How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[hcrof]

8 hours ago, JonS said:

You've just described a one-sided battle in which the only thing the red team have is one 70t tank. In that scenario your outcome sounds plausible.

I don't think your scenario is very plausible, but that's a different conversation.

I would love to hear more! 

I described ATGM teams and drones too, as well as my assumption that you cannot breakthrough without significant attrition, and that enemy vehicles, being easy to spot, will be early targets of that attrition. 

I also suggest that if you outrun your fire support and drone bubble you are taking a huge risk. This concept necessary requires both to move with you. I have had previous thoughts on that subject:

https://community.battlefront.com/topic/142139-new-armoured-vehicle-concept-lessons-from-ukraine/

[Fernando]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

One of the most infamous examples of this in the US was, ironically, a Ukrainian by the name of Demjanjuk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

He was found to be a concentration camp guard and was (twice) stripped of his US citizenship before eventually being deported to Germany for trial.

Even if this 14th SS guy in Canada was innocent of any and all criminal activity, it was still dumb as (your exploitive of choice goes here) to have him sitting there in Parliament.  There was nothing to be gained by it, but obviously a lot to lose.

Steve

On some occasions I would give "the benefit of the doubt", as we say in Spain. People can evolve. Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass also served in the Waffen-SS (in the 10. SS-Panzer-Division "Frundsberg"), and I would not say that when he died that he was a Nazi, quite the opposite.

That said, given my experience suffering Catalan nationalism firsthand, any strong nationalist is suspect. The various forms of fascism are nothing more than nationalism taken to its ultimate (and aberrant) logical consequences.

 

[kluge]

23 minutes ago, hcrof said:

I would love to hear more! 

I described ATGM teams and drones too, as well as my assumption that you cannot breakthrough without significant attrition, and that enemy vehicles, being easy to spot, will be early targets of that attrition. 

23 hours ago, hcrof said:

Note that the drone screen can be controlled via laser link not Radio since they are kept close to the vehicle. No need to emit radiation and be vulnerable to EW! 

Hate to break it to you, but I feel obligated to point out that lasers are literally a form of radiation emission and as such they are most definitely vulnerable to various forms of EW. 

[hcrof]

12 minutes ago, kluge said:

Hate to break it to you, but I feel obligated to point out that lasers are literally a form of radiation emission and as such they are most definitely vulnerable to various forms of EW. 

My understanding is that they are highly directional and therefore difficult to pick up unless your sensor is exactly in the right place though - happy to be corrected if I am wrong though. 

[TheVulture]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

My understanding is that they are highly directional and therefore difficult to pick up unless your sensor is exactly in the right place though - happy to be corrected if I am wrong though. 

Broadly speaking, yes.

EM systems can range all the way from directionless to highly directional broadcasting and receiving.

Your old fashioned radio transmitters and receivers are pretty much directionless: the transmitter sends the signals in all directions, and the receiver is sensitive to all directions. Although in practice even there the transmitter will probably emit more horizontally than vertically, and anyone who remembers fiddling with the antenna on a radio to improve the signal knows that they have some directionality. This kind of system is pretty easy to jam, spoof etc. - you just need a stronger signal than the source to drown it out, and thanks to the inverse square law, you can do that with a weaker transmitter if it is closer to the receiver (such as trying to disprupt a drone that is 10m overhead, but being controlled from several km away).

At the other extreme, you have something like a high frequency laser with a tiny beam angle, and a highly directional receiver (e.g. a telescope) that is also pretty much only sensitive in the direction it is looking. This is pretty much impossible to disrupt directly via EW, because you need to get a transmitter in to the receivers field of view and be brighter than the laser. I.e. you need to get your own laser in the right place and pointing in the right direction. Which is pretty much not going to happen.

The flip side is that it is also hard to keep the transmitter and receiver aligned in this scenario, even in ideal circumstances. Witness the loss of contact with Voyager 2 earlier this year (okay, 'ideal' might be stretching it) because a mistaken command made voyager 2 point its receiving dish in the wrong direction, meaning it couldn't be contacted to tell it to pint the dish in the right direction... And in a military context, stuff is just going to get in the way of the communication beam - smoke, trees, terrain, never mind having to keep the pointing correct due to wind, being rammed by another drone, or whatever,

And as with voyager, there was a backup system to get it to re-orient. You can imagine some kind of emergency (non-directional) backup on a drone to re-establish communication, but that is necessarily a potential attack surface for the enemy to try and hijack control of the drone. The weak link in that kind of scenario is unlikely to be someone jamming the laser signal, it is going to be these other ways of disrupting communications or backdooring control in some way.

[Rokko]

 

Looks like BSF commander is still alive. Not sure why UKR continually makes these claims about killing high ranking officers based on sites struck and leaked rumors alone. Same with the "7 Russian generals killed" last year, a lot of whom turned out to be alive and well later.

[Ales Dvorak]

11 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

This is what we judge them the for in Europe, not for the fact that they did fight for free Ukraine or not. Even if they weren't in proper SS, they did serve in the same machine, took orders and share its ideological conotations, uniforms and crucially- actions.

This.

 

p.s.

The 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division (Galizische Nr. 1) (14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (galizische Nr. 1)) was a Waffen-SS division founded in April 1943 from Ukrainians, which was present in Slovenia in two different periods. Initially (February–March 1945), it primarily operated in the area of Lower Štajerska (some units also in Gorenjska and Dolenjska); then it retreated with other units (in April and May 1945) across Lower Styria to Austria, where it again clashed with Slovenian partisans. The primary combat and combat support units were: the 29th, 30th and 31st Waffen-SS Grenadier Regiments, the 14th Waffen-SS Artillery Regiment and the 14th Waffen-SS Field Replacement Regiment

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, TheVulture said:

Broadly speaking, yes.

EM systems can range all the way from directionless to highly directional broadcasting and receiving.

Your old fashioned radio transmitters and receivers are pretty much directionless: the transmitter sends the signals in all directions, and the receiver is sensitive to all directions. Although in practice even there the transmitter will probably emit more horizontally than vertically, and anyone who remembers fiddling with the antenna on a radio to improve the signal knows that they have some directionality. This kind of system is pretty easy to jam, spoof etc. - you just need a stronger signal than the source to drown it out, and thanks to the inverse square law, you can do that with a weaker transmitter if it is closer to the receiver (such as trying to disprupt a drone that is 10m overhead, but being controlled from several km away).

At the other extreme, you have something like a high frequency laser with a tiny beam angle, and a highly directional receiver (e.g. a telescope) that is also pretty much only sensitive in the direction it is looking. This is pretty much impossible to disrupt directly via EW, because you need to get a transmitter in to the receivers field of view and be brighter than the laser. I.e. you need to get your own laser in the right place and pointing in the right direction. Which is pretty much not going to happen.

The flip side is that it is also hard to keep the transmitter and receiver aligned in this scenario, even in ideal circumstances. Witness the loss of contact with Voyager 2 earlier this year (okay, 'ideal' might be stretching it) because a mistaken command made voyager 2 point its receiving dish in the wrong direction, meaning it couldn't be contacted to tell it to pint the dish in the right direction... And in a military context, stuff is just going to get in the way of the communication beam - smoke, trees, terrain, never mind having to keep the pointing correct due to wind, being rammed by another drone, or whatever,

And as with voyager, there was a backup system to get it to re-orient. You can imagine some kind of emergency (non-directional) backup on a drone to re-establish communication, but that is necessarily a potential attack surface for the enemy to try and hijack control of the drone. The weak link in that kind of scenario is unlikely to be someone jamming the laser signal, it is going to be these other ways of disrupting communications or backdooring control in some way.

And we also need to specify what the laser is meant to do.  Roughly speaking, there's communications, targeting, and kinetic weapon.  Then there's different power levels for each.

Currently, armored vehicles have laser detectors that are quite effective at determining when they are "painted" by a targeting laser (I am including range finding as well as guidance).  This is because, as you say above, there's an inherent direct connection between the source and the target.  And as you say this is extremely limited.  Tank A can have its warning system triggered, but Tank B sitting a few meters away will not.  Therefore, it is up to other systems (like radio) for Tank A to communicate vulnerability to Tank B.

Vehicles may also be equipped with "dazzlers", which attempts to send conflicting signals outward in order to confuse laser guided munitions.  In other words, jamming.  This is a form of EW and it is quite effective, mostly because confusing a laser guided PGM by even a meter or two is usually enough to positively change the outcome for the vehicle.

Communications lasers are friendly point to point so there would have to be a direct physical interception between them to detect or disrupt it.

Kinetic lasers are similar to communication, except it is friendly point to enemy point.  Detection and interception are therefore possible, but not practical because the amount of energy being transmitted is by its nature destructive.  Having armored mirrors to reflect or dissipate the light are not practical, but using shape and exotic materials to absorb energy is at least theoretically possible though as likely impractical.

To sum up... lasers are extremely difficult to detect or disrupt unless directly targeted by one.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Fernando said:

On some occasions I would give "the benefit of the doubt", as we say in Spain. People can evolve. Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass also served in the Waffen-SS (in the 10. SS-Panzer-Division "Frundsberg"), and I would not say that when he died that he was a Nazi, quite the opposite.

For sure.  But of course, "benefit of the doubt" is impossible in a politically charged situation.  The Canadian situation would have played out very differently if the individual had already been given the benefit of the doubt and, through his actions and/or research, already proven to be OK.  Even then, it was politically stupid to have him there because he wasn't a household name like Günter Grass.

4 hours ago, Fernando said:

That said, given my experience suffering Catalan nationalism firsthand, any strong nationalist is suspect. The various forms of fascism are nothing more than nationalism taken to its ultimate (and aberrant) logical consequences.

Yup, but even then there's a chance the person realizes they were lied to, caught up in something they didn't really understand, etc.  It's a difficult process for someone to go through, but even hardened neonazis who committed criminal acts against their "enemies" have been known to see the error of their ways.  Not as likely as continuing on with their beliefs, but it's very hard to say that until the individual is given a chance to prove who they really are.

Steve

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Ales Dvorak said:

This.

 

p.s.

The 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division (Galizische Nr. 1) (14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (galizische Nr. 1)) was a Waffen-SS division founded in April 1943 from Ukrainians, which was present in Slovenia in two different periods. Initially (February–March 1945), it primarily operated in the area of Lower Štajerska (some units also in Gorenjska and Dolenjska); then it retreated with other units (in April and May 1945) across Lower Styria to Austria, where it again clashed with Slovenian partisans. The primary combat and combat support units were: the 29th, 30th and 31st Waffen-SS Grenadier Regiments, the 14th Waffen-SS Artillery Regiment and the 14th Waffen-SS Field Replacement Regiment

Ugh, a very quick wiki search comes up pretty quick that the actions of some sub-units of this division agains Polish civilians, on more than one occasion, were criminal.  Of course Canada held a “totally-not-cover-our-a$$es” commission back in 1986 and found the Division as innocent as lambs.  This was seriously political as we were coming under a lot of pressure for harbouring war criminals back then and surprisingly we held a commission and found we were not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)

For our European readers/posters let’s just be really clear - Nazi as a brand = Evil in North American thinking.  No Grey Areas, no “hey wait a minutes” or “what about context”.  Anyone in North America who thinks Nazi = Ok, is immediately labeled a Nazi/white supremacist.  

Any further discussion of this will no doubt drag this thread down a rabbit hole we do not want to go down, so I recommend we tie off “Nazi, let’s think about it” early.  The fact that Canadian parliament invited in a veteran of this Division, in the middle of a visit from the Ukrainian president, is a screw up of epic proportions.  Even if all this guy did was guard the mess and is totally innocent, his attachment to this formation should have raised flags and put the brakes on this whole thing.  It’s link to this war is that Russia is making IO hay on this entire issue, which is doing exactly zero favours for Ukraine in the longer term.

Edited September 26, 2023 by The_Capt

[Beleg85]

OK, going back to current war topics:

It seems that adm. commanding BSF is alive and well (albeit he seems little stiff). He appeared in video conference of Russian MoD.

 

[Bearstronaut]

1 hour ago, Rokko said:

 

Looks like BSF commander is still alive. Not sure why UKR continually makes these claims about killing high ranking officers based on sites struck and leaked rumors alone. Same with the "7 Russian generals killed" last year, a lot of whom turned out to be alive and well later.

The Black Sea Fleet Commander is dead. Long live the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

[acrashb]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

 it was politically stupid to have him there

Let's put some guardrails on this.  It was not "politically stupid", it was administratively incompetent.  No-one thought, or perhaps someone carelessly or arrogantly bypassed a protocol, to background-check a person to be feted by the House of Commons.  https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/speaker-responsibility-inviting-nazi-soldier-conservatives-blame-pmo

Kind of like when the current government invited a convicted attempted murderer and Khalistani sympathizer (etc. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaspal_Atwal#:~:text=In February 2018%2C Atwal gained,local radio in British Columbia. ) to a reception during a Canadian government trip to India. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-india-atwal-controversy-1.4546502 

The current government has committed any number of sloppy gaffes, even more than one would expect for a government this long in the tooth (8 years, or 2899 days, in power), although this one may take the cake.  In Canada, there is none of the (legitimate) nuance discussed here.  In the public mind, SS == evil, period.

The speaker will almost certainly have to resign, if only to staunch the international reputational bleeding.

[Kinophile]

On 9/25/2023 at 6:24 AM, zinz said:

 

And yes tanks are dead. On this battlefield the need for heavy direct fire systems is gone. Tanks where meant to fight other tanks. But now they are mostly fighting to survive like the battleships. 

Okay, slow down matey. 

Our mbt discussion isn't saying tank's are dead in this war.  They very much are not and there is still a very pressing need for heavy direct fire. They are still very dangerous and so still useful. 

It's the next war,  when everyone comes to the fight with arsenals of UAS and UGVs that the role and utility of modern MBTs is being seriously called into question. 

But here and now, against the RUS there's nothing else equivalent, deployed in significant numbers, that can do everything even a T64 can do. Drones are dangerous and highly useful but nothing on the field right now is able to properly replace any tank in use by ZSU or the RUS MoD. 

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

54 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

It seems that adm. commanding BSF is alive and well (albeit he seems little stiff). He appeared in video conference of Russian MoD.

Although he does seem to be teleconferencing in from hospital. So not dead, but resting. Pining for the fjords.

[Kinophile]

5 hours ago, kluge said:

Hate to break it to you, but I feel obligated to point out that lasers are literally a form of radiation emission and as such they are most definitely vulnerable to various forms of EW. 

EW is electromagnetic warfare using radiation in certain parts of the spectrum,  no? To interfere with both hardware a d emitted radiation. 

Lasers are light (which yes is EMR) emission after getting specific source materials stimulated with, yes,  electromagnetic effects. But the resulting beam is not vulnerable to EM warfare because its a coherent focused stream of photons, not a wide angle field of EMR. Intercepting/affecting it is impossible unless pointing directly into it along us long axis. In theory you can affect the emitting apparatus with EMR, but you'd need an insanely powerful emitter of your own... 

I believe? 

@chrisl? 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

It seems that adm. commanding BSF is alive and well (albeit he seems little stiff). He appeared in video conference of Russian MoD.

A new military innovation for Russia is apparently pillows for their commanders to lie back on.  Gives them the comfort they need to win this war.

So, he is probably alive but wounded badly enough that the video had to be shot from a hospital bed.  At least that's the way it looks from the still of the video.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

27 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Let's put some guardrails on this.  It was not "politically stupid", it was administratively incompetent.  No-one thought, or perhaps someone carelessly or arrogantly bypassed a protocol, to background-check a person to be feted by the House of Commons.  https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/speaker-responsibility-inviting-nazi-soldier-conservatives-blame-pmo

Administratively stupid is a better way to put it, agreed.  Though anybody trying to say there's gray areas and what's the big deal is being politically stupid.  For something like this there are no gray areas.

Steve

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Administratively stupid is a better way to put it, agreed.  Though anybody trying to say there's gray areas and what's the big deal is being politically stupid.  For something like this there are no gray areas.

Steve

If they didn't bother to do a wiki search, it was administratively stupid.  If they knew and thought "shouldn't be a problem", it was politically stupid.  Outcome is the same regardless.  Right now the Chief of Defence Staff and Commissionaire of the RCMP are on camera next to the guy clapping and smiling - not a good look.  

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Ugh, a very quick wiki search come up pretty quick that the actions of some sub-units of this division agains Polish civilians, on more than one occasion, were criminal.  

This is true for the Croat Divisions as well.  They were already committing warcrimes on behalf of the Nazis even before they became Waffen SS units.  And in combat they were... well... what you'd expect from a bunch of people full of ethnic hatred and given license to rape, murder, and plunder their enemies.  Not very good.  Another common theme between Russian military units and those of Nazi Germany.

Steve

[Kinophile]

In the same breath, much as Conservatives et al will scream about NAZI LOVING LIBERALS!!! they're just singing to the tinfoil hat-clad choir. 

The more damaging effect will be the narrative of incompetence.  That's probably more insidiously dangerous to Trudeau because all it'll take is another screw up soon to build a story of idiots at the helm.

Ok,  all politicians are idiots,  by definition,  it's where their egotistic stupidity falls on the moral spectrum that matters for Ukraine. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Kinophile

[Kinophile]

20 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

A new military innovation for Russia is apparently pillows for their commanders to lie back on.  Gives them the comfort they need to win this war.

So, he is probably alive but wounded badly enough that the video had to be shot from a hospital bed.  At least that's the way it looks from the still of the video.

Steve

He could easily be paralyzed from the waist down. I've watched the video,  he's not exactly lively. 

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

In the same breath, much as Conservatives et al will scream about NAZI LOVING LIBERALS!!! they're just singing to the tinfoil hat-clad choir. 

The more damaging effect will be the narrative of incompetence.  That's probably more insidiously dangerous to Trudeau because all it'll take is another screw up soon to build a story of idiots at the helm.

Ok,  all politicians are idiots,  by definition,  it's where their egotistic stupidity falls on the moral spectrum that matters for Ukraine. 

As much as I would love a "Let's talk aboot Canadian politics thread, eh?", a few points and then I have no doubt everyone will move on:

- If the Liberals take Trudeau as leader into the next election, they are done like dinner. Canadians resent any leader who is office for too long.

- Our conservatives are nowhere near as conservative as those in the US.  I wish I could say that extreme right did not exist in Canada but it is very much on the margins, for now.  We definitely have it in the DNA, but we are also addicted to our social programs and liberalist high ground.

- With respect to this war, it won't matter which party gets into power the support will still flow from our end.  Even the NDP (far left) would have to stay in the game at this point - they might balk at some weapon systems but...  Which political party is in power is nowhere near as critical to support to the Ukrainian war effort as it is in the US right now (and frankly I am not even sure where the US would really go).

Beyond looking like a bunch of disconnected rubes in this last gaff, we are very much a "Rules Matter" bunch and Russians invasion is just too far outside the global order for Canada to accept.

[chrisl]

27 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

What? 

EW is electromagnetic warfare using radiation in certain parts of the spectrum,  no? 

Lasers are light emission after getting specific source materials stimulated with, yes,  electromagnetic effects. But the resulting beam is not vulnerable to EM warfare because its a stream of photond, not an field of EM. 

@chrisl? 

Light and radio are the same phenomenon, just different frequencies (or wavelengths, or even worse, wavenumbers if you're a spectroscopist).  One of the best optical system designers I know got his start as a radio astronomer and I met him because he was hired to do the fancy things radio people do (with wavelengths of meters) in the optical (wavelengths of half a micrometer).  RF is just a bunch photons of a lot lower energy than optical photons. And we can build incredibly sensitive sensors for both, with very different implementations (thanks quantum mechanics!)

Most of the discussion so far has been pretty accurate on the practical differences, which are many.  A "mirror" in the RF can be an umbrella lined with hardware cloth that looks like trash in the optical.  Lasers still have optics, but you can make the beam very narrow with very small sidebands so it's hard to detect, at least over battlefield ranges.  There's still beam spread that depends on your wavelength and optical system - most of the lasers I use are attached to optical fibers so that they emit light in a wide cone at low enough intensity that they're eye safe.

[Harmon Rabb]

Speaking of Canadian politics and the war I'm reminded of this story. When the Canadian Prime Minister just told Putin to his face that he needs to get out from Ukraine, at the G20 summit in Australia. Hard to believe this was almost 10 years ago back in 2014 when the annexation of Crimea happened.

World leaders take Putin to task over Ukraine at G20 in Australia (CNN)

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Harmon Rabb