chris talpas

Twitter hates me so this is a reddit link of a Ukrainian FPV causing a Russian SPG to vaporize. This is at least one piece of proof that either the Russians are pushing their guns stupidly far forward, or that the Ukrainians have figured both the range issues for both the drones themselves, and the comms links to start hunting Russian artillery at its usual deployment ranges. Or perhaps some level of drone autonomy. If it is happening at scale the Russians won't like it very much.

Having a correct, or at least good enough model of how the world works is critical. I imagine actuaries, logistics people, operations research mathematicians and code monkeys like me who bang our keyboards and design and build distributed, eventually consistent software systems at scale have a good foundation for this kind of situation where what we observe are secondary and tertiary effects, and we then have to hypothesize what the first order thing is.
As an aside, civil engineering models traffic as a series of springs and masses and dampers in introductory traffic engineering… this is probably very applicable to military actions as well in the most basic sense.

Tanks?
j/k

This seems to be the most recent news on the Abrams upgrade. They are raising the possibility of unmanned turrets, autoloaders and a different engine. The only thing commit to is in integrated, highly capable APS, and new electronic architecture that makes everything play nice together. They say are aiming for sixty tons, but refuse to commit.
Edit: and I agree with Steve they ought to cut bait on the whole thing. It is like planning new battleships in 1939.

You misspelled Vladivostok.

In their defense, they don't actually have many washing machines.  In fact it is rumored that Putin began this war due to a shortage of washing machines and toilets in Russia.

Ooo baby, we got your unmanned on unmanned action right here folks. I think we might see more of this evolution in the next year.

As a side note, I hope I am articulating myself reasonably well here. I am still somewhat new here despite having lurked for an ungodly amount of time on the forum. Its certainly lovely to discuss / talk to you all!


 

Very good points.  I can recall some of these debates as a young (and svelter) sprog back in the day.  Add to this, the Former Yugoslavia where tanks played a supporting mobile gun role at best. The answer was “Well those are not real wars.  In a real war you will see.”  Well I think can all agree that this is a “real” war.  Further it is a war on terrain tailor made for mechanized warfare.  Most of our western tanks were originally designed to fight other tanks on terrain nearly identical to what we see in Southern Ukraine - seriously, bust out Google Maps and take a look at the rolling open countryside.
Military folks are a pretty conservative bunch, led by the most conservative of them - old men.  So it is not surprising that we see a lot of caution and skepticism.  I think it is healthy to be honest.  But while I have written pages on where this thing looks like it may be going, I am straining to find a role for heavy going forward.  “Hard-points”, ok but that is still HE in the right location that is currently being delivered well by other systems.  “Breakout”, ok, but why not go lighter and faster? If I need a drone swarm to setup for breakout…why push heavy metal up?  Why not keep pushing with the swarm.  “Combined arms” sure, but I suspect that we are looking at the emergence of a new combined arms.  “It will rebalance.”  Ok, but that is really a ‘hope’ statement without any real evidence to back it up.
The battleship was pushed into a shore bombardment role and then eventually got broken up between aircraft, subs and missile cruisers. I suspect the tank is going to go through the same sort of evolution.  Yes, people have said the tank was obsolete before…but here is the thing, one day they will be right.  So is today that day?

More sea drone attacks if confirmed.
 
 
with added Geolocation info
 
 
P

I think we need to bear in mind something pretty important, in that we are suffering from an acute reporting bias when it comes to FPV usage on tanks, and tank losses overall. (This notion extends to drone footage and use in general really)

For FPV drones, we typically only see successful strikes posted, we dont tend to see the many many many misses, poor angled attacks, EWAR casualties or simply hits that fail to inflict major damage. We have a few videos of tanks shrugging off numerous FPV hits its true but the majority of footage we see is usually pretty spectacular. The point is we tend to get the footage of the 'good stuff' when in reality both sides admit that a large percentage of drones will never reach a target due to the various factors involved. 

Secondly, often we see FPV strikes on vehicles already disabled, typically by mines or other means. FPVs make an excellent 'finisher' method together with drone dropped grenades to deprive knocked out but potentially recoverable vehicles and render them a complete loss. FPV strikes do happen on functioning vehicles too of course, but the point is we probably want some actual hard data when it comes to things like what FPVs mostly strike and what percentage are lost along the way. Honestly a breakdown of what is knocking out tanks would be very interesting. I suspect most are knocked out by more traditional methods such as mines and ATGM / RPG / shoulder launchers.

There is also the issue of 'latency'. FPV drones typically have a 'call in time' for the drone unit to be alerted, drone prepared and launched and then led to its target. All of this takes precious time, enough time for vehicles to potentially make an assault or for a target to escape. This is one thing that more traditional anti tank methods have an advantage with in comparison. Your NLAW operator can fight a tank straight away from his trench, FPV support like any external support is not guaranteed nor is it likely to be timely all the time.

Furthermore, we have clear evidence that adaptions can and will be made against FPV drones. Drone cages have proven effective both against FPV and heavier drones such as lancet, and are a minimal cost modification that do not compromise the effectiveness of tanks. ERA has also proven effective (Ill try and dig up that notable photo of a UA tank that survived a lancet hit which set off a Kontact-1 block on the turret) Obviously future tanks will have to be designed to deal with the changing battlefield dynamic, but its telling that tanks made in the cold war can put up reasonable well with things despite the myriad of threats. The overwhelming consensus regarding heavy Russian tank losses has always been poor tactical use / doctrine instead of something inheritably wrong with the tanks themselves (With some exceptions)

I am not attempting to disparage FPV drones in the slightest, they are and will be a most effective tool and are likely a hallmark of things to come. They have not however, rendered other battlefield options obsolete but merely given a potent supplement to a force that is otherwise outmatched in more traditional aspects such as artillery tubes or vehicle density. The Ukrainians themselves have admitted that artillery is typically more effective at breaking up attacks than mass FPV strikes (presumably due to the host of potential mitigations drones can suffer from) and that they rely on FPV's so much due to the lack of said artillery systems. We have seen numerous supposed ends to tanks before from technological developments (ATGM becoming more prevalent is probably the most notable one to mind) yet like many weapon systems, there is simply adaptation to the threat and continued use because the base value of a tank remains the same.

At the end of the day, nothing beats being able to pull up a stabilised 120/125mm gun rapidly to a position, destroy a target and make off while the majority of threats on the battlefield (shrapnel, small arms and lighter AT systems) are less of a threat to you in turn. I do not see that changing anytime soon. 

*Edit*

Here are just a couple of good examples of such. Tanks can survive a lot more than what people perhaps realise.

Saw that on CNN... https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/29/europe/ukraine-war-us-tanks-intl/index.html
Interesting and they are correct, the Abrams is only part of the US Army's battlefield system and is not meant to fight alone.  Goes right to @The_Capt's desk pounding that armored vehicles are really at a disadvantage in this type of fight.
Of course, we also didn't give them enough of them to really make a difference.
 

The interesting thing about heavily armored knights is that they went through exactly the same cycle we are watching heavy mechanized forces go through now. They kept getting heavier, more expensive, fewer, and less usable in many types of terrain. Pikes, better bows, halberds, and better tactics, used by better trained infantry, had made them far less important even before gunpowder changed everything. 

I so don't care...just get them out of my f#cking basement.

Come talk to me after you have been in a couple wars with weak partners who end up failing in the end after we spend blood and treasure trying to hold them up - then maybe you can call “boomer trantrum.”
I know exactly why we are bankrolling this thing and the reasons are similar to why we have attempted interventions around the world for over 30 years - and based on your response, that means I was likely doing this before you were born, trust me, I “get it” better then you do.
My point is that we have been burned by weak partners before and when I hear this continuing “The West sucks/the West is weak/the West is scared” repeatedly coming from citizens of a nation that we have spent over their annual national pre-war GDP on trying to save…well any grown up has to pause and ask themselves “just who are we supporting here?”  Is Ukraine South Korea or are they Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan?  I strongly suspect they are South Korea but the signals coming from some quarters - and there have been more than a few - leave room for some healthy caution.

https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2024/05/militart-stodpaket-16-till-ukraina--ny-formaga-som-starker-ukrainas-luftforsvar-och-stod-som-moter-ukrainas-prioriterade-behov/
 

I was thinking the F16s would help degrade RU AD so that drones & missiles would be ever more effective.  But we'll see I suppose.

Putin Dealt a Blow by Major Chinese Spy Cam Maker (msn.com)
Chinese surveillance industry giant Hikvision has suspended operations in Russia, joining the ranks of over 1,000 companies that have scaled back business in the country since Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Hikvision's Russian website is currently offline, a development flagged by Russian security systems adviser Videoglaz on the social media platform Telegram last week. The precise date operations ceased is unclear.
The Hangzhou-based manufacturer is subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions and is on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List, subjecting it to export controls and licensing restrictions over the company's involvement in human rights violations against China's Muslim minorities.
The move by Hikvision, which Ukraine last year labeled a "sponsor of war" over its continued sales in Russia, comes on the heels of U.S. secondary sanctions targeting international companies in sectors deemed to support Russia's military industrial base.
Hikvision, along with its budget brand HiWatch, comprised some 30 percent of Russia's surveillance camera market in 2021, according to Russian media agency RSpectr.
"The suspension or change of supply channels may in the near future cause a shortage of Hikvision products and a number of electronic components, which will lead to an increase in their price," Videoglaz wrote in its post, adding the future of the Chinese company's technical support and cloud services in Russia were also in doubt.

Behold: the carrier battlegroup. I think this makes a lot of sense, and that the Big Blue Blanket that we saw in '44 and '45 is a non-crazy model for what a "mechanized" task force could look like in 5-10 years. To survive it needs:
1. Defensive ISR bubble that is bigger than the enemy's effective ISR/Strike range, which entails...
2. Ability to suppress the crap out of enemy ISR and fires in the same time zone, which entails...
2. Ability to concentrate effects from widely dispersed elements, which entails...
3. Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, and...
4. Underway logistics, to avoid operational chokepoints and maintain tempo, which entails...
5. Lots of cheap, semi-disposable platforms.
We built that out with the United States Navy 2.0, and could totally do it again. The hard thing is that at sea, there were finitely many locations you had to suppress to preserve your defensive ISR bubble. Not so on land.

Ah, I know this tactic.  Try to show the admin is banning any dissenting opinions and that we are nothing more than a cult.  Nice try but BFC Admins have been very generous on this thread…to a fault at times.  

Gotta admit, my troll timer had run into overtime.  Good to see though, means we are still relevant enough for Russian IO to make the effort.  Perversely it has the exact opposite effect that they are shooting for and demonstrated how poorly Russia understand the West.  Want us to go away?  Let us get bored and distracted.  Want us engaged?  Tell us we "can't or won't do something".  This guy did more to motivate me to support this war more than anything for quite some time.

Well you have me convinced...I am sure Ukrainians can expect much greater freedoms under Russian rule, plenty evidence of this in occupied territories.
So now more to the point - so pass onto your master in Moscow that this war was a phenomenally dumb idea. It is going to put Putin's legacy right next to Nicolas II on the list of Russian Imperial blunders.  There is no winning solution for Russia here.  NATO and the West got Sweden, Finland, about a decade of NATO defence budgets, and Ukraine.  Russia got humiliation, a shattered ground force and about 7-8 percent more of Ukraine than they already had on 21 Feb 24. 

Just as a general comment about propaganda, I have continually been impressed from page 1 that the overwhelming majority of posts have been well vetted, or if not, along the lines of "I found this, can anyone confirm?" There are people here with vast experience, and not just militarily, who aren't easily fooled by specious claims. Posting the verified facts and then getting some good discussion on what those mean is very good reading.
So basically, good job everyone, and keep it up.  I don't post too much - just mainly about things I really know a lot about, and sometimes do catchup reading, but I do read almost everything, and follow a lot of the links.
Dave

For an entertaining and informative diversion on a very timely and relevant topic I give you the latest drop from Perun
 
 

The other axis member turns up the heat in their backyard:
https://bbc.com/news/articles/cqvv29gpqn1o
The west cannot continue their anemic ramp up of military arms manufacturing.  Things are getting serious.