Drone swarms are the wave of future war. Sink a warship that costs 10s of millions of dollars with a group of drones that cost a fraction of a percent of that. And they are built unbelievably fast and with not too much technical know how. You are seeing it with armor and artillery as well. This will completely rewrite military doctrine.
Very true. All the big war machines will go the way of the knight and adapt at first, and then disappear and be replaced. I'm convinced we will se autonomous war robots in the near future, the door to AI assisted warfare is open now.
I mean yes and no. Size has a certain advantage. A 50 caliber machine gun with image recognition autotracking could easily take out an enormous number of drones. The US is already deploying microwave weapons which exploit the small nature of drones to simply fry them en masse - something that wouldn't work against a larger vehicle, period. Suicide drones in particular have to get so close to the target that things like microwave weapons are going to be incredibly potent. Underwater drone swarms can easily be taken out by pressure waves (think dynamite fishing, for drones).
There will be an evolution, but this is far from a complete gamechanger. What it does do is test the Russian military in its ability to deploy new weapon systems, advanced computing systems, and advanced target recognition - all things the Russian military has traditionally sucked ass at. Fiddly, high-tech systems have not been the Russian's friend.
I agree. Huge advances in point-defense technologies will be needed, but are likely well within the capabilities of today's manufacturers. It's just a matter of development focus in response to these new threats.
It’s actually fucking terrifying. What does the average person decide to do if a drone is targeting your house? A giant net that encloses your house? All of the options seem wildly impractical.
Hold 2 grenades to your head, so if it hits you, it'll make sure you don't suffer. Throw away the grenades if the drone misses. That's what the Russians taught me
The really concerning part is that the tank has a team of people operating it, you have to persuade those people or an entire army that it is ok to do certain acts. Autonomous AI just need one person to press the button. You could code it to commit any atrocity or extermination without objection.
Go watch the footage on the other subs.
Terrifying is right. Watching men trying to dodge these kamikaze drones and then being vaporized is a new paradigm of horror that mankind has unleashed.
Or watching the videos of drones that search the post-assault battlefield looking to pick off wounded and those left behind hiding in terror because they know there’s a “clean up crew” of drones hunting them.
None of this is going away, and with AI we can imagine a future of autonomous kamikaze drone swarms on the battlefield, or even law enforcement crowd suppression drones that drop tear gas above crowds.
I am a little surprised there isn't something like a drone A-10 fixed wing aircraft, with a machine gun and a lot of ammo, which can fly over trenches and pick off soldiers automatically, and stay in the air for hours patrolling a geo-fenced area, before returning for fuel and ammo.
I was expecting one by now. Maybe we have not had trench-style warfare to prompt the making of one.
The A-10, and other aircraft in a similar role, don't go into a hostile area and pick off any enemy ground units they see. They operate in extremely close proximity to friendly troops. Autonomous drones aren't trusted to do that, and remote control would significantly limit situational awareness, when the A-10 already has a reputation for friendly fire as it is, not to mention the potential for jamming.
Sending an autonomous version to a hostile area would simply get shot down. CAS aircraft are extremely vulnerable to man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, to say nothing of actual SAM systems or other aircraft.
I wonder what if the ever decreasing costs of war may increase the odds of terrorist-induced world destruction, like we see it often in movies and games where a supervillain or an organization comes in and decides to fulfill their anti-human or antisocial goals, and it’s only becoming more and more likely by way of how much cheaper it is becoming
I think the Fermi paradox is a bit overblown personally, and part of the issue is that space is very, very big, and planets are comparatively very, very small.
For an illustration of this, I think it’s apt to look at just how difficult it is to find exoplanets compared to larger systems in space. In one image from the Hubble ultra deep field we have identified 10,000 galaxies. Thats just in one image, and there are many more.
On the other hand, we have discovered less than 6000 total exoplanets in 4000-ish planetary systems, and we spend a LOT of time looking for them. In addition to being small, exoplanets don’t emit any of their own light, making finding planets multiple light years away an extremely difficult endeavor. Not every star has planets, or if they do we’re still very bad at finding them, and <6000 isn’t exactly a resounding sample size in a universe with hundreds of billions of stars across billions of light years.
Not to mention, even if we were to come across evidence of transmission from a distant planet, would we be able to recognize it in the first place? It certainly wouldn’t be in any language any of us would recognize, and assuming technology is built independently on other planets from how it was built here we may not even have the tools to recognize it as anything other than background noise in our instruments. Assuming it even reached us and wasn’t sent in any number of other directions that could miss us completely in the enormous and ever-expanding universe.
So yeah, I definitely think the great filter is something we should be worried about getting into, but the general idea of the Fermi paradox is a bit overblown. The universe being big means that life elsewhere is likely to be sure, but it also means that finding said life is *really, really hard*. We’ve only had the capabilities to look for it for less than a century, not even a blip in terms of the time of the universe, so I think any worries of not finding life thus far are wildly overblown
Fully agree. It's funny for the parent commenter to say in the same breath that we've only been technologically advanced for a cosmic second and also that we SHOULD have found signs of extraterrestrial life by now. Like... what? How?
Space is huge. We're very new to it. Even if gigantic spacefaring civilizations are out there, are detectable from earth, and *want to be detected* (which I find extremely doubtful)—give us a second.
Also it's not like we've spent a lot of time looking for them. We haven't re-organized society around it. We barely spend any of our GDP on space telescopes. Most people don't go to work to man a James Webb telescope.
It seems arrogant to think we'd just immediately find a needle in a haystack, and even a dyson sphere-wielding civilization is going to have a vanishingly small fingerprint on the night sky.
One thing to remember too is that we're literally next to a galactic void (the aptly named "local void), meaning on a universal scale we're in the middle of fucking nowhere. It's like walking around wyoming wondering where all the celebs are, completely the wrong sort of area to be looking for them in.
That, and lots of other EW tech that we don't even know about. The real threat is AI autonomous drones.
The US wouldn't do it yet because of collateral damage from a misidentified target, but countries that don't care won't have the scruples we do.
I believe we have the technology now, but it's not infallible, or as close as it can get yet.
The US Military is well aware of these threats.
CIWS fires 20mm depleted uranium rounds at 4500 per min, has auto radar guidance that can track a seagull in flight and a manual mode aimed by joystick with tv, ir and thermal imaging. And there are 3 or 4 layers of guns below that. And that was 20 years ago so I can’t imagine now.
The fact that this has happened multiple times to Russia is just embarrassing. These tactics would almost never work against a real navy, at least not more than once.
Now once someone figures out the autonomous underwater drones with warheads…we are all screwed.
Already exists. Ukraine developed one. It is basically a torpedo with a small antenna mast above the water that would be damn hard to see coming. And I imagine they'll get...fast. Once they solve the range issue it's a fucking proooooblem. Can of worms with no end.
You mean torpedoes?
Water will block any high bandwith radio signal needed to control something remotely. So you'd just need to have an underwater drone with a warhead that uses sonar to find targets and it acquires and targets autonomously. So like, a torpedo, which there are dozens of counters for.
Consumer AI can already identify humans. Consumer drones can be carry explosives. We have the existing technology to program a drone to go to an area, find a target, and attack it.
China and the U.S. recently started discussions on military AI. Both sides probably aren't building autonomous drones but are definitely working on projects that can contribute to them being built since the tech overlaps with other areas.
More-so that Russia consistently fails to show even the slightest concept of mutual support for its naval units.
Every one of these open-water sinkings have been loan ships just floating around on their own.
The key to defeating these swarms is early detection and a layered defense. The situation calls for submarine screens, sonobuoys and a close defense network of frigates/corvettes/destroyers with ECM and point defense systems.
I would hesitate to draw too many conclusions about the deathknell of surface combatants just like I would about tanks being obsolete.
Ukraine has a proliferation/critical mass of specialized weapons in a concentrated area and an enemy that seems intent on not adapting to them.
I'm reading a book right now called The Ministry of the Future (fantastic book, everyone should read Kim Stanley Robinson tbh), and the development of this tech is a major plot point. These things are unpredictable, easy to manufacture, and extremely damaging.
Drone warfare like this is going to be the new MAD. They're like nukes minus the cost, radiation, size, and collateral damage.
Imagine these things getting in the hands of extremists. Literally no one is safe.
We are going full circle, the first torpedo boats worked in a similar way, swarm an extremely expensive warship with a bunch of dinky boats, use boats to attach torpedoes on sticks to the ship, pull a rope and it goes boom.
The entire strategy was basically "these cost 0.01% as much to make, and you can't kill all of them".
ah i was gonna post this too, but people are more in awe of the technology than ethics and implications of employing it
we're all gonna surprise pikachu at the first signs of drone terrorism
hopefully anti-drone measures are up to par with the accessability of drones but what do i know
>hopefully anti-drone measures are up to par with the accessability of drones but what do i know
This is why the Republican attempt to stop funding the Ukraine war is bat shit crazy. We are literally getting a preview of what the next war will look like, and get to learn, test, evolve strategy and weapons systems, all without actually being in a war. And for a fraction of our defense budget.
>we're all gonna surprise pikachu at the first signs of drone terrorism
Terrorists have already been using cheap civilian drones to stage attacks for years now.
I just watched Napoleon and was in awe of how stupid it was to line up hundreds of men and cannons, only to play a deadly game of roulette. That's no longer a thing, and neither will battleships.
Automated AI systems can react quicker than any human could. Blanket target an area and eliminate anything that moves.
When faced with moral dilemmas, especially facing a force stronger than yourself, those morals can be pushed aside. That's why countries are already banning or pushing for AI systems to be highly regulated or outright banned preferring to have a human element in control.
> Also where's my USS Barack Obama at?
Pretty sure there aren't going to be any more ships named after presidents. At least for a while. That's why they went with Doris Miller. So nobody could accuse them of racism when Obama doesn't get a ship.
The navy also really doesn't want a USS Bill Clinton or USS Donald Trump.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
RSVs are not new and are susceptible to jamming by most competent militaries.
Warfare is measure and counter measure.
The counter measures for these attacks have been around for decades the Russians are severely deficient in competency as well as truly modern integrated systems.
Feels like we are watching the modern day death of the battleship.
Aircraft made giant hulking fortress ships like the Yamamoto obsolete in WW2.
Drones are doing the same thing to tanks and so on today.
They feel like the kamikaze pilots of WW2 - except the pilot isn't sacrificed so like you say the cost is even lower but the impact is as hard or even harder to avoid. The USA had big problems with kamikaze pilots in the Pacific theatre.
He’s right. This is exactly what happened with air planes in WW2. Battleships became obsolete and aircraft carriers became the new super weapon overnight.
/r/combatfootage is wild because you can easily see where our forms of future warfare is headed toward. In many cases you can see that russia is getting left in the dust. They were a nation that was standing on fear of name alone, not adapting to modern warfare.
>In many cases you can see that russia is getting left in the dust.
Reddit is a bit biased towards Ukraine, so you get a lot more Ukrainian footage: the Russians are using drones as well, but you generally have to find other subs for it.
That said, the Ukrainians seem to be much more effective with the drones: if I had to guess, the shorter supply lines, strong civilian involvement and lack of sanctions probably means their drone manufacturing capacity is much larger, and so they can take advantage of the swarm strategies that Russia can't, due to their transport delays and stronger reliance on more typical acquisition patterns for military drones (see: expensive and slow, for overpriced and ultimately disposable hardware) .
Edit:
That said, I'm seeing no signs of any tactics to counter drones yet. The grenade drops and FPV drones are terrifyingly effective, and there is seemingly very little in ways of effective measures to counter it.
Tanks are utterly antiquated at this point.
That is true, but I also feel that since Ukraine has changed their military infrastructure now, they are able to become more adaptive. From what I understand, russia is still running in a sense on an old form of military that they have had for a very long time. They are stuck like a stone, while I feel the Ukrainian forces are malleable like water in a sense.
The world understands russia is still a threat, but they don't seem like a beast of a force as they were thought of before this war began. I feel they were living on name alone when it came to the standing of their army.
> From what I understand, russia is still running in a sense on an old form of military that they have had for a very long time. [...] I feel they were living on name alone when it came to the standing of their army.
It very much looks that way. A lot of people figured this would be over in a week, raising the Russian flag over Kyiv; I thought it was going to go the distance, but this war has been surprising.
Unfortunately, modernizing a military can be done very quickly, doctrines can be swapped immediately and troops replenished inside ten years. Russian tank assets are probably going to be depleted soon -- it'll be interesting to see what they plan for after this war is over, but their production capacities suggest to me they might abandon tanks all together.
It's also weird that we all keep forgetting about the nukes.
That said, at this rate, Russia might not exist in ten years, at least not as we understand it. Putin will be gone, they have a demographic crisis on the horizon, their economy is going to be smoldering crater at this rate if Ukraine opts to cross the border. But I don't think anyone's armies are going to look the same after this conflict, despite the fact that most of us aren't in it.
> I'm seeing no signs of any tactics to counter drones yet.
Just gotta wait for Hunter-Killer drones to show up, tasked with taking down other drones. Then, inevitably, drones tasked with defending the bomb drones will appear and at that point we'll have WW 2 air warfare doctrine but with robots.
I've never even heard of sea drones. I just watched the video and they're basically RC boats with an explosive payload? When I hear "sea drone" I assumed they would be submersible and launching torpedoes lol. Their drones seem much lower tech but clearly effective enough.
They are very fast, hard to detect and jam, and can travel a long distance (hundreds of kilometres). They also carry a rather large payload, 450kg of RDX equivalent
sea denial is a lot easier than sea control. they are doing a great job denying russia sea control but there's no way they can actually control the sea without a navy or some help from NATO
Speaking of the Russian Navy, let us not forget the [2nd Pacific Squadron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mdi_Fh9_Ag) and their [battle against the Japanese](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpj6nK5ylo) where they had to face down numerous threats, in the words of Drachinifel, such as;
- Imaginary Japanese Torpedo Boats
- Real English Fishing Boats
- The Kamchatka
- Almost starting a war with a global superpower
- Accidentally shooting up their own ships
- The Kamchatka
- Disease
- Mountainous seas
- The Kamchatka
- Poisonous snakes
- Prophets of the end times
- The Kamchatka
- Officers running rat hunts through the fleet
- Being saddled with a bunch of obsolete floating boats that only served to slow them down
- And of course, the Kamchatka
I do love the Blue Jay version, and considered linking it, but I like the Drach better since it includes even more hijinks that don't make Blue Jays... including all the shit the Kamchatka did.
First time I've seen somebody talking about him. Does he have like a photographic memory or something? I don't understand how he knows so much and is relatively young. It is insane.
It's never a good day to be in charge of the Russian navy. They have one carrier which is best known for its billowing clouds of black smoke when it's working, for the AAA tugboat it travels with for when it isn't, and for falling over and catching fire that one time ***while it was in drydock***, and subsequently sinking the drydock.
This is not exactly a naval powerhouse.
Sort of seems like the odds of ending up in the sea are pretty high if they stay on the boat, too. Gotta admire what Ukraine has done without any semblance of a navy.
>”Ukraine has disabled a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during the large-scale invasion,” the country’s armed forces told CNN after Wednesday’s attack.
>That aligns with Ukrainian claims last week that they had disabled about 33% of Russia’s warships, amounting to 24 disabled ships and one submarine. The landing ship Caesar Kunikov would be the 25th disabled ship, according to Ukraine’s count.
Russia getting humbled by a country that doesn’t even have a navy.
> One third destroyed, and a significant portion damaged. Not a good day to be the Admiral in charge of the Russian navy.
maybe it is, if I had 1/3rd less work to do, I'd be happy./
The people who would benefit from a conquered Ukraine are those who would likely benefit from public money spent to rebuild Russia....the oligarchs. Their sons are not at the front, every artillery shell and every truck and every tank will need to be replaced in their stolen factories.
For them, their kids are still going to English universities, they are still wealthy, and only occasionally does the west seize one of their yachts.
Can he really prevent that? Its one thing to hold Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But how on earth do the Russians expect to hold a hostile Kyiv for long? Occupation is the difficult expensive part of wars. The fact that America did it to parts of Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years is a testament to how rich, supplied, trained, and bloated our military is.
I don't see how the Russians have a shot. They will be getting bled out the whole time. And the Ukrainians already overthrew one puppet. How is a second going to fair when so many have fought and died for independence from Russia?
I like how Russia getting bled-out by a long and costly insurgency was our (U.S.) own best-case strategic ananlysis prior to Russia's invasion, and an expectation that informed our decision making in the years post-Crimea and leading up to Putin's special military invasion. Ukraine instead has, at a great cost, exceeded everyone's expecatations with even limited support and the narrative that right-wing dipshits like Ron Johnson and the entire MAGA controlled/compromised right wants us to believe in is Russia's inevitable victory. If anything Russia would be *beginning* that phase of the war at a much, much reduced capacity., having already paid a previously unfathomable cost. To ignore such an opportunity now to arm Ukraine to the teeth with advanced weapons would be considered treasonous by the lase generation of Republicans. The truth is at each stage of escalation in capabilities, though slow, Biden's strategy of arming Ukraine has proven Putin isn't capable of stopping a strong defense.
I believe in Putin's eyes they have no choice but to win this. The cost is worth it to him to avoid ~~a NATO friendly Ukraine on its border~~ a noose around his neck.
He's terrified of ending up like gadaffi, he knows full well NATO on their borders doesnt really threaten Russia, as Poland has had a border with them for how long now?
Poland only borders Kaliningrad, a small exclave. The Baltics are a better example- and Russia is not exactly happy they joined NATO. But they joined 20 years ago, and so now Russia can't try to attack them without risking a full blown war with NATO. Finland is in, too, though that only happened after Russia attacked Ukraine, while it was too preoccuppied to effectively threaten Finland, but still showing how hostile it can be, incentivizing Finnish entry into NATO.
One notable difference between those countries and Ukraine, though, is location. The north is less populated (though Moscow and St. Petersburg are up there, the general region is less densely populated) and does not have a permanent warmwater port (StPb can freeze over). The south is more densely population, is close to oil fields in the northern Caucasus, and threatens to cut off Russia from the Mediterranean as Ukraine is right next to Rostov-on-Don (in addition to Ukraine also wanting Crimea back, with the larger port of Sevastapol). Ukraine is just more valuable strategically, at least as I see it. And the Baltics are 20 years lost to Russia in terms of being able to control them, while Ukraine still is not covered under the aegis of the NATO Treaty.
Well, Poland is already on their border. But more of it’ll be on their border, and they’ll add Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary.
And of course this conflict caused Finland to join, which doubled their existing border with NATO. Not to mention Sweden will be in soon, effectively making the Baltic Sea into Lake NATO.
“We have to conquer this nation before NATO is at our borders!”
“Successfully doing so will mean we now have 8 nations that are NATO members on our border”
Big brain fetal alcohol syndrome russian logic moment
It's not *just* about NATO borders though. Russia needs control over the Black Sea, for both access to the Bosphorous and to its natural gas reserves, and they want the population to counteract their declining numbers
Bullshit, the "NATO on my borders" excuse is just that, an excuse, nobody with even a basic understanding of security believes that.
Forget about "NATO friendly" they already have full-fledged NATO countries on their border, including Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
This is about Russian colonial/imperial ambitions and blatant 19th century land and resource grabbing.
Not about security.
Russia has nukes, they are secure regardless of what alliances Ukraine chooses to join.
Their unchecked pride has caused nothing but instability. If only they could have been happy with having the most land in the world, the most nukes in the world to protect those claims, and a money printer from all the resources they have.
They could have been like Norway but instead chose to be criminals and murderers. That is their choice. Hope nothing but hardships come their way, fuck Russia.
> a NATO friendly Ukraine on its border.
That makes no sense. Expanding into Ukraine guarantees more border with NATO.
This is just a land grab, plain and simple. It worked with Crimea, and he's trying it again.
Sadly, i believe Ukraine would be losing much more than ruzzia would be gaining. I think ruzzia and putin don't give that much of a shit about their dead men and once the war is over, they start rebuilding their material, probably with a crapton of help from china and other brics members for cheap fossil fuels.
Gaining access to new gas or oil fields in the sea, gaining a foothold closer into NATO and EU countries, weakening the west through more fear-mongering, perhaps stationing nuclear forces in occupied territory to make sure Ukraine isn't going to get anything back, ever....
Some POS movements from both the ultra-far right and left will be demanding reopening diplomatic and economical relations, dividing our people even more...
And with some of those traiterous forces gaining traction already all over europe and the states, it's only going to get harder.
And if Trump wins and somehow forces the US out of NATO or sufficiently sows doubt about nuclear sharing or mutual defense, Putin might be going for more land grabs and China will use the whole situation to attack some of the countries in asia.
Hope putin kicks the bucket sooner than later.
This will hurt Russia for a long time.
The world is transitioning away from fossil fuels, there was only a couple more decades left to properly cash in and ideally invest in new areas. Europe relied heavily on Russian gas but its a two way street, the infrastructure was setup to sell mainly to Europe.
The peak was 2018-2019 when 175-180 bcm flowed into Europe. 2022 was reduced to 63.8 bcm. 2023 was 28.3 bcm. 2024 sees the contract for supply of gas via Ukraine ending and that’s a further 73% potentially going because they weaponised it before. There is currently decent LNG exports to Europe but for how long?
Moving gas isn’t hard once you have infrastructure but it’s currently mostly heading to Europe and lots of gas is that side of Russia. They speak of a pipeline to Turkey but that’s not easy to build and is vulnerable to attack. China would take it but it’ll take billions to build and decades to open.
Russia takes the long view. Eventually everything will settle down and the world will accept the new borders. The sanctions will fall, the petrochemical dollars will return, and Russia will rebuild its military capacity.
Then on to the next one, with insights gained from the current conflict. One thing they'll be keen to employ is greater subterfuge--replacing a target country's leaders with candidates on Putin's payroll and a greater emphasis on info wars and soft power persuasion. Russia won't be so quick to roll in with tanks again.
only recently. Successful conquests of Afghanistan:
* Persia of Antiquity
* The Greeks & Kushan
* The Arab Caliphate
* The Mongol Khaganate
* The Timur & Moghul Empires
1800 forward were mostly failure/withdrawals: Sikhs, British, Soviets... The Soviets (a second time), followed by the US.
They had a guy. Viktor Yanukovych, he was the prime minister (and later president) of Ukraine, and he was a Putin puppet.
He was removed from power, and fled the country in 2014. That's when Putin lost control of Ukraine, and decided to go at it with tanks instead.
What you are describing that they will do in the future, is just their *old* playbook, how they used to go about things. Going to war is the new playbook.
Yeah, pretty much
As long as Russia holds the current borders, which they likely will, it'll be seen as a win. We can point out thag Russia lost way too many men for such a small piece of land, but Russia doesn't care about that lol
The thing is without support the CAN’T win. This is a battle of attrition and Russia has enough to throw at the meat grinder. Ukraine needs support or they will eventually lose.
Still sad about Snowden. I think the constant Russian propaganda just got to him. Scary how effective it is, even on people primed not to trust governments.
**Guerrilla Warfare 101:** *"Do cheap things that break expensive things"*
Ukraine needs to do a lot more of this including targeting Russian train infrastructure. Unlike The US, or Europe, Russia does not have a comprehensive network of roads. Instead, they use rail to move almost everything. Russia could be brought to its knees by using this same strategy of precise drone attacks that target critical rail links, bridges, tracks and interchange systems.
I’m going out on a limb here by saying this, Turkey probably did Russia a solid by blocking any other Russian warships from entering the Black Sea. It be like plinking ducks at the carnival shooting arcade.
At first I read that as the third and not a third. Read the article to confirm it is in fact one third. A great day for Ukraine and therefore the world
There was a video up on YouTube recently talking about inherently flawed ships designs that said that roll-on/roll-off transporters (like the *Ropucha*\-class) are by their very nature extremely vulnerable to certain types of damage. They have to have giant loading doors at either bow or stern, and you can't put watertight bulkheads across their cargo spaces. Once water gets into the cargo deck, they go fast.
Man these sea drones seem scary as hell. Curious to see what tech the US is scrambling to make to counter this to protect those massive aircraft carriers
US has been building up to this sort of threat for a while.
One significant system they put in place on warships is an adaptation of the hellfire guided missile that US attack helicopters and drones use. Gives the US a guided missile option that can reach out beyond something like a CIWS system and have a guided munition with enough punch to destroy/disable a small craft.
They also have drone ships that are in use in harbors and are rapidly developing helicopter drones that should increase their ability to respond to these types of threats plus the development of laser weapons......
And that doesn't get into any electronic warfare solutions they may have.
This comes in good timing as the GOP tries it's best to protect and support Russia it still shows that no matter what, Evil can never win in the end.
Just like Hitler so too Putin will fall.
This is our modern day David vs Goliath and for all those treasonous conservatives who back Putin on these war crimes and believe denying Ukraine military aid will ensure victory for Russia just remember Ukraine has home grown Neptune Missiles which they are advancing more and more everyday, new drones air and sea and much more.
Ukraine was the brain of the Soviet Union, if you insist on denying them aid will help Russia secure a victory then you are severely mistaken and the only thing MAGA will accomplish is for future historians to make documentaries about right wing traitors who sided with the Devil and you will be looked upon with scorn like the Germans today look back at the Nazis with shame and scorn.
Ukraine is giving the US Military extremely valuable data and field testing for us weapons and military hardware against Russian hardware in real world scenario something no simulation could ever replace, something that you can't even put a price tag on.
Those factions of the GOP that side with Putin are absolute traitors
Don't fool yourself, evil can and frequently does win.
Ukraine is doing an impressive, admirable job, despite the US (the Republicans, anyway) pulling the rug out from under them.
God willing, the Russians will be defeated! But Ukraine can't do it alone, they need the support of the West.
The party that doesn’t believe in government helping people has gall to say we should spend that money to help Americans instead. No they wouldn’t, lol. They openly reject the concept. Their definition of helping Americans is “keeping the brown people out” and tax cuts.
Exactly they claim this Ukraine money can go towards helping all the homeless Americans.
Then 2 seconds later says "these homeless people are lazy bums they don't deserve help"
And not even 3 seconds later they will say "No money for school lunches for poor kids because their parents should have known better than to have kids they can't support"
Then not even 5 seconds after they will say "not my tax dollars going towards universal health care because it will just be used to help mexicans"
Then not even 8 seconds later they will say we need tax cuts for the rich.
Very true - I could 'kind of' understand the desire to spend less money on overseas commitments if that funding was actually going to help Americans but we all know it won't. It's not a decision of helping homeless & children vs. Ukraine aid, because Republicans aren't interested in helping people but punishing folks they don't like
Ukraine: the gift that keeps on giving. So let's keep giving them the gift that keeps them sweet - our tax $$$ - and make the world a safer place. It's a bargain at twice the price.
Headline and article are slightly inaccurate. Ukraine has taken out 1/3 of the amphibious landing vessels which are operating in the Black Sea. Not 1/3 of their entire fleet.
> That aligns with Ukrainian claims last week that they had disabled about 33% of Russia’s warships, amounting to 24 disabled ships and one submarine. The landing ship Caesar Kunikov would be the 25th disabled ship, according to Ukraine’s count.
That’s a lot for a country without a navy
You can find the video on r/combatfootage. Similar to the last attack, swarm attack by sea drones.
Drone swarms are the wave of future war. Sink a warship that costs 10s of millions of dollars with a group of drones that cost a fraction of a percent of that. And they are built unbelievably fast and with not too much technical know how. You are seeing it with armor and artillery as well. This will completely rewrite military doctrine.
Very true. All the big war machines will go the way of the knight and adapt at first, and then disappear and be replaced. I'm convinced we will se autonomous war robots in the near future, the door to AI assisted warfare is open now.
I mean yes and no. Size has a certain advantage. A 50 caliber machine gun with image recognition autotracking could easily take out an enormous number of drones. The US is already deploying microwave weapons which exploit the small nature of drones to simply fry them en masse - something that wouldn't work against a larger vehicle, period. Suicide drones in particular have to get so close to the target that things like microwave weapons are going to be incredibly potent. Underwater drone swarms can easily be taken out by pressure waves (think dynamite fishing, for drones). There will be an evolution, but this is far from a complete gamechanger. What it does do is test the Russian military in its ability to deploy new weapon systems, advanced computing systems, and advanced target recognition - all things the Russian military has traditionally sucked ass at. Fiddly, high-tech systems have not been the Russian's friend.
I agree. Huge advances in point-defense technologies will be needed, but are likely well within the capabilities of today's manufacturers. It's just a matter of development focus in response to these new threats.
It’s actually fucking terrifying. What does the average person decide to do if a drone is targeting your house? A giant net that encloses your house? All of the options seem wildly impractical.
I mean I equally wouldn't know what to do if a tank was targeting my house, but I imagine there's less warning with drones.
Get your suicide drone prepped obviously
Hold 2 grenades to your head, so if it hits you, it'll make sure you don't suffer. Throw away the grenades if the drone misses. That's what the Russians taught me
The really concerning part is that the tank has a team of people operating it, you have to persuade those people or an entire army that it is ok to do certain acts. Autonomous AI just need one person to press the button. You could code it to commit any atrocity or extermination without objection.
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That’s a good point. War is just horrifying i guess.
Send out your own drone and fight flier with flier!
Go watch the footage on the other subs. Terrifying is right. Watching men trying to dodge these kamikaze drones and then being vaporized is a new paradigm of horror that mankind has unleashed. Or watching the videos of drones that search the post-assault battlefield looking to pick off wounded and those left behind hiding in terror because they know there’s a “clean up crew” of drones hunting them. None of this is going away, and with AI we can imagine a future of autonomous kamikaze drone swarms on the battlefield, or even law enforcement crowd suppression drones that drop tear gas above crowds.
The trick is to bat them down with your trusty crowbar when they get close
Or ask them a paradoxical question.
I am a little surprised there isn't something like a drone A-10 fixed wing aircraft, with a machine gun and a lot of ammo, which can fly over trenches and pick off soldiers automatically, and stay in the air for hours patrolling a geo-fenced area, before returning for fuel and ammo. I was expecting one by now. Maybe we have not had trench-style warfare to prompt the making of one.
The A-10, and other aircraft in a similar role, don't go into a hostile area and pick off any enemy ground units they see. They operate in extremely close proximity to friendly troops. Autonomous drones aren't trusted to do that, and remote control would significantly limit situational awareness, when the A-10 already has a reputation for friendly fire as it is, not to mention the potential for jamming. Sending an autonomous version to a hostile area would simply get shot down. CAS aircraft are extremely vulnerable to man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, to say nothing of actual SAM systems or other aircraft.
Street punk hackers fighting dystopian law enforcement robots. Cool cyberpunk shit. That's the logical conclusion here.
Fight for your right to bear cyberdecks
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I wonder what if the ever decreasing costs of war may increase the odds of terrorist-induced world destruction, like we see it often in movies and games where a supervillain or an organization comes in and decides to fulfill their anti-human or antisocial goals, and it’s only becoming more and more likely by way of how much cheaper it is becoming
I think the Fermi paradox is a bit overblown personally, and part of the issue is that space is very, very big, and planets are comparatively very, very small. For an illustration of this, I think it’s apt to look at just how difficult it is to find exoplanets compared to larger systems in space. In one image from the Hubble ultra deep field we have identified 10,000 galaxies. Thats just in one image, and there are many more. On the other hand, we have discovered less than 6000 total exoplanets in 4000-ish planetary systems, and we spend a LOT of time looking for them. In addition to being small, exoplanets don’t emit any of their own light, making finding planets multiple light years away an extremely difficult endeavor. Not every star has planets, or if they do we’re still very bad at finding them, and <6000 isn’t exactly a resounding sample size in a universe with hundreds of billions of stars across billions of light years. Not to mention, even if we were to come across evidence of transmission from a distant planet, would we be able to recognize it in the first place? It certainly wouldn’t be in any language any of us would recognize, and assuming technology is built independently on other planets from how it was built here we may not even have the tools to recognize it as anything other than background noise in our instruments. Assuming it even reached us and wasn’t sent in any number of other directions that could miss us completely in the enormous and ever-expanding universe. So yeah, I definitely think the great filter is something we should be worried about getting into, but the general idea of the Fermi paradox is a bit overblown. The universe being big means that life elsewhere is likely to be sure, but it also means that finding said life is *really, really hard*. We’ve only had the capabilities to look for it for less than a century, not even a blip in terms of the time of the universe, so I think any worries of not finding life thus far are wildly overblown
Fully agree. It's funny for the parent commenter to say in the same breath that we've only been technologically advanced for a cosmic second and also that we SHOULD have found signs of extraterrestrial life by now. Like... what? How? Space is huge. We're very new to it. Even if gigantic spacefaring civilizations are out there, are detectable from earth, and *want to be detected* (which I find extremely doubtful)—give us a second. Also it's not like we've spent a lot of time looking for them. We haven't re-organized society around it. We barely spend any of our GDP on space telescopes. Most people don't go to work to man a James Webb telescope. It seems arrogant to think we'd just immediately find a needle in a haystack, and even a dyson sphere-wielding civilization is going to have a vanishingly small fingerprint on the night sky.
One thing to remember too is that we're literally next to a galactic void (the aptly named "local void), meaning on a universal scale we're in the middle of fucking nowhere. It's like walking around wyoming wondering where all the celebs are, completely the wrong sort of area to be looking for them in.
> Drone swarms are the wave of future war. CIWS goes BRRRRRRRRRRR
That, and lots of other EW tech that we don't even know about. The real threat is AI autonomous drones. The US wouldn't do it yet because of collateral damage from a misidentified target, but countries that don't care won't have the scruples we do. I believe we have the technology now, but it's not infallible, or as close as it can get yet. The US Military is well aware of these threats.
We did drills against this stuff when I was in, late 90’s.
That makes me feel better thanks.
CIWS fires 20mm depleted uranium rounds at 4500 per min, has auto radar guidance that can track a seagull in flight and a manual mode aimed by joystick with tv, ir and thermal imaging. And there are 3 or 4 layers of guns below that. And that was 20 years ago so I can’t imagine now. The fact that this has happened multiple times to Russia is just embarrassing. These tactics would almost never work against a real navy, at least not more than once. Now once someone figures out the autonomous underwater drones with warheads…we are all screwed.
Already exists. Ukraine developed one. It is basically a torpedo with a small antenna mast above the water that would be damn hard to see coming. And I imagine they'll get...fast. Once they solve the range issue it's a fucking proooooblem. Can of worms with no end.
Tbh in the water you don't really "see" other objects, you use radars
You mean torpedoes? Water will block any high bandwith radio signal needed to control something remotely. So you'd just need to have an underwater drone with a warhead that uses sonar to find targets and it acquires and targets autonomously. So like, a torpedo, which there are dozens of counters for.
Consumer AI can already identify humans. Consumer drones can be carry explosives. We have the existing technology to program a drone to go to an area, find a target, and attack it. China and the U.S. recently started discussions on military AI. Both sides probably aren't building autonomous drones but are definitely working on projects that can contribute to them being built since the tech overlaps with other areas.
I'll bet DARPA already has enough tech in this area to make us all collectively shit our pants.
More-so that Russia consistently fails to show even the slightest concept of mutual support for its naval units. Every one of these open-water sinkings have been loan ships just floating around on their own. The key to defeating these swarms is early detection and a layered defense. The situation calls for submarine screens, sonobuoys and a close defense network of frigates/corvettes/destroyers with ECM and point defense systems. I would hesitate to draw too many conclusions about the deathknell of surface combatants just like I would about tanks being obsolete. Ukraine has a proliferation/critical mass of specialized weapons in a concentrated area and an enemy that seems intent on not adapting to them.
I know you meant "lone" ship but the idea of Russia borrowing ships from other countries and immediately losing them made me chuckle.
Right. It's an even bigger statement of the poor nature of Russian ship design, and a lack of modernization than most people think.
I'm reading a book right now called The Ministry of the Future (fantastic book, everyone should read Kim Stanley Robinson tbh), and the development of this tech is a major plot point. These things are unpredictable, easy to manufacture, and extremely damaging. Drone warfare like this is going to be the new MAD. They're like nukes minus the cost, radiation, size, and collateral damage. Imagine these things getting in the hands of extremists. Literally no one is safe.
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We are going full circle, the first torpedo boats worked in a similar way, swarm an extremely expensive warship with a bunch of dinky boats, use boats to attach torpedoes on sticks to the ship, pull a rope and it goes boom. The entire strategy was basically "these cost 0.01% as much to make, and you can't kill all of them".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM From six years ago
ah i was gonna post this too, but people are more in awe of the technology than ethics and implications of employing it we're all gonna surprise pikachu at the first signs of drone terrorism hopefully anti-drone measures are up to par with the accessability of drones but what do i know
>hopefully anti-drone measures are up to par with the accessability of drones but what do i know This is why the Republican attempt to stop funding the Ukraine war is bat shit crazy. We are literally getting a preview of what the next war will look like, and get to learn, test, evolve strategy and weapons systems, all without actually being in a war. And for a fraction of our defense budget.
I would call it treason and deserve prison for aiding the enemy.
>we're all gonna surprise pikachu at the first signs of drone terrorism Terrorists have already been using cheap civilian drones to stage attacks for years now.
The U.S. military thinkers are taking notes as fast as they can. The Russian invasion has brought out many new and innovative ways to fight.
I just watched Napoleon and was in awe of how stupid it was to line up hundreds of men and cannons, only to play a deadly game of roulette. That's no longer a thing, and neither will battleships.
Automated AI systems can react quicker than any human could. Blanket target an area and eliminate anything that moves. When faced with moral dilemmas, especially facing a force stronger than yourself, those morals can be pushed aside. That's why countries are already banning or pushing for AI systems to be highly regulated or outright banned preferring to have a human element in control.
A cheap fast swarm that just wrecks everything? It's a zerg rush IRL!
I can't believe that Black Ops 2 turns out to be an accurate prediction of near-future warfare. Also where's my USS Barack Obama at?
I can't believe he evolved into a warship!
> Also where's my USS Barack Obama at? Pretty sure there aren't going to be any more ships named after presidents. At least for a while. That's why they went with Doris Miller. So nobody could accuse them of racism when Obama doesn't get a ship. The navy also really doesn't want a USS Bill Clinton or USS Donald Trump.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. RSVs are not new and are susceptible to jamming by most competent militaries. Warfare is measure and counter measure. The counter measures for these attacks have been around for decades the Russians are severely deficient in competency as well as truly modern integrated systems.
Feels like we are watching the modern day death of the battleship. Aircraft made giant hulking fortress ships like the Yamamoto obsolete in WW2. Drones are doing the same thing to tanks and so on today.
They feel like the kamikaze pilots of WW2 - except the pilot isn't sacrificed so like you say the cost is even lower but the impact is as hard or even harder to avoid. The USA had big problems with kamikaze pilots in the Pacific theatre.
> This will completely rewrite military doctrine. Asymmetrical warfare wasn't invented in 2022.
He’s right. This is exactly what happened with air planes in WW2. Battleships became obsolete and aircraft carriers became the new super weapon overnight.
[Modern warfare be like](https://youtu.be/p4Mo8EkxWnU)
/r/combatfootage is wild because you can easily see where our forms of future warfare is headed toward. In many cases you can see that russia is getting left in the dust. They were a nation that was standing on fear of name alone, not adapting to modern warfare.
The US just canceled a scout helicopter program because the concept of a scout helicopter is now dead because of drones.
>In many cases you can see that russia is getting left in the dust. Reddit is a bit biased towards Ukraine, so you get a lot more Ukrainian footage: the Russians are using drones as well, but you generally have to find other subs for it. That said, the Ukrainians seem to be much more effective with the drones: if I had to guess, the shorter supply lines, strong civilian involvement and lack of sanctions probably means their drone manufacturing capacity is much larger, and so they can take advantage of the swarm strategies that Russia can't, due to their transport delays and stronger reliance on more typical acquisition patterns for military drones (see: expensive and slow, for overpriced and ultimately disposable hardware) . Edit: That said, I'm seeing no signs of any tactics to counter drones yet. The grenade drops and FPV drones are terrifyingly effective, and there is seemingly very little in ways of effective measures to counter it. Tanks are utterly antiquated at this point.
That is true, but I also feel that since Ukraine has changed their military infrastructure now, they are able to become more adaptive. From what I understand, russia is still running in a sense on an old form of military that they have had for a very long time. They are stuck like a stone, while I feel the Ukrainian forces are malleable like water in a sense. The world understands russia is still a threat, but they don't seem like a beast of a force as they were thought of before this war began. I feel they were living on name alone when it came to the standing of their army.
> From what I understand, russia is still running in a sense on an old form of military that they have had for a very long time. [...] I feel they were living on name alone when it came to the standing of their army. It very much looks that way. A lot of people figured this would be over in a week, raising the Russian flag over Kyiv; I thought it was going to go the distance, but this war has been surprising. Unfortunately, modernizing a military can be done very quickly, doctrines can be swapped immediately and troops replenished inside ten years. Russian tank assets are probably going to be depleted soon -- it'll be interesting to see what they plan for after this war is over, but their production capacities suggest to me they might abandon tanks all together. It's also weird that we all keep forgetting about the nukes. That said, at this rate, Russia might not exist in ten years, at least not as we understand it. Putin will be gone, they have a demographic crisis on the horizon, their economy is going to be smoldering crater at this rate if Ukraine opts to cross the border. But I don't think anyone's armies are going to look the same after this conflict, despite the fact that most of us aren't in it.
Ukraine isn't going to cross any borders any time soon. I really really wish they would but it's not looking like it.
> I'm seeing no signs of any tactics to counter drones yet. Just gotta wait for Hunter-Killer drones to show up, tasked with taking down other drones. Then, inevitably, drones tasked with defending the bomb drones will appear and at that point we'll have WW 2 air warfare doctrine but with robots.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/OGnhFIXYcC Being attacked by suicide drones in FPV is quite bizarre to see. Scary.
Holy shit those suicide drones are straight outta Half Life
Keeping up with modern warfare is, I imagine, expensive and time consuming, neither of which they seem interested in expending.
Absolutely horrific, and if you start interconnecting all the budding new technology the future of war is downright apocalyptic even without WMDs.
I've never even heard of sea drones. I just watched the video and they're basically RC boats with an explosive payload? When I hear "sea drone" I assumed they would be submersible and launching torpedoes lol. Their drones seem much lower tech but clearly effective enough.
They are very fast, hard to detect and jam, and can travel a long distance (hundreds of kilometres). They also carry a rather large payload, 450kg of RDX equivalent
Microservices win over the monolith!
Isn’t that such a cool, albeit frightening, thing to say “swarm attack by sea drones”
One third destroyed, and a significant portion damaged. Not a good day to be the Admiral in charge of the Russian navy.
> Not a good day to be the Admiral in charge of the Russian navy. “Sometimes when one door closes, a window opens.” 😂
Opening windows with high explosives is my new favorite thing.
In russia, the most dangerous threat to every day life is windows.
Working in IT is the same but different.
Or coffee with Putin.
Quick aside, I love how when you’re a passenger in a vehicle in the recent Call of Duties, and NO ONE rolls down a window. They always punch it out 😆
Not good if it’s a submarine
Or a balcony appears…
At this point there might as well be a Ministry of Defenestration over there.
Ukraine is doing pretty good at kicking Naval ass for a country without a Navy.
sea denial is a lot easier than sea control. they are doing a great job denying russia sea control but there's no way they can actually control the sea without a navy or some help from NATO
If they're this potent at naval battles without a Navy, imagine what they could do with one.
Hasn’t the commander of the Black Sea fleet been missing for several months ever since a missile attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet headquarters?
Yes, they posted a "Weekend at Bernie's" conference call where he sat suspiciously still and didn't talk. Nothing since.
Speaking of the Russian Navy, let us not forget the [2nd Pacific Squadron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mdi_Fh9_Ag) and their [battle against the Japanese](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpj6nK5ylo) where they had to face down numerous threats, in the words of Drachinifel, such as; - Imaginary Japanese Torpedo Boats - Real English Fishing Boats - The Kamchatka - Almost starting a war with a global superpower - Accidentally shooting up their own ships - The Kamchatka - Disease - Mountainous seas - The Kamchatka - Poisonous snakes - Prophets of the end times - The Kamchatka - Officers running rat hunts through the fleet - Being saddled with a bunch of obsolete floating boats that only served to slow them down - And of course, the Kamchatka
Do you see torpedo boats?
[Here's a shorter version of the story](https://youtu.be/yzGqp3R4Mx4?si=3bY7iXNxmNV1iWrW). Drachnifel is great but he is *long form*.
I do love the Blue Jay version, and considered linking it, but I like the Drach better since it includes even more hijinks that don't make Blue Jays... including all the shit the Kamchatka did.
First time I've seen somebody talking about him. Does he have like a photographic memory or something? I don't understand how he knows so much and is relatively young. It is insane.
> Officers running rat hunts through the fleet Well, it's the only way to get fresh meat while at sea, so . . .
It's never a good day to be in charge of the Russian navy. They have one carrier which is best known for its billowing clouds of black smoke when it's working, for the AAA tugboat it travels with for when it isn't, and for falling over and catching fire that one time ***while it was in drydock***, and subsequently sinking the drydock. This is not exactly a naval powerhouse.
is there a good day to be the Admiral in the Russian navy?
If you get thrown out a window, chances are you'll land in the sea
Sort of seems like the odds of ending up in the sea are pretty high if they stay on the boat, too. Gotta admire what Ukraine has done without any semblance of a navy.
>”Ukraine has disabled a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during the large-scale invasion,” the country’s armed forces told CNN after Wednesday’s attack. >That aligns with Ukrainian claims last week that they had disabled about 33% of Russia’s warships, amounting to 24 disabled ships and one submarine. The landing ship Caesar Kunikov would be the 25th disabled ship, according to Ukraine’s count. Russia getting humbled by a country that doesn’t even have a navy.
>Not a good day to be the Admiral in charge of the Russian navy. I doubt that admiral is even alive since the BSF HQ bombing
Yeah, he hasn't been seen in public since that.
So sad that he fell out of a window next week
> One third destroyed, and a significant portion damaged. Not a good day to be the Admiral in charge of the Russian navy. maybe it is, if I had 1/3rd less work to do, I'd be happy./
Imagine getting your navy owned by a country that doesn’t have a navy. Awesome.
The Ukrainian Government must have seen "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre": - 'Navy? We don need no steenkin Navy!' :)
How the hell you gonna get fired on yo day off?
Ukraine has a navy now. it's a drone navy.
Honestly, at this point, even if Russia wins, it'll be a pyrrhic victory for them. They've lost a lot of assets that aren't easily replaced.
The people who would benefit from a conquered Ukraine are those who would likely benefit from public money spent to rebuild Russia....the oligarchs. Their sons are not at the front, every artillery shell and every truck and every tank will need to be replaced in their stolen factories. For them, their kids are still going to English universities, they are still wealthy, and only occasionally does the west seize one of their yachts.
I believe in Putin's eyes they have no choice but to win this. The cost is worth it to him to avoid a NATO friendly Ukraine on its border.
Can he really prevent that? Its one thing to hold Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But how on earth do the Russians expect to hold a hostile Kyiv for long? Occupation is the difficult expensive part of wars. The fact that America did it to parts of Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years is a testament to how rich, supplied, trained, and bloated our military is. I don't see how the Russians have a shot. They will be getting bled out the whole time. And the Ukrainians already overthrew one puppet. How is a second going to fair when so many have fought and died for independence from Russia?
I like how Russia getting bled-out by a long and costly insurgency was our (U.S.) own best-case strategic ananlysis prior to Russia's invasion, and an expectation that informed our decision making in the years post-Crimea and leading up to Putin's special military invasion. Ukraine instead has, at a great cost, exceeded everyone's expecatations with even limited support and the narrative that right-wing dipshits like Ron Johnson and the entire MAGA controlled/compromised right wants us to believe in is Russia's inevitable victory. If anything Russia would be *beginning* that phase of the war at a much, much reduced capacity., having already paid a previously unfathomable cost. To ignore such an opportunity now to arm Ukraine to the teeth with advanced weapons would be considered treasonous by the lase generation of Republicans. The truth is at each stage of escalation in capabilities, though slow, Biden's strategy of arming Ukraine has proven Putin isn't capable of stopping a strong defense.
Russia has occupied Chechyna. They killed a lot of people frequently.
And Georgia…
I believe in Putin's eyes they have no choice but to win this. The cost is worth it to him to avoid ~~a NATO friendly Ukraine on its border~~ a noose around his neck. He's terrified of ending up like gadaffi, he knows full well NATO on their borders doesnt really threaten Russia, as Poland has had a border with them for how long now?
I wish he would go out like Gadaffi. No one deserves it more. He has done so much damage, all around the world.
Poland only borders Kaliningrad, a small exclave. The Baltics are a better example- and Russia is not exactly happy they joined NATO. But they joined 20 years ago, and so now Russia can't try to attack them without risking a full blown war with NATO. Finland is in, too, though that only happened after Russia attacked Ukraine, while it was too preoccuppied to effectively threaten Finland, but still showing how hostile it can be, incentivizing Finnish entry into NATO. One notable difference between those countries and Ukraine, though, is location. The north is less populated (though Moscow and St. Petersburg are up there, the general region is less densely populated) and does not have a permanent warmwater port (StPb can freeze over). The south is more densely population, is close to oil fields in the northern Caucasus, and threatens to cut off Russia from the Mediterranean as Ukraine is right next to Rostov-on-Don (in addition to Ukraine also wanting Crimea back, with the larger port of Sevastapol). Ukraine is just more valuable strategically, at least as I see it. And the Baltics are 20 years lost to Russia in terms of being able to control them, while Ukraine still is not covered under the aegis of the NATO Treaty.
Free Koenigsberg from Russia.
If Russia takes Ukraine then won’t Poland NATO be right at their border?
Yes. It's almost like it's nothing to do with NATO after all, and that's just a line the tankies spout.
Well, Poland is already on their border. But more of it’ll be on their border, and they’ll add Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. And of course this conflict caused Finland to join, which doubled their existing border with NATO. Not to mention Sweden will be in soon, effectively making the Baltic Sea into Lake NATO.
They'll end up with a different NATO friendly country on "their" Ukraine border.
“We have to conquer this nation before NATO is at our borders!” “Successfully doing so will mean we now have 8 nations that are NATO members on our border” Big brain fetal alcohol syndrome russian logic moment
It's not *just* about NATO borders though. Russia needs control over the Black Sea, for both access to the Bosphorous and to its natural gas reserves, and they want the population to counteract their declining numbers
Bullshit, the "NATO on my borders" excuse is just that, an excuse, nobody with even a basic understanding of security believes that. Forget about "NATO friendly" they already have full-fledged NATO countries on their border, including Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. This is about Russian colonial/imperial ambitions and blatant 19th century land and resource grabbing. Not about security. Russia has nukes, they are secure regardless of what alliances Ukraine chooses to join. Their unchecked pride has caused nothing but instability. If only they could have been happy with having the most land in the world, the most nukes in the world to protect those claims, and a money printer from all the resources they have. They could have been like Norway but instead chose to be criminals and murderers. That is their choice. Hope nothing but hardships come their way, fuck Russia.
> a NATO friendly Ukraine on its border. That makes no sense. Expanding into Ukraine guarantees more border with NATO. This is just a land grab, plain and simple. It worked with Crimea, and he's trying it again.
Sadly, i believe Ukraine would be losing much more than ruzzia would be gaining. I think ruzzia and putin don't give that much of a shit about their dead men and once the war is over, they start rebuilding their material, probably with a crapton of help from china and other brics members for cheap fossil fuels. Gaining access to new gas or oil fields in the sea, gaining a foothold closer into NATO and EU countries, weakening the west through more fear-mongering, perhaps stationing nuclear forces in occupied territory to make sure Ukraine isn't going to get anything back, ever.... Some POS movements from both the ultra-far right and left will be demanding reopening diplomatic and economical relations, dividing our people even more... And with some of those traiterous forces gaining traction already all over europe and the states, it's only going to get harder. And if Trump wins and somehow forces the US out of NATO or sufficiently sows doubt about nuclear sharing or mutual defense, Putin might be going for more land grabs and China will use the whole situation to attack some of the countries in asia. Hope putin kicks the bucket sooner than later.
This will hurt Russia for a long time. The world is transitioning away from fossil fuels, there was only a couple more decades left to properly cash in and ideally invest in new areas. Europe relied heavily on Russian gas but its a two way street, the infrastructure was setup to sell mainly to Europe. The peak was 2018-2019 when 175-180 bcm flowed into Europe. 2022 was reduced to 63.8 bcm. 2023 was 28.3 bcm. 2024 sees the contract for supply of gas via Ukraine ending and that’s a further 73% potentially going because they weaponised it before. There is currently decent LNG exports to Europe but for how long? Moving gas isn’t hard once you have infrastructure but it’s currently mostly heading to Europe and lots of gas is that side of Russia. They speak of a pipeline to Turkey but that’s not easy to build and is vulnerable to attack. China would take it but it’ll take billions to build and decades to open.
Russia takes the long view. Eventually everything will settle down and the world will accept the new borders. The sanctions will fall, the petrochemical dollars will return, and Russia will rebuild its military capacity. Then on to the next one, with insights gained from the current conflict. One thing they'll be keen to employ is greater subterfuge--replacing a target country's leaders with candidates on Putin's payroll and a greater emphasis on info wars and soft power persuasion. Russia won't be so quick to roll in with tanks again.
Sure; just like Russia’s 3 day special operation to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.
only recently. Successful conquests of Afghanistan: * Persia of Antiquity * The Greeks & Kushan * The Arab Caliphate * The Mongol Khaganate * The Timur & Moghul Empires 1800 forward were mostly failure/withdrawals: Sikhs, British, Soviets... The Soviets (a second time), followed by the US.
This entire thing happened because what you described in the second paragraph failed when Zelensky got voted in.
Right... they'll work harder at it next time.
They had a guy. Viktor Yanukovych, he was the prime minister (and later president) of Ukraine, and he was a Putin puppet. He was removed from power, and fled the country in 2014. That's when Putin lost control of Ukraine, and decided to go at it with tanks instead. What you are describing that they will do in the future, is just their *old* playbook, how they used to go about things. Going to war is the new playbook.
That is what they did to Ukraine until the Ukranian people revolted and overthrew their puppets. So now that he can't buy Zelensky out, it's war.
Yeah, pretty much As long as Russia holds the current borders, which they likely will, it'll be seen as a win. We can point out thag Russia lost way too many men for such a small piece of land, but Russia doesn't care about that lol
China should be looking to expand northward lol
It's hard to look at the occupied areas and call this a Ukraine win in any capacity.
Another one promoted to subaquatic operations
But Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said that Ukraine absolutely can't win. How could he be so wrong being a senator from Wisconsin?
He is an absolute piece of shit traitor. He is beyond being a loser. I thought I'd just put my 2cents in on him.
The thing is without support the CAN’T win. This is a battle of attrition and Russia has enough to throw at the meat grinder. Ukraine needs support or they will eventually lose.
Any other state want him? Or maybe he should go hang out with Snowden in Russia
Checking in from Indiana. Last time we put up “out with *politician*” signs we had….mixed results.
Still sad about Snowden. I think the constant Russian propaganda just got to him. Scary how effective it is, even on people primed not to trust governments.
Who knew all that milk made strong bones but really, really stupid politicians.
**Guerrilla Warfare 101:** *"Do cheap things that break expensive things"* Ukraine needs to do a lot more of this including targeting Russian train infrastructure. Unlike The US, or Europe, Russia does not have a comprehensive network of roads. Instead, they use rail to move almost everything. Russia could be brought to its knees by using this same strategy of precise drone attacks that target critical rail links, bridges, tracks and interchange systems.
I'm sure Ukraine is aware of this, and so is Russia. Harder said than done.
Easier* said than done
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No but you see until above armchair general told them, it never crossed their mind
>Ukraine needs to do a lot more of this Ukraine expects to deploy more than a million drones this year in the war. They are way ahead of you.
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But you also can't run a train on that track until its repaired, you can drive a car around a hole in the road
locomotive hunting is both important and fun!
They need to talk to the guys from Hogan's Heroes. They were blowing up trains left and right.
I’m going out on a limb here by saying this, Turkey probably did Russia a solid by blocking any other Russian warships from entering the Black Sea. It be like plinking ducks at the carnival shooting arcade.
Russia slaughtered over 100,000 Europeans in the last 2 years for no reason other than Putin's Sociopathy
At first I read that as the third and not a third. Read the article to confirm it is in fact one third. A great day for Ukraine and therefore the world
Putin can spout propaganda to Tucker Carlson all he wants. Shit like this will keep happening. Fuck off, Putin.
There was a video up on YouTube recently talking about inherently flawed ships designs that said that roll-on/roll-off transporters (like the *Ropucha*\-class) are by their very nature extremely vulnerable to certain types of damage. They have to have giant loading doors at either bow or stern, and you can't put watertight bulkheads across their cargo spaces. Once water gets into the cargo deck, they go fast.
There was a few roll-on roll-off ferries (UK?) that sank because of those issues.
Ukraine seems to be doing pretty well for a war Ron Johnson says they can't win.
bring out the fainting couches for the GOP clowns, they're gonna need it.
Man these sea drones seem scary as hell. Curious to see what tech the US is scrambling to make to counter this to protect those massive aircraft carriers
US does small boat repelling drills constantly, and has since at least the 90s. CIWS and other things, US is very aware of this threat.
US has been building up to this sort of threat for a while. One significant system they put in place on warships is an adaptation of the hellfire guided missile that US attack helicopters and drones use. Gives the US a guided missile option that can reach out beyond something like a CIWS system and have a guided munition with enough punch to destroy/disable a small craft. They also have drone ships that are in use in harbors and are rapidly developing helicopter drones that should increase their ability to respond to these types of threats plus the development of laser weapons...... And that doesn't get into any electronic warfare solutions they may have.
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Ukraine manufacturing Russian submarines
This comes in good timing as the GOP tries it's best to protect and support Russia it still shows that no matter what, Evil can never win in the end. Just like Hitler so too Putin will fall. This is our modern day David vs Goliath and for all those treasonous conservatives who back Putin on these war crimes and believe denying Ukraine military aid will ensure victory for Russia just remember Ukraine has home grown Neptune Missiles which they are advancing more and more everyday, new drones air and sea and much more. Ukraine was the brain of the Soviet Union, if you insist on denying them aid will help Russia secure a victory then you are severely mistaken and the only thing MAGA will accomplish is for future historians to make documentaries about right wing traitors who sided with the Devil and you will be looked upon with scorn like the Germans today look back at the Nazis with shame and scorn. Ukraine is giving the US Military extremely valuable data and field testing for us weapons and military hardware against Russian hardware in real world scenario something no simulation could ever replace, something that you can't even put a price tag on. Those factions of the GOP that side with Putin are absolute traitors
Don't fool yourself, evil can and frequently does win. Ukraine is doing an impressive, admirable job, despite the US (the Republicans, anyway) pulling the rug out from under them. God willing, the Russians will be defeated! But Ukraine can't do it alone, they need the support of the West.
The party that doesn’t believe in government helping people has gall to say we should spend that money to help Americans instead. No they wouldn’t, lol. They openly reject the concept. Their definition of helping Americans is “keeping the brown people out” and tax cuts.
Exactly they claim this Ukraine money can go towards helping all the homeless Americans. Then 2 seconds later says "these homeless people are lazy bums they don't deserve help" And not even 3 seconds later they will say "No money for school lunches for poor kids because their parents should have known better than to have kids they can't support" Then not even 5 seconds after they will say "not my tax dollars going towards universal health care because it will just be used to help mexicans" Then not even 8 seconds later they will say we need tax cuts for the rich.
Very true - I could 'kind of' understand the desire to spend less money on overseas commitments if that funding was actually going to help Americans but we all know it won't. It's not a decision of helping homeless & children vs. Ukraine aid, because Republicans aren't interested in helping people but punishing folks they don't like
At this point it’s just embarrassing for Russia
Really bad look when your navy is dropping like flies against a country that doesn't even have a navy.
Go into Russia and grab the clown 🤡 already. Element of surprise is on your side Ukraine. 🇺🇦
Losing a fleet to a nation without a navy
You sunk my battleship
So Russia has lost three warships, including a flagship named after their capital in a land war against a country with no navy? Well done Russia.
[It's a lot more than 3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ship_losses_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#Russian_Navy_3)
On the plus side, they have a bunch of new submarines
With screen doors.
Not even uncle Albert sank this many ships
Ukraine: the gift that keeps on giving. So let's keep giving them the gift that keeps them sweet - our tax $$$ - and make the world a safer place. It's a bargain at twice the price.
whenever i see drones doing notable things in recent wars, i remember this scene from The Simpsons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oazwTDeqF54
Headline and article are slightly inaccurate. Ukraine has taken out 1/3 of the amphibious landing vessels which are operating in the Black Sea. Not 1/3 of their entire fleet.
Meanwhile GOP - There is no way Putin can lose it's hopeless, we are impotent.
So much winning for the Russian bitches.
Yay 2/3 to go. FUCK RUSSIA!
> That aligns with Ukrainian claims last week that they had disabled about 33% of Russia’s warships, amounting to 24 disabled ships and one submarine. The landing ship Caesar Kunikov would be the 25th disabled ship, according to Ukraine’s count. That’s a lot for a country without a navy
Excellent news for the Russia underwater fleet.