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A 3D Look at Zaporizhzhia [1]

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Date: 2023-01-04

Seeing as UA is shaping the field in Zaporizhzhia fairly consistently nowadays, and hopefully a hard freeze is coming, we might see something happen in this area.

When I look at the 2D maps I often wonder if UA will probe and find a weakness and just push hard to break through into the backfield and spread out, taking everything they can. Maybe just punch through, hit one of those roads, and head south with everything you got!

I also wonder why there are so few roads and only one rail line through this area. And if that rail line is so important to the Russians, why have they not forced a new one through, out of artillery range, beside that coastal road? After all, it’s not like they are waiting for an environmental assessment.

Well, it’s interesting to look at this in 3D. Now this is still Ukraine which is pretty flat, in fact over the 80km long section I display here, the total elevation difference is 0 (sea level, specifically the Azov Sea) to 300m (1000ft). So if you look at it from that distance, it doesn’t seem like much (still a lot more than Kherson oblast!).

One of the things I use a lot are height maps. These are used to create the 3D elevations, and show black for the lowest spots and white for the highest. Note that this is relative within the boundaries of the area you are looking at, so the black is the lowest in the area, not in relation to the earth. So in this map, you can see the black areas are those that are basically sea level or flood plain, and the bright white is the height of land.

Now, again, this isn’t like looking at Nepal, where the height differences are huge between the black and white. In this case it is only 300 metres. But look at those rivers!

We’re definitely not in Kherson anymore.

In Kherson, the land was really flat and everything drained into the Dnipro in small ways, but in Zaporizhzhia, there is not one big river, but many, and they drain all over the place. If you follow the bright white, which is the height of land zigzagging through, everything must drain on one side or the other. Here’s a view with the vertical relief exaggerated 10x:

And from the West (again, exaggerated 10x):

Here’s a flow map. The red line is the ridge line. Note this is not a mountain ridge, it is just the highest point on a large rolling landscape:

Now, these are not deep ravines, nor are the rivers all that big. They may even look just like this:

But recall from the last panic in Izium area, that the Russians aren’t all that good at crossing water.

I have no idea if these were floundered on purpose or if their seals were not maintained and they just took on water when trying to cross, but it doesn’t seem like much of a river. And trucks and such are obviously not going to make it.

Now, look at the roads (major in yellow, minor in brown) and rail lines (in red):

Everything, with a few exceptions, sticks to the high ground and when they do extend down a drainage, they follow the drainage divide. This is obvious from an engineering perspective, as the roads would need fewer expensive bridges. But look at that rail line! It sticks as close to the high ground as possible. Again, because it means fewer gradient changes and fewer bridges. This is why the Russians couldn’t just lay another track out of artillery range along the coast — the time to build all those bridges would be counted in years! They really are stuck to what is there.

But here’s the most salient point. When you think of the UA breaking through and plowing straight for Melitopol’ or Mariupol or Berdyans’k, you realize that this whole area is actually a bunch of miniature Khersons. That is, at any point you control the high ground, then you have a lot of control over the drainage area from that high ground. That’s because any unit maneuverability between those drainage areas — if you couldn’t move back up to the high ground — would be governed by bridges between the drainage areas, and we’ve seen in Kherson what UA can do with bridges and cutting off RA from their supply lines.

Look at it this way. If UA can grab the high ground, not only to they cut the rail line, but if they cut the bridges lower down the drainage areas, then they effectively trap any RA units in that area from resupply or lateral movement. They are trapped within their drainage. That would divide the enemy forces into smaller, separate, regions:

So instead of looking at the map like it is a vast area that needs to be overrun and reclaimed, it may transpire that UA simply grabs strategic spots, takes out bridges, and divides and conquers each smaller area on their schedule.

The real vulnerability is the railway, which is the high ground. You don’t need to go all the way to the coast. Once UA has the rail line, they control supply — not just the east-to-west rail traffic — but to all downstream sections.

It does make the 2D map look different, doesn’t it?

I’ve no idea how this will evolve, but I thought I’d share this as it makes me look at that terrain with a different appreciation. “The map is not the territory.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/4/2145405/-A-3D-Look-at-Zaporizhzhia

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