Russia deploys a mystery munition in Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Russia deploys a mystery munition in Ukraine

nytimes.com

38 pointsmhb81 comments

>The use of the decoys may point to some level of carelessness or urgency by Russian military leadership, Mr. Lewis said, given that Russia knows they will inevitably be collected and studied by Western intelligence services so that NATO air defenses can be programmed to defeat the Iskander’s countermeasures.

It does surprise me that they do no self-destruct upon impact. I wonder if they continue to have jamming capabilities even on the ground. They use a solid rocket motor, which could easily be capped with a small charge that would only detonate once fuel is depleted. This is how most aerial firework operate and it is quite reliable. A delay could also be easily built in.

That seems like an overly-optimistic analysis on the part of the article.

This is like saying flares don't work because we know about them.

Just because you know what the jammer radar signature looks like doesn't mean you can do anything about it.

https://twitter.com/CAT_UXO/status/1502936526346465280/photo...

looking at the internals this isn't exactly a very new device.

It looks like high power Russian electronics to me, any reason you think it look old?

From Twitter comments : "Yeah, that stuff looks like it's from the soviet era. "The design originated at Motorola around 1955. The lead spacing was originally intended to allow plugging the device into a then-common tube socket.""

With picture

https://twitter.com/Marty_Crabneck/status/150355018666001203...

It's interesting but I'm not sure component package means much in this context. For instance, this could be patterned on old ordnance but with updated circuitry and/or capabilities. If the transistor package is still produced why change the fundamental design of the munition?

I do some hobby work with electronics, and I use old (but still in production) parts all the time. BJT and FET transistors? Not much has changed in a long time for a lot of those. A 2N3904 is what it is.

Looks like old can style transistors to me.

I was thinking about modern intercept missiles: they all seem to use something like radar or infrared to detect and target missiles. But they also seem quite easily fooled by countermeasures. In many cases the human eye can easily distinguish between the real target (a helicopter or cruise missile) and the counter measures. Would it therefor not be feasible to use something like computer vision to make the intercept missile find its target visually?

Elon musk has a new market for his self-driving tech; the EV cruise interceptor! "We're only using consumer-grade cameras folks"

go to work for Boeing or Lockheed. you might be surprised by the sophistication of missile seekers. and countermeasures.

note that what you see on TV in the current conflict may be several generations old.

> In many cases the human eye can easily distinguish between the real target (a helicopter or cruise missile) and the counter measures.

Machines can accomplish the same objectives as humans without functioning like humans. Computers do math, but nothing like humans and some things that are easy for humans are very difficult for computers, and vice versa. People and machines can both traverse terrain, but some terrain that people handle easily is very difficult for machines, and vice versa. The fact that human vision can detect the difference doesn't mean that machines can.

let's just go all the way to bioengineering weaponry again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon

There's a picture of one on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CAT_UXO/status/1500100071718854657

And here's what the inside looks like: https://twitter.com/CAT_UXO/status/1502936526346465280

There is no 'mystery' - the west might not be familiar it, but it's obvious what its function is: Decoys with electronic jamming and IR sources to help the missile evade defenses.

As the subhead of the article mentions?

The US used “decoys” in Desert Storm. They were very successful and served the same function as you describe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-141_TALD

“But we never see them because they’re highly secret — if you know how they work, you can counteract them.” followed by a picture of the inside made me think it’s not mysterious anymore.

Read the end of the article for a short discussion of this very point.

It may be a stupid question...but why doesn't a country simply use something like "LSD gas" or "psyilocybin gas"? The assumptions are: 1) it renders people temporarily crazy and docile / compliant, 2) it will wear off in a day or two, 3) people will fully recover, 4) while they are gassed, you can just gently shepherd them out of their dwellings / fortifications and onto buses to take to refugee camps or something, while they have an out-of-body mystical experience and comprehend the totality of existence.

Everybody wins.

It seems that a non-lethal / no permanent disability hallucinogenic agent would not violate the treaty against chemical/biological weapons, would basically achieve passive area denial, with create zero casualties, and would (if it actually worked as intended) probably be a heck of a lot of fun (ignoring all the un-fun aspects of war like "these new people now own this territory and here are the consequences for everyone who used to own it".)

Note: if a gas is impractical as delivery mechanism (hello, gas masks), be creative: a 'contact agent' (skin absorption ~~ like DMSO), cheap 'cluster darts' sprayed from drones, etc, etc.

Are you on LSD gas right now?

Hahaha you said "lsd gas". Awesome! Heh, I wish :) Never tried the LSD. Would love to. Never came across it. Hook a brother up? ;p xxx ;)

edit: re-thinking this after reading the sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30685186): I very well may be! hahaha

Who's to say they haven't been doing exactly that for years? That would answer a whole lot of unresolved questions.

An excellent hypothesis. Thank you! What's the on-the-sly delivery mechanism in that case do you think?

It's off-gassed from refrigerators made after 1970. Who doesn't have a fridge??

Really, hallucinogens are coming from refrigerators? Wow. Mind blown. Can this really be right, tho? Do you have a ref, sorry?

Hang on, I need to create a blog so that my entry on Wikipedia doesn't get deleted.

Heh :) Ok, well please email me a blog link once you got it up :)

For what it's worth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychochemical_warfare describes past research and uses with mixed effectiveness.

Great reference, thanks!!! :) I bet the CIA FOIA reading room may have some other interesting data, asides from the shameful MK*** stuff. But perhaps not as relevant as military applications...if only DIA (or the competent authority) had a FOIA reading room that was as good...

The British army actually dosed soldiers with LSD to see how they'd perform in drills. Needless to say the result was hilarious (climbing trees to feed the birds, incapable of reading maps) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqpwkhqTRs

Not sure if I'd trust people tripping around ballistic missiles though. These guys have been living in rough conditions, underfed and sleep deprived ... not the best "setting".

I love this! Thank you for that video :)

Having used LSD a number of times many years ago, and having been in the US Army in a war zone, I can say that combat is most certainly not a place for people on LSD. For either side.

This comment clearly written by someone who has never tried a hallucinogen.

There are drugs that could render people docile enough to be "gently shepherded"... But not these ones.

A high dose administered in a war zone could lead to permanent psychosis in thousands of people, however.

Overall, using these kind of drugs in war would be wildly unpredictable, probably very ineffective, and would be considered a chemical attack, probably.

This comment is clearly written by someone who has never admitted to being wrong, or never encountered someone who had a different experience to what they understood or assumed ;).

I've done psyilocybin. Multiple times (where it's 'legal', in Amsterdam). And majored in Chemistry XD

I agree, the, er, details (heh) would need to be worked out. You sound like you like to sound like you know what you talk about with hallucinogens, care to suggest a good compound, huh? :)

edit: I love how I'm pushing back against the arrogant counter factual mis assumption / ad hominem in the parent, but I'm the one who gets downvoted. Anyone want to share a view on why?

Take hallucinogens in a nice calm atmosphere and you'll generally have a nice, calm experience and maybe even gain a new perspective.

Take them under stress (eg, a war) and you are almost certain to have a terrible trip with disastrous psychological effects.

Not a great plan.

Good point. BUT, what if we made the "war" like an information war. So soldiers war multi-color rainbow tie-died "conceptual disruption" camo. And brought munchies and flowers, and those head-massager spiders, and shamanic drumming music...in other words, basically the "invading army" did everything in their power to make sure everyone had a f** fantastic trip, because that would make everyone more docile and just be easier. It could really revolutionize warfare. An invasion of overwhelming peace love and fun...Killing your former property rights with seductive kindness...

Quick question, are you on any hallucinogen right now?

Hahaha. Because my thinking is so sublime? I know right XD. See these comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30685171): would love to be but no (not knowingly anyway, hah!). Yet see (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30685186) maybe I am! Hahaha :) maybe we all are. haha

Aside from all that, does beer count? I think it does right. Hops and all that. I'm 1.666 500 ML cans in.

psilocybin takes a large dose to effect a person to the point of hallucinations so that is not likely to work. LSD can cause very bad trips especially when taken in a bad environment and if the person doesn’t know they have taken it. This isn’t a movie your suggestion sounds like a bad idea all around.

Surely, this is merely a technical hurdle, that we can solve through better chemistry? :)

If you have tried hallucinogens and yet you're joking suggesting using them in an active war zone with comments like "Everybody wins" then I have to say, you seem to be severely lacking in empathy. Not to mention, while you make these flippant remarks here untold tragedy is going down in Ukraine right now and to me it seems in poor taste to trivialize it.

If you have to make jokes like this, right now, maybe you could go and find somewhere else to do it? There several right wing subreddits that would be happy to have you.

I was wrong in assuming you had not tried psilocybin and calling you out over it and I apologize for that - I wrongly thought that psilocybin tended to teach people empathy, hence my mistake. Thanks for the correction, I humbly accept my error.

OMG, these sort of self-righteous / play the fake victim / pretend other people are bad comments are soo boorish and dull. Please don't do that here. If you want to leap at people and make fights, take up thai bo. :)

It seems the only one lacking in empathy is the one who: 1) can only concieve there's "one" way to view it, and it's their way, and they're "right", 2) wants to project / impose their biased misinterpretation on others to twistedly satisfy themselves, at the expense of others, and 3) says stuff like, "clearly that person has never" but then is totally wrong...and then doubles down...sigh. Please do that trash somewhere else.

Please don't cross into getting personal in an argument. It never helps, and you can make your substantive points without that.

Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You're totally right - I came back to delete or amend this yesterday but the previous commentator had already replied to I figured I should leave it. My apologies :)

That would be against the Geneva convention, probably under poisonous gas.

Note that the Geneva convention was signed only after consulting with the generals. If it isn't allowed there it is because modern military doesn't really want it. Landmines for example are allowed because there are generals who see a real war use for them. (countries that have signed a treaty not to use them are allies with some other country that will place them as needed thus allowing a symbolic promise that can be worked around easially)

Because you can't control who gets hit. Sometimes the wind will blow it back in your face and so you do no harm the the enemy, and your own people (anyone who didn't have a gas mask properly on - note that this can be people miles away that you didn't inform) are hit. When you need to wear protection and the enemy doesn't is a big advantage for the enemy.

Have you ever worn a gas mask? They are worse than the n95 masks people object to wearing for COVID. They really are hard to breath in.

No modern army wants to use chemical weapons because they don't get enough control. The times when it backfires are common enough that you can always find a better tool for war.

I used to run around in an old WWII disposal gas mask as a kid for a lark. Was pretty fun and weird, but I have no idea if it actually worked. Maybe there could be some temporary gene therapy that could infect the deploying side with 'immunity' against the drug, maybe by quickly metabolizing it?

So now, to the chemical attack, you've added large scale gene therapy treatments to troops, civilians, and contractors to make sure "you're side" doesn't get hit?

Bombs work pretty well without the need for all of that logistics.

Hahah, true true. We did expand exponentially pretty quickly there with that plan, heh :) Still it was a nice idea / ideal. sigh maybe there's some way one day...

> Have you ever worn a gas mask? They are worse than the n95 masks people object to wearing for COVID. They really are hard to breath in.

I have used them in the US Army. They are uncomfortable, hot, and difficult to breathe in (like you mentioned). Drinking water is awkward, but doable. Even worse when you're in full MOPP gear. [0] I was for a time in a unit which trained regularly with MOPP gear (even light physical training at times) and it really sucked every time we had to wear any of it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOPP_(protective_gear)

This is awesome info.

And I love how the guy in that wikipedia article is just waving at the camera, like, "Hey I'm having fun in my MOPP gear. grits teeth"...

Maybe you can't say but is there any training on using chemical agents in combat? Or is it all defensive? As a military person do you think this "trip drug" idea is just crazy stupid, or...maybe could work? or not your purview?

I had only trained in protecting against chemical agents. To my knowledge, if there is any training to use it as a weapon, very few people received it.

Good to know. And...Love the diplomatic response. Avoids the other question. Nice :) genuinely warm smile

You are under-estimating the long-term traumatic psychological effects a bad trip can have. Not to mention the inability to properly control dosage in a large-area dispersion scenario.

Nah yeah that's fair enough. Definitely that's may be problem for some people. Surely we could "tune" this with better chemistry, tho?

The vector part is really interesting tho. How can you reliably dose a mass population in an urban environment? The limitations of gas have already been discussed (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30685608). My idea about "cluster darts from drones" sounds 'good' but seems like it could have some serious technical issues / pitfalls. I think a "natural agent" like a virus is the best way.

This article, in my opinion, makes a very convincing argument for why Chemical warfare is not used anymore.

https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

It's sad to read how strenuously people argue to deny progress, a desire to make a better world, and its overwhelming effectiveness - we live in the world built by that vision and effort, and we can easily carry it on.

It's like the reactionaries have convinced people - against all visible evidence - that our worst angels are our only ones, that we have no free will to be other than depraved. Perhaps the decline of religion has hurt.

you can't control the dose. Consider LSD, a little bit goes a long way. "little bit" = the microgram scale.

  > no permanent disability hallucinogenic agent

Reactions with other (perscription) meds, pre-existing medical conditions, side effects, and more such things could lead to permanent damage anyway.

Good point. Would need to be thought through.

The Russians tried this is a theater taken over by terrorists holding hostages. 130 people died from the gas that was only supposed to make them unconscious.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisi...

I know. I was thinking of that when I wrote the comment. Tragically sad. But that was fentanyl, the 'safe dose range' of which is pretty tiny because it's so intensely strong.

Hallucinogen and other narcotic gases were tested extensively in the 1940s-1960s. They were found to be extremely unpredictable as to the areas they affected, which varied with wind, and dosages delivered to combatants. Their ability to neutralize combatants is limited compared to a lethal tactic, such as the chemical gases employed in Syria by Russia and allies. [1]

Russia has employed narcotic gases to deal with terrorist situations before, with significant casualties. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attack [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

Good data.

> Their ability to neutralize combatants is limited compared to a lethal tactic

Hard to argue with that...But their neutralization could be so much more morally expansive (and defensible).

The Russian fiasco used fentanyl, which in hindsight seems a poor choice because of its off-the-charts potency / low margin for error with safe dosing.

Things that spring to mind:

- Gas in an open space is the main one. It would need to be very potent stuff to be effective and something that potent in tiny doses is almost certain to be highly toxic

- Getting the gas widely disbursed in a built-up area may only be effective by destroying the buildings (so we're likely back to square one)

- Logistically a challenge as your own troops/transport would need to be quite close to take advantage (whereas dead people tend to stay put)

- Even if you could solve 1-3 it probably takes way too long to zonk someone out and it can be easily stopped by putting on gas masks or retreating.

Fair enough. These are good points. A solid analysis! I think we could try some other vector, but they probably suffer from similar issues.

Ultimately, maybe the best one is some sophisticated EMF-activated "latent agent" that you've somehow managed to "infect" the population with, ahead of time, in some arbitrarily long "preparation" step. And then, "zap", when you roll into town with your army of hippy-love-trip-party parade (actually invading force), you can broadcast the frequency that "activates" the latent agent, and induces the desired compliance. But that sounds like some high tech that I haven't seen any papers published about...

I've heard this idea before from Sci-Fi author - Gibson, Dick or maybe Stephenson. I've never used an hallucinogen before but I'm skeptical of the idea.

Say it worked as you describe - it'd be lowering the danger to the people being gassed (as opposed to shooting or some sort of genuinely poisonous gas) which is potentially OK for enemy civilians but probably not the effect you want for enemy combatants.

Compare it to land mines. Those are dangerous as much or more then deadly. Being maimed is (to put it mildly) disheartening to think about, worse still to see happen to a friend and then on top of that a single wounded soldier will generally send them out of action plus the guys who need to take their legless comrade out of the combat zone.

If I were off to war and I had to face an enemy who'd set me up for that vs. one who might subjugate me to party drugs I know which one I'd pick. Trickier question is of course - if you were going to war and had to pick which one to dish out which would you pick?

AFAIK weaponizing chemicals is the hard part, especially distribution. You need to cover a very large area to be effective, deal with wind, etc. We can imagine all sorts of chemicals that, if they could be distributed widely, would be effective, but it ain't easy.

Non-paywalled https://archive.ph/do7Ai

Interesting article but it’s decoy middles not the “cope cages”

Given China and India's refusal to enforce sanctions against Russia, this has gotten very interesting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/columbia-university-on-china...

From an economic point of view, it appears both countries are sick of having to use USD as reserve currency. If China starts trading directly with Russia and other countries, using Yuan, we may see the USD losing power.

Wrong thread?

Would it be beneficial to China to deal more (directly) with India & Russia at the cost of dealing less with USA & Europe?

Who said "less with USA". Do you think USA will cut trade with china/india just in spite? Without imports &cheap labour from there, USA'd be back in progress by a few decades as we do not manufacture much here anymore.

The US does a lot of manufacturing, don't be fooled by the hype.

Though I agree it would set back progress in the US to stop trade with China. There are a lot of things we get from China that will be hard to replace in the near term. However China is buying food from the US, so they have more to lose. (This depends on how Brazil reacts - if Brazil also cuts of China there isn't anyplace to get enough food)

I strongly suspect China can do both.

Even Europe is still dependent on Russian gas.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/14/russian-gas-oi...

India is afraid of China and actively trying to trade less with them. China has been aggressive near India's borders in the recent past.

China trades directly with other countries than the U.S. today. They account for about 15% of global trade but the yuan is about 2% of the currency market. That, for context, is still the fifth highest currency.

The reason people use USD (and the EUR) for global trade is liberal currency controls and long term economic stability. Perhaps China is approaching the latter but for the former the status quo of the yuan is on par with the current sanction regime of the USD and the EUR. Except that it exists for every trading partner and every transaction taking place in the yuan.

The yuan is growing in importance naturally but before it becomes a global currency it has to be liberalized and no one knows what happens then. The CCP is pretty skeptical of liberalization and is going the opposite direction currently.

If China starts trading with Russia using the Yuan it's going to have to buy a ton of USD and other currencies to keep the artificially low Yuan peg[1] going. I don't think the USD is going to lose power in this scenario.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/030616/why-chine...

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