How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Butschi]

7 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Presumably it is not only the issue of friendly fire, but also the drone being susceptible to camouflage. I suppose the cheaper and smaller the seeker is, the easier would be to fool it by throwing a camo net over the tank

The one is probably related to the other. In the most simple case of a binary classifier (e.g. "target is a tank" vs "target is not a tank") the classifier is characterized by an ROC curve where you then choose an operating point that is in reality always a trade-off between true positive rate (here the rate with which a real tank is classified as a tank) and false positive rate (here the rate with which something else is classified as a tank). You can trivially identify all real tanks as tanks (camo or not) by choosing the point where false positive and true positive rates are 1, i.e. where everything including real tanks is classified as tank. Of course the opposite works, too, and is similarly useless.

(Image from Wikipedia, cmglee, MartinThoma, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Edited December 11, 2023 by Butschi

[Haiduk]

Component origins by countries in Shakheds-136, producing in Russia 

[Haiduk]

New secret anti-drone weapon of Russians - tossing turrets. In this time the drone of "Azov" brigade was lucky and wasn't shot down %) Kreminna area.

PS. Recently "Azov" fighters pushed back Russians in the forest and recaptured several previosly lost positions.

 

[Fernando]

1 hour ago, Pablius said:

Two things, the person talking sounds like a girl (!) or maybe a teenager, the accent is Argentinian (or possible but less likely Uruguayan, the River Plate area accent sounds similar in both countries).

The interviewer says she is an Argentinian female volunteer. The accent looks a bit Argentinian, but it doesn't look particularly strong.

[Battlefront.com]

21 hours ago, Kraft said:

 

The full video to the 6min cut of all the wrecks.

There is a lot going on in this video, thanks for posting it.

One thing I was reminded of is that the Russians do make some attempt, when possible, to gather their dead.  There must be at least a dozen body bags near one of the MT/LB (or whatever it is).  In fact, I don't see many dead in this video compared to the massive level of destruction.

Steve

[poesel]

An autonomous drone doesn't have to be autonomous all the way. If an operator flies it towards a point of interest and then designates a target via the drone's sensors, then the drone can do the rest alone. Following a designated target is much easier than identifying one.
The designation only needs to be outside enemy EW.

That is my guess for the next level of drones we will see in a few months.

[Kraft]

40 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

In fact, I don't see many dead in this video compared to the massive level of destruction

If you compare the flipped BTR-50?, there is footage right after the attack, where a russian films about a dozen or so rus bodies strewn about there. In this video, only some gear is left scattered around

Edited December 11, 2023 by Kraft

[danfrodo]

1 minute ago, poesel said:

An autonomous drone doesn't have to be autonomous all the way. If an operator flies it towards a point of interest and then designates a target via the drone's sensors, then the drone can do the rest alone. Following a designated target is much easier than identifying one.

That's what I was thinking.  Simply launching up a drone and saying 'find and kill tank, other in that sorta direction' would be a really, really bad idea.  

[Kraft]

A relay drone does the same function of fancy AI without the added unit costs and long(er) development needed when it comes to keeping signal feeds until the last moment, maybe even use it as spotter/ guidance to observe in between attacks. 

Most of the hits are because of highly skilled pilots, observing the terrain and so on, predicting the path/movements a scared russian may take, vs just following and predicting target shapes from pixel data.

Looking at how hard anything besides the equivalent of bomb steering chicken would be, my best guess is this simple stuff is useful only for the last 10-20 meters where the drone may loose signal on approach.

All thats really missing from FPVs in its current form is scale, because neither side can defend against them properly its just a race to the bottom of who can do more damage in my opinion, with or without AI, which may just slow down the upscaling.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Kraft

[Battlefront.com]

Relay drones have a number of advantages against EW from what I gather.  The first is that the signal strength between the attack and relay drones is stronger than it would otherwise be, which gives it more ability to overcome jamming.  Second is that it adds an extra step to backtracing the controller.  Add enough relay drones bouncing signals around and it might be practically impossible to backtrace.  Especially if they are linear so that the operators are so far behind the lines that they aren't viable targets.

What will really complicate EW is if there are multiple relay "nodes" operating autonomously and concurrently.  With the right software loaded into the attack drone it will have multiple options to reconnect if it has signal loss.  Relays operating widely dispersed and at varying altitudes greatly complicate things for EW.  Only the more complex and expensive systems might be able to guarantee cutting a signal.

Steve

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Kraft said:

Most of the hits are because of highly skilled pilots, observing the terrain and so on, predicting the path/movements a scared russian may take, vs just following and predicting target shapes from pixel data.

Looking at how hard anything besides the equivalent of bomb steering chicken would be, my best guess is this simple stuff is useful only for the last 10-20 meters where the drone may loose signal on approach.

Random video on the topic from youtube. Using terrain, flying complex maneuvers (as a swarm), staying on target even with temporary occlusion... already reality. Also: "just following and predicting target shapes from pixel data"... What do you think we humans do?

Extending range via relay drones is certainly an advantage but at some point remotely controlled drones will not scale vs swarms of fully autonomous drones - which of course could also use relays to communicate with each other.

[Pablius]

3 hours ago, Fernando said:

The interviewer says she is an Argentinian female volunteer. The accent looks a bit Argentinian, but it doesn't look particularly strong.

Yeah, when I watched it earlier the clip was shorter and didn’t include the interviewer speaking, at least for me, maybe some glitch.

I’ve read about a couple of argentinian volunteers but it is a rare thing and rarer still for a female fighting at the frontline I guess, assuming all this is true.

[kimbosbread]

11 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Presumably it is not only the issue of friendly fire, but also the drone being susceptible to camouflage. I suppose the cheaper and smaller the seeker is, the easier would be to fool it by throwing a camo net over the tank

Mmmm, thermal and optical sensors are quite cheap, and much of the capability comes down to the processor behind it. For example, the Infiray thermals we’ve talked about for $600… sure they are great, but when you back them up with a Jetson SBC and fuse them with optical, you start having something significantly more powerful. Remember, just because you see a ****ty video feed from an FPV drone doesn’t mean that the camera sucks, just that your bandwidth sucks.

6 hours ago, Tux said:

Autonomous drones are a problem for another day.

By another day, you mean somnetime in 2024.

3 hours ago, poesel said:

An autonomous drone doesn't have to be autonomous all the way.

Yeah, it’s not all or nothing. First step is autonomy where compute is still at the base station, but one operator can now designate targets for many drones at once.

[sburke]

5 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Mmmm, thermal and optical sensors are quite cheap, and much of the capability comes down to the processor behind it. For example, the Infiray thermals we’ve talked about for $600… sure they are great, but when you back them up with a Jetson SBC and fuse them with optical, you start having something significantly more powerful. Remember, just because you see a ****ty video feed from an FPV drone doesn’t mean that the camera sucks, just that your bandwidth sucks.

By another day, you mean somnetime in 2024.

Yeah, it’s not all or nothing. First step is autonomy where compute is still at the base station, but one operator can now designate targets for many drones at once.

you are making my brain hurt.  Granted I retired from telecom but I'm thinking WTF is an SBC gonna do for you? For me SBC = Session Border Controller.    Acronyms....

[kimbosbread]

Here’s the shopping list for ghetto autonomy:

1) Jetson Nano SBC (but a Rasberry Pi could serve in a pinch for very simple object detection algorithms)

2a) Infiray thermal camera (384x288@25hz with 1km detection range)

2b) Stereo camera with distance/depth sensing (per another forum member’s recco)

You just aren’t spending that much money on the hardware.

[cesmonkey]

Quote

As of last Thursday, the Pentagon said there was about $4.8 billion still available for the president to draw down for Ukraine, but as top Biden administration officials have said, there is no “magical pot” of money available when the authorities are exhausted.

 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

 

Would be a grand end of 2023. Poland has a decent government again, in the Netherlands Wilders will not be allowed to stop helping Ukraine and hopefully something finally will be done about Orban.

Don't despair, Ukraine, the West won't abandon you.

[JonS]

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

 

That's a great sweatshirt.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

7 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

Mmmm, thermal and optical sensors are quite cheap, and much of the capability comes down to the processor behind it. For example, the Infiray thermals we’ve talked about for $600… sure they are great, but when you back them up with a Jetson SBC and fuse them with optical, you start having something significantly more powerful. Remember, just because you see a ****ty video feed from an FPV drone doesn’t mean that the camera sucks, just that your bandwidth sucks.

On the other hand, at this stage putting thermals on drones seems something of an issue. There have been reports from the Ukrainian side that they have been relying on Russian drones not having night vision and scheduling resupply runs, troop rotation etc. for nighttime when they are relatively safe from drones. Also, Russians have been reported to order from China drones with image intensifiers as a cheaper substitute. So there must be some problem for now with putting TI on drones, either with technology or cost.

[Seedorf81]

Deleted.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Seedorf81
mistake

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

On the other hand, at this stage putting thermals on drones seems something of an issue. There have been reports from the Ukrainian side that they have been relying on Russian drones not having night vision and scheduling resupply runs, troop rotation etc. for nighttime when they are relatively safe from drones. Also, Russians have been reported to order from China drones with image intensifiers as a cheaper substitute. So there must be some problem for now with putting TI on drones, either with technology or cost.

Might be availability issues for the numbers they need.  But the technology is very mature:

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/best-thermal-drone

This is another point that gets overlooked - miniaturization and cost.  When I was coming up a TI/FLOR camera was the size of a footlocker and had to be vehicle mounted, and cost more than my first house.  Now they can fit in the hand and weigh grams and cost a few thousand dollars, incredibly cheap by military standards.  Looking ahead, these things are going to be everywhere.  I can see rifle sights with a FLIR setting (someone is going to find one out there already).  Thermal is really important because mechanized warfare is hot.  Vehicles give off a lot of heat from the engine and the gun.  We live in a time where anything other than a human in a gillie suit (and a UAS) can be seen quickly and at long ranges.

How we thought warfare would not change dramatically with the introduction of these systems is beyond me.  Being able to link all these systems together was the next step.  Now we are heading to battlefield illumination, at the tactical level.  The only way to surprise is either one helluva deception plan or blind an opponent.  But the bar to do either of these is extremely high.

Edited December 12, 2023 by The_Capt

[Tux]

11 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

By another day, you mean somnetime in 2024.

Quite possibly, yes.  It should be easier to field RF-seeking kamikaze drinkers en masse than those autonomous drones though, no?  So my point is the current problem doesn’t seem impossible to address before autonomous becomes the norm.

Even then autonomy doesn’t automatically buy immunity from RF-focussed hunting algorithms, assuming people will often want to receive a video feed from even fully autonomous drones. Otherwise how do you know whether they are effective?

I am convinced that warfare is changing and that a drone-based arms race is underway.  If you lose that race (or even fall behind) the consequences will be painful.  My point is that we/Ukraine should therefore be simultaneously trying to win that arms race and making plans for if they (even temporarily) lose it.

[Artkin]

Not that I'm saying that buying guide is wrong (I dont know anything about drones), but typically websites in that format are total shills. If you research anything for purchasing my recommendation is that you add forum as a keyword at the end of your google search.

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Not that I'm saying that buying guide is wrong (I dont know anything about drones), but typically websites in that format are total shills. If you research anything for purchasing my recommendation is that you add forum as a keyword at the end of your google search.

Wasn't researching for purchasing.  Was researching for availability and level of technological development.  As to actually purchasing one...I basically don't know the first thing as to companies or products.

[Zeleban]

Since we are talking about cyber wars, here is the latest news: The largest mobile operator in Ukraine, Kyivstar, has been subjected to a cyber attack. Since the morning, the mobile network has been unavailable for users of this operator. It is alleged that Russian intelligence services are behind this cyber attack.

Unfortunately, many financial and trade networks in Ukraine were associated with this mobile operator. For example, card payments in many retail chains have not worked since the morning. This attack created many problems for Ukraine.