dan/california

The several trillion dollar question is whether changes in technology have made Iraq War levels of air dominance unachievable. Especially since small drones have pretty much punctured the concept of perfect air defenses that are at least as important to the modern version of blitzkrieg as offensive side. We have built an enormous tower of military assumptions on the basis of air dominance, without it it is well and truly back to the drawing board. And even if we could utterly cleanse the sky of Russian anything now? Can we do it to the Chinese in five or ten years?

It is real progress, and I expect them to get the rest of the way there Elon doesn't flame out in some spectacular fashion. At a 100kg to orbit a LOT of things become economic that just are not now. I agree with this in theory, but rail guns, and that is essentially what this is, have been a little bit like laser weapons and fusion power. They are a decade or two out, and always will be. That said you never know when some materials science guy will crack the critical part of the problem, and AI is moving materials science right along.

Almost.... They are clearly making progress.

The part about Russia being better coordinated seems to contradict most of the other information we get. The NYT seems to consistently be talking to the most unhappy Ukrainian it can find.

They seem to be a couple of dozen hoses short.

My first thought is that member from states that have a top two primary, as opposed to the more common partisan variety might be more vulnerable to pressure on this, although Jayapul seems unmovable in WA-7.

Oil refineries are the thing that Russia can't fix, can't move, and probably can't buy enough refined products on the world market to replace. Ukraine needs to keep the hammering on this. The Russian Orlan/Zala operational class UAVs have been a problem since the beginning of the war, it needs solving. Much more so than smaller drones it seems like they could be engaged by other drones of the same general performance level. I still don't have a good idea why this hasn't happened. And if any of the laser widgets work they ought be in Ukraine demonstrating it in this same role. You don't even have to shoot them down, just fry the camera sensor. Edit: Would F-16s be better at this than the Soviet ere stuff Ukraine currently has, or would the have to fly to high, to close to the front? It isn't nearly as flashy as launching cruise missiles at Sebastopol, but it might be more important.

The resources in this post are extremely useful. My rep has signed, but there is enough information to really look at which Dems haven't, and might be moveable. Then get started on the most likely Republicans.

Except that we are literally at the point where a couple of people skipping their flu shots, eating some bad crab cakes, or losing their ability to tolerate the endless stupidity could flip the chamber to the Democrats. A two vote majority isn't really.

Biden has somewhere between 2 and five billion in remaining presidential drawdown authority. Think of it as the final reserve of approved aid. Clearly he felt he had to use some of it

Read Dmitri every day.

This is also the perfect form factor for the final layer of a defensive onion. a vehicle could mount MANY launch tubes for this, and a fair few of them would not overburden a squad. So if they can work out a seeker head that tracks other drones it would be by far the best last ditch CUAS option I have seen. More broadly it is the very leading edge of what is coming. We haven't seen anything yet.

Not a military vehicle, but I suspect about 85% of the tech would be same for a military UGV.

it has been an obvious target for forever.They must have decided they could finally put a big enough strike together to saturate the defenses

This surely violates the laws of war doesn't it. I mean you are assaulting their digestive system, their mental health, and their will to live at the same time.

They will be absolutely critical for recon drones going forward though. The stuff that is basically a smart RPG round needs to leave its launcher/mothership with a fully autonomous AI . It will still be very useful if the mothership can send an immediate BDA and any other useful information it acquired in real time. Or maybe it is the relay station for the mothership that gets the full communications package, or, or, but there is a point in the drone TO&E where being able to phone home will always be important.

Stated range on the current models is enough to threaten ships from one side of the Mediterranean or the North Sea to the other. When some clean sheet of paper engineering is applied I can easily see that doubling. Taiwan needs thousands of these things in distributed basing arrangements. The Baltic is already a NATO lake, but USVs are vastly cheaper way to maintain that status.

Yes probably, but everyone of those things represents time, attention, and resources that would have to been diverted from the suicide charges at Avdiivka, and the Czar was demanding Avdiivka NOW. So maybe now the Black Sea Fleet will get some competent help, but the drones are going to keep getting better, too.

I mean it is a Hollywood scene, but it does point out rather nicely that a true semi autonomous drone swarm is the ultimate expression of The_Capt's expression that massed precision beats everything. This is also true on the naval side, the Ukrainians are steadily sinking the Russian Black Sea Fleet with attacks of at most ten of these USVs. The USVs in question are McGyvered together from civilian off the shelf tech, and 30 year old cold war leftovers. Imagine a cargo ship dispensing a couple of hundred or more of them just over the horizon as your naval task force is trying to transit a choke point like the Red Sea of the Straights of Malacca. Imagine they are better ones that can run almost or comepletely underwater.

Everything discussed would be some level of improvement in sea drone capability, but it is a combination of drones launching torpedoes, and drone becoming torpedoes that will cause the real nightmares. I propose two types of sea drone, The first carries torpedos that home on the ships propellers and at least make it slow down, if not stop. The second type of drone, carrying much larger explosive charges then submerges and make the final few kilometers under water and sets off several hundred kg under the keel. With the ship already slowed they don't have to be crazy fast.

I don't think I have heard of this system before.

Not an ally, but perhaps deciding that whatever the Chinese are offering is worth tilting a bit. If Singapore doesn't come up in the Ukraine related news for the next six months, perhaps it is random coincidence. If there are two more things out of there that advantage Putin in the next month...

Article is from RT, so credibility is not presumed to be great. If Singapore actually said that, it is possible that China is using assets and connections in Singapore to throw Putin a bone. The Taurus conversation intercept originated from Singapore as well. It feels like the beginning of a trend.