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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

#321

Post by collingreen »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #317
bboygravity wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Japan still going strong? Have you been there? Real estate just sitting empty, villages deserted, (young) people with no hope for the future, (hidden) poverty, the government and central bank basically bankrupt long-term. Japan is stuck in the 90's with no hope for the future and they will be even less relevant then they are now within 1 generation. Japan is absolutely not "doing strong" for the next 50 years…

I think people consider Japan to be doing strong because it's still a safe peaceful society to live in, despite the economic issues. Compared that to living in LA in the world's strongest economy, where it's like you're in a PvP server. So what's the point of having a strong economy if nobody can afford to live and the streets full of shit from homeless people.

I agreed with a lot of your posts above but not the extreme characterization of living in LA.

I do expect the crime rate is higher than most Japanese cities - culturally it's very very different. I don't feel like it's a "pvp" situation though (from a violence perspective; rampant, unbridled capitalism +consumerism in the US gives me pvp vibes for general living) and the streets aren't full of shit.

I like LA, especially the beach and other very nice areas (obviously). I also think I'd probably prefer living in a Japanese city though so maybe you're right in the end.

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

#322

Post by ethbr1 »

plomme wrote: post #291
ethbr1 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted. But it's going to be someone's concern after all this is over. And unlike landmines, how do you detect and remove kilometers of cable?

Glass breaks down to sand so I wouldn’t worry too much about it

With physical weathering.

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

#323

Post by ethbr1 »

Mawr wrote: post #303
ethbr1 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted. But it's going to be someone's concern after all this is over. And unlike landmines, how do you detect and remove kilometers of cable?

I was about to respond to your comment above by saying landmines are 1000x worse, but you just said the opposite, which is completely incomprehensible to me. Are you perchance thinking of literally just the environment, not the fact that countless lives will be harmed and lost for decades to come because of the indiscriminate nature of landmines?

While landmines have the obvious explosive and shrapnel first order effect of causing great harm, I'm wondering about the subtler effects of fiber optic cable pollution.

What happens when someone uses agricultural machinery on a field littered with cable, both to machinery and people? What are the consequences of consuming broken bits of cable that may mingle into produce?

And most critically, if the above are issues, how do you then remove cable from fields at scale? It would seem maddening to try to detect and gather kilometers of tangled glass.

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

#324

Post by bluGill »

palata wrote: post #256
bluGill wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but we can trade off computer power. Pi level computers can fly a straight line inside and explode in the middle (you are likely running several drones so each flys to a pattern hoping to get something useful inside). While flying to the middle they can do some image recognition, and if something looks like a high priority target they can target that, if not exploding in the middle will do something. The more powerful computer you put on (were powerful is often more expensive though not always) the better you can find targets

The important point in this is the drone will explode before it could reach anything not a target. It can sometimes find a better target than a pattern. In the ideal case you might fly it all the way, but if you lose radio over enemy territory anything the drone can find needs to die anyway so it may as well attempt to find something and kill it.

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

#325

Post by palata »

dinfinity wrote: post #316
palata wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ma…

> I did not predict anything, I said "maybe, maybe not". The derisive way of putting the alternative (Musk's proven trash announcements) indicates that you were arguing a certain side. It definitely wasn't neutral. > And you told me it was "bad reasoning". The bad reasoning is what you're basing the (let's say) doubt on. You seem to know that a lot of technological progress has happened in the military FPV drone indu…

> the problems described in the article are already solved, but that Ukraine (and Russia) couldn't get their hands on enough of the more capable FPV drones due to those being too expensive or not produced in large enough quantities.

Yes, that's what I think. And I believe that's what the article says: "The FPV drones we currently use are not ideal".

Then people say "yeah but they will improve", to which I answer: "or maybe not so much". Simply because better systems already exist, are mass-produced and are more expensive.

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

#326

Post by hnaccount_rng »

varjag wrote: post #173
hnaccount_rng wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again the payload of an FPV is much more comparable to the mortar round than to the 155mm one

An FPV drone can take out a tank, missile erector-launcher or a dugout. Kinda hard with 60mm mortar.

The estimate is 20 FPV hits for one kill right? But sure, the last one kills it

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

#327

Post by hnaccount_rng »

tclancy wrote: post #136
hnaccount_rng wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again the payload of an FPV is much more comparable to the mortar round than to the 155mm one

But theoretically much better aimed. Don’t know if there’s enough data here to do the math. Plus that it’s a bit gauche to do math about human lives, but here we are.

Do you have numbers for that? Because the higher-end munition also has (rudimentary) steering capabilities? And higher end stuff obviously has the same or better honing software

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

#328

Post by mopsi »

palata wrote: post #280
mopsi wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend looking up European military readiness levels before diving too deep into fantasies. Who is supposed to invade Russia? Latvia, with its tank army of exactly zero tanks? Or a major country like Germany, with its barely 100 operational tanks and enough artillery ammunition for just two days? Even in Russia, only complete loonies treats this as a plausible scenario. That's why you can see bunkers and anti-ta…

> before diving too deep into fantasies You do realise that the parent was actually making a historical reference? "Weapons of mass destruction"... doesn't that ring a bell?

That has nothing to do with "NATO tank invasion of Moscow".

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

#329

Post by esseph »

ponector wrote: post #320
esseph wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Not quite. Local airborne EW platforms can relay GPS signal. Combined with Inertial Navigation System reduces the CEP. Laser terminal guidance gets it on point. The US has a lot of work to do in EW - it also has done a lot of work to prepare for some of these scenarios.

And yet, more than a year ago: The US gave up sending Ukraine Excalibur guided artillery shells costing $100,000 because they rarely hit their target, report says.

I mean, the US isn't flying our EW aircraft over Ukraine.

So yeah that is in line with what I have said.

US doctrine is based in air dominance.

Also, most Excalibur rounds do not have laser guidance kits. Those are much newer and more expensive. We may have given Ukraine a handful, if that. Still requires laser designation by airborne or land forces, but can give you excellent accuracy even in completely denied GPS environments and against mobile targets.

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

#330

Post by esseph »

originalvichy wrote: post #188
dinfinity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drone 1 (or any other means) destroys the canopy. Drones 2-10 are no longer hindered by said canopy and deliver their payload with extreme and dynamic precision. Remember that the argument was basically that drones can do nothing useful in (heavily) forested terrain. They can with a little bit of creativity.

I guess we live in different regions. Everything north of Estonia/Denmark is thick spruce and pine forest. I’ve seen what artillery does to these trees, but I’d be hesitant to say a drone could lift something heavy enough to serve like Vietnam war era ”daisy cutters”. Artillery explodes closer to the forest floor.

Last line isn't necessary correct. Artillery rounds have different types of fuses.

A US VT (variable time) fuse is meant for airburst - for example to splinter a forest canopy.

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