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

(warontherocks.com)
182 points _tk_ | 1 comments | 26 Jun 25 10:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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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"

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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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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.

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bboygravity ◴[26 Jun 25 11:45 UTC] No.44386437[source]▶
China's fertility rate is 1.

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

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FirmwareBurner ◴[26 Jun 25 13:22 UTC] No.44387173[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.

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bluGill ◴[26 Jun 25 14:55 UTC] No.44388070[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.
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1. pzo ◴[26 Jun 25 15:57 UTC] No.44388633[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.