There is a "real world military" topic in which some purely military issues may get slightly into politics, and this is tolerated so long as no other rules (i.e., no insults) are broken. Those who have participated in this topic know that our non-US participants often have very different views than you are used to. It won't hurt you to hear another side of the issue and you may learn something. It should also be noted that some of those who post frequently in that topic simply have no idea what they're talking about; be polite in alerting them to this fact.
| By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, November 28, 2025 - 10:09 am: Edit |
Paul Howard:
You are making some wild assumptions, and getting crazy conclusions.
Classic failure by inductive reasoning.
The “High Cost” vs “Low Cost” argument has been around for literally thousands of years, going back at least as far as the Punic Wars.
Back during the Cold War with the U.S.S.R., one of the solutions was to build lots of Perry Class Frigates.
Not because they were better or more survivable, the need was for more ships because there are more missions than just Carrier Strike Group escorts, or picket ships for air defense roles or even Anti Submarine Warfare to protect Carriers from soviet submarines.
There is a convoy escort requirement so the heavy reinforcement of NATO in Europe being sent in ships will get there safely. (Air bridge is a great concept, and worked in the 1948 Berlin airlift, but can not substitute for freighter/tanker capacity.)
One ship cannot be in two or more places at the same time. Burke Class destroyers are wonderful at all of the roles they can perform, but the laws of physics do not allow one ship to conduct multiple missions simultaneously.
For that, you need hulls. Lots of them.
And gold plating every new ship on the slipways to the latest/greatest version is expensive and subject to diminishing returns as each new incremental improvement doest not always yield proportionally improved capacity to the same extent as the costs increase.
In world war two, the United States was indeed the arsenal of Democracy, producing prodigious quantities of ships, aircraft, Tanks, trucks, artillery, ammunition, uniforms, food etc.
That was not an accident.
One of the methods was standardized production, choose a set design and then produce lots to the same standard.
Maximizes production, minimizes per unit cost.
Mike Erickson alluded to the basic Idea.
There should be one standard design for the new frigates for the navy, and every ship produced identical.
Corrections and upgrades should be applied afterwards, as needed, and again, to a standard common design.
| By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, November 28, 2025 - 10:12 am: Edit |
F/A-18s using buddy stores is the primary form of tanking on US carriers these days and has been for maybe 15 years since the older tankers based on things like S-3 and A-6 were retired. Given how quickly F/A-18s burn fuel (particularly when heavily loaded), the plane ends up burning a lot just to get to the point where it gives fuel to another plane. So the F/A-18 buddy tanker concept is limited. It's good in a pinch or used supplementally to dedicated tankers which can carry more, fly more fuel efficiently, loiter longer, and have a larger "give" to other planes at range.
The F/A-18 is also much more expensive to fly per hour than simpler, slower, dedicated tankers. Some estimates are the retirement of dedicated tankers and making such extensive use of F/A-18 buddy stores has cost USN upwards of $6B in more expensive flight time over the past 15 years, and premature wear of the airframes.
The MQ-25 refuelling drone seeks to address that, althought there are also shortcomings with that, and the program is over budget and has been running for 12-13 years. Nothing in deployment yet. But soon? I guess it's always soon.
US carrier air wings today are so far removed from the 1960s when planes and tankers could support operations thousands of miles from the carrier without too much trouble. The planes were just longer ranged to begin with, and the tankers could give a lot more fuel a lot farther out. But those were the days when carriers supported a strategic nuclear role, so they had to have very long reach. We just need to get back to that kind of reach (at least somewhat) to better counter the long range Chinese missiles.
--Mike
| By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, November 28, 2025 - 01:08 pm: Edit |
Jeff
"You are making some wild assumptions, and getting crazy conclusions."
What wild Assumptions did I make?
Another poster mentioned about the fragility of the Littoral ships -and so building 'too cheaply' could be a false economy?
So is a sturdier ship (which is more expensive, but NOT Gold plated) better bang for you Buck?
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, November 28, 2025 - 01:13 pm: Edit |
Saw a vid on YouTube last night, and of course, YouTube is totally accurate and the primary source of all knowledge.
I was an expansion of the thoughts posted a week or two ago that Iran has the fastest-growing Christian population and that lots of young Iranians were leaving Islam.
The video on YouTube (go search for Collapse of Islam to find a few videos on the theme) shows how modern information technology is causing young people to question the very foundations of Islam and the quietly become non-religious because they finally heard someone who was not an Imam explain Islam to them. Saudi Arabia is quietly leading a revolution to entertain the youth of the country in non-Moslem concepts. If I were the one grand leader of Islam (they don't have one of those) I would be very very concerned.
Not to say that a lot of young people in Christian countries no longer take religion seriously.
| By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, November 28, 2025 - 05:22 pm: Edit |
Paul Howard:
Quote: “ 1) Low cost, limited capability ships - which are in effect 'War Cruisers - designed for a shorter life span (I am guessing Jessica's comments about fragility on the littoral ships has meant normal sea 'wear and tear' has been alot higher than expected - which isn't a new thing) - but you build alot of them and and scrap them as they fail ”
First point that you screwed up, is assuming that your definition of “Low Cost, limited capability ships” is the correct standard.
False, you are conflating a Star Fleet Battles game concept (i.e. War Cruisers) into real world general purpose warships (some navy veterans use the term “ships of the line” to describe vessels intended for unrestricted duty on regular deployment. They are not referring to 18th century two decked 74 gunned vessels used during the Napoleonic wars.)
Ships in the U.S. navy are not supposed to fail (disintegrate, suffer metal fatigue or have the hull plating separate from the deck housing) under normal use conditions.
The Littoral ships were supposed to serve thirty years service, with one midlife refit. The truth is, they have not performed as intended, and are not fit for purpose.
The second point that fails to address the subject (namely, ship procurement of general duty warships for service in the United States Navy), was :
Quote : “2) Medium cost, medium capability ships - which are sturdier- but you have less of them.
This is a meaningless concept in the real world issues facing today’s United States Navy
Again, you are using a Star Fleet Battles game concept, and treating it as if it is in any way relevant to the real world.
The ships that the navy has in service are expected to complete many different missions and roles, not participate in imaginary battles using paper maps and card board counters.
Navy ships operated in the Artic, northern Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, south Atlantic and many other areas.
They are assigned duties from war fighting to assisting in humanitarian relief operations, drug smuggling, and many other things.
Regarding ship design, the ships inspite of relative costs must be able to operate anywhere in the world that the navy has responsibility, and while the Perry class frigates may not have the same capabilities as the Burke class Destroyers, they served with distinction.
You personal idea of grades of capability ignores the real world conditions that the ships of the fleet must be able to handle.
Your comments concerning Protected Cruiser s and larger ships verses smaller ships also reveals your ignorance of the demands facing ships in service must be able to deal with.
It should also be pointed out that changing missions has been a factor since the first ship got launched, and is unlikely to change in the future.
The Flagship of the United States Navy which was A Battleship at the time of Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, was reassigned to a different ship, not because the ship in question was superior, or cheaper, or better able to complete the mission.
It was done to “free” the battleship to participate in combat operations in World War 2. That ship was the U.S.S. Texas. The ship that was reassigned to be the Fleet Flagship, was (and is) the U.S.S. Constitution, sailing frigate built in 1797.
Admiral King, CNO knew that the assignment was ceremonial, not combat related.
I should also point out that Cruisers in the United States Navy do not have armor, that changed with the end of ww2 and the retirement of the ships that won the war.
| By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 08:56 am: Edit |
News report in the WSJ this morning indicates that two Russian shadow fleet tankers suffered "mysterious explosions" in the Black Sea last night. Turkish authorities are stating that the explosions were the result of "external impacts." Neither tanker was carrying cargo at the time, with both en-route back to Russia.
| By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 09:24 am: Edit |
There are videos out there from the Ukrainians showing surface naval drones approaching and striking those tankers.
| By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 09:58 am: Edit |
Jeff
I can only assume you are deliberarely being insulting to me.
I asked a question 'which is better' and you seem to have taken it that I prefered A over B - and I am crazy because of that?
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 11:38 am: Edit |
Jeff, you are over the line. Be careful.
| By Burt Quaid (Burt) on Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 03:22 pm: Edit |
Stupid question time. Why can't we build Perry class ships with updated equipment? Are they just too small to be updated?
burt
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Saturday, November 29, 2025 - 05:15 pm: Edit |
Burt: you nailed the reason with your guess. Perry-class frigates were designed with tight weight and space margins, and proved resistant to modernization as a result.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 02:02 am: Edit |
I did a bunch of digging, sifted a bunch of conflicting media reports, and finally phoned a friend in the DoD who owed me a favor and was willing to take a few minutes. A part of what I will present will be politically controversial and will NOT be discussed. Both Chuck and Jessica can point to the same information and say "See? I was right!" when of course they had conflicting opinions of the motivations and results. You were warmed.
The Afghan who shot the two guardsmen did indeed arrive under Operation Welcome Allies, a program I supported (so did most of the right) to bring to the US individuals who had worked for the US military or CIA during the Afghan war. It was logically assumed that the Taliban would persecute or kill such people. About 70,000 Afghans arrived under the program.
To be sure, the category of "worked for the US" includes a lot of nice democracy-loving people and more than a few horribly evil people who would sell their own brothers to the CIA for enough money. Hey, when you're buying info during a war, you don't always have much of a choice who you bought if from. So you cannot avoid admitting that a few (perhaps even a few hundred) of those who "helped the US" were cash-minded opportunists who were not the kind of democracy-loving types you would like to think you are rescuing. Both Republican and Democrat administrations dealt with these despicable people as long as their information was reliable. There was an active drug trafficking industry in Afghanistan and a lot of those people were perfectly happy to sell information to anyone with cash.
It is also understood, admitted by the Biden Administration, and indisputable that during the chaos of the last days of Afghanistan a few (or more than a few) people walked up to the gate (so to speak), said "I worked for you, really, I did" and (under the fully understandable chaos and pressures of the moment) were waved onto a plane when they simply never would have qualified, and some of those people were nice (but desperate) and some of those people were the worst form of criminals and evil doers who regarded America not as a safe haven but as a great place to steal stuff. Honestly, I'd have probably given them the benefit of the doubt an waved through the gate anyone with a plausible lie. I guess maybe I'd rather take in a few criminals that leave honest ex-employees behind to be tortured and murdered.
It is also unavoidably true that some people in the Biden Administration had a general mindset toward "open borders" and were going to give anyone and everyone the benefit of the doubt on this and every other program that would allow people to enter the US. I'm sorry if that is embarrassing and outrageous to the views of some people but it is true.
Out of the 70,000 who came in you could argue that between 1,000 and 7,000 were in the "benefit of the doubt" category and a few dozen/hundred of those were outright criminals. You can also make the argument that even some of the perfectly nice and honest ones, the bulk of the 70,000, have had trouble adapting to the US where the government is not the kind of extremely corrupt kleptocracy that ruled Afghanistan for the last 5,000 years.
Then we get to the issue of "vetting" which does not mean animal medicine but checking records to be sure that people actually are who they say they are and do not have a background that is going to be problematic (criminals, terrorists, and the basket of despicables). Here, the Biden Administration says "they were totally vetted" and the Trump Administration says "Biden let in 70,000 un-vetted Afghans." Both statements are true, neither is accurate. Afghanistan did not and does not have the kind of civil information databases which the US or EU have. They just don't keep track of such things. In the US, a background check on any of us will produce traffic tickets, criminal records, bankruptcies, lawsuits, dismissed criminal charges, plea bargains, and probably the number of streaming movie services you subscribe to. In Afghanistan, not so much, which means not at all. The Biden Admin did all it could, but there was really nothing they could do. And if there was that kind of database, the employees who ran it had already been fired, executed, or escaped. So they were fully vetted by a system that had zero chance to find any actually useful information. It's like googling "Abdul Skyhook Ysuzu" (a name I made up) on Afghanistan.com and (surprise) finding no listing of any kind and saying "no criminal record, you pass."
Nuance, anyone?
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 01:57 pm: Edit |
By all accounts, the shooter had been falling apart for at least the past year and a half, to the point where an advocate in his community had reached out to a refugee organization for help out of fear that he had become suicidal. It very much sounds as though he was no longer acting on a rational basis by the time of the shooting (and for some time in advance thereof).
| By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 01:58 pm: Edit |
As a side note: "Abdul Skyhook Ysuzu" sounds like the cousin of Joe Isuzu. :P
FOURTH COUSIN ON HIS FATHER’S SIDE.—SVC
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 03:27 pm: Edit |
Lots of people are falling apart. Most recover, others just simmer, some get suicidal, a few get homicidal. All need support, but it’s not practical to lock them all up. Lots of immigrants have trouble melding in, Moslems most of all. Religion in the US doesn’t dominate life, law, and government like it does in the more intensely Islamic countries.
| By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 05:55 pm: Edit |
...and that's the problem: purposeful deception. The American public was fed half truths and lies of omission. Intellectually honest Americans full well know what is meant by "fully vetted" and what "the border is secure" means and so did those who perpetrated the deception..but they did it anyway because it advanced an agenda.
The intellectually honest are getting sick of those that blather about speaking "their truth" as opposed to speaking "the truth".
Water is wet, the sky is blue, ducks cannot become chickens, and the truth was withheld and a WV guardsman was assassinated because of it!
| By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 09:13 pm: Edit |
Chuck, I agree with most of what you say, but I don't see that there is yet any evidence that the systematic dishonesty is what killed Sarah Beckstrom.
If we'd been completely honest that "fully vetted" means, "our records don't show an obvious problem", then I think we'd still have let those people in.
As I understand it, his temporary protected status was converted to permanent under the Trump administration, which is not particularly soft on immigration.
I think this really comes under the heading of "•••• happens, and sometimes it's pretty nasty ••••." Better mental healthcare assistance in our communities would probably reduce this sort of thing, but that gets into complicated cost/benefit questions which I don't plan to go into.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 30, 2025 - 09:19 pm: Edit |
I tend to come down with Doug. The public was deceived and Americans have died and been robbed, but this specific incident seems a matter of the guy going nuts not a nut being imported.
But as to the upgrade of his temporary status, that was done on autopilot during the Trump Administration, not BY the Trump Administration. When Trump took the oath of office, he did not replace every single government employee with a law-and-order Republican. This is a commonly misused polemic, blaming the president for anything done by any underling regardless of the president's policy. If we could define every president by the actions of every government worker, you'd have an impossible muddle of conflicting policies happening simultaneously.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 12:16 am: Edit |
I should append this to my previous long statement on the Afghan allies immigration program.
Some sources claim that the actual number was 80,000 and others 100,000. I cannot confirm any figure above 70,000. I suspect that the overage might be people we evacuated but did not allow into the US.
It has been said by talking heads that this Afghan or that other one were "vetted over and over, for years" but that kind of vetting is "we trust him to sell us information" or maybe "We trust him to fight as a soldier in a unit we created for special purposes" but neither of those means "he's good to go as a legal immigrant to the US without further vetting." It's a lot easier to vet someone when you have a power base inside the country and can go ask his friends and neighbors and family and employers. But at the time this in-country vetting was done, nobody ever claimed that we were vetting them for later immigration. Lots of people were vetted to work for us there but with the understanding that they were NOT trustworthy to bring into the US as a legal immigrant, and a lot of those people are here, now, as legal immigrants.
| By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 07:34 am: Edit |
Anyone thinking the Ukraine peace talks have a chance should keep in mind the tone in the Russian press. Here is a sample form Nezavisamaya Gazeta yesterday:
After nearly four years of the Special Military Operation, after Russia's economy, finances, and politics have shifted to a war footing, it doesn't seem impossible to convince the Russians to tighten their belts but to ensure the complete and unconditional surrender of Kyiv and its allies. And then, on the final ruins of Kyiv and the "rules-based order," begin to shape a new European security architecture. From a position of victorious strength.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 02:24 pm: Edit |
Logistics: Escaping Drone Infested Battlefield Terrors
December 1, 2025: Ukrainian soldiers often use UGVs/Unmanned Ground Vehicles to carry food, munitions or fuel to troops in the drone-infested front line combat zone. UGVs can also be used to move wounded soldiers from the combat zone to safety. A UGV can be operated by the wounded soldier, which is useful if the UGV has to follow a different route back to safety.
A major obstacle for UGVs are the swarms of Russian drones that might descend on them if the Russian drone operators believe the UGV is particularly important. For this reason, a soldier or soldiers travelling on a UGV will have ponchos or tarps handy to cover themselves while they lie still to make any FPV/First Person View drone operator believe there is nothing worth attacking on the UGV. The explosive charge carried by an FPV drone is not powerful enough to damage or destroy a 3x3 or 4x4 wheeled UGV
Ukrainian FPV drones equipped with a sensor that tracks the movement of the Russian drone and where it was launched by its hidden operator. The sensor leads Ukrainian drones to that location where the operator is killed and any additional drones with him destroyed. One vital task for the Ukrainian drones is attacking Russian truck or UGV traffic near the front line. Current Ukrainian drones can destroy these vehicles operating within ten kilometers of the front. Without the trucks Russian troops must carry supplies or pull carts full of material to the front line. This is manageable. But now the Ukrainians are about to introduce a larger drone with a range of 40 kilometers. That distance is prohibitive for Russian supply movement. In other words, the Ukrainians will starve the Russians out. This has forced the Russians to speed up their adoption of UGVs.
Ukraine has been using UGVs since the war began. In 2022 Germany sent Ukraine 14 THeMIS/ Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System vehicles. Ukraine began using these UGVs for getting casualties safely out of areas under enemy fire. The first THeMIS was provided by the manufacturer, an Estonian company and was very successful. Germany delivered seven THeMIS CASEVAC/CASualty EVACuation models by the end of 2022 with the next seven delivered four months later, configured for route clearance, which means clearing mines and other explosives from a road under remote control from a distance of to 1,500 meters.
The CASEVAC saves a lot of manpower getting casualties to a rear area and does this more quickly and safely. THeMIS has a Follow Me capability that enables one person to lead the THeMIS along a safe path. One or two casualties on stretchers or half a dozen seated can be carried.
THeMIS was introduced in 2015 and entered service in 2020. It is a tracked 1.6-ton UGV with a remarkably effective sensor system that enables it to find its way through any terrain. It is a compact UGV measuring 2.4 meters long, two meters wide and 1.15 meters high. THeMIS uses a diesel generator to recharge UGV batteries. When operating, electricity is used for propulsion for five or more hours of continuous use. THeMIS has a 1.2-ton payload, which can consist of cargo, casualties, more sensors or even weapons. Top speed is 20 kilometers an hour but it normally moves at a walking pace. At least ten NATO members have evaluated THeMIS and most then purchased THeMIS. Russia would like to obtain a THeMIS but sanctions prohibit that.
Several weeks after THeMIS first arrived in Ukraine, Russia offered a $16,000 bounty to anyone who could obtain and deliver an intact THeMIS UGV to them. Because one of these UGVs was in Ukraine, Russia considered it fair game. After all, Ukrainian forces have captured many advanced Russian systems intact and shared that booty with NATO. That’s one reason NATO nations are so generous in providing Ukrainian forces with weapons and equipment. For decades Russia has obtained advanced Western military tech from foreign combat zones where American aircraft and missiles crashed but were still largely intact. All this American high tech helped Russia develop similar weapons.
Forces: Ukraine Reinvents Military Service
December 1, 2025: Ukrainian government and military believe victory over Russia within their grasp. Since 2022 Ukrainian forces have retaken half the territory the Russians occupied in 2022. While the Ukrainian leadership is in a victorious mood, the troops are not. The Ukrainian leadership knows there is a problem with recruiting/conscripting soldiers and then retaining them in service. The growing number of desertions and AWOLS are caused by soldiers not knowing when their military service will end. Soldiers feel that if they will be in uniform indefinitely, they will probably die. New programs being developed will avoid this. Each soldier will have his current service contract amended to include a date the soldier is free to go home or simply take an extended leave of several months or more and then return to service. It is hoped that these new plans will reduce the number of desertions and even encourage deserters to return to service under more survivable conditions.
To deal with the problem the government is revising service contracts so new and existing soldiers will know when their service is over and they can go home. It is known that soldiers who take a break from combat, either to recover from wounds or accept an amnesty for deserters, are often willing to go back into service, especially if it is a non-combat job. Most of the jobs in the military are non-combat and the military is considering rotating people into and out of combat jobs. This will avoid having troops burn out after years in combat. Since
The current number of troops in the Ukrainian military is about 900,000, with about 97 percent of them in the ground forces. Since 2022 Ukraine has lost about 44,000 dead and 76,000 due to disabling wounds. Losses due to desertion and AWOL/Absent WithOut Leave have been about 250,000 plus about 14,000 soldiers captured by the Russians. The rate at which desertions and AWOL has occurred has been more than doubling each year since 2022. In 2022 it was 9,300 deserters, in 2023 it was over 24,000 while in 2024 there were over 60,000 deserters and AWOLs. The number of deserters and AWOLs so far this year are about 100,000.
Desertions were low early in the war but increased the longer the war went. Currently over 500 Ukrainian soldiers desert each day, which is ten times the rate in the Russian army. About half the total desertions have occurred in the last year. Nearly four years of losses to all causes and made it more difficult to recruit Ukrainian men to serve in the army.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 02:29 pm: Edit |
Winning: Drone Victories Competition
November 30, 2025: The Ukraine War led to the revival of many ancient customs. One of the more appreciated was giving soldiers rewards for battlefield achievements. The Russians offered soldiers cash rewards for things like $12,000 for capturing German Leopard II tanks Ukraine received as military aid from NATO. Russian engineers and technicians could learn much from disassembling and examining that tank. Russia also paid its soldiers $2,400 for destroying a Ukrainian helicopter.
Ukraine too has a rewards system based on points awarded for killing or wounding Russian soldiers, destroying equipment, and vehicles. Destroying a Russian tank is worth 40 points, damaging one is worth 20. Destroying Russian drones in the air or before they are launched are worth a lot of points. A basic kamikaze drone is worth 1.3 points, a drone with a thermal camera is 4.5 points while a vampire drone, with 15 kg of explosives and a range of up to 30 kilometers is 43 points. Points are awarded for detecting and destroying Russian electronic equipment, especially the systems use to jam control systems for Ukrainian drones.
Killing a Russian soldier is worth 12 points. A year ago it was only two points but the Russians upgraded their infantry tactics making their soldiers more effective. Capturing a Russian soldier with the help of a drone is worth 120 points. The Russians adapted to increased risks of being spotted and killed by Ukrainian drones. Russian solder began to wear thermal capes or camouflage themselves with shrubs and other greenery.
Ukrainian troops have another advantage; they are defending their homeland and families. This gets very personal when a soldier learns that family members have been killed or injured during a Russian drone or missile attack.
Teams compete for points to win equipment manufactured in Ukraine. This includes surveillance drones and larger drones carrying explosives. Teams can spend their points in a weapons store called Brave1 Market. The store first went online in April of this year and was expanded in August.
There have been earlier efforts to encourage entrepreneurs and spur innovation. Two years ago the Ukrainian government allocated billions of dollars to encourage Ukrainian weapons manufacturers, and not just existing firms, but startups as well as small operations that never considered the possibility of a large expansion. This is nothing new for Ukraine, which has been a center for weapons development and production for over a century. When Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union before 1991, a disproportionate share of Soviet weapons development and manufacturing took place in Ukraine.
Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine continued to be a major arms exporter of weapons, ranking among the top 12 or 14 arms exporters worldwide. When Russia first attacked Ukraine in 2014, and took Crimea and portions of two other provinces, Ukraine realized that they had to export less Cold War surplus and concentrate on developing improved and new types of weapons. Ukraine is one of the new countries in the world that can do that besides the top five arms exporters, the U.S., Russia. China, Germany and Italy. While the top three tend to remain the same, number four and five tend to change a lot. For example, South Korea has been expanding its arms production since the 1990s and now, because of demand from NATO nations that sent a lot of weapons to Ukraine, South Korea is poised to enter the Top Five and is already in the Top Ten.
Ukraine first began exporting arms immediately after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 because it was where the Soviets stored huge quantities of weapons the Soviets planned to use to reinforce an invasion of Western Europe. That invasion never happened but all those weapons were still in Ukraine and the Ukrainians made the most of it by finding export customers. That included offers to upgrade or customize exported weapons when the customer requested it and was willing to pay for it. In 1993 Ukraine was the 19th largest arms exporter but a decade later they were number 8 and, after the first Russian invasion in 2014, Ukraine fell to 13th place and by 2022 had dropped to 25th place.
Ukraine was developing and producing weapons but since Russia became more of a threat, the weapons were retained to deal with the Russians. After the 2022 Russian invasion there was also a huge increase in the activity of Ukrainian weapons developers who saw the need for new as well as improved existing weapons. The government responded with a program that had billions of dollars available to start or expand production of successful new weapons, notably drones. Many of these innovative and effective new weapons were developed by individuals or small groups. The success of these weapons, even in handmade prototype form, was enough to obtain cash for mass production.
The Russians often come up with countermeasures eventually, but the Ukrainian entrepreneurs are ready so that no Russian countermeasure remains effective for long. In this way, Ukrainians use their innovative and creative problem solving to obtain an edge in fighting the Russians. That justifies the billions Ukraine invested in its inventors and entrepreneurs.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 02:31 pm: Edit |
Paramilitary: Depleted Russian Police Force
November 29, 2025: Compared to the United States and European countries, Russia is over policed. Russia has 2.5 times as many police per capita than the United States and about twice as many per capita in the European Union. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the number of Russian policemen has declined nearly 40 percent. Nearly 15,000 of the 40,000 police stations in Russia are now empty or converted to some non-police function. Even before the Ukraine invasion the number of policemen declined from 44,000 to 40,000. Since the Ukraine war began in 2022 the number of police has declined to 30,000.
The main cause of the policeman shortage was more attractive and higher paying jobs in the economy. There was a labor shortage before November 29, 2025: Earlier this month, about 600 kilometers east of the Somali capital Mogadishu, a chemical tanker was threatened by Somali pirates. In the predawn murk, four Somali gunmen on a speed boat approached the tanker intending to climb aboard. That plan was upset when the armed security detachment on the tanker opened fire on the speed boat. The pirate boat turned around and was tracked back to its larger mother ship, a captured dhow, that was 8 kilometers from the tanker. The dhow was identified as an Iranian vessel that had been seized by pirates a month earlier. Maritime safety authorities warned all merchant vessels in the region to avoid travelling within 180 kilometers of the recent piracy attempt. Shipping companies want to avoid pirates for a number of reasons, one of which is maritime insurance rates. One successful attack would increase insurance rates for any ships transiting this area. The waters off Somalia are very busy because so many ships enter the Gulf of Aden off the northern So
Throughout 2025 it has been obvious that the Somali pirates were back in action. It’s been eleven years since the last outbreak of piracy in the Red Sea. Violence against commercial shipping in the Red Sea region began in 2010 when it had reached levels of activity not seen in over a century. But over the next three years that all changed. By 2013 attacks on ships by Somali pirates had declined 95 percent from the 2010 peak. The rapid collapse of the Somali pirates since 2010 began back in 2009 when 80 seafaring nations formed the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia. The most visible aspect of this was an anti-piracy patrol off the Somali coast. Over two dozen warships and several dozen manned and unmanned aircraft were involved. This force was backed by space satellite surveillance and foreign intelligence agencies.
Back in 2010 the Somalis accounted for nearly all the hijackings. There are still pirates out there, but they are more into robbery than kidnapping.
Piracy hit a trough from the late nineteenth century into the late twentieth. That was because the industrialized nations waged a worldwide campaign against pirates. With no place to hide, pirates disappeared.
Then there was a revival in the 1970s, with the collapse of many post-colonial governments. At the same time there were problems defining what exactly an act of piracy was. What most people agree on is that piracy is non-state sanctioned use of force at sea or from the sea. This could include intercepting a boat to rob the passengers, but that's usually just thought of as armed robbery. And something like the seizure of the Achille Lauro in 1985 is considered terrorism, rather than piracy. In the past, some marginal states have sanctioned piratical operations, like the Barbary States, but that rarely occurs these days.
There has been more since 2001. For example, in 1991 there were about 120 known cases of real or attempted piracy. In 1994 that increased to more than 200 cases. In 2000 there were 471 cases, in 2005 there were 359 and by 2010 there were over 400. There was a resurgence in 2023 and 2024 with a dozen minor incidents. These involved hijackings of a few large ships that were quickly resolved by military action or a ransom payment. The European Union Naval Force patrolled the areas where the pirates were present and prevented any attacks on ships.
An international effort to suppress Somali piracy halted most attacks. What remained was the fact that only off Somalia could ships and crews be taken and held for ransom for long periods. Everywhere else the pirates were usually only interested in robbing the crew and stealing anything portable that they could get into their small boats. Off the Nigerian coast pirates sometimes take some ship officers with them to hold for ransom or force the crew to move small tankers to remote locations where most of the oil cargo can be transferred to another ship and sold on the black market.
Pirates usually function on the margins of society, trying to get a cut of the good life in situations where there aren't many options. This is usually in areas where state control is weakest or absent. In Nigeria, Indonesia, or the Philippines, where the government is faced with serious problems that are sometimes out of control, pirates can do whatever they want.
The solution to piracy is essentially on land; go into uncontrolled areas and institute governance. This has been the best approach since the Romans eliminated piracy in the Mediterranean over 2,000 years ago. Trying to tackle piracy on the maritime end can reduce the incidence of piracy but can't eliminate it because the pirates still have a safe base on land. In the modern world the land solution often can't be implemented. Who wants to put enough troops into Somalia to eliminate piracy?
Meanwhile there are two areas where pirates still thrive. Piracy is a major threat, because most of the world's oil exports pass through the Straits of Malacca. This was largely an Indonesian problem. As Indonesia began stabilizing itself after the 2004 Aceh Peace settlement, the number of piracy attacks declined. Since 2010 there has been an increase in piracy off Indonesia, largely because the Indonesians reduced their anti-piracy patrols without warning or explanation. There are lots of targets, with over 50,000 large ships moving through the Straits of Malacca each year. That’s 120-150 a day. Lots of targets. The shallow and tricky waters in the strait forces the big ships to go slow enough, under 30 kilometers an hour, for speed boats to catch them. If pirates do get aboard, they rob the crew of valuables and carry off any portable goodies. With limited capacity in their speed boats these attacks result in small losses to the ships involved. By 2025 piracy attacks off Somalia and nearby areas were becoming so rare that shipping insurance rates were declining to normal levels. This was a sure sign that the pirates, for the moment, were gone.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 02:32 pm: Edit |
Information Warfare: Chinese Buoys
November 28, 2025: China has been deploying three meter and 2 .6 meter in diameter maritime buoys in the South China Sea. Similar buoys are showing up in the Yellow Sea near South Korea. The buoys contain instruments that measure and collect information on wind speed, direction, temperature, humidity, air pressure, atmospheric CO2 partial pressure, visibility, precipitation, waves, currents, seawater temperature, salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, seawater CO2 partial pressure, and GPS locations of where the data collected as well as when it was collected.
The placement of these buoys in the South China Sea appears to be part of the Chinese effort to assert ownership of the islands and reefs in areas that, according to international law, belong to the Philippines. Similar tactics in the South Korea's Yellow sea are part of a program to take control of the Yellow Sea using tactics and techniques that are working in the South China Sea. Buoys are a new tactic in the Chinese maritime conquest arsenal. China is patient and will continue to develop new tactics and techniques until they wear their opponents down.
China also uses AUVs/Autonomous Undersea Vehicles set loose to collect technical data on the water all the way from the surface to the sea bottom. This data collection is very useful in submarine operations. The AUVs are also called UUVs/Unmanned Underwater Vehicles and they have been getting cheaper, more capable, and more proliferating. These AUVs are silent, very small, and able to operate on their own for up to a year. The first models were two meters long, weighed 59 kgs and operated completely on their own for up to a year collecting valuable information about underwater conditions. What this AUV does is automatically move slowly at 30-70 kilometers a day underwater, collecting data on salinity and temperature and transmitting back via a satellite link every hour or so as the AUV briefly reaches the surface. This data improves the effectiveness of sonars used by friendly forces, making it easier to detect and track enemy submarines. That’s because the speed of sound travelling through water varies acco
The U.S. Navy currently has over 2,000 of these AUVs in service or on order and plans to keep increasing this robotic ASW fleet as long as they keep demonstrating they can do the job. UAVs replace many of the ocean survey ships long used for this kind of work. The survey ships take temperature and salinity readings from instruments deployed from the ship as well as a global network of several thousand research buoys. Unlike the survey ships, the AUVs can be deployed in areas where hostile subs are believed to be operating and be kept at it if needed. If successful in regular use, larger versions are planned, equipped with more sensors and longer duration.
China already has survey ships in service as well as a growing network of buoys. China will be deploying its autonomous AUVs throughout the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, along with buoys. The AUVs and buoys will be serviced by the expanding Chinese fleet that is seen more frequently throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans. China has already captured or stolen, if classified, a lot of data similar to what American systems collected over the decades and is using that to enhance its own databases.
For the moment this new network concentrates on the South China Sea but will also include land-based data processing and fusion combining data from different sensors in one of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, another in South China’s Guangdong province and third somewhere in South Asia where it will share data with other nations. The data fusion centers will also include material collected by warships and commercial ships and aircraft. China also plans to make some of this data available to everyone as a contribution to safe operation of maritime commerce and fishing.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 02:33 pm: Edit |
Air Weapons: Tomahawks For Ukraine
November 28, 2025: Ukraine has been seeking American Tomahawk cruise missiles. These 1.3 ton missiles are 5.56 meters long and have a 310 kg warhead containing 120 kg of high explosives. Top speed is 920 kilometers an hour and maximum range is classified but believed to be nearly 2,000 kilometers. Ukraine wants Tomahawks to attack Russian weapons factories that are too far from Ukraine to be hit with any current Ukrainian missiles. Two key targets are the Geran long range missile factory that is 1,500 kilometers from Ukraine and a ballistic missile plant. Both of these plants cover a large area that would require at least 150 Tomahawks to inflict enough damage to shut the plants down. Getting that many Tomahawks past Russian air defenses would be unlikely. That means the risks of completing the mission are high and not worth the cost of the Tomahawks, which is about $3 million each.
It is more likely that Ukraine could carry out these long range cruise missile attacks successfully using the Flamingo cruise missile. Ukraine has been developing this missile, with a 3,000 kilometers range and a 1.1 ton warhead. It entered service this year in small numbers. Ukraine hopes to increase Flamingo production to about a hundred a month.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is doing quite well with several other similar missiles. Two years ago, Ukrainian warplanes using the 1.3-ton Storm Shadow cruise missiles were quite successful. Max range is 550 kilometers, and top speed is 1,100 kilometers an hour. There is a 450 kg high explosive warhead and multiple guidance systems, including GPS, INS/Inertial Navigation System and terrain recognition. GPS can be jammed but the other two systems cannot. The missile has stealth features but is not invisible to radars. Storm Shadow is vulnerable to air defense systems. The Russians are familiar with Storm Shadow because it has been in service since 2003 and used since 2011 in Libya, Iraq, Syria Yemen and now Ukraine. Britain and France are sending more missiles like Storm Shadow and Scalp, but not enough to do decisive damage to Russian weapons plants and economic targets.
Since Ukraine is already producing nearly 80 percent of the weapons it uses, getting behind the Flamingo project, or something similar, may be the best way forward. The Ukrainians know what they need and are able to build these weapons quickly and in large quantities. Defending their country is important to Ukrainian weapons manufacturers. Nations financing the Ukrainian war effort might be most effective in providing Ukraine enough money to develop and build their own weapons.
Russia also has Kh-101 cruise missiles that are like the Tomahawk. Over a thousand Kh-101s have been used against Ukraine. Components for these missiles come from 70 different manufacturers, many of them within range of current Ukrainian drones and missiles. Ukraine wants the United States and NATO to increase the economic sanctions on these companies. Some of these Russian firms appear to have avoided the impact of the sanctions. Ukraine wants the sanctions to be fine-tuned to do the most damage to the 70 firms making the Kh-101s available for attacks on Ukrainian targets.
FYEO
| By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Monday, December 01, 2025 - 08:42 pm: Edit |
Yes we vetted Afghanis for the reasons that SVC mentioned. But, even with this vetting "Green-on-Blue" insider attacks occoured on a regular basis.
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2025 - 02:37 pm: Edit |
Winning: Chinese Wargamers Plan Their Future Conquests
December 2, 2025: For decades, China has been observing and copying Western wargaming activities. The latest example is The Coming Wave, or TCW, a commercial wargame, published by Kilovolt Studios. The money for all this was raised via a crowdfunding campaign that raised nearly $100,000 from 872 individuals and organizations. While a commercial product, TCW is extremely complex and not attractive to most customers from commercial board wargames. One valuable thing that TCW does provide is insights into how China would fight any future war. This is complicated by the fact that TCW assumes that China is always the defender against American, South Korean and Japanese aggression. Another key aspect of TCM is its emphasis in collecting information. Warships and combat vehicles are sensors first and fighters second. Whether or not this approach is viable or superior in actual combat won’t be verified or discarded until there is an actual war where one side uses methods spelled out in TCW.
This is not the first time China has developed a professional wargame . In 2009 China surprised Western military professionals when Chinese media ran stories, with photos, of Chinese developed professional wargames in action. The photos and text included enough detail for Western military wargamers to discern what was going on. The wargame shown was the TCCST/Tactical Command and Control Simulation Training System, and it was being used by members of the 6th Armored Division for a Training exercise. It's a typical Blue versus Red where Red is the friendlies and Blue is the enemy type game but few in the West expected China to be developing and producing stuff like this on their own. Over the next few years more Chinese wargames for media attention, if only because these were now widely used in the Chinese military and there was no point in trying to keep them secret.
The Chinese games looked comparable to simulations used by U.S. troops, and those of other Western nations. The United States has been the leader in this field, and since the late 1990s professional wargames have absorbed much of the graphics and realism commercial games, not just wargames, have developed. It's obvious that the Chinese have adopted much of the technology available in the West and innovations that commercial game companies have created. Since the late 1990s there have been a growing number of commercial wargames available that are useful for training battalion and brigade commanders, but designed mainly for a civilian gamer market. Some of these were designed by active duty and retired military personnel, and some are used by professionals, as well as civilians, interested in military affairs. The same thing was happening in China, where computers became enormously popular and increasingly common after 2000. China banned, until recently, game consoles so if Chinese wanted wargames they had to be written to run on PCs. The Internet spread even faster than PCs in China and young officers were soon in touch with their civilian peers discussing how to adapt civilian wargames for military use.
During all this China reinvented a lot of wargaming technology, largely because while wargames were an ancient Chinese military planning tool all that knowledge had been dismissed by the new communist government that took over in the late 1940s. During the Cultural Revolution from the mid-1960s t0 mid-1970s all professional military education was shut down, in part because it was considered counterrevolutionary. When China cast aside that revolution in the late 1970s and decided to adopt a market economy while keeping the communist police state, all resources were devoted to economic development and the military budget was cut. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that military education for officers and planners was resumed and at this point it was realized that the West had done great things with wargaming.
China had revived military staff analysis capabilities in the early 1990s and one of the first things studied was the 1991 Gulf War. The results of that study horrified Chinese military and political leaders. It was now obvious that the West had used modern technology, new training techniques and wargaming to create armed forces of unprecedented capabilities. From this point on China decided to reform their armed forces to be able to do what the Westerners did in 1991. One of the more obvious results of that are Chinese troops wearing combat uniforms similar to those of Western troops and Chinese made weapons that were also similar. What got little attention in Western media was the rapid development of effective wargames. In part this was because the Chinese began with nothing. The communists had eliminated their own wargaming past and the easiest examples of wargames to copy were from the West. The Chinese were helped by the fact that the U.S. Army had abandoned traditional wargames from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s and also had to start from scratch, using commercial wargames, which had become a hobby in the late 1950s, to revive their professional wargames program. Although the U.S. tried to prevent the Chinese from getting these wargames by declaring them munitions and thus illegal to export to China, there were plenty of other ways for China to send someone into a store and just buy them and get them shipped back to China one way or another.
The officers put in charge of developing Chinese wargames were smart and had a technology background. They had one major advantage in that traditional Chinese wargames were always heavily influenced by what the senior commanders wanted, not what the situation really was. The new Chinese wargames were developed by officers who were scientists and their games were based on reality. The senior officers respected that as did the senior political leaders. All this was kept secret because the higher level (strategic) games showed that China was weak and vulnerable. But Chinese leaders used their wargame results to more effectively rebuild Chinese military power. The main reason China has not become a military superpower by now is the long tradition of corruption in the military that continues to resist efforts to eliminate these bad habits.
Westerners were not surprised that the Chinese obtained, and adopted, Western wargames technology, but were unclear about what reality the Chinese were simulating. Put simply, that means how effective were Chinese and Western weapons, equipment and, most importantly, the subordinate leaders whose effectiveness is built into the game, portrayed. Some Western games allow the users to set these qualitative values at different levels. But Westerners knew that in East Asia in general free, let the chips fall where they may, play is not acceptable to most senior military commanders. There's more of a tendency for the generals to want their forces to be portrayed in a positive light. So there were suspicions that the Chinese forces are portrayed, in their wargames, as more powerful than they actually are. This would be consistent with the large-scale military exercises being organized, where the good, as in Chinese players, are programmed to win. It was only recently that it became known that the Chinese wargame developers had managed to avoid that trap.
Winning and losing is not the main goal of professional wargames, or military exercises. The Department of Defense has always insisted that wargames are not to be used, to validate courses of action or specific tactics and techniques. In other words, testing tactics or fighting to win is not allowed, or at least not encouraged. Despite the generally accepted idea that a wargame is a competitive exercise, this is not the way it works in the Pentagon. The higher level wargames tend to be driven by procedures, not a war of wits on a simulated battlefield. While this sounds absurd, it's a long used practice. There is a purpose to this approach, and that is to make sure the hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of officers involved in planning and carrying out a major operation, know the many procedures required to get such a large organization functioning smoothly. In effect, this kind of wargame is used to see if everyone can follow the same script. Winning or losing is measured by how well everyone communicates and executes administrative drills. Or, as the military puts it, the main objective is to perfect one's Tactical Decision Making Process/TDMP. Thus much Department of Defense wargaming results in showing our commanders and staffs how to lose neatly, rather than how to scrape and scramble to a victory. Real world battlefields favor the latter; peacetime perfectionists favor the former. Military training for officers concentrates on learning procedures, not investigating different, and perhaps better, tactics.
Thus it would appear that the Chinese wargames showing up in Chinese media were more about training staff officers to work together effectively. Other screen shots show games similar to Western wargames that operate more at a tactical level. No doubt Chinese troops, and junior officers, like their counterparts in the West, were using commercial wargames that showed what looked like battlefield video. These began showing up in the late 1990s giving the Chinese military plenty of time to incorporate them into official tactical training wargames.
The Chinese now use their wargames in much the same way Western armies do. A lot of wargaming is just to train staff and commanders to work together while at lower tactical levels officers and troops learn tactics and what to avoid in combat.
FYEO
| By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 02, 2025 - 02:38 pm: Edit |
Information Warfare: Russia Escalates Efforts To Create A Sovereign Internet
December 2, 2025: Vladimir Putin, has long had a difficult relationship with the internet. Putin wants to create a Sovereign, used in Russia only, internet. There are problems with this because the internet is essential for running the economy and the military. At the same time internet chatter is the primary source of criticism for the Ukraine War and the problems with the economic sanctions.
Internet chatter about what was going on in Ukraine made it more difficult for Russia to obtain soldiers. To avoid army service in Ukraine, several million Russians left the country, some for good. The government increased restrictions on who could leave, and military age men found ways to get past that, notably bribery. Those caught were forced to join the army, and their reluctance to fight resulted in officers receiving orders to shoot soldiers who refused to fight.
There were at least a hundred of these incidents, these soldiers and officers referred to as zeroing out a reluctant soldier by shooting him. The dead soldiers were called zeroes and the next of kin were simply told that their son died heroically in Ukraine. That explanation often failed when news of what actually happened arrived via the internet.
The internet made it easier to spread the bad news, even after the government made it illegal to say bad things about the war effort. A few complainers were prosecuted, but that backfired when online complaints and protests increased. There were not enough judicial resources available to handle all the complainers. Welcome to the internet paradox, too troublesome to tolerate, but too useful to lose.
But it’s not for lack of trying. Last year, Russia carried out a brief pre-dawn test of its ability to turn Internet access for Russians into a Sovereign Internet that is not connected to the worldwide Internet. That means Russians could only use the Internet within Russian and must use Russian based websites and network services, like search, messaging and social media. There are versions of all these services based in Russian as well as internationally popular versions like Google, Wikipedia, Twitter and Facebook.
The Sovereign Internet test revealed some problems, like interference with large scale Internet-based communications systems created for the Nationwide Railroad Network and other nationwide communications systems that also require some access to international systems. A long-term implementation of Russia’s Sovereign Internet would disrupt some portions of the Russian economy that depend on constant communication with foreign firms.
The Sovereign Internet is meant to be used for short periods. There are other uses of the Sovereign Internet that include remaining connected to neighboring nations like Iran, which is trying to develop a Sovereign Internet and China, which already has one. Internet pioneers predicted that some countries would seek to develop a Sovereign Internet in order to exercise government control over the Internet. This was something that early Internet developers feared would happen because the international free exchange of information was a threat to the power of totalitarian government. The totalitarians were expected to eventually strike back and now they have.
North Korea also has a Sovereign internet as well as restrictions on who can use this internet. Only a small number of government, commercial, and military are allowed to use the internet to communicate with people outside the country.
Two years ago Russia carried out a brief pre-dawn test of its ability to turn Internet access for Russians into a Sovereign Internet that is not connected to the worldwide Internet. That means Russians can only use the Internet within Russian and must use Russian based websites and network services, like search, messaging and social media. There are versions of all these services based in Russian as well as internationally popular versions like Google, Wikipedia, Twitter and Facebook.
The Sovereign Internet test revealed some problems, like interference with large scale Internet-based communications systems created for the Nationwide Railroad Network and other nationwide communications systems that also require some access to international systems. A long-term implementation of Russia’s Sovereign Internet would disrupt some portions of the Russian economy that depend on constant communication with foreign firms.
The Sovereign Internet is meant to be used for short periods. There are other uses of the Sovereign Internet that include remaining connected to neighboring nations like Iran which is also developing a Sovereign Internet and China, which already has one. Internet pioneers predicted that some countries would seek to develop a Sovereign Internet in order to exercise government control over the Internet. This was something that early Internet developers feared would happen because the international free exchange of information was a threat to the power of totalitarian government. The totalitarians were expected to eventually strike back and now they have.
FYEO
| By Kurtistqz on Friday, December 05, 2025 - 02:14 am: Edit |
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