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Given that Russia produces around 100 heavy drones per day and plan to increase production multiple times NATO countries are essentially defenseless against tha

Given that Russia produces around 100 heavy drones per day and plan to increase production multiple times NATO countries are essentially defenseless against that as NATO will quickly run out of missiles to shot those drones. Any country needs to stockpile interceptor drones and have production facilities to quickly ramp up production.

poszlem 1y ago
> "UK defence secretary John Healey has outlined new plans to send thousands of interceptor missiles to Ukraine every month, with the Ukrainian-developed UAV to be shared with the UK to help in the fight against Russia." The UK isn’t just being generous, it’s paying for access to Ukrainian drone know-how. Too many in the West still cling to the fantasy that Ukraine is some backward state, when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers.
- pmarreck 1y ago
  > when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers It's amazing what you can do when your choices are, in essence, "be destroyed" or "become an expert"
- potato3732842 1y ago
  > Too many in the West still cling to the fantasy that Ukraine is some backward state, when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers. Practice makes perfect. There's some guy in Damascus who knows more about the real world use of the TOW than the people who built it.
- varispeed 1y ago
  Ukraine is seen as backwards because they are open about fighting corruption, which is taboo in the West.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  > Too many in the West still cling to the fantasy that Ukraine is some backward state, when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers. These are not exclusive concepts. I've seen too many videos of men being literally kidnapped off the street ("busification") to have sweet thoughts about the state.
  - poszlem 1y ago
    This is something that has happened in so-called 'civilized' countries before, and it will happen again if they ever face a war of that scale.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Sure. My point stands.
- spookie 1y ago
  Hell, Poland asked Ukraine to provide some instructors to help them after the recent escalation of airspace violations they had.
- weego 1y ago
  Someone elses war to upskill our own ability to wage war at a fraction of the cost? It's a weapons development dream for any Govt / R&D company
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Ukraine was one of the key technology hubs of the USSR - well capable of making their own missiles, etc.
FrustratedMonky 1y ago
question "NATO will quickly run out of missiles to shot those drones." Is there not cheaper auto-shotgun type devices around? To spray the sky. It doesn't take an entire missile or even bullet to damage a drone does it?
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Geran-2's are far too large to be taken out with shotguns. Furthermore, you'd have to anticipate where they would want to strike. Drones, missiles, or lasers are likely the only way to stop them.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Bullets have short range. So now you have to carpet the land with AA guns.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    It'd be interesting to see how short that range really is. A lot of assumptions about range were based on the idea of a soldier shooting at another soldier, more-or-less at a horizontal level. You had to design a bullet to accurately hit a target and disperse kinetic energy into biological tissue. Now, you're aiming at something made of non-biological materials of varying size, but they're usually lightweight and have little in the way of redundant flight systems. There's a real chance that if you send up enough small arms fire, you could hit a drone at up to a mile in the sky and cause it enough damage to be unable to complete its mission. Helicopters are known to be vulnerable to small arms fire. I don't see why an even smaller drone would be any different.
    - tguvot 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMASH_Handheld#Mechanisms_and_functionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMASH_Handheld#Mechanisms_and_...
- sgt101 1y ago
  One approach is directed energy, there are laser guns like the UK's dragonfire (there are many others out there too) however these have problems in dusty or foggy conditions for obvious reasons. There are also microwave effectors which are used to fry the electronics on drones. These take advantage of the advances in Gallium Nitride based power electronics (and other even more exotic materials).
lenerdenator 1y ago
I'm not a tactician with any experience, just thinking this through at my keyboard, but I'm not even sure drone v. drone is the answer here. Depending on how low they are flying and how large they are, you could conceivably set up anti-drone defenses using service rifles or shotguns wired up to a detection and fire control system. I know that someone in Thailand did exactly that with a bunch of M16A1s. Of course, if they're larger and higher up, you could possibly use more traditional AAA artillery. Both of those routes use things that are already "cheap" and in the supply chain.
- pjc50 1y ago
  > Depending on how low they are flying and how large they are It's a real problem that "drone" gets used for things that can fit in your hand, all the way up to the same size as single-seater aircraft. These seem to be aimed at the latter. The Shahed is more of a slow cruise missile with wings, or the WW2 V1 pulsejet "flying bombs" (we've not seen the return of the pulsejet, have we? "V1 with modern guidance" seems like it might fit a niche)
  - idiotsecant 1y ago
    pulsejets would certainly be cheap, but they'd have terrible fuel efficiency, which is one of the most important attributes for a drone - how long can you loiter and how far can you go?
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  a bunch of shotguns or service rifles is not going to help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136 This is what people talk about when they say 'drones' in this context - basically a remote-guided 100 lb bomb flying in a 400lb chassis at 115 mph thousands of meters up.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    In that case, yeah, I could see aerial drones being a response. It's not an altogether different concept from the V1 Buzz Bomb. Those were easy enough to blow out of the sky if you were in a WWII prop fighter. I wonder how effective heavy machine guns would be against one. What's its service ceiling? It's running on a gasoline motor so it can't be that high.
crinkly 1y ago
Best to strike production capability than pay for missiles to shoot them down.
- pjc50 1y ago
  There is still a taboo against a nuclear weapons state directly striking another nuclear weapons state, under its own flag.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
    Why would you need a nuke to take out a drone factory? There's lots of ways to disrupt production, starting with super low-tech things like drone attacks, assuming you have the intelligence to know where they are being produced.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      > Why would you need a nuke to take out a drone factory? They didn't suggest you would need to. > low-tech things like drone attack drones And which flag are they flying?
      - HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
        > And which flag are they flying? Sure, use tiny NATO flags if you like, but an "are you one of us" transponder might be better.
  - KptMarchewa 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_82_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_82_bomb
  - crinkly 1y ago
    Might want to check the French position there. But you don’t need nuclear weapons to take out munitions factories.
mytailorisrich 1y ago
NATO has many times the industrial capacity Russia has. Fater 3 years of war Russia has adapted to war production but if NATO decides to do the same Russia will be outclassed quickly. These are war game scenarios, though, as in reality it is highly improbable that Russia would start a conflict with NATO because they know they cannot compete. This doesn't mean NATO should not keep its game up, of course.
- tim333 1y ago
  Russia is already in a low level conflict with NATO even if it's just NATO countries supplying equipment to Ukraine and Russia trying to hack NATO politics.
rightbyte 1y ago
> NATO countries are essentially defenseless against that I think the plan is that the war is over in 10 minutes ... so why care.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  I heard it would take 24 hours...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    He's referring to nukes. War between NATO and Russia is a non-starter because there's no viable way it doesn't almost immediately escalate to nukes, especially when all parties would be aware of this creating even more an incentive to be the first to try, and inevitably fail, at a preemptive nuclear strike to completely disable the opposing forces' nuclear options.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      Ye there are so much romantic fantasies roaming around I don't recognize the 'Overton window' anymore.
    - tim333 1y ago
      Russia may do low level stuff like drones into Poland that is not bad enough to launch a nuclear war over.
    - ponector 1y ago
      But why? We have many examples of war activities between states with nukes. If tomorrow russia will occupy three NATO countries: Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia - nobody is going to use nukes.
      - somenameforme 1y ago
diggan 1y ago
> Given that Russia produces around 100 heavy drones per day and plan to increase production multiple times NATO countries are essentially defenseless But given that NATO is both increasing and planning to increase the defenses more, they're essentially equal then? I'm not sure what point there is of discussing potentially future actions of Russia without considering the potentially future actions of others, like NATO will be the same tomorrow as today?
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Agreed - if we're pitting the manufacturing capabilities of NATO (maybe disregarding USA, given Trump's aversion to action) vs Russia then my money would be on NATO, assuming they are motivated to do it.
tguvot 1y ago
last estimation was around 170 per day https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/07/21/russia-seen-as-boosting-combat-drone-output-switching-attack-angles/ https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/07/21/russia-...
mrguyorama 1y ago
Which is why the US pretty much immediately leaned into the laser guided rocket pods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon... About $22k before we even ramp up production. Any NATO aircraft can carry a large loadout of them, and they turn any long distance, slow moving drone into target practice.

poszlem 1y ago

> "UK defence secretary John Healey has outlined new plans to send thousands of interceptor missiles to Ukraine every month, with the Ukrainian-developed UAV to be shared with the UK to help in the fight against Russia." The UK isn’t just being generous, it’s paying for access to Ukrainian drone know-how. Too many in the West still cling to the fantasy that Ukraine is some backward state, when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers.

pmarreck 1y ago
> when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers It's amazing what you can do when your choices are, in essence, "be destroyed" or "become an expert"
potato3732842 1y ago
> Too many in the West still cling to the fantasy that Ukraine is some backward state, when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers. Practice makes perfect. There's some guy in Damascus who knows more about the real world use of the TOW than the people who built it.
varispeed 1y ago
Ukraine is seen as backwards because they are open about fighting corruption, which is taboo in the West.
MangoToupe 1y ago
> Too many in the West still cling to the fantasy that Ukraine is some backward state, when in fact it’s become one of the world’s top drone powers. These are not exclusive concepts. I've seen too many videos of men being literally kidnapped off the street ("busification") to have sweet thoughts about the state.
- poszlem 1y ago
  This is something that has happened in so-called 'civilized' countries before, and it will happen again if they ever face a war of that scale.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    Sure. My point stands.
spookie 1y ago
Hell, Poland asked Ukraine to provide some instructors to help them after the recent escalation of airspace violations they had.
weego 1y ago
Someone elses war to upskill our own ability to wage war at a fraction of the cost? It's a weapons development dream for any Govt / R&D company
HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
Ukraine was one of the key technology hubs of the USSR - well capable of making their own missiles, etc.

FrustratedMonky 1y ago

question "NATO will quickly run out of missiles to shot those drones." Is there not cheaper auto-shotgun type devices around? To spray the sky. It doesn't take an entire missile or even bullet to damage a drone does it?

MangoToupe 1y ago
Geran-2's are far too large to be taken out with shotguns. Furthermore, you'd have to anticipate where they would want to strike. Drones, missiles, or lasers are likely the only way to stop them.
dboreham 1y ago
Bullets have short range. So now you have to carpet the land with AA guns.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  It'd be interesting to see how short that range really is. A lot of assumptions about range were based on the idea of a soldier shooting at another soldier, more-or-less at a horizontal level. You had to design a bullet to accurately hit a target and disperse kinetic energy into biological tissue. Now, you're aiming at something made of non-biological materials of varying size, but they're usually lightweight and have little in the way of redundant flight systems. There's a real chance that if you send up enough small arms fire, you could hit a drone at up to a mile in the sky and cause it enough damage to be unable to complete its mission. Helicopters are known to be vulnerable to small arms fire. I don't see why an even smaller drone would be any different.
  - tguvot 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMASH_Handheld#Mechanisms_and_functionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMASH_Handheld#Mechanisms_and_...
sgt101 1y ago
One approach is directed energy, there are laser guns like the UK's dragonfire (there are many others out there too) however these have problems in dusty or foggy conditions for obvious reasons. There are also microwave effectors which are used to fry the electronics on drones. These take advantage of the advances in Gallium Nitride based power electronics (and other even more exotic materials).

lenerdenator 1y ago

I'm not a tactician with any experience, just thinking this through at my keyboard, but I'm not even sure drone v. drone is the answer here. Depending on how low they are flying and how large they are, you could conceivably set up anti-drone defenses using service rifles or shotguns wired up to a detection and fire control system. I know that someone in Thailand did exactly that with a bunch of M16A1s. Of course, if they're larger and higher up, you could possibly use more traditional AAA artillery. Both of those routes use things that are already "cheap" and in the supply chain.

pjc50 1y ago
> Depending on how low they are flying and how large they are It's a real problem that "drone" gets used for things that can fit in your hand, all the way up to the same size as single-seater aircraft. These seem to be aimed at the latter. The Shahed is more of a slow cruise missile with wings, or the WW2 V1 pulsejet "flying bombs" (we've not seen the return of the pulsejet, have we? "V1 with modern guidance" seems like it might fit a niche)
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  pulsejets would certainly be cheap, but they'd have terrible fuel efficiency, which is one of the most important attributes for a drone - how long can you loiter and how far can you go?
idiotsecant 1y ago
a bunch of shotguns or service rifles is not going to help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136 This is what people talk about when they say 'drones' in this context - basically a remote-guided 100 lb bomb flying in a 400lb chassis at 115 mph thousands of meters up.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  In that case, yeah, I could see aerial drones being a response. It's not an altogether different concept from the V1 Buzz Bomb. Those were easy enough to blow out of the sky if you were in a WWII prop fighter. I wonder how effective heavy machine guns would be against one. What's its service ceiling? It's running on a gasoline motor so it can't be that high.

crinkly 1y ago

Best to strike production capability than pay for missiles to shoot them down.

pjc50 1y ago
There is still a taboo against a nuclear weapons state directly striking another nuclear weapons state, under its own flag.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Why would you need a nuke to take out a drone factory? There's lots of ways to disrupt production, starting with super low-tech things like drone attacks, assuming you have the intelligence to know where they are being produced.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > Why would you need a nuke to take out a drone factory? They didn't suggest you would need to. > low-tech things like drone attack drones And which flag are they flying?
    - HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
      > And which flag are they flying? Sure, use tiny NATO flags if you like, but an "are you one of us" transponder might be better.
- KptMarchewa 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_82_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_82_bomb
- crinkly 1y ago
  Might want to check the French position there. But you don’t need nuclear weapons to take out munitions factories.

mytailorisrich 1y ago

NATO has many times the industrial capacity Russia has. Fater 3 years of war Russia has adapted to war production but if NATO decides to do the same Russia will be outclassed quickly. These are war game scenarios, though, as in reality it is highly improbable that Russia would start a conflict with NATO because they know they cannot compete. This doesn't mean NATO should not keep its game up, of course.

tim333 1y ago
Russia is already in a low level conflict with NATO even if it's just NATO countries supplying equipment to Ukraine and Russia trying to hack NATO politics.

rightbyte 1y ago

> NATO countries are essentially defenseless against that I think the plan is that the war is over in 10 minutes ... so why care.

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
I heard it would take 24 hours...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- somenameforme 1y ago
  He's referring to nukes. War between NATO and Russia is a non-starter because there's no viable way it doesn't almost immediately escalate to nukes, especially when all parties would be aware of this creating even more an incentive to be the first to try, and inevitably fail, at a preemptive nuclear strike to completely disable the opposing forces' nuclear options.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    Ye there are so much romantic fantasies roaming around I don't recognize the 'Overton window' anymore.
  - tim333 1y ago
    Russia may do low level stuff like drones into Poland that is not bad enough to launch a nuclear war over.
  - ponector 1y ago
    But why? We have many examples of war activities between states with nukes. If tomorrow russia will occupy three NATO countries: Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia - nobody is going to use nukes.
    - somenameforme 1y ago

diggan 1y ago

> Given that Russia produces around 100 heavy drones per day and plan to increase production multiple times NATO countries are essentially defenseless But given that NATO is both increasing and planning to increase the defenses more, they're essentially equal then? I'm not sure what point there is of discussing potentially future actions of Russia without considering the potentially future actions of others, like NATO will be the same tomorrow as today?

HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
Agreed - if we're pitting the manufacturing capabilities of NATO (maybe disregarding USA, given Trump's aversion to action) vs Russia then my money would be on NATO, assuming they are motivated to do it.

tguvot 1y ago

last estimation was around 170 per day https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/07/21/russia-seen-as-boosting-combat-drone-output-switching-attack-angles/ https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/07/21/russia-...

mrguyorama 1y ago

Which is why the US pretty much immediately leaned into the laser guided rocket pods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon... About $22k before we even ramp up production. Any NATO aircraft can carry a large loadout of them, and they turn any long distance, slow moving drone into target practice.