I'd say more like Vietnam and the Air Mobile/air assault development, close air support doctrine with fast movers and Guided weapons/smart bombs creation.
But if things go tits up in a ditch yes the Spanish Civil war for real. Sometimes quantity and cheap beats quality and expensive.
This blog went a totally different direction than I had suspected, based on the title. My concern is that yes, the Ukraine War may very well be a weapons testing ground for the major powers, who may then decide to run that whole thing out. There is a sardonic curse that goes "May you live in interesting times." The other day I pulled the little slip of paper out of a fortune cookie that said "You will always live in interesting times." Sorry, guys.
Return of the Bofors 40 mm or Oerlikon 20 mm mounts. Of course, EW against control links is a problem. In this case, a recon configured cardboard drone could be set up to fly a preset course, and record the whole way to get home. Electronics are there, and while not real time, any recon is better than none.
On the one hand, these are wonderful opportunities. On the other, significant threats. I presume an 11 pound payload could include something like the old SADARM munitions, which were designed to knock out tanks and other vehicles, or a large fragmentation bomb for troops in the open, light trucks, etc. One has to anticipate how to detect and defend against these. Cardboard construction means 0.5 machine guns or lasers can shoot them down IF they can be detected, tracked, identified and targeted in time. OTOH, drones like these are very, very easy to produce in truly massive numbers.
Israel is working on a "drone dome" system which will combine radars and other sensors, probably networked, computers to process the data and provide targeting solutions and the necessary weapons. Its worked well against larger Iranian drones, but these expendable small swarm-bots might prove a more difficult threat.
And how (or even can) you suppress a threat like this when any building, ship or pickup truck can be a drone launching site? Its not as if you have big, fixed identifyable infrastructure like V2 sites. In any event, lessons from Ukraine should (but probably will not) be given a higher priority than the wokism choking the armed forces.
I hate to tell you this, but FliteTest has been designing and building these things for a decade. I am amazed that it took the UKRs this long to discover "waterproof" cardboard. https://store.flitetest.com/airplanes/
I used to work for a company that made point of purchase advertising displays. We had a CNC cutter creaser. You placed a sheet of corrugate on it, pressed a button and it would cut out the shape and put in creases for folding. Add some two sided tape and depending on the design maybe a hot glue gun for assembly. The one shown in the picture would be a piece of cake for me to design. I've got a solid RC aircraft background. You can buy the guidance and power systems premade. In some of the videos they carry an impressive payload. I know that theirs are RC controlled, but, it wouldn't take much to change that. If you take a look at the different types of corrugate out there, rain wouldn't be an issue if the right material was used.
Aug 28, 2023·edited Aug 28, 2023Liked by CDR Salamander
and here I am, for years offering that modern, fully rigid hulled, amphibious AIRSHIPS (not blimps or dirigible types) can bring enormous advantages to the fleet......cheaply, quick to field. stealthy, survivable, capable.
this brought a smile. I am literally sitting six feet away from materials used to build a living-room sized RC model of my airship........made with foamboard and corrugated plastic sheet.
there is a whole world of non "tech" out there that can be used well, to great advantage. warfare doesn't have to mean umpty-ump hundred million dollar aircraft. A nice little P-51, cheap, slow and dumb as it is............can deliver a super smart missile into range. the missile kills, not the delivery platform, or the pilot, necessarily.
So to echo my comment over on Insty in a more relevant forum: Everyone is watching this show, so from the other side of the waterproof cardboard, what is the US or allied military’s answer to the simultaneous arrival of any large number (hundreds? thousands?) of cardboard UAV delivered 5kg warheads over name-any-military-asset?
NATO has been pushing the Ukrainians to use combined arms maneuver warfare methods in attempting to drive towards Maripol and split Russian forces in the south.
But what the Ukrainians don't have is an air force capable of supporting combined arms maneuver warfare. Nor do they have sufficient training in combined arms operations and force coordination, nor do they have the sufficient mass of forces needed to carry through to Maripol should an initial breakthrough occur.
An army which cannot take casualties cannot keep up the fight. The Ukrainians have taken horrific casualties in the last few months with little to show of real value for the casualties they've taken in that short period of time.
The Russians are in the process of methodically rearming and rebuilding their own forces. It is quite clear at this point that the only option now open to Ukraine is to establish its own series of defensive lines which would be extremely expensive for the Russians to attack.
This means accepting the difficult reality that the Russians will not be giving up the ground they've already taken. The issue now is how to keep the Russians from taking even more territory inside Ukraine.
As has been seen with the Russian Lancet, thousands of drones can be exceptionally useful against armored vehicles and against other maneuvering battlefield targets. Smaller cheaper drones deployed in huge numbers could be highly effective against infantry and against lines of logisitics, especially if combined with cluster munitions.
So here is the big question .... will NATO and the Ukrainians face the harsh reality of current circumstances and build a line of defense similar to what the Russians have built in the south? Or will they instead continue attempting to use a combined arms approach which is not, and will not, be properly supported by a sufficient mass of ground forces, or by sufficient air power?
I'd say more like Vietnam and the Air Mobile/air assault development, close air support doctrine with fast movers and Guided weapons/smart bombs creation.
But if things go tits up in a ditch yes the Spanish Civil war for real. Sometimes quantity and cheap beats quality and expensive.
Until it rains.
“Heck, give it to the Marines for their next exercise in WESTPAC and see what use they can come up with.” This instead of DARPA
This blog went a totally different direction than I had suspected, based on the title. My concern is that yes, the Ukraine War may very well be a weapons testing ground for the major powers, who may then decide to run that whole thing out. There is a sardonic curse that goes "May you live in interesting times." The other day I pulled the little slip of paper out of a fortune cookie that said "You will always live in interesting times." Sorry, guys.
Return of the Bofors 40 mm or Oerlikon 20 mm mounts. Of course, EW against control links is a problem. In this case, a recon configured cardboard drone could be set up to fly a preset course, and record the whole way to get home. Electronics are there, and while not real time, any recon is better than none.
On the one hand, these are wonderful opportunities. On the other, significant threats. I presume an 11 pound payload could include something like the old SADARM munitions, which were designed to knock out tanks and other vehicles, or a large fragmentation bomb for troops in the open, light trucks, etc. One has to anticipate how to detect and defend against these. Cardboard construction means 0.5 machine guns or lasers can shoot them down IF they can be detected, tracked, identified and targeted in time. OTOH, drones like these are very, very easy to produce in truly massive numbers.
Israel is working on a "drone dome" system which will combine radars and other sensors, probably networked, computers to process the data and provide targeting solutions and the necessary weapons. Its worked well against larger Iranian drones, but these expendable small swarm-bots might prove a more difficult threat.
And how (or even can) you suppress a threat like this when any building, ship or pickup truck can be a drone launching site? Its not as if you have big, fixed identifyable infrastructure like V2 sites. In any event, lessons from Ukraine should (but probably will not) be given a higher priority than the wokism choking the armed forces.
A-Team, MacGyver, and the Force.
Excellent little 40mm grenade carrier.
I hate to tell you this, but FliteTest has been designing and building these things for a decade. I am amazed that it took the UKRs this long to discover "waterproof" cardboard. https://store.flitetest.com/airplanes/
Give these guys a look. https://www.flitetest.com/
I used to work for a company that made point of purchase advertising displays. We had a CNC cutter creaser. You placed a sheet of corrugate on it, pressed a button and it would cut out the shape and put in creases for folding. Add some two sided tape and depending on the design maybe a hot glue gun for assembly. The one shown in the picture would be a piece of cake for me to design. I've got a solid RC aircraft background. You can buy the guidance and power systems premade. In some of the videos they carry an impressive payload. I know that theirs are RC controlled, but, it wouldn't take much to change that. If you take a look at the different types of corrugate out there, rain wouldn't be an issue if the right material was used.
The drone swarm is the future and the future of air defense is defending against drone swarms.
and here I am, for years offering that modern, fully rigid hulled, amphibious AIRSHIPS (not blimps or dirigible types) can bring enormous advantages to the fleet......cheaply, quick to field. stealthy, survivable, capable.
this brought a smile. I am literally sitting six feet away from materials used to build a living-room sized RC model of my airship........made with foamboard and corrugated plastic sheet.
there is a whole world of non "tech" out there that can be used well, to great advantage. warfare doesn't have to mean umpty-ump hundred million dollar aircraft. A nice little P-51, cheap, slow and dumb as it is............can deliver a super smart missile into range. the missile kills, not the delivery platform, or the pilot, necessarily.
Get it to young guys, E5 and below during excercises. Most of us dinosaurs will not have enough imagination to utilizes it effectively.
So to echo my comment over on Insty in a more relevant forum: Everyone is watching this show, so from the other side of the waterproof cardboard, what is the US or allied military’s answer to the simultaneous arrival of any large number (hundreds? thousands?) of cardboard UAV delivered 5kg warheads over name-any-military-asset?
NATO has been pushing the Ukrainians to use combined arms maneuver warfare methods in attempting to drive towards Maripol and split Russian forces in the south.
But what the Ukrainians don't have is an air force capable of supporting combined arms maneuver warfare. Nor do they have sufficient training in combined arms operations and force coordination, nor do they have the sufficient mass of forces needed to carry through to Maripol should an initial breakthrough occur.
An army which cannot take casualties cannot keep up the fight. The Ukrainians have taken horrific casualties in the last few months with little to show of real value for the casualties they've taken in that short period of time.
The Russians are in the process of methodically rearming and rebuilding their own forces. It is quite clear at this point that the only option now open to Ukraine is to establish its own series of defensive lines which would be extremely expensive for the Russians to attack.
This means accepting the difficult reality that the Russians will not be giving up the ground they've already taken. The issue now is how to keep the Russians from taking even more territory inside Ukraine.
As has been seen with the Russian Lancet, thousands of drones can be exceptionally useful against armored vehicles and against other maneuvering battlefield targets. Smaller cheaper drones deployed in huge numbers could be highly effective against infantry and against lines of logisitics, especially if combined with cluster munitions.
So here is the big question .... will NATO and the Ukrainians face the harsh reality of current circumstances and build a line of defense similar to what the Russians have built in the south? Or will they instead continue attempting to use a combined arms approach which is not, and will not, be properly supported by a sufficient mass of ground forces, or by sufficient air power?
One might imagine a bunch of EV-powered Polaris MZRs tooling about the country side with a stack of these in the back.