chrisl

They should really consider adding an airburst functionality to these drones, theyre a bit too inaccurate when they strike

The thing that's missing is the anti-drone drones.  Along the military aviation timeline, we're in early WWI with pilots tossing small bombs out of the cockpit.  The main differences are that the plane is really cheap, has RF comm so that it can transmit realtime ISR, and the pilot doesn't have to be exposed to return fire (because RF comm).  And we have suicide drones that are closer to small cruise missiles with FP joystick control.  We've seen a tiny bit of sticking anti-drone capability on drones, about the equivalent of WWI pilots carrying sidearms to take potshots at each other.  Once people work out anti-drone drones more effectively, the cost of air defense should come down a lot compared to using air defense designed to deal with jets against 5 kg plastic drones.

The thing that's missing is the anti-drone drones.  Along the military aviation timeline, we're in early WWI with pilots tossing small bombs out of the cockpit.  The main differences are that the plane is really cheap, has RF comm so that it can transmit realtime ISR, and the pilot doesn't have to be exposed to return fire (because RF comm).  And we have suicide drones that are closer to small cruise missiles with FP joystick control.  We've seen a tiny bit of sticking anti-drone capability on drones, about the equivalent of WWI pilots carrying sidearms to take potshots at each other.  Once people work out anti-drone drones more effectively, the cost of air defense should come down a lot compared to using air defense designed to deal with jets against 5 kg plastic drones.

Yeah, I think navigation is the harder problem. There are cheapo inertial measurement sensors: https://www.mouser.com/c/sensors/motion-position-sensors/imus-inertial-measurement-units/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_fr2sfrUgAMVI3tvBB2eJwG3EAAYASAAEgLRkvD_BwE. The problem is fusing them together with unreliable GPS and image-based navigation and your airspeed/wind/etc.
If you have detailed satellite maps, I think the landmark navigation might not be that bad, especially if you can tag landmarks on a route like “radio tower” or “settlement” or “river”. Training an image recognition model to recognize very specific categories or even individual types of things is straightforward- be it a helicopter or a radio tower, and requires relatively little processing power to do the image recognition.
I disagree, strongly, if you consider the delivery system. Getting the dumb munition to where it’s supposed to go, and actually getting enough of them to hit the target is quite expensive. Consider all the logistics, tubes, field kitchens, treatments for STDs etc.
A small autonomous drone is relatively cheap as far as hardware goes. Most of the cost is navigation and targeting software, which can be amortized to nothing over the fleet. This isn’t some sort of ultra high tech stealth cruise missile with a fancy engine- it’s a crappy cf or plastic fuselage with a little gas or electric motor, some servos, a warhead and computer ****. In terms of delivery system, maybe you need a little catapult with garage springs and a dude with a tablet to select a target, describe it and add known landmarks (if not already in software). This can all fit in the back or on top of a hastily comandeered Lada Niva (cheap, or free).
This is not my area of expertise (especially the Lada), but I have worked on embedded systems in the past and my main focus is big distributed systems and data pipelines, formerly major social networks and now cybersecurity. I do dabble in computer driven image recognition on occaison, though!
 

I'm still working in autonomous driving. Our safety experts once talked in detail about the difference between flying on autopilot and autonomous driving - because they get that comment every time: We have had autonomous flying for decades, so how hard can it be? The answer was (iirc) something like a) aerospace industry and flying itself is highly regulated, i.e. every part is normed and certified and even then has double redundancy. Plus you can pretty well predict what someone is going to do in a certain situation. b) The air is 3D and much less crowded than roads. c) We don't trust autopilots. Which is why there isn't just one but two highly trained pilots on board who constantly monitor the system and are ready to take over at any time.
This is in contrast to autonomous driving where we want a huge variety cars interacting with other cars and all sorts of different traffic participants who may or may not be restricted by rules in a dense and crowded environment - without relying on a trained operator who can take over if necessary.
Back to drones: I guess the difficulty here is in actually reaching the target not identifying it. Without relying on GPS you have to either navigate using landmarks or have inertial sensors. Both doable but the former is non trivial and the letter expensive, I think?
That said, the main difference is probably in the fact that this is a war. You don't have to guarantee that your drone crashes only once in a billion kilometers. If nine out of ten reach their target that's fine. And then in war people die, so collateral damage is probably more accepted than in traffic. On the other hand, media and all sorts of other parties are just waiting for autonomous machines killing humans and the inevitable incident where such a device hits a bus full of children is going to spark am interesting discussion.

Normally I don't mind that you don't have a like button for your own posts, but this one needs a like.
I've never understood people's obsession with lobster. If you want to eat melted butter, eat melted butter.  No need to roast up a bland crustacean to do it.

Normally I don't mind that you don't have a like button for your own posts, but this one needs a like.
I've never understood people's obsession with lobster. If you want to eat melted butter, eat melted butter.  No need to roast up a bland crustacean to do it.

LOL! We share that dislike of lobster. After my sister and I had polio in 1955, our Father worked two jobs just to pay the medical bills. He also had a small boat and some lobster pots, so we ate lobster all the time. My Mother told me that one time I came home from elementary school and asked “why do I have to have lobster sandwiches all the time, why can’t I have peanut butter and jelly like the the other kids?” I will eat it, but only if I’m a guest and someone serves it to me.
Massachusetts actually had a law that prisoners and servants couldn’t be fed lobsters more than a certain number of times per week!
 

Who in their right mind manufactures ammunition at the same plant that is making precision optics? What the actual fudge?!
The Russian strategic reserves of stupidity are not at any risk of running out, it seems.

Normally I don't mind that you don't have a like button for your own posts, but this one needs a like.
I've never understood people's obsession with lobster. If you want to eat melted butter, eat melted butter.  No need to roast up a bland crustacean to do it.

Normally I don't mind that you don't have a like button for your own posts, but this one needs a like.
I've never understood people's obsession with lobster. If you want to eat melted butter, eat melted butter.  No need to roast up a bland crustacean to do it.

Adding a face to this tragic story.
This being a wargaming forum we mostly focus on the AFU personnel and their heroic deeds. But this is a good moment to remember the heroic work that Ukrainian emergency services personnel have also being doing during the course of this war.

Is the lander they're planning to send to the moon a T-72 turret by any chance?

Maybe actually read and understand the article and find the difference between what it said, which is probably based on truth and what you said which is arrant nonsense.
Hint: "The Internet" is not, by and large, dependent on satellites. Neither are cell phones. See those masts everywhere? They're not satellites, and they're not linked by satellites.
May be true, but it is irrelevant to most day-to-day usage of the Internet, at the individual, corporate and governmental levels.

Rubbish. International banking comms isn't reliant on satellites. They'd have to start snipping oceanic cables as well, and that would, I believe, go hard for Russia, and they know it. As, indeed, would taking out communications satellites, but probably to a lesser degree.

Wait - when did KE become important for HEAT rounds? I thought they were all about chemical energy, making the speed of the round irrelevant to penetration ability? For a tank round the speed still matters for accuracy, of course, but that's not so applicable to drones.

Looks like the image sensor is vis/very near IR (like security camera kind of IR) with the gain cranked up high.  The couple of bright objects in the sky early on are probably much smaller than they look because of that.  None of the light sources are actually very bright - the bright spots are maxing out at the whatever the limiting value is for the pixels, but they aren't blooming from having way too much light.  When the drone is close to the ship you can make out some more distinct smaller lights on board that are comparably bright to the two small objects in the sky.  Those aren't very bright.

Looks like the image sensor is vis/very near IR (like security camera kind of IR) with the gain cranked up high.  The couple of bright objects in the sky early on are probably much smaller than they look because of that.  None of the light sources are actually very bright - the bright spots are maxing out at the whatever the limiting value is for the pixels, but they aren't blooming from having way too much light.  When the drone is close to the ship you can make out some more distinct smaller lights on board that are comparably bright to the two small objects in the sky.  Those aren't very bright.

Probably navigation lights getting amplified by the low-light B/W video camera.  What is likely dim portholes also appear as bright lights.  Another symptom of Russia not being on a true war footing.  Civilian traffic probably operates as normal in the port so you can’t really run warships in and out without normal navigation safety measures.

T90M Chased by drone...
 
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1687535903219101696?s=20

The base stations don't have anything special about them - receiver dishes aren't a big deal.  The satellites and launch vehicles are the ITAR restricted part.  The restrictions are generally well defined, but they can also be updated pretty easily if the government decides something is a risk, and the government can rapidly change what you can export to where.  The switch of everything that goes to space falling under ITAR was very abrupt a few decades ago and had a huge impact on US satellite sales.  I had collaborations that were affected when that happened, and I've seen a few cases where people's lives were messed up by export investigations even when they were ultimately cleared.

Not going to throw stones, however, this is what happens when one adopts an extreme definition of “winning”.  It has been a problem going way back to last summer.  To even suggest a half measure of victory for Ukraine was to admit defeat…which is simply not true.  
For some, yes even on this board, victory for Ukraine is 1) regaining every inch of the pre-2014 borders, 2) a completely defeated and dismantled Russian state and 3) regional security for Ukraine from now until the end of time.  I can clearly recall this narrative being promoted here and used as justification as to why we need to give the UA every weapon under creation yesterday.
Well 1) how realistic are these criteria given realities of modern warfare?  2) items #2 and #3 on that list are in strategic tension with each other? And 3) so if Ukraine (or the West for that matter) fail to achieve these goals, does that equal Ukrainian defeat?
Grown ups do not talk in terms of absolutes.  They talk in terms of negotiation.  How can Ukraine negotiate the best outcome it can out of this war?  As to victory, Ukraine is already there because the actual core objective of remaining an independent state has been met.  The rest is negotiation; violent and bloody negotiations.
Everyone wants Ukraine to succeed as much as possible but “what winning looks like” is a moving target.  If the UA cannot break the strategic corridor and set conditions for retaking the Crimea then this conflict will likely freeze.  Ok, so what?  How does Ukraine still achieve its strategic objectives if this happens?  

Yeah, especially if I am at the helm 😳

The Wall Street Journal, and the NYT have declared the Ukrainian counter offensive to be more or less hopeless. I am all but certain this means Ukraine will achieve a massive breakthrough very soon. Whatever bit of the "Foreign Policy Blob" that is briefing them has been wrong about every other stage of the war, hard to believe they will start being right all of a sudden.

exactly.  The threat from Ukraine wasn't NATO.  It was a country developing a democracy and trying to tackle existing corruption that had a strong potential influence on Russia.  For Putin it is also an ideological thing of wanting to restore the USSR and Russia's imperial dreams.