Nothing scifi-ish about it. The Russians are quite good at electronic countermeasures that can incapacitate drones. Particularly low cost drones. Higher end drones are better hardened against electronic countermeasures. There's essentially a game of cat and mouse going between hardening drones and improving countermeasures.On combatting drones:
This may sound 1950 trash scifi-ish and perhaps it is, but aren’t drones inherently vulnerable to electromagnetic interference? Some kind of pulsed Zzzzzaapppp emanating from, perhaps, a capacitor-based discharger, or a klystron (Poll: how many of you ever have heard of those, let alone familiar with them)?
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
NATO matching the Russian menace, will enhance defense in the Black Sea theater:
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
EUR 5B in military aid: EU reveals details of special fund for Ukraine
18.03.2024 20:00The European Council today decided to increase the financial ceiling of the European Peace Facility (EPF) by EUR 5 billion in current prices, and ring-fence this top-up for Ukraine, by establishing a dedicated Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF) within the EPF. [...
EUR 5B in military aid: EU reveals details of special fund for Ukraine
The European Council today decided to increase the financial ceiling of the European Peace Facility (EPF) by EUR 5 billion in current prices, and ring-fence this top-up for Ukraine, by establishing a dedicated Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF) within the EPF. â Ukrinform.
www.ukrinform.net
Slightly off-topic about the cost of planes versus drones, but interesting.
On combatting drones:
This may sound 1950 trash scifi-ish and perhaps it is, but aren’t drones inherently vulnerable to electromagnetic interference? Some kind of pulsed Zzzzzaapppp emanating from, perhaps, a capacitor-based discharger, or a klystron (Poll: how many of you ever have heard of those, let alone familiar with them
They exist. Somebody, I think one of the Baltic states gave some to Ukraine a year or more ago. Military grade electronics is going to be hardened against EMPs so they will be of limited effectiveness. Also EMPs take a lot of energy to charge up and electricity on a battlefield is not broadly available. The small commercial drones that are used for recon and small bomb dropping are easy to charge up. A small generator or plugging into the socket that used to be for the cigarette lighter on any vehicle with one can charge up the batteries fairly quickly. But an EMP weapon is going to require more energy and might require a bigger energy source than is usually available on the front lines.
There are also many attempts to jam the frequencies used by drones. More sophisticated drones have the ability to carry out the mission if their signal is being jammed. This is especially true of suicide drones that will continue on to their target even if they lose the link from home base. The loss rate for the small commercial drones is staggeringly high on both sides in part because of jamming.
navguy12
Active Member
On combatting drones:
This may sound 1950 trash scifi-ish and perhaps it is, but aren’t drones inherently vulnerable to electromagnetic interference? Some kind of pulsed Zzzzzaapppp emanating from, perhaps, a capacitor-based discharger, or a klystron (Poll: how many of you ever have heard of those, let alone familiar with them
The concept of HERF guns has been around on the Internet for a long time. I remember reading about people trying to DIY them in the late 90's on some early websites, along with other such fun topics as railguns.
Simple in concept, there are many hacky (and questionably executed) examples around (i.e. YouTube "HERF" guns which are just gutted microwaves pointed at things, but not really High Energy RF), but in reality trying to project sufficient energy at any real distance is quite difficult, thanks to the inverse square law as well as the difficulty of keeping RF energy focused in a tight beam so you're not wasting it everywhere except your target.
I wonder if a more distributed approach might be more effective - rather than trying to build one giant emitting device capable of throwing enough energy at a target potentially several km away, a group of (relatively) smaller devices all throwing energy at it might be more effective, much like killing cancer cells by many smaller doses from different angles rather than one singular large dose along one angle.
There are various hand held options already available on the market but I doubt they can really be effective against anything beyond garden variety quadcopter type drones at a few hundred feet, especially when they run off self-contained rechargeable batteries and aren't much bigger than a battle rifle...
part of the new Ford class carriers design brief is a huge amount of excess power for future weapons such as you are talking about
Even implemented on such a platform, I imagine that overall efficiency (power consumed vs power hitting target) would likely favor a few devices mounted along the platform, crossing their streams so to speak, versus one big device. Unless perhaps the one big device was a bunch of smaller devices stacked on each other. I am thinking of things like trying to cool all the hardware the large amount of power is being discharged through, for example - much like cooling smaller battery cells is generally easier than larger ones because the heat in the center has to flow further on larger devices. Plus building and aiming the RF waveguides and so on (especially if you need to slew the targeting quickly) will be easier if they're smaller ...
DanCar
Active Member
Romania says it will help Ukraine receive 30 ton military boats. Shipped via land?
I think Turkey has blocked off all military vessels on either side going in or out of the Black Sea.
Good thing Romania can just get to their own docks directly on the Black Sea without going through Turkish straits.
Indeed.
My unstated point remains that Bosporus/Dardanelles, and thus Turkey and Montreux, have no bearing on any relationship between Romania and Ukraine vis-a-vis each other - those putative ships would go nowhere near Turkey or its strategic bottleneck.
My unstated point remains that Bosporus/Dardanelles, and thus Turkey and Montreux, have no bearing on any relationship between Romania and Ukraine vis-a-vis each other - those putative ships would go nowhere near Turkey or its strategic bottleneck.
Gasoline futures price rise appears to correlate with Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries:
I could be wrong. Didn't look into it much. It was something I heard at the outset of the war.
DanCar
Active Member
Didn't know Ukraine had an AWACS in service.
www.kyivpost.com
Australia to Withdraw Wedgetail AWACS Support to Ukraine at Mission End
Australia deployed an RAAF E-7A Wedgetail AWACS aircraft to monitor threats to aid supply routes for Ukraine for six months in October after a US request.
www.kyivpost.com
Ukraine does not but NATO is in the air intensively with their AWACS planes on the eastern frontier looking into Russia, and in particular these days along their lines with Ukraine.Didn't know Ukraine had an AWACS in service.
Australia to Withdraw Wedgetail AWACS Support to Ukraine at Mission End
Australia deployed an RAAF E-7A Wedgetail AWACS aircraft to monitor threats to aid supply routes for Ukraine for six months in October after a US request.
Secretive Surveillance Flights Circle Above Russian Activity
