how come this truck isn't carrying more ammo...

On Friday I had a thread about the Rus taking out the Dnieper River RR bridges and what that would mean for re-supplying Ukrainian heavy ordinance in the Donbas front but perhaps I had too much editorializing up front before showing the analysis I had cut and pasted from somewhere else. That thread lasted an hour or less. So, let's watch an Ukrainian infantry squad take a couple of MGs, some ammo, and other stuff from a supposedly abandoned Russian "fighting" truck. The whole video is about 8 minutes and doesn't seem to be edited so it appears to be about as long as this squad was around this truck. There are no English sub-titles but that doesn't really matter in my opinion.

I'll give some observations because that what's I get paid to do making coin for my family, observe and analyze.

No blood in this truck even though it appears to have been hit with at least some small arms fire, the cargo truck in back appears to have been near a rocket or arty explosion or the the Ukies blew the bridge on them. I've seen this in several Ukrainian videos, in non-burned out Russian vehicles, no blood so it appears that the soldiers inside just bolted out the doors.

The videographer, probably done on his smart phone, doesn't appear too interested in finding all the ammo that they can for the two MGs that they are taking from the truck. Perhaps he's the leader and is looking for documents and/or other gear, such as commo. I guess he does get a few of those green steel cans down that I'm thinking are ammo cans. but in the end, they only have about 3 or 4 of those in a pile.

The only seen ammo are about 2 links (probably 100+ rounds) for the .30 cal weapon and maybe half a link (if they're lucky) for the heavy they finally get off of the top. Did the Rus crew really only had that little ammo left or was it more that the Ukies sensing they were spending too much time and needed to ditty mount while they could.

By the end of the video, when they're in their 4-door small pick-up, they seem pretty concerned about getting out of there, especially when trying to get "bazooka man" into the truck (does that guy end up in the pick-up bed?). They certainly wanted to split so what was their biggest concern, some sort of Rus aircraft showing up or that they might be getting zeroed in on by enemy arty?

Interesting to watch and try to learn what's going on, even at this very local scale of things...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcXPKDDYRjY

This is a fake. on every russian car there are letters Z or V. Did you see something like this?

Ok, Alexi, I don't want to wreck your Easter so let's see if anyone else says anything. I'm interested in seeing what any ex-U.S. infantry type of folks think about the video, if any check it out and want to comment.

Why didn’t they take any of the ammo cans from the shelf in side the vehicle. The no blood was easy when they got shot at they bailed out The back truck got hit by mortar or something disabled it But why did Ukrainian stop there pick up so far away Lot harder carrying that crap down the road Any country boy would backed them back to back and tossed the items lol

Booby traps?

I’m not sure what’s really going on in the video. I would’ve backed the truck up and took everything we could use and haul. What I notice is no “z” markings on either destroyed vehicle. I’ve noticed that there aren’t a lot of pick-up trucks in Ukraine, despite the large amount of agriculture. I also notice that there doesn’t appear to be much obesity among the population there.

Possibly

If part of Ukraine survives as an independent country, who will pay to rebuild it? Second, will it cost more for the rebuild than the cost to get it blown up?

By the way, for those who haven't gone through parts of the U.S. Midwest and seen black soil, that really is the color of the dirt in that part of Ukraine. Some very rich stuff, high in organic material, at least when they started farming it...

Good observation on why they didn't back up the getaway vehicle closer to deposit their haul into from the abandoned truck. I missed that one. Again, if real, I think there was a concern that the 2 disabled vehicles were going to draw attention and would then be zeroed in for arty fire or airstrikes.

My lingering question is did "bazooka man" actually get into the pick-up or end up riding in the bed as they scooted out of there...?

As for Dirt's question on who pays the freight on rebuilding from the war, The U.S. has already spent several billion on helping the Ukrainians fight the war and station more troops in Europe, why wouldn't we be pumping billions more in afterwards to rebuild? As of now, anything Ukraine has the attention of almost every person in the DC pit that has the power of the purse. Spending billions means almost nothing to them, they spent several 1000x that "fighting" the 'vid. Nothing will change these people's minds until the house-of-cards funding system of the federal government collapses...

Maybe........what appears to be ammo cans is something else ? Maybe it is ammo they already have enough of. Maybe that vehicle had already been salvaged by others. Good chance of booby traps in that mess.

"Ditty mount" ????????

I’m more inclined to say it was a Ukrainian vehicle that got hit and that was a salvage mission The way the press are saying they need everything!! Let someone leave a vehicle beside the road in eastern ky them boys would show them how to “salvage” a vehicle!!

I bet it’s ammo for the weapons they removed. He grabbed one off the shelve why not take it all But not there the Russia troops might have been coming

Ok, I Anglicized it too much or the person who uses it commonly with me Anglicized it too much and the "mau" part of the phrase became "mount". The Vietnamese version, so they say is, "di di mau:"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/di_di_mau

Got it !!

Yes di di mau is the Vietnamese. We usually only used....D D

Anything could be going on over there or in this instance.. it is very difficult to understand things if you do not have all the information on it.

x2, they didn't have to hump all the goodies, in the time it took they could have empty'd the whole truck into theirs.

Cameraman spent a lot of "precious " time filming nothing in particular. You would think if there was a rush it would be ALL hands on deck and then get out of there.

Project Eldest Son comes to mind right quick. Especially being that truck doesn't appear damaged beyond use.

Very Interesting....I've been hearing ALOT if reports about Russians leaving vehicles after ambushes. Many time the Vic look just like this how ever I must point some things out so first off you can see obvious bullet impacts on the lead Vic. Looks like two on the drives window some on the right hand side. So really looks like a they got hit by an ambush. And there's alot of footage and reports showing Russian troops getting out of vehicles as soon as their disabled,that or they say in and get killed. But here it's obvious the glass and armor did it's work


Here was can see it's a convoy that got hit not an individual Vic so maybe the lead got disabled and the rest panicked?

Now I haven't finished the video but is you look here on the left hand side those are ammo cans . I don't know for what exactly but I think it's with for that PKM they off looked or what I think is that DSHK on the top.

I'm actually seeing alot of possible ammo cases and if the average Russian soldier does what most soliders here do then yeah they have alot on the inside of the Vic that would get passed up to the gunner by an assistant as needed. Another thing to look at is possible rules . I know when we did convoys at certain points or certain areas we where told to be on empty for various reasons. Cold be the same deal here ? Or possibly they could have ran black on a prior engagement and where ambushed again before they could be resupplied.
Now what really really makes me wonder is this symbol..... Their is a newer Vic..the weapons are obviously of a ner design so this just isn't a conscript deal. How ever I can find this symbol


Maybe it's just a sloppy job for the boxed z of crimean troops ?
I'm very very VERY curious if this could be a convoy of Chechens? I know they've been coming in in support of Russia
I'll write up some.more when I get home and can watch this again

Ok looked a little more and I have to say this Vic is packed with ammo . All these relook like ammo for that heavy machine gun ( forgot the name but it's their 50cal equivalent) you can see one guy running off with it and loading it on the back of the pick up towers the end of the video. Honestly they probably didn't take all of that ammo due to the weight of all of it. Looks like there's some under the seat along with in the sides towards the read door.



Another symbol I can't seem to find is this one on the hood. Seems to be a combination possible to symbolize ma ones from Belarus ??

Dshk is the Ruskin 50

So looking at this a little more some stuff is interesting and let's do a little weapon ID while we're at it. So first off this Vic is packed full of ammo but mainly what I'm seeing is two separate ammo boxes. If you look to the left here you can see what looks like ammo boxes for a Russian PKM. PKM is for the Russians a light machine gun firing a 7.62x54r. our equivalent to this would be out 240 bravo that fires a 7.62x51 NATO. Intresting enough the same weapon of use is a medium machine gun how ever the Russians don't have anything like the SAW I don't think sooo.. interesting. Anyhow here a pic of a PKM and you can see it's fairly distinct ammo box


And it's US counterparts the 240 ( and if you've never had the joy of jumping on of these a few miles just know she's a healthy little lady lol )

And as you can see here looking towards you left it looks like at least four PKM ammo can and I'm guessing each has a 100rd belt

And as we see here a could of PKM ammo boxes on the ground along with one being carried off with a full belt


And here we can plainly see the PKM in the already loaded Down truck with a few extra ammo boxes


Ok next is these ammo boxes , there much larger then the PKM so 99.9 %sure their 12.7mm rounds. 12.7mm being Russian equivalent to out .50bmg

Now with that being said obvious that all that ammo is for this big heffier up top


Now this being a Vic mounted 12.7 mm heavy machine gun we can narrow it down to 3 main guns. It's with a DsHK ,a Kord or an NSV
We can basically rule out a DSHK because of the length and the fact this one clearly has a stock and not just spade grips like the DSHK

Not to mention the DSHK is one of Russias older weapons and I doubt they would have something like that one one of these newer Vic's. That leaves us with either the NSV or Kord. And honestly I'm willing to bet my money on the Kord mainly because of that big slab iron muzzle break that I don't think I've seen on the NSV which usually has a cone shaped break / flash hider as shown here. Not to mention the NSV is yet again an older weapons system

So I'm willing to say this big heffier hes laughing off is a Kord.

And here's a pic of one in use , peep the ammo can. If I'm correct all Russian 12.7's are made to use the same style ammo can



Ok one more thing I think we need to look at that might make some more sense of this whole deal.
Look at this crater and the position of these two remaining Vic's

I'm. It too sure about this but possibly what this was was a drone strike? Seems way too precise to be a regular muntiton or IED. And there's no way these two simply back up too it or drove across it.
Seems possibly what happed was it was these two as the lead and many a few more behind it, some form of air strike him a little behind of the lead took out the rest of the small convoy and many in conjunction with local troops there was an ambush on the remaining to after the truck got knocked out. The Russians being one dead Vic's decided to take what they could dismount3d after gaining fire superiority and get out of the LDA . It's not much but the thing that backs it up to me is I don't see any small arms or magazines , looks like all their personal gear they would need is gone along with any sensitive items , radios maps and the like. Many these Ukraines where just the clean up crew ?

Pretty obvious that was just his helmet cam....it's very very common now days for soliders to wear them for various reasons. Especially when the footage could be looked back over as intel

Never ever pull directly up to a enemy vehicle. Especially if it's been there long enough it could have been tampered with. Just because a grown man can set something off dosent mean a vehicle can't. That's one thing one of the instructions loved pointing out on the IED courses. Our SOP was if we tough something could be rigged was to get out and keep the vehicles minimum of 30m away. But that was an emergency deal where we couldn't get a EOD person for whatever reason. Even then the only times I sw that being different was with there special Vehicles like the Buffalo's or Huskies

Good job Wolfie!

The last guy they picked up in the field that looked like he was providing cover. What is the weapon that he is holding?

Looks like a Carl Gustaf ( aka the goose). From my understanding it's basically a modern recoilless rifle that's shoulder fired. Mainly used as an anti material and anti armor deal.

Nice analysis Wolfie!!

I knew the heavy wasn't as DSHK, they have a distinctive "bulge" towards the back and if a person ever made Russian tank models in their youth, there was always a DSHK that got glued on off of the commander's cupola. I didn't know about the new 12.7s that the Rus have fielded.

If "bazooka man" is carrying a Carl Gustaf, then I suspect he doesn't want to have to shoot it more than once. My kid tells me they really beat up the operator, especially with multiple shots. He told me a story of a guy who shot about a dozen rounds out of the CG one afternoon and was out of action for about 2 days. Under combat adrenaline probably would still be in action but its not user friendly.

I might have this wrong but the lineage of our 240 medium MG comes through the old M60 that traces its ancestry back to the German MG42. The MG42 was a better weapon than the M60 but it was a "Nazi" weapon and couldn't be adopted the U.S. military in the 1950s. From what I've heard, the current 240 is much better than the old M60. West River Rogue might have better intel but what I've heard is that a Vietnam era M60 can be picked up in the PI for $8k or less. Mostly out of the southern islands.