Analysis of additional armor protection for lightly armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and foreign states

World military conflicts show that the armor protection of most light armored vehicles does not meet modern requirements. The constant development and improvement of fire weapons makes it necessary to search for new constructive solutions in this area. Increasing the level of armor protection by increasing the thickness of the armor is a hopeless path, since it will lead to an increase in the mass of the vehicle, and this, in turn, will negatively affect the power plant and chassis. One of the ways to increase the level of protection is the use of new booking schemes using modern armored materials. This article analyzes publications devoted to modern scientific research related to the development and improvement of armor protection for light armored vehicles, as well as an analysis and assessment of options for the use of modern armored materials and various structures to protect vehicle crews and increase the level of tactical and technical characteristics. It is shown that at present, in connection with traditional approaches in the design of armored vehicles, the advantage is given to armored steels, aluminum and titanium alloys. However, there is a trend towards the use of lighter ballistic materials such as ceramics and composites with polymer fibers. The basis for the creation of reliable armor protection for lightly armored vehicles has been determined – the development of new promising structures for combined protection using new armor materials and their various options. Variants of additional armor protection systems of both foreign manufacturers and domestic developments are presented. The new systems include several special materials that differ from each other in a wide range of physical and mechanical properties. The use of such protection, together with the main armor, can reduce the mass performance of the vehicle. It has been determined that the creation of new designs of armored elements using the most modern technologies will lead to a significant increase in the protective characteristics of the armor of light armored vehicles.

Letter from the Editors

Dear Colleagues! Our Authors and Friends! New Year 2022 rushes towards humanity. This universal arrangement of life on our planet presupposes changes. Their essence is in hopes for the best. We wish all of us not just hopes but confidence in the victory of good over evil, reasons over greed and cruelty. We hope that the Planet will overcome humankind's most severe viral attack – the SARS-CoV2 pandemic. We hope that the future brings us victories over epidemics, serious diseases, hunger, and lack of water. We hope that all types of violence, military conflicts, political, economic, religious confrontations will be stopped in a New Year. We are opening the third year of our journal, which was focused on different aspects of medicine. Last year we published eight papers from seven countries experts, each substantially contributed to medicine. We talked about COVID-19 pandemic, vital pediatric problems, and adult medicine. We will continue our mission to support and distribute the most valuable medical knowledge in the New Year. May the New Year celebrations bring only joy and harmony to your homes, souls, and the reasoning, which illuminate confidence in the future for our beautiful multinational green Planet - Earth! "Every end is a new beginning…." We wish you and your family a Happy Holidays! We hope that your New Year will be filled with peace, new ideas, and success! Editorial office

Address to the Nation as a Genre of Military-Political Discourse

The political rhetoric prevailing in democratic countries does not allow an open demonstration of commitment to military means of conflict resolution and, therefore, naturally gives rise to a special type of discourse, the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts of which are determined by the goal of initiating a war. This study aims to analyze the components of military-political discourse, as well as the ways they are implemented in the texts and the role they play in manipulating public opinion. The authors defines military-political discourse as the discourse of political elites accompanying various stages of military operations and developed to substantiate the need for their initiation based on the fundamental values of a particular society. The relevance of this study is determined both by the increased interest in military conflicts in modern society and by the insufficient study of military-political discourse in general. Address to the nation is one of the main genres of military-political discourse. The novelty of the research is determined by the authors approach to the analysis and interpretation of military-political discourse. The original texts of the addresses to the nation by B. Obama and D. Trump dedicated to the US military operations in Syria are used as the research material. The choice of these texts is due to their significant role in the coverage of the US Syrian campaign. Describing military-political discourse requires the use of a number of methods, namely descriptive and comparative methods, dictionary definitions and contextual analyses, as well as the method of critical discourse analysis. The authors established that, regardless of the administration in power, address to the nation as a genre of military-political discourse implies a certain scenario based on the following scheme: greeting - address to the nation agenda - description of US actions - description of violence (accusations) - description of the US role in the world - reference to previous military campaigns - call to action. The authors comes to the conclusion that each of these components plays a substantial role in the structure of military-political discourse and is realized through a certain set of discursive means that do not depend on the political preferences of a speaker.

Peculiarities of Realization of the International Mechanism for the Protection of the Rights of Victims of Armed Conflict in the East of Ukraine

The article analyzes the content of international legal acts related to the protection of the rights of victims of military conflicts. At the same time, its results identify the characteristics of its implementation in Ukraine. It has been established that some of these legal sources have not been ratified by Ukraine or otherwise Ukraine has not given them a binding legal effect. Using a documentary-based methodology close to legal and political hermeneutics, this article develops scientifically sound and relevant proposals aimed at improving the legal mechanism to protect the legitimate interests and rights of the victims of the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine. It is concluded that the current legal problems not only negatively affect the state of law enforcement activity in Ukraine, which is directly related to the content of this process, but also does not allow adequate influence on the determinants that give rise to, and cause military and territorial conflicts in Ukraine, a situation that can be extrapolated to other societies near or far.

Decentralized Security Systems in Hybrid War Conditions with an Emphasis on the Security System in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Combining all hitherto known forms and methods of conventional and unconventional warfare, hybrid warfare is increasingly replacing classical military conflicts and is gradually changing into the primary form of realizing state interests, independently or within military-political alliances. No period in the history of human civilization has been marked by such an intensity of war conflicts as the last century. Apart from the two largest war conflicts in history, in which almost all countries of the world were involved, the last century was also marked by the Cold War.

Cross-Sensor Nighttime Lights Image Calibration for DMSP/OLS and SNPP/VIIRS with Residual U-Net

Remote sensing of nighttime lights (NTL) is widely used in socio-economic studies of economic growth, urbanization, stability of power grid, environmental light pollution, pandemics and military conflicts. Currently, NTL data are collected with two sensors: (1) Operational Line-scan System (OLS) onboard the satellites from the Defense Meteorology Satellite Program (DMSP) and (2) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi NPP (SNPP) and NOAA-20 satellites from the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). However, the nighttime images acquired by these two sensors are incompatible in spatial resolution and dynamic range. To address this problem, we propose a method for the cross-sensor calibration with residual U-net convolutional neural network (CNN). The CNN produces DMSP-like NTL composites from the VIIRS annual NTL composites. The pixel radiances predicted from VIIRS are highly correlated with NTL observed with OLS (0.96 < R2 < 0.99). The method can be used to extend long-term series of annual NTL after the end of DMSP mission or to cross-calibrate same year NTL from different satellites to study diurnal variations.

Structural and functional analysis of reconnaissance and fire system and decomposition of its functions and subsystems

It is established that the role of reconnaissance and fire systems in the implementation of enemy fire damage in military conflicts occurring at the beginning of the XXI century. Increased to 75%. However, it was found that the effectiveness of these systems depends on the quality of their equipment. The main factors that are often not taken into account in the acquisition are the possibility, interoperability, stability of each element, the impact of elements on the stability of each other and the functioning of the RVS as a whole. The analysis of recent research and publications has shown that as of today, the approaches to determining the composition of reconnaissance fire systems taking into account these factors are not justified. Given the above, it was decided to conduct a structural and functional analysis of the reconnaissance fire system and the decomposition of its functions and subsystems. To this end, based on the method of cluster analysis, an algorithm for combining a set of tasks performed by reconnaissance and fire systems into groups has been developed and substantiated. The method of expert evaluation was used to obtain substantiated data on the implementation of such a merger. According to the proposed algorithm, the main tasks were first identified, which involve reconnaissance and fire systems. Subsequently, an expert group was formed and the coefficient of relative competence of each member of the expert group was determined. The experts were then asked to combine the identified tasks according to their characteristics into an arbitrary number of groups. After processing the opinions of experts, 10 characteristic groups were identified. Finally, the experts were asked to combine the obtained groups in such a way that each association consisted of similar objects and the objects of different associations differed significantly. The results of the work revealed the functional interconnectedness of the tasks, processes and subsystems of the reconnaissance and fire system. It is also established that a typical reconnaissance fire system will consist of three subsystems (control, reconnaissance and fire influence), which perform specific functions for each of them.

Sovereignty, Territoriality, and Law

This chapter seeks to analyze the changing meaning of ‘peace’ under an early colonial regime which was perpetually at war. ‘Peace’ in early colonial South Asia no longer meant the absence of conflict, but rather a period when problems of war assumed an urgent significance. From paying soldier’s arrears incurred during military conflicts to disciplining them in times when the Company state was not formally at war—‘peace’ was no longer the opposite of war. Rather it was the fleeting opportunity to re-tool the apparatus of colonial war-making. Conquest did not occur in a legal vacuum. This chapter analyses debates about military law and its significance for the early colonial regime’s claims to sovereign authority. Jurisdictional jockeying between competing sources of law went well beyond the need to maintain military discipline. Examining these debates opens up an unexplored world in which we can understand important questions relating to the territoriality of early colonial rule, the legal personality of the Company state and efforts to compare Britain’s garrisoning of Ireland with the organization of coercive force in South Asia.