Old cartoon: A grimacing soldier with his fingers in his ears stamps his boots around.
Yes. This type of artillery launched mine was specifically used to counter the Russian advance near Vuhledar.
Ukraine’s New Anti-Tank Tactic: Lay A Minefield, Then Scatter More Mines From the Air (forbes.com)
I saw early reports on YouTube. The Guardian seems to believe it.
Let’s hope Russia’s most of new force is this badly prepared.
I keep hearing references like this: 'Smart' land mines, with remote control
Mentioned briefly in the Ukraine News tv daily update yesterday. Starts on the video around 9:49
Day 354: Ukraïnian Map - YouTube
The source is admittedly pro-Ukr. propaganda, but we know for a fact the artillery launched mines (remote anti-armor mines, or “RAAM’s”) were included in one of our military aid packages announced back in September, so no reason to doubt the plausibility here.
I think RAAMs are remotely deployed but not remotely controlled. Very useful, but once deployed, they’re armed and ready all the time. Only they can’t be hidden if deployed from artillery. They just sit on the ground, visible unless hidden by tall grass or the like…
The camouflage blotches are made up of NAFO Shiba Inu Fellas and HIMARS rocket launchers.
Good luck with that. The frontal vision on Russian IFVs is abysmal. I don’t even want to think what Reverse is like!
Fear is great encouragement.
There’s nothing better than motivated students. The instructors are probably working extra hard too teach quickly.
The Guardian
One thing I will emphasize is that the idea of remote detonation of explosive devices in war, even improvised explosive devices, is hardly a novel or even particularly advanced technology (insurgents used them all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan).
That said, I think there are a lot of things being conflated here (both in this thread and in that article), none of which are necessarily the same thing:
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(Remote) command detonated mines (been there, done that, you can build one with a couple AA batteries, industrial explosives or salvaged unexploded ordinance among other things, and a cell phone or even more basic transmitter, and there are countermeasures for such things too, the trick is such countermeasures have to actually be installed and operated). That said, I’m not sure how common such devices are for employment as scattered across open terrain. Normally, unless it’s a really really sophisticated system that seems like it might still be impractical for current conditions in Ukraine, you’d want to have a visual cue to know when a particular mine is being crossed over so as to command detonation at just the right moment.
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Mines that either activate, detonate, or fail and become passive according to some sort of time delay. These have been common in naval warfare, and I believe that is what the linked article about from 2004 is talking about as an existing technology in land mines as well.
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Remotely activated minefields where the mines go from being safe/inert to live but still need to be triggered to detonate. Honestly not sure how common these are or how useful they would be relative to alternatives.
Also, not that they’ve been discussed, but it is also possible to design mines that don’t trigger on the first pass, but instead will trigger on a subsequent pass. And doubtless there are other variations on this theme of “smart” mines that I’ve failed to even mention.
I would just emphasize the infantry doesn’t seem to be walking alongside or behind, but rather is mounted within or on the vehicles. In which case, scattering into a minefield seems like a terrible idea because it risks running into what might be a mix of anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines.
Dismounting, disbursing in an unorganized manner, and getting low makes sense for artillery, but seems counterproductive for a minefield. Even to the extent dismounting might make sense under some circumstances, that would have to be followed up by a more methodical employment of the infantry. Such as to begin searching for mines while the vehicles remain stopped, not running, scattering, and diving into the minefield itself as vehicles go veering every which way, setting off more mines and sending up fragments of explosives and damaged vehicles.
Well, it all comes down to gambling. You know for a fact that there are anti-vehicle mines about, because one just went off. So, do you stay on/in a vehicle that might hit another such mine, or do you gamble on the yet-unproven existence of anti-personnel mines?
Sure, it would be good if they had a more organized response to such events, but at this point, it’s clear that very few of these Russian troops have any kind of comprehensive training, so panic is really all we should expect from them.
I’m not saying that running off is best practice, but it’s also not something I’d find as odd when the vehicle you’re in or on suddenly explodes.
I’d run back the way I came, but you probably get shot for doing that in any army.
Probably not in “any army”, but for sure in this one. That’s already happened.
Ukraine is apparently losing control of Bakhmut.
From the NY Times, an hour ago (Feb 13)
“The Ukrainian Army said that it would no longer allow aid groups in the city because of the danger posed by street fighting. The ban on volunteer access could suggest a prelude to a Ukrainian withdrawal,”
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“After months of withering bombardment, Russian forces now appear to have surrounded Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s military said that street fighting had commenced in two neighborhoods, and that the one remaining road that Ukrainian forces use to gain access to the city was under Russian fire.”
I am sad today.
It looks like Russia’s tactics are working. Sacrifice enough soldiers as canon fodder, and quantity is all that matters, despite low quality equipment and logistics.
Russia won’t conquer Kiev, but they may win control of a quarter of Ukraine’s land.
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( link is paywalled! )
Little gains like this, whether or not they’re actually happening (the media has been very, very quick to jump on any stories showing Russia as a big bad threat rather than a paper tiger), are essentially meaningless when compared to the broader trends. Holding Bakhmut gains Russia virtually nothing, and it appears the cost they’ve expended so far is overwhelming compared to this minuscule potential gain. As I’ve said before, this war, as all warsare, is about logistics and morale, and Ukraine is winning in both of those categories. That is still true if Russia takes Bakhmut.
Bakhmut may or may not fall.
If it does, it will have taken Russia half a year and likely tens of thousands of casualties, as pretty much their main battlefield focus over this time, to capture Ukraine’s 58th largest settlement.
I’m not so pessimistic about the planned/staged withdrawal from Bakhmut that has undoubtedly been many weeks in the making. It seems clear that Ukr. has been assiduously trading space for time the last few weeks, all while attempting to create the highest losses possible on advancing Rus. forces. The reason they’ve been doing this is to preserve their combat power and build reserve strength to blunt the upcoming (maybe already begun) Russian offensive, and launch their own counter-offensive as soon as they receive a critical mass of the promised armor, GLSDB and other weapon systems designed for offensive operations requiring mobility. While the loss of Bakhmut would allow the Kremlin to make some political claim that they’re ‘succeeding’ on the battlefield for its domestic audience, it is in fact no strategic prize. Had that been the case, Ukr. at any time could have committed their reserves and held it fast. Bakhmut has already paid for itself many times over as Russia has expended many thousands of soldiers, scores of armored vehicles, not to mention all the shells and other resources in taking what is now a pile of rubble. Ukr command has meanwhile been husbanding its own combat strength and I think we can expect to see them put to much better use in a couple more months.
EDIT: concerning blunting a Russian offensive, it seems that so far Ukr forces on the line have been performing sufficiently well that they really haven’t had to commit reserves yet. That may change but if Vuhledar is any indication of how regular Russian forces perform, it would appear Ukr will be able to allocate most of their reserves for their counter-offensive.