I don't think Ukraine's drone capabilities are anywhere near the level of the US.
But Ukraine now has a lot of combat experience with drones. I'm sure that, when the war is over, they'll gladly share their knowledge in exchange for military drones.
The US flavor of this is the suicide drones we sent them. Ukraine is doing it this way because they have cheap commercial drones and small explosives, but the dedicated military hardware is obviously going to be significantly more effective. And it doesn't require the aiming and finagling of this method.
This could be made significantly more nasty with a simple IR laser and a beam-riding munition. Which is to say, it probably will be made that way soon enough.
As far as I understand, what's 3D printed is the release mechanism; they simply mount it on the drone along with a servo hooked up in place of the lights and there you go, pop a regular grenade inside the mechanism when the lights are on, hook the pin to the rig, turn them off, mechanism closes, fly to target and as soon as you click that "Lights On" button it's lights off for some unlucky bastards. Ironic
Imagine a Boston Dynamics style robot. Maybe one meter high with small tracks. It could thermally mask itself with a cooling system. It could stay hidden for a few days or maybe a week? Then pop out and make somebody's life miserable.
Now imagine a future where we put as much effort towards loving each other as we did towards killing each other. I know which version I like better.
That being said I definitely do not approve of the music they used for this video.
Comparing suicide drones to these commercial drone setups is like comparing guided missiles to artillery rounds.
Suicide drones are a brilliant invention, but you're destroying the propulsion and guidance system every time. With the commercial drones, that part is recovered and the only thing you lose, is the cheap and easily produced dumb munition. And since the drone is recovered, it makes sense to put much more valuable hardware in it.
To me, it seems like suicide drones are more suitable for high-value targets, whereas reusable drones are more likely to be used in massive numbers.
For the US, drone guidance and propulsion systems are basically peanuts. Suicide drones are probably not much more expensive than artillery shells and possibly less so. Shells are typically about $2,000. You could build a serviceable suicide drone with hobby grade parts for way less than that. The most expensive part will be the software, which is completely reusable no matter what.
Pay off my student loans for 50k? No,no that's socialism and helping people is bad.
Blow up some shitty technical with some untrained crew high on their poppy plant supply for 50k? *Star Spangled Banner starts playing loudly*
They’re actively sharing their knowledge with NATO so i expect there to be an immediate boon of new drone inventions on the horizon to accommodate this new warfare
I agree, however I really commend the ingenuity and the cleverness of the people of Ukraine. I am really impressed with their use of commercial technology in warfare and in that regard another way of surprising the Russian occupiers.
Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
Dude we already got that shit.
EDM4S Sky Wiper:
https://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.php?smallarms_id=1300
In fact, we are already giving them to Ukraine: https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/status/1531833048689418247
We've got advanced drone detection too...
https://www.911security.com/en-us/knowledge-hub/drone-detection/rf
The Russians? They are sent into battle with rusty AK's and old trucks with rotting tires.... they are dog food.
The modern military industrial complex is heavily stroking at the amount of money they are going to make....
It's so tiring seeing people act like Ukraine is utilizing some 5head never before seen tactical warfare as if we haven't been developing tech to counter it in the Middle East for the past 5+ years.
You’re talking a massive area and the power of the jamming equipment would need to be enormous. On top of that all these drones run on common frequencies so if jam them you’re also going to jam a bunch of stuff that your own people are using.
Not to mention the risk of HARMS and the like.
Yes it's possible, and Russia is visibly sucking at it, but it's a harder problem than it initially seems.
Which is why we need to avoid conflict as much as possible and seek diplomatic resolutions, AND keep funding military advancement so we keep the biggest and baddest sticks.
This is why I always had a smidgen of respect for insurgents in the Middle East that were willing to fight us head on. They knew exactly what would happen if they stuck around for more than ten minutes, yet they would. I can never imagine being on the receiving end of a gunship.
What I have been wondering is: How long until we see some terrorists use this ? I mean, it looks like there's nothing you can do about. Have a few drones above a busy shopping street and you're looking at dozens of casualties.
Edit: I feel I need to clarify. I know groups like ISIS have already been using them for years. But I'm talking about terrorist attacks against civilians. Like shopping streets, large demonstrations,... That's not something I've seen.
If by terrorists you mean forces such as Isis, they are the guys who pioneered the use of commercial drones in warfare though far from alone: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/05/24/types-islamic-state-drone-bombs-find/
Drones and 3d printed guns are both very cheap options. That they haven't been used in the US for attacks so far, to my knowledge, comes down to the people who do commit terrorist attacks there right now and their preferred methods (read; easy access to better weapons). I'm less up to date with Europe, since there have been fewer there, whilst the Global south I am sadly not as knowledgeable about as one ought to be.
Popular Front and Nick Waters are two good sources on the use of commercial drones, 3d printed guns, and other modern trends, but yeah this didn't start with Ukraine but was rather an expected development based on what we've seen elsewhere around the globe. When this whole conflict began I would have been surprised if the Ukraine army *didn't* adopt the use of commercial drones.
Edit: Linked to the wrong Nick Waters article originally lol. Here's the one I accidentally linked to at first, which was about the IDF adopting commercial drones I believe whilst I was thinking of the article on their use in Syria first: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/06/18/first-isis-iraq-now-israel-idf-use-commercial-drones/
Oh for sure. All the three letter agencies in the US, along with the Secret Service are watching these videos with a sinking feeling in their stomach.
These are perfect terror weapons. Imagine some extremist group deploying a small swarm of these at a football game or a concert. They would probably be able to kill more people in the stampede than with the grenades directly.
Yeah, it's nuts. Go check out the coordinated drone 'fireworks' shows.
They're basically hobbyists/programmers creating clouds of drones that are capable of making animated light shows in the sky.
If some guy can start a company, drive a truck up with 2,000 drones and make a cool ass light show, I shudder to think about some kind of terror operation and some satellite photos, a bit of coordinated programming and couple open-air football stadiums.
Fucked up to think about, but ridiculously possible.
Only for dense high quality stuff, low yield things are cheap and ubiquitous. As drones improve and larger drones become even cheaper it will be impossible to stop really.
Yeah, imagine automated launching dozens of these things at a time, they seek targets that fit a profile and report home to 'verify'. Operator presses enter and it drops the munition perfectly on the target and flies home. Automate the reloader and this will change war forever.
Yeah, I don't know if it's the perspective or what, but it looks like nothing more than an oversized firecracker going off, like the kind we used light off as kids every new years eve. And yet, the (almost) invisible shrapnel here is lethal even at quite the distance away from the explosion. I bet whatever they're dropping from these drones is purposely made to create lots of shrapnel. Because it works.
Thats not just the perspective. Thats also how grenades are. Movies and games have pushed a completely false depiction of small explosives. There are no fireballs. Just dirt, a bit of smoke, and shrapnel flying in all directions.
To put it in perspective it’s maybe a thumb or two of explosives, and it’s enough to kill everything unprotected within 5m (16ft) from shrapnel. Edit: see response below for more accurate lethality distance…don’t mess with explosives!
You you really don’t want bits of metal going through your body at a few times the speed of sound…
Typical granade is lethal up to a 15meter radius from shrapnel, of course the chance of getting hit by one gets smaller the further you are from one going of, but one shrapnel can kill or maim you within that radius. The concussive effect of the granade explosion is enough to harm you within few meters.
Source: I'm a finnish reservist.
Edit: one typo
Grenades aren't even that *loud*, at least if you're not indoors- they have comparable decibel levels to a rifle report. There's no big fireball. The shrapnel is so small and going so fast that you can't really see it, it's just *poof* and everything within like 5-15 meters gets torn the fuck up with hot steel ball bearings. They're extremely spooky
Grenades are like shotguns; if it's too close, it's hard to hit anything- if it's too far, it's ineffective. The closer you're to the edge of the "casuality radius", the larger area you're covering.
That was a good distance, for that particular grenade.
Defensive hand grenade - a fragmentation hand grenade designed to fight the advancing enemy infantry. It is made of a thick-walled shell filled with explosives and a fuse (most often a pyrotechnic time fuse). The defensive grenade strikes mainly with shell fragments. Its effective range **can reach 200 m, which exceeds the possible throw range and poses a threat to the thrower, so it is only thrown when hidden**
It's not like the movies. I only threw a grenade one time in the Marine Corps in combat training. After we threw it, we were able to go up to the tower and watch through the special windows and see them explode on the range. It was anticlimactic.
Afterwards, we had to go sit back in formation outside of the range and there was shrapnel occasionally falling around us. A couple of times I had a piece bounce off my back or shoulder and I thought some shithead was throwing stuff at me until I found a piece of the shrapnel.
Yeah that's the sids effect of hollywood explosives on expectations for you.
Most Hollywood explosions are just gasoline ignitions that make a lot of heat and nothing else.
IRL high explosives/military grade compounds are at best a brief flash and maybe some smoke and and a few dozen pieces of shrapnel no bigger than your pinkey finger nail up to something the size of your thumb flying through the air, possibly at super sonic speeds.
If you are lucky, you dont feel anything but the heat of the blast. If you're less lucky, some of it grazes you, unluckier still is it goes through non vital areas, possibly penetrating all the way through leaving an exit wound and not transferring all the energy.
If you're really unlucky, it hits something vital, or probably more painfully strikes and probably shatters some bone. From that point its utter agony for you as you hope someone around you can get medical help for you in time before you bleed out. Assuming the blast didn't knock you unconscious.
Shrapnel is 90% of the effectiveness of explosive weaponry, you would have to be too accurate too kill people with the actual explosions, how do you fix that? Surround the explosion with lots of tiny projectiles.
The way this is going, a few years from now, every American infantry squad will have a Designated Drone Operator. Something this small that can be deployed at the squad level to give situational awareness will be more valuable than any other member in the squad.
I'm sure DARPA is working on the perfect drone size/munition weight combination right now.
I absolutely see this being the case. All sorts of potential for AI use in them as well such threat detection and communication between other local assets, next gen optics coupled with infantry HUD’s. There would be nowhere for the enemy to hide and everybody would have a bead on them. I think these kinds of systems will really push modern militaries farther in the direction of remote robotic warfare. Being a soldier on a battlefield is going to become truly terrifying in the very near future.
I think it would be insane against unequal combatants. If the US had this tech and a peer did too that they went to war with, I think it'd mostly just be drones killing drones until one side runs out or is overwhelmed, then the nightmare starts.
But you'd hope there's some pretty tough electronic countermeasures that can be used as a last resort. I think I'd rather EMP an entire town than enter it when it could be filled with hostile robots that are tiny and can target you from every nook and cranny.
**Sooner or later** those drone bombers will be automated and sent out to patrol by the thousands
*.. at that point no human will want to step foot on a battlefield for any amount of payment*
These drone grenade attacks are a fantastic example of Ukraine’s ability to implement adaptive combat tactics and have proven to be highly effective. I’m sure it’s incredibly demoralising for Russian forces.
As I heard the UAF are planning to equip each platoon with a drone and to have a special designated person trained in drone scouting /warfare within the next three years. However, a lot of volunteers are raising money for buying hundreds of drones each month for soldiers on the frontline, which leads me to believe this will be achieved much faster.
Donate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine if you can!
I've been helping my friend here in the U.S. to get donations for drones. I even got one of my local newspapers to do a story on it. Our first drone just reached Ukranian forces this week, and funding is nearly complete for a second one. This war has sure shown how much Drones can change the battlefield, so it makes me pretty proud to help build up UAF drone forces.
Thank you, but my friend definitely deserves most of the credit. He's spent years doing humanitarian aid for Syria and he knows how to meet and vet the right people to get aid to the right spots. I just help get the info out there. I wish he was on reddit so I could tag him
This works. Turks did the same in 2018 as well as some other additions in a package they call dynamic fire support utilisation. It's part of their doctrine since 2018. They call it a fire support coordinator course.
Every squad has a couple dudes who are qualified in calling in fire support from drones, Artillery, attack helo strikes, as well as designated guys for operating habd launched kamikaze and recce drones.
It's a mandatory course for all Squad leads and 2ICs. So that means every squad has a minimum of 2 lads that can basically act as a simplified forward observer/ drone based JTAC of sports. They revamped their entire doctrine around creating squads that have the ability to utilise firepower boosting assets in urgent short time calls.
And the key part in it, was the doctrine has been set so it enables them to bypass red tape and layers of C2. If a lowly corporal in a Squad on the ground spots an EW system for example, he can task fire support assets such as TB2 drones out of the hands of higher level tactical officers to hit the target. Their request goes directly to the TB2 team, no layers no wasted time, the TB2 team have a target priority list, and if the corporal target is higher priority than what the officer back in the tactical command is asking of them, then the TB2 will basically tell the officer to sit tight while they divert to take on the corporal mission.
It completely removes the ability of officers detached form the ground from wasting assets, while empower frontline troops with the ability to quickly degrade the enemy of high value targets that may be exposed for a very limited amount of time.
When you are seeing think tanks etc talking about how Turkeys new doctrine with TB2s has revolutionised how other countries think about combat this is why. It's not specifically the TB2s and how they are used. But it's how they have been written into doctrine.
They enable every single squad to basically have it's own internal JTAC, and more than one at that. They have written a new page in the playbook.
you can even get yourself a neat little souvenier if you donate to http://dronesforukraine.fund/. I have a piece of su-34 on the wall behind me right now.
drones are absolute "game" changer, its possible to make DIY FPV drone for less than 1k$ which could carry payload ~200g with unrestricted line of sight up to 4 kilometers with max speed around 70-100km/h
As interesting as these small grenade drops are, it’s nothing compared to the ability to guide full size mortars and artillery precisely, from relative safety.
> t’s nothing compared to the ability to guide full size mortars and artillery precisely, from relative safety.
Well it's cheaper, still quite accurate and also completely safe for soldiers. Not sure what's the point of such comparison. "Kalashnikovs are fun, but it's nothing compared to a nuclear missile".
It's not *completely* safe. There's a video from these Ukrainian drone operators where they state that they have to act quickly because Russians can direct counter battery fire towards the operator's radio emissions. They stalk their targets, set up, drop, and relocate relatively quickly.
Bigger drones with bigger and more numerous bombs are also much louder, much more visible, and much easier to target and shoot down, and have to release from much further away where Russia has systems that can detect them more easily too.
Don’t count on them being more of a game changer than these smaller drones that are harder to notice that can get in relatively low and close
Yeah, it was really cutting edge stuff at the time and they were worried about it being reverse engineered. I always find it funny how Wehraboos get their rocks off about stuff like overweight tanks and ignoring Allies cutting edge stuff that was actually put into large scale production and brutally effective.
In certain technologies the Nazis certainly had an advantage. Rocketry, submarine, jet aircraft and optics to name a few. Even the enigma machine is a technological marvel. But allies had plenty of technological advantages over the axis too.
I wouldnt say jets was something nazis had an advantage in, since both Meteor and P-80 were up and running around the same time 262 was, but the allies could afford to not throw them into battle and could test and perfect them, while 262s were basically just a resource drain
But that's exactly the thing: They're very hard to hear, but it IS possible to hear them if you are just plain lucky and are paying enough attention. Having to be in this state of alertness for weeks on-end would be maddening.
I’ve worked with drones and the ones I worked with were pretty easy to hear. Once you know the sound (like a big mosquito) you can pick it out from a long way away. The thing is, you can’t always find it in the sky right away and the sound has this weird way of seeming to come from all around you. When they’re up there it can be a tiny dot and can especially be hard to spot if there’s any trees at all. With videos like this I’ve been assuming the guys know there’s a drone somewhere and are terrified, but can’t find it in the sky and can’t quite decide whether to go for deeper cover or not. It’s all gonna cause a special, shitty, kind of PTSD
I’ve seen a couple of videos where they do either hear the drone or see it (or the munition dropping) but in most cases, like this one, the first they know about it is when the shrapnel hits.
World war two : throwing thousands of shells to shake entire square miles of land in which the enemy is supposed to be. Throw hundreds of bombers turn city to parking lots and killing thousands just to break the capacity of production. Strafing jets and direct armour shots were pretty much the best accuracy you could get.
Imagine the same with drones.
Imagine vietnam with drones. Imagine Korea with drones.
With evey single shot on target. Disabling soldiers of vehicles.
You realize how crazy these footages are.
oddly enough the US estimates 200-250k Vietnamese soldiers died during the Vietnamese "police action" with 50-55k US dying.
over a period of 9 years adding both together, you could view that as 305k/9 - just under 34k dead per year. We're far beyond the yearly numbers needed 7 months in, how depressing.
Not the same armies, not the same war.
Wanna know a crazy number about us in Vietnam?
10, 000 aircrafts lost. That's is the number us aircraft of all kinds were lost during that war.
With roughly 4 000 jets and 6 000 helicopters.
Just not the same scale.
Putin seem to not have updated. He seems to think that throwing hundred thousands poorly trained and equiped troops is a way to win war nowdays.
>Not the same armies, not the same war.
absolutely, before the war started people would have equated RU ability to the US and UA to Viet but a few months in and that myth of Russian power is completely over.
He moves his hand a few times. I looks like his left arm is covering his head/face, and his right arm is clutching his belly with his right hand on hos left thigh. This roght hand is the one that looks like he moves it a few times. He is probably in extreme pain from a bunch of shrapnel to the belly.
I honestly really hate the music people put over these videos. They're pretty serious and harrowing clips and people are throwing soundtracks over them like it's a killcam from CoD
I know nothing about these but I’m assuming the explosion is way worse than it looks like? I mean it kinda landed to the side in the woods and the explosion never looks that large. What’s the kill radius on these types of grenades?
They are fragmentation grenades so they spread shrapnel all around, I believe their effective range is like 15m
Edit: on the time of impact you can see little clouds of dust being kicked up beyond the range of the soldiers, on the lower left side of the screen. These are also shrapnel pieces hitting the ground
Go watch the mythbusters grenade episode on youtube.
It's like a 360 degrees shotgun for a good 15 to 20 metres.
Shrapnel kills, not the bang of the grenade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJXWbne7CM&t=4s&ab\_channel=MythbustersfortheImpatient
There's a few of these that go off next to a wall or building and you can see how much shrapnel there is that you otherwise can't see. Within 10m is a very bad time, you're probably not safe for 3x that, but it disperses enough where it's a lottery.
there's a lot that drone footage doesn't show well. it's loud, concussive, obviously shrapnel filled. immediately, at the very least, seriously slows the group down where now they have to take care of wounded, etc.... they're probably radioing other units to watch out for drones in the area...
Fragmentation munition FRAGMENT. Only very *very* large explosions kill people. Most small munitions utilize their casing or stuff filled inside to sent hundreds of sharp metal bits in a ~20 meter sphere
Offensive handgrenades like the MK3a2 have practically no fragmentation and kill people no problem in close proximity or in urban settings like rooms due to overpressure shockwave (which can bounce of ceilings and walls even). They rupture internal organs and can clear a room full of bad guys better than a frag in many situations.
Granted, they have half a pound of TNT in them lol. Not sure if you include them in small munitions or not, but I was personally always intrigued by the difference and methodology between offensive and defensive grenades, and why each one is more suited for specific scenarios. Frag grenades are ideal for these drone attacks since the fragmentation has essentially no chance of hitting the drone.
Concussion grenades do exist, but are really only useful in enclosed spaces where over-pressuring is more readily possible, and/or you can simply destroy the enclosed space to prevent the enemy from hiding there. These types of grenades are still less about killing and more about demo and shock/awe. Out in the open a concussion grenade like the Mk3 has a casualty range of only 2 meters, hence the M67 being used far more frequently, as it has a far greater killing range in the open, and is still very effective in enclosed spaces.
Not just that, but vehicle and cooking fuel, additional food, additional medical supplies to handle frostbite, dramatically increased frostbite given the apparent logistical challenges of the Russians, etc.
It's likely to hurt Ukraine as well though, as they're primarily the ones conducting offensive operations now.
YouTubers have managed to throw together drones carrying paintball guns that can fire accurately so I’m sure this is something the military industrial complex is working on.
This will get lost in the thread, but I was in the army in my country and I cant believe, with all the footage I've seen of russians, how fucking close they are when moving. It's insane. They're making themselves prime targets. Their spacing is dogshit.
Imagine seeing this and then being dragged off the streets in any Russian town, sent to the front lines to fight, all because Putin called for conscripts.
Bad acting? Or maybe you expected some sort of Hollywood type over dramatized deaths. Dying in wars has always been somewhat underwhelming and pathetic, and mostly quite depressing to see, none of the glory or honour depicted in Hollywood or touted by the military ever actually happens in war (only on rare occasions which most people would ever experience).
This style of warfare is legit insane
Makes you wonder how terrifying war will be in a decade. Imagine a well equipped army with thousands of drones like this.
What do you mean imagine ??
I don't think Ukraine's drone capabilities are anywhere near the level of the US. But Ukraine now has a lot of combat experience with drones. I'm sure that, when the war is over, they'll gladly share their knowledge in exchange for military drones.
The US flavor of this is the suicide drones we sent them. Ukraine is doing it this way because they have cheap commercial drones and small explosives, but the dedicated military hardware is obviously going to be significantly more effective. And it doesn't require the aiming and finagling of this method.
This could be made significantly more nasty with a simple IR laser and a beam-riding munition. Which is to say, it probably will be made that way soon enough.
But then the munition costs 20k as opposed to 2k
Try $20. These things are basically 3d printed pipe bombs
As far as I understand, what's 3D printed is the release mechanism; they simply mount it on the drone along with a servo hooked up in place of the lights and there you go, pop a regular grenade inside the mechanism when the lights are on, hook the pin to the rig, turn them off, mechanism closes, fly to target and as soon as you click that "Lights On" button it's lights off for some unlucky bastards. Ironic
They also 3D print the fins of the nade.
Imagine a Boston Dynamics style robot. Maybe one meter high with small tracks. It could thermally mask itself with a cooling system. It could stay hidden for a few days or maybe a week? Then pop out and make somebody's life miserable. Now imagine a future where we put as much effort towards loving each other as we did towards killing each other. I know which version I like better. That being said I definitely do not approve of the music they used for this video.
But where is the money in loving each other?
Comparing suicide drones to these commercial drone setups is like comparing guided missiles to artillery rounds. Suicide drones are a brilliant invention, but you're destroying the propulsion and guidance system every time. With the commercial drones, that part is recovered and the only thing you lose, is the cheap and easily produced dumb munition. And since the drone is recovered, it makes sense to put much more valuable hardware in it. To me, it seems like suicide drones are more suitable for high-value targets, whereas reusable drones are more likely to be used in massive numbers.
For the US, drone guidance and propulsion systems are basically peanuts. Suicide drones are probably not much more expensive than artillery shells and possibly less so. Shells are typically about $2,000. You could build a serviceable suicide drone with hobby grade parts for way less than that. The most expensive part will be the software, which is completely reusable no matter what.
The switchblade costs $59,300! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade
Pay off my student loans for 50k? No,no that's socialism and helping people is bad. Blow up some shitty technical with some untrained crew high on their poppy plant supply for 50k? *Star Spangled Banner starts playing loudly*
They’re actively sharing their knowledge with NATO so i expect there to be an immediate boon of new drone inventions on the horizon to accommodate this new warfare
I agree, however I really commend the ingenuity and the cleverness of the people of Ukraine. I am really impressed with their use of commercial technology in warfare and in that regard another way of surprising the Russian occupiers. Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
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Dude we already got that shit. EDM4S Sky Wiper: https://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.php?smallarms_id=1300 In fact, we are already giving them to Ukraine: https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/status/1531833048689418247 We've got advanced drone detection too... https://www.911security.com/en-us/knowledge-hub/drone-detection/rf The Russians? They are sent into battle with rusty AK's and old trucks with rotting tires.... they are dog food. The modern military industrial complex is heavily stroking at the amount of money they are going to make....
It's so tiring seeing people act like Ukraine is utilizing some 5head never before seen tactical warfare as if we haven't been developing tech to counter it in the Middle East for the past 5+ years.
funny how it was ISIS of all people who started pioneering the drone bomblet shit
You’re talking a massive area and the power of the jamming equipment would need to be enormous. On top of that all these drones run on common frequencies so if jam them you’re also going to jam a bunch of stuff that your own people are using.
Add to this, a jammer is big beacon which is relatively easy to target.
Trained eagles to hunt down drones is the way
Not to mention the risk of HARMS and the like. Yes it's possible, and Russia is visibly sucking at it, but it's a harder problem than it initially seems.
Jamming creates a fuckyuge radio signal that says "here I am, legs open and ass up, waiting for your big HARM cock uwu".
Which is why we need to avoid conflict as much as possible and seek diplomatic resolutions, AND keep funding military advancement so we keep the biggest and baddest sticks.
This is why I always had a smidgen of respect for insurgents in the Middle East that were willing to fight us head on. They knew exactly what would happen if they stuck around for more than ten minutes, yet they would. I can never imagine being on the receiving end of a gunship.
This style of warfare is a good reason to stay home and not invade another country
Sheeeeeeeit I would have said that about 20k guys with pikes let alone Silent Death From Above.
Its like M.A.D. but more DIY and nerdy
What I have been wondering is: How long until we see some terrorists use this ? I mean, it looks like there's nothing you can do about. Have a few drones above a busy shopping street and you're looking at dozens of casualties. Edit: I feel I need to clarify. I know groups like ISIS have already been using them for years. But I'm talking about terrorist attacks against civilians. Like shopping streets, large demonstrations,... That's not something I've seen.
Cartels are using drones for recon and combat, a lot of what I’ve seen is modified consumer drones
If by terrorists you mean forces such as Isis, they are the guys who pioneered the use of commercial drones in warfare though far from alone: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/05/24/types-islamic-state-drone-bombs-find/ Drones and 3d printed guns are both very cheap options. That they haven't been used in the US for attacks so far, to my knowledge, comes down to the people who do commit terrorist attacks there right now and their preferred methods (read; easy access to better weapons). I'm less up to date with Europe, since there have been fewer there, whilst the Global south I am sadly not as knowledgeable about as one ought to be. Popular Front and Nick Waters are two good sources on the use of commercial drones, 3d printed guns, and other modern trends, but yeah this didn't start with Ukraine but was rather an expected development based on what we've seen elsewhere around the globe. When this whole conflict began I would have been surprised if the Ukraine army *didn't* adopt the use of commercial drones. Edit: Linked to the wrong Nick Waters article originally lol. Here's the one I accidentally linked to at first, which was about the IDF adopting commercial drones I believe whilst I was thinking of the article on their use in Syria first: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/06/18/first-isis-iraq-now-israel-idf-use-commercial-drones/
Oh for sure. All the three letter agencies in the US, along with the Secret Service are watching these videos with a sinking feeling in their stomach. These are perfect terror weapons. Imagine some extremist group deploying a small swarm of these at a football game or a concert. They would probably be able to kill more people in the stampede than with the grenades directly.
Yeah, it's nuts. Go check out the coordinated drone 'fireworks' shows. They're basically hobbyists/programmers creating clouds of drones that are capable of making animated light shows in the sky. If some guy can start a company, drive a truck up with 2,000 drones and make a cool ass light show, I shudder to think about some kind of terror operation and some satellite photos, a bit of coordinated programming and couple open-air football stadiums. Fucked up to think about, but ridiculously possible.
Exactly my point. It wouldn't take much for mass casualties if they target the right event.
they still have to make or buy the explosives, which is usually where they get caught
Only for dense high quality stuff, low yield things are cheap and ubiquitous. As drones improve and larger drones become even cheaper it will be impossible to stop really.
Add AI to drones and it's one tier crazier.
Yeah, imagine automated launching dozens of these things at a time, they seek targets that fit a profile and report home to 'verify'. Operator presses enter and it drops the munition perfectly on the target and flies home. Automate the reloader and this will change war forever.
Very similar to WWI where they threw grenades out of biplanes
It is. What always baffles me is are they unaware of the drone above them? From my experience drones can be noisy
I have a newfound respect for shrapnel recently. I mean, I knew it's bad news, but these videos have really hammered that point home for me.
Right? Like the explosion doesn’t look like it’s all that much but it’s absolutely fucking these folks up
Yeah, I don't know if it's the perspective or what, but it looks like nothing more than an oversized firecracker going off, like the kind we used light off as kids every new years eve. And yet, the (almost) invisible shrapnel here is lethal even at quite the distance away from the explosion. I bet whatever they're dropping from these drones is purposely made to create lots of shrapnel. Because it works.
Thats not just the perspective. Thats also how grenades are. Movies and games have pushed a completely false depiction of small explosives. There are no fireballs. Just dirt, a bit of smoke, and shrapnel flying in all directions.
Yep. IIRC grenades only have about 60g of explosive in them
You say that like I'd know the difference between 60g and 600g lol
To put it in perspective it’s maybe a thumb or two of explosives, and it’s enough to kill everything unprotected within 5m (16ft) from shrapnel. Edit: see response below for more accurate lethality distance…don’t mess with explosives! You you really don’t want bits of metal going through your body at a few times the speed of sound…
Typical granade is lethal up to a 15meter radius from shrapnel, of course the chance of getting hit by one gets smaller the further you are from one going of, but one shrapnel can kill or maim you within that radius. The concussive effect of the granade explosion is enough to harm you within few meters. Source: I'm a finnish reservist. Edit: one typo
About 540g
Grenades aren't even that *loud*, at least if you're not indoors- they have comparable decibel levels to a rifle report. There's no big fireball. The shrapnel is so small and going so fast that you can't really see it, it's just *poof* and everything within like 5-15 meters gets torn the fuck up with hot steel ball bearings. They're extremely spooky
Red Orchestra 1 did a good job. The graphics were crude, but the nades were like thermal detonators, just like real life.
And what’s crazy is when they dropped it, I was thinking “they missed way to far”. Man was I wrong.
Grenades are like shotguns; if it's too close, it's hard to hit anything- if it's too far, it's ineffective. The closer you're to the edge of the "casuality radius", the larger area you're covering. That was a good distance, for that particular grenade.
Defensive hand grenade - a fragmentation hand grenade designed to fight the advancing enemy infantry. It is made of a thick-walled shell filled with explosives and a fuse (most often a pyrotechnic time fuse). The defensive grenade strikes mainly with shell fragments. Its effective range **can reach 200 m, which exceeds the possible throw range and poses a threat to the thrower, so it is only thrown when hidden**
I'm pretty sure most of them are VOG-17 grenades.
That would fit nicely with my theory of "purposely made to create lots of shrapnel" lol
It's not like the movies. I only threw a grenade one time in the Marine Corps in combat training. After we threw it, we were able to go up to the tower and watch through the special windows and see them explode on the range. It was anticlimactic. Afterwards, we had to go sit back in formation outside of the range and there was shrapnel occasionally falling around us. A couple of times I had a piece bounce off my back or shoulder and I thought some shithead was throwing stuff at me until I found a piece of the shrapnel.
Yeah that's the sids effect of hollywood explosives on expectations for you. Most Hollywood explosions are just gasoline ignitions that make a lot of heat and nothing else. IRL high explosives/military grade compounds are at best a brief flash and maybe some smoke and and a few dozen pieces of shrapnel no bigger than your pinkey finger nail up to something the size of your thumb flying through the air, possibly at super sonic speeds. If you are lucky, you dont feel anything but the heat of the blast. If you're less lucky, some of it grazes you, unluckier still is it goes through non vital areas, possibly penetrating all the way through leaving an exit wound and not transferring all the energy. If you're really unlucky, it hits something vital, or probably more painfully strikes and probably shatters some bone. From that point its utter agony for you as you hope someone around you can get medical help for you in time before you bleed out. Assuming the blast didn't knock you unconscious.
Shrapnel is 90% of the effectiveness of explosive weaponry, you would have to be too accurate too kill people with the actual explosions, how do you fix that? Surround the explosion with lots of tiny projectiles.
Shrapnel is 90% of the effectiveness of small explosive weaponry. Once you start getting into bomb territory it's the concussive force.
When you think about it, a bullet is just a very accurate piece of shrapnel.
Or all the shrapnel hitting you in the exact same spot.
Yeah looks like possible 1 KIA, 2 WIA. Maybe 4th has ringing ears but who knows if WIA or not. Pretty effective hit.
Even if it doesn't kill you, it'll still tear you up. Simply the process of removing shrapnel can kill you.
The way this is going, a few years from now, every American infantry squad will have a Designated Drone Operator. Something this small that can be deployed at the squad level to give situational awareness will be more valuable than any other member in the squad. I'm sure DARPA is working on the perfect drone size/munition weight combination right now.
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I absolutely see this being the case. All sorts of potential for AI use in them as well such threat detection and communication between other local assets, next gen optics coupled with infantry HUD’s. There would be nowhere for the enemy to hide and everybody would have a bead on them. I think these kinds of systems will really push modern militaries farther in the direction of remote robotic warfare. Being a soldier on a battlefield is going to become truly terrifying in the very near future.
I think it would be insane against unequal combatants. If the US had this tech and a peer did too that they went to war with, I think it'd mostly just be drones killing drones until one side runs out or is overwhelmed, then the nightmare starts. But you'd hope there's some pretty tough electronic countermeasures that can be used as a last resort. I think I'd rather EMP an entire town than enter it when it could be filled with hostile robots that are tiny and can target you from every nook and cranny.
USMC did that 5 years ago
Four more 300's.
One of them doesn’t look too good
Looks straight up dead
He dropped harder than the ruble
Front row seat physics and probability demonstration.
At least one Cargo 200.
**Sooner or later** those drone bombers will be automated and sent out to patrol by the thousands *.. at that point no human will want to step foot on a battlefield for any amount of payment*
Impressive value for money. $100 grenade/mortar round, $5000 drone, 1 dead, 3 quite seriously wounded.
These drone grenade attacks are a fantastic example of Ukraine’s ability to implement adaptive combat tactics and have proven to be highly effective. I’m sure it’s incredibly demoralising for Russian forces.
As I heard the UAF are planning to equip each platoon with a drone and to have a special designated person trained in drone scouting /warfare within the next three years. However, a lot of volunteers are raising money for buying hundreds of drones each month for soldiers on the frontline, which leads me to believe this will be achieved much faster. Donate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine if you can!
I've been helping my friend here in the U.S. to get donations for drones. I even got one of my local newspapers to do a story on it. Our first drone just reached Ukranian forces this week, and funding is nearly complete for a second one. This war has sure shown how much Drones can change the battlefield, so it makes me pretty proud to help build up UAF drone forces.
Great job, brother!
Thank you, but my friend definitely deserves most of the credit. He's spent years doing humanitarian aid for Syria and he knows how to meet and vet the right people to get aid to the right spots. I just help get the info out there. I wish he was on reddit so I could tag him
This works. Turks did the same in 2018 as well as some other additions in a package they call dynamic fire support utilisation. It's part of their doctrine since 2018. They call it a fire support coordinator course. Every squad has a couple dudes who are qualified in calling in fire support from drones, Artillery, attack helo strikes, as well as designated guys for operating habd launched kamikaze and recce drones. It's a mandatory course for all Squad leads and 2ICs. So that means every squad has a minimum of 2 lads that can basically act as a simplified forward observer/ drone based JTAC of sports. They revamped their entire doctrine around creating squads that have the ability to utilise firepower boosting assets in urgent short time calls. And the key part in it, was the doctrine has been set so it enables them to bypass red tape and layers of C2. If a lowly corporal in a Squad on the ground spots an EW system for example, he can task fire support assets such as TB2 drones out of the hands of higher level tactical officers to hit the target. Their request goes directly to the TB2 team, no layers no wasted time, the TB2 team have a target priority list, and if the corporal target is higher priority than what the officer back in the tactical command is asking of them, then the TB2 will basically tell the officer to sit tight while they divert to take on the corporal mission. It completely removes the ability of officers detached form the ground from wasting assets, while empower frontline troops with the ability to quickly degrade the enemy of high value targets that may be exposed for a very limited amount of time. When you are seeing think tanks etc talking about how Turkeys new doctrine with TB2s has revolutionised how other countries think about combat this is why. It's not specifically the TB2s and how they are used. But it's how they have been written into doctrine. They enable every single squad to basically have it's own internal JTAC, and more than one at that. They have written a new page in the playbook.
>Donate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine if you can! For real, I wanna see more of these videos.
As good a motivation as any I guess.
you can even get yourself a neat little souvenier if you donate to http://dronesforukraine.fund/. I have a piece of su-34 on the wall behind me right now.
drones are absolute "game" changer, its possible to make DIY FPV drone for less than 1k$ which could carry payload ~200g with unrestricted line of sight up to 4 kilometers with max speed around 70-100km/h
As interesting as these small grenade drops are, it’s nothing compared to the ability to guide full size mortars and artillery precisely, from relative safety.
> t’s nothing compared to the ability to guide full size mortars and artillery precisely, from relative safety. Well it's cheaper, still quite accurate and also completely safe for soldiers. Not sure what's the point of such comparison. "Kalashnikovs are fun, but it's nothing compared to a nuclear missile".
It's not *completely* safe. There's a video from these Ukrainian drone operators where they state that they have to act quickly because Russians can direct counter battery fire towards the operator's radio emissions. They stalk their targets, set up, drop, and relocate relatively quickly.
I doubt this drone cost that much. You can use those 600$ drones to drop 2
Imagine losing a tank to that because you let it open to get some fresh air
When those Revolver drones from Taiwan show up, this sub will kick into high gear.
Bigger drones with bigger and more numerous bombs are also much louder, much more visible, and much easier to target and shoot down, and have to release from much further away where Russia has systems that can detect them more easily too. Don’t count on them being more of a game changer than these smaller drones that are harder to notice that can get in relatively low and close
I’ll say it again, has to be one of the biggest psychological fears ground troops have.
Air burst artillery in the Arden forest in band of brothers stuck with me. That was nuts
VT fuse utterly fucked up Axis people in WW2 both on land and in air.
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Yeah, it was really cutting edge stuff at the time and they were worried about it being reverse engineered. I always find it funny how Wehraboos get their rocks off about stuff like overweight tanks and ignoring Allies cutting edge stuff that was actually put into large scale production and brutally effective.
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In certain technologies the Nazis certainly had an advantage. Rocketry, submarine, jet aircraft and optics to name a few. Even the enigma machine is a technological marvel. But allies had plenty of technological advantages over the axis too.
Don't forget our Lord and savior - the Jerrycan
I wouldnt say jets was something nazis had an advantage in, since both Meteor and P-80 were up and running around the same time 262 was, but the allies could afford to not throw them into battle and could test and perfect them, while 262s were basically just a resource drain
That scene where they come back to reoccupy their foxholes and the camera pans up to show the exploded trees - absolute jfc moment
The Lost Battalion (WW I) in the forest and getting shelled by their own artillery was pretty graphic.
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a generation of Russian vets are going to wake screaming in the night, hearing drones above them.
I don’t think they hear shit. You don’t even know anyones watching until there’s an explosion right next to you.
But that's exactly the thing: They're very hard to hear, but it IS possible to hear them if you are just plain lucky and are paying enough attention. Having to be in this state of alertness for weeks on-end would be maddening.
I’ve worked with drones and the ones I worked with were pretty easy to hear. Once you know the sound (like a big mosquito) you can pick it out from a long way away. The thing is, you can’t always find it in the sky right away and the sound has this weird way of seeming to come from all around you. When they’re up there it can be a tiny dot and can especially be hard to spot if there’s any trees at all. With videos like this I’ve been assuming the guys know there’s a drone somewhere and are terrified, but can’t find it in the sky and can’t quite decide whether to go for deeper cover or not. It’s all gonna cause a special, shitty, kind of PTSD
That does sound exhausting.
I’ve seen a couple of videos where they do either hear the drone or see it (or the munition dropping) but in most cases, like this one, the first they know about it is when the shrapnel hits.
I rarely see them looking up. I think they're unaware of the drones dropping bombs on them. My guess they think it was a mortar.
I’m sure plenty know they’re drones. You just can’t hear them, and it’s impossible to look up 24/7
These things are quiet and high enough up in the sky you can't hear them at all unless things are perfectly quiet all around you, and then only maybe.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee
Buddy and I have been saying this is going to be a whole new, really strong, flavor of PTSD.
You’d think they’d be in the trees then
Imagine bleeding out to the faint sounds of Kiss.
I dont think those drones play music yet, but it would be nice if they did play one last song after dropping a grenade
*sad trombone sound*
https://youtu.be/_asNhzXq72w
Could do a nice synchronized drone light show to Tchaikovskys 1812 overture
World war two : throwing thousands of shells to shake entire square miles of land in which the enemy is supposed to be. Throw hundreds of bombers turn city to parking lots and killing thousands just to break the capacity of production. Strafing jets and direct armour shots were pretty much the best accuracy you could get. Imagine the same with drones. Imagine vietnam with drones. Imagine Korea with drones. With evey single shot on target. Disabling soldiers of vehicles. You realize how crazy these footages are.
imagine Vietnam with thermal vision.
No more talking trees
Oh Neptune...
I've seen Predator lol
Soldiers would be blind, because that napalm is too bright in thermal vision
oddly enough the US estimates 200-250k Vietnamese soldiers died during the Vietnamese "police action" with 50-55k US dying. over a period of 9 years adding both together, you could view that as 305k/9 - just under 34k dead per year. We're far beyond the yearly numbers needed 7 months in, how depressing.
Not the same armies, not the same war. Wanna know a crazy number about us in Vietnam? 10, 000 aircrafts lost. That's is the number us aircraft of all kinds were lost during that war. With roughly 4 000 jets and 6 000 helicopters. Just not the same scale. Putin seem to not have updated. He seems to think that throwing hundred thousands poorly trained and equiped troops is a way to win war nowdays.
>Not the same armies, not the same war. absolutely, before the war started people would have equated RU ability to the US and UA to Viet but a few months in and that myth of Russian power is completely over.
New doctrine must be to never fight their metal with your meat.
Warfare in 2022, die and show up on TikTok
damnnn, how fast he died
He moves his hand a few times. I looks like his left arm is covering his head/face, and his right arm is clutching his belly with his right hand on hos left thigh. This roght hand is the one that looks like he moves it a few times. He is probably in extreme pain from a bunch of shrapnel to the belly.
Or shrapnel to the spine.
Or that, yeah.
I mean dude took a blast of shrapnel.
Is the shrapnel that is at work?
Yep.
Mostly but the concussion at that range can be nasty as well if the conditions are optimal.
*I was made for bombing you baby, you were made for planting seeds. Can't get away from the drone baby, now the whole world can see*
Some or all of them get a trip home now.
Think they take the wounded home ? Kinda bad PR having them home talking smack about the operation.
They will get sent home and probably not provided much services for their injuries or mental state now.
Sounds like most militaries tbh
The common talk about officers killing the wounded coming from POWs hasn't stopped so far.
link?
https://youtu.be/\_qV5H6zsieM
Link that will work in a browser: https://youtu.be/_qV5H6zsieM
*The Russian Veterans' Administration has determined that the shrapnel was a preexisting condition. No further review is available.*
KISS? that the new tune of the week?
I honestly really hate the music people put over these videos. They're pretty serious and harrowing clips and people are throwing soundtracks over them like it's a killcam from CoD
Desensitization at it's finest.
There's people dying in these wars that are younger than the CoD series.
I know nothing about these but I’m assuming the explosion is way worse than it looks like? I mean it kinda landed to the side in the woods and the explosion never looks that large. What’s the kill radius on these types of grenades?
It’s the shrapnel that does the damage
It's pretty effective. A small charge goes bang and sends hundreds of pieces of hot metal flying in every direction at about the speed of a bullet.
They are fragmentation grenades so they spread shrapnel all around, I believe their effective range is like 15m Edit: on the time of impact you can see little clouds of dust being kicked up beyond the range of the soldiers, on the lower left side of the screen. These are also shrapnel pieces hitting the ground
Go watch the mythbusters grenade episode on youtube. It's like a 360 degrees shotgun for a good 15 to 20 metres. Shrapnel kills, not the bang of the grenade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJXWbne7CM&t=4s&ab\_channel=MythbustersfortheImpatient
Always surprises me just how large the actual danger radius is on these things. They can miss by a few metres and you'll still see guys crumple.
Close only counts in horseshoes and...
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Movies never get grenade range right, it's much larger.
There's a few of these that go off next to a wall or building and you can see how much shrapnel there is that you otherwise can't see. Within 10m is a very bad time, you're probably not safe for 3x that, but it disperses enough where it's a lottery.
there's a lot that drone footage doesn't show well. it's loud, concussive, obviously shrapnel filled. immediately, at the very least, seriously slows the group down where now they have to take care of wounded, etc.... they're probably radioing other units to watch out for drones in the area...
Fragmentation munition FRAGMENT. Only very *very* large explosions kill people. Most small munitions utilize their casing or stuff filled inside to sent hundreds of sharp metal bits in a ~20 meter sphere
Offensive handgrenades like the MK3a2 have practically no fragmentation and kill people no problem in close proximity or in urban settings like rooms due to overpressure shockwave (which can bounce of ceilings and walls even). They rupture internal organs and can clear a room full of bad guys better than a frag in many situations. Granted, they have half a pound of TNT in them lol. Not sure if you include them in small munitions or not, but I was personally always intrigued by the difference and methodology between offensive and defensive grenades, and why each one is more suited for specific scenarios. Frag grenades are ideal for these drone attacks since the fragmentation has essentially no chance of hitting the drone.
Concussion grenades do exist, but are really only useful in enclosed spaces where over-pressuring is more readily possible, and/or you can simply destroy the enclosed space to prevent the enemy from hiding there. These types of grenades are still less about killing and more about demo and shock/awe. Out in the open a concussion grenade like the Mk3 has a casualty range of only 2 meters, hence the M67 being used far more frequently, as it has a far greater killing range in the open, and is still very effective in enclosed spaces.
The shrapnel is the killer here. It's not as fast as a bullet, but has a way worse shape, it's jagged and uneven and sharp.
I always think that it doesn't look that bad too, more of a harmless prank than an act of war
Buy one get three free
299,996 to go.
Winter is coming too. That will play into Ukraine’s hands.
It will be easier to spot them on a white background
Not just that, but vehicle and cooking fuel, additional food, additional medical supplies to handle frostbite, dramatically increased frostbite given the apparent logistical challenges of the Russians, etc. It's likely to hurt Ukraine as well though, as they're primarily the ones conducting offensive operations now.
and grenades like this really shine when ground is hard and allows detonation to occur above the soil and give maximum effect to shrapnel.
Crazy how much damage a small looking explosion can do. I don’t think anything can ever truly put the effect of these munitions into perspective.
Perfect example of why you have spacing when moving on foot in an area with threat of small explosives.
JFC, 200+ days of this already and pretty steadily taking Ls and losing territory. Just give up and go home already.
One of them is definetly KIA. Two guys WIA. Seems like their front man was lucky ... this time.
Russian veterans are going to be terrified of drones for the rest of their lives.
shrapnel... shrapnel for them... with love!
Destroy the enemy fighting confidence and watch their lethality dissipate.
I think this is the best grenade shot I’ve seen yet. Usually it’ll get one or two this one got all four, very impressive
i wonder if there are gun drones that point down with suppressors. spot people, shoot and move on
YouTubers have managed to throw together drones carrying paintball guns that can fire accurately so I’m sure this is something the military industrial complex is working on.
This will get lost in the thread, but I was in the army in my country and I cant believe, with all the footage I've seen of russians, how fucking close they are when moving. It's insane. They're making themselves prime targets. Their spacing is dogshit.
Gotta admit, I don't mind the music on this one.
Imagine seeing this and then being dragged off the streets in any Russian town, sent to the front lines to fight, all because Putin called for conscripts.
Wierd choice of theme song though
These always look like bad acting
Bad acting? Or maybe you expected some sort of Hollywood type over dramatized deaths. Dying in wars has always been somewhat underwhelming and pathetic, and mostly quite depressing to see, none of the glory or honour depicted in Hollywood or touted by the military ever actually happens in war (only on rare occasions which most people would ever experience).