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

FPV drones for combat are a hot flash in the pan. They have had a major effect for now, but naturally as these countermeasures evolve, so weakens their effect.

I keep telling people that the terrain and the strategies that Russians use is the primary reason for the effectiveness. Mortars and artillery already handle the same requirements as the author says. The reason they are effective in 2024-25 is that the drip-drip-drip of single soldiers running over vast fields / unarmoed vehicles driving over known routes is the only way Russians make progress. For a moving target they are great, but multiple moving targets would get shredded by competent artillery anyway.

Most nations don’t have flat open fields where signals can reach far away drones unimpeded by line of sight for tx/rx.

By far the best use of drones still is as battlefield recon/fire correction to adjust existing artillery/mortar capabilities.

Source: I’m one such drone hobbyist and I’ve watched way too much footage from the front. None of what i’m writing is in absolute terms. I just don’t see the same way as commenters in the public who think they are a checkmate for any combat situation. The incompetence of the Russian forces caught everyone by surprise, but they have learned. My country’s border with Russia is heavily forested and not as flat as Russia. The drones are not able to go through the canopy. Infrared recon is a way better choice than FPV suicide drones.

The big thing that FPV drones have going for them is that they're ludicrously cheap and easily constructed from relatively basic parts by moderately skilled people.

It's literally cheaper to strap a grenade to an FPV drone and fly it into a tank hatch than it is to fire a single non-precision artillery round, let alone tens or hundreds of them.

Plus, you can deploy your drones remotely from the top of a trunk deep behind enemy lines and fly them into irreplaceable strategic aviation assets with a shot exchange factor better than 1000x.

Did you not read the article? One of his major points is that a mortar is significantly cheaper and faster.