This battlefield approach is likely to become a lasting part of Russian military practice, making it relevant for those preparing to counter Russian aggression
All credits to Tatarigami_UA and Frontelligence Insight team
Thread with key findings here: https://xcancel.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1937204380740256083
Also, this tactic relies on weapon systems being designed for an enemy that somewhat values life, so the weapon systems are highly lethal, focused and have a limited amount of ammunition so they can be overwhelmed by pure volume easily.
The easy counter to Russia’s strategy here is to just have autonomous 7.62 machine gun unmanned ground vehicles (similar to the ones Ukraine has been using for medevac uses, which is really really really fucking cool especially for all the non-war rescue use cases these things are going to save lives in when the rest of the world catches on) that screen important defense position or armored manned vehicles.
Now when the motorbikes try to swarm the position, they have just put themselves in the crossfire of lightly armored autonomous machine guns controlled by central, entrenched enemies/armored vehicles. Sure the motorbikes can focus on destroying the lmg robots, but then they aren’t dealing with the actual issue which is the entrenched position or the armored vehicle the unmanned machine gun platform is screening. The unmanned vehicles don’t even need to be that capable given that a Russian motorbike doing circles around a Ukranian tank (which is a very dangerous position for an armored vehicle to be in), is from the perspective of an umanned LMG ground vehicle 300 meters away, a target that is moving back and forth only slightly.
Guess what is even cheaper than a motorbike, a human life, and some training, drugs and ak47? A 7.62mm bullet.
This is not a winning strategy, it is an act of cowardice on Russia’s part to throw away human lives so carelessly.
It’s somewhat endearing that you seem to think those won’t see more use in population (protest, et al) control. 🤢😅
I mean sure they will, its just an unmanned autonomous LMG mintank isn’t thattt much more effective than infantry, and is much much much more vulnerable to being destroyed by a more nimble human opponent especially if they have RPGs.
…but yeah, they will and it will be awful
However, you can’t tell me these type of unmanned rescue vehicles won’t be used for rescues all over the world in conditions that rescue services simply couldn’t justify risking a human life to try to reach somebody in desperate need of help.
This is basically the concept of a self propelled allterrain stretcher, and the use cases for that for human life saving are so immense.
I’m a perfect world, sure, but in reality it’ll be far more like Waymo taxis at best.
Ok here is one example that immediately disproves your cynicism.
Imagine you are walking through a field and all of a sudden you step on a mine. Maybe you are soldier in a war, maybe you are a kid exploring an overgrown lot the adults told you to avoid, who knows the situation all that matters is you stepped on the mine and now it has severely wounded you to the point that you will die if you aren’t immediately evacuated.
Luckily for you, there are people around that can call for help… but wait… you and them realize in horror that if anybody tries to rescue you they are also walking into a minefield. This is a very real situation and is one of the brutal aspects of minefields.
Now imagine you had a robot stretcher that somebody could drive up to you, load you up and drive away and whatever risk the robot would be taking wouldn’t matter because the worst case that happens is the robot blows up, best case a human life is saved.
There are plenty of equivalent cases where the lethal threat isn’t a minefield, and you can sketch out basically the same situation.
I am not misunderstanding the concept, thank you. I am, however, extremely skeptical of power being capable of valuing human life beyond a stat.
Ok here is another easy hypothetical, imagine the surfboard equivalent of an umanned jetpowered surfboard that could be sent out to rescue people who have been swept out to sea in storm conditions. In a situation that might be too dangerous for even lifeguards to enter into, a surfboard could be driven out to the person to at least provide them something to hold onto and at best rescue them without ever having put a human life at risk, and rescuers will have been able to try a lower percent success rescue mission that is better than sitting back and doing nothing (vs. putting a human crew in extreme risk and failing to keep them safe during the rescue).
This kind of vehicle makes a normal stretcher immediately obsolete in any kind of open terrain scenario where help is far away, difficult or dangerous to get to. Even if a human crew accompanies the UGV rescuing someone, they can be far more alert to dangers and hazards and deal with them accordingly if they aren’t exhausted and distracted by carrying the person on a stretcher manually.
Logistics will never be the same, of any kind, honestly it is such a generally useful and simple use of unmanned technology.
You’re missing the point, citizen. Good luck.
Thank you! Good luck to you too!