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The Military

Ukraine's Drone Enthusiasts Are Signing Up to Repel Russian Forces (apnews.com) 92

Posted by EditorDavid from the eyes-in-the-sky dept.
"In better times, Ukrainian drone enthusiasts flew their gadgets into the sky to photograph weddings, fertilize soybean fields or race other drones for fun," writes the Associated Press.

"Now some are risking their lives by forming a volunteer drone force to help their country repel the Russian invasion." "Kyiv needs you and your drone at this moment of fury!" read a Facebook post late last week from the Ukrainian military, calling for citizens to donate hobby drones and to volunteer as experienced pilots to operate them. One entrepreneur who runs a retail store selling consumer drones in the capital said its entire stock of some 300 drones made by Chinese company DJI has been dispersed for the cause. Others are working to get more drones across the border from friends and colleagues in Poland and elsewhere in Europe....

Unlike the much larger Turkish-built combat drones that Ukraine has in its arsenal, off-the-shelf consumer drones aren't much use as weapons — but they can be powerful reconnaissance tools. Civilians have been using the aerial cameras to track Russian convoys and then relay the images and GPS coordinates to Ukrainian troops. Some of the machines have night vision and heat sensors.... They can also be used to assist search-and-rescue operations....

Small civilian drones are no match against Russian combat power but will likely become increasingly important in a protracted war...
The Associated Press points out there's now more than 15,000 members in one drone-focused Facebook group "who have been trading tips about how to assist Ukrainian troops." The operations chief for a Kyiv-based drone company tells the Associated Press, "Now in Ukraine no one remains indifferent. Everyone does what they can."
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Ukraine's Drone Enthusiasts Are Signing Up to Repel Russian Forces More

Ukraine's Drone Enthusiasts Are Signing Up to Repel Russian Forces

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  • A Dutch effort can be found here: https://eyesonukraine.eu/ [eyesonukraine.eu]

  • Effort by Bellingcat to document use of cluster munitions in civilian areas: https://www.bellingcat.com/new... [bellingcat.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No need, it's almost over

      the destruction of military infrastructure in Ukraine, including aviation and air defense, is almost completed [t.me]

      Or so say Luckyo and Putin. Maybe there is such a level of absurd propaganda, even these people won't believe.
      But we haven't found it yet.

      neither conscripts nor those who are called up for training will be involved in the operation in Ukraine

      That's lucky. Shame thousands of them died in a training accident. Far from Ukraine...

      • Kherson, a key port city on the Black Sea, in southern Ukraine besieged. No Power means no water. Evacuation routes not being respected. Could be a massacre. Drones could help show if safe passages viable or if violates cease fire agreement. They had buses ready but getting destroyed. Why did they wait. Obviously vulnerable location. Zelensky says resist but this is not always feasible without getting massacred.

      • Chance of winning (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Sunday March 06, 2022 @11:25AM (#62331041) Homepage Journal

        No need, it's almost over

        the destruction of military infrastructure in Ukraine, including aviation and air defense, is almost completed [t.me]

        Or so say Luckyo and Putin.

        Maybe there is such a level of absurd propaganda, even these people won't believe.

        But we haven't found it yet.

        neither conscripts nor those who are called up for training will be involved in the operation in Ukraine

        That's lucky. Shame thousands of them died in a training accident. Far from Ukraine...

        No need, it's almost over

        the destruction of military infrastructure in Ukraine, including aviation and air defense, is almost completed [t.me]

        Or so say Luckyo and Putin.
        Maybe there is such a level of absurd propaganda, even these people won't believe.
        But we haven't found it yet.

        I've been doing a deep dive into the strategy and tactics in Ukraine.

        While I believe that its *likely* the Russians will prevail, it's by no means certain and there's a growing chance that the Ukrainians can actually win this.

        When you ignore CNN-style opinion and look further down into what's going on, you see that no one is attacking the 40-mile long convoy North of Kiev. That's a strategically brilliant move for Ukraine: apparently Ukranian snipers are keeping soldiers away from the disabled front vehicles(*), and Ukranian special forces are preventing gas, food, and other supplies from reaching the other end. It's been 6 days, and the caravan originally had 3 days of food, and POWs are well treated by Ukraine. It wouldn't be a tremendous surprise if the convoy surrenders en-masse, and that would eliminate a fair portion of Russia's invading force.

        If Ukraine can manage to stall the attack in the East, they could hold out indefinitely.

        Standard military theory states that taking/holding open ground requires 3-to-1 superiority, but taking cities requires 6-to-1 superiority (there's more places to hide and attack from). Russia doesn't have close to 6-to-1 superiority, so if Ukraine wants to put up a fight it will become impossible for Russia to take any cities. Russia can *bomb* the cities into rubble, but if the Ukrainians are adamant, Russia won't succeed.

        And finally, the financial sanctions haven't fully kicked in, and were originally categorized as "draconian" but I don't think that word is strong enough. Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal will be terminating operations in Russia (!) over the next few days. Lukoil has lost 93% of its value [google.com] (click on 6M timeframe), the Ruble has lost 30% of its value, Russia's credit rating is "uninvestable" (literally), and the Russian stock market hasn't opened in the last week.

        One day after the Russian stock exchange reopens (Monday EOD?) will be the time to reassess whether the Russian sanctions are having any effect. Once the sanctions kick in there will be *no* ability to purchase *anything* using money *anywhere* in Russia, as a first approximation. Their economy is expected to contract 25% this year, up from 15% two days ago. I personally think the Russian economy will be a humanitarian crisis by this time next week.

        There's still a fair bit of chance that Russia will win, and I agree that there's a lot of propaganda and it's difficult to sort through what is really happening, it's not at all clear that Ukraine will lose this.

        Ukraine could actually win. Wait about 3 days (Wednesday, say) and reevaluate.

        (*) Apparently 3 field commanders have been shot near the front. The explanation is

        • https://www.bbc.com/news/busin... [bbc.com]
          https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]
          Russia is/has set up its own payment system. So the VISA and MC issued by Russian banks will still work inside Russia. But wont work outside.

        • My understanding is Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal are processing transactions when both the purchaser and merchant are in Russia and in rubles, but not transactions across border; at least for now. Russia is using 2nd and 3rd generational warfare and Ukraine is responding with 4th and 5th generational response, Russia may find they have to fight the war they have, instead of the war they wanted.

        • Standard military theory states that taking/holding open ground requires 3-to-1 superiority, but taking cities requires 6-to-1 superiority

          And Russia has been pushed back from Kiev, and now fighting is around Hostomel airport again. It's not clear that Russia can hold it.

          Furthermore, Russia lost a lot of aircraft in the last 24 hours.

        • I've been wondering about that convoy, do you have a link to the status as you explained it? BTW thanks for the write-up, it's appreciated. My thoughts: Russia can't win long term, in the short term they may, and then "unfortunately Zelenski and other government officials got shot in a firefight..." Long term, soldiers fighting a war (sorry, carrying out special operations) on command will lose against guerrilla fighters fighting for their country. But I hope it won't have to come to that...

          • Best overall place for info [criticalthreats.org] (I *think*)

            Some links I used:

            Three field commanders killed [express.co.uk]

            Commanding Officer of the Seventh Airborne Division Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, who was also the Deputy Commander of the 41st Combined Army has been fatally shot by a Ukrainian sniper.

            A divisional commander, as well as a regimental commander, have also both died in the conflict.

            “In open terrain three to one is regarded as the proportion you need to win.
            “In urban domains, it can be as much as six to one.”

            Several reports have emerged showing demoralised Russian soldiers in tears as they surrender to Ukrainian forces.

            Other sources have shown Russian vehicles have run out of fuel, with soldiers accompanying the vehicles stating they were unaware of where they were going.

            From This link [stripes.com]:

            Eight days into the war, the expanse of Russian supply trucks, troops and weapons has been plagued with fuel and food shortages and logistical challenges, including weather and mud. Ukrainian troops have managed to attack and incapacitate some vehicles at the front, creating a traffic jam, but the Russians have largely shielded the convoy from attack by air, according to Western officials and analysts.

            Reports immediately centered on fuel and food shortages. And, a senior U.S. defense official said Ukrainian troops have been targeting the convoy with ground fire, including shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank missiles provided by Western countries. The most significant impact of those attacks is that they struck vehicles at the front of the convoy, essentially creating a roadblock.

            In addition, the muddy ground has made it difficult for the Russians to go off-road to make more progress along other routes. Photos and videos show vehicles stuck in the mud.

            The point about harassing the resupply lines from the North, and using special forces troops trained in the US comes from Scott Adams, so it's 2nd hand (3rd hand?) information.

            That the convoy started out with 3 days of food came from a news report days ago that I can't find.

            • Thank you! Regarding the 3 day supplies, in that kind of convoy I can imagine they planned to be finished in 3 days, it would be strange if they had provided food for 2 weeks.

              • By car, it's a three hours drive - 165 km, 100 miles.
                A military column could make the trip in 6-8 hours (with slower vehicles, tanks driving at economic speed).

                I have no idea about Russian maintenance, but tanks and armored vehicles will probably break down without the need for Ukrainian resistance.

                However, they should have prepared for days of assaults into Kyiv, and that would consume fuel, ammunition, food and water.

                (considering Russian corruption, I'm not sure how much of the stockpiled fuel was still t

          • Putin might just want a very good position in order to have a credible negotiating position.
            Holding Kyiv (or having a significant foothold in Kyiv) might allow him to compromise on getting all of Donetsk and Lugansk, and a land bridge to Crimeea.

        • Russia understands asymmetric warfare and boosting supply lines to increase its force multiplier. We are seeing divide and overwhelm, and reluctance to step into ambush situations. Bad weather and mud means they are not having it all their own way, plus copping bad publicity. And can see them moving to cut off the defenders supply lines, power water, and ability to reform. But nobody wins. Moving to Visa MC and money seizures, Russia and China might decide to act on that and create a new oil currency, shou
  • I read that in recent conflicts insurgents used swarms of civilian drones carrying remotely detonated explosives to attack military installations. I don't know if Russian troops have RF jammers to counter something like that, but this sounds like a promising partisan tactic - think roadside bombs, but flying.

    • Drones are changing warfare. [youtu.be]

    • I read that in recent conflicts insurgents used swarms of civilian drones carrying remotely detonated explosives to attack military installations. I don't know if Russian troops have RF jammers to counter something like that, but this sounds like a promising partisan tactic - think roadside bombs, but flying.

      Commercial drones like these are rarely effective against military targets, or targets in general. First, drones are noisy. You don't need an RF jammer, just your ears and gun. Second, there is no targetting system for commercial drones. The best you can try to do, assuming you're not detected in the first place, is hover over the target and release the explosives. Third, most commercial drones can't carry much weight. A grenade, a brick of some type of explosives, small things. Yes, a grenade on a gr

      • First, drones are noisy.
        Depends on the drone and your surroundings. A drone flying 100m high, you don't hear at all. Especially not with a helmet, potential headphones for radio, strong wind, combat conditions etc.
        Dropping and hitting a machine gun nest with a charge or hand grenade might be tricky, but landing in the pill box and simply exploding not so much.

      • Russia used to pretend they are at a similar level of sophistication to the USA.
        F-22 versus Pak-FA (or SU-57)
        Abrams versus T-14
        T-15 in a class of its own
        Tu-95 versus B-52.

        The reality is that, apparently, Ukraine operates successfully Turkish drones against Russian air defenses.

        As for "commercial", "wedding size recording" drones - having information on your enemy while denying information to it is how wars are won. With enough information, you can choose a lot of places where you can have superiority agains

    • Terrorism is theatre. It's designed to make headlines as part of a broader political strategy but is militarily ineffective. Don't conflate terrorism with warfare. IMHO, the best use would be to document war crimes as well as possible & to let the soldiers on both sides know so that it acts as a deterrent. War is hell. There is literally no law & order. Killing & not being killed tend to override our better selves. The possibility of justice in the not-too-distant-future in an international cr

  • Thankfully Remote ID rules have yet to come into effect, if they where in full effect then all DJI and other manufactored drones would have Remote ID cability and the Russian could just precisly pinpoint the pilot location and launch a rocket to the location. This is one of the the things that people where objecting to for Remote ID. So in a few years this kind of civilian rebel drone force will not be a possbility anymore.

    • The vast majority of these drones broadcast anyway, both video and commands, so they can already be targeted. Launching a $100k+ missile to take out a $1k drone is likely not a winning strategy unless the plan is to crush them by spending hundreds of times the money.

      • Launching a $100k+ missile to take out a $1k drone is likely not a winning strategy unless the plan is to crush them by spending hundreds of times the money.

        Or by wiping out the operators. Drones may be cheap and plentiful, but operators are a scarce resource.

        It's like fighter pilots: A fighter plane may cost many million and be hard to replace, but a skilled pilot may cost more to train up and be even harder to replace. (That's why, if a pilot's plane is on fire on a carrier deck, it's his duty to remov

        • Or by wiping out the operators. Drones may be cheap and plentiful, but operators are a scarce resource.

          Drones used for basic surveillance just need to fly high and look around, something that’s trivial in good weather. They aren’t pod racing around enemy soldiers and slaloming around convoy vehicles at 60mph. In any case, the notion that this is only possible through drone ID laws is obviously false.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kbg ( 241421 )

            In any case, the notion that this is only possible through drone ID laws is obviously false.

            Of course not, but when Remote ID requires reporting the pilot exact GPS position, then a single well placed mortar round means taking out every single drone pilot becomes easy.

            • Depends on the devices used to control it, many models have and will sell seperately the broadcast module for the ID. This is the easiest way to comply with all the various countries that have different standards like Canada or Europe also to retrofit- you just remove it from the drone. Further, with built in units it’s not hard to just circumvent it in software or hardware through one means or another. Spoof the signal to fool them into thinking you’re half a kilometer away from your actua

            • "Of course not, but when Remote ID requires reporting the pilot exact GPS position, then a single well placed mortar round means taking out every single drone pilot becomes easy."
              You can't really believe the drones that will fly in conflict won't be "modded".
              As for "a single well placed mortar round"... Russians have problems locating and hitting the Turkish drones (TB-2), which are having a field day hitting anti-air batteries.

      • The vast majority of these drones broadcast anyway, both video and commands, so they can already be targeted

        That's not what the OP was saying. He's pointing out that Remote ID (as defined by the FAA) requires a store-bought drone to broadcast not only the drone's exact position but also the position of the guy who is flying it. It requires far less effort to take-out the pilot (a single well-targeted mortar round or sniper shot will do that).

        So, after (I think it's September of this year), if Mr Putin co

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          So, after (I think it's September of this year), if Mr Putin comes knocking on the USA's door then Uncle Sam can forget all about recruiting your average drone enthusiast to help them because they'll become cannon -fodder.

          Don't be daft. Russia is having problems supplying an invasion on their border, the odds that Russia or any other country is going to invade America is about zero. They'd need air and sea superiority just for starters, then there's the size of America. If things get that bad, it'll be nukes arriving on missiles, cruise missiles and such and people will be simply focused on survival.
          If a land war happens in America, just like last time, it'll be between Americans and their conflicting ideas about freedoms

  • Cover (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Unlike the much larger Turkish-built combat drones that Ukraine has in its arsenal, off-the-shelf consumer drones aren't much use as weapons — but they can be powerful reconnaissance tools.

    They can also be used as cover for military drones - more confusion as to whether that thing in the sky is worthy of panic or not and as to which flying object is your target.

  • Some of those drone-reported GPS coordinates may be very inaccurate. Hawkeye 360 (and others) have shown ground-based transmitters in Russian occupied parts of Ukraine jamming and (probably) sending false position data.

    • Off the shelf drones are generally pretty helpless against that kind of thing, but it's not expensive to get a GPS module that supports all the GPS standards (or if necessary, to mount a couple of different modules) so that you can compare output.

      Parts have very different costs in different countries, but here in the USA where Chinese electronics are cheap and plentiful you can build your way into a drone with a decent camera, lots of intelligence onboard, a couple of GPS modules, battery, TX, and everythin

    • Pure conjecture, but perhaps this would make drones more important. From what I've read in the past, Russian GPS "jamming" tech seems to cause false but consistent (while being "jammed") position reporting. Maybe if you know the new position value, you could adjust. So, being able to fly a drone to a position by sight and determine what value the GPS is reporting at that moment could be a big gain for programming weapons with GPS targeting.

  • Your average $20 kid's toy is useless of course, but by the time you're into the upper range where the things have station-keeping and waypoint-seeking, you're probably up to the range that can carry a decent camera.

    If it can carry a camera, you could do something like swap that out for a cheap and tiny little webcam and replace the saved weight with a grenade and a release mechanism. You could do more, since by the time you're spending a few thousand per unit, they can have serious flight times and a usef

    • I had success using a 10 gram Air Hogs helicopter to snare cobwebs from the far corners of a cathedral ceiling.
      • I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters... and don't even ask about my friend and the Kessel run.

    • Say you know approximately where some Russians are - you fly a drone over them at 500+ feet and they likely won't even see it.

      One of the problems with these consumer copter drones is that they are very very noisy, so that even at 500 feet, you'll probably still hear them.

    • A very light drone with limited range and vision could still be very useful for even company-level scouting. As they say, there's nothing light in the light infantry.

    • Put them in the way of Russian aircraft.

  • ...and flown though the door of a troop transporter should have some impact on morale.

  • A Ukrainian woman took down a Russian drone with a jar of cucumbers.

    https://manchestereveningnews.... [manchester...trem.media]

  • Hobby drones have very limited range, which means the operator has to be within what would surely be a dangerous proximity to any hostiles he might see. And what help could you provide? You see some tanks a few fields over that way, are you going to call someone on your cellphone and report it?

  • Attaching a RC mine to an rc car, driving it under a tank and blowing it up seems like the most obvious application for this sort of "low tech" / repurposing approach. Any reports on this sort of operation?

    • That would be nice. But I think it is trivial for rooskiys to jam the two channels that most (all?) RC hobby devices use.

    • The IED useful against tanks in the Arab world used to mass some thousands of pounds.
      The underside of a tank should take terrain hits offroad at 20+ km/h. No RC car could carry enough explosive against the underside of a tank.
      (that kind of small explosion could affect fuel trucks though, creating almost the same result of a mobility kill).

  • How about Chinese granny Amazons to pilot the drones?

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