How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Zeleban]

 

[Zeleban]

APS does not save from such cases either

[Huba]

10 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

APS does not save from such cases either

Well, as impressive as M30A1 is, it's effect seems to be puny compared to a DPICM warhead of similar weight. Poland did not sign the anti cluster-munition treaty, and we don't intend to. What's more, we are just about to sort out issues with 122mm Fenix cluster rockets. And quite probably the K239 MLRS will include Korean DPICM rockets too, though no details were made public yet.
On a related matter, yesterday there were some rumors about what weapons Ukraine requests  from US/ allies as of now. Most interesting items included ground-launched SDB, and M26 family rockets. The latter would be really devastating in UA environment I imagine, and as it is already absurdly mined, wouldn't create much more risks.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

I must say that my current life is a paradise compared to what it was at the end of February, beginning of March. Then, in the current situation with electricity, I am daily exposed to artillery shelling and air bombing. I was in my apartment and just moved away from the window, when a 152-mm shell fell right in front of my window, at a distance of about 100 meters. They threw shards of glass at me, later I found one of the shards in my apartment. Miraculously, I didn't come back. But this is a trifle. It all happened so suddenly that I didn't even have time to get scared.

Air bombardment of senior artillery. When you sit in the basement and hear the rapidly growing whistle of a Russian jet engine. With this blood in your veins, you literally freeze with fear, you understand that now he will drop bombs and, perhaps, you will find yourself under the rubble. When the FAB-500 bomb explodes a kilometer away from you. A building in the basement that literally shakes like an earthquake.

But I experienced the greatest fear when, in the conditions of street fighting, I traveled from Irpen (I had the stupidity to wait until the last, hoping that the Russians were not going to my city, because the bridge to Kyiv had already been blown up). As I was walking towards the bridge along the main street on the next street, literally 200 meters away from me, a heavy firefight broke out. I saw tracers flying across the intersection that I had to cross to get to the bridge. I waited until the Russian turned the fire in the other direction, and with all my might ran across the intersection. Despite this, thanks to adrenaline, I had more energy than ever. I ran a mile and a half with large and heavy bags. Normally I wouldn't be able to do this.

Sorry to hear all of that mate. Bastards will pay ( if they didn't till now) and ulitmatelly victory will be yours, I am sure of that.

It reminded me of this documentary about escapes from Irpien made by W.Przedlacki, another in-the-trench reporter. Many people watched it here, and the young guy who bravely voluntarly drive a bus through a war zone back and again became well known symbol of Ukrainian civil courage in Poland. After this docu was aired in TV, various fundraising initiatives for UA skyrocketed for several days.

https://distribution.tvn.pl/offer-documentaries,1431,1/escape-from-irpin,348844.html

 

Interesting link regarding Iranian officers killed lately (in Iran) that media suggested were supposedly involved in drone supply. Author believes there is no evidence that their deaths were connected to Ukraine, and instead they fall victims of partisnas from Beludhistan (PL, autotranlsate):

 

[Artkin]

48 minutes ago, Huba said:

But Trophy can't really protect you against fast moving threats like APFSDS, EFPs or the above-mentioned CKEMs.

Sure but if you already have a solid platform with good armor which is supposed to be rated to stop apfsds, then your survivability should still be much greater than without APS. 

Efp mines are limited use. They will be a problem if youre driving over enemy terrain, but not friendly. Losing tanks to EFP's is a tactics problem. Dont send tanks where your infantry havent been. Stay off roads as much as possible. Know larger enemy minefield positions before sending armor across open terrain. 

48 minutes ago, hcrof said:

The problem is that mines and artillery probably account for the majority of kills in this war.

I doubt this. I bet it's mostly ATGMs of various flavors and tank on tank. Russia certainly doesnt have a lot of PGMs to kill tanks effectively like Ukraine does. 

48 minutes ago, hcrof said:

Also doesn't trophy use radar? So now you are just broadcasting "kill me" for any sensor in the area. And that is before we talk about swarms, hypervelocity rockets etc

This is the biggest downside undoubtably. Hypervelocity missiles can still be intercepted, a computer can certainly work fast enough to make the calculations. Good thing Russia doesn't field HARMs like the US does. I'm not even sure if they have the tech. The Russian air force was certainly not focused on SEAD with shorter range missiles like the US does it. Instead we saw kalibrs and the like target S-300 batteries. 

I'm not sure if it's a myth but I thought I heard that APS were able to intercept apfsds, though I'm not sure how viable that would be. For a hypersonic missile I can see it getting destroyed. I heard that a small hole in the EFP causes its penetrating ability to degrade by over 50%. 

46 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

Most tank losses come from artillery fire and APS does not protect against artillery fire. At the beginning of the war, the Russians used several T-80UM2 tanks with APS "Drozd-2" This did not have any effect on the battlefield

Even if, how are you getting eyes on your target? Drones? Anti drone suite. Satellites? They would probably be targetted early on. 

And in the case of the UM2 tanks, I don't know how they were killed. And 2 tanks isnt exactly a good sample size. 

Drozd is super old tech anyway. 

26 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

APS does not save from such cases either

Anti drone/anti satellite would prevent these vehicles from getting spotted in the first place

[sross112]

37 minutes ago, JonS said:

That reminds me of people who're trying to build/rebuild Mosquitos. Nearly 8,000 of the things were built over a 10 year period, but then the tools, technology and skills all just evaporated when production ceased. Now trying to build Mosquitos, despite 70-odd years of incredible technological advances, is an [i]almost[/i] impossible task.

"Just in case" manufacturing is a wicked problem, and restricted ammo supply - especially artillery ammo - is a feature of all wars that go longer than a few weeks. The basic problem is that consumption rises from essentially zero rounds per day (well, maybe 10-50/day, depending on the size of the army) to several thousand per day in the space of an afternoon. You can't realistically store enough rounds to last a war, and you can't just start up a production line and expect magic immediately.

Assume you figure you're going to need 5,000 rounds per day, and your hypothetical war is going to last 12 months. 365 x 5000 is 1,825,000 rounds. Ok, well, good luck finding that much safe storage space. But lets assume you do that. Sweet. You are good to go. Oh, but wait - time keeps moving forward, that's what it does. In 10 years those 1.8M rounds need to be fired or destroyed because they're at the end of their useful storage life (dumb rounds will probably last longer, but even 10 years is probably ambitious for smart munitions.) In order not to 'waste' the rounds you need to use 180,000 rounds in training each year, and also scale production to 180,000 to maintain a steady flow. But 180,000/yr is a hell of a lot of 'training', it's about 500 rounds per day. Every day, including Easter and Christmas. So, ok, lets say we'll store a quarter of our assumed requirement - a bit less than half a million rounds. That makes the storage problem more plausible, and also makes low rate production more realistic; about 45,000 rounds per year. That is still a lot, but it's not a LOT. And the assumption is that you'll be able to spin up production from 120 rounds per day to 5,000rpd within 3 months, so just as the initial stockpile of 500,000 is exhausted new production is up to speed and delivering the required volume. Except now you have 3 assumptions to manage - duration, consumption, and ability to spin up production. Get anyone of those wrong and you have a glut (an issue, but not a problem exactly) or a shortage (eek!).

For low use stuff, like SmArt rounds, the problem is way worse, because you're dealing with much smaller numbers. The Germans built 9,000 rounds for storage, so assuming they can be stored for 10 years that means 900 replacements needed each year, or about 3 new rounds per day. At that level you're essentially talking artisanal production - old bearded guys lovingly rolling shell cases on their naked thighs to get the calibre [i]juuuust[/i] right, and soldering the circuit boards by hand over scarred old hardwood workbench under a flickering flourescent tube, which really doesn't scale to mass production in any sensible way.

And then all you need to do is solve those three assumptions for every ever other line-item used by the military.

I suppose the question is whether you need 10,000 Excaliburs, 1,800,000 dumb rounds, or both? I know there are a lot of targets that are better served with dumb rounds as well as sometimes you just need to saturate or interdict, but hasn't the ISR and PGM combination made a change in the ratio that one would need? If for example Ukraine had 10,000 Excaliburs and was kitted out with the L52 guns on February 24th, would they need such a huge amount of dumb ammo that has been expended? How many of their fire missions would have required a single or maybe two PGM rounds and saved possibly dozens or hundreds of dumb rounds? I'm thinking along the lines of when the laser guided bombs came into the picture and now JDAMs. Sure, sometimes you want a B52 to carpet bomb a grid square, but the vast majority of targets are better served with a single accurate bomb than 100 all over the place bombs.

But then, how much is enough? Like you point out, trying to get it right would be pretty tough. 

Good post. Good food for thought.

 

[Huba]

10 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Sure but if you already have a solid platform with good armor which is supposed to be rated to stop apfsds, then your survivability should still be much greater than without APS. 

Efp mines are limited use. They will be a problem if youre driving over enemy terrain, but not friendly. Losing tanks to EFP's is a tactics problem. Dont send tanks where your infantry havent been. Stay off roads as much as possible. Know larger enemy minefield positions before sending armor across open terrain. 

I doubt this. I bet it's mostly ATGMs of various flavors and tank on tank. Russia certainly doesnt have a lot of PGMs to kill tanks effectively like Ukraine does. 

This is the biggest downside undoubtably. Hypervelocity missiles can still be intercepted, a computer can certainly work fast enough to make the calculations. Good thing Russia doesn't field HARMs like the US does. I'm not even sure if they have the tech. The Russian air force was certainly not focused on SEAD with shorter range missiles like the US does it. Instead we saw kalibrs and the like target S-300 batteries. 

I'm not sure if it's a myth but I thought I heard that APS were able to intercept apfsds, though I'm not sure how viable that would be. For a hypersonic missile I can see it getting destroyed. I heard that a small hole in the EFP causes its penetrating ability to degrade by over 50%. 

Even if, how are you getting eyes on your target? Drones? Anti drone suite. Satellites? They would probably be targetted early on. 

And in the case of the UM2 tanks, I don't know how they were killed. And 2 tanks isnt exactly a good sample size. 

Drozd is super old tech anyway. 

Anti drone/anti satellite would prevent these vehicles from getting spotted in the first place

Of course the sword/ shield race is endless, but there are/ will be recon assets that APS/ anti drone AD wonl't help you much. On the lowe end, there are miniature, pidgeon size or even smaller drones, and various recon UGVs. On the higher end, there are already calls for creating "permanent" recon satellite constallation, that would offer constant observation everywhere - basically an ISR Starlink with thousands of small satellites. 

Also, EFP is not only (or even mainly!) a mine threat. Various artillery delivered AT systems like Bonus or SmArt  use it, as well as some ATGMs. If current, let's call them 1st generation APSs proliferate, the obvious solution will be turn to to high speed AT assets, and it means artillery/ missile/ mortar delivered AFP warheads as well as possible revival of kinetic energy missiles and such. And of course various direct fire guns.
IMO only when AFV APSes will become capable of defending against high speed threats we'll have to seriously reinvent the AT assets on our disposal, with the obvious solution being overwhelming the APS with sheer numbers, ECM and stealth. Warships seem to be the go-to example about how to handle that.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Huba

[sburke]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-campaigner-dies-during-shooting-161159196.html

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

Man, I don't even know how to respond to that. I spent almost my whole life in your typical communist/ 90s' apartment block, and the videos of ruzzian rockets hitting these in Kyiv were perhaps the most moving and frightening from all the emerging footage that I saw, as I could directly relate to what was going on. I can only say that I'm happy you managed to survive all of that without getting hurt. Shame that many weren't that lucky. Fiery death to the ****ers that did it to you.
Also, I imagine it's to early to really worry about that, but I hope you will be able to work through the emotional scars all of that must've left on you. Honestly, I wish you all the best!

This were the crazy times of Rumsfeld, FCS and all that crap. I imagine that as a anti-tank Hellfire alternative for Apache, aircraft and perhaps vehicle-launched tank testroyers, this would be really unmatched. Also, imagine the kinematically similar missile, but with AHEAD type warhead, spewing little tungsten pellets against aircraft, drones, light vehicles and poor bloody infantry guys...

The worst mistake on the procurement side was canceling the Crusader SPG that was supposed to be even better than the PZH-2000. They were coming in at about 8 million a copy, but experience in Ukraine implies they would be priceless. We now seem to be frantically trying to fix that. They have just had some success with a 155 shell with a small ramjet that boosts the the range up towards 60 or 80 k.

https://www.defensenews.com/miltech/2022/08/11/boeing-nammo-test-ramjet-155-artillery-weapon/

Everything for the last 15 years everyone has focused on NLOS missiles with very smart guidance. There is no evidence that the Russians have any meaningful counter for that yet. But it is always good to be ready for the next round of counter, counter, counter. If they ever want to actually fight the Chinese have certainly been fairly warned that coming to the fight without a countermeasure for that is just this side of suicide, maybe just the other side, so we will see.

We have discussed endlessly that you can't let the other side fly drones that are talking to functional artillery and expect to enjoy your day.

[Zeleban]

57 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Sorry to hear all of that mate. Bastards will pay ( if they didn't till now) and ulitmatelly victory will be yours, I am sure of that.

It reminded me of this documentary about escapes from Irpien made by W.Przedlacki, another in-the-trench reporter. Many people watched it here, and the young guy who bravely voluntarly drive a bus through a war zone back and again became well known symbol of Ukrainian civil courage in Poland. After this docu was aired in TV, various fundraising initiatives for UA skyrocketed for several days.

 

This is a unique video for me. At 10.21 minutes of the video, I see people with whom I took refuge in the basement of the clinic after my apartment was left without windows. Later, I corresponded with a guy who is standing with a child in his arms, he said that they were evacuated on March 08. I offered them to go out with me on March 05, When the hospital staff decided it was time to evacuate but they refused and spent three days in the basement without electricity and water.

The video shows moments a few days after the start of active fighting for Irpin. By that time, evacuation corridors had already been organized. People knew in advance when and from what place the evacuation would be organized. I left Irpen on the fifth of February. Then there was no organized evacuation, no one understood exactly where the enemy was, where the safe route was. Everyone went to the bridge in the way that he considered correct. And some paid for their mistake with their lives. I went to the bridge alone on foot and I think I was lucky.

War brings people together. In the face of danger, everyone strives to do something to help others. Pharmacies distributed medicines to everyone for free, shops distributed food, a lot of volunteers appeared ready to help others. From the second day of the war, I was constantly in the local clinic. We unloaded humanitarian aid and food, carried the wounded (a point was set up at the polyclinic to stabilize the wounded before sending them to a military hospital). The victims, whom the doctors could not save, had to be buried right in the courtyard of the clinic, as the road to the cemetery was shot through.

 

Most of the wounded were civilians. I remember two cases in particular. In one, a man and a woman brought a dead child of 5 years old with a gunshot wound to the hospital. They tried to leave Bucha to the west, their car was fired upon by Russian soldiers. In the second case, a pregnant girl with a damaged spine was brought to the hospital. She and her husband were in their apartment when the shell hit their home. The husband died on the spot. she got a spinal injury. Unfortunately, as a result of this injury, her child also died. She lost her most loved people in one day.

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Zeleban

[Artkin]

16 minutes ago, Huba said:

Of course the sword/ shield race is endless, but there are/ will be recon assets that APS/ anti drone AD wonl't help you much. On the lowe end, there are miniature, pidgeon size or even smaller drones, and various recon UGVs. On the higher end, there are already calls for creating "permanent" recon satellite constallation, that would offer constant observation everywhere - basically an ISR Starlink with thousands of small satellites.

For sure the sword/shield race is never ending, and this is just another shield moment in time before a counter is developed.

I know drones are already pretty hard to detect and they will likely get smaller with better tech. With the way Russia is going, their economy probably won't allow them to afford masses of these anytime soon. The smaller things get isn't always better. Smaller drones are probably more prone to ECM given that these small drones are conserving their limited battery life, and won't have strong signals to back home like their bigger brothers.

I do not know anything about the recon constellations you are talking about. I can see China affording something like that, but Russia? Meh.

20 minutes ago, Huba said:

Also, EFP is not only (or even mainly!) a mine threat. Various artillery delivered AT systems like Bonus or SmArt  use it, as well as some ATGMs. If current, let's call them 1st generation APSs proliferate, the obvious solution will be turn to to high speed AT assets, and it means artillery/ missile/ mortar delivered AFP warheads as well as possible revival of kinetic energy missiles and such. And of course various direct fire guns.

I can see us returning to guns, hence the whole railgun craze. With GOOD countermeasures I think it will be very hard to operate drones in a near-peer environment, negating the effectiveness of artillery. Also artillery firing opens up the possibility to counterbattery fire. If you don't score tank kills quickly in the first few salvos, you might get counter batteried. Ugh. War is complex.

EFP's are very similar to shaped charges, IMO they're the same thing with a different name. EFP just has range after the initial explosion due to the penetrator having an aerodynamic shape (After the explosion forms the penetrator).

I wouldn't doubt that the engineers behind Trophy can get it to intercept artillery and mortar shells eventually. They probably can now, but with less effectiveness than they hope for. An artillery shell is a very different way of killing than having a conical penetrator on the tip of your missile anyway.

I'm not too worried about the APFSDS threat. Our tanks are well armored where they should be, and apparently have thermals so good it's mind boggling. I can't remember what I heard, but I think it was something about being able to identify faces at extreme range. Something like that, I can't remember. Something ridiculous

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Lt. Col. Dmitry Radionov, Head of Reconnaissance, 11th Army Corps, Baltic Fleet:

 

[JonS]

1 hour ago, sross112 said:

I suppose the question is whether you need 10,000 Excaliburs, 1,800,000 dumb rounds, or both?

Both.

[NamEndedAllen]

3 hours ago, poesel said:

That is really a problem. If you don't have customers who continually buy your stuff, you cannot just mothball an assembly line and unpack it whenever you need it. The supply chain is gone, as well as the skill required to run that line.

And thus the eternal simultaneous ambiguity and the passionate debates between the necessities of the military and arms industry on one side, and the claims on the other side that those entities actively manufacture and themselves feed conflicts in order to sell weapons. Personally, the shutting down of production lines has always made my stomach turn, my gut twisting, thinking, “Fools! Can’t you see the obvious threat right around the corner!”. That despite knowing I am on the side with bald faced political pressures simply for scoring election support. At the same time I know that down the line there are plainly unscrupulous arms dealers preying on local conflicts. Just to make a buck.

[Huba]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Everything for the last 15 years everyone has focused on NLOS missiles with very smart guidance. There is no evidence that the Russians have any meaningful counter for that yet.

Israel is blocking SpikeLR/ EuroSpike exports to Ukraine unfortunately (for which it is getting a LOT of flak, even if it's not very loudly pronounced. In Poland it probably managed to get on the blacklist of arms manufacturers, we won't talk to them ever again). Spike is the most prolific missile in EU armies, and combined we could easily deliver thousands of them.

Russians learned to fear the Javelin, but it's widely praised fire-and-forget capability is SpikeLR's "poor man's mode". There are repeated reports about Javelin not being usable further than 1 to 2 km due to tree lines/ other obstacles, as well as weather reducing it's IIR sensor range. Compare this with Spike's active, man-in-the-loop mode that allows re-targeting and manual terminal guidance against targets of opportunity at 4 km, and unjammable fibre optic guidance.

Really, the modern NLOS ATGMs are one horror that russia was spared of. Hopefully Tel-Aviv will adjust it's deplorable stance and russkies will yet experience what Israeli defence industry is capable of.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Huba

[NamEndedAllen]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

And then all you need to do is solve those three assumptions for every ever other line-item used by the military

You said this much better than I did, in terms of the nitty gritty of the challenge!

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, sross112 said:

But then, how much is enough? Like you point out, trying to get it right would be pretty tough. 

My understanding from history guys at the CGSC is that historically, the amount of artillery shells in every significant war is ALWAYS grossly underestimated beforehand. And that once again this has been the case. The concept and reliance on precision striking weapons has contributed to underestimating the sheer number of targets that require servicing. And the larger the country and its military size, and industrial base, the more quickly that number goes up. 
 

Part of the problem is the weak willingness during peace time to fund higher, increased numbers of the most expensive strike weapons, especially considering that the cosmically expensive next generation air, land and sea platforms are in different stages of being designed and built. And maintained. That, Aaong with military pay increases. Tough budget problems in a limited resource environment.

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

My understanding from history guys at the CGSC is that historically, the amount of artillery shells in every significant war is ALWAYS grossly underestimated beforehand. And that once again this has been the case. The concept and reliance on precision striking weapons has contributed to underestimating the sheer number of targets that require servicing. And the larger the country and its military size, and industrial base, the more quickly that number goes up. 
 

Part of the problem is the weak willingness during peace time to fund higher, increased numbers of the most expensive strike weapons, especially considering that the cosmically expensive next generation air, land and sea platforms are in different stages of being designed and built. And maintained. That, Aaong with military pay increases. Tough budget problems in a limited resource environment.

It is expensive, until it's priceless, but at that point it is usually too late.

[dan/california]

The Russians aren't getting Bakmuht anytime soon, but they do seem to be cornering the fertilizer industry.

[LukeFF]

On 10/27/2022 at 10:56 AM, MikeyD said:

"LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT YOUR OWN PERIL" As opposed to con sites that just post Russian talking points?

As opposed to just ignoring his posts and not derailing this topic even more? 

[Twisk]

26 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

As opposed to just ignoring his posts and not derailing this topic even more? 

Not to put a too fine a point on it but you are replying to MikeyD 30+ hours and 5 pages later to further derail the thread.

If you care about derailment ignoring posts is better than replying. To put in perspective you went back 100 comments just so you could make this comment.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Twisk

[LukeFF]

13 hours ago, IanL said:

Yep, 100% save those images for the next time someone says "but my tank guns keeps getting hit and disabled, its a tank that shouldn't happen". We can answer with just that picture

There's been a similar discussion over on the IL2 Tank Crew forums, yep. Barrel damage is no joke. 

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

It is expensive, until it's priceless, but at that point it is usually too late.

 

10 minutes ago, Twisk said:

Not to put a too fine a point on it but you are replying to MikeyD 30+ hours and 5 pages later to further derail the thread.

If you care about derailment ignoring posts is better than replying.

Precisely. And yet, it happens over and over. I suspect the uptick in production lasts for a few years, afterward - contracts already signed maybe. But as time goes by and the new ginormously expensive aircraft carrier is authorized, and a new generation of ballistic submarines and the new bomber and fighter - and no new war year after year…the funding for artillery goes down the priority list further and further.

[dan/california]

The mobiks seem perfectly well aware how bleeped they are. Ukraine literally needs to do leaflets by drone with the surrender number and how too.

 

 

[dan/california]

Is it just me or that about the best camo scheme I have ever seen on a tank?