"Little Green Men" lose their GPS
Missed by many I suspect, so hat tip to Australia's Lowy Institute e-briefing:
Quote:
The failure two weeks ago of GLONASS was frankly an
unprecedented total disruption of a fully operational satellite constellation. At just past midnight Russian time (GMT + 4) on 2 April, every GLONASS space vehicle began broadcasting corrupt data. This rendered the system completely unusable to all receivers worldwide, and the system remained that way for about eleven hours.
The slim technical details:http://gpsworld.com/glonass-gone-then-back/
The US report and wondering about reliance on non-Russian GPS:http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs...-backup-to-gps
Which has an interesting Crimea-related passage:
Quote:
It should be no surprise that those unbadged Russian troops swarming into Crimea last month
brought with them trucks with very recognizable GPS jammers. The new
R-330 Zhitel system appears to have enough power to jam even military-grade receivers over a wide area, and a dispersed deployment of them could overwhelm even the most sophisticated electronically-steered antennas.
I note this failure was on the 2nd April 2014, after April Fool's Day.
Map Reading and shooting azimuths
Imagine yourself in Zaire with a cell phone that worked in only three major cities (if you called (pardon the pun) ahead to get a connection), and you had a compass and map from the 1960s.
Half of the high end Garmins with purportedly unlimited free updates can't get you around this tiny little country.
We've lost our very basic military training where the drill sergeant snapped the eraser off the pencil, gave it back and told you, "you were not yet trained to use that end of the pencil" :D
Carl,
Back to VFR :cool:
Assessing the old and the new
A short review on WoTR of the recent excursions by Russia's "little green men". It starts with:
Quote:
With the rapid operation that resulted in the annexation of Crimea earlier this year, the Russian military returned to the collective consciousness of the American public. Many commentators were impressed with the
“little green men’s” professional demeanor and shiny new equipment. In some cases, this impression was
undeservedly expanded to apply to the
rest of the Russian military. In this context, it is important to discuss what the Crimean operation does and does not tell us about the capabilities of the Russian military.
The first clear lesson from the Crimean operation is that the Russian military understands how to carry out operations with a minimal use of force. This observation may initially seem banal or trivial, but we should keep in mind how Russian troops acted in previous operations
in Chechnya and even
to some extent in Georgia. Subtlety was not a strong suit in these operations, nor did it seem to be particularly encouraged by the political leadership
Link:http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/cri...litary-fights/
The Russians may not be giants
A short review article on Defence in Depth (Kings War Studies) that examines the Russian threat, which ends with:
Quote:
So, it is not all gloom and doom. Yes, Moscow is rattling sabres, but not as many as it might.
Link:http://defenceindepth.co/2015/04/20/...-not-just-yet/