The Military Thread

It is, but it's not as much of a diet staple - it's very rare to find it in grocery stores around here.

(Yes, hello, am from that tiny archipelago north of Germany.)

Fair.

Anyways, while it's an old system, those Block I batteries still help clear up the Ukrainian Coastline a bit.

Looks like the UK also finally released what their "Heavy Artillery" is: https://twitter.com/UkrWarReport/status/1529220835369705475 They shipped 20 A S90s to Poland within the last month and Ukrainian forces are currently training on them. Guess Ben Wallace changed his mind since April.

Edited by Pendrake on May 25th 2022 at 6:47:14 AM

Poland is in talks with Germany and South Korea to start getting replacement for most of their T-72s.

For the engineering dorks out there: this paper from the John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (which was involved in the Tomahawk cruise missile program) explains the workings of the DSMAC optical navigation system employed by the missile.

The Tomahawk missile has several guidance aids: inertial, terrain-following radar (TERCOM), GPS (from 1993 onwards), and DSMAC. The last one works by taking overhead snapshots of the terrain the missile overflies at set points along its flight and comparing the images to previous ones taken by satellite or recce aircraft over the area. In other words, it's an early form of image recognition AI — built to keep the missile on the path to its final, lethal dive.

As you can imagine, this was a tall ask for a piece of '80s computing technology that had to do it (literally) on the fly. So rather than working on full-scale greyscale images, the DSMAC system works on highly compressed versions. The original overhead images taken by a satellite/recce plane are first compressed to a very low-resolution version in a mission planning computer, then turned into a binary black-and-white image that only shows the rough topological contours of the area (not too different from what you can do with edge-detection filters in Photoshop).

If the scene was overcast when the reference images were taken, or otherwise lit differently from when the missile strike would happen, then multiple recce passes might be needed over the area, and the resulting images averaged out to find common features that the missile can use for reference. The mission planners would also generate warped versions of the image to account for the different angles and attitudes that the missile might approach the reference area from.

Some recent types of ballistic missiles, which fall onto their targets at near-vertical angles, also use optical guidance to steer their warheads towards pinpoint targets. The Russian Iskander is known to have this capability, as does the Iranian Fateh-313 — which might have explained their ability to target individual structures in the January 2020 attack on the 'Ayn al-Asad air base in Iraq. Nowadays, everybody and their dog has access to drone photography and commercial satellite imaging, which makes it possible for second-rate actors to take advantage of this capability (the Iranians actually bought satellite images of the base on the day of the attack).

Another variation of the tech is the celestial navigation system employed on many longer-ranged ballistic missiles, which simply uses an upward-looking camera to take snapshots of the sky above and compare them to a black-and-white star map in the missile's computer. The darkness of space offers a lot less clutter than images of the ground, which makes it relatively trivial so long as the missile actually flies high enough in the atmosphere to get a clear view (and keeps the camera settings well-calibrated).

Edited by eagleoftheninth on May 25th 2022 at 8:11:45 AM

Ha, figured that a kind of image analysis AI would be needed to guide such a system. These seemingly trivial things like "make sure that missile hits X target" are always more complex than they seem.

The Javelin actually uses an even more complex guidance system, combining infrared imaging with the best image processing algorithms the '90s had to offer. Both the missile's seeker head and the launcher unit (CLU) have thousands of long-wave infrared sensors arrayed in a pixel grid, giving the user a high-resolution infrared image of the landscape out to several kilometres away. When the user locks onto a target (i.e. a patch of 2D greyscale thermal image, enclosed inside the crosshairs), the missile registers the bright and dark patterns within said crosshairs and blasts out of the tube, using its image processing software to keep looking at the target as it changes in shape, size and angle. And that's part of the reason why each one costs the equivalent of an undergraduate degree.

In a way, it's an heir to decades of development in optically-guided weapons. The first in widespread use was probably the Walleye guided bomb, which the USAF and USN used to attack bridges and other large structures during the Vietnam War. The bomb had a black-and-white TV camera that fed analog signals to a primitive contrast seeker circuit, which detected the voltage difference between bright and dark spots on the frame. Once told to lock onto a target, the seeker keeps the bomb pointed at the black-and-white pattern at the centre of its field of view, using the voltage fluctuation across the circuit as the target moved about the frame.

The Walleye wasn't well-suited to small or moving targets, and had difficulty tracking camouflaged structures — or even ones that were simply lit/shadowed in certain ways, which limited the kinds of targets it could be employed on. A somewhat later development was the British Rapier SAM, which employed an electro-optical tracker not on its missile heads — but on the launcher itself, which tracks the target aircraft while guiding the missile towards it via radio command. A plane or helicopter moving through a clear sky creates a clearly contrasting image, making it easier to track than a ground target seen from overhead. More recent systems use infrared imaging rather than visible light to spot and track their targets in all lighting and weather.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on May 25th 2022 at 8:06:47 AM

I'd also imagine that modern anti-air missiles will need to take measures to distinguish between aircraft engines and decoys/flares.

That's usually done with multiband seeker heads. The first generation of infrared-seeking missiles (Sidewinder et al) had a single near-IR photodetector element (usually a lead sulfide wafer) mounted on a gimbal that spun in a conical pattern. The guidance computer would track the seeker's rotation and the voltage coming out of it: a spike in signal voltage meant that the target was off to that angle, while a stable voltage meant that the target was dead centre in the cone of rotation.

These early missiles could only reliably lock onto a jet's hot exhaust from behind, and liked chasing after other heat sources too much in flight. Starting from the late '70s onwards, infrared-guided missiles like the Stinger and Igla would mount multiple seeker elements, tuned to different bands:

• Mid/far-infrared to find the frictionally heated parts of an aircraft's fuselage (e.g. the leading edges of wings);

• Near-infrared to find very hot objects like engine exhausts and decoy flares (dismissing the latter if they were far away from signs of fuselage heat);

• Ultraviolet to find the relevant signature generated by the engines (both through black-body radiation and fluorescence) and solar UV reflecting off the fuselage, which would be contrasted with the background UV signature from the sun and the lack thereof from decoy flares.

These more recent missiles also spin their seeker elements in more complex, flower-like ("rosette") patterns. I'm not a computer engineer, so I have no idea if it helps with signal processing or something.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on May 25th 2022 at 8:44:19 AM

iirc, that's one of the positives of the Starstreak currently in use in Ukraine, as it uses guidance that isn't capable of being distracted by Chaff or Flares. Problem is it's also short-ranged, so it's really more for retaliating or ambushes on aircraft than preventing them from ever attacking in the first place like, say, a S-300 would at standoff ranges.

Supposedly, the US discovered that first-generation Tomahawks' "geo-guidance" system struggled in flat desert environments because the system was designed to be used in rugged or urbanized terrain such as Europe or Asia.

Thus, Tomahawks launched during the US Navy bombings of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 all had to fly through a narrow mountain range located on the Iraq-Iran border.

This War Still Presents Nuclear Risks – Especially in Relation to Crimea Their point being that losing Crimea is the only scenario which is a) sufficiently likely to happen (NATO intervention or Russia starting a nuclear war over the Donbas are less likely) and b) the stakes sufficiently high for Putin to actually threaten nuclear retaliation. Nuclear threats (never mind actual usage) are quite risky since they can lead to an uncontrolled escalation, and they could have diplomatic repercussions that the Kremlin doesn't want to handle. They won't happen unless the Kremlin views the situation as very dire.

On a somewhat optimistic note: Precisely because of the peril inherent in such a situation, a nuclear crisis of this sort could make it easier for leaders to make difficult compromises. Provided that the war was ended and the blockade of Odesa lifted, Ukraine’s leaders might be willing to postpone a settlement of the Crimea question. For Putin, the failure of the invasion, and the subsequent success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, would have been a massive humiliation. But he would at least be able to argue that the might of the Russian strategic arsenal had, at a moment of great national weakness, successfully deterred NATO’s designs for dismembering Russia. This could be enough for both sides to avoid the worst outcome of all.

Eagle: An even earlier version is on the HOBOS bombs. They had that pure contrast imaging system that was hit or miss and was notorious for working poorly in the wrong lighting conditions.

SLBM's also uses the Astral Navigation system to orient after emerging.

IIRC the rotation/movement of the sensor helps create a more complete target image from the sensor's perspective.

...Is my anxiety influencing me too much or does it actually sound like they're hoping for that scenario? Like they think it'd be a better way to resolve the war (without Russia gaining anything) than Ukraine simply deciding in advance not to attempt to settle the Crimean question on the battlefield? Because that seems like a seriously reckless position.

This just sounds like weird fanfiction tbh, the Ukrainians are in no position to retake Crimea.

Their arsenal is being depleted faster than NATO can provide aid and their lines in Donbass are all falling. The rate of attrition is simply too high and the Ukrainian Army still can't achieve any level of maneuver warfare.

As happy as I am to see them make gains in Kharkiv the unfortunate truth is that all those retaken positions are within walking distance of Ukrainian lines and they're still taking heavy losses just to do that

Ukrainians are making the Russians pay and then some for every mile but unfortunately the Ukrainian Army is running on fumes at best.

Edited by LeGarcon on May 25th 2022 at 5:48:13 AM

I've seen some discussion on the post-war territory and the conclusion was that it's likely a binary thing: Russia either keeps all of it or none of it. At least if the question is settled on the battlefield. Russia isn't going to use nuclear bombs unless we head towards "none of it" so if we are discussing nuclear escalation the only possibilities are there.

I'm really not buying the "Putin is afraid of humiliation" line, honestly. His inner circle already view this as a struggle against the global forces of "Nazism" (which includes the whole pro-Ukrainian political sphere), not some two-bit neighbouring country (see Patrushev's interview from the other day). If the Ukrainians push Russian forces back to pre-February 24th lines, they wouldn't view it as a humiliating defeat in the hands of a lesser foe, but an honourable stalemate against the collected might of NATO. And Russian media would buy it, just as it easily pivoted from "there won't be an invasion" to "we have no choice but to invade" overnight.

Zelensky already said that his government won't be looking to retake Crimea by force, and the prospects of the Ukrainians breaking into a bottlenecked peninsula that the Russians have spent literal centuries fortifying basically amount to fanfiction. If we're looking for a reason for Putin to threaten to open up the Siberian Traps and trigger the Big Die 2.0, this probably ain't it.

Honestly, I don't buy the binary thing argument at all. Maybe it's true for the territory taken since the start of this war, but the Donbas "republics" and Crimea are entirely different stories. Ukraine isn't recognizing the legitimacy of Russia's control there, but its explicitly stated war aim is the restoration of the February 23 borders, not the pre-2014 borders.

On a "new Development note"

https://twitter.com/TayfunOzberk/status/1529519506095235073 Turkey did its first field test of the SALVO Armed USV earlier today.

it wouldn't surprise me if the CUS Vs the US gave Ukraine that're classified are a similar design.

A crowdfund in Lithuania was done to assist Kyiv in getting a new Bayraktar. TAI said that a purchase through that method’s okay.

Not surprising. Money being money, after all.

CUSVs [1] aren't classified. There's a ton of information about them online.

Only four CUSVs have ever been built, I believe they just entered LRIP like last year. They're definitely not weaponized yet. Do you have a source on the US sending them to Ukraine?

Edited by archonspeaks on May 25th 2022 at 7:47:31 AM

Well, the CUSV they sent is apparently a Classified one. I know about the non-Classifed ones.

Was on one of their shipping lists back in March, I'll see if i can dig the one in question up. I believe Oryx might have it.

Ah, here we are: https://postimg.cc/PPkhvnpg List from Oryx's example. We got "US Vs" and when they were announced, they were said to be Classified, much like the Phoenix Ghost. Is possible they just want to keep the Russians guessing which system they did send.

Might possibly be an armed (optionally or otherwise) version of the Textron one you linked.

Edited by Pendrake on May 25th 2022 at 8:06:28 AM

I feel like we wouldn't wanna send over our newest and shiniest equipment to Ukraine unless we were completely fine with the Russians getting it.

It might not even be "new and shiny."

After all, it's not like the US is above keeping something classified even if it's already been in use for 10-15 years. Just depends how easy it is to hide from prying eyes. And, well, an Sea-going Drone is fairly easy to hide or mistake for a manned boat. And given P Gs are Loitering Munitions, they tend to usually not leave much to study when they hit.

Could be both systems were something the US Military was planning to show off this year or next, and they just figured "What the hell, let's show it off by letting the Ukrainians use it to defend their country and nail our old rivals at the same time" while potentially also using it as a "Live Fire Demonstration" for any future international buyers

Edited by Pendrake on May 25th 2022 at 8:16:42 AM

Pedantic nitpick: I'd argue that the Claymore is absolutely a shaped charge. The only distinction between that and the type of shaped charge used for anti-armor munitions is the shape in question.

Also, if the Switchblade is like a Claymore but smaller, maybe we should just name it for a smaller edged weapon, like a Stiletto or a Balisong or a Bayonet.