Putin's Invasion of Ukraine

[Cassia]

Tanks are a bit like battleships were in WW2. They are outranged. The soon-to-be, AI-driven, drone swarms may eventually become defeated by laser weapons in the future, but by then most tanks will also probably become drones.

[Hydra009]

Maybe. But as you say, laser weapons could counter drones and laser weapons may be housed in tanks. So tanks might be less vulnerable in the future.

And right now, they do have some utility. They just have to shoot and scoot FAST because there's always a reconnaissance drone watching and you only get so long between being spotted and an FPV drone crashing into the tank.

The Russians using them as breakthrough vehicles - just throwing a brick on the gas pedal and going headlong into Ukrainain positions - is a poor use of them and pretty much guarantees they'll get blown up. They fight like everything and everyone is expendable and the end result is that they get expended.

[Cassia]

Maybe. But as you say, laser weapons could counter drones and laser weapons may be housed in tanks. So tanks might be less vulnerable in the future.

And right now, they do have some utility. They just have to shoot and scoot FAST because there's always a reconnaissance drone watching and you only get so long between being spotted and an FPV drone crashing into the tank.

The Russians using them as breakthrough vehicles - just throwing a brick on the gas pedal and going headlong into Ukrainain positions - is a poor use of them and pretty much guarantees they'll get blown up. They fight like everything and everyone is expendable and the end result is that they get expended.

It will become air, land, and sea drones battlesphere, so tanks as they are today will become obsolete soon enough. I do wonder if Putin knew that was coming and decided to make his move sooner than later because tanks and guns are what they were all about. That would be a stretch, I don't think they are that smart. The US cancelled its new manned M10 tank program last summer in favor of drone development.

[theantithesis]

Tanks are a bit like battleships were in WW2. They are outranged.

The Japanese battleship Yamato needed spotter ships because its cannons could shoot around the curve of the Earth and they couldn't actually see what they were shooting at. It stayed in dock for most of the war until it was finally deployed and it was immediately sunk.

...

...

Then it was retrofitted into a space ship and sent to Iscandar to save the Earth.

[Hydra009]

I do wonder if Putin knew that was coming and decided to make his move sooner than later because tanks and guns are what they were all about. That would be a stretch, I don't think they are that smart.

It was immediately after Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych (the idea that he was pro-Russian is not a guess or speculation, he was a member of an officially pro-Russian political party called Party of Regions).

It's also possible, but a bit iffy imho that Russia's ongoing demographics crisis and the harsh economic impact of covid made invading Ukraine again a much more attractive prospect for Putin. On paper, he had more than enough forces to take Kyiv especially considering that Zelenskyy himself (and lots of other people) were in denial about an imminent Russian invasion in 2022. Experienced Russian troops (Chechen wars, Georgia, Syria) weren't getting any younger and controlling more prosperous lands, rich with natural resources and right on NATO's doorstep and giving a land bridge to Transnistria was very much on Putin's mind.

Both Ukraine and Russia had no idea drones would become so vital. But when the obvious utility presented itself, both sides embraced drones.

[Hydra009]

Crybully tactics: Russia opens exhibition on ‘Polish Russophobia’ at site of Katyn massacre

The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of Polish people by Soviet authorities. A genocide and crime against humanity.

The reversed portrayal of aggressor and victim - with the aggressor seeking sympathy without remorse and the victim either portrayed as deserving of harm or somehow causing it is a tactic used by nazis and similar to deflect or even reverse blame for their crimes.