Russia-Ukraine War

[Warenwolf]

They are now sending the VDV (or whatever they have trained up to replace the losses) to man the trenches at the southern looming breakthrough.

Sending "special forces"/paratroopers to man trenches means you have nothing else left. Nothing of their training will help them to be any more effective than a normal infantryman at dodging artillery shells and drones.

My uneducated take on this:

Using veteran troops (I would not rate them as special forces imho although perhaps they have special forces in their org chart) to reinforce threatened point in the front line (including them in counter attack), using them as response troops or as a "firebrigade" would be "standard" tactic when you set up the defenses like Russian did in that area.
The VDV being mechanized unit, consisting on paper at least, entirely from professional soldiers, should fit the bill for a fast response unit perfectly.

So I would not read too much into it at this point.

[fiksal]

so not a last resort then?

[Warenwolf]

so not a last resort then?

As I said - my uneducated guess...
I am not going to pretend to know the UKR or Kremlin's reserves, training, tactics and current troop and entrenchment dispositions or the exact topography they are fighting in and I don't trust noise on the internet regarding these issues. Anyone doing that is suffering from a heavy dose of DK effect.

I can just tell you that for me it looks a very classical setup and reaction when you have huge swaths of troops that are relatively untrained and does not have ability to project friendly air power beyond your own forward lines.

But sure, it might be that VDV is being sent to fight delaying action allowing other formations time to stabilize and reform the defenses.

So take it for what it is.

[Alan Phipps]

Specialist troops based in static defence locations can still do specialist tasks if called upon to. It rather depends what the overall commanders already have in mind and how accessible the special task equipment can be to the troops who might use it.

[mr.WHO]

Wait, wasn't VDV decimated early on this conflict?

Can it still be called an elite unit, if it has been mostly infused with fresh recruits?
I guess in such condition they would be good cannot fodder for the trenches, but take out the "elite" label.



In other news, it looks like Ukraine is starting full on Strategic Drone campaign into Russia, both air and sea
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66654125

[fiksal]

are VDV elite troops?... I think I need a refresher on who is who in the army.

I know of VDV by their drunken parties in public.

[mr.WHO]

are VDV elite troops?... I think I need a refresher on who is who in the army.

I know of VDV by their drunken parties in public.

How could you forget those guys?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKNCMXH7lQ

[Warenwolf]

are VDV elite troops?... I think I need a refresher on who is who in the army.

I know of VDV by their drunken parties in public.

Depends on how you define elite. In certain countries any unit with fierce name and shiny uniform gets declared elite. I think people get confused by terminology used (confusing specialist with special forces and/or elite).

Nominally due to type of operations they are used on, VDV will, on paper, have better quality of troops than average. I also do not think they have been decimated as a formation (40 000 men strong) but some units in that formation have been mauled and heavily reduced in their capability compared to pre-war situation.

However I would not define them as elite as whole, although the Spetnaz attached to VDV should, on paper, be elite due to requirement of the tasks they might be given.

But note that elite and veteran are rather generic terms which often have more with perception of the said unit than anything else.

[burger1]

Looks like another night of drone attacks on Russia. Manufacturing, military bases, etc... and a 200m radar base. Apparently Ukraine's latest drone attack range is 1200 km.

It looks like Russia's sinking ships by the Kerch bridge to create a reef to try to protect it. Russia still has issues intercepting missiles and most of their much larger airspace is unguarded.

[mr.WHO]

Seem like there is now steady stream of statistics from combat/loss performace of western equipment, like Leopards 2.

Seems like majority of crews survived the loss of vechicle.
Majority of vechicles are "recoverable/repairable losses" (albeit this might be also due to Russian failure in finishing-off abandoned vechicles after the battle).
This is, despite storming probably most fortifide areas on the planet.

This seem also to prove once for all, that Turkey mass loss of Leopard 2s in Syria was leadership and training blunder, not tank design fault.


P.S. As semi serious note, Russian tanks might improve in "recoverable loss" statistics, when many of their tank turrets starts falling back from low orbit

[EGO_Aut]

It will be interesting when the Abrahms arrive. Will they then also be used far back for defense, like the Challengers, or as armored recovery vehicles?
I only ever hear about Leopards and Bradleys on offensives.

[mr.WHO]

It will be interesting when the Abrahms arrive. Will they then also be used far back for defense, like the Challengers, or as armored recovery vehicles?
I only ever hear about Leopards and Bradleys on offensives.

Aparently Challengers are in combat since two weeks ago.
I'm sure that when Russians manage to dammage/destroy one, they will post it all over internet.

[Sovereign01]

It will be interesting when the Abrahms arrive. Will they then also be used far back for defense, like the Challengers, or as armored recovery vehicles?
I only ever hear about Leopards and Bradleys on offensives.

Aparently Challengers are in combat since two weeks ago.
I'm sure that when Russians manage to dammage/destroy one, they will post it all over internet.

Knowing Russia, they will claim they did, with their "evidence" being some poorly-photoshopped images of tanks

[mr.WHO]

Knowing Russia, they will claim they did, with their "evidence" being some poorly-photoshopped images of tanks

LOL, I know.
Some time ago Russians posted a video of Lancet drone destroying Rosomak IFV.
Except they forgot to cut the video and show that Rosomak (which was static before Lancet hit) just drove away after the hit

[fiksal]

BBC's opinion is that - the Ukraine's end goal is to liberate Crimea, and thus I assume all other territories and people.

If so, I wish Ukraine luck, as it's a harder path towards immediate security, but possible a more sure path to a long term security.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66704769

Rustem Umerov: Who is Ukraine's next defence minister?
...
Not a complete unknown but not someone in the media spotlight either, he is a Crimean Tatar born in exile and an active member of this ethnic community, trying to reinstate its cultural identity and its place in the world.

Most importantly for Ukrainians, he has not been accused of corruption, embezzlement or profiteering.
...
Crimean Tatars are the indigenous Turkic population of the Crimean peninsula. During World War II they were falsely accused of collaboration with the Nazis and forcibly deported by the Soviet army to Central Asia.

On May 18 1944, a 200,000-strong community was uprooted in one day as families were given a few minutes to pack before being loaded onto trains to be shipped off thousands of kilometres away.

Thousands are thought to have perished in transit, or soon afterwards.

Not the only ethnic group to experience such treatment under Joseph Stalin, the Crimean Tatars spent decades trying to return to their homeland.

Rustem Umerov's family was amongst those deported and he was born in exile in Uzbekistan. In the late 1980s, when he was still a child, many Crimean Tatars, including his family, were allowed to return to the peninsula.

For many years Mr Umerov advised Mustafa Dzhemilev, the historic leader of Crimean Tatars, and is himself one of the delegates of the Qurultay - the Crimean Tatar Congress.

He was also co-chair of the Crimea Platform, an international diplomatic initiative focused on negotiating with Russia following its 2014 occupation of the peninsula.

"The deportation of Crimean Tatars is one of the greatest crimes of the Soviet regime," Umerov wrote in a piece for Liga.net in 2021. "It was started by the tyrants in power at that time in order to exterminate an entire nation."
...
But President Zelenksy's appointment of an indigenous Crimean to play a key role in realising these intentions sends a clear message: this is Kyiv's endgame.

[mr.WHO]

Welp, it didn't took long - first Challenger 2 totally destroyed near Robotyne:
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 2957752322

[Sovereign01]

Welp, it didn't took long - first Challenger 2 totally destroyed near Robotyne:
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... 2957752322

And the footage is the exact quality you'd expect

[mr.WHO]

It's hard to tell, if it's definite total loss.
The black smoke from turret suggest internal fire, which is usually total loss or major dammage and long repair at best.

[burger1]

Losses are pretty much expected. Could be a wide variety of causes it's unlikely the tanks just drive along doing their own thing. Probably a whole string of people involved.

Ukraine might be getting more tanks/equipment of various quality from enemy losses and ground gained?

Russian drone hit Romania. Reports go from video footage, to never happened, to no real damage done, to the drone was hit by Ukraine and the damaged drone crashed in Romania.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/uk ... 023-09-04/

Russia's apparently trying get more weapons from North Korea in exchange for possibly submarines and missile technology. Probably similar to the deal they made with Iran where Iran got cruise missile tech.

[Sovereign01]

British Challenger 2 tank destroyed in combat for first time, Ukraine footage shows

Looks like it was disabled by a mine and then hit by a drone.