, or Ukrainians hacked the AA defence system. Also some screaming that the FSB and military intelligence have been rampant up the idea of Ukraine attacking targets in Russia, so the AA operators got twitchy and let off a friendly fire incident. Lots of yelling on Telegram, not much facts so far apart from the downed aircraft. There's a video on Twitter of the Su-34 coming down, unclear if the pilot bailed.

Also, rampant and increasing speculation in Belarus that Lukashenko is seriously ill. He hasn't been seen for four days, and had an inexplicable hand injury whilst in Moscow.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 13 May 2023 - 06:42 PM

[Mentalist]

 Werthead, on 13 May 2023 - 06:36 PM, said:

Something weird happening in Bryansk, which is well inside Russian territory. An Su-34, Su-35 and two Russian helicopters all shot down in a matter of minutes. Some claims that the Russian AA system fired on its own aircraft.

Rampant and unconfirmed speculation that Ukrainian special forces may have infiltrated with Stingers, or Ukrainians hacked the AA defence system. Also some screaming that the FSB and military intelligence have been rampant up the idea of Ukraine attacking targets in Russia, so the AA operators got twitchy and let off a friendly fire incident. Lots of yelling on Telegram, not much facts so far apart from the downed aircraft. There's a video on Twitter of the Su-34 coming down, unclear if the pilot bailed.

Also, rampant and increasing speculation in Belarus that Lukashenko is seriously ill. He hasn't been seen for four days, and had an inexplicable hand injury whilst in Moscow.

BEL opposition stating he's been hospitalized today.

Bryansk is an odd one. NGU is hinting they were involved and a bunch of Z-heads are saying UAF "ambushed" an air wing returning from a bombing run and hit them from an area next to the border in norther Chernihiv Oblast'

[Werthead]

Very good broad-sweep analysis of the entire front.

Ukraine appears to have achieved the operational initiative along the entire southern front, which I wasn't expecting. From Kherson to past Bakhmut, Ukraine has been dictating the tempo of operations and put Russia mostly on the defensive, with the exception of the area about Avdiivka near Donetsk City where Russia has again been claiming gains (bearing in mind Russia levelled the entire town last summer and claimed victory, only to have Ukraine advance past them and briefly occupy the Donetsk airport grounds, this isn't saying much). North of Bakhmut, Russia is more on the initiative, but mostly just battering themselves against Ukrainian defences.

Some things are becoming clearer that Ukraine is having success with shaping operations and minor advances along much of that southern front. What's really interesting is Ukraine seizing islands in the Dnipro and giving every indication of a push from Kherson City. That'd be a pretty ballsy move - crossing the river is no easy feat even with the tons of naval assault equipment they've got, mostly from France - but it has a lot of strategic benefits, such as not having to worry too much about the flanks and allowing Ukraine to advance in a massive sweep to clear Kherson Oblast and immediately cut off Crimea, as well as cutting off the primary resupply route for the entire SW front. Obviously it also brings Crimea and the Kerch Straits Bridge under Ukrainian fire control, they're only ~20km short of Storm Shadow range right now.

The smart money is still on a major push from the from the north down towards Melitopol. Despite building defences that are 70km deep in some areas of that front, the Russians seem to have left some areas undermanned, possibly denuded to focus on Bakhmut which would be almost unfathomably stupid but also very on-brand for this conflict.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 15 May 2023 - 07:42 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Russia's claiming one of the Kinzhal hit a PATRIOT---Ukraine says otherwise---what's the likelihood that Russia is wrong?

Quote

[...] unprecedented, coordinated barrage of missiles.

[...] “exceptional in its density—the maximum number of attacking missiles in the shortest period of time.” [...]

Six of the ['hypersonic' ...] missiles were launched from MiG-31K aircraft, three cruise missiles were fired from land, and a further nine Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from the Black Sea.

[...] All of the missiles targeting the city were taken out, according to the Ukrainian air force[...] Russia, however, claims that one of the Kinzhal missiles did take out a Patriot missile battery[...]

Footage on social media allegedly showed an explosion near a Patriot battery, though the impact itself is not shown.

If a missile did hit a Patriot battery, the damage could vary. [...] entire battery could be down until fixed or replaced. With just two Patriot batteries in-country, Ukraine’s ability to defend against Kinzhals would be much lower.

Humiliation for Putin’s ‘Unstoppable’ Superweapon Blasted Out of Sky by U.S. Defense System (thedailybeast.com)

[Werthead]

 Azath Vitr (D, on 16 May 2023 - 02:11 PM, said:

Russia's claiming one of the Kinzhal hit a PATRIOT---Ukraine says otherwise---what's the likelihood that Russia is wrong?

Unofficial US military sources have indicated one component of the Patriot was damaged, possibly by falling debris rather than a direct hit. The Kinzhal terminal closing velocity means hitting the missile too close to the impact point turns one projectile into many (albeit with the explosive charge pre-detonated), so you're turning a bomb into a shotgun blast at fairly close range; preferable but something is probably still going to be hit. The previous six successful intercepts were all at a more extended range.

It looks like Russia may have used a combination of missile types to try to overwhelm the Patriot's radar system. That likely failed - a modern Patriot can track hundreds of incoming tracks, not just eighteen - but they may have stretched the Patriot's ammunition capacity and forced a late-stage intercept. It looks like the US are pretty impressed by both Patriot's performance and the Ukrainian handling of Patriot, making arguments to give them another several batteries more convincing. With half a dozen batteries working in concert, Russia would need to assemble many dozens of hypersonics to even have a chance of hitting the city, which is beyond their current, immediate technical capacity.

This is not a particularly stunning surprise as the Kinzhal is only very arguably a hypersonic missile, basically being just an air-launched Iskander with a final closing velocity that peaks at under Mach 5. Ironically, the Russians hyping the shit out of it as an amazing wunderweapon means them getting blown out of the sky is now a bigger headline than it actually is.

Something that went much more under the radar this week has been footage of US-made Switchblade kamikaze drones taking out GRAD launchers and vehicles in several areas of the front, and the first confirmed deployment of Ukrainian ADM-160B MALD standoff decoys, where a fairly inexpensive drone can dummy the radar profile of a helicopter or larger attack drone and attracts AA fire. The Ukrainians used several to attract Russian AA fire around Luhansk City and then hit a Russian military command post in middle of the city.

[Werthead]

Ukrainian estimates, Russian intercepts and Russian Telegram comments suggest total Russian KIA has surpassed 200,000 at some point in the last few days. Which is genuinely insane.

Meanwhile, three of the architects of Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missile, Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev, have been arrested and charged with treason in Russia, to the apparent dismay of Russia's scientific community.

Also, the Black Sea grain deal has been extended by two months.

[Abyss]

 Werthead, on 17 May 2023 - 06:51 PM, said:

Meanwhile, three of the architects of Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missile, Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev, have been arrested and charged with treason in Russia, to the apparent dismay of Russia's scientific community.

Hypersonic defenestration tests begin in 5... 4... 3...

[Werthead]

Correction: they were arrested a few months ago, on charges of selling hypersonic secrets to China.

Interesting, because China's hypersonic programme has every indication of being more advanced than Russia's. It does tie into the growing sense that Russia and China's pally relationship is meant to annoy and intimidate the west, and behind the scenes the two countries have some problems with one another (China recently issuing new maps of the coast with Russian cities with their old Chinese names; Russia not being receptive to Chinese diplomatic solutions to end the war).

Ooh, Kadyrov and Prigozhin seem to have fallen out. Spectacularly inept. You have the three military Russian forces in Ukraine all arguing with one another and being reluctant to help one another out at the same time the Ukrainians are making up ground.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 17 May 2023 - 08:58 PM