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fatherboxx)
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Comstar posted:Isn’t all this a big I AM HERE sign that you launch a HARM missile at? Potentially, yes. There's going to be a lot of play-counterplay, I think. I could be wrong, of course, but I suspect that infantry, armor, and artillery tactical units will need to actively manage and make conscious tradeoffs related to emissions far more than in the past. When I was in armored recon, our radios had two settings: lo power and hi power. We always used the latter, and many soldiers didn't know why we had the former.
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Sep 7, 2023 12:41
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The Artificial Kid posted:I think you’re mischaracterising the problem. Being able to track something travelling in a straight line at Mach 3 by no means guarantees being able to hit something that responsively dodges laterally in random directions (at least without expenditure of many rounds or specialised ammo that explodes and blankets a volume with shrapnel). I think this is a good example of human perception breaking down on the high end. By the time the drone has detected the flash, decided "yes that was gunfire not a glint off the water", and decided to juke the bullet has already hit it. Like, Mavics have a top speed of less than 160km/h. The bullet they're trying to dodge is coming in at over a km/s. One CIWS bullet is $30, if the drone is $3000 you can absolutely put a bullet every single place the drone could dodge to, guarantee a kill and move on in less than a second.
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Sep 7, 2023 13:22
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Also they're not going to juking at top speed. Gonna be pretty easy to light up.
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Sep 7, 2023 13:28
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by the time we have these cheap super drones doing anime jinking maneuver to dodge hundreds of bullets, we're gonna have lasers
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Sep 7, 2023 13:38
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OctaMurk posted:by the time we have these cheap super drones doing anime jinking maneuver to dodge hundreds of bullets, we're gonna have lasers We already have lasers https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/04/13/army-short-range-air-defense-laser-prototypes-take-down-drones-at-yuma/
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Sep 7, 2023 14:13
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I might have missed this but why this depleted Uranium stuff for tanks? I have seen very little tank on tank battles and for shooting anything else from an Abrams tank the normal shell probably suffices. Is this a case, like the cluster stuff, of "thats the shell we have enough of to supply"? This stuff seems to carry negatives for after the war an unlike for clustermunition I cannot see that much of an upside?
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Sep 7, 2023 14:30
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saratoga posted:The funny thing about these drones is that most are so slow you could actually use sonar (in air!) and still have enough time to shoot back or at least turn on a targeting radar. Acoustics detection of drones (and helicopters) is already a thing. Don’t even need active sonar, since they make plenty of their own noise. Acoustically-triggered anti-helicopter mines have been around for decades now; as I recall, they use the noise to identify the target as an enemy helicopter and switch to IR to actually aim the mine.
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Sep 7, 2023 14:39
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EmployeeOfTheMonth posted:I might have missed this but why this depleted Uranium stuff for tanks? I have seen very little tank on tank battles and for shooting anything else from an Abrams tank the normal shell probably suffices. Is this a case, like the cluster stuff, of "thats the shell we have enough of to supply"? My assumption is that they have the ammo on hand.
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Sep 7, 2023 14:41
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EmployeeOfTheMonth posted:I might have missed this but why this depleted Uranium stuff for tanks? I have seen very little tank on tank battles and for shooting anything else from an Abrams tank the normal shell probably suffices. Is this a case, like the cluster stuff, of "thats the shell we have enough of to supply"? Much like cluster munitions, Russia (and maybe Ukraine ?) already have been using their stock of depleted uranium shells like the Svinets round this entire war. There's practically nothing better to shoot at a tank, it's dense as hell and auto-ignites as it heats up from penetrating the armor so it's very effective at causing the ammo inside a T-series tank to cook off after as well. It's barely radioactive at all, as far as I've read it's more the heavy metal poisoning risk (a la lead/mercury poisoning) that's the health concern, not the radioactivity. They definitely need special care to decontaminate and handle during the post war cleanup, but everytime a school or residential building is shot by s Russian missile it kicks up so much asbestos that the DU shells in a tank in a farmers field barely tips the needle in comparison
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Sep 7, 2023 14:43
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The Artificial Kid posted:Being able to track something travelling in a straight line at Mach 3 by no means guarantees being able to hit something that responsively dodges laterally in random directions (at least without expenditure of many rounds or specialised ammo that explodes and blankets a volume with shrapnel). It won't be people aiming these 25-30mm cannon anti drone systems so it doesn't matter how much they juke around even when AI controlled. They're the functional equivalent of a shotgun that blasts an area somewhere around a quarter to half the size of a football field in a split second with thousands of projectiles. They're way more effective than you're giving them credit for.
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Sep 7, 2023 14:50
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EmployeeOfTheMonth posted:I might have missed this but why this depleted Uranium stuff for tanks? I have seen very little tank on tank battles and for shooting anything else from an Abrams tank the normal shell probably suffices. Is this a case, like the cluster stuff, of "thats the shell we have enough of to supply"? Speaking as a complete amateur who only has played tank games at most. If you are likely to only have one shot at a target it's very beneficial to have something that goes from "this is probably going to penetrate their turret" to "this will penetrate their turret", because if you just ding them you are not likely to get that opportunity again. Realistically that ammo will contribute a completely neglible amount to the total heavy metal poisoning in Ukraine due to this war. War is absolutely terrible in terms of pollution.
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Sep 7, 2023 14:57
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A 120mm depleted uranium armor piercing (Sabot) round absolutely will kill any vehicle it hits. Angle doesn't matter, range doesn't matter if it's less than 3000m, etc. Short of really odd grazing shots if you hit it, it dies. A 120mm high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) round will probably kill any vehicle it hits. In addition to a lower kill-on-hit probability, it also has a lower hit probability, particularly at ranges beyond 1200m. Sabot fly faster and flatter; HEAT tends to "lob" in at longer ranges, particularly past ~1800m or so. The effector is heavier so the round travels more slowly. The long-term health impacts are basically the same as any other heavy metal that gets vaporized and spread around. Such effects also occur when, e.g. a tank blows up and vaporizes and spreads itself around. The word "uranium" is scary, though, so news outlets follow their incentive model and publish breathless takes worrying about the health impacts of breathing uranium dust, nevermind the health impacts of breathing any heavy metal dust at all (such as, say, iron).
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Sep 7, 2023 15:52
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air quality anywhere near explosive ordinance has to suck severely, esp if it's combined with rocket propellant. ec: https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1699770672715563131?s=20 LifeSunDeath fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 16:02
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Uranium is still quite a bit more toxic than tungsten, which is why Germany prefers tungsten for APFSDS and armour (and because it never had a large nuclear (weapons) program to have an abundance of depleted uranium).
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Sep 7, 2023 16:17
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:If they can track and hit Mach+ missiles with ~30 round bursts they absolutely can track and hit even small fast drones that probably don't even go 300mph in the same or less expenditure of ammo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsf38NYzo5Q&t=55s dark humor bonus: https://twitter.com/NarwhalsToasty/status/1658864786090672132?s=20
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Sep 7, 2023 16:20
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Antigravitas posted:Uranium is still quite a bit more toxic than tungsten, which is why Germany prefers tungsten for APFSDS and armour (and because it never had a large nuclear (weapons) program to have an abundance of depleted uranium). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24594921/ quote:It is concluded on the basis of the literature overview that replacement of lead by depleted uranium in munitions would be environmentally beneficial or largely insignificant because both lead and uranium are present in the environment. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17607395/ quote:Depleted uranium (DU) weapons testing programmes have been conducted at two locations within the UK. An investigation was therefore carried out to assess the extent of any environmental contamination arising from these test programmes [...] Uranium isotopic signatures indicative of DU contamination were observed in soil, plant and earthworm samples collected in the immediate vicinity of test firing points and targets, but contamination was found to be localised to these areas. Handwriting over DU in munitions has always seemed like a red herring. It's certainly not good, and anyone doing the cleanup should be wearing respiratory protection and disposable tyveks and follow a decon procedure, but that's literally the same precautions you'd take for lead abatement as well. DU may be more toxic than tungsten, but it's roughly comparable to lead and jeebus knows there's literal metric tons of lead being fired every day across the front line.
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Sep 7, 2023 16:27
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Antigravitas posted:Uranium is still quite a bit more toxic than tungsten, which is why Germany prefers tungsten for APFSDS and armour (and because it never had a large nuclear (weapons) program to have an abundance of depleted uranium). The US military used to include a wider variety of tungsten weapons, but back in the early 2000’s there were a number of studies which concluded that tungsten was not particularly greener than DU, and they discontinued their use. In particular, the combination of different metals (such as iron, nickel, cobalt, tungsten, or uranium) imparts a carcinogenic impact that is greater than the sum of their parts.
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Sep 7, 2023 16:34
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Now this is interesting. The US Army just announced it's cancelling the M1A2SEPv4 program in favor of getting to a new tank.. In the context of this recent article written by the commander of the US Army Futures Command and the Deputy Intelligence Chief of Staff for the Army (here's a podcast with the authors of the article), it seems like they really are trying to learn from Ukraine as much as they can. Basically, the v4 version of Abrams was going to weigh in at or over 80 tons. (That's 10 tons heavier than when I was in, 20 years ago.) The recent Abrams X tech demonstrator is only 58 tons. The podcast guests had an interesting point that if the Army wants something fully deployed--full rate production, units all have it, etc.--by 2040, the Army needs to make decisions in the next 12-18 months to do that. It looks like they're doing that, and that lessons from Ukraine contributed to the decision to live with incremental upgrades through about 2030 in exchange for getting a far more modern (and lighter weight) tank to initial operational capability by 2030. (Initial operating capability happens about a decade before full deployment. Everything happens in stages, etc. etc.) Ukraine has clearly influenced Poland, the US, Australia, and Japan to invest significant money into rapid modernization. I'll be curious to see if other countries in Europe follow suit. (Sorry: I don't think Germany spending $4B on an exo-atmospheric ballistic missile interceptor counts as much as Poland saying "we're going to build an entirely new mechanized corps.").
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Sep 7, 2023 17:28
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Ynglaur posted:Now this is interesting. The US Army just announced it's cancelling the M1A2SEPv4 program in favor of getting to a new tank.. Yeah that is a complete 180 from their previous plan. Apparently they're calling the new one the M1E3. It'll still be a upgraded Abrams but the upgrades are supposed to be more drastic than the SEPv4 version though they're saying they'll still use some of the tech from that. The AbramsX demonstrator doesn't seem to be the target specs either. Its not coming until the early 2030's though so while its a big deal its not immediately relevant.
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Sep 7, 2023 17:40
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Germany just left the MGCS in favour of a new agreement with Italy, Spain, and Sweden, so the US Army is not the only one reevaluating their future tank project.
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Sep 7, 2023 17:40
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Antigravitas posted:Germany just left the MGCS in favour of a new agreement with Italy, Spain, and Sweden, so the US Army is not the only one reevaluating their future tank project. That’s probably for the best since that program has been moving so slowly. It seems overly similar to the many ill fated American programs that promise everything to everyone, and end up mostly being a hodgepodge work program. A reset is a good opportunity for a clearer vision to prevail.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:03
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Ynglaur posted:Now this is interesting. The US Army just announced it's cancelling the M1A2SEPv4 program in favor of getting to a new tank.. In the context of this recent article written by the commander of the US Army Futures Command and the Deputy Intelligence Chief of Staff for the Army (here's a podcast with the authors of the article), it seems like they really are trying to learn from Ukraine as much as they can. so in 10-15 years our allies will be operating way, way more drawn down abrams
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Sep 7, 2023 18:16
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Kaal posted:That’s probably for the best since that program has been moving so slowly. It seems overly similar to the many ill fated American programs that promise everything to everyone, and end up mostly being a hodgepodge work program. A reset is a good opportunity for a clearer vision to prevail. Yet another thing Russia hosed up. They could have continued to coast on inertia as the "second best military in the world" if NATO had continued to be saddled with equipment designed to fight a counterinsurgency campaign and overengineered nightmares that need 48 hours of maintenance time for every fifteen minutes in the field.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:25
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Antigravitas posted:Uranium is still quite a bit more toxic than tungsten, which is why Germany prefers tungsten for APFSDS and armour (and because it never had a large nuclear (weapons) program to have an abundance of depleted uranium). Until you alloy that Tungsten (which is brittle and thus bad at penetrating armor) with nickel, which gives it the pliability it needs but is also a toxic heavy metal. And that is exactly what the Germans did.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:25
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Herstory Begins Now posted:so in 10-15 years our allies will be operating way, way more drawn down abrams Most of our allies don't want the Abrams. Its too heavy and expensive for most of them. Its part of the reason there's huge numbers of them wasting away in desert depots still.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:31
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US future ground military equipment design seems like it should be considered based on them not actually being the ones operating the equipment.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:33
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jarlywarly posted:US future ground military equipment design seems like it should be considered based on them not actually being the ones operating the equipment. That would be an extraordinarily stupid decision
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Sep 7, 2023 18:35
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Most of our allies don't want the Abrams. Its too heavy and expensive for most of them. I can think of at least one or two who wouldn't mind having considerably increased access to drawn down tanks
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Sep 7, 2023 18:39
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jarlywarly posted:US future ground military equipment design seems like it should be considered based on them not actually being the ones operating the equipment. Yeah I don’t think you thought this through. It ranks higher than “they should redo the tanks to shoot hummus” or “be driven by badgers” in terms of practicality but that’s about all I can say for it.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:44
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I think what the user means is that US equipment has such a huge logistical tail end that it's often impractical to deploy for other militaries.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:48
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Herstory Begins Now posted:I can think of at least one or two who wouldn't mind having considerably increased access to drawn down tanks In the short term that is good but long term it is a nightmare. A big reason why there hasn’t been a ton of interest internationally for the Abrams is the massive costs and logistical needs to run them. You have to remember it was designed in the 70s to fight a foe that is now gone and for a battlefield that is not in existence anymore. It makes a lot of sense to effectively go back to square one and make something to work in the conflicts of the near future instead of piling more stuff on something that is 40 years old now. You can make it cheaper and easier to field which would likely drive more allied partners to adopt it which helps costs and logistics across the board.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:50
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Here's a video clip of a Slovakian MiG-29AS being used by Ukrainians. According to the tweet, the MiG-29AS is important as it was modernized in 2008 to be NATO compatible. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1699539303905271929?s=20
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Sep 7, 2023 18:50
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On the other hand, maybe there is something to be said for the US to design some cheaply manufacturable, exportable equipment for cases where they want to send stuff but not their best stuff. Not without precedent -- the F-5 was for this, and the F-20 would have been. Maybe a fighter version of the T-7 Redhawk, and the M10 Booker might become export successes.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:51
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Mr. Apollo posted:Here's a video clip of a Slovakian MiG-29AS being used by Ukrainians. According to the tweet, the MiG-29AS is important as it was modernized in 2008 to be NATO compatible. Seems a bit unprofessional to be watching Japanese porn on your cockpit displays while in flight but what do I know?
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Sep 7, 2023 19:00
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Moon Slayer posted:Seems a bit unprofessional to be watching Japanese porn on your cockpit displays while in flight but what do I know? Why did you think it's called a cockpit?
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Sep 7, 2023 19:01
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Morrow posted:I think what the user means is that US equipment has such a huge logistical tail end that it's often impractical to deploy for other militaries. And even with those two, the Abrams is heavy, but the Leopard is similar, and while the Abrams has a turbine engine, technically it can run on diesel too (just worse IIRC). And the F-35 is a stealth fighter, there's probably some inherent logistical issues with that (though we don't have any other allied 5th gen fighters to compare against). Cicero fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 19:17
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Moon Slayer posted:Seems a bit unprofessional to be watching Japanese porn on your cockpit displays while in flight but what do I know? Hey, if they're putting their lives on the line dodging russian AA, I won't blame them for keeping one hand on the stick.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:19
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Morrow posted:I think what the user means is that US equipment has such a huge logistical tail end that it's often impractical to deploy for other militaries. Yeah we got it. It’s also very stupid for a nation to design export variants as its primary focus. Especially the US, since we all know that any real NATO challenge would be carried by the US military. To the point that most other NATO militaries not named France or Finland are built to assume this.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:31
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OctaMurk posted:On the other hand, maybe there is something to be said for the US to design some cheaply manufacturable, exportable equipment for cases where they want to send stuff but not their best stuff. Not without precedent -- the F-5 was for this, and the F-20 would have been. Maybe a fighter version of the T-7 Redhawk, and the M10 Booker might become export successes. The F-16 was an even bigger success than the F-5, though. Designed for export programs seem relatively inefficient compared to just designing something good and then selling it.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:31
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On the subject of equipment weights and logistics: Kgs. 55,000 gross 5,900 tare 49,100 net That’s for good 40’ flat racks. All the Strykers that’s mostly how they moved tied down to flats. Anything heavier than that has to be either: breakbulk (which could be on a platform of flats on a container ship or just on a multipurpose vessels) or RORO. Basically > 40 MT (metric tons) is where things stop being able to rely on being moved in the same way as any container.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:35
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