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

(warontherocks.com)
183 points _tk_ | 1 comments | 26 Jun 25 10:11 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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oersted ◴[26 Jun 25 11:49 UTC] No.44386475[source]▶
I don’t understand why the author has such a narrow definition of FPV drones.

He talks as if reusable drones are a completely different category, that they are all toys designed for enthusiast racers… Generally he implies that a myriad arbitrary technical details are fundamental limitations of this paradigm, it’s a strange mindset.

Also, as others commenters state, isn’t a 43% success rate exceedingly high? Even if it’s 20% accounting for environmental factors and faults in manufacturing. How likely is it that a mortar does anything? Or a soldier with a rifle? Or anything else?

> When I joined the team, I was excited to work with a cutting-edge tool.

It sounds like he was imagining some kind of scifi adventure, but it’s always been clear that they are using cheap drones with tech that has been commonplace for a decade. And that’s completely fine, it’s intentional.

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palata ◴[26 Jun 25 11:57 UTC] No.44386531[source]▶
> Also, as others commenters state, isn’t a 43% success rate exceedingly high? Even if it’s 20%

That's the whole question, and that's kind of the point that the article raises: the success rate does not matter. What matters is the cost. At the same cost, can you do more damage with other weapons or not?

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1. oersted ◴[26 Jun 25 12:07 UTC] No.44386601[source]▶
Indeed that’s what I meant, it’s a good question. It sounds like the author only saw the cases where mortars or reusable drones had been successful. But I cannot imagine a mortar being more efficient even if one shot is 5x cheaper. Perhaps they are more effective at suppression, but I would be surprised if they really hit anything meaningful more than 5% of the time, similar with most artillery or bombing, or just plain infantry.

What even comes close to the success rate of a drone to hit a particular moving target? And you can do it while hidden 10km away with a lightly trained operator. And manufactured cheaply, safely and quickly by unskilled labor, and easily transported to the front and hand-carried by troops.

Any kind of alternative, like precision bombing or sniping, or just getting close and shooting at it, must be much more costly, particularly when you also account for the cost of the equipment used, even if it is reusable, and the training, risk and human cost.