Neich capabilities are always tempting low hanging fruit for government defence cuts... I guess you mean niche capabilities? They may be niche in terms of current capabilities, but invaluable I'd argue to maintain memory and experience of how to use that particular type of capability, ie to retain ...

Any thoughts on the Zaluzhny essay/article in The Economist that concedes that the Ukraine war has apparently reached a deadlock? He seems to hold out little prospect of a material change now from stalemate/deadlock and thinks that, for example, the delivery of F16 is now too late to be offer a deci...

I think ORYX stopped because he needed to "get a life" - there was just too much work involved. He regularly asked people NOT to send him money & donated anything he was sent to Ukrainian causes. That may well be true and I'm sure that's part of the picture. But there was also a lot o...

It would be interesting for a breakdown of equipment losses comparing artillery ,auv,s and other methods ,in considering which are the most effective . This is available in various places, though not necessarily in the level of detail that you might ideally like - independent analysts can only real...

Well-argued strategic analysis of the future of the Ukraine war:

I'm really not sure what these international aid comparisons are meant to show for two reasons: 1. How do you arrive at an honest figure for a country's contribution? It really makes no sense to use the original production cost (sometimes inflation-corrected) for equipment manufactured years ago and...

mrclark303 wrote: ↑23 Aug 2023, 13:45 Absolutely tip top, I assume Storm Shadow dropped the hammer

Early reports are saying Harpoon or Neptune, presumably modified versions to hit land-based targets. Maybe some more definitive info will emerge. Storm Shadow use does seem to have tapered off recently for whatever reason.

Just wondering which sources of information on the Ukraine war that people here find most credible? The source that I like most for daily updates are the YouTube videos from ATP Geopolitics (Jonathan Pearce) like this first one from today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EPTd_aEBEc How he manages r...

https://twitter.com/johnsweeneyroar/status/1689911186794405888?s=61&t=-w58-AqEK8dlq02bHexwZA That's a bizarrely pessimistic piece and doesn't accord with what most other informed commentators are saying. The expectation among the more serious voices always seemed to be that progress on the sout...

If they work as is claimed in the Telegraph then really we should be ordering a few thousand for ourselves as well. The downside is that this sort of thing will probably lead to a global 'drone race' where countries hold larger and larger stockpiles to overwhelm air defences. That is surely inevita...

More background dissection to the Bronk paper here:

...but hey looks good but still a 5th gen looking design like the Turkish/ south Korean ,and FCAS 6th design etc to my unknowledgeable eyes lol, suppose it's down too what's onboard tech GCAP that's making it 6th gen ? ,Think I've got in my brain the 6th gen designs from America and China without v...

RunningStrong wrote: ↑28 Mar 2023, 20:22 Gunnery exchanges have been common for decades.

Yes, I'm sure. Just quite a coincidence that the exchange gunner happened to figure in this particular video. Not suggesting anything sinister or similar in it, but just caught my eye.

Interesting to see the US-uniformed instructor/evaluator (?) there as part of the training team.

See there have been sirens throughout Ukraine today and still ongoing:

https://tryvoha.com/en

NB Luhansk oblast is always red - not sure why.

Not saying it's an easy call, but if you want a UK domestic arms industry then you can't be TOO choosy who you sell it to. The UK market for all types of arms is just too small to support domestic manufacture without export into a very competitive international marketplace or participation in big wo...

Seems like a reasonably informed analysis of the air war in Ukraine thus far: (Don't be put off by the redtop title)

I think the best way to put it is that both coherent and incoherent beams obey the inverse square law, but in different ways. A point source's power varies according to the surface area of a sphere (4πr2) whereas the coherent beam varies in proportion to the cross-sectional area of the beam (πr2). ...

Lasers - Light and other electromagnetic radiation is subject to the Inverse Square Law (the major physics barrier) which explains the drastic laser light fall-off in power with increasing distance of the target eg at 2 km only able to deliver 1/4 of the power at 1 km, at 3 km its down to 1/9th, at...

The old joke in the US R&D community comes to mind "lasers are the weapons of the future ... and always will be". The problem with this sort of 'joke' is that it denies the possibility of major technological advances. Look at what the advent of REBCO magnets has done for the prospects...

Might be of interest:

There's also been some additional commentary on YouTube (up for a few days now) here:



And also a follow-up video with the new crash footage:

Quite a scary but impressive video:

An interesting little Christmas distraction:

Just a short piece of take-off footage, but brought to life.