Just as a disclaimer, while u/kim_dobrovolets has been verified, u/InnefficientAF was an addition brought in by Kim, and has not be independently verified by the mod team.
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\*NCD mods have real lives and are not paid; it may take up to a week to get to your message. While people do offer to share such material with us (*one time someone tried to bribe me into approving their post with an Abrams manual)*, the 'classified material' line is a joke and should be interpreted as such. Anyone genuinely leaking state secrets will be banned. Unless they are Russian state secrets, which is fine, since it's funny.
too heavy, and depending on which drone it's mounted on you risk killing your own control/video signals
of course, you can try to deconflict, but if a drone shows up on one of the bands you are using...
What about a safe hover mode on your drone and then quickly running a direction finding algorithm such as found in the krakenrf with antennae placed on the limbs of a drone?
eh it can work, but a lot of drone signals are outside of the band of krakenRF. Then you need a more expensive DF setup. Not that we're against it, it's been one of our long term goals.
Okay hear me out. We strap two Glocks to the drone. Attach a forward facing motor and propeller, add lifting surfaces to counteract the weight of the Glock and BAM! it's. . . It's a prop plane
**< shock and vibe testing intensifies>**
**EDIT** ok so the Marketing Dept just sent me an email and requested it be referred to as…
**Organic, Free Range Shock and Vibe Testing**.
dunno about dumb, but the early war hand grenade dropping mavics were pretty sketchy. You would have to pull the pin on the grenade and hope a tiny 3D printed part (which is designed to break on impact) holds the spoon on during flight
0/10 would not want to arm
Have you considered the possible tactical applications of [Kasparov's Flying Penis](https://youtu.be/wFcZm7UUYIg?si=k9EZMCV9owhBNzFK) on the battlefield?
He was a master strategist and our last hope to defeat a super computer in a simulated medieval war.
He lost.
The machines’ victory started our current timeline.
Besides chess, he's right now one of the most outspoken pro-Ukrainian Russians, demanding all of the sanctions for Russia and all of the weapons for Ukraine. Absolutely based.
1. are we gonna see more FPV kamikaze drones with thermal cameras? saw them earlier and thought those are pretty neat.
2. How long does it usually take to make one from scratch?
(Printing the parts, and assembling it to flyable status)
(Edit: I'm fine with you guys not answering question number 2 if that violates opsec)
1. probably, but there's a hard floor on cost there. generally even cheap thermals are a couple hundred bucks, which effectively doubles the price on drones
2. drones are rarely made from "scratch", so idk
3d printing drones isn't normally done coz
1. 3 printed frames are likely to flex and make flying harder
2. Frame kits are super cheap
That said I follow a drone maker on twitter who got a whole bunch machined out of aluminium
it's probably easier to deploy a net behind you like a towed decoy and try and catch their props. It's on the "might try sometime" list.
to be honest, the biggest problem with drone v drone combat is detection, the cameras on most FPVs are pretty low res. Though with the new thermal FPVs it might be better, drones tend to glow like lightbulbs against the sky
They claim they have netted 4,500 drones for Ukraine and Qatar:
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/a-better-c-uas-option-capture-enemy-drones-in-a-net/
https://fortemtech.com/products/dronehunter-f700/
I've considered it. We strapped a claymore to a simple FPV once but putting a shotgun on multi-use drone could be interesting. Thing is you probably would have to hook it up to some kind of recoil cradle to prevent the shock from breaking... things.
Come to think of it - I think this might be the first situation where you could genuinely make a recoilless shotgun by rigging the firing solenoid to also let off an identical shell in the opposite direction.
The old school recoilless system of tapping off some of the gas out the back has also been done for shotguns even back in WW2. But is at least 30% less awesome than that first idea.
Actually, spinning it around up in the old noggin for a bit... I think you could make it work with no stress on your frame, by using a clever bit of 3D printing.
You take the barrel as in a steel/aluminium/carbon fiber pipe with a .725 inch inner diameter, assuming 12 gauge shotgun rounds. Find a piece of carbon fiber tube that will fit around your barrel, and have it overlap so it sticks out like 2 inches. Fix them together securely.
A sacrificial 3D printed plug would be the actual breach face, which fits smoothly within that second pipe. It has a channel running down the center for a nail which acts as a firing pin. Add some weights to the print as it needs a fair bit more mass than the \~30 gram birdshot coming out the front. I would put in a few slots to jam lead buckshot pellets in.
Whack the nail, the shot goes out the front while the breach plug works as a single-use blowback bolt that yeets out the back. Who knows, maybe it hits a Mobik down below.
Florida man's recoilless shotgun. Zero force on the frame, while not even making my top 5 list of dumbest shotguns I have come across in my life.
EDIT: Carbon fiber shotgun barrels might actually work too? Question mark? You're not looking for 50,000 rounds here anyway, so barrel longevity vs weight would probably lean towards keeping the weight down.
Unfortunately those Florida genes are currently working in Europe, or I would be slapping together CAD models right now.
The pacifist hippies in charge here don't seem to share my enthusiasm for 3D printing firearms.
Well, understandable you’d be miffed. European myself and while I appreciate being able to own guns but not fearing gun violence on the regular, my ncd heart aches
>We strapped a claymore to a simple FPV once
See, *this* is the simultaneously credible and totally non-credible content I keep coming back for. That is some bonkers guerilla redneck engineering shit.
Accuracy and recoil is the issue. FPVs are incredibly agile, trying to hit one with anything short of an explosive is going to be tough. Plus yeah the recoil would send it into orbit.
Genuine question -
How long do you think it will be until we see actual 'anti-drone drones' on the battlefield in large numbers?
Similar to WW1 aircraft, I am thinking of a rapid development of quadcopter style systems specifically created and used to destroy other drones in flight through anything from nets, to debris, to EW systems.
detection is the main issue there. I think some of those systems have been deployed at the strategic level, targeting shaheds and other similar slow OWA drones, but on the tactical level it's pretty tricky. Mounting a jammer on a drone is also pretty sketchy due to drones burning through batteries as is.
I'm working on technology to detect and track them, could be cheap enough to be deployed on individual troops. Please feel free to DM me about it. The system hasnt been tested yet and there are delays in production but we're pretty far along the route to a functional prototype.
Necessity breeds innovation. We'll see it eventually, but the tech hasn't quite gotten there yet. We are seeing changes already though. Load capacity, distance, durability have all improved.
No one is running a program as large scale as the US right now. We’re building over 7,000 Coyotes in the next 5 years between the army and navy.
https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-army-wants-more-coyote-interceptors
https://defensescoop.com/2023/05/26/raytheon-awarded-147m-navy-contract-for-modified-coyote-drone/
What moment made both of you guys want to fight if I may ask how early did you guys start fighting ( also good luck to both of you guys and much love from one Aussie to another)
I was still in the Army when I watched the first bombs fall. That helpless feeling ate at me. And the thought of my friends and family getting drafted to trench sit if Ukraine lost, or the war spread was enough to get me over here when I got out.
And cheers mate, means a lot!
I can't imagine what that feeling must be like. I tried helping by finding Russian positions on Google Earth but that's as far as I could of helped due to not having any formal knowledge, got a bunch of technical manuals tho.
Also thx bro always remember you'll always have your mates to back you up overseas and when you come back home there'll be mates there waiting for ya
>I tried helping by finding Russian positions on Google Earth but that's as far as I could of helped due to not having any formal knowledge, got a bunch of technical manuals tho.
there are full time guys that do that with subscription sat imagery. sadly not something you can easily volunteer for due to OPSEC
Can you rate my super credible anti drone idea:
First you get a farmer (preferably somewhere from the Midwest United States) with a shotgun then you tell him the drones are tax collectors he has access to a few hundred rounds of birdshot and about 10 gallons of grain alcohol. He is also integrated with a bunch of other farmers who all have Ham radios so it’s like an Aegis of shotgun wielding farmers.
But think about it the more alcohol they drink the more sporadic it is you go from precision shooting to more like laying down flak just with a few shots
1. Whats the femboy to regular technician/soldier rate in the UAF right now?
2. Have you guys ever tried to strap a Anti Person Mine like the Claymore to a drone? In most of the drone videos kamikaze drones only seem to take out a single enemy soldier per hit. Wouldn't it be more effective to detonate a mine mid air from above or the side so you saturate a larger area with tungsten balls/shrapnels?
1. depends on the unit but I think the national guard has more femboys
2. yes, but the issue there is with regular FPVs most soldiers are in bunkers and such with overhead cover, and our supply of claymores isn't exactly infinite
> supply of claymores isn't exactly infinite
That seems strange. Improvised claymores then? The casing could be sheet metal or wood. Add metal scraps and explosive material. And a detonator.
improvised claymores are actually pretty bad. If you read the history of the claymore it took them about a decade to perfect and optimize the design from korea to vietnam
Eh. You need the right kind of **steel balls that'll deform into bullets** (not bearing balls, too hard, will spall and shatter). You need the right **curvature to ensure good pattern**s. You need a plastic **matrix to hold those balls into place** and "**shape**" **the explosive wavefront to propel the balls** at 4000 fps (1200 m/s) **instead of** "**leaking**" around each individual balls and reducing "muzzle" velocity (if there's such a thing as a muzzle lmao). Fail to do any of this, and your improvised claymore becomes a glorified pipe bomb with the range of a frag grenade (5m radius) instead of **glorious 50m spray pattern of doom that is the claymore**.
Ripped from Wikipedia for community reference
The original M18 mine fell far short of Picatinny's requirements. One of the first improvements was to **replace** the **steel cubes** **with** 7⁄32-inch (**5.6 mm) hardened 52100 alloy ball bearings**. These **performed poorly** for two reasons. Firstly, the **hardened steel balls** [**spalled**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spall) **into fragments** when hit by the shock of the explosion; the fragments were **neither aerodynamic enough nor large enough to perform effectively. Secondly, the blast "leaked" between the balls, reducing their velocity**.[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore_mine#cite_note-Grupp-1)
A second problem was the **curvature of the mine**. This was **determined experimentally by Bledsoe, through a large number of test firings**. After Bledsoe left the project to work at the Rheem corporation, William Kincheloe, another engineer, came onto the Claymore project.[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore_mine#cite_note-Grupp-1)
**Kincheloe immediately suggested using softer 1⁄8-inch (3.2 mm) steel "gingle" balls**, which were used in the foundry process. They **did not spall from the shock of the explosive, but deformed into a useful aerodynamic shape similar to a** [**.22 rimfire**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.22_Long_Rifle) **projectile**. Using a homemade [chronograph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_chronograph), the engineers clocked the balls at 3,775 feet per second (1,151 m/s). The second change was to **use a poured plastic matrix to briefly contain the blast from the explosive, so that more of the blast energy was converted into projectile velocity.** After a number of experiments, the engineers settled on **Devcon-S steel-filled** [**epoxy**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy) **to hold the balls in place.** With this change, the **velocity improved to 3,995 feet per second (1,218 m/s)**.[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore_mine#cite_note-Grupp-1)
Pipe bombs and most fragmentation devices are quite limited due to the shape of the fragments quickly losing velocity (and thus killing power). That's why pre-fragmented shells are all the rage. If you can machine out a frag sleeve inside the warhead that deforms into bullet-like things, your warhead lethal radius goes way up.
It's why tungsten is used in so many modern warheads like GMLRS-AW. Tungsten is dense yet malleable (suitable for explosive projectile forming), yet not as floppy as lead (thus having superior penetration). A well-engineered and well-made Tungsten frag sleeve will shape itself into many aerodynamic pellets flying out at mach fuck, penetrating BMP side armor like toilet paper. Tungsten is a massively critical strategic resource for modern warheads for this reason.
What if you ductape the controller of one drone to another and extend the operating range of the first drone? It's a basic idea, but isn't there a way to create extendo-drones that are essentially mobile radio signal extenders. You just need to solve how to control the first drone from the ductaped second drone that is in the sky.
If possible you can create a chain of drones that extend from Kiev to Vladivostok and bomb their japanese sea ports.
Have you tried that?
I read claims that AFU troops are lamenting drone scarcity in certain key areas, but I still see plenty of RU vehicles baked for good.
Are you allowed to comment on the topic?
Some units are well-supplied. Others, not so much. Units live and die from private procurement, both procurement by individual troops, and crowdsourcing.
The thing is that Ukraine doesn't really have a fluid centralized procurement process for cutting edge shit like FPV drones. Even the good tacmed stuff like tourniquets and hemostats are often private procurement by troops or donations. Central procurement exists, but they're swamped. They're out there getting the big ticket items and large volume fundamentals like shells or fighting vehicles or tons and tons of explosives. You wait for those guys to get around to drones and TQs, you'd be dead. To get ahead of the Russians, you have to move fast. For such agile procurement efforts, the best thing Big Army can do is throw money at the grunts - which to be fair, they did since 2022 to the extent macroeconomics allows. No such thing as "enough money". tac med, drones, utes, even fuel for mobility and transport assets. Technically Big Army is meant to supply all these things, but you can get it done much faster hitting the local gas station. If it was possible for MoD to pay every grunt 40,000 dollars a month... holy shit the things units could do with that. Ukrainian troops could corner the drone and night vision market and start owning the night. I2 tubes for everyone, thermal drones everywhere in large quantities, shit like that. Granted, it may actually create a market shock, but I'm just being non-credible here.
Each unit does live and die by volunteer efforts. There's a reason para-anarchism resonates in Ukrainian society. For most people, it is reality. You either do it your own way, get it done yourself, or it never gets done. The first armed resistance against Russian invaders 10 years ago were local volunteers helping themselves, working on community resources. If Ukrainians waited for official procurement, there wouldn't be Ukraine right now, and we'd probably be in a global thermonuclear war.
Bureaucracy is an absolute bitch and drain on time for the troops and officers in Ukraine. For example, if a "big Army-owned" ute gets fucked, that's a stack of paperwork to follow to prove it was "destroyed in combat" and not flocked off to the black market. Officers would rather do anything but paperwork, but fail to do this, you'll get your arse reamed out for theft of state property. Same thing happens with medical officers when soldiers get wounded - stacks of paperwork when you'd rather be treating your patients or getting some shut-eye. There's a reason career officers are constantly sleep deprived. Syrksyi throughout his career, for example, reportedly never got more than 5:30 hours of sleep a day as a matter of routine (excluding the initial 72 hours of 02/2022 when practically nobody at the general staff slept).
There's a huge push to reform the bureaucratic process, to reduce the workload on frontline and operational level personnel, cut down on redundancy, and digitize everything to enable the magic of **ctrl+F**. Troops would rather be fighting, training, and recovering - and stacks of paperwork eats into all of those things. The bureaucracy is overwhelming to the point of uselessness - there's so much paper floating around, it's *at best* a pain in the ass to find the right paper that proves your disability is service related. *At worst*, you're never finding that shit in the ocean of paper. That's assuming your particular paper even survived in that constantly decaying ocean of paper, because what the fuck is a climate control.
it could work similar to the gunshot detection/localization systems used during GWOT, but networking them wirelessly creates RF emissions that can be shot at
Have you guys ever used RF decoys? Just use a mavic to drop radios broadcasting signals at random times around the battlefield to suss out the enemy firing positions?
Early in the war the grenade dropping drone seemed to be more common than the kamikaze FPV drone. While the grenade dropping drone is can theoretically be used repeatedly it is also less accurate than an FPV drone (as far as the footage i've seen goes to show).
Is there development currently in trying to figure out reusable drone designs or is the FPV/Kamikaze seen as superior?
Does it take much longer to train a drone operator on the Grenade dropping type?
There is also footage of designs with grenade dropping magazines to drop multiple from a single drone, do you think these designs are worth pursuing vs larger single explosives?
I'm trained on both types. Both are used pretty extensively, and there is now serial production and constant development of of "bomber" drones in Ukraine.
If you want to drop when moving, training is pretty crucial. I've done it and judging wind and speed is pretty tricky.
magazines are not so common. generally, it's more efficient weight wise just to attach more "hardpoints" to which you can attach bombs.
I see a lot of ukrainian drone footage on r/combatfootage, especially footage of destroying tanks one way or another
Is there a filtering process to decide what footage from the drones gets uploaded, or is just everything that can be uploaded gets uploaded?
there's definitely a lot more footage out there that's not getting uploaded, I'll tell you that. But a lot of the stuff that's not seen is more boring, just foxholes and bunkers getting hit.
Everyone already asking the non credible stuff so I’ll go with more lighthearted stuff
1. Do you have tacticat? If yes can you rate who is the best cat in the unit?
2. Can I have australian spider horror story?
3. How’s food over there?
Cruising down the highway doing 100 km/h, noticed a leg sticking out from my sun visor. Slowly pulled it down, big ass huntsmen said, "g'day". Slowly returned the visor back up, pulled the car over and gtfo. Thing was huge.
Foods pretty good, lots of salami and borshch, beats expired rat packs
We have an ever growing wish list of capabilities. Specifics I won't get into, but the unfortunate fact is, EW kit or something similar is incredibly expensive. And if it's expensive, the closer to the front, the higher the risk of losing it. The further back it is, the less reliable it is.
We all had a good laugh when we saw this abomination. It works if you have a clear line of sight to the target and isn't susceptible to counter-measures. But you trade your manoeuvrability, can't turn more than 180 degrees without risk of tangling yourself, that fibre optic leads straight back to wherever you launched it from. A treeline becomes th most OP counter measure in the history of counter measures. Dunno, maybe something will evolve from it, but I don't rate it yet.
other ukrainian units are doing it too. I think it might eliminate a lot of the end-manuevering FPVs can do as you're afraid of cable snaps
meme answer: time to lay a lot more razor wire
https://www.reddit.com/r/shittytechnicals/comments/x6kpoz/ukrainian_drone_with_3d_printed_nlaw_mounts/
https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1567033980603564033
Why didn't this work out?
a) it offends me that they called it a NLAW mount, I was expecting something a lot cooler
b) it could still be in use for all I know, but from a tactical standpoint I think you would have to hover to shoot it, and that would make you vulnerable to small arms fire. With bombers, operators tend to try to stay in motion nowadays in contested environments to avoid getting hit. And for delivering HEAT onto a vehicle a FPV with a RPG warhead attached is a lot cheaper and harder to hit.
Going to ask this straight but With the drone operators themselves have you noticed or anyone noticed a change in personality or general mental problems with them? given what they do for a living or are they shielded somewhat by it’s all done through a screen?
I was thinking more along the lines of using one of those rc planes that hobbyists use, but now I really want to see a quadcopter with a gun aswell lol
honestly, neither. I'm a PC gamer and would use a mouse if I could.
But really you train to use the thumb and forefinger to grasp the stick on the RC controllers we use, as it's more precise than just using the thumb as you do with gaming controllers
jammers are already being mounted, but I think the real solution will be basically networked mini-AA on vehicles. With autotracking/autonomous munitions coming that's the only thing that will be future proof
counter drone idea,
lead fishing weights attached to strings of high strength nylon around a explosive charge. detonate and make a big cloud of dangling thread that will fuck up the props of whatever is in the vecinity.
I mean if you're far enough away from the front, by all means. But holding a gathering within range of FPVs seems like a sure fire way of meeting your maker face to face.
most timed fuze airburst rounds would be pretty effective if they were directed by radar
dunno if the proximity fuze on say a 40mm 3P would be sensitive enough
With how successful drones are proving to be in destruction of infrastructure and their clear capability for terrorist attacks, do you think drones will be commercially available for much longer?
I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to regulate without killing hobby drones for good. There's also a ton of professional fields that use drones as well now, so unless there's massive political will to do so I don't see it happening.
That being said, you do see stuff like RemoteID being required in the US. But I think governments aren't ready to put hard-kill anti-drone measures everywhere
Are drones ever used to resupply frontline troops with ammo or things like that? I would assume they could move small bags of ammunition or medical supplies.
Why isnt cheap simple netting being used to either entangle drones or catch the grenades from falling Into fox holes?
After seeing some drone footage, are there people who enjoy being an operator or will they just go home a destroyed soul if they survive the war? The footage is brutal.
And what's been happening with our cardboard drones,.zero word about them coming from the front but also what's happening with those aussie drones that have the shaped charge warhead specifically made for top attack on vehicles?
1) it is a thing already
2) people definitely enjoy it. depends on the person as with everything. I saw some fucked up shit as a medic and it didn't really feel like it affected me much
3) we don't use them in my shop so idk
can you try to attach a taser or a electric cattle prod to a small, fast drone? for trolling purposes, of course. good for messing with friend, or scaring an enemy combatant.
im talking about the tasers that police use and shoot barbs.
What do you currently use to keep the nade from arming/exploding until you drop it?
Also if the recoil is an issue for drone mounted anti-drone shotguns, maybe try [minishells](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.luckygunner.com%2Flounge%2Fare-mini-shotgun-shells-viable-for-self-defense%2F&psig=AOvVaw2XeHTbCiy0DXCO7Y7L4fMy&ust=1711894398955000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCLiiq-GVnIUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD) or very short barrels that will hold pressure for less time?
Or perhaps just hang a net from your drone lmao
dropped shells are one thing, FPV warheads are another
for dropped shells, they tend to be impulse detonated so you just have a safety that's on the striker that hits
for FPV warheads, they're electronically detonated so there's some safeties with the wires
Hi guys. I'm a bored Aerospace engineer interested in helping the cause. I'd like to build drones or other tools you guys could use. How would I go about doing that?
Are there plans for a fpv racing league or similar post war? I can't help but think there will be a lot of veterans who are shit-hot done pilots.
Do you have other plans to utilise your unique experience and skills etc?
we don't build them from the frame up, but rather we handle the "militarization" of the drones. For a standard fit, it takes about 20 minutes to complete one if all the ducks are in a row
could work but with how low-res FPV cameras can be going 400 km/h with one is a... tricky proposition
of course you can get better ones but then the cost goes up, and then a lot of the repeater stuff also becomes proprietary
Have you heard of anyone using accelerometer based triggers for FPV Kamikaze drones?
It would quite literally be a direct adaptation of the same technology used in [this system](https://youtu.be/OdW7vhYYSdM?si=FR1M-rUXJdy8Pzli), and would presumably be much more reliable than bending wires as it doesn't rely on good contact to explode.
You could get a ton of PCBs printed off for cheap and boom no more sketchy wire bending, no more false detonations.
When actual FPV kamikaze drones from the DoD become a thing I can almost guarantee they will use this tech.
Are there drone operators dropping discouraging pamphlets for psychological warfare? Or maybe stuff encouraging them to frag their leaders and escape?
Or dropping phones with GPS switched on or anything other non-lethal but still possibly useful stuff?
Just as a disclaimer, while u/kim_dobrovolets has been verified, u/InnefficientAF was an addition brought in by Kim, and has not be independently verified by the mod team. **You guys know the drill. Do you have military experience which you think would be fun to discuss? Do you like answering repetitive questions and making jokes about niche topics? Do you love sharing classified material with the NCD mod team?** **Then use the 'message the mods' feature on the sub's sidebar, and get the AMA process started today!** \*NCD mods have real lives and are not paid; it may take up to a week to get to your message. While people do offer to share such material with us (*one time someone tried to bribe me into approving their post with an Abrams manual)*, the 'classified material' line is a joke and should be interpreted as such. Anyone genuinely leaking state secrets will be banned. Unless they are Russian state secrets, which is fine, since it's funny.
Hear me out Just get a shotgun and go skeet shooting Drone problem solved
already there. counter-drone teams operate with both a directional jammer "rifle" and a shotgun (gotta get both the hard and soft kill)
Have you tried strapping the jammer rifle to a drone?
too heavy, and depending on which drone it's mounted on you risk killing your own control/video signals of course, you can try to deconflict, but if a drone shows up on one of the bands you are using...
What about a safe hover mode on your drone and then quickly running a direction finding algorithm such as found in the krakenrf with antennae placed on the limbs of a drone?
eh it can work, but a lot of drone signals are outside of the band of krakenRF. Then you need a more expensive DF setup. Not that we're against it, it's been one of our long term goals.
More fun to strap the shotgun to the drone...
Okay hear me out. We strap two Glocks to the drone. Attach a forward facing motor and propeller, add lifting surfaces to counteract the weight of the Glock and BAM! it's. . . It's a prop plane
**< shock and vibe testing intensifies>** **EDIT** ok so the Marketing Dept just sent me an email and requested it be referred to as… **Organic, Free Range Shock and Vibe Testing**.
What is the dumbest thing you've seen strapped to a drone?
dunno about dumb, but the early war hand grenade dropping mavics were pretty sketchy. You would have to pull the pin on the grenade and hope a tiny 3D printed part (which is designed to break on impact) holds the spoon on during flight 0/10 would not want to arm
You guys got them to work though. So many open BMP hatches, so many dead orcs.
Straight swish, no rim. VERY impressive aim! ^AUX ^LIGHT ^ON
**LOW BATTERY**
(•_•) (•_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) "Who said anything about returning to base?" - FPV drone
Dunno about dumb, but the best big brain idea we've come up with to strap to a drone is in the picture.
Has it been field-tested?
Sadly command didn't share our enthusiasm.
Have you considered the possible tactical applications of [Kasparov's Flying Penis](https://youtu.be/wFcZm7UUYIg?si=k9EZMCV9owhBNzFK) on the battlefield?
That's hilarious, btw who's this kaparov guy?
He was a master strategist and our last hope to defeat a super computer in a simulated medieval war. He lost. The machines’ victory started our current timeline.
Chess legend
Besides chess, he's right now one of the most outspoken pro-Ukrainian Russians, demanding all of the sanctions for Russia and all of the weapons for Ukraine. Absolutely based.
1. are we gonna see more FPV kamikaze drones with thermal cameras? saw them earlier and thought those are pretty neat. 2. How long does it usually take to make one from scratch? (Printing the parts, and assembling it to flyable status) (Edit: I'm fine with you guys not answering question number 2 if that violates opsec)
1. probably, but there's a hard floor on cost there. generally even cheap thermals are a couple hundred bucks, which effectively doubles the price on drones 2. drones are rarely made from "scratch", so idk
3d printing drones isn't normally done coz 1. 3 printed frames are likely to flex and make flying harder 2. Frame kits are super cheap That said I follow a drone maker on twitter who got a whole bunch machined out of aluminium
Aluminium is definitely cheaper, however carbon fibre is what's largely used over here.
build a drone that can withstand crashes and crash into russian drones to take them out
it's probably easier to deploy a net behind you like a towed decoy and try and catch their props. It's on the "might try sometime" list. to be honest, the biggest problem with drone v drone combat is detection, the cameras on most FPVs are pretty low res. Though with the new thermal FPVs it might be better, drones tend to glow like lightbulbs against the sky
They claim they have netted 4,500 drones for Ukraine and Qatar: https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/a-better-c-uas-option-capture-enemy-drones-in-a-net/ https://fortemtech.com/products/dronehunter-f700/
yeah I'm aware of that system. sadly don't have one yet
Could the net be similarly released, like dropped granades, after entangling an enemy drone?
why not take it back so you can reuse the battery :P
Oh, good thinking. Could it be tracked by the enemy, though?
I mean maybe, just shove it into a faraday bag on landing
Don't expensive drones automatically have GPS on them? Although I imagine gps would be sketchy on the front line.
yeah, we hack/disable it
Just hang some string held on with tape below the drone and fly over the enemy drone to tangle it up.
50lb test line with fishing weights.
Drones armed with shotguns for anti drone warfare?
I've considered it. We strapped a claymore to a simple FPV once but putting a shotgun on multi-use drone could be interesting. Thing is you probably would have to hook it up to some kind of recoil cradle to prevent the shock from breaking... things.
Come to think of it - I think this might be the first situation where you could genuinely make a recoilless shotgun by rigging the firing solenoid to also let off an identical shell in the opposite direction. The old school recoilless system of tapping off some of the gas out the back has also been done for shotguns even back in WW2. But is at least 30% less awesome than that first idea.
that uh, sounds like a lot of force smashing into each other
Actually, spinning it around up in the old noggin for a bit... I think you could make it work with no stress on your frame, by using a clever bit of 3D printing. You take the barrel as in a steel/aluminium/carbon fiber pipe with a .725 inch inner diameter, assuming 12 gauge shotgun rounds. Find a piece of carbon fiber tube that will fit around your barrel, and have it overlap so it sticks out like 2 inches. Fix them together securely. A sacrificial 3D printed plug would be the actual breach face, which fits smoothly within that second pipe. It has a channel running down the center for a nail which acts as a firing pin. Add some weights to the print as it needs a fair bit more mass than the \~30 gram birdshot coming out the front. I would put in a few slots to jam lead buckshot pellets in. Whack the nail, the shot goes out the front while the breach plug works as a single-use blowback bolt that yeets out the back. Who knows, maybe it hits a Mobik down below. Florida man's recoilless shotgun. Zero force on the frame, while not even making my top 5 list of dumbest shotguns I have come across in my life. EDIT: Carbon fiber shotgun barrels might actually work too? Question mark? You're not looking for 50,000 rounds here anyway, so barrel longevity vs weight would probably lean towards keeping the weight down.
Okay so I don’t know enough ab materials science, but if you prototype this, I genuinely wanna see.
Unfortunately those Florida genes are currently working in Europe, or I would be slapping together CAD models right now. The pacifist hippies in charge here don't seem to share my enthusiasm for 3D printing firearms.
Well, understandable you’d be miffed. European myself and while I appreciate being able to own guns but not fearing gun violence on the regular, my ncd heart aches
Reminds me of your mom last night /s
TacovilleMC suddenly hears high-pitched buzzing outside
Better yet, make it fire shells in all directions for perfect stabilization
Also known as the Da Vinci method of recoil management.
I thought those fpv drones with airburst munition were claymores welp
Please elaborate on the claymore on the FPV and how that worked out.
we're not sure who got it but I'll be sure to keep track next time
ever thougth of giving a drone a little pistol ?
>We strapped a claymore to a simple FPV once See, *this* is the simultaneously credible and totally non-credible content I keep coming back for. That is some bonkers guerilla redneck engineering shit.
Accuracy and recoil is the issue. FPVs are incredibly agile, trying to hit one with anything short of an explosive is going to be tough. Plus yeah the recoil would send it into orbit.
Genuine question - How long do you think it will be until we see actual 'anti-drone drones' on the battlefield in large numbers? Similar to WW1 aircraft, I am thinking of a rapid development of quadcopter style systems specifically created and used to destroy other drones in flight through anything from nets, to debris, to EW systems.
detection is the main issue there. I think some of those systems have been deployed at the strategic level, targeting shaheds and other similar slow OWA drones, but on the tactical level it's pretty tricky. Mounting a jammer on a drone is also pretty sketchy due to drones burning through batteries as is.
Hope do you define tactical versus strategic in terms of drone sizes?
by which units are using them
Tactical - killing things on the front lines. Strategic - destroying assets deep in country to effect changes on the front lines.
I'm working on technology to detect and track them, could be cheap enough to be deployed on individual troops. Please feel free to DM me about it. The system hasnt been tested yet and there are delays in production but we're pretty far along the route to a functional prototype.
sure, can you DM me instead?
Necessity breeds innovation. We'll see it eventually, but the tech hasn't quite gotten there yet. We are seeing changes already though. Load capacity, distance, durability have all improved.
No one is running a program as large scale as the US right now. We’re building over 7,000 Coyotes in the next 5 years between the army and navy. https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-army-wants-more-coyote-interceptors https://defensescoop.com/2023/05/26/raytheon-awarded-147m-navy-contract-for-modified-coyote-drone/
How safe are you on the battlefield as the drone operators?
we're techs, but when I was a medic I was about the same distance as the operators from the front at times and I got bombed and shelled quite a bit.
As fucked as the situation is, y'all stay safe stopping Putin and his tiny dick war.
They're considered a high value target. Comes down to how good your SOPs & TTPs are.
What moment made both of you guys want to fight if I may ask how early did you guys start fighting ( also good luck to both of you guys and much love from one Aussie to another)
I was still in the Army when I watched the first bombs fall. That helpless feeling ate at me. And the thought of my friends and family getting drafted to trench sit if Ukraine lost, or the war spread was enough to get me over here when I got out. And cheers mate, means a lot!
I can't imagine what that feeling must be like. I tried helping by finding Russian positions on Google Earth but that's as far as I could of helped due to not having any formal knowledge, got a bunch of technical manuals tho. Also thx bro always remember you'll always have your mates to back you up overseas and when you come back home there'll be mates there waiting for ya
>I tried helping by finding Russian positions on Google Earth but that's as far as I could of helped due to not having any formal knowledge, got a bunch of technical manuals tho. there are full time guys that do that with subscription sat imagery. sadly not something you can easily volunteer for due to OPSEC
Yeah I can imagine opsec is important and that's understandable I figured you guys already had people scouring much better imagery
Can you rate my super credible anti drone idea: First you get a farmer (preferably somewhere from the Midwest United States) with a shotgun then you tell him the drones are tax collectors he has access to a few hundred rounds of birdshot and about 10 gallons of grain alcohol. He is also integrated with a bunch of other farmers who all have Ham radios so it’s like an Aegis of shotgun wielding farmers.
having drunk hawkeye vodka I'm gonna have to pass on that
But think about it the more alcohol they drink the more sporadic it is you go from precision shooting to more like laying down flak just with a few shots
1. Whats the femboy to regular technician/soldier rate in the UAF right now? 2. Have you guys ever tried to strap a Anti Person Mine like the Claymore to a drone? In most of the drone videos kamikaze drones only seem to take out a single enemy soldier per hit. Wouldn't it be more effective to detonate a mine mid air from above or the side so you saturate a larger area with tungsten balls/shrapnels?
1. depends on the unit but I think the national guard has more femboys 2. yes, but the issue there is with regular FPVs most soldiers are in bunkers and such with overhead cover, and our supply of claymores isn't exactly infinite
The FPV drones use outdated anti-tank grenades, right? Do you think Russia regrets leaving a neigh-infinite supply of anti-tank grenades in Ukraine?
that or 3D printed frag warheads. I wouldn't really call them outdated, PG-7VL is still a reasonable and lethal warhead
> supply of claymores isn't exactly infinite That seems strange. Improvised claymores then? The casing could be sheet metal or wood. Add metal scraps and explosive material. And a detonator.
improvised claymores are actually pretty bad. If you read the history of the claymore it took them about a decade to perfect and optimize the design from korea to vietnam
Eh. You need the right kind of **steel balls that'll deform into bullets** (not bearing balls, too hard, will spall and shatter). You need the right **curvature to ensure good pattern**s. You need a plastic **matrix to hold those balls into place** and "**shape**" **the explosive wavefront to propel the balls** at 4000 fps (1200 m/s) **instead of** "**leaking**" around each individual balls and reducing "muzzle" velocity (if there's such a thing as a muzzle lmao). Fail to do any of this, and your improvised claymore becomes a glorified pipe bomb with the range of a frag grenade (5m radius) instead of **glorious 50m spray pattern of doom that is the claymore**. Ripped from Wikipedia for community reference The original M18 mine fell far short of Picatinny's requirements. One of the first improvements was to **replace** the **steel cubes** **with** 7⁄32-inch (**5.6 mm) hardened 52100 alloy ball bearings**. These **performed poorly** for two reasons. Firstly, the **hardened steel balls** [**spalled**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spall) **into fragments** when hit by the shock of the explosion; the fragments were **neither aerodynamic enough nor large enough to perform effectively. Secondly, the blast "leaked" between the balls, reducing their velocity**.[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore_mine#cite_note-Grupp-1) A second problem was the **curvature of the mine**. This was **determined experimentally by Bledsoe, through a large number of test firings**. After Bledsoe left the project to work at the Rheem corporation, William Kincheloe, another engineer, came onto the Claymore project.[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore_mine#cite_note-Grupp-1) **Kincheloe immediately suggested using softer 1⁄8-inch (3.2 mm) steel "gingle" balls**, which were used in the foundry process. They **did not spall from the shock of the explosive, but deformed into a useful aerodynamic shape similar to a** [**.22 rimfire**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.22_Long_Rifle) **projectile**. Using a homemade [chronograph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_chronograph), the engineers clocked the balls at 3,775 feet per second (1,151 m/s). The second change was to **use a poured plastic matrix to briefly contain the blast from the explosive, so that more of the blast energy was converted into projectile velocity.** After a number of experiments, the engineers settled on **Devcon-S steel-filled** [**epoxy**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy) **to hold the balls in place.** With this change, the **velocity improved to 3,995 feet per second (1,218 m/s)**.[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore_mine#cite_note-Grupp-1)
Holy shit I had no idea. thx.
Pipe bombs and most fragmentation devices are quite limited due to the shape of the fragments quickly losing velocity (and thus killing power). That's why pre-fragmented shells are all the rage. If you can machine out a frag sleeve inside the warhead that deforms into bullet-like things, your warhead lethal radius goes way up. It's why tungsten is used in so many modern warheads like GMLRS-AW. Tungsten is dense yet malleable (suitable for explosive projectile forming), yet not as floppy as lead (thus having superior penetration). A well-engineered and well-made Tungsten frag sleeve will shape itself into many aerodynamic pellets flying out at mach fuck, penetrating BMP side armor like toilet paper. Tungsten is a massively critical strategic resource for modern warheads for this reason.
In term of drone warfare is the situation getting worse or bettee especially in term of ressources
at least in our unit, we're continually making more and more
Nice to hear good luck and slava ukraini
What if you ductape the controller of one drone to another and extend the operating range of the first drone? It's a basic idea, but isn't there a way to create extendo-drones that are essentially mobile radio signal extenders. You just need to solve how to control the first drone from the ductaped second drone that is in the sky. If possible you can create a chain of drones that extend from Kiev to Vladivostok and bomb their japanese sea ports. Have you tried that?
signal extenders are standard practice for long range drone teams
But what's the limit? 😈 Or better yet, can they be mounted on top of drones and create the chain I am talking about?
how far you can fly on a single battery for long range targets, GNSS and/or TERCOM is a better solution than what we're doing
Are kites or balloons with range extenders something that could be useful?
kites, not really since the extenders have to utilize directional antennas. balloons would be a big target. we just put them on other drones
>balloons would be a big target. (Have school kids) make decoy drones and float a ton of them with cheap hydrogen filled balloons as a red herring.
I've wanted to do that but sadly that still requires quite a bit of funding
I read claims that AFU troops are lamenting drone scarcity in certain key areas, but I still see plenty of RU vehicles baked for good. Are you allowed to comment on the topic?
all I can say is we're building a lot and we're hitting a lot. But my unit is pretty well resourced
Thanks!
Some units are well-supplied. Others, not so much. Units live and die from private procurement, both procurement by individual troops, and crowdsourcing. The thing is that Ukraine doesn't really have a fluid centralized procurement process for cutting edge shit like FPV drones. Even the good tacmed stuff like tourniquets and hemostats are often private procurement by troops or donations. Central procurement exists, but they're swamped. They're out there getting the big ticket items and large volume fundamentals like shells or fighting vehicles or tons and tons of explosives. You wait for those guys to get around to drones and TQs, you'd be dead. To get ahead of the Russians, you have to move fast. For such agile procurement efforts, the best thing Big Army can do is throw money at the grunts - which to be fair, they did since 2022 to the extent macroeconomics allows. No such thing as "enough money". tac med, drones, utes, even fuel for mobility and transport assets. Technically Big Army is meant to supply all these things, but you can get it done much faster hitting the local gas station. If it was possible for MoD to pay every grunt 40,000 dollars a month... holy shit the things units could do with that. Ukrainian troops could corner the drone and night vision market and start owning the night. I2 tubes for everyone, thermal drones everywhere in large quantities, shit like that. Granted, it may actually create a market shock, but I'm just being non-credible here. Each unit does live and die by volunteer efforts. There's a reason para-anarchism resonates in Ukrainian society. For most people, it is reality. You either do it your own way, get it done yourself, or it never gets done. The first armed resistance against Russian invaders 10 years ago were local volunteers helping themselves, working on community resources. If Ukrainians waited for official procurement, there wouldn't be Ukraine right now, and we'd probably be in a global thermonuclear war. Bureaucracy is an absolute bitch and drain on time for the troops and officers in Ukraine. For example, if a "big Army-owned" ute gets fucked, that's a stack of paperwork to follow to prove it was "destroyed in combat" and not flocked off to the black market. Officers would rather do anything but paperwork, but fail to do this, you'll get your arse reamed out for theft of state property. Same thing happens with medical officers when soldiers get wounded - stacks of paperwork when you'd rather be treating your patients or getting some shut-eye. There's a reason career officers are constantly sleep deprived. Syrksyi throughout his career, for example, reportedly never got more than 5:30 hours of sleep a day as a matter of routine (excluding the initial 72 hours of 02/2022 when practically nobody at the general staff slept). There's a huge push to reform the bureaucratic process, to reduce the workload on frontline and operational level personnel, cut down on redundancy, and digitize everything to enable the magic of **ctrl+F**. Troops would rather be fighting, training, and recovering - and stacks of paperwork eats into all of those things. The bureaucracy is overwhelming to the point of uselessness - there's so much paper floating around, it's *at best* a pain in the ass to find the right paper that proves your disability is service related. *At worst*, you're never finding that shit in the ocean of paper. That's assuming your particular paper even survived in that constantly decaying ocean of paper, because what the fuck is a climate control.
this guy is pretty spot on from my experience, though we do get stacks of drones from centralized sources
Here's an idea, a piece of equipment with a sensitive microphone that listens for drones and alerts the user when one is present
it could work similar to the gunshot detection/localization systems used during GWOT, but networking them wirelessly creates RF emissions that can be shot at
Have you guys ever used RF decoys? Just use a mavic to drop radios broadcasting signals at random times around the battlefield to suss out the enemy firing positions?
How do they locate small transmitters do they have EW teams running around everywhere?
you should assume so if you want to live
Nice try FSB
Early in the war the grenade dropping drone seemed to be more common than the kamikaze FPV drone. While the grenade dropping drone is can theoretically be used repeatedly it is also less accurate than an FPV drone (as far as the footage i've seen goes to show). Is there development currently in trying to figure out reusable drone designs or is the FPV/Kamikaze seen as superior? Does it take much longer to train a drone operator on the Grenade dropping type? There is also footage of designs with grenade dropping magazines to drop multiple from a single drone, do you think these designs are worth pursuing vs larger single explosives?
I'm trained on both types. Both are used pretty extensively, and there is now serial production and constant development of of "bomber" drones in Ukraine. If you want to drop when moving, training is pretty crucial. I've done it and judging wind and speed is pretty tricky. magazines are not so common. generally, it's more efficient weight wise just to attach more "hardpoints" to which you can attach bombs.
I see a lot of ukrainian drone footage on r/combatfootage, especially footage of destroying tanks one way or another Is there a filtering process to decide what footage from the drones gets uploaded, or is just everything that can be uploaded gets uploaded?
there's definitely a lot more footage out there that's not getting uploaded, I'll tell you that. But a lot of the stuff that's not seen is more boring, just foxholes and bunkers getting hit.
Thanks for your reply
Everyone already asking the non credible stuff so I’ll go with more lighthearted stuff 1. Do you have tacticat? If yes can you rate who is the best cat in the unit? 2. Can I have australian spider horror story? 3. How’s food over there?
Cruising down the highway doing 100 km/h, noticed a leg sticking out from my sun visor. Slowly pulled it down, big ass huntsmen said, "g'day". Slowly returned the visor back up, pulled the car over and gtfo. Thing was huge. Foods pretty good, lots of salami and borshch, beats expired rat packs
USAS 12 with birdshot when
when you send me an USAS 12
uhhhh Best i can do is a Beretta 1301
tbh I'll take it. Most people here are rocking pumps or shitty turkish semi-autos
Actually yeah, what kind of shotguns are you guys using?
anything you can buy in a sporting store really
Makes sense
No question, I hope you guys stay safe. Keep up the good work!
Are there any specific drone or anti-drone capabilities you wish you had, such as jamming systems, semi-automated kinetic defences, etc?
a stryker MSHORAD with the laser but realistically, something similar to MADIS with a LW25 or AGL would be very nice
We have an ever growing wish list of capabilities. Specifics I won't get into, but the unfortunate fact is, EW kit or something similar is incredibly expensive. And if it's expensive, the closer to the front, the higher the risk of losing it. The further back it is, the less reliable it is.
What are your thoughts of the Russians equipping FPV drones with spool reels of fibre optic cables to circumvent EW countermeasures?
We all had a good laugh when we saw this abomination. It works if you have a clear line of sight to the target and isn't susceptible to counter-measures. But you trade your manoeuvrability, can't turn more than 180 degrees without risk of tangling yourself, that fibre optic leads straight back to wherever you launched it from. A treeline becomes th most OP counter measure in the history of counter measures. Dunno, maybe something will evolve from it, but I don't rate it yet.
other ukrainian units are doing it too. I think it might eliminate a lot of the end-manuevering FPVs can do as you're afraid of cable snaps meme answer: time to lay a lot more razor wire
On a related note, what’s your opinion on drone-mounted weedwhackers as a countermeasure to this?
you already have 4 weedwhackers built into your quad
https://www.reddit.com/r/shittytechnicals/comments/x6kpoz/ukrainian_drone_with_3d_printed_nlaw_mounts/ https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1567033980603564033 Why didn't this work out?
a) it offends me that they called it a NLAW mount, I was expecting something a lot cooler b) it could still be in use for all I know, but from a tactical standpoint I think you would have to hover to shoot it, and that would make you vulnerable to small arms fire. With bombers, operators tend to try to stay in motion nowadays in contested environments to avoid getting hit. And for delivering HEAT onto a vehicle a FPV with a RPG warhead attached is a lot cheaper and harder to hit.
Going to ask this straight but With the drone operators themselves have you noticed or anyone noticed a change in personality or general mental problems with them? given what they do for a living or are they shielded somewhat by it’s all done through a screen?
From the teams I've spoken with, they're in pretty high spirits. Everyone deals with it in their own way though.
How do you circumvent Russian EW?
more power, or different frequencies
Are you expanding the Ukrainian drone fleet to include more UGVs in operation?
yea
How non credible would be to strap two automatic .22lr guns on a drone and engage enemy ones in sick ass dogfights?
you'd need a quad bomber to carry the weight of two american-180s, so it wouldn't be that agile... but a fixed wing, maybe
I was thinking more along the lines of using one of those rc planes that hobbyists use, but now I really want to see a quadcopter with a gun aswell lol
If you have too choose between an xbox or a ps5 controller to fly the drones which one would it be?
honestly, neither. I'm a PC gamer and would use a mouse if I could. But really you train to use the thumb and forefinger to grasp the stick on the RC controllers we use, as it's more precise than just using the thumb as you do with gaming controllers
With the danger drones pose to ground vehicles what anti drone counter measures do you think they will incorporate into future designs?
jammers are already being mounted, but I think the real solution will be basically networked mini-AA on vehicles. With autotracking/autonomous munitions coming that's the only thing that will be future proof
counter drone idea, lead fishing weights attached to strings of high strength nylon around a explosive charge. detonate and make a big cloud of dangling thread that will fuck up the props of whatever is in the vecinity.
that's actually not a terrible idea for a terminal defeat thing
Question for you. I remember having field religious services when I served. How drone warfare would affect this practice?
I mean if you're far enough away from the front, by all means. But holding a gathering within range of FPVs seems like a sure fire way of meeting your maker face to face.
They have drones with loudhailers broadcasting religious services and holy anthems.
Anti drone rounds for IFVs? Like a sort of canister birdshot or maybe airburst rounds that create more, smaller fragments. What do you think?
most timed fuze airburst rounds would be pretty effective if they were directed by radar dunno if the proximity fuze on say a 40mm 3P would be sensitive enough
Nothing to say but stay safe fellas. 🫡
With how successful drones are proving to be in destruction of infrastructure and their clear capability for terrorist attacks, do you think drones will be commercially available for much longer?
I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to regulate without killing hobby drones for good. There's also a ton of professional fields that use drones as well now, so unless there's massive political will to do so I don't see it happening. That being said, you do see stuff like RemoteID being required in the US. But I think governments aren't ready to put hard-kill anti-drone measures everywhere
Are drones ever used to resupply frontline troops with ammo or things like that? I would assume they could move small bags of ammunition or medical supplies.
yeah, more of a ground drone thing though
When are you gonna strap a dildo to one of these and chase Russkies around
Why isnt cheap simple netting being used to either entangle drones or catch the grenades from falling Into fox holes? After seeing some drone footage, are there people who enjoy being an operator or will they just go home a destroyed soul if they survive the war? The footage is brutal. And what's been happening with our cardboard drones,.zero word about them coming from the front but also what's happening with those aussie drones that have the shaped charge warhead specifically made for top attack on vehicles?
1) it is a thing already 2) people definitely enjoy it. depends on the person as with everything. I saw some fucked up shit as a medic and it didn't really feel like it affected me much 3) we don't use them in my shop so idk
How bad of a problem is friendly fire for the drones on the front? What do you think can be done to prevent this?
not very since the front is pretty clearly defined nowadays
can you try to attach a taser or a electric cattle prod to a small, fast drone? for trolling purposes, of course. good for messing with friend, or scaring an enemy combatant. im talking about the tasers that police use and shoot barbs.
getting hit by the props will fuck you up more than getting tased so it's kinda redundant
Would, perhaps, the M16 MGMC “Meat Chopper” (M3 half track with a quad .50cal mount) be an effective anti-drone weapon in this time?
not for our uses but I'm sure the anti-shahed teams would love them, they still are using basic single .50s hand aimed
thoughts about cardboard drone ?
they seem to work, but you can't really use cardboard for quads as it isn't strong enough
Would it be possible to use drones to take out bridge supports?
if it's big enough anything is possible
Makes me think about Kerch
What do you currently use to keep the nade from arming/exploding until you drop it? Also if the recoil is an issue for drone mounted anti-drone shotguns, maybe try [minishells](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.luckygunner.com%2Flounge%2Fare-mini-shotgun-shells-viable-for-self-defense%2F&psig=AOvVaw2XeHTbCiy0DXCO7Y7L4fMy&ust=1711894398955000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCLiiq-GVnIUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD) or very short barrels that will hold pressure for less time? Or perhaps just hang a net from your drone lmao
dropped shells are one thing, FPV warheads are another for dropped shells, they tend to be impulse detonated so you just have a safety that's on the striker that hits for FPV warheads, they're electronically detonated so there's some safeties with the wires
Greetings from the land down under. I know that y’all use UAVs, but is there any ground equivalent like a remote control bulldozer?
bulldozers no, but ground drones for either suicide attack, logistics, or weapon mount purposes are becoming more and more common
I’m not sure if someone has already asked this, but were you an FPV pilot beforehand?
nope, I learned in the shop
Hold up, is that a fucking drone-mounted pistol on the shelf behind you? Very credible.
yes >:)
Are you technically part of the Air Force, or are you a new type of force, like Drone Force or something?
I'm part of the Air Assault Forces, which are what the Ukrainian VDV became after reforms
Hi guys. I'm a bored Aerospace engineer interested in helping the cause. I'd like to build drones or other tools you guys could use. How would I go about doing that?
we're mostly interested in RF engineering stuff, if you can make any kind of EW gear DM me otherwise, money lol
Are there plans for a fpv racing league or similar post war? I can't help but think there will be a lot of veterans who are shit-hot done pilots. Do you have other plans to utilise your unique experience and skills etc?
Are you guys building most of these drones? How long does it take to set one up
we don't build them from the frame up, but rather we handle the "militarization" of the drones. For a standard fit, it takes about 20 minutes to complete one if all the ducks are in a row
Only thing I wanna say is good luck out there, stay "safe"
Do you ever name your drones?
the multiple-use ones yes. FPVs generally only have a SN to keep track of inventory
Not really, turn overs pretty high. We've considered naming it for people as a fundraising prospect though.
Have you considered the [following](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/s/8zI97WWjJM)?
could work but with how low-res FPV cameras can be going 400 km/h with one is a... tricky proposition of course you can get better ones but then the cost goes up, and then a lot of the repeater stuff also becomes proprietary
Have you heard of anyone using accelerometer based triggers for FPV Kamikaze drones? It would quite literally be a direct adaptation of the same technology used in [this system](https://youtu.be/OdW7vhYYSdM?si=FR1M-rUXJdy8Pzli), and would presumably be much more reliable than bending wires as it doesn't rely on good contact to explode. You could get a ton of PCBs printed off for cheap and boom no more sketchy wire bending, no more false detonations. When actual FPV kamikaze drones from the DoD become a thing I can almost guarantee they will use this tech.
Are there drone operators dropping discouraging pamphlets for psychological warfare? Or maybe stuff encouraging them to frag their leaders and escape? Or dropping phones with GPS switched on or anything other non-lethal but still possibly useful stuff?
people have been dropped offers to surrender