chrisl

Given the fact that so much of the recon is done by drones anyway, I suspect that laser designators are about to make a comeback. The imaging based seeker in the Javelin may be about to be upgraded and used in  lot more places as well. If you can tell it it is looking for a tank at the end of the trip, inertial guidance may be plenty good enough to get it in the basket. Some of the Israeli stuff uses a a fiberoptic cable to feed the video back to the operator. And of course more autonomy for drones. 
Last but not least is every kind of home on jam and HARM you can think of. It all amounts to another turn of the wheel in military tech. At the end of the day cheaper computer processing is still going to lead to more precision.

Drones the size of the smaller FPV drones are remarkably quiet and hard to spot.
I was cycling up in the mountains this weekend and we suddenly heard the whirrrrrr of a drone as it zipped by about 50 feet overhead.  We didn't hear it come in, and once it was across the road maybe another 100 feet further it was inaudible.  There was a stiff crosswind, but that was literally the only source of noise to mask the drone - the only traffic to speak of was the pickup truck that showed up shortly afterward that shot ahead of us and parked to land the drone on the hood.  We didn't see the drone again until it was landing on the hood, even though it was broad daylight and we knew where the person controlling it was sitting.

Because it is an easy-to-understand metric that is good to measure and visualize.
Single value metrics for complex systems usually suck. Better metrics are hard to understand unless you know what's going on. Since the public does not, its km^2.

The Russians already knew that ATACMS could attack the bridge and since the bridge is officially still on Ukraine's territory they didn't need a green light from anyone. Ukraine could always attack its own territory with western weapons.
So explicitly stating the fact only does, as the_capt would say, enlarge the uncertainty space for Russia.
Btw, are those arches only decorative or are they a structural necessity for the bridge? I would imagine they are easier to hit than a pillar and easier to damage. Even something like napalm may weaken the strength of the steel enough.

We bounced around some ideas a few dozen pages back.  So to my thinking the key problem is denying enough space around a minefield to be able to breach it.  The range of enemy ISR, UAS and artillery is making traditional breaching ops impossible.  So the only way I can see doing this without getting back into jetpacks is to use light infantry to try and infiltrate past the mine belts but send them with all sorts of FPVs and supported by larger UAS.  They will need EW and all the C4ISR and layering of indirect fires and deep strike.  They will also likely need C-UAS UAS in order to create a space for breaching and larger forces to push through.  So basically yes, small groups of FPV teams pushing forward and swarming as best they can and as deep as they can with a steady supply of new FPVs delivered by larger UAS, and supported by everything.
Pull all that together along with a deliberate corrosive warfare campaign and basically the RA becomes over-extended by virtue of shaping and infiltration.  Do a breach and then send the troops deep.  Russians hate this and will fall back to re-draw the line.  This is what momentum starts to look like.  If the UA cannot do this then we are back to tactical leg humping and symbolic war porn videos of strategic strikes.  In fact if the UA cannot do the above re: offensive, then they should simply go firm and dig in.  Save all the expensive ammo and bleed Russia white over the next two years when best guesses are the Russians may run out of strategic gas.

It is necessary for Ukraine to attack Kerch Bridge once in a while, so Russia cannot stop wasting resources to protect it. Its high symbolic value forces Russia's hand, no matter what the actual military value is.

Yeah, basically stick a little primer shell onto each mine with a cheap timer or some kind of short range remote control trigger.  

Yeah, basically stick a little primer shell onto each mine with a cheap timer or some kind of short range remote control trigger.  

Yeah, basically stick a little primer shell onto each mine with a cheap timer or some kind of short range remote control trigger.  

There's not really "real time" continuous satellite coverage.  When satellites pass over a region, the data can be sent down in near real time.  Orbits of optical satellites (and essentially all satellites) are generally known, though fields-of-regard aren't necessarily, and people worried about space-based ISR have long kept track of when they'd be under a ground track or not.  Smoke during an optical pass will provide obscuration, but will be transparent to SAR.

Does drone supremacy (tm) solve the minefield problem? Or in other words: if you absolutely swamp one sector in drones and suppress every movement in a 10km(?) radius - is that enough to make breaching a minefield a possibility (under the assumption that you have half decent AA, too)?

If each mortar bomb weighs 4.5kg, and each drone weighs the same, and the drones have some basic last-mile autonomy (which we already seeing), is there any reason to belive the drones can’t deliver the same volume of fire, but with much more accuracy and range, but a much smaller logistical footprint?

My initial reaction was "nope".  But the US did pretty much this in and over Israel last week so there definitely has been a precedence set.  I think the major hurdle if positioning western troops on Ukrainian soil during the war to make this happen.  To my mind this a western escalatory threat ladder rung.  We could essentially declare a no-fly west of the Dniper but Russia is going 1) take this as a major escalation signal, and 2) milk it for all its worth to drive domestic support for this war upward.  This could easily creep off-mission if manned Russian A/C start upping operations - we have to let them bomb Ukrainian civilians but shoot down the unmanned only.
I think if we are going to call "no fly" we need to mean it and make damned sure we are justified in taking this next step.  We are talking about global powers no longer prosecuting by proxy as we would be targeting Russian assets directly.  Then if we make the call, do not be half @ssing it - just declare "no fly" like we did for Saddam and Gadhafi.
Interestingly, the US president does not need blessing from congress for this as Commander-in-Chief.  This would be a US military operation comin gout of in-year operations funding.  I am betting it is an option on a whiteboard somewhere, but no one seems willing to take it just yet. 

If your panels aren't on a 2-axis gimbal you probably want to install them tilted at the same angle as your lattitude.  Germany is far enough north that it will put them 45-50 degrees-ish, so they'll be high enough to be a fence and at about the right angle.

Ok, I am still not entirely clear on your theory of change here to be honest. We can focus on C-UAS but then why would we not also focus on UAS themselves for offensive operations as well?  Superiority means “freedom of own action while denying same to enemy”.  We want to stop their autonomous systems cold and allow ours to maul them with impunity.  This gives me deterministic options for both deterrence and compellance.  Otherwise I am stopping their UAS cold and then still have to risk human lives to finish them off which is not going to be politically acceptable.
 Now if I can demonstrate autonomous unmanned superiority from the outset the war doesn’t even need to start (I.e. deterrence)…no?  But superiority has to be for both offence and defence.  And offence is going to involve those nasty ones.  Fear is the arbiter of these things and our fear of losing lives will likely drive us toward more fully autonomous solutions as opposed to regulating them.
We will likely try to manage these systems under existing LOAC frameworks and create collateral damage calculus to mitigate.  Outliers and rogue actors will of course let the damn things off the leash and do all sorts of bad.  I honestly do not see a total weapons ban standing (the existing one or a new one) based on the wind direction.  Super C-UAS will spin off more super UAS that can go in and do the killing at a distance.  The quest will be to the badest complete system on the battlefield.

Then they came for der Mittelstand....
I keep posting energy tech stuff because the modular/miniature/precision armaments revolution is absolutely experiencing the exact same dynamics, just not so well documented (yet).
The West will innovate, but the Chinese will beat us to mass market, every time. With quality more than adequate for purpose. As innovative firms and their ecosystems starve and die, so too will innovation.
Solar panels are now used as fences in Germany because they are more affordable than the usual fencing.
The market standard for solar panels is now moving to Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (#TOPCon) technology, which improves solar cell architecture to reduce efficiency losses.
The technology was developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute in 2013, but large-scale manufacturing takes place mostly in China.
"European manufacturers have no money to change to the new technology. So now there is no competitive advantage anymore and they have to sell old technology."
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/squeeze-on-european-solar-manufacturers-curbs-innovation-cementing-china-s-lead-81072375


 

That is one hopeful theory but I think history is not entirely onside.  As we see in Ukraine, warfare is not simply political, it is personal.  So if/when an opponent’s unmanned bubble collapses they may very well refuse to accept defeat and fight on.  They will do so by various means that will cause you casualties. There will be a lot of pressure to reduce those casualties.  Autonomous weapons will be one of the best ways to do this. So I do not see a winning side simply switching modes mid-war.  In fact attacks on the will to fight are very often pointed directly at populations…we are literally seeing this unfold everyday in both Ukraine and hr Middle East.  So fully autonomous as terror weapons against civilian populations is tragically predictable.
Further, just because one can collapse an opponent’s unmanned systems bubble does not mean it will stay collapsed without destroying that opponent’s ability to access/produce more systems.  That will mean attacks on deep industrial infrastructure and varying degrees of resistance.  Trying to managed semi vs full autonomy based on ethical grounds in this sort of environment is a challenge few nations will do and even fewer will do well.
And this assumes the war stays a clean standup fight and does not go hybrid.  Insurrection, partisan resistance and guerrilla warfare will ensure that fully autonomous stay on the forefront of any modern force.  But it will also be very attractive to hybrid resistance for all the same reasons - can’t jam/EW easily, faster and more lethal, range.
The advantages are too strong, the effects too deterministic, the stakes too high.

Given the ISR environment, not sure having a bunch of wire in front of a position is such a good idea.  

Let's cut people facing an existential threat for them and their families a little slack. My country has plenty of things to regret under far less serious circumstances.

We're all arguing this on a board that's dedicated to a wargame that has implemented at least some level of autonomy at the small unit level for 20 years.  And made it work in reasonable compute times for battalion sized swarms on computers that were nothing special.  The only thing it doesn't have is the physical sensor inputs, and those are pretty straightforward.  And it was all implemented by Charles and maybe a helper (I haven't kept up).  Charles himself might even count as an autonomous biocomputer, since he's really just a brain in a jar.

Real life is very different from what you read in social media. Those things you mentioned do exist, but they are few and far between. It is blown out of proportion by the media. Take it with a grain of salt and don't fall for the propaganda. Live in general changes very little and very slow.

Drone wars - UKR FPV intercepts Russian recon drone similar to DJI Matrice-30
 

I work closely with the MIC and I can assure you that they'll find a way and won't be hurting for money.
As I recently told a project manager - There's no amount of money I can't find a way to spend.

155, GMLRS, ATACMS. Bradleys. All of these have been proven to work, they just need a ton more of them. NASSAMS and missiles for it. Then put real money and technical effort behind Ukraines drone programs. Last but most certainly not least  would be more training, preferably measured in months, not weeks.
 

One thing that is sort of a fuzzy point of contention in robot-world is automated vs. autonomous.  
Something that operates on its own deterministically based on on predetermined responses to inputs and outputs is usually automated/automatic, rather than autonomous.  Even if they have a ton of conditionals (if this changes, do that thing) and closed loop control around setpoints they're usually considered "automated" but not "autonomous".  Factory machines do this.  Aircraft autopilots do this.  Once they get outside their programmed range they stop and wait or throw an error and ask for help.  
Autonomous is generally where you let the system loose in an environment where it doesn't necessarily have prior information about and let it sort out how to act.  Usually for autonomous systems you're giving fuzzier instructions and they wing it when they get outside their training.  Graduate students are like this, at least after their second year or so. Javelins might be on the borderline for this.  They're certainly automatic once you pull the trigger.  They may have some agency in how they get from trigger to bang.