The Armed Forces YouTube Thread - Page 15 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Military vehicles, aircraft, ships, guns and other military equipment. Plus any general military discussions that don't belong elsewhere on the board.

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#14164360
I expect the Russian armaments industry is taking a very keen interest to get additional feedback on their equipment in the same way that NATO has learnt a lot from 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although I guess the Russians would have learnt a lot from the battle of Grozny and its aftermath at the turn of the century, and presumably the Syrian army doesn't have anything more advanced than was available to Russia back then?
#14164868
I don't think the Russians can learn anything here due to the nature of warfare involved, and because these are very basic reactive armor kits.

Syria's latest equipment would be in the field of anti-air, and it consists of 80's soviet stuff left in storage then sold off years later, with perhaps some newly built Iranian analogues.
#14169270
I expect the Russian armaments industry is taking a very keen interest to get additional feedback on their equipment in the same way that NATO has learnt a lot from 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.


I am reasonably certain that in some cases they may even be watching the radar screens and directing the engagements, though Chechnya has given Russia a decent local testing ground in low intensity warfare. Look out this year for new the generation of unified Russian armored vehicles which will incorporate a lot of these low intensity survivability lessons; Boomerang and Kurganets-25.

Russian designers have learnt a lot from exporting their weapons to the middle east for live testing, and there are numerous examples of this, though as Igor notes in some cases the lessons may be invalidated by the type of combat that occurs.

Syria's latest equipment would be in the field of anti-air, and it consists of 80's soviet stuff left in storage then sold off years later, with perhaps some newly built Iranian analogues.


The Syrian military was undergoing a major upgrade before the conflict, most of the money for modern equipment was put into air-defense (probably wise after Libya); Pantsyr and Buk-2E are top of the line and more was on its way. Syrian ground forces have received new equipment on and off over the years, Italy did an upgrade job on some during the 90's for example and more were being upgraded by Russia but how far they got we don't know, through a mixture of different varieties (including ERA designs) have been seen in combat.

Although I guess the Russians would have learnt a lot from the battle of Grozny and its aftermath at the turn of the century, and presumably the Syrian army doesn't have anything more advanced than was available to Russia back then?


Certainly did and Syria could do with following the lessons, though I think they have got better in recent times, seeing more application of applique armor and US style thunder runs. What they really need to do though is get some infantry in there to support the tanks, RPG are lethal to unsupported AFV in the urban environment and the rebels have some nasty RPG, last video was identified as the Merkava and Abrams munching vampire, probably from Syria's own stocks.

Just some nice footage...

[youtube]DsUKeqjFQM8[/youtube]
#14180968
Nice thread.

Although seen by many, I would like to add the following:

[youtube]vcCSz_TgMiE[/youtube]

My dad made FLIR possible for flight. Some will find the claim hard to believe but it is the case.

He is the man responsible for mounting it on an aircraft when it was said it couldn't be done. He was able to get the thing to track properly from the air.

I wasn't even ten years old at the time, and Texas Instruments gave him an Aero Commander to work with.

The PhDs (he called them Poor Hound Dogs) claimed it was much too large to mount on a plane, but him being a logistics engineer, he showed them the logic of how to connect A to B to create the level jump.

He would take me up with that odd ball shoved beneath the nose and we would fly around Dallas. My family still has the original 16mm test footage as the aircraft flew about Dallas seeking out heat signals in normal items like factory smoke stacks.

I can remember the funky television sitting in the makeshift navigator seat on the relatively small plane.

And that was basically it, as I was a kid and interested in other things.

Later I learned how it discovered the Cu Chi tunnels because after the defoliation fires were started, they kept noticing dark round spots in all of the flames that clearly indicated cold areas untouched by the fire.

I recall he talked about how it would enable aircraft to land safely in any type of situation.

It wasn't until the night of the US involvement in Kuwait and hearing friends remark about the wonders of FLIR that it hit me the extent to which his invention had risen. My friends were watching on TV and saying FLIR this and FLIR that, and I can remember turning around to them and saying "What about it? My dad invented that. My mom designed the logo to it for TI." My friends looked at me open mouthed and I didn't have a clue.

He died months after the perfection was completed in 1971 and was happy it would be able to fight forest fires safely. He never learned the extent to which it became used in warfare nor the extent to which it was used to help locate polar bear dens in the melting Arctic.

The story goes that when he finished, TI asked him what he wanted for it. He told them it was part of his job and asked for one dollar plus that if the rights were ever sold, the royalties would be extended to this family.

Well, that didn't happen. TI got rid of it to EDS who passed it along to Raytheon after the patents were effectively into public domain. But I do get to be reminded of my father when I hear of polar bears on NPR, have another session of Call of Duty and get to peruse web pages like these.

As a SAC co-commander at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I am curious how he would feel about the application of FLIR. It certainly is handy, and perhaps not always for noble reasons. Nonetheless, it is a pretty cool accomplishment and cheers for letting me have a space to toot his horn a little louder.
#14187052
Typhoon wrote:^ Nice post, very interesting. Shame he never got the patent, FLIR has been a huge part of modern aviation!


We got the patent. I can find it on the net using my dad's and his partner's name. I'd post it save that it really connects my family name with my pofo moniker which is already used enough places elsewhere to make connections that might not be healthy for me.

The problem is the royalties for the patent after FLIR was sold from Texas Instruments to Ross Perot's EDS and then the subsequent sale to Raytheon.

I contacted Texas Instruments back in the mid 90s following the war in Kuwait and they recognized who I was. They told me they remembered my dad being on the cover of their annual reports in the mid 70s.

As I approached attorneys in the area at the same time, I was repeatedly given warnings about doing business with local attorneys because it was more likely they would be supportive of TI as a corporation. Being that the patent was already more than 20 years old, it was pretty much a dead end for me.

Despite that I have several reels of the test footage and it is certainly historically significant, Raytheon refuses to respond.

I have seen where the Smithsonian already has a certain amount of FLIR related material in their archives, so I reckon that is where the 16mm footage will eventually be placed.

I found links today that go to the Philippines armed forces where they are trying to double check if the FLIR in their possession was on an Aero Commander or a Turbo Commander....along Shrike lines. They kept thinking it was something that would be lowered out of the fuselage when needed for use, but it always sat under the nose as a ball from the beginning. That was the whole logistical engineering problem my dad solved.

If I can come up with some photos of the original, I will be sure to post them.
#14189347
Despite that I have several reels of the test footage and it is certainly historically significant, Raytheon refuses to respond.


Well its the memories and being a piece of history that's the most important thing anyway, great bit of family history! Would be great to see the photos if you chance across them?

More combat from inside Syria, warning graphic. From the take of the Syrian tankers.

[youtube]jn1NWU3nGQc[/youtube]
#14194246
Very interesting footage coming out of Syria, good compilation, especially of the operation and performance of T-72. While we have seen some dramatic footage of tanks being destroyed the type is still being extensively employed by Syria and has a generally positive review, which is interesting considering what we have heard about this tanks protection over the last two decades from the first Gulf Wars.

T-72 resisting FSA RPG strike:

[youtube]iM0seoABIxs[/youtube]

The Scientific Research Institute of Steel is linking to a report that Syrian T-72 tanks equipped with 1st generation dynamic protection developed in the early 1980's are regularly receiving RPG hits and surviving, with this early generation reactive armor some are taking upwards of 13-15 hits without destruction and still combat capable.
http://argumenti.ru/world/n376/232797

Further to this a link to interesting reactive armor test footage from the time of the Chechnya conflict.

[youtube]5v3MZErD4kg[/youtube]
#14194313
^ Despite its vintage the RPG-7 is still a potent anti-tank weapon, Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated numerous current armored vehicles being penetrated, disabled or destroyed. The T-72 in Syria are a mixture of vanilla export models and T-72M a downgraded version of a 1979 vintage modernization, vulnerable to even early RPG-7 rounds. However with the application of reactive armor these elderly tanks can have a second wind, able to survive even in dense urban environments they are well designed to cope with.
#14194965
Typhoon wrote:However with the application of reactive armor these elderly tanks can have a second wind, able to survive even in dense urban environments they are well designed to cope with.


Yeah that's basically what I meant, the retrofitted reactive armor is obviously doing its job against the older RPGs.
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