dan/california

As aside about small changes that make a huge difference the improved effectiveness you get from ~40 meters of cable from the Stugna-P launcher to the control panel continues to impress. Of course the next step is a digital data link that lets the operator be hundreds of yards away. We also haven't seen the Israeli spike missile yet. A widespread demonstration of them would great for MANY reasons.

https://www.nammo.com/story/the-range-revolution/ Reposting this due to relevance to the conversation above.

So everything for fifty kilometers back from the forward edge will will entirely diffuse drone systems with the absolute minimum of highly stealthed humans. And then you will have a fires complex with as much protection as an Aegis cruiser, and a price tag to match?

I am quite open to your argument that a mechanized assault is just no longer possible if the people you are attacking have late model equipment and their heads on right. The questions that remain unanswered are whether APS, and really good air/drone defense can make any difference. Also can ANYBODY afford that level of tech in any quantity. You seem to be leaning towards no leaning towards no. So that brings us back to diffuse drone swarms and $100,000 ghillie suits. This implies that we have entered an era where the advantage has swung back to the defense, at least at the forward edge of battle. Conversely it is more or less impossible to guard all of your fixed infrastructure from gps guided drones. Interesting times, and not in a good way. Hopefully the next iteration of the game will allow at least some exploration of these questions.

That was very good shooting. And one of the biggest lessons of this war is that sitting still is unwise. So great work all around One hundred percent, Jake Sullivan needs to be fired and someone put in that job who understands this war has to be prosecuted to complete victory. Not a single Russian left in Ukraine, and Ukraine Nato. A NATO air base in Crimea just to PROVE they lost. All correct of course But explain the 3 BMP-3s parked within arms distance of each other?

It was late... The NYT coverage is totally bipolar, great articles reported from the ground and very supportive op-eds will be followed by periods of radio silence. Then they will publish a bunch of crap that makes Neville Chamberlain look like Churchill. All I can figure out is that they have the same sort of competing factions as the NSC. This is an ultimate demonstration of the not learning Steve mentioned in a different post. Three of Russia's best IFVs parked so so close together you could whack all three of them with a stick without moving your feet.

I think all this sturm and drang comes down to a less aggressive FACTION in the White House, and perhaps congress floating a trial balloon/pre election whatever. I do not think it indicates that this faction is suddenly ascendant, just that if felt the need to stick it head up and see what happened. It is very possibly related to that idiotic letter that was relased, then withdrawn and blamed on some poor staffer. The tankie/appeasement faction exists, we just have to keep whacking it with a cricket bat everytime it gets feisty.

Further explanation please? Not being silly, really want you to elaborate.

This might have been a bum story, probably even. Sorry about that.

https://inf.news/en/military/59bda2f5ff78d7600fd143a6bae2e218.html These actuallys seem to have completed development. They should go straight to Ukraine without passing go. Even kept as far back as the Himars they would force the Orlans down into ManPAD range across tens of kilometers of front each.

Big if true...

Allow me to cheerfully add "late stage"...

And on that note every single new drone killing widget the Pentagon is testing ought to be in Ukraine getting tested for real, and incidentally winning this war. And whatever the boffins decide actually works had better be purchased in quantity. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has proven, again, that countries will start wars that make no sense, and keep fighting them long after they have obviously lost. In the hopes of some sort of miracle I suppose. But the oh my god they just used six weeks of ammo, per doctrine, in eight days shock really shouldn't be shocking anymore.

It might be better, but that doesn't mean it is very good. The Dnipro is an order of magnitude, maybe two orders of magnitude, bigger river than the Seversky Donets, and most of the banks where you can land anything bigger than a canoe are not heavily vegetated. If the Russians are down to Kherson city they will be cut off completely. About five days of watching some sort of PGM obliterate everything that moves, and the chmobiks will quit, if their officers object, well that is what hand grenades are for.

OMG that is funny!

It is rapidly approaching the point where all they have left is copium, and cannon meat. When the cannon meat, I mean mobiks, i mean fertilizer in waiting... figures that out things will get more interesting.

I may not have been clear the first time, but this is what I actually meant. Russia has overpaid for every week they have stayed in Kherson since the beginning of September. I really don't think surrounded conscripts in Kherson city are going to fight like the foreign legion did in Severodonetsk. Who I will point out were not surrounded, and withdrew in good order. The range was less, but I recall that it could. And trying to operate mostly on Schnorchel severely reduced the U boats effectiveness. Apparently they had issues in higher seas, the float valve would close to prevent sucking water and diesel would try to suck every cubic meter of air in the boat. Apparently it would feel like your ear drums were being sucked out of your head, among other unpleasantness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_snorkel#:~:text=Although snorkels allowed submarines to,damaging or breaking the tube.

Russia is losing the artillery battle around Kherson now. Ukraine has a lot of systems that are basically operating from out of the Russians reach, and are just hammering them. Maybe better U.S military drones directing some of the fire, too. We won't know what really happened for a while.

We don't know the balance sheet on Kherson. If Russia has burned the last of the pre war VDV to hold Kherson for another six weeks it was a VERY bad trade. The average quality of the Russian army started out low, but it is currently falling very quickly towards some level that is so low I am struggling for words for it. Sooner or later that is going to cost the Russians dearly.

It seems like the very best solution to Iran is to help the younger half of the country defeat its current decrepit excuse for a regime. Note I didn't say it was easy. But the thought of MBS having to deal Iran's first woman Prime Minister is worth taking real risk for.

Russia is doing an interesting experiment in how far you can reduce the quality of your army before it just dissolves. Also, what is then sentence if they are ALREADY at the front?

Better IFF for drones is on a list somewhere.....

Well to a fair extent that is how it works. German U Boats were a very large problem, then some smart guys figured out a microwave radar that would fit on an maritime patrol plane, and they became a much smaller problem. The Germans never solved microwave radar countermeasures, and it is not the least of the reasons they lost the war. Not THE reason, but it is on the list. Is this lancet drone an issue at that level? I don't know. If the Chinese are are suddenly making thousands of them and shipping them west, they could be. If the Russians are managing 20 a month by ripping apart laptops and washing machines for parts, probably not. But that is only half the question. How hard is the countermeasure? Does this drone have a really good jam resistant communication link? So good it will take a huge effort to build a brand new jammer to counter? or is it a simple case of needing to add a little code to one the vast array EW and counter EW systems already out there, and 80% of them just fall out of the sky? Both sides in every war have a list, the side that makes better choices about how to prioritize their list unusually does better. I am quite open to hearing what you think the lists for both sides ought to be.