How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Carolus]

UAF drone attacks on Russian power stations.

You love to see it.

 

[Grigb]

There is interesting RU Nat video I would like to discuss.

But first, I'd like to go over something from my prior comment:

Quote

But there is a positive experience of countering drones. Take the same Andrey Filatov. He and comrade Bely in their assault unit have developed counter-drone system and are ready to share their experience. 

Bely is RU Nat commander of assault unit of 114 brigade I talked about when discussing that Avdiivka assault. Filatov is RU Nat who works with Bely as technical advisor and financer (he is RU Nats donation solicitor). As you can see 114th is rather well known among RU Nats.

So, let's look at some of the methods they use. The video was posted by UKR communications and EW specialist Flash.

On the video you see RU assaulter who points to hand cart with non-man portable jammer. Also you can see bike (00:13 s). This particular electrical hand cart and electrical bike signify that they comes from 114th. RU assaulter says the following:

Quote

I think this is better than a tank. Practice showed just yesterday that this cart, thanks to a jammer, f*cked a Ukrainians, and a column of tanks and blyat BMPs, showed itself very badly. This cart f*cked the column of [armored] vehicles... Because we have Jammer. If we drag it to the front line, we deprive our opponent of his most powerful weapon - FPV.

Due to briefness of video I will describe actual tactic.

• Current generations of battlefield drones is almost impossible to jam using man-portable jammer. They cannot jam all required frequences and they have less power to jam drones reliably. 
• A more powerful jammer is required, but it can only be transported by a vehicle that is easily visible and cannot remain near assault teams for a long amount of time.
• So, RU Nats put big jammer on electrified cart that can be quickly towed by bike over long distances and stealthy pulled by hand over broken terrain.
• When assault teams capture some forward positions with cover (enemy dugouts, buildings etc) jammer guy drives bike from shelter (rear dugout) to a concealed place behind captured forward position. The bike small size, quietness, low heat and fast speed make him less likely to be targeted by drones.
• Once in the concealed position he pulls cart to cover (dugout, building) by hand. Then, when needed, he and the other assaulters pull the cart out of the covers and jam all drones.

Now, let digest what we can from video itself.

• Despite claims RU still routinely operate armored columns (mech platoons with 1-2 tanks, mech companies with tank platoon)
• Armored columns are still not effective
• They are not effective as UKR defense is build around indirect fires and FPVs
• Other sources confirm it - quote from RU Nat infantry instructor: the rest are successful only due to good fire support. These Mykolas can just sit in the pit, [but] they have "eyes" and they see: "Oh, they are coming!". Well, [then] either the drones fly, or they throw a cassette [round] – and our assault group is no more, the Mykolas are back to sitting in the pits.
• However, as soon as effective counter to indirect fires/drones is introduced, the defense collapses.

Conclusions

• Indirect fires/drones are effective in destroying enemies with minimal friendly losses, but they need time/space, and their effectiveness may be dramatically decreased by effective counter-measures (albeit temporally).
• There is certain benefit having few heavy tanks around to discourage enemy from aggressive armor pushes especially when arty/drones are down. Heavy tanks inherent vulnerability to drones can be mitigated by keeping them at distance, in camouflaged anti-drone shelters with EW support until their firepower is needed.
• There is significant benefit having light tanks around to put direct pressure on enemy infantry teams and to hunt dispersed BMPs and APCs especially when arty/drones are down. Quick maneuvers, short missions, smaller  inherent vulnerability together with smaller cost and smaller crew makes them ideal AFVs to fight in Grey zone.
• Competent EW is now required at the lowest level. One of the primary reasons why RU assaults are costly, armored vehicles are useless, and progress is so slow is a lack of good EW at the assault echelon level.

[ArmouredTopHat]

16 hours ago, Grigb said:

I was passing by some RU Nats news and saw interesting article - The problems of [RU] infantry training and the aspects of training assault troops (notes from lecture given in one RU club). The author is RU Nat infantry instructor from Donetsk direction I mentioned few times. The article is very interesting because the opinion is fresh.

I do not have time now to translate full article (I think google translate should do the job). Here is quick translation of few interesting parts

Important remark - author is very loyal anti-western RU Nat. Not some angry pro-western dissident. 

This is a fantastic find, well done.

Clearly indicates that these wasteful assaults are derived from a desire to secure as much territory as possible within a set timeframe. A clear case of politics interfering with effective military policy I would argue. This is just unnecessary.

Think of how much more effective Russian infantry would be if they had been trained somewhat properly. 

A case of Russian being its own worst enemy if there ever was one. 

Edited July 29 by ArmouredTopHat

[Billy Ringo]

16 hours ago, billbindc said:

Blinken, Sherman and others are out if she wins. What I sense is that the US will go in for the kill with four more years of runway when Russia has probably at best two. Nothing too dramatic will occur but aid will be stepped up and Ukraine will get more freedom of action. Also, countermeasures to Russian espionage, sabotage and political influence will be increased. 

What has Harris said or done that gives you the impression that aid will be stepped up and Ukraine will get more freedom of action?  I've seen nothing on her stance on Ukraine, thus rightly or wrongly, simply assuming it will be the same as Biden. 

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, Billy Ringo said:

What has Harris said or done that gives you the impression that aid will be stepped up and Ukraine will get more freedom of action?  I've seen nothing on her stance on Ukraine, thus rightly or wrongly, simply assuming it will be the same as Biden. 

 The Oddly Specific Kamala Harris Policy Generator.

[FancyCat]

Apparently according to Kyiv Post, Ukraine supplied intel to enable the defeat of the Wagner unit in Mali. While a minor action, anything that raises the cost of Russian personnel to operate worldwide is only good.

 

[billbindc]

3 hours ago, Billy Ringo said:

What has Harris said or done that gives you the impression that aid will be stepped up and Ukraine will get more freedom of action?  I've seen nothing on her stance on Ukraine, thus rightly or wrongly, simply assuming it will be the same as Biden. 

The desire to replace Sherman, Blinken, etc while always making her support very clear to Kyiv is strongly predictive. You don't plan fire those guys if you think they are doing too much.  

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Grigb said:

There is interesting RU Nat video I would like to discuss.

But first, I'd like to go over something from my prior comment:

Bely is RU Nat commander of assault unit of 114 brigade I talked about when discussing that Avdiivka assault. Filatov is RU Nat who works with Bely as technical advisor and financer (he is RU Nats donation solicitor). As you can see 114th is rather well known among RU Nats.

So, let's look at some of the methods they use. The video was posted by UKR communications and EW specialist Flash.

On the video you see RU assaulter who points to hand cart with non-man portable jammer. Also you can see bike (00:13 s). This particular electrical hand cart and electrical bike signify that they comes from 114th. RU assaulter says the following:

Due to briefness of video I will describe actual tactic.

• Current generations of battlefield drones is almost impossible to jam using man-portable jammer. They cannot jam all required frequences and they have less power to jam drones reliably. 
• A more powerful jammer is required, but it can only be transported by a vehicle that is easily visible and cannot remain near assault teams for a long amount of time.
• So, RU Nats put big jammer on electrified cart that can be quickly towed by bike over long distances and stealthy pulled by hand over broken terrain.
• When assault teams capture some forward positions with cover (enemy dugouts, buildings etc) jammer guy drives bike from shelter (rear dugout) to a concealed place behind captured forward position. The bike small size, quietness, low heat and fast speed make him less likely to be targeted by drones.
• Once in the concealed position he pulls cart to cover (dugout, building) by hand. Then, when needed, he and the other assaulters pull the cart out of the covers and jam all drones.

Now, let digest what we can from video itself.

• Despite claims RU still routinely operate armored columns (mech platoons with 1-2 tanks, mech companies with tank platoon)
• Armored columns are still not effective
• They are not effective as UKR defense is build around indirect fires and FPVs
• Other sources confirm it - quote from RU Nat infantry instructor: the rest are successful only due to good fire support. These Mykolas can just sit in the pit, [but] they have "eyes" and they see: "Oh, they are coming!". Well, [then] either the drones fly, or they throw a cassette [round] – and our assault group is no more, the Mykolas are back to sitting in the pits.
• However, as soon as effective counter to indirect fires/drones is introduced, the defense collapses.

Conclusions

• Indirect fires/drones are effective in destroying enemies with minimal friendly losses, but they need time/space, and their effectiveness may be dramatically decreased by effective counter-measures (albeit temporally).
• There is certain benefit having few heavy tanks around to discourage enemy from aggressive armor pushes especially when arty/drones are down. Heavy tanks inherent vulnerability to drones can be mitigated by keeping them at distance, in camouflaged anti-drone shelters with EW support until their firepower is needed.
• There is significant benefit having light tanks around to put direct pressure on enemy infantry teams and to hunt dispersed BMPs and APCs especially when arty/drones are down. Quick maneuvers, short missions, smaller  inherent vulnerability together with smaller cost and smaller crew makes them ideal AFVs to fight in Grey zone.
• Competent EW is now required at the lowest level. One of the primary reasons why RU assaults are costly, armored vehicles are useless, and progress is so slow is a lack of good EW at the assault echelon level.

Very interesting information.  What we're seeing with this is yet more reasons to move towards autonomously guided EW seeking munitions and FPVs.  Everything described above fails if there's a loitering munition ready or quickly deplorable which can to home in on the EW source. 

Since EW is like radar, in that it only works when it is switched on, anything that causes them to turn it off is an effective counter.

Steve

[poesel]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So how do they filter out background noise?  Drones are not loud at all compared to all the other clutter.  And is there a reason they could not use this tech to detect vehicles and people?

With, you won't believe it, filters! Filtering out frequencies is one of the oldest tricks from the analogue era. Since rotors turn within a certain frequency range, they are comparably easy to detect.

Vehicles with combustion engines are easy to detect for the same reason - rotating engines.

People OTOH emit noises at a variety of frequencies. Hard to detect this way.

15 hours ago, kimbosbread said:

I’m not sold on acoustic sensors for drone detection as anything but a band-aid. Electric motors are extremely quiet, and even ICEs don’t have to be that loud. Detecting drones at altitudes up to 3000 meters, I dunno, I’m kinda doubting this especially filtering out the background noise.

The prime example is detecting Orlan-10s. Can it do that?

Motors are very quit, but rotors are loud. You can optimize the rotor form to make them quieter, but there are limits. I guess, you also lose efficiency with such a design (nothing is free in this universe).

3 km detection is probably not possible unless the thing you want to detect is very loud. But evading upwards comes at a cost. You lose terrain masking and become more detectable for radar. It also defeats the purpose of FPV drones.

Since the Ukrainians installed this two years ago and still use it, I very much guess it works well enough.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, poesel said:

With, you won't believe it, filters! Filtering out frequencies is one of the oldest tricks from the analogue era. Since rotors turn within a certain frequency range, they are comparably easy to detect.

Vehicles with combustion engines are easy to detect for the same reason - rotating engines.

People OTOH emit noises at a variety of frequencies. Hard to detect this way.

Kinda seems like the sensors should be easy to spoof or jam. Just pump a bunch of noise at those rotor frequencies into the air.  Gotta be more to it.

[The_Capt]

45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Very interesting information.  What we're seeing with this is yet more reasons to move towards autonomously guided EW seeking munitions and FPVs.  Everything described above fails if there's a loitering munition ready or quickly deplorable which can to home in on the EW source. 

Since EW is like radar, in that it only works when it is switched on, anything that causes them to turn it off is an effective counter.

Steve

Some people consider drones to be a "glitch" in warfare that EW will sort out.  In reality we are likely coming to the end of the road as to what EW can do for us.  Fully and semi-autonomous systems side step the entire jamming issue.  There are also other ways for these systems to communicate. Right now EW can be effective because most of the systems we are talking about are civilian commercial drones that have been repurposed.  Once military grade mass production kicks in we have a whole new set of problems.

[Grigb]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Very interesting information.  What we're seeing with this is yet more reasons to move towards autonomously guided EW seeking munitions and FPVs. 

Yes. 

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Everything described above fails if there's a loitering munition ready or quickly deplorable which can to home in on the EW source. 

There are more EW tricks. What's if I put anti-drone net around the antennas? Then I put the jammer in the basement or the dugout. Even if any of your drones make it through my net, just throwaway antennae from Alibaba and a few meters of cabling will be damaged. Yes, Jammer will be off for few minutes but I can put backup jammer for such occasions. 

I mean sometimes drones are effective, sometimes counter-drone defense. It depends. 

 

[Beleg85]

Known facts (and suppositions) about Wagner's Isandlwana, nicely put together:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1817934931395321975.html

Some claim "Lotus" one of former Pirgozhin adiutants was killed (he was on several clips in this thread too), on top of "Grey Zone" admin and other seniors. It's curious why they couldn't use their drones in forst phase. Perhaps sandstorm? That would bring Dune vibes sorroundingup this whole engagement up to 150%.

[poesel]

10 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Kinda seems like the sensors should be easy to spoof or jam. Just pump a bunch of noise at those rotor frequencies into the air.  Gotta be more to it.

How would you do that? Loudspeakers on the ground would come from the wrong direction and would be easy targets (loud & short distance). Mounting them on a balloon is hardly feasible.

[sburke]

31 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Kinda seems like the sensors should be easy to spoof or jam. Just pump a bunch of noise at those rotor frequencies into the air.  Gotta be more to it.

maybe doppler.  You can pump out noise but if it isn't moving...

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Apparently according to Kyiv Post, Ukraine supplied intel to enable the defeat of the Wagner unit in Mali. While a minor action, anything that raises the cost of Russian personnel to operate worldwide is only good.

 

The West has been letting the Russians run riot in Africa because partners acceptable to Western sensibilities are thin on the ground, at best. The Ukrainians are sufficiently motivated to ask one simple question "Would you like to kill some Russians?".

'

21 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Yes. 

There are more EW tricks. What's if I put anti-drone net around the antennas? Then I put the jammer in the basement or the dugout. Even if any of your drones make it through my net, just throwaway antennae from Alibaba and a few meters of cabling will be damaged. Yes, Jammer will be off for few minutes but I can put backup jammer for such occasions. 

I mean sometimes drones are effective, sometimes counter-drone defense. It depends. 

 

And jammers have to radiate to work. I don't fully understand why it is not already suicidal to turn one on. I am very sure it is going to become ever more dangerous to use one though. It may be a whole new class of drones that can follow the signal home, or it may be more effective to to triangulate the signal and pass it to artillery, but either way it is gong to become ever more hazardous.

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, poesel said:

How would you do that? Loudspeakers on the ground would come from the wrong direction and would be easy targets (loud & short distance). Mounting them on a balloon is hardly feasible.

Mount speakers on drones themselves?  So one sounds like twenty. Noise making drones in themselves could mask deployment.  Hell you could pack a noisemaker into an artillery cargo shell and lob it.  These are small rotors making one specific frequency at very low power (compared to a car engine).  A cell phone speaker would be enough.  This would create all sorts of false positives that make targeting very hard to impossible.

Has to be some sort of triangulation at work here too.  Otherwise how does one pinpoint location?  Then one has to account for range and weather, sound can do funny things.  And then there is Doppler effect, so the frequency really is not a single frequency anymore, it must be a range.  Once again small speakers could really mess that up.

And we are talking low tech cheap solutions….sticking small speakers playing the same frequencies on small balloons is exactly what could throw this system off.  Even the larger drones are pretty damned quiet compared to a helicopter and a decent Bluetooth speaker on a ballon could likely mimick effectively.

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, sburke said:

maybe doppler.  You can pump out noise but if it isn't moving...

I have a travel Bluetooth speaker that weighs about a quarter pound. You could pump a recording of whatever drone sounds you want on that thing and it will likely be enough to mimick a small drone.  My thinking is that it has to be a combination of things or the system could easily be overwhelmed, or at least spoofed.

I get filtering out other battlefield noises (artillery should be fun) but there seems to be too many ways to overload this system if that is all they are doing.

[hcrof]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I have a travel Bluetooth speaker that weighs about a quarter pound. You could pump a recording of whatever drone sounds you want on that thing and it will likely be enough to mimick a small drone.  My thinking is that it has to be a combination of things or the system could easily be overwhelmed, or at least spoofed.

I get filtering out other battlefield noises (artillery should be fun) but there seems to be too many ways to overload this system if that is all they are doing.

If you put a speaker on a drone or artillery shell to try to pretend to be an FPV, why not stick explosives on it instead?

[Grigb]

25 minutes ago, dan/california said:

And jammers have to radiate to work. I don't fully understand why it is not already suicidal to turn one on.

Quote from UKR Comms and EW specialist

Quote

1. UAVs changed the whole war, changed the EW [direction finding] as well. As I wrote earlier, all radio monitoring points had to be moved 10 + kilometers from the front and, of course, the accuracy of detecting radiation sources from such a distance immediately dropped. Therefore, now the decision to strike is made on the basis of visual additional reconnaissance, and not only according to information from the EW. No one will shoot at a square of 200-400 meters in the hope of getting someone.

2. Before the 2022 EW [direction finding] was the basis for making a decision on fire mission, now there are UAVs to check the targets.

3. The number of radio transmitting devices on the fronts has increased dramatically. There are radio stations, telephones, repeaters, and UAV consoles, electronic warfare, mini radars, CB [devices]. For enemy it has become much more difficult to cover and prioritize everything.

4. The EW [direction finding] from the air? Yes, there are solutions, but they are mainly used in specialized complexes operating over mobile communications such as Leer-3. Fly an Orlan with a direction finder to detect more accurately some kind of trench jammer or a radio is a very stupid idea. Therefore, the EW [direction finding] on UAVs is used to search for very important targets such as radar or counter-battery stations. You and your Mavic remote control are too small to be a target for such tasks.

5. Finding and searching for trench jammer, which are scattered everywhere, is absolutely not interesting to anyone. Just like sending a Grad cassette based on EW [direction finding] data to destroy trench jammer is also a stupid idea. I personally saw powerful stationary electronic warfare devices on the front, working literally for years. The enemy has neither the resource, nor the time, nor the desire to search for these transmitters. Why? Because new ones will immediately take the place of those destroyed.

6. Aside from expensive foreign equipment, what else will catch the Russian EW's interest?

• Group radio targets
• Interception of satellite pager data with the exact coordinates of the sender
• High-traffic Wi-Fi points
• But even in these cases, a UAV will fly to investigate.

 

25 minutes ago, dan/california said:

I am very sure it is going to become ever more dangerous to use one though. It may be a whole new class of drones that can follow the signal home, or it may be more effective to to triangulate the signal and pass it to artillery, but either way it is gong to become ever more hazardous.

It really depends. I can drill holes in concrete wall. Put antennas there, put jammer in basement. Make power switch on cable that go to other house. I will go to that house basement and drink tea watching how autonomous EW seeker drones destroy themselves hitting walls. Then I will eat cake watching how enemy hits the house with arty all while my arty CB it. When enemy is done I go and check the state of jammer, send it to repair as necessary, then put new one in to new house.

Both drones and counter-drones are capable of many tricks.

[The_Capt]

26 minutes ago, hcrof said:

If you put a speaker on a drone or artillery shell to try to pretend to be an FPV, why not stick explosives on it instead?

So you can trick out enemy sensors and pull C-UAS assets in one direction while sending the explody stuff in the other direction?  Or, while we are on the topic of EW…get the enemy to turn theirs on because they think it is a major drone attack…and then drop artillery on them.

 

[catwhowalked]

First time poster here (big fan of the games) — with all due respect I think you guys severely over-estimate the difficulty of automated identifying and tracking drones with audio or video, it’s a vastly easier version of the same problems you need to solve for autonomous AI last mile drones, which you seem to take as an inevitability.

 

Motion tracking, subject identification, and audio filtering are widely available with great precision in civilian software and there’s tons of civilian research ongoing to improve these techniques. With a big enough array of sensors you get a vast amount of information to use for filtering, and isolating a small number of new things entering the dataset is much easier than identifying which of the numerous common things is a target.

I assume this kind of data analysis capability is probably already used widely against easier targets than drones (signs of troop buildup or vehicle movement in satellite imagery for example.) Of course you can spoof drone sound, but you can also improve detection algorithms to ignore easy spoofs (less dynamic range from speakers, speakers not in sync with drone movement, countermeasure signal moving at the wrong speed, using audio sensors to direct visual or radar sensors to confirm identification, etc), I expect we’ll see a long cycle of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures here. 

Edited July 29 by catwhowalked

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, catwhowalked said:

First time poster here (big fan of the games) — with all due respect I think you guys severely over-estimate the difficulty of automated identifying and tracking drones with audio or video, it’s a vastly easier version of the same problems you need to solve for autonomous AI last mile drones, which you seem to take as an inevitability.

 

Motion tracking, subject identification, and audio filtering are widely available with great precision in civilian software and there’s tons of civilian research ongoing to improve these techniques. With a big enough array of sensors you get a vast amount of information to use for filtering, and isolating a small number of new things entering the dataset is much easier than identifying which of the numerous common things is a target.

I assume this kind of data analysis capability is probably already used widely against easier targets than drones (signs of troop buildup or vehicle movement in satellite imagery for example.) Of course you can spoof drone sound, but you can also improve detection algorithms to ignore easy spoofs (less dynamic range from speakers, speakers not in sync with drone movement, countermeasure signal moving at the wrong speed, using audio sensors to direct visual or radar sensors to confirm identification, etc), I expect we’ll see a long cycle of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures here. 

Great first post, Welcome to the forum.

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, catwhowalked said:

First time poster here (big fan of the games) — with all due respect I think you guys severely over-estimate the difficulty of automated identifying and tracking drones with audio or video, it’s a vastly easier version of the same problems you need to solve for autonomous AI last mile drones, which you seem to take as an inevitability.

 

Motion tracking, subject identification, and audio filtering are widely available with great precision in civilian software and there’s tons of civilian research ongoing to improve these techniques. With a big enough array of sensors you get a vast amount of information to use for filtering, and isolating a small number of new things entering the dataset is much easier than identifying which of the numerous common things is a target.

I assume this kind of data analysis capability is probably already used widely against easier targets than drones (signs of troop buildup or vehicle movement in satellite imagery for example.) Of course you can spoof drone sound, but you can also improve detection algorithms to ignore easy spoofs (less dynamic range from speakers, speakers not in sync with drone movement, countermeasure signal moving at the wrong speed, using audio sensors to direct visual or radar sensors to confirm identification, etc), I expect we’ll see a long cycle of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures here. 

I strongly suspect everything he just said about audio is also also applicable to the front line EW environment.

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Quote from UKR Comms and EW specialist

 

It really depends. I can drill holes in concrete wall. Put antennas there, put jammer in basement. Make power switch on cable that go to other house. I will go to that house basement and drink tea watching how autonomous EW seeker drones destroy themselves hitting walls. Then I will eat cake watching how enemy hits the house with arty all while my arty CB it. When enemy is done I go and check the state of jammer, send it to repair as necessary, then put new one in to new house.

Both drones and counter-drones are capable of many tricks.

And the game is gong to spin out more or less forever. But even if all you can do is take down an antenna, that might enough if your FPV drones are coming in two minutes later. The layering and ordering of what gets used in what order and with what timing must be an endlessly evolving competition of its own.

[The_Capt]

18 minutes ago, catwhowalked said:

First time poster here (big fan of the games) — with all due respect I think you guys severely over-estimate the difficulty of automated identifying and tracking drones with audio or video, it’s a vastly easier version of the same problems you need to solve for autonomous AI last mile drones, which you seem to take as an inevitability.

 

Motion tracking, subject identification, and audio filtering are widely available with great precision in civilian software and there’s tons of civilian research ongoing to improve these techniques. With a big enough array of sensors you get a vast amount of information to use for filtering, and isolating a small number of new things entering the dataset is much easier than identifying which of the numerous common things is a target.

I assume this kind of data analysis capability is probably already used widely against easier targets than drones (signs of troop buildup or vehicle movement in satellite imagery for example.) Of course you can spoof drone sound, but you can also improve detection algorithms to ignore easy spoofs (less dynamic range from speakers, speakers not in sync with drone movement, countermeasure signal moving at the wrong speed, using audio sensors to direct visual or radar sensors to confirm identification, etc), I expect we’ll see a long cycle of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures here. 

Ah, you see we are mostly all old and technological refugees.  Now this sounds like what they are doing.  My point was not that this was impossible…because clearly the UA has pulled it off.  It was “how are they doing it?”  And you have just laid out a bunch of “how’s”.

Now another question….what happens when they point this acoustic thingy at vehicles and people?  Can it be used as a broader ISR suite?

Edited July 29 by The_Capt