TheVulture
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Posts posted by TheVulture
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On the subject of who is buying what, the Australian army and BAE Systems recently announced their ATLAS project for a 8 wheeled UGV which is mostly autonomous (human in the loop on firing decisions I believe) and armed with a 25mm Bushmaster cannon
https://euro-sd.com/2024/09/major-news/40327/baes-australia-unveils-new-ugv/
Can't find any information on approximate projected cost per unit.
QuoteThe autonomy system at the core of the ATLAS CCV will ‘drive’ the vehicle, avoid obstacles, route plan, and make tactical decisions. The vehicle is equipped with a new, lightweight, highly automated medium-calibre turret called Vantage ATS that is armed with an M242 Bushmaster 25mm cannon, providing lethal fire to a range of 2,500 m. A ready-use ammunition capacity of 260 rounds allows for multiple engagements and high battlefield persistence. BAE Systems emphasised that the turret is designed with a ‘human in-the-loop’ targeting system.
Alternatively, BAE Systems notes that the ATLAS CCV’s 10-tonne combat weight and rugged suspension system provide a stable firing platform that can accommodate a 120 mm automated mortar system or counter unmanned aerial vehicle payload.
Sensors on board the ATLAS CCV include 360 multi-spectral automatic target detection, tracking and classification system; a day camera and thermal imaging sensor; a LiDAR system; acoustic sensors; and a passive electronic warfare system.
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15 minutes ago, TheVulture said:
Not got a good link yet, but the BBC are reporting that in a follow up to the Hizbollah exploding pager event, today there's been a similar attack with exploding walkie-talkies killing 14 and injuring around 450 across Lebannon.
Apparently Mossad (or whoever did the first attack) figured they had to use it now or lose the capability once Hizbollah started looking more closely at their consumer electronics.
Excerpt from BBC:
The latest from Lebanon in three parts
published at 19:28 British Summer Time
19:28 BST
It's been around four hours since we first received reports of exploding walkie-talkies in southern Lebanon.
In the aftermath, the BBC's Hugo Bachega described seeing chaos in Dahiya, a suburb of Lebanon's capital Beirut and a Hezbollah stronghold. Here's where things stand now.
Exploding walkie-talkies: There were frenetic scenes this afternoon as reports emerged of more communication devices blowing up in Lebanon. The UN Security Council is set to meet to discuss the situation before the end of the week, and its secretary general Antonio Guterres is "deeply alarmed" by the situation.
Aftermath of yesterday: Funerals were held today in Beirut for victims of Tuesday's pager blasts. Several countries, including Russia and Iran, have backed Lebanon and blamed Israel for the action. Israel has remained silent and the US says it had no involvement. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant also said the country is "opening a new phase in the war".
Death toll and injuries: Fourteen people have died today, and a further 450 are injured, after the latest attacks. Yesterday's pager blasts killed 12 people and left almost 3,000 injured. Doctors have reported treating patients with severe eye and hand injuries.
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Not got a good link yet, but the BBC are reporting that in a follow up to the Hizbollah exploding pager event, today there's been a similar attack with exploding walkie-talkies killing 14 and injuring around 450 across Lebannon.
Apparently Mossad (or whoever did the first attack) figured they had to use it now or lose the capability once Hizbollah started looking more closely at their consumer electronics.
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7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
The takeaway from exercises like that a very practical unmanned approach eclipses any scenario that involves traditional heavy armored vehicles. Not by a little, not even by a lot, but by whatever is bigger than magnitudes. Quantum? I don't know maths stuff, but I do know it's big!
Steve
Quantum is the opposite: it's the smallest possible change.
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3 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
At 0:04 of the second of the Ponomarenko films, the explosion actually forms a classic mushroom shape, looking exactly like a nuke. Most impressive.
Any sufficiently big explosion forms a mushroom cloud. Nuclear weapons create mushroom clouds because they are big explosions, not because they are nukes.
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3 minutes ago, Nastypastie said:
How they're dispensing that without atomizing the drone would be VERY interesting to know!
Just one more grim marvel of the modern world. How long until civilians are able to burn each others houses down with this stuff?
I'd imagine a pottery container (a flowerpot would do) hanging on a few chains beneath a drone that can lift a few kg.
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13 minutes ago, Eug85 said:
Russia's nuclear weapons are deployed on Belarus' territory. Therefore, Lukashenko need not fear either Poland or Ukraine
Russian nuclear weapons are also deployed at Briansk and Belgorod, and one site (Belgorod-22 was within a few Km of Ukraine's "free Russian" attack into Belgorod in 2023). So I'm not sure that there's any real deterrent effect to them being deployed in Belarus either, as long as everyone is very clear that they are not targeting Russia's nuclear weapons (and that really Russia ought to move them in the event of an attack on Belarus).
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26 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:
Is Belarus preparing to attack Ukraine?
The story goes that Lukashenko says Ukraine is massing 120,000 troops on the border with Belarus. And that he has deployed a third of the army to counter that threat.
It sounds a bit like the same ruse that Ukraine recently used - they claimed that Russia was gathering a big force to attack Sumy, but it was just a cover to justify redeploying formations north to attack into Kursk.
It could be that Lukashenko has been told by Putin to attempt something similar. At the very least, massing troops on his side of the border might force an already extended Ukraine to shift more units away from the fighting in Donbas and Kursk.
If Belarus did attack into Ukraine, their relatively small standing army wouldn't be able to take much ground, but maybe they might be able to take a chunk like Ukraine did in Kursk? They do have quite big reserves that could be mobilised though. And in any case they could put more pressure on Ukraine at a critical moment.
Every time since the war started that Putin has apparently wanted Belarus to attack Ukraine (or all the pundits start talking about it), Belarus has made a few token gestures of shuffling units around at the border and then done precisely nothing. I don't see why now is the time that they'd chose to go all in in support of Russia, since if anything now the chances of win are even lower, and the chances of a no-holds barred NATO military (or at least unilateral Polish) response are higher than they've ever been.
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Ukraine Air Force has released a video of a second bridge on the Seym river being put out of use (at the town of Zvannoe) - not quite collapsed. Only one bridge left now, and that's the smallest one and the one closest to the Russia-Ukraine border (about 10 miles in, at Karyzh).
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Another good video from the "War Archive" YouTube channel, this one a 20 minute overview of the battle of Vuhledar The format is basically putting together a narrative of the main events and what units were fighting on both sides.
Nothing new in that sense, but he puts together a more coherent narrative of what was going on in some battles that we don't really see so much here when we're looking at random bits of footage and reports as they get released.
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17 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:
The amount of engineer vehicle footage we are seeing really does imply the Ukrainians have been able to recover a lot of vehicles without too much bother here.
Maybe that's the real reason for this offensive: it's actually a raid for replacements tanks and spare parts
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1 hour ago, Kraft said:
The russian column from yesterday met Himars cluster dungsten balls
The infantry died in their vehicles. These were among those instructed not to take prisoners.
Likely sent to Rylsk, they died before reaching it.
I recommend reading/translating the comments in ru TG chats
all that hype&hope yesterday night and this is the overnight result haha
It's the kind of the I imagine the Ukraine military would have been praying for: Russia rushing troops in to counter the attack with no clear idea of where the 'front line' is (not that there is a well defined one), and Ukraine being able to catch the reinforcements unprepared on the march. It's then a double whammy of not only attriting the enemy, but making them slow down their response and approach more cautiously to avoid a repeat performance.
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7 minutes ago, Grigb said:
This is where we strongly disagree. Let's looks at Pro-West RU Nats (yes, there are such guys. They linked to UKR RDK unit). July 1 post
I believe UKR situation is not as bad as it might look like.
By that estimation, it would sound like what the Soviets did at Stalingrad: feed just enough defenders in to the city to keep the battle there going while building up the reserves to counter elsewhere. Tough for the poor sods who get fed into the grinder part of the battle though.
Obviously I'm in no position to know whether this is remotely the case here, but it seems to be what that one source is suggesting.
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The motivation for the Kursk attack/raid might as easily be political as military (much like the Russian attack a few months ago was).
The story has become, over the last six months, Ukraine holding on while the US in particular was in internal deadlock over sending more support, and the Russians grinding forwards. Very slowly, but pretty much the only battlefield news in the last few months has been "Russia has finally taken village X after 2 months of fighting and advanced 300m", and that kind of thing. Not impressive, but when that's the only news, then the story created in people's minds is that Ukraine is struggling to hold on, even if it would take Russia a few centuries to reach the Dneipr at that rate.
So with the military support from the US on the upswing, and the arrival of F-16s in theatre, Ukraine might have felt the political pressure to generate some positive PR just to be and to say "this support is making a difference", and to get rid of the "Russia is slowly grinding forwards and Ukraine can't stop then" impression. A dramatic push in to Russia at an offensive rate far higher than Russia has been able manage changes the narrative and perceptions. Even if the eventual plan is to withdraw rather than hod the ground.
There can be other reasons too that aren't just battlefield strategy. Maybe they wanted to test how well a new combined arms drone/EW doctrine worked, and iron out the kinks against a relatively soft target. Or the ongoing "boil the frog" of slowly pushing Russia's escalation red lines further back. Or adding internal political pressure on Putin for his inability to stop cross border incursions. Or to take advantage of the recent rumoured purges inside the Russian defense ministry which might cause high level decision paralysis.
Or, most likely, the operation was approved because it ticks multiple boxes of the above - much like with the Russian attack towers Kharkiv. It might not make the most sense from a purely wargame battlefield perspective, but serves multiple human and political purposes.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn09234xxn1o
QuotePolish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said Warsaw is considering a proposal from Kyiv to shoot down Russian missiles heading towards Polish territory while they are still in Ukrainian airspace.
The proposal was included in a joint defence agreement between the two countries signed during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Warsaw earlier this week.
"At this stage, this is an idea. What our agreement said is we will explore this idea,” Mr Sikorski told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
He said some Russian missiles fired from the St Petersburg area towards Ukrainian targets near the western city of Lviv, not far from the Polish border, traversed Belarus and entered Polish airspace for about 40 seconds before turning towards their targets in Ukraine.
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South Korea has announced that Hanwha Aerospace is starting mass production of Block-I, a cheap laser anti-drone system: https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/industry/hanwha-starts-producing-block-i-laser-weapon
The claimed cost per shot is around $1.50, although given that research costs have been over $50M, and the manufacturing contract is another $75M (rounding up slightly), then at $1.50 is somewhat misleading. But like the UK dragonfire, its another claimed attempt at a low-cost lasre anti-drone system, and one that might end up in Ukraine in short order given South Korea's deals with Ukraine (and Poland) already.
QuoteSouth Korean firm Hanwha Aerospace started production on 11 July of a new anti-aircraft laser weapon, the country's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced.
DAPA said the start of production follows a contract it signed with Hanwha Aerospace in late June to produce the ‘Laser Based Anti-Aircraft Weapon Block-I' for the Republic of Korea (RoK) Armed Forces. Under the contract, which is valued at KRW100 billion (USD72.5 million), deliveries of an unknown number of systems will start later in 2024.
“This laser anti-aircraft weapon (Block-I) is a new-concept future weapon system that neutralises targets by directly irradiating them with a light-source laser generated from an optical fibre,” DAPA said. “[The system] can precisely strike small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and multicopters at close range.”
DAPA said the Block-I system is “silent, does not require ammunition, and can be operated only with electricity”. It said the cost of a single firing of the weapon is about KRW2,000. [About $1.50]
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17 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:
The new British Defence Minister is already in Ukraine meeting with Zelensky:
Second-hand quoting of a journalist on what the UK has announced as additional support today:
Upon taking office the Defence Secretary immediately asked for extra support to be provided to Ukraine which was readily available and meets their needs for the battlefield against Russia. This new package includes:
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A quarter of a million of 50 calibre ammunition
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90 anti-armour Brimstone missiles
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50 small military boats to support river and coastal operations
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40 de-mining vehicles
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10 AS-90 artillery guns
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61 bulldozers to help build defensive positions
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Support for previously gifted AS-90s, including 32 new barrels and critical spares which will help Ukraine fire another 60,000 155mm rounds
John Healey also directed officials to ensure that the promised package in April of military aid is accelerated and delivered in full to Ukraine within the next 100 days.
Not seen any official confirmation of details yet.
Although this is a new Labour government replacing the previous Conservative government, so its always possible there are some political games going on of announcing as new stuff that was already promised but not yet delivered. But at the least the new government is signalling that it is going to continue, and possibly increase, UK support for Ukraine.
(Note for confused Americans: Brits use 'government' in the same way that Americans use 'administration' - so read that as 'administration' in the above)
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35 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:
In better news, the UK general election finally purged Galloway and his frankly disgusting views regarding Ukraine from sight.
Unfortunately Farage is now an MP, as are three more members of his party, and his views on Ukraine (and NATO) hit quite a lot of Russian talking points too.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
200 a month?! That is over 6 Bns...a month. Looking like around a 35% Pk rate, better if one factors abandoned.
I hope e.g. the British army with its 200 challenger 2 tanks - soon to become a lower number of challenger 3 - is paying attention. A tank force that is large enough to be expensive but too small to be effective after a few weeks of combat seems like the worst of all worlds.
The tank may or may not be obsolete, but an independent tank force of that size might well be.
I suppose in their defence, it's not a land force that is supposed to operate alone in a high intensity environment: the UK armed forces are specifically designed to operate as part of a larger NATO force.
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43 minutes ago, billbindc said:
Has there been a single Russian offensive in this war that has gone better or even as well as expected? I can’t think of one.
The Russian push north west from Crimea to Kherson is the most likely success story, actually making it across the Dneipr, taking a major city and pushing onward for a while.
Obviously not a complete success, since they were meant to get to Odessa along the coast, and up to Kyiv up the western side of the Dneipr, and in the end weren't able to hold Kherson or the right bank for that long, but it was probably the most successful and competent action by the Russian army.
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1 hour ago, Joe982 said:
Ukraine has been hitting Russain air defence units.
Does anybody know if they are hitting enough of them?
Does Russia have more to replace the damaged ones?
Something like 3000 S-300 units were produced from the 70's onwards. Obviously some were exported, some no longer in service or older ones virtuality obsolete. Not found any numbers yet on how many are likely to be in active service currently.
S-400 systems, western intelligence estimates are that 56 systems were in service at the start of the war. Since command, radars and launchers are separate vehicles within a single system that might be geographically dispersed it isn't clear what you'd count as a destroyed system. Losses in Ukraine probably amount to 2-5 systems. Unclear how many 'spare' Russia has, since it depends on their willingness to take them away from deployment in Syria, Moscow other border areas, or key infrastructure within Russia.
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32 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
Absolutely the other way round. The President nominates the ministers and is responsible for the executive branch of the governement. The prime minister is more of a nominal title, primarily he is one of the ministers appointed by the President , his prime minister status conferring on him only a modest amount of additional powers, without limiting the President's supremacy in any way. A simple experiment confirms that - we all know the name of the French President at the time, not always the name of the contemporary PM.
Saw an interesting analysis today, it basically says that if Macron continued the status quo until the end of his term he risks the situation where he runs the executive branch, but in order to change any laws whatsoever he has to negotiate for support of the opposition. OTOH calling the elections early gives Macron 2 options, one that French MPs from parties which did badly in the European elections are afraid to lose their seats (France's electoral system is first past the post in two rounds) and switch allegiance to Macron, which may reconstitute Macron's presidential party prior to the elections. The other, that Macron will appoint a Le Penist governement. In that case Macron would count on such governement to wear itself down governing so that come next presidential elections, the Le Penist candidate will not be a new white knight coming to clean up the mess left by the predecessors, but a person co-responsible for the state of affairs in France. This would benefit Macron's political heir, as he himself cannot run for the 3rd term in office.
Thanks for the explanation. I knew one of the two top elected offices didn't have much power, but had it completely wrong :). Fortunately no-one is relying on me for an understanding of French politics.
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43 minutes ago, Yet said:
... is what the media makes believe. A closer look shows that there are only minor shifts. max shift is say 20 seats in a 720 seat parliament. Also the biggest challenges are in the right parties that were or are without a European 'party family'. Shortly started... without an European 'party family' you dont really have any power in parliament.
it will not play out as a radically different EU course, thought of course some countries can feel the need for a different sound.
About France, right! it can make a shift. but presidential elections are not till 2027
Hopefully some members from France can enlighten us, but I was under the impression that the president in France was largely a ceremonial role without much political power. It's the prime minister who is the 'leader' in all real senses, even if the president is technically the head of state.
I'm not entirely clear why Macron called a snap election in response to doing badly in the polls and European Parliament elections. Is he anticipating that it's only going to get worse the longer he waits, or is he hoping the shock is going to motivate his support base to vote in larger numbers to try and stave off the right wing threat? Seems like an awfully big gamble either way.
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15 minutes ago, Viko said:
The recent Russian offensive near Kharkov was carried out with virtually no armor and was very successful. Special forces units played a decisive role.
You obviously have a very different idea of "very successful " than I do. By that token, the Ukraine summer 2023 offensive was even more successful.
And not to sound too cynical, you sound a lot like Zeleban/Zekezilka, and your first post was 6 days ago. Not a sock puppet by any chance?
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Not current events, but the youtube channel War Archive has released a 45 minute video on the battle for Avdiivka which gives a more coherent overview of events than is possible at the time.