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

I see a lot of comments saying that "but the technology will improve".

Sure, maybe. Or maybe it will be like Musk announcing what Teslas will be capable of in 6 months. We don't know, and the author doesn't pretend that they do. Don't forget that drones have been used in this war for years, and the vast majority of the drone industry has already pivoted to the military because it's easier to make money there. So it's not exactly "brand new technology".

But my point is that the author just says "from what I've seen, here is how it looks". And it seems like it has value.

I agree, and I also raised more points in my comment. The terrain of the flatlands between Ukraine and Russia is the main reason for their success. The same could be said for vast parts of the Middle-East. It’s easy to operate these on farmlands that go for kilometers.

> Don't forget that drones have been used in this war for years

3 years of usage is brand new. Neither Ukraine nor Russia have been designing and producing purpose-built FPV drones since the beginning (I assume things are well underway now). It's a bunch of consumer shit thrown together, which makes it kind of incredible that they work as well as they do.

An equivalent would be something like taping an assault rifle to a small Cessna and dominating with that. And then you saying that "maybe the technology will not improve".

> 3 years of usage is brand new.

Usage, sure. But the technology is not. Those drones are flying smartphones. We have already had mass-produced consumer drones for more than a decade. We don't use them because they are new, we use them because they are cheap and accessible.

I am not sure what you call "consumer shit" here. They go for cheap FPV drones precisely because they are cheap. But the autopilot running in them can fly a Cessna. We can make them fly longer (they will be bigger), we can use better radios, we can add thermal cameras and bigger payloads. We can add GPUs and AI capabilities. All that we have, but then it doesn't cost 500$ anymore.

> An equivalent would be something like taping an assault rifle to a small Cessna and dominating with that.

Or maybe you see an assault rifle and say "Look at this rifle; it's only the beginning! In a couple years it will have wings and it will drop heavy bombs before returning to base, because it will be reusable". And I'm saying: we already have fighter jets; they are just more expensive.

You based your doubt for whether the technology would improve on consumer shit thrown together for a few years as opposed to military technology purposely designed and built over a long period. That is bad reasoning. There is nothing more to it and it is thus far more likely that the technology will improve than not.

> That is bad reasoning.

From where I stand, you're calling "consumer shit thrown together" something you apparently don't really know, and then you make predictions from it.

I believe your prediction was "Or maybe it will be like Musk announcing what Teslas will be capable of in 6 months."

You seem to think that this ragtag level of warfare between Russia and Ukraine is somehow indicative of what the limit of NATO-level militaries is. I'd say "we'll see", but hopefully we never have to find out.

> I see a lot of comments saying that "but the technology will improve".

When people say "the technology will improve", I think they're usually referring to the drones currently in use becoming much better not due to breakthroughs in technology, but by applying existing technology more effectively for military purposes. Current military drones used in Ukraine are inefficient conversions of civilian products that were never meant to operate under jamming, leave as small thermal signature as possible, etc. Original military designs, which are optimized for the battlefield rather than the local dog park, can be significantly better.

> I believe your prediction was "Or maybe it will be like Musk announcing what Teslas will be capable of in 6 months."

There was a part before the "or" :-). I did not predict anything, I said "maybe, maybe not". And you told me it was "bad reasoning".

My point was that the article says that drones have a ton of limitations in 2025, and many comments here say "yeah but that's because it's just the beginning". Drone manufacturers have been looking at the military for longer than 3 years, because that's easy money. Saying that "this is just consumer shit thrown together" sounds like you haven't really followed the drone industry in the last 15 years.

Sometimes the problem is not time or money.

> Current military drones used in Ukraine are inefficient conversions of civilian products

Are you sure about that? Many drone companies have been engineering for the military for years before the Ukraine invasion in 2022.

The thing is, those FPV drones are super, super, super cheap. We do have better technology, it does exist. But it is more expensive. Is it worth it then? That's the question.