Russian invasion of Ukraine

I don't know how much of this is propaganda to scare Russian soldiers, but this article seems to answer the question. The short version is that the Russians can't shoot down the drones at night, so the operators take their time to select the best targets. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukrainian-drone-unit-strikes-russian-targets-while-they-sleep-the-times-2022-3?r=US&IR=T

It must be terrifying for the Russian tank and vehicle crews. I knew a former Abrams tanker in the US. He was constantly terrified of burning to death even in peacetime, because quite a few Abrams caught fire. He was also scared of drowning or asphyxiating in Iraq, because the Abrams had quite a high C of G, and lots of the roads were on an embankment alongside a canal or river. If the tank rolled over into the water the crew couldn't get out. No escape hatch on the bottom as in Fury. There wasn't much rescue equipment for tanks, and there was a lot of pressure to keep the attack going fast. So if you were in an upside down tank in a canal you could expect to be left to your fate.

stay away from tanks because every f****r wants to kill them.

There's a video on reddit where you can just about see the legs and feet of infantry hiding behind an armoured vehicle of some sort. But after that vehicle blows up you can't see those feet anymore.

In this situation it unfortunately comes loaded with context. I agree with @snottyotter - they shouldn't get to own it - but the far right spend a lot of effort on loading otherwise innocuous terms with their own meaning for a variety of reasons, and simply ploughing on with using the term 'your own way' is one of the ways that this can benefit them, since it can create the impression that they have broader support than they actually do. I've not got all the answers on that front, for sure.

Pretty sure that's exactly what it is. The autoloaders line up the shells in a ring around the cupola, and a lot of the MLAW type stuff the Ukrainians are using strike the tanks from above, where they are more vulnerable, too. Ignite the shells in the turret and it blows right off.

Historically Russian tank design seems to have favoured smaller tanks, which made sense when the main threat to a tank was another tank - harder to spot and harder to hit. The preference for autoloaders over manual loading is part of this. It seems that this design preference is quite disadvantaged in the era of smart weapons.

Alexander Vindman is worth a follow on Twitter https://twitter.com/AVindman When he was a Lt.Col. in the US Army he had a notable run-in with Trump.

He's arguing that Ukraine should be given large amounts of more sophisticated weapons than the hand held stuff they've been given so far, e.g. the big AA missile systems which can get Russian bombers at altitude and long range missiles to hit Russian artillery. They need months of training, which is one of the official reasons they've been refused so far. Vindman says the war may last and the training should start asap. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-05/america-must-do-more-help-ukraine-fight-russia?utm_medium=social

[tanks in general] are quite disadvantaged in the era of smart weapons.

Tanks are done. Old weapons for an old era.

I went down a Twitter hole that had a schematic of the tank overlaid with video of the Azov brigade videos targeting the tracks and a very specific space to the right rear of the tank that suggested exactly that. The turrets jump around as they run on a big bearing effectively held in place only by their own weight. When ammo goes boom it pops off.

Tanks are done. Old weapons for an old era.

You can say the same about APCs. But you can't do without infantry, and how are they supposed to be protected?

Everything seems imbalanced in this war. The Russians are resorting to long range weapons like the S-400 and the hypersonic missile because their army and air force can't cope with Ukraine's short range stuff. Heavy weapons will wipe more and more places like Mariupol off the map. If the Russians ship off the Ukrainians to Siberia and build new cities in Ukraine they'll have to force their own people to come and live in them.

That’s been said many times before, counter UAV UAVs will be developed and combining artillery and ground attack aircraft can suppress infantry.

RE the Business Insider article. It’s not great, there are big assumptions talking about the use of Starlink. I used to work in satellite tech.

Starlink is just a satellite enabled traditional Wi-Fi router, the fundamentals are not new tech. It’s an internet source broadcasting via an old school Wi-Fi router. The drones categorically do not connect via Starlink, they’ll be using radio or 3G data mobile signal if that still exists.

Starlink access will allow the remote operators to tap into the internet for live target intelligence, but it has nothing to do with the operating of the drones.

Yep, the same things happen here in Lithuania which is super sad.

I guess my main surprise from all of this is that none of the people in my circle were aware of that nazi political party and connotation with them yet pretty much everyone knows what "Svoboda" means.

And here it seems people have heard of this nazi political party but not everyone knows what the word means. Illustrates the different information bubbles we live in - and probably different ways Russian propaganda works?

I've got in touch with that friend of mine and he got hella stressed because he shared that thing everywhere (and obviously put in tons of work).
He wasn't aware of those nazis as well, of course.

did anyone catch the name of the analyst/academic at the end of C4 news?
he was on the money re past notions of greatness in nations and how we should be looking forward and assessing what democracy means, was nodding furiously but the pasta was boiling over and missed who it was.

Historically Russian tank design seems to have favoured smaller tanks.

The Russian favour attack whether the American favour defense.

This guy https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder

https://www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-is-defending-all-of-us-from-putin-timothy-snyder-interview

Vindman has tweeted this. I suppose he thinks it's accurate. But wouldn't the source be that Russian newspaper which took it down?

thanks, i looked on C4 straight after but they must have updated a time after broadcast.

It's a much longer version, well worth a watch for all I reckon.

It does feel like there is a drip drip of differing levels of evidence that the Ukrainian version of the stats are more accurate than everybody first thought.

External observer estimates of Russian deaths are all in the ~10k+ ballpark.

We might never know the true figure but at this point I think we can say for sure that Russia is having an unexpected shocker on the body bag front.

Tanks are done. Old weapons for an old era.

Not so... just not fit for every battlefield.

The largest tank battle to ever take place took place within the lifetime of most people on this forum.

In a single night as part of a single large campaign:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Al_Busayyah (prelude)
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting (main battle)
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Medina_Ridge (significant battle)
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Norfolk (a.k.a "fright night")
  
  

The decisive use of tanks turned a possible strong resistance into nothing significant. Iraq wasn't a walk in the park, but nearly everything of significance happened in tank battles lasting 36 hours.

When used well, tanks are the right tool for a job.

I think I was being a bit flippant in saying that tanks are completely done. These are all good examples and relatively recent in the grand scheme of things, but these cases were all before the internet/cheap tech/drones. Big tech changes over the past decade meaning tanks are too slow and vulnerable now.

Literally swarms, 1000's of cheap drones loaded with munitions remotely piloted by teenagers from the other side of the planet. I think that's what warfare will be/nearly is.

but these cases were all before the internet/cheap tech/drones

Yup, true.

Tanks will do OK for a good while longer.

But US military exercises involving an entire air craft carrier fleet showed on multiple occasions that a swarm of fast moving small craft can overcome things.

One of the first links I could find: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/2002-exercise-showed-how-swarm-of-small-craft-could-overwhelm-u-s-ships/

This definitely applies to everything in time, but right now the bigger and slower moving the target the more susceptible to be overwhelmed by a swarm of smaller faster moving things.

When I saw the initial Ukraine invasion news about the traffic jammed convoys I did think that this would not happen in the future... another 10-20 years from now and a sitting duck like that would be overwhelmed by kamikaze drones.

entire air craft carrier fleet showed on multiple occasions that a swarm of fast moving small craft can overcome things.

I listened to Dan Carlin's podcast about WW2 in the Pacific. He spoke about it was around there / then that how the first time that an aircraft carrier was used in a naval battle and swarming the opposing battle ships with planes immediately obsoleted them (and unexpectedly at the time, the use case for planes on ships was expected to be for reconnaissance).

I can easily imagine that drones will do similar to most battlefield armour.

This definitely applies to everything in time, but right now the bigger and slower moving the target the more susceptible to be overwhelmed by a swarm of smaller faster moving things.

I think this is reflected in recent manned armoured vehicle design. There appears to be a tendency towards smaller and faster vehicles that can launch drones and perform reconaissance with the capability to pop smoke and return fire using a cannon. Some of these new vehicles are designed to be remotely operated.

Guys this is death star takedown 101

Suicide bombers in small speedboats did a lot of damage to US ships. The Phalanx guns use up ammo so fast they cannot defend against sustained attack.