Russian special military operation in Ukraine #51

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1738200418067304550

thegopnik wrote:

1) BMPs are obsolete and useless deathtraps

2) Will VKS kindly get off it's ass and finally do something about Ukr artillery?

Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (for the period from December 16 to December 22, 2023)

In the period from December 16 to 22, 2023, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out 39 group strikes with precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles on military airfield infrastructure, flight navigation facilities, fuel bases, places of storage of artillery ammunition, weapons and military equipment of the enemy.

In addition, the centers for the training and use of unmanned aerial vehicles, control points and deployment of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, foreign mercenaries and nationalist formations were affected. All assigned objects are hit.

In the Kupyansk direction, units of the "Western" group of troops repelled 53 enemy attacks. Air strikes and artillery fire defeated the manpower and equipment of the 14th, 43rd, 60th, 115th mechanized and 95th airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Sinkovka and Olshana in the Kharkiv region.

The enemy's losses during the week amounted to over 355 soldiers, four tanks, including two Leopard, 19 armored combat vehicles, 13 vehicles and 12 field artillery guns.

In the Krasnolimansk direction, units of the Center group of forces, with the support of aviation and artillery fire, repelled 13 attacks by assault groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, clusters of manpower of the 24th, 63rd, 116th mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the 12th special forces brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Chervonaya Dibrova, Petrovskoye, Kuzmino of the Luhansk People's Republic and Torskoye of the Donetsk People's Republic were defeated.

During the week, the enemy lost up to 1,155 soldiers killed and wounded, a tank, 19 armored combat vehicles, 21 vehicles and seven field artillery guns.

In the Donetsk direction, units of the "Southern" grouping of troops, with the support of aviation and artillery fire, improved the situation along the front edge in some areas. They repelled 43 attacks by assault groups of the 24th mechanized, 79th airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Shumy, Belogorovka and Maryinka of the Donetsk People's Republic. Also, fire damage was inflicted on units of the 28th, 30th, 42nd, 93rd mechanized and 57th motorized infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Kurdyumovka, Kleshcheyevka, Krasnoe and Andreevka of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy's losses in this area over the past period amounted to more than 1,610 soldiers killed and wounded, three tanks, 17 armored combat vehicles, a HIMARS launcher, 24 vehicles and 44 field artillery guns.

In the South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok group of forces repelled ten enemy attacks. Air strikes and artillery fire inflicted fire damage on units of the 58th motorized Infantry, 72nd mechanized, 79th airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the 127th and 128th air defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Novomikhailovka, Urozhnoye, Staromayorskoye of the Donetsk People's Republic and Priyutnoye of the Zaporozhye region.

The total losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this area amounted to over 670 military personnel, two tanks, six armored combat vehicles, 19 vehicles and 12 field artillery guns.

In the Zaporozhye direction, units of the Russian troops continued to conduct active defense, during which six enemy attacks were repelled in the areas of the settlements of Rabodino and Verbovoye in the Zaporozhye region. Fire damage was inflicted on the manpower and equipment of the 33rd, 65th, 116th, 117th, 118th mechanized, 128th mountain assault and 82nd airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the 14th National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Novodanilovka, Malaya Tokmachka, Nesteryanka and Novoprokopovka of the Zaporozhye region.

The enemy's losses amounted to up to 390 soldiers killed and wounded, a tank, five armored combat vehicles, 19 vehicles and ten field artillery guns.

In the Kherson direction, all attempts to land enemy sabotage groups on the islands and the left bank of the Dnieper were stopped. Air strikes and artillery fire defeated units of the 36th and 37th Marine brigades in the areas of the settlements of Tyaginka and Belozerka in the Kherson region.

As a result of the actions of Russian troops in this direction, the AFU lost up to 510 servicemen, a tank, 37 vehicles, 24 boats and 20 field artillery pieces killed and wounded.

During the week, four enemy aircraft were shot down by air defense means: one Su-27, two MiG-29 and one Su-25, as well as three helicopters: two Mi-24 and one Mi-8 of the Ukrainian Air Force. In addition, the following were intercepted: an ATACMS tactical missile, 30 HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, Uragan and Alder, three JDAM guided aerial bombs, as well as 259 unmanned aerial vehicles.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 554 aircraft, 261 helicopters, 9955 unmanned aerial vehicles, 442 anti-aircraft missile systems, 14251 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1189 multiple rocket launchers, 7447 field artillery and mortars, as well as 16572 units of special military vehicles have been destroyed.

https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12492417@egNews

admitted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are experiencing difficulties in overcoming the defensive lines of the Russian army

They never reached the defensive lines and stopped trying weeks ago.
NATO is living in the past.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:Well to be fair to the BMP...it was designed as a taxi, get troops drop troops (provide some fire support if needed) and take off and repeat it was never meant to stay engaged in prolonged combat like a Bradley.

The problem is the russians haven't moved on from this dated platform, The BMP was designed with soviet rush shock tactics in mind.

Not for the kind of war you are seeing now and again the fact it is essentially the same system that's been in use since 66 with just newer versions. The russians are trying to use it like a Bradley when it was never designed for that because its all they have serial production of the Kurg has yet to start

There isn't much the VKS can do when the ground forces themselves are super limited, when you have to spend weeks fighting for four houses in a small spot in the middle of a field because you really just do not have the forces to push, welllll there are costs for that.

But it's also clear Russia has yet to defeat Ukie AD.

What are you talking about?
There's nothing Bradley does that the BMP can't do.
And Russia has already defeated the Ukie AD multiple times, they haven't defeated it definitively just because the West keeps sending more AD.

Bradley is much more survivable than a BMP and that's a fact, a superior gun.BMP's are very lightly armored for one reason to get from point a to b QUICKLY. There are dedicated field taxi's meant to do limited impressive fire and retreat and that is how they were designed for the soviet armored doctrine.It was soviet tanks that are meant to spearhead and take the fire, the job of the BMP was to quickly bring up infantry to support the armored tanks waves and go back and get more men.Bmp's are super easy to take out from any angle, also a Bradley will take a hit frontal/side hit that would cripple a bmp and most likely save the crew,I have spent much time around these vehicles, so do not try that BS with me.

The basic BMP and Bradley armor cannot withstand more than heavy machine gun fire and shrapnel, some variants have spaced armor and ERA and can withstand a few hits from HEAT-type munitions and that's it.

No they haven't cause Ukraine still has ADm you can say "well russia is destroying their AD" and sure they are but Ukraine's AD is not neuturalized.

Russia has already neutralized the Ukrainian AD, what they are doing now is neutralizing the Western AD

Big_Gazza wrote:

kvs wrote:The "annexation" of "Polish" territories by Stalin is endlessly bitched about but you never hear about Stalin's generous shift of Poland's borders
west at the expense of German real estate.    To this day the old border is manifest as the look and feel of these lands is distinct from original
Polish lands to the east.   If these annexation bleaters were consistent they would be calling this a Polish annexation of German lands.  

Similarly these pole-ack clowns choose to ignore the 1919-21 Polish-Soviet war where newly reformed Poland under the Pilsudski military dictatorship chose to invade the fledgling USSR in order to take advantage of the civil war.  They siezed the territories to the East of the Curzon line and kept it until 1939 when Poland was defeated by the Nazis, and the USSR rolled back in to reclaim the stolen land.  Western and Polish russophobes have always insisted that this was the Soviets "invading" Poland in concert with their "ally" Nazi Germany, a great example of the unmitigated lies and bullshit that Russias enemies will use in order to smear her.

Every time I ask  some Russophobe the question "If you were Stalin in the same sitution, would you a) take half of Poland, or b) prefer to have the German army right on your border? "

they seem to shut up.

@Seig Heil

You must be referring to the BMP-1 right? At that time the best the US/NATzo managed was the M-113 armed with a HMG.  The BMP-1 was the very first ICV.  The Bradley entered service some two decades later - and it came under heavy flack at the time for it's poor armour. Things were improved on the Bradley but  to say it's much better than the BMP is beyond ridiculous. They are all extremely vulnerable if you want them to perform as tanks.



Even this BMP-2 upgrade is miles better than any Bradley.



Not to mention these BMP-3's  

The BMP's even offers some major advantages like crossing rivers almost unprepared - like a fish to water.



You just have to look at these guys faces to see that the Bradley is not exactly too comfortable in the water.
Standard practice - everybody outside the vehicle for safety!

PapaDragon wrote:

1) BMPs are obsolete and useless deathtraps

2) Will VKS kindly get off it's ass and finally do something about Ukr artillery?

Its an artillery war. The only way to do something is cut supply lines. 

Of all the fabs and all the advantages Russia has it does seem strange that it's just artillery to artillery right at the front line.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

Guns might be more similar in that case but as a whole Bradley is still much better suited than any BMP due to the fact, its just better protected.

Tell that to Bastion missile, it might be impressed and shocked.

Why is it that every single bloody time when you open your big mouth about anything that is more or less technical, it turns out that you know a round shit
Yet it does not stop you from fooling yourself again and again .

M2 most protected frontal arc armor is made of aluminum.
5083 from the 50s for the hull, and 7039 type alloy dated in the early 70s for the gun mask.
ONE INCH thick.
Making an equivalent of <10 mm RHAe.
Both are inferior to the Soviet ABT-101 used in the same period by decades, 5083 reaches about 60% of the ABT-101 parameters.
BMP-3 is made of ABT-102 alloy that is stronger than 101 by some 10%.
Do your math.
Sides are made of spaced steel armor made of two sheets 0.25 inch thick, with one inch spacing.
The rear ramp is made of the same 0.25 inch steel plates, only spacing is bigger.

Overall, frontal armor is set to withstand 20 mm autocannon, while sides and rear are to be immune to 7.62x39 and splitters. It might be penetrated by 7.62x54 from small distance.

It isn't fukin rocket science.

Now focus on Rambo, because some numbers will be given and you might miss some of them as too complicated.

BMP-3 frontal armor package is made of spaced armor made of steel and aluminium.
The THINNEST part of frontal armor is the upper glacis, made of 18 mm ABT-102 alloy only, but it is extremely angeled, close to 80 deg.
Then comes the hull front sides, where the 30 mm granade launchers are located - 60 mm ABT-102 aluminum alloy.
Turret front is made of 16 mm BSz-70 rolled hardened steel, 70 mm spacing, and 50 mm ABT-102.
Hull front lower section is 10 mm BSz-70+70mm spacing + 60 mm ABT-102.
Hull mid section is a killer - 10mm BSz-70+70mm spacing + 12mm BSz-70 + 60 mm ABT-102.

The sides are 43 mm of ABT-102, the same as the turret rear and sides.

That makes the frontal protection immune to 30 mm autocannons, and 60 deg frontal coverage from point-blank 23 mm AP ammunition.

While being EIGHT TONS lighter than M2

M2 was so fuked up, that when your corrupted military made tests of it that were to be presented to the Congress commission, they were forced to use Bulgarian PG-7 rounds
Because those were known for being crapp and having about half of Soviet PG-7 penetration

I won't even touch the "gun superiority", because it is like beating a dead horse. Jumping on you would be a bestiality.

You should seriously consider to shut the fuk up. Really friendly advice.

Building animal proof cabins in the woods thread moved to here.

I´m glad that we Germans don´t have any issues with our past.

Taking colonialism as a whole I would say the only mistake Germany made was trying to enslave white Europeans... if only you had stuck to enslaving and robbing non whites you might have gotten away with it.

Well I say gotten away with it... you didn't do anything the French or English hadn't already tried or wanted to do.

People are hardly aware of a fact, that after his death, Hitler ordered national mourning.
In central Berlin cathedral, an official mourning ceremony was held with an empty coffin.

According to the Oliver Stone doco series I saw on the matter he stated that when the Germans approached Stalin about an invasion of Poland Stalin approached the British and then the Poles to see if they could make a counter offer. The poles told them to bugger off because they trusted the Germans more than they trusted the Soviets, and the Brits sent a low level official who basically told them to sort it out with the Poles, so given the choice of Germany on their border on the Polish border or Germany on the line down the middle of Poland, they chose the option that had Germans a few hundred extra kms away from Moscow.

As I said the Brits in their history taught to New Zealand children was evil Stalin making a deal with the devil. Ignoring the facts that Chamberlain had already made deals that would secure a long lasting peace in Europe a short time before that...

I see that Vladimir Putin has finally gave his admission about his own naivety regarding the West since early 2000s.

Something you can only work out in hindsight. In comparison EU leaders and the US still think Sanctions are going to work and Russia will bend to their demands...

Putin said that the thing he most regrets about is trusting the West and giving the West the benefit of a doubt.

You can never tell if someone is worthy of trust until you give it and they fail you.

I have been writing about this for the last 10 years or so. As early as in 2014 I said how Putin made a BIG, BIG mistake signing those Minsk agreements and trusting Angela Merkel. I knew it back then. Too bad Putin knows it only now. How many thousands of lives could have been spared if Putin have had more foresight?

But that is the problem. He had no alternative. The people in the Donbass and Lugansk and Odessa and elsewhere being shelled and murdered and burned to death were Ukrainians. Putin had no right to invade and interfere, and Russia even just a short period of time ago was not really in a good enough condition to actually do what they are doing now... their food production was limited... that came after food sanctions on EU food supplies to Russia and it took a good 5 years to get to surplus.

Equally cutting Russia out of SWIFT in 2014 would have been rather more devastating and their capacity to ship oil and gas to other countries would have seriously limited their ability to keep their economy growing.

As it is, it is actually a rather good time to cut out the western middle men sucking money out of Russian exports and Russian imports, and clearing up a lot of illegal foreign ownership of major Russian organisations that was leeching money out of the country and stifling growth by buying western products and materials over Russian products and materials... look at the shipping and aerospace industry.

If they weren't loosing young men on the battlefield I would say this was great for Russia.

1) BMPs are obsolete and useless deathtraps

BMPs are the same everywhere... every vehicle is a deathtrap on a modern battlefield.

Well to be fair to the BMP...it was designed as a taxi, get troops drop troops (provide some fire support if needed) and take off and repeat it was never meant to stay engaged in prolonged combat like a Bradley.

Actually the Bradley was a direct copy of the BMP, and they changed the design when the BMP-2 was revealed... the Bradley was going to have a one manned turret too, till they saw the BMP-2 with the two man turret and changed theirs too.

The problem is the russians haven't moved on from this dated platform, The BMP was designed with soviet rush shock tactics in mind.

The concept of a BMP is armoured troop transport that delivers troops and moves them around the battlefield and drops back and gives direct fire support.

The russians are trying to use it like a Bradley when it was never designed for that because its all they have serial production of the Kurg has yet to start

In an environment full of anti armour weapons the Bradley is a bigger target than a Soviet BMP of any kind.

HMG is not really effective against either and cannon and ATGMs and HEAT anti armour weapons will defeat both. Pretending the Bradley is safer is ridiculous.

But it's also clear Russia has yet to defeat Ukie AD

Russia has defeated Nazi AD, over and over... it is just getting replaced over and over.

Bradley is much more survivable than a BMP and that's a fact, a superior gun.

Hahahaha... remember that movie they made about it... the Bradley did remarkably well in tests till they found out they were cheating. When they did a proper test with normal load of fuel and weapons and ammo and a proper RPG warhead the whole thing blew up... as you would expect.... because that is what RPGs do. And a Bradley is a metal box filled with ammo and fuel and people and an engine. There is no empty space. Everything burns.

The 25mm gun is actually rather ordinary and can only penetrate old tanks from the side because most old tanks can be penetrated by auto cannon from the side.

The 30mm 30x165mm round is rather more powerful and has a much better HE round which is actually used rather more often.

BMP's are very lightly armored for one reason to get from point a to b QUICKLY. There are dedicated field taxi's meant to do limited impressive fire and retreat and that is how they were designed for the soviet armored doctrine.

They use spaced armour layouts with air pockets for buoyancy so they are amphibious, but that just increases their protection against full calibre AP rounds and some sabot rounds.

It was soviet tanks that are meant to spearhead and take the fire, the job of the BMP was to quickly bring up infantry to support the armored tanks waves and go back and get more men.

And the Bradleys were supposed to do what instead?

Bmp's are super easy to take out from any angle, also a Bradley will take a hit frontal/side hit that would cripple a bmp and most likely save the crew,

Who told you that?

Even the most ancient RPG-18 will take out a Bradley from any angle and any Soviet ATGM or RPG anti armour round would penetrate a Bradley front to back... even though it weighs more than a T-34 tank.

I have spent much time around these vehicles, so do not try that BS with me.

I have spent a lot of time around a lot of things I don't know very much about.

The Bradley has thicker armour because it is aluminium.... at best it will stop 14.5mm HMG from the front but real anti armour rockets and missiles and ammo and it is in trouble.

They kept adding armour so it is no longer amphibious, but it is still not safe on a modern battlefield.

No they haven't cause Ukraine still has ADm you can say "well russia is destroying their AD" and sure they are but Ukraine's AD is not neuturalized.

They keep replacing it with more stuff. And each time they use it the Russians launch Daggers and other weapons and take them out.

The problem is Russia is still heavily using older BMP-1 and BMP-2 types. But it's not like Ukraine isn't using the M113 either.

The fact of the matter is that unless your BMP is based on a tank it wont be safe... and even tank based vehicles are not really safe either.

Claiming a Bradley is better armoured than a Soviet BMP is amusing because anything that will defeat a Soviet BMP will also defeat a Bradley.

Anti armour weapons for use against previous gen tanks will smoke any BMP, and current anti armour weapons will just do a better job from much further away.

BMP 3 armor is only comparable to Bradley on the front not sides or rear even then its only a small front section of it that is.

You think the sides of a Bradley are well protected?

Guns might be more similar in that case but as a whole Bradley is still much better suited than any BMP due to the fact, its just better protected.

Guns similar? A 25mm and TOW compared with a 30mm a 100mm and Konkurs or Kornet?

In a head to head a Bradley will always tear through the BMP first because the BMP's design does not allow it to be well armored in all areas only limited sections and that goes for the newest models, the older ones pfft tin cansonly meant to block small arms fire anything bigger will go through em

When Bradleys spot the BMPs at 4km range they can stop and launch a TOW that flys at what... 120-150m/s while that BMP can fire from 5km a supersonic laser beam riding missile and does not need to stop driving to guide it...

At 7km the BMP can start landing HE shells around the Bradley killing its troops if they are deployed.

You just have to look at these guys faces to see that the Bradley is not exactly too comfortable in the water.
Standard practice - everybody outside the vehicle for safety!

That was an early model Bradley... pretty soon the armour increases led to extra weight and losing too many vehicles while swimming so the swimming capacity was retired.

GarryB wrote:
Taking colonialism as a whole I would say the only mistake Germany made was trying to enslave white Europeans... if only you had stuck to enslaving and robbing non whites you might have gotten away with it.

Openly speaking, Grman owned colonies were the best option for local population. What they were doing in general, was taking care of education and development of the infrastructure. To this very day, exGerman Africa enjoy relatively fine education and health system.

GarryB wrote:
According to the Oliver Stone doco series I saw on the matter he stated that when the Germans approached Stalin about an invasion of Poland Stalin approached the British and then the Poles to see if they could make a counter offer. The poles told them to bugger off because they trusted the Germans more than they trusted the Soviets, and the Brits sent a low level official who basically told them to sort it out with the Poles, so given the choice of Germany on their border on the Polish border or Germany on the line down the middle of Poland, they chose the option that had Germans a few hundred extra kms away from Moscow.

Soviet Union made a serious attempt to block Hitler in the very beginning.
They offered to protect Czechoslovakia by force.
Poland refused transport corridor, officially because of being afraid to let Red Army through.
In discussion with the French ambassador, our side clearly stated that the Polish Army will shoot at the Soviets, if decision will be made for the Red Army to intervene.
Back in 1938, nobody was aware that we have signed a pact with Hitler, partitioning Czechoslovakia.
What is the most absurd part of it, is that the pact itself was different from the Ribbentropp-Molotov pact only by it's scale, having de facto the same meaning.
It was non-aggression pact with a protocol of partitioning both countries' interests towards a third country.
The situation was even more similar, as the part we ripped off from Czechoslovkia was taken by them in 1919, and de jure transferred formally as a part of Paris peace agreements under the supervision of Entanta.
It is being portraited as "recapturing Polish speaking territories", as the Poles constituted the majority there.
True, but it can be considered from a different perspectives, with a different opinions and a different conclusions.

But it's also clear Russia has yet to defeat Ukie AD.

Tell that the russian missiles and drones that can hit any place in 404 round the clock.

it's just artillery to artillery right at the front line.

Russia is using mainly Lancet drones against enemy artillery.
All guns that the Ukros had in the Kherson area (the mighty bridgehead ) were
destroyed in the last weeks.

Indeed the Bradley isn't meant for water crossing, it cannot float like the BMP can and that's exactly the point, BMP to stay light enough for then has to sacrifice protection hence it is a tin can that can withstand small arms fire only.

The Bradley and the BMP are considered light vehicles and both contain Aluminium armour and spaced armour.

The difference in armour performance means nothing depending on the weapons the enemy uses.

Your average tank over the years has been designed generally (with a few exceptions like the Leopard One) to be protected from enemy main tank guns from the front 60 degrees, from the main enemy auto cannon from the sides and from HMG fire from the rear.

If you have ever seen War Thunder... it attempts to model vehicles and weapons and armour and does a reasonable job though I disagree with the overpressure stuff in some cases, and of course being a game you can repair by holding down a button where in real life the crew would bail and run and hope the vehicle can be recovered and repaired. No one gets out of a tank or BMP to fix a track in the middle of a fire fight... you decide if you need to bail or can remain for help to arrive.

Very simply modern auto cannons with modern ammo can penetrate enemy vehicles at close range from the side, and that includes tanks.

The Bradley would probably stop 14.5mm HMG from the front in its latest models, maybe even 30mm cannon rounds from the front, but not from the side, but most RPGs including old disposable rockets like RPG-18 and RPG-22 will simply penetrate the full length of a Bradley front to back.

Your experience probably includes third world countries with RPGs past their prime sold cheaply because they are not very good.

Most Russian Anti armour weapons will penetrate a 30 ton vehicle and there is no shame in that because most of them were intended to penetrate tanks of the M60 and later era so any 30 ton vehicle is just going to be butter.

More importantly Bradleys were not designed for Ukraine weather and many seem to have been abandoned intact without any damage.

If it make you feel better the Euro super BMPs don't seem to have fared much better.

The Bradley is certainly better than the M113 whose armour barely stopped AK bullets from close range.

The Patriot system would have shot down 3 s-34 today ?

ALAMO wrote:

Openly speaking, Grman owned colonies were the best option for local population. What they were doing in general, was taking care of education and development of the infrastructure. To this very day, exGerman Africa enjoy relatively fine education and health system.

Except if you were Herero or Nama.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide