poesel

I think you misunderstood me. I was not talking about my opinion (for the record: all for it) but the public opinion. A year ago, the German public would have gone nuts about a missile attack of Ukraine on a Russian city. 'Escalation!', 'WW3 imminent!', 'Don't poke the bear!' etc... There were some raised eyebrows when Ukraine did those little drone attacks. And now missiles, and the reaction is: nothing. So I wanted to hear about the reaction in other countries. If true, I think this is a big change. Ukraine can now attack into Russia. And by 'can', I mean politically. Without fear of backlash for killing civilians (which will inevitably happen). It doesn't matter that Ukraine neither can nor wants to send 100 missiles to Russia. The fact that they can retaliate on Russian soil with rockets without loosing western support is the change.

Let's just assume that Ukraine bombed Belgorod and killed civilians as a by product. That was what has been reported by the mass media here. The reaction (here): nothing. Is that the same everywhere? I am really surprised that the public takes such an attack with a shrug. It is not the first time Ukraine attacked Russia directly but not with this dimension. IMO, Ukraine just learned that it is ok with the west to retaliate to Russia in kind (as long as no western weapons are used). That would change the character of this war.

Wine? I'll give you a Merlot from the Tessin (Ticino) but that is all. The guns are nice, but you can't use them anywhere else, it seems. The model that Switzerland runs on can only be run by one country in Europe, and only a small one. Copying that anywhere else would lead to total failure. Also, the Swiss have shot themselves in the foot wrt their relationship with the EU lately. Let's see what will come of it. Since we are already in the Alps: I'm wondering if there will be some pressure on Austria to join NATO. The power of the post WW2 agreements to stay neutral seems to wane.

There had been some discussions in the papers here if Germany should have its own nukes. The question was what to do if the US withdraws its protection. The French don't want to share. I don't know what the UK's policy would be in that case. That leaves the rest of Europe without nuclear protection. That discussion didn't create much political traction that I'm aware of. But that the question was even asked is really something new.

Worst case scenario is that Russia falls apart, and the nukes end up in the hand of criminals (who know how to use them). Apart from that, any coup would weaken Russia in some way, even if not successful (see Prig). Which would be a good thing. A group of people who could pull it off and have a reason to do so do not currently exist in Russia. If they existed, we would have a coup.

Turkey finally agreed to Sweden joining NATO. One condition was that Turkey gets F16s. https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/ankara-tuerkischer-parlamentsausschuss-billigt-schwedens-nato-beitritt-a-0a6d82fa-0893-4c47-8692-3052c5f30c93

They found Nawalny. Looks like he was looking for Santa north of the polar circle. https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/alexej-nawalny-in-strafkolonie-in-der-polarregion-verlegt-a-982d1734-43c5-4d7a-9a25-055ab997b5a8

My wish for Christmas is 'Swan Lake' on Russian TV on repeat.

Yeah, wrong use of military terminology from my side. I was just talking about the act of removing the mines. Not about all the rest that is necessary for the actual breaching. About the width of the cleared lane: IIRC it was supposed to be 8m or not? Even if fuzzy on the sides, that is more than two Leo 2s abreast.

(this assumes 500m of breach) Or one flight with 50 drones. Or create a drone with more lift and have fewer flights. Well, depends on what you need. Impact fuze, pre-determined time or radio. Neither time nor radio should create any delays. Normally, yes. But this is a war. I would run two BMP-1s left lane, right lane over the breach. If one gets blown up, you still have the other side (hopefully). That is a risk, of course. The UGV way would be way slower, but you would get more mines. With GPR you are pretty sure you find any mine you drive across. Not sure if this is suitable for breaching. It is more like eroding the minefield. The whole point of this discussion is to talk about a method of breaching a minefield without having to secure it first. Because that has proven difficult. It gets a lot easier if there is no minefield.

Ok, let's assume 100m of breaching. At about 7,5kg/m (see above) we are talking about 750kg for the weight of the line. Since you are dragging it, friction comes into play, so we double that number to 1,5t. Then the line has to be strong enough to pull itself, add weight. It has to structurally survive the whole dragging process (the C4 and the ignition mechanism have to stay in place and operable) - add weight. Let's say the whole thing equals to a pulling weight of about 2t. Now you need a winch that can pull 2t. But unless you pull that apparatus across a parking lot, there will be snags. They only way to unclog them is to pull harder. So add 50% for safety. Just found a 6t electrical winch on Amazon. Comes with a remote, that's nice. It weighs about 30kg. It pulls with 4,5kW at 5m/min. To run the winch for 20 minutes (100m / 5m/min) you need a battery with 2kWh. Another 20kg. So the winch assembly is about 50kg that you need to bring to the other side of the minefield and deploy it there. By deploy, I mean you need it to fix it to the ground to withstand at least 3t of pulling force (or 30kN for those who care). I frankly have no idea how to pull that off apart from sending a human to do it. Which is a showstopper here. I'd rather fly in 10m pieces one at a time. I proposed exactly that a few pages ago

There is this review from a guy who seems to very exactly know the stuff he needs from the game: https://steamcommunity.com/id/iserediuk/recommended/2707940/ There is a lot on the day-to-day drone operation in that comment. I find it interesting that he gives a 1 in 15 chance for a drone to be shot down by a soldier on the ground. That is more likely than what we thought, I think.

The problem of the rocket laying system is its size. It's a tank or tank sized. And it is a single piece of expensive equipment that you probably don't have that many of. Those systems get killed fast if they trundle slowly around in the open. If you have drones doing the mine clearing (=placing the C4), then you have small & cheap pieces of equipment you can have lots of. And you have variable clearing depth as well. Let's assume such a drone system costs 10k (I'm talking about that plywood fixed wing thing). A mine clearing tank costs 5m (also a guess). You could have 500 drones for a price of one tank, and those drones could clear a 5 km(!) path through mines, even if every single one of them would be lost after one use. Of course, this is not the Wunderwaffe that fixes mines & breaching alone. But to think of the possibilities of what drones could do at an industrial scale is... interesting. Lots of current weapon systems are being made obsolete in a very short time. I'm not sure if that is with precedent. If I only knew any military historians, I could ask...

German UAV manufacturer Quantum-Systems is creating a separate R&D center in Ukraine and plans to hire specialists. I guess there is currently no better place to get that kind of experience. Clever move.

Hmm, laying MICLICs via drone sounds like a good idea. Problem is weight. Taking above figures and converting them into sensible units ( ) gives about 7.5 kg/m of C4. Let's say 10. The R18 drone carries 5kg. So two of them may carry 1-2 m of mine clearing. That is not much. Fixed wings might be better here. A few pages back we had that plywood AQ-400 drones that could carry 42kg over 750km. Let's just use these numbers. It's fair to assume a combo of one motored, and one glider drone could carry 100kg. That's 10+ m of MICLIC. So 10 of these replace one M58 system (and it is scalable in length in both directions). You don't need 5t of trailer or 15t of UR-77. Downsides are weather dependency, and it is harder to aim. But it is comparably cheap and reusable (apart from the C4...). Best thing is, that it is all available tech. Plywood RC planes and gliders plus C4. I bet there is already somebody trying this in some Ukrainian cellar.

There were questions about how to shield drones vs EMP. This can be achieved by putting the electronics of a drone into a Faraday cage. This cage must be built of conductive materials like aluminum or copper. The holes in the cage must be <10% of the wavelength you want to shield against. Let's assume 5 GHz and you are at 60 mm wavelength, so the holes should be less than 6 mm or smaller (if any). The thickness of the cage is not that important. 1mm alu sheet metal has saved people from lightning. But conductivity is. Gold foil would be best, but copper or alu will do. One problem is that you obviously don't want to put your antenna inside the cage, so that's a hole. The power supply for the motors will also create holes. And you need to make sure that you don't catch a spike through the antenna itself. This is doable with a bit of effort. I haven't seen anyone doing it for the cheapo quads I guess it is not worth it (yet). Military drones will have that and probably a lot more.

Oh, yes. 'Stationary mines' is probably the correct term.

This is the last war where mines play a significant role. Now that I have your attention, I'll explain why. Mines are detectable. Either visually or by radar (GPR - ground penetration radar). Visual AI is insanely good at visual pattern recognition. To cut it short: if a human can see it, AI will, too. And AI doesn't tire and can do this stuff as long as the batteries hold. Radar I'm not an EE, but this link was the first that came up after searching for 'gpr radar diy': https://gpradar.eu/onewebmedia/TU1208_GPRforeducationaluse_November2017_FerraraChizhPietrelli.pdf That is something any hobbyist can put together for <1000€ Put a camera and the GPR on a small tracked UGV. Add a dispenser for small shaped charges. Run it over the minefield and drop a charge on every mine found. Explode charge. Repeat. Sure, doesn't work on any terrain. Field of sunflowers - nope. But anything that is reasonably flat should be good. Sure, those things need cover. But they are small and of low height. Hard to hit. Anyone shooting at this will expose himself. Any precision you throw at it is most likely more expensive than the UGV. Unless you have an UGV that can take out these things. And if you have armed UGVs, then mines won't work anyway. And then no one will use mines.

(link to YT Starship Troopers is not quoted) Gee, thanks. Now I spend two hours of my life to watch it - again.

I'm disappointed by you all. All this talk about toilets and nobody posted this:

Isn't that a nice idea? Very helpful of the Russians. Krynky, Kherson region. Kontakt-1 on the engine compartment of the Russian tank

BILD is as reliable as a news source as Fox News. They may be right that the sky is blue, and the grass is green, but I would still double-check.

Short explanation why and how Orban did not block the start of the EU process for Ukraine: when the vote came, he left the room and the other 26 voted yes. So legally, everything is ok even though Orban didn't vote at all. However, he has ample opportunity to block this process further down the line. But given the glacial speeds this process runs, he may be out of office by then. IIRC next vote is in 3 years in Hungary. But there is another thing that has IMHO the biggest potential to delay Ukraine's EU membership: the EU will have to switch to a qualified majority vote for most of its process. Away from the unanimous vote style we have now. After the fun we had with Poland and have with Hungary, there won't be another two EEC countries joining the club while the rules are what they are now. That reform will take a looooong time. Even though today is a happy day for Ukraine in this respect, I predict heavy frustration in the coming years.

IFF systems for drones do not necessitate the drone to emit a constant signal. A base station would emit a coded & encrypted signal with a request for identification. The drone would check the signal if it is valid and only then respond with the proper reaction. So as long as you don't send the right signal, the drone is silent.