Posted on 06/20/2023 6:50:58 PM PDT by Mariner
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are seeking vulnerabilities in Russian defenses with the aim to collapse the frontline – just as they did during the Kharkiv operation in the fall of 2022 – according to Margo Grosberg, commander of the Estonian Defense Forces' intelligence center.
Only a third of the Ukrainian forces trained in the West have been deployed to the fight, Grosberg stated in an interview Estonian news outlet ERR on June 20.
He noted that the counteroffensive from the Ukrainian military is taking place in the areas of Bakhmut, southern Donetsk Oblast, and Zaporizhzhya Oblast. The majority of territories liberated by the Ukrainian forces are located in Zaporizhzhya Oblast and in the direction of Orikhov in Donetsk Oblast.
However, Grosberg pointed out that Ukrainian forces are yet to reach the primary Russian defensive positions.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I think that's bullsh!t.
Didn't all the major offensives in history started suddenly and with great fury?
The US gives Ukraine satellite data that can see a license plate number, but can’t discern where the Russian defenses are?
The New York Times tries to rescue the Beltway chicken-hawks, as yet another one of their foreign proxy wars disintegrates.
Where’s the audit on the billions we’ve already flushed down the Ukraine toilet?
D-Day.
Barbarosa.
Maginot Line.
Pearl Harbor.
Chosin Reservoir.
The Iraqi Wars.
Seems likely to to me.
The probing is a stall to wait for more U.S. Tax dollars to arrive.
That way when Zelensky flees he can live the good life with
pallets of American Cash.
Little Big Horn.
All of the Pacific Islands in WWII, from both sides.
It’s gaslighting from the US Neocons, NATO and their big media collaborators.
Or, just bullsh!t.
What of it guys?
See post #1
Tet.
No. The US breakout in Normandy did go through about six weeks of “shaping and probing” to get to a point where there was a reasonable route of advance apparent behind a thinned out German front. It also served to make the Germans commit all their reserves. The breakout itself involved cracking this last front, behind which there was nothing left.
That’s when Patton came into the picture.
But you discount the sudden fury of the Normandy Landing that put them there in the first place?
It’s B.S ...making excuses for failures. Without air cover, as we had in WW2, no one advances. The only question now is when do the Russians take their turn to go on offense. I would think pretty soon, given their numbers...but only they know!
Most Pacific Islands were very small fortified places where there was no breakthrough and exploitation phase.
But there are a few cases where there was a breakthrough and exploit maneuver.
One is the quite overlooked Salamaua-Lae campaign on New Guinea. Perhaps it is overlooked because it was mainly an Australian operation.
The other is Kruegers Luzon campaign. The US took about 6 weeks to clear Japanese forces out of the way before the 6th Army could perform its mechanized rush through to Manila. There was a “shell” of Japanese positions, mainly in Pangasinan and Pampanga (around what was left of Clark field).
Few of the German units on the line in late July were on the beaches of Normandy. Actual German troop strength on June 6 was a very small fraction of the total German force 6 weeks later. Operation Cobra began on July 25, not June 6.
Iwo jima
Okinawa
Guam
Sudden fury followed by long slog.
Add Peleliu, Buna-Gona, etc. Long slog because there was nowhere to break through TO.
These islands and locations (the southern 1/5 of Okinawa, the rest was taken quickly) were 100% fortifications. They were effectively sieges of fortresses. There was no operational maneuver possible.
“There was no operational maneuver possible.”
The offensives themselves started with the sudden appearance offshore of the USN, delivering thousands of tons of ordnance per day.
I don’t understand your obsession with “operational maneuver” linked to a ground action.
Shock and Awe, Pearl Harbor were airborne assaults to open and offensive. Dozens have been opened with artillery.
But ALWAYS with great fury.
Operational maneuver is the goal of any ground force operation. Breakthrough and exploitation is what it’s all about. That’s how the opposing force is destroyed, either by encirclement or getting attrited while it’s attempting to withdraw.
That’s why the US Army “Green Book” covering the Cobra operation and the subsequent advance is called “Breakout and Pursuit” (Blumenson, 1961).
And that’s also how major ground is taken.
This fits the Ukainian requirements precisely, as it also fitted Russian requirements before that. The goal was to create the conditions for maneuver warfare.
Taking a fortress is something else. There is no breakthrough, it is a fixed point effectively. Once the enemy is defeated you get that point, and maybe the enemy garrison, and can go no further (on land).
Consider also the First World War, or most of it. What everyone strove for, in most of its battles, was to restore maneuver beyond the trench lines (”From mud, through blood, to the green fields beyond” - from the motto of the Royal Tank Regiment)
Not necessarily “great fury”.
This may work, or not. It may not be available, or may not be called for. The Germans in 1940-42 in truth had relatively little “fury” to put in.
Notably, the WWI allies learned to keep the “fury” down to a useful level in 1917-18. This turned into British and French army doctrine, and hence US Army doctrine. That’s why the artillery prep at Cambrai, 1917, the first successful armored assault, wasn’t of the “WWI” character. The goal wasn’t to blast the enemy out of existence as in the Somme or Verdun.
For stupid gen-Z writers at Yahoo, they get some slogans from their contacts at the Pentagon, and that’s what they publish.
The fact is though, Ukraine (and even Russia) can’t mass troops in any traditional way. Drones, satellites and everything else make that impossible. A large formation would get slammed by missiles immediately
So what Ukraine can do, at this point, is simply try to probe and exploit, with small numbers of troops, with the aid of Western signal intelligence
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