Originally Posted by
B Fraser
Add Brimstone, Neptune, Firestreak etc. to that list. This war is changing the future landscape where tanks will be seen as a liability. Who wants to be in a helicopter where any hedgerow in a 3 mile radius could conceal a squaddie with a fire and forget rocket that will ruin your day. A kids toy drone with a hand grenade is now just as lethal as a sniper.
I beg to differ. MBT's and helos have their place in the battle field, but the question is who will be best in co-operation in between branches. The question is mobility and layers. One needs efficient long range artillery, medium range artillery and mortars. One needs air support (which has not been seen in large scale in Ukraine so far from either side), one needs AA. One needs Infantry not to mention support and services. Make it all mobile and operating seamlessly together and you have a winning combination. This is exactly what the western forces are doing and I believe doing it tenfolds better than the Russians. What I've read from the interweb of the current situation the Russians are also lacking CAP which leaves their other assets vulnerable. As no one really has upper hand in the air it makes life of said helo crews and ground assets a bit miserable. Last year there was a tweet from a Russian Su-27 pilot showing a Garmin hand held GPS in the cockpit. That doesn't quite exactly fit the bill of tactical data link. There's been reports for similar equipment found in downed RU aircrafts in Ukraine so the issues of non-existing co-operation between branches is really an issue.
Most of the Russian armored vehicles from MBT's to APC's have been destroyed while stationary or in a convoy (eg river crossing in which a battallion was destroyed or the convoy to Kiev). They were lacking infantry support (against LAW teams), AA-support (against drones and aircrafts) and counter-artillery (against, well, artillery). Once they start to be not so incredibly stupid they'll do much better, however the structural issues with all of their MBT's sending turrets to orbit if given a bad eye does make the life of crews very worrysome. However they've found a workaround and placing only 10 rounds per cartouch instead of full 40 hence avoiding the chain reaction that blows the turrets away (but going into a fight with only 1/4 of ammo gives you a whole different set of problems).
The Ukrainians have got their biggest victories so far with co-operation, eg the river crossing location was spotted by a team of scouts, they gave the coordinates to the long range artillery in advance, sent the drone in the air as an eye in the sky and once the battallion was at its most vulnerable state gave the fire command. The result can be seen on youtube.