Ukraine vs Russia III

Yeah. The whole point of that ad is not to rally support for Ukraine. It's to tell a lie about Republican support for Ukraine.

 

Good luck with that. [emoji20]

 

I’ve donated to a friend of mine who’s active in the effort to make sure IFAKs and medical bags are sent out to UKR.

He gets lots of feedback and patches from the field and has built quite a collection, but he’s really wrapped up in getting supplies out there and isn’t concerned much with which ones he gets. He does raffle some off, like the Wagner patch that was “recovered” near bakhmut.

I’m hoping he can send me an AZOV patch given that they are one of the most effective units out there.

 

Russians seem to have gotten an effective range weapon that has a large ordinance. I believe they are still trying to figure out what it is, but the video below is a hit on a train 50km behind the lines. While it isn’t as accurate as you’d get with HIMARS, it looks like the size was enough to do serious damage.

A russian strike on a ukrainian train with reinforcements at 48.367261, 37.199057.
This is clearly a "precision" strike, yet not with the impeccable western precision, so the hit is 50-100m off.
This is ~50km from the frontline. Could be a "Tornado 9М542". #ukraine pic.twitter.com/r3HdtXcBvD

— C Schmitz (@chrisschmitz) September 24, 2023

https://x.com/chrisschmitz/status/1706054886003970485?s=46&t=VBrp1kxoJEHh4FxP_3sWog

 

In the great Ukrainian offensives east of Kharkiv and around Kherson, the Russians were able remove pretty much everything that could still run, but left behind everything that couldn't. Which was a lot. That was the general Russian modus operandi until recently - once things couldn't run they were just left or they went to collection points where they were repaired slowly if at all (as far as we could tell).

This isn't the case any more. Russia is now running long trains of damaged equipment from Ukraine back into Russia to get them properly repaired. And I mean seriously damaged. Not just missing tracks, but road wheels. I don't know how they dragged them onto the flatcar.

https://nitter.poast.org/escortert/status/1705956049440665926#m

I like to think this means they are getting more desperate about equipment. Or maybe they just got into recycling.

 

Apparently Russia is rolling it's T10 tanks out of museums.

The T-10 (also known as Object 730 or IS-8) was a Soviet heavy tank of the Cold War, the final development of the IS tank series. During development, it was called Object 730. It was accepted into production in 1953 as the IS-8 (Iosif Stalin, Russian form of Joseph Stalin), but due to the political climate in the wake of Stalin's death in 1953, it was renamed T-10. T-10 production was stopped in 1966.

 

Are they being sent back for repairs, or for scrap? A lot of those seem like they’ve been stripped for parts in the field, vs combat damage.

You also could be looking at a result of the static nature of the war. Since the front in most of Ukraine is static, Russia actually has the time to retrieve damaged hardware, field strip it, then send what remains back.

 

It's possible, although I don't think Russia is particularly short of scrap. They have an entire decaying culture to plunder. Maybe for the special steels of armor plate and gun barrels, but even then they have other bottlenecks in production that are larger. And it takes effort to move these things, so they have to be worth moving.

 

I think the value is in the parts that are remaining. From what I understand, Russia did a lot of robbing Peter to pay Mary with their stored vehicles, so they have a lot of decent hulls, but pretty much everything of value has been stripped off of them in order to get other vehicles combat ready. Now, on the front, they have a lot if vehicles with bad hulls, but some decent parts that can be salvaged off them.

 

It seems like it'd be pretty helpful to Ukraine for them to be able to routinely, every single day inflict similar punishment upon Russian resupply efforts -- to basically make resupply by rail completely, absolutely impossible. To destroy the rail yards in Belgorod and Kamensk and Rostov, and all the rail bridges between there and Ukraine.

Why won't we give them what they need to make that happen?

 

For the most part, Ukraine has that with HIMARS. The major supply rail lines are within HIMARS range and Russia is forced to drive 100km to get to the front. It will get even better when the HIMARS with the small diameter glide bomb starts arriving later this year and Russia will be forced to drive 150km+.

Yeah, Yeah, I know. ATACMS. The US only has a couple thousand of them and for hitting supply depots, the Cluster shells will be better. ATACMS don’t have a penetrator like storm shadows, so hitting hardened bunkers is out and Russia has been very effective in repairing rail bridges after they’ve been hit.

 

They can utterly ruin the rail yards in Belgorod, Rostov, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Kursk, etc. with HIMARS? I didn't think the range would be enough.

Supply depots can be relocated and dispersed. Rail yards, and rail and road bridges, not as easily. They repair the bridge, you hit it again while they're repairing it, so they lose the construction equipment and the people with the necessary skills to do the repair.

 

None of those will be on the target list for ATACMS. If you want to make that argument, that is completely fair, but, as it stands, giving Ukraine ATACMS only opens up supply depots on Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

 

I'm not talking about ATACMS. I'm saying that we need to give them whatever's required to make freight rail traffic into and through those rail centers impossible. I don't care if it's ground-launched cruise missiles or Jewish space lasers. Whatever makes them completely, absolutely, totally, utterly unable to supply their army with artillery rounds or bullets or petrol or batteries for comms or food and potable water or anything else they need to function. And I don't understand why we don't do that.

When we have fought any time since 1990, among the very first objectives has always been to strangle off supply. Everything else goes easier when you're fighting an enemy with no gas for its vehicles, no bullets for its guns, and no food. What has worked for us over and over and over and over would help Ukraine.

 

1. Given Trump's capture of the Republican Party, you seem to have a very different idea of what constitutes "success" than I do.

2. I don't believe it. I do believe that's the disinformation they want to tell; but I believe their commitment to the GQP is infinitely stronger than any desire they may have for the U.S. to help Ukraine. If helping out Ukraine meant voting against a Republican, their support for Ukraine would vanish faster than Trump would run away from an event for disabled veterans.

 

You can get a big chunk of the way there without a big air force. Especially given the awful current state of the Russian armed forces.

A big air force would not be required to make the rail yard at Belgorod unusable for an extended period. ATACMS could do it, if we gave them the M57 missiles. Hell, that missile could almost reach Voronezh.

 

Maybe it's been covered before but if not: is ATACMS pronounced "Attack-ems" or something else?

 

This would be verging on war crimes.

 

Why?

I can't think of a modern war ever where rail infrastructure that was being used to supply opposing troops was not considered a legitimate target. What am I missing?

 

By whom, and why?

And right now, that's a group that seems to have about as much support in the House as NAMBLA. I question whether any support for Ukraine that would require House approval can get it even now, while Biden is still President, given how the House Trumpanzees and the Burn-It-All-Down caucus are successfully preventing anything at all from being done.