Meh. At the rate of loss he’s probably destined to be a general at some point.
Can’t they just drive a semi across it? I hear there’s a driver in Washington that needs a job.
Yeah, fill a semi trailer full of fertilizer.
*ugh* I was very happy when they got that fixed. The detour was a PITA.
Harpoon missiles are famous for passing through the thin-skinned superstructure of small ships and detonating their warheads beyond their target. A lot of bridge superstructures are more sparse than that (consider a truss bridge which is often more air than bridge), so expect Harpoons or their derivatives to miss a lot.
With only a 500 pound warhead, a near miss is as good as missing by a mile.
To really mess up a bridge, you want something that will reliably detonate on the deck surface.
German deliveries to date: Delivered lethal and non-lethal military support to Ukraine:
- 3.000 anti-tank weapons Panzerfaust 3 with 900 firing devices
- 14.900 anti-tank mines
- 500 Man Portable Air Defense Systems STINGER
- 2.700 Man Portable Air Defense Systems STRELA
- 7 self-propelled howitzers Panzerhaubitze 2000 including adaption, training and spare parts (joint project with the Netherlands)
- 21,8 million rounds of ammunition for fire arms
- 50 bunker buster missiles
- 100 machine gun MG 3 with 500 spare barrels and breechblocks
- 100.000 hand grenades
- 5.300 explosive charges
- 100.000 m detonating cord and 100.000 detonators
- 350.000 detonators
- 10.500 projectiles (155mm)
- 10 anti-drone guns*
- 14 anti-drone sensors and jammers*
- 100 auto-injector devices
- 28.000 combat helmets
- 15 palettes military clothing
- 178 vehicles (trucks, minibuses, all-terrain vehicles)
- 100 tents
- 12 generators
- 6 palettes material for explosive ordnance disposal
- 125 binoculars
- 1.200 hospital beds
- 18 palettes medical material, 60 surgical lights
- protective clothing, surgical masks
- 10.000 sleeping bags
- 600 safety glasses
- 1 radio frequency system
- 3.000 field telephones with 5.000 cable reels and carrying straps
- 1 field hospital (joint project with Estonia)
- 353 night vision googles
- 4 electronic anti-drone devices
- 165 field glasses
- medical material (inter alia back packs, compression bandages)
- 38 laser range finders
- Diesel and gasoline (ongoing deliveries)
- 10 tons AdBlue
- 500 medical gauzes
- 402.000 pre-packaged military Meals Ready
- MiG-29 spare parts
- 30 protected vehicles
Lethal and non-lethal military support to Ukraine in planning/in execution
- (due to security concerns, the Federal Government abstains from providing details on transportation modalities and dates until after handover)
- 53.000 rounds ammunitions for self-propelled anti-aircraft guns
- 8 mobile ground surveillance radars and thermal imaging cameras*
- 3 Panzerhaubitzen 2000
- 4.000 rounds practice ammunitions for self-propelled anti-aircraft guns
- 10 (+10 als Option) autonomous surface vessels*
- 14 truck tractor trains and 14 semi-trailers*
- 2 tractors and 4 trailers
- 43 reconnaissance drones
- 1 high frequency unit with equipment
- 10 protected vehicles*
- 7 radio jammers*
- 8 electronic anti-drone devices*
- 4 mobile, remote controlled and protected mine clearing systems*
- 65 fridges for medical material
- 1 vehicle decontamination system
- 54 M113 armoured personnel carriers (systems of Denmark, upgrades financed by Germany)
- 30 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns GEPARD including circa 6.000 rounds of ammunition*
- air defence system IRIS-T SLM*
- counter battery radar system COBRA*
- 80 pick-up trucks*
- 3 multiple rocket launchers MARS with ammunition
- 100.000 first aid kits*
- 22 trucks
I wonder if the military engineer corps has reinforced metal panels that can quickly be laid down over a crap surface on an otherwise structurally sound bridge deck? Bridge the holes, spread the load?
Pretty much guaranteed. That’s why they would have to hit the bridge daily or bring it down to stop the flow of material.
Very soon the Russians will have taken most of the territory that the Ukraine forces have been holding and reinforcing for many years now. The areas along the Donbass borders. After that it will be easier for the Russians to advance. A lot of Ukraine forward military assets have been destroyed or overrun. All the while the Ukraine forces have been losing their better trained forces. In spite of foreign donations of military hardware, the Ukraine forces do not have much depth of resupply.
I feel it has reached a tipping point. Ukraine had the bulk of it’s forces and material on the Donbass borders. It is gone now. I think it will be a much faster advance for Russian forces now. If they choose to.
This is likely the Kremlin line right now, but it’s not borne out by the evidence I’ve seen. From what I’ve read, Russian forces are getting more and more desperate, and their offensives less and less effective, especially as Ukraine has gotten more and better weapons. Ukraine’s will to fight appears to be as strong as ever.
I think you should broaden your information sources. Even main stream western news sources are reporting the situation to be degrading.
They are getting weapons. But they are too few. Sometimes they are not being used as well as they could be. Understandable due to them being a new complex item. As well as some poor tactical choices.
Russian forces are fine. There have been a few blunders. But not major ones. They are regularly cycling out troops. Taking pauses for rest and resupply. Supply is no problem at all. Russian forces are continuously advancing. This isn’t the Kremlin line, it is the line on the map of Ukraine.
The Russians are a long way from conquering the whole of the Donbas.
I made a GIF to show the changes in territorial control in Ukraine that have occured in the last three months - since 8 April. This is when the second phase of the war began, when the Russians retreated from northern Ukraine and the Donbas became the main focus of their invasion plans and efforts. I have also marked the area of the Donbas.
Ukraine have lost many of their better-trained troops, but it’s the same for Russia. Their elite airborne units have taken heavy casualties, as have the professional soldiers of their standing army. Ukrainian society is mobilized and hundreds of thousands of people are being trained to be soldiers. Russia, on the other hand, has not admitted to itself that it’s in a war and so has not mobilized, so it’s not significantly adding to its military manpower as time passes.
Due to losses in Ukraine, Russia is bringing increasingly outdated equipment from storage. Ukraine, meanwhile, is increasing the number of higher-quality Western equipment at its disposal month by month.
I wonder how much training these men receive?
Ryan breaks down a recruitment ad on Telegram. 6 month contract with a signing bonus. How can you train and deploy troops on 6 month contracts?
This British Defence Intelligence update was probably the source for the (paywalled) article:
They have overrun the front lines that were in place. Overrun is putting it to easily, the Ukraine forces put up a hell of a fight. They have all of Luhansk. And have crossed the previous lines in Donetsk. What I am saying is the built up strategic lines that were previously in place are now broken. They have supply line territory in an arc around the further territory they will attack.
It is very favorable for an increase in speed of advance.
It does indeed seem to be the Kremlin line that they have taken all Donbass. Maybe premature. But maybe, likely inevitable.
Also purportedly heavy casualties among the relatively better quality Russian naval infantry. Unsurprisingly Russia seems to have led with their superior infantry units in the initial attempt at quickly overwhelming Ukraine and unsurprisingly those are the forces that seem to have taken the brunt of the damage (them and the semi-professional separatist troops, who the Russians seem to have leaned on heavily in the earlier stages of the war in the East). It is likely true that BOTH the Russians and the Ukrainians have lost a lot of their better quality troops - casualties so far look to have been brutal.
I think excessive optimism OR pessimism from either direction is probably unwarranted. I don’t expect Russia to sweep victoriously across the steppe on the backs of a collapsing ZSU and I likewise rather doubt Ukraine is going to make particularly rapid progress in pushing out dug-in Russian forces in the Donbas. Some nasty form of grinding stalemate seems more likely, with maybe one side or the other (or both simultaneously) making only slow gains.
ETA: But as usual I think any of our semi-, half- and at times completely uneducated speculations and a quarter will buy you a gumball.
I am concerned Ukraine’s fortified positions have fallen. They spent 7 years digging in and assume a lot of it was reinforced concrete.
I’m hopeful the British military trainers can replenish Ukrainian troops. They have a long tradition of training quality troops.
I’m trying to stay cautiously optimistic. Ukraine is in serious trouble. The latest ISW predicts Russia plans to take a lot more territory.
The Russians are performing no blitzkrieg. It is slow attritional warfare. The Ukrainians have weeks or months to prepare the next line of defense. There are at least three lines of defense to break through before the Donbas can be conquered, not counting the rivers which may also impede advances.
The reason that Ukrainian forces ultimately withdrew from Lysychansk-Sievierodonetsk was because they were at risk of encirclement and it was becoming increasingly difficult to supply. That battle was in a much smaller area - a bulge, surrounded by Russian forces - and it will be much harder for the Russian invaders to attempt any similar encirclement over the remaining wider Donbas area.
Is that so significant? The southern Donbas already has rail connections to Russian Rostov Oblast to the east.
The main problem Russia seems to be currently having with getting supplies to frontline troops is that the Ukrainians keep destroying their poorly-defended ammo and fuel depots behind the lines with new Western-supplied long-range rocket artillery, such as the HIMARS.
If you take a look at the sources of the news, I think you will find that the Ukrainians are MUCH more open about their losses than the Russians are.
This does NOT automatically mean that the Russians are the side in better shape.
Putin is bleeding assets he can’t replace and he’s scraping the barrel for troop replacement. Those replacement troops have no skin in the game.
This is on top of worldwide sanctions that is hurting every aspect of life in Russia.
Time is on Ukraine’s side as are the assets of NATO nations.