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I fought in Ukraine and here's why FPV drones kind of suck

(warontherocks.com)
182 points _tk_ | 22 comments | 26 Jun 25 10:11 UTC | HN request time: 1.698s | source | bottom
1. ggm ◴[26 Jun 25 11:02 UTC] No.44386154[source]▶
You need to compare this to hit rate with mortars and attrition by counter battery fire on mortar teams. Not to detract from a sober assessment but it's hard to judge without the other parts of the story.

Thr tldr would be "temper expectations"

replies(4): >>44386170 #>>44386215 #>>44386250 #>>44386523 #
2. gpderetta ◴[26 Jun 25 11:05 UTC] No.44386170[source]▶
Yes, even a 20% success rate seems quite high.
replies(1): >>44386511 #
3. risyachka ◴[26 Jun 25 11:14 UTC] No.44386215[source]▶
This.

Mortar may be 5 times cheaper but 100x easier to destroy it and its crew.

Also half of the problems described are purely technical and can be easily solved with some budget. In Ukraine most drones are assembled by volunteers. So its not the reliability of drone that is an issue, its lack of proper assembly and QA.

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4. FirmwareBurner ◴[26 Jun 25 11:17 UTC] No.44386237[source]▶
>So its not the reliability of drone that is an issue, its lack of proper assembly and QA

Imagine what China can pull off here in case they're in a war.

replies(1): >>44386437 #
5. ◴[26 Jun 25 11:18 UTC] No.44386250[source]▶
6. bboygravity ◴[26 Jun 25 11:45 UTC] No.44386437{3}[source]▶
China's fertility rate is 1.

Even if they win the war, they still eventually will have lost.

replies(2): >>44386944 #>>44387173 #
7. palata ◴[26 Jun 25 11:54 UTC] No.44386511[source]▶
> The vast majority of first-person view drone missions can be completed more cheaply, effectively, or reliably by other assets.

At this point, the question becomes the price.

8. throwawayffffas ◴[26 Jun 25 11:55 UTC] No.44386523[source]▶
I think you need to compare it to other man portable guided weapons like the FGM-148 Javelin. The Javelin is much much better in all respects, except perhaps range. But is about 100 - 200 times more expensive.

If you can afford* the Javelins and the TOW's of the world that's what you are going to use otherwise, you are stuck with FPVs.

Afford means not only fiscally, but production capacity wise as well.

replies(1): >>44387736 #
9. throwawayffffas ◴[26 Jun 25 11:58 UTC] No.44386546[source]▶
As noted if you have the budget the end product is a FGM Javelin or a Spike NLOS or as the article mentions a switchblade.

These things are pretty much the same thing (a thing that can be carried by a man that accurately puts a warhead on a target) just better and more expensive.

edit: Actually the NLOS might not be man portable, but there are other smaller Spike missiles that are.

replies(1): >>44388576 #
10. LexGray ◴[26 Jun 25 12:52 UTC] No.44386944{4}[source]▶
China can set the fertility rate to whatever they like. It is tied to taxes and penalties. They can move the slider to make it fiscally impossible to be childless.
replies(1): >>44394598 #
11. FirmwareBurner ◴[26 Jun 25 13:22 UTC] No.44387173{4}[source]▶
Fertility rate is a problem for the future, that you can also solve via better polices and incentives if you want to, meanwhile dying or being enslaved in a war is a problem for right now that you can't escape via policies.

Which one you think is worse?

Also, most wealthy industrialized western nations have the same fertility issues, some are only compensating by huge legal and ilegal immigration which can be causing bigger domestic economic and societal issues than being involved in a war abroad. The west and its values, as we used to know it, is also dying.

replies(2): >>44388070 #>>44394643 #
12. sottol ◴[26 Jun 25 14:24 UTC] No.44387736[source]▶
Doesn't a single javelin missile cost almost 200k? The drones I've seen I'd budget at 150-300$ plus explosives. I think that puts the javelin more at 500-1000x as expensive imo.
replies(1): >>44388054 #
13. bluGill ◴[26 Jun 25 14:54 UTC] No.44388054{3}[source]▶
You need 15 drones to do what a javelin can do though, and that is at best. If the tank armor is good a small drone cannot do any damage (that is why drones try to fly in open hatches - bypass the armor), while a javelin can go through modern armor.
replies(1): >>44388481 #
14. bluGill ◴[26 Jun 25 14:55 UTC] No.44388070{5}[source]▶
Fertility rate in China has been less than one for decades. They have a lot of people, but they are heavily weighted to old.
replies(1): >>44388633 #
15. vasac ◴[26 Jun 25 15:42 UTC] No.44388481{4}[source]▶
Tank armor can be good as it gets, the problem is you can't have good armor everywhere on the tank otherwise it would weight hundreds of tons. So a small drone doesn't need to penetrate tank where it's best protected but to disable it (hit APU, tracks, engine...).
replies(1): >>44390142 #
16. ◴[26 Jun 25 15:52 UTC] No.44388576{3}[source]▶
17. pzo ◴[26 Jun 25 15:57 UTC] No.44388633{6}[source]▶
in japan it was even for many decades and its a problem but not tragedy, japan today still doing strong. Even if population in china shrink by 50% they will still have more pole than europe or us. And lets face it shrinking 50% this will really take decades and unlikely to happen since this will correct itself eventually.
replies(1): >>44394582 #
18. ashoeafoot ◴[26 Jun 25 18:45 UTC] No.44390142{5}[source]▶
Obvious solution, make the tank amour a drone crawling around and building up in direction of danger?
replies(1): >>44391928 #
19. throwawayffffas ◴[26 Jun 25 22:03 UTC] No.44391928{6}[source]▶
The obvious solution, is duct tape a bunch of corrugated steel around the tank, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_tank
20. bboygravity ◴[27 Jun 25 07:37 UTC] No.44394582{7}[source]▶
How is Japan still going strong? Have you been there? Real estate just sitting empty, villages deserted, (young) people with no hope for the future, (hidden) poverty, the government and central bank basically bankrupt long-term.

Japan is stuck in the 90's with no hope for the future and they will be even less relevant then they are now within 1 generation.

Japan is absolutely not "doing strong" for the next 50 years or so and the same will happen to China. If you have no people, you have no future. As simple as that.

And how does the fact that it "will still take decades" suddenly make it OK for the country? Also if you shrink a population by 50% within decades it will completely destroy the economy (and military and culture). You can't just half the population that fast and expect things to just carry on as normal or magically recover.

21. bboygravity ◴[27 Jun 25 07:39 UTC] No.44394598{5}[source]▶
Sure, they can make it harder to make children. That's easy. Literally every developed country (except Israel) is doing that right now by default.

Moving the slider up (MORE children) is the hard part.

22. gspetr ◴[27 Jun 25 07:45 UTC] No.44394643{5}[source]▶
>that you can also solve via better polices and incentives if you want to

Nobody can. And it's not like they don't want to. Neither the very traditional and religious Arabic countries like Saudi Arabia (2.14, barely above replacement, and trending down), nor a country like Norway, which can afford the best social program in the world. All have fertility troubles. Urban lifestyle just does fertility in.