From what I’m seeing this morning —it looks like the ukes closed the two sides of the pincers and cut off the russians on the southern salient around bakhmut.
The deep question is as to whether the uke troops doing this are part of the 13 brigades the Ukes are said to have in reserve for the summer offensive or whether the troops cutting off the russians are just the uke line troops for the first time deciding to go on the offensive.
I’m inclined to think the latter because we don’t see images of vast lines of tanks moving forward. Rather it looks like a couple tanks and apc with support troops move forward and discover there isn’t much resistance. What resistance they do find—they radio back their artillery to take out.
Uke artillery is amazingly good. You see truck tanks and apc’s moving down a highway and then they get blown up. the narrater says its uke artillery.
the natural thought wtf? to take out a moving vehicle the artillery has to do one of two things: 1.)— the atillery has to be tracking and moving like a man with a rifle tracks and moves his gun following a moving figure—and maybe fires slightly in front of the moving figure to make the shot. or 2.) the artillery has to be previously sighted into a particular spot in front of the moving. then the gun fires when some predetermined calculations is triggered that includes the truck’s speed and the distance to the pre determined spot.
I’m inclined to think that the way they do it byo of option 2.) but I don’t know.
all that has to be built into the artillery.which means it probably is built into the artillery.
amazing.
I won a small competition hitting a moving line-of-sight target with a 105 once.
Or, just use anti-vehicular or anti-armor smart artillery shells.
Accurate anti-tank artillery fire brought to Russians by the modern miracle of artillery drones tracking target coordinates in real time and relaying in back to the gun crews. Correction can be either optical or electronic or both.
The Russian system with Orlan-10s and several SPGs work the same way. Drone sees target, relays coordinates to SPG, and operator presses fire button. No old fashioned moving, sighting, calculating and tracking by hand - its all done automatically by dedicated computer. Drone and SPG are slaved together, while operator optically tracks the target.
“The deep question is as to whether the uke troops doing this are part of the 13 brigades the Ukes are said to have in reserve for the summer offensive”
I have been wondering that as well. No doubt professionals are watching for that indicator as well. I suspect that if Ukraine had committed its counterattack forces, people would be abuzz about it.
One consideration, is that the Ukrainians may have received a big supply of Artillery shells. There were reports lately that Ukrainian forces had lifted their Artillery budget constraints on units in contact, and it had become “fire at will”. There were also reports of increased Ukrainian counter battery fire against Russian guns, further shifting the Artillery balance.
In recent weeks, European Countries agreed on a new finance and production program, that allows participating Countries to immediately release a million shells from inventory, and South Korea agreed to “lend” the USA another 500,000, to cover releases from stocks. So a flood of Artillery supply is likely reaching Ukrainian units.
Among the Artillery shells provided before, were thousands of “smart” rounds, like the American Excalibur, and European SMArt. Those 155mm rounds have their own sensors and tail fins, to guide themselves the last bit. Pretty much one shot, one kill on moving armored vehicles, if you drop them inside their range box.
In addition to the shift in the Artillery balance, preparatory phases for the counteroffensive have begun softening up Russian forces generally, disrupting logistics, blinding sensors, and just recently, killing Commanders. Everybody knows the counteroffensive is coming - it is all over Russian social media. So Russian draftees are primed to run.
Modern NATO Artillery is a technological marvel. It far outclasses the Russian “spray and pray” approach to just demolishing everything in a wall of fire, requiring trainloads of shells.
The German PzH-2000 tosses around 155 rounds like a circus juggler. It can put 5 rounds in the air in such a way, that they land at the same moment, in a pre-determined spread on the target. HIMARS can hit dead center between the two rails of a train track, from 30 miles away - first shot. In addition to the “smart” shells the autonomously correct their terminal guidance, other shells can be guided in to precision strikes with laser designators, by Infantry, mounted troops, from aircraft or drones.
“whether the uke troops doing this (Bakhmut counteroffensive) are part of the 13 brigades the Ukes are said to have in reserve for the summer offensive”
Speedy posted at #76:
““The push around Bakhmut hasn’t used any of the troops that Kyiv has been training and holding back for its planned offensive, said Col. Cherevatiy, the Ukrainian military spokesman.””