To be honest if they do I can imagine it will be another bloodbath like the first attempt to take Kyiv
With everything that has happened since February, I think it would be even worse. In February much happened through desperation and 'made up' on the spot reactions. I suspect this time a dose of preparation, tactics and vastly improved skill will really stop things in their tracks.
Also, at what point does the real cold arrive? This may well have quite an impact on the (unprepared) Russian troops and morale. In February and March there were more than a few Russians with hyperthermia, frostbite and death through the cold.
And Vodka. Don’t forget the vodka.
I personally think that we should ensure lots of vodka is supplied, for free, to the Russians on the front lines.
Also, at what point does the real cold arrive?
Depends where! It's coldest from November to March. Kiev gets proper cold, which can last til April. Further south, Kherson isn't an awful lot worse than Manchester in winter. Cold, but not deep into minus numbers!
Kherson isn’t an awful lot worse than Manchester
Is that according to the Met Office or Trip Advisor?
Kherson isn’t an awful lot worse than Manchester
Is that according to the Met Office or Trip Advisor?
Indeed. Does Kherson have the equivalent of Piccadilly Gardens?
Is that according to the Met Office or Trip Advisor?
Sharp!
Has anyone ever tried air-dropping booze and weed to enemy front lines?
LSD would do it ...but not allowed
I got stuck in Kyiv in late December one year because of the cold and the snow. Now admittedly that was down entirely to UK airports being totally incapable of dealing with the issue and the Ukrainians had no issues in dealing with it but it was pretty cold there. I'd not want to be a conscript with no winter clothing, no tent and no sleeping bag.
LSD would do it …but not allowed
All you'd have to do would be to drop sealed bottles and baggies and it doesn't count as chemical warfare.
My Ukrainian contractor in Lviv reports that she is now back to work, with the words
The positive thing is that the Russians have 100 fewer missiles now
LSD would do it …but not allowed
Not sure bombing civilians is allowed either...
How many missles have they got left? it’s been reporting they have been low for sometime, and then they can still fire 80+ in one night, that’s why I thought it would be a much nastier response. So whilst it’s terrible, it could have been so much worse. Lots of threats about if Ukraine attack the bridge a second time. It’s a shame it wasn’t completely destroyed outright
Has anyone ever tried air-dropping
booze andweed to enemy front lines?
The Vietcong?
LSD would do it …but not allowed
LSD is kid's stuff, the CIA keeps the good drugs for itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra
MKUltra's researchers later dismissed LSD as too unpredictable in its results.[59] They gave up on the notion that LSD was "the secret that was going to unlock the universe," but it still had a place in the cloak-and-dagger arsenal. However, by 1962 the CIA and the army developed a series of super-hallucinogens such as the highly touted BZ, which was thought to hold greater promise as a mind control weapon. This resulted in the withdrawal of support by many academics and private researchers, and LSD research became less of a priority altogether.[56]
Has anyone ever tried air-dropping booze and weed to enemy front lines?
We're going on a bonging run
LSD would do it …
Been tried and tested back in the 60s.
We’re going on a bonging run
Vote of appreciation for that from me
Lots of threats about if Ukraine attack the bridge a second time.
Do they need to? There was talk about the Russians running test trains across it the day after the fire, but that might have been propoganda, anyone know if the rail side is operable?
The road side isn't such an issue because they won't be able to get the volume of supplies in by truck that they could with trains.
The Belorussian army are mainly used to shoot at protestors and it wasn't so long ago they rebelled so I wouldn't describe them as a game changer. At least not in a positive way for Putin
tthew
Do they need to? There was talk about the Russians running test trains across it the day after the fire, but that might have been propoganda, anyone know if the rail side is operable?
Photos suggested there was still a bloody great burnt out train in the way at the time, but it's hard to know.
The road bridge seems fairly irrelevant from a war-scale logistics point of view, since the russians already don't have enough trucks and effective road hubs as it stands, let alone to take up losses from rail. That seems to tie in with the strategic side, with rail depots apparently being pretty much the most important things on the map.
(the flipside is that with decent logistics already in place, which you never know, there might be, they could have good transshipping options at either end of the bridge and the capacity to relay loads quickly and efficiently across the bridge using a relatively small amount of militarily-useless trucks and loaders. Basically just civilianising it completely and turning it into something like a tesco warehouse, probably by nicking a load of stuff from the equivalent of tesco. But I don't see much likelihood of that and of course they're also now very aware that the bridge and the area around are targets- a big transshipping yard would be a bigger target.)
Ukraine now getting state of the art defence systems that NATO would never have given them before the invasion
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/germany-sends-long-awaited-defence-systems-to-ukraine-bbprcnxk6
Whether Kerch Trainline can take Russian heavy military equipment is a good questionim sure it can be repaired but those tanks are not light
the equivalent of tesco.
Tesco use pallets and forklifts. The Russians load the wooden boxes onto and off of transport manually.
50 second clip of the damage to the rail section of the bridge, also shows the road section viewed from above. Some trucks appear to have welded themselves to the rails.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1579672590251364354
Plenty of comments from people, far more knowledgeable than me, suggesting it's cattled due to the temperatures involved.?
I'd imagine those train axels are a beefier bits of metal that much of the bridge material and you can see they've gotten hot enough to have sagged in the middle under their own weight
The positive thing is that the Russians have 100 fewer missiles now
British levels of sang froid there!
This reminds me of TE Lawrence's tactics disrupting the Hejaz Railway. The aim wasn't to destroy a bridge entirely, as it could be rebuilt fairly quickly. If its just rendered unsafe to use, it would have had to be dismantled and rebuilt, wasting time and resources.
Ukraine now getting state of the art defence systems that NATO would never have given them before the invasion
The problem with having these systems in small numbers is what you do with them. Do you put them in a city that hasn't been attacked in several months, or do you put them in position to support your advance?
Mobile AA systems, e.g. the Gepard with twin 35mm guns are more suited to moving with advancing forces. This system also has a ground anti-armour capability
Ukrainian forces report using Soviet mobile AA SA8 Gecko with the Gepards to give good coverage; they are extremely inventive 🙂
Plenty of comments from people, far more knowledgeable than me, suggesting it’s cattled due to the temperatures involved.?
That's what I'd hoped because some of the photos I saw showed an exposed steel construction on the underside rather than full concrete and reinforcement, but you'll get a significant insulation effect from a decent thickness of concrete deck where the flames didn't directly impinge on it.
I really hope it's ****ed.
Cleverer people than I have suggested that the Russians quenching the train fire with cold river water will have damaged the hot rails causing either warping or inducing stresses.
The seabed under the strait is subject to tectonic movement and experts had already queried the design; a bit of movement might now be catastrophic
I hadn't realised, until I saw the Twitter clip above, that it's a twin track rail bridge. While the track that had the train on it will need to be lifted and replaced, and the bridge structure underneath may be damaged, the other track looks as if it might be usable, unfortunately. A lot may depend on whether fuel fell onto the bridge and then burned, or if it burned directly from the trucks.
Does anyone know how many russian troops are in Moldova and what sort of armaments they have?
None in Moldova I'd have thought, maybe some in Thier land-grabbed province Transnistria.
Why is it with Russia largest country in the world by a long way but still wants little bits if it's neighbours? Like the school bully.
At the start of the war allegedly there were 10000 Russian troops in Transnistria but I would seriously doubt that. A bit of internet searching points to around 1500 with helicopter and motor rifle detachments
Slight problem is they can't be resupplied or reinforced as Moldova is both landlocked and has closed its airspace to Russian aircraft.
Very much outnumbered and outgunned
The other slight problem is the constant stream of Nato Awacs, JStars and Elint jets flying along the border of Romania make it very difficult for troops in Transnistria to plot, prepare or perform a surprise attack without being noticed and Ukraine given an early warning.
Concrete degrades at temperatures above 50deg C. The question of whether the fuel was burning on the rails or above them is rather moot I'd say.
If the concrete has delaminated from the bottom then the rebar may well have expanded and blown it.
Not a civil engineer.
A lot may depend on whether fuel fell onto the bridge and then burned, or if it burned directly from the trucks how many corners were cut in construction.
(Is more likely).
Concrete degrades at temperatures above 50deg C.
Not to my knowledge. I am a civil engineer, albeit retired.
The first response of concrete to a fire is the boiling of any water within the matrix, giving the possibility that the steam pressure may spall the surface layers, typically at 100-140ºC - but this may or may not happen, depending on the porosity. Paradoxically, dense well compacted concrete is more vulnerable (if rumours are correct, this may not be!). If the surface does spall, the reinforcement is then exposed to the fire and no longer benefits from the insulation of the concrete. The calcium hydroxide degrades at about 400º and the aggregate, depending on type, 150-300ºC after that.
The rail deck, so far as I can establish, is 200mm thick concrete on permanent ribbed steel formwork with deep steel beams supporting it. The deck will restrain the beams against lateral buckling and may also distribute the rail loads onto the beams. The steel beams will be much harder to replace than the concrete, but it depends how much they have deformed; if they have stayed vertical it may still be possible (at military risk levels) to run a train over them. They didn't collapse under the weight of the train when the steel would have been softened by temperature, so now it's cooled they may take slow running - or they might not cope with the weight of a locomotive.
Since I posted above I've established that burning fuel did run onto the bridge, and it's resulted in the deformation of the deck on at least the side next to the train. Maybe it will have affected the full width, not just the side the train was on. Maybe it will have affected the concrete piers, although if it's just surface spalling and the rebar is well restrained, it will probably still take a load.
Good insight, cheers
Excellent Greybeard, a proper engineering perspective. Thanks.
Ukraine now getting state of the art defence systems that NATO would never have given them before the invasion
I had been wondering for sometime when NATO would send the advance defense system to Ukraine, but now they finally have ... The system is not really there to protect Ukraine but just to prevent "strays" hitting the neighbours. Better contain the situation in Ukraine. Assuming in the event of a nuke strike Ukraine will be their "shield". It looks like Ukraine is being used to sap the Russia fire power.
hhhmmm ... This will be a long war if both sides are too afraid to use nuke. Most likely to end up like some sort of long term "Afgan/Taliban" war. (oh ya ... if you want to know what determination is then the Afghan Taliban is a good example - their weapons are predominantly AK47 and RPG and while constantly being hunted from the sky by drones, they still manage to salvage a victory by driving out all Western forces throughout history. No wonder it is a land that cannot be truly conquered throughout history)
In the same vein as the interesting post by @Greybeard is this... https://theconversation.com/crimean-bridge-blast-experts-assess-the-damage-192161
TLDR: Slower, lightly loaded trains. Road traffic confined to cars, however these are times of war and sensible restrictions may be ignored
There's something going on with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, but I can't work out what:
Ihor Murashov, the director of the plant, was kidnapped by Russian Forces on 1st October and released on the 3rd; he then announced that he was leaving the role.
Valeriy Martynyuk, a deputy head of the plant was kidnapped by Russian Forces yesterday and is still being held.
Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was due to meet President Putin yesterday:
Are the kidnappings an attempt to scare the IAEA out of the country?
Are the resignations of the board of directors seen as a reason for Russia to take control?
Is it the two combined?
Petro Kotin, President of Ukraine's Energoatom, declared himself director of the plant and said that all decisions would be taken from Kyiv
Portsmouth Universities Frank Ledridge (Lecturer in Military Strategy and Law) opinion piece.
https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-a-desperate-russia-defaults-to-attacking-civilians-192222
The ground is already largely covered by previous posts tbh and give a very pro Ukrainian stance.
Finishes with this quote, which on the assumption the conflict does end at the negotiation table, makes that table harder to reach.
A good friend of mine, writing from a Kyiv shelter, told me that the response is: “Only cold fury, no fear or despair … all Russia’s might has shrunk to the size of a flea. We will do to Putin what we did to the Moskva and their Kerch bridge.”
Linked on that opinion piece is this article which looks at what the Russian far right are thinking/calling for
https://theconversation.com/has-vladimir-putin-been-outflanked-by-the-russian-far-right-191781
Galvanised by the war, these actors call for an effective “purification” of Russian society that goes beyond the Kremlin’s statements. Members of the economic, intellectual or political elites are judged “compradores” because of their attachment to the West and the assets they hold there. Alexander Zhuchkovsky, a nationalist activist living in eastern Ukraine since 2014, goes so far as to implore the establishment of a new opritchnina, the Russian term for a terror regime introduced by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century.Will the Kremlin be able to channel the growing warmongering zeal? In view of the intensity of the rhetoric of the various wings of the Russian far right, backed recently by several Putin allies including the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, it is doubtful: whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine, nationalist pressure is likely to become a serious and lasting threat to Russia’s internal stability.
The system is not really there to protect Ukraine but just to prevent “strays” hitting the neighbours
Nonsense , not least because the systems only cover a relatively small are like a city
looks like Ukraine is being used to sap the Russia fire power.
Also nonsense , the west had no desire for this war, no desire to sap Russias strength, Putin started this war because he's a moron
This will be a long war if both sides are too afraid to use nuke. Most likely to end up like some sort of long term “Afgan/Taliban” war
Neither side is insane enough to use nukes, the only person threatening to do so is Putin, but even he knows it would mean the end of Russia if he did.
I had been wondering for sometime when NATO would send the advance defense system to Ukraine, but now they finally have
NATO itself isn’t sending military aid to Ukraine, but individual NATO member states are. NATO is sending humanitarian aid though.
It’s also important to remember that Ukraine doesn’t possess nukes.
hhhmmm … This will be a long war if both sides are too afraid to use nuke
Ukraine has no nukes
Worth pointing out that they used to and they do still have an understanding of nuclear technology. They could knock together a nuke in probably a handful of years although this will likely be discouraged by NATO.
Could understand why they might want them again though....
Has Pootin ordered a defensive line?
It looks rather toy like. And if my dodgy memory of WW2 history is correct, such 'defensive lines', even when built out of a few feet of concrete and bunkers are no match for mobile modern warfare?
🤔
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1579851309255385088?t=MxlSOatQ_3F2XvbN4SNcQQ&s=19
Also nonsense
It is nonsense but in a way your viewing it wrong, in so much as your ascribing agenecy to Ukraine. If you reframe its as the west, with Ukraine dying on command, well, its still nonsense but....
This article (hopefully youll get a freebue before having to negotiate a paywall) looks at how Russian propaganda targets and fuels anti western sentiment whilst removing Ukrainian agency as part of their propaganda war in that arena. A similar tactic is used in Africa, but often, instead of religion the target is colonialism.
This works best IF Ukraine is dying on command of the west, so thats how it gets phrased.
The fact that Ukraine has been colonised by Stalin and Hitler, and is currently a clear victim gets left out.
@greybeard thanks for the explaination, as said I'm not a civil (just a mechie that doesn't do concrete) so it's good to hear an educated perspective.
FWIW I think
Paradoxically, dense well compacted concrete is more vulnerable
is where I was coming from and the technical advice we worked from. Specifically a 5m thick pre-stressed pressure vessel with internal operating temperatures ~270deg C that you REALLY don't want to damage as it's never getting fixed (whether you wanted to or not).
This is what I always suspected - that a single tactical nuke would not have much military effectiveness against forces that were dispersed or well dug in. You'd really need hundreds of them to destroy an army and that would release a huge plume of fallout that would either drift across NATO countries or Russia.
https://twitter.com/walberque/status/1580101565557243904
It's noteworthy that many of the posters on this thread who warn of calamitous nuclear explosions/Putin's sabre rattling are generally the same posters who both castigate those with some knowledge of modern weaponry, what they are and how it's used, as arm-chair generals, and warn that they blind to the devastation that will be caused by their use, and so often claim that it is solely the responsibility of Ukraine to give up and surrender - Just in case.
I'll make the point again. In any armed conflict, if you have little to no understanding of the capabilities of the militaries (their weapons and tactics) of either side, you are not in possession of the full picture. This is true also of either strategic or tactical use of nuclear weapons.
There is no benefit to Putin (beyond threats) to use these weapons if his ultimate goal is to gain territorial possession of Ukraine.- Why drop a weapon that will make the very thing you want to occupy, uninhabitable to you? The notion that either a) it will stop the war - it won't b) it will gain support from Ukrainians of Russian descent - unlikely, c) the rest of the world will step back and let him do want he wants - it clearly won't. There's no variation of any strategy involving nuclear weapons where Putin comes out on top.
If you think that he will (launch a nuclear war), you are being used as a propaganda tool for the Russians.
You're not wrong @nickc the notion that Ukraine should sacrifice itself so we in the west can sleep better at night is something that doesn't sit well with most posters here with a couple of exceptions.
There’s no variation of any strategy involving nuclear weapons where Putin comes out on top.
Who says Putin will come up on top? It's a nuke. Famine and starvation will be the result. Both sides will have to eat the humble pie after the nuke if they are still able.
If you think that he will (launch a nuclear war), you are being used as a propaganda tool for the Russians.
Nobody knows the capabilities on both sides other than the information publicly available. Most are only making assumptions. Propaganda tools are those considering one side of the story only. i.e. "good" vs "evil"
the notion that Ukraine should sacrifice itself so we in the west can sleep better at night is something that doesn’t sit well with most posters here with a couple of exceptions.
Agreed. The notion that Russia’s objectives end with successfully annexing Ukraine are for the birds. Putin must be stopped.
Putin must be stopped.
How?
luckily that is for people with far more important jobs to work out. doubtful you will find an answer on a mtb forum
though I would say the Ukrainians seem to have a pretty good idea of what needs doing
I am surprised no assassination attempts, by either side have been reported. The car bomb on one of putins pals daughter seems a strange outlier
Also - the Russian military can barely kit out it’s infantry at the moment, do we really think they can supply NBC suits to the untrained conscripts, who’ll be wholly untrained in their use 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
How?
I would imagine that seeing Russian forces routed eight months after the illegal invasion of Ukraine in a campaign that wasn’t meant to take longer than a few days might do that.
Also – the Russian military can barely kit out it’s infantry at the moment, do we really think they can supply NBC suits to the untrained conscripts, who’ll be wholly untrained in their use 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
Have to say, I'm not sure that consideration would figure much in his calculation, and he'd likely target a city or some critical infrastructure that's not under Russian control anyway.
and he’d likely target a city or some critical infrastructure
why? Walk us all through your reasoning as to why Putin would do this? What infrastructure? Which city? With what capability? Under what circumstances?
if the answer to any of those is “it’s Putin, he’s mad, he could anything” then could I humbly suggest that you might had mis characterised him over his entire time as President?
he’d likely target a city or some critical infrastructure that’s not under Russian control anyway.
That would make them strategic nuclear weapons, not tactical. The difference isn't the size of the weapons, it's the types of targets and purpose. Using tactical weapons (i.e. on the battlefield against military targets) could be defended as just using a larger bomb against valid targets (not saying I agree with this, just that it's a much easier thing to defend than against cities).
Using strategic weapons against civilian targets would be an acknowledgement that Russia has lost militarily and is simply intending to destroy Ukraine. Yes, Russia could destroy Ukraine, but Russia would become an international outcast, I doubt that even China and India would pretend that nuking the cities of a country that doesn't have nuclear weapons is acceptable. It's difficult to see how it would actually help Putin attain his dream of restoring Russia as a superpower.
DT78 wrote
I am surprised no assassination attempts, by either side have been reported.
The key there is "being reported". A friend of ours in Germany is wrting a book about the assasination attempts on Hitler. Most of us have heard of 1 or maybe 2 attempts on his life: Apparently there were at least 40 and it was only through sheer luck that several of them failed. Very few of them came to light until a long time after WW2 had finished.
The key there is “being reported”.
Likewise with Putin. Rumours of many attempts, none of them widely reported
Apparently 4 KA52s today
Would imply Russians are taking big risks
https://twitter.com/AaronNotThatMan/status/1580156240243875841?t=p_aQdNRRm0OA6oHQ9ix-Cw&s=19
a 5m thick pre-stressed pressure vessel with internal operating temperatures ~270deg C that you REALLY don’t want to damage as it’s never getting fixed
Yes, I thought that was what you had in mind. You're right, there's a big difference between what you can do to concrete that you have to prove will remain durable to perform a crucial safety function for a good many years, with no opportunity to intervene or even take monitoring samples, and concrete that's accessible, patchable and needs to support a military load where the safety factor can be anything provided it's more than 1.0 and you have a ruthless general looking over your shoulder.
We spent a while deciding if 90ºC was acceptable in a start-up transient on a very much earlier installation (just over 100 miles SSE of yours) and decided it was.
@girkingirkin has a post saying 40,000 UA about to attack in Kremmenaya and Zaphorozhya
Curious
Even the modifications to those old tanks must take a fair bit of time, unless they,re just sticking on some sandbags.
Welding bedframes to the top again
I like the fact that, in the sake of continuity, those ancient T62's appear to be being worked on in a factory that is of a similar vintage by a workforce that appears to be, to put mildly, ambivalent to the whole affair. Every tank is a Friday afternoon tank.
I dread to think what the staff canteen looks like...
Borscht and vodka comrade.
On the plus side for the Russians, the T62s don't have autoloaders that lead to the explosive turret launch seen on the newer T72, 80s etc
Borscht and vodka comrade
Anyway I think the Russian tankers have had enough vodka
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1580291630913187840?t=e6rtkpOcau1C3W76ktxhaQ&s=19
The Russian's insistence that it was a truck bomb, plus their obviously fabricated evidence make it more and more likely that it wasn't a truck bomb.
https://twitter.com/John_A_Ridge/status/1580252296599851009
I like the fact that, in the sake of continuity, those ancient T62’s appear to be being worked on in a factory that is of a similar vintage by a workforce that appears to be, to put mildly, ambivalent to the whole affair. Every tank is a Friday afternoon tank.
Clearly they realise that they are just building the next donations to the UA. Out of the 26 T62’s lost by Russia, 22 have been captured 😉
Out of the 26 T62’s lost by Russia, 22 have been captured 😉
22 have probably been abandoned. The only saving grace for the T62 was its gun, which was considered advanced at the time
Vulnerable fuel and ammo storage only added to its woes