Ukraine ping
Helping the Ukrainians destroy Russian formations was not what the Chinese manufacturers intended, but these cut-rate drones are indeed filling a niche no one expected when Russia’s Special Military Operation began. A related article in Bloomberg alludes to the fact that field artillery, the King of Battle, is the largely unsung supporting player crowded out in the media by star turns on the part of ATGM teams hunting Russian tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (BMP’s, BTR’s) and soft-skinned supply vehicles alike:
It is field artillery, with assists from drones, consumer and military grade that is chiefly responsible for the bulk of the damage to Russian convoys. The Ukrainian estimate is that it went through 100,000 howitzer shells in a month. It will likely need at least that many per month in order to either hold the Russians in the East and South or push them back.
The hardware and software (think ai) is well advanced of what I am basically describing here -
In average daily activity, a person’s cell phone is constantly “triangulating” and communicating with nearby static tower repeaters for location and communication.
Now flip this concept of static land based repeaters perfectly upsidedown.
Imagine the exact same could be done “non-statically” (non-stationary), through multiple dynamic (moving) repeaters (drones/UAV’s), with no static/stationary tower repeaters, as the multiple moving drone/uav repeater array can perform the same task, and even more accurately.
Additionally, imagine this “dynamic repeater array” and *without gps, through the use of highly accurate digital feature libraries, this dynamic array could bring artillery AND loitering artillery targeting to within 3-5 centimeters, from twenty miles away (or significantly further).
Now, *redundantly, imagine this multiple dynamic “repeater” (drone) array could still *ping a dozen satellites simultaneously, in addition to tapping highly accurate digital feature libraries.
Now imagine this same dynamic drone repeater array, drawing from redundant high def geo-location libraries and dozens of satellites is made up of drones/UAV’s which are either carrying ordinance, or are kamikaze drones, or can communicate highly accurate target location with distant missile and artillery targeting, including with a moving missile.
What we are talking about here is advanced to the description above.
The uav/drone doesn’t just allow for observation, it provides a near infinitely greater accuracy to non-LoS (line of site), over the horizon, and various range precision targeting systems.
At this time in warfare history, this is where we are at currently, and the drone/uav is capable of much more than described.
This is truly (relatively inexpensive) game changer stuff.
As well, none of this “drone tech” negates the rapid and highly advancing remote, “non-dynamic array” (non-drone) weapons targeting constantly under way.
“Aim small, miss small.” l
Quite a few, by the hundreds at least, have been donated by citizens from other countries...cheap and quickly shipped. Seem a likely reason for the exceptional accuracy of Ukraine’s artillery making direct hits on Rus armor.
There’s a video of such hits on an armored column firing right to left.
“100,000 howitzer shells in a month. It will likely need at least that many per month”
The new ($33B) budget request from the Biden Admin contains $20 Billion for Military aid over the next 5 months (through the end of the fiscal year) - a billion per week, for Military gear.
Cost to the US Army for a M795 (HE) projectile only (no propellant, no fuze, etc.; but with lifting plug and supplementary charge included) was about US$330 in 2019.
Let’s call it $500 as delivered - that would run about $50 million per month for 100,000 of the basic rounds. We have millions of such rounds in inventory.
An Excalibur precision (GPS guided) round, that can hit an SUV from 40 miles away, runs about $60,000 per round. Let’s call it $100,000 per round, if they have to rush some production. They will probably want some of those in the mix for counter-battery and high priority deep targets, like a General on the phone.
The General Dynamics 155mm SMArt round, which does not need GPS, but is capable of detecting and destroying armored vehicles on its own (”fire and forget”), probably runs over $100,000 per round, but it has a very high probability of kill per round. Pop it into a grid square (a square kilometer), and it takes care of the rest. That would really be useful against the mechanized Russian units, which tend to be heavily wedded to their vehicles. The European 155mm BONUS round (from BAE or Bofors) performs the same function.
The Europeans could share the cost of providing those precision munitions, and likely will (as they are with the howitzers and other rounds). A thousand per month of the anti-armor rounds would cost about $100-200 million, but would seriously step up the attrition of Russian vehicles.
Like, seriously. Let’s send them 2-3,000 per month. It won’t take many months at that rate.
The Ukrainians likely have an initial operating capability for the new 155mm artillery already, that will probably grow rapidly over the month of May, to 100-200 tubes firing.
To Russian Forces - Put new guy in tank, and stand well outside of the expected blasting radius.