Archive through July 08, 2024
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Real-World Military:
Archive through July 08, 2024
Jeff, leave discipline of other users and administration of the topic to me.
Russia lost another Ladoga this week in Ukraine, the second since March. For those wondering, a Ladoga is a T-80U chassis reworked as an APC that is sealed against NBC attack and is equipped with life-support systems; it was designed during the Cold War for transport of VIPs on the nuclear battlefield (think the Klingon G1N diplomatic gunboat, or the Herkimer Battle Jitney from "Mystery Men"). The Ladoga is rare; only five or so were ever produced, and the last time any were seen outside of a museum prior to March was during the Chernobyl disaster.
[Source regarding news of latest Ladoga loss: Forbes, 30 JUN 2024]
Did Russia lose it to Ukraine or was Ben Stiller told to, "Junk it!"
Russia is deploying vehicles meant to check on areas that may have had nuclear contamination, and I heard reports of Russian attacks near a town close to the largest nuclear power plant remaining in Europe this past week.
The combination is uncomfortable for me.
I think it's just coincidence. The russians are losing huge quantities of men and equipment, and are deploying whatever they can scrape up.
Australia is selling SLINGER anti-drone guns to Ukraine. This uses a 30mm Bushmaster chaingun and a 7.62mm machinegun to destroy any drone within range. It has a K-band radar (originally designed to track space debris), thermal imaging, and a laser rangefinder. It can search for new targets while engaging one. I has a 120 degree tracking art. It can be based on trucks or on a concrete pad. It can also engage other targets such as helicopters, ground vehicles (3.5km range), and other targets. It can track drones at 1km. It has a wind detector and ballistic computer. Ukraine has ordered 110 mounted on M113s and 50 more mounted on trucks.
russian milblogger sources on Telegram are reporting that some russian commanders are committing wounded soldiers to attacks in Ukraine. IDK how prevalent this is, but if it's actually happening at all it's an indicator that the russians are not doing well at all.
One of the nice things about the Slinger anti-drone system is that it kills drones on the cheap, with each engagement using somewhere between $150 and $1500 worth of munitions.
So much smarter than using a sophisticated SAM that might cost hundreds of thousand or millions of dollars.
--Mike
Wikipedia claims a unit cost of 1.55 million, which is high, but the system is low weight enough and cheap enough that I can imagine the USA putting something like one of these on the back deck of every tank or IFV for the next generation of such.
This is assuming that the US Military is capable of buying something like this without gold plating it. I have this vision of someone insisting that the gun needs to be shoot down incoming artillery shells and missiles (not unreasonable) and someone else wanting it to kill light armored vehicles and dismounted infantry (not unreasonable) and yet another person wanting it to have a wider arc and be able to shoot nearly straight up (not unreasonable) and someone else claims it needs more than 150 ready rounds (pretty well required if you've got it doing all the rest of this) and discovering the hard way that adding all of those individually not unreasonable capabilities converts your 355 kg 1.55 million dollar unit to a 3.55 metric ton 310 million dollar monster.
At one point the US Army decided to officially buy a combat shotgun at put one in every squad. Then somebody decided that this shotgun needed a round that would penetrate the typical armor of a Russian armored personnel carrier. The result cost $1.2 million per unit (in 1988) and weighed over 20 pounds.
The story I heard when I was young (so probably the early 80's) was that the office on Redstone doing development on the improved LAW (light anti-tank weapon) was under firm instructions from the infantry that the weapon's total weight (including launcher) should be no more than 50 pounds, instructions from the army that the weapon should have a 50% chance of killing a Russian main battle tank at 500m through the frontal armor, and they were informed by the munitions office that the lightest warhead capable of that was 60 pounds.
The story locally was that there was several million a year going into trying to figure out how to build a total system weight of 50lb with a 60lb warhead, of course, 15 or so years later they finally came up with the Javelin that avoided the frontal armor, but we basically had no improved LAW for a decade or more because the perfect was being the enemy of "at least it's better than what we've got now."
(Note: Lots of my friends' fathers and my own father worked on army missile and munitions programs. I don't know that the above is true, but it fits.)
My wife has bunches of similar stories from work in light scout helocopters and light tactical scout drones. Someone high up really has trouble with the concept that light means light, and that the infantry typically doesn't want to carry tons of crap that they don't need for the actual mission and that while it's REALLY NICE if your recon unit can win the battle on its own, it's more important to HAVE a reconnaissance unit than to have one that can double as a heavy combat unit.
Big stink today. Someone found a tape of a known Saudi intel agent doing things that make it plausible that he was helping the 9/11 airplane hijackers plan their attack. The families of 9/11 victim say Trump and Biden have known of this tape for a week or more and did noting to condemn or even investigate Saudi Arabia.
Douglas
Probably fair to say someone will say 'with just afew simple changes, rather than being an improved current generation of weapn ..... we can make it a next generation weapon'?
We just need another 500 metres's maximum range so we can engage medium armoured targets at a longer range....
We just need to go from 50% to 60% chance of penetration on a Heavy armoured target...
We just need an improved night fighting imaging scanner.....
And Bobs your Uncle, the 'simple upgrade' isn't.
Just look at the current main range of IFV's..... they are as heavy as WW2 tanks.
That might not seem a major issue - but Fuel Consumption goes up, mobility goes down - air/sea transport capacity is reduced.
The German Marder added about 30% weight over it's production lifetime as more and more things got added to it.
Clearly it's better - but it creates other issues (hence the new breed of Wheeled AFV's come along!).
But crucially, who doesn't want a Gold Plated tow bar?? 
Probably fair to say someone will say 'with just afew simple changes,
Just a quick look at how computer OS' have progressed over the years, we know "Simple Changes" aren't possible for anything....
What of the thought that the folks in the Puzzle Palace don't want to invest in a "Specialized Mission System?"
What I mean is, back in WWII, the "Official Order" was that U.S. tanks were NOT supposed to engage German (or Japanese) tanks; they were to be engaged by Tank Destroyers. IF enemy tanks were encountered, the U.S. tanks were to withdraw and the tank destroyers were to move up to engage them.
Later U.S. tanks were better able to engage enemy tanks.
Similarly, while there have been some fighters designed around the idea of "Not a pound for air-to-ground," those which are NOT multi-role capable have been retired from service.
Could the folks at Procurement think that a purely "Anti-Drone" weapon is too specialized? I mean, what, aside from the occasional Gladiator, is an anti-drone to shoot at in the Romulan theater?
(Ducking now)
Okay, in all seriousness, what is one of these anti-drone weapons going to do against, say, a CCP or North Korean human wave attack...
The anti-drone system may well be far behind the lines protecting civilians, since we've seen the russians using those Iranian s***head drones to attack cities. If it's close enough to the front line to be engaged by a human wave attack, well, it's got an MG and a chaingun, and it will presumably be there to support infantry, who will have machineguns and riflemen as well. Unless the human wave is being supported by vehicles or drones, in which case it will engage those targets.
The 30 mm autocannon can fire on ground targets, the as can the coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun, and the detection systems can pick up both ground and air targets.
200 RPM 30 mm proximity explosive shells aren't the best choice against a human wave attack (if you knew that was what you were facing, I'd expect a change in ammo), but it's still a pretty good choice with the system as it currently exists straight out of the box.
Jeff Wile, you started this mess the day that I was out dealing with my husband's hip replacement. I am still dealing with it, so I can only catch the BBS rarely.
Be glad, very glad I was not online. You were rude and overbearing to two members. You totally ignored the folks who warned you of your rudeness.
As SVC pointed out, you are not an admin and are NOT allowed to discipline other users. You have done the same thing in earlier conversations. Therefore, it is time to do something that you might heed.
Consider this a formal warning and your first strike as you ignored SVC's first warning to be polite.
Jean
WebMom
Acknowledged.
In the news today, Russia accidentally bombed Belgorad with glide bombs. Apparently the bombs were older vintage production, (sources indicate the type used dates back to the 1950’s, but the actual date of manufacture is currently unknown.)
The report claims 12 explosions (out of 38 glide bombs observed) hit a Russian City.
Reports in a number of Mainstream Media Sites (several American, but also foreign reports.) have widely reported the incident.
This is not the first time Russia attacked Russia accidentally. In 2023, a number of artillery attacks were reported on Russian civilian areas.
ELECTIONS ALL OVER
The Labor Party (think Democrats) won a majority in the British parliament, but only took 38% of the votes due to the system that the British use. This system is designed to produce strong majorities that provide a stable government.
The French held their elections on 30 June and the ring-wing party got the most votes, but only won 38 of the 577 seats outright. In a three-way runoff election, the center and left parties cut a deal and one of them dropped out of each race, meaning that the ring wing party only won 105 more seats. The left won 182 and the center 168, so they can form a coalition government with a majority of 350 out of 577.
The US election went crazy after the debate, and everyone seem to be waiting for President Biden to admit that he cannot win and step aside for Gavin Newsome to run with Harris as his VP (to keep the campaign money).
Three comments on the UK Election.
Keir Starmers Labour received less votes in 2024 than they did in 2017 - and received alot more Seats.
(In rough terms 1/3rd of the votes for 2/3rd of the seats).
Reform party received 14% of the Votes - but less than 1% of the Seats and the Greens 7% of the Votes, but also less rhan 1% of the seats.
The Liberal Democrats got around 12% of the Votes - and got around 11% of the vote - the only party to actually get simiilar numbers between Votes and Seats.
The Liberal Demorcats in recent times (so ay less 50 years) had traditionally polled well - but received less seats than they would do under Proportional Representation - and so have always wanted it it.
Due to the significant inbalance this time around - I can see "First Past the Post" being discussed again - as this time, it would seem if nothing is atleast considered voter apathy will not doubt increase - as the numbers voting fell to around 60%.
In other words, over 20% of the Population that did vote for Reform or Green, in effect got 9 candidates elected. If you was one of the 34% that votes for Labour, you got 412 candidates elected.
That isn't exactaly a good headline for a Democracy? (IMHO)
Accepting Proportional Represenation does possibly generate weaker governments, there probablty is a way to change the 650 reagional seats into say 550 regional seats and 100 seats for proportional representation.
The smaller parties will still underperform when viewed against Proportional Representation - but it would help slightly reduce the extremes?
In France - well, thats the downside of a two round system - people can change there mind and 'tactical voting' (which does happen in the UK) seems to have been taken to a whole new level.
Poltically we live in interesting times.
Military - Labour did indicate there would be no changes and so support for NATO, Ukraine, current Nuclear Weapons and future Nuclear Weaspons remains.
Perhaps the only down side is that due to all of these 'needs', the general armed forces will continue to be squeezed on it's budget. Will be interesing to see with all the other pledges, whether Labour can find more money in the Budget for Defence.
The only comment I'll make on this (given that politics is always dangerous and is largely verboten here, and I'm assuming -- I know, dangerous -- that Steve has only opened the door on discussion of such to a very small degree) is that the only one who seems excited about a Newsom nomination is Newsom; he has a lot of baggage that is not present with other potential nominees (Harris, Whitmer, etc.). Mind, I'd be fine with a center-right Republican like Larry Hogan or center-left Democrat like Amy Klobuchar, but I suspect that I'm in a very tiny minority there.
Folks, let's just avoid the Political Swamp. I know that SVC laid out a straight, smooth, and wide road, but we all know that path leads nowhere good.
Jean
WebMom