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I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

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Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#161

Post by esseph »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #135
esseph wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the fpv drone like a smol guided TOW missile at extremely low cost. The artillery, while destructive, is not going to be nearly as accurate. If you want artillery to hit something on the move accurately you want something like a laser adjusted Excalibur round. The drone is actually extremely efficient.

Laser-guided artillery rounds have been around a while. The Soviets were using laser-guided 240mm heavy mortar rounds in Afghanistan. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1351804050035499... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnopol_(weapon_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M712_Copperhead

I was one of the first non special operations troops to use a modern infantry-company sized drone (small, low cost) to guide conventional and guided artillery in 2008-9 for the US.

Laser guided Excalibur rounds didn't come out until much later, same for the laser guided jdams. And the cost of those is much higher, plus logistical an deployment cost, than a FPV drone.

Edit: I also don't know anybody that ever fired a copperhead round in anger. That was very much a product of 80s and 90s doctrine to counter Russian armor.

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#162

Post by dinfinity »

originalvichy wrote: post #100
dinfinity wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve watched way too much footage from the front. Did you see the videos of a drone dropping a shitload of thermite on a forest canopy? [0] > Most nations don’t have flat open fields where signals can reach far away drones unimpeded by line of sight for tx/rx. Most nations have cellular networks that penetrate buildings and forests just fine. In fact, Ukraine used the Russian cellular network for their recent attac…

Did you miss the part about signals jamming in the article? The reason the attack on airfields worked is precisely because they operate inland and not on the frontline. Cellular networks not only can be jammed but towers are a priority target. That’s why Starlink is/was so crucial. Even GPS is jammed so independent flight can be impossible with cheap components. The thermite drones do attack forested areas on the far…

> Did you miss the part about signals jamming in the article?

"Drones also operate in a cluttered segment of the electromagnetic spectrum. First-person view drones use unencrypted analog radio signals, and in hot parts of the front, as many as a dozen drone teams may be competing for use of a handful of frequencies (a consequence of using cheaper components)."

The currently used FPV drones use consumer level ass communication methods. Do you also think that current military-grade communication methods can be easily jammed on the battlefield?

Using the consumer level stuff as a reference point and thinking it is somehow SOTA is not going to lead to good conclusions.

> Cellular networks not only can be jammed but towers are a priority target.

The point was that there are plenty of radio signals that work fine and with high bandwidth in the 'problematic' terrain types you mentioned. Having said that, you can't rely on the cellular towers of the enemies of course. You need relay drones to create your own ad hoc cellular network.

> You could just fire an artillery round and be done with it.

At what coordinate? The whole point of FPV drones is that the operator can fly close to the target area and only then decide what the best place to strike is. A shell that is 20m off target is just a waste.

The point of destroying the canopy is reducing the attenuation of the signal for other drones to go in and be able to be precise.

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#163

Post by msgodel »

palata wrote: post #160
bluGill wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IF you tell it go into the hanger and find a target CV can do that. It might not be the best target in the hanger, but that doesn't matter too much if you can get in.

If you add enough "if's", then surely everything is possible :-). I don't think we're anywhere near having drones that happily fly above a war zone, detect an interesting hangar, find a way to get inside and select a target inside. Currently they mostly fly FPV drones manually. The next basic step is to have "terminal engagement", where at some point they can select a target and the drone will fly autonomously to it…

How much are the controllers they're using now? It's not like computers and cameras needed to do interesting CV are all that expensive.

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#164

Post by [deleted] »

paganel wrote: post #36
8note wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, some Ukrainian and Russian units are also using drones controlled by fiber-optic cable, rather than radio, though I had no personal experience with this type of drone in my unit

Because it is mostly the Russians that are using those, the Ukrainians have also started using them but in less fewer numbers.

[deleted]

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#165

Post by dinfinity »

palata wrote: post #156
dinfinity wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You based your doubt for whether the technology would improve on consumer shit thrown together for a few years as opposed to military technology purposely designed and built over a long period. That is bad reasoning. There is nothing more to it and it is thus far more likely that the technology will improve than not.

> That is bad reasoning. From where I stand, you're calling "consumer shit thrown together" something you apparently don't really know, and then you make predictions from it.

I believe your prediction was "Or maybe it will be like Musk announcing what Teslas will be capable of in 6 months."

You seem to think that this ragtag level of warfare between Russia and Ukraine is somehow indicative of what the limit of NATO-level militaries is. I'd say "we'll see", but hopefully we never have to find out.

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#166

Post by vasac »

bluGill wrote: post #137
sottol wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't a single javelin missile cost almost 200k? The drones I've seen I'd budget at 150-300$ plus explosives. I think that puts the javelin more at 500-1000x as expensive imo.

You need 15 drones to do what a javelin can do though, and that is at best. If the tank armor is good a small drone cannot do any damage (that is why drones try to fly in open hatches - bypass the armor), while a javelin can go through modern armor.

Tank armor can be good as it gets, the problem is you can't have good armor everywhere on the tank otherwise it would weight hundreds of tons. So a small drone doesn't need to penetrate tank where it's best protected but to disable it (hit APU, tracks, engine...).

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#167

Post by Nicook »

spwa4 wrote: post #81
palata wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'…

Sadly I think that AI will make a very large difference here. And AI hardware that can control weapons is already hundreds of dollars and dropping fast, because a cell phone can do it.

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Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#169

Post by Nicook »

aftbit wrote: post #147
originalvichy wrote: post #77

FPV drones for combat are a hot flash in the pan. They have had a major effect for now, but naturally as these countermeasures evolve, so weakens their effect. I keep telling people that the terrain and the strategies that Russians use is the primary reason for the effectiveness. Mortars and artillery already handle the same requirements as the author says. The reason they are effective in 2024-25 is that the drip-dr…

The big thing that FPV drones have going for them is that they're ludicrously cheap and easily constructed from relatively basic parts by moderately skilled people. It's literally cheaper to strap a grenade to an FPV drone and fly it into a tank hatch than it is to fire a single non-precision artillery round, let alone tens or hundreds of them. Plus, you can deploy your drones remotely from the top of a trunk deep be…

Did you not read the article? One of his major points is that a mortar is significantly cheaper and faster.

Re: I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

#170

Post by [deleted] »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #65
risyachka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Mortar may be 5 times cheaper but 100x easier to destroy it and its crew. Also half of the problems described are purely technical and can be easily solved with some budget. In Ukraine most drones are assembled by volunteers. So its not the reliability of drone that is an issue, its lack of proper assembly and QA.

As noted if you have the budget the end product is a FGM Javelin or a Spike NLOS or as the article mentions a switchblade. These things are pretty much the same thing (a thing that can be carried by a man that accurately puts a warhead on a target) just better and more expensive. edit: Actually the NLOS might not be man portable, but there are other smaller Spike missiles that are.

[deleted]
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