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Cake day: December 9th, 2023

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  • there are also shaheds with similar size of warhead

    You can’t just compare the warhead size, the kinetic energy of an artillery shell cannot be ignored, an airplane by design of being a flying thing cannot achieve that same degree of energy in a dive.

    It is a difference between a brick being dropped on something from a story up and a brick hurtling from high out of the sky in a ballistic trajectory at the same thing.

    Probably the best analogy is that the force applied to it becomes so great that the liner effectively becomes flexible like plasticine to the explosive, forming a long, stretched shape akin to a long spike or lance, with a thinner tip, and becoming progressively wider toward the rear end. This jet moves incredibly quickly, but has an uneven speed along its length, with the tip moving the fastest (in modern examples, it can travel in the order of 8-10 km/s or more)

    [Artillery shells can easily approach 1km/s at impact so the velocity of the shell is not trivial to a HEAT mechanism, they are within the same order of magnitude of velocity thus the velocity of the shell is DEFINITELY relevant not just explosive yield of the munition in question]

    https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/GabrielaBis.shtml

    Another unhelpful factor which has muddied the waters around the true nature of HEAT jets is that in English-speaking nomenclature, these weapons have often been categorised as ‘Chemical Energy’ (CE) weapons, in contrast to Kinetic Energy (KE) weapons. This distinction is not a particularly helpful one, nor is it particularly accurate.

    For HEAT rounds it holds true only insofar as the initial energy imparted onto the liner is chemical energy, however the actual armour defeat mechanism is through the kinetic energy of a solid penetrator.

    Yet the exact same is true of traditional KE weapons, such as armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) rounds; the main difference being that APFSDS rounds have chemical energy imparted onto them while the penetrator is still inside the barrel, while HEAT rounds impart chemical energy onto the penetrator in the moment of the warhead’s initiation. In both cases, chemical energy is being converted to kinetic energy, yet by a quirk of convention, HEAT warheads have retained the ‘CE’ label.

    https://euro-sd.com/2024/06/articles/38841/the-most-misunderstood-weapon-in-the-world-mythbusting-heat-warheads-and-their-countermeasures/



  • Do you understand how horrifying the phrase “2x as destructive as a 155” is?

    An 155mm shell landing close to you is an already apocalyptic experience, especially if more than one lands near you.

    Yes I would definitely take 155mm artillery over this heavier stuff for the reasons you brought up, but there is a nonlinear anvil drop effect going on here where the only thing that can really do what a 203mm howitzer can do over and over again are glide bombs dropped from fighter-bombers.

    We are talking a serious amount of force here, we can’t really capture it in words.

    I don’t envy ukrainian logisticans either even if pion fires the same ammunition

    If it wasn’t for exoskeletons I would say artillery this large is a deadend because of the logistics challenges, but yeah once the shells become too big for a single person to realistically move around logistics must become so much more of a nightmare especially when mud comes into the equation. Worst comes to worst you can have a human move a 155mm artillery shell across a space (although this is really where the advantage of 105mm artillery comes in), you cannot make that same assumption with a 203mm shell or even a 170mm shell like on the NK Koksans.

    This is why it frustrates me that the L119 doesn’t get more attention in Ukraine because it looks boring and isn’t futuristic like drones, an artillery crew is going to be able to get a L119 into position in muddy conditions and supply it with an arbitrary amount of ammunition FAR before heavier machinery and trucks will be able to get into the area and establish a working foothold. A humvee can go basically anywhere and it can tow an L119 there.

    Can you imagine how much more exhausting it would be dragging a fucking D30 into place over muddy shitty conditions vs. an L119 bopping along behind a humvee? If you compare the two weapon systems on paper you completely miss how much more beat and worn down the D30 crew is going to be before they even get to the fighting part.

    This is a dynamic that is maximally easy to miss as an armchair observer.


  • There is no relevant distinction to make anywhere in one time use systems, which is another way of stating that the belief people have that drones will replace all larger aircraft and make them obsolete aggressively ignores that larger aircraft already frequently carry much more agile, cheap and decisive counters to smaller drones, they are called missiles.

    Another way of stating the above truth is that many of the “drone” interceptors Ukraine has fielded to great success could just be as easily be conceptualized as small, affordable electric prop powered guided missiles as they can be conceptualized as drones. Similarly one could conceptualize a fiber optic FPV drone as an evolution of TOW missiles into a more flexible, affordable complimentary form.

    The idea that missiles are inherently more expensive than larger drones they are meant to neutralize is also a major thinking error caused by misunderstanding the ways in which the US is dysfunctional and also the basic doctrine the US Military follows. A smaller more limited missile will always be cheaper to produce than a larger more complex flying bomb, the fact that the world has temporarily become delusional about this is going to blow back in the faces of people very violently who confidently believe incorrect things about war because they understand drones and computers…

    The only real meaningful distinction that can be made between most missiles and most drones is that most smaller missiles are employed to hit moving targets whereas most long range flying bombs like shaheds are optimized for dispersed static targets. That isn’t a hard distinction of course though (tiny fpv drones are a major exception here) so I just usually resort to calling them all flying bombs. A tomahawk is VERY different than a shahed, but they both fall under the category of “Flying Bomb” to me.




  • This article is about Canadian leaders and what they say, that is why X is referenced.

    Social media posts are how politicians state their intentions?

    This article is not overblown, it is the same criticism that can be levelled at many countries it is just Carney made a really good speech arguing not to do this shit not too long ago so yeah… the international community is going to comment on the hypocrisy.

    Where did I or this article claim ALL Canadians think this? We are talking about your leaders.