War

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Ukraine war shows limits of drone warfare
In early June, as the U.S. was rushing to provide financial and military support for Ukraine, reports said that four American-made Gray Eagle drones would be part of the package. These are armed drones that are larger than the well-known Predator drone, which became a symbol of the global war on terror. However, the planned sale of these few expensive, complex drones has run into some hurdles because of concern that they might get shot down and their sophisticated systems could fall into Russian hands.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it put a renewed spotlight on the use of armed drones in conventional wars: The world saw how armed drones might work when both countries have them — and both have air defenses that can shoot them down. Previously, countries that had a plethora of drones generally were fighting wars against insurgents or groups/countries that didn’t have drones. This was the case with the U.S. experience in Afghanistan, for example.

Early reports from Ukraine said that Ukraine’s two dozen Turkish Bayraktar drones, a UAV that is smaller than the Predator, were able to take out Russian forces. One report praised these drones for changing the “nature of warfare.” However, now reports about the success of the Bayraktar in Ukraine have slackened. It’s unclear whether the drones are simply not operating near the new front lines in the Donbas, or whether they are running low on the missiles they use.

The nature of drone warfare is that it is clandestine; militaries don’t acknowledge that their drones may not be working well. In a conflict where everyone has smartphones, if drones are being used someone probably will take videos of them. This is because drones tend to be loud, like a flying lawnmower, and you can often see or hear them from the ground. The Associated Press reported that a video posted online on June 22 showed an alleged Ukrainian kamikaze drone flying into a Russian refinery.

Western countries want to supply Ukraine with armaments and a variety of drones are on the shopping list, including kamikaze drones such as the small Switchblade made in the U.S. These won’t turn the tide anytime soon. In eastern Ukraine, where fighters in Kyiv face a tough battle with Russian troops, the limits of drone warfare appear to be on display. Conventional weapons, such as masses of artillery, are wreaking havoc. With only a few complex armed drones, Ukraine can’t afford to use or lose its drones.

The “era of the drone” hasn’t arrived because countries that use them often don’t deploy enough of them, or are afraid to lose them in battle. In conflicts where they have been used, such as in Libya, they didn’t turn the tide. Despite widespread employment, drones didn’t stop the Taliban in Afghanistan. One can blame wider political policies for this result, asserting that countries simply haven’t given drone operators free rein to use them successfully.

Nevertheless, the current limitations on use of drones in war is related to the supply of drones and operating guidelines for their use. To wage a large-scale drone war, the countries that use them need more than a few armed drones — and they need to not fear losing some of them. The whole point of unmanned aerial vehicles is that they can be used for dull, dirty, dangerous missions, especially those in which a country doesn’t want to risk sacrificing pilots.
Simple cheap drones using off the shelf components that are protected from jamming by directed transmission, digital encryption and automatic frequency shifting. Most suicide missions would be GPS guided and even terminally guided by lasers from another drone if required. Then there is starlink and there are no secrets there, just access which Uncle Sam controls. Expensive drones with lot's a secrets are ok for somethings, but simplicity, good design and low costs are appropriate for others. Drones will become less of a factor as defenses against them become better, but right now the Russians don't have much. Plane type drones are cheap, easy to make and could carry the equivalent explosive destruction of a 155mm artillery shell. They can have a range of hundreds of kilometers and an accuracy of a couple of meters using commercial GPS and might even be cheaper than an artillery shell at under $10K each, if mass produced. Parts like gas engines, servos and electronics get dramatically cheaper when bought by the container load.
 

printer

Well-Known Member
Simple cheap drones using off the shelf components that are protected from jamming by directed transmission, digital encryption and automatic frequency shifting. Most suicide missions would be GPS guided and even terminally guided by lasers from another drone if required. Then there is starlink and there are no secrets there, just access which Uncle Sam controls. Expensive drones with lot's a secrets are ok for somethings, but simplicity, good design and low costs are appropriate for others. Drones will become less of a factor as defenses against them become better, but right now the Russians don't have much. Plane type drones are cheap, easy to make and could carry the equivalent explosive destruction of a 155mm artillery shell. They can have a range of hundreds of kilometers and an accuracy of a couple of meters using commercial GPS and might even be cheaper than an artillery shell at under $10K each, if mass produced. Parts like gas engines, servos and electronics get dramatically cheaper when bought by the container load.
"It would depend on two primary factors:The caliber. The higher the caliber, the more expensive it’s going to be.The shell type. The most basic shell would be a high explosive shell, but there are many other types of artillery shells: different types of anti-tank shells, illumination shells, smoke screen shells, high-precision guided shells, cluster shells (that burst in the air and disperse sub-munitions over the targeted area), rocket-boosted high-range shells, radio jamming shells, etc.M795, a simple 155 mm HE shell costs about $400.M982 Excalibur, a GPS guided shell costs over $60,000.Besides the shell, there are more components to the cost of an artillery shot:The fuse. It’s the component screwed on top of the shell, giving it the signal to explode (or to activate in some other way, if it’s a special shell). A simple contact fuse activates when the shell hits the target (or maybe a bit later, allowing the shell to penetrate deeper and explode later) is cheap. More sophisticated time fuses or proximity fuses allow the shell to explode in the air, and are more expensive.Propelling charge. In calibers over ~122 mm, there are no unitary rounds, but rather the shell and the propelling charge are loaded separately. Often it’s possible to load a partial charge, rather than a full one. These are rather cheap.Propelling charge for 155 mm NATO artillery, supplied in a string of fabric bags:Russian 152 mm shell and its corresponding hard-cased propelling charge:The primer. The primer is similar to a high-caliber dummy round, and its function it to make the propellant start burning, after being hit by a striker. Sometimes it’s an integral part of the propelling charge or the whole unitary round, but sometimes it has to be loaded separately. The cost is negligible here."
 

injinji

Well-Known Member
It's always embarrassing when you shoot yourself, but I think that was lethal to the launcher and the crew. A change of underwear would be required for any survivors...
I forget what they used to call it, but one day a year the Saipan would have a family cruise. All the wife's and kids of the crew would go out a few miles and shoot off the guns, etc, etc. They fired the missiles and one of them hit a wave and came back, flying just over the flight deck. Folks were scrambling.
 
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BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
I forget what they used to call it, but one day a year the Saipan would have a family cruise. All the wife's and kids of the crew would go out a few miles and shoot off the guns, etc, etc. They fired the missiles and one of them hit a wave and came back, fly just over the flight deck. Folks were scrambling.
had that happen to me with a bottle rocket.........everyone ducked.....
 

printer

Well-Known Member
Russia gave Ukraine and the West a chance to end the special operation. The main thing by the evening of June 28
Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov noted that the special operation could be completed in one day if Kyiv makes concessions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hinted to the West how to bring the end of the special operation closer. URA.RU tells about the main events of the special operation by the evening of June 28th.
  • The Kremlin said that Russia could complete the special operation in Ukraine in one day if Kiev orders the military to lay down their arms and fulfill Russia's conditions. Lavrov noted that pumping Ukraine with weapons does not contribute to the settlement of the conflict. According to him, the more weapons the West sends, the longer the special operation lasts;
  • The Russian military, together with the fighters of Donbass , hit the location of the Azov battalion (recognized as an extremist organization and banned in Russia) in Kharkov. About 100 Ukrainian military and foreign mercenaries were killed there;
  • The troops of the Russian Federation and the LPR have passed a third of Lisichansk , they are fighting in the area of the Shakhtar stadium. In the LPR, 98% of the territory was liberated, said Andrei Marochko, officer of the People's Militia of the Republic;
  • The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that the Russian army hit the hangars with Western weapons in Kremenchug. The detonation of the ammunition set a non-functioning shopping center on fire;
  • For the first time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine hit the Donbass with HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), which the United States supplied to Ukraine, they attacked the city of Perevalsk. In the LPR, with the help of operational control tools, they tracked the progress of HIMARS, Marochko noted.

Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine on February 24. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the priority of the army is to strike at military facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and exclude unnecessary casualties among the civilian population.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
"It would depend on two primary factors:The caliber. The higher the caliber, the more expensive it’s going to be.The shell type. The most basic shell would be a high explosive shell, but there are many other types of artillery shells: different types of anti-tank shells, illumination shells, smoke screen shells, high-precision guided shells, cluster shells (that burst in the air and disperse sub-munitions over the targeted area), rocket-boosted high-range shells, radio jamming shells, etc.M795, a simple 155 mm HE shell costs about $400.M982 Excalibur, a GPS guided shell costs over $60,000.Besides the shell, there are more components to the cost of an artillery shot:The fuse. It’s the component screwed on top of the shell, giving it the signal to explode (or to activate in some other way, if it’s a special shell). A simple contact fuse activates when the shell hits the target (or maybe a bit later, allowing the shell to penetrate deeper and explode later) is cheap. More sophisticated time fuses or proximity fuses allow the shell to explode in the air, and are more expensive.Propelling charge. In calibers over ~122 mm, there are no unitary rounds, but rather the shell and the propelling charge are loaded separately. Often it’s possible to load a partial charge, rather than a full one. These are rather cheap.Propelling charge for 155 mm NATO artillery, supplied in a string of fabric bags:Russian 152 mm shell and its corresponding hard-cased propelling charge:The primer. The primer is similar to a high-caliber dummy round, and its function it to make the propellant start burning, after being hit by a striker. Sometimes it’s an integral part of the propelling charge or the whole unitary round, but sometimes it has to be loaded separately. The cost is negligible here."
Cheaper than a 155mm GPS round, Uncle Sam buys in quantity and get a lot, costs increase dramatically for smaller consignments. It is an idea for striking long range poorly defended targets and could be of use for others too, since even flying as slow as 160km/hr, it would be hard to hit at night terrain following. It is hard to for the Ukrainians to strike deep into Russia and this could do it cheaply and developed from an existing design from common materials. Perhaps a joint project with Poland. I figure they could get away with about $10K a unit for a commercially GPS guided gas powered drone, built in volume. Nothing fancy, ramp and bungie launched EMP proofed as best they can, and it wouldn't even have a radio receiver, just a flight control computer and GPS receiver, hopefully shielded too, but it would also have a magnetometer compass as part of the FC as back up.

It's something they are doing already to a degree, I was just thinking about how cost effective and practical it would be. I saw a video posted of one hitting an oil refinery in Russia, a logical target.
 

printer

Well-Known Member

Are Russian Artillery Barrels at End of Life?
Real inaccurate? As long as they have rounds to fire they will keep going on. As if they care about levelling a city with inaccurate shots. They have to be in the game until they have enough land to say to the Russian people that they achieved their goals. When the fighting stops they can rebuild, it is not like Nato is going to invade Russia.
 

BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
Real inaccurate? As long as they have rounds to fire they will keep going on. As if they care about levelling a city with inaccurate shots. They have to be in the game until they have enough land to say to the Russian people that they achieved their goals. When the fighting stops they can rebuild, it is not like Nato is going to invade Russia.
nato isn't gonna invade, they're gonna boslter troops lvls, and watch Russia die a slow death....especially now since Finland and Sweden are in Nato.....
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Real inaccurate? As long as they have rounds to fire they will keep going on. As if they care about levelling a city with inaccurate shots. They have to be in the game until they have enough land to say to the Russian people that they achieved their goals. When the fighting stops they can rebuild, it is not like Nato is going to invade Russia.
If ya wanna hit troops, it will be difficult, but cities are no problem, also range is affected by worn tubes. If they aren't cycling out their guns for R&R, they should be in pretty bad shape as Ukraine transitions to NATO weapons. By the time they get their guns rebuilt, Ukraine will be much more powerful, even more so with a favorable peace deal. The Russians do seem so poorly organized, that such a program might not even exist, except perhaps on paper. It is not one of those flashy things, it's a routine maintenance plan and capability and maintenance seems to be one of their weaknesses in general.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Real inaccurate? As long as they have rounds to fire they will keep going on. As if they care about levelling a city with inaccurate shots. They have to be in the game until they have enough land to say to the Russian people that they achieved their goals. When the fighting stops they can rebuild, it is not like Nato is going to invade Russia.
You are assuming the fighting stops and doesn't shift to other places, even with the Russians driven out of Ukraine. If Russia continues with hostilities, they will have trouble in Belarus or other places and sanctions will remain on. If they do sign a peace after getting ejected from Ukraine, it will be even worse for them as Ukraine develops it's resources and becomes a regional super power in conventional arms and a member of the EU eventually. A few years of peace and prosperity and it won't matter how many guns the Russians rebuild, the Ukrainians will have the means to deal with them.
 

printer

Well-Known Member
If ya wanna hit troops, it will be difficult, but cities are no problem, also range is affected by worn tubes. If they aren't cycling out their guns for R&R, they should be in pretty bad shape as Ukraine transitions to NATO weapons. By the time they get their guns rebuilt, Ukraine will be much more powerful, even more so with a favorable peace deal. The Russians do seem so poorly organized, that such a program might not even exist, except perhaps on paper. It is not one of those flashy things, it's a routine maintenance plan and capability and maintenance seems to be one of their weaknesses in general.
Nato is going to give Ukraine enough equipment to go head to head with the Russians? Seems like we are just giving them enough to produce a stalemate. I would like to see them push the Russians out of the southern areas, the Donbas may be a bargaining chip to get the war to stop. I can see Russia not letting go of Crimea.
 

printer

Well-Known Member
Military hardware for Ukraine: Who plans to supply what?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been calling for heavy weapons to repel the Russian invaders. Several allied nations, including US and Germany, have announced they will supply new military kit.

The fight over Ukraine's Donbas can only be won with heavy weapons, military experts all agree. Ukraine's allies have so far supplied thousands of weapons and considerable amounts of ammunition to help the besieged nation stand up to Russia, which possesses far greater military capabilities than Ukraine. If military aid for Ukraine dries up, the nation would lose the ability to defend itself.

NATO, meanwhile, does not want to risk provoking war with Russia. Moscow has warned repeatedly that it could interpret Western arms deliveries as a threat to its own security, especially when those weapons could be used to target Russian territory. Ukraine's allies are therefore carefully weighing up which weapons systems they will deliver.

 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Nato is going to give Ukraine enough equipment to go head to head with the Russians? Seems like we are just giving them enough to produce a stalemate. I would like to see them push the Russians out of the southern areas, the Donbas may be a bargaining chip to get the war to stop. I can see Russia not letting go of Crimea.
They won't want to, but once an army breaks it is a different ball game, even if it is broken down into BTGs. MLRS should cause systemic issues of logistics, fuel command and control for them affecting several BTG at once. Right now Ukraine is transitioning to NATO arms including tanks and other equipment and more arms shipments are announced all the time and some aren't announced. A stalemate is not in Ukraine, Europe of America's interest, I hate to be cynical, but there is enough oil and gas under Ukraine to give Europe energy independence and they know it, so does Russia. Ukraine could rapidly go from Europe's poorest country to it's richest in just a few years, with money comes power, hard and soft.
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/rouble-rises-towards-50-vs-dollar-first-time-since-may-2015-2022-06-29/

they've been artificially keeping the ruble jacked up for a couple of months now, there was no chance they could do it for an extended period of time. it will crash soon, and it will leave a pretty big crater when it does. if they intend to keep doing it, they'll have to cut spending by their states, which will be highly unpopular with the people.
by this time next year, you'll need a 5 gallon bucket of rubles to buy a potato
 

printer

Well-Known Member
They won't want to, but once an army breaks it is a different ball game, even if it is broken down into BTGs. MLRS should cause systemic issues of logistics, fuel command and control for them affecting several BTG at once. Right now Ukraine is transitioning to NATO arms including tanks and other equipment and more arms shipments are announced all the time and some aren't announced. A stalemate is not in Ukraine, Europe of America's interest, I hate to be cynical, but there is enough oil and gas under Ukraine to give Europe energy independence and they know it, so does Russia. Ukraine could rapidly go from Europe's poorest country to it's richest in just a few years, with money comes power, hard and soft.
A stalemate might not be in our interest but with inflation a lot of voters are not happy with their governments and many will put their own interests above Ukraine's.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
A stalemate might not be in our interest but with inflation a lot of voters are not happy with their governments and many will put their own interests above Ukraine's.
A short war is now looking more likely the way I see it, with the food crises and inflation, ending it quickly would be best for all concerned. I keep coming back to oil and gas as prime motivators for Europe, Ukraine, America and eastern Europe will want the Russians defeated and a strong Ukraine as a buffer. Some Europeans are notoriously self interested and increasingly their interests are in a swift Ukrainian victory, while avoiding getting nuked of course. They have little choice with America, Canada and eastern EU and NATO members in favor of a Ukrainian victory and driving the Russians out. Russia playing with Europe's gas valve, during their summit, did not help, it was something Trump would do. I think the Russians might be dealing with their own version of Trump and he is trapped in Ukraine by hubris and ego.

You've seen his latest pick for General? The big old retired drunk with the custom combats.
 
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