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Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

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Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#221

Post by bell-cot »

nradov wrote: post #184
bell-cot wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, obviously F-16's & humans scale very poorly for this. However: - At one-a-day scale, political and risk considerations probably favor the expensive solution. - Using F-16's reveals nothing about your current anti-drone defenses. (Yeah, it's also a real-world basic competence test for your air force - for better and for worse.) - If your intel people want more data on the drones, an F-16 can haul a whole lotta i…

Ukrainian F-16s have used cannons to shoot down some Russian drones. Cheaper than a missile, but a somewhat risky maneuver as it requires getting close at low altitude and possibly flying through the exploding debris. https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2026/02/09/ukrainian-f-16am-...

Thanks. With the relative speeds, I'd guess the Falcons would use an attack profile similar to ground strafing - letting them pass well above the cloud of debris. Any thoughts?

Also, Wikipedia gives a 3km effective firing range for the M61 - but it'd be no surprise if the F-16's standard targeting optics can't achieve that against small airborne targets.

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#222

Post by smackeyacky »

numpad0 wrote: post #190
sneak wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-16s with human pilots and a2a missiles vs cheap drones? That’s one hell of an asymmetry and doesn’t seem robust enough to handle 100x the scale.

Yeah, something is preventing them from just putting a small autocannon onto a turret and firing it from a Python script on a laptop. Russian drones and missiles seem to be just straight flying kinds, and while there are reports of Stinger type missiles seen installed on them, there haven't been reports of them growing anti-mortar radars. Most of them shouldn't need guided munitions at all to deal with.

Time to revive the Sopwith Camel

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#223

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #184
bell-cot wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, obviously F-16's & humans scale very poorly for this. However: - At one-a-day scale, political and risk considerations probably favor the expensive solution. - Using F-16's reveals nothing about your current anti-drone defenses. (Yeah, it's also a real-world basic competence test for your air force - for better and for worse.) - If your intel people want more data on the drones, an F-16 can haul a whole lotta i…

Ukrainian F-16s have used cannons to shoot down some Russian drones. Cheaper than a missile, but a somewhat risky maneuver as it requires getting close at low altitude and possibly flying through the exploding debris. https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2026/02/09/ukrainian-f-16am-...

[deleted]

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#224

Post by doodlebugging »

uxhacker wrote: post #156
sneak wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-16s with human pilots and a2a missiles vs cheap drones? That’s one hell of an asymmetry and doesn’t seem robust enough to handle 100x the scale.

Ukraine is using old training aircraft with a guy with a shotgun in the back shooting the drones down. Just think the small Cessnas and pipers littered around that could be used for a similar task. https://youtu.be/GrzzYTXgnMQ?is=zChAgYfc5ZEi25gt Edited out bad grammer

Kinda reminds one of the evolution of the air war during WWI. Planes were used as observation platforms to gather intelligence about enemy fortifications and activities. They were more mobile than balloons and could gather more timely information. Both sides flew past each other just doing their jobs until someone thought they could drop a grenade or small bomb as they surveilled the other guy. Then aerial bombing started to become popular. Around the same time pilots armed themselves and would take pot-shots at enemy pilots, usually with sidearms. Before long machine guns were fitted to planes and synchronized with propellers and pilots were able to dogfight.

I think the next natural step in Russia's defense against Ukrainian drones countermeasures like this, shooting them down with shotguns, will be to arm the drones. Then it will be up to Ukraine to counter that threat and the cycle continues as always.

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#225

Post by gcbirzan »

itsmeagainhere wrote: post #204

[flagged]

Yes, it is in the interest of Ukraine, but that doesn't mean they're pushing for it or prove that Ukraine attacked Romania. And since these were Russian drones, are you suggesting that, unlike the previous times Russia bombed indiscriminately, this time Ukraine stole Russian drones and launched them at Romania?

As for the second part of your comment, your point is that Russia occupied and committed a genocide against that 'fake' country, when they became free tried to exercise soft power, failed, then invaded, but yet it's NATO that is waging war there?

The only part where you're right is that it is in NATO's interest that Ukraine keeps fighting, since it only costs us money, not people, while still killing the enemy. And that's why we're (and I include the EU here) giving them money, because we're terrified of what will happen when Russia is done with Ukraine.

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#226

Post by inigyou »

yls wrote: post #203
inigyou wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The former is euphemistic. The latter two are objective.

Sarcasm? In a democracy, how would state owned be different from public? Do you also call libraries state-run? IMHO both terms are heavy with bias depending on context.

Public means accessible to everyone. State-owned means owned by the state. These are orthogonal axes. X is a public square that is not owned by the state. The CIA situation room is owned by the state but is not public.

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#227

Post by gcbirzan »

znnajdla wrote: post #219
itsmeagainhere wrote: post #204

[flagged]

I’m Ukrainian. I upvoted your comment because I want to show more people how this kind of thinking is mistaken. This kind of logic is very common in those who don’t support Ukraine: they think NATO is “using” Ukraine to fight Russia. They somehow forget that Ukrainians are willingly fighting to defend their own country — NATO can’t “use” a people who are unwilling to fight on their own. (Sure some of my friends have…

We (or at least not the insane part of) in NATO are using you, in the sense that it's easier for us to throw money at you fighting Russia than not, you losing, then us having to lose people.

I don't know how I feel about that, on one hand, we are helping you defend, on the other we are just going "well, at least it's not our civilians and soldiers dying".

But, either way, thank you!

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#228

Post by adrian_b »

somenameforme wrote: post #205
api wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with many conflicts this one goes back a long way. Ukraine gave up its nukes to Russia in exchange for a non aggression pact that the invasion broke. Also bad for the world. The lesson, as with Iran and Iraq, is: you’d better have nukes and never give them up. This is the opposite of the lesson we want if we want to contain proliferation. The global taboo on use remains. If someone breaks that and gets away with i…

Ukraine never had its own independently controlled/operated nukes. The USSR deployed nukes on various territories but all command and control was completely centralized within Russia. Ukraine/Belarus/Kazakhstan returned the Soviet nukes to Russia under the same agreement and received some nonbinding assurances and cash in exchange - it was nothing like a formal pact. Had any of these countries tried to reverse engine…

Ukraine had the nukes in physical possession and they had enough expertise to eventually disassemble them and replace the electronics.

Choosing to not do this to avoid a hypothetical external aggression was a bad choice, because they were invaded anyway.

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#229

Post by itsmeagainhere »

znnajdla wrote: post #219
itsmeagainhere wrote: post #204

[flagged]

I’m Ukrainian. I upvoted your comment because I want to show more people how this kind of thinking is mistaken. This kind of logic is very common in those who don’t support Ukraine: they think NATO is “using” Ukraine to fight Russia. They somehow forget that Ukrainians are willingly fighting to defend their own country — NATO can’t “use” a people who are unwilling to fight on their own. (Sure some of my friends have…

Russia adhered to the Minsk agreements as long as it could, it did not want to start this war. Both Merkel and Hollande, as far as I remember, admitted that the Minsk agreements were not made in good faith, and their purpose was only to give time to Ukraine to rearm. Russia started the war after it became clear that NATO was going to enter Ukraine, and after it was abundantly clear for years that the real purpose of ukranian nationalists was collaborating with the west to destroy Russia and its identity (though you will probably negate this, you could not negate that there was a tacit and creeping legitimization in Ukraine of murders and violent actions against people identifying themselves as Russians).

Re: Third Drone Shot Down in Three Days in Romanian Territory

#230

Post by throw1234567891 »

sunaookami wrote: post #164
yls wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is not owned by the government, rather by the state. In a democracy, how is this a bad thing?

>Since 2008 the channel has been wholly owned by the French government Explain to me why reading news from the state is a good thing? Kinda shocked that people here applaud state-owned media (there is no difference between "government-owned" or "state-owned").

Who are you getting your news from? “Fox quote on quote News”?
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