Defence and Freedom
@DefenceFreedom
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A blog (mostly) about defence policy and military affairs. Some humour, German politics and economic stuff is in between.
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Joined January 2022
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@oryxspioenkop
I disagree. Wikipedia is a handy website to offer links in case that a reader doesn't know a term or object.
It's IMO also OK as (weak) evidence. Anyone opposed to a Wikipedia-supported opinion is free to bring forward stronger evidence.
It's not for scientific articles, though.
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@Tendar
I wonder why the Russian arsenal of standoff jamming and anti-radar missiles fails to even only suppress these radars.
The AN/MPQ-65 is 20 years in service. The original Patriot's AN/MPQ-53 is four decades old.
The Russians appear to fail even against Soviet-designed radars!
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@Tatarigami_UA
The thing with attacking in waves is that it's bollocks if the first wave doesn't break in.
The first wave should enjoy surprise & seize objectives quickly, then immediately prepare to defend. The 2nd wave is to exploit the breakthrough, not to correct a failure of the 1st wave.
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@visegrad24
What exactly is the international law basis for American troops in Syria not being illegal invaders like Russian troops in Ukraine?
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@Spriter99880
Well, ships are commonly found in "waters".
None of those PLAN ships are in the 3 nm zone of Taiwan, and Taiwan is not a recognised sovereign country according to our own Western governments.
So there's no basis to imply that the PRC does something sinister by cruising its ships.
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@benmoores2
They have a ridiculous duplicity of some rare artifacts.
"Oh, you have never seen a Lorenzoni repeating rifle in all the other military museums you visited before?
Here's one. And next to him four more. There are some more around the corner."
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@JonHawkes275
I disagree.
To use the shadow of such buildings is important to shield against shallow trajectory ARMs.
The lesson learned (or confirmed assumption) is that the downside of secondary fragments from buildings is indeed acceptable.
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- excessively expensive chassis
- questionable how many full power shots it can fire
- concern mean shots between failure
- crew too small for maintenance or security
- too high for many underbridges
- barrel overhang
- extremely questionable crew evacuation
- no support legs
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Why don't we use this ancient camper tech for command post and some other military vehicles? This way the hull could be built just high enough for sitting during driving and yet high enough for a tall man with helmet to walk upright while the vehicle is stationary.
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@Tendar
No, that's a simple self-destruct after missing. "Air burst" is the term for when the fuse explodes the grenade as intended, not as self-destruct after failure to hit.
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I generally wonder why we don't unravel Russian adventures to put pressure on them. Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia.
At the OSCE meeting Moldova has demanded of the withdrawal of Russian troops in Transnistria.
#Moldova
#Transnistria
#Ukraine
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@JSchanzer
That's incorrect. A military target under an operating hospital is still a banned target for attack.
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@HoansSolo
It's not unrealistic in regard to technical or economic limitations. Our politicians are merely incapable of decisive action, they stay in comfort zones.
No Western country COMMANDED its industry to priority-produce munitions. We could easily produce millions of shells per month.
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WTF
Ho Ho Ho!
#MeryChristmas
#Weso
łychŚwiąt 🎁💥
Throwing gifts into the chimney of Russian invaders
by Ukrainian defenders.
#Ukraine
#GloryToUkraine
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@DuncinSnoles
@NOELreports
It's called market economy. They would not produce ammo if they could make more profit with railway tech.
Maybe Americans should vote more politicians into office who try to pass huge infrastructure bills and less politicians who proclaim "infrastructure weeks" all the time.
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@sentdefender
Loose cigarettes for sure. Similar issue as with clumsy people falling out of windows.
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@nicholadrummond
We have video evidence of Ukrainians manually loading a PzH 2000 after removing autoloader components.
So these guns working flawlessly now doesn't/wouldn't mean that the design is flawlessly reliable.
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@DefMon3
The actual point is that they prefer to liberate their settlements over destroying them. Thus the threat of encirclement with leaving a hazardous escape route open.
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I saw a graphic of some new army uniform menat to be introduced...
/1
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@fab_hinz
In case anyone wonders; those indentures are EFPs; shaped charges that can penetrate watertight compartments' walls at several metres distance.
The warhead is meant to explode inside the ship and do more than just blast damage.
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@ColbyBadhwar
@merkava777
The U.S. does not get bombed, so the army's definition of how many Patriot firing units they need may be an overstatement.
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@dpatrikarakos
He's been far from having been wrong on everything for decades, but he's an example of extremism.
He chose his nemesis (American imperialism and American establishment narrative-setting) and has become blind to what else is bad in the world.
Similar symptoms to Assange
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@thinkdefence
The WW2 German Sd.Kfz 222 had a mesh roof as official feature, it was meant to protect against hand grenades being thrown into the open-topped armoured car.
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@hallaboutafrica
That's not quite correct. Africans enslaved Africans for the Danes, sold them to Danes, the Danes transported them across the ocean and used them on some Caribbean isles for forced labour sugar production.
Hat tip to Denmark for abolishing slavery 4 yrs before the English did it.
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@aaf_lukas
Those 57 mm rockets were unpopular among Soviet helicopter and attack aircraft crews becuase they had little observable effect. Much noise and dust, though.
Su-25s moved on to 80 mm S-8 rockets, 57 mm crap rockets were exported.
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I need someone to tell me that this is a fake RIGHT NOW.
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@ColbyBadhwar
@merkava777
Almost none of them are under attack and there's no strong case that a couple batteries less would mean bases would come under attack.
Meanwhile, we KNOW that Kharkiv IS under attack.
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@nicholadrummond
@marinamaral2
1854 - that's 61 years before an airtight gas mask fit became a necessity in European warfare.
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@DuncinSnoles
@NOELreports
As I told you, Americans should consider voting more for politicians who try to invest in infrastructure.
They wasted decades voting for politicians who were not all that interested in infrastructure.
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@lyind4ce
@mercoglianos
The Saudis have bombed the Houthis for eight years with little to no effect.
A few cruise missiles or bombs won't disable the Houthi's missile and drone capabilities. They might at most take out helicopters usable for boarding.
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@Tendar
I don't get this piecemeal donating schtick.
Why not simply send over ENOUGH stuff, the Ukrainians crash the only medium-term threat to us Europeans and we get to re-organised and re-equip exclusively with stuff designed after 1980 for once?
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@AlexLuck9
It's an underrated gun. Even with 'dumb' 76 mm HE it's a quite capable CIWS that is by modelling going to hit an incoming missile much farther away than Phalanx.
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@wartranslated
Prigozhin doesn't appear to have the slightest idea of land combat tactics, but that's surprisingly normal for the Russian side.
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@edwardkeyjf
Most talk of "complex" in the military realm is bollocks.
Armed bureaucracies have accumulated red tape and fat during decades of no 'peer' war, and have made many things unnecessarily convoluted, detailed, intricate, overambitious due to a lack of modesty and self-discipline.
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As I wrote before, the way the Ukrainians train and fight is the greatest acute threat to our Western armed bureaucracies.
They dispel many of their self-serving myths.
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@illbill1000
@visegrad24
The Kurds have no recognised country. They cannot invite anyone onto Syrian territory in international law terms.
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@thinkdefence
There's not so much choice of munition suppliers for 90 mm and this is exacerbated by the fact that there are different cartridge dimensions in "90 mm".
90 mm furthermore proved unsatisfactory even against T-55, and with modern projectiles certainly against T-72 targets.
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It looks almost as if Iraq didn't use monkey models of Soviet/Russian tanks in 1991, after all. T-72/T-80 and also the Soviet-era T-64s used by Ukraine follow the example of 1941's T-26 and BT-7tanks.
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I argued long ago that there should be no dedicated marines AFVs; just slightly amphibious army AFVs that can be carried by motorised floating sleds to within metres of a beach. I thought of a stackable motorised sled design, but inflatable stackable might be even better. /1
Inflatable landing craft, easy to imagine these being used with small UGV's for littoral and riverine recce
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... and it made me wonder what would happen if some Twitter account with serious reach in military-related circles tried to crowdsource features and material choices for an ideal 3-season uniform (say, whatever kind of jacket).
/2
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@ChrisO_wiki
It was already mentioned in German officer memoirs from the 1950's about the Soviet soldier of 1941-1945 that the "Russians" (they meant all Red Army troops) have the ability to endure extremely bad conditions.
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I dislike the JLTV concept (much effort for little payload, also already HMMWV was wrong size IMO) in general. Additionally, domestic products => 40...60 % of costs return as taxes and saved welfare. So domestic equipment only 1/2 as expensive as it seems. /1
British Army appears to remain obsessed with getting JLTVs. What are opinions on this? Acknowledging you'll struggle to beat it on price due to size of US production, is this the right choice? What else if anything (ideally designed and built in UK) might offer a better option?
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@mason_8718
This is transitory tech. Soon such drones will be able to lock onto the target, so loss of comm link doesn't interrupt the attack.
Later they will be able to find targets, identify targets and make an attack decision by themselves as some missiles already do.
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@JakOSpades
Airburst HE is fine for tanks, but it's dependent on proper distance measurement. The laser rangefinder doesn't necessarily have an above-ground object to look at for a good ranging. So even 120 mm HE with airburst may require multiple shots for one hit.
Also, overhead cover!
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@TheDeadDistrict
AFAIK there are Western-made and superior replacement tracks for T-72 at least. I remember seeing such a thing in a Jane's AFV Upgrades yearbook.
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@IAPonomarenko
Tanks are used in Ukraine according to the Infantry tank / assault gun approach.
The other approach (cruiser tank / Blitzkrieg; exploiting breakthrough with speed) is still viable and frankly, much more difficult to substitute with indirect fires and flying things.
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@RyszardJonski
The hull protrudes forward of the tracks, which is bad for obstacle negotiation. This is typically done if you absolutely need that depth for frontal passive protection. This in turn points at a manned hull with emphasis on crew protection vs. powerful shaped charge.
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@TrentTelenko
This is too easy to counter. All you need is a decceleration (acceleration) sensor chip and a fuse algorithm that explodes the shaped charge when the FPV gets stopped by the net.
Result: Optimum standoff distance, shaped charge more powerful than without a net.
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@secretsqrl123
'You' didn't "give" Iran billions of dollars. The legally EARNED that money by delivering oil to the South Koreans. The South Korean money was under Qatari stewardship, served as bargaining chip even though it was the Iranian's all along and then the Qataris released it to Iran.
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@TrentTelenko
You're disinforming. The Biden administration didn't pay $ 6million [sic!] to Iran.
It was Iranian-owned money frozen by South Koreans and handed over by them into stewardship by Qataris.
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The Russo-Ukrainian War is very frustrating to me as someone who studies military history and the art of war.
Casual observers get fascinated by the drone stuff and certain missiles, but this war is near-100% old news.
/1
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@RyszardJonski
@oryxspioenkop
I read Leo 2 A7V uses newly-made hulls as well. It's just welded steel anyway. You could do it in many places. Train car manufacturers are very well-suited, for example.
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@thinkdefence
Front tires well ahead of driver & passengers is good for survival in face of pressure-activated mines (if there's enough spacing).
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@chrisschmitz
That's of little use if you have no idea about when it's a good time to release some flares.
That requires either human intelligence or very predictable defences (such as a narrow defence belt) or missile approach warning sensors.
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@thinkdefence
I think parliamentary oversight is in general too tame in all countries. Bureaucracies can protect themselves by lying, deceiving, delaying.
Parliament should have inspectors who can walk into ministries, look at all secret documents, observe all meetings, question everyone.
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@Faytuks
They showed a years-old photo of a destroyed Leo2 that was supposedly destroyed in Bakhmut.
Thus feel free to ignore reports of Leopard sightings at Bakhmut.
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@thinkdefence
Low vehicles have huge camo advantage when standing. Great for observation with a mast-mounted sensor (~Fennek).
Large (armed) recce vehicles are acceptable when you're not emphasising observation.
Luchs was a acoustically stealthy design, great for night recce.
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@secretsqrl123
I am 99% this is incorrect. Russian shell production capacity is huge, millions of shells per year. Maybe China can produce more per year, but I have never seen indications that any other country else can do it.
Feel free to provide evidence supporting your view.
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@gepardtatze
Sie meinen wohl 'mit der Hohlladung der 125 mm Kanonen vergleichbar'.
Ich würde sagen, der RPG-28 (125 mm) Gefechtskopf (Tandem-HL) ist die naheliegende Wahl zum Einbau.
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@nicholadrummond
There was a dedicated extended range combat shotgun project (H&K CAWS). It aspired to reach 60 m far.
200 m from short UBGL is nonsense.
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@RALee85
Yes and no.
Breakthroughs could lead to mobile land warfare phases, and then very different things matter most. Esp. AFU logistics for mobile actions & morale.
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Would it be a nonsensical wishlist?
Would the crowd be unable to form an absolute majority on features/material choices?
Would it become unaffordable?
Would the 'wisdom of the crowd' lead to a genius design?
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Anecdote from the US Navy (decades ago): The readiness of aircraft was low, and a decisive change was introduced to improve it: A maintenance NCO began to "own" one or several aircraft. That aircraft was "his", his responsibility and its readiness its pride. Success was great.
/1
The Ki-84 is infamous for its low engine reliability. In general units, the operational rate was only 40%, and sometimes lower. But under Captain Masai Kariya's ground team in the 47th Sentai, a 100% operational rate was achieved, and he was touted as the "god of maintenance".
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This is one of the reasons why I despise the IFV concept.
The battlefield transport capacity of a (H)APC is much greater, and much more useful than a millions of Euros expensive autocannon turret.
/1
The evacuation of wounded Ukrainian soldiers under the incessant shelling of the Russians with the help of M113 in Soledar. A low bias to such military doctors who, in spite of everything, save lives 🙏
#UkraineRussiaWar
️
#War
#Ukraine
#Україна #ЗСУ #Соледар
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@thinkdefence
A combined EFP + Claymore-ish offroad mine would be better, ideally resting below ground level and raising for engagement.
Then again, we'll go towards autonomous combat drone swarms that wait in trees, bushes, underground, underwater in the 2030's anyway.
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@TrentTelenko
The more precise word is "diversion". A diversion is a shaping op, but it deserves to be called "diversion" because this is much more informative than the general "shaping op".
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@shashj
I doubt it. The decided to close the factory in Germany around 2018t o focus on their South African subsidiary (Denel) for manufacturing shells, and then they built a factory in Australia. They are only now building capacity in Germany again.
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I feel ashamed for having taken the Russian military seriously for two decades.
Russian troops in Ukraine scramble to avoid attack by using tree branches for camouflage, in what analysts call a surprising lack of sophistication
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@RealAirPower1
Its guns jammed easily, it had a poor range, the radar was inferior to F-4, no Sparrow missile option, no utility in air/ground.
It was a better dogfighter than the F-4, but otherwise a waste of deck space.
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@JonHawkes275
Soft recoil but outrigger legs. This doesn't fit together. You may use a regular 105 mm howitzer if you have a vehicle of this mass and three or four outrigger legs.
In worst case you need to increase the suspension's dampening qualities to get it stable before the next shot..
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@thinkdefence
There's absolutely zero reason why a 200+ km missile should be launched from a protected and/or offroad-capable vehicle. You can launch this kind of missile always by a paved roads-only trailer for cost efficiency.
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@NOELreports
I suppose Hungarian politicians understand that NATO 2.0 could be created without them within a year.
Though keep in mind; it's legal and legitimate for a member to not want to be allied with yet another country.
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@secretsqrl123
Actually, later reports did cast doubts on Scud having defeated more than one Scud in 1991.
The big issue with Patriot is IMO the radar field of view (and lack of mast-mounted radar), not the ATBM potential.
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@CovertShores
@Affront
@M_Palumbo68
Not just advertised. The entire class 205 had huge issues because the steel grade was unsuitable.
The choice of austenitic steels for Typ 206 is well-documented in specialised German literature.
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@NOELreports
The centres of these circles are implausible launch locations.
A launch by a Su-27 from low altitude over the Black Sea would be much more plausible.
The Kerch bridge can be reached easily.
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@bayraktar_1love
Kind of. The mine rollers aren't full width, so it's not a route clearing vehicle.
It rather protects itself against mines and happens to punch an untrustworthy gap in a minefield that way.
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The gimballed E/O and thermal camera sensor makes much sense, but it's questionable to have it so close to the weapon. This saves calibration issues and effects of hull flexing, but the sensor cannot see much during and briefly after firing.
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@nknewsorg
This is silly. Such a submarine has near-zero chance to run a blockade during wartime or to escape tracking during peacetime. It doesn't extend the effective range of the nuclear missile threat.
The Americans can cheer that NK wastes a couple nuclear warheads in such a target.
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@MatthewsECLIPS
@thinkdefence
Missiles can be launched from the vehicle, but line of sight sensors benefit from the elevation.
The sensor arm is not moving, thus much more difficult to detect than a UAV and it has good payload & power supply.
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Rubber is not completely ineffective. It's known to be a mass-efficient protection against shaped charges, and an important component in NERA armour schemes. It may even be more effective than ERA against tandem shaped charges (which may still penetrate, though).
The Russians use rubber and resin rubber replacement inserts in some of their tanks instead of ERA explosives. Inserts of this type have a only psychological effect for crew but do not protect the tank against ATGM missiles.
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@oryxspioenkop
I think the money provided by Germany for purchases of equipment from anywhere (AFAIK) should get more attention. Some of the hardware from other countries was afaik actually purchased with German money.
Classic post-1990 German checkbook diplomacy.
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I don't like NATO summits.
We should have no summits, and the general secretary should shut up in public.
The North Atlantic Treaty says that you'll fight all of us if you attack one of us.
This should be the only message sent.
NATO is defensive & shouldn't be an active player.
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I suppose everyone who reads this tweet has seen images and videos of trench systems in Ukraine.
One conclusion should be that we should send many camouflage nets.
All trenches should be under (rapidly collapsible) camo netting to provide concealment against eyes in the sky.
/1
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@detresfa_
The Air Defence Indentification Zone is not a thing. It's irrelevant to every other country. That being said, Taiwan is not an internationally recognised country, thus none of its sovereignty claims are recognised, not even sovereignty over the island proper.
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@praisethesteph
@Rebel44CZ
@oryxspioenkop
T-64s are extremely compact. They're notoriously difficult to upgrade becuase there's just no volume left.
A replacement of sights, intracom and radios is possible, but there will be power supply issues even with that.
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@TrentTelenko
No, some of the missiles may have been ESSMs instead of SM-2/SM-6/SM-3.
ESSMs are quad-packed.
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@Maks_NAFO_FELLA
I suppose the fantasies about Russia having ten thousands of relevant AFVs stored can be laid to rest now.
The Russian armed forces have much material from days long gone, but they would lose against NATO even if NATO had 1989's equipment in today's armed forces sizes.
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