How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

militaries are highly conservative organizations that are slow to adopt, adapt and pivot.  

Let's expand that to include all forms of organized anything.  Governments, labor unions, political parties, and (most importantly) corporations.  I just listened to Perun's latest on the space race and, in particular, lift capacity. 

NASA went for ultra conservative "if it isn't perfect, we aren't interested", the Europeans went with "reusable is a pipe dream, we're sticking with proven 1940s concepts", the Russians with "let's milk what we have until the cow is dead", and the Chinese with "we'll try and copy the best out there, come up short, but better than if we tried something novel".

SpaceX went with something different and they were poo-pooed for even trying; they rejected established conventions and pursued the ideal that everybody else (for a variety of reasons) dismissed as impractical or unnecessary.  Specifically reusable launch vehicles and a finicky type of rocket.  SpaceX figured the only way to realize the promise was to spend a lot of money and time failing until they got it right.  And they did.  Now they are responsible for almost all of the tonnage put into space BY FAR. 

In order to do this SpaceX had to abandon pretty much everything that was already tried-and-true, including industrial processes, business models, and financing.  Nothing short of that would likely have worked, nothing more than that was needed.  Now everybody else is trying to catch up and nobody is even close to being close to being far away from doing so.

The country that uses this sort of SpaceX mentality for unmanned vehicles is going to come out way ahead.  Let's just hope that country is a friend.

Steve

[The_Capt]

13 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

I have to disagree with this entirely simply because war / militaries have literally spawned countless innovations with applications both suited for war and outside of it. Militaries can absolutely be conservative in structure but they can also be equally innovative and capable of rapid change in a manner of years. The key input I think is the pressure said military is under. Militaries are less inclined to change when not under duress (As with any human operated mechanism really) Its that same duress that has pushed Ukraine to innovate heavily in order to survive in its current situation with traditional methods out of its reach. Its why most military development happens in times of war. Adapt or die and all that. 
 

So quite a radical approach then. Is it not possible that such extreme change has no guarantee of actually working in practise? This might explain why no one outside of the theoretical have made such attempts. Restructuring is one thing but to start from scratch is another. Its risky, expensive and not exactly an easy sell to a country population either. Why would a country pursue such a potentially risky policy? Why hasn't anyone done so yet? Simply calling every military on the planet conservative and unwilling to change feels like a simplistic answer at best. I dont disagree with your points in terms of what we should be aiming for, I just feel like there is little reason for any country to take such a drastic policy, most simply cannot afford the risk of something that might backfire or not work as ideally hoped. Logically steady reform makes more sense overall as a policy.

Your logic is kind of sucking and blowing at the same time here. “Militaries are in fact quite innovative and progressive.” “No military is going to take such risks”.

Militaries can innovate, as you note very often under pressure - but we are not talking about that with respect to western militaries facing the next decade.  We are talking about established militaries that have been in either small wars or largely peace. These militaries are very often the least able to change, or willing…or a combination of the two.

As to cost, well again this is upside down logic.  Right now western militaries will need to invest billions, possibly trillions to try and keep current structures relevant on a future battlefield.  Saying a drastic shift to unmanned and precision is “too expensive” is a vast assumption considering that we do not have cost estimates as to what that looks like over time.  We already know that Ukraine has managed to fend off Russia - a force that looks far more like us - for pennies on the dollar.  So how many next gen unmanned vehicles can I buy for the cost of that German monster tank? Conversely, I suspect that poorer nations might be the ones to embrace these concepts first because they are 1) cheaper and 2) more readily available from commercial industry.  They already do not have several hundred/thousand MBTs coming in at $25m a pop, so the risk of moving to light, fast, connected and lethal makes a lot more sense.

Frankly if this is what you see as “radical” and “extreme” well I would encourage that you stretch out your thinking a bit - I know some good books. This is likely the end of a long development stream as we try and rationalize what we have with what we need.  This is in fact middle of the road based on what we are seeing.  However, if you are imagining “Armour TFs wearing a UAS hat” well you are likely not alone.  Radical would be an entirely autonomous swarm force removing humans from the loop almost entirely. Further it would invest heavily into weaponizing nano-technologies, explosives enhancement specifically.  Energy storage is another big one.

The realities are that the trends are undeniable: miniaturization, low cost, light accelerating processing power, energy density and materials - no point arguing with me on concepts when the pressures of those accelerating technologies are unstoppable.  The UAS/FPV is nothing more than a manifestation of trends in technology we have seen coming for years.

As to the “too much risk of doing.”  Well I think the other side of the medal is “the risk of not doing”.  After this war, every military power will do major rethinks because what happened (and what continues to happen) was supposed to be impossible. A small power with a military spending of $6B took on and beat a great power spending over 10 times as much.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/UKR/ukraine/military-spending-defense-budget#:~:text=Ukraine military spending%2Fdefense budget for 2021 was %245.94B,a 29.96% increase from 2018.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/RUS/russia/military-spending-defense-budget#:~:text=Russia military spending%2Fdefense budget for 2022 was %2486.37B,a 5.35% decline from 2019.

People can cry corruption (as though pre-war UA was free from it all they wish, but this was world breaking from a military point of view.  There will be major rethinks from Washington to Beijing and everywhere in between.  We will see iterations of rabbit holes and dead ends, trillions will be spent in what will become a Cold War level arms race.  We can come back in 10 years and see just how far things have gone.

Edited June 28 by The_Capt

[Battlefront.com]

BTW, the Perun video talked about yet another complete and utter disaster for the Russian economy and national pride that resulted from this war.  Their space program may not be completely dead, but it is nothing compared to what it used to be and will likely require massive government funding to keep it from death.  And thanks to the traditional short term thinking of the Russian government's reaction to sanctions, it is likely to stay that way.

Here is an article in Forbes released yesterday that concludes that Russia has, effectively, lost the space race.  A race that the Russians (as many others) believe is critical to military success in the future:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2024/06/26/so-far-russia-is-losing-the-long-predicted-space-war-against-the-west/

Steve

 

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Let's expand that to include all forms of organized anything.  Governments, labor unions, political parties, and (most importantly) corporations.  I just listened to Perun's latest on the space race and, in particular, lift capacity. 

NASA went for ultra conservative "if it isn't perfect, we aren't interested", the Europeans went with "reusable is a pipe dream, we're sticking with proven 1940s concepts", the Russians with "let's milk what we have until the cow is dead", and the Chinese with "we'll try and copy the best out there, come up short, but better than if we tried something novel".

SpaceX went with something different and they were poo-pooed for even trying; they rejected established conventions and pursued the ideal that everybody else (for a variety of reasons) dismissed as impractical or unnecessary.  Specifically reusable launch vehicles and a finicky type of rocket.  SpaceX figured the only way to realize the promise was to spend a lot of money and time failing until they got it right.  And they did.  Now they are responsible for almost all of the tonnage put into space BY FAR. 

In order to do this SpaceX had to abandon pretty much everything that was already tried-and-true, including industrial processes, business models, and financing.  Nothing short of that would likely have worked, nothing more than that was needed.  Now everybody else is trying to catch up and nobody is even close to being close to being far away from doing so.

The country that uses this sort of SpaceX mentality for unmanned vehicles is going to come out way ahead.  Let's just hope that country is a friend.

Steve

Real innovation is driven by fear.  If you want to see who is innovating the hardest, look at who is afraid.  In industry as in war.  A nation that has lost a war or is at risk of losing one can, and will, innovate, hard.  They will throw out the rule book and try just about everything.  Nations at peace, or who think they have cast superiority will pursue “Logical steady reforms”.  Look at the US: the most radical reforms occurred after the Vietnam War, and they were really bold.  The problem with trying to explain away what we are seeing in this war is that we can fall back on our superiority.  If we actually feel threatened we will adapt quickly.  My single largest fear is billions being wasted trying to sustain a superiority which may very well be a mirage - a 21st century Maginot Line mindset.  

I suspect the nation out in front in the unmanned space is not a friend.  More like a frenemy. 
 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Its that same duress that has pushed Ukraine to innovate heavily in order to survive in its current situation with traditional methods out of its reach. Its why most military development happens in times of war. Adapt or die and all that. 

Quote

 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1987613?origin=crossref%3Forigin%3Dcrossref

 

The above is the introduction to an article about the British armies adoption of machine guns before WW1. It highlights many of the same issues we are discussing about drones now. It isn't just an issue of money (although money was certainly an issue), but organization, doctrine, reliability, and so on. Thus the British Army started WW1 with two machine guns per battalion. They eventually figure out that not quite enough. But there was a whole lot of dying before the adapting got under way. The Russians seem to demonstrate daily in Ukraine that dying is necessary but not sufficient.

.The trick is make as many correct predictions as possible, and thus do as little dying as possible while the adapting is underway. I would argue that the U.S. Navy carrier force in WW2 was a success in this regard. Despite a continued belief the battleship, and battleship tactics, the USN had done enough with carriers that it didn't have to start the campaign in the Pacific by retaking Hawaii. Indeed it Won at Midway with ships built before the outbreak of the war. The the goal should be to get closer to the USN in 1941, than to the British Army in 1914.

 

[dan/california]

 

6 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

 

If Israel at least partially blames Russia for Oct 7th? This would be about as good a start on getting even as I could think off.

 

[chrisl]

4 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Less than that, I'd guess. One might be enough.

But the duration of the effect is a larger problem.

...the idea of a nuclear detonation in low earth orbit is something we're somewhat familiar about in the United States because we did several, uh, back in the sixties, I believe. And the most notable was the Starfish Prime Test. Uh, you can find it on Wikipedia. It's really quite [00:03:00] well documented there, uh, where we, we detonate a 1. 4 megaton warhead in LEO. Learned about the EMP effects of that on the Hawaiian islands. But more importantly, I think we learned that it. Over time, over a period of a week or two. Uh, the satellites that were operating in the low Earth orbit environment all died. Uh, their electronics died.

https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Dr.-John-F.-Plumb-Fire-Side-Chat-Transcript.pdf

“Several analysts do believe that detonation in space at the right magnitude in the right location could render low-Earth orbit, for example, unusable for some period of time,”

At the hearing, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, wanted to know how long the weapon would leave low-Earth orbit unusable.

“Could it be a year?” asked Turner, who in February tweeted about a "destabilizing foreign military capability," which led to reports about Russia fielding a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon.

“I believe it could be.”

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/05/russian-space-nuke-could-render-low-earth-orbit-unusable-year-us-official-says/396245/

If we can design for Europa and Jupiter orbit (and we can), I suspect we can do something that will work post LEO nuke.

 

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

BTW, the Perun video talked about yet another complete and utter disaster for the Russian economy and national pride that resulted from this war.  Their space program may not be completely dead, but it is nothing compared to what it used to be and will likely require massive government funding to keep it from death.  And thanks to the traditional short term thinking of the Russian government's reaction to sanctions, it is likely to stay that way.

Here is an article in Forbes released yesterday that concludes that Russia has, effectively, lost the space race.  A race that the Russians (as many others) believe is critical to military success in the future:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2024/06/26/so-far-russia-is-losing-the-long-predicted-space-war-against-the-west/

Steve

 

The thing that's notable mostly in its absence in that article is discussion of Russia's own capability.  They've had great launch capability until fairly recently, but have fallen farther and farther behind in payload development - Planet Labs has as many satellites in their private constellation as Russia the second best military in Ukraine does, and Planet Labs is all about ISR, where SpaceX has been more focused on providing the launch and communication capability.  They've basically lost and there's not really any catching up - the country is no longer set up to support the kind of infrastructure that it takes to develop that.  At best they can sell gas and buy the capability from China, if China will sell it.

China has historically been behind in space, but is catching up rapidly.  They just fairly quietly collected rocks from the far side of the moon to return to earth.  That's a little bit of showing off, since they had to relay commands through an orbiter that can't always see both earth and the lander at the same time, so there's probably some autonomy.  They also soft-landed a rover on Mars first time out.  They don't have quite the comm constellation at Mars that the US does, but they got a rover to drive around.  They could bring back Mars rocks before NASA does.  If they really want to show off, they could pick up some of NASA's Mars rocks and deliver them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[acrashb]

9 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

That last one is the big one. Taking out stuff in orbit is nontrivial, especially higher orbits. Taking out a system like Starshield is basically impossible. How many nation states have the ability to shoot down several thousand satellites, and then do it all over again when SpaceX can launch a bunch of new ones (100+ tons of satellites per Starship launch) overnight?

In addition to the EMP that has been brought up:

1) taking stuff out in LEO - the location of the most useful ISR assets - is straightforward, and AFAIK  United States, Russia, China, and India have demonstrated the capability to shoot down satellites.  Others could do so; you do not have to enter orbit (with the energies required), just lob something to the right height with a bit of terminal guidance.
2) SpaceX will not be able to launch anything with a useful lifespan into LEO after a bunch of existing satellites have left behind enough debris to create a Kessler effect.

It's a form of MAD for one side to trigger the Kessler effect... but if that side has little existing dependence on space as a warfighting domain, they have little to lose and everything to gain and it's no longer MAD but AD.

[Vanir Ausf B]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

If we can design for Europa and Jupiter orbit (and we can), I suspect we can do something that will work post LEO nuke.

I have read hints that Starshield will be "more resilient".

Nevertheless, I am in favor of not betting the entire farm on pervasive and immutable C4ISR. I'd rather not give enemies a single failure point to target unless we are really confident they can't or won't.

[Fenris]

This is interesting re artillery ammo supply.

Quote

Donetsk Oblast, a Ukrainian 2S7 Pion self propelled cannon fires an American 8 inch (203mm) M106 high explosive shell at a Russian position.

After months of lacking ammunition, new NATO-standard shells stocks have brought Ukrainian Pions back into the fight.

 

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I have read hints that Starshield will be "more resilient".

Nevertheless, I am in favor of not betting the entire farm on pervasive and immutable C4ISR. I'd rather not give enemies a single failure point to target unless we are really confident they can't or won't.

 

Quote

 

https://www.airbus.com/en/products-services/defence/uas/uas-solutions/zephyr

Zephyr HAPS

Zephyr is a world-record-breaking High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS). Its persistence enables continuous flight for months at a time. Flying above 60,000 ft, Zephyr operates in the stratosphere, above weather and conventional air traffic. It remains the only fixed-wing HAPS to have demonstrated day and night longevity in the stratosphere. Zephyr can provide high-quality imagery and live video with Airbus' Strat-Observer service, or serve as a tower in the sky to deliver direct-to-device connectivity with a reach of up to 250 terrestrial towers in difficult mountainous terrain.

 

Strat-Observer

Strat-Observer is a new generation of Earth Observation service specialized in capturing very high-resolution images and live video from the stratosphere. It is a flexible, cost-effective complement to traditional Earth Observation, like satellites and UAS. This new service provides a valuable service to multiple use cases like maritime surveillance, border monitoring, mapping, forest fires and emergency response in general.

The payload, designed by Airbus Defence and Space, is designed to fly on different types of HAPS (High Altitude Platform Station), such as AALTO’s Zephyr.

By using a steerable high resolution optical camera, the service can capture typically 2500 km² per day at 18cm resolution. The camera footprint is 1 km² but thanks to its steering capacity, it can reach any point in an area of 40 x 30 km at any time

 

There are a number of unmanned drone/balloon systems built to operate in the upper stratoshpere that cando most if not all of the job. The trick is to order enough of them BEFORE the war so there isn't a blind panic, and gap in capability after someone in the "new axis of evil(tm)" decides to go out with a bang. Planning needs to assume losses even in expensive unmanned platforms.

[Offshoot]

48 minutes ago, acrashb said:

It's a form of MAD for one side to trigger the Kessler effect... but if that side has little existing dependence on space as a warfighting domain, they have little to lose and everything to gain and it's no longer MAD but AD.

Russia are getting a head start, albeit unintentionally - Astronauts take cover as defunct Russian satellite splits into nearly 200 pieces

Quote

A defunct Russian satellite has broken up into more than 100 pieces of debris in orbit, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter for about an hour and adding to the mass of space junk already in orbit, US space agencies said.

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, chrisl said:

The thing that's notable mostly in its absence in that article is discussion of Russia's own capability.  They've had great launch capability until fairly recently, but have fallen farther and farther behind in payload development ... They've basically lost and there's not really any catching up - the country is no longer set up to support the kind of infrastructure that it takes to develop that.

That was the gist of Perun's recent video.  Europe could catch up to the US because, in theory, it has the resources to put into it.  Russia, on the other hand, has an economy that's bleeding from uncountable wounds, big and small.  The Russian space program, like so many other things Russian, was already under invested in prior to the war.  It's not like that will suddenly get better now that they are cut off from everything, including customers.

The customer angle was one that Perun spent some time on.  We've discussed it before in many other contexts, in particular petroleum products.  Even if this war ended tomorrow, and Russia made amends very quickly, they will never get some customers back and the ones they do will unlikely need as much as they bought before because they've found alternatives that are more stable.

On the last point, Russia has a long history (going back to the Soviet Union's early days) of screwing over business partners.  We saw LOADS of this at the beginning of the war when Russia simply nationalized a bunch of stuff or made it impractical for the owners to sell their properties on an open market.  Some capitalists have very short memories, but many have very long ones.

Perun highlighted an incident where one of a bunch of satellites (I forget the company) were ready to go up on a Soyuz, the sanctions hit, they tried blackmailing the company to pressure the UK government to change some of the sanction, and are still keeping the satellites from them.  The point is it's one thing to lose your ride, it's another thing for the transporter to keep your cargo *AND* have a difficult time with your insurance company because it is in a gray area.

Speaking of that, I just found this recent article about the 400 civilian aircraft that Russia seized and the insurance nightmare it has caused:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/russia-seized-400-foreign-owned-jets-then-an-epic-insurance-fight-began/ar-BB1kbZAN

Long ago we talked about insurance carriers not wanting to insure certified Russian aircraft.  Well, I can just imagine the premiums to base planes in Russia after this war is all over!

Steve

[cesmonkey]

A fairly busy day:

 

[cesmonkey]

Wargonzo on Russian adaptations for UAV warfare:
https://t.me/wargonzo/20762
 

Quote

Video️How Ukrainian Armed Forces positions in Kharkiv region are remotely mined️

Our team managed to work with the UAV crew and even see how the guys remotely mine enemy positions. Since drone operators have long been a priority target for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we act quickly: each launch of the "bird" is made from a new point.

As the fighters said, recently the enemy has begun to scatter "jammers" on the approaches to their positions - an analogue of our electronic warfare. Nevertheless, now our guys have the opportunity to choose "birds" flying at different frequencies and capable of bypassing traps.

Even more exclusive footage of aerial reconnaissance can be seen very soon in the director's version of the report especially for Channel One.

[sburke]

18 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Wagons - the last area is still a bit of a mystery to me.  How do we design logistics for this sort of system?  It would also have to be distributed.  Less about natures of supply and more about delivery of platforms directly into a system.  It will have to be cellular and very self sufficient - think manufacturing and energy storage, not beans and bullets.  Good news is that fewer humans and heavy reduces logistics load greatly but now there is the problem of distribution and non-linearity of formation.

I think you are talking drones for delivery and an AI system to predict what is needed where that would then compare itself to real time data on unit status to finalize the delivery options.  Think Amazon on steroids.  The actual logistic supply depots would need to be distributed and not a freakin Amazon warehouse config. but again the Ai systems could plan for distributing across nodes.  Consumption reporting would also be real time to allow rear area production to know what needs to be geared up and what isn't facing shortages.

if you are talking a peer conflict like Ukraine, the sheer volume of data and transport needed is really high but no worse than trucks running around delivering stuff that isn't wanted while not delivering the stuff that is needed.  In theory it should make the logistics process more efficient.

You just need to build more parking garages.....  

Edited June 28 by sburke

[Carolus]

Claimed to be the downing of a Su-25 but the clip is super low quality and all you can see is a grey smudge.

[zinz]

https://substack.com/home/post/p-146061731

Detailed explenation of this event:

Quote

What do you get to see?

Yes, an Ukrainian MiG-29 releasing two of French-made AASM-250 Hammer GPS-guided bombs. Reportedly ‘over Belgorod’: more likely against targets in the Vovchansk area.

But, actually, you get to see much, much… far more!

1.)    This MiG-29 was captured on a video while releasing its Hammers on the Russian positions in the Vovchansk area.

2.)    Vovchansk is mere 5km south of the border to Russia.

3.)    …which means this MiG-29 had to survive flying through at least some 90-100km of airspace within reach of Russian MiG-31BMs and Su-35S’ armed with R-37M long-range air-to-air missiles, and about 50km of airspace within reach of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems.

(That much about all the Western stories about ‘Russian air force is exercising no air superiority over the Ukrainian airspace…’)

4.)    To survive that ride, the MiG-29-pilot had to fly at critically low altitudes. Something like 40-50m for the start, then ever lower the closer to its pitch up/pull up point it approached: the last 30-40km, it was probably flying at less than 20 metres: down between trees, buildings, and other man-made obstacles - and that just to avoid early detection by Russian mast-mounted radars. Because: if it’s detected while still approaching, the Russians can either direct their MiG-31s or Su-35s to intercept it with R-37Ms, or target it with their S-400s.

5.)    ….all of which means it was a race for naked survival just to get this jet this far: indeed, timing was of such importance that most likely the entire mission was timed so that the MiG ‘went in’ at the time the nearest Russian interceptors were on the ‘outbound leg’ of their ‘combat air patrol orbit’, somewhere 90-150 km further east…

6.)    As next, mind that the air at low altitudes is dense, and especially at days with high temperatures: it’s very turbulent. Turbulences? That’s simple: Sun is warming the surface of the Earth, warm air is raising, cold air is descending… and a MiG-29 also has a wing of relatively large surface. The bigger the wing surface, the more is the wing sensing the turbulent air. Combine the two and you get what’s called the ‘gust response’: essentially, strong vibrations. So strong, that after 10 minutes of flying in this regime is rattling one’s brain to the point of becoming unable to think soberly.

7.)    And then, you can see the jet is pitching up (or pulling up), probably ‘pulling’ some 4gs as he went. 4g = the pilot and the aircraft are subjected to four times the force of gravity. When subjected to such acceleration, a pilot weighting, say, 80kg, is weighting 320kg. BTW, the same is valid for the aircraft structure: i.e. a jet weighting some 15,000kg is weighting 60,000kg while flying this manoeuvre…

8.)    Then you can see the engines pouring lots of black smoke as the aircraft is climbing at 45 degrees. RD-33 engines of a MiG-29 are emitting as much smoke when they’re at ‘full military thrust’: at their peak power setting without afterburner.

9.)    Why accelerating while climbing? In order to propel the two bombs over the necessary range. Even if ‘guided’, bombs still have to be aimed quite precisely, because they can’t fly any kind of sharp manoeuvres.

10.) Why no afterburner? Because afterburner would gulp too much fuel: this MiG-29 is certainly well away from its base, and flying at such critically low altitudes is gulping lots of fuel; ….while accelerating the aircraft much too fast would make things dangerous for the pilot and aircraft during its next manoeuvre (see the points 12 and 13).

11.) At around 0.06 min, the jet is in a 45-degrees, full-power climb, speed over 1,100km/h, perhaps more: time to release its two Hammers. They are then going to continue their flight along ballistic trajectory. Depending on the aircraft’s speed, that’s going to bring them over some 10 kilometres…

12.) At around 0.07 min of this video, both Hammers are away, and the pilot is rolling the jet to the left - into a very hard bank… by around 0.08, the jet is at something like 130 degrees left bank. Engines are still at max military thrust, emitting lots of smoke… That’s an indication of the jet flying a high-speed but tight manoeuvre. At least 7gs, probably more (could be up to 9, which is something like maximum for both the pilot and a MiG-29).

13.) This is when the ‘missile evasion’ portion of this mission is starting: while the jet was flying very low, before the pitch-up, it was – relatively – ‘safe’ from detection by Russian radars. But, since it pitched up, it’s 1000% sure it’s been detected, and then by multiple Russian radars. Pantsyrs, Tunguskas, Tors, Buks, S-300s, S-400… you name it. The display of the radar warning receiver (RWR) is lit like a Christmas tree, warning the pilot he’s tracked, too. Arguably, the RWR on MiG-29s is ‘dumb’ and can only show the type of threat’: ‘air/fighter’ or ‘ground’, and its approximate direction in front of the jet… unless the jet was modified with one of modern displays showing not only the direction/azimuth but also the relative position of the threat, of course….

14.) At around 00.10 min, the video ‘switches’ to show two white contrails. Might be from the same action, might be from some other: that’s unclear. But: essentially, that’s what contrails of SAMs fired at something high in the sky can look like. Provided these two SAMs were fired at this MiG-29 seen at the start of the video, this would mean the missiles were fooled by the jet’s evasive manoeuvre: the computer of their guidance system guided them to the MiG’s future position, somewhere high up in the sky, but…

15.) …. the video actually showing the jet continuing its manoeuvre proceeds at around 00.22 min: the jet continued its hard left turn, and…

16.) …by around 00.25 min is diving back towards the ground, now with a lower power setting of its engines (see: less smoke); after all, just out of a 7-9gs turn, the pilot doesn’t want to ‘over-g’ himself, faint, and fly into the ground…

17.) Still, now its imperative – really: a matter of naked survival again – for the pilot to bring the aircraft back to the ‘safety’ of ultra low altitude. Therefore, the pilot is diving his jet for some 5-6 seconds, until low between the trees again, at the end of the video…

….though, make no mistakes: that MiG-29 is still not really safe even once it’s back down to low altitude. If the pilot fails to distance quickly enough, he’s going to end like his comrade shot down over Pokrovsk, back on 10 March this year.

With other words: every single second of this mission was extremely dangerous.

Why am I explaining all of this: this is the answer to questions posted by people asking if Ukraine has ‘its own UMPK glide bombs’. As explained back on 6 June: yes, it does have them, and it’s regularly deploying them, too. But, it is doing so in dramatically different fashion than the Russians can afford doing. Because – due to such Russian interceptors like MiG-31BM and Su-35S, and their R-37Ms – Ukrainian pilots cannot afford approaching the frontline at high altitudes, to release their Hammers and JDAMs from far away, like UMPK-carrying Su-34s can.  

***

What’s up on the ground? Generally, a lot, though not much in sense of ‘advance’. That is: with two significant exceptions.

1.)    The first consignment of artillery ammunition from the ‘Czech Arms Deal’ is now in Ukraine, and enabling ZSU’s artillery to shoot ‘with everything it’s got’; so much so, the Russians are already (and bitterly) complaining in the social media (in style of, ‘Ukrainians shoot 30 for every 10 we fire), and,

2.)    Yesterday and today, Ukrainians have recovered all of the Kanal District of Chasiv Yar.

 

[The_Capt]

11 hours ago, dan/california said:

The above is the introduction to an article about the British armies adoption of machine guns before WW1. It highlights many of the same issues we are discussing about drones now. It isn't just an issue of money (although money was certainly an issue), but organization, doctrine, reliability, and so on. Thus the British Army started WW1 with two machine guns per battalion. They eventually figure out that not quite enough. But there was a whole lot of dying before the adapting got under way. The Russians seem to demonstrate daily in Ukraine that dying is necessary but not sufficient.

.The trick is make as many correct predictions as possible, and thus do as little dying as possible while the adapting is underway. I would argue that the U.S. Navy carrier force in WW2 was a success in this regard. Despite a continued belief the battleship, and battleship tactics, the USN had done enough with carriers that it didn't have to start the campaign in the Pacific by retaking Hawaii. Indeed it Won at Midway with ships built before the outbreak of the war. The the goal should be to get closer to the USN in 1941, than to the British Army in 1914.

 

The examples of military imaginative constipation are legion. Militaries are in reality large government bureaucracies - places where innovation goes to die. Under duress or existential threat these organizations can adapt, but always late, expensive and a near run race.  Rarely do they innovate ahead of need.  For that we look to industry, which lives in a continuous survival challenged space. We have always looked to industry for major innovation. War can spark and drive it as well but this is not the norm, economic competition is. The three major innovations that made WW1 possible were all within commercial industry - canned food, communications and railways.  Military necessities contributed to these as government is a customer, but the Darwinian pressures lay far more in industrial competition.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Carolus said:

Claimed to be the downing of a Su-25 but the clip is super low quality and all you can see is a grey smudge.

They definitely hit something and since this is a Ukrainian video it could very well be what they claim it to be.  If this were a Russian video they would have claimed they shot down a B-2 bomber piloted by Polish mercenaries

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

The examples of military imaginative constipation are legion. Militaries are in reality large government bureaucracies - places where innovation goes to die. Under duress or existential threat these organizations can adapt, but always late, expensive and a near run race.  Rarely do they innovate ahead of need.  For that we look to industry, which lives in a continuous survival challenged space. We have always looked to industry for major innovation. War can spark and drive it as well but this is not the norm, economic competition is. The three major innovations that made WW1 possible were all within commercial industry - canned food, communications and railways.  Military necessities contributed to these as government is a customer, but the Darwinian pressures lay far more in industrial competition.

Let's not forget that the modern military industrial concept is more similar to the hidebound governments they service than not.  Which is why you get extremely costly, slow, and often defective things put into military service.

To once again quote the Perun video, he talked about one of the reasons why the US got its heavy lift capability.  It was similar to wartime conditions in that the US government needed to get up into space, it's previous boondoggle (the Space Shuttle) was out of service and relying upon Russia for launch capacity was ALWAYS a bad idea, but it took 2014 to get them in "wartime" mode.

What the US government did was something governments rarely do, though DARPA does.  And that is to set out the goals for what the government wants and then see what industry comes up with.  It's why SpaceX won and Lockheed-Boeing team lost.  SpaceX designed what the customer asked for, Lockheed-Boeing designed what the company was used to doing.  Which, in this case, was not what the customer usually wanted nor asked for in this instance.

This is how the Pentagon should approach the situation we are in.  A call should go out to industry to produce something affordable and easy to produce domestically that can neutralize a range of real (not imagined) threats by unmanned vehicles.  It should put out a similar call for vehicles which can serve infantry on the frontlines in a thick unmanned environment. 

If a customer has trillions to spend it should be able to incentivize the best and the brightest to make a submission.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

On a separate and related note, the governments should return to the model of procurement and production that the US military used in WW2.  And that is to separate out the design awards from the contract awards.  No more proprietary production BS.  If Lockheed comes up with the best unmanned FPV, fine.  But now everybody has to bid on making them AND there will be more than one contract awarded AND Lockheed doesn't get a say (though some profit) from it.

This is how many US military items, such as uniforms, are made and nobody thinks it's a bad idea except for the big companies that want a monopoly they can dominate for decades.

Steve

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

On a separate and related note, the governments should return to the model of procurement and production that the US military used in WW2.  And that is to separate out the design awards from the contract awards.  No more proprietary production BS.  If Lockheed comes up with the best unmanned FPV, fine.  But now everybody has to bid on making them AND there will be more than one contract awarded AND Lockheed doesn't get a say (though some profit) from it.

This is how many US military items, such as uniforms, are made and nobody thinks it's a bad idea except for the big companies that want a monopoly they can dominate for decades.

Steve

This would definitely shake things up. The “teat” model of government procurement stifles innovation as opposed to incentivizing it.  By awarding large decades long contracts to corporations, they can count on an income stream and stock returns - plainly put, there is no fear.  So industry settles in, does ice cube shaving and promotes the “next big thing” which is really “the last big thing“ but now 50% more expensive.  This weird Nash Equilibrium between industry and the military can (and has) sustained the conventional models we have held onto for over 80 years.

If Defence wants competitive innovation they need to act more like civilian consumers.  Be picky, choosy and leave industry hungry.  But first, Defence itself has to be hungry.  It needs to stop rationalizing and realize that the game has changed, fundamentally.  How much?  That is open to debate and can be negotiated.  But “steady reform” is code for “deck chair arrangement” as we do not put forcing functions on political levels nor industry.  We rationalize major shifts and “hold onto the horses”.  This is all fine if we want incremental improvement but if the environment suddenly becomes disrupted then this approach is very poor.  Worse the pace of technological change almost guarantees that we will be perpetually behind the curve. 
 

[ArmouredTopHat]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The examples of military imaginative constipation are legion. Militaries are in reality large government bureaucracies - places where innovation goes to die. Under duress or existential threat these organizations can adapt, but always late, expensive and a near run race.  Rarely do they innovate ahead of need.  For that we look to industry, which lives in a continuous survival challenged space. We have always looked to industry for major innovation. War can spark and drive it as well but this is not the norm, economic competition is. The three major innovations that made WW1 possible were all within commercial industry - canned food, communications and railways.  Military necessities contributed to these as government is a customer, but the Darwinian pressures lay far more in industrial competition.

I again feel this is a little unfair to say, even with todays breakneck pace of technological development Militaries can and are innovating on a near daily basis. Plenty of notes have already been made with Ukraine (Which is a literal live conflict) and even prior there was a lot of consideration to the systems now so heavily used now:

https://eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/eda-magazine/edm22singleweb.pdf

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/innovation-military

Could innovation be improved upon? Sure, certainly when it comes to procurement contracts. Claiming Western institutions as monolithic entities with little capacity to change is a little silly though. There is a reason why they are at the head of the curve in pretty much all respects of warfare. We are already seeing active consideration from the Ukraine war with regards to future procurement, this is only going to get stronger in the next few years.
 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

We rationalize major shifts and “hold onto the horses”.  

An interesting example that is quite antithesis to your argument. The UK literally fully motorised its army in the 30s despite its lengthy cavalry heritage and in an environment of a tight budget and no conflict pressure. Cavalry units were entirely converted as well, going from horses to either motorised units or armoured cars. They recognised after the first world war that steel over flesh was the way to go and managed to significantly change the makeup of the armed forces despite some truly horrendous budget constraints. This was achieved in just over a decade following some experimental mechanised force usage in the 20s. In short, just one example of a military being quite capable of innovation that was later perfected by the Americans. I figured the experimental exercises most militaries do should be a good example of that in todays environment. 

Edited June 28 by ArmouredTopHat