Garmin = Deathwish
Not one of my regular posts down here, ladies and gents. But a huge warning to everyone of you thinking of making a gift for your friends or relatives on active service at the military.
Do not ever in Gods sake give them Garmin if you want them to return home safely.
This post is written with blood of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers. And was emotionally triggered by another scene of “happy birthday,son” present given to one of my subordinants by his father. A present to a young and healthy 2nd lieutenant, getting prepared hot his first trip to the front line in a few days.
I’ve made him to return the gift on site. To the deepest shock of his father. And gave him one of my old mechanical watches instead.
The very point here is that we are dealing with russian military. An army with probably the best developed radio-electronic warfare doctrine in the world. And they are using their REWs all along the frontline. They can detect a Bluetooth TWS headphone at the distance of 2km with a precision of +\- 5 meters. They can detect the GPS tracking device at the distance of 1.5 km with same level of precision. They can either jam one using GPS spoofing or jamming methods or hand over the coordinates to nearest “Lancet” kamikaze drone team. From a personal combat experience of past year 2022 I can tell that smart watch on your wrist while dealing with not yet another bunch Islamic radicals with some Stone Age tech but with more or less modern regular military force is a 100% suicide!
Garmin makes some fantastic smartwatches. They can last forever on a single charge. They pack a ton of features including real GPS and offline maps. They can write a record of your route. All these might seem a pack of killer features for a true military watch. But it ain’t! Garmin Fenix on your wrist at the front line will kill you in no time. And the worst is that it might be not just you. You can blow the cover of entire platoons position, getting all your friends killed too!
So, if you really value life and health of your friends and relatives in the military, give them good old automatic watches or some robust pressurised quartz instead.
Native Ukrainian. 38. A husband, a father, an officer and gentleman. In an active service. An IT Project Manager in civil life.
Interesting that our smartwatches can be used that way by the enemy.
Makes complete sense when a little thought is applied to it, but most of us just aren't thinking along those lines.
God bless you & the rest of the Ukrainian armed forces.
In my experience, the best watch for actual field use is a Casio Pro-Trek with altimeter, barometer, and compass functions. No Bluetooth or atomic clock. Pair it with an automatic diver just in case.
Stay safe.
Interesting that our smartwatches can be used that way by the enemy.
Makes complete sense when a little thought is applied to it, but most of us just aren't thinking along those lines.
God bless you & the rest of the Ukrainian armed forces.
My guess, based on how things go and how scared some Western world leaders are by the very thought that Ukraine might actually win and Russia might go through fragmentation process (following the path of all Empires in human history). Our allies are really scared of the very thought of our full scale victory more then of our defeat! This fear is dictated by an idea of China taking over all the Russia’s resources-rich regions as a final outcome.
An idea behind a very limited help we are receiving from our allies is to prolongate the war making Russia suffer economically, socially and politically. An idea of making war more and more unpopular among Russian society. And…It fails!
We are in a middle of just a first act of much more horrific global drama. It is only a matter of time when China and North Korea will start taking their part in it.
It might seem a distant perspective. But it ain’t. Unfortunately there are too many political, economical, ethnic, technological and ideological issues put on hold in favour of maintaining temporary stability of global economical system for current situation to have a diplomatic solution. We are facing some striking similarities upon current global political landscape with the one the world had back in late 1890s - early 1910s. The only difference is that the world nowadays is on much faster pace.
So, my guess is - now is the perfect time for all of us to start thinking in a similar way regarding field watches.
The ignorance and foolishness of a few strongmen leading to the unnecessary death and injury of thousands. When will it end. I by no means am an expert on geopolitics. I can however see when greed leaves suffering.
As someone who has some expertise in this area, its all true. The emf radiation from virtually anything can be tracked from the sky. Fitness trackers, motorcycles, laptops, anything. I'd be shocked if people deployed on operations were not briefed on this though.
As someone who has some expertise in this area, its all true. The emf radiation from virtually anything can be tracked from the sky. Fitness trackers, motorcycles, laptops, anything. I'd be shocked if people deployed on operations were not briefed on this though.
It’s not about the sky. Russians and chinese (mainly thanks to russians) have advanced ground based REW systems capable of doing just that and tons of other stuff.
And you’d be shocked to know what can and can not happen on such a massive scale war we are facing now.
I don't have any experience with ground based ew. That's interesting.
I don't have any experience with ground based ew. That's interesting.
I guess it’s because of none of you guys in the West actually has such experience. For the past 3 decades you were trained to operate against some insurgents and light infantry packed with RPGs as the most technologically advanced weapon system. That’s it. You have no idea what it’s like to deal with a modern regular military forces. With all respect, but fighting some Ahmeds and Ibrahims in the middle of the desert is not nearly the same thing as fighting against Pskov airborn division.
You might be aware of your own weapon systems and your own REWs with all their “eye in the sky” AWAKS specifics. But for 3+ decades you were driving a one way street. And now it is us who learns what it takes to deal with Russian military way ahead of you. So, my friend, I guess we down here know much more about real modern warfare then any of you.
All those ground based “Borschevik”, “Jitel”, “Krasucha” and dozens of other systems are produced by Russia in a massive scale. And they are efficient. They can not only spot your gadget miles away with pinpoint precision but also jam it, alter its functionality or even tell its built jn gps that it is not in Kharkiv region of Ukraine but somewhere in Gobi desert. Making your beloved drone go crazy. And they do not need to get a huge air platform burning tons of aviation fuel per hour to do so. It might be the right time to understand and accept the painful truth - your ew systems are Stone Age against the russian counterpart. Their tanks might be rusty soviet junk. Their planes might have vacuum tubes based avionics. And they might give some adequate body armour only for 30% on their men. But! In terms of REW they are already light years ahead of you. And do you know why? Because while you guy spent 3 decades mastering skills of fighting some AK armed Islamic terrorists in the middle of nowhere, building your entire military doctrine around it, russians spent that time learning how to fight you! And the solution was obvious - to disrupt you digital highly integrated battlefield concept. Such a concept was working perfectly against Ahmeds and some other “terrifying terrorists” not knowing what is a simple digital radio scanner is. But it just doesn’t stand a chance against a foe that might jam your battlefield network transport. Do you know the distance of a precise detection of Harris digital radio station? Well, we know. Russians can detect and locate it by a unique radio signature from a distance of 4 miles! Guess what’s next? Correct. Harris operator will get a “Lancet” kamikaze drone right up his ars in the next 3 minutes. Just because Harris is a typical data- and comlink for a standard NATO artillery crew! And so on.
I guess it’s because of none of you guys in the West actually has such experience. For the past 3 decades you were trained to operate against some insurgents and light infantry packed with RPGs as the most technologically advanced weapon system. That’s it. You have no idea what it’s like to deal with a modern regular military forces. With all respect, but fighting some Ahmeds and Ibrahims in the middle of the desert is not nearly the same thing as fighting against Pskov airborn division.
You might be aware of your own weapon systems and your own REWs with all their “eye in the sky” AWAKS specifics. But for 3+ decades you were driving a one way street. And now it is us who learns what it takes to deal with Russian military way ahead of you. So, my friend, I guess we down here know much more about real modern warfare then any of you.
All those ground based “Borschevik”, “Jitel”, “Krasucha” and dozens of other systems are produced by Russia in a massive scale. And they are efficient. They can not only spot your gadget miles away with pinpoint precision but also jam it, alter its functionality or even tell its built jn gps that it is not in Kharkiv region of Ukraine but somewhere in Gobi desert. Making your beloved drone go crazy. And they do not need to get a huge air platform burning tons of aviation fuel per hour to do so. It might be the right time to understand and accept the painful truth - your ew systems are Stone Age against the russian counterpart. Their tanks might be rusty soviet junk. Their planes might have vacuum tubes based avionics. And they might give some adequate body armour only for 30% on their men. But! In terms of REW they are already light years ahead of you. And do you know why? Because while you guy spent 3 decades mastering skills of fighting some AK armed Islamic terrorists in the middle of nowhere, building your entire military doctrine around it, russians spent that time learning how to fight you! And the solution was obvious - to disrupt you digital highly integrated battlefield concept. Such a concept was working perfectly against Ahmeds and some other “terrifying terrorists” not knowing what is a simple digital radio scanner is. But it just doesn’t stand a chance against a foe that might jam your battlefield network transport. Do you know the distance of a precise detection of Harris digital radio station? Well, we know. Russians can detect and locate it by a unique radio signature from a distance of 4 miles! Guess what’s next? Correct. Harris operator will get a “Lancet” kamikaze drone right up his ars in the next 3 minutes. Just because Harris is a typical data- and comlink for a standard NATO artillery crew! And so on.
Give us those Russian vehicles in line waiting for fuel and one a-10 warthog and they would have been decimated in minutes! That’s a fine way to talk trash about an ally who have spent 100s of billions of dollars to keep your country! I guarantee had we would have turned this rusted tank Russian army out in just a few months! You greatly underestimate the fighting capabilities of the US military as we’ve fought just about any kind of war that one can imagine! I stood by Ukrainian army and wanted them to have victory! But if this is how we are looked at by those who talk so badly about us fighting in afganastan and speaking out of turn about it! I hope I’m wrong but you sound ungrateful!