Ukraine #17: Is There Life on HIMARS?

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

It is remarkable to me that this is even possible; destroying at that level of precision is remarkable.

I would never have believed it, but  weaponry has become astonishingly more sophisticated in my lifetime. As a boy, the tactics of WWII would still have been pretty sound.  Now, they’d be hopelessly out of date.  As a boy, the Blackbird was an incredible piece of technology.  Now it’s a museum piece at Duxford.

[Maithanet]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

All three bridges leading into Kherson City have been bombarded. In each case Ukraine has destroyed or badly damaged one lane of traffic, leaving one open. According to Ukraine, this is to allow civilian traffic to leave, trucks carrying food and drink to enter, but heavy tanks and heavy transport vehicles can't use the bridges.

Indications are that this is Ukraine continuing their preparations for the Kherson offensive.  First you prevent any heavy reinforcements from entering the area.  You use precision artillery to destroy command, air defenses and supply depots.  Then you destroy the bridges entirely when the offensive is ready. 

I have to wonder how seriously the Russian military (ie Putin) is considering withdrawing from the entirety of Kherson oblast.  Because if I were them, I would be considering it very hard.  It doesn't look like the Russians have a lot of cards to play to hold on to Kherson.  And if they wait until the offensive starts, it might be too late (ie, the bridges might already be destroyed). 

Ukraine has refused to offer "green corridors" to evacuate Russian troops, because Russia didn't allow anything similar in Mariupol.  But I wonder if the Ukrainian govt would be willing to make some sort of deal to hold their fire if Russia offered to leave Kherson without a fight.  I suspect they would. 

[Werthead]

59 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

It is remarkable to me that this is even possible; destroying at that level of precision is remarkable.

Watching what HIMARS is capable of is unbelievable. This isn't a cruise missile with internal guidance, this is essentially a super-mortar which can adjust for wind direction and speed with something like 99% precision.

Apparently the American military is highly impressed by how HIMARS has functioned in the field, it is operating above their highest predictions in a much hotter war than they ever envisaged it being utilised in. Interestingly, Poland has another 20 HIMARS units in their own military which could be seconded to Ukraine, and apparently 500 (!) on order.

I remember a couple of months back there was a worry over the maintenance of NATO equipment in the field. Apparently Ukraine has cracked that by sending engineers months ago to NATO countries to get precise instructions on how to service vehicles in the field. They've now come back to Ukraine and created rapid-reaction and mobile engineering posts (like medical posts, but for vehicles) which can set up, service several vehicles quickly and then move on before their locations can be identified.

[kiko]

6 hours ago, broken one said:

First 3 AA Gepard guns from Germany arrived to Ukraine, meow! It is said the system can shoot at  infantry and light armoured vehicles too, imagine being the target 

Not too bad for an Anti Aircraft weapon 

[Werthead]

Just now, kiko said:

Not too bad for an Anti Aircraft weapon 

To be fair, there is form for this. The 88mm AA cannon turned into the single most lethal AT weapon in all of WWII when someone figured out how to depress it to the horizontal and fire laterally. Both Allied and Soviet forces prioritised the destruction of the 88s over all other weapons.

[Maithanet]

25 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I remember a couple of months back there was a worry over the maintenance of NATO equipment in the field. Apparently Ukraine has cracked that by sending engineers months ago to NATO countries to get precise instructions on how to service vehicles in the field. They've now come back to Ukraine and created rapid-reaction and mobile engineering posts (like medical posts, but for vehicles) which can set up, service several vehicles quickly and then move on before their locations can be identified.

I've heard they also have specialized mechanics on 24/7 tech support in Eastern Europe.  If any of the Ukrainian mechanics are unsure about a system, they can just call up an expert and show them the problem on camera.  Not revolutionary by any means, but not something that has ever been done on any kind of scale before. 

[Kalbear]

30 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I remember a couple of months back there was a worry over the maintenance of NATO equipment in the field. Apparently Ukraine has cracked that by sending engineers months ago to NATO countries to get precise instructions on how to service vehicles in the field. They've now come back to Ukraine and created rapid-reaction and mobile engineering posts (like medical posts, but for vehicles) which can set up, service several vehicles quickly and then move on before their locations can be identified.

There's another aspect to this which I found neat - what Ukraine is doing is setting up telehelp systems for near-instant collaboration with NATO experts on a lot of the equipment in case they have issues with it. We saw that earlier in the year with a person calling someone else up who used a Javelin and needed help with it, but they're formalizing it more - having specific people oncall to answer tech questions in the field. 

[broken one]

40 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Poland has another 20 HIMARS units in their own military which could be seconded to Ukraine, and apparently 500 (!) on order.

As far as I know this was an initial request. With this number any invading force would be annihilated at the border. Plus this is sort of equivalent for nuclear weapon, nuke Warsaw and we raze Kaliningrad Oblast. It would be something similar to North Korean conception of defence. Problem is demography, number of soldiers it takes to handle 500 units with support and logistics. And who the hell would produce missles for this? I think we'll get 100 and be happy, I would not mind 500 though.

[SeanF]

33 minutes ago, Werthead said:

To be fair, there is form for this. The 88mm AA cannon turned into the single most lethal AT weapon in all of WWII when someone figured out how to depress it to the horizontal and fire laterally. Both Allied and Soviet forces prioritised the destruction of the 88s over all other weapons.

The 1077th anti-aircraft regiment discovered at Stalingrad, that while their weapons were useless for penetrating armour, they were great for disabling tank tracks.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

So… does this mean the Russians are getting desperate for actual artillery pieces?  
 

 

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I have to wonder how seriously the Russian military (ie Putin) is considering withdrawing from the entirety of Kherson oblast.  Because if I were them, I would be considering it very hard.  It doesn't look like the Russians have a lot of cards to play to hold on to Kherson.  And if they wait until the offensive starts, it might be too late (ie, the bridges might already be destroyed).

Perhaps they might withdraw from the portion to the west of the Dnieper that includes Kherson city, but I would think they would want to hold on to the eastern part of the oblast since that makes up most of the land corridor they've established between Russia and Crimea. It would likely be difficult for the Ukranians to invade that part of the oblast since they'd have to cross the Dnieper (or go the other way round and attack from Zaporizhia).

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Perhaps they might withdraw from the portion to the west of the Dnieper that includes Kherson city, but I would think they would want to hold on to the eastern part of the oblast since that makes up most of the land corridor they've established between Russia and Crimea. It would likely be difficult for the Ukranians to invade that part of the oblast since they'd have to cross the Dnieper (or go the other way round and attack from Zaporizhia).

That's fair, I forgot that Kherson Oblast extended so far south.  I just meant an evaculation of the area north of the Dnipro.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, williamjm said:

Perhaps they might withdraw from the portion to the west of the Dnieper that includes Kherson city, but I would think they would want to hold on to the eastern part of the oblast since that makes up most of the land corridor they've established between Russia and Crimea. It would likely be difficult for the Ukranians to invade that part of the oblast since they'd have to cross the Dnieper (or go the other way round and attack from Zaporizhia).

The Ukrainians apparently have plans for this. They have French pontoons large enough to bridge the Dnipro (I gather this is the correct Ukrainian spelling for the Dnieper). There's a railway bridge north of Kherson which crosses a narrow part of the river which they've already apparently earmarked for this, if the bridge itself is taken out.

The Russians also have problems holding the area to the NE of the river where Ukrainian forces are already in place on the eastern side of the river, where the nuclear power plant is which is now under daily concerted attacks by Ukrainian forces (not the plant but the Russian positions around it).

If Kherson falls, the next logical Ukrainian move is to assault across the river from the west whilst other forces assault from the north past the power plant towards Melitopol. It's a pincer movement where the sheer width of the Dnipro stops the Russians from mounting an effective defence. The Russians might be forced to fall back towards Crimea in the west and Donetsk in the east.

If that happens, Russia's best bet would be to throw everything at securing Donetsk and declaring victory solely from holding Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Even keeping the land corridor might be difficult with their current resources.

[ThinkerX]

seems to me that the recent Ukrainian victories are putting Putin in more and more of bind. To remain in power - and remain alive - he must be able to declare victory of some sort, which is looking less and less likely.

Now, others far more knowledgeable than myself have pointed out that Putin's likely successors are even 'less sane' than he is on the Ukrainian war. However, to me, that makes Russia's position even worse than it is now - the 'outlying regions' are getting monumentally pissed at being roped into the war, a full mobilization will likely tank the Russian economy, prompting widespread unrest, and as before, the vehicle situation for Russia is getting worse, not better. 

So, let's say that one of Putin's truly insane rivals claims the top spot, ignores all this, and attempts the full mobilization route with predictably catastrophic results. To me, that moves the breakup of Russia from 'possible but not likely' to 'probable.'

 

[Maithanet]

I think the longer this goes on, the less likely it is that Putin's successor (whenever it is he comes to power) will want to continue/double down on the war.  Yes, there's a good chance he will be as bad or worse than putin, but he will probably prefer to make his own mistakes, rather than just doubling down on the old ones.

[Wilbur]

7 hours ago, KalVsWade said:

There's another aspect to this which I found neat - what Ukraine is doing is setting up telehelp systems for near-instant collaboration with NATO experts on a lot of the equipment in case they have issues with it. We saw that earlier in the year with a person calling someone else up who used a Javelin and needed help with it, but they're formalizing it more - having specific people oncall to answer tech questions in the field. 

In contrast with the positive changes and innovations that the Ukrainians have put in place for communications, the Russians have gone straight backwards in their gear.

Not only did they equip their troops with hilariously insecure Baofeng radios that can be traced with ease to a specific location (radio operator, meet artillery round), but they also blew up all the Ukrainian 3G towers and base stations necessary to operate their "advanced"  ERA cryptophones.

So now the Russians are rolling out LoRa EU band radios for their C&C.  This would be useful if they had the capacity to create a comprehensive mesh and repeater network across the countryside that they control and are competing to hold, and if the Ukrainians did not have a war-long history of trolling low-power radio transmissions, and if they had enough techs to keep them running.

As a former Motorolan, I just want to point out that my daughter and her cadre of neighborhood grade school buddies had an equally strong and secure communication network as the Russians seem to been able to field at any time in the course of this invasion.  And she and her friends powered theirs off of AAA batteries.

https://dpv2tfe9gytwq.cloudfront.net/cs/products/61/13/81/550x550.jpg?1587382621000

[Werthead]

Fucking hell. The Ukrainians trolling the Russian intelligence community hard and these guys falling for it.

 

[Werthead]

Kherson being rocked by explosions tonight. Unclear what's being hit, but wouldn't rule out the bridges again.

Russia has explained that it was firing at a Ukrainian warship in Odesa the other day, despite Odesa port CCTV showing no ships, warships or otherwise in dock. In addition, the entire Ukrainian navy was effectively sunk or neutralised in the opening hours of the war. They don't have any warships.

Looks like the Ukrainian mini-offensives around Izium from a couple of months ago, which could very well be one of the unsung decisive moments of the war, preventing the northern pincer from closing around the Donbas, have resumed. Ukrainian artillery and drones destroying Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. 

The Ukrainians have destroyed what looks like a major fuel dump in Budonivskyi, near Donetsk. Massive amounts of fire spewing up there.

The Russians have released news footage of pontoon bridges being built next to destroyed bridges over the Inhulets River...resulting in Ukrainian artillery and drones targeting those pontoon bridges as well, fairly predictably. Probably not a good idea to use an already-zeroed area to build something and then put it on television.

Apparently Ukrainian engineers have been recovering what they can from the destroyed AN-225 at Hostomel Airport, with a few to completing another one which is safely intact in storage, just not fully completed.

[Maithanet]

You can see in that map the supply situation in Kherson is getting increasingly dire for Russia.  There are two crossings of the Dnipro.  At the moment, one is knocked out and one is damaged and unusable for heavy equipment.  There are also many crossings of the Inhulets, but those are getting knocked out as well.  Russia can attempt pontoon bridges, although those are even more vulnerable to artillery, and a pontoon bridge over a huge river like the Dnipro is a big challenge. 

This is psychological warfare as well.  Soldiers naturally fear being cut off and while the Russians still hold a lot of territory around Kherson, it is feeling increasingly possible that if they don't retreat soon, they may not get another chance.  Def Mon suggests that the next phase may be for Ukraine to attempt an overwhelming offensive on a small front to crush a portion of Russian troops.  This would naturally spread fear across the entire front that any unit could be next.  And without good supplies coming in...discipline could fall apart completely. 

[Werthead]

Germany has approved the sale of 100 PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.

Apparently it looks like Russia is heavily fortifying Crimea. They've already fortified it since 2014, but it looks like there's even more trenches being dug, defensive positions set up etc. Lots of air traffic as well. Looks quite likely that Russia may be writing off Kherson and maybe even the western land corridor right up to the Crimean border, if it comes to it.

A Russian Ka-52 Alligator accidentally attacked Russian positions in Kherson Oblast today and was promptly shot down in response (cost: $15 million).