Some reflection on the Armenian-Azeri 2020 war and how Turkish-sourced UCAV utterly dominated the battlespace.
@Crandar You still simpin'?

Whether or not major militaries would find it easy to hunt down offensive UCAV in combined arms warfare, the lesson is obvious: If you're a smaller or poorer country with a crappy military, spam dronz; macro that shit.

I wonder when we'll get the first terrorist attack using autonomous loitering mini-munitions.


The site also compiled, or purports to, every single confirmable loss of major military equipment/platforms among the belligerents, with photographic signatures. What a data overload.

The tabulation isn't far off from Wiki figures. Ever since I became aware of contemporary warfare I was impressed by its lethality toward armor. Pre-Cold War armored warfare was somewhat comparable to pre-20th century warfare in general, in that the tank/infantryman was as likely to be neutralized by breakdown/disease than by enemy action. In contemporary context, these figures instead demonstrate the continuing advantage of sweeping offensives in dynamic warfare. If the figures below are accurate or understated then Armenia must have lost nearly its entire operational tank element in the war! Moreover, the amount of equipment captured by the Azeris (see link for disaggregation) must, unless repatriated under the peace, be enough to furnish reserves for much of the Azeri armed forces.


ARMENIA
Tanks: ~250 (100! captured; most destroyed were by drone)
AFV/IFV: 160 (mostly captured)
Artillery (Towed): ~240
Artillery (Mortar): 60 (mostly captured)
Artillery (SPG/MRL): 110
ATGM: 140 (almost all captured)
SAM: 36
Aircraft: 2
UCAV: 6
Trucks: ~700 (half captured)

AZERBAIJAN
Tanks: ~60
AFV/IFV: 90
Artillery: 1 mortar, 2 MRL
Aircraft: 13
UCAV: 26 (mostly loitering)
Trucks: ~60


Surely more aircraft though? Too hard to confirm?

While the Azeri/Turkish TB2 Bayraktar drone racked up an impressive tally against Armenian tanks, the full list suggests, plausibly, it was even more dangerous to artillery and transport vehicles.

@spmetla While I said earlier that I don't expect Turkey to wage war against Greece anytime soon, I just realized that Erdogan must entertain plans to annex Cyprus without great delay, mustn't he? No one would be able to stop him in the attempt - certainly not the Cypriot military - and if Greece tried to intervene, it would just fail embarrassingly without hope of a mandatory Article 5 trigger. Would be hilarious if the event rngages Chinese mobilization against Taiwan - how's that for Domino Theory (of Frozen Conflicts)?
https://jamestown.org/program/the-cy...kish-alliance/