Konstantin Sivkov's article on the Ukrainian counter offensive for the summer of 2023 is rather illuminating and puts a lot of information from many places into one easy source.
It should indeed be very much taken under consideration that the offensive was planned by NATO, staffed largely by men trained by NATO, and mostly equipped with equipment from NATO.
He goes on to make some parallels in manpower and equipment between Operation Citadel I will not bore you with.
But the stated goal of the offensive was very clear.
Whomever decided that the bureaucrats do not know what they are doing and told them men to make the minefields twice as deep as needed is a hero.
This similar attitude by a Japanese engineer saved one Nuclear Power Plant from the Tsunami that hti Fukushima.
10k drone stockpile for the Russians before the offensive even took place. To say nothing of the other munition reserves.
There is a reason the Russians didn't do much for 2023, and that was it was preparing to meet this attack and stop it.
The strong Russian preparations, meant that the feints did not manage to achieve their desired effect of getting Russians to commit reserves in those areas, because the feints got beaten back as soon as they started by the zero line forces.
Yes crew survived is indeed a correct meme. But the not all did. But more importantly the equipment losses sustained by Ukraine were so great they could not be replaced with anything. Since Ukraine makes nothing, and the West already sent their best equipment.
Krynki Spa was a truly braindead move. An amphibious assault like that needs to hit hard and deep, moving heavy equipment into the beachhead to exploit it rapidly. It was known Ukraine lacked that capability, and still they went ahead with the offensive.
13.5k KIA/MIA
It should be noted that when he talks about losses here, he doesn't meant completely destroyed and killed, but rather killed and wounded for personal, destroyed and damaged (no longer combat effective) for equipment.
If we consider the Ukrainian offensive to be half a year, it would be around 25 or so FPV strikes per day. But the most intense fighting was early on, so you can suspect the daily FPV strikes were far more dense the first few days.
These weapons are truly changing warfare.
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20% staffing of the needed manpower is being well beyond being combat ineffective. All they can do is hold a little ground and pray. They are never going on the offensive unless their leaders are idiots.
So Hamas released some more footage of of them engaging armour, this time inside Gaza city itself
I'll make this a little thread to just shake my head at the IDF and their conduct.
They tended to pride themselves as being the urban warfare specialists, yet they make basic errors
So right off the bat we have a pair of Hamas fighters stepped out of an alleyway and take a shot into what looks to be the rear of a Namer fitted with the unmanned turret.
Where is the infantry or other vehicles securing the street behind the lead armoured element?
A single guy with a machine gun on the junction back from this road could've prevented this entire attack. Because notice that the gunner walks out all the way to the middle of the street to fire.
I've got another big load of films of Ukrainian graveyards. So I shall share them once again.
One thing that definitely happened after I started my initial postings was a crackdown on posting of graveyards. Instead Ukrainians now mainly post funerals which I do not share
Let us look at what (retired) General Sir Richard Lawson Barrons, KCB, CBE has to say 🧵
I am sorry but that is literally what everyone was saying it would do.
So he is saying the generals were knowingly lying to politicians about the success of operations, so that they would get material support and then pray they keep up in a lost cost fallacy.
They only reached the edge of the first line. Robotyne was the 0 line.
Ukraine also took 10% to 30% losses to reach this in 3 months. That means many units no longer combat effective. IE they need more equipment and men to replace the losses.
The Russians controlled the dam and the locks. They could lower the reservoir or inundate the downstream lands easily without having to resort to such actions.
Consider the fact Russia hasn't even blown the bridges across the Dnieper either, despite them being Ukraine's vital supply chokepoints towards the armies in the East.
This is totally out of character for Russia to do. But not out of character for the Ukrainians.