How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[JonS]

On 9/17/2024 at 3:28 AM, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, I can totally see swarms of small drones putting down small explosives to blow up a specific mine.  The problem I see with this is one of scale.  How many pallets of already armed drones would it take to get a lane cleared through a very thick and dense minefield?  I'm thinking maybe "too many". 

lol - the scale problem is exactly the one I have with regards to wholesale replace-fires-(and everything else, according to el capitano)-with-drones utopianism.

But, funnily enough, I don't think scale would be a problem for a deliberate mine breaching op. Mainly because it is a deliberate operation.

• Assume an infinitely wide^ minebelt (so no flanking) that is 500m deep.
• Assume a mine density of 1 per 30m2. That's probably a bit high, but it makes the maths easier.
• Assume you want to create 4 breaches, with each one 5m wide so that it's wider than an Abrams, but not hugely so.

so that means you going to need to clear 4 lanes x 5m wide x 500m deep / 30m2 per mine = 333 mines.^^

Allow 20% contingency + 20% for breakdowns or failed drones^^^ + 20% reserve = 333 x 1.6 ~ 550 drones.

That's a lot, but it's not a redonkulosly huge number, especially since the Ukrainains are producing ... what? Reportedly 10,000 per month?

Because this is a deliberate breach the drones can be assembled and marshalled over a period of time, time which can be used to map the locations of the mines using thermal and IR and GPR and whatever other sensors we want to assume onto the recce drone fleet. With the minefield mapped in detail the clearance drones can each be programmed to go to 'their' mine, again over a period of time since we aren't exactly working against the clock here. The programming here ends up looking a bit like one of those fancy-pants 3D light shows.

Eventually, after about a day to prep, everything is set.

• At H-5 the guns start firing multi-spectral obscurants along each side of the four lanes, but not in the lane itself.
• At H the EW nerds start jamming
• Also at H the drones lift off from their marshalling areas and head towards 'their' mine in their respective lanes. Any drones that breakdown or fail before reaching 'their' mine are immediately replaced with drones from the 20% for breakdown/fail.
• Also at H other surface fires start engaging known enemy positions in an arc around the proposed breach area.
• At H+10 the first wave of drones have attacked their mines, and a recce drone sweeps each lane looking for any missed mines which are re-attacked using drones from the 20% for contingency. Again, any breakdowns/fails are immediately replaced, and the recce drone confirms alle ist klar.
• At H+20 the first vehicle starts moving through each lane. This is some kind of ABV, but it won't be as tricked-out as the Ogre thingy, since the lane "should" be clear, and this is just proving it. A tactical bound behind the first of the fighting elements start following up.
• At H+30 the first of the fighting elements start emerging from the far end of the cleared lanes, and begin exploiting into depth.

All for the cost of 550 drones.

You could definitely achieve the same effect with relays of reusable drones, but the time to breach would go up to something over an hour, and likely longer, which obviously gives the bad guys longer to react before the breach occurs.

 

 

^ also assume a spherical cow, if that makes you happy

^^ never do maths in public ...

^^^ alternately, double the number of drones in the first wave and have two drones attack each mine. That increases the number required to about 780, which is still a plausible number.

Edited yesterday at 11:16 AM by JonS

[ArmouredTopHat]

Seems quite relevant given the recent talk about breaching and engineering. So does this count as mechanised breaching under fire or not?

 

Edited yesterday at 11:21 AM by ArmouredTopHat

[Lieutenant Ash]

Wow, Oppenheimer! Listen to those secondaries, sounds like an arty barrage, that MUST have hurt the war effort.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

34 minutes ago, JonS said:

But, funnily enough, I don't think scale would be a problem for a deliberate mine breaching op. Mainly because it is a deliberate operation.

• Assume an infinitely wide^ minebelt (so no flanking) that is 500m deep.
• Assume a mine density of 1 per 30m2. That's probably a bit high, but it makes the maths easier.
• Assume you want to create 4 breaches, with each one 5m wide so that it's wider than an Abrams, but not hugely so.

so that means you going to need to clear 4 lanes x 5m wide x 500m deep / 30m2 per mine = 333 mines.^^

Allow 20% contingency + 20% for breakdowns or failed drones^^^ + 20% reserve = 333 x 1.6 ~ 550 drones.

I think the job may be made less drone intensive. This breaching plan assumes that individual mines are attacked by individual drones. But how about instead of that programming the drones to lay down bangalore torpedoes end-to-end through the entire length of the minefield? You do not need to worry about the locations of particular mines (which incidentally alleviates the problem of spotting them), just to have enough explosive to cover the length of the field. Assuming that a heavy drone can lay lift a 10 metre section of explosive pipe, you are down to 50 drones per lane, 200 per 4 lanes and 320 with overheads.

[riptides]

19 hours ago, akd said:

I’ll definitely only be purchasing models of mobile devices without HE in them in the future.

...so the model that we are giving you has this self destruct means built in...in case you get captured.

"I'll take it."

You do realize it is a pager right?

 

 

[JonS]

38 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I think the job may be made less drone intensive.

but it really isn't that drone intensive, even at 1:1, and your uber drones (which are going to have to be pretty hearty to carry 10m of pipe) barely halves the number required.

Edited yesterday at 12:25 PM by JonS

[Fenris]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

There is a vatnik that literally believes that NATO/Ukraine are using nukes. Its truly bat**** insane. 

(This guy is a hoot overall, claiming that 'mini nukes' have been in constant use in various conflicts. He also claims to be a nuclear physicist. )
 

 

 I think Aussie cossak is the account of a guy currently hiding in a russian consulate to avoid some legal trouble. He's been not so subtle stirring up trouble as per the usual RU playbook, usually far right conspiracy/anti-gonvernment BS.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

13 minutes ago, JonS said:

but it really isn't that drone intensive, even at 1:1, and your uber drones (which are going to have to be pretty hearty to carry 10m of pipe) barely halves the number required.

That's fair.  Still my plan has the advantage of not having to locate individual mines in the field beforehand. BTW I am not sure if the technology to do this currently exists or would have to be invented.

[acrashb]

6 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

 BTW I am not sure if the technology to do this currently exists or would have to be invented.

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/013/30013594.pdf

Using neutrons for landmine detection involves a method known as neutron backscattering. Here's a brief overview:

• Principle: Fast neutrons are emitted from a source, typically a Californium-252 source, into the ground. When these neutrons hit a landmine, especially one made of plastic which moderates neutrons well, they slow down and are reflected back as thermal neutrons.
• Detection: A detector above the ground picks up these thermal neutrons. The increase in thermal neutron count indicates the presence of a landmine because the mine moderates the neutrons more effectively than the surrounding soil.

 

[Lethaface]

On 9/15/2024 at 7:30 PM, The_Capt said:

And here we have another major flaw in western military doctrine. Besides the Persian Gulf War, we have never tested out mechanized breaching doctrines outside of training areas. The Persian Gulf War was not the same war we are seeing in Ukraine. In fact if we could guarantee that every war is going to be like the Gulf War then we can definitely stick with armor, mech and manoeuvre.  The Gulf war had total air superiority, for weeks, before the ground war. The forces we faced were woefully ill trained, led and equipped. And when the ground war went in, large parts of the enemy defensive lines simply surrendered. We did see some intense battles further in, but these were the exception not the rule.

Big problem: We cannot count on a war like the Gulf War again. Yet we still buy and equip as though we will. The US and West have not fought a war like Ukraine since Korea, WW2 is closer. So mech breaching doctrine is based on a successful employment in a war where the other side did not resist or cover those minefields with the technology from ‘91. There is zero proof that it will work in a modern war. In fact there is proof last summer that it will not work at all. We have gone on at length on how technology is changing the battlefield, making it harder not easier since the Gulf War.

But of course, we should invest millions into a vehicle designed 10 years ago, optimized for a war over 30 years ago. All the while watching the doctrine that vehicle is supposed to support fail in the current war. The combination of drones, ATGMs and artillery with modern ISR is nothing like Iraq in ‘91 and we know it. That combination stopped post-Cold War breaching cold. This one vehicle is not going to change that.

So why would we continue to invest a lot of money into systems we know will not work? Hope that something will come along and fix it all?

I guess the real lesson here is to learn to never lose terrain to an invader who has no qualms mining the terrain into oblivion, which you also don't have stand off advantage against (ergo you can't pommel his obstacle from a safe distance until it becomes a walk in the park).
Phrased differently, how relevant is this problem for future wars? Overlearning is a thing as well. We haven't had to breach such deep minefields / defensive belts since ww2 or ww1 even.

Having a couple of military breaching vehicles on hand might be prudent. But I wouldn't prioritize investing big in breaching minefields like the one Ukraine tried to breach last year. Prioritize investing in preventing to come in such a situation, imo.

Edited yesterday at 01:08 PM by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

On 9/16/2024 at 3:14 AM, Battlefront.com said:

Having just listened to this excellent video, I'm wondering how closely you thought about what he said.  For starters, he clearly spelled out a use case (current and future) for the attack helicopter, but he explicitly wondered how it would be kept within sensible budgetary priorities given that there are other systems that offer either a) better cost value or b) more robust results.  And on top of that, he made the general case that defense spending is all about tradeoffs because there isn't enough money available to fund everything a nation wants and/or needs.  These are arguments you have routinely rejected when applied to tanks, instead insisting that since tanks aren't totally pointless that they can't be questioned and also directly stating that the solution to constrained budgets is to increase the budgets.

More generally, though, everything Perun said about attack helicopters is applicable to the discussion of heavy armor, in particular MBTs.  Everything.  In fact, if I got a transcript of Peron's video I could swap out weapons system names and pretty much recreate the same argument that the TankIsDead™ folks have made here so many times already.

In fact, I would go on to say that the only significant difference between attack helicopters and heavy armor is that the former is far worse than the latter in terms of failure to perform its role and the cost associated with maintaining the capability.  Put another way, attack helicopters have suffered an obvious bullet to the head, heavy armor only a major chest wound.  Chest wounds are not great, but certainly it's better than a bullet to the head.

If this were about tanks you would be holding up the Polish example as the correct one, as you did with the Dutch budget to theoretically buy tanks.

Well, I'm at least glad for the fact that we agree that AttackHelicoptersAreDead™

Stevegiven

P.S.  the video has some VERY interesting data summaries of the failures of Excalibur and ground launched small diameter glide bombs.  Faithful readers of this thread have already seen these topics touched on, but now there is some more data to absorb

FWIW I think the Dutch decision to buy a battalion of tanks is most of all financing an existing capability with money which needed to be spend on military budget (2% and such), in line with NATO needs. It is a 'safe' investment where we upfront the money otherwise spend over years as part of the lease from Germany. Although I'm not sure whether these will compliment the existing battalion we lease from Germany, I guess ultimately not.

This then allows the time to find out how to best spend the extra money allocated for defense. 

The first decisions which were made after the 22 war and extra money was ordering extra F-35 and extra weapons for those, weaponizing drones (we didn't do that until then), upgrading surface ships and submarines with Tomahawk capability. Extra Pz2000 and new MLRS. Upgrading existing Apaches to E variant (from D);
Renewing the entire navy. 

The tank battalion is more easy to communicate and speaks to the masses though. They are certainly not cheap, but given that in 79 we were able to finance and buy 450 Leo2s, complementing 450 Leo1s I guess a battalion's worth of Leo2A8 won't really hamstrung our financial capabilities for defense renewal.

Although I do agree the capability has a good chance to stay in reserve until it is retired somewhere in the future.  

 

Edit to add: I guess NL isn't ready yet to commit investments into the problem we are discussing here. There is vision forming, how to go ahead with lighter forces and UAVs, etc etc. But there is no clear path or doctrine yet, for which investments could be made to acquire the required capabilities in order to implement the doctrine. 
So instead of throwing money at vague studies, which we do enough over here, I guess this was a better alternative for the politicians / military top.

Edited yesterday at 01:47 PM by Lethaface

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Kaboom

Given Ukraine's ability to blow things up 2x further than Toropets, I'm surprised they didn't hit this sooner.

Steve

[Lethaface]

On 9/16/2024 at 6:51 PM, ArmouredTopHat said:

Is this really fair to say when dozens if not hundreds of tanks are involved in active combat of some sort on the front everyday? It seems the issues with mechanised warfare currently (In the face of in depth defence) are being unfairly placed upon tanks when they are but one component of said warfare. Why are the infantry, IFVs or APCs not receiving the same scrutiny when they make up the majority of the force in question? 

The same scrutiny is being placed upon every element. People here aren't denying tanks a fair trial under the sun

It's basically a simple cost/benefits equation. 

How much do tank costs, what is the value they add, can I add that value in another way, at lesser cost? 
If the answer to the latter is yes, than tankShouldBeDead.

Fortunately for all tank nostalgists there will be CM3 which will feature tanks, im quite sure of that. Steve knows that adding them to CM will be a positive cost/benefit equation. Unless you manage to piss him off real good and he becomes the TankNazi, no tank for you! ;-). Although Slitherines recent acquiry of BFC might prevent such an event.

Ukraine nor Russia currently has a better or cheaper alternative available to the tanks they posses, so they continue to use/produce/receive m. 
The discussion here is about what lessons to learn from the current war. We can see that it's easy and cheap to make AT-UAV. It is not cheap to protect tanks against many cheap AT-UAV. 
So, the capability which used to be filled in by tanks might be better filled in by something else. That could be an unmanned-tank looking thing. It could also be something else.
Blindly saying, it must be tanks because it has been and they are sexy and unfairly treated, is not a form of wisdom.

Edited yesterday at 02:34 PM by Lethaface

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

alternately, double the number of drones in the first wave and have two drones attack each mine. That increases the number required to about 780, which is still a plausible number.

Thanks for breaking that down.  Yup, and this makes my other point valid too.  Which is that one needs to have the resources to do MANY breaching operations within a fairly compressed timeline.  Having a couple of Ogres that get knocked out trying to clear ONE lane the first or second time used does exactly the opposite.

Let's pump your number up even further to 1000 per 4 lane breaching operation to account for combat losses (not directly related to the clearing), delays in transport, and other FUBAR events.  Now let's say you want to have the ability to do 4 of these operations in very close proximity to each other.  That's 4000 drones that need to be ready to go.  Production of cheap drones even for Ukraine, which has a fraction of the production capacity as many NATO countries individually, is at least 10,000 per month, which means production can easily be ramped up to supply 4 breaching operations of 4 lanes each every couple of weeks or months, depending on how much production is diverted into this specific application.  For a country like the US, it could have this breaching capacity every week if it chose to.  I suspect that a single Ogre takes a wee bit longer than a week to put together

Now let's look at cost.  These drones would need to be a bit fancier than the cheapest out there, but not by a lot.  Let's be a little conservative and estimate the cost high at $5000 per drone and accompanying munition.  For the immediate 4000 drone capacity that's $20m for 16 lanes all cleared within a very short period of time.  How much does A SINGLE Ogre cost?  We don't know, but let's be super generous and say $20m fully outfitted.

This is the sort of math pro-armor guys hate.  We have just (back of envelope) calculated that one could clear 16 lanes near simultaneously with this investment *OR* acquire a single Ogre that will likely be unable to clear a single lane, at best, within the same timeframe.  Further, if that one Ogre is lost, for ANY reason (including some numbnuts mechanic forgetting to put oil in the engine), it means probably a year before replacement (realistic) or 6 months (wildly optimistic).  Drones, on the other hand, mean a couple of weeks tops.

 

The takeaway from exercises like that a very practical unmanned approach eclipses any scenario that involves traditional heavy armored vehicles.  Not by a little, not even by a lot, but by whatever is bigger than magnitudes.  Quantum?  I don't know maths stuff, but I do know it's big!

Steve

[TheVulture]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The takeaway from exercises like that a very practical unmanned approach eclipses any scenario that involves traditional heavy armored vehicles.  Not by a little, not even by a lot, but by whatever is bigger than magnitudes.  Quantum?  I don't know maths stuff, but I do know it's big!

Steve

Quantum is the opposite: it's the smallest possible change. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Seems quite relevant given the recent talk about breaching and engineering. So does this count as mechanised breaching under fire or not?

 

Sure, but who said this sort of thing doesn't happen?

I expect this was similar to what Ukraine encountered when they initially breached into Kursk last month.  Which is a thin defensive line that was very poorly defended, whereas the Ukrainian breaching force was anything but poor.

Fun to see the "dragon's teeth" being as useful as I suggested back in 2022 when they started being placed.  Unless they go deep into the ground, they're just "cope teeth".

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, TheVulture said:

Quantum is the opposite: it's the smallest possible change. 

Damn, then whatever the opposite of Quantum is

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

So what do we suppose this ordinance is?  Something helicopter launched?  Unguided by the looks of it.

 

[dan/california]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

It is all yours. Let the wisdom of dan/california be known far and wide. So if you move, will your handle change? Dan/Utah? Dan/Montana?  Gotta admit those sound kind of cool.

No, I have stuck with the one I started with nearly twenty years ago. Same picture, too. 

[Sequoia]

By the way, is that the young chicken hawk from the Warner Brother cartoons, or perhaps one of the Angry Birds?

[sburke]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Dan/Montana?  Gotta admit those sound kind of cool.

Absolutely not.  We'll be calling him Dana Montana with an hour and I for one do not want to see him in a thong swinging on a wrecking ball anytime soon.

[sburke]

12 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Kaboom

Kim?  Yeah hi, this is Vlad.  hey old buddy how are you doing?  good good.  hey look I was just wondering if we could get another freight train of weapons.  uh huh.  Well yeah that last shipment went pretty fast.  what's that?  you think you heard it go boom?

[dan/california]

21 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

By the way, is that the young chicken hawk from the Warner Brother cartoons, or perhaps one of the Angry Birds?

Warner brothers, I loved those cartoons.

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, sburke said:

Absolutely not.  We'll be calling him Dana Montana with an hour and I for one do not want to see him in a thong swinging on a wrecking ball anytime soon.

You cannot IMAGINE how much you don't want to see that...

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Sure, but who said this sort of thing doesn't happen?

I expect this was similar to what Ukraine encountered when they initially breached into Kursk last month.  Which is a thin defensive line that was very poorly defended, whereas the Ukrainian breaching force was anything but poor.

Fun to see the "dragon's teeth" being as useful as I suggested back in 2022 when they started being placed.  Unless they go deep into the ground, they're just "cope teeth".

Steve

The footage shows that this is not exactly a 'thin' line. Its at least one belt of mines (possibly two) with wire and dragons teeth, plus a ditch for good measure. This was all breached while under obvious observation and fire, with enemy manned positions clearly in the vicinity. Its nothing near as concentrated a defence as elsewhere, but this really should be noted as at least a somewhat formidable barrier given it clearly had indirect assets over watching it. (Hence the arty and other munitions)

Some Russian footage of the same area does show a few AFU vehicle losses in the same area, so this was hardly an 'unopposed' assault but rather a clearly well thought out breaching operation with primarily western based kit. Given this was the second attack over the border in support of the first, I imagine the defences were somewhat reinforced as well given the allocation of Russian units into the area. 

As a sidenote to the dragons teeth, I recall someone sharing a source here from the AFU that they become a real pain when the Russians put mines underneath them, which happened as recently as the first Kursk op. 

If anything this footage should put to bed any notion made by some (stupid) observations that the Ukrainians are not able to 'learn' certain western kit. 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

So what do we suppose this ordinance is?  Something helicopter launched?  Unguided by the looks of it.

 

This has honestly stumped me as well. Its relatively slow but the angle suggests something that was fired at long / indirect range. SPG-9 warhead perhaps?