Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2023 May 12

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May 12

Genus in Animalia with the most species.

i need to know.

I hope you are not in a hurry. There are many genera in Animalia. There are probably several thousands of genera in the class Insecta alone. Also, most species have not yet been described, so any answers can only be provisional. Camponotus, comprising over 1,000 extant species, may be a candidate for the title.  --Lambiam 09:52, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Googling your query led me to the Wikipedia article Agrilus as the first link, the sole prose sentence of which states "Agrilus is a genus of jewel beetles, notable for having the largest number of species (about 3000) of any single genus in the animal kingdom." --Jayron32 11:44, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Be aware that any such count of species (or even genera) is subject to debate between lumpers and splitters. There really isn't any way to get a definitive answer.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:36, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Storm Shadow for Ukrainian Air Force

The Storm Shadow article says this: "The UK government announced in May 2023 that export Storm Shadows were "going into" or already supplied to the Ukraine military during fighting following the Russian invasion of Ukraine from 2022. Can these be carried by the Ukrainian Air Force's MiG-19s and Su-27s, or does it need western jets to use them? Thanks. 86.187.161.178 (talk) 18:43, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

They haven't announced how they will launch it, but it will surely be integrated with Ukraine's existing aircraft (as announcing western jets would be a much bigger deal yet). This story claims Su-24 and Su-27 could carry it (from a payload perspective). Whatever aircraft, it's unlikely they will integrate it into the aircraft's own weapons systems - when Germany inherited the GDR's Mig-29s, they elected not to adapt them to carry NATO ordnance (as the cost was too high, and they'd be retiring them pretty soon), so they kept the Warsaw Pact ordnance they had which worked with the 29s. When Ukraine received HARM anti-radiation missiles and deployed them on its Mig-29s, they apparently had some kind of jury-rigged iPad-like thingy in the cockpit (perhaps some adaptation of existing diagnostic or training software). They could do that with HARM because it's pretty clever. Similarly, as that article I linked above says, Storm Shadow can be programmed on the ground (again with whatever maintenance gubbins the RAF already has for it) and the carrier aircraft doesn't have much to do. This loses flexibility, but the Ukrainians will surely get so few Storm Shadows, they'll be using them very carefully and conservatively. This effectively makes the carrier aircraft into a "bomb truck", that does little more than fly to a designated place and chuck out its smart munitions, which go off on their own and do the work they were preprogrammed for. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 19:50, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

errrrm, "from a payload perspective" I guess you mean they are not too heavy? But these things need pylons or rails to carry and launch them? How on earth can the ancient avionics system of the MiG-29s be upgraded to allow Storm Shadows to be integrated? Perhaps they will also get n iPad-like thingy in the cockpit! lol. 86.187.161.178 (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I mean weight. Someone will have had to make an adapter for the pylons. And I think (but no-one will say publically) they they won't try to do any integration at all, beyond the iPad thingy. Which is like having a GPS glued to your car windscreen (hey, like a Russian su-25 already does) rather than the nice built-in one from the manufacturer. This is a duct-tape based war. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 20:05, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Too bad the Storm Shadow is a bit too heavy for a drone to carry. But a real different strategy for the Ukrainians - from light and flexible to heavy and precision. They will be able to takeout major ordnance depots and supply logistics centers with these. Especially if, as Prigozhin says, the Russians have started to run away. But I guess Ukrainian Air Force can't say much more about the Storm Shadows, as sources will be hard to find. 86.187.161.178 (talk) 20:14, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

We don't know how many Storm Shadows the UK has supplied, and what specific range and geofence restrictions they may have. It's surely not a large number (a few dozen, maybe). But fear of the Storm Shadows must surely engender a change in Russia's behaviour, which alone could be of benefit to Ukraine. The missiles may now (or may soon) threaten air and navy bases in Crimea, and the Kerch Bridge. Russia may feel it wise to either withdraw forces from there, or to move air defence systems there (perhaps from the front lines). HIMARS/GMLRS forced Russia to move its command locations back, and disperse its logistics operations - both of which threaten efficiency and effectiveness. Similarly, the Ukrainian drone attack on Engels-2 airbase reportedly caused Russia to redeploy strategic bombers away from there (a Ukrainian source). So the threat of Storm Shadow might be more effective than the relatively few things Ukraine can actually destroy with them. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 21:36, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

This video (by the Ukrainian Airforce) purports to be a Ukrainian Mig-29 firing a HARM in anger, and shows some interesting stuff in the cockpit. It seems the "iPad like thingy" is mounted (in some shots, not all) to the head-up-display frame (in the top-middle of the dashboard), and some shots briefly show its colour display. To the right of that is what appears to be a civilian aircraft GPS unit with a monochrome LCD screen. Somewhat comically, when the Mig fires its 30mm cannon, the vibration makes the GPS fall off, presumably leaving it banging around the pilot's feet. Anyone who has ever had a car GPS with a suction cup mount has surely experienced the same problem. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 19:31, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Although the central thingy does not appear to change when the first HARM is fired, and is missing entirely when the second one is. So maybe it's not the secret sauce (filming that would seem a bit reckless) but some other kludgy gadget. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 19:36, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

True. Firing my car's 30mm cannon causes all sorts of problems. Iapetus (talk) 10:08, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

An extreme example of the "bomb truck" idea is the Rapid Dragon (missile system) idea - it's just a pallet of smart munitions (in that example, JASSM cruise missiles, which are quite similar to Storm Shadow) that they literally shove out of the back of an unmodified cargo aircraft (in uncontested airspace). The JASSMs are dispensed from the pallet and fly off. The cargo aircraft contributes only the work of moving the missiles to a convenient place to start their journey. Frankly, for all we know, Ukraine could be doing likewise with an adequate cargo aircraft like a Antonov An-26. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 19:56, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Wow that does sound dumb. But I guess if they have been programmed on ground where to go, that's the easiest way to deploy them. But you won't get a pallet onto a MiG-29, etc. haha. 86.187.161.178 (talk) 20:01, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Even dumber was the Argentinian Air Force in the Falklands War that just rolled conventional 500lb bombs out of the back of a C130 Hercules transport onto a ship that they thought was part of the British task force, but turned out to be a civilian Liberian tanker. Fortuantely the bomb bounced off. [1] Alansplodge (talk) 12:49, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Note that, last spring, American engineers quickly kluged U.S.-supplied High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles onto Ukrainian MiG-29s and Su-27s. Storm Shadow might be even easier to integrate than HARM was. MBDA’s predecessors designed Storm Shadow for ease-of-use in what Italian air force test pilot Enrico Scarabotto described as “an incredibly low pilot workload cockpit environment.”... All that is to say, a pilot doesn’t have to do very much to launch a Storm Shadow except deliver it to an initial point that the missile recognizes. Thus the work of integrating Storm Shadow onto a new plane type mostly involves installing a physical interface — a pylon — and testing the plane-missile pairing to make sure there are no aerodynamic surprises. Ukraine Should Have No Problem Arming Its Old Soviet Jets With New British Cruise Missiles Alansplodge (talk) 15:30, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, an excellent source there. Also this: "Most of the work of programming a Storm Shadow takes place on the ground, before a mission. Technicians use Storm Shadow’s Data Programming System to tell the missile where to strike and at what angle. ... Storm Shadow navigates toward GPS coordinates, but corrects its course by scanning the terrain passing below it and matching it to known features. As it approaches its target, the missile pops open its nose to reveal an infrared seeker scans for the target’s heat profile—and guides the weapon to impact." 86.187.236.117 (talk) 08:57, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Ben Wallace comments on integration 1:19:21. fiveby(zero) 01:43, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

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