Drone Improvements

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We're still stuck in that 2GW/3GW mindset, what with the bigger planes, bigger missiles, bigger blah for taking out a target and awing those nearby. A small, remote sniper-type drone does seem like a better adaptation to a prevalence of 4GW. Keep the predators for their fantastic ability to find targets, but tighten their leash and cull their numbers. Collateral damage was always bad in the older generations, but modern media has made them much more personal losses in warfare, and they're increasingly costly.

They were used, then, meaning they had, not have, which was your initial claim.

I don't think it's going to be useful to have the ability to take out large buildings from the air, if there are no large buildings which can be considered valid military targets. A ground attack aircraft is still useful though (Cessna Dragonfly FTW!).

Destroying the tanks doesn't account for the approx 300 or so personnel carriers, many of these were capture in Syria and not iraq. Do you know any different? Inside knowledge? Coalition attacks have only been in select areas in Syria. The Syrian army capacity to target these is has been diminished. You don't barrel bomb, unless you want to conserve what stocks you have of smarter weapons.

Anyway the point wasn't to nitpick with you. The point was to point out that drones could do this job.

That is all very well but recoil is the least of your worries. Like it been said before there are dynamics issues with sicking a sniper rifle on a small drone, an making a useful system out of it.

Snipers on their ground the majority of their work is observation. The dynamics of shooting from a drone, even with the most sophisticated sensors, and stabilization, is still problematic. Even with guided bullets, which would certainly help on the ground I'm skeptical of the level of correction they would be able to make under the conditions. That is why I suggested a hybrid design.

The larger drone they are keep up in the air on call. Like manned planes. Smaller drone would have to refuel more often.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-108

They could also slap these on the drones for anti-vehicle work, though I'd opt to just mount the smart skeets directly and launch them individually for greater precision. In tandem with my guided .50 idea, you'd have a very versatile and precise weapons platform indeed.

Okay, you're right about that.

Smaller missiles, e.g. modified Spike missiles, could be used against both soft and hard targets. A sniper rifle in the sky would have very limited use, not only due to stability and tracking issues, but also due to its limited range compared to missiles.

That is why I was thinking of something in between. Like a fast small missile about the size of a grenade round. Would be slower than a bullet still fast, with greater range. Would make a steep dive over the target but would level out to strike the side. I think a combination of laser, relayed gps data and possibility of heat signature at the end, might be an idea.

The payload rather then being a frag, could be similar to a bullet at point blank.

Watch the documentary Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill and you'll come across a different way of looking at how we've waged this War on Terror. I believe it is still Netflix.

Maybe if you replaced the copper warhead of a BLU-108 submunition with a canister shot ... but I really don't see the need. A traditional Spike missile would be much simpler, cheaper, and probably more reliable.

Those are two different things, for different applications. There is already a solution for that.

Is he going to make a second one on Putin?

Will you finally admit given that the rebels have been quite brazen about it, that that Russian tanks and grad missiles have been supplied to Donetsk region. Or are you still in denial about that?

How old are the "Russian tanks"? If they're the sort that Ukraine already had as a holdover from the USSR...

Honestly, I think Putin would move openly if he was going to move at all. He did in Crimea.

You can solve both hard and soft problems with it. Is there a third problem? I don't think so.

That's quite a change in subject, I'm not sure what your point is. My position on the War in Donbass is that of self-determination, the Ukrainian government is not to be trusted on literally anything they say. I think the evidence of wide spread involvement of Russia is rather dubious, the US is as involved as anyone and has been since the very start of the EuroMaidan. All evidence on the ground suggests that the vast majority of the fighters on the rebel side are natives defending their homeland, whereas on the Ukrainian side it is mostly conscripted teenagers who don't want to be there and nationalist militias. The UAF has been shelling their cities and bombing them from above with illegal cluster bombs for over a year, the people there do not support them and the success of the NAF is evidence of this as they could not operate the way they do with out the support of the people. The people tell the NAF the UAF movements, they sabotage, they house and feed them, they do everything possible to assist them whereas the UAF are seen as fascist invaders. There is no future for these people in Ukraine, Ukraine has declared them traitors and has waged a bloody war to capitulate them under their control. The conflict analogues the Kosovo one and the precedent has been set that self-determination trumps the historic lawful borders, there is no way you can accept the independence of Kosovo but deny it for Novorossiyia.

As for where the weapons have come from, there have been a lot of allegations and innuendo but not much concrete proof. Given the frequency of which the Ukrainian authorities lie with the intention of eliciting Western intervention and the conflict of interest with the US/NATO towards Russia, it is hard to believe anything. You have to understand that eastern Ukraine was the industrial heart of the former Soviet Union and where they created these weapons of war, the UAF are quite incompetent and get encircled constantly forcing them to either surrender or be wiped out. Just recent something like 5,000 Ukrainian troops were encircled and forced to negotiate a surrender or face annihilation Debaltseve. Poroshenko tried to spin it as some victory and that he personally order it but everything points to officers on the ground deciding enough was enough. This has been a common story in this war that has repeated itself over and over again and it has captured a lot of heavy equipment for the NAF who could of very well slaughter tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops at this point if they were that bloodthirsty.

Whether or not Russia is supplying these rebels does not particularly matter to me as I support self-determination for Novorossiyia and think the US/EU/NATO and the Ukrainian oligarchs and nationalist that control Kiev have waged an aggressive war against them. It would be an entirely different matter if there were Russian tanks in Galicia but that's obviously not the case. I think the people have the right to secede from their union, Ukraine is largely an artificial creation when you look at the east west divide and would be better off if they peacefully divorced and went their separate ways.

Diversions are two a penny in this thread Jacoby

You haven't seen the current footage where foreign news channels, invited by the rebels themselves? They are openly diving these vehicles. It is not as if they are bothering to conceal it any more. The only counter that is a state run Channel Russia Today. Do you think you just have an endless supply of the vehicle and weapons the just magically appear, in a civilian area after such a prolonged conflict? This didn't happen in countless uprisings, even with arms dealers, getting that sort of equipment, and fighting standard warfare rather than guerrilla tactic, is pretty much unheard of. ISIS did it in the siege of Kabane, but as mentioned, this tactic won't last, and they will be back to asymmetric warfare.

Listen I know how it works, lived in Angola during the civil war. I know the US and the South Africans on one side and the USSR, Cubans on the other side prolonged the conflict there for at least a decade. I'm not saying any country has the moral high ground. I'm saying in this case Russia is the clear aggressor, and is supplying arms, and we decided to stand back. My father a former diplomat, partly picked up a the pieces in Angola. He was friendly with everybody, Angolans, and especially his Cuban counterpart.


It doesn't actually make sense. It wouldn't have sustained. Only sates have this equipment, and it is Russian equipment. It is not as if I'm in denial of French and British dropped equipment in Libya. Putin doesn't think that everyone will by into the the "new think", that is not how it works. New think works becuase, there are enough people generally confused about the world to create some doubt.

Your slant is remarkable. You are saying why you don't believe the Ukrainian side becuase "insert bias", yet you are not able to recognize the opposite POV. You don't believe what you say, you are simply being a contrarian IMO, becuase you believe it to be more virtuous.

I know someone who half Russian half-Ukrainian and loves both, he spent his childhood in-between southern Siberia and served in the soviet army and a Russian speaker, and understands the basics of warfare. He like, anyone agree the situation is extremely dire and heartbreaking, and it is a case of people form similar background killing each other. However, he thinks Putin is in the wrong as does most of the people he knows. He also points out, the support in Eastern Ukraine by ethnic Russian not universally on the rebels side, but most importantly of all support for this in Russia isn't universally on Putin's or the rebel's side. This is something that is very under reported. Every country has opposition, and they are underplaying the opposition.

Right at the beginning the Russian side insisted that the Ukrainian side were mostly Nazi and anti-Semites, this was a Russian position not just a rebel position (despite Russian Federation having a sizable neo-Nazi community too). Yet mainstream evidence of this hasn't materialized. Yet a recent statement from a rebel leader said that Ukraine was run by 'miserable Jews'. So much for that argument then.

So for the sake of the augment EU was very involved in persuading to Ukraine to westernize, and I'm no a EU fan. So what? This doesn't excuse the Russian behavior. You think Russia hasn't been doing similar?

The idea it is a "conspiracy" that the EU promotes itself is naive. It is not a conspiracy, it what the EU does openly and has done for decades.. These countries either decide, if they like it or not.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 21 Feb 2015, 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.