Ukraine #17: Is There Life on HIMARS?

[Wilbur]

LPR Internet Hero Murz has been doom and gloom 24/7 for the past couple of weeks.  Here is his summary of the invasion to date from the Russian perspective:

LPR Blogger Murz on Stakhanov ammunitions depot explosions • WarTranslated - Dmitri Masinski

Money quote:  "I know that our army is lead by a bunch of untrained morons. Stupidly vile, miserable, vindicative, petty, thieving, herdish, getting together as big “army mafias”, bringing “tithe” from their incomes to the very top. Simply dumb and stupid thieves. Just as the civilian authority."

Edited July 11, 2022 by Wilbur
Gotta include the quote

[Wilbur]

In addition to scouring the prisons for a penal battalion, it also looks like Russia will field a regiment of coffin-dodgers, the "Fighting OAPs".  The replies to this tweet are gold.

 

[broken one]

Seems it has come to the Triarii

[Toth]

To be fair, they need people with the know-how to operate the T-34 coming out of storage...

[Werthead]

Ukraine confirmed this morning that it has completed - or almost so - the mobilisation of its fourth cohort of reservists. This places the total number of armed troops at the disposal of the Ukrainian government with a minimum of four months' training at around 900,000. Approximately half of that number have military experience of serving in the Donbas at some point in the last eight years.

Ukraine and its allies are also engaged in a crazy psyops information warfare discussion designed to confuse the Russians. Ukraine has said it is preparing for a major counter-offensive launched at Kherson, but a lot of its recent reinforcements have instead been poured into Slovyansk and the Donbas. Ukrainian artillery strikes are also hitting targets all over the map, preventing Russia from knowing what the real plan is: a push on Kherson, reinforcing positions around Kharkiv or a direct counter-strike in the Donbas. Zelensky has apparently issued an executive order requiring the liberation of Ukraine's coastal areas from Russian forces to reopen sea traffic, so Kherson and then the coastal strip to Mariupol does appear to be a priority target.

Western allies have also been putting out mixed signals, both urging Ukraine not to waste troops on a half-hearted counter-offensive whilst also upping arguments over things like aircraft to Ukraine that Russia has consistently been threatening over, whilst supplies of standard weapons and heavier artillery and AA have been pouring over the border in increasing numbers but with a minimum of PR.

Also, reports that there are now nine HIMARS batteries (each consisting of multiple launchers) in operation, alongside multiple MLRS systems and "standard" howitzers and artillery systems. Ukraine reports it has also now mostly completed its transition from ex-Soviet to more modern artillery systems and, after a logjam in May/June, ammunition deliveries are now taking place in better order.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Werthead

[Corvinus85]

11 hours ago, Wilbur said:

In addition to scouring the prisons for a penal battalion, it also looks like Russia will field a regiment of coffin-dodgers, the "Fighting OAPs".  The replies to this tweet are gold.

 

Most of them have seen too many winters.

Or too few. 

Forth Eorlingas!

Though really these are the Orcs, as Ukrainians have been calling them.

[Werthead]

Some Russian reporters saying that Ukraine is using a mixture of HIMARS, Tochka-U missiles, Grad rockets and EW to confuse and overwhelm their AA systems to hit high-priority targets. This is actually quite complex, as EW and Grad rockets need to be fired from closer to the target than HIMARS and Tochka to be effective.

Ukraine is also double-targeting targets with both HIMARS and Tochka, noting that the AA systems try to respond to HIMARS, miss and are then not ready to intercept the slower Tochka missiles. So HIMARS is also improving the efficiency of their native systems.

[kiko]

53 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Some Russian reporters saying that Ukraine is using a mixture of HIMARS, Tochka-U missiles, Grad rockets and EW to confuse and overwhelm their AA systems to hit high-priority targets. This is actually quite complex, as EW and Grad rockets need to be fired from closer to the target than HIMARS and Tochka to be effective.

Ukraine is also double-targeting targets with both HIMARS and Tochka, noting that the AA systems try to respond to HIMARS, miss and are then not ready to intercept the slower Tochka missiles. So HIMARS is also improving the efficiency of their native systems.

Is that their Uber for missiles at work?

[Derfel Cadarn]

Apparently from 2018, but wouldnt surprise me

Edited July 12, 2022 by Derfel Cadarn

[Maithanet]

New Podcast from Michael Kofman on the Ukraine War.

Not a ton of new stuff to be honest, but the quick takeaways for me were:

 - The battle in the Donbas is increasingly irrelevant.  There's little reason to think that a breakthrough will be achieved and the area's isn't strategically significant.

 - The battle in Kherson is looking more and more like it is heating up.  Ukraine needs this offensive to work, for PR as well as strategic reasons.  Ukraine's key shortfall for an offensive looks to be APCs and IFVs. 

 - What IFVs Ukraine does have are a mismatched bunch of equipment ranging from the 70s to today, manufactured all over the world.  It is hard to train people to operate all these different systems, and even harder to keep them maintained and supplied.  This is slowing down the Ukrainians significantly.  But Ukraine has no choice but to use what they are given, because it's all they have. 

 - Ukraine's track record of incorporating new and foreign weapons systems is decidedly mixed.  The success stories (like the past two weeks of HIMARs) get a lot of press, but failures are happening too.  Systems that are not well maintained and well supplied will not be effective in pushing back the Russians long term. 

[Wilbur]

The ability to see exactly what the opponent is thinking is quite an interesting aspect of the Ukraine Invasion.  War Translated included two highly fascinating insights this week.

1. Use of Drones, from the Russian infantry perspective: Intercepted Call: "Their mortars and artillery men fire accurately as f*ck" • WarTranslated - Dmitri Masinski

2. Use of HiMARS, from several Russian perspectives: Russians react to Nova Kakhovka explosion • WarTranslated - Dmitri Masinski

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not sure whether this belongs here or in the Internet thread. But that stuff is gold. ARTE (German-French TV-channel cooperation) is cooperating with the girls and guys from Russian TV Dozhd (which was the last independent TV channel in Russia), who are now in exile in Georgia. They used to run a regular show about Russian fake news/propaganda. And now they are doing special editions once a week. That stuff is absolutely insane. Basically Tucker Caren on acid.

 

 

This was the first installment. I hope it works. I'll leave the other ones that have been published as mere links.

 

Episode 2

My favorite bit is at the end with the borthel for Zoophiles in Denmark. I know you lot up there were kinky. They expand on it in Episode 3

Episode three. Here they unfortunately started dubbing instead of using subs. Which is mildy annoying

Episode 4 dubbed again (unfortunately).

[Werthead]

Bizarrely, negotiations seem to be underway again, although at a remove.

Ukraine and Russia are holding meetings, mediated with outside assistance, on opening the sea lanes to Odesa. It appears that the EU are involved in these meetings, with something on the table being reopening rail links between Russia and Kaliningrad in return for Russia agreeing to withdraw from any threatening positions towards Odesa.

Some suggestions that the Russian over-arching military strategy has now abandoned Odesa as a target, at least in the short to medium term. Or Russia wants Ukraine to think that.

Russia has bombarded Bakhmut, apparently in retaliation for long-range Ukrainian attacks that destroyed a series of anti-air defences across Luhansk Oblast.

[Maithanet]

Russia has made minimal/no advances in the past three days in Ukraine.  They have also seen a drop of ~90% in artillery strikes across the front.  These two factors are obviously linked, since Russia's offensive successes in the past 2 months have been reliant on overwhelming artillery firepower. 

This decline in artillery is caused by a combination of Russian exhaustion after the battle for Lysychansk and HIMARs/M270s destroying munitions dumps across Ukraine (which is continuing BTW, 5 smaller dumps were hit last night).  The Russian logistical approach of putting ammo dumps at the most convenient place (right next to the railyard) is clearly no longer acceptable.  Russia is right now trying to move all their ammunition to smaller/more hidden distribution sites, some of which are beyond the 70 km range of HIMARs.  That process is extremely difficult, and it is no surprise that Russian artillery ammunition is in short supply.  When you are moving all the ammo backwards, it is hard to get what you need to the front. 

There isn't a great answer for Russia.  Their logistical system is basically to WW2 standards, with very little palletization and mechanization to make things go faster.  It is rail dependent, and getting things from the railyards to the front is slow and manpower intensive.  If HIMARs makes big dumps right by the railyard too dangerous, then the solution of moving ammo back and trucking it in will require a LOT of trucks and a LOT of manpower. 

But I don't want to go too far in declaring the HIMARs a gamechanger.  Russia will adapt, and the impact of these new weapons will decrease.  It will take time and it's likely Russia will have more logistical bottlenecks (fewer shells at the front where needed), but Russia will find a way to supply its artillery and keep fighting.  Hopefully Ukraine is making the best use of this artillery respite. 

[Maithanet]

 

[Maithanet]

Interesting thread from armchair analyst Def Mon.  He argues that the most likely Ukrainian counterattack is southeast from Zaporizhia, rather than around Kherson.  He argues that a successful attack there would probably force Russian troops to evacuate Kherson anyway, because their rail lines could be cut.  I can see the merits of that argument, but that is a much bigger offensive than anything the Ukrainians have done in the war thus far. 

 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Interesting thread from armchair analyst Def Mon.  He argues that the most likely Ukrainian counterattack is southeast from Zaporizhia, rather than around Kherson.  He argues that a successful attack there would probably force Russian troops to evacuate Kherson anyway, because their rail lines could be cut.  I can see the merits of that argument, but that is a much bigger offensive than anything the Ukrainians have done in the war thus far. 

Excellent points. Zaporizhia is an area where the Ukrainians were making gains last month. Collapsing this front would be huge, because it would force an evacuation from Kherson (though only if they manage to take a serious amount of territory to the SW), it would resecure the nuclear plant, it would cut a rail supply from the Crimea and it would bring the Kerch Bridge within firing range. Even if Ukraine don't hit it, the threat of doing so might force Russia to suspend operations. It would also allow the liberation of Kherson and Melitopol, the largest cities captured (intact) by Russia so far, and would allow for the possible liberation of Mariupol, which would be a huge PR victory. It would also collapse the Russian threat to the south of Donetsk and position forces to retake the entirety of Donbas. There's also a lot of partisan activity around Melitopol (recent reports of Russian soldiers sealing themselves inside buildings with rotas for guards because the partisans have been so good at picking off isolated groups).

It's also a relatively soft front, where the Russians have instead been heavily reinforcing and building defensive lines around Kherson, Izium and in the north, they've been doing less of that along that front.

[broken one]

That would annihilate the only meaningful strategical success od Russia, the land corridor. On the other hand, if they wanted to set an offensive in the south and destroy the bridge why would they announce it? Maybe they want to make Russians spread their forces along the frontline and plan to defend, wait until more weapons come, rookies get seasoned and sanctions bring effect. Anyway, the HiMARs bought some time.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, Maithanet said:

 

I’ve been arguing with this repeated application of the Tu Quoque fallacy by Russian apologists since Russia first attacked Ukraine.  

[straits]

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’ve been arguing with this repeated application of the Tu Quoque fallacy by Russian apologists since Russia first attacked Ukraine.  

In their defense, we really failed to adequatly arm the Iraqis against the invader. The mess still ended up lasting like 6 years.