Russia invades Ukraine - 3 - from 23 Oct 2022

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The Warmate 3.0 ordered by Lithuania for delivery to Ukraine is promoted as a loitering munition.

But simply replacing the explosive warhead with an ISR module makes it a Warmate R ISR drone described as “loitering reconnaissance” with parachute for recovery.

It would be equally vulnerable to counter drone guns and equally capable of being used in a swarm with either type of payload.

Anything similar used in a swarm attack need not aim for “One Way Attack”. The swarm is to overwhelm defences. If enough get through any excess need not blow themselves up but can return and be recovered by parachute.

Likewise for drones dropping bombs. If they get through, why not try to return?

There will be times where your strategy is very valid. Times where the cost effectiveness of a $20k drone against a $300 grenade is obvious. But the Warmate Bomber tactic is being noticed and planned against.

My guess is that the emphasis on loitering munitions arises far more from counter insurgency stuff and is largely irrelevant to Ukraine.

Russia is terrible at new capability deployment. They don’t care about individual soldiers, so won’t rush anti drone tech to the front. China and America will have something in place within a couple of years. This is WW1 era style drone use. WW2 era air combat was miles removed from the dinky biplanes of a few years earlier.

The war is still a WW1 style artillery war with drones playing a WW1 style ISR role. That’s what Ukraine needs now.

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You’re thinking what Ukraine needs in this war. I’m thinking what militaries need in the next. The drone bomber option right now is effective and survivable, but that’s heavily due to Russian incompetence. That’s not something that should be expected from other armies.

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My point was about “One Way Attack” (“suicide” or “kamikaze”).

Actually I’m not that keen on the dropping grenades from drones either and agree that its popularity is due to Russian incompetence.

I’m less confident on than others about Russian incompetence continuing at the same level and the mobilization of 200K + troops and expected further mobilization of troops and war industriesnot making much difference and China not providing stuff needed.

It could all work out well and the Russian army and regime could just collapse soon. But its necessary to prepare for the plausible worst case, not the best case.

Even in close to the best case I would expect there is a real possibility that the Russian regime does not end the war even after being expelled from all the territory Ukraine held in 2013 and the fascist regime continues, for quite a while, relying on massive repression to “defend Russia” and prepare for the next offensive.

In that case I hope Ukraine would use drones to maintain tactical air supremacy as far as its long range artillery can reach over the border areas on the Russian side of the border. That would defeat regime pretence it achieved anything by destroying so much of Ukraine and underline its weakness and the lack of any actual occupation of Russian territory. So it could assist the Russian opposition to overthrow the regime both directly in the border regions and indirectly by humiliating it.

Some “loitering” might occur eg for random inspections. But blowing enemy armed forces up does not require deliberately requiring that UAVs actually be designed to be blown up themselves.

Speculating about future wars is difficult. But there are good reasons why it has traditionally been up to the enemy to blow up equipment attacking them. Only arms manufacturers see an obvious upside to that.

I don’t see much role for “One Way Attacks” in that scenario. ISR and artillery does the job. That job does include layered measures to suppress counter drone guns as well as improved electronics to defeat jamming.

As for what militaries need in the next war, the biggest contribution to avoiding a war with fascist China would be thorough defeat of Russian fascism leading to Russia becoming a democracy like Ukraine.

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Morning.


Powering up

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Of course they did.

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Should just kick Hungary out until Orban gets the ■■■■

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They have an informative website

Captured weapons include this, a man-portable disposable rocket-assisted flamethrower:

Namesake of the Unit

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Kherson Retreat & Winter Prospects - War Mapped

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I’m avoiding watching these videos, but the Russian lemming push is getting more tragic as hypothermia sets in.

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More normal Russians.

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Easy to throw cheap shots at the Russian people. Remember Germany during WW2, it takes outstanding courage to buck the system, like Sophie Scholl. It does not make most of the rest bad people. If this happened in Australia, how many of us would stick our necks out…

The movie here is well known in Germany, but criminally underrated elsewhere. And FWIW I have no German ancestry.

This in no way justifies what Russia is doing in Ukraine. But when this is over and Russia finally decides it is going to meaningfully join the community of nations, we have to rehabilitate it.

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His best rant yet.

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