The Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with occupied Crimea has been hit again.
Two people have died after an “attack” on the bridge linking the occupied Crimean peninsula to Russia.
Moscow has blamed Ukraine for the incident, alleging US and UK involvement, but Kyiv has not officially said it was responsible.
The Kerch bridge was opened in 2018 and enables road and rail travel between Russia and Crimea – Ukrainian territory occupied by Moscow’s forces since 2014.
Russia’s transport ministry said the bridge’s supports were not damaged.
The ministry said investigations were continuing, but unconfirmed reports said explosions were heard early on Monday.
It is the second major incident on the Kerch bridge in the past year. In October 2022, the bridge – which is an important supply route – was partially closed following a major explosion. It was fully reopened in February.
Ukraine had previously hit the Kerch Strait Bridge back in October of 2022.
Suchomimus has a video showing the damage. One of the road spans has been dropped by the attack, but not completely. It took several months to repair the road span damage from the last attack.
He says that a sea drone appears to be responsible.
With Russia’s supply lines in Zaporizhzhia under increasing pressure due to the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive there, even partially disabling the bridge is going to put more pressure on Russia’s logistics network to keep their troops supplied, not to mention encouraging even more Russians to get out of Crimea while the getting is good.
Now if Ukraine can just hit the rail span again…
Tags: Crimea, drone, Kerch Strait Bridge, logistics, Military, Russo-Ukrainian War, Suchomimus, Ukraine
“[E]ven partially disabling the bridge is going to put more pressure on Russia’s logistics network to keep their troops supplied.”
This is more significant than it would first seem.
The 40 mile range of HIMARS missiles prevents Russia’s army from staging
ammunition at railway ammo dumps close to the front lines. This necessitates the use of transport trucks to disperse and dispense ammunition supplies from more distant rear areas.
Dispersion makes it harder for Ukraine to target ammunition caches but increases the amount of effort required to move supplies forward and when trucks arrive at their destination, HIMARS launchers are used with air burst missiles to destroy them.
The easiest way to resupply these lost trucks is via the Kerch bridge. Even moderately damaging the roadway will disproportionately effect the resupply of replacement vehicles.
Unless the Ukrainian Forces can sever Highway M14, the attacks on the Kerch Bridge will not materially interfere with the Russian defense of the Donbass.
They don’t need to “sever Highway M14” in order to cripple the Russians. All they need to do is introduce enough doubt and friction into the system, and the whole thing will collapse.
This is basically what my read is on their strategy. The latest “attack” by the Russian forces is being met by withdrawal to better defensive lines, and the Ukrainians raining artillery fire on the reserves that are moving to occupy their former positions. This is likely going to go down about the same way as the German attack into the Ardennes, in that they’re going to get the same treatment, especially now that all those DPICM munitions are arriving in-country.
I think we’re going to see a bunch of major events with the Russian forces within the next 30 days, as in collapses and outright mutinies. The removal of all those generals who were protesting the “meat attacks” and lack of a rotation policy? Yeah; that’s not a sign of a healthy Russian military. You have the VDV saying they’ll revolt, if their commander is replaced? The f*cking VDV? That’s goddamn unprecedented, and they’re bold enough about it that it’s not just muttering in the ranks, it’s openly published.
I don’t think the Russians keep it together much past August. Could be wrong, but I’m just not seeing that happen.
It’s also hysterically funny to see Putin getting ass-raped by the UK, after he’s spent all this time blithely killing people on UK soil. What’d he think would happen, with that? Polonium? Novichok? Ya think the Brits were gonna let that go, Vlad baby…?
Also, do note that ain’t nobody connecting those dots in the media, either. Morons.
If you assume that the Russians have about 100,000 soldiers fielded in their Donbass theater west of Rostov-on-Don, those soldiers need about 850 short tons of what we call Class I, II, III (P), IV, and VII supplies; and 400,000 gallons of POL; and 300,000 gallons of water.
Over the relatively short distances from their supply dumps and rail heads around Rostov-on-Don, the Russians will need about 50 flatbed semi trucks, 50 POL semi tankers, and 50 water semi tankers for long range logistical moves every day. Then about the same number of tactical vehicles presently in use to effect final distribution.
The Russians have to move supplies almost twice as far when using the Kerch Strait Bridge, as opposed to using the M14 highway, so there will be a logistical effort savings, albeit at some additional risk.
So the Russian logistical requirements are well within the traffic capabilities of a modern four lane superhighway like M14.
I saw this post on VoxDay’s site, and I’m curious as to more informed opinions on this than my own: https://voxday.net/2023/07/16/clown-world-wont-quit/
I read ISW’s Russian Campaign daily updates, as well as this site and a few others that seem to be reasonably balanced.
Vox can be interesting at times, as can some others that I won’t name, but I’ve largely given up on several bloggers and aggregators who seem to merely repost the most outrageous claims from the Russian MoD.
Mr. Person, please feel free to delete this or not post it if you find it inappropriate.
McGregor has been pushing a pro-Russian line since they very opening days of the war, when he essentially said that Ukraine had it coming, was building up as a U.S. base to invade Russia, etc.
I wouldn’t treat anything he said with any seriousness.
“The Russians have to move supplies almost twice as far when using the Kerch Strait Bridge, as opposed to using the M14 highway,..”
The Russian logistics system is largely based on rail transit. Outside the major metropolitan areas of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, roadways are primitive and poorly maintained. In addition “Scooby vans” are being pressed into service to supplement the lack of military transport vehicles. Their durability under wartime conditions is suspect.
In warfare, “the longest way ‘round is often the shortest way there.—Captain Basil Hart
This is because the enemy (Ukraine in this example) has mapped out the readiest GLOCs available for resupply. The Kerch bridge offers strategic depth; the M14 highway not so much.
“I wouldn’t treat anything he said with any seriousness.”
Colonel McGregor famously predicted that Ukraine could not withstand a Russian invasion for 10 days. Convicted pedophile Scott Ritter and the bumptious Colonel have broadcast enough military misinformation to place themselves in the ranks of Lord Haw Haw and Tokyo Rose.
“I read ISW’s Russian Campaign daily updates,..”
Then you are better informed than 98% of the American populace.
“Ya think the Brits were gonna let that go, Vlad baby…”
Putin made the same mistake as the Argentinian war planners. He imagined a declining empire had become toothless.
“https://voxday.net/2023/07/16/clown-world-wont-quit/”
The sentence quoted in there is technically true, but misleading. It says “Colonial MacGregor revealed that American intelligence sources provided information to him and the media showing [numbers].”
This sentence is carefully constructed so that it appears to imply that the American intelligence sources endorse these numbers. However, it does not actually say this. Any additional information about the original source or credibility of these numbers was left out by McGregor, and he would do that only because it contradicts his own propositions.
In other words, what the sources actually said is more likely to be of the form “The Russian MoD has published these numbers, and they are obvious BS”.
“An 83-1 margin borders on the levels of science fiction or fantasy.”
Vox Day unhesitatingly offers this factoid as credible evidence that Ukraine is suffering the most lopsided defeat in the history of mechanized warfare. Is he a gullible fool?
No, he is a victim of his own admittedly superior intellect. When you employ dialectic to construct a philosophical system, the inevitable result will be to excise Herr Krug’s pen from your consideration.
Never let incontrovertible evidence get in the way of a scandalously good narrative.
On the one hand, hooray for any destruction of enemy targets, and for escalating the naval aspect of the campaign. Good for them.
On the other hand, this seems to be an incompletely successful attack. therefore, what was or was intended to be accomplished. is this being done because someone has excess USVs and wanted to use them up, as a general harassment campaign, or was this attack on the bridge preparatory to other movements and actions? Are those actions forestalled because all transit was not destroyed in this attack? What was intended? Was this damage sufficient?
Vox Day is typical of today’s “educated yet idiot” types. Dude has knowledge and skill in one narrow area of endeavor, and he thinks that means “Yeah, I know everything about everything…”
Reality? At least, with regards to military affairs, he’s an ignoramus that can’t even judge who he should be paying attention to. Sorta like Elon Musk…
Here’s a news flash for y’all: The majority of the people propounding on all this are neither qualified nor knowing when it comes to a lot of things. They know one tiny slice of the reality of things, and because of that, they think they know it all. They don’t; Trent Telenko was a DA logistics guy who knows a lot. However, huge ‘effing comma, when he gets out of his wheelhouse, he makes mistakes. The DA civilians he worked with back when they were doing the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles were the same ones that told us “Don’t worry about it; these aren’t tactical vehicles, they’re not meant for combat…” when we pointed out that putting the front axle underneath the crew compartment was not the height of automotive brilliance when looking to take these vehicles into war zones. Those guys know trucks; they don’t know tactics or what those trucks are going to be doing.
What irritates me, however? Those “truck-knowing” types didn’t want to listen to the concerns of the “truck-using” folk such as myself. I was literally told that I needn’t worry about IED strikes on my vehicles, ‘cos we weren’t silly and stupid like the Rhodesians and South Africans… We’d never get ourselves into that sort of war…
Yeah. About that…
Do you agree with Trent Telenko’s assessment that Russia’s inability to utilize Big Box store logistics is the root cause of their poor showing in Ukraine and that the US Department of Defense overlooked this glaring deficiency which caused them to exaggerate Russia’s military capabilities?
To a degree, I think Telenko is on to something with all of that. But, it’s very much a “Yes-and-No” sort of something…
The number of things our intelligence geniuses have missed completely or misinterpreted is legion. The shoddy logistical underpinnings of the Soviet system that Russia has perpetrated are, however, one of those “kinda-sorta” deals.
Telenko looks at the whole “use Private Conscriptovich to unload” thing as a massive fail; the Russians, however, likely evaluate that situation as a net plus: They don’t need to worry about procuring expensive and extensive materials handling equipment, and they can use manpower to be way more flexible about where and when they unload/crossload.
Telenko thinks in terms of Western ways of doing things; he does not think in terms of how the Russians build their worldviews. He sees “No MHE” as a problem for the Russians and a failure of their system; they see it as a feature, a benefit: They’re not reliant on machinery, they can load and unload anywhere without specialized equipment, “just add troops…”
So, what you’re really looking at just isn’t a case of the Russians missing the boat or our own analysts failing to note that, but a situation where the Russians don’t see the lack of MHE as a problem, which is why our analysts didn’t pick up on it, either. I’m pretty sure that if the Russians had been writing papers about the lack of Western-style MHE in their professional journals, our bright lights would have picked up on that. Since the Russians didn’t see that as a real problem, welllllll… Yeah. Our guys didn’t either. And, given that our system for producing intel analysts doesn’t include inculcating them with any real practical experience…?
It’s really a bit of a thing wherein you’re looking at a half-empty glass and going “Is it half-empty, half-full, or the wrong damn size…?” In other words, it’s how you look at it. The Russians aren’t “behind in MHE”, they see the extensive use of MHE in the West as a potential problem/weakness for Western armies because you can’t move a pallet of ammo by hand without breaking it down, and that’s a major problem in their world-view.
Where the Russians really screwed the pooch was predicating everything on having these massive amounts of Russian manpower available to do the things they’re used to in logistics; that boat left port about the end of the Soviet Union, and they’ve yet to note that fact: They simply do not have the numbers to be doing the same-old, same-old thing that they used to win WWII with.
I am shocked at how long they’ve managed to stretch all this out, to be honest. I expect that we’re going to run up against the Russian limits, and then the whole thing is going to implode for them in Ukraine. Putin is acting like he’s got the manpower reserves that the Tsar or Stalin could pull upon; he simply does not. He needed to conserve and preserve his people as a national leader, starting from day one back in the 1990s. Instead, he carried on treating them as an infinite resource, and they’re not. Every one of those kids he’s gotten killed in Ukraine is a loss to Russia, one that’s going to carry on causing them problems decades down the line. Demographically and culturally, Russia still hasn’t recovered from the losses inflicted on it by the Communists and WWII. This crap in Ukraine is only more of the same, scraping the literal bottom of the barrel. Russia is diminished every minute he spends playing at being a “Great Power”, and the inevitable result is going to be “Russia as a historical memory” in fairly short order.
Another point that Telenko doesn’t “get” with regards to the lack of MHE in Russian military operations: If they had MHE, then someone in the system would have diverted it for use elsewhere, and they’d have to worry about keeping track of it and getting it to where they needed it. The complex coordination of assets like that has never, ever been a Soviet/Russian strength, or even capability. Best not to plan so that you need it…
Westerners aren’t used to the idea that someone might sell off or rent the assigned telehandler or forklift that the unit relies on to load/transship supplies; the Russians know this instinctively. “If we rely on forklift, and Dmitry sells the forklift, then where are we…?” is something they don’t even have to have explained to them; they just know it instinctively.
Which is why they don’t build their system to rely on those things in the first place. The troops will be there, they think; the idea that they don’t exist to conscript is something new that they haven’t quite processed through, yet.
Telenko has some excellent points that he’s made, but… He, too, is crippled by his experiences and his worldview. Just like all of us… You have to treat these things as though you’re patterning a shotgun; all the “experts” probably have a piece of the pie, and you can kind of get to the truth of things looking at what they all say and then trying to find the center of the pattern.
Without having been an officer in the Soviet or Russian systems, the idea of “add forklift, add value” seems highly intuitive. Until you realize what would likely happen to those essential bits and pieces of MHE that you’d be reliant on, were you to actually build your system around them…
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