The Combat 75 Military Surplus Thread. Past, present and future.

[T & P]

Nudging up the ante. Seeing how much provocation they can get to, and assessing the reaction. It's just a longer-distance, airborne version of the very Russian tactic of "reconnaissance by fire". Same thing happens with ships.

I get the provocation angle, but why not just shoot the thing down if that was the intention instead of dumping fuel on it, which surely must rank among the most bizarre and pointless hostile acts ever committed by any combat aircraft? And how the hell did NATO find out about it anyway? Did they actually watch live footage of fuel raining on the craft from the Russian plane above?

If anything, it gives the impression that Russia is so starved of missiles and ammunition pilots have been instructed to save every last bullet and missile possible.

And why would any pilot risk losing their aircraft never mind their life by ramming a fast flying object out of the sky? I’m sure this last point if true must have been an accidental collision because wtf otherwise. But it still suggests a pretty poor airmanship unless the object of the mission was to to fly close to the drone for intelligence gathering reasons.

But the fuel dumping claim is the one that truly blows my mind

 

[existentialist]

I get the provocation angle, but why not just shoot the thing down if that was the intention instead of dumping fuel on it, which surely must rank among the most bizarre and pointless hostile acts ever committed by any combat aircraft? And how the hell did NATO find out about it anyway? Did they actually watch live footage of fuel raining on the craft from the Russian plane above?

I think it's a kind of game - not purely on Russia's side, either. Most of it is some version of the game of chicken, but I guess sometimes someone wants to get a bit creative and pulls off some sort of stunt.

If anything, it gives the impression that Russia is so starved of missiles and ammunition pilots have been instructed to save every last bullet and missile possible.

I wouldn't be massively surprised if that was a factor - it's looking increasingly obvious that Russia's missile stockpile is taking a hammering, and they might want to economise. But I suspect it's probably not so much about committing overt acts of war, as giving themselves a nice vremya excuse of "oh, whoops, did our pilot miscalculate and kill your drone? Oh, dear, where shall I put my face?"

And why would any pilot risk losing their aircraft never mind their life by ramming a fast flying object out of the sky? I’m sure this last point if true must have been an accidental collision because wtf otherwise. But it still suggests a pretty poor airmanship unless the object of the mission was to to fly close to the drone for intelligence gathering reasons.

But the fuel dumping claim is the one that truly blows my mind

Well, maybe it didn't even happen - the fuel bit, I mean. But it is very possible (especially given the state of Russian aircrew training) that it was a cockup - a close pass, or something like that, that went a bit wrong. Sounds like the pilot might have been lucky.

 

[2hats]

I get the provocation angle, but why not just shoot the thing down if that was the intention instead of dumping fuel on it, which surely must rank among the most bizarre and pointless hostile acts ever committed by any combat aircraft? And how the hell did NATO find out about it anyway? Did they actually watch live footage of fuel raining on the craft from the Russian plane above?

Reportedly there is video (not unsurprising for a UAV) and they are looking into declassifying that to enable release.

Dumping fuel on it (and thus also being sufficiently close to subject it to jetwash) might have been parts of an attempt to stall it out and perhaps bring it down to a relatively low-speed impact with the ocean surface for recovery and inspection (and/or avoid controlled flight termination).

A USN P-8 was subsequently running circuits in the western Black Sea, perhaps keeping tabs on any signs of recovery or related operations.

e2a: Monitoring of Russian Black Sea fleet HF nets would suggest that they attempted to recover the MQ-9, retrieving several debris items including parts of the engine cowling and fuselage, plus fragments of the nose and wing. The P-8 was perhaps observing this activity or holding off performing its own survey given the Russian surface activity.

 

[DownwardDog]

But the fuel dumping claim is the one that truly blows my mind

They were going for the deniable kill which would have been impossible if the wreckage were fished out of the Euxine Sea riddled with 30mm holes or had bits of Archer embedded in it. The exhaust gas temp of the MQ-9 would be 800+ deg C so the thinking was cover it with fuel and maybe it'll catch fire. When that didn't work they went for the Sonderkommando Elbe option.

I salute the mystery Flanker driver. That was by no means a routine or risk free assignment but they got it done.

 

[2hats]

Reportedly there is video (not unsurprising for a UAV) and they are looking into declassifying that to enable release.

Mike Eckel (@Mike_Eckel)

The U.S. military has just released video of the encounter between the Russian Su-27 fighter jets and the @usairforce MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea.

notabird.site

 

[DownwardDog]

It looks even more hair raising now I've seen it. Doesn't seem to be any collision though. It looks like several hundred liters of Stolichnaya down the MQ-9's inlet killed the engine.

 

[nogojones]

They were going for the deniable kill which would have been impossible if the wreckage were fished out of the Euxine Sea riddled with 30mm holes or had bits of Archer embedded in it. The exhaust gas temp of the MQ-9 would be 800+ deg C so the thinking was cover it with fuel and maybe it'll catch fire. When that didn't work they went for the Sonderkommando Elbe option.

I salute the mystery Flanker driver. That was by no means a routine or risk free assignment but they got it done.

Maybe the intention was to chuck a lit fag out the cockpit on their second pass

 

[kebabking]

Nah, they hit it - bent blade.

 

[existentialist]

Nah, they hit it - bent blade.

That was an INCREDIBLY risky move on their part, then. What a shame it didn't go horribly wrong for them.

 

[kebabking]

That was an INCREDIBLY risky move on their part, then. What a shame it didn't go horribly wrong for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't actually intend to hit it, the passes would have been about intimidation - getting the operator to move it away from where the Ru didn't want it - and 'accidentally' downing it with jetwash, or causing the engine to stall by filling it with fuel.

You could probably down it by flipping it over violently with the wingtip, but while that would be pretty safe for the Flanker, there's no way you could pretend it was an accident.

The manned platforms - the RC-135's, the P-8 's - they've had fighter escorts for some time, I wonder if it will be long before the unmanned ones have periodic support from friends...

 

[T & P]

This is unrelated to the drone issue, but has just crossed my mind. I wonder if in the current climate, films such as Top Gun Maverick are allowed to be shown in Russia at all, whether at cinemas or on TV. Given that even though the ‘enemy fifth gen fighters’ weren’t named as SU-57s, they undisputedly were, and came a cropper against ancient US fighters in the film

 

[T & P]

£5.5bn and counting, and no end in sight for the Army’s new fighting vehicle

British army’s new Ajax fighting vehicle will not be ready until end of decade

Labour accuses government of failing taxpayers and troops with £5.5bn programme that is already six years late

www.theguardian.com

So what are the main differences between a ‘fighting vehicle’ and other types of armoured hardware such as troop carriers, light tanks, or main battle tanks? I don’t think I remember seeing that terminology before.

 

[2hats]

The flight of the original Chinese balloon (February), in particular the earlier stages weeks before, reconstructed from analysis of commercial satellite imagery.

Tracking the Chinese Balloon From Space - The New York Times

archived 21 Mar 2023 15:33:12 UTC

archive.ph

 

[likesfish]

£5.5bn and counting, and no end in sight for the Army’s new fighting vehicle

British army’s new Ajax fighting vehicle will not be ready until end of decade

Labour accuses government of failing taxpayers and troops with £5.5bn programme that is already six years late

www.theguardian.com

So what are the main differences between a ‘fighting vehicle’ and other types of armoured hardware such as troop carriers, light tanks, or main battle tanks? I don’t think I remember seeing that terminology before.

Ajax son of FRES is an utter disaster of a program.
It started out as a replacement for the cvrts skopian scimitar Spartan etc with a a bit more armour and less of a comedy weapons fit. Spent a decade trying to make it fit on a C130 because the former chief of the army thought air portable armour might be useful

Ajax is a 40 ton thing that can carry 6 troops has quite a cool gun
It's not a APC as it cant carry a full section.
It's not a tank the guns not big enough

 

[T & P]

I know that Russian hardware is unlikely to be the hardest of targets, but as even their hypersonic missiles are now allegedly being shot down with a high success rate, never mind all manner of subsonic missiles and low radar signature drones by both sides, it got me thinking about the technology battle between missiles and missile defence systems going into the future.

Could missiles be on their way to becoming obsolete in future deterrence or warfare? Anti-missile interceptor technology seems to have taken massive strides in the last couple of decades. If it’s already reaching the point now whereby 80% of incoming areal threats are being shot down, what’s going to be like in twenty years’ time? Could the humble unguided rocket, dumb gravity bomb dropped from a plane, or unpowered artillery shell make a comeback?

And if any nuclear nation run by an unstable nutjob felt like they could confidently shoot down 90%+ of the UK’s Polaris missiles fired at them, they might seem those few warheads that get through as acceptable losses. That was a policy that was actually considered by the Soviets at the height of the Cold War.

Time to being back the Vulcan, clearly

 

[kebabking]

I thinks there's definitely an issue with simplicity/ease of manufacture - as ever, wartime rates of munitions use turns out to be about 10 times that which even the most pesimistic Treasury official would have a coniption fit over.

 

[T & P]

I thinks there's definitely an issue with simplicity/ease of manufacture - as ever, wartime rates of munitions use turns out to be about 10 times that which even the most pesimistic Treasury official would have a coniption fit over.

I’ve got fuck all knowledge about such things of course, but I would have thought the tipping of the scales towards the anti-missile camp was to do with recent breakthrough technological advances, rather than sheer numbers of units fired into the sky, seemly in hope rather than expectation?

Unless you were saying that the technology had been available for a long time, but now it has become cheap enough for every minor army and militia to get their hands on them?

 

[kebabking]

Part of it is the capability of tech, and part is the reduction of cost of some elements of it - so things like UAV's and GPS guided glide bombs - that have an incredible effect on the battlefield, that are cheap/easy to build, and yet can only be stopped with expensive surface to air defences.

One of the things we've seen is the re-emergence of the gun-based system - if the enemy can put 10,000 loitering munitions on the air, no state on earth could afford to shoot them down with missiles.

 

[Chz]

As the Israelis have proven, if you can shoot down ballistic missiles then dumb bombs and rockets are child's play. It all depends on how much money you're willing to throw at the problem. For them, since it's their very existence that's at stake, they don't mind the cost. But it's quite unsustainable to lob expensive missiles at home made mortar rounds long term.

Iron Dome - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Bullets are grest against the drones and cruise missiles, but they lack the vertical range to be effective against ballistic targets.

 

[DownwardDog]

Could missiles be on their way to becoming obsolete in future deterrence or warfare? Anti-missile interceptor technology seems to have taken massive strides in the last couple of decades. If it’s already reaching the point now whereby 80% of incoming areal threats are being shot down, what’s going to be like in twenty years’ time? Could the humble unguided rocket, dumb gravity bomb dropped from a plane, or unpowered artillery shell make a comeback?

Generally, a guided bomb (eg Paveway/JDAM) is 100-200x more effective than an unguided bomb (eg Mk. 82).

That is, to get the same combat effect as a single JDAM/Paveway you'd have to expend 100-200 Mk. 82s. So, no, dumb bombs aren't coming back.



CEP = 'Circular Error Probable'. So 50% of GBU-12s will land in a circle of 1.1m radius and 50% of Mk 82s will land in a circle of 94.5m radius. So the economics of using unguided bombs to destroy targets is ludicrous if a precision alternative is available.

 

[kebabking]

To.put that in real world, in the first gulf war of 1991 the RAF was tasked with destroying a bridge near Basra - they sat down with their bombing tables and decided that given the accuracy of the avionics and the ballistics of the bomb of the time, the unguided 1000lb HE, they would need 4 Tornado, each dropping 4 1000lb bombs (so 16 1000lb bombs) to guarantee dropping the bridge if the weather was clear, but of the target was obscured by cloud, they would need 15 Tornado sorties, and a total of 60 1000lb bombs to guarantee dropping the bridge.

12 years later the RAF had to drop the same bridge (or, more accurately, it's replacement), but this time that had laser guided bombs - two aircraft were needed, but only because you never fly alone over enemy territory - two LGB's from a single aircraft had enough reliable accuracy to be able to drop the bridge. The two aircraft, with 4 bombs left between them, them went off to attack another target.

Guided bombs meant that you could drop the bridge with 2/3d's of one sortie instead of 60 sorties. No one is going back to 60 sorties.

 

[StoneRoad]

I think I'm right in saying that guided bombs are way more expensive as individual items, but that is counteracted by their much greater accuracy ...

Also much less risk to aircrews, as they make many fewer sorties over enemy territory.

 

[Chz]

In the grand scheme of things, JDAM kits aren't all that expensive. More than unguided bombs, obviously, but quite cheap compared to other weapons. It's about 10x the cost of the bomb itself, but a 500lb bomb only costs about $3k.

 

[T & P]

In the grand scheme of things, JDAM kits aren't all that expensive. More than unguided bombs, obviously, but quite cheap compared to other weapons. It's about 10x the cost of the bomb itself, but a 500lb bomb only costs about $3k.

 

[ska invita]

12 years later the RAF had to drop the same bridge

"had to" - just following orders?
these are war crimes you are talking about

 

[DownwardDog]

"had to" - just following orders?
these are war crimes you are talking about

It's only a war crime if you lose.

 

[kebabking]

"had to" - just following orders?
these are war crimes you are talking about

A civilian bridge being used by a military - moving it's forces over it - is a legitimate target as defined by the Geneva Conventions.

There are caveats to to that regarding proportionality - the importance of the forces using the bridge, the longer term effect on the local civilian population, and whether you have other options for interdicting those forces - but the laws and customs are clear.

War Crimes have specific legal meanings, they do not just encompass 'stuff I don't like'...

 

[A380]

RDS-1 The first Soviet atomic bomb.

And for comparison the first US one.

 

[T & P]

Clearly the Soviets got their inspiration from a mighty military power in a galaxy far, far away

 

[2hats]

Yesterday evening the French (DGA) tested their experimental hypersonic glider demonstrator, Vmax, Véhicule Manœuvrant Expérimental. Launched on a sounding rocket from Biscarosse, SW France.

France conducts maiden test of hypersonic glider

France has conducted a maiden test of a prototype hypersonic glider, the country's defence procurement agency said, as it seeks to develop new missile technology capable of evading the most sophisticated air defences.

www.reuters.com

No details on the outcome other than that flight data is being analysed.

It was visible from SW France and northern Spain as it headed NW.


It could help seed some NLCs in the coming days over central Europe.