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Marines on the West Coast have been training to team Israeli-made suicide drones with helicopters and small boat crews to provide extra eyes in the sky and a potential maritime strike capability. A recent training event demonstrated that control of a Hero-400EC loitering munition could be handed off between land, air, and sea-based assets, providing significant operational flexibility in coastal environments where Marines expect to fight in future conflicts.

During the training exercise, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) launched a Hero-400EC from San Clemente Island off the coast of California. Land-based operators then passed control of the drone to crew members aboard a Bell UH-1Y Venom helicopter, which then gave control of the system to Marines aboard small unspecified watercraft, according to Maj. Mason Engelhart, a spokesman for 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/marines-handoff-loitering-munition-control-between-air-sea-land-platforms

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On 6/6/2022 at 12:55 PM, futon said:

Down the road, laser or high powered microwave anti-drone stuff maybe.

This is the future https://defence-blog.com/israel-shot-down-drone-with-laser-cannon/  

On a side note if ground based lasers are viable (the RN supposedly used dazzling lasers during the Falklands war) then the role of combat aircraft - which is the most important of the three combat arms will become obsolete. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by TrustMe
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Depends on weather.

 

Another type   

https://www.edrmagazine.eu/aeronautics-introduces-a-new-category-of-uas-the-unmanned-hover-plane

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Named Trojan, this UAS has therefore a quite different mission profile. “It is designed to land a lot, it will land behind enemy lines, then take-off again, doing this many times, and can also hover for limited periods to allow full view for example of urban canyons, where loitering UAVs can provide a direct view into an alley for a very limited time,” Matan Perry, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President Sales at Aeronautics tells EDR On-Line, also pointing out that the idea for developing such a product came from discussions with end-users. “

 

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20 hours ago, TrustMe said:

This is the future https://defence-blog.com/israel-shot-down-drone-with-laser-cannon/  

On a side not if ground based lasers are viable (the RN supposedly used dazzling lasers during the Falklands war) then the role of combat aircraft - which is the most important of the three combat arms will become obsolete. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

juat like they say about the tank....

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/7/2022 at 5:53 PM, bfng3569 said:

juat like they say about the tank....

Well, if you look at the Kiev is Burning topic, Russia has lost tons of tanks due to small infantry squads using MANPATS, so maybe the tank is dead.

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23 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

Well, if you look at the Kiev is Burning topic, Russia has lost tons of tanks due to small infantry squads using MANPATS, so maybe the tank is dead.

And both Russia and Ukraine has lost hundreds of soldiers, so maybe the infantry is dead.
 

Or else its just that in high-intensity war between peers people get killed and material destroyed...

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Yeah, I still don't get how people don't realize that wars vs peer or near peer opponents are fucking bloody and material is "burned" at enormous rates. Again, in Yom Kippur, there were ~3200-3500 tanks lost (out of that 1000-1200 Israeli) in just 20 days of fighting, or 160-175 per day.

Edited by bojan
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Im no expert but the Germans use of tanks during WW2 was to penetrate the initial line of defence with a rapid movement to the rear to encircle the enemy. Russia doesn't seem to of been able to penetrate through the Ukrainian lines in the eastern battles. Maybe someone here can tell me why?

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Same reason Germans were not able to penetrate defenses at Kursk. Ratios.

 

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Infantry has become a lot more powerful in the anti-tank role since WW2. Drones are force multipliers. Artillery has become more accurate and faster in response.

Overall, manpower shortages, especially on the Russian side. Not that most NATO armies would fare any better. Substituting manpower by firepower works up to a point, but it's a substitute nevertheless.

 

These are, at least, my conclusions.

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I agree with Ssnake.

Technology has made destruction of enemy forces somewhat easier, and this has made attacking harder, especially when the most destructive offensive weapons are in short supply or have too many targets to deal with. Achieving a huge local overmatch in armour and other maneuver elements isn't enough to permit quick and low cost advances. You can perhaps  use this overmatch to force the objective, but it will be very costly.

Motivated infantry with plentiful ATGM and artillery support defending some position can be broken with concentrated use of drones and artillery, and/or infantry assault. For Russia, the former is limited by resources and takes time, and the latter is often costly and also takes time and well trained and motivated infantry.

In the most pessimistic case for the attack, armour starts to look more like a defensive rather than offensive weapon. I.e kept in close reserve to plug gaps and halt breakthroughs and too vulnerable to spearhead an attack.

 

Edited by KV7
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2 hours ago, KV7 said:

Motivated infantry with plentiful ATGM and artillery support defending some position can be broken with concentrated use of drones and artillery, and/or infantry assault. For Russia, the former is limited by resources and takes time, and the latter is often costly and also takes time and well trained and motivated infantry.

In the most pessimistic case for the attack, armour starts to look more like a defensive rather than offensive weapon. I.e kept in close reserve to plug gaps and halt breakthroughs and too vulnerable to spearhead an attack.

But infantry is still pretty vulnerable on todays battlefield. Strong in the defense, yes. But the offense needs movement and moving infantry is vulnerable to pretty much every weapon there is, while armour isn't. Unless we belive in "artillery and drones conquer, infantry occupies" I don't see armour as a strictly defensive weapon, it will be indispensable in the offensive. Unless something else appears that combine that holy trinity of firepower, protection and mobility. And then we will probably call that something "a tank"...

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2 minutes ago, BJE said:

But infantry is still pretty vulnerable on todays battlefield. Strong in the defense, yes. But the offense needs movement and moving infantry is vulnerable to pretty much every weapon there is, while armour isn't. Unless we belive in "artillery and drones conquer, infantry occupies" I don't see armour as a strictly defensive weapon, it will be indispensable in the offensive. Unless something else appears that combine that holy trinity of firepower, protection and mobility. And then we will probably call that something "a tank"...

In my view infantry is or at least was indispensable in the advance against peer opponents, especially in built up environments, because it can move up undetected and place enemy crew served weapons under threat. Drones shift the calculus a little because they can detect infiltrating infantry and can perform the recon roles that scout infantry otherwise are needed for, so infantry becomes more vulnerable and less needed.

I do not mean to argue that armour is a purely defensive weapon, only that the balance is shifted towards defense. In the more pessimistic scenario, it is useful in the advance, but only once enemy anti tank weaponry is degraded or put under threat. I.e it is more useful in hastening the collapse of an already engaged and stressed defensive line, and exploiting the subsequent collapse, than some spearhead role. Armour is also the perfect weapon for reducing infantry formations that have been isolated and denuded of effective AT weaponry.

 

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25 minutes ago, KV7 said:

I do not mean to argue that armour is a purely defensive weapon, only that the balance is shifted towards defense. In the more pessimistic scenario, it is useful in the advance, but only once enemy anti tank weaponry is degraded or put under threat. I.e it is more useful in hastening the collapse of an already engaged and stressed defensive line, and exploiting the subsequent collapse, than some spearhead role. Armour is also the perfect weapon for reducing infantry formations that have been isolated and denuded of effective AT weaponry.

I'd say that is the definition of "combined arms" which is required for success in ground combat. The Russian defeat north of Kyev was largely due to they not using it. It was kind of a repeat of First Grozny.


The ratio between infantry and armour can always be discussed. The Swedish Armour Brigades has had a ratio of 1:1 since the sixties, earlier versions had 1:2 and 3:1. What the right formula will be in the future remains to be seen.

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54 minutes ago, BJE said:

But infantry is still pretty vulnerable on todays battlefield. Strong in the defense, yes. But the offense needs movement and moving infantry is vulnerable to pretty much every weapon there is, while armour isn't. Unless we belive in "artillery and drones conquer, infantry occupies" I don't see armour as a strictly defensive weapon, it will be indispensable in the offensive. Unless something else appears that combine that holy trinity of firepower, protection and mobility. And then we will probably call that something "a tank"...

With today's body armor you get some protection from artillery. In the future I wonder if powered exoskeletons will result in "armored infantry?" 

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1 hour ago, Sardaukar said:

Best example of mass use of drones is rather recent Armenia - Azerbaijan war. Latter used Israeli and Turkish drones.

 

As evidenced in Ukraine, does not really work if opponent has AD.

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49 minutes ago, Rick said:

With today's body armor you get some protection from artillery. In the future I wonder if powered exoskeletons will result in "armored infantry?" 

You get some protection over the parts of the body where it is hard/impossible to stop a bleeding in the field. The arms and legs are seldom protected and a hit in those limbs will most likely make a soldier combat ineffective even if he or she survives.

Infantry won't be able to move forward during an artillery barrage just because they have body armour.

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13 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

The Russians have supposedly came up with a body armour capable of stopping a .50 Cal round. 

Body armour is a quite mature science. You can of course protect against .50 cal but the areal density of the armour is going to be quite high. I have seen experimental arrays that stop 12.7mm AP at around 80 kg/m^2 which ends up being about 8 kg for a chest plate alone.

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Anothe takeaway for me is, current AFVs are doctrinally inadequate for the conditions of a drone-saturated battlefield (and that trend towards "more drones" won't change for years to come).

We will see active protection systems, ideally with their radars integrated with the fire control systems to detect drones in range and oversteer the gunner to engage them with adequate munitions. That could be something like MPAT with sufficiently sensitive proximity fuze, 30/35mm KETF, or some stabilized RWS with suitable guidance assist mode. Possibly also a counter-drone drone launcher.

Simply put, drone defense will be the new all-arms task at every echelon, and it must be integrated into fire control systems. That a commercial drone can hover straight above tanks, drop a home-modified bomb, and then take the time to correct for wind drift to hit with the second drop is testament of the general unpreparedness at several levels. This won't last.

We will, however, at some point also encounter autonomous-operating killbots. We should prepare for that contingency right away.

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MBDA is showing "Sky Warden" at Eurosatory which is a modular system for anti-UAS. The presentation vehicle is shown here from about 0:50 onwards. I think that it's typical of the type of solution we'll be seeing.

 

It's also funny hearing a French speaker saying "le Brimstone"...

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