The_Capt Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said: At a guess, the personnel bottleneck is more in the crews who actually launch, recover, maintain and arm the drones than in the 'pilots'. Well now that is a good question: what is the logistics bill? For FPVs I think they are more like a loitering munition so the overall maint bill is pretty low. Hardest pull may be on the systems themselves and getting out to troops. Next would be operator systems - control doohickeys and electronics. For larger systems they probably run like aircraft and need more love. Launch and recovery likely needs to be a basic infantry skill at this point. But overall I do not really know what 1 million FPVs logistics looks like. Gotta be less than heavy formations. I wonder if by the end of this thing we won’t see large drones delivering small drones forward, or even just launching them. That, and fully autonomous are two things I am looking for this year. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 17 minutes ago, The_Capt said: or even just launching them. There was video of this a couple of months ago. I will try to find it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 His opinion. Open to rebuttal... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vet 0369 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 1/8/2024 at 2:59 PM, The_Capt said: Yeesh, dude...what a man does in the privacy of his own home...I draw the line at small rodents though. Too loose? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vet 0369 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 1/8/2024 at 3:13 PM, JonS said: Despite the way MacArthur screwed them over, I think the Aussies played the long game much better there. MacArthur screwed over everyone except the U.S. Army. He seemed to greatly dislike the U.S. Marines in particular. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 5 hours ago, Kinophile said: Russian repeater drone review Ironic this just got posted because it is part of the answer to Allison's question about swarming. One tactic that could be fairly easily done right now is for a bunch of autonomous drones to follow a repeater drone. One pilot could take a swarm into enemy territory in this way, then have a second pilot take one drone at a time from the swarm to attack targets. In this way you could smash a trench or enemy concentration with repeated strikes in relatively rapid succession. Since the swarm is autonomous and manually commanded drones are used one at a time there's no bandwidth pilot problems. Alternatively some number of the swarm could be reassigned to follow the manually controlled drone so that all hit the same target sequentially within seconds of each other. This can be done right now with the tech that is currently available. I'm sure someone will try it. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beleg85 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 2 hours ago, Kinophile said: His opinion. Open to rebuttal... Michał Senajko summed him up well: The 8th of January strikes were aimed at Kryvyi Rih, Khmelnytskyi, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. They used more ballistic missiles in the mix. Ballistic missiles can only be intercepted by Patriots and none of those locations is protected by them. There're only two Patriot batteries in the whole country. Your supposition that they got damaged or destroyed is based on nothing and amounts to disinformation. That being said, I seriously doubt muscovites mounted this sophisticated attack only to hit blocks full of civilians. There were no credible reports of AFU military targets in recent attacks excepts rumours about airports, but we may know about them long afterwards. Edited January 10 by Beleg85 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 4 minutes ago, Beleg85 said: Michał Senajko summed him up well: The 8th of January strikes were aimed at Kryvyi Rih, Khmelnytskyi, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. They used more ballistic missiles in the mix. Ballistic missiles can only be intercepted by Patriots and none of those locations is protected by them. There're only two Patriot batteries in the whole country. Your supposition that they got damaged or destroyed is based on nothing and amounts to disinformation. That being said, I seriously doubt muscovites mounted this sophisticated attack only to hit blocks full of civilians. There were no credible reports of AFU military targets in recent attacks excepts rumours about airports, but we may know about them long afterwards. Thanks for that. It smelled of pure speculation. OSINT is best when there is analysis of facts, not wild speculation on circumstantial evidence. It's how we get to Putin being dead 100 times already That said, I agree that Russia likely was trying to hit SOMETHING of high value. The thing is I'm not sure they could have had this sort of operation planned to be based on time sensitive data about something which is mobile. That would be very difficult even for the US to pull off, so I'm thinking they were going after something that had a fixed location and wasn't extremely time sensitive. Like a military production facility or secret leadership building + day or so notice. If Russia hit what it was going for they would likely know and would also be crowing about it. Since we've not heard anything from Russian sources I think they didn't hit whatever they were aiming for. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) There's a new book out claiming that Zaluzhny wanted to do the Zaporizhzhia offensive a full year before they actually did it, but that the US convinced them to hit Kherson instead. Quote Rather than support the objective Ukraine wanted, the US pushed Ukraine to focus on different target for its southern counteroffensive: Kherson. It was a safer option, and the stakes were lower. The city was an important early Russian war win and one Ukraine would decide to pursue instead of Zaporizhzhia. In that offensive, Ukraine's attacks on bridges shattered the resupply routes Russia needed for its occupiers in Kherson, forcing the Russians to retreat across the Dnipro river. "The reason we recommended that they do Kherson was that they didn't have the trained personnel and the kit to go south," a senior Pentagon official involved in these discussions told Trofimov, adding that "we thought that if they bit off more than they can chew in the South, they would get routed." Zaluzhny disagreed, his aides said, telling Trofimov that the general argued Ukraine "must attack where we should, not where we can." But as the US controlled the majority of military aid to Ukraine, there was little arguing. Kherson it was. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-wanted-a-bold-counteroffensive-but-us-disagreed-book-2024-1 Edited January 10 by Vanir Ausf B 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 7 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said: There's a new book out claiming that Zaluzhny wanted to do the Zaporizhzhia offensive a full year before they actually did it, but that the US convinced them to hit Kherson instead. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-wanted-a-bold-counteroffensive-but-us-disagreed-book-2024-1 Not surprising. Zaporizhzhia was always the more beneficial place to attack because if you got down to Melitopol the Russians would likely have to leave Kherson anyway. If not to thwart Ukraine's attacks but to at least get out before being cut off. However smart I think Zaluzhny is, I don't think Ukraine would have succeeded. Best case is they would get some gains in the south before being checked, worst case is they overextended and got massacred in the process. Even with the best case I think they would then spend 2024 going after Kherson and probably failing to take back the city for the same reasons the Zaporizhzhia offensive failed. In short, they'd likely be worse off than they are now. What do I base this on? Our analysis here, back in 2022 and early 2023, that showed how vulnerable Ukraine's forces would be to any breakthroughs. There would simply be too few Ukrainian forces to provide adequate protection of its flanks against the remains of Russia's pre-war VDV and mechanized forces. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sojourner Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 vive la résistance ... or should I say ... Хай живе опір Interesting article in the Kiev Independent Inside occupied Ukraine’s most effective resistance movements https://kyivindependent.com/image-draft-there-is-no-doubt-in-victory-inside-occupied-ukraines-most-effective-resistance-movements/ "Within Ukraine and among its backers abroad, the arrival of 2024 and the approaching two-year anniversary of the full-scale war has brought with it a widely-held sense of anxiety. But according to those helping them to resist, the will of Ukrainians under occupation to be liberated has not in any way faded, and neither have their resistance operations." [emphasis added] 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) Everybody's walking in Ukraine Quote “It is extremely dangerous to go by car,” said a Ukrainian National Guardsman, who uses the call sign Varvar. Men of his unit said that since September they had been leaving their armored vehicles and walking in six miles to positions. “You can only go in on foot,” Varvar said. The men of the 117th Brigade, who were deploying to the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region on a recent night, faced a four-mile hike through rain and mud, the intelligence commander said. If they were wounded and captured, Russian troops would execute them, he warned them. The long, arduous slog to carry in ammunition and food to supply troops and to carry out the wounded was one reason Ukraine could not sustain its counteroffensive, a company commander, Adolf, 23, said. Ambulances and supply vehicles came under fire from kamikaze drones so often that his unit stopped using them, resorting instead to a four-wheeled buggy that volunteer engineers rigged up to carry a stretcher. The buggy was hidden under some trees beside his command post several miles from the front line. More stories of Russians using tear gas. Quote Some members of his platoon said the Russians used drones to drop smoke grenades into their trenches. One soldier, who uses the call sign Medic, said it seemed like a kind of tear gas. “It causes a very strong pain in the eyes and a fire, like a piece of coal, in your throat and you cannot breathe,” he said. Several soldiers donned gas masks to treat the men affected, but when two men in the platoon crawled from the bunker to flee the gas, they were killed by grenades dropped from Russian drones hovering above, soldiers said. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/world/europe/ukraine-troops-exhausted-defensive.html Edited January 10 by Vanir Ausf B 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Found it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 27 minutes ago, dan/california said: Found it. Yup. This is obviously where things are headed because they've already headed there I've seen other reports of repeaters in use. There were some strikes a few months ago that appear to have been achieved using a repeater, though not this mother ship concept. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan/california Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) Quote https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-9-2024 Key Takeaways: A Ukrainian public opinion survey on Ukrainian attitudes towards the Ukrainian government and military indicates that Ukrainian society overwhelmingly supports Ukraine’s military and its leadership while experiencing tensions typical in a society fighting an existential defensive war. A new independent poll from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) found that Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains strong domestic support for his regime and his war in Ukraine, despite relatively poor economic conditions and living standards in Russia. Russian ultranationalist vitriolic responses to gender integration in the Ukrainian military highlight Russia's ongoing shift towards a cultural-ideological worldview that seeks to restore rigid and traditional gender roles and exposes gaps between Russia and Ukraine's respective abilities to mobilize their own societies. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat reported that Ukraine has a shortage of anti-aircraft guided missiles after several recent large Russian missile and drone strikes against Ukraine. Russian sources continue to complain about persistent command and communication problems that degrade Russian combat capability in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast. Russian sources are reviving longstanding calls for a large-scale Russian offensive operation in Kharkiv Oblast to create a “buffer zone” with Belgorod Oblast despite the Russian military’s likely inability to conduct an operation to seize significant territory in Kharkiv Oblast in the near term. Recent Kremlin and Russian media rhetoric aimed at threatening Moldova likely continues to embolden pro-Russian separatist leaders in Moldova to attempt to sow political instability and division in Moldova. Bloomberg reported that officials from Ukraine, the Group of Seven (G7) countries, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other unspecified countries held a meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 16 to build support for Ukrainian conditions to negotiate with Russia. Russian forces made confirmed advances southwest of Donetsk City, and positional engagements continued along the entire frontline. The Russian military is reportedly abusing Serbian nationals whom Russian officials have recruited to serve in Russian formations in Ukraine. Russian occupation officials continue the systematic oppression of residents of occupied Crimea using law enforcement and administrative means. The most significant purely military news is that ISW still seems to think Russia is accumulating a large, and by Russian standards capable, force to make a push at Kupyansk. Also Ukraine retains drone and EW superiority around Krynky, and is absolutely hammering the Russians there. Edited January 10 by dan/california 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Joch Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 11 hours ago, kimbosbread said: The real trick would be to allow pilots to fly from other countries, assuming latency is low enough. I’d love to go blow some Russian soldier face off to work out my aggression before morning meetings. I imagine people would happily pay for the opportunity to do this, in fact./ Well any private U.S. citizen who conspires to kill or maim citizens of a foreign country with whom the U.S. is at peace (i.e. Russia and which would include Russian soldiers in Ukraine)is guilty of a criminal offence and is passible of a sentence of up to life under the U.S. neutrality act. I presume other countries have similar laws. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/956 Now if anyone actually wants to fight for Ukraine, the answer is simple, move to Ukraine and volunteer to serve in their army. A lot of foreigners have already done the same thing. https://ildu.com.ua Edited January 10 by Sgt Joch 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carolus Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 1 hour ago, Sgt Joch said: Well any private U.S. citizen who conspires to kill or maim citizens of a foreign country with whom the U.S. is at peace (i.e. Russia and which would include Russian soldiers in Ukraine)is guilty of a criminal offence and is passible of a sentence of up to life under the U.S. neutrality act. I presume other countries have similar laws. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/956 Now if anyone actually wants to fight for Ukraine, the answer is simple, move to Ukraine and volunteer to serve in their army. A lot of foreigners have already done the same thing. https://ildu.com.ua Wake up in New Zealand, get to the desktop PC, log into the Ukrainian drone volunteer server, download the assigned coordinate list for patrols, active the drone swarm, slurp a 1000 calory cup of bubble tea while burning Russians alive on the other side of the world, log off to write a report and mail it with the camera footage to your Ukrainian liason officer, stand up and get pants. Dystopias can be funny. Edited January 10 by Carolus 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seedorf81 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Carolus said: Wake up in New Zealand, get to the desktop PC, log into the Ukrainian drone volunteer server, download the assigned coordinate list for patrols, active the drone swarm, slurp a 1000 calory cup of bubble tea while burning Russians alive on the other side of the world, log off to write a report and mail it with the camera footage to your Ukrainian liason officer, stand up and get pants. Dystopias can be funny. Funny, unless a Russia-supporter somewhere in the world tracks you and sends his own micro-drone with enough explosives to mame or kill you. He, or she, happily logs off, writes and sends the report, and gets dressed for the day. If this "manhunt" became a reality, it would solve the world's overpopulation-problem quite quickly, I fear. Edited January 10 by Seedorf81 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said: Not surprising. Zaporizhzhia was always the more beneficial place to attack because if you got down to Melitopol the Russians would likely have to leave Kherson anyway. If not to thwart Ukraine's attacks but to at least get out before being cut off. However smart I think Zaluzhny is, I don't think Ukraine would have succeeded. Best case is they would get some gains in the south before being checked, worst case is they overextended and got massacred in the process. Even with the best case I think they would then spend 2024 going after Kherson and probably failing to take back the city for the same reasons the Zaporizhzhia offensive failed. In short, they'd likely be worse off than they are now. What do I base this on? Our analysis here, back in 2022 and early 2023, that showed how vulnerable Ukraine's forces would be to any breakthroughs. There would simply be too few Ukrainian forces to provide adequate protection of its flanks against the remains of Russia's pre-war VDV and mechanized forces. Steve It would have been a stretch, maybe even a gamble. But recall the state of the RA in Fall of ‘22 over-extended and reeling. They may have well simple buckled and fled back to Crimea. It may have avoided the minefields and deadlock we are in now…or at least pushed it farther south. I also question the level of alleged US micro-managing. “Attack where we say or no HIMARs for you” is not a workable long term partnership, nor does it sound like the US playbook. The political blowback of suddenly yanking military support in Fall ‘22 would not have been small. So if it did come from the US military it was likely an idle threat. Now the UA might have gotten talked into the Kherson COA by the US, but coerced? Regardless, I suspect it was “bird in the hand”. Kherson was a winning situation with low risks or costs. The RA was broken and unable to defend the largest city it was occupying at that time. It was one the wrong side of a river. The outcome was set and very achievable. The payoff was all sorts of western political good will. I can see the logic of sticking to “simple and easy” for a military that was really conducting its first operational offensive after a brutal grinding summer. Edited January 10 by The_Capt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 9 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said: Everybody's walking in Ukraine Hey look at that. So maybe we double down on what works and not what is getting blowed up six clicks from the front line? This situation is only going to get worse with drone numbers soaring. The real question is whether or not someone can translate drone superiority into offensive success. I am thinking the first side that can kill anything and everything in a 20km deep box and simply walk forward is going to win. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVulture Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 39 minutes ago, The_Capt said: I am thinking the first side that can kill anything and everything in a 20km deep box and simply walk forward is going to win. It sounds a bit like the ideas behind tactical nukes, but without the massive expense, radiological contamination and political blowback. Replace one big bomb with a thousand highly personalised ones. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 2 minutes ago, TheVulture said: It sounds a bit like the ideas behind tactical nukes, but without the massive expense, radiological contamination and political blowback. Replace one big bomb with a thousand highly personalised ones. Drone swarm = WMD...not crazy. First side to pull it off is going to have a major advantage, 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 1 hour ago, The_Capt said: It would have been a stretch, maybe even a gamble. But recall the state of the RA in Fall of ‘22 over-extended and reeling. They may have well simple buckled and fled back to Crimea. It may have avoided the minefields and deadlock we are in now…or at least pushed it farther south. This is the danger of engaging in a deep penetration on the premise that the enemy's forces, or nation, will collapse before the attacking force gets itself into a vulnerable position. This was the primary flaw of Russia's initial attack plan, but it was also the flaw in several major Eastern Front operations (notably Stalingrad, but there were others) and the Korean War. If collapse doesn't happen then the best you can hope for is that your forces occupy a fairly sensible frontage at the tipping point and that the enemy's forces aren't sufficient to counter attack on a large scale any time soon. This is what we saw at the end of the Kharkiv counter offensive, which is why Ukraine has maintained its positions. This is not what happened to Ukraine after the Zaporizhzhi or Russia after crossing the Dnepr failed towards Odessa. That said, knowing what we know now about defense primacy and Russia's defensive capabilities, maybe hindsight says that the south was the better place to attack last year instead of Kherson. Not Kharkiv though, because that was a special golden opportunity. 1 hour ago, The_Capt said: I also question the level of alleged US micro-managing. “Attack where we say or no HIMARs for you” is not a workable long term partnership, nor does it sound like the US playbook. The political blowback of suddenly yanking military support in Fall ‘22 would not have been small. So if it did come from the US military it was likely an idle threat. Now the UA might have gotten talked into the Kherson COA by the US, but coerced? Regardless, I suspect it was “bird in the hand”. Kherson was a winning situation with low risks or costs. The RA was broken and unable to defend the largest city it was occupying at that time. It was one the wrong side of a river. The outcome was set and very achievable. The payoff was all sorts of western political good will. I can see the logic of sticking to “simple and easy” for a military that was really conducting its first operational offensive after a brutal grinding summer. I also did not think the characterization of the US' position about Ukrainian strategy sounds right. Talked into it by a persuasive "if you get a quick win here we'll have the ability to provide more support, no quick win and support will be more difficult to come by". If that was indeed the US' argument, it was and still is sound. Unlike the flawed Russian attack plan, at the time this decision had to be made such an argument by the US is 100% sound on all levels. Even if not ultimately the best decision with the benefit of hindsight. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beleg85 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 POV: russian mobik riding on tanks through forest. Night is dark and full of DPCIM. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carolus Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 49 minutes ago, Beleg85 said: POV: russian mobik riding on tanks through forest. Night is dark and full of DPCIM. The introduction of clusters had a real psychological effect. The RU milbloggers wrote how much they hate them for weeks. Some of the novelty has worn off by now, so there are now less complaints, but the shells still make for impressive fireworks. These tankdesantniki didn't like them for sure. Edited January 10 by Carolus 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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