A Never-Ending Supply of Drones Has Frozen the Front Lines in Ukraine (msn.com) 97
"In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill" because of "rapid innovations in drone technology..." according to the Wall Street Journal. "Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line."
And drones "now bring everything from food and water to ammunition, power banks — and, in at least one case, a fire extinguisher — to the front, sparing soldiers trips through the most dangerous part of the battlefield where enemy drones might pick them off." Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. When Russia sent tank columns into Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine needed to find out where they were headed — and fast. Enter the humble "wedding drone," available in stores for about $2,000 and repurposed to scan for enemy units rather than capture nuptial panoramas. Deployed by enthusiasts acting independently or attached to army units, the drones helped Ukrainian forces, which were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, to know exactly where to deploy to counter Russian arrowheads.
Surveillance drones quickly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Often provided by charity funds, they were used to scan enemy positions for equipment, stores and headquarters.... A cheap and simple tweak made the so-called wedding drones deadly. Tech buffs realized that a simple claw-like contraption, created using a 3-D printer, could be activated from the radio controller by turning on the drone's light, causing it to release a grenade. The explosion could wound or kill a soldier or even detonate an armored vehicle if dropped through its hatch. Over time, soldiers experimented with ways to add more explosives, for example by melting down explosives garnered from Soviet-era munitions and pouring them into new, lighter plastic casings.
No innovation has had a bigger impact on the war in Ukraine than first-person-view, or FPV, drones. With explosives strapped to them, FPVs fly directly into their targets, turning them into low-cost suicide bombers. Though FPVs don't deliver as much explosive punch as rockets, they are far more accurate — and the sheer volume that Ukraine has manufactured means they can be deployed to similar effect... Sitting in a bunker several miles behind the front, a drone pilot slips on FPV goggles to see the view from the drone's camera and fly it into an enemy position or asset. The Russians have since adopted FPVs en masse. Their abundance has played a central role in slowing down the movement of the front line. Anything within around 12 miles of the contact line can now become a target for FPVs. They are so cheap to make that both sides can expend them on any target — even a single infantryman.
Because they are so small and fast, FPVs are difficult to shoot down. The main defense against them has been electronic jamming systems, which disrupt the communication between the drone and the pilot. Though most drone innovations in the war have come from the Ukrainian side, the Russians pioneered the most important adaptation for FPV drones — the addition of a fiber-optic cable connecting the drone to the pilot that can overcome jamming.
Benjamin Franklin once predicted flying machines might "convince sovereigns of the folly of war... since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions..."
And drones "now bring everything from food and water to ammunition, power banks — and, in at least one case, a fire extinguisher — to the front, sparing soldiers trips through the most dangerous part of the battlefield where enemy drones might pick them off." Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. When Russia sent tank columns into Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine needed to find out where they were headed — and fast. Enter the humble "wedding drone," available in stores for about $2,000 and repurposed to scan for enemy units rather than capture nuptial panoramas. Deployed by enthusiasts acting independently or attached to army units, the drones helped Ukrainian forces, which were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, to know exactly where to deploy to counter Russian arrowheads.
Surveillance drones quickly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Often provided by charity funds, they were used to scan enemy positions for equipment, stores and headquarters.... A cheap and simple tweak made the so-called wedding drones deadly. Tech buffs realized that a simple claw-like contraption, created using a 3-D printer, could be activated from the radio controller by turning on the drone's light, causing it to release a grenade. The explosion could wound or kill a soldier or even detonate an armored vehicle if dropped through its hatch. Over time, soldiers experimented with ways to add more explosives, for example by melting down explosives garnered from Soviet-era munitions and pouring them into new, lighter plastic casings.
No innovation has had a bigger impact on the war in Ukraine than first-person-view, or FPV, drones. With explosives strapped to them, FPVs fly directly into their targets, turning them into low-cost suicide bombers. Though FPVs don't deliver as much explosive punch as rockets, they are far more accurate — and the sheer volume that Ukraine has manufactured means they can be deployed to similar effect... Sitting in a bunker several miles behind the front, a drone pilot slips on FPV goggles to see the view from the drone's camera and fly it into an enemy position or asset. The Russians have since adopted FPVs en masse. Their abundance has played a central role in slowing down the movement of the front line. Anything within around 12 miles of the contact line can now become a target for FPVs. They are so cheap to make that both sides can expend them on any target — even a single infantryman.
Because they are so small and fast, FPVs are difficult to shoot down. The main defense against them has been electronic jamming systems, which disrupt the communication between the drone and the pilot. Though most drone innovations in the war have come from the Ukrainian side, the Russians pioneered the most important adaptation for FPV drones — the addition of a fiber-optic cable connecting the drone to the pilot that can overcome jamming.
Benjamin Franklin once predicted flying machines might "convince sovereigns of the folly of war... since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions..."
human safari (Score:3, Informative)
ruzzian orcs use drones to murder individual civilians, including children [kherson24.com]. This is different from simply carpet bombing, to murder a 1 year old in this case they had to hunt him down specifically, find him and blow him up individually.
This is the face of the ruzzian 'soldier' today, putin or not, it is the individual people who are making every day decisions. AFAIC ruzzians are now all legitimate targets, every one.
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And Ukranian soldiers fly suicide drones at Russian soldiers who are surrendering, and torture and maim POWs who are unarmed and being used as sport and for propaganda videos.
Re:human safari (Score:5, Informative)
Show me a single Russian video that illustrates how a Russian drone lead a Ukrainian soldier who surrendered to safety.
There are several documented cases of Ukrainians doing just that for Russian soldiers.
On the other hand it is well documented at this point that Russian forces often kill Ukrainian soldiers who surrender. And the ones imprisoned face abuse and torture.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2... [un.org]
Also you are comparing the wanton killing of a toddler to the fate of soldiers, who signed up to serve in a war of aggression. Take a look in the mirror, pal, and ask yourself what the heck you are doing here.
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Browse X or 4chan and you'll get all the clips you want, like in /chug. Both sides are doing it, but my point is OP is retarded for only blaming "Russian orcs." Also nothing of what you said excuses the war crimes I'm referring to, especially executing POWs for sport.
>soldiers who signed up
lol. Tell me you know nothing about the war without saying you know nothing about the war
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Browse X or 4chan and you'll get all the clips you want, like in /chug. Both sides are doing it, but my point is OP is retarded for only blaming "Russian orcs." Also nothing of what you said excuses the war crimes I'm referring to, especially executing POWs for sport.
>soldiers who signed up
Both sides commit atrocities, that's true of every war in history. But the difference is that on the Ukrainian side atrocities are the exception, while on the Russian side they're standard operating procedure.
I mean there's literally videos of Russians shooting their own soldiers for the crime of retreating from certain death in human wave assaults.
lol. Tell me you know nothing about the war without saying you know nothing about the war
You just did.
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>But the difference is that on the Ukrainian side atrocities are the exception, while on the Russian side they're standard operating procedure.
False, not from what I've seen.
>I mean there's literally videos of Russians shooting their own soldiers for the crime of retreating from certain death in human wave assaults.
True
>You just did.
"I know you are but what am I." The level of discourse and comprehension I'd expect from someone with an opinion as uninformed as your own.
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>But the difference is that on the Ukrainian side atrocities are the exception, while on the Russian side they're standard operating procedure.
False, not from what I've seen.
Multiple reporting since the start of the war has shown that war crimes are far worse coming from the Russian side.
Have you seen the videos of POWs exchanges where the Ukrainian exchanges look like they're coming out of a concentration camp? Did you miss the widescale slaughter of civilians in places like Bucha?
There's no question that the level of warcrimes is disproportionately coming from the Russian side.
>I mean there's literally videos of Russians shooting their own soldiers for the crime of retreating from certain death in human wave assaults.
True
Have you seen the same from Ukrainians? If not, then in that aspect at least, one side is acting wor
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All you have is infantile both siding when one side started it and has a clear record of targeting hospitals and civilians - especially kids - unforgotten the targeted attack on the theater in Mariupol.
You lack any moral compass.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/lat... [amnesty.org]
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia has gained less than 5,000 square kilometers since January 2024. If we are generous and assume 5,000 square kilometers gained in 18 months, this equates to Russia capturing roughly 0.6% of Ukraine per year. That's not enough to matter in terms of determining the outcome of the war, since Russia's economy can't sustain this long enough to accumulate meaningful territorial gains at that pace. The war will end, however it ends, based on other factors.
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Due to the Russian armies corruption and culture of "zeroing own" the kill ratio at this point will be 5:1 or better.
https://en.zona.media/article/... [en.zona.media]
The attacker always suffers more loses against a well entrenched defending force, but Russia's "meat assaults" are taking this to an entire new, absurd level.
Vatniks pretended that "Russia already won" for the entirety of this war. It's getting old.
Re: Lines aren't frozen. (Score:2)
Russia can afford it because they remain one of the biggest exporters of oil and gas in the world. China and India in particular are paying for Russiaâ(TM)s war.
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That is why the EU price cap is so important.
China and India get a nice deal but Russia gets significant less revenue, while the world oil marker remains well supplied keeping our gas prices in check.
And natural gas export mostly relies on pipelines and they have none that go to India or China. And interestingly the latter does not seem to be terribly interested in building one. Russia's natural gas exports cratered.
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Russia's economy can't sustain this long enough to accumulate meaningful territorial gains at that pace.
And yet, it doesn't end.
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Gee, it almost sounds like you're actually rooting for Russia...
I must be misinterpreting your words. You couldn't possibly be such a disgusting piece of shit, could you ?
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Russia had NATO at their border for twenty years when the Baltic republics joined. A ballistic missile can reach Moscow from there as quickly as from Ukraine and get much faster to Saint Petersburg.
Also Putin is not a complete idiot, and only a complete idiot would have not foreseen that Finland will join NATO after a full on Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Clearly it was never about NATO.
By listening to what the Kremlin spouts rather than analyzing what they do, it is you, my friend. who falls for propaganda.
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The idea that Russia is bad and Ukraine is good is propergander in itself.
And we're just gonna stop right there, because I'm pretty sure that none of the following drivel is going to convince anybody that the country which annexed part of the other country 10 years ago, has been stirring shit ever since; until finally conducting a half-assed and botched military invasion, completely unprovoked, followed by indiscriminate bombing of civilians and children isn't "bad".
Solve for that, somehow, and we'll see what's next.
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason people are dying is because Putin is dropping bombs on them. It is not NATO's fault, or the US's fault, or Europes's fault.
The fault lies solely on Putin, his criminal family, and all the fucking shills like you who support him. You have the blood of every dead ukrainian civilian man, woman, and child on your hands.
Whether Russia, Ukraine, NATO, the US, etc, was right or wrong is irrelevant. When conflicts arise, adult, mature, decent human beings sit around a table and negociate. They talk to each other. Mass murdering psychopaths drop bombs on civilians.
I have nothing more to say to you, you mass-murdering piece of shit. Burn in Hell.
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Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:4, Informative)
You are just spouting Russian propaganda verbatim.
Pretty much everything you are writing is a blatant lie.
Yanukovych could have served out his term and accept responsibility for his crimes and corruption, but he rather decided to flee to Moscow. At which point the Ukrainian parliament had no other choice as to impeach him. BTW almost all members of Yanukovych own party voted for his impeachment as well.
The "civil war" was instigated by the Kremlin, pretending that Russian speakers are automatically "ethnic Russians". There is no such thing they are all Slavs and the Soviet Union force Russification an all its territories. So even Zelensky's first language is Russian.
The fact that Russian troops were active in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 is overwhelming, as well as the evidence that Russia is responisible for the downing of MH17.
https://www.icao.int/Newsroom/... [icao.int]
Re:Lines aren't frozen. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think they will stop at Ukraine?
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Russia has more than enough nuclear weapons to hold up against the USA.
Do they?
Every weapon has a shelf life, a time it can sit without maintenance before it is considered unreliable. With a nuclear weapon this can be decades but it has been decades since both the USA and the former Soviet Union built up their nuclear arsenal. Then is the shelf life of the delivery systems. With the USA I can recall there is a periodic launch of old missiles, with the warheads removed, to prove to themselves and the Russians/Soviets/whomever that the delivery systems are still functional.
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Good point. An army that sees all others as subhuman and sees only the next death is one that has to keep fighting. It has no choice. It's the only thing it knows. It can keep conquering more territory outwards, or it can slaughter its own government inwards. History shows those are your two options.
Whether or not Russia conquers Ukraine, it will attack other countries - vast numbers of bored, underpaid soldiers would seek entertainment elsewhere if they didn't.
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Both can be true, actually. As an aside, Russia truly lost in Ukraine in the first six weeks; most of their goals failed. Even if they were to take all of Ukraine, it would be so Pyrrhic as to not be a "win".
But, for the two statements: First: Russia cannot win in Ukraine. "Winning" is defined by history. There are lots of ways to end the war that will have Putin apologists claiming 100% victory, the best victory, everyone walks up to him and talks about his great victory, he's so powerful! So Russia
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Do you think they will stop at Ukraine?
Russia might have all kinds of ambitions, but they failed miserably in Ukraine, why do you think they will do better against NATO?
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The lies were never going to work.
they could have worked, the very same lies have worked in the past and elsewhere. however, they didn't succeed in isolating/toppling/fragmenting the country, and the war of attrition looks indeed dire for nato, and what's actually happening is that the west is isolating itself.
they know that very well but they have to go on with the lies to keep the grift going and the dumpster fire burning, and denying failure and responsibility, but the narrative is just shizophrenic at this point: one day russia is suppo
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they want nato and the west to stop fucking around
What does this mean and why? There is no world that exists where NATO attacks Russia unprovoked so what threat are they to Russia if Russia has no aggression towards the nations around it?
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it means:
- expanding nato eastward against promises and common sense
- proclaiming that georgia and ukraine would be part of nato (bucharest 2008)
- funding ngo and media to sow dissent (usaid and ned)
- funding and arming extremist groups (azov et al)
- instrumentalizing protests to topple a legitimate government
- installing a puppet government that goes on a nationalist spree and discrimination of culturally russian citizens
- arming and training the afu and extremists in the ensuing civil war
- supplying missi
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- expanding nato eastward against promises and common sense
Meaningless, no promise was made with Russia, that quote was about East Germany while the USSR existed. Also NATO doesn't recruit, nation groups like Vilnius lobbied for years to get in (wonder why?!?!)
- proclaiming that georgia and ukraine would be part of nato (bucharest 2008)
Not even picking apart that claim which is out of context but does Russia own Georgia and Ukraine? If they mean no aggression towards them whats their business with who makes defensive pacts with who?
- funding ngo and media to sow dissent (usaid and ned)
Oh noes NGO!!!oh my god the NGOs! Like Russia hasn't engaged in this for decades. Come on.
- funding and arming extremist groups (azov et al)
NATO doesn't fund A
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yet still here we are. how else would you explain the current situation? wait ... that was a rhetorical question.
btw mearsheimer was one of the first public figures to spell this all out in a comprehensive way. that lecture is 10 years old and eloquently lays out the provocation, which is exactly what you asked for. that and speaking out about the israeli lobby cost him being shot down and ostracised in the west, but he is certainly not the only one and the world is a much bigger place than you seem to imag
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Also absolutely ZERO of what you said justifies the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, one who gave up their nuclear weapons with an agreement on both borders. None of it. You literally tripping over your own shoes to justify something unjustifiable. Russia is in the wrong here, all ways til sunday.
fiber litter (Score:5, Funny)
well they're certainly laying fiber faster than american ISPs
If drones are doing all the work (Score:4, Funny)
R&D for everyone else (Score:3)
It's easy to speculate that many outside of the two combatants are using the death of thousands of young men as an informational gathering research and development for their own military and are helping one or the other side to get more research information.
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Can the soldiers just work from home?
They would, but the Russians keep shelling them.
Re:I think its hilarious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which part of people flying FPV (first person video) drones into the enemy wasn't clear? They're not delivering to a GPS coordinate. They're being flown.
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What part of this article, pertaining to fiber optics, did you not read?
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Drones are controlled via fiber optics. https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
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Which reminds me, almost never should you write a serious response to what at first appears as a genuinely clueless AC.
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Re: I think its hilarious... (Score:5, Interesting)
What even more hilarious is the idea that a keyboard jockey on the other side of the planet thinks they have an idea what hasn't occurred to the people that are actively engaged in the fight.
There are electronic warfare emitters all over the front line, jamming gps and glonass (Russia's equivalent) and various frequencies used for fpv video transmission. There are also drones attacking those emitters, and drones using frequency and band-hopping to maintain connection despite interference, and drones using spools of fiber to stay connected in ways that are not vulnerable to RF interference. And of course there are artillery and rockets attacking drone teams, infantry, and EW emitters.
The front line is a complicated place. The easy stuff has already been tried.
Lasers vs drones (Score:2)
Can't the cut the fiber optic spool with a laser? Or F it, can't they take down the drones with laser turrets? A kilowatt laser ought to be enough.
Just fucking use lasers.
Re:Lasers vs drones (Score:4, Insightful)
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So, a giant death robot with LOTS of lasers!
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Not a problem. I'll give you a shark with a frickin laser beam attached to its head and you can use it to shoot down a drone no bigger than a pizza box moving at 40 mph in a non-linear direction.
Re:Lasers vs drones (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't the cut the fiber optic spool with a laser?
A drone can fly just a few meters above the ground, out of LoS of the turret. There's talk of using laser turrets against drones themselves, though.
But there's even more, Ukraine now launches "carrier drones" that can autonomously fly for about 300 kilometers deep into the Russian territory and release a swarm of smaller attack drones. And this contraption costs less than 1 HIMARS missile. It can even be remotely controlled through cellular Internet, Russia is trying to combat this by literally switching off all the mobile networks if these drones are detected. Not that it'll help in the long run, it's trivially easy to stick something like a Starlink antenna on the carrier.
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Yes, enter China. No surprise there.
China’s Silent Hunter: The Laser Weapon Powering Russia’s Drone War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Just fucking use lasers.
These lasers require minerals that are in short supply right now, especially rare earth metals. In spite of the name rare earth metals aren't exactly rare, but they are rather difficult to refine. This has lead China to a near monopoly on rare earth metals, because they have cheap energy from coal and don't much care about polluting the environment with the toxic chemicals used to extract these rare earth metals.
It appears that there is some legislation in the works now in the USA to improve domestic rare
Drones and Rare Earths (Score:2)
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Keep in mind this is mostly because (Score:2, Flamebait)
It is extremely impressive though what Ukraine has done here. Even with all the corruption Russia does still have a hell of a lot of weapons and a hell of a lot more people. Although it is telling that they keep pulling North Koreans and I think now people of Laos into T
Fully autonomous (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wait until these little bastards have on-board AI that visually identifies targets and kills them autonomously. That is the next step. The jamming of radio remote control has already lead to the use of fiber (they literally carry miles of fiber optic line that unspools as they fly, making them impervious to RF jamming, at the cost of reduced range). The next logical step is to allow them to function without any human input - that gives them both range and immunity from jamming.
This is not good.
Re:Fully autonomous (Score:4, Interesting)
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Those have already been deployed. They are flown to the front by the operator, who will in most cases also designate the target, after which the drone will engage it autonomously.
Costs of such drones, at least for now, is substantially more expensive. In a war of economic attrition, which is what is happening in Ukraine, that matters a lot.
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And that's how you get SkyNet.
Thanks, Russia. Here come the death robots.
What's gained here? (Score:1)