The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Supposedly 70% of confirmed vehicle kills by Ukrainian military was achieved with FPV drones. Huaqiangbei is indeed superior to all of the Wester MIC.
LOL. Where did you get the number? From grifters at Guanxi?
Poland's Office of National Security (BBN - Biuro Bezpieczeństwa Narodowego) commissioned a number of studies into the Russo-Ukrainian war and one of the more interesting findings were the statistics on equipment losses and their causes. The studies mostly focused on the period between April 2022 and April 2023 but the results also partly reflect the more chaotic period in February and March of 2022. The people who were involved in the work have noticed no significant changes to how the losses are generated all the way until late 2023, including throughout the entire duration of Ukrainian offensive in 2023.
Unfortunately at this moment the studies themselves have been not made public only some of the findings. The reason why it was published is relevant because at the time that information was revealed Poland was still governed by the previous administration which was rushing horrible deals, due to lack of any preparation - despite rhetoric - for the war during their two terms in power (2015-2023). The pressure on actually feasible measures was always present in the General Staff, despite defense procurement being easily one of the most corrupt areas. The military really wanted to shift the priorities, because Poland is still lacking necessary equipment and relevant programs were being delayed in suspicious manner. So the numbers being revealed - and especially after the director of BBN was changed - was a part of the broader push to influence decisionmaking of the government.
For example Finland had an entire defense strategy built around delaying Russian armoured advance in passable terrain by extremely extensive minefields and thus forcing Russia to use lighter forces which would be countered by Finnish mobilised units. Some of those mines went to Ukraine. Another element which is now being considered if reinforced defensive positions (fortifications) on Russian and Belarussian border. Something that was routinely dismissed by political appointees and career-minded generals in the past even as they themselves were fearmongering that Russians could reach Warsaw in 24 hours and therefore X, Y and Z needed to be done. Just not what could actually delay the advance.
Don't look for logic in the reasoning of a narcissistic psychopath - the most common personality profile in those circles (and among the most active online users).
Anyway:
The losses of vehicles are classified primarily as "mobility kill" since that category is the primary determinant of probability of destruction of the vehicle. Without mobility kill there is no possibility of destruction and all vehicles destroyed e.g. by direct hit are also "mobility kills" by definition. "Mission kill" i.e. disabling of other systems like comms, sensors or armament often results in successful retreat from the battlefield so it is not a reliable measure.
Important: the below statistics hold true for both Ukrainian and Russian losses which indicates that they are not determined by doctrine, force composition or available resources but by actual developments on the battlefield which are governed by probability, laws of physics and limitations of human psychology.
70% of all thus disabled vehicles are disabled by mines. That includes mines in proper minefields as well as mines placed by drones - which is the more recent technique developed to better use the shifting balance of available drones and mines. Minefields are wasteful in terms of crucial resources like explosives, fuses etc while simple drones are much easier to produce so placing ad-hoc minefields in front of an advancing column is more efficient than prepositioning traditional minefields. Traditional minefields are still extremely effective - see failures of Ukrainian assaults in 2023 - but they are resource intensive.
Important: if a vehicle is immobilised by a mine and then destroyed by artillery or a drone strike or an ATGM or an infantry raid or is abandoned it is still classfied as disabled by "mine". It doesn't matter what causes its ultimate destruction, only what made the destruction possible.
20% of all vehicles are disabled by artillery. This category includes all vehicles which were immobilised by artillery strikes that did not destroy mobility of vehicles but killed or injured the crew sufficiently that other means could be used to destroy the vehicle. All vehicles abandoned as consequence of an artillery strike are classified under "artillery".
10% of all vehicles are disabled by all other means. This category includes ground and air-launched ATGMs, airstrikes, tank on tank combat and vehicles abandoned as consequence of crews panicking during ambushes. This category also includes vehicles disabled by a drone strike as primary means of attack.
The confusion may come from how information is made available to general public, including self-styled experts from grifting outlets like "specialist" media, and what information is available to military channels. The general public sees what is made public, often as part of an ongoing information war. Seeing 100 clips of drones disabling moving vehicles may give the impression that it has become a new revolutionary method of combat, which will be further reinforced by media and social media narratives created for harvesting clicks, but in reality it is only the consequence of video feed availability that is inherent to current methods of drone control.
No drone can be directed without an operator receiving visual information about the target. That is not true when vehicles are disabled by artillery strikes aimed at an area with the use of unguided munitions or when they are disabled by mines.
Let's consider the numbers from my last post (Oryx): If by 31/8/23 Russians lost ~2250 tanks, ~3900 apc/ifvs and ~750 self-propelled artillery and rocket artillery pieces then - not including command, engineering and logistical vehicles - we have a total of 6900 combat vehicles destroyed. That figure, when the statistics from BBN is applied, means 4830 disabled by mines, 1380 disabled by artillery and 690 disabled by all other means.
If we assume that only 5% of those disabled by mines and artillery are ultimately destroyed by drones then the number is 310 vehicles where the video shows a drone "kill". If the number of vehicles finished by drones is 10% that number grows to 620 videos, of which some can be taken by multiple cameras - the same kill recorded by the striking drone and by an observation drone - and then separately released online as part of information warfare, often at different dates.
This way it is very easy to create up to 1000 videos showing drone "kills" without actual drone kills taking place! And that is just for the armoured vehicles and just for one side of the conflict, not counting support vehicles and not counting personnel kills which are also very common in the propaganda messaging because they provide very potent emotional content. Very up-close and personal deaths which are very explicit (and therefore frantically shared by all the demented psychopaths feeding off violence online)
How many of those 1000 clips have been seen by the average self-important narcissistic keyboard warrior who wants to play an expert in online discussions but has neither the knowledge, discipline or willingness to do the research or consult reliable sources and also prefers online arguments and drama which are essential for psychological gratification (see: this thread, or increasingly the entirety of this forum, but also: most of social media and all/most of commercial media).
Where do you get your information? If from places like SDF then that is the narrative that you will be exposed to. Complete and utter delusional nonsense. A videoclip salad reflecting the poster's mental disorder and not actual thoughtful analysis of very complex problems with scarce data availability.
Confirmation bias is built into human psychology on a very fundamental level. You can't avoid it. You can only always correct for it - which takes discipline, effort and skill. Three resources at once. If you lack any of them, you fall back on confirmation bias. And when you do you get threads like this one or "Miscalleanous News". The kind of information sewage that flows there on a regular basis can't be treated even with the most modern treatment plants.
You want to see a revolution in warfare? You will see it. Even when there is none taking place. It doesn't matter whether it is human hands, cluster warheads or drones. It's still the mine on the ground deciding whether a tank will go further or not in most cases.
Now you can watch the keyboard warriors react to it with the usual compulsive patterns of autistic screeching or its nearest available equivalent.
You want to know what happens to 95+% of Chinese drones? They get hit by EW and fall from the sky by the thousands. It's literally a war of two troops of monkeys flinging cheap drone feces at each other. Because it's cheaper than waste shells for psychological effect.
That's all. You people can learn from it, nor not. I don't care. I have more important stuff to do. Have good week.
I suggest listening to the Russia contingency podcast by Koffman et al. They did a two episode deep dive on drone warfare.
FPV drones are nowhere near as effective people were misled to believe. The Ukrainians themselves have said they would take artillery any time over drones. A simple juryrigged cage will defeat drones whereas an artillery shell will still kill the tank. Then there are vehicle mounted jammers that defeat the FPV drone by disrupting its signal when it approaches the vehicle.
Now, you could make a small drone more survivable against EW and also equip it with bigger batteries for more range and night vision sensors, but then it’ll cease to be a cheap weapon.
If the Russians within a week can get up to 100k troops in Belgorod, Kharkiv will look extremely dire for Ukraine. The Russians as of now don't substainailly outnumber the UAF in Kharkiv and yet the UAF is still struggling so if they can get 100k troops we may see a collapse.
All it takes is a bit of thinking and logic... Why on earth would you put a launcher so close to the radar? Launchers can be deployed 15-20kms from its radar.That in itself should have raised a redflag for Russian forces but it did not. Noy only that but the radar was pointing the opposite where the launcher was pointing... another redflag. It was a decoy.
It could be the Evolved Sea Sparrow with a range of roughly 50km.
In that case it would have slightly more range than the original Buk. But worse range than Russia's Buk-M3.
Still not the craziest thing I saw in comparison to Rogozin being the head chief of Roscosmos before.
You overestimate the intelligence of Ukrainians when they moved 2 Patriot launchers closer to Avdiivka because Russians were going crazy with the use of FABs in the city which resulted in those launchers being super close together blowing up. Having another weapons package for more Patriots launchers makes it sound like something is destroying them if they received them before in the precious weapons package.
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