cyrano01

Situation near Avdiivka was slightly cooled in past days because rains and cloudy weather, so no one side couldn't use most type of drones. Russians, having lost many vehicles, came to Bakhmut scenario and now operate mostly with small assault groups of squad-platoon size, trying to pentrate our defense along railroad near Krasnohorivka on the northern flank of Avdiivka.
Despite Russians forced UKR troops to withdraw from slageheap and set a flags on it eastern slope, they reportedly couldn't gain foothold there and can't use this position neither for observation, nor for combat positions like ATGMs. Any movement and attempts there immediately are spotting and nipping in the bud.
UKR troops even didn't spare of FPV-drone to eliminate enemy flags over slageheap. It happened on 24th of Oct. As you can see no Russians on the top of slageheap.
  Here is UKR position and 16 destroyed Russian vehicles around it - real fields of death

Also known video of attack near Krasnohorivka but from other point of view. Now we can see hit of Russian UR-77 and Russian infantry supressed by fire (or even dead)
I was wrong, identifying BTRs as belonging to 15th MRB of Russia, they were from DNR "Sparta" recon-assault battalion, operating on southern flank.

Yeah, you don’t need to be perfect either, as long as your false positive rate is zero. Training a model to recognize locomotives and train tracks is pretty trivial, and as discussed pages ago, this is something that should be done to crush Russian logistics. I think loitering for up to 12h and finding artillery would be the other. Just wait till it moves if you have a reasonable amount of drone density, say a few in a 10km square grid.
I really think the artillery hunter and train hunter cases a few bored people could build in a few months. If I manage to deliver my big project for day job this week or next, I’ll build a model post it on here with repro for everybody’s satisfaction. Sadly 10-12h days precludes working on anything else.
The economics argument is on point.
Rephrase it to “Each submunition has its own guidance system and locomotion”. Not necessarily a quadcopter, but the line between drone and smart munition is rather blurry.

Don't we kinda already have this?  Modern ATGM guidance systems look pretty sophisticated in their ability to stay looked onto one large hunk of metal vs a burning garbage truck.
"The tracker is key to guidance/control for an eventual hit. The signals from each of the 4,096 detector elements (64×64 pixel array) in the seeker are passed to the FPA readout integrated circuits which reads then creates a video frame that is sent to the tracker system for processing. By comparing the individual frames, the tracker determines the need to correct so as to keep the missile on target. The tracker must be able to determine which portion of the image represents the target.
The target is initially defined by the gunner, who places a configurable frame around it. The tracker then uses algorithms to compare that region of the frame based on image, geometric, and movement data to the new image frames being sent from the seeker, similar to pattern recognition algorithms. At the end of each frame, the reference is updated. The tracker is able to keep track of the target even though the seeker's point of view can change radically in the course of flight.
The missile is equipped with four movable tail fins and eight fixed wings at mid-body. To guide the missile, the tracker locates the target in the current frame and compares this position with the aim point. If this position is off center, the tracker computes a correction and passes it to the guidance system, which makes the appropriate adjustments to the four movable tail fins. This is an autopilot. To guide the missile, the system has sensors that check that the fins are positioned as requested. If not, the deviation is sent back to the controller for further adjustment. This is a closed-loop controller."

I have a physics degree and most of this is way above my head.  One thing is becoming apparent though - if modern militaries cannot solve for unmanned air war below 2000ft then we are entering into an different era of warfare.
Denial and Defence will rule conventional warfare until we can crack the unmanned problem.  Military implications for this are enormous, especially considering we have built for Interventions/Offence for the last 30 years at least.  Political ramifications of this are not small considering that entry costs for these technologies are low.
Well if anyone is looking for a career, this sector will be booming for years.

In a very narrow domain.  Low SNR tracking of large numbers of objects at the resolution limit of my optical system using (deliberately) underpowered computers has been a headache of mine for the past decade. This is for targets entirely unrelated to anything of defense interest, but it's defense-adjacent, and there aren't good general solutions floating around out there.

Yeah, I'm very aware of that, and I suppose that's a cue for getting a little into why we don't have anti-drone drones.
There are two parts to the anti-drone drone: detection and attack.  The detection is the hard part.  Destruction is easy - we already have no end of systems that can very accurately destroy anything that you give them coordinates of.  We can accurately fire projectiles, exploding projectiles, exploding projectiles full of razor sharp hoops, high energy beams of photons, rings with chains on them, rings with strings on them, giant wads of gooey stuff, or anything you want to take out a drone.  But you have to detect it.
For an anti-drone drone, there are sort of two categories of drone you're targeting: open loop (no comm back to the sender) and closed loop (some comm back to the sender, whether full two-way control, occasional updates, or whatever).  
Detection of the first type (no comm), which includes Shaheds, is tricky - unlike the F-35, these *start* with the radar cross section of a goose* and then you can make that even smaller.  These things are all small on visual and radar cross sections because you can paint them and they don't have a lot of metal.  You're going to track them with frustrating "visual" algorithms, where "visual" can mean different things in the optical vs. radar wavelengths, but you're still trying to pick out changes in the scene to decide where the thing is.  I'm not going to spend much time on it, other than to say that unless you have really high signal to noise and high resolution (both of which the target is trying to reduce), it's a lot harder than you think, and in general you're not going to get there with simple image differencing.  And this problem exists for commless drones whether you're using another drone, a gun, or a death ray to take them down.  Shaheds at least have a very characteristic sound that you can probably use for detection and targeting once they're within audible range.
Detection of the second type (active comm) is easy.  It's transmitting, and transmitting enough to get clear signal back to its operator, who is farther away than you are if it's attacking you.  Triangulation is old technology.  Piece of cake: you lock onto the frequency, have some kind of sensor so you know your own orientation relative to the sensor, and just maneuver in a way to make the signal from the drone stronger until you hit it and destroy it with whatever mechanism you prefer.  Or have a few sensors that are networked to give you the position (helloooo MLAT) and shoot it with your favorite method of action-at-a-distance.
Except for one problem: whose drone did you just destroy?
In the Ukraine environment, IFF is the hard part of doing radio based anti-drone systems.  There are tons of things flying around, as evidenced by the daily releases of yet another view of every bit of ground combat we ever see.  It's not quite Diamond Age concentrations of them, but they're working on it.  And they're all sorts of random drones, including commercial drones, custom drones made with commercial off the shelf parts, custom drones with a mix of commercial and special mil parts, totally custom mil drones, and who knows what else. And they're all using similar frequencies, because the combination of physics and the atmosphere force you to the same frequencies if you want a particular range and data rate at powers that you can reasonably supply to both the ground operator and drone with batteries.  If you don't sort out the IFF thing and you set an autonomous anti-radiation based anti-drone system loose, it's just as likely to attack its allied drones as the enemy drones, because it has no way to tell them apart.  That means you have to have your complete drone ecosystem integrated (ring that cash register over at Lockheed/Northrop Grumman/Raytheon!!) or you're just going to be attacking your own stuff.  
And part of why we aren't seeing even rudimentary versions of it in Ukraine is that it's not a function that people were already spending much effort on for commercial/hobbyist drones. You can't just pop over to Robotshop.com or Alibaba and order tunable RF sensor kits (or a few thousand of them) the way you can other types of sensor, or actuators for operating your 3D printed grenade dropper.  It's possible to get relatively inexpensive software-defined radio modules that are small (that's what feeds ADSBExchange so you can see who's flying around Ukraine), but the environment is so variable, along with the need to confirm what drone you're attacking, that at least for now you're going to need a human in the loop, even if you can semi-automate your remote control drone sensor.  And even with a human in the loop, nobody is painting national flags on their drones, so unless you know "this is one that our side makes" after you get up close to it (assuming you're doing that, rather than sending a death ray at it from 5 km), you really don't know who you're shooting down.  So the basic tech isn't all that hard, but because it's not just point and shoot or point and drop, it's a lot more dependent on integration of the whole system to be usable.
*geese, like all waterfowl, are incredibly mean and probably deserve to die. That's why there's a book entitled "Ducks and how to make them pay".  If we can do an autonomous system for drones, it should probably be immediately applied to geese and ducks.

That's for sure. To quarrel between Ukrainians and Poles is goal No. 1 for the Russians. I am not very afraid of the US stopping support for Ukraine as long as there is support from Poland. After all, who else but the Poles knows that if Ukraine loses, then it’s time to fight on Polish territory.

Yes, but at the moment I am guided by the 0.7 liters of Madeira I drank. Rain outside the window, live concert of Depeche Mode 1993. And the lack of obvious successes of the Ukrainian armed forces. 
Many of my childhood friends are afraid of this call. But I think. that this is the duty of everyone who lived carefree in the 90s

Right?!  One of the first videos I saw was a Merkava getting taken out Ukrainian style.  I expect it will be "low intensity/terrorist" handwaving like when we saw when ISIL do the same thing in Iraq.  The military community will likely split up into camps on this whole thing - kinda like we did here.  "It is a fad.  We have heard it before."  "Interesting, but we have counters...please say we have counters." and "Holy Sweet Mother of God! What just happened?"  The people in charge tend to come from the first or second camp.
The evidence is mounting though.  Any professional worth their salt cannot be saying "it will be fine" after watching this war closely. 

The problem is modern ranges and defending forces distribution.  So you pick a grid square for annihilation but mines are buried and very tough to over pressure (unless they are Russian and buried 2 inches from each other).  Mines with legs can, as had been noted, simply fill back in.  And ATGMs/UAS have ranges of kms so you might get those in the grid square but the rest can still reach out and get you while trying to breakthrough.
And then there is the next grid square and the one after that in depth as you advance.  So you would basically would need to carpet bomb a 10s of kms deep stretch of ground with Daisy-cutters/FABs just to get penetration…and still be dealing with stuff hitting on the sides kms out while trying to transit.  And none of that stops the enemy using FASCAM to plug the holes - which is really what they were designed for.
It might work if you could pick the right spot and exploit it…and got very lucky.  Cratering in WW1 had limited success but breaking out was the problem then, as it would be now.
Edit: forgot surprise.  Another problem is that to exploit one would need a large breakout force.  In the modern ISR environment it would get picked up from space so an opponent would know something was going on well ahead of the op.  EW might give a Local Bubble but stand-off ISR is extremely high res and could even direct C-fires.  Of course if you are going to go this way one is coming up on tac nuke solutions.

“The maths” You barbarian!

You are baiting me, right?  “Why they fail” is because this guy has zero idea what he is talking about.  Maybe less than zero.  As in, people lose knowledge just by watching his video.
Starting with the flail is the first hint.  A flail is for admin and rear area clearances.  I know some militaries still have them on assault vehicles but everyone in the business agrees they are dumb.  On the modern battlefield the flail is suicide anywhere but clearing parking lots for Bde HQ.  
Minebots - IED work, not for combat clearing.  At least not yet.
Rollers.  Ok, these are not designed to work in isolation.  In fact it is his entire problem.  Minefield clearing is a team sport.  This guy is pointing to player positions and trying to figure out which one is best at “playing football”.  Plough and rollers are the primary breaching systems.  Rollers are designed to 1) detect a minefield, normally through a strike, and 2) prove a minefield after a plough tank has done a breach.  
Every plough tank can only clear a safe lane “that every one must follow”.  Sorry bald YouTube guy we have yet to invent an area clearance plough.  Ploughs are at the center of mechanical breaching.  But they are also tricky and terrain dependent.  Ploughs and rollers are designed to work together in a team.  With their friends, explosive breaching and engineering vehicles.
So opposed minefield breaching is one of the hardest operations to pull off.  Right next to amphib on the difficulty scale.  You normally have multiple breach lane attempts that use the mechanical and explosive systems. Explosive systems still need to be proven after the breach, normally by rollers.  And engineer vehicles for complex obstacles like AT ditches or dragons teeth in the middle of a minefield.  Adding more systems ups the complexity a lot requiring a lot of training and skill to pull off in the time windows needed to be successful.
Breaches fail when the breaching teams fail.  However that is why multiple breaches are done…we expect half to fail from the outset.  Further based on density and cover, one has to scale the number of breaches to try and get a single success.  In Ukraine the densities are so high we are likely talking double NATO doctrine: so Cbt Teams are likely shooting for 4 lane attempts instead of 2.  
Of course this violates concentration of mass restrictions we are seeing on the modern battlefield.  So one either goes small platoon bites and infantry infiltration.  Or establish conditions for a major breaching op, and risk most of one’s breaching assets.  Establishing those conditions has proven to be the hard part.
Minefield breaching operations as we define them in NATO are failing because the battle space is denied to concentration of mass.  RA ISR can even pick up large concentrations of forces and pick out the breaching vehicles.  We have not created the defensive bubble to fix that.  So minefield breaching is not failing because of individual systems.  It is failing because land warfare as we know it is kinda broken right now.  Until we either fix it, or figure out a new way to do these things…we are kinda stuck.

UKR riverine movement near Kherson. The boat enough big
 

Avdiivka slag heap. View from east/north-east. Red arrows - direction of Russian attacks. Behind it - territory of Avdiivka coke plant. 

According to UKR TGs - no one side now control this important point. Situation is dynamical.
According to Russian TGs - eastern approaches to the slagheap now under control of Russians, western area - under control of Ukriane
 

Betcha his vibrometer went off on that one. 

Late August 1917-early September 1917. After Pilckem Ridge, before Menin Road.

Totally OT I fear but I have a feeling that the two torpedo hits on the Belgrano  were both direct hits. The MKVIII torpedo was essentially a pre-WW2 vintage design.

Totally OT I fear but I have a feeling that the two torpedo hits on the Belgrano  were both direct hits. The MKVIII torpedo was essentially a pre-WW2 vintage design.

Totally OT I fear but I have a feeling that the two torpedo hits on the Belgrano  were both direct hits. The MKVIII torpedo was essentially a pre-WW2 vintage design.

Russian milblogger "13th" yesterday sharply criticized all statements that Russian troops captured Avdiivka coke plant waste heap (in UKR and RUS these artifiacal industrial hills name "terrikon") on northern outskirt of the city. Then at the evening he posted a message that waste heap was taken at 18-00 of Moscow time. But today he posted that UKR forces recaptured waste heap in fierce counter-attack. 
UKR unofficial sources didn't report about any losses of such strategical position (or just decided do not demoralize with such news), so more likely for Russians this was suitable reason to justify their wrong claims - "we captured it, but alas couldn't hold". As it has happened more than once, like with "recapturing" of Staromajorske or Robotyne %)
  

It's low cost and not without precedent, just need a few more.

Alas, all ok with this ship. This was not missile corvette, but pr.22160 patrol ship. It's just coincided - likely technical issue (oil went to engine, causing a dense smoke from the stack) + underwater explosion during anti-sabateur training

Israeli consul of western Ukraine region Oleh Vishniakov told a story of last stand of a family of Israeli officers, who obviously had Ukrainian roots - Adar and Itay Berdychevsky (Berdychiv is Ukrainian city in Zhytomyr oblast, one of biggest places of Jews settle in Ukraine in 17-20th centuries). When they had seen Hamas terrorists approach to their house, they hide own children to special shelter room and engaged enemy with own weapon. They could eliminate seven attackers, but both were killed in fight too. Hamas fighters didn't find children and since 13 hours they were taken by grandpa and grandma. 

https://www.facebook.com/il.consul.israel/posts/pfbid0cxbqDRHqsU27jcS6hap6p6j3uDbeYjyr5AHGRNn9ztCstjUDzfWuwKN133HfWV71l
In present time knowingly about two killed Ukrainan citizens in Hamas attack.

In fact, the Iron Duke's other remark at Waterloo may be motto for the rest of the Ukrainian war:
"Hard pounding this, gentlemen. Let's see who pounds the longest"

In Ukraine, both sides have modern integrated air defence systems,  with MANPADS, short range air defences, and longer range systems all the way up to patriot / s-300 / s-400 systems with huge ranges over 100km. They have the operational depth to locate these systems 10s of kms from the front line to help protect and conceal them. They have integrated radar systems, an air force with interceptors, and (to an unknown degree) at least potential access to airborne and space based intelligence gathering systems.
In Israel, one of the sides has this (more or less), while hamas has no air defences beyond whatever manpads they've managed to smuggle in past the Israeli and Egyptian blockades, and a territory that is a few km wide at its widest point, and an opponent that started from a position of such military superiority for decades than any attempt to build a meaningful air defence system (in their tiny territory) would be detected and destroyed long before it was even marginally effective - assuming they could even find a route to get a significant system in theatre without it being intercepted. Hard to smuggle an s-300 through a small cross-border tunnel...