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On August 29 2023 07:05 Mohdoo wrote: It is fascinating how simply making the flying object as small as possible creates a checkmate situation against anti-air capabilities. It looks like a combination of "make them smaller" and "use a bunch of them" is a huge weakness of Russian air defense.
Has western air defense had the same weakness? I imagine this is something all major systems have a hard time with, since it would not be a design consideration previously.
100%. With the exception of some anti drone jamming devices, no one has really been developing anti drone measures. Especially ones that are cheaper than your average DJI drone with a bomb strapped to it in cost, which is the other part of the equations. It's all well and good to use expensive missiles to shoot down drones, but not when those drones are 1/100 the price of that missile. Drone technology has simple out-developed its counter part in terms of availability and production capability, which historically has mostly been fixated on countering fast and big helicopters and jets.
And this much is true for the entire world. While I'm sure jamming technology is going to catch up in price, availability and effectiveness eventually, no one has it figured out quite yet.
There's two areas which are important:
1. Detection - Traditionally this is radar, but as drones get smaller, you need more powerful radars, or shorter detection ranges. 2. Destruction - The two classic solutions are exploding bullets and missiles. Bullets are cheaper but inaccurate, missiles are expensive. Bullets have smaller ranges - Usually a few kilometers, and smart shells
It's definitely being looked at though:
I don't think it would be functionally much different against a swarm with larger separation.
Going forward 5-10 years, I'd expect energy weapons to be used. There's Strykers with 50kW lasers in development that'll kill drones for under a dollar a shot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker#SHORAD
How to create a schism 101. One has to wonder what Ukrainian, and even Polish Catholics are thinking right now. What's even more incredible is that Catherine II killed a TON of Catholics during her reign.
Meanwhile Italy is training Ukraine, as well as sending supplies constantly. Now all of a sudden the Vatican just created this shitstorm for them.
ROME—Pope Francis praised 18th-century Russian emperors whom President Vladimir Putin has invoked as models for his territorial annexations in Ukraine, drawing denunciations from Ukraine’s government and the leader of the country’s Greek-Catholic Church.
On Friday, speaking by video to a gathering of Russian Catholic youth in St. Petersburg, Pope Francis urged them to follow in the path of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, whom he called rulers of a “great, enlightened empire of great culture and great humanity.”
The comments on Peter and Catherine, which came at the end of the pope’s speech, weren’t included in the official transcript released by the Vatican, but were released by the Catholic diocese of Moscow and later in a video from Siberian Catholic television, a church agency.
Putin has cited Peter, who expanded Russian territory and curtailed Ukrainian autonomy, to justify the current invasion. Putin has used the term Novorossiya, or New Russia, for Russian-occupied southern Ukraine—using a term that dates back to Russia’s conquest of southern Ukraine under Catherine in 1764.
Catherine also harbored the Jesuit order, of which Pope Francis is a member, during the order’s suppression by Rome in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, called the pope’s words “imperialist propaganda” of the kind that the Kremlin uses to justify its invasion of Ukraine. “It is a shame that Russian great-power ideas, which are actually the cause of Russia’s chronic aggressiveness, are voiced, knowingly or not, by the Pope,” Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. The pope’s mission, he wrote, should instead be “to open the eyes of Russian youth to the destructive course of the current Russian leadership.”
The leader of Ukraine’s Greek-Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said in a statement Monday evening that the pope’s words had caused great pain in the church’s hierarchy and great disappointment in Ukrainian civil society, since the empire lauded by the pope was “the worst example of extreme Russian imperialism and nationalism.”
“We fear that those words may be understood by some as an encouragement of precisely this nationalism and imperialism, which is the real cause of the war in Ukraine,” Shevchuk said, adding that he planned to express “the doubts and pain of the Ukrainian people” directly to the pope within a few days at a previously scheduled meeting in Rome.
The pope’s remarks drew angry reactions on social media, especially in countries near Russia. Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves called the comments “truly revolting” on X, formerly known as Twitter. Nexta, a Belarusian media outlet based in Warsaw, Poland, posted on the same platform: “By the way, the Catholics of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus raised uprisings three times against this ‘enlightened empire.’ ”
In a statement released on Monday afternoon, the Vatican’s embassy to Kyiv rejected suggestions that “Pope Francis might have encouraged young Russian Catholics to draw inspiration from historical Russian figures known for imperialistic and expansionist ideas and actions that negatively impacted neighboring populations, including the Ukrainian people.”
I think in one of Perun's videos he talked about it being one of the reasons to push for weaponized lasers and, iirc, contemplating the merits of flak cannons again.
Even then you need to cover every possible path of attack and, for ground hugging drones, you need an incredibly dense network of defences. The higher things are the fewer batteries you need because of the curvature of the earth. For example two batteries, one at each pole, would suffice for planetary defence from space. But you’d need thousands to cover the ground against drones that fly a foot above the ground. And not just on the border, you’d need to defend against ones that come from the sea, or that fly across a neutral state neighbour. And every battery in this network needs to be capable of tracking and defeating the swarm by itself in its coverage zone.
The problem isn’t “how do you defend Kyiv against drones, there are clearly plenty of effective systems”. It’s how to you defend every city, all at the same time, against an aggressor who can pick a target and a time of his choosing. You beat the drone swarm by leveling the city that the drone swarm factory was in.
Drones have many advantages but the advantage of being cheep is also a liability because you can't build in many countermeasures.
The most obvious answer is to have a defensive drone swarm. Patrolling early warning sensor drones for detection.
The enemy strike drones need to haul fuel, engines and payload enough to go far and destroy large targets. The AA drones only need to be able to take out a drone. Drop of a pallet from a C-130 and have them disperse just in front of the swarm.
WWII figthers would work wonders against Shaheds. In fact early on some people suggested mounting door machineguns on Cessnas. They are not hard to shoot down but you have to move to the right place.
South Korea has announced it is increasing aid to Ukraine to nearly $400 million. What is not listed is any announcement of military increase, unless that is kept under wraps.
SEOUL, Aug 29 (Reuters) - South Korea unveiled on Tuesday financial aid of 520 billion won ($394 million) for Ukraine next year, an eightfold increase from this year.
The aid package includes 130 billion won for reconstruction, 260 billion in humanitarian aid and another 130 billion won through international organisations, according to South Korea's 2024 budget.
In July, President Yoon Suk Yeol announced his country would provide a "large scale of military supplies" this year without giving more details.
On Tuesday, Yoon also announced an increase in South Korea's Official Development Assistance for strategic areas, including the Asia-Pacific region and Africa, from 1.4 trillion won to 2 trillion won ($1.51 billion).
The increase in overseas assistance is part of an effort to help South Korean companies branch out abroad and secure national interests, such as the supply chains, and to take responsibility as a key member of the global community, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in the budget announcement.
On August 29 2023 21:52 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: You can use a mobile defence.
Drones have many advantages but the advantage of being cheep is also a liability because you can't build in many countermeasures.
The most obvious answer is to have a defensive drone swarm. Patrolling early warning sensor drones for detection.
The enemy strike drones need to haul fuel, engines and payload enough to go far and destroy large targets. The AA drones only need to be able to take out a drone. Drop of a pallet from a C-130 and have them disperse just in front of the swarm.
WWII figthers would work wonders against Shaheds. In fact early on some people suggested mounting door machineguns on Cessnas. They are not hard to shoot down but you have to move to the right place.
Drone swarms to counter airborne threats is not ideal, you're basically designing a missile, because you still need the guidance, propulsion and warhead to kill the target. You're not any better off than a ground based solution, outside of potentially increased mobility. For any future looking solution, you need the cost/kill to be in favour of the defensive solution. That is, your projectile is low cost, and exploding shells/lasers do that.
On August 29 2023 09:39 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: How to create a schism 101. One has to wonder what Ukrainian, and even Polish Catholics are thinking right now. What's even more incredible is that Catherine II killed a TON of Catholics during her reign.
Meanwhile Italy is training Ukraine, as well as sending supplies constantly. Now all of a sudden the Vatican just created this shitstorm for them.
ROME—Pope Francis praised 18th-century Russian emperors whom President Vladimir Putin has invoked as models for his territorial annexations in Ukraine, drawing denunciations from Ukraine’s government and the leader of the country’s Greek-Catholic Church.
On Friday, speaking by video to a gathering of Russian Catholic youth in St. Petersburg, Pope Francis urged them to follow in the path of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, whom he called rulers of a “great, enlightened empire of great culture and great humanity.”
The comments on Peter and Catherine, which came at the end of the pope’s speech, weren’t included in the official transcript released by the Vatican, but were released by the Catholic diocese of Moscow and later in a video from Siberian Catholic television, a church agency.
Putin has cited Peter, who expanded Russian territory and curtailed Ukrainian autonomy, to justify the current invasion. Putin has used the term Novorossiya, or New Russia, for Russian-occupied southern Ukraine—using a term that dates back to Russia’s conquest of southern Ukraine under Catherine in 1764.
Catherine also harbored the Jesuit order, of which Pope Francis is a member, during the order’s suppression by Rome in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, called the pope’s words “imperialist propaganda” of the kind that the Kremlin uses to justify its invasion of Ukraine. “It is a shame that Russian great-power ideas, which are actually the cause of Russia’s chronic aggressiveness, are voiced, knowingly or not, by the Pope,” Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. The pope’s mission, he wrote, should instead be “to open the eyes of Russian youth to the destructive course of the current Russian leadership.”
The leader of Ukraine’s Greek-Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said in a statement Monday evening that the pope’s words had caused great pain in the church’s hierarchy and great disappointment in Ukrainian civil society, since the empire lauded by the pope was “the worst example of extreme Russian imperialism and nationalism.”
“We fear that those words may be understood by some as an encouragement of precisely this nationalism and imperialism, which is the real cause of the war in Ukraine,” Shevchuk said, adding that he planned to express “the doubts and pain of the Ukrainian people” directly to the pope within a few days at a previously scheduled meeting in Rome.
The pope’s remarks drew angry reactions on social media, especially in countries near Russia. Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves called the comments “truly revolting” on X, formerly known as Twitter. Nexta, a Belarusian media outlet based in Warsaw, Poland, posted on the same platform: “By the way, the Catholics of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus raised uprisings three times against this ‘enlightened empire.’ ”
In a statement released on Monday afternoon, the Vatican’s embassy to Kyiv rejected suggestions that “Pope Francis might have encouraged young Russian Catholics to draw inspiration from historical Russian figures known for imperialistic and expansionist ideas and actions that negatively impacted neighboring populations, including the Ukrainian people.”
It's not the first time Francis said something outrageous about Russia and/or the Ukraine war. It doesn't sit well with poles /Balts etc. However, our most hardcore Catholics tend to vote for parties that have Russian ties, so I don't think it will matter that much for them. The rest are poles first and Catholics second, so nothing the Pope says will change their views on Russia. Some of our bishops will criticize him, some will stay silent, and soon everyone will forget about it.
On the side note - Polish Catholicism is kind of funny. It's mostly tradition, custom. People will shit themselves out of excitement in the presence of a priest, but will not think one second nor care about breaking church teachings. Sins are problems of others
On another note, Church hierarchy in Poland has a history of working against Polish state/interests (often with Russia). Some of the most notorious traitors in our history have been bishops.
On August 29 2023 09:39 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: How to create a schism 101. One has to wonder what Ukrainian, and even Polish Catholics are thinking right now. What's even more incredible is that Catherine II killed a TON of Catholics during her reign.
Meanwhile Italy is training Ukraine, as well as sending supplies constantly. Now all of a sudden the Vatican just created this shitstorm for them.
ROME—Pope Francis praised 18th-century Russian emperors whom President Vladimir Putin has invoked as models for his territorial annexations in Ukraine, drawing denunciations from Ukraine’s government and the leader of the country’s Greek-Catholic Church.
On Friday, speaking by video to a gathering of Russian Catholic youth in St. Petersburg, Pope Francis urged them to follow in the path of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, whom he called rulers of a “great, enlightened empire of great culture and great humanity.”
The comments on Peter and Catherine, which came at the end of the pope’s speech, weren’t included in the official transcript released by the Vatican, but were released by the Catholic diocese of Moscow and later in a video from Siberian Catholic television, a church agency.
Putin has cited Peter, who expanded Russian territory and curtailed Ukrainian autonomy, to justify the current invasion. Putin has used the term Novorossiya, or New Russia, for Russian-occupied southern Ukraine—using a term that dates back to Russia’s conquest of southern Ukraine under Catherine in 1764.
Catherine also harbored the Jesuit order, of which Pope Francis is a member, during the order’s suppression by Rome in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, called the pope’s words “imperialist propaganda” of the kind that the Kremlin uses to justify its invasion of Ukraine. “It is a shame that Russian great-power ideas, which are actually the cause of Russia’s chronic aggressiveness, are voiced, knowingly or not, by the Pope,” Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. The pope’s mission, he wrote, should instead be “to open the eyes of Russian youth to the destructive course of the current Russian leadership.”
The leader of Ukraine’s Greek-Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said in a statement Monday evening that the pope’s words had caused great pain in the church’s hierarchy and great disappointment in Ukrainian civil society, since the empire lauded by the pope was “the worst example of extreme Russian imperialism and nationalism.”
“We fear that those words may be understood by some as an encouragement of precisely this nationalism and imperialism, which is the real cause of the war in Ukraine,” Shevchuk said, adding that he planned to express “the doubts and pain of the Ukrainian people” directly to the pope within a few days at a previously scheduled meeting in Rome.
The pope’s remarks drew angry reactions on social media, especially in countries near Russia. Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves called the comments “truly revolting” on X, formerly known as Twitter. Nexta, a Belarusian media outlet based in Warsaw, Poland, posted on the same platform: “By the way, the Catholics of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus raised uprisings three times against this ‘enlightened empire.’ ”
In a statement released on Monday afternoon, the Vatican’s embassy to Kyiv rejected suggestions that “Pope Francis might have encouraged young Russian Catholics to draw inspiration from historical Russian figures known for imperialistic and expansionist ideas and actions that negatively impacted neighboring populations, including the Ukrainian people.”
It's not the first time Francis said something outrageous about Russia and/or the Ukraine war. It doesn't sit well with poles /Balts etc. However, our most hardcore Catholics tend to vote for parties that have Russian ties, so I don't think it will matter that much for them. The rest are poles first and Catholics second, so nothing the Pope says will change their views on Russia. Some of our bishops will criticize him, some will stay silent, and soon everyone will forget about it.
On the side note - Polish Catholicism is kind of funny. It's mostly tradition, custom. People will shit themselves out of excitement in the presence of a priest, but will not think one second nor care about breaking church teachings. Sins are problems of others
On another note, Church hierarchy in Poland has a history of working against Polish state/interests (often with Russia). Some of the most notorious traitors in our history have been bishops.
On August 29 2023 09:39 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: How to create a schism 101. One has to wonder what Ukrainian, and even Polish Catholics are thinking right now.
My family believe he's retarded. On the other hand he most likely doesn't even know about Catherine's "accomplishements". As to Peter the Great, at least he had done no real wrongs to Poland, even was periodic ally, so I feel nothing about mentioning him.
On August 29 2023 21:52 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: You can use a mobile defence.
Drones have many advantages but the advantage of being cheep is also a liability because you can't build in many countermeasures.
The most obvious answer is to have a defensive drone swarm. Patrolling early warning sensor drones for detection.
The enemy strike drones need to haul fuel, engines and payload enough to go far and destroy large targets. The AA drones only need to be able to take out a drone. Drop of a pallet from a C-130 and have them disperse just in front of the swarm.
WWII figthers would work wonders against Shaheds. In fact early on some people suggested mounting door machineguns on Cessnas. They are not hard to shoot down but you have to move to the right place.
Drone swarms to counter airborne threats is not ideal, you're basically designing a missile, because you still need the guidance, propulsion and warhead to kill the target. You're not any better off than a ground based solution, outside of potentially increased mobility. For any future looking solution, you need the cost/kill to be in favour of the defensive solution. That is, your projectile is low cost, and exploding shells/lasers do that.
Sure maybe a counter swarm is not ideal. It was just an example that if you can build a smaller cheaper drone that takes out the larger slightly more costly drone you still come out on top.
My point is mainly that if your enemy has the tactic of sending massive waves of slow moving drones (otherwise they would be more like cruise or ballistic missiles) the defensive tactic is not to fortify every single point in your territory it's to have decent detection and then move your defence to the point/s of attack.
But you still need to have a lot of whatever you are using (otherwise they can just split their forces if you have 1 "super drone killer").
My understanding is that its entirely impossible for Russia to secure their border. So its likely very easy for Ukraine to just sneak people and drones in and operate sneaky operations from within Russia.