The War in the Ukraine

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Right now is probably the peak of cheap drone capabilities because most professional militaries have not really put serious effort into countering them. So this is pretty much their coming out party akin to when ATGMs and AShM armed FACs first made their combat debuts.

But just as with those previous wonderweapons, once sufficient effort and resources are put to countering them, their effectiveness plummets.

Hell, China is already selling everything a modern military needs to counter drones from jammers to lasers to gun based solutions. All anyone really needs to do is actually buy them in operationally relevant numbers.

But even with adequate defences, Drones will still remain relevant and deadly, just as ATGMs are still used today, but they just won’t be as disproportionately effective as they are now.

As such, over investing in cheap low end drones is a pretty unsustainable long term strategy.
 

Corona

Junior Member
Registered Member
Drone footage from Kherson. An AFU column of 8 vehicles gets destroyed by Russian forces :

Extended and clean footage from the other side of the newly acquired soda water bottle; Shahed 136 drone (Geran 2) in Odessa and the aftermath. Target is reported to be Odessa port, other day a tug boat was also attacked. An other UAV, Mohajer 6 was also used for observation before the arrival of Geran 2's.
 

Dragon of War

Junior Member
Registered Member
Drones are such an interesting development to modern warfare, why use numbers of men when you can soften your target with barrages of these.
 

SlothmanAllen

Junior Member
Registered Member
Right now is probably the peak of cheap drone capabilities because most professional militaries have not really put serious effort into countering them. So this is pretty much their coming out party akin to when ATGMs and AShM armed FACs first made their combat debuts.

But just as with those previous wonderweapons, once sufficient effort and resources are put to countering them, their effectiveness plummets.
Agreed! cheap UAVs are in their golden age right now.

You can also see the US investing in it as well with Microwave, Laser, Counter-UAS UAS and whatever else exists. I fully expect that China and US will have this problem licked within this decade, and only highly sophisticated drones would be viable against their forces.
 

baykalov

Senior Member
Registered Member
Zelensky is furious about the Iranian drones:

Ukraine to Slash Ties With Iran Over 'Evil' Drones Supply to Russia

Ukraine said on Friday it would downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran over Tehran's decision to supply Russian forces with drones, a move President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called "a collaboration with evil".

"Today the Russian army used Iranian drones for its strikes. ... The world will know about every instance of collaboration with evil, and it will have corresponding consequences," Zelenskiy said in a late night video address.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry earlier said the supply of drones had dealt a serious blow to bilateral relations.

"In response to such an unfriendly act, the Ukrainian side has decided to deprive the ambassador of Iran of his accreditation and also to significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff of the Iranian embassy in Kyiv," it said in a statement on its website.

President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to respond to Russian troopsʼ use of Iranian drones by Russian troops.

This was reported by the presidential spokesman Serhii Nikiforov.

"These are Iranʼs steps against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state, as well as against the lives and health of Ukrainian citizens," Nikiforov said.

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tokenanalyst

Brigadier
Registered Member
Zelensky is furious about the Iranian drones:

Ukraine to Slash Ties With Iran Over 'Evil' Drones Supply to Russia





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That is dramatic shift in sentiment because a few weeks ago mainstream media was telling me to no end that Iranian drone were "unreliable" and they were "falling from the sky."

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Chilled_k6

Junior Member
Registered Member
Mohajer-6 is a slightly smaller version of the TB-2, Shahad-129 is much bigger.

It's unclear whether a single use suicide drone is better than a reusable one. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but ultimately it'll depend on how effective Ukrainian air defence is.

Whatever one they go for it's important they get them in large numbers so they can swarm Ukrainian defences. I'd also mix in those decoy drones they were using at the start of the war.
For the purpose of immediate impact on the battlefield, I think Shahed-136 is best suited to be adopted en masse quickly. For the UCAVs they'll need to get Iranian munitions to arm those drones. Once the Russians integrate their own munitions they can do a tag team pair where the Kamikaze drones strike targets first and the UCAVs do follow ups to mop up.
 
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