Ok lets talk bridges and carrying capacity from a, "I am not an engineer or logistician" perspective. First, we've all been across multiel types of bridges from one lane rural roads designed mostly for infrequent traffic but built to take heavy agricultural loads, on up to big
highway bridges that can have dozens, hundreds or thousands of vehicles on them at any given time. The main bridge into Kherson was one of these latter bridges. It offered effectively unlimited carrying capacity moving in both directions at high speed. When bridges like this
get cut, you have to use a virtual time machine to get to the other side because what replaces it until repairs/rebuilding is complete is something out of the last millennium. Either A: vehicle launched bridges army-guide.com/eng/product375…
But these have extreme weight limits, limited length, difficult traverse, an inability to deal with deep water or shipping channels. They are good for quick crossing of minor rivers and small bodies of flowing water with good solid banks. The Dnipro is not a small river.
Next is B: the pontoon bridge. These can be made fairly quickly, offer nearly unlimited length, don't care about depth and have been used since Xerxes decided to dance with the Spartans. However, they are narrow, very thin skinned, speed is extremely limited to reduce bow waves
and traffic is one direction single file at a time. You can build more than one if you have enough assets, but each remains individually vulnerable to even medium weight artillery fire. Armies use them as "best we got" solutions but they are not ideal. The Russians even have
pontoon rail bridges which blows my mind but they like trains. The other option is C: the ferry. There are several ways to do this from using shore mounted stations to move a barge along a cable run from one bank to the other to using vessels as tugs to move the barge, to
self powered vessels designed to move/ load and unload from either end. Ferries can't ferry much, but are more easily hidden and harder to hit with artillery. There is a D: the ford, but since we are talking the Dnipro fords are not an option. So getting across is going to mean
using some combination of A, B, or C. So how much does Russia need to get across per day to keep her troops in Kherson, in the fight. Well each soldier needs 2lbs of food a day plus if you are expecting a siege you want to keep building up on whatever food stocks are already
there so lets call it 4lbs. If there are 15k troops in Kerson that is 60,000lbs of food or 30 tons or 3 well paced trucks. I don't think they will be well packed but a dozen trucks a day can easily supply 15,000 people. OI don't think Russia will worry about feeding the civilian
population. I think by now Russia has run pipelines for fuel so that should be an effectively unlimited resource for the defenders. Water however could be a major obstacle. If Kherson is not supplied by wells with working pumps each Russian soldier is going to need 16lbs of water
a day just to not die. Any type of hygiene or other use adds to that number. 16x15000 is a much bigger number that is 240,000lbs or 120 tons or about 20 tanker trucks a day. Without water you die and its summer time. Water however is not the big weight issue. Ammunition is
15,000 troops West of the Dnipro would be about 20-25ish BTG's plus supporting units so 2-300 tube artillery pieces and an equal number of missile systems. So, to give each gun 10 rounds and each grade 40 rockets needs 200,000lbs
of fresh artillery shells and 1.1 million pounds of rockets. Plus whatever small arms, smaller shells, tank ammo, atgm's etc are needed. So ballpark the total at 1.4 million pounds a day minimum since even if not firing, they are stockpiling for a siege. Thats 700-900 trucks a
day now add in the movement of people, tanks, other armored vehicles, command and control vehicles, air defense assets, trucks with spare parts etc. All together that is an hours time on a multi-lane highway bridge, its all day on a pontoon bridge and a bridge too far with a
ferry. Plus half the traffic over the bridge eventually has to flow away from the city so the trucks can evac wounded and go get more stuff. Not a good time to be a Russian. However dear reader, get ready for the first confirmed losses of HIMARS. 80km is not that far and much of
still Russian occupied areas so the HIMARs will be relatively close but more importantly, to keep the pontoons and ferries down, be operating at a much higher tempo. Increased tempo means increased visibility and eventually combat losses. This is why continued western support is
vital for Ukraine. Its why I tag @JohnBoozman @SenTomCotton and @RepFrenchHill every day. Its why I encourage you my readers to tune into spaces like @MriyaReport so you can stay informed when you reach out to your leaders. Why I encourage you to give to charities like @MriyaAid,
support the people defending Ukraine like @georgian_legion and promote Ukrainian voices like @ferlain @Teoyaomiquu @MrKovalenko and others. Not only does it help Ukraine, it keeps you emotionally invested in Ukraine winning on Ukraine's terms. Stopping genocide needs all of us
Slava Ukraini! #Arkansas #russiaisateroriststate #GenocideOfUkrainians #genocide #feedthewolves #WeAreNAFO @mfa_russia <--- still losing!
@aprilsparkles1 I totally forgot I was supposed to write a troll hunters for NAFO fellas. My apologies.
day.
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