petit_bateau
Active Member
Some of them do. I have run comparative numbers for such designs. But at the moment I suspect the attrition rate of Ukr USV/AUV units is such that simple is good.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Germany has neglected their standing army for too long and now they are having problems getting new recruits. Not good at a time that Russia is on a rampage in Europe.
German military struggles to find new recruits
And help us from the bureaucrats.
German military struggles to find new recruits
And help us from the bureaucrats.
Is it known if the marine drones are surface or subsurface vehicles? Latter would complicate the Rotax version.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
If this is true, then why isn't this hole plugged ASAP?! Those Lancet drones seem to be a real problem.
"«Sanctions work» – not:
The engines for russian “Lancet” suicide drones/loitering munitions are made in Czech Republic by a company named Model Motors
Secondary sanctions are urgently required, otherwise russians find a way to easily overcome existing ones."
From:
"«Sanctions work» – not:
The engines for russian “Lancet” suicide drones/loitering munitions are made in Czech Republic by a company named Model Motors
Secondary sanctions are urgently required, otherwise russians find a way to easily overcome existing ones."
From:
petit_bateau
Active Member
Everything in the public domain so far re Ukraine is surface.
(In the subsurface world there is any amount of wierdness in propulsion, and using a rotax would fit within historic designs .... I'll let you figure out the rest)
There are reasons why BEVs aren’t used, bit weight isn’t one of them. A V8 plus transmission is not much different in weight than a battery and motor.
The really neat thing here is that you can reach out to them and suggest this and have a conversation re this topic with someone in Ukraine.
Weight required for batteries for a decent range is going to be pretty heavy. That payload could be better used for explosives or something else in most situations. The amount of energy in one gallon of gasoline is massive compared to the energy battery packs. I think it is equivalent to about 33 kWh . Based on a Tesla Model S, they'd need about 400 pounds to have the equivalent energy of 1 gal of gas. Based on a Tesla Model S, they'd need about 400 pounds to have the equivalent energy of 1 gal of gas.
They'd have to make a decision how far they plan to run on electricity which likely would be very short range given the constraints of battery tech. Not to mention if using Li-ion batteries and keeping them away from water. Also have to look at what problem are you solving for by going hybrid? Better range? Cost? Faster? Quieter? Stealthier? We can solve for a lot of these without going hybrid. What are you sacrificing for this? Having 2 drive systems will drive up cost, complexity and ease of production as well. For most situations, more payload would be very beneficial. I am not going to give that up to batteries unless there is no other way to achieve something the batteries will give me.
The KISS principle is typically the best. No need to overcomplicate the solution, more stuff to fail.
BitJam
Active Member
The Ukrainian Counteroffensive is Not an Action Movie
www.theatlantic.com
Might be pay-walled.
I found this article to be a refreshing dose of reality compared to a lot of the doom and gloom coverage of the counteroffensive in Western media. I think all or most of the points have already been discussed here but it's good to see them brought together in a mainstream publication.
The Ukrainian Counteroffensive Is Not an Action Movie
The summer of drones and trenches drags on, but hopeful signs are emerging.
www.theatlantic.com
The Ukrainian counteroffensive, under way since the spring, is slogging through miles of trenches and minefields. Progress will depend on the battlefield, not on Western impatience.
[...] The American military, with its focus on operational excellence, executes such offensives very well. In its wars over the past 30 years, the U.S. has had almost every edge over its battlefield enemies, including superior firepower, complete control of the skies, advanced technology, and a superbly trained force.
The Ukrainians have almost none of these advantages. Their weaponry, including tanks and air defenses, has been getting better, but not fast enough. They are outnumbered by an enemy that uses untrained troops dredged from prisons as bullet sponges. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians must carefully conserve their best-trained forces to protect them from being wasted in engagement with soldiers who are in effect walking dead men.
I found this article to be a refreshing dose of reality compared to a lot of the doom and gloom coverage of the counteroffensive in Western media. I think all or most of the points have already been discussed here but it's good to see them brought together in a mainstream publication.
BitJam
Active Member
How Zhuzha the dog saved food, and soldiers saved Zhuzha
The German army has been strangled by one of the worst bureaucracies in the world.
Some Lancets have been seen with those Czech motors, but I haven't seen any proof that all use them. The motors may have already been in Russia before the war. We can't be sure.
It's also possible the Russians have figured out some way around the sanctions too.
The Ukrainian Counteroffensive is Not an Action Movie
Might be pay-walled.The Ukrainian Counteroffensive Is Not an Action Movie
The summer of drones and trenches drags on, but hopeful signs are emerging.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive, under way since the spring, is slogging through miles of trenches and minefields. Progress will depend on the battlefield, not on Western impatience.
[...] The American military, with its focus on operational excellence, executes such offensives very well. In its wars over the past 30 years, the U.S. has had almost every edge over its battlefield enemies, including superior firepower, complete control of the skies, advanced technology, and a superbly trained force.The Ukrainians have almost none of these advantages. Their weaponry, including tanks and air defenses, has been getting better, but not fast enough. They are outnumbered by an enemy that uses untrained troops dredged from prisons as bullet sponges. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians must carefully conserve their best-trained forces to protect them from being wasted in engagement with soldiers who are in effect walking dead men.
I found this article to be a refreshing dose of reality compared to a lot of the doom and gloom coverage of the counteroffensive in Western media. I think all or most of the points have already been discussed here but it's good to see them brought together in a mainstream publication.
Realistically the US Army would probably struggle with the number of mines the Ukrainians are encountering on the offensive.
BitJam
Active Member
The minefields alone are not the problem. The problem is mines plus drones plus artillery. The mines slow troops and vehicles down and keep them bunched together. Then they can be targeted by drones and wiped out with artillery.
The US doctrine is to quickly gain air superiority before performing an offensive like this. Then they can decimate the enemy artillery and keep the drones away from the front giving the engineers plenty of time to create a number of paths through the minefields.
Ukraine's lack of air superiority or even air parity is one of the main reasons the counteroffensive has had to move slowly.
The Russians are masters at evading sanctions. Let's go back to the sanctions imposed on Iraq in the past. Russia was selling arms and military equipment to Iraq in violation of them. I know someone who was involved in some of the transactions, so to speak.
So if they can effectively evade sanctions for another country to earn a few Rubles, think how hard they will work when it is in their national interest to support a war. So you can bet Russia is working full time at doing all they can to evade sanctions.
Their game plan was to try and insulate themselves from them as much as possible. They war-gamed what would happen and got a lot of it right. There are a lot of very well-educated and incredibly bright people in Russia. Look no further than the woman running Russia's central bank, Elvira Nabiullina. If it wasn't for this woman, the war probably would have already been over. While she may be on what I would say is the enemy's side in this war, I have incredible respect for her. This woman is the one really pulling all the strings to keep their economy afloat.
BitJam
Active Member
The answer to that is probably changing as the war in Ukraine develops. Jamming is possible. So are anti-aircraft guns like Gepards that the US is donating to Ukraine. Air superiority gains you a lot. If the drones are being controlled remotely then I imagine the US would go after the controllers. If the drones are used for spotting then destroying the artillery they are spotting for should suffice. If not then there would probably be some hot drone on drone action. If drones were still a problem then we would probably go after the drone factories.
IIUC, NATO's battle plans for a ground war in Europe were predicated on quickly gaining air superiority while the USSR and then Russia made plans based on NATO have air superiority so they relied more on having a metric shipload of artillery.
The threat to Ukraine right now is drones spotting Ukraine forces slowed by minefields so they can be destroyed by artillery. Much like the recent HIMARS attack on hundreds Russians in formation on a beach as covered by Reporting from Ukraine yesterday. The drones by themselves are not a big threat but, of course, that could change.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
On the topic on why Russians are fighting in this war...
"
A Russian priest from the orthodox church told Russian state television that he is telling forces on the front lines that they "came to war not to kill but to die."
"
At 0:30 in the vid below:
"Why are we here and what are we doing? The stuff about patriotism and motherland – those slogans work just fine for teenagers, but not for 40- and 50-year olds with wives and children. They need something more serious. I told them you came to war, not to kill, but to die. This is your sacrifice to God. You are giving your life to God."
"
A Russian priest from the orthodox church told Russian state television that he is telling forces on the front lines that they "came to war not to kill but to die."
"
At 0:30 in the vid below:
"Why are we here and what are we doing? The stuff about patriotism and motherland – those slogans work just fine for teenagers, but not for 40- and 50-year olds with wives and children. They need something more serious. I told them you came to war, not to kill, but to die. This is your sacrifice to God. You are giving your life to God."
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I don't think anybody has ever laid minefields this deep. A 1 KM deep minefield with a high density of mines is 10X deeper than US doctrine ever considered. The MICLIC is a great mine clearing vehicle, but the detonation line is only about 100 m long. It would take a minimum of 10 MICLIC shots to clear a 1 Km deep minefield and MICLICs kind of advertise they are there. Air power could help suppress artillery, but the Ukrainians are thinning out the herd pretty well there.
Russia is getting better at using drones and they are starting to field them in numbers. The Ukrainians are still the masters at ad hoc attack drones, but Russia is beginning to catch up.
I'm not saying the US Army couldn't get through the minefields, they aren't going to cruise through them like they did in the Gulf War. The US would be taking casualties clearing them.
One advantage any NATO army would have is all of them train for combined arms warfare. The Ukrainians have a rudimentary understanding of it, but there wasn't enough time to teach them NATO combined arms doctrine.
The Russians are simply horrible at combined arms. The BTG concept would work great for a well trained, but small NATO army. It completely failed in Russian service because they never trained for it.
Combined arms is the warfare Olympics, if an army doesn't train a lot for it, they will fail if they try.
So any NATO army would likely cut through the minefields a bit faster, but it would be much slower going than any western army has seen in at least 50 years.
The Germans donated the Gepards. The Gepard had no mission left at the beginning of this war. There aren't many left in service. I don't believe the US ever fielded a similar weapon.
Going after the drone factories would likely anger the countries who own those factories: Iran and China.
Technologies for countering commercial drones are being developed now, but they are not ready to field yet. This is a case of a new technology getting ahead of the technology to counter it.
The density of drones in the air over Ukraine is staggering. Air superiority doesn't do much against drones. They can be operated from bunkers that are hard to hit from the air. Just honing in on radio signals is not enough. The signal controlling a drone is lost in a sea of similar signals from various radio communication equipment, as well as other battlefield equipment. You don't know if the signal you're picking up is a mobik talking to is mother, a drone operator, or the commander of the unit giving orders.
petit_bateau
Active Member
As we all know, the key Western militaries (primarily US, FR, UK but not only) would come at this a different way, with air dominance. Full air dominance would give two options for a frontal attack (as opposed to going around the back with amphibs):
1) Take out all artillery, choppers, fixed wing, missile systems, within 50-100 miles or much more.
2)a. Either then pick out the minefields 100m at a time, one lane at a time, one rocket or flail at a time, with only limited localised short lifespan opposition, then pour through; or
2)b. Go over the top with heliborne assault outside MANPADS range (and larger SAMs already out) to behind the fortified belt, then backfill towards 2a.
And as we know, neither of these options are available to Ukraine, nor is the enabler of full air dominance. So Ukraine is having to do this the very hard way. Which is precisely why Russia laid all these mines and built the trench/etc systems - the Russians are no fools and have themselves thought this through.
Our job here is to keep the strategic resolve in the West. Which means inserting spinal reinforcement into our politicians at all opportunities, and making sure our fellow voters understand the implications of their votes. Fortunately the Fance, Italy, and German electoral cycles are done with for the next 3-4 years. And in the UK there is very solid cross party consensus which is relevant as there will be an election in 12-24 mnths, but UKR will not be a direct issue. However USA is a different issue, and that is the 18-month gate that Putin is playing for and hoping to get.
petit_bateau
Active Member
I had a look at the economic sanctions progress yesterday and came to the conclusion that the public data was not good enough to either figure out if they were or were not working well; but that they were having an effect; but it was a slow one on the wider Rus economy; largely because of oil evasion via India and China. I dumped all my links because I thought it not solid enough to write up.
Today it seems there is a sanctions conference kicking off so we may get better data. Here is some info
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/EC5ARLSZ7RO27KWNQOGUPLALUA.jpg)
www.reuters.com
Today it seems there is a sanctions conference kicking off so we may get better data. Here is some info
US sees price cap on Russian oil working despite upturn in prices
The United States remains confident that the Group of Seven's price cap on Russian oil is working to squeeze Moscow's revenues and stabilize energy markets despite a recent upturn in prices, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Thursday.
www.reuters.com
Regarding mines: major disagreement with you here. Take the DMZ between South Korea and North. It is a solid 2.5km of mines with both sides mining flat lands suitable for equipment to a much greater depth. That's 160 x 2.5 miles. The USA designed the minefields.
Egypt had done the same during campaigns on the Sinai. Russia paid attention and while Iraq did a terrible job laying minefields the Russia ones are done properly. Have you seen the videos of the russians laying mines? Truck drives across field, 2 guys in back drop mines every 5 feet in two rows, turn around, repeat, turn around and repeat.
Anyhow, it is clear that russia/USSR did anticipate needing millions of anti-tank mines because they had them in stock. If someone has millions of weapons in stock it should be at least a consideration.
Taken altogether we have this: the USA has designed and implemented minefields of over 300 sq miles in depths up to 5km deep. Minefields historically were quite effective in use by Egypt but could have been more so if laid more densely. Russia had millions of mines. We saw them laying the minefields.
Mick Ryan has it right in a recent substack, the west needs a new solution for minefields. Lastly and saying again...the generals in charge of the south were not idiots. I continue to be surprised by Ukraine attacking the best defense, especially without isolating the ammo supplies. I mean now we see some effort at that- deep strikes into ammo reserves in Crimea, bridge attacks, etc. Clearly up to now russia ammo reserves continue to be sufficient to be deadly. It doesn't help anyone to underestimate the enemy much as Trent telenko does- according to him russian logistics would have been over by now and russia would not have any ammo. I should have added that many of the earliest storm shadow strikes were against command positions, not ammo.
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