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Comment by verdverm | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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