Russian special military operation in Ukraine #40

I mean there are maps from when the Mongols ruled Large chucks of what is now Russia, so does that mean Russia should give the land back to Mongolia? Point is things change and comments like that serve no purpose at all and just just stupid

But if you listen to the west the lines currently on maps are set in stone and cannot be moved... unless it is in their interests and then it is OK to move them and create new countries etc etc.

All of which don't want to get exposed to toxic fumes.

Who said it is toxic?

On a battlefield you will have the air filled with burned powders from rifles and other weapons of all types and things burning giving off smoke and fumes... even the soldiers themselves will operate under the cover of smoke screens...

Maybe there is an operating mode where you can keep the hatch shut in high risk areas and just drop the primer cap on the floor instead.

The timing needed to drop a grenade into that small hatch that ejects stub metal shell cases would need to be world class... it does not remain open for long and is rather small.

That extraction hatch opens automatically and closes in a sec. Drones are no issue, unless the Ukrainians drone operators are clairvoyant and genius-level physicists, as they'd have to foresee the gun firing and time the drop with the drone's current height, the fall speed of the munition etc in mind.

Plus, as you could see on the video the shell stub is not ejected when the round is fired... it is ejected when the next round is loaded... which might be just after a shot is fired or it might not...

Those drones with a higher weapons load look like they are in service. It's raining grenades on these hohols heads

Clever... use a drone dropped grenade to make them scatter and then shower the area with grenade launcher rounds a couple of times to get some hits...

You get smoke, the hatch has to stay open and some Ukrainian $1000 drone drops a grenade into your hatch.

Wrong... they likely had the hatches open to improve visibility for the cameras by making the tank interior brighter and easier to see... normally in operational use the hatches would be closed so the smoke would not enter the turret so much because the air pressure in the turret would be higher as the air is coming in via the ventilation system... which has filters on it... for the same reason that in an NBC conflict the hatches would remain shut and the air filtered to prevent chem or bio weapons or radiation from the outside entering the tank...

On the Abrams they have chosen to just drop on to the turret floor; not ideal either to sit in between spent primer caps stacking up on the floor.

A human loader can aim the empty case at an empty gap on the floor or perhaps even put it in an empty storage space for ammo... it will be hot when it first comes out but that is why he will be wearing gloves...

The full length brass case also seals the fumes and reduces the amount of fumes coming into the crew compartment.

The main reason the 2A72 was developed was because the 2A42 filled the BMP-2 turret with fumes when fired at the highest rate of 500rpm.

Hardly the end of the world... just fire at the lower rate.

Some interesting analysis -

Both sides have moved to conserve ammo

The sat images posted show that Russia is accumulating ammo , and Ukraine as well has lowered the usage of ammunition and moved to conservation regime

The current situation seems like stalemate, but in reality Russia is sitting back waiting for Ukraine to make its move,  which of course based on Zelensky recent admission that losing Bakhmut would be a defeat, and that they must win in Bakhmut at all costs

Russia is confident that it can sit back and let Ukraine make the first move

What does Russia know?

Currently the west is producing less than 100,000 shells per month... Ukraine is using 180,000 per month - 6000 shells per day , it will take the west years to reach 180,000+ per month capacity , activating Slovakia to boost production of 155mm

Russia produces 300,000 shells per month , or 3.6 million per year , and is firing 10,000 shells per day, or the full capacity of production

They can ramp up 2x, to 7.2 million (20,000 shells a day) - we saw Shoigu visit the Kirov and Chelyaninsk factories

Despite this, is 10,000 shells vs 6000 shells or roughly 2 : 1 advantage enough to make advances on the front?

Well to be short, No, even when Russia was firing 50,000 or 60,000 shells a day before Prigozhin began to complain of shortages (really a conscious decision to save ammo) - there was minor advances on the front

So there is a belief, that Russian general Staff has concluded that the war will not be won on this game alone- in fact we see now KM-8 Gran 120mm semi active laser guided mortar being used to hit Ukrainian supply lines to Bakhmut

The Malakhit automated artillery fire control system also has shown up, to queue Gran system for precise strikes

By using precise weapons, Russia is able to expend less ammunition and achieve similar results- the Soviet grid based artillery fire system could utilize 200 shells for a target, which Kitolov or Gran could achieve in 2 hits

We also see increasing use of glide bombs FAB with UMPC module - Yuri Ignat spokesman of Ukrainian AF confirms their use along with video in Avdeyevka and Kremenaya

Where does this lead? Well Ukraine has about 5 army corps or 100,000 men, proven in vids of accumulation of armament, that will be thrown in a direction soon. Will it be Zaporozhye,  or bakhmut, or Kremennaya? Well we do not know

What we do know, is Russia has 500,000 men concentrated along the border , and the VKS has UMPC FABS, and the army has other precise weapons just waiting for the Ukrainians to pop their heads out

When they do there will be a slaughter - remember Kherson , where they went with 80,000 men, and did not win one victory on the front against a small garrison which was isolated by the river

This kind of attack will fail, as the probes have failed - and when it does, Russia will spring forward - to where? Also unknown , but judging by Peskovs own admission that only a military solution can be applied to Ukraine

It's safe to say, that the offensive is not a matter of if , but when

And from what we can tell, as soon as the Ukrainians lose Bakhmut, they will be forced to make their move, so Russia will wait for them, as a chess master, sometimes it's better to go after, especially when you control the board

Stay tuned

And from what we can tell, as soon as the Ukrainians lose Bakhmut, they will be forced to make their move, so Russia will wait for them, as a chess master, sometimes it's better to go after, especially when you control the board

Controlling the air means you can also safely move forces to where they are most needed too, so local numbers and air power... and as mentioned on one of those videos the Russian air command has changed and has probably learned quite a bit from this conflict... it will be interesting to see how they perform moving forward.

100k shells a month is only 3333 shells a day. 10000 vs 3333 is a massive difference. Plus ukraine is not getting all the production

Plus their lines of logistics and storage of ammo near the front line for use is compromised by the people they have been shelling the last better part of 10 years... every ammo dump the Russians hit will cost the orcs dear...

Mntzr wrote:
100k shells a month is only 3333 shells a day. 10000 vs 3333 is a massive difference. Plus ukraine is not getting all the production

Add them all together: the full ramped up rate of 90k a month for U.S., 6k for Canada, ~40k for Germany (the highest in Europe, as they stated), and let’s be generous and say an additional 50k a month from various other countries to supplement (France, Australia, etc), we get a total of 186,000 per month x 12 = 2.2 million a year.

186k per month is exactly 6,200 a day, which precisely matches AFU’s expenditures. So, one can see that at full ramp up, NATO should theoretically be able to just eke out keeping Ukraine afloat

If we conclude that not all the expenditure is 155mm and that another portion is 152mm

The production and expenditure make sense

The numbers fluctuate, but the picture is clear