"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (30 Viewers)

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First things first, the ground just shouldn't goddamned move. That should be against the law.

As for depth, that does make sense. IIRC Coalinga was fairly deep though not sure if it was five+ miles below. 6.3 R? [ETA: Wiki says 6.2 R, depth of 6 miles, reinforcing your point]. The only damage it did in PR was topple an old church spire, thankfully no casualties. Coalinga was flattened.

In Paso, I was helping a friend and his father install a concrete floor for the basement. His dad was in the basement, Carl was bringing me the wheelbarrow, and I was prepping mix. I heard the rumble and told Carl, "we're gonna get a 'quake". He laughed and said "It's a train" ... and then about five seconds later we started rolling and that's when I looked at the ground and saw the wave lift and then drop the surface maybe three or four inches, like grabbing a rug and shaking it through. Transited the yard in much less than a second of time.

I don't know how old his dad was, but he was running like a young man up the stairs.
 
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alternative explanation is that ZSU has decreased number of strikes conserving resources for making serious punch...
 
buffnut453 said:
Yeah…although Ukrainian intel suggest Wagner is reinforcing Bakhmut rather than pulling out. I guess we'll know on Wednesday, one way or another.
Click to expand...

I've read both sides of the page about this, and to be objective it's hard to say who's right and who's BSing. I hope Wagner/Russians are putting troops in there. Even if the Ukrainian counteroffensive does not target this particular area, the idea that Russians are still streaming in to the area is good. Fewer reserves elsewhere while the Russians are feeding troops into a meatgrinder.

Reinforcing Bakhmut at this point is dumb. The side which forces the other to tie down troops in an essentially useless battle will have reserves able to strike elsewhere. Hard to see who comes out ahead of this version of Verdun. That Ukrainian offensive better unfold mos' skosh.
 
Agreed - am thinking it's an instance of 'Hold 'em by the nose and kick 'em in the ass', as Patton (I think....) put it. Let Wagner. Kadyrov and the other assorted scumbags throw all their troops into Bakhmut, then bleed them, cut them off and bag any survivors once the AFU gets going.......
 
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That's if the Ukrainian counter actually targets Bakhmut. It could well be that by digging into that town, the Ukrainians may be simply trying to magnet troops from the decisive area(s), and that Bakhmut is simply a distraction. I'd suck Russian forces into their prestige operation in Bakhmut, and then slice south to isolate and hopefully take Crimea from Malitupol by cutting off the Kerch.
 

Same here. We actually have a huge fault line capable of 8+ scale earthquakes. Its called the New Madrid Fault Line and Seismic Zone. Back in the 1800s a massive one actually redirected a river and created a lake in the region.
 
As mentioned before, this entire "special operation" Putin's folly is lifted right from Hitler's playbook. So when the Ukrainians strike back, it should look alot like the Soviet offensive aka "Operation Uranus" V2.0 - where the Soviets surrounded Stalingrad and punched down hard along the weakened German lines.

Bakhmut (Stalingrad V2.0) has drawn an enormous amount of Russian men and material from key areas along their front (just like the Germans did while trying to take Stalingrad) which, by my best guess, is exactly why the Ukrainians have kept the fight focused on Bakhmut - moths to a porch light.

After a year of watching all this unfold, it's become very clear who has read their history and who has not...
 
Agreed. The Russians need to be instead preparing a large mobile reaction force to counter the coming counteroffensive, like how the Wallies had to react to the Dec 1944 Ardennes Offensive, or Battle of the Bulge.

The Wallies didn't stop the below with trenches, static defensive works and land mines, but with mobile armour, ground level command initiative, communications, and air power. That's what the Russians need to be preparing. Their own Battle of the Bulge, where the enemy tries to push to the sea to cut your forces in half is coming.

 
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This development was not unexpected. However, I worry that Progozhin's comment about Wagner being allowed to operate as they see fit may merely result in more atrocities. The appointment of Surovikin as a liaison between Wagner and the Russian military is another interesting aspect of this:

Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner boss 'promised ammunition' after retreat threat

Yevgeny Prigozhin seemingly U-turns on his threat to withdraw from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
www.bbc.com
 
The problem for Russia with a mobile defense is logistics and supply, particularly road logistics.

Russia's land forces remain rail and pipeline bound - they've not got the trucks and other supply assets necessary to support a force that is operating a substantial distance away from railheads. Conservative estimates are that Russia has lost more than 2200 supply vehicles in the last 14 months. It's likely much higher, as these sorts of losses aren't what's being shared on social media.

Several observers have noted that the battles around Bakhmut and Vulhedar/Avdiivka are occurring not because these are strategic sites, but because this is where Russia finds it easiest to attack. Both have substantial road and rail links to within 100km of the front line, which allows Russia to support these attacks.

If you want 10-15 BTGs waiting in the rear as a tactical reserve, with enough fuel to get where they need to and ammunition to fight when they get there, then you better be prepared to shut down offensive operations for most of the rest of the front.

Here's a good primer on Russian logistics in Ukraine:

Russian Logistics in the Ukrainian War: Can Operational Failures be Attributed to logistics? | Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies

sjms.nu
 

It also requires a strong cadre of professional soldiers who are trained in manoeuvre operations , both in attack and defence. Russia patently lacks such a cadre due to (a) losses sustained by the regular army to-date, (b) increasing reliance on conscripts with a relatively low training level, and (c) the constant attraction for professional soldiers of better wages in Wagner and other PMCs.
 

Perhaps. ISW is reporting multiple Ukrainian Hrim-2 ballistic-missile strikes over Crimea, and we'll have to wait and see if it's preparatory to a major thrust, or diversionary.
 

I agree. Especially given that the Russians are confronted with defending exterior lines, any reserves committed will have longer distances to travel. The Russians will need to collect, fuel, and arm a good body of troops in order to have an effective reserve. I agree that driving to the Azov Sea would be Ukraine's best move in terms of positional warfare, but I don't know how dense or well-dug-in the Russians in that area are.
 
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