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

warontherocks.com

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

#251

Post by tobias3 »

neuralRiot wrote: post #245
Reubachi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your linked video is interesting, but I fail to see how this at all differentiates/promotes drone usage versus artillery, indirect fire. Your video shows something that an artillery corps could accomplish just as easily and not at all be prone to EW. Granted, moving indirect fire is probably more expensive than a single fpv drone dropping a thermite bomb, but at scale indirect fire is far cheaper, more effective, and…

Isn’t artillery easier to locate/ counter attack than a drone operator station?

RCH 155 which Ukraine has now can shoot while moving. That should make it harder to counter.

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

#252

Post by dzhiurgis »

palata wrote: post #56
time0ut wrote: post #44

I 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".

Whats their power and computing budget tho? The gap between what can be done in data center and on a $2 arduino chip is still vast.

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

#253

Post by nurumaik »

Most of the problems the article describes are due to using civilian fpv drones on the battlefield or using untrained pilots: bad controls, narrow channel, faulty parts

Most of them would not apply when military finally catches up, starts producing war fpv drones and make good drone pilot training programs

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

#254

Post by pjc50 »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #195
fennecbutt wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switchblade 2 is $80k usd per unit. And the only reason for that is that as per usual private companies are making a killing. You and I could build a similarly functioning device in 6 months with a small team. They're not that smart/advanced, imo. I think most of the money for these things isn't paid for research/engineering but goes into MBA/investor pockets.

I was under the impression that while there is a lot of grift, a lot of that was supply chain cost as well. You or I could build one but it would all be sourced in China without vetted supply chain parts or firmware. These Ukraine drones are all off the shelf parts and running who knows what firmware everywhere.

Considerable cost savings can be achieved when both belligerents are using the same parts from the same production line.

China in the role of Milo Minderbender.

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

#255

Post by palata »

dinfinity wrote: post #165
palata wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

There was a part before the "or" :-). I did not predict anything, I said "maybe, maybe not". And you told me it was "bad reasoning".

My point was that the article says that drones have a ton of limitations in 2025, and many comments here say "yeah but that's because it's just the beginning". Drone manufacturers have been looking at the military for longer than 3 years, because that's easy money. Saying that "this is just consumer shit thrown together" sounds like you haven't really followed the drone industry in the last 15 years.

Sometimes the problem is not time or money.

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

#256

Post by palata »

bluGill wrote: post #186
palata wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was trying to state you fly it manually to the hanger. Once it locks onto the hanger (that is not your own hanger) it can fly - even if cv messes up we are at a target so anything destroyd is okay even if not what you want.

Oh, I had misunderstood it. But still, it's a lot harder to do that succesfully than to lock on a target and fly straight into it. Which already requires the compute power to do it, which makes it a lot more expensive than it is without.

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

#257

Post by 05 »

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…

Terminal guidance boards are already available on Aliexpress for $300-ish. Using YOLOv7 no less. The future is now.

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

#258

Post by palata »

pzo wrote: post #174
msgodel wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

some mid-range iphones or android would even do the trick. especially iphones have tone of processing power nad strong NPU/GPU and lots of cameras, lidar, depth sensor, and plenty of other sensors. second hand phone 13 mini would do the trick and you can get it for less than $500

It's not as if you could glue an iPhone 13 mini at the front of the drone and call it a day, right?

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

#259

Post by ahartmetz »

UncleEntity wrote: post #185
Nicook wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Assuming you have good gun bunnies (term of affection, I assure you) and a spotter on the ground or in the air. The mortar guys in my old company could put a round into a trashcan with line-of-sight but when someone else is calling in fire then they are more of an area weapon. Assuming that a fire mission is going to involve more than one or two rounds to bracket the target now you're talking more dollars and the peo…

> people on the ground probably aren't going to stand there and wonder how long it's going to take to hit them

Lesson learned in WW1 and apparently forgotten multiple times since then: the first few shells have by far the most damage potential and they better be precise.

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

#260

Post by throwawayffffas »

codedokode wrote: post #159
bjourne wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ofc but javelin launchers and missiles cost $250k a piece. You get a lot of drones for that price.

And you need to be in a line of sight close to the target and not get hit by an enemy drone. And it requires some time to boot if I am not mistaken.

You need to be in line of sight, but not very close, it has a max range of 2 to 4 km depending on the version. Missiles in the spike family can also acquire targets after launch.
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