Am I the only person who is shocked to realize that this is the same Perun who does strategy gaming YouTube tutorials on a related channel!? I had seen a bunch of his Terra Invicta content… had no idea he also did actual military analysis? Is that what he does professionally in some capacity or is he just an amateur interested in this stuff with a fairly well researched YouTube channel?
I believe in his earlier videos he mentioned that he isn't able to discuss Australian defense procurement on YouTube due to a conflict of interest with his day job.
He actually started with strategy gaming, then when Russia invaded he started his slideshows on the main channel and ended up with another channel for gaming.
Importantly he correctly predicted the entire broad course of the evolution of the war in the past two years in his first video on like day 10 of the conflict. I’m always impressed by his analysis each week, definitely a channel worth following and binge watching.
He does defence economics mostly for the Australian military, and liaising with allies. Probably a civilian contractor, possibly a think tank employee at an outfit like ASPI, but I doubt it.
I mean, as I watched him destroy my personal definition of what a military industry might look like in X4 I did start to make the connection with the similar sounding war economist I followed.
Complete with slideshows about what he was doing, how he planned to do it, and the logistics involved with becoming the supreme arms dealer and private army to half a dozen governments.
Not really, the conclusions are basically the same between both
1. There are no wonder weapons, nor are weapons obsoleted so easily. You cannot look at one in isolation of the larger context. The incidents in one war do not inform the use in all wars or operations.
2. Militaries view these types of things as part of a larger system, the parts of which are combined to create a desired effect. It is situational and Russia C&C is not the same as other countries C&C.
3. War has pro/con evolutions, as the drones progress, so does the anti-drone tech. These same helicopters were allegedly instrumental in preventing Ukraine's counter offensive in Zaporizhzhia, with their standoff anti-tank missiles, popping up above the trees, outside the range of manpads
FWIW there's a response from The Chieftain in the comments which has sparked a good discussion:
> Sorry, mate, but I really think you missed the point of the attack helicopter concept, at least in the modern Western concept. I can't speak as to either how the Russians think they should be using their helicopters in doctrine, or how they actually are using their helicopters in doctrine, but you seem to have completely ignored where the attack helicopter fits in as far as we in the West are concerned. The days of using attack helicopters in a troop support role to aid ground forces are long gone, except in cases of extreme emergency or very permissive environments. Instead, they are used as the division and corps commander's maneuver asset. MG Isenhower last week publicly described an evolution during an NTC rotation for a corps-level mission, the 1AD CAB sending both battalions from Fort Irwin to a target area over 250km away, (Conducted with incorporation into a Red Flag exercise to replicate the air and SEAD problem) and this sort of operation pretty much matches what I've seen helicopters be used for over the past four years' worth of division and corps level exercises. You can imagine the level of havoc which can be wreaked by one battalion, let alone two in the division and corps deep areas, by a unit capable of identifying and engaging its own targets in real-time from (relatively speaking) close range, whilst itself emitting a rather limited EM signature, and, of course, being entirely unjammable unlike long-range loitering munitions.
"Not really" means the war and its tactics haven't changed at all in two years? I find that very hard to believe.
I agree with your three points, but they are very high level, a bit like quoting Sun Tzu. The question is whether the attack heli is becoming rapidly obsolete (or at least, relegated to less relevant roles), and I think it might. Other weapon systems have, after all.
--
Edit: I love that I got downvoted for asking this even though, sure enough, Perun indeed uploaded a recent video reviewing his opinions of the attack helicopter! Oh, well... that's HN for you.
Why do you think the days of the heli might be over?
I think if you ask the military of US, Israel, Russia, and China, you will find them saying the attack heli has unique and useful capabilities not available on other platforms.
Well, I don't have access to any military, but why would they say that?
To my knowledge the US has abandoned the development of their advanced attack helicopters, and it's not because the current ones are flawless. Their Apaches are very vulnerable in a modern threat environment.
The Russians seem to have lots of inventory, who knows what they are thinking. Even Perun states a lot of Russian tactics and doctrine seem very old fashioned, using helicopters in a way that doesn't seem particularly cost effective (e.g. in roles better served by artillery).
As for China, I haven't the faintest idea. What's their use of attack helicopters?
I'm guessing a lot of China's reason has to do with the Taiwan strait. For all the advantages tanks and IFVs have over helicopters, they aren't especially good at moving across 100 miles of water.
> "Not really" means the war and its tactics haven't changed at all in two years? I find that very hard to believe.
In this specific respect, not really. Neither Ukraine or Russia really gained air superiority and MANPADS are common. In that context, attack helicopters are not a great weapon. It does not mean that it would be the case in all future wars. Some countries are more capable than Russia. Sure, better anti-drone weapons would help, but it’s a bit early to call helicopters obsolete. Pretty much in the same way as it was premature to call the main battle tank dead as a concept last year.
Sorry, I should have been clearer: I meant the attack helicopter in a war between near peers. Obviously it is different when the enemy is technologically far behind.
It might help to first understand both pieces said essentially the same thing and came to the same conclusions. They both also look beyond a single war and a single operator
So it wasn't the delivery after all, but the content? Punished for disagreement, in other words?
It's also hilarious I got downvoted for saying Perun's video was 2 years old and surely there would be new considerations, and sure enough, Perun posted a newer video with new considerations!
> Using italics was unnecessary
So a single word in italics in a different comment triggered downvotes on my first comment that didn't use italics? Seems like retaliatory downvoting of unrelated comments then. In any case, italics is used for emphasis and it's used commonly enough here on HN that its very limited markup supports it.
> So it wasn't the delivery after all, but the content?
you are being argumentative... which earns downvotes. you can word things differently to not be this way. Also, talking about being downvoted is against the posting guidelines, which will earn more downvotes. (See the links at the bottom)
> Punished for disagreement
see it as a signal from community moderation, this is not a free speech platform, content and conversation moderation is necessary online, unpopular opinions are often downvoted to avoid back and forth argumentation, so you may view it beyond moderation as feedback on your views, context dependent
Perun seems to know his stuff. That said, I’d be curious to know more about his research process, as well as that of other Russia-Ukraine war mappers/vloggers. Determining whether grainy drone footage is current or past alone seems difficult to me as an outsider and fan of their work, though I wish it weren’t necessary and that the war were over.
Tbh Perun often just takes a report released by RUSI, ISW, or other war think tank and does some narration over it. On top of that, he often extrapolates from very small or noisy data.
His real talent is to find a bunch of these OSINT reports on a topic, combine them, and then apply his knowledge of economics and game theory and military history and theory to explain what it all means. As a PhD economist I can clearly tell he understands economics and has a talent for teaching it I only wish I did.
did you expect him to have access too, and release, classified data? What insights do you expect him to have over multi-billion-dollar intelligence and counter-intelligence efforts?
like, nearly all commentators, everywhere, are talking about OSINT releases from RUSI or CNA or whoever. and those are based on scraps from official UKR, NATO, RUS, etc. releases.
Perun brings lots of citations and discusses his sources regularly, and always adds caveats. I wouldn't liken his weekly video to those of the daily mappers or telegram video collectors. Very different kinds of content.
I wasn’t meaning to compare them negatively and I don’t really follow other channels on that topic besides maybe Task & Purpose I think it’s called. Not dismissing anything Perun or others have done, just acknowledging that it’s hard to reason about how he goes about gathering the info. I hear him saying he does research, but not the process.
Perun took a side. A major result is that he often either downplays or outright ignores things that don't agree with his world view. Look at his deductions then see how things actually went. There's almost always a massive discrepancy vs the actual outcome.
Perun is joke among military analysts, who are mostly impressed by how much money he has managed to grift from uninformed, but convincingly spun, waffle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnoKpXvj41A
(there is a saying or word for titles as questions, and the answer is always no)