Not sure if this was already posted either, but if you are interested in dronesâŚ
âthis isnât where i parked my carâ
VERY interesting article:
The in-flight information gathered by the drone is directly sent to the AGS Force Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (PED) center at Sigonella, where a multi-national team of analysts processes the data to provide imagery intelligence exploitation. The Sigonella PED center allows for quick dissemination of the data to all 30 NATO countries including NATO headquarters. This includes near-real-time forensic exploitation to support targeting, on-demand 24-hour operations, and available PED nodes to help tactical commanders. Acquiring its own high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) ISR drone and PED nodes has proven especially helpful for NATO, as it no longer has to rely on other countries for gathering this type of intelligence.
Quite bizarre that Europe has relied entirely on US for critical image intelligence analysis until now.
AGS pilots, joint intelligence surveillance reconnaissance (ISR) analysts, sensor operators, and maintainers have all been undergoing training at the base as part of the initial steps to create a âPremier NATO Training Centerâ in the Italian region. According to NATO, Sigonella is expected to see the completion of AGS permanent facilities later this year, and once fully operational, the center is set to host 22 training instructors (mission crew and pilot trainers) which, with the help of a simulator, will be capable of handling 80 trainees annually. This will represent not only a critical boost in the ISR capabilities of the alliance alongside its eastern flank, but it will also prove to be a key milestone for Italyâs military standing internationally.
There is now a major war in Europe with a million troops being mobilized in Ukraine and several millions of Ukrainians displaced to Europe. One simulator and 22 instructors producing 80 trainees per year just does not cut it.
Will need some Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to train the ISR analysts and sensor operators.
Long range, high altitude and radar is what US and NATO are providing (also from satellites). Withdrawing from Ukraine territory when it was invaded has reduced coverage in precisely that North East region where Ruscists have been able to inflict the most casualties.
Both NATO and Ukraine need their own independent PEDs.
Ukraineâs will need to include WFH in Europe.
Between May 11 and 18, NATO announced that it had successfully concluded what it coined a âsurge week,â consisting of launching an RQ-4D aircraft every other day from Sigonella, operating at 50,000 feet along its eastern flank. The overall number of hours flown over the course of that week was said to have been more than what the AGS accomplished during a two-month period in 2021.
5 aircraft flying a total of 4 sorties in a week is not much of a âsurgeâ.
Continuous monitoring of 2500km from 5 km altitude with 200 tactical drones is going to generate vastly more data than can currently be handled.
Fortunately the Ukrainian image analysts doing Work From Home also have neighbours, many of whom have PCs with gaming GPUs (or could be provided with them).
Image processing is a âDelighfully parallel problemâ:
Worldâs first exaflop supercomputer was done in support of covid research by:
Secure volunteer computing at neighbours would require same well hardened boot from USB drive technology as the actual image analysis workstations in the Ukrainian neigbourâs.
Significant Free and Open Source project to make the software an âapplianceâ with no local administrator and fully secure, but quite doable starting from DDF and opengeospatial.org already assisted by US NGA:
http://codice.org/ddf/docs/documentation.html
http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=6211&version=2&format=pdf
Possibly throw in some reachback to data centers with:
Data distribution to and from neighbours by micro SD card.
This century most people live in urban areas with electricity grid and internet coverage. Especially in Europe, fascists launching wars of aggression could encounter a very modern kind of Global Peopleâs War Against Fascism.
A recent IEA analysis of European gas supply claims that Gazprom was manipulating gas supply in 2021 and securing high profits from the manipulation.
The IEA analysis puts forward options for managing supply through the winter, including more use of coal and oil.
Analysis available on IEA site.
Nordstream 1 back online.
Russiaâs going all in on this winter. I think theyâve underestimated western resolve
By next winter alternative arrangements will be in place
Some of the European states are weak as ****.
Indeed, but I reckon one winter isnât going to be enough
It will be interesting to see what happens in winter. Could be a case where the bureaucracy and âweaknessâ of Europe slows down any decision making process and nothing changes. Meanwhile both sides lobb whatever artillery they have at each other and make limited advances.
Kinda hope this is Putinâs big play because I canât see it working.
Iâm hoping a European winter, with limited heating, will result in some steely resolve against Russia.
Europeans might blame their governments, but more likely they will blame Russia, and they will vow to make Russia pay. âThose spiteful farks turned the gas off, we nearly froze, we hardly slept the whole winter, my kids were miserableâ. They wonât forget either, and the kids will grow up remembering it too.
Most of us werenât on the frontline against Covid, but most of us got jabbed, wore masks, got locked down, businesses closed, lots of us eventually got Covid, and we made sacrifices, etc. We werenât on the frontline but we still suffered. We wonât forget.
Iâm hoping for a similar reaction from the people.
Edit: and just like when we were having bushfires & floods, itâs a shame we canât âbottleâ the heatwave Europe is having now and save it for winter.
Itâs really just the right wing who buy into Russian bullshit⌠MAGA/Q in the west, people like Le Pen in Europe. They canât be saved, theyâre just puppets. We need to learn how to secure democracy against Russiaâs half arsed efforts anyway- CCP has far more data and will use it in the future
Edit some dark greens as well
The days of altruism are gone for now. If itâs a severe winter, Europe will throw Ukraine under the bus.
Look at how Europe reacted to COVID.
Itâs not altruism if itâs patriotism. The eastern bloc is convinced this is the first step to USSR mark 2 and Western Europe at this stage is committed. Theyâve got one winter in them
The EU Common Security and Defence Policy is limited in scope and bears no resemblance to the common EU economic policy. Denmark has only this year dropped the opt out clause and the 27 Member States have considerable latitude to pursue their own defence policies externally ( within the parameters of NATO for the EU NATO members).
As such, the EU has displayed a high level of cohesion, with Hungary the only real outlier ( and Orban is under domestic pressure). Bulgaria, possibly the most pro Russian member is not contributing equipment, but is assisting in other ways.
Apart from Belarus ( and Serbia on the sidelines) Russia has no support from non EU Europe, In Eurasia, Kazakhstan has distanced itself, the EU has signed a gas deal with Azerbaijan. Iran is the only Middle East country to formally back Russia.
It also noteworthy that Turkey is onside to a degree. The closure of the Black Sea, the supply of drones to UA and statements that the drones will not be supplied to Russia are of significance.
I donât think you can draw any conclusions on how Europe might react to a severe winter based on what they did for Covid.