Flying bombs won’t stay dumb forever, I think there will end up being some high profile cases where what appears to be a flying bomb is actually a trap for a manned interceptor, this already happened on the sea with a Ukranian boat being targeted by the shahed it was trying to shoot down (I think it was a shahed), though the gunner on the boat still successfully shot the shahed down.
No matter how this evolves, you know what I would really want to be in to hunt down and eliminate a mass wave of shaheds and drones that might try to threaten me back?
One of these
Or one of these
What is the shahed going to do? Try to turn around and fly at the helicopter? … and then what? Have you ever seen how these types of helicopters move? There is no good reason these shouldn’t be provided to help Ukraine immediately…
These platforms have sensors that can see for extremely long range, have an accurate direct fire cannon and can also mount all kinds of guided missiles, it really mystifies me why the world is acting like these wouldn’t be extraordinarily useful to Ukraine right now as mass air defense platforms to protect large populations of civilians from flying bombs.
^ link to article where it mentions that a Ukrainian patrol boat was targeted by a shahed
Edit Italy also has the AW249 which would be extremely useful to Ukraine right now for the same reasons.
Military tech seems to be coming full circle
Well yes but I also think Russian bias is fairly prevalent in most english speaking media for a variety of reasons, and one small but vitally important part of that is an attempt to sell drones as the unilateral future of warfare for at least two reasons.
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Russia doesn’t have any tanks or non-obsolete armor left, so they have to explain in the realm of propaganda why tanks are no longer a symbol of strength, the Turtle vehicles are best understood from this perspective as well.
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Russia I think correctly understands that the biggest threats to their effectiveness of mass cheap drone attacks with shaheds are attack helicopters and thus it is necessary to instill in the global defense industry a sense that helicopters are obsolete in order to slow down how quickly Ukraine can develop a decisive air defense that integrates helicopters. Drones must have a sense of complete technological inveitability for Russia to effectively slow down Ukraine’s procurement of attack helicopters in an indirect propaganda way like this. Simultaneously if you look at accounts of how Russia uses its helicopters, it treats them as an essential element of their air defense just as Ukraine does so -shrugs- explain a better reason why everyone is so convinced attack helicopters are no longer relevant than when both sides in this war are deploying them like mad?
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