What happens in 2025? / new tactics- new technologies

[Dion]

From what I remember you can play random battles and scenarios set in the future. How far in the future can you go? I imagine most of the units are hypothetical. Are the units very realistic? If the game isn't updated beyond 2025, will all of these type of games become obsolete? Please excuse me for being so ignorant, but I never played a game set beyond the real date, so I don't really know what their like.

[MarkSheppard]

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard

Drone tactics are evolving rapidly.

Latest thing now. Ukrainians are using cargo drones (actually normal mortar bomb dropping drones) to ferry cargo across the Dnepr to the units that have crossed it.

https://twitter.com/CasualArtyFan/st...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

Everyone talks about drones in terms of ISR, arty, and FPVs, but what about resupply?

Ukrainians who have crossed the Dnipro are using drones to regularly “ferry” supplies across the river.

On the right is a TRV-150, used by the U.S. Marine Corps in a similar role.

Went looking up the TRV-150:

https://www.popsci.com/technology/ma...supply-drones/

The Marines are getting supersized drones for battlefield resupply
The big flying machines are designed to carry about 150 pounds and can fly at about 67 miles per hour.

BY KELSEY D. ATHERTON | PUBLISHED APR 27, 2023 4:40 PM EDT

On April 11, the Department of Defense announced that it was allocating just over $8 million for 21 new delivery drones. These flying machines, officially called the TRV-150C Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft Systems, are made by Survice Engineering in partnership with Malloy Aeronautics.

The TRV-150C is a four-limbed drone that looks like a quadcopter on stilts. Its tall landing legs allow it to take off with a load of up to 150 pounds of cargo slung underneath. The drone’s four limbs each mount two rotors, making the vehicle more of an octocopter than a quadcopter.

The TRV drone family also represents the successful evolution of a long-running drone development program, one that a decade ago promised hoverbikes for humans and today is instead delivering uncrewed delivery drones.

The contract award is through the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems program office, which is focused on ensuring the people doing the actual fighting on the edge of combat or action get the exact robotic assistance they need. For Marines, this idea has been put into practice and not just theorized, with an exercise involving drone resupply taking place at Quantico, Virginia, at the end of March.

The Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft System (TRUAS), as the TRV-150C is referred to in use, “is designed to provide rapid and assured, highly automated aerial distribution to small units operating in contested environments; thereby enabling flexible and rapid emergency resupply, routine distribution, and a constant push and pull of material in order to ensure a constant state of supply availability,” said Master Sergeant Chris Genualdi in a release about the event. Genualdi already works in the field of airborne and air delivery, so the delivery drone became an additional tool to meet familiar problems.

Malloy Aeronautics boasts that the drone has a range of over 43 miles; in the Marines’ summary from Quantico, the drone is given a range of 9 miles for resupply missions. Both numbers can be accurate: Survice gives the unencumbered range of the TRV-150 at 45 miles, while carrying 150 pounds of cargo that range is reduced to 8 miles.

With a speed of about 67 mph and a flight process that is largely automated, the TRV-150C is a tool that can get meaningful quantities of vital supplies where they are needed, when they are needed. Malloy also boasts that drones in the TRV-150 family have batteries that can be easily swapped, allowing for greater operational tempo as the drones themselves do not have to wait for a recharge before being sent on their next mission.

These delivery drones use “waypoint navigation for mission planning, which uses programmed coordinates to direct the aircraft’s flight pattern,” the Marines said in a release, with Genualdi noting “that the simplicity of operating the TRUAS is such that a Marine with no experience with unmanned aircraft systems can be trained to operate and conduct field level maintenance on it in just five training days.”

Reducing the complexity of the drone to essentially a flying cart that can autonomously deliver gear where needed is huge. The kinds of supplies needed in battle are all straightforward—vital tools like more bullets, more meals, or even more blood and medical equipment—so attempts at life-saving can be made even if it’s unsafe for the soldiers to move towards friendly lines for more elaborate care.

Getting the drone down to just a functional delivery vehicle comes after years of work. In 2014, Malloy debuted a video of a reduced scale hoverbike designed for a human to ride on, using four rotors and a rectangular body. En route to becoming the basis for the delivery drone seen today, the hoverbike was explored by the US Army as a novel way to fly scouts around. This scout ultimately moved to become a resupply tool, which the Army tested in January 2017.

In 2020, the US Navy held a competition for a range of delivery drones at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona. The entry by Malloy and Survice came in first place, and cemented the TRV series as the drones to watch for battlefield delivery. In 2021, British forces used TRV drones in an exercise, with the drones tasked with delivering blood to the wounded.

“This award represents a success story in the transition of technology from U.S. research laboratories into the hands of our warfighters,” said Mark Butkiewicz, a vice president at SURVICE Engineering, in a release. “We started with an established and proven product from Malloy Aeronautics and integrated the necessary tech to provide additional tactical functionality for the US warfighter. We then worked with research labs to conduct field experiments with warfighters to refine the use of autonomous unmanned multirotor drones to augment logistical operations at the forward most edge of the battlefield.”

The 21 drones awarded by the initial contract will provide a better start, alongside the drones already used for training, in teaching the Marines how to rely on robots doing resupply missions in combat. Genualdi expects the Marines to create a special specialty to support the use of drones, with commanders dispatching members to learn how to work alongside the drone.

The drones could also see life as exportation and rescue tools, flying through small gaps in trees, buildings, and rubble in order to get people the aid they need. In both peace and wartime uses, the drone’s merit is its ability to get cargo where it is needed without putting additional humans at risk of catching a bullet.

EDIT: I think the pace of drone development is so rapid, with everyone getting them, that I think that it may be useful to simply consolidate them (if not already done) into BLUE or RED OBAT as "Grenade Drone", "Mortar Drone", "25 kg Kamikaze Drone", "Resupply UGV", "Resupply UAS"

[MarkSheppard]

HAMAS is now using grenade drones against the IDF with locally 3d printed fins.

https://twitter.com/war_noir/status/1719795974816546959

#Palestine / #Israel 🇵🇸🇮🇱: Al-Qassam Brigades (#HAMAS) carried out a drone attack on #IDF soldiers in Beit Hanoun, #Gaza.

The group dropped a craft-made copy of M26A2 hand grenade fitted with contact fuze and tail; which was resulted in the deaths of several Israeli soldiers.

https://twitter.com/AirPowerNEW1/sta...23988430299597

From developing the worlds first functional solid-state #GaN powered High Power Microwave counter electronics system, to rapidly iterating that to the current 3rd gen #Leonidas, proving it to the US Army & delivering operational system inside a year of being put on contract. 👏

https://twitter.com/AirPowerNEW1/sta...50140141895761

A company spokesman told Breaking Defense the plan is to now deliver the second directed energy weapon to the Army..by the end of December and complete delivery of the full platoon of four IFPC-HPMs early next year.

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/11/...e-from-epirus/

WASHINGTON —The US Army has accepted delivery of Epirus’s first high-power microwave prototype for a new developmental initiative aimed at protecting soldiers and facilities from swarms of aerial drones, the company announced today.

The delivery marks the first of four prototypes derived from the company’s Leonidas counter-unmanned aircraft systems (cUAS) system that Epirus owes the service after inking a nearly three-year, $66.1 million contract in December 2022 for the Indirect Fire Protection Capability–High-Power Microwave (IFPC-HPM) initiative. A company spokesman told Breaking Defense the plan is to now deliver the second directed energy weapon to the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) by the end of December and complete delivery of the full platoon of four IFPC-HPMs early next year.

==========

As I posted in previous post (edited in, so Don may have missed it), but the pace of drone development / counter drone development is so rapid, with everyone getting them, that I think that it may be useful to simply consolidate these types of equipment into BLUE or RED OBAT as "Grenade Drone", "Mortar Drone", "25 kg Kamikaze Drone", "Resupply UGV", "Resupply UAS", "HPM Microwave Weapon", "Laser" etc.

I know you guys talked about in the past how you wished you had done more generic weapons systems -- "5.56mm rifle", "5.56mm scoped rifle", "5.56mm LMG" -- to save on weapon slots in national OBATS.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard

As I posted in previous post (edited in, so Don may have missed it), but the pace of drone development / counter drone development is so rapid, with everyone getting them, that I think that it may be useful to simply consolidate these types of equipment into BLUE or RED OBAT as "Grenade Drone", "Mortar Drone", "25 kg Kamikaze Drone", "Resupply UGV", "Resupply UAS", "HPM Microwave Weapon", "Laser" etc.

I hope an OBAT is a generic form of an OOB. If it is, I hope it gets included in the next update!

[Karagin]

I hope we can jam drones in the next update.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Karagin

I hope we can jam drones in the next update.

What does "I hope we can jam drones in the next update." mean exactly?

There are already numerous drones in the OOBs including a unitclass for drones

[Karagin]

Originally Posted by DRG

What does "I hope we can jam drones in the next update." mean exactly?

There are already numerous drones in the OOBs including a unitclass for drones

ECM units that counter drones not just shoot them down. Stop them from doing their tactical job, like how smoke blocks LOS for units to a point or terrain does.

Not having more drone units, I think that is a waste of space, I am saying having the function for a setting for units to be able to actively disrupt the drones on the board, in the same manner smoke does LOS.

[MarkSheppard]

https://twitter.com/AirPowerNEW1/sta...77360507617629

Long thread.

US Army will spend 2024 putting its 50kW DE #MSHORAD & #IFPC-HPM platoons through the paces at various exercises focused on developing TTP's & integrating with kinetic counterparts. Coming out of this, both are expected to transition into formal programs for fielding more broadly.

...

While the Army & other services have 5, 10, & 20 kW High Energy Lasers and High Power Microwave systems operationally deployed to protect deployed troops and operational bases, DE-MSHORAD, and IFPC-HPM are the first two of several DEW's being integrated into US Army units.

...

In 2025, the US Army would also begin receiving the first of 4 300 kW IFPC-High Energy Laser systems from LM & Dynetics. IFPC HEL & HPM will form the non kinetic components of the Indirect Fires Protection Capability, with the Enduring Shield acting as its kinetic component.

...

Together, these will sit below the #PATRIOT & THAAD components of Army's Integrated Air & Missile Defense, and cover the short range air defense needs against Cruise Missiles, Group 3+ UAS, & RAM. Army plans to field 9 IFPC battalions (27 IFPC batteries).

[MarkSheppard]

Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) will be a set of mobile, ground-based weapon systems designed for Cruise Missile Defense (CMD), Counter-UAS (C-UAS) and Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortars [Counter-RAM] (C-RAM).

The Army doesn't know *exactly* what the precise mix of components will be; they bought two battalions of Iron Dome (now going to Israel) for use as an interim Cruise Missile Defense (CMD) system.

ENDURING SHIELD is the codename for one "final" Cruise Missile Defense System -- it's basically a palletized ground launcher for the AIM-9X Sidewinder. 16 launchers and 40 missiles will be received and tested in 2024.

The Army is taking their time to figure out IFPC to find out exactly what mix of weapons are needed -- i.e. the precise balance of missiles vs lasers vs high power microwave weapons -- because even the US can't afford to spend $400K per shot [rough cost of AIM-9X] on every target.

[MarkSheppard]

Latest drone news...

...supposedly, the Ukrainians are now using robot boats to transport jammers into the middle of the Dneipr river to prevent Russian FPV Drone attacks on Ukrainian boats/troops crossing the Dneipr or on the other bank.

Previous attempts to protect crossings with fixed jammers resulted in said jammers eating Iskander-M SRBMs.

BMP-3s *may* get a built in drone jammer

https://twitter.com/Shaimurato13576/...01415154032934

BMP-3 will get a FPV jammer, looks like Volnorez on a mast.

Drones in the battlefield are now beginning to incorporate shielding to partially negate GPS jamming:

https://twitter.com/DanielR33187703/...21895138537964

Russian Drone workshops assembling drones in videos are now showing a metal can on a rod -- it appears to be a shielding device that protects GPS receivers from jamming coming from below, while the top is open, allowing GPS signals to be received.