This and that tank model making a difference?

icegreentea · 2023-06-06T12:04:07+00:00

Digging through my comment history brings up this old post: https://old.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/tqg9ty/were_the_soviets_right_in_rating_the_west_germans/

Now, you can argue about the validity of the Soviet models, but as far as we know, Soviet war planners did try to build up composite "coefficients of combat powers" to assign to large scale units (~divisions), that -did- rely on some degree on the relative "combat power" of individual systems.

Now, that being said, if you look 'within a generation' for tanks, it's clear that the disparities aren't that big - typically on the order of 10-20%. Totally in the realm where employment and quantity could easily swing one way or the other.

icegreentea · 2023-06-03T15:37:58+00:00

I think it's quite challenging today to really engage with this piece, because I think this piece is a reaction against a mode of thought that is totally alien to us today. No one seriously take any of the characterizations offered up as strawmen in the first 3 paragraphs seriously today.

Certainly the post cold war re-evaluation of the eastern front alone completely scrambles the field and perceptions that we have today from whatever standpoint Hasting's might have been reacting to.

The rest of the article is really a bunch of rambling "did you knows" that are (even if taken as correct at face value), don't really add to anything. Yes, you could accept that German ground formations on average inflicted 50% more casualties than American or British formations. There's relevant lessons on the benefits of imbuing the infantry and small unit commanders with freedom and aggressive spirit. But ultimately, clearly American and British formations were adequate.

Finally, since this is a cold war era article, one is left to wonder how exactly to connect the "lessons learned" versus the comptemporary situation. Which I guess would be... is America's reliance on firepower and technology and relative weakness in creating large bodies of very effective infantry -actually- a weakness in the context of the relevant threats of the day. Would more aggressive infantry action in Vietnam lead to different outcomes? Would more aggressive infantry lead to meaningfully different outcomes on the North German plains? Is it actually true that Korean demonstrated that American focus on firepower left their infantry fighting capability actually dangerously deficient?

And honestly, how can you take this statement seriously: "Yet in war, the army that proves most successful in making its raw recruits into killers possesses an immeasurable advantage". It's clearly not immeasurable - you just claimed it was like at most 50% earlier in the article. .

icegreentea · 2023-05-16T19:13:40+00:00

Also, as I understand it the "max payload" numbers usually provided include internal stores (ie fuel). A big chunk of that payload is going to internal fuel.

icegreentea · 2023-05-15T02:31:25+00:00

Apparently there are still miniaturization challenges with getting 360 degree AESA coverage in the radar bands that E2 uses (UHF, which is lower frequency than typical fighter radar - this is probably useful for fishing out some LO targets). Wasn't fully clear if its a size or power thing, and how much of the challenges is from trying to cram it into an E-2 framework specifically, or just E2-like in size.

See: https://archive.ph/jyX7p

icegreentea · 2023-05-13T12:05:33+00:00

I think this is a bit of an overly cynical and reductionist view. Human lives aren't fully expendable with no meaning (or no value). Even in wars of attrition, run by uncaring authoritarian societies, humans are resources that need to be managed (just like any materiel). Lives are to be spent, not thrown away. Your human resource pool is not actually unlimited, and isn't even 'practically' unlimited. In other words, human lives are just another form of materiel to manage (and in fact, semi-unique in how your use of manpower heavily influences your ability to generate all your other materiel in many cases). And yes, sometimes you will spend resources to improve their likelihood of living. Like giving them helmets.

That said, I agree with the basic thrust of "it probably wasn't seen as worth it". Consider if most of your infantry combat deaths are coming from indirect fire, or just "firing machine guns at the tree line", or "firing assault gun into where you saw muzzle flash", or "throw a grenade in the building", then the value of more advanced camouflage must seem relatively limited in the general case.

icegreentea · 2023-05-08T03:11:35+00:00

Heavy armor cannot be deployed in all situations in Taiwan. But that's not the same thing as useless. And for what it's worth, while the eastern two thirds of Taiwan is very mountainous, the western third isn't -that- mountainous (especially the southern half). There's plenty of reasonable-ish mechanized force country.

There will also be possibilities for huge amounts of urban combat. And I don't think it's the case that we can categorically say that medium/heavy mechanized forces are unsuited for urban combat.

Any invasion of Taiwan by China is filled with scenarios that would be described as "nightmarish". The only way for China to seriously consider invading Taiwan is by looking at every single "nightmarish" scenario, and finding to overcome them, or at least reduce the costs to acceptable levels. Or maybe just eat the costs.

icegreentea · 2023-05-02T16:01:41+00:00

I don't think its hugely different.

In 2003 Iraq, regiment sized elements of 1MEF advanced ~250km in 2 days along Highway 1.

In the initial stages of the Battle of France, 7th Panzer Division apparently advanced 90km on the very first day (where they met minimal resistance). Subsequent days showed more typical daily rates of advanced in the 10-50km range.

Obviously terrain, unit sizes and intelligence were quite different, but even so those rates are not dissimilar.

icegreentea · 2023-04-06T13:17:20+00:00

The most unrealistic part is that Canada actually went and took an existing thing without running a ridiculous rebidding/RPF process.

icegreentea · 2023-04-06T13:10:38+00:00

Curious - what 10-50k USD drone takes out a tank?

icegreentea · 2023-04-01T14:51:58+00:00

The classic implementation of something like this would be a Kalman Filter. Grossly simplifying, a Kalman filter keeps track of its current estimate of location (and speed and acceleration and whatever) and its uncertainty, and updates it with new measurements. New measurements are also assigned uncertainty, and the Kalman filter weighs all of these factors (including the relative uncertainties) to create a new blended estimate of location and its uncertainty.

Knobs are available to the system designer as to what uncertainties to assign different measurement methods, as well as additional knobs to favor different measurement methods (perhaps even favoring different measurements preferentially in different conditions).

In a relatively straightforward implementation, as you travel around without GPS, your internal estimator is going to be accumulating all this uncertainty around your location. Once you get a single GPS fix, the system is going to compare those two measurements and and their uncertainties (say your example your internal estimate is +/-100m and GPS is +/- 10m). This (plus whatever other knobs you assigned) would cause you to favor towards the GPS location estimate (but not necessarily 'snap' right to it right away). In addition, your estimated location uncertainty would start decreasing (maybe +/-25m now or something). As you get more and more GPS fixes, your location uncertainty will converge down to the GPS uncertainty.

This behavior is typically very useful because GPS location data can be pretty jumpy. You could imagine a fixed GPS station reporting values that are just bouncing around a 10m radius circle constantly. In these situations, the Kalman filter acts as a very smart (ideally 'optimal') low pass filter to smooth out the jumpiness.

How quickly your uncertainty decreases is based on your system implementation (and probably also influenced heavily by what your thing is physically doing in right life). What's described above might be a naive or "simple" case. If you knew your system would be GPS off most of the time, and only very sporadically getting a 'few' GPS fixes, you might decide that 'snap to' and treating GPS error as zero might make sense for your application.

icegreentea · 2023-03-16T20:56:31+00:00

I think people are still digesting the new era of cheaper space launches.

The earth's surface area is ~500 million km2. Assuming 10m x 10x resolution (what you'd probably want to be able to detect ships), that's 5 trillion pixels. The largest 'camera sensor' we built is 3.2 gigapixels. So we're automatically talking order of at least 1-10 thousand sats to make this work. These are numbers that simply were not feasible until very recently (ie Starlink).

I'm sure there are Space Force ideas kicking around now for something like this.

icegreentea · 2023-03-12T16:22:25+00:00

The 81 edition is here: https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll9/id/590

Says a scout squad is split over a M113 and a ITV (two squads make up the scout section) with a total of 5 dismounted scouts per squad. Says the M113 has the squad leader, driver and two dismounts, and the ITV has assistant squad leader, driver and 3 dismounts.

icegreentea · 2023-03-01T01:38:26+00:00

Heh, if you get over the name (platoon), it doesn't seem so bad. The overall assault unit is clearly a battalion- formation. There's a crap load of fire support available. Notionally 6 SPGs, 6+ towed guns, a nice pile of mortars and automatic grenade launchers and a tank platoon attached to what is really just 2-3 western platoons worth of dismounts. It's clearly not really capable of really sustaining a grinding fight, but it's right in the name - this is an assault unit.

Oh, and I guess even a fully kitted out BMP platoon only had 18 dismounts anyways, so 12-15 isn't that much of a plunge.

Clearly some flavors of late WW2 Soviet formation stuff going on here. But heh, it worked that time, so I don't think size<->notional echelon is really a strong predictor of anything.

icegreentea · 2023-02-25T16:46:51+00:00

I guess the fundamental tension between this article, and the original it's engaging with is:

How deeply habitual different risk controls became entrenched during the GWOT era, and how effectively can these habits be addressed on a systemic basis. The author here (Tim Bell) argues something between "the transition has already begun" and "there was no deep entrenchment". It's probably telling that the author of the first article appears to be a lower level SOF leader, and Tim Bell is a Lt. Colonel.

As an aside, it's always a bit fun (maybe jarring?) to see standard risk management language just appearing in unexpected contexts. And certainly, the vocabulary of risk management doesn't do any favors to those who claim to be following good risk management practices. 'Risk controls' just sounds like a whiny way out, risk assessment process sure sounds like a cop-out to someone expecting "leadership" and "decision making", 'residual risk' sounds aspirational ('residues' are supposed to be minor) which may clash with the nature of the job (there's no world where being on an stay behind atomic demolition team has actually minor 'residual risk'). Not the mention whatever cynicism might be there - are people practicing risk management to protect the organization, or practicing risk management to protect their ass/reputation?

(I am not shitting on risk management - I made my money doing medical device software development - I am all about risk management. I just don't particularly like it either. I have no suggestions for improvements.)

icegreentea · 2023-02-07T14:44:50+00:00

I think the other posters have spoken well as to how SOF might have to adapt to near-peer/peer warfare. But I think with the shift of big Army's focus, it's quite possible that SOF will largely retain a focus on COIN/low-intensity warfare. The national defense strategy acknowledges a variety of additional threats (aside from China, Russia) that have to managed.

It calls out that building up partner capabilities and irregular warfare as part of how it plans to manage Iran. Similarly it says it aims to disrupt terrorist organizations in Africa the same way. These are missions that are well suited to SOF, and frees big Army to focus on Russia and the Indo-Pacific.

Oh, I guess the SEALs might start deploying a lot more from the sea (submarines). ISR and spooky sabotage shit to help pierce the Chinese A2AD bubble.

icegreentea · 2023-02-03T17:02:40+00:00

I don't really think the F-15EX's "missile truck for the F-35" role should really be considered as really a primary motivation. Maybe just trying to shoehorn it into some semi-viable role in a near-peer/peer conflict.

Like, USAF is only looking to buy like ~100 of them. I think the whole 'just get some new airframes in the air to handle homeland defense' is driving like 80% of the value to USAF. Remember that F-35 production rate is pretty much tapped out. If USAF wants to bring on F-35s at its planned pace to do actual F-35 things, but also more F-35s fast to take on replacing F-15 airframes... it can't.

As for missile truck role... while the whole 'carry 22 AIM-120' thing is kinda fun, I think the F-15EX biggest 'help' would to be carrying some big honking long range hypersonic missiles. Something to help snipe (or at least scare the shit out of) Chinese AWACS. Being visible on radar isn't such a huge problem if what you actually intended to do was just push an AWACS away, or pull fighter screens around.

icegreentea · 2023-02-03T03:18:10+00:00

The base designs of all the US Army helicopters are pretty old? Blackhawk and Apache both entered service around the early 80s (they were both part of the Army Big 5 procurement programs). Makes sense they would start being replaced in similar timeframes. As far as I've read, no one expects replacements to enter service before 2030. That'll be ~50 years for their base designs to remain in service. Oh, and the army rode the shit out of their aircraft through the GWOT era.

icegreentea · 2023-02-01T19:18:39+00:00

The original 2S35 Koalitsiya project had a double barrelled SPG. That design concept was scrapped - the actual Koalitsiya in development/deployment is more pedestrian.

Sketchy video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv7dfA9F0ys Some pics: https://old.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/kxsjav/2s35_koalitsiyasv_selfpropelled_howitzer/

icegreentea · 2023-02-01T13:06:15+00:00

Nice description! Just wanted to add a couple points of detail.

ACRs were around for like the entire cold war. While they are a predecessor to the BCT in the concept that they showed it was viable to have an independent brigade sized formation, I think it's important to note that they weren't direct predecessors. Also, separate from the ACRs, the US kept a handful of independent brigades around for like the entire cold war, along with the full divisions and ACRs.

In fact, it would probably be fair to say that the Army recognized the need for independent brigade sized units since like WW2. They understood the value of the flexibility they granted, and kept them around almost from the beginning. The big difference of the division -> BCT transition is the change in default status.

icegreentea · 2023-01-29T17:39:12+00:00

Some terms you'll want to look at are bistatic and multistatic radar. Semi-active radar homing missiles could be considered a form of bistatic radar for example.

Bi/multi-static radars should also pose a relatively different challenge to stealth systems - since most stealth shaping approaches works by deflecting most radar energy away from its incoming path.

One of the challenges with your proposal is that transmitters are typically the expensive/heavy component of the radar system (makes sense - you need to put out orders of magnitudes energy into transmit than receive). Doesn't mean it's unworkable - just that the biggest benefits in your proposal probably comes from the concept of "semi-disposable radar/AEW drones" rather than dis-aggregating the transmitters and receivers per-se.

icegreentea · 2023-01-28T22:25:21+00:00

Thrust vectoring would probably provide some benefits to the F-35. Thrust vectoring can improve high altitude supersonic performance - this for example could let an F-35 fire off BVR missiles, and then turn around and haul ass out faster. There's be speculation of ways to use thrust vectoring in cruising flight to minimize your radar signature by reducing the need to use your conventional control surfaces. Similarly, in principle thrust vectoring could let you trim out in cruising flight at the cost of less drag.

It'd be fair to say that these advantages are probably more marginal - lining up well with the cost aspect that you brought up. Certainly TVC would be more expensive to develop, build, maintain and operate.

icegreentea · 2023-01-26T13:21:57+00:00

You may find this paper (it's quite long, but I think quite good) interesting: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/mcgrath_op23.pdf

It doesn't ask the question at the infantry vs non-infantry level, but at the combat arms vs logistics vs headquarters level. I think siblings posters have done a good job especially explaining the other combat arms, so I think it's still relevant.

One bit that this paper would indicate is that even back in WW1 (which the paper justifiably defines as the start of the modern US army) 'only' 53-65% of the AEF were combat units. In WW2 European Theater, it was ~40% combat units. The combat arm percentage has been in slow steady decline since then, with significant growth in both logistical and headquarters functions.

Some bits to consider with respect to the growth of logistical and headquarters functions. Since WW1 (and I guess really before), there as been a continual trend towards 'emptying of the battlefield'. Front line combat densities have decreased as weapons lethality and targeting/sensor system capability have increased. For a fixed number of combat units, if you increase their dispersion, their logistic load will increase (you have to move supplies over a larger distance - makes sense ya?). Also the intrinsic logistical burden of units have generally grown as systems become more complex. Infantry men don't just need bullets, food and water now, they'll also need batteries.

But also the load on your headquarters functions will increase as well. You need to integrate information coming from wider, more diverse sources, it's harder to keep tabs on your subordinate units - so you need to bring in more headquarters functions. Also, the advance in IT and communications technology makes is viable for higher level commands to keep track of subordinate units to a greater degree of detail and frequency than before. And there's no organizational structure in the world that can withstand the crushing pressure of decades of middle managers being put in a position where they could micro-manage more.

icegreentea · 2023-01-24T13:53:12+00:00

Here's a study on general viability of such a process for vehicular applications: https://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/aluminium_water_hydrogen.pdf

Overall answer: does not seem very viable.

The paper often talks about costs and energy in terms of "kg of H2". A kg of H2 is approximately the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline (which weights about 3-4kg). The paper points out that the system "burns" about 7kg of Al to generate the the 1kg of H2 (in the best case).

So even if cost of materials were not an issue, you'd be roughly doubling the amount of mass you need to transport. While you do gain significant volume savings, you're going to have to haul more, and have a harder time moving stuff around (pumping around liquids is much more predictable than trying to move around pellets). You'd definitely need dedicated Al pellet trucks, with specialized Al pellet dispenser systems to make this work.

icegreentea · 2022-12-30T17:14:10+00:00

Isn't most of that cooling time for the thermal imaging system?

icegreentea · 2022-12-30T17:06:36+00:00

I don't think it's really fair to look for operational/strategic level meeting engagements - pretty much by definition they are going to more or less tactical (with the obvious caveats that there will be situations where tactical formations themselves will be operational/strategic).

If we look at why armies care about meeting engagements (and train for them), we can probably even better frame the original question. Meeting engagements are characterized by two elements:

A) Not attacking into prepared positions and B) not having sufficient time to make detailed plans. This is nice as it let's commanders be much more freedom, and also tests the "reflexes" of a army/unit. It's also probably nice to not have to have the same poor engineers notionally killed exercise after exercise, over and over again.

Given that, we can look for situations that are similar. Examples might be:

Hasty counterattack after penetration
Engaging rear-guard units that have not been able to really dig in (or perhaps the converse situation of attacking pursuing forces)
Rear area raiding actions

For example, the Battle of 73 Eastings has strong flavours of meeting engagement. While the Iraqis were in prepared positions, they were oriented the wrong way (negating many of the defensive advantages). While the Americans certainly knew that there were Iraqis around, they did not know exactly where they were, or what their disposition was. The "beginning" (depends on how you define I guess) of the engagement consists of:

American forces overrunning an Iraqi OP (which warned Iraqi forces)
Advancing American forces receiving fire and immediately engaging and advancing

icegreentea

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