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There's past military technology, presently-used military technology and the 'we know this will become available sometime' military technology.
The presently-used tech is a mix of months to up to 80 years old technology. It's very much possible that people will mistake the newest of this technology for the technology of the future.
The armed MALE (medium altitude long endurance) drones (such as Bayraktar TB-2) seemed to be such a future tech for a few months until Russian air defences got their act together. Now it's the loitering munitions (both the mil-spec ones and the so-called "FPC" commercial quadcopters with a RPG-7 warhead) that impress very much.
I've argued for years that there will be future drone warfare with small and autonomous drones. These remotely-piloted drones with their jammable video datalink, jammable command radio datalink and due to bandwidth severely restricted density of operation* are but a transitory technology.
They are vulnerable to countermeasures that won't work on autonomous drones:
- high powered microwave weapons (these would easily be saturated by a large swarm)
- radio jamming of command uplink
- radio jamming of video downlink
- dedicated battlefield (V)ShoRAD vehicles** (these would easily be saturated by a large swarm)
There were such transitory technologies before.
- Tanks up to the late 30's (and some well into WW2) were merely bulletproof, not shellproof. Every single field gun of 1918 was able to penetrate every single German tank of 1941 on its thickest armour plating if given a state-of-the-art anti-tank shell such as Pzgr 39.
- Half-tracks, which had their time in the 1930's and 1940's.
- Airships
- firearm innovations between Napoleonic muskets and "smokeless" powder spitzer bullet repeating magazine rifles
- shrapnel shot (which lost out to proper HE with point detonating fuses)
- heavy anti-air guns (replaced by missiles)
- "torpedoes" in form of explosives mounted on a pole in front of a steamboat
- Flying boats (though there are a few remnants)
- rocket propulsion for manned aircraft
- recoilless guns (mostly replaced by missiles)
- "Monitor"-style coastal defence (and land attack) ships
To mistake transitory technologies for the next big thing is an important example for drawing the wrong conclusions from a recent war.
S O
*: You cannot have a swarm of 1000 FPVs if they all need radio bandwidth for a 640x480@25 fps video stream.
**: (Very) Short Range Air Defence
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>recoilless guns (mostly replaced by missiles)
ReplyDeleteEmmmm. Carl Gustaf? SPG-9? Another infantry portable guns like very low price RPG-7 with handmade shot from 82mm mortar mine?
Did you encounter any difficulty reading the word "mostly"?
DeleteWhat "mostly"? We have many variants of recoiless guns in many armies.
DeleteRPG-7 isn't a recoilless gun. Carl Gustaf, SPG-9, M40A2 are the only recoilless guns in widespread service.
DeleteRCLs were a hope for portable anti-tank firepower briefly after WW2, but ATGMs took that away with their performance by the 1960's and showed their effect to the general public in 1973.
RCLs are a small niche nowadays, not a big hope for the future of anything.
>RPG-7 isn't a recoilless gun
DeleteWhy?
>Carl Gustaf, SPG-9, M40A2
China army (and they allied) have many variants.
>RCLs are a small niche nowadays, not a big hope for the future of anything.
Its leIG, but more portable. AT, HE, smoke, illumination (+IR).
About 85% of the grenade's kinetic energy stems from the rocket, not from the initial launch. RPGs are not considered to be recoilless guns.
DeleteWhat recoilless guns do and how much they weigh is not the object of what I wrote, I wrote that they were transitory because they were mostly replaced by the ATGM concept.
Hi Mr. Ortmann. A. A. Here.
ReplyDelete-Modern IFVs are like those old tanks. Puma, Patria, etc go up to 30mm APFSDS frontally.
-Yep. Halftracks were questionable.
-Lighter than air has untapped potential. Balloons make excellent ISTAR platforms in peer wars, and COIN in insurgencies.
-Look up 5.2 Mondragon. That rifle was seriously overbore for the tech of its time.
-Modern 35mm AHEAD is literally shrapnel. In AA guns, when you need short time of flight, HE content is actually detrimental to density and drag.
-Those guns simply became dual purpose in naval use. See Mark N5 and AK-130.
-Did anyone say suicide USVs?
-Planes operating independent of ships is still a good idea. Specially in brown and green water. Look up Beriev A-40.
-Yep, it was dangerous, too. Rocket planes just set a speed record and disappered into history.
-RCL guns are really light for their power. Shorter range but faster than missiles. Pvg m/42 for infantry can kill any helicopter in existence. Pvpj 1110 on a jeep can kill most tanks.
-Hydrofoils and hovercrafts were simply better for brown and green navy. Sparviero vs General Wolfe, who would win?
Planes fly. They don't need to swim. They can usually not safely land & take off on water when there's a storm, which makes them unreliable for SAR. Flying boats could in theory use dipping sonars like helos, but that's in practice impractical.
DeletePvpj 1110 has a small calibre and would rather not be considered an anti-MBT wepaon, but it can get lucky.
Hydrofoils and hovercrafts have advantages regarding mine and torpedo threat, but the power demand proved to be impractical since 1973 (since fuel is expensive).
Lighter than air is an easy target even for field artillery when it's clsoe to the enemy and its payload is usually expensive enough to justify a long-range SAM when the balloon/airship is far from the enemy. They're terribly sensitive to wind and keep disappointing in war.
Planes can't fly forever. Can carrier planes land safely in a storm? Also carrier planes top at 55 tonnes for KC-130. A-40 is 86 tonnes. What I have in mind here is carrier based large jets like Tu-128 or YF-12 BUT amphibious. Oh, and sonobuoys? Dropping light torpedoes from helis? VLASROCs are just better.
DeleteGuns are simply indespensable in land or near land (brown/green water) wars. ATGMs can't match the acceleration or velocity of an RCL gun. This is vital when every millisecond counts. If you encounter a T-72 on a Humvee at 900m, would you rather have an M40 or TOW?
You're right about their efficiency. So, trimaran patrol boats and corvettes?
Balloons have ludicrous LOS by the virtue of the altitude they can achieve. The world record 53km can see as far as 824km. That's further than any SAM, ever. I'm talking closer, stationary and cheap satellites. A balloon over Kiev could see as far as Moscow. That's ISTAR in peer war. Insurgents have limited reach. How high can MANPADS and SPAAG shoot? 7km is high enough for our COIN balloon. Now you can teabag Taliban with HOSBO and Bofors 57. :)
You forgot troop carrying gliders, used only in WWII.
ReplyDeleteAlso forgot open bolt, pistol caliber sub-machine guns. A few were used in WWI but they were mass issued in WWII. By the 1990s they were no longer issued to infantry except for very special purposes i.e. need for a silenced weapon.
DeleteAs the cost for smartness goes down i see the mini drone as smart bullets. Cheap and plenty.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest consumer of money are lately the sensors and electronics. The ability to see and not be seen is the main cost driver.
I disagree that small piloted or pilot-assisted drones are transitory in the way you phrase it. Your counters to them are all themselves counter-able or of limited value. HPMs to date are large, and power hungry. Jammers have to emit and emitters are subject to attack. In fact one of the first loitering munitions, the Israeli Harpy, was designed to go after air defense radars. Military grade comms systems can also reduce the effectiveness of jamming with steerable nulls & other techniques.
ReplyDeleteTraditional VSHORADs are limited in number, especially in western militaries. Plus the density of FPV or loitering munitions are going to be more like anti tank missiles or even RPGs than traditional drones. They're units of ammunition that need an inexpensive CLU and could be issued down to squads or sections. Perhaps FPV munitions even replace traditional grenade launchers and RPGs.
I can certainly see them evolve to have auto-tracking capabilities like the Spike LR or Javelin missiles, but why get rid of the fire-observe-update(-recover?) loop if you don't need to?
Because of numbers. FOV per square km is limited by bandwidth issues even without jammers.
DeleteAnd all radios can be employed as radio jammers, including radios of drones.
Radios don't have to be omnidirectional. They can have narrow lobes with small sidelobes that reduce interference with other radios.
DeleteSmall drones don't have directional radio antennas, and the controller's station radios for small military drones that I saw didn't employ directional antennas, either.
DeleteHow can you tell? Modern WiFi and 5G systems all use directional beamforming to some degree. It doesn't have to look like a physical, directional antenna.
DeleteThere are multiple forms of directional antennas and they look different from the normal omnidirectional antennas.
DeleteIt would be possible to hide multiple patch antennas in a small UAV, but that would add complexity, weight, require surfaces and volume and it would cost a lot more. And path antennas aren't very directional anyway.