strac_sap
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Posts posted by strac_sap
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1 hour ago, Haiduk said:
Some words about survivability of modern western armor.
Other words from soldier of 47th mech.brigade: "If we didn't have it [western armor], our brigade would no longer exist"
47th brigade has most unpleasant and hard work - to gnaw through most dense defense lines, attracting the enemy on itself. Yes, they lost destroyed and damaged already many vehicles, but this brigade moves steady tree-liine for tree-line through totally mined fields and enemy artillery fire. Any other brigade on Soviet BMPs or even on M113 already would be lost own offensive capabilities.
Thanks for sharing this, they went through a hell of a fight. I'm glad the vehicles worked so well, and the M2A2 ODS survivability is noted. Spent a lot of time in M113s and always felt them very vulnerable. It was spacious and fairly reliable, but being alive is preferred.
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1 hour ago, Jiggathebauce said:
I reject your broad stroke characterization of the "far left" ,as if it has a coherent and unified set of opinions on the war and on states such as Russia and Syria. You haven't listened to very many leftists, because if you do you would know we have incredibly personal and bitter arguments with people who appropriate the aesthetic of revolutionary ideas and ultimately embrace reactionary movements and ideas, and indeed imperialism.
Yes, you are very correct I have over generalized. As you've stated I've seen a number of friendships amongst my friends, and friends of friends, on the left end over this narrative. I don't believe in being too personal on the internets, but I have strong feelings about all peoples rights to live decent lives out of poverty and war.
But, I have heard this refrain repeated so often here in the US that it starts to be held as the whole truth. That the US is solely responsible for this war and for Russia it is a war for existence against US hegemony. There is always a thread of truth in this, but that denies the Ukrainians rights I wish them to have.
Likely my far right narrative is also too truncated, and in fact I feel it is the greatest threat. Especially with the returning veterans from this war in Ukraine and Russia. For some reason veterans groups tend to be far right, which has been debated quite a bit since WWII and after. Nixon himself considered the far right the much greater threat, but then said to curtail the far right he needed to clamp down on the far left. Imagine that logic...(this is from the book: "Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia" by William Shawcross)
I do appreciate the feedback.
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12 minutes ago, womble said:
Not just history: current events and the future prospects for lasting peace... Naivete perhaps, or something more... directed? Or just a narcissistic unwillingness to accept that their world view is pretty divorced from reality.
On top of that, to decry their use of mines, and then not want to supply the weapons and tools they would need instead to defend themselves feels like peak narcissism.
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9 hours ago, Seedorf81 said:
"Human Rights Watch urges Ukraine to stop using AP mines (as promised).
I don't like war, I don't like this killing and slaughtering and suffering, and I don't like the use of mines. Period.
But are these Human Rights Watch-people insane???
Asking this NOW? In a full-blown existential war???
How ignorant and naive can you be?
The far right seems to have a thing for autocrats, thus Putin is alright by them and Ukraine can go to hell for all they care. But the far left for all sorts of reasons seems to come to the same conclusion. Somehow this war was directly started by the US and every chance they get they state the the US should end it. And eastern Europeans wanting to determine their own future through an alliance of mutual protection is imperialism.
I've read articles in which the authors state that the war should be ended immediately in discussions and a treaty, and as examples of how wars must end this way they use both WWI and WWII! Their ignorance of history is astounding. Every chance I get I try to expand on people's understanding of history so these articles don't hold sway.
I feel some relief that Ukraine, and eastern Europe in general, is no longer ignored or even demeaned by western Europe and the US. They seem to be now considered full fledged humans with the rights to self-determination. But given the extremes of political views that may be tentative.
Coming back to the mines, I feel this is a similar example. I doubt anyone has an interest in mines (especially the Ukrainians who will suffer from them) as a reality but to ignore the fact that the Ukrainians are fighting against an enemy who seems to have no issues with mass murder, torture, and kidnapping feels smug. I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume they are trying to be even handed in condemning mines, especially for the civilian victims and children that are sure to come.
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11 hours ago, sburke said:
Treating the wounded
The Wagner paramilitary group’s brief mutiny in Russia and the fallout from it has eclipsed attention on the war in Ukraine over the past few days. The war slogs on in the meantime: Russian soldiers kill or wound as many as thousands of Ukrainian troops a week, adding to the invasion’s toll.
My colleagues Yousur Al-Hlou, Masha Froliak and Ben Laffin published a striking video today from the front lines, following Ukrainian combat medics. Before the war, they were civilian doctors and nurses. Now, they treat their wounded countrymen while trying to protect themselves from artillery fire and rocket attacks. I urge you to watch the video, which changed how I look at the sacrifice Ukrainians have been forced to make.
I spoke to Yousur and Masha about their experience following these medics for a week.
German: What is the mood among Ukrainian medics, more than a year into the war?
Masha: They compared the grinding workload to the film “Groundhog Day,” reliving the same day over and over and losing sense of whether it’s day or night. They have been living in that hospital, as well as working there. They’re tired. They don’t have a sense of when this is going to end.
What they say in the video has an existential sense to it. They seem motivated to keep going because they feel their country needs them.
Yousur: They’re not just defending their country. They’re defending their families’ lives and their own lives. It’s a very personal struggle. It’s a very personal motivation — a very personal risk.
One of the doctors asks: “How could I not take this on? How could I not be at this frontline hospital? How can I not risk my life if it’s in service of protecting my family and protecting my country?” They acknowledge they have fatigue. They acknowledge that they have doubts about when this conflict might end. But they also have this relentless motivation.
Masha: One doctor said these young soldiers were the same age as her child. She spoke about imagining it’s her child in the operating room — and she just wants to hug and protect them all.
It seems like an important point: As tired as they may be, these doctors are not giving up on the war.
Yousur: That’s right. These doctors were not shy about voicing the toll the war is having on them. But it doesn’t negate their motivation and their hatred toward the enemy — feelings they also expressed openly. These feelings live in parallel.
What were their lives like before the invasion?
Yousur: They were anesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses and so on at civilian hospitals. They were wearing white coats. When the invasion began last year, their lives changed drastically.
It is a nearly universal aspect of the war. Once it began, a lot of civilians suddenly found themselves in service of their country. People volunteered to stitch camouflage nets for soldiers. Grandmothers made Molotov cocktails. Similarly, these doctors began working practically overnight in a frontline military hospital having to tend to the wounded amid rocket fire.
I blame Putin.
Here is another video from Vice to remind us of Putin's crimes:
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19 hours ago, kraze said:
Because for heads to get rolling - they would need to admit they are losing to Ukrainians.
But since they are winning the war against whole NATO - no need to replace anyone.This above is a symptom above the answer below:
13 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:Yes, this has been the trend of his for many years now. Back in the earlier days of his regime he ran Russia more-or-less like a real government, though obviously not a democratic one. This included pragmatic engagement with different opinions, especially on economics. This is why Russia did, in fact, have a pretty impressive recovery from the horror show of the 1990s. Don't get me wrong, it was still a ruthless and nasty environment, but it was still decently productive.
This really came to an end after many of his picks likely lost the 2011 election and official results were most likely falsified in many cases. Putin was always happy to let voters decide to elect his people, but once they started to dare to elect others... well now, that's a different story! His government officially declared most of the evidence showing voter irregularities was generated by the CIA and that was that.
Since that time Putin has increasingly reduced the chances of results being other than what he wants. Lots and lots of examples of rolling back democratic principles that were not all that strong to begin with. Since COVID it got worse.
The war seems to have been the final move towards a late stage autocracy where paranoia about losing power becomes the defining feature of the regime. As one expects, this means loyalty is now pretty much the only reason people have positions of power. If someone is loyal and can perform their job, then it's an unexpected bonus
One example of this is in 2014 he convened a gathering of some sort to discuss what he was about to do to Ukraine. He had outside input, though of course he picked what he wanted to hear. For the 2022 invasion he didn't let anybody know about it until about 2 days before he invaded. This included many senior members of the government. Paranoia about leaks maybe made it worse, but I don't think he was interested in opinions since he decided a year earlier to make this war a reality.
Steve
So you are inoculated from making changes because you have in place those you believe you need to stay in power. My opinion is this has gone poorly and well for Ukraine. Poorly because the invasion even happened. Well because the Russians are unable to effectively prosecute the war, can't seem to really learn from their mistakes. Poorly because the Russians (Putin) can't/won't accept the reality of what is happening and withdraw.
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13 minutes ago, JonS said:
Agreed. Definitely less than ideal.
Mind you, using a t-55 is already far from ideal.
Understatement. At least the AMX 10RC is fast. This is swiss cheese in the making. (I've enjoyed everyones quips about this thing). Won't lie, felt the same way about the M60 when I was a crewman in the reserves.
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1 hour ago, JonS said:
It's a bit hard to see, but I would expect that it has a semi-automatic breech (closes itself once the round is seated properly), and he's using a rammer to seat the round.
Example of a rammer, for a different weapon:
My experience is a loader in an M60A3 (TTS) and on the M68 you push the full 105 mm in and the breach closes solidly behind it. I'm now googling why one needs a rammer for this type of breach. T54/55 uses same full round, so I'm assuming it is an age/maintenance issue. Definitely slows loading.
Edit: the 25 pdr uses a separate powder cartridge so needs a rammer.
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If one is new to the game then figuring out how movement and spotting go is easier in a scenario like this, with fewer units and having an advantage, which was true for me when I played.
I enjoyed it because it was just tanks, and just Starships. I was always curious about how they would perform and sometimes don't mind the steel beasts just roaming by themselves. Spent a year as an M60A3 (TTS) crewman so wondered how different the A2 was.
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1 hour ago, dan/california said:
Edit: As in all the things Putin is trying to do, Stalin was better at it. He did the purge BEFORE the war.
I've been wondering about this. Given the war why haven't all the heads been rolling? My assumption is that these are the loyalists around him, period. But I feel like this is the group that would understand this better.
As an aside, I noticed this in the US during Iraq in the early 2000's. Generals were not getting fired even when outcomes were bad. I recall an article that read something like: "Privates in the army are punished more for losing a rifle than Generals for losing a war." EDIT: Here is the article.
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
Video of a Russian crew firing from a T-54/55:
Steve
Did he just use a crowbar to make sure the breach had closed? ...And make it seem normal?
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12 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
That would only work if the minefields are mostly anti-tank, right? But Russians do not give a toss about modern Western sensibilities and the resulting Ottawa Treaty, and plant anti-personnel mines in huge numbers
11 hours ago, The_Capt said:AP landmines are really more of a nuisance than a denial weapon in conflicts like this. If we were talking a very long term conflict zone where each side has had years to lay down AP belts, maybe; however, AP mines need a lot of density to stop dismounted infantry - and even then you are not going to fully stop them. The numbers of AP mines would be insane to cover these frontages and the RA simply has not had the time to plant them.
So dismounted infantry penetration is still likely a viable option and I am betting the UA is doing it. Problem is getting the vehicles across to sustain and support them.
Yes indeed, infantry can cross AT minefields as as long as no tilt-rod fuses are used. But, and its a big but, do not run. An already heavy fully loaded soldier can already be in the mid-250 lbs (110+ kg) range, and then running with the added impulse can shoot the force much higher. We discussed this often and generally took it seriously.
AP mines and anti-handling devices were indeed a nuisance. They really slow down work, and that sucks if you're under fire. @Haiduk posted about these mines which I added below, and I wonder if there is some insider info on the prevalence of these. Most of the videos and images I've seen are of massive minefields of the Soviet TM-62 AT mine with a force of 300+ lbs (150+ kg) required; but how much of the other stuff is in there? I agree that massive numbers are needed for denial, but their morale effect can be pretty severe.
The Ukrainians are moving small units up, and even vehicles in some areas. One video I noticed they used two MICLICs and then the BMPs drove nowhere near the cleared area. So definitely movement is available, and @The_Capt had some solid insight overall on this.
23 hours ago, Haiduk said:As pressure-type AP mines Russians widely uses PFM "petal" mines, which set remotely and can have time of life before self-destruction in 1-40 hours (PFM-1S) or w/o self-destruction (PFM-1). This mine has 40 g of HE with pressure reaction in 5-25 kg. Explosion of this mine usually caused hevay inguries of the feet, often with tearimg off whole feet or it part.
But that what we could see on video it were likely PMN types (PMN-1/2/3/4). Unlike PFMs, which lays on surface, PMN can be set manually under surface. It has plastic case, so usual metal detector is useless.
PMN-1 has 200 g of HE and 8-25 kg of reaction, PMN-2 - 100 g and 15-25 kg (increasing resilience against explosive demining), PMN -3 is later modification of PMN-2 with self-destruction up to 8 days and electronic detonator, which makes this mine much more stable to explosive demaining. Newest PMN-4 has 50 g of HE.
PMN-2 mine
PMN4 mine
PMN mines, especially PMN-1 causes tearing off the leg or both legs up to knees, what we could see on video.
PMN mines also have a name "black widow" and black humor PMN abbriveation decoding "Bring My Legs"
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I'm hopefully not making a faux pas by being new to the forum and making a request, but I was wondering if there were plans to add the combat engineering vehicles? M728 CEV and Centurian Mk 5 AVRE with the BAOR expansion. I'm not sure for the Soviets. Personally I would love to try them out in MOUT, although leveling a building with one shot might be a bit overpowered. But will always be fun. They are both rather vulnerable to AT fire so getting close to town could be tricky.
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2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
For sure. And there's quite a bit of science to indicate that as we age we become more conservative. There's both biological and learned reasons for this, beyond the usual of telling youngsters they don't know what hard work is, how they don't know how lucky they have it, etc.
I can say that as I age I too find myself thinking like this. My wife too. Millennials are a favor topic of derision, as they should be
I engage with young adults at work constantly, and the changes due to aging in my opinions are profound. I feel like it is absolutely true that they are less motivated, find less joy in overcoming hardships towards success, and rarely even show up. But hasn't this always been the case? Haven't the older generations always lamented the youth's frivolity and laziness? So are my beliefs about this influenced by this intrinsic push towards conservatism with age? Trying to use the analytic brain and not the emotional brain here...
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
Yup, and as we've discussed it's becoming harder, not easier, to overcome suppression EVERYWHERE on the battlefield thanks to things like drones, thermal optics, long range ATGMs, etc.
The first example extreme example we had of "what happens when you try something tough and the enemy knows all about it" was the Russian's attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets River last May.
River crossings are a lot like minefield breaching in that they are technically difficult to do even when nobody is shooting at you, almost impossible when they are. All the tricks of the past, such as suppressing ISR with distance, smoke, terrain concealment, etc. were shown pointless. All Ukraine had to do was look at Google Maps, identify where the best crossing points would be, send up drones to check them out, then shell the Hell out of them when discovered.
As a reminder to all, the Russians tried crossing in SIX places within ~10 days of each other. 1 failed before bridging started, 3 were destroyed before they established a crossing, 1 was destroyed and an attempt was made to rebuild it, and 1 (Bilohorvika) was destroyed and rebuilt twice before it was destroyed a third time. In the process they lost enough bridging equipment (including transports and tugs) to make 7 crossings of this size, roughly 2xBTG worth of vehicles (including some specialized ones), and several hundred soldiers. Largely because Ukraine had some drones and a fairly modest amount of traditional artillery.
Steve
Great summary, thanks. I wasn't looking closely when the Ukrainians repulsed these crossings and it informs what is happening to them now pretty concisely.
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3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
The concern amongst many is there are those who think the 1950s was a fine time and we should return to it.
I have had this discussion many times with people who state that a certain time frame was the best. I always tend to think it is the emotions associated with nostalgia rather than any deep analysis which makes people feel these strange regressive pressures. If one looks too deeply at the 1950's both political ideologies today in the US will find much to dislike.
Currently reading the book "Hitler: The Path to Power" by Charles Flood and this highlights how dangerous these regressive (nostalgic) emotions can be, especially in veterans. Which makes me think about the danger to Ukraine and Russia if they don't have systems in place to deal with the traumatized veterans after this war is done.
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45 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
I am - been away from the trade doing other things for some time but one never forgets.
I am not sure how to solve for minefields in this war to be perfectly honest. Tradition methods are likely a way to go and may work if one can establish the right conditions. However, establishing conditions is the really unknown part: air superiority - apparently not so much, ISR - surprise is pretty much impossible, establishing a bridgehead - will have to be huge to counter increase distances.
My guess is that the trick to beating minefields in this war is not to focus on the minefield itself but those who are observing and covering it. So focus on enemy ISR, C2 and logistics until a level of tactical collapse occurs, then go for a breach. Dispersed infantry likely across first, use precision fires to isolate any enemy and kill them. This is what we saw before - infiltrate, isolate and defeat…rinse and repeat until something really gives. Once that happens the breach has a much better chance because the lethality of the modern appears too high to try the old fashion way. This will take time so no really dramatic breaches and breakouts until the RA are so badly mauled that they collapse operationally…it goes slow until it goes fast.
Or maybe we will have another mutiny/coup and all bets will be off again.
Yes, your analysis makes a lot of sense. I think there was confusion about my earlier posts because I believed even in 1990 that manually trying to breach a minefield under accurate fire was impossible. Finding every mine, especially when buried, then setting up a line main or a ring main of det cord to all of the explosives, and then igniting and escaping the area seemed like a fairly tale if we were taking accurate 14.5 mm, mortar and air-burst 152 mm rounds.
Bangalore torpedoes were the other option, but I hear nothing about that anymore. Only MICLICs, including scaled down versions which seems like a good way to get infantry across, if available to the Ukrainians.
We used to train a lot using "pop and drops" to essentially run through the minefield dropping pre-primed explosives as we went, as the other techniques seemed unlikely to succeed. This requires all the mines to be visible, and either highly skilled individuals with night vision or daytime. We didn't have as much night vision back then...
Again, I agree. Without adequate suppression of the enemy large scale breaches are likely high casualty events, especially in breaching vehicles and engineers which are hard to replace. I appreciate your analysis of what the Ukrainians have been doing in this context.
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2 hours ago, kluge said:
The sonic boom produced by an aircraft flying below 100 feet can generate over 10 pounds of overpressure. As a thought experiment, could this be a new use for those shiny F-16s?
Too low pressure for most mines. And could an F-16 fly so close to the front in this war?
1 hour ago, Kinophile said:Why not send a fleet of these expendable doggies through a mine field? Several hundred, spaced variable feet apart in checkerboard pattern a hundred feet deep and wide. A moving anti mine carpet travelling over the field at speed, stepping on every square foot in the designated channel. Any who get to the other side simply return directly back, helping run another pass. Rince and repeat.
They wouldn't detonate the old several hundred pound AT mines, but lighter ones and anti-personnel yes. I feel like this way it wouldn't be complete and you'd still need to plow, MICLIC etc. And the little hounds would have given away your breach point in time for counter fire when you're still vulnerable finishing the breach. Just thinking out loud of course.
55 minutes ago, Twisk said:I don't really know anything about this but out of interest why couldn't a simplified bridge layer like the M104 Wolverine be used to create a literal bridge through a minefield? If you want a path just lay a big hunk of metal along that path (a stronger marston mat reinforced with kevlar?).
Mines make the ground unsafe so just make a new layer of ground above thatCrossing water obstacles is a big deal, so you would not want to use this and have it blown up by mines. Plus, these minefields are huge. You'd need many which I don't think any army has. As for the mats of steel or kevlar, that is really just a roller! But there are scenarios when the ground is too damaged by breaching that engineers set up temporary roadways to get through. Another high casualty endeavor under fire. You would want the roller and mat dispenser separate vehicles of course.
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18 minutes ago, dan/california said:
https://twitter.com/search?q=go1 robot dog&src=typed_query&f=top
The harder I look at even the dumb mine problem, lets leave next generation smart mines for another day,the more a I think it has to be a small robot solution.
My current back of the envelope theory would be to have a fairly capable robot dog, or UAV, mark the mines as stealthily as possible, and then have small army of the cheapest possible robots go kamikaze on the marked mines at the time of the assault. $1000 dollars per mine to get a breach in combat conditions works out to be a reasonable number when you aren't having to risk really expensive hardware or people to get it done.
My math says that even if each mine took its own $500 dollar robot, a ten meter wide lane thru a field half a kilometer deep, with a mine density of 1 mine per square meter, cost $2,500,000. That is better than break even if you assume every breach using current tech cost you one one armored vehicle. If each robot could lay a a few charges before parking on the last mine in its assigned series cost would come down that much more.
The twenty or thirty years we spent thinking we would never have to do this again are proving expensive.
Sounds reasonable. Issues: detecting buried mines especially non magnetic? Failure rate of detection robots and kamikazes? As always AI can be part of this process, learning. Probably more issues, but I agree the cost is small compared to what we've seen. And mines are a menace so fixing it needs to be looked at in earnest.
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14 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
This has to be US terminology. In Canada breaching is essentially creating a safelane that can be trafficked by F through B echelons. “Clearing” is getting rid of the entire minefield and is part of a larger demining program. Breaching can be done by hand - but don’t forget anti-handling triggers, mechanically (rollers, ploughs and flails) or explosively.
A breaching operation of any covered minefield ranks pretty high on the risk meter because you are basically trying to push entire mech formations through some pretty narrow defiles where the ground will explode on either side.
Given how this war has gone so far and with the levels of ISR at play I would honestly be looking at manual breaching ahead of an assault. Done at night by dispersed sappers or pioneers and you may have a better chance of getting through. That or go explosive hard. Line charges and rollers - very high profile but probably the fastest way to go.
@The_Capt I believe you are an engineer officer? My experience is in the confines of junior enlisted (private to sergeant) so I like to read your broader analysis.
Yes, I think I forgot to define those terms, and they match what you said. Breach is to make passable, clear is to remove all the mines.
Unfortunately without some new technology I agree with you about needing some way to breach away from peering eyes. Night stealth approach. If done by hand all the mines would need to be found and then either removed or charges set to destroy. But this is difficult because of antihandling devices and being out at night in an enemy minefield boggles the mind.
One reality that was emphasized to us was that in certain conditions breaching was going to result in a lot of casualties. That was the reality we had to accept. So going in with plows, rollers, and MICLICs and getting killed is part of the game.
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12 minutes ago, buena said:
My 2 thoughts about the mines issue:
1. Water cannons. Would they have enough pressure to trigger the fuse?
2. Bypass the mines. Parachute drops, air insertion of SF. Would that work?
2. is easiest: Even if successful the parachute drop or helicopter assault would need to be supplied quickly, and that would require breaching the minefield to send in vehicles. Someone mentioned this in this thread earlier. Also, imagine the losses in helicopters and transport aircraft given modern air defenses. I suspect it wouldn't be possible in Ukraine.
1. Do you mean a combat breach, or after the war is over? It likely would not set off the old AT mines no matter what, but could expose them. But would require a whole new armored vehicle with a powerful hose, even out of combat.
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40 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
As pressure-type AP mines Russians widely uses PFM "petal" mines, which set remotely and can have time of life before self-destruction in 1-40 hours (PFM-1S) or w/o self-destruction (PFM-1). This mine has 40 g of HE with pressure reaction in 5-25 kg. Explosion of this mine usually caused hevay inguries of the feet, often with tearimg off whole feet or it part.
But that what we could see on video it were likely PMN types (PMN-1/2/3/4). Unlike PFMs, which lays on surface, PMN can be set manually under surface. It has plastic case, so usual metal detector is useless.
PMN-1 has 200 g of HE and 8-25 kg of reaction, PMN-2 - 100 g and 15-25 kg (increasing resilience against explosive demining), PMN -3 is later modification of PMN-2 with self-destruction up to 8 days and electronic detonator, which makes this mine much more stable to explosive demaining. Newest PMN-4 has 50 g of HE.
PMN-2 mine
PMN4 mine
PMN mines, especially PMN-1 causes tearing off the leg or both legs up to knees, what we could see on video.
PMN mines also have a name "black widow" and black humor PMN abbriveation decoding "Bring My Legs"
Okay, these look like modern mines, difficult to detect and will self-destruct after a certain time, with a certain failure rate. This is what doctrine for the US was supposed to look like (end of cold war) and we were moving toward all surface laid mines.
But these are not:
Clearly old Soviet designs, maybe with anti-handling devices (booby traps).
45 minutes ago, benpark said:That did seem very low, so maybe the audio route isn't viable, unless there is some resonant frequency/vibration method possible from directly above.
What would be the pressure amount most of the mines would need for activation for most anti-personal mines?
I assume the old Soviet mines are like ours: AT mines in the hundreds of pounds, AP mines in the tens of pounds. Outliers include tilt-rod and trip-wire fuses, which will be lower. The new mines seem to be in the tens to low hundred pounds. Conversion is 2.2 lbs per kg. (using lbs as lb-mass rather than an actual force)
So pressure from sound waves would not work, even extremely loud speakers don't produce that kind of overpressure. Low frequencies would be better to give the pressure time to act (Work=Force times distance) But again, you need to have enough force acting for enough time to depress the fuse.
As for flooding, the human issues there are too large, and then it would just redistribute the mines. Someone would still need to go through and pick them up, or blow them in place. Especially difficult are those modern mines that don't auto-destruct. What a mess.
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12 minutes ago, benpark said:
I'm now fixated on the mine issue, so thank you for the detailed assessment strac-sap. The lack of systems to deal with the densities we are seeing the Russians use is an impetus for some quick changes. That, or clear the other side of the mine-fields completely. The Soviet army certainly understood their stopping power, so these mined areas are doing the work of entire battalions of missing Russian troops.
The majority of the mines we are seeing used in Ukraine seem to be fused to pressure-activated from above, exploding when something around 3-5lbs. (an insanely low number) presses upon it. If this weren't directly-applied pressure (which seems the most desirable method to demine) - How much (if any) pulsed air pressure from above a mine/mines would need to be exerted to fire off anything under a cone of something like an intense audio burst?
Traditional demining vehicles seem to slow in the new world of human mayhem. My cocktail-napkin demining rig would be 3 (or more) drones, each with some type of audio emitter, moving in tandem across a mined area to clear it. Something of this sort could solve the issue of most clearer mechanical damage, and would not really need any on-board armaments (aside from the audio emitter). Remote detonation from above also removes the need for terrain-conforming rollers. Drones have proven to be tough to knock out, and could be swarmed for big fields or areas that are under observed fire. It could also be ominous sounding as all get out. Or ridiculous, depending on soundtrack.
@benpark First thing is where did that number of 3-5 lbs come from? It is so extraordinarily low it can't be correct. Even tilt-rod fuses for AT mines were in the teens of pounds I think. My memory fails but our AT mines had fuses in the hundreds of pounds. Toe poppers had low weight fuses but the explosives content was nothing. I am very curious about this, and it would make it both more dangerous for people, but maybe easier to clear using overpressures.
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@The Steppenwulf This mod is greatly appreciated and used. I know that modding desire waxes and wanes, but if you decide to do this for CMCW that would be amazing.
Humble request
in Combat Mission Cold War
Posted · Edited by strac_sap
I've never seen the 165 mm actually fire, so I can't verify in that regard, but given that both of these use a HESH/HEP plastic explosive round it seems they prioritize breaching. The round is so huge its going to make a mess, but I suspect it will take a number of rounds to take out a building. TNT was for blowing stuff apart, C4 (plastic explosives) was for cutting things.
This would be a great addition. I noticed they didn't add this to the later titles with the engineering Strykers, so wasn't sure that was a thing they planned to do in CMCW.