Conflicts are increasingly hi-tech and the Russians pay dearly for the deployment of their “analog” weapons – THE COMMENT
The long line of Russian military vehicles lined up in the Ukrainian streets will remain as one of the iconic images of this war. General winter is the image of the failure of the Napoleonic and Nazi invasions in Russia.
Woe to get bogged down in the huge plains during the thaw and suffer the rigors of winter. It may be that Putin does not know his best ally so much that he has ignored him and invaded another country just as the Ukrainian plains have turned into a quagmire where Russian tanks sink without escape. At that time, all that remained was to queue up in the Ukrainian asphalted streets where, however, the Russian analogue army had to deal with the digital guerrillas. Drones, super-technological missiles, satellites have transformed the Russian advance in some places into a tragic target practice. The old Russian tanks, mostly modernized T72s, ie tanks designed in the late sixties and which had already given a bad test in the Gulf War, are practically defenseless when attacked by anti-tank weapons supplied by Western countries. The Javelins, the “tank killers”, portable anti-tank missiles with which the Ukrainian troops are equipped, are a very sophisticated and deadly technological tool, a real “game changer”.
According to some military analysts, this war could mark the end of armored troops, at least in the mode of employment we know now. Javelins are capable of firing solid-state missiles from a distance of several thousand meters in two different modes, direct and indirect. Once the sensor has taken the target’s thermal imprint, they enter shoot and forget mode, whereby the missile is capable of hitting with over 90% accuracy. In indirect mode the missile describes an arc until it reaches the vertical of the target it hits by descending straight on the turrets of the wagons, the most vulnerable part, leaving no way out.
Javelins can be reloaded in half a minute and being used remotely allows soldiers to stay under cover and undetected. Another anti-tank weapon of this type, with similar performance, is the NLAW (Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapon), a new generation light anti-tank weapon from the UK, also supplied to the Ukrainian military. The drone war is another of the technological war fronts where the two armies face each other, on one side the Turkish drones Bayraktar TB2 and on the other the Russian Orions.
Turkish drones have been, at least so far, very effective in attacking Russian vehicles from above and have played an important role in slowing their advance.
In the near-lightning war in December 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of Nagorno-Karabakh it was Turkish drones that made the difference, quickly destroying Armenian armored forces equipped with Russian tanks and equipment. Ukraine must have studied the lesson well and has equipped itself with a fleet of Turkish anti-tank drones which it has successfully used. Airspace control is another key element, the UK should shortly provide the Ukrainian army with the portable Strastreak system capable of launching ultrafast missiles that travel at over mach 3, three times the speed of sound and are very difficult to avoid. . To these are added the Stinger portable anti-aircraft missiles, very effective and easy to use.
The Ukrainian army is now continuously being supplied with new and advanced armaments while on the other hand the Russian army may find itself short of supplies. Meanwhile, bombs and dumb missiles destroy cities and kill civilians. Technologies will not save us while nuclear arsenals remind us of Einstein’s warning: “I have no idea what weapons will be used to fight World War III, but the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones”.
