Yep, symbols for humans, not for machines.
The people not so much lately. (/hijack)
That is true.
I don’t really post anywhere else. Not politics or war at all anywhere else. I read, watch, listen, far more than I post.
A thing, for which, we are all grateful.
That explains why Kedikat has worn out the .ru keys on his computer keyboard.
That is an outstanding expression. I’m ruined for teaching for the rest of the week now. All I can think of is looking for a legitimate opportunity to use that in a conversation!
Air defence going forward.
One aspect of this war that is catching my attention is air defence systems and the evolving tactics to defeat them.
Not too long ago there were two main targets of air defence. Piloted aircraft and a fairly limited range of missiles. Stealth technology has been employed to evade it in aircraft. But radar has been improved to chase this. Not clear how close this race is at the moment. Peer forces have not challenged each other with peer weapons on any large scale.
But on the missile side, things are getting broader. I will consider missiles to be an unmanned aerial attack or diversion device. They range from bleeding edge hyper sonics with big payloads to cheap ass off the shelf drones with small or no payloads.
Ukraine forces evolved a very nice tactic of sending in less accurate missiles to a target, to cause the Russians to expend air defences on them. Then timing the attack of more accurate missiles during the reload time. So hitting the target more often and accurately. It seems this tactic is now being adopted in even more broad ways by both sides. Russia seems to be sending a variety of air attack devices in to screw up the Ukraine air defence, the way their own defences were screwed up. I suspect the Ukraine forces will very soon be fielding a wider variety of air attack drones to further mess with Russian defences. If Iran/Russia can build these low level drones/missiles then Ukraine and it’s allies can too.
So it seems the future of air defence is becoming incredibly complex. And this seems to be just the start. This war is being watched by all countries and their military.
Right now an air defence system is attempting to counter aircraft, hyper sonic missiles, average missiles, autonomous attack drones, piloted attack drones, diversionary drones.
In the near future I envision a missile en route, deploying sub missiles and drones. Ahead of the real missiles. Missiles deploying sub munitions already exist.
It seems to me that air defence systems are going to have to become huge multilayered schemes. More so than they are already. Maybe one radar/targeting system can acquire, But I think you will have to have multiple launchers with dedicated munitions that are commanded by the targeting system. With incredibly fast reload.
So much stuff can be launched at the system, mass of cheap crap, but damaging, all the way to massive deadly hyper sonics.
I can’t think of anything but huge increase in numbers of systems, that can counter it.
For anyone interested in a factual look at air defense in the Ukrainian War and the odd situation where both Russia and Ukraine have air defenses so effective against the other sides aircraft that both sides have resorted to flying manned aircraft at very low altitudes where they are vulnerable to MANPADS, Perun put out another of his excellent videos on just this topic the other week.
The short of it is that they both inherited Soviet-era air defense systems that are very effective when not suppressed against non-stealth aircraft and can cover huge areas for aircraft that risk flying at anything but low altitude, and the Soviets also devote immense efforts to low level capable, but by necessity shorter ranged air defense systems. While Russia in theory inherited Soviet-era anti-radiation missiles and SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) tactics, the Soviets never placed anywhere near the kind of emphasis on SEAD that the West in general and the US in particular did. Add to that the general clusterfuck of corruption and ineptitude that the Russian Federation’s military is, and Russia has been unable to even achieve air superiority over a foe that it dramatically outnumbers in terms of combat aircraft even after 8 months. Russian pilots didn’t even in theory get anything close to the number of flight hours that NATO pilots get, and no aircraft squadrons are specifically dedicated to SEAD.
By contrast, the very first thing the US and NATO plan to do in any air war is to carry out heavy, extensive, sustained SEAD to destroy their enemy’s ability to effectively conduct just the sort of air defense that both Ukraine and Russia are putting up. Pilots are trained in SEAD, and entire squadrons and their equipment are dedicated exclusively to the task. Contrary to what our resident comrad thinks, air defenses have long been multi-layered and integrated affairs, Soviet-style ones in particular. The term is IADS, Integrated Air Defense System. Iraq had a Soviet-style IADS back in the 1991 Gulf War, which was the first target of the air war, and we all know how that turned out.
One consequence of this is that the US and NATO haven’t placed anything like the kind of emphasis on surface to air missiles for air defense as the Soviet Union and Russia have, and they are often intended as much for missile defense as for defense against manned aircraft.
Great video. Really liked it.
Considering SEAD missions. Commonly carried out with HARM missiles. Very tough missions now I think. I wonder if you could send a fairly dumb drone in to get lit up by the radar, with the missile carrier still back out of radar range. Drone relays initial coordinates back to missile carrier, second hand lock, launch, bug out. Missile tracks to first lock coordinates, then gets real radar signal lock and boom. Missile launcher never has to actually enter radar range.
Now I think about it. Radar would see slow speed. Would have to be some sort of high speed missile not just a slow dumb drone. Tricky to get the distances right without good prior intel.
Wouldn’t that equal 18x?
The task of a Wild Weasel aircraft is to bait enemy anti-aircraft defenses into targeting it with their radars, whereupon the radar waves are traced back to their source, allowing the Weasel or its teammates to precisely target it for destruction.
At the risk of feeding dwellers underneath bridges …
This isn’t a new tactic in modern warfare at all. Tom Clancy illustrated this approach in his novel Red Storm Rising, which was released in 1986. And although Clancy had high-level access to military intelligence types, I don’t think he got to see all the bells and whistles.
I would venture that almost any military strategy or tactic we think is innovative or groundbreaking has been analyzed, reviewed, war-gamed, and planned for by folks who actually know the capabilities and blind spots of weapons systems. Now, whether Ukraine (or other countries) have the capacity to carry out those plans, due to equipment or logistics, is another question. But I don’t think there’s any sort of “gotcha” approach the Russians can take that will catch the West off-guard.
Long-line fishers. 
Which was old even then. In the Wiki article linked to by @Johnny_L.A,
The Wild Weasel concept was developed by the United States Air Force in 1965 during the Vietnam War, after the introduction of Soviet SAMs and their downing of U.S. strike aircraft participating in Operation Rolling Thunder over the skies of North Vietnam.
A decade later, after I got out of the navy, I went to work for one of the companies that built the detection equipment used in the mission. There was a company legend about one of the company’s engineers flying in the back seat of an F-4 with a Fuzzbuster on his lap plugged into an antenna horn as a proof of concept, a handshake agreement to start designing the gear, and a cost-plus contract signed six months later about the time the engineering units were going out the door.
It reminds me of very angry internet debates over whether Ulfric Stormcloak is a Thalmor asset (as claimed by a dossier found in the Thalmor embassy) and if so whether he is aware of that fact.
Right. What matters is that his rebellion definitely served the Thalmor’s interests.
So when is Russia invading Skyrim?
Not until the dragon menace has been taken care of.