And more importantly: isn't napalm the solution? Instead of dropping them from planes you could put the stuff inside some rockets and keep the first few enemy lines burning for days.

>or is the situation in Ukraine is somehow exceptional, and we are unlikely to see it repeated elsewhere? The Russo-Ukrainian war consists of nothing but exception after exception. This is more like a civil war in how it's being fought than an international conflict, because both Russia and Ukraine are more like siblings who don't get along than true enemies. Russians spend more time capturing Ukrainian PoWs in trenches than they do shooting them during trench-clearing and the Russians are trying to minimize casualties and environmental damage (flammenwarfen of entrenched Ukrainian forest positions aside), and because of the power dynamic, Russia doesn't want to commit their full military resources to the conflict while Ukraine doesn't have military resources to commit. This gives Ukrainians the "advantage" in that trenches slow down the Russians and protect them from artillery while Russia is too chicken shit to take major losses in a war that they can take 20 years fighting if they need to anyways (and it's training up an entire generation of veteran conscripts for use in future conflicts). The second a war kicks off between two "modern" countries where neither particularly cares about "looking good" or limiting casualties is the moment a lot of what is happening in this war stops being common sense. When the guy in charge of the missile buttons doesn't care about collateral damage, or the field commander has orders to "take X position regardless of casualties," then a lot of what makes the tactics of this war effective (for both sides) goes out the window because they are free to use their weapons as intended. Drones will probably be a staple of war for the next 10-20 years because the functional military theory for the last 80 years was that drones are a one-trick pony who only fill a niche because nobody bothers filling in defenses for that niche. They aren't all that hard to counter, but you have to pour money into R&D to counter them which is a money sink that only helps you for one or two wars before becoming obsolete tech. Once they become enough of a nuisance, the money will flow into destroying them and we will be back at stage 1. Trenches will always be in style to some limited extent because they are cheap and do their job against artillery. The earth is a great shock absorber regardless of where you are and bunker buster bombs, while easy to produce, are not cost-effective for dealing with a handful of entrenched mobiks. They never really fell out of favor, it was just the wars that have been fought for the last century were either in places with natural ground cover (mountains), urban environments where trenches are annoying to build, or against "primitives" (read: intelligent farmers without access to high-tech equipment like missiles/artillery) where wire fencing and some corrugated steel walls did the job just fine.

>>5959 Napalm and other chemical agents are a solution, but they are best reserved for either when you're losing and honor becomes a meaningless word, or when you don't care about collateral damage.

How much longer until the first confirmed kill of an aircraft by an unmanned aircraft and will it be a Houthi multi-quadcopter nigger rig with an old Igla strapped on for ebin popup attacks against Saudi Apaches? Assuming air to air capable drones do emerge, could this have knockdown effects on the civilian sector in the form of unmanned fixed-wing cargo aircraft? The FAA wants to counter demografics decline by legitimizing single-pilot operation of larger aircraft so why not cut out the middleman entirely on planes that aren't carrying any passengers to begin with? Would make it easier to blame 9/11 2: Electronic Boogaloo on muh Russian h4x0rs.

>>5962 Haven't Ukrainians already rammed loitering Russian aircraft with drones and vice versa?

As for unmanned shipping planes, aircraft are basically at that point anyways. The only reason they really have a pilot is in case something goes horribly wrong and for managing traffic before the aircraft is in the air. It's more likely that drones will be remotely shut down than outright hacked. Hacking a plane to do something requires a pretty consistent connection that makes it easier to trace someone (thus accountability). Jamming it up mid-air so it just drops out of the sky is much more stealthy and easier to do.

>>5963 No there was one attempt to ram a helicopter but helis are faster. Russians are apparently also using helicopters now to intercept drones flying into russia proper.

>>5964 Do you think soon some RAND tier braintrust will convince the Pentagon that AI drones should be a thing and before we all realize it the F-35's go full Skynet? Only the retarded version.

>>5960 Pretty much everything that i want to say is already said by this guy. The only thing that can't be countered is the Drone's surveillance and reconnaissance ability. Everyone on the squad level has the ability to deploy a drone, and able to spot artillery at any time. So basically, the survivability onion got one of it's layers permanently gutted by tech. >>5966 >Muh AI I'll wait till they can do more than making wonky art and answering questions. Reminder that running ChatGPT costs $700000 every fucking day just to make an 'AI' that scrapes every search engine to answer something only to make shit up at the end for some reason. I mean really, AI right now is really just a glorified program brute forcing data by the millions and hashing up an answer. No fucking way a $20 subscription service will cover that.

>>5966 Lancet supposedly already has AI powered target recognition and autopilot for operating when jammed. Other newer drones have similiar systems. We are already there.

How much potential do submarine drones hold? I wonder if AI may one day reach the point where they can LARP as whales.

>>5969 In theory high potential. In practice water is bad for signals, and the types of signals we can send through water well are highly visible to the enemy.

>>5969 In the same way as the flying mines we've got now, there probably will be autonomous ship hunters for denying waters and I can't see it not being very cost effective

>>5970 >and the types of signals we can send through water well are highly visible to the enemy. Signals through the air aren't magically invisible. Just like with Sonar, if the enemy is looking in the right direction at the right frequencies, and has the sensitivity to see the signal, they'll see it.

>>5972 Our directional microwave transmitters are many times more effective than our directional sound transmitters.

I wonder how workable it is now. On one hand, taking out a stationary gun seems to be quite easy with all the drones and whatnot. On the other hand, even towed guns seem to work quite well in Ukraine from what I gather. >>5961 Is napalm really on the same level as mustard gas?

>>5974 It's arguably worse. Mustard gas kills surrounding foliage, but the extra sulphur in the ground acts as a fertilizer for wild plants (the ground is too contaminated for crop-growing for a while though). In comparison Napalm both creates plastic-based burn scars (prevents soil absorption of carbon) and also salts the earth because of the byproducts leading to defoliation/land erosion because nothing can grow there for a long time.

>>5960 /thread The main reason drones see so much success is because A: They are cheap enough that even shitholes can afford a dozen or two of them B. They let you monitor the enemy from the sky 24/7 and drop cheap missiles at them C. Most MALE drones' altitude is too high for current gen manpads to lock on to, and most countries only field long range AA systems (Patriot, S-300s, etc). This means that there's a hole in the air defence bubble that drones are currently exploiting. Previously almost everyone had SPAAGs. These were made for fucking up helicopters, which means they also get to fuck up drones. We see that in action in Ukraine, with TORs and Gepards being very effective at shooting drones and loitering munitions. Mind you these are outdated SPAAGs and were never equipped with anti-drone systems, yet they're still effective because drones are essentially tiny helicopters but without all the high tech systems that helicopters normally come with. Arms manufacturers knew about the threat of drones for years now. Almost every anti-drone SHORAD you see marketed today was already made years ago. It's just that countries are braindead and slow to adapt (as usual). I've said this before, arms manufacturers make for better generals than actual generals. They're always up to date with weapons technology and they know who buys what, from whom and in what quantities.

>>5974 Self-propelled howitzers killed the towed AT gun. The Soviets just refused to acknowledge this fact for 40 years, probably for ideological reasons (as your quote demonstrates, the Soviets were often more concerned with enforcing loyalty than they were with actually winning battles).

>>5960 >the field commander has orders to "take X position regardless of casualties," then a lot of what makes the tactics of this war effective (for both sides) goes out the window because they are free to use their weapons as intended. I though hohols have been trying to advance regardless of causalities for the last few months, but it doesn't seem to be very effective.

>>5978 The upper command has painted it that way, but it's implicitly understood by most Ukrainian grunts that if you dig the ditches and keep your head down, you will only get killed/maimed by RNG and the Russians will take you as a PoW if they reach your positions. Most of the ideologically driven Hohols are dead at this point outside of upper commanders who never show up on the battlefield. If the Russians acted even half like what Hohol leadership paints them out to be, the Ukrainian forces would be much more ferocious. They aren't and their deaths are largely from mines/artillery, E.G. "bad luck" or "wrong place at the wrong time."

>>5977 Many things killed towed guns. First it was weight. Then it was shaped charges. Then it was the time needed to deploy it, and the final nail in the coffin were guided munitions. There is no benefit to towed AT guns or howitzers. They belong to a bygone era. >but muh cost Cost is irrelevant if the weapon and its crew get obliterated the moment they go to the front. >Need a truck to tow the weapon and the ammunition >Need to spend a minimum of 7 - 8 minutes to deploy the weapon and start firing >No protection for the crew, or the ammunition >Spend another 7 minutes to load everything back into the truck and slowly drive away Or you could have just made an SPG with an autoloader and MRSI capability that deploys in 45 seconds, unloads an entire magazine in 1 burst and drives away. You want to see what happens to towed weapons? Go look at the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict. The Armenians got absolutely roflstomped. Their only success was destroying a couple of Azeri tanks using ATGMs because the Azeris didn't detect those in time (being portable, small and all). If they had towed guns instead of ATGMs they wouldn't even have those few kills to brag about. The least retarded "modern" towed anti-tank gun is the Russian 2A45M Sprut-B. They made it light enough to be air dropped for paratroopers and it also has it's own little engine so it can propel itself (albeit very slowly). But it's still shit, because it isn't an SPG.

>>5980 >Sprut-B The 2S25 Sprut-SD was when the planners pulled their head out of their asses. >Towed They still have a place in extremely difficult terrain like the arctic or third world shitholes with no industrial base, but at that stage it's just smalls arms fights with airstrikes. I await the day we get exoskeletons that can be modified to act as a SPAAG with a radar and a 30mm. Or three man exo teams carying a 130mm direct fire weapon.

>>5981 I have to imagine there's going to be better ways of using power armour than having a three man team running around with a massive tube.

>>5976 >with TORs and Gepards being very effective at shooting drones and loitering munitions. Not really, last time they showed Gepard it had markings of 7 Geran shotdowns, which is kind of pathetic considering the time it was operating in the theatre and how drones are spammed.

>>5980 >"I'm not even a slut for towed artillery" t. anon b-b-but you could give one a gassy little putt-putt turbine and some servos and then it could make it's own way home like one of those toy robots that falls over/into things a lot... /reads the gun bio >minimum crew required to operate: 7 >it takes Sergei, Pietr, Blyat and four MORE people just to get my little towed waifu to fire one off but I still love her anon stop breaking my heart

>>5983 I guess saying they were "very" effective was quite the stretch, but they are confirmed to be capable of shooting down drones and some loitering munitions. Ukraine is requesting more of them. Considering that these were originally made to detect and shoot big ass helicopters, these are pretty good results.

>>5982 >efficency Doesn't mean they wont try. My best guess is some sort of large caliber (120mm?) shoulder direct fire/at munution like the with extra rounds carried on the chasis.

Is it possible to CNT top armor a SPG to the point it can return fire after taking a direct hit from a 155mm shell? And on that note, wouldn't a hard-kill APS fug itself by intercepting a 155mm HE shell from the top due to the turret-mounted FC radar in current iterations?

>>5987 >Is it possible to CNT top armor a SPG to the point it can return fire after taking a direct hit from a 155mm shell? Yes >wouldn't a hard-kill APS fug itself by intercepting a 155mm HE shell from the top due to the turret-mounted FC radar in current iterations? Rheinmetall's APS has multiple radars spread around the vehicle that are protected from small arms fire and artillery shrapnel. It should be fine. It's the jewish Trophy that would knock itself out if it attempted to intercept an artillery shell.

>>5988 So a future where SPGs engage in downtrench counterbattery contests while AFC Fresh Fruits with laser APS LARP as Hans-Joachim Marseille in the skies above is indeed possible?

>>5989 >downtrench counterbattery contest There won't be contests, nor much counterbattery happening. SPGs will empty one magazine from their maximum engagement distance and quickly drive away.

>>56033 NIGGER!

>>56033 Imagine being sent to war by kikes and commanded by a nigger, it doesn't get more american than that, kek.

>Is this really the state of warfare now, or is the situation in Ukraine is somehow exceptional, and we are unlikely to see it repeated elsewhere? yeah, as long as lads have a 1-2km range simple hand-held/backpack radar (not too difficult to make in the field either if required and the operator knows what he's doing) with a shotgun with birdshot/7mm buckshot no drone will be able to resist as they fly relatively low (enough to get hit by birdshot/buckshot) if you get in a squad of 10, 2 lads with their main rifles, disposeable AT and their shotguns as their secondaries to protect against drones, you're good to go (use some ultra-light semi-auto shotguns with 6-8 shells in the mags and ggez - MP-153 as example for the ruskies) for convoys and such, use a shotgun with mags that can allow ~35 shells to protect against drone sworm attacks (at least 2 such shotguns per convoy) also, those saying that "radar systems are complex and shite" - a guy literally trained AI to radiolocate individuals accurately with a WiFi router; it ain't hard, it's just a bit of tinkering and engineering and you'd be good to go - a couple of plastics, copper, big old batteries and a reporpused old (nokia, samsung) phone and boom, you're good to go

>>56033 Why are you posting this in the drones thread, you double-nigger? We have news/meta/qtddtot/kanteen for this double-plus good malarkey.

>>5994 >drones thread This is the modern warfare thread. 'non should have made a drones thread if he wanted to strictly talk drones. Who is commanding and what their expertise is, is relevant to any (immediate) future engagements.

>>5995 If that's how you want to play it, cope.

>>5996 >How you want to play it Who drove a stick up your ass this morning? Fucking tranny.

>>5975 And burgers were throwing that stuff around like if it was nothing? I might hate commies, but between this, Agent Orange, and all the mines it's hard not to feel sorry for the average Vietnamese villager. On that note, is there an ethically sourced and vegan alternative substance that can be used to set enemy trenches on fire? I know that even simple gasoil is enough to ruin the ground, but I'm not sure if weaponized vegetable oil would work.

>>5996 >f that's how you want to play it, That's how it is you dumb fuck

>>5986 Boating ATGMs is much better option.

https://eos-aus.com/defence/counter-drone-systems/slinger/https://eos-aus.com/defence/counter-drone-systems/slinger/ So the Aussies did the needful, and now there is an anti-drone system that has a 30mm M230 chain gun and an FN MAG instead of some fancy electronics warfare nonsense. According to some scattered news 10 of them have been shipped to Ukraine, so hopefully we will see how well it works.

>>6001 >instead of some fancy electronics warfare nonsense I don't know >Echodyne ultra-low size, weight, and power (SWaP) 4D targeting radar with active beamsteering ESA >Lightweight 30 mm Proximity Sensing Ammunition with radio frequency proximity-fuzed, high explosive, The whole thing is pretty high-tech still and relies on electronics warfare to find and kill. Gone are the days of a sight and a gun trying to shoot flying targets.

>>6002 Strelok, aiming without radar has been obsolete since the 1940s. That thing just shoots the drones to pieces instead of jamming them or trying to go full hackerman, and that is sort of an improvement as far as I am concerned.

>take quadcopter >put explosives on it >input target coordinates and set a launch date >put drone in box with self-opening mechanism, slave it to the drone's timer >disguise and put box on a trashpile in some favela/slum/modern US city >if the lid doesn't get obstructed the drone will exit the box and fly into its target on its set date Is this a possibly viable form of terrorism/mine warfare or am I retarded?

>>6004 >am I retarded? Yes for posting such things on a peaceful basket weaving forum. Include a small solar panel to keep the battery topped up for longer timelines. The scheme sounds plausible. I think in the coming years there's going to be huge business in providing countermeasures for such things at events and for VIPs.

>>6001 >30mm That sounds like its more for taking out Predator style professional UAVs than "Cheap quadcopter with bomb stuck to it". Even a single airburst proximity fuse seems overly high tech for the most common type of drone. A .22 LR SMG should do fine.

>>6006 I think its more because its the common calliber used on BMP and will literally never run out of ammo to use. And it is big enough for FLAK. >>6004 Reportedly russians already have such "sleeper" drones that are planted somewhere (northern luhansk?) and can be activated and made operational within minutes. You thought minefields were bad? They can fly now.

>>6006 You need a reason to increase the taxes dude

>>6004 Boomsticks are energy dense. They are heavy.

>>6006 >quadcopter Fixed-wing man portable UAVs exist in a plethora of both official and unofficial variants, with enough autism even sane VTOL designs by virtue of having less mass than NATO's favorite flying tub of lard carried in the back of a pickup are possible. Shotguns with birdshot may be fine for killing anti-personnel quadcopters in the immediate area of a unit, but they're gonna do squat against a hobbyist R/C plane converted into a poor man's reconnaissance-suicide platform cruising at 600m.

>>6008 I think australia's MIC operates at a profit, actually

>>6011 Then it's the other option.

>>6006 >That sounds like its more for taking out Predator style professional UAVs than "Cheap quadcopter with bomb stuck to it". >>6007 >I think its more because its the common calliber used on BMP and will literally never run out of ammo to use. And it is big enough for FLAK. Not all 30mm are created equal, the most common natto 30mm cartridge is 30x173mm, but the M230 uses a 30x113mm one, and as you can see it is significantly smaller, but still big enough to carry a meaningful amount of explosives.

>>6006 >>6007 Anti-air weapons are almost never designed to hit the target directly. If your anti-drone cannon doesn't have shrapnel rounds then it sucks. 20mm is nearly useless, 25mm is just barely usable and 30mm+ is where you finally have a big enough shell to fill the air with a respectable amount of flak. You know why the Iron Dome "failed"? Because the retarded kikes made it only fire missiles. Even the smallest, cheapest guided anti-air missile is several times more expensive than any 30 - 40mm shell is. So there's a limit to how many such missiles you can have ready to fire at a time. If along with these missiles they also had systems such as the German MANTIS, they could most likely intercept every single rocket that Hamas fired at them. Jammers, lasers, 30mm cannons and small missiles is how you protect yourself from a saturation attack. If you only rely on 1 thing at a time you're going to be bombed to kingdom come. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=bdwjcayPuag

One more thing to add is that the Aussie system is pretty much just a remote weapon station with some fancy targeting system, and in theory it is light enough that you could even mount it on the cabin of a supply truck, and you could also use it against ground targets as a high-velocity automatic grenade launcher, so you could even justify putting one on a main battle tank. Yes, it would be expensive to use it on every ground vehicle, and there is the classic problem of making someone do double-duty against ground and aerial targets at the same time, but the former can be justified if you just watch drone footage from Ukraine, and the latter might be solved with image recognition software doing the targeting, so that the operator just has to push a button to confirm that he wants that drone to be destroyed. On that note, Chieftain has this video where he speaks about how some people think that it is possible now to develop tanks with just a crew of 2 or 1. He also says Hohols claim they shoot down 90% of drones with Maxims and searchlights: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=iFs6LG0TEyU

>>6015 >He also says Hohols claim they shoot down 90% of drones with Maxims and searchlights: Did he say it tounge-in-cheek or did he actually believe that claim? I've stopped watching Chieftain a long time ago when he went a bit too much reddit for me.

>>6015 >>6016 Reminder that TheChieftain's words aren't gospel and he's made plenty dumb claims throughout the years. Overall he's pretty good but you really need to take everything he says with some grain of salt, especially if it is related to subjects such as "best/worst tank of x war" or says something along the lines of "heh, bet I could design a better tank than KMW and GDLS!" Treat him as baby's first serious entry into tank discussion and not much more.

>>6016 >>6017 He literally just attended an event and repeated what he heard there, and then I just repeated what he repeated. We do not need to discuss the inner working of his mindover this.

To tell the truth, drones with maxims would be pretty clumsy and easy to shot down.

>>6014 Point defense is not front defense. Autocannons work great for relatively small dense fields of fire, rather than large front defense. So, how densely they are going to be packed? Medium range anti-air is missiles and proper flak, not 30 mm CIWS guns. Long-range, missiles and interceptors only. Adding some higher-density air defense zones with CIWS on the most dangerous directions (and put a small garrison or something there) could work, or at least make things easier for area defense: block low-flying threats on trajectories with the least warning times. Also, these choices could be distorted by political considerations. From cannon lobby vs missile lobby to misgivings about unexploded munitions.

What's the prospect for mole drones/mines capable of autonomously drilling and digging around below enemy positions? Could they be a cheaper or less conspicious alternative to anti-runway bombs?

>>6020 >So, how densely they are going to be packed? The MBT/APC to SHORAD ratio should be 2:1, that's how packed they should be

So, let's say that putting M230s on every vehicle works most of the time against drones. And that would be cool, but what about trench lines manned by infantry? Put these same weapon stations on small ground vehicles similar to >>57053 but even more compact, and park them in the trenches? In that case you'd also need to supply fuel to keep them running, but then with some very efficient APU they could run their sensors for quite a while with just the fuel from a single jerry can. On top of that, you could even put some manual controls on the back and use it against ground targets if it is necessary. And if they can spot a drone they should be able to also spot some enemy tanks and infantry. Is the future of infantry on the defence is to have two such UGVs in every squad, one of them with this weapon station, and the other one is there to haul supplies? In this case they could be controlled directly by squad members, and the supply UGV could haul a plain ridiculous amount of extra equipment, including a rack of ATGMs (not to be fired directly by the UGV, simply extra missiles for a launcher).

>>6022 >>6017 A fellow mixed point defense sperg I see. Nice to share clay with you.

>>6021 >What's the prospect for mole drones/mines capable of autonomously drilling and digging around below enemy positions? Seems unlikely as digging takes a lot of energy and going to be rather noisy plus tunneling would probably be easy to detect with modern seismology equipment. I believe Israel has a system for detecting tunnels through (under) Gaza border and seems to be the only thing Hamas didn't cuck in the recent attacks.

>>6024 If you truly are a Greek then you must feel my immense pain. Our military is a total disaster. I have 0% doubt that if a PMC like Wagner was allowed to invade Greece with the support of the Russian air force (only for protecting them against our own air force, they wouldn't even have to do any ground strikes) they would roflstomp us all the way to Athens within 1 month. >Tanks Even the 2A6HEL is outdated because it has no addon side armor and obviously no APS. The 2A4 is outdated completely and everything else is only good for the museum. >Navy The 4 MEKO frigates are the only surface vessel worth talking about. But they too are outclassed by the Instanbul class frigates. The Type 214 submarines are good, but they don't have modern torpedoes, at least not enough of them. We also need more subs, especially new ones. The 214 are slowly becoming outclassed. >Air force The Hellenic air force may appear superb on paper but once you dig deeper, you realise that the only aircraft with stand-off weapons are the Mirages (SCALP missiles only, nothing else), the only aircraft with truly modern missiles are the Rafales (Meteors) and when it comes to the F-16s, they have no fucking modern missiles, no modern guided bombs and they don't even have modern RCS coatings because the Divided States of Amerilard refuse to sell us any (and we sold off the only Greek company that used to make them) >Air Defenses There's no point defense unless you count the outdated ASRAD (54 of them only, but I bet my left nut that there's less than 54 in working condition), 7 HAWKs (Good morning Vietnam!) and the 9 Crotale NGs. We only have 6 Patriot launchers. In all of Greece, we expect that 6 Patriot PAC3s will protect us from the Turkish air force and their missiles. Ahahahah, all 6 will be destroyed within 1 week. >Artillery There's 24 Pzh2000s. That's it. Whoever counts the M109s as artillery, still lives in 1980. Every last M109 will be blown apart by drones and Firtinas because they HAVE NO FUCKING AUTOLOADER YOU CANNOT HAVE SPGS WITHOUT AUTOLOADERS IN THE 2020s YOU FUCKING RETARDS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >Infantry The absolute worst infantry in all of Europe. The worst training, the worst equipment, the worst officers, the worst everything. The female personnel will star in Turkish gangrape videos. It is the duty of every Greek man to "take care" of the women in his unit so they don't get captured and embarrass us all in the raw natural things that are bound to follow. >Special Forces There OYK and ETA, that's it. Will they even get to do anything? Will they be used to disable Turkish AA emplacements and harbors? Get real, they won't be used for anything like that. They will instead be shipped off into suicide missions at some island with 0 support to die to Turkish artillery and drones. >Electronic Warfare The very concept of EW to Greece is what clean toilets are to an Indian.

>>6026 At least we have Rafales and soon F-35, kek, plus a higher tonnage navy than Germany Plz disregard that it is "manned" predominantly by commies.

>>6022 For what? A column moving in range of enemy close air support? For defense of a front, density is per length of front. Air defense needs to resist saturation. Thus, be thick enough, in terms of total rate of fire within overlapping fields. Everywhere, since the other guy chooses time and place. For short-ranged effectively immobile weapons it’s rather straightforward and expensive. >>6023 > if they can spot a drone they should be able to also spot some enemy tanks and infantry. Depends on how they are placed. But yes. Detection of UAV, UGV and big targets obviously overlaps a lot. So it shapes to something like a mass produced forward spotter pod with light self-defense capability, given to small units and spread on the front much like MG nests for suppression (and with less variability, since small UAV can pop up everywhere).

> https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/334224-modified-tor-air-defense-system A curious mention here . The big waking call to try and intercept ever smaller loitering munitions was the re-ignited Caucasus mini-Balkans 2.0 2.0 >>7830 when they began to actually inflict major losses.

Imagine torpedoe made out of TOS missile. It would be ridiculous.

Are the kind of super elite tacticool snipers who can take out a random dude from 1-2km away actually useful if you are not fighting random insurgents? To me it seems like they are better used as scouts and observers nowadays.

>>6031 >they are better used as scouts and observers nowadays You just described the primary role of snipers in all "insurgent" combat. Modern snipers rarely even take a shot on most of their missions in view of recon instead, and sniping is really only reserved for taking out high value targets, for providing support to other units, and during open warfare as a way to stop/slow troop movement and reduce morale.

>>6030 >Imagine torpedoe made out of TOS missile. Wouldn't work underwater, thermobaric weapons rely on oxygen from surrounding air to make a boom.

Is an AAM/SAM that kills plen not by trying to crash into it and blowing itself up when reaching proximity but instead droppings a cluster of missilets with proximity sensors and minimal maneuvering capability in or along the target's flight path feasible outside of Belkan laboratories?

>>6034 You just described an anti-aicraft version of a Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle. The answer is yes, it is feasible. But it would be utterly pointless.

bump

Russians are planning to replace KA-52s with helicopter drones, in no small part due to the cost of training pilots is way too high, and those drones should be able to fling missiles just the same.

>>6034 Starstreak is pretty similar to what you're describing.

>>6023 Russians already deployed a supply UGV. https://t.me/militarysummary/6752?single

>>6033 Make it an above water suicide katamarn ekranoplane . I want to see what happens to Nimitz class when shockwave resonates on every possible metal surface and suddenly sea temperature around the ship goes up to 100c >>6038 Starstreak has also a terrible track record in Ukraine.

How viable are rigid airships as high-altitude Carrier platforms for drones while doubling as Satellite relays/comm beacons/AWACs? They don't necessarily have to carry UCAVs, could just be recon/surveillance or civilian atmospheric survey drones. An airship's larger space+greater tonnage in combination with gentle, stable flight could also allow for installation of more sensitive high-powered electronics than on a conventional fixed-wing aircraft, at the cost of being slow and a big target though nobody said you can't mount CIWS on a skeleton kept aloft by helium tanks.

>>6040 That can mostly be attributed to Britain's weird aversion to IR guidance, though. Replace the convoluted laser arrangement with a central IR seeker with wire-guided submunitions, and you solve two of the biggest problems while keeping most of the benefits.

>>6041 I think the reasons you mentioned would be enough to stop it being viable. You have to remember that the moment CWIS is being used a missile will have to have typically penetrated several layers of defences. As a form of civilians transport and air freight shipping I reckon it would have taken the place of planes if the Hindenburg wasn't sabotaged, simply because it would have been so much cheaper and more efficient than aircraft in about every comparable way.

>>6042 Cost maybe? I know our special forces use the stinger instead and have been since the 80's.

>>6043 Except for the fact that the large surface area means that any kind of storm, any kind of high winds, either blows them three time zones away in a few hours or destroys them utterly. Look up the USS Akron disaster in 1933. They're utterly at the mercy of the winds, and extremely, extremely fragile.

>>6045 >not giving sailors on a Navy airship flying over the sea life jackets Burger/10 While the large surface area is indeed a problem, a modern day airship could and should make use of >Diesel/nuclear/greentard-electric drivetrain with lightweight prop nacelles capable of 3DOF movement for VTOL and precision maneuvering >Autistic lifting hull aerodynamics optimization like the Aeroscraft prototype >redundant flight control surfaces/canards >Redundant FBW coupled to the afroimentioned 3D pivoting nacelles and flight control surfaces to mitigate these problems to a degree unimaginable in the 1930s. It's honestly a miracle and testament to the superhuman efforts of airmen back then that airships worked as well as they did, with engine nacelle operators getting their ears shredded for hours while waiting for the throttle indicator from the bridge to change and crew manually shoving the tail control surfaces into place because the wires snapped/jammed but the ship still manages to dock safely somehow. Aeroscraft even developed a system of active buoyancy management using multiple variable pressure helium bags that largely negates the need for ballast, yet no one's stepped up to build a proper rigid airship with all this tech put into it which enrages me almost as much as the YF-23 cancellation and everything resulting from that. Large hangars that hopefully don't fold in on themselves will be necessary for safe storage though, wind is still wind.

Do airships even show up on radar?

>>6047 According to a quick search yes they do, but they give off a weaker signal due to their construction.

Would the reduced gravity+air resistance in the low-mid stratosphere make missile carrier airships viable for ballistic missile defense/offense, or alternatively annoying EW spammers with onboard hard-kill defense systems current SAM systems aren't designed to handle?

>>6046 Hydrogen cells I reckon would be most effective for civilian applications. It could serve a duel purpose of fuel for the engines and buoyancy for the craft.

>>6047 Gee I don't know, does a huge object reflect radar waves?

>>6041 About the same as naval aircraft carriers: works against peasants with rusty bootleg AKs and IEDs or at most military demoralized into complete lethargy, otherwise expected to go down in minutes (if the situation is less than ideal, even without high-end weapons, see Millen[n]ium Challenge). But even more so, due to shorter range of payload, inability to carry much weight in point defenses and being flimsier than anything else, even among the aircraft. Also, aircraft carriers have fire suppression systems and are not made of easily melted materials, so at least you need actual direct hits with actual warheads, rather than just dumping a bag of cheap fireworks more or less above it.

>>6046 >build a proper rigid airship Why make it rigid though? I am sure that with modern tech we could make an inflatable skeleton. I guess high flying zeppelins could act as satelites in case these go down and for smaller nations. A satelite is orbiting earth, obviously, so it is incapable of providing 24/7 coverage of the battlefield. Thats why you need entire spy networks up there. Zeppelin can just sit there above with cameras and monitor a single operational theatre pretty much 24/7. And if it somehow gets shot down through all of your air defenses, well, its a baloon with extra frills. >>6049 I dont think so. Limited cargo capacity (compared to ground) and possible arc of attack (baloon top) means it is easy to counter. >>6051 Does it in an useful manner? building sized object traveling at the speed of decently drunk pigeon which hardly emits any heat and is effectively a gas wrapped in oblong, thin sheet is something pretty likely to be interpreted as background noise. Besides, wasnt that a part of that (suspicious) chinese spy baloon story, that they did not catch it earlier because they did not detect it?

>>6053 You said it yourself, that was a balloon, not an airship. It is made out of materials thin enough that radar goes through them until it gets closer

>>6053 >inflatable skeleton Why? That seems to make attaching anything to the Ship's hull far more complicated than necessary and doesn't bode well for redundancy in case of a hit/leak, one of the natural advantages multi-bagged rigid airships have over single bag inflatable and semi-rigid designs. You can't even pump out helium in the hangar without the entire thing folding in on itself, did Andrew Dobson join Lockheeb? Also, >Zeppelin >balloon with extra frills Those are blimps, a proper Zeppelin better have some omnidirectional AESA radars and laser CIWS mounted on its hull. Outside of the large hangar space and amount of helium required would building a sub-Hindenburg sized Surveillance/pseudo-Satellite stratospheric airship really be that expensive compared to a single F-35? Up there Solar panels would work better than on the ground and the ship could spend a lot of time drifting with minimal engine power consumption in favorable weather conditions, and unlike Satellites it could be recovered and serviced on the ground while also being able to defend itself somewhat with hard-kill protection systems. Hell, at Hindenburg sizes it might even be possible to build a detachable steerable lifeboat that can glide down to the ground following the slow compared to fixed-wing aircraft collapse of the Airship itself from missile strikes.

>>6053 >>6055 How about putting a radar on one and using it to monitor air traffic during peace? If an enemy wants to attack you with planes or missiles the airship will notice it, and even if it gets shot down as part of the initial attack, it could at least warn you a bit ahead of time, and the enemy had to waste some missiles on shooting it down. Sure, sending up a new one once the war is on would be pointless, but knowing that a swarm of missiles is coming before they enter the range or ground-based radars would still give you extra time to prepare.

>>6054 Sorry, I fucked up, I was only able to see a rendition of my idea on application of this kind of vehicle. >>6055 >Why? Ease of storage when not deployed.

>>6056 Most likely because of the expense relative to a nations actual airspace borders and authority. Any civilian plane is marked by transponder so really doesn't need to be monitored by radar and it's an expensive one trick pony in war time.

>>6058 >Any civilian plane is marked by transponder so really doesn't need to be monitored by radar Transponder/ATC relay airships over the Atlantic/Pacific/Indian Oceans could greatly reduce the amount of time needed to find airplane wreckage after an MH370 AF447-style accident.

One aspect of trench warfare is that physically less capable people can still hold the ground from prepared positions, simply because they don't have to carry more than half of their body weight's worth of equipment, unlike in the sandbox. Of course, using them for an attack is not a good idea, but as long as they have the morale and discipline to keep firing they are still good enough. And the key here is that the positions have to be prepared, as digging trenches under enemy fire is significantly harder. Meanwhile if the area is still not on the front you can use civilian excavators, or a whole lot of random civilians.