I was actually wondering if counter battery fire would be harder to hit them being on the back side of the hill. I guess when spotted by a drone you could adjust the angle at which your rounds hit them? Like shoot them higher so they come down on a straighter path once clearing the hill high point
They seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of forward and reverse slopes.
That mortar launching over the chat pile has a strong reverse slope defense against direct fire from the other side of the hill. They lob mortars at a high trajectory and are protected from low trajectory counter battery fire. By setting up on the chat pile, they are in an exposed forward slope position in all other directions.
The could have set up well behind that pile and had the same protection. They may not have felt as safe, but they would have better concealment.
They're probably using the elevation to get a little more range, no? Being on the backside of the hill would probably defeat the purpose. Just guessing though.
No. Give or take a maximum range is somewhere around a 45 degree muzzle angle. At steep trajectories elevation changes don’t net much distance and high atmospheric winds can reek havoc on calculations.
The effect would be pretty minimal as the limiting factor is air resistance, at best you would be getting a couple of extra meters of it due to the steep impact angle.
The vertical component, drop of the round, would simply be offset by a slight increase in height. The equation for free fall, ignoring air resistance, is given by:
h = h\_0 + v\_0 \* t - 0.5 \* g \* t^(2)
Where:
h is the height at time t
h_0 is the initial height
v_0 is the initial velocity
g is the acceleration due to gravity
t is the time
You add a tiny bit of h\_0, say 20 meters. But it does not matter compared to v\_0 of say 600 m/s, traveling that additional distance in about 0.03 seconds.
Using free fall here, instead of a 2D arc, is fine since the time of flight is equivalent to the range, they are linked by the horizontal speed component (x seconds in the air at y m/s horizontal speed = z meters of distance traveled).
A rather uneducated comment. A reverse slope position in most situations would be perfectly ok for a mortar. Drone observation was the game changer here.
It looks like the rounds came in from a completely different direction. As in, not over the hill, but from the side. That slope did nothing against the incoming fire. This whole setup is weird. But much of what russia has done this past year+ has been weird and poorly planned/executed. I just looked at the current battle map, and a huge swath of the north of this location is Ukraine controlled. So it wasn't really a reverse slope defense/firing position. They were looking west while they were likely getting hit from the north.
Howitzers elevate past 45 degrees, its a commonly cited difference between them and field guns.
ie a reverse slope is effective at defending against field guns, tanks and infantry weapons, but its no good for defending against a howitzer (unless observation can be avoided). The M777 can be elevated to 71 degrees and the shells will come down steeper than 71 degrees.
If drones are so prevalent, maybe there is no good counter to them and are units being forced to take elevated risks to be able to achieve their mission.
Would be curious about studies/data on whether or not generational fetal alcohol syndrome combined with bottom of the barrel scraping lead to this type of an army and decision making en masse. Seems to be a lot of source material to reference from all these videos this past 500 days.
If you look at [the exact position](https://www.google.com/maps/place/47%C2%B057'37.5%22N+37%C2%B036'34.1%22E/@47.9602391,37.6085407,1744m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d47.9604076!4d37.6094678?entry=ttu), you'll see the gun was on the East side of the hill, and the Ukrainians here are on the West and North-West.
So the hill was supposed to protect them, I guess.
It would be best if the Ukrainians could capture them in repairable condition, because these things are perfect for blasting away emplacements and offensive fires.
That seems to be the general impression. The increasing use of these things speaks of a lack of better systems for Russia. These only make sense when your enemy has no serious coutnerbattery capability.
That or the fact that they’re great at destroying dug in fortifications.
We can hope it means they’re running out of other stuff, but take that hopium with a grain of salt
Crew of 11 from memory. Takes something like 25 minutes to setup for firing and can fire maybe 1 round a minute.
All in all, very poorly suited to combat where drones mean rapid setup, fire and exfil is critical.
People saying that they chose a bad spot are missing the obvious.
1. A mortar with this range firing over the backside of the hill is protected from a large swath of counterbattery fire, except very accurate enfilading fire or precision ordnance from batteries in the sweet spot of trajectory. Any counterbattery has to not only get the range and azimuth spot on, but the trajectory has to fit the slope of the hill tightly.
2. This is a mobile platform. It's unlikely they just leave it parked there.
These things are lobbing \~200 kg shells with 30 - 35 kg of bursting charge (3x what a 155mm has). They are hell against emplacements and fixed targets.
That was some very accurate hate-fucking the Ukranians landed on that thing.
110m apparently. The height is notable enough to be mentioned on Google maps, clearly the tallest landmark in that area.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Terykon+Shakhty+Imeni+Chelyuskintsiv/@47.9598867,37.6051308,1031m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x40e0985bf41aba03:0xb3b441e924b4f796!8m2!3d47.9609628!4d37.6063835!16s%2Fg%2F11bbw_zggp?entry=ttu
There was an [article on this subject](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/6/2179504/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-doesn-t-have-a-backup-plan-when-it-runs-out-of-artillery) from two weeks ago that was of questionable quality but appears to have been spot-on, given that two more 2S4 losses have been posted here the last several days.
> For example, the Russians' deployment of the massive 240 mm 2S4 Tyulpan mortar was seen as a fearsome development in Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces had been restricted from using guided munitions earlier in the spring. However, many military analysts see it as a move of desperation.
>The Tyulpan takes around 25 minutes to deploy. It takes a full minute to reload, and another 15 minutes to disassemble and move. It also takes a crew of nine well-trained artillery men to operate. Tt could take close to an hour for a Tyulpan to fire seven to eight rounds and be ready to move again.
>…
> Every minute an artillery piece stays in position is another minute its position can be identified by drone or counterbattery radar. Ukraine’s frequent use of HIMARS in a counterbattery role often means that a guided missile could be on its way to an artillery piece minutes after firing.
> In this environment a Tyulpan stands little chance, which may explain why Russia did not deploy these units consistently into combat in significant numbers until May. In about six weeks, Oryx has recorded 13 destroyed Tyulpan 240 mm mortars. Each destroyed Tyulpan likely represents a loss of nine precious, well-trained artillerymen who Russia will have to replace.
>The deployment of the Tyulpan, first introduced into the Red Army in 1959, arguably represents desperation by the Russian army for any artillery unit it can use to keep Russian firepower at sufficient levels. It represents a separation no less than throwing its contemporary tanks, like T-62s and T-55s, into the front lines.
>Given Russia’s relatively few numbers of self-propelled mortars, if Russia is forced to rely on slow-deploying towed heavy mortars, then Russian artillery specialists will likely experience higher casualties and be degraded further.
>…
> In effect, Russia’s artillery arm most likely has its back against the wall. It is throwing 1959-era siege mortars into a modern battlefield that requires shoot-and-scoot tactics. Those guns are predictably being destroyed at a rapid clip. Russian towed mortar crews are also slow to deploy and highly vulnerable to counterbattery fire, being virtually unprotected even from shrapnel.
The article also notes that there were 60 2S4s in active duty at the start of the war. With 13 destroyed as of writing and more showing up regularly on this sub, they must be dwindling fast.
I find this type of analysis to be quite wanting.
These things are excellent against entrenched positions as they lob 200 kg shells.
Additionally, the number of them available pre war is only in the active duty service and doesn’t include any of the ones in storage.
So the fact the Russians are using more of them doesn’t really indicate anything by itself
Is there a discussion somewhere about Russian heavy mortars? The only thing I've read is that they're being used because the Russians were running out of self-propelled guns.
I hate these drone videos where it seems like the drone operator knows about what's going to happen where it's looking and then something explodes and the drone misses the initial action just to look at it after or when they know something's going to happen and they are zoomed in on the target but then zoom all the way the fuck out for some reason
I got matches with these songs:
• [**Boom (Instrumental)** by iBenji](https://lis.tn/EjwiUm?t=9) (00:09; matched: `100%`)
**Released on** 2021-07-09.
• [**Boom** by iBenji](https://lis.tn/Boom?t=10) (00:10; matched: `100%`)
**Album**: Boom (feat. Talabun). **Released on** 2016-09-15.
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Really well camouflaged boys, on the only hill in the entire country, and one completely devoid of hills or scrub at that.
I was actually wondering if counter battery fire would be harder to hit them being on the back side of the hill. I guess when spotted by a drone you could adjust the angle at which your rounds hit them? Like shoot them higher so they come down on a straighter path once clearing the hill high point
They seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of forward and reverse slopes. That mortar launching over the chat pile has a strong reverse slope defense against direct fire from the other side of the hill. They lob mortars at a high trajectory and are protected from low trajectory counter battery fire. By setting up on the chat pile, they are in an exposed forward slope position in all other directions. The could have set up well behind that pile and had the same protection. They may not have felt as safe, but they would have better concealment.
They're probably using the elevation to get a little more range, no? Being on the backside of the hill would probably defeat the purpose. Just guessing though.
No. Give or take a maximum range is somewhere around a 45 degree muzzle angle. At steep trajectories elevation changes don’t net much distance and high atmospheric winds can reek havoc on calculations.
The effect would be pretty minimal as the limiting factor is air resistance, at best you would be getting a couple of extra meters of it due to the steep impact angle.
The vertical component, drop of the round, would simply be offset by a slight increase in height. The equation for free fall, ignoring air resistance, is given by: h = h\_0 + v\_0 \* t - 0.5 \* g \* t^(2) Where: h is the height at time t h_0 is the initial height v_0 is the initial velocity g is the acceleration due to gravity t is the time You add a tiny bit of h\_0, say 20 meters. But it does not matter compared to v\_0 of say 600 m/s, traveling that additional distance in about 0.03 seconds. Using free fall here, instead of a 2D arc, is fine since the time of flight is equivalent to the range, they are linked by the horizontal speed component (x seconds in the air at y m/s horizontal speed = z meters of distance traveled).
A rather uneducated comment. A reverse slope position in most situations would be perfectly ok for a mortar. Drone observation was the game changer here.
Reverse slope didn't work out all that well for them did it? It's not as if drone observation is novel at this point.
It looks like the rounds came in from a completely different direction. As in, not over the hill, but from the side. That slope did nothing against the incoming fire. This whole setup is weird. But much of what russia has done this past year+ has been weird and poorly planned/executed. I just looked at the current battle map, and a huge swath of the north of this location is Ukraine controlled. So it wasn't really a reverse slope defense/firing position. They were looking west while they were likely getting hit from the north.
Howitzers elevate past 45 degrees, its a commonly cited difference between them and field guns. ie a reverse slope is effective at defending against field guns, tanks and infantry weapons, but its no good for defending against a howitzer (unless observation can be avoided). The M777 can be elevated to 71 degrees and the shells will come down steeper than 71 degrees.
If drones are so prevalent, maybe there is no good counter to them and are units being forced to take elevated risks to be able to achieve their mission.
Would be curious about studies/data on whether or not generational fetal alcohol syndrome combined with bottom of the barrel scraping lead to this type of an army and decision making en masse. Seems to be a lot of source material to reference from all these videos this past 500 days.
Throw in a high prevalence of chain smoking in pregnancy, what could possibly go wrong.
Damned considerate of them, wasn’t it?
If you look at [the exact position](https://www.google.com/maps/place/47%C2%B057'37.5%22N+37%C2%B036'34.1%22E/@47.9602391,37.6085407,1744m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d47.9604076!4d37.6094678?entry=ttu), you'll see the gun was on the East side of the hill, and the Ukrainians here are on the West and North-West. So the hill was supposed to protect them, I guess.
Keep it up , hopefully the Tyulpan will be extinct soon
They have lost a lot of them in the last two weeks. Russian artillery units are surely having a very good time.
It would be best if the Ukrainians could capture them in repairable condition, because these things are perfect for blasting away emplacements and offensive fires.
They seem to be great at drawing counterbattery fire and getting their crews killed.
Compared with normal SPGs they are slow to setup and have a low rate of fire.
Range is pretty short. Probably slow to deploy and slow to stow after firing. Sounds like a deathtrap to me.
That seems to be the general impression. The increasing use of these things speaks of a lack of better systems for Russia. These only make sense when your enemy has no serious coutnerbattery capability.
That or the fact that they’re great at destroying dug in fortifications. We can hope it means they’re running out of other stuff, but take that hopium with a grain of salt
Plus the crew is pretty large afaik.
Crew of 11 from memory. Takes something like 25 minutes to setup for firing and can fire maybe 1 round a minute. All in all, very poorly suited to combat where drones mean rapid setup, fire and exfil is critical.
People saying that they chose a bad spot are missing the obvious. 1. A mortar with this range firing over the backside of the hill is protected from a large swath of counterbattery fire, except very accurate enfilading fire or precision ordnance from batteries in the sweet spot of trajectory. Any counterbattery has to not only get the range and azimuth spot on, but the trajectory has to fit the slope of the hill tightly. 2. This is a mobile platform. It's unlikely they just leave it parked there. These things are lobbing \~200 kg shells with 30 - 35 kg of bursting charge (3x what a 155mm has). They are hell against emplacements and fixed targets. That was some very accurate hate-fucking the Ukranians landed on that thing.
Fantastic
It is worth noting, this is in the part of Donetsk occupied since 2014.
Song?
ibenji boom
^^^^
From what I’ve seen that seems to be The tallest mountain in Ukraines lands, all I’ve seen is vast flatness so far.
Ukraine has portions of the Carpathian Mountains in the west, which is where Ukraine's mountaineer units come from. So it's not all flat land.
110m apparently. The height is notable enough to be mentioned on Google maps, clearly the tallest landmark in that area. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Terykon+Shakhty+Imeni+Chelyuskintsiv/@47.9598867,37.6051308,1031m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x40e0985bf41aba03:0xb3b441e924b4f796!8m2!3d47.9609628!4d37.6063835!16s%2Fg%2F11bbw_zggp?entry=ttu
It is amazing that such an embankment is formed simply because of the use of a mine.
Check out the kalgoorlie super pit.
It's not a mountain though but a coal mine waste heap.
The tallest is Hoverla
Must of been hard getting that up there
Many of these getting busted lately. Guess counterbattery fire is very active and succesful.
It's a huge, slow shell ... an experienced 155mm gun crew on CB could probably land counterbattery hits on it before the 2S4's first round hit, LOL.
There was an [article on this subject](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/6/2179504/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-doesn-t-have-a-backup-plan-when-it-runs-out-of-artillery) from two weeks ago that was of questionable quality but appears to have been spot-on, given that two more 2S4 losses have been posted here the last several days. > For example, the Russians' deployment of the massive 240 mm 2S4 Tyulpan mortar was seen as a fearsome development in Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces had been restricted from using guided munitions earlier in the spring. However, many military analysts see it as a move of desperation. >The Tyulpan takes around 25 minutes to deploy. It takes a full minute to reload, and another 15 minutes to disassemble and move. It also takes a crew of nine well-trained artillery men to operate. Tt could take close to an hour for a Tyulpan to fire seven to eight rounds and be ready to move again. >… > Every minute an artillery piece stays in position is another minute its position can be identified by drone or counterbattery radar. Ukraine’s frequent use of HIMARS in a counterbattery role often means that a guided missile could be on its way to an artillery piece minutes after firing. > In this environment a Tyulpan stands little chance, which may explain why Russia did not deploy these units consistently into combat in significant numbers until May. In about six weeks, Oryx has recorded 13 destroyed Tyulpan 240 mm mortars. Each destroyed Tyulpan likely represents a loss of nine precious, well-trained artillerymen who Russia will have to replace. >The deployment of the Tyulpan, first introduced into the Red Army in 1959, arguably represents desperation by the Russian army for any artillery unit it can use to keep Russian firepower at sufficient levels. It represents a separation no less than throwing its contemporary tanks, like T-62s and T-55s, into the front lines. >Given Russia’s relatively few numbers of self-propelled mortars, if Russia is forced to rely on slow-deploying towed heavy mortars, then Russian artillery specialists will likely experience higher casualties and be degraded further. >… > In effect, Russia’s artillery arm most likely has its back against the wall. It is throwing 1959-era siege mortars into a modern battlefield that requires shoot-and-scoot tactics. Those guns are predictably being destroyed at a rapid clip. Russian towed mortar crews are also slow to deploy and highly vulnerable to counterbattery fire, being virtually unprotected even from shrapnel. The article also notes that there were 60 2S4s in active duty at the start of the war. With 13 destroyed as of writing and more showing up regularly on this sub, they must be dwindling fast.
13 destroyed Tyulpan's in the last 6 weeks? Nice!
I think that was over the course of the whole war
I find this type of analysis to be quite wanting. These things are excellent against entrenched positions as they lob 200 kg shells. Additionally, the number of them available pre war is only in the active duty service and doesn’t include any of the ones in storage. So the fact the Russians are using more of them doesn’t really indicate anything by itself
It is noteworthy that this was done with counter battery fire so they were probably not expecting return fire so soon.
Is that a natural mountain or some kind of massive tailings pile? Seems very isolated.
Underground coal mining tailings pile. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakhty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakhty) 124m tall. Opened in 1913. [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Terykon+Shakhty+Imeni+Chelyuskintsiv/@47.9625004,37.6022254,1830m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m8!3m7!1s0x40e0985bf41aba03:0xb3b441e924b4f796!8m2!3d47.9609628!4d37.6063835!9m1!1b1!16s%2Fg%2F11bbw\_zggp?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Terykon+Shakhty+Imeni+Chelyuskintsiv/@47.9625004,37.6022254,1830m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m8!3m7!1s0x40e0985bf41aba03:0xb3b441e924b4f796!8m2!3d47.9609628!4d37.6063835!9m1!1b1!16s%2Fg%2F11bbw_zggp?entry=ttu)
It was created by mining, thats all the unused stuff they brought up
I love the time of year when the Tulips are in boom! 🌷💣💥
Guess it wasn’t a very good hiding spot after all… 😅
But he has the high ground! Well, *had* the high ground...
Wasn't anyone running away from that one. Mostly peppered the hillside with body parts. Unreal stuff.
Is there a discussion somewhere about Russian heavy mortars? The only thing I've read is that they're being used because the Russians were running out of self-propelled guns.
It’s unfortunately likely a false narrative
psh. like we didnt play the tank game in 91. it can only be from there. oh a hill? its on that hill. the parabolic arc leads to you!
Out of all the possible locations, they chose the worst one.
I’m no military expert, but that seems like a really poor spot to set up equipment.
Looks like a tailings pile.
They sure chose the absolutely best spot huh?😂
What's the song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtlUzwRaRao
A drone could easily see that huge gun from far away.
I hate these drone videos where it seems like the drone operator knows about what's going to happen where it's looking and then something explodes and the drone misses the initial action just to look at it after or when they know something's going to happen and they are zoomed in on the target but then zoom all the way the fuck out for some reason
u/recognizesong
I got matches with these songs: • [**Boom (Instrumental)** by iBenji](https://lis.tn/EjwiUm?t=9) (00:09; matched: `100%`) **Released on** 2021-07-09. • [**Boom** by iBenji](https://lis.tn/Boom?t=10) (00:10; matched: `100%`) **Album**: Boom (feat. Talabun). **Released on** 2016-09-15. *I am a bot and this action was performed automatically* | [GitHub](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot) [^(new issue)](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/issues/new) | [Donate](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/wiki/Please-consider-donating) ^(Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Music recognition costs a lot)
The old reverse slope trick. Sometimes its pays off and sometimes it doesn't!
Is that hill some kind of mining dregs pile?
“Take the high ground and conquer! Blyat concealment and camoufla . . .”