@chrisschmitz The Ukrainians have been putting MANPADS teams with cell-tablet missile track software on the tops of apartment buildings in Kyiv & Kharkiv as final point defenses.
A timer on the missile to pop the flares as they get close to an urban target would be effective against those.
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@chrisschmitz Such a system's effectiveness against mobile air defenses would depend on how accurate Russian intelligence was for the mission planning of the strike.
That Ukrainian article implies "Not Very."
Visual band CCD cameras are getting both small and very cheap. Missile warning
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@chrisschmitz ...defensive suites based on them for cruise missiles is only a matter of time.
The Association of Old Crows just has a webinar on the subject of missile defensive countermeasures by Eugene Fleeman here:
There may be up to a dozen hand built GLSDB prototypes immediately available, likely less, but the software & hardware needed to adapt a HIMARS or M270 launcher to fire GLSDB isn't 'commercial off the shelf."
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Vehicles like the M88A2 Hercules ARV are an operational level asset in that they keep tank & IFV formations stocked with recovered & repaired vehicles that fight time and again.
They are a 'saving throw' against vehicle attrition that keeps an armored force in the field.⬇️
The US Army's failure to bring enough tank recovery vehicles to the April-June 1945 Battle of Okinawa crippled it's tank fleet through unnecessary & avoidable attritional losses to Japanese soldiers with satchel charges.
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This 1945 'destroy abandoned enemy vehicles' game is being played today in Ukraine with grenade dropping drones, rather than suicidal tank killing Japanese infantry squads, like was done at Okinawa.
I've been pounding on the poor Western intelligence casualty counting in the Russo-Ukrainian War to date.
Military casualties are professionally racked and stacked as "Battle" and "Non-Battle" casualties.
This is the 1973 Vietnam USMC definition of non-battle casualties:
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"Examples of injuries not to be interpreted as battle casualties are: frostbite, battle fatigue, sunstroke, heat exhaustion and diseases not verified as cases of biological warfare"