11 ms·

The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

127 points by tekdude 4y ago

robonerd 4y ago
> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollars; a similar fleet of Reaper drones costs about six times that. It seems to me there is still a lot of opportunity in the low end with even smaller and cheaper UAVs with a few kilograms of payload. There have already been numerous instances of COTS UAVs being jerry-rigged to drop mortar shells, and it seems to work pretty well in a lot of scenarios. Particularly for smaller governments dealing with relatively unsophisticated insurgencies.
- openasocket 4y ago
  You should take a look at the switchblade. The switchblade 300 model has the equivalent of a 40mm grenade as a warhead, 2.7kg weight, endurance of 10 minutes and a range of around 10km all puts it well in that lower end range. Couldn't find any pricing data, but I imagine more COTS approaches could come out pretty cheap. I'm actually surprised we've got man-portable loitering munitions like the switchblade in use before the widespread adoption of guided mortar rounds. I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars, and either use ground troops or a small UAV to provide targeting data.
  - attentive 4y ago
    Perhaps it's 10km range, more precise and visual targeting on moving vehicles vs close range and/or fixed position targeting. There is a switchblade 600 with even more range and more payload which can be used anti-armor. Also, mortars and other artillery are subject to a counter-battery fire.
  - jnsaff2 4y ago
    I've seen a claim that Switchblade 300 costs less than USD 7k. No idea how accurate this is tho.
    - dmix 4y ago
      This video says $6k as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PcWS1marOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PcWS1marOA The most interesting part is that it flies extremely fast so you'll never see it coming. Particularly how it bursts through a windshield before exploding.
  - stult 4y ago
    > I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars The problem is scale. No one in the private sector makes or needs mortar rounds, so the DoD doesn't benefit from buying COTS components for them. Whereas you can pretty much just strap a grenade to a quadcopter with a few minor tweaks and you're in business. Which is more or less exactly what the Ukrainians have been doing with their surplus Soviet anti-tank grenades.
  - foxyv 4y ago
    The XM395 120mm GPS mortar guidance kit is about $10k per round and was introduced a short time before the switchblade. Switchblades are about $7k and are fairly low yield relatively speaking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_Munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_...
  - jollybean 4y ago
    I don't even see how the 'switchblade' is useful for anything but special operations strikes on 'key assets' - which is what it was designed for. It doesn't matter if it's 'price effective per kg' - it can't disable a tank, and might not disable a soft target without a direct it. The 900 series is the one that might be quite useful. All of that said, we'll have to see how countermeasures work it may be that they develop rapidly to neutralize drones ... ... and then a rational actor like China takes the 'saturation approach' and launches 100's of them at a single battalion etc..
    - nr2x 4y ago
      Oh I dunno, Russian generals in particular may be concerned about the lowly 300 model.
- gostsamo 4y ago
  The ukrainians are repurposing small civil drones and old soviet shells to attack russian targets on and behind the lines.
  - monkeybutton 4y ago
    Aerorozvidka: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cheap-grenades-expensive-tanks/31835434.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cheap-grenades-expensive-tan...
- Steltek 4y ago
  Wouldn't a COTS drone be relatively easy to jam or have early warning by detecting its control/video links? I get why Russia is having trouble adapting (logistics, sanctions, brain drain, paper tiger military) but outside of the Russia-Ukraine war, how effective would a COTS drone really be in a different state-vs-state direct conflict?
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    Some kind of middle ground platform with the largest commercial multicopters as a cost effective base but with some jamming resistant communications would be the sweet spot. Perhaps 5kg payload and a few km range and some autonomy such as being given permission to autonomously drop munitions on specific target signatures in specific areas. If it can be entirely radio silent within the last mile radius (records video for later transmission, finds targets and attacks without intervention) then jamming would be extremely difficult.
  - foxyv 4y ago
    You can bet that countermeasures are already in place or are being developed now. Jamming of commercial drones is doable. However, it is ridiculously hard to jam software controlled radio equipment. Especially military grade hardware. SpaceX demonstrated this recently when they got past Russia's top of the line hardware. The energy requirements balloon to ridiculous levels when you are talking about broad spectrum jammers doing area denial. In addition, such jammers make excellent targets since you know exactly where they are. If drones could be targeted it makes jamming a lot easier, but still difficult. One thing we can expect is home on signal anti-aircraft batteries and anti-loitering munitions that seek other loitering munitions. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the last big wars where such COTS drone tactics are successful.
  - pfbtgom 4y ago
    I’m not sure how effective signal jamming would be against COTS quadcopters. It’s relatively easy to provide on-loss-of-signal instructions to the navigation microcontroller. Perhaps it could be a return to set location command or a home in on signal jammer and explode command.
- baybal2 4y ago
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
I wish more people would talk about the Switchblade loitering munitions (kamikaze) drones. We've already had western made drones on the battlefield for decades, this is nothing new, just much cheaper than what the west makes while doing the same job equally good. But the man portable kamikaze drones are the real game changer. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9xLyNfPzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9xLyNfPzQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8Flu533xE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8Flu533xE
- famil 4y ago
  Artillery with spotters accomplished the same task.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Except you can't survey an area with a an artillery warhead. Sure, you can use your spotters to scout ahead, but why put them in danger of an ambush and have them get killed by a sniper or hidden machinegun, when you can survey that area from a safe distance, and take out the sniper/machine gun if you see one? This is not meant to replace artillery battalions and scouts, but to complement them.
    - greedo 4y ago
      Cheaper to use a drone for spotting instead of a FIST unit. That's what's working for the UA. Kamikaze drones have a role for the smaller units, but at the battalion level, it's better to use a surveillance drone to coordinate fires from mortars, MLRS and artillery. The rounds fired from these systems typically have longer range than a drone, a higher rate of fire, and larger warheads.
      - glogla 4y ago
        I think these are pretty complementary. Switchblade 300 is a 10km range Javelin (same warhead in fact) with integrated surveillance capability that can go beyond range of sight. It is not there to replace mortars, artillery and MRLS, which are area weapons.
melling 4y ago
I’m a little surprised that drones in Ukraine haven’t been discussed widely on HN. Ukraine doesn’t have the air force, pilots are expensive and take a lot of time of to train Here are a few interesting stories that I saw over the past couple of months https://www.reuters.com/world/us-rapidly-developed-ghost-drones-ukraine-pentagon-says-2022-04-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-rapidly-developed-ghost-dro... https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-business-europe-47dfea7579cedfe65a70296eb0188212 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-bu... https://www.popsci.com/aviation/black-hawk-helicopter-first-autonomous-flight/ https://www.popsci.com/aviation/black-hawk-helicopter-first-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/ukraine-war-drones/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/ukraine-war-... Super cheap drones could make a difference too: https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-cheap-drones https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-cheap-drones Something super simple with GPS for reconnaissance, for example
- thriftwy 4y ago
  Ukraine did have some air force even in 2014 where its army was barely functioning, and it surely has air force now. What's left of it at this stage. Ukraine is a large country.
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  Ukraine absolutely has an airforce. According to a recent CNN article, "In early March, about two weeks into the war, the defense official said Ukraine has 56 fighter aircraft, which composed about 80% of its fixed-wing fighters" https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ukraine-aircraft-spare-parts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ukraine-aircraft-spa...
  - 01100011 4y ago
    The UkAF literally bombed Snake Island the other day. They definitely have an air force.
    - melling 4y ago
georgeg23 4y ago
There were protests at SpaceX when it was revealed the Turksat 5B satellite would command and control these TB2 drones, extending their range from operator line-of-sight to near global. Elon decided to go ahead with the launch. At some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company.
- georgeg23 4y ago
  Correction: Turksat 5A https://wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrksat_5A https://wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrksat_5A
- emteycz 4y ago
  Is a trucking company a defense company if they ship something for the military? Or the same with air transport?
  - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    No, but if they truck a bunch of equipment into warzones and have huge government contracts they might be considered one
    - emteycz 4y ago
      Is this a defense company now, then? https://twitter.com/walter_report/status/1523497545351278593/photo/1 https://twitter.com/walter_report/status/1523497545351278593... Any company doing shipping for the military has large government contracts. The government contracts have turnover limits, and every company this large works with the government a lot.
  - simulate-me 4y ago
    If you become an integral part of the logistics pipeline for the military, then yes. Even if the company seems relatively civilian, you can bet it will be forced to focus on the military in the event of a military operation.
  - ISL 4y ago
Cenk 4y ago
See also, this popular Ukrainian song about the Turkish Bayraktar drone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVu_DeB4wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVu_DeB4wo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_(song)
brnt 4y ago
Turkish drones, but all Ukrainian engines.
- atakurt 4y ago
  that was like that,newer ones have TEI-PD170 Turbodiesel Aviation Engine
throw93232 4y ago
This drones are almost useless against modern army with good anti air defense. Here is Indian article with some technical details. https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-suddenly-disappear-from-the-sky-of-ukraine/ https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-sudde...
- more_corn 4y ago
  The article describes how they’ve fared far better than expected against good air defense. For example flying an unmanned crop duster in, drawing missile fire, taking out missile battery.
- bumby 4y ago
  From the article: >"Military analysts had previously assumed that slow, low-flying drones would be of little use in conventional combat, but the TB2 can take out the anti-aircraft systems that are designed to destroy it."
- ch4s3 4y ago
  This seems superficially reasonable, but it looks like the TB2 Bayraktar was used to bomb the fuel depot in Bryansk less than two weeks ago and that's 150km into Russia. They seemed to have used the TB2 the other day on Snake Island. As of a week ago there had been 6 internationally confirmed incidents where a Tb2 was shot down. They were known to have had at least 20 when the war started and have received more sense. So it doesn't seem like they've disappeared at all. So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought. All of the above I bet.
    - 4y ago
divan 4y ago
That's true. Everyone in Ukraine now know the name "Bayraktar" and videos from the drone's camera showing destroying russian vehicles in action has been a huge morale boost for people. I think decent-quality video recording is one of the most underapreciated features of TB2. Here is a strike on the invaders' helicopter just yesterday recorded with IR camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juxv8L3gkKo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juxv8L3gkKo
wrnr 4y ago
Why are these things as effective as they are in the ukrain-russian war? Don't these things show up on radar and therefor vulnerable to conventional anti air defence. Before the start of the war experts where warning that russia could lock down the air space of the whole of europe. These single propeller planes can not be as fast as jet engines and need to be almost on top of their target to drop bombs on them? What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it?
- robonerd 4y ago
  > Don't these things show up on radar I'm sure they do, but they're quite small and mostly made out of composites that are fairly transparent to radar. Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter. > What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it? Money, corruption, inertia, brain drain...
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    > Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter. Still not less than the most of missiles (engine, ordnance). The real problem is what it is not some video game, you don't have a "satellite view" with enemy units outlined with a red rectangles. Eg S300 was designed in 70s, it's UI/UX is eye-watering.
- outworlder 4y ago
  > What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it? You need to build them, you need to train operators, you need to deploy said operators. They are not autonomous. A better question is, if Russia's electronic warfare capabilities are so amazing, how are the drones even able to operate? We'll probably find out that the capabilities were either overstated, or not deployed nearly enough to matter. Pretty sure some AA battery money went to Yacht upkeep.
  - 4y ago
jollybean 4y ago
Countermeasures will evolve quickly. What will 'change things' is when China makes these and sends 1000 of them to Taiwan all at once with another few thousand in reserve. The cost/scale/saturation issue hasn't really been explored. Notably - the 'West' is helpless to support Ukraine because nobody has anything useful except the Americans who have mostly 'super high end gear'. It'd be nice to see Ukraine being brought onto F-series jets, predators and other gear sooner than later. The other glaring hole is AA - Patriots are really expensive and there's only a few of them, this feels like a weakness to me in that Russia could feasibly strike those and then what? There's a 'mid market' of gear that needs to be sorted out. Finally - artillery - it's not going away, we're struggling to get Ukraine what amounts to almost ancient tech. NATO should have 100's of M777's in reserve, precisely for these occasions, i.e. to lend out as necessary.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > the 'West' is helpless to support Ukraine because nobody has anything useful Are we watching the same war?
mitchbob 4y ago
Archived: https://archive.ph/Ygt7b https://archive.ph/Ygt7b

127 points by tekdude 4y ago

> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollars; a similar fleet of Reaper drones costs about six times that. It seems to me there is still a lot of opportunity in the low end with even smaller and cheaper UAVs with a few kilograms of payload. There have already been numerous instances of COTS UAVs being jerry-rigged to drop mortar shells, and it seems to work pretty well in a lot of scenarios. Particularly for smaller governments dealing with relatively unsophisticated insurgencies.

openasocket 4y ago
You should take a look at the switchblade. The switchblade 300 model has the equivalent of a 40mm grenade as a warhead, 2.7kg weight, endurance of 10 minutes and a range of around 10km all puts it well in that lower end range. Couldn't find any pricing data, but I imagine more COTS approaches could come out pretty cheap. I'm actually surprised we've got man-portable loitering munitions like the switchblade in use before the widespread adoption of guided mortar rounds. I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars, and either use ground troops or a small UAV to provide targeting data.
- attentive 4y ago
  Perhaps it's 10km range, more precise and visual targeting on moving vehicles vs close range and/or fixed position targeting. There is a switchblade 600 with even more range and more payload which can be used anti-armor. Also, mortars and other artillery are subject to a counter-battery fire.
- jnsaff2 4y ago
  I've seen a claim that Switchblade 300 costs less than USD 7k. No idea how accurate this is tho.
  - dmix 4y ago
    This video says $6k as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PcWS1marOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PcWS1marOA The most interesting part is that it flies extremely fast so you'll never see it coming. Particularly how it bursts through a windshield before exploding.
- stult 4y ago
  > I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars The problem is scale. No one in the private sector makes or needs mortar rounds, so the DoD doesn't benefit from buying COTS components for them. Whereas you can pretty much just strap a grenade to a quadcopter with a few minor tweaks and you're in business. Which is more or less exactly what the Ukrainians have been doing with their surplus Soviet anti-tank grenades.
- foxyv 4y ago
  The XM395 120mm GPS mortar guidance kit is about $10k per round and was introduced a short time before the switchblade. Switchblades are about $7k and are fairly low yield relatively speaking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_Munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_...
- jollybean 4y ago
  I don't even see how the 'switchblade' is useful for anything but special operations strikes on 'key assets' - which is what it was designed for. It doesn't matter if it's 'price effective per kg' - it can't disable a tank, and might not disable a soft target without a direct it. The 900 series is the one that might be quite useful. All of that said, we'll have to see how countermeasures work it may be that they develop rapidly to neutralize drones ... ... and then a rational actor like China takes the 'saturation approach' and launches 100's of them at a single battalion etc..
  - nr2x 4y ago
    Oh I dunno, Russian generals in particular may be concerned about the lowly 300 model.
gostsamo 4y ago
The ukrainians are repurposing small civil drones and old soviet shells to attack russian targets on and behind the lines.
- monkeybutton 4y ago
  Aerorozvidka: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cheap-grenades-expensive-tanks/31835434.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-cheap-grenades-expensive-tan...
Steltek 4y ago
Wouldn't a COTS drone be relatively easy to jam or have early warning by detecting its control/video links? I get why Russia is having trouble adapting (logistics, sanctions, brain drain, paper tiger military) but outside of the Russia-Ukraine war, how effective would a COTS drone really be in a different state-vs-state direct conflict?
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Some kind of middle ground platform with the largest commercial multicopters as a cost effective base but with some jamming resistant communications would be the sweet spot. Perhaps 5kg payload and a few km range and some autonomy such as being given permission to autonomously drop munitions on specific target signatures in specific areas. If it can be entirely radio silent within the last mile radius (records video for later transmission, finds targets and attacks without intervention) then jamming would be extremely difficult.
- foxyv 4y ago
  You can bet that countermeasures are already in place or are being developed now. Jamming of commercial drones is doable. However, it is ridiculously hard to jam software controlled radio equipment. Especially military grade hardware. SpaceX demonstrated this recently when they got past Russia's top of the line hardware. The energy requirements balloon to ridiculous levels when you are talking about broad spectrum jammers doing area denial. In addition, such jammers make excellent targets since you know exactly where they are. If drones could be targeted it makes jamming a lot easier, but still difficult. One thing we can expect is home on signal anti-aircraft batteries and anti-loitering munitions that seek other loitering munitions. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the last big wars where such COTS drone tactics are successful.
- pfbtgom 4y ago
  I’m not sure how effective signal jamming would be against COTS quadcopters. It’s relatively easy to provide on-loss-of-signal instructions to the navigation microcontroller. Perhaps it could be a return to set location command or a home in on signal jammer and explode command.
baybal2 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

I wish more people would talk about the Switchblade loitering munitions (kamikaze) drones. We've already had western made drones on the battlefield for decades, this is nothing new, just much cheaper than what the west makes while doing the same job equally good. But the man portable kamikaze drones are the real game changer. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9xLyNfPzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9xLyNfPzQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8Flu533xE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv8Flu533xE

famil 4y ago
Artillery with spotters accomplished the same task.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Except you can't survey an area with a an artillery warhead. Sure, you can use your spotters to scout ahead, but why put them in danger of an ambush and have them get killed by a sniper or hidden machinegun, when you can survey that area from a safe distance, and take out the sniper/machine gun if you see one? This is not meant to replace artillery battalions and scouts, but to complement them.
  - greedo 4y ago
    Cheaper to use a drone for spotting instead of a FIST unit. That's what's working for the UA. Kamikaze drones have a role for the smaller units, but at the battalion level, it's better to use a surveillance drone to coordinate fires from mortars, MLRS and artillery. The rounds fired from these systems typically have longer range than a drone, a higher rate of fire, and larger warheads.
    - glogla 4y ago
      I think these are pretty complementary. Switchblade 300 is a 10km range Javelin (same warhead in fact) with integrated surveillance capability that can go beyond range of sight. It is not there to replace mortars, artillery and MRLS, which are area weapons.

melling 4y ago

I’m a little surprised that drones in Ukraine haven’t been discussed widely on HN. Ukraine doesn’t have the air force, pilots are expensive and take a lot of time of to train Here are a few interesting stories that I saw over the past couple of months https://www.reuters.com/world/us-rapidly-developed-ghost-drones-ukraine-pentagon-says-2022-04-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-rapidly-developed-ghost-dro... https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-business-europe-47dfea7579cedfe65a70296eb0188212 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-bu... https://www.popsci.com/aviation/black-hawk-helicopter-first-autonomous-flight/ https://www.popsci.com/aviation/black-hawk-helicopter-first-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/ukraine-war-drones/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/24/ukraine-war-... Super cheap drones could make a difference too: https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-cheap-drones https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-cheap-drones Something super simple with GPS for reconnaissance, for example

thriftwy 4y ago
Ukraine did have some air force even in 2014 where its army was barely functioning, and it surely has air force now. What's left of it at this stage. Ukraine is a large country.
atlasunshrugged 4y ago
Ukraine absolutely has an airforce. According to a recent CNN article, "In early March, about two weeks into the war, the defense official said Ukraine has 56 fighter aircraft, which composed about 80% of its fixed-wing fighters" https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ukraine-aircraft-spare-parts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ukraine-aircraft-spa...
- 01100011 4y ago
  The UkAF literally bombed Snake Island the other day. They definitely have an air force.
  - melling 4y ago

georgeg23 4y ago

There were protests at SpaceX when it was revealed the Turksat 5B satellite would command and control these TB2 drones, extending their range from operator line-of-sight to near global. Elon decided to go ahead with the launch. At some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company.

georgeg23 4y ago
Correction: Turksat 5A https://wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrksat_5A https://wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrksat_5A
emteycz 4y ago
Is a trucking company a defense company if they ship something for the military? Or the same with air transport?
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  No, but if they truck a bunch of equipment into warzones and have huge government contracts they might be considered one
  - emteycz 4y ago
    Is this a defense company now, then? https://twitter.com/walter_report/status/1523497545351278593/photo/1 https://twitter.com/walter_report/status/1523497545351278593... Any company doing shipping for the military has large government contracts. The government contracts have turnover limits, and every company this large works with the government a lot.
- simulate-me 4y ago
  If you become an integral part of the logistics pipeline for the military, then yes. Even if the company seems relatively civilian, you can bet it will be forced to focus on the military in the event of a military operation.
- ISL 4y ago

Cenk 4y ago

See also, this popular Ukrainian song about the Turkish Bayraktar drone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVu_DeB4wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVu_DeB4wo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_(song)

brnt 4y ago

Turkish drones, but all Ukrainian engines.

atakurt 4y ago
that was like that,newer ones have TEI-PD170 Turbodiesel Aviation Engine

throw93232 4y ago

This drones are almost useless against modern army with good anti air defense. Here is Indian article with some technical details. https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-suddenly-disappear-from-the-sky-of-ukraine/ https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-sudde...

more_corn 4y ago
The article describes how they’ve fared far better than expected against good air defense. For example flying an unmanned crop duster in, drawing missile fire, taking out missile battery.
bumby 4y ago
From the article: >"Military analysts had previously assumed that slow, low-flying drones would be of little use in conventional combat, but the TB2 can take out the anti-aircraft systems that are designed to destroy it."
ch4s3 4y ago
This seems superficially reasonable, but it looks like the TB2 Bayraktar was used to bomb the fuel depot in Bryansk less than two weeks ago and that's 150km into Russia. They seemed to have used the TB2 the other day on Snake Island. As of a week ago there had been 6 internationally confirmed incidents where a Tb2 was shot down. They were known to have had at least 20 when the war started and have received more sense. So it doesn't seem like they've disappeared at all. So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought. All of the above I bet.
  - 4y ago

divan 4y ago

That's true. Everyone in Ukraine now know the name "Bayraktar" and videos from the drone's camera showing destroying russian vehicles in action has been a huge morale boost for people. I think decent-quality video recording is one of the most underapreciated features of TB2. Here is a strike on the invaders' helicopter just yesterday recorded with IR camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juxv8L3gkKo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juxv8L3gkKo

wrnr 4y ago

Why are these things as effective as they are in the ukrain-russian war? Don't these things show up on radar and therefor vulnerable to conventional anti air defence. Before the start of the war experts where warning that russia could lock down the air space of the whole of europe. These single propeller planes can not be as fast as jet engines and need to be almost on top of their target to drop bombs on them? What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it?

robonerd 4y ago
> Don't these things show up on radar I'm sure they do, but they're quite small and mostly made out of composites that are fairly transparent to radar. Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter. > What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it? Money, corruption, inertia, brain drain...
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter. Still not less than the most of missiles (engine, ordnance). The real problem is what it is not some video game, you don't have a "satellite view" with enemy units outlined with a red rectangles. Eg S300 was designed in 70s, it's UI/UX is eye-watering.
outworlder 4y ago
> What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it? You need to build them, you need to train operators, you need to deploy said operators. They are not autonomous. A better question is, if Russia's electronic warfare capabilities are so amazing, how are the drones even able to operate? We'll probably find out that the capabilities were either overstated, or not deployed nearly enough to matter. Pretty sure some AA battery money went to Yacht upkeep.
- 4y ago

jollybean 4y ago

Countermeasures will evolve quickly. What will 'change things' is when China makes these and sends 1000 of them to Taiwan all at once with another few thousand in reserve. The cost/scale/saturation issue hasn't really been explored. Notably - the 'West' is helpless to support Ukraine because nobody has anything useful except the Americans who have mostly 'super high end gear'. It'd be nice to see Ukraine being brought onto F-series jets, predators and other gear sooner than later. The other glaring hole is AA - Patriots are really expensive and there's only a few of them, this feels like a weakness to me in that Russia could feasibly strike those and then what? There's a 'mid market' of gear that needs to be sorted out. Finally - artillery - it's not going away, we're struggling to get Ukraine what amounts to almost ancient tech. NATO should have 100's of M777's in reserve, precisely for these occasions, i.e. to lend out as necessary.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> the 'West' is helpless to support Ukraine because nobody has anything useful Are we watching the same war?

mitchbob 4y ago

Archived: https://archive.ph/Ygt7b https://archive.ph/Ygt7b