Ukraine vs Russia III

In an attack on Sevastopol a couple of days ago, Ukraine claims to have hit and sunk the a mine sweeper, Kovrovets, but Russian sources say that it wasn't the Kovrovets that was sunk, rather, it was the small missile ship Cyclone that was sunk. However, recent satellite imagery of the port do not show any new submerged ships.

/1. In the morning Ukrainian sources reported that Russian Project 266M Kovrovets was destroyed/damaged. Soon some Russian sources began to leak information that there was indeed a damaged/destroyed Russian ship during tonight’s strikes on Sevastopol, but it was not Kovrovets,… https://t.co/6i0to5eQZt pic.twitter.com/awsCz9MXaq

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) May 19, 2024

 

It looks like Ukraine i starting to find a solution to turtle tanks. In the video below, we see a turtle tank with rollers driving across a field until a number of mines detonate, disabling the tank, and causing the crew to abandon the tank. One thing to note is that only 1 crew actually abandons the tank. Russian tanks usually have a crew of 3, a driver, gunner, and commander. My question is whether a turtle tank actually has a crew of 3. The steel sheets on the sides and back limit the ability of the tank's gun to traverse and it gets worse when you consider that many of the turtle tanks also have steel sheets partially across the front of the tank, limiting the traverse any more. It makes me think that a turtle tank doesn't actually need the gunner and if all the tank is doing is driving across an open field and no gunner, does the tank actually need a commander?

The moment when you thought you were prepared for anything, but then...
A russian "turtle tank" was blown up by a few landmines at once.

📷: Shadow Unit pic.twitter.com/Snx7q2DqAq

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) May 21, 2024

There are a number of ways that Ukraine could be countering the turtle tanks with mines.

The first is to bury the mine deeper into the ground. That way the roller won't detonate the mine, but the tank will still set off the mine with it's much heavier weight, or the mines electro-magnetic sensors.

The second is to daisy chain mines together and only have the device that triggers the detonators be on the last one. That way when a roller sets off the detonator, the tank is still destroyed by one of the daisy chained mines several feet/meters behind the detonation device.

 

Russian sources are increasingly concerned that Ukrainians are preparing for a counterattack to push Russian forces back across the border near Kharkiv.. The link below doesn't reference the Russian sources, I just like the map showing the front from Russia's incursion near Kharkiv.

nearly everything is set for a 2 prong counter attack.

as long as some long range ADA is getting into position i could see a counter attack in a few days. this could be nasty.

i think this could turn out to be a huge trap for the russians. pic.twitter.com/g2HXTnNb4P

— david D. (@secretsqrl123) May 21, 2024

 

In one Russian video we see a turtle tank being made and in at least that example the supports are actually welded to the turret, prevent it from moving at all, so there really isn't any reason for a gunner at all. And the commander can't see more than the driver with that shell (unless the shell has a gap at top-of-turret height, which one I saw did), so he's redundant as well.

Russia constructed at least one purpose-built assault breacher by removing the turret of a T-62 and adding an armored superstructure. Its job was to pave a mine-less path for the attack and to draw fire so the rest of the force can see where the ATGMs are coming from. By Russian claims, this survived multiple Ukrainian attacks, but eventually it was blown up. I think turtle tanks are just the cheap home-sewn version of those. Maybe it's a sign that tanks-as-tanks aren't as useful in this kind of warfare so they are being repurposed.

 

Some good news is that the EU seems to be going along with the recent American proposal to use Russian funds in Western banks to help Ukraine. $8 billion at first (which is the interest accrued so far, not the principal), and there seems to be an understanding that all of it will eventually be confiscated for Ukrainian reconstruction. Another thing is that the US's policy of sanctioning particular ships seems to work well, and the 40 ships names are all holed up and no longer being used. Unfortunately the Russian black fleet has hundreds of ships, so it's just a start.

In bad news a recent Zelenskyy interview seems to indicate that the reason that UK and French weapons are not being used on Russian soil is because America is preventing Ukraine from doing so, despite the public statements from the UK and France that they are ok with it.

 

While I certainly appreciate and agree with most of the rest of your post, I do have a minor nit with your point here.

I don't think the turtle tank is a repurposing of tanks because they aren't as useful any longer. I think it is Russia's response to huge Ukrainian minefields and giving them the ability to breach those minefields in an environment where Ukrainian artillery is low on shells. From what I've seen in videos, the turtle tank is generally the lead vehicle in a larger vehicle assault and that assault includes BMPs and other tanks.

Depending on when the video was taken, the turtle tank was the lead vehicle in front of a "convoy" of vehicles, or the turtle tank could be the lone vehicle in the minefield, while the rest of the vehicles are queued up waiting for the turtle tank to make it across the minefield. The former seems to be an old tactic as the end result was that Ukrainian FPVs would destroy the vehicles behind the turtle tank and then attack the turtle tank if it hadn't fled already. Now the videos are mostly the turtle tank on its own.

 

I wager the UK/French weapons have components that are made in the US and the US is using their authority over those components to restrict the use of French and UK weapons on Russian soil.

I also f**king hate the US tying Ukraine's hands like this.

 

I'm not in the "tanks are useless" camp, but the Russian front probably has more tanks than they know what to do with. Their primary benefit, long range direct fire, is mostly mitigated by the nature of Ukrainian farms, and while Russia is constantly changing the makeup of their assaults, they have tended towards the lighter for a while now. If a division has a hundred extra tanks just sitting around, it probably makes sense to use them up on one-way missions to try to clear a path.

 

I think that is more a reflection of Russia losing over 3,000 tanks and the crews that go with those tanks. Add in the fact that Russia has been unable to keep up with those loses by refurbishing old tanks and building new ones and you have a situation where Russia simply doesn't have a ton of tanks available to make assaults.

This war has definitely shown the limitations of the current generation of tanks, but I don't think the turtle tanks are anything other than the Russians trying to find a way to get across Ukraine's minefields without leaving a string of dead vehicles in their wake.

 

Yeah. Right now they are only giving Ukraine the "profits" from Russia's seized assets and are predicting that will be EU5 billion a year that will be turned over to Ukraine twice per year.

I'm assuming the giving Ukraine all of the money for reconstruction will be treated as war reparations.

 

The legion is a unit of the regular French army, its troops wear French army uniforms and are part of the French army's chain of command and are answerable to the the French military judiciary system.

Of course they count.

 

Here's an interesting one.. A T-90 was destroyed trying to assault Chasiv Yar this morning. It isn't that unusual for a tank to be destroyed in a failed assault, but this one is interesting because it had 2 night vision cameras mounted on top of the "drone shield". What is odd is that the T-90 allegedly has night vision optics, so it isn't clear why they'd need 2 additional night vision cameras..

A failed Russian mechanized attack near Chasiv yar using a T-90M tank and 2 BMP's. The T-90M was equipped with two night cameras, a mine trawl and a cage for defense against drones. It tried to pave the way for the BMP's but failed. pic.twitter.com/NwiCOETLYN

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) May 22, 2024

 

Another S-400 site was taken out with an ATACMS strike near the Mospyne airfield in Donetsk. The control vehicle, radar, and two launchers were destroyed.

 

Preparing the ground for the F-16s?

 

From Thomas Theiner, retired Italian artillery & staff colonel

Ukraine is using ATACMS missiles (which were designed to destroy Soviet long-range air defense systems to make the skies safe for fighters like the F-16) to destroy russian long-range air defense systems to make the skies safe for F-16 fighters. https://t.co/UQWQgxEEUT

— Thomas C. Theiner (@noclador) May 23, 2024

 

Russian's aren't stupid. The have been very adept at adapting to Western weapon systems. In fact, Ukraine has mentioned a "vaccine effect", where dribbles of Western equipment aren't enough to do much, but are enough to get Russians used to fighting them, and then when Western shipments get bigger it's too late because the Russians can already mitigate their effects.

The worrying thing for Russia is that they have yet to find a way to subvert the missiles aimed at their S-300/400 class SAM sites. There might be limits in technology or policy or numbers that make this difficult.

 

Speaking of which, Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the General Staff, has been arrested. Taking into account previous arrests, it seems there is a wholesale Stalinist purge in Russia right now.

 

I find it hard to reconcile these two posts. Either the Russians are undergoing a wartime purge of their military leadership or they are effective tacticians.

 

Both can be true.. As ab example, HIMARS used to have something like a 90% hit rate when it first arrived. Now that Russia is GPS jamming the f**k out of occupied territory, it’s down to around 30%. Imagine what things would have been like if ATACMS had arrived when there was a 90% hit rate vs the 30% now? Russia’s air force bases on Crimea would have been devastated. Or the impact ATACMS would have had on Russia’s ability to build a rail line along the coastline. Compare that to now where the Kerch bridge is actually a secondary supply line to the southern front because Russia was able to build a rail line just outside of HIMARS’s range.

In fact, the purge is a sign of Russia adapting to the war. Pre-war, Russia’s defense industry and MoD was one of the most corrupt industries and ministries in Russia with, reportedly, about 40% of Russia’s defense budget ending up in people’s pockets rather than in their military. 2.4 years in and Putin finally decided to start trying to get the corruption out of the industry and he’s brought in an economist who had served as Russia’s Minister of Economic Development and Putin’s aide on Economic Affairs.. If he can reduce the amount of corruption in the MoD and defense industry, that’ll be huge for Russia.

of course, that assumes he’s not just purging Shoigu loyalists to replace them with his loyalists, which is definitely a possibility.

 

For example, a few hours ago there was a large ATACMS attack on an as-yet not identified target in Crimea. They launched at least 8 rockets. That's really a lot for most targets, and probably assumes some will get shot down or otherwise won't make it.

It's hard to read the Kremlinology, but one guy I trust said that - in a general sense - both are true. Putin is moving in people who are competent to put the economy on a war footing and keeping people loyal to him personally (important to note Shoigu was moved sideways and not out - "he only failed Putin, he didn't betray Putin"). Who he's kicking out are the self-serving. His old style of governing where he played the referee among the jockeying oligarchs has been going away since the invasion started.

 

And, holy cow.. Ukraine had a drone up in the air recording the attack..

I bet every country that has bought an S400 is super-excited about their purchase right about now.

Remarkable Ukrainian drone footage of the ATACMS strike on a Russian S-400 battery outside of Mospino on Wednesday.

The Russian S-400 attempted, but failed, to successfully engage the incoming ATACMS. Multiple ATACMS hit, releasing thousands of bomblets over the battery. pic.twitter.com/3uqbz2oimA

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) May 24, 2024

 

Biden is really fvcking up in Ukraine with his limits.

Not as bad as Germany is fvcking up, but we are not doing enough.

 

Oddly enough, Biden is messing up worse than Germany right now. Germany wants to get more Patriot systems in Ukraine, but the US and other NATO members are balking.

Germany is withholding the Taurus cruise missile, but that seems to be more about the complexity of the system and Germany saying it would require German soldiers to operate the system necessary to set-up flight path and targetting..