www.theguardian.com
Hezbollah still stopped the vaunted Israeli Merkava's cold with mines, artillery, and very unsophisticated missiles (by today's standards). With no armor at all of their own. None. Israel even had complete air dominance to study things. It's why Russia is heavily mining on the approaches to the Azov, Russia is great at emplacing minefields. Anyway, a very interesting discussion. I appreciate your insight, I had not really considered MBT as a laser platform.Lasers. This problem has been very seriously studied since 1943. Other PGMs are of great utility and are the only thing we have right now, but directionally the magazine depth issue and the exchange cost ratio issue combine with technology trends to force deployment of directed energy weapons.
For obvious reasons navies were the lead service in deploying these things in the early years, though they have since proliferated
Royal Navy deployed laser weapons during the Falklands War
Despite recent demonstrations by the US Navy, we still think of laser weapons as being things of the future. However, previously-classified British documents prove that not only were the major powers working on laser weapons in the 1970s and 80s, but that they were already being deployed with…newatlas.com
If you put lasers a long way forwards they still need a power pack, but they also need armour. Plus a sensor suite, a comms suite, and 365 x 24 mobility in all terrain all over the world. We call that thing a tank. The RCWS you see sprouting on turrets will soon include lasers. A modern tank engine (powerpack) is over 1MW.
Re Lebanon: In that instance my personal opinion is that Israel had largely achieved their strategic objectives, and were greatly hampered by highly asymmetric RoE in an unfriendly ground environment, and an adverse domestic media environment. Ultimately it was a political problem, not a military weapons system problem. Just imho and prepared to listen to other views. Re Ukraine : I'd rather not comment too much on what might come next unless it is at statement of blindingly obvious level.
A short range surface-to-air missile such as the one you see targetting this loitering munition in the video clip is in essence a multi-purpose drone. The problem is the exchange cost ratio and the magazine depth.
thehill.com
Yeah, there are reports that Poland has at least one base by the Ukrainian border that is heavily defended by Patriot missiles systems and lots of activity there has been recently reported. Unofficially, some have said its role is repair of battle worn NATO kit such as tanks, but who knows what/if else.
www.forbes.com
They might hurt people with shards of glass. Need to bubble wrap that cargo.
Maybe AFU could offer the conscripts real working weapons if they join the resistance.
The tank analysis lends weight to the need to reinforce our tank supply to the UKR with M1A1s, send some of ours and get to work fixing up the mothballed fleet in the deserts (they are all fairly obsolete, no power packs, no reactive armor, 105mm vs 155, electronics need to be replaced, etc etc). But anyway, the mothball work would be done in a union factory in Ohio so why the hold up Joe? Lets fix up 1000 for them, send them 1000 and fix 1000 for the USA forces is what I mean.
OTOH I think the recent Trent rant on the implications of Iranian loitering munitions is excellent. Really good. His ranting is over the top sometimes but he's on point with this one:
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
@TrentTelenko: This is a "The World has changed" video. The Iranian Shahed-136 drone in the Russian's hands is acting as a small propeller cruise missile several hundred kilometers from the nearest Russian position....…threadreaderapp.com
hundreds of loitering drones are cheaper than 1 f35. They force the forward logistics so far back that they are not useful. That's just a start, I see real issues with the future of manned aircraft in the battlefield in the future. It offers nothing compared to a remotely piloted platform- just lots of expense in crew protection, we have to hope that someone in the DOD doesn't have head up the arse.
All sorts of things happening out there. The best way to stop arrows coming is to shoot the archer. The modern equivalent is to attack the arrow factory .... and Starlink is now being enabled for Iran :
Protests spread in Iran as President Raisi vows to crack down
Demonstrations that began with death of Mahsa Amini while detained by morality police pose biggest threat to regime in 13 years
threadreaderapp.com
Chuck does seem to be way way ahead of the actual situation sometimes. Lots of interesting reading yesterday, basically all the experts analysis on the mobilization..if you go back 2 weeks they were all in agreement that russia would not mobilize. Goes to show...plan for contingencies.
