supersquirrel

As a USian it feels wrong to say, but ask yourself what if it was true?

All three of these systems seem promising in particular though I think the avilus bussard is EXACTLY what Ukraine needs to deal with drone swarms/mass flying bomb attacks (i.e an electronics warfare and surveillance platform like this) see my post on the Aero Shark ultralight airplane for more info on the topic.

The new defense product lineup positions the Bussard drone as a long-range strategic asset capable of persistent surveillance and precision effects. With its maximum takeoff weight of 800 kg and payload capacity of 143 kg, Bussard provides wide-area reconnaissance thanks to its Hensoldt Argos EO system and PrecISR radar, ensuring day-night, all-weather intelligence collection.

The wespe can carry a stretcher for medevac, it also provides a way to carry a soldier killed in action off of the battlefield so their loved ones can have peace without having to place a human operator at risk or require an unrealistic amount of manpower than is available at the front at that moment in time due to the Russian attacks. While this seems like a grim point, I don't care, what matters is that human beings are going to do everything possible to get fellow deceased soldiers off the battlefield so they can have a decent burial and this will inveitably place humans at risk when they do this. In those instances the impact of a wespe drone is no longer just assistance in a kind but grim epigraph, it becomes an agent to free the other human beings defending up so they can better ensure it doesn't happen again...

The wespe (and systems like it) deserve their own post for the potential life saving applications they have in Ukraine, it is not lost to me that the original use of helicopters in warfare quickly morphed from reconnaisance into medevac.

https://blog.eastmanleather.com/view-post/korea-the-first-helicopter-war

Think of these medevac drones that can lift a medical compartment/stretcher out of combat zones while under great risk as an echo of how helicopters were first used to save lives in war.

https://blog.eastmanleather.com/view-post/korea-the-first-helicopter-war

Early in 1951, Army helicopters also began to fly medevac missions, sparing seriously wounded soldiers punishing ambulance trips over Korea's wretched roads. Between their rescues of downed airmen and isolated ground troops and flying ambulance missions, U.S. helicopters were credited with saving tens of thousands of lives during the war. "Few technical innovations were equal in importance to the growing use of the helicopter for medical evacuations," one Army history declared. With the arrival of larger, more capable helicopters later in the conflict, the Marines and Army would demonstrate the usefulness of vertical lift aircraft in the tactical movement of troops and supplies — a role that would become the hallmark of another Asian war a decade later.

There is a terrible capacity in flight to kill, but even as it was being innovated at the most rapid pace empires on earth could muster, others still were moving faster by figuring out how to save lives with these incredibly flying machines.

The H-5/HO3S-1 gained its greatest fame during the Korean War when it was called upon repeatedly to rescue United Nations pilots shot down behind enemy lines and to evacuate wounded personnel from frontline areas. It was eventually replaced in most roles by the H-19 Chickasaw.[citation needed] In 1957, the last H-5 and HO3S-1 helicopters were retired from active U.S. military service.[citation needed]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_H-5

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_H-34

"Lieut. Stew. Graham, U.S.C.G. demonstrating the ease of leaving the rescue basket to the helicopter cabin. Rotary Wing Development Unit, Elizabeth City, N.C., 1947, rescue basket designed & perfected by personnel of the TWDU."; 1947; no photo number; photographer unknown.

https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Assets/Air/All/Rotary-Wing/Article/3051521/sikorsky-ho2s-1ho3s-1g-dragonfly/

The H-19 Chickasaw holds the distinction of being the US Army's first true transport helicopter and, as such, played an important role in the initial formulation of Army doctrine regarding air mobility and the battlefield employment of troop-carrying helicopters. The H-19 underwent live service tests in the hands of the 6th Transportation Company, during the Korean War beginning in 1951 as an unarmed transport helicopter. Undergoing tests such as medical evacuation, tactical control and front-line cargo support, the helicopter succeeded admirably in surpassing the capabilities of the H-5 Dragonfly which had been used throughout the war by the Army.

The U.S. Air Force ordered 50 H-19A's for rescue duties in 1951. These aircraft were the primary rescue and medical evacuation helicopters for the USAF during the Korean War. The Air Force continued to use the H-19 through the 1960s, ultimately acquiring 270 of the H-19B model.

https://www.ewarbirds.org/aircraft/uh19d.shtml

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_H-21

https://unodigitalhumanitiesprojects.omeka.net/exhibits/show/heroes-and-hueys/helicopters-1946-1969/h-21-shawnee

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/piasecki-yh-21-work-horse/

The U.S. Air Force immediately ordered 32 H-21A helicopters for Search and Rescue operations. The Workhorse was well suited to cold weather operations and it was widely used in Alaska, Canada, and the Antarctic. Another 163 H-21B models were ordered as a troop transport. The U.S. Army ordered a similar H-21C variant.

In 1955, Piasecki became Vertol and eventually Boeing Vertol. The company would continue to produce tandem rotor helicopters such as the H-46 Sea Knight and the CH-47 Chinook, which is still in production.

What I am trying to point out is that the military industrial complex of the world thinks we are seeing a preview of the next generation of war in Ukraine... and unfortunately we have (and unfortunately in some ways we haven't i.e. the west hasn't been very serious about arming Ukraine with what it actually needed to decisively defend itself) but looking back at the history of helicopters if you take a closer look at the bleeding... leading edge of aviation innovation you will see... it was always for live saving and rescue.

There are people who sit in austere rooms thinking about how to use aviation technology to kill people... and they will always be flanked by pilots who took the flying machine that was put in their hands and WENT without stopping to build an architecture of death and oppression.

That hasn't changed, and what is bigger than this revolution in warfare in the revolution that is happening in search and rescue aircraft and unmanned ground vehicle capacity. To bring it back to the avilus bussard, this plane is also immediately useful as a life saving search and rescue aircraft or as a surveillance aircraft for natural disaster response, the applications are wide reaching. Don't be fooled into thinking this just applies to war, it only does if our imaginations fail us and I don't see a lack of imagination in Ukraine...

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/sikorsky-h-5-combat-rescue-in-korea/

Helicopters apparently didn't get the memo they were obsolete in modern combined arms full scale land warfare.

Somebody tell the Mi-8s those must be very confused given how old they are!

According to FFI, the Ukrainian battlefield experience reinforced Norway’s decision to prioritize artillery systems capable of achieving more than 40 kilometers in range and better survivability, and led to a reassessment of ammunition acquisition strategy, favoring volume and cost-effective accuracy improvements over limited high-cost precision rounds. The evaluation judged the acquisition to be economically sound and aligned with modern operational requirements, despite noting that long-term viability would depend on integrated force protection and continued ammunition procurement.

...

The K9 VIDAR is a Norwegian variant of the South Korean K9 Thunder, configured to meet national requirements. It is equipped with a 155 mm L52 gun and designed for indirect fire support at ranges exceeding 40 kilometers. The platform is powered by a 1,000-horsepower MTU diesel engine and has a maximum speed of 67 km/h. With a five-person crew, the system measures 12 meters in length, 3.4 meters in width, and 3.5 meters in height, and weighs approximately 48 tons.

It features a rate of fire of up to eight rounds per minute and a burst capacity of three rounds in 15 seconds. It can relocate within 30 to 60 seconds between firing positions, reducing exposure to counter-battery fire. The hydropneumatic suspension minimizes shock and enables stable operation across diverse terrain and weather conditions. Norwegian trials confirmed the system’s ability to fire Nammo’s 155 mm IM HE-ER rounds to a range of 43.6 kilometers. A maximum range of 54 kilometers has been reached under test conditions. The K9 VIDAR is compatible with the BONUS 155 mm sensor-fused top-attack munition and is expected to integrate future ramjet-assisted rounds with ranges up to 100 kilometers.

Due to South Korean arms exports limitations it is highly unlikely the K9 will see service in defense of Ukraine, but I think it is important to keep providing simple but direct evidence of my arguments about the general media's lack of recognition of how important 155mm artillery systems are in comparison to the more flashy drones and missiles that strangle the imaginations of people.

Patriot missiles are a major thing for Ukraine, but 155mm shells don't need to wait around to swat down Putin's war effort, they actively leap into the sky, seek out the Russian war effort and apply themselves to stopping it with vigor.

South Korea is looking at the war in Ukraine and concluding that armored 155mm artillery is essential for their defense, and so is Norway. Two different countries each facing the realistic medium term prospect of an armored fullscale land war from different countries are both looking at Ukraine and concluding they need more of what Ukraine has in the 155mm department (well, Ukraine has the M109 and other 155mm artillery systems including the domestically produced Bohdana in towed and armored wheeled self propelled variants not the K9 but you get my point).

I will repeat the calculus for this war right now is brutally simple, Ukraine has a superior towed and self propelled 155mm artillery gun production domestically, it has domestic production capacity for 155mm shells and the international community has recently consolidated around ensuring Ukraine will continue to have that capacity both in cannons and ammunition for said cannons. At every level Ukraine's approach to applying artillery fire is more integrated in a dynamic combined arms sense than Russia's which is dependent on more structured doctrine and higher volumes of artillery shells available to fire (which Russia can no longer count on having access to), and finally Ukraine's fire control systems for artillery derive from the M109 Paladin systems which is one of the most fearsome weapon systems on earth.

Also it hardly needs to be said but Ukraine has far superior UAV drone spotters for coordinating friendly artillery... by a long measure...

Most crucially though to the calculus of the war, Ukraine has invested in thorough counter-artillery capacity while simultaneously investing seriously in keeping its own highly trained artillery crew alive. The longer the artillery crews survive the more ruthless and lethal they become in terms of being able to decisively support friendly infantry and armor. Especially given the sophisticated digital fire control systems Ukraine is using in their artillery.

This coupled with the fact that Russia clearly cannot even defend its artillery adequately enough to make effective use of it spells disaster for Russia. This is how land warfare has always worked since gunpowder entered into the equation.

Do not believe the media blitz right now, it must be a very scary time to live in Ukraine (it is scary enough to watch from an international perspective), but the media blitz is happening to attempt to cover up that this is the last serious chance Putin has to make decisive progress in the war in Ukraine and that window just slammed on Putin's fingers. The window slamming in this metaphor being the production graph for towed and armored self propelled 155mm artillery and ammunition for/in Ukraine. Compare what Ukraine states now for Bohdana production vs. a year ago, the difference cannot be expressed in words adequately in terms of battlefield impact.

Now the international powers that be are more interested in entering into weapons contracts with Ukraine than they are "stepping back and letting Russia continue the war" (i.e. selling vital electronics components to Russia for their fighterbomber jets?) and the longer Russia continues the war the more they underline how international powers stand far more to gain by working with Ukraine and gaining access to their advanced technology and innovative tactics than they do partnering with Russia and gaining access to outdated equipment, doctrine and armored vehicles that simply cannot protect their crews and passengers period.

[UK] will provide for the delivery of more than 5,000 air defence missiles from Thales, which will not only significantly strengthen the UK's defence capabilities but also help Ukraine continue its resistance in the war launched by Russia.

The UK also confirms the provision of up to £283 million in bilateral assistance to Ukraine over the coming year.

"This announcement underlines our continued support for Ukraine – boosting their air defences against devastating drone and missile attacks and supporting the critical work to reconstruct this nation and provide the hope that they need," the government press service quoted UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner as saying.

The United Kingdom will allocate up to £10.5 million for the Governance Reform Programme and up to £1 million to support Ukraine's Green Transition Office in the 2025–2026 financial year.

The deal concerns the FZ275 LGR, a 70mm guided missile developed by Thales. Originally an unguided aviation rocket, the FZ275 LGR has been upgraded with a semi-active laser guidance system, giving it a strike range of up to 3,000 meters.

The missile is capable of intercepting drones, including those used in Russian attacks, and is compatible with the Vampire air defense systems currently deployed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This compatibility will allow mobile fire teams to supplement machine guns with guided munitions, providing a cost-effective alternative to more expensive air defense missiles.

https://united24media.com/latest-news/uk-to-send-5000-laser-guided-missiles-to-ukraine-in-landmark-defense-deal-9785

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2FECb2L45t8

I imagine the idea is to use a tried and true high quality but ultimately basic 70mm tube missile and aim it really smart which is a good cost effective way to deal with swarms.

EMONTS: That’s the main external difference between the two weapons. The guided rocket – or missile – does not need to spin, like their unguided counterparts which have ‘curved clams’ on the rear end. It needs to maintain a flat flight path. Therefore, we put canards behind the front. The canards maintain the flight trajectory after the engine is spent which takes around one second.

After the engine is spent, it becomes a ballistic munition and utilises gravitational forces to glide onto the target which has been established by the launching-platform via its Wescam sensor or by an external source such as a single soldier or UAV.

The gliding mechanism is what distinguishes the system from traditional missiles. However, the main benefit is that the FZ275 LGR is compatible with all current launchers that we have delivered to our customers. There are over 2,000 launch pods in use all over the world, and for each one a guided solution is feasible.

We have also developed lock-on-before-launch functionality, greatly reducing potential waste and unwanted collateral damage. This, in turn, improves survivability, since a helicopter can remain lethal outside of effective MANPADS range.

https://www.defenceiq.com/air-forces-military-aircraft/news/turning-dumb-rockets-into-smart-missiles-1

I don't necessarily agree with the author's worldview and politics, as a USian while I am wary of China the obsessive fear mongering over China as a distraction from talking about basic things like say getting people in the US good quality affordable healthcare is obnoxious and self defeating even if it is your job to analyze such things. My whole life US warhawks have been writing nonstop about war with China.. yeah it could happen but these kinds of people are monotone and exhausting... If you aren't from the US you don't probably have any idea how repeatedly this narrative is beat over USians heads. Even during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the US military industrial complex was loudly repeating to the US populace that this wasn't the actual war they were going to fight and we needed to remember that China was the real enemy.....

That being said, the analysis about the Russian war here is spot on. The thing was, the military veterans that were part of the US military industrial complex were right, years later we ended up in a near peer conflict with Russia fighting much more traditional fullscale combined arms armored warfare, but growing up during that time was being stuck between two different kinds of warhawks one right and one wrong...

ANYWAYS, despite all that Small Wars Journal has been consistently one of the more lucid and clear eyed publications on the kinds of wars the US was actually fighting and what the implications and consequences would therein be.

For Russia, 2024 brought another year of Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine. Russian personnel and equipment losses have been enormous, and territory gained in 2024 was trivial (Russia captured 0.67% of Ukraine in 2024), but the worst part for Russia was that it became even less competitive with the West. Two decades ago, when Putin came to power in Russia, it seemed obvious that Russia needed to shift away from the old Soviet mistakes of ruthless information control and an economy over-reliant on defense spending and oil and gas exports. However, instead of improving the education system, opening information flows, and building a modern and diversified economy, Putin followed the familiar, and doomed, Soviet path. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine radically accelerated these negative trends for Russia, and each day the war continues puts Russia further behind.

As was pointed out in last year’s assessment, Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine proved that thirty years of post-Soviet Russian Irregular Warfare against Ukraine failed, forcing Putin to choose between watching Ukraine join the West or launching the largest and most expensive war in Europe since World War II. Russia’s expensive war effort left it with no resources in 2024 to retain its former position in the Caucasus, where former ally Armenia is pulling out of Russia’s orbit, or in Syria, where Russia failed to save the Assad regime. Russia is receiving useful assistance from Iran and North Korea, but these partners will demand payment for their assistance.'

To give people some perspective on how someone watching from the US might see this war in a broader political context, the US militaries' involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan was in some ways a boon for the US military industrial complex, but it also was an existential threat. US forces using equipment they were trained to use to fight against a Russian cold war invasion (i.e. war in Ukraine) were being asked to do patrol missions and essentially function as a police force.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars became essentially a militarized police occupation. Initially this resulted in a very high lethality rate to US soldiers driving unarmored humvees around to conduct these patrols (the basic humvee is NOT armored, stock it is a utility vehicle not a combat vehicle). Mine Resistant Armored Personnel vehicles or MRAPs were developed quickly and fielded to save the lives of soldiers but this made the U.S. military industrial complex utterly freak out because it directly implied a future for the formerly glorious Soviet Union crushing US Military, the most powerful entity on earth!!! where it primarily functioned as a glorified police force.

Thus, even as MRAPs were being fielded and saving lives in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military was quickly moving to reject these armored vehicles in favor of more traditional lower profile armored vehicles optimized to survive against highly sophisticated and lethal direct fire anti-tank weapons, not a homemade bomb blast from below. The "obsolete" MRAPs actively saving soldiers lives needed to go somewhere however, so they were given to US police departments.

-good thing the U.S. military realized all those years ago that MRAPs would be needed in an extended conventional conflict too.... oh wait...

The transfer of MRAPs to police forces all over the US supercharged the process of the militarization of US police. Military types largely ignored this aspect however in favor of discussing how it was a good thing the US military could now focus on building an army to destroy China. Well... you have seen the impact of flooding US police forces with MRAPs has had... and paradoxically MRAPs are actually very useful for conventional warfare as logistics, resupply, troop ferrying and ambulance vehicles as Ukraine has demonstrated exhaustively.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/54646

This underlines that the reason the US military didn't want the MRAPs is the same reason the US military never bothered to develop MRAPs until US soldiers started getting blown up left and right in unprotected humvees patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is a good question, why isn't the US military taking back all the MRAPs it pawned off to police departments in the US and shipping them off to Ukraine after the police quietly admitted they didn't need that warlike of a vehicle to keep the communities they were part of safe???.......???

Trashing the blind self-destructive militarism of my society aside... the way Russia has evolved it's use of armored vehicles by comparison is shocking, it is blatantly obvious they haven't basically at all beyond innovating improvised drone defenses and it is catastrophic for them in this moment that they are trying to conduct a mind-bendingly massive infantry offensive without ANY effective armored personnel carriers. If you watch recent combat footage of Russians manuevering infantry with armor, the infantry is almost always ON TOP of the armored vehicle which is a direct admission those vehicles don't actually function as armored vehicles for the infantry or the armor crews.

You can say this is a difference in doctrine and yeah sure it is, the difference in doctrine is Russia doesn't protect its soldiers because it clearly does not care about their lives. This is especially true now that Ukraine is beginning to have a steady supply of artillery which Russia has not had to contend with up until this point.

Russian soldiers yell from the ditch nearby "Stalker are you gonna use that?"

Stalker laughs and says "no of course, take it just make sure to go back the same precise way I went in and you will be safe!"

On a serious note, this is a concrete example of how serious Russia's logistical issues are do to a logistics vehicle (especially lightly armored transportation vehicles/APCs) shortage.

Do a quick google search for "wars that were lost because a numerically superior army on the offensive overstressed and outran its logistics capability", it might be almost all of them.

Honestly this is a terrible strategy as how can Russia ensure that enroute that the carts don't become traps for the Russias meeting up to resupply from them? Either literally Ukraine could intercept and place explosives on the cart or an intelligence drone just follows the cart until the soldiers come out of the bushes to get their food and water and then the drone calls in an artillery strike.. end of story.. Humans driving a lightly armored logistics vehicle or an unmanned small ground vehicle driving erratically as it moves to an unknown destination would be much harder to predict. Really, in the day in age that FPV fiber optic drones can loiter and wait on the ground next to the tracks, this is the kind of solution you try when all of your good solutions are no longer available for you to choose. Russians are fools to continue this war.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 155 mm artillery shells and GMLRS (mobile rocket artillery) missiles were now being provided to Ukraine. The officials did not say how many weapons were being sent and whether the shipment was complete. It was also unclear why the latest shipments only included shells and artillery missiles and whether any decision had been made to resume shipments of other weapons.

The reduction in Patriot missiles is definitely a backhanded insult, but what matters is the 155mm shells, the fact that for now that delivery isn't disturbed means that Trump is at some level unwilling to really help Putin win the war at the pace he needs too. That is the answer to the question the article asks as well, the reason only the 155mm artillery shells are being delivered is because clearly that is what the relevant military people involved insisted on being necessary for aid to Ukraine, everything else could be cut even though it still hurt badly but the 155mm shells were a red line, if you don't listen to any of my ranting about artillery at least notice that.

In order for Putin to win, Ukraine needs to be desperately running out of 155mm artillery needed to hold back the Russian infantry advances across open terrain right now or else Putin will just break the Russian army upon the shores of devastating defensive artillery fire.

If you see Trump stop the 155mm shell deliveries than take this more as an existential threat, but even then European powers have already seen that they can't rely on the US to provide the bulk of Ukrane's 155mm artillery production and are taking steps to close that vulnerability.

I think the window for Putin to strike decisively has closed, from a logistics standpoint Russia can no longer assume the kind of dominance it would need to sustain this massively costly of an offensive for any serious length of time without being crushed. I think they are just counting on the rest of the world not realizing it long enough to accomplish their objectives.

(GMLRS are usually referred to as HIMARS)

https://english.nv.ua/amp/fighting-in-sumy-oblast-ukrainian-troops-launch-series-of-counterattacks-and-advance-50528377.html

edit here is an article

Unconfirmed but notice how this reality does not fit western media coverage at all.

The best Russia can hope for now is to scare Ukraine out of fighting any longer or conversely baiting Ukraine into a counterattack that they overcommit too.

The current Russian offensive is catastrophically unsustainable for the Russian warmachine, it won't work when they have fooled themselves into thinking demechanization was a good idea against artillery and that APCs are obsolete (no, Russia's APCs are obsolete, even their newest armor is still obsolete).

Ukraine will gain the operational freedom to f&$# up Russia bad soon, Ukraine needs to understand there is no more critical moment to retain poise and situational awareness, the rush of being able to decisively fight back easily overwhelms the war saturated defender's caution.

No let these coming counterattacks be calmly executed with precision to make Russia pay and not leave them a single inch to exploit in the associated manuevers.

As military analyst Stephen D. Biddle asserts, “Force em­ployment had played a more important role than either technology or prepon­derance for twentieth century war­fare.” Therefore, although military hardware matters, doctrine will have a greater role in enabling success on the battlefield.

...

Therefore, rather than narrowly apply­ing synchronization to direct and indi­rect fires, leaders must consider the synchronization of all friendly warfight­ing functions (WfFs), consisting of command and control, movement and maneuver, fires, intelligence, sustain­ment, and protection, as well as the desynchronizing of enemy WfFs.

In­telligence is its own breaching tenet, but degrading the enemy’s intelligence capability serves an equally important role. As another example, sustainment has a critical role in ensuring resources are available to the support, breach, and assault forces during all phases of the operation.

Additionally, vehicle re­covery plans are critical to prevent breach lanes from being blocked by im­mobilized vehicles. Shaping operations near Rivnopil which targeted RAF sus­tainment had both physical and moral effects on the defending company, and enabled 31st Mechanized Brigade’s assault. Thus, commanders and staffs must look beyond synchronizing friendly action and aggressively tear apart the enemy’s system.

https://www.army.mil/article-amp/286857/blocked_and_bloodied_lessons_from_the_combined_arms_breach_during_the_2023_ukranian_counter_offensive

Ukrainian defense officials have stated that monthly output reached 20 units, with optimal conditions allowing for up to 36. By mid-2025, more than 85% of components were sourced domestically, with a target of reaching 95% by the end of the year. Manufacturing operations are distributed across facilities in Ukraine and EU member states to reduce exposure to missile attacks.

...

Earlier, in April 2025, Ukraine nearly doubled the monthly production rate of its Bohdana self-propelled howitzers to as many as 36 units. The increase followed efforts to decentralize manufacturing across domestic and international facilities, with over 85% of components produced within Ukraine.

The patent news was already posted, but the details in this article are good and look at that production increase. It could not come at a more crucial time either. This is one of the largest shifts in power in the war so far, I know people think I am weird for emphasizing artillery but I don't see this shift in power being delineated by the media and it is a crime especially for the morale of Ukrainians. These cannons are saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers over and over again as we speak.

Here is info on production of towed Bohdanas.

In an interview with Channel 5 published the day before, Major General (Ret.) Ivan Lisovyi stated that five batches of Bohdana-BG howitzers had already been delivered in 2025. This suggests a high production tempo, likely in the range of 10 to 20 units per month, comparable to the self-propelled version

https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/how_many_domestically_produced_bohdana_bg_towed_howitzers_have_ukrainian_forces_received_in_2025-15070.html

For an example of why this kind of artillery is more relevant than ever see the details of this successful artillery strike from a great distance in coordination with drone spotters.

https://en.defence-ua.com/video/ukrainian_zuzana_2_system_delivers_scores_deep_strike_with_nato_howitzer-50.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/155_mm_SpGH_Zuzana

The strike targeted russian 152 mm artillery system at a reported distance of over 25 kilometers.

A total of eight rounds were fired from the Zuzana 2 system, reportedly achieving a high concentration of impacts on the identified position. The strike was carried out beyond visual range and is described as the unit's current record for precision engagement at extended distance.

Let me put this in perspective cus y'all must think I am crazy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artillery_by_country

The wikipedia entry for artillery by country doesn't even have an entry for Ukraine and yet by many metrics Ukraine is now producing sophisticated 155mm artillery systems with world class barrels at a rate that rivals any other country on earth, whether we are talking towed artillery or armored self propelled artillery, especially given the sophistication of the bohdana's fire control systems.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2A36_Giatsint-B

^ A side note, the carriage for the towed Bohdana version is currently a repurposed one originally designed for the Soviet Union's Giatsint-B "Hyacinth" towed 152mm artillery. This is a smart move as it repurposes as much as possible from Ukraine's inventory of 152mm artillery of this type along with the relevant logistics and supply chain elements specific to just the carriage of the artillery piece and creates a natural strategic flexibility for Ukraine that Russia is poorly situated to rival especially given the incredible increase in 155mm artillery ammunition production globally, Russia is going to be left out in the cold rain with an artillery caliber (152mm) that is vastly underproduced compared to 155mm while Ukraine simultaneously will retain a powerful capacity to repurpose any Russian artillery or ammunition it gets its hands on even very late into a war of attrition as it is actively fielding artillery pieces of both calibers with as much shared mechanical aspects between the two as possible.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8pu6WiEICc&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD

In the peculiar way power is projected in war, the simple capacity to place a sophisticated 155mm cannon onto a soviet era 152mm artillery carriage in a simple, effective, and expedient manner at an industrial scale has an immediate impact in the threat of burst potential it creates strategically. Russia knows it is losing the artillery war bad, but if they can't even count on it at least taking some time to arrange mass production of artillery carriages for the towed guns to mate them too and iron out all the problems... suddenly forecasting out the strategic outlook becomes much harder for Russia.

In particular the threat of a counter offensive, even if remote and unlikely, becomes much more serious if a large amount of your towed artillery is recovered by the enemy before you can destroy it... well now you just delivered the enemy a new set of artillery carriages for their factories.... Remember, no matter what the media says, these artillery pieces are too integral especially for attrition warfare to NOT use. Russia HAS to have at least some of them to conduct even basic aspects of modern warfare manuevers.

Consider that Russian generals, if they aren't idiots, are looking at all their currently in use 152mm artillery that have similar carriages and thinking "Ukraine can do far more damage with these than we can by ripping the shitty cannon off and replacing it with their vastly superior 155mm bohdanas they are producing at a stunning rate.."

That is not the kind of thing that generals who are winning think about when they stare blankly at a truck trailer on their smoke break.

Edit Also consider the strategic advantage inherent to simplifying decoy artillery production which is a simple age old strategy to protect your valuable artillery crew, and the flexibility to obscure important gaps in logistics, that come from Ukraine's seperate artillery calibers 152mm and 155mm mostly being mounted on very similar looking carriages as far as towed artillery is concerned. Now consider the perspective of Ukranian intelligence being able to glean the dizzying array of Russian artillery sizes needed to keep up their artillery fire pace, yes they just received a large number of North Korean Koksan artillery which have impressive performance from a purely hardware standpoint, but that is another seperate caliber fielded by an extremely distinctive looking artillery piece. If you are trying to design a counteroffensive or hit the enemy back at places that are already logistical bottlenecks to maximally increase the strength of your limited ammunition, then this kind of difference adds up every time battle occurs... but also it makes it that much harder for decoys to be effective and believable enough to fool Ukranian drones and intelligence because Russia needs more of them with more shapes to match the greater variety of distinctive artillery pieces in order to sufficiently confuse Ukraine and give Russia the space to make decisive operational maneuvers. You can say that well.. trained personnel know the difference between similar looking military equipment, but remember military intelligence often doesn't come from the military especially in wars where there is an occupying force that is generally unwanted by the population......

The Czech government has confirmed it will continue supplying artillery ammunition to Ukraine through 2026 as part of its international initiative, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said in an interview with Bloomberg on June 17.

....

He noted that while exact delivery figures for 2026 have not been disclosed, shipments for 2025 are expected to reach 1.8 million rounds, backed by 11 countries and frozen Russian assets.

Lipavský described the Czech-led initiative as a turning point on the battlefield, stating that it helped reduce the firepower disparity between Ukrainian and Russian artillery from a 1-to-10 ratio in early 2022 to 1-to-2 in 2025.

https://united24media.com/latest-news/18-million-shells-for-ukraine-czech-led-ammo-surge-marks-war-turning-point-9219

Edit 2 Also consider the capacity of an unmanned Shark Aero type ultralight with a parachute system to house a valuable suite of sensors in the passenger seat, if operating deep in friendly territory even if the aircraft was targetted and shot down by a shahed turned anti-air ambush device or some other type of drone attack, the hard to obtain sophisticated electronics could be potentially ejected and recovered thus at a strategic level deterring the idea of even targetting these deep backline aircraft in the first place.

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/russian-altius-drone-crashes-due-to-unknown-electronic-warfare-measures/

Edit While not a shark, this is a demonstration that the electronics warfare principles behind the design of this EW shark are a real pressure point that can be pressed by Ukraine.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SjkEV0XB8E4&pp=ygUUdWtyYWluZSBzaWxlbnQgc2hhcmvSBwkJwQkBhyohjO8%3D

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d6CJtoibnWc

Also see above videos.

Amazing to see, although Super Tucanos would have obviously worked, this ultralight turboprop civilian is perfect as an ultra-lightweight electronics warfare platform designed to effectively and cost efficiently disrupt large Russian shahed style flying bomb attacks.

This is the kind of practical, non-flashy weapons development that wins wars.

Go along for a ride in the shark (I like the account name :P).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Angsf1SWecI&pp=ygUgc2hhcmsgYWlycGxhbmUgdW5leHBlY3RlZCBmbGlnaHQ%3D

Rundown of this unexpected warhorse from a civilian buyer informational video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JObUKp4R64Q

"This is the most efficient platform you can buy with the 912 [aircraft] engine in it."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotax_912

[the civilian version of the aircraft weighs without fuel ~325 kg]

"I will get to ~8000 feet in about 10 minutes" pilot on the high power to weight ratio of the plane.

This is not a "frontline" aircraft at least in the traditional sense of the word, and it is hilarious to see people bashing this thing like it is going to lose air to air missile duels or be dodging SAMs. A single surface to air missile designed to shoot down fast jets can easily cost a multiple of what this aircraft sells for on the civilian market bought in single units. This is designed as a backline workhouse designed to be cheap and scalable enough to protect cities from mass cheap shahed attacks.

The cherry on top is being able to train Ukraine's next generation of pilots at the same time. Honestly flying in one of these has to be a really special experience, they are custom designed to inject a joy of flying into the pilot and passenger, not a joy derived from the drug of war and violence but of flight and the freedom inherent to it. Fear and respect a nation of people who understand flight or make a similar mistake nations did during the age of sail that dismissed smaller nations of mariners as pushovers that could be overwhelmed by sheer force and number, sailing expertise be damned. No, the pilots will always win, kings just sometimes forget it and think they must be the more powerful of the two because their throne is chained to the ground.

A king desperately pretending he is a pilot to project the illusion of having the individual power to change the world with his own two hands. Keep lying to yourself, fool.

I would not be so confident as Russia is throwing away the lives of their precious pilots while they set a clarion call over Ukraine to learn to fly and then provide basically infinite trainer drones to practice interdicting/ shooting down all day as much as they have the human capacity to train. It will inveitably produce a generation of pilots that can steamroll Russia with whatever airframe they have access to, military or not.

This is a target practice drone masquerading as a weapon. Fear those who cut their teeth downing waves of these, for they will be formidable, relentless and highly experienced.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nT9cH3jR5Y0

It is called a shark after all!

The Wind Rises

Imagine if you were a frontline UAV pilot in Ukraine and had turned your love of FPV racing and the adrenaline inducing high speed action of flying drones into an ability to kill... that leaving a mark on you however I can't imagine it does.... and yet had never had the time or money to actually learn to fly in an airplane and one day somebody approached you with the opportunity to rotate into the backline and learn to fly real airplanes while still keeping your country safe?

Imagine for a minute how you might feel the first time you were able to use your honed killing skills to do something even more basic and powerful, lift your body with an involuntary cry of joy into the air... now experiencing the true raw potential of flight as a full body experience.

I can see the potential in this "weapon system" to do the most important thing necessary to decisively winning a war, which is create a potential so much more powerful than violence that it washes it away like rain. To say "fine, optimize your factories to train my next generation of pilots" is the kind of response that dismantles empires...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W_8bszJPriY&pp=ygUWc2hhcmsgcGlsb3RzIGFlcm8gcGlrZQ%3D%3D