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Is the attack helicopter dead?

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Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#501

Post by lefty2 »

__loam wrote: post #402
sneed_chucker wrote: post #5

Part of a broader pattern in military technology right now. All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones right now. If you're fighting a highly asymmetric conflict where your enemies can barely touch your expensive toys then it's less of a concern. If you're fighting near-peer it's a different story.

People have been saying tanks are dead for the last two years but: - Even conflicts where tanks were obviously useful, like WWII, there were high rates of loss. - Russian armored groups were poorly trained and not well supported by dismounted infantry early in the war, leading to high losses against fairly mobile Ukrainians armed with ATGMs. Now that the front has solidified, there's less room for maneuver where tank…

Tanks don't really make any sense. MBTs are designed to fight other MBTs. Out of the thousands of tanks that have been taken out in Ukraine, 99.999% has been by drones, artillary or ATMs. You can count the tank versus tank battles on the fingers of your hand. Wouldn't make more sense to evenly distribute the weight of the armour, so the back and top are reasonably armoured, rather than have foot thick armour in the front to stop rounds from other MBTs - a scenario which literally never happens.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#502

Post by ceejayoz »

oneshtein wrote: post #495
ceejayoz wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from the agreement, please. https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... Nothing in it says anything like "if broken, Ukraine can have a nuclear program".

Кожний Учасник цього Договору в порядку здійснення свого державного суверенітету має право вийти з Договору, якщо він вирішить, що пов'язані зі змістом цього Договору виняткові обставини поставили під загрозу найвищі інтереси його країни. Про такий вихід він повідомляє за три місяці всіх Учасників Договору і Раду Безпеки Організації Об'єднаних Націй. В такому повідомленні має міститися заява про виняткові обставини,…

That's a separate agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_N....

It cannot be withdrawn mid-conflict:

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/tpnw-2017/art...

> Such withdrawal shall only take effect 12 months after the date of the receipt of the notification of withdrawal by the Depositary. If, however, on the expiry of that 12-month period, the withdrawing State Party is a party to an armed conflict, the State Party shall continue to be bound by the obligations of this Treaty and of any additional protocols until it is no longer party to an armed conflict.

Ukraine also isn't a signatory to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Treaty_...

Which specific agreement are you trying to quote from, because it's not the Budapest Memorandom?

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#503

Post by onepointsixC »

sofixa wrote: post #493
faggotbreath wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

And still, it was supposed to not be vulnerable to enemy radar. And a multi decade old anti-air system, with the benefit of good intelligence and incredibly sloppy American operations, managed to shoot it down. Why would anyone think a helicopter that would be flying much lower to the ground, would be invulnerable to e.g. man portable air defence systems?

Because low flying aircraft are harder to detect than high flying aircraft. More over when their rcs has been significantly reduced. It’s not “invulnerable” no more than any stealth aircraft, submarine, tank, or any other platform is. It’s significantly harder to defeat.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#504

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #270
throwup238 wrote: post #254

We’re still in the very early stage of drone development for warfare and Ukraine is using a lot of civilian gear. Now the armed forces of the world are plowing their funding into R&D I expect them to develop quickly. For example, aluminum air batteries are perfect for this use case but havent been developed because until now single use batteries haven’t seen any demand. Those will at least double or triple the range…

>Imagine the drone just sitting there listening for a helicopter to get close enough Imagine a drone which outputs the signature of an attack helicopter to draw out that loitering drone and then destroy it, leaving the space open for an actual attack helicopter to swoop in and do its business.

That's the nature of war. One country develops a new weapon, another develops a counter for that weapon. And on and on

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#505

Post by onepointsixC »

jajko wrote: post #407
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know if they underperfomed so much as weren't cost effective. If the switchblade costing $10k results in a kill 80% of the time, while the $1k drone is 30% of the time, you just get 3 times as many $1k drones, average about the same kill rate, and save 70% to boot. Or spend the same amount and get about 3x the kill rate.

Switchblade 300 definitely underperformed and disappointed, many many reports from Ukraine frontline, they preferred using normal Mavic 3 drones instead. Switchblade 600 is a bit better but still overpriced what civilian market can deliver at a fraction of a cost, in vast numbers, not blocked by various political negotiations etc.

What civilian market drone has the 8.5kg explosive payload of a Javelin warhead? Because that’s what the Switchblade 600 has.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#506

Post by hajile »

bluGill wrote: post #482
hajile wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about a year ago. Today, Russia has the largest and most experienced infantry on the planet. Ukraine tried NATO tactics in last year's offensive and got slaughtered. If they'd tried to bunch up even closer (as some NATO generals were pushing for), the losses would have been far worse inside of those kill boxes. It's not training. Tanks are trivial for spotter drones to find at which point they can die…

Russia has some evperienced infantry but they have and are using a lot of untrain troops. Even their well train infantry is often still being use wrong for the training. Every military commentator who has credentials to believe they know something [as opposed to say me who doesn't] notes how poorly trained most russians are. This is not soviet war doctine which russia knows and worries nato, it is something new and n…

The only military commentators saying Russian troops are untrained are pretty ignorant and biased. Russia certainly sent untrained troops in the early part of the war, but most of them were by mistake and got recalled quickly. Russia recognized the need to train their troops (they only sent 100k troops and planned on an early peace that Boris Johnson scuttled).

To buy training time, they hired Wagner. Wagner needed bodies, so they recruited untrained guys from prison to die for them (though some small percentage survived and are presumably still working for Wagner). After 6 months of this, the Russian training pipeline started pushing out troops at a steady pace and has been ever since.

This is in stark contrast to Ukraine where you get several videos every week from someone who was kidnapped off the streets and sent to die in the trenches 24-48 hours later. A couple guys on my dev team haven't left their homes in months (female family getting them stuff) because they are so afraid of getting shanghaied.

As to "used wrong for the training", everyone is training/preparing for the last war. Nobody is sure how to train for this war as the only part that has a historical analog is trench storming, but that was over 100 years ago and the tactics have changed.

Did ANYONE expect calvary to reappear? I don't think so, but Russian troops are dumping money into buying small motorcycles and dirt bikes so they can mount up and charge the enemy trenches.

The real issue for me is that Russia is working out how to fight the new style of war while we in the US are not. Russia is going to walk away from this war with a massive 1M+ army of seasoned veterans while we can barely muster around 70k of active infantry most of whom aren't veterans and NONE with combat experience in the new way of war.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#507

Post by ceejayoz »

oneshtein wrote: post #433
epolanski wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I don't think it is. They have detonated more than 800 nukes in their history, ballistic ones from subs since 60 years ago, and have almost 2k warheads deployed. Don't confuse the fact that they tend to start and conduct wars poorly, until cornered, with complete ineptitude.

Yep, but thos ICBM's are developed by Ukraine and need regular (every 10 years) maintenance to be performed in Dnipro, Ukraine.

That's not the case for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat.

The one you describe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile) - is being actively phased out.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#508

Post by onepointsixC »

simiones wrote: post #455
nine_k wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Israel's "Iron Dome" is supposed to include lasers, and they did use lasers to shoot down incoming rockets. In a stationary setting, like a factory or a bridge, lasers can be hard to overload, with their fast targeting, straight-line shooting, and the cost of a shot measured in single dollars. Small / cheap / slow drones with 1-2 kg payload would be an easy target. Tanks / APCs / IMVs / other armored devices that…

The Iron Dome was easily overwhelmed with the ~200 ballistic rockets fired by Iran recently, many of which hit the military bases they were targeting. So it I think the point stands.

Iron Dome is for rockets like the one Hamas fires, not for short range and intermediate range ballistic missiles like what Iran fired. Those are very different things and have different requirements. You may as well be talking about body armor ineffectiveness against a tank shell.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#509

Post by sofixa »

onepointsixC wrote: post #503
sofixa wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still, it was supposed to not be vulnerable to enemy radar. And a multi decade old anti-air system, with the benefit of good intelligence and incredibly sloppy American operations, managed to shoot it down. Why would anyone think a helicopter that would be flying much lower to the ground, would be invulnerable to e.g. man portable air defence systems?

Because low flying aircraft are harder to detect than high flying aircraft. More over when their rcs has been significantly reduced. It’s not “invulnerable” no more than any stealth aircraft, submarine, tank, or any other platform is. It’s significantly harder to defeat.

> Because low flying aircraft are harder to detect than high flying aircraft

From afar. But an attack helicopter will by definition be near the battlefield/enemy, so they'll have plenty of opportunities to see it and react.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#510

Post by hollerith »

rjsw wrote: post #420
hollerith wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard any expert in nuclear weapons suggest that Russian nukes don't work, especially the ones that have been modernized since the fall of the SU, which is all the ones attached to ICBMs and SLBMs. Until a few years ago, US nuke experts regularly inspected Russian nukes and Russian nuke delivery systems. If Russian nukes don't work, it seems likely that the inspectors would have been able to tell, e.g., th…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile)

Thanks.
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