How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Lieutenant Ash]

South Korean intelligence has confirmed that North Korean troops were trained in Russia and then deployed to assist Russian forces in their war effort against Ukraine.

These soldiers have been sent to the Russian Kursk region to help contain Ukraine’s counteroffensive, following reports of depleted Russian manpower.

 

A Chinese mercenary fighting for Russia, Dian Yuzhang, recently claimed that North Korean soldiers have already faced casualties shortly after arriving in Ukraine.

In a conversation with another mercenary, Yuzhang revealed that "in a single day, eight people died, including senior officers," as they discussed the harsh conditions on the front lines.

This information, shared on social media, further emphasizes the challenges these troops are experiencing in their deployment.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/north-korean-troops-already-suffer-losses-in-russia-as-eight-officers-die-in-a-day/ar-AA1sGSly?ocid=socialshare&pc=NMTS&cvid=040547461ad241228d99e236bd064c0a&ei=32#comments

'Slave soldiers sold to a foreign power, sent to die in someone else's war.' - NK troops already dying in Kursk.

[The_Capt]

23 minutes ago, poesel said:

I'll ignore the drivel and stick to the facts that are relevant to this thread.

Military and civilian physics are the same.

The system as advertised in the article will have a very limited range of probably hundreds of meters. This could be extended by using a more powerful laser, but whoever designed this has most likely put in some thoughts on diminishing returns and chosen this power. From this, physics dictates what it can do or not, even if we don't know the specifics of the system.

Measuring IR is a bit like collecting water in buckets (each bucket a pixel). You wait a while, measure the water level (thereby deriving the energy), empty the buckets and repeat. The laser has much more specific power than natural sources (including jet engines) from radiation. This will immediately fill all buckets, effectively blinding the sensor. It is possible, that the laser even permanently damages or destroys the sensor.
If the missile looses track during that time, it is defeated.

Against aircraft directly, distance is the most problematic. In modern air battles, the opponents seldom have each other in viewing distance.
Let's assume we somehow ended up in a close up dogfight.
Could the laser blind the pilot? If he looked into it with the naked eye, the answer is probably yes. But, IIRC, blinding weapons are forbidden, and the pilot has a canopy and a visor. Any of them could (can?) block IR.
Apart from the pilot's eyes, only the IR sensors on the IR missiles are susceptible to IR blinding.

In a ground role, this system would be much less useful. The range would limit it to objects flying <1000m (a guess). Then you need to find and track that object with precision (at this point, you could as well use a kinetic weapon to destroy it). Then the object needs to have an IR sensor which needs to look halfway into your direction.
May be useful but makes you very detectable. Normal digital cameras are very good at detecting IR (try to point a remote IR into your camera, and you will see the red point).

I don't have to add anything more to this discussion. But at least I learned something new about laser optics.

 

P.S.:  IR sensors are relatively old tech. Giving the recent improvements in image recognition, I wonder how soon we will see missiles that track in visible light.

Ya ok, I think we can do that. The problem with the original article was the use of the word "destroyed". To destroy something has a specific meaning in military lexicons. It is different from neutralize. Which is different from Suppress. 

https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/iobc/cae3lp.htm#:~:text=MISSIONS%3A Suppress%2C Neutralize%2C or,long time (or permanently).

(The artillery is acting like they invented it but Engineers use roughly the same lexicon).

To Destroy something is to render it totally inoperable, permanently. It also has a metric for battlefield recovery. If we aim to destroy a target, we are talking about leaving it not only inoperable but also unrecoverable.

To Neutralize something is different. It means to render inoperable temporarily. This is normally done by attacking a sub-system component. It really means to "render inert" but such a system can still be recovered. 

To Suppress, essentially means to reduce effectiveness or "make life harder" so the system cannot do its job as well, for as long as it is under effect of the suppressor. 

So what you are describing above is a suppression system. It likely dazzles the missile tracking system without permanently damage to a sub system. The problem we are having is with the language in the original article which started this whole thing off. It specifically claims that missiles were "destroyed." This is not the work of a small low energy system with only a few hundred meters range. In order to track, engage and put enough energy onto a target moving in at over 3000 km/hr (that is roughly a km per second - using the AIM-9 as an analogue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder), we are talking about an extremely high energy system with a targeting system just shy of the Eye of God.

I am not unfamiliar with physics either - in fact my undergraduate degree was in the subject. And the physics of such as system speak to technology we have not seen on the battlefield before. Further, such a system would be absolutely lethal to AC, a much larger target and much slower than a missile. In fact even a "jamming laser" able to neutralize A-A missiles would be a game changer and very dangerous to AC, who have vulnerable onboard systems of their own.

The "So What?" in all this is that a subset of thread followers seem to be chasing Holy Grail technology solutions to the shifts in warfare we are seeing. This is natural as 1) technology brought on those shifts and 2) we live in a high tech culture..."got a problem? Get new tech." This line has been sold to us for over hundred years. The major problem with this thinking is that any wonder technology that can sweep an enemy from the ground or sky, allowing us freedom of manoeuvre again, is going to quickly become a threat to that freedom. For example, if I have a C4ISR system that can detect, track and effectively engage 50 small bird sized drones with 100% results...what happens when I point that system to enemy troops? Hell with that level of resolution, I can shoot the roadwheels off a tank kms out. 

My central thesis is that I do not think more technology is going to somehow save us. In fact it will likely make things worse. We are looking at organizational and functional adaptations at this point. Rubbing more high tech onto our legacy systems - even if they do work as advertised - just makes for more dangerous threats when that same high tech gets pointed at us. 

This is the irony of projecting that I claim "everything can be seen from space". I do not believe this is the case, yet - as I have explained. But to be able to rapidly detect and track multiple threats as being described in some of these solutions, in itself will create an entirely transparent battlespace. I know from personal experience just how hard it is to detect, track and engage a single person in combat. Trying to do so against multiple systems, many smaller than a person, will create an environment where the poor large hot steel vehicle stands out like a dinosaur. 

We are in for a bumpy ride here. No snazzy shortcuts or Silicon Valley last minute solutions. Strap in.

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Some interesting thoughts and ruminations from Andrew. Ill quote the post below for those who cant access twitter as readily. 

 

Quote

Over the past year we have seen drones change in many ways, and also stay the same. We have seen fads come and go. For example, there was a period of time where drones cooperated at a hugely significant level, and that has seemingly stopped. We've seen dive bomber drones go from high speed precision weapons to slow and deliberate weapons.

With FPVs we have seen many experiments. Some succeeded, some failed. We saw experiments with enormous, oversized bombs. With nightvision of all sorts. In the beginning, Russians used very high quality nightvision and Ukraine tended to use much lesser quality. Now it might be the opposite, or at least it often feels that way. We've seen FPV drones branch out into new subtypes with fundamentally different use cases. Incendiary fpv drones have become very popular. As have the dragon breath style incendiary drones. We've also seen interceptors for taking out recon drones.

More than anything, we've seen Russia and Ukraine increasingly entrench themselves in different styles of piloting. Russian pilots utilize much higher speeds, often choosing to dive upon a target from a huge distance away. Very often this leads to misses, but the element of surprise might be valuable. Ukrainian drones are more deliberate in their use, often circling targets before attacking, looking for an opportunity. This is most obvious with the madyar pilots who are systematically destroying individual pieces of howitzers to disable them. Warheads have become increasingly deadly, with far more shrapnel moving at far greater velocities and far greater lethal blast radius. Bombs have also grown in size dramatically.

Generally speaking, we see far more drones dropped, and those that are dropped are far larger and more lethal. The ratio of FPV drones to drone drops appears to be skewing ever more towards drone drops. We've seen specialize bombers develop. The heavy bombers are the most obvious, but there are other specialists as well. Queen Hornet often acts as a specialist heavy dive bomber. There are other octocopters which operate as high speed long range bombers capable of delivering huge warheads over long distances at incredible speeds. To sum it up: nightvision drones are more popular, heavy bombers are more popular and more specialized, bombs are larger and more deadly, and drone tactics less creative.

 

[fireship4]

On 10/21/2024 at 10:59 AM, The_Capt said:

With all due respect to the General, NATO official views on Russia after this war are political. NATO as a military alliance is highly invested in Russia remaining a credible threat. There is significant funding being allocated to that threat from all nations, and no small drive from the US to pressure alliance members into more spending. For all that to make sense, Russia has to remain a major threat.

This is a conspiracy theory level explanation, and not even wrong.

US heavily invest in bridge building, so bridges must keep falling apart in future, so make them cheaply, which is the reason bridges are falling apart, which caused the US to heavily invest in bridge building, which incentivised them to make the bridges so they don't last long, which is the reason bridges are falling apart, etc.

It's not that there isn't any truth in that paragraph, but there are causes, and there are forces, and things can be overdetermined.  The above is circular, so unless you think the first bridge collapsed because of the infrastructure-industrial complex, there should be other explanations, not to mention the idea that people are just victims of history is quite the dangerous one.  God forbid someone was elected who had an idea in their head and made decisions to solve a problem creatively.  How unpredictable!

Your example seems to suggest we could make Russia less of a threat by investing less in our militaries, or win the war by getting Russia to invest more in their military.

It's fair to say that some people would worry that governments spending more on the military, and then finding it was a waste might harm the military they are invested in in some fashion.

Also that some people would like to spend less on the military and more on other things.

Some people want Russia not to be a threat in future, and to have less need to invest in military projects, and turn our drones into plougshares.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Pretty interesting dataset that maintains the trend of FPVs being especially lethal to abandoned vehicles to prevent recovery. Absurd IFV losses in particular. 

Most artillery losses being inflicted by FPV drones is also an interesting datapoint. 

Yeah, a long time ago it hit me that one of the most interesting aspects of FPVs and UAS bombers is that they are cheaply and efficiently removing huge amounts of otherwise recoverable vehicles from the battlefield.  Permanently.

Another realization is FPVs and UAS bombers are doing a similar thing to surviving personnel, especially at significant distance from the front.  In past wars if someone survived their truck being blown up 2km behind the line by an air strike or lucky artillery hit, returning to useful service was likely minutes or hours later.  Now?  We've seen endless examples of individuals being effectively targeted in situations that previously would have been safe or required a much higher expenditure of effort (e.g. dozens of rounds of artillery).

Cheap UAS has changed a lot of things on the battlefield.  The economics of warfare being the most significant of them.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

25 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

This is a conspiracy theory level explanation, and not even wrong.

US heavily invest in bridge building, so bridges must keep falling apart in future, so make them cheaply, which is the reason bridges are falling apart, which caused the US to heavily invest in bridge building, which incentivised them to make the bridges so they don't last long, which is the reason bridges are falling apart, etc.

It's not that there isn't any truth in that paragraph, but there are causes, and there are forces, and things can be overdetermined.  The above is circular, so unless you think the first bridge collapsed because of the infrastructure-industrial complex, there should be other explanations, not to mention the idea that people are just victims of history is quite the dangerous one.  God forbid someone was elected who had an idea in their head and made decisions to solve a problem creatively.  How unpredictable!

It's not that simple and your bridge analogy is not correct.  In the US the emphasis has been building bridges that last longer and are "built right" (i.e. reduced liability of failure), which has driven the cost up. 

New innovations are in various forms of development to try to bring the costs down while also resulting in a bridge that lasts longer and are "built right".  The adoption of these new technologies is slow and uneven because they require entirely new ways of constructing a bridge. 

The private companies responsible for bridge building aren't incentivized well enough for them to willingly adopt the technologies because either they increase their short term costs (training, new equipment, new risks, etc.) while at the same time reducing their profits.  10% of $10m is not the same as 10% of $7m.

Government is reluctant to force industry to adopt the new tech for a variety of reasons, some of which are proper (risk aversion) some of which are not (whores and nose candy, or just old fashioned brown bags of money).  And if you think the latter is a conspiracy theory... remind me to tell you the story of my dad's friend who was the building inspector for a one of the most important US cities and how he found himself in an orange jumpsuit behind bars.  Or just look at any headline featuring the name "Mayor Adams".

Sooo...

Analogies are problematic because they often are constructed based on a person's understanding of a situation.

What The_Capt described is fact.  There could be an entire section of a good library on the topic.  In fact, President Eisenhower used his last moment of Presidential attention to highlight the corruption problems associated with the "military industrial complex".  He apparently waited TWO YEARS to give this speech.  Why?  Because he probably thought it would be detrimental to his Presidency :

That was more than 60 years ago.  Anybody that doesn't think military spending is based on true need, true cost, and true effectiveness is not living in the same world I'm living in.

25 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

Your example seems to suggest we could make Russia less of a threat by investing less in our militaries, or win the war by getting Russia to invest more in their military.

The fact is the US could invest a lot less in its military and force Russia to invest a lot more *IF* the US made better choices about what it invests in.  Spending trillions on programs which appear to be at the end of their lives instead of billions into more effective replacements, which then causes Russia to have to invest in things they aren't currently set up to produce.  That's what he is saying and he is spot on.

Steve

[billbindc]

16 hours ago, CHARLIE43 said:

Well, I suppose that it would only be a good idea if you have already been spotted and are being chased by one of those detonating thing-a-ma-bobs. At which point you blind it and then get hammered by arty anyway. IDK, just a thought.

Sorry if this is a dumb question but does one need to use a visible wavelength to make it work?

[Carolus]

War became more organic, more dynamic. There is a reason bacteria are considered more evolutionary successful than elephants. 

You need to be able to expand and contract production as well as iterate designs quickly to counter the iterations of the other side.

Production methods like 3D printing and CAD make this easier. 

Ukraine might have found an almost ideal approach by chance: Dozens of small volunteer garages are experimenting until their product works well and then scale production with the help of donations. The best designs get picked up by government-owned weapon manufacturers and really go into scaled production, optimizing prices.

Russia also has volunteer groups (which are inventive) but the overall drone  production started on a larger and more centralized scale earlier and as a result we saw RA complain about lagging behind whenever a technological change came about, because the larger production cycles cannot iterate quickly enough to be price competitive and thus have to be slower.

War will take on an aspect that is very much like the war between antibiotics and bacteria in the medical field.

Adding computer simulations which are being live-fed with battlefield data to the iteration steps could accelerate this process even more.

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:17 PM by Carolus

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, fireship4 said:

This is a conspiracy theory level explanation, and not even wrong.

US heavily invest in bridge building, so bridges must keep falling apart in future, so make them cheaply, which is the reason bridges are falling apart, which caused the US to heavily invest in bridge building, which incentivised them to make the bridges so they don't last long, which is the reason bridges are falling apart, etc.

It's not that there isn't any truth in that paragraph, but there are causes, and there are forces, and things can be overdetermined.  The above is circular, so unless you think the first bridge collapsed because of the infrastructure-industrial complex, there should be other explanations, not to mention the idea that people are just victims of history is quite the dangerous one.  God forbid someone was elected who had an idea in their head and made decisions to solve a problem creatively.  How unpredictable!

Your example seems to suggest we could make Russia less of a threat by investing less in our militaries, or win the war by getting Russia to invest more in their military.

It's fair to say that some people would worry that governments spending more on the military, and then finding it was a waste might harm the military they are invested in in some fashion.

Also that some people would like to spend less on the military and more on other things.

Some people want Russia not to be a threat in future, and to have less need to invest in military projects, and turn our drones into plougshares.

You bridge analogy is kinda losing me, but Steve answered this one pretty well already.

If you read my follow on posts, you will see that there are nuances here you are missing. After this war Russia will remain a ten-year-out threat on the ground, which means we still need to get ready. But the nature of that threat will likely evolve far beyond what really looks like a panic-buy reaction from the West happening right now.

We may very well spend more on our military power...but is has to be smart spending for the threats Russia are likely to create once they pull themselves back together. I took exception to the Generals "Russia will come out of this war stronger than ever" because that is proposing that we need to be ready for a conventional war with Russia the day after this war ends. This of course plays very well into MIC wanting to cash in on the fears that have emerged in the Western world.

If we need to be ready to go to war with Russia in say 2026...well we need to buy whatever we can get our hands on..right now! Oh, look, industry has all sorts of really expensive high tech stuff...let's buy that. Oh, look, the US president is pressuring for 2% GDP on defence...and where can we buy more stuff?!

None of this is accurate. While we are definitely going to need military forces, and Russia will definitely remain a threat. However, the next ten years will about a competitive race for adaptation. Whoever can adapt to this emerging environment will be ready to fight the next war.

If the good General had stated "We know Russia is bleeding out in this war. But we also know they will be back. They will have benefited from the experiences and lessons learned from this war. They are going to roll that experience into building for the future. We need to be ready for the next-RA, not the last one that died in the fields of Ukraine. We have ten years to be ready, the clock starts now." I would be the first to stand up and clap. But to be fair to him, he is in a political position and is far more constrained thana lot of people will believe. 

 

[The_Capt]

15 minutes ago, Carolus said:

War became more organic, more dynamic. There is a reason bacteria are considered more evolutionary successful than elephants. 

You need to be able to expand and contract production as well as iterate designs quickly to counter the iterations of the other side.

Production methods like 3D printing and CAD make this easier. 

Ukraine might have found an almost ideal approach by chance: Dozens of small volunteer garages are experimenting until their product works well and then scale production with the help of donations. The best designs get picked up by government-owned weapon manufacturers and really go into scaled production, optimizing prices.

Russia also has volunteer groups (which are inventive) but the overall drone  production started on a larger and more centralized scale earlier and as a result we saw RA complain about lagging behind whenever a technological change came about, because the larger production cycles cannot iterate quickly enough to be price competitive and thus have to be slower.

War will take on an aspect that is very much like the war between antibiotics and bacteria in the medical field.

Adding computer simulations which are being live-fed with battlefield data to the iteration steps could accelerate this process even more.

 

Ok...now this is very good. 

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, Carolus said:

War became more organic, more dynamic. There is a reason bacteria are considered more evolutionary successful than elephants. 

You need to be able to expand and contract production as well as iterate designs quickly to counter the iterations of the other side.

Production methods like 3D printing and CAD make this easier. 

Ukraine might have found an almost ideal approach by chance: Dozens of small volunteer garages are experimenting until their product works well and then scale production with the help of donations. The best designs get picked up by government-owned weapon manufacturers and really go into scaled production, optimizing prices.

Russia also has volunteer groups (which are inventive) but the overall drone  production started on a larger and more centralized scale earlier and as a result we saw RA complain about lagging behind whenever a technological change came about, because the larger production cycles cannot iterate quickly enough to be price competitive and thus have to be slower.

War will take on an aspect that is very much like the war between antibiotics and bacteria in the medical field.

Adding computer simulations which are being live-fed with battlefield data to the iteration steps could accelerate this process even more.

 

Perun's recent video on Ukraine's war economy (and the Russian economy video before that) highlighted the major differences in terms of who is coming up with stuff and how it gets to the battlefield. 

As you pointed out, Ukraine's ideas are coming from small shops, perfected there, directly tested by units in combat, and then having the successful designs produced on a larger scale.  Part of what drives the latter is the military units in the field saying "this works, we want more of it!".  Which then gets those designs put into larger scale production by private sector companies, many of which appear to be relatively independent vs. part of some massive defense company. 

Russia, on the other hand, has its production coming mostly coming from "design bureaus" and managed by government owned enterprises.  The innovative Russian volunteer designs are fed into this system instead of being separate from it like Ukraine.  The nature of the Russian government procurement system is, well, let's just say not exactly conducive to delivering quality products to its customers.

Steve

[poesel]

Ukraine produces video for their "I want to live" project in Korean:

"Surrender! Ukraine will give you shelter, food, and warmth." The "I Want to Live" project addressed North Korean soldiers, who were sent to fight alongside Russia against the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in Korean.

That is good advertising!

 

[acrashb]

23 minutes ago, Carolus said:

War became more organic, more dynamic. ]...]

Adding computer simulations which are being live-fed with battlefield data to the iteration steps could accelerate this process even more.

 

This speaks mostly to hardware, and I agree with it.

When we layer in software-centric warfare becoming more prominent (e.g., the imminent move from FPV to autonomous) than hardware-centric it is dramatically more dynamic, and potentially more organic (if certain algorithms start as FLOSS so our backyard coders have a beginning point).

Add in AI, when it becomes reliable (soon) for code enhancement and you have a lighting-fast OODA loop for software (and therefore capability) enhancements.  Drones could be - and will be - upgraded in field minutes after some other part of a drone swarm, somewhere else on the battlefield, learns or observes something. 

That isolated cabin with a wood stove (and IR concealment, somehow!) is looking better by the day.
 

[A Canadian Cat]

On 10/18/2024 at 2:56 PM, sburke said:

"Survivors?  Going home?  Who said anything about them coming home?" - Kim Jong Un

"Some of you may die but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make" - also Kim Jong Un - I think

[A Canadian Cat]

On 10/19/2024 at 8:51 AM, The_Capt said:

I can recall back in '14 when I first moved over to SOF, I got into a conversation with an operator. He was all on about how he loved combat and warfare. I told him straight up - "You love one small narrow type of combat and warfare; the type where you have complete overmatch and are basically hunting humans. Real war is something you have no exposure to." Needless to say that did not go over well but it was true. 

@The_Capt challenging conceptions since 2014 - at least.

[dan/california]

6 hours ago, Carolus said:

Slow progress on the economic front, the Western blockade having more leaks than a sieve, but progress is made nonetheless.

 

The pace of sanctions is whatever is slower than glacial...

16 minutes ago, acrashb said:

This speaks mostly to hardware, and I agree with it.

When we layer in software-centric warfare becoming more prominent (e.g., the imminent move from FPV to autonomous) than hardware-centric it is dramatically more dynamic, and potentially more organic (if certain algorithms start as FLOSS so our backyard coders have a beginning point).

Add in AI, when it becomes reliable (soon) for code enhancement and you have a lighting-fast OODA loop for software (and therefore capability) enhancements.  Drones could be - and will be - upgraded in field minutes after some other part of a drone swarm, somewhere else on the battlefield, learns or observes something. 

That isolated cabin with a wood stove (and IR concealment, somehow!) is looking better by the day.
 

The other thing that needs to be wrangled with maximum aggressiveness is standards for for interfaces between different parts and layers of the drone systems. The bolt patterns for the motors. the plugs for the batteries, the sockets for the cameras system, comms , control board, cpu, and  software APIs need to be consistent across the the inventory for a given class of drone, so that one piece of it getting obsoleted by innovation from the other side does not obsolete your entire production system. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:02 PM by dan/california

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The pace of sanctions is whatever is slower than glacial...

Tectonic plate movement?

[dan/california]

10 minutes ago, sburke said:

Tectonic plate movement?

There is still no public evidence of efforts to feed the Russian bad components either. Given the recent masterclass on supply chain attacks by a certain country I won't name you would think someone would get on that. 

[mosuri]

42 minutes ago, poesel said:

Ukraine produces video for their "I want to live" project in Korean:

"Surrender! Ukraine will give you shelter, food, and warmth." The "I Want to Live" project addressed North Korean soldiers, who were sent to fight alongside Russia against the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in Korean.

That is good advertising!

 

The thing is that if Ukraine manages to get a decent number of surrenders, the only fat person in north korea will call the rest back sharpish.

Which means you better surrender soon, norkie, or lose your chance!

If that's not enough, arrange an outdoor kimchi and barbecue banquet when the wind blows eastwards ...

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, mosuri said:

The thing is that if Ukraine manages to get a decent number of surrenders, the only fat person in north korea will call the rest back sharpish.

Which means you better surrender soon, norkie, or lose your chance!

If that's not enough, arrange an outdoor kimchi and barbecue banquet when the wind blows eastwards ...

I don't think it will matter much in this war, but in the long term a bunch of the theoretically better bits of the NORK military finding out that even relatively poor Russians eat regularly might be substantial.

[mosuri]

Apologies if this was already mentioned - it's from September - but another side of the barrel bottom is being scraped

 

[fireship4]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

It's not that simple and your bridge analogy is not correct.  In the US the emphasis has been building bridges that last longer and are "built right" (i.e. reduced liability of failure), which has driven the cost up. 

New innovations are in various forms of development to try to bring the costs down while also resulting in a bridge that lasts longer and are "built right".  The adoption of these new technologies is slow and uneven because they require entirely new ways of constructing a bridge. 

The private companies responsible for bridge building aren't incentivized well enough for them to willingly adopt the technologies because either they increase their short term costs (training, new equipment, new risks, etc.) while at the same time reducing their profits.  10% of $10m is not the same as 10% of $7m.

Government is reluctant to force industry to adopt the new tech for a variety of reasons, some of which are proper (risk aversion) some of which are not (whores and nose candy, or just old fashioned brown bags of money).  And if you think the latter is a conspiracy theory... remind me to tell you the story of my dad's friend who was the building inspector for a one of the most important US cities and how he found himself in an orange jumpsuit behind bars.  Or just look at any headline featuring the name "Mayor Adams".

Sooo...

Analogies are problematic because they often are constructed based on a person's understanding of a situation.

What The_Capt described is fact.  There could be an entire section of a good library on the topic.  In fact, President Eisenhower used his last moment of Presidential attention to highlight the corruption problems associated with the "military industrial complex".  He apparently waited TWO YEARS to give this speech.  Why?  Because he probably thought it would be detrimental to his Presidency :

You didn't take my point.

 

@The_Capt's post is in two parts.

The first part is what I responded to.  It suggests that NATO's desire is for Russia to remain a threat in future, so that they can justify the money they are spending on fighting it.  It dismisses what the general as saying (that Russia will in a sense be stronger after the war) as political speech, with ulterior motives, instead of making an argument that he is wrong.

This is a bad explanation.  It is claiming his argument is wrong because of who he is, and his incentives, not what he said.

As I said, I'm not saying there aren't FORCES in that direction, and some people have ideas like that they believe, just that they aren't causal. 

 

The second part, then actually tries to argue that he is wrong, which is good, but is rambling and self-contradictory, which is bad:

• Russia will have bad intent in the future
• Russia still has a powerful Air Force and Navy, and nukes
• Russia’s land forces are by far the most depleted and eroded by this war.
• The RA is gaining experience and adapting
• sanctions and economic pressures are making rebuilding of a viable land force harder
• So by the end of this war the Russian Army will not be “stronger”
• It may very well be larger
• equipment losses are outstripping production and even refurbishment.
• The losses in experienced people is brutal
• My best guess is the RA is a ten year problem for Russia to fix
• Yes Russia is "stronger"
• Anyway it's a foregone conclusion

Says the RA is both losing experienced men and gaining experience and adapting, apparently one effect is faster than the other, without explanation.  Then accepts the argument, then dismisses it again. 

It sounds like he has no argument and is just talking around the subject.

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The fact is the US could invest a lot less in its military and force Russia to invest a lot more *IF* the US made better choices about what it invests in.  Spending trillions on programs which appear to be at the end of their lives instead of billions into more effective replacements, which then causes Russia to have to invest in things they aren't currently set up to produce.  That's what he is saying and he is spot on.

At no point in his response did he say anything like this.

 

I was dismissing a type of argument that The_Capt was using by analogy to bridges.  I was saying that there is an idea that NATO/BAD CORPORATIONS want to provide for their future, and therefore MAKE CHEAP BRIDGE/SAY RUSSIA STRONG now.

I am not saying this idea does not exist, since I have just stated it.  But it is just an idea.  Some people in NATO may believe it.  Some in Russia believes the English establishment is their most fiendish opponent, pulling the strings since the beginning of the great game.

I am saying that it's a bad explanation for what this guy is saying, because it dismisses his reasoning, it's a bad explanation because it talks in terms of imagined incentives.

 

You enter and talk about incentives, bridge technology, and your dad's friend being put away by corrupt parties making money off construction contracts...  then post the Eisenhower military industrial complex video.  I won't re-iterate my previous arguments, but you've missed my point.

If your bridges aren't being built in the US it isn't because of "incentives" but it might have something to do with the idea of incentives.

Edited Wednesday at 05:00 PM by fireship4

[chrisl]

4 hours ago, poesel said:

I'll ignore the drivel and stick to the facts that are relevant to this thread.

Military and civilian physics are the same.

The system as advertised in the article will have a very limited range of probably hundreds of meters. This could be extended by using a more powerful laser, but whoever designed this has most likely put in some thoughts on diminishing returns and chosen this power. From this, physics dictates what it can do or not, even if we don't know the specifics of the system.

Measuring IR is a bit like collecting water in buckets (each bucket a pixel). You wait a while, measure the water level (thereby deriving the energy), empty the buckets and repeat. The laser has much more specific power than natural sources (including jet engines) from radiation. This will immediately fill all buckets, effectively blinding the sensor. It is possible, that the laser even permanently damages or destroys the sensor.
If the missile looses track during that time, it is defeated.

Against aircraft directly, distance is the most problematic. In modern air battles, the opponents seldom have each other in viewing distance.
Let's assume we somehow ended up in a close up dogfight.
Could the laser blind the pilot? If he looked into it with the naked eye, the answer is probably yes. But, IIRC, blinding weapons are forbidden, and the pilot has a canopy and a visor. Any of them could (can?) block IR.
Apart from the pilot's eyes, only the IR sensors on the IR missiles are susceptible to IR blinding.

In a ground role, this system would be much less useful. The range would limit it to objects flying <1000m (a guess). Then you need to find and track that object with precision (at this point, you could as well use a kinetic weapon to destroy it). Then the object needs to have an IR sensor which needs to look halfway into your direction.
May be useful but makes you very detectable. Normal digital cameras are very good at detecting IR (try to point a remote IR into your camera, and you will see the red point).

I don't have to add anything more to this discussion. But at least I learned something new about laser optics.

 

P.S.:  IR sensors are relatively old tech. Giving the recent improvements in image recognition, I wonder how soon we will see missiles that track in visible light.

A basic problem with mounting a dazzler on the target object is that it's also a beacon.  If the IR targeting system has attenuators or a low sensitivity, highly tolerant backup sensor (e.g. a handful of cheap photodiodes) you dazzled the high sensitivity sensor while giving the cheap sensor an easy target.  It would be more effective (and not particularly hard) to use a pulsed laser that would take advantage of the targeting system's own optics to permanently damage the sensors.

[fireship4]

I'll put my edit here:

PS @Battlefront.com I was dealing with one post (and yours), and making an argument about what they said, in as much as it is all one thing.  I can go in and tease out contradictions but can't participate in a symposium.  16 posts added in the time I've written my answer.  Apologies to you and  @The_Capt if I'm terse, or if you eventually had a different point, but that's my general gripe: if more time was spent thinking instead of typing, less time would be required to read all the posts trying to get to a salient point.

Edited Wednesday at 05:01 PM by fireship4

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, fireship4 said:

The second part, then actually tries to argue that he is wrong, which is good, but is rambling and self-contradictory, which is bad:

• Russia will have bad intent in the future
• Russia still has a powerful Air Force and Navy, and nukes
• Russia’s land forces are by far the most depleted and eroded by this war.
• The RA is gaining experience and adapting
• sanctions and economic pressures are making rebuilding of a viable land force harder
• So by the end of this war the Russian Army will not be “stronger”
• It may very well be larger
• equipment losses are outstripping production and even refurbishment.
• The losses in experienced people is brutal
• My best guess is the RA is a ten year problem for Russia to fix
• Yes Russia is "stronger"
• Anyway it's a foregone conclusion

Says the RA is both losing experienced men and gaining experience and adapting, apparently one effect is faster than the other, without explanation.  Then accepts the argument, then dismisses it again. 

It sounds like he has no argument and is just talking around the subject.

 

1 hour ago, fireship4 said:

I'll put my edit here:

PS @Battlefront.com I was dealing with one post (and yours), and making an argument about what they said, in as much as it is all one thing.  I can go in and tease out contradictions but can't participate in a symposium.  16 posts added in the time I've written my answer.  Apologies to you and  @The_Capt if I'm terse, or if you eventually had a different point, but that's my general gripe: if more time was spent thinking instead of typing, less time would be required to read all the posts trying to get to a salient point.

Yeesh, well sorry this isn't the assessment you were looking for...shall I call for the head waiter? This is an open forum with all a sorts of ideas, if you don't like it...well it is a big internet. Or you could come in here like an entitled twit and start insulting everyone...you do you. 

So the answer is "All of the above. All at once."  

Do you actually have a question here? Everyone of those points up there is correct. Russia is losing men and equipment at an unsustainable rate, while at the same time gaining experience in modern warfare - say, as compared to our western militaries who have not fired a shot. WW1 had horrid loss rates, an entire generation died in those killing fields. Yet adaptation and evolution of warfare after WW1 advanced like a house on fire. 

How about I boil it down nice and simple - Russia doesn't like us. After we helped kill about 100k of its people...it really isn't going to like us. It is in bad shape and will take at least ten more years to rebuild something into a credible land force. While it is trying to do that, it is going to be under economic pressures, because wars are expensive. So rather than react like Russia is going to come out of this war ready to invade Poland, because that is a very low probability - why don't we treat this like a ten year problem and really start planning ahead? Rather than, say, spending billions in the next three to five years on solutions that were a better fit for the RA that just got KO'd? The good general is playing the "Big Russian Threat " card because the reality is pretty complicated and he knows politicians will lose interest, as will the public. My point was to try and peel that position back a bit - I am pretty confident the General knows the real score but he has to play the hand he is dealt as well.

Look, strategy is hard...very hard. It is filled with contradictions and opposing ideas that can all be true at the same time. In fact strategy is trying to thread a needle of a solution through all those concepts in tensions, as well as interests and fears. So while you are waving the "this sounds like there is no argument" stick around, did you maybe think that you don't fully understand all the issues at play? Maybe you could ask a few good questions for clarification? Maybe work on trying to understand it better?

"Hey Capt...I read your post and I don't understand XYZ...could you explain?" Might be a better approach than whatever this is.

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:30 PM by The_Capt