American Drones Failed to Turn the Tide in Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

American Drones Failed to Turn the Tide in Ukraine

wsj.com

14 pointsnradov7 comments

Hmm I get: "Error code: PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR". Am I doing something wrong?

It works now.

Ukraine were ahead of Russia in repurposing consumer grade DJI drones bought from AliExpress and using them to aid the war effort. Probably no longer effective, but I seem to recall them having some positive impact in the early months of the war

Drones are at their best right now. Few random NSFW clips:

2 days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1byq...

4 days ago, big armor assault stopped with at least over $10mil destroyed by DJI/fpv drones and arty https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1bxg...

4 days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1bx1...

6 days ago $1mil tank erased by two $500 drones https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1bv9...

This article is about "Drones from American startups". That is Skydio and AeroVironment (Switchblade). DJI are cheap, readily available from your corner importer, reliable and offer world leading performance. There is visible gap between quality of picture from DJI and "military grade" Skydio, second one is worse despite being much more expensive. Switchblade 300 cost almost as much per one small anti personnel unit as whole Stugna launcher system, Ukrainians developed their own loitering munition now:

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/177806496555700666...

Lack of cruise missile deliveries from the west forced Ukrainians to develop bigger kamikaze drones based on ultralight planes manufactured in Ukraine, range over 800 miles https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2024/apr/02/ukraine-...

They now have a whole cottage industry of low cost drone producers, some with EW hardening. Based on my X feed, they are still seeing some success, especially given their artillery shortage.

Probably no longer effective?? There's videos every single day of them destroying tanks and killing Russians.

They seem super effective. I mean a cheap drone destroying a tank is a big win. Even if you crash 100 to kill one tank, that's still a big win.

The most recent development seems to be attaching thermobaric grenades to them and using them to demolish ruined houses that infantry are hiding in.

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