Ukraine #17: Is There Life on HIMARS?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

20 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The US military confirmed this morning that not a single HIMARS has been destroyed or even damaged by Russian forces, and claims to the contrary were ludicrous.

Apparently the US has modelled the survivability of its launchers in all situations based on their own shitty performance in the Gulf War, where even total air superiority failed to take out SCUD launchers in significant numbers, and the only reliable way to get it done was to send in special forces behind the lines (which was fraught with high risk). Russia enjoys neither total air superiority or even enough command of the situation to even risk sending in special forces, and Ukraine has so far deployed HIMARS very intelligently to avoid counter-attack.

Meanwhile, fresh volunteer recruits are being sent to Ukraine after having received just a week's training, maybe less.

Ukraine has resumed bombarding the Antonisvky Bridge in Kherson. About 50% of the bridge is out of action, forcing vehicles to use just one lane. Ukraine has also launched a huge drone strike on Russian forces at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine seems to be pairing or even trebling attacks on southern front, to keep Russia off-balance where the main thrust is coming. It also looks like partisan attacks around Melitopol are stepping up, and the partisans are feeding information to headquarters to guide HIMARS and drone attacks.

Also looks like Ukraine is pairing or even trebling drones to attack targets of importance, so the Russians have to destroy two or three targets to remove the threat rather than one. In a reasonable number of cases, the Russians fail to destroy any, resulting in either overkill or the Ukrainians then going after targets of opportunity in the area.

Also, the Americans have been assessing the combat capability of Ukraine's Su-25 aircraft and judged them comparable to their mothballed A-10 Warthogs, so there's no logical reason (not counting Moscow whinging) not to supply them with Warthogs. The meme may yet come to life!

I would love to see hungry hogs in the skys over Ukraine…

[Maithanet]

My understanding was that A-10s would be extremely vulnerable to Russian AA fire.  Yes, Ukraine is working to degrade that AA with long range artillery, but that is a challenging process.   

[Maithanet]

The Russians are giving payouts of 12 million rubles for the families of soldiers killed in Ukraine.  That works out to over $210k in US dollars at current exchange rates (the US payout for servicemembers killed is 100k).  It is quite possible that many of the men fighting in Ukraine will never earn that much in their whole lives (average pay for laborers in Russia is ~10k per year.)

Now, there are obviously questions about whether that promised payout will actually occur.  I'm sure plenty of people will attempt to pocket the money before it reaches the family, or claim that the soldier deserted or something.  But nonetheless, that is some brutal economics at work. 

[Wilbur]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Also, the Americans have been assessing the combat capability of Ukraine's Su-25 aircraft and judged them comparable to their mothballed A-10 Warthogs, so there's no logical reason (not counting Moscow whinging) not to supply them with Warthogs. The meme may yet come to life!

It would be interesting to follow the A-10s from Tucson to Ukraine on a flight tracker.  The A-10s train in the Tucson area where they are based, and when they fire on targets, you can hear it for miles and miles, including even in the car if you are driving on a nearby freeway.  It is very distinctive.

I wonder what else the USAF could come up with for the Ukrainians from the AMARG Boneyard...

 

[Kalbear]

 Well that's different

 

 

[Kalbear]

6 hours ago, Maithanet said:

My understanding was that A-10s would be extremely vulnerable to Russian AA fire.  Yes, Ukraine is working to degrade that AA with long range artillery, but that is a challenging process.   

They would, but no more or less vulnerable than the Su-25s, which are in somewhat limited use right now - probably picking off stragglers or targets of opportunity. 

[Werthead]

The US has pledged a total of "over 20" HIMARS to Ukraine, half of which are already in-country.

7 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

 Well that's different

For only the first time in history since the Great Alien Invasion of Independence Day 1996!

[Werthead]

The Russians are targeting the Vuhlehirsk Power Plant, because them attacking power infrastructure has gone so well recently.

Russian forces in Kherson Oblast are reportedly so low on artillery shells after getting their warehouses HIMARSed that they've switched to using S-300s and S-400 AA systems in a ground-attack role, which is very dumb (they're not designed for it, they're not accurate, they can't penetrate hardened structures). So far they've only succeeded in blowing up civilian infrastructure around Mykolaiv.

Russian and LPR soldiers in Lysychansk are reporting "extreme" hostility from the residents, constant harassment, people openly filming them on social media and then sending information straight to the Ukrainian government and military. Lots of troops have left to push the front forward, leaving the job of the occupying forces in Lysychansk (and presumably Severodonetsk behind them) severely under-manned.

It looks like Ukrainian forces have made something of a HIMARS-led push from Kochubeivka, Kherson Oblast. That's on the far NW end of the Russian line west of the Dnieper. They've been probing this area for about two months (forcing the Russians to pull back equipment from nearby Vysokopillya, which for a time was a major resupply depot for the front) and there's a feeling this might be one of the areas where the main counter-offensive begins.

[Maithanet]

Russian artillery fire has been declining significantly for the past 3 weeks.  It is now just a tiny fraction of what it was in the beginning of this month.  I don't expect it to remain quite this low, but Russia is clearly struggling with keeping their artillery supplied.  Russians now need to station ammo dumps out of HIMARs range (ie 100 km away) and then truck it all the way to the front, which means fewer truck trips per day.  In addition, huge quantities of ammunition was lost in explosions the past three weeks, which needs to be replaced with other ammo from somewhere. 

And this is all assuming that Russia isn't yet hitting the limit of its ammo stores.  Russia had a pretty astonishing number of shells stored in warehouses since the Soviet era, but even that cannot last forever.  Ukraine used up nearly all of its stored ammunition by ~ May.  If Russia is running low, that would mean they need to scale back to only what they can produce per month (which is still substantial, but much less than they have been using the past 5 months).   

[Werthead]

30 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Russian artillery fire has been declining significantly for the past 3 weeks.  It is now just a tiny fraction of what it was in the beginning of this month.  I don't expect it to remain quite this low, but Russia is clearly struggling with keeping their artillery supplied.  Russians now need to station ammo dumps out of HIMARs range (ie 100 km away) and then truck it all the way to the front, which means fewer truck trips per day.  In addition, huge quantities of ammunition was lost in explosions the past three weeks, which needs to be replaced with other ammo from somewhere. 

And this is all assuming that Russia isn't yet hitting the limit of its ammo stores.  Russia had a pretty astonishing number of shells stored in warehouses since the Soviet era, but even that cannot last forever.  Ukraine used up nearly all of its stored ammunition by ~ May.  If Russia is running low, that would mean they need to scale back to only what they can produce per month (which is still substantial, but much less than they have been using the past 5 months).   

I think there was a Russian Telegram blow-out a few weeks ago where a Russian officer said he'd heard they'd fired 7 million shells, which was a significant chunk of their reserves (35-50%?), and a lot of Russian military personnel are saying if they get into a shooting war somewhere else, they're going to have fuck all to fire. I think people were throwing figures around here a couple of months ago which were in the same ballpark. Based on the figures I could find, the estimate was that Soviet Union had fired ~30 million shells in the entirety of WWII, so firing almost a third of that in less than five months to vastly less effect seems really stupid.

And Russian military doctrine is based all around artillery-led advances. They can't really pivot to another strategy quickly.

[Maithanet]

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think there was a Russian Telegram blow-out a few weeks ago where a Russian officer said he'd heard they'd fired 7 million shells, which was a significant chunk of their reserves (35-50%?), and a lot of Russian military personnel are saying if they get into a shooting war somewhere else, they're going to have fuck all to fire. I think people were throwing figures around here a couple of months ago which were in the same ballpark. Based on the figures I could find, the estimate was that Soviet Union had fired ~30 million shells in the entirety of WWII, so firing almost a third of that in less than five months to vastly less effect seems really stupid.

And Russian military doctrine is based all around artillery-led advances. They can't really pivot to another strategy quickly.

And to add to that a couple dozen ammo dumps that were destroyed.  It is almost impossible to estimate how many shells were there, but I'd assume even the smaller ones would be over a thousand and the larger ones in the tens of thousands.  So that could be half a million or more shells lost just in ammo explosions. 

[Werthead]

Some remarkable signs that the Russians are preparing to pull out of Kherson. The Russians seem to have run out of artillery ammo on that front, and can no longer support frontline troops with artillery, leaving them highly vulnerable to counter-attacks.

However, Russian positions around the city are quite heavily dug-in, with three concentric rings of defences which could seriously delay a Ukrainian counter-offensive. They have invested a lot of time and money in building those defences, so abandoning them to fall back to less well-defended positions behind the Dnieper would be pretty humiliating.

Apparently the move could be excused as a "goodwill gesture" to try to save face.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Some remarkable signs that the Russians are preparing to pull out of Kherson. The Russians seem to have run out of artillery ammo on that front, and can no longer support frontline troops with artillery, leaving them highly vulnerable to counter-attacks.

However, Russian positions around the city are quite heavily dug-in, with three concentric rings of defences which could seriously delay a Ukrainian counter-offensive. They have invested a lot of time and money in building those defences, so abandoning them to fall back to less well-defended positions behind the Dnieper would be pretty humiliating.

Apparently the move could be excused as a "goodwill gesture" to try to save face.

The 6 month occupation of Kherson was all a “feint”.

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The 6 month occupation of Kherson was all a “feint”.

I get the impression that the Russians gave up on Odesa a while back but didn't want to admit it, and if you're not going after Odesa, than holding Kherson as your front line also becomes increasingly untenable because it's flapping out there on its own. Pulling back behind the Dnieper makes way more sense.

They also make a great argument that if Ukraine retakes Kherson, crosses the Dnieper and pushes the Russians back towards Crimea, the Russians will strip troops from everywhere they can to reinforce Crimea. They will not lose Crimea under any circumstances, even if it means abandoning the entire rest of the campaign. And the Ukrainians know that.

[Maithanet]

34 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Some remarkable signs that the Russians are preparing to pull out of Kherson. The Russians seem to have run out of artillery ammo on that front, and can no longer support frontline troops with artillery, leaving them highly vulnerable to counter-attacks.

However, Russian positions around the city are quite heavily dug-in, with three concentric rings of defences which could seriously delay a Ukrainian counter-offensive. They have invested a lot of time and money in building those defences, so abandoning them to fall back to less well-defended positions behind the Dnieper would be pretty humiliating.

Apparently the move could be excused as a "goodwill gesture" to try to save face.

Important to remember that the Ukrainians don't need to assault Kherson.  If they can either take Nova Kakhovka or any point between it and Kherson, then any troops in the city would be essentially trapped without supplies*.  The Russians know this and have prepared for it, but even with defenses built, defending a 70 km front of open country between two cities is dramatically harder than defending an urban area. 

*  Assuming that the Ukrainians would rend the Kherson bridge inoperable, which they clearly have the capability to do. 

35 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I get the impression that the Russians gave up on Odesa a while back but didn't want to admit it, and if you're not going after Odesa, than holding Kherson as your front line also becomes increasingly untenable because it's flapping out there on its own. Pulling back behind the Dnieper makes way more sense.

Yes, Kherson and Nova Kakhovka are much more valuable to Ukraine than they are to Russia.  If Russia were able to get a peace deal where it controls only the south bank of the Dnieper, that would be a fairly trivial loss.  And if they pulled back, they could free up a bunch of troops to defend the Zaporizhia front, which is currently pretty lightly defended.  It wouldn't take many troops to hold the south bank of the Dnieper. 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Some remarkable signs that the Russians are preparing to pull out of Kherson. The Russians seem to have run out of artillery ammo on that front, and can no longer support frontline troops with artillery, leaving them highly vulnerable to counter-attacks.

However, Russian positions around the city are quite heavily dug-in, with three concentric rings of defences which could seriously delay a Ukrainian counter-offensive. They have invested a lot of time and money in building those defences, so abandoning them to fall back to less well-defended positions behind the Dnieper would be pretty humiliating.

Apparently the move could be excused as a "goodwill gesture" to try to save face.

The Germans carried out lots of “goodwill gestures” on the Eastern Front, after August 1943.

[ThinkerX]

Ok...

So... Putin gets handed a (somewhat decisive defeat in Ukraine with the forces already present.

The fresh recruits, stockpiled ammo, and vehicle inventories don't look all that great, even with a general mobilization (plus the gigantic hit to what's left of Russia's economy.

So... What then? 

Putin is the dictator of a kleptocratic state. Accepting defeat isn't an option, not if he wants to go on living. 

[Werthead]

59 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Ok...

So... Putin gets handed a (somewhat decisive defeat in Ukraine with the forces already present.

The fresh recruits, stockpiled ammo, and vehicle inventories don't look all that great, even with a general mobilization (plus the gigantic hit to what's left of Russia's economy.

So... What then? 

Putin is the dictator of a kleptocratic state. Accepting defeat isn't an option, not if he wants to go on living. 

There was always going to be two iffy periods in this war, how it starts and how it finishes. I even saw some people in the west thinking it might be "better" if Putin gets to walk away with something to show for it in the way of a victory, even if it's not the complete victory he wanted. If he doesn't get that, that could be a dangerous moment where he considers additional escalation.

One idea that Ukraine seems to be working on is what happens if they boot Russia out of the entire country and even look like they're going to retake Crimea, but then they don't retake Crimea. Putin can take that as a victory, or a minimised loss. Not entirely sure if that's going to fly though.

It does feel that Russia could be starting to turn around into some kind of de-escalation phase. They still likely want to take Donetsk and declare victory, but the question of what happens if Ukraine simply ignores that and counter-attacks and starts winning is an interesting one. There are jackals at least sniffing around in the Kremlin, and it does look like some of Putin's allies are starting to sense weakness, but at least some of the people positioned to replace Putin are really fucking nuts in comparison to him and far more hardline.

[Maithanet]

What next?  Declare victory in the face of defeat and spend the rest of your life selling it.

Also this 

Ukrainians are claiming they have a thousand Russian troops trapped north of Kherson.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

Ok...

So... Putin gets handed a (somewhat decisive defeat in Ukraine with the forces already present.

The fresh recruits, stockpiled ammo, and vehicle inventories don't look all that great, even with a general mobilization (plus the gigantic hit to what's left of Russia's economy.

So... What then? 

Putin is the dictator of a kleptocratic state. Accepting defeat isn't an option, not if he wants to go on living. 

Tough question. Presumably the ides of March for our favorite Russian C(e)sar. Chances are that some people with ambitions will make a move to remove him, if they feel this war is threatening the social order and thus their position in Russia.

Whether they will continue that war, or just blame it on the previous ruler is the next question. Best case scenario: Putin gets ousted, and his successor has no interest of sending more Russians to their Ukrainian graves, and will blame it entirely on Putin. And thus turn their focus on securing their position(s) in Russia. How stable the political situation in Russia in this scenario is, that is anybody's guess. I guess it depends on, who brings down the curtain on Putin. 

General mobilization is not really an option, tho. Not just for political reasons, but also for very practical ones. There wouldn't be enough equipment in case for a general mobilization.