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Comment by wombatpm | Hacker News Reader

I would think drones carrying cluster bombs would be effective. More targeted in their destruction. No need to scatter bomblets over a quarter of a mile, just 10 or so around a tank.

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If you have seen videos from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially over time, you can see the evolution of tactics.

For example with tanks, they...

- strap artillery shell to the drone and fly it into the tank

- drop a standard grenade into the hatch after the crew has fled

They don't need to drop munitions like cluster, they strap several on and drop them one at a time. They have become quite skilled and accurate, even from 100+ meters up in wind

There are places in Ukraine where it looks like giant spiders live there, due to all the fiber optic cables from drones left on the battle fields

The fact that we have not yet seen a high-profile political assassination by drone, particularly from the "death from above" method, absolutely _boggles_ my mind, and I don't think we get out of this decade without that occurring, and I'm not particularly sure what sort of counter-measure you could reasonably put in place to stop that. The 2030s are going to be messy.

It's a matter of time; that said, all high profile open air whatsits have anti-drone detection and countermeasures in place. The Ukranian invasion is one of attrition, where both sides try to limit expenses; this isn't the case for e.g. the US president's protection, where they can afford to deploy millions in countermeasures.

Less than 5 years is my guess, somewhere in the world.

> all the fiber optic cables from drones left on the battle fields

Are they tethered? I thought these were all radio controlled

Tethered to avoid jamming

Here's an post with a few pictures of the tangled mess left behind

https://bou.org.uk/blog-moreland-fibreoptic-drones/

Seen this a few times and am surprised it's actually a viable solution. Used to be heavily into fpv a long time ago and remember MIT(?) had autonomous CV software that could easily navigate through thick forests that was open sourced, I think the only real use of onboard GPS there was "go from point A to B"

This was perhaps a decade ago mind you, people rocking DIY setups had fairly limited computing compared to what you can buy today. The PID needed for quads/hex/octos to stay aloft has trivial compute requirements.

Won't the fibres leading up to the operator and revealing their location not a threat?

you need to walk through the battlefield to trace it. you know, the one the drone just flew over.

they're pretty thin, and it's not hard for the operators to displace. even using other drones and AI to track refraction index of the fiber it's still a tall order. you'd probably have better luck shooting artillery at any large building or hedgerow nearby...

Yup, apparently some of these carry 50 kilometers of fiber optic cable. Max range limits their payload capacity though, but then, they can do reconnaisance and target painting with one, then send an automated jamming-resistant swarm to do damage.

They switched to fiber optic tethers to avoid being jammed.

as far as i know, they don't strap artillery shells to drones, they too heavy. they strap shaped charges.

100s of videos of drones with arty shells can be seen on https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/

They have strapped so many things to drones, you'd think they've tried about everything, then some new video comes out

Drones have evolved rapidly and come in all shapes and sizes now. The DJI Maverick image in people's head is only one modality, though by far the most common form factor

Those aren't artillery shells though, the explosive part of those weighs seven kilos, which is too much for the mass produced drones they use. As others mentioned, they use RPGs (3 kgs), mortar shells (~1.5 kgs), grenades (<1 kg), sometimes land mines, and specialized drone explosives for suicide drones.

I do like seeing the production facilities of these drones, how they simplified the designs but also made design decisions to deal with the scale, they're built so they can be stacked easily. Mind you, this is probably the case with these drone show drones too.

The bigger drones are sometimes used for dropping TM-62 anti-tank mines, which are about ten kilograms. An artillery shell would probably still be a poor choice though, considering the forces a shell is built to withstand. Adds a lot of extra weight.

Those must be HEAT rounds. An AP round would not have the velocity to do anything, anti-personnel would not penetrate tanks armor but would kill crew if dismounted or a hatch is left open

Old rpg rounds are cheap and top-down doesn't require much pen, making older stock more effective. Newish stock are tandem and would be even worse to try and counter from above (PG-7VR).

The typical setup I’ve seen for FPV drones is RPG warheads or small mortar shells for drops. I’d love to see one drop 152/155mm shells though.

In some photos I have seen the charge looks like and RPG https://share.google/LUIxGYEC07ZDVMVgT

Problem is that munitions carried by drones are much weaker than artillery shells - more like grenades. On this page is a turtle tank that took 60 drone attacks to disable. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/western-analysts-find-li...

Russians are able to retrieve 80% of disabled armored vehicles to repair them.

A tank does not even notice cluster bombs - this type of bomb is effective against infantry and civilians.

10 or so wouldn't work on a tank. you need a shaped charge or EFP.

that might be a solution for massed infantry, but then again you can just drop a single mortar round, e.g. the Ukrainian "foot crusher"

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