History in the Making: Russian Invasion

I believe most of the workers the Germans used were more along the line of concentration camp then POW, and they where well aware of potential sabotage, and obviously had zero restraint in punishing any attempt in the most brutal ways.  Still seemed to happen though. Of course a lot of that could also be having an unskilled workforce building high performance / high precision machines.

The Russians are also well aware of the potential (even from their own troops).  That is why they have the Security Forces (or whatever they are officially called) who are there to hunt down anyone not fighting. They have been doing something similar since at least WWII.

This seems to support the video that was recently posted (Russians running out of good ammo):

US: Russia to buy rockets, artillery shells from North Korea

A newly downgraded U.S. intelligence finding says the Russian Ministry of Defense is in the process of purchasing millions of rockets an artillery shells from North Korea for its ongoing fight in Ukraine

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-russia-buy-rockets-artillery-shells-north-korea-89382583

Still hard to say exactly what is going on, but the Ukrainians seem to be blasting the Russian logistics.  It seems like (not surprisingly) the Russians are heavily using artillery to attack the advancing Ukrainians.

Not sure if they will be a big breakthrough / move by the Ukrainians, but I can see some potential for a general collapse of Russian defense (created by low moral, lack of supplies etc).  They have to get past their security forces of course. It seems like the Russians are getting more and more desperate and are clearly fully defensive in the south west (with some rather feeble offensive attempts in the east)

This shows the level of desperation:

Russian authorities are apparently attempting to recruit personnel typically unfit for military service due to physical and mental illnesses, further indicating that traditional sources of combat power are being increasingly exhausted. St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Dispensary No. 2 posted now-deleted military recruitment ads to its website on September 5.[70] The Ukrainian General Staff similarly noted that Russian authorities are forcibly mobilizing men of military age with various diseases and injuries from hospitals in occupied areas of Donetsk Oblast.[71] The increasing reliance on individuals with physical and mental illness, who are unlikely to receive proper training, medical, or psychological support before being deployed, will likely exacerbate already-poor morale and discipline within mobilized Russian units in Ukraine.

In reply to aircooled : Russia to buy rockets, artillery shells from North Korea

I am sure the quality is just as good as the Russian made munitions.  Some of the munitions may be just as old as the Russian munitions.

In reply to Noddaz :

For all we know, they probably are Russian made munitions.  May even be Chinese munitions from the Korean war..

In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :

Indeed, they may very well be!  And it would be interesting if that train or trains had a derailment on the way to the front.  

In reply to aircooled re unfit recruits :

Sounds like they are to be cannon fodder plus its a chance to get rid of undesirable (to Putin)  people.   

An article on foreign fighters in Ukraine talked about how the Ukrainians where making careful / slow advance because of their lack of armor and heavy weapons support so they are effectively unable to make large moves / advances.  They also talked about how they are heavily shelled by the Russians where ever they go.

This of course could very well be miss-information intended to distract the Russians.... or not.

If the slow advance thing is the case, it could take a VERY long time to recover their territory without some sort of general Russian collapse.

The Ukrainian airforce is up and running apparently.

Ukrainian aviation conducted 27 air strikes at Russian bases, ammunition depots, command points and gatherings of military and equipment, - General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine says in the morning report

In regards to the attack on the Russian Crimean airbase that took out a bunch of jets.  Looks like the Ukrainians have a new weapon to use:

In a joint article of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi and First Deputy Head of Rada Security committee they confirmed that Ukrainian missiles behind explosions at Saky airbase in occupied Crimea

The question of where and how Ukraine's armor is deployed is an interesting one. Soviet/Russian doctrine used armor and artillery to effect a breakthrough, then poured more armor through the breach, but that clearly only works when you have all the armor. Neither side does at this point, so it remains to be seen how Ukraine intends to break the Russian lines. A straight infantry/artillery grind might work if Russia morale falters, but it's slow and costly. Is the armor in reserve waiting to pour through a breach? Is it being held to counter Russian moves? Or is it going to be committed Soviet-style to the spearhead before the Russians have broken? A lot of this is contingent on what Ukrainian operational objectives are, and that's something we just don't know. There's been chatter about a second offensive move near Kharkiv in the last day or two - is that where the armor is? Is the Kherson front a diversion? With HARMs proving effective and allowing Ukraine's air force back over the front lines, does this portend renewed armor thrusts under effective CAP (something that was not possible pre-HARM)? Or are they waiting for new equipment, such as the upgraded T-72s from Poland and the Leopard 2A7s promised by Germany?

So many questions, so few answers.

I find it interesting nobody is talking about the use of helicopters of late...  

In reply to 02Pilot :

Do the Russians have anything equivalent to Javelins?  At least in usable numbers?  If so, I could see Ukraine being unwilling to commit armor to any major offensive, as it might prove worthless.  APCs and IFVs are probably good for moving troops closer to harm's way, but are not durable enough for a front line fight.  Individual troops may be more vulnerable, but they are much easier to disperse.

Yahoo.com: Russian Pontoon Bridge Destroyed in Kherson Region

Interesting how Russia can't deflect the HIMARS with their GPS jammers like they use around Kaliningrad.

Yahoo.com: CORRECTED-Finland detects GPS disturbance near Russia's Kaliningrad

In reply to eastsideTim :

I don't know a lot about Russian ATGMs, at least not newer ones. Whatever they have, I suspect it's an order of magnitude less effective than the Javelin (which is both fire-and-forget and top attack capable). Still, armor could be vulnerable, at least the old Soviet stuff. If the Ukrainians get modern tanks, like the Leopard 2, well that's a whole different ballgame.

APCs are just battle taxis, or cans full of crunchies if you prefer the tanker point of view. Infantry is squishy; putting it in a tin can doesn't make it any less so. I can't imagine which is worse: trying to advance on foot under a barrage, or doing it inside a big flammable rolling box with several of your closest friends. No thanks.

Edit: Seeing some preliminary reports of a Ukrainian armor breakthrough on the Kharkiv front, and Ukrainian employment of NATO-style combined arms tactics. Chosen axis seems to be an area with limited Russian defenses.

Possibly abit of a flounder, if so I apologize:

I've had a Ukraine flag on my cars since the 'special fascist operation' began because... reasons.  Great uncle was a partisan in Slovenia against fascist swarm #1.

At the store today, a mouthbreather informed me that I need to 'do my own research, beacuse Zelinskyy is doing most of the war crimes'.

I replied with 'Research Bucha' and a hand signal. 

In other news, since Raytheon paid for my formative years and a portion of my education, I love how they were able to make HARMs integrate with analog MIGs.

I imagine there is roughly 100x that innovation that we will never hear about that happens every day with other modalities.

XLR99 (Forum Supporter) said:

Possibly abit of a flounder, if so I apologize:

I've had a Ukraine flag on my cars since the 'special fascist operation' began because... reasons.  Great uncle was a partisan in Slovenia against fascist swarm #1.

At the store today, a mouthbreather informed me that I need to 'do my own research, beacuse Zelinskyy is doing most of the war crimes'.

I replied with 'Research Bucha' and a hand signal. 

In other news, since Raytheon paid for my formative years and a portion of my education, I love how they were able to make HARMs integrate with analog MIGs.

Misinformation makes me sick and I see more and more of it from my side of the political spectrum and it really upsets me because it ruins any legitimate argument that you might have.

In reply to XLR99 (Forum Supporter) :

The creativity of the Ukrainians is impressive, even before comparing them to their adversaries. 

tuna55 said:

XLR99 (Forum Supporter) said:

Possibly abit of a flounder, if so I apologize:

I've had a Ukraine flag on my cars since the 'special fascist operation' began because... reasons.  Great uncle was a partisan in Slovenia against fascist swarm #1.

At the store today, a mouthbreather informed me that I need to 'do my own research, beacuse Zelinskyy is doing most of the war crimes'.

I replied with 'Research Bucha' and a hand signal. 

In other news, since Raytheon paid for my formative years and a portion of my education, I love how they were able to make HARMs integrate with analog MIGs.

Misinformation makes me sick and I see more and more of it from my side of the political spectrum and it really upsets me because it ruins any legitimate argument that you might have.

Whatever happened to critical, unbiased thinking? It seems that the majority of people choose their team and therefore eat whatever they are fed from that team whole. I think that a better approach is to assume that everyone is biased and sift through the information to make up ones own mind.

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

There is in fairness very little critical thinking going on right now in terms of assessing the progress of the war. We are of course only fed Ukraine positive information which we lap up. You only hear about Ukraine successes and Russian failures, and most stories I read have their roots in the Ukraine. I am sure Ukraine is as adept at propaganda as Russia.

Part of assessing information is how it meshes with priors.

What we are hearing of Russian tactics and doctrine meshes with Soviet tactics and doctrine, which we know about both from independent observation and through what we have been told by both them and their opponents.  I see no reason to doubt Ukrainian reports they they are still trying to hammer a nail that way when that is one or two generations of warfare behind.

The other thing to consider is that eyewitness accounts thanks to self published media tell a tale.  Yes, there are cluster-f's, the fog of war will do that, but by and large what the man on the street with a cell camera and Youtube account (or volunteer soldier with a GoPro on his helmet) meshes.

8 minute rant about how Russian propaganda works, from someone witnessing it happen

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

Fair enough, and surely Ukraine is not a paragon of integrity, but the relationship is clear: There is an invader and a defender. The burden of proof is higher for the invader, and Russia has been proven significantly more often than Ukraine to be dead wrong in public. 

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I get that but whenever I read Ukraine reports of heavy losses inflicted I take it with a grain of salt. If they kill 80 Russians they are even in a perfect world losing a bunch of their own forces.

In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :

One has to take everything from almost anywhere with a grain of salt. Loss/kill numbers are typically exaggerated, but I hear more straight silliness from Russia than from the other guys.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

I get that but whenever I read Ukraine reports of heavy losses inflicted I take it with a grain of salt. If they kill 80 Russians they are even in a perfect world losing a bunch of their own forces.

Since we live in a world where a large band of people can geolocate pictures and have access to satellite imagery, it makes it harder to fake. What I see is that the Russians have been shown to be hopeless in terms of propaganda outside of their own heavily filtered population. Every time they try to fake something, the rest of the world calls them out, often before it is executed. Whoever was behind releasing the normally-classified satellite imagery in the administration is really an unsung hero of this war.

What the Russians are doing may have worked in WWII, although enough evidence exists of their atrocities there, so maybe you have to go back even further.

When I was young, I watched the Persian Gulf war on TV. It was the first time that happened, and it was a pretty clever move by that administration, and basically created CNN. Now my kids are watching a war in which our country is not fighting, and they are watching it on Twitter in real time.

Body counts don't matter. The Five O'clock Follies in Vietnam were known for giving journalists big numbers to make it look like the war was being won, and we saw how that turned out.

Napoleon said that "in war the moral is to the physical as three is to one". He might have been a short, megalomaniacal Corsican who managed to lose the same war twice, but he got that sentiment completely right, at least. By that standard, Ukraine is certainly in a stronger position.

02Pilot said:

I don't know a lot about Russian ATGMs, at least not newer ones. Whatever they have, I suspect it's an order of magnitude less effective than the Javelin (which is both fire-and-forget and top attack capable). Still, armor could be vulnerable, at least the old Soviet stuff. If the Ukrainians get modern tanks, like the Leopard 2, well that's a whole different ballgame.

I think the 2006 Lebanon war illustrated the capabilities of the more modern Russian ATGMs.