How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Damn good 23rd post. The frozen conflict scenario has been discussed here: think Korea.  The idea that there is simply no way to break the lines and regain offensive primacy has been brought up many times.  The picture you paint is quite accurate.

However, all war is negotiation.  In order to stop this war, both sides need to be ready to stop.  It is plausible that with enough backroom pressure Ukraine could be convinced to stop this thing pretty much where it is.  The problem, not surprisingly, is Russia.  The Putin regime is riding on this dumpster fire.  Hell, his life and those of his cronies are likely riding on this thing.  Convincing Putin to stop and draw new lines is the problem.  Technically we cannot even incentivize this as the man and most of his admin are labeled as war criminals.  We cannot renormalize while he (and they) remain in power.

Subversive wheeling and dealing has and likely is occurring in the backfield.  However, as we saw with Saddam, one thing paranoid autocrats are exceptionally good at is shoring up the store.  They have intel everywhere and make people disappear who even have a whiff of disloyalty - recall the flying oligarchs of the last two years.  

So what will it take to bring Russia to the table at this point?  A freakin military coup.  The RA would need to collapse to the point it turns on Putin.  That may force him from office and we are looking at “can we bargain with the next SOB?  “Is the next SOB clean enough?”  Of course if the RA collapses, Ukraine will want to push to take more ground.  Recall that this time last year Ukraine had retaken both Kharkiv and Kherson - those were major operational victories.  The hope was that they could repeat the same method this summer.  But apparently even on the high tech battlefield, mines still work.  In fact with UAS minefields work even better.

So here we are.  Ukraine will likely be pushed into defence until someone can figure out a Plan B.  RA will keep smashing itself onto that because Putin needs to show that he is “winning” to stay alive.  Even offering the war criminal peace talks would be nothing but a sham at this point.  Hell it would lend legitimacy to their actions.  As a min, Russia would demand international recognition that they own what they took, including Crimea and Donbas.

I guess the main reason we have not gone deeply into a peace process is because frankly an RA military collapse is more viable than trying establish one.

I'm with TheCapt on this.  Squatter makes excellent points.  I would not sue for 'peace' right now if I were UKR leadership is because peace can't be had.  RU wants more and will be back.  So UKR is trying to keep pressuring RU in hopes, as TheCapt said, of some kind of change.  RU military mutiny at some point is one hope.  Right now UKR would give up a lot of territory & citizens only to be attacked again as Putin has made it clear over & over again he is not done and will not stop.  If UKR could negotiate back to something close to Feb 22 border, I am pretty sure they'd be open to that, but that's never going to happen w/o RU collapse.

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, OBJ said:

Really appreciate the thoughts on this by @chrisl and all others after.

I just started looking but haven't found anything that looks like force structure or doctrine for massed use of drones. Maybe not surprisingly there does not yet seem to be a 'FM 7-7X, the Drone Platoon in the Attack.'

The impression you get is field practice in Ukraine is way ahead of published military thought. Maybe someone here knows the Ukrainian or Russian drone equivalent of JFC Fuller or Immelmann/Boelcke.

I might differ with others on AI. I think the integration of autonomous AI into conventional war kill chains in recon/strike complexes is inevitable given the advantages in response/decision cycle time.

I did find this interesting, thoughts on drone 'swarm tactics.' Author is an Italian Air Force Lieutenant attending USMC U.

https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Expeditions-with-MCUP-digital-journal/A-New-Way-of-War/

 

I think you need to look in the Science Fiction section of the library, but you very well might find something there that's not far off.

I agree that use of "AI" is inevitable.  I just don't think we'll see it in Ukraine.  I'd be more surprised if there weren't prototypes than if there are. But figuring out how to implement them en masse in the field with a mix of drones and without accidentally sterilizing the wrong side of the FEBA isn't something that I'd want to bet a couple battalions of the UA on.  But I think there's enough autonomy available now that there could be "drone prep" crews sending drones into the rear to replace the ones that are getting used up and handing them off to operators who are using drones like the UA rambo video was using guns some months back, except they'll be pro video game players with high SA pulling reserve drones from the bottom of the screen.  Sounds kinda like Ender...

Edited December 16, 2023 by chrisl

[chrisl]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well now we got a ballgame, or what could be one.  The AI might be in networking all these drones together.  Human operators at 1:1 or even 1:5 is likely too many people having to fly this thing.  So swarms of fully autonomous systems.  They not only would have to sanitize, they would need to keep sanitizing and then move with ground forces.  Above 2000 feet Air Denial would need to be sustained.

If some defenders have to hide in holes that is a workable risk.  What cannot happen is enough of them with UAS of their own are able to dial in ATGMs and artillery or the breaching efforts could die.

UGVs are an obvious answer but I am really not sure the tech is there yet.

Defenders hiding in holes get covered by their own drones that wait around.  If they're controlling their own drones, they're also radiating, and you just need to hit the antenna to render them hors de combat, and let the backfield drone operators/AI/UGV take care of them when they get thirsty.  

[LongLeftFlank]

3 hours ago, danfrodo said:

And to the folks that think the end is nigh.  No, they are not about to take over the world.  It's a heckuva lot of work & effort & smart coding  just to get them to move boxes properly.  This is the current prototype, shown above & called Digit, and it's being used in warehouses for jobs that people don't like.  

 

Good thread by Perpetua noting that not all tech on this new battlefield paradigm needs to be hi-tech.

Another interesting minithread here.

https://nitter.net/AndrewPerpetua/status/1734387176492716074#m

P.S. Is it just me, or has Elon has effed around with the Twitter yet again, to inhibit embedding of tweet images in other media?

Edited December 16, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Holy crap this was prescient!  Just when a guy figures he is clever, some guy pulled it all together in 2021.

Yup, at least SOMEONE is thinking about this stuff from the inside instead of just us on the outside.  I don't know that it will be paid much attention for a while (as we've discussed), but at least the ideas are starting to circulate that the US has an outdated concept of procurement.

For example, I was reminded that the original acquisition price for a Black Hornet (this is the micro squad based copter) was in the ballpark of $150,000.  This came with two drones, charging station, and controls.  The cost per squad in the US Army would be billions just for this one system.

You can get similar sized drones for $35 all day long on commercial websites.

Sure, the Black Hornet is wildly more capable than these throw away drones (it has FLIR, 1.5km range 25m flight time, etc.), but $70,000 better (the rough cost of 1x Black Hornet)?  No, I don't think so.  Add another $1000 worth of cool stuff to that $35 drone and you'll probably have something almost as capable at a fraction of the cost.  Our adversaries will absolutely go with the "good enough" route.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, OBJ said:

Really appreciate the thoughts on this by @chrisl and all others after.

I just started looking but haven't found anything that looks like force structure or doctrine for massed use of drones. Maybe not surprisingly there does not yet seem to be a 'FM 7-7X, the Drone Platoon in the Attack.'

That is my understanding as well.  I'm sure something is in the works, but we all know how slow these things go in peacetime.  Far, far too slow.  Manuals should have been out and in use for years already, even in imperfect form.

Chrisl's suggestion to read up on sci-fi is a good idea.  There's some relatively new authors who have dug into this topic in a way no previous ones have.  I am very partial to the Bobiverse series.  Although drones aren't the primary focus of the stories, it does play a major role in one of the books.  AI is the central theme of all.

3 hours ago, OBJ said:

The impression you get is field practice in Ukraine is way ahead of published military thought. Maybe someone here knows the Ukrainian or Russian drone equivalent of JFC Fuller or Immelmann/Boelcke.
 

There are a couple of Ukrainians who probably should take a break from killing Russians and write a formal manual.  There are probably some US equivalent of TTPs circulating very carefully, but I don't know if they've gone beyond that.  I sure would like to sit down with Magyar and have a talk with him about this stuff. 

3 hours ago, OBJ said:

I might differ with others on AI. I think the integration of autonomous AI into conventional war kill chains in recon/strike complexes is inevitable given the advantages in response/decision cycle time.

For sure it is coming and is coming.  In fact, it is already here.  The discussion is more about what its limitations are and aren't at this stage.  Fully autonomous bipeds are quite a ways off, but drones that can fly themselves and make targeting decisions without Humans?  That's already reality.

3 hours ago, OBJ said:

I did find this interesting, thoughts on drone 'swarm tactics.' Author is an Italian Air Force Lieutenant attending USMC U.

 

https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Expeditions-with-MCUP-digital-journal/A-New-Way-of-War/

 

Ooo!  Another downloaded doc I now have to make some time to read!  Thanks

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, squatter said:

The parallels with WW1 are increasingly glaring and not just a casual observation based on the digging of trenches. Defence is king. Advances are counted in the 100s of meters, not 100s of miles. Look at the images: men getting blasted to hell by high-explosives for the sake of a farmer’s field, a treeline or a shattered hamlet. It’s a lunar hellscape across 100s of km of front. Towns and villages erased and rendered probably never again inhabitable.

Welcome, and let me offer you cigars and brandy from the Skeptics lounge.

You're definitely not the only one getting WW1 vibes here.

 

Bonus (Canadian clickbait)

Somewhere between the 'Belarusian spetsnaz break bricks with head' division and the 'only a lumberjack stirs his coffee with his thumb' division.

Edited December 16, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Welcome, and let me offer you cigars and brandy from the Skeptics lounge.

You're definitely not the only one getting WW1 vibes here.

 

Bonus (Canadian clickbait)

 

The 32kg one is nearly 4 times the weight of a Javelin warhead.  Well it was 1914-15 WW1 there for awhile.  Now it definitely feels like 1916.  Maybe 1917-18 next year?  Preferably eastern front.

[OBJ]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Good thread by Perpetua noting that not all tech on this new battlefield paradigm needs to be hi-tech.

Another interesting minithread here.

https://nitter.net/AndrewPerpetua/status/1734387176492716074#m

P.S. Is it just me, or has Elon has effed around with the Twitter yet again, to inhibit embedding of tweet images in other media?

Hey, LLF, I was able to get to the threads through the link you sent, but not what I suppose are images.

Andrew Perpetua thoughts on infantry Co/Bn mortars interesting and seem pretty supportable given cost and ability to logistically support alternatives.

No idea if Musk is mucking around again.

[OBJ]

Thanks Steve,

The Bobiverse series just landed on my Christmas list

[Offshoot]

An article on Izyum now and the social repercussions post-occupation.

‘I’m not sure I fully trust anyone who stayed’: Ukrainian city split by suspicion a year after Russian retreat - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/16/izium-ukrainian-city-russia-collaboration-putin-retreat

[Battlefront.com]

19 minutes ago, OBJ said:

Thanks Steve,

The Bobiverse series just landed on my Christmas list

If you do audio books, the same guy did all four and a really good job.

Steve

[dan/california]

9 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/humanoid-robot-factory-agility-bipedal-amazon

If not slaughterbots just yet, at least a source of quick and dirty mine tramplers and ammo bearers?

...Of course, since these startups need funding all their core IC is already out during the vapourware stage, which means China Inc. can and will beat them to 'market' with crappy but functional knockoffs.

Whatever happens we have got / the Maxim gun / and they have (Not!)

Pretty sure a forum regular works for that exact company, hopefully he will be along before the weekend is over.

8 hours ago, squatter said:

 

Long time lurker here with first post since the war began.

First up – kudos for some of the analysis and opinion that’s been shared here. Right from the start there was nowhere else that I was aware of in MSM or elsewhere that so quickly at the outset of the war in 2022 identified that the Russians were going to suffer such a catastrophic initial defeat. It took most of the world – me included – much longer to come to that realisation. So kudos.

But more recently, as the front lines have hardened and solidified throughout 2023, I’m surprised at the almost total absence of an argument I’m going to make now:

This war is now looking pretty much unwinnable on the battlefield by any side – short of a massive uptick in US/NATO arms supplies (or a complete stop in those supplies). So surely the time has come for this horrendous, insane war to stop.

The path to some kind of operational victory on the battlefield looks gone. First the Russian offensive at Bakhmut, then the Ukrainian summer offensive demonstrated that under the new paradigm of drone proliferation, no one is going to achieve a significant mobile breakthrough in this conflict.

This time last year pundits were drawing fantasy lines of advance on maps towards Melitopol and the Crimean isthmus cutting the land bridge, but does anyone here now seriously believe anything like that kind of breakthrough is going to be possible in the coming years? I would say it’s pretty much impossible to see a breakthrough on the battlefield now.

Then came the hope of an attritional victory, or a corrosive victory, or however you want to term it. That always seemed like the more plausible option to me, but given the production levels by the Russians of cheap counters such as FPVs, ATGMs, glide bombs, etc, together with other mitigations and adaptations to PGMs, it doesn’t look like the Russians are anywhere nearer operational or strategic collapse than the Ukrainians are currently.

The parallels with WW1 are increasingly glaring and not just a casual observation based on the digging of trenches. Defence is king. Advances are counted in the 100s of meters, not 100s of miles. Look at the images: men getting blasted to hell by high-explosives for the sake of a farmer’s field, a treeline or a shattered hamlet. It’s a lunar hellscape across 100s of km of front. Towns and villages erased and rendered probably never again inhabitable.

Like in 1916, how many more 100s and 1000s of young men on either side are going to be killed before one side has to accept it is exhausted and cannot continue? How many more will be maimed, traumatised, brutalised, displaced if we continue into 2024 or 2025? How many families grieving, how many lives ruined? How much economic damage will be mounted on what’s already done? I mean what kind of state is the Ukraine economy right now? It must be utterly shattered? Let alone what it might be in two years time.

Not to mention the ongoing impacts globally – higher energy prices and increased grain prices which feed into increased cost of living around the world. Now, I’m less worried about interruption to comfortable middle class lifestyles in the West here, as I am with the impacts on the global south and developing world, where increases in food prices can be ruinous.

As others have pointed out here recently, Russia has already suffered a catastrophic defeat. 100s of 1000s of casualties (and sorry these are mostly terrified and bewildered young men, not ‘Orcs’ (the rapists and torturers excluded)). Its military is severely weakened, its economy now with a grim, baked-in demographic nightmare ahead. Its reputation sullied. NATO strengthened and expanded. And all it has to show is a sliver of territory on the land bridge.  

And even if some kind of attritional victory against Russia was to be achieved, what might that look like? That would assumably result in some kind of operational collapse leading to a wider collapse in morale resulting in mutiny or coup or similar – which many observers believe would result in even more hardline forces taking control from Putin. Then you are into fragmentation of Russia scenarios, nuclear proliferation, desperate use of nukes to prevent fall of Crimea etc. Potentially catastrophic not only for Russia but Ukraine also.

So I say: stop the goddamn war. Continue supporting Ukraine to the extent that any resumption of hostilities by Russia would be futile. Continue sanctions. Prosecute Putin as a war criminal. Encourage liberal opposition in Russia and create a set of strict conditions under which it could be accepted again as a partner of the West (such as free and fair democratic elections, prosecution of other war criminals, reparations to Ukraine, etc). 

And while reforms in Russia may be fanciful in the short term, the alternative is facing a couple more years of horrendous, ruinous grind, only inevitably having to face the realities of stalemate and the conclusion of the paragraph above anyway.

Except that after four years of the savage stalemate Germany broke. They did not get to keep Northeastern France, the Low Countries, or a great deal else.

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Damn good 23rd post. The frozen conflict scenario has been discussed here: think Korea.  The idea that there is simply no way to break the lines and regain offensive primacy has been brought up many times.  The picture you paint is quite accurate.

However, all war is negotiation.  In order to stop this war, both sides need to be ready to stop.  It is plausible that with enough backroom pressure Ukraine could be convinced to stop this thing pretty much where it is.  The problem, not surprisingly, is Russia.  The Putin regime is riding on this dumpster fire.  Hell, his life and those of his cronies are likely riding on this thing.  Convincing Putin to stop and draw new lines is the problem.  Technically we cannot even incentivize this as the man and most of his admin are labeled as war criminals.  We cannot renormalize while he (and they) remain in power.

Subversive wheeling and dealing has and likely is occurring in the backfield.  However, as we saw with Saddam, one thing paranoid autocrats are exceptionally good at is shoring up the store.  They have intel everywhere and make people disappear who even have a whiff of disloyalty - recall the flying oligarchs of the last two years.  

So what will it take to bring Russia to the table at this point?  A freakin military coup.  The RA would need to collapse to the point it turns on Putin.  That may force him from office and we are looking at “can we bargain with the next SOB?  “Is the next SOB clean enough?”  Of course if the RA collapses, Ukraine will want to push to take more ground.  Recall that this time last year Ukraine had retaken both Kharkiv and Kherson - those were major operational victories.  The hope was that they could repeat the same method this summer.  But apparently even on the high tech battlefield, mines still work.  In fact with UAS minefields work even better.

So here we are.  Ukraine will likely be pushed into defence until someone can figure out a Plan B.  RA will keep smashing itself onto that because Putin needs to show that he is “winning” to stay alive.  Even offering the war criminal peace talks would be nothing but a sham at this point.  Hell it would lend legitimacy to their actions.  As a min, Russia would demand international recognition that they own what they took, including Crimea and Donbas.

I guess the main reason we have not gone deeply into a peace process is because frankly an RA military collapse is more viable than trying establish one.

All of the choices are bad, it doesn't mean some of them are not a lot worse.

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well interesting if one has an unhealthy tank lust.  This is what in the business we call a “heavily situated” estimate.  The author starts with the core conclusion that tanks are still viable on the modern battlefield and then goes about pulling anything and everything he can to try and prove it:

- reduction of combat power down to firepower, mobility and protection - which of course are also the core attributes of the tank.  When in fact modern military doctrine sees combat power in far broader terms.  Interestingly he does not apply his condensed framework (from circa 1993) to the main competitor to the tank, the modern UAS/ISR.  Unmanned systems have far higher mobility, at least equal firepower in disaggregated form, and higher protection through distributed mass.

- Oversubscription on tanks role in just about all operations other than war.  I know from first personal experience and follow on research that his deductions from both Bosnian ‘93 and Canadian Forces in Afghanistan that the employment of the tank was anything but “decisive”.  In fact their overall employments were problematic for many reasons on those sorts of operations.

- Assuming that the UAS/ISR game will be fought “how we fight it”.  EW offers the best possible defence right now; however, as we have discussed at length, full autonomy of these systems, even in the last 1000m largely negates EW counter-measures.  China is investing heavily in fully autonomous systems…this is where things are going.

- Biases analysis of ATGMs: “costly and heavy”….seriously…as compared to a tank?   He also fails to recognize the most dangerous part of modern ATGMs…range.  FFS he is making a Cold War argument that ATGMs need LOS “making operators vulnerable” - that argument 1) has not been proven in this war and 2) does not reflect where ATGM technology is going.  No mention of self-loitering munitions or NLOS systems, some with ranges nearing 100kms. [He cites a CBC interview as proof that tanks can still find and kill ATGMs - sure it can happen but as we have seen, not to the point as to reestablish conditions for offensive operations]

-Largely sidesteps the entire issue of logistics.  Reduces it down to recovery and maintenance.  The major problem with heavy logistics is that itself must be “heavy”.  Heavy formations consume obscene amounts of fuel and ammunition.  Spare parts and recovery are also issues but long LOCs of fuel and supply trucks are suicidal in this war.  Why…because the enemy can see them with operational ISR (no real mention of ISR realities either for that matter).  Once seen they can be interdicted and shot to pieces.  This is why “logistics” is a core combat function…none of the others work without it.

- I do like camo, decoy and deception discussion.  That has some solid ideas.

- UGV comparison is woefully tepid.  Appears to assume UGVs will simply be 1 for 1 tank replacements when they will likely take the cheap distributed path much like their air counterparts.  

Author really fails to see modern warfare as it is,  more for what he wants it to be.  The combination of UAS/ISR and PGM has been definitely “undeciding”.  It can translate into offensive warfare under the right conditions but it is largely about Denial.  These systems have denied heavy  of its major offensive attributes.  They have done so because they are able to see, fix and engage heavy systems well beyond the ranges that heavy can respond.  They do so through distributed mass.  Combined with Air Denial we have a condition where heavy is narrowly applicable to the modern battlefield.

He proposes a bunch of solutions pretty much as I expected - invest in the tank heavily to try and keep it viable.  What he fails to define is “what is the point of diminishing returns?”  When do we call it and go in another direction?  He makes glancing, and frankly disingenuous, attempts in a light/med analysis but never really asks the question: “Well what if heavy is dead?”  Hell I am not even sure traditional military mass is not dead, let alone heavy.

The unmanned/ISR/PGM complex are not enablers to traditional land battle, they have become deterministic.  The decisive force on the battlefield is  no longer heavy systems…it is the systems that undecided them.  I suspect our future lies in these spaces as “precision, distribution, unmanned” also become part of the combat power pantheon.  We will see counter-systems and “forward edge superiority” as concepts.  What happens to forces that can “take and hold ground” remains unclear.  Right now ATGM, UAS and PGM (artillery and self-loitering) along with dog-faced infantry appear to be the new combined arms.

But if I know the western military complex (and unfortunately I do), we will spend billions, maybe trillions trying to prove “it ain’t so”.  Finally, we need to pull our collective heads out of @sses and realize that this issue is so much larger than the freakin tank or heavy or even ground forces.  It applies across all domains.  We have billion dollar ships and air fleets that may be unable to control or create superiority.  I can see that from here.  They will be brought down by cheap and ubiquitous smart munitions of all types.  So while everyone is gawping and squawking about tanks, I am not even sure aircraft carriers will stand up in 20 years.  Cyber and nukes likely may be the only military forces that we can count on to keep doing what they were.  Start with a blank white board and go from there.

 

See below.

Quote

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-proceedings-podcast/id1333127700?i=1000638729211

Host Bill Hamblet talks with Naval Officer and frequent Proceedings contributor Jeff Vandenengel about his new book, "Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy" from the Naval Institute Press.

 

At least some people in the Navy are starting to figure that out. He basically proposes a mostly PGM based fleet with the cheapest possible ships carrying the missiles, because they WILL take losses.

Edited December 16, 2023 by dan/california

[NamEndedAllen]

Some forward looking good news, prepping for the second Trump term:

“Congress this week approved a measure aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing the United States from NATO without congressional approval. Passage came amid long-standing concerns that Donald Trump may try to exit the alliance if he returns to office.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/16/congress-nato-exit-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

 

[Tux]

3 hours ago, chrisl said:

Defenders hiding in holes get covered by their own drones that wait around.  If they're controlling their own drones, they're also radiating, and you just need to hit the antenna to render them hors de combat, and let the backfield drone operators/AI/UGV take care of them when they get thirsty.  

This is closest to the point, imo, when it comes to how attack will be carried out in future.  I see lots of talk about semi-/autonomous drones selecting their own mobiks, vehicles or guns to target but as far as I can see that totally misses the key requirement, which is to destroy/deny the enemy’s drone force.

No kind of mass will ever advance as long as the defenders’ drones can fly straight past the attackers’ and continue doing exactly what they do today.  Even if the attacker launches so many drones they manage to find and kill all the local defending drone operators (which nobody seems to be capable of yet) there will be many more, tens of kilometres away, who will be busy raising their own hell-cloud with which to bring fire and brimstone down on the attacking force.

Drones vs ground is already done. It’s there. It’s denying and it’s attriting the enemy and it is the problem right now.  Semi-autonomy, full autonomy, these things will increase the effect but that’s all.

You all knew it was coming and yes, I know the horse is dead but imo it needs another whack:  Drone vs drone is the key.  The Western Allies eventually advanced at pace through Western Europe in no small part because they had basically invented the concept of air supremacy.  I don’t see any reason that drone supremacy shouldn’t be just as effective.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Tux
Typo

[OBJ]

29 minutes ago, dan/california said:

At least some people in the Navy are starting to figure that out. He basically proposes a mostly PGM based fleet with the cheapest possible ships carrying the missiles, because they WILL take losses.

Thank you Dan, you're probably much more up on this than I am. My naval interests are relatively new. For those like me with new naval interests the little I know is there's two current 'big ideas' in USN circles with respect to full scale conventional war with China over Taiwan:

1. Air-Sea Battle, Air Force long range strategic bombers takes out Chinese A2/AD capability to allow the carriers to operate within the 1st island chain and range of their strike aircraft

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/ASB-ConceptImplementation-Summary-May-2013.pdf

Dated 2013 but a primer on the strategy

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/01/back-to-the-future-resurrecting-air-sea-battle-in-the-pacific/

Suspect given the source, but with bias filters on still nice brief summary

2. Submarines are the only platform capable of effectively engaging a cross strait invasion force in the time window needed to defeat the invasion before/as it lands, there aren't enough submarines, many of the submarines we have need to be reconfigured to launch cruise missiles not ICBMs, and US submarine doctrine needs to be turned on it's head (in the shallow waters of the South China Sea make and use noise, don't try to be silent)

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.hudson.org/Fighting+into+the+Bastions+Bryan+Clark+Timothy+A+Walton.pdf

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by OBJ

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Chrisl's suggestion to read up on sci-fi is a good idea.  There's some relatively new authors who have dug into this topic in a way no previous ones have. 

I found Linda Nagata’s work exploring the emerging tech transformations of war to be extremely prescient. For instance, from 2017’s “The Last Good Man”:Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies. Robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire. But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties

Developments we discuss here seem to simply be gradual cherrypicking her work. Example, excerpt of a review: “Here's a quote from this well written book: "An Agressive, diverse swarm (of weaponized drones) is more dangerous than any traditional soldier, and easy to print up (using 3D printers). True (the protagonist) used to pilot helicopters but most are robotic now. AIs fly warpanes, guide missiles, control satelliees. They analyze incoming intelligence faster than any human could process it. Artificial intelligence and robitics make it possible for a small outfit to operate with formidable force, invade unprotected territory, engage in raids and bombings and dogfights above peaceful cities. To act with the authority of a soverign nation." https://www.amazon.com/Last-Good-Man-Linda-Nagata/dp/1937197220/ref=zg-te-pba_d_sccl_3_4/146-3318248-9316006?pd_rd_w=V2WzF&content-id=amzn1.sym.081392b0-c07f-4fc2-8965-84d15d431f0d&pf_rd_p=081392b0-c07f-4fc2-8965-84d15d431f0d&pf_rd_r=JFK98CW5ASGVVJQVT5QZ&pd_rd_wg=u0RxV&pd_rd_r=d1981c85-2a29-49dd-b9f8-88b9641a6396&pd_rd_i=1937197220&psc=1

Of course there are many near future mil SF writers ploughing these fields, in advance of today’s war(s). FXHolden comes to mind, for one. But this has long been one of the fundamental values of science fiction: Prepping the mind with a multitude of extrapolated scenarios so much so that one is rarely surprised by contemporary developments. Unfortunately, a common emotion has been frustration over policymaking that rarely seems nearly as well thought-out or timely as these fictions suggest is necessary.

Edited December 16, 2023 by NamEndedAllen

[Joe982]

13 hours ago, JonS said:

The Left refers to the left side of the river if you were standing in it looking downstream.

Oh I see!  I always assumed a person is facing north thank you

[dan/california]

42 minutes ago, OBJ said:

2. Submarines are the only platform capable of effectively engaging a cross strait invasion force in the time window needed to defeat the invasion before/as it lands, there aren't enough submarines, many of the submarines we have need to be reconfigured to launch cruise missiles not ICBMs, and US submarine doctrine needs to be turned on it's head (in the shallow waters of the South China Sea make and use noise, don't try to be silent)

The way to make the invasion of Taiwan simply impossible is the anti shipping version of this thing.

https://www.anduril.com/roadrunner

A cheap 100 km anti-ship missile/drone that launches from its own independent box. The U.S and Taiwan have the ability to do this, we just need to pull our heads out of our behinds and do it at scale, as quickly as possible. By scale I mean tens of thousands of them, they will cost a LOT less if we commit to the necessary numbers up front.

Then we can worry about the navy's job, which is how to deal with a blockade scenario.

Edited December 16, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

Oh I see!  I always assumed a person is facing north thank you

Common mistake!  I used to think that way too, but the direction of flow is a much more reliable method for describing which side is which. 

Steve

[OBJ]

1 hour ago, Tux said:

This is closest to the point, imo, when it comes to how attack will be carried out in future.  I see lots of talk about semi-/autonomous drones selecting their own mobile, vehicles or guns to target but as far as I can see that totally misses the key requirement, which is to destroy/deny the enemies drone force.

No kind of mass will ever advance as long as the defenders’ drones can fly straight past the attackers’ and continue doing exactly what they do today.  Even if the attacker launches so many drones they manage to find and kill all the local defending drone operators (which nobody seems to be capable of yet) there will be many more, tens of kilometers away, who will be busy raising their own hell-cloud with which to bring fire and brimstone down on the attacking force.

Drones vs ground is already done. It’s there. It’s denying and it’s attriting the enemy and it is the problem right now.  Semi-autonomy, full autonomy, these things will increase the effect but that’s all.

You all knew it was coming and yes, I know the horse is dead but imo it needs another whack:  Drone vs drone is the key.  The Western Allies eventually advanced at pace through Western Europe in no small part because they had basically invented the concept of air supremacy.  I don’t see any reason that drone supremacy shouldn’t be just as effective.

@Tux @The_Capt

you and many others are closer to this than I am ever going to be.

Which of the drone-tank or drone-aircraft analogies will turn out to be more accurate I have no idea, if either.

I do agree with you if last century analogies do prove related that specialized equipment, organization and doctrines were developed to counter both tanks and planes. I have every reason to believe as you do there will be counter-drone equipment, units and doctrine, very likely counter drone drones

Combatants will strive for 'drone supremacy' likely across all domains.

Edited December 16, 2023 by OBJ

[The_Capt]

13 hours ago, JonS said:

No, that's the standard way of referring to riverbanks BECAUSE rivers meander all over the place, and different rivers flow in different directions. The Left refers to the left side of the river if you were standing in it looking downstream. In the case of the Dnepr that's generally - but not always - to the north and east. The right refers to the right side of the river if you were standing in it looking downstream. For the Dnepr that is generally - but not always - to the south and west.

Where ever you are on the river, regardless of which way it twists and turns, the left is always the left and therefore always refers the same side of the river.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_(geography)

Why would anyone take hydrological advice from a guy whose toilet spins in the wrong direction?

Edited December 16, 2023 by The_Capt

[Tux]

4 minutes ago, OBJ said:

@The_Capt you are closer to this than I am ever going to be.

Which of the drone-tank or drone-aircraft analogies will turn out to be more accurate I have no idea, if either.

I do agree with you if last century analogies do prove related that specialized equipment, organization and doctrines were developed to counter both tanks and planes. I have every reason to believe as you do there will be counter-drone equipment, units and doctrine, very likely counter drone drones

Whether the analogy stands up has, of course, yet to be seen.  There is every possibility that it doesn’t and that there is a dimension to all of this which makes it wholly new.  However anti-drone systems, doctrine, etc are clearly the missing piece at the moment and so the first order effort has to go towards implementing such ASAP, in my opinion.  The sooner it is tried and being tested, the sooner we can begin to try and work out the whole puzzle, whether analogies to aircraft or tanks turn out to have been helpful or not.

[OBJ]

10 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Why would anyone take hydrological advice from a guy whose toilet spins in the wrong direction?

So, with great trepidation, he asked, 'which way is the 'right way' for a toilet to spin

CTM

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, OBJ said:

@The_Capt you are closer to this than I am ever going to be.

Which of the drone-tank or drone-aircraft analogies will turn out to be more accurate I have no idea, if either.

I do agree with you if last century analogies do prove related that specialized equipment, organization and doctrines were developed to counter both tanks and planes. I have every reason to believe as you do there will be counter-drone equipment, units and doctrine, very likely counter drone drones

Hey, I was raised and have worked in the same Cod War - esque environment we all know and love.  I am likely in my last year of service and haven’t exactly been entirely out of the game either.  And I have no freakin idea what is going on!  

My best guess is that is it both, weirdly enough.  UAS are essentially replacing both armor and artillery, and air power in some circumstances.  What is startling is how what constitutes a circumstance is widening as this war progresses.  UAS are essentially like someone took a tank apart, melted it down and spread what it could do over 10 sq kms.  Tanks could never hold ground, neither can UAS.  But they can deliver firepower and mobility as well if not better than armor…and now challenging artillery.

At the same time UAS are doing what AirPower used to with respect to ISR and strike.  I mean LLF just put up a drone capable of 750km range, carrying a decent warhead and likely can hit with pin point accuracy.  That is air power but I don’t need an airfield or billions of dollars of industry costs.  I need a few guys and a truck.

Unmanned systems are really changing the battle space but strangely not simply by being “unmanned”.  They are highly distributed and precise.  When linked into an integrated C4ISR architecture they have clearly done something.  

Tux is correct.  We are quickly coming to a point where drone-superiority is a thing.  One has to take out an opponents.  SHORAD, EW and guns will go some way but for something the size of a bird and fully autonomous it won’t be enough,  Hunter-killer drones are going to be needed.  Once you can sweep an opponents UAS from the sky the asymmetry goes your way.  Especially if one has established denial other places.