kEiThZ
Superstar
What I mean is that these pinprick strikes don't move the Russians. Better to stockpile a bit and unleash a real terror wave
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Russian-Ukrainian War (2022- )
- Thread starter Towered
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
Carney is awesome. This is finally the kind of support we should have always been giving Ukraine.
www.canada.ca
Government of Canada reaffirms unwavering support for Ukraine four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion - Canada.ca
Today marks four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On this day, the Government of Canada reaffirms its steadfast support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.
kEiThZ
Superstar
The irony is delicious.
Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
kEiThZ
Superstar
And not just them. So many people care so, so much about this one tragedy but were ever ready to justify why Ukraine should just accept the Russian boot.
Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
I wanted to bring the discussion back to this for a bit:
So far I've seen footage of just a couple of ballistic missile strikes on the US bases. Patriot batteries doing the work, but a few still slip through. However, I've seen videos of about a dozen successful strikes on the military bases by the Shahed drones (on top of all the civilian airports, residential buildings and shopping malls they struck across the Arabian peninsula).
Look at these strikes on US bases as a perfect example of a point I will try to articulate:
In all these and many more videos I've seen the drones are flying in slow, unopposed, most of the time in broad daylight, there are no tracer rounds in the air, no flack, not even any sounds of machine gun fire in the background.
And if you ask me, that is a clear failure to learn valuable lessons about drone warfare from Ukraine.
Because Ukrainians shoot down hundreds of Shahed drones with each wave the Russians send their way. Some get through, but the majority are downed. And this is how they do it:
Freaking pre-WW1 Maxim machine guns mounted on a pickup technical! They also mount miniguns on civilian helicopters. And they also use WW2 era piston engine trainer-fighter planes to chase down the Shaheds. But the majority of how they defend the entire country from Shaheds is using these mobile anti-air machine gun teams that manage to shoot down Shaheds in the dead of night.
If you are going up against hoards of cheap loitering munitions and kamikaze drones, you can't rely on expensive air defenses. No one in their right mind should be shooting down a $20K shahed with a $4.19M Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missile.
You need cheap point defenses against cheap drones. Even any WW2-era anti-air tech would do, let alone the myriad of point defense options US has. But where are the C-RAMs? APKWS? Where are Coyotes? Where are any artillery/gun based systems?
None of these are seen or heard in the videos of strikes on US bases. Maybe the Americans also thought that the threat of drones is overblown and the war they were going to be fighting was going to be different. So far 4 American soldiers paid for this failure to learn from Ukraine with their lives.
So far I've seen footage of just a couple of ballistic missile strikes on the US bases. Patriot batteries doing the work, but a few still slip through. However, I've seen videos of about a dozen successful strikes on the military bases by the Shahed drones (on top of all the civilian airports, residential buildings and shopping malls they struck across the Arabian peninsula).
Look at these strikes on US bases as a perfect example of a point I will try to articulate:
In all these and many more videos I've seen the drones are flying in slow, unopposed, most of the time in broad daylight, there are no tracer rounds in the air, no flack, not even any sounds of machine gun fire in the background.
And if you ask me, that is a clear failure to learn valuable lessons about drone warfare from Ukraine.
Because Ukrainians shoot down hundreds of Shahed drones with each wave the Russians send their way. Some get through, but the majority are downed. And this is how they do it:
Freaking pre-WW1 Maxim machine guns mounted on a pickup technical! They also mount miniguns on civilian helicopters. And they also use WW2 era piston engine trainer-fighter planes to chase down the Shaheds. But the majority of how they defend the entire country from Shaheds is using these mobile anti-air machine gun teams that manage to shoot down Shaheds in the dead of night.
If you are going up against hoards of cheap loitering munitions and kamikaze drones, you can't rely on expensive air defenses. No one in their right mind should be shooting down a $20K shahed with a $4.19M Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missile.
You need cheap point defenses against cheap drones. Even any WW2-era anti-air tech would do, let alone the myriad of point defense options US has. But where are the C-RAMs? APKWS? Where are Coyotes? Where are any artillery/gun based systems?
None of these are seen or heard in the videos of strikes on US bases. Maybe the Americans also thought that the threat of drones is overblown and the war they were going to be fighting was going to be different. So far 4 American soldiers paid for this failure to learn from Ukraine with their lives.
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evandyk
Senior Member
Israel is using some sort of laser weapon to shoot down drones. Makes a lot more sense than blasting a whole bunch of metal into the air and hoping it doesn't come down on any of your own citizens.
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Beam - Wikipedia
kEiThZ
Superstar
Nobody is actually doing that.
There's a substantial shortage of point defences. This is a known problem. It takes a while to build them and mobilize them. More so when stuff getting built was sent to Ukraine as first priority. Don't assume a lack of something is a failure of learning. How to build and layer air defences and what the proportions should be is a very hot topic in military circles. But you go to war with the army you have. And the Americans and Israelis seem to have made a calculated decision to launch now then wait. They've basically calculated that they can wipe out launchers, launch sites and crews before Iran can do substantial damage. We'll see where that math is in a week.
Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
Not sure if there is any evidence of the successful use of Iron Beam so far. All the claims I've seen so far have been misattributed to the Iron Beam. Example:Israel is using some sort of laser weapon to shoot down drones. Makes a lot more sense than blasting a whole bunch of metal into the air and hoping it doesn't come down on any of your own citizens.
Iron Beam - Wikipedia
Not to say that it's a bad idea to use lasers against drones, but directed energy weapons are a complicated technology in its infancy. And if Israel is successfully using them to defend their bases, that's fine. Americans don't have the lasers to defend their bases. So instead of waiting for the Shahed drone to strike your base while RnD is working on a laser, yes, put a bunch of lead in the air in the general direction of the drone. Better that, than not doing anything.
By the way, neat video on UK's development of a laser-based drone defence system:
Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
Okay, if it is a known fact that you are short on point defences, why then not station machine gunners at your bases and give them a weapons free order to shoot at anything that looks like a drone? There's no shortage of infantry machine guns, I assume. What about JLTVs with .50 cal machine gun turrets? Is there shortage of those? Because they would make minced meat out of those shaheds.
The failure is not in acknowledgement that you need point defenses. The failure is with learning what constitutes an effective point defence weapon system against drones.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
It's a difference in preference. The Americans really aren't fussed to defend empty buildings and possibly risk that JLTV crew. They'd rather just take the hit and make sure people are safe. Buildings can be rebuilt. Vehicles can be replaced. People can't. In the meantime, they will focus on wiping out all the launchers. Ukraine doesn't have this luxury. It has to defend. It can't destroy launchers.
If Iran is still dealing this much damage in a week or two, we may see that preference change.
Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
One of those buildings was a pretty expensive radar dome. Must have cost millions. Was probably important for the war effort too.
Not sure how you would be putting a JLTV crew in danger either. The shahed drones are flying to pre-programmed coordinates. They are not FPV strike drones, they won't change course and attack the JLTV all of a sudden. As long as the driver doesn't drive directly under the flight path of the drone as the gunner is shooting, there's next to zero danger for the crew.
This is all a moot point. Iran will run out of drones, drone launchers and drone manufacturing facilities well before any operational changes will take place at the US bases But hopefully those operational changes will come out of the post-mortem analysis of what went wrong. And hopefully if and when NATO goes up against Russia/China, we are better prepared.
kEiThZ
Superstar
It was a comms antenna. You don't place air defence radars in the middle of livable areas unless you want to cook the neighbours. And it's not expensive for the yanks to care.
Here's the thing. Unless you train a tactic, have proper procedures, etc. there's no point doing things on the fly. And there's substantial risk simply firing off into the sky. I was on a range safety working group led by the British. Why the British? They had a famous incident where a lady like a mile from a range got killed by a flying ricochet. It's just not worth it to try and defend every single place. If you can deploy EW do that. If you can have some limited assets on known avenues of approach that you know are cleared to shoot. Do that. But in this situation, I would be highly uncomfortable doing what you suggest. The first instinct here is correct. Just button down the troops and hope the air force can do its job. That math may and can change as the threat changes.
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Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
Ukrainians are bemused by the Americans' inabilityto protect their bases from shaheds:
Full Metal Junkie
Senior Member
This thing was a comms antenna? I'm not an expert on what goes under a white dome on a naval base, so I assumed it was a radar.