[Roosta]

Things are certainly becoming more & more interesting, albeit in a bad way.

[marekparek]

New UA jet drone

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/in-ukraine...aze-jet-drone/

[Roosta]

I'm thinking it looks like a more expensive & time consuming drone to produce when the 4-axis rotor blade type drones are doing a great job.

I also don't see why or how it would deliver a better payload than the smaller drones for that matter along with the fact that it's a bigger target ect, so uncertain about their intent of course, target wise, but I say, why reinvent the wheel when it's already doing a great job as is !

[marekparek]

Originally Posted by Roosta ↗

I'm thinking it looks like a more expensive & time consuming drone to produce when the 4-axis rotor blade type drones are doing a great job.

I also don't see why or how it would deliver a better payload than the smaller drones for that matter along with the fact that it's a bigger target ect, so uncertain about their intent of course, target wise, but I say, why reinvent the wheel when it's already doing a great job as is !

This should be long range drone, that delivers heavier payload faster. But it looks it is just in RC plane stage, not finished drone yet

[Roosta]

In other news about drones ect,


A new laser weapon can hit a tiny target up to a kilometre away.

Forget Star Wars, laser weapons are here for real after the UK successfully fired a high-powered beam at aerial targets.

Named DragonFire, the laser costs around £10 per shot. In comparison, destroyer missiles can cost around £1million each.

The range of the weapon remains classified, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement that the precision involved in the testing was equivalent to hitting a £1 coin from a kilometre away.

It is a line-of-sight weapon and can ‘engage with any visible target’.

According to The Times, it destroyed incoming drones from several miles away, and could be ready for use on ships in five years.

Testing of the system, which cost £100 million to develop, took place at the Ministry of Defence’s Hebrides Range in Scotland.
‘These trials have seen us take a huge step forward in realising the potential opportunities and understanding the threats posed by directed energy weapons [DEWs],’ said Dr Paul Hollinshead, chief executive of the MoD’s defence science and technology laboratory (DSTL).

‘With our decades of knowledge, skills, and operational experience, DSTL’s expertise is critical to helping the armed forces prepare for the future.’

Laser weapons emit electromagnetic energy at a wavelength that the target will most effectively absorb, causing it to melt. The laser-directed energy beam can cut through targets to disable them – or do more damage if hitting a warhead.

DEWs can also engage with targets ‘at the speed of light’, and be used to temporarily disable enemy attacks by ‘dazzling’ sensors – or people.

Defence secretary Grant Shapps added: ‘This type of cutting-edge weaponry has the potential to revolutionize the battlespace by reducing the reliance on expensive ammunition, while also lowering the risk of collateral damage.

Defence secretary Grant Shapps said the weapon could ‘revolutionise’ battlespace.

‘Investments with industry partners in advanced technologies like DragonFire are crucial in a highly contested world, helping us maintain the battle-winning edge and keep the nation safe.’

The successful trial of hitting aerial targets follows testing at Porton Down in which a long-range laser was fired at a number of targets over different ranges.

Last year it was also announced that high-energy laser weapons will be integrated onto a Wolfhound military vehicle.

An £85 million project to build a laser a ‘million billion billion times’ brighter than Sun was also unveiled last year. However, the Vulcan 20-20 laser will be used to revolutionize scientific research and lead to new discoveries in areas such as clean energy and cancer treatment, not for combat.

The UK is not alone in developing directed energy weapons – the US and other countries are also developing their own technology.


Won't be long before the new iPhone has your own personal light saber, as an AP of course.

[kellyhound]

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russian troops have reinstalled mines along the perimeter of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, signaling ongoing safety and security challenges at the facility.

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe, has been under Russian occupation since 4 March 2022, but it keeps working.

These mines, located in the buffer zone between the plant’s internal and external fences, were initially identified by the IAEA team and subsequently removed in November 2023 but have now been reinstalled.

Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the IAEA expressed concern over this development, emphasizing that the presence of mines contradicts IAEA safety standards. This area is restricted and not accessible to operational plant personnel.

The ZNPP recently experienced a significant power supply issue, losing its immediate backup power to reactor units for several hours. This incident underscored the plant’s vulnerability regarding external power availability, which is essential for cooling its six reactors and other critical safety functions. The plant’s backup power was eventually restored. Still, the incident highlighted the fragility of the power supply system, which has been reduced from ten lines to just two since the conflict began.

==========================================

After several days of wrangling with Russian official, experts from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday were given access to the sixth and final reactor unit at the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Situated on the front lines of fighting as Ukraine struggles to repel Moscow’s invasion, the plant has been held by Russian troops since the early days of the war, now reaching its second year.

The IAEA experts on the site of the plant — which is the largest nuclear power station in both Ukraine and Europe —regularly cross the frontlines of the war to maintain a presence at the facility.

In about mid-December, according to an IAEA, the experts had requested access to the reactor halls of Units 1, 2 and 6. But Renat Kharchaa, a Ukraine-based official with Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, denied access, saying the reactors were “sealed.”

This explanation, however, strained credulity, given that the team has visited reactor Unit 3, which was likewise hermetically sealed, as recently as December 15, according to an earlier IAEA statement

In a subsequent statement, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi noted that the denial of access to the Unit 6 reactor hall constituted the first time Russian officials had been rebuffed in their attempts to inspect any unit that, like Unit 6, was in cold shutdown.

On Monday, the IAEA released a statement saying that their “experts were yesterday granted access to the reactor hall of unit 6 of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant after previously having not been given access.”

“While in the reactor hall, the team observed main components of the reactor, confirming the cold shutdown state of the reactor,” the statement added.

The statement continued, however, to note that the Agency’s inspectors were denied a view of some segments of the sixth unit’s turbine halls, adding that their visits to the halls have been prevented since October of last year.

“For the first time, under far-fetched pretexts, IAEA inspectors were rebuffed from entry into the reactor halls of power units in a state of cold shutdown — and in the end, with a delay of a couple of weeks, they were allowed into only one of them.,” says Dmitry Gorchakov, a nuclear expert with Bellona.

“But the problem is much deeper,” he continues. “After all, such delays and restrictions in access are systemic problem. IAEA inspectors are not allowed or are allowed with huge delays into requested Zaporizhzhia NPP locations while almost the entire time they are present at the plant. As Rafael Grossi said on his very first visit to the plant on September 1, 2022, ‘If we are not allowed somewhere, we will say so.’ And since then, regularly in numerous IAEA information messages on Zaporizhzhia NPP you can see that inspectors are waiting until they are allowed access to numerous plant facilities and they have been waiting for this for months. And no meetings between the head of Rosatom Likhachev and Grossi, as a matter of principle, can solve this problem. This is an obvious obstruction of the IAEA’s work at the site. Under one pretext or another.”

Grossi has warned numerous times that, should outside power be cut to the plant, cooling apparatus could be interrupted, risking a nuclear accident.

The IAEA teams at the Zaporizhzhia site also inspect for the presence of weapons and troops onsite, which would further put the six-reactor plant at risk of bombardment and attack.

All of the plant’s reactors have been in some state of shutdown since September of last year, a measure that would lessen the radioactive consequences should they get caught in the crossfire of warring troops.

The IAEA has lobbied both Moscow and Kyiv to implement a non-military zone around the plant to prevent it from coming under fire, but those efforts have proven unsuccessful.

Bellona has closely monitored events at the plant and last year published an exhaustive report on the dangers the plant — and the world — face as a result of its seizure. For the first time ever, the report notes, a nuclear plant has been made hostage to a raging military conflict.

At present, IAEA experts at the plant are still waiting on access to the roofs of the reactors — an inspection that was scheduled for December 19, but which was scotched by Russian officials over what they described as security concerns, the Ukrainian national newswire Ukrainska Pravda reported.

The IAEA team likewise has yet to receive 2024 reactor maintenance schedules from the Russian occupiers, Ukrainska Pravda said.

[kellyhound]

Operational information as of the morning of January 28, 2024 regarding the Russian invasion.

During the past 24 hours, 79 combat clashes took place. In total, the enemy launched 3 missiles and 8 air strikes, using attack drones of the "Shahed-136/131" type, carried out 82 attacks from rocket salvo systems on the positions of our troops and populated areas.

As a result of Russian terrorist attacks, unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the civilian population. Residential private and multi-apartment buildings and other civil infrastructure were destroyed and damaged.

More than 100 settlements in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions came under artillery fire.

[marekparek]

For me, these are the first photos, where i can imagine size of Shahed.


Article:

Ukraine has a modern development and more than one that can jam UAVs such as Shahed-136 with the help of EW, Fedienko, head of the digital infrastructure subcommittee.

"The information has already become public. Although, in my opinion, it is in vain. It is only a matter of time when the rockets and shahedis with which the Russians attack us will fly in the opposite direction. Of course, we need to work on this, but believe me. Therefore, when they tell me that we we don't do anything, here's an example that got out into the information field. Unfortunately, it's impossible to influence ballistic targets in this way," - Fedienko.

"I will say more, they (the Shaheds) know how not only to plant, but also to deflect from the target, as for example with rockets. And it is not one, not two, not three devices, it is hundreds of thousands of devices that are installed all over the country."

[kellyhound]

On January 30, 2024, press reports indicated deliveries of the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) to Ukraine may commence this week. Thus far, the U.S. Department of Defense has not confirmed or denied these reports.

On February 3, 2023, the United States government announced an aid package for Ukraine that would include the GLSDB. There have been several announced delays in delivering the GLSDB to Ukraine over the past year.

The Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb is a variant of the standard GBU-39/B SDB, mated with the 227mm M26 rocket. Boeing and Saab partnered to develop an inter-stage adapter to connect he GBU-39/B SDB and the M26. This enables the GLSDB to be fired from an unmodified M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) or M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The M270 MLRS mounts two “six pack” launch pods, carrying twelve 227mm rockets; while the M142 HIMARS mounts a single six-pack, carrying six 227mm rockets. The GLSDB also comes with its own container/launcher, providing an alternate launch capability without the need for an M270 MLRS or M142 HIMARS. To date, Ukraine has reportedly received at least 20 HIMARS systems from the United States.

The GLSDB carries 35-lb (16-kg) multipurpose penetrating and blast-and-fragmentation warhead; and has a range of 93 miles (150 km). It reportedly has an accuracy of within 1 meter; and has been tested successfully against targets moving at 50 miles per hour (80 km/hr).

The GLSDB has not yet been deployed by the U.S. Army. Thus, any use in Ukraine will represent the weapon system’s operational debut.

Given the paucity of open-source information about GLSDB transfers to Ukraine, the Forecast International Weapons Group cannot properly assess the impact of these transfers upon the Small Diameter Bomb program at this time. We expect the impact on the existing SDB production schedule to be minimal.

The GLSDB is not a game-changer by any means. Rather, it offers Ukrainian forces an expanded rocket artillery capability against Russian targets behind the immediate front lines.

https://www.saab.com/products/ground...ter-bomb-glsdb

[ride]

GLSDB - in other words, a missile.

It’s all in the marketing.