[HN Gopher] Air Support in a Backpack: The Switchblade
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Air Support in a Backpack: The Switchblade
Author : picture
Score : 123 points
Date : 2022-07-28 17:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (asianometry.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asianometry.substack.com)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| > "But the Ukrainian conflict has certainly put this thing on the
| map, and despite heavy competition I think AeroVironment is going
| to be finding a whole bunch of new customers soon. And the US
| military is going to learn a whole lot about what exactly these
| things can do."
|
| Small wars are like marketing campaigns for military-industrial
| suppliers around the world. They also drive up commodity prices.
| Since Dec 2021, average share prices for the oil majors and the
| defense contractors have increased from 25-50% depending on the
| company in question, as of last month.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Added benefit a lot of old stock, from ammunition to whole
| systems, finally hets ised and expended and needa replacement.
| Training alone only consumes so much over a given year.
| nine_k wrote:
| This particular war, with a frontline of many hundreds of
| kilometers, and about 75k personnel losses on the Russia's side
| alone, is not a small war. This is more personnel than the US
| lost in Vietnam.
| mlyle wrote:
| > This is more personnel than the US lost in Vietnam.
|
| In about 1/30th the amount of time.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Supposedly between 20,000 and 40,000 Russian Federation
| troops killed. Of course many of them, maybe most? are from
| former SSRs other than Russia.
|
| Russia is getting better at spotting with drones. I gather
| they just managed to wipe out a fleet of M777s that parked
| too close to Russian artillary. Or maybe it was rockets?
| strictnein wrote:
| That's 75k wounded and killed, not 75k deaths. Still, it is a
| staggering number of injury and death in such a short time.
|
| > "75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the
| field"
|
| [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-suffered-
| more-75-000-1...
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "I wouldn't want to be a Russian tank, if it was even working in
| the first place."
|
| I don't understand one sided barbs in pieces trying to appear
| like unbiased analysis.
|
| Denying reality does nobody any good. In fact, denying Russias
| continuing victory only helps them, as people rest on their
| laurels.
| signatoremo wrote:
| Russia isn't winning. It's essentially a stalemate at this
| point. Russia "paused" and "restarted" the war to shore up
| their force.
|
| Paywalled, but still:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/ukraine-russ...
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Aren't they occupying something like 20% of the country?
| Maybe they're overextended and will lose eventually, but sure
| seems like they're winning at the moment.
| bshipp wrote:
| Russia is occupying a sizable portion of the country, but
| to do so has expended vast quantities of stockpiled
| munitions and manpower. Ukraine as well, but they have
| undertaken mass mobilization and have the West supporting
| them re-arm. Russia has no such replacement capacity.
|
| Given the dramatic military strength differential between
| Russia and the Ukraine, the fact they are at a stalemate
| is, itself, a huge victory for Ukraine and a crippling
| defeat for Russia.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| We'll see. I'm not as optimistic as you. Russia hasn't
| mobilized all their manpower and its position can change
| dramatically if the war lasts until winter.
| exhilaration wrote:
| I'm with you, I can't see how - long term - Russia could
| possibly lose. Sure they're a decade or two behind the
| West when it comes to technology but there's no way
| Ukraine can match Russia's manpower and industrial
| capacity. Then again, I really didn't think the U.S.
| could possibly lose to the Taliban, yet here we are.
| luckylion wrote:
| Ukraine can't but the West easily does. It's important to
| keep in mind that Russia's economy is the size of
| Italy's, and they have a population of 145 millions.
| Ukraine has 44 millions, NATO countries combined have 950
| millions, most of which are highly developed industrial
| nations, so there's really no question that NATO can
| outproduce Russia many times over, if they choose to
| really ramp up the production and ship it to Ukraine.
|
| It seems they are getting there, even the Germans are
| slowly giving up their hesitations, and it makes sense as
| well: anything Russia has to spend in Ukraine, they
| cannot spend in Poland and the Baltic States.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Comparing Russian GDP to Italy understates Russian
| economic power because it is probably the most autarchic
| country (maybe North Korea is more autarchic, I would
| have said the USA too until covid happened) and is a net
| exporter of metals, energy, and food. If the war lasts
| until winter Europe will really be hurting from lack of
| Russian energy.
| threeseed wrote:
| > If the war lasts until winter Europe will really be
| hurting from lack of Russian energy.
|
| Russia has already cut off most of their gas supplies
| with Nord Stream 1.
|
| And so Europe has measures in place eg. storing gas,
| sharing agreements, increasing supply from Azerbaijan
| etc. They will experience some pain over winter but day
| by day they become more ready for it.
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Their goal was to take 100% in a few days though. So 20%
| doesn't sound like winning to me.
|
| They've already failed strategically, so they're
| desperately trying to gain territory in areas where they
| have a localised tactical advantage (places near the
| border).
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| A strategic failure is what happened in the Yom Kippur
| War when the Israeli counterattack penetrated the
| Egyptian and Syrian front and started attacking the rear.
| I don't see how gaining 20% of an opponent's territory
| and entrenching yourself is losing even if Russia thought
| it would achieve more faster. So far Ukraine hasn't
| demonstrated an ability to counterattack at scale.
| mcphage wrote:
| > I don't see how gaining 20% of an opponent's territory
| and entrenching yourself is losing
|
| I guess it depends on two questions: (1) have they
| accomplished their actual goals? (2) how quickly can they
| replace the manpower and equipment that they have lost so
| far?
| threeseed wrote:
| > So far Ukraine hasn't demonstrated an ability to
| counterattack at scale
|
| They have been constantly counter attacking.
|
| And with so many Ukrainian soldiers in UK being trained
| the real offensive is coming soon when they return.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Aren't they occupying something like 20% of the country?
|
| Temporarily occupying.
|
| As we are currently seeing in Kherson, Ukraine continues to
| attempt to reclaim held territory.
|
| And there is widespread doubt about Russia's ability to
| hold them over the long term with the limited troops they
| have. Russia needs a full scale mobilisation to do this and
| unfortunately for them it's politically toxic.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > Denying reality does nobody any good.
|
| True, so why deny the reality that Russian tanks have proven to
| be horribly unreliable?
| krzyk wrote:
| There is also Warmate drone (commercial
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzOH5fBAqw) that is used by
| Ukraine forces.
| dukoid wrote:
| Does this threat make the retired German Gepard air defence tank
| "modern" again? Alternatively, could one mount something like
| Phalanx CIWS on a truck? I suppose one wouldn't want to use
| (expensive) missiles (stinger?) against small drones?
|
| BTW: Why is the ammunition for these systems still on chains --
| opposed to "just" shovelling it into some kind of funnel?
| ISL wrote:
| Funnels can plug/jam, chains rarely fail.
|
| Chainguns generally depend upon an external drive to pull
| ammunition through a gun -- whether a round in the chamber has
| fired or not, it will be extracted and a new one put in its
| place. As I understand it, this is the primary difference
| between chainguns and belt-fed guns (which use part of the
| energy expended by the cartridge to cycle the weapon and feed
| the belt) -- reliability.
|
| Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gun
| dogma1138 wrote:
| The chain in a chain-gun refers to the motor drive not a
| chain that hold the cartridges, it just an auto cannon that
| has its action being operated a motor drive basically it's a
| very fast repeating rifle.
|
| It doesn't have much to do with how the ammo is loaded. Also
| most auto cannons today even the high fire rate ones that are
| used for CIWS and AA aren't chain guns.
| adolph wrote:
| The chain in an externally powered weapon is distinct from
| the belt [0] (which can be all metal) which is used to feed
| the ammunition. Its confusing since the sections of a
| disintegrating belt are referred to as "links."
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_(firearms)
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Apparently it has been done:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM
| 323 wrote:
| Lasers are supposedly the next big close range drone killers,
| less than $100 per shot, and infinite rounds (as long as you
| have fuel obviously).
| zmgsabst wrote:
| There may be a question for swarms though:
|
| An air burst round doesn't require the system stay pointed as
| a single target, whereas a laser needs a few seconds on
| target.
|
| At speed-of-sound, a munition moves at about 0.2 miles per
| second, or about a mile in the engagement time. Which caps
| the number of targets it can intercept to a handful.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > At speed-of-sound, a munition moves at about 0.2 miles
| per second
|
| That's cute - but we aren't firing airguns at these things.
| A CIWS (the R2D2 looking missile defense cannons) fires its
| rounds with a velocity of around 3600ft/s, or 3.5x what you
| seem to be thinking.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I was guesstimating on the low side, for incoming
| munitions.
|
| Faster munitions means that the laser can intercept
| proportionally fewer targets -- which is why it's a
| question of if lasers can fend off swarms the way gun
| based solutions can.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| Meanwhile, this Ukrainian soldier wearing FPV goggles took a
| cheap commercial drone armed with explosives and flew it right to
| its target. Scary that almost anybody could do this anywhere,
| anytime.
|
| https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1553090460352135169
| AustinDev wrote:
| People have been doing this in a game I play call Squad for
| years. Interesting to see it realized in real life.
|
| https://youtu.be/SctREcQ-D94?t=191
| ncmncm wrote:
| Why don't we hear anything about Switchblade anymore, in Ukraine?
| Did they use all theirs up? And didn't buy more, because
| artillery is cheaper, and lately just as precise?
| wrzuteczka wrote:
| The smaller one turned out to be hardly useful, the larger one
| isn't available. Warmates seem to be more effective in Ukraine,
| and Ukraine bought/received more of those.
| ncmncm wrote:
| The smaller one, used on fuel trucks, could oblige the enemy
| to abandon tanks. But I guess wiping out the fuel depot would
| work better. That is anyway best done right before pushing
| back the front, so the abandoned equipment is left somewhere
| accessible.
| [deleted]
| bigodbiel wrote:
| The current conflict hasn't seen the best employment of loitering
| munitions, from both sides actually. Maybe as a function of the
| current paradigm (artillery duel), the low yield explosive of the
| S 300 fielded, or lack of experienced fixed wing drone operators,
| in comparison with multi-rotor drones, which are retrievable with
| much longer flight times.
|
| Tube launched loitering munitions are the future nonetheless and
| will replace the mortar and multi rotor drones, once all the
| issues have been figured out.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I think the bigger impact will be when the larger variants are
| deployed among artillery.
|
| We already have artillery that can reach 50-100km, but when
| that can be used to deploy drones with payloads capable of
| destroying tanks -- then your entire style of fighting can
| change.
|
| I actually wonder if this will bring back something like
| battleships: a 6" gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range
| would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and hit
| critical systems -- like radars, point defense, or weapons. At
| least, as a swarm from a broadside.
| gpderetta wrote:
| But artillery is already more than capable of killing tanks.
| Terminal guidance for artillery shells is likely to make more
| of a difference.
|
| On the other hand drones appear to be excellent for directing
| artillery and general reconnaissance.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Sure -- but now we're into debating the difference between
| a shell with terminal guidance and steering versus a drone.
|
| Over my head.
|
| Though if you want to say the difference is powered flight,
| that's probably a good distinction... but I think powered
| terminal guidance is worth a lot when you're shooting
| 50-100km at potentially moving targets.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > I actually wonder if this will bring back something like
| battleships: a 6" gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range
| would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and
| hit critical systems -- like radars, point defense, or
| weapons. At least, as a swarm from a broadside.
|
| Battleships have disappeared for several reasons, but the
| biggest one is that it's an incredibly expensive way (in
| money and manpower) to launch those 6" (or even much bigger)
| shells. Changing the value of the shell doesn't change the
| fact that it's still incredibly expensive.
|
| I think we'll be much more likely to see these launched in
| swarms from other aircraft - the Air Force is already
| exploring what they refer to as Arsenal Planes, which are
| basically cargo planes with the ability to launch or drop
| tons (literally) of long range munitions. These aircraft
| would remain hundreds of miles from contested airspace and
| still be able to bring hell down on a target.
|
| Something like the Switchblade 600, launched by the dozens
| and controlled en-masse by either in-craft or remote pilots
| would be the modern version of launching these from the
| Mighty Mo's main cannon.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I hadn't meant battleship in the sense of a large capital
| ship, but rather something largely automated with a dozen
| guns/barrels.
|
| My sense of it is that such a ship would be able to engage
| at a range and volume of fire a lot of current navies would
| struggle to counter, but I'll admit that's more feeling
| than demonstrated fact.
|
| Though, a plane is never going to hold the sheer volume of
| munitions a ship does: they have to fly and they're smaller
| craft. And since Switchblade 600 has a 40km range, you'd
| have to take your plane awfully close for that plan --
| whereas artillery extends that.
|
| Arsenal Planes are still a good idea though.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| This is an excellent long-form article on the history of
| AeroVironment and their history of developing light-weight long-
| endurance aircraft. Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros and
| Solar Challenger, which may surprise some.
|
| That largely confirms a view I'd previously formed that the
| principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and solar (or
| small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities will be in
| warfare and surveillance applications.
|
| A solar + battery styrofoam + balsa aircraft with cameras and
| transmission capabilities could loiter for weeks or months over a
| region transmitting close-range realtime imagery. Given
| comparable mission costs for manned aircraft (listed in the
| article) at $20k -- $40k/hour, it would be possible to "darken
| the skies" (or at least saturate regions of interest) at very low
| cost.
|
| A smaller number of response UAVs could address specific points
| of interest with a response of a few minutes to hours.
|
| All without putting pilots in harm's way.
|
| The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be
| profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets
| and shells were to pikes.
| philipkglass wrote:
| In related news, the Airbus Zephyr just set a new record for
| endurance flight and is still aloft:
|
| https://www.space.com/airbus-zephyr-drone-long-endurance-fli...
|
| _An experimental aircraft tested in conjunction with the
| United States Army has been in the air above the Sonoran Desert
| for 42 days, breaking its own record for longest uncrewed
| flight.
|
| The solar-powered, high-altitude Airbus Zephyr S took off from
| the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground on June 15, 2022 and has
| since been flying patterns over the Yuma Test Range and Kofa
| National Wildlife Refuge.
|
| The flight has now broken Zephyr's previous record of 25 days,
| 23 hours that it set in August 2018. The latest flight has seen
| Zephyr reach a number of additional milestones including its
| first flight over water, first flight into international
| airspace, the longest continuous flight while being controlled
| through satellite communications, and the farthest flight from
| its launch point, according to a U.S. Army statement (opens in
| new tab)._
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Thanks, yes. That's the "weeks or months" I was talking
| about.
|
| I'd be interested in knowing what its flight profile looks
| like. The Solar Impulse manned solar-powered aircraft that
| flew around the world (though with stops) performed energy
| potential banking by climbing over the course of the day,
| then descending through the night. Altitude was thus a large
| part of the "battery" storage system, banking energy received
| during the day.
|
| Article below describes the aircraft, if not the energy
| management element.
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/inside-first-
| solar...
| themodelplumber wrote:
| It'd be interesting to look at cheap counter-loiter tech and
| e.g. light exostructures and materials that are more difficult
| to penetrate at layers and readily repairable after drone
| attacks. I would guess that there is some interesting low-
| hanging fruit in that area.
|
| It also seems like a possible co-creative opportunity with the
| concept of covering ground properties with solar panels. Defend
| against airborne threats but also make the protective layer pay
| for itself if possible.
|
| Given additional sensor and environmental control development
| (vs breathing in munitions byproducts, etc), I wonder if over
| time the rationale for going outside, especially in a war zone,
| will simply fade away.
| pelorat wrote:
| In the future all these things will be countered by portable
| LASER systems.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Israel has explicitly identified drones as a target for
| Iron Beam. Once that's operational I think you'll see
| attitudes shift on drone value.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| Drones aren't going anywhere. They are so cheap,
| plentiful, and useful that it doesn't really matter how
| good the counter measures get. And if the counter
| measures get too good, then those systems will become
| primary targets themselves.
|
| EDIT: Looking at the wikipedia for Iron Beam. The range
| is only 7km. A quick google search indicates drones can
| fly at elevations of 10km, safely out of range. Also, it
| sounds like Iron Beam was designed to handle the
| occasional rocket launch from Hamas, and not a full scale
| barrage of artillery. So a possible way to defeat this
| system would be to send a drone up to 10km, locate the
| Iron Beam system, and send a barrage of artillery shells
| in its direction and maybe sneak in a high precision
| shell or two in the volley to increase your odds of a
| hit. That seems like it would be sufficient to take it
| out.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > Also looking at the wikipedia for Iron Beam. The range
| is only 7km
|
| It's limited by physics - as of now, if Israel needs
| long-range interdiction they use the missile-based Iron
| Dome instead.
|
| There's reports of drones armed with bombs shot down by
| the Iron Dome system.
|
| > a full scale barrage of artillery
|
| I don't think any system currently deployed has the
| capability of disrupting artillery/rocket barrages,
| mostly one-of events.
|
| Even the SDI initiative "Excalibur" project would only
| really worked in space (you don't want to detonate
| nuclear weapons very close to you, or scatter X-rays in
| the atmosphere instead of the target)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Laser defences require large energy supplies. They're an
| option against fixed positions, far less viable for
| individuals or mobile units, armoured or otherwise.
| nine_k wrote:
| What about beam energy and weight of a laser system?
| Current laser-armed aircraft are huge cargo planes mostly.
|
| I suspect that non-coherent RF pulse weapons with phased-
| array focusing (along with detection and ranging) could be
| more realistically portable.
| tiahura wrote:
| https://youtu.be/cH_vFJctl9I
|
| Solar loitering for a few hundred bucks.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Is there a particular segment of that hour-long video which
| specifically addresses capabilities / features / other
| elements of interest?
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| > The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be
| profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets
| and shells were to pikes.
|
| They said this about torpedo boats, submarines, tanks, and
| guided munitions among others. It will require countermeasures
| and changes in tactics but I doubt much will change. Since
| these systems are cheap and slow everyone else will have them
| too and they will be easy to shoot down.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Torpedo boats led to substantially-reinforced secondary
| batteries on capital ships and eventually mixed composition
| fleets. Submarines led to ASW (as a doctrine and embodied in
| single-purpose aerial and surface platforms). Tanks led to
| ATGMs and decades of penetrator and armor evolution. Guided
| munitions (and specifically, nuclear ones) led to radically
| dispersed combat and logistics deployments and the C3
| necessary to support them.
|
| All of those are _very_ big changes.
|
| The most likely effect of loitering munitions will be a
| revolution in SHORAD and an understanding that even dug-in
| infantry can't operate outside of an air defense bubble. Or
| countries with the manpower and ethical flexibility going
| all-in on poorly-equipped cheap numbers over exquisite
| platforms.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Capital ships are hardly the only, or even primary, target
| of submarines. Cargo shipping was, and will likely be.
|
| Further, submarine warfare by the US against Japan during
| WWII was _absolutely_ devastating to Japan 's ability to
| supply raw materials for its own war effort. Japan was (and
| is) an extraordinarily capable and productive country, but,
| thanks to its volcanic geology, also extraordinarily
| limited in crucial raw materials, particularly iron and
| fuels (coal, oil), both of which are formed or concentrated
| largely through long-term biological activity.
|
| The U.S. had become aware of these costs itself due to the
| earlier actions of German U-boat operations against both
| intracoastal and transatlantic shipping early in WWII. In
| March 1943 _alone_ German U-boats sank over 100 Allied
| vessels, mostly cargo. One consequence of the attacks
| against US oil shipments was the construction of inland oil
| pipelines, the "Big Inch" and "Little Inch", as government
| projects, during the war. These remain in use AFIAU. Later,
| one of the first projects following establishing a
| beachhead in Normandy was to run an oil pipeline across the
| English Channel.
|
| (Daniel Yergin's _The Prize_ coves all of this, and I 'm
| relying on it for specifics.)
|
| We're familiar with the notion of coal and oil forming over
| hundred-million-year intervals. Most iron-ore deposits are
| multi- _billion_ year old accumulations, many predating the
| Great Oxygenation Event.
|
| Present long-distance transport modes (sea and air) are
| reliant on cheap fuels, large vehicles (both aircraft and
| ships become more efficient with size, within limits), and
| _secure passage along routes_. I was struck a few years ago
| how the development of large-scale long-distance cargo
| shipping largely paralleled the evolution of large-scale
| long-distance whale species. Both rely on the fundamental
| greater efficiency of long bodies moving through water (
| "hull speed"), the existence of widely-spaced reward
| (cargo/payment, food source) locations, and the ability to
| traverse such routes with little risk.
|
| Human-based whale hunting absolutely annihilated whale
| populations, which crashed to a few percent of their pre-
| hunt levels. In instances in which combat regions have
| emperilled commercial aviation flights, airlines have acted
| quickly to route around such regions, even at the cost of
| much longer travel (and higher fuel costs).
|
| A reintroduction of anti-shipping naval-warefare
| activities, and unlimited targeting of commercial aviation,
| would have profound effects.
| gumby wrote:
| > AeroVironment and their history of developing light-weight
| long-endurance aircraft. Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros
|
| Before the Albatross there was the Gossamer Condor, which is
| the one that won the PS50K prize mentioned in the article. For
| some reason the name of the aircraft wasn't given.
|
| I remember when this prize was won. I was taking Unified (MIT
| aero-astro department requirement) and this achievement
| astonished me.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| GC was _also_ MacCready:
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Condor>
|
| I also remember when these flights were made. Part of the
| reason why TFA is having such a strong impression on me.
|
| Also MacCready was the Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur:
|
| https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8WFmpEmmzOU
| marktangotango wrote:
| > with cameras and transmission capabilities
|
| I think the "transmission" part here is the real story for
| military applications. To get real time video further out than
| a few kilometers, not many nations have satellite datalink
| capabilities. Those that don't will be at the whim of
| commercial providers (Starlink for now). Otherwise, the long
| duration drone flight discussed here could be most valuable for
| aerial, orbiting, microwave transponders.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| > To get real time video further out than a few kilometers,
| not many nations have satellite datalink capabilities.
|
| Suppose you capture video at 4k resolution and 2 frames per
| second, and you compress it with h.265 at reasonable quality.
| Most of your image will be the same from frame to frame, so
| encoding will be really efficient. Then you're looking at
| ballpark 70 kilobytes per frame, or 1120 kbit/s. If you
| transmit that over 1.3 GHz and the receiving station has a
| good antenna, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to
| reach 100-200 km range?
| nradov wrote:
| In future high end conflicts, satellite communications will
| be unreliable due to heavy use of anti-satellite weapons and
| electronic attacks. In order to maintain communications,
| military forces will need relays in the air and on the
| ground, plus agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly
| replace satellite attrition losses.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > satellite communications will be unreliable due to heavy
| use of anti-satellite weapons
|
| > agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly replace
| satellite attrition losses.
|
| Once you reach Kessler syndrome / collisional cascading,
| the problem is no longer anti-satellite weapons, it's just
| lots of damaging space pollution in orbit - at this point,
| launching more satellites won't help anymore.
|
| EDIT: on another note, this also reflects the Mutual
| Assured Destruction/ICBM situation - you don't destroy my
| things, I don't destroy your things - it only works if both
| parties have things to loose. Anti-satellite weapons are
| the most dangerous in the hands of countries with low
| amounts of spacecraft.
| nradov wrote:
| Concerns about Kessler syndrome won't stop combatants
| from using anti-satellite weapons. When national (or
| regime) survival is at stake, they will shoot down
| adversary satellites and worry about cleaning up the mess
| later.
|
| Kessler syndrome is mainly only a concern in higher
| orbits anyway. In lower orbits there's enough atmospheric
| drag that anything not periodically boosted will re-enter
| within a few years.
|
| Combatants will have to consider satellites to be
| expendable anyway so they'll go ahead and launch
| replacements even if expected lifetime is very short.
| Even in if there's a lot of debris in orbit, it will take
| a while on average for any individual satellite to get
| hit.
|
| This is absolutely nothing like MAD. Satellites have to
| be destroyed one at a time, and that involves little or
| no loss of human life or national infrastructure. In
| fact, I predict that if the USA gets into a major
| shooting war with China or Russia, satellites will be
| among the first targets on both sides.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > Concerns about Kessler syndrome won't stop combatants
| from using anti-satellite weapons. When national (or
| regime) survival is at stake, they will shoot down
| adversary satellites and worry about cleaning up the mess
| later.
|
| This is a sad truth, people will shot first, and then
| when their own satellites get mass destroyed by the
| remnants of "the enemy satellites" they will notice
| something had gone terribly wrong.
|
| And once such condition is reached up, clearing up the
| mess is nearly impossible without international
| coordination on a very expensive project.
|
| > Kessler syndrome is mainly only a concern in higher
| orbits anyway.
|
| LEO satellites (most of them, specifically most military
| satellites) are very vulnerable to Kessler syndrome.
|
| > Even in if there's a lot of debris in orbit, it will
| take a while on average for any individual satellite to
| get hit.
|
| If it takes a while for it to get hit, then you haven't
| reached Kessler syndrome yet.
|
| > This is absolutely nothing like MAD. Satellites have to
| be destroyed one at a time
|
| Until they all suddenly turn collectively into space
| junk, because too much space junk is floating in space.
|
| > that involves little or no loss of human life or
| national infrastructure.
|
| I think that the very expensive satellites humans put in
| orbit is considered part of the national infrastructure.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Drones themselves could provide mesh networks, possibly /
| probably with narrow-band communications (laser or tight-beam
| microwave) between units.
|
| Even a few hundred metres of elevation gives a highly
| extended transmission range, and dedicated high-altitude
| comms drones (FL40 -- FL60 or better) could communicate to
| distances of 100s of km.
|
| These themselves would still be cheap, would be difficult to
| spot, let alone target, and would require high-altitude-
| capable missiles to reach, though beam weapons (e.g., lasers)
| are another option.
|
| Balloons (think weather balloons) would be another option,
| operating even higher. Again, cheap and easily replaced, but
| costing $100ks or $1ms to destroy. Think Google's Project
| Loon.
| nine_k wrote:
| Fly a larger re-translator drone 50-100 km away from the area
| of interest, which can relay the signal over a higher-power
| microwave link to a ground station another 100-200 km away.
|
| It could relay signals from many front-line drones.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros and Solar Challenger,
| which may surprise some.
|
| Yeah, wow, I would not have even had the remotest idea that the
| Gossamer Albatross and the Switchblade were somehow connected
| prior to reading this article.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to
| pikes."
|
| Mainly these drones are for scouting and directing the shells
| of the artillery and the bullets of the soldiers, so I am not
| sure the comparison is adequate as they are not making the
| shells obsolete.
|
| Once they are so cheap, that a drone with explosive is cheaper
| than an artillery round, they might make artillery obsolete,
| but so far they are strenghtening the value of artillery.
| nine_k wrote:
| An artillery round flies much, much faster, supersonic for a
| good part of the trajectory. It hits a target 10-15 km away
| in well under a minute.
|
| A drone would take 10-20 minutes to cover such a distance,
| and it would likely be easier to spot and destroy while en
| route, even if it tries to fly low and maneuver.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Artillery rounds follow ballistic trajectories, and though
| interdicting the shell itself is challenging, plotting
| trajectory to origin makes counter-battery fire quite
| effecitve.
|
| Howizters and Panzerhaubitzen have greater strategic value
| than single shells do.
|
| Drones can fly non-predictable paths, and single-use drones
| don't pave a lane back to origin.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Drones obviously provide several capabilities.
|
| One of those is precise pinpoint attacks.
|
| Russia's extraordinarily high losses of senior general staff
| officers would highlight these capabilities.
|
| The ability to identify, inderdict, and disable high-capital
| equipment (e.g., tanks, the _Moskova_ missile cruiser,
| another.
|
| There's an interesting observation in an unusual source that
| I've had come to mind:
|
| _Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are
| qualities which, in modern armies, are of more importance
| towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity
| and skill of the soldiers in the use of their arms. But the
| noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to
| which every man feels himself every moment exposed as soon as
| he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time
| before the battle can be well said to be engaged, must render
| it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this
| regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the
| beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there was
| no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no
| smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death._
|
| -- Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_
|
| https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/.
| ..
|
| Smith discusses the earlier realm of shorter-ranged and melee
| weapons as well.
|
| Bullets have typically required soldiers somewhere in the
| immediate region, at distances of a few tens, hundreds, or at
| the extreme, a thousand or so metres. Artillery has longer
| range but has typically required larger launch systems, even
| where those are portable.
|
| Human-portable drones extend range to tens or hundreds of km
| with loitering and seeking capabilities. Again, the range of
| peril is extended greatly.
| carabiner wrote:
| > the principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and
| solar (or small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities
| will be in warfare and surveillance applications
|
| Isn't that the explicit reason these technologies were
| developed? Just as 7000 series aluminum and carbon fiber were
| made for fighter aircraft before they trickled down to iPhones
| and golf clubs.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I don't believe military capabilities were high on the
| reported benefits of the Gossamer Albatross or Solar
| Challenger at the time.
|
| Contemporaneous account:
|
| <https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/17/archives/over-the-
| waves-i...>
|
| There was a long article in _National Geographic_ at the time
| (where I likely saw it). I don 't know if that's online
| though it appeared in the November 1979 issue:
|
| <https://nationalgeographicbackissues.com/product/national-
| ge...>
|
| Internet Archive doesn't appear to have the issue.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| > before they trickled down to iPhones and golf clubs.
|
| Oh, and $EUR10k bicycle frames.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| The key learning from the Ukrainian conflict from a military
| standpoint is the use of hobby drones + old artillery. You can
| either drop artillery rounds or use the drone as a way to direct
| artillery fire. This has totally changed the game. The
| switchblade is amazing, but, realistically they wont be built in
| any quantity to matter.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wa74hd/ukrai...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wamxri/ua_dr...
| SolarNet wrote:
| I think the interesting question is how they will "compare". If
| they compare favorably to that key learning, as "this kind of
| thing, but a better iteration on it" it won't much matter the
| quantity. As the article points out, it's not about this
| conflict, it's about the next one.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| This has been done in mass in syria and karabakh before and no
| not a game changer.
| rr888 wrote:
| I think Ukraine and the Russians have learned to track consumer
| drone signals with aeroscope https://www.dji.com/aeroscope.
| There are a few videos out there of drones taking off then
| artillery shells arriving very soon after.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| It's real easy to root device and disable aeroscope but there
| are jammers on the market that equally easy land/home your
| device
| simonh wrote:
| To give an indication 4,000 of these things were deployed in
| Afghanistan since 2013, I'm not sure if that counts as a
| significant quantity. I've no idea what their manufacturing
| capacity is now, but that's an average of about 600 a year.
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