I wasn’t planning on doing another Ukraine drone piece so soon after my Martian war machine post, but these new Ukrainian ground drones are pretty interesting.
The video covers three new remote platforms:
“The Termite, or termit, which stands for Track Modular Infantry Transporter, has a 300kg payload. It can carry a single casualty, or be sent with a controller so a casualty can self steer him or herself, and a more seriously injured colleague away from danger. Its modular design means it can also deliver military kit and carry offensive weapons. With a 20-hour power pack, it has front and rear cameras and night vision.”
Next: The Shablya combat platform, which is a remote control turret. “Its 7.62mm machine gun can destroy enemy armored vehicles and UAVS.” UAVS, sure, but it would have to be a very lightly armored vehicle for 7.62 to penetrate. “Easily hidden, it can also be attached to the Termite. It can be controlled from a shelter or via Wi-Fi, and it can store targets and reposition at the push of a button. It needs three boxes of 200 rounds but the barrel needs changing every 600.” The form factor is pretty striking, looking like something out of a video game. Or maybe a Vektor CR-21. And indeed, automatic versions of turrets like this have been a staple of various video games for some time.
Last is the Lyut or Fury, a four-wheeled remote-operated 7.62mm machine gun platform.
All these are interesting bits of kit that are probably well-suited to the Ukrainian battlefield, but all probably superfluous to, say, U.S. military needs. The Termite is probably 1/50th the cost (or less) than the army’s robotic mule, but its slow speed means it’s probably unsuited for evacuating wounded troops or near-front logistics resupply for an army as focused on maneuver warfare as the U.S., and unlike the robotic mule is probably unsuited to rough terrain. U.S. forces would probably use helicopters or any number of IFVs for those roles. Likewise, I don’t see much of a role for the wheeled gun platform for much the same reasons (though from time to time you read about Uncle Sam testing broadly similar remote vehicles for roles like remote demolition).
I can see more uses for the remote turrets as an area-denial weapon for certain situations, such setting up a dozen or so around bivouac perimeters with one guy monitoring the video feed. Knowing America’s modern weapon procurement trends, they would probably try to include an autonomous mode, which would do great right up until it fragged friendly troops or some kid tending sheep…
Russian soldiers in a Horsell Common Zaporizhia treeline got a very unpleasant surprise when a new Ukrainian drone unleashed a rain of fiery thermite death on them.
Leave it to the Ukrainians to make yet another terrifying innovation in drone warfare. I’m sure the Russian soldiers were none too thrilled to be targeted by this drone-based Martian heat ray. Thermite is easy to come by, being just powdered aluminum and rust, and burns at an infernal 4,000°F. But I do wonder how they’ve rigged it so that it does its Sparkler Rain of Death trick without catching fire itself. I suspect some sort of pressurized nozzle with a separate igniter.
I suspect this will prove a very effective tool at clearing trenches.
Now for a Brucie Bonus (as Suchomimus likes to say, based on a British game show), here’s the post title reference.
Happy Ides of March! You might want to avoid knife-wielding Romans today. Trump trial news, lots of Russo-Ukrainian War news, transexual madness starts to recede, and more Disney missteps. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Biden’s proposed budget is going to lower the deficit by $3 trillion. By which he means it will grow by $16 trillion.
Following yesterday’s release of Biden’s $7.3 trillion budget, the Biden administration bragged about lowering the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade – an average of 0.8% of GDP over that period.
This would consist of roughly $2.6 trillion over 10 years in additional spending programs, offset by around $4.8 trillion in tax increases over the same period. Most of the tax and spending proposals have been included in prior budget proposals from the White House, according to Goldman’s Alec Phillips, however there are several new items.
The budget would increase the corporate alternative minimum tax on book income from 15% to 21%, raising $137 billion over the next decade. It also limits a corporation’s ability to deduct employee pay exceeding $1mm/year, raising $272 billion over 10 years. The largest proposed tax increases include; raising the corporate minimum tax from 21% to 28%, as well as a series of tax increases on high-income earners, including new Medicare taxes, and a new 25% minimum tax on incomes over $100 million, raising $500 billion over the next decade.
Of course, it has zero chance of passing under the current Congress – but that’s not the point.
As one DC strategist wrote in a morning email noted by CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, the budget deficit will still grow by another $16 trillion over the next decade – and that’s with aforementioned tax hikes.
Without them, the deficit grows to $19 trillion.
In short, talk of ‘$3 trillion saved’ is total bullshit in the grand scheme of things, given how much the national debt will grow in the best case scenario.
The judge overseeing the Georgia election-fraud case struck down six counts in the indictment on Wednesday finding that the language in the counts didn’t provide “sufficient detail” for former president Donald Trump and more than a dozen other co-defendants “to prepare their defenses intelligently.”
The counts that Fulton County Superior Court judge Scott McAfee struck down all involved allegations that some of the defendants in the case solicited various Georgia elected officials to violate their oaths of office and to unlawfully appoint pro-Trump presidential electors.
The six counts struck down by McAfee on Wednesday involved Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Ray Smith and Bob Cheeley. The defendants were accused in the various counts of soliciting elected members of the Georgia house and senate and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to violate their oaths “to unlawfully appoint presidential electors.” Trump and Meadows also requested that Raffensperger “unlawfully decertify” the 2020 presidential election, according to two of the counts that McAfee struck down on Wednesday.
Fani Willis ruling: She can stay on the case despite her numerous ethical lapses and bias, but her boytoy Nathan Wade has to go, so he’s stepping down.
“Judge Sets Trial Date for Hunter Biden’s Federal Gun Case.” “U.S. district judge Maryellen Noreika ruled the trial will start on June 3 at a status conference with Hunter Biden’s attorneys and special counsel David Weiss’s team of prosecutors.”
And another one. “Kaluga Oil Facility Hit By Drones.” I know a lot of previous Ukraine drone strikes on oil facilities hit storage tanks. It can be hard to tell with the quality of videos, but in both of these videos, it appears that these recent strikes are hitting either the cracking or fractional distillation towers, which are much higher value targets and more difficult to replace.
The Biden admin knows that US military personnel will not be safe in Gaza, but millions of dollars will be spent to build a pier to send aid that the Gazans don’t even want and that someone in the admin hopes will become a “commercial facility.”
That’s what they think “American leadership” looks like.
Apart from wasting taxpayer money, this is building infrastructure that, unless Israel finishes off Hamas, will fall into the hands of terrorists.
Also, it will take 60 days to build (at least), by which time Israel should have finished pounding Hamas into a thin paste. It’s stupid piled on top of stupid.
I haven’t paid much attention to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s independent presidential run because I doubt it’s going to be on enough state ballots to even play a spoiler role. But the idea that he’s thinking of picking NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers as his running mate seems extra stupid. Yes, he’s won a Super Bowl and is a four-time MVP, is 40 years old (and thus constitutionally eligible to serve, but what the hell does an NFL quarterback know about running the country? Also, since Rodgers is under contract to the Jets, won’t having to play NFL football preclude him from actively running as VP pick?
Crazy white boy Shuan King is now a Muslim.
Breaking: BLM hoaxer Shaun King and his wife have converted to Islam. King identifies as black and previously identified as a Christian pastor. He regularly uses his large social media platform to threaten people.
“Captain Marvel 3, Ant Man 4, Eternals 2All Cancelled.” Second time to break this out this week:
Related: Just about all of the $71 billion Disney spent to acquire Fox was essentially wasted. They got into a bidding war, and then “they don’t use the catalog that Fox has that they were given.”
In the middle of trial, New York prosecutors abruptly dropped their case Wednesday against three collectibles experts who had been accused of scheming to hang onto and peddle the pages, which Eagles co-founder Don Henley maintained were stolen, private artifacts of the band’s creative process.
In explaining the stunning turnabout, prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided by 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates. Prosecutors and the defense got the material only in the past few days, after Henley and his lawyers apparently made a late-in-the-game decision to waive their attorney-client privilege shielding legal discussions.
In waving attorney-client privilege, it looks like Henley made himself a prisoner of his own device…
The Black Hornet drone that western nations have supplied Ukraine with has some very interesting tech and capabilities, and is all but invisible to visual and electronic detection. But there’s a catch.
“In Ukraine’s battle for Air Supremacy with Russia, a swarm of tiny black hornet drones might just give it the edge.” I wouldn’t say air supremacy, I would say it’s extending Ukraine’s lead in recon supremacy.
“These drones act as eyes for Ukrainian troops on the ground. And thanks to the US, UK and Norway, Ukraine now has an entire fleet of them ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice.”
“In July 2023, the United States announced that it would deliver $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine. Beyond the typical armored vehicles and air defense missiles, that package would also include Black Hornet drones made by Teledyne FLIR defense. A month later the UK made a similar announcement. Working with Norwegian manufacturers it would spend $9 million on these microdrones, sending them over to Ukraine for use as covert surveillance tools.”
“All told, Ukraine now has over 1,000 of these drones at its disposal, and they’re helping Kiev slowly turn the tide against Putin’s invading forces.” Hopefully, but I think that remains to be seen at this point.
“In Ukraine’s case, they’ve received shipments of the Black Hornet 3, which measures just 6.6 inches from nose to tail, and weighs only 1.16 ounces. In other words they’re tiny. So tiny, in fact, that the,drones are easy to hide among foliage and trees, making them almost imperceptible to opposing troops.”
“Further more, the drones are designed to be practically silent when in operation.”
It’s a tiny helicopter outfitted with several high definition cameras, limited autonomy, a radio range of a bit over a mile, about 25 minutes of flight time (and takes about the same to recharge). It can actually penetrate into buildings and trenches.
I’m skipping over the idea the video floats of these things spying on Russian planes, since the size/speed/distance equation simply isn’t there.
But all these high tech capabilities come at a price: “$195,000 per unit.” You can buy an awful lot of RPG drones for that kind of money…
The drones are not brand-spanking new, and were used in Afghanistan. However, I’ve got to think the Russian’s insistence on extensive defensive fortification are going to make them ideal for the sort of atomized conflicts we’ve seen thus far in the war, and they should be great at spotting targets for artillery and weapons drones.
I can see having one of these per infantry platoon. But the high per-unit costs precludes the idea they discuss of each member of the platoon having one, at least until that cost comes way, way down…
More Biden corruption evidence, a would-be mass shooter turns out to be a pro-Palestinian Bernie Sis, a parent beats the snot out of a would-be child kidnapper, a top sniper dies, Disney gets sued, and Venus is feeling Zoove. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Another “Try to contain your shock” headline: “Joe Biden’s Classified Docs Provide More Evidence Hunter’s Pay-To-Play Was A Family Affair.”
The special counsel report on Joe Biden’s unauthorized removal and disclosure of classified documents exposed much more than our president’s mental deficits and the breadth of his irresponsible handling of top-secret and classified information. The report revealed a close nexus between Hunter Biden’s influence peddling and his father’s responsibilities and access to intel during the elder’s term as vice president.
On Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Hur released the results of his investigation into the president stemming from the discovery of top-secret and classified documents at Biden’s D.C.-based Penn Biden Center, his private Delaware home, and the University of Delaware. While the specific details in the recovered documents remain unknown, the nearly 400-page report provided an extensive enough summary of the materials to confirm an overlap in the timing and topics of Joe Biden’s vice presidency and Hunter Biden’s “business” enterprises.
Ukraine Overlap
Appendix A of the report provided a table summary of the documents recovered. Many of the top-secret and classified documents concerned Ukraine during the time frame when Hunter Biden acted as an intermediary between Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, and the vice president. Recall that Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, told the House Oversight Committee that in early March 2014, he met Zlochevsky while in Moscow. And soon after, he and Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board, receiving $83,000 per month.
The following month, Hunter Biden sent Archer an email dated April 13, 2014 — one week before Joe Biden would travel to Ukraine and meet then-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Referring to “my guys upcoming travels,” Hunter then elaborated on “22 points about Ukraine’s political situation, with detailed information about the upcoming election and predicting an escalation of Russia’s ‘destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full-scale takeover of the eastern region, most critically Donetsk,’” according to the New York Post.
Among the material recovered from President Biden’s unauthorized storage locales were several top-secret and otherwise classified or confidential documents discussing Ukraine. One undated document discussed issues related to Russian aggression toward Ukraine. Another, dated Sept. 17, 2014, consisted of a “Memorandum for the Vice President from staff members, with subject ‘U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine.’” Also dated Sept. 17, 2014, was an “event memo” from a vice-presidential national security staffer, titled, “Lunch with Ukrainian President Poroshenko,” which was scheduled for the following day.
The overlap between Joe Biden’s Ukraine-related work and Hunter Biden’s Burisma profiteering became more pronounced in 2015. On Dec. 2, 2015, the lobbying firm Blue Star Group, which Hunter Biden had arranged to work with Burisma, wrote to Burisma that it had “participated in a conference call today with senior Obama Administration officials ahead of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine next week.” The memorandum provided a summary of the conference call, telling Burisma that “Michael Carpenter, Vice President Biden’s Special Advisor for Europe and Russia, and Dr. Colin Kahl, the Vice President’s National Security Advisor, presented the agenda for the trip and answered questions about current U.S. policy toward Ukraine.”
Two days after receiving this memorandum, Burisma executives Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharskyi, on Dec. 4, 2015, pushed Hunter Biden to call his father. The Burisma executives, according to Archer, expressed concern over the pressure they were under from Ukrainian investigators.
And there’s more, though very little that will be surprising to BattleSwarm readers. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Joe Biden met with the chairman of the Chinese energy firm CEFC shortly after Hunter Biden’s business associate Rob Walker received a $3 million payment from the firm as part of a joint venture the pair were then trying to develop, according to a newly released transcript of Walker’s closed-door congressional testimony.
Walker testified before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on January 26 about his role in Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC.
Walker received roughly $3 million from CEFC in March 2017 through its State Energy HK account, bank records show. He recalled a meeting between Joe Biden and CEFC officials in spring 2017, around the time of the State Energy HK payment.
“Did Joe Biden ever attend any location or meeting or place where CEFC officials were also there?” a staffer asked Walker, according to a transcript of the interview released Tuesday morning.
“Yes,” Walker replied. He recalled the meeting took place in Washington, D.C., and Joe Biden, who had just left office as vice president, stopped by for lunch.
“I don’t know the exact — it was 20- probably -17 at some point, but I don’t know exactly when,” Walker said.
The meeting took place at a Four Seasons hotel in a private room. CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming and other associates were present at the meeting.
“I don’t know if Zang was there, but I believe that Ye was there. I’m certain of it,” Walker testified.
He did not know who the other CEFC associates were at the meeting. Walker firmly recalled Jianming and his translator, Hunter Biden, business associate James Gilliar, and Joe Biden attending the meeting.
Well, what do you know? “Mail-In Ballot Fraud Study Finds Trump ‘Almost Certainly’ Won In 2020.”
A new study examining the likely impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots had in the 2020 election concludes that the outcome would “almost certainly” have been different without the massive expansion of voting by mail.
The Heartland Institute study tried to gauge the probable impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots cast for both then-candidate Joe Biden and his opponent, President Donald Trump, would have had on the overall 2020 election results.
The study was based on data obtained from a Heartland/Rasmussen survey in December that revealed that roughly one in five mail-in voters admitted to potentially fraudulent actions in the presidential election.
After the researchers carried out additional analyses of the data, they concluded that mail-in ballot fraud “significantly” impacted the 2020 presidential election.
They also found that, absent the huge expansion of mail-in ballots during the pandemic, which was often done without legislative approval, President Trump would most likely have won.
“Had the 2020 election been conducted like every national election has been over the past two centuries, wherein the vast majority of voters cast ballots in-person rather than by mail, Donald Trump would have almost certainly been re-elected,” the report’s authors wrote.
Not news to those of us who watched returns into the wee hours, only to wake up to The Steal the next morning.
Ukraine bags another Russian ship. “Ukrainian Magura V5 Marine Drones have sunk the Ropucha-class landing ship Cesar Kunikov near Alupka in Crimea in the Black Sea.”
Putin says he prefers Biden to Trump in the White House because he’s more predictable. I’m sure he does. Notice that both his Ukraine invasions occurred during Democratic presidential administrations.
The woman who tried to shoot up Lakewood Church in Houston was a Bernie Sis who had “Free Palestine” written on her AR-15. “[Genesse I.] Moreno had a violent, extensive criminal history stretching back to 2005, according to court records reviewed by Townhall. She was previously arrested for assaulting a public servant, assault causing bodily injury, forgery, theft for stealing cosmetics from a store, evading police, and unlawfully carrying a weapon, among a slew of charges on Moreno’s decades-old rap sheet.”
Alan Winston Filion, 17, is suspected of targeting hundreds of high schools, mosques, historically Black churches, US senators and even the US Supreme Court with swatting attacks that placed thousands of people in the crosshairs of heavily armed police response teams.
Prosecutors say the 6ft 3in teenager advertised his services under the pseudonym Torswats on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, charging as little as $40 to get someone’s gas shut off, $50 for a “major police response”, and $75 for a “bomb threat/mass shooting threat”.
Mr Filion would then post chilling audio of the 911 calls on Telegram as a proof of purchase, according to court documents.
Among the hundreds of “swats” that Torswats allegedly claimed credit for were multiple hoax callouts at the home of Patrick S. Tomlinson, a Milwaukee-based science fiction author who says he has been swatted dozens of times in the past four years as part of a targeted harassment campaign by a group of “sociopathic” stalkers.
You’d think after five or six times, the guy would put up a sign in his front yard alerting police to the problem. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Court Orders Netherlands To Halt F-35 Parts For Israel As EU Says “Too Many People” Are Dying.” Excuse me? Does the Netherlands let their court interfere in foreign policy decisions and defense contracts based on events beyond their borders?
The US Army is cancelling its next generation Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program, service officials announced today, taking a potential multi-billion-dollar contract off the table and throwing the service’s long-term aviation plans into doubt.
In addition, the Army plans to end production on the UH-60 V Black Hawk in fiscal 2025, due to “significant cost growth,” keep General Electric’s Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) in the development phase instead of moving it into production, and phase the Shadow and Raven unmanned aerial systems out of the fleet, the service added.
All told, it reflects a massive shift in the Army’s aviation strategy and upends years of planning. There is also an ironic sense of history repeating: the decision to end FARA comes two decades to the month after the Army ended its plans to procure the RAH-66 Comanche and nearly 16 years after it terminated work on the ARH-70A Arapaho, both aircraft designed to replace the Kiowa — the same helicopter FARA was supposed to, finally, replace.
The reason for ending FARA, Army leaders told a small group of reporters ahead of the announcement, is a reflection of what war looks like in the modern era.
“We absolutely are paying attention [to world events] and adjusting, because we could go to war tonight, this weekend,” head of Army Futures Command Gen. James Rainey told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.
“We are learning from the battlefield — especially Ukraine — that aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed,” Army Chief Gen. Randy George said in a press release. “Sensors and weapons mounted on a variety of unmanned systems and in space are more ubiquitous, further reaching and more inexpensive than ever before.”
Many commenters here feared the Pentagon wasn’t taking the drone threat seriously. Maybe they are…
The Marine Corps’ all-time deadliest sniper, Chuck Mawhinney, has died at age 75.
From 1968 to 1969, Mawhinney — still only a teenager — was credited with 103 confirmed kills.
An additional 216 kills were listed as “probable” since the enemies’ bodies were risky to verify in the active war zone.
Mawhinney had confirmed kills over 1,000 yards, with the average kill shot for snipers during the Vietnam War taken at a distance of 300 to 800 yards.
He received a Bronze Star with Combat Valor, Navy Achievement Medal, Navy Commendation Medal with Combat Valor, and two Purple Hearts.
Having more confirmed kills than Carlos Hathcock is pretty impressive. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
The CW Network (which evidently still exists) just launched a 12 channel free streaming platform. Including, evidently, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel.
Happy New Year, everyone! The Biden Recession bites deeper, Israel dirtnaps a top terrorist, Harvard’s chief plagiarist finally steps down, and the crypto CEO who wasn’t there. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The monthly nonfarm payrolls (from the Establishment Survey) may have been weak at 216K but the far more accurate Household Survey showed that the number of Employed workers actually collapsed by an unprecedented 683K, the biggest drop since the US economy was shutdown by covid!
Even scarier, while the monthly grind higher in the payrolls number (pulled from the far less accurate Establishment Survey) means that US jobs hit a record high every month with bizarre consistency and in December this was certainly the case, the total nonfarm employment number rose to an all time high 157.232 million, the abovementioned collapse in US Employment (per Household survey) meant that there were only 161.183 million employed people in the US, the lowest since June, with the now traditional divergence between these two surveys glaringly obvious.
A senior Hamas leader was killed Tuesday in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon, during a meeting between Palestinian factions at a Hamas office.
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau and commander of the terror group’s military wing in the West Bank, and at least five others died from the explosion, which occurred near Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut, Lebanese state media reported. Several more were injured. Following the blast, Hamas blamed Israel for the “Zionist raid” amid its ongoing war with the Jewish state. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike.
Many Israeli officials declined to comment. However, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich posted a statement on X shortly after the attack: “Surely your enemies will perish, O Israel.”
In November, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated he ordered the nation’s Mossad spy agency to eliminate Hamas leaders around the world after the militant group’s coordinated October 7 attack. Netanyahu’s office also declined to comment about the explosion.
Al-Arouri, whom Hamas described as “one of the architects” of the terror attack on Israel, had close ties with Yahwa Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza. Al-Arouri is the most senior Hamas leader to have been killed since the war began in early October.
A good chunk of the Epstein files have finally been released. Some revelations: Bill Clinton “likes them young” and Donald Trump didn’t have sex with at least one girl who was asked under oath about it.
Harvard President Claudine Gay finally does the right thing and resigns in wake of burgeoning plagiarism scandal.
A three act farce: Act 1: “Ohio governor Mike DeWine (R.) on Friday vetoed a bill that would have banned both transgender procedures for minors and trans student-athlete participation in school sports in the state.” Act 2: Turns out DeWine has taken taken over $40,000 in donations from pro-child-genital-mutilation hospitals. Act 3: “Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine issued an “emergency” executive order Friday banning child gender-transition surgeries after receiving intense backlash last week for vetoing a bill with a broader but similar mandate.” Ohio’s Republican legislature can and should override DeWine’s foolish veto.
Robert F. Kennedy, jr. qualifies for the presidential ballot in Utah.
Last month, American Values 2024, a super PAC supporting the third-party candidate, announced a plan to spend nearly $15 million to get Kennedy on the ballot in ten states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas. All are important to winning the 2024 race.
I don’t see RFK Jr. doing even as well in Utah as Egg McMuffin did in 2016, and of the other states, only Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Nevada might have any effect on the election, all four of which went (however fraudulently) for Biden in 2020.
Ricky Gervais has a great idea: He and Dave Chappelle should co-host the Oscars. That would indeed be a smash ratings success, and I would watch the Oscars for the first time this century.
This is the only way for us to live in peace,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbot. “The citizens of Austin have been at war with the people of Texas for many years now, and to end the bloodshed for future generations, we are willing to recognize Austin as its own separate and sovereign land.”
The resolution brought much-needed relief to the war-torn area, where battle lines had been drawn along the border of Austin. “The weirdo hipsters of Austin can stand down now,” said Texas Senator Ted Cruz in a statement acknowledging the resolution. “The people of Austin can now stop patrolling the perimeter of the city in armored tanks and go back to driving electric vehicles, painting strange murals nobody understands, and hating everything the United States stands for.”
My Bloggy-Sense™ tells me that this is a better headline than “Recent developments in Israeli tunnel warfare technology.” Let’s dig in!
First, thanks to reader Howard for pointing out this piece on Israel’s sponge bomb (which may or may not exit).
Israeli forces are prepared to employ “sponge bombs” that produce quick-hardening foam to seal off tunnels used by terrorists in the Gaza Strip, according to a recent report. Though unconfirmed, there is some precedent for the use of devices that create hard or at least very sticky foam by military and other security forces.
The Telegraph newspaper in the United Kingdom published a story about the purported Israeli foam-dispensing ‘bombs’ on Wednesday. It is important to note up front that, at the time of writing, the Telegraph’s piece does not appear to cite any sources, on the record or anonymous, and explicitly says “the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has not commented on the use” of these devices.
As described by the Telegraph, the devices contain a binary chemical mixture that only blends together when the device is activated. The system is reportedly small and light enough to be emplaced, or even thrown, by a single individual.
Israeli “soldiers were seen deploying the devices during exercises in 2021,” according to the Telegraph, but no further details or imagery are provided. “The [Israeli] army has set up a mock tunnel system at the Tze’Elim army base near the border with Gaza.”
Tze’Elim is publicly known to host a mock Palestinian village with an underground tunnel network specifically to help prepare IDF personnel for ground operations in places like Gaza. To this point, this training site is even nicknamed “Little Gaza.”
I tend to believe Israel probably has something along these lines, just because there are so many quick-drying foams used in the construction industry that it’s hardly a stretch to think that Israel has something like that for tunnel warfare. The piece also mentions the possibility of using “glue bombs” on enemy forces.
Israel also has specialized tunnel forces with dogs and drones.
Israel’s military has developed a range of specialist tunnel fighters including killer drones and attack dogs to take on Hamas’s huge underground network.
Officials on Tuesday revealed its forces attacked Hamas gunmen inside the vast tunnel network beneath the Palestinian enclave, estimated by some to rival in length London’s Tube network.
Specialist teams made up of the Oketz or “Sting” dog units and the Samur “Weasel” subterranean commandos have been training in a specially built tunnel complex in the Negev Desert to take on the 500 kilometres of the “Gaza metro” built by Hamas.
Defence analysts have disclosed that Israel has used ground-penetrating radar and gravity detectors to map out the spiderweb system precisely.
Snip.
Hamas has been building the labyrinth for almost a decade, with some tunnels dug up to 70 metres below ground, for storing weapons, fuel and food, but their destruction is vital for any Israeli success.
As a result, they have formed a force of combat engineers called the Yahalom “Diamond” that have trained to locate tunnels and either destroy them or allow for a “hard entry”.
If entry is required, then the Samur and Oketz units will drop into the entrances that would likely have been blown open, and enter the tunnels that are made of reinforced concrete and are 1.8 metres high and one metre wide.
Robots will be used ahead of any tunnel assault, with the Tel Aviv company Roboteam spending the last decade developing specialist unmanned ground vehicles for the operation.
This will include the small IRIS robot that soldiers call a “throwbot”, with its ability to drive down tunnels relaying pictures back to its operator, using specialist sensors to detect objects and people.
It is also understood that Israel has developed a robot similar to the US Marines’ Gladiator tactical tracked drone that has sensors and carries a 7.62mm squad automatic weapon.
The robots will also be able to use their sensors and equipment to find and potentially detonate booby-traps planted by Hamas.
Behind them will come the “Weasel” commandos, who are specially selected troops able to tolerate the enclosed and claustrophobic conditions. Israeli defence sources said they were usually introverted characters with the ability to keep a “psychological distance from the situation”.
Tunnel combat is also described as akin to underwater fighting because kit used on the surface, such as thermal imaging, or surveillance or navigation systems, will not function underground.
Defence analysts also believe the Israeli army could develop tactics used by Ukraine in its fight against Russia by deploying airborne drones inside the tunnels, some equipped with small bombs.
“Both sides will be attempting to surprise each other and they will have surprises up their sleeve,” said Brigadier Ben Barry, an urban warfare specialist at the IISS think tank.
“The Israelis also have advantages with the biggest urban training facility of any armed forces in the world training people to fight in tunnels but also using drones and robots to take the first hit. The Israelis have all sorts of technological gadgets.”
They also have specially trained military dogs in the Oketz canine unit, most likely led by the highly intelligent and aggressive Belgium Malinois favoured by British special forces.
Here’s a video that covers the Hamas tunnels, the tactics used against them, and even the sponge bomb:
Historically tunnel warfare has been one of the most nerve-wracking, dangerous and taxing forms of specialized warfare, from World War I to the tunnel rats of Cu Chi in the Vietnam War.
Israel has some of the best trained forces in the world, but they have their work cut out for them.
A fair amount of tank news has built up in the hopper over the last month or so (some, but not all, related to the Russo-Ukraine War), so let’s do a roundup.
The U.S. Army has announced that it’s not doing an M1A2SEPv4, and instead will produced the M1E3.
The U.S. Army is scrapping its current upgrade plans for the Abrams main battle tank and pursuing a more significant modernization effort to increase its mobility and survivability on the battlefield, the service announced in a statement Wednesday.
The Army will end its M1A2 System Enhancement Package version 4 program, and instead develop the M1E3 Abrams focused on challenges the tank is likely to face on the battlefield of 2040 and beyond, the service said. The service was supposed to receive the M1A2 SEPv4 version this past spring.
The SEPv4 will not go into production as planned, Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told Defense News in a Sept. 6 interview at the Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia. “We’re essentially going to invest those resources into the [research and] development on this new upgraded Abrams,” he said. “[I]t’s really threat-based, it’s everything that we’re seeing right now, even recently in Ukraine in terms of a native active protection system, lighter weight, more survivability, and of course reduced logistical burdens as well for the Army.”
The Abrams tank “can no longer grow its capabilities without adding weight, and we need to reduce its logistical footprint,” Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the Army’s program executive officer for ground combat systems, said in the statement. “The war in Ukraine has highlighted a critical need for integrated protections for soldiers, built from within instead of adding on.”
Ukraine’s military will have the chance to put the M1 Abrams to the test when it receives the tanks later this month. The country is fighting off a Russian invasion that began nearly two years ago.
The M1E3 Abrams will “include the best features” of the M1A2 SEPv4 and will be compliant with modular open-systems architecture standards, according to the statement, which will allow for faster and more efficient technology upgrades. “This will enable the Army and its commercial partners to design a more survivable, lighter tank that will be more effective on the battlefield at initial fielding and more easy to upgrade in the future.”
“We appreciate that future battlefields pose new challenges to the tank as we study recent and ongoing conflicts,” said Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, director of the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team. “We must optimize the Abrams’ mobility and survivability to allow the tank to continue to close with and destroy the enemy as the apex predator on future battlefields.”
Norman, who took over the team last fall, spent seven months prior to his current job in Poland with the 1st Infantry Division. He told Defense News last year that the division worked with Poles, Lithuanians and other European partners on the eastern flank to observe happenings in Ukraine.
Weight is a major inhibitor of mobility, Norman said last fall. “We are consistently looking at ways to drive down the main battle tank’s weight to increase our operational mobility and ensure we can present multiple dilemmas to the adversary by being unpredictable in where we can go and how we can get there.”
General Dynamic Land Systems, which manufactures the Abrams tank, brought what it called AbramsX to the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in October 2022. AbramsX is a technology demonstrator with reduced weight and the same range as the current tank with 50% less fuel consumption, the American firm told Defense News ahead of the show.
The AbramsX has a hybrid power pack that enables a silent watch capability and “some silent mobility,” which means it can run certain systems on the vehicle without running loud engines.
The tank also has an embedded artificial intelligence capability that enables “lethality, survivability, mobility and manned/unmanned teaming,” GDLS said.
The Army did not detail what the new version might include, but GDLS is using AbramsX to define what is possible in terms of weight reduction, improved survivability and a more efficient logistics tail.
The Army awarded GDLS a contract in August 2017 to develop the SEPv4 version of the tank with a plan then to make a production decision in fiscal 2023, followed by fielding to the first brigade in fiscal 2025.
The keystone technology of the SEPv4 version consisted of a third-generation forward-looking infrared camera and a full-sight upgrade including improved target discrimination.
“I think the investment in subsystem technologies in the v4 will actually carry over into the upgraded ECP [Engineering Change Proposal] program for Abrams,” Camarillo said. “However, the plan is to have robust competition at the subsystem level for a lot of what the new ECP will call for, so we’re going to look for best-of-breed tech in a lot of different areas,” such as active protection systems and lighter weight materials.
For instance, the Army has kitted out the tank with Trophy active protection systems as an interim solution to increase survivability. The Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems develops the Trophy. But since the system is not integrated into the design of the vehicle, it adds significant weight, sacrificing mobility.
The Army plans to produce the M1A2 SEPv3 at a reduced rate until it can transition the M1E3 into production.
Which looks to be 2030.
Nicholas Moran looks at what this might or might not mean in practical terms, with an emphasis on what it doesn’t say:
“We have about 10 years that the SEPv3 is the latest and greatest.”
“They are actually going to backfill some of the v4 modernizations to the v3.”
“‘The Abrams tank can no longer grow its capabilities without adding weight and we need to reduce its logistical footprint.’…There’s two parts to that one sentence that have a lot of digging into.”
“The Abrams started at 55 tons…now the v3 is 72 1/2 tons. If you add the Trophy APS, that’s an additional two and a half tons on its own. Then you put the reactive armor tiles on the side. Oh! Let’s put a mine plow on the front. Now your M1 is breaking 83 tons.”
One way to shed weight is with a smaller turret, like the Abrams X.
“What it doesn’t say in here, and what they’re not saying, is just how much weight are they trying to shed. Because if you’re trying to shed five to ten tons, that’s one thing. If you’re trying to shed 20 to 30 tons, then that’s something else entirely.”
The Abrams is essentially an analog tank which has had digital systems bolted onto it. “the upgrades that we have paid for our tanks have not been integrated upgrades from basically the ground up.” We’ve bolted on integrations modules, each of which adds weight.
“You can probably shave a few tons without touching the form factor of the M1A2 one bit.”
“Rip out the guts. Rip out all the electrics, all the electronics, and replace it from something that is designed and programmed from the ground up to be completely integrated.”
Replace the M256 cannon with the XM360, “which, as far as I know, does work. You install that you’ve shaved a ton off already.”
Replace the turret hydraulics with electrics.
Swap out copper wiring for fiber optics.
“So getting it from this current 73 tons down to, oh, let’s say 65 tons, probably isn’t all that hard.”
“If you want to take off more weight, you’re gonna have to look at a more radical redesign.” Like an unmanned turret.
If you mean fuel efficiency, you can pull out the current gas turbine engine and replace it, either a more efficient turbine or something else.
“The Army has spent a lot of money paying Cummins to develop the Advanced Combat Engine. This is an opposed module, opposed piston modular engine, and it can be configured for 750 horsepower. I believe it’s just a six cylinder version to the 12 cylinder or piston version, which is a 1500 horsepower, the same as a turbine the same as modern MTU. It would make some sense that the Army is going to look very hard at this.” The AEC is a bit funky, with two pistons per cylinder working together to compress the gas. They claim it offers about 25% fuel economy and a similar reduction in waste heat.
They might also look at a hybrid power train.
You can also save logistical weight in spare parts. “If you were to rip the guts out of the tank and start from scratch, you can probably come up with a maintenance and logistics system for maintenance which is much more refined and efficient.”
“‘The war in Ukraine has highlighted a critical need for integrated protection from soldiers built from within instead of adding on.'”
“This has apparently been in the works for the better part of three years now. In 2020, the director of operational test and evaluation put out his annual report, and when it gets to the M1A2v3 section, it basically says ‘Guys, this is getting a little bit out of hand. The tank is a tad heavy.'”
“The Army understands that they’re pretty much at the limit.”
All this is being done now because Ukraine finally made them pay attention to things that had already been identified as problems but not addressed. “Something like the Ukraine conflict is a little bit of a kick in the pants, and it’s probably going to attract somebody’s attention and say ‘OK, yeah, this is what we need to do it.”
Trophy adds so much weight because you need to balance the turret. Redesigning the turret from the ground up solves that issue.
Modular open systems architecture standards: “The backbone, the central nervous system of these things, is a new version that’s compatible across vehicles.”
Chris Copson of The Tank Museum offers up an assessment of the use of tanks in Ukraine’s summer offensive (posted September 29).
“One commentator has been dubbing it ‘Schrodinger’s summer offensive.’ Is it or isn’t it, and it appears to be currently tentative at best.”
“We’re also seeing the tank struggling to assert influence in what has increasingly become a slog dominated by artillery.”
“Putin’s special military operation saw the Russian army fought to a standstill, and they’d suffered huge losses in men and material. But they’re still in possession a swathe of Ukrainian territory running through the Eastern Donbas right the way down to the coast of the Black Sea.”
“Russian forces have fallen back into a defensive posture behind layered defenses minefields, anti-tank obstacles and barbed wire.”
“Ukrainian response has been probing attacks in greater or lesser strength, and they’re starting to use some of their Western supplied military equipment to attempt to break through before the Autumn rains, and the rasputitsa, the roadless time, puts an end to the campaigning season.”
“Zelensky fought for supplies of modern Western military material, and, after quite a bit of hesitancy, it’s begun to arrive.”
“So far there’s been enough, we think, to equip up to 15 Ukrainian brigades, and each of those is going to be around about 3,000 personnel and about 200 vehicles of all types.”
He covers the trickle of Challenger 2s, Leopard 2s, Abrams, etc., and the capabilities of each, which we’ve already covered here.
“In the early stages of the invasion, February and March 2022, Russian tank losses have been estimated at anything from between 460 and 680 from a total inventory around about 2,700 in BTs. Both of those figures are estimates from Western or Ukrainian sources and they’re now putting the figure well over a thousand.”
“An awful lot of these losses seem to be in tanks and AFVs either stuck bellied out through poor driving, or run out of fuel. That’s just poor logistics.”
Russian tank units lack enough infantry support to protect their armored columns from Ukrainian anti-tank units.
“We’re starting to see images of Ukrainian Leopard 2s and Bradleys knocked out by mines or artillery in attempts to breach Russian layered defenses.”
Ukraine’s western tanks have much higher repairability than T-72s. “Western MBTs [are] designed so that an ammunition or propellant explosion actually vents to the outside, and this tends to maintain damaged vehicle’s integrity and make it repairable, as well as increasing the likelihood of crew survival.”
Damaged Leopard 2s are already being repaired.
“Because Russian industry is under the cosh, a shortage of chips and high-tech components, and that is because of the western embargo. The solution their general staff has come up with is to pull tanks out of storage, and this includes some very elderly models indeed. Some of the estimated 2,800 T-55s which comes into service.” Cold War designs.
“Commissioning tanks after decades in store is a huge undertaking. It’s not just a question of charge in the batteries, it’s more like a total rebuild.”
“They’re not likely to be in peak condition,” but might be OK in static defensive roles.
“There is evidence that at least one has been used as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.”
“Against tanks like Challenger, Leopard or Abrams in an open country tank engagement, it’s fairly obvious they wouldn’t make the grade.”
Keeping all the different western tanks supplied and running is going to be a huge challenge to Ukraine. “A range of different and very unfamiliar, in some cases artillery pieces, trucks, logistic vehicles. Now the range is huge. Finding trained mechanics and procuring a huge range of spares. It’s going to be a colossal headache.”
“Artillery is really of central importance to the Russian, and before that the Soviet, way of war. And it’s the primary lethality in deep and close battles. Now perhaps 70% percent of Ukrainian casualties so far are being caused by Russian artillery.”
“At present a [Russian] brigade grouping is assigned a brigade artillery group, BRAG, and that’s two battalions of self-propelled howitzers and a battalion of multi-barreled rocket launchers. Use is made of forward observers, unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery location radars to identify targets.”
“At its most effective this uses the Strelets reconnaissance fire system to pair tactical intelligence and reconnaissance assets with precision strike artillery, and that gives you real-time targeting [Reckify?] uses the 2K25 Krasnapol 152mm laser guided round, which is able to inflict accurate strikes.” But it doesn’t work so well with cloud cover.
“We’ve also heard quite a lot about the Lancet range of loitering munitions for precision targeting. The Lancet-3 drone has a 40 minute flight time and it counts a 3kg warhead.” Oryx credits over 100 kills to Lancets. “These mostly have been self-propelled artillery, but also tanks.”
“With the constant presence of surveillance drones and satellite intel, it is getting just about impossible to hide anything on the modern battlefield.”
“The main take-home from the current conflict, and this might be stating the blindingly obvious, is that the battlefield is a very open place these days, and tank tactics have to evolve to take this into account.”
One thing we haven’t seen much of recently: Russian air power.
“There seems to be some progress around Robotyne, and the Challenger 2, Maurder and Stryker IFVs of the 82nd Air Landing brigade have been deployed to bolster 47th Brigade. And there seems to be some penetration of the Russian air defenses. Ukrainian offensive has broken through the first of three defensive lines, but the progress is really slow, because you’ve got minefields, dragon’s teeth and anti-tank ditches, and the Russian forces are very well dug in.”
The Uralvagonzavod factory in Omsk, in Siberia, hasn’t manufactured a new T-80 hull since 1991. And work on the T-80’s GTD-1250 turbine, at the Kaluga plant, likewise has idled in the decades since the Soviet Union’s collapse.
No, for nearly 30 years the Russian army has replenished its T-80 fleet with old, refurbished hulls and engines. Those hulls and engines obviously are beginning to run out as Russian tank losses in Ukraine exceed 2,000. For context, there were only around 3,000 active tanks in the entire Russian armed forces when Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022.
Uralvagonzavod produces just a few dozen new T-72B3s and T-90Ms every month: far too few to make good monthly tank losses averaging a hundred or more. That’s why, in the summer of 2022, the Kremlin began pulling out of storage hundreds of 1960s-vintage T-62s and ‘50s-vintage T-54s and T-55s.
But the T-62s and T-54/55s, as well as only slightly less ancient war-reserve T-72 Urals and T-80Bs, are a stopgap. Some get fresh optics and add-on armor; many don’t. To sustain the war effort into year three, year four or year five, the Russian armed forces need new tanks. Lots of them.
Thus it was unsurprising when, two weeks ago, Alexander Potapov, CEO of Uralvagonzavod, announced his firm would resume producing 46-ton, three-person T-80s “from scratch.”
It’s a huge undertaking. While the Omsk factory still has the main T-80 tooling lying around somewhere, it must also reactive hundreds of suppliers in order to produce the tens of thousands of components it takes to assemble a T-80. That includes the gas-turbine engine.
During the T-80’s initial production run between 1975 and 2001, Kaluga built thousands of 1,000-horsepower GTD-1000 and 1,250-horsepower GTD-1250s for the type. A thousand or more horses is a lot of power for a 46-ton tank: a Ukrainian-made T-64BV weighs 42 tons but has a comparatively anemic 850-horsepower diesel engine.
The T-80’s excess power explains its high speed—44 miles per hour—and commensurately high fuel consumption, which limits its range to no more than 300 miles. Why then would Kaluga bother with a new 1,500-horsepower turbine?
As long as certain Russian forces—airborne and marine regiments, for example—value speed over fuel-efficiency, it makes sense they’d want even more power for their new-build T-80s. A 1,500-horsepower engine also would give a next-generation T-80 lots of growth potential. Uralvagonzavod could pile on tons of additional armor without weighing down the tank.
A few quick thoughts:
This hardly expresses confidence in the future of the T-14 Armata, does it now? (Speaking of which, they withdraw it from service in Ukraine, evidently without engaging any enemy tanks in anything but an indirect fire role (assuming they weren’t lying about that as well.))
If they’re struggling to produce just a few new T-72B3s and T-90Ms, why would producing T80s be any easier?
Russia announces a whole lot of things that never come to pass. In many ways its their default mode when announcing MilTech Wunderaffen.
Restarting a production line that’s been idle 30 years isn’t just difficult, it’s damn near impossible. At lot of the people who had the knowledge of how to actually build the things have probably died, and Soviet-era schematics are not an adequate substitute.
I’m pretty sure they have the capabilities to build the heavy equipment parts. The modern electronics? Not so much.
Like a lot of Russian announcements since the beginning of Vlad’s Big Adventure, this is probably a bluff to overall the gullible. I’m sure the Russians intend to restart production of T-80s, but I wouldn’t count on doing it very soon, or producing terribly many.
Hamas decided to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War by launching another war.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared “we are at war, and we will win it” early Saturday as the country’s air force began striking targets in Gaza in response to a surprise Hamas attack on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, involving more than 3,000 rockets and groups of terrorists descending on Israeli territory by land, sea, and even paraglider.
At least 40 Israelis have been killed in the fighting and at least 740 injured, the Israeli military said, and videos posted on social media appear to show Hamas taking civilian hostages. A militant group in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also claims to be holding a group of Israeli soldiers hostage.
As rockets rained down on central and southern Israel, the televisions began broadcasting footage of armed groups of Hamas terrorists pouring into towns across the country in pickup trucks, the Times of Israel reported. In response, the IDF deployed forces to the south, where troops began engaging with the Hamas invaders.
The Israeli Air Force also scrambled dozens of jets to strike four command centers and 17 military compounds in the Gaza strip, the air force announced on X. At least 198 Palestinians have been killed and 1,610 have been wounded in the retaliatory attacks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The biggest difference between the real Yom Kippur War and Hamas’ farce is the size of of the opposition. In 1973, Israel was attacked by the armies of Egypt and Syria supported by forces from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia, and Morocco, plus some random units from Cuba and North Korea, a coalition that theoretically could wipe Israel off the map. By contrast, Hamas is a terrorist organization that controls some 141 miles of square territory and survives on handouts from the UN, EU, Iran and Syria.
Israel has the most modern and technologically advanced army in the Middle East, and arguably the second most technologically advanced in the world. Their air force is entirely American-made, including F-35s.
The news that Hamas is using technicals is both interesting and obvious, as they’re a very cost-effective option. They’re not ideal for urban combat or stand-up fights, but if they can get out of the built-up area around Gaza and out into the flatter, more open terrain to the south they can do some damage as hit and run forces, at least until the Israeli Air Force can track them down. I assume Hamas has drones, because it’s 2023 and everyone has drones, plus their patron Iran makes some.
Enjoy some random combat footage, including what looks like a knocked-out Merkava tank.
We all know what the outcome of this conflict will be: Hamas will kill some Israeli civilians and a few IDF soldiers, and Israel will pound the snot out of Hamas and it’s command and control infrastructure, after which it will take Hamas a decade or so of payments from its sugar daddies to build up enough to do it all over again.
Hamas is a pustule that occasionally needs to be lanced, but little more.
Update: Yep, drones. IDF needs to go back to the makers of Trophy and ask why it didn’t stop a slow-moving, top-drop munition.
A Russian microchip factory likely producing technology for sophisticated weapons has been targeted in a significant strike, Daily Express US has heard.
A drone downed over the Bryansk region in Russia this week fell on the Kremny EL factory, dubbed “Silicon El”, according to the Mash Telegram channel.
Military blogger Romanov Light said a fire broke out at the plant’s 16th building and was extinguished around an hour later – at 1.50am local time. Staggering footage shared online shows the shocking moment the plant was struck.
Michael Bociurkiw, global affairs analyst and senior fellow at The Atlantic Council, told Daily Express US the microchip factory was a significant target.
It was one of several Russian sites struck in one of the biggest waves of attacks on Russian soil since Putin’s illegal war began.
So it was a military target. Could they use it for smart weapon guidance systems? Yeah, you could build something as powerful as, say, a 386 on it, and that’s plenty sophisticated enough to guide bombs and missiles with.
How long will the strike set Russia back? Hard to say, but the contamination means the entire fab will need to be decontaminated before they can process wafers again. Maybe a month. Debris may have damaged some of the machines, though the tech is so old that there are probably lots of spare parts for things that can be had despite sanctions. If they hit the power center, the air-handling system, or the DI water system, that could take a while to repair, especially if they need modern western parts. And if they took out the power, all the wafer processing machines will have to be requalified, which is a gigantic pain in the ass and quite time-consuming. But most of the in-process wafers will be safe inside FOUPs, and can probably continue processing, once the fab is up and running again.
Still, it will be a setback for Russia. It’s just unclear how large a setback.
