Invasion of Ukraine • Page 41

"Ukraine targets Russia’s ammunition depots, undermining its artillery advantage"

https://kyivindependent.com/national/1234

 

I'm hoping the operational pause being talked about happens and gives a little bit of time to get a lot more heavy artillery set up on the Ukrainian side so they can continue dishing out punishment like they have been and actually ramp it up close to where it needs to be.

Driving into work just now in Boston I saw a flooring company van and painted on the back doors was "Our Family Is Still In Ukraine And Needs Help - Please Donate" with a link. I snapped a pic real quick and am gonna donate. At a red light I was trying to get the driver's attention and he thought I was road-raging at first and didn't wanna open his window, but then he did and I yelled real quick that I'm gonna donate and I hope his family is & stays safe.

 

If you have nothing else to do

 

I've been absolutely loving Perun's videos recently. He did like an hour and 20 minutes on German rearmament and procurement going super deep and very detailed and intricate and it was fascinating and riveting the entire runtime.

 

I'd say, go for any subs or ships docked in the Sevastopol harbor - fuck 'em all

 

Serious amounts of military aid going to Ukraine recently; Poland announced 66 Krab self-propelled howitzers are being transferred, and now the GB makes this huge donation themselves. With this kind of aid continuously flowing, there is no way Russia comes out the winner in this war

https://ukrainetoday.org/2022/07/21/great-britain-will-hand-over-almost-60-howitzers-to-ukraine/

"It is reported that 6,900 rockets and grenade launchers such as NLAW, Javelin, Brimstone and others, six Stormer HVM anti-aircraft missile systems with hundreds of Starstreak missiles, multiple rocket launcher systems, 120 armored personnel carriers, 16 thousand artillery shells, as well as a large number of non-lethal aid — more than 82,000 helmets, 8,450 body armor and more than 5,000 night vision devices."

 

I think we need to get serious and give them what they need to push all Russian troops (and anyone else fighting on that side) out of Ukraine entirely *before* Russia has a chance to start trying to annex huge chunks of the country like they did with Crimea.

I love the idea of sending them our A-10 Warthogs. I've heard first-hand from people with combat experience that the psychological effects of that gun the A-10 was built around are devastating to anyone on the receiving end and amazing for morale on the side with the Warthogs.

 

Another great read

U.S. agrees to send Ukraine more HIMARS launchers, weaponry that is taking a toll on Russian forces

 

Even if Russia "annexed" that land, it wouldn't really change things on the ground, as Ukraine is going to attempt to take it all back anyways. The first to fall will be Kherson in the next few months, and hopefully by the end of the year at least Crimea, and possibly a good chunk of the Donbas

As for the A-10's, I would be curious to know what kind of targets they'd go after. Unlike the Middle East, there'd be a much higher risk from MANPAD-type launchers towards those planes, and being that they're not that fast, there would be a higher chance of them getting hit. I would assume they'd use drones to pick out lower risk targets beforehand, and then send the A-10's in. But yeah, I would not want to be on the receiving end of a Brrrrrrrrrrttt

 

Great chat with an American who fought in the Kyiv area in March

 

You need Air superiority for A-10s. They would get obliterated there.

 

This is very true. I was forgetting how they operate and how incompatible that would be with what's going on in Ukraine right now.

Guess we just need to send them all of the other planes and everything else needed to establish air superiority too.

 

Really good video where he breaks down some of the myths about the A-10. Makes the case that the Warthog is most valuable as a morale booster to our own side than anything, that the supposed psychological effect it has against the enemy are not proven and are largely urban legend, was never really suited for modern high intensity near-peer conventional warfare like we're seeing in Ukraine, is a pretty good low intensity warfare aircaft, but there are other equally good counter-insurgency aircraft out there that are much much much cheaper.

 

Great read

The State of the Russo-Ukrainian War

 

Any promise to the southern offensive? If they do retake Kherson and able to push the Russian line back far enough wouldn't they be within range to take out the roads leading Crimea to the mainland and effectively cut off their southern supply line?

 

I would assume the UA has been building up a massive enough military force down there to eventually conduct a counter-offensive; it just hasn't started in full yet. I believe they've been using the HIMARS and artillery first to take out as many ammunition dumps as possible, and the three main bridges in the region, so that now at this point the Russians on the western side of the Dnipro river are essentially cutoff. So either they're going to fight do the death, surrender, or try to construct some pontoon bridges and retreat to the eastern side of the river, out of Kherson. I think in August we'll finally start to see this operation pan out; how long it takes I have no idea. If Kherson falls relatively quickly, I would assume UA would want to keep up the momentum and push further south towards Crimea. The Russians are strongest at the moment in the Donbas, and weakest in the South, so might as well try to take that back for now. Plus, more access to the ports in the south means a greater share of their GDP finally being exported, which is important.