I love you man but I disagree with your last statement. Their invasion was certainly based on incorrect and faulty information but based on that info and the suppositions we think Putin and his senior team were working from, their operational plan and their adjustments are rational. The initial attack in the north was a complete failure and while their assault in the south didn't achieve all of their operational goals it certainly succeeded much more closely with Russian assumptions. From the Western point of view this (and most) invasion(s) aren't rational but to impose that on their thinking seriously invalidates how to asses their decision making and that kind of thinking I think fundamentally misshapes understanding of OODA loops and would lead to shaping operational strategy in the wrong way.

Based on all the analysis you've posted over the last year plus I know you know that but just a bit of respectful pushback on that.

Waffledynamics said:

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I wouldn't imagine they'd waste SOF units telling them to hold a trench like more regular soldiers, but I could be wrong.

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Apparently the tactic is to hit the trench/objective and bolt before artillery starts to hammer the location. German foreign fighter discussed it with Willy. Great interview for what it is worth. They covered a lot of topics:



Pretty interesting discussion on the command structure or lack there of in Ukrainian army. Probably explains the difficulty in applying combined arms tactics. He also states the Russian army is horribly trained, even the elite units they ran into. Only thing keeping the Ukes in check is Russian artillery.

Russian warships trying new camo scheme in an attempt to deceive Ukrainian drone operators.

DISGUISE

In order to illustrate the impact of the (de facto) destruction of the Chonhar bridge we see the original path of a supply truck coming from the Dzhankoi to Melitopol in red and the remaining two alternatives in blue and yellow going through Armiansk. The supply lines have been… pic.twitter.com/wcCtJtGeVF

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) June 22, 2023

Not a Bot said:

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In order to illustrate the impact of the (de facto) destruction of the Chonhar bridge we see the original path of a supply truck coming from the Dzhankoi to Melitopol in red and the remaining two alternatives in blue and yellow going through Armiansk. The supply lines have been… pic.twitter.com/wcCtJtGeVF

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) June 22, 2023

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The longer secondary route uses a bridge crossing a wide canal bed in Crimea, so it is vulnerable too. Here's more on the attack, including missile impact video.

BRIDGE

Ukes need to take a page out of the RuZZian playbook and hit the bridge again whilst repairs are in progress.

Russian Pantsir fails to shoot down storm shadow

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/14gd9ps/russian_pantsirs_attempting_to_shoot_down_a_storm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

The storm shadow it missed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/14gcwtu/arrival_of_the_british_cruise_missile_storm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AgLA06 said:

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Russian Pantsir fails to shoot down storm shadow

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That said about air defense, should Ukraine attempt a Storm Shadow attack on Russian ships docked at Sevatopol? Sevatopol's port is within range if launched off the southwestern coast near Odessa. Or should Sevatopol be off limits?

Footage has been release which shows the moment that the Chongar Bridge, which connects the Crimean Peninsula to the Kherson Region of Southeastern Ukraine, was Struck by a “Storm Shadow” Cruise Missile appearing to cause Severe Structural Damage to the Bridge. pic.twitter.com/0ihfKhhIhN

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 22, 2023

The Ukes are launching (or permitting) raids into Belgorod. I would think anything in crimea is fair game. I hope they catch a sub in port.

They're not really made for ships or anything that moves. You'd want to try to hit the refueling equipment or a stack of cruise missiles being on loaded.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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They're not really made for ships or anything that moves. You'd want to try to hit the refueling equipment or a stack of cruise missiles being on loaded.

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Or a ship or sub while tied up rearming and refueling.

Perfect scenario, but you need someone watching and a very rapid response time

ABATTBQ11 said:

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Perfect scenario, but you need someone watching and a very rapid response time

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The specific target probably isn't as important as putting everything in Sevastopol at risk. The perfect scenario is Russia effectively abandoning Sevastopol because it's unsafe for all high value assets. Sevastopol will be #1 in future peace negotiations .... that's why the Ukes need to set the conditions.

The Russians already know it's at risk. I think if you're going to use something like a storm shadow that's in limited supply you want to do as much physical damage as possible.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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The Russians already know it's at risk. I think if you're going to use something like a storm shadow that's in limited supply you want to do as much physical damage as possible.

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There's definitely a pecking order for high value targets given the weapon's limited supply. At this point, Sevastopol is probably more strategic than tactical ... so maybe it's down the list.

benchmark said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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Perfect scenario, but you need someone watching and a very rapid response time

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The specific target probably isn't as important as putting everything in Sevastopol at risk. The perfect scenario is Russia effectively abandoning Sevastopol because it's unsafe for all high value assets. Sevastopol will be #1 in future peace negotiations .... that's why the Ukes need to set the conditions.

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I agree. I wonder if the hit on the Chongar was a msg or how much value is there in taking it out. If true intent is to take out are they going to hit it again.

Missile looks like it missed the bent which would have knocked it down at one or two spans.

Would enjoy seeing film of 1000lb of explosives triggering multiple other 1000lb warheads while being loaded on russian sub.

Need a fix for the KA52s.

Are the avenger systems not an option to take out the Alligators?

AgLA06 said:

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Are the avenger systems not an option to take out the Alligators?

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Avengers are just vehicle mounted man-pads. They don't have the range needed. The Russian helicopters are plinking Uke armor from 10-11 km away and stingers have a max range of ~8km.

lb3 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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Are the avenger systems not an option to take out the Alligators?

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Avengers are just vehicle mounted man-pads. They don't have the range needed. The Russian helicopters are plinking Uke armor from 10-11 km away and stingers have a max range of ~8km.

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So what's the options? Push SOF out ahead and flanking pushes with man-pads in order to ambush the helicopters?

The Avengers are being replaced by a system using AAMRAMS which would do the trick.

The Norwegians have donated an AAMRAM based system. But their system isn't really mobile and requires 22 people to operate. They would have trouble keeping up with attacking units.

And any mobile air defense units that could keep up would likely be vulnerable to loitering munitions.

Supposedly Russia has lost 5 in the last 5 days, and they didn't have a whole lot to start with. I believe they're down to less than 100 now. They can't have a whole lot operating at any one time.

at what point do the world wide sanctions start to have an effect on the Russian economy

as well as the insane amount of spending that has to be going on every day to pay the army, supply with ammo, build fortifications, replace all the thousands of lost vehicles, missiles, etc...

at some point the Soviet Union simply collapsed from economic failure- how long can kleptocrat Russia keep this up?

I was wondering the same thing. We see how many billions are going to Ukraine, Russias figures must be more. Triple? Order of magnitude?

LMCane said:

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at what point do the world wide sanctions start to have an effect on the Russian economy

as well as the insane amount of spending that has to be going on every day to pay the army, supply with ammo, build fortifications, replace all the thousands of lost vehicles, missiles, etc...

at some point the Soviet Union simply collapsed from economic failure- how long can kleptocrat Russia keep this up?

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I think that issue was put to bed some time ago. The sanctions were an utter failure. Sanctions never work, and they certainly won't work when you have the second most powerful economy backing you.

Is Russia going to be doing as well economically as if there were no sanctions? Probably not. However the sanctions aren't anywhere close to triggering an economic collapse and a change in government.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 23 June 2023.

Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/ALCbH4WFSc

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/lCXZ3gySdu

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) June 23, 2023

The defense spending is a huge issue and so is the supply chain for the Russians. They are using an insane amount of artillery which combine with the KA52 are the only thing keeping the Ukes heads down.

As far as their economy, they played the world a fool and actually doubled their revenue in a year. They shorted and made a killing on derivatives since they knew when they were going to attack. Knowing this and sanctions were coming they came up with a plan to sell massive amounts of oil and gas. If I have time I will go more into it but Russia made record profits and revenue last year.

Russia still has soldiers in places like Syria and China. I have no idea how they keep up with the weapon requirements with their feet in so many sandboxes.

As Winston Churchill said, Russia is "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".

Depending on the type of ship there is a good chance the Russian ships have something like the CWIS that can be set on auto so any incoming missile or drone will likely be shot down. How more incoming have not been shot down on the ships already attacked is curious, either the ships attacked did not have them or they were turned off.

Regarding the land based anti missile systems, the Russians claim of 100% shoot down efficiency has been disproven a lot this year. The Pantsir, S300, and S400 were all anti-aircraft systems that were retrofitted to shoot down missiles but they do not have the processing chips fast enough to consistently shoot down missiles. That would be my guess on why Ukraine is still going after logistic and ammo targets, lower chance of being shot down.

The Storm Shadow is an extremely valuable tool so Ukraine is picking high probability targets. Plus to hit Sevastopol it has to go over a lot of area covered by several weapon systems.

Unbelievable Wager's Yevgeny Prigozhin (Link) gets away with comments like these. Something's going to snap.

rgag12 said:

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LMCane said:

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at what point do the world wide sanctions start to have an effect on the Russian economy

as well as the insane amount of spending that has to be going on every day to pay the army, supply with ammo, build fortifications, replace all the thousands of lost vehicles, missiles, etc...

at some point the Soviet Union simply collapsed from economic failure- how long can kleptocrat Russia keep this up?

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I think that issue was put to bed some time ago. The sanctions were an utter failure. Sanctions never work, and they certainly won't work when you have the second most powerful economy backing you.

Is Russia going to be doing as well economically as if there were no sanctions? Probably not. However the sanctions aren't anywhere close to triggering an economic collapse and a change in government.

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This answers a lot of questions. They're not as effective as most hoped they would be, but they are still having pretty serious effects.

https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-have-the-forecasts-on-the-effects-of-sanctions-on-russia-held-up-a-year-on

TLDR, sanctions hurt, but they are never going to stop someone determined to go to war from going to war.

AgLA06 said:

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lb3 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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Are the avenger systems not an option to take out the Alligators?

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Avengers are just vehicle mounted man-pads. They don't have the range needed. The Russian helicopters are plinking Uke armor from 10-11 km away and stingers have a max range of ~8km.

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So what's the options? Push SOF out ahead and flanking pushes with man-pads in order to ambush the helicopters?

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This is already happening but its capability given the amount of ground required to cover and precise timing is severely limited. Than the survivability of the team already at max risk would likely be suicidal. Several previous vids showed multiple manpads had to be fired to defeat the KAs air defenses.

I know they are carrying fuel pods but are they also using FARPs. If so they are likely landing together at least in pairs. That location if obtained might be in range of something but the window of opportunity maybe less than an hour.

Again given their limited number it might not take many more shot down to have the russians limit their use. On the flip side the more success they achieve the more likely they are to increase mission tempo.

It looks like there is a fairly nice bulge in the front line north of Tokmak that has been slowly developing. It's not getting a ton of attention but the Russians are slowly losing ground.

The Vikhr (air to ground/anti-tank) missiles the KA-52's are firing supposedly have a range out to 10 or 12km, which is past what stingers/most manpads can reach. They only have around a hundred of these helicopters, but I'm not sure if the Mi-28's etc. in the theater also can fire them.

The Ukrainians need to figure out air support.