-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
Europe under extreme duress
- Thread starter Randy Daytona
- Start date
The guy has some excellent points and for some we’ll have to wait to see what unfolds. At first I thought this was simply a tactical raid designed to draw Russian forces off the southern line, but it seems to be more. If Ukraine can split the rail line and capture the LNG transfer station they’ll have planted a flag on international energy sales and put a serious dent in Russian logistic planning. There is, of course, the psychological aspect of hitting Russia in her “most holy” military spot (it would be like the Chinese capturing Yorktown) but this is dangerous because a strong Russian counteroffensive could erase the gains and give Russia the psychological edge letting them say “We’ve kicked the “Nazis” out of here twice!”
I hope the Ukrainian army has planned for sufficient reinforcements and some near-set flanking forces to hold their gains and disrupt any Russian counteroffensives.
Yes, will be interesting to see how it plays out. For the most part, I believe UKR has the upper hand in operational design. The fact that RUS was seemingly caught flat-footed tells me something about their Intel, and a basic hubris that nobody would dare seize any of their territory in war.
I mean <fuck>, if it weren't for RUS nukes, the Poles would have sacked the Kremlin yesterday.
So far in this war the Russians haven’t shown much talent for maneuver warfare, particularly combined-arms fighting, and I would be surprised if they suddenly got better at it just because it’s on the other side of the border. Once the Kherson offensive culminated in ‘22 and the Ukrainians couldn’t continue, the Russians had time to dig in, mine the hell out of the front, and bring up artillery - static defensive war is one thing they are good at. There’s a question of whether the UAF can hold the line in the east while sustaining this offensive, but you gotta figure the Russians are going to pull their Cat A units from the line to fight this. Putin *has* to defeat this in a big way for his domestic audience.
I don’t know if there’s any Russian territory within Ukraine’s reach that’d make them give up Crimea in exchange…not like they’re going to grab St Petersburg and burn down Vova’s childhood home or anything…but if there is, it’s Kursk.
I don’t know if there’s any Russian territory within Ukraine’s reach that’d make them give up Crimea in exchange…not like they’re going to grab St Petersburg and burn down Vova’s childhood home or anything…but if there is, it’s Kursk.
Yeah I’m surprised at how tightly the Ukrainians were able to keep a lid on this. Supposedly one of the lessons of this war is nobody can move anything within 10 km of the front without being seen and shwacked, but looks like they did - and we’re talking Leopards, Strykers, and Abrams. Rumors they brought up some HIMARS too but not sure how valid that is.
Anyway, there were reports of pissed off Russian soldiers complaining on social media that they reported Ukr movements up the chain but were ignored. The Russians shut off domestic access to Telegram and YouTube today so they really didn’t like that word getting around.
If I were a senior dude in GRU right now I’d stay away from tall windows.
I’m not sure I agree. Those crazy fucks have balls and they *hate* the Russians. I think they’d roll the bones on nukes if it were up to them.
I'm honestly curious how Putin will go out. Dying in office, military coup?
Personally, I'd prefer Qaddafi-style...with a stick in his ass in a ditch while fleeing Moscow.
Putin 'seething & scared' over Ukraine's invasion of Russia, insiders claim
DESPERATE Vladimir Putin is “seething” over the Ukrainian blitz that has seen Russia scrambling to defend Kursk, insiders claim. The humiliated tyrant is even said to be battling against his own me…
www.the-sun.com
As fucking awesome and smart as this is tactically- couple of telegram channels saying Russians are pulling a bunch of brigades off the line in Kherson etc- it’s not a big escalation for Ukraine so much as it may be for the US.
If we’re providing targeting data for HIMARS strikes, which we almost certainly are, smoking convoys on Russian soil responding to a UKR invasion of Russian land, that is a hell of an embarrassment for Putin and Friends. Gloves are a lot more off than a year or two ago when we were clutching pearls about particular flavors of HIMARS and ATACMS relative to range.
Or possibly years from now at some lavish, secluded dacha long after transferring power to a person or group within his regime, either post election or through some other political means.
Possible, but doubtful. He'd never trust that setup. He's paranoid as shit, and I guarantee you there are folks with scores to settle. He'd never give up his state security service protection apparatus. It's the dictator's dilemma.
Is this though an example of their actually being good at defensive warfare, or more just placing a bunch of obstacles in the way of the understrength Ukrainian forces? I mean probably anyone can be good at defensive warfare in that sense, by mining the daylights out of the terrain and placing lots of obstacles in the way. They also have more artillery and artillery ammo than the Ukrainians right now. As for their learning, I doubt they will. Soviet doctrine emphasized in particular combined arms and maneuver warfare. They even emphasized this more after WWII, reducing the individual sizes of armies because the thinking was that in a future nuclear war with NATO, Soviet forces were going to need to be fast and mobile on the battlefield with nukes detonating.
When the Germans invaded in 1941, the Soviets initially had no real idea how to fight as Stalin had shot something like 30,000+ officers. However, by 1942, they had clearly learned (and re-learned) a lot. They successfully snuck multiple armies around the Germans at Stalingrad, then destroyed the Sixth Army. They also utilized very smart tactics within the city itself to grind the Germans down.
They then launched an offensive at the Germans, which von Manstein played chicken and pretended to flee to trick the Soviet generals, only to swing his forces around at the last second and destroy three Soviet armies. The thing is though, this was due to Stalin's meddling, as his generals had warned him. The Soviets had learned through hard experience with the Germans that you do not just straight attack them, as they'll see it coming and were very wily on the defense. So you had to utilize extensive deception tactics and also have your logistics solid to sustain the offensive. Stalin insisted he knew better though, so multiple under strength Soviet armies went at the Germans.
Thing is, this was only about a year and eight months into the German attack. The Germans attacked June 22,, 1941. This reversal was February-March of 1943, yet we already see a huge amount of sophistication on the part of the Soviets. As it stands right now, the Russians are more than two years into this war and don't seem to have learned much at all.
I’m kinda reluctant to look to much into 1941-45 for any of this. It was a vastly different war, leadership, domestic context, foreign policy situation, and enemy from what’s going on now. “Tanks in Kursk” is about as far as the similarity goes. Putin isn’t Stalin, as much as he’d like to be, and instead of most of the world’s industrial strength back him up, he has those chuds in NK, some home-brew Iranian drones, and maybe some Chinese cash now and again, strictly on the low.
The Ukrainians have tended to gamble smart so far in this war. They’ve made mistakes, but rarely the same mistake twice. If they’re putting their chips in on this Kursk incursion, I’m willing to believe they know what they’re doing.
The Ukrainians have tended to gamble smart so far in this war. They’ve made mistakes, but rarely the same mistake twice. If they’re putting their chips in on this Kursk incursion, I’m willing to believe they know what they’re doing.