Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Elixir]

[welshbairn]

Long read about Russians in retreat.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-russia-base/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

[welshbairn]

Some uncomfortable truths emerging from Russian news pundits.

 

[Newbornbairn]

From another site. This guy is in the Ukrainian military but with links to people in the UK and has been posting what appear to be accurate and genuine updates to them since the start of the war. No idea how genuine this is -

 

Quote

Well, I'm still trying to process what I've seen, but need to get it off of my chest
We got tasked with hostage rescue in ###### ##### behind RF lines, A ### ### had captured a Retired Ukrainian navy intelligence officer, very high level, we inserted fine and neutralized 6 ### ##### and captured 3, when we got inside the house it was like something from a horror movie.

His wife had been raped and executed in front of him, they cut off her head and boiled it in a pan.

2 kids had been tortured and shot in the basement, 10 & 12 years old

They had put torniquets on all of his 4 limbs and had cut them off; other stuff they did to him I can't write on here, but it was so.depraved I cannot express it in words or feelings
****!!! I thought I had seen it all (()

 

[LongTimeLurker]

This looks genuine:

 

 

Maybe it's not just the tank that will come out of this war with a question mark over its future in terms of modern warfare. How would people have reacted in this thread in late February if someone had predicted that towards the end of the year the Ukrainians would be sending naval drones into Sevastopol's harbour to damage warships belonging to the Black Sea fleet?

Think Vlad messed up in some ways by outright annexing the four oblasts recently. Prior to that there was a distinction to be made between Crimea and the occupied parts of mainland Ukraine in terms of potential red lines where the use of NATO weaponry was concerned. Now there's no difference on that between attacking the Black Sea fleet in Sevastapol and pummeling another arms depot in Kherson or Svatove with HIMARS.

Edited October 30, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[Newbornbairn]

 

[Salvo Montalbano]

11 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

 

Is that a WW2 German tank, and what is it pulling?

[LongTimeLurker]

The Ukrainians are using markings that look a little like German WWII ones. It's towing the turret of a Russian tank that's probably recently had a close encounter with some modern anti-tank weaponry supplied by NATO. Meanwhile in the Black Sea:

Edited October 30, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[bennett]

48 minutes ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

Is that a WW2 German tank, and what is it pulling?

Looks like bmp 3 pulling a turret.

 

 

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

18 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Russia has announced its pulling out of the agreement on grain exports via the Black Sea.

This follows a Ukrainian attack on Russian Naval vessels in Sevastopol, captured on video below. Unmanned naval craft managed to hit at least two Russian ships.

 

 

This is a good example of why negotiations with the Russian government would be a waste of time. They've got no interest in honouring their agreements.

[welshbairn]

That's the Pitcairn Islands in the doghouse..

 

[Hillonearth]

19 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

That's the Pitcairn Islands in the doghouse..

 

The inhabitants of the South Sandwich Islands are inconsolable:

[TxRover]

6 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

This looks genuine:

 

 

Maybe it's not just the tank that will come out of this war with a question mark over its future in terms of modern warfare. How would people have reacted in this thread in late February if someone had predicted that towards the end of the year the Ukrainians would be sending naval drones into Sevastopol's harbour to damage warships belonging to the Black Sea fleet?

It’s funny to see all the statements about the tank having a question mark over it, since they are nearly universally horses**t. See this video from an armor expert:

As for naval changes, the drones in question are an effective tactic against a very limited series of targets that aren’t taking any defensive measures. A couple of hydrophones, linked to a decent PC, and positioned to cover the approach to the harbour would certainly allow detection of these drones, and their slow speed and poor maneuverability would make them sitting ducks for any reasonably aware defenders at that point. This little incident is somewhat like the loss of HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow in WW2, a near one off using a weapon in an unexpected manner.

[Newbornbairn]

The Ukrainians are using pretty much the same equipment as the Russians and kicking their arses. It's about training and motivation. The Russian army/navy/air force are all a bit shit really. Something they prove again and again and again -

[TxRover]

6 hours ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

Is that a WW2 German tank, and what is it pulling?

BMD-4M, the giveaway is the horizontals opening at the rear of the hull. Interestingly enough, that’s a pretty rare beast, as the Russians only had about 230-250 of them at the start of the war. It’s an upgraded BMD-4, with the design increased to 80% commonality with the older BMD-3 to allow easier servicing in the field. The -4M is a specific Airborne Assault Troop version of the -4, so could well have been captured during the abortive initial assault the airports around Kharkiv.

As for the German style cross, the Ukrainian Army symbol is a stylized Maltese cross, and recently Ukrainian armor has been sporting white crosses as an identifier during the counter attack.

[Ginaro]

 

 

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, Ginaro said:

 

 

Belongs in the “c***s on the road” thread!

Edited October 30, 2022 by TxRover

[Sergeant Wilson]

15 hours ago, TxRover said:

BMD-4M, the giveaway is the horizontals opening at the rear of the hull. Interestingly enough, that’s a pretty rare beast, as the Russians only had about 230-250 of them at the start of the war. It’s an upgraded BMD-4, with the design increased to 80% commonality with the older BMD-3 to allow easier servicing in the field. The -4M is a specific Airborne Assault Troop version of the -4, so could well have been captured during the abortive initial assault the airports around Kharkiv.

As for the German style cross, the Ukrainian Army symbol is a stylized Maltese cross, and recently Ukrainian armor has been sporting white crosses as an identifier during the counter attack.

That's what I was thinking.

[Detournement]

The Economist is amazing. 

 

[TxRover]

Interesting little note that fragments of a missile shot down by Ukrainian air defences caused damage to buildings in Naslavcea, Moldova. It seems the recent shots at Ukraine have been launched from Tu-60 and Tu-90 bombers flying over the Caspian Sea., using 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missiles. This is interesting because that’s somewhere between 1,,000 to 1,200 km flight distance Lviv, on a straight line path, something they wouldn’t do because of the amount of Ukrainian territory it would overfly.

Why, well because cruise missiles fly at low levels, and via deceptive programmed paths, to avoid being intercepted…what does launching over the Caspian Sea tell us about attacks on western Ukraine? We can assume the Russians will have the missiles fly west over the Black Sea and Crimea before turning north near the Moldovan border to make the run up to western Ukraine. This is a no brainer because the Kalibr can fly at 20m altitude over water versus 50m over land, and because there is much less chance of being spotted (and attacked) over the Black Sea and Crimea. It also forces the Ukrainians to deploy anti-air defences to the Moldovan border area, away from the conflict points where they could also protect against Russian Air Force attacks.

OK, so that tactic makes sense, why it is a potential minefield for Russia? Because Kalibr missiles are technical devices that can make errors, and Russian quality control isn’t the best. While Moldova isn’t a NATO country, Romania certainly is, and the flight distance from someplace like Odessa to Romania is less than 120 miles (and almost all of it over another third country, Moldova). If one or two of those missiles fail to make their programmed turn correctly to the north to run along the Moldovan border, they will then end up somewhere in Moldova, Romania, Hungary or Poland when they come down and explode…and that is, in three of the four cases, potentially an Article Five attack on a NATO member nation.

Sure the Russians can say, “it was a technical error”, “it wasn’t intended”, “we’re sorry”, but the barrage of weapons released against clearly civilian targets by Russia has significantly reduced their wiggle room for a “boo-boo”. Just imagine the response if a Moldovan, let alone a Romanian/Hungarian/Polish, day-care or hospital gets hit by an errant missile…