UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[Broomstick]

I have never played Catan (though it sounds intriguing) but based on descriptions yes. Or maybe the West is playing Catan and Russia is playing Risk.

[LadyTevar]

I have never played Catan (though it sounds intriguing) but based on descriptions yes. Or maybe the West is playing Catan and Russia is playing Risk.

Yes, Putin is playing Risk and losing to Ukraine, because NATO is playing Catan and sharing the wealth.

[Raw Shark]

If it just me, or is all this trading of military equipment like a giant game of Catan?

If so, Slovakia just got a Sheep, an Ore, and two Grains for a Wood card that somebody left out in the rain once.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Ukraine war latest: Bakhmut battle is 'stabilising' says Ukraine

krainian forces are pushing back against Russian troops in the long and grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut, where the situation is now stabilising, according to the top commander of Ukraine’s military.

“The Bakhmut direction is the most difficult. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defense forces, the situation is being stabilised,” Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said.

The seven-month battle for Bakhmut, where Russian forces have closed in on three sides, is the longest clash of the war, with Russia deploying both regular soldiers and fighters of the mercenary Wagner Group.

Russian forces must go through Bakhmut to push deeper into parts of the eastern Donbas region, though Western officials say that the capture of the city would have limited impact on the course of the war.

Britain's Defence Intelligence agency said on Twitter that “Russia's assault on the Donbas town of Bakhmut has largely stalled” as a result of “extreme attrition” of Russian forces and tensions between the Russian army and Wagner group.

The assessment follows attacks on Friday on the northern and southern stretches of the front in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Ukrainian military reports described heavy fighting along a line running from Lyman to Kupiansk, as well as in the south at Avdiivka on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

First UK Challenger tanks pictured in Ukraine as allied firepower arrives in warzone

A first picture of a British Challenger II tank on Ukrainian soil has been released by the country's defence ministry today. In an image posted on social media Ukrainian Defence minister Oleksii Reznikov shared a photograph of a British Challenger II tank alongside military vehicles donated from the US and Germany.

With the caption "They have arrived!" the Defence Ministry of Ukraine tweeted: "Strykers and Cougars from the US, Challengers from the UK, Marders from Germany have officially joined the Air Assault Forces of the #UAarmy!

"The greatest vehicles for the best soldiers. Onward!"

Strykers and Cougars are US armoured fighting and troop carrying vehicles, and the Marder is a German infantry fighting vehicle. British Challenger II tanks were expected to arrive in Ukraine in late March, and this is thought to be the first image of one of them on Ukrainian soil.

German newspaper Der Speigel reported 18 Leopard 2A tanks and a total of 40 Marder fighting vehicles had arrived in the beleaguered Eastern European nation to join Ukrainian forces.

Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said he had "the honour of running a new addition to our armed units".

He said: "Today, together with the commander of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General Maksym 'Mike' Myrhorodsky, and our paratroopers, I had the honour of running a new addition to our armoured units.

"Just a year ago, no one could have thought that the support of partners would be so powerful. That the entire civilised world would reboot and finally resist the bloody aggressor, the terrorist country of the Russian Federation."

Referring to the British Challenger tanks, he added: "I can say that even the driver of a Rolls Royce will not be as comfortable as the crew of this work of martial art on off-road."

[Highlord Laan]

ATTN RUZZIAN TANKERS (in your pathetic T-55s): Assume the position!

[EnterpriseSovereign]

ATTN RUZZIAN TANKERS (in your pathetic T-55s): Assume the position!

Those T-55 Tanks The Russians Are Pulling Out Of Storage? They Were Obsolete ... In 1973.

It’s a deeply ominous sign for Russian tank crews that the Kremlin has begun pulling 70-year-old T-54 and T-55 tanks out of long-term storage—presumably in order to recondition them for front-line service in Ukraine, 40 years after the Soviet army retired the types.

The T-54 and its slightly more modern derivative, the T-55, aren’t quite World War II tanks, but they’re close. The T-54 first appeared in 1946. The T-55 arrived 12 years later.

Just 13 years after that, the 40-ton, four-person tanks with their 100-millimeter rifled guns, 200-millimeter steel armor, 500-horsepower engines in early models and crude optics already were obsolete compared to contemporary Western designs.

We know this from real-world experience. While the Soviet army never invaded Western Europe, triggering an apocalyptic war with NATO that would’ve involved countless tanks including tens of thousands of T-54/55s, Soviet and Western tank designs squared off in a smaller, but still brutal, regional war—in and around Israel in October 1973.

The Yom Kippur war, pitting an invading army of Egyptian, Syrian and allied troops against the Israeli army, ended in a decisive Israeli victory after 19 days.

In bloody fighting on the Golan Heights along the border between Israel and Syria, just 177 British-made Centurion tanks in two brigades defeated a Syrian tank army with no fewer than 1,400 T-54s, T-55s and newer T-62s.

“This was not just another round in the cycle of Arab-Israeli wars but the ultimate test in battle of two opposing philosophies in armored warfare—of East and West, of quantity versus quality,” Simon Dunstan wrote in his definitive Centurion vs. T-55: Yom Kippur War 1973.

And in that test, a Centurion proved superior. Even when fighting 10 T-54/55s.

The Centurion entered service with the British Army in 1945. Weighing 50 tons, with a world-class 105-millimeter L7 rifled gun, carefully sloped armor (thinner but more protective than a T-54/55’s armor) and 650-horsepower engine, the four-person Centurion was an immediate success.

The Israelis bought hundreds of Centurions, deployed them in the 1967 war with Egypt and upgraded the survivors to the Shot Cal standard, with a bigger engine and better fire-controls.

In 1973, the 177 Shot Cals of the Israeli 7th and 188th Brigades initially fought from angled fighting positions—so-called “firing ramps”—that engineers had prepared before the war.

A Shot Cal would roll just far enough up the firing ramp to expose its gun and sights, as well as its commander’s head as he stood in his hatch, per Israeli custom. From these ramps, the two brigades fought off successive waves of Syrian tanks, mostly T-55s.

The Shot Cals opened fire when the Syrian tanks were as far away as 3,000 yards—and kept firing even when the range closed to 50 yards or closer. A Shot Cal commanded by Maj. Shmuel Askarov, from the 188th Brigade, alone destroyed 35 T-54/55s. According to Dunstan, Askarov’s gunner Yitzhak Hemo achieved a “remarkable” hit rate of one enemy vehicle for every one and a half rounds he fired.

Wrecked Syrian tanks soon littered the Golan Heights. But with a “display of cold courage not seen before by the Israelis, the Syrian tanks simply bypassed the burning victims of the devastating Israeli fire and pressed on, pausing occasionally to return fire,” Dunstan wrote.

In the end, despite grievous losses (especially among the exposed tank commanders), the Israelis prevailed—by inflicting even more grievous losses on the Syrians. By the war’s end, nearly 900 Syrian tanks lay destroyed or abandoned on the Golan Heights, around 630 of them T-54/55s.

Statistically, every single Shot Cal from the 7th and 188th Brigades was hit at least once. But thanks to the hard work of brave front-line repair crews, as well as the greater freedom of movement the Israelis enjoyed, all but a few dozen Shot Cals were recovered and eventually returned to service.

In the brutal tank battle on and around the Golan Heights, 3,500 Syrians died. Fewer than 800 Israelis died. That the Israelis initially were on the defensive, firing from cover against exposed enemies, helps to explain the lopsided losses.

But the Shot Cal—that is, the British Centurion—clearly was the superior tank. A T-54/55 needed to halt to achieve any degree of accuracy with its minimally-stabilized gun—a major weakness of the design.

The Soviet tank’s TSh 2-22 gunner’s sight was another problem. In daytime, the Sight Periscopic No. 30 on the Centurion saw farther and with better clarity.

The only thing a T-54/55 did better than a Centurion did was shoot at night, because the former had an invisible-to-the-naked-eye infrared spotlight for its infrared optics. The latter fought at night by way of a white spotlight that instantly betrayed the Centurion’s position.

The problem, for Russian tank crews in 2023, is that a T-54 or T-55 is ... well, still a T-54 or T-55. Modest upgrades haven’t remedied its thin armor, the poor stabilization for its gun or the relative blindness of its crew.

The Ukrainian army meanwhile is riding in tanks that are generations beyond the Centurion. A Ukrainian T-64BV has 500 millimeters of armor, good stabilization and modern day-night optics. And those German-made Leopard 2s and American M-1A1s that are on the way to Ukraine—they’re even better.

[Lord Revan]

And that's ignoring the fact that even the latest tanks are vulnerable to infantry if said infantry can get into proper firing position with AT weapons (and Russia hasn't exactly been wowing us with their infantry support for tanks) or that the 100 mm gun on the T-55 might not be able to penetrate the armor on modern tanks. IIRC the 120-125 mm guns most modern tanks use still don't have fairly low penetration rate if hitting the front armor of modern MBTs and that's modern guns that are larger caliber then the ones in the T-55.

[LaCroix]

There has been at least one Katjusha rocket launcher been spotted en route to Ukraine...

T34 incoming in 3...2...1...

[Broomstick]

I'm sure what the significance of a "Katjusha rocket launcher" is but I would be grateful if you explained for those of us not up on our military hardware.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's a WW2-vintage rocket launcher that's meant to saturate a target area, rather than be of any use for pinpoint strikes. It's basically a rack of half-cylinder pipes on the back of a truck, angled upwards, with crude rockets laying in the bottom ends. You light them, they fly off the ramp and scatter.

The main thing is that "WW2-vintage" part though.

[Bedlam]

WWW2-vintage or not, still capable of killing people.

[Batman]

It shows how desperate Russia is getting if they have to break out WW2 era hardware.
You don't break out antiques if you have modern equipment available.

[Broomstick]

WWW2-vintage or not, still capable of killing people.

Sticks and stone can kill people, too, but it would be hard to take a military outfitted with them seriously.

Russia's hardware is going backward in time even as Ukraine is getting stuff that's more advanced than what they started this war with.

[Gandalf]

Wait, I thought Katyushi had been in service in a bunch of conflicts since WW2, so there were modern variants in existence which bore the same name.

[bilateralrope]

It's a WW2-vintage rocket launcher that's meant to saturate a target area, rather than be of any use for pinpoint strikes. It's basically a rack of half-cylinder pipes on the back of a truck, angled upwards, with crude rockets laying in the bottom ends. You light them, they fly off the ramp and scatter.

The main thing is that "WW2-vintage" part though.

I wonder how old and degraded the ammo is.

[Lord Revan]

Wait, I thought Katyushi had been in service in a bunch of conflicts since WW2, so there were modern variants in existence which bore the same name.

Yes technically modern variants exist but they look very different from the WW2 versions, I suspect people are referring to the WW2 era M-8/13/31 launchers (also called Stalin's Organs) and not the modern BM-21 (also called "Grad")

EDIT: Ukrainians themselves use a modernized version of the BM-21 so I doubt they'd say much about those.

[Lord Revan]

It's a WW2-vintage rocket launcher that's meant to saturate a target area, rather than be of any use for pinpoint strikes. It's basically a rack of half-cylinder pipes on the back of a truck, angled upwards, with crude rockets laying in the bottom ends. You light them, they fly off the ramp and scatter.

The main thing is that "WW2-vintage" part though.

I wonder how old and degraded the ammo is.

It depends when it was manufactured if it's WW2 vintage then you probably do more harm to the enemy by physically throwing the rockets at the enemy then trying to launch them, but if it's more recent manufacture then who knows, it's not like these rockets were that complex to begin with.

[Captain Seafort]

You don't break out antiques if you have modern equipment available.

That depends on what the antiques are and what the modern stuff is. The US Army has repeatedly rejected modern HMGs on the grounds that Ma Duce does the job better.

[Lord Revan]

You don't break out antiques if you have modern equipment available.

That depends on what the antiques are and what the modern stuff is. The US Army has repeatedly rejected modern HMGs on the grounds that Ma Duce does the job better.

Didn't the M1911 stay in service until the 1980s (and might still be in service with some troops) and it's even older then the M2 HMG, but yeah sometimes it's a case "if it isn't broken don't fix it". However Russia did have something better and did use those, but no longer do or at least are slowly replacing the new stuff with the antiques.

EDIT:fixed a misstype to read like what I wanted it say instead of what seems to be the current Russian military policy

[Captain Seafort]

Didn't the M1911 stay in service until the 1980s (and might still be in service with some troops) and it's even older then the M2 HMG, but yeah sometimes it's a case "if it isn't broken don't fix it".

Still in service (at least in a modified version) AFAIK. Likewise, the British army used Lee Enfield variants into the 90s, and I suspect there are some roles in which a Vickers Mk1 would do better than anything newer, if there were any still around, and had been converted to 7.62x51mm.

However Russia did have something better and did use those, but no longer do or at least are slowly replacing the new stuff with the antiques.

There are plenty of cases where newer is better (T55 with APC vs Chally 2 with DU APFSDS, for example). I'm not sure Katyusha is one of those. If the propellant/warhead is in-date, then there's not that much time or technology can do to improve on it in the role of "mass-produced launcher to plaster a grid square in HE".

[Lord Revan]

IIRC the version used currently is the M1911A1 that was developed in the 1920s

[Captain Seafort]

IIRC the version used currently is the M1911A1 that was developed in the 1920s

I thought there was a SF version developed in the last 2-3 decades?

[The_Saint]

...
Still in service (at least in a modified version) AFAIK. Likewise, the British army used Lee Enfield variants into the 90s, and I suspect there are some roles in which a Vickers Mk1 would do better than anything newer, if there were any still around, and had been converted to 7.62x51mm.
...

Can't speak for Great Britain but Australia converted some Vickers machine guns to 7.62mm in the 60s/70s and while the conversion was successful M-60's and MAG58's were just easier and simpler to operate.
The benefit to the Vickers was that it was a) very accurate and b) water cooled meant that it could sustain fire for long periods of time. The downsides are that it was a) very accurate (some spread of fire is actually of benefit for machine guns), b) water cooled which made them heavy and c) overly complex compared to anything newer than the 1930s.

[Lord Revan]

IIRC the version used currently is the M1911A1 that was developed in the 1920s

I thought there was a SF version developed in the last 2-3 decades?

from what I understood from the Wikipedia article the M1911A2 variant wasn't put in service and instead used to update the current stock of the A1 variants.