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Comment by Mistletoe | Hacker News Reader

Why don’t they want to shoot them down?

Shooting at flying things in densely populated areas is generally a bad idea because when you miss, whatever ammunition you used falls on somebody on the ground. And if you hit, the debris falls on someone on the ground.

>when you miss, whatever ammunition you used falls on somebody on the ground

No problem, you just say that Russians deliberately target civilians.

This poses a fun dilemma: the belief that Russia deliberately targets civilians (which is likely correct) almost requires us to also believe that the Russian army fields precision weaponry allowing deliberately targeting things (of which the evidence is scarce).

>which is likely correct

Why do you think that?

>almost requires us to also believe

That's easy. Russia deliberately targets civilians, but being totally inept, misses and hits different civilians.

>of which the evidence is scarce

Is it?

Have a look at this one, where Russia hit Ukrainian MLRSes in a night strike.[0] Western media reported that as inhuman and savage Russians destroying a shopping mall.[1] The mall indeed suffered but only because the Ukrainians parked MLRSes next to it. Ironically the Ukraine itself provided the evidence of that by distributing video where they talk about the mall but incidentally show destroyed MLRS (the other one got evaporated).[2]

[0] https://t.me/aleksandr_skif/3150

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/world/europe/russia-ukrai...

[2] https://t.me/ASupersharij/28133

Point taken, thanks!

Re: Russia deliberately targets civilians, but being totally inept, misses and hits different civilians. -- Yep, absolutely, but this is unfalsifiable I guess. I mean, maybe they're targeting hostile aliens from space, but being inept, [...]

Re: Why do you think that? -- I extrapolate from Putin's allies really. Hamas specifically (and very vocally / proudly) targets civilians, Hezbollah targets civilians, Iran and Houthis routinely fire ballistic missiles at residential areas. (I'm only listing things I've actually witnessed, as a noncombatant.)

So intuitively they're all in the same bucket. I'll be happy to be completely wrong about Russia in this regard.

There's this, though with a drone https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/17/russia-uses-drones-to-ta...

Here is one of the top Ukrainian propagandists posting in his personal channel a video from Belgorod (Russia) that shows wounded Russian women screaming and thrashing in agony (the text reads "Happy New Year, bitches") after Ukrainian MLRS strike at the city: https://t.me/dmytrogordon_official/39688

Here is the Ukraine targeting the same high-rise apartment building in Kazan with multiple drones: https://t.me/readovkanews/91042

Here is the Ukraine blowing a bridge in Russia exactly when a passenger train was passing under it leading to deaths of civilians including children: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/01/deaths-as-russ...

Here are a paramedic and an ambulance driver murdered by Ukrainian drone near Sudzha (Kurskaya oblast): https://t.me/readovkanews/85353

I could go on and on.

Which conclusions do you draw from that about the current Ukrainian regime or Ukrainian nationalists?

I'd say it's a fine example of whataboutism in an argument. The fact that other people in history have committed atrocities does not mean it's hunky dory to Russia to murder people.

>that other people in history

What? It's atrocities that are being committed right now by the Ukraine. Do they mean that "Ukraine deliberately targets Russian civilians"?

The discussion was on whether Russia targets civilians or not. That is not really a function of whether Ukraine does.

If you want to drag Russia vs Ukraine in, obviously Russia is hugely worse as the aggressor with their rapes and torture chambers and the like. I'm not Ukrainian or Russian and I don't think I've seen a clearer good vs evil war in my lifetime.

>That is not really a function of whether Ukraine does

It's a function of what you call what the Ukraine does. If you use a report of an isolated episode to justify the claim that "Russia deliberately targets civilians" accompanying all Western reporting on Russian strikes, than you surely must accept the statement that "Ukrainian soldiers have swastika tatoos"[0]. Do you?

>with their rapes and torture chambers and the like

You forgot the infants raped with teaspoons and Viagra kits distributed to Russian soldiers, all according to Ukrainian sources and Western politicians and media. Having said that, I'm sure war crimes happen just like in any war.

>I don't think I've seen a clearer good vs evil war in my lifetime

That's exactly what Western media wants you to think. Russian state media wants Russians think the same.

[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/videos/video/2025/06/18/guerre-en-ukr...

>I extrapolate from Putin's allies really. ... they're all in the same bucket

Hamas, Hezbolla or Houthis are hardly Russian allies. Iran isn't fighting on the Russian side like North Korea did, but I guess you can call them an ally of sorts.

Here is a bit about Israel, which supports the Ukraine:

   Two of the sources told the outlets that in the first few weeks of the war, the IDF allowed up to 15 or 20 civilian deaths for every low-ranking Hamas militant assassinated.

   That number could increase to up to more than 100 civilians if the IDF were targeting a single senior Hamas official, the sources said.

   "There was a completely permissive policy regarding the casualties of operations," one source said, according to the report. "A policy so permissive that in my opinion it had an element of revenge." [0]

Assuming that's true, should we extrapolate that too?

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-military-idf-civili...

> Hamas, Hezbolla or Houthis are hardly Russian allies

I beg to differ.

* Russia sent missiles to Houthis just this year. Also assists with intelligence for attacks, at least according to https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/10/26/russia-provides-targ...

* The meeting where Putin says they have longstanding ties with Hamas: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/04/17/putin-meets-with-r...

Iran, well, we agree: they're very much aligned politically, seem to have shared weapon programs (rumor has it, Iran's Shahed drone == RF's Geran' drone).

Having said all that, I now realize that I must've misused the word ally to mean political sympathizer, my bad. I meant "closely aligned" more than anything, like when the Russian media says "Anglo-saxons" to describe the political bloc.

Re: Assuming that's true, should we extrapolate that too? -- Honestly, maybe? I don't have an opinion, much less an educated one.

>Russia sent missiles to Houthis just this year.

The article says it didn't happen, just that maybe some people disembarked.

>The meeting where Putin says they have longstanding ties with Hamas

That's not exactly what he said: "Russia’s stable, long-term relationships with the Palestinian people, their representatives and various organizations". If you deal with Palestine you have to deal with Hamas. Russia has stable, long-term relationship with Israel too.

>I meant "closely aligned" more than anything

To some degree, what degree is that is debatable. It's more like the enemy of my enemy (the US) thing if you ask my opinion.

>rumor has it, Iran's Shahed drone == RF's Geran' drone

Russia used to import Shahed drones, than organized their production domestically with Iranian help, improved the design, greatly scaled the production, created a decoy version and a jet-powered version.

>Honestly, maybe? I don't have an opinion, much less an educated one.

I'd rather not extrapolate in both cases)

does it apply to birdshot? The solution is many small projectiles with great drag to mass ratio

If you fly the drone 100m up in the air it will block commercial flying due to risk of collision but birdshot can’t reach it.

Even if you manage to hit it at that range there just isn’t enough kinetic power left to really do any damage.

For example here is a Finnish journalist being shot at 70m with birdshot. https://youtu.be/WJgzzrcSmNM?t=124 note that the shot did hit them but none managed to go trough the cardboard and normal civilian clothes were enough protection for other parts of the body.

Basically outside of drones that are trying to hit you (suicide fpv drones) birdshot is kinda useless as there isn't really any reason to fly them so close that they would be in effective range.

The other thing is even if birdshot works...the drone is likely to fall down relatively intact where again - it might hit someone.

Lest anyone misinterpret your statement, shotguns are still dangerous at long range: No. 7 1/2 shot carries, and is dangerous to humans, for 125 yards; No. 6 shot is dangerous for 250 yards; 3 and 4 shot are dangerous for 300 yards and BB shot is dangerous for 450 yards. The heavy shot used for geese is dangerous for 1,400 yards -- almost a mile.

The spread will mean you likely won't hit what you are aiming at, but it is still dangerous.

Bullets are spin-stabilized: if you shoot at something in the air and miss, the bullet will generally still be lethal when it eventually returns to the ground. That’s a no-no in densely populated areas.

You would not be able to hit a drone with a bullet. Statistics are against you.

You use fancy AHEAD ammunition that disintegrates, and hopefully the drone with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AHEAD_ammunition

Yet, the bursts fired are expensive as fuck. Much more expensive than the drone.

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdwjcayPuag

Can't some kind of shot shell get used that just throws pellets in the direction? Shorter effective range but way better chance of hitting the drone. Also, comparatively cheap.

What you linked seems like it would only be needed for an armored drone?

This system has a range up to 5 km. Shotguns shells are sometimes effective, often not. There are enough videos of, mostly Russians, trying to shoot them down with a shotgun.

This AHDEA ammunition, while expensive, will bring down not only a drone, airplane or chopper, but also artillery grenades.

I'm fairly certain clay pigeon shooting type ammunition and aiming skills stand reasonable chances of hitting even small drones and doing sufficient damage to knock then out of the sky, but only at maybe 50m or so range. A typical attack drone like the types used in Ukraine right now are probably capable doing well over 30m/s on final approach, so it'd be a tough interception still, only about a one second window to get your shot off before it's likely to deliver it's payload ballistically even if you have scored a direct hit.

I suspect the same sort of skills displayed in Ukraine building home made Ardupilot based drones with optical final stage guidance could also be turned to building multi barrel "Phalanx-style" shotgun setups on manual plus computer-optical assisted aiming, in a form factor compact enough to be installed in the back of a Hilux. And that'd be very much the sort of mostly Commercial Off The Shelf approach that seems to do so well tipping the asymmetric warfare in Ukraine's favour in this war.

No, the range is far too short. Hitting a moving target with normal bullets is not particularly difficult but you have to consider where those bullets land. Hence why many guns designed for this purpose use larger ammo capable of self-destructing if they don’t hit the target.

I'm fairly certain they're shotting down drones with bullets in Ukraine. See for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkkdWu7Xt7o

Sure, and for those reasons of probability of a successful hit, hunters don't tend to shoot birds on the wing with rifles either. I mean it's doable, but it's a very hard shot to land with a MK-1 Eyeball.

But we've seen infantry effectively using shotguns in Ukraine as a defensive weapon against drones for the same reason hunters use shotguns to shoot birds on the wing, within your weapon's range the odds of a disabling hit are pretty high if you're trained.

So not sure why it has to be either a rifle bullet _or_ a massively overengineered defense contractor's very expensive super-duper-shotgun round.

Haha, wait, it's flak guns again, just redone for the 21st century. Ah bless.

If the choice is restricted by stand-off range, that is a different kettle of fish, maybe do bring back the, once considered entirely obsoleted by high altitude aircraft and missiles flak.

But in the here and now, regular shotguns are being used defensively, with a certain level of success, by infantry against drones in Ukraine.

Based on random videos I have seen, it seems pretty difficult to shot down a drone with a shotgun. Sure, better than nothing, probably your best bet at that point.

Clay pigeon / skeet shooting is hard too, it's a competitive sport for a reason, but then, so is shooting a target with a rifle at 400 yards, but the armed forces train you up on that. So designated drone marksman might become an interesting new speciality in the modern army.

Rheinmetall's Skynex system costs an estimate of 4k € per engagement.

That is unlikely. I think it fires bursts of 7. I assume 4k is realistic for one shot. So we are talking ballpark of 30k per "burst".

Does the spin-stabilized part have any relevance here? It doesn't have anything to do with the lethality of a falling bullet.

Spin-stabilized bullets bleed their speed at a far slower rate, greatly increasing average terminal velocity and therefore lethality.

You're right– spin-stabilized bullets would have significantly less drag, thus would travel much higher, and thus come down with way more lethality. Honestly though, unless someone's trying to shoot the drone with a musket, all bullets are going to be stabilized somehow.

Nope. Maybe the idea was that an unstabilized slug will tumble and lose velocity quickly, after which it's just some junk falling from above, mostly harmless.

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