Ukrainian Defensive War against the Russian Invasion - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

[Foltest]

The more drones are getting used, the better the counter measurements will become.

 

[Konigsberg]

Russia apparently tried to murder this Defense Ministry advisor and got close to it. They're fully capable of precisely targeted attacks, but usually chose not to bother with precision when general terror is the usual aim.

I would argue the opposite, this clearly shows that Russia can attempt precision assassination strikes but they aren't capable of consistently pulling it off. Hence why this strike was "chuck 4 drones at that guy's house and hope he's at home when they arrive" levels of planning, and it failed.

Ukraine produces around 20000 drones a day, Russia produces a similar amount.

And despite this level of production neither can move the front lines decisively, because they've both run low on actual offensive weapons, like armored vehicles, that they need to actually punch holes in the front and exploit it. If Ukraine or Russia had air forces worth keeping or sufficient guided munitions the workshops of both countries also wouldn't be able to sit around producing drones with impunity either.

under the PURL initiative where Ukraine is given money to buy the equipment they want the most, they have opted for no tanks.

This was already explained that this isn't what this money is for, but to caveat onto it; If tanks were so useless then why does Ukraine continue to produce tanks and armored vehicles? Why does Ukraine keep requesting and accepting tanks as part of their foreign aid packages? If anything in your post reflected reality, why would they do that? It's almost like drones and tanks do not fill the same role on the battlefield, and that Ukraine needs tanks if it's ever going to hope to break the eastern lines and retake their territory.

the drone unit is much, much less vulnerable

Only because both Ukraine and Russia's air forces are small, outdated, lack guided munitions, and lack the ability to carry out SEAD and DEAD operations. Drone units and their prevalence in this war is a quirk of both sides being unable to do anything in the air due to the above reasons and because both are sitting on decades of soviet surplus and post-Cold War production AAA that neither sides small under-equipped air forces can do anything about.

American general urges western powers to discard their armoured battalions and replace them with drone battalions.

You found an ex-general who hasn't served in the Army since 2010, was an infantry officer (Meaning, he was never trained or educated in armored vehicle tactics outside of 2nd hand knowledge he got from other officers in his command team), and left his government job at the CIA 2 years after leaving the Army, because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants and cheated on his wife. He hasn't had anything to do with the government/military in any official capacity since he resigned in 2012, and makes his money as a venture capitalist and does foreign policy commentary. Meaning, the way he's made a living since being forced out of the CIA is being a military commentator who gets paid to sell other people's ideas to the government, whether they're good or not. Even if he isn't on someone's payroll to promote that opinion on tanks, I still wouldn't take it seriously because it's a textbook example of preparing to fight the last war. He is promoting the US fight its next wars like these two poverty striken slav states that have fallen into drone saturation due to sheer lack of other options. That's retarded.

Of course, there IS a type of tank that is increasingly successful in Ukraine: The cheap unmanned tank.

There are no unmanned tanks in Ukraine, just because something has treads does not make it a tank, those UGVs can at best replace a support weapons squad in a platoon, they are never going to replace what a tank can do. You don't seem to understand the roles tanks fill on the battlefield, or why countries keep producing them (Including Ukraine, your supposed case study of why we need to ditch tanks altogether). Cheap drone swarms have a place in the future of warfare as an alternative defensive weapon for countries that can't afford an effective airforce, but they are not replacing tanks and the role tanks fill.

 

[Sneeter Rabbit]

If I were Magyar I'd process all the information being given by the lower rungs before offering any kind of immunity. If there is overlap then the top rungs can come forward from prison for reduced sentences.
In any case, blacklist anyone above the level of an admin assistant from all government jobs or contracts. And their families.

 

[Oxyjen]

Uhh.. is Donnyland the new name of Donbabwe?

In other news the €90B seems to be unlocked now that Orban is out. What will it be spent on, tanks or drones?

 

[Wonderland foster child]

In other news the €90B seems to be unlocked now that Orban is out. What will it be spent on, tanks or drones?

Personally, I'm hoping Dodo socks and keyrings made out of the bones of ack'd vatniks melted-down Russian artillery.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

Only because both Ukraine and Russia's air forces are small, outdated, lack guided munitions, and lack the ability to carry out SEAD and DEAD operations.

Russia air force, counting only actual flyers, is only "small" compared to the Uncle Sam's and the Chicom's air inventory. Secondly Ukraine is beyond argument the second best SEAD/DEAD operator behind only the U.S. Military overall. In some aspects the AFU is the now the teacher and USAF, USN and USMC are the students. Thirdly both Ukraine and Russia have guided munitions, be it missiles, drones and bombs. And been using them in large numbers, except for Russian FABs which are very roughly JDAM equivalent.

Edit: U.S. Army would also be a student, as they're part of SEAD/DEAD operations situationally. Example a Wild Weasel haves a SAM or MANPADs located but unable to engage. Whether it's out of munitions, no clear shot, danger close to noncombatants and or friendlies and etc. So it will called whomever haves the shot, be it Army, or Marine, armor, artillery, infantry and helos. Same for Navy naval forces using missiles, helos and/or the 127mm.

 

[Samir Al Hajeed]

I remember, years ago, reading on 4cucks /k/ about some alleged ukie field medic who said that the russians MO was to send out a squad or so consisting of 2-3 men on like ww1 night raids into ukranian positions. These squads would almost always get instantly wiped out but they would also take down some of the ukranians with them. They were sent purely with the intent of annoying the other side and hopefully taking down an enemy or two before getting inevitably bwowm to widdle bwits.

I wouldn't be so foolish to trust a "source trust me bro" from 4cuck but I wonder if they are doing precisely this. It would explain why they aren't just mobik cubing the entire fucking brigade but are instead slowly picking them apart.

This is where those "muh war crimes" videos of single russian soldiers in an open field getting droned come from. But they keep doing it because it's successful enough, Ukrainian defenses are also groups of 2-3 guys, the front is too saturated with drones for continuous defensive lines to be viable because they'd get instantly blown apart, so instead of trenches there are just a bunch of individual camouflaged foxholes. We're no longer at the "ww1 with drones" stage of the war. Attacking means you walk across 20km of no mans land, and if you're lucky enough to not get spotted and droned you get to have an airsoft match tier shootout.

 

[Optimus Prime]

No? Ukraine produces around 20000 drones a day, Russia produces a similar amount. How many of those are shot down by vintage airplanes? Barely any. How many tanks are killed by drones? Almost all of them.

If they had that many drones then why haven't they just droned the shit out of that one stupid bridge linking Crimea to Russia? Just zerg rush that shit.

That is just not true. Tanks are extremely vulnerable to drones, artillery, anti-tank missiles, land mines, ditches, mud, and breakdowns. That tanks, including abrams and leopards, are furnished with hedgehog armour in Ukraine shows just how vulnerable they are, and how little confidence soldiers have in them. Its notable that Ukraine has many western tanks that were donated to them directly, but under the PURL initiative where Ukraine is given money to buy the equipment they want the most, they have opted for no tanks.

Right.

Except artillery, anti-tank ammunition, land mines, ditches, mud, and breakdowns have, more or less, been a thing since the existence of modern warfare and through it all we still get tanks being used by the major powers since WWI when you had Mk. Is and A7Vs farting around bomb-blasted shitholes carved through Europe.

What we're seeing now is a radical evolution of war in the modern era with the advent of remotely operated weapons that can deliver with pin-point accuracy. Tanks up to this point simply were not designed for that kind of warfare...and yet at the same time if tanks really were THAT useless, why do both sides keep using them?

True. They get destroyed very easily, and they don't do anything. There are massive casualties in Ukraine every day, and barely any of them are caused by tanks.

Source?

A NATO armoured battalion has about 500 personnel and 33-36 tanks. If you compare that to a drone battalion that can make several thousand of sorties a day, the drone unit is much, much less vulnerable, has much higher striking power, and drones are a lot more mobile. Tanks have inferior mobility, striking power and protection, and just as importantly, much worse situational awareness. This is why the above mentioned American general urges western powers to discard their armoured battalions and replace them with drone battalions.

Right, and what are those thousands of drones going to accomplish against a base that has a decent amount of CIWS emplacements?

The cheap daytime drones used in Ukraine costs less then 200 euro. The more expensive drone resistant ones with thermal vision, costs maybe 1000 euro. You can use hundreds of them to take down a single tank, and it is easily worth it.

Okay, so...why haven't they done this? Again, your dumbass logic makes it sound like Ukraine could just zerg rush the fuck out of the Russians literally anywhere and thus push them back.

Instead, we're getting videos of just one or two being able to fly in and hit strategic targets. No 300 'blot out the sun' bullshit like you're suggesting.

 

[Snekposter]

There are no unmanned tanks in Ukraine, just because something has treads does not make it a tank, those UGVs can at best replace a support weapons squad in a platoon, they are never going to replace what a tank can do. You don't seem to understand the roles tanks fill on the battlefield, or why countries keep producing them (Including Ukraine, your supposed case study of why we need to ditch tanks altogether). Cheap drone swarms have a place in the future of warfare as an alternative defensive weapon for countries that can't afford an effective airforce, but they are not replacing tanks and the role tanks fill.

The tankette was already tried, and it failed hard because it lacked the armor, firepower, and arguably even mobility given the terrain crossing issues inherent to the short wheelbase to serve as an infantry support platform. Sticking an M2 on something that can barely resist shrapnel impacts and can't reliably cross rough terrain is not something that infantrymen are going to find as useful as an armored box that can cross rough ground and has a 120mm+ gun to direct fire HE at unpleasant things.

@Otis Mallebrok forgets precisely why the tank was invented and that despite the initial models being quite vulnerable to being disabled by even the weakest of field guns, never mind heavy artillery, were still essential tools for breaking the deadlock. Hell, a 12.7mm machine gun would have completely Swiss cheesed even many of the interwar tanks. Every drone you send at a tank is one that isn't getting sent at your infantry forces, and if the tank has the means to defend itself against drones, well, they're still going to target it over the infantry just because an armored box with a big gun is far more dangerous than an infantry unit.

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

How many tanks are killed by drones? Almost all of them.

Most are actually "destroyed" by ATGMs or artillery.

What usually happens is it takes several drones (FPVs, short-range loitering munitions, etc.) to score a mobility kill on the tank (impairing its ability to move easily) and then artillery is called on the position of the stuck tank and/or an ATGM crew creeps up and knocks it out.

The biggest threat to tanks by drones is that the drones can "call in" a bigger unit to permanently take out the tank.

but under the PURL initiative where Ukraine is given money to buy the equipment they want the most, they have opted for no tanks.

But have still opted for IFVs which suffer all the same vulnerability to drones as tanks (if not more, due to IFVs having weaker armor than tanks).
I do recall a quote by a Ukrainian commander saying something to the effect of "we don't need more Abrams we need more Bradleys".

Given that Ukraine's most common tanks continue to be T-64s (NOT THE SAME AS T-62s, DONT FUCKING @ME GHOTSE) and T-72s, it's likely they just don't need tanks as urgently as other things (artillery, air defense, infantry fighting vehicles).

This war is also a 2-sided affair, and if tanks were obsolete and useless then why does Russia continue to drain through their Soviet stockpiles and try to continue to build new tanks?

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

So instead of trenches there are just a bunch of individual camouflaged foxholes.

Ukrainians already built and are using the first or second generation automated sentry guns to cover some of the gaps in addition to remote operated guns. Although both types still need someone to periodically and or as needed to come to reload, repair and do maintenance on them.

 

[NKVD qt]

The cheap daytime drones used in Ukraine costs less then 200 euro. The more expensive drone resistant ones with thermal vision, costs maybe 1000 euro. You can use hundreds of them to take down a single tank, and it is easily worth it.

The rest of your post aside I don't know where you are getting these numbers the warhead alone of a suicide drone is going to be like 200 euro minimum. The shittiest thermal camera module imaginable is going to be 500 euro.

If you don't believe me these drones aren't that cheap look through wild hornet's website they give most of the specs of their fpvs and you can see how much similar spec components would cost on aliexpress.
Wild hornets
This doesn't even account for the cost of the explosives transportation building the blindage you are going to need to hide in coms equipment food and supplies losses infil exfil etc. FPV teams are very cost effective but you are acting like these drones are super cheap and they just spawn in on the frontline like this is command and conquer.

Of course, there IS a type of tank that is increasingly successful in Ukraine: The cheap unmanned tank.

Most UGVs are lightly armored if armored at all and usually armed with a 50 cal if armed at all these are not in the same role at all. UGVs seem to be most used to plant mines transport supplies and injured soldiers and if armed usually function to kill infantry at night.

 

[Oxyjen]

The rest of your post aside I don't know where you are getting these numbers the warhead alone of a suicide drone is going to be like 200 euro minimum. The shittiest thermal camera module imaginable is going to be 500 euro.

If you don't believe me these drones aren't that cheap look through wild hornet's website they give most of the specs of their fpvs and you can see how much similar spec components would cost on aliexpress.
Wild hornets
This doesn't even account for the cost of the explosives transportation building the blindage you are going to need to hide in coms equipment food and supplies losses infil exfil etc. FPV teams are very cost effective but you are acting like these drones are super cheap and they just spawn in on the frontline like this is command and conquer.

Most UGVs are lightly armored if armored at all and usually armed with a 50 cal if armed at all these are not in the same role at all. UGVs seem to be most used to plant mines transport supplies and injured soldiers and if armed usually function to kill infantry at night.
View attachment 8901400View attachment 8901402View attachment 8901403

That second pic reminds me of the little “Sherp” off road vehicle - it has high flotation tires. For comparison those cost about $50k without any robotization.

 

[lIIlIlOO001I0I1I]

Tuapse refinery continues to burn nicely days after the initial ACK

Pavel Kukhmirov:

The city of Tuapse does not exist anymore. It has been destroyed. That's just a fact. The land there is poisoned, the water is poisoned, the air is poisoned. There's a black rain right now, like in Hiroshima: water with oil soot. It's killing the vegetation, insects, birds. The consequences for people are also predictable. The citizens of the city and neighboring areas are told not to go out of their houses and not to open windows. At all. I suggest you fully comprehend this. There's a spot of oil, up to 7 kilometres, in the sea. That is, the haven and the entire seashore are dead.

What can I say... Since 2022, they had been telling us: "What, do you want a Chernobyl in Kyiv?". Well, now there's a Chernobyl in Tuapse. The enemy is destroying our pearl: the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. "If there's a Paradise on earth, then it's Krasnodar Krai". Now there's no Paradise. What next?

Meanwhile: "The Luhansk People's Republic has been liberated, we are advancing in all directions" - Head of the General Staff Gerasimov. To him, everything's fine... Now look in the eyes of this woman... General.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

A Ukrainian An-28 nicknamed "Shahed Hunter", modified to launch P-1 interceptor drones:

The An-28 is one of these:

I've also posted video of these mounting door miniguns for killing Shaheds as well.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

Pavel Kukhmirov:

I looked it up, that's some downright biblical shit right there. I feel bad for nature and animals affected by this.
Just another victim of Putin's war, and he still doesn't give a damn.

 

[Foley]

I feel bad for nature and animals affected by this.

Meh, I don't feel bad for Russians

 

[Fuck It We'll Do It Live]

The command post and rear deployment point of the FSB’s Directorate of Mobile Operations in occupied Donetsk got FP-2 ACK'd:

Russian AA, including Tor-M2 and OSA systems, continues to get the ACK treatment:

 

[Ghostse]

I've been busy and missed the tank sperging.

But first, some news:

EU unlocks €90bn Ukraine loan and toughest Russia sanctions yet — with a crucial caveat Provided Druzhba oil gets turned back on; fuck you clickbait headlines

This private information is unavailable to guests due to policies enforced by third-parties.

tl;dr: Both Slovakia and Hungary have dropped objections to the Ukraine loan package pending resumption of oil deliveries from Russia.
The deal provides 45 billion Euros a year in funding for Ukraine for 27 and 28, with 28 Billion earmarked for military funding.

The article talks a bit more about the sanctions package that goes with the loan including slow throttling Russia, including preventing EU member shipping from being sold or transferred to Russia and trying to close 3rd-party sales.
Greece and Malta forced a removal of a clause that would have prevent EU shipping from being used by EU shipping period, but Russian shipping is being forced from EU service yard but the ban won't kick in until 2028.
A lot of sanction action is pending coordination with the G7 (aka US)

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project 775 Yamal & project 1171 Nikolai Filchenkov. Sevastopol, got ACK'd:

Another Rapucha and Alligator get ack'd. The BSF from the cold war was tasked with landing/supporting a division-sized element to pressure Romania. (that is, even if the USSR was isolated from land resupply, they could land a division + some logistical support pretty much every day; so if Romania counter-revolutionaried or NATO attacked. I think they really underestimated how hard they'd get raped from the air if WWIII popped off but that was the plan) They lost that about 2 years into the war, and this is erorr

The lack of modern cargo handling facilities in Sevastopol mean Russia's company/regiment-sized landing ships were used for Roll-on/Roll-off transport to Crimea as you would roll loaded cargo vehicles on then pull up the dock and roll them off. these ships being out of commission makes supplying Crimea more difficult & costly.

---

Tanks only appear irrelevant if you take drone videos as a metric of how useful they are. Though anti-tank warfare has evolved with drones and things like the javelin there will likely always be a need for protected fire platforms. Many successful assaults on both sides of the conflict used armor to displace enemy infantry or shell positions that things like artillery and drones couldn't respond to in a timely manner. Drone warfare will continue to evolve but so will drone counter measures and armor technologies. There's a niche for what a tank is and does that can't be easily replaced by things that aren't tanks. Unless you want that niche to be filled by several different systems.

What a lot of people leave out when touting "The future is WWI but drones" leave out is how many drones miss or fail. Hezbollah has not had a lot of success in Lebanon lately with drones vs Israeli tanks.

Something else to consider with tanks is, as it depresses me I have to keep going over, is you can take a tank out of an engagement, even if its not out of the war or maybe even out of the battle.
You can mission kill, mobility kill, or crew-kill a tank, but that doesn't stop the tank from being put back into service.

Russia spammed drones at the Abrams' ammo storage because it was lightly armored. The tank survived, the crew survived, but the tank wasn't going to be doing much until it had new ammo loaded and the storage cleared/repaired. If your goal was to not get raped in your trench by 120mm HE today, you very likely acchieved your goal. for today.

Too often, we lose sight of the specific reasons drones became popular in the Ukrainian theater, and assume that all of the conditions in Ukraine will be present in all future conflicts.

That's a very shortsighted mistake. Letting memes become policy will cost lives.

Exactly this. Drones are almost a non-factor for Hezbollah in Lebanon currently because the IDF rules the sky and has extremely effective SIGINT.

If you really want to stop drones you have to locate the operators and blow their post to bits. Which is easier said then done

Not with modern SIGINT. You can see that by Iranian FPV drones being near non-factors.

There have been some penetration into less secured areas of US bases in Iraq, but very infrequent and I haven' seen any in weeks. This is Iraqis operating in what would be the absolute prime FPV drone environment of non-uniformed terrorists operating mingled with Civilians. But they are operating against one of the prime SIGINT and EW/ECM forces; operators who try to set up get triangulated to their bases quickly, if their drones don't static out.
This is because the US owns the skies over Iraq. Any drone teams don't last long.
Now, its possible if you put a team Russian or Ukrainian drone vets on the ground they might have more success, but the Iraqi drone teams aren't living long enough to get experienced.

As the IDF mentioned above also owns the skies over Lebanon. this prevents drone operators from

Shaheed spam from Iran is possible because they are effectively very shitty cruise missiles - operating off GPS coordinates.

The more drones are getting used, the better the counter measurements will become.

I think the Shaheed Spam Drone is here to stay.
I would have told you the costs of trying to produce and maintain thousands of small aircraft engines would have been vastly outweighed by trying to maintain missiles or a single aircraft and I have been - for now - I have been proven wrong.
I believe where I fucked up was failing to take into account that while trying to maintain 1,000 cesna engines or 1 jet turbine is about the same, a cessna engine can be produced and maintained by retards who only need access to a 1930s technology & manufacturing base, while a modern jet requires actually knowing what the fuck you're doing.
The low performance doesn't matter when you can just lob enough to get through.

I do think we're going to see the return of gun-based AA and a return of the "smaller base" (the National Guard armory in the states) to provide a location for them to be placed, and I think we're going to see some sort of low-performance air-to-air engagement platform, and it'll suppress the effectiveness of Shaheed spam but (I'm hoping at least) it remains a strategic consideration.

I remember, years ago, reading on 4cucks /k/ about some alleged ukie field medic who said that the russians MO was to send out a squad or so consisting of 2-3 men on like ww1 night raids into ukranian positions. These squads would almost always get instantly wiped out but they would also take down some of the ukranians with them. They were sent purely with the intent of annoying the other side and hopefully taking down an enemy or two before getting inevitably bwowm to widdle bwits.

I wouldn't be so foolish to trust a "source trust me bro" from 4cuck but I wonder if they are doing precisely this. It would explain why they aren't just mobik cubing the entire fucking brigade but are instead slowly picking them apart.

At least in part, for sure. I'd reckon it's more the command trying to show that things are being done, because they were ordered to do things by people above them, who was in turn ordered the same. Doesn't matter what it is or what the actual results are, knowing how these things usually work, it's more about giving the convincing enough impression that they're trying. If they were to spend all their troops at once, it would prevent them from being able to kick the can down the road by drip-feeding them instead. While they clearly don't value human life, procuring more people nowadays is problematic.
We all know that decisive win is currently impossible for the either side. And when orders come down to take whatever village for the -nth time, you gotta do something or it's your ass.

Let's say that this is merely my conjecture as someone familiar with the mentality.

As a side note, it's funny to see "widdle bwits" meme take traction

I think its a bit a both.

As you say, there is a very Russian (and turd world in general) mind set where bosses want to see results so mid-managers make some effort no matter how futile, inffective, or otherwise retarded it is. Because while the effort wouldn't full anyone giving it more than a glance, a glance is often more than the boss will give it. So sending out squad or sub-squad elements in suicidal 'probings' is just so you can say you're doing something.

But I think that neglects a.... "when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" aspect. Where when you have to keep sending out guys to get murdered, eventually there will be a productive use for having guys killed that will emerge, and that was crystalized in the Wagner "prison assaults" where you use your cannon fodder to locate enemy positions and find weak areas, and then hammer the weak point in the line with more guys than they have bullets. Then having moved the front line 100m after 8 months, you put in your successful status report, collect your medal, and request replacements. Rise and repeat.

Additionally as we've seen, these tactics depend on battlefield coms and coordination which Russia is still struggling to deal with last I saw.

The other issue is how soviet high command views resources. Its not about how many troops they sent you, its about how many you have. If a commander has too many troops under their command, they see use-it-or-lose-it; you either send those troops to their deaths or they will be transferred to other commanders and they'll get the medals and Izzat points not you.

This "strategy" is only possible due to current battlefield conditions. Namely, Russia has more troops and higher population than Ukraine, dense AAD & small airforces rendering air power virtually a non-factor. The current artillery and drone-artillery environement makes concentrating high-value assets for a "hammer blow" nearly impossible. You can maybe get an armored company together for a push but no division-sized mass assaults are happening currently and are unlikely to happen until the cost of drone operation and counter-massed artillery can be countered.

Look at the Russia assault north of Kharkiv, where they sent 50,000 troops with zero armor support over the border. They made some gains hitting areas of poor defender density but took a lot of casualties doing it. Those 50,000 troops would be very welcome in the south right now.

Another thing to consider is Ukraine is not exactly passive, but Russia is largely dictating how the war is executed. I think tanks have taken a secondary role in current actions because Russia's tank supplies are depleted.
Russia is sending less tanks to action, Ukraine is thus conserving its own armor to ensure it can counter any Russian armored thrusts.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]