How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Yet]

7 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah I think we covered that with the badgers

EDIT: A robot mole would be cool, but I don’t think it’d have the power to dig through a few km to pop up and then kill things. Maybe to find mines?

not needed to pop up. 

see Hill60 (WW1)

[LongLeftFlank]

6 hours ago, Sojourner said:

You need to think more bigly

 

https://www.boringcompany.com/prufrock

A pair of ragged claws?

[Butschi]

14 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I did not say it is false, I said it is incomplete.  Has he done a systematic survey of all Western companies that pulled out of Russia, or did he just walk around an upscale mall?  The latter.   Yet he said:

Russians still have access to absolutely every product they had prior to Feb 2022. The only difference is that the brand name may have changed a bit.

Emphasis on "absolutely every".  That is quite a statement designed to get clicks and followers.  This is far from the first time we have seen this sort of thing on social media.

There were companies that never stopped doing business with Russia.  It is not surprising some are happy to sell to third countries (like Turkey) and profit from illegal sales into Russia.  Capitalism and morality aren't often friends.

Aside from this, the NYT article I posted the other day goes into far more detail about these sorts of corporate deals.  It also goes into detail about how the Russian government has stolen the infrastructure from many of these companies.  I don't know about Reebok specifically, but it is quite possible that the Russian government took all of their retail and warehouse infrastructure then gave it to a Judo buddy of Putin.  If you think corporations don't mind when a government steals billions of Dollars worth of their investments... well... you're wrong.  This sort of thing is what will make companies very hesitant to get back into Russia.

Steve

This is all much less black and white than we like to think. My job is as far away from those pesky customers (*shiver*) as it gets in a company but we all have to do the export control trainings.

Of course we can't sell products to countries on one of the relevant sanctions lists. And if there are reasonable doubts about what a legitimate customer is going to do with the stuff, we can't deliver, either. Here it already gets murky because how deep do I have to dig? Sure, if it is a country that is factually a Russian vassal you have to look closer but if we are taking about Turkey... well, we have factories there and are doing a lot of legitimate business.

I am not sure we can really compare the current situation to e.g. North Korea. Even China and Russia had imposed sanctions against NK at one time or another. Russia today is a different matter. We have to get used to the fact that half the globe is not on our side and has not joined the sanctions. So if we want to make sure that at least none of our products go to Russia we have to basically stop trading with everyone but us - which is, as sad as it is, something that is not going to happen. Hell, we all know how even weapons end up in the wrong hands. So H&K can't deliver to country X? Well, but H&K can license their products to our good allies in Saudi Arabia who build a factory and deliver to X. Thay probably weren't allowed to do that but...

Plus, from what I know happened in my company I guess there is just a lot of temptation to look the other way or just be lazy within the boundaries of the law. Once we employees demanded to know how our parts could end up in Russian military vehicles and the answer was basically "yes, well, we made them sign a contract that those parts can't be used for military purposes".

Companies illegally going against sanctions for profit are only on top of this all.

[Zeleban]

 

[Carolus]

Yeah, Kamil and others already warned of this.

Okay, so as has been discussed in the thread many times and as was explainend by very smart people, the extent and types of Western arms supplies ti Ukraine are subject to fear of escalation and how to handle a Russia in free fall. So far so reasonable (if frustrating).

What is this?

What is the justification of this?

Will we send weapons directly to Russia next in order to "deescalate the situation"?

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Carolus

[Butschi]

7 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Yeah, Kamil and others already warned of this.

Okay, so as has been discussed in the thread many times and as was explainend by very smart people, the extent and types of Western arms supplies ti Ukraine are subject to fear of escalation and how to handle a Russia in free fall. So far so reasonable (if frustrating).

What is this?

What is the justification of this?

Will we send weapons directly to Russia next in order to "deescalate the situation"?

 

 

That was before we bribed/folded to Orban, though (tweet is from Dec 3). Since then, sanctions have been updated w.r.t. dual use, etc.

And as long as it isn't illegal, companies may even be forced to continue business because a) long term contracts and b) shareholder value. Yay capitalism!

[Endyamon]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

I was wondering one thing. Even if magically, all western companies start to send all materias to Russia, how can Russia use these tecnologies at best, considering they sent almost all skilled men to the front? Also assembly all tanks, apcs, ecc, how can they manned them, if they are short of (good) soldiers? I don't think giving a t-90m to 3 soldiers that barely knows how to start it, can make huge difference.
I'm just curios, I'm not an expert

[Zeleban]

32 minutes ago, Endyamon said:

Even if magically, all western companies start to send all materias to Russia, how can Russia use these tecnologies at best, considering they sent almost all skilled men to the front?

It is not true. For employees of defense enterprises in Russia (as well as in Ukraine), the so-called “reservation” applies. They are completely exempt from mobilization. Putin has Western money received from the sale of minerals, so he can easily attract the necessary specialists to the defense industry, both from China and from any other country (yes, the USA and Germany are no exceptions).

[FlemFire]

22 hours ago, OBJ said:

I don't think we in this forum should give up. As many have pointed out primacy cycles from offense to defense. I am pretty sure the world's militaries all get this, and are all working on solutions to restore offensive primacy, doctrinal, technical, organizational.

Our question is how to restore tactical offensive primacy.

 

It's called achieving air and firepower superiority. Once you maintain these elements, everything slowly falls in. Firepower is actually a pretty simple equation: it's just being sure that you're bringing more firepower against your enemy than they are against you. Air superiority is the real winner in any given conventional war. It allows for constant interdiction which then gradually weakens the frontline which then allows for breaches and eventual chaos. It is a massive force multiplier in all facets. Air superiority also effectively neutralizes the enemy's ability to operate on any sort of large-scale, which in effect is the conclusion of the war even if there might still be fighting going on.

 

In trench warfare all of this is effectively impossible. Breakthroughs at any juncture are red herrings, as a situation in spot A is not indicative of the situation the front as a whole, which means A can be resolved by the defenders quite easily. You can see this in any given conflict which devolves into trench warfare. WWI is an obvious example, but there are others, like Iran-Iraq or Azerbaijan-Armenia. 

 

By its very nature, trench warfare does not allow for offensive primacy. Trench warfare is literally a symptom of inabilities to acquire consistent superiorities -- it's not meant to be "solved," it's already solving something.

 

 

 

[Zeleban]

 

Looks like Trump's opponents aren't giving up, and that's good news.

[OBJ]

20 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Finally got some down time. Couple solid articles on the air war:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/airpower-after-ukraine/air-denial-the-dangerous-illusion-of-decisive-air-superiority/

https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/in-denial-about-denial-why-ukraines-air-success-should-worry-the-west/

Punchline:  Denial...there is your problem.  Long range high altitude AD drives AC to go low.  These systems are getting faster and harder to suppress.  When linked into C4ISR, they need only turn on to fire.  Then turn off and bolt.  Going low you run into a hornets nest of MANPADs.

 

@FlemFire I agree with you, fire superiority is what an attacker needs to be successful, and a major contributor to the attacker's ability to restore mobility, the whole 'fire and movement' thing.

With respect to your point on achieving air superiority, you should check out the two articles above. @The_Capt summarizes them well. Yet another domain in which the defense is ascendant, kinda takes the 'air' out of 'air-land battle.' Another domain demanding a rethink to restore offensive primacy.

The WWI analogies are very appropriate if we look at the western front. What can we conclude if we look at the eastern front?

22 minutes ago, FlemFire said:

 

It's called achieving air and firepower superiority. Once you maintain these elements, everything slowly falls in. Firepower is actually a pretty simple equation: it's just being sure that you're bringing more firepower against your enemy than they are against you. Air superiority is the real winner in any given conventional war. It allows for constant interdiction which then gradually weakens the frontline which then allows for breaches and eventual chaos. It is a massive force multiplier in all facets. Air superiority also effectively neutralizes the enemy's ability to operate on any sort of large-scale, which in effect is the conclusion of the war even if there might still be fighting going on.

 

In trench warfare all of this is effectively impossible. Breakthroughs at any juncture are red herrings, as a situation in spot A is not indicative of the situation the front as a whole, which means A can be resolved by the defenders quite easily. You can see this in any given conflict which devolves into trench warfare. WWI is an obvious example, but there are others, like Iran-Iraq or Azerbaijan-Armenia. 

 

By its very nature, trench warfare does not allow for offensive primacy. Trench warfare is literally a symptom of inabilities to acquire consistent superiorities -- it's not meant to be "solved," it's already solving something.

 

 

 

 

 

[OBJ]

17 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

We won't be able to say we weren't warned. The entire West needs to go to wartime level munitions production NOW. That would be between five and twenty five times more than we are producing now.

I think this also means we can't avoid including China in our discussions of the Ukraine war.

[OBJ]

5 hours ago, Zeleban said:

"border security" is just a hoax to the public. The real reasons for blocking aid to Ukraine is the decline in the popularity of Biden and the Democrats. Democrats know full well that even after they agree to Republican demands for border security, Republicans will still block aid to Ukraine for new flimsy reasons. For example, Ukraine does not have a plan for victory, show us the plan. That's why Democrats are in no hurry to agree to demands for border security.

We might have to agree to disagree. My current sense is the majority of Republicans in both houses want to support Ukraine. Politics is 'the art of the possible.' Republicans now see conditions that make it possible for them to get more of what they want at the border while still getting aide to Ukraine.

[The_Capt]

15 minutes ago, OBJ said:

@FlemFire I agree with you, fire superiority is what an attacker needs to be successful, and a major contributor to the attacker's ability to restore mobility, the whole 'fire and movement' thing.

With respect to your point on achieving air superiority, you should check out the two articles above. @The_Capt summarizes them well. Yet another domain in which the defense is ascendant, kinda takes the 'air' out of 'air-land battle.' Another domain demanding a rethink to restore offensive primacy.

The WWI analogies are very appropriate if we look at the western front. What can we conclude if we look at the eastern front?

 

 

Firepower is anything but “a simple equation” (there we go with amateur reductionism).  Russia had massive firepower advantage at Severodonetsk and was moving by inches.  Simply being able to lob HE at and opponents in greater quantities is not even close to the firepower competition space.  Nor will it break defensive or denial deadlocks by simple volume.

Firepower has multiple dimensions - economy (cost vs payoff), range, precision, targeting, command and logistics, to name a few.  As to trench warfare - it is a solution for the defender.  It is a problem for the attacker.  In order to not be pulled into an attritional slugfest an attacker must move.  Position can break an opponent if it 1) can be done faster than an opponent can react and 2) if it breaks an opponents LOCs - this essentially cause an opponent into a condition where they break formation/organization while you retain your own.  So in order to break a static defence one needs mobility and firepower - in the business we call that manoeuvre.  Trench warfare is a symptom of defensive primacy, not a cause.

What is causing defensive primacy - “Well just establish X superiority”.  Gee wish we had thought of that.  Superiority meet Denial.  Right now we are trying to figure out what superiority means.  Is it unmanned superiority?  Is it data superiority?  Is it precision superiority?  At the same time we are seeing denial at scope and scales we are not really understanding.  Force ratios and traditional metrics are all shot to hell in this war and probably will be for the next one.  The problem now is that superiority is not working.  Which was excellent news for Ukraine back in early ‘22.  But not so good in summer 23.  A lot of the problem is restructuring fire and manoeuvre to fit the texture of the modern battlefield.  Neither side in this war has figured this out yet…but we are working on it.

[cesmonkey]

 

[cesmonkey]

 

[cesmonkey]

 

[OBJ]

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67751758/page/2

 

[billbindc]

6 hours ago, Zeleban said:

"border security" is just a hoax to the public. The real reasons for blocking aid to Ukraine is the decline in the popularity of Biden and the Democrats. Democrats know full well that even after they agree to Republican demands for border security, Republicans will still block aid to Ukraine for new flimsy reasons. For example, Ukraine does not have a plan for victory, show us the plan. That's why Democrats are in no hurry to agree to demands for border security.

This is exactly wrong.

Coming to terms on bills isn't a simplistic calculation...it's a negotiated process in which various interest groups within each caucus negotiate their wants and then the GOP and Democrats go through the same process with each other until a final deal is made (or not). Ukraine aid is actually a fairly popular and bipartisan issue and when the Democrats agree to a border plan it puts all of the pressure on the House GOP to make it happen. Dems are in an enormous hurry to get things to that point because they want the aid to flow and because it is politically expedient to put the GOP in that spot. 

[FlemFire]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Firepower is anything but “a simple equation” (there we go with amateur reductionism).  Russia had massive firepower advantage at Severodonetsk and was moving by inches.  Simply being able to lob HE at and opponents in greater quantities is not even close to the firepower competition space.  Nor will it break defensive or denial deadlocks by simple volume.

Firepower has multiple dimensions - economy (cost vs payoff), range, precision, targeting, command and logistics, to name a few.  As to trench warfare - it is a solution for the defender.  It is a problem for the attacker.  In order to not be pulled into an attritional slugfest an attacker must move.  Position can break an opponent if it 1) can be done faster than an opponent can react and 2) if it breaks an opponents LOCs - this essentially cause an opponent into a condition where they break formation/organization while you retain your own.  So in order to break a static defence one needs mobility and firepower - in the business we call that manoeuvre.  Trench warfare is a symptom of defensive primacy, not a cause.

What is causing defensive primacy - “Well just establish X superiority”.  Gee wish we had thought of that.  Superiority meet Denial.  Right now we are trying to figure out what superiority means.  Is it unmanned superiority?  Is it data superiority?  Is it precision superiority?  At the same time we are seeing denial at scope and scales we are not really understanding.  Force ratios and traditional metrics are all shot to hell in this war and probably will be for the next one.  The problem now is that superiority is not working.  Which was excellent news for Ukraine back in early ‘22.  But not so good in summer 23.  A lot of the problem is restructuring fire and manoeuvre to fit the texture of the modern battlefield.  Neither side in this war has figured this out yet…but we are working on it.

 

Firepower superiority is in fact pretty much the entire goal of any engagement, whether it is at the tactical level up to the strategic. You bring more weapons and armaments to bear than your opponent, you are going to win battles. Firepower might not win a war -- it's actually war itself that has these 'multiple dimensions' you speak of -- but fire superiority will absolutely kill your enemy faster than they can kill you. Everything else follows from this, whether it is clearing a house or clearing a sector or clearing an entire nation. Achieving fire superiority is not a simple equation, but the presence of it in regards to winning battles very much is.

Once again, and I don't know why I have to keep repeating this as Ukraine is obviously being bled dry of its manpower: Russia is more than happy to oblige Ukraine in fighting tit-for-tat battles, because they have considerably higher volumes of artillery. They are being allowed to leverage their greatest strength. Take for example this postage stamp of territory in the southwest. Ukraine keeps throwing 'marines' by boats to keep a hold of it. Why? The whole area looks like the moon and there's oodles of articles leaking out about how it's a death trap. Did it ever cross anybody's mind that Russia is going to cede immaterial territory if the return of value is inviting Ukrainians into a blatantly obvious kill zone? This thought never enters your brain if you sip propagandistic koolaid 24/7 and think the Russians are bad at everything. And when you underestimate an enemy you inevitably do stupid things that get a lot of people killed. There are countless examples of this in history, just as well.

 

Quote

 

At the same time we are seeing denial at scope and scales we are not really understanding.

 

 

Denial?

These are 'military thoughts' from a person advocating for rocketeers, mole people, and other grade-A nonsense. Lashing out at any high-strung concept you can get your fingers on is not to be confused for anything but cockamamie nonsense. I'm actually flabbergasted that your insipid notions got any track at all. Men can't go anywhere in this war without being seen, so flying them through the air in a proverbial skeet shoot is an honest solution? And pray tell, granting the absolute widest of berths to justifying this notion, what Ukrainian elements have the capabilities to operate behind enemy lines in any manner? We've seen infiltrations into certain Russian territories that turned out to be little more than tactical suicide and the total wasting of valuable assets. Now you soar these people through the air, knowing full well that Russia has a defense in depth already setup, and expect some sort of calamity of cohesion to occur that allows the Ukrainian frontline to surpass the entrenchments before them? 

[OBJ]

1 hour ago, FlemFire said:

 

Firepower superiority is in fact pretty much the entire goal of any engagement, whether it is at the tactical level up to the strategic. You bring more weapons and armaments to bear than your opponent, you are going to win battles. Firepower might not win a war -- it's actually war itself that has these 'multiple dimensions' you speak of -- but fire superiority will absolutely kill your enemy faster than they can kill you. Everything else follows from this, whether it is clearing a house or clearing a sector or clearing an entire nation. Achieving fire superiority is not a simple equation, but the presence of it in regards to winning battles very much is.

Once again, and I don't know why I have to keep repeating this as Ukraine is obviously being bled dry of its manpower: Russia is more than happy to oblige Ukraine in fighting tit-for-tat battles, because they have considerably higher volumes of artillery. They are being allowed to leverage their greatest strength. Take for example this postage stamp of territory in the southwest. Ukraine keeps throwing 'marines' by boats to keep a hold of it. Why? The whole area looks like the moon and there's oodles of articles leaking out about how it's a death trap. Did it ever cross anybody's mind that Russia is going to cede immaterial territory if the return of value is inviting Ukrainians into a blatantly obvious kill zone? This thought never enters your brain if you sip propagandistic koolaid 24/7 and think the Russians are bad at everything. And when you underestimate an enemy you inevitably do stupid things that get a lot of people killed. There are countless examples of this in history, just as well.

 

 

Denial?

These are 'military thoughts' from a person advocating for rocketeers, mole people, and other grade-A nonsense. Lashing out at any high-strung concept you can get your fingers on is not to be confused for anything but cockamamie nonsense. I'm actually flabbergasted that your insipid notions got any track at all. Men can't go anywhere in this war without being seen, so flying them through the air in a proverbial skeet shoot is an honest solution? And pray tell, granting the absolute widest of berths to justifying this notion, what Ukrainian elements have the capabilities to operate behind enemy lines in any manner? We've seen infiltrations into certain Russian territories that turned out to be little more than tactical suicide and the total wasting of valuable assets. Now you soar these people through the air, knowing full well that Russia has a defense in depth already setup, and expect some sort of calamity of cohesion to occur that allows the Ukrainian frontline to surpass the entrenchments before them? 

Ahhh... I think we have all made comparisons between the current situation in Ukraine and the western front in WWI. The problem is the same, how to restore mobility to the battlefield. A lot of the other factors they were dealing with then are at different stages now but still the same factors, limits of technology, material limits, manpower limits, societal casualty tolerances, doctrinal orthodoxy, probably a lot more factors people smarter than me can articulate.

I imagine the militaries of WWI were all asking similar questions to what we're asking now on this forum. I have to imagine a lot of ideas were investigated to various stages until rejected for whatever reasons. I believe mining was. I doubt the tank and infiltration tactics were the first and only ideas that originated then from thinking on how to restore mobility to the battlefield.

I also think at it's heart CM is about solving tactical problems, pretty much every scenario is a tactical problem to be solved. Most of the people here are interested in that, solving tactical problems, so they see the need for new solutions in Ukraine. You and @The_Capt are two of them. No need for any of us to attack each other on the forum. On the other hand, we should challenge other people's ideas we think are unsupportable if we have data, experience, historical precedent to support our position. That all feeds the discourse, and hopefully expands all our thinking on the particulars to be solved and solutions likely to work.

and of course Steve can take everything we say here he agrees with and include it in his military consulting

Also I think @The_Capt's use of 'denial' was as in tactical denial, the defender denying the attacker the ability to maneuver, modern air defense denying air forces the ability to provide close air support, that usage.

Edited December 21, 2023 by OBJ

[Maciej Zwolinski]

On 12/20/2023 at 4:03 PM, The_Capt said:

Phase 1 - Recon.  ISR the living crap out of the place.  Do not prosecute targets yet, map them.  Map networks, control nodes and c-move routes in depth.

Phase 2 - Suppress.  C-UAS, C-EW, C-everything you can see.  You need to do this in multiple places or the enemy is going to know exactly where to prepare. Here CB will be critical.

Phase 3 - Isolate.  You want to cut off the 5x1 breaching operation, so think 5x10.  You need to cut C4ISR and c-moves.  Here our own FASCAM and Deep Strike will be critical.

Phase 4 - Bridgehead X-ing.  Combination of air mobility systems - jetpacks, quadcopters etc.  Push JTA(G)Cs, UGVs and weapons to the far side of first minefield.  Out to 1-2 kms.  Night, smoke and suppression anyway one can.

Phase 5.  Establish bridge head.  Set those JTA(G)Cs loose and hunt every ATGM team.  Cut off any c-moves.

Phase 6.  Breach.  Main ground force has about 5 mins to crack that minefield.  Explosive and mechanical.  And this would be after a thorough recon.

Phase 7 - Rinse and repeat.  You have already set local conditions.  Sustain them and move fast. Next bridge head force bounces next minefield.  Next breaching wave  (another 5 mins).  

I am sorry if this has been proposed and dismissed already, but would not the entire operation be massively simplified if instead of using air mobility systems to move soldiers above the minefield, one used air mobile systems for creating an explosive breach? 

I mean an explosive breach is just blowing up explosives placed on the ground. Why not have them placed by drones? If you release say fifty or a hundred drones whose only job will be to touch down for a second, deposit an explosive charge and skedaddle that is going to be massively more difficult to stop than trying to make a breach with a few tank sized vehicles which automatically draw fire from all ATGMs, PGMs and other AT systems in the vicinity.

In a sense it would exploit the same principle as tank did during WW I and II- instead of having the attack conducted by infantrymen,who can be killed by all weapons, the tanks were vulnerable only to a small subset of weapons, which in effect could be overwhelmed. Now AT weapons are ubiquituous, but AA not so and could be overwhelmed by a swarm of drones.

 

[kimbosbread]

12 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I am sorry if this has been proposed and dismissed already, but would not the entire operation be massively simplified if instead of using air mobility systems to move soldiers above the minefield, one used air mobile systems for creating an explosive breach?

 

Depends how big the minefield is. If you have multiple fields hundreds over meters deep over several km, your soldiers crossing the breached area will still get hammered with artillery, presumably. The problem is supression enemy fires. If your cleared lane is immediately clogged up because 2x NLOS ATGMs took out a few vehicles, then you are in for a bad day. Vs air-mobile distributed infantry will move faster and have no single point of failure as a force (other than a drone swarm, which a single point of failure, but for everything).

EDIT: If you can of course detect and take out the minefield from the air and not get shot down, amazing. But let’s say it’s 500m deep for the first field, and you want 3m wide, that’s a fair amount of explosive for your drones to carry in a small space, that might get hammered with artillery and get drones shot down, which would leave some spots potentially mined, and then you end up stuck in the middle of a minefield again.

Edited December 21, 2023 by kimbosbread

[kimbosbread]

Off topic re US border: The democrats are being handed a gift here by their republicans where they can materially change their border stance to something more reasonable (ie anything not wide open is literally facism) long before the election. The Republicans are either too stupid to wait to spring this until say mid-summer, and/or the situation at the border is that bad (it is).

[OBJ]

6 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I am sorry if this has been proposed and dismissed already, but would not the entire operation be massively simplified if instead of using air mobility systems to move soldiers above the minefield, one used air mobile systems for creating an explosive breach? 

I mean an explosive breach is just blowing up explosives placed on the ground. Why not have them placed by drones? If you release say fifty or a hundred drones whose only job will be to touch down for a second, deposit an explosive charge and skedaddle that is going to be massively more difficult to stop than trying to make a breach with a few tank sized vehicles which automatically draw fire from all ATGMs, PGMs and other AT systems in the vicinity.

In a sense it would exploit the same principle as tank did during WW I and II- instead of having the attack conducted by infantrymen,who can be killed by all weapons, the tanks were vulnerable only to a small subset of weapons, which in effect could be overwhelmed. Now AT weapons are ubiquituous, but AA not so and could be overwhelmed by a swarm of drones.

 

I think it is a great idea in combination with all the others that talk to friendly drone use in the attack while denying the enemy defensive use of drones in the battle space, assuming we all agree heavy ground forces and ground LOC transiting the minefields are necessary to the breakout.

I do not know what a current Mine Clearing Line Charge weights but there is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M58_MICLIC

The line charge is 350 feet (107 meters) long and contains 5 pounds (2.27 kg) per linear foot of C-4 explosive. This line charge is supposed to be effective against conventionally fused land mines and supposed to clear a lane 8m wide. 

The explosives for a line this length weigh 1,750 lbs, just the explosives, not sure about the 'line container'. The greatest lift I've seen for 'heavy' drones is 414 lbs, so if that's a practical max we'd need to reduce line length assuming lifting drones at both ends.

It makes sense to me a force assembled to attack above minefields could use the same form of mobility to clear lanes through the minefields.