(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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FMguru posted:Isn't the UK having to completely redesign (or possibly scrap) its new light tank because they didn't put enough noise protection in it and the crews that were testing it all got their hearing damaged? Ajax has noise and vibration issues big enough to had a formal review being done about them. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ajax-noise-and-vibration-review/ajax-noise-and-vibration-review
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Jun 2, 2023 06:40
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Modern War Insitute put out another worth listening to podcast on how the Russians are adapting in Ukraine. He talks with a senior research fellow at RUSI who has been spending a lot of time in Ukraine lately, and while a lot is discussed a striking point he mentions is how far off the narrative western media is getting from what is actually happening. Basically the Russians are (a little slowly) learning, adapting, and forcing the Ukrainians to constantly do so in kind. https://mwi.usma.edu/mwi-podcast-how-is-russia-adapting-its-tactics-in-ukraine/
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Jun 2, 2023 07:03
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Charliegrs posted:ERA is basically just bricks of C4 right? I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that if it goes off . Not really, they're a bit more clever than that 
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Jun 2, 2023 07:33
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It's also never a good idea to stand around a tank that is being shot at with something high energy. Worst case, the ammo brews and suddendly it's raining tank parts (hallelujah).
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Jun 2, 2023 09:06
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When people talk about infantry screens for tanks, they typically mean infantry that is hundreds of meters away from the tank in question. The modern battlefield is sparse and displaced. You don't want infantry anywhere close to a tank anyway because it's a gigantic piece of metal that may move extremely unpredictably, has extremely poor visibility, and can't hear you. Also, if a tank takes a hit and survives, the crew is unlikely to know where that shot came from. So they're going to gtfo first, because there's a follow-up shot coming in a few seconds. Btw., tandem warheads are typically much heavier. The PG-7V (HEAT) is lighter and easier to hit things with than the PG-7VR (tandem) that is almost twice as heavy. RPG-7 are absolutely everywhere, so it makes sense to have some ERA.
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Jun 2, 2023 09:26
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SlowBloke posted:Ajax has noise and vibration issues big enough to had a formal review being done about them. Re: ERA. Ukraine will almost certainly get a load of HESH rounds to use with the Challengers, so we might get some idea of modern NATO HESH vs Russian ERA during the counter offense. Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 11:23
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I was a M2 Bradley gunner back in 07-08. We used ERA during the surge. I never had mine go off from a hit but I saw a few in the boneyard that had. I can tell you that once the ERA on one of the Bradleys goes off it does save the vehicle but there can be some shock damage to the systems. Saw commo and electronics detached in the turret and hull space. Also, the rail system that holds the blocks in place will most likely need to be replaced as the heat and pressure warp them. The blocks slide down like Tetris pieces in the rail, weight about 50-100 pounds depending on if they are turret or hull blocks, and are fuckin impossible to remove if the rail holding them gets bent or blocked
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Jun 2, 2023 12:07
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Pablo Bluth posted:
HESH is fundamentally useless against spaced armor, even inert plates. Unlike HEAT which makes a jet of metal with a focused explosion, HESH uses a soft plastic explosive that briefly squishes against the surface of impact (Thus the term Squash Head), before detonating. This works to defeat armor by having as much explosive as possible pressing directly against the armor, and creating a shockwave that causes the inside of the armor to spall off, injuring/killing the crew and damaging the tank with high velocity bits of broken hull pinging around inside. Thicker armor is, up to a point, more vulnerable to this effect. This is also why British tanks use rifled barrels; the spin causes the explosive to spread out a bit more, which causes a stronger shockwave since more explosive is in contact with the hull. (also hitting sloped armor similarly improves HESH performance. It's a really clever design imo) Spaced armor hit by HESH is going to spall just the same, but all that spall is going to bounce harmlessly off the exterior of the tank instead. The one thing HESH can do is possibly spread out enough to hit multiple ERA plates, creating a bigger hole for a follow up shot to possibly score a killing hit.
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Jun 2, 2023 12:14
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Challenger 2 doesn't exclusively use HESH so I assume part of the training they had is appropriate round selection and HESH won't be the one for Russian tanks. But in the heat of battle, there's got to be the chance a Ukrainian ends up using one. The only C2 lost in combat was to a friendly fire HESH round from another C2, but that was due to the HESH hitting an open hatch. Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 12:40
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Good article about volunteer units established by state-owned companies https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1664518403799883778?t=ruKxHt5TnXseIRpXXZapNA&s=19 Play stupid games, win stupid prizes quote:In another corner of Russia, in Siberia, security guards were also called in for an emergency meeting in August, the wife of one of the men present recalled. fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 14:19
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fatherboxx posted:Good article about volunteer units established by state-owned companies This feels like a rather stark assessment from Priogzhin: quote:The proliferation of volunteer battalions has begun to unsettle Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s largest and most notorious private military company, Wagner. The caterer-turned-warlord in April released a foul-mouthed 26-minute rant against rivals he accused of attempting to steal his thunder — and his funding. For the folks living in Russia, can I assume that powerful political figures in Russia openly talking about power struggles is kinda unusual? Especially when invoking the need for actual armed force in such struggles? I don't think Putin's likely to be overthrown anytime soon since these PMCs sound like kind of a clownshow and aren't going to be a match for the actual Russian military, but in the event of Putin dying suddenly for whatever reason without naming a successor it sounds like we've got a real recipe for instability when every potential successor has a private army and isn't likely to take coming second-best sitting down (especially when "coming second-best" likely involves going out a window). One more example of how this war is worsening Russia's long-term prospects, I guess. I'm kinda reminded of a Chinese saying from the Three Kingdoms era when a central official considered raising warlords in the provinces to help put down a power struggle in the capital - "This is lighting a furnace to burn a single hair!" Relying on state companies to raise troops may sidestep political difficulties now but man, there's not a lot of good things lying in wait down that road.
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Jun 2, 2023 14:52
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Tragedy in Kyiv as downed missiles cause deaths due to a locked/closed shelter. Seems to be causing quite a stir in the civilian leadership in Ukraine. Slight warning, there's some bodybag footage in these videos and the article, but nothing worse than you'd see on a normal news cast about war. https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1664312099437264907 https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1664312098153979905 Zelensky addressed it via video and threatens local civilian authorities with investigation/prosecution if negligence is suspected. https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1664356303509106689 Very sad situation for the families involved.
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Jun 2, 2023 15:03
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"Switzerland's lower house of parliament on Thursday voted against a proposal that would have specifically authorised the transfer of Swiss-made arms to Ukraine." Somehow I got the idea that there had been progress on this issue already. Apparently in March they legislated to allow re-export in a case of an offensive war contrary to international law as recognized by the UN security council, but obviously that will never happen with Russia sitting as a permanent member. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230601-swiss-mps-reject-allowing-arms-transfers-to-ukraine
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Jun 2, 2023 15:12
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Tomn posted:
Indeed, previously Putin kept people with military/police resources and people with media power separate, with notable exception being prime bully Kadyrov. Undermining state's monopoly on violence is usually a sign of a failed state. Ukraine lucked out of it by stamping out similar tendencies prior to 2022 (reigning in Azov and assorted militias, getting rid of Avakov, flushing out Poroshenko-affiliated military officials etc). Prigozhin is trying to do the western right wing populism approach, openly criticizing people in the system while being comfortably inside it and also pretending that he is bigger than he is. It is good to remember that his "private" army is not actually private and people that theoretically under his control are no more than few thousand scattered across the world busy overseeing resource minimg and doing security work. (Also he is a pathological liar). In the event of things going into the Cool Zone rather than going with private armies it is more likely that moneybags in charge of resouce industries secure allies in local police, administration and military to keep order. There are no signs of that at the moment and all struggle is heavily in allowed kayfabe. I dont know how one can read the article, see that its is mostly filling "stealth mobilization" quota for cannon fodder with security workers and think that it is somehow building up Blackwaters. Every big corporation around the world has a decent security department already, they dont give out assault rifles and helmets to them out of image consideration. (Disney could smash the gently caress out of Wagner if they wanted to imo) fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 15:57
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Uh that clinic is near where my parents' friends live, they say the entire apartment block felt like there was an earthquake. My mom occasionally took the friends' kids to that place in the past  d64 posted:"Switzerland's lower house of parliament on Thursday voted against a proposal that would have specifically authorised the transfer of Swiss-made arms to Ukraine." The one that article is about was only a temporary exemption, only for Ukraine until 2025, and a lot of MPs want to solve the issue generally, not just for Ukraine and for a time frame that might not even suffice for this war. One proposal that's basically DoA is for exports for self-defense to be allowed on the condition the defensive war is confirmed by the UNSC (veto who?). To address that, there were multiple slightly differently worded proposals floating around where a UNGA vote/quorum would suffice, which mostly got killed, too. One of them is being worked on and has fair chances to succeed, but again, it has to go back and forth between parliamentary commissions (think US congressional committes) and the two houses for now. Meanwhile, the government (as in the administration) isn't doing anything, either because the majority of them fetishizes neutrality (I don't think it's this) or because of the upcoming election. So most of the seven federal councillors are happy to sit this one out until the parliament finds a solution which obviously won't get stuff (re-) exported to Ukraine any faster  . The whole mess is due to a sizeable number of MPs having no interest in actually allowing arms exports - parts of the left (mostly the green party and some social democrats) don't want to export arms at all because of pacifism, and the (national) conservatives are against supporting Ukraine because orcane fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 16:22
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I dunno how much credence to give Prigozhin when it comes to bashing other PMCs especially given the scant info on them. The PMC "Wolves" that Ukrainians noted replaced some Wagner ops near Bakhmut seemed to pose a threat offensively. It's also hard to see how smatterings of battalions could replace a mobilization wave (which I imagine would be in the 100,000s scale). Not sure how much the Gazprom PMC is getting in terms of training and equipment but PMC activity seems intentionally shadowy so I wouldn't be surprised if it runs the gamut.
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Jun 2, 2023 17:12
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madeintaipei posted:US Army test results state that the highest typical measured dB value inside an M1 Abrams with hatches closed is between 93 dB (low idle) and 117 dB (at 40mph). Highest typical measured dB value at the gunners' position behind the M119 artillery piece, with roughly the same muzzle velocity as the Abrams' M256 main gun, is 183dB. Do tankers not wear headsets and helmets like people in helicopters do? I don’t just mean as a "worrying about losing your hearing permanently is for sissies" macho thing but even for like, communicating while you’re in a tank sounds useful and not possible above about 100 dB even if you’re yelling.
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Jun 2, 2023 18:10
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They wear headsets built into their helmets. I would assume it has some noise reduction built in.
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Jun 2, 2023 18:15
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https://i.imgur.com/tfDilLm.mp4 lol
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Jun 2, 2023 19:01
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fatherboxx posted:Good article about volunteer units established by state-owned companies The way they're mixing in more and more barely trained or equipped troops along not just quiet areas but really active areas of the front makes me wonder how well the army as a whole will be able to function under attack. Seems like a lot of those guys are going to melt away when a couple tanks roll towards their trench, or if they don't, they're not going to have the equipment to do much about it anyway. That is going to put even more strain on the limited number of professional troops still available to contain and counterattack.
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Jun 2, 2023 19:15
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saratoga posted:The way they're mixing in more and more barely trained or equipped troops along not just quiet areas but really active areas of the front makes me wonder how well the army as a whole will be able to function under attack. Seems like a lot of those guys are going to melt away when a couple tanks roll towards their trench, or if they don't, they're not going to have the equipment to do much about it anyway. That is going to put even more strain on the limited number of professional troops still available to contain and counterattack. Actually, if people don't mind explaining to muggins here : As someone who's been broadly following the conflict but hasn't been checking day-by-day for a couple of months, how's that counter-offensive looking in general? I know Bakhmut has been hell, but I don't have an appreciation of if that's localized or if it's affected Ukrainian reserves. The general flow of "let Russia exhaust themselves, then giant offensive" seems to be working but I don't know about its long-term viability.
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Jun 2, 2023 19:21
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Are we getting to the partisan insurgency instability chapter of russian contemporary history? because I want some good modern "dictator now spends life hiding in palace" ditties for the books
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Jun 2, 2023 19:26
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Staluigi posted:Are we getting to the partisan insurgency instability chapter of russian contemporary history? because I want some good modern "dictator now spends life hiding in palace" ditties for the books Historically, these sort of events come after extremely large riots and food shortages. The Social Revolutionaries assassinating Czarist officials really only picked up after decades of famines wildly destabilized the country.
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Jun 2, 2023 19:35
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Xiahou Dun posted:Actually, if people don't mind explaining to muggins here : It's not a dramatic Kharkiv Mk II--so far. They've ratcheted up the tempo of their deep attacks with HIMARS and Storm Shadow missiles, and have been chewing the hell out of rus logistics. No major troop incursions yet; this may change soon since Zelenskyy has officially said "it's on" a day or two back. Safe to say they're weighing options and seeing where the soft/vulnerable spots are. It's also possible they're giving russia time to redeploy units to Belgorod and other russian territories to deal with the "independent people's liberation front" groups--the fewer men and materiel in theatre the better. That said, russia's got a fuckton of mobiks manning the front, so there really isn't any area virtually undefended (like Kharkiv was). However, the mettle of the mobik forces has yet to be tested with a full on assault. Basically, it's status quo. For now. Much like Betelgeuse going supernova, action could happen any day now. OAquinas fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 19:42
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OAquinas posted:It's not a dramatic Kharkiv Mk II--so far. They've ratcheted up the tempo of their deep attacks with HIMARS and Storm Shadow missiles, and have been chewing the hell out of rus logistics. No major troop incursions yet; this may change soon since Zelenskyy has officially said "it's on" a day or two back. Safe to say they're weighing options and seeing where the soft/vulnerable spots are. It's also possible they're giving russia time to redeploy units to Belgorod and other russian territories to deal with the "independent people's liberation front" groups--the fewer men and materiel in theatre the better. Is there some vague idea of how they're doing in terms of manpower, morale, ammunition/logistics, etc.? I know that they're under strong incentives to pull an Alex Jones, i.e. they're the best and the strongest and will never give up but only if you keep funding me please give me monies. But do we have some vague idea of what's going on beneath that?
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Jun 2, 2023 19:51
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Mike Kofman talks about the counteroffensive in the latest War on the Rocks Podcast: https://warontherocks.com/2023/05/ukraines-offensive-and-its-meaning-for-the-war/ tl;dl: He's cautiously optimistic, but temper your expectations.
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Jun 2, 2023 20:01
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beer_war posted:Mike Kofman talks about the counteroffensive in the latest War on the Rocks Podcast: https://warontherocks.com/2023/05/ukraines-offensive-and-its-meaning-for-the-war/ O a nice big audio-summary seems like just the thing to catch me up on it. And bonus, no one has to scroll by someone explaining things in the middle of a news thread. Thanks a mill.
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Jun 2, 2023 20:06
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https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1664705297997352974?s=20 Hey guys, we're going to send out the press gangs again in 2023, hope you don't mind. Oops, forget you ever saw that.
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Jun 2, 2023 20:41
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beer_war posted:tl;dl: He's cautiously optimistic, but temper your expectations. Probably a good position. Russia has been incomprehensibly incompetent and wasted ludicrous amounts of of equipment and lives but they are adapting and attacking is a lot harder than defending.
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Jun 2, 2023 20:45
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Xiahou Dun posted:O a nice big audio-summary seems like just the thing to catch me up on it. And bonus, no one has to scroll by someone explaining things in the middle of a news thread. Russians bled themselves white the last 6 months for stupid reasons while the Ukrainians amassed a lot of modern western weapons and trained significant numbers of troops on them. They're going to make gains, but the range of outcomes could be anything from a grinding fight that achieves limited localized objectives to complete route of Russian forces. Depends how well you think they can field all these new weapons and how badly mauled/disheartened the Russian army is.
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Jun 2, 2023 21:11
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TheRat posted:How loud is a tank cannon? Will a soldier standing next to one without protection be hosed? When I've been on our ranges with CR2 and I've not had my ear defence on, firing points are usually at least 100m it stings the hearing, inside with hatches open behind the muzzle, it's a little worse but forward of it, your not hearing for a few minutes and your long term is hosed.
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Jun 2, 2023 21:34
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Saladman posted:Do tankers not wear headsets and helmets like people in helicopters do? I don’t just mean as a "worrying about losing your hearing permanently is for sissies" macho thing but even for like, communicating while you’re in a tank sounds useful and not possible above about 100 dB even if you’re yelling. I remember some anecdotes that noise-canceling headphones that also allowed good communication are a pretty recent phenomenon even for the US military. Like, they didn't start getting good ones until the mid-2000s. Just killing all sound has been forever, but then letting in voice communication that isn't also just getting overwhelmed by that noise is another. Mostly I am saying it this specifically in hopes it'll poke somebody into substantiating or contradicting it.
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Jun 3, 2023 00:49
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We used throat microphones to operate the M109 in Switzerland (in the early 2000s), not sure if they still do our if the tank and IFV crews use them, but they're pretty useful for places with lots of background noise and don't need any advanced noise cancelling tech.
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Jun 3, 2023 00:59
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As of 2001, the US used Combat Vehicular Crewman (CVC) helmets which included Bose noise-cancelling headphones and had a boom mic. The noise-cancellation was powered by the communications cable. They also had a "hear-through" feature, but those required batteries in each side. They were fantastic. Without them on, if the tank's engine was on you would have to at least raise your voice to be heard inside the turret. The main gun is definitely loud, and I wouldn't want to be within a few dozen meters without hearing protection. You can feel the heat from the blast if you're standup up out of the hatch in the turret. (It's kind of cool.) The Bradley's engine is much quieter, though it's still a large diesel engine whose exhaust covers the vehicle commander in soot. You want to wear hearing protection. I seem to recall that technically we were supposed to wear in-ear protection and the CVC, but nobody wore the former because if you did you couldn't hear anything from the speakers in your ears (i.e. radio, intercom). Each crewmember can talk to each other via a full-net intercom (everyone hears everything), and the vehicle commander uses one or two radios. I assume that as part of these various armor packages that the West is sending appropriate CVC helmets. They're part of the vehicles BII (basic inventory items), so hopefully we'll have a few fewer deaf Ukrainians at the end of this. (Seriously: wear hearing protection.)
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Jun 3, 2023 03:14
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Throat mics have been around for ages haven't they? I thought the germans used them in WWII
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Jun 3, 2023 04:19
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Ynglaur posted:As of 2001, the US used Combat Vehicular Crewman (CVC) helmets which included Bose noise-cancelling headphones and had a boom mic. The noise-cancellation was powered by the communications cable. They also had a "hear-through" feature, but those required batteries in each side. They were fantastic. Without them on, if the tank's engine was on you would have to at least raise your voice to be heard inside the turret. This is completely tangential to the discussion but from your posts I gather you were a tanker in an Abrams previously? Just curious, back in ~2014 I was working at company that developed embedded systems for primarily the U.S. military and one of the software bugs I was working on was for an audio driver that was clipping and as part of the debug process I was given from the customer a bunch of sample audio clips from if I remember correctly an Abrams tanks where it was a female voice warning system. Some that I vaguely remember where lines like "oil temperature high", "radiation fallout detected" and "ballistics solution calculated". Does any of that ring a bell, was there an automated voice warning system to the crew? I just remember spending a few days listening to those same clips over and over well working on a fix and I'm curious if those were things a tanker would hear.
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Jun 3, 2023 05:41
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Alctel posted:Throat mics have been around for ages haven't they? I thought the germans used them in WWII Longer than that. Apparently the British used them in airplanes in WW1.
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Jun 3, 2023 06:23
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Popete posted:I just remember spending a few days listening to those same clips over and over well working on a fix and I'm curious if those were things a tanker would hear. Is this one of those questions where we accidentally leak classified info.
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Jun 3, 2023 07:25
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1664705297997352974?s=20 quote:In 2023, the General Staff plans to create a new combined arms and RAF, one army corps, five divisions, 26 brigades, and also form new Azov naval military district. Brigade is 2000-8000 people, division 12,000-24,000 people. So anywhere between 50k for understrength army to 200k for a proper one. That's pretty ambitious considering Russian Army needs to plug manpower gaps with any formation they can get. Also what equipment and leadership will fill the new unit?
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Jun 3, 2023 08:30
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https://twitter.com/mtdtl/status/1664923904836792320 Coverage: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-03/indonesia-defends-ukraine-peace-plan-says-asia-knows-war-s-cost i.e., Ukraine accepts current war borders plus UN peacekeeper deployment and UN administered referendum. Indonesia is not, of course, new to the concept of UN referendums and UN administrations: once upon a time the UNAMET East Timor mission for a secession referendum led to violent clashes which escalated to a UN-endorsed INTERFET mission under grudging Indonesian acceptance and the establishment of the UNTAET government (quite possibly the 1990's most successful multilateral intervention; even more so than Serbia, which continues to dispute Kosovo today). Unlike the China plan (which notoriously also implies current borders), there is no additional implication that Ukraine must commit to not joining NATO or the EU. Prabowo Subianto is widely expected to be the next president of Indonesia in elections next year and is currently doing an awkward shuffle from being vaguely anti-US (the traditionally populist position) to vaguely neutral (the new populist position, under pressure from various Chinese intrigues in Southeast Asia)
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Jun 3, 2023 12:34
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