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How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

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Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#81

Post by Theodores »

watwut wrote: post #63
user568439 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stressed private might still have a bit of empathy and humanity. Meanwhile millions of drones can be programmed (or hacked) to kill millions of people without excluding civilians or anyone

Human soldiers kill civilians pretty much all the time. Then they brag to their friends how cool they are. Drones do not rape, soldiers rape (and yes they rape men too in case someone wants to make it about gender). All the bombs Russia thrown onto Ukrainian civilians were thrown by human soldiers.

[flagged]

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#82

Post by Yeul »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #68
RenThraysk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still only need one camera drone if a human is spotting targets.

In theory. In practice you would not allow a single camera drone to be the single point of failure of a mission with such lengthy and risky planning, and dire consequences.

They had a limited amount of drones in those containers they needed to make them count. My money is on operators.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#83

Post by cpascal »

flave wrote: post #15

I really don’t get all the fretting about drones making kill-no-kill decisions. You’re telling me that you’d rather this was done by a stressed, emotional, tired front-line private? Reminds me of the debate about a self driving car that might need to mount the curb to avoid hitting a car - and therefore endangering a pedestrian. It’s not an easy decision but I’d rather a machine made it than a stressed person!

Machines have been making kill-or-no-kill decisions for decades, and they were a lot more indeterminant. Heat-seeking missiles largely kill whatever is hot. Proximity fuses in WW2 detonated whenever they got near something. Anti-personal mines kill whenever pressure is applied. A CIWS will target things that get too close to it that don't identify IFF. Naval mines kill if something magnetic is near them.

At the end of the day, it's still humans deploying these weapon systems and accepting the risk that they might cause unintended casualties.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#85

Post by wiseowise »

lenerdenator wrote: post #73
jvanderbot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine that but with a shotgun shooting bird/buck shot at decent ROF. Way better. The problem with any point defense system is radiating any energy makes you a big target. So you would want a passive (EO/IR?) or triggered active/passive system.

12 gauge would be fairly strong medicine, but it has to be close in. If the drone is a stabilized gun platform with the ability to aim decently well (<4 MoA @ 100 yards) that's not going to be a winning battle.

That’s assuming there’s a single drone and not an intelligent swarm that will circle around you.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#86

Post by randomtoast »

bamboozled wrote: post #30
Ciantic wrote: post #19

The latest attack deep inside Russian borders were apparently using ArduPilot [1], it is mentioned in the Atlantic article [2]. ArduPilot also has C++ source code in Github [3], also adding an article specifically about ArduPilot and Ukraine [4] [1]: https://ardupilot.org/ [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/06/uk... [3]: https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot [4]: https://www.404media.co/ukra…

"He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ld7ppre9vo

How could they be navigated from such a long distance? Satellite communication? Wouldn't the lag be too high?

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#87

Post by twothreeone »

Assuming they were remotely operated - at least partially during the final few minutes of the attack - I wonder if the pilots remained in Ukraine or were hidden somewhere close by. I'm assuming they remained in Ukraine, thousands of kilometers away. If so, how did they pull off the remote connection over enemy territory? The only option somewhere as remote as Irkutsk seems to be Starlink, unless the trucks carried custom transceivers (which seems like it would be easily discovered during transit).

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#88

Post by wiseowise »

scott_w wrote: post #69
watwut wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human soldiers kill civilians pretty much all the time. Then they brag to their friends how cool they are. Drones do not rape, soldiers rape (and yes they rape men too in case someone wants to make it about gender). All the bombs Russia thrown onto Ukrainian civilians were thrown by human soldiers.

> Drones do not rape Yet. Drones also don't get tired.

They are powered by batteries or gasoline.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#89

Post by notsydonia »

The person who devised this was most likely one Illia Vitiuk, head of the SBU cyber-sec department. Before that position, he was an MMA fighter. In a 2023 interview he says he was inspired by "James Bond films and a life of adventure..." Also apparently stood down then reinstated recently over some unexplained transactions, family finance situation.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/06/1196975759/ukraine-cyber-war-...

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#90

Post by RenThraysk »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #68
RenThraysk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still only need one camera drone if a human is spotting targets.

In theory. In practice you would not allow a single camera drone to be the single point of failure of a mission with such lengthy and risky planning, and dire consequences.

Still only need one flying drone to identify all targets. There maybe more camera drones available to pilot, but still only need one flying to spot.

A static target only needs to be seen once.

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