Kerch Strait Bridge Update: Russia’s Still Using It
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=52901As bad as the damage looked from the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion, Russia is still using the bridge:
• The rail bridge has two tracks going each way, and they ran a test 15-car train on the other span. I have a civil engineer/bridge inspector friend who thinks it’s probably unwise to use the rail bridge at all, as the fire has almost certainly weakened the structure through spalling. But Russia doesn’t have a lot of options.
• The destroyed train hasn’t been cleared yet.
• They’ve opened up the surviving lane for traffic. “It’s been said that the road span can handle 20 cars an hour and has a weight capacity of 3.5 tons.” That’s rural mail route capacity, not “support a major front in a war” capacity.
• Russia is trying to repair the bridge.
• They’re using passenger-only ferries to cross, but the run rate is so low they may only have one ferry in service.
Peter Zeihan says it’s potentially a turning point in the war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I363uSKyAw&t=3s• “By far the most significant development of the war to date.” I would say that the failure to take Hostomel Airport in the opening phases of the war was bigger, as that meant Russia’s high risk/high reward decapitation strike had failed.
• “The Kerch bridge is the only large-scale rail connection between mainland Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which is home to about two and a half million people.”
• All other rail lines are under threat of Ukrainian artillery.
• He reiterates that everything in Russia runs on rail, as they never built a modern road network in most of the country.
• “With Kerch being the only real connection, it is the primary primary way that the Russians Supply Crimea in the southwestern front with not just troops and equipment, but with food and fuel.”
• He estimates the bridge spans couldn’t be repaired without several months of work.
• “Now that the Ukrainians know it can be done, you can bet they’re going to try to hit other parts of it to make sure the thing stays offline.”
• “For the first time we have a path forward for the Ukrainians here to win that is not long and windy.”
• Russia finally has a problem it can’t just shove bodies at. “You don’t throw a half a million people at logistics. This is something where either you have the connections or you don’t.”
• Russian troops in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea are “suddenly on their own.”
• They can now only supply those regions in two ways. “One is by truck, and we know that because of all the Javelins that have been put into Ukraine, and all the RPGs, that the Russians are almost out of their entire military tactical truck fleet, and they’ve started using city buses and Scooby-Doo vans, and those just can’t take the volume of stuff that an active frontline needs.”
More at link.
