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Eh... the Skywalker FPV drones controlled by a 5km fiberoptic cable are more on the order of $2,500 and can deliver a 10lb payload which is more than enough to
by mikeyouse 1y ago
Eh... the Skywalker FPV drones controlled by a 5km fiberoptic cable are more on the order of $2,500 and can deliver a 10lb payload which is more than enough to critically damage almost anything on the modern battlefield (that's ~the flying mass of the 81mm HE mortars that NATO uses). The more expensive controller and base station is reusable as well -- you'll never be able to develop countermeasures that come anywhere close to cost parity with that.
- jandrewrogers 1y agoThat drone is not hardened against modern EW and countermeasures at all. The fiber optic link only solves the problem of not having military-grade RF networking tech for denied environments, which wouldn’t even be an issue for a modern military. It doesn’t protect the drone itself. Wire-guided systems are ancient military tech. There are good reasons they were phased out decades ago.
- paganel 1y agoDo you really think the Westerners will be able to beat the Russians at the EW thing? If yes, why haven’t they helped the Ukrainians do just that, consistently?
- jandrewrogers 1y agoThe US has actively downgraded and nerfed the equipment they’ve sent. That’s well-documented and standard US policy wherever they send military equipment. Ukraine received circa 1980 US military tech. Not exactly state-of-the-art. And yes, the US is much more capable at EW than Russia. No one seriously believes otherwise, Russia doesn’t even have the ability to fabricate the materials necessary to be competitive. The US does not share their state-of-the-art with their closest allies. There is no version of the world where they are sharing anything close to that with Ukraine. They reserve their most advanced capabilities for themselves.