Russian special military operation in Ukraine #46

Consequences of a missile attack

Looks more like the work of some moles.

T 80 BVM

Is this a foldable roof protection device?

Orekhov, Rabotino, Staromayorskoe 

All those places are meatgrinders for the Ukros. Staromayonnaise is under full fire control by russian troops.

Putin said 10:1 

Still playing nice. The difference is likely much higher.

T-47 wrote:So is there gonna be another mobilization or is it just internet as usual?

I suspect there will be one this year

Right now there are just some legal shuffles relating to it, and the need is not great - unless they mean to relieve earlier mobilized soldiers - but I doubt Putin wants to announce a mobilization next year when elections are already looming. Makes more sense for them to announce a call up say this autumn.

According to the results of July 2023, 134 episodes of attacks with Lancet ammunition against targets of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were published.
•‎ May 2023 record (62 attacks) more than doubled.
• Increase in the number of attacks is 22.3 times compared to the same period in 2022.
• The number of attacks in July 2023 is higher than in all of 2022
https://t.me/lost_armour/1313

Interestingly different way of counting losses, dead Sim cards. A problem is that it is difficult to discount the Sim cards lost to the Ukie network (one of several) due to emigration, particularly eastwards (westwards would tend to keep the Sims active with roaming). What do you think? My highlight.

Ukrainian government keeps the losses secret, so people are looking for ways to estimate and there is a new method. Ukrainian phone operators can distinguish between SIM cards that moved abroad and those that disappeared. The ratio between SIM/persons in Ukraine is 1.2 and there is 1.1mil irretrievable SIM cards.

In Russian, end of article starting with P.S. https://mobile-review.com/all/articles/misc/spam-ataka-mobilnogo-telefona-kak-zashhitit-sebya-ot-nepriyatnostej/

These days I talked with Ukrainian operators, discussed various issues. I was struck by a number, a new metric that cut with its cynicism - the irretrievable loss of SIM cards. Behind the Aesopian language are people who will never again be able to call, write, enjoy life. At the beginning of summer, Ukrainian operators estimate their "irretrievable losses" at 1.1 million SIM cards. Until March 2022, there were 1.2 SIM cards per person in Ukraine, you can calculate the rest yourself.

And these are not the SIM cards that are in roaming, these are phones that have been silenced forever, and people who now live in Russia and have refused the services of Ukrainian operators are also not taken into account. Statistics that speak for themselves, Ukraine is rapidly ending.

As a representative of one of the operators in Ukraine said, “Since the beginning of July, we have been losing 5.5 thousand SIM cards in the east of the country every week, other operators have the same figures. Ukraine has objectively deprived itself of a future.” I have nothing to add to these words, I am not in Ukraine, but my view of what is happening is similar. I sympathize with those who found themselves hostage to this situation and could not escape from it.

The metric for forever silenced SIM cards in Ukraine suggest AFU losses are over 900k (1.1 million SIM-cards person per 1.2 SIM-cards/person = 916k).

Posted by: unimperator | Jul 31 2023 19:35 utc | 78 At MoA

Lord Bebo
@MyLordBebo
Ukrainian soldier on ammo run goes over to the Russian sides and brings MANPADs with him.

flamming_python wrote:

I suspect there will be one this year

Right now there are just some legal shuffles relating to it, and the need is not great - unless they mean to relieve earlier mobilized soldiers - but I doubt Putin wants to announce a mobilization next year when elections are already looming. Makes more sense for them to announce a call up say this autumn.

so all those volunteers ( they said ~1500 a day +) is not enough?

Something like 150K or so are sitting on western border with 150K in Ukraine. So why another? Are they expecting possibly Poland to actually attempt?

GunshipDemocracy wrote:so all those volunteers ( they said ~1500 a day +)  is not enough?

Assuming that figure is true

Maybe they want to hedge against the possibility of engaging NATO. As Putin said Russia is prepared to do if neccessary

Either way, there have been some legal changes prepared for mobilization or are being prepared. So they're at least open to the possibility of enacting mobilization again.

flamming_python wrote:

Maybe they want to hedge against the possibility of engaging NATO. As Putin said Russia is prepared to do if neccessary

Either way, there have been some legal changes prepared for mobilization or are being prepared. So they're at least open to the possibility of enacting mobilization again.

ok that makes sense, yet  - this means a preparation for even longer conventional  conflict.  I hope it wont happen though.

sepheronx wrote:Something like 150K or so are sitting on western border with 150K in Ukraine. So why another? Are they expecting possibly Poland to actually attempt?

Iam afraid that with aggressive warmongers now ruling Poland the "help for Pukraine or "Belorussian opposition" is getting more and more probable :/

Mobilization is indeed coming, and the reason is that the MIC is producing so many things that there are enough equipment to go around for another army of 300,000 and even more

That reserve would take more than 3 months to train, as it would be a non-combat experience pool that will be drafted

You cannot send them into combat until maybe 6 to 9 months or even a year of training

But what you can do, is free up the forces which are sitting in reserve and have been training for many months

Also the men in Zaporozhye have to be rotated, there are many reports of guys literally having fought through the Ukro banzai for long without rotation

So that is also the case, and lastly, polls are showing this war needs to be wrapped up

While economic damage was inflicted, it's clear neither side will capitulate and have enough resources to continue the current state of affairs without it worsening drastically for any side

It's time to end it, at the same time, the military realizes they cannot keep things in this general state, the average soldier wants this to end, and people in Russia want their brothers, fathers, uncles back, Russia is not some orc country where people are born to die in forever war

People want an end , and that's why Wagner rebelled, and that's why Shoigu is in North Korea

An end must be written to this story, and it must be written that Russia won this war against the evils of Kiev and the West, further suspense will just not do, and there's no certainty Moscow will survive it, or that the military might conduct a coup at some point in the future - uncertainty already led to one shitshow which was negotiated

No more 5d chess, people demand results

Arkanghelsk wrote:Mobilization is indeed coming, and the reason is that the MIC is producing so many things that there are enough equipment to go around for another army of 300,000 and even more

That reserve would take more than 3 months to train, as it would be a non-combat experience pool that will be drafted

You cannot send them into combat until maybe 6 to 9 months or even a year of training

But what you can do, is free up the forces which are sitting in reserve and have been training for many months

Also the men in Zaporozhye have to be rotated, there are many reports of guys literally having fought through the Ukro banzai for long without rotation

So that is also the case, and lastly, polls are showing this war needs to be wrapped up

While economic damage was inflicted, it's clear neither side will capitulate and have enough resources to continue the current state of affairs without it worsening drastically for any side

It's time to end it, at the same time, the military realizes they cannot keep things in this general state,  the average soldier wants this to end, and people in Russia want their brothers, fathers, uncles back, Russia is not some orc country where people are born to die in forever war

People want an end , and that's why Wagner rebelled, and that's why Shoigu is in North Korea

An end must be written to this story, and it must be written that Russia won this war against the evils of Kiev and the West, further suspense will just not do, and there's no certainty Moscow will survive it, or that the military might conduct a coup at some point in the future - uncertainty already led to one shitshow which was negotiated

No more 5d chess, people demand results

I believe most of this, but how does Russia end this war soon? I mean without the shit the west so very much deserves but that would render most of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable.

ucmvulcan wrote:

I believe most of this, but how does Russia end this war soon?  I mean without the shit the west so very much deserves but that would render most of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable.

The longer this goes on the higher risk there is of a general military coup, or NATO intervention, which wasn't a problem if they took Galicia, before Belarus said it was a national security risk if Poland and the baltics surround them

The military calculated right, it was a good choice to attrite and deplete Ukraine of manpower and equipment

But now this needs to end, how many uncalculated risks exist for what could happen if this keeps going the way it does?

There was a calculated approach to this, and it worked, but it can't go on forever, how many times can Crimea Bridge get blown up? How many times will there be a military rebellion towards Moscow?

How many more men need to die, in this game being played ? It's not a game for Russia,  and the longer this gets dragged out, the more potential exists for any scenario the west wants to trigger to happen

Strelkov was arrested for extremism, well noone cares about it, he's irrelevant

But what if it's another person with some power? Like Prigozhin? Maybe another Oligarch decides to assassinate Putin? Then what?

It's not going to be funny, and that's why Moscow has woken up from this fantasy they conjured up

Yes the system built was resilient and withstood the greatest economic shocks and even violent terror

But let them not tempt fate anymore and do what needs to be done

Conduct a general offensive from Voronezh/Belgorod into Kharkov this year, when the manpower is ready, go in from the north east, and push to Dnieper and take Kiev

Conduct the rest of the war west of the Dnieper and play the game a little further away from home because a lot of people are tired of it all

The biggest issue with those drones is that they are extremely hard to spot.

Which is why I am suggesting LIDAR and using existing air defence vehicles...

Best way to deal with them is shotguns... you know the ones seen in movies where they shoot at plates in the air. They need to give at least one light shot gun per squad or group of soldiers working togather.

It could be part of the solution but not perfect... shotguns could be made effective to perhaps 50-60m, but a drone hovering 300m above your unit dropping hand grenade like munitions will be totally safe from shotguns.

Even a 10 gauge shotgun might reach 70-80m at best.

The shotgun is a versatile weapon that can be used against a range of game, but in military use it is effective with solid slugs and buckshot. You might have other rounds like smoke or illumination or smashing door hinges, and perhaps a few other specialised rounds, but the ammo is bulky and very short ranged.

You need training and experience to shoot well with a shotgun, but a shotgun is the best weapon for aerial targets because of its lack of range meaning you are not showering nearby units with lethal bullets like a LMG would.

But one thing is sure, they change the battlefield and you can't have 0 losses when you face them. They can easily destroy multimillion dollar equipement.

Well the advantage of facing the all plastic all electric drones is they tend to be very light which means the payloads they deliver are not especially deadly all the time... a hand grenade dropped from 300m might not land amongst a group of soldiers if there is a cross wind, and it probably only carries one or two grenades.

A decent helmet and body armour and having a vehicle to sit inside offers good protection from quite a few of the drones in operation.

Some sort of APS system that will intercept drones as they get close would be a useful addon for most vehicles, though having enough munitions would be an issue in a concerted attack, what we haven't seen is one vehicle being hit by dozens of drones like some vehicles in combat have been hit by dozens of RPGs or ATGMs...

Tanks need drone-specific APS. A localized detection system would be more effective than SAM radar units. A drone in the immediate
vicinity of a tank is a large target. The problem is how to keep this APS from triggering from the motion of other objects (e.g. driving
by a branch). They need to track the EM from a drone instead of using radar. This is easier in the localized context since the drone
EM signal is weak.

They do, but everything including troops in the open need drone defences too... some sort of laser radar system (LIDAR) would be of limited range so enemy forces could not use your emissions from very long range to track your progress or location and of course laser will detect all sorts of plastics and synthetics... if the resolution is high enough it should even determine and distinguish birds and other biologicals from drones by the way they move and how many propellers they have...

It not hard to harden a drone against shotguns.

Shotguns can fire a range of loads from light pellets to shatter clay targets, right up to buckshot with lead balls the equivalent of a 9mm bullet each, though to a solid slug of lead or other metal that can stop a car.

Hardening the drone makes it heavier and reduces its range and payload...

They have a very small range. Dones like Lancelet are very easy fortify against this, the quad copters are a bit harder but possible. 20mm with airburst ammo is much better.

Russia does not use 20mm and even if it did airburst ammo would be expensive in such a small calibre.

EW gun and a shot-gun
to fight against drones.

They make drone guns... adding a semi auto 10 gauge shotgun to the design shouldn't be too hard.

The story is clear: Storm Shadow accuracy sucks a**.

Another value for money story from the western MIC.

I believe most of this, but how does Russia end this war soon? I mean without the shit the west so very much deserves but that would render most of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable.

I suspect his question is more along the lines of sending more bodies into the Ukraine is your solution... how does that speed up the conflict?

If you send in more bodies then expect to lose more, with no guarantee the conflict will be shortened in any way.

Arkanghelsk wrote:Mobilization is indeed coming, and the reason is that the MIC is producing so many things that there are enough equipment to go around for another army of 300,000 and even more

That reserve would take more than 3 months to train, as it would be a non-combat experience pool that will be drafted

You cannot send them into combat until maybe 6 to 9 months or even a year of training

But what you can do, is free up the forces which are sitting in reserve and have been training for many months

Also the men in Zaporozhye have to be rotated, there are many reports of guys literally having fought through the Ukro banzai for long without rotation

So that is also the case, and lastly, polls are showing this war needs to be wrapped up

While economic damage was inflicted, it's clear neither side will capitulate and have enough resources to continue the current state of affairs without it worsening drastically for any side

It's time to end it, at the same time, the military realizes they cannot keep things in this general state,  the average soldier wants this to end, and people in Russia want their brothers, fathers, uncles back, Russia is not some orc country where people are born to die in forever war

People want an end , and that's why Wagner rebelled, and that's why Shoigu is in North Korea

An end must be written to this story, and it must be written that Russia won this war against the evils of Kiev and the West, further suspense will just not do, and there's no certainty Moscow will survive it, or that the military might conduct a coup at some point in the future - uncertainty already led to one shitshow which was negotiated

No more 5d chess, people demand results

Well people wanted this whole to end from the beginning but most are smart enough to realize that their desire alone is not enough

You have to carry this thing through to its conclusion else you'll just get another war later on and people realize that too

So latent support for the operation carries on as it did, and will do until the conditions for a victory and then permanent peace have been met. All other scenarios won't do.

flamming_python wrote:

Well people wanted this whole to end from the beginning but most are smart enough to realize that their desire alone is not enough

You have to carry this thing through to its conclusion else you'll just get another war later on and people realize that too

So latent support for the operation carries on as it did, and will do until the conditions for a victory and then permanent peace have been met. All other scenarios won't do.

I guess it comes down to the ammo supply that defines what kind of offensive/defensive ops russia can sustain. I am beginning to wonder if russias ammo supply is not as plentiful as we hoped. Not dire by any means, but not enough to open a new front from belarus for example. Esp knowing they had to provision for a major defensive campaign. I think bakhmut demonstrated that an any gaps in ammo supply result in much higher casualties. So russia will not start a major push until there are sufficient supplies to deal with any contingency. It would have been nice if they could have attacked from belarus a few weeks ago, but i think they are being a bit conservative. If russia can build geraniums then so can Ukraine. So other risk will pop up.

mnztr wrote:I guess it comes down to the ammo supply that defines what kind of offensive/defensive ops russia can sustain. I am beginning to wonder if russias ammo supply is not as plentiful as we hoped. Not dire by any means, but not enough to open a new front from belarus for example. Esp knowing they had to provision for a major defensive campaign. I think bakhmut demonstrated that an any gaps in ammo supply result in much higher casualties. So russia will not start a major push until there are sufficient

No reason to think that Russia's ammo supply is anything other than plentiful.

If Russia can rush T-90Ms off the conveyor, then it has no problems doing the same with shells

flamming_python wrote:

mnztr wrote:I guess it comes down to the ammo supply that defines what kind of offensive/defensive ops russia can sustain. I am beginning to wonder if russias ammo supply is not as plentiful as we hoped. Not dire by any means, but not enough to open a new front from belarus for example. Esp knowing they had to provision for a major defensive campaign. I think bakhmut demonstrated that an any gaps in ammo supply result in much higher casualties. So russia will not start a major push until there are sufficient

No reason to think that Russia's ammo supply is anything other than plentiful.

If Russia can rush T-90Ms off the conveyor, then it has no problems doing the same with shells

Not at all the same thing. The kinda volume we are talking about needs vast quantities of chemicals, and metals as well as manufacturing capacity. I heard their capacity is now at about 6m rounds a year. Thats 15k a day. Still not enough for sustained 40k a day ops. Also they must have put a dent in their stockpiles during ramp up.

If russia can build geraniums then so can Ukraine. So other risk will pop up.

Russia can build all sorts of things that Ukraine currently has no capacity to make...

Europe can't even make 5th gen fighters but Russia is... why do you think the Ukraine is in a better position to make things?

Russia is not going on the offensive and a lot of the shelling they will be doing to counter offensives will be precision strikes or laying minefields, so their use of standard HE shells probably isn't as high as it has been, nor would it need to be.

BTW I have read stories about people flying to Europe from New Zealand who use their cellphones only in their hotel, thinking they are using the Hotel Wifi and getting home to bills of 10,000 dollars or more for two or three weeks. They are double charged because the local cellphone company they are with have their charges but cellphone companies where they are have their own charges on top of that and when you don't have a plan then often it is just charged at a very high flat rate. Of course these people were doing all the shit they do at home, using their phones to access the internet for information and paying for things etc etc thinking it is all going through the local wifi and not the cell network...