dan/california
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Posts posted by dan/california
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2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
And we are back to breaking the Russian war machine. Which of course will take more fighting men. There is no magic technology solution here. They can dig in and hope to attrit the RA enough for the Russians to stall and then shoot for some BS empty peace. Or they can go on the offensive and pay the blood price.
The West can supply a lot but they cannot supply fighting troops or the will to resist. If Ukraine cannot muster this then no viable alternatives really exist beyond attempts to freeze this thing, which may very well fail due to Ukrainian “exhaustion”. That is an 800 km frontage, longer than the Western Front in WW1. They can reduce troop density requirements quite a bit but not to zero, not yet. There are no free lunches in war.
The state of Ukrainian morale has been deeply tied up with the mess in the U.S. Congress. Now that it has been resolved thank bleep, we need to take a deep. breath and see where everything is a couple of weeks.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
Seriously this Kerch Bridge lust has to stop. Taking it out will be an annoyance and likely be spun as some sort of humanitarian disaster. It is not a war winner.
So the primary difference between HIMARs and long range drones is that there is no real defence against HIMARs once fired. They can try GPS jamming but all those advanced ATACMs come with inertial guidance for the last mile. If you point an ATAMCs at something it is going to die. So if the UA were to take 25-50 ATACMs and decide to conduct a strategic strike campaign on the oil and gas infra in range…and then layered drones on top of this…they could severely damage the Russian energy industry. And do it at a rate that Russia could not keep up with.
My guess is the US sees this as an escalation too far as it may trigger bad things we do not want. So these systems will likely be pointed at hard military targets…like airfields and C2….maybe rail/tn. The ‘so what’ is that the US has likely crossed a rubicon of providing targeting support directly into Russia. They may have before but when those ATACMs start to fly it will be undeniable.
Edit: well that did not take long https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/ukraine-uses-long-range-missiles-secretly-provided-by-u-s-to-hit-russian-held-areas-officials-say-1.6860160
I am only slightly guilty of bridge lust, I am simply saying that it gets to stay standing because the U.S. NSC thinks knocking it down will cause more problems than it solves. If they ever change their mind a train full of the appropriate munitions will arrive to announce that decision, followed by some truly excellent video.
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8 minutes ago, TheVulture said:
More likely that we're going to get back to the mid-2023 situation where Russia is no longer able to make incremental gains and Ukraine can push them back slightly in a few places. I'm not expecting anything dramatic personally - just a shift in the media narrative which is currently "Russia is slowly grinding Ukraine down".
I agree with this, but whatever Russia is paying to take a square kilometer is about to at least triple. They haven't exactly been getting a bargain rate the last few weeks, so it is about to get TRULY Pricey. Hopefully Ukraine casualties will go down as well.
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13 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
I would not be surprised to see that stuff was preposition in Poland waiting for the bill to pass. The President does not meet Congressional approval to push US military anywhere and I would be surprised if DoD was not directed to “lean forward”
What is really interesting is the ATACMs. If the US is releasing the really long range stuff then it is also very likely providing the C4ISR and targeting support to the UA for those systems. That is an escalation and a very clear signal. It may also explain the whole “hey Ukraine wanna lay off Russian oil industry” narrative that popped up. I am pretty sure the US is not onboard with those missiles shredding the Russian oil industry.
I am quite sure the ATACMS came with a firm understanding that they would only be used within the 1991 borders of Ukraine. And the simple fact is that Ukraine doesn't NEED them to attack Russian oil infrastructure. For that the drones they are using seem to work just fine, and even ten or twenty of them are cheaper in every sense than an ATACMS. The drones have longer range as well. The ATACMS are far better used on hardened military targets, of which there is no shortage.
There was almost certainly an explicit conversation about the Kerch Bridge , one way or the other.
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6 minutes ago, Sojourner said:
OK, that is a genius application, but from the PoV of a homeowner in a wildfire-prone area, it's pretty damn insane.
Sanity is optional, you need look no further than the RFK jr campaign....
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1 hour ago, Sequoia said:
How much better will this be (if any) over current equipment?
Three things about this system, it indicates defense contractors are really working on quadcopter based mine detection, which is a very good thing. The system shown is also a really nifty automated mortar. You are still looking at a LOT of ordinance to clear a lane in minefields the size and density the Russians are laying in Ukraine.
My first take is that it might make more sense to have a drone deposit the approximate equivalent of a DPICM submunition, rather than using the mortar, but this would need detailed analysis of the rate at which each system can take out mines, and how vulnerable it is to being killed while doing so.
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14 minutes ago, Sojourner said:
I think you're on to something. Then as long as Putin is seated in the place of honor, the only issue to negotiate is face up or face down.
WINNER!
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/politics/ukraine-new-american-technology.html
He also came to a harsh conclusion: This new version of warfare would likely be awful.
“Ground troops, with drones circling overhead, know they’re constantly under the watchful eyes of unseen pilots a few kilometers away,” Mr. Schmidt wrote last year. “And those pilots know they are potentially in opposing cross hairs watching back. … This feeling of exposure and lethal voyeurism is everywhere in Ukraine.”
The article has some really good stuff, as quoted above. It also has some completely clueless bits. The author seems to gravely underestimate the size of the miracle it is that Ukraine is still in this fight.
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Quote
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/moldova-russia-ukraine-war.html
By Paula Erizanu
Ms. Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist who focuses on politics and the arts in Eastern Europe. She wrote from Chisinau, Moldova.
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Moldova, Russia and Ukraine? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.More and more people, including Pope Francis, are asking Ukraine to drop its defense and sit at the negotiation table with Russia. Citing the stalemate on the battlefield and Russia’s superior resources, they urge Ukraine’s leadership to consider a deal. What exactly that would involve is largely left unsaid. But it would clearly involve freezing the conflict, resigning Ukraine’s occupied territory to Russia in exchange for an end to the fighting.
My country, Moldova, knows all about that kind of bargain. A small western neighbor of Ukraine, Moldova experienced Russia’s first post-Soviet war of aggression, which ended with a cease-fire agreement in 1992. Thirty-two years later, 1,500 Russian troops are still stationed on internationally recognized Moldovan territory, despite the Kremlin’s formal agreement to withdraw them in 1994 and then once again in 1999. The case shows that Russia simply cannot be trusted.
It isn't getting enough press that Ukraine simply can't make a deal with Russia, because Russia simply doesn't keep its word.
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5 hours ago, FancyCat said:Quote
https://thingfinder.blogspot.com/2014/09/well-then-says-chen-sheng.html
“Well then…” says Chen Sheng
From Radicalizing the Romanceless by Scott Alexander. A long essay with which I suspect I might be sympathetic but am finding my interest flagging. Something of a hypothetical abstraction overload of the cognitive circuits.
But there is this:I’m saying the causal arrow goes the opposite direction from the one Barry’s suggesting. As usual with gender issues, this can be best explained through a story from ancient Chinese military history.
Chen Sheng was an officer serving the Qin Dynasty, famous for their draconian punishments. He was supposed to lead his army to a rendezvous point, but he got delayed by heavy rains and it became clear he was going to arrive late. The way I always hear the story told is this:
Chen turns to his friend Wu Guang and asks “What’s the penalty for being late?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“And what’s the penalty for rebellion?”
“Death,” says Wu.
“Well then…” says Chen Sheng.
And thus began the famous Dazexiang Uprising, which caused thousands of deaths and helped usher in a period of instability and chaos that resulted in the fall of the Qin Dynasty three years later.
The moral of the story is that if you are maximally mean to innocent people, then eventually bad things will happen to you. First, because youQuotehave no room to punish people any more for actually hurting you. Second, because people will figure if they’re doomed anyway, they can at least get the consolation of feeling like they’re doing you some damage on their way down.
Sooner or later I am convinced Putin is going to have this problem.
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1 minute ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
How is the Kerch bridge related to Russian air strikes? Their aircraft do not have to fly from Krimea and are not dependent on that bridge for supplies.
Two separate issues, apologies if I was unclear. What I was trying to say is that a LOT of ATACMS, and the freedom to employ them against the highest value targets in Crimea, at least, could really move the needle. If Biden's NSC just wants to send a few of them to be able to say they did, it won't make much difference. In that case I think Ukraine would be better off with more Patriots. I think Ukraine has always used them to shoot at planes instead of glide bombs. I am sure some have been used against cruise missiles around Kyiv.
If they push them forward again they clearly need better protection, that may or may not be a viable thing to do. A way to knock down Orlan/Zala class drones faster than the Russians can put more in the air remains one of Ukraines great unsolved problems. Those new Laser based AA Strykers can't do anything but that? Every one of them should be in Ukraine doing it.
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12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Yeah, artillery and AA systems with plenty of ammo. That's got to be top of their list. And at the top of that top? ATACMS with longer range. Not so much to extend where they can hit, but to be able to pull their launchers further back and still be able to hit the same areas they can hit today.
Steve
I think patriots are higher on the list than ATACMS actually. It is glide bombs and cruise missiles seem to be what is hurting Ukraine the worst. If they could impsoe enough air denial to really reduce those it would take a lot of the pressure off. The calculus might be different if they got enough of the right kind of ATACMS to drop the Kerch bridge. But if they get enough missiles to do that it would reflect a major change in the Biden Administration's approach to this war. They would need enough not just to do that, but to REALLY press the other Russian supply links to the land bridge for it to really count.
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11 minutes ago, MikeyD said:
When we talk about X weapon vs drone lets remember that X weapon would likely be immune to ECM. You can't jam a sniper, jam a mg, or jam a mortar round. Artillery? Well, as long as they're not using radar proximity fuses you can't jam an incoming artillery round, either. Drones may be the most cost-effective option, up until someone flips a switch and they fall out of the sky.
But full autonomy reduces the ability to jam them by 95% or better. Even now both sides know that jamming is their only hope, they are putting out enough microwave radiation to fry every egg within 10 kilometers of the front. There is still a great deal of video of stuff blowing up from a drone hit, filmed by a drone. And as The_Capt never tires of reminding us, every one of those jammers is radiating an enormous neon sign that says please kill me first. Drones that will home on jam have to be showing up any week now, if they haven't already.
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A whole bunch more to say if I get time, but it was great to come back from vacation to goods news the funding, and the bomber shoot down.
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3 hours ago, TheVulture said:
For those who remember the British 'Dragonfire' anti-drone laser test from January, Grant Shapps (UK defence secretary) is now talking about possibly delivering it to Ukraine relatively soon.
It's timeline was originally aiming to be in service 2032 (assuming it can be made to work adequately). The time line was accelerated to 2027, because I'm sure it's possible to finish R&D 5 years sooner just because politicians have decided. Now Shapps is saying it may be delivered to Ukraine even sooner than that because a system that is 70% done next year is better then one 99.9% done in 3 years.
More realistically, Ukraine needs any air defence it can get, and the system gets to be tested heavily in real conditions, which will probably improve design iteration. So I guess we'll see whether it can become a meaningful and cost effective anti-drone system or whether its a white elephant.
Edit to add: whatever the rationale behind the decision making, announcing it now has a lot more to do with timing of domestic and European politics, and the content of the announcement likewise.
Well they have many billions on developing laser weapons, they might as well put the current iteration in Ukraine, and see if it actually works
26 minutes ago, The_Capt said:So this is why I think artillery is not really going anywhere. Let’s say China (or the US) come up with a snazzy APS system that can stop all strike drones cold. A system like this can still standoff 10kms+ and light up traditional conventional units. No tech exists to create a massive bubble of protection for small UAS out that far and if it did ground warfare itself would be changed forever regardless. So this system plus precision artillery, plus strike drones, plus next-gen ATGMs creates an enormous denial pressure on the future battlefield. The cost to even try to maneuver goes up exponentially. The losses will be very high compared to previous wars for doing the same tactical action. As both artillery and drone ranges get longer we are going to see an entire over-the-horizon battle before real people even get near to each other.
And this is why it probably won't, but at this point it makes sense to try. 100% agree that an almost entirely unmanned battle at the leading edge will be first, and perhaps nearly decisive going forward.
Going out of town for a week, hopefully coming back to good news on the funding.
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23 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:
I wonder if we could speculate now on what the U.S. could give to Ukraine that would make the most difference, both to stabilize the battlefield short term and maybe turn things around a bit by next January, assuming an aid package of some sort finally arrives at Biden's desk to sign in early May?
Patriot missiles and what else?
155, GMLRS, ATACMS. Bradleys. All of these have been proven to work, they just need a ton more of them. NASSAMS and missiles for it. Then put real money and technical effort behind Ukraines drone programs. Last but most certainly not least would be more training, preferably measured in months, not weeks.
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1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:
Correct. If there was a will, there would be a way… but that would require a will to be present.
Which is whatever is after crazy making.
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3 hours ago, squatter said:
Seems like the general feeling on here is that autonomous weapons are the way forward.
No-one here feel like we should be arguing for the abolition of autonomous weapons, or are you all already in the 'well the bad guys are gonna do it, so we should do it first' camp? (ie the 'race to the bottom' scenario)
I'm guessing you all caught this short film by the Future of Life Institute a few years back?
2 hours ago, squatter said:Yes of course that is true. But unmanned does not equal autonomous. And yes, of course autonomous weapons will offer huge advantages to those who employ them, but at what cost (see video I linked to above.)? Due to the cheapness and ease of manufacture of autonomous killer drones (once the tech has been developed), the implications of their use by bad actors are horrendous.
The world did manage to get some level of control over nuclear proliferation (somewhat latterly and post-hoc) - should we not at aspire to learn the lessons from the successes and failures of nuclear non-proliferation and at least attempt to limit autonomous weapon development?
If we don't then we are heading into an utterly terrifying world, and one most on here seem to have just shrugged and set off down the road towards at the first fork in the road.
2 hours ago, The_Capt said:The issue with fully autonomous is that it offers superiority for a deterministic system. That driver will pretty much ensure any attempts at regulation/proliferation are going to fall apart. Now if autonomous systems achieve the level of a WMD with a MAD component, perhaps. But the best counter to stop fully autonomous weapon systems...are other fully autonomous weapon systems. We already have this in maritime warfare with missiles and point defence systems. The CWIS is entirely autonomous once someone flips the switch. They can target and engage on their own. Why? Because a machine can react far faster than a manned gun.
I don't think it is a question of Warhawk shrugging, it is the recognition that the odds of regulation that 1) we can agree upon and 2) sticks, is simply very unlikely. Nuclear proliferation is a bad example because the morale imperative is not why the major powers did it. They did so they could exclusively remain the major powers. The other examples really are somewhat historical anomalies that we are also likely to walk back from as wars become more existential in nature. Probably the best example is bio or chemical weapons, but we also know that neither of these really stuck either.
Trying to outlaw weapons is like trying to outlaw warfare. We believe we can because we think that war is solely a political extremity and we can use political legality to control a political mechanism. The reality is that the nature of warfare we currently subscribe to is the 2nd generation. The 1st generation was "war is an extension of survival by violent means." That is the older darker nature of warfare that Clausewitz all tried to forget...right up to the point it throws itself in our faces. We live in a third generation nature of warfare - "viable violence to achieve political ends." The introduction of nuclear weapons put us all in a box whereby we can only really wage warfare in a constrained manner. Go too far and one faces mutual annihilation. The problem is when 3rd generation collides with the first one.
So I fully believe in and adhere to the Law of Armed Conflict. I think we should definitely aspire to be better than we really are. But I know an existential capability when I see it. And fully autonomous weapon systems are definitely on that list.
If I may attempt to summarize, you have to win the war to earn the privilege of making the rules. And if rejecting a new technology means you lose....
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27 minutes ago, JonS said:
Yes, but there is no feedback loop between one autonomous drone and the next, in the way that there is between subsequent rounds from a rifle.
Depending on a great many things this may or may not be true. It is certainly possible it is true and the second drone, and the seventh can't learn anything from the previous attempts. There are great many ways that learning could occur though. The first, most obvious, and certainly happening right now is that the same guy is flying the next drone when it shows up in a few minutes, perhaps less if they have an orbit of them already in the air. The drone pilot knows what he did wrong, and doesn't make the same mistake the next time. The second possibility, the FPV drone is being observed by an ISR drone with vastly better sensors, the operators of the two systems are in communication, and the ISR guy can tell the FPV guy what he did wrong for round 2. Third way, the drones are using at least last kilometer autonomy, and start missing., The aforementioned ISR drone can tell the unit flying the FPV drones to change their targeting parameters. The fourth and most important way though, is that every time someone makes a improvement in an autonomous AI drone program, that program shows up in ALL the drones next month, and it will just iterate forever. So the autonomous piloting systems flying nine months after the first ones come out might be five, or twenty five, or 225 times better than the first models.
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7 minutes ago, Carolus said:
EU parliament pulled a "Republican" and refused to pass the budget by the EU council until funding for 7 Patriot batteries is found.
512 to 62 votes.
Outstanding!
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7 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:
This part was interesting:
Then the jammer will have to go to remote antennas, so the expensive bits, and the operator are in a hole a hundred yards away. And then the "wild weasel drones" (TM) will have to operate in small packs where where most of them autonomously attack everything around the antenna with a relevant infra red signature. Then the people doing the jamming.... and on the game goes. This war is in the process of creating an entire group of new military specialties, and I don't see it doing anything but multiplying.
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Quote
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-10-2024
Key Takeaways:
- The Ukrainian military’s effective use of drones on the battlefield cannot fully mitigate Ukraine’s theater-wide shortage of critical munitions.
- Zelensky stated that there are no mitigations for insufficient air defense systems and indicated that Russian strikes are forcing Ukraine to reallocate already scarce air defense assets to defend Kharkiv City.
- Zelensky warned about the threat of a potential future Russian ground offensive operation targeting Kharkiv City, which would force Ukraine to reallocate some of its already-strained manpower and materiel capabilities away from other currently active and critical sectors of the front.
- The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada considered and adopted provisions from Ukraine’s draft mobilization law on April 10 as part of an ongoing effort to increase the sustainability of Ukrainian mobilization over the long term.
- Russian officials continue to indicate that they are not interested in any meaningful negotiations on the war in Ukraine amid Switzerland’s announcement that it will host a global peace summit on the war on June 15 and 16.
- Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov attempted to downplay tension in Armenian-Russian relations amid Armenia’s continued efforts to distance itself from political and security relations with Russia.
- Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin claimed that Russia has no economic reason to import foreign labor, a direct contradiction of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent efforts to justify Russia’s current migration laws to his xenophobic ultra-nationalist constituency.
- Russian forces recently captured Ivanivske, a settlement east of Chasiv Yar, and advanced near Avdiivka.
- Eight Russian senators and 16 State Duma deputies submitted a bill to the Russian State Duma that would likely allow Russian authorities to deploy Russian Federal Penitentiaries Service (FSIN) employees to Ukraine, amid reports that Russia is intensifying its crypto-mobilization efforts.
ISW has a lengthy discussion on the subject of the day, including quotes from Zelensky on the subject. He would REALLY like some some artillery ammunition and more SAMs soonest. At the same time drones are killing a LOT of Russian armored vehicles.
The other great item is the last bullet point. Russian prisons have been emptied out to such a degree that the prison guards are the next people on the list for being "volunteered", they are currently standing around with nothing to do and the powers that be have noticed. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
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Read Dmitri every day.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
If he really was an agent for a foreign power someone has lost an important source. Of course it is quite possible he simply stole something in a way someone more important found inconvenient.