Hiding in Plain Sight

Ukraine has designed aerial suicide drones that mimic flocks of birds to penetrate Russian air defenses. Did I call it, or what?

Well, mimicking birds on radar: 

The latest Ukrainian innovation is mechanical birds capable of destroying ground targets. Ukrainian engineers designed, developed, and fabricated a swarm of biomimetic drones that resemble a flock of migrating birds.

Man, I was all over this method a decade ago when discussing infantry ("slugs") on the future battlefield I described:

Anybody on the battlefield, whether Scouts or Slugs (especially), called being outside of a protected space “on top of the world.” Normally you had to dig underground while unobserved and not move (or emit) a muscle thereafter; move low and slow like random animal life; sit still in the open for no more than 3 minutes; or be encased in heavy armor, active defenses, and stealthiness to avoid being a bright strobing target pip on every Hostile’s screen. [emphasis added]

And here we are in 2026 with weapons mimicking wild life.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.

Is a Gold-Plated Aerial Drone the Way to Go?

If you send armed drone tiltrotors into battle, aren't armed helicopters controlling them a needless middle man? Heck, isn't the expensive drone tiltrotor an overly expensive means of delivering fire support?

Huh: 

Anduril announced plans to make an autonomous attack tiltrotor that the company hopes the U.S. Army will pair with its helicopters for future missions. 

Nicknamed Thunder, the vertical-takeoff-and-landing rotorcraft is to be autonomous, heavily armed, hybrid-electric powered, and roughly group five-sized. It’s being designed to “be packed into a standard shipping container” for easy transport ...

Company officials say multiple uncrewed tiltrotors could accompany each crewed helicopter on a mission.

Why not cut out the manned helicopter middle man? 

And honestly, do we need the drone tiltrotor for fire support?

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Anduril image from the article.

Survive With Dull Routine

Yes, we need active and passive point defense measures to protect our forces from cheap aerial drones. But don't get fixated on meeting new technology with even better technology. Dig in and hide, too. 

Preaching to the TDR choir, he is, about protecting ground forces against aerial drones:

Guns, missiles, electronic warfare, lasers, and interceptor drones matter, but they will not be everywhere, at every echelon, all the time. Passive defense—netting, hardening, overhead cover, concealment, deception, dispersion, and disciplined displacement—has to become normal.

You must deploy passive and active defenses and measures whenever you are in the No-Man's Land and especially when you stop. Or where you can't move at all, of course. Romans dug in every day on the march. That ancient wisdom has not become obsolete because we have new technology.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Image from the article.

Is Secure Projection Our Power Projection Weakness?

Can America secure the lines of communication from bases in the continental United States to the campaign area overseas?

Yes:

China does not need to destroy American combat power to gain an advantage. It simply needs to delay it. Every day that equipment sits in a rail yard, every hour a port is offline, every aircraft waylaid by corrupted logistics data or disrupted communications creates exactly the kind of friction an adversary seeks during the opening days of a conflict.

Power projection is military power multiplied by projection capabilities. 

If China can reduce the second factor, the first factor is reduced where the product is calculated in the theater of war.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

Air Cavalry or Island Hoppers?

 

I’m skeptical of deep attack helicopter missions behind enemy lines and deep air assault missions, which is part of what the Army wants its new MV-75 to do: 

Air assault raids under hostile fire, forcible entry seizing enemy ground, life saving medical evacuation, island-hopping in the Pacific, logistical support and high-speed force transport .. are just a few of the many operations the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne has planned for its newly arriving MV-75 Cheyenne tiltrotor aircraft.

But I am fully on board the island-hopping in one part of the Pacific. Although this new division's MDTF is seemingly more in need of the M-75 (and something larger, too, for its large truck-fired missiles) for the Taiwan mission, no? 

Or maybe add more compact missile systems to the MDTF. Not every missile needs to move from the Philippines to Taiwan, eh?

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Photo from the U.S. Army.

The Winter War of 2022 Faces a Performance Review

 

Is Ukraine’s internal drama over military leadership not really about satisfying public dissatisfaction of how the war is going? Despite recent successes, the war nears 4-1/2 years with no end in sight to the sacrifices in lives, resources, and lives derailed to cope with the war. Of course people are getting restless notwithstanding the gratitude for not being conquered by Russia. But what if the public drama obscures the preparations to exploit Ukraine’s recent small but noticeable gains in the ground war that get much less attention than the flashy aerial drone campaigns that could enable expansion of the ground gains in potentially decisive fashion?

Head on over to Substack for the essay. I decided to publish this series there. But you can always get the link here on TDR.

NOTE: ISW updates continue here.

NOTE: Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump on Substack. You may read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.

Weekend Data Dump

The Weekend Data Dump is a compilation of short entries about the previous week’s defense and national security news that I found interesting. I couldn’t possibly comment on everything in my news flow or delve into everything that interests me. So most news that interests me doesn’t make the cut for a post. The rest go in the data dump. Enjoy!

HOP ON OVER AND READ IT! On the bright side, you can comment on Substack!

In case you missed it on Substack: Two MEFs Abreast

In case you missed it on Substack: What if China Reclaims Its Pacific Coast Territory?

In case you missed it on Substack: The Proto-Asian NATO

In case you missed it on Substack: The Thin Blue and Yellow Line

Help me out by subscribing on Substack and by liking and sharing posts. I occasionally post short data dump-type items (or not-so-short) on my Substack "Notes" section.

Speed is Life

The past masters of armored warfare who once held the land-speed record in the Middle East have waged slow, methodical, firepower based attritional warfare against Hamas and Hezbollah. That doesn't seem ideal to me.

Iran is not stronger as a result, as the author states. But yes, Israel’s careful, slow-paced ground campaigns were a problem: 

This approach has saved many soldiers' lives, but carries with it serious strategic drawbacks. A slower military pace permits the enemy to retreat and maintain itself as a military organization, and extends the length of the conflict. 

A slow, methodical campaign did not save soldiers’ lives. Nor was the slow campaign more compassionate for civilians. Especially not when the enemy deliberately uses human shields.

My view about Hezbollah was that an Israeli ground campaign should have been fast and deep. In the end during the current war, did Israel just screw the pooch at an amazingly fast aerial pace?

Well, Hamas is still in a really bad position. We'll see. And Hezbollah's fate seems up in the air depending on how strong Lebanon is relative to the weakened Hezbollah. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Operation Cobra from a site that doesn't seem to want to load from the search page.