BletchleyGeek

The fact that several unupgraded T-72A's have already been spotted in the 2nd week with Russian markings! not belonging to DPR/LPR shows that Russia is lacking in armor to field.
Their operational high value assets are already in a poor state, I do not think much care was given to the tens of thousand rust buckets sitting in a snowy lot somewhere since 1991.
And once they manage to cannibalize a working tank unit out of those, who is going to drive them without full mobilisation?
Surely not the charred bony remains of what used to be semi trained troops.
 
And whoever posted the vice video about Kharkiv.. just tragic.
I saw a twitter video today of corpses in Mariupol being stacked in trucks and on the stairs and hallways of the morgue as the personel is unable to bury any bodies and the inventory is filled.
I wish Zelensky strengh in withstanding the Russian Terror doctrine to hold and keep the Russians engaged. A ceasefire / negotiations are not wise atm in my opinion.

Edit.. soory, quoted the wrong post.. should have been this one from @Probus
I know the Russians have small vehicle mounted jammers that could do this right now... however once used your location will be lit up like a Christmas tree for enemy EW teams to call fire on.  I think the lifespan of such units would be short and of dubious effectiveness overall.
Bil

UAVs in particular are tough to counter... do I think that the day of the MBT is over?  No, not from what I am seeing... do I think that it will have to evolve to survive?  Of course.. well maybe not the tank itself, but the way it's used tactically and supported, the TO&E of mechanized formations will need to evolve to include unmanned assets, both air and ground, and incorporate their suite of sensors and capabilities into the formation's TTP.
With potentially every squad having a quad-copter, and potentially every squad having loitering munitions too with Platoon HQs and Company HQs also having access to UAS and loitering munitions the proliferation is going to be very tough to counter without some EW means, such as jamming their GPS or command link.  There are indeed other lethal Counter-UAS (CUAS) systems in development, but I don't think anyone has an answer for the sheer numbers of UAVs we are talking about.  Any Electronic jamming defense will become very visible and easily targeted if used.. so it is a dead end answer I think... I can see some Suppress Enemy CUAS UAV missions and dummy loitering UAVs being used a s tactic to clear the way for lethal UAVs.  
Leave no doubt.. unmanned systems are game changing and are changing the face of war... existing systems like the MBT and IFV will probably not be going away anytime soon.. but they and the the organizations that use them will need to evolve.  Militaries better start planning for this now.
Bil 

Doctored explosions or not, these videos are showing far more than poor ammunition handling.  Up front one has to admit this could be isolated incidents but they track with a lot of other battlefield indicators we have been seeing pretty much since Day 1.
This shows a seriously lacking NCO corps, I can hear the rage of eons of Sgt Majors echoing across time.  It shows a lack of training and training standards.  It shows a serious lack of expertise.  It brings into question "what else is happening?".  In the second video, the one with a truck that is going to drive over those rounds scattered all over the ground, I immediately wonder when the last time it had a 1st line maintenance check?  If the crews are comfortable tossing live ammunition into a pile, what else have they neglected?
So back to the Capt's qualitative rants, it is incredibly hard to get troops to consistently and reliably get the basics right.  Particularly as combat systems have gotten more complex.  We drill it into them and then have to keep drilling it into them to do the essentials and basic combat skills to keep a very large and complex war machine in operation.  Then when one goes into a warzone or combat arena, you have to work harder as everyone starts to get distracted by stuff, like getting killed.  Weapons maintenance, vehicle maintenance, sanitation and hygiene, mental maintenance,  TTPs/Drills, SOPs, reports and communications are an entire set of skills that anyone in these situations needs to master before we give them specific training within their chosen trade.  We spend billions on this annually and it is the unsexy reality of 90% of the effort to create and sustain a modern military. 
It appears silly and "overdone" to most people but if you have lived the life it is essential.  Example, I had an SSM back in the day, who insisted that the troops empty their mags and stretch the loading springs out every week.  Lotta eye-rolling and grunts but it was pure genius.  First off, if you leave the rounds packed in a mag for 6-12 months, there is a chance the spring will compress and you might see misloads at the back end of the mags.  But the genius was it got the troops to actually pay attention to their weapon on a schedule by forcing them to go through the boring chore of loading and reloading their mags.  Further, the SSM insisted the troops adopt a 2-8-2-8-2-4-3 pattern of alternating tracer - ball (everyone had a proprietary system).  This engrained that pattern into the troops heads so that when they did get into a dust up they knew the tracer indicator counts by heart.
So when I read about how the Russians can muster "millions of troops" and smother the Ukrainians and I see videos like this, I immediately think "smother will millions of corpses more likely".  You cannot take a teenager and turn them into well trained and disciplined troops in 90 days anymore (I am not sure we ever could...thank you WW1 and WW2 mobilization myths).  You can however create uniformed and armed "dead men walking" where your best hope is that the Ukrainian Army will run out of ammo in the process of killing them.     

Ok just seen this and it made me smile.
 

the replacement of MBTs by UGVs is inevitable because the ability to do a straight swap is conceptually simple.  What to do about IFVs, on the other hand, is less clear.
I see infantry having to be dispersed, the future is likely the exoskeletons concepts that are coming for each man. The ability to make a soldier independent and mobile but able to carry added needed items, weather weaponry or protective armor. 
A unit of such soldiers would likely still need an armored unit to carry additional supplies, so not so much as a transport for them, more as a mobile support base for them when they are in the field.
The things of science fiction in the past are soon to become reality, for sure this is farther out than UGV's but change happens much quicker now than it once did, when the need arises. 
 
They already exist.  They might also exist in really good tactical wargames for professionals to figure out how to best utilize them.
I kind of figured that was what was happening, what a war game can do is provide a way to test out possible ways to see what might be the best method to use new weaponry at a low cost until they can do testing and purchasing of real items.
 
This is the next big deal in ground warfare.  Militaries speak of capabilities that have the ability to be "force multipliers".  Drones are whatever is better than a force multiplier.
For sure what we are seeing in the present conflict.
 
Thanks for sharing.
Just the view of one man, but one man who is seeing it first hand.
warfare is always been how to outsmart the enemy, been that way from the first time someone killed his enemy by sneaking up on him and clubbing him to death from his backside.
basic logic should tell you that, putting oneself in a slow moving, large target piece of equipment, that is noisy and hard to hide is not a way to outsmart your enemy in todays world. Unless tanks can be equipped with defenses that can defeat all weaponry that can be used against them, they are obsolete.
At least UGV's will provide safety to some extent to the crew or man that controls it, the equipment might not last long, but the person trained to use it will last hopefully longer and will be able to get a another replacement piece of equipment to replace it since it should be easier to increase the quantities of what can be supplied. 
 

Well, if people would just listen, the day of the tank as we presently know it is coming to an end.
Here is some statements from those that might have a little more insight than most of the rest of us
But there is still a need for what a tank does, what that will look like in the future will come down to what  man will design to compete on the battlefield of the future at a cost they can afford.
No question we will see, unmanned, lighter faster platforms that can bring a heavy punch to a area needing clearing.
Also, I expect that counter measures to drones and drone type warfare will change and be added to soon. It really should not be hard to develop systems for the task. Because just as important as winning the skies with air power has been, winning the skies with drone power could be just as important.  So ground troops will need light weapon systems that can get the job done as to removing such threats. Actually I think the US has some systems presently that can remove enemy drones from the battle. 
But no question, warfare will evolve from this conflict if we don't go too far and turn this into the last war we as mankind sees.
But what we call tanks in the future (20 - 30 years) will likely change as much as what a tanks from WW1 has changed from our present day  

Anyone posted this?  First if genuine this is really impressive open source work.  Second, holy crap.
 
 

This is the most awesome thing in the world. Prove me wrong.

Curious to see what H.I. Sutton/Covert Shores and Sub Brief have to say about this. They've been following the Black Sea fleet movements. I can't believe the Ukrainians got them. 

Remember when infantry became obsolete when the first caveman hit another with a rock?

Vulnerability doesn't make things obsolete guys, come on.

Actually, I have felt that CMBS game have shown how this two aspects could affect the modern day battlefield.
The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets.
I think CMBS has show that afv's are becoming tools of the past.
 
The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems.  
CMBS has reflected this in a small amount, but now seeing how it is affecting this war, the game is only giving a hint compared to the present power of drone warfare.
 
On the other hand no war game would have thought to model
The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment.
Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population.
 
And as Steve mentioned here, the game does help one understand how these factors affect the outcomes in battles.
And that in turn affects operational and  strategic decisions and outcomes.
 
I think there is way too many factors in war that are always present and unforeseen for war gaming to be a tool that can be used as a crystal ball as to what the future will bring.
But I do see it as a tool that can be used to practice concepts as to new uses of equipment and or tactics as to seeing if it would be a possible new method to employ and also as a tool to practice methods one is planning to use in the future.
So war games can help in planning and finding possible best methods in fighting conflicts. So there is a place for them , just not as lofty of a tool as some would hope for.

That was a great post.
Also, MultiVAC isn't going to happen... We were looking forward to Rosie the Robot and we got instead Roomba. Which is useful and saves us time and effort but if your dog makes a mess on the carpet be sure Roomba doesn't get close to it.
We have pretty good and steadily improving narrow AI: pick a task T under X conditions and we can come up with a program (by hand heuristically or via automatic optimisation with guarantees) that is very good at T. Change T to to a very similar yet different T', and X to X + d, d a small change, and the performance of the program will degrade. To design an effective AI program, as @TheVulture says, you need to "identify the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other".

The time-sink is in the preparation. Me? I'd create a pinpoint location for each target AND I'd add a correction grid as an overlay around each target. Once that's done, THEN I'd perform the shoot.
If the round misses, just note where on the correction overlay it landed, and you've got a near-instant correction to feed back to the firing element.
At least, that's my amateur opinion on how I'd do it...
I'm sure professional artillerists would find the above to be elementary and they alreadyhave a better system in place.  
 

Ah, now that I have recovered from busting a gut after that post re: Orville Peck secret identity....
Great stream of (mostly) curated picks from social media. My favourite today is this one by @Haiduk. I find remarkable how good UKR is at using conventional artillery as a stand in for eye wateringly expensive PGM. It looks to me that since UKR had to rebuild its military from scratch, had an opportunity to adopt new ideas and technologies dealing with little or no institutional inertia.
I wonder what the process is for those arty strikes, maybe something like this?
1. Drone controller has UAV loitering on suspected area of RF activity.
2. Controller spots location of RF assets, then registers the location by taking snapshots of target from several points and angles (see this for instance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926580518308641)
3. Photos, along with camera parameters and geo location info forwarded to fires coordination center. Firing solution calculated automatically and fire task assigned to friendly asset.
4. Fire task executed, drone controller reports damage assessment.
An iteration over the above wouldn't take very long at all, the most finicky part being that of maneuvering the UAV to take the measurements you need for registration.  And that could be automated too (the controller activates the "registration" behaviour and that's it).
The workflow above could be implemented with very few fancy equipment/algorithms, you just need good software and network engineers using pretty mundane hardware.
--------------
On another topic, I am glad to see tactical psychology being used... the most efficient way to defeat an adversary is to destroy its will to fight. So far UKR has been fighting smart, they just need to keep doing so!

You version is doctored, this is the original from the same comparison in
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_Flag_over_the_Reichstag

Land corridor to Kaliningrad has the strong whiff of something similar in 1939 on that same coastline which ended in tears.  Of course they are talking out of their @rses when they say it would be 'even easier than what's happened in Ukraine.'  Personally this is where I would like to see Poland focus its efforts rather than banging on about no-fly zones, peacemaking/peacekeeping forces and transferring Migs.  I doubt the Kaliningrad Oblast is self-sufficient so 'interruptions' to power plus anything else in transit would cause enough grief there for starters.  Then I would just saturate the place with messaging.  Stick huge screens up on the border and play footage of Russian casualties etc.

Ah, now that I have recovered from busting a gut after that post re: Orville Peck secret identity....
Great stream of (mostly) curated picks from social media. My favourite today is this one by @Haiduk. I find remarkable how good UKR is at using conventional artillery as a stand in for eye wateringly expensive PGM. It looks to me that since UKR had to rebuild its military from scratch, had an opportunity to adopt new ideas and technologies dealing with little or no institutional inertia.
I wonder what the process is for those arty strikes, maybe something like this?
1. Drone controller has UAV loitering on suspected area of RF activity.
2. Controller spots location of RF assets, then registers the location by taking snapshots of target from several points and angles (see this for instance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926580518308641)
3. Photos, along with camera parameters and geo location info forwarded to fires coordination center. Firing solution calculated automatically and fire task assigned to friendly asset.
4. Fire task executed, drone controller reports damage assessment.
An iteration over the above wouldn't take very long at all, the most finicky part being that of maneuvering the UAV to take the measurements you need for registration.  And that could be automated too (the controller activates the "registration" behaviour and that's it).
The workflow above could be implemented with very few fancy equipment/algorithms, you just need good software and network engineers using pretty mundane hardware.
--------------
On another topic, I am glad to see tactical psychology being used... the most efficient way to defeat an adversary is to destroy its will to fight. So far UKR has been fighting smart, they just need to keep doing so!

Ah, now that I have recovered from busting a gut after that post re: Orville Peck secret identity....
Great stream of (mostly) curated picks from social media. My favourite today is this one by @Haiduk. I find remarkable how good UKR is at using conventional artillery as a stand in for eye wateringly expensive PGM. It looks to me that since UKR had to rebuild its military from scratch, had an opportunity to adopt new ideas and technologies dealing with little or no institutional inertia.
I wonder what the process is for those arty strikes, maybe something like this?
1. Drone controller has UAV loitering on suspected area of RF activity.
2. Controller spots location of RF assets, then registers the location by taking snapshots of target from several points and angles (see this for instance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926580518308641)
3. Photos, along with camera parameters and geo location info forwarded to fires coordination center. Firing solution calculated automatically and fire task assigned to friendly asset.
4. Fire task executed, drone controller reports damage assessment.
An iteration over the above wouldn't take very long at all, the most finicky part being that of maneuvering the UAV to take the measurements you need for registration.  And that could be automated too (the controller activates the "registration" behaviour and that's it).
The workflow above could be implemented with very few fancy equipment/algorithms, you just need good software and network engineers using pretty mundane hardware.
--------------
On another topic, I am glad to see tactical psychology being used... the most efficient way to defeat an adversary is to destroy its will to fight. So far UKR has been fighting smart, they just need to keep doing so!

Ah, now that I have recovered from busting a gut after that post re: Orville Peck secret identity....
Great stream of (mostly) curated picks from social media. My favourite today is this one by @Haiduk. I find remarkable how good UKR is at using conventional artillery as a stand in for eye wateringly expensive PGM. It looks to me that since UKR had to rebuild its military from scratch, had an opportunity to adopt new ideas and technologies dealing with little or no institutional inertia.
I wonder what the process is for those arty strikes, maybe something like this?
1. Drone controller has UAV loitering on suspected area of RF activity.
2. Controller spots location of RF assets, then registers the location by taking snapshots of target from several points and angles (see this for instance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926580518308641)
3. Photos, along with camera parameters and geo location info forwarded to fires coordination center. Firing solution calculated automatically and fire task assigned to friendly asset.
4. Fire task executed, drone controller reports damage assessment.
An iteration over the above wouldn't take very long at all, the most finicky part being that of maneuvering the UAV to take the measurements you need for registration.  And that could be automated too (the controller activates the "registration" behaviour and that's it).
The workflow above could be implemented with very few fancy equipment/algorithms, you just need good software and network engineers using pretty mundane hardware.
--------------
On another topic, I am glad to see tactical psychology being used... the most efficient way to defeat an adversary is to destroy its will to fight. So far UKR has been fighting smart, they just need to keep doing so!

Ah, now that I have recovered from busting a gut after that post re: Orville Peck secret identity....
Great stream of (mostly) curated picks from social media. My favourite today is this one by @Haiduk. I find remarkable how good UKR is at using conventional artillery as a stand in for eye wateringly expensive PGM. It looks to me that since UKR had to rebuild its military from scratch, had an opportunity to adopt new ideas and technologies dealing with little or no institutional inertia.
I wonder what the process is for those arty strikes, maybe something like this?
1. Drone controller has UAV loitering on suspected area of RF activity.
2. Controller spots location of RF assets, then registers the location by taking snapshots of target from several points and angles (see this for instance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926580518308641)
3. Photos, along with camera parameters and geo location info forwarded to fires coordination center. Firing solution calculated automatically and fire task assigned to friendly asset.
4. Fire task executed, drone controller reports damage assessment.
An iteration over the above wouldn't take very long at all, the most finicky part being that of maneuvering the UAV to take the measurements you need for registration.  And that could be automated too (the controller activates the "registration" behaviour and that's it).
The workflow above could be implemented with very few fancy equipment/algorithms, you just need good software and network engineers using pretty mundane hardware.
--------------
On another topic, I am glad to see tactical psychology being used... the most efficient way to defeat an adversary is to destroy its will to fight. So far UKR has been fighting smart, they just need to keep doing so!

As Laozi famously wrote:
 

To throw some cold water on some of the posts going around here:
 
Regarding this conversation, I think @Lethaface is right about the announcement taking the wind out of the West's sails, so to speak. But I think its also worth it to keep in mind the importance of maintaining public support for all this. West, and especially Europe/Germany, is really going out on a political limb with all this. Pushing policy in ways that was unthinkable 3mos ago. These policies are, of course, very popular currently (a popularity itself conditioned by the promise re boots) but intervention remains unpopular. Even recent polling  bears out the split between gear+sanctions and boots:
Getting in front of the WWIII narrative was, IMO, key in stabilizing western opinion in regards to responding to Russian aggression. It shut down, somewhat, the possibility of kinetic escalation and the threat thereof at the top end. But the overwhelming support for Ukraine has almost certainly opened up more possibilities at the mid- and low-end of escalation and response. The US has already spent, what, $1.5b by itself on the war? And as others have pointed out, the US can always go back on their policy if Russia escalates to WMDs. Even if this were to happen, domestically NATO countries could accurately portray themselves as 'reluctant warriors' who tried as hard as was reasonable to stay out. And of course it would have the benefit of being true.
2003 hangs as a sword of Damocles (or of Baghdad?) over the heads of western leaders. 

Its a science, if you forgive the pun, in itself.  Blood agent, nerve agent, choking agent, incapacitating agent, persistent agent, non-persistent agent are just a few variables for starters.  Generally you need mass, so MBRLs in battalion handfuls should be the preferred method of delivery.  Then of course there is the weather factor - wind direction, wind speed, temperature and humidity.
In terms of effect, it is going to depend on whether the folks on the receiving end have equipment to protect themselves against it and, where applicable, have taken drugs to ameliorate the effects of certain agents, and have the means to decontaminate.
They generally work on the basis of being a terror weapon so there is potentially a huge psychological effect but also as just a means of causing casualties that the medical chain has to deal with.  Combine that with AFVs operating closed down and just the rigid PITA of performing basic tasks with a bulky suit on, your view of the world being restricted to two pieces of glass, your ears covered by the suit hood and wearing two pairs of gloves.  Shooting, which I learned was a vaguely important soldiering skill during my time in two armies, in NBC kit is an art in itself.  Now try and write on a log sheet, type on a computer, twiddle the dial on your radio or even speak, listen and be understood/understand on the radio with those gloves and that mask on.

Have to disagree with you there Steve, they don't have our secret weapon:
Rooaaawwr!!  Get those engines running ladies....