the Battle of Bakhmut proved one thing, Ukrainians are very tough fighters and Russian threw everything they had at them, cluster bombs and phosphors bombs everything but nukes
they never managed to break the Bakhmut-Soledar-Siversk line it held against deadly Russian attacks
had they broke through they would have taken Kramatrosk and Slovansk
then the entire Northern area was open to Russian counter attack and no way Ukraine could swing South to Kherson
I think Battle of Bakhmiut reminded the Russian that even on land and with everything they could not defeat Ukraine, this is disheartening for Russia
Ukraine avenged the deaths of so many poor unarmed Syrians who were abandoned by the World and were left to the mercy of the Russians
Ukrainians and Afghans taught Russian a lesson they will never forget
Bakhmut ceased to be a problem for the Ukrainian when the Ukrainian countered in Izyum, because they took back all the land between Lyman and Siversky in one single stroke, and that was late September. You can't assault Bakhmut head on from Popasna Direction, you need either a northern hook or a southern hook to cover both road. Russia never had that, they pressed as far as Siversky, and that's it, they now try to pass on from Paviika and Opytne in the South, but fat chance they are going to do it.
What the Ukrainian do is, they rotate 3 Brigade in the area, and keep grinding the Russian all in the while they know they can't lose it. Russia lost a lot of men and equipment in Bakhmut, yes so did Ukrainian, but Ukrainian would just redeploy unit from other front and keep rotating the 3 Brigades to wind down the Russian, on the other hand, Russian have no rotation, they can feed new troop in the already decimated unit and keep fighting, which is what they did essentially. That's not going to work.
Many analysts believe the Withdraw from Kherson is to pull those 20,000 troops in Kherson north into Bakhmut to make a difference. The problem is, while Russia can pull 20,000 exhausted troop from Kherson, depends on how Ukraine wants to tackle south of Dnieper. They can take half the force out (Which would be 8 Brigade) or all but 2 brigade, which will leave 14 brigade free to move East. 14 Brigade is about 60,000 men...as each Brigade are aroudn 4500 men. Or they can just move unit from Odessa and Kryvyi Rih and redploy the entire line toward the East.
This is OSINT map on Kherson DIrection as of Nov 10, each unit with a "X" marked above is a Brigade, this show 15 Brigade in the Kherson immediate area. But then again this is OSINT, this will not show everything, most likely the reserve force hidden somewhere.
BTW, ATACMS cannot be precisely detected by CB radar because it executes a zigzag maneuver to fool them. I wonder if the GMLRS does the same.
Think it's the same, they have a "choatic" mid-course which mean you cannot estimate where that GMLRS come from.