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Comment by aftbit | Hacker News Reader

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.

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This seems to contradict the article, which among other criticisms, specifically says that these drones are more expensive and less reliable than mortars.

There are different calibers of mortar shells, bigger size has more range and power. I think author of the article has cheated by not specifying the caliber, because a 155mm artillery shell cost is more than a $1000, precision guided one cost is tens of thousands. While a drone capable of reaching 10km+ costs less than $1000, without payload.

Ya I didn’t see where the author discussed how imprecise artillery is vs drones. Aren’t mortars even less precise?

Of course they are less precise. And in most cases, they need quite a few rounds to adjust their aim at the target, so his comparaison was already stupid unfair.

He takes into account all the drones that don't work and then goes on and pretends artillery is 100% accurate and has an absurdly low cost (at the price he is quoting, they are basically sending grenades).

Let's not even discuss moving target or penetrating inside fortified targets which mortar will never be able to do.

Why are artillery rounds so expensive ? Is it the raw materials ? Is it the precision of machining ? Is it because of what's required to make the entire process safe for workers ?

Artillery carries more explosive and is good for destroying buildings and fortifications though.

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

Assuming you have good gun bunnies (term of affection, I assure you) and a spotter on the ground or in the air.

The mortar guys in my old company could put a round into a trashcan with line-of-sight but when someone else is calling in fire then they are more of an area weapon. Assuming that a fire mission is going to involve more than one or two rounds to bracket the target now you're talking more dollars and the people on the ground probably aren't going to stand there and wonder how long it's going to take to hit them.

The way I (and most other people I've heard talk about it) see it is drones are an area denial weapon.

> people on the ground probably aren't going to stand there and wonder how long it's going to take to hit them

Lesson learned in WW1 and apparently forgotten multiple times since then: the first few shells have by far the most damage potential and they better be precise.

Mortar is cheaper and faster, but it is about 80mm, not a 155mm.

Good luck to hunt moving individuals with mortars, though.

Is the typical mortar heavy enough that it would benefit from having an agile robo-dog hauling it around ?

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