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Hapless

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Everything posted by Hapless

  1. As usual, I'm suddenly finding I accomplished something entirely by accident and feel a culturally ingrained need to apologise... But hey-ho, back to work.
  2. Those side-by-side thermal and non-augmented shots really show off how important thermals are
  3. Armour would be nice, but I think the potential for assisted movement is more important. Giving a platoon of infantrymen the ability to run several km at speed without fatigue... that's a gamechanger at the pointy end.
  4. If we're looking at a battlespace where high signature vehicles are prohibitively vulnerable and low signature infantry is simultaenously survivable and lethal (via calling for precision fires), maybe the way forward is less to try and proof AFVs and more to boost infantry mobility and load carrying ability. Or, in short: Heinlein probably nailed it.
  5. Apparently: His replacement is apparently going to be Teplinksy. Didn't Teplinsky end up as the Russian's 2iC in Ukraine or something? If so, looks like they're starting to worry about the Kherson front.
  6. Well, there was this gem from the Cold War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K17_Szhatie#/media/File:Self-propelled_laser_system_1K17_Szhatie.jpg
  7. I'm not convinced by the footage, but I'm not a truck expert so: Also, re: small warheads vs naval vessels... an Argentinian corvette strayed too close to the Royal Marine garrison on South Georgia back in 82: "Opening fire on the ship, the Royal Marines riddled the bridge with gunfire and killed a sailor trying to get the 40 mm back into action. They also hit the vessel with a LAW and two Carl Gustav rounds for good measure, inflicting more damage and knocking out the ships Exocet anti-ship missiles."
  8. Something I can't believe I never thought of before: distant low flying aircraft can be engaged by MANPADS at a shallow angle... for example, out a window. Maybe best finding a much bigger room to absorb that backblast though.
  9. If every fire team has a grenade launcher... maybe it's time 40mm buckshot made a comeback for anti-drone use.
  10. Another interesting one: Raises some questions to me: Have people started painting the top side of drones yet? That Zala was ridiculously easy to spot and would have been less so even if the topside was just matt green or something. Are drones so expendable it's not worth it? Is the EW capability there to allow the use of friendly drones but jam the enemy? Does the profusion of COTS drones on both sides prohibit that because they all share similar frequencies? How easy are drones to operate? How easy should drones be to operate? Assuming the operator/team was destroyed in that shack, how easy are they to replace? Are they specialists that need specific training, or can you grab anyone who played a modern games console? Or... does someone in the Russian army consider a drone, operator and team eating a precision munition an attritional win for them? Either way... someone should probably explain that counterbattery rules apply to them too. I can remember plenty of videos of Ukrainian drone operators being very careful about retrieving their drones. It would be interesting to find out how the Ukrainian drone was in the right place at the right time to pick them up. It could be sheer chance, but did they chase the Zala? Intercept it after getting information it was heading in x direction? Were they lurking in anticpation based on SIGINT?
  11. Because a unitary HE munition hitting in the same place would have missed.
  12. Now this is a solid demonstrator for the advantages of cluster munitions over conventional.
  13. Maybe they see parallels between their invasion and this: Sorry, couldn't resist. To update after seeing more: the parallels are lot more ****ing digsuting than this.
  14. Drone operator video, looks like they have some kind of HQ element in the trench with them. Multiple parts.
  15. An interesting interview with Ukrainian tankers: What stands out is the use of tank-as-artillery. The Ukrainians are engaging targets 7-8km out, enabled by drone spotters. The Russians use tanks as static emplacements- when they need to fire, the gunner runs to the tank, jumps in, fires on assigned coordinates, then bails out and runs back. The tank stays where it is.
  16. Ukraine hitting the nail on the head again:
  17. I first mentioned this concept way back in the thread, but I think we can expand it right down to the tactical for drone warfare: Forces survive under counter-drone snowdomes enabled by EW and air defence assets. Under a friendly snowdome, forces fight with drone supremacy (re. artillery direction, strike, logistics etc). Fighting under an enemy snowdome, in the face of enemy drone supremacy, is suicidal. The result is stalemate. However, snowdomes are not impermeable. Gaps and weaknesses exist due to the effects of terrain, the performance of human operators and the availability and technical characteristics of EW-AD equipment. An attacker can penetrate snowdomes by exploiting these gaps and weaknesses, then widen them by neutralising EW-AD assets. If an attacker suceeds in compromising a snowdome, it collapses. In this case, there is a race between attacker and defender to maximise damage and re-establish the snowdome, respectively. If the defender is successful, the attack takes on the characteristics of a raid with attacking forces maximising damage before getting caught under the re-established snowdome and being destroyed or forced to evacuate. If the attacker is successful, the defending forces are destroyed or forced to evacuate, and the attacker can extend their snowdome coverage into the new area. Rinse and repeat, bite and hold with drones. Right now, I'd go out on and limb argue that an early interation of this is going on in Ukraine. Drones aren't available in the mass needed to really flood and sanitise compromised areas. Instead, they act as enablers for artillery with some limited strike capability (ie. nade dropping and kamikazes). So while snowdomes spring up, collapse and flicker on and off along the front, the exploitation element either isn't there to take advantage or is slowly grinding it's way through villages and minefields. Give it a few years, we'll get there. In the meantime, I think it's a good lens to look through. And there's probably some air force types looking at it saying "Welcome to our world!"
  18. An interesting one: anti kamikaze drone measures? ... that apparently don't work very well.
  19. One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet: Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive. That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world. Stuff like that.
  20. Re: the sub images: I love how someone went to all the trouble of pixelating the background.
  21. @BFCElvis Thanks very much ! Though to fair, I just recorded the footage, someone else cut it down to size and stitched it back together for the trailer. @dkchapuis Here you go, this is the start of the CM chunk of the live event: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1923663906?t=00h48m50s
  22. It's gonna happen one day. I can't see KA-52s being close to the front, especially behaving so apparently nonchalantly, so this is a really good illustration of just how deep drones are getting.
  23. Obviously Zelensky is getting a bit tired of people asking him how much of Ukraine he's willing to give up:
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