Quote from: Cassia on September 16, 2023, 03:42:21 PMI am just guessing, but will Putin have to admit strategy failure and declare general mobilization at some point if he wants to have any chance of winning this war? That might finally get the attention of his people, LOL. I know they have their fake elections soon. Maybe he will do it after that.

He has to do it sooner than later because if they keep draining weapons and ammo this option of raising a massive army will do little good in the distant future. I do wonder if they have been withholding some of the better equipment for a massive Soviet-style offensive next Summer.

No, he's not going to mobilize 500,000 or whatever ludicrous number he plans to raise.  Russia has more or less already committed its entire military as well as mobilized whatever PMCs and foreign fighters they can possibly entice, as well as trying very hard to mobilize foreign workers, which has got to be a new low.

Russian equipment and logistics is already bad and it won't get any better with a bigger host - that'd just exacerbate problems.  Those sorts of announcements are just an attempt to demoralize and intimidate dumb people in western countries who naively think that Russia can just absorb skyhigh losses indefinitely and so Ukraine can't possibly win.

Instead, Russia is hoping and praying that they can hold on and inflict enough casualties to blunt the Ukrainian advance and make this a frozen conflict.  It's not working and nothing is working and they're starting to get very worried and/or fatalistic about it, but committed to keep on keeping on regardless.  The real shock will be losing Crimea and the Crimean bridge.  That's when the realization that they've lost will likely hit them.

It has been confirmed that Sumum was hit (a photo of it being towed by two tugboats, its stern-starboard side is noticeably dipped further in the water than it should be).  Here's a shocker - Russia was lying about it not being hit by a drone.

There's also a satellite photo, presumably of Admiral Makarov (the name is confusing - it's a cruiser, not a person) also being towed, presumably due to damage.  Nothing has been announced, but rumors are swirling that it was hit, too.  Best to cork the champagne until it's confirmed, though.

Quote from: Hydra009 on September 16, 2023, 10:22:09 PMNo, he's not going to mobilize 500,000 or whatever ludicrous number he plans to raise.  Russia has more or less already committed its entire military as well as mobilized whatever PMCs and foreign fighters they can possibly entice, as well as trying very hard to mobilize foreign workers, which has got to be a new low.

Russian equipment and logistics is already bad and it won't get any better with a bigger host - that'd just exacerbate problems.  Those sorts of announcements are just an attempt to demoralize and intimidate dumb people in western countries who naively think that Russia can just absorb skyhigh losses indefinitely and so Ukraine can't possibly win.

Instead, Russia is hoping and praying that they can hold on and inflict enough casualties to blunt the Ukrainian advance and make this a frozen conflict.  It's not working and nothing is working and they're starting to get very worried and/or fatalistic about it, but committed to keep on keeping on regardless.  The real shock will be losing Crimea and the Crimean bridge.  That's when the realization that they've lost will likely hit them.

The coalition forces the US had in action in the Iraq invasion totaled around 750k. With complete air dominance. Russia has around 420k in Ukraine. Sure, the Iraqi army was beaten badly, however the occupation did not go so well. I can't imagine any sort of Russian occupation going very well either. Don't they know that?

Quote from: Cassia on September 17, 2023, 08:12:35 AMI can't imagine any sort of Russian occupation going very well either. Don't they know that?

Unfortunately, they have a brutal but effective way of doing that.  They massacre the civilian population through starvation and poor medical care.  They deport many of the natives to Russia and bus in Russians to literally steal their homes and land.  It's deeply screwed up and textbook genocide, but over time, it does actually work.

Kadyrov is apparently not in hospital

Joke's on me for chasing rumors and thinking there's anything to a story that started on Russian telegram.

Klishchiivka has officially been liberated

It only had a small Russian presence yesterday, so it makes sense that it has been liberated so soon after nearby Andriivka.

This puts increasing pressure on Russian forces in Bakhmut, considering they're gradually becoming encircled and cut off from supplies.

Dance off, bro: Ukrainian forces near Bakhmut distracted elite Russian forces and kept them away from the southern front

QuoteUkrainian forces began counteroffensive operations against Bakhmut almost immediately following Wagner's withdrawal, causing the Russians to maintain VDV forces already there and to deploy additional VDV reinforcements to Bakhmut.

QuoteUkraine's continued counteroffensive actions in Bakhmut since June 2023 have fixed elements of two of Russia's four VDV divisions and three of the VDV's four separate brigades, dramatically reducing the VDV's ability to redeploy more forces laterally to reinforce the southern front.

QuoteUkraine's defensive and counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area since summer 2022 are an operationally sound undertaking that has fixed a large amount of Russian combat power that would otherwise have been available to reinforce Russian defenses in southern Ukraine.

This allowed Ukrainian forces to make significant gains in the south, which resulted in Russia panic-deploying some VDV to the south arguably too late to do much good (and weary because these guys get tossed around from hotspot to hotspot like hot potatoes, worn out and worn down) then losing territory near Bakhmut anyway (so what was even the point of keeping the VDV there) now they have the dilemma of deploying reinforcements between the south and east with both desperately needing help and Russia not having enough good troops or shells to go around.  No matter what they do, it's a mistake that the Ukrainians can capitalize on - annihilating any poorly-reinforced positions and continuing to gain ground.

Also, Russia made a tactical mistake in over-investing on its first line of defense at the expense of the other two lines (unforced error)

Russia redeploys at least 5 VDV units to southern front

On paper, this seems very bad, because on paper, that's something like 10,000 paratroopers with elite training and excellent gear.  The reality is likely much, much less threatening - likely less than half strength and also likely a bunch of franken-units (a mix of paratroopers and other infantry).  Definitely a bit of a hurdle for Ukraine and will likely slow progress on the southern front somewhat, but Ukraine has been laying out Russian paratroopers this whole time, it's why they're relatively rare.

Also, using paratroopers trained for highly mobile strikes and putting them in a line infantry role makes them much less effective.  Another blunder.

I was watching some video of a UK suicide drone hit a Russian truck and all the guys on the back were shooting at the drone as it blew them up. They should have jumped off instead. All you need for a soldier to take out a drone is a big shotgun.

We had an abandoned orange grove near our house and my father would throw oranges and my brother and cousins would almost never miss with a 12 gauge. You can't really easily shoot a bird with a rifle unless it's sitting in a tree. I hope the US military is working on an anti-drone weapon for our soldiers.

I know we have all these high-tech electronic warfare guns that seem to have a 50/50 chance of working or not; sometimes dumb metal is a perfectly acceptable solution I would think. The drones probably are pushing the maximum effective range, but still would likely be more likely to hit than a rifle shot by an untrained kid.

I'm now curious how a shotgun (or some similar portable anti-drone gun using "simple" tech) could possibly be used.