poesel

Real life is very different from what you read in social media. Those things you mentioned do exist, but they are few and far between. It is blown out of proportion by the media. Take it with a grain of salt and don't fall for the propaganda. Live in general changes very little and very slow.

Real life is very different from what you read in social media. Those things you mentioned do exist, but they are few and far between. It is blown out of proportion by the media. Take it with a grain of salt and don't fall for the propaganda. Live in general changes very little and very slow.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-thanks-germany-new-patriot-system-critical-time-2024-04-13/
 
Germany will transfer a Patriot battery and additional missiles to Ukraine "immediately" (so, soonish).

IEA Warns Attacks on Russia Plants May Disrupt Diesel Market
The flurry of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s oil refineries risks disrupting global markets for petroleum products, the International Energy Agency said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-12/iea-warns-attacks-on-russia-refineries-may-disrupt-diesel-market
Really? We are deeply concerned. 
Alas, today's night UKR drones couldn't reach Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Rostov oblast - local authorities claimed four drones were shot down/supressed. One fell down on territory of refinery, but didn't cause any significant damage

One thing that is sort of a fuzzy point of contention in robot-world is automated vs. autonomous.  
Something that operates on its own deterministically based on on predetermined responses to inputs and outputs is usually automated/automatic, rather than autonomous.  Even if they have a ton of conditionals (if this changes, do that thing) and closed loop control around setpoints they're usually considered "automated" but not "autonomous".  Factory machines do this.  Aircraft autopilots do this.  Once they get outside their programmed range they stop and wait or throw an error and ask for help.  
Autonomous is generally where you let the system loose in an environment where it doesn't necessarily have prior information about and let it sort out how to act.  Usually for autonomous systems you're giving fuzzier instructions and they wing it when they get outside their training.  Graduate students are like this, at least after their second year or so. Javelins might be on the borderline for this.  They're certainly automatic once you pull the trigger.  They may have some agency in how they get from trigger to bang.

I guess the economics for supplying and carrying an extra sensor package just for the last 20m are not there. Especially since radar works in that range, too.
Ultrasonic is only good if you need to detect stuff that radar doesn't bounce off - like a fly. So unless drones become THAT stealthy, sound is off the table.
 
Wrt to swarm communications: the swarm could communicate in ways that are designed to be low range. Like weak IR for example. No physical chance to pick that up from distance.
With mesh networks, the swarm can also be quite large if its density is high enough to relay the communication.
All doable - only question is when we will see it.

I guess the economics for supplying and carrying an extra sensor package just for the last 20m are not there. Especially since radar works in that range, too.
Ultrasonic is only good if you need to detect stuff that radar doesn't bounce off - like a fly. So unless drones become THAT stealthy, sound is off the table.
 
Wrt to swarm communications: the swarm could communicate in ways that are designed to be low range. Like weak IR for example. No physical chance to pick that up from distance.
With mesh networks, the swarm can also be quite large if its density is high enough to relay the communication.
All doable - only question is when we will see it.

Not enough precision at range. Also, comparatively slow (speed of sound vs speed of light) against anything electromagnetic.
I put my money on radar for counter drone. IIRC the Serbs managed to detect F-117s by analyzing bounced mobile signals in the 90s. Now, drone are slightly smaller than F-117s, but then this is 30 years ago and signal processing has made huge leaps.
I wouldn't be surprised if we would see automatic counter drones this year. The pressure to have them is high as never, and the technology is there (in principle).

The French have a version of it ('Bonus') that uses wings instead of a parachute. But the motion is the same: the ammunition is doing a spiral motion to scan for targets. The area covered is a circle with around 150m radius (that's about 70.000 m^2 or 760.000 ft^2 so slightly more than 'a few tens of meters').
The spiraling motion points it towards many points in that area, and that covers scanning and aiming in one go. Trying to replace that with something that can fly, fit inside a 155mm tube and survive the delivery was hard in '89 and still is today. Even if it were feasible I doubt it would be economical.

So what do you need to counter drones? A weapon, radar and some computer?
We've seen Gepards but also dudes with machine guns being reasonably effective against Shaheeds and stuff, and while FPVs are much smaller targets, I wonder why has nobody built some anti-drone system which could be just machine gun connected to some servos and a computer and a radar. Like C-RAM but scaled from enormous gun to ... maybe even a rifle.
Then you could plop it somewhere and have it work. For bonus points, put it on UGV and drive it around. We've already seen UGV with a machine gun, so it's just missing a radar.
I guess that would still cost more than a drone and you could swarm it with many drones, but it's far better in cost effectiveness to using a traditional air defense system or nothing.
As for hunter / counter drones, that is tricky - I don't know if the drone cameras are good enough to see other drones at a good distance. If not, then the counter drone would also need a radar and enough intelligence to recognize other drones from radar signature, and that's probably more expensive than normal drone.

As I see it, UAVs reign as a potential Uber weapon will most likely be short lived. On a macro historical level, I suspect we are in 1915 when the Germans deployed a new Uber weapon and the Allies were panicking:
Fokker Scourge - Wikipedia
UAVs are just a new type of aerial weapon and as we have seen over the past 100 years, there has been a constant back and forth between offensive and defensive weapon systems.
Most likely the same general types of defensive systems are being developed:
1. ground based AA defenses: radar/guns/missile/EW to detect and shoot down UAVs before they can reach their targets;
2. air based defenses: fighters/ hunter-killer drones to hunt UAVs in the air and shoot them down.
Most likely within the next 5-10 years, we will have reached the same equilibrium we currently see in traditional aerial warfare.

Not exactly - the steel alloy used (high carbon and brittle) is chosen so as to create fragments which themselves contribute to the effectiveness of the weapon.
Artillery worked quite well before drones were a thing
 
Look, drones are great. The have capabilities that emulate or exceed other similar kinds of effects delivery systems. But drones also have limitations, and capabilites that are inferior to other similar kinds of effects delivery systems. And they most definitely aren't some magical uber weapon which has suddenly made all other military capabilities obsolete.

That one I am not so sure of. Setting aside the darkness surrounding a full Russian state collapse, that you have appropriately pointed out, it seems to me that China is actually the one in a position to benefit from that. At least in their near border area they are in a place that the could take over (directly or by proxy) and stabilize huge portions of the country to their exclusive benefit.
Then considering the darkness that may result form a full state collapse China is also the one least effected by those concerns. They have far better and more ruthless control over what nerdowells get up to inside their country and given they could likely stabilize a large portion of the country for their benefit they might skate on the downside of a state wide collapse.

Interesting post from Russian telegrammer:
https://t.me/rogozin_do/5657
 
 

"Magyar" claims his unit, using EW system, managed to supress and land Russian "Lancet"
 

Karma is working. Because of ruining of the dam, Orsk city in Orengurg oblast (on the border with Kazakhstan) is flooded. Local refinery with 6,6 mln.tons year output is halted. The water is coming to Orenburg city. Local authorities thinhking about partial evacuation of citizens. 

The story with Tsar-EW-tank got a continue.
After Russian attack was repelled, additional recon showed that this tank hadn't critical damages and can be moved to our positions as valuable source, because almost all Russian portable anti-drone EW assets were mounted which just were possible. It's turned out our FPV damaged only targeting system, then a tank tracks stuck in barbed wire with attached AT-mines, tank lost control, crashed into disabled BMP and stopped - the crew abandoned tank. 
During several nights two "Azov" tankers have been providing reparing works. They unlocked driver's hatch, because a gun was directly under it, then they changed a 70 kg battery, which brought from own positions - this work should be done by three men, but they did it together. Then they unraveled and cut the wire on the tracks and removed a mine under the tank. All this in the nights and not in calm situation - one night Russians tried to recapture tank, sending a group on the bikes (!!!), but it was eliminated. 
After all "Azov" tankers turned on engine and drove to own positions in Terny. But on the route the tank in the darkness fell into bomb crater, the driver hit head and lost consciousness. Fortunately he came to senses soon and could drive out the crater. Tank arrived to Terny, where the crew already awaited Serhiy "Flash" - admin of FB/TG channel about EW and communication systems. On the photo below he already researhes trophy equipmnent
    
 

This is something I am really interested to see and have been thinking about a lot.
I think the strategic level games will remain fairly similar, although the fun challenge remains. For instance something like Afghanistan '11 incorporated a hearts and minds mechanic, but we now know how successful that wasn't in reality. If we see "Ukraine '24" as a proxy war between Russia and "the west", then the strategic-level elements are going to need to be even more macro, with additional "undermining democracy and eroding support" mechanics that target people in a whole nother hemisphere. This might make for a good grand strategy game but it feels a little depressing as a wargame, because it's a random factor whose outcome can't be linked to the decisions the player is making as a general in the theater.
On the tactical level you could argue that real-world technology is finally catching up to what gamers have been privilege to since the beginning - a magical eye-in-the-sky view of the battlefield, a perfect memory of every unit that allowed themselves to be seen, an ability to target specific "squares" with indirect fire even when there isn't a spotter on the ground... But right now with the relatively static front lines it seems like there isn't really any "fun" stuff to sim. Even if it was a drone-based sim, having a scenario where your start and end positions are exactly the same but one side just lost a bit less hardware than the other doesn't really feel like a win, regardless of what impact it might have in the longer arc of the war.
Perhaps a more interesting tactical level sim at the current level of drone warfare would be deep strike ops. Something structured like Phantom Doctrine but with drones sinking ships or bombing oil refineries instead of human spies infiltrating buildings. I guess it's easier to come up with a game-like structure when there is a clear success condition. We might have to wait till the end of this war to understand what that could look like in a CM-style infantry/ground tactics sim.

I guess this is the AI part: an optical system that can track the tank with a camera. Probably the operator needs to point out the target once and then it is autonomous. No amount of EW can defeat that (unless you can fry the drone with microwaves).

I guess this is the AI part: an optical system that can track the tank with a camera. Probably the operator needs to point out the target once and then it is autonomous. No amount of EW can defeat that (unless you can fry the drone with microwaves).

I guess this is the AI part: an optical system that can track the tank with a camera. Probably the operator needs to point out the target once and then it is autonomous. No amount of EW can defeat that (unless you can fry the drone with microwaves).

According to Anrew Perpetua analysys, Russia in March lost record number of BMPs for last 17 months - 262 (though absolute record 565 BMPs for March 2022 still unbeaten). Also for 1st of April Russia lost a record number of BMPs in one day - 34
  

During today's press-conference with president of FInland Alexader Stubb, Vladimir Zelenskiy criticized those who condemn Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory and Russian refineries. 

"I guess in order to understrand how to survive in Kharkiv, how people live without electricity and water, some people probably have to visit here, look on this and then something condemn or not. Russia doesn't understand anything, except the force. And all these condemns of Russia for their occupation of our territories, strikes on our power system, blackoutsm which we survived during these two years... All these condemns didn't cause reducing of Russian attacks. This proves that these people [Russians] understand only when there is a strong response. Because of this I believe western partners must support Ukrainian responses"
Finnish president suported possibility of western troops presence in Ukraine
But on other hand president of France on own recent meeting with president of USA and cancellor of Germany couldn't convince both to change their mind concerning sending troops to Ukraine - Antony Blinken made a statemnet USA will not support this idea, because it can cause escalation of conflict and involving of NATO in this war.   
 In Ukrianian society the word "escalation managment" already is becominmg a meme...

Most of what is labeled AI today is pattern recognition of some sorts. So a cruise missile that can orient itself by looking down and compare that to a map is AI driven.
As soon as you can chat with a missile, bad things happen.