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Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

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Re: Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

#31

Post by mrhottakes »

Ifkaluva wrote: post #26
mrhottakes wrote: post #19

[flagged]

I had a car hold its position for 6 months during the pandemic. It became occupied by rats, which was fun to deal with. They gathered some apples from a nearby tree, and apparently had set up a hard cider production facility.

i'm going to write a fawning article about cars standing still

Re: Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

#32

Post by scarmig »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #27
outside2344 wrote: post #13

We really are trying our best to make Terminator reality aren't we?

They are being operated by humans

But imagine the efficiencies to be gained if you swapped out the direct human operator with an automated operator. Then, you can have teams of automated operators being operated by a single human!

Re: Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

#34

Post by aprentic »

Reading between the lines of the article it seems advanced but not too surprising.

I assume that at night when it "withdrew to a covered location" there was opportunity for maintenance, battery swaps, etc.

The article says that it successfully carried out "multiple calls for fire." That sounds like over those 45 days there were multiple missions to provide suppressive fire. They're not explicit about what that means but it sounds like, "if you see anything moving in this arc, take a few shots at them". Presumably there's some AI to prevent it from wasting ammo on really dumb decoys.

A "simple" mobile automated turret has been around for a while. The novelty they would be demonstrating is essentially battlefield robustness. They aren't claiming that this machine can operate completely autonomously for 6 weeks but the incremental pieces are still hard.

Re: Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

#36

Post by ck2 »

So what happens in a few years when a submarine pulls up some miles off US coast and unleashes 100 super-automated drones to terrorize the country?

Heck maybe not even a sub needed, some smaller country could have an automated tiny raft too small to be seen on radar tow in the drones

They could charge via phantom power from powerlines and will find a way around GPS jamming

Re: Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

#37

Post by intheitmines »

k__ wrote: post #21
outside2344 wrote: post #13

We really are trying our best to make Terminator reality aren't we?

Maybe drones will make human soldiers unacceptable in the future.

“It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine - a gun - which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished.” ― Richard Jordan Gatling, 1877

Re: Ukrainian drone holds position for 6 weeks

#38

Post by bee_rider »

verdverm wrote: post #3
AftHurrahWinch wrote: post #2

"It takes infantry to hold territory" is still true I guess, but now it's a single operator in a bunker.

Perhaps in the dead man zone, not sure this would work well where there is civilian population.

I haven’t heard “dead man zone” (although I don’t really engage much with military stuff so maybe it is just an expression I’m not familiar with).

I think “no man’s land” is a pretty popular and similar expression. Out of curiosity, did you translate “dead man zone” from another language?

I just find it interesting because it seems conceptually similar but much bleaker, so if it comes from, like, French or German or something maybe it reflects an even bleaker WW1 experience.

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