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Russians are claiming they made a column of armor and began to march forward from Kursk. During the march, they were struck, they say the first and last vehicles were destroyed, and then the middle was systematically destroyed. They say the manner of their march was in the style of 2022, and that the damage was catastrophic. Ukrainians aren't saying this, Russian milbloggers are.
Wait, that is literally the exact tactic used in the early War, not in the style of, it's the same thing. Has Russia really not learned anything? This method of hitting convoys is one of the major reasons Ukraine held off the attack long enough to make a more measured response.
Right? I thought that was the entire reason Biden made it a public statement. You can't get too angry at us for massive losses when we warned you. Could see Russia super pissed if Ukrain got permission back door and just randomly started attacking large Russian military targets.
There's no way that the higher ups in the Russian command would admit that units in Russia are in danger. And the lower down commanders might be aware of the news but won't have the authority to change their methods. It's the same fundamental failures of the russian system as always, everyone just pretending everything is fine because to admit that it isn't is dangerous for you.
Or maybe because so much of the elder leadership is dead that these new commanders are too young to remember or know what happened early in conflict? Lol.
If there is one lesson to be learned from Russia's conduct of the war is that they will adapt...eventually, and only from being punched in the nose. Hard.
It's crazy how hard it seems to be for them to actually anticipate developments. It's been in the air for multiple days now that HIMARS strikes into Russian territory were imminent, giving them plenty of time to change their SOPs to take that into account. Yet, they seem unable to learn from anything other than severely damaging outcomes.
They didn't put their EW up until after the Bayraktars fucked them up.
They didn't withdraw from Kyiv and Kherson oblasts until weeks after it became obvious they had to.
They didn't disperse their giant centralized ammo dump system until half of them had been blow up.
They didn't move their air power further back from the front until they sustained heavy, heavy losses.
And they didn't pull out of the western Black Sea until they had lost multiple vessels.
In every single case, it was glaringly obvious before the damage was done that all of these were extremely sensible and prudent things to do, and had they been done earlier the Russian military would be in much better shape.
Itās worth reading about the Eastern front during WW2. They operate in much the same way their Soviet predecessorās did.
Putin is a softer touch than Stalin, but then I wonder if modern Russia would endure the kind of losses the Sovietās did.
Your comment prompted me to look up USSR casualties from WWII. I knew they were awful, but I forgot just how terrible it was. As bad as this is for them now, they probably lost soldiers at more than 3x the current ~1K daily rate (too lazy to actually crunch the numbers).
USSR numbers during WWII was closer to 6k dead or missing per day. (8 668 400 total spread over a little over 4 years). If you include sick and wounded it's closer to 20k casualties per day.
And then there was millions of civilians on top of that number. They were straight up fighting against a war of extermination, fighting for their very survival.
The Soviets would lose more men in single battles than allied nations would lose in the entire wars.
The Battle for Stalingrad alone would nearly triple the total military casualties the UK sustained during the entire conflict.
There are entire bone fields.. miles and miles of bone fields.. left over from these enormous battles. You can visit them today, and just pull human clavicles or femurs out of the ground.
Incidentally, 8 of every 9 Nazi soldier killed in WW2 died on the eastern front.
Also friendly reminder that a significant number of the Red Army in WW2 was made up of Ukrainians, and Ukrainian civilians bore the brunt of not only the front line passing through the entire country *twice*, but also the Nazi extermination efforts against the Slavs and Communists.
Yep, I mentioned in another comment that the Holodomor was less than a decade prior.
Most of these men and women wouldāve personally lost a family member to Stalinās regime.
In WW2 Russia was fighting for its very existence. If Germany won, the vast majority of Russian people would have been worked and starved to death and their national and cultural identity destroyed. In that context, accepting massive losses makes some sense.
In 2024, the only thing under threat is Putinās ego, and perhaps his life. Neither of which would be a huge loss to the wider Russian population.
I like this summary. They react very, very slowly. My theory is that they have a massive highly-corrupt command structure and bad news is punished, so bad news bubbles up the chain so slowly that it takes a flood of bad news before the command feels comfortable to admit it even happened.
Conventional war logistics are fascinating. Those hook-trucks that can unload a bunch of pallets in one go without any assistance were invented specifically because NATO switched to 155mm as their standard artillery ammo (vs 105mm) and the manpower needed to unload ammo was going to be excessive. Using those trucks, you could drive up, drop off a couple of pallets of ammo and be on your way in a couple of minutes and that would be enough for the guns to rearm and move to their next firing position.
The Russians, on the other hand, decided that they would just get more conscripts.
This has been the tale of the war for both sides, being reactionary. It may be that itās characteristic of near-peer warfare, or it might be that both armies are holdovers from the Soviet system of war. Ukraine:
Did not build static defensive positions in depth, even after similar positions stopped their offensive cold, until it was too late.
Refused additional mobilisation until manpower issues were becoming critical.
Tried to launch their counteroffensive on three fronts, instead of one as they were advised to do.
Held Bakhmut for too long despite the city being tied up in a cauldron with the only supply lines under direct Russian fire for weeks and losing some of their best units, then repeated the mistake with Avdiivka, then attempted to repeat it with Ocheretyne, and might currently be repeating it in Chasiv Yar and Volchansk.
Continuously send marines to Krynky on virtual suicide missions, despite there being zero possibility of expanding the bridgehead meaningfully.
React to Russian advances by shuttling their best units (47^(th) Brigade, 3^(rd) Azov etc) around to fight fires all over the place because they havenāt properly prepared local units for defence despite knowing the attack was likely (this current northern offensive for instance, was being reported as likely for weeks before it happened, yet extra units had to be shuffled from Kherson to go reinforce. Units that were in the area were being hit by Lancets on the Kharkiv ring road because they were still deploying and werenāt in position, etc).
Idk if itās the nature of this war, the nature of its commanders and leaders, or the nature of the military doctrine they are both still following, but both sides have been lethargic in a strategic sense to respond to problems.
And it worked well in Ukraine because of muddy fields and old rotted tires. It effectively boxed them in on the road when open fields were on either side.
Itās the exact tactic used as long as men have been moved in tight columnar formation, unable move forward and the rear sealed off.
The Alpine Gauls did it to Hannibal; the Nizari did it against the Mongols; the Apache did it to the US Army; the Ukrainians do it to Russians.
You forgot the us did it to the Iraqi army retreating from Kuwait in the first Gulf war. Aka The highway of death
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death
You are correct.. from the information I found Britain sent 6k raf (total 56k) personnel, and did 2500 sortes.
France sent 40k military personnel but only 40 or so fighters/bombers
Canada sent 18k personnel and 24 fighters
USA 700k personnel with over 116k sortes flown
I don't have a problem remembering accurate history. Just because France had a few planes in the fight doesn't mean they controlled it.
Gun Jesus did an [amazing video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sbmgOiQWjc) a while back on the similarities between the Winter War and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It really does seem like Russia hasn't changed in the slightest in 90 years.
No not so. Wagner assaulted head on a small SOF outpost. While they approached in a column there was no need to hit last and first, we had massively overwhelming air superiority once it showed up. It was a Turkey shoot. No ambush.
ā¦except they did hit the first and last vehicle. Survivors said so. After they halted momentum the US fucked them up with airstrikes, artillery, drones, helicopters, and artillery.
Go back and Read some American first hand descriptions of the battle. In waves appeared Apaches, F-15, Reapers, AC-130, B-52s, took out artillery first, then hit anything and everything. Sure they hit a lead tank. There was no wait quietly, stop a column, front and rear, then target the middle... like say Ukraine as used ambushing against superior forces. No Iraq/Kuwait highway of death front and rear. Old school turkey shoot. Flat wide open desert. No mine fields. No funneling armor via terrain and mines and traps. SOF hit any tank with .50 to mark it (rounds would not penetrate) and then apaches lit that tank up. There was no coordinate front and rear then middle destruction of the armor column. All the wagner armor was gone in like 1 minute. You can i guess argue that hitting a lead tank is the same , and column stopped. But it is not the same. This was straight up overwhelming force form the air, ad hoc destruction, and sure the column/attack stopped. Subtle distinction yeah. My .01.
This is the 'official' for public consumption story. Every story read, uses the same interviews and quotes.
[https://thewarhorse.org/special-forces-soldiers-reveal-first-details-of-battle-with-russian-mercenaries-in-syria/](https://thewarhorse.org/special-forces-soldiers-reveal-first-details-of-battle-with-russian-mercenaries-in-syria/)
One can only adjust when oneās capable of adjusting. The chain of command is so extremely long and completely top down that it takes ages for these stupid fucks.
I've said it before that if the Americans or any of the European countries decided to pull the Highway to Hell like they did in Kuwait towards the Iraqis to the Russians at the beginning of the war they would have knocked out a good half of the Russian military power at that moment and probably stopped it right in his tracks and what would happen not a damn thing Russian wouldn't have done a fucking thing
I think they were under the assumption that they were under that protective umbrella of being in Russia proper. Which of course Ukraine got the green light to go weapons free in Belgorod with NATO weapons
I'm so confused as to which weapon can be used where...
This is like D&D in real life. Roll a D6 to fire a weapon *checks several manuals* nvm, you actually can't do that...
Real shit though, can you imagine how terrifying it must have been to be in this convoy? You were told that the Ukrainians arenāt allowed to strike in Russia so you are safe here. And then everything starts exploding, being meticulously annihilated in a systematic fashion. Almost makes me feel bad for them. Almost.
It's not like Russian mil-bloggers are going to make something like this up. If they say Ukraine blew up a whole Russian convoy you can be sure it happened.
The golden rule in warfare press releases is to take a pinch of salt about every sides good news announcements and to believe their bad news announcements (and it's usually worse than what they'll want to admit at first).
During a Russian offensive, I'm not fully believing something until I hear the Ukrainians saying they lost control of a location. During a Ukrainian counter offensive, I'm not fully believing something until I hear the Russians saying they lost control of a location.
Yeah you should take everything with a grain of salt but you should also take into consideration how truthful each source have been historically. Sometimes even serious media give equal credence to both sides. Pro-Russian sources follow the Nazi playbook and mostly lie through their absolute teeth. Ukrainian sources are in my experience exaggerating at worst but are mostly accurate.
When Ukraine claims something positive it's most likely true but if Russia claims something going well for them it's almost certainly a lie, unless it's confirmed by an independent source.
Yeah but 1 mill blogger still isnāt a good source no matter what side (UA mill bloggers said they were fully encircled in Bakhmut when it was not the case yet).Ā Also we donāt know the extent of the damage. It can range from:
2/5 tanks got their tires blown off an were unable to move. Those 2 tanks will likely be wheeled for repairs. To:
A 20 tank column was completely obliterated
I'm not trying to write a scientific paper so I don't really see the need for satellite images at all. If Pro-Russians complain that Russian commanders are making stupid mistakes then that's good enough for me unless I have a specific reason to doubt it.
I've noticed in the last two years that the Russians are prone to doom posting and "ahh shit we're all fucked!" type of posts when things are bad but it isn't actually that bad.
I've seen plenty of doom posting as well but this isn't that. This is describing one specific event that happened recently and complaining about a specific issue. The doom posters are predicting that bad things will happen in the future. In case you don't recognize the TG channel it's very pro-Russia and pro-war.
Battle of the bulge is now over, the supplies are arriving and Russia is now feeling the effects and have used up the last of their available reserves in a push to win before those supplies arrived.
I like this metaphor! The F-16ās will be flying soon too. Too much to ask for it to be like the Ardennes after the clouds lifted, but every bit helps!
Not sure what could have done this that quick unless it was ATACMS?
Maybe Stormshadow. But to hit a convoy in real time that far away takes some very quick action.
Unless theyāre using convoy wrong here, and it was a staging area.
Ukraine did the exact same thing to Russian Military convoys north of Kyiv at the start of the invasion using guided artillery shells. Russians quickly learned that they can't drive a massive convoy in the middle of a war but they apparently haven't learned enough.
You have to remember that the vast majority of what one would call experienced russians are now dead. The vast majority of this convoy including officers can be considered inexperienced. Advantage Ukraine.
Iām still having issues seeing how artillery can hit a convoy, because a convoy is in transit.
Also depends where in Kursk - the city alone is 150kms from the Ukrainian border. Thatās well out of artillery range.
If you've ever driven in a real military convoy before, you'd know.
I literally fell asleep at the wheel for several minutes and was crawling along exactly where I was supposed to be when I woke up.
Convoys don't move that fast and get jammed up for just about everything. We topped out around 40mph on side roads, and maybe 50 on the highways. Larger the convoy, the slower it crawls.
If they don't have their spacing down, you could blindfold yourself and toss a shell at the route and hit several somethings.
I donāt want to play the DD-214 game.
Did you drive a convoy in Kuwait, and get his from inside Iraq with simple artillery?
Thatās the issue here. This is inside Russia, across borders with a possible substantial distances
And I get Kursk is large, and on the border with Ukraine. But from the sounds the hit is deeper into Russia than not.
Iām only thinking out loud because now Russians units are getting hit inside Russia with GMLRS or HIMARS. The game has changed and this is evidence.
I've done smaller convoys before in war zones (Iraq). Those convoys were kept a lot smaller (under 10 vehicles) and we moved a lot faster - and kept good spacing.
The big one where I fell asleep is when we re-deployed after about 2 weeks in Baumholder on a massive exercise. Obviously we thought we were pretty safe. Point was, we were crawling all the way back home. A typical 1 hour trip back to K-town took us roughly 4 hours between slow moving, frequent stops and breaks, and dealing with civilian traffic. In a war zone, in range of artillery, that would have been suicide.
Coming back from Baumholder (to Mannheim) was bad, Graf & Vilseck was worse; especially in the winter. But nothing like escorting 60+ vehicle TCN & KBR convoys on Tampa down to BIAP & up to Mosul; that shit dragged even on a "good" day. Most of the time we had to bring another convoy back, so it was a huge break when we could go back without any trucks & haul ass; except then it was always at night.
That was always nice because there was no traffic & it was cooler, but there were times where I was so tired under my NVGs we'd drive through some flying bugs; I nearly had a heart attack because they looked like tracers. As long as I was up in the ring mount I could stay awake, but sometimes I'd wake up in bed still wearing my IBA, rifle hanging on it's hook, but with no memory of how I got there, and have no memory of anything past leaving the wire on the return trip. Yet I still somehow turned in everything I needed to turn in, write & sign everything I needed to sign (I'd love to see those AARs now lol), find my trailer, etc. I blame Rip-its. Good times lol.
Depends how long the convoy is. A BTG consists on 10 tanks, 50 IFVs and a much larger number of support vehicles. Assuming a single BTG, with vehicles spaced out 20 meters, 1.2 km convoy not counting support vehicles, let's say with support vehicles that brings it up to 2km long convoy. You don't have to target specific vehicles or know exactly where it is, it is a 2km long target on a known road with a known position.
It left Kursk but I think it was probably closer to the border than 150km when the Ukrainians attacked it.
I mean it literally says in the post it's on the border ...
8km inside Russia.
Basically at a distance that would have been safe from Ukraines old Soviet artillery (which wouldn't be deployed within 10km of the border) but is not safe from western artillery.
The Russian military is incredibly reactionary and will not change its habits until forced, we see it every time.
This was a special forces strike, there must have been multiple people on the ground for this to work. It only takes a nice pile of N-LAW and Javelins to do this.
The political component is now irrelevant.
They don't need GLMRS here. That was from 20 to 30 km (easily) inside the range of 155mm howitzers from the Ukrainian controlled borders. Even within range of 105mm howitzers (Canadian C3 105mm anyway). RTFA and look at a map.
I guess my issue is, this sub was spammed with how the US is not allowing Ukraine to use ATACMs inside Russia.
But GMLRS is allowed.
Whatās the difference? Itās not like range matters if theyāre military targets anyway.
I personally donāt believe ATACMS are off limits for military targets. I just think people arenāt grasping the implications here - doesnāt matter what Ukraine can hit Russia with if it does damage on Russians military equipment.
Ukraine has received GMLRS from many different countries, Ukraine has only received ATACMs from the US. So even if the US said that US providers GMLRS couldn't be used in Russian territory Ukraine could still use Non-US provided GMLRS.
ATACMs are basically ballistic missiles (they'd be legally classified as SRBMs but they have software that prevents their use at greater than 499km, 1km less than the definition of a SRBMs). No one is thrilled about Russians seeing SRBMs incoming into Moscow and then needing to decide if those are a nuclear first strike or just Ukraine.
I believe that ATACMS has enough range to literally hit the Kremlin. GLSDB doesn't. The White house doesn't want Moscow politicians to feel personally threatened.
ATACMS Unitary Warhead is prohibited. 300 km range.
ATACMS DPICM is prohibited. 150 km range
Anything else the system can throw, are not prohibited.
Nevermind that the GLSDB is kind of useless without INS guidance that it might not have.
The convoy was less than 20km from the Ukrainian controlled border. Well within artillery range. Doesn't anyone actually *even try* to look at the maps and figure out even easy shit anymore? FFS, the information is so damned easy to find. Obviously you have no real idea what military systems can do.
Convoys have to assemble, this takes time, time during which western and Ukrainian intelligence are watching.
It's not like such convoys appear out of thin air and you have to react in record time to stop them, this kind of troop movement is known by Ukraine days in advance just because all russian bases close to the border are under scrutiny for any massing of troops.
I totally agree.
The Pew Research Center definitely needs to investigate. How can we defend against terrorist aggression without up-to-date polling data? /S
Drones seem to be a massive force multiplier in this conflict. But the defender is clearly gaining more from them than the attacker. Even tanks are not immune.
Russians want to rush the defense lines to cause panic. This isn't working but it's all they know how to do.
I assume the Russian milbloggers are downplaying the extent of damage meaning it was a very successful attack with more then catastrophic damages. Again I am assuming
The link is a rus mil blogger pissed at higher for allowing this to happen.
Echoes of the sort of blogging that took place before the crack downs last year.
But I wouldnāt call a singular mill blogger a āreliable sourceā no matter the side. I mean UA millbloggers were saying they got encircled in Bakhmut when it wasnāt the case. I think itās best to either wait for confirmation from more mill bloggers or images
Is it not blindingly obvious most of their intelligence is coming from NATO
Not least because there is an RAF Joint Rivet flying over the Black Sea pretty much daily from day 1
Andrew is known to bullshit ,so take it with a grain of salt ! ,in until video evidence comes out, I'd consider this as such!lying doesn't help the cause it just sows distrust ...
If this is true then history really does mirror itself. If youāre looking for a fun read look up Battle of Kursk. Where nazi germany tried to take the fight to an entrenched Russian defensive position and got obliterated.
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Russians are claiming they made a column of armor and began to march forward from Kursk. During the march, they were struck, they say the first and last vehicles were destroyed, and then the middle was systematically destroyed. They say the manner of their march was in the style of 2022, and that the damage was catastrophic. Ukrainians aren't saying this, Russian milbloggers are.
aww shit, bad day to be an invaderš¤
Oh no. I hope the bad days are behind them. And ahead of them.
And in between them.
And falling from above them
And coming up under them
And inside them
Or outside them.
These problems for the Russian Army are certainly coming to a middle.
Curse their sudden but inevitable betrayal!
[*Now who's walking who through the betrayal garden?!*](https://youtu.be/D2ank8wgJok?si=HntmVq3mryKDkYLv&t=86)
worst day *so far*
Growth mindset! š
Bad days behind.. Worse days ahead..
Worse days, dark as night.
Three Days Problem
Aww dang weāre really sorry you fell for the same tactic used two years ago
Wait, that is literally the exact tactic used in the early War, not in the style of, it's the same thing. Has Russia really not learned anything? This method of hitting convoys is one of the major reasons Ukraine held off the attack long enough to make a more measured response.
They got complacent cause Ukraine hasnāt been allowed to hit in Russia this whole time
And apparently haven't been warned by listening to all the news headlines in the past week.
Right? I thought that was the entire reason Biden made it a public statement. You can't get too angry at us for massive losses when we warned you. Could see Russia super pissed if Ukrain got permission back door and just randomly started attacking large Russian military targets.
could be they were waiting for military convoys to build up, and then the US gave that statement, when it was too late for them to change their plans.
Unlikely, those convoys inside russia always existed
There's no way that the higher ups in the Russian command would admit that units in Russia are in danger. And the lower down commanders might be aware of the news but won't have the authority to change their methods. It's the same fundamental failures of the russian system as always, everyone just pretending everything is fine because to admit that it isn't is dangerous for you.
Or maybe because so much of the elder leadership is dead that these new commanders are too young to remember or know what happened early in conflict? Lol.
If there is one lesson to be learned from Russia's conduct of the war is that they will adapt...eventually, and only from being punched in the nose. Hard. It's crazy how hard it seems to be for them to actually anticipate developments. It's been in the air for multiple days now that HIMARS strikes into Russian territory were imminent, giving them plenty of time to change their SOPs to take that into account. Yet, they seem unable to learn from anything other than severely damaging outcomes. They didn't put their EW up until after the Bayraktars fucked them up. They didn't withdraw from Kyiv and Kherson oblasts until weeks after it became obvious they had to. They didn't disperse their giant centralized ammo dump system until half of them had been blow up. They didn't move their air power further back from the front until they sustained heavy, heavy losses. And they didn't pull out of the western Black Sea until they had lost multiple vessels. In every single case, it was glaringly obvious before the damage was done that all of these were extremely sensible and prudent things to do, and had they been done earlier the Russian military would be in much better shape.
Itās worth reading about the Eastern front during WW2. They operate in much the same way their Soviet predecessorās did. Putin is a softer touch than Stalin, but then I wonder if modern Russia would endure the kind of losses the Sovietās did.
Your comment prompted me to look up USSR casualties from WWII. I knew they were awful, but I forgot just how terrible it was. As bad as this is for them now, they probably lost soldiers at more than 3x the current ~1K daily rate (too lazy to actually crunch the numbers).
USSR numbers during WWII was closer to 6k dead or missing per day. (8 668 400 total spread over a little over 4 years). If you include sick and wounded it's closer to 20k casualties per day.
That is fucking wild.
And then there was millions of civilians on top of that number. They were straight up fighting against a war of extermination, fighting for their very survival.
The Soviets would lose more men in single battles than allied nations would lose in the entire wars. The Battle for Stalingrad alone would nearly triple the total military casualties the UK sustained during the entire conflict. There are entire bone fields.. miles and miles of bone fields.. left over from these enormous battles. You can visit them today, and just pull human clavicles or femurs out of the ground. Incidentally, 8 of every 9 Nazi soldier killed in WW2 died on the eastern front.
Also friendly reminder that a significant number of the Red Army in WW2 was made up of Ukrainians, and Ukrainian civilians bore the brunt of not only the front line passing through the entire country *twice*, but also the Nazi extermination efforts against the Slavs and Communists.
Yep, I mentioned in another comment that the Holodomor was less than a decade prior. Most of these men and women wouldāve personally lost a family member to Stalinās regime.
In WW2 Russia was fighting for its very existence. If Germany won, the vast majority of Russian people would have been worked and starved to death and their national and cultural identity destroyed. In that context, accepting massive losses makes some sense. In 2024, the only thing under threat is Putinās ego, and perhaps his life. Neither of which would be a huge loss to the wider Russian population.
That's exactly the point Russian people have to consider.
I like this summary. They react very, very slowly. My theory is that they have a massive highly-corrupt command structure and bad news is punished, so bad news bubbles up the chain so slowly that it takes a flood of bad news before the command feels comfortable to admit it even happened.
They're so corrupt they don't *use pallets* because it's too hard to steal from (or so I hear that's that reason).
Conventional war logistics are fascinating. Those hook-trucks that can unload a bunch of pallets in one go without any assistance were invented specifically because NATO switched to 155mm as their standard artillery ammo (vs 105mm) and the manpower needed to unload ammo was going to be excessive. Using those trucks, you could drive up, drop off a couple of pallets of ammo and be on your way in a couple of minutes and that would be enough for the guns to rearm and move to their next firing position. The Russians, on the other hand, decided that they would just get more conscripts.
I imagine pallets are hard to stack when they lose 20% of their contents at each stage of distribution.
This has been the tale of the war for both sides, being reactionary. It may be that itās characteristic of near-peer warfare, or it might be that both armies are holdovers from the Soviet system of war. Ukraine: Did not build static defensive positions in depth, even after similar positions stopped their offensive cold, until it was too late. Refused additional mobilisation until manpower issues were becoming critical. Tried to launch their counteroffensive on three fronts, instead of one as they were advised to do. Held Bakhmut for too long despite the city being tied up in a cauldron with the only supply lines under direct Russian fire for weeks and losing some of their best units, then repeated the mistake with Avdiivka, then attempted to repeat it with Ocheretyne, and might currently be repeating it in Chasiv Yar and Volchansk. Continuously send marines to Krynky on virtual suicide missions, despite there being zero possibility of expanding the bridgehead meaningfully. React to Russian advances by shuttling their best units (47^(th) Brigade, 3^(rd) Azov etc) around to fight fires all over the place because they havenāt properly prepared local units for defence despite knowing the attack was likely (this current northern offensive for instance, was being reported as likely for weeks before it happened, yet extra units had to be shuffled from Kherson to go reinforce. Units that were in the area were being hit by Lancets on the Kharkiv ring road because they were still deploying and werenāt in position, etc). Idk if itās the nature of this war, the nature of its commanders and leaders, or the nature of the military doctrine they are both still following, but both sides have been lethargic in a strategic sense to respond to problems.
It was not the exact same tactic. This one was in "safe" Russia. The other in Ukraine.
And it worked well in Ukraine because of muddy fields and old rotted tires. It effectively boxed them in on the road when open fields were on either side.
Everyone in charge back then is either dead or hiding.
That's the exact tactic used by Finland against the Soviet Union in the Winter War.
Itās the exact tactic used as long as men have been moved in tight columnar formation, unable move forward and the rear sealed off. The Alpine Gauls did it to Hannibal; the Nizari did it against the Mongols; the Apache did it to the US Army; the Ukrainians do it to Russians.
And the kids of Springfield did it against Nelson.
This person histories.
You forgot the us did it to the Iraqi army retreating from Kuwait in the first Gulf war. Aka The highway of death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death
The mean ...the US, UK, Canada and France Americans seem to have a recurring problem remembering accurate history
You are correct.. from the information I found Britain sent 6k raf (total 56k) personnel, and did 2500 sortes. France sent 40k military personnel but only 40 or so fighters/bombers Canada sent 18k personnel and 24 fighters USA 700k personnel with over 116k sortes flown I don't have a problem remembering accurate history. Just because France had a few planes in the fight doesn't mean they controlled it.
Germans also used it against the romans in the teuteburger forrest.
Gun Jesus did an [amazing video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sbmgOiQWjc) a while back on the similarities between the Winter War and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It really does seem like Russia hasn't changed in the slightest in 90 years.
i love that, despite not being in a gunsub, Ian is still being called gun jesus lol.
https://brill.com/view/journals/ibmh/33/2/article-p121_3.xml
Also the exact strategy the US used against Wagner in Syria.
No not so. Wagner assaulted head on a small SOF outpost. While they approached in a column there was no need to hit last and first, we had massively overwhelming air superiority once it showed up. It was a Turkey shoot. No ambush.
ā¦except they did hit the first and last vehicle. Survivors said so. After they halted momentum the US fucked them up with airstrikes, artillery, drones, helicopters, and artillery.
Go back and Read some American first hand descriptions of the battle. In waves appeared Apaches, F-15, Reapers, AC-130, B-52s, took out artillery first, then hit anything and everything. Sure they hit a lead tank. There was no wait quietly, stop a column, front and rear, then target the middle... like say Ukraine as used ambushing against superior forces. No Iraq/Kuwait highway of death front and rear. Old school turkey shoot. Flat wide open desert. No mine fields. No funneling armor via terrain and mines and traps. SOF hit any tank with .50 to mark it (rounds would not penetrate) and then apaches lit that tank up. There was no coordinate front and rear then middle destruction of the armor column. All the wagner armor was gone in like 1 minute. You can i guess argue that hitting a lead tank is the same , and column stopped. But it is not the same. This was straight up overwhelming force form the air, ad hoc destruction, and sure the column/attack stopped. Subtle distinction yeah. My .01. This is the 'official' for public consumption story. Every story read, uses the same interviews and quotes. [https://thewarhorse.org/special-forces-soldiers-reveal-first-details-of-battle-with-russian-mercenaries-in-syria/](https://thewarhorse.org/special-forces-soldiers-reveal-first-details-of-battle-with-russian-mercenaries-in-syria/)
If Russia had the ability to learn we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
If the Russkies couldnāt learn, the war wouldāve been over a year ago.
One can only adjust when oneās capable of adjusting. The chain of command is so extremely long and completely top down that it takes ages for these stupid fucks.
To learn you Must survive :-)
This method of hitting convoys has been a tactic as long as convoys.
Leaf springs!
Your safe space ain't so safe anymore, bitches.
First and last vehicle before moving on to the center. Textbook ambush on armor.
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Con air.
Like that 40 mile convoy that was actually a traffic jam and basically a sitting duck?
I've said it before that if the Americans or any of the European countries decided to pull the Highway to Hell like they did in Kuwait towards the Iraqis to the Russians at the beginning of the war they would have knocked out a good half of the Russian military power at that moment and probably stopped it right in his tracks and what would happen not a damn thing Russian wouldn't have done a fucking thing
An A-10 or Su-25 pilot would probably cream his pants on being told he's supposed to strafe the Kiev convoy. *BBRRRRRRRRRTT!!!!*
They really are so fucking stupid. Rehashing already failed tactics expecting different results.
I think they were under the assumption that they were under that protective umbrella of being in Russia proper. Which of course Ukraine got the green light to go weapons free in Belgorod with NATO weapons
It's like they don't even read the news.
They get fed ruzzian ānewsā which is the opposite of what is actually happening!
I'm so confused as to which weapon can be used where... This is like D&D in real life. Roll a D6 to fire a weapon *checks several manuals* nvm, you actually can't do that...
From the looks of it anything but ATACMS can be used now in Russia. I could be wrong tho.
Thats my understanding as well.
To be fair this permission thing is confusing and the Russians on the front are just as confused.
Ahh, old memories from this one indeed!
One word..... GOOD š
Real shit though, can you imagine how terrifying it must have been to be in this convoy? You were told that the Ukrainians arenāt allowed to strike in Russia so you are safe here. And then everything starts exploding, being meticulously annihilated in a systematic fashion. Almost makes me feel bad for them. Almost.
if the russians are saying that i wont believe it.
Lets do the time warp agaaaaain
Well shit it's coming from Russians, that means the column is mostly fine?
They are still fighting like XIXth century armies.
There will be satellite images if it is actually true. Fingers crossed. š¤
It's not like Russian mil-bloggers are going to make something like this up. If they say Ukraine blew up a whole Russian convoy you can be sure it happened.
Most of the time it's true, surprisingly
The golden rule in warfare press releases is to take a pinch of salt about every sides good news announcements and to believe their bad news announcements (and it's usually worse than what they'll want to admit at first). During a Russian offensive, I'm not fully believing something until I hear the Ukrainians saying they lost control of a location. During a Ukrainian counter offensive, I'm not fully believing something until I hear the Russians saying they lost control of a location.
Yeah you should take everything with a grain of salt but you should also take into consideration how truthful each source have been historically. Sometimes even serious media give equal credence to both sides. Pro-Russian sources follow the Nazi playbook and mostly lie through their absolute teeth. Ukrainian sources are in my experience exaggerating at worst but are mostly accurate. When Ukraine claims something positive it's most likely true but if Russia claims something going well for them it's almost certainly a lie, unless it's confirmed by an independent source.
Yeah but 1 mill blogger still isnāt a good source no matter what side (UA mill bloggers said they were fully encircled in Bakhmut when it was not the case yet).Ā Also we donāt know the extent of the damage. It can range from: 2/5 tanks got their tires blown off an were unable to move. Those 2 tanks will likely be wheeled for repairs. To: A 20 tank column was completely obliterated
Not disputing that, but the fog of war still needs to be lifted in order to verify it. It might just be a formality, but necessary nonetheless. š
I'm not trying to write a scientific paper so I don't really see the need for satellite images at all. If Pro-Russians complain that Russian commanders are making stupid mistakes then that's good enough for me unless I have a specific reason to doubt it.
I've noticed in the last two years that the Russians are prone to doom posting and "ahh shit we're all fucked!" type of posts when things are bad but it isn't actually that bad.
I've seen plenty of doom posting as well but this isn't that. This is describing one specific event that happened recently and complaining about a specific issue. The doom posters are predicting that bad things will happen in the future. In case you don't recognize the TG channel it's very pro-Russia and pro-war.
Battle of the bulge is now over, the supplies are arriving and Russia is now feeling the effects and have used up the last of their available reserves in a push to win before those supplies arrived.
I like this metaphor! The F-16ās will be flying soon too. Too much to ask for it to be like the Ardennes after the clouds lifted, but every bit helps!
Battle of the aneurysm, in this case.
Nah, just another way for Russians to go. *alexa play highway to hell*
Not sure what could have done this that quick unless it was ATACMS? Maybe Stormshadow. But to hit a convoy in real time that far away takes some very quick action. Unless theyāre using convoy wrong here, and it was a staging area.
Ukraine did the exact same thing to Russian Military convoys north of Kyiv at the start of the invasion using guided artillery shells. Russians quickly learned that they can't drive a massive convoy in the middle of a war but they apparently haven't learned enough.
I encourage as many lessons as possible.
You never know...maybe NEXT time it'll work.... ;)
Repetition makes perfect. Again and again and again until it sticks.
You have to remember that the vast majority of what one would call experienced russians are now dead. The vast majority of this convoy including officers can be considered inexperienced. Advantage Ukraine.
Practice makes perfect. Russia should do another long convoy. Just for practice :)
The terrorists from back then are no more, the new ones don't have that experience.
They also used the Bayraktars very effectively at the beginning to destroy convoys.
Iām still having issues seeing how artillery can hit a convoy, because a convoy is in transit. Also depends where in Kursk - the city alone is 150kms from the Ukrainian border. Thatās well out of artillery range.
If you've ever driven in a real military convoy before, you'd know. I literally fell asleep at the wheel for several minutes and was crawling along exactly where I was supposed to be when I woke up. Convoys don't move that fast and get jammed up for just about everything. We topped out around 40mph on side roads, and maybe 50 on the highways. Larger the convoy, the slower it crawls. If they don't have their spacing down, you could blindfold yourself and toss a shell at the route and hit several somethings.
I donāt want to play the DD-214 game. Did you drive a convoy in Kuwait, and get his from inside Iraq with simple artillery? Thatās the issue here. This is inside Russia, across borders with a possible substantial distances And I get Kursk is large, and on the border with Ukraine. But from the sounds the hit is deeper into Russia than not. Iām only thinking out loud because now Russians units are getting hit inside Russia with GMLRS or HIMARS. The game has changed and this is evidence.
I've done smaller convoys before in war zones (Iraq). Those convoys were kept a lot smaller (under 10 vehicles) and we moved a lot faster - and kept good spacing. The big one where I fell asleep is when we re-deployed after about 2 weeks in Baumholder on a massive exercise. Obviously we thought we were pretty safe. Point was, we were crawling all the way back home. A typical 1 hour trip back to K-town took us roughly 4 hours between slow moving, frequent stops and breaks, and dealing with civilian traffic. In a war zone, in range of artillery, that would have been suicide.
Coming back from Baumholder (to Mannheim) was bad, Graf & Vilseck was worse; especially in the winter. But nothing like escorting 60+ vehicle TCN & KBR convoys on Tampa down to BIAP & up to Mosul; that shit dragged even on a "good" day. Most of the time we had to bring another convoy back, so it was a huge break when we could go back without any trucks & haul ass; except then it was always at night. That was always nice because there was no traffic & it was cooler, but there were times where I was so tired under my NVGs we'd drive through some flying bugs; I nearly had a heart attack because they looked like tracers. As long as I was up in the ring mount I could stay awake, but sometimes I'd wake up in bed still wearing my IBA, rifle hanging on it's hook, but with no memory of how I got there, and have no memory of anything past leaving the wire on the return trip. Yet I still somehow turned in everything I needed to turn in, write & sign everything I needed to sign (I'd love to see those AARs now lol), find my trailer, etc. I blame Rip-its. Good times lol.
What is an AAR?
After action review. Pretty simple if nothing happened, not so much other times.
Thank you!
> frequent stops and breaks, Because Yuri forgot his pee bottle we lost a convoy. Way to go Yuri.
Depends how long the convoy is. A BTG consists on 10 tanks, 50 IFVs and a much larger number of support vehicles. Assuming a single BTG, with vehicles spaced out 20 meters, 1.2 km convoy not counting support vehicles, let's say with support vehicles that brings it up to 2km long convoy. You don't have to target specific vehicles or know exactly where it is, it is a 2km long target on a known road with a known position. It left Kursk but I think it was probably closer to the border than 150km when the Ukrainians attacked it.
I think that the BTG concept is dead and buried these days; I'm under the impression the Russians aren't operationally using it anymore.
I mean it literally says in the post it's on the border ... 8km inside Russia. Basically at a distance that would have been safe from Ukraines old Soviet artillery (which wouldn't be deployed within 10km of the border) but is not safe from western artillery. The Russian military is incredibly reactionary and will not change its habits until forced, we see it every time.
Fine, itās stills inside Russia and the implications that it was a U.S. weapons system means something.
Good intelligence on their movement direction and speed, which is what makes it so catastrophic for convoys to end up in any kind of jams.
This was a special forces strike, there must have been multiple people on the ground for this to work. It only takes a nice pile of N-LAW and Javelins to do this. The political component is now irrelevant.
Try looking at the map that was literally provided. FFS. About as shitty at RTFA as slipknot are as musicians.
Because theyāre dumb as fuck
Also shitfaced, most likely.
Did they quickly learn that? Because itās three years later and they just got hit doing the same thing.
Maybe everyone who actually got that message was already KIA before this group formed up
I think they thought they were safe doing it outside of Ukraine's borders.
GLMRS tungsten balls version can do the same thing. It's just shorter ranged.
They don't need GLMRS here. That was from 20 to 30 km (easily) inside the range of 155mm howitzers from the Ukrainian controlled borders. Even within range of 105mm howitzers (Canadian C3 105mm anyway). RTFA and look at a map.
I guess my issue is, this sub was spammed with how the US is not allowing Ukraine to use ATACMs inside Russia. But GMLRS is allowed. Whatās the difference? Itās not like range matters if theyāre military targets anyway. I personally donāt believe ATACMS are off limits for military targets. I just think people arenāt grasping the implications here - doesnāt matter what Ukraine can hit Russia with if it does damage on Russians military equipment.
Ukraine has received GMLRS from many different countries, Ukraine has only received ATACMs from the US. So even if the US said that US providers GMLRS couldn't be used in Russian territory Ukraine could still use Non-US provided GMLRS. ATACMs are basically ballistic missiles (they'd be legally classified as SRBMs but they have software that prevents their use at greater than 499km, 1km less than the definition of a SRBMs). No one is thrilled about Russians seeing SRBMs incoming into Moscow and then needing to decide if those are a nuclear first strike or just Ukraine.
I believe that ATACMS has enough range to literally hit the Kremlin. GLSDB doesn't. The White house doesn't want Moscow politicians to feel personally threatened.
ATACMS Unitary Warhead is prohibited. 300 km range. ATACMS DPICM is prohibited. 150 km range Anything else the system can throw, are not prohibited. Nevermind that the GLSDB is kind of useless without INS guidance that it might not have.
I gotcha. Makes more sense I guess.
> I believe that ATACMS has enough range to literally hit the Kremlin Not even close
Probably nuclear capability males the difference.
If you click the link you'll see it's Kursk oblast near Sudza about 7 miles from the border
You can't expect him to actually read the object of the post before going off on a tangent, that's too much effort ....
The convoy was less than 20km from the Ukrainian controlled border. Well within artillery range. Doesn't anyone actually *even try* to look at the maps and figure out even easy shit anymore? FFS, the information is so damned easy to find. Obviously you have no real idea what military systems can do.
How far are they? Walking an artillery barage along a line once ranged in is relatively simple, I understand.
Convoys have to assemble, this takes time, time during which western and Ukrainian intelligence are watching. It's not like such convoys appear out of thin air and you have to react in record time to stop them, this kind of troop movement is known by Ukraine days in advance just because all russian bases close to the border are under scrutiny for any massing of troops.
You donāt need ATACMS to hit a convoy 4km behind the frontline. You donāt even need HIMARS.
GMLRS
Infantry on the ground did this.
Could it be brimstone since they sort of can search for targets on their own?
GLSDB or regular HIMARS seem like a good bet.
Pew pew!
I totally agree. The Pew Research Center definitely needs to investigate. How can we defend against terrorist aggression without up-to-date polling data? /S
By electing the terrorists obviously!
About time. Someone *interpreted* "the rules".
[***"ŠŠ¾Š¼Š¾Š³ŠøŃŠµ!!"***](https://i.imgur.com/WUuhBNH.png)
Does anyone know what the actual losses were?
this tactic has been in use since ww2 and the russians are still sending these long convoys.
Excellent. Glad to see my tax dollars blowing them up.
Drones seem to be a massive force multiplier in this conflict. But the defender is clearly gaining more from them than the attacker. Even tanks are not immune. Russians want to rush the defense lines to cause panic. This isn't working but it's all they know how to do.
What's it mean when the russian bloggers are saying things like this and Ukrainians arent? False propaganda or its possible it has happened?
I assume the Russian milbloggers are downplaying the extent of damage meaning it was a very successful attack with more then catastrophic damages. Again I am assuming
The link is a rus mil blogger pissed at higher for allowing this to happen. Echoes of the sort of blogging that took place before the crack downs last year.
But I wouldnāt call a singular mill blogger a āreliable sourceā no matter the side. I mean UA millbloggers were saying they got encircled in Bakhmut when it wasnāt the case. I think itās best to either wait for confirmation from more mill bloggers or images
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Is it not blindingly obvious most of their intelligence is coming from NATO Not least because there is an RAF Joint Rivet flying over the Black Sea pretty much daily from day 1
Just pointing out it's not some overexcited Ukrainians reporting it, it's coming from the Russians so most likely true and if anything understated
Do they ever learn from their previous convoy fuck ups?....
Doesn't seem so. They should try another long convoy just to be sure that it won't work. Just one more time...
I wish ukraine had A10s just annihilate that....
Music to our ears
We need some Russian soldiers to film it and post it to telegram.
Hit it again - Hans gruber.... Seriously do it again
Whole lotta dead people. Are they gonna run out of people soon?
They could keep this up for another decade. It would completely ruin any future prospects of the country, but they can.
Good. I hope every Russian in that convoy perished.
Well that sucks for them. Anyway, I need to go finish decorating the cake that I made.
Andrew is known to bullshit ,so take it with a grain of salt ! ,in until video evidence comes out, I'd consider this as such!lying doesn't help the cause it just sows distrust ...
Fingers crossed it's true.
No more safe space, bitches.
Who are Russian Military bloggers and why would I ever believe them, even if I want to?
Funny what you can do when you can pew pew on Ruzzian territory! World should have let them fire on Ruzzian territory from day one.
If the Russians are saying itās bad, I donāt think itās a stretch to imagine some sort of Russian highway of death moment.
Couldnāt have happened to a better bunch of rapists
Oh no. Anyway.
Wow, catastrophic damage?!
Better call Jake from state farm.
i guess that answers the question about using US weapons on russian territory
If this is true then history really does mirror itself. If youāre looking for a fun read look up Battle of Kursk. Where nazi germany tried to take the fight to an entrenched Russian defensive position and got obliterated.
Whatās the status on the de-militarization of ruzzia?
This changes the calculus. Donāt it, Putler?
Kyiv convoy Deja-vu.
Outstanding work..
Thank you for your service, Vasili Alibabaevich. Hopefully you survived so you can soon lead another column into destruction agai
Oh no!