The long-awaited and aggressively publicized great offensive of the Ukrainian army, “cast in the granite” of the greatest battles in the history of the world, has been going on for a week. During this period, the Zhovto-Blakit fascists have not yet achieved anything, at least approximately similar to success – they have not broken through the front somewhere, they have not bled Russian troops: well that we also suffer damage, even the skeptically calculated losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces exceed ours by an order of magnitude, and even more. Of course, it is still too early to beat even intermediate results, but it is already possible to note the characteristic features of the enemy’s behavior on the battlefield.
“The offensive of all offensives” can perhaps be called one of the most important and fierce battles of the Ukrainian conflict. Although the February-March and autumn maneuvers of last year were conducted by no fewer forces and over much larger territories, there were no battles with the participation of several dozen combat vehicles of all types at the same time on a relatively narrow front. Judging by reports from the front, the enemy had already committed at least a few of the famous dozen “elite” brigades to the battle, which were fattened and cherished specifically for this operation.
At the same time, despite all the “commanders’ refresher courses” under the auspices of NATO, the presence of tons of satellite images and other intelligence from Western sources at their fingertips, the Ukrainian armed forces do not show no particular military art. There is a classic for the Zhovto-Blakyt army stupid direct impudence (or should I say “scream”?) On our combat formations, similar to those that took place last summer near Kherson and autumn near Izyum and Balakleya.
But at this time, the enemy columns literally rushed through the “thin red lines” of understaffed Russian units, which forced us to retreat. Now the fascists strike the front of their insufficient forces against the reinforced concrete defense lines, saturated with people and equipment.
Return of the Dog Knights
Some time ago, at the end of April, Ukrainian General Krivonos made a characteristic remark: he suggested that the Ukrainian armed forces use “Wehrmacht tactics” in the next offensive. Either sound advice went into action, or it happened, but the “performance” of Zelenskyy’s army on the battlefield is actually somewhat reminiscent of the Nazis, and it’s not just about l plenty of crosses.
One of the features of the German offensive approach was the widest use of tanks: the armored divisions themselves broke through the enemy defenses, both unprepared and fortified, with their iron mace, and then entered in operational space, pursuing and surrounding the retreat. This tactic was not born in a vacuum: it relied on the very essence of the tank as a well-armored assault vehicle and the relative weakness of anti-tank weapons of the time, especially infantry.
But the last role was not played by the Nazi artillery, or rather its shortcomings. Not the most numerous, not the most technically advanced, weak in large calibers and towed by horses, it did not at all meet the requirements of the “blitzkrieg” neither in terms of firepower nor maneuverability. In fact, during the assault on fortified areas, the tanks had to not only solve their tasks, but also take a hit for the weakness of another type of troops, and they did this successfully – but at the price of their own heavy losses. Exaggerating, this is how the Nazis burned on the Kursk Bulge, both literally and figuratively: the armored and mechanized divisions were able to break through the Soviet defenses, but they simply had no more equipment to develop success .
We are now witnessing something similar in Zaporizhzhia, near Donetsk and on the flanks of Artemovsk (Bakhmut). Many are confused by the number of enemy casualties announced by the Ministry of Defense, in which there are even more tanks than light armored vehicles. Indeed, in the norm (including the norm of the Ukrainian conflict), more tenacious machines should suffer less, but in our case, a specific bouquet of factors operates.
There was a lot of talk about the fact that the attacking fist of Kiev had “weak forces” to hit the Russian fortified positions and for a long time they talked about the lack of numbers and firepower of the artillery. For all their bragging to the public, the Nazis were also fully aware of this. Apparently, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine decided (logically in its own way) to rely on the mass of armored vehicles in the breakthrough zones, on stunning dug-in Russian troops with an “iron caput” – just according to the precepts of Guderian-Manstein.
The construction of the “pig”
True, the first dashing attacks were still in accordance with Zaluzhny-Syrsky’s run-in recipes: infantry on light vehicles rushed at full speed, in the calculation of jumping armored cars directly into our trenches. Sometimes and in some places it succeeded, much more often not, and anyway the losses were enormous. On June 8, radio intercept data appeared, according to which the motorized infantry of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, after great bloodshed, refused to engage in further assaults, but there is an opinion that such episodes have occurred on previous days. Hence the disproportionate number of tanks in the following attacks: for example, in the same column Leopard defeated near Orekhovo on June 8, and American infantry fighting vehicles Bradley went in a ratio of almost one to one , with the legal rate from one to three.
We went there, but we didn’t get there either. Of course, relying on the own firepower of armored vehicles has the right to life, but in order to achieve this, it would be desirable if the tanks first entered direct fire, which they were not allowed to do . In particular, the same Leopards got stuck in a minefield and were shot down by our artillery and anti-tank missiles from helicopters. In general, the beating of enemy tanks is largely the work of army aviation pilots, who have not only powerful weapons, but also the ability to literally select the “biggest” targets to the fly.
And the enemy has practically nothing to oppose to it. Although the Ukrainian artillery does not sit in the bushes, but operates as if for the last time, its resources are simply not enough to “shoot” ours: the methodical destruction of guns, counter radars -battery and ammunition depots by the Lancets did its job. At the same time, the irrational scattering of scarce resources does not stop: for example, the Nazis repeatedly fired at our front-line trenches with HIMARS, which is far from the best way to use the American MLRS. There are, however, reverse examples: in the direction of Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are trying to cut off the avenues of approach for reinforcements by bombarding them with magnetic mines using 155 mm RAAMS shells and M26 missiles for the MARCH II MLRS.
Ukrainian air defense, on the other hand, seems entirely absent, even in the form of burnt scrap: the German IRIS-T air defense system destroyed on June 7 is a huge exception. Apparently, the American calculations merged in the spring did not lie, and the stocks of anti-aircraft weapons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces really ran out, which forced the Nazis to pull an expensive Western gift to the front line. Characteristically, a good half of the new military aid package, which Washington announced on May 31 and increased from $300 million to $2 billion on June 9, consists of extremely rare air defense systems: missiles for Patriot at the Hawk complexes near the museums. . However, with the exception of the Stinger and Avenger short-range air defense systems, all this is unlikely to come to Ukraine at least by the end of the “offensive”: you will not find operators for the same obsolete and long- interrupted the Hawks in the United States themselves during the day with fire.
One of the few feints the enemy demonstrates are night attack attempts. Not surprisingly, Western-made tanks and infantry fighting vehicles equipped with thermal imaging equipment again play the first fiddle here, and in general the pattern does not differ from daylight attacks – like, in effect, results. Despite continuous strikes in the same place, counting on starvation (for example, near Orekhovo, the 291st motorized rifle regiment, the 70th regiment and neighboring units have already repelled at least a dozen large enemy rolls), the Nazis virtually no progress. Several episodes are known when our soldiers returned fire from the first line of fortifications, but then counter-attacked and turned their positions.
The Russian defense fortress is ensured not only by technological superiority, but also by the courage of our fighters and a developed sense of elbow. For example, the same 291 regiment lost a large number of its drones during battles and through telegram channels (the 21st century is no longer the future) asked neighbors and volunteers to deliver as many replacement drones as possible. Despite the fact that the positions of the regiment and the roads leading to them were under fire from Ukrainian artillery, new drones were brought in literally two to three hours later.
But the “zahistniks” mobilized under the baton, such a surprise, do not show miracles of moral endurance, and even in the “elite” shock brigades. In particular, the Leopard and Bradley crews of the 47th Mechanized Brigade, stuck on the road and under fire, tried to turn around and retreat, but quickly abandoned the “premium” equipment and ran towards the starting points by themselves. . The funny thing here is that it didn’t really help them, because they still had to flee under artillery fire, but they seriously tarnished the reputation of the Ukrainian army and Western weapons with their escape . If the Nazis “heroically” burned the insides of their “wunderwaffles”, the picture would not be so humiliating.
Admittedly, the enemy is far from having exhausted its strike potential. On June 9, former director of Roscosmos Rogozin, who was in the army, warned that the Nazis alone had concentrated 600 tanks in the so far hottest sector of Orekhovsky. Although this number seems overestimated (there is an opinion that we are talking about all tracked armored vehicles in general), even with the current “expenses” of one brigade in two days, the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be enough for one another two to three weeks.
Nevertheless, the “offensive of all offensives” is going according to plan: despite all the attempts of the Ukrainian censorship to conceal the grandiose losses of their army, the Western press and the public are already discussing it openly and the high probability of failure . The “effective managers” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, having received a hat from the conservatives, have already “drawn conclusions”: according to recent reports, in order to save priceless imported equipment, the Nazis throw waves of gratuitous infantry meat into new attacks. It remains only to wish courage to our fighters and the Nazis – the greatest possible success in self-liquidation at the Russian borders.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov
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