2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

[Officer of Engineers]

interesting comparison between Ukrainian and Russian counterbattery fire.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/s...50990705958913

Sooo ... what's new? SOP

[TopHatter]

Plan or not, it's an oppertunity ... and one that is being wasted.

Sir, we're not exactly getting a daily briefing of air activity over Ukraine from NATO AWACS sorties here....How are we supposed to know if the UAF is flying in strength or not?

Furthermore, while the attack on this airbase is certainly heartening, both from a materiel and a morale boosting standpoint, it doesn't necessarily mean that the UAF suddenly has a free hand over the front.

[TopHatter]

Belarus says 'technical incident' behind blasts at military base

(Reuters) - Belarus said on Thursday that blasts heard overnight at one of its military bases 30 km (19 miles) from Ukraine were caused by a "technical incident."

At least eight explosions were heard after midnight near Zyabrovka military airport, according to reports on Telegram messenger. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.

Commenting on the incident, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said "the engine of a vehicle caught fire after replacement ... There were no casualties."

The incident occurred after powerful explosions rocked Russia's Saki air base earlier this week in Russian-ruled Crimea, which Moscow had termed an accident.

Ukraine has declined to publicly claim responsibility for the explosions at the base, while also not denying involvement.

Belarus is a close ally of Russia.

Near identical impact craters seen in satellite images and simultaneous explosions appear to indicate the military airport was hit by a volley of new long-range weapons, capable of evading Russian defences.

After reports of the blasts in Belarus, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak noted what he termed an "epidemic of technical accidents," something he described as a warning to Russian troops.

"The epidemic of technical accidents at military airfields of Crimea and Belarus should be considered by Russia military as a warning: forget about Ukraine, take off the uniform and leave," Podolyak said on Twitter.

"Neither in occupied Crimea nor in occupied Belarus will you feel safe. Karma finds you anywhere," he added.
__________

"technical incident".....yeeeeeah, lot of that going around....

[Officer of Engineers]

Sir, we're not exactly getting a daily briefing of air activity over Ukraine from NATO AWACS sorties here....How are we supposed to know if the UAF is flying in strength or not?

Ukrainian propaganda would have been screaming their lungs out. However, professionals will measure this by advances on the ground. Lackluster for the past 3 days.

Furthermore, while the attack on this airbase is certainly heartening, both from a materiel and a morale boosting standpoint, it doesn't necessarily mean that the UAF suddenly has a free hand over the front.

It's an oppertunity. Not a win.

[Officer of Engineers]

"technical incident".....yeeeeeah, lot of that going around....

This one I believe. Keiv cannot giave Belarus an excuse to join the war.

[Monash]

interesting comparison between Ukrainian and Russian counterbattery fire.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/s...50990705958913

Well it certainly explains a lot. Fire mission control like that plus a shortage of PGMs would go a long way towards neutralizing Russia's numerical advantage in tubes. Yet another example of how Russia is actively doing as much if not more to lose the war than Ukraine is to win it.

[Monash]

This one I believe. Keiv cannot giave Belarus an excuse to join the war.

There's a lot of active support for Ukraine in Belarus including, if news reports are to be believed an active saboteur movement. So possibly. Also I still seriously question how keen Lukashenko & his military advisers would be on joining the war even if Ukraine did engage in outright strikes on Russian equipment, stores & bases inside Beloraus - as long as it was Russian equipment. By all accounts Lukashenko is hanging on by a thread in Belorus. A long chain of body bags coming home full from Ukraine would probably be the final straw - and he knows it.

[Officer of Engineers]

I dismissed those reports out of hand. There's no mass protests, let alone an active insurgency. Lukashenko may not have majority support but he does have plurality supporty, meaning his opposition while having more combined support than him, is also divided. The thing Lukashenko cannot do is to unit his opposition and an offensive war will certainly do that. What's also certain is that he cannot allow a foreign challenge to his rule and woe the opposition who says to yield the motherland.to the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainians, therefore, don't have a free hand to attack anything.

[TopHatter]

New Evidence Of AGM-88 Anti-Radiation Missile Use By Ukraine Emerges
Pictures that appear to show the remains of an AGM-88 missile in Ukraine have emerged online for the second time in a week.

[astralis]

This also states that such programing is beyond the Ukrainians without the detailed geographic intel the USAF has access to, I hope we just gave them the data and not involved in the target planning.

correct, US is not involved in target planning.

we give advice and data but the Ukrainians have their own priorities and intel streams/targeting data, sometimes matching with what we provide, sometimes not.

there’s incentive on both sides to keep up this thin wall.

Trent Telenko is good at what he knows, occasionally he spouts off on things he knows little about. I think he was trying to say the Ukrainians do a faster job of targeting than the US. So this is one of the times he is spouting off.

[Ironduke]

New footage of damage to the Nova Kakhovka bridge:

Previous damage to the railroad crossing over the lock portion in late July:

[Ironduke]

So as far as logistics to the West Bank of the Dnipro go:

1) The Antonvisky Bridge is unusable at the moment, hit several times in July, and as late as Aug 7 where the repair equipment was targeted and destroyed
2) The Antonvisky Rail Bridge is cut, no rail traffic can cross
3) The Dariivka Bridge crossing the Inhulets is still passable to road traffic, but degraded
4) Rail traffic across the Nova Kakhovka bridge is cut
5) Nova Kakhovka bridge still passable for road traffic

[Ironduke]

count is now at 4x Su-30s destroyed, 6x Su-24s destroyed, 1x Su-24 damaged.

whoever was in charge of the airbase/airbase defense, if he's not already dead, will probably soon wish he was.

I think the count is higher than that. 6x Su-30s, 7 Su-24s destroyed, 1x Su-24 damaged. There's some residue/debris on the apron where it seems obvious some destroyed airframes were removed before the satellite passed over for the after photo.

[Gun Grape]

interesting comparison between Ukrainian and Russian counterbattery fire.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/s...50990705958913

I don't put much stock in that story. 1 soldiers experience in one small part of a big war.

For the grunt under fire artillery is never fast enough or accurate enough.

His unit may not have been high on the priority of fires list. Never enough arty to go around, everybody wants what we have

CNN had a video where they interviewed a Ukraine Artillery crew using the Krab system. The Btry Cdr stated that they have at most 8 min to shoot and scoot before receiving counterbattery fire from Russian positions.

And there is this

https://kyivindependent.com/national...ry-superiority

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, serving Ukrainian artillery officers polled by the Kyiv Independent admitted that Ukrainian counter-battery activity remains largely problematic, mainly due to the lack of effective top-level organization.

From their perspective, all main components of counter-battery warfare, especially target acquisition via observation points, radar detection, drones, and sound ranging, need to be improved. And target acquisition must be better synchronized with artillery pieces reacting fast to destroy revealed Russian weapons.

And all components need to work as a system and in cooperation with infantry units that should be holding the important local high ground points for artillery, which is often not the case, as artillerists said.

In many cases, Russian successes were ensured not by its overwhelming advantage but by a problematic Ukrainian counter-artillery reaction.

“The infantry has paid for those flaws with its blood,” a Ukrainian artillery officer told the Kyiv Independent.
Today’s Ukrainian top command structure does not have a specific command and control body responsible exclusively for artillery.

Similarly to the General Staff, neither of the four Ukrainian main operational command headquarters (“North,” “South,” “East,” “West”) have command in charge of artillery.

This is the result of decentralization in the military – the restructuring that was made in an attempt to step away from the over-centralized Soviet military system and towards Western practices.

Before decentralization, top-level structures like army corps command were directly responsible for organizing and running counter-battery warfare. Brigade-level artillery command, in the meantime, was responsible for supporting the infantry on battlefields rather than hunting hostile artillery.

Now, due to lack of centralized command overseeing artillery, there’s inconsistency among the Ukrainian units and they have to fix it, says Oleh Zhdanov, a Kyiv-based retired senior artillery officer.

“Each of the larger front line sectors — like Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson — should have at least one or two artillery brigades, that’s four artillery battalions,” Zhdanov said.

“An artillery brigade would be responsible exclusively for counter-battery warfare within the front line’s 100-150-kilometer-long section. It would work as part of the general reconnaissance system. As its forces get fresh data — it immediately goes out to suppress a Russian battery.”

Zhdanov says that each of Ukraine’s operational command headquarters should have a competent artillery department responsible for counter-battery warfare within their sectors.

But this process also needs to be properly organized, with effective communication between the brain and the muscle, to be able to destroy Russia’s most significant advantage over Ukraine.

“The move towards Western methods of working is happening,” said Glen Grant, a retired British Army officer and former adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.

“But it is hampered by lack of communications, poor organizational structures, and still the heavy hand of the old concepts. What is missing still for Ukraine is to complete the decentralization of control artillery by improving the radio links, creating, equipping, and training more front line observer teams for battalions,” he said.

Grant continued, saying that there is a vital need to create a separate trade of artillery intelligence and ensure that they operate in all brigades and have direct radio or Wi-Fi links to every possible source of data about enemy artillery.

[Officer of Engineers]

I think the count is higher than that. 6x Su-30s, 7 Su-24s destroyed, 1x Su-24 damaged. There's some residue/debris on the apron where it seems obvious some destroyed airframes were removed before the satellite passed over for the after photo.

Doesn't matter. The base is out of operations.