How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

39 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Zinz beat me to it, but I'll expand.

If there is a choice between killing that enemy soldier with a $3000 drone or a $300,000 drone... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

If you have 1,000,000 $3000 drones and only 3000 $300,000 drones per year... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

If you ran out of $300,000 drones smashing individual soldiers, and you now have a target deep in the rear that the $3000 drone can't reach... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

Now I'll switch this around.  The one soldier being targeted is a General in command of the entire sector... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

Context matters

Steve

We are missing two critical bits of information in the Switchblade 600 disscussion. A cost breakdown from the U.S. manufacturer of what makes it expensive, and what it is costing to produce them in Ukraine?

Among other things if Ukraine has gotten the keys to the guidance technology? They could put it on a lot of cheaper systems. The guidance issue might come down to getting a quiet bump in priority at a TSMC plant somewhere....

[Yet]

Russia has secret drone factory in China?

https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/reuters-russia-has-secret-drone-development-program-in-china/#:~:text=Russia has launched a secret,Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant – ed.]

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://substack.com/home/post/p-149866859?source=queue&autoPlay=false

OK—now to the update. Big Story—Biden has thrown in the towel, we can only hope that Harris is different.

The Washington Post published a story two days ago which corresponds exactly what I’m hearing with from Washington, and indeed what seems obvious if you look honestly at what is happening. Basically the Biden Administration, and the President in particular, will do nothing more to aid Ukraine until the election. The administration wont approve the heart of the new Ukrainian strategy, which would be to help the Ukrainians with a greater ranged strike campaign.

I think we need to be clear what is happening here. Biden has never wanted Ukraine to have the ability to strike too effectively against Russian power. At first this was shown by his fear about letting Ukraine strike Crimea, and by his constant fear and prevarication about letting Ukraine have even old US systems such as Abrams tanks, F-16s, etc.

Its the same situation that we have had since Feb 2022. The administration believed then that Ukraine had no chance—and was prepared for a swift Russian conquest of at least eastern Ukraine. When the Ukrainians shocked the administration through its effective and powerful resistance, certain fundamentals in their outlook never changed. First, the administration/President remained very worried that Putin might follow through with his nuclear threats against Ukraine. Second, the administration/President remained petrified about a possible Russian collapse—preferring a dictator in control of Moscow to instability.

 

And here are... Hoping Harris is better.

[hcrof]

46 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Zinz beat me to it, but I'll expand.

If there is a choice between killing that enemy soldier with a $3000 drone or a $300,000 drone... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

If you have 1,000,000 $3000 drones and only 3000 $300,000 drones per year... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

If you ran out of $300,000 drones smashing individual soldiers, and you now have a target deep in the rear that the $3000 drone can't reach... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

Now I'll switch this around.  The one soldier being targeted is a General in command of the entire sector... which is more appropriate for the individual soldier?

Context matters

Steve

It shouldn't be controversial that a high-low mix is the most efficient way to fight a war. 

I think two things have prevented this, especially post cold-war. Firstly volunteer soldiers don't like being in the low part of the mix, especially during wars of choice. Secondly, economies of scale mean you end up with expensive low end stuff if you don't buy enough of it, which defeats the point of low end stuff. 

Drones are changing all of that - they can be bought and destroyed at scale so war ends up as a ruthless efficiency game. 

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Yet said:

Russia has secret drone factory in China?

https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/reuters-russia-has-secret-drone-development-program-in-china/#:~:text=Russia has launched a secret,Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant – ed.]

 

It needs to have a secret industrial accident.

[Letter from Prague]

2 hours ago, zinz said:

But you could produce magnitude more fpv drones. 

Switchblade is a flying warhead with wings, engine, battery, optics, comms and a computer.

FPV drone is a flying warhead with rotors, engines, battery, optics, comms and a computer.

What is the difference?

You could argue that quadrotors are inherently cheaper than whatever engine Switchblade (and whatever other similar drones) uses I guess. But the rest is the same.

Why single out Switchblade? I don't see anyone complain that Russian Lancet is bad and they should use FPV instead?

ETA: also when you see "western country X bought drone for $$$$" bit of digging usually shows that this is not a single drone, but "a system", which is usually few control systems and 10-100 drones.

Edited 54 minutes ago by Letter from Prague