How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[alison]

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The environment has accelerated past modern militaries, history is full of examples of this happening before.  We will need to adapt faster than future opponents, who are not going to stick to “slow and steady reform” and are already in many ways pulling out ahead while we try and figure out how to stick more guns on things.

7 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Who exactly is doing this? China is the only potential that springs to mind and I am very suspicious about their stated capabilities when they feature some of the same issues the Russians do. Not to call them a paper tiger but as I stated before, they feel themselves that they are behind the curve and are still catching up to NATO, let alone trying to surpass them. 
 

I don't have the knowledge to weigh in on the broader topic of how western militaries are choosing to adapt to the modern battlefield, but I did want to mention something on this point.

The Chinese government is clearly aware of corruption in the PLA; Xi just purged two top guys this week and no doubt the heads will continue to roll less publicly. Xi is an autocrat just like Putin, but from my perspective he has much better control over the factions of the CCP - and the CCP has a steadier hand anyway - than Putin has had over the Russian political infrastructure in the past few years. The systems are not directly comparable.

It is true that the PLA does not consider themselves a peer force yet and are shooting for full modernization by 2035, but there is also fire at their feet to make "something" happen by 2027 in time for the centennial. Having the biggest, baddest conventional military in the world is not what China needs to fight the war Xi wants to fight (yet). Their low-tech gray zone salami-slicing escalates every day.

Wresting sand bars 1500km off the Chinese coastline away from less powerful countries in the region does not need 9 carrier strike groups. The CCP can achieve their goals simply by directing dozens of "civilian" ships to barricade shipping lanes, tear up undersea cables, ram other vessels and attack dudes with water cannons, intimidating and pushing other countries around, banking on the US doing everything it can to stay out of the fight. Chinese industry is well-suited for enabling these sorts of tactics. Rubber boats, drones, machetes - sure, anyone can build those things, but China can build a million of 'em, and their leaders have the chutzpah and economic backing to leverage all that low-tech production into real strategic gains. By the time we're talking about actual peer conflict, the PLA will be operating from stronger positions than they would've been thanks to the years of essentially unopposed bullying.

I suppose some could point to Ukraine and go "well, the Russians had little green men too and they're still losing the war today", but that's not much comfort for the Ukrainians whose kids are already dead and land is already gone. The point being that strategic deterrence clearly is not just achieved simply by equipping militaries with gold-plated gear. I don't think it's right to look at NATO and go "what a badass military they have, they could beat the Russians hands down" when it turns out all that conventional power didn't deter imperialists from throwing money at a fifth column and sending in spec ops that caused plenty of damage on their own. And if TheCapt is right, and these cheap and cheerful tools built on last era's spec ops and COIN tech are the future of the conventional battlefield too... then the imperialists who are already realizing their ambitions with that stuff are going to hit the ground running if or when the next war gets hot.

Edited Sunday at 12:07 AM by alison

[ArmouredTopHat]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ukraine and Russia have been using cheap commercial drones for most of the last 8 years.  That is plenty of time for the Western militaries to have saw something, anything, of value to invest in.  They did not.

They literally did though, a slew of smaller drones were developed in that time space by numerous defence companies. The whole concept of FPV was largely spearheaded by western defence companies in the first place. The innovation Ukraine did was taking off the shelf civilian drones and strapping RPG warheads to them. 

 

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't know why you are so insistent of excusing things which are really inexcusable.  I will ask you this again... how is that that I, a civilian, with AT BEST a minimal professional level of experience in these matters saw this war coming and was far more right than wrong about how it would play out?  If you can't answer that question, then please concede the point that the West had what it needed to be prepared for this war but, for various reasons, CHOSE not to.

While an individual prediction about the war and its outcome may have been accurate, the multifaceted nature of international relations and the constraints faced by policymakers often result in a more complex reality. The assertion that the West "chose" not to be prepared oversimplifies the situation and ignores the nuanced decision-making processes and constraints involved in such matters. The complexity of international relations and the unpredictability of state actors (Especially Russia) make definitive predictions challenging, even for experts. You did predict something correctly, that doesn't mean it was perhaps the obvious outcome to expect. 
 

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Let me turn this around.  If the US is so amazing at innovation, don't you think that the US should have been the one to come up with the idea of cheap platoon level ISR drones and mass produced FPV killer drones?  I sure do.

The US had no operational need to develop something like an FPV to address a gap in its capability because it did not have one, it has / had everything it needed. Like most militaries, it had its own innovation priorities. US companies also did largely develop the systems in drones so widely used in the first place as well. The innovation is very much there.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You do not address the elephant in the room. An illuminated battlefield, plus long range precision strike, plus distribution (empowered by modern C4) makes modern logistics impossible.  We can layer APS and CUAS on front edge all day but logistics is our weak link and it can and will be a show stopper.

I literally specified that counter CUAS and denial of ISR is a priority that needs to be addressed, IE constraining the ability of the enemy to see your concentration or logistics. There are a plethora of ideas tabled to address logistical vulnerability, from drone dropped supply missions to simply having redundancy in the system. This is something that is literally being actively talked about right now.
 

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You make no mention of AirPower or even effects on Naval power.  We have seen drastic level of denial for AirPower in this war.  Or has Russia also somehow forgotten how to use AirPower as well as manoeuvre at scale as well?  Apparently Russia has also forgotten how to project maritime power as well…that is a lot of “forgetting” in order to justify a view of things.

Why are we concluding that modern airpower is constrained based on this war? Ukraine has / is flying essentially 80s jets and the Russian VKS is a **** show that has very little actual capability beyond bomb tossing and stand off. This is not comparable in the slightest to the terrifying ability of NATO airpower, which literally features thousands of airframes with a wide amount of capability, including that of proficient SEAD ops, not to mention highly trained pilots. If the Ukrainians can hit Russian AD with HARM missiles fired on their least effective setting, what do you imagine a dedicated SEAD campaign featuring purpose built wild weasels craft can do, all to deploy numerous strike packages onto target? If you replaced the VKS with not even 20% of NATOs airpower capability you would see profound differences and a probably collapse of UA defences. Given the hilariously poor performance of Russian AD so far, NATO airpower would simply slaughter them and they know it.

As for the navy...do I really need to address this? Its been the highlight of Russian incompetency and corruption. We did see the leaked documents showing the readiness level of the Moskva before it was sunk here right? The challenges faced by Russia in projecting both air and naval power conflict are not due to a "forgetting" of military principles but rather the result of effective Ukrainian defences, geographical constraints, and the inherent complexity of modern multidomain warfare combined with the poor state of both branches. The VKS wishes it could do even a shred of what NATO based airpower can do. 
 

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Hold the phone now, this is selective and cherry picking.  When we cite the thousands of examples of FPVs and their effects, your pushback was that there is not enough solid evidence.  Now when I ask “so what is happening” your position is “self evident to be true”?  This is shoulder shrugging and evasive.

I know no one has a coherent theory of what has happened in this war.  Every professional in the business understands that we will be unpacking it for the next ten years.  Half the data we need is held by the RA, we may never get a full picture.  You clearly think you know or that it is knowable, but it is not.

I literally said the same sort of thing about how its going to take some time to unpack everything. My assertions are simply theoretical as explanations based on what we know, it may not be the full picture but I would wager its pretty close. Point I am trying to make is that the Russians were having major difficulties before the plethora of FPVs as an example. I am just as curious as you are to see just what has been doing the most 'damage' for lack of a better word. 

To conclude, I do agree with you on a number of points, but I simply believe that wiping the slate clean is a bad idea. 

Edited Sunday at 01:23 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, alison said:

The point being that strategic deterrence clearly is not just achieved simply by equipping militaries with gold-plated gear.

It depends on the type of combat to be honest. Areas like BVR air combat (Which would be heavily featured in any war with China in the Pacific) demand the best and stealthiest airframe possible with the best and most capable missiles. 4th gens are routinely slaughtered in contests against 5th gens in exercises for that very reason. Its currently all about quality over quantity. At least until swarms of UCAVs turn up I suppose. 

You are right though in that more needs to be done with deterrence. There really needs to be a defensive NATO like pact in the pacific to constrain Chinese aggression. 

1 hour ago, alison said:

By the time we're talking about actual peer conflict, the PLA will be operating from stronger positions than they would've been thanks to the years of essentially unopposed bullying.

This assumes that the west is going to sit and do nothing, when its already reacting to Russian aggression. The US has certainly been keeping a close eye on China as well. The Chinese will be stronger for sure, but so will the west. China also has a slew of domestic problems that are only going to bite harder and harder as time goes on. This might precipitate a move, but it might also constrain it. Time will tell. 

While China’s low-tech gray-zone tactics are effective in the short term, they are not sufficient for achieving long-term strategic dominance or preparing for potential peer conflicts. Military modernization is essential for actual comprehensive power projection, deterrence, and maintaining strategic gains. As we saw with Russia, such modernisations are not a guarantee of success, though I suspect China would have better luck with it all.

Edited Sunday at 01:22 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[Peregrine]

8 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

But this pales with how the West failed to defend itself against enemy information operations. Putin managed to cause untold suffering and destruction by orchestrating Brexit and Trump.

Too much credit is given to Putin for these things. All Western populations have varying degrees of people with these attitudes brought about by our own government policies and wealth distribution.

You don't have chunks of Western political parties praising/making excuses for Putin because he has conned them. They are simply the same type of people. Democracies just do a better job overall of keeping the rabid communist/fascist/klepocrats out of power and more under control if they get there.

[ArmouredTopHat]

A point I kinda forgot to elaborate further on

1 hour ago, alison said:

The environment has accelerated past modern militaries, history is full of examples of this happening before.  We will need to adapt faster than future opponents, who are not going to stick to “slow and steady reform” and are already in many ways pulling out ahead while we try and figure out how to stick more guns on things.

Military history is indeed full of examples of technological and tactical shifts that demand change. However, modern western militaries are literally built on a foundation of continuous evolution and adaptation, learning from past experiences and integrating new technologies and doctrines as they emerge. Successful military adaptation requires a balance between rapid innovation and maintaining operational stability. 

Rash, poorly planned changes can and have led to vulnerabilities and failures in military systems. We literally see that with the Russian military reforms in the 90s that aimed to rapidly sought to downsize and modernise the army which led to disastrous results in the Chechen war and in at least in part responsible for the mess in Ukraine due to the failure of the Putin regime to fix ongoing problems. The Chinese experienced similar problems during their great leap forward with regards to military reform which probably explains why they did so poorly with their brief adventure into Vietnam. Rushing such things can be a disaster if not planned properly and they take years to do so. 

Many modern western militaries are not adhering to “slow and steady” reform but are actively pursuing rapid modernization programs. The US DoD focus on the Third Offset Strategy, the integration of AI and autonomous systems, and the development of next-generation platforms to me demonstrate a commitment to staying ahead that is actively taking into account the current war. Things could be better but its genuinely ridiculous to insinuate the west is doing nothing. Balancing rapid innovation with operational stability ensures that the west can stay ahead of emerging threats. That is the point I am trying to convey. 

With that, I will go and collapse now. Im sorry if I missed anything. 

Edited Sunday at 01:28 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[The_Capt]

33 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Why are we concluding that modern airpower is constrained based on this war? Ukraine has / is flying essentially 80s jets and the Russian VKS is a **** show that has very little actual capability beyond bomb tossing and stand off. This is not comparable in the slightest to the terrifying ability of NATO airpower, which literally features thousands of airframes with a wide amount of capability, including that of proficient SEAD ops, not to mention highly trained pilots. If the Ukrainians can hit Russian AD with HARM missiles fired on their least effective setting, what do you imagine a dedicated SEAD campaign featuring purpose built wild weasels craft can do, all to deploy numerous strike packages onto target? If you replaced the VKS with not even 20% of NATOs airpower capability you would see profound differences and a probably collapse of UA defences. Given the hilariously poor performance of Russian AD so far, NATO airpower would simply slaughter them and they know it.

As for the navy...do I really need to address this? Its been the highlight of Russian incompetency and corruption. We did see the leaked documents showing the readiness level of the Moskva before it was sunk here right? The challenges faced by Russia in projecting both air and naval power conflict are not due to a "forgetting" of military principles but rather the result of effective Ukrainian defences, geographical constraints, and the inherent complexity of modern multidomain warfare combined with the poor state of both branches. The VKS wishes it could do even a shred of what NATO based airpower can do. 

Ok, ok...we get it.  UA and Russia are a mess.  Here is some reading for you:

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/russian-air-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence

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

You are clearly in "They are doing it wrong and that explains everything."  I would offer that you are really using too narrow a lens.  The combination of ISR, IADs and next-gen MANPADs are clearly having little effect in denying airspace (even though experts pretty much agree that mutual air denial is at play here) it all comes down to incompetence and error.  Tac Aviation is falling out of the sky due to poor maintenance. 

If NATO was in this war, we might be able to achieve air superiority above 20,000 feet but below it we are essentially in trouble. There is no SEAD for MANPADs plugged into a real time modern ISR system.  Take a look here:

https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/WEG/List/ORIGIN_china--people-s-republic-of-d6ee02&DOM_air-e61af2&DOM_air-defense-fc1546

That is the US military TRADOC sight...our opponents are investing in independent IADS plugged into spaced based ISR.  So while we may, and I stress may, be able to do high altitude suppression  - and it is maybe because we have never even tried to take on a theatre like this one...go ahead...look it up.  When was the last time we ever fought in a denied environment like this one? Yet you are willing to make bold statements like:

"If you replaced the VKS with not even 20% of NATOs airpower capability you would see profound differences and a probably collapse of UA defences."

That is beyond assumption. it is pulling from the @ss.  It is the problem with your entire position frankly - you have created a palace of unassailable assumptions that all lead to a pre-made conclusions.  The fact that the Black sea fleet is being harried by very long range USVs, and UAS into ports...all Russian incompetence....has nothing to do with US ISR architecture feeding real time targeting data to UA operators.

The way you have built this thing there is simply no way to prove it otherwise.  I say the RA had a 12:1 advantage in its push to Kyiv and were stopped cold by a combination of ISR, artillery and ATGMs - you say "nope, they suck."  At 12:1, by any modern military doctrine, they can suck...a lot, and still push through.  But it was a "lack of an NCO corps".

So basically your entire thesis hinges on one major assumption: almost all the phenomenon we are seeing in this war is a result of poor military capability on both sides.  Even in the face of counter evidence and analysis. You can see how this is unsolvable?  Basically, we would need to prove that these forces are fighting as they are because of the environment and not because they are so incompetent - prove a negative. So the UA engineering 3 operational collapses using largely C4ISR, denial and fires was luck?  Oh wait, no those were because Russia sucks...got it.

Here is the harsh truth - all denial weapon systems are getting smaller, longer range, smarter and cheaper.  Anti-everything has hit the main stream.  We have freakin Iranian systems flexing on the battlefield...Iranian.  If you want to tell yourself that "we will be fine because we have APS and SEAD" fill your boots.  But I have already lived through Taliban killing Canadian kids with a lot less than Ukraine has in the field right now.  My biggest fear is your assumptions blowing up in some third party nation where the enemy is backed up by Chinese C4ISR, unmanned systems and long range strike.  We may even prevail but the costs are going to be very high - the Chinese HJ12 is basically the Javelin with slightly better range.  Several hundred of these alone would make our lives a living hell.

My professional opinion is that we are in serious need of a rethink and relook.  We need all of our assumptions challenged now before they get challenged in the field.  I assume nothing, least of all superiority until I am damned sure we have evidence that we indeed can achieve it.  Small cheap and many are dominating this war, it is the height of arrogance to assume that they won't in a war we are directly involved in, just because we are involved in it.  No APS system or extra turrets can deal with UAS swarms.  They cannot deal with artillery getting direct data feeds and correcting in real time. They cannot deal with multiple cheap ATGM firing at 5km+ ranges.  And they definitely cannot deal with mines that can move. Our logistics cannot deal with being detected and engaged at what were operational ranges. Our EW is antiquated and Cold War era. We cannot rely on air supremacy or sea control in these environments.  We cannot deny space against micro-satellites.

But hey, you do you.  Clearly you are not going to come off your position regardless of evidence or expertise presented.  I will come off my position if we actually ran some real exercises and simulations (and I am pretty sure we already are...and the news is not all rosie). If we got some real data.  If we could see clearly what was "sucking: and what was real.  I have no real assumptions other than the one I have had since Feb '22 - something very odd is happening here and no one has been able to explain it adequately, and definitely not the "they all suck" narrative. 

 

[The_Capt]

56 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Rash, poorly planned changes can and have led to vulnerabilities and failures in military systems. We literally see that with the Russian military reforms in the 90s that aimed to rapidly sought to downsize and modernise the army which led to disastrous results in the Chechen war and in at least in part responsible for the mess in Ukraine due to the failure of the Putin regime to fix ongoing problems.

Ok, I draw the line at outright disinformations. This is an outright falsehood.  The Russian “military reforms of the 90s” were not reforms, they were a collapse.  The Soviet Union was gone and Russia was broke. They had to go to the IMF for billions in loans to try and keep their heads above water.  To try and highlight this as a failure by leaning forward is just…well to use Steve’s terminology..BS. 

Most Chinese military reforms happened after the war with Vietnam:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernization_of_the_People's_Liberation_Army

I can live with assumptions and leaps of logic but this is outright wrong.  I am stretching to think of a military that failed forward (ie by leaning too hard into reforms) in the last 100 years - maybe some the US machinations in the 70s?  The actual evidence of military failure do to adopting change too quickly are few and far between - seriously if someone can think of one shout it out.  The trend is dominated by going the other way and lagging change.

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

They literally did though, a slew of smaller drones were developed in that time space by numerous defence companies. The whole concept of FPV was largely spearheaded by western defence companies in the first place. The innovation Ukraine did was taking off the shelf civilian drones and strapping RPG warheads to them.

Oh really?  Name me one military FPV that's been sent to Ukraine that cost under $5000 per unit.  Then, assuming this number is not 0, tell me how many have been sent to Ukraine.  They go through about 10k a month, so roughly what percentage of those drones are from Western military sources?

2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

While an individual prediction about the war and its outcome may have been accurate, the multifaceted nature of international relations and the constraints faced by policymakers often result in a more complex reality.

More excuses.  At first you excuse it as "well, it's all hindsight".  I pointed out that it wasn't hindsight, but a gross oversight.  So now you've switched to "well, things are complicated".

Of course things are complicated and nuanced.  Of course there are competing priorities.  And yet, somehow, amongst all of this nuance and complication, the US military alone consumed nearly 3/4 of a TRILLION Dollars per year allegedly preparing for this sort of war.  And yet, has been caught flat footed by it.

2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

The US had no operational need to develop something like an FPV to address a gap in its capability because it did not have one, it has / had everything it needed.

This is a rather hard argument to make when you then went on to make this argument to Alison:

2 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Military history is indeed full of examples of technological and tactical shifts that demand change. However, modern western militaries are literally built on a foundation of continuous evolution and adaptation, learning from past experiences and integrating new technologies and doctrines as they emerge. Successful military adaptation requires a balance between rapid innovation and maintaining operational stability. 

You are very much trying to have your cake and eat it too.  Your first argument (which is easily disproven, BTW) is that the US military didn't need to innovate because it had everything it needed.  Your second argument is that Western militaries are based on continuous innovation.  Which is it?  It can't be both.

In any case,  your first argument is patently FALSE.  The US military has no defense against FPV drones now and likely won't until it pulls its head out of the military industrial complex's backside.

It's also pretty bad form for a military to say "we have everything we need, we don't need to consider that maybe we don't".  This is the sort of thing that got millions killed by machinegun fire in WW1... "we have artillery, so the machinegun isn't really a threat."

The signs are all there now, and have been for some time, that many of the legacy systems that are currently in place are out of date.  If militaries were as innovative as you claim they are, they would not be flat footed as they are now.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

Yeah, I agree the whole drone vs tank argument misses the forest for the trees. Assuming anything with 100km can go boom due to precision strike, and you have 50cm resolution every 90 minutes over most of the battlefield (or much better, much quicker), it requires a drastic rethink.

A core assumption (and hard to argue with) is that anything on the battlefield that is detected will have precision munitions directed at it, quickly (some combo of speed, range and precision are proportional to square of cost). So you have 3 choices:

1. Armor
2. Stealth
3. Speed

I’m 100% sure (1) won’t work. You might stop 1 FPV, but you stop a combo of 4 at once. And you won’t stop an artillery shell, or a glide bomb. I’m not sure about (3) either with the advent of loitering munitions and mobile mines.

So (2) it is. We can reliably camouflage a soldier or small fighting position, even against thermal, for at least a few hours (ie no moving to take a ****, or eat food). We can camouflage small vehicles when as soon as they stop moving, like electric bikes or golf carts. Anything larger is going to be very very hard. I question how well the Barracuda camo works if a vehicle has to move and keep its motor on.

Even (2) starts being really scary in the face of persistent sensors, and not just from space. What if I drop all over the battlefield cameras that only phone home when they see enemy soldiers or vehicles. If we have 100x100 sqkm, If I can drop a few sensors in each square km (all 10k of them) for a $1k or less per sensor, I don’t know how one can beat that.

EDIT: (4) could be deception, decoys or otherwise. But I’m not sure that works well against near-future pervasive surveillance.

Edited Sunday at 03:52 AM by kimbosbread

[chrisl]

15 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah, I agree the whole drone vs tank argument misses the forest for the trees. Assuming anything with 100km can go boom due to precision strike, and you have 50cm resolution every 90 minutes over most of the battlefield (or much better, much quicker), it requires a drastic rethink.

A core assumption (and hard to argue with) is that anything on the battlefield that is detected will have precision munitions directed at it, quickly (some combo of speed, range and precision are proportional to square of cost). So you have 3 choices:

1. Armor
2. Stealth
3. Speed

I’m 100% sure (1) won’t work. You might stop 1 FPV, but you stop a combo of 4 at once. And you won’t stop an artillery shell, or a glide bomb. I’m not sure about (3) either with the advent of loitering munitions and mobile mines.

So (2) it is. We can reliably camouflage a soldier or small fighting position, even against thermal, for at least a few hours (ie no moving to take a ****, or eat food). We can camouflage small vehicles when as soon as they stop moving, like electric bikes or golf carts. Anything larger is going to be very very hard. I question how well the Barracuda camo works if a vehicle has to move and keep its motor on.

Even (2) starts being really scary in the face of persistent sensors, and not just from space. What if I drop all over the battlefield cameras that only phone home when they see enemy soldiers or vehicles. If we have 100x100 sqkm, If I can drop a few sensors in each square km (all 10k of them) for a $1k or less per sensor, I don’t know how one can beat that.

You'll have to have drones or UGVs that listen for the signals from the cameras and go out and collect them. Or put little pictures of Zelenskyy in front of their lenses so the enemy can't see where you take them all if you collect them.

[danfrodo]

26 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah, I agree the whole drone vs tank argument misses the forest for the trees. Assuming anything with 100km can go boom due to precision strike, and you have 50cm resolution every 90 minutes over most of the battlefield (or much better, much quicker), it requires a drastic rethink.

A core assumption (and hard to argue with) is that anything on the battlefield that is detected will have precision munitions directed at it, quickly (some combo of speed, range and precision are proportional to square of cost). So you have 3 choices:

1. Armor
2. Stealth
3. Speed

I’m 100% sure (1) won’t work. You might stop 1 FPV, but you stop a combo of 4 at once. And you won’t stop an artillery shell, or a glide bomb. I’m not sure about (3) either with the advent of loitering munitions and mobile mines.

So (2) it is. We can reliably camouflage a soldier or small fighting position, even against thermal, for at least a few hours (ie no moving to take a ****, or eat food). We can camouflage small vehicles when as soon as they stop moving, like electric bikes or golf carts. Anything larger is going to be very very hard. I question how well the Barracuda camo works if a vehicle has to move and keep its motor on.

Even (2) starts being really scary in the face of persistent sensors, and not just from space. What if I drop all over the battlefield cameras that only phone home when they see enemy soldiers or vehicles. If we have 100x100 sqkm, If I can drop a few sensors in each square km (all 10k of them) for a $1k or less per sensor, I don’t know how one can beat that.

EDIT: (4) could be deception, decoys or otherwise. But I’m not sure that works well against near-future pervasive surveillance.

Good points, Kimbosbread.  I'd add FPV defense to the choices.  If you could make a safe zone around your mech brigade, then mech brigade would look like a pretty good thing.  But that seems extremely unlikely given cheap drone swarms with some autonomy, which is surely coming soon.  Camoflage might work for static armored vehicle that is hiding in the woods (so not actually of use), but once it moves there's just nothing that can be done, I would think.  

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

The actual evidence of military failure do to adopting change too quickly are few and far between - seriously if someone can think of one shout it out.  The trend is dominated by going the other way and lagging change.

The closest I think we can come to are individual programs that were pushed too hard too early.  The US is well known for these, but the Soviet Union has it's fair share.  However, the worst they did was eat up resources (including time) on something that wasn't immediately useful for something that either could have been or eventually was.

A perfect example of this is the extremely costly Future Combat Systems (FCS) program of the early to mid 2000s:

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

At its core it was a defense industry boondoggle of over promises and over charging for those promises.  However, what it was trying to do was actually quite sound, just not viable with the technology of the day (or perhaps even today) and absolutely would not have been affordable in its imagined state.

The US "Star Wars" program is another, but more relevant is the program that eventually got renamed "Stryker Warrior".  The concepts that Stryker Warrior explored are all GOOD concepts to pursue.  Many other nations are pursuing them as well, including for civilian applications in some cases.  The problem is that the tech to make such things viable for grunts at the front is just not there.  Yet.

So the issue here is that sometimes you have to blow through a lot of money and fail today so you can succeed later on.  A good example of this in the civilian world is VR.  There's been countless attempts to make VR headsets since the early 1990s and all failed because the tech just wasn't mature enough to handle the concepts.  It is still problematic, with the $3500 Apple Vision Pro probably being the closest to what people want it to be (though definitely not the price!).  The thing is Vision Pro couldn't exist without the decades of failures that came before it.

So on that note, militaries need to TRY and innovate well ahead of time, fail, and then keep on trying.  UAS is something that fits this pattern and there have been excellent successes to show for it (Predator and various ISR drones are extremely important to have).  The problem appears to be that innovating cheap FPVs wasn't explored because there wasn't any money in it for the defense industry.

Steve

[chrisl]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The closest I think we can come to are individual programs that were pushed too hard too early.  The US is well known for these, but the Soviet Union has it's fair share.  However, the worst they did was eat up resources (including time) on something that wasn't immediately useful for something that either could have been or eventually was.

A perfect example of this is the extremely costly Future Combat Systems (FCS) program of the early to mid 2000s:

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

At its core it was a defense industry boondoggle of over promises and over charging for those promises.  However, what it was trying to do was actually quite sound, just not viable with the technology of the day (or perhaps even today) and absolutely would not have been affordable in its imagined state.

The US "Star Wars" program is another, but more relevant is the program that eventually got renamed "Stryker Warrior".  The concepts that Stryker Warrior explored are all GOOD concepts to pursue.  Many other nations are pursuing them as well, including for civilian applications in some cases.  The problem is that the tech to make such things viable for grunts at the front is just not there.  Yet.

So the issue here is that sometimes you have to blow through a lot of money and fail today so you can succeed later on.  A good example of this in the civilian world is VR.  There's been countless attempts to make VR headsets since the early 1990s and all failed because the tech just wasn't mature enough to handle the concepts.  It is still problematic, with the $3500 Apple Vision Pro probably being the closest to what people want it to be (though definitely not the price!).  The thing is Vision Pro couldn't exist without the decades of failures that came before it.

So on that note, militaries need to TRY and innovate well ahead of time, fail, and then keep on trying.  UAS is something that fits this pattern and there have been excellent successes to show for it (Predator and various ISR drones are extremely important to have).  The problem appears to be that innovating cheap FPVs wasn't explored because there wasn't any money in it for the defense industry.

Steve

Star Wars never really went away.  The pieces got split up on paper, but a large fraction of them continued and have turned into things that are part of the space ISR and anti-missile systems we have today.  Some of the wackier ones (coughEdTellercough) went away, but a lot of stuff got built, and fair bit of it is actually useful.

[ArmouredTopHat]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So basically your entire thesis hinges on one major assumption: almost all the phenomenon we are seeing in this war is a result of poor military capability on both sides.  Even in the face of counter evidence and analysis. You can see how this is unsolvable?  Basically, we would need to prove that these forces are fighting as they are because of the environment and not because they are so incompetent - prove a negative. So the UA engineering 3 operational collapses using largely C4ISR, denial and fires was luck?  Oh wait, no those were because Russia sucks...got it.

How many times do I have to say that poor performance from the VKS is down to a multitude of factors that happen to include them being poorly suited to the task at hand and suffering from corruption. Its. Not. The. Sole. Reason. 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

That is beyond assumption. it is pulling from the @ss.  It is the problem with your entire position frankly - you have created a palace of unassailable assumptions that all lead to a pre-made conclusions.  The fact that the Black sea fleet is being harried by very long range USVs, and UAS into ports...all Russian incompetence....has nothing to do with US ISR architecture feeding real time targeting data to UA operators.

USVs had nothing to do with the Mosvka sinking. Russian naval activity has had no clear objective outside of flinging missiles at targets of opportunity and has been beset by equipment and training problems. This is literally well documented. 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The way you have built this thing there is simply no way to prove it otherwise.  I say the RA had a 12:1 advantage in its push to Kyiv and were stopped cold by a combination of ISR, artillery and ATGMs - you say "nope, they suck."  At 12:1, by any modern military doctrine, they can suck...a lot, and still push through.  But it was a "lack of an NCO corps".

Again, this is getting pretty tiring. I have repeatedly said incompetence and corruption plays a PART of the reason the Russians have lacked success. Please actually read what I am saying and stop assuming I am just going 'Russians suck'. Its genuinely getting irritating at this point. 

 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

My professional opinion is that we are in serious need of a rethink and relook.  We need all of our assumptions challenged now before they get challenged in the field.  I assume nothing, least of all superiority until I am damned sure we have evidence that we indeed can achieve it.  Small cheap and many are dominating this war, it is the height of arrogance to assume that they won't in a war we are directly involved in, just because we are involved in it.  No APS system or extra turrets can deal with UAS swarms.  They cannot deal with artillery getting direct data feeds and correcting in real time. They cannot deal with multiple cheap ATGM firing at 5km+ ranges.  And they definitely cannot deal with mines that can move. Our logistics cannot deal with being detected and engaged at what were operational ranges. Our EW is antiquated and Cold War era. We cannot rely on air supremacy or sea control in these environments.  We cannot deny space against micro-satellites.

I welcome rethinks and relooks, but I find you readily dismiss technologies which are both practical and in use right now. I literally keep saying that many of your points are valid, my problem is with the notion that throw everything else into the bin on a whim. I personally think its better to pursue all areas of possibility. Why not develop more loitering munitions while also seeking out APS for instance. We really should be covering all angles. 

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oh really?  Name me one military FPV that's been sent to Ukraine that cost under $5000 per unit.  Then, assuming this number is not 0, tell me how many have been sent to Ukraine.  They go through about 10k a month, so roughly what percentage of those drones are from Western military sources?

I specifically said western firms created the idea of FPV drones and that recently western firms have made smaller drones. Stop putting words in my mouth please. The west has at least ensured a ready supply of components make its way to Ukraine, though much of the building effort remains reliant on fund raising, something that probably could do with looking at. Though at least some Western countries are waking up to this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-supply-more-than-10000-drones-to-ukraine

In terms of smaller drones, there are literally dozens. Black Hornet, ScanEagle, Puma, Dragoneye, Aladin, Aeryon, InstantEye Mk-2 Gen3, Wasp AE and Drone40 to name just a few that have been developed and fielded though not a lot have obviously gone to Ukraine. 

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

You are very much trying to have your cake and eat it too.  Your first argument (which is easily disproven, BTW) is that the US military didn't need to innovate because it had everything it needed.  Your second argument is that Western militaries are based on continuous innovation.  Which is it?  It can't be both.

In any case,  your first argument is patently FALSE.  The US military has no defense against FPV drones now and likely won't until it pulls its head out of the military industrial complex's backside.

It's also pretty bad form for a military to say "we have everything we need, we don't need to consider that maybe we don't".  This is the sort of thing that got millions killed by machinegun fire in WW1... "we have artillery, so the machinegun isn't really a threat."

The signs are all there now, and have been for some time, that many of the legacy systems that are currently in place are out of date.  If militaries were as innovative as you claim they are, they would not be flat footed as they are now.

Again, I apologise if my argument is getting incoherent, I'm just a little worn down by this point. I meant to say the US was not exactly looking for an FPV munition capability due to being more or less satisfied by their current capability. That's not to say they were thus not seeking to innovate at all, its just an explanation to why it was not seriously pursued despite the technology being there.  As for the rest, fair point. I'm kind of out of juice at this point.

 

 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, I draw the line at outright disinformations. This is an outright falsehood.  The Russian “military reforms of the 90s” were not reforms, they were a collapse.  The Soviet Union was gone and Russia was broke. They had to go to the IMF for billions in loans to try and keep their heads above water.  To try and highlight this as a failure by leaning forward is just…well to use Steve’s terminology..BS. 

Honestly? Fair enough. I misread on my sources and it looks like most of the attempt reforms were post Chechen war. Though I would point out that Russian military reforms post 2008 failed to address problems that are now biting them hard in Ukraine. 



Honestly probably going to drop out of this line of discussion overall as its clear we have a difference of opinion that's getting increasingly hostile, at least I feel it is. I'm happy to leave it at wait and see. I thank you both for the discussion, but maybe work on being a little less...abrasive with your assertions. You two acting like you know better than literally dozens of countries and their military apparatuses is...quite something, even if you bring up some very good points. Maybe you are both right and all those people are wrong, in which case my god were doomed. 

Edited Sunday at 04:44 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I have to say that this entire discussion was initially frustrating and then became enlightening.

Heh.  I still find it frustrating, but I also find that it is drawing out some really good stuff.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The problem is that seeing the bigger picture is really hard.  In fact people who have been on this board from Day 1 tend to take it for granted, but we are in a minority.  Linking trends across domains, the effects of C4ISR and precision on mass, the dominance of defence and denial (and why) - we take a lot of these as self-evident when in fact for most people they are not.

Yes.  What really gets in my craw, as the old timers would say, is that people who SHOULD know better haven't connected the dots.  Prior this war, for example, the likes of Koffman could tell you all kinds of things about the technical shortcomings of Russian equipment, training, doctrine, corruption, etc. and it would probably all be more-or-less correct.  And yet it took him months to be able to get a grip on this war in a way that some of us (including me) had a grip on since (at a minimum) the first week of the war.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

To most “tanks is dead…because of drone.”  They did not see the 12:1 advantage the RA had at Kyiv or were here when mass died in the face of all the thing we have been watching for two years.  They have not watched the Black Sea Fleet get pushed into port and then hammered there. The RuAF completely denied…less lob bombing we are seeing now.  If one distills this war down to drone-v-tank then “solve for drone and let’s get back to business” actually makes a lot of sense.

We are really talking about a Battlefront doctrine here.  And while we have created pages of analysis and assessments, we have never really codified the thing.  The corporate trajectory of knowledge. I mean we watched the RA approach WW1 level of artillery saturation at Severodonetsk and still fail.  That was concentration of mass through fires…and it still was not enough.  We watched HIMARs and deep strike.  We watched the RA meat assaults through two winters and still are left wondering “how do they do it?”

The lesson is not “we are right” it is really “how do we share what we have seen and experienced”?  Because not everyone has the been on the same journey.

This is a very good point.  And this discussion about the state of military procurement has brought some important, but not technical in nature, factors into sharper focus.

It's very clear to me, for a long time now, that the Western militaries do not have the right procurement strategy to get a handle on where warfare is headed.  The entire system is weighted towards "safe" and very costly solutions that are, at best, short term interim solutions and/or successful only in limited circumstances.

As I said a few pages ago, Western militaries should adopt a new philosophical approach to innovation.  Specifically "no idea is too wacky for consideration".  Who knows, maybe someone will come up with a Culin hedgerow cutter equivalent for dealing with drone threats.  It's certainly more probable than APS or point defense winding up being the best solution.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

59 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

I specifically said western firms created the idea of FPV drones and that recently western firms have made smaller drones. Stop putting words in my mouth please.

This whole line of debate got started because you objected to a frontline soldier's take on how bad the West's small FPV program is.  You've detoured that train of thought all over the place, but the basic premise that the West wasn't caught flat footed still remains unsuccessfully challenged.

59 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

The west has at least ensured a ready supply of components make its way to Ukraine, though much of the building effort remains reliant on fund raising, something that probably could do with looking at. Though at least some Western countries are waking up to this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-supply-more-than-10000-drones-to-ukraine

The point is, and remains as it has been, is that the West should have not only have successful and inexpensive FPVs to give Ukraine, but it should have them in numbers sufficient for Ukraine's needs.  It has neither.  Best we are getting 2.5 years into this war is a bunch of parts and one pledge of 10,000 drones delivered over the next 6 months.  So, in 2.5 years all we have is one country sending less than a 1 months supply of drones and even then taking 6 months to do it.

This despite trillions of Dollars in collective defense spending since 2014.  I'm not impressed, but it is at least possibly a sign that there might be some movement in the right direction.

59 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

In terms of smaller drones, there are literally dozens. Black Hornet, ScanEagle, Puma, Dragoneye, Aladin, Aeryon, InstantEye Mk-2 Gen3, Wasp AE and Drone40 to name just a few that have been developed and fielded though not a lot have obviously gone to Ukraine.

I specified a price range of $5000 or less.  I know of only a few of the above off the top of my head and they are woefully out of line with that.  Black Hornet is somewhere around $200k per drone system (including, I believe, the controller):

https://boingboing.net/2022/02/25/this-is-the-us-militarys-200k-drone-that-fits-in-your-palm.html

The Wasp AE is rather old tech and I don't know what the price is now, but it was $50k each when they were new:

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104480/wasp-iii/

I expect the others are pricey as well.  Which may be fine for some of these because higher level, long loitering ISR is worth spending more money on per unit.

59 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Honestly probably going to drop out of this line of discussion overall as its clear we have a difference of opinion that's getting increasingly hostile, at least I feel it is. I'm happy to leave it at wait and see. I thank you both for the discussion, but maybe work on being a little less...abrasive with your assertions. You two acting like you know better than literally dozens of countries and their military apparatuses is...quite something, even if you bring up some very good points. Maybe you are both right and all those people are wrong, in which case my god were doomed. 

The purpose of a debate is to have one's point of view challenged/tested and prove the other side's positions faulty.  You've failed to do that, starting with your defense of the tank right through to this round on the history of poor military forethought and industrial planning.  You have had ample opportunities to point out the flaws in our arguments and now are saying you're going to bug out because you're growing frustrated with your inability to do so.

I do not think any of us here have all the answers, but we have established a collective track record of being very on top of what is going on well ahead of the establishment.  That should count for something, especially when you don't appear able to find flaws in our line of reasoning.

BTW, you seem to have missed a pretty important part of my assessment of why we are where we are.  I never accused the Western military complex of being dumb or not seeing what needs to be done.  What I've accused it of is only being interested in solutions that are extremely expensive, regardless of their efficacy.  APS and $200k micro drones being front and center examples.  The cause of this is complex and to understand it requires a very depressing examination of how the military procurement system works and how it is very often the place where true innovation goes to die.

Steve

[holoween]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, ok...we get it.  UA and Russia are a mess.  Here is some reading for you:

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/russian-air-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence

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

You are clearly in "They are doing it wrong and that explains everything."  I would offer that you are really using too narrow a lens.  The combination of ISR, IADs and next-gen MANPADs are clearly having little effect in denying airspace (even though experts pretty much agree that mutual air denial is at play here) it all comes down to incompetence and error.  Tac Aviation is falling out of the sky due to poor maintenance. 

If NATO was in this war, we might be able to achieve air superiority above 20,000 feet but below it we are essentially in trouble. There is no SEAD for MANPADs plugged into a real time modern ISR system.  Take a look here:

https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/WEG/List/ORIGIN_china--people-s-republic-of-d6ee02&DOM_air-e61af2&DOM_air-defense-fc1546

That is the US military TRADOC sight...our opponents are investing in independent IADS plugged into spaced based ISR.  So while we may, and I stress may, be able to do high altitude suppression  - and it is maybe because we have never even tried to take on a theatre like this one...go ahead...look it up.  When was the last time we ever fought in a denied environment like this one? Yet you are willing to make bold statements like:

"If you replaced the VKS with not even 20% of NATOs airpower capability you would see profound differences and a probably collapse of UA defences."

That is beyond assumption. it is pulling from the @ss.  It is the problem with your entire position frankly - you have created a palace of unassailable assumptions that all lead to a pre-made conclusions.  The fact that the Black sea fleet is being harried by very long range USVs, and UAS into ports...all Russian incompetence....has nothing to do with US ISR architecture feeding real time targeting data to UA operators.

The way you have built this thing there is simply no way to prove it otherwise.  I say the RA had a 12:1 advantage in its push to Kyiv and were stopped cold by a combination of ISR, artillery and ATGMs - you say "nope, they suck."  At 12:1, by any modern military doctrine, they can suck...a lot, and still push through.  But it was a "lack of an NCO corps".

So basically your entire thesis hinges on one major assumption: almost all the phenomenon we are seeing in this war is a result of poor military capability on both sides.  Even in the face of counter evidence and analysis. You can see how this is unsolvable?  Basically, we would need to prove that these forces are fighting as they are because of the environment and not because they are so incompetent - prove a negative. So the UA engineering 3 operational collapses using largely C4ISR, denial and fires was luck?  Oh wait, no those were because Russia sucks...got it.

Here is the harsh truth - all denial weapon systems are getting smaller, longer range, smarter and cheaper.  Anti-everything has hit the main stream.  We have freakin Iranian systems flexing on the battlefield...Iranian.  If you want to tell yourself that "we will be fine because we have APS and SEAD" fill your boots.  But I have already lived through Taliban killing Canadian kids with a lot less than Ukraine has in the field right now.  My biggest fear is your assumptions blowing up in some third party nation where the enemy is backed up by Chinese C4ISR, unmanned systems and long range strike.  We may even prevail but the costs are going to be very high - the Chinese HJ12 is basically the Javelin with slightly better range.  Several hundred of these alone would make our lives a living hell.

My professional opinion is that we are in serious need of a rethink and relook.  We need all of our assumptions challenged now before they get challenged in the field.  I assume nothing, least of all superiority until I am damned sure we have evidence that we indeed can achieve it.  Small cheap and many are dominating this war, it is the height of arrogance to assume that they won't in a war we are directly involved in, just because we are involved in it.  No APS system or extra turrets can deal with UAS swarms.  They cannot deal with artillery getting direct data feeds and correcting in real time. They cannot deal with multiple cheap ATGM firing at 5km+ ranges.  And they definitely cannot deal with mines that can move. Our logistics cannot deal with being detected and engaged at what were operational ranges. Our EW is antiquated and Cold War era. We cannot rely on air supremacy or sea control in these environments.  We cannot deny space against micro-satellites.

But hey, you do you.  Clearly you are not going to come off your position regardless of evidence or expertise presented.  I will come off my position if we actually ran some real exercises and simulations (and I am pretty sure we already are...and the news is not all rosie). If we got some real data.  If we could see clearly what was "sucking: and what was real.  I have no real assumptions other than the one I have had since Feb '22 - something very odd is happening here and no one has been able to explain it adequately, and definitely not the "they all suck" narrative. 

 

Its quite hard to leverage a massive numbers advantedge if youre restricted to 1-2 roads to move on that your vehicles cant leave or they get stuck in mud.

So the russians

couldnt leave the roads with vehicles

had a lack of infantry to work offroad

had a lot of unmotivated personel

were sitting in traffic jams so much of the force couldnt be used simultaniously

didnt have the air ground integration to suppress enemy arty and make up for the above point

focused on a speedy advance

And we had a fairly clear pattern emerging. The russians advance along a road, runs into 1-2 tanks covering the road from a town supported by some infantry. The russians stop one town ahead trying to organize and get anihilated there by arty. Eventually they get their arty on line and the infantry to flank the position to force ukraine to withdraw. and repeat every few km. meanwhile their supplies get disrupted by the tropps they bypassed.

In the south with better ground an less ability for ukraine to mass arty the russians made good progress. Sure you can say there was treason involved but to me that sells luke a ukraine sux to explain russian success.

 

And for naval drones we do have a decent data point in the gulf of aden with western ships reliably shooting down drones, anti ship missiles and destroying USV.

[chrisl]

44 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This whole line of debate got started because you objected to a frontline soldier's take on how bad the West's small FPV program is.  You've detoured that train of thought all over the place, but the basic premise that the West wasn't caught flat footed still remains unsuccessfully challenged.

The point is, and remains as it has been, is that the West should have not only have successful and inexpensive FPVs to give Ukraine, but it should have them in numbers sufficient for Ukraine's needs.  It has neither.  Best we are getting 2.5 years into this war is a bunch of parts and one pledge of 10,000 drones delivered over the next 6 months.  So, in 2.5 years all we have is one country sending less than a 1 months supply of drones and even then taking 6 months to do it.

Ukraine is on track to build 1M drones in 2024 - that's at least 80,000/month, which is why we see them chasing individual russian soldiers around.  They aren't in any kind of short supply and their combat efficiency is high (fewer than 10 drones per casualty, possibly fewer than 5).  Most of the parts come from (drum roll).....China.  It's basically all consumer stuff and the attitude from China is that it goes into a container off to foreign distributors and it's not China's problem as long as their manufacturers get paid.  

Part of the reason the US pays a lot for drones is that they try to not be dependent on parts from China and there's a lot smaller and less efficient supply chain for those.  There's also never been commitment by the US military to buy enormous numbers of them, so there aren't factories to crank out the drone parts in huge quantities at low unit costs.  The chinese drone parts are all intended for civilian/business/hobbyist use and are produced in large quantities with good scale efficiencies.  

As recently as 2019, the US was struggling to keep the cost of a comparable drone at 10x the cost of a Chinese drone because the private commercial base in the US couldn't compete with DJI. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2019/09/17/can-the-army-secure-an-american-made-quadcopter/ 

Quote

This despite trillions of Dollars in collective defense spending since 2014.  I'm not impressed, but it is at least possibly a sign that there might be some movement in the right direction.

I specified a price range of $5000 or less.  I know of only a few of the above off the top of my head and they are woefully out of line with that.  Black Hornet is somewhere around $200k per drone system (including, I believe, the controller):

https://boingboing.net/2022/02/25/this-is-the-us-militarys-200k-drone-that-fits-in-your-palm.html

The Wasp AE is rather old tech and I don't know what the price is now, but it was $50k each when they were new:

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104480/wasp-iii/

I expect the others are pricey as well.  Which may be fine for some of these because higher level, long loitering ISR is worth spending more money on per unit.

The purpose of a debate is to have one's point of view challenged/tested and prove the other side's positions faulty.  You've failed to do that, starting with your defense of the tank right through to this round on the history of poor military forethought and industrial planning.  You have had ample opportunities to point out the flaws in our arguments and now are saying you're going to bug out because you're growing frustrated with your inability to do so.

I do not think any of us here have all the answers, but we have established a collective track record of being very on top of what is going on well ahead of the establishment.  That should count for something, especially when you don't appear able to find flaws in our line of reasoning.

BTW, you seem to have missed a pretty important part of my assessment of why we are where we are.  I never accused the Western military complex of being dumb or not seeing what needs to be done.  What I've accused it of is only being interested in solutions that are extremely expensive, regardless of their efficacy.  APS and $200k micro drones being front and center examples.  The cause of this is complex and to understand it requires a very depressing examination of how the military procurement system works and how it is very often the place where true innovation goes to die.

Steve

I went and looked up the production dates, costs, capabilities, and quantities produced of all the listed drones to the extent that the information is available.

Aeryon can do DJI knockoffs for what sounds like a few tens of $K.

All of them except the Drone40 are oriented towards local ISR in terms of design and production quantities.  A few of the less expensive (less than ~$50K/unit) have been produced in quantities of several thousand

The older ones (before about 2010) are basically RC airplanes that cost a few $M each for ISR and are basically obsolete now.  If the airframes were still in production you could redo their entire inside for cheap, but I suspect that they're not.  Of those, it looks like only the Puma was produced at scale of more than a few hundred (more than 1000 produced). The Wasp is archaic and has been replaced by the SkyDio X2D, which costs about $10K each without batteries or accessories.  But it's getting there in cost and capability.  Some of them don't even have any more range than an ATGM (Dragoneye, Black Hornet).  The Black Hornet really looks like it's most useful as a fancy mirror for looking around corners or into second story windows - it's only got a 2 km range, so it's about looking around corners in short visual range environments.

The Drone 40 is the only one under $5K.  It's about $1000/each for a 40 mm grenade with rotors and a 60 minute dwell time.  It has a kind of silly design feature - it's made to be launched from a 40 mm grenade launcher.  But it probably is more cost, mass, and capability effective to not include the features that enable that and spend the mass and volume on either more battery or more bang.

So yes, there's been some experimentation with drones by the US, but given what it's been, it's entirely local ISR oriented, and likely limited to special units, given the quantities.  There's been almost no development of drone munitions (other than the Drone 40 and Switchblade), and switchblade was procured in experimental quantities and even "mass" production is ~500/month, as compared to 80,000+/month that Ukraine can use.  There's only just starting to be development of precision munition delivery with drones, and there doesn't seem to be any doctrine developed around it - that will more likely be copied from Ukraine than the other way around.

[Carolus]

The only thing that I want to add to the discussion is that it may be possible to look at other theaters of conflict outside of Ukraine to draw some conclusions.

We currently have an international mission going on to protect freight ships from drone and missile attacks around the Arabian peninsula.

The United States sent a carrier group to deal with it, and in the beginning the mission did include strikes against ground facilities in addition to just shooting down whatever is being launched from Yemen.

The current Western capabilities - recon, precision strikes, air supremacy - did bugger all against a third world guerilla troop of slave keepers and child soldiers that is lobbing drones and missiles against military and civilian ships alike. Even if most Houthi attacks are thwarted or do not result in a kill, they are still happening and they are getting slowly better stuff through their sponsors. 

If that doesn't show that Western militaries have to do a serious re-think of how to deal with the modern battlefield that is filled with observation drones that direct missile strikes (artillery in a ground scenario) and cheap attack drones from a dispersed enemy, I don't know what else does. 

If it goes poorly against the Houthis, it will go more poorly against a semi-peer.

Edited Sunday at 06:55 AM by Carolus

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes.  What really gets in my craw, as the old timers would say, is that people who SHOULD know better haven't connected the dots.  Prior this war, for example, the likes of Koffman could tell you all kinds of things about the technical shortcomings of Russian equipment, training, doctrine, corruption, etc. and it would probably all be more-or-less correct.  And yet it took him months to be able to get a grip on this war in a way that some of us (including me) had a grip on since (at a minimum) the first week of the war.

 

There's a very obvious reason for the difference in your prediction vs. the predictions of the so-called experts: you've been doing quantitative modeling of actual combat capability for 20 years, including models of most of the forces and equipment involved in this war.  The framework for that modeling has been validated on older equipment by comparing outcomes of scenarios to real battles that are well documented.  There's less to validate against for the more modern equipment, but there's still some info, and lots of details of equipment became available after the end of the USSR.

I've been reading Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" on and off and he points out why experts like Kofman are often wrong - for the most part they don't get feedback on their predictions because they're either dealing with things that are very fuzzy and they can claim "I was close" or they're very long term and they just get lost in time.  By doing quantitative modeling you've had a ton of practice in making predictions of how things should happen in a peer conflict like this and then seeing if your model plays out as expected. 

[chrisl]

8 minutes ago, Carolus said:

The only thing that I want to add to the discussion is that it may be possible to look at other theaters of conflict outside of Ukraine to draw some conclusions.

We currently have an international mission going on to protect freight ships from drone and missile attacks around the Arabian peninsula.

The United States sent a carrier group to deal with it, and in the beginning the mission did include strikes against ground facilities in addition to just shooting down whatever is being launched from Yemen.

The current Western capabilities - recon, precision strikes, air supremacy - did bugger all against a third world guerilla troop of slave keepers and child soldiers that is lobbing drones and missiles against military and civilian ships alike. Even if most Houthi attacks are thwarted or do not result in a kill, they are still happening and they are getting slowly better stuff through their sponsors. 

If that doesn't show that Western militaries have to do a serious re-think of how to deal with the modern battlefield that is filled with observation drones that direct missile strikes (artillery in a ground scenario) and cheap attack drones from a dispersed enemy, I don't know what else does. 

If it goes poorly against the Houthis, it will go more poorly against a semi-peer.

A carrier group against commercial drones.

Carrier: $10B

Ten escort vessels at $1B/each

Total Personnel: ~8,000

Daily operational cost: ~$8M (admittedly, they're all getting paid to be on a boat somewhere in the world, anyway)

vs:

Cost of a Shahed drone: ~$50K

Amount Houthis are spending/drone: ~$2K (even if they paid US labor costs, it would be less than $10K).

 

[MikeyD]

This whole drone problem had a precursor. Remember the rise of the fertilizer bomb IED in Iraq 20 years ago? It was a new and entirely unexpected development. It stymied the Pentagon, drove US forces into Bremmer-walled compounds, led to the development of MRAP monster trucks which the US produced in the tens of thousands. In the end the US was compelled to show up at regional agricultural fertilizer plants and beg/bribe them to change the formula of their fertilizers to make them more difficult to weaponize. Is that the solution to the drone problem? The creation of 'failsafe' commercial computer chips that can be disabled if put to nefarious military uses? Currently Homeland Security can track every one of your movements via your iphone. Do we bribe our way out of the drone problem by getting chip. engine, drone manufacturers to play ball?

[chrisl]

19 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

This whole drone problem had a precursor. Remember the rise of the fertilizer bomb IED in Iraq 20 years ago? It was a new and entirely unexpected development. It stymied the Pentagon, drove US forces into Bremmer-walled compounds, led to the development of MRAP monster trucks which the US produced in the tens of thousands. In the end the US was compelled to show up at regional agricultural fertilizer plants and beg/bribe them to change the formula of their fertilizers to make them more difficult to weaponize. Is that the solution to the drone problem? The creation of 'failsafe' commercial computer chips that can be disabled if put to nefarious military uses? Currently Homeland Security can track every one of your movements via your iphone. Do we bribe our way out of the drone problem by getting chip. engine, drone manufacturers to play ball?

Phones have to be tied to the phone network to function as phones.  Drone's don't.  Autonomous drones don't have to be tied to anything.  At what level of chip do you put it in?  The CPU?  I'll tie the "shutdown" pin to an "everything is just fine" input.  The comm chip?  I can burn my own FPGA and know that it doesn't have the shutdown.

And how do you get China to include the feature in their drone chips?

Email spam will end before anybody can make this one work.

[cesmonkey]

Quote

Smetanin said that with the help of "private individuals," Ukrainian Defense Industry was now able to "scale production" of long-range drones.

 

Edited Sunday at 10:00 AM by cesmonkey

[cesmonkey]