[koube]

I don't have perfect knowledge of this but disagreeing with military leaders based on a couple videos is definitely non-credible. Linking Russian drone propaganda is useful to let people know that drones exist perhaps, but not for much beyond that.

Beyond that central theme, certain things don't pass the smell test in my opinion. For example:

- Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Additionally Ukraine is winning on artillery attrition, with some claims of a 3:1 ratio of attrition, so drones are not significant on this, at least not significant enough to overturn the attrition rates.

- Russia has swarms of drones that home in on RF sources. I have seen no such thing although I am open to being proven wrong here. My understanding is that jamming has been effective for both Russia and Ukraine EXCEPT for offensives where the attackers need to extend beyond the protection of EW.

- Western weapons get less useful by the minute. This one is technically true as all armies adapt to new challenges. However I wonder what the condition of the Crimean bridge is today.

[mrguyorama]

>Lancets are winning the war.

This is a laughable claim. Lancets are awesome weapons, cost effective, accurate, and productive. But they cannot win the war on their own in any sense. They require certain intelligence to use effectively, intelligence that Russia is getting less of than Ukraine through NATO. More artillery is being destroyed by other artillery than Lancets. They just aren't made in the quantity that 152mm shells are.

>Russia has swarms of drones that home in on RF sources. Why do you state this and then immediately say you have seen zero evidence? You can't just release a swarm of RF seeking drones into the sky, you'll blow up all your own people and stuff too.

>Western weapons get less useful by the minute. Could you provide ANYTHING to back up such an assertion.

[mcpackieh]

FFS... you're getting confused by koube's botched formatting and making the same formatting mistake at the same time! He put the claims that don't pass his sniff test on the same line as his skeptical remarks about those claims, without any formatting to differentiate the two.

> "- Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Additionally Ukraine is winning on artillery attrition, with some claims of a 3:1 ratio of attrition, so drones are not significant on this, at least not significant enough to overturn the attrition rates."

The first sentence is the claim that doesn't pass his sniff test. The rest of that line is his explanation for why it doesn't pass his sniff test. It should be something like

> - "Lancets are winning the war"

> Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Additionally Ukraine is winning on artillery attrition, with some claims of a 3:1 ratio of attrition, so drones are not significant on this, at least not significant enough to overturn the attrition rates.

And

> "- Western weapons get less useful by the minute. This one is technically true as all armies adapt to new challenges. However I wonder what the condition of the Crimean bridge is today."

Should be formatted like

> - "Western weapons get less useful by the minute."

> This one is technically true as all armies adapt to new challenges. However I wonder what the condition of the Crimean bridge is today.

But then you made the same mistake right here:

">Western weapons get less useful by the minute. Could you provide ANYTHING to back up such an assertion."

That should be formatted as

> "Western weapons get less useful by the minute"

> Could you provide ANYTHING to back up such an assertion.

[mrguyorama]

I think what confused me was that I didn't see anyone actually making those assertions, so I assumed they were doing so.

Ooof

[koube]

The thread now is very different from the thread at midnight when there was low comment volume. This[0] was the only top level comment and there wasn't much pushback, like one person disagreeing.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36736090

[Mat3777]

>and this makes me more knowledgable than military leaders and qualified to dictate the direction of military procurement. How would you know who is qualified for what?

[koube]

I... just explained that. I am confident that the commenters talking about these things are not qualified based on the things they're saying. I wasn't making any allusions to being an expert on military matters. I'm saying these people are obviously not qualified, and I explained what makes me think that.

[Mat3777]

How do you know your preferred experts are experts?

[koube]

This seems like a very philosophical discussion. I'm not sure what you want here. Do you want me to explain reading the news? You take in new information, and if it disagrees with your prior knowledge, then you make a judgement call on what the truth probably is. We don't understand global politics from first principles.

[Mat3777]

What information do you have with regards to ""How would you know who is qualified for what?

[hajile]

Lancet is so powerful in this war that I'd be shocked if we aren't currently working on our own version as fast as we can.

CAS is critical to advances. It is somewhat stopped by MANPADS, but stopped very hard by SAMs. When flying close to the trees, physics make it so that a SAM radar can't detect a plane until they are within 5-8 miles. This means intercepting a plane or helicopter attacking the front lines (launching missiles from a distance) puts the radar very close to the front.

Lancet has a range of about 30 miles, so if you place your SAMs close enough to intercept the planes, they are now in striking distance of the Lancet. Because the Lancet flies in so low and has such a tiny radar cross-section, intercepting it is incredibly hard. Even if it is intercepted, using a $4,000,000 missile to destroy a $35,000 drone is a terrible deal. This deal is even worse when you consider Ukraine can't get any more S-300 rockets and Patriot missiles are of very limited production per year (500 or so IIRC).

Going further, our newest 155mm artillery is the M777 and we've given a bunch to Ukraine. Setting aside the maintenance issue (we admitted 30% are in the shop at any given time which isn't surprising given the reliability issues our marines have had with them), their maximum range is under 20 miles which puts them in the range of a Lancet too.

Russia has had to rely on Kornet ATGMs for most of the war. These are direct fire, so hitting the weak top of a tank is almost impossible. There are videos of a Leopard seeming to take a couple Kornet hits and still being serviceable. In contrast, the Lancet offers Russia the ability to do downward attacks at the thin top armor. We have videos of them doing exactly this to take out a Leopard or two. This issue exists not just for tanks, but for artillery and other vehicles based on the Leopard chassis.

Circling back around, this leads to the artillery attrition. Russia has been consistently shooting 5-10x as many shells as Ukraine. Ukraine is basically out of Soviet 152mm shells and doesn't have a great way to replace parts on their Soviet artillery anyway. NATO has basically given all the spare 155mm shells we have. We're ramping up production, but we won't be matching Russia's advantage for a couple more years at the earliest. This is one of the reasons Biden wants to send cluster munitions -- we're out of everything else.

The Russian drone swarms stuff is just propaganda. There's been no evidence of anything like that. The closest to this is definitely Ukraine with all the small suicide drones they've been pushing out which don't work well against armored targets, but work very well against personnel (and you can't hold ground without people).

Western weapons is more about perception than anything. We in America have a superiority complex when it comes to our equipment. When you aren't facing people with AKs and outdated RPGs, our equipment is a lot more vulnerable than people want to believe. Tanks, IFVs, MRAPs, artillery, etc have all been only a little better than Russia's stuff because ATGMs, drones, and mines are proving to be so powerful. On the flip side, Patriot, MANPADS, and Javelin ATGMs have been and continue to be absolutely stellar.

Based on the crushed Ukrainian offensive (still haven't reached the first true defensive line), I can say without reservation that what Ukraine needs is: attack helicopters to work on defense, more ATGMs, 10x as many man-portable EW systems, and an attack drone that actually works.

[koube]

Counter battery radar + $50k gmlrs with better range and better time on target and 182k tungsten balls seems more like a winning plan than a spotting drone and $35k drone that flies slowly, has limited range, is vulnerable to to EW, and needs to hit the target directly.

You have made a lot of points why the lancets MIGHT be very good, and certainly it's one of the most effective weapons on the Russian side today. However my central point remains the same: Ukraine is winning the artillery attrition war despite these features. In order to be a game changer you need to actually change the game, if you're losing 3:1 of your artillery pieces or even 2:1 then it calls in to question how much your weapon is changing the nature of warfare.

Some of your speculation I agree with it and some I don't but on the whole I want to avoid making affirmative statements on the direction of the war, since as I said before, I am not an expert on this. Anything I say would just be speculation.

If anyone is curious to know more, Perun on youtube does powerpoint presentations which SEEM mostly level headed:

- Focus on economics, production, and procurement

- Presents statements of multiple sources, does not take any at face value

- Is clear about what information he knows and doesn't know

- Is incredibly boring which fits my mental stereotype of people who know what they're talking about

[hajile]

I've seen quite a few videos of Lancet drones taking out counter-battery radars. There are issues there (a Russian general got in big trouble for speaking out about this), but it is largely overstated.

HIMARS are basically identical in capabilities to the Russian Tornado S MLRS (which is actually a little newer than HIMARS). Turn off the GPS and the accuracy is worse than artillery.

Lancets don't generally run into EW issues because if there is EW in the area, the spotter drone is affected.

Losses are a very subjective thing and if you look through Oryx yourself, you'll see some interesting repetition. I'll leave that there.

I've watched almost every video Perun has made, but he's not always right.

[koube]

If we're comparing videos, HIMARS destroyed 5 SPGs, nearly an entire battery of 6[0][1]. GPS coordinates here of all of them being in the same field[2], likely from the same battery. The ability to film drone kills is useful, but that doesn't compare to eliminating entire artillery batteries in a day in an artillery war.

Tornado S uses GLONASS just like HIMARS uses GPS. They can both be jammed. Tornado S were also already used in Ukraine but they don't use them a lot. Perhaps the supply chain of guided munitions is not great.

We can compare Ukranian vs Russian weapons all day but the proof is in the pudding. It doesn't matter how great the features of Russian weapons are if they can't match the kill rate of Ukrainian weapons.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1497511/m142...

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1497hms/dest...

[2]: https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/166895463035136409...

[kcb]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aevex_Phoenix_Ghost

[hajile]

Switchblade is in Ukraine, but has performed quite badly.

A new design is needed IMO.

[mcpackieh]

Not a rhetorical question:

Has the switchblade performed poorly because the design is inadequate, or has it performed poorly because the it's not suited for Ukraine's situation? If Ukraine had a supply of Lancet clones, would they be performing well for Ukraine?

[hajile]

Switchblade 300 is basically an expensive shotgun shell designed to avoid collateral damage. It was made for special forces to take out very specific threats. Ukraine has been doing much better with commercial drones dropping grenades into trenches.

Lancet-3 is a disposable 12kg drone made pretty cheaply. The Switchblade 600 is 55kg and pretty expensive (not to mention the massive difference between hauling around 26lbs vs 120lbs).

A Switchblade 400/500 with a lower weight could hit that sweet spot too, but I don't think it was ever designed. My guess is that we'll see it and some other solutions in the near future.

If Ukraine had a Lancet-style drone, I believe it could make a massive difference taking out stuff far behind the lines pressuring Russian artillery and tanks.