How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

Just getting back to this:

17 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This matches my thinking from what we are seeing. If I could lay out some core principles of future land systems:

- Treat pretty much everything as expendable ammunition. As you note, assume it is not going to survive for long. Build capacity in cheap effective systems - achieve overmatch through depth, not very expensive capability density.

- Remove the human wherever you can. We are going to need humans forward, but minimize this as much as possible. We can see the effects of not doing this in an attritional struggle right now…not good. If we are heading into an Attrition phase of warfare, let the machines do the dying.

- Plan to fight in a fully illuminated, denied and parity environment. We cannot depend on massive overmatch in a peer conflict anymore.

- Fight smarter, not more expensive. There is an enormous amount of potential in cheap but clever systems. Big and expensive no longer can guarantee success. Smart also means leverage AI/ML better and faster - that is the future arms race. I think simulation will be core to this btw.

- Get over it. The trends we are seeing in Ukraine took at least 30 years to build. We need to stop fighting them and admit we need major rethinking. I really like that the US Army is designating experimental units, let’s hope they follow through. That all said, one also has to measure twice and cut once. I am not advocating “drone utopia” or radical unplanned force development movements. But realistically these are not our problem. Clinging to our current doctrine and capabilities too long is far more likely and the greater risk. 

- Firepower then Manoeuvre, not the other way around like we had built for. Massed precision superiority at range will be key.

If anyone can think of others jump on in.

Yes to all of this, but really... the most important point to establish is the assumption of loss.  Once that assumption is incorporated into a design, the rest kinda follows.

One thing you said above, though, was very briefly touched upon when we had the WW1 discussion.  You quoted a field manual's emphasis on using the same techniques and weapons until success is achieved.  A sort of "if at first you don't succeed, try the same thing over and over again" mentality.  That's a really bad mentality when trying again is likely going to get a bunch of people killed for little to no gain.  As this war clearly shows.

However, if there is a broad and deep array of unmanned systems in the mix, trying again in hopes of a different result becomes far more practical and responsible.  For example, when Russia launches a company sized attack that gets wiped out, we're snickering because it's a dozen vehicles worth millions in aggregate value taken off the battlefield by a few 10s of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, worth of munitions.  The bean counters also snicker because it's 2 months worth of wartime production wiped out in minutes.  The Humanitarians have their jaws drop because dozens of Humans (well... genetically at least) are killed, wounded, traumatized, and put out of action for a period of time all for nothing.  Cripes, sometimes they aren't even forward of their own frontline positions before they are decimated.

Take the same attack, lower the costs of what is lost, lower the time it takes to replace them, and remove the Human element and I think we'd have a very different view of Russia's tactics.  Maybe not favorable, but not to the extreme we (correctly) hold them in contempt.

Steve

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So I think you are missing what denial actually means. No one is going to take a $110 million dollar aircraft and play “trigonometry” with it. IR systems are not a magic bullet but again we are talking risk. There are about 1000 F35s on the planet. How much risk are you going to take with LOS IR tracked weapon systems that can deny up to 30k feet? As to “other long range systems” well the issue with these is that most are RADAR (but I think that is changing) which is exactly what the F35 is designed to work around. The combination of the two are what make for effective denial.

Oh, they will play trigonometry if needs be. The whole reason for the F-35 is to play trigonometry and win at it. But that may not be necessary because of stand-off.

So radar track is assumed be be not available. You're relying on IRST for detection? Range is pretty limited from the ground, but ok. At this point I'm wondering why you even need a VTOL drone. It seems the idea is for the drone to zoom up and shoot the F-35 in the butt? What is the drone's clime rate? Depending on that variable and target elevation you may be better served by just launching from the ground, if you can.

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You also conveniently sidestepped my whole deep strike point, and firepower superiority as a core concept moving forward. Do you need more proof or explanation?

Uh no, I did not. I actually agreed with it when I said "You stole one of my talking points regarding standoff." Do you need more proof or explanation?

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The RIGHT NOW solutions that are being presented are already obsolete - this is my central point. We are already seeing the denial effects I am describing. We are also seeing the C4ISR environment I am describing…in this war. To shove this off to “2040” is exactly why I am disagreeing. It will be the hallmark cry of all those who want to pretend this is not happening. They will propose the same solutions that do not address the realities we are facing today, let alone in 16 years.

So just to lay my cards on the table here, I make no claims as to how well these prototype U-UAS systems will work in the field. There are huge gaps in our knowledge base regarding the technical capabilities and limitations of these systems and the specific environment they will be employed it. We are filling those gaps with assumptions here.

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Lastly, it is also clear that you do not understand how military force development works.

Oh, is it now? Do tell!

I don't care what the other beta guys say, you can be pretty damn funny at times.

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

If you want change in 16 years, you have to start today.

This is the part in which I am going to request some "proof or explanation". I seems that you have taken my statement about the short-term goals of a single DoD initiative (which is not in dispute), and from that extrapolated that I think this is how all military force development works everywhere all the time? I'd like you to walk me through your logic tree, because it sure looks like you skipped about 4 steps and ended up in a place unconnected to where you began.

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

We can quick buy a bunch of stuff to try and stop-gap, but that cannot become “the solution”. Further we cannot pour all the money into stop gaps at the expense of the future force or we will face a worse problem by 2040.

From what I have been able to research it's not clear to what extent if any Peter is being robbed to pay Paul, or who "Peter" would be in this case. Replicator 2 doesn't have a budget yet. Replicator 1 is $1 billion over two years. Yeah, I get the argument that anything spent could at least in theory go to Force 2040 or whatever we want to call it.

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

From what I have been able to research it's not clear to what extent if any Peter is being robbed to pay Paul, or who "Peter" would be in this case.

The US is racking up massive debt every year, so even for 100% awesome procurement decisions there's a pretty good amount of robbing Peter to pay Paul because it's being put on a credit card with absolutely no concept of how its going to be paid back.  Economists can debate about the details, but the fact remains every unnecessary spending makes whatever problems the US is facing worse and not better.

Putting aside that general observation, why is it a given that the military budgets can't be reduced?  I mean, sure, if there's a justification for the budget to be where it's at because it HAS TO BE at that level, I could support that.  However, spending large amounts of money on programs that are either ill advised, duplicative, or otherwise not a good investment indicates that the budget could be trimmed.  Trimming the single biggest expense outside of Social Security (which is in part a pass through) would be a good thing for both Peter and Paul.

So, in the context of force development, it's simply not true that Peter isn't being robbed if he's paying for something Paul doesn't even need or (and this happens in the Pentagon a lot) even wants.

Sorry... I just reject the notion that there are no consequences for irresponsible spending.  There are.  And poor Peter, he's going to be pretty mad when he finds out had bad Paul has taken him for a ride.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

Putting it in laymen's terms. Use your Visa Card to pay Mastercard and Vice Versa. If we do it is silly but when in charge of Finance, you are a brilliant economist. Basically, how Germany got rid of their hyperinflation, they just started to print a New Reichsmark. 

[chrisl]

16 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Something something perfect ISR should make this impossible, you should see that tank from space!

Russia has no space assets to speak of.

[Letter from Prague]

My understanding is that the stealth planes are basically untargetable unless you're very close. You can see them but you can't lock them - and even if you do get a lock, so little energy reflects that the missile might still not see the plane.

So I would not expect F35 to fly low and slow like F-16s do, but hang out 15 kilometers up out of range of manpads and drone interceptors and similar, dropping air to air missiles, anti-radiation missiles and glide bombs on enemies who can't touch it.

So comparing it with small drones doesn't make much sense to me, because it is ultimately very different capability of long range air dominance and SEAD and precision strikes rather than blowing up tanks and dudes that are over the next hill.

If I were to compare $100M F-35 + $50M of missiles and bombs with something, I'd rather compare it with launching 100 $1.5M ATACMS or possibly 300 or even more "low cost mass produced ATACMS" that you probably could get if you really wanted to and commited to building tens of thousands of them on economies of scale.

Of course, this used to be Soviet and Russia's strategy - I remember people claiming that "if Cold War went hot, NATO's advantage in the air wouldn't matter because all the airport and planes would be destroyed in the first hour by soviet missiles" and we have seen how well that worked in Ukraine. The again, any weapon is useless if you have bad ISR or are a dumb **** who would rather use it for terror strikes than hitting something of value.

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Oh, they will play trigonometry if needs be. The whole reason for the F-35 is to play trigonometry and win at it. But that may not be necessary because of stand-off.

So radar track is assumed be be not available. You're relying on IRST for detection? Range is pretty limited from the ground, but ok. At this point I'm wondering why you even need a VTOL drone. It seems the idea is for the drone to zoom up and shoot the F-35 in the butt? What is the drone's clime rate? Depending on that variable and target elevation you may be better served by just launching from the ground, if you can.

Uh no, I did not. I actually agreed with it when I said "You stole one of my talking points regarding standoff." Do you need more proof or explanation?

So just to lay my cards on the table here, I make no claims as to how well these prototype U-UAS systems will work in the field. There are huge gaps in our knowledge base regarding the technical capabilities and limitations of these systems and the specific environment they will be employed it. We are filling those gaps with assumptions here.

Oh, is it now? Do tell!

I don't care what the other beta guys say, you can be pretty damn funny at times.

This is the part in which I am going to request some "proof or explanation". I seems that you have taken my statement about the short-term goals of a single DoD initiative (which is not in dispute), and from that extrapolated that I think this is how all military force development works everywhere all the time? I'd like you to walk me through your logic tree, because it sure looks like you skipped about 4 steps and ended up in a place unconnected to where you began.

From what I have been able to research it's not clear to what extent if any Peter is being robbed to pay Paul, or who "Peter" would be in this case. Replicator 2 doesn't have a budget yet. Replicator 1 is $1 billion over two years. Yeah, I get the argument that anything spent could at least in theory go to Force 2040 or whatever we want to call it.

The VTOL is going to extend the altitude effects of the system and give it greater battlefield mobility to relocate that fence. Of course there will still be ground launched systems all over the place because these missile systems are very cheap compared to the platforms they are engaging. As to alternate ways to detect - well there are tales of acoustic sensors in this war, visual is still a thing and space based tends to go multi-spectral as well. For all we know the heated air column behind the aircraft at the higher altitudes it needs to stay in are being tracked. 

If you believe that F35s are somehow going to try and slalom between SHORAD systems then I am afraid that you do not understand denial.

Re:standoff….well more explanation would be good because all we really have is one off the cuff quip. What was your “talking point” and what conclusions did it lead to?

Ok, military force development - you asked for it, and I am going to assume you are completely clueless based on your response. Unless this is some weird expertise trap, which is crappy little Reddit games for children, but I am going with “you know little to nothing”.

In the course of my career I spent about seven years of it in strategic Force Development. Either on the capability planning side, or actual major capital project side. So military force development occurs in a massive bureaucracy. It has four main phases - Conceive, Design, Build, Operationalize (aka Integration). In most western modern militaries a single strategic bound for major capital projects is ten years. (projects of scope and scale over a set funding line - this depends on the government of the day but 50-100 million tends to be the range). And this is being optimistic. A force development project goes through multiple approval gates within the military, and then ultimately to the political level to gain actual spending approvals…for each phase.

So for example, if you need to bubble wrap a ground force to protect it from UAS and it is going to cost X billions to do it. You are going to start where we are right now and identify solutions…this takes some time and needs spending approvals for research and dev, experimentation and studies, Then once you land on a solution, you need to fully define the requirements - nations use all sorts of acronyms, here in Canada we use PRICIE. This is stuff like Personnel, Research, Infrastructure, Equipment etc:

https://cradpdf.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/PDFS/unc295/p806141_A1b.pdf

Those need to be developed in excruciating detail…and not just by project staff but then passed through the digestive track of FD staffs in the Center (joint) but also environmental services. That whole process has boards and gates the whole way along. Eventually you get to an exec level in the department and get approval to go to government. You then fight through to Treasury Board (it would be some sort of Congressional board in the US) and eventually get approval to start building the damned capability.

Oh, but wait, your pain is not over yet. Because now you need to go through the contracting phase. That is one massively politically charged divvying out of large wads of public money to industry. This is controlled by an entirely different department in government that one has to navigate through. It comes with provincial/state politics baggage and international relationships baggage…hell sometimes quality is the last consideration. Now once you do all that and somehow get contracts out and signed…you have to wait for industry to spool up. Do you think there are warehouses full of C-UAS lasers sitting around just waiting to have the crinkly wrapping taken off? No, there are startup costs in industry and some of these are massive (just look at our Canadian ship building program if you want to see that in motion).

Then once you get past all that and you actually get all your sexy C-UAS stuff, it is time to celebrate, right? Nope, now you have to actually get it operationalized in the force. This comes with no small costs and time…and you still can get it wrong. Oh, and every soldier in the field force is going to tell you that you are doing it  wrong and all this new stuff is “dumb” as well as being “5 years too late.”

Normally that process takes a decade. For something this big - and I refer to Waltings ideas in that paper - you are likely looking at 15-20 years as it really is a complete redesign and standup of new forces. You can try to UOR (Urgent Operational Requirements), your way out but the problem with panic buys is, that while fast, they are not sustained. You basic get a box of toys that you scramble to put into the field because the enemy didn’t get our overmatch memo. Once that box runs out, particularly after the war, you are back to square one.

Now as to “proof”….well here I am going to simply say “my daily charge out rate is $750 USD per day” for conventional stuff like this. To fully pull all the information to “prove this to you” will run you several thousand dollars. If you are interested just PM me and I will get a contract done up for you to sign. That, or you could go on that big old internet and find out for yourself.

As to the problem to our front, this massive effort to rub C-UAS on everything will suck a lot of bandwidth and money out of already constrained funding profiles and force development capacity. So while you propose we spend hundreds of millions (likely billions) and tens of thousands of pers-hours on solving todays problem for yesterday - it will very much impact our ability pivot to new forms of operational manoeuvre. Unless of course you proposing a massive uptick in Defence spending, likely nearing Cold War levels of gdp, this may sound like a good idea but we are talking another decade to be ready to spend all that money.

This is not a “DoD short term initiative” nor small investment. Walting is talking about new entire units and basically putting C-UAS on an entire BCT, which would need to include its entire logistics train. Now, here is an interesting question…”how many BCTs does the US Army have?”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_combat_team#:~:text=In April 2017%2C the Army,combat teams (including airborne brigades)

Looks like 31 as of 2018. So in order to be able to fight in an environment we are seeing in front of us right now, the US Army needs to do Walting idea 31 times. These “single initiatives” are meaningless without covering the entire field force…that is a LOT of time and money.

So what are you proposing? The US military sticks a toe in and dabbles in C-UAS or tries to solve for the entire problem? And what horizon are you going to try and solve for? Either way this will be an ungodly amount of money to create the layered defence to protect a legacy manoeuvre force enough to be able to do its job. Meanwhile, the cost to produce a million FPVs a year is apparently in both Russias and Ukraine budgets and commercial capacity.

Oh, and before you jump in with “well government will just cut thought all that”….what in our recent experience provides proof that modern western governments can cut through anything? No, this is a decades solution to a problem we have been trying to ignore for about twenty years. We are not going to solve it through minor movements by this point. We are also not going to solve it by racing to protect the way things were.

There you go…yes, I do say.

Edited 17 hours ago by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I made no such claim about air superiority, but for sure it is under serious threat.  Attack helicopters being the obvious one most in danger.  But expensive air superiority capabilities are definitely under threat.  Again, attack helicopters coming up short of justifications when UAS can do much of what they did, cheaper, easier, and in more places simultaneously.

The_Capt and Vanir are having a good discussion about other aspects of air superiority.

I agree, though I'm not as sure about China.  Which is why I don't think the current concept of air superiority is wise to continue into the future.  As I said a number of posts ago, presume you'll lose something big, expensive, and hard to replace and wow... that really changes the design specs.

Sure, but a return to the way things were (or at least theorized to be) is less likely than likely.  Which is why I'm completely and utterly against making new investments in heavy armor.  I think it's a criminally insane waste of national resources.  I also think it puts lives at risk, because nothing screws up a soldier's chance of survival than to have the basic concepts fail when they are most needed.

From an airpower standpoint, I think we should be moving away from $100m manned aircraft and moving towards unmanned weapons platforms that can perform the same, or similar, roles without funding, production, and logistics holding them back.

By the time that happens, if it happens, the war will be over already.  I see no indications that either side has the ability to sustain anything resembling a maneuverist's wet dream.

Steve

 

I think this is the major issue and metal block many are having. When I talk about “next war” and pull from this one, I am talking about peer-conventional war. So China with a block of its allies. Anything else is a smaller intervention or proxy action. Results in those sorts of wars will vary but in the end modern western militaries have to be ready for the greatest likely threat. We cannot ignore it and assume we are ok because we can still establish air superiority in Sudan. We already know air superiority for Russia, who had the second or third largest AF in the world, was made impossible. We have a pretty good idea how that was done. Does anyone honestly think China is going to sit back and not double down on all those “hows”?

In the end it does not matter what anyone “thinks”, it is what you can safely assume. And Air Superiority - freedom of military action in the air, while, denying the same to the enemy, is very much in doubt as a major assumption in a peer conventional war right now. 

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

My understanding is that the stealth planes are basically untargetable unless you're very close. You can see them but you can't lock them - and even if you do get a lock, so little energy reflects that the missile might still not see the plane.

So I would not expect F35 to fly low and slow like F-16s do, but hang out 15 kilometers up out of range of manpads and drone interceptors and similar, dropping air to air missiles, anti-radiation missiles and glide bombs on enemies who can't touch it.

So comparing it with small drones doesn't make much sense to me, because it is ultimately very different capability of long range air dominance and SEAD and precision strikes rather than blowing up tanks and dudes that are over the next hill.

If I were to compare $100M F-35 + $50M of missiles and bombs with something, I'd rather compare it with launching 100 $1.5M ATACMS or possibly 300 or even more "low cost mass produced ATACMS" that you probably could get if you really wanted to and commited to building tens of thousands of them on economies of scale.

Of course, this used to be Soviet and Russia's strategy - I remember people claiming that "if Cold War went hot, NATO's advantage in the air wouldn't matter because all the airport and planes would be destroyed in the first hour by soviet missiles" and we have seen how well that worked in Ukraine. The again, any weapon is useless if you have bad ISR or are a dumb **** who would rather use it for terror strikes than hitting something of value.

So I think we can see the crux of the problem right here. And this is not slight on you, but I think people are missing just how big a shift this all is. Further, they are not fully seeing how large of a problem for land warfare this will be.

Seeing the shifts in land warfare happening in this war as solely a “drone thing.” Is a mistake that quite a few are making. Some are honest, others less so. Pulling back to WW1, this would be like calling the deadlock on the Western Front as “a machine gun thing”. We all know that simply is not true. That deadlock had a lot of components and causes well beyond the machine gun.

The same applies here. So, yes, there is a direct link between that F35 at 15kms up and a Tac FPV seeing and blowing up Russian tanks. It is called air superiority. Air superiority doesn’t “partially work”. You cannot have it above a certain altitude only. It needs to include the entire air column or you do not have it at all. So that untouchable F35 sitting at 50k feet can lob glide bombs and missiles (and it is a matter of time until someone loads a cargo munition with autonomous drones and lobs it 100km back)..and it will. It can also see. The F35 is a flying operational sensor suite. So it is illuminating the battlefield. And so will the J-20. No one is going to take these platforms and fly them in CAS, they are standoff ISR and strike platforms that can do their job from the next country over. They are linked into massive modern C4ISR complexes - people looking for “proof” need to read up on the IDF systems at play…well and actually read the sources on this war which are highlighting this in spade.

Those same C4ISR complexes are plugged into all those tac UAS buzzing around. So the little tac UAS is essentially linked to the F35. One informing the other on what it can see. So are the HIMARs (and Chinese PHL-03). As are space based assets (and for whoever said “Russia doesn’t have space assets…no, they can simply buy the data from commercial systems).

So we have an illuminated and transparent battlefield. Strike ranges are going out to 100kms+. And unmanned systems are dominating the tactical spaces. This is a lot f#cking more than “the machine gun.” So in order to have viable military options in a peer conventional war, we need to solve for the whole thing. Not a single slice of it. How do we attack an opponents C4ISR - cyber was supposed to do it but it has been wholly underwhelming in this war.

We cannot simply get rid of drones and say “yay” either. First off, I don’t think we can at this point, they are too cheap and easy to produce and field. Second, even if we could it still does not solve for that F35/J20, or longer range airborne ISR, or space based..which can all tell that ATGM/MANPAD team where to go, or that HIMARs where to fire. 

The tank pyjamas crowd is now basically down to “well I don’t believed such a system exists.” Well then I can’t help you. If you swish to cling to Cold War era metrics, good luck to you. But the US invested in C4ISR like a house on fire after the first Gulf War and anyone who wanted to 1) operate with the US or 2) operate against the US had to keep up. If anyone thinks that C4ISR did not evolve to match what we are seeing in this war, go write your Congressman because they spent trillions on it. I will do one better, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in this war. Ukraine is plugged into the US system but not all of it. Russia has cobbled together whatever it can…and it has lead to what we see in this war. So what do you honestly think is going to happen in the next one? China is not stupid and they have a lot of money and political willpower. They have also been investing heavily. That is a collision we need to solve for…and it will be a lot more then “let’s get all those nasty drones off the field so our tanks will work again.”

Edited 17 hours ago by The_Capt

[ArmouredTopHat]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

We already know air superiority for Russia, who had the second or third largest AF in the world, was made impossible.

Numbers are not what make an airforce deadly in this age, its capability. This is like saying the Soviet airforce in 1941 was deadly because it had a lot of planes or something. 

Russia has / had a lot of planes, but little actual capability in what those planes could do outside of very basic missions in small numbers. 

Thirty F-35s can do a hell of a lot more than 300 Su-27 in the modern battlespace, especially if properly managed. 

The training as well as equipment are so radically different its not even funny. Russian pilots had heaps of problems prewar, everything from struggling to getting flight hours to having essentially basic training. Russian pilots are simply unable to do what NATO pilots can do with regards to orchestrating organised strike packages, or perform even basic SEAD operations. We saw this pretty clearly back in 2022 where the best they could do was hit static positions, and even that was a mixed bag performed with small groupings of planes. 

So of course they cant do anything in the AD environment in Ukraine, they literally do not have the doctrine, equipment of training to do so. Tossing glide bombs in pairs is literally the best they can do. They technically do have ARMs but they do not have the highly demanding training that SEAD / Wild Weasel operations entail. 

Other airforces in the meantime, actually have dedicated and dangerous assets capable of messing around with AD and then actually striking them. This is not including the fact that 5th gens are magnitudes more deadly at this as red flag demonstrated:

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/02/20/air-force-chief-defends-f-35a-against-complaints-boasting-kills-at-red-flag/

Fresh F-35 pilots were literally slaughtering veteran F-16 / other 4th platform pilots in a multitude of environments. The US does not mess around with these air exercises and its fair to say they are some of the best in the world. The F-35s were also able to strike targets that 4th gens simply could not (or would take excessive losses doing so)

China is pursuing similar capability in its airforce, which should tell you all you need to know how serious and potent an actually good airforce can be. The VKS is nothing near either NATO or China in this regard. The Gulf war showed that a pretty extensive and capable air defence network can be utterly destroyed with the correct application of airpower, and that was all done largely with 4th gen platforms. It would be even easier with widespread use of 5th gens. 
 

Edited 16 hours ago by ArmouredTopHat

[Vanir Ausf B]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The VTOL is going to extend the altitude effects of the system and give it greater battlefield mobility to relocate that fence.Re:standoff….well more explanation would be good because all we really have is one off the cuff quip. What was your “talking point” and what conclusions did it lead to?

That this VTOL idea is abrogated by standoff.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The VTOL is going to extend the altitude effects of the system and give it greater battlefield mobility to relocate that fence.

Ok, so it's ultimately about extending range by a few thousand feet and better mobility. That's fine, but the use case for this versus fast movers is going to narrow. It would be far more useful against Group 3 and 4 UAS.

 

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, military force development - you asked for it, and I am going to assume you are completely clueless based on your response. Unless this is some weird expertise trap, which is crappy little Reddit games for children, but I am going with “you know little to nothing”.

In the course of my career blah blah blah

The claim made was that I did not know this:

Quote

If you want change in 16 years, you have to start today.

I did not ask for the how and why it takes 16 years, I asked you to demonstrate that I did not know it takes 16 years. Your response is a complete non-sequitur. I don't need to play $750 to prove you're full of **** on this point. You did that all on your own for free.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So what are you proposing? The US military sticks a toe in and dabbles in C-UAS or tries to solve for the entire problem? And what horizon are you going to try and solve for? Either way this will be an ungodly amount of money to create the layered defence to protect a legacy manoeuvre force enough to be able to do its job. Meanwhile, the cost to produce a million FPVs a year is apparently in both Russias and Ukraine budgets and commercial capacity.

I am not proposing anything. I am reporting proposals that are already out there, hardware being prototyped, ect. People are interested in that stuff.

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Oh, and before you jump in with “well government will just cut thought all that”….what in our recent experience provides proof that modern western governments can cut through anything?

I don't think I have ever said anything like that in my life. Weird.

Edited 16 hours ago by Vanir Ausf B

[ArmouredTopHat]

Interesting mechanism for drone drops. 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

That this VTOL idea is abrogated by standoff.

Ok, so it's ultimately about extending range by a few thousand feet and better mobility. That's fine, but the use case for this versus fast movers is going to narrow. It would be far more useful against Group 3 and 4 UAS.

 

The claim made was that I did not know this:

I did not ask for the how and why it takes 16 years, I asked you to demonstrate that I did not know it takes 16 years. Your response is a complete non-sequitur. I don't need to play $750 to prove you're full of **** on this point. You did that all on your own for free.

I am not proposing anything. I am reporting proposals that are already out there, hardware being prototyped, ect. People are interested in that stuff.

I don't think I have ever said anything like that in my life. Weird.

The VTOL thing is what actually support the pressures that force a standoff a requirement. Along with other systems such as longer range AD...it is called A2/AD. And it definitely will have an impact on higher class UAS (although Class 4 are up there with the F35).

I think I can say with some confidence that "you did not know this." Your whole "Peter-Paul" schtick and "MCOTS/COTS right now, not Force 2040" kinda gave it away. Further your narrow translation of what Walting is proposing also draws some pretty deep lines under your base level of knowledge. 

My response was an attempt to perhaps widen your knowledge base and challenge some pretty shaky assumptions. As to me being "full of ****": how exactly are you in a position to judge this? You are trying to defend/push proposals that looks good on paper to someone with not enough knowledge but all sorts of opinions.

So I have tried to explain modern air superiority challenges and the realities of military procurement in terms of those proposals. I have provided citations and the depth of nearly a decade working in military force development.  And you want to go with "no I didn't and you are full of ****"...? Classy.

Edited 15 hours ago by The_Capt

[acrashb]

Nukes are back on the discussion table.  Zelenshy is providing a clear and simple articulation of what Ukraine and other mid-sized states are learning: without nukes, you're a tempting target for a great power (or would-be great power) with nukes.
 

 

[The_Capt]

Just now, acrashb said:

Nukes are back on the discussion table.  Zelenshy is providing a clear and simple articulation of what Ukraine and other mid-sized states are learning: without nukes, you're a tempting target for a great power (or would-be great power) with nukes.
 

 

Yeesh, well this is going to open up an old can of worms.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Girkin is back from the dead with one of his bigger doom posts (transcribed from a letter)

In the Russian information space this is incredibly damming. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1g5r28p/more_footage_of_the_himars_cluster_munition/

More / better footage of the recent hits on a training area for snipers, cluster GMLRs were right on target. 

[paxromana]

There's going to a lot of states in areas close to Nuclear armed lunatics who will be considering the same option. Realistically, there doesn't seem to be any other choice with nutjobs like Putin, Xi, Kim and, soon, the Mad Mullahs.

[billbindc]

25 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Nukes are back on the discussion table.  Zelenshy is providing a clear and simple articulation of what Ukraine and other mid-sized states are learning: without nukes, you're a tempting target for a great power (or would-be great power) with nukes.
 

 

"NATO or nukes" is not going to sell anybody on greater aid, however much I understand the stresses driving the declaration for a number of reasons...not least of which that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to make and certainly cannot use a nuclear weapon without becoming the sort of pariah state Russia already is. Pakistan-on-the-Dnipro is the precise opposite of what everyone...including Ukrainians...is fighting for.  

[billbindc]

3 minutes ago, paxromana said:

There's going to a lot of states in areas close to Nuclear armed lunatics who will be considering the same option. Realistically, there doesn't seem to be any other choice with nutjobs like Putin, Xi, Kim and, soon, the Mad Mullahs.

This is the precise reason why one of the American presidential candidates is so utterly dangerous. American keeps its commitments and alliances or the world becomes a much more precarious place. 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, acrashb said:

Nukes are back on the discussion table.  Zelenshy is providing a clear and simple articulation of what Ukraine and other mid-sized states are learning: without nukes, you're a tempting target for a great power (or would-be great power) with nukes.
 

 

See below...

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Girkin is back from the dead with one of his bigger doom posts (transcribed from a letter)

In the Russian information space this is incredibly damming. 

Can somebody post the text, I have expended my twitter allotment for the day already. 

52 minutes ago, paxromana said:

There's going to a lot of states in areas close to Nuclear armed lunatics who will be considering the same option. Realistically, there doesn't seem to be any other choice with nutjobs like Putin, Xi, Kim and, soon, the Mad Mullahs.

See below

48 minutes ago, billbindc said:

"NATO or nukes" is not going to sell anybody on greater aid, however much I understand the stresses driving the declaration for a number of reasons...not least of which that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to make and certainly cannot use a nuclear weapon without becoming the sort of pariah state Russia already is. Pakistan-on-the-Dnipro is the precise opposite of what everyone...including Ukrainians...is fighting for.  

see below

47 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is the precise reason why one of the American presidential candidates is so utterly dangerous. American keeps its commitments and alliances or the world becomes a much more precarious place. 

And here we come to the crux of the whole war. Ukraine, is fighting for, and hoping for a lot of things. The FIRST thing Ukraine is fighting for is not to become an open air concentration camp. To paraphrase the the guys who wrote the U.S. Constitution, that focuses ones attention. Having said that I will get back to Ukraines situation in a moment. Look at it from the perspective of every other midsize country with bad neighbors. Zelensky just said the quiet part out loud, you either have a CREDIBLE nuclear umbrella from sort of alliance, or you need full wartime panic level A-bomb program to avoid going through what Ukraine has gone through, and is at risk of going through.

The war in Ukraine has ALREADY made the case that Poland, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, and everybody body else who conceivably could build a bomb should already have started. Because Putin has waved his magical nuclear stick and made Biden hesitate, not once, but over and over again. Now you can argue that was in the best interest of the U.S., but Ukraine has paid for every one of those hesitations with blood, and territory. And the rest of the world has noticed.

Now we get to Trump, and Zelensky saying the quiet part out loud. It Trump wins Ukraine is bleeped. They probably can't put a bomb together in their current circumstances, and there is real risk of becoming Xinjiang on the Dnipro. But every other country i just mentioned is going to be knocked right out their political inertia on this issue, and the price of yellow cake ore is going to go up, A LOT. I would also look at investing suppliers of the machinery to make and machine maraging steel.

Quote

 

https://www.silex.com.au/silex-technology/silex-uranium-enrichment-technology/

The Separation of Isotopes by Laser EXcitation (SILEX) process is the only third-generation enrichment technology known to be in the advanced stages of commercial development today. The SILEX technology can effectively enrich uranium through highly selective laser excitation of the ²³⁵UF₆ isotopic molecule to produce ‘reactor fuel grade’ uranium which contains an assay of U²³⁵ of around 5%. UF₆ is the fluorinated gaseous form of uranium, which is made via chemical conversion from the uranium oxide produced by miners.

 

Furthermore building a bomb is NOT getting harder. The basics of the system above are now well known, and there will be a line to steal and copy this tech when the panic hits. Like the bomb itself, just KNOWING that it is possible is 80% of the battle.

Who else is trying to make it to Nov 5th without taking up day drinking?

Edited 14 hours ago by dan/california

[ArmouredTopHat]

10 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Can somebody post the text, I have expended my twitter allotment for the day already. 

[billbindc]

5 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Because Putin has waved his magical nuclear stick and made Biden hesitate, not once, but over and over again. Now you can argue that was in the best interest of the U.S., but Ukraine has paid for every one of those hesitations with blood, and territory. And the rest of the world has noticed.

I'm sorry but this is deeply misguided. Ukraine hasn't been conquered. Russia has suffered over 600,000 casualties. The Biden administration began work on aid, diplomatic cooperation with allies and confronting Putin directly in April of 2021 directly in the face of statutory and political obstacles put in their way by Republicans in Congress. It is barking madness to assume that escalation issues, UA absorption issues, legislative processes will just evaporate and because they didn't it's the Biden administration's fault. 

The danger isn't that any serious national security team among our allies is worried about Biden's commitment. Indeed, in places like Germany they are worried it is too committed. The danger is that the alternative gets elected. 

[sburke]

Play nice you two or I'll have to separate you and tell your father.

It is an interesting discussion you are having, but when it drops to the level of a 10 year old it kind of detracts.

 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

"no I didn't and you are full of ****"...? Classy.

2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I did not ask for the how and why it takes 16 years, I asked you to demonstrate that I did not know it takes 16 years. Your response is a complete non-sequitur. I don't need to play $750 to prove you're full of **** on this point. You did that all on your own for free.

I don't think I have ever said anything like that in my life. Weird.

[dan/california]

14 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I'm sorry but this is deeply misguided. Ukraine hasn't been conquered. Russia has suffered over 600,000 casualties. The Biden administration began work on aid, diplomatic cooperation with allies and confronting Putin directly in April of 2021 directly in the face of statutory and political obstacles put in their way by Republicans in Congress. It is barking madness to assume that escalation issues, UA absorption issues, legislative processes will just evaporate and because they didn't it's the Biden administration's fault. 

The danger isn't that any serious national security team among our allies is worried about Biden's commitment. Indeed, in places like Germany they are worried it is too committed. The danger is that the alternative gets elected. 

It may be misguided, but it is not an unreasonable reading of what has happened in the last three years. And i freely concede that Biden has gotten a lot right. He did a fantastic job with the pre war diplomacy. He did a fantastic job with the initial sanctions. He has handled a lot of the aspects of this very well. But at the end of the day Russia is still trying like bleep to roll all the way to the Polish border, and Ukrainians are dying every hour to prevent that.

Please note I am not saying Putin has won, he hasn't won anything but shell blasted wasteland, and and incomprehensible number of Russian graves. I am looking at this from Ukraines point of view, And from the point of view of a lot of other countries with unfriendly neighbors. 

If Ukraine was getting the level of air and missile defence support that Israel is, this would be a different discussion.

Edited 14 hours ago by dan/california