TheVulture
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Posts posted by TheVulture
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Today's Perun has a good high-level overview of the Chinese military that is worth a listen for anyone interested in the China / Taiwan / US situation.
Also has the wry observation that China is modernising its navy partly to be able to protect its international trade, which it is very dependent on economically. Particularly with the US, Japan and Korea. But the main geopolitcal threats it sees to its international trade are from the US, Japan and Korea. So it is trying to build a navy to compete with those countries in order to be able to protect its trade with the same countries....
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8 minutes ago, Probus said:
The Hungarian President resigned! Here comes Sweden into NATO!
Wow! He was pressured to resign after pardoning a child rapist/abuser. Imagine that.
She, not he.
President Katalin Novak resigned. Prime minister Viktor Orban is still prime minister. No idea how much political power the president has in Hungary's system.
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1 hour ago, poesel said:
Who in the US needs to sign off on arms purchases from NATO partners, and who sets the price? Is there a loophole for delivering arms to Ukraine?
There's always a loophole somewhere. Look at the Iran-Contra scandal for an example from the more extreme (and illegal) end.
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1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
With the US aid deadlock continuing European countries must start funding US arms for Ukraine.
It is surprising to me this is not already happening. European countries are moaning about insuffient production capasity and empty stockpiles... How about purchasing the weapons from where there are plenty (USA, Asia...)?
What message politically does that send the US? If you won't supply Ukraine to defend your own national interests, we'll reward you by paying you billions of dollars and do it for you?
Defending Ukraine is in Europe's interests too of course, which is why they are spending money on it. But for things like artillery shells it is better to invest the money in their own production capacity, not throwing it at the US as a temporary solution and ignoring the long term one.
Particularly true if the US is going to become an unreliable ally that is going to abandon allies because of internal ideological politics.
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32 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
The way the fireball (or cloud illuminated by the fire) fades so suddenly is striking. If it was just in one video I'd assume it was an artefact of the camera exposure changing, but it happens in two of them, and the rest of the illumination in the scene doesn't seem to change as much. It looks as though the fireball is there at a constant(ish) level for 10+ seconds and then suddenly shuts off to nothing in the space of a second.
I don't know that there's any great significance to it necessarily, but it looks unusual.
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5 minutes ago, David Jaros said:
Exactly we live in crazy world and war is not solution to anything
It's the best solution that Ukrane has available to it, through no fault of their own.
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4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:
Maybe I'm fixating too much on the two roads. It might be that they can bring in supplies across the fields, too. And withdraw that way also, if need be.
Don't forget that Avdiivka has been on the front line since 2014 (coming up on 10 years), and for two years of active continuous fighting. There's a good chance that Ukraine has managed to build up some resilience there, and alternative ways of getting supplies in rather than just driving along the road.
Don't forget how long Mariupol managed to hold out for despite being completely surrounded, thanks to a combination of positions solidly fortified for all round defence, well stocked, and the apparent ability of the Ukraine air force to run a surprising number of helicopted resupply and evac missions in and out of the encirclement.
Somewhere that's been on the front line for 10 years has probably had a bit of work done to prepare some solid defensive positions.
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4 minutes ago, Carolus said:
Follow-up about the strike on Belbek airfield. Russian General Tatarenko was killed along with 9 others.
Imagine the United States was losing Generals at the same rate in a war. It is bonkers.
Or with a Russian spin on events:
General Tatarenko bravely personally intercepted an incoming missile and prevented it hitting the airfield. He is said to be lightly injured.
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25 minutes ago, Carolus said:
UA proclaims that they sank Russian corvette "Ivanovets" with kamikaze USV.
Certainly looks pretty sunk in that video at the end.
At 1:18 or so you can see one of the drones coming in on what looks like an already badly damaged ship and manage to successfully hit right on one of the holes in the side from a previous hit.
The editing implies that this causes a catastrophic explosion. Which might just be editing, but then it wouldn't be surprising for a drone that managed to get through a hole and *inside* the armour before detonating.
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From one point of view, a basic mine is an autonomous drone with extremely low mobility, a crappy sensor package (touch only), and the targeting decision logic is "kill anything you see" with no human veto in the loop.
Mines don't scare people as much as drones though because they don't come find you while you are sitting around in your trench. We have the illusion of agency, where since it is our actions that trigger the mine, we can believe that we have a degree of control by making better choices.
(A bit like why people distrust automation in cars. Even if it was objectively safer overall, we don't like being in a dangerous situation where we have no input. We'd rather have some influence ourselves even when the data show that it's more dangerous for us overall).
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7 hours ago, dan/california said:
And every defense contractor is briefing their pet congresscritters on how THEIR product is perfect for the new doctrine, whatever it is...
The worry is that once western defence companies get involved, and NATO procurement tendencies, you're going to see the $1000 drone made in a shed in Ukraine with an RPG warhead strapped on be replaced with a custom-built state of the art $20,000 drone that does the same job maybe 5% better.
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5 hours ago, The_Capt said:
- C4ISR, first war in human history with these levels of C4ISR. This effecting a lot more than just mass. How deep this rabbit hole goes remains unclear.
- Heavy is in trouble. I think we have seen enough indicators that heavy forces are struggling. Enough reports of tanks and mech being held back or blunted have surfaced to call that one. But is this forever, or just a temporary condition?
Tanks behaving like they often get used in CM games? As an uninformed tangent, I always got the impression that most players used tanks in CM (thinking WW2 games here) in a historically unrealistic way, where instead of tanks being the spearhead, in CM games they were more often kept hidden until the infantry had identified targets and enemy AT assets had been located.
In CM, this is the combination of:
(a) scenario balance means that if you've got a platoon of tanks, the other side very likely has the capability to kill a platoon of tanks (as opposed to reality, where an assaulting tank company might just roll through the enemy positions because they didn't have anything that posed a threat to heavy armour - but that would make a boring CM scenario)
(b) Borg spotting, perfect terrain knowledge and the players' ability to co-ordinate their entire force to a wholly unrealistic degree meaning that they can afford to keep tanks at the back because they will be able to scoot forward through defilade to a keyhole firing position to take out a threat in literally 1 minute, while in reality that's more like 15+ minutes with far more chances to screw up, go the wrong way, shoot at the wrong building etc.
So is it possible that the incredible C4ISR available, replicates in effect much of point (b): enemy positions are known pretty well in advance, real time drone observations funneling information back to units on the ground, and so on, mean that something closer to (although still far short of) CM player levels of planning, co-ordination and responsiveness is achievable, meaning small armour packets can be held back and used on demand with more effect than a full platoon could two decades ago - never mind the increasing number of things that can quickly kill an exposed and hard to conceal tank.
And on a higher level, the higher situational awareness, and prevalence of longer ranged things that can kill vehicles in particular mean that it is hard to create a situation where you can mass e.g. a tank force against a position that has no meaningful defence against it. They will see it coming, and tank-killers can hit from a much larger range, so wherever you attack there is going to be meaningful anti-tank capability, meaning you're always in more of a "balanced CM scenario" kind of situation in practice.
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11 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:
Were there any female marines in Vietnam? Since you're using gender neutral "their"..
Using "their" in a sentence like that has been around for decades, possibly over a century. Its not some new development. And not exactly on topic either.
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26 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
I strongly suspect this will be a static or navy system. I am also pretty sure "10 pound per shot" is the typical creative accounting that goes on in the industry. Does that cost include development, project costs, unit cost and sustainment costs? If so, how many shots were calculated over the life of the system to come down to that number? We get this all the time - "A modern naval warship for just pennies a day!" Sure, if you amortize over a century.
I'm pretty sure they are only counting the cost of electricity per shot. Once you factor in the cost of the system, expected lifetime, running and crewing costs etc., its going to go up considerably. It's just a good headline number at a time when the British press is talking about whether it makes sense to use a £10M missile to intercept a houthi drone in the red sea. And I strongly suspect this has been sent to the press now as a response to that scenario, mostly for political lobbying and funding purposes.
So take it all with a hefty dose of cynicism, that this isn't an objective view of capability, but a political marketing push.
But it does show (if there's any truth to it at all) that a laser system that might be able to deal with drones cost effectively isn't completely insane, and might be achievable.
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Intriguing report of the British MoD successfully testing an anti-drone laser system - called DragonFire, because the MoD is the best at chosing names for weapon systems - that is quoted at cost around £10 per shot with a 7 mile range. Although obviously there are questions about how close to reality those claims are and how well it would translate to battlefield conditions in practice. Could be battefield ready "in 5 years".
Paywalled article from the Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/laser-weapon-aerial-target-porton-down-xzzwn00ls
Free to view archived version: https://archive.is/ArNai
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8 hours ago, dan/california said:
Much better footage of the the Bradley encounter
I'm not a big graphics nerd, but I'd love to see Bradley rounds hitting a T-90 looking like that in Combat Mission. But it's the kind of thing big budget games have a team of programmers and artists working on for 6 months straight and still can't get it looking right.
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39 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
I am thinking the first side that can kill anything and everything in a 20km deep box and simply walk forward is going to win.
It sounds a bit like the ideas behind tactical nukes, but without the massive expense, radiological contamination and political blowback. Replace one big bomb with a thousand highly personalised ones.
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4 minutes ago, OBJ said:
Meanwhile, as the Ukrainians continue to try to restore their grain trade to pre-war levels...
https://news.usni.org/2024/01/03/turkey-to-block-u-k-minesweepers-on-loan-to-ukraine-from-black-sea
excerpt:
Turkey will not let minesweepers loaned to Ukraine by the United Kingdom into the Black Sea, the Turkish president’s directorate of communications said this week.
The United Kingdom announced in December that it would loan two minehunters to Ukraine to help Ukraine protect shipping lanes in the Black Sea that have come under attack from Russian forces. In particular, sea mines have been a concern in the Black Sea since the beginning of the war. Both Ukraine and Russia have deployed mines in the region.
However, Turkey is restricting any warships belonging to non-Black Sea nations from entering the Black Sea by invoking the Montreux Convention and closed the Bosphorus Strait to the loaned ships.
Under the 1936 treaty, Turkey has the right to close the Turkish straits to the Black Sea. While ships of non-belligerent countries, in this case any country that is not Ukraine or Russia, can sail into the Black Sea during war time, the Montreux Convention ultimately leaves the decision on if warships can pass through to Turkey, if the country fears it could be pulled into the war.
Turkey announced early on in the Russia invasion into Ukraine that it would not allow non-Black Sea nations to sail through the Turkish straits. In this case, Turkey can deny minesweepers if it deems them to be U.K. warships.
That seems kind of misleading. Turkey also has an obligation to prevent the warships of nations involved in war to pass through the straits (with an exception for ships returning to their base). Turkey has blocked a number of Russian warships from entering the Black Sea, as per their obligation, and is applying the same rules to the minesweepers that the UK has given to Ukraine (given? Sold? Not sure which). All of which was entirely expected.
Not sure how much practical value two minesweepers would be to Ukraine right now: for all the hits the Black Sea Fleet has taken, they are still operating in the west of the Black Sea, so its not like Ukraine could just deploy minesweepers to clear shipping lanes anyway.
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28 minutes ago, danfrodo said:
Dumb question of the day: does the RU loss of 5 jets indicate some use of F16s? If it is possible, in what way would F16s be able to do this? I thought they wuz just airplanes that would be shot out of the sky if they actually tried to accomplish anything useful. But then again, I have a well known tank bias.
Most modern aircraft fights are BVR (beyond visual range), where the fighters are often 10-20 miles apart and lobbing missiles at each other. How threatening an aircraft is in that situation is much more a question of radar capability, missile capabilties and situational awareness.
The F16 (IIRC) has a pretty decent radar, and can probably lock a target up from further away than e.g. an Su-34, which is a solid advantage. But perhaps more importantly, it can carry any number of NATO missiles (most relevantly, Meteor or AMRAAM) which a) are good BVR missiles and b) can be supplied to Ukraine more easily than equivalents compatible with their Soviet aircraft.
Its entirely possible that, as with HIMARS and ATACMS, the introduction of a new capability might cause a sudden surge in casualties until the Russians adapt to it. So if they are used to defending against whatever missiles the Ukraine air force has available, and then suddenly are having Meteor missiles lobbed at them, there is a very good chance they are going to misjudge safe distances, speeds etc. until the pilots adapt to the new threat environment.
That having been said, I think your first though it about right, that actually neither side are getting aircraft close enough to each other to be in BVR range, and that area denial from ground based S-300, S-400 and patriot systems would make it too high risk.
Have any F-16s actually been delivered to Ukraine anyway? I know they've been announced, but I've not seen anything about them being in-theatre yet.
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See, the Russian claim that the Novocherkassk was damaged but not destroyed is technically true. If you squint hard enough.
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6 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:
I don’t know, I find it amazing that both Ukraine and Russia are having so much trouble dealing with drones. Whenever I played CNBS against the Russians, those damn Tunguskas seemed to easily take down my Ravens any time I got anywhere close enough to see them!
In a CM battle though you are implicitly in a situation where chucking a Tunguska in the area is reasonable, and the impact of cost exchange ratios doesn't matter because the battle is its own self contained world.
In Ukraine on the other hand, rather than a single $35k reaper, you've got dozens of tiny quad copter drones, an operational system that has spent the last 18 months figuring out how to integrate them in to the kill chain, and a Tunguska that close to the front is going to quickly wind up as an expensive and hard to replace scrap metal sculpture installation.
A Tunguska *could* shoot down some quad copters, although not as easily as a Raven, but you're going to run out of Tunguskas very quickly if you send them all to do short range air defence close to the line of contact.
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58 minutes ago, dan/california said:
Edit: Some interesting bits here.
And to translate for the Americans, Scrapheap Challenge is the UK version that's pretty much identical to the US Junkyard Wars.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67810463
QuoteRussia bans anti-war candidate from challenging Putin
<snip>
The commission said 29 people have so far filed to run for the presidency. But after today's decision, Mr Putin remains the only candidate to be able to register as a candidate.
Nothing terribly surprising to anyone who understands that the election's only purpose is to re-elect Putin, but the article contains a few interesting tea leaves that Putin is having to take more active steps to maintain his control over Russia.
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14 minutes ago, dan/california said:
The interesting thing about this tape is that is was hit by some sort or direct fire auto-cannon. Probably firing at longe range. I am thinking someone was not careful about sight lines to the far bank of the river. That or the Ukrainians have a lot more forces over the river than we thought, and in places the Russians did not expect them to be. Interesting either way.
I'm not sure what hit it - my interpretation of the video is that those streaks are missile launches, presumably from a TOS-1, although the explosion happens 10-20 (hard to tell, so a wild guess) meters in front of the source point of the missiles. So either two launchers close together, or one launcher plus some kind of ammo carrier which is what blew up.
But it's hard to be sure of anything just from the footage there.
Other suggestion on the reddit thread is that it is an anti-air system behind the TOS trying to intercept the incoming drone.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Yes, both videos clearly have at least a second drone hitting precisely on the area badly damaged by the first hit, and causing big explosions (the second drone is pretty much going to be inside the armour when it triggers).
That they've done it successfully two attacks in a row implies that it's something that can be pulled off now with a reasonable degree of confidence with the people and equipment they have. That really does seem like a game changer for naval warfare in near-coastal regions (might be harder to pull off in the mid pacific).
The race is on to find an effective counter.