RE: Infantry

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RE: Infantry - 1/21/2021 6:10:10 PM

KarisFraMauro

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Yeah most conflicts these days are along the lines of insurgency / low level situations it seems. Preferable in many ways I suppose, but awkward for evaluating certain things. I have heard a lot of people are sitting up and noticing how effective drones were in Nagorno-Karabakh though. Obviously drones aren't completely new but from my limited understanding previously they were used more for recon and the occasional soft target rather than pure battlefield. Let the A-10s do the heavy lifting. What changed was the "commodification" of military drones by Turkey, dropping all the pricey bells and whistles for something fast, dirty and lethal. At least to Armenian tanks anyway. I'm a little surprised its taken so long for drones to start playing a primary role, it feels like sometimes legacy systems linger on more for political than tactical reasons.

(in reply to AgentFransis)

Post #: 31

RE: Infantry - 1/21/2021 7:38:20 PM

Uemon

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The main reason drones were usable and highly effective in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is because Armenians didnt have an air force. Turks attempted to do the same thing in Libyan conflict, by arming the side they support with same drones, and it worked very well in halting an offensive down, and it even looked like it was about to turn things around, until something like 6 MiG 29's arrived from Russia to Russia supported part of Libya and within 3 days they basically shut down those drones completely.

Now note that these are low scale lowish intensity conflicts, things would have different dynamics in case of a conflict between two industrialized opponents who can build their own drones, field proper airforces and all other components of the modern battlefield.

(in reply to KarisFraMauro)

Post #: 32

RE: Infantry - 1/21/2021 9:47:25 PM

KarisFraMauro

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All this is making me wish air power had been better implemented in Shadow Empire, sigh... It's a good point about the absense of an air force with respect to Armenia. They did manage to shoot down a couple dozen drones, presumeably with AA, not that it changed the outcome. Makes me wonder if the next steps are making fighters more anti-drone and drones cheaper still so they can sustain losses but remain viable. And thinking of small nations recruiting mercenaries to provide drone protection is giving me flashbacks to the old Area 88 / UN Squadron anime.

(in reply to Uemon)

Post #: 33

RE: Infantry - 1/21/2021 11:13:23 PM

Uemon

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Interesting ideas, so ill give you a bit of history to further explain why you are correct in my opinion:

Since we switched to jet fighters some years after WW2, after some years of experimenting and playing with concepts the 2 biggest manufacturers (US and Soviets) have come up with the same basic concept: the duo of a light interceptor (F-16 and MiG 29) and heavy (usually multirole) air superiority fighter (F-15 and Su 27). In the last 20-25 years or so we have witnessed an interesting trend of light interceptor half of the duo falling out of favor. As technology progressed you started needing more and more complex and bulkier tech/systems on a fighter, no matter its size or role (in order to remain competitive, and not blind/vulnerable) to the point where light interceptors basically started approaching the price of the heavy multi role fighter (in particular big issue with MiG 29, which was supposed to be cheaper than Su 27 in both unit cost and cost to operate - but actually costs almost the same in latest variant). The math was simple, the heavy fighters offered much more payload (i think Su family later models can literally carry the weight of MiG 29 in payload or something insane like that) and sometimes two or three times the operational range, so there wasnt really much of a choice for both main producers and foreign customers, and the heavy fighter has been thriving (with the exception of F-16 but thats for different reasons, it also used to sell rather well).

So this is where we reach an interesting point where drones and light/heavy fighters intersect. A drone is not a particularly high tech expensive asset (usually by design to keep the unit cost low) and a fighter required to shoot one such drone down doesnt need to be particularly complex either - you often probably dont even need to use expensive missiles to do it either, you can just gun them down easily even with 1970s technology. And heavy fighters are very expensive, to the point where most small countries cant afford them. But you still have a metric **** ton of old F-16s and MiG 29s all over the place - and plenty of spare parts you can buy on the market. Its entirely possible that if drones proliferate we might see literally old rust buckets of obsolete 30 year+ light interceptors making a come back, both on the market being sold, and smaller countries fielding them, because you dont really need that much to operate them. Dont laugh, but even a slightly modernized MiG 21 can do the job...

(in reply to KarisFraMauro)

Post #: 34

RE: Infantry - 1/22/2021 12:21:21 AM

KarisFraMauro

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I can see matters unfolding in that fashion. While I appreciate bleeding edge fighters for pushing the envelope so to speak, there's a surprising amount of life left in the older designs. Even aircraft carriers feel like they could make something of a comeback as a platform for drone swarms, employing electric batteries for comparatively short range operation, said batteries being charged off the carrier's nuclear reactor. A few years back I remember reading a novel called Ghost Fleet that had a lot of fun speculation within the framework of a fictional future conflict. If you have any good books to recommend I'm always eager to expand my intellectual horizons. I even went through a phase of Falklands Islands research for a while. Always struck me as odd how little acknowledgement that particular conflict gets in popular media, even the invasion of Grenada of all things warranted a Clint Eastwood movie!

(in reply to Uemon)

Post #: 35

RE: Infantry - 1/22/2021 8:19:06 AM

AgentFransis

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An idea I had for a while is for tiny automated recon drones for infantry support in urban combat. Say you drive up in your APC and you release a swarm of say 20 mini-quadcopters armed with a camera and some sensors. They automatically zip around corners, inside houses and over roofs and look for enemies, mines, IEDs etc. The operator can watch the cameras and the central computer can use image processing and modern machine learning techniques to automatically identify threats. Should be quite doable today.

quote:

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

Even aircraft carriers feel like they could make something of a comeback as a platform for drone swarms, employing electric batteries for comparatively short range operation, said batteries being charged off the carrier's nuclear reactor.

Well the big problems with carriers today is that they're vulnerable to anti-ship missile swarms and diesel-electric subs so carriers probably need to be very careful and stay far away from coasts.

(in reply to KarisFraMauro)

Post #: 36

RE: Infantry - 1/22/2021 11:20:54 AM

zgrssd

Posts: 3385
Joined: 6/9/2020
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quote:

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

Yeah most conflicts these days are along the lines of insurgency / low level situations it seems. Preferable in many ways I suppose, but awkward for evaluating certain things. I have heard a lot of people are sitting up and noticing how effective drones were in Nagorno-Karabakh though. Obviously drones aren't completely new but from my limited understanding previously they were used more for recon and the occasional soft target rather than pure battlefield. Let the A-10s do the heavy lifting. What changed was the "commodification" of military drones by Turkey, dropping all the pricey bells and whistles for something fast, dirty and lethal. At least to Armenian tanks anyway. I'm a little surprised its taken so long for drones to start playing a primary role, it feels like sometimes legacy systems linger on more for political than tactical reasons.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Uemon

The main reason drones were usable and highly effective in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is because Armenians didnt have an air force. Turks attempted to do the same thing in Libyan conflict, by arming the side they support with same drones, and it worked very well in halting an offensive down, and it even looked like it was about to turn things around, until something like 6 MiG 29's arrived from Russia to Russia supported part of Libya and within 3 days they basically shut down those drones completely.

Now note that these are low scale lowish intensity conflicts, things would have different dynamics in case of a conflict between two industrialized opponents who can build their own drones, field proper airforces and all other components of the modern battlefield.

Propellar Aircraft are making a similar comeback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2G287hukhs
"The A-10 is the equivalent of bringing a Gatling gun to a barfight, when you would only need a Baseball bat."

The basic idea is:
If you got guaranteed air superiority (so you only have to worry about ground to air fire) and it is low intensity/asymetric warfare, then a Jet costs way more then they are worth to bring. And actually a propeller aircraft can do just as good, for way cheaper and thus way more avalible.

< Message edited by zgrssd -- 1/22/2021 11:22:16 AM >

(in reply to AgentFransis)

Post #: 37

RE: Infantry - 1/22/2021 12:53:36 PM

Uemon

Posts: 112
Joined: 12/11/2020
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

quote:

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

Yeah most conflicts these days are along the lines of insurgency / low level situations it seems. Preferable in many ways I suppose, but awkward for evaluating certain things. I have heard a lot of people are sitting up and noticing how effective drones were in Nagorno-Karabakh though. Obviously drones aren't completely new but from my limited understanding previously they were used more for recon and the occasional soft target rather than pure battlefield. Let the A-10s do the heavy lifting. What changed was the "commodification" of military drones by Turkey, dropping all the pricey bells and whistles for something fast, dirty and lethal. At least to Armenian tanks anyway. I'm a little surprised its taken so long for drones to start playing a primary role, it feels like sometimes legacy systems linger on more for political than tactical reasons.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Uemon

The main reason drones were usable and highly effective in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is because Armenians didnt have an air force. Turks attempted to do the same thing in Libyan conflict, by arming the side they support with same drones, and it worked very well in halting an offensive down, and it even looked like it was about to turn things around, until something like 6 MiG 29's arrived from Russia to Russia supported part of Libya and within 3 days they basically shut down those drones completely.

Now note that these are low scale lowish intensity conflicts, things would have different dynamics in case of a conflict between two industrialized opponents who can build their own drones, field proper airforces and all other components of the modern battlefield.

Propellar Aircraft are making a similar comeback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2G287hukhs
"The A-10 is the equivalent of bringing a Gatling gun to a barfight, when you would only need a Baseball bat."

The basic idea is:
If you got guaranteed air superiority (so you only have to worry about ground to air fire) and it is low intensity/asymetric warfare, then a Jet costs way more then they are worth to bring. And actually a propeller aircraft can do just as good, for way cheaper and thus way more avalible.

Thats a different kind of beast all together - close air support. While its true that a turbo prop CAS or even a simple jet one like A-10 are extremely efficient, its also true that they are sub sonic and *have* to fly directly over their target in order to do their strafing runs. Which means that you can use heavy machine guns to shoot at them, which isnt so much of a problem for A-10, but you can also fire shoulder launched missiles at them, and they will bring it down. Being sub sonic means there is no running away, and a shoulder launched missile is many 10s of times cheaper than an A-10 - and you can buy them on the black market. Kurds in Turkey bought a bunch of strelas when Turks started using helicopters to strafe them some years back during Kurdish uprising, and there is a very good video (that looks almost like a movie scene) on youtube where a dude pops up and lobs a missile at a helicopter which proceeds to explode in air, i think it was even a very modern American made super cobra or something like that.

Fun fact about A-10, the mythology around it is really true, my brothers unit hit one, blew one of its engines off, and it flew away just fine anyway. It got shot by an old model igla that had a (too) light warhead, but still, a testament to A-10's designer/constructor. Nevertheless there are much better manpads that will bring them down much easier.

(in reply to zgrssd)

Post #: 38

RE: Infantry - 1/22/2021 2:40:07 PM

KarisFraMauro

Posts: 113
Joined: 12/2/2020
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Oh man talking about the strela reminds me of the last Panzer General game I played, People's General. I really appreciate what they did to mix up how air power worked in that game, implementing an entirely different system involving spending resources to gain air superiority rather than merely replicating land combat on a different level. Parachute tanks and Crusader mobile artillery! It was admirably creative.

Speaking of land threats to aircraft, I read somewhere (pretty sure it was a book called The Tunnels of Cu Chi) that Vietnam witnessed the only instance of anti-aircraft booby traps. Apparently repurposed landmines would get stuck in treetops, with the idea being they'd be triggered by the wind of low-passing US helicopters. Not sure how effective they were but I don't envy whoever had to climb the tree with a bomb strapped to his back to set it up.

(in reply to Uemon)

Post #: 39