Posted on 04/17/2024 5:01:41 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
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Today these drones—hundreds of thousands of them—are the most important systems in the Ukrainian inventory. This means tactical radio jammers, which can block the signals operators use to control their drones, are the most important systems in the Russian inventory.
So when Russian tanks began rolling toward the front line with a giant new jammer—actually, clusters of multiple jammers—in recent weeks, Ukrainian drone operators were interested. Very interested.
If the new jammers worked, the Ukrainian operators would need to develop countermeasures.
Their chance to find out came earlier this month, when a Russian T-72 festooned with jammers ran over some barbed wire just east of Ukrainian positions in Terny, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. The wire prevented the tank’s driver from turning fast enough to avoid a collision with a BMP fighting vehicle.
Soon, a Ukrainian drone zoomed in and exploded. The drone didn’t badly damage the 51-ton tank, but it did spook the three crew. They bailed out—and then got killed by more drones.
Ukrainian surveillance drones were overhead the whole time. Scrutinizing the imagery, analysts concluded the lightly damaged T-72 with the tangled track and the heap of radio jammers was the perfect prize.
Sure, the fact that at least one drone struck the tank was a strong hint that the jammers weren’t working very well. Still, the Ukrainians wanted to know why.
The 12th Azov Brigade, one of the Ukrainian army’s elite units, volunteered for what would be an extremely dangerous mission. The objective: to retrieve the immobilized T-72 from the no-man’s-land outside Terny—a ribbon of shell-pocked terrain that is among the most dangerous in the world.
“We all started planning this operation together,”.....
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(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
That was quite a mission for those guys, the article is worth reading.
Putinista dorsal fins to start circling in 3...2...1...
A lot of the military people here will just want to read about the mission.
I’d love to read their critique.
Its hard to critique something so complex with such little information, I don’t think any attempt to offer it would be very credible.
This drone thing is just a whole new dimension in warfare. The three Ruskies that bailed out of the tank were whacked by drones. I’ve seen videos of individual soldiers being killed by drones.
The point being, just what defense the the common ground pounder have against these things? These drones in their various configurations can go after individual soldiers, tanks, vehicles, buildings, ships and anything they can get near.
I recall the day when I dodged bullets, rockets and mortars. Now today add drones. Don’t think I’d want to be a soldier in that Uke war on either side.
—”Putinista dorsal fins to start circling in 3...2...1...”
And they will post ‘more tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.’
Sorry, Willy.
“Who dares wins”
The Ukes have been the pioneers in this style of warfare, just like the British first used smart missiles in the Falklands, and the US first used Patriots in Iraq. The innovation is the thing. But it surely is making war even more terrible.
Morale among troops is grim, ground down by relentless bombardment, a lack of advanced weapons, and losses on the battlefield. In cities hundreds of miles away from the front, the crowds of young men who lined up to join the army in the war’s early months have disappeared. Nowadays, eligible would-be recruits dodge the draft and spend their afternoons in nightclubs instead. Many have left the country altogether.
As I discovered while reporting from Ukraine over the past month, the picture that emerged from dozens of interviews with political leaders, military officers, and ordinary citizens was one of a country slipping towards disaster.
Even as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine is trying to find a way not to retreat, military officers privately accept that more losses are inevitable this summer. The only question is how bad they will be. Vladimir Putin has arguably never been closer to his goal.
“We know people are flagging and we hear it from regional governors and from the people themselves,” Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff, told POLITICO. Yermak and his boss travel together to “some of the most dangerous places” to rally citizens and soldiers for the fight, he said. “We tell people: ‘Your name will be in the history books.’”
And therefore, Ukraine troops did not stage a daring three-night raid to steal a Russian tank? Yes, morale comes and goes during a drawn-out conflict. That happens.
Lincoln was set to lose the civil war and the election after three years and change. Democrat candidate George McClellan was running on the platform that the war was unwinnable. But then Sherman burnt Atlanta to the ground, and everyone perked up and gave Lincoln a second term.
Sotwo years and change into the war, Ukrainians are battle weary and Russia’s forces are on the front foot. Good thing this raid happened anyway, because it was a small victory that we can still rejoice in, regardless of the “big picture”.
You’d better believe drone defenses are on the drawing board.
Back and forth it goes.
It’s compelling drama until you remember the human toll.
Less than carpet bombing.
Ecclesiastes 9 v4-6:
4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
Verse 6:
...unless they’ve written a covenant into their property deed that expresses how their old possession can be utilized in the future.
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