The War in the Ukraine

plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
One relatively simple but potentially game changing new weapons system I can see coming out of this war would be rapid deployable loitering munitions, especially in theatres with significant MANPAD, AAA and SAM proliferation making conversational air dominance hard to attain and expensive to maintain even with massive UCAV use.

Think MLRS, flying munitions dispensers, even missiles where the warhead is replaced with a loitering munitions dispenser. The idea is to get the kill chain short enough that conventional shoot and scoot tactics become obsolete, since a fast projectile could deliver a mini-swarm of loitering munitions to the location of you launching ordinance in less time than you can pack up and get out of the loitering munitions search grid.

All of the component technologies are essentially developed and off-the-shelf, and all you need to do is integrate them and test it properly.

Such weapons could revolutionise SEAD/DEAD and counter-battery missions for starters, and become a significant boost to artillery for countering enemy mechanised assaults. If you have the tech and money to stuff even smaller suicide drones in, these could also be used for anti-infantry work.

Imagine a small swarm of loitering munitions taking out a convoy, and shortly afterwards a massive swarm of mini-drones descent on the survivors.

I would even not be surprised if Russia ‘develops’ such weapons in time to be used in the Ukraine war.
 
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drowingfish

Junior Member
Registered Member
sheogorath said:
Are we still peddling this bs?. Single platforms aren't game changers unless introduced en masse or with a massive increase in capabilities, HIMARS in Ukranian hands isn't either and the true "potency" of the platform has more to do with its access to NATO ISR's assets.

So miss us with the spread of NAFO propaganda, mate. This isn't twitter.
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this is exactly it, it is the ISR capabilities provided by NATO, and the denial of air superiority to russia, also facilitated by NATO, that made HIMARS effective.

question is how does the russians sever the link between NATO and ukraine? or has it made a serious attempts at doing so? that missile strike on a hotel would indicate that they are at least thinking about it.
 
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sheogorath

Major
Registered Member
plawolf said:
Think MLRS, flying munitions dispensers, even missiles where the warhead is replaced with a loitering munitions dispenser.
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Russia did develop a MLRS rocket for the Smerchs with a drone instead of the warhead, though it was a recon drone but looked a lot like the Switchblade kamikaze drones. It was called Eniks T90.

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uav drone smerch 2.jpg

uav drone smerch 5.jpg

uav drone smerch 91.jpg

It was tested a few years ago but never made it into service.

drowingfish said:
question is how does the russians sever the link between NATO and ukraine? or has it made a serious attempts at doing so? that missile strike on a hotel would indicate that they are at least thinking about it.
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There is no easy way. EW units have a limited range and NATO air assets don't tend to venture much into Ukranian air space to be affected either by EW platforms or to be threatened by SAMs or Russian fighters. The closest I can think of is if they pull an Iran and shoot down the RQ-4 that flies over the Black Sea whenever Ukraine spams drones towards Crimea.
 
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tankphobia

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
plawolf said:
One relatively simple but potentially game changing new weapons system I can see coming out of this war would be rapid deployable loitering munitions, especially in theatres with significant MANPAD, AAA and SAM proliferation making conversational air dominance hard to attain and expensive to maintain even with massive UCAV use.

Think MLRS, flying munitions dispensers, even missiles where the warhead is replaced with a loitering munitions dispenser. The idea is to get the kill chain short enough that conventional shoot and scoot tactics become obsolete, since a fast projectile could deliver a mini-swarm of loitering munitions to the location of you launching ordinance in less time than you can pack up and get out of the loitering munitions search grid.

All of the component technologies are essentially developed and off-the-shelf, and all you need to do is integrate them and test it properly.

Such weapons could revolutionise SEAD/DEAD and counter-battery missions for starters, and become a significant boost to artillery for countering enemy mechanised assaults. If you have the tech and money to stuff even smaller suicide drones in, these could also be used for anti-infantry work.

Imagine a small swarm of loitering munitions taking out a convoy, and shortly afterwards a massive swarm of mini-drones descent on the survivors.

I would even not be surprised if Russia ‘develops’ such weapons in time to be used in the Ukraine war.
Click to expand...
Endurance for loitering munition is limited and we're not yet at a stage where the kill decision is allowed to be made by UAVs autonomously, so there would need to be a connection back to base station which would be difficult for a high EW environment and small size. It's probably more reliable/cheaper for a UAV to correct artillery via laser targetting rather than spending a large amount on UAV submunition and associated drone pilot.

But also for UAVs to be sophisticated enough to pick and hit targets on its own is probably going to be quite expensive if it's not simply anti tank.
 
A

Abominable

Major
Registered Member
tankphobia said:
Endurance for loitering munition is limited and we're not yet at a stage where the kill decision is allowed to be made by UAVs autonomously, so there would need to be a connection back to base station which would be difficult for a high EW environment and small size. It's probably more reliable/cheaper for a UAV to correct artillery via laser targetting rather than spending a large amount on UAV submunition and associated drone pilot.

But also for UAVs to be sophisticated enough to pick and hit targets on its own is probably going to be quite expensive if it's not simply anti tank.
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If you believe the Turks, that already happened in Libya.

In any event, it is a political decision and not a technological barrier. If datalinks can be interrupted enough not to allow remote decision making you can bet autonomous kill decisions will become normal.
 
A

Abominable

Major
Registered Member
Atomicfrog said:
36h Cease fire for Ortodox church holiday ? That's a joke ?

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There doesn't seem to be much fighting in recent days, so it'll be fine. Given how long this war has gone on for (and will likely to continue) 36 hours is nothing. Good news for soldiers on both sides.

It's also a subtle way to troll the jewish and non christian Ukrainian government that banned christianity as they have been agitating to move the day of christmas to 25th December.
 
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