(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
A 3D look at Bohorodychne [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2023-03-01
The small "hero" town of Bohorodychne, Ukraine. Population 794 (pre-war).
Ever since Kos wrote about Bohorodychne I’ve been intrigued to look closer at it. And then yesterday, in another post, he included some pictures of it currently. I’ve been working on this 3D model for some time so I figured I’d push to wrap it up and publish it.
Pretty little place. Once.
At first glance, this location looks like a natural defensible position. It is bordered by the Donets river to the north which sweeps past in a broad arc, cutting out steep bluffs. The town itself has a single bridge for access, at the end of a broadly open set of fields. And then, to top it all, the town itself is surrounded by hills with tree cover to give persistent observation points for artillery that is ranged safely farther back in the hollows.
Bohorodychne, closer up. Click here for big version.
And that is how it started: stopping the russians and holding them to the north bank. But Bohorodychne seems to have earned its laurels even when the russians swept around from the west.
First off, in late March the russians came in from the north, and that’s when Bohorodychne does look like a natural fortress. The AFU blew the bridge and thus prevented the russians from cutting through to the big prize of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk and thus claiming Donetsk Oblast. Since the russians suck at river crossings, there was no way they were going to succeed when the river was overlooked by high bluffs roamed by AFU squads carrying javelins and NLAWS.
But then the russians captured Izyum to the northwest on April 1, and that gave them a bridgehead over the river, and from there they started their push southeast, on the south side of the river (that would be the upper part of the 3D picture above).
General idea of the front, April 2022. The russians pushed down and were stopped by the Donets river, but once they had Izyum, they pushed down the south side until blocked by Dovhen’ke and Bohorodychne. Large size.
The AFU had some time. By April 11 the little town of Dovhen'ke was attacked, just to the west, and that town, with even less natural defenses held out for nearly two months until June 4th! But then it was Bohorodychne’s turn. I believe the russians wanted that river crossing to shorten the round-about way to get more men and material into the fight for Slovyansk. So it wasn’t a drive-past-and-leave-it kind of thing. Besides, it was a nothing-burger of a town!
June 7 - initial attack
June 17 - second attack
June 24 - artillery barrage
June 30 - third attack
July 7 - fourth attack (and end-run east of Barvinkove was stopped at Dovhen'ke)
July 11-13 - fifth attack (on Krasnopillia)
July 17-18 - sixth attack
July 21 - seventh attack
July 26 - eighth attack
July 31 - ninth attack
August 5 - AFU counter attack
September 11 - liberation
Whew! Nine major advances repelled.
This is the view looking west, from the heights. The russians held the north bank (right-hand side of river in this picture) since late March. Once they captured Izyum, they came straight toward the viewer in this picture.
Looking west over the town at the russian advance paths. Click here for big view.
The russians came down those drainages and had to cross the open terrain. AFU artillery was situated farther back, by the forward observers would have been able to move freely on the hilltops. As well, they had enough time to heavily mine the choke points where armoured vehicles would need to pass. And finally, by some accounts (including Kos’) the AFU were simply roving the treelines at the base of the hills with ATGMs and picking off the armour.
So, how did that go? Here’s some geo-located footage and pictures:
Battles by Numbers. Click for huge view.
Battle 1: a company of tanks tries to squeeze through an obvious pinch-point and meets the anti-tank mines, and then the ATGMs of the forest troops.
Battle 2 is the second half of this video. Note how the tank’s gun is pointed east, across the town and valley at the opposing hills, and not forward into the town and streets. They knew where the Ukrainians were. Didn’t help them.
Battle 3: The dramatic picture that Kos used on his original post.
Battle 4: A vehicle (MRLS launcher?) tried to sneak into town and hide.
x Ukrainian 81st Airmobile Brigade hit multiple Russian vehicles with artillery fire on the southern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River near Bohorodychne. pic.twitter.com/cgWox2qo0F — OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 19, 2022
Battle 5: Armoured vehicle tries to hide in a building near the church (that’s the red-brick building you can see in the pre-war photo at the top of this diary):
x Russian equipment was destroyed by the 40th separate artillery brigade together with 1.) 81st airborne brigade - Tigr IMV 2.) 93rd mechanized brigade - tank 3.) 95th airborne brigade - IFV/BMP pic.twitter.com/ozGQgDdPHB — Paul Jawin (@PaulJawin) July 15, 2022
Battle 6: Enemy troops hiding in a farm building used to store fertilizer (not an ammo storage as noted here, unless they really are stupid). Big boom!
x Direct hit on the Russian ammunition depot by a 120 mm mortars bomb. The work of the 3rd battalion of the 79th air assault brigade. Bohorodychne Donetsk region. pic.twitter.com/4jeC666a7i — Paul Jawin (@PaulJawin) July 25, 2022
Battle 7: APCs (TIGR?) gettin’ it.
And then yesterday these pictures were posted by Kos, showing the devastation of all those attacks and bombardments:
x The village of Bohorodichne in Donbas. At the southern tip of Russia's advance from Izyum last summer, it was completely annihilated by months of artillery fire. Not a building left intact. pic.twitter.com/IrggbFD9XA — Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer) February 28, 2023
Here’s some more pictures:
www.rferl.org/...
Quite a lot of action in that small town!
OK, this has taken way too long. Need to sleep. I hope Kos writes that book when all is said and done.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/1/2155763/-A-3D-look-at-Bohorodychne
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
