And in as little as three weeks, the fate will potentially worsen even more for the Ukrainians as the US election could decide that the United States is completely tired of Zelensky.
I like this. It comes tantalisingly close to what I have been searching for a long time: just how these front lines are held and how the warfare proceeds.
I began with a naive instinctive idea I didn't even realise I had: that a 'front line' was an unbroken line of trenches manned with soldiers maybe every six or ten feet or something.
And to make advances the rose out of the trenches and proceeded across the ground before them to the enemy's 'unbroken line of trenches'.
It is not like that, is it?
That's how come we can have captured Ukies claiming they had 18 men guarding kilometres of front.
That's how come we see maps with all those tiny little yellow lined squares and lines all over the place: they are the trenches and 'strongholds'.
That's how come the Ukies can be so worn down, damaged, and yet still 'hold the line', I suppose.
That's how come the Ukries can attack in Kursk, make incursions of 10 km and more, have open vulnerable supply line roads behind them yet still maintain that frontal attack at the end of that 10km.
The whole 'front' idea is much more porous, intangible and fluid than I'd ever thought.
That much I can see. But I still haven't got anything like a clear picture at all.
The Ukies were able to make massive incursion in Kursk because it was lightly defended and they moved quickly with almost 'patrol' type invasions. 'Official' story. Alright. That's clear.
So where are the equivalent deep incursions, at will, by the Allied forces of Russia and Donbas into the
'lightly defended' lines of the Ukies? So enormously 'lightly defended' now, surely, after two years of attrition and especially this last year when the noise about their attrition has risen to a crescendo?
As Arestovich said the front is porous in three places now. Soon it will be six, seven, more and more..
I see that. In theory. But not in practice. The advances near Prokovsk for instance are not advances through 'porosity' the way Kursk was. Or to put it another way: if they were not of such porosity because of reinforcing - then where are the commensurate porosities in other parts of the front?
And if this is truly the nature of the front and the status of the Ukie forces then where are the 'spoiler' invasions here and there? I invented that. I mean that I can see that you don't mount invasions just anywhere any time. A front may be weak: 'porous', but to penetrate to keep you need provisions made beforehand for invading, protecting the invasion, creating a new front, defending the new long borders of that front.
I see that. But given such 'porosity' - a handful of men here, a handful of men there, a lacking of armour, artillery ( and recently there seems to be a lacking of RPG's, too - been a long time since I've seen armour approach a tree line and get taken out by RPG's from the troops in there) how easy to make 'Kursk type' swift incursions? Point being that each incursion has to be treated by the enemy as a potential full scale invasion. See? I don't see that happening.
It would seem that the 'skin' of the Ukies having worn so thin it would be amusing and effective to keep 'poking' that skin at random places and watching their reserves rushing hither and thither. One could even plan for ambushing reserves given today's drones and guided missiles and bombs. Knowing such and such a road must be used to carry reserve to here if it is attacked that road at certain points could be 'registered' by everything from precision artillery to blanket GRAD type via hunter drones.
This place 'prodded' and wait for the reserves then ambush them out of the clear blue sky.
Searching for videos I have yet to see a single video which demonstrates such ambushing techniques clearly to me nor do I see mention of it as a major problem for the one side, major useful technique for the other.
So see my problem? I'm lost in all these conjectures of mine and this substack is the first I have come across that seems like it may begin to give me the insights, understandings, facts I'm searching for.
I really hope so. It's good. I like it. Bit more explanation, 'legends' for the maps maybe. :)
. '... hard to set up..' The point I tried to make was/is that with one supply road it's easy to set them up and a target even that scattershot mega wasteful GRAD could be used on if you've got nothing else. You might fluke a hit or two. There's not a single video or text report I have seen of such even being attempted never mind succeeding. However there is much documented evidence of the snail's pace obstacle course protocol in the Russian military machine for clearing permission to engage a targe. Put together it makes a very pertinent question. Which 'very hard to set up' doesn't even begin to answer does it?
. '.... glide bombs..' yes. Frequently reported. Rarely seen by video evidence. But taking it as true then refer to the previous point: if they can do this then why can't/don't they do that?.
. '..porous..' I didn't ask what 'porous' meant. It is pretty self explanatory. The point is that it is porous. But advantage does not seem to be taken of it though it would seem to be critical. If you are engage in wearing down the 'thickness' and strength of the fabric of the front line then testing its porosity frequently and at many points would seem to be a necessarily integral part of of your strategy to me.
. '... advancing..' nonsense or rather 'straw man'. advancing into an area without the ability to hold it is a major part of this 'modern' warfare and we know the Russians practice it assiduously for they even for a while there let us seen videos of behind the lines ambushed of cars riddled with machine gun fire from ambush. Advancing into an area is part of natural front line procedures: it is called a 'patrol'.
. '.... russians know how to do this...' well that's what I was just saying...
. '.... masterclass...' means you claim they are doing it masterfully where they clearly are not. Kursk is claimed by Alaudinov himself to be a fluid theatre where his men 'hunt' the enemy. Well the most predictable place to find the enemy 'behind the lines' is that 38k-030 road to Koronevsko and which therefore by now should be effectively closed and all enemy actions north of it starved for logistic support. But that is not so.
My point: we are not getting detailed adult information as to what is going on.
And that's just the battlefield. The 'theatre' where the performance is put on for the masses. Far away from the real deciding factors of the whole thing.
What a rare contribution of the quality of my favourits of the Great Patriotic War. Today the postman brought ther german version of Rokossowski's memoirs.
You are reporting, that's my idea, the professional account on the conscious tactical maturing towards full operational dominance.
This is, what coming historians have to study. There is no War possible after that dominance.
Be cursed Nuland-Kagan, Kolomojsky, Biletsky, Fink (BlackRock), homoerotic dancer Zelensky and his junta of profiteers, and the banking cabal that always needs more Loot and blood and flesh. Pity Ukrainian mothers and children.
Keep them in the dark & feed them a bunch of bullshit.
"now they explain to the proud Ukrainians that retreat is not scary. They retreated in 2022 as well, and then they went on and took the whole of Kherson. Now, they say, the Russian army will also reach somewhere, and then we (that is, the proud Ukrainians) will begin a counter-offensive."
Excellent article.
And in as little as three weeks, the fate will potentially worsen even more for the Ukrainians as the US election could decide that the United States is completely tired of Zelensky.
Glad I also acted on the outstanding review of your work by Nixon, Martyanov & Ritter.
Yep from the Nixon Ritter and Martyanov interview
Yup. I am another Riiter / Nixon fan.
I was via their comments that I found my way here. I'm glad I did!
Same here
Marat you are being praised as having the best maps and Substack by Scott Ritter and Andrei Martyanov
I like this. It comes tantalisingly close to what I have been searching for a long time: just how these front lines are held and how the warfare proceeds.
I began with a naive instinctive idea I didn't even realise I had: that a 'front line' was an unbroken line of trenches manned with soldiers maybe every six or ten feet or something.
And to make advances the rose out of the trenches and proceeded across the ground before them to the enemy's 'unbroken line of trenches'.
It is not like that, is it?
That's how come we can have captured Ukies claiming they had 18 men guarding kilometres of front.
That's how come we see maps with all those tiny little yellow lined squares and lines all over the place: they are the trenches and 'strongholds'.
That's how come the Ukies can be so worn down, damaged, and yet still 'hold the line', I suppose.
That's how come the Ukries can attack in Kursk, make incursions of 10 km and more, have open vulnerable supply line roads behind them yet still maintain that frontal attack at the end of that 10km.
The whole 'front' idea is much more porous, intangible and fluid than I'd ever thought.
That much I can see. But I still haven't got anything like a clear picture at all.
The Ukies were able to make massive incursion in Kursk because it was lightly defended and they moved quickly with almost 'patrol' type invasions. 'Official' story. Alright. That's clear.
So where are the equivalent deep incursions, at will, by the Allied forces of Russia and Donbas into the
'lightly defended' lines of the Ukies? So enormously 'lightly defended' now, surely, after two years of attrition and especially this last year when the noise about their attrition has risen to a crescendo?
As Arestovich said the front is porous in three places now. Soon it will be six, seven, more and more..
I see that. In theory. But not in practice. The advances near Prokovsk for instance are not advances through 'porosity' the way Kursk was. Or to put it another way: if they were not of such porosity because of reinforcing - then where are the commensurate porosities in other parts of the front?
And if this is truly the nature of the front and the status of the Ukie forces then where are the 'spoiler' invasions here and there? I invented that. I mean that I can see that you don't mount invasions just anywhere any time. A front may be weak: 'porous', but to penetrate to keep you need provisions made beforehand for invading, protecting the invasion, creating a new front, defending the new long borders of that front.
I see that. But given such 'porosity' - a handful of men here, a handful of men there, a lacking of armour, artillery ( and recently there seems to be a lacking of RPG's, too - been a long time since I've seen armour approach a tree line and get taken out by RPG's from the troops in there) how easy to make 'Kursk type' swift incursions? Point being that each incursion has to be treated by the enemy as a potential full scale invasion. See? I don't see that happening.
It would seem that the 'skin' of the Ukies having worn so thin it would be amusing and effective to keep 'poking' that skin at random places and watching their reserves rushing hither and thither. One could even plan for ambushing reserves given today's drones and guided missiles and bombs. Knowing such and such a road must be used to carry reserve to here if it is attacked that road at certain points could be 'registered' by everything from precision artillery to blanket GRAD type via hunter drones.
This place 'prodded' and wait for the reserves then ambush them out of the clear blue sky.
Searching for videos I have yet to see a single video which demonstrates such ambushing techniques clearly to me nor do I see mention of it as a major problem for the one side, major useful technique for the other.
So see my problem? I'm lost in all these conjectures of mine and this substack is the first I have come across that seems like it may begin to give me the insights, understandings, facts I'm searching for.
I really hope so. It's good. I like it. Bit more explanation, 'legends' for the maps maybe. :)
Thank you for your input.
Point by point:
. '... hard to set up..' The point I tried to make was/is that with one supply road it's easy to set them up and a target even that scattershot mega wasteful GRAD could be used on if you've got nothing else. You might fluke a hit or two. There's not a single video or text report I have seen of such even being attempted never mind succeeding. However there is much documented evidence of the snail's pace obstacle course protocol in the Russian military machine for clearing permission to engage a targe. Put together it makes a very pertinent question. Which 'very hard to set up' doesn't even begin to answer does it?
. '.... glide bombs..' yes. Frequently reported. Rarely seen by video evidence. But taking it as true then refer to the previous point: if they can do this then why can't/don't they do that?.
. '..porous..' I didn't ask what 'porous' meant. It is pretty self explanatory. The point is that it is porous. But advantage does not seem to be taken of it though it would seem to be critical. If you are engage in wearing down the 'thickness' and strength of the fabric of the front line then testing its porosity frequently and at many points would seem to be a necessarily integral part of of your strategy to me.
. '... advancing..' nonsense or rather 'straw man'. advancing into an area without the ability to hold it is a major part of this 'modern' warfare and we know the Russians practice it assiduously for they even for a while there let us seen videos of behind the lines ambushed of cars riddled with machine gun fire from ambush. Advancing into an area is part of natural front line procedures: it is called a 'patrol'.
. '.... russians know how to do this...' well that's what I was just saying...
. '.... masterclass...' means you claim they are doing it masterfully where they clearly are not. Kursk is claimed by Alaudinov himself to be a fluid theatre where his men 'hunt' the enemy. Well the most predictable place to find the enemy 'behind the lines' is that 38k-030 road to Koronevsko and which therefore by now should be effectively closed and all enemy actions north of it starved for logistic support. But that is not so.
My point: we are not getting detailed adult information as to what is going on.
And that's just the battlefield. The 'theatre' where the performance is put on for the masses. Far away from the real deciding factors of the whole thing.
What a rare contribution of the quality of my favourits of the Great Patriotic War. Today the postman brought ther german version of Rokossowski's memoirs.
You are reporting, that's my idea, the professional account on the conscious tactical maturing towards full operational dominance.
This is, what coming historians have to study. There is no War possible after that dominance.
Christ in man has matured.
https://astromundanediary.blogspot.com/2024/10/two-great-givers-birthdays-and-two-of.html
Thank you for that mention of Rokossowski. I found the book at archive.org and downloaded it. ( in English ) https://ia601504.us.archive.org/33/items/a-soldiers-duty-rokossovsky/A%20Soldier%27s%20Duty%20%28Rokossovsky%29.pdf
Be cursed Nuland-Kagan, Kolomojsky, Biletsky, Fink (BlackRock), homoerotic dancer Zelensky and his junta of profiteers, and the banking cabal that always needs more Loot and blood and flesh. Pity Ukrainian mothers and children.
Keep them in the dark & feed them a bunch of bullshit.
"now they explain to the proud Ukrainians that retreat is not scary. They retreated in 2022 as well, and then they went on and took the whole of Kherson. Now, they say, the Russian army will also reach somewhere, and then we (that is, the proud Ukrainians) will begin a counter-offensive."
Point made.