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Is the attack helicopter dead?

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Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#571

Post by keybored »

keybored wrote: post #568
cjbgkagh wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old ‘Russia will not use nukes because they have not used nukes’ routine so people can feel safer about poking the bear. There is always a first time and I’m very thankful that it hasn’t happed yet. To me a near peer implies that either side has a good chance of losing the war. It’s my opinion that Russia has not yet been at a real risk of losing this war and thus has not yet had a need to use nuclear weapons. I’…

Everyone is worried about the desperation nuke. Yet all nukes in history have been to teabag civilians once you’re already winning.

Slightly more serious. There have been times where we’ve gotten close during the Cold War. You can’t trust people to not use nukes on account of it being suicidal. People can be irrational like that. And/or chains of command can be irrational.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#572

Post by pletnes »

sgc wrote: post #193
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.

Since they are ramping up to build switchblades in Ukraine [1], I would say they are a quiet success. They were just extremely overhyped before they got there. [1] https://kyivindependent.com/us-company-aerovironment-plans-t...

I’m guessing they just don’t have camera links so they don’t make the best videos, i.e quiet sucess

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#573

Post by scanny »

Retric wrote: post #321
bhickey wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a drone with a grenade isn’t really effective vs tanks You may be thinking of AP grenades, but broadly speaking this isn't true. UA has been dropping RKG-3 anti-tank grenades since early in the invasion. Any drone with a 3 pound lift capacity can knock out armor. https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cheap-grenades-expensive-tan...

Can a RKG-3 in the right situation knock out some armor, definitely. But they don’t seem to be that effective vs amor designed to deal with shaped charges such as you’d see with a peer adversary.

Those shaped charges weren’t envisioned coming from directly above, especially precisely dropped on the engine or on hatches, hence the drones are hitting spots with little to no armour compared to the front and sides.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#574

Post by nostrademons »

nradov wrote: post #282
nostrademons wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason drones are kicking butt right now is because you get both precision and quantity. Advances in electronics, software, communication links, and sensor technology mean that you can make guidance systems as a hobbyist that would be a million dollar missile from a specialized defense contractor just 15 years ago. You lose range, but urbanized warfare of the 21st century seems to be a very different battlefield…

The fact that recent engagements have been within easy drone range is an accident of geography. The same situation won't necessarily obtain in the Western Pacific. The quantity of drones you can produce won't matter if the launching platform can't survive long enough to get within range of the target.

This gets complicated, because technology usually advances on multiple fronts at the same time. As others have mentioned, we've seen drones primarily used as an air-to-ground weapon in Ukraine because the airspace is not particularly contested. We have not yet seen them used in air-to-air combat.

There are multiple reasons to believe that drones' advantages over piloted aircraft are even greater than drones' advantages over tanks. Take the pilot away and the G-forces you can pull increase many-fold. Take the pilot away and you have no compunctions against sacrificing a drone for tactical advantage. Take the pilot away and you can field 10x or 100x as many aircraft, since pilot training is often the limiting factor in the growth of your airforce (see eg. Japanese WW2 experience from 1943 onwards, or the need for Top Gun in Vietnam). More aircraft can play airspace denial, since the presence of a bogey creates a kill zone in the area where they can bring their weapons to bear. Computer algorithms can play physics and geometry games where no matter where a piloted aircraft turns, there is always something waiting to shoot them down. Computers can run these simulations instantly, overwhelming the pilot's ability to react. The human becomes the weak link in the weapon system.

The equilibrium I see is drone designs with a range made to just out-range cheap weaponry like glide bombs and common anti-ship missiles, maybe 50-80 miles. For anything fancy (like the supersonic cruise missiles that the Russians have with 200-300 mile range), you want directed energy CIWS instead, but you need those anyway to defend against enemy drones. Then you pack these drones into shipping containers, and launch and retrieve them directly. A single container ship carries its own air force of roughly 10,000 drones, and makes the airspace around it out to ~100 miles completely inhospitable for foes. The convoy becomes its own aircraft carrier, just like the escort carriers of WW2, but the air wing follows the shipping containers and can be packed onto trucks or rail at its destination. Then you bring the convoy to where it needs to be, creating a no-go bubble around it at all times.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#575

Post by LtWorf »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #489
lucubratory wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a fantastic copypasta for anytime someone requests you prove the outlandish claims you're making.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning You want to engage in a debate involving cited sources? What's good for the goose is good for the gander - write a response with a citation or two that rebuts a key point. Otherwise, asking for sources in online arguments is borderline trolling.

You want people to "read the books", you better be prepared to say which books…

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#576

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #383
guappa wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs a very large "citation needed" banner.

Ah yes, the "source?" argument. The classic cry of people who want to disagree but have nothing productive to add to the discussion. I could point you to literally dozens of books on the Pax Americana and its decline (google is your friend) and America's de facto empire, as well as historical studies of the Pax Brittanica and the Pax Romana. Or Chinese histories that discuss the waves of peace and prosperity followin…

Look. You made the claim; you have the burden of proof. What can be claimed without evidence can be disbelieved without evidence.

But also, on an online forum, a post is written once, but read many times. When you say "look it up yourself", that doesn't tell one person to look it up, it tells 10 or 100. That's inefficient - the looking up is done multiple times rather than once.

And, I can google for why the earth is flat and find plenty of resources. The fact that I can find stuff on google that supports your position doesn't say much.

So, yeah. Maybe you could supply some resources that you think are solid, and why you think they are?

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#577

Post by ceejayoz »

oneshtein wrote: post #553
ceejayoz wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no winning a war with nukes. Even if 1% are operational, they could devastate the US.

War with imperial Japan was won with nukes.

That is a pretty clear edge case we can’t duplicate today.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#578

Post by ericmay »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #559
ericmay wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say western militaries will avoid extreme casualties if they can, but read a bit about the Second Battle of Faluja - the U.S. for example has no problem sending troops into hardcore combat. In fact, I would argue that the U.S., U.K., Israel, and now Ukraine and Russia are the only countries today that have demonstrated the capability to engage in extremely fierce fighting. We’ve also become a lot better at keepin…

> I’d say western militaries will avoid extreme casualties if they can, but read a bit about the Second Battle of Faluja - the U.S. for example has no problem sending troops into hardcore combat. I took part in Op Phantom Fury in a support role -- that was 20 years ago next month. And while that was real, intense combat, and several units got mauled, the total casualties on the US side were ~700. That's big for Iraq,…

They're rookie numbers compared to peer-to-peer combat which was last seen in World War II and arguably today in Ukraine, but my point was that the United States and at least some western countries are very much willing to engage in that intense form of combat that the OP suggested that they weren't willing to engage in. Not just the Second Battle of Faluja, but also various engagements in Afghanistan to root out the Taliban.

To your point, I don't disagree that serious, hardcore combat with huge casualties wouldn't set well with the American public, but I would suggest that you're basing that hypothesis on how we reacted to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as such it's not really comparable because a war with, let's say China, is going to elicit a different response altogether.

Even so, we spent how long in Afghanistan? How long in Iraq? We were kicking in doors still even with a population that thought "what's the point of this?" for a decade +. Imagine if a real war kicks off - I'm not so sure we would be hesitant to fight if there were serious issues at stake.

Thanks for your service too. I was also in a support role during OIF. Thankfully it was rather uneventful for me personally.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#579

Post by d1sxeyes »

pjc50 wrote: post #469
d1sxeyes wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is inevitable, I wrote a blog post once upon a time about the trend this generates and why I'm worried about it. In principle, wars between armies are proxy wars between nations/governments/etc. A long time ago (Sumeria maybe), soldiers started to fight soldiers, and civilians could get on with civilian life while fighting continued (farming, production, etc.). Now obviously that doesn't mean that no war h…

> If we move to a model where a stronger power can fight a war remotely with no risk to real people, then the only way to take the war to the enemy will be to target civilians. Terrorism, asymmetrical warfare, etc. will be the only way to respond to drone strikes and the like. This is hardly new, it's been the reason for the prevalence of suicide bombings in the Israel/Hamas war for decades.

That’s slightly different. The Israel/Palestine conflict is already bound to be asymmetric due to one being occupied by the other.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#580

Post by ceejayoz »

oneshtein wrote: post #528
ceejayoz wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The treaty, signed by Ukraine: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/995_098#Text Ukrainian law about joining the treaty: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/248/94-%D0%B2%D1%80#Text

OK, that one is the original 1968 treaty they acceded to after leavin the Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio....

As with any treaty, it can be broken/withdrawn from.

The treaty does not establish a right/recourse to a nuclear weapons program to NPT members in Ukraine's scenario. Ukraine just, when agreeing to it, said they'd leave if they had to. They would be non-compliant with the treaty, as North Korea was/is. They would be similarly sanctioned for it.

The Budapest Memorandom was a separate agreement, predicated on acceptance of the NPT. Similarly, nothing in it says "you can have a nuclear weapons program in scenario x".

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