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

(warontherocks.com)
183 points _tk_ | 3 comments | 26 Jun 25 10:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.642s | source
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time0ut ◴[26 Jun 25 11:35 UTC] No.44386374[source]▶
I assume this is like a pilot in WW1 reporting how finicky and hard to use bi-planes were. No doubt a bunch of weapons manufacturers have seen this and the special operations Ukraine did in Russia and Israel did in Iran and the wheels of progress are turning and the result will be terrifying.
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palata ◴[26 Jun 25 11:51 UTC] No.44386488[source]▶
What terrifies me is that the next step may be AI swarms, where one side sends thousands of drones at the same time and let each of them autonomously choose what they want to target.

It's all technically feasible up to "choosing wisely".

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1. koonsolo ◴[26 Jun 25 12:39 UTC] No.44386842[source]▶
In a sense it's already happening with the Shahed drones. Maybe not smart AI, but the end result is still the same: you have no clue where they will end up.
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2. FridayoLeary ◴[26 Jun 25 17:34 UTC] No.44389478[source]▶
What's eye opening about the recent iran israel conflict is how drones were used. Iran fired about 1000 drones and israel easily destroyed all but one of them. On the other hand israel used drones to devastating effect.

I'm not sure what to make of that, but it's clear that drones as a primary means of warfare is simply not effective. hamas and hezbolla have no notable successes with drones, except for on october 7 where they used them to great effect to destroy specific machine gun emplacements and a couple of tanks. They will be part of the future, but never the future itself.

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3. LorenPechtel ◴[26 Jun 25 17:48 UTC] No.44389632[source]▶
Israel has been serious about defending against simple weapons for a long time. And expect them to have doubled down on this since 10/7. As far as I know they are the only modern power to have done so.