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From drones to AKs, high technology to low politics, exploring how and why we fight above, on and below an angry world - Medium
U.S. ‘decapitation’ campaigns are rarely swift or cleanThe U.S. Navy’s ‘Gerald R. Ford’ Carrier Strike Group in South American waters. U.S. Navy photoby PAUL IDDON
As the months-long standoff between the United States and Venezuela intensifies, many speculate that U.S. Pres. Donald Trump may opt for a decapitation strike against Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro’s government. If Saddam Hussein’s Iraq serves as any precedent, a “clean” strike against the leadership in Caracas may not succeed — or avert wider war.
Trump and Maduro spoke by phone a week ago. According to sources cited by The Miami Herald, Trump offered Maduro and his family guaranteed safe passage if he agreed to resign immediately. The Venezuelan president’s public appearance a few days later, Nov. 30, following speculation that he had fled, confirms he hasn’t taken Trump up on this alleged offer. Venezuela, Maduro chanted, is “indestructible, untouchable, unbeatable.”
Over the last few months, the U.S. military has built up substantial naval and air power and deployed 15,000 troops in the Caribbean. They have destroyed several small boats allegedly smuggling drugs on dubious legal grounds. On Nov. 27, Trump said the U.S. military would counter this alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” and “very soon.” On Nov. 29, he declared Venezuelan airspace “closed in its entirety.” When asked on Nov. 30 if that meant imminent U.S. strikes on Venezuela, he vaguely answered, “Don’t read anything into it.”
Several prominent media outlets and think tanks have already highlighted Trump’s potential options for an escalated military campaign against Venezuela. These include decapitation strikes targeting Maduro’s government and military. Despite America’s overwhelming military superiority against the South American nation, such a move could prove complicated, as would mounting an effective coup. The 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq may offer some important lessons.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
This Is How Venezuela Becomes A Quagmire Like Iraq was originally published in Trench Art on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
The fear and paranoia are signatures of a new era of warfare.Ukrainian soldiers in a trench fight. Via social mediaby KOSTIANTYN MOISIEIEV
A hundred years ago, on the torn fields of Flanders and in the mud of Verdun, humanity witnessed a crisis in the art of war. World War I, which began with romantic visions of swift cavalry charges, colorful uniforms and bayonet attacks, was reduced within months to an industrial-scale slaughter.
Machine guns and rapid-fire artillery made the space between trenches deadly, forcing million strong armies to dig into the earth.
Today, on the slag heaps of Donbas and in the steppes of Zaporizhzhia, we feel the echo of that war. The front line has once again become relatively static, and attempts at large scale mechanized breakthroughs end in catastrophic losses.
Yet the nature of this trench warfare has changed. If in 1916 the stalemate resulted from the inability to protect infantry from overwhelming fire and from the absence of mobile communications, today’s positional warfare is the result of total battlefield transparency caused by the prevalence of drones.
We have moved from an era in which the “fog of war” concealed the maneuvers of entire corps to an era of a “transparent battlefield,” where even the smallest concentration of forces is quickly detected and destroyed.
Over a century, humanity has traveled the path from bayonet assaults to drone swarm attacks. The essence of war has not changed, but its instruments have become faster, more precise — and far more dangerous.
World War I became a historic turning point because defensive technologies overtook offensive ones for the first time.
The bayonet gave way to artillery, which created uninterrupted barrages and forced armies into trenches. A communications gap emerged: headquarters planned grand operations but lost control of their troops at the moment of attack. Wired communication functioned reliably only in defense. This period also saw the birth of electronic intelligence based on signal interception.
In World War II this positional deadlock was partially overcome thanks to the combination of the internal combustion engine and wireless communication. Mobile radios in tanks became in some cases more important than the caliber of the gun. They solved the problem of controlling advancing units.
Theories of offensive warfare emerged, centered on speed and real-time coordination. Maneuver once again became the king of the battlefield, enabling entire armies to be encircled instead of attacked head on.
World War II differed from modern wars in its low accuracy of weapons. Strategic bombing campaigns by the Allies or artillery waves of the Red Army worked by destroying whole square kilometers.
It was a war of industrial economies: victory went to the side that could produce more tanks, aircraft, bombs and shells than the enemy could destroy. At the same time, radar and electronic warfare systems played a key role in the “battle of beams” between Britain and Germany, marking the first systemic war over navigation and detection.
By the late 20th century, armies developed the illusion of a “contactless war,” born from the success of Operation Desert Storm. According to this doctrine, victory was expected through air power, which was believed to guarantee rapid defeat of the enemy.
British soldiers in a trench in World War I. National WWI Museum photoThe drone eraThis paradigm lasted nearly 30 years until the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war delivered the first major blow to it. Azerbaijan quickly proved that cheap drones negate advantages in armor and outdated air defense systems. It signaled the dawn of an era of robotic aerial killers — an era Russia failed to appreciate at the outset of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The most significant development and experience in the use of unmanned systems and electronic warfare came with the start of the large scale Russia-Ukraine war. The Ukrainian army integrated civilian and military technologies into a single network. The situational awareness systems “Delta” and “Kropyva” reduced the time from target detection to firing from dozens of minutes to nearly seconds.
This created a phenomenon of a “transparent battlefield.” Maneuvering large formations became impossible, forcing troops to disperse. Logistics became “capillary” and lost its centralized structure.
But drone warfare itself didn’t stand still. Early in the war, Bayraktar TB-2 drones were effective, but they are now vulnerable to layered air defenses. First-person-view drones and loitering munitions have taken center stage. Cheap kamikaze drones replaced scarce artillery shells and began striking equipment and personnel with surgical precision.
The Russia-Ukraine war became the first conflict in which both sides have actively relied on artificial intelligence to increase drone autonomy, given the growing use of electronic warfare across the front.
Meanwhile, E.W. systems descended from the strategic level to the trenches. The Pokrova system and other trench-level E.W. complexes became not a luxury but a necessity for survival. A tactic emerged of hunting drone operators by locating their control signals.
Thus, the “shell shock” of World War I has transformed into an “FPV syndrome,” expressed as constant anxiety under around-the-clock aerial surveillance.
It’s going to get worse. The coming era of A.I. will gradually push humans out of the control loop — and create whole new technological challenges.
Kostiantyn Moisieiev is the co-founder and CEO of Cascade LLC, which develops battlefield-proven electronic warfare and radio-frequency solutions including Lima EW.
2 Minutes. That’s How Long Many Drones Survive In The Constant Electronic Duel Over Ukraine.
Before, There Was ‘Shell Shock.’ Now Soldiers In Trenches Suffer From Drone-Induced ‘FPV Syndrome.’ was originally published in Trench Art on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
In this new era of robotic warfare, armies must adapt … or die.Ukrainian drone operators from the 424th UAS Battalion. 424th UAS Battalion photoby YEVHENII VALIIENKO
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, few expected the conflict to redefine the future of warfare. Yet three years later, Ukraine has become the most important military testing ground of the 21st century — a place where drones, electronic warfare, satellite networks and rapid digital innovation have reshaped the rules of combat faster than any modern army anticipated.
What is happening in Ukraine is not simply a regional war. It is the world’s clearest look at how tomorrow’s battles will be fought, and which technologies will truly matter when large-scale conflict erupts again.
Unlike past wars dominated by tanks, aircraft and massed infantry, the modern Ukrainian battlefield is built around information, connectivity and unmanned systems. Small teams operate fleets of drones. Artillery relies on live video feeds instead of forward observers. Electronic warfare systems blanket entire regions, creating zones where GPS becomes unreliable and digital communications break apart.
It is a battlefield in which who sees first, who adapts fastest and who disrupts better … wins.
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This shift has also exposed a growing imbalance between the cost of traditional weapons and the effectiveness of cheaper, rapidly produced alternatives. A $500 first-person-view drone assembled from commercial parts can disable a multi-million-dollar armored vehicle. A cluster of electronic interference systems can undermine the accuracy of advanced missiles. Digital maps and satellite links give small units the kind of situational awareness once reserved for elite forces.
For militaries accustomed to thinking in decades-long procurement cycles, the speed of innovation in Ukraine is a shock.
The Ukrainian 57th Motorized Brigade with its ground robots. 57th Motorized Brigade photoDrone revolutionNo technology has transformed the war more dramatically than drones.
What began with hobby-grade quadcopters dropping small explosives has evolved into a nationwide ecosystem of drone manufacturing. Ukraine now fields reconnaissance drones, long-range strike drones, naval drones and vast numbers of FPV units used as precision-guided munitions. These systems give Ukrainian forces the ability to observe and strike targets far faster than traditional artillery or aerial platforms could manage.
Russia has adapted as well, deploying its own drones and attempting to saturate Ukrainian defenses with inexpensive loitering munitions. The result is a constant aerial duel over every kilometer of front-line territory.
For American observers, the lesson is unmistakable: unmanned systems are no longer a support tool. They are the backbone of modern combat.
If drones are the most visible symbol of Ukraine’s military transformation, however, electronic warfare is its invisible engine.
Across the front, both sides deploy systems that jam radio signals, disrupt satellite navigation, sever drone operator links and feed false coordinates into incoming weapons. Entire regions experience degraded GPS, forcing drone pilots and artillery crews to adapt in real time. In some areas, drones survive fewer than two minutes before being disabled electronically.
This environment has forced Ukraine and Russia into a technological race where new E.W. systems, countermeasures and software patches appear almost weekly.
Among the many tools emerging from this environment are Ukrainian-developed systems capable of large-area navigation interference. One such system, Lima EW, has been mentioned by military sources as contributing to the misdirection of certain Russian missiles. It is referenced not as a singular miracle solution, but as one example of the broader wave of innovation reshaping the battlefield.
The point is not any one system. The point is how quickly Ukraine is building, adjusting, and fielding these tools — a pace unmatched by traditional defense industries.
A Ukrainian 93rd Mechanized Brigade drone mechanic. 93rd Mechanized Brigade photoWhy this matters to the United StatesFor decades, the U.S. military has invested heavily in high-cost platforms designed for environments where GPS is stable, communications are secure and air superiority is assumed. Ukraine shows a very different reality.
What happens when GPS is contested?
What happens when thousands of cheap drones overwhelm expensive defenses?
What happens when software, not hardware, determines victory?
These questions go to the heart of America’s future defense posture.
In Ukraine, platoons operate their own intelligence networks. Drone pilots adjust tactics daily. Engineers modify software on the battlefield. This is not a rigid, top-down military model. It is a decentralized, rapidly adaptive system — the opposite of how most modern armies are structured.
Ukraine’s war is shaping the doctrines that will guide global militaries for decades. Among the clearest lessons:
• Low-cost unmanned systems can neutralize traditional platforms.
• Electronic warfare defines modern survivability.
• Information — not firepower — is the decisive asset.
• Innovation must be continuous, not cyclical.
For the United States, Ukraine is more than an ally in need. It is a real-time demonstration of how modern conflict evolves and a preview of the challenges American forces may face in any major confrontation.
The conflict has revealed a world in which the advantage no longer belongs automatically to the side with the most expensive equipment, but to the side that can adapt the fastest. And in this environment, digital tools, drones and electronic warfare are no longer supporting technologies — they are central to the fight.
The war in Ukraine is not only shaping that country’s future. It is shaping the future of warfare itself.
Yevhenii Valiienko is the business development director at Cascade LLC, which develops battlefield-proven electronic warfare and radio-frequency solutions including Lima EW.
To Jam Russia’s Mach-5.7 Kinzhal Missiles, Ukrainian Troops Fed Them An Encoded Patriotic Anthem
2 Minutes. That’s How Long Many Drones Survive In The Constant Electronic Duel Over Ukraine. was originally published in Trench Art on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Volodymyrivka holds as the fourth Russian assault fails
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Hedgehog, porcupine and turtle tanks tend to get mired in water and mud.
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Pokrovsk is about to fall. A recent attack by the 425th Assault Regiment wasn’t an effort to save the city. No, it supported a wider retreat.425th Assault Regiment troopers in training in 2024. 425th Assault Regiment photoby DAVID AXE
- A Ukrainian assault company marched south into the contested center of Pokrovsk
- But it wasn’t a counterattack
- Elite Ukrainian forces have deployed into Pokrovsk to help cover a wider retreat from the city
- Pokrovsk and neighboring Myrnohrad could fall to attacking Russians any day now
When a company from the Ukrainian 425th Assault Regiment raised a Ukrainian flag on the city council building near the center of Pokrovsk on or just before Wednesday, it may have looked like Ukrainian forces were counterattacking in the embattled city.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The survivors of Pokrovsk’s Ukrainian garrison are, in fact, trying hard to escape the ruins of the once-thriving mining city. To give the survivors of the 68th Jaeger Brigade and 155th Mechanized Brigade a fighting chance to escape to the new Ukrainian line north of Pokrovsk, several elite — but very small — units have deployed into the city.
They include that company from the 425th Assault Regiment. Don’t mistake the company’s jaunt into the city center for a counteroffensive. It’s actually the covering effort for a belated general retreat. After a year of hard fighting, the battle for Pokrovsk “is coming to an end,” observer Thorkill noted.
The Russian Center Group of Forces suffered shocking casualties marching on Pokrovsk from the ruins of Avdiivka, 40 km to the southeast, starting in the spring of 2024. The Russian group bled for every meter it advanced, but thanks to its sheer size — its 100,000 or more troops outnumber the local Ukrainian forces five to one — it did advance.
By the new year, it was on Pokrovsk’s outskirts. By this summer, Russian infantry had begun infiltrating Pokrovsk in growing numbers — taking advantage of wide gaps in Ukrainian defenses to dart into the city, hunker down in some basement and await reinforcement.
A Russian incursion north of Pokrovsk in August drew Ukrainian reserves away from the city. Renewed Russian mechanized assaults this fall — following a long pause in mech attacks that allowed the Kremlin to stockpile vehicles — kept up the pressure north of Pokrovsk.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
Ukraine’s Commandos Rush Into Pokrovsk On An Urgent Mission: Hold Open An Escape Route
Ukrainian Commandos Rush Into Pokrovsk To Hold Escape Corridor Open For Fleeing Garrison was originally published in Trench Art on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
It blasts radio noise in a powerful streamA KAB glide-bomb. Via Wikimedia Commonsby DAVID AXE
In early 2024, Russian engineers modified the Russian air force’s KAB glide-bombs with more channels for their satellite radios. This made them harder to defeat by electronic means, as a jammer would have to interfere with each Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna channel to send the bomb off course. (Watch a Russian munition miss its target in the video above.)
Ukraine’s Night Watch electronic warfare team sprung into action. “When the enemy began using KAB guided bombs with Cometa‑8 eight-channel CRPA, we implemented eight-fold jamming coverage,” said Night Watch’s leader, whose nom de guerre is “Alchemist.”
It was the latest bout in an ongoing duel between Russian munitions-makers and Ukrainian electronic-warfare developers. The Russians develop a new bomb, missile or drone; the Ukrainians develop a new jammer to stop it; the Russians respond with another new munition; the Ukrainians hurry to field yet another jammer.
Neither side can rest, lest the enemy gain a lasting advantage. So on and so forth as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its fourth year. In the third year, the Russians very nearly gained an enduring firepower edge — with KABs that blew right through area jamming coming from just one direction.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
To Deflect Russia’s ‘Miracle’ Glide-Bombs, a Ukrainian Team Invented a New Jammer was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
The old-timers taught the Night Watch team how to jam cruise missilesA Russian air force Tupolev Tu-160 launches a Kh-101/102 cruise missile. Russian defense ministry captureby DAVID AXE
Night Watch, the Ukrainian electronic warfare team that, in 2023, recruited a Chinese spy to steal critical technology associated with Russia’s Shahed explosive drones, began as a disorganized gaggle of volunteers in the chaotic early hours of Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
It quickly gelled as a team — and began searching Ukraine’s old Soviet-era weapons factories for old-timers with the know-how to defeat Russia’s missiles and drones. This combination — eager young volunteers and crusty old veterans — is the human resources recipe for Night Watch’s best missile and drone jammers.
“The war for me and my team began in February 2022,” Night Watch’s leader, who goes by the nom de guerre “Alchemist,” told Trench Art. “Ordinary civilians, we joined the Territorial Defense [Forces] to protect the homeland. Having no military education, we took on soldiering duties.”
But their real expertise was organizational. “Each of us brought significant experience from civilian work or business, which proved advantageous,” Alchemist said. “As territorial defense fighters, we were less familiar with obtaining weapons or filing requisitions — but we excelled at sourcing or even manufacturing them using volunteer funds or personal resources.”
Night Watch’s original 10 members quickly identified a problem they could solve. “From the war’s outset, the enemy widely deployed cruise missiles against Ukraine. We saw these as the primary threat to our logistics [and] cities in the war’s early months. That is when we began searching for countermeasures.”
Read the rest at Trench Art.
Desperate to Defeat Russian Missiles, Ukrainians Tracked Down Old Soviet Engineers was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
The spy stole Shahed drone navigation tech specs ‘within weeks’The 12-antenna navigation receiver on a new Shahed. Via Night Watchby DAVID AXE
In mid-August 2022, the first Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones began appearing in the sky over Ukraine. Thirty-four months later, Russian forces are launching more than 100 of the 440-pound, propeller-driven, flying munitions every day.
Stopping the explosive Shaheds is one of Ukraine’s most urgent priorities. Which is why, in late 2023, an elite Ukrainian tech team recruited a very skilled Chinese spy. The spy swiftly stole hardware, documents and software that helped the Night Watch team develop a new jammer that could force the Shaheds off course.
Thanks to that spy, many Shaheds “crashed in fields, lakes — or even drifted into Romania and Moldova,” said “Alchemist,” the commander of the expanding Night Watch team.
What’s most impressive is how quickly the agent worked. They got their hands on a receiver, associated factory documents and computer code for the latest Shahed models “within weeks” of Night Watch recruiting them, Alchemist said.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
A Proficient Chinese Spy Helped a Ukrainian Tech Team Jam Russian Drones was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
The Russians are literally marching through SumyA burning Russian MRAP in Sumy Oblast. Ukrainian defense ministry photoby DAVID AXE
Parts of no fewer than 18 Russian regiments and brigades, each with 2,000 or more troops, have marched into northern Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast. And by “marched,” I mean literally marched.
The Russian invasion force in Sumy, tens of thousands strong, almost entirely lacks armored vehicles of any kind. “Not sure anybody noticed this, but so far [Russia] has visibly lost one MRAP in Sumy Oblast,” analyst Moklasen noted. “Everything is done either on foot or by bike and quad.”
An MRAP — a mine-resistant, ambush-protected armored truck — isn’t even particularly heavy by vehicular standards. That a single KAMAZ Asteis-70202 truck represents the heaviest Russian loss in Sumy speaks to the deepening shortage of combat vehicles in the Russian inventory as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 40th month.
It also speaks to the new doctrine Russian commanders have written in response to their new conditions. They’ve got fewer and fewer armored vehicles. But they’ve got troops and civilian-style vehicles in abundance.
So the Russians mostly march where they once rode under armor. And yet, they’re still advancing.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
It Has Cost Russia Exactly One Armored Truck to Capture 60 Square Miles of Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Iran worked hard for decades to keep its Tomcats operationalAn Iranian F-14. Via Wikimedia CommonsOn April 9, 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed an historic agreement. The USSR committed to arming the Arab republic with the latest weaponry. In return for sending Baghdad guns, tanks and jet fighters, Moscow got just one thing — influence … in a region that held most of the world’s accessible oil.
In neighboring Iran, news of Iraq’s alliance with the Soviets exploded like a bomb. Ethnically Persian and predominately Shia, Iran was — and still is — a bitter rival of Iraq’s Sunni Arab establishment, which during the 1970s dominated the country’s politics.
In Tehran, King Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — the “shah” — moved quickly to counter Baghdad’s move. First he set loose an army of secret police in a desperate and bloody bid to quell internal dissent. And then he reached out to the United States.
The shah wanted weapons. And not just any weapons. Himself a former military pilot, the king wanted the latest and best U.S.-made warplanes, with which the Iranian air force might dominate the Persian Gulf and even patrol as far away as the Indian Ocean.
The Iranian leader’s appetite for planes was notorious. “He’ll buy anything that flies,” one American official said of the shah. But Pahlavi was especially keen to acquire a fighter that could fly fast enough and shoot far enough to confront Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat recon planes that had been flying over Iran at 60,000 feet and Mach 3.
The administration of U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon was all too eager to grant the shah’s wish in exchange for Iran’s help balancing a rising Soviet Union. Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger visited Tehran in May 1972 — and promptly offered the shah a “blank check.” Any weapons the king wanted and could pay for, he would get — regardless of the Pentagon’s own reservations and the State Department’s stringent export policies.
That’s how, starting in the mid-1970s, Iran became the only country besides the United States to operate arguably the most powerful interceptor jet ever built — the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, a swing-wing carrier fighter packing a sophisticated radar and long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles.
Fifty years later on Monday, Israel — as part of its wider campaign targeting the Iranian regime, its air-defenses and nuclear weapons program and key Iranian industries — bombed at least two F-14s at an airport in Tehran.
They may have been grounded derelicts. At the very least, they were useful as sources of spare parts.
Just three squadrons share the air force’s pool of roughly four dozen surviving F-14s, only a dozen of which are usually active at any given time. As the Israeli air campaign widens, time many finally be up for the world’s last few operational Tomcats.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
Israel Is Blowing Up Iran’s F-14s was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Russian Troops Are Lobbing Chemical Rockets in Eastern Ukraine. Now Ukrainian Drones Are Targeting the Caustic Munitions.Rockets laden with nitric acid burn brown when struck.Rubizh Brigade artillery. Rubizh Brigade photoRussian troops are firing chemical-laden rockets in eastern Ukraine. Now Ukrainian troops are deliberately targeting the launchers.
Kriegsforscher, a Ukrainian drone operator apparently deployed near Pokrovsk on the eastern front, reported the destruction of a BM-21 rocket launcher belonging to the Russian army’s 283rd Artillery Regiment.
A BM-21 fires 40 122-millimeter rockets out to a distance of 32 miles. Normally, the rockets each carry a 41-pound high-explosive warhead. But now some Russian launchers are firing rockets with chemical payloads.
The BM-21 Kriegsforscher helped blow up — apparently by pinpointing its location for Ukrainian artillery — “was loaded with rockets, which, in addition to the combat component, also contained chemicals,” Kriegsforscher explained.
The rusty brown smoke billowing from the BM-21 as it exploded was a dead giveaway. Nitrogen-based chemical agents including nitric acid burn brown when struck.
“I assume they wanted to neutralize our infantry,” the drone operator added. “That’s the first time I’ve seen this kind of tactic.”
Read the rest at Trench Art.
Russian Troops Are Lobbing Chemical Rockets in Eastern Ukraine. was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
A Russian Troop Convoy Got the HIMARS Treatment — 20 Russians DiedUkraine fires its HIMARS sparingly as rocket stocks depleteHIMARS. Ukrainian defense ministry photoA Russian troop convoy with at least two military trucks and three passenger buses was motoring through Makiivka, 20 miles from the front line in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, when a Ukrainian High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System took aim.
The wheeled HIMARS fired several rockets, peppering the convoy with hundreds of thousands of tungsten fragments and reportedly killing 20 Russians and wounding others.
“We didn’t have time to evacuate,” one survivor explained in a video of the bloody aftermath, helpfully translated by WarTranslated. “I did what I could — was putting out the flames, pulling people out” of the burning buses.
It was an unsually precise strike for the wheeled HIMARS and its 660-pound M30/31 rockets. “Feels like it hit the bus while it was moving,” the survivor noted.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
A Russian Troop Convoy Got the HIMARS Treatment — 20 Russians Died was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
A Russian Su-25 Attack Jet Just Shot Down … a Russian Su-25 Attack JetClose attacks with unguided rockets are extremely unhealthy for Russian attack pilotsA Bulgarian Sukhoi Su-25 fires rockets. Via Wikimedia CommonsThe Russian air force can’t afford to be shooting down its own Sukhoi Su-25 attack jets. The subsonic planes and their pilots have had a hard, hard war — and it’s only getting harder as attrition shrinks the fleet, compelling fewer planes and crews to fly more often to sustain their attacks.
On or just before Friday, a section of Russian Su-25s was performing one of its usual low-level rocket runs somewhere over the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 40-month wider war on Ukraine when something went tragically wrong.
One of the pilots fired his unguided rockets in the flight path of his wingman. The second jet exploded and tumbled to the ground. No parachute was visible in the video of the incident.
It was the 39th confirmed Russian Su-25 loss of the wider war — and it further reduced an Su-25 force that had nearly 200 airframes prior to the war, but now may have just 100 or fewer once you add attrition from accidents and fatigue.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
A Russian Su-25 Attack Jet Just Shot Down … a Russian Su-25 Attack Jet was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Russia’s Surviving Bombers Are Evacuating — Away From Ukraine’s Deadly DronesThe most valuable Tu-160 bombers are heading to the Far East, thousands of miles from UkraineTupolev Tu-160s at Yelizovo air base. Planet Labs imagery via AviVectorA great migration is taking place across Russia as the Russian air force’s surviving strategic bombers flee — largely to the east, away from Ukraine and the growing threat from Ukrainian drones.
The bomber evacuation comes a little more than a week since 100 short-range quadcopter drones, smuggled close to a quintet of Russian air bases by Ukraine’s state security service (SBU), destroyed 14 bombers, transports and radar planes at four of the targeted bases.
The 11 wrecked bombers — four propeller-driven Tupolev Tu-95s and four jet-propelled Tupolev Tu-22Ms — represent around 14% of the active Russian bomber fleet. Neither type is in production; realistically, there’s no way for Moscow to directly replace the losses.
The surviving bombers are precious. Which is why the Russian air force is moving many of them as far from Ukraine as possible.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
Russia’s Surviving Bombers Are Evacuating — Away From Ukraine’s Deadly Drones was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Tambov Gunpowder Plant went up in flames.14th UAS Regiment photoThe 14th UAS Regiment, Ukraine’s elite strike drone unit, has blown up one of Russia’s gunpowder factories: the Tambov Gunpowder Plant in Kotovsk, 230 miles from the front line in Ukraine.
It’s not the first drone strike on Tambov. Ukrainian drones previously struck the plant in November 2023. That the Ukrainians persist in attacking the powder factory speaks to its importance. Gunpowder production is a critical bottleneck in the supply of munitions on both sides of Russia’s 40-month wider war on Ukraine.
But don’t get too excited. The Tambov plant is just one of 10 major Russian powder plants. And its 2,500 employees account for just 10% of the overall powder workforce.
It’s unclear which drones the 14th UAS Regiment flung at Tambov on Tuesday, but it’s possible they were 1,000-mile-range UAC FP-1s, which are quickly becoming Ukraine’s main deep-strike asset.
Read the rest at Trench Art.
Russia Has 10 Gunpowder Factories. Ukraine’s Drones Just Blew Up One Of Them. was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
by GABRIEL SILVEIRAIn 1955, the M42 Duster entered service with the Bundeswehr under the name “Flakpanzer M42 Duster.” Germany acquired 500 M42 Duster vehicles for the Bundeswehr.
In 1966, the Germans needed a replacement for the M42, which was already obsolete. Two prototypes were presented: the Matador from Rheinmetall, AEG, Siemens and Krauss-Maffei; and the 5PFZ-A from Oerlikon. At the end of the competition, the Germans thought that the 5PFZ-A was a better vehicle and its production began.
Initially two batches were delivered: one including four test vehicles in 1971 and 12 pre-series vehicles in 1973. Also in 1973, the vehicle was given the name “Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard,” which is abbreviated to “Flakpanzer Gepard.”
The Bundeswehr began to withdraw its Gepard vehicles from service in 2010. The Gepard 1A2 version will be the subject of this thread.
To save resources, the Gepard was based on the same hull as the Leopard 1 with some changes — one of them is the space between the third and fourth wheels, which increased the size of the hull a little.
At the front in the hull was installed a four-cylinder Daimler-Benz OM 314 diesel engine, which provides power to the vehicle’s electrical systems. This engine provides power for traverse, gun lift and radars.
You can see the exhaust of this engine on the left side of the vehicle and extending to the back.
The engine compartment was enlarged to make room for six 24-volt batteries; unfortunately I could not find photos of the batteries or identify them in this image.
The vehicle received the same engine as the Leopard 1. The MTU MB CA M500, with 830 horsepower, can take the vehicle to a maximum speed of 65 kilometers per hour on the road.
The Leopard 1A5 weighs 42 tons; the Gepard 1A2 weighs 47 tons, much on account of the turret, radars and additional engine. It’s worth remembering that the turret of the vehicle has reinforced armor — and the frontal radar has armor, too.
The commander and gunner have their own stabilized panoramic vision systems that sit next to each other on top of the turret — stabilized systems that help acquire targets even with the vehicle moving. The system is binocular and has a zoom of 1.5X to 6X.
The turret is manned by the commander and gunner. Five displays present important information about the vehicle.
The first panel is a computer, which calculates the amount of ammunition needed for the target and calculates the future location of the target. In addition, the computer also contains navigation data.
The main functions of the second panel is to select the type of target, ground or air. On this panel, the type of ammunition is selected; in addition the panel also triggers the search radar.
The third panel shows the aircraft picked up by the tracking radar. All aircraft detected by the radar within a radius of 15 kilometers appear on this screen.
The fourth panel passes information from the fire-control radar; it calculates distance and speed and also automatically locks onto the target. The crew only needs to pull the trigger. In this panel you will also find the safety devices.
The fifth panel has more security options and other functions such as test-firing to see if any ammunition was in the breech. On this panel there’s also the option to turn on the 35-millimeter guns and the shooting mode: burst, intermittent or single.
The search radar is behind the vehicle’s turret and the fire-control radar is at the front. Both radars can track a target 15 kilometers away. The search radar works with S band and the fire-control radar works in the Ku band.
The main armament of the vehicle is two Oerlikon KDA 35-millimeter guns, stabilized and with projectile velocity meters in the muzzle. Each gun fires at a rate of 550 rounds per minute or 1,100 rounds per minute. Muzzle velocity is 1,180 meters per second.
These cannons can fire semi-armor-piercing high-explosive incendiary; high-explosive incendiary; or frangible armor-piercing discarding sabot. In total, the vehicle carries 640 anti-aircraft rounds and 40 anti-tank rounds.
Inside the Gepard: the World’s Best Air-Defense Gun was originally published in War Is Boring on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.