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Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, Markus Becker said:

Credit where credit is due: I just reported a reply from another forum. 


It's the thing of reading a forum and seeing a post and responding then going back and continuing from there and realizing one just reiterated an already stated point, which is why I went back and edited mine with the comment, lest I look like a dufus. 

*squints* and E5M made the same point in his brief USMC way which I missed. 🥴

 

Edited by rmgill
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Posted
10 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

I've never accused you of proper reading comprehension skills. Today is no exception.

And... you got to personal. Bravo, really good arguments, showing your ability to counter with arguments and participate in adult level discussion.

Posted (edited)
On 9/12/2024 at 1:18 PM, Mighty_Zuk said:

Lots of talk about it in the various Ukraine war threads, so I wanted a technical discussion. 

According to this dude, a Russian report on the usage of such drones has shown abysmal performance.

  • 160 drones used.
  • 5 direct hits.
  • 20 hit "near the target".
  • 135 disabled by EW.

The 20 near hits are likely totally ineffective. The small warhead on drones means that sometimes even direct hits are ineffective.

Here,

https://theconversation.com/chicken-wire-ai-and-mobile-phones-on-sticks-how-the-drone-war-in-ukraine-is-driving-a-fierce-battle-of-innovation-235503

It indicates that Ukraine is manufacturing 3,000 FPV drones a day during July this year.  If these numbers are broadly indicative of the number of Ukrainian drone attacks that happen every day, then the number of daily direct hits (a 5 to 160 ratio) would be over 90.  Why is that insignificant?

Edited by glenn239
Posted
11 minutes ago, AETiglathPZ said:

Radars are not standard on tanks and other armored vehicles. Computers linked to optics with some type of tracking even less so. 

Edit: Until TROPHY came along this was nonexistent.

10 years from now any vehicle without a personal VSHORAD system will be vulnerable or obsolete as every military organization will have some type of drone capability. 

We saw this in David Drake's Hammers slammers with the smaller turreted 2cm power gun on the Hover Tanks having the ability to intercept smaller flown objects and the tanks able to hit any flying target with 20cm power gun when controlled by higher authority, all the way up to satellites. They still had to have something to deal with super cheap short ranged infantry fired weapons (Buzzbombs, aka RPGs). 

I expect the costs for all these systems will drive up the cost of AFV's with various passive and active countermeasures. If it's visually guided Drones, I can see a laser system that might detect it by RF emissions then hit it with a laser to burn out the camera optics. Something like Trophy or Arena, even if it was a CROWS mounted gun with a side car shotgun weapon might be useful. 

One could sort out a bunch of cost and down range issues with a small automatic 10 gauge able to shoot incoming drones without worrying about friendlies downrange taking slugs. 

Before Simon passed, he and I had been chatting a little about Shotguns for anti-drone use by some of his local police. I was going to get some shotgun loads and see how they pattern against bits of plastic for destruction....

I suspect for fully automatic, full brass 10 gauge or 12 gauge might be useful for durability in belt feeds. Unless you went with a revolver type cassette. but you MIGHT want more than 20 rounds on tap. Some degree of choke would help as well. Hmm, I wonder if one could make a variable choke for accounting for range.... 

Posted

Oh, on the cost for rapid development. What about the guys in the US who were making up the various anti-IED detectors and jammers based on crap bought from what ever Iraqis have for the local Home Depot/Lowes? Some of the stuff was basically garage door eye detectors and transmitters. What was the unit costs for those improvised countermeasures by the US? 

Posted
15 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Lol

Come on, you know at some point some infantry company is going to make a request for support and the logistics folks are going to deliver a JDAM with the resultant company CO wondering what the hell he's going to do with it... Sorta like the 4077th getting a howitzer after Klinger filled out the wrong item on a form. 

Posted (edited)
58 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Before Simon passed, he and I had been chatting a little about Shotguns for anti-drone use by some of his local police. I was going to get some shotgun loads and see how they pattern against bits of plastic for destruction....

I suspect for fully automatic, full brass 10 gauge or 12 gauge might be useful for durability in belt feeds. Unless you went with a revolver type cassette. but you MIGHT want more than 20 rounds on tap. Some degree of choke would help as well. Hmm, I wonder if one could make a variable choke for accounting for range.... 

Yeah, this grate sight has not been fortunate with the rotation of posters, indeed.

On variable chokes, there could be a more-or-less quick solution in the form of adaptation of an existing concept - a vehicle mounted MMG by Rheinmetall, I think, that had three barrels that could be switched from the interior of the vehicle. Purpose of that arrangement was to have quick barrel change for cooling purposes, but perhaps that could be adapted to have several shotgun barrels with different chokes.

Edited to add: found that Rheinmetall gun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinmetall_RMG_7.62

Edited by sunday
Posted
11 hours ago, Wobbly Head said:

Drone defence is something new it was never seriously thought of before Ukraine but if you did want to design something, you are talking about additional equipment you need the jammer for multiple frequencies and radio bands. The radios on tanks are only set for certain bands and cannot cover the common bands used by drones. Then you have a detector array to detect any drones before turning on the jammers as you generally do not want any active radio systems broadcasting when not necessary as it attracts things like HARM missiles and artillery strikes. If you know anybody who can make that kind of electronic system to mil spec for less than a hundred thousand per unit needed to equip a company for less than several million.

Just use the APS and panoramic camera systems. The way current APS work to reduce emissions is they allow optical sensors to cue the radars to switch on, or shift from low detectable low power emissions to brief high power, and these can detect ATGMs and ATRs at the moment. What you may need to add to reliably detect drones is also cover the upper hemisphere like we saw on the AbramsX demonstrator with the extra (5th) radar and 3rd interceptor. That's a capability you need either way because of the proliferation of top attack munitions.

If you want to count that as extra costs - fine. I personally see it as the natural evolution of an APS as predicted long before personal drones were a thing.

11 hours ago, Wobbly Head said:

Your argument about prices is right but it is with military electronics that are effected more. Russia is having a very hard time sourcing the electronics to keep its high tech systems functioning. Civillian electronic components are a lot less specific and easier to source.

Russia is a specific case and this thread is intentionally made to be broader, to at least encompass western acquisition. Sourcing electronics is not going to be as difficult for western nations. But on the issue of jammers which we mentioned several times - I think they're a short lived solution. 

Radio controlled drones are just a stepping stone for the next thing. Already we see the employment of fiber optic comms on drones, making it an ATGM on what is the opposite of steroids. Of course at such ranges fibers become really expensive and they're easily entangled on trees if you don't fly it carefully.

11 hours ago, Wobbly Head said:

You may have a missle that can hit and guarantee a hit. But what percentage of the missles supplied is that missle you have. There might be ten missle supplied but there might be only two that are actually fired at the enemy. The other eight might not be available due to things being lost due to enemy engaging teams before they fired the missle. Ammo dumps and supply bases being hit by the enemy, training uses you want to make sure the troops know how to use them. Plus you can't say that giving a missle system worth twenty times the salary of the soldier using it in a war zone some aren't going to go missing. That makes your missle twenty percent effective not 100 percent effective. Drones even at 3 percent effective are still going to be as effective and cheaper than missles.

What you said here applies equally to drones and any piece of equipment. Heck, probably easier to steal a drone and send it as a gift to a family member when rotated than a missile (though I've seen people taking 120mm tank shells home).

If we treat losses to attrition and other logistical mishaps as a percentage, then analyzing the cost effectiveness at the combat edge is valid and we can ignore these factors for a comparative test.

10 hours ago, AETiglathPZ said:

Radars are not standard on tanks and other armored vehicles. Computers linked to optics with some type of tracking even less so. 

Edit: Until TROPHY came along this was nonexistent.

10 years from now any vehicle without a personal VSHORAD system will be vulnerable or obsolete as every military organization will have some type of drone capability. 

Currently only Israel and the US are fielding modern AFVs, but overall there are now over 1,000 AFVs across the west equipped with APS. I won't be surprised if it surpassed 1,500 already. Those not fielding modern AFVs need to start taking security seriously.

This thread is also about modern equipment, not what African nations can do while driving around in their T-55s. We can't encompass everything, and yeah those lagging behind will take a lot of damage that could have been avoided.

 

Posted
10 hours ago, bojan said:

And... you got to personal. Bravo, really good arguments, showing your ability to counter with arguments and participate in adult level discussion.

Rich coming from you. Need I remind you of the times you made it personal?

Didn't think so. 

Don't worry, I don't hold grudges, even if I don't like it when people derail topics. I'll appreciate it if you can go back on topic of drones instead of pedantry.

10 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Here,

https://theconversation.com/chicken-wire-ai-and-mobile-phones-on-sticks-how-the-drone-war-in-ukraine-is-driving-a-fierce-battle-of-innovation-235503

It indicates that Ukraine is manufacturing 3,000 FPV drones a day during July this year.  If these numbers are broadly indicative of the number of Ukrainian drone attacks that happen every day, then the number of daily direct hits (a 5 to 160 ratio) would be over 90.  Why is that insignificant?

Did I say it was insignificant?

Nah. But look at the numbers behind a little more carefully. 3,000 drones a day is a lot of work. At some point it'll have to be 5,000 for the same effect. Then 10,000. Because being civilian weapons, these are far more easily countered.

10 hours ago, rmgill said:

Come on, you know at some point some infantry company is going to make a request for support and the logistics folks are going to deliver a JDAM with the resultant company CO wondering what the hell he's going to do with it... Sorta like the 4077th getting a howitzer after Klinger filled out the wrong item on a form. 

Honestly? Keep it to maybe booby-trap an area, or for a VBIED. Or realistically trade it for some better gear.

Posted

Mentioned in twitter, drones can only be fully countered by engaging them with the onboard weapons of vehicles and EW to detect and counter their signals.

Because there are more frequencies than can be realistically jammed, hard kill becomes a must, cued by onboard sensors.

And all of this would be needed against loitering munitions anyway.

Posted
29 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Mentioned in twitter, drones can only be fully countered by engaging them with the onboard weapons of vehicles and EW to detect and counter their signals.

Because there are more frequencies than can be realistically jammed, hard kill becomes a must, cued by onboard sensors.

And all of this would be needed against loitering munitions anyway.

Jamming was also only a temporary measure vs ATGMs at some point. Very threat-specific, couldn't double as anything else so wasted expense, and eventually quickly countered. 

Today there are jammers on certain vehicles anyway, with frequency hopping capabilities to jam all sorts of things - so we don't even need a dedicated anti-drone one. And if one isn't available, no biggie.

microwave weapons are a positive development in this aspect though, as they don't rely on interference with communication. 

Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Nah. But look at the numbers behind a little more carefully. 3,000 drones a day is a lot of work. At some point it'll have to be 5,000 for the same effect. Then 10,000. Because being civilian weapons, these are far more easily countered.

The cost of an FPV drone is less than that of a 155mm shell.  It's one of the few things the Ukrainians can do on their own without going on bended knee to NATO.  160 155mm shells might cause a casualty every 20 or 30 rounds, in the same ballpark as drones, but drones do not require the same equipment or logistics to function.

In terms of your projections of diminishing returns, I think you wrong.  I wonder if your desire for a successful Israeli offensive into Lebanon is coloring your conclusions?   Your data indicates that 135 out of 160 drones are disabled by EW.  The solution to that is fiber optic cable, currently about the enter service in Russia, but it will spread from there.  Once this is in play, the effectiveness of EW will diminish towards zero.  Yes, the warhead weight is less, but the immunity against jamming is worth it.  The other factor going forward is AI, which also eliminates EW.

Edited by glenn239
Posted
19 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

I wonder if your desire for a successful Israeli offensive into Lebanon is coloring your conclusions?

What?

Can you please start writing logical things?

Posted
On 9/12/2024 at 12:18 PM, Mighty_Zuk said:

Lots of talk about it in the various Ukraine war threads, so I wanted a technical discussion. 

According to this dude, a Russian report on the usage of such drones has shown abysmal performance.

  • 160 drones used.
  • 5 direct hits.
  • 20 hit "near the target".
  • 135 disabled by EW.

The 20 near hits are likely totally ineffective. The small warhead on drones means that sometimes even direct hits are ineffective.

 

I remain convinced that such drones used as a primary strike asset are a fleeting concept, and they'll eventually stay in more niche roles instead.

It seems like you are looking at these things with a logical OR rather than a logical AND.

If low-budget drones have a lower hit probability but are available by the metric sheisse-ton, they still seem handy to me.

Along a forward line of battle, set up a stretch of FEBA to use the drone horde as a blocking force, and use MBTs on some other flank for kinetic offense. Maybe combine the drones as the forward layer and ATGMs as the backing layer of the blocking force.

The only question in my mind is, given an opponent and a budget, what should the ratio of traditional armor/anti-armor vs drones be?

Well, actually another question is; in the Ukraine theater of operations, what HE is being used for kamikazi and grenade-dropping drones? Is it something old-school and easy to cook in a small fab, or is it a modern high-performance HE?
 

 

Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

It seems like you are looking at these things with a logical OR rather than a logical AND.

XOR, I would say.

Edited by sunday
Posted
7 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

It seems like you are looking at these things with a logical OR rather than a logical AND.

If low-budget drones have a lower hit probability but are available by the metric sheisse-ton, they still seem handy to me.

Along a forward line of battle, set up a stretch of FEBA to use the drone horde as a blocking force, and use MBTs on some other flank for kinetic offense. Maybe combine the drones as the forward layer and ATGMs as the backing layer of the blocking force.

The only question in my mind is, given an opponent and a budget, what should the ratio of traditional armor/anti-armor vs drones be?

Well, actually another question is; in the Ukraine theater of operations, what HE is being used for kamikazi and grenade-dropping drones? Is it something old-school and easy to cook in a small fab, or is it a modern high-performance HE?
 

 

I actually do think drones can have lots of utility, just not in the way it's transpiring in Ukraine if we look at it 5 years forward. We talked about costs here. Now let's talk reliability. If you're plinking one dude a day, then sure. Better than having the fellas sitting around. But when things are moving, you need reliability. To know whatever it is you're shooting is going to hit and be lethal. 

What can they be used for? Getting a look above, preferably with the drone tethered. 

Maybe even stick a laser designator on it, or make it a relay. Small ones can work to let a squad look around the corner, fly a grenade into a suspicious pile, do demolition on high floors from below. Close range things. But to be the munition itself? Nah. 

When you're looking at the target you want to hit, and see that the enemy has taken measures to protect itself, you'll want the type of ammo that's fast, stealthy, and gets the job done in one hit. At least when you're utilizing precise munitions, that is. Drones don't do any of that. They're loud, slow, and the ones far most common are also not strong enough to carry large payloads. That's why the defense systems presented here are really simple. Some are just plain rifles with fancy sights and shotguns.

 

Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

What?

Can you please start writing logical things?

Your argument makes no sense - that 25 out of 160 low cost drones either hitting or near missing the target is an ineffective weapon.  Not only are they cost effective, but you can see from combat videos that more often than not, they are the only thing available to stop Russian advances.   They are actually crucial to any chance Ukraine has of maintaining a defense.  Then, you follow it up by making the unlikely suggestion that drone effectiveness will decrease in the future.  This also seems highly unlikely with fiber optic guidance and AI.  You didn't even mention in your OP that '160' is only a small fraction of the number of drones being used by the Ukrainians each day, rather, it's just the number that were tracked for the study.  So why would you come up with a series of unlikely ideas on drone effectiveness?  I figured it's because you want to understate the dangers the IDF would face in Lebanon.

Edited by glenn239
Posted
1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

Your argument makes no sense

Allow me to demonstrate why that is precisely the opposite of the case:

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

that 25 out of 160 low cost drones either hitting or near missing the target is an ineffective weapon.

Near missing is not hitting at all due to very small payloads. 5 direct hits out of 160 is incredibly low and only set to become worse, if not more expensive.

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

Not only are they cost effective, but you can see from combat videos that more often than not, they are the only thing available to stop Russian advances. They are actually crucial to any chance Ukraine has of maintaining a defense.

Yes, and they're a poor man's solution. Nothing to be standardized for decades to come in an army that currently has the privilege of getting its defense policies and acquisition straight.

And I specifically stated that this thread is not intended as a discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

Then, you follow it up by making the unlikely suggestion that drone effectiveness will decrease in the future.

If you wish to make a counter claim, the burden of proof is on you.

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

This also seems highly unlikely with fiber optic guidance and AI.

That will multiply the cost of any drone, and make them bigger. At some point you're going to reach PGM costs and make them so unwieldy, you'll be killing your own munitions output.

I won't even touch on this "AI" thing. It's a major fratricide hazard.

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

You didn't even mention in your OP that '160' is only a small fraction of the number of drones being used by the Ukrainians each day, rather, it's just the number that were tracked for the study.

Russians.

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

So why would you come up with a series of unlikely ideas on drone effectiveness?

Because I can actually think. With logic. You should learn that too.

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

I figured it's because you want to understate the dangers the IDF would face in Lebanon.

Why do you insist on always making the most idiotic takes on everything? 

Posted
22 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Allow me to demonstrate why that is precisely the opposite of the case:

Near missing is not hitting at all due to very small payloads. 5 direct hits out of 160 is incredibly low and only set to become worse, if not more expensive.

Yes, and they're a poor man's solution. Nothing to be standardized for decades to come in an army that currently has the privilege of getting its defense policies and acquisition straight.

And I specifically stated that this thread is not intended as a discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

If you wish to make a counter claim, the burden of proof is on you.

That will multiply the cost of any drone, and make them bigger. At some point you're going to reach PGM costs and make them so unwieldy, you'll be killing your own munitions output.

I won't even touch on this "AI" thing. It's a major fratricide hazard.

Russians.

Because I can actually think. With logic. You should learn that too.

Why do you insist on always making the most idiotic takes on everything? 

  5 hits per 160 attempts is not low it's actually quite high. It's very close to the ratio for artillery. Look at the ratio of hits for .50 cal on American bombers in WW2 for a comparison.

 Countering them is not that easy as just sticking a jammer on every vehicle there are just to many different types of commercial drone using different frequencies and radio bands. Even if you come up with a foolproof jammer mounting it on every vehicle if tanks become immune they will just use them to attack other targets like infantry or trucks. Blanket jamming even if you are not afraid of counter battery fire or HARM you will interfere with enough of your own coms and electronics to cause yourself problems.

 Drones have become the modern day Molotov cocktail and are just to easy to come by. They are far easier to source than small arms and if the soldiers on the ground just hear on it is achieving a success as a physiological weapon.

 

Posted
On 9/12/2024 at 8:18 PM, Mighty_Zuk said:

Lots of talk about it in the various Ukraine war threads, so I wanted a technical discussion. 

According to this dude, a Russian report on the usage of such drones has shown abysmal performance.

  • 160 drones used.
  • 5 direct hits.
  • 20 hit "near the target".
  • 135 disabled by EW.

The 20 near hits are likely totally ineffective. The small warhead on drones means that sometimes even direct hits are ineffective.

 

I'm affraid you have missed the idea of the report completely. I remember it. and it was in fact complain about another problem: last year, mass production of standard FPV drones was started in Russia (and, as it often happens with Gov contracts, the people who were in charge of this contract have made steps to limit other producers from access to Made-in-China components, to get rid of competitors). As result, Russian Army got plenty of drones - but the problem was they were all standard and operated in the same radio frequence range, so pro-Ukrainians habe quickly adopted by using relatively simple and cheap jammers ( price and csize/complexity of jammer is directly related to the number of frequency ranges "covered"). It made this SPECIFIC simple mass-produces FPV drones very ineffective. 

     I think it makes sence for Russia to sell/donate this stock of drones (that are now useless on the front) abroad. There is plenty of places on the globe where EW is next to nonexistant and where they will be effective weapon.

Posted
1 hour ago, Wobbly Head said:

5 hits per 160 attempts is not low it's actually quite high. It's very close to the ratio for artillery. Look at the ratio of hits for .50 cal on American bombers in WW2 for a comparison.

Really an apples to artillery shells comparison here. I don't see how you can equate the three.

I'm sure you wouldn't boast about such hit rate if it was an SM-3 with that Pk.

9 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

It made this SPECIFIC simple mass-produces FPV drones very ineffective. 

I really love it when I get year-long supplies for a single drone type that gets nullified in just 1 month and when I ask for replacement they just tell me "wait til 2026 bozo".

1 hour ago, Wobbly Head said:

Countering them is not that easy as just sticking a jammer on every vehicle there are just to many different types of commercial drone using different frequencies and radio bands. Even if you come up with a foolproof jammer mounting it on every vehicle if tanks become immune they will just use them to attack other targets like infantry or trucks. Blanket jamming even if you are not afraid of counter battery fire or HARM you will interfere with enough of your own coms and electronics to cause yourself problems.

If you read my other comments here you'll see that I regard jammers as a very short term and overall not very worthwhile investments.

Posted

I think we discussed this a bit right back at the start of the conflict, or maybe as musings on the Azerbaijan/Armenia war where we first saw them in use.

When EW is in effect, purely civilian drones become useless. They lose their GPS guidance and their datalinks and they will be, if not already are being, dropped by directed EW that will actively damage their electronics rather than just their RF datalinks.

So the see-saw dance begins and we see drones with redesigned and hardened electronics and then the drones get bigger and carry optical fibre data links, and we see improved armour schemes that improve effectiveness against the lightest payloads, so we see bigger drones again to carry useful sized EFPs and then we see VSHORAD improvements that should bring RCWS into the anti-drone arena, and maybe we see autocannon RCWS becoming a near-universal fit for front line armoured vehicles to make that better, and so on.

We've already also seen claims that terminal homing is going autonomous and is optically guided, again as a counter to close-in jamming, so the next step along that axis is increasing automation, maybe swarming attacks to overwhelm local VSHORAD and BDA to allow retargeting. None of this is impossible now, but you're not getting any of it at a $1000 price point just yet.

Posted
6 minutes ago, DB said:

I think we discussed this a bit right back at the start of the conflict, or maybe as musings on the Azerbaijan/Armenia war where we first saw them in use.

When EW is in effect, purely civilian drones become useless. They lose their GPS guidance and their datalinks and they will be, if not already are being, dropped by directed EW that will actively damage their electronics rather than just their RF datalinks.

So the see-saw dance begins and we see drones with redesigned and hardened electronics and then the drones get bigger and carry optical fibre data links, and we see improved armour schemes that improve effectiveness against the lightest payloads, so we see bigger drones again to carry useful sized EFPs and then we see VSHORAD improvements that should bring RCWS into the anti-drone arena, and maybe we see autocannon RCWS becoming a near-universal fit for front line armoured vehicles to make that better, and so on.

We've already also seen claims that terminal homing is going autonomous and is optically guided, again as a counter to close-in jamming, so the next step along that axis is increasing automation, maybe swarming attacks to overwhelm local VSHORAD and BDA to allow retargeting. None of this is impossible now, but you're not getting any of it at a $1000 price point just yet.

Exactly. These capabilities already exist for modern armed forces, and it's an ongoing process to determine what sort of kinetic envelope to give munitions and what extra roles.

For the same task different armed forces can pick a missile that's fast and has a large warhead but poor loitering and re-targeting capability. Or they could go for a loitering munition that can loiter for half an hour to several hours, but is large and needs a catapult or some other special launcher that's carried by a vehicle. Or something with a rotor but which has to either be very large and thus also carried by vehicle, or small and sacrifices a lot of other stuff like loiter time, stealth, and survivability. There's much more stuff offered by industry. A lot more than what's picked for service by armed forces. 

We're seeing a similar thing happening with cruise missiles and OWA drones - different form factors, born from different practical solutions, but fulfilling rather similar roles.

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