How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Letter from Prague]

Modern CPUs have dedicated hardware for encryption, so that is not really a concern unless in very very constrained environments.

When you watch a youtube video on a phone on a tablet, that video is going through at least two layers of encryption - your device's connection to your wifi or to mobile network is encrypted, and all connections between web browser or app and Google's servers are encrypted as well.

That doesn't mean there aren't vulnerabilities, especially if the protocol designer is kind of a dummy, like in my favorite talk here: 

 

 

[dan/california]

Interesting video of a guy trying to break the drone speed record. It can be long and slow in places, so I will summarize. A moderately competent two person father and son team with a nice garage shop build a drone that can go 500KPH. They have about .000000001 percent of the resources of Lockheed-Martin. This is exhibit A of we haven't seen anything yet, and BTW helicopters are OVER. 

Edited May 18 by dan/california

[Letter from Prague]

Addendum: "breaking" modern encryption isn't really a thing. You would need quantum computers that don't really exist at the moment, or more time than until the end of the universe to do something like that - even the dumbest CPUs that cost $1 a piece have integrated modern encryption nowadays.

What is usually attacked is when whoever built the device, hardware or software, made a mistake or cut some corners, like not implementing encryption at all or not generating encryption key properly or messing up some code or even left a backdoor. That's where you might see a difference between Raytheon and DJI drones.

[chrisl]

3 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Addendum: "breaking" modern encryption isn't really a thing. You would need quantum computers that don't really exist at the moment, or more time than until the end of the universe to do something like that - even the dumbest CPUs that cost $1 a piece have integrated modern encryption nowadays.

What is usually attacked is when whoever built the device, hardware or software, made a mistake or cut some corners, like not implementing encryption at all or not generating encryption key properly or messing up some code or even left a backdoor. That's where you might see a difference between Raytheon and DJI drones.

I left open the possibility of "breaking" because good encryption costs energy, and drones are on a tight energy budget.  If you can get even a little more range or patrol time in exchange for something that can be decrypted in a week, it's probably worth the trade.

[sburke]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here's another scenario... EW is up to 11 and no UAS are in the area at all.  Ukraine has no idea the column is on the march, so neither FPVs or artillery respond to it.  Artillery has no more advantage than UAS in this scenario.

Another scenario is the EW is cranked back to 8.  Ukraine can use slightly better UAS with longer range cameras, but not FPVs in close.  They spot the column and dial in artillery.  A few dozen shells are fired and maybe, just maybe, they hit something enough that it stops moving, then another dozen expended to maybe kill whatever is disabled.

The point here is that you don't want to rely upon artillery to stop a moving column, not to mention ensuring its destruction.  It takes too many shells to ensure good results.  But artillery working with FPVs?  Much better outcome.

Steve

How about delivering an artillery fired minefield in front of the column?

[Vet 0369]

On 5/13/2024 at 12:19 PM, Battlefront.com said:

Every time I see that video I think of something like the British having great success against the colonial militia on the Battle Green in Lexington.  "See, our well practiced musket line tactics can crush anything!".  Then the colonists picked them off as they marched to and from Concord along narrow, wooded roads where the British tactics didn't work at all.  If YouTube had been around back then I'm sure the British would show the first part of the battle that they won and not shown how in the end they were operationally defeated.

Steve

Wellll, in reality, the myth that the Red Coats were “wiped by the militias on the march back to Boston is just that, a MYTH!  The Rebels lost about two to three times the number of casualties that the military lost. This was due to the Light Infantry flankers that the Red Coats sent out on both sides of the road to clear out the Rebel scum with one of the main weapons of the British Army, a thing called the bayonet.

[Vet 0369]

On 5/13/2024 at 2:43 PM, Probus said:

I have a feeling that future APS systems are going to be responsible for quite a few bird... eliminations...

You bet! In the USMC, we refer to those “eliminations as  CHOW TIME!

[Vet 0369]

On 5/14/2024 at 9:40 PM, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting article in Politico about the turmoil in Georgia and blaming some of it on the Republicans in the House.  Hypothesis is people around Russia are hedging their bets and the dithering by the US has caused some to throw their lot back in with Putin because they believe he isn't going anywhere.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/14/us-georgia-unrest-congress-00157989

I dunno... this seems to be falling into the trap of thinking everything that the US does or doesn't do is the most important thing on the planet.  I don't doubt that US dithering is a factor, but I think the biggest factor is that Georgia has been sliding back into Russia's orbit for years now.  Can't blame that on the House GOP (and there was a good quote in there about just that). So at most, I think, it could have given the pro Russian types a little less concern about sliding backwards.

Steve

First Amendment not withstanding, I personally wouldn’t use a publication from Politico to wipe my butt!

[cesmonkey]

https://www.holosameryky.com/a/zsh-taktyka/7617549.html

Voice of America Ukraine has some highlights from this:
 

Quote

The ingenuity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was noted by the Inspector General of the US Pentagon in a report to the US Congress. The report nevertheless notes that the ability of the Armed Forces is affected by the constant application of Soviet doctrine, and the quality of the troops and the level of training are affected by protracted battles, limitations in resources and equipment, as well as the tactical operational situation.

The report, published on May 16, provides an overview of US aid to Ukraine and its accountability, covers the first quarter of 2024 and includes, among other things, a section on the operational capability of the Ukrainian military and challenges for allied trainers. Information for this section is provided by the Pentagon inspector with reference to data from the US Forces Europe and Africa Command.

The Pentagon inspector points out that during the reporting period, Ukraine demonstrated considerable professionalism and innovation in the use of small commercial drones for reconnaissance and attack. The Armed Forces uses drones on a large scale. Mobile fire teams have also been created to counter Iranian UAVs, which is also called an innovation.

However, there are challenges in some areas, including the effective ability to use combined arms and exploit breakthroughs, the report said.

Among the biggest challenges for NATO and US instructors who advise the Armed Forces is a change in mindset, because, as the report's authors point out, the Ukrainian command still relies on Soviet-era warfare doctrine. In particular, it is said that the headquarters of the Armed Forces corps are historically not organized on the basis of combat functions and do not support joint combat operations. Thus, the staffs demonstrated a limited ability to conduct operations at the level above the brigade level.

The authors also note that some commanders of the Armed Forces and units adopt a mission-based philosophy through decentralization, with an emphasis on trust, initiative, delegation of decisions, and creativity, but protracted war reduces the quality of troops.

According to the report, the Armed Forces of Ukraine use artillery and long-range weapons for fighting the enemy rather than for maneuvering and breakthroughs. Several attempts by the Armed Forces to make a breakthrough were not successful, the authors point out. They note that the lack of air power and engineering capabilities further limit the ability of the Ukrainian military to bypass prepared defenses. Russia has a numerical advantage in artillery and long-range weapons, which reduces the ability of the Armed Forces to build up combat forces, and the protracted war and delays in the delivery of weapons have allowed Russian forces to mine sites and build defenses.

The Pentagon provided $10 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine without having the money to replace those weapons
Pentagon inspector report on uncertainty created by delays in approving new US aid package to Ukraine
The lack of human resources limits the ability to rotate, provide rest and training for the military, the authors point out. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier exceeds 40 years. The report notes that lowering the conscription age is ambiguously perceived in Ukraine, in particular because of the risks to the economy. Lowering the age of mobilization could allow Ukraine to mobilize another 50,000 people, the report says, citing information from open sources.

In general, the report notes that in response to Russia's war of aggression, the US at the state level mobilized $174.2 billion to support Ukraine in the defense of its territory, build NATO's capabilities in Eastern Europe, increase the US military presence in the region, as well as direct budgetary, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Before Congress approved a new aid package for Ukraine, the uncertainty affected both Ukraine, where the military reportedly needed to conserve ammunition, and the United States, where the Pentagon provided $10 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine without having the money to replace them.

Photo for illustration: Lukoil oil refinery in Volgograd. In May, the plant was hit by a drone. The mass media, with reference to Ukrainian officials, reported that the attack was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine
 

 

Edited May 19 by cesmonkey

[kimbosbread]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, density of fire is something that UAS theoretically has a difficult time matching up with artillery.….

Also, it is clear that offensive drone capabilities will be held at the company level very soon, if not platoon.  It's already happening.

Yeah, think of the drones as replacing Javelins and mortars, except with the range of artillery. You are basically pushing mini cruise missiles down almost to the squad level. If a lot of squads have these, and coordinate, you can in fact get density of fires.

8 hours ago, holoween said:

If youre making fully them fully automated youre going to dramatically increase the price quite easily to the point of being prohibitively expensive. And thats also only for the actual strike drones. Anything for recon needs the comms link or its pointless.

Why prohibitively expensive? A modern phone has all the processing power you need; equivalent to laptop basically. These chips aren’t expensive and are produced at massive scale. Autonomy and machine vision don’t mean general AI, they mean the ability to tell a drone “go over here, and find targets that match X, Y, Z characteristics”.

For recon, why does a comm link need to be expensive? If we can do starlink to phone, then we can do starlink to drone. If there’s too much jamming, the designated anti-radiation drone can go find the jammer (or a bigger munition can be dedicated to that). And the jammers don’t seem to have that great range, especially the more portable ones. So you just head up a bit higher, no problem. I don’t see this as a deal breaker at all.

6 hours ago, poesel said:

Even if a drone is autonomous, you still might want to have a command channel to it, I refer to Dr. Strangelove for the mechanics of it, although the encryption mechanics have improved a bit since then.
But even a fully autonomous, no back-channel drone can still be fried by microwaves or blinded by a laser.

Sure, but likely it’ll operate more like a submarine where the command channel is mostly listening. Moreover, it will be along a wide frequency band, and this will force the jammer to be much noiser and more visible.

Edited May 19 by kimbosbread

[kimbosbread]

7 hours ago, Probus said:

So what are folk's opinions about lumping the Russian Federation's disinformation campaigns into cyber warfare?  I only mention it because most news is consumed over the interwebs and not by TV/Newspapers anymore.

Meh they are really different. Disinformation is psychological warefare, where your vector for achieving your aims is making people think differently, and thus acting differently.

Cyberwarfare, your vector is computer systems, and using that to deny some capability to the enemy; their banking system, their power grid, distributing photos of dear leader with young boys etc.

Neither are really a real-time thing; EW is kind of the real-time version of Cyberwarfare, but I think automated intrusion systems a la William Gibson might be a thing very soon, where your near-future company might have a box with them (perhaps the size of a large cellphone), and maybe strap it to some antennas, or maybe send it up on a drone, and it would attempt to take control of enemy drones or computer systems it can find in the field. Or land in a substation, and jack into whatever can be jacked into?

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Wellll, in reality, the myth that the Red Coats were “wiped by the militias on the march back to Boston is just that, a MYTH!  The Rebels lost about two to three times the number of casualties that the military lost. This was due to the Light Infantry flankers that the Red Coats sent out on both sides of the road to clear out the Rebel scum with one of the main weapons of the British Army, a thing called the bayonet.

You need to refresh your memory, because a quick check of several sources shows that this isn't correct.  The flankers were extremely helpful in preventing the entire force from being wiped out, true, but it was indeed rendered militarily ineffective and was saved from annihilation because an even larger force came to rescue it in Lexington before a harrowing retreat back to Boston.  The end result was the war they were trying to avoid started, the militias now saw they could defeat the British in a direct fight, the Redcoats didn't venture that way again until reenactors dressed up as them a hundred years later, and ultimately the British lost the Colonies completely.

Not that any of this is important or relevant to what we're discussing now.  It wasn't even important and relevant 5 days ago when I posted it.  Please, for the love of all that is holy, refrain from responding to posts that the rest of us have moved on from days ago unless it is still relevant to what is being discussed today.  It is a distraction.

Steve

P.S.  there's almost nothing funnier than watching a bunch of Redcoats get on a yellow school bus behind a drug store because walking from Lexington to Concord isn't fun

[chrisl]

45 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Why prohibitively expensive? A modern phone has all the processing power you need; equivalent to laptop basically. These chips aren’t expensive and are produced at massive scale. Autonomy and machine vision don’t mean general AI, they mean the ability to tell a drone “go over here, and find targets that match X, Y, Z characteristics”.Yeah, think of the drones as replacing Javelins and mortars, except with the range of artillery. You are basically pushing mini cruise missiles down almost to the squad level. If a lot of squads have these, and coordinate, you can in fact get density of fires.

For recon, why does a comm link need to be expensive? If we can do starlink to phone, then we can do starlink to drone. If there’s too much jamming, the designated anti-radiation drone can go find the jammer (or a bigger munition can be dedicated to that). And the jammers don’t seem to have that great range, especially the more portable ones. So you just head up a bit higher, no problem. I don’t see this as a deal breaker at all.

Sure, but likely it’ll operate more like a submarine where the command channel is mostly listening. Moreover, it will be along a wide frequency band, and this will force the jammer to be much noiser and more visible.

And if it's doing recon and you let it be autonomous, or even just automated (pre-determined flight path), jamming only affects the reception, anyway, it doesn't prevent a drone from transmitting.  And if there's nothing jamming the receive station, there's still realtime recon.  

A jammer would have to have enough power (and maybe LOS) to get to the receive station to stop that.  A local jammer might affect a nearby relay, but if the relay is some distance away it's likely to be unaffected, or significantly less affected.  If the EW is powerful enough to cause interference all the way back to the operator, the next drones that launch will have the RF homing module on them.

The most effective EW would be triangulation systems to detect drones' transmissions and then shoot them down, either the old fashioned way or with another drone.

[FancyCat]

Can't you just have drones fight each other at that point as anti-drone methods?

[dan/california]

57 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Can't you just have drones fight each other at that point as anti-drone methods?

Clearly that is where things are going to go. But given how few cases of drones killing other drones we have seen it is clearly a hard problem. If was any an easy problem their would thousands of videos of succesful engagements, instead of a handful. It may be the new version of the bomber will always get through.

[cesmonkey]

Lengthy analysis by Konstantin Mashovets of the Kharkiv front:
https://t.me/zvizdecmanhustu/1877

Quote

🖊On the possible development of the situation in the Kharkov operational area

In both areas of their tactical penetration (Volchanskoe direction and direction to the village of Liptsy), the enemy is currently continuing his attempts to advance in two places:
West of the city of Volchansk along the Bugruvatka - Staritsa direction, as well as along the right bank of the Seversky Donets River in the general direction to the south. Units of the 1st Motorized Rifle Regiment (MSR) of the 2nd "Taman" Motorized Rifle Division (MSD) are probably operating here, possibly supported by separate units of the 47th Tank Division (TD) of the 1st TA
And in the northern part of the city of Volchansk, advanced enemy units (probably from two separate motorized rifle brigades\omsbr of the 6th combined arms army\OVA - 138th and 25th motorized rifle brigades) are trying not only to gain a foothold in the area of the meat processing plant, the old airfield north of the city and a couple of blocks south of Tereshkova Street and Novoselovskaya Street... but also, if possible, advance as deeply as possible towards the city center...

The enemy sharply increased the intensity and volume of its fire impact directly on the city, thus trying to “clear” the way to their attacking units and disrupt any counterattack actions of Ukrainian Armed Forces units defending in this direction.

It is obvious that “it would be easier for the enemy” if he managed to advance through the forest to the west of the city along the Gatishche-Sinelnikovo direction. And he made several such attempts...

However, it seems that Ukrainian troops are still quite confidently holding their positions along the Volchya River south of the village. Gatishche and all the way to the Aggregate Plant stadium, so the enemy is forced to act “taking into account” this, both in Volchansk itself and to the west of it...

As for the site in the area of the village of Liptsy, over the last few days, the enemy has not had any significant advance in this direction, although according to certain information (which still requires verification), he managed to advance west of the village of Lukyantsy, along the northern shore of Lipets for a distance of about 1 km.

In order to continue, and even more so increase the pace and scope of its offensive actions in the Kharkov operational direction, the enemy obviously needs to organize in the near future a systematic supply of its advanced units with everything necessary for “life and battle.” And also strengthen your tactical reserves... especially for armored vehicles.

At present, the advanced units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, apparently, are quite successful (of course, to a certain extent) in thwarting these attempts. Indirect evidence of this can be the fact that over the past 2 days, units of the 18th Motorized Rifle Division (MSD) + several assault units from the 7th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment (OMS) of the 11th Army Corps (AK) of the enemy , in the direction to the village. Lipets have minimal rates of advancement. If we can talk about such things in this case at all...

How might the situation develop in this direction in the near future?
In my opinion, the enemy will continue his attempts to “wedge himself as deeply as possible” into the urban development of Volchansk... as well as his active actions to the west of the city along both banks of the Seversky Donets River...

In this sense, I would pay special attention to the area Bugrovatka village. If the enemy manages to cross the city of Seversky Donets from west to east, towards Prilepka, and further to Sinelnikovo and Kirpichnoye... then the situation could have a sharply negative impact on the tactical group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that is currently fighting in Volchansk.

At present, the likelihood of this is low (after all, the enemy must, in this case, first pull up significant fresh forces and assets from the Novaya Tavolzhanka and Arkhangelskoye area, where they are now concentrated - first in the village of Ogurtsevo, and then towards the village of Bugrovatka).

Now this is, let’s say, “with great difficulty” for him. In turn, in order to increase his efforts towards Volchansk specifically, he also needs additional forces and means. After all, it has already become obvious that a “pair” of battalions of the 138th and 25th Omsbr will not be enough for this...

Quote

It didn’t work out to capture the city “on the move”, using force from the enemy. And, obviously, the conversation at his headquarters has already turned to the so-called... “systematic assault.” In addition, the advanced units of these brigades probably suffered significant losses during this attempt...

In short, any further development of the situation associated with the enemy’s acute desire to “advance somewhere and break through” will require his command to enter the battle (use ) ADDITIONAL forces and means.

Therefore, in connection with this, a completely logical question arises... what, where and in what volumes can the enemy bring here quickly, within a few days, to use directly in attack/assault operations in the Volchansky direction...?

At first glance, what comes to mind are units from a number of units and formations of the 44th Army Corps, the transfer of which to the Main Force "North" I reported on the eve of the enemy's activation in the Kharkov operational direction.
We were talking about the 30th and 41st motorized rifle regiments (MSR) of the 72nd MSD and the 128th separate motorized rifle brigade (OMSBR).

But if we keep in mind the possibility of the enemy starting and carrying out similar actions in the Sumy direction, as reported by our Main Intelligence Directorate, then it is obvious that some part of these forces and means will be deployed there, or will pose as “full readiness” for such actions . That is, it will be “busy”...

At present, in the direction of Lipka, the enemy has engaged only individual units from the 41st Motorized Rifle Regiment (as a rule, combined assault companies). The main forces of the tactical group of the 44th AK had not yet been brought into battle.

In essence, this is a kind of “mobile reserve” of the operational-tactical group of enemy forces “North” to carry out “suddenly emerging tasks” of a tactical level and scale in the Kharkov and Sumy operational directions.

However, in the context of yesterday’s statement by our General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine about the enemy’s desire (and, of course, corresponding plans) to break into the rear of our troops operating in the Kupyansk direction, it becomes clear that these three and a half thousand “carcasses” will not “save the giant of thought” at all and the father of Russian democracy." Strengthening of a completely different order is needed, approximately somewhere up to a full-fledged division (this is at a minimum)...

Quote

Where to get…?

And here we enter the realm of... assumptions and assumptions... Therefore, I will express exclusively my own point of view on this matter, which is based, of course, on certain information, but does not at all mean that it is

“guaranteed”...

In my opinion, if the Russian military command in this direction continues its attempts to “outplay the Nazis” at the operational level... then we, quite possibly, will be able to see here:
- 1-2 infantry regiments from the Zaporozhye direction (probably the 70th or 71st 1st infantry regiment from the 42nd motorized rifle division, or part of the 7th or 76th air assault divisions, most likely in the same volume)
- 54th infantry regiment of the 3rd AK, from the Kramatorsk direction, or 1 or 2 regiment from the 98th Airborne Division\PDD... most likely - the 299th Parachute Regiment\PDD.

It is possible to use both a combination of the forces and means I have listed, and the use of only a certain part of them. However, it is unlikely that the total volume will be more than 2-3 regiment-level formations. And even then, it is not a fact that all of their regular battalions will be suitable for these actions (i.e., combat-ready)...

The removal of anything from the Kupyansky direction, in light of the extreme assessments of the development of the situation in the Kharkov operational direction by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is unlikely may be similar to the volume I indicated above.

After all, then the meaning of a “breakthrough to the White Well” (and further, towards Bolshoi Burluk), so to speak, is “lost”, because the enemy can achieve the greatest effect (more precisely, try to achieve) only if they organize and carry out SIMULTANEOUS offensive actions, like in the Kupyansky direction, and “through Volchansk to the White Well”...

 

[cesmonkey]

ISW's daily summary mentioned the head of  the Russian Ryber channel giving an interview criticizing the Russian ministry of defense. Here are some highlights noted by the interviewer:
https://t.me/rtvimain/96582
 

Quote

Military observer and author of the telegram channel “ Rybar ” Mikhail Zvinchuk is the guest of the new episode of the “You Hold On!” program. on RTVI

Together with Marianna Minsker, we discussed how Ivanov’s arrest and Shoigu’s resignation are connected, why the “purges” in the army began right now, how Shoigu’s resignation was perceived in the army and why he was sent to the Security Council, why Belousov was appointed head of the Ministry of Defense, why Surovikin returned to Moscow , what awaits Gerasimov and whether a new mobilization will begin.

On the arrest of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov:
“If they neglect all these lawsuits, all these stories, and don’t pursue the topic of cooperation in the field of the fact that this person can tell something about others, perhaps we will be imprisoned.”

On the timing of the end of the conflict in Ukraine:
“If we do not carry out large-scale mobilization and do not have a normal, adequate history of bringing young recruits into battle, then now we must take care of people, take care of our own resources. We don't have the capacity to carry out a large-scale offensive."

On the possibility of large-scale mobilization:
“At this stage, I don’t think so. If ***** drags on, especially [if] it is extrapolated to Poland, the Baltic states and so on, personnel will be required.”

See the full release at  the link

 

 

[Pete Wenman]

Another BSF ship lost - if confirmed

 

P

[Hapless]

Bet those seaside apartments across the bay are really cheap these days...
 

 

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Why prohibitively expensive? A modern phone has all the processing power you need; equivalent to laptop basically. These chips aren’t expensive and are produced at massive scale. Autonomy and machine vision don’t mean general AI, they mean the ability to tell a drone “go over here, and find targets that match X, Y, Z characteristics”.

And apparently there is already one on the market:

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

I would be willing to bet a beer these are not “prohibitively expensive”

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

Among the biggest challenges for NATO and US instructors who advise the Armed Forces is a change in mindset, because, as the report's authors point out, the Ukrainian command still relies on Soviet-era warfare doctrine. In particular, it is said that the headquarters of the Armed Forces corps are historically not organized on the basis of combat functions and do not support joint combat operations. Thus, the staffs demonstrated a limited ability to conduct operations at the level above the brigade level.

The authors also note that some commanders of the Armed Forces and units adopt a mission-based philosophy through decentralization, with an emphasis on trust, initiative, delegation of decisions, and creativity, but protracted war reduces the quality of troops.

According to the report, the Armed Forces of Ukraine use artillery and long-range weapons for fighting the enemy rather than for maneuvering and breakthroughs. Several attempts by the Armed Forces to make a breakthrough were not successful, the authors point out. They note that the lack of air power and engineering capabilities further limit the ability of the Ukrainian military to bypass prepared defenses. Russia has a numerical advantage in artillery and long-range weapons, which reduces the ability of the Armed Forces to build up combat forces, and the protracted war and delays in the delivery of weapons have allowed Russian forces to mine sites and build defenses.

I am so tired of this entire line of thought.  Sure the UA has legacy Soviet doctrine but 1) what is wrong with Soviet doctrine - there is a huge assumption that Soviet doctrine was ineffective and somehow did not know how to manoeuvre, which is patently false, and 2) And ignores the other factors staring them in the face that are making large scale manoeuvre impossible.

This is straight up western arrogance built on a foundation of ignorance.  Until someone from the Pentagon can explain how we would successfully operate under the same conditions (no air superiority, ISR every where) using “mission command and manoeuvre” of course.  Did anyone ask the Ukrainians why they are using fires first?  Did anyone stop to wonder why manoeuvre has failed for the Russians as well?  Nope, too easy to blame it all on “Soviet-era” doctrine.  This “us-centric” analysis is frighteningly similar to what European observers of the US Civil War walked away with…and it cost them dearly.

Edited May 19 by The_Capt

[cesmonkey]

 

[Butschi]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

And apparently there is already one on the market:

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

I would be willing to bet a beer these are not “prohibitively expensive”

To be fair, that video is really on the Puma vs drone swarm video level we were discussing before. It demonstrates a swarm flying in a more or less static formation at conveniently high altitude. That doesn't really qualify as AI in my book as it should be fairly easy to do with a few sensors and conventional simple algorithms. The Wikipedia page explicitly says: "The capability of this swarm to autonomously identify, select and coordinate attacks on a target has, however, never been demonstrated by STM in reality."

Re: the discussion how expensive autonomous UAVs would be: It depends, I guess. As others have posted already, there is a lot that can be done with mobile phone hardware which isn't really expensive. In general, though, AI is such a vague concept these days that it really depends on exactly what we are talking about. For some stuff a mobile phone is sufficient. Many things require a decent GPU, though - so, a good gaming PC - and others (think ChatGPT) are more on a computing center level.

That said, once you have trained your network you can often either put it on a dedicated ASIC or use it to train a much smaller network that can run on cheaper hardware.

So... at the end of the day it boils down to "how smart to do you want it to be?". I guess(!) that patrolling an area at above tree top level, applying some image recognition and tracking and then going straight for that target is really not beyond what a mobile phone can do (and that is probably something that is already done). That Wikipedia page says something about face recognition which is certainly something my phone can do to unlock the screen. Then again, it clearly says that it is possible that others with a similar face may be able to do that, too. And on a Monday morning before I had my first coffee, it has a hard time recognizing even me.

And that is probably the gist of it. The more you invest in hardware, the better your result is going to be. If you are only interested in your drone killing something that looks like the typical tank out in the open and don't care if it hits a civilian car every now and than, then, that is certainly something a phone can do. If you want to hit one guy in crowd with absolute certainty and noone else... maybe not.

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, Butschi said:

To be fair, that video is really on the Puma vs drone swarm video level we were discussing before. It demonstrates a swarm flying in a more or less static formation at conveniently high altitude. That doesn't really qualify as AI in my book as it should be fairly easy to do with a few sensors and conventional simple algorithms. The Wikipedia page explicitly says: "The capability of this swarm to autonomously identify, select and coordinate attacks on a target has, however, never been demonstrated by STM in reality."

Re: the discussion how expensive autonomous UAVs would be: It depends, I guess. As others have posted already, there is a lot that can be done with mobile phone hardware which isn't really expensive. In general, though, AI is such a vague concept these days that it really depends on exactly what we are talking about. For some stuff a mobile phone is sufficient. Many things require a decent GPU, though - so, a good gaming PC - and others (think ChatGPT) are more on a computing center level.

That said, once you have trained your network you can often either put it on a dedicated ASIC or use it to train a much smaller network that can run on cheaper hardware.

So... at the end of the day it boils down to "how smart to do you want it to be?". I guess(!) that patrolling an area at above tree top level, applying some image recognition and tracking and then going straight for that target is really not beyond what a mobile phone can do (and that is probably something that is already done). That Wikipedia page says something about face recognition which is certainly something my phone can do to unlock the screen. Then again, it clearly says that it is possible that others with a similar face may be able to do that, too. And on a Monday morning before I had my first coffee, it has a hard time recognizing even me.

And that is probably the gist of it. The more you invest in hardware, the better your result is going to be. If you are only interested in your drone killing something that looks like the typical tank out in the open and don't care if it hits a civilian car every now and than, then, that is certainly something a phone can do. If you want to hit one guy in crowd with absolute certainty and noone else... maybe not.

Totally true.  In reality this little beast is kinda shooting for the deep end - asymmetric warfare and HVT strikes. This is in the Switchblade 300 league - not go out and find me a tank and kill it with 2-3 buddies.  But the video does show where I think things will go in the short (read “now”), the last mile.  If an operator can get the drone within a few kms, do the target selection, and then hit release, we have a drone that is basically a flying ATGM system.  It can’t be soft-killed on final approach as there is no link to operator.

Second, these videos are from 2020. I am fairly confident that processing power has continued to increase and what can be built now for less has higher capabilities.  Regardless the age of full autonomy is going to happen, it is already happening.

The main issue with EW is that it takes a lot of energy to get what you want, in an age where pumping a lot of energy out is essentially self-illuminating targeting.  Direct energy weapons will have the same problem. Large, big and brash is not going to fair well in an age of small,  cheap, everywhere.  It would be better to figure out how to create distributed EW capability and put them on unmanned systems as a net as opposed to single major platforms.

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Pete Wenman said:

Another BSF ship lost - if confirmed

 

P

It's claimed the photo of Russian minesweeper, burning in Engineer Bay of Sevastopol. Alas, bad quality. One source says the hull of "Kovrovets" already has towed to 13th ship-repair plant

Several hours ago Russian TG "Maritime power of the state" has posted this:

Concerning either hit Ukrainians at "Kovrovets" or not or at other ship will become clear soon. We wait

We waited.

They are unteachable as is. 

And this is not minesweeper, alas 

 

 

Some sources say missiles may hit other Russian ship "Tsyklon" - newest missile corvette of pr. 22800 Karakurt-class. She stood reportedly in Kurinaya Bay of Sevastopol