Russia’s two-week-long war with Ukraine has resulted in a lot of cracked-up tanks and armored vehicles due to the simple fact that the most plentiful thing the defending team has in the locker is modern anti-tank systems.
Besides planeloads of Javelins (377 launchers and 1,200 missiles prior to the war) and M141 BDMs (100+) from the U.S. and 3,600 NLAWs from the UK, Sweden has sent late-model AT4s, Canada has sent older M2 versions of classic Swedish Carl Gustav, some 6,000 Panzerfaust 3s have come from Germany and other NATO countries, France has sent both the old school Milan and the newer APILAS systems, while numerous countries have sent more than 8,000 66mm M72s of various marks.
For reference as to how fast donated arms are seeing combat, Danish-delivered M72 ECs have already been seen in action and they were just promised on the invasion’s D+2.
#Ukraine: Note that the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army has already put the Danish-delivered M72 EC launchers into use (EC means Enhanced Capacity, can penetrate up to 450 mm RHA), along with UK-supplied NLAW and Ukrainian RPV-16 thermobarics. pic.twitter.com/YmwAVbKrjK
Then of course Ukraine had lots of their own indigenous Skif (a rough TOW equivalent) and Corsair systems, warehouses of RPGs of every stripe, and even circa 1960s Soviet-era 100mm T-12 anti-tank guns. In short, just about every anti-armor system ever made since WWII.
This means Ukraine is the scariest environment possible for any perceived bag guy on wheels or tracks as small squad-sized Panzerknacker style teams are lurking around and taking potshots at isolated Russian vehicles from behind cover.
For reference, check out this reported loadout for just two Ukrainian ATGM guys, equipped with at least four different systems in addition to their personal weapons.
NLAW, RPV-16, RPG-22, RPG-7. The Russians have forgotten Tank 101, learned at Kursk, that states infantry and tankers have to work together to keep sneaky little guys with Panzerfausts and Pak guns from ruining your day
The Russian answer, to up-armor their T72s, T80s, and T90s– besides ERA blocks already installed– are standoff armor cages, particularly on their roof as many of the better ATGMs are top-attack models. This is often augmented with sandbags, salvaged building material, mattresses, and logs.
Even the trucks are sporting it.
Like the American M3s and M4s operating in Northwest Europe in late 1944, who added everything from extra track to railroad steel to their hulls in an effort to survive against Pak88s and Tigers, it would seem these “cope cages” are more of a talisman than an effective answer to the threat.
It has become a meme.
Oryx, who has been tracking and logging every vehicle lost so far as confirmed through social media imagery, says the 1000th Russian loss of the conflict is, appropriately enough, a T72 with a cope cage.
The minutes after the Russian offensive into Ukraine kicked off, RIA Novosti, which is owned and operated by the Russian federal government and is basically just a descendant of the old Sovinformburo, released a fairly wild piece by commentator Petr Akopov that, while it has been zapped from RIA’s website proper, still exists in web archives.
So interesting, and mechanically translated, excerpts (with commentary added), basically painting the conflict as a civil war that is correcting the wrongs of 1918, when the old Russian Empire fell apart, and 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed:
A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era – and in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian.
Russia is restoring its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together – in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians (Ukrainians). If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.
…
Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations.
…
Now this problem is gone – Ukraine has returned to Russia.
…
Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev?
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has set up a Telegram channel with videos that it says show captured Russian soldiers– which the country says they have over 200– and in public statements say they were tricked or otherwise threatened to take part in the operation. These statements were replayed on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is of course paid for by the U.S. government.
These kinds of videos are extremely distasteful, no matter who puts them out, as EPOWs should never be made to release public statements while in enemy custody.
However, it does kind of point to the fact that the Russians seem to have pushed into Ukraine with their “B Team” of second-line units and recalled reservists outfitted with old equipment– the better to soak up Ukraine’s limited supply of expensive donated MANPADS and ATGMs (NLAW, Javelin, Stinger, Panzerfaust 3, etc).
Notably, when you see Russian vehicles and aircraft in videos and images from the conflict they are older models with none of the cutting edge types (e.g. Su-57 strike aircraft and T-14 Armata tanks) seen. Further, there are few divisional- or even brigade-size maneuvers, with the Russians sticking to battalion-sized elements, as well as a lack of significant night-time operations, another indicator of lower-trained, under-equipped troops.
Now a half-week in motion, Russian troops seem to be facing growing morale and logistics issues, with videos circulating widely of tanks and AFVs parks on roadways out of fuel and with poor (no) perimeter security. As anyone who has been around tracks can vouch, armor is the Great White shark of the battlefield, always hungry, always looking to top off every day, whether on the move or not.
The Pentagon on Sunday acknowledged, “We believe that their advance was slowed both by resistance from the Ukrainians, who have been quite creative in finding ways to attack columns and, number two, by the fuel shortages and the sustainment issues that they have had.”
The British MOD had the same take on Saturday:
With the Russian lines of communications being very porous, and growing longer every day, the current Ukrainian bywords seem to be “Ласкаво просимо до пекла!,” or “Welcome to hell” with roadway signs defaced with the warning and official government ministries signing off their social media posts with the catchphrase.
Ironically, as far as I know, the most popular pop culture reference to this is in the tragically underrated popcorn action film Men of War (1994) in which Swedish strongman Dolph Lundgren, portraying former SF weaponsman Ameri-Swede Nick Gunar, uses it when taking on a group of mercs looking to carve off a random South Pacific island for its value in guano. Welding a CG-84, he also delivers a great “Spring, era jävlar” line, which is funny if you know Swedish.
The Ukrainians say the current tally (as with all “body counts” issued during war should be taken with a grain of salt) 60 hours into the war is:
Aircraft – 14 (including an Il-76 reportedly full of VDS) Helicopters – 8 Tanks – 102 Combat armored vehicles – 536 Guns and howitzers – 15 SAM (Buk-М2) – 1
The war is also getting very asymmetric, with reported “Russian saboteur teams” engaging in wild gun battles in Kyiv and elsewhere. These units, dressed in Ukrainian police and military uniforms, and in Ukrainian-marked vehicles, are a throwback to Skorzeny’s Battle of the Bulge Operation Greif and need lots of pre-planning.
The European Union announced direct military aid to Ukraine for the first time in EU history (€500 million worth) on February 27 while Germany announced a dramatic reorientation of its foreign policy to mitigate the threat that Russia poses to Germany and its allies. Germany will prioritize military spending and energy independence despite short-term economic costs.
Unexpected new allies such as Belgium, Sweden, and Germany are all sending Ukraine anti-armor weapons directly from their war stocks while France and Denmark have announced they will allow volunteers– including furloughed military personnel– to head to join a new “foreign legion” set up by Kyiv and recruited through the country’s embassies and consulates abroad.
A number of Americans have been war tourists in Ukraine since 2014, sometimes paying for it with their lives, and I am 100 percent sure this next wave will be high and deep. I can vouch that some of my own acquaintances have messaged they will be taking an extended vacation in Eastern Europe starting as early as next week, a sticky proposition if captured, as they are on the Retired Reserve rolls.
While peace talks are reportedly on the horizon, there seems to be little hope of them yielding any results in the near future. I hate to say it is WWIII by proxy, so maybe let’s just call it the Winter War Part II.
I grew up reading books like WWIII: August 1985, Red Storm Rising, and Team Yankee as a kid. After all, I was a military brat growing up in a coastal town that was mass-producing destroyers, cruisers, and LHAs as fast as they could hit the water because the Russians– led by Ivan Drago— Were Coming.
Now we have this conflict in Ukraine, the closest thing to a modern near-peer war since 1982, and while it is many things, it is not entertaining.
I don’t have the space, intestinal fortitude, and energy to detail what is already being termed the Russo-Ukrainian War, encompassing an estimated 180,000 Russian ground troops against a mobilized 240,000 Ukrainian army and paramilitary forces.
But I do have some interesting notes that I have noticed while watching a war unfold on my phone in real-time.
While “official” losses in terms of human life are slim compared to World War daily figures– the Ukrainians claim to have inflicted 800 casualties while suffering under 450 of their own, the images and video coming from the region would seem to belay that as a gross underestimation on both accounts.
The assault started in darkness this morning, Ukrainian time, with a Russian missile barrage of around 100 intermediate-range, short-range, and cruise missiles, the official said. Missiles came from land, sea and air platforms.
The Russians used roughly 75 fixed-wing, heavy and medium bombers as a part of their assault. The targets were primarily military bases and air defense nodes.
The British MOD said:
In the early hours of the morning, President Putin launched a major unprovoked assault on Ukraine, firing missiles on cities and military targets. The invasion came despite weeks of Russian claims that they had no intention of invading.
Then later in a day-end update, remarked that “It is unlikely that Russia has achieved its planned Day 1 military objectives. Ukrainian forces have presented fierce resistance across all axis of Russia’s advance.”
The Ukrainians claim to have knocked out 30 much more modern Russian tanks, 130 assorted military vehicles, and 14 aircraft as well as capturing a handful of Russkis, while the Russians claim to have totally neutralized the Ukraine air defense net, made in-roads into the country from at least five points, and have shot down nine aircraft that managed to get off the ground.
In another, it looks like the Western NLAWs and Javelins rushed to the country by NATO have taken their toll on Russia’s most advanced combat vehicles, defeating stand-off cages and other countermeasures, leaving lots of broken armor and blunted convoys in their wake. Their recently-withdrawn British, Canadian, and American (Florida National Guard’s Task Force Gator) training cadres are no doubt nodding into their whisky as they watch the footage.
Ukraine troops have shown off lots of Western-supplied Stinger MANPADS, M141 BDM (SMAW-D), the NLAW, and the Javelin ATGM, seen above their transit cases.
While the Russian VDV and Spets guys are fanatical, a lot of these Russian troops, especially those driving trucks and recovery vehicles without adequate top cover, are likely conscripts. Cannon fodder. I almost feel bad for them.
Regardless, depictions of Ukraine’s two newest patrons, of our ladies of the top attack, St. Javelin and St. NLAW, are circulating widely.
Further, while the Russians have steamrolled Ukraine’s airfields and at least one (some reports say damaged) SU-27 made an emergency diversion to Romania, there does seem to be a Fulcrum driver that is– and this could be wild propaganda– been holding his own around Kyiv, downing a reported six Russians. The feat would make him the first attributed European air ace since Korea.
I can vouch that there is a stirring video purporting to be a low-flying Ukrainian MiG-29 dogfighting with a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 (but looks to me just like two Fulcrums working high-low).
The David and Goliath struggle has been exemplified by the reported lop-sided stand on Snake Island by 13 Ukrainian border guards against the Russian cruiser Moskova, with the words “Russkiy voyennyy korabl’, idi na khuy” now ringing around the globe.
Finally, in a return to low-tech, with both sides fielding much the same kit– after all, Ukrain inherited most of its equipment from the old Soviet Union– the Russians are using an “Invasion Stripe” recognition stripe in the form of a painted-on “Z” despite the fact there is no such letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, something that had been noticed by reporters in Belarus as far back as the 19th.
Either way, if you’re the praying sort, the Ukrainian people could use some.
Some quick takes on the situation in Ukraine, for those with an interested eye.
Western open-source intel stress there are now 130,000 Russian servicemen deployed around Ukraine, with Kyiv saying the actual figure is closer to 150,000. That doesn’t account for additional forces mustered in Belarus for Union Courage 2022. Russian artillery has reportedly moved into a firing position along the border. Russian units seem to also be moving toward potential jump-off points, with tanks seen as close as 30km from the Donbas.
The take from D.C.
The U.S. State Department says they see no sign of Russia de-escalating what they feel is a looming invasion. As a sign they believe it, they are shifting the embassy “due to the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces” from Kyiv to Lviv in Western Ukraine– the old town of Lemberg in Galacia in Great War terms, or Lwów in Poland to use WWII framing.
At the Pentagon, the announcement came that another 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne would be sent to Eastern Europe, while the 160-member Florida National Guard unit that has been in Ukraine on a training mission will be “temporarily repositioned” out of the country. Surely the folks they were training had a moment of gravity when they saw the Americans packing up and waving goodbye.
Even though the GIs are pulling out, U.S. and NATO weapons are flooding in, with no less than 14 flights of arms being received in Boryspil alone in the past couple of weeks. This includes pallets of 7.62 NATO link ammo, 40mm link grenades for the MK19, Javelin anti-tank missiles, surplus Hummers, and Stinger MANPADS.
So many Javelins have arrived that the popular Zaporozhian Cossack emblem has gotten a modern makeover.
At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense is busy releasing video of troops on winter maneuvers, complete with tube artillery and snowsuit. It should be noted that, rather than troops near Ukraine, the video is of Northern Fleet Naval Infantry at play in the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk.
As the combat training measures are completed, the troops, as always, will make marches in a combined way to the points of permanent deployment. The units of the Southern and Western military districts, having completed their tasks, have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and will begin moving to their military garrisons today. Separate units will march on their own as part of military columns.
This news quickly got pushed out through Ruptly and RT, for those in the West.
As for Kyiv…
Meanwhile, the expected “Day of Attack,” February 16, has been declared a national “Day of Unity” by Ukrainian leader Zelensky. There is calm in the streets and a flavor that the country won’t allow another slice of territory to be gobbled up, as with Crimea and the Donbas area. But overall, it seems the folks on the ground there, who would be most impacted, are not worried, giving one the feeling that Washington is running a “sky is falling” narrative and the clouds are not as dark as it would seem.
Even Radio Free Europe, which arguably is the American version of RT/Ruptly, is running news that the Ukrainians are calm.
At the same time, Ukrainian nationalist groups are eagerly backing the impression that everyone from 8 to 80 is training and ready to fight, in spirit, if not in deed.
Added to this are a reported 17,000 foreign fighters from 27 countries assembled in the country, eager to fight the Russians, with the Georgian Legion spearheading the effort.
From India’s Gravitas News:
Should this all go sour, Eastern Europe and Israel is bracing for up to a million displaced Ukrainian refugees.
This has been a very long, played-out scenario, as the Russians– keep in mind– first added 90K troops to the Ukraine border region as far ago as last March to see what the West would do.
However, as the drumbeat of war is growing louder, my thought is that the West will pull some sort of 1938 style appeasement that allows Russia to save face without, literally, pulling the trigger.
I’m not saying that it is right or wrong, just giving my take.
In April 1964, Allied Air Forces Central Europe, (or AAFCE also AIRCENT), was turning 13 and the NATO/OTAN members behind the group held Operation 7-Up, a tactical weapons meet at RAF Wildenrath, West Germany that cumulated with a breathtaking international formation showcasing some of the best tin of the day.
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the famously dangerous “rocket with a man in it” was obviously the F-16 of its day and the Belgians, Canadians, Dutch, and Germans all showed up with some. Add to this lot the newly-fielded F-105 Thud, RAF Canberras and Gloster Javelins, and French Mirage IIIC’s (the French only withdrew their troops from NATO in 1966), and it is some very sweet period air power. It was an important milestone as, some 19 years after WWII, likely few of the participants had fought in the great conflict and fewer still had cut their teeth in piston-driven fighters, as they were flying what could be considered at least second-generation combat jets.
Early USAF F-105 FH-436; British Gloster Javelin XH771 Netherlands F-104G D-8060 Canadian CF-104 815 Belgian F-104G FX07 German F-104G DA+243 French Mirage IIIC 2-EI Operation Seven-Up an international formation flown to mark the 13th anniversary of Allied Air Forces Central Europe on April 2nd, 1964
So there was a photo dump of the VALEX of the 2nd Dragoons in Germany’s Grafenwoehr Training Area last week by the very talented photojournalist Michał Zieliński and U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn among others which I compiled for Guns.com. Well surprise, surprise, the Dragoons’ social media picked it up, which I thought was cool.
Anyway, click on the photo to get your cold blast of fresh air from Grafe.
The Mechanix of Auto, Aviation, Military...pert near anything I feel relates to mechanical things, places, events or whatever I happen to like. Even non-mechanical artsy-fartsy stuff.
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