The article talks about signal jammers, but as far as I know most drones there are remote controlled using fiber for exactly that reason?
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I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
51–60 of 355 posts
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#52I've seen some of these FPV videos of kills of unarmed Russian soldiers. I honestly don't know why the pilots are not prosecuted for war crimes. (and I'm sure Russia does the same to Ukraine, I just haven't seen those videos).
It's because killing unarmed soldiers during war is not a war crime. Rule 3. All members of the armed forces of a party to the conflict are combatants, except medical and religious personnel. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule3 Rule 47. Attacking persons who are recognized as hors de combat is prohibited. A person hors de combat is: (a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party; (b) anyone w…
Pretty sure I've seen some that fall under Rule 47.
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#53This tracks with the earlier ~12% drone kill efficiency estimates. However drone is a mass deployment weapon. Ukraine did about 2 million frontline sorties in 2024 and aims for 5 million this year. This 1 out of 9 ratio translates into absolutely devastating damage, that artillery and airstrikes (which are also hardly "easy to use") can only dream of.
This is true, but the author also talks about cost e.g. $500 for a drone vs $100 for an artillery shell with far more effect. Surely at the point where the drone has visual on the target you can fire 5 x shells over for massively greater effect on target, and keep the drone flying for the next target, and the next.
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#54Many of the issues sound like issues coming from using improvised civilian hobbyist tech and doctrine being in its infancy. If current FPV drones are bit lackluster, it doesn't preclude 'next generation' that are purposefully developed for military use won't be useful. Also it sounds like the designation of "FPV drone" is specific to particular family of drones specific in current day and time, which may be something…
> Many of the issues sound like issues coming from using improvised civilian hobbyist tech
I don't think it's improvised civilian hobbyist tech. They run autopilots that also fly professional drones and can fly planes.
I think it's mostly that it has to be super cheap, otherwise it doesn't bring value (because other weapons are more efficient if you have more money). If your one-way drone costs 10k dollars, maybe it's too expensive even though it can fly during the night.
And then there are fundamental limitations, like flying in bad weather.
> obviously the next stage is a FPV drone with some capabilities of "reusable" drone
But a reusable drone won't go inside a hangar (because at this point it probably won't come out). If your drone can go somewhere, drop something and come back, doesn't it mean that another class of weapons could do this job?
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#55I don’t understand why the author has such a narrow definition of FPV drones.
He talks as if reusable drones are a completely different category, that they are all toys designed for enthusiast racers… Generally he implies that a myriad arbitrary technical details are fundamental limitations of this paradigm, it’s a strange mindset.
Also, as others commenters state, isn’t a 43% success rate exceedingly high? Even if it’s 20% accounting for environmental factors and faults in manufacturing. How likely is it that a mortar does anything? Or a soldier with a rifle? Or anything else?
> When I joined the team, I was excited to work with a cutting-edge tool.
It sounds like he was imagining some kind of scifi adventure, but it’s always been clear that they are using cheap drones with tech that has been commonplace for a decade. And that’s completely fine, it’s intentional.
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#56I assume this is like a pilot in WW1 reporting how finicky and hard to use bi-planes were. No doubt a bunch of weapons manufacturers have seen this and the special operations Ukraine did in Russia and Israel did in Iran and the wheels of progress are turning and the result will be terrifying.
What terrifies me is that the next step may be AI swarms, where one side sends thousands of drones at the same time and let each of them autonomously choose what they want to target.
It's all technically feasible up to "choosing wisely".
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#57I've seen some of these FPV videos of kills of unarmed Russian soldiers. I honestly don't know why the pilots are not prosecuted for war crimes. (and I'm sure Russia does the same to Ukraine, I just haven't seen those videos).
Under what law?
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always wondered if the burning batteries and electronics in the drones have any significant environmental impact when compared to conventional weapons.
I'd rather have old fibre cables and lithium batteries than old unexploded ordinance (If wishes were horses I'd rather Russia hadn't invaded a sovereign country in the first place, but we are where we are)
According to the article, you will get BOTH of those, no? Some of the bombs on the drones don't explode.
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#59You need to compare this to hit rate with mortars and attrition by counter battery fire on mortar teams. Not to detract from a sober assessment but it's hard to judge without the other parts of the story. Thr tldr would be "temper expectations"
Yes, even a 20% success rate seems quite high.
> The vast majority of first-person view drone missions can be completed more cheaply, effectively, or reliably by other assets.
At this point, the question becomes the price.
Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck
#60> During my time in [...], I collected statistics on the success of our drone operations. I found that [...] Assuming the writer and their allegiances are what they say, is any of the info valuable to any of their adversaries? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_lips_sink_ships
The Russians likely already have similar operational data from their own drone programs and intelligence gathering.
Still feels like why help them just in case they don't