The_Capt

That is massive denial in play. The game will be to collapse an opponents denial/ISR bubble, and only then can one do manoeuvre. That is huge if it comes to pass. We built entire libraries on manoeuvre warfare and now it may become the punctuation mark, not the forcing function. This is essentially the death of conventional mass as we knew it. Mr Tankie taking a back seat will be the last of our problems.

I disagree. I think we are already there. https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/5/23058160/drone-swarm-autonomous-navigation-dense-forest-person-tracking The Orlan is kinda big. We could see ones like that as stand-off mother-swarm nodes.

I am confused. Are we just talking about the Orlan? Or the entire future of UAS? I suspect the Orlan will be seen as a bi-plane by 1945 in a few years.

Pretty damned small apparently. This guy comes in at about a pound. https://www.rcgfusa.com/product/stinger-10cc-re/ Has 1.9 hp. Probably looking at a combination of these and battery.

I don't think "knowing where the enemy is" is a problem if this war is a demonstration. The ability to push small lethal drone swarms around on the battlefield only need to happen as fast or faster than your opponent can drive...or launch their own swarms. Many ways to do this because each individual system is so light. This means one can drop kill boxes at range and essentially deny an area. As to sensors and processors. Well we will have to see won't we. Being able to fly through a bamboo forest autonomously looks pretty sophisticated to me and we are only getting started. I honestly only see range and endurance as a local tactical limitation. Operationally they can be packaged and projected at very long ranges by any number of systems. A HIMARS cargo shell could carry a hundred of these small systems and deliver them 100kms away. In place the little buggers could just sit on the ground until a target comes by and within range. Trading off who pops up to take a peek or linked to other sensors that came with them (pigeon hearts anyone?). 5 fly up and overwhelm the target. The other 95 stay in the grass. I only need the little bugger to fly maybe a km. Give them solar panels and they can recharge in place. That is a major military problem.

So you fill them with thousands of them. Hell you deliver them via artillery and have them just sit like a minefield. People are thinking "platforms", these are munitions. Counter? Cheap UGVs with swarms of their own. Cloud fight out front before humans even get engaged.

Each one of those with a DPICM...and a pre-programmed grudge. That is where this is going.

FFS, we saw one chase a guy around a freakin tree! I am leaning heavily towards your Option 3.

I think the maneuverability is bad enough especially for the quadcopters. It is the altitude. These things can fly really low so line of sight is problematic from the ground. If you put C-UAS drones above them, one now has to find and track the system against ground clutter. Micro-missile might work, but I suspect a shotgun would too if one could get in range. That or you simply go with ramming. But as you note. The solutions are pretty damned expensive, while the threat gets cheaper.

A lot of incentive to solve the energy density problem of batteries: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/04/1066141/whats-next-for-batteries/?gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjws9ipBhB1EiwAccEi1BVtyUUPriIA8d0KP2cg84dW41z0YN0FUllsukBpNjBKoZWhm2I20RoCHLoQAvD_BwE This is much bigger than warfare and has eye watering levels of investment. Time is distance. So as loitering times lengthen, ranges are also going to stretch. Time is options. As loitering times increase so do the range of possible missions. UGVs are waiting in the wings on this one too. You best start believing in RMAs, Ms Turner…because you are in one.

My guess it is the targeting. Tracking, locking and hunting a small highly manoeuvrable object is a pretty high bar. Basically trying to hit a magic bullet with a magic bullet. Just because we have a similar system doesn’t mean we have the targeting capability to hit another drone. And then one has to do it en masse. I have zero doubts that there are people working on this furiously. This will set up an air power below 2000 feet arms race. Counter counter UAS systems will then be developed. I think a lot of people are starting to get that this is not War + Unmanned. It is Unmanned Warfare.

I am highly skeptical about direct energy C-UAS, let alone C-RAM. It may be technically feasible for static point defence systems one can plug into a power grid. But for mobile defence I think the energy bill is just too high. Further one would need thousands of these systems (which is what GD wants) to deal with the levels of systems we see in this war, let alone swarms likely in the next one. These things will be 1) highly visible as that much energy being pumped into the environment is going to get detected…bit more juice than a pigeon heart, and 2) will be a prime target for all the systems that can see it. We would likely lose them too fast to replace. And then there is volume. A direct energy weapon that can target and engage dozens or even hundreds of small tac UAS/loitering munitions at range would be a game changer for more than AD. Such a weapon could target people and vehicles at ranges and rates that would change warfare forever if such a system existed. No, this is typical western military industrial planning. We have swarms of small UAS that costs a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each that we need to stop. Of course we will develop and buy a laser- phased AD system that costs hundreds of millions and needs to be put on a big truck….makes perfect sense. Or we take another UAS that costs a few hundred dollars and built it to kill other UAS.

The fuss, bother and denial that is coming over capital fleets is going to make the tank and helicopter hand wringing look freakin quaint by comparison. “A 10 billion dollar ship can be taken out by drones? Well so can infantry and you don’t see us getting rid of them!”

I would only add that there is a Data/C4ISR phase in there somewhere, or maybe throughout. As one side achieves data superiority the slide to asymmetry will become inevitable. In fact the thing may be settled by the time one gets to conventional phase. Then the losing side may go to hybrid, then insurgency - this is essentially war in the micro-social space. Conventional warfare - or what we thought was conventional - is becoming more punctuation, not core. This will likely bleed into maritime domain as well. Large concentrations of ships are large targets that no bubble can fully protect - we just have not seen it yet. So we can expect a dis-aggregation in that domain as well. The real loser could be amphibious as trying to mass sea-land transitions is going to be extremely hard to do in this environment. Imagine what we are seeing in Ukraine on the open littorals.

Same pattern on both sides. Try big, get hammered…go small. Have western commentators go “silly [insert side], why are you going small? Be more manoeuvry!”

Hey look its Neuhof.

Betcha his vibrometer went off on that one.

This is a primer on how to defeat us. We are going to be limited to the wars where we can establish air superiority…and that is damned hard wrt UAS. It wasn’t the artillery in that video that was the central problem. It was the video itself. That entire RA armoured attack was butt naked to the sky and detected probably a zip code away. Dropping the sky on it from a bunch of different systems was just the finish. I am not sure how to build a bubble around that assault in the modern era. Even if, especially if, it was one of ours.

But can’t. Why? Some in the West have been afraid of the mobilization escalation since the start of this thing. Hordes of Russians sweeping down from the Steppes. Thing is, one does not normally wait until things are this bad to do that. Mass mobilization is a bit of a remnant of the old ways. Nations can still do it but the bar for modern operations is much higher than it was back in WW2. Equipment, training and data demands are much higher now. And then there is will. Even in Russia the public can see what is going on, or at least some of them. And finally timing. Why would Russia wait until they have lost 100k and most of what they took back Feb 22? Last Fall at least should have triggered the mobapocalypse. Russian mobilization has been just keeping up with losses. Troops levels have been pretty much level. Troop quality has plummeted. Overall operational quality is very low. The RA is holding on with pretty rudimentary capability right now across most areas. They are learning in a few, but are basically down to good old landmines to hold the front - that, is the one thing they did mobilize. I suspect that Putin’s support in this war is not a big as we fear. And also likely why we see Western restraint, we do not want to drive support into his arms.

35%…that is pretty good. One thing I do regret is the last battle of the campaign - Alsfeld. Not the scenario, the one last push with everything one has left is solid. No, it was the work we put into the map and the scenario knowing that few people would ever play it. We did up all the US Campaign scenarios as stand-alones but not the Soviet for the reason that those ones need to be earned (the master maps are avail though). When we sat down with the scenarios and campaigns we decided to do “reality first”. What did the doctrine of the day say? Bil was a Int NCO during the Cold War and has a lot of experience there. Where would each side realistically be at that point? What time and space made sense for the fight? We did do balancing at the end - some got too brutal even for us. But we tried to get as close as possible. Fun, was something we really left to each player to decide for themselves. Also why we created levels of accessibility as not to alienate anyone totally. Anyway, glad to hear you enjoyed it. We got a lot of positive feedback from the core community on this title. We can live with those outside maybe not loving everything. So long as the fan base is happy, we are happy. (And we know the fan base is a bunch of grognards so “happy” is a relative term).

The RA has what? 300k troops in Ukraine right now? The are definitely going to keep making trouble. Lower level commanders know there is enormous heat and light right now to demonstrate success and loyalty to the boss. Last guy to step out of line got blowed up all over a Russian wheat field.(keep aiming for the bushes Priggy!). So I would expect more RA pushes and nibbles. Now if they could actually string those together into an operational effect, let alone decision…well we could have a conversation. UA needs to do same, and I suspect they are still on a track. I just don’t know if it will pay off.

Let’s not make too long leaps here. (And I know you are just summarizing) Russia may have reserves. Or it may well have taken risks along line units as well. Avdiivka was a tactical offensive, that failed - not D Day. Russia is learning, there is no arguing that. The question is: are they learning at a competitive rate compared to the UA? UA takes ground continuously for months = “well ya but it isn’t fast enough” RA does a post mortem twitch = “Holy Crap, it is the end of days!”

Heh, was going to be my comment. 12000 effective fighting force is a freakin division. A Division on the enemy side of the Dnipro with a secure sustainment link is terrifying for the RA defence. I am not confident we are seeing that level of operation but a boy can hope and pray.

Think unsexy thoughts. Think unsexy thoughts. This is exactly what I was looking for…so it is probably just a raid. Oh, my but if they can achieve operational level breakthrough…

Ducks can zig and zag pretty well on the move. But not as maneuverable as a humming bird. I can see some sort of auto shotgun thing being employed for tac AP UAVs. Of course when we get to the point that using a single tac UAV to kill one person is sustainable as a viable alternative to fires…well just count me out.