How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[cesmonkey]

 

[hcrof]

1 hour ago, Tux said:

As I mentioned a few pages back I think this is a good idea for the early years of the drone wars and I think the bestish solution for the next decade would be a cheap ‘fighter drone’ that autonomously homes in on airborne radio emitters and collides with them.  That at least forces the enemy to solve the ‘how to make an effective autonomous drone’ problem before they can harass your ground forces again. 

Is this what you have in mind?

https://www.anduril.com/hardware/anvil/

 

[The_Capt]

26 minutes ago, Grey_Fox said:

Won't the command and control systems of these UAVs also have a fairly strong signature in order to burn through any EWAR?

Not if they are fully autonomous.  This is why autonomy is a race to the bottom.  And we are currently losing.

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

It isn’t the bullets.  Drones are cheaper than the things firing all them bullets to sweep the sky clean.  And firing all said bullets at the Face of God is going to leave an ISR signature that will ensure retribution.  Same goes for lasers or EM.

It is classic military dilemma.  If I stay quiet my opponent will hunt and kill me with UAS.  If I blaze away at them, my opponents artillery will target and kill me.

That feels a bit simplistic,  rock-paper-scissors, on-paper type of description, no?

It assumes a 1 to 1 comparison of two weapons platform,  but does it not really need to be a comparison of systems of systems?

It also assumes loss of a platform is the worst outcome, with that resulting from 100% strike success. But attrition in war is a given,  successful strikes are not and the example provides no agency on the defending system of systems in concealment, misdirection, platform-local counter-drone measures. 

There will always be a cost in defending, and while there is a dilemma of firing v revealing one's location,  well - tough. Losses are assumed in the plan.

Sometimes you open fire anyway because the cost of not doing so is greater than high-probability loss of the platform. Or to distract from a better target, or,  or,  or..  Etc.I've faced this dilemma many times in CMBS as UKR v RUS, as a microcosm of the greater situations 

Also, in a system of systems in a tier 1 peer conflict is it not highly unlikely any one platform is alone and unsupported? So the nominal drone attacking a nominal defence platform is subject to potential adjacent effects from nearby platforms. 

Can you expand this more? 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Kinophile

[The_Capt]

40 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

That feels a bit simplistic,  rock-paper-scissors, on-paper type of description, no?

The best ones really are.  Sure we can get into force ratios, attrition vs force generation.  Opportunity costs.  Risk vs Reward.   Systems versus platforms.

But in the end you will end up right back to the dilemma.  AirLand Battle was a simple dilemma as well...concentrate mass, get killed by the air.  Distribute to avoid airpower, get killed in isolation by land power. 

The central dilemma facing modern warfare revolve around the same themes - concentration of mass, signature/profile, distribution and support.  We cannot realistically clear the skies below 2000 feet.  You cannot fire enough dumb or smart ammo into it and we do not have the technology (yet) to do C-UAS with other UAS.  Even if you could fire enough bullets into the sky, the noise you would make would immediately draw Deep Fires on these AD platforms and systems.  If we do not sweep the skies or establish air superiority below 2000 feet those system can see and hunt making concentration of mass impossible. 

The dilemma is in cost.  Platforms that can fire a lot of accurate bullets or munitions into the sky are going to be expensive.  We are talking about detecting, tracking and hitting something the size of a bird, with better maneuverability,  kms out.  Both what they are shooting at, and what is shooting at them are much cheaper.  A PGM munition and/or drone is a fraction of the cost of a mobile AA or SAM platform able to do C-UAS (we just spent pages on this).  In an attritional exchange the sky cleaner is going to lose, badly.

So we are back to deadlock.  Until someone can design and deliver a technology or process that breaks it.  A cheap and effective way to do C-UAS and C-ISR.   

[Tux]

1 hour ago, hcrof said:

Is this what you have in mind?

https://www.anduril.com/hardware/anvil/

 

Close but Anvil still looks too heavy and expensively built, to my eye.  Make it half (or less) the weight, hand-launched, use the cheapest possible components and materials for mass production and remove all the networking capabilities.

An effective rf seeker/guidance combo with 10km flight range, enough mass to likely disable whatever it hits and an on/off switch.  That’s all I was thinking.

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

It isn’t the bullets.  Drones are cheaper than the things firing all them bullets to sweep the sky clean.  And firing all said bullets at the Face of God is going to leave an ISR signature that will ensure retribution.  Same goes for lasers or EM.

It is classic military dilemma.  If I stay quiet my opponent will hunt and kill me with UAS.  If I blaze away at them, my opponents artillery launched UAS will target hunt and kill me.

Fixed that for you.

In the limit of perfect ISR and "if I can see it it's dead" combined with autonomy, you start to only need a maximum of one munition per opposing "unit" where "unit" is one vehicle or person.  The way it gets hard is where each of the units is a difficult to detect autonomous UGV/UAV itself.

I think in Star Trek the society that could do that just gave up and rolled dice and sent people into literal meat grinders.

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Fixed that for you.

In the limit of perfect ISR and "if I can see it it's dead" combined with autonomy, you start to only need a maximum of one munition per opposing "unit" where "unit" is one vehicle or person.  The way it gets hard is where each of the units is a difficult to detect autonomous UGV/UAV itself.

I think in Star Trek the society that could do that just gave up and rolled dice and sent people into literal meat grinders.

I was thinking more of that SMArt strike we saw yesterday.  But the point still stands.  One cannot "fix" on threat without becoming highly vulnerable to another.  It is a confluence of Illumination, Precision and Persistence - all at a much cheaper cost than anything that can be fielded to break that confluence.  

[chrisl]

12 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I was thinking more of that SMArt strike we saw yesterday.  But the point still stands.  One cannot "fix" on threat without becoming highly vulnerable to another.  It is a confluence of Illumination, Precision and Persistence - all at a much cheaper cost than anything that can be fielded to break that confluence.  

Yeah, but those are old tech.  The new version will be artillery launched like that, but be able to loiter until a target is visible in case it has the ability to pop out, shoot, hide faster than you can get shells there.  Like in old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

The dilemma is in cost.  Platforms that can fire a lot of accurate bullets or munitions into the sky are going to be expensive. 

This is what I keep hammering on.  Expensive = limited.  So even if someone comes up with a fancy-schmancy defense system that can clear the skies of any drones that aren't defeated by other means (EW and counter drones for terrain huggers), this thing won't be practical to build at a scale that really matters.  At best you might be able to park one behind a threatened sector of front, but that's it.  Just one, maybe two.

Combine this with the reality that there's no way this system will go undetected, and there's a problem that has no solution.  Whatever the capabilities of that fantasy super denial weapon might be, someone will figure out a vulnerability in which to destroy it.  Small thermal exhaust port got the Death Star killed, right?  Now if the Empire had a couple thousand of Death Stars that wouldn't have been a problem, but they had only one.  With that gone a replacement wasn't easy to produce, especially because the Rebels figured out how to "disrupt production" pretty effectively.

It's been a while since Star Wars got brought up here, and I blame all of you for making me have to be the one to fix that.

This is why I ridiculed and derided Lockheed's tractor trailer sized $50m laser defense system.  It's useless because it's $50m.  If they could crank these out for $100,000 each.... well then, the $1.2b budget would produce 1200 instead of 4. That would be worth pursuing because you'd be able to have adequate coverage for a large scale conflict AND have replacement systems when, not if, they get knocked out.

Steve

[Vet 0369]

22 hours ago, Lethaface said:

At least the crew looked like they can return to the fight after some R&R!

And some CLEAN new skivvies!

[dan/california]

Whatever the Russian excuse for a strategy is, it certainly isn't based on any military competence whatsoever.

[Kinophile]

UKR is actively hunting Teplinsky, it might be. 

 

[Harmon Rabb]

 

Just a neat photo, the second first Ukrainian flag on in the photo looks a lot more battle worn compared to the rest.

[Probus]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is why I ridiculed and derided Lockheed's tractor trailer sized $50m laser defense system.  It's useless because it's $50m.  If they could crank these out for $100,000 each.... well then, the $1.2b budget would produce 1200 instead of 4. That would be worth pursuing because you'd be able to have adequate coverage for a large scale conflict AND have replacement systems when, not if, they get knocked out.

Surely if we can produce an APS system that can knock down RPGs, we can produce a "bird shot" system that can knock out hovering drones and incoming kamikaze drones on the cheap (relatively speaking).  Unfortunately, it may also devastate the local bird population...  But maybe an AI system can help with that...  Then the enemy will prolly start mounting munitions on birds to slip through the defenses...   It just goes on and on. 

Defensive systems have a large job ahead of them.

[Carolus]

I found Vlad Vexler's channel over the course of last year. While I don't always agree with all of his theses, I greatly value him and his way of analysing.

While this is about the world in general, but it also specifically mentions Ukraine enough to be on topic enough to be posted here, I feel. 

[Kinophile]

Shashank. On Zaluzny's Economist interview. 

 

[dan/california]

43 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Shashank. On Zaluzny's Economist interview. 

 

Quote

“First I thought there was something wrong with our commanders, so I changed some of them. Then I thought maybe our soldiers are not fit for purpose, so I moved soldiers in some brigades,” says General Zaluzhny. When those changes failed to make a difference, the commander told his staff to dig out a book he once saw as a student in a military academy in Ukraine. Its title was “Breaching Fortified Defence Lines”. It was published in 1941 by a Soviet major-general, P. S. Smirnov, who analysed the battles of the first world war. “And before I got even halfway through it, I realised that is exactly where we are because just like then, the level of our technological development today has put both us and our enemies in a stupor.”

The money paragraph. And now we have to find a translation of this book.

Edited November 1, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Whatever the Russian excuse for a strategy is, it certainly isn't based on any military competence whatsoever.

I hope to see Ukraine doing more of this.  There has to be all kinds of sectors of the Russian front that are weak enough that local strikes can produce quick results.  Even if temporary, raids can't be ignored without consequences.  Just look at the Russian Legion's attacks into Belgorod and Kursk areas.

One interesting not about the Russian video is that they seemed to have blown up the same exact spot twice.  So exact that I first wondered if it was just double video of the same explosion.  But looking at both many times the character seems different so it does appear to be two different explosions.  Odd they would use two PGMs on exactly the same place.

Another note is that Ukrainian soldiers walk away from what appeared to be well within the lethality radius of whatever it was.

Steve

[dan/california]

9 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Another drone recollection gathering interrupted by a party pooper ;-). 

 

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I hope to see Ukraine doing more of this.  There has to be all kinds of sectors of the Russian front that are weak enough that local strikes can produce quick results.  Even if temporary, raids can't be ignored without consequences.  Just look at the Russian Legion's attacks into Belgorod and Kursk areas.

One interesting not about the Russian video is that they seemed to have blown up the same exact spot twice.  So exact that I first wondered if it was just double video of the same explosion.  But looking at both many times the character seems different so it does appear to be two different explosions.  Odd they would use two PGMs on exactly the same place.

Another note is that Ukrainian soldiers walk away from what appeared to be well within the lethality radius of whatever it was.

Steve

There have been a great many reports about Russian shells sucking eggs. Maybe they fired two in the hopes one of them would work right? Given that the Ukrainians were still alive it seems possible neither one did.

[Kraft]

https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/

Weird history this guy has with his articles

Edited November 1, 2023 by Kraft

[sburke]

8 minutes ago, Kraft said:

https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/

Weird history this guy has with his articles

he lives in the twilight zone

[Haiduk]

Avdiivka.

Russians since yesterday renewed assaults, but in this time its less mass and intensive. Instead total onrush they are attacking like in Bakhmut - with small infantry or mixed infantry/armored groups, but continuosly. Also they still regrouping own forces. Our troops reported that Russian aviation and artillery work more intensive, than infantry. 

Though, in the mid of day messages have apperared on one sectiion of northern flank, Russians after series of endless small zerg-rushes managed to push through of our defense on railroad and now they try to expand own success, sending more troops there to breakthrough to Stepove and Berdychi. UKR forces try fight them back. Result of today's fighting there still unknoewn.

Here is probably yesterday Russian armored attack on northern flank with four BTR-82A on positions of 1st tank brigade. All APCs were destroyed. Likely 15th MRBr again

 

In Donetsk yesterday evening Russian fuel echelone was struck by MLRS on railroad station Mushketovo. This can reduce maneuver capability of Russian vehicles.

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Haiduk

[Harmon Rabb]

 

[danfrodo]

That's was a really good one to see Haiduk.  First ones & then others hit by ATGMs or tank shells, it looks like

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

Whatever the Russian excuse for a strategy is, it certainly isn't based on any military competence whatsoever.

This is something that's really been bothering me relative to the beliefs I have.  If RU is running short of men & armor & shells, then spending lots of resources in Andiivka should allow UKR to make progress somewhere.  but we just don't see any progress other than attrition.  I would think that RU going forward at least opens up opportunity to attack the flanks somewhere, especially since UKR should be facing somewhat exhausted units that are on new terrain and not properly dug in & mined.