History in the Making: Russian Invasion

Beer Baron said:

So, I've enjoyed listening to Perun's analysis of the Ukraine/Russia war.

One of the interesting points I'm seeing come up regularly that I think is going to have a major shift in how battles are fought in the future is the way drones are used and the ECONOMY of them.

Drone weapon systems are cheap.

They may not be super capable. They may be easily outmatched by a bunch of other existing high-tech weapon systems. But it seems like 8 times/10, they are *cheaper* than the munitions needed to shoot them down.

They may be *easy* to counter, but they're *expensive* to counter. And so it's sort of a case where, even if a drone attack is unsuccesful, it's still successful because you've depleted your enemy's ability to fight more than you've depleted your own.

I wondered about this. Think of them like tracer rounds. If you could launch 15 drones every hour, would you even need to arm them all? Some could be unarmed and just decoys. You're literally just running the enemy out of ammunition to shoot them down. You might even gain some information about how effective different interception systems are, and where they are. 

Beer Baron said:

So, I've enjoyed listening to Perun's analysis of the Ukraine/Russia war.

One of the interesting points I'm seeing come up regularly that I think is going to have a major shift in how battles are fought in the future is the way drones are used and the ECONOMY of them.

Drone weapon systems are cheap.

They may not be super capable. They may be easily outmatched by a bunch of other existing high-tech weapon systems. But it seems like 8 times/10, they are *cheaper* than the munitions needed to shoot them down.

They may be *easy* to counter, but they're *expensive* to counter. And so it's sort of a case where, even if a drone attack is unsuccesful, it's still successful because you've depleted your enemy's ability to fight more than you've depleted your own.

I would guess that the West will come up with cheaper countermeasures, but there's a lot to what you say. I've long been intrigued by the prospects of miniaturization on warfare and terrorism. Imagine that it's inauguration day. You've got practically every major politician in the country together, and instead of a lone gunman or a plane full of explosives, you have a swarm of several thousand drones, each the size of a bee. What's the countermeasure for that? a magnetic pulse? And fry everyone's electronics for half-a mile? I can imagine a day when you almost never see a politician in public because the assassination methods have gotten too cheap and easy. 

I would agree with Kreb. The current drone counter-measures are overkill for the task as they were meant for different types of munitions, but still reasonably effective. I am quite certain many defense development contractors in many countries are looking at this conflict with an eye towards both sides of the drone equation: more effective and less expensive defense as well as more effective and less expensive offense.  It's what they do. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

I would agree with Kreb. The current drone counter-measures are overkill for the task as they were meant for different types of munitions, but still reasonably effective. I am quite certain many defense development contractors in many countries are looking at this conflict with an eye towards both sides of the drone equation: more effective and less expensive defense as well as more effective and less expensive offense.  It's what they do. 

Like I said a few pages back, the drone issue will launch the laser-based anti-aircraft research into overdrive.  A truck with some sort of laser system will cost a ton to acquire but be cheap enough to use on swarms of drones.  

stroker said:

Like I said a few pages back, the drone issue will launch the laser-based anti-aircraft research into overdrive.  A truck with some sort of laser system will cost a ton to acquire but be cheap enough to use on swarms of drones.  

Wouldn't it also have a massive thermal footprint which would make it easy to target?

tuna55 said:

I wondered about this. Think of them like tracer rounds. If you could launch 15 drones every hour, would you even need to arm them all? Some could be unarmed and just decoys. You're literally just running the enemy out of ammunition to shoot them down. You might even gain some information about how effective different interception systems are, and where they are. 

Already being done, a lot of the craft that get classified as UFOs by the US military are foreign sigint balloons, they do nothing but float around, look weird, give off a large radar return signature with an internal metallic retroreflector, and record the radar signals they're scanned with.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

I would guess that the West will come up with cheaper countermeasures, but there's a lot to what you say. I've long been intrigued by the prospects of miniaturization on warfare and terrorism. Imagine that it's inauguration day. You've got practically every major politician in the country together, and instead of a lone gunman or a plane full of explosives, you have a swarm of several thousand drones, each the size of a bee. What's the countermeasure for that? a magnetic pulse? And fry everyone's electronics for half-a mile? I can imagine a day when you almost never see a politician in public because the assassination methods have gotten too cheap and easy. 

See also: Slaughterbots. Not yet possible at bee size buy maybe at small bird size. One countermeasure for a swarm of small drones is another swarm of small drones. A HERF gun is a more selective form of EMP weapon that could be used against them. Currently jamming systems to block out drones' GPS and control signals are in use.

02Pilot said:

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

US admin or Ukrainian? I would argue that, under the right circumstances, negotiations are always possible. That said, some situations are much more conducive to productive talks than others.

US administration.

Two thoughts come to mind about the drones: (1) the US budget is so massive that nobody can outspend us even if their drones are 1/10th the cost of our ammunition to shoot them down it's still a drop in the bucket for us or anyone we're paying to arm to shoot them down. (2) most drones rely on radio communications, right? In an all out war situation it seems like it would be trivial for the US to disrupt that. Maybe not for Ukraine but I don't see it being a problem for the west to do so any time they'd like.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

l am all pro Ukraine but why should the US be negotiating?  If anything that only helps Putin shore up his "omgz teh West is united against us at every turn" narrative.

Depends on the negotiating posture and the desired outcome. If the US - likely with the support, tacit or explict, of the majority of NATO - wants at some point to bring the conflict to an end regardless of the situation on the ground, then it will very likely be opposed more loudly by Ukraine than by Russia, simply because the US will be willing to make a deal that the Ukrainians wouldn't. If, on the other hand, the US basically backs Zelensky's 100%-or-nothing stance, then sure, Putin's narrative is reinforced, but I don't think the US has the patience for it to come to that. The Russians are going to get something out of this, even if it's nothing more than security guarantees and Ukrainian neutrality (not so different from the deal that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis, which basically exchanged the Soviet missiles for a public US guarantee not to invade Cuba, as well as a private promise to remove US missiles from Turkey).

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

We showcased a portable HERF gun that fit in the back of a civilian pickup back around 2012. That'll probably work.

VolvoHeretic said:

02Pilot said:

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

US admin or Ukrainian? I would argue that, under the right circumstances, negotiations are always possible. That said, some situations are much more conducive to productive talks than others.

US administration.

Biden's been around long enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he's known to have a fondness for JFK. There are known to be people highly-placed in the administration who are pushing for more contact with the Russians, and there are multiple reports of (thus unnamed) European countries who are concerned about the possibility of the conflict continuing indefinitely and are pushing the US to try to move towards a conclusion. The way I see it, the chance of the US not only being willing to talk, but indeed pushing for talks, is rising.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I believe there have also been systems developed that disable most optical sensors when in line of site and within range. 
 

Of course, they may not be terribly eyeball friendly. 

dculberson said:

Two thoughts come to mind about the drones: (1) the US budget is so massive that nobody can outspend us even if their drones are 1/10th the cost of our ammunition to shoot them down it's still a drop in the bucket for us or anyone we're paying to arm to shoot them down. (2) most drones rely on radio communications, right? In an all out war situation it seems like it would be trivial for the US to disrupt that. Maybe not for Ukraine but I don't see it being a problem for the west to do so any time they'd like.

I believe the Iranian drones are primarily guided by GPS from what I see.  Which can be jammed, but that also messes up anything else that uses GPS.  I would suspect you could create a more narrow beam (focused antenna) style GPS receiver to counter act that. Not sure what happens to them when they loose GPS, but it could be a "best guess" of the target based on last known info (e.g. likely to hit somewhere near the target).

The more typical loiter drones do use some sort of direct communication and those anti-drone "guns" that where posted previously are essentially jammers of that I believe.  Any sophisticated drone, when jammed like that, will do an auto-return to base (or some other fail safe), so it's not a drone destroyer unless it's a very basic consumer level drone.

No reason why there cannot be an anti-drone drone as a cheap counter BTW.  The constant measure then counter measure then counter counter measure is what makes such things very interesting (in a problem solving kind of way).

stroker said:

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

I would agree with Kreb. The current drone counter-measures are overkill for the task as they were meant for different types of munitions, but still reasonably effective. I am quite certain many defense development contractors in many countries are looking at this conflict with an eye towards both sides of the drone equation: more effective and less expensive defense as well as more effective and less expensive offense.  It's what they do. 

Like I said a few pages back, the drone issue will launch the laser-based anti-aircraft research into overdrive.  A truck with some sort of laser system will cost a ton to acquire but be cheap enough to use on swarms of drones.  

Possibly. Chances are whatever counter measures under development are not known to the public.  I could definitely imagine some sort of laser system being leaked in order to distract attention from what is actually under development. 

It looks like Ukraine will be getting some Storm Shadow air launched cruise missiles from Poland and they will be helping them integrate them into their SU-24's.

https://www.txtreport.com/news/2022-11-04-the-ukrainian-army-will-receive-the-storm-shadow-cruise-missile-to-strike-the-russian-army-s-rear-at-a-long-distance---xinhua-english-news-cn.HkB4rdGHj.html

1000 lb warhead, 350 mile range (if they get the domestic version) and low radar visibility.  Range from Ukraine to Moscow....   about 300 miles.

Oh wait, only Russia is allowed to terrorize the citizens of the country they are fighting....

Realistically, Moscow apparently has a very intense air defense network, but you never know.

In reply to aircooled :

When this whole thing started I had no idea how aggressive Poland would be in jawboning the Russians and providing aid. It's apparently the Texas of Europe. 

Aid as a percentage of GDP. First two are Latvia and Estonia, third is Poland. 

If the countries that were under Russia's thumb are giving this much support, it really should be a sign to keep helping Ukraine as much as possible.

It's been said, Poland remembers September 1939. 

Karacticus said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I believe there have also been systems developed that disable most optical sensors when in line of site and within range. 
 

Of course, they may not be terribly eyeball friendly. 

What are eyes if not optical sensors? Sounds like those countermeasures would work as designed 

thatsnowinnebago said:

Karacticus said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I believe there have also been systems developed that disable most optical sensors when in line of site and within range. 
 

Of course, they may not be terribly eyeball friendly. 

What are eyes if not optical sensors? Sounds like those countermeasures would work as designed 

At one time, I heard a story that blinding an enemy combatant with a laser then shooting them wasn't considered kosher.   

If there was a laser weapon that you could just shoot them with to kill them, it's also possible it might fall into the same (again, second hand, so I might be incorrect) category as a .50 caliber machine gun which is only supposed to be used against vehicles, not personnel. 

In reply to Karacticus :

You know what, that rings a bell. I think I also read something similar a few years ago. Sometimes I forget how strict the rules about killing people in war can be. 

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

It's been said, Poland remembers September 1939. 

I am sure the Czechs remember when the European powers divided it up for Germany and told them about it after the fact, too...

I forsee bad blood between Ukraine and the West in general and the US in particular if they are sold concessions instead of total Ukrainian sovereignty.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

It's been said, Poland remembers September 1939. 

I am sure the Czechs remember when the European powers divided it up for Germany and told them about it after the fact, too...

I forsee bad blood between Ukraine and the West in general and the US in particular if they are sold concessions instead of total Ukrainian sovereignty.

What most don't recall is that Poland took advantage of the German move and pulled the same thing: issued Czechoslovakia an ultimatum with an absurdly short deadline, and used the failure to respond as a pretext to grab a chunk of Czech territory. Hungary did the same thing. It's a dog eat dog world.

I don't think Ukrainian sovereignty is at issue here, though the final boundaries of the country might be. As far as bad blood, well, Ukraine doesn't have a lot of choices. They may not like it if the West makes a deal with Russia, but it's not like Ukraine has any other friends to call on, and they certainly won't want to go it alone, so I suspect they'll swallow their objections and happily accept any and all support the West chooses to provide. As the old IR saying goes, "The strong do as they will, and the weak do as they must."