bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

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Repost:

The offensive is still focused on attriting Russian logistics, command centers and artillery, so Ukraine doesn't need to thrust all the way to hubs like Mariupol and Melitopol in the near term, just get close enough to place them under fire.

Getting close enough to hit them and the LOCs running from them is an important step towards starving the Russian force in the south of the high resupply volume needed to service its usual prolific munitions expenditure--particularly artillery fires.

The broad-front Ukranian advance compliments this interdiction campaign and is intended, amongst other things, to keep as many Russians as possible in contact and steadily drawing down their forward stockpiles of increasingly hard to get munitions.

Meanwhile, it appears that Ukraine's primary mechanized force is being held in reserve until sufficient Russian weakness develops to make a concentrated assault on a narrower front feasible.

Will this approach succeed? I have no particular insight, but the strategy seems a good ends-ways-means fit for Ukrainian strengths and Russian weaknesses.

bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

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Ive been asking on multiple threads, and will try again: can anyone be provide realistic numbers on Ukraine's fighting population? Able bodied men at the outset, severe casualties to date, how many fled, etc?

I'm genuinely curious as to this time comment: with endless supplies from the west, the limiting factor is likely manpower. How much gas do they have in that tank?

Quote:

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Ukrainian Defence Forces have advanced at Novodarivka - Pryutne, Novodanylivka - Robotyne and Novosilka - Staromayorske directions, - General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine says in the morning report

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https://liveuamap.com/en/2023/3-july-ukrainian-defence-forces-have-advanced-at-novodarivka

Nice insight to Russia's core problems.

"Power struggles within the Russian state take place in a black box. As the lines often attributed to Winston Churchill go: "Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to bulldogs fighting under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won." For now, it is Prigozhin's bones that we see figuratively and perhaps soon we shall see them literally."

DECLINE

Get Off My Lawn said:

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bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

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Ive been asking on multiple threads, and will try again: can anyone be provide realistic numbers on Ukraine's fighting population? Able bodied men at the outset, severe casualties to date, how many fled, etc?

I'm genuinely curious as to this time comment: with endless supplies from the west, the limiting factor is likely manpower. How much gas do they have in that tank?

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At the beginning of the war, Ukrainian journalist Yuri Butusov estimated that Ukraine could mobilise, as a minimum, 700,000. most of them active duty or veterans of the last 8 years.

https://kontrakty.ua/article/191669

Get Off My Lawn said:

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bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

---

Ive been asking on multiple threads, and will try again: can anyone be provide realistic numbers on Ukraine's fighting population? Able bodied men at the outset, severe casualties to date, how many fled, etc?

I'm genuinely curious as to this time comment: with endless supplies from the west, the limiting factor is likely manpower. How much gas do they have in that tank?

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Before the war, Ukraine had ~11M males between the ages of 15 and 53.

If we assume that as many as 50% are in essential civilian jobs, or are too young or infirm to serve, or have fled abroad, or have been killed or maimed since, that still leaves a rough manpower pool of over 5M to tap--and that's before including willing females of which there are demonstrably millions, too.

Raw manpower isn't an issue for Ukraine.

Get Off My Lawn said:

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bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

---

Ive been asking on multiple threads, and will try again: can anyone be provide realistic numbers on Ukraine's fighting population? Able bodied men at the outset, severe casualties to date, how many fled, etc?

I'm genuinely curious as to this time comment: with endless supplies from the west, the limiting factor is likely manpower. How much gas do they have in that tank?

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Ukrainians are liberating their own home, the better question is how much do the orcs have in their tank!

Ulysses90 said:

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Get Off My Lawn said:

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bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

---

Ive been asking on multiple threads, and will try again: can anyone be provide realistic numbers on Ukraine's fighting population? Able bodied men at the outset, severe casualties to date, how many fled, etc?

I'm genuinely curious as to this time comment: with endless supplies from the west, the limiting factor is likely manpower. How much gas do they have in that tank?

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At the beginning of the war, Ukrainian journalist Yuri Butusov estimated that Ukraine could mobilise, as a minimum, 700,000. most of them active duty or veterans of the last 8 years.

https://kontrakty.ua/article/191669

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My Cyrillic is a bit, well, nonexistent. But coming from you I'll take as a legit source on the professional military reserve (with potential for volunteer/draft/constriction force expansions into several million more).

Any trusted numbers on total force-reducing casualties?

Get Off My Lawn said:

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bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

---

Ive been asking on multiple threads, and will try again: can anyone be provide realistic numbers on Ukraine's fighting population? Able bodied men at the outset, severe casualties to date, how many fled, etc?

I'm genuinely curious as to this time comment: with endless supplies from the west, the limiting factor is likely manpower. How much gas do they have in that tank?

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I don't remember the exact numbers, though I recall at least one of the two channels, Perun or Binkov's Battlegrounds, covering this. Both countries have huge amounts of able bodied men. What's more, they also have foreign volunteers (especially Ukraine).

We are unlikely to get accurate casualty counts for a while, likely after the war.

bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

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Explain in detail.

Time has literally only been beneficial to Ukraine since the first hour of this war.

Ok - I appreciate it.

The idea here is that the Ukes should have broken through the Russians front line and then executed classic maneuver warfare in the enemy rear. Straight out of the Guderian playbook. However the Ukes are also going up against multiple defensive lines far more significant than the ones outside Kharkiv or west of the Dnipro in the previous offensive. Lots more mines, fewer roads (and this is extremely significant), etc. In Donbas you have a bit more territory than the Russians had at the beginning of the war but essentially those areas have almost 10 years of fortifications. If you have limited resources and your opponent has dwindling armor and transportation reserves which you are erroding at a fair clip do you want to commit your limited armor and offensive resources against areas along your main axis of advance ( the south between Melitipol and Mariupol) that have 3-5 bands of defensive lines down a few major roads (and it's not like the US with a million interlocked side roads) oh and did I mention it's uphill into the largest elevation and worst terrain in the entire region?

Look not everyone had formal military training, but enough of us on this thread did that can concisely explain the good reasons for the Ukes doing it the way they are. At current rates of attrition the Russians will basically be out of armor early next year while accounting for refit and replacement rates. If the Ukes can force the Russians to commit fixing their reserves without having to expose their own limited reserves then it might be late this year.

Slow and steady here isn't a bad use of resources. Yes it's annoying, yes it's not to Western expectations of war, which let's be frank are based off of Gulf I and Gulf II. This is peer to peer conflict with two undertrained armies both using a huge hodgepodge of equipment. Things will go slowly and I would expect them to make slow steady progress until late this year. Then the Ukes will press for and likely receive more long range munitions that will expose the East-West supply routes north of the Kerch bridge in range and that will greatly tax the Russians.

I'm not an O&G guy, but I also wonder how long the Russians will be able to go if their infrastructure there begins to fail. So I wouldn't be surprised for this thing to go AT LEAST another 18 months. Pushing it back to roughly the 2014 borders will take about that long.

"We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. And while Crimea is under Russian occupation, it means only one thing: the war is not over yet," said Zelensky. https://t.co/dQnEJczX52

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 3, 2023

I'm as anti Russian as anyone, but I just don't see a realist scenario where Ukraine retakes Crimea

aezmvp said:

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The idea here is that the Ukes should have broken through the Russians front line and then executed classic maneuver warfare in the enemy rear. Straight out of the Guderian playbook. However the Ukes are also going up against multiple defensive lines far more significant than the ones outside Kharkiv or west of the Dnipro in the previous offensive. Lots more mines, fewer roads (and this is extremely significant), etc. In Donbas you have a bit more territory than the Russians had at the beginning of the war but essentially those areas have almost 10 years of fortifications. If you have limited resources and your opponent has dwindling armor and transportation reserves which you are eroding at a fair clip do you want to commit your limited armor and offensive resources against areas along your main axis of advance ( the south between Melitipol and Mariupol) that have 3-5 bands of defensive lines down a few major roads (and it's not like the US with a million interlocked side roads) oh and did I mention it's uphill into the largest elevation and worst terrain in the entire region?

Look not everyone had formal military training, but enough of us on this thread did that can concisely explain the good reasons for the Ukes doing it the way they are. At current rates of attrition the Russians will basically be out of armor early next year while accounting for refit and replacement rates. If the Ukes can force the Russians to commit fixing their reserves without having to expose their own limited reserves then it might be late this year.

Slow and steady here isn't a bad use of resources. Yes it's annoying, yes it's not to Western expectations of war, which let's be frank are based off of Gulf I and Gulf II. This is peer to peer conflict with two undertrained armies both using a huge hodgepodge of equipment. Things will go slowly and I would expect them to make slow steady progress until late this year. Then the Ukes will press for and likely receive more long range munitions that will expose the East-West supply routes north of the Kerch bridge in range and that will greatly tax the Russians.

I'm not an O&G guy, but I also wonder how long the Russians will be able to go if their infrastructure there begins to fail. So I wouldn't be surprised for this thing to go AT LEAST another 18 months. Pushing it back to roughly the 2014 borders will take about that long.

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You said in much more detail what I was saying. It's going to take longer than most casual observers want, but that's because doing so is in their favor.

If Russia's only hope is the west stops supplying Ukraine, then this war is over. Even if they decide to turn off the spigot it won't be without security guarantees that ensure the money spent wasn't for nothing.

Like @secretsqrl123 said, pay attention to Russian boots🔽...

...and the lack of Russian barbed wire. Modern Armies with functional logistics and training establishments have both.

Russia has neither. https://t.co/ss68Lr8VJU pic.twitter.com/iBBaODkJ99

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) July 3, 2023

Teslag said:

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I'm as anti Russian as anyone, but I just don't see a realist scenario where Ukraine retakes Crimea

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If Russia can't utilize Sevastopol or export stolen Ukraine grain from Crimea, it's worthless to them. Ukraine doesn't have to step foot on Crimea to ensure this is the case.

There's a lot of social media conversation about the conscripts and especially the territorial defense units having to fund raise and buy their own equipment.

I think everyone has saw this act of heroism from Ukrainian soldier, who tried to save his comrade

To you it's just an unknown soldier…

But ALL heroes have names and you mustn’t forget them especially if they lost life or limbs for freedom

Here it’s story of this soldier.

1/ pic.twitter.com/0yySfPGr0O

— Cloooud |🇺🇦 (@GloOouD) July 2, 2023

If you remember a video from a few days ago of a Ukrainian soldier jumping off the ramp of a Bradley to rescue a buddy and landed on a mine, he reportedly survived and is in the hospital.

Ukrainian vehicle recovery operations in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, as seen here, a Bergepanzer 2 recovers an M2A2 Bradley IFV from the 47th Mechanized Brigade. Another disabled Bradley, T-72, and IMR-2 can be seen, likely next up for recovery. pic.twitter.com/EdImWSdp4h

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) July 1, 2023

Indicates that Ukrainian forces have made progress past the initial failed assault south of Mala Tokmachka, allowing rear area recovery units to access initially lost vehicles.

Location (47.496496, 35.871316) pic.twitter.com/E0PhwMKOrY

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) July 1, 2023

I have friends in different special operations branches and they wore everything from Salomon to Nike to good ole Chuck Taylors. Seeing that it is Russia it does probably mean they are out of boots but unless you start seeing several platoons wearing street shoes I would take this as a grain of salt

P.U.T.U said:

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I have friends in different special operations branches and they wore everything from Salomon to Nike to good ole Chuck Taylors. Seeing that it is Russia it does probably mean they are out of boots but unless you start seeing several platoons wearing street shoes I would take this as a grain of salt

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I think the gist is that so many of them are not in boots. SpecOps guys do what they want, but everyone else should be in pretty standard gear. The fact they're not means either Russia normally sucks at provisioning their guys or they suck now.

bonfarr said:

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AgLA06 said:

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bonfarr said:

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This War resembles more of the WWI stalemate than the quick thrusts of WWII. I had hoped to see more movement of the battle lines favoring the Ukrainians by now as I just don't think time is on their side.

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Explain in detail.

Time has literally only been beneficial to Ukraine since the first hour of this war.

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I already did so in later posts. Presidential elections could mean leadership change in the US in 18 months and there is no guarantee the taps will remain open for money and material. If the US scaled back support so will many of the other nations. Can Ukraine keep fighting with our goodwill and not our money and weapons?

Russia still has the advantage of more men to throw into the conflict, yes they have mismanaged the war to date but if they get their **** together eventually can Ukraine win?

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WWII was not really a bunch of quick thrusts. It was a lot of waiting, and it took years to push the Nazis from North Africa back to Berlin. It only seems that way because the gains in Europe were made in discrete chunks.

This seems more like WWII than WWI to me because the lines HAVE moved in fairly discrete chunks. Russia advanced really far really quick, but they've slowly receded since then. Ukraine has steadily taken back chunks of land in the north and then the northeast in successful counter-offensives. If those were essentially North Africa and Italy, then this is France and Ukraine's eventually commitment of its reserves will be like D-Day. Hopefully it's as successful.

AgLA06 said:

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Teslag said:

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I'm as anti Russian as anyone, but I just don't see a realist scenario where Ukraine retakes Crimea

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If Russia can't utilize Sevastopol or export stolen Ukraine grain from Crimea, it's worthless to them. Ukraine doesn't have to step foot on Crimea to ensure this is the case.

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I agree with this statement but I think it would take some or more of both the following points:

• Loss of more than one significant ship IE Nuke Sub.
• Loss of or at least significant damage to Kerch Bridge. (repairs to exceed one year).

In order to do this Ukraine would have to use Storm Shadow Missiles and have the right conditions. In range now with export version but Black Sea is heavily patrolled by russians and would likely lose the aircraft and pilot. They would also have to have ATACAMS plus have gained another 10-20KM of front which is a ways off if they wanted to assure more security for the HIMARS.

May also have to include the retaking of either Melitopul or Mariupol which are strategic in themselves and significantly aid in accomplishing both of the above.

Should either above bullet statements occur I predict we will see russia immediately start negotiating for peace to keep Crimea. Its too valuable to them Navy and commercial shipping wise. Once this starts western and european support may begin to crack.

I will say that for everyone hoping for a quick, Blitzkrieg-like victory for Ukraine, there is an excellent example right across the border on how difficult it is to penetrate defense in depth - at Kursk. This thing is going to take time.

Did any details emerge about how Wagner was able to shoot down the Il-22 Command aircraft? I assume they are similar to our AWACS aircraft and wouldn't be flying close enough to the enemy to be brought down by manpads or mobile SAM units.

Black Sea fleet only has diesel subs assigned

GAC06 said:

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Black Sea fleet only has diesel subs assigned

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Isn't that supposed to change once construction at the other location is complete?

Baydar Valley or Mys Balaklavs Kyy which is further south.

Do you think the loss of one or more of their diesel subs would run them out of there or what do you think it would take to render Crimea to risky to use by orc navy?

bonfarr said:

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Did any details emerge about how Wagner was able to shoot down the Il-22 Command aircraft? I assume they are similar to our AWACS aircraft and wouldn't be flying close enough to the enemy to be brought down by manpads or mobile SAM units.

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That bird was probably more like our old ABCCC, rather than AWACS. The E-3, with it's radar can standoff over 200 miles. The ABCCC needed to be pretty close to the action in order to make sure it had radio contact with both the air and ground assets with was C2ing.

I think that putting Sevastopol under real threat of attack would work especially if combined with isolating Crimea by land and cutting the bridge.