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holoween

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Posts posted by holoween

  1. 9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    My point is that I'm surprised how much damage the Lancet can do to a Leo.  I'm not looking forward to seeing Abrams hit by Lancets, but I certainly am curious about how it compares.

    Steve

    https://below-the-turret-ring.blogspot.com/2015/06/cold-war-mbt-turret-designs.html

    Possibly somewhat better given they have thicker armour along the entire length of the turret.

    The lancets seem to be very deliberately aimed at the rear torret sides on the leo2.

  2. 6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

    It is surprising to me that the Lancet is able to bust open a Leo 2 as easily as they seem to be able to do.  The drone is effectively a relatively small, low velocity HEAT round.  A standard NATO 120mm HEAT round has roughly 2x as much mass as the Lancet-3 (which I presume these recent hits are) and has a major kinetic aspect that no drone can duplicate.  Yet consistently when they hit Leo 2s they take them out, unlike when they hit something with ERA (like the Bradley we just saw).

    Steve

    The most obvious thing to note for me is that with the exception of the one with the blown out blowout panel all seem to have been abandoned in good order and are just being finished off with the lancets.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/15h9rt2/german_leopard_2a6_tank_taken_out_by_the_lancet/

    Left track is blown with two armour panels missing so probably a minestrike.

    But the turret is turned slightly left to allow the driver to easily get out of the tank, the turret mg is missing and the hatchets are closed.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/DestroyedTanks/comments/14601r1/leopard_2a6_abandoned_and_struck_by_lancet_drone/

    Here a single armour panel is missing this time on the right side and while the track isnt obviously down it seems like its a mine hit just like the tank before.

    Again the turret is slightly left, mg is missing and hatches are closed.

    The both also didnt use their smoke launchers so its unlikely they had to abandon the tanks under direct fire.

    It is however also hard to tell how much damage exactly the lancets did. on each hit there are two distinct smoke clouds. One brown one from the lancets explosives and a white one from the smokelaunchers but the videos cout out before the smike dissipates so its unknown if they did much more than blow the smokelaunchers off.

    https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1687504028773519361

    This one is different because they dont have the turret to the left and the commanders hatch is still open. Its basically impossible to tell hat exactly happened to it but id argue it certainly was abandoned before the ammo storage was hit.

    The blowout panel also worked as intended as id expect the loaders hatch to be blown open aswell. I suspect there was also more than the one obvious hit on this side. The NBC systems hatch is blown open and clearly ben broken in half and a 2cm strong armured steel panel doesnt just break. The left fueltank has also ben blown open.

     

     

     

  3. 9 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

    Leopard 2A6 being hit by Lancet- according to Wolski, white cloud means fire suppression systems started working, which means that explosion reached crew commpartment, later corroborated by black smoke.

    Generally in last month Russians ramped up their drone warfare very visibly, both in quality and quantity. Lancet attacks are conducted deeper within UA-controlled territory and are more precise. Muscovite superiority in EW warfare also started to kick in, according to several military observers here- Ukrainians lack modern jamming systems and AA sets in numbers necessary to counter it. Yesterday new videos of UA SP artillery being destroyed during ammo loading and additional tanks also surfaced.

     

    That white smoke is the smoke launcher being hit. The A6 doesnt have a fire supression system in the crew compartment.

    The hit also apears to have hit the electronics room if anything so not even technically in the crew compartment.

    The dark smoke also seems to come from the electronics or the storage boxes.

    So even assuming this hit breached the armour this is at worst a repair job with unharmed crew.

  4. 6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    So this right here is where I argue that western militaries should have seen this coming.  Perhaps it is unfair and overly hindsight driven but the fundamental issue was the massing of fires was no longer with the riflemen.  It was with artillery and machine guns.

    Quote

    5. When once the firing line comes under effective fire its further advance will be assisted chiefly by the covering fire of artillery, machine guns, and special detachments of infantry detailed for the purpose, and every advantage of this covering fire must be taken by all attacking troops to gain ground.

    P 143 of the british infantry manual

    Tbh the more i read of it the more it seems like they got most things correct in concept but not the specifics on how that would look.

     

  5. As scary as selfmoving mines sound they really arent a competition to normal mines.

    A basic at mine takes a plastic casing, 3-5kg of explosives and a pressure plate to disable or destroy any vehicle that drives over it.

    it costs practically nothing to produce, can be produced by the billions, easily laid mechanically, are practically undetectable and will last until something detonates it.

    A selfmoving at mine needs the same basics but has to add a way to move, sensors to find its targets, a guiding system, energy storage and radios if it wants to selforganize with other mines. 

    All those things are fairly expensive and relatively difficult to build. They will also be quite large and cannot be hidden in the ground. their batteries will run dry and if they communicate you can find the entire minefield with an ew vehicle.

  6. On 5/17/2023 at 8:10 PM, Butschi said:

    But rarely and only in specific circumstances, I seem to remember. So that doesn't really count, I think. I mean, in reality these things happen in broad daylight.

    ☝️

    To give a rl example of an incident that happened early this year in a simulator exercise.

    a company of l2a6 is defending. the far left platoon starts getting targets at 3500m and engages. suddenly one tank turns its turret and puts five rounds into a tank of the center platoon only barely being stopped before also shooting the company commanders tank.

    The tc had seen a thermal signature and immediately brought the gun over without checking what he was looking at and the gunner didnt realize he was looking at a leo2 and fired even though he knew there were friendlies there, the tank was pointing and engaging in the wrong direction, only 1000m away and was in the open easily identifiable.

    If this happened to anyone in cm theyd riot yet it happened irl.

    So while cm has issues with the spotting model rl can be much weirder.

  7. 3 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

    I did not say "cause".

    Politicians, fears, nationalism, idealism and even economics and a lot of other reasons cause armsraces, yes. But buying/producing more weapons usually urges the "other side" to do the same, and then someone, somewhere, somehow sees or fears that there will be a disadvantageous imbalance, and decides "to strike now, before it is too late".

    Chicken and egg conundrum, probably.   

    sorry i misunderstood your point.

  8.  

    5 hours ago, MikeyD said:

    The black areas on PzH 2000 turret above appears to be anti-cluster munitions matting, sheets with long rubber spikes on it. I imagine a submunition hitting the soft mat would cushion the impact to the point where the fuse is not triggered. At least that's how I imagine how it works. 

    fff.jpg

    AFAIK the rubber spikes disrupt the shaped charges jet and allows the underlying armour to absorb the hit.

  9. 8 hours ago, dan/california said:

    I have this vision of several trainees digging latrines for an entire division. At least if they are driving them hard enough to break one they are really training.

    With all im hearing from the training in germany it less them training hard rather than incompetence and lack of care.

  10. 47 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

    Information as the New Mass.  This was in context of how Ukraine appears to be violating the rules when it comes to conventional military mass.  They are consistently a much smaller force (mass wise) on both offence and defence, yet they are succeeding.  How?

    Isnt this already sufficiently explained by troop quality?

    47 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

     

    I dont think youre wrong in looking at a militaries ability to generate, interprete and act upon information. Fully linked battle management systems are probably the cleareat case showing it matter.

    But if your 10 guys can simply outshoot their 20 you just have more raw combat power.

  11. 8 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

    The reports from Bakhmut not looking too bright, but at the same time several thinktanks/etc have been expecting for a while that Ukraine might not be able to hold on to Bakhmut. 

    I was thinking whether it could be that Ukraine is setting up a trap? As in UKR actually retreats from Bakhmut and let it looks like a chaotic mess / rout and lure in the Russians to overextend themselves. 

    Then close the jaws and strike at both flanks in the rear, trapping the advancing forces and cutting them off. 

    Now this is very speculative and perhaps much too rosy, but I'm sure Ukraine is planning something and probably they won't try the exact same trick they tried with Charkiv/Kerhson. I mean even the Russians won't fall for that one again, right? But they might fall for other traps.

    If we were to give credit to the russian army they might have planned their offensive to end with the spring mud to inhibit ukrainian counteroffensives.

  12. 44 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

     But most importantly, France and Germany are treating their eastern neighbours as colonies and are never going to be willing to protect them.

    That is also why idea of "EU army" some people are talking is ridiculous, when Germans would be fine with having Russian border near Dresden and shrug at millions of murdered and enslaved people, as long as the gas keeps flowing and the French care more about "not humiliating Putin" than Russian war crimes.

    Im sorry what?

    What exactly gave you that idea? Germany being unwilling to defend eastern europe doesnt mesh with the fact there are literally german troops in Lituania to defend them.

    And germany stopped their gas imports from russia 100% while poland is still buying oil from them.

  13. 1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

     

     

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    The original point being made was that if one employs cyber effects in support of a kinetic strike against illegal targets (eg an apartment building) then those cyber activities are also implicated in a legal sense.

    That is an incredibly problematic Position though.

    IT Turns legal actions Info illegal ones via circumstances outside of the controll of whoever comitted the action.

  14. 30 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

    It can be, and that's enough for most of the world to make sure Iran's enrichment does not produce weapons grade purity. The vast amount of Iran's electric power comes from fossil fuel. I doubt the Mullahs have gone green all of a sudden.  

    Every simgle civilian can be conscripted into an army so therefore its ok to kill civilians.

    That is the "it can be" argument at its final form. Everyone agrees its an aweful idea so therefore where is the line.

  15. 2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    No, because it wasn't targeted at civilian infrastructure.

    Ok so uranuim enrichment is now a military installation?
    Just wondering about the actual distinction you want to make because once you open up from only uniformed soldiers being military targets you quickly run into a slippery slope where eventually your oponents population is a military target because they could contribute to a war effort.

  16. On 1/18/2023 at 4:47 PM, The_Capt said:

    Ok, let's really get into this because I am seeing the fundamental flaw coming out of the "everything is just fine" camp.  The argument, largely coming out of professional military armored circles or those who really love tanks, is pretty much the same.  It posits that:

    - Both sides in Ukraine are "doing it wrong".

    - "Russia sux"

    - "If they all fought like we do, it would all be over by now."   Meaning the conventional combined arms doctrine in context of some form of manoeuvre warfare and AirlLand battle.

    - "APS will save us!"

     The UA, who have demonstrated an amazing ability to learn on this battlefield and in many way are ahead of any western doctrine are "doing it wrong."  I propose that they are doing it exactly right for wherever warfare is heading and the fact that they are winning is clear evidence. 

    Do you like arguing strawmen or do you simply not read what i write?

    To requote myself

    On 1/18/2023 at 12:30 AM, holoween said:

    If AFVs were truely obsolete Ukraine wouldnt ask for hundreds of tanks and ifvs to enable them to attack.

     

    To clarify my overall position. I think this war is the best study case for a peer war in the near future and wed be well served carefully analyzing it and taking its lessons to heart.

     

    And in regards to AFVs there are 2 overarching lessons learned

    1. AFVs are vulnerable

    2. AFVs are essential for offensive operations

    The first lesson learned really doesnt need further explaination just look at the losses

    The second one aparently does need so lets deal with that.

     

    The core issue starts at another lesson this war reemphasises namely determined infantry cannot be shot off an objective with firepower alone. You can cause casualties but you still need to clear it with your own infantry. This point i dont think i need to elaborate on.

    The next iussue is that infantry has difficulty gettin onto an objective using its own firepower and artillery only slightly changes that. This difficulty increases and decreasess with force density. Just compare the charkiv to the kherson offensive. Or if you want to experience it yourself atka a random cm map and fight a series of attacks starting at tiny size and eventually going to huge.

    What tanks do is provide the firepower to get infantry onto an objective. They also provide supression via the threat of applying their firepower but thats a secondary effect they share with several other weapons systems. Their morale effect obviously decreases with at weapons available for the oponent but if they dont have any that can on its own win the fight.

    This is the core reason why tanks exist now for over 100 years and are quite likely to continue existing for quite some time. Id love to see your argument for how this is weird twisted logic and what your suggested replacement is and please tell ukraine aswell because right now theyre still asking for tanks.

     

    Im not going in detail over the rest of the post because it basically boils down to whatever you can think of to kill the tank it usually kills infantry easier and at greater rate, AFVs evolve with the threats, Soldiers dont.

     

  17. 7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

    First, let's identify and rank the most important systems and why:

    1. ISR (in particular small drones) - if you have this, everything else becomes easier and more effective.  Even if your guys are all buck naked and without weapons, at the very least you can keep them alive by directing them away from the enemy and pass on information that might make the next unit have better luck.
    2. Coms - if you aren't able to quickly and efficiently pass information around outside of your immediate positions, then you're not going to be very effective.  You also won't be able to take advantage of most anything else in this list.
    3. PGMs on call - one drone team with a radio can ruin just about any plan the enemy might have.  Period.  Doesn't matter what delivers the PGM, only that it is delivered when it is called for and lands where intended.
    4. Dumb artillery on call - not as good as PGMs for some tasks, but given enough of it and of the right caliber it can be just as good or (for widely dispersed targets) better.  But it's more difficult, less likely to succeed, and has a greater chance of being countered.
    5. AT weapons - the more capable the better, the greater the number the better.  Sure, it is optimal to have Javelins and NLAWs, but if you have a large number of short range one shot weapons you've got options when combined with ISR and coms.  Especially if the enemy doesn't have dismounted infantry to worry about.
    6. Plentiful infantry - as with any battlefield since the dawn of time, the side with more soldiers has a theoretical advantage over the one with fewer.
    7. Heavy AFVs - these can be a liability, perhaps even a death sentence, if not handled correctly for the circumstances.  However, when handled correctly they have the opposite effect.  Obviously more capable vehicles are better, however an armored light wheeled vehicle with a M2 mounted on it can be all a force needs to get the job done.

    I assume this takes current western units as a starting point? 

    If not what is the starting baseline of assumptions?

  18. 1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    Ok, well we have not addressed the range issue.  Next gen ATGMs are all trending to fire and forget, they lock on and the infantrymen are pretty much out of the picture.

    yea but for the locking on process at the very least they have to be exposed. watch the video i linked. they are in an ambush position waiting for the bmp2 and are exposed for some time because they dont just go from being in full cover to locking on to full cover again. and at the quoted 350m even on 2nd gen thermals they are glowing dots.

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    Visibility.  You can find mass infantry but finding small teams is still extremely challenging, and now they are all carrying those next gen ATGMs.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJSfEEdV76k

    if they have to move youre even going to find small teams and even if you dont to attack you need more than just a small team.

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    Range, your proposed solution does not solve for the ranges we are talking about.  “They will be spotted and shot up?”  At 2500ms?  Even hitting where you think two guys in a treeline are at 1000m is damned hard.  You are going to wind up pouring buckets of ammo into every treeline, further stressing logistics. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw8RDpS1uOE

    To give some idea what kind of accuracy were talking about in this video im aiming at the trees with inert rounds. They are max around 30cm thick and im opening fire at 1500m hitting them reliably. If i spot a target i have no problem getting an he round close enough to cause them significant problems.

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    Combined Arms cooperation.  So you have to sweep out to 2500m in order to try and keep your armoured vehicles safe.

    but you cant see every point from every point out to 2500m or differently put terrain exists and interferes with theoretical max range otherwise the tank beats the atgm in range any time.

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

     Your opponent spotted them over the horizon through about a zillion ISR possibilities.  So they knew you were coming potentially hours before you arrive.

    you know the tanks are 20km back from the frontline. They can relocate at 60km/h so any place at roughly an 80 km long frontline is in the 1 hour timeframe for an attack.

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

     So you are telling me that infantry even with UAS of there own are going to sweep several million square meters and it will be business as usual.

    no because there is a limit to where infantry that wants to live can actually be.

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

     This does not even count the really long range NLOS stuff, or mines that can walk.

    NLOS atgms are functionally similar to guided artillery except they are easier to intercept. And a walking mine is far less scary than a normal hidden mine because if it walks towards me i can see it. additionally you dont know where i will attack so how many millions of walking mines do you want to spread over the entire border to be able to intercept an attack and why arent dumb mines cheaper and easier for the same purpose?

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    AFVs are also big and hot, and die pretty well agains those ATGM,

    yea

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    and artillery systems.

    no

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

     In fact we know the UA has been dismounting well before contact while the RA stays in vehicles and dies.

    I really wonder how their tanks moce and shoot if they are dismounted

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    I am not talking about dug in infantry positions, those are likely a bad idea.

    You might want to talk to literally any infantryman who wants to live

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    I am talking about do fast moving light infantry all armed with NLAWs and radios.  Infantry is vulnerable…but there a lot more of them than we have tanks.  

    light infantry moves at 4km/h sustained rate especially if you load them with loads of atgms

    1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

    You can do this in CMBS right now, and frankly based on this war that game needs an update.  Take 10 Javelin teams on a sparsely wooded map, a big one, the biggest you can make - not these 2x2s, go get the ones from CMCW.  4x5.  Now have your opponent have free reign to place them and FOs where they like and give them all the UAS and some decent arty.  Then do your combined arms thing and see where things go.

    if your defense cant even stand up to a simple light infantry company you might want to reevaluate your choice of defense.

    Or differently said if your defense cant stopp light infantry from attacking then Your oponent doesnt even need to use anything else. Only once you mass enough combat power to prevent this does he need to do more.

  19. 2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    Matches a lot of what we have been seeing and reading about:

     This is part of the problem with Russian tactics. Tanks in groups are vulnerable, but as singles or duos with no direct support they are almost assuredly dead.

    The NLAW is crazy effective, light, easy to use, pretty cheap, and will kill most anything on the battlefield. We like them because we can launch them in trees without creating wood shrapnel from the back blast. With the NLAW, I can take a guy with no AT experience at all, and in less than an hour he will be deadly to vehicles, including main battle tanks.

    The counters are problematic -

    As this weapon type get smaller, lighter, less expensive and more wide-spread, even down to the small team level, this will pose a real problem for vehicles in contested areas. The counter to it I suppose is support, air, troops and drones, so you can push the weapons out of range. I am no grand strategist nor a a tactical wizard, but, based on what I am seeing, This is something that seems – like drones – game changing to some degree.

     

    Ill make the case that the power of at weapons is overstated mostly due to bad tactics and a tech disparity.

    Quote

    This is part of the problem with Russian tactics. Tanks in groups are vulnerable, but as singles or duos with no direct support they are almost assuredly dead.

    we found they had no other armor support in the area, and no infantry for perimeter defense

    We moved within 100 meters staying in the tree line, and whacked it with an NLAW

    We know since WW1 that tanks or rather generally AFVs are vulnerable in low numbers. And at the latest since WW2 we know that you have to protect tanks with infantry from close range at. It seems however that the russians have unlearned these lessons.

    This experience report seems to suggest this and this video equally seems to confirm this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpx7TWc58PI And in general ive not seen any good infantry armour combined arms from the russian side.

    The ukrainians seem to do this much better and id argue that this on its own massively contributes to the loss disparity between russian and ukrainian afvs.

     

    There is also a massive disparity between most russian afvs and western afvs that is hard to overstate: thermals.

    Take the video ive linked and imagine just replacing the bmp2 with any modern western ifv. Once the mobility kill happens (even NLAW isnt perfect) youd have 2 independently swung thermal imagers searching for them. And given they were in line of sight and repeatedly firing from the same position for 10min just 350m away even with 2nd gen thermal imagers they would have been spotted.

    If we now pair this with proper AFV tactics so no continuous fighting from the same position, supporting infantry, a seconf IFV to support, and maybe some squad or platoon level spotting drones overhead this entire situation suddenly becomes practically impossible for the infantry. And if you add an active protection system they are screwed either way.

     

     

    2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

     

    Two major issues are 1) Range, and 2) Visibility Asymmetry.

    1.  NLAW is good out to 1000m.  That is pretty far, but maybe doable to sweep out with UAVs etc.  NLAW 2.0 or other systems can reach out to well past 3000m (some Spike systems can reach out 10s of kms).  Once you extend to that range the amount of area in the threat circle around the tank get insanely high - 1000m = roughly 3.14 million sq meters to "sweep".  2500 m = 19.6 million sq ms.  10,000m = 314 million sq ms.  UAS/UGV everywhere, multi-spectral automated systems.  I am not sure how we are going to do it to be honest.

    This has some quite significant caveats.

    1. unless you have lock on after launch capability youre still limited to los engagements and that dramatically lowers the area a vehicle has to keep track of. It also means to engage the vehicle you have to be in los to the vehicle itself putting you at potential risk. That risk is quite low if youre 1000m away in complex terrain shooting at a single t72 but it becomes much higher if its a platoon of modern mbts. 8 high qualits thermal imagers scanning for you have a quite good chance spotting you even at distance.

    2. And if you use lock after launch missiles you can keep yourself safe but still need something to tell you where the tank is. And especially if used at longer ranges its time of flight is significant enough that its better compared to organically called precision artillery.

    2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

    2.  A large hot 60t peice of metal is orders of magnitude easier to find and fix, via many means, than two guys hiding in a ditch/bush/culvert.  So in the competition to "see first, shoot first" the tank is at a serious disadvantage.  In facr one can see the tank-system (i.e. logistics) from space, which is its own problem.

    A tank is definitely easier to find than an infantryman but both can be found and the ammount of drone footage of arty destroying infantry directed by drones is proof of that. A tank however is far more difficult to actually fix in place once spotted compared to infantry.

     

    And this leads to The main reason why AFVs are unlikely to ever go away: As demonstrated in this war to gain grund you have to take it from the enemy and to hold it you have to defend it with infantry. No matter the firepower be it precision in cae of the ukrainians or mass in case of the russians can clear an objective. It has to be taken and cleared by infantry.

    And once you have to take ground you have to be exposed and you will be detected and you will be shot at. And infantry is vulnerable to literally everything on a battlefield and it cant move at any significant speed on its own. So With drones everywhere the infantry is likely to be spotted and shot to pieces before they can even reach the jumpoff point for an attack or at the latest once the attack actually happens.

    Try intercepting this with arty:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw8RDpS1uOE

     If AFVs were truely obsolete Ukraine wouldnt ask for hundreds of tanks and ifvs to enable them to attack.

     

  20. 28 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

    @The_Captet al

    https://ukrainevolunteer297689472.wordpress.com/2023/01/16/it-did-blow-a-flame-jet-so-nobody-inside-survived/

    Ref how vulnerable Tanks are to squad ATGMs. Obviously we know this,  but he also talks what would be possible counters. 

    This i think is the main takeaway

    Quote

    we found they had no other armor support in the area, and no infantry for perimeter defense.

    lone tanks are extremely vulnerable and have always been.

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